The ride towards Founts encampment was slow and mostly uneventful. The benches were wooden and all the more discomforting as the wagon juddered upon the uneven terrain. They’d veered off the far smoother road after leaving the gate.

R’shai and Serend pulled back the tarp curtains covering the circular windows. Yet the nighttime glows above did very little for the darkness within the wagon, but it let in some much-needed evening breeze.

The vehicle was small and tight enough that he and Serend’s sides touched snuggly. The woman’s shlöck was braced between her thighs, causing her to take up more space. The shlöck smelled good and … so did she; the breeze made sure he noticed. Errant wisps of her hair tickled the side of his face, and even R’shai’s knees brushed against his often. She had her great sword leaning against the wall.

“We’re going to the Deyegint Stretch tonight?” Aleem had asked after the woman had made her smug declaration. Everything was moving too fast, and he was struggling to keep up.

“I thought you would be pleased?” R’shai said, squinting at him. Her face was easier to see now that the windows had been uncovered. “You seemed so eager earlier.”

“No, I am. I just …” Aleem paused, distinctly aware, in that moment, of who it was he was speaking with.

R’shai, as she’d been presented in ‘Tales of Woe’, was a terror. Her mentalist-type Class allowed her to read the mental impressions in people’s words and actions, and it went beyond just noticing micro-expressions. By her own in-game admission, the Class had initially rendered her something of a quick learner, due to how robustly she could interact with concepts, but it had grown into something far less passive.

Her Class was one of very few that could interact with the mind directly. She had a fifth-sense for falsehoods and deceit, and could also alter the minds of others. ‘Tales of Woe’ had seemed to imply that several of its characters had gotten a severe power-up about a decade prior to the game’s timeline. Which probably meant that R’shai was not nearly as terrifying as he remembered her to be.

“You’re squirming,” Serend noted quietly, peering at the side of Aleem’s face, and once more he wondered about her seeming blindness. She angled her face to R’shai. “You should know that he was the one who invoked Luctari.”

“Mm. I figured as much. I could sense antiquity on him when I came into the gallery, and it only intensified after the confirmation. But he seems to be afraid,” R’shai said, tilting her head. “Of … me?”

He couldn’t very well take on a vow of silence till Wulry showed; she’d be able to glean something from even that. They were quite a number of optimal ways to protect from R’shai’s probes, but none of them would be available to Aleem for some time yet, so he decided to play at prevarication and empty candour. “I know about your Class,” he finally said.

There was silence in the wagon. And again, it struck him as though they were anticipating something. Waiting for him to substantiate his claim.

Aleem swallowed. “You can tell when I’m lying, and I … I lie a lot.”

R’shai blinked, apparently caught off guard, but the corner of her lips quirked. “I see how that might unnerve you, but this is fear I’m sensing. It makes me feel like there’s something you don’t want me in particular to know.”

Stupidly broken mentalist build. Was there even a point in dragging this out? Aleem sighed, putting on a wan smile of his own. “I’d rather not say.”

Her smile hardened. “You gave us the missing piece we’ve been lacking for weeks. Knew about the Kill Quest, and just happened to have scored points with the only people in Wotbourne that would have been able to protect you when the Vriorians attacked. Perfect conditions to embed yourself in our quest.”

He’d been incredibly lucky, there was nothing more to it, but his timing had been so opportune that even he might have had trouble believing it wasn’t orchestrated. Still, Aleem didn’t try to correct her misunderstanding. It was rarely ever a good thing when people ran off making conclusions of their own, but in this case it favoured him. She’d just now expressed a passive belief that someone else was feeding him the information he possessed; that was what he wanted.

“What could I possibly say to reassure you?” he asked her. “You have a Skill that lets you discern malice, what does it tell you?”

“See, that is exactly what bothers me,” R’shai said, stabbing her finger at him. “A hidden objective doesn’t have to be malicious for it to count as a potential risk. And even if you somehow happen to not have any ulterior intentions, your master is another matter entirely. And actually, I didn’t catch her name.”

“Oh, I don’t think he mentioned it,” Serend said casually. She seemed content to just listen in quietly. There was a smile on her face, as though she were enjoying the exchange.

Aleem shrugged helplessly. “That’s because I’d rather not say.”

“And what about your own name?” Serend said sweetly. “You know ours, so it’s only basic courtesy.”

Aleem winced. “That’s not something I can share either.”

R’shai let out a mirthless chuckle that sounded more like a derisory scoff.

“Look,” Aleem said, “for the sake of my own safety, there are things I can’t tell you.” He let his earnestness bleed out. R’shai could pick up on affectation, so she would know he was being fairly sincere. “But besides that, I’m an open book.”

R’shai crossed her arms over her lap and leaned forward. “What was your true purpose for finding Wulry?”

“You already know that. I came to transact with Speckled Eye. I had information to trade.”

She squinted, seemingly picking up on something. “And what does that have to do with me?”

“That’s not something I can answer right now.” She made to say something, but he spoke on over her. “When Wulry comes back, I’ll tell you.”

“It concerns the both of us,” she said more than asked, smile slipping.

Godfuckingdammit. “I’d rather not say. Not now.” He’d feel a lot more comfortable if Wulry was there.

“Very well,” she acquiesced, leaning backwards and folding her arms across her breastplate. “Tell me about the kill quest then. Wulry had to have heard about it from you.”

She was just going for the really hard questions, this woman.

Dilemmas, dilemmas. He had to give her something, but whatever he did give her would reveal more than he intended to.

“It was an educated guess,” Aleem admitted. “Wulry said that an elite death squad of—”

R’shai scoffed. “Elite? Please. He’s so dramatic. We didn’t even use any Skills. And what kind of death squad fights out in the open?”

“We’re in Ontnmor, Nii,” Serend helpfully supplied.

“Granted,” the blonde woman said. She frowned at Aleem. “One of the Vriorian aggressors confirmed the Kill Quest, anyway. What I want to know is how you reached that conclusion.”

Unless a person was powerful enough to sense the Weave, Kill Quests were like a ‘kick me’ sign. They wouldn’t know if one had been placed on them until the kicks started coming in or someone pointed it out early. “To answer that, I’ll have to tell you things that I’d rather not reveal.”

“Bringing us back to something you’re specifically keeping from me,” R’shai said, her frown deepening.

“Yes,” Aleem said with a sigh. “But once Wulry joins us, I’ll share it with you both.”

She was silent for a moment. “Why is your goddess trying to kill off the jrjis?”

That was just asking the same question in a different way. Before he could tell her just as much, she cut in.

“I’m asking because one of my Skills is telling me that this is tied to our Quest. And I didn’t think it needed to be said, but I won’t stand for sabotage of any kind. I have too much riding on this; we all do.” There was an edge to her voice, and it gave Aleem goosebumps.

“I understand,” he said. “And yes, my patron Tutelar’s recent actions are tied to your quest in a very, very specific way. That’s also another thing I’ll be sharing when Wulry returns. It’s not good news, but I’ll tell you everything I reasonably can.”

R’shai nodded. Her steely expression slackened, and she looked like she wanted to say something. Then she frowned and looked out her window. “I really hope you know what you’re doing.”

Aleem hoped so too.

Once they’d put sufficient distance between themselves and the Wotbourne outpost, R’shai had exited the wagon to join the other Olomti on the box seat out front.

Aleem could very easily have moved over to the seat across, but between the tactile contact of Serend and calming scents wafting off her and the shlöck, he stayed put.

Besides, R’shai could return at anytime.

The gentle soughing of the breeze and the creaking of their wagon was all that could be heard for a while, and soon Serend was snoring very softly, too.

Aleem stared at the low ceiling of the vehicle. “I’m going to be fine,” he whispered into the night. His sight blurred a little. He considered deactivating [Trance]. He dismissed the thought. All he needed to do was settle things with these people, and then figure things out from there.

He needed to tell them about his connection to the emanation ritual. He was already tired. Too tired. Not enough rest or space. One dumpster fire after another. It felt to him like several weeks had passed since he first woke up here, when, in fact, it had barely been three days. If this were a novel, the pacing would be criminal.

Funnily enough, he felt more apprehension about the private information he wanted to share with Wulry and R’shai.

His mind drifted to the Kill Quest. In the game, Kill Quests were reserved for the most heinous of entities. And while she was sure to rack up cosmic debt from and incur imbalance from this act, he could understand her motivation. It didn’t make him feel any less bitter about it, but he at least he could appreciate her reasoning. Why would she care about harming a few innocents if doing so stood a chance to actually upend her adversary’s ploys?

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

It was a chance worth taking. Aleem did not know if he could truly hinder Daranirajido, and prevent the emanation ritual from happening a second time. If he didn’t have absolute faith in himself, the goddess wouldn’t either.

He leaned his head against the wooden wagon wall beside him.

If the Kill Quest had been issued to her faithfuls, then they wouldn’t stop coming after him no matter what. There had to be a catch somewhere, but he couldn’t think about what it might be. He was just tired.

Aleem closed his eyes and called to mind the visualisation Des had shown him. There was a murky, deep dark goo, spiralling ever so glacially through his ducts.

He let out a calming breath and imagined he was a cylindrical pool of water. Then he imagined something, a very tiny feather, lightly falling upon the piece of water that was him and producing concentric ripplets.

He transitioned into the ripplets, became them; little arcs of energy traveling upon the water and diminishing the farther out they moved, only to break against the contours of the pool. There was so little energy towards the end of the visualisation. No energy to reconstitute himself.

He tried again, imagining a hand. His real hand, five-fingered and olive-skinned. No, no, that was his former hand. He started again. Using his ‘real’ hand. The hand was pronate, and he tapped it against the pool of water lightly but firmly. He felt some dissonance being both the pool and the inciting object. But the ripples formed all the same. Large and energetic. He rode on the last set of waves, because it took him some time to become them. He traversed the pool and crashed into its edges.

There was enough energy to reconstitute himself. He did so. His fingers tingled, then they burned and began to vibrate. So also his toes and what felt like the roots of his hair. One tiny band of ripplets travelling back the way it’d come. Towards his waiting hand. It faded greatly, but not before lapping against his hand.

Something gave inside of him. He was ejected from the visualisation. [Trance] deactivated. He gasped.

His body felt lighter, his mind sharper. There was an eagerness to his mana. A clarity. His vision blurred as walls of text flowed before him.

ALERT

Attunement Complete!

The Final Effect of the Title: Brimi Oers Morquim Sophi has been attuned

+20% Resistance Against Arcane Duress has been modified into the one-time use Guerdon-specific Skill: [Wherewithal]

+1 to [Soul Perception]

[Mana Control] has levelled up!

[Mana Control] Level 5

He pressed a hand against his mouth and nostrils. Tears streamed down his eyes. His heart was heavy. He activated Trance, but it deactivated but itself once more.

[Trance] has levelled up!

[Trance] Level 9

The entire weight of the past few hours settled on his shoulders. Annoying. Now he craved the privacy of the Kwesh stockade. His body quivered.

Oviella. Alex. Ucha. Nathan. He missed them. He hadn’t thought of his friends since he’d woken up here, and he felt little shame over that. But the sense of loss was staggering now.

His foster parents. Adrienne, Toma and kind, kind Johannes, who had single-handedly raised him. Adrienne ...

Actually.

Fuck this.

He simmered down. Got himself together. Wiped his eyes. Okay. Sniffled a little. Alright. Not now.

Serend had woken up. Her eyes were open, at least. With her, there was no telling.

He brought his attention back to his schema. There was one thing on there that he was his top priority.

Guerdon-Specific Skill. [Wherewithal]. In ‘Tales of Woe’, Guerdon was a construct within the system of cosmic debts and imbalance. It connoted ‘just recompense’, or a fair return; an attempt to even the score. Equivalence. It was mostly used in a positive sense, despite also having negative connotations as well.

A Skill unique to that Guerdon was a little difficult for him to wrap his mind around. And one-time use, it said. ‘Wherewithal’ implied the ability to get something specific done.

He kept glaring at the text.

Nothing happened. Seriously?

He focused in on the title. Nothing either.

You have earned the Title: Brimi Oers Morquim Sophi

Aleem squinted at the words. It was a language he couldn’t quite identify, but it tickled something in his newly acquired Unolrian vocabulary. ‘Brimi’ seemed to mean ‘belong’ or ‘among’. That got him a foot in the door. The text unspooled.

Of the Wise

Your adeptness with the arcane is recognised by the Weave. You are one who communes with divinities. The ulterior is known to you. You prudently handle olden ordinances and paradigms.

Cool. But how helpful was that if—

Aleem’s eyes widened. Of course. He almost palmed his forehead. He scanned his schema. Flexed his intent in the direction of what he wanted to verify. The text morphed into words that had caused no small amount of discomfort.

Seeded Directives Detected

It unspooled so slowly. Aleem held his breath as he read.

Seeded Directives

Hidden criteria implanted at birth. The details of these directives are currently within your ability to interpret and or implement.

Aleem stared at the words, a little baffled. When last he’d checked, it had said that the criteria were beyond his ability to interpret and implement, but now … now he’d gotten the [Wherewithal] Skill. Onetime use.

‘Guerdon-Specific’ made a lot of sense now. It was related to this particular thing. He’d have to check later, but Guerdon probably also meant ‘consolation prize’, because that was what this was starting to feel like.

It was a gift horse with an unsightly dentition, but he would gladly receive any advantages he was given.

He called up the list with all his Skills.

[Corror] Level 0

[Mana Sense] Level 1

[Mana Control] Level 5

[Trance] Level 9

[Meditation] Level 11 (<- - - 1)

[Soul Perception] Level 2

[Wherewithal] Level ?

Skill computation had taken something close to an entire day just to compute a little over two Skills. He wondered whether it had something to do with his limited mana. Yet another thing to find out about. In ‘Tales of Woe’, the nature of the world’s magical interface was shrouded in mystery. As usual, theories abounded, but the consensus was that it was the product of entities far vaunted than the gods of Orig. Numina, they were called.

The concept behind the soul schema was that it merely served as an avenue to observe the soul without having the necessary expertise to do so, naturally even this was limited. Some of its stronger points, by a large extent, were Classes and Skills, which of course could be attained without the system’s aid, but were so much more difficult to manage in such cases. It was said that the oldest gods had begun without access to the System and had needed to muddle about without the superior order and simplicity soul schemas brought.

The original owner of this body had only three Skills, four if [Meditation] hadn’t come from Aleem.

[Corror] was an innate Skill that all Vriorians had. It was no wonder that it remained at the lowest possible level for him. Jrjis were untethered; ‘disconnected’, in a sense, from the Grand Coral, so they couldn’t use the Skill

There was a question mark beside [Wherewithal]’s level. That was annoying. Did that mean the Skill was capped out, under-levelled, or that it was merely locked at some obscure value? And more so, he didn’t have the slightest idea how to initiate the Skill.

He focused on [Soul Perception], hoping to find a helpful clue.

Soul Perception

Just as you use the body to sense the body and the mind to sense the mind, you have awakened the faculty of soul perception. You can conceive your own soul. The very essence of your existence has now become observable to you.

Interesting, but not exactly helpful. He would need to think about it more. Probably consider asking for help.

Aleem dismissed his schema. Serend was sitting beside him, sleeping once more, if her spaced and gentle breathing was anything to go by. Maybe she was on to something. He’d been feeling quite worn out since his meeting with Luctari.

He leaned his head against the wooden board beside him and closed his eyes. In spite of the wagon’s oft jouncing, sleep came quickly.

* * *

There is a pulsing and throbbing. A fueling. Something vast unfolds. It is a pair of eyes. Twin fractured apertures. Dazzling lamps to brighten uncertainty. No, it is a door. A threshold to be crossed. Picture perfect frame of caution.

No.

It is a mirror. And its edges swirl in a vortex of haze and half-mindedness. A boy stands before it looking at the reflection of a much younger boy. No, the much younger boy says. My name is…

We are…

I am Aleem

He blinks. Aleem blinks. He is. He is awake? Wait. He looks about him and finds himself floating in a vast black nothingness, mirror and reflection his only companions. Somehow, he can perceive clearly, even though there doesn’t seem to be any light at all. The mirror itself is now completely black.

This must be some dream sequence of some kind? His thoughts flow to him at an incredible speed, though he can’t say for sure if it’s dream logic accounting for these measurements.

He feels a tugging sensation, leading him inside himself. It’s similar to several such tugs he’s felt since coming to this world, and now, without the hindrance of a body, he finds it a lot easier to follow.

The dark world and mirror following him within. Inside-out.

Superposition.

Tes—

Everything collapses in on its self, but slowly and neatly. Something vast is being compressed.

He was lying on the cool, prairie floor, a rolled up scarf beneath his head. What was it with people and moving him around while he was sleeping?

A round disk lay on the floor, glowing a soft, incandescent red. Heat was drifting off it, and he could see now that the others sat around the item, talking in very low voices.

The carriage was parked just behind R’shai and the other Olomti woman. The pair of horses hitched to the vehicle seemed to be dozing. They were smaller than any he’d seen so far, and their coats had been dyed green.

This would make the first time since he’d come to Orig that he hadn’t had a nightmare. He was not new to lucid dreams, but this one had felt … weightier than anything else he had.

In Orig, there were ways for a person to enter into the interstice between worlds or the hollow pathways through the agency of dreams.

Some player characters in the game had mind palaces, one of which was O’Freiga. None of theirs had looked anything like this, though he supposed they’d had time enough to build. Centuries, in some cases.

Aleem sat up carefully. Not quite feeling rested, but better prepared for the tasks at hand.

“Hey, look who’s awake,” Wulry said from behind Aleem.

He turned to find the man seating crosslegged in front of the heating stone and smiling. “When did you get back?” Aleem croaked. He felt more sleepy than groggy.

“About an hour,” the man said. “Got dropped off. Sleep do you any good?”

“Not really.” Aleem picked up the scarf he’d been using as a pillow and carefully folded it. “I’m ready to talk now.”

It wasn’t even a minute’s work for everyone to gather round. Serend had been inside the wagon, presumably sleeping. R’shai and the Olomti merely had to cross over.

Once everyone was settled, he jumped right into it, looking at R’shai. “You asked me earlier about the Kill Quest, and how it ties in with yours. It’s simple. The jrjis are the targets of the incarnation ritual. Me in particular.”

“Akeshi’s tits,” muttered the Olomti woman, but everyone else was silent.

It was a shocked silence that almost appeared to be rapt attention. They did not say anything, so he continued explaining, telling them about Daranirajido and everything he’d learned from Luctari about the impleader. He relayed information about Orotaz as well.

No one interrupted him once while he spoke. It bothered him a little, but he knew they would have questions by the time he was done.