In a very strange way, as I stood next to Louise, I felt like for the first time in a long time, I wasn't alone. It was a curious sensation, in particular because of all the things it wasn't. I wasn't feeling a deep connection with Louise, for example, and I wasn't being haunted by some ghostly apparition judging me for some imagined sins.

No, I felt a strange resonance in my chest, right next to the part of me that wanted desperately scream or try to take over Louise's search for a skillbook. As she carelessly fingered her way through what sounded like a list of--potentially--all skillbooks in existence, I couldn't even see that list, let alone influence her decisions. Unless I could come up with an ideal skill name off the top of my head--which I couldn't--or unless she asked me for advice or was willing to sit there for hours rattling off skill names, I could do nothing whatsoever to share my unfathomably deep curiosity about skills, magic, and power with her, a curiosity she seemed to mostly not share.

That resonance in my chest told me it was a problem men and women had experienced many times over the ages. I felt like it might almost be telling me to push her aside and "be manly", proving that I knew what I was doing, by doing. But... that would be a dick move.

I was gonna say, yeah, opined my fairy. You spent your whole life, eh, at least your life since you started to be like this doing everything yourself. It matters, yeah, but she's gotta do it herself. You wouldn't want someone picking for you, either.

And I knew that, and it pissed me off, but I sat down and tried to clear my head. It was a dirty feeling, this anxious greed; I was happy to share treasure with people, but this was clearly a puzzle I had solved, and I would get nothing out of it. Louise, who didn't even want to be here...

I forced myself to take a deep breath. She was my party member and we were... maybe-dating? All of my instincts about being alone were cynical bullshit. Even in the worst of cases, I didn't lose anything; in the best of cases, Louise might start to become a viable combatant in her own right, if she found something really useful.

"Oh my god," she whispered. "They have pet grooming skills? That's amazing."

I forced myself to take a deep breath.

In order to distract myself, I used Skill Sage for a little while, poking around first at all my normal skills, and then finally re-examining my Telekinesis, hoping for... well...

[ TELEKINESIS ] [ FOUNDATION: PSIONIC] Level 59 Skill Sage: Growth Rank [AS] - Growth Points 252

...something like that, I guess. I frowned at the display. Jenna had said that levels above AA were for "absolute masters" of a skill, but it sure didn't feel like I was already at the peak of using Telekinesis. "S", I assumed, was supposed to be the next letter higher than "A"--meaning I had only just barely passed AA-rank in the skill. Were there S-something ranks beyond A-ranks? If so, I had a way to go before "mastery".

"Jerry?"

"Yes." I spun around to face Louise, now sufficiently distracted that I wasn't burning with envy. "Sorry, if you were talking I missed it."

She was holding a book in her hands, looking a little bit like she had immediate buyer's remorse. "So... I was trying to see if there was a description and I guess I just bought the thing." She held up the book, which was titled, Spellsinging. "The item doesn't have a description in my inventory. Well... I mean, it's not a useful one. Do you think I should try to return it? She did mention something like that..."

Curious, I reached out for the book with Skill Sage. To my surprise, it popped up instantly:

[ SPELL SINGING ] [ FOUNDATION: BARDIC ] Skill Sage: Estimated Affinity with Holder: [A] with User: [C] Spell Singing is a Bardic skill that creates a magical effect which resonates with the soul of the musician and the audience. Targeted abilities can be used on a chosen affected individual, or distributed across multiple affected individuals at a lower level. Abilities used with this skill will have synergy with the performance skill used.

"...No, Louise, I think that will fit you just fine." I went through the Skill description with her, including the Skill Sage's estimation of her affinity. I... kind of expected her to get really excited, but she seemed to be drinking in the information about the skill, thinking deeply about whether she wanted to keep it or not.

"...I'm not sure I'm a good enough singer to pull it off, though," she offered, solemnly. "I was in a choir for a few years, but that was decades ago. And..." She shifted her weight, uncomfortably. "...I've changed since then."

I considered the sound of Louise's voice, thinking about how she must sound. "Would you... sing something?"

She looked at me, still uncharacteristically serious, and then sighed. She put the book back in her inventory, stretched, cleared her throat, ran through a quick warm-up exercise, closed her eyes, and then, in an unsteady but warm contralto, she started singing.

Lying in my bed I hear the clock tick--I think of you

Caught up in circles, confusion ...is nothing new

Flash back--warm nights, almost left behind

A suitcase of memories, time after--

Sometimes, you picture me, I'm walking too far ahead

You're calling to me, I can't hear what you've said

Then you say, 'Go slow'. I fall behind...

The second hand unwinds

If you're lost, you can look, and you will find me... time after time.

If you fall, I will catch you; I'll be waiting... time after time.

After my picture fades, and darkness has turned to gray

Watching through windows, you're wondering if I'm okay

Secrets... stolen, from deep inside

The drum beats out of time...

She continued, and I... I just couldn't tear my attention away from her. I'd heard the song before, but with the emotion she put into her words, resonating with an unheard music... I'd never...

When she finished her performance, I was lost somewhere in the effect she'd had on me, but Merry roused me with a mental bonk on the head. Hey, loverboy. Compliment your girlfriend already.

My lips moved, searching for words, and I realized what she'd said before. She doubted her ability to sing? You have to be joking. I shook my head and stood up, walking over to take Louise's hands. She... looked embarrassed, nervous, but I couldn't help smiling. "You are amazing, Louise," I offered, meaning every word. "You did a fantastic job. So don't doubt yourself like that."

She... she seemed on the verge of tears, and I gave her a hug, which let her vent her fear, or frustration, or whatever she had bottled up inside, and she cried. It... I honestly couldn't understand why she had been so nervous about it, but she clung to me for several minutes as she went through some stages of emotional vulnerability that... well, that I knew was happening, but didn't get, not that that mattered.

Anyway, yeah, she kept the skill book, spending one of its charges to unlock the skill, and another to boost its level to six. I'd looked up the mechanics of skill books a while ago, but forgotten most of it; skills themselves worked on something vaguely like experience to level up, except not that at all, and you could use a Skill Book again later to boost your skill at some seemingly random intervals that must matter somehow? Maybe at points where the skill is mechanically evolving, like when the vent-thing opened in my Telekinesis? Maybe it worked vaguely like Skill Sage? I couldn't remember what I'd read, at all.

And I couldn't get a skill book of my own to play with. I grumbled about that silently to myself, the thought making me look over at the old lady in the rocking chair. I paused in thought for a minute. Hey, Merry. You're supposed to be able to... steal knowledge, right?

I was looking at Louise while she was doing the window thing, but it seemed pretty sealed. You think I should focus on granny there?

It seemed like it was worth a shot. Louise sniffled and backed off, smiling at me, genuinely. "Thank you."

I... had a strong urge to kiss her, but backed off instead. "Thank you. It was a lovely song." I paused a moment, but there was no good transition. "Before we go... I want to try asking the old woman a few questions."

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"Oh, he wants to ask us questions, does he," croaked the woman with a laugh. "Well, youngster, I suppose I can try to answer you, as long as you behave yourself. You seem a polite young man, not like a lot of youngsters nowadays--"

"What can you tell me about the Skill Sage skill?" I knew, again, I'd have to interrupt her, even though she'd just said I should be polite. Who knew how long she'd go on if I didn't?

I felt, in a strange way, Merry's little hand press against the outside of my mind as the old lady took just a moment to ponder the question. Strangely, I could feel a whole interface window appear... somewhere in my mind, just not where I was.

"Why, that's a fine question, young man. Skill Sage is a Core Skill--that's a term we old-timers like to use, it means that it's a basic part of the whole Dungeoneering skill set, not one of these fancy local-grown things like your mind warping powers and your stabby bits. No, it's designed to operate on the parts of you that work for you, telling you bits and pieces about how the things you do work..."

Yeah, okay, Granny is deliberately unhelpful. When you asked the question, she got a whole lot of information, and she's choosing parts of it to tell you while ignoring the rest. Merry tried to jam the window up into my viewing range, but--in spite of having seen, when I was wounded, those windows as just signs on a stick, somehow she had trouble with it. Ugh... I can't... argh. Okay, uh, look. Hang on, let me summarize... no, not that... uh...

"...so if your stabby bits skill, for example, has a lot of the seeds on it, why, that means that you can perhaps grow a fruit, or even another whole damn tree, or possibly just grind 'em up in order to make the plant itself grow better." The old woman worked her mouth like she wanted to spit, but didn't. "Now, you'd notice if you were any good at it that you have to spend some seeds on the Skill Sage skill itself before it'll let you spend them on anything else--"

THAT was news to me, and I immediately nodded, pulling up the window for the Skill Sage skill itself. So far I had basically no growth points for the skill, but when I tapped on the Growth Points total itself, one of the "???" markers in the menu that popped up suddenly shined and became a new entry, in an inactive color:

[ USE GROWTH POINTS (SELF) - 25GP ]

I nodded to myself. Most likely, my growth rank was going to rise now that I had more knowledge of the skill, but I'd still have to grind a little more before I could unlock it. I--

No you don't.

I paused.

I can move points around, remember? They're just things on the thing. Here. Merry, suddenly no longer trying to jam a window into my mental eyes, moved around in my head, and then I felt points moved into Skill Sage. The interface window, obligingly, changed color, showing that option as unlockable, and I pressed it.

Oh hey, that's... interesting. Hang on, let me study this. To me, the only immediately obvious change was that a number of other "???" entries shifted colors, still looking "unavailable" but... less so. I studied the window, wondering what it would take to get knowledge of the other unlockables, and realized the old woman was still talking.

"...not really able to do that even at the highest levels, but well, there are other options. Ha! Anyway, there are always things to learn and do for a Skill Sage, but really, when it comes down to it, your best option is simply to go out and learn by doing. That's how growth happens. All you can really do is enable people to grow into their skills the way they're meant to. It's really what us old fogies are for, isn't it... teaching people, yes, but always with a mind that they'll teach themselves in the end. Like my husband Marv used to say, it's not about teaching a man to fish, it's teaching him how to learn to fish..."

Okay, the knowledge pack she had includes a bunch of these unlockables. The first one says, 'Show unlock names (1)' for ten points and the second one says 'Use growth points (Target)' for 25. That's, uh, kind of a lot of points to spend, but I bet we want that first one, yeah? Let me move those points over...

Importantly, Merry telling me what the question-mark entries were didn't unlock them the way hearing it from the old woman did, which was... interesting, I guess. But Merry moved ten points over from Telekinesis, and I purchased the first entry that lit up, watching for any change.

However, none of the skills on this list got a new name, even though Merry had a list of a few of them. Maybe it was restricted to low-cost skills?  Everything here was expensive, at least compared to the basically-nothing that was my GP total.  Instead of staring at that display for any longer, I closed it and opened the list for my Telekinesis Skill. And I found... a thing.

[ UNLOCK SKILL "PYROKINESIS" ] - 50 [ UNLOCK SKILL "CRYOKINESIS" ] - 50 [ UNLOCK SKILL "LUMOKINESIS" ] - 50 [ UNLOCK SKILL "PSYCHOKINESIS" ] - 50 [ UNLOCK SKILL "ELECTROKINESIS" ] - 50 [ UNLOCK SKILL "TELEKINETIC SENSE" ] - 100 [ UNLOCK SKILL "TELEPATHY" ] - 50 [ UNLOCK SKILL "PSIONIC DART" ] - 50 (...) [ ADD SPECIALTY "FLIGHT (1-3)" ] - 25, 50, 100 [ ADD SPECIALTY "SHARPEN (1-3)" ] - 25, 50, 100 [ ADD SPECIALITY "SHIELD (1-3)" ] - 25, 50, 100 [ ADD SPECIALTY "CONSERVE MP (1-3)" ] - 25, 50, 100 [ ADD SPECIALTY "HEAVY LIFTING (1-3)" ] - 25, 50, 100 [ ADD SPECIALTY "EXTEND RANGE (1-3)" ] - 25, 50, 100 [ ADD SPECIALTY "MULTI (3,7)" ] - 50, 100 (...)

The list went on and on, including a fair number of "???" entries past the end of what was revealed.  I stared at it in wonder, only realizing after Merry mentally kicked me again that I was spacing out. Even the old woman had stopped talking, and Louise was looking at me. "Jerry?"

"I got it," I told her. "I got Skill Sage working. I... I can do a whole bunch of things."

She got kind of an odd look on her face, but then cleared it with a smile. "Good for you! Do you have anything else to ask the librarian about?"

I wanted to say 'no', and just run off and study this list of unlocks for... well, forever, maybe, but there was a question that had been burning a hole in my pocket ever since I got a particular item from the Beanpole. I nodded, trying to find a way to phrase the question, and cleared all the windows to avoid distraction.

"Thank you, that really helped," I replied, very late, to the old woman. "May I ask... what skills do you know of with the system tag, 'Soulforged'?"

Again, Merry's hand reached for a window I could not see, but the old woman just looked me up and down for a minute, as though thinking. Then, she smiled.

Oh boy, offered Merry. I, uh, I'm not sure you're going to like the answer.

"Well, now, boy, that's an interesting question. I'm surprised that you have to ask, what with you being the one in charge of the whole tag full of 'em." She pushed her feet back, letting the rocking chair rock backwards. "Well, hardly a surprise. A man like you... bah." She rocked forward, and paused there. "Youngsters like you, always thinking you can charge off into the wilderness all on your lonesome... back in my day, all a man needed was religion, wine, and a good book, and they could take on the world. And folks today, they've forgotten that..."

Merry, a little help? I was surprised when the fairy, instead of answering, shushed me and directed my attention back to the old woman.

"...sure as rain, we grow by fighting, by facing challenges. But the source of that growth's always been the gods, hasn't it?" The woman finally rocked her chair back again. "Kids, always eager to take all the burdens on themselves, but it's only after you find religion that you find yourself. That's what Marv always said..."

Okay, yeah, no, she's not actually going to get to it. I don't know why I thought... uh. Yeah, you're... you're supposed to work with a god to make stuff for your class. That's why they have towers in the Dungeons. It's not like... it's not about, like... churches, I guess. There's a point to it.

Immediately after Merry said that, as though someone was literally watching over my shoulder, my all-but-forgotten request for a new Class Feature, which I'd made before fighting the Harpy boss, snapped to. I'd wanted a way to upgrade my manifested items, and the window that popped up made three things immediately clear:

[ CREATE CLASS SKILL 'ENHANCEMENT SAGE' - TIER 3 (500CP) ]

First, clearly, as Merry had said, the Gods were the ones who would create skills if I asked. Second, they--or at least one--was very definitely watching me. And three... they were not all that fucking happy with me ignoring them.

Oh... yeah, they're, uh. There's something there, alright. Wow. I guess we, uh, better find a chance to talk to them, sooner or later.

As though Merry's thoughts had created it, there was suddenly a Quest box inserting itself above everything else in my Dungoneer's Interface.

[ MEET THE DUNGEON GOD [KALAMITUS] IN THE DUNGEON 'GALVESTON WHARF' ] A patron god of the Dungeon has requested a meeting to discuss your fate and future. TIME LIMIT: 5 Months ACCEPT: 250 [Class Points] FORFEIT: [ Death ]

I looked at the window, my insides growing cold as I pondered the obvious, straightforward, and unapologetically heavy-handed message before me.

"Jerry?" Louise's voice was a little worried.

"I guess I've figured out what we're doing after we leave this place," I whispered to myself, or possibly to Merry, or Louise, or possibly to nobody at all.

In response to that whisper, and with a suddenness that I would definitely call "smug", the "Accept Prize" of the Quest window ticked up from 250 to 300 class points. Realizing that hesitation would likely lower the prize just as quickly, I hesitantly moved my finger over the button, and with a heavy resignation, pressed it.

A presence I had scarcely been aware of, but definitely felt, now, vanished, and I swallowed again.