Strolling through the city Alex looked to the text on the paper. One of the older children had drawn a crude map from Anise’s house to the commercial district and Alex struggled to make sense of it. He’d only asked for directions but, Jamie, if he remembered the kid's name correctly, had sworn himself a cartographer. The directions still ended up being the more useful of the two. The drawing was more a maze than a map, with a single line, likely meant to be his path, turning down unmarked corners and passing through nonexistent walls.
After the awkwardness of listening to Janet and Anise argue, Alex had been left with two options: attempt to explain to Janet that he hadn’t said anything or ask Anise to guide him anyway. Alex searched for a little, discovering part of the house he’d yet to see, but after twenty minutes with no luck he resigned the first option. The second just seemed like a major dick move, though Alex did check Anise’s room on the pretense of making sure she was alright. When she wasn’t there, he decided it was for the better.
As he walked back to the common space, debating on whether to follow up on the book idea from earlier, Alex did his best to avoid the glances the others gave him. He didn’t know what any of the adults were thinking at the moment and wanted to avoid any unnecessary conversations, which is how he ended up talking to Jamie.
He’d started down the same route Janet had taken him the day prior, but instead turned much earlier, onto what the boy had misspelled as “Rally Street,” where he finally began to see more than the occasional general store. It was still early in the day, the sun still fighting off the prior night’s chill, but the streets were full of people all moving with a purpose. While he’d known the tutorial encompassed a city Alex had spent most of his time in closed of sections. Even with the arena’s crowd, the security, along with Janet and Grave, provided a level of comfort that Alex wouldn’t be attacked randomly. Now as he walked alone, surrounded by people, many with visible weapons and Alex felt the fear return in full force.
His heart was pounding, drowning out the sounds of the street and Alex ducked into an alley just to have something to lean against. The fear reminded him that people could be tracking him, or that someone could try to kill him just because he felt weak. That made Alex think to enhance his aura past his level though doing anything at the moment felt like an impossible task. As he tried to stay on his feet, the deep breaths, not seeming to let in as much air as he needed, Alex felt a wet sensation on his finger. Looking down, the slimy touch so unexpected, he saw a small animal that resembled a dog, though not any breed he’d seen before. It stopped licking at his hand and let out a small bark, as if asking Alex why he hadn’t given him his payment yet. Alex managed a smile as he scratched the dog's head with one hand, belatedly pulling out a kebab in the other.
The dog practically leaped for it, biting away at the meat and the stick before looking at him for more, Alex obliged. After two more of the meat filled sticks the dog ran back down the alley, carrying the last of its meal with it. Alex let out a little sigh and pulled out his board. Placing it under him a little deeper in the alley, he sat and waited, keeping alert in case his bubble alerted him to anything coming from behind. He sat like that for a while, no one entering the alley or bothering him, and did his best to accept the fear before shoving it into the box it needed it to stay in.
Intellectually he understood, but no matter how many times he told himself what he needed to do, his terror of the situation seemed to sneak up on him. If he wanted to live, he couldn’t let that continue.
***
For acknowledging and overcoming your fear in a life-threatening situation you have received the following:
Fear Resistance (Uncommon)
Skill
Name: Fear Resistance
Rating: Uncommon
Grade: F
Level: 1
Mode: Passive
Resource Cost: N/A
Description: Resistance in its truest form is an unwavering commitment to overcome. Scared of the dark? Monsters under your bed? Tired of going to the useless teacher? Well now you can face your high school bully head-on! Sure, your punches will still miss, but at least you won't be shaking in your boots while you swing! Clear your mind and stand your ground against any threat. Fear might be a natural response, but that doesn't mean you have to let it control you. Just make sure to remember, sometimes things are just as scary as they seem. Skill ability correlates to Willpower.
***
Alex let out a slight chuckle as some of the mental stress lessened. Having his lowest stat be his main barrier between sanity and total panic was funny in some dark way and Alex couldn’t help using some of his free points to raise it. He’d wanted to save them for when he picked his first class, but they’d be useless if he died because he was too scared to think in the moment. He added two of his six points free points to Willpower, making it equal with Endurance and Strength at ten.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
Taking a drink of the water he’d bought in the Arena; Alex stored his board and released his Aura control to level six before walking back into the main street. He felt no reason to act weaker when he was already in the lower echelons of the population power wise, but still wanted to train the skill as he moved. No one paid attention to his exit, all too busy with their own stuff to care about him, and Alex moved to find his first stop.
It took another five minutes, and a semi-stuttering question to a pair of guards, but he soon arrived at a reputable cartographer’s shop, Del’s Maps.
“Hello. How may I help you?” A man asked in a bored tone as Alex entered the middle-sized store. He was on the smaller size, in both height and weight, sporting a sweater vest and round framed glasses that hung at the tip of his nose.
“Umm, I was looking for a map,” Alex said dumbly, and the man’s answering silence was loud. The entire store was covered by maps, all depicting landscapes wholly unknown to him. Realizing he’d stated the obvious he continued. “A map of the city, and one of the surrounding forests.”
The bespectacled man sighed closing the book he’d been reading, and looked Alex in the eyes for the first time. “For the city are you looking for Oudel, Mendel, or Cindel. If you're looking for Endor as a whole we’ll need to discuss sizes because most of those maps are council sized as the detail needs to be properly listed.”
The man’s nasally tone had gained a bit of life as he spoke and Alex could tell he had a lot of passion for map making, though Alex knew he was likely to ruin the mood with his questions.
“Ok so how are the individual maps written out, and what details are included in them?”
“Maps are drawn not written,” the man snapped, and Alex nodded hurriedly muttering a quick apology. “Not all details will be included as things change rather quickly in Oudel and Mendel, though Cindel is rather stable. The map will hold the names of all streets and major intersections along with general addresses and the locations of the oldest, stores, restaurants, and the like, places not likely to change locations. There are maps that update automatically when mana is applied to them but,” he gave Alex a once over, “they’re rather costly.”
“How much?” Alex asked, ignoring the look.
“Minimum of 100 gold for the smallest of them?”
“Oh. How do they work?” The lack of hesitation gave the man pause, and he closed his book as he began to explain.
“They are enchanted by a higher-level cartographer, as an auto mapping blank sheet. Higher leveled party's mainly use them to map newer stable dungeons since they can have someone copy the map then wipe it and reuse the ‘GPS’ as it's called.
“The GPS?”
“Yes, it stands for Graph Position System,” the man was smiling and Alex let him continue. Any information he could get without looking like the uninformed yokel he was would be gladly taken. “I don’t have any on hand; though my master could make one within the week if you like a custom order, but we’d still need to discuss sizes.”
“How big would you need to map the entire forest?”
The shopkeeper looked at him then began to laugh as if Alex had made the funniest joke. Alex’s charisma told him to laugh as well, making his faux pas seem intentional.
“Ahh.” The man said still apprentice said still chuckling, “I’m not sure if that would even be possible below D Grade, and all but the Queen’s Castle is already well mapped so it’d be pointless. Though I’m guessing you mean relative to scale.”
“Umm, yes. I was unsure the exact distance I was looking for so I figured an estimate you were familiar with would be best,” Alex said cursing his ignorance.
“Well yes as I said, not able to get it here, but if you give me a few months I’m sure I could have one shipped over. They’re usually used by cities to save some time, though I doubt there’s any for sale in Endor. It’d be somewhere around 3,500 gold though.”
Alex’s smile faltered, charisma or no, and he pivoted the conversation back toward more affordable means.
“I’ll have to let you know about that one…”
“Freddie,” the man supplied.
“Alex.” The two shook. “Well for now let’s focus on the pre-drawn maps. Can we start small and work our way up?”
“Sure”
Alex spent more time than he thought he ever would looking at physical maps. Freddie was clearly passionate, explaining the different pros and cons of each map from paper type, length of life, accuracy and a million other things that had never occurred or mattered to Alex.
He ended up leaving with four maps, three comprised a district each, with an easy-to-follow legend and a small enchantment that allowed him to mark a path from any two places for which the quickest path would be drawn out. The third was a massive painting of a map that had the entire town with important location names that hovered in a 3D hologram above the area. It was rather unnecessary, but Freddie had given him a thirty-gold discount since he was already buying the other maps. The whole thing ran him 241 gold, with the last map being 150 of the totals, but Alex stored all in his inventory and left not wanting to be dragged into another talk about maps. Still Freddie made him promise to return for any of his other map needs to which Alex just gave a thumbs up.
Alex had spent much longer than he’d expected, nearly an hour, at the cartographer’s shop. There’d been a few others in and out of the place as he shopped, but Freddie had always found a way to continue the conversation in between helping other customers. Going there first had been the right choice though and walked over to a nearby bench to pull one of the maps from his storage ring. He’d been unsure how candid to be about the existence of his ability, but with the majority of people randomly putting things in and pulling things out of thin air Alex was unworried about something as simple as this.
He was currently in Mendel; it was the middle-class district of the city and home to the majority of shops. Anise’s house, the location of which he’d asked Freddie to point out to him sat at the edge of the district close to Cindel. The simplicity of the district names somewhat irked Alex, but he ignored it, bigger fish and all that. Marking a path from where he sat to the library the apprentice cartographer pointed out Alex made his way to the city center.