Nava stood over Timothy’s unconscious body panting for breath after the assault on her soul. The fear and anger may have subsided, but the adrenaline rush was still present, and her instincts were screaming at her to protect herself. Fortunately, she retained a modicum of restraint and held herself back until she could calm down and think about what just happened.
This took several minutes, but she did calm down and she allowed her mind to go over the series of events. The more she thought about it she didn’t think that Timothy performed that heinous act on purpose. She didn’t know him all that well, having only met him a few days ago, but it did not seem to be in his character. The other thought that crossed her mind was that she was able to use the tablet to look at him and he didn’t have any adverse reaction to it, why did it affect her differently? She scanned the room for the tablet, it had been tossed off to the corner of the room, probably from when he toppled over on his chair.
She strode over to the corner and picked up the tablet. She clicked on the character sheet tab and looked at Timothy’s health, -2 (Dying), it said, then dropped by one to -3.
“Oh no!” she said in a hushed voice.
Nava dropped the tablet onto the floor and ran to her room. She threw open the door and rushed to her dresser, her backpack was sitting atop it. Nava threw open the flap and rummaged around the inside with haste, her hand finally grasped what she was looking for, a potion bottle. She ran back to Timothy’s room as fast as she could and burst through the doorway, kneeling next to Timothy. She spared a glance at the tablet; his health was now -6.
“Come on Tim,” she said, worry heavy in her voice.
She carefully lifted his head, pulled the stopper out with her teeth and poured the contents down his throat. Nava looked at the tablet again, his health was -7, but then it changed in an instant to -3, she sat down and held his head in her hands. His health held steady at -3 for about ten minutes, then it ticked over to -2. It took another thirty minutes until Timothy’s health reached 1, and his eyes started to open.
“What happened?” He asked groggily.
“You did something to me when you used that tablet. It was horrible,” and she shuddered. Timothy could feel it from her hands that were still holding his head in her lap.
He blinked a few times trying to clear his head, “What do you mean? I don’t remember doing anything to you.”
“What is the last thing you remember?” Nava asked with concern.
Timothy closed his eyes to block out the light in the room so he could think, his head was pounding.
“Clicking on your name on the tablet. Everything after that is kind of fuzzy,” he told Nava.
“After that there was a feeling of wrongness. Something ominous waiting on the horizon for me, and it was coming from you. Then you were violating my very soul, and I couldn’t control myself. I had to stop you, and I punched you in the face as hard as I could. It had to stop, I couldn’t go through something like that again,” Nava cut herself off and looked away from Timothy.
Timothy turned his head to look up at Nava, the look of anguish on her made him feel so guilty that his stomach turned, but he was able to hold back the nausea.
“I swear to you that I had no idea that was going to happen,” a tear formed in his eye from the shame he was feeling, “I don’t know what to say to make it right other than I am truly sorry.”
She stared at him for a while, then nodded, “I believe you. I don’t know if I can forgive you right now, but I do believe you.”
“Oddly enough, I think I understand what you are going through. Something similar happened to me on my journey between my world and this one. If your experience was even half as bad as mine, I don’t know if I would be willing to forgive either. Fortunately, I was able to fight it off,” Timothy said.
Nava nodded again.
“Will you allow me to try and make amends for this or are we done?” Timothy asked with pain in his voice, “I will understand if you want nothing to do with me.”
Nava thought for a good long time, then shook her head, “Again, I don’t believe that you meant to do that, and I do want to continue to work together,” her expression darkened, “But if you give me any reason to think that this is all a lie, I will finish what I started.”
“If you think that is who I am, then I would ask you to finish me off right now. That is not the person I want to be,” Timothy replied, “Can you help me up?”
Nava gently pushed on his shoulders to help him get to a sitting position.
Timothy tried to get to his feet, but the world started to spin, and he went down to his hands and knees.
“Can you help me to get to my dresser?” He asked Nava and she complied.
Timothy pulled his glove out of his dresser and put it on his hand, then grabbed the dimensional gem bag. He pulled the green gem out of the bag and quickly exchanged it for the red gem. He overcharged the healing spell and touched his head. In an instant all the pain was gone and his equilibrium returned, Nava was staring at him wide eyed.
“What was that?” She said with astonishment.
Timothy, in his groggy haze, forgot to hide himself changing out the gems, a secret that he desperately wanted to keep. How was he going to explain this to Nava? His mind raced for an acceptable explanation that wasn’t a lie, but didn’t really answer the question either. After a few seconds he came up with nothing, his shoulders slumped, and he decided to go all in with his trust of Nava.
“This is a big secret of mine, and I want to keep it hidden, will you swear to keep this to yourself? If not, I think it could get me killed.”
She eyed him suspiciously, “It depends on what that secret is.”
“Fair enough,” Timothy said, “I think I should give you something to hold over me as a type of collateral in case I ever turn down a dark path. These gloves allow me to quickly change gems without having to get them reforged into the sockets. Like this,” he mentally assented the release of the green gem and placed it on the dresser. Then he pulled out the red gem from his pouch and set it into the gloves, “See,” he said as he brandished the glove, allowing her to see the red gem in the socket.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
She actually stepped back from him, “Where did you get something like that? And what is that bag? How many gems can you carry?” She said in rapid succession, “Wait! Five, right? You can use five. Three caster, one forger and one wielder. Right?”
“Yes,” he responded, but before he could continue, she cut back in.
“How?” She said in a slow, drawn-out voice, “You are only level one.”
“It was part of me coming into this world. Do you remember what my race said when you looked at my character sheet?”
“Human, sort of,” she trailed off.
“Ya, so…I am human, but I also have the elf, orc and dwarven racial bonuses to carry gems. So, I get three caster gems, one because everyone gets one gem, one for being a caster and one for the elven bonus. Then I get the one gem from the forger dwarven bonus,” he held up the gem bag, “and one gem from the orc wielder bonus,” he pointed at the staff in the corner.
“That shouldn’t be possible.”
“I know. That is what my guide said, but it happened. And since I am new to this world, I was not going to look a gift horse in the mouth,” Timothy said.
“And what is that bag?” She asked.
“A small dimensional bag that allows me to hold twice as many caster gems as someone normally could, as long as the extra gems are in the bag.”
The look on her face told Timothy everything he needed to know about the power of these two items.
“You…you have to be the richest person I have ever met,” she said, jaw dropped, “You must have over 2500 worth of gold pieces in those items.”
“Is that a lot? I mean, from your look I think it is, but how much is a lot?” Timothy asked.
“You would have enough to buy this entire town, probably a few times over.”
This made Timothy stand there shocked. He and Rift never talked about the value of what he was taking. Did he think they were valuable, yes, but not to this scale, this was far more than he thought. Enough to buy an entire town, the thought of it boggled his mind.
“Can I hold the life gem?” Nava asked.
Timothy smiled and gestured towards the gem on the dresser, “Go ahead.”
Nava picked up the gem and held it up to the light from the windows. The light passed through the gem making the greenish tint of her skin brighten where it landed on her face.
“This is amazing!” She exclaimed. Timothy had not seen her this excited in the few days he knew her, “Do you know how rare these are?”
“Not at all,” Timothy replied.
“This,” she wiggled the green gem in her fingers, “and the dimension gem are the two rarest gems there are,” she looked at his hand and then at the gem bag, “And you have two dimension gems and a life gem…wow…”
Timothy shrugged, “I guess I picked the right ones, huh?”
She turned her head towards him and gave him a disparaging look, “Ya think!” Nava placed the gem back on the dresser, “Can I see the gloves and the bag?”
A wave of tension passed over Timothy about her request, “Um…the gloves are bound to me. I worry that the same thing would happen.”
She waved off the request, “Definitely not the gloves then,” she paused, “How about the bag?”
“It is a forged item, can you hold it without getting feedback?”
“Since I can’t use forged items yet, yes, my body has no control over those types of items,” she informed Timothy.
The tension faded now that she didn’t want to touch his gloves, and he held the bag out for her to take.
“You are showing me a lot of trust here,” Nava said as she looked the bag over, “I could knock you out and take this. I would be set for the rest of my life,” but she handed him back the bag, “You will need to keep those items secret, as you said, they could get you killed by someone only looking for riches or power.”
“Well, my life is in your hands now. So, if you ever feel that I am walking the wrong path you know how to stop me,” Timothy said to Nava in a grave tone, “And I am serious. Stop me if that ever happens, that is not who I want to be.”
“I will,” she said somberly.
“Thank you,” he paused, noting a shift in the conversation, “Can I ask you a question?”
“You have shown me more trust than I would have expected, go ahead, but know that I may refuse to answer,” Nava replied.
“Actually,” he said after thinking for a second, “I have a few questions. Is that okay?”
Nava’s brow furrowed in contemplation, but then relaxed, “Okay, but my conditions are the same.”
Timothy nodded, “So you are a wielder, correct? Wielder, forger, caster?”
“I am. What did you think I was?”
“Just a normal orc that was using their bonus to wield a gem,” he nodded again, “Good. That means we should be able to progress together, but” he swallowed in hesitation, “I don’t want to bring this up, but I think it is important. When I saw your character sheet briefly, it said level one, locked. What does that mean?”
Nava thought about this for a long time, and Timothy afforded her that, but then she seemed to come to a decision, “It is a kind of punishment,” she shuddered, “A group of casters can place a restriction on your soul to prevent someone from advancing. This is usually reserved for the most heinous of acts, but not always.”
“Can I ask why they did this to you?”
“Because I nearly killed someone,” her face turned to rage, “He had it coming though!” she said through gritted teeth, her voice almost a snarl.
“Almost killing someone and then saying that they had it coming sounds kind of callous,” he paused to think about if he should press any further. Yes, he decided. She may want to make sure he is a good person, and he wanted to do the same, “What happened?”
“When I moved back up here to continue my training at the college there was this kid that always took things a little too far, and by a little I mean a lot,” her face darkened, “We were all training on the grounds when I noticed one of my friends, Katia, being assaulted by this kid. She was screaming for help, but no one was doing anything, not even the instructor,” she took a deep breath to calm her nerves, “That is when I jumped in. I grabbed him and flung him into the walls of the training yard. He hit back first, and I knew something was broken by the way he fell to the ground, but that didn’t stop me. I was so angry, so, so angry… I rushed over, activated my gem and started pounding his head in. I got a few hits in before my body went stiff. The headmaster of the college, who is also the king of this land, was standing there holding me in his spell. He left me held while he attended to that kid.”
She slumped and looked at Timothy, “I later found out that kid was the first-born son of a very powerful noble, and a good friend of the king. The trial was quick after that and I was sentenced to be confined to my current power, never to grow anymore.”
Timothy walked over to her and put his hand on her shoulder, “If it means anything, I think you did the right thing.”
She looked up at him with pained eyes, “It does,” then she looked down at the floor, “Do you see why I didn’t want to train with you?”
Timothy was about to say “No”, but his mind connected the dots faster than his mouth could answer. He dropped to his haunches and looked at her face.
“Is it because we would only have a limited time together before I significantly out leveled you?” He asked.
“Yes,” she said in an almost snarl as a tear dripped from her eye and landed on the wooden floor, darkening the spot where it landed.
Timothy started running the situation through in his mind, “And no matter how close we got, no matter how much of a team we became, the disparity in power would cause us to separate. You wouldn’t be able to advance and keep up with the challenges I may face and if I stayed with you, I would slow and eventually stop advancing.”
“Yes,” is all she said again.
“So, what do we do? You said yourself that you want to continue training with me. Are you now saying that you don’t?” Timothy asked, his tone serious.
“I do want to train with you, but I don’t want to adventure with you once you leave this town. I may not be able to progress in power, but I can always get better with my technique,” she said to him as she met his gaze.
“Okay, good, because I suck and need the help!” Timothy said matter-of-factly.
Nava burst into laughter. She couldn’t hold it back, the sudden shift by Timothy was not what she expected, “You certainly do,” she said through chuckles.
“We can talk more later, because I do have more questions, but let’s go to the ritual circle for a little while. I learn better by getting punched in the face,” he said with a smile.
Nava just shook her head and stood up from the chair, “Funny, I learn better by punching you in the face,” she shrugged, “Kind of odd how that works.”
Timothy smiled up at her and stood up, “Here, take this,” and he handed her a handkerchief, “Don’t worry, it’s clean.”
She snagged it out of his hands and started cleaning herself up, “Thank you.”
Timothy nodded and made his way to the door, when he opened it, Candice was standing there just about to knock. She looked from him to Nava, then back at him.
“Training, huh?!” She blurted at him and shoved an envelope into his chest, then stormed away down the hallway.
“I think she likes you,” Nava said from behind Timothy.