Arik sat across from the older woman at a desk in the orphanage’s office. He’d only been in this room a handful of times in the past, usually to help the Hestals move file boxes around. This time though, he was here for a very different reason.
“Our orphanage no longer receives funding for wards who come of age,” the head Hestal told him. She wore a grim expression and brushed her hair out of her eyes, clearly disliking what she was about to say. “Now, Arik, you’ve been a truly exemplary young man.
“You’ve done so very much for the little ones, and have more than done your part in taking care of them,” she told him, “As a thanks, I’d like to offer you a place here until the upcoming winter solstice. The temples only recalculate our funding annually, and we have sufficient savings to grant you room and board until then.”
Arik shook his head. “I couldn’t possibly ask that of you.”
The woman reached across the desk and put her hands on his, which had been resting on the desk’s surface interlaced together. “It would be nothing, Arik. This place is your home, and forcing you to leave so soon would be immoral.”
He smiled at her. “It’s fine, really. I’ll be sure to visit sometimes. Just make sure that extra funding you’ll be getting for me goes to keeping the little ones fed.”
“Of course,” she said with a wistful chuckle.
A knock resounded at the door, and both turned. “Ah, that would be Shaper Lapenbaum,” she muttered to herself, before calling out, “You may come in!”
The door creaked open, and the teacher peeked his head in. “Ah, Arik, I was told I could find you here.” He looked to the Hestal. “Am I interrupting?”
“No, you’re just the man I wanted to see, in fact,” she said with a smile. “I believe you’d like to speak to Arik about his future?”
“Yes, yes,” he said, adjusting his glasses. “Arik, the truth is, you don’t have a whole lot of options. Chances are, you’re not going to be able to get a job anywhere nearby.”
Wow, it’s that bad? Arik knew that he didn’t have any training, but really?
“Now, I know what you’re thinking-” he continued, “-and it’s not just because you don’t have any form of training or apprenticeship. You’re still quite young and you could probably find someone willing to teach you a trade. It’s also because you lack connections.
“Normally a family would introduce their child to friends and family, calling in favors to let the new adult work under a more experienced individual. In your case, this will not work. While many people in town have seen you, and have positive opinions of you, you have no family to draw on their aid. It is unlikely that they will simply act out of the kindness of their hearts with no outstanding connections. At least, none working as Journeymen.”
Arik’s mouth opened and closed as he tried to think of solutions to his dilemma. He’d never even thought of that. “Then what am I supposed to do? There must be something.”
The adults in the room shared a glance. “There is. You see, Arik, I know a man who works in a field I think you might be interested in. He’s an ex-Journeyman, and he’s offered to take you to a school he works at. It focuses on teaching people whose interests involve the slaying of Divine Beasts. Now, I could be wrong, but I feel that’s something you might like. It would be dangerous, but a good opportunity, so think about it.”
Arik only had to consider it for a split second before answering. “Really? I’d love that, Mr. Lapenbaum.”
The wiry, gray-haired man chuckled, tamping down a bit on Arik’s excitement. “John has to come up from Wendown, so it’ll be a few days before he arrives. Until then, I’d recommend you pack what you’d like to take with you, prepare the kids, and prepare yourself. You have until then to change your mind.”
Arik nodded excitedly.
===
Arik grunted, the hilt of his blade slick with his sweat as he carved into the training dummy.
“Step into the strike, Arik,” Lapenbaum reminded him. “You may have a Skill for that now, but that’s no replacement for hard work and real training.”
Arik grimaced and altered his stance, swinging again.
“Move your core more, you’re forcing your arms to do all the movement.”
He swung again, and again, and again until his arms could hardly lift the large training sword anymore, and his lungs felt like they were about to collapse. He set the hunk of wood on the ground, signaling to his Shaper that he couldn’t go for any longer.
“Arik, my boy, you’re doing well. I’m proud of you for putting in the hours. With that said, soon you’ll be doing this in armor, and your life may actually depend on those swings.” Mr. Lapenbaum wiped a drip of sweat off his forehead. He may not have been swinging a sword himself, but he had been under the sun for quite some time, and just watching Arik work so hard was exhausting. The mind was a curious thing. “This may be rude of me, but would you mind explaining your stat distributions to me? For educational purposes, of course.”
Arik nodded, still panting. When he caught his breath, he responded, “Physique 14-” a deep breath, “-Limit 12, my Talent’s 10, Wisdom is at 8, Essence and Purity at 6 and 17 respectively.”
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The teacher's eyebrows rose a touch. “That’s pretty good. Which stats are increased at each level?”
Arik squinted to remember for a second, then answered, “Physique by 2, Limit by 1, Essence by 1, and Purity by 2.”
“Your blessing wouldn’t happen to give you extra free points, would it?” A shake of the head was his answer. “Alright then. As you should know, Physique measures your bodily power and output. More is better, in your case, but putting points into it would likely be excessive. Limit is how much movement your body can actually handle. Low Limit and your agility will be nonexistent, and you’ll also be more prone to hurt yourself by overextending. A few points here wouldn’t go amiss, but not many.
“If I remember correctly, you’re planning on using a style focused on heavy, bladed weapons, yes?” A nod this time. “Then you’ll need great strength to manage that. Physique should be more important than Limit to you, but don’t let it fall behind or you’ll get yourself injured to the point where you’re useless in a fight. Now, your Talent is average, but your Wisdom is below average. You should put points into both tonight. I would hope that I don’t need to remind you, but Talent measures how quickly you learn new things and level Skills, and Wisdom relates to knowledge retention, Skill use, and recognizing when you’re about to do something incredibly stupid.
“For just swinging a sword at what is effectively a bag of hay strapped to a wooden cross, you won’t need much Essence or Purity, but as a paladin, those will both be important. Essence is the gauge of how much Divine Essence there is inside your Essence Core. The use of Magicks draws on your Essence, and consumes it, transforming it into the desired effect. Your Purity defines how clean your Essence Meridians are. The more pure they are, the more Essence they can channel at a single time. Each spell has a certain Purity score attached to it. While that spell is active, it will reserve that amount of Purity. For example, at 17 Purity, you could have three spells with a cost of 5 Purity active. High Purity costs usually make for more powerful, Essence-intensive spells, or are composed of complex elements. I assume you were given a spell?” The Shaper’s verbal deluge finally ended as he adjusted his glasses.
“Yes, sir, it’s called Starlight. I believe its Purity cost was 7.”
The teacher nodded, then explained, “Typically, spells with a Purity below 10 have a very small Essence cost. For now, it may seem moderate, especially with your low Essence score, but with time, it will become negligible. Even if you had the most basic of Essence types, it would likely only drain an Essence when cast, or a few Essence each minute, depending on whether or not it’s a channeled spell. Your type seems more in-line with something Celestial, which is very complex, so I’d wager that it would be, at most, an Essence a minute.” Arik nodded.
The blond boy already knew most of this, of course, but a refresher didn’t hurt. If he’d be going to a Journeyman school soon, then remastering some basics now would be many times preferable to facing embarrassment at the hands of the teachers there.
“Now, we’ve got a couple more days until my friend arrives. Keep up the hard work and I believe you’ll be ready for him.” The pair of them started walking back to the orphanage, having completed their work in the backyard. “Remember that John is a Pedagogue there, and they’re not exactly known for their leniency.”
While Shapers like Lapenbaum were known for teaching youth and providing general education, Pedagogues were employed to teach at the collegiate level or, in rare cases, to school geniuses and prodigies. The general perception was that Shapers were kind and soft, while Pedagogues were effectively there to differentiate between those who could make it, and those who couldn’t. Sure, they taught, but that was only half the job. If you could do so well that even such a strict teacher had no complaints, then you were considered to have potential, and were often given greater support than others, even those with a similar amount of total knowledge.
It wasn’t quite favoritism, but it sure seemed like it when you were watching those around you receive extra help and training when you were struggling with the content.
To be trained as a Pedagogue, one had to be rather talented. It was considered a very important position to the Wendowian people, one deserving of honor and respect as those people were often the ones teaching the nation’s next leaders and heroes.
According to what Mr. Lapenbaum had told him, his friend John had originally been trained as a Pedagogue. They’d been friends growing up, and lived nearby after they’d each decided on a career. Apparently, John had attained the credentials required to work as a Pedagogue, and promptly buggered off to be a Journeyman, deciding that the life of a teacher was too boring for him. His parents and friends had been frustrated to no end, but it was his life, so none of them could bring themselves to stop him. It seemed that his schooling had paid off, though, since he was now a Pedagogue at a prestigious organization called the Spartan Citadel.
Lapenbaum himself didn’t know much about the school, other than its name and the fact that it aimed to create intersoldiers and Journeymen, but the name certainly sounded intimidating.
Just a few more days, Arik thought to himself, a few more days.
===
The Waking Dream: the interface between man and the Divine, a gift from the gods themselves. The first Waking Dream ever experienced by a mortal was performed by Prometheus, who was henceforth celebrated as the Giver of Essence, as a gift to mankind. He, unlike the other divines, believed that humanity could be trusted with their power, and performed the first Waking Dream in secret. By the time the gods had realized, they were too late, and a significant portion of the population was awakened.
Each individual contained the inherent potential to access Divine Essence, the power of the gods. While no mortal contained much of it at first, they all contained some, and that amount could grow and expand as it was used. The first interaction one had with their Essence was always the same: the awakened would pass out, shuffle through some options, and then pick their class. The setting was always different, and it was based on the person, but otherwise, the core concepts were all the same.
After that, however, things were a bit more tame. In Arik’s case, when he went to sleep, he found himself sitting under a beautiful night sky, his surroundings darkened by the night, and his only light being from the moon and stars.
His slate was with him, hovering above his lap like some magickal parchment– which, he supposed, it was.
Name: Arik
[Blessing of Celestial Skies]
Age: 18
Stats:
Physique: 14
Limit: 12
Talent: 10
Wisdom: 8
Essence: 6
Purity: 17
Free Points: 4
Primary Class: [Stellar Paladin] (1)
Skills (3/5):
￮ [Heavily Armored] (1)
￮ [Bladework] (1) -> (2)
￮ [Starlight] (1)
￮
￮
Secondary Class:
Tertiary Class:
Skill Points: 2
Recalling what Lapenbaum had told him, he assigned a point to Limit, a point to Talent, and the other two free points to Wisdom. Then, he sat back and enjoyed the night sky for the remainder of his dream.
===
A full week later, Arik and Shaper Lapenbaum were interrupted from their sword training by a Hestal calling to them from inside.
“Come! There’s a visitor for you two!”
Arik and his teacher shared a meaningful glance, and walked into the building.