Natura non habet arcana.

Written on the blackboard at the start of the year, Nashville Academy

While the pathway wasn’t always marked with Ancient road covering, the way into the Eastern mana zones remained well-defined. It followed a slightly winding path almost straight eastward, sneaking through low hills covered with trees and a few clearings. The wagons with wilderness wheels and their draft teams had no difficulty progressing, even if it was slower than a real road.

The expedition spotted colonies of Lepuses at least once a day, but the beasts remained mostly content with their grazing pastures, paying little attention to the caravan. On the fourth day, they had to contend with a lone Ursid that came out of nowhere on the flank of the expedition but was almost immediately dispatched, with the wagons not even pausing.

Gomez kept tracking every member of the expedition, each camp bringing surprises. The evening after the Ursid, Kartmann discovered that Tom’s power feeling had changed. Both Gauge Stamina users had learned not to pay too much attention to the feelings of power, so nobody had noticed exactly when that happened.

“So, it’s really drawing on the same energy,” he noted.

“Looks like,” Tom replied, shrugging.

None of the quality parchments were lighting anymore under his touch.

“So you’re finally at my level. Took your time,” Johanna teased.

“Still beat Peter.”

The small Improviser groaned in mock pain.

“I wonder what new Talent you’ve got?” she added.

“If he has,” Gomez corrected her.

Both Miltons looked at him surprised.

“Remember that qualities seem to be needed for Talents. If you follow the same rules as everyone else, you must also acquire the appropriate ones.”

More changes surprised everyone at that camp. First, Carolyn Foster, the Quick Battler, had the Level parchment also lighting, while at the same time, their second Fire Shaper’s Authority activated.

There was some cheering, as people took it to mean that both Talented could earn a new Talent, or at least for Jackson, a more diverse choice.

Another small test came a week in when Peter warned them of a troop of Canids – again – moving around. The expedition had to have been spotted because Tom became quickly aware of the incoming eight dog-like Changed that burst out of the woods running.

Despite being calf-sized, both Kartmann and the Guardian immediately called them of being low power. Johanna could guess that none of the creatures would have any significant Talent to use, and she wasn’t surprised as neither Sorceresses nor Heroes could spot the activation of any.

The expedition quickly dispatched the Changed beasts. One tried to run away as its packmates were decimated, but Petra locked it in place, and Johanna and the Ranger pelted it, ending the fight conclusively.

And then, when Peter came out of the wilds later, ending his advance scouting, Kartmann, once again, noticed the difference in power.

“No more quality activation either,” Gomez remarked as he wrote in his big notebook.

“I was just two days behind Tom,” Peter answered.

“And now it’s our turn to have all parchments active while you wait,” Laura replied.

“Enjoy the run. It takes time,” he countered.

“Not that long. We get all the advantages.”

“Maybe.”

Gomez went back to his favorite seat on the wagon, waiting for the food to be done as he wrote more notes. Johanna joined him there.

“So, we’re now all… around 8th step in power?” she asked.

“Based on the scale Gauge Stamina provides? That’s what both Talented confirm. It’s nice to have confirmation from two independent observers. Although they are both using the same Talent. It would still be useful to track the difference with, say, the use of parchments.”

He fell silent and plunged again into his notebook, reading older notes.

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“I think it’s still a coincidence. Until proven otherwise,” he finally said cryptically.

“What coincidence?”

“After the previous fight, you probably noticed. Your husband gains power – which I assume is done immediately by your patron – and two expedition members also gain some or at least potential for some. I was wondering if it was meaningful.”

“Everyone gains that energy all the time?” she replied, baffled.

“So it seems. But my mind kept insisting that triple growth had to be significant. Yet today, Mr. Donnall didn’t get involved in the fight, and yet he’s the only one to show significant growth.”

“About everyone save Miles can now light all qualities.”

“I was expecting maybe one Level? But without a measure of the scales involved, it’s hard to figure out how probable it is. It would be like numerology, massaging numbers until they tell you what you want to hear.”

“So, you’re expecting what? Fighting Changed beasts to provide energy somehow?”

“Who knows? Maybe the beasts also have that energy you accumulate, and fighting them allows you to draw upon theirs. I mean, they do gain Talents, don’t they? We need more examples to compare how fast it is with and without fighting.”

Ernesto Gomez immediately noticed Johanna starting to pale.

“Something?”

“I… I remember some of my improvements. Last year… we were fighting an invasion of Lepuses, back at my home farmplex. And in the middle of the battle, after we’d dispatched several of the beasts… that’s when I lighted my spear with flame.”

“Flaming Blade, like the other Fire Shaper, right?”

“Right. And when we fought the smaller colony on the way, Laura discovered she could instantly heal deeper wounds.”

“Although she might have had it before, and just figured it out, since it requires one of you to have just been heavily wounded.”

“True.”

“So, maybe I’m correct. Did you obtain extra energy when fighting Changed beasts? Still can be a coincidence.”

She gulped audibly, drawing an odd look from the Professor.

“Then… there was the battle at Kootenai…”

“So, thrice, you gained power in the middle of fighting? Or you just discovered you had those Talents all along, maybe,” Gomez said.

“Maybe. But then, I wonder. If we still obey the general rules associated with Talents, why do we have so much so young? People tend to have more power, as reported, the older they are. We have as much power as thirty-plus old people. As much as Ulrich, who is nearly forty. But we’ve fought loads of beasts.”

“That’s an interesting picture you paint.”

“Mark – Mark Kunst, a Ranger back in the Dakotas – was slightly younger than Petra, but had slightly more power. Maybe because he’s a guard, and he went regularly to clear the area of any beast that strayed from mana zones.”

“You do make a good possible case. But again, it might be a coincidence.”

“We must not talk of this to anyone else.”

“Uh? Why?” Gomez said.

“Because… because, when I got that fireball… we were not fighting beasts. We were fighting a tribal army.”

“Oh. Oh…”

“If that energy gain theory of yours… then people are a valid source of energy.”

Gomez looked at her gravely.

“I can see the problem. There are a lot more people around than Changed beasts.”

“Unless you go in the wilds.”

He hesitated, and she frowned.

“Okay then. I’ll keep this quiet,” he said.

Natura non habet arcana, Nature has no secrets.

Johanna Milton needed to believe that keeping a secret like that would work, but Ernesto Gomez knew better, of course. The more Talented, the more test parchments like those, the more likely someone else could notice such a pattern – if it truly existed, and they were not deluding themselves with pareidolia.

The only way to keep it potentially secret would be to abandon the expedition, to turn back, never, ever convert another parchment and let everyone die of old age, returning the Americas to their old picture of rare and random Talents, without a reliable way of gaining any.

Well, he wasn’t about to suggest that. Besides trying to explain to the entire expedition that they needed to abort, now, without telling them why and defeating the whole purpose, and possibly angering an Ancient or whatever that entity Johanna insisted was behind their Talents, Ernesto Gomez wasn’t naïve enough to believe people needed an extra excuse to kill each other for gain.

As he drifted into sleep, he wondered if the California Ghost had known. But the legendary stealth assassin hadn’t engaged in serial slaughter, beyond what might be construed as targeted assassinations.

And the Ghost probably couldn’t obtain Talents at will anyway.

The circus of nightmares kept waking Johanna up. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the same scenes. She ran across streets, and every time she met someone, she somehow killed them by accident, and each time, she gained a Talent, until she was a Burning Walker, lighting the entire town in fire, and blue smoke came out of houses to enter her, offering more and more power. Or she was at camp, and people got shoved in as the entire expedition gleefully slashed and hammered and tortured them until they expired or she simply ended their agonies, blue lights like during parchment making drawing power every time to dance across the killers, and her, as she looked and did nothing.

Or when she walked across the Kootenai Gap, killing everyone, tribals and soldiers alike. The Warden, falling as she gleefully breathed steam in his face, Elena, her mists dispersed by a streak of fireballs. The captain – whose name she no longer really remembered now – was back from the dead, and being speared in flames. Even Ulrich and Miles, somehow trying to stop her. She knew the others were there, but all she could see were soldiers, trying to come at her and feeding her more power.

“’ts okay,” Tom whispered to her, as she startled once again.

“It’s not.”

“Tell me tomorrow,” he answered, holding and caressing her.

If we stayed… if we fought with the army? How powerful would we be now? she thought briefly, as she fell again into slumber.

She woke up tired and resigned. She couldn’t change anything, any of the rules that governed the Talents. She had to follow them. And hope the Ancient could guide her, all four of them across the treacherous seas of the possible.

Then, as she fiddled with her breakfast, she realized it was that day.

Exactly one year ago, on July 30th, in the late morning, they had found a room spliced in two, with a chair that should have fallen apart long ago and a skeleton that should not have been there.

And on that day, they lost their innocence.

I wonder what they’re thinking, Moore told himself. She seems depressed.

Well, reflecting on one year of abrupt and unexpected, unwanted changes could do that, he had to admit.

Will that cook make a cake? Or ice cream? She sure seems to need ice cream, he estimated, looking at her from her husband’s perspective.

He mentally shrugged and looked at his 20k XP.

Soon. We’re getting closer to Washington.