The Weald had felt considerably less like a great camping vacation spot since stumbling upon the low-dwellers and the site of the murders. Trekking through the forest now felt almost unnerving. Hunter felt more like a trespasser than ever, all too conscious of even the smallest crunch of leaves or snap of twigs under his feet.
Fawkes was leading the way through the twisting forest paths, silent and sullen–even more so than usual.
Hunter had a thousand things to say, now that they were out of earshot of the folken, but neither she nor he were in the mood for chatter. Even the ravens had fallen silent, focused on scouting ahead.
The fight had shaken him a bit, he had to admit that. He may have come out on top, figuratively and literally, but the Ashari man’s skill with his weapon had been alarmingly superior to Hunter’s.
If he couldn’t take on a single local with armed with a stick, he wasn’t too hopeful about his prospects against whatever prowled the Weald.
He decided to take a mental inventory of himself and his abilities, and opened his character sheet.
Character Information:
Name:
Hunter
Race:
Transient (Human)
Class:
Mystic
Qualities:
Aether
100
Élan
9
Insight
1
Inspiration
1
Serendipity
1
Attributes:
Health
100
Essence
100
Stamina
100
Strength
10
Dexterity
10
Intellect
10
Willpower
10
Presence
10
Nothing new here, really. That single point of Serendipity was sooner or later bound to get him a special encounter, and the hundred Aether he got for completing a task was just enough for him to upgrade one of his Attributes.
He also had one point of Inspiration to spare, the one he’d gotten from anchoring himself to the Place of Power at the village. That meant he could learn a new Ability, but he wasn’t sure which.
He willed the Character Sheet to scroll down to the next section and took a look at what he already had.
Skills:
Close Combat
12
Evasion
2
Meditation
1
Occultism
10
Polearm Mastery
11
Survival
19
Abilities:
Conjure Familiar
4
Low-Light Vision
8
Mystic’s Eye
9
These Skills and Abilities were what he amounted to, when push came to shove. They were the meat and potatoes of his character, the things he could actively do to exert his oh-so-valuable player agency on the world around him.
What a damn mess, he caught himself thinking.
As a gamer, he’d always been a fan of specialization. All of his characters were tuned to do one thing, and do it well. In Elderpyre, however, his skillset had ended up looking like a mixed bag of odds and ends with no focus or direction whatsoever.
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It wasn’t his fault, exactly; there was no tutorial, no manual, no wiki to look up and learn the ins and outs of the game. He had no idea what to expect, no idea what to prepare for, no idea which upgrade to his character would prove to be of value and which simply a red herring.
In most other games he chose to play some kind of tanky warrior, a heavy-hitting bruiser, or some other variation of the beefy close-combat specialist archetype. That meant he usually poured everything he had into upgrading his Strength, Health, and Stamina stats or their equivalents. In most other games, however, getting hit did not mean feeling the pain–a feature that Elderpyre had, and Hunter was not exactly fond of.
He could instead pump his Aether into his Essence or one of his mental Attributes–Intellect, Willpower, and Presence–and attempt a more magic-focused build for his character. Again, the problem was he had no idea how that would work in Elderpyre. Plus, effective as they usually turned out to be, playing spellcasters never really appealed to him.
So many choices, so little information to go on.
He was flying blind. He hated flying blind.
Hunter kept on poring over his character sheet, trying to make heads or tails of things. Browsing through the semi-transparent window while walking through the uneven, shifty paths and game trails of the Weald, however, was a ticking bomb of trouble waiting to go off.
Before long, off it went.
Hunter never really saw whether it was a rock, a fallen tree branch, or a root. He tripped, lost his balance, and fell more-or-less on his face. The fact that he was lugging around an eight-and-a-half-foot long glaive and a backpack didn’t help much, either.
“If you wanted the whole Weald to know we’re here, congratulations,” said Fawkes as she helped him up, the edges of her tight mouth struggling to conceal a crooked grin despite herself. “We might as well stop to catch our breaths a bit.”
Hunter welcomed the break. He left his gear on the ground, patted down with new poncho, and sat on a big rock to rest.
“Do you think the Brennai will give us trouble?” he asked.
“Hard to say. They’re on edge, and rightly so. They have no love for outlander even at the best of times. Oh, and the young man you tussled with? He’s the alderman’s son.”
“Splendid.”
“Is that what’s on your mind?”
“Hmm? No, not really.”
“Then what?”
“Transient stuff,” Hunter said. “In fact, you could help me with it.”
“As long as it doesn’t take too long. We’d better be on our way soon.”
“Okay, so, you know how there are these character sheets that detail how much Health and Strength and Dexterity and whatnot you have, and how high your Skill levels are, and what Abilities you know how to use?”
Fawkes said nothing.
“…you don’t have the slightest idea what I’m talking about, do you?”
“I know of this magic, yes,” she said, frowning, “though I cannot use it myself. That is something transients do. It is possible for other incandescent to learn it through discipline and meditation, but I only ever met one who actually did.”
“Incandescent?”
Fawkes shot Hunter a sideways glance.
“Grimnir’s beard, I forget even babes know more than you. Do you know the myth of the Elderpyre?”
“Uh… please assume that I don’t.”
“Right," she sighed. “So, when the world was still young, the old gods who ruled over mortal men were, as you’d expect, very possessive of the thing that made them gods in the first place–the Elderpyre. One day a goddess–the one some still worship as our goddess, the Goddess–took pity on us. She went against her fellow gods and stole a fragment of the Elderpyre to share it freely with all mortal men and women.”
“I see,” Hunter said. “I’ve heard variations of that myth before, we have a few of our own back in my world.”
“You have? That’s interesting. Every culture has its own variation, yes, but they all more or less agree with the quick rundown I gave you.”
“So what about it?”
“There’s more. The other gods hunted her down and managed to take the Elderpyre fragment back–but not before the Goddess spread its ashes and embers in the four winds. As the story goes, each of us has a tiny piece of those ashes and embers in our heart. Some even manage to spark it back to life and wake a speck of the Elderpyre within themselves. These are the incandescent, the ones that carry the gift of the Goddess.”
“So, transients are incandescent?”
“It would seem so, though you must understand that, as I said, this is mostly conjecture. My master used to say that all transients are incandescent, yes, even if not all incandescent are transients.”
“Your mast-?”
“One story at a day, lad,” Fawkes cut him short. “Let’s leave that for another time and get back to your question about that… character sheet of yours.”
“Right. It’s less about the character sheet, per se, and more about me honing my skills.”
“If that’s the case, my advice to you is that practice makes perfect.”
“No, yeah, I know. I mean… if I’m to run around the Weald and go snooping in dark places and fight low-dwellers and stuff, I have to learn new skills, get better at new things. Problem is, I don’t really know where to start or what to aim for. I don’t want to end up a jack of all trades.”
“What’s wrong with a jack of all trades?” Fawkes asked.
“Well, you know how the saying goes. Jack of all trades, master of none.”
“…though oftentimes better than a master of one," Fawkes added.
“I didn’t know that last part.”
“It means that yes, dabbling aimlessly in a number of disciplines won’t get you the best results–but neither will mastering a single skill and expect it to solve every challenge you encounter. Choosing what to practice, of course, depends on what you wish to become good at. Do you know that, at least?”
Hunter gave it some thought. To his surprise, something did come to mind–and it wasn’t what he expected.
“Yes, I think. I want to become better at avoiding getting hurt. In a fight, I mean, or when I have to stick my nose in dangerous places.”
“The way of the coward, then” Fawkes teased with a smirk. “A noble pursuit.”
“Well, you know what they say. A coward’s mother never weeps.”
“They also say that fortune favors the bold.”
“Well, they haven’t had to cross this scary forest to go crawl down even scarier ghost people's tombs, have they?”
“Fair point,” Fawkes chuckled. “Well, for starters, that thing you carry around, your glaive. You brandish it like an old maid brandishes her broomstick, but it’s actually a decent weapon. Good for keeping enemies at bay, although dangerous to use in narrow and cramped spaces. You should consider getting yourself some kind of sidearm, too–something easier to carry and use and conceal. A dagger, maybe. And learn to handle both weapons adequately.”
“Get a sidearm, learn to fight better than an old maid. Got it. Anything else?”
“Yes–the most important thing," Fawkes added. “Knowledge is power–even more so when it comes to survival. If your goal is to stay out of harm’s way, you have to assume everyone and everything is a threat. Be prepared. Stay vigilant.”
“Be paranoid about everything,” Hunter half-joked. “Got that too.”
“Which brings me to my next point,” Fawkes continued, getting serious. “Those birds of yours?”
“Biggs and Wedge. What about them?”
“Am I correct to assume they are your spirit servants–or the transient equivalent, whatever you may call them?”
“Familiars. Yes.”
Fawkes nodded.
“Having a couple of extra pairs of eyes and ears is invaluable–especially if they’re inconspicuous and trustworthy beyond doubt. Those are rare. Learn to capitalize on them. What’s more, these kinds of spiritual servants often have supernatural abilities beyond what their animalistic form would suggest, or so I’ve gathered. I won’t pretend to know how your transient magics work, but I would suggest you learn to use them to the fullest.”
“Use the feathery bastards more. Okay, can do.”
“In short,” Fawkes concluded, “play to your strengths.”
Hunter decided to start doing that right away. He reached out through the mental link he shared with Biggs and Wedge and sent them to scout ahead. They took wing immediately, two dark blurs of feathers, excited caws, and incessant mental chattering.
He went on to focus on that mental link for the next half hour, getting live feedback about the layout of the surrounding area as they traversed it. Soon enough, that granted him a couple of interesting skill and ability increases.
Now that was interesting.
Those new Abilities had become available just as his Survival Skill hit twenty. Both of them sounded useful, but now he was curious what other Abilities he'd gain access to once some of his other Skills reached that twenty-point mark. That might take a while, though; his Close Combat and Polearm Mastery were at 12 and 11, his Occultism at 8, and his far less used Evasion and Meditation were at a measly 2 and 1 respectively. If he wanted to raise any of those Skills, he’d have to stop riding on Fawkes’s coattails and actively seek out to practice them.
Well, look at that, he thought, realizing how eager and motivated he suddenly felt. Gamification–it actually worked! If only he’d used it to get his sorry ass through college instead of shirking off assignments to crawl through virtual dungeons with his raiding group, things might have actually played out a bit differently.
Well, if pigs had wings.
There was one thing that still bugged him, though.
“Fawkes?” he asked. “Being incandescent is considered a good thing, isn’t it?
Fawkes looked like the question took her by surprise. She furrowed her brow and thought about it for a moment.
“Yes,” she finally said. “For the most part.”
“Then why is being a transient considered so bad?”
“Ah. I see what you mean. Do you have alligars where you come from, lad?”
“Alligars?”
“Big lizards that live in the water. The kind that eats you.”
“Oh, alligators. Yes.”
“No,” she corrected him. “Alligars.”
“Yes, anyway, we got those. What about them?”
“Incandescent, you see, are like alligars. They start off small and weak, hardly a threat to anyone. Leave them unchecked, however, and they soon can become proper monsters. See what I’m getting at?”
“Yes,” Hunter said. “I think I do.”
“In fact,” Fawkes went on, “there’s an offshoot of the Church called the Inquisition. What they do is keep tabs on any and all incandescent they become aware of, and make sure they pose no threat. Other than that, incandescent are seen as favored by the Goddess. Sometimes even celebrated as such.”
“What about transients, then?”
“Transients are too dangerous to be left unchecked,” Fawkes shook her head. “If history is any indication, they’re often unpredictable. Callous. Amoral. Hedonistic. They lack any and all empathy for non-transients. Combine that with their innate potential as incandescent, and you can see why they’re vilified.”
“…why we are vilified, you mean.” Hunter darkened. “Is that how you see me, then?”
“That’s certainly how the Inquisition sees you. They have been known to hunt down transients and outright force them to either join or die.”
“Die?”
“It’s difficult to make you lot stay down, yes,” it was Fawkes’s turn to darken, “but if anyone knows how, it’s the Inquisition. Some of them have turned it into an art form.”
“But is that how you see me?”
Fawkes gave it some thought, then chose her words carefully.
“Some of the most effective members of the Lodge were incandescent,” she said. “The most unorthodox and controversial of those started off as transients. That’s how I see you, then. A baby alligar, not bigger than my hand. No offense meant. Will you grow big and hungry enough to devour it? Will you be an ally? I can’t know for sure. But I have to be wary.”
“I see.”
“It’s nothing personal, lad. For what it’s worth, I like you.”
“Gee, thanks.”
She stopped and turned to look at him. She looked somber for a moment, old. It gave Hunter pause. Then she forced a smirk and gave him a friendly clap on the shoulder.
“It might not seem fair to you, lad, but that’s how the world works. There’s no point in fretting about what you can’t change. You do what you can and hope for the best. Come now, don’t drag your feet–the Ghostbarrows are waiting.”