"It's too early for this shit," said one of the guards upon seeing the drama between us. It was mostly nonsense to him, but emotions were clearly running high and he did not want to deal with it, this was supposed to be one of the easiest jobs in the military. I wasn't sure what country we were in, and I wasn't really sure it mattered. People were allowed to move freely between kingdoms and laws stayed pretty much the same across borders, the only thing that changed was where taxes went, which wasn't much of a concern among the common folk.

His friend nodded in agreement, the dark circles under his eyes telling all the story we needed.

"I'm sorry, it was just a misunderstanding is all," I said. Zerrious glared at me, but the guards almost seemed eager to take it at face value, which didn't make much sense to me. That type always wanted to hear about everyone else's drama because they never got any of their own. Soldiers are a gossipy breed, to my understanding.

"Makes sense. Any intention of breaking the law?" he asked, holding up the orb. The problem was, we were on a search for potentially illegal Names, so yes we did intend to break the law. I really hoped this orb broke. In fact, I considered "accidentally" knocking it out of his hand in hopes of it shattering on the ground.

"Neither of us intend to break the law at any point in our lives," I said into the orb. A flat out lie, but something in the air seemed to resonate with truth, like the very Mana in the air was agreeing with me. White light started to flow from the orb, indicating truth. "Just out of curiosity, what does it look like when someone lies?"

"Well, I definitely don't know about Gerald's mistress he's been hiding behind his wife's back," one of the guards said with a rye grin and the orb close to his face. Darkness flowed from the orb like smoke from a forest fire. Gerald did not seem happy that that particular secret was out in the world.

"Don't worry, your secret's safe with me," I said, laying a hand on Gerald's shoulder as I walked past with Zerrious just a few steps behind. "Thank you boys for your kindness this morning, hope to see you once more before we leave!" I said, making my way down the street and finding the Name above a shop that would get both me and Zerrious drunk.

My calming spell might not work on him anymore, but alcohol was the calming spell that worked on everyone. He kept a safe distance while still staying close enough that he wouldn't loose me. I still had information after all.

I sat down at a table, and motioned for Zerrious to sit across from me, motioning for the barkeep to "surprise me". Zerrious got some cocktail that he later described as a "sweet and sour whiskey bomb", whatever that meant. Frankly I was scared to find out, but we sat down and I tried to be as normal as possible. We were talking about magics that no one, or at least very few, people knew about, we needed to prevent drawing attention as much as possible.

We waited in silence for our drinks, and then when they came, mine a bright blue that had a sort of cotton candy and cherry quality to it that was well contrasted with a sort of nutty kick from the alcohol. I was pleasantly surprised, and Zerrious did nothing but sip and glare at me over his drink.

"Okay, I need to gain your trust back, I get that. I'm going to open myself up to you, I'm letting you into my center," I said, holding my hand palm up on the table for him to touch to make the connection. I guided him through the thought process and pattern he had to move the Mana in, then he sent the string into my center and I closed my eyes to join him at the brightly flaring book that turned endlessly within me.

"That's it?" Zerrious asked. I was a little bit hurt. Sure, it didn't adapt to things, and it didn't change, but it was mine, and damn it I made this discovery on my own.

"Yes that's it. Is there a problem?" I said, maybe a little too defensively.

"No, it's just. . . It doesn't change? What kind of abilities could this possibly give you? I got defense, and you got. . . another notebook?" Zerrious asked, maybe this time pitying me a little bit. Pity was a step up from the anger that bled from his voice before, but I took it.

"I don't know. I guess. . ." I thought back. Zerrious' ability had come from outside stimuli, it was just an inherent property that we had to notice to get the notice about it. Maybe mine was the same way. The way I lied back there, that hadn't been normal but it just happened without me thinking. "I got it!" I exclaimed in the odd liminal space.

"It?"

The information started flowing into my head as soon as I realized it. The book in my center essentially "convened" with the ambient Mana and made it so that the world around me with just naturally back me up, essentially, I'm incredibly hard to read, my words are essentially law, unless they are so obviously false, of course. I could convince someone they were dreaming, but I couldn't make gravity reverse by saying it confidently enough. "One of the abilities it gave me, I can lie, and my stories will seem so much more impactful because the world tells them alongside me!" I exclaimed excitedly.

He did seem mildly impressed at that. There wasn't much else to do, so we stepped back into our bodies and I taught him the pattern for my calming spell. He rendered me nearly high using it on me. I was so calm already that it lowered my inhibitions to a dangerous level, especially when we were supplementing it with alcohol. Delicious alcohol too, a dangerous prospect. I'd keep drinking it and get worse and worse until my liver was fried.

I held my drink close, clumsily sticking the straw in my mouth and slumping against the wall, quickly falling asleep while still sucking on the straw and consuming my drink.

It wasn't long before the drink was wrestled from my grasp and Zerrious was waking me up, pulling me upright and looking in my eyes. I was very okay with him grabbing me and moving me around, seemingly nothing could break me of my relentless calm until Zerrious held up a hand and weaved a spell to banish the intoxication from my bloodstream.

"Sigurd?" Zerrious asked, and I could finally comprehend his words rather than being too beyond caring to listen.

"Yes, yes, I'm okay. I just wasn't expected that to be so. . . effective," I said back, finally recovering from the calming spell as well now that all the alcohol was out of my system. Unfortunately, now I needed a replacement for the drink that was no longer giving me a good time, as the previous one had been finished in my sleep.

"Good, I. . . I really don't want to do this alone. Honestly, I trust you, even though you just told me that you can lie like nobody else," Zerrious said, the last part muttered under his breath.

"A master of bullshit indeed," I said, which earned me an odd look, but not a desire for explanation. It seemed they had cows, but hadn't made the distinction between bull and cow, just male and female cows. Really it was my home world that was odd for giving them completely different names.

I ordered another of the same drink, this one simply to enjoy while we talked about what our next move was. We needed Names, uncommon and potentially illegal ones to fill out the rest of Zerrious' god resume.

"Well, step one is to just look around, see if there are any openly practicing Names you don't have yet, and then we work from there. If you need to spend some time to get a more common Name then so be it, in fact, that would be wonderful! Meanwhile, we are not doing too well on cash. Yes, I understand that you can essentially print money by enchanting things, but that takes time we need you to be working on earning Names. The longer this takes the more money it's going to cost, so we need you focused on that. I can try to get us somewhere to stay, but we have to be prepared to spend a while on the streets," I explained, my mind racing through what we needed to do. Unfortunately, I had no experience learning illegal skills in a medieval setting, so all I could do was guess from what I'd seen from videogames.

"Alright, I'll look around. While you're finding us somewhere to stay keep an eye out, yeah? Best to have both of us at least partially looking," Zerrious said before finishing his drink in a quick swig and leaving the table. I stayed put a little longer, taking my time with my drink and listening around me. Hunters, farmers, guards, all came in here to relax, and most importantly tell stories.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

I knew a lot of guys at work who were big into the whole dungeons and dragons thing, and the way they'd explained it one of the best ways to find information was by listening to what the townsfolk said. Sometimes they would just eavesdrop, I'd heard a number of tales about failed perception or stealth checks when trying to slyly gain information, but most common by my reckoning was just to walk straight up to the barkeep and ask him.

The barkeep was the guy that heard everything, he was always there to hear the men and women drunkenly boast their tales, or slur as they quiver in fear at some horrific rumor that would keep them up until the alcohol forced their brain off. Meanwhile he was usually sober throughout all of it, so he would have all the most important stories stored within his memory.

I picked up my drink with one hand, leaving my other on my cane and awkwardly pulling my backpack on with both items in my hands. There was assuredly a better way to do that, but it was too late now. I made the short trek across the room and sat down at the bar, setting myself down on the taller stool that stood there and calmly sipping my drink. It really was lovely.

I let the man make his rounds, giving people their drinks and talking to the waitresses and such before he came back over to the bar where only I sat. Part of me was worried about breaking some sort of unspoken rule, but I was fairly confident that I was in the right. If nothing else I was sure my mistake would be forgiven as a newcomer.

"Rough day, traveler?" said the man, his mononym appearing above his head and revealing him as Lucifer. My gut reaction was to make a Satan joke that would fly directly over his head, but I opted out and instead tried to get more information.

"Not the best day, I will admit. I definitely wouldn't say today was a total wash though, good things happened. No, I'd actually like to ask you about something. You see, I'm doing some research on local rumors in certain areas, by my experience the man that makes everyone's drinks is the best place to start," I said, the air around me pushing the words to make them seem more innocent, make him more likely to help me.

"I'm not sure what you mean. I'd be glad to help, but this takes a lot of time from my day, I can't go doing favors for every newcomer that wanders in here," Lucifer said.

"No, no, I'm not asking for anything but a few moments of your time. What I'm looking for is rumors of people with incredible or odd powers, or perhaps beasts that shouldn't exist, or maybe even just people you suspect might tell stories of the sort," I explained.

"Oh, I get it. Well, hunters always tell tales of beasts no one has seen, but everyone knows it's pretty much just boasting, though every once in a while there seems to be real fear. Never stops them from going back out there, eh? Oh, and Dave keeps talking about a lady without skin that keeps stealing his sleep unless he leaves a broom by the door. Otherwise, if anyone has anything really interesting they're much better at hiding it," He said. That gave me somewhere to start. That last one sounded familiar, and I let him leave to keep doing his job while I wracked my brain for what that creature could possibly be.

"A boo hag!" I muttered under my breath as I finally remembered. I wanted to say it originated in Georgia with slaves as they would sleep and wake up without feeling rested, so the story of the boo hag, a lady who at night would take off her skin and sit on your chest as you slept at night and suck the rest from you while you slept, and if you woke up while she was there she'd take your soul. From what I remembered the way to stave her off was with a strainer near the door because she would be compelled to count every hole until morning when she would have to go and put her skin back on. I guessed that the broom served the same purpose, making her count every piece of straw or whatever was used in brooms in this local.

I wasn't sure if this one was real, but it was interesting. It might even have a Name in it, but the hunters might be a better place to start. Perhaps we could chart everywhere they had spotted monsters and find some sort of nest or something. Might be something there, a monster killer Name or something.

I got up to go find some more useful information than than potential rumors before realizing that I hadn't even mentioned a place to sleep. It was fine, I figured I'd try to bring Zerrious into the Aether anyways, might as well try and push that to tonight, then at least he could sleep well, and maybe he could find somewhere I could sleep before too long.

I went outside, and just started walking the unfamiliar streets, keeping track of my path as best I could so I could return at nightfall to meet Zerrious and discuss our next move. I walked about, the busy parts of town bustling and the quiet parts silent, nothing of note happening, no unfamiliar Names presenting themselves to me.

It wasn't long at all before I was promptly lost, wandering unfamiliar and mazelike streets that seemed heavily reminiscent of western European construction, a city within a wall with farmlands outside the wall that farmers would travel to to work rather than living on the farmland itself which happened a lot more in America if I could remember correctly. Not that it really mattered, though perhaps "Otherworldly city design" was a Name out there somewhere. I snickered lightly at the thought, though something like that probably existed. In fact, I should probably sit Zerrious down to go over some civil engineering type stuff. I wasn't well versed in it, but I had to have some casual knowledge that would be a wonderful addition to this world that seemed so stuck in their ways.

I started going over city designs in my head, planning out layouts for various terrains and building designs based on climate. All I knew is you kind of wanted things close together that were similar and you wanted laborers close to their workplace but far away from things that would produce waste or bad smells, like landfills and sewer treatment plants. You also had to take into account the kind of weather was in an area, like if it snowed a lot you didn't want flat roofs because the snow would get too heavy and cave it in, and if it rained a lot you didn't want a lot of valleys for the rain to pool.

I looked around at the haphazard arrangement of buildings around me and realized that they most likely didn't have any sort of sewer or aqueduct system, and most likely these buildings were just thrown together in the aftermath of the Child Empress falling with a wall constructed around them much later. In fact, it answered a lot of questions about how things were organized in the last city as well that people just threw buildings into an area and figured it out from there, which is why I was so thoroughly lost in this maze of streets.

All that realization didn't help in the slightest with how lost I was, though I did feel more confident that I wasn't going to find my way back anytime soon. "You know what would be useful? Tracking magic. Or at least some sort of breadcrumb spell so I could retrace my steps would be wonderful right about now," I muttered under my breath as I wandered aimlessly. I wasn't any closer to figuring out where I was or where I was trying to go, and with the sun cresting the sky I knew I was quickly running out of time to get there.

I remembered that Zerrious had a message spell, and I cursed myself for not bothering to ask him about it before now when I could really use a hand. Maybe I couldn't cast a messaging spell, but perhaps I could figure out some kind of approximation. I could feel a connection to him, and though it was created with my racial trait it was kept up with ambient Mana, Mana that connected our centers. I tried to send thoughts down that line, but I didn't feel anything change. I tried to send a pulse of Aether down the line, then a pulse of Mana, but neither one seemed to do anything. I did have an idea of where Zerrious was, but that wasn't much help when the city was so poorly designed.

"Nothing to do about it now," I said as I started wandering more in the westward direction where I felt Zerrious. I didn't know if he wanted me to be where he was, but I was just sick of being lost with no new information, even though I had thought of a new skill, or set of skills, to teach him. I mean, if we felt like it would could just build our own city. That sounded like a commitment we didn't want to make though, we couldn't spend years building up infrastructure when we still had so many Names to earn, especially since each one will be harder to earn than the last.

I probably should have just waited in that bar for some of the hunters Lucifer had told me about to show up and I could do some chatting with them, but it was too late now. I made my way through side streets, ending up at the periodic dead end and turning around until I eventually found Zerrious looking about as disappointed as I did in the lack of new skills in this city, though at least he didn't look as lost as I felt.

"Zerrious, I found you! Got any good news?" I asked, a hint of hope creeping it's way into my tone.

"Afraid not. Seems like pretty much every other city," he responded as we got closer, meeting in the middle of the street. From the position of the sun, which I was not trained on so I had to guestimate to the best of my ability, it was about four, so we had been out all day, and most likely through most of the city. "How about you, any leads?"

"We could talk to the hunters, they've been talking about strange monsters in the forests, and there's this guy Dave who seems to have a boo hag problem, and if I remember the lore right he shouldn't be the only one. If he's not crazy he's probably just the only one willing to say something," I said. It really was a few decent leads all things considered. Especially as a newcomer on their first day in the big city.

"I suppose that's where we start then. I don't know what a boo hag is but that seems like the more pressing issue if it is an issue, so we'll talk to Dave once we can find him, but for now I think we find somewhere to sleep," Zerrious said, turning and looking about him. I had mistaken his frustration for the lack of new information for confidence in position and now saw how truly lost both of us were.

"Actually, since neither of us know where to go for a nights sleep, there was something I was going to teach you that might be useful. Might even give us a more secure place to sleep," I said.

"What did you figure out this time? I gotta say, you've had quite the productive day today, Sigurd," Zerrious said coyly.

"Oh, no I've been able to do this for years, I just never figured out how to teach you. At this point I just need to try, who knows, you might find it easy," I said before I started leading him off and describing what it felt like to pull the Aether open.