The Way Ahead

As it turned out, waiting around for something comparable to paint drying wasn’t the most exciting thing in the world. As a result, most of his time was spent talking to Inion. Even when he was working on marginally productive things, they still kept up a faint string of chitchat.

Edwin couldn’t entirely follow a lot of the stories she told about her time pre-nap, and it was of debatable practicality given she only had experience with a civilization some two thousand years gone. It was still quite interesting, though. Especially learning about magic. Magic was so cool, even though Inion kept teasing him with no actual details about how it all worked, simply regaling him with tales about noteworthy mages she’d heard of or met during her long, long life. Shapechangers, someone who could make mist into solid weapons, a star mage who cast constellations…

“Inion.” Edwin interrupted the naiad as she made an offhand reference to her current story- about an unstoppable warrior whose blood ran so hot merely her gaze was enough to melt stone- to the dawn of time, “How old is Joriah?”

“Oh, ages and ages old. It’s the oldest thing in the world!” she replied, a cocky grin on her face.

“How old are you?”

“Don’t you know it’s rude to ask a lady her age? What if I’m actually old?”

“You’re two millennia old at a minimum. Once we get into a four or five-digit age, is it really important?”

“Obviously.”

He sighed, “Fine. I’ll just assume you’re as old as Joriah, so say some six billion years old…”

Inion clapped her hands together, “Outsider!”

“What?” Edwin was taken aback, “Ho- uhh… what are you talking about? What’s an Outsider?”

A triumphant grin spread across her face, “I knew it. So where are you from? The Prime? Kitan? Wait, no. Six billion. That’s gotta be one of the Primes, right? Not even the Prime, unless they’ve been really busy since I last checked…”

Edwin stared at her blankly, “I think I follow even less now than I did before. What are the Primes? What’s Kitan?”

Inion’s face briefly flashed with a moment of panic, but relaxed after a moment of her eyes darting every way, searching and not finding something, “No warning… huh. So I’m definitely right in some regard. But you’re not lying either. So where are you from, then?”

Edwin set aside the rhoreed he was trying to weave into a mat, “I told you. I’m from…” he searched his memory for a moment before recalling his cover story, “I’m from Fierisal.”

She snorted, “Ha. No you’re not.”

“And what makes you so confident you know more about my history than I do?”

“Well, for one, you’re an awful liar. Particularly by fey standards, but also just anyone with any sort of truth-detecting Skill would see right through you. Two, you’re not from Fierisal. You’re human.”

“Wait, then what lives on Fierisal? I thought nobody knew what was there,” he wondered aloud, “How do you know what’s there?”

“See? That right there. I’m an immortal nature spirit quite literally from beyond the veil. I know a lotta stuff, and what’s on the far side of Joriah is one of those things.”

“Fine. So even if that’s the case, what’s this Outsider you think I am?”

“See, unless Vis’Daric managed to blow itself up and someone cleanly removed the pioneer of Alchemy from history- which I suppose isn’t impossible, but is pretty unlikely- anyone should know what an Outsider is.”

“Well, I don’t. I thought the creator of alchemy was a goddess? Salverria or something?”

“She’s said to be a goddess these days? Huh. Moving up in the world a bit, I see. Nah, she was like you, though a lot better at actual alchemy.”

“Hey!”

“Eh, it’s true. You know some stuff, and while I’m no expert, you seem to be doing some fairly impressive alchemy work without much experience. But you just don’t know enough basic, basic knowledge about the System-”

“I was confirming what I was told!”

“Half of which you’d know from experience if you hadn’t been here for probably a year at most, not to mention only eight Paths completed? Then your moderator interactions, all topped off with throwing out an age for Joriah in the billions? Yeah, you’re not from here. So, I ask again, where?”

Edwin opened then closed his mouth. What was he supposed to say? He didn’t feel any supernatural obligation to tell the truth to Inion- their Bargain was that he’d talk to her and keep her secrets, not that he couldn’t lie or keep some secrets of his own- but then again, he should be able to trust her.

Isn’t that what you thought about Rashin?

Wellllll….. that didn’t count. So far as he knew, Tara was keeping his secrets, and Inion had already sworn herself to secrecy. Besides, she’d already figured it out, and was operating under the assumption he was an Outsider. Him telling her new facts about that wouldn’t change what she may or may not tell other people or do herself.

“…Fine. So you got me. I’m from a world called Earth.”

“Earth?” Inion furrowed her brow, clearly trying to remember something, “I… can’t say I’ve ever heard of it. What was it like?”

“Well, I suppose the obvious distinction was that we didn’t have magic.” Edwin chuckled to himself, “Actually, I suppose that’s up for debate. We sort of did have magic, we just explored it and understood it so much we called it science, and electricity. By that logic, that made me something of a wizard student, learning to harness the power of the universe.”

He fell silent, letting the natural sounds of the clearing fill the void as he thought for the first time in a while about his home.

“There were only humans, back there. The next smartest thing we had were ravens, octopi, and monkeys, and there was nothing stronger than an everyday human with a weapon.” A rueful smile found its way to Edwin, “Well, once you got a big enough weapon. But there was no System, no individual people having the ability to play by different rules of creation than everyone else. Coming here… it’s eye opening, and there are just so many countless things that I want to try, to experiment with, to dissect with math and figure out how it all fits together and works. I’m a Physicist, darn it! The rules of the universe are… mine to behold.” what began as a triumphant declaration of fact fell into a quiet, contemplative voice as Edwin’s conviction trailed off alongside his volume.

Edwin lapsed into silence once more, and Inion moved to place a hand on his shoulder. Unlike what he expected, it felt… human. Still, he shrugged it off. He wasn’t inclined towards human contact at the moment, to say nothing of the dangers that came with fey. Eventually, he spoke up once more.

“When I was growing up, all I ever wanted to know was the answer to a simple question: why? Why is the sky blue? Why do things fall when you let go of them? Why is water clear, but rocks aren't? Why does the sun rise and set? Then, I started to learn the answers to those questions, but like any good question should, it only offered up more questions in response, and I started looking around and trying to figure out how things worked, what made everything the way it was.

“I lived in the middle of nowhere, no real companions my own age… just books. Lots, and lots of books. So I took my questions there. I learned loads, and everyone agreed. Took my first chemistry class when I was eleven, physics when I was twelve, biology when I was thirteen. Everyone kept telling me I was so smart, that I’d be the one to figure out the secrets to life, the universe, and everything.

“Then, I got to college- ah, a higher learning school of sorts. Where you could choose what you wanted to become really good at, that would teach you the specialized skills to fill a role in society. Well, I liked material sciences, I was good at math, and I liked Physics, so my choice was pretty clear. I thought it would be super easy, and, well… it was. I had no real issues with the classes, got good enough grades. I just…”

He sighed, “I’m sorry. This is bound to be super boring for you. You didn’t want to hear my life story, and I’m sure half of what I’m saying is just nonsense to you anyway.”

Inion cocked her head, hair dragged along to match, “No… No. Don’t worry about that. I’m learning more than you might think about your Earth. Your Polyglot skill is helping, and I think the System itself might be listening.”

Well, that was intimidating, but also possibly useful. Still, it wasn’t like either of them cared about his struggles, more about the sorts of things going on that were different on Earth.

“Ah, well it doesn’t matter that much. Long story short, I never really quite fell into the brilliant role which everyone seemed to expect me to, even with spending almost all my time studying and doing homework. I just kept learning more and more. What else was there to do? Then, one day, I woke up here, surrounded by all kinds of impossible things, and I’ve been trying to figure out what’s been going on ever since.

“I’ve seen some really crazy things, too. Things which defy all possibility and are both great and terrible. There’s wonder in Joriah, and I want to break open the heavens themselves, wrench the stars from the sky and turn them into forges, but I don’t know where to even start. I should be dead a dozen times over. And that’s why I came out here. I need to be stronger, to know more, to be able to do more. If I had a gun, Niall and his minions wouldn’t have stood a chance. Heck, if I’d had gunpowder, they wouldn’t have stood a chance. If I’d…” he sighed.

“I just… don’t know what I’m supposed to do.” He chuckled, “We had stories like this back home, someone being thrown into a world they didn’t recognize and having to make do with what they had. I always thought I’d be the absolute best at everything, that I’d be able to be the awesome, cool person who could solve every problem and be the best at absolutely everything. That I could revolutionize the entire world, with just my knowledge.

“Well… turns out it’s a lot harder than it looks. If I had my lab, things might be slightly different. But here? Where I have to make everything from scratch? I know the precise ratio for thermite but I have no way of making the stuff. Aluminum is bound to be insanely rare if it’s even a known quantity, and I’d be lucky to find someone who even knows what Magnesium is, though I probably wouldn’t even need it given how good my Firestarting is these days.”

Edwin buried his face in his hands, laughing ruefully, “Gah, what does it say about me, that it took me almost a month to reinvent cement, but I have the exact formula for thermite memorized?”

Carefully extracting his face, Edwin flopped onto his back, looking up into the cloudless sky, “I’m sorry.”

Inion finally broke her silence, “What for?”

“Just…” Edwin waved his arm, a hopeless gesture trying to communicate far too much with far too little, “All of this. I know that I’m the least interesting part about me, that I’m obnoxious and annoying and completely unlikable. I bet you’re already regretting that contract which said I had to provide conversation, aren’t you? I know I would be….”

“No, no. You’re the most interesting person I’ve talked to in centuries, Edwin. Lighten up a bit.”

“Well, apparently I’m better off being silent than speaking about myself.”

“Wait, no, that’s not what I’m saying.”

He chuckled, having heard that line so many times before, “There’s no need to spare my feelings, though I know you will anyway,” his gaze peered forward, picking out the incredible detail of all of his surroundings, almost cursing his inability to look into nothing these days. Seeing meant that he’d always see something, and be able to interpret it. He almost cursed his inability to keep his mouth shut, frustrated with his own sensitivity as anything.

Then, Edwin caught his emotions running rampant. Go, shoo. Back in your box.

Obediently, he corralled his emotions one by one, returning them to their pens. Sadness was the first to go, the easiest to deal with considering he already fought against it whenever he thought about Earth and all the people he left behind. That was followed with remorse, with jealousy, anger, and sadness once more. Those weren’t valuable. Happiness could try to stay out, but it always seemed to get lonely, with all of its friends locked away.

It would always try to spend time with its friends, Edwin liked to think.

That’s why it so rarely came out to visit, he felt.

Oh so very rarely.