The Way Ahead

Night had fallen by the time Inion finally returned to their camp. Yathal had given up on trying to communicate with Bob and was instead sitting by the fire, stroking Kynigos’ head as he stared into the flames. Bob was brooding off near the treeline, Lefi was trying to give himself another haircut, and Rillah played a soft, quiet lullaby on her flute. Edwin, for his part, was messing around with some of his newfound glut of lead, a few possibilities for it dancing around his mind, but it would take extensive testing before they were actually realized.

As usual, Kynigos was the first to note the approach of anyone near their camp, letting out a quick yap to get their attention, a bark just as much a greeting to Inion as a heads-up that she was back.

Most of them made no move to welcome her back, because why would they? Of course, there was one person around who didn’t know otherwise...

“Stop right in your tracks, foul creature!” Oh, did nobody explain to Bob that they had another member of your group? Oops. Well, someone should probably explain the situation before he accidentally hurt himself or Inion with the sword he was waving around.

“Oooh! Now who might you be?” Inion, of course, was both instantly enamored with Bob and wholly unfazed by the semi-animated sword he tried to stab her with. She simply moved and transformed into water to avoid his strikes while she closed the distance.

“I am a Bob, and you will not harm these people while I draw breath. Stay where you are, and I won’t show you how I got that name.”

“Oh, you’re a Bob. I didn’t know. How fascinating. Well, now that I know, I will be sure to keep that in mind. Now, if you’ll excuse me, one of the humans in that group is mine.”

“Never! You will not claim their lives while I live, and should you succeed, I will ensure your final moments are filled with oceans of your own blood and-”

“Bob! It’s alright, she’s with us.” Edwin spoke up, just trying to get him to shut up already.

“What? This creature is… with you?”

He shrugged, “Yeah. She’s… well, not harmless, but definitely on our side.”

Bob eyed her suspiciously, “You might have them fooled, but not I. I can see into your black and twisted heart, I will be waiting for you to slip up even momentarily and then I will end you. I do not know what sorcery you have worked upon them to make them believe you, but know that I will never fall victim to it. I will sit here in silence until the weight of your crimes drives you to confess.”

“That is when I drove my blade straight through his heart, killing him in an instant for daring to defy me,” Bob boasted. He’d been talking nonstop for the past half hour or more, telling Inion all about his ‘dark and troubled past.’

“Oh, you’re delightful.”

“Delight implies that I have so much as a single ray of sunshine within my personality I have not smothered myself. You will find no such impurities within me,” Bob sneered.

“Of course not,” Inion reassured the boy, “You’re positively terrifying. I simply find terrifying and pitch-black hearts to be delightful.”

“It’s good that you can find humor and delight in such bleak situations. It is far more than I am capable of, because who would ever enjoy or appreciate me? No such ephemeral, fleeting emotions such as joy are worth pursuing.”

“Oh is that right?”“Yes. The only thing truly worth pursuing is the death of those corrupt and inept enough to rot this entire society from the top down. They are far too strong to be within my reach, but one day I will topple this entire awful system, starting from the very top.”

“Right! That is quite enough, young man!” Lefi’s hand suddenly snaked out and grabbed Bob by his collar, lifting the brooding outlaw wholly into the air, “that sort of plotting is something I will not stand for.”

“Put me down right now you cretin!” he demanded, flailing.

“Hey, put him down!” Yathal added.

“Aww, don’t take him away!”

“Blight, finally.” Edwin sighed in relief, “I’ve been waiting far too long for someone to shut him up.”

“Oh come on, it wasn’t that bad.”

“Were you listening to the same thing I was? I swear, he must have used the words ‘blood,’ ‘darkness,’ and ‘shadow,’ more than not in all of that.”

“Oh come on, it wasn’t that bad.”

“Felt like it,” he muttered. Rillah said something else, but he waved her off gently so he could properly enjoy Lefi giving Bob a proper talking-to.

“Beyond your plan, which is not only suicidal but absolutely certain to bring the wrath of much of the Empire down upon us should you ever murder a single state official, it truly is a marvel that you have survived this long with the absolutely miserable competency you have involving your System! You barely have, what, two Skills above level thirty?”

“Tiers give power, and that’s what I need.”

“No, you daft fool. Tiers are useful, but if you don’t have a good base to build on, what good will it do you? That you can pull your sword back to your hand- do not think I failed to notice, young man, I will not be interrupted- may be quite the party trick, I am certain, but if you cannot pierce through the hide of a beast, what good will it do you? None whatsoever. You are in dire need of proper education.”

“As though you would know what I need! None have bathed in the blood of their enemies so much as I, living within the darkness requires I forever grow and tier up!”

“Who wants to break it to him?” Edwin muttered. Rillah bit back a giggle.

“I just want to see how long it takes him to figure it out,” she whispered back.

“I don’t think he’s going to get it, though.”

“That just makes it better.”

“Should you continue on like this, you are almost certainly headed unto your death, you realize?”

“Give me the embrace of death! It is better than this living death the governors force down our throats day in and day out. Even if I die in my pursuit, all I want is to kick whatever bastard killed my parents to that side first!”

Lefi just loudly sighed in response, “Clearly, you are in serious need of proper education and training. Your hopes to kill the Empire are flatly not going to happen by any metric, but we may entertain your other desires at least in theory.”

“If you try to get between my parent’s amulet and me you will die!”

“I think you will find there are much more pressing reasons to postpone that, not that I couldn’t aid you in your endeavors.”

Edwin frowned in thought, “Wait, does that mean Bob’s going to be traveling with us?”

“It could, but more likely… Lefi!”

“Yes, Snowbird?”

“We need to chat!”

“Certainly,” Lefi went to put Bob down, then hesitated and looked at his flailing figure, kept off the ground by what Edwin suspected was a dedicated Skill, given how Lefi really shouldn’t have had the proper leverage to hold someone his own size off the ground that easily.

“Inion, could you…” Edwin stepped in before Lefi could think things through himself and vaguely gestured at the struggling adventurer, “Keep him busy for a few minutes while we talk?”

“Oh, my pleasure!” She swooped in, grabbing him out of Lefi’s grasp, “Now aren’t you just the greatest?”

“Let me go, you filthy bird-clawed harpy! I will end your line in blood and fire! I am the shadow of vengeance and you will release me!”

“Awww, so adorable! Come on, let’s get you just a bit more comfortable…” she flew off to the far corner of the camp, a flood of water spilling out from her and engulfing the pair in a bubble. Yathal scampered over to try and get a peek in. He was repelled by the bubble as though it were solid, but that didn’t stop him from shading his eyes in an attempt to look in on the distortion, and Edwin idly hoped he didn’t see anything scarring.

Lefi brushed off his hands and walked over to where Rillah and Edwin were sitting.

“So what are we thinking?” Edwin tried to insert himself into the discussion by starting it up first. He didn’t really feel qualified to have a meaningful discussion about stuff that really didn’t involve him, but he wanted to feel included.

“I know not. Bob-” Edwin noted with a bit of satisfaction that Lefi had apparently pulled a similar Polyglot trick as him- “is unlikely to come along with us to the heart of Rhothos, and by Xares does that boy need help.”

“Caught the mentor bug again?” Rillah asked.

“If you wish to describe me improving the odds of survival for my charges tenfold as ‘the mentor bug’ then yes.”

“Hey, no need to be so prickly.”

“Apologies,” Lefi sighed, “It has been a long day.”

Rillah glanced off to the side guiltily.

“Regardless, it is in our best interest to ensure that he does not overly harm anyone else in his grand quest, lest it strike back at us once more.”

“We don’t want a repeat of Thorishell, yeah.”

“Indeed.”

“Thorishell?”

Rillah waved him off, “Ask me later. So you’re gonna take him on, eh?”

“I do wish to, but unfortunately I still need to ensure my current charges arrive to work with Essith, and that she understands their situation, before I can travel freely once more. I cannot leave them now, and that supersedes my desires to aid Bob. He will not stand for such a detour either, and I cannot feasibly shadow him once he were to leave.”

“What about,” Rillah offered, “We split up? You can take Bob with you and try to track down his medallion, and I can keep taking Yathal and Kynigos to Valenasis and Corith. Just give me a stone for when she asks, and I’ll take care of everything.”

“Wait,” Edwin asked, “I know I should have probably asked this a long time ago, but why exactly are we going back to somewhere so close to his home? What was all this for then?”

“He needed to experience grander horizons! Meet influential new personalities, learn of the wonders of the world!”

“Meet me while I was locked away in my tower.”

“That as well! Would you not say that traveling to new locales and seeing fantastic experiences is worthwhile for its own sake?”

“I mean… maybe? But I still don’t track.”

Rillah filled in what Edwin was missing, “Lefi’s first step, essentially every time he meets a new person to mentor, is to take them on a massive journey, either to nowhere or in a big circle, to get them used to traveling and letting him show off a bit. Constantly moving lets him adjust what they might need, be it a lot of people, a specific person, or just opening their mind to all of everything that’s out there. He’s really got a scheme going.”

“This happens a lot?”

“He took it a bit down when I was a girl, but yeah. For a few weeks or a few months, sometimes even a year or two, until they’re ready to go out on their own and generally be fine. I think I was with you the longest, but that was more just… enjoyment.”

Lefi confirmed with a nod, “You traveled with me for quite some time after my mentorship drew to a close.”

“And Yathal is ready? He’s not even nine.”

“His traveling companion is among the most responsible and capable individuals I have met in quite some time. Kynigos will do an admirable job attending to his boy while another I know teaches him more of a Skillset suitable for them.”

“The guard thing?”

“Indeed. I have worked with Essith a few times now, she is quite willing to train Adventurers to join her escort company. However, had she met Yathal before his current state it would not have gone particularly well. He was far too ingoing and scared of his own existence to truly grasp the unique situation he is in.”

“So now he’s returning to his home to see…”

“That it is not truly his home anymore. If I have done my job adequately, it should not feel hostile so much as limiting. That what he had then was existence, but incomplete and insufficient.”

“That sounds harsh.”

“So too are those who long for a home they can never have, memories that were never true, and die as a result. I lost far too many to their pinings and doomed ambitions to ‘return.’ I will not allow it anymore.”

Right. The guy was a hundred or older, he must have been through this a lot, “Just how many people have you mentored?”

“Many,” he sighed, a tiny Skill flaring up at the base of his skull before fading once again, “Too many lost, but many saved.”

Edwin shifted awkwardly, but was saved by Rillah, “So it’s a plan then? Tomorrow, you head off with Bob and I keep going with Yathal and Kynigos?”

“Will he like that?”

“Kynigos will keep him in line. He’ll be sad, but there’s not too much we can do about that.”

“And what about me?”

Rillah looked slightly taken aback, “Aren’t you going to keep heading to Rhothos with me?”

“I mean… if I’m welcome?”

“Of course you are! I told you that much. Besides, your cart is super useful and even if that was all you had to offer it’s still so nice to not have to worry about carrying the heavier stuff.”

Well, at least I can be useful, a part of Edwin whispered, If only what I brought to the table was more than just a wagon and a horse.

Shut up, me. She said ‘even if I didn’t bring anything else’ clearly there’s something else that she likes or she wouldn’t have phrased it that way.

Unless she’s just trying to be nice and not hurt my feelings. It’s not like there are any actual friends who’d want to keep me around.

Shut up, me. I’m starting to sound like Bob.

Now that was enough of a thought to shock him out of his spiral, “Sorry, what was that? I think I zoned out for a second.”

“So are you going to come with me? I mean, you don’t have to if you don’t wanna, I just wanted to offer it…”

“No, no. I mean yes, yes? Anyway, I’d lo… I’d really enjoy continuing on with you? Sorry Lefi, I don’t mean to leave you abandoned like that.”

“Worry not! It is not you who is abandoning me, it is I abandoning you!”

That was loud enough for Yathal to hear, who looked over at them with a wide-eyed expression.

“That was… ill advised of me to say, was it not?”

Rillah had her head in her hands, and while her words were muffled beyond comprehension, the meaning was utterly clear, “Yes. That was a very, very bad idea.”

“So are you not coming with me?” Edwin raised an eyebrow.

“What? Of course I’ll come with you, it’s just…” Inion looked longingly in the direction Lefi and Bob were wandering.

“What? You finally found someone who’s even more of a trainwreck than I am and now you’re wondering how badly you really want to stick with me?”

“What? No, no. No, no no. No.”

Edwin raised an eyebrow, “I thought that fey were supposed to be good at lying.”

“Well by my Skills she’s being fully truthful,” Rillah pitched in. “Not sure if that helps or not though.”

“Neither am I. So what, you miss Lefi already or something?”

“He was just so fun. Like if you’d poke him he’d squeak, but angrily! He was such great fun, and I wasn’t done with him yet.”

“How very reassuring,” he flatly replied. “Well, w-have fun.”

He caught himself nearly waiting on her, but that… actually, he wasn’t sure why he felt like saying ‘we’re ready when you are’ tripped his social alerts, but… maybe there was something? Or he was overthinking things again. Whatever.

He hopped up on the wagon, and with a quick snap of the reins, set Bill on his way. It was going to be a lot quieter without Lefi around, he knew, but that might not even be such a bad thing. This would be fun, he felt.

Yathal looked sad, of course, but he wasn’t moping either. Instead, once Lefi and Rillah had finished explaining to him their full plan, he was very keen on learning how to be a Proper Fighter, just like Bob! He hadn’t realized just how cool fighters could be without being guards, after all. He just thought that adventurer Fighters were ‘weird like you and Rillah and Edwin.’

“He’s not wrong,” Inion had teased when she heard about the incident, “Lefi acts more like he’s in a comedy than an actual fight, Rillah sings at people to make them go away, and your primary weapon is just shoving people around. Not, you know, the actual weapons you spend so much time making.”

“Hey, in my defense, it was going to be complete overkill to use a fireball on that deer. And it would have ruined the taste. Throwing it around like a rag doll may have been a bit much, yes, but it also worked!”

“Oh, of course it did. It was just also really weird,” she cheerfully agreed.

Edwin couldn’t really argue with that.

Lefi’s presence, and his Exceptionalism Aura or whatever it was that the Skill was called, had for a very long time accelerated Edwin’s skill growth to an utterly insane degree. He hadn’t properly appreciated how much, he felt, until Rillah explained she’d had more Skill level-ups in the time she spent with Lefi than the two years since she’d seen him before then. Of course, for whatever reason his Skill didn’t apply to Powerful Flight, the one she was actually trying to level quickly, but Edwin couldn’t get anyone to explain why that was the case.

Rillah insisted that it wasn’t her secret to tell, and that Lefi might tell him one day, or he might figure it out himself. Inion said much the same thing, but placed a much greater emphasis at how amusing his random speculation was. There was clearly something going on about the aura- if it even was one- but heck if Edwin knew.

Whatever. Lefi was gone now, so it didn’t matter. What did matter, on the other hand, was re-exploring all of his new Skills. Normally, understanding and mastery of a Skill was what managed to level it up, and then it grew in scope a bit more and then figuring out its new capabilities continued to level it… but Lefi’s presence had accelerated his leveling so much that for the vast majority of his Skills he didn’t know their limits.

Sapper’s Apparatus was the most obvious example. Its level bonus was nebulous enough that it may well have picked up entirely different modes in the last… forty-odd levels. Considering how much Edwin used it and how much it defined his experimental procedure, he was decidedly interested in exploring what it could do now that it was nearing level seventy. That was actually absurd. The average person only raised the Skills they wanted to evolve to an average of thirty- though Adventurers and plenty of others went to level sixty instead- and here he was, with a Skill he barely understood the limits to, at level sixty-nine.

“Man, Lefi’s Skill-boosting thing is insane.”

“Oh, if only you knew.”

“Yeah. If only. Wouldn’t that be nice.”

“It would!”

“Just be glad you still have my token.”

“Yes, yes. Your little token, which helps him out so much but nobody else.”

“I don’t think anyone asked you, you little blightleaf….”

Edwin sighed. At least, whatever they were really mad about seemed to have been worked out of their systems for the time being, and now it was just their standard bickering. They could stand one another, they just...

Inion in particular took every chance she got to snipe at Rillah’s statements, which was fine, Edwin supposed. They could sort out their own problems, hopefully before too long once Inion finally figured out that Rillah wasn’t mind-controlling him or anything.

In any case… Edwin prompted himself, Right. Apparatus.

So, now he was figuring out what he could do with Apparatite.

The first thing he noticed was that all of his previous measurements were invalid, at least if he wanted them to be. His previously observed properties still seemed to more or less be its ‘default’ state of being, but Edwin could now change its density somewhat. According to Numeracy, he could roughly halve or double its density for a corresponding change in strength, but no change in refractive index. It did change color, however. Normal Apparatite was tinted very slightly the same shade of blue as Edwin’s System notification, but when he either increased or decreased density, the color changed accordingly.

That made him wonder if he could change its color any, which after an hour of experimentation (and a lot more marbles in his pouch) he could definitively answer with ‘no.’

...He then proved himself wrong not ten minutes later when he tried to make a flexible rod, and it came out greenish.

It wasn’t that flexible, all told. It was a millimeter thick and about fifty centimeters long, but it was wobbly and nowhere near as rigid as usual. It still shattered into colored light- green, this time- the moment he tried to bend it any further, though.

Once he realized that, a whole new world opened up. Color corresponded with physical attributes? Talk about a two-for-one deal.

With that new bit of information in mind, his attempts to mess with his apparatite’s properties were significantly easier.

None of them were easy, and including even a little bit of non-standard color doubled or more how long his conjuration took, but by keeping his testing constrained to fairly small marbles, he could still run a new trial every five minutes or less. It was definitely better than most of his experiments back on Earth, that was certain.

Blue corresponded to strength, green corresponded to flexibility. The next color Edwin found was black, which increased opacity. Red appeared to be correlated with heat capacitance, or possibly just heat resistance. In any case, it survived being in the fire way longer than either green or blue apparatite.

There were probably more, but Edwin wasn’t able to figure them out quite yet. It felt like there was a wall that he was hitting, but without any new levels, he had no idea how accurate that idea was.

Whatever. There was plenty more to work on with the Skill, like his speed and finesse.

----

Traveling was a bit more annoying without Lefi around, but it wasn’t that bad either. Not having a supernaturally omnicompetent camping partner meant that all their chores took a bit longer, and were done just a little bit worse.

Rillah and Edwin swapped off cleaning duties on the days where they bothered actually cleaning the dishes they used- namely, on the days when Edwin didn’t just dismiss and conjure the apparatite making them up. It only took about an hour if he used basic Apparatite, after all. Their cooking pot was the only thing not made out of crystal, and Rillah mentioned a few times that she felt like nobility, with plates and bowls and utensils for everything. It was a bit of a fun realization to have, that his habit of eating on crystal every night wasn’t, in fact, normal here.

Cooking also got slightly more inconvenient, but that was just because it still wasn’t safe for Yathal and Kyni to eat Edwin’s cooking. Arcadian Elixir just made things too risky, the Skill providing an absolutely massive bonus to the flavor and nutrition of anything Edwin made, but at the cost of making anything Edwin didn’t make significantly worse. It was very fey-like and great for him, but without any kind of information on how long the effects lingered, other than that it being more than a week, they weren’t about to risk Yathal suffering from malnutrition or Skill withdrawals after they parted ways. Edwin, of course, didn’t need to worry about not eating something made by the Skill, Inion was mostly unaffected by it, and Rillah could use her own Skills to break its effect.

At least Rillah was a good cook. While anything she cooked entirely on her own tasted really bland to him, she had enough levels in the appropriate Skills to make anything taste good. It was, all told, not so much an issue as it was just inconvenient.

It really was a running theme, that everything went just a little bit worse without Lefi. Other than the bandit problem. By sheer coincidence, after they’d parted ways with Lefi, they must have been traveling predominantly in better-patrolled territory, or it was getting late enough in the season for the winter bandits to be stamped out, but they didn’t encounter a single bandit group for weeks on end.

It was just a coincidence, Edwin kept telling himself. There were dozens of possible ways he might have been able to attribute it to malice or intention, but none of them fit. It was just a coincidence, no matter how uneasy it made him feel.

Notifications, he queried. He needed something to take his mind away from jumping at shadows, after all, and he may as well be satisfied at his progress for it.

Level Up!

Skill Points 1162→ 1184

(Alchemy: 100; Stamina Manipulation: 28; 14/25 60-point Paths)

Adaptive Defense Level 49→52

Alchemical Analysis Level 48→50

Anatomy Level 47→48

Arcadian Elixir Level 39→40

Improbable Arsenal Level 45→46

Numeracy Level 55→56

Outsider’s Almanac Level 139→140

Polyglot Level 72→74

Skillful Assessment Level 53→55

Stamina Manipulation Level 23→28

Unbound Tether Level 30→34

Congratulations! For driving a carriage filled with goods you have made a significant distance, you have unlocked the Traveling Craftsman path!

Congratulations! For making food for your traveling companions several times, you have earned the Trail Cook path!