Back to Basics - 1.8

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"Erin, we don't have to kill her, but we can't keep her. This isn't a Pisces situation— the goblins tried to kill you. Twice."

"You're being racist Taylor! We don't know if she was one of those goblins."

"Let's pretend for a moment that that's true, Erin. What do you think she was doing here tonight? Best case scenario, she was stealing from us. Worst case, she was trying to kill us in our sleep."

"Look at how scared she is! She wouldn't do that! Besides Taylor, we're—"

"No. If you say anything about 'being a hero' one more time, this conversation is over. You don't even know what it means to be a hero."

Erin recoiled at that with a look of hurt and I winced. I felt bad, but I was being honest. If she didn't learn this lesson, she was going to get herself killed.

"Listen, Erin. Ignoring the fact that we haven't even asked her opinion, let's say we take in this goblin. What then?"

"Can't she just live here? We have enough money to feed her, right?"

"What about her family? Do you know how many goblins there are on the Floodplains? Do you expect us to feed and house all of them?"

"No… but—"

"What about the bounties then? If a guard comes in here and decides she needs to die, will you protect her? Could you protect her?"

"We could just—"

"Erin, you can't save everyone. Believe me, it doesn't work. I'll let you feed her, but that's it. When she's done, we send her back with a warning."

"But—"

"No. I'm sorry, but I'm putting my foot down. We can discuss this tomorrow, but for now, she goes."

Erin's head fell and I felt one of my skills activate— almost automatically. [Forced Surrender]. I could tell, instinctively, that I'd won. She wouldn't fight back. It didn't feel like a victory.

***

The next morning, Erin made no mention of the last night. She acted like her normal, enthusiastic self and made her usual complaints when we went for our morning run along with Pisces. After half the day passed, I decided to check in on her while she was making lunch in the kitchen.

"Hey, Erin?"

"Yeah?"

"About last night… I wanted to apologize. I was tired and the things I said could've been phrased better."

Erin's face fell a bit but she quickly fixed a smile back on.

"It's fine, we were all tired. And besides, you were right. I wouldn't be able to protect her."

With that, Erin turned away to check on the chicken she'd been grilling. The delivery from Krshia had arrived that morning and we finally had more meal options than pasta and poisonous fruit.

As I left the kitchen, I noticed someone approaching through my bug senses. Olesm was making his way up the hill towards the inn. I moved to the door and waited for him to knock before opening it.

"Good afternoon, Miss Taylor."

"Good afternoon, Olesm. What brings you here?"

"Well, I was hoping to get another chess match with Erin. That, and I've been looking forward to sampling the food at your inn."

"We don't actually run an inn, you know. We just decided to live here."

"Really? Because Erin told me that—"

"Never mind. Just come in."

At this rate, we might actually end up running an inn.

Lisa would probably laugh her head off if she could see me now. Skitter, Warlord of Brockton Bay and assistant innkeeper.

I led Olesm inside to one of the empty tables.

"Erin! Olesm's here."

She leaned her head out the kitchen door.

"Oh, hey Olesm! I'm making lunch, I'll be done in a few minutes."

She vanished back into the kitchen, leaving me and Olesm alone in the room. Pisces was upstairs doing… [Necromancer] stuff. I didn't really get his explanation of how it worked, but he'd promised me it was safe. Just in case, I had spiders in his room watching to make sure nothing dangerous happened.

"Miss Taylor. Would you care for a game, while we wait for Ms. Erin?"

"Sure, but call me Taylor. Erin prefers to use her first name too."

I grabbed the chessboard Erin won from Lism and set it down on the table, sitting down opposite Olesm.

"Alright then, Taylor it is. Would you like to play white?"

"Sure."

We played a match, but I lost. Badly. Without my swarm, I was barely mediocre, and Olesm was the best in Liscor. Well… second best, now that Erin was here.

"Are you holding back Taylor? You played much better during our match the other day."

"I was using a skill then. It was taxing to use, so I'd rather play without it if you don't mind."

He seemed disappointed but fortunately, Erin came out of the kitchen, arms loaded with trays.

"I made chicken sandwiches!"

"Thanks, Erin."

"Yes, thank you Erin. Would you like to play a game while we eat?"

"Sur—"

Knock Knock.

"I've got it. It's the Antinium."

I got up from the table and moved to open the door.

"Would you li— did you say Antinium?"

Olesm turned away from the chessboard to face the now open door. He was greeted by the sight of Klbkch along with twenty Antinium lined up in front of the door in rows.

"Greetings, Miss Hebert. These are the Antinium who have been picked out for training. Please instruct them to the best of your ability."

I stepped outside to survey my future students and shut the door behind me. They were indistinguishable from one another like machined copies, fresh from the assembly line. All of them stared at me with unblinking eyes, almost completely still. It was a bit unsettling.

"Hello, Antinium, my name is Taylor Hebert. For the foreseeable future, I will be teaching you how to be a [Superhero]."

I marked each of the Antinium with a small bug so I would be able to tell them apart.

"Alright, starting with you right there, go down the line and tell me your names."

Immediately, they somehow became more still. The tense silence gave me the feeling that I'd said something wrong. Klbkch turned to me.

"Workers do not have names, Miss Taylor. They are not individuals. Please refrain from giving them any instruction that requires self-reflection. It… troubles them."

Workers? Like in a normal ant hive?

I figured there would be cultural barriers but this was a bit beyond my expectations. Did Antinium society operate by a biological caste system? How am I supposed to teach them to be heroes if they can't think for themselves?

"Sorry, I'll try to make sure that doesn't happen again."

I turned back to my students.

"Alright… let's try something else. How about we start with some basic exercises?"

***

One hour later and… things were not going well. Every single one of the Antinium was in better shape than me which made exercise pointless. I'd tried to explain to them what [Superheroes] and [Sidekicks] were but all I received in response were blank stares. I was pretty sure I could train them to be PRT troopers, but [Superheroes]? Not likely.

I was in the process of trying to convert my hand-to-hand knowledge into something the Antinium could use when Erin burst through the door.

"How's training going? I thought you'd be hungry so I made you guys some food."

"They will be fine, Miss Solstice. We brought rations with us from the Hive in the form of a calorie-dense nutrient paste."

Erin made a face at that.

"Nutrient paste? That sounds disgusting. Besides, I already made the food. And call me Erin— Ms. Solstice makes me feel like my mother."

It was subtle, but Erin's smile weakened a bit when she mentioned her mother. She was probably worried about her family. Wait… shouldn't I be worried too? It's strange, I haven't thought about Scion sinc—

"Anyway, let's go eat!"

Erin shoved me and Klbkch inside and the rest of the Antinium followed. Olesm had a nervous look on his face as they flooded into the inn, but whatever was bothering him, he kept quiet about it. Klbkch and I took our seats at Olesm's table but the rest of the Antinium simply formed another line inside.

"Hello? Aren't you guys gonna sit?"

They didn't respond and Erin waved her hands in front of them as they stared straight ahead.

"Sit!"

As soon as the words left Klbkch's… mandibles, they each marched over to the nearest table and sat down. Erin stared for a second before shrugging and leaving to get the food.

"So… Taylor, do the Antinium frequently visit your inn?"

"I made a deal with Klbkch to train them in a specific class. They'll be here every other day until I stop getting paid."

"You're training Workers? To do what?"

I shrugged.

"I agreed to train twenty Antinium. Klbkch chose which ones to bring. And I'm training them to be [Superheroes]."

"I don't believe I've heard of that class before. What does it entail?"

"It's a [Superhero]'s job to defeat criminals and protect the innocent using magic."

"Really? Fascinating! Are there many [Superheroes] where you come from?"

"It has… difficult requirements, so there weren't too many. My city had a high number compared to others though."

Having given everyone their food, Erin moved over to our table and sat down.

"Oooh, are you telling stories about other [Superheroes]?"

"No, Olesm was just asking why the Antinium were here."

"I wouldn't mind hearing those stories, actually."

Everybody at the table voiced their agreement and I sighed.

Storytime it is.

I'd have to edit the story a bit so I didn't give away our origins, but that shouldn't be too hard. The real difficulty would be finding someone with a story that translated well. What about…

"Alright, fine. Let me tell you about the first [Superhero] I ever met. He later changed his name, but at that time, he was known as Armsmaster."

***

It took me about thirty minutes to cover the full story. Even cutting out the more problematic sections, Defiant's journey was a long one. When I was finished, everyone at the table stared back at me.

"I can't believe Dragon died like that!"

"Those Slaughterhouse Nine were abhorrent!"

"I would like to know more about the magic armor Armsmaster wore."

I answered a few of their questions before shutting them all down. If I waited until their curiosity was satisfied, we'd be sitting there all day.

"Hey! You guys didn't eat your food!"

Looking over to the Workers, I could see that she was right. All of their plates were untouched. Throughout my entire story, they'd been staring at me with rapt attention.

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Were they interested in my story?

"My apologies, Erin. They don't act without explicit instructions."

He turned to them.

"Eat!"

In moments, the food was gone, disappearing between the mandibles of the Workers.

"Thank you for the meal. I'm afraid we must be going. We will return on Nendas."

With that, Klbkch left the inn with the Workers marching behind.

"That was… weird. I'm not the only one who thought that was weird, right?"

Olesm turned to answer her.

"That is simply the way Workers are, Erin. I'm not even sure if they are capable of independent thought."

"Oh. That's… still weird."

"Indeed it is. I should be going as well, though. Thank you for having me."

We said our goodbyes and Olesm left the inn.

"Alright, now it's our training time. Go get Pisces from his room."

Erin groaned but left anyway, bringing back a bleary-eyed Pisces.

"What is it this time? I'm on the verge of a breakthrough!"

"Really? It just looked like a pile of bones to me."

Pisces spun to face her, clearly offended.

"A pile of bones? Only an uneducated imbecile would refer to my work in such a crass manner. That 'pile of bones' is—"

"Not important. If we're going to work together, we'll need to know each other's combat capabilities. I'll go first. Most of my skills are related to controlling bugs. The only other combat skills I have are [Bullet Time] and [Forced Surrender]."

"I've heard of [Forced Surrender]. If I remember correctly, it's a skill [Generals] use to prevent enemies from fighting on when they've been defeated. What is [Bullet Time]?"

"I haven't had the opportunity to test it out but I recognize the phrase. It probably has something to do with speeding up my reaction time."

I had a couple of ideas on how to test—

"Think fast!"

A leftover piece of bread flew at me with startling speed and accuracy. [Bullet Time] activated automatically and my hand shot out, catching it inches from my face.

"Some warning would be appreciated next time."

"I thought you'd want to know if it worked when you were surprised."

"That's… a fair point."

I tossed the piece of bread back onto its plate and then turned to Erin.

"That was a good throw. Was that [Improvised Weapon]?"

"Probably? I just keep all of my skills on all the time. It could've been [Bar Fighting] too. Oh! I forgot to tell you, I levelled up again last night! I got two new skills: [Strength of Character] and [Hazardous Ingredient Handling]."

"Well the second one sounds obvious, but what does [Strength of Character] do?"

"Don't know. Let me try it now. [Strength of Character]!"

Erin flung her arm out in a dramatic pose while yelling the name of her skill. It did absolutely nothing.

"Whelp. That didn't work."

"It might have a similar effect to [Lesser Strength]. We already have the baselines from when we were testing that. Let's see how you compare now."

After running through several tests, we concluded that the skill did not make Erin notably stronger. We tested several more ideas, but none of them seemed to work.

"We're just going to have to research the skill. I'll ask Krshia if she can find us a record of skills the next time I see her. Let's move on to Pisces for now."

"Alright. As you already know, I am a [Mage] and a [Necromancer]. My necromantic specialty is the manipulation of bone. You've already seen my skill with Illusion, but I am also a skilled Elementalist. I know only a single spell of the 4th Tier: [Invisibility], but I know many spells of the Tiers below. On the subject of spells, are the two of you not going to share your specialties?"

Oh, that's right. I told him [Superheroes] are magic.

"[Superhero] magic doesn't work like that. It's more… instinctual. Erin and I don't know any spells."

"No spells? You never bothered to learn even a basic [Light] spell?"

Erin and I froze, slowly turning to look at Pisces. It had completely slipped our minds that you could learn magic here. We'd just accepted that it existed in this world and gone about our business. Now, we had access to someone who went to the magical equivalent of Harvard.

"The opportunity to learn never came up. Would you mind teaching us the basics?"

Pisces scoffed.

"One does not simply 'learn the basics' of magic. The path of a [Mage] is a way of life unto itself, not something you dabble in to pick up a few parlor tricks."

How is it possible for one man to be so pretentious? Is it magic?

"I've got this Taylor, I think I've picked up a little Pisces. Ahem. My apologies, my good [Mage]. Might you perchance enlighten us on the wonders of magic that you've gleaned from your esteemed tutelage at Wistram Academy?"

Erin delivered the line with a puffed-out chest and a straight face. I thought it was a pretty accurate impression but Pisces didn't share my amusement.

"I was only trying to impress upon you the dangers of what you'd be attempting. Learning magic is nowhere near as simple as picking up a hobby. If you mess up a brush stroke when learning to paint, you can simply paint over it. In magic, you paint with the fundamental forces of the world. One wrong stroke and you might die."

Erin dropped her mocking pose and deflated into her chair.

"Sorry. I'll take this seriously."

"So will I. We won't be careless, Pisces. Please, teach us."

Pisces held his glare for a moment longer before letting out a sigh.

"Very well then. Would it be correct to assume that due to your 'instinctual' use of magic, you know nothing of magical theory?"

He said the word 'instinctual' like it tasted of acid. I'd bet he didn't consider it real magic unless you understood the theory.

"Pretend we know nothing about magic."

"I see... Ahem. Magic… is an art. A beautiful but dangerous one. It takes little effort to dabble in the field but to be a [Mage] of true skill, one must treat it with respect and dedication. At its core, it is the act of channeling mana to effect your will upon the world, however, that is only the most basic prerequisite to becoming a [Mage]."

"How do you know if you can 'channel mana'?"

"There is a simple way to test for the ability. It only requires an experienced [Mage] to release their mana into the air. Anyone with the barest amount of magical ability would be able to direct the mana to achieve some small magical phenomena. Of course, if you can already use magic in some form, there is no need for a test. Even a [Sorcerer], uneducated as they are, would manage to pass it."

"We should do the test anyway. [Superhero] magic functions differently than other forms."

"Alright, if you insist."

Pisces held out his hands and closed his eyes in focus. His brow furrowed in concentration and he frowned slightly at the exertion. After only a few moments, he opened his eyes again, a look of confusion on his face.

"For some strange reason, mana is not building up in the air. In fact, I hadn't noticed before, but the mana concentration of this room is oddly sparse."

He got up and walked around the room, stopping at certain points to close his eyes and concentrate. Eventually, he came to a stop in front of me.

"It's you. You are draining the ambient mana in your vicinity."

What?

"How do I stop doing that?"

"I'm not sure… To my knowledge, it shouldn't even be possible for you to draw in mana at such a high rate. Any [Mage] with a reasonable mana capacity would have exploded by now."

I froze.

"That doesn't seem to be a concern given that you've survived this long. You must be either constantly using the mana in some way I can't detect or you have a truly absurd mana capacity."

At the news I wasn't going to explode soon, my body relaxed.

"What does that mean for my ability to do magic?"

Pisces gave me a pitying look.

"Even the most basic of spells require mana to perform. I will attempt to look into your strange condition but… If mana is barred from your reach, the most I can teach you is theory."

Erin came over and rested a hand on my shoulder. I honestly wasn't too upset about not being able to do magic. It would've been nice, sure, but from what I've heard, skills become indistinguishable from magic at a high enough level.

"Learning theory sounds like it could be useful. It'll be easier to fight a [Mage] if I understand what they're doing. What about Erin?"

We both turned to look at Erin.

"I can perform the test again if you wait outside, Taylor."

"Alright, call me when you're done."

I exited the inn and settled in to wait with my back against the front door. Through the bugs I had inside, I could see Pisces and Erin going through the motions of the test. Erin waved her hands around and shouted some nonsense words but… nothing. She tried over and over but it was clear that whatever spark you needed for magic… she didn't have it.

When Pisces finally put his hands down, Erin slumped in her seat.

"Taylor! You may return. The test is finished and the results…"

I walked back into the inn to find Erin had already plastered a fake smile on her face.

"I can't do magic. That's fine though. Maybe we can—"

I pulled her into a hug. I wasn't really one for physical affection but it was clear she needed it. First I got her hopes up with superpowers and now…

"I'm fine!"

Erin struggled her way out of the hug, shrugging me off with the boost from [Lesser Strength].

Maybe a distraction would work better.

"Alright. Let's move on to the next item on our agenda then."

I had one of my spiders retrieve a scroll that was hidden in my room. When it reached me, I plucked the scroll from it and unrolled it on the table.

"As part of the deal I made with Klbkch, he owes me four magical items from the Antinium hoard. This is the list of items he brought earlier today."

Everyone shifted about the table to crowd around the scroll.

"I still don't understand why he agreed to such a deal. Who knows what wonders of magic the Antinium have plundered over the centuries?"

Pisces was practically salivating as he reached for the scroll but I batted his hand away.

"Erin, why don't you take first pick?"

She rolled her eyes at me. She could tell exactly what I was doing, but it didn't matter. I could practically see the excitement building inside of her. The temptation of getting a powerful magic artifact was too much for her to resist.

"Alright, let me see it. How about…"

We spent the next several hours arguing with each other over which four artifacts were the best choice. By the time we finally made our decision, the disappointments of the day were far from our minds.