***
Peter slept for the first time ever that night. As far as his memories go, at least.
The temples priests prepared him his own room with a wonderful bed. He woke up well rested and very interested in what he could do before he got to his training. Breakfast was already laid out on a table for him. He had some bread with something that tasted like honey, and some kind of delicious smelling meat. He then walked out of his room with his white toga on, and began asking around for directions to find Kayel. People walking by said they saw him just a few corridors down.
When Peter finally found him, Kayel was talking to a burly man in leather armour with a sword at his hip.
As Peter approached, he heard the middle of their conversation.
"It was incredible Jogun. And he's way over 6'8" tall, he's more like--"
The burly man tapped Kayel's shoulder and said, "Like that strapping fellow there?" he pointed.
Kayel turned around. As soon as he saw Peter his face turned into a big smile,
"Good morning Peter! I trust you had a good night's sleep," Kayel walked over to Peter and brought him to the burly man.
"Peter, I'd like you to meet Jogun. He's the temples combat instructor. He was a general for the Justicar a few years back, but he decided to retire." Kayel was much happier than he was yesterday. He had a new set of white monk robes on that had a golden trim to them, and embroidered scales on the shoulders. His beard seemed to be trimmed down a little bit too.
Jogun reached out a strong looking hand to Peter, "Welcome, Peter. We've waited a long time for Adrestia to send you to us!"
Peter took his hand and shook it firmly, "So I've been told. Combat instructor you said? Um.. what type of combat do you specialize in if you don't mind me asking?"
Jogun raised an eyebrow, then replied, "Peter, do you see the calluses on my hands? They're most certainly not from casting spells. No need to worry."
Peter jerked back in surprise and sent a concerned look over to Kayel.
"Not to worry Peter. Jogun can be trusted. He knows about your... problem... and has agreed to instruct you privately."
Peter visibly relaxed and looked Jogun up and down. He was a relatively tall man at 6' 1", but was still dwarfed by Peter. His arms were fairly thick but they were toned as well. His leather armour was sleek, and fit him perfectly. The shoulder pads were studded with steel, and at the hips, he had a short chain-mail skirt down the side of each leg for added protection while not restricting movement. He looked to be in his late 40's or early 50's with graying hair starting to overtake the regular short black hair.
"Well I'm glad. If Kayel says I can trust you, then I will. It's nice to meet you Jogun."
"Likewise Peter. You definitely can trust me by the way. I have all the reason in the world to keep your secret, and keep you safe."
Peter was confused at the wording of that statement. He wasn't sure what Jogun was implying so he just summed it up to Jogun being a truly devout follower of Adrestia.
"Well," Peter said, "I don't want to keep you two for long. I just wanted to ask Kayel if I could go outside the temple or not."
"NO," Both Kayel and Jogun instantly replied in unison. They both recoiled a bit as if they spoke a lot more strongly than they meant to.
-cough-.. "What we mean Peter, is that there are a lot of dangers very close to this temple. From what I understand, you're still level 0. You can't risk getting caught up in anything before you're ready to handle yourself," Jogun said reassuringly, "But please don't fret. Your training with me begins tomorrow at dawn. Kayel will fetch you in the morning, and tell you where to go."
Kayel nodded as a confirmation, then added, "Oh, and don't forget that sometime this afternoon you need to drop by the tailor's place we were at yesterday evening. Old Daalia will have your first set of clothes ready for you by then."
"Old?!" Jogun scoffed, "You're 5 years older than she is! I can hear you walking from wherever I am in the temple 'cause it sounds worse than the north gate's creaky drawbridge you old coot!"
Kayel laughed so hard that he seemed to have a tear forming in his eye as he said, "Peter, I'm sorry for letting you get trained by this old 'has-been'. The years have clearly not treated him well, spouting off nonsen--HEY!"
Jogun had grabbed Kayel and began wrestling with him, "You go on Peter! I'll--OOUF--Hey no sucker punching!.. I'll cover your retreat!"
Peter couldn't help but laugh as he walked off. They were clearly two very good friends, and had been for a long time. That made Peter feel much more comfortable with Jogun already.
***
Peter left those two to fight it out, and decided that since he couldn't leave the temple, he would explore it as much as he could. He walked the hallways for almost an hour before he realized just how big this place was, but no matter how far he walked or how many corridors he took, he never got himself lost. His [Powerful Mind] allowed him to keep track of visual things very easily.
Eventually, he decided to keep taking the stairs up until he got to the roof. He wasn't sure exactly how big the temple was, but he'd have to say that it was nearly 1/2 a kilometer long, 1/4 of a kilometer wide, and 4 storeys tall.
Eventually he got to the roof, and walked out into direct sunlight for the first time. It felt incredible. It was actually very cold inside the temple.
Now that Peter was on the roof, he could see how the temple was shaped. It seemed to be two large squares directly side by side, like the number 'eight' on a digital clock. There were two large courtyards in the center of the large structures. He supposed that was necessary since sunlight needed to come in to be able to see well. Lamps couldn't be the only kind of light the temple ever got into the lower floors, or people would lose their minds.
He walked to the edge of the roof where a small, waist-high barrier blocked people from falling down. He leaned on it to look over the edge.
To his surprise, the surrounding area was actually a small township. Many buildings made half of stone, and half of wood were surrounding the entire temple. Streets crisscrossed in between all of them. The buildings farther away looked slightly smaller. Peter supposed those were residential houses, and the buildings directly around the temple were businesses.
Surrounding all of the buildings was one large hill. It almost looked as if this temple and the whole town were built within a crater from an asteroid impact or something. From the height of the temple roof, Peter was just barely able to see just over the hill. Beyond it was a seemingly endless, dense forest in all directions.
Peter saw quite a few people walking on the streets. It wasn't overwhelmingly busy, but busy enough that there always seemed to be someone walking around. The occasional horse trotted by, sometimes carrying a single rider, or pulling a wagon.
Peter suddenly got an idea and wondered why he hadn't started doing this sooner. He accessed his status, then looked into his skill list. He focused on the [Identify] skill, and got a pop-up.
[Identify] Novice level 5 Type: Active Identifies the object that you are focusing on. The higher this skill's tier, the more information it will give. Effective range is this skill's level times 4 meters, + 10 meters for every completed tier. Cost: None Cooldown: 10 seconds
Peter was ecstatic that it didn't cost [Mana]. It would have been a horrible shame if he could never use this skill. Although, he was a little confused as to the exact definition of what 'you are focusing on' was. Did it mean mentally? Visually? How did this skill know?
Peter decided to look inside of his H.U.D. controls, and sure enough there was a togglable function that visually indicated a target. He decided to turn that on and use it to help him. Once it was on, he looked back down at the street and saw someone crossing in front of the temple. Since each storey was about 3 meters tall, being on the 5th meant he was about 15 meters high. Someone directly in front of the building was plenty within his 20 meter range.
When he focused on that person hard enough, a red targeting box appeared in Peter's vision. Then, he thought specifically about 'Identifying' that person.
Human Male Level: 12
"Woah. That seems mighty useful." Peter couldn't help but approve of the results out loud. He waited 10 seconds, then Identified another person, and another person. He kept doing this for another 15 minutes or so, then he got a notification.
[Identify] has risen to Novice level 6!
"Isn't that a little fast?!" Peter exclaimed.
Peter was extremely surprised. He only used it for a few minutes and it leveled up already? It was also his first skill that he'd leveled. It felt way too fast, or maybe that was normal? He had no clue. He would have to inquire about how skills leveled for everyone else. Peter noticed that he could now identify targets from slightly farther away as well, just like the skill said he would.
"Well, that's just plain old exciting!" Peter said with anticipation in his voice. He used the skill again for 15 minutes straight. He identified everything from parts of the roof, to sections of the dirt road outside the temple, to sign posts. At the end of 15 minutes, or 90 more uses, he got another notification.
[Identify] has risen to Novice level 7!
The skill's range increased once again. He hadn't gotten any more information than he did the first time using it, though. Which made sense as he had not risen a tier yet.
"So it takes the same effort to go from any novice level to the next novice level? I doubt that'll be the case when going from Novice to the Adept tier," Peter reasoned.
Peter noticed that the sun was a bit past the highest point now, and realized he should see the time.
"Clock."
2:28 P.M.
"Oh, my new clothes should be done any time now!"
Peter headed back down the cold steps into the temple. He made his way over to where he was told to pick up his clothes. They, of course, had to be specially made for his 7' tall frame. Nobody else in the temple even came close to Peter's size.
As Peter walked to the sewing room, he greeted several of the temple residents. They were always very kind to him, and sometimes the healers that he saw at the altar chamber yesterday would follow him around a bit. Peter didn't mind that too much, though. Peter also used [Identify] on everyone he could as he went. He never found anyone over level 29 though. He did however come across one young lady that surprised him.
Human Female Level ?
Peter thought that maybe this girl was too high level for him to identify. It made sense. The stronger the opponent the more difficult it should be to get a read on them. This meant that the highest level he saw while walking was actually a girl. Peter felt guilty for being surprised by this, but so far the men who wore leather and had swords were always higher leveled than anyone else.
She wore the nicest dress he'd seen any girl wear so far. She had beautiful, straight blond hair, green eyes, and had a slender figure. Peter figured she was a mage of some kind. Likely a powerful one.
***
Eve was walking to a lecture hall on advanced healing magic when she saw a very tall man, with white hair. She thought he looked pretty interesting, then noticed he was looking right at her. She smiled at him lightly in greeting. She was laughing a little in her head about how distracted he seemed by looking at her. She was used to this reaction from men, but when she locked eyes with him, she was the one distracted instead.
She was totally entranced by the subtle glow of his eyes, which were a beautiful light blue. It didn't blend into the rest of his eye to make him seem blind though. The glow they gave off made them distinct. They also seemed to be outlined with a thin black border, so there was no eerie feeing of 'soullessness' from them. Quite the opposite in fact. She felt like his soul was almost tangible. As if he could reach out and grasp her with it if he wanted to.
He was pretty tall, but a bit scrawny. He looked strong anyways though. His white hair matched his eyes well somehow. Even though his hair didn't actually glow, it seemed to because of how it reflected light.
They had both stopped in the hallway and just stared at each other. People walked by, looking at the two and smiling to themselves. She shook herself free of his gaze and felt embarrassed. She didn't want anyone to get the wrong idea. She was just amazed by his eyes, that's it.
She forced herself to walk away, twice as fast as she was walking earlier.
***
Peter watched her walk away, and said under his breath, "I don't know who that is, but I feel like I'm missing out the longer that is true."
Once the mysterious lady was out of sight, Peter continued on to his destination.
When Peter got to the sewing room he had leveled up [Identify] to Novice 8.
When he walked in he was greeted enthusiastically by the old tailor. She was a very cheery old lady who had taken his measurements the previous day.
"It sure wasn't easy," The tailor said, "but we managed to throw together a nice shirt, trousers, gloves, and a set of underwear. We had a large pair of boots already. They were meant for Carlyle, who's the only person in this temple with feet as big as you. He's also fairly wealthy, being one of the strongest active fighters the temple has. We asked him and he said he would be honored for the Avatar to have these."
She pulled out a beautiful, tough looking set of boots. They had small metal plating over the toes, and on the sides of the ankle. The metal on the sides had Adrestia's scales tastefully carved into it. The boots were bound with straps of leather, and buckled to keep them on the feet of their user.
"Th-thank you! These look amazing," Peter said. He didn't know how to thank anyone here. He had nothing to his name, having just been 'born' yesterday.
"Nonsense Peter, you're our whole reason to be here in this Jungle. Please don't worry about thanking us. We'll be making you more sets of better clothing than this shabby stuff soon. We're also working on a nice set of leather armour for you as well. Please take your time and try everything on."
Peter immediately went behind a curtain. He was so tall that he could easily be seen over it, but it covered everything important.
He looked down at the individual pieces of clothing and noticed his targeting square functioned on them. He knew what he wanted to do next.
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Underwear - Quality: Fair
Shirt - Quality: Fair
Trousers - Quality: Fair
Gloves - Quality: Medium - Defense +? Dexterity +?
Boots of the Justicar - Quality: High - Defense +? Dexterity +?
Now this was new. It seems that focusing on individual pieces of clothing or equipment gave different information. Some equipment even gave bonuses to stats! Peter couldn't see what those were, but he assumed that would change when the [Identify] skill reached the Adept tier or higher. Peter definitely had more questions to ask Kayel the next time he saw him.
Peter removed his toga and equipped all of the clothes. He thought he looked amazing. Everything fit him perfectly as far as he could tell, and made him feel truly warm for the first time in a while. Especially the boots! His feet were getting very cold walking around on stone this whole time.
Peter tightened up the belt that came with the trousers, then walked out of the 'changing room'. A small swarm of tailors surrounded and patted him down as soon as he came out. They pulled on the clothing and talked about what changes to make to the template for Peter's specific size, and what to keep the same. Once they were done, the old tailor who Kayel called Daalia came up to him.
"Not bad, but not our best work either. Now that we know how to modify our design to even better fit you, we'll make more permanent clothing than this for you."
Peter immediately came to her defense, "What do you mean not bad? This is the best clothing I've ever had!"
She gave him a wry smile, "It's the only clothing you've ever had dear. Thank you, though. I suppose I still am a sucker for someone complimenting my work!"
Peter laughed and said, "That's not true, I had this." He held up the table cloth he used as a toga.
"My dear, that is a table cloth. Not clothing," She shook her head and put a palm on the side of her face, "To think we were so ill prepared for the arrival of someone we spent generations waiting for... such a shame. Either way, you have clothes now, so I suggest you begin walking around the temple and aquaint yourself with people. You can go back to the main worship part of the temple to meet the priests, or the armoury to talk to the blacksmith."
Daalia shifted her weight to the side a bit, "The priests don't say much, but they would be glad to see you! Haha, oh Adrestia forgive me."
Peter went wide eyed and laughed as well, "Hey, if Adrestia punishes you for that joke she'll have to punish me too. I found it funny all the same!"
"That's a comfort!" She joked, "Now go on. Lots of daylight left! We need to get back to work."
***
Peter really liked Daalia. She was a kind lady, and had a good sense of humor. A lot like Kayel and Jogun, now that Peter thought about it. Peter got a real sense of camaraderie between everyone in the temple.
As Peter walked, he couldn't help wishing he'd bump into that beauty from earlier. He kept a special eye out for blond hair and green eyes.
Peter made his way around the huge 'Eight' shaped building, and eventually found himself where the priests should be. He knew the general direction to go meet them because of having already been at the altar chamber before. He found that chamber, and opened the door to take a quick look inside, but saw nobody. He then continued walking to the rooms nearby, and eventually found what looked like a class room filled with desks and chairs. The priests he saw yesterday in white and black trimmed monk robes were all sitting down patiently writing away on scrolls.
Peter had to open the door to see this, of course, so he caught everyone's attention.
It wasn't like they were distracted with their conversations.
They all looked in Peter's direction with a frown on their faces. They wondered who on Athone would disturb them, but as soon as they realized who had interrupted them they smiled and went to go see him. They silently grabbed him and pulled him inside so they could take a look at him.
"Hey guys, I wanted to say sorry about yesterday. You know, with the whole 'throwing you back 20 feet' thing. I just wanted to see how you were all doing."
All the priests smiled and looked at each other with massive smirks. They all patted him on the shoulders as if to say that 'It was fine, and they didn't blame him.'
One of the 10 priests went over to a desk with parchment on it and grabbed a piece with a quill and ink set, then began writing. He was incredibly fast. As soon as he finished he held it up to Peter. It said:
"Please do not worry for us. We were injured only temporarily, and thanks to the Clerics no injuries are left. It also wasn't your fault at all! We were surprised out of our connection with Adrestia, and the feedback of divine energy was violent."
Peter read it out loud, and all of the priests went wide eyed. The priest wrote some more down and held it up.
"We were not sure if you would be able to read this. We heard you speak in another language yesterday, and figured we would have to spend months teaching you."
Peter realized that it was really strange how the [Auto Translate] skill worked. He could clearly see that all of the words on the page were symbols that he'd never seen before, but he also knew exactly what they meant. He knew the grammar, the terminology, the slang, he even felt he could pick out mistakes if there were any.
Peter gestured towards the parchment and writing materials, "May I?" He asked.
The priests had doubtful looks on their faces but agreed.
Peter sat down at a desk and tried his hand at writing. He was sloppy, to say the least. He supposed [Auto Translate] didn't help with writing technique, but if he focused on the page they wrote on to see their language, and also on where he was writing, he could write in that language.
It took focus, it looked like a toddler wrote it, and it took a lot longer than Peter thought it would, but he eventually wrote,
"I honestly have no idea how it works either. This is my first time writing in this language, but somehow I just know what I have to do."
All the priests were watching of course. It honestly made Peter feel a little self-conscious, but he figured they wouldn't mind.
The priests all looked at each other, seemingly conversing with their eyes. Peter figured they would get pretty good at that after spending so many years silent. Another priest took the parchment, and wrote underneath Peter's writing.
"It's the power of the [Auto Translate] skill, isn't it?"
It was Peter's turn to be amazed, instead of writing back he blurted out, "How?... How did you know?"
They replied with writing,
"We're often in contact with Adrestia. Over the years we learned much about Avatars and their innate abilities. When we're not interpreting her will, we are here copying books for the Temple to sell for income. Through writing thousands of books, we have quite an extent of knowledge. If you have questions, please feel free to ask us. We're instructed to tell you anything we can."
This was exactly what Peter needed. These priests might be able to instruct him better than anyone else in the world when it came to skills and such. Peter began telling them about his experiences with the gods soul test, and with Adrestia, and they immediately began to write everything he said. He left out anything to do with his [Mana] or the Equilibrium Construct.
***
When Peter finally finished talking, they thanked him for all this information. The priests knew that there could only possibly be a handfull of people around the globe who knew anything like this. Not to mention any information about Adrestia was extremely welcome. After all, it was their life's work to better understand her.
Peter asked them to tell him everything they knew about the Avatars and what they could do.
One of the priests walked over to a shelf and took down a dusty scroll. He walked back and handed it to Peter. Peter read it and found that it gave a brief overview of everything Avatars were capable of.
There were a few things of note that Peter didn't know before.
One was that Avatar magic was supposed to be the most powerful kind in existence. Peter was definitely not made happier knowing this but pretended his best to smile big while reading it.
Another thing was that the Deity [Influence] stat was very useful. Every time it was raised by 10, it allowed him to have a short talk with Adrestia. She could give him some immediate guidance, or he could ask her for direct assistance. That direct assistance wasn't understood though. The only way God's were allowed to interact with mortal worlds was through their Debuff, used as a punishment for their believers who've lost their way. But even that could be gotten rid of at any time by the person afflicted by denouncing their God, and giving up their ties to their God's sect. Other ways of assistance were completely unknown, and seem to only be possible through Avatars.
There were also basic descriptions for the three skills that Avatars innately had access to. [Identify], [Student of a God], and [Auto Translate]
[Identify], and what it could do was exactly as written on this page, but [Student of a God] and [Auto Translate] had no description.
Peter felt he could help them with that. He opened his Status to look for both to see what their descriptions were, but was surprised to see a few things that weren't there before.
|9:40 AM| |Status| |Backlight: [Off]| Name: Peter Valk Kastell Level: 0 Gender: Male Influence: 0 Race: Human Fame: 0 Class: Arbiter Unspent points: 40 Stats Health 100/100 Stamina 100/100 Vitality 10 Endurance 10 Strength 10 Perception 10 Dexterity 10 Processing 10 Karma -78 M. Resistance 10 Equipment Bonuses Defense: 7 Dexterity: 4 Traits [Powerful Soul: Rank X]
[Powerful Mind: Rank X] Evolutions [None to show] Skills [Auto Translate] Transcendent level 10 [Student of a God] Adept level 10 [Identify] Novice level 8 [Soul Drain] Novice level 1 [Evolve] Uses remaining: 1 [Exo-Skeleton] Novice level 1 [Momentum] Novice level 1 [Patience] Novice level 1 [Fervor] Novice level 1 [Toughness] Novice level 1
Peter saw the new section and realized that he might not have a high enough [Identify] skill to see what exact bonuses were on equipment, but he could see their effect on himself when he wore them. He took off his gloves, and saw that the [Defense] bonus was reduced to 5, while the [Dexterity] bonus was reduced to 2. This meant that His boots gave him 5 [Defense] and 2 [Dexterity], and the gloves gave 2 for each.
[Identify] has risen to Adept level 1 due to a special circumstances.
You are now able to discern more information from anything you Identify. Cooldown decreased by 1 second.
The priests were all very patient, but very worried. Peter's facial expressions were varying from pained, to confused, then he took his gloves off for some reason, and now he seemed extremely happy. A few started to think he might not be... 'Okay' in the head.
Once Peter got ahold of himself he began writing the unknown descriptions down for them.
[Auto Translate] Transcendent level 10 Type: Passive Automatically translates any word heard and text seen by the owner of this skill,
also automatically translates any words spoken and text written by the owner of this skill.
Does not gain levels. Cost: None Cooldown: -N/A-
[Student of a God] Adept level 10 Type: Passive Reduces the requirements for learning a new skill by 60%, also assists the owner of this skill in leveling all owned skills 150% faster.
This skill levels up by leveling other owned skills. Cost: None Cooldown: -N/A-
Peter finished writing on the parchment, and immediately the Priests read it, then copied it down on several other sets of parchment. Peter already understood what [Auto Translate] was about, but [Student of a God]... It alone was unbelievable. No wonder Avatar magic was considered the strongest magic. People would train all their lives to make a spell have decent strength, where an Avatar could not only learn it many times faster, but make it stronger in less than half the time. This skill also has even more potential because it wasn't at the highest level like [Auto Translate] yet!
Peter felt lightheaded with excitement. He conversed with the priests some more over their parchment, who thanked him profusely. He said it was no problem at all, and that he was happy to do it.
On his way out of the priests area of the temple, he used [Identify] on his gloves while he wore them to confirm that he could, and found that, sure enough, they gave him all the same information, but the question marks were filled in with 2 for [Defense], and 2 for [Dexterity].
Peter was beyond happy. Knowing your enemy's level is one thing, but knowing if your enemy's gear is good or not makes all the difference. This was sure to save his life in the future. He just knew it. But now that [Identify] reached Adept, he wanted to see what he could learn about people now.
Human Level: 24 Male Highest Stat: Strength
Peter was surprised. He hadn't thought that the [Identify] skill would give him that kind of detail. Maybe age, or their name, maybe even their class. But when he thought about it, this was one of the best pieces of information he could get on anyone. It revealed exactly what type of fighter they were before the battle even began. Nobody could surprise him with a sudden change in tactic, or suddenly reveal that they're not only a melee fighter, they're also even more powerful as a mage.
Peter began pondering all the ways he could use this to his advantage, and he began using [Identify] on everyone he saw again. Sometimes on their equipment as well. Peter was confused when he tried to [Identify] someone a little further away, but well within what his range should be. He opened his status and took a look at the [Identify] skill again to see if anything had changed.
[Identify] Adept level 1 Type: Active Identifies the object that you are focusing on. The higher this skill's tier, the more information it will give. Effective range is this skill's level times 4 meters, + 10 meters for every completed tier. Cost: None Cooldown: 9 seconds
Peter felt mighty foolish. Duh. [Identify]'s range was reduced upon advancing a tier compared to being at the last one, Novice level 10. He only had the skill at level 1 right now, which meant he had a total range of 14 meters. To get his range back to what it was, he would have to level it up again. It made sense because the ability determined more details now than it did before. To see more you have to be closer. He was fine with knowing this drawback, but he couldn't help imagining a few scenarios where it would make his life very difficult.
He shuddered at the thought of needing to scout someone from a long distance away and unintentionally advancing [Identify] up one tier. Suddenly he'd need to be almost 30 meters closer to [Identify] them.
There was no point in getting worked up about something like that, though. He'll take it all one step at a time.
While thinking about all this he had arrived at one of the courtyards that the temple surrounded. Plenty of people who looked like mages were lounging around, reading scrolls and conversing. Everyone who walked by Peter greeted him happily, some looked slightly frightened of the large man with glowing blue eyes.
He asked someone where the blacksmith was and got a direction to head in.
As he turned in the direction he was sent in, a familiar sight caught his eye. It was her. Blond hair, beautiful dress, green eyes. She was about to turn a corner and walk away, but Peter got what he needed.
Elf Level: 33 Female Highest Stat: Intelligence
"I knew it. A mage type. No wonder sh--," Peter's tongue was caught.
'Elf'.
He read it two or three times as if he still needed to be convinced.
Elf? Really? I didn't know there were other races in this world too. I only knew about monsters and humans.
Peter was really interested. He wondered if they were common, or not. All he knew was he had identified hundreds of people today and saw nothing other than 'Human' in the windows that resulted. Heck, before his [Identify] skill was Adept even it thought she was a human. Maybe she's in hiding? Peter decided he would ask discretely about these "Elves", and not out her just yet.
Thinking about what he saw in the window though, she was probably more of a scholar than a combat based mage. [Intelligence] was used to make spells more efficient, and allow a mage to learn more complex spells. Peter imagined that if someone were to be combat oriented, they would want their highest stat to be [Wisdom] because of the larger [Mana] pool and regeneration.
She could be using it to purely study magic, or maybe she's a cleric of some kind. A dedicated healer would want to have the highest quality spells, so they could do the best healing possible. Perhaps Intelligence is better in that respect than just pumping out lots of weak healing with high [Wisdom].
Either way, she was gone now. Peter didn't want to spook her or seem weird and follow her. He had important tasks left to accomplish first anyways.
He left for the blacksmith.
***
Eve turned the corner briskly, but just before she continued walking too far, she stopped. Something made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She couldn't tell what it was, but she felt some sort of presence had taken note of her.
Not just 'look' at her either. Anyone could do that right now, there are over 30 people back in that courtyard.
Something... saw her.
She activated [Sneak] and waited for a few seconds completely still. Once [Sneak] took full effect and nobody around seemed to notice her, she turned back to look out the doorway she left from. She carefully examined everyone in the courtyard but didn't sense any malice or contempt from anywhere.
Could I have imagined it? She wondered to herself.
She liked it here, but Eve knew that getting too attached would likely mean her death. She had lost too many friends to that sort of thing.
Eve decided she would be extra cautious for the next few days. If she got a weird feeling about anything, or anyone, she would run.