When Cadence woke up the next morning, the events of the previous day had melted together into one big blur. Her hike, the struggle with the bramble-spawn, the ogre in the barrens, Storyteller’s rescue, the long conversation with her mother. It was all too much for the exhausted girl to keep straight. But she had no problem remembering how the night had ended.

Still lying on her back on her sleeping pallet, she held her arm up over her face. The brands on her wrist drew a sense of satisfaction from her like nothing else ever had. The gift of the wanderer was still there, as it had been the day before, a simple pair of black lines suggesting a road winding off to the horizon. But now, above it, was a new brand. Light blue semi-circles, just barely not connecting, were layered into a circular design reminiscent of a ripple in a still pool. Positioned above the meandering path of the wanderer brand, it gave the impression of a distant and magical sun at the end of the road.

Her mother was going to kill her when she found out that Cadence had accepted a second gift from Storyteller, but it was worth it. She felt amazing, in a way she couldn’t quite place. It was like her body and mind alike were refreshed in a way that was hard to describe. Some of that, she was sure, was due to the stamina boost her gift of the wanderer gave her, but that alone couldn’t account for the crystalline feeling of potential that ran through Cadence’s soul. As if reacting to her thoughts, the description of her new gift appeared before her eyes.

[Gift of the Echo]

Novice level

Experience: 0%

Use abilities on unique targets to gain experience.

Abilities:

[Gift Reflection] - Active, Soul - Copy one gift ability from a nearby target. Gift abilities operate at Novice level regardless of the target’s level. Abilities from certain gifts cannot be copied. This ability has a one hour cool down, but the copied ability is retained until it is used again.

[Soul Surge] - Active, Buff - Increase one attribute by five points. Lesser duration, moderate stamina and focus cost incurred when buff expires.

[Soul Empowerment] - Boon - Minor boost to all attributes.

Storyteller had been right–Cadence had never even heard of a gift quite like this one, and she doubted anyone else had either. She decided the odd energy she was feeling must’ve been from her new boon ability. Her mother had explained that most gifts only benefited a few attributes, but the sensation of having all of her mental and physical traits boosted, even only slightly, was electrifying. It was like she had spent her entire life half asleep, and suddenly she had just woken up. Her body moved more easily in every way, her mind felt clearer than ever. Her mother could get as mad as she wanted–Cadence had made her choice, and the gift of the echo was hers now.

The abilities were intriguing. As far as she knew, most gifts, especially at low levels, were supposed to give simple, straight forward effects. But copying abilities? Boosting her attributes at will? She had to actively keep herself from activating Soul Surge, curious as she was to see what a major boost would feel like. How fast could she move with a giant boost to her speed score like that? Cadence made a fist with the hand in front of her face, and she grinned at the idea of how strong she could become at a moment’s notice. It was perfect. She had complained about her lack of combat abilities the gift of the wanderer had given her, but now…

Now she had a power set she’d never get bored of, a gift even Storyteller hadn’t mastered!

“Cadence! Time to wake up!”

Her mother’s voice shook Cadence out of her reverie, and quickly hopped to her feet. Even that motion made her smile with satisfaction–her strength propelled her every movement, her speed made her body more reactive, her coordination kept her balance perfect. Everything felt so easy now! And this was just a minor boost, at Novice level? What would it be like to level up?

Cadence looked around her room, drinking in the details in the grain of the wooden walls and the weave of the little rug she had never noticed before. She took a deep breath, and the smell of the fresh air outside the shuttered window filled her nose. It smelled the same as it had when she was in the forest the day before–but now she could smell it all the way from her bedroom!

A wide smile still stretching her face, Cadence slipped on the soft doeskin shoes her mother made for her the year before. They fit snugly, but had worn to the shape of her feet perfectly, fitting like a second skin. She all but pranced out of her room, taking pleasure in every movement, swinging her arms and even twirling a couple times, delighting in the feeling of her new body.

“Morning mom!” she greeted Ryme as she skipped into the central room of their cottage.

Ryme looked up from where she was sitting, a finely-honed knife in one hand, a stick destined to become an arrow in the other, and gave her daughter a weary smile. “Well, doesn’t someone look happy this morning?” she observed dryly.

Cadence giggled in reply, and Ryme huffed a breath of amusement out of her nose. “I was the same way when I got my gifts. That stamina boon must be the perfect thing to get going in the morning.”

“It’s amazing!” Cadence replied enthusiastically. She took a breath, wanting to tell her mother about her second gift, but remembered Storyteller’s words the night before, and stopped herself.

“I’d ask you to keep this to yourself for the moment,” he said after the short ritual that had marked Cadence’s soul with the gift of the echo. “Your mother deserves to know, but she’ll have other things on her mind in the morning. We’ll talk with her about it soon.”

Cadence chewed her lip, torn for a moment. Lying to her mother had never come naturally to Cadence, and she had learned early that Ryme’s senses were far too sharp to fool easily, but for now she decided to follow Storyteller’s suggestion. Fortunately, Ryme seemed too busy fussing over her arrows to notice the hesitation. “I think I’m going to take a run, okay?”

“Really? Starting your morning with a run? Doesn’t sound like the Cadence I know.” Ryme chuckled softly, turning back to her fletching.

Cadence rubbed the back of her head sheepishly. “I just… I wanna try out my new stamina! See how far I can push it!”

Ryme nodded, not looking up. “Fine. Grab an apple first though, you don’t have enough stamina to go without food yet.”

Cadence blinked in surprise–that was a thing stamina did? She hadn’t even noticed her lack of hunger, even though she generally woke up with an appetite.

“Actually, you can do me a favor while you’re out,” Ryme told Cadence while she grabbed a fresh apple from the woven basket sitting by the oven. “I don’t know what Storyteller has to say about the town, but he implied it was important. Since you’re taking a run anyways, would you mind finding the other hunters and asking them to meet me at the bonfire hill for noon?”

Cadence nodded easily. “Sure!” she said, already turning for the door with a wave. “See you in a little bit!”

Ryme turned back to her whittling, and Cadence was halfway to town before she realized that Ryme had actually phrased the favor as a request, not a command. She didn’t quite know what to make of that.

#

Cadence barrelled through town, too busy rejoicing in her newfound stamina to bother slowing down, even as her stride hit the more densely populated streets of Felisen itself. It was half a mile from her house to the edge of town, but she barely felt winded! Her bonuses to strength, speed, and coordination may have been small, but combined with her more significant stamina boon from the gift of the wanderer, she felt like she was all but flying over the hard packed dirt road. For a moment, she considered using her Soul Surge to try out a real boost to her speed, but she decided to refrain for now.

Besides, she decided, Felisen isn’t big enough to really cut loose!

Her first stop was the Honeyed Pear, the town’s tavern and inn. As always, a few of the hunters were staying there, single men with no family and no need for a home to themselves, even if they could likely afford it. Cadence’s mother had explained once that they were more comfortable with the loggers they often escorted, and were happy to just live in the inn itself rather than keep up a home for themselves. As it meant reliable income, the innkeep and brewer, Arnold, had little problem with the arrangement.

Cadence burst through the swinging door of the Pear at a pace only slightly slower than she had used on the street, and was greeted by a chorus of rough laughter that drew a wide smile from her. The tavern floor of the Honeyed Pear was as dim as always, lit only by the light coming through the entryway and a couple of opened shutters. Normally, she found the shadowy space unnerving, but today it felt oddly comfortable.

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She had always wondered why the three men preferred to drink in the darkened room when they were the only ones in the tavern, but now she understood. The hunter gift gave the same awareness boon as the wanderer gift, and all three hunters were higher level than she was. For her, the shadow-filled room was noticeably less stimulating than the bright, busy street outside. She assumed it would be an even more relaxing difference to their higher-leveled senses.

One of the hunters, Denning, smiled at her, his teeth bright in the weak light–he had always had a habit of keeping them clean and white. The big man was the oldest and strongest of the three bachelor hunters, and second only to Ryme in the village’s pecking order. Unlike most of the village hunters, he had spent some time in Correntry, the trade city closest to Felisen. That was where he claimed to have picked up the habit of polishing his teeth, as well as his gift of the brawler.

“Well if it isn’t little Cadie!” he greeted her. For a large man in a rough trade, Cadence had always found Denning’s voice oddly gentle. “What brings you down here this fine morning?”

“And what’s with all the running?” Smith asked.

“She got her first gift, dolt,” Markey added, winking at Cadence in a way she didn’t entirely like. “And about time too.”

Smith and Markey were both half a dozen years older than Cadence, travelers who had blown into town several years before, both new to their gifts at the time. She suspected her mother and Denning were the only ones who knew where the pair had come from, but they had eagerly joined the village’s hunters and had proven themselves often enough in the years since that no one questioned their background anymore–though no one seemed to go out of their way to keep them comfortable, either.

Both of their eyes held a little bit of a predatory gleam Cadence had never liked, and her gifts hadn’t changed that. Ryme claimed it was just a product of their shared gift of the wolf, but she still avoided being alone with them for too long.

“Maybe,” Cadence answered evasively.

Denning nodded respectfully at her answer, and put a large, firm hand on Smith’s shoulder before he could say anything.

“Mom asked me to tell everyone she’s going to call a meeting today, noon on the bonfire hill.”

“We just met yesterday,” Markey grumbled–earning Denning’s other hand on his shoulder.

“Don’t you think that if she needs to meet again already, it might be important?” Denning asked, his gruff tone making clear that he was being rhetorical. He looked back at Cadence and asked, “This have something to do with that stranger from yesterday?” Like the rest of the hunters, Denning had helped Ryme when she was searching for Cadence the day before, and had briefly met Storyteller before Ryme sent everyone home.

“I think so,” Cadence answered honestly. “She can tell you more, I gotta go find everyone else.”

“Aye, lass, good hunting.” As she turned for the door, Cadence heard the big man moving to his feet. “C’mon you two, time to wash up. You look like… well, your normal scruffy selves, but let’s see what we can do to polish you up.”

When she emerged back outside, the morning sunshine was dazzling, and Cadence had to lift a hand to her eyes, but the sensation passed after just a second, fast enough that she found herself blinking in surprise. Her mother had mentioned that awareness helped her mind process her senses just as much as it improved the senses themselves, but it was still a little disorienting.

Grinning to herself yet again at how much she was coming to love her new powers, the girl hit the streets, curving through town towards its southeastern edge. She only got up to a light jog this time–her improved balance was nice, but she didn’t trust it to keep her on her feet if she suddenly turned a corner on a wagon or a donkey. As she ran, she kept her nose to the air, sniffing tentatively, trying to sort through the new scents her boosted awareness let her notice. She didn’t think her sense of smell had gotten that much sharper, not yet. Rather, it was more like she was able to better differentiate all the different smells that filled the air, instead of just the most potent.

Dirt and woodsmoke, of course, were a patina covering everything. But there was so much more that she had never consciously noticed before! Depending on where she was, she could smell fresh baked bread, steaming herbs, or… other things that were just as warm and fragrant but much less enjoyable. Cadence changed her route to start trying to consciously avoid the houses she knew kept mules or goats on their property.

She was a block away from her next stop when the smell of sawdust started to leap to the foreground of her senses. That was how she knew she was getting close to her next goal, the largest house in Felisen. She tapered her jog to a stop, ending next to the ornate waist-high fence that marked Old Man Callahan’s property line.

Most of the town lived in a communal fashion, trading and sharing between them what they needed to thrive. Money was something kept mostly for trading with merchant caravans for luxuries the villagers couldn’t make for themselves, sugar, spices, and potent varieties of tea being the most notable. Old Man Callahan was the exception to the rule. As an Initiate level carpenter, he was the most skilled tradesman in the town, and inarguably its wealthiest citizen due to his role in the town’s bustling lumber trade. He was still known to be generous, especially come festival season, but no small piece of his wealth was put into the ever-growing manor that was his passion project.

The old man himself was in the yard when Cadence approached, hard at work. He wore no shirt, and though age had begun to show its effects on the man, he was still far more heavily muscled than the majority of the laborers and farmers. Cadence had always wondered about that, but now, she expected it was because of a boosted attribute of some kind. As Cadence watched, the old man made a complex series of gestures at a large log that was standing before him, which ended with one hand thrust, heel out, at the log. His whole body visibly trembled with strain–and suddenly, the log began to change.

Its bark simply fell free, revealing the bright wood underneath. Then the log itself began to shift, its surface smoothing even as the most notable knots and bumps in the wood fell away as if sheared off. More sawdust filled the air. Soon, the log had become perfectly square to a side, and Callahan made another movement, this time a harsh chop straight at the ground. A terrible buzzing sound filled the air, and the log seemed to shift in place, then collapse. Cadence blinked in confusion. It took her a moment to realize that in the log's place, a dozen and a half perfectly even planks were now leaning against the fenceline.

She had realized that Callahan’s wood and carpenter gifts allowed him to easily make simple objects in bulk, but still, she had never actually seen him at work before. Even as she stared in wonder, Callahan’s gruff voice grabbed her attention, “What do you want, Cadence? If you just came to watch me work, I’m charging you for the show!”

Cadence blushed slightly, and shook her head. “No sir! My mother sent me out to let all the hunters know about a meeting.”

“You need the boy?” Callahan asked. Cadence nodded, and the older man turned back to the manor house. He lifted a hand to his mouth before he shouted, “Brian! Get your skinny ass out here!”

Cadence blushed a little deeper. Old Man Callahan had always been much more free with vulgarity than most of the adults in the village, and he had never really responded to any attempts to get him to stop.

Cadence fidgeted in place for a moment, waiting for Callahan’s son to appear, before she asked, “Sir? Mister Callahan?” The old man looked up at her from where he sat, wiping sweat from his brow. “You made Brian his spear right? The one that gave him his gift?”

“Aye, I did,” he acknowledged, peering at Cadence more closely. “What, are you thinking about getting an ensouled item? I don’t think your mother’d care much for that!” The old man threw back his head in a bellowing laugh.

Cadence shook her head nervously, thinking of her concerns about the gift of the echo the night before. “No sir, not at all. I guess I was just… curious how that worked. How does someone give a gift like that?”

Callahan made a “hmph” noise in the back of his throat. “Ryme never explained that?”

“No sir. I just know she can’t advance anymore because of her totem, I never really understood why.”

Callahan nodded. “I can see why that’d be a sore subject for her.” The old man reached up to rub his chin, then shrugged. “I don’t see the harm in explaining. Now, I won’t pretend to know all of it, but as I understand it, with most gifts, like my carpenter or your mother’s hunter, one of the Divine Archetypes forks ‘em over. ‘Course, to get one, you gotta pass some test, and you gotta do more like that to level ‘em up. So some people, they go a different way. An easier way, I guess you’d call it, though it’s worth it to a lot of people.

“See, certain physical items have enough magic to open a gift by themselves. For your mother, it was some sort of magic bear she killed for her first hunt. She got what you’d call a totem from it–an item so filled with the monster’s magic, she could take some of it for herself. The spear I made Brian is the same way, but I was the one who pumped it full of magic instead. An ensouled item, the cityfolk call it.”

“So that’s it? They just buy or get some item and they get a gift just like that? No trial or anything?”

“Yep. But all things got a price, see? The only way you can advance a gift like that is to get a second item, like the first, but higher level. I’m already working on the spear Brian’ll need when he hits Apprentice, and then I’ll have to start another for when he makes Initiate. Adept’s the real hard part with those gifts. I’m the best carpenter this side of the heartland, but I’m still only Initiate level. I can’t make the spear he’d need to get to Adept level. Your mother’s the same way–she managed to get Apprentice and Initiate totem for her bear gift, but now she’s stuck. She won’t be able to get to Adept unless she manages to find a real strong monster–and it has to be a bear, at that. And she has to kill it. Till then, she’s stuck.”

Cadence chewed her bottom lip. “Just like that? She can’t level up anymore?”

“That’s the way of it, lass. If you can get the items, relic gifts like that are mighty convenient. They let you level up easy n’ fast. But there’s a ceiling, and it’s a hard one to overcome.” There was the sound of a door opening and slamming shut, and Callahan looked back towards the house. “Ah, here's my good for nothing son now!”

Cadence had more questions, as always, but she held off on them as Brian came out of the house. As always, Felisen’s youngest hunter made Cadence a little fidgety, even more than his father did. Brian had inherited some of his father’s dark skin, and his blonde hair had flecks of the rusty red that Callahan must’ve had when he was younger, but the old man’s Westerletian colors were muted in his son by his mother’s more fair colors. Together, they gave the athletic young man a compelling appearance that complemented his easy smile.

“Hey Cadie!” Brian greeted her.

She awkwardly waved back, grimacing at the nickname. Felisen had few enough children that were her age. Brian and his sister, both two years older than her, were some of the closest. But those two years meant everything around gifting age, and Cadence had seen relatively little of the first boy she had ever anythinged since he joined the hunters.

“Hey,” she finally managed to respond. She knew he deserved more than that, but she didn’t quite know how to express absolutely any of the churning emotions he inspired. “So uh… my mother’s calling a hunter meeting at noon, she asked me to let everyone know.”

Brian nodded. “Bonfire hill?” he confirmed. “Okay. I’ll be there.” Brian started forward, then hesitated. “Hey… are you alright? After yesterday? You gave us a scare.”

Cadence managed a sheepish smile. “Yeah. Actually… I’m kinda great.”

Brian arched an eyebrow, and managed a small grin for her. “Good to hear.” He reached up and tousled his own messy hair a little. “Hey, I can take care of letting Murda know, okay? Make it a little easier on you.”

Cadence fidgeted in place again, before she spit out an awkward, “Okay, thanks. I’ll see you this afternoon!”

This time, she really started sprinting. It was convenient, Cadence admitted to herself, how quickly her new powers let her run away.