Kilniara smiled, “Sure! I would love to.”
Joe smiled, “OK. Let me talk with Garnedell then we’ll have supper in a half an hour? Maybe an hour?”
Kilniara nodded happily at that and headed into the inn, “I’ll speak with my brother then.”
“Sounds good. Could you send Garnedell down?”
Kilniara turned and smiled once more, “Of course.”
Joe only waited for a short time since Garnedell came scrambling down the stairs quickly enough, coming to a stop before Joe with a respectful attention.
“Yes, Joe?”
Joe smiled and shook his head, “Nothing so serious. I just wanted to walk and talk with you a bit?”
Garnedell smiled at that, “I would enjoy that, Master.”
Joe withheld his sigh and turned back out into the street, “Then let’s take a walk.”
“OK!”
They walked for a time until Joe spoke, “So. How are you doing?”
“I’m doing well, Joe.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Why?”
Joe paused and glanced at Garnedell, “I… just want to make sure that you are fine.”
“I’m quite well, Joe.”
Joe smiled to hear him use his name and glanced back at him, “Really?”
“Yes,” Garnedell grew concerned, “is something… wrong?”
Joe hid his grimace and berated himself a bit before replying quickly, “No. Really, everything is fine. I was just worried that I’d been ignoring you a bit, dealing with Zilnek and… spending so much time with Kilniara.”
Garnedell immediately relaxed, the tension he’d been hiding evaporating and revealing its existence in its absence, “I’m fine, Joe. I understand completely.”
Joe smirked a bit, laughing, “Then… thanks for your kindness, but, I still want to make sure I’m spending time with you and making sure we’re good. Answer any questions… help you… you know, do my job well.”
Garnedell laughed at that and shook his head, "You are more than doing your job well. Do not worry!”
Joe felt his own tension release at that and he nodded, “Then, talk to me. How are things going?”
The two settled into a happy if meaningless conversation and Joe reconnected with Garnedell on everything he’d been up to. There wasn’t much to discuss, but Joe grew to know him a bit more. They laughed, enjoying one another’s company and Joe found himself a bit concerned with the antics that Zilnek was getting up to with Garnedell. So far, they’d been rather harmless, so he hoped all would continue as well, but … he was still concerned, so spent some time speaking with Garnedell on a few of them. Garnedell, for his part, responded well, answering the questions with free honesty and listening to Joe’s advice as he offered it.
Sometime in their conversation, Joe had turned them around and they were heading back to the inn. The conversation was still going strong when they reached the inn, so they idled outside for another ten minutes or so until Joe felt the conversation was complete. Garnedell actually called an end to their conversation a bit sooner than Joe wanted, but Garnedell appeared to simply be growing bored, so he let it go, heading back into the inn.
By the time they made it back to their inn, it was early in the evening, so they sat for dinner, the siblings joining them when Joe sprinted up the stairs to let them know they were eating. They didn’t immediately begin their meal and instead decided to simply rest in the dining area for an early respite, sitting around the table in uncomfortable chairs. The conversation was mainly small talk and Joe participated in moments although he spent most of the time considering skills and practicing expressing his mana into the ground, although he found himself once more struggling to do so since he’d changed his job. It feels easier though, somehow… or am I just imagining things?
In the midst of their discussion, Joe looked up to find Kukurnal joining them, followed a moment later by the Matriarch.
“Hello, Joe!” Kukurnal cheerily spoke.
“Hey, Kukurnal,” Joe replied with some surprise, “It’s been awhile.”
Before Kukurnal could reply, the Matriarch offered her greetings, “Hello, great Eccentric.”
Joe reigned in his smile when he noticed the Matriarch’s reserved attitude and replied in kind, “Greetings to you as well, Matriarch.”
Kukurnal smiled at their greetings, nodding slightly before he initiated conversation once again, “It has been too long, Joe. I wished to speak with you once again.”
“I was wondering where you were, Kukurnal. You have been gone a couple days. I’m surprised. You as well, Matriarch, although you have an excuse as you must have been quite busy.”
“And I have all the time in the world, you say?” Kukurnal responded with faux anger.
“Of course. You’re a scholar!” Joe rebutted while smiling with some humor.
Kukurnal burst into laughter at that before nodding in agreement with even the Matriarch smiling slightly before chuckling a bit quietly.
Joe looked to the Matriarch and smiled in reply, “You have no need to maintain propriety in my presence if you wish for a little freedom. My impression of people is much more based on a person’s personality and character than their poise and position.”
The Matriarch raised an eyebrow at that, seeming to be taken aback and uncertain how to reply. Joe said nothing but smiled politely at her with no expectation. Joe remained silent for a moment but the other two seemed to grow a bit uncomfortable although Joe found himself uncertain how to continue.
Finally, Kukurnal interrupted by clearing his throat and entering the conversation, “So… how have you been recently, Joe?”
Joe looked to Kukurnal with relief before continuing, “We’ve continued going to the dungeon and worked on growing the other three’s levels. You?”
“As you said, I am a scholar, so spent my time on scholarly pursuits mostly considering your strange and new ideas in my skorese.”
Joe blinked, surprised that the phrase wasn’t translated, and Joe waited for a bit but no translation was forthcoming and Joe had to finally just ask, “I’m sorry, Kukurnal, but I have no knowledge of what your last word was. I have never heard it before.”
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
“Ah!? Truly? You are such a great scholar I am surprised you’ve never heard of a skorese.”
Joe nodded and questioned, “So what is it?”
“It is a scholar’s skill, mostly available to scholars and some religious jobs where our knowledge is stored.”
“Oh. A library.” Joe exclaimed in understanding.
“Library? No. the library is in the inner city, the skorese is a storage location for the scholar and priests in their minds.”
“Ooh! A mental library. Isn’t that just your memory?” Joe asked with a slightly mocking smile.
Kukurnal’s eyebrows twisted in indignation and turned on Joe with anger, “Memory has nothing to do with... Oh… you mock me!” Kukurnal’s anger turned to resignation, “You truly are irreverent, willing to mock a priest of knowledge for his knowledge.”
Joe smiled, laughing a little, “Well, it is part of our people’s belief. It’s a bit…” Joe trailed off… Huh… maybe talking about the freedom of speech and the right to belittle gods, goddesses, and beliefs might not be a good idea here uh… where should I go… “… of a quirk of my people. But, on the topic of libraries, I tried to visit the library here but was unable to pass the inner city wall guards. Is there a proper method to entering the inner city? How would I go about gaining access or a permit to the inner city?”
Kukurnal actually didn’t reply to that, and only turned to the Matriarch but she had already replied, “Ah. I am willing to procure you a permit.”
The Matriarch quickly turned to one of her men and spoke to him quickly, “Resolve this.”
The man nodded but then simply stood there, returning to his guard duties. Joe waited for something to happen, but when nothing did, he was a bit surprised the Matriarch allowed the guard to ignore her commands and decided to ignore the man as well, turning back to the other two. Both had waited politely for him, but said nothing and Joe then noticed the miserable tenseness of Garnedell, Zilnek, and Kilniara. Joe decided to immediately rectify this and spoke to Kukurnal and the Matriarch quickly.
“Apologies, but if you could pardon me for a moment,” Joe interjected quickly before turning to the other three, “Do you three want to hang out and eat with us or escape before you are trapped in a long philosophical debate with the Matriarch and a priest of knowledge.”
Both Garnedell and Zilnek quickly voted by standing from their seats before bowing carefully to the Matriarch. Kilniara seemed uncertain and Joe smiled softly, “It really is your choice. You can hang out with us, or leave. I’m going to guess you’ll have more fun not being a part of this, but if you want to hang around and learn a little, you can do so. It’ll probably be hard for you to join the conversation, though, except in some areas of experience.”
Garnedell and Zilnek had stopped when Joe began speaking to Kilniara and now seemed a bit more reluctant to go. Joe saw their reluctance and then turned to all three.
“I promise I’ll teach all this later. You will learn all this, but there are a lot of basics that you don’t know or understand so would struggle to understand most of what we talk about except for some minor statements that are specific to your experience. For example, the struggle of wealth or being hungry. The Matriarch and Kukurnal probably do not know and have never known what it is to be hungry and cold. You have that experience and could teach them this. But, otherwise… most of what we will probably talk about would be too difficult for you to understand until I have taught you some more basics.”
Zilnek and Garnedell took their escape with relief while Kilniara nodded and smiled in gratefulness of Joe’s promise. All three then greeted the Matriarch once more before escaping to another table to eat. Joe turned back to the other two after the others left and offered a quick apology.
“Sorry about that. I’m pretty sure they would be bored out of their minds.”
“It seems to be a poor excuse to allow your apprentices to escape their training and learning, would it not? They must learn regardless,” Kukurnal judged rather bluntly.
“It is certainly kind,” the Matriarch offered a bit more circumspectly.
“Hmm. I could see how that would appear to be the case. They are not escaping their training, or learning for that matter, but they would essentially learn nothing from our conversation tonight, and instead would likely be overwhelmed and lost. They would then likely believe that they are unintelligent or incapable of learning what I expect of them. In the end, they would end up doubting themselves and I would have failed as a teacher.”
The other two actually seemed to freeze in thought, thinking carefully before Kukurnal began to nod rapidly in agreement, “I had not considered such a thing before! Are you an educator?”
Joe chuckled, “You already know that I am only basically trained according to my people. I told this to you already.”
“Yet your knowledge seems very … extensive.”
Joe said nothing and simply shrugged, but the Matriarch interjected herself in agreement with Kukurnal.
“You do seem very well trained as a Master.”
Joe’s smile grew as shrugged his shoulders once again, “I’m sure I do, but this knowledge is … pretty basic amongst my people. Not all, as I do have some extra training unique because of my family or parents, but for the most part, it’s all basic.”
“Then how would you educate?”
“Well, it’s pretty hard, but you basically find what speed your student is able to learn, and then choose slightly more difficult than that. If it’s too easy, then they will easily become bored. If it is too difficult, they will easily become overwhelmed and doubt themselves.”
Kukurnal was already nodding by the time Joe was finishing up, “That seems… fairly obvious now that I have heard it.”
“Yeah. It’s nothing really amazing. It’s just… counter intuitive.”
Kukurnal replied quickly before interrupting himself when the sphere of mana erupted out, helping explain or define a new idea. Kukurnal then continued, now tasting a new word and seeming a bit amused by it, “Counter… intuitive… what a strange thought…”
Joe laughed at that and nodded, “Yeah, but there are many counter intuitive things that make it wise to be very cautious of the knowledge you believe you have.”
“Can you give an example?” the Matriarch interjected quickly, suddenly very interested.
“Well, our conversation last time about money and wealth. Most believe the best thing to do is to collect it, but the best thing for a people, city, or country… clan is to use it.”
“Ahh…” the Matriarch nodded in remembrance but then pursed her lips in disagreement, “Yes, I remember that conversation. But I am not that such a thing is counter intuitive.”
Joe smiled and shrugged again, “Oh! Well, most seem to think that it is counter-intuitive. Most naturally seem to want to hold money for themselves. Maybe that was a bad example.”
The Matriarch still didn’t seem to accept his believe but decided to move on, “Then can you think of another … counter intuitive idea?”
Joe paused for a bit before continuing, becoming a bit more serious, “The nature of the power of natio… clans. Most people do not know where the true power of a clan is but it... hmm....”
Joe lost his train of thought when another interesting idea hit him, something that would explain things much better and he thought for a moment before smiling brightly, chuckling, “The placebo effect.”
The mana bubble exploded outwards once more, an obvious new word added to the dictionary and the confusion on both Kukurnal and the Matriarch’s faces rapidly changed to shock and disbelief.
“Surely! That cannot be true!” the Matriach exclaimed almost at the same time as Kukurnal shouted out, “Impossible.”
Joe’s smile brightened. Don’t call me Shirley! But he kept his humor to himself and continued, “Yup. It’s real.” It was one of the first times he was grateful for the magical dictionary effect of his skill, and watched the two wrestle with the strange idea.
The Matriarch shook her head, "I ... it cannot be for all people!"
"It doesn't seem to matter who, the educated or the least knowledgeable... All are affected. Simply believing it is a medicine can cause the person to be healed or affected."
Kukurnal paused to allow the Matriarch a chance to speak, but seeing she didn't, he added his own questions, "Are they mages? Maybe it could be possible for mages."
Mage...ooh! If magic can bring about a form of wish fulfillment... then... wow... ok, gotta be clear on that. "Nope. No magic was involved. In fact, the researchers were careful to exclude all external forces as much as they could."
The Matriarch stared with disbelief even as Kukurnal look at him with deep consideration.
With that, they were off to the races, with Joe delving into another odd aspect of human psychology, with the conversation chasing rabbit trails by the dozens and Joe spent several hours enjoying the discussion and the meal. During the conversation, another runner of some kind had come in and deposited an object one of the guard’s hands who then passed it to the Matriarch. The conversation was interrupted for a moment while the Matriarch passed an inner city permit to Joe and Joe almost interrupted the conversation to figure out how the Matriarch, or the guard, was able to call in the need for the permit without ever having left or spoken, that Joe had heard. Huh… some kind of long distance communication or invisible guard? Or maybe … probably more likely a telephone like ability or system. Should I ask? Or would that be operational security and make them… concerned? Joe decided to drop it, not wishing to bother the Matriarch or worry her guards and paint a target on his back. He did make a mental note of it but soon was back into a deep conversation once again, lost in the enjoyable debates. Soon, the night deepened and all three called it a night with Joe escaping to bed soon after. It had been a rather odd but thoroughly enjoyable day and he soon found himself lost in his dreams.