Sam

Mongrel picked that rather inconvenient moment to show up, whistling merrily as he strolled into the village with Number One and Number Five waddling alongside him. The old chimp carried a decent number of fish, strung-together and slung over one shoulder, while the little chimp had a pair of improvised fishing rods in his arms.

The old Farmer carried nothing except a lit cigarette pinched between two fingers.

“Hey there, kids,” he said as he strutted over to the well, kicking at the tall grass with each step, “no sex in public now—don’t make me break out the spray bottle.” He put a boot up on the stone circle, rested his elbow on his knee, and tapped a bit of ash off his cigarette, letting it drift lazily down into the gaping hole.

He gave a flamboyant flourish as he raised his hand for another drag off his smoke, giving the two of them a good look at his left arm in the process—the twelve blue crystals that gleamed there especially. “Notice anything different?” he asked, eyebrows pumping.

Sam rolled her eyes. He’d been doing that routine more or less since she woke up that morning.

Will pulled free of Sam’s grip, stood, and went over to Mongrel. He offered a handshake, giving a small nod.

Mongrel’s face lit up, and he stuck the cigarette in his mouth so he could take Will’s hand. When he moved to reciprocate the handshake, however, Will cocked back and delivered a sharp right hook to the side of the man's head, sending him sprawling on his back.

“Ow!” he squealed, spitting out his broken cigarette. “I could have swallowed that, you know!”

“I’ll consider that revenge enough, for the time being,” Will said, and helped Mongrel to his feet.

The Farmer rubbed mournfully at his jaw, which was already turning red. “I think it’s broken.”

“It’s not broken. Now, if you don’t mind, I want to finish talking to Sam.”

“Fine, whatever.” Mongrel turned to stomp off, and shot over his shoulder: “I really don’t know where I went wrong with you, Will. You turned into such a violent boy.”

“Congratulations on getting to Level 12, by the way!” Will called after him. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”

Mongrel threw a dismissive wave, no longer in the mood for bragging, and stomped inside the new house they had chosen to camp out in. The two chimps went in after him, and Number Five closed the door. Then he promptly opened it again, only to slam it shut. Evidently, Mongrel thought his exit had not been dramatic enough.

Will chuckled, picked Mongrel’s still-smoldering cigarette up off the ground, and flicked it into the well.

“I guess all three of us have leveled up since we saw each other last,” Sam said, and began running her tongue over her teeth. She still hadn’t gotten used to the new ones.

“Yep. Good job on that. I really hadn’t expected you to improve so quickly. It took me at least a couple months to get to Level 6, and I don’t even want to think about how long it took Mongrel.”

“I was more thinking about you,” Sam prodded. “What’s with that new weird crystal you’ve got?” She pointed to her own arm, indicating the orange gem sitting above Will’s double rows of AP crystals.”

“Ah,” Will said, glancing down at his arm, “that’s an SP crystal. You get one when you reach Level 15, and another when you get to thirty.”

“What’s it good for?”

Will rubbed at his sad eye, chuckling. “Do you want the short version or the long version?”

“The short version, please. My head’s hurting bad enough already.”

“Well, you use it to cast this special technique called a semblance art.”

“Okay, that doesn’t tell me anything.”

Will spread his hands in a helpless gesture. “Long version it is, then. Basically, a semblance is a custom technique that you get to craft when you hit Level 15. You can slot up to five skills into it that you have access to, and the Concord then generates a semblance art from a mix of your own desires and its own sensibilities.

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“Once you’ve created your semblance art, you’re stuck with it forever—there’s no way to change it after the fact. There’s not many people who have one, since it’s pretty hard to get to Level 15, but they tend to be extremely deadly. I suppose the goddess expected them to be safe since they’re ostensibly built from the vetted skills that the Concord gives you, but as it turns out they’re by far the most easily abusable of its subsystems—tied only by divine vows, maybe.”

“What does yours do?” Sam asked.

The little smile Will had worked up throughout the course of his monologue—after all, he did love his monologues—quickly wilted. “It doesn’t really matter,” he said. “Suffice it to say, the only thing it’s good for is killing people. It’s not really a thing I’m too proud of.”

“Is that where you got that sword from? The weird one?”

Will shook his head. “No no, that’s something else.”

“Did you buy it?”

“Sort of. I had it made custom, then Soulbound it.”

“What’s wrong with it, Will? It zapped Mongrel when he tried to touch it, and we had to wrap it in thick cloth to even get it inside.”

“Well, it’s…” He shrugged sheepishly, and he got that sad, puppy-dog look in his eye again. “It’s not really a thing I’m proud of, either.”

“Is it dangerous?” Sam asked. “I mean it’s a sword, so it’s obviously dangerous. You know what I mean.”

“I do. It’s not dangerous to me.”

“Are you sure?”

She found that she worried more and more about Will with each passing day. He was pushing himself too hard, trying to do things himself instead of asking for help. He’d always been like that, but it seemed like he’d gotten worse about it in the last five years. A lot worse.

She worried that he was trying to rid the world of darkness by taking it all into himself. He didn’t deserve that kind of pain. She hated seeing him this way; exhausted, all the colors drained out of him, a sort of nihilistic numbness behind his gaze.

“It’s not dangerous to me,” Will repeated. “I know the risks, and I’m managing them properly.” As if in response, his left hand spasmed, curling claw-like. He hid it by squeezing it into a fist, gripping it hard with his other hand.

Sam frowned. She stood up and went to him, tugging on the bottom of his shirt. “‘Risks’? Like, what kind of risks?”

He sighed, clenching and unclenching his jaw as he mulled over words he clearly didn’t want to say. “Remember when we were in Sheerhome together, and you tried to pick up that axe?”

“The cursed one.”

“Yeah. Well, I had a blacksmith put five of those cursed items together into one sword. The way it works out, that means it has eleven skills slotted into it at once. As far as I know, that’s never been done before.

“The only downside is, uh, the tenants. The spirits inside can get rowdy sometimes, but I’ve taken precautions so that they don’t bother me much, and I’ve even found ways to turn them to my benefit.”

“I don’t like it, Will.”

“Well, there’s no use complaining about it now—you can’t un-Soulbind something. For better or for worse, me and Anathema are stuck together.”

“You named your sword, dude?”

He stared dully at her. His sad eye seemed to sag. “Yes, Sam, I named my sword.”

“What does that word even mean?”

“You know, I reckon you’d just make fun of me if I told you, so you're gonna have to stay guessing.” He ruffled her hair, and she blew hard in annoyance to get it out of her eyes.

It was still early in the day and quite nice outside, so they started walking again, keeping a slow pace as they wove between dark, long-abandoned houses. Will’s boots crunched on the overgrown gravel path. Sam hadn’t gotten her boots back after that last fight, so she was barefoot. At this point, her feet were tough enough that the sharp rocks digging into her soles didn’t hurt.

“So this semblance thing,” Sam said, “it’s not strong enough to beat Brimstone?”

Will bobbed his head sideways in a halfway shrug. “I’m not sure. Maybe, but probably not. He has his own semblance, you know—nobody has any solid information on it, but Brimstone is an incredibly accomplished fighter. He’s been on the bad end of countless ambushes, assassination attempts, fought his fair share of duels—he’s come out on top every time. He never lets his guard down, either—according to his wife, he doesn’t even sleep. No, we’re gonna need to get a bit more clever than just walking up to him and popping a semblance. Besides, semblances are a bit tricky. There’s an art to making them work.”

“Tricky?”

“Yeah. Using a semblance drains your AP completely, so if you let it off against a fresh opponent and they either avoid it or outlast it, you’re completely wiped. That means you almost never want to lead with it—it’s more of a finisher late into a fight when you’re low on AP anyway, or a last-ditch move if you get in trouble.”

“That does sound complicated.” Sam chewed her lower lip with one sharp canine, tried to get used to the feel of it. “But I won’t need to worry about that, right? Since I’m doing the whole no-skill thing.”

“Maybe,” Will said, sounding thoughtful. “I’m not so sure about that one yet. As far as I know, semblance arts don't technically count as skills, so there's nothing stopping you from using one. Then again, you can't actually slot any skills into it. I have no idea what that kind of blank semblance would even look like. Either way, that's its own can of worms, so let’s circle back to it some other time.”

“All right, I guess.” Sam looked around at the swaying pine trees, the derelict buildings, the pit of dead creatures they were passing, the two chimps having finished their task and ventured off someplace else. “So, uh… why are we here? And where is here, exactly?”

Will gave a thin smile. “Yeah, I reckon it’s about time to have that conversation. Let’s go back to Mongrel, see if he’s over that little get-back I gave him earlier. Once I’ve gone over why we’re here, we need to have a talk—all three of us—about what happens next.”

“Brother, that sounds really fucking ominous,” Sam said.

Will just shrugged.

Sam crossed her arms in annoyance, following behind as they made their way back toward the center of the village where Mongrel had set up shop.

Sometimes, she really hated how cryptic Will could be. Especially when he was talking about shit that made it sound like the sky was coming down.