The being, glowing with cyan trails riddling his skin, walked slowly through a hall filled with shelves. They held many slats of perfectly chiseled, shiny, onyx rock. They all had those tallies, the ones he was greeted with through his eye's lens. They glowed an azure, green color when he walked by them; Waning in aura when near, waxing in saturation as he tread past. The hall was part of a large corridor adorned with a jade ceiling, cold and dark stone flooring with a silver tinge so as to look more burnished; vintage and regal. Pillars stacked on every shelf, as well as stone. Winding grey veins of smokey branches were inset upon the black, rocky, and sleek columns that held up the labyrinth of knowledge.

         He looked around a corner and saw a light emitting from a doorway, very tall, perhaps over 80 feet. He walked toward this light and peeked into the room. There were a plethora of things, from glass bobbles and brines with juices in them, to meat and flesh, sopping wet on the floor. Next to it were see-through capsules preserving bodies suspended in a liquid serum. It all looked to have been rotting there for centuries, their bones still visible, yet cracked and partially decayed. Nothing could compare, however, to what looked to be attached to a large machine that was generating swishing noises with liquid pulsating through its chambers. Bubbles arose from below, gathering atop the glass encasements that were lined with the fleshy homunculi. It was connected to a large, brass, statue with the head of an owl. Not exactly the same one within his dream, older looking. The statue's arms and legs were like a feral cat's limbs, claws gripping at the hardened metal floor. Its plating was stained with dried substances and spattered with darkened dust. To top off the anatomy, its chest looked like the gullet of a bird, liquid sustained within a malleable sheathe of plastic. The eyes, lenses coated in dusty residue, very slowly started to glow after the chest started pulsing a subtle green. A low hum became audible. The man's chest beat faster as his eyes began to turn pale in shock at the sight of the marvel. 

         As the statue's eyes flared blindingly, the man burst alive, and awoke from his dream. Soon, his chest felt like it was rapidly beating like a turbine. a silhouette dawned as he flashed open his eyes, pupils completely faded as blue dots amidst a sea of white. He saw nothing but a fuzzy figure and the ground with someone speaking to him. Soon he was plopped down on a surface and charged with a steel-like wool. He jolted back into consciousness from an electrical surge, causing him to cough up more blue fluid as well as burden more tears from his glitching eye. His expression was normal but eyes widened, staring into the dark clouds above. After slowly turning his head to see his surroundings, he saw a mammal with a rigid, metallic wool. It was shiny but jagged and pointy at some ends. Whatever the wool was attached to also had horns pointing forward. It chewed its cud complacently as he sat there mesmerized, regaining his sight steadily.

         The figure he saw before looked less fuzzy. More clear. A bird-like humanoid with white feathers and light blue eyes. They didn’t have intelligible language that he understood so he got up and started walking, with slight limping, toward the fence gate. He looked down and gently opened the door. The person he met started after him and gently tried to stop him from moving, getting him to listen, but everything was futile. He still walked a steady pace if not burdened by the white feathered bird-man's grip. 

         The humanoid bird people surrounded the cobbled stone marketplace, staring at him. Some of them were closing other kin's eyes with blushing faces, retreating into their huts and yurts. Others just sat and watched as he blankly stared back, stopping in his tracks. Something didn't quite feel correct here, his gut felt sunk. He didn't know what to do in this instance. The white-feathered humanoid from before poked his shoulder, receiving his attention and led him away from the village. 

         White-feathers guided him through fronds of flora, tilted and narrow, sometimes containing small bugs. The trail was open but the man was all too impressed with the unknown. White-feathers giggled as the bleeding man smiled, witnessing two other bugs with long abdomen and four wings. His lenses could read the signatures of them, though. Static engulfed his left eye and broke, sending it into ripples and waves of disruption. He stood up and conked his head but it only stopped scanning. No more iris, no more information.        

         The man held the White bird human's hand and was led to a small cabin about 0.5 miles away on a hill. Its valley was filled with prairie-like fungal grasses with pink, slightly shining bulbs he saw from his recording. The house they happened upon was in the shape of a rectangular cafe with open widened windows and a balcony in the back. A blue tint with starry shaped edges was seen in the distance behind a tan, wooden fence in the back of it. A glow even shined through.

         Squinting his eyes, he was tugged along to the steps. Upon opening the door, everything was gleaming with quality, especially the paneling on the floor. The fluffy bird motioned him to sit down in a room and put his palms out, rushing out of the sliding door. The man roamed around and went through fabrics, played with the tuft of a pillow and looked outside in curiosity. He noticed an object with pages on the floor under a slat and, above him, a hammock. Everything was covered in white feathers from this person but there were also strange brownish feathers as well. He saw a couple of other beings outside and how they walked, what they wore. He, too, wanted to 'wear' something. He found some cloth that felt nice and airy and put it on the way they did. It was white and flowing, translucent. Not what he saw others wear at the time, theirs was much more fancy. There were even some soft, rugged knee-high pants, loose-fitted and comfortable. 

         He tried walking out of the room but the person came back. They looked at his clothes and cocked their head, smiling a bit with acknowledgement. They leaned in to unfurl some of the ends and clipped some diamond-shaped clasps on both the rim of the sleeves and lower part to adorn his outfit. They shouted “Ah!” when finished, putting their hands into the air making a Y shape. The man fanned his arms out and turned around. He was very complacent with the diamond-like bits. He looked at everyone else’s outfits outside and looked back at his. The others looked so… good. He looked rugged and boring. He even took a liking to the bird guy's clothing as it flowed gently in the breeze, had patterns of light blues and pinks, tendriled and dainty. Their sleeves had bells at the ends as well, rattling a faint "ting" as they knocked the edges. The man just stood there looking down in disappointment.

         The man's mind made a shock and he jumped a bit. He felt a sense or need to focus on the being’s hand. The scans highlighted their fingertips, the bottoms of them. The palm also lit up. He looked at his for a moment and saw the same. He took it and lifted it up to the feathery being. He stared at White feather's hand and put his palm against theirs, flattening the fingers and intensely waiting for something to happen. Although surprised, his feathery friend sits there, frozen and slightly blushing. Alex's head starts buzzing and static invades. He immediately stops registering any and all movement, his eyes wide and frozen like a statue as he falls to the floor, his face pulverizing the wooden ground.

         The man's eyes lined with information, hardly visible to the regular eye and only set within his iris. Data swept across his brain and triggered a response. He read part of it through his lenses. “Se-..Se–ff…”. His eyes started to twitch, flicker and close rapidly for a second. He raised his head, regaining his stability. “Was this… his name?”, he thought. A matter of fact, beside this, a new name emerged. Nestled deep within his cranium's register, the name 'Alex' was prompted. Small bits of encrypted and torn lettering riddled the edge of it, censored by corruption. He uttered it while he looked at the floor in shock. Some small flashes of memory swept across his gaze as he shook his head out of the trance and sprang up from the floor, his knees on the ground and arms limp. "Names", he thought. "Is that my name?" He blinked for a second, still burdened with questions about himself.

        Seff said to Alex, “Would you like to see my village?” Alex was shocked to hear a language he could understand, and yet, he still couldn’t create those exact words verbally. He is still limited to what he can do. Seff smiled and took his arm, leading him through the plains of grasses and onto a dirt road. The same skeletal bird was high in the air watching Alex closely as it flapped ahead. It was slightly sunny in the area as they walked. Small-shelled organisms crawled along the ground, some inching closer to the grasses while others trailed together, picking bits of seed along the way. An abundance of red, leathery fruits were lining part of the way to the village, right on the outskirts. An animal with a stripe along its back picked one from the ground and sunk its sharp, saber-like fangs into it before scurrying off and flapping its arm wings, flying deep into the grassy, dark green gnolls of its fruity forest. 

         Cobbled stone turned up as Alex and Seff got closer toward the village from before. There stood a tall and burly, bird-like humanoid, sharpening the last of his shiny metallic spears. His feathers adorned from his head to his back in a flurry of fluff, still snowy white like Seff's but with a hint of dark gray stripes. He looked like the leader of a tribe. “This is my father”, Seff looked at him and spoke. Alex found another smell he hadn’t before, savory and sweet with a hint of salt. A phantom ache was within his stomach. No grumbling, no squelching could be heard from it. Often, this would be the case for a mammal in need of satiety. He wandered over to the cart that some slug-like creatures were being roasted on. 

         Seff was conversing with his father about their discovery, "Vathi, a human was unconscious by the bova pin, they have odd markings and they looked injured." His father looked down at Seff and back at Alex who was sniffing and licking one of the roasted morsels from the spit while getting smacked at by the courier selling them. “Shoo, we don’t have much to feed the village! Please for the love of our rations, stop eating the produce! What even are you?! No-feathered being!” While they quarrel in the background, Seff’s father tells his son what events are coming. “We must hunt tonight. There is little time. The best time of all is to hunt right after the storm… they will want fresh Cylanta. Keep them company in the house until we get back. We'll help him then.” Seff nods slowly. “Yes, Vathi.” He looks back at Alex, face now stuffed with three whole wyrms while the salesman is appalled and in shock. Seff grabs Alex’s arm, leading him back to the cafe with him before the storm reaches back around to shower them again. As they head back, Seff's father notices the damage of Alex's skin and the module on his back. Suspicious, he finishes up his preparations and takes the spears with him back home, watching them.