The Way Ahead

Edwin groggily groped his way into wakefulness, nearly smacking Inion in the face as he stretched. The fey was curled up next to him in her usual position. It was… it was nice, he decided. Physical contact, or really just proximity really, was a way he could feel connected to people even if the emotions he wanted weren’t there.

He couldn’t really describe it, either, or put his finger on why exactly it was so nice, so he could replicate it without people involved. Perhaps it was just the fact that touch implied the person preferred in some way his proximity over someone else’s? No… that couldn’t be it, he didn’t think. Otherwise group hugs wouldn’t have been appreciated.

Maybe because it reminds me of-

A faint tickle in the back of his head reared its head, but he squashed that particular emotion and associated train of thought before it could get anywhere. He wasn’t… he wasn’t going to think about that. Edwin blinked hard, and rubbed his eyes because they were sore. Because he had just woken up and was trying to get the sleep out of them.

Apparently, not sleeping for a week then falling asleep for at least sixteen hours was a good way to build up a lot of crust in his eyes, and he found himself picking the accumulated stuff out of his eyelashes as he lightly touched down on the ground. Yathal and Kyni were curled up together on a blanket nest on the driver’s seat, and the dog perked up to see what the disturbance was before giving Edwin a brief nod- that would never not be kind of weird- and tucking his head back in with his boy.

Bill had his legs folded underneath him, sleeping in the grass a short way off the road. It was kind of interesting, as Edwin had always vaguely thought that horses and ponies slept standing up, but it seemed that wasn’t the case, or at least not always.

Off to one side, Lefi sat with his back to a tree, keeping watch. He had his sheathed sword resting on his knees, and Edwin sensed a few Skills flickering in and around the man indicating that he really was awake despite his closed eyes.

“Couldn’t sleep?” Edwin asked, gently setting down in the grass next to Lefi. He kept Flight active, though- it provided the best back support.

“I rarely do,” Lefi’s voice was much more restrained at night, presumably as to not wake up any of the others.

“Really? So then all those nights when we were first traveling together and we bunkered down in the… whatsit shrines, you didn’t actually need to sleep?”

“No,” Lefi replied with a shrug, “But you would feel bad if you felt like you were slowing me down, and it was valuable that you learned of a safe place to rest. There’s not that many of us, we need to keep an eye out for one another.”

There was a flicker of a Skill, and Lefi withdrew a pair of mugs and a flagon of… something Edwin hadn’t almanaced yet. Some kind of cider, it looked like? The adventurer poured a steaming cup for each of them from the flagon.

“Is it alcoholic?” Edwin asked as he accepted the mug, to Lefi’s shaken head, “Thanks.”

It was good… but not great. Edwin silently cursed his Arcadian Elixir, and tried to renew his reminder to figure out some kind of normally-tasteless powder that he could add to food and drinks and allow him to properly enjoy food he hadn’t made again.

“’S good,” he thanked Lefi, and received a nod in acknowledgement. Edwin finally got the chance to fully process what Lefi had said, and frowned, “Hey… I wouldn’t have felt bad about slowing you down.”

Lefi didn’t even have to say anything, even the low light provided by the pink and blue moon sufficient to display his clear look of skepticism.

“Okay, okay,” Edwin backpedaled, “I might have felt a bit bad. But still!”

Lefi shrugged as he took a deep draft of his drink, “I didn’t wish to burden you with anything else. It was clear you were unused to this world, and I wanted to make the transition as easy as possible.”

“Oh come on,” Edwin protested, “Does everyone know?”

Lefi grinned, “If you keep confirming it like that, then eventually.”

Edwin shot a glare at the man, who hid his smile in his mug, “What gave it away?” he finally asked with a sigh.

“Your cover story about coming from Fieresal is alright, but Tara came up with it?”

Edwin nodded.

“She knows better, of course, but she hasn’t internalized that the System exists outside of the Empire. She hasn’t fully grasped what it means that it is truly worldwide and not only found in Liras, though they are admittedly the most advanced in its use. So, you coming in from the Unknown Lands to her would make perfect sense as to why you’d have no Skills, no Attributes. But you hadn’t even taken the Beginner path, didn’t have the Child path, and were missing so many Skills and Paths that someone like you would have naturally accumulated from your life. That meant you must have had either your entire System reset or come from somewhere without the System itself, making you an Outsider. Because of how little you knew of the nature of Paths and Skills, it probably wasn’t the former. My little question just now confirmed the latter.”

“I feel like there are other possibilities than just those two,” Edwin said with a frown.

“Ah, but now I don’t need to think of them. So thank you for that.” He flashed a grin which even in the poor lighting Edwin could see just fine.

He rolled his eyes and took a sip of his cider, “Well, good job I guess. Do they know?” he asked, nodding his head towards Yathal and Kyni.

Lefi shook his head, “You’re doing a lot better nowadays. Instead of some strange figure with absurdly low-level Skills, you’re a bit closer to either a slacker or a perfectionist with such high-level first-Tier Skills and decent progress on your second. So long as you don’t give anyone a complete list of your Skills and Paths, your secret should be safe so long as you remain somewhat circumspect when answering questions. Your Registrar probably knows, or at least suspects, but that’s probably about it.”

They sat in silence for a minute, and Edwin tried to remember what it was he wanted to do… eh, probably not important. Eventually, Lefi spoke back up, breaking the silence.

“Do you want to talk about your world?”

Edwin sighed, “Not… not right now, I think.

“So…” he transitioned to a different topic, “You don’t sleep?”

“I don’t need to. Naturally, I still benefit from it, but with the Power Nap skill, I need but a few minutes per day. Otherwise, I use Meditate. It is quite relaxing and perfect for allowing time to pass, but I retain enough awareness of my surroundings as to know when I need to break it. Very useful for keeping watch or noticing would-be sneaky adventurers leaving a note for me and trying to leave.”

“Touché,” Edwin conceded, “I suppose Watchful Rest does something similar for me. Not that Inion would hear anything about setting up a night watch while she’s traveling with me. Something about nothing on this side of the continent being able to threaten her.”

“Hm. Possibly true for wild and magical animals, though she is distinctly less powerful than a Veteran soldier.”

“I don’t think I’ve actually met any. How would I know if I did?”

Lefi grinned, “You’d know. Veterans are the elites of the army, usually with hundreds of Skills all geared to fighting. When not upon a battlefield they may not be that particularly useful, but sometimes that doesn’t really matter. I saw one drive off a dragon all on his own, now that was a glorious battle to witness.”

“Dragons, eh? I’ve heard them mentioned a few times, but are they common?”

“I wouldn’t say 'common' describes them. You’ll always be in the territory of at least one dragon, but never close to any. To them, all this? The efforts of avior, humans, gnomes, all that? It’s nothing. We have to strive and strive to reach the level of even a newly hatched wyrmling, and they only get stronger the longer they live. If you ever have to fight a dragon, my first advice is ‘don’t’. Run, as far and as fast as you can, and hope that’s enough. If that doesn’t work, find an army and hope you’re the last one left standing.”

“Have you ever fought a dragon?”

Lefi let out a low bark of laughter, “I’m still alive, aren’t I?”

“Well, I don’t know…”

“Nope. I’ve run from a dragon a few times, though. Stolen from a couple of hoards, too,” he added with a grin, “Now that was a rush, and so far as I know Sennangraska is still looking for me to this day. If I ever get back there… ha. That won’t go well. So much venom, but the Paths were so worth the price. Dragons are one of the very few creatures where nearly any interaction will award you with Paths, and the Dragonslayer path is the golden standard for trophy Paths.”

“Right!” Edwin realized, before quickly clamping down on his volume. He mouthed a ‘sorry’ to Kynigos, and waved his hand when Lefi motioned for him to continue.

“I just finally remembered what I was trying to do before Inion… put me to sleep,” he wasn’t bitter, he wasn’t. Inion… Inion just wanted what was best for him. She could be a bit pushy at times, but who couldn’t? Sure, he might not agree with her all the time, but when did he ever? There was no lasting harm, he could let this slide this time.

“I wanted to see my Skill levels,” he explained, “I figure I probably got something good from all that work, right?”

“Indeed. Let us see what your rewards for your endeavors are, shall we not?”

Implied familiarity aside, Edwin agreed with the sentiment and with bated breath, pulled up his System.

Notifications.

Congratulations! For going a full night without sleep you have unlocked the Insomniac path!

Congratulations! For going a week without sleep in pursuit of a single goal you have unlocked the Sleepless Disciple path!

Congratulations! For concentrating and altering your personal mana you have unlocked the Attuner path!

Congratulations! For magically distilling a potent alchemical solution, you have unlocked the Mystic Alchemist path!

Congratulations! For successfully creating an elixir based on metaphysical concepts you have unlocked the Practical Alchemist path!

Level Up!

Skill Points 779→816 (Average level: 45)

Arcadian Elixir Level 28→30

Alchemy Level 86→89

Refining Level 2→21

Ritual Intuition Level 28→30

Alchemical Analysis Level 28→31

Alchemical Dismantling Level 27→33

Sapper’s Apparatus Level 50→51

Prototyping Level 28→29

Edwin let out a low whistle. He’d gotten twenty levels in Refining from his work, which was impressive but still paled in comparison to the three whole levels he’d earned in Alchemy. He might actually hit his goal of reaching level 120 in the Skill and getting the Alchemy Specialist path in a halfway reasonable time if he could recapture some fraction of that rate going forward.

It would still take ages, though. At least he didn’t have to deal with skill point debt anymore, that was nice. Maybe he could go for Health Manipulation or Stamina Manipulation if they existed…

“Hey Lefi. Are there Skills like Basic Mana Manipulation for any of the other attributes?”

“Whatfor do you mean?”

“Well, like in trying to manipulate Stamina or whatever. Perception is easy to control, but are there any Skills which would let me use Health-based Skills or Stamina-based Skills actively? Not like your passively magical skills or whatever that just draw on your mana, but something more like my… mage nonsense.”

The adventurer stroked his chin, “I can’t say that I do know of any which would fill that role, no.”

Edwin sighed, “Pity, I suppose. It would be cool. Any chance it’s still a Skill that you just don’t know about?”

“That is always a chance! The System is as vast and incomprehensible as any other part of the world!”

“Hm. You know, now that I think about it… did I already ask you? Ah, whatever. What’s your take on the System? Why does it exist?”

“You do not have one where you are from, yes?”

Edwin nodded, and Lefi hummed in thought, “The System is said to be as old as the world itself. You may as well ask why the Verdant exists, or why the mountains are the places they are.”

“I feel like it’s a bit different than that, though,” Edwin protested, “Also, I feel like those things do have explanations. They did on my world anyway. Not the Verdant part- we didn’t have magical forests- but the mountain part.”

Granted, he wasn’t really expecting to get too much more from Lefi- his answer lined up well enough with everyone but Inion’s reaction. The fey, of course, just said she couldn’t tell him, but he was starting to suspect that might also have been her answer for when she didn’t know something and didn’t want to admit it.

“Like come on, none of those are natural language-comprehending magical programs which give you supernatural abilities. Heck, why wouldn’t you wonder about that? It’s certainly more interesting than where rain comes from.”

“Perhaps. But I am certain that greater minds than I can accomplish such a magnificent task, I don’t bother myself with it.”

Was there something about the System that made people not question where it came from? Other than the ubiquitous answer that the System was created alongside the world, he hadn’t heard any myths about the creation of the world. Hmm…

“What about the world itself, then? Where did that come from?”

“It was… created alongside the System as the gods spoke it into being. From there, the System brought forth life and chose several animals from among its numerous herds, granting them the ability to see their Status. To this day, sometimes a new creature will be chosen, to see if their kin is worthy of access to the System,” he nodded at Kyni, “and though they rarely succeed past their own life and their immediate family upon occasion, it continues to try in the hopes more might see the world for how it is.”

“Is… is that it?” Edwin asked, “No super-long, in-depth and really boring universally accepted creation story about hundreds of gods all doing really niche things in concert? Fantasy stories clearly lied to me.” He said the last part as a mumble, and Lefi didn’t appear to acknowledge it.

“Ah, do you wish to know the true story of creation which I came upon in my adventures, spoken to me by the gods themselves?”

Edwin skeptically raised an eyebrow.

“I do not have such knowledge,” the adventurer explained, and prompted a chuckle from Edwin.

“No, but like actually. Is that it?”

“What use do we have for the gods? They have never asked much of us, merely made their presence known. Even those who receive their blessings are rarely brought from the realm of their faithful.”

“But like… wouldn’t people still be naturally attracted to that sort of thing in the hopes they might catch the attention of literal gods? Or, you know, avoid their wrath? Heck, isn’t that what’s up with the Curicnan waystations or whatever?”

“It is, yes. Naturally, people continue to say their prayers to whatever god they may wish to gain or avoid the attention of, but there is not much organization around the deities beyond minor group rituals. Who would care about a being so incomprehensibly beyond any of us as to make emperor Xares look like a first Tier? No, better to focus on attempting to grow, to advance.”

“I… don’t think that’s how people work,” Edwin said with a frown.

“Are you not the one who says it is important to look at what is, not what ought to be?”

“When did I… I mean, yes. But I don’t think we ever had that conversation?”

“It was in your discussions with Niall, I do believe.”

“Right,” Edwin closed the discussion. He wasn’t… he wasn’t sure how he felt about that whole debacle. He wanted to blame Lefi for putting him in the situation to begin with, but he knew that was complete nonsense. It was still his conclusion to go after the bandits, even if it had been… impaired.

Did he blame Lefi for altering his mental state, like you were supposed to for people who tried to get other people drunk, or whatever? He’d never been in that position, but it seemed comparable. But did the fact he was genuinely trying to help him excuse him at all, like it did with Inion? Edwin… wasn’t sure.

Lefi tried to say something else, but Edwin mumbled that he was glad for the talk, he was just going to go for a bit of a walk. Yes, he’d yell if he needed help. He just needed a bit of fresh air and a bit of space.