Part 764: Futuristic Feast

January 29th, 2021. Aevum, 6PM Earth-time.

While Jason was reconciling with his daughter, the Lowborn all gathered together to make Phoebe feel welcome. Phoebe appeared noticeably older than all the teenagers since she was in her thirties, so she felt a little out of place. Everyone around her looked so young and bright-eyed, she couldn’t help but talk to them as if they were naive children.

However, one member of the group immediately stood out. Nadia seemed far more mature than her friends, in a way that was immediately obvious to Phoebe. She wasn’t sure why, but Nadia seemed more put-together than her peers. While the other teenagers were energetic and excited to have what they initially assumed was a pretty new instructor lady, Nadia was a lot calmer and more measured. In some ways, she even made Phoebe feel like a student herself. It was a weird feeling, and it reminded Phoebe of how Jason appeared eighteen yet he had a wisdom far beyond his apparent age.

The future world Phoebe had arrived in was completely alien to the one she knew. She was struggling to adjust to everything.

"This is a cafe!" Sasha explained cheerfully as she dragged Phoebe and the others to a small dining area staffed by robots that Jason had made a few weeks prior. "You can order whatever food you want to eat. Everything is free!"

"Free?" Phoebe repeated.

"Yeah! You don’t have to pay a dime for anything." Marco added helpfully.

Phoebe had a blank stare on her face as she looked at the small building before her. That was until Nadia spoke up. "You’re probably more familiar with a ‘pence’ I’d imagine."

"Ohh, I see now!" Phoebe said, remembering pennies, farthings, and the like from King Arthur’s era. She wasn’t familiar with ‘dimes’ but she understood the concept of currency as a whole. Still, as a former Knight of the Round, she had never really had to worry about money anyway, as King Arthur treated his top knights with a lavish lifestyle for the era they lived in.

Sasha led Phoebe inside, and Phoebe squinted when she saw the bright neon-backlit menu showing all sorts of words for food she’d never heard of.

"Crow… crow-ton?" Phoebe asked helplessly, as one odd word jumped out at her.

"Crouton." Nadia said. "Crew-ton. It’s French, little cubes of fried bread. Very tasty."

"I see…" Phoebe said. "Ham… buur… ger?"

Phoebe could read the words… sort of. They were written in the same English letters she had seen many times in her life, even if the styling of the fonts was very different from what she was used to. The problem was, she was completely unacquainted with modern cuisine. The words she saw meant almost nothing to her.

"I’ll, um… I’ll have the… soup? There is soup here?" Phoebe questioned. "With… beef? And vegetables?"

The robot behind the counter was a squarish metal machine designed to look completely inhuman. It stared at her with unblinking blue eyes.

"Yes. There is soup. Please state your preferred type of soup." The robot answered.

Phoebe touched her stomach. She hadn’t eaten since emerging from Bahamut’s enslavement. She was ravenously hungry.

Despite her hunger, Phoebe felt a weird pressure from the people around her. She felt out of place among all the teenagers, and she was awkward too, since she didn’t know how to ‘order food’ properly. She’d never been taught, and she didn’t know the etiquette, yet everyone seemed to treat her as an ordinary older woman who should know these things innately.

As such, Phoebe became flustered and started stammering. "I, I um… I would like some… meat soup please… with bread… and water?"

"Haha, meat soup?" Marco teased. "I’d go for the beef soup, personally. And what kind of bread do you want? Just plain bread?"

Phoebe went pale. "Bread. I want… um… yes, just… bread please. I um… I…"

What types of bread were there? Phoebe had never thought about it. Before she turned 18, she had helped her mother make bread a few times, but typically they just bought bread from the local breadmaker. He didn’t offer different ‘kinds’ of bread. Bread was simply bread!

On top of that, once she turned eighteen and became a Knight of the Round after winning in one of King Arthur’s competitions, Phoebe hadn’t spent any time worrying about what sort of food she would eat. She would enter the dining hall every day, choose some food from the many platters made by the king’s chefs, and eat with the others. She was poorly educated on the different sorts of foodstuffs available back then, let alone today.

"Would you like me to help you order?" Nadia asked, squeezing Phoebe’s shoulder reassuringly while whispering in her ear.

Phoebe felt like an idiot. She was so embarrassed she almost wanted to cry. She hurriedly nodded, feeling guilty a young girl had to help her, but too ashamed to keep babbling like an idiot in front of the others. "Y-yes, please."

"Okay. So here are some things you might enjoy." Nadia said, pointing to some of the entries on the menu. "If you just want a little taste of home, try the chicken with barley soup, and throw in some garlic-seasoned rye bread. If you’re thirsty, we can do water, or maybe a bit of some light ale?"

"Ooh, try some chocolate milk!" Sasha added. "I bet you’ve never had it before, and it’s really good!"

Phoebe was still a little dazed, but sensing that the kids weren’t going to make fun of her for being an ignorant dullard, she did feel a little better. "Um, okay. I guess I’ll have that then. Chicken and barley soup, seasoned rye bread, and… chocolate milk?"

By now, even Marco, who was usually slow to pick up on social cues, had figured out Phoebe was uncomfortable and unaware of a lot of modern cuisine, so he didn’t tease her anymore. Especially when he started to speak at one point and Nadia shot him a nasty glare, which promptly shut him up.

The other teenagers all made their orders. Nadia, Sasha, Marco, Jerome, Farrah, and Brian all ordered one after another, then they shoved several tables together and sat down together. Phoebe somehow ended up being sandwiched between Nadia and Farrah, with Sasha on Nadia’s other side. The three boys all ended up sitting on the opposite side of the table.

"Oh, I see!" Brian said at one point, as Phoebe hesitantly explained her origins. "So you… you’re a time traveler from the past then. Wow. That explains a lot. I do apologize if I or the others here have overwhelmed you."

"No, it’s fine. It’s not your fault." Phoebe said, blushing in embarrassment. "You’ve all been so nice. I’m just a little… slow."

"Slow?" Marco repeated. "No way! Anyone would be confused if they ended up in a crazy future world, where all the stuff was made of LEDs. Especially Aevum, with all its magic crystals and stuff."

"Ell-ee-dees?" Phoebe repeated, confused.

"It’s, um… it’s lights." Marco said, before sheepishly pointing at the LED lights in the ceiling. "Sorry. I’ll try not to use weird modern words and acronyms so much."

"Oh. Okay." Phoebe said.

Before long, the group started engaging in small talk more, with everyone doing their best to explain anything Phoebe asked about, as she was extremely curious and interested in learning more about the world around her.

"So there really are machines that fly through the air? Like a bird?" Phoebe asked.

"Indeed! One of my cousins is a pilot." Brian said. "It seems quite the fun job, getting to visit all the different countries of the world. Of course, I’ve already visited many of them myself, since my family is quite wealthy."

"Job…" Phoebe repeated. "Is that a title? Like ‘knight’?"

"Not exactly." Nadia explained. "You can think of it more as a ‘profession’. Back in your day, you might have a man who cobbled together shoes for a few pence, right? That was how he acquired his currency. These days, people work ‘jobs’ that require an education before you can be hired. They pay you a set amount of currency per hour, or per day, or whatever the boss and employee work out together."

"Oh, I see…" Phoebe said, though she didn’t fully understand the concept. "They aren’t paid for each of the shoes they make?"

"Not really." Brian said. "In your era, one craftsman might make an entire shoe from scratch and then sell it, but these days, one man makes the shoelaces, a woman makes the bottom of the shoe, another individual makes other parts of the shoe, and a final person puts it all together on a factory line. Thus, shoes can get made way faster with people specializing in specific components of items."

"It’s like that for almost everything." Sasha added. "The fashion industry is among the worst offenders. There are sweatshops assembling strings and straps and all kinds of little components using child labor assembly lines."

Phoebe scratched her head. "What do you mean by ‘child labor’?"

"Most people nowadays think it’s wrong for kids and even young teenagers to have to work to support themselves and their family." Nadia explained. "Even so, kids are young and naive, so a lot of governments around the world tacitly endorse allowing children to do hard manual labor for far less money then an adult would earn. It’s good for the economy, they claim."

Phoebe looked around the table. "What’s wrong with children doing work? I helped my parents when I was growing up. I apprenticed under the local blacksmith, Sir Gregor, for a couple of years."

"Well, that’s different…" Nadia said, before realizing something. "Actually, now that you mention it, up until a hundred years ago, it was extremely common for kids to work on farms for much of the daylight hours. So… I can see why you might not understand the misery of institutionalized child labor. Let’s just save the discussion for later. It’s a bit complicated."

Phoebe nodded. She was starting to feel tired again. Her mental model of reality was constantly getting rocked by the ‘innovations’ of the future era. On top of that, every time someone mentioned ‘her time’ or ‘her era’ Phoebe felt like she was an ugly old hag from the ancient past. It didn’t make her feel good, that was for sure.

The food finally arrived, and Phoebe marveled as she looked upon the dishes everyone else had ordered. Her soup and bread was eye-catchingly plain and boring compared to the exotic entrees served to each of the teenagers at the table.

"What is that called?" Phoebe asked, looking to her left at Nadia’s plate.

"This is Fettuccine Alfredo." Nadia said. "It’s a Roman-Italian dish; noodles with butter and finely grated Parmesan cheese. There’s lots of different variations and flavors too. Want to try it?"

"May I?" Phoebe asked.

When Nadia told her yes, Phoebe immediately used her fork to clumsily stab at the noodles. Sasha, sitting on Nadia’s opposite side, giggled and told her to spin the fork to wrap the noodles around it. Phoebe took a bite and marveled at how delicious the Fettucine was! She had never tasted anything like it in her life. It had a stickiness and saltiness she was unaccustomed to, but she found it delightfully agreeable.

"You should… try mine…" Farrah said, gesturing toward her plate. "This is spaghetti. It’s really… tasty."

"It originated it China, and the red tomato sauce also originated from Italy." Nadia added helpfully.

"Wow." Phoebe muttered. "Italy made a lot of incredible food while I was gone!"

Phoebe reached her fork over to try Farrah’s dish, but before the utensil made contact with Farrah’s food, Marco suddenly cried out, "Whoa, whoa! You’ve gotta use a different fork, Phoebe! No cross-contamination!"

Phoebe halted, then looked up at Marco, completely baffled. "C-cross… huh?"

"You know, germs!" Marco said. "It’s unhygienic to- oh… uh, well, maybe you don’t… know about that?"

Suddenly, Marco felt like an idiot for even bringing it up. Phoebe looked at him as if he were speaking in an alien tongue. As embarrassed as Marco was, Phoebe was mortified that she had broken yet another unknown social faux pas! It seemed the future had all kinds of weird rules she had no idea about!

"N-no, it’s okay…" Farrah stammered. "Phoebe doesn’t know, and that stuff doesn’t matter anyway. I don’t mind… really… it’s fine."

She smiled sweetly at Phoebe, but now that everyone’s eyes were on her, Phoebe didn’t know what to do.

"It’s okay, I’ll explain ‘germs’ to you later." Nadia said. "It’s nothing to worry about. Basically, humans found out around a hundred years ago what caused most diseases and illnesses, and germs were the main cause. But since Aevum has many ways to cure all illnesses, we don’t need to worry about any of that. Marco just isn’t used to how Aevum works, that’s all."

"Ohh, I see…" Phoebe said, her voice trailing off. She genuinely had no idea what ‘germs’ were, but they seemed serious! Since Nadia said it was okay to eat Farrah’s food though, Phoebe didn’t hesitate for long. She spooled some spaghetti noodles into her mouth, then let out a moan of pleasure when the salty and garlic-flavored noodles and sauce hit her tongue.

What an incredible texture! The buttery noodles with tomato sauce were so delicious, she couldn’t believe they were real!

Embarrassed by his overreaction, Marco quickly made up for it by pointing at the food on his plate. "This is a ‘hamburger’. Let me cut you a piece so you can try it. This is a really popular thing to eat. You usually eat it with your hands, but using a fork is OK too."

He quickly cut off a piece of his burger, and after Phoebe tried that, she felt like she had ascended even further to Heaven!

The kids here simply had no idea how good their modern food was. Phoebe looked at her simple bowl of soup and the plain bread beside it and grimaced internally, feeling like a country bumpkin for ordering something so plain.

The food of the future was ten levels above anything she could have imagined in her wildest dreams!

Nevertheless, after Phoebe sampled a bit of everyone’s food, she smiled cheerfully at all of them, then went back to finishing the food she had ordered. Even though it was plain, the soup ended up tasting much richer and saltier than anything from her era. Even King Arthur’s court had lacked most of the seasoning available to modern chefs. His greatest feasts were like dirt before the simple cafeteria spread these children had ordered on a whim.

And the chocolate milk! She never would have guessed a murky black liquid could taste so delicious!

What a future she had arrived in. What a future indeed!

"So, Phoebe, if you’re not an instructor for us, then… who are you exactly?" Marco eventually asked.

Phoebe opened her mouth to respond, but no answers immediately came to mind. She stuttered and stammered for a few moments before blushing and lowering her head. "I… I don’t know, actually. The Trueborn said I had talents and abilities he needed. Beyond that, I’ve no idea. I’m nobody special, despite what I keep hearing. It’s truly a mystery to me."

Nadia subtly glanced at Phoebe out of the corner of her eye, but she said nothing. If Jason hadn’t told Phoebe the truth yet, then Nadia certainly wasn’t going to say anything.

"Oh, I think I know the reason!" Sasha suddenly shouted. "There’s one obvious reason, really!"

"There is?" Phoebe asked, invisible question marks popping up over her head.

"Of course!" Sasha said, leaning forward to look past Nadia at Phoebe directly. "It’s because… Jason likes you!"

Phoebe coughed, nearly choking on her food. She gave the teenager a weird look. "That seems a bit shallow for such a high and mighty Hero, don’t you think, young lady? Besides, I’m much too old for him. I think you’re more his type."

"Pffft, even if Jason were actually my age, maybe he’s into MILFs!" Sasha said, before scratching her head. "Though, the M doesn’t really apply, I think? Do you have any kids?"

"Me? Children?" Phoebe repeated. "I was a Knight of the Round. I remained chaste in service to my king. Naturally, I have no children."

"Ohhh, so the M doesn’t apply, but that wouldn’t matter anyway. Daisy told us her dad is hundreds of years old, so we’re all like kids to him anyway!" Sasha said, laughing at her own genius.

"Sasha, come on, you’re embarrassing her." Marco said, frowning at Sasha.

Phoebe was indeed a little embarrassed, but she was more confused than anything else. "What exactly is a ‘milf’?"

"Oh, it’s a acronym!" Sasha helpfully blurted out. "It stands for Mothers-"

"Mothers, Intellectuals, Leaders, and Friends." Nadia immediately interrupted before her best friend could blurt out something so uncouth. She pointedly stabbed some noodles on her plate and spun them around her fork before subtly glaring at Sasha.

"Ah, yeah, right. What Nadia said." Sasha laughed nervously, before quietly backing down.

"I see." Phoebe said. She sensed Nadia’s reply wasn’t entirely truthful, but she also guessed she didn’t want to know the truth either.

It seemed she would have to investigate ‘MILFs’ on her own time when nobody else was around. Perhaps there was a library somewhere nearby she could do research…

The discussions continued, and Phoebe privately wondered if there was some truth to what Sasha had ‘joked’ about. Could it be the reason the Trueborn brought her here was because he fancied her? It did seem odd that he knew who she was and he’d gone to such lengths to save her from Bahamut first.

But still, more likely, he had simply spoken to Arthur’s soul. That made a lot more sense, and Arthur might actually have forgiven Phoebe, perhaps even recommended her as a trusted aide to Jason. It was a little far-fetched, but not completely outside the realm of possibility…

While Phoebe pondered these thoughts, she continued to engage in small talk with the teenagers.

Eventually, the food was finished, and everyone stood up to go. Phoebe marveled at the waiter-bots that swooped in and cleaned off the tables, then she and the teenagers headed toward one of the dedicated training facilities Jason had created.

"So, Phoebe," Nadia said, "Jason told me he would be giving you the power of the Sphinx. Do you have it now?"

"I do… but I don’t know entirely how it works." Phoebe said with a frown. "I think if I make up a riddle, I can bind people to become my servant? But I have no interest in enslaving others, so that ability feels quite crass…"

"Just use it on demons then." Jerome said with a smirk. "Make ’em into your goons. Ain’t nobody’ll miss em. Demons are all pieces of shit."

Phoebe shook her head. "Sorry, but I don’t see demons as inherently evil. I believe it is possible to reason with them. Maybe not all of them, but enough to make it worth the time. I refuse to treat others as my enemy just because of their species."

"Guess you ain’t seen what demons do when they get the chance." Jerome retorted. "Rape, torture, murder, you name it. I had a friend from Kenya, said demons came in and destroyed his community. He barely made it out alive. Last I saw him, he was shootin’ drugs in a back alley."

Phoebe blinked.

Shooting drugs? She wondered. Isn’t shooting what you do with a gun? And drugs, those are like tobacco and such… does that mean he was shooting tobacco into himself? Maybe into other people??

She decided not to ask, leaving the question unresolved in her head. Modern slang had too many variations, and she couldn’t understand all its nuances so quickly. She’d just have to pick it up as she went along.

"My bigger point," Nadia continued, "is that the Sphinx’s power is more formidable than you know. You now have the ability to transform your body into a powerful monster-form. It may even give you the strength to fight Demon Emperors."

"Truly?!" Phoebe gasped. "You’re serious?"

"Indeed I am." Nadia swore solemnly. "Jason has spoken of other Sphinxes who possessed the power, and all of them could transform. If you can figure out how to do so, it’ll make sense why Jason entrusted you with coming here to Aevum to train."

"Oh, then I would very much like to try it." Phoebe said. "What should I do?"

The group left the cafe and walked a few blocks over to a highly reinforced underground bunker where all the walls were made of Wordsmithium capable of tanking hits from even Belial, the hardest-hitting Demon Emperor. Even she would barely be able to dent the walls if she didn’t care about injuring herself and went all-out with an attack.

The group formed a semi-circle around Phoebe, who stood along with Nadia. What Phoebe didn’t know was that Nadia basically had access to all of Jason’s knowledge, so she was quite familiar with the existence of Kar and Blinker in the future, but that didn’t mean she understood all the nuances of what Sphinxes could do. Jason himself didn’t know everything either.

"I suppose you should… um… look deep inside yourself?" Nadia said slowly, sounding hesitant for the first time since Phoebe’s arrival. "The Sphinx transformation shouldn’t require any training. You likely know how to transform innately."

"I do?" Phoebe wondered.

A long few minutes passed. Several of the teenagers offered their own ideas.

"You need to get really angry!" Marco shouted. "Like, you get all pissed off, and then your hair glows, and you go ‘RAHHHH’ and your power level shoots up, and then-"

"You watch way too many of those Japanese cartoons." Sasha interrupted.

"They’re called ANIME, and they’re ART!" Marco protested.

"Maybe it’s… spiritual enlightenment?" Farrah suggested, her words soft. "Perhaps… maybe you have to start by seeking the mysteries of the universe, and then you find someone to truly love, and that lets you transform into the beast within?"

"You’ve read too many werewolf romance novels." Jerome snorted before smiling a little more softly at Farrah.

"Only a few…" Farrah said, blushing in embarrassment.

It was at this moment of indecision that Jason abruptly reappeared, teleporting in front of the teenagers and making them flinch. He had finished his business with Daisy, but she wasn’t ready to see Phoebe just yet, so he came back alone.

"Did I miss anything?" Jason asked.

Nadia raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms, as if to say ‘like you don’t already know, you peeping Tom’. She didn’t voice her thoughts out loud, and Jason pretended not to notice.

"We’re trying to teach Phoebe how to transform into her Sphinx form." Brian explained. "Any ideas, Jason?"

Phoebe glanced between the teenagers. Now that she was more familiar with them, she noticed that each of their gazes held a different attitude toward Jason.

Brian and Nadia’s expressions were extremely casual, as if they simply saw Jason as a fellow peer, an ordinary human on par with themselves. They didn’t look at Jason disrespectfully, but it was clear they didn’t look up to him as a godlike figure.

Jerome’s eyes had a hint of fierceness, as if Jason were a rival he was constantly competing with.

Sasha also seemed a little bit fierce, like Jerome, but there was something else there as well. Passion? Hunger? It was as if she looked up to him as if he were an idol, or perhaps someone who could offer her a lot of benefits.

Marco and Farrah were a lot quieter and meeker in Jason’s presence. There was a certain inferiority complex that seemed to make them ashamed to look him directly in his eyes. They both kept glancing away and smiling awkwardly, letting others do most of the talking.

By contrast, how did Phoebe feel about the Trueborn? She silently dwelt on her own feelings and found she fell on the same side of the scale as Marco and Farrah. She was more able to hold a conversation with Jason than they were, but she always felt overwhelmed with inferiority in his presence. He seemed to know everything, and since he might actually be hundreds of years old (a concept she still found difficult to swallow), it did seem to give him an aura of divinity rivaling King Arthur.

Only the recent flub with his daughter and her fleeing had momentarily broken the image of an invincible man with the world help in his grasp, and that was a mistake Arthur could have made as well.

Thus, Phoebe realized she felt as if she couldn’t be Jason’s equal, and that colored how she looked at and acted around him.

After Brian spoke his question, Jason stood on the spot for a few seconds, then shrugged.

"I could force the transformation with my magic, but there’s no need for that." Jason said. "What you need to do is learn to sense your internal mana. Now that you’ve become a superior mortal being, you have access to the same sort of magic that I do. If I forcibly help you tap into your power, it could become a crutch you end up needing to rely on, and that won’t benefit anyone."

Jason waved his hand. He summoned a cushion on the floor, and a bunch of chairs around that cushion. He indicated for everyone to take a seat in the chairs, except for Phoebe, who he had sit cross-legged on the central cushion.

Phoebe wasn’t embarrassed by becoming the center of attention, but she did feel a little out of place with everyone looking at her, eyes full of anticipation. If she let them all down, she might not be able to raise her head with any pride for a long time.

"We’ll start with some basic meditation." Jason said. "I learned this from a spiritually-minded friend in the… past. First, you have to close your eyes and filter out all your external thoughts. You have to let go of your worries, and look within yourself. The Sphinx is a living entity, it has its own will that you must communicate with."

Nadia raised an eyebrow. She had said something similar, but it seemed even she did not have the full story on Jason’s memories and who he was. Where she was clueless, Jason actually had a more developed idea of how to proceed.

Jason continued instructing Phoebe. At the same time, he subtly cast a few Words of Power on her. Phoebe found that, shockingly, she was beginning to lose her senses. She slowly sank into a strange half-dream.

The whispering of the teenagers faded away. Only Jason’s calm voice remained. And then, he too began to fade.

Phoebe head swayed a little. She felt dizzy, even a little nauseous. The world of the living became a memory, and the darkness of her mind became more pronounced.

It was here, in that darkness, that she sensed a presence she had not detected before.

There was someone else with her… and the entity looked at her from afar.

[You are able to sense me?] The Entity asked.

Phoebe’s heart jumped.

[Who are you?] Phoebe asked, her dizziness muffling her sense of alertness. [How are you in my head?]

[I am the Sphinx.] The Entity answered. [The last remaining member of my people. All the others faded from existence tens of Eternities ago. In many ways, I am little more than a lost memory myself.]

The darkness parted. Phoebe looked up into the sky of her own mind to see a barely-perceivable head floating above her. It was translucent, like a ghost, or perhaps a soul.

The head was vast in size, much bigger than her soul-form. But it was also substantially weaker, as if diluted and faded by the passage of time. It no longer commanded the rich vitality that the soul of a living entity would.

The head had little in the way of discernible features. Its most prominent aspect was that it was inhuman, animalistic, perhaps even alien in origin. It most resembled a white-maned lion, with drooping eyes and a face exhausted from a timescale Phoebe could not even conceptualize.

[You are the Sphinx?] Phoebe asked.

[I am. And you are the first Inheritor capable of sensing my true form in many an eon.] The Sphinx said, its tone neutral. It did not seem especially excited by the fact Phoebe could accomplish this, but it wasn’t completely disinterested, either. The Sphinx seemed to look at her with mild interest. [For an ordinary mortal of no note to accomplish such a thing, there must be a spark of potential within you.]

Phoebe blushed and lowered her head. [I am nobody special.]

[That may be true.] The Sphinx said. [But such a judgment is not yours to make. Humility is said to be a virtue, but too much of it can become a poison to one’s ambition. If you are to access the true power of my people’s lineage, you must be able to puff out your chest with pride.]

The Sphinx manifested a little more inside Phoebe’s mind. Its arms and torso became slightly visible, as if it were struggling to breach a barrier between the world of souls and the real world.

Flexing its arms, the Sphinx poked at the sky, causing a galaxy of stars to form.

[My people’s story began one hundred and forty seven eternities ago, long before your Creator came into existence, or his predecessor, or the ten predecessors before them…]