Traveling with the grave robbers, or thieves, or whatever it is they wanted to be called, proved to be extremely mundane. Then again, Desmond wasn't exactly sure what he was expecting from it, anyway. He was just a kid with a knife and they were thieves who had already done their "thieving".
Part of him was just craving some kind of adventure, he guessed. Like in those stories his mother had always read him before bed. He wanted to be like the heroes in those stories who got to explore the world and meet people and be stupidly strong by the end.
But, well, those heroes had to start somewhere. Besides, Desmond didn't really think he could be considered a hero. Heroes didn't put knives to people's necks the first time they met them, after all.
'I guess I'm due for just a normal journey, then.' He hummed, thinking back to Calcheth for just a moment. 'All the unordinary stuff has already happened, anyway.'
Honestly, if anything out of the ordinary happened, itd come as more of a surprise than anything. A welcome surprise, considering the silence they were currently traveling in, but a surprise nonetheless.
They'd been traveling for the last couple of hours in the direction of Sayavila and it was, admittedly, very quiet and very boring. Arika had only spoken up a couple of times—pointing out birds in the distance to Desmond and occasionally asking Euric for his opinion on mundane matters—to try and break the silence, but Desmond and Euric very obviously weren't keen to talk to one another. Her attempts to stimulate conversation remained fruitless, at least for the time being.
Desmond had thus decided to use the silence to quietly study his guides and their gear and anything he could see within ⦓Eye For Detail⦔'s range. Most notably, however, he kept finding himself looking back toward the shortswords the two carried.
'It'd be nice if I could get my hands on one of those.' He thought, absently putting a hand over the jacket pocket where he kept his knife. He was familiar enough with the cooking tool to tell that the shortsword Arika carried was probably triple the length of the knife. Alongside that, it was an actual weapon. Much better than some cheap kitchen knife.
'But it's almost definitely too big for ⦓Small Blades Proficiency⦔ to help me with it.' He furrowed his brow, frowning at the realization. 'Maybe I could just ask her about it.’
“Hey, Arika?” He started before he could stop himself. The woman in question eagerly looked back with an eyebrow raised, a small smile on her face. Desmond assumed she was finally happy that someone else had started talking instead of her for a change. “Do you have a skill for your sword?”
She hummed, putting her hands behind her head before she eventually nodded.
“Yeah. ⦓Medium Blades Proficiency⦔.” She said, confirming Desmond's suspicions. “Why? You got one for that little knife of yours?”
Before he could stop himself, he nodded, crossing his arms as he began to think.
“Mhm. ⦓Small Blades Proficiency⦔.” He responded, cupping his chin in thought. “It’s only level three, though, and since it’s really small, I don’t think it’ll be very good to keep using as a weapon.”
His eyes jumped back to her sword as he spoke, missing the way that Arika’s eyes widened and Euric glanced back with an eyebrow raised. Desmond, however, continued to stare at the sword, furrowing his brow before he decided to simply see what he could get from using ⦓Eye For Detail⦔ on it.
[Iron Shortsword]: A simple iron shortsword.
Total Length: 28 inches
Total Weight: 1.7 lbs
[Skill Used]: ⦓Medium Blades Proficiency⦔ (Str+Fin)
Quality - Low
Crafted By: Blacksmith Hall
“Jeez, what is that?” Arika murmured, just loud enough for it to break Desmond out of his stupor. He looked up at her—no doubt with confusion apparent on his face—and she gestured limply with her hand in his direction.
“You do this...thing where your eyes start glowing pink. It’s kinda...” She tensed, almost grimacing as she seemed to look for the words to explain what she meant.
“It’s super creepy, dude.” Euric piped up from the front, having turned away to keep watching the road. “It’s like you’re starin’ through us or somethin’.”
Desmond hummed at the revelation. ‘My eyes glow? Does it only happen when I use ⦓Eye For Detail⦔? I should test that...’
He let the skill fade away, then pointed up to his eyes, looking up at Arika who was still watching him, albeit cautiously.
“Are they still glowing?” When she shook her head ‘no’, he looked down at the shortsword and activated it again before looking at Arika again. “What about now?”
Arika nodded quickly, looking at him as if she was nervous about what he’d do. Desmond smiled before letting the skill fade again and he shook his head.
“Oh. That’s just a skill I have. It’s nothing to worry about.” He told her, putting his hands up defensively. “It’s my ⦓Study⦔ skill. It just means I’m...well, studying something.”
‘They don’t need to know all the details about my skills.’ He thought. ‘I doubt they’d like how much detail I actually know about them thanks to ⦓Eye For Detail⦔.’
Euric hummed quietly from the front, whereas Arika seemed to relax, though only a little bit as she nodded in turn.
“⦓Study⦔, huh? I’ve heard that when people awaken, they sometimes get a different base skill for looking at stuff.” She said, almost murmuring to herself. At Desmond's confused look, she continued. “Euric and I don’t have a skill called ⦓Study⦔. We have one called ⦓Inspect⦔. I guess they probably do about the same thing, though.”
Desmond tilted his head, brow furrowed as he thought about it.
‘Huh...I guess the way we awakened changes what base investigation skill you start with?’ He reasoned, but it was just a guess. In truth, he really didn’t have any clue what he was talking about. Still, it was a better place to start than nothing at all. Knowledge was power, or something like that.
“Oh. I guess that makes sense, I think.” He responded, then tilted his head in thought. “I wonder why it makes my eyes glow.”
At that, Arika simply shrugged and went back to paying attention to the road ahead of them.
“Who knows? Skills are weird and I’m not a mage or a professor.” She said, limply waving her hand in the air as she put them both back behind her head casually. “If you want a real answer, you’ll have to ask someone else.”
Desmond didn’t respond, instead going back to cupping his chin in thought as they continued to move forward.
‘Hm. Maybe it’s because it’s a personal skill.’ He reasoned, before eventually just sighing and shaking the thought away. ‘Thinking about it won’t do much for me. I’ll just find answers elsewhere.’
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Silence fell back upon the traveling party as they kept moving and remained that way for the better part of the day. Eventually, when the sky began to darken and the road ahead of them became hard to see, they broke away from the path and back into the forest at their side to find a place to rest for the night.
Desmond scouted out another small clearing that was a couple minutes' journey from the road and before long, they were all set up in the clearing.
As Arika and Euric opened their packs and retrieved their rations, Desmond simply watched them quietly. They pulled out strips of dried meat, berries, nuts, and things like that. Meanwhile, he was dragging a long, flat, stone over to the small fire he’d prepared.
‘I’m not sure how their ⦔Inspect⦔ skill works compared to ⦓Eye For Detail⦔.’ He thought as he began to set up his usual cooking spot. ‘If it can tell them what I’m cooking, they might have more questions than I want to answer.’
As he pulled his pack around, though, he sighed and shook his head.
‘I guess I have to test it out, one way or another.’ He glanced up at the thieves as he rifled through his things before grabbing the box he kept his food in. ‘Time to see how secretive I really need to be.’
Steeling his resolve, Desmond very quickly opened the box and picked out a steak of demon meat, which he wasted no time slapping onto the stovetop to cook. It didn’t take very long, either, for Euric to notice and squint in the boy’s direction.
“That’s what you meant when you said you had your own food, kid?” He asked, though it was more of a statement, with almost a scoff. Desmond, however, simply nodded back in response.
“Yep. I told you, I can do a little hunting.” He responded, absent-mindedly using his knife to cook his dinner for the night. Arika hummed around the food in her mouth, smiling at Desmond almost proudly.
“‘A little’? Kid, those are some hefty steaks!” She said, leaning over to look down at his makeshift stovetop a little better. Her expression soon warped, however, as she curled her lips to the side in contemplation. “Huh. Can’t tell what they are. What’d you even hunt out in these woods, Desmond?”
Desmond hummed in response, staying quiet for the moment as he gathered his thoughts.
‘Good. They can’t tell that it’s demon meat.’ He glanced up at Arika, nodding toward her as he flipped the steak and continued cooking. ‘Still...I shouldn’t let them have any of it. I’m not sure if they’ll survive the sickness like I did.’
“Some kinda bear thing. I dunno what it was.” He lied, tapping his chin as if he were trying to recall more detail. “It had horns or something, but I couldn’t just kill it myself because it was too big. So I trapped it in the bush and killed it while it couldn’t get to me.”
He shrugged, as if to say that it wasn’t that big of a deal. Considering he was flat out lying to them, he hoped it came off nonchalant enough to make them cut him some slack.
“Ah...I get it. That’s why your ⦓Small Blades Proficiency⦔ is at such a good level, right?” Euric piped up through a mouthful of food. “I mean, a kid like you havin’ a blade proficiency at level three is ridiculous. But I guess it makes sense if you’ve been cuttin’ up a corpse for a while.”
Desmond tilted his head in question.
“Is it really that rare?” He asked, tapping his chin in thought as well. “I guess that makes sense. I’ve never used the knife for anything else. I just cut meat off of it whenever I needed it until I ran out.”
Euric nodded along happily, smiling as if this explained everything. For once, Desmond was happy that he was such an idiot.
“Right, right! And every time you cut some steaks off, it gives you some experience ‘cause it counts as a target.” Euric confirmed, taking a moment to drink from his waterskin. “It’s like training without the effort.”
Desmond hummed in thought as he pulled his dinner for the night off of the fire. He looked at the knife in his hand, turning it over several times for seemingly no reason before he sighed.
“It’s not the best weapon to have to depend on, though.” He commented as he began to eat, using the knife to simply slice chunks off and pop them into his mouth. Off to his side, Arika frowned as she slipped the rest of her rations back into her pack.
“What do you expect to use that knife for anyway, Desmond?” She spoke up, lying on her side and facing him. Concern was written across her face, but Desmond ignored it. Mostly.
“To defend myself.” He answered on instinct. “Isn’t that the same reason you carry those swords? I doubt you use them, but having them makes you feel safe, right?”
The boy stared absently into the dying fire in front of him, his expression blank as he continued to eat. Somewhere in the forest around him, an owl hooted its eerie song. Euric and Arika exchanged glances; with Euric casting a cautious look toward Desmond at the same time.
“It’s the same thing. Having this knife makes me feel safe.” Desmond gripped the handle of the knife, as if to accentuate his point. “But...it’s just a kitchen knife. So it’s not a weapon I can depend on to keep me safe.”
He popped the last piece of meat into his mouth before looking up at the thieves and giving them a half-hearted shrug. Arika’s frown deepened.
“But...you’re just a kid.” She argued. “You shouldn’t have to worry about all that stuff. You should be worrying about...I don’t know, getting good grades in school and making sure to do all your chores.”
At that, Desmond snickered and shook his head.
“But I do have to worry about all that.” He countered, turning in her direction with a small frown. “No one’s going to worry about it for me. So I have to.”
Save for the dying crackles of Desmond's fire, the clearing fell silent around them. In the sky above them,the crescent moon shined down onto the forest, bathing them in natural light. Eventually, Desmond stood up and began to kick dirt into the embers so that he could quell the fire for good.
“I’m gonna sleep up in the trees again.” He said aloud, promptly turning away from the others and avoiding their gazes. “Goodnight. I’ll see you in the morning.”
And before they had a chance to object, he was already walking away with his hands shoved into his pockets. As he leapt up onto a low-hanging branch in one of the trees, the wind carried over to him a whispered conversation between the two thieves, who had turned their backs to him to talk amongst themselves.
“That’s a sad way for a kid to live...” Amari muttered, a frown apparent in her voice. “He’s eight, for Gods’ sake.”
“S’just how it is sometimes, Rika, you know that.” Euric responded, his voice surprisingly calm. “We found him in the woods, after all. Alone. Shouldn’t be a surprise that he’s got no one to turn to.”
Arika was silent for a while. Desmond pretended not to be listening, turning on his side and putting his back to them. After a while, he heard her sigh.
“That’s probably why he dropped your ass when you brought up his parents” She snickered, and Euric groaned aloud. Something whistled in the wind, followed very quickly by Arika yelping in alarm.
“Go to bed, dammit.” Euric complained, though it was accompanied by Arika’s furious giggling in the dead of night. A couple minutes later, though, and the clearing was all silent once more. Desmond was sure that if he turned around to check, he’d see that both Euric and Arika would be under the effects of that skill once again, signaling that they were asleep.
But slumber didn’t find him as it did them. For as much as they’d walked and as far as they’d traveled today, Desmond didn’t find himself growing tired in the slightest. Even now, when he wanted to sleep, he just couldn’t seem to.
‘Maybe I’m too cautious...’ He reasoned to himself, sitting up and glancing back into the clearing at his back. As he’d guesed, the two thieves were already asleep, if ⦓Eye For Detail⦔ was anything to go by. ‘...Or maybe ⦓Otherworldly Resolve⦔ is really good at keeping me awake.’
Desmond huffed, shaking his head and the thought away with it as he stared off into the forest for no real reason.
'Well, whatever. More time to try and level up again, I guess.' The boy sighed to himself, aimlessly kicking his dangling legs back and forth. 'If last night is anything to go by, I have about five hours of free time, so...'
Suddenly, the rustling of leaves and the coo of an animal broke him out of his thoughts. He looked up, only to see the fleeting form of a small owl leaping from a tree nearby and taking to the air. It was a little too far for him to scan it with ⦓Eye For Detail⦔ like he instinctively moved to do, so he settled for watching it as it flew off.
It tilted its head backwards, its wide, pink eyes seemingly glossing over his form before it went back to looking forward. Desmond furrowed his brow and, for some reason, chose to hop to his feet and follow after it.
It took him a moment to steady himself before he ambitiously hopped to the next branch over, his mind currently obsessed with catching that owl.
For the life of him, though, he couldn't seem to stop and think about why he wanted to catch it in the first place.