Aleem had consigned himself to the fact that he would keep coming upon things that were unfamiliar to him in this world; the [Wherewithal] Skill, for example. In ‘Tales of Woe’, one-time use Skills were not unusual, and were often imparted by higher order entities to allow the beneficiary perform a very specific act. Sheilu Fir-lilla had possessed a one-time use Skill called [Summon Zraazrondre] in the game.
Many believed that all [Avatar]s had this ability to summon their Tutelar, however, another player character known as ‘Hiwi Nin’, while also an [Avatar], had never purported or presented to have such a Skill.
The name [Wherewithal] sounded odd enough that Aleem felt he should have encountered it at least once in the game. He put that out of mind and listened to Feriona.
“I don’t have the patience to explain the basics to you,” she said. “But the thrust of it is that Skills are instinctual. Describing how exactly they work is as difficult as describing the act of walking to someone who has never had legs. You know,” she shrugged, “you just walk. There’s a lot going on beneath the surface with Skills, but I’m a [Hag], not a [Mage]. Rather than getting lost in theorems and wearisome exposition, I’ll just do the sensible thing, and try to have you get a feel for it.”
“Okay,” Aleem said reluctantly. He knew for a fact that Feriona actually concerned herself with hard magical theory, despite being a [Hag]—most of whom were giving to instinctive casting, and more of an unlearned approach to magical practices. In the game she’d always taken every opportunity she was afforded to impart magical knowhow onto her wards. He sat up straighter. “How do I do that?”
“[Meditation],” she said. “And maybe that other one. [Trance], wasn’t it?”
Aleem narrowed his eyes at her. He hadn’t shared the details of [Trance] with anyone, or any of his Skills actually. “You know what Skills I have?”
“This isn’t the time for asking wooden-headed questions,” she scolded. “Now, close your eyes. Guide your mana. Engage any basic visualisation technique you know, doesn’t matter the complexity. The harder, the better, but if you only know one, that’s fine too.”
Aleem complied. He activated [Trance] and instantly the world around him grew tinny, almost as though his ears had been covered with metallic cups, hollowing out allsound. He observed his mana crawling through his ducts at a slow steady pace, then he called to mind Haimol’s pool visualisation. It wasn’t noticeably easier any longer. He still struggled to complete the sequence, and failed at reconstituting himself several times. He slowed down the sequence and applied some of the tricks he’d attempted the night before. He soon lost himself to the practice.
“Good. That’s it,” Feriona said, her voice low and unobtrusive. “Just sink further into the technique. Don’t worry about making mistakes, the important thing is that you keep your mind occupied on a wholly absorbing and rhythmic task.”
Aleem transitioned mentally from pool of water, to ripples, to broken waves, to reconstituted ripples. On and on he went, going as slowly as he possibly could. The beads of sweat on his brow and the scent of Faw-wine had all but disappeared from his perception.
Something touched lightly against his … shell. The notion came to him once more, foreign as ever, yet strangely easy to identify. It seemed like a layer of something a few inches above his skin, but not really his skin. It was a covering over his sense of self. Sort of. The shell thing presented to his understanding as a single unit that didn’t have clear-cut spatial dimensions. It didn’t so much as envelope him as it constituted him.
Aleem’s visualisation, disturbed by this distracting train of thought, unravelled.
“Don’t stop,” Feriona warned him sternly. “Keep at it. Her voice was distorted in such a way as to give him the impression of being underwater.
He felt a weight on his shell once more, not so light this time. It pushed and breached his passive resistance, but not nearly as roughly as Luctari had. There was no Consuetude to pose any resistance. “What’s going on?” Aleem asked, eyes still closed, but concentration wavering.
“Nothing,” she soothed. “You’re doing fine. Don’t halt your technique.” Even as she spoke, he could feel something coating his shell; covering it. The sensation was odd and terribly uncomfortable.
Aleem made to open his eyes and protest further, but a weighted pressure gripped his entire body, holding him in place. Worry was diluted in [Trance], but a few loose thoughts roiled within his mind, unhindered.
“Don’t make me repeat myself, Two Hundred and Seventy-Four,” Feriona said, voice firm and slightly strained. “Continue with the visualisation.”
Aleem tried to speak, but his mouth would not move. She had frozen his body in place. There were several spells that could achieve that. While the woman had been portrayed as a rather decent person in ‘Tales of Woe’, who knew what other motivations she currently had for being here? He calmed his racing mind, and brought his panic under control.
His second [Quest Adjunct] boon offered him a minimal measure of protection from her at least. While she’d be under no obligation whatsoever to keep him from harm, she herself wouldn’t be able to hurt him grievously. The [Forsworn] Title ran both ways, and the quest beneficiary was mostly excluded from inflicting harm on their adjuncts. This, however, was not a comprehensive covering; there was room enough for her to actually ruin his day. Memory editing, for example, was not off the table; same thing went for certain kinds of restraints and crowd controllers.
The urge to push back at Feriona in some way was as strong as it was fatuous. There was no Consuetude present to enforce civility, and while it rankled to be treated like a child, in the woman’s defence, he might as well have been one to her. He saw little sense in flouting her instruction just to soothe his ego.
Aleem yielded, and recommenced his visualisation, though this time he used the basic technique Des had taught him. He watched his mana inch through his ducts.
Feriona’s nonphysical hold on him abated instantly. “I’m going to try something,” she said. “Don’t panic.”
He felt a familiar sensation of heat along his sternum. An intense calefaction, as Des had called it back at the Kwesh Stockade. The heat traveled from the top centre of his clavicles down to his solar plexus, and lower still to his navel. It felt like the beginnings of the worst case of acid reflux he’d ever experienced in his life.
Realisation dawned on him. “You’re inciting my mana?” he noted more than asked, his surprise lending a lilt to his voice.
“Yes. I don’t have all day, we—your concentration is slipping, boy. Focus.”
Aleem brought his attention back to the task at hand. Even as he did so, he experienced a muted headiness, his mana began speeding through his ducts. His fingers and toes tingled. The roots of his hair seemed to buzz in his hearing, though he was pretty sure he was imagining it.
His visualisation of a thick, mostly colourless goo twisting through his ducts gained a steadiness it had lacked all this time. He could feel his mana, though it seemed to shift and shy from his perception. There was something blurry and indefinite about it.
ALERT
[Mana Sense] has levelled up!
[Mana Sense] Level 3
He continued to guide his mana in the simple natural pattern that it desired, twisting to his extremities and then winding back to centre mass in an endless, speedy loop.
“Now,” Feriona spoke up, “try examining the [Wherewithal] Skill in your schema.”
Aleem called the Skill to mind, and even with his eyes closed, he could ‘see’ the display clearly.
[Wherewithal]
Focusing on it yielded nothing he didn’t already know.
One-time use Guerdon-specific Skill. Engendered by the Title: [Brimi Oers Morquim Sophi]
It was mostly the same combination of words he’d seen earlier.
“Do you see a description of what the Skill does?” Feriona asked.
Aleem shook his head, eyes still closed. “Nothing new. I know it’s connected to the Seeded Directives though.” He flexed his intent and the desired window appeared before him.
Seeded Directives
Hidden criteria implanted at birth. The details of these directives are currently within your ability to interpret and or implement.
“I know that much. It gives you the ability to enact the seeded directives, doesn’t it? Not so complicated, really,” Feriona mused. “It sounds to me like the whole thing should be a self-executing process. Alright. Try to see if you can maybe sense what it would look like if the Skill were in operation.”
Aleem’s brows climbed. Self-executing process? Now that she mentioned it, he recalled that he’d seen a string of worrying notifications sometime after Haimol had taken the suppression band off his leg.
With little effort the old notifications appeared before him, and in a brief moment of inquisitiveness, Aleem wondered where these notifications were being stored. Was his soul serving as some sort of metaphysical storage device? Questions for another time.
He read through the logs.
Strong Shadow Affinity Detected
ERROR
No [Class] Detected
ERROR
Not Eligible for Class Selection
ERROR
PLEASE WAIT
PROCESSING
Seeded Directives Detected
PLEASE WAIT
PROCESSING
Something was missing. Aleem was sure of it. He remembered that there had been a row of incomprehensible characters following the error messages. After which Luctari had interfered and forestalled the Seeded Directives. Search and will as much as he might, there was no record of the foreign characters. Aleem tried recalling what they had looked like.
His thought process seemed to have triggered something, because that sensation of Seeded Directives being enacted, as well as the accompanying sensation of it being hindered. Both sensations collided in his mind, birthing something new and pulling deeply on his mana.
He opened his eyes, and was greeted by a notification the very next moment.
ALERT
ˆ¨ˆø¨πø´ƒ˙π¬µ≈Ωå∑´∂ƒ∞§¶∆˙˚∆
Unlike before, the foreign words did not struggle wildly to penetrate his mind. Now it lay before him as inert and lifeless as text always ought to be, but there was a flush of invitation to it. A subtle enticement.
He peered at the words, concentrated on them. The text unspooled into something a fair deal more readable but no less unintelligible.
`ˆß∂˙˚¬‘Gereis ˆ¨ˆø¨ FstriΩå∑´∂Vaum˚¬≈∫˜µ‘Cair ∞§¶ Manjmish ¶§¨ˆø¨
Aleem frowned at the text. ‘Gereis’ tickled something in his Unolrian vocabulary, but the more he focused on the word, the more the meaning seemed to elude him. he looked to Feriona for help. “There’s a word here, ‘G—“
“None of that, now,” she interrupted, lifting up a hand. “I don’t want to know.”
Aleem’s brows knitted in confusion and he made to say something but she spoke on over him.
“Did you stop for a moment to ask yourself why I refrained from learning the details of your activities here? I heard some truly peculiar things while I eavesdropped, yet I have not expressed anything beyond a healthy amount of interest. Why do you think that is?”
Aleem tilted his head in consideration. In all honesty, he’d hardly given it much thought due to the suddenness of her arrival. He’d been worried about her core motives, but now that she’d drawn his attention to it, he could see that Feriona had shown very little interest in him even after claiming to have known this body’s mother. By all accounts she should have been grilling him.
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She hadn’t even asked about the Kill Quest, and she had turned down the opportunity to learn more about Wulry and R’shai’s Quest.
It hit Aleem that moment. “You received it too? The Kill Quest?”
She nodded her head, a rueful smile tugging the corner of her lips. “I turned it down, of course, but even that places restrictions on me.”
Aleem ran a hand over his face. Why was Zraazrondre making his life so difficult?
“I didn’t get to live this long by acting out on my every curiosity,” Feriona said. “Many young people understand that wisdom is underscored by the need to know things, but so few realise that it also involves the avoidance of certain kinds of knowledge. The thirst for information can be just as deadly a vice as any other. Ignorance,” she tapped the side of her horn with a finger, “skilfully wielded, could save your life. When Yinsi sent me that first report three days ago, I could smell the divine politics all the way from Wergris. And it really doesn’t take a lot of sense to steer clear of blatant machinations.”
“You think I chose any of this?” Aleem couldn’t have kept the defensiveness from his voice if he tried. “You think it’s what I want?”
Feriona leaned towards him, that look of condescending pity etched on her face. “I don’t care either way, Gwa.yoa.rai. While you might not have the luxury of choice, I do. I don’t want to enmesh myself anymore than I already have by taking on this particular Quest. I feel a great deal of sympathy for your situation, child. Truly, I do. But a bleeding heart claims just as many lives as your own specific brand of … misfortune. Even if you didn’t have dark portents swirling over your head right now, I would still have avoided you due to your deep ties with the Vrior-Proven.”
Though Aleem found her outlook rather understandable, it did come off as quite a bit callous. He felt no small amount of disappointment. The impression of the [Hag] he’d gotten from ‘Tales of Woe’ was that of a benevolent woman, but he’d made a very crucial miscalculation. Even in the game, Feriona’s benevolence had always been directed towards her adopted daughters. The game had never given a precise number, but Feriona was supposed to have something nearing a couple score of them, some of whom were well past a hundred and fifty years of age. They were her pride and joy, and the axle around which the wheel of her kindness revolved. Even Sheilu Fir-lilla had only enjoyed the [Hag]’s backing because she’d been very good friends with Yinsi and Evna.
While still generally young by the standards of some of the longer-lived denizens of this world, Feriona had been around for quite a while, and she had dependents. Not all her children were matriarchs in their own rights. Many of them, much like Sambi and Evna were still teenagers. Considering the fact that Gwa.yao.rai had baggage in the form of the Order of Vrior-Proven. It made sense that Feriona wouldn’t be willing to stick her neck out for a functional stranger like him. That didn’t stop him from feeling resentful though. He felt that she could offer more help than merely fulfilling the strict dictates of her goals here.
“I want you to try using your imagination,” Feriona said, steering his tumultuous thoughts back to their task. “Skills are intuitive; they are notches in the soul, and if anyone can interact with a soul, it’s the owner of that soul. There’s no big revelation here, just try to look within yourself. I don’t want to taint your attempt with my directions.”
While trying to do as she’d said, Aleem remembered something.
His Schema manifested a list of all his Skills. Only seven of which were listed.
SKILL
LEVEL
[Corror]
Level 0
[Mana Sense]
Level 3
[Mana Control]
Level 5
[Trance]
Level 9
[Meditation]
Level 11
[Soul Perception]
Level 2
[Wherewithal]
?
Nothing new had been added to it since the time he’d first checked, but it was clear that an eighth Skill was missing from the list.
He pulled the old notification from his logs.
You have acquired the Skill:
[Last Breath]
+20% to Resilience
+10% to All Attributes
He focused on the text, and to his relief it unspooled.
[Last Breath]
The dust settles. A pattern of Outwardness quops through callow vasa and urges restraint. The interminable note is a steep rock face foreboding woe
That was much more cryptic than usual. In fact, it was perhaps the most cryptic description he’d seen so far.
Aleem abandoned the dead-end and considered another approach.
He’d levelled up [Soul Perception] in the wagon, and Feriona’s description of Skills as marks on the soul had gotten him thinking. Maybe he could better perceive the [Wherewithal] Skill, if he tried going at it from this angle.
He closed his eyes and remembered what it had felt like when he’d gotten that new level in [Soul perception]. He’d just completed his first sequence of Haimol’s visualisation technique.
Aleem tried to locate that nonphysical conception of himself that was a shell. It was both a part of him and a summation of him. Aleem engaged his imagination. He’d long since learned that visualisation on Orig bore magical significance. He wasn’t sure how long he sat there, retracing in his mind the sensations he’d felt at the chaplet, but he soon felt something cool running through his ducts.
The coolness didn’t so much move, as it pulsed. He’d thought of it as a trickle, but now that he was carefully examining it, ‘vibration’ was an apter description. It was faint, so faint that he’d almost missed it. The cold pulse travelled from his ducts, and he couldn’t quite trace the source of it, but it seemed to come from his shell’s nucleus—no, its pith. Not a dimensional centre, but also precisely that. A location that was non-spatial.
ALERT
[Soul Perception] has levelled up!
[Soul Perception] Level 3
Aleem swayed where he sat, pushing a hand out beside him to balance himself against the floor. His head was pounding now and there was a feverishness to the aches.
Feriona was watching him with a clearly measured expression, but she seemed content to sit around and wait.
With mana still twirling through his ducts at an acceptable speed, Aleem closed his eyes once more and called to mind the conception of his shell. It wasn’t exactly his soul, but then again it also kind of was. Even just briefly considering that, lent intensity to his migraine.
The shell was marked with so many shapeless grooves, and was itself amorphous. He could perceive the entirety of it all at once, and that was a little trippy.
The markings ranged between various shades of tenor. One of them shone very brightly to his perception; it was much brighter than the rest.
Aleem engaged it, and as soon as he did he gasped, eyes snapping open. It was a sudden thing, and he blinked rapidly as though he’d been exposed to a very bright source of light.
His heart thudded in his chest, blood throbbing though his vessels, mana surging along his ducts, breath a tad heavy.
He now knew exactly how to use the [Wherewithal] Skill. “I think I’ve figured it out,” Aleem said, looking up at Feriona.
“Well, be tantivy about it,” she said, winding a finger at him.
Aleem activated the Skill, and doing so encapsulated all the ease of lifting an arm or grimacing. Skills were truly strange things. He hadn’t given much thought to how he activated and deactivated [Trance] so effortlessly. He was certainly going to enjoy analysing all this later.
ALERT
Seeded Directives are being Implemented
PLEASE WAIT
PROCESSING
Aleem waited in silence.
`ˆß∂˙˚¬≈∫˜µ‘Gereis ˆ¨ˆø¨ Fstri Vaum Cair ∞§¶ Manjmish ¶§
Gereis Fstri Vaum Cair Manjmish Taloqojti
PROCESSING
He continued watching the words as they morphed into something intelligible.
It was a little underwhelming.
Two out of Three Criteria have been Met
PLEASE WAIT
PROCESSING
The text unspooled when he focused on it.
HIDDEN CRITERIA
APPEASEMENT
* Mature Development of the Soul
Satisfied by the Skill [Last Breath]
* Mature Development of the Mind
Satisfied by the Title [Brimi Oers Morquim Sophi ]
* Mature Development of the Body
Unsatisfied
Well, that certainly answered a few questions, but it raised some others in its stead. He dismissed the text and was met with a new string of notifications.
ALERT!
Primary and Secondary Criteria have been Satisfied
Tertiary Criterion has not yet been Satisfied
Current Criteria Met Fall Within Acceptable Parameters
Seeded Directives have been Successfully Implemented!
Shadow Affinity has been Unsealed
Non-divulgation Restrictions have been Lifted
Geas-Modelled Soul Shroud has been Retained
Aleem’s body felt tighter and looser and lighter all at the same time. The aches all over his body seemed to diminish as though he’d been immersed in a hot spring. He felt like he’d just woken up for the first time in his life. It wasn’t necessary a feeling of rebirth, but one of freedom after years of confinement.
“Excellent,” Feriona said, rising to her feet in one smooth motion. “Now, I can leave this place.”
Aleem scrambled to stand. “Wait, Feriona, before you leave, I was wondering—”
“No,” the [Hag] said, towering over him by almost an entire head. “Whatever it is you want to ask, the answer’s ‘No’. As I said already, I don’t want any part in this divine conflict.”
“I thought you had personal stakes in this?” Aleem asked.
Feriona shook her head, a tight look of half-suppressed shame on her face. “No, I don’t play these games. The only reason I accepted this Private Quest was because I was beholden to the entity that issued it. I couldn’t say ‘no’.“
That was more of a clue to Aleem than the woman might have supposed. In the game, Feriona had been a venerant of Luxith, a Tutelar in the local pantheon. It was quite rare for Vriorians to maintain latreutic relations with any Tutelars, Zraazrondre included, and most who did kept it secret because such things were taboo among them.
Aleem knew he would have to meditatively go over this conversation later. The fact that Luxith was involving herself, even if in a minimal way, implied that some Tutelars at least were being fairly proactive about this debacle.
“I can’t offer you any more aid or assistance than I already have,” she said. “Whatever the outcome of this conflict, the fallout is going to be truly alarming. It’s in my children’s best interest that I stay out of disasters like this. I’ve taken oaths that bind me. However …” Her left hand blurred at waist level and the golden ring encircling her horn, shone with an internal sort of light that only made the ornament glow brightly.
Aleem felt something light as cobwebs settle on his hair, back and shoulders. “What did you cast?”
“It’s a tracking spell,” Feriona said simply.
That implied that she intended to keep tabs on him, regardless of the outcome, which probably meant that despite all her talk about avoiding certain kinds of knowledge and whatnot, she knew more about the current divine conflict than she’d been letting on.
“I’ll be in Wotbourne for the next six days,” she said, looking off to the horizon, “depending on what happens. Come and find me if you manage to make it back alive.”
Aleem bit down on the surge of bitterness that demanded to be voiced. He gave her a curt nod. The sparse airs of shame that hung about her were fuel for his irritation.
The pounding of large feet and dust trails presaged Feriona’s approaching mount. It was a large ostrich-like creature with dense dark-grey scales instead of feathers, and a head that resembled a pterosaur’s. Its beak was a third the length of Aleem’s forearm. It’s scaled, featherlike arms were positioned at its sides. A plated strouth. Beasts like this one were not terribly uncommon in Nilondla.
Each of its legs were thicker than both of Aleem’s placed side by side. The strouth’s head rose to nearly the height of the wagon, thanks to its thick, long neck, but its back was closer to the ground. It was accoutred in a very impressive network of leather straps and fittings, onto which had been latched two light luggage bags.
The strouth looked much scarier in real life. It released a blood-curdling screech that sounded like a cross between a loon’s call and a deep-voiced koel’s and a banshee. It cantered over to Feriona who had begun walking towards the beast. It let her caress its head, then drooped its neck so that she could mount. Astride the strouth, she held its reins and steered the animal back the way it’d come, not so much as sharing any further parting words with Aleem as she left for the outpost.
Aleem’s shoulders sagged, a wave of exhaustion washing over him.
ALERT
You have permanently lost the Skill [Wherewithal]
Standing as he was, Aleem was able to better observe the space beyond the steep jut of the terrain where Wulry and R’shai sat talking in low whispers, while watching Feriona’s retreating, dust-raising, pack animal. Serend appeared to be sun-bathing. Hetti and Bebson were nowhere to be seen.
ALERT
The temporary boon [Quest Adjunct] has expired
The Title: Forsworn has expired
He grabbed his now lukewarm cup of Faw-wine off the table and as he made his way over to Serend, he noticed an approaching wagon, twice the size of their old one, which still sat off to the side. The larger wagon was being pulled by a pair of fresh horses, green and orange coated. It travelled merrily up the dirt path from the heart of the encampment below.
Aleem plopped down beside Serend. She had retrieved her shlöck and cane from the wagon at some point, even though he hadn’t noticed her doing so. She’d been kind enough to retrieve his cloth-bag too.
She briefly angled her head towards him but didn’t say anything, which was fine with Aleem. He wasn’t in the mood for conversation.
He took a guarded sip from his cup, and grimaced at the sourness. It tasted like fermented papaya with a touch of mint, and the occasional tang of peppery char. He didn’t like it very much, but he was hungry.
R’shai and Wulry approached them.
Wulry folded his arms. “Everything good, lad?”
Aleem nodded, and starred down into his cup, cradled between his palms. “Feriona just had personal business with me. You heard her yourself. She doesn’t care about your quest.”
Wulry sat down, but R’shai stayed standing.
“What exactly did she want to talk to you about?” R’shai asked.
Aleem took a sip from his cup before saying, “She received a Private Quest.” Looking up to see the panicked looks in both their faces, he hurried to say, “Hers had nothing to do with the Relics.”
“What was it about then?” R’shai pressed.
“She made me an adjunct,” Aleem said, shrugging helplessly. It was a half-truth. That quest had already been completed, but he didn’t feel like talking about it. There was still so much to digest.
R’shai narrowed her eyes at him, but before she could say anything more, Wulry placed a hand on the side of her leg. “Nii,” he said softly.
She huffed without taking her eyes off Aleem. “Remember what I said about sabotage?” She waited for him to nod. “I meant every word. No games.” She walked off in the direction of the smaller, unhitched wagon.
Wulry put on a smile and jutted his chin at the approaching wagon. “Our new ride. We found ourselves a local driver, but he’s napping up in preparation. Reached out on short notice, see?”
The wagon had gotten much closer now, and Aleem could see Hetti and Bebson perched abreast on the vehicle’s box seat. Hetti was holding the harness, while Bebson vented inaudibly by her side, casting Aleem the evil eye from that many metres away.
The new wagon, though bigger, was just as uncomfortable as the previous one. Wooden benches against three walls, four windows, each one about the size of his torso. After moving everything into the bigger wagon, they hit the road.
Serend had a whole bench to herself, and fiddled with her instrument. Wulry covered his eyes with that damp-looking cloth from earlier, while R’shai sat beside him, reading a book.
Hetti and Bebson held the reins, while their driver, a wiry, Barveyan man with a thick brown mane, snored underneath the side bench upon which Aleem sat crosslegged and meditating.
A part of him itched to start testing out his affinity immediately, but Aleem retreated into his mind. Noticing the sounds of the jouncing wagon, the feel of the warm afternoon breeze against his skin, the tone and flavour of his mana within his ducts. Notifications ticked by, but he stayed put, stilling his heart, priming his mind.