“Daniel? I’m sorry, I think I overslept.” A voice broke first through his door, and then his dreams. “Are you in there?”
“Ugh.” He blinked, then registered who was talking. “Khiat, don’t open the door, the sun’s out,” he mumbled.
“What?” The doorknob began to turn and Daniel panicked, trying to close the curtains. Instead, he accidentally ripped them off with his empowered strength. Khiat, hearing the noise, swung open the door and froze when she saw the sunlight coming through the window. Mercifully, that was only in the metaphorical sense as the killing rays didn’t travel to the door.
“Uh.” Daniel looked at the partially torn curtains in his hand. “Good morning?”
“I’m so sorry, it’s already past dawn. I should have woken up but-”
“Khiat, it’s fine,” Daniel said, glancing up with a frown at the curtain rod he’d broken. It’d been made from some kind of reed strong enough to hold up against cloth but couldn’t contest someone of his level. “I think we’re all sleeping in.”
“You weren’t waking up at dawn?” Daniel heard embarrassment in her voice and saw, as he brought the curtain off of him, that Khiat was already in her armor.
“No. Don’t worry, Hunter would have woken you up if we were.”
Khiat glanced at the ringcat who was standing by her. “It can do that?”
“He can,” Daniel corrected. We should tell her about you at some point Hunter.
If we can trust her, maybe.
Daniel left that for a future version of himself to deal with. “Honestly, now that we’re in the city I’d like to sleep in more. Nothing trying to kill us is a nice change of pace. You’d like that too, right? If you wanted, you could sleep until at least noon.”
“But you’d have to stay nearby.”
It was a fair point. Divination Aegis blocked any kind of detection power from getting to him, or people in his immediate area. It also unintentionally functioned as a proximity indicator as he could see everyone it was or wasn’t active on, although testing had revealed that was only if he knew they were in the general area. “We’ve got roughly a hundred meters to work with and I could just do enchanting during the morning, though I need more material. Starting to regret not getting any of those bones. Also, I did want to ask Arpan about a way to extend the effect or make my Focus better.”
“If he could, could I go back to my village?” The carapace on Khiat’s face arranged itself slightly in what Daniel was going to call a hopeful expression.
“If that’s what you want. You seemed to like walking through the city earlier.”
Khiat nodded, but there was a note of hesitation in her voice afterward. “It’s big. I’ve always wanted to come here at some point. If you’re ok with it, I’d like to go back to Mr. Ornithar’s shop, but I do miss home.”
If only she knew how bad homesickness could get. “Yeah, I get that. I wouldn’t mind asking him more about how Artificer and Craftsman powers differ and if they ever cross over since I have a power with ‘Craftsman’ in it. Maybe that’d be a little too obvious, but still.”
“You like to ask a lot of questions.”
“I guess you could say I’m naturally curious.” Daniel shrugged. “Well, I’m awake now. I’m going to try and fix this, but you can go back to sleep.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. Everyone else is going to be advancing, so we have a lot of free time. Think of this like a vacation.” Khiat didn’t understand that, but the word holiday did the trick. Probably more due to how she was raised than any faulty magical translator. Hunter lingered for a moment in the hallway, then went to find Tak.
For Daniel’s part, he looked around for some way to fix the broken rod. His room was wider than he’d expected, but also shorter. It resembled a space hotel crossed with a regular one. There was about a half meter of clearance from his head to the ceiling when he stood, giving the impression of being underground even though day lit streets were visible outside the window. There was also a bed and a small side table. Decent, if cramped, but the room was built this way because it was stacked on top of another one.
The inn they were in had human-sized rooms along the outer edge, one over the other, while massive rooms to accommodate the duskers lined the interior in a ring of their own. The disparity between both sizes meant Hunter would have taken the rest of the space in Daniel’s room, while he could rest comfortably in Khiat’s. The dusker had been hesitant about the arrangement at first but relented when told the alternative was him sleeping outside. She also seemed to think the ringcat was cute, and Daniel was saving that ammunition for when Hunter got too prideful about how much stronger he was.
On a whim, Daniel used Analyze Material on the reed in hopes it would help. He felt immediate comprehension upon using it, but the details were also displayed on his phone.
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River Reed (Material, Variant: Desert, Nonmagical, Level: 0)
Plant matter that confers no special properties if used in Crafting or Enchanting.
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“Nice,” Daniel said sarcastically. The material being nonmagical meant he couldn’t directly use enchantment to fix it, and he wasn’t confident in his ability to on such a low level material anyway. So far he’d only been successful with the heliorite and was beginning to worry that he’d spoiled himself by not starting the hard way. He’d have to check how enchanting with bone worked the next time they went hunting.
Daniel thought a little harder and checked his phone to go over the options he had to try and fix the curtain. After a minute of thinking, Daniel decided to use Construct Projectile to form the broken rod into what was technically a crossbow bolt. The fact that it looked just like the undamaged version of the curtain rod was entirely coincidental and Daniel didn’t feel like he was cheating at all.
He then used Construct Shield to repair the curtain itself, speaking the echoing incantation softly. It became very stiff, unable to be drawn open. Here Daniel did do some improvising, making it so the curtain could be opened and closed like a hatch. Since there was no time limit on how long these items would last, it would be a good enough fix until he could afford a replacement. At that point, he considered sleep but was far too awake to try.
Fortunately, no one else had been woken up by the excitement. It was either some material in the walls, or maybe the work of a Builder, but each had impressive sound reduction. Considering the tavern was open both day and night, it would be impossible for anyone to sleep otherwise. Stretching, Daniel decided to find the other member of their group that he suspected was exempt from needing to advance.
While it was, at best, two hours past dawn a middling crowd filled the ground floor below the lodgings. Another person more comfortable amidst a sea of strangers might have stopped to mingle, meeting those many and various who had chosen to eat here this morning and perhaps being drawn into one or more directions. But it wasn’t to be, it wasn’t who he was, so instead Daniel sidled along the edges of the room to the door making a mental note to find food later.
“Khare? Khare?” They said they’d be near the entrance. Exiting the tavern, Daniel looked around the three sides of the building not connected to an adjacent one. This building had been Thomas’ suggestion, somewhere both they and Khiat could stay while being roughly halfway from the walls to Spires. Somewhere unobtrusive, but close. Considering he hadn’t been to the city in years, Thomas’ memory was fantastic.
Daniel brought out his Focus, careful to keep it either on hand or in an interior pocket. Rogues apparently frequented cities and accounted for no small amount of theft as they sought advancement. As was Bards using charm powers on people this was a legal gray area in this kingdom with the understanding that the city guard wouldn’t enforce the law for thefts under a certain amount. The risk was low on the streets, especially because he’d be more resistant to their stealth powers than most, but the risk of losing his phone or necklace was too great not to take precautions. He’d kept his crossbow on him too in case anyone tried anything.
Now it was time to make use of the new function of his Focus. The app that had been unwillingly installed on his phone in place of the Encyclopedia had an icon that looked like a radar dish with a slash through it. The asterisk on the power name didn’t apply to the actual app on his phone, only added more questions to what was going on with that. Daniel had first thought it meant the power was gained through a power evolution since that’s how he’d gotten Beast Friend, and Evalyn’s Valor Song might have come to her the same way. That meant whatever that old guy did was something similar, or there was an entire other meaning that unidentification prevented him from knowing. He hadn’t brought out his phone to ruminate on that though.
Tapping the app displayed a toggle at the top, where he could distinguish whether the function passively disrupted his surroundings or not. It was disabled, as otherwise the Fate could track him by the blank spot in their vision. Even Lograve hadn’t known how the class operated exactly, though they’d managed so far. Below the toggle was a list of alphabetized names. It wouldn’t reveal absolutely everyone around him, that’s what he had Hunter for, but he could control who was screened by the function by additional toggles attached to each name. By extension, he could see which of his friends was nearby. Khare’s name was on the list, so he knew the gestalt hadn’t run off.
“Khare?”
Rising out of the ground and startling some on the road, the Martialist appeared from the last side of the building Daniel had checked. The eastern one, facing the rising sun. Daniel noticed absentmindedly the tavern had no windows on this side but wasn’t thinking too much about it. “Morning.”
“Yeah. Do you still have advancement left? It feels like you’ve been improving every day. Are you getting enough sleep? Wait, do you need sleep?”
Khare fully formed into a humanoid shape, even including legs despite them no longer needing to do that. They’d been in that form ever since Daniel had climbed out of the strange, plant-infested cave hidden inside of them. It sure made reading the gestalt easier as they gave Daniel a knowing smile. “Fast.”
“Sorry, I’ll slow down. Do you know if Lograve got Thomas last night? I should have asked if Hunter could smell him or something but I forgot. It’s weird not knowing where everyone is and what they’re doing. Wait, does that sound creepy?” Daniel was suddenly self-conscious and aware of the crowded morning traffic around him. “Do you want to come inside? There’s enough room in my room for both of us if you want to talk.”
Khare looked surprised, but nodded, giving no other answer to the multitude of questions.
“Great! Khiat’s still asleep, probably will be for a couple of hours. I’m guessing Lograve is too if he spent a few hours wherever the prisons are here.” Daniel and Khare walked back into the Painted Dusk, drawing more attention than when he’d left. The patrons eyed the gestalt but quickly returned to their conversations. The thought didn’t occur to Daniel as to what might have happened to Khare if they weren’t with someone Blessed, but it did to the gestalt.
“I figure we’ve got at least an hour,” Daniel said, sitting on his bed while Khare took up the floor space. There wasn’t a chair, but the mass of vines hardly needed one. “Although I might need to get food before then. Something for Khiat too.” Silence. “I need to find a library. Advancing from reading didn’t work the last time I tried, but at the very least it’d be interesting.”
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
Khare didn’t respond, so Daniel spent a few minutes looking out the window after awkwardly raising his curtain wall. He’d talked with Khare before, of course. Definitely a few times, though the gestalt had prompted most of those conversations. They didn’t think he was annoying, did they? “I think I’ve said this before, but thanks again for letting me use your power, in more ways than one. I hope that’s not too much of a trouble. I should also ask Arpan about bags of holding so I can free up your space. Do those exist?” No response. “Sorry, I can be a little over the place. Anything you wanted to ask?”
“Origin?”
Daniel shifted, moving to lean back against the wall as he thought hard. He’d been very careful with who he told about this, but now? Despite all the warnings, Aughal felt like a safe enough place. “I guess I have been mentioning where I come from more often recently. Honestly, the only other people I haven’t told the whole truth are Thomas and Tak. Maybe Tak is fine to tell but Thomas?” He shook his head. “I trust you. I have to admit it still feels like I don’t know too much about you, but you and the rest of the gestalt saved Hunter. All of us really. Can I ask you to keep it secret?”
“Yes.”
One of Daniel’s legs was vibrating nervously. Saying what he was about to would have been very foolish if the room wasn’t soundproofed and his phone didn’t prevent scrying. Even so, he closed the curtain before speaking. The fact that it now perfectly fit in the empty window space did improve his sense of security. “I’m not sure how well you understand what I say if it’s like how you sound to us. Given the problems I’ve been having with language, I think it’s best if I just keep it simple. I’m from another world, Khare. Not the Octyrrum.” Shifting in the vines. Was Khare thinking?
“Repeat?”
“I come from another planet, I guess? But the Octyrrum’s flat so I’m not sure if this is a planet or just...” Instead of finishing that thought, Daniel unlocked his phone and showed Khare the image. “See this? My family, and behind them is my world. Just humans, no other races. No magic. I wasn’t here until after the Upswell. I think that’s what brought me here, but we still don’t know really.”
The gestalt put the phone on the bed beside Daniel, and he saw that the hand was shaking a little. More accurately, the vines compressed into that shape seemed to struggle to maintain it. When Khare spoke next there was frank disbelief in his voice. “Artificer?”
“I know, I just had the class when I woke up. Had my attributes boosted too, or, rather I gained attributes. Before I came here, I wouldn’t have been able to climb a tree, but it was the first thing I did after waking up. You don’t happen to know how that could happen, do you?”
Khare shifted into their amorphous shape for a minute, leaving Daniel to wonder if they were thinking about that question or just his insane ramblings overall. Eventually, Khare took their chimeric form and just shook their head.
Daniel laughed. “Yeah, this was the first thing that set Lograve off about how I’m an affront to the logical neatness of the world. He’s clueless too.”
“Truth?”
“I’m not joking. I don’t understand why or how it happened, it just did. I don’t even remember what happened right before I got here.” Daniel gritted his teeth as his mind wandered to that week before he found himself here. Even now, it was painful to try remembering. “After I landed, everything was on fire and it was all I could do to stay alive. Now’s pretty much the first time I have to breathe. I should get one of those toys actually. What else am I going to spend the money on besides food?” Daniel thought for a moment and then frowned. “Oh right, Artificer stuff. That’s going to be expensive.”
Khare waited for Daniel to stop talking to repeat their question. “Truth?” In fairness, Daniel hadn’t seen enough utter disbelief in the gestalt to recognize that emotion.
“Yeah. Ask Lograve if you don’t believe me because he does. Just, not in public. It’s already bad being a rare here, I don’t want to think about what people would do if they found out about this.”
“Family?”
“They didn’t come through. I wasn’t with them, assuming that would have made a difference. My dad, actually, well, we don’t know for sure but he’s probably…” he trailed off, sagging a little.
Khare’s upper form dissolved once more, the space they were taking up shrinking. “Kob.” Daniel didn’t speak for a moment, and after the pause, Khare continued to speak. “Remembrance.” Shifting, they clearly wanted to say something else but there was a delay between each word comparable to the average sentence. “Inheritance?”
To Daniel, it felt like Khare was trying to get something complicated across. He didn’t have a suspicion of what they meant other than grief, but Khare could have gotten that across with just the name. “I know, you saw them die. I wish I could say I didn’t understand.”
“Inheritance,” Khare repeated.
Daniel raised an eyebrow. “Did Kob give you something?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” Daniel ventured.
“Identify.” A vine pointed to themself.
“Uh, ok?” The last time Daniel had used his own power was back with Khiat. Normally Hunter just tagged everything and alerted him to any threats, which took a lot off of Daniel’s plate when it came to scouting. Still, it was easy enough to do. Green light ringed an already green creature and Daniel was surprised to find Khare was sharing access to their powers. “Wait. That’s weird.”
“Problem?”
“Do you mind if I take a look at some of these?” Khare shook their head and Daniel dove into his Encyclopedia. While powers like Chimeric Form and Mobile Armory attracted his interest, it was the asterisks that he looked up first. The three powers with asterisks.
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Stone Form* (Feature, Endurance, Domain: Transmutation, Archetype Restriction: Gestalt, Level: 4):
You possess the Power to Transmute your form to add a tough, rocky hide granting Resistance: Physical Damage, Resistance: Lightning, and Resistance: Fire. The initial transmutation requires a major amount of Mana, but no mana is needed to maintain the effect. Repair of damaged transmuted matter requires additional mana, scaling with the amount of material used or transformed. This is a Magical Feature that does not function in an area of Magical Suppression, however already transmuted matter will not be reverted within one.
-
Bleeding Blades* (Ability, Strength, Spell, Domain: Destruction, Level: 2):
You possess the Power to enhance Weapons: Edged that you possess for a moderate Mana cost, increasing the amount of Damage: Physical that they inflict and adding Chance: Minor to inflict Effect: Bleed. The probability of inflicting this effect scales with the nature of the injury and your Attribute: Luck, while inversely scaling with the target’s Attribute: Endurance. Weapons enhanced in this way will remain so for one minute, after which they will revert to their normal form. This is a Magical Ability that does not function in an area of Magical Suppression. Enhanced weapons will revert to their normal form if exposed to such an area, or if they leave your possession.
-
Menace* (Ability, Charisma, Incantation, Spell, Domain: Illusion, Level: 2):
You possess the Power to inflict Effect: Fear on Creatures you injure. The probability of inflicting this effect scales with your Attribute: Charisma and damage recently inflicted, inversely scaling with the opponent’s Attribute: Wisdom. This is a Magical Ability that does not function in an area of Magical Suppression. The incantation required by this spell is not a set phrase, any sufficiently imposing oration will suffice.
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“What the hell?”
…
Khiat woke up again four hours after the first panicked start she’d had to the day. Oversleeping wasn’t one of her vices, but the adjustment to her regular rotation had been taxing. With what she’d been able to get today, she almost felt normal.
The large cat wasn’t in her room anymore, which made Khiat feel a little sad. It really was cute, and having it sleep between her and the door had made her feel very protected. As she woke up more, she vaguely remembered it padding off somewhere. She’d experimentally tried to pat its head last night just before trying to go to sleep, but a soft growl had stopped her.
The first thing she did was put on her travel armor, having taken it off again to nap. It wasn’t too irritating to wear, but this inn had been very comfortable and she’d wanted to fully relax. The bed had been made of sand like hers at home, but a covering of some hide over it prevented it from spilling out across the stone floors. Finding out that an establishment had been set up specifically to suit her needs made the city feel welcoming, if there weren’t people in it who would try to kill her.
Khiat checked Daniel’s room first to find it empty, curtains drawn. They looked odd, but she didn’t closely inspect them. Instead, she wandered into the common room to find Lograve, Daniel, and the plant man having a discussion over a meal two of them were sharing.
“-from what I knew about Ritualism, I’d received it two levels earlier than I should have. If there is something odd going on with power evolutions, granting people powers outside what they’d normally receive, that could explain it. It’s possible our classes could have been affected by what happened to the Spoke. We’ll have to check the others and, oh, good evening Khiat.”
“Sorry, I think I still overslept.”
“Nonsense, I only woke up half an hour ago. Damned law enforcement here kept me waiting for an hour before just sending me away.”
“They didn’t let Thomas go? Oh no!”
“It’s fine, it’s fine. I’m sure they’ve just ‘lost’ him in an attempt to pressure us into revealing what we know. Shady, and I’d expect we can peel off a small repayment from that damnable lieutenant's hide once it’s made known they arrested someone without cause. Assuming the law works at all here.” He took a sip of water, having declined further alcohol after last night had left him with a headache today. “Now, if they hurt him in any way, his church will actually skin people. A benefit of taking a class with a default organization, I suppose.”
“I thought he worshiped the Hand?” Khiat remembered her mother’s stories of the gods. The Hand was described as the kindest, the most merciful.
“Oh, I’ve seen a Cleric of the Hand go to war. Not someone you want to anger as they’re the ones you’d turn to after being beaten bloody. Khiat, I assure you, you don’t need to worry and this is in no way your fault. They’ll keep him a day or so at most, by then pressure from his church will free him if nothing else will. I, uhm, made a rather irate ‘confession’ to them on my way back last night. It’s not like he wasn’t going to spend his time in one place advancing anyways.”
“Why aren’t you advancing?”
Lograve took a piece of bread and pushed around the meat on his plate with it. There was a sauce that soaked into it, and the sight made Khiat hungry. “I’m level 4, advancing will take me close to half a day and that’s for one of the attributes I’ve been neglecting. I’m filling up so I can focus. You should get some food too. I think these two are eager to go about town.”
“There’s a place that sells spellbooks!” Daniel exclaimed. “I think we go by there to look and then get to Arpan’s.”
“You won’t need me,” Lograve commented after a bite. “Knowing him he’ll need another day or so, just give me an update or a time and place if he has one.”
Khiat was more curious about the first thing Daniel had said. “You can learn powers from books?”
“No, and I don’t know why he’s so interested either. Arcanists commonly gain the Spellcraft feature that is, to spells, what enchanting powers are to formulae. I have yet to receive either kind of power.” There was no small amount of bitter disappointment in those words, which were also accompanied by a slight drip of the red sauce that Lograve dabbed at with the diminishing piece of bread. “Mm, shouldn’t talk while I eat. Murdon’s always on me about that.”
There wasn’t much else said over the conversation, though Khiat felt she’d walked into something important that had been interrupted. Part of her wanted to ask, but she was still too grateful to try and upset her protectors by prying. As the three prepared for their day out, excitement took over as Khiat wondered what this day would bring.