Vina left the Refuge of Trina feeling much better, but somehow more burdened. While she was still unsure how she felt about following the path of Trina, Jan and Priya had both been consistent in encouraging her to develop her skills. With the entire Town of Prosit open to her, Vina decided to try to get a plan together. She opened the various windows containing her personal information and began reading.

Name

Vina

Level

3

Health

74/90

Stamina

45

Experience

320/1000

Strength

10

You can lift 45% of your body weight

Endurance

12

Your stamina is increased by 10, and your stamina recovery is increased to 1.1 per minute.

Dexterity

13

Your body is 3% more likely to do exactly what you intend, you are 9% more likely to hit your target

Agility

15

Your movement is 15% faster, you are 20% more elusive, you can react 10% sooner.

Vitality

12

Your health is increased by 20, you clear poisons 10% faster, you are 6% more resistant to disease

Charisma

10

People like you 0% more and you are 0% more likely to persuade someone

Mastery

16

You learn skills 24% faster. You are 6% more likely to learn a skill on your first try.

Divinity

0

Locked

Points Remaining

2

Vina considered her attribute allocations in detail. She had clearly chosen skill learning to be her primary focus so far, but her mobility was not far behind. With points in both agility and dexterity, she could see a strategy taking form. Priya’s note warned of creatures in this world and her own experience with the spinerlings was still fresh in her mind. “More combat practice it is then.” The spear stored inside her backpack had been a great starting point, and she was determined to focus more on that. Vina quickly reviewed all of her quests as well.

Personal and World Quests: Find your Adoptive Mother Find your sisters Read Priya’s sealed note Learn Skills 2 13/25 World Quest: Return the stolen Aspects 0/127 World Quest: Destroy the fake Aspects. Fake Aspects remaining 320,606,623

Vina was surprised to see the fake aspects had increased by over three hundred thousand in just a few days. The fakes must have been made at an amazing rate. “How could I possibly tackle that quest?” She muttered to herself. It seemed the entire world had simply decided to ignore it. She instead reached into her backpack and pulled out Priya’s sealed note.

The note was paper like all the others she had collected. However, the paper had been folded in such a manner that the note had locked itself. Vina had once read about letter locking techniques from the 1600s on Earth and found the note in her hand was sealed with the same approach. Sometimes these locks could damage the letter if they were forced open, and Vina could not risk that.

This lock went even further though. The letter had small runic indentations pressed into the paper as well as lock. Vina took some time focusing on the runes, but they swam in her vision. Every time she felt like she had isolated a rune, it would float and overlap with several others. “These aren’t just letters. They’re words.” she thought. She tried to focus on them, but they were far more complicated than On and Off. She had no idea what they said.

Vina put the note away and decided to focus on the more immediate problems she could solve. Her spear was a haphazard creation, forged under duress in a forest by unskilled hands. Surely there was someone here who could do a better job than her.

She walked the town, searching for a marketplace. She had no idea if such a thing existed, but she figured that had to be some people somewhere trying to sell things. She followed the majority of the foot traffic and stayed on the cobblestone paths. She felt the areas most frequently traveled would be the most developed and she was soon proven right. She found herself in a small, but very busy market. Vina was astounded at the variety she saw here. There were so many things she had never seen before and her curiosity was through the roof.

Her excitement was threatening to overwhelm her, but she forced herself to focus. She had limited money and needed to make responsible purchases right now. She heard what she was looking for before she saw it. A hugely muscular man was slamming a hammer down on a piece of metal against what must have worked as an anvil for him. Vina waited for him to finish before speaking. “Hello. My name is Vina. Could you help me out with my spear?”

The huge man looked at her up and down and nodded. “The name’s Pawld. What seems to be the problem with your spear?”

She brought her spear out of her backpack and Pawld looked at her in shock. “Where did you get such a bag?!” he exclaimed.

Vina cringed. She had figured runic items like this would be commonplace. Apparently a town like this rarely saw such things. “Uhm… it was a gift from my mother.” Vina quickly changed the topic as she handed the spear over. “I found this spear head in the wilderness and did my best to attach a shaft to it. Could you either fix my work or maybe just re-do it?”

Pawld looked at the spear point and looked at Vina with concern in his eyes, “You’re full of mysteries. Are you certain you want to use this spearpoint again?”

Vina was confused as she looked at Pawld. “What’s wrong with the spear point?”

Pawld looked at Vina with his own confusion, “It’s a spear point from those damned Six Eyed. Not everyone is going to appreciate seeing you carry their weaponry.”

Vina’s confusion only deepened, “The Six Eyed? Do you mean the spinerlings?”

Pawld sputtered, “What do spinerlings have to do with this? No! I mean those ass kissers of The Darkness!”

Vina looked at Pawld in confusion, but could see he expected a response from her, “Uhm…”

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Pawld squinted at her, “Look, the twelve, as much as I hate them, wiped out the cities of that cult. I don’t know where you got their gear, but I won’t reforge their weaponry. I can buy this off of you or give you credit so I can melt it down and destroy their legacy. I have several hunting spears already made that you can buy. If you need a war spear like this, I can make a new one for you in the next few days.”

Vina immediately recognized how disadvantaged she was in this conversation. Her knowledge of the history of Palitern was nonexistent and her experience with the shadows was limited. Learning that a cult once existed that was courting the darkness was revelational to her, and she certainly did not want to be associated with such a group. Briefly she wondered what it meant that she appeared in an old prison of such an organization. But she turned back to Pawld before the silence could grow any more awkward.

“Yes. You can take the spear and I’ll accept credit on it. I’d also like to commission the creation of a new spear as well.” she answered.

Vina had previously counted her brass colored money with Rana and she had one hundred and twenty Randar Marks. Rana had been kind enough to explain that Randar was apparently a capital city and the most common accepted form of currency in this land. Pawld wanted two hundred marks for the war spear, but discounted the cost by fifty for the spearhead. That left her needing to find thirty additional marks and she still needed to pay for the innkeeper.

Vina eyed the man, “Why only 50 Randars? By giving you the spearhead, that’s a raw material right. Can’t you use the same spearhead and just melt it down for my new war spear?”

Pawld frowned and said, “I hate the makers of this spearhead and will not be giving it new life.”

Vina had a window pop up suddenly.

You have entered into a bartering opportunity. You have increased your bartering chances by 0%. To win this opportunity you will need to exceed your competition’s roll by 20 points. Rolling a number between 1 and 100. You have rolled 32. Pawld is rolling a number between 12 and 120. Pawld has rolled a 56. Pawld has won this bartering opportunity. You will pay full price.

Vina and Pawld both looked at the bartering rolls and Vina found herself compelled to agree to the price Pawld had asked. She sighed. “I’m going to need to make some money.” she thought to herself. Vina suddenly had a bright idea. “Hey Pawld, is there any work to be done here? I’d love to learn some of the skills you use.”

Pawld seemed to consider her request for a moment and then shook his head, “I’m sorry Vina. I don’t want to ask about your attributes, but I don’t think you’ve spent a single point in strength. You’ll need at least 20 strength to operate the forge. Besides, I don’t think you could use a hammer with that hand.”

Vina looked at her hand and realized Pawld was correct, but she was not deterred, “Is there any other work to be done around the forge that I could help with? My dexterity and mastery attributes are high.”

“Hm…” Pawld looked around his forge in consideration, “how’s your repair skill?”

Vina’s eyes brightened, “I don’t have the repair skill yet, but I think I could learn it quickly.”

Pawld nodded in agreement, “Very well. For every item you repair to my satisfaction, I’ll pay you two Randars.”

Vina cringed. That didn’t seem like much. Vina countered, “How about five Randars? Surely you are reselling these items at full price.”

You have entered into a bartering opportunity. You have increased your bartering chances by 0%. To win this opportunity you will need to exceed your competition’s roll by 20 points. Rolling a number between 1 and 100. You have rolled 72. Pawld is rolling a number between 12 and 120. Pawld has rolled a 65. Neither party has won. You may renegotiate the terms.

New Skill Learned: Bartering. Progress to next skill level 5% Quest updated: Learn Skills 2 14/25

Vina was beyond excited to learn this skill. She knew this was going to be an important one if she was to ever succeed in getting the gear she needed. She and Pawld went through a couple more rounds of bartering until Vina finally won a roll. She had negotiated 3.1 Rands per item repaired and received another popup window.

Skill Level Up: Bartering has reached level 2. When in a bartering opportunity, your minimum roll is increased by 1 and your maximum is increased by 3. You have gained 35 experience from leveling a skill.

Pawld took Vina further into his blacksmithing shop and sat her down at a table. He began piling on tons of items on one side of the table and set various tools in front of her. He wished her luck and returned back to the front of the shop.

Vina picked up the first item. It was a dagger. She had no idea what she was doing, but after fiddling with it, she noticed the hilt was not well attached. Vina stopped herself from being overwhelmed and tried to listen to her mastery skill. It wasn’t telling her anything, so she switched to her Observe skill. She looked directly at the dagger and slowly she noticed the hilt becoming highlighted. Once it had fully lit up, Vina felt her Mastery attribute begin to guide her. Her bandaged and wounded hand slowed her down, but she followed what her Mastery was telling her and soon the hilt was solidly connected to the blade once more.

She grabbed the next item and immediately started the process again. In a couple hours Vina had 4 items repaired and she finally got the window pop up she was hoping for.

New Skill Learned: Repair. Repair is an active skill. Progress to next skill level 60% Quest updated: Learn Skills 2 15/25

Vina stopped using her Observe skill and switched over to the Repair skill. She immediately saw the difference. Repair was designed for this. To her surprise though, the skill did not just highlight the items in front of her, but every defect and flaw of every item in the room around her. Vina’s head swam as the skill told her of every problem within six feet of her. Her skin crawled when she saw how imperfect the entire world was. She suddenly became acutely aware of how unstable the stool was that she sat on. “Someone could get ocd from this skill…” she mused to herself. Vina tried to refocus herself and soon fixed two more items.

Skill Level Up: Repair has reached level 2. You can repair items 3% faster and repaired items are worth 70% the value of the item when it was new. You have gained 35 experience from leveling a skill.

Pawld came back in unexpectedly and inspected her work. “You can see where you learned the repair skill. These two items are passable. Those other four are garbage now and I’ll have to scrap them. I’ll pay you the negotiated price for these two, the other four will be half price.”

Vina nodded in agreement. Her new repair skill was in agreement with Pawld, and she knew she had no room to negotiate. She really had broken those other four items even though she thought she had fixed them. Pawld paid her twelve Randars for her work and invited her back tomorrow. Vina was a bit confused as it was only midday, but Pawld claimed to have some special customers arriving, and he didn’t want anyone in the shop for the negotiations. She realized Pawld really liked to negotiate.

Vina packed up her stuff and stepped outside of the shop. She decided she should do some exploring and perhaps some shopping in the afternoon. She used her twelve Randars to buy herself a meal and a basic change of clothes. Vina also picked up a proper tinderbox, knowing now how vital this could be. She negotiated for every item she bought and rarely won any of the rolls, but her bartering skill had leveled up to three and she was enjoying the feeling of progress.

She continued exploring the town until the evening began to arrive. She had discovered many areas offering pay for work and several opportunities to learn different skills. While some skills, such as sewing and butchering were easily accessible, Vina didn’t feel those were as valuable as something like hunting. Vina had become quite enamored with the idea of using a bow after watching a hunter practice. Unfortunately his bow had an attribute requirement of 20 dexterity and 14 strength. Vina was far away with her 13 dexterity and strength of 10. “I really need to get more levels!” She groaned.

When night had completely fallen, Vina returned to the inn and paid the innkeeper for a dinner meal. Vina chose to eat in her room to avoid any curious looks. Eating all new foods in this world had been quite an experience and while nothing had been offensive to her tastes, she couldn’t help but make faces at some of the flavors.

At the moment, her policy was to get the names of the foods she was eating, but she wasn’t asking for any details. “It’s best to not know right now.” she muttered as she cut into something that looked like steak, had the texture of cheesecake, and the flavor of a decadent fruit.

While she ate, she counted her remaining coins. “One hundred and one Randars… so I need to make at least 49 randars before Pawld is done with my spear.” she said, looking down at her food and cutting into something that was shaped like a hockey puck. It gushed a red sauce and she smirked, “I mean… is it supposed to do that?” she wondered. She set it aside and turned to her backpack.

She pulled out Priya’s sealed note and began to study the runes once again. They still swam about in her vision and she still couldn’t grasp any further words. Vina suddenly recalled her backpack was also rune crafted and she brought it out for an inspection as well. If the runes on the sealed note were swimming around, these ones literally teleported. She laughed at the futility of ever reading what was carved there.

Left with no options to learn Blood Runes by reading or studying, she chose to pull out the lantern. It glowed with a single rune and she knew by experience this meant it had just 1% power. Feeling somewhat paranoid, Vina closed the window to her room and double checked the door was locked. She took out her knife and pricked her finger once again. Vina checked her health and saw it was full. “Okay, the last time I did this, it took ten health nearly instantly. Last night I easily regained that just by sleeping. Can I level Blood Runes just by feeding this thing every day?” she muttered.

Just to be safe, Vina pulled out and ate one of her berries to get the healing effect. She quickly tapped her finger to the lantern and she felt it pull blood from her finger. There was almost a feeling of suction as she pulled her finger back. She checked her health and saw she had lost five points. Vina also checked her Blood Rune skill progress and saw it had gone up from 27% to 36%. Vina groaned. If she did this twice more tonight she would lose a total of 15 health and only gained about 27% toward her next level, assuming it continued to scale linearly. That meant she would level this skill to 4 in about three evenings. “That’s far too slow!” She complained.

Vina had no idea what level her blood runes would need to be to break the seal Priya had placed on her note, but Vina had planned to stay in the city only until her visitation had expired. She had six days left at this point, so she might be able to get her skill almost to level five by then, but probably not. She would have to push herself hard. Vina chose to press her finger into the lantern three more times, losing 20 health and taking her skill to 72% toward level 4.

You are afflicted with moderate bleeding. You will take 3 damage per minute until the bleeding has been stopped.

She had prepared for this. Jan had provided her with extra bandages in case the dressing for her other hand had gotten dirty. She cut one of the bandages to make a small one to fix her finger. Vina was surprised, though, to see the pin prick she had made had expanded into looking like a small puncture wound. Vina shook her head, unsure if she could keep doing this to herself. Blood runes demanded so much of her. However, when Vina looked at the lantern, there were now six red runes lit up. The lantern was apparently 6% full. The way they happily glowed warmed her heart and she couldn’t help but smile at them.