Dyani was already confident that the interface wouldn’t hurt her, but the off hand mention that it might allow her to see some of her father’s stored memories sealed the deal. She could risk insanity if it meant a few more moments with him, even through this medium.
Her new friend refused point blank to allow her to advance within his base. Apparently even his cleaning enchantments had limits, so they decided she would do it by the waterfall where she usually cleaned off before going back home. She was miffed that she couldn’t just use the inspector showers, but apparently there were rules against getting any kind of advancement residue anywhere in the building.
She couldn’t blame them for the rule, that gunk was beyond disgusting, but she still wasn’t looking forward to another freezing shower.
Dyani and Pikawon ran through the remainder of his route from yesterday. He took brief breaks from biting sarcasm to instruct her on the use of her inspector token and loot pendant to record information and absorb excess monster experience respectively, but the bulk of their time was spent hypothesizing on the nature of her next talent.
Dyani had explained the limitations of her talent, though she’d left out the benefit of having twice the number of skill slots. Pikawon might be a friend, but the relationship was still new.
“Maybe you’ll just get free skills at every level,” he said, “There are plenty of talents that grant skills, though they usually fall outside of regular spell slots. It wouldn’t be unusual to have a talent that just gives you all the skills you need.”
“I wouldn’t mind that. Though I’d still like to pick my skills. What if they’re all useless?” Pikawon shrugged, grimacing.
“The Lost Saint is unpredictable, sometimes generous, sometimes miserly, and sometimes even cruel.”
“Who’s the Lost Saint?”
Pikawon sighed, hunching his shoulders.
“You’d call her the Goddess.”
“I thought everyone called her the Goddess.”
“Not everyone. Plenty of people just think of the moon and talents as natural phenomena.”
“But not you?” Dyani knew that not everyone was religious. She hadn’t been especially pious since she’d nearly burned down a temple as a child, and even less so since her father was killed. But Pikawon had mentioned a saint, so he clearly was part of some kind of religion she wasn’t familiar with.
“My family is from Bristlecone,” he said, as if that explained it all.
“I don’t know where that is.”
Pikawon was only growing more uncomfortable.
“It’s a city north of here around a crystal mine.”
“What does that have to do with the Goddess?”
“Bristlecone was founded by a group of settlers from even further north. You know that goddess worshipers get less common the further you get from the equator, right?”
Dyani hadn’t known that, but it made a certain amount of sense, given a fact she did know.
“Because the Goddess doesn’t give talents if you get too far north or south.”
Pikawon nodded.
“Whether you’re religious or not, everybody knows talents come from the moon, and it orbits around the equator. If you’re too far away, no talent for you. And if you’re not seeing regular ‘blessings’,” Pikawon used air quotes around the word blessings, “From the Goddess, you’re less likely to believe in her.”
Dyani was bothered by that, though not for the reason a more pious Goddess worshiper might be. It bothered her that the Goddess’s blessing didn’t reach across the whole planet. She’d never been a passionate believer, but she’d also never harbored significant doubts, even after her father died.
His death was clearly the work of other people, and no prophet or priest of the Goddess had ever claimed she saved people from one another.
“Well, what do you believe then, if not in the Goddess?”
Pikawon relaxed at the lack of condemnation in her voice but she still felt bad for him. He’d clearly been hurt in some way, from how closed off he was. She wondered if it had anything to do with his religious beliefs.
“I follow the Path of Saints. We revere the 9 saints responsible for saving the world.”
Dyani opened her mouth to ask what exactly they’d saved the world from, but clearly Pikawon was finished discussing it.
“Maybe your talent will give you the skills of monsters you eat.”
“That would be cool. I can’t wait to eat a dragon and turn into a living god.”
Pikawon poked her armored chest with one of his claws.
“You are such a weirdo.”
“Oh, come on. Even a sour grape like you can admit that getting dragon powers would be awesome.”
“It wasn’t the idea of dragon powers that was weird. It was the way you said it, like you were planning on using those powers to take over the world. Besides, I don’t think dragons are even real.”
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Dyani wasn’t sure about that. They were rare, sure, and she didn’t know of anyone who’d actually seen one, but mana nodes were always creating new and interesting monsters. Even if they weren’t real yet, they’d turn up eventually.
“What if my talent doesn’t give me any skills?” That was something she was really trying not to think about. All magical scholars agreed that talents were cohesive, and the fact that she’d been given additional skill slots with her first pointed towards eventually gaining skills, but there could always be some unexpected twist that left her just as useless as she was now.
“Then maybe you’ll get higher attributes than everyone else. You wouldn’t need skills if you were twice as strong, fast, and tough as someone at the same level.” The way he immediately had a potential solution to her skill problem caught her off guard, and did an excellent job of brightening her gloom.
She considered her interface, back in her backpack, and looked down at her wooden armor, which was already repairing the indent left by Pikawon’s poking claw.
“What if I can bind a soulbound item with each of my skill slots? I could have dozens of artifacts with all sorts of powers.”
“Sounds expensive. No soulbound items are cheap, and artifacts cost more than an arm and a leg.”
“True, but Slayers make good money. Once I become one, I’ll be able to save up.”
“I don’t think you understand what I’m saying. You could trade a dozen high quality Artifacts for this city. Even low power artifacts go for hundreds of thousands of notes.”
Dyani didn’t know what to say to that. She very carefully avoided touching or looking at her armor. When her mother had suggested selling it, she’d expected to get a few hundred notes, maybe a couple thousand if they were really lucky. The armor didn’t have any outstanding abilities that would put it on the high end of artifact value, at least not at level 1, but she felt significantly less sure of her decision to keep it now that she knew what it was worth.
“Maybe not artifacts then. What other kinds of soulbound equipment are there?”
They finished the last few turns of their route as Pikawon repeatedly mentioned that he knew very little about the topic, all while demonstrating a level of knowledge far above Dyani’s public school education.
Apparently, it was considered best enchanting practice to add a soulbinding function to any item used in combat that had an active effect. Passive sharpness or durability enchantments didn’t require it, but the increased mana efficiency and fine control that came with a soulbound item was significant enough that most powerful items, like her father’s own flaming sword, had a soulbinding function.
“You can break the connection with those kinds of soulbound items without much trouble. It just costs a bit of mana and experience. But the deeper soul bindings that come with artifacts and interfaces are a lot stronger. That’s why interfaces break down when the user dies.” He glanced at Dyani’s backpack. “Usually.”
Dyani still hadn’t gotten over how valuable her armor was, and her decision to keep it instead of selling it was wavering, but that didn’t change anything she needed to do today. Her heart did seize a little when the pair finally arrived at the grotto with the waterfall and she was forced to remove her armor and most of her clothing and give it to Pikawon for safe keeping.
It was stupid. They’d saved each other's lives already, and there was no reason to suspect that he knew her armor was an artifact, but handing anyone what amounted to a massive sack of notes was bound to be painful, even without the baggage of it being part of her inheritance.
“Here,” Pikawon said, handing her a piece of rolled up fabric.
“What’s this for?”
“Put it in your mouth, to keep you from cracking your teeth.” That was a nasty thought. Dyani did as she was instructed, but she hoped it wasn’t necessary.
“Remember. Pour your experience into the interface, and let it flow back into you. It should automatically flow to your brain, but given how damaged it is, you should probably direct it there, just in case.”
“When the thoughts come, don’t try to hold on, just let them pass.”
Dyani wasn’t sure what that meant, but she’d already waited long enough. She sat down on a damp stone that was relatively free of grime and held the interface in her lap.
“Alright dad,” she whispered, holding the crystal with a death grip, “I’m catching up.”
She started pouring her gathered experience into the interface. It resisted at first, but once she broke through, it switched to sucking down her experience like a greedy mouth. Her instincts told her to resist, but she resisted them instead. When all her unallocated experience had been drained from her, she nearly fell over. It was like getting the wind knocked out of her lungs, but with her spirit.
After a few seconds of stillness, the experience came flooding back to her with a silent roar. This time, she did fall over, curling up as power was forcefully injected into her brain. She was just glad she hadn’t needed to direct it there, since there was little chance of her being able to control it.
Her head pounded with pressure and pain, accompanied with an increased clarity of thought that only made the experience worse. As the last dregs of experience were allocated, she felt a moment where the pain receded, but the increased clarity of thought and memory didn’t allow her to enjoy it, as she knew what was coming.
Just like when she’d advanced her Vitality attribute, this was the calm before the storm.
Rather than vomiting up toxic sludge, the cleansing process began with dark threads of thought tangling in her head.
There was loneliness, the memory of her friends following her dream while she was left behind, the old, aching grief that tinged every memory of her father, and a hundred other smaller pains and insecurities.
The thoughts and memories were so unpleasant, she hardly noticed the black steam that was leaking from her ears, eyes, nose, and mouth.
It tasted of ash and sadness.
Her mind was so jumbled that she didn’t know how long the advancement lasted, but she was suddenly aware of herself again, curled up and twitching.
Her jaw was clenched so tightly that it took considerable effort to force it open and spit out the cloth Pikawon had given her, which was stained black and red.
“Tell me again why I did that?” She expected a joke or a laugh, but instead, her friend grunted and helped her to her feet and over to a set of six runes carved into the floor.
“Stand here while I activate these.” He crouched down, pressing a hand to each rune in turn. The mana had the feel of a hunting dog, fierce, but obedient, but the distinct flavor faded as it was absorbed by each rune, changing to resemble water mana. Once all the runes were activated, waves of mana emanated up from them in a column.
The magic felt like lapping tongues more than anything, and Dyani resisted pulling away from the ticklish sensation. She smiled, but the expression was clouded by the mental pummeling she’d endured.
The power in the runes was expended before she was completely clean, but she was leagues better than when she’d entered.
“Thank you. I need to learn how to do that.”
“It’s not hard. My family had me powering cleaning runes before I could talk. That’s what I get for being born into a family of plumbers.”
“Plumbers?”
That didn’t match the impression Dyani had of him. She would’ve expected Slayers, guards, or some kind of warriors, from the predatory way he walked.
“The noblest profession. There’s nothing more important than keeping our city clean, at least if you ask my parents.”
“My mom works in the recycling plant.”
“We’re truly birds of a feather, born from those that clean, cursed to wander the dirtiest place in the city.”
Dyani chuckled. Her mother’s job of destroying dangerous magical items wasn’t ‘cleaning’ in the strictest sense, but it was still funny.
“So, how’s the interface?”