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Chapter 8: Seeds of Adventure
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Skill: 1) Boundless Potential – Touch of the Celestial (Level 1) (Passive) [You possess immense potential. Grants the power of limitless growth. Experience gained through proper training, combat, or practice is manifestable as skills, increased proficiency in an already developed skill, and / or progression of stats. Growth occurs in a use-dependent manner. You may surpass the limits of your race and vessel. You possess the potential to evolve your race and skills.] Sub Skill – Rapid Growth (Passive) [You excel in learning and retaining new skills, information, and techniques. Improvement speed through study, training, meditation, and experience is increased.]
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Logan arrived at the cabin at mid-day to find Ryan sitting in front of the fireplace affixing arrowheads to fletched shafts.
He watched the boy as he worked, focused, diligent, and undistracted. He wondered if he’d ever been as serious about anything when he was the boy’s age. Not likely.
The arrows lay in two piles, those without arrow heads and those he’d already completed. The latter pile was the larger; he’d made at least twenty so far, and judging by the speed he was going, he must’ve started soon after Logan had left. The arrows were simple but looked sturdy and effective. Long and straight, each was fletched with three feathers of black or brown, culminating in a broadhead point of two blades that formed a V tip at the end of the arrow.
“Pa is at the mines,” he said, not looking up.
“I see… those are impressive. I couldn’t do anything half as cool as that at your age,” Logan said.
Was the boy upset?
“They’re for hunting. Poppy taught Pa how to make them, and then he taught me. I want to go into the forest, but Pa won’t let me go alone, and he’s always working,” Ryan said.
Poppy must be his grandfather, he thought.
Ryan had made a rather forceful stroke with his knife as he said the last bit, cutting off more wood from the taper than he’d meant to.
“You came through the forest when you met me, didn’t you?”
He wanted to cheer the boy up. He also wanted the stew in the pot hanging over the fire, which was now just embers, but didn’t want to ask the angry boy with a knife to move so that he could get to it.
“That’s not the same. I want to hunt! Pa only takes me on the safe routes where no monsters go. He taught me how to shoot but won’t actually let me do it.”
Ryan had stopped working on the arrows and was visibly distraught.
“Poppy was brave. He helped the village, he protected everyone while they built the wall. He’s a hero! But Pa doesn’t care, he just says it’s too dangerous and to wait till I’m older.”
Logan contemplated this. His grandfather had probably died while defending the villagers, and his father had stopped hunting shortly thereafter, not wanting to follow Poppy to an early grave, especially with a child to take care of. He wondered what had happened to the boy’s mother.
Huck's reasoning made sense, but he could sympathize with Ryan who clearly idolized his noble “Poppy."
“It is dangerous, Ryan. Look,” Logan said as he moved closer to the boy and turned his arm towards him.
He’d cut the sleeve of his shirt and wrapped bandages around the wounds, but they were bloody, and the shoulder disfigured.
“Remember those rabbits your pa mentioned? This was from one of those.”
Ryan’s eyes lit up, looking from Logan’s shoulder to his face.
“You killed one? In the forest?” Ryan said, the anger gone from the boy’s voice, immediately replaced by pure adoration.
This was not going as planned.
“Um… Yeah. But it almost killed me, I only got out alive because of a healing potion I took from it,” Logan said, trying to temper the boy's excitement.
Ryan’s eyes nearly bulged out of his skull as he stared at Logan, mouth agape, as if he’d just watched a corpse rise from the dead and start doing cartwheels.
“You got a healing potion from a rabid rabbit?!” he asked.
Logan cringed from the volume of the question.
“Yes, is that really such a big deal?” he had a bad feeling about the answer.
“Nobody on this side of the Suko’s knows how to make real healing potions, even in Tarik. Pa told me that old man Kiens would pay ten silvers for even a lesser potion. Ten silvers!”
Ryan practically glowed with excitement.
He recognized the names as the mountain range and the larger town East of Woolam and guessed that “old man Kiens” must be the closest thing they had to a doctor or apothecary. If ten silver coins was a fabulously steep price for a one-of-a-kind item, then how much had the one hundred silvers been worth that he’d given Huck?
Logan’s suspicions about his looting ability, or whatever mechanism controlled the loot he received, grew.
“Well, I’m sure it wasn’t the real deal then…” he said, chuckling nervously.
His Analyze ability had told him it most certainly had been.
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“By the way, do you know how much your dad makes working at the mines?” he asked.
Ryan looked puzzled by the question.
“I think forty or so bronze a day, why?”
Logan blanched. “No reason, just curious,” he said as he walked over to the fire and placed his hand against the wall, looking at the embers while he regained his bearing.
He’d given Huck more than eight months of pay. Either the people here were incredibly poor, or the steam fish and rabid rabbit had given him entirely too much coin. Or possibly both. Luckily, he’d learned not to flaunt his wallet early in the safety of the cabin, and not where his naivety could’ve gotten him robbed or worse.
“I’m going to take some stew and rest in the other room. I’ll talk to your pa when he gets back. I have a feeling he might let you join me the next time I go to the woods.”
Ryan ran over to Logan and wrapped his arms around him.
“Really? Thank you, Mr. Logan!”
Logan smiled and tousled Ryan's hair before retiring to his room.
The stew, though it was far closer to soup, was amazing. Huck had said it was a basic recipe, but to Logan it tasted incredible. Savory, the delicious umami expanded in his mouth, a complex yet simple flavor that, combined with its aroma and the chunks of perfectly tender steam fish, sent him into a heavenly bliss. In addition to sating his gnawing hunger, the meal also gave him an additional healing buff which, though minor, stacked on top of the one from the potion.
He’d been worried that Ryan’s death-grip embrace would’ve cancelled its effect, but luckily it had only crushed his organs just shy of the potion’s damage threshold. The pain in his shoulder had receded further and he felt that it’d be healed by the next morning. An injury like this would’ve taken months to heal on Earth, even with the advantage of modern technology. He was starting to see why this Kiens was so keen to get his hands on a potion; if he could learn to make these himself, that would be a huge step towards self-sufficiency.
He viewed the catalogue page in his menu and read the description of the second entry in the list, the Rabid Rabbit.
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Lesser Rabid Rabbit
Capable of surviving in a variety of climates, Rabid Rabbits come in many species. An unintelligent creature possessing ???, they have speed and strength that outstrips less evolved animals in their class. Lesser Rabid Rabbits range in level between one and five. Their saliva contains a paralytic poison which can be cured with Zatroot extract, and their sharp claws make dangerous weapons. Rabid Rabbit Pelts are exceptionally durable save for the neck and stomach, which are the creature’s weak points.
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He was surprised to learn about the poison and relieved that he hadn’t been affected.
"Dodged a bullet there, partner. Made it by the skin of your teeth. You almost chipped off the old block. You could’ve fallen head over heels, you gotta be more careful next time!"
“You started off alright but then shit hit the fan. Maybe you should try learning from Ryan, he’s got a way better handle on things than you do, Mikey.”
Mikey furrowed his nonexistent eyebrows in confusion at the new idioms. Logan had made fun of his lack of practical knowledge about humans and the failings of his “impressive” education, and Mikey had made a habit of attempting to prove his relatability to him.
"Shit hitting a fan, that sounds… disgusting. How would that ever happen?"
“Oh it’s pretty common, believe me,” he said, laughing.
He had been lucky, though. Huck was right, the forest was dangerous. He'd jumped in headfirst, expecting to be able to take on anything he encountered with no information and no training. Idiotic hubris. The steam fish and the rabbit were both preceded by “Lesser,” but they had both almost killed him with little effort. If they were average examples of lesser monsters, what would a “greater” rabid rabbit or steam fish look like?
He hoped he wouldn't find out for a long time and promised himself that he'd be more careful in the future. Remembering the description of the rabbit's hide, he removed the pelt from his inventory. It was a bright, pure white, somehow clean, and unblemished by blood or dirt. The fur on its top side was incredibly soft, and the skin underneath was perfectly clean and treated.
He drew his sword and poked at a corner of the pelt; the description had called it “exceptionally durable.” Pressing the point into the taught pelt, it took considerable effort before he could stab through, granted his strength was still only at “1."
Was the pelt already tanned?
He thought it was, but he was no expert. He tried the same thing again, this time slicing. It proved even more difficult, the pelt holding up surprisingly well. He touched the blade, testing it. The sword wasn’t dull at all, in fact it was quite sharp he thought, as he sucked blood from his thumb.
Hopefully he could find a craftsman in Tarik that could make something useful out of it.
Armor would be nice, he thought, eyeing his arm.
He put the items away, changed his bandages, and lie back on the bed.
Ryan had told him that Huck wouldn’t be home until the evening, so he had plenty of time. Though the potion had done a great job of healing his wounds, it did nothing for his fatigue; the run and the fight, short as it was, had drained him more than he’d thought something so brief could. He felt like he'd just done a HIIT workout nonstop for hours.
He felt exhausted, and the warm, luscious furs of the bed promised him a satisfying, blissful rest. He closed his eyes, content to forfeit the rest of his day, letting the shoulder heal and talking to Huck when he returned.
If Ryan did join him in the forest, Huck might never have to work another day in the mines. Perhaps Huck himself would join them if he could ever be convinced to hunt again. He drifted to sleep as Mikey and Susie argued heatedly about what he’d gotten wrong with his idioms.
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“A silver? For one of those little rabbits?” Huck said in disbelief.
Little? There was nothing little about the rabbit except my chances of survival while fighting it.
“Yep. I got a pelt and some other stuff too. It tore me up pretty good, but I’m already mostly recovered.”
Huck eyed him suspiciously. “Did Ryan tell you where to find Kiens? I could’ve fixed you up better than that old coot if you’d waited for me.”
“Oh, no. I just used the healing potion I got from the rabbit,” he said casually with a shrug that, he was pleased to discover, caused no pain in his shoulder.
It really was just about as good as new. He hid a smile at the reaction that he knew was coming.
“A healing potion!?” Huck said, almost shouting.
Logan barreled onwards; “Look, Ryan really wants to go to the forest. He wants to be a hunter like your father, maybe he can come with me? He’s good with the bow, you and I both know that. I’ll stay in front, and he can support me from behind. We'll split the loot from the monsters we kill; it sounds like you didn’t know they could give money before I arrived here. We’ll be careful, stay on the outskirts of the forest until we’re ready to go deeper, I promise.”
Huck crossed his arms and looked at the two bows that hung on the wall next to a row of heavy looking pickaxes, then at the cabin door. Ryan was off getting water from the village well for evening washing and dinner.
“With the hundred silver you gave me plus what I’ve been saving, I’ve had a lot to think about. Do you know what lies beyond the Suko Mountains, Logan?” Huck asked, calmer now, contemplative.
“Just what you told me, lands of wealth and technology, huge cities that dwarf Woolam, lives of more than just farming, mining, and living off the land. It sounds like a totally different world.”
Huck nodded.
“My father was from a city beyond the mountains, in a distant land no one here has ever heard of. Illaria, the city of endless colors, he’d called it. He’d told me stories that sounded like impossible fantasies, but he wasn’t one for lying. I want Ryan to see the world, the real world, out there.”
Huck gestured towards the wall of the house, in the direction of the mountains.
“I want him to have a life better than mine or my father’s. He never told me why he came here, brought me when I was just a boy. I never met my real mother, only learning later that he’d remarried when he got to Woolam. She was a good woman. Died of the threshing sickness after Yram passed. Same thing as Ryan’s mom. They have all sorts of medicine in Illaria, that’s what he told me. Neither one of them would’ve died if we’d lived there.”
Huck hung his head, sitting on the stool by the fire now, and Logan joined him.
“Money to get started on the other side, the strength to make the journey, and enough resources to last us the trip. That’s what we need to cross the mountains. There are monsters in the tunnels see, and no other way through. That’s why we in the south have almost no connection to the other side. Everyone that’s left never writes back, like they’ve disappeared. It's taboo to say it, but we suspect nobody 'round here that's left 'as ever made it through.”
Logan nodded. He was beginning to grasp the situation and wanted to help. After all, he didn't want to spend his new life isolated in a remote corner of the world. Huck wanted a better life for his kid, but the mountain passages were a seemingly insurmountable obstacle, not to mention the unknowns of what lay on the other side.
“Take Ryan with you but be smart. Learn to fight, learn to work as a team. Keep earning money and materials. I’ll try to find a replacement at work, then join you. In a few months’ time, maybe we’ll be ready to attempt a crossing. There are others from the village who want to leave too. It’s a nice life here, but small. Many of us have harbored dreams of seeing the outside world since we were children.”
Huck stood, resolve on his face and in the set of his shoulders. He strode to the wall where the bows hung and opened a trunk laying below them. Pulling a key from his coat pocket, he opened a hefty iron lock. From it, he removed a bundle of arrows with a much different make than the ones Ryan had been working on earlier. These were beautiful and elaborate: shafts of matte black were joined by razor-like four pointed tips of glistening steel and long, raven-black feathers. These were the arrows the pair had used to kill the steam fish, he realized.
Now that he looked at them closely, he felt a sort of heat, or pressure, no... something else that he couldn’t quite determine, emanating from them. They felt powerful, and dangerous. Huck removed the shorter, though still about four foot long, bow from the wall and, with the arrows, took them into Ryan’s room and laid them on his bed.
He returned and addressed Logan.
“What weapon do you prefer?”
Logan contemplated the question. He’d liked the feel of the short sword but had found himself wanting more reach.
“A sword, something a bit longer than this,” he said, removing the short steel sword from his inventory and showing it to Huck, who seemed almost used to Logan making items appear from nothingness.
Huck looked it over.
“I’ll have something for you in the morning, Master Gjorn keeps an impressive collection. I’ll let Ryan know that he’ll be going with you tomorrow.”
He turned to the fire, beginning to put it out, then looked over his shoulder and caught Logan’s eye.
“Look after my boy.”