The Way Ahead

“How was the river?” Edwin asked, more out of politeness than anything. He already knew basically what she’d say, after all, and...

“Oh, it was really cool! Nobody was in it, though the fish were really fun! There’s this great waterfall a little ways back there, we should go and visit it! I’m sure you’d love it…”

There it was. Edwin nodded idly in agreement as they slipped through the streets of Sheraith, returning to the tower that was their current residence.

“You know, you really could have just come with us when we entered,” Edwin pointed out. “You could have just hidden in a barrel of water inside the carriage.”

“Maybe,” she sheerfully agreed.

He sighed, “You’re impossible.”

“Only sometimes! Besides, this way worked out just fine, you know?”

“I mean, it did, but we had no way of knowing that. Lefi said that most cities aren’t built right next to rivers for that very reason- it’s hard to keep some aquatic monster from just slipping into civilization, and those few that do usually have warding like you wouldn’t believe turned towards that. I’m not actually sure why they don’t, actually. I’ll have to ask Rillah when we get back, she’s pretty connected to the magical circles of the city.”

“Ah, does that really matter?” she dismissed, “I made it in, and what else could you learn?”

“See, there’s always something to learn, and you never know if it’s worthwhile until after you learn it. So, learning everything you possibly can is never a waste of time. Who knows, maybe this is some really pivotal piece of information that will totally define my stay here.

“Maybe some massive river monster will attack and everyone wonders how it could have possibly gotten in, but only I’ll know the secret and I feel guilty that I didn’t tell anyone because I could have prevented the tragedy but I still somehow ended up really important in the defeat of the monster despite the city guard being constantly ready for that sort of thing and the local Enforcer likely able to come at a moment’s notice.

“Actually, should I try to meet the local Enforcer, do you think? Tara was great but I don’t know if that will hold true for other Enforcers. But at the same time they’re probably really powerful and probably will become relevant at some point.

“I definitely already jinxed my stay by thinking that six smoke grenades would be plenty, I should make more, shouldn’t I? Hm. I need to see about processing some more lybird feathers, but I really need to also make some better weapons so Lefi might see how potent my creations can really be. But then…”

“Is this what it’s like to live in your brain?” Inion asked.

“I mean… probably?” Edwin hazarded, mentally panicking about what he could have said to provoke that kind of reaction from her. Did he say something wrong? He mentally tried to recall what he had said…

“It’s interesting is all.”

Yep, he had definitely said something bad. It couldn’t have been about his training, could it? She talked about that sometimes herself. Was it about meeting the local Enforcer? Or was it just that he was talking too long? It was probably just talking too long, wasn’t it? Dang it, he thought he’d dealt with that particular problem, but apparently not… and why was he babbling so much in his own mind again? He was better than this most of the time.

Okay, Edwin. Focus. Why can’t you think about something for more than two seconds in a row all of a sudden? Well, actually it’s bound to be more than two seconds. I had some pretty impressive coherent thoughts in there.

Gah!

“-Talking but are thinking about things now?”

“Um, maybe?”

She shook her head, “What am I going to do with you?”

“You’ve done lots,” he retorted, “But I presume whatever is next will be painful.”

“Nah,” she waved him off, “I’m going to have you introduce me to this Rillah.”

“I thought you said this wouldn’t be painful,” Edwin playfully groaned as he ducked around a young boy- a Junior Apprentice Carpenter- and double-checked to make sure the apparatite securing his purse was still in place (it was).

“Hey! It’s good for you. Humans are social creatures.”

“Yeah, sure. We also drink water but nobody seems surprised that we can drown.”

“Ooh, fey! Never met any of your kind before, but I always heard stories from dad.”

“Well, I’ll try not to disappoint. Was he of the Old ways?”

“Nah, he was just from the forest, but he wasn’t very reverent. Mainly complained about you being…”

Edwin held back a sigh. Inion was getting along great with someone else, and he got to watch Rillah getting along fantastically with someone else as well. He never held any delusions about…

Shut it, me.

He seemed to be dipping into his self-destructive social side quite a bit lately, and he couldn’t help but wonder why. Was it just the increased exposure to other people, perhaps? He was being reminded of all the reasons his brain shoved in his face as to why nobody could like him?

He knew that his worries had to be fabricated at least on some level, but… Which ones, and by how much? Over assuming his familiarity and relationship with someone was something he wanted to avoid at all costs, and he paid for that decision a lot, in all honesty. Someone more open and upfront would definitely have more friends than him.

But he also found meeting and trying to befriend people exhausting, and for every friend that he might find by being super earnest and up-front, there might be a hundred who really disliked him for it. And he just didn’t have the energy to try that many times. He’d sooner approach each person with caution and avoid embarrassing himself.

It did mean that he would definitely be outshined by his more outgoing and personable companions, though. Especially if he was going to stick around for a while with Lefi and/or Rillah, they were very energetic personas, and… yeah.

Not getting into that.

Well, at least Inion and Rillah seemed to be getting along well. What was Lefi up to, he wondered?

Edwin’s stick scarcely managed to block the punch, sweeping the hand off to the side with a solid crunch. Under normal circumstances, Edwin would be worried about the sound. But when fighting Lefi, not only did he have to go all-out, Edwin couldn’t even hurt the guy- at least with just his stick- if he tried.

Genuinely. Back when they were first starting off, Lefi had gotten him to whack him in the face as hard as Edwin could muster. He barely even noticed it. He clearly had Health in the triple digits, as well as possibly Constitution, an attribute which he claimed flatly reduced damage and harm taken from all sources.

All that to say, if there was a crack when they were fighting, it was more likely that Edwin’s stick was in need of repair than any part of Lefi. Crunches obeyed the same rule, and so he managed to fight past the sympathetic wince of pain and tried to follow up the sudden opening it provided.

Unsurprisingly, it didn’t work. Lefi’s own stick came around and struck Edwin’s with a clatter. To keep himself from dropping his weapon, Edwin grabbed onto the end with his second hand, reinforcing his grip.

As soon as it was safe to do so, Edwin released his auxiliary grip and snaked it into his belt pouch, withdrawing a small sphere of ‘potion.’ Which potion? Didn’t really matter. All that mattered was that if he could hit Lefi with it, he won.

Another feinting probe towards Lefi’s face with his stick got the weapon smacked out of his hand for its trouble. That was fine, though. It just meant his right hand was available for throwing his potion as hard as he was really capable of.

The vial sailed through the air directly on-target, but Edwin didn’t let himself hope, having been in almost that exact same situation previously… and there it was. Lefi’s own stick collided with the crystal ball and instead of breaking the fragile object, sent it flying off to the side. As soon as it struck the ground it shattered into blue light.

Okay, so one of Lefi’s Skills let him reinforce objects he hit, maybe? It would be useful if he trained a lot of people, come to think of it. He didn’t have time to think about it too much, though. He grabbed his next prepared weapon and threw it, dismissing its apparatite container as he did so and allowing the contained water to spread out into a sizable splash. No way to deflect that, now was there?

…And Lefi just dodged it.

He should have seen that coming, but it was still amazing to think that the guy could dodge a splatter of water and two marbles at the same time.

Hmm…

Edwin pulled out his latest iteration of his marble slick. Hundreds of apparatite spheres, many of them with multiple nested layers, others with caltrops either metal or apparatite in case they were shattered all packed tightly into an expanded and very fragile apparatite box.

He threw the package- a first for their fights, normally they fought on much less even ground than the stone-floored courtyard they were currently on- and it shattered, scattering the marbles in every direction.

Lefi grinned, “Not a bad move there, Edwin! But not-” his feet stepped effortlessly through the crowds of marbles, scarcely even seeming to notice their presence, “good enough!”

Edwin had retreated a short way, using Flight to avoid the hazardous terrain, but the speed at which Lefi was charging at him was still more than he could outpace. He tried to rise further into the air, but he wasn’t fast enough to prevent the adventurer from grabbing his ankle and slamming him bodily into the ground.

The Combative Mentor fell back into a relaxed stance, "You, my friend, need a lesson."

Edwin sighed as he rose to his feet once more, "Okay Lefi, what is it this time?"

"It's probably best that I provide a demonstration."

He held back a wince. 'Demonstrations' were always painful from his experience, so he wasn't likely to enjoy this, "Alright, hit me."

Lefi took the invitation for what it was, and brought his stick whipping around, making Edwin flinch. The adventurer didn't actually strike his face, much to his relief, but held the tip of the wooden rod inches away from Edwin's nose.

"When you find yourself fighting someone, what is the most important thing to keep in mind?” he asked.

“Umm… how to win?” Edwin tried, “Or are you talking about something more specific?”

“Wrong!” Lefi rapped the top of Edwin’s head in admonition, “Try again.”

Edwin rubbed his skull, “Fine. Is it… what is your opponent going to do next?”

“Closer, but no!” Lefi rapped once again, but Adaptive Defense was already doing its job fighting against both blunt trauma and pain.

“Okay, then I don’t know. Maybe… what you should be doing next?”

“Wrong!”

“Look, I’m clearly not going to be getting it. What are you looking for?”

“The first thing you need to remember in every fight is ‘how do I survive?’”

“Well I mean obviously, I could have told you that,” Edwin flatly replied.

“Oh?” Lefi was holding back a chuckle, “Then why didn’t you?”

“I don’t know… it was too obvious?”

“Mhm. I do not believe so! I see in you the same problem I’ve seen countless times before. You cannot win every fight. Many times, it’s all but impossible. Yet you approach every spar with me the exact same way, trying to find a way to land a blow on me instead of avoiding them from me.”

“Wait, I was supposed to just… run away? That’s not how spars are supposed to work. It’s a way that I can improve how I fight while being at minimal risk.”

“They’re training. Remember what I said? Fight me like you would if I were trying to kill you.”

“Yeah, but…” Edwin trailed off, “I got nothing. So… what, I guess?”

“Break the habit,” Lefi punctuated the point with another rap, “You’re at your best when you know exactly what you’re facing and when doing so on your terms. You have powerful friends, use us. The better leveling from danger is not worth your life.”

He sighed, “So… what, then? I just run away?”

“Yes. Run hard, run fast. You have Longstrider, Stamina, Flight, and you’re a human. Throw one of your smoke bombs down and run.”

“I’ve done that before!” Edwin protested, “And it turned out to be against a turkey.”

A grin flitted across Lefi’s face, “Lybird, not a chicken. But would you rather run away from a fight you could have won, or stuck around if it was so dangerous? There is a time and place to stand and fight, but it’s not your first resort. Only do it if you can’t run, don’t see a giant spider and think how you’ll take it. Get out of there, get information, and then and only then do you try to win. Get friends, make potions. Do what you have to, you don’t just charge in and improvise.

“You’re pretty good at improvisation, I’ll give you that. I’ve seen you pull out some frankly ludicrous wins, but those aren’t a strategy. They’re luck. But you? You see something and you can’t not do it. If it’s a potion, a fight, or even just a question about Skills. You need to know the answer, you need to figure out the solution. You can never not get an answer, and that will kill you one day if you don’t control it.”

“But… what? Am I supposed to just not pursue the answer to questions?”

“Yes.”

“So I see a potential potion and I don’t make it? I learn about a Skill and don’t try to figure out its limits?”

“Yes.”

“That’s not living! How do you people manage just going through life so… uncurious? Don’t you feel the need to know, the need to learn more and more?”

“Do you?”

“Of course! Asking questions and learning is fundamentally what it is to be human. You can’t just… not know something, or at least not try to learn it.”

“Yet you’re able to control yourself with your experiments, are you not? You perform the same measurement multiple times, check things you already should know intuitively, all the time.”

“I… try. I have to try,” he admitted, “You have no idea how hard it is for me to make sure I keep going with proper experimental procedure, and even then I don’t make it all the time. There’s just so much cool stuff, I want to test it all!”

“And you can. You likely will, if you don’t kill yourself chasing some battle you didn’t need to be in.”

“Hold on,” he recalled, “Weren’t you talking about how I needed to learn how to win fights back when you and Inion were scheming about how best to tor-train me? Like how I couldn’t just rely on people to do the job for me?”

“That hasn’t changed, not truly. The primary difference is what you are prepared for.”

“Oh, so I’m not ready to actually fight people then?” he accused.

“Oh, you are. But that is not my intention- preparation is where you shine, is it not? I’ve seen you master a Skill with just a few days of preparation and the right herbs by which you could create a potion. You are an alchemist, as you are so fond of saying. Alchemists are not warriors, and neither are you.”

“Yeah, I know. That’s why you have me using these water fake-potion things, so we pretend that I have the perfect counter for whatever it is that I’m fighting. Sure, I might need to run in an initial fight, but I’ll need to come back at some point unless I rely on other people entirely. Which you said I shouldn’t do.”

“You should not. And yet you still face me head-on, do you not?”

“I mean, sure. But I also don’t want to use up all my smoke bombs in training. I’ll make a few more at some point but Refining that much material is still a pain,” a thought struck him, “Hm. I wonder if I can automate the process somehow? Would… no, it requires manual input. But maybe… no. Anyway, sorry. Where were we?”

“You must first learn how it is that you can survive! I shall alter your training from fighting to survival. The latter is more important for you.”

“But I got a lot of that from Inion,” he pointed out, “You said that alone wouldn’t be sufficient.”

“Survival is about more than not being hit, my friend. It is about hitting back as well, with everything you have at your disposal. The most important thing is where your instincts lie. And right now, they do not lie with survival.”

“Hey, I want to survive.” Edwin complained, “It’s literally my primary goal.”

Lefi held up a hand and counted off fingers, “The Catabolic Alchemist and his minions.”

“Were thanks to your skill influencing my thoughts.”

“Charging at a wild beast and setting yourself on fire to defeat it.”

Edwin frowned, “How did you know about that? Have you been talking to Inion again?”

“Turning your own kiln into a bomb and hoping that a just-obtained Health attribute would be sufficient to help you survive.”

“In my defense, the alternative was certain death.”

“Wholly disregarding the threat that another presented to you because you did not feel as though you were in any particular danger.”

“Okay, two things with that- one, my instincts are usually pretty good. Two, yes that was a mistake and I can do better than that.”

“Charging at a Titan Spider mostly unarmed and unarmored.”

“Okay, but I did learn my lesson from that one and I won anyway.”

“Yet here you are, and have you yet run away from a single fight?”

“I mean, at least one if you count the lybird.”

“Very well, we can count the lybird. What other accomplishments in this regard?”

“I mean…” he hesitated, then sighed.

“Okay, fine. I see your point.” Edwin acquiesced, “I’ll do it.”

“Oh?” Lefi was clearly skeptical, “Just like that?”

“Just like that,” he agreed with a sigh. “Obviously I’ll probably fail a lot, but it’ll be my goal. You’re the combat expert here, and I know that I should definitely try to listen to you. I mean, it’s not what I want to do, but if you think it’s a good idea… Run from any fight I’m not prepared for if I have any chance, because I can’t protect myself. I mean, now that I know you want me to literally run away from training, I will happily oblige.”

Lefi assessed Edwin with a skeptical eye, then gave a curt nod, “Excellent. Now, back to our sparring. Begin in three, two, one… go!”

As Lefi lunged for the attack, Edwin activated Longstrider. In the blink of an eye, Lefi’s stick passed through where Edwin had been mere moments before, but Edwin was already ten feet away and running.