“Gods are real?” Mikayla shouldn't have been as surprised as she was. This was a fantasy world. Her only friends in this world were a possessed rock and a ranger straight out of D&D. But she’d never quite thought through the implications.
“Yeah?” Keldryn said as though she was the idiot, and in fairness, she was. “Did you not have any in your world?”
“Nope! Just stories with no evidence behind them. Gods are, like, tangible presences? That do things? And there are multiple of them?”
“Oh, yeah, there are so many gods. Hard to keep track of all of them, I’m sure there’re a bunch I’ve never heard of,”
Mikayla suddenly recalled something. “Mana Assistance, Black Knight’s Armour!” Her mana was wrenched from her veins and the haunted armour appeared around her body. “Nocturnus! You mentioned something about a ‘frank axe’, right? Is that a god?”
“Eh? Ah, yes, the Frank Axe, the dispenser of cutting truths and painful knowledge. His beard is the envy of all real men!”
“Why didn’t you tell me that there are gods in this world?!”
“Was that . . supposed to be noteworthy?”
Mikayla groaned. “What does that even mean? Do I have to worship them? Will they damn me if I don’t worship them? Or something?”
“Whoa there. No. If a god was mad enough at you to curse you, it’d be in your Profile. And I’ve heard nought of a god that demands worship or else, without giving anything in return. I cannot imagine many would stand for that. I thought you said your world didn’t have any gods, where does all this come from?”
“I said we had stories! They’re mostly bad stories!” Mikayla took deep breaths, forcing herself to calm down. Being a history student wasn’t doing her any favours here. “Okay. Okay. So I don’t need to make up for missing offerings or prayers or anything. Good. Then . . what do gods do, exactly?”
“To be divine is to embody a concept,” Nocturnus sagely spoke up. “To transcend mortality and be as one with an ideal, a belief,”
Mikayla noticed Keldryn’s ears prick up and stifled a chuckle. It was strangely cute.
“Gods are the avatars of ideals, and the oldest and most powerful gods claim as their domains the oldest and most powerful concepts. The most powerful god in the world, for example, is the Cosmic Scales, the architect of the Ataraxian System and manifestation of order,”
“Hey, right, that reminds me. We never got around to you telling me where the System came from,” she suddenly recalled.
Again, Keldryn didn’t say anything, but again, Mikayla saw him lean forwards in visible interest. That was strange. Did he not know all this already?
“Ah, yes, certainly. Tis hardly an unrelated topic, so I ought to start at the beginning,” Nocturnus agreed.
“Many, many centuries ago, the world was not like the one we know today. Termania existed in what we today call the Golden Age, when magic was plentiful and gods walked among men. Even among the gods, few remember the Golden Age, because many died during the period that followed,”
Nocturnus sounded like he was grimacing. “Exactly why it happened is one of the great mysteries of the ages, but the world began to fall apart. Natural disasters split the earth and heavens, and the world’s mana turned against its masters. Only a chosen few retained the power of Mana, for most it was locked away. Today, monsters as a whole are so ubiquitous a fact of life that it is hard to imagine a world without them, but they only began to appear during this period of collapse. It is remembered as the Age of Chaos,”
Mikayla counted on her fingers. “The world used to have better magic and gods, but no monsters . . that doesn’t sound like my world at all, damnit,” She’d been wondering if there was some kind of divergence point, if Earth and this world had a shared root of some kind. Apparently not.
“Most of the gods panicked, and many of them were killed. The sapients of the world withdrew into fortified cities, protected by the few prodigies and geniuses that could still wield the awesome power needed to fend off the beasts consuming the world. But while everyone else was carving out tiny corners of relative safety for themselves, one god was working to repair the damage and restore the world,”
“The Cosmic Scales,” Keldryn guessed.
“So, this Cosmic Scales guy built the System to end the Age of Chaos?” Mikayla surmised. “And the System is like a repair job to hold the world together,”
“Precisely! With the System’s aid, anyone and everyone can become proficient in magic, can defend themselves, regardless of talent. But that’s only what it does for living beings. The real purpose of the System is to maintain the environment and regulate the flows of Mana around the world,” Nocturnus trailed off uncertainly. “Though I don’t know much about that side of things. I never really dug into the details of how exactly the System does what it does to maintain the world. It gives us the strength to survive and a world worth surviving in. That’s what matters,”
“I just have one question,” Mikayla smiled playfully as Keldryn nodded his agreement with that last statement.
“Go on!”
“When did a bloodthirsty battle maniac like you find the time to learn all that?”
Nocturnus spluttered. “This - this was common knowledge!”
“I didn’t know any of that,” Keldryn weighed in.
“You’re a peasant, I was nobility. We have different ideas of what constitutes common knowledge,” the haunted armour brushed him off.
“Whoa. Hey. You can’t just call someone a peasant like that,” Mikayla objected.
“What? Why not?”
Keldryn tilted his head in confusion. “Yeah, why’s that wrong? It’s true. I’m the son of a ranger and an Engraver, without a drop of nobility in my veins. I am a peasant born and bred,”
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“It . . it’s just . . it’s rude,” Mikayla insisted.
“I believe this is simply a cultural difference. It’s not as though I called him something offensive, like a cur,” Nocturnus sounded like he was shrugging dismissively.
“Good, because if you had I’d be grinding you into powder,” Keldryn replied much too nonchalantly for Mikayla’s comfort.
“Oho! Do not threaten me with a chance to prove my dominance over you, boy! Lass! Give him a good flick for me!”
Keldryn rolled his eyes semi-playfully, and Mikayla suspected she saw a ghost of a smile on his face. “Anyway. Also. You levelled again after killing those Rocs, right? Have you assigned your stats yet?”
“Oh, right. Whoops. Nope,” Mikayla hummed. “I should probably think about what to focus on. Whenever my little brother played games that worked like this, he was always going on about min-maxing and properly assigning your points to make the most of your build . . what?” She noticed that Keldryn was shaking his head.
“I don’t know what games you’re talking about, but the real world doesn’t work like that. Every stat is important to a well-rounded Goliath fighter. It would be one thing if you were specialising in wizardry, or skilled labour, or performing or something. But people like you and me who use Armour Cores to fight Kaijus? We need to be strong and agile to use our armours effectively. We need high Intelligence and Wisdom to keep them running. And we need Constitution and Charisma to keep ourselves alive. You can’t afford to let any of your stats fall behind, or your body will let you down when you need it most,”
“Gotcha,” Mikayla digested this.
“Do go on, lad! I had been wondering how the Goliath Guard evolved in my absence!” Nocturnus encouraged him.
Keldryn’s features tightened, clearly uncomfortable with being put on the spot. “Um, sure?” He visibly wracked his brains. “Uh, right, I remember. It’s fine to invest more in one or two stats than the rest, as long as you don’t ignore any,” He sounded like he was repeating something someone else had told him. “Even within the guidelines that Goliath warriors have, there’s room for personalisation. You could focus on Strength and become a powerful attacker, or increase your Willpower until your Mana regeneration outpaces what it costs to keep your equipment active and you can effectively fight forever,”
“Ooh. I do like my Willpower,” Mikayla mused, looking over her stats again.
[STATISTICS:
HEALTH: 1022/1100
MANA: 541/1200
STAMINA: 489/1100
STRENGTH: 11
DEXTERITY: 10
CONSTITUTION: 11
CHARISMA: 14
INTELLIGENCE: 14
WILLPOWER: 17
UNUSED: 2]
Keldryn hummed as she considered, then added, “If you’re going to neglect any stat, make it Charisma. You can compensate for health regeneration by drinking potions, or just not get hurt,”
“Is that where you get your sunny demeanour? You didn’t put any points in Charisma?” Mikayla teased him with a cheeky grin.
The fox-boy just scoffed and looked away, ears falling flat. She stifled a giggle, confirming that was exactly what he’d done, and it explained a bit about how awkward he was.
“In all seriousness. Do we have enough potions to go around? You said you only brought a couple,”
“Probably not. But you have to think long-term when doing stat allocation,” Keldryn counter-argued. “We’ll be back in Cliffwatch in ten days. Then what?”
“Frankly, then I celebrate having survived all this and worry about what comes after if I’m still alive next week. I need to make decisions that will keep me alive now, getting stronger in the distant future is a secondary concern at best,” Mikayla retorted.
“The lass is right. Live to see tomorrow, then decide how you’ll spend that day,” Nocturnus rumbled.
“Right . . sorry. It’s easy to forget you’re only level eleven. Do what you need to, then,” Keldryn backed off, turning away to focus on laying out his bedroll.
“I do get what you mean about the balanced build, though. And I haven’t really noticed it so far, but my Dexterity is kind of lagging behind . .” Mikayla considered, then dropped a point each into Dexterity and Constitution.
[DEXTERITY: 11
CONSTITUTION: 12
HEALTH: 1022/1200]
“Should one of us take watch?” she questioned as Keldryn settled down, only for a blue spark to escape his wrist and resolve into an attentive goat.
“Don’t worry, Bluebell doesn’t need to sleep and she’s trained to wake me up if she senses anything. My Mana will last enough to keep her going all night and I’ve got an emergency Mana Potion ready if the worst . .” Keldryn paused, seeing how Mikayla had tackle-hugged his Companion. “What are you doing?”
Ignoring him, Mikayla instead fussed over Bluebell, stroking her ears and cooing, “You are such a good goat, oh yes you are, a GOAT-ed goat even, saving me like you did this morning,”
Bluebell looked far too happy with the affection she was receiving for Keldryn’s tastes. “Don’t spoil her too much, she’ll get big-headed,”
“Oh, bite your tongue, she is wonderful and she deserves praise!”
“Baa!”
Seeing that he was outnumbered, Keldryn just shook his head and disengaged from the conversation.
<=====}—o
“Alright. This area seems pretty quiet. We can probably take it a bit easier today than yesterday,” Keldryn assessed as they set off the following morning. Mikayla had packed up their camp while he did a quick search for anything dangerous nearby.
“Great. So today I need to work on my skill levels,”
Keldryn’s confused expression, with unevenly raised ears, was criminally cute. “What’s a Skill Level?”
“Not a literal System level thing. Stuff like proficiency. Nocturnus keeps going on about how I can’t keep relying on Mana Assistance to trigger my Cores,”
“Ah. Yeah. Mana Assistance is fine for now, but once you start trying to add Techniques to your fighting style, it’ll do you more harm than good. It’s a set of training wheels. You’re not supposed to use it forever,” Keldryn concurred.
“I still don’t see why. It’s been working perfectly fine for me so far,” Mikayla grumbled.
“Has it, though? I remember needing to use Mana Assistance. Feeling like my Mana was being pulled around by something intruding in my body. The horrible vertigo of trying to make my armour change size. It was miserable,”
Mikayla jolted upright. “Wait - that’s not how using Mana is supposed to feel?!”
Keldryn grimaced. “Nope. It’s you. Should be as easy and casual as breathing,”
“Well, now I’m really motivated,” she murmured. “Also, wait, you just said something about training wheels. You know what those are? You have bicycles here?”
“Yeah? We don’t use them out in the wilderness, the ground’s too uneven. But in open-layout towns, everyone uses them. I even once saw a courier with what he called a Motorcycle Core,”
“A . . Motorcycle Core?” And just like that, Mikayla had a new addition to her bucket list.
The day would come when the Black Knight rode a fifty-foot-tall motorbike.
She flexed her left hand and focused on the invisible channels inside her veins, the place she knew her mana was. She remembered the echoes of fatigue from when she’d emptied herself of mana against the gecko, focusing on those areas, digging into her own cells to find the power in her body and make it react, make it do anything.
The faintest little spark of red light crackled at the tip of her finger.
She grinned. There it was.