"A soul?" Dan frowned as he looked deeper at the cube. "And what does, remains of a soul, mean?"

  "I meant that it gives the same feeling of the souls that I have been calling on for my Spirit Awakening skill." Jackie frowned even deeper as he looked at the cube. "Souls of nautical creatures. They have the same feel as the souls of some of the creatures I've come into contact with in the last few days. They are just incomplete somehow? I don't really know. It just makes me sick to my core."

  The whole group fell silent. Seeing someone as jolly and outwardly carefree become like this and say such words kinda put into perspective how much it affected him.

  "Let's return," Dan said as he patted his bosun, "We can't do or find out any more about this right now, let's leave it for later."

  Jackie looked at the Cornerstone a bit more before he nodded at Dan and turned to leave. The group then all followed after him. There was a slight gloomy air hanging around them as they walked back, it was a bit oppressive. They didn't talk much, each of them was lost in their own thoughts. Even the young man, who was a happy-go-lucky guy that didn't seem to care about many things, kept to himself and didn't say much.

  Finally, after a short period of walking, they made it inside as each of them went back to what they were doing. William reminded Dan that he was going to come for him in the evening before leaving too.

  Dan just stood there for a few seconds as they disappeared from his sight, he felt a bit lost as he considered what he could do. He would have gone and helped Nik and Nancy with the categorising and keeping of supplies, but that was Nik's work even before they came to their new world and he got a Class that dealt with that specifically. Dan felt that he would just be in the way if he went there.

  In the end, Dan decided to just head to the bridge and see if he was needed there. At the same time, he started preparing for his plans, the first of which was which rooms to make using the Specialised Rooms skill. The thing he had in mind was gathering everyone who might be interested in such a thing and see which one they would go with.

  That thought made him pause, he realised that he hadn't asked the Voyager about how many rooms she could make at tier one. the skill itself didn't mention it after all and the Voyager was too young to pay attention to such a thing. Dan could feel his face bleach a bit as he remembered that he hadn't asked her about Linked too, if she could link other people's skills to herself.

  Linked was a skill that the Voyager got before she contacted Dan for the first time and they had their first conversation. At first, he didn't even know what the skill did, only after Keith got it did they realise what it was. Of course, he didn't know if it could link more than 1 person at tier one, and the Voyager, the pure soul that she was, never cared or even realised to tell him.

  "Voyager," Dan called her, dreading a bit some proof to his stupidity, "Can we talk?"

  The warm gentle aura covering the Voyager surged as it cocooned him in just a second or two, then Dan felt the Voyager sending him some confusion and interest.

  "Tell me, big girl," he started, "How many specialised rooms can you make with your skill?"

  Dan worried that he would struggle to get the Voyager to understand what he had meant, but that didn't seem to be the case. As soon as he asked his question, an answer was presented to him, as if she had an instinctive understanding of her skills. Dan guessed that that must have been the case, or how would the Voyager be able to understand what the skills were and how to choose them? The system must have been presenting them in a way that made her understand their effect pretty well.

  The Voyager sent him a live feed that blinked to three different cameras in front of three different cabins.

  "Three?" he asked incredulously.

  He had expected one or two at most. 3 rooms at level one seemed too much. One thing he could think of that might make it more understandable was how it might have taken into account the amount of materials needed to make all 3 rooms.

  Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  As he got the Voyager's agreement, Dan steadied his heart as he asked the next question,

  "How many people can you link to yourself using Linked?"

  Once again the Voyager showed him the live feed from her internal cameras. She first showed him Keith, which was expected, the skill of course could link with one person at least. Whether she was going to show someone else or not was what Dan awaited.

  The camera didn't change fast this time, just as Dan released a breath of relief mixed with some disappointment, he noticed how the view seemed to be changing a bit. He soon realised that she had the camera focus on someone else, and not just Keith. Realising that the camera had fixed on Freddie next to the woman, Dan released a light chuckle as he shook his head.

  "Two?" he asked lightly.

  The pure soul sent back a feeling of happiness and agreement as she cut the live feed from the camera. Seeming to have caught up to his messy feelings, she sent back some confusion his way.

  "Don't worry," Dan said, "Just a bit sad at how stupid I was."

  He should have expected that and asked her for more explanations for those skills. Especially Linked, having another skill linked to her would have been way too useful. They could even choose now that he could talk to her and she wouldn't be just choosing on her own.

  "I'll make sure to ask you more about your skills from now on." Dan started walking again.

  "Hey Freddie," Dan called the second mate once he entered the bridge, "Remember when you said that you had a skill that would work great linked to the screens? What was it?"

  "It was the same one you got as a choice a while back." Freddie didn't think much about it. "World Map. It works like a live tracker for the Voyager's location on a world map. That map started black, but began filling up as we passed through areas or when I saw an accurate enough map of some area."

  "That means that with the maps we got from our last trip..." Dan started.

  "Yup." Freddie nodded. "Quite a bit of it is filled."

  "That is a good skill to have linked to the Voyager," Dan agreed.

  It would basically be like having an accurate GPS active at all times as long as Freddie knew the map of that area.

  "Wait," Keith suddenly said as something clicked in her mind, "We could have had another skill linked to the Voyager?"

  "Yeah," Dan said sheepishly, "Just realised that myself."

  "Ahem," Dan cleared his throat as he saw his first and second mate look at him deeply, "Anyway, who do you think this Linked slot should go to? Freddie's seems great, but who knows what other skills we could make use of?"

  "Quite a few actually." Keith just shook her head as she went with his try at changing the subject. "The first that comes to mind is Linda's skill, I've heard how useful it could be. Having another user with it would be great for so many reasons. If it works how we think it would, I mean."

  "Who knows," Dan said as he went again through the skill's description, "It just says, links selected members of your crew to the ship. I don't know what that might mean, it's not as precise as some of the other descriptions we've seen."

  "Well, it does say selected members," Freddie said as he thought deeply, "We just don't know if that only means members that are approved by the system, probably those that have skills that would work in a way with the Voyager's system already."

  "Even if it doesn't let all kinds of skills be linked to the Voyager at the moment," Keith said, "It doesn't mean that it wouldn't be a possibility in the future, with more tiers under us and all that."

  "Yes," Freddie agreed before laughing, "Imagining her with some of our group's skills is quite fun for some of them, and scary for the others."

  As he imagined the Voyager with Luke's skill in use, with huge metal spears circling her, Dan had to agree. What about Sam's taming skill even? Would they have a huge Swarmers swarm following after them that is the Voyager's and not Sam's? How would it even work if Fleta also linked with the Voyager, would she also be able to use healing?

  The possibilities were quite fascinating.