6.01

“Yes I know they’re undead raised from the damned planes through the use of black magic that blasphemes against half of all gods, and that they have no concept of tiredness, but that doesn’t mean they can’t unionise or have paid vacations!” - High Prince Aksum, now Dread Emperor Accidental.

The night wind blew across an empty plain.

Cold air matted itself on my skin, worming its way past my thin clothing and bark. The grass below felt soft, and though I could only see a few metres from myself, I knew the plains were large, I could hear the small stream in the distance.

Past those few metres, within the darkness, were scales scattered about. Under each scale was a voice.

“Why did you put so much chilli?!” Tai gasped between long chugs of water.

Despite not being able to see him, I could clearly imagine the Cheshire grin on Noam’s face, “It builds character!”

“It tastes like poison,” Utoqa remarked, before he gently tapped Celine’s head, “are you still alive, white-skinned one?”

“... water…” she gasped, to which Utoqa passed a skin of water to her.

“You knew this didn’t you?” Tai accused.

I dipped my head slightly, “He and I share very different definitions of ‘edible’.”

Noam sighed, “It’s one of his many character flaws, not being able to stand chilli.”

There was a rustle as Tai stood up.

“Hey, what are you doing!” Noam yelled as Tai grabbed the pot we were sharing, and tossed the rest of the red soup out onto the plains.

“Nooooo!” came a soulful cry as Noam fell to his knees, “It was innocent!”

The scales dimmed.

Ignoring him, Tai pointed at Utoqa, “What do you know of cooking?”

There was a creak as Utoqa’s weight left the trunk they were using as a seat. His steps were silent, but a few moments later, I could hear a splash of water.

Soon, something wet and flopping was thrown towards us, landing beside the campfire.

“Fish, eat,” the lizardfolk replied matter of factly as he returned. His own teeth tearing into another fish.

“Raw?” Tai said as if Utoqa had just killed her grandmother and was wearing her skin as a hat.

Throwing her hands in the air, she stared hopefully at me, “What about you Dustin?”

And I grew a mushroom in my hand.

I didn’t need to see to know the light of hope died in her eyes, snuffed out as she realised one idiot knew how to cook, but had defective taste buds, and the other two couldn’t and considered raw nutrients enough of a meal. Which, to be fair, was correct.

“... Ok,” she finally said, “I can work with this. Maybe.”

“Utoqa I need you to catch more fish, and you Dustin grow some more mushrooms,” Tai said as she began rummaging through our baggage.

The scales grew distant before they disappeared. Finally, sight returned to me.

“Keep,” I murmured, low enough no one heard me. ‘A Blank Page in History, the Next Voyage of Discovery.’

A wood mask grew over my face, on it, began to glow the symbol of an eye. About two hours, that was how long it took me to swap out secrets.

“What are you doing to my babies!?” Noam cried as he wrestled Tai over various pouches of spices. She kicked him off with little effort since Noam was being theatrical and she had at least five more points of strength.

“You are no longer on seasoning duty!” she yelled in indignation. “Look at Celine! She’s practically dead!”

“... mmmghfff… I’m fineee…”

Being able to see the Scales was nice and all, but I was quite literally blind. Without my other secret providing spare sight, I would have to rely on the wisps for eye guides, and they had plenty of better uses.

“You just thought about getting rid of us didn’t you?” Yellow asked.

Greenie shed a fake tear, “You get a new eye and you already want to replace us.”

“I only considered it,” I defended. “And when I can see you two can be the small little balls of destruction you deserve to be.”

Greenie, who was probably a living violation of the Geneva Convention, preened at the compliment. While Yellow seemed to disappear, it still wouldn’t tell me how it got levels as a Sneak.

The bright yellow wisp appeared later next to Tai, watching her cook and prepare the fish.

Right now, I too was unnoticed. My steps were not silent like Utoqa’s, nor did I hide my presence like Yellow by simply standing outside of sight, but something severely more fucked up.

For even when Celine looked directly at me when she came back to life, she did not notice me at all.

Soon, I sat next to the sixth member of our group. A quiet little child whose family was dead.

“Johnny,” I said, revealing myself to him. To the child with empty eyes.

He had no reaction to my presence being suddenly unveiled, other than glancing towards me.

I asked my question, “Has that thing been following us the entire time?”

Behind Johnny Joymoon was an ethereal figure, almost mist-like. It was shaped not like a human, but like a tree trunk, with pale slithering roots spreading like a web, each ending in lipless mouths filled with needle-like teeth, and covering its trunk were faces, dozens and dozens of empty, featureless faces.

“It has,” Johnny replied.

If he could see it as well and he was now a priest of the Weeping Child, whether by choice or chance, then that must mean…

“A ghost huh?” I murmured in curiosity. No wonder the others, nor I, was able to see it. “Do I need to kill it?”

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Ghosts can’t be harder to kill than a living concept.

Johnny shook his head, hugging the ragged doll he carried, “The Boy asked it to protect me. To keep me safe.”

Mushrooms sprouted all around us as I smiled at the ghost.

“Then be glad I won’t have to kill you twice, Manifestation of Lies.”

True Sight was such a convenient thing, I could see that the ghost had no true will of its own, not anymore. It was a collection of shambling memories masterfully stitched back together, it shouldn’t have consciousness or sentience, yet still, it shuddered.

Regardless, I turned back towards the campfire, “Someone ordered some mushrooms?” I yelled out.

Utoqa’s head darted towards me, eyes narrowing as he tried to understand how I got there.

Celine yelped as suddenly she was staring at my smiling face. Rude, I couldn’t look that bad right?

Noam smiled, and I saw goosebumps on his bare skin as he tried to calculate how to kill me.

“How’d you get over here?” Tai asked as she cleaned out the guts of the fish, not at all bothered by my sudden appearance.

“I have my secrets,” I answered as I plucked one of the many Mushroom Meals I grew, handing it to her outstretched hand.

At the end of the night, I learned that Tai was a really good cook.

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

“So what do you all plan on doing now?” Noam asked casually, the embers of the fire dying in the night.

Some of them had tucked in for the night, gathering into their own sleeping bags, Dustin was standing quietly by the side, his glow dimmed.

“I don’t know,” Tai answered first, “I only know I need to get back home and inform everyone of my… brother’s death.”

Her hand clutched onto the second blade, tightening. “It’s so strange, I can barely remember his face, but my chest is still so tight.”

“That means he meant something to you,” Celine answered. “And I am… truly sorry.”

“Heh… It’s alright Cel, I barely know him after all.”

“Doesn’t mean you, her or I can’t feel sorry,” Noam put in, “when people die it always feel shitty, no matter if you knew them or not.”

“Does it ever get better?” Tai asked, her voice sounded… weak. Nothing like the directness she displayed up till now.

“Yes,” Noam answered.

No one was sure if it was a lie or truth.

Celine’s eyes shifted to a silent lump a bit further from the rest of them. Smaller than all of them.

“So you’re just going to leave once we near a Wayshard?” Noam asked.

There was some ruffling as Tai shook her head, “Can’t, part of the Path of Discipline, I can’t use them for transport… well, I can but it would mean abandoning it.”

‘One of those conditions this world is fond of,’ Noam thought to himself. “So where’s your home?”

“It’s a small city near the edge of the Yong Chun Lin,” Tai answered.

Celine paused, “The Eternal Forests of Forever Spring?”

“That’s the one.”

“That is significantly longer than what she said,” Noam observed.

“Elvish always translates to a mouthful in common,” Tai told him, to which Celine simply nodded in response.

“Is that on the way where we are going?” Noam asked Dustin.

The cap slowly lit up, glowing slightly blue, Noam knew myconids didn’t really sleep in the same way people did, they were still perfectly aware of their surroundings.

“We need to get to a major city with a church of the Hearth,” Dustin spoke, glancing at the small bundle to the side of the camp, “but other than that…”

“No plans?” Noam asked, raising an eyebrow, “What happened to visiting that Manatheres place?”

The myconid sighed, “I learnt things Noam, and I realised that learning some shit is actually riskier than I thought. I’ve more or less given up on learning magic so far.”

Especially when it wasn’t the ‘cheat’ he wanted, that he could play without any risk or danger, for the Scales would be balanced one way or another.

“You can cast spells though?” Celine curiously asked.

“Traveller spells are not the same, I don’t understand how each spell functions, but I can cast them in the exact way they are as they were given to me.”

“Same with me,” Noam said. “I have no fucking clue how aura works, only that it can make me go fast.”

“Seriously?” Tai asked, “I thought you were able to adapt the Swift Strike M.A. into a full body coating pretty well.”

Noam raised an eyebrow, “I was just using it on my whole body, didn’t sound special.”

“Adapting a single move type martial art into continuous use of any kind is well… stupid, but making it work does take some skill.”

“There’s no need to keep feeding his ego,” Dustin called out, pointedly looking at the sharp glint of a smile in the night.

“Ahh, you had to ruin it.”

“I already said it needs an idiot to try something like that, but if you only had Swift Strike I guess it makes sense,” she said contemplatively.

“Can you teach some more about aura?” Noam asked, to which Dustin quickly turned towards him, “Chill Dusts, I know you’re worried about knowledge and stuff, but small things can’t hurt for game balance right?”

“I don’t know,” Dustin said, “I can just tell you it’s dangerous to know some things.”

“He’s right,” Celine added, “baba always told me that some magics are not worth their cost to learn, most are called black magics and she joked they are called that because all that’s usually left of their practitioners’ are stains of black and rotten blood.”

“But most aura stuff is harmless things everyone knows right?” Noam pressed on.

Tai pursed her lips, “Probably? I’m fine after all, I don’t mind teaching you Noam, you’ve helped me a great deal, it is the least I can do for you.”

“Problem is he’s a Traveller,” Dustin said, bitterness in his tone, “karmic punishments won’t be able to ‘kill’ us so they target things around us instead.”

“Dustin,” Noam said, rising slightly to stare him in his empty sockets, “that monster would be there regardless of what you did. If anything you doing that just helped us do a good deed along the way.”

“But the second one was attracted by me,” he pointed out.

“But no-one was hurt,” Tai cut in, rising from her blankets as well. “That cultist killed no one, it hurt some of us, but we walked it off, so don’t blame yourself Dustin for avenging my brother.”

Though he held no sight skills right now, Dustin knew the elf woman was staring intensely and directly at him.

“Thank you, Tai,” he whispered.

He heard Noam shuffling back under his blankets, “C’mon, long night.”

“They always are.”

They settled down, returning to their blankets.

It was only when he was sure that everyone was asleep, did Noam speak again.

“Hey, Dustin?”

“Yeah?”

“Can’t you check my karma or whazzit?”

“I could.”

There was a pause.

“But you don’t want to?” Noam extrapolated.

“Remember what I had before?”

“Observe, Analyse and one other I didn’t have the chance to hear,” he listed off.

“I learned something, what I learn with an information-gathering power counts separately.”

Noam’s eyes widened, “So…”

Dustin nodded, “Every time I take a peak I will add to the weight, it won’t be noticeable, but one day I will pay, and I will keep paying after that if I keep using it.”

“It’s the same idea as with fighting prowess. You can hold your combat ability freely, but if that combat ability got you new loot, like a new weapon or treasure, it would be added to what you already have, tipping the Balance.”

“So you’re being conservative for now?”

I nodded. “I need to ensure the next time, I’ll be prepared to fight it off.”

Even if it the opponent was destined to be my match, there were a myriad of ways to ensure the fight would still be in my favour.

“We’ll be prepared next time?” Noam asked.

“We’ll be prepared,” I quietly agreed.