The Way Ahead

Sleeping was wonderful. Not just the action, but the Skill, too. Even though his dreams had been tumultuous and vaguely nightmarish, as Watchful Rest ensured that even unconsciousness wasn’t enough to entirely disconnect from reality, by the time Edwin returned to full awareness, he just felt refreshed on a fundamental level.

His senses no longer warred against his mind, and the emotional load of the previous day felt so light, as though it had been weeks or months prior. He still generally dreaded seeing people after the previous day’s utter fiasco, but it wasn’t utterly unpalatable either.

He rolled over in his bed, making a vague attempt to snag his blanket from wherever it may have landed, only to fail. Cracking his eyes open eventually had him see the cloth on the far side of the room, and he fell back, his eyes closing once more to try and shut out the brightness of the room.

Edwin’s stomach rumbled, and he ignored it. He could skip food today and it wouldn’t hurt. Today, he just wanted to do nothing and recover. When was the last time he genuinely just had a day off, he wondered? Not counting days of recovery after a fight, anyway. He… genuinely didn’t know. Then again, this probably didn’t count as a non-recovery day anyway. He may not have been physically injured, but that didn’t mean he didn’t need healing.

Mental health was important, after all!

Now shoo, loneliness. Get back in your box.

He idly wondered if he could develop an emotional healing potion. What he wouldn’t give to dab some salve on his forehead or down an elixir and make the pain of last night vanish.

...That was just alcohol, wasn’t it?

Except not, because alcohol was just a poison which targeted the brain above the body, inhibiting its functions. At best it was a painkiller. Except it was a painkiller that worked by damaging the nerves of the area being treated… how did painkillers work? Wasn’t it by inhibiting nerve signals?

He should try some experiments with sinbalyne now that he’d all but tiered up. What sort of interactions would it have with his new Skills?

He was just distracting himself now, and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to. He’d check his notifications, that was the first step to being productive, right?

Level Up!

Skill Points 444 → 477

Adaptive Defense Level 11→24

Fey’s Caress Level 35→36

Memory Level 57→59

Numeracy Level 14→15

Outsider’s Almanac Level 127→128

Polyglot Level 59→60

Prototyping Level 12→13

Ritual Intuition Level 16→20

Skillful Assessment Level 19→29

Watchful Rest Level 9→10

Congratulations! For withstanding an overwhelming mental force, you have unlocked the Unbowed path!

Congratulations! By experiencing your mental defenses being obliterated yet not losing yourself utterly to a mental Skill, you have unlocked the Canny path!

Congratulations! For balancing your mind under the effects of multiple mental Skills simultaneously, you have unlocked the Steady Mind path!

Congratulations! For meeting in person The High Sovereign of the Guiding Winds Which Span the World, you have unlocked the Brushed by Power path!

Congratulations! For meeting the emperor of the Lirasian Empire, you have unlocked the Lirasian Citizen path!

Congratulations! For reaching level 60 in a literary Skill, you have unlocked the Scholar path!

Congratulations! For explaining concepts to The High Sovereign of the Guiding Winds Which Span the World, you have unlocked the Royal Advisor path!

Congratulations! For improving the opinion The High Sovereign of the Guiding Winds Which Span the World has of you, you have unlocked the Favored by Power path!

That was a lot of Paths for one day, especially pertaining to Xares. He decided he probably wasn’t taking most of the Paths he got from the emperor, although Royal Advisor did look tempting.

Ah, of course. Adaptive Defense was leveling based on resisting mental effects, wasn’t it? Well, it was nice to know he wouldn’t be completely helpless against social Skills anymore. Fey’s Caress was a bit confusing- he hadn’t used the Skill any recently? Hmm. Maybe whatever thing the emperor had used helped it somehow?

It was overall a pretty good spread for half a day of leveling, though given he had spent half of that time in direct and terrifying mortal peril, it wasn’t an experience he was eager to repeat any time soon.

Edwin moved to get out of bed and hesitated. He might be due a cart soon, but he doubted it would come today. Or even tomorrow. The governor would, if Edwin’s assessment of the situation was right, would probably drag everything out as much as possible just to be petty. He didn’t really need to do anything today, did he? Certainly nothing pressing, anyway.

He could stay in bed for now.

It was mid-afternoon when Edwin finally pulled himself off his mattress, stretching to try and inject some energy into his weary limbs. Stamina may ensure he was physically capable of the action, but he felt like he ought to get the Willpower attribute for the effort, nevermind that wasn’t how the System worked.

In any case, time to kill or not, Edwin had spent the last year doing something every day, and it was hard to let that momentum go, and forcing himself to interact with people in a limited fashion would probably be good for him. He had some things he wanted to find out, after all. Like where he wanted to go once he left Vinstead. Perhaps he should look into finding out where Vis’Daric was?

He chatted with the innkeeper while he ate his food- some thick stew and bread that tasted really good- and while the avior was clearly nervous about something, he didn’t mention anything about it. Instead, Edwin asked a few questions about where he could get some various supplies. Hopefully his annoyance at life didn’t come across too strongly, or like it was aimed at the innkeeper. Maybe that was where the nervousness originated?

As the flood season was about to start, food was cheap and plentiful, which was fine by Edwin’s reckoning. He still had loads of money from his talsanenris sale, and even in normal times, food tended to be costed in the order of ves per pound. It would be pretty simple for him to pick up even more food than what he already had on him, and with more variety too!

He subtly steered the conversation towards nearby places he might be able to go of interest, bringing up a few names that had caught themselves in his Memory and notes to investigate.

Vis’Daric, or the City of the Brass Sun as it was nicknamed, drifted around with no apparent pattern, and other than in specific situations, it was inaccessible from the ground. Not an issue for the avior-dominated Lirasians, of course, but Edwin would need to figure out some way up either on his own or by catching a ride with another flier.

That was rather annoying, though perhaps manageable at a high enough level. The problem was the innkeeper didn’t know where it was or where it frequently hung out. He said that it wasn’t common knowledge this far out, and even he only knew about it from travelers who told stories about it.

Apparently it gleamed like the sun, was larger than the Rhothos River itself, flew to the moon to make eclipses, could drop entire lakes from the sky, had a weapon which could obliterate mountains in a single blast- and may or may not have just been descending and squishing said mountain under the city itself- and more. Edwin figured at least half the stories had to be made up, but which half… he wasn’t sure. Any of them could be possible. Well, other than the one where they were secretly in league with tools the world over, who were secretly alive and biding their time to strike. That last one had to be fake, right?

Of more actionable information was the town of Panastalis. It was also right on the border of the Verdant, though several weeks to the northwest away. One of the few towns actually located inside the Verdant, they were apparently the Lirasian Empire’s primary source of medicines and potions on the continent. Of most interest to Edwin, though, was that it was in the next province over, Fellstrom, and thus not in the same territory as Governor… whatever her name was.

He figured it was probably a good place to check out, see if he couldn’t learn anything for his alchemy, and maybe pick up a few new ingredients fresh from the source. He got vague directions from the innkeeper, but was also told he didn’t know the route entirely and he should ask at the courier’s office, because they’d know better.

Edwin’s food was long finished at that point, and so he bowed out of the conversation and took his leave.

Without his cart, and accordingly not knowing how much space he would have for his stuff, Edwin was fairly limited in how much he could buy at the moment. He didn’t want to have to lug fifty pounds of flour to his room, for example, no matter how light it may have felt to him. It was just a matter of convenience.

It did leave him with some free time that he wasn’t anticipating, though. He wasn’t about to try and take the medicine class here in Vinstead, that was certain. He was sticking around no longer than would take him to get his cart and leave.

Edwin quietly cursed his luck that he did end up overpaying for his room, under the vague hope the cart didn’t take too many days to ‘arrive.’ Ah well. Given the alternative was staying in Vinstead, leaving was still better than spending any more time in a city ruled by someone who clearly hated him.

Heh. And for once I know that’s not just my brain playing tricks on me.

Maybe he could take the healing license class when he was in Panastalis? A more alchemy-focused medicine class would suit him better, anyway. He might even learn something from it!

So, that still left him with the question of what he would do with his free time. For now… he’d pay a visit to Inion. It didn’t seem very likely he’d get her into the city this time around, and he ought to let her know as much.

Leaving the city was as simple as always; while the brief screening that he was always subjected to upon entering meant there was usually a line to get into Vinstead, they apparently didn’t care who was leaving the city. Edwin idly kept his eye out for anyone he recognized, but other than a few random Almanac returns from people he’d walked by in the past, there wasn’t anyone he’d interacted with to any appreciable degree- they didn’t even have their names tagged.

Once he was out from the hustle and bustle of the city and its immediate surroundings, Edwin switched from practicing Flight to stretching his Longstrider, netting him a level in each and enabling him to rapidly close the distance to the Rhothos. This road was well-maintained and well-traveled, stone blocks tightly interlocking with one another and worn smooth from generations of use.

Edwin wasn’t following the road the entire way, though. No, if he went on far enough it transitioned into a direct bridge over the Rhothos, the massive river passing through enormous stone blocks in a path that was presumably inaccessible during the massive floods that defined half of the year in this part of the world. Instead, he was following it to a few hundred feet from the banks, then turning offroad and switching back to flight. Longstrider still wasn’t quite at the level of mastery where he could go on rough terrain with it… or anything that wasn’t basically flat, level ground, unless he wanted to crash into things constantly.

It took a few minutes for Edwin to arrive at their preestablished meeting point, and he flipped a ves into the water. Apparently, Inion was hyper-aware of any offerings made to her or the river in general, and so the copper coin was a great way to get her attention.

Sure enough, within a minute, the water coalesced into Inion’s… very familiar shape.

“Please tell me you at least know where you left your tunic.” Edwin sighed, “I don’t want to have to get you another one.”

“Who says you’d have to?” Inion teased him, and he shook his head.

“At least do that thing where you make your own clothes or whatever.”

“Hmmm… nah!”

“You know, you’ll need to get dressed to enter Vinstead,” he reminded her, hopeful that she wouldn’t ask…

“Ooh! Did you figure out how to get me in, then?” Of course she’d ask. Fey practically invented misleading statements.

“…No,” he admitted, and responded to her beaming smile with a glare, “That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t put clothes on!”

She didn’t acknowledge his admonishment, and Edwin sighed, “Whatever. I do hope you kept your tunic, though.”

“So? What happened? Tell me all the details.”

“Why would I have anything that would require details?”

“You have that look on your face. Something fuuun happened, didn’t it? Ooh! Did you find a girl last night?” she teased. Honestly, sometimes Edwin wasn’t sure how much of her incomprehensibility came from being a fey and which parts she intentionally played up to annoy him.

Edwin responded with a baleful glance and rolled his eyes, “Ha. I would have taken that in a heartbeat instead of what actually happened….”

….

Inion let out a low whistle as he finally completed his story, “Wow. That’s quite the eventful night.”

“Tell me about it,” Edwin muttered, “I thought I was dead at least three times over.”

“I know! I wish I could have seen it!”

“Wait… see it?”

“You mortals are so adorable when you do your little spats. I mean, I would have killed miss sassy-beak if she had lain so much as a feather on you-”

No surprise there.

“But you standing up to her? Oh, so great! I… don’t regret missing out on seeing little Liras. He sounds like quite the force to reckon with. Maybe you’ll get there someday, eh?” she elbowed Edwin in the side, and he shifted to avoid it.

“Please. He’s got at least two millennia of experience on me and an entire empire of resources.”

“You have me!”

“…I don’t think the power of friendship is going to help out here.”

“No, no! I meant the-”

“Yeah, yeah. I was just messing with you. I know you mean the muse token.” He paused to allow Inion to nod in agreement before continuing, “I still don’t think that’ll make enough of a difference, unless it’s way more powerful than you told me.”

“You never know,” Inion pushed, trying to be mysterious, “Maybe it is that strong.”

“Is it?” he leveled.

“Well, no, but…” Inion fell silent at Edwin’s skeptical glance, “Fine. You’re hopeless and can never improve. Is that better?”

“Much,” he teased, dodging a kick. He attempted to grab her foot, but Inion let the limb turn to water momentarily, letting it slip through his grasping fingers and sticking her tongue out at him as she did so.

After that, the conversation quieted down and the two of them spent a bit more time together, reclining next to the bank of the river and chatting. Eventually, Edwin noted how low in the sky the sun had gotten and figured he should get back into the city before sundown.