All that had happened in just the last hour or so within the confines of this tiny wooden hut had really made Nirou uneasy. With Laska now seemingly occupied with her thoughts, he decided that now would be a good a time as any to take a step out.

"So uh, I'm gonna step out for some fresh air, if that's okay." he notified the girl. He made his way over to the door of the shack and started swinging it open for the first time since he had arrived.

"It might not be as refreshing as you were hoping." Laska warns.

A moment later, Nirou understands what she means. As the door is opened, he's assaulted by an intensely muggy air, that still manages to have a salty taste indicating a nearby sea. The hut is luckily in the shade, otherwise it might be oppressively hot given the already notable temperature. Looking around, it seems the hut is built on a small peninsula sticking out into a saltwater marsh full of trees that are very similar to mangroves. A modest dinghy is tied up nearby, loaded with nets.

"Huh. That's kind of a surprise." Nirou thinks aloud as he turns back to the inside of the shack. "I was expecting some place less tropical."

"I've escaped all the way here to the Southern lands." Laska explains. "I had to go somewhere that whoever ordered the attack on our estate couldn't reach. Even the influence of the Emperor himself would have trouble getting to me this far out."

"So then, what's with this place?" Nirou asks, gesturing with his arms at building they were in. "Did you just stumble across it and decide to squat here?"

"I am here legitimately." the girl assures, seemingly offended at Nirou's suggestion. "I rode down here from Voldbend while using up all of my funds, and ran out in a nearby village. I then found a fisherman that keeps this place to live in part of the year while he works. I sold my horse in exchange for renting it for a week's time and the provisions herein."

"It was at that point that I had no choice but to make my tribute and hope for the best. I'd use the time to recover, then use what new gift I'd received to continue on my way."

By this time Laska had gotten off the floor where she'd helped Nirou by drawing the sigil, and returned to the bed. She'd brought a cloth with her to wipe her fingers of the blood that was still lingering there. She'd cleaned all but her left index finger, and decided to stop short there.

"Since I have your blood here already, I might as well check your capabilities."

The girl stuck her finger out in front of her and traced a line upwards in the air. The blood seemed to fade into nothingness, leaving her finger clean once more. Laska could then be seen looping her eyes back and forth over nothing, as if she was reading off the middle of the air.

"What are you doing?" Nirou asked, finding the situation too odd not to interject.

"Ah, well, it may be a bit difficult for you to understand." Laska dismisses the question, seemingly convinced that the explanation would be too outlandish for Nirou. "If you can, try to imagine writing appearing before you in the air, as if written on nothing. One of the blessings I've received shows me such a thing, in particular it shows the capabilities of one whose blood I gather a sample of. It's alright if you don't understand right now."

"No, I get it." the young man cuts her short, already having met his fill of patronization. "I know exactly what you're talking about. It's not a real thing back in my world, but the concept exists."

"Oh. Anyway, with this I can take measure of you." Laska goes on. "You only have the one gift that you just received, but if you had any more this would tell me any you still had. Spells that have already been cast and items one isn't currently holding are not shown, so you can't get the entire history of one's tributes. But it does also mention any notable skills you've honed or attributes you've trained."

"You're weaker than I'd hoped given your size." the girl frowns, disappointed. "You're nearly on par with myself. Lack of practical skills outside of your medical training. You don't seem to have held a weapon in your life."

While her judgement was harsh, Nirou had no room to object. Rather, he was more concerned that she could apparently see all of this information with no input on his part.

"How common is this ability?" he asked, with more seriousness than usual. "Can many people get this information?"

"It is a two-star blessing, Analyze. The second tier of rarity, 'uncommon'." Laska replies, waving away the invisible information in front of her. "Quite a number of people are sure to have it. Be sure not to leave any blood around if you can help it. Even blood from over a day ago can be used for this purpose. But in your case, why worry? You have your blessing, don't you? With practice, you can keep yourself from losing any blood at all. I would focus on that during this week if I were you."

So it seemed Laska still intended to use the full week she rented this place to recover. The shelves of food would probably last the both of them that much time and more, were they to bring with them what was left over. Although this estimate rode on Nirou's diet dropping significantly from his otherworld habits. He steeled himself to endure a constantly rumbling stomach.

"Other than working on Bloodshape, you should swing that sword that I gave you around a bit." Laska continues. "If we get into some kind of confrontation, I expect you to pull your weight. Well, some of it. And if your body gets too worn out, I can get started on teaching you to read. You're going to need to be able to do so without me around at some point. It's a shame you weren't made able to read automatically as you were for speech..."

The girl trails off a bit as she zones out, thinking about something else. She then turns to Nirou, and gets up off the bed to walk towards him. The young man flinches back a bit as she sticks her hand out and sets it around his neck. Though he knows that she couldn't hurt him this way if she tried, he can't help but be nervous. The astronomically rare occurence of a girl touching him didn't help matters. He stood in silence for a second, trying to will himself from sweating.

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"Is... is there something you need me to do?" the man asks hesitantly. Laska looks intently at Nirou's mouth as he speaks, then raises her hand to her own throat.

"Is there something you need me to do..." she repeats, focused. "It's completely different. We're saying the same words, but making entirely different sounds. That's fascinating. The spell must stay permanently active, translating in real time as you speak and hear. Someone could try to lip read you and only come up with nonsense."

While it is kind of interesting, Nirou couldn't see himself suddenly putting his hand around someone's throat to verify it. Though given how big he was, for other people's sake it was probably a good thing he wasn't as bold as Laska.

"Putting that aside, I intend to try and sleep the rest of the afternoon off." Laska announces, getting back into bed yet again. "You just try to get used to using Bloodshape for now."

After giving her orders the girl turns over in bed, indicating her refusal to be distracted any further. Nirou would rather have started with the learning to read part, given both his issues with blood and his complete lack of perspective for what it would even take to control blood. But he pretty much had no choice. He stepped outside to keep from disturbing Laska, and tried to get acclimated to the weather.

He had never actually been in a costal swamp before, but after a few minutes he decided it wasn't as bad as he thought. Every once in a while a breeze will come in off the direction of what is presumably the open ocean, and cools things down significantly. Though when he did consider walking long distances in this environment, he started sweating preemptively. How far were they actually going to be traveling in this region?

After procrastinating long enough to feel bad about it, Nirou finally tried to use this new ability of his. Manipulating blood. Not that he knew what that entailed. Figuring out what he was supposed to be doing was the actual hurdle here. He could only figure it was sure to be some kind of telekinesis sort of deal. And he had no frame of reference for what that was supposed to feel like. But he started with the basics, taking a deep breath and calming down.

Closing his eyes, he focused on his heartbeat. The organ that moves blood through his body. If he could be conscious of his own bloodflow, this might become easier. He got a good feel for his pulse, but this is where he got stuck. How did he actually manipulate it? Did he just think about it? Will his blood to move? There was nothing else he could think of, so he went for broke. He waited for a heartbeat, then sort of just willed his blood to move faster.

Instantly Nirou realized that manipulating his blood while it was inside his body was a pretty bad idea. His blood moved way faster than it should given his heart rate, putting it out of sync. He experienced the most sheer discomfort he had in his entire life as his circulatory system tried to compensate, and doubled over. It wasn't necessarily painful, but it was about as far from pleasant as you could otherwise get. Nirou took a seat on the ground and went back to deep breathing, spending several minutes making sure he was still alright. Luckily it seemed he didn't mess anything up permanently.

Trying again, this time Nirou reached for his wound and pressed out a tiny dab of blood. He had to close his eyes for this part, and he was shaking something fierce. But by the end of it, he had a small droplet on the tip of his finger. Even if this was unnerving, the memory of the ludicrous discomfort of using this ability on blood inside his body kept him going. This wasn't even close to as bad.

With focus, Nirou made the droplet move back and forth on its own. He even got it to suspend itself in the air. Moving the miniscule bit of blood through the air as he pleased was so cool that he started to leave his fear behind, at least a little bit. It might take longer, but even he himself could see himself getting over it altogether. He surely couldn't stay afraid of something he had full control over. He just needed to practice.

Over the next few days, Nirou got into a bit of a routine. After waking up and having breakfast, he'd swing his new sword over and over again before it got too hot. He wasn't working on any swordsmanship skill or anything, he just needed to be able to swing the thing when it counted. After the heat went up and he had lunch, Nirou would turn to Laska for lessons on the runes used for writing in this world.

"Many areas have their own old traditional writing systems, but this one came into common use because of it appearing to describe blessings." she explained.

The system turned out to be pictographic, so Nirou had to learn the meaning of who knows how many characters. On the upside, it also meant that he didn't have to learn any phonetics of the language. Which might have been a daunting task when the language was automatically translated for him. He didn't get particularly far in just a few days of study, but he was at least able to recognize all the characters in the description of his own blessing.

In the evening when the weather started to cool again, Nirou would go back outside and practice manipulating blood. Nothing too fancy at this point, rather he focused mainly on drawing it out from his body without touching it and moving it accurately in the air. Though he obviously wasn't sold on pulling out a bunch of his own blood and using it for things. Wouldn't he need it? And he certainly wasn't going to put it back. That was a step he had no intention of making.

With a little convincing, Nirou got Laska to give a sample of her blood for experimental purposes. It turned out that other people's blood could be controlled just as easily as his own, so long as it was outside a body. Nirou wasn't able to pull any blood out of Laska's wound, though admittedly he didn't try particularly hard given he knew what it felt like if he screwed up. Manipulating blood inside other people's bodies could still be possible, but the truth might have to wait until he found someone that deserved to be experimented on.

After Bloodshape practice sunset would be closing in, and Nirou would head inside to eat dinner. Like every meal all week, they ate fruit, meat and fish, and drank tea. Laska did not go the extra mile to pay for variety.

When the time came to sleep, Laska naturally got the bed. Which meant Nirou spent the week sleeping on the floor, on top of a spread cloth. If anything made him miss his own world, it was having to sleep on the hard ground.

The week passed by, and Laska came around to feeling better. Towards the end she would even come out with Nirou in the morning to practice with swords. Separately, of course. Not only was she way out of Nirou's league, her rapier used a completely different set of movements. Sparring with her would have basically done him no good at this point.

On the final day, the two of them made a cloth sack and threw all the remaining food and drink inside. Tying it off, Nirou slung it over his shoulder and mentally prepared himself for having to carry all their stuff from now on.

"Then, we're off!" Laska declared, stepping out of the hut and closing the door behind Nirou as he exited. "Our journey continues!"

"It's more like the start of the journey for me." the young man replied. "Where are we headed now, anyway?"

"My father was disliked in the Empire, but it was mainly because of his foreign connections. In the Southern Kingdom of Anjdrahm's capital we're sure to find an associate of his that will hear my plight. It's not like the two of us could take on Temat and his band, after all. We need someone willing to support us."

Nirou was actually relieved to hear Laska say such a reasonable thing. He had been under the impression that she intended for the two of them to hunt the bandit king alone. His relief did little for him though, as the two of them set off through the coastal swamp.

Making his way through the rough terrain carrying his own weight and that of his supplies was a challenge from his very first step. This out of shape young man had a long way to go, in more ways than one. He could only keep his spirits up with the oddly present sense that he was accomplishing something. Not a feeling he was used to, but a welcome one.