Our remaining time in town was very short: Cuby found a gnome’s shop that was a hybridization of a mechanist’s and a chemist’s supplier, and bought him out of concussive grenades as well as the ingredients to make more, spending almost 800 gold to do so. She also bought power cells, and when we left I had 5 Concussive Grenades and 6 Power Cells, and I knew that Cuby at least had the supplies to make as many for herself once we found some time.
But our adventuring clocks and our Set Camp cooldowns had finally aligned, and so we left Aranar without staying any longer, making our way back up the road we’d come from. Cuby seemed to have even more pep than usual: she was, I guessed, utterly delighted by the fact that I was an actual human.
“I guess I get why you’re so secretive,” she was saying as we rounded a bend in the road and Aranar disappeared behind us, swallowed by the mountains. “But you could probably just take all of Haroshi’s followers from them if they knew who you were. If I’m right, and they’re mostly lamue and karox who want to act out the Hierarchy in the game world, then you, well… it feels so strange to say this, but you’ve got more authority than a taxin el. Than Haroshi.”
I sighed. Much as I’d tried to differentiate myself from what she thought of as human, I could see that I wouldn’t be fully successful—but at least she wasn’t trying to worship me.
“If we use my humanity that way, then we endorse using it that way—do you see?”
“Huh?”
“I’m not fit to be worshiped by the members of the Hierarchy, Cuby. I wouldn’t be qualified to run even the smallest piece of your civilization—not even waste management. We shouldn’t get them to follow me on account of my humanity because they shouldn’t follow me on account of my humanity.”
“What? You’d rather they follow Haroshi?”
“No, I’d rather they follow us. Actually, I’d rather they be killed and sent to Solarius on account of what they’ve already done.”
“But if you’d rather they follow us, why not just tell them you’re human?” Cuby asked. “Apart from wanting it to stay secret.”
“In the hypothetical situation where I don’t want to keep my nature a secret,” I said, “then it’s still not wise to use the way your people see humanity to my advantage.”
“I don’t get it.”
“It’s because no matter what good I might do in the short term by hijacking the Hierarchy, in the end I’d just be reinforcing something wrong. Yeah, it would be good if Haroshi’s people were with us, not him—but they should be with us because they understand that mass murder is wrong, not because I have the stronger species card. Obeying the right species because they’re atop the hierarchy is how we get someone like Haroshi in the first place.”
“But you wouldn’t be like Haroshi,” Cuby said, sounding genuinely confused.
“I wouldn’t,” I said. “But if we had enough humans from my world, some of us would.”
“They… would?” Cuby asked tentatively.
“Yes.”
“Are you… sure?”
I let out another sigh. I could tell that she thought I was dead wrong, or at least had serious doubts… but she wasn’t saying so. Because I was human.
“There’s a second reason not to do it,” I said. “In your current system, the taxin el are supposed to be in charge, and they are. Now let’s imagine that a lot of people in the Hierarchy, or in this game world, think that humans or Alatar should be in charge—and that’s not the case. There would be upheaval.”
“Well that’s true,” said Cuby. “But it would be upheaval with a purpose. I don’t know, Alatar—maybe all your primitive humans aren’t as good as you are, but I think you know that you’re superior to Haroshi, at least.”
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I could see that I wasn’t going to get her to change her mind, so I dropped it. Perhaps because she’d taken my silence as offense, Cuby said:
“I’m sorry. When I said the word primitive I only meant—”
“It’s all right, Cuby,” I said. “But let’s just leave this for now, all right? Honestly, I’m thinking more about Haroshi. We haven’t spotted him or his people—and if they’d come this way, they would only have been an hour or two behind us. We would’ve spotted them by now.”
“Probably,” she said. “And that means that either they camped under that awful noise because destroying their tents didn’t remove their rest zone, or….”
“He hannibaled us,” I said grimly.
“What?”
“They crossed the mountains to get to the other town. Maybe they had the skill points to buy mountain climbing, maybe they even prepared by bringing supplies for it.”
“They did have some Sturdy Mountaineering Boots,” Cuby said.
“That they did,” I said, looking down at my own boots. “And I suppose if they are headed this way, then Aranar is equipped to deal with them even without us. But at this point I sort of suspect that Haroshi figured out our strategy and realized his only chance was in crossing those mountains and going to that other town.”
“Vereth’s Rest,” said Cuby.
“That one. Which puts us hours and hours ahead of him when it comes to getting to that dungeon, if he winds up heading there at all.”
“He will,” said Cuby. “If Vereth’s Rest hasn’t had any contact with Oromar’s Bastion, then he’ll recruit there, too.”
I almost stopped in my tracks, my stomach churning. “Shit,” I said. “I hadn’t thought of that.” No wonder he’d climbed the mountain. I shook my head. “Damn it. We’ve got a lot of farming to do to make up the difference—and at some point we’re going to have to find a safe place to make camp.”
“Don’t worry, Alatar!” Cuby said cheerily. “It’s like you said—the higher your level, the more chance you can find some interactions they have no counter against, and the closer you’ll get to being invincible through Defense Rating. At level 10, you get two iconic passives!”
“True,” I said. “Any idea what those are?”
Cuby shrugged. “One of the mage ones is three more spell slots.”
“I agree,” I said instantly.
“What?”
“Hm? Oh, I like that one. I think I’m going to take that one.”
“But you don’t know what the other option is,” she said.
“Let’s hope it’s better,” I said. “But if it’s not—I won’t be upset. But we don’t have to talk about game stuff now,” I said.
“Okay!”
I fought back a growing sense of unease, hoping that Cuby wasn’t just being compliant now because she knew that I was human.
“Say,” said Cuby. “There’s actually one other game thing I should mention before I forget, though.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Psychic powers!” she said. “We’ve got to watch out for them. There’s spells in the game that can read your mind, or make you tell the truth—I don’t know how many, or anything, but I know they’re there.”
“Oh,” I said. “You’re right: the basic psychic attack can grab pieces of information out of somebody’s mind—I think it’s made to strengthen a spell like Unnatural Terror, which is stronger if you know your target’s fears. But with me….”
“They could learn the most important secret in the Hierarchy,” said Cuby. “Or, well, what I think is the most important secret. Who knows when it comes to secrets, you know?”
“Yeah,” I said. “But I’m not sure what the solution is.” I sighed. “Long-term, it’s probably pretty unlikely that I don’t encounter at least some of the abilities that can do this. So I guess we’ll just have to figure out a strategy for handling it as we go.”
“There’ll be a potion or a class or something, I’m sure,” said Cuby. “Oh, and another thing—” she materialized the Potion of True Sight and passed it to me. “You should take this back. You’re a better set of eyes than me, and you’ve got more abilities that can mark an invisible target than I do.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Honestly, I was glad when you just trusted me and didn’t drink the potion—it cost 110 gold.”
“Only 110?”
“I know, right?” I said. “Not a high cost for being covered for any kind of invisibility ambush or illusion shenanigans, and without having to spend an ability slot.”
We walked on, and soon the forests around us were filled with creatures high enough to gain experience, and so we left it to kill a few wolves and goats who had been corrupted. The XP wasn’t great, but it also wasn’t much of a delay.
“All right,” Cuby said eventually, pulling out the map. “Time to stop backtracking and move to another road—then we need to leave this valley by another mountain pass. Actually,” she said, lowering the map and giving me a significant look. “That pass is guarded by another outpost. Think there could be another devil? That they’ve taken the choke points to give out as many bargains as possible?”
I nodded slowly. “It’s worth being cautious about.”
“The last one wasn’t exactly easy.”
“No,” I said. I began to smile. “But I think this time we can be a little more prepared….”