5.08

“Ah yes, dear Imanin! To beat the *hic* Reverence King you just need to gather a *hic* group of ummm… FIVE! Five people! And he’ll be dead! Deader than a brick. Umm... Again I think! This time for sure!”

“Really? The walking Demigod of Undeath who’s been terrorizing the Western Kingdoms will fall just like that?”

“*hic* Yesfinitely. Oh, and *hic* make sure they’re all around your age. *hic* And have variety of umm… Personality! Yeah!”

- Conversation between Imamu the Lone Swordsman and Zephyrion the Drunk, known as the First Seer in contemporary histories.

Master_Hand: Have you heard of Gaia?

Tpyo: What’s that?

Orimaru: ^^

Variable Talisman: I have.

Master_Hand: There are rumors floating about a perfect 100% VR world.

Tpyo: Wtf?

WAAARGH The Flies!: I was called?

Variable Talisman: Apparently a new thing by Maple, a proof of concept after they got their quantum computers finished.

Orimaru: Where’d you guys hear it?

Master_Hand: I heard some people discussing it on the m/VROverWatch

Tpyo: Can’t be real, or a shitty marketing scheme

Tpyo: And even if it was, no way it’s near true 100%, gotta have pain reducers.

Variable Talisman: I was invited by a friend to it, I can say the 100% part is true, and pain reducers are completely optional, you can go for 0% reduction if you want.

Tpyo: Srsly? What kind of hardcore shit are they selling?

Orimaru: Link! Link!

Variable Talisman: That’s the weirdest thing though.

Variable Talisman: They don’t have a site, you can only get a copy of the program if another player invites you.

Tpyo: Tf?

WAAARGH The Flies!: The fuck 2 electric boogaloo?

Orimaru: Tf 3, Revenge of The Fucks Given?

Master_Hand: Can you invite us VT?

Variable Talisman: I only have one free invite, the rest need to be bought with in-game currency. Every new player gets a free invite though, so we could chain.

Tpyo: What is this weird-ass marketing strategy?

Master_Hand: I’m intrigued.

Orimaru: Me! Me! Me first VT!

Tpyo: Oh fuck no, I ain’t letting a middle school bitch take this from me first!

----------------------------------------

“It’s starting,” Declan said as he pretended to listen to class. His mind discreetly scrolling through the Yggdrasil chat group.

I nodded, “If Variable Talisman is already here, then serious competition is coming.”

At the very minimum, the majority of Complexity Bop. Typo also showed interest, so the Emerald Swords might be on their way as well. WAAARGH and Master_Hand were also present, but whether Master_Hand will bring Method with her was still in question.

Some… problematic players have finally gotten news of Gaia. It was strange that it took so long, but it meant more competition, especially given that players didn’t have to abandon their Yggdrasil guilds to be active here, but it also meant more decent players to recruit. I didn’t want to risk non-returnable assets like Utoqa if I didn’t have to. At the very minimum, I need to get in contact with Variable Talisman-

“-and that’s when Dusts said,” Noam turned to look at me.

“Hmm?” I answered, barely paying attention.

Noam sighed and shook his head in exasperation, “Fucking hell, you ruined the one-liner.”

“Honestly you should expect this behavior from me now,” I answered. Glancing around to see our motley group, almost cramped in our small cabin. Noam grabbed… Celly was it? The voodoo girl who fixed his arms before.

Celine Kakoph.

Analyze told me. What a helpful ability. And the other girl was…

…

No answer?

Huh, I guess she hasn’t introduced herself.

I extended a hand toward the elven woman with three swords laying beside her, “Dustin.”

She took it, “Tai Gnari.”

Tai Gnari

Strength: >14

Yeesh, no joke.

“And thank you for before,” the girl said as she bowed deeply.

“Before?” I asked. Have I met her before?

“Umm,” a bit confused, she continued, “I’m the person you saved from the vines back in the cave?”

“Aahh.” There was someone like that, “You were that person.”

“I know you’re face blind but how bad could it be?”

“Sorry I didn’t thank you earlier,” she said, bowing again. “I got too excited about my promotion,” she said, stroking the Bronze Plate on her neck. Skirmisher Nine was her classification. “What’d you guys get?”

“Misclassified,” I muttered as I pulled out my own tag.

‘Dustin (Traveler)

Mage (Terrain) 4

Mage (Battle) 2

Leader 3’

“You’re a Hui Ku?” she replied with a surprised face.

“I don’t know-”

“It means Traveler,” Celine butted in, “It’s the Dai way of speaking. Noam’s one as well.”

Tai looked at Celine, “Ni noi Dai?”

“Shiye,” the green-haired girl answered.

Looking impressed, the elf said, “Noi xiang nhien ren.”

“Thank you,” Celine smiled.

“Ban Noi Da?”

Celine shook her head, “Low Elvish, not as well.”

“Still pretty good,” Tai said, switching back to Common after presumably seeing our stupefied faces.

“How many languages do y'all know?” Noam asked.

“Only the three I just said,” Tai answered. “Common, Elf Common and Low Elvish.”

“I speak about four,” Celine answered, “Normal, Elf, Old and Under Common. I can understand Low Elvish and Grey Dwarven but can’t speak it.”

“Damn, that is a lot,” I said.

“Goddamn, I don’t even know that many,” Noam added.

Celine shrank back slightly into her cloak, her cheeks slightly reddened, “It’s really easy once you learn one in the language family, they all tend to share words.”

“Don’t tell my ma that, she’s gonna say I have no excuse,” Tai replied with a wry smile.

Come to think of it, I haven’t tried Under Common yet. Clearly my throat, I spoke in Under Common.

“Aye mate ya thinks dis sands liokes Unda’Commun?” My voice said with the thickest Australian accent.

“Ah yeh bruv,” she replied, mouth grinning a bit, “bucking oath righ’ere ya spoke lioke a natural.”

“Was that Common?” Noam muttered.

“Hell nah mate!” I answered, “Commun ain’t nearly as buttahry as dis.”

“Buckin trooth mate,” Celine replied, “dis is Kantant not some flow’ry language like Chanter.”

Tai shook her head, “Under Common.”

Noam made a sound like a crackling fire, then added, “I can speak Infernal… Doesn’t seem like anyone else does…”

“I will just say, if you ever start summoning Demons, I will kill you before you finish,” Tai said, her face dead serious.

“I will help,” I answered, pointing my staff at him. “He’ll come back anyway so he can’t be mad at us.”

Noam cracked his knuckles. “I’ll beat the both of you,” he replied with a smirk.

“Highly doubt it.”

“You are rather skinny.”

“Oh really?” he said, his smile widening, “I’ll throw down with you two! I ain’t afraid to cave a girl’s face in!”

“He did take out the Cultist we were supposed to kill…” Celine quietly added, “... by himself.”

“That can be entirely attributed to us softening him up first,” I declared with Tai nodding.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

“Oh, now you remember who she is!” Noam replied, “C’mon Utoqa back me up on this.”

“I was fighting the large creature, so I did not see you.”

I fell to the background as they spoke. Damn Noam, I couldn’t tell if it was his charisma stat or his natural skill in bringing people together, but a few minutes with what were essentially strangers and he had us chatting like old chums.

“Actually I was curious, why do you carry three swords around?” Noam asked.

“Oh, this?” she asked, putting one of her swords on the table. “It’s the reason I’m traveling.”

She held it by the grip and the sheathe, then both her arms clenched. Her veins popped as she tried to pull the sword out. She was buff, in a lean, runner’s body sort of way, but no matter how she tried the sheathe didn’t budge.

Letting out a heavy gasp, she let the sword clatter onto the table, “This thing’s cursed so that only people worthy can even lift it, much less unsheathe it. It’s my family’s proving test for adulthood.”

“Is that so?” I asked. I suppose proving artifacts would exist. “Can I try?”

She smirked and simply plopped the sword onto my outstretched hand.

My hand crashed into the table. I couldn’t move it. The sword was simply immovable, I couldn’t seem to affect it in any meaningful way even if the volume of the clatter indicated it wasn’t any heavier than a normal sword.

“Huh,” I said. I couldn’t tilt my hand to the side, it was as if the sword was simply locked in space.

Celine gingerly put her hands underneath the gap between the sword and the table and tried to lift it with a groan. Her strength was better than mine, but it didn’t budge at all.

“This isn’t something that is strength related huh.” It wasn’t heavy, otherwise, my hand and the table would’ve been crushed. I don’t even feel that much weight on it.

“Utoqa, could you try?” He had the next highest strength in the room.

The lizard grabbed the sword by the grip and tried to lift it. An expression of utter confusion when he couldn’t.

Tai snickered, “See-”

Noam grabbed the sword by the grip and lifted it.

“-What?” the elf explained, not so much surprise as it was a pure blind shock. “How- how’d you lift it?”

“I mean it’s pretty light,” Noam said as he twirled it as much as the cramped cabin space would allow. “Not sure what ya’ll were troubling with this.”

“What the fuck?” Tai exclaimed again. “You- do you know what I had to do to just be able to lift it!?”

“Can’t be that hard if I fulfilled-”

“I had to learn how to wash and fix my own clothes, do the dishes and cook! By Nana, just learning to pick the right groceries and cooking took me eight years!”

“I mean I learnt all that since my mums don’t always come back home on time and my lil bro gets hungry pretty often-”

“I had to get a job at the tavern! I worked there serving food and cleaning rooms for fifteen years!”

“Oh yeah, I worked as a barrister for a while, not technically legal since I was nine but I still know how to mix a few drinks-”

“Not to mention taxes! I had to learn arithmetic! Do you know the sha-bi can’t even calculate the taxes they’re collecting but expect us to give the right amount!?”

“Yeah, I definitely get that, this one time a gang was running a protection racket and-”

“And book my own doctor’s appointments!” she ranted, “Do you know how awkward it is to be the person with a priest telling them about how you tripped and broke your hand!?”

“Well, one time Max ran into a wall really fast-”

“And after all that I had to move out so my mum could give my room to my di for his startup company! You know how hard it was finding employment capable of paying for a house in this economy?!”

“That one I’ve never done, but I did help my mums settle in a better place in the Metros-”

“And after all that, I was just barely able to lift it! Eighty years of my life just spent like that! Then ma kicked me out of the house I barely managed to afford so I could inherit the family-style! If any random guy could just lift it then what the hell was I doing!?”

“Why do these things sound more like general life tips rather than some epic coming of age quest?” I asked.

Noam shrugged, resting the blade on the shoulder, which seemed to send Tai fuming, “I dunno, but doesn’t this prove I’m more mature than you Dusts?”

“Generally mature people don’t wave the fact around in their friend’s face.”

“How would you know? You’re not mature,” he replied with a light-hearted grin. “Sorry bout dat,” he said, sounding genuinely sorry as he handed the sword back to Tai, “Eighty years huh? Your kind lives long, right?”

She glumly nodded, “Yeah, Wood Elves live about four-hundred years. My great-great-grandpa was a human so I’m like one-sixteenth?”

Did they mature slower too? All the things she mentioned a human would’ve done by their twenties, most probably won’t but it was reachable by then.

“What’s your shtick then Celine?” Noam asked. “You fixed my arms pretty well.”

“You are a healer of limbs?” Utoqa butted in. To which she seemed to shrink back, not that the lizard seemed to notice.

“...Yes,” she quietly replied. Very slowly, she pulled out a bloody doll from within her cloak. “This was umm… Yours…” she gestured at Noam. “I uhh… don’t really like talking about it since people give me weird looks for umm… You know,” she gestured at the doll covered in Noam’s blood.

“I think it’s cool,” Noam replied, tapping the doll on the head. “Huh, it’s like an itch.”

“This isn’t some kind of dark magic isn’t it?” Tai said with a measured expression. “That blood on it doesn’t look sanitary.”

“Umm… Technically not?” Celine hesitantly answered, “It’s Sympathetic in nature and even if it is, dark magic is legal… umm… somewhere?”

Tai still looked unconvinced, so I said, “She did fix Noam’s arm rather easily.” I flicked the doll, to which Noam muttered “Hey,” as he flicked my hand away.

“You didn’t feel that did you?” I asked.

“Felt almost like a fly hovering by my face,” he answered. “Kinda less than I was expecting, but you are weak as shit.”

“Yeah, you need to know Sympathetic magic to transfer stuff like this,” Celine replied, pinching the doll’s cheeks.

“Ow,” Noam immediately responded.

“Intent is also a heavy part of it, not to mention the target’s own natural resistance to it, so for me transferring beneficial effects is easier,” she replied as she massaged the cheek.

“Yeap can confirm,” Noam said with a grin.

For a moment, Celine just stared at him uncomprehendingly before she yelped and dropped the doll.

“Ow,” he said again.

“I am so sorry sorry sorry…” she apologized profusely, “I didn’t mean to- I’m sorry I just got carried away with the stuff-”

“It’s fine…” Noam answered as he picked up his doll. He jerked it around a few times but didn’t seem to actually physically move. “Ok this is weird, I can feel it but nothing is actually happening to me.”

“Yeah it’s strange like that, I uhh…” hesitating slightly, she said, “I wasn't keeping it for weird reasons, it’s just that destroying it would be umm…”

“Murder,” I guessed in the deadest tone I could manage.

“Well not exactly, but it wouldn’t be a fun time. So I kept it until the juice ran out.”

“This is fun,” Noam said, “I can scratch myself in the back!”

“That’s what you took from this?” Tai said with an exasperated expression.

“Not surprised.”

“How fast can you fix a limb? What do you need?” Utoqa asked.

“Umm… Blood for one, but hair or scales would do,” she said, gesturing at him. “Ideally freely given, otherwise it won’t take as well. After that, I do the ritual and just need to sow the doll back together… so umm… a minute at most? Less if I already had a doll.”

Utoqa nodded, seemingly coming to a decision of some kind as he leaned back into his seat.

“And you three?” Tai asked as she gestured at me, “I saw you throw colored smoke but that was about it.”

“I’m annoying,” Noam said with a toothy grin, “If I insult a person hard enough they’ll get burned.”

“Did you mean that literally or figuratively?”

“Yes,” he answered.

I rolled my eye, adding, “He’s also a pretty good fighter.” As I gestured to the hook swords he had put aside.

“Umm… Yeah, I didn’t want to comment on them because they look made up,” Tai answered.

“All weapons are made up,” Noam answered as if it were the most obvious thing.

“I respect your choices on weaponry but I would not make the same one,” she deflected.

Noam simply raised an eyebrow at it and shrugged.

“How did you get so fast at the start?” Utoqa asked.

“Oh if I piss off a lot of people I become very strong for a short time.”

“Still think that’s far too situational,” I muttered.

“Hey hey! That moment was fucking awesome and you should’ve seen it Tai, I was like one man against a whole ass army!”

“Didn’t last long, you needed me to clean up after you,” I said.

“Hey! That moment where I batted your cluster grenade of mushrooms into that horde was a fucking Play of the Game moment, of course, if not for when I insulted that guy’s ass to the ground.”

Celine seemed to wince, as eyes took on a haunted look, “Yeah… that was… something.”

“And what about you?” Tai asked Utoqa.

“I kill things.”

“Yeah, but in what way?”

Tilting his head slightly, he took out his tomahawk, “With the sharp end of weapon.”

Tai’s mouth hung open as she was simply speechless.

“I think she was asking what special stuff you could do,” Noam said, “like that finger thing.”

“I understand,” he reached into one of his pouches and pulled a finger wrapped in mycelium, “I can craft useful things from corpses. They need to be good corpses to take something from.”

“Is that…?”

“Yes it’s my finger,” I shrugged, “I don’t mind since otherwise my corpse would’ve been wasted.” Also, an idea to constantly generate sleep grenades. I needed to die near Utoqa but it was still a form of regenerating value.

“And you?”

“Hmm…” I briefly considered which parts of my build I should reveal, before settling on just the Traveler stuff. My eye I kept hidden behind bark since I could still see from it just as well, and I was unaware of the value of deific artifacts other than the fact they were rare. “Well, I can make these mushrooms which I can store a spell on,” I created a sporage as an example. “Like Light, Sneezing, Balm, Poison or Rot, as well as…” I turned to the cabin door.

“They should be coming about now.”

A hawker in rather colorful clothes stopped in front of the door, his cart clamoring to a stop as glass bottles clanged against each other. On his coat were ten gold coins, each with a hole in the middle, threaded through a red string in a way like a ribbon. A Merchant Priest. Both Greenie and Yellow hopped off his shoulder.

“So this was the room you're from!” the hawker exclaimed. “Greetings! Greetings! I come here selling great and powerful potions!”

“He was really kewl!” Greenie exclaimed.

“What kind of potions?” Celine asked, interest apparently piqued.

“Well, of many kinds! But if I had to point to my greatest potion it would be this!” he took a rather large, brownish bottle from his cart. “A potion of happiness! Ever feel down? Sad? Depressed? This will fix it!” he said as he waved it in front of us, “Try it! Have a free sample, I guarantee its effectiveness!”

Celine took it, fingers waving a spell which popped out the cork before taking a sniff of it.

She had a stupefied expression for a moment.

“This is just alcohol?”

“And does alcohol not bring happiness!?”

We were silent for a moment at his beaming eyes.

“Fuck he’s got us there,” Noam spoke first. “How much for the goods?”

“Well a cheap ten gold will do-”

“Ten gold?” I cut in, “Isn’t that a tad expensive?”

“Well what is the price of empty fulfillment my friend?” the hawker asked, “Alcohol offers you a way out of the pointless nihilistic stupor you call a meaningful life, what is gold but a fleeting concept in the vastness of non-existence and the guarantee that we’ll all die eventually? So why not drink all your sorrows away!?”

“Can you not say that while literally having money signs on your eyes?” Tai exclaimed, “I mean ten gold is practically highway robbery!”

“Na-uh,” the hawker replied, wiggling his finger, “We’re on a train so it’s technically a Train Robbery!”

There was once again, a moment of silence. But this time out of the sheer disbelief on the size of the balls this man was carrying.

“Fuck outta here!” Noam said.

Tai shook her fists. “I swear if another one of you Merchant Priests try to swindle me I will hurt you!”

“Yeah!” the wisps joined in.

Under fire from both Greenie and Yellow, who, impressionable little shits that they were, quickly bandwagoned onto our side, we kicked out the priest.

We spent the rest of the day simply chatting. Going long after the sun had set, before Celine and Tai bade their goodbyes and went to their own cabin. Noam asked me for a sporage light, which he used to start his reading.

“When you said there were two hundred plus gods, you really weren’t joking huh,” he murmured as he flipped the pages. Keeping low to not wake Utoqa.

“Most of these guys aren’t important though, minor gods who rule over hyper specific things. Like this specific tree or that specific place,” I commented.

“It’s a polytheistic world, higher deities seem to have Greek God level power but local deities are much more localized and not as well known,” he continued as he flipped another page. “Evil gods? Osshiven’Kai? Why would a god of madness and chaos be associated with clocks?”

“Aren’t his clocks specifically broken?” I replied.

“I suppose,” Noam said, before he frowned as he read the next evil god. “Weeping Child…”

There was a moment of silence. I had read that same page to not much emotional reaction, however Noam had paused, and deeply sighed.

“So one asshole can torture kids until their suffering manifested a whole new god…”

He shut the book, rubbing his forehead. “I’m tired, night Dusts.”

I knew it was a lie, he simply couldn’t continue reading about the suffering. He was a better person than me like that.