Why am I such an idiot? Milo thought to himself as the two of them carried the boat back to where they’d found it earlier.

“I’m really, really—”

“Stop apologizing! It’s a small leak, I already told you we can fix it, and you were just trying to be helpful. It’s really not a big deal.”

“But you guys have so much work, and I just gave you even more.”

“So you don’t intend to help out?”

“What? No! Er, yes. What I mean is, of course I’m going to help out.”

“Then don’t worry about it. Accidents happen. Nobody died. It’ll be fine. Help me flip this.”

They got the boat turned upside down once more and then returned to the cottage without further incident, other than Milo trying to apologize one last time. Julie responded merely by rolling her eyes at him, at which point he finally shut up about it.

When they returned to the cottage, Milo was treated with a lesson in fish gutting and fileting. Julie made it look surprisingly simple, but it was another one of those things that was a lot easier with two hands. It took Milo five times longer to finish one than she took doing two—with worse results—but at the end of it, he knew that he would be able to clean out a fish if no one were around to do it for him. It was a good feeling.

Apparently they didn’t have a frying pan for the fish. Instead, they simply used a flat rock that was nestled down into the coals.

All of the food was done at close to the same time. Julie insisted on serving Milo first, since he was the guest. He tried to demur, but she was insistent. Before long, however, they all had clay plates filled with food. Milo started in on his roots, which were fairly bland and inoffensive, before trying the fish. It, too, was bland, although it wound up being a little bit more on the offensive side. Still, it was food, and he was in no position to turn his nose up at anything.

Finally, he came to the crab. He’d saved it for last in the hopes that either Julie or Devin would go first, giving him an idea of how to attack it. No such luck.

“Uh. What do I do here?” he asked, gesturing to his boiled crustacean.

“You don’t know?” asked Devin, incredulity plain on his face.

“This is a new food for me,” said Milo defensively.

Julie took pity on him, showing him how to crack open the legs to find the meat inside, as well as which parts of the body were okay to eat and which would make him sick if he tried. He paid very close attention to that part.

The crab, it turned out, was bland.

Milo was careful to take only a third of everything, but Julie urged him to take more.

“Devin’s small, and I have a Skill. Please. Take all you want. There’s plenty. Leftovers don’t last long without a refrigerator, so it’s best to eat as much as we can now.”

I guess that makes sense.

It was enough to let him eat without guilt. Determined to regain the body mass that Backlebutt’s potion had taken from him, he stuffed himself until he couldn’t take another bite. Julie was surprised enough by his apparent appetite to comment on it, immediately making him worry that he’d overdone it. She apologized and reassured him once more that he was welcome to all he could eat, so he tried to put it out of mind.

After dinner, they took their dishes to the stream to clean up.

“So what do you do around here when the sun goes down?” Milo inquired as they headed back to the cottage with their cleaned dishes. The light had begun to fade.

“Sit around the fire and work on things that need working on, usually. Remember how I talked about rope-making? Nights are when a lot of that gets done. Sometimes we’ll weave baskets or mend clothing. Whatever needs doing,” she shrugged.

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“Ah.” Milo nodded. It sounded...incredibly boring. Practical, certainly, but boring. Still, he’d cracked their boat.

“How can I be of help?”

***

Julie and Devin had gone to bed. Milo, with the aid of Power Nap, was still wide awake. He stared into the fire, watching the flames as they slowly died down.

He sucked at handicrafts.

He knew that, in time, he might find a workaround that would allow him to be at least somewhat competent with just his one hand, but that wasn’t exactly plan A. No; he wanted to figure out a way off of this island so that he wasn’t forced to live a hunting and gathering lifestyle with arts and crafts mixed in.

Julie was nice enough. In fact, Milo found she was extremely easy to get along with. Devin was generally a good kid, helpful and respectful, even if he did occasionally act like a 10-year-old. Even so, Milo didn’t want to get sucked into some kind of warped survivalist domestic bliss with them. He wanted…

Hm.

As ever, he didn’t know what he wanted long term. Definitely not this, though.

So what do I need, in order to get off the island?

After musing for a while, he figured it came down to either finishing the ship Eric had started and somehow obtaining information on which direction to go, or gaining the ability to fly indefinitely at high speeds. Or teleportation.

Wait a second, though. First I need to verify that this actually is an island.

He believed Julie in that he didn’t think that she was deceiving him, but she had her information secondhand from her husband. She might trust him, but Milo had never met the guy. It was entirely possible that he had simply assumed they were on an island rather than, say, a hammer-shaped peninsula, and never actually traveled all the way around it like he’d told his wife. Milo didn’t honestly think that was the case, but he wasn’t leaving it to chance either.

Step one: verify islandhood.

Step two, if island: go back into the Descent and get stronger.

Step three: somehow get off the island.

There were some kinks, such as the need for food during his Descent. Also, he needed to work on his class.

Milo had been so focused on getting his mage fusion that he’d nearly forgotten that he still wanted to get Improved Memory. He wanted to check if it had a mana pool enhancement modifier. That needed to happen before fusing up into a Runemage, which meant that he needed to level up. He was roughly 300 mana away from that happening, though, which was problematic given the lack of convenient XP on the island. Puma raptors were apparently top of the food chain here, and they were only level 3. How many of them could there even be on an island this size?

Unless…

Milo activated Skim and opened up his status screen. Does Improved Memory have a modifier that increases my mana pool? Highlight every ‘y’ for yes, ‘n’ for no.

Nothing lit up. He wasn’t ready to give up though.

Highlight the first letter of the first word of the first modifier of Improved Memory.

Still nothing. Milo now felt that giving up was appropriate. He closed the screen.

So, it won’t answer questions about modifier points either. Thus far, the only extra information the System had given him via Skim was about class fusions, which was incredibly irritating. It felt like so much more ought to be possible, if only he could think of it. Try as he might, though, he simply couldn’t.

He switched gears.

Do I really need to get the hypothetical boost from Improved Memory? I’m going to have four Legacy slots when I fuse...if Mage is an advanced class. I really wish I’d asked Backlebutt about that earlier. It didn’t really matter, since he’d find out eventually anyway, but it would be nice to know all the same.

He wanted to keep Fetch Book and Improved Cognition for sure. Skim, while initially underwhelming, had actually turned out to be his most-used Skill after Fetch Book. Polyglot was a question mark; he didn’t know if he would retain his current level of linguistic proficiency after he lost the skill. While he could get by without it, it was still incredibly useful to not have the language barrier.

Pause for Thought had come in pretty handy on a few occasions, but overall it probably fell behind the others he’d already listed.

And then there was Power Nap. Above and beyond its usefulness in giving him more time, he just plain liked it. It felt great to always be alert and well-rested.

In summary, he had five Skills already that he definitely wanted to hang onto if he could without even considering Improved Memory.

I could probably lose Polyglot, though. For 50% more mana, if Improved Memory follows the same pattern as Improved Cognition? Yeah. Plus, Improved Memory should help me learn languages anyway.

It was just too big of a potential advantage to pass up. That meant Milo would need to grind some XP. Sooner, rather than later, since he knew he’d be getting his Mage option sometime tomorrow.

Milo doused the fire, then headed away from the cottage into the woods. He activated Skim, searching for tracks.

Sorry, puma raptors. Looks like you just made the endangered species list.