I decided to leave the rest of the decisions for later, and looked back towards the world around me. To my surprise, while I had been focusing on the Skill information in my inner vision, the sun had already begun to set around me. What had felt like mere minutes had apparently been hours. I shuddered to think of the fact that I’d been so oblivious to my surroundings for so long.

I took another look at the beach in the setting sun. The only sound was the crashing of waves - not even birdsong. I could see the trees beyond the stone monument, but they were also eerily quiet. Still, nothing had begun rushing out towards me, and I had no desire to begin exploring in the dark. I had no source of fire, no clothing, no shelter. Luckily, the weather was perfect and I found myself quite comfortable regardless of my lack of, well, anything. Seemed that the Bargain was not going to immediately end me, at least, if that was a concern at all.

With nowhere else to go and no other distinguishing features, I walked back towards the stone monument and sat down with my back towards it, leaning against it as I contemplated my current state.

I wasn’t hungry, yet, though something told me that that wouldn’t last. I also needed to find water, shelter, and probably clothing of some sort. The monument had mentioned denizens, and regardless of how temperate the weather was, I was sure if I didn’t want to spend my time on the island exposed as I was. Hopefully my investment in Survival would help with that, though so far it seemed to be limited to helping me determine my priorities and identify the safest position out of a handful of bad options.

As it grew darker, I closed my eyes and reviewed my plan for the next day.

Food, fresh water, some sort of shelter. Clothes, some sort of equipment. I wasn’t confident about hunting, but it seemed like something I’d have to learn. Quickly a list of additional skills was coming to mind that I’d need. Was there a tailor on this island? A leatherworker? It seemed unlikely. I had no experience with carpentry or toolmaking, either, and I’d need to have something in order to survive.

Still, I had a limited amount of favoured skills available, and I didn’t want to waste them. Granted, I didn’t know what the difference between a favoured skill and one that wasn’t favoured actually was, so maybe I was getting ahead of myself a bit. I focused my mind internally once more, trying to search out information on exactly what a favoured skill was.

I got a surprising amount of resistance.When I’d looked for my Status or Skill descriptions, information appeared pretty quickly. But it seemed like those were contact points that had been exposed, as opposed to something I could seek out. Trying to access other information than what I was offered is like pushing against a thick blanket that pushes back. Sort of like an elastic membrane.

I continued to push. I didn’t have anything else to do. The sounds of the waves breaking against the shore quickly fell into a steady rhythm as I gathered my thoughts and pushed against the rhythm, over and over again. Soon, I aligned my breath with my attempts and the sounds of the waves. In, out. In, out. In…

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Concentration added to Favoured Skill list.

Concentration → 1

Initiating direct Mask query… interrupted.

The sudden intrusion into my thoughts quickly caused me to lose focus, and the rushing waves snapped back away from my awareness. I blinked and shook my head as I tried to clear some of the ringing in my ears and stars in my eyes the interruption of my focus had led to.

After several minutes of shaking my head, clenching/unclenching my jaw, and rapid blinking, my vision and hearing returned to normal. Clearly the interruption was more than just a simple disruption of focus.

What exactly had happened? Why was I so disoriented? I know I had been pushing against the web of information available to me, but why was that so hard? It had certainly felt like it was somewhere inside me, but why would something inside me not be available to me directly? Was this part of The Bargain? Was it in me, but not of me?

I reviewed the message I’d received once more. Other than the Skill acquisition, it mentioned a Mask. Something about that sounded familiar. I looked back over my status and found what I had recalled.

Equipment:

* Mask of the Unbound

I had glossed over that when I had been initially going over my Status, but I now had the impression that it was much more important than I initially gave it credit for.

I brought my hands up to my face. I certainly couldn’t feel anything like a mask. I could clearly feel the touch of my fingers on my skin. There wasn’t anything in between. It’s not like I was intimately familiar with my skin - it was still pretty new, after all, but there didn’t seem to be any interference between my limbs and face. So either “equipped” didn’t mean what I thought it meant, or I wasn’t looking in the right place.

I continued to run my fingers over my face and around my head, more absentmindedly than anything, as I thought through my options. When I thought about it, my tools weren’t limited to what I might be able to craft from the forest. I had my Skills, of course, but also my access to my Status, and… well, that was pretty much it. Though my partial success with learning about Favoured skills gave me a bit of hope. If it was impossible, I’d expect to feel… nothing, or a hard wall. At least intuitively. Flexibility normally implied that it was something that I could push - something almost out of reach, but not quite, and that Concentration skill seemed to come from something.

I tried gathering my thoughts, focusing on my Concentration, and for the hell of it focusing on my Autohypnosis, too, before I started pushing against the favoured skill information once more.

In… out… in… out…

While my grasp on time was pretty loose at this point, my focus continued for an extended period of time, matching up with the sound of the waves as I gathered the force of my will against the membrane again and again. Eventually, I felt a pop, and a new stream of information entered my mind.

Direct Mask Query successful… retrieving information from Universal Akashic Record.

Favoured Skill: Skills marked as Favoured receive a bonus to their relevant checks based on the user’s Soul Level.

Concentration → 2

Autohypnosis → 2

Knowledge (System) → 1