They turned into another side street, and Aleem slowed down to look around. The buildings, though painted grey, were two-storied. He noticed that there was a fairly steep declivity of the terrain here. The two-storied structures barely rose above the bungalows farther out.

“That’s her lodge,” Thebas said, pointing out one of the duplexes even as he steered them towards it.

There was a staircase with handrails against the edge of the front wall. It led to the top half of the building and terminated at a door. Thebas led them to the bottom half, however.

Upon stepping through the door, Aleem perked up at the lemony scent that greeted him. It was much, much less pronounced than what he’d encountered at Haimol’s den, but it was distinct enough.

The room dipped down into a far lower level than the floor outside. There were a set of steps that led from the door all the way down to the tiled floor. On the wall at the far end of the room was a similar set of steps terminating at another door.

There were slits high up on the walls, and glim-stones hanging from the ceiling.

Rows and rows of shelves lined the side walls. The shelves were not so high. As he descended the steps beside Thebas, Aleem gauged their height to be barely taller than he was. The shelves were crammed full with oddly shaped, pellucid glassware, most of which were corked and contained brightly coloured liquids. Quite similar to the ones he’d found in his trunk. There were scrolls, bundled herbs and sprigs, incense sticks and several other paraphernalia. The entire setup was very befitting of the name ‘apotheca’.

At the foot of the stairs, Aleem was so enraptured by the sight that he walked right into the back of Thebas’s halting forearm. Aleem glanced at Thebas in confusion.

“We take our shoes off here,” the man told him.

Laying down his cloth-bag, Aleem squatted to examine his leather boots. They were a perfect fit, and looked nothing like any of the vintage ones he’d seen in his old life. He hadn’t given it a proper look over yet, and now that he did, he was overcome by a sense of befuddlement.

Thick laces ran all around the shoe through strategically placed eyelets. They crisscrossed each other in a daunting display. There didn’t seem to be knots, which had him wondering where the laces went. It was a sterling product of cruelty. Someone else had put them on for Aleem while he’d been laid out cold, and he hadn’t needed to take them off so far. He’d started to wonder whether it was part of the culture here in Ontnmor to sleep with footwear on.

“What’s taking you so long?” Thebas asked. He was stooped beside Aleem and apparently his boots had what looked to be a needlessly complex system of zip fasteners. That said, he’d already taken off one boot and was almost done with the second.

“I don’t know how to untie this,” Aleem said, not needing to feign embarrassment.

“No need to worry,” Thebas smiled as he lifted his glistening boots and put them by the side of the steps. “I’ll give you a hand.” He had on a thick pair of black, woollen stockings. His armour looked even weirder now that it stopped at his calf.

“This thing isn’t metal, is it?” Aleem asked.

“No, it’s not,” Thebas answered, going down on a knee beside Aleem’s feet. “Now, pay attention. So, you put your finger here, beneath the tongue, but more to the left. Well, that would be your right, I guess.”

Oh dear.

“There’s a cluster of clasps there for the shoestrings. Each one is rather easy to undo. You see that? Just… um… hold on — aaand that’s two already. Once you work off all six, you can loosen the strings, make them real slack.

“Just be careful you don’t overdo it. Sometimes the strings slip out past the mantle and it can be a real lash in the eye to pull them out. And that’s all six! Doesn’t even take you sixty breaths. Though, I’ll have to add that it’s a lot easier to do this on other people’s shoes than yours, so you might need to twist your hands a bit to get it right. I’m not very familiar with this specific kind of footwear; it usually shouldn’t take so long. Aaand… it’s slack.”

“Wow,” Aleem said, swallowing. There was no way he would be remembering any of that. “That was intense.”

“Not done yet. Now, we take the tongue and pull it to the side, there’s two buttons there. You see that? Just need to—whoo that’s quite small… um. Let me move over to the left. There we go. You should probably note which directions are best for—aha! Oh, wait. That’s the wrong one.

“Why don’t we—hmm. I see, I see. So, we move this through to the left. Your right, that is. And … done! Now pull your foot out.”

“It’s still a bit snug,” Aleem said. Thebas was holding the shoe in place, but it was still quite the struggle to get his foot out.

“There’s some other things I could loosen, but it would take forever to put it all back in place later.”

Bold of this guy to assume that Aleem would be putting these evil things back on again. What kind of psychopath would make the process of wearing shoes this complicated? What was wrong with this world? Now that Aleem thought about it though, whenever you had to equip shoes in the game, you literally used up mana points. He’d always considered it a cute little inside joke, but now it occurred to him how that had merely been a salute to something absolutely nefarious.

“You know what?” Thebas said. “Here, let me… yup. That’ll do it.”

They’d finally taken off the left shoe, and Aleem saw that, much like Thebas, he wore a wooly sock underneath. His were white though, and much shorter, stopping a few inches above his ankle. He could also feel with certainty his extra toe. He had six toes. That queasiness from his first day returned. Aleem took deep breaths.

Thebas glanced up quizzically but didn’t ask. He shifted backwards and gestured at the other shoe, “How about you try unlashing this one yourself?”

Aleem would have sooner sought out a knife with which to saw his entire foot off. “I’m not sure I remember any of that,” he said diplomatically.

“Come on. You love lashing your shoes. Might even be a good learning experience.”

“I don’t think I’m quite ready to learn. I’m starting to feel a little unwell, actually.”

Thebas chuckled, shaking his head.

It took them another couple of minutes to ‘unlash’ the shoe. A stupid word for a stupid process. Aleem was forced to watch the whole time, remembering even less than he had with the first shoe. The whole thing was a mentally deleterious affair. He set his shoes down beside Thebas’s, keenly aware of his extra toes.

He’d somehow missed it earlier, but the apotheca’s ceiling was one giant reflective surface. He looked away the very moment he realised, but not before spying his messy, dusty-black dreadlocks. Thankfully, that was all he’d seen. Aleem felt so silly, hiding from reality this way. No, this was already too much. A little foolishness was acceptable. He knew he was being dishonest, but still forcefully put the matter out of mind.

They walked past rows of shelves, Aleem’s head swivelling all the while. The subtle scent of lemon gave the apotheca a clean and sterile mood. The curios and baubles on the shelves were fascinating, but Thebas had advised him not to touch anything. Not to say that he would have. Aleem wasn’t some impulsive teenager.

Further into the room and off to the side was a wooden counter. A teenage girl sat behind it. Aleem almost tripped when he recognised her.

Evna Azi-anre.

She was a non-player character in the game. A crucial member of Sheilu Fir-lilla’s party in fact. He almost hadn’t recognised her. She looked so young, which was a no-brainer. Ten years was a lot of time.

She was fully engrossed in a book she was reading behind the counter, and hadn’t even so much as glanced up. Even seated, she seemed to be a good deal shorter than he was, but that revealed little. The height of his new body was particularly anomalous for a fourteen-year-old. Aleem observed that her skin was pinker than even Bojra’s had been, hinting at the ‘purity’ of her bloodline. Vriorians were those sorts after all. Her hair was tied in a golden scarf but a bit of dark locks picked out from underneath.

“Good day, Evna,” Thebas said, knocking softly on the wooden top.

She jerked back with surprise, as if only just noticing that people had entered the apotheca. She slammed the book shut with a loud thud. Her face heated up, informing Aleem that Vriorians could in fact blush. “Thebas!” she said breathily. “What are you doing here?” She looked so embarrassed.

Aleem lifted an eyebrow.

“I’m here for Bojra,” Thebas said, also eyeing her curiously. “She promised me baked tamcha.”

That wasn’t how Aleem remembered it.

“And uh Gwa.yao.rai’s here with me as well. Is Sambi in?”

Evna looked over at Aleem, failing to hide the annoyance she clearly felt at his presence here. All the embarrassment from earlier was mostly gone.

Great. She didn’t seem to be on friendly terms with him. Good job, Gwa.yao.rai. Aleem had come here in hopes of gaining information as well as possibly setting the ground for making contact with Sheilu, if that ever became necessary. And while Evna was as good an ‘in’ as any he could think of, Aleem supposed it simply wasn’t urgent enough. He put that out of his mind for the meanwhile.

“Hello,” Aleem said to her.

“Gwa.yao.rai,” she returned in a clipped tone. She looked back at Thebas. “Bojra’s out on call. Sambi too. But they should be back soon.”

“Do you mind if we wait?”

She froze, then glanced at Aleem. She worked her jaw for a moment, and Aleem was almost sure she’d refuse. “Out back,” she finally said. “Yinsi’s hosting a few important guests upstairs so you’ll have to stay quiet.”

‘Important guests’. Aleem found the phrasing highly suspicious. Was Sheilu here already?

“Oh, we can do quiet,” Thebas nodded. “Isn’t that right, Gwa.yao.rai?”

Aleem nodded along, pinching his lips shut with his fingers.

This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

Evna rolled her eyes, then settled back into her chair and reopened her book. A dismissal rarely needed to announce itself.

“It’s this way. Come,” Thebas said quietly and led Aleem up a set of steps quite similar to the one at the wall opposite.

The wooden sliding door opened into a moderately sized yard, fenced with a wall of grey nearly as high as the building itself. Off to one side was an awning on a metal frame, serving as a canopied reprieve from the sun. Within it sat a low table, unsurprisingly. There was a wooden stool beside the low table, though.

Thebas immediately set about retrieving the flokatis. Rather than unrolling them, he was pulling the mats out from beneath the table.

“What are you doing?” Aleem asked him. When unrolled, a flokati didn’t stretch out too far, but one was very often long enough for even large people to sit on.

“I want to take a nap,” he replied, still going about his odd task. “Don’t know how long Bojra and Sambi’ll be out.”

“Is it okay to sleep in your armour? Won’t that be uncomfortable?”

Thebas snorted. “Uncomfortable is riding over rough terrain in the back of Woltro’s rickety cart for two hours straight. This though? This is just a regular afternoon for me.”

Aleem shrugged and took a seat. The armour did seem a bit unnatural. Maybe there was some really thick padding within. Or maybe stats just had something to do with it.

Thebas retrieved three flokatis and placed them side by side. “Two-two,” he began with a lazy smile as he lay on the mats, “you don't happen to remember,” he let out a great yawn, “any lullabies or moonlight stories, do you?”

Aleem chuckled, then his brows rose. “Actually,” he rummaged through his cloth-bag, “I could just read you something from this.” He withdrew the tome and placed it on the table. “I was—”

Thebas’s soft snores interrupted him. He looked over, puzzled. Theb old boy was well and truly dead to the world. Huh. He must have been very tired.

Aleem rolled his shoulders. Well, he’d been meaning to take a closer look at his schema, anyway.

Name

NOT APPLICABLE

Race

ERROR

Age

14

Class

NOT APPLICABLE

Elevation

NOT APPLICABLE

ATTRIBUTES

Strength

6

Agility

15

Resilience

7

Cognition

21

Pathos

-108

Will

17

As expected, Cognition and Pathos had taken dips due to the sub-Diminution effect.

Something occurred to him and he squinted, focusing on the Strength Attribute. The text unspooled in his vision. This was pretty neat. In ‘Tales of Woe’, the Attributes didn’t get any descriptions.

Strength

The power to exert and withstand physical force. The exacting of physical pressure as well as the resisting of it.

Okay…

Agility

Bodily control, mobility, speed, dexterity, coordination and physical finesse.

That sounded about right.

Resilience

The ability to recover from abuse, as well as the resistance of same. Durability, endurance and stamina.

Hmm.

Aleem went back to the Strength stat and reread its description. There seemed to be some convergence between them. They both used derivatives of the word ‘resist’, and ‘durability’ struck him an awful lot like the same thing as ‘withstanding pressure’. He’d have to ask about that later.

Cognition

The faculty of reasoning and perception. The consolidation of thoughts and senses. The Acuity. The ability to focus, to learn, to intuit.

So what, a combination of the original Perception and Intelligence stats that had been in the game? It always did come off as the golden stat. But how would he even go about levelling it? Would an improvement to a sensory faculty suffice, or would he have to work all the parts together? And would that need to be paired with the mental components? Yet another thing to find out about.

Also, Cognition was presently his highest stat by a fair bit, but how did that measure up against the norm here on Orig? Was this high? In ‘Tales of Woe’, most player characters had stats in the fifties and sixties. Some had even much higher values. Power progression had very rarely been at the centre of gameplay.

Aleem’s highest stat was in the twenties, and while he knew this was just about enough to start casting spells—once he found a set of foci, of course—he wasn’t quite sure what the norm would be for a teenager in some backwater border town. Which led him to wonder whether his transmigration into this body had altered Gwa.yao.rai’s stats to a significant degree. That wouldn’t make much sense for the more physical stats, but the other three ones were another matter entirely. So much to figure out.

Pathos

The ability to evoke sympathetic resonance with the world. The faculty of metaphysical captivation. The ability to persuade and entice eventuality towards an intended course.

In ‘Tales of Woe’ this stat had barely been in the negatives for most of the player characters. Fans of the game pejoratively referred to it as the ‘Narc’ stat. High enough values in it usually had some decidedly problematic effects, but everyone agreed that it was the ‘original’ casting stat. Due to the effects that had pushed it into the negatives, most caster-types on Orig relied more heavily on a combination of Will and Cognition.

Pathos had been one of the biggest mysteries of the game, and a myriad theories abounded. This description however seemed to imply… ‘pity’? He would need to ask about that later. Another thing that bothered him was how far in the negatives he presently was. It was a question of relativity once more. Was this well below the norm or just typical? In ‘Tales of Woe’, there had been a level of reverence and confidentiality attached to people’s soul schemas. Despite having an unfalsifiable facade to lean on, Aleem had been trying to avoid committing any terrible faux pas, but finding answers was just too vital. Still, caution prevailed over even that. What if his stats had scaled far above the average? If they had changed too significantly and others noticed, he’d garner even more scrutiny than he cared for.

He sighed and continued down the list.

Willpower

The firmity of purpose and the fixity of intent. The ability to impose one’s intentions upon reality.

That one was straightforward enough.

Now for his skills.

The screen morphed into a group of error messages.

SKILL-COMPUTATION STILL IN PROGRESS

PLEASE WAIT

PROCESSING

He’d gotten a similar message last night, hadn’t he? The old notification came up.

Beginning Skill-computation

Hmm. Why was it taking so long though? How long even was something like this supposed to take? In ‘Tales of Woe’ there’d been two player characters who were functionally Outworlders, persons who had been bodily transported to Orig from neighbouring star systems. One of them had already been resident in the world for nearly a century at the start of the game’s timeline, while the other, Krada Moss, had woken up in an abandoned temple of Mhetep, very far from her home. It had only taken a few moments before the system interface appeared before her, though Aleem supposed the game might have merely been simplifying something complex for the sake of easing gameplay. It would be another ten or so years before Moss even showed up here. That was a little sad.

He continued to frown at the text on the screen and barely registered a sliding sound from the yard door.

“Two-two,” someone said quietly.

Aleem looked over distractedly to see a pouting teenage girl, slightly older than Evna, standing by the sliding door. She wore a peach knee-length smock over brown trousers and thick leather boots. A pair of goggles hung from around her neck. More interesting though, was the colour of her skin. A healthy, unmistakable pink in the manner of most Vriorians.

The air of annoyance about her made him want to divert his gaze, as one might when chastened. It bore something he hadn’t had directed at him in a long time.

Disappointment.

Ah. So this was the girl from Gwa.yao.rai's notes. “Um,” he began in a meek voice. Annoyingly enough, he wasn’t faking it nearly as much as he would have liked. “Are you Sambi?”

“You promised,” she began, her voice still frighteningly quiet. She didn’t quite look like anyone he’d seen so far, but something about the girl’s demeanour reminded him of Bojra. “You promised to stay out of trouble.”

Aleem wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that. There was an apology on his tongue but it felt meaningless to speak it.

Mighty barks came from somewhere behind the girl, causing Aleem to sit up straighter, alarmed. Was that— yeah, that was definitely a dog. In an apotheca? Was that even sterile practice? That wasn’t what he really cared about.

The girl, who he was almost certain was Sambi, let out a sigh and turned back into the apotheca. “Heel, Jepp. Down, boy.” She really didn’t sound like she was putting in a lot of effort into getting her pet under control!

The barking only got louder. Closer. Sambi leaned down as though to grab something, but the creature slipped past her and bounded straight for Aleem. It was a black, lithe beast, not even half as tall as a doberman, with large ears. Terribly reminiscent of a fennec fox.

“Jepp, nooooo!” Sambi cried.

Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. Aleem scrabbled away from the table. He’d never really been into pets in his old life, but there seemed to be more than a fair bit of aggression in this creature’s movements.

“Wait, Two-two. Don’t run! Two-two!”

Aleem wasn’t listening. He ran.