“Don’t you know?” The Predecessor stopped, staring at Alan.

“Know what?”

“Energy Saving Order 5329. To save the dwindling power it was decided that biological prisoners would serve as wardens. Their sentences would be shortened in return… though, considering my sentence, a few centuries off of it makes little difference.”

“Um, no, sorry, that’s the first I’m hearing of this…” Alan nervously said.

“Why did you bring me this then?”

“Um, cause I got a quest to? So I can get a sort of reward or something and get stronger.”

Although, the reward was simply a series of question marks… Alan silently thought.

“That’s it? A procedurally generated task is given to you and you set on a quest to complete it? ”

“There was also, uh, something about a gamma threat level and the Authorities.”

“Which you know nothing about I assume?”

Alan nodded.

“How strong are you?” The Predecessor questioned. Alan opened his mouth, then paused.

“Tell me. No matter your strength, it should be clear I could easily kill you.”

“I have a combat rank of B, and am level 118.”

The Predecessor stared at Alan. He shifted around nervously.

“How did you get here?”

“Um, I asked nicely?

The Predecessor opened its mouth, then shut it. It muttered under its breath, “They must be getting desperate.” Alan shifted his feet about. Abruptly, the Predecessor turned to stare at Alan.

“Did you hear that?”

Alan nodded.

I used a combination of noise made and mouth movements to infer what you “heard", Eve let Alan know.

“It was sort of a combination of hearing and reading your lips.”

The Predecessor glanced around the room, then took a step forwards right next to Alan. It crouched down so that its lips were directly in Alan’s line of sight, but angled downwards so they wouldn’t be able to be seen from above. The Predecessor put its arms around Alan, like a hug, blocking out all other angles of vision. Alan struggled to move away from the Predecessor, but he was easily held in place.

“Stop. Can you understand me?” The Predecessor mouthed.

“Yes,” Alan said uncomfortably.

“Stop. No more talking. Watch.”

Alan remained silent.

“So, you were willing to help them out, just because they gave you a so-called quest? Well, hear me out, and I can guarantee you come out of this with much, much more than you ever imagined.

“This entire facility is underpowered, abandoned by the so-called Authorities in their search for Aleph. The warden program is unable to devote processing power to understand strange situations. Like this one. It orders with broad commands, no finesse or subtlety. For example, it simply told me to aid you. Say something like thank you, that greatly helps, please continue. It shouldn’t notice anything too odd.”

“Um, thank you very much, this is of great help, I mean you are of great help, please continue,” Alan said aloud. The Predecessor grimaced, but continued his silent communication.

“Good enough. That should placate the damn shitware for a while yet. Now, did you see the black crystal behind me, within the large machine, next to the brightly glowing circle? Not the dull, colorless crystals, but the black one.”