Effervesce - 1.3

“Wow.”

Jorge stood at the front reinforced door with a grin as he took in the living room, or more specifically, its inhabitants. I want to say that in one day I had utterly transformed our situation, but nothing close to that was true.

What was true was that instead of a room full of grimy, dirt-caked siblings garbed in far worse clothing, he was greeted with dirt-caked children with mostly-dirty clothes instead. Truly, you had to see it to appreciate the actual difference.

I had, with help and permission from Maric who was the primary source of our water, use some of our important water and a repaired shirt to at least give all the kids, including myself, a semblance of washing.

With my [Repair Trash] skill basically cleaning the dirty cloth every wash, we didn’t have to get rid of anything. I didn’t know about the others, but cleaner clothes and skin left me feeling leagues better than this morning, and I was pretty sure I was going to try and keep this skill.

If I couldn’t, I’d be picking up something similar as soon as possible.

“It certainly is impressive,” said Maric as he sat on the couch. He was being absolutely swarmed by the other children with one on each leg, arm, and two on his back. “An unexpected surprise, but one we are all grateful for nonetheless.”

Jorge looked at himself, did a small laugh, and shook his head. “No point for me if I’m going back out tomorrow anyway, but for everyone staying inside? You all look so good!”

“Jorge!”

“Jorge is back!”

“Get him!”

Some of the kids broke off from Maric to scramble onto Jorge who playfully scooped up Gael, who was barely five years old, while others begged Jorge to play.

I was sitting next to Maric, and felt his hand settle gently on my head. “Truly, it is a gift we are thankful for, Evadne. No matter how long it lasts.”

Even without me telling him anything, he knew I wasn’t in a class I liked. I shook my head slightly. “No, I’m going to combine this one. I… nothing else I get will be even close to as good.”

Case in point, I had gained another skill. The choices this time around were variations of the previous two times, so I had to settle for something simple.

[Rotten Luck - Chance to find something good in treasure cans.]

As Jorge played around with the others, Maric ran his long fingers through my tangled, unkempt hair and gently fixed it. “Perhaps. Initiate classes always come and go quickly, merely a way for us to dip our toes in the water. Even T-0’s are only one stepping stone to cycle through.”

This was the first I had heard of this. “What do you mean?”

Maric’s airy voice, like a gentle breeze far too tired to carry on, continued, “The time to raise your class is always different for everyone. Some may take a week, others years, but there is a step that everyone dreads: change.”

His fingers gently straightened out what he could of my long hair, then I felt him beginning to weave my hair into a large braid. “It is simply the next step in life, but one you cannot take back. To choose to lose everything for the chance at something greater.”

“Capping your class, right?” I asked. Both Maric and Jorge had spoken about this a bit, but always said it was something everyone experiences eventually.

“Indeed, Evadne. But what you lose you may never gain back,” said Maric with an amused chuckle. “And what you gain may not be greater than what you had.”

“Ah.”

“Ah indeed.” I felt him loop some hair in a crude tie and let the braid loose, the heavy braid laying firm against my back instead of the drape of wiry black that I normally had. “I have faith in you, Evadne, that you’ll find something even if it’s not what you’re seeking.”

Maric slowly got up, the children clinging to him whining as he gently brushed them away. He made a small wave of his hand while saying, “[Aura Of Comfort], [A Good Night’s Rest]. Have a good night, everyone.”

A bit of pain that I still had in my shoulder and my day’s exhaustion immediately eased, though it was weaker than it was yesterday. Instead, Maric spread his skills out to encompass everyone else before retreating back upstairs.

I reached around behind me to feel my braid, its weight settling near the base of my spine, with a bit of awe and a smile. I went over to Jorge, tapped his filthy clothes, and used [Repair Trash] without speaking it aloud.

I wasn’t great at gauging exactly how much stronger speaking the skill was, but it wasn’t a huge decrease. Enough of a difference to tell, yes, and it wasn’t as speaking the skill was so difficult that it was worth not doing so.

However, that wouldn’t always be the case.

“Dang useful, Eva. Kinda too good for Initiate, though,” said Jorge, his keen eyes not missing a beat despite only seeing it once.

“Got it twice in a row,” I said with a smirk. “You didn’t tell me you could get it multiple times.”

Jorge blinked. “Huh, didn’t know you could double up Initiate skills. You only get five, and I don’t think anyone else has seen a skill twice. Even in T-0, maybe, but taking a skill that you already had seems silly. What happens?”

Oh. Right, I didn’t care too much about my current class, so expanding what I could do didn’t matter to me yet. “Halved the time to re-use it and made it more than twice as strong, I think. It does more in one use now than it did in two previously.”

“So more than as if you simply had the skill twice,” he muttered with a thoughtful look. “If so, I should’ve…”

“Do you mind escorting me out tomorrow?” I asked.

“Huh?” Jorge broke off his train of thought. “Oh, sure, we can go in the morning. Anywhere in particular or are we looking for something?”

“You… hunt, right? Or you can?” I warily asked. If I was honest, I wasn’t sure exactly what Jorge did. Helen was our sneaky runner, and Tommy definitely was a pure combat class, and Maric obviously took care of everyone.

“I’m quick on feet if need be, and a decent hand with a shiv, but I don’t hunt much.” We didn’t boast or overestimate ourselves to each other. “Why?”

“I need something. Anything really,” I said while trying to think out what I would do. “A critter of some kind would work, and I need… plants, maybe?”

Jorge sighed softly. “A critter we can probably do, but plants? Do they need to be fresh?”

“I think any will do for now,” I said. Fresh plants could be only gotten in three places, and all of them are of varying types of danger.

“Okay, I can ask Bea to buy some dried ones, otherwise we’d have to wait for Tommy to show up,” said Jorge. “If he’s still alive.”

When Maric spoke of something capping their class in a week or a year, my first thought was Tommy and Jorge. It made me wonder what Tommy will be like when, if, he comes home.

It has been over two weeks, after all.

Nothing much happened the rest of the day besides eating reheated stew with the rest of the family, using [Repair Trash] every moment it was off cooldown, and playing the same games we had been playing for years.

I went to sleep thinking of what a potion needed and dreamt of girl of another world.

This time she was playing a video game, a wondrous device that changed just by her pushing buttons on a tool. Yes, I knew what a computer was and that it ran programs and functioned on electricity, but while I knew that due to the dreams, they were still dreams.

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I had never seen or heard of something like that in reality, so they always seemed too fantastical to exist. Another game where the girl pretended to be a fearsome warrior abusing more skills in a second than I would ever have.

When she finally took a hit from a monstrous beast ten times her size and spewing deadly lava from its sharp-fanged maw, she nonchalantly clicked on a bright red vial swirling with glowing liquid: a health potion.

With a flash of green particles, every wound was undone. The fearsome warrior was at peak health, as if the monstrous beast’s attempts to harm were naught but the worth of a sip of a potion.

If it was merely that, potions were beyond my imagination already, but they could do so much more! Give you bursts of speed, restore your magic, resist high or low temperatures, make you vanish from sight, and even explode!

Well, usually it was exploding upon the enemies, but they could be weapons!

They were always made the same way in all her games. Usually plants, monster parts, and liquid of some kind.

While I’d never seen the girl drink a real potion, I had no doubts the taste would be atrocious. In one of her games, a potion for invisibility was yellow flowers, spider eyes, and lizard blood.

So when Jorge gently woke me up from my dream, I was ready.

“Are you sure you want to come with me?” asked Jorge. “I can handle it myself if you want.”

“Positive.” I was small, young, and weak, but I didn’t like the idea of making Jorge risk himself without anyone with him. Even if I couldn’t do much, I hoped that an extra pair of hands were more useful than not.

After a quick breakfast of cold soup, we quietly left to slide down the chute to the alley entrance below. I kept watch while Jorge disguised the chute entrance once more, and then we were off.

Jorge took the lead since I had no idea where to go. “First, we grab a critter, then we can go to Bea.”

“Okay.”

Jorge rummaged in his pocket before pulling out a small stone shiv and handing it to me. I had nowhere to store it, so I had to keep hold of it. It was long, yet small enough that Jorge could fit three or four into one pocket.

“Just in case,” he said. “Critters though, rockfish or graverats?”

I grimaced at the idea of consuming both. Rockfish were these large, disgusting insects that ate and infested stones. A massive nuisance, but they didn’t harm people generally. Their dusty silver shells weren’t enough to stop even a child like me from stomping them dead.

Graverats, on the other hand, were still weak but hordes were a danger. They could swarm over you and bite you to death if you agitated them enough, and they were generally unsafe to eat.

Thankfully, Maric made getting diseased or sick rare.

So it was a choice between eating insects or eating rats.

“Graverats,” I said, not even hiding my disgust. Rockfish might be fine, but graverats had more parts that I could use. Tails, teeth, eyes, tongues, organs, and such. Rockfish had shells, guts, and legs.

Jorge might not know exactly what I had planned, but being given bowls, cups and a cooking pot by Maric didn’t leave one much room for guessing.

We traveled along the main roads of Stonegut, the worn stone built so many years ago that this section of the city was basically a ruin where only the dregs ended up. They skirted around the core of the city where people were, and where we would have to go later to meet up with Beatrice.

After enough time for me to use [Repair Trash] three times we approached a longhouse that was on even the edges of Stonegut. How did I know we were almost there without Jorge telling me?

The stench.

Its cloying, rotten scents hit me hard enough to make my stomach turn, even from this distance. As someone used to stewing in a collective filth, imagining eating the things living in there made me almost regret my decision.

“So you’re sure?” asked Jorge as if reading my mind.

I nodded as I tried breathing through my mouth. Slightly more tolerable, but with added taste to the smell. “They’re more valuable, I think.”

Whatever reason this stone longhouse existed for, be it storage or housing, its days were so far gone its only purpose now was to suffer as a nest for scavenging vermin.

Jorge went first, a stone shiv in hand, as I trailed behind him still clutching my own with two hands. The rustling and chitter from the graverats were apparent from even stepping foot into the longhouse, so I knew we wouldn’t be leaving without at least one of them in a pouch.

“[Find Target],” said Jorge as his speech reverberated from the skill. “[Nimble Hands], [Track The Path].”

Jorge immediately spun to the right and we approached one of the corners of the longhouse. There, in a bunch of stone debris, were crawling shapes that blended well to the dark grey stone.

He gave me a look I couldn’t interpret before palming another stone shiv and focusing on a graverat that was standing on its hindlegs atop the stone debris sniffing the air.

Jorge steadied his breath and planted his feet. “[Stab Once, Twist Twice].”

He threw a stone shiv so quickly I couldn’t follow it, only seeing it already buried into the stomach of the graverat. It shrieked in pain before it lurched as if stabbed again, toppling off the debris pile dead.

I saw Jorge quickly throw the second shiv to nail another graverat that was scurrying away in the head. Right as it began squeaking its death throes, the world began to shake, steadily increasing its tremors to the point where the vibrations seized my legs and sent me sprawling to the ground.

Jorge fought to stay upright, but even the violent tremors, nearly powerful enough to be called quakes, sent him to his knees. The groaning roar of stone, of literally every building, floor, and roof around us was so loud that I couldn’t hear what Jorge yelled.

Like the last tremor this one too only lasted maybe twenty seconds, and the moment it receded Jorge was on his feet.

Before I could say a word he was already running toward the corpses and scooping them into a worn leather pouch, one I had repaired on the way here with two uses of [Repair Trash].

“Out!” Jorge rushed past me, grabbing my shoulder, and guided me out of the longhouse. “Out quickly!”

“What, why?” I barely asked before a shriek cried from behind us. Then another, and another, and another. So many joined together it created a high pitched whine that made my head hurt.

With Jorge holding me steady, we ran for it until the shrieking was a low noise in the distance. He rubbed his ears, “I hate those things.”

“What was that?” Graverats were a nuisance, and I knew they could swarm you, but not whatever that horrible whine was.

“I think it’s a group skill or something. It’s where they get their name from,” explained Jorge. “The earthquake awoke the whole nest and scared them, and their combined cries can overwhelm you and knock you out so they can eat you. They don’t chase though, so covering your ears and running away is usually enough. Takes a dedicated Hunter to clear out a nest because their cry is more powerful depending on the size of their nest.”

“But that longhouse is huge.”

Jorge smiled. “It is, but it’s also far on the outskirts where nobody cares if they nest.”

Well, at least we knew where a steady supply of graverats were at. I stared at the stone shiv in my hand, and then slowly handed it over to Jorge. It really was useless in my hands if that was what he was capable of with only a few skills.

Jorge’s smile turned pained as he accepted the stone shiv with the hand that wasn’t holding the leather pouch of dead graverats.

“I didn’t know you were a Hunter class,” I said carefully.

“I’m not,” he replied just as carefully.

We walked a bit as the air was awkward, and I didn’t even know why it was awkward. Was having a Hunter class a bad thing, let alone skills? Even my Initiate class had offered me a fighting skill, and it was barely related to what my class was supposed to do.

“It’s a combination skill,” said Jorge finally.

Oh, that… made sense. Sensing I had to tread lightly, I asked softly, “From your Initiate?”

He shook his head, and that was that.

Maric had mentioned that some try to cap their class to get something greater, but for whatever reasons can’t, and their previous class is forever lost. Since combination skills are outside of your class…

We didn’t talk as we walked the road toward Stoneheart.

Even though we didn’t talk, my thoughts drifted toward what few skills Jorge showed me. They had tracking as a theme since his [Stab Once, Twist Twice] must be his combination skill.

I was still no closer to knowing what Jorge normally did, but finding things was great. I’d say it could earn some petty cash, but I’d never seen anyone besides Beatrice earn money.

The awkwardness slowly fell off as we got closer to Stoneheart and people started appearing. First came the dregs of the dregs, people who were at the same place we were. Then came people who managed to live on the scraps of Stoneheart, and finally when the stone buildings appeared lived in, where some actual business could take place.

It was here, on the border of Stonegut and Stoneheart, where we stole that slab of mystery meat the other day. Well, not specifically here because that butcher lady would no doubt recognize Jorge and I.

No, this was where a poor man’s pub was at. It had no name, just a stone sign with a glass engraved in it, and served drinks. ‘Swill vile enough to kill swine’ is what Beatrice always says.

“Here,” said Jorge as he was about to hand me the pouch of dead vermin before he stopped, looked between me and himself, and sighed. “Nevermind, you actually look much better than me, Eva. Can you go grab Bea?”

Uh, well, that was certainly a question. I pointed at the building we stopped in front of, the one that had people going into and out of. “In there?”

“You’ll be fine, just go grab her real quick,” said Jorge.

I looked between him and the building, then stared at him for a good ten seconds. “Okay… Here I go.”

I stepped towards the pub, looked back at Jorge giving me an encouraging smile, then made another step. I really, really, did not want to go in there, and I went into a graverat infested abandoned longhouse that stunk so bad it still made my stomach turn.

But my needs bade me forward.

There was no door, too likely to get broken or stolen. Bouncers or guards, what’s that? Hah, no, the owner knew how to run a lawless, alcohol ridden place: he himself was the threat of violence.

Probably.

That was what I took from Beatrice’s complaints.

All I had to do was run in, grab Beatrice, and run out.

Easy.