South Jaga City, Job Hall – Year 1344, Month 1, Day 8. Spring

Olea Munroe

I am still not sure how long I had been staring into the distance after Camilla disappeared over the walls and became an impossible to see dot on the blue-gray horizon. It had to have been a goodly amount of time as I was broken from my state of wanton jealousy over the spectacle by a deep satisfied chuckle.

“Should I take this display of drool to mean you are interested in the Courier path?”

“Courier path?” I said, still staring in the distance.

“Aye. One of many paths that people who sign up can take is the path of the Courrier. We can talk a little more about that inside though, too much wind and I don’t want to be a target for bird bombs.” Doogan turned about smartly on his heel and went inside all the while keeping an eye skyward.

“Flying, huh.” I turned around to follow Master Doogan back into the building just before a shadow moved across the wooden floor of the balcony.

A shrill “CAW” came from behind me as a slightly annoying crow-raven, craven, landed on the banister.

“Hey Brutus.”

“CAW?” it seemed like a question as the raven tilted its head to the side bending it like a broken barbie doll.

“That’s creepy. Also quit showing off, I already know you can fly.” I stated, not at all feeding my own green-eyed monster with thoughts of winging through the sky.

Seriously though, I would need to investigate this further. Magic was real, annoying birds were a thing, and I had not seen a magic wand or train yet those were surely possible. Flying, though? Sign me up for the line of impressed people. It was a dream of mine, as I am sure it was for everyone else who could breathe, to fly amongst the clouds or at least to pester a flock or two of birds with aerial gymnastics. It would surely save a lot of time with commuting; you know if people were not just smashing into each other. Meh, flights of fancy for later.

“NYIK-NYIK!”

“No laughing from you, feather face.” I left the beady-eyed bird to ponder my wit as I headed inside to talk with Doogie.

Walking inside I took the stairs at the end of the hall that lead down to a wider hall with several doors on each side before it turned a corner at the other end of the building. The second door on my right was open and upon inspecting the inside I found Doogan sitting on an oversized chair at a table in the center of the room. If it had a mirror on one wall I would say this would be a perfect match for the interrogation rooms in almost every police show. A collection of variably sized chairs circled the table though I noticed only one chair other than Doogan’s had a steaming cup in front of it.

I took my seat, picking up the cup of something. The seat was a stool only slightly taller than I could comfortably sit in, I swear I only barely had to hop into it. The smooth wood of the seat feeling not as uncomfortable as I was thinking it would be, even through my rough-spun clothing. Thinking back to my previous day’s work I swore to myself I would hunt down a committed tailor or seamstress to put together a wardrobe though I would need to work on finding a safe place to store these things after I had them bought and secured.

“So, is our little Ratsbane properly interested in pursuing a vocation as courier?” Master Doogan spoke from across the table, effectively ending my distraction train. Rainbow colored squirrels were fully flounced out of my mind as I turned to look at my stout boss-man.

“You say vocation like it’s a job. Are couriers paid for the work?” I asked, elaborating as an afterthought. “Properly paid for the work, that is. She seemed like she was in a hurry to be off, are there vacation days?”

“Yes, they are paid. Paid well for most work they perform.” He took another drink of his beverage; I wondered if his was as bitter-sweet as mine. It tasted like lemon-flavored oolong tea with an odd stevia aftertaste. “She is normally a little more relaxed than she was today. Camilla only stopped by to resupply and visited on a whim more than for any specific task and had to continue to the capital and deliver missives to the king’s advisor. Lastly, what is a vacation?”

ARGH! I nearly facepalmed as I thought about it, most people in a world like this would likely work their entire lives as was normal in the pre-modern earth era. Growing older did not exempt someone from work, most people would later become the responsibility of their eldest children as they worked to supplement the household for the next generation. The upside you had a close-knit family structure built on respect, love, and reliability. The downside would be the people who never had a family or lost them in some tragedy and would be left on their own or would need to rely on the good-natured people of the community, the churches being a prime leader in those areas of support.

“I suppose you could say I have an interest in the idea of the courier path you mentioned.” I was failing at hiding my aloofness, this old bastard likely saw the imagined drool on my chin as a real thing. I honestly do not think I could hide my desire to fly, to be free, and to explore the world I now find myself in. “What would I need to do to start that way? I’m sure you have a specific plan in place to help people get from here to there as far as skill acquisition is concerned.”

He chuckled, “There is indeed a method used commonly for people headed the way of the courier. Most of the initial skills are found under the path of the pious focusing on increased mana efficiency and stamina use. Some couriers also diversify themselves with basic combat skills to better protect themselves on the road when they must travel alone.” He took another slow sip of his drink, I myself was nursing mine like a poor man at the local pub who was afraid someone would notice him and call their tab due. “You would also need to build up your own Constitution, Wisdom, and Intelligence. Though a good amount of Dexterity helps if you want to also broaden your ability to be covert.”

What he was saying was most likely that I would need to invest more in Piety while getting some more Stealth related combat skills while also investing more into Wisdom which was basically my absolute worst stat. Now that I think of it, I have not checked my full information in a little while. I sent a mental prompt to my totally awesome friend upstairs, though I’m not entirely sure where he or it would call a residence was in relation to my own position in space. Meh, either way.

Name: Olea Munroe

Level: 3

Archetype: Street Surgeon

Age: 16 Winters

Health: 75/75

Mana: 79/79

Stamina: 80/80

Attributes:

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• Strength: 10

• Dexterity: 13

• Constitution: 10

• Charisma: 16

• Intelligence: 13

• Wisdom: 7

You have three Attribute Points Remaining

Experience Till Next Level: 5260 remaining of 7000.

Skills:

Nine skill points remaining.

Stealth - Rank 1

• Pierce - Rank 1

• Sneak - Rank 1

Piety - Rank 2

• Cure Wounds - Rank 2

Triumvir Soul Skills

• Vessel of Souls

• Soul Link

• Dowsing

“Thinking on those stats you mentioned… How much of the three main stats should I have?” I asked, only adding afterward, “I’ve already got thirteen in intelligence, ten in constitution and seven in wisdom.”

Doogan slowly put down his mug after a long sip as if he had practiced this conversation with many other possibles in the past. “A ten in constitution isn’t so bad and your intelligence is almost prime at thirteen with fifteen being an ideal start. Your wisdom at seven…” It was at this point that I think the script was broken. “SEVEN WISDOM!? How can you still have only seven in wisdom? Were you cloistered through your entire childhood? No never mind that, we need to get you a supervisor or chaperone.” At this point he was only extolling on the complexities of a problem only he could see. I happened to know that seven wisdom was quite a great value, it was my wisdom’s value after all.

He was still going on and on about my poor ability to stay on task and my tendency to stray from conversations while I sipped at my drink. It was starting to grow on me, after the tannins in the liquid coated my tongue the harsher notes became a kind of foggy backdrop to the tea, faint and oddly acceptable in their continued presence. It was weird.

“Alright!” Doogan finally said, his rant being through. “It looks like we will have to work on getting you educated a little more before your age day comes around again. Maybe the gods will bless you with some wisdom if you work hard, by the twelve a seven!”

“You keep harping on the seven but I’ve yet to hear what my goal would be for that stat, barring what you were on about a moment ago with my age day celebration. No idea what you mean there by the way.” I took another sip, for show of course. “Let’s pretend that is all normal and discuss what else I would need to start flying. That’s the goal right, me flying. Or being a courier as you called it, flying, and getting paid for it.”

“First off, you’re right. We can work with what we are given. Secondly, it’s not flying.”

“What do you mean it’s not flying? Camilla was clearly travelling in the sky!”

“Yes, technically she was in the air as she left.” He continued, “She was not, however flying. That was the skill Wind Walk. The skill requires a minimum rank of two in Piety to unlock its prerequisites, higher if you wish to fully unlock the sustainable ability to travel in the air.”

“So, she was just jumping on air?” I asked. Air stepping would still be acceptable, no lie. Not as cool of course, still acceptable. I was leaning across the table just a tad as I waited for an explanation.

“Jumping on air would be an apt way of describing it, probably. I’m not an expert in the field but in essence the skill creates a platform of condensed wind or air mana underfoot. Camilla then uses these platforms to leap through the air landing atop another platform she creates at the desired location.” He paused for a beat as if in thought. “Along with the wind walk skill she has some other spells that modify her weight so she expends less mana and stamina to stay on the move. At her level, with her affinity for that school of magic I would wager she can stay on the move for up two hours, maybe three if she was willing to suffer mana depletion.”

That was a decent amount of food for thought. An entire suite of skills and spells just to maintain the use of one higher end travel spell, research might be needed soon. And three hours of freedom at a time, three whole hours!? Yes, please. Also I thought that last bit sounded familiar.

“Mana depletion?” I hazard as an idle question.

Doogan raised his right brow marginally as he repeated. “Mana depletion. Aye.”

Realizing he wanted me to commit to my query I dove in. “Yes, mana depletion. What is mana depletion?” I slowly enunciated the last two words for added affect.

This got me another confused look, he had quite the collection of confused looking looks.

“Have ye ever used up all your mana?”

To this question I nodded, twice!

“I have.”

“Then you have more than likely noticed that when you drop so low in mana and maintain such a state for extended periods of time that your mana pool will become strained, the mind gets hazy and your regenerative ability is drastically decreased. Usually it will last only a short while, but sometimes it can persists until your mana pool reaches full before your regeneration recovers.” He drummed his fingers on the table in thought for a little while before continuing. “Imagine your current regeneration levels, I’d hazard they are nearly one hundred an hour with your poor wisdom. Mana depletion in the more severe stages would drop that to nearly ten mana per hour, it could take an entire day to recover if that were to happen.”

“Ouch.” I hadn’t noticed the change in regeneration rates when I was first exploring the Bakers basement, if my mana had been as slowed as that I may not have lived.

“Aye, as a courier you would be grounded, most likely alone on the road or in a forest somewhere. Not a place for untrained adventurers to be when they’ve no mana as a caster.”

“Okay, okay! I get the reasoning, I do.” I dared to interrupt so as to move the conversation along. “Now, what skills or spells would I need to attain to start down that path?”

“You’ll be needing to work your way up to rank three in Piety after grabbing some tier two spells like Water Walk, Armor, Vigor, and Bless to name a few.”

“That’s all?” I asked simply, it really did not seem like a lot.

Doogan slapped his hand to his head, pulling his palm slowly down his face.

“That’s all?! You’d need to reach level fifteen to get those skills to the appropriate level before unlocking the third rank of Piety. That’s a monumental task people normally spend a year or two working toward with a solid team supporting their progress. You realize without significant blessings from the gods and no small amount of effort from a team most couriers don’t reach an actionable level until they are nearing thirty?” Doogan took in several deep breaths after his speech, stopping at the end to take a drink from his cup. The cup tipped back and I swear he did a small tapping on the bottom of the cup, not dissimilar to someone patting a Heinz bottle to get more catsup. He frowned while putting his cup down. I wisely said nothing while pretending not to notice his behavior.

“I get it. I have lots of hard work ahead if I want to run with the clouds.” I said, cutting off any more speeches in that vein. “What do I do now? Where do I start?”

Master Doogan sat there leaning back slightly and looking at the ceiling. I waited, and waited before waiting some more.

“First off, let’s make sure we get you some gear from the quartermaster. You keep coming in at odd hours nearly naked and people are going to start saying things. Second we find you a suitable team of recruits to tag along with for some merchant escorts and local culling missions.”

“Culling?” I was pretty sure I understood this part, but I really wanted to be sure.

“Aye, lots of random beasties in the less civilized portions of the world. They need culling and you need work, it seems to me that you can assist with the problem and by doing so solve your own.” He was back to grinning now. “All this being said, I will need to have a contract drawn up with a proper salary and commissions tag to start you on the program. Typical bureaucracy I’m afraid.”

“Why do I need a contract? Why now and not when I first signed up?” It seemed to be backward, contracts after employment was arranged were usually not in the interest of the employee where I came from.

“Simple. When you started you were an adventurer getting paid for work you would do in the course of your membership. Now that you are wanting to become a courier we will need to begin investing in your progress, it’s a long road with us fitting some of your bills. The contract will merely make it easier for us to be compensated later for our efforts.”

I guess it made sense that I would need something more binding than my word to satisfy the paper pushing higher ups. I could totally understand the desire to have a method for reimbursement after spending both time and resources on recruits as promising as myself.

“Sounds fine.” Was all I had to say to that.

“Excellent, did you have any more questions before I go have someone slap the paperwork together?” The smile on his face at having my agreement was more than I would have expected from such a conversation as this. I could not help but smile back as I polished off the last of my tea.

“I don’t think so, no.” I said, a little quickly. In the back of my mind a question seemed to emerge, one I had asked of Help-chan only last night. “Oh, actually I do. Have a question, that is.”

Doogan was still smiling as he held his hand to the knob on the open door. “What’s on your mind, lass?”

“On the topic of spells and skills.” Doogan would surely know. “What is a Soul Skill?”