Several uncomfortable questions later, Parker was released from the evaluation with a provisional pass and a bundle of documents to read over. It was not as good as a pass, but it was better than an outright failure. It helped Parker's nerves that Benson had at least understood their reasons even if he disapproved of them.
The physical evaluation was scheduled for the next morning, so Parker had the evening to explore the facilities or meet with the other Gamblers. Neither of which sounded enjoyable. However, they could only stay cooped up in their room for so long. In the end, Parker decided to at least find the cafeteria that was mentioned in the tablet's welcome document.
After that, Parker could settle in on the couch in their room with some food and read over their assigned homework. Benson had loaded several documents onto Parker's tablet before ending the evaluation.
It felt like a syllabus of required reading for a class that Parker had not intended to take: Markov's Advanced Primer on Elemental Affinities, the U.N. Treatise for the Elemental Archipelago, EA Field Reports from the Archipelago, and several other long documents full of scientific or legal words Parker wasn't comfortable pronouncing.
The one document that Parker was most interested in seemed to be some Explorer's Log. It was from the early days of the Gamble before any real rules or structure had been established, and it was titled "Crystal Gamble".
Parker could not wait to start reading it, but first, they had to brave the cafeteria to get food. The cafeteria was more of a food court than what Parker had expected.
Even with it all being run by the same corporation there were stalls to sell common favorites from cheap burgers to greasy pizzas, to oversized burritos. In the end, Parker settled for a salad that they ordered to go. With the boxed-up salad in hand, Parker weaved through throngs of Gamblers that had appeared after they did.
The groups were trying to decide where to eat, where to sit, and who would do the best in the evaluations. Even as they left, Parker kept an eye out for the fairy tale knight. They had not seen the knight since that first evaluation, but Parker could not help but think of them. The two of them were opposites: most qualified and least prepared.
None of the Gamblers paid much mind to Parker as they made their way out of the cafeteria. They were smaller than the average Gambler, not quite the youngest, not close to the oldest, and devoid of any particularly enrapturing qualities. With a tablet in one hand and a salad in the other, Parker looked more like an intern than a Gambler.
There was no sign of the fairy tale knight and Parker didn't see any real benefit in actively searching. As large as the facility was, it was mostly the same dull gray and off-white without any definitive design. Everything was a little too stretched out to feel natural.
If Parker turned down one way, it would be easy to barely miss the knight they were looking for just by chance and the design of the facilities. It was almost as if the nexus was designed to bring Gamblers together but store them in a way that they were never too clustered together except in areas like the cafeteria.
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Overall, It felt like the nexus was designed to provide as many amenities as possible while keeping the individual Gamblers as separate as possible. Other than the cafeteria, the welcome document mentioned two other facilities that might draw Gamblers together: the gym and the clinic.
While Parker had to go to the cafeteria at least occasionally to get food, they planned to do their best to avoid the clinic at any rate and the gym sounded even worse. Parker went back to their room on the fourth floor by way of an elevator and settled in to read while picking at the overwhelmingly mediocre salad.
Fortunately, in contrast to the salad, Parker was immediately drawn into the Explorer's log. The pages had been digitized from paper instead of being retyped. The formatting was odd, the test was barely legible, and there were stains blotting out entire paragraphs.
Those qualities annoyed Parker, but with each page, it only added to the charm. Parker was drawn to a section of the reading that was less of a chapter and more of a loose collection of days in a journal. The author outlined how they crashed into a smaller island that EA had yet to chart.
Instantly, Parker thought of the ring of mapped islands from the President's digital screen. The author was describing the unknown danger outside of that ring. Despite that, the author also explained how strange it was that the island had no elemental charge or affinity to it. The charted islands were all known by their elemental affinity: Air, Fire, Water, or some combination.
The island that the author of the logs described lacked any elemental charge. Some explanations went over Parker's head, so they skipped the portions where the author talked about the lack of an altar or crystal. Parker assumed they had something to do with the elements, but they were not sure enough to understand it.
However, the pages flipped by quickly as Parker ingested the story much easier than they ingested the salad. Parker needed to know if the author survived or if someone found the log on a corpse.
Once it was clear that nothing truly traumatic befell the author, Parker went back and studied. There were survival tips hidden in the journal. The tips were nothing but the basics that others might have scoffed at, but it was all new to Parker.
There were some instructions on how to forge small amounts of metal in the wild. Those sections showed Parker how out of their depth they were even with the portable crucible they had bought. There were some instructions on how to track creatures in various ways, including how to tell the difference between carnivore and herbivore territory. It all came down to markings and droppings. There were even tips on how to refine or purify seawater and river water.
Parker gained tips and insights from the reading; things that would help them survive. More than that though, it was calming to just read the accounts of someone from the archipelago that didn't end in death, betrayal, or general failure.
While it was true that the author did not yet unlock the Odyssey Vault, their words made it seem like they were still out there trying. The author had at least successfully moved around the archipelago with more ease than anyone else reported.
The shocking part of that was, as Parker learned through reading, that the author was not some stalwart adventurer or brave explorer. They had been a tenured professor of mythology. It was unclear what drew them to the Gamble, but it was clear they were looking for something.
Parker had settled in for the long haul of reading but at some point, the need for sleep took over. An alarm rang out from the tablet hours later, rousing Parker from where they had fallen asleep.
With the natural light shining in through a window, the room felt less like the cave it appeared to be the night before. The first thing Parked did was silence the vibrating and pinging alarm. Then they sat up on the edge of the couch that they had fallen asleep on.
After pushing a cushioned coffee table away from the couch, Parker got up with a stretch. Parker could barely see the outline of the next island, the next challenge, out the window, where the sun was steadily climbing. First, they needed to get past this one.
