Caden felt the tell-tale surge of power through the dirt underneath him, and he sprang forward. He struck the ground at an awkward angle, but still managed to turn it into a clumsy roll. The moment he made it to his feet, he blindly hurled his hatchet at his foe to buy a moment of time, and rushed forward.
Alyssia met the attack easily, her own slender sword slapping away the projectile and easily parrying each desperate blow from the raidblade Caden had looted from the gnolls over a week before. Even after months of training, first with the hunters of Felisen, then with Storyteller, and now with Alyssia, Caden simply couldn’t match the noble’s consummate skill with the blade, and he quickly found himself pushed back. Another slight tremor ran through the ground under his feet, and Caden knew the sentinel was backing him towards another pit trap.
Fortunately, this time, he had prepared for just this situation.
[Gift of the Skirmisher] reflected
[Cunning Maneuver] - Active - Sharply boost coordination and speed for a single moment. Lesser stamina cost, one minute cooldown.
It was as if the entire world slowed to a halt. Even as Alyssia’s sword twisted in the serpentine motion that had ended a dozen other practice bouts, Caden lunged to the side, his body positioned perfectly so that the older girl’s sword wouldn’t touch him. Immediately, the momentary advantage left him, but not only had it allowed him to disengage without exposing himself to the pit behind him, it carried him to the side of Alyssia’s lunge, leaving her exposed.
He thrust forward with his raidblade, but suddenly Alyssia was there to meet him. Rather than stabbing into her exposed side, their blades met in a clash of sparks, and in a twisting motion too fluid for Caden to make out, his sword was sent flying away. The precise maneuver ended with the tip of Alyssia’s blade resting at Caden’s chin.
“I surrender,” Caden conceded, holding up his empty hands.
Alyssia winked. “I know.” She sheathed her own sword in a sharp motion. “That was good there at the end, though.”
“Did I catch you by surprise?” Caden asked. He had hoped to catch the girl off guard the same way he had once defeated Brian, by copying an unexpected gift. Normally, when he faced the noble girl, Caden preferred to reflect the Stone Toss from her earth gift, using it to pressure her from afar.
“Almost,” Alyssia admitted. “But you threw your hatchet before you came at me–normally, if you have Stone Toss, you prefer to use that as your closer.” The corner of the girl’s mouth quirked up. “You’re still thinking too defensively, though. Cunning Maneuver is a powerful tool for dodging, but it’s even more dangerous as an attack. Your strength is in versatility just as much as any skirmisher, you can’t always be conservative like that.”
Caden frowned pensively, but acknowledged the point. The simple truth he was reluctantly coming to accept was that he was never going to win a fair bout against someone like Alyssia, who had been training as long as she could hold a sword. His advantages were surprise and unconventional strategies, but it was hard to develop those sorts of techniques when he had to practice using so many different abilities. Matching Storyteller’s flexibility often seemed impossible.
In the time since he had arrived in Kellister, Alyssia and Caden had become fairly close. The noble sentinel had a more metropolitan perspective than Caden had expected after years of hearing about the conservatism of aristocrats. The older girl had barely batted an eye when the lunar-presenting Caden showed up to one of their bouts several days before.
“Some nobles get really caught up in traditional relationships,” Alyssia had explained. “They’re so concerned about the name and the bloodline and all of that. But most of the sentinels I work with grew up as commoners, and among them, it’s not uncommon to see people identifying or presenting differently.” Caden had been interested to hear more, but the older girl had gotten oddly reflective after making the comment, and he had guessed that prying wouldn’t be appreciated.
If nothing else, the time spent in Kellister had been fantastic for Caden’s growth. Storyteller had insisted it would be worthwhile, as the aftermath of the gnoll attack and the brutal storm that had followed shortly thereafter had left the village vulnerable to an abruptly increased number of wind, water, and lightning aspected monsters. In helping to defend the village and hunt down the storm-spawned monsters, Caden had gotten the chance to try out an assortment of gifts he had never experienced before.
Storyteller had emphasized that the gifts granted by the Warrior would be Caden’s bread-and-butter to copy, as they were both common and impactful, but in Felisen, the martially-inclined gifts had been rare. He had only gotten the chance to practice with Ryme’s gift of the archer and Denning’s gift of the brawler. In Kellister, Caden had the opportunity to try two more of the six Warrior disciplines.
Alyssia had the gift of the skirmisher, a clever combat gift based on skill and prolonged combat against multiple enemies, slowly whittling opponents down and accumulating advantages, while Bernard, the village’s chief hunter, had the gift of the guardian, which offered a purely defensive skill set. Not only that, another of Kellister’s hunters had the gift of water, and no small number of the village’s residents shared the same gift of earth as Alyssia, giving Caden the chance to practice with Primal gifts besides Storyteller’s powerful, but draining, gift of lightning.
As Caden learned to use new techniques and adopted more abilities with Soul Reflection, he had finally seen his gift of the echo gain significant experience for the first time since leaving Felisen.
[Gift of the Echo]
Level: Novice
Experience: 37%
Use abilities on unique targets to gain experience.
However, rather than feel the gap between his rivals shrink, Caden felt farther away from the other battle-gifted with every passing day. Not only were Kellister’s hunters, and Alyssia, higher level than Caden, they used their limited gifts with much more skill, having already figured out every trick and advantage their abilities could give them.
“What are you doing for the afternoon?” Alyssia asked, drawing Caden’s attention back to reality. “I’m heading to the quarry, if you want to join me.”
Quality stone was a rarity outside of the northern frontier, and Kellister’s quarry was the source of no small part of its local pride. But while the stone enabled a significant additional trade for the town and allowed for its large number of brick buildings, it also led to the noticeable number of earth-aspected monsters that emerged from underground. That was actually what had brought Alyssia to the little town–according to her, fighting those particular monsters helped to advance her gift of earth, and as she was approaching Initiate level, she needed every scrap of experience she could get.
“Thanks,” Caden replied, still feeling frustrated, “but I’ll leave it to you. I want to talk to St-” he broke off into a little cough to cover his slip, and amended, “Sir Toren.”
Alyssia rolled her eyes at the obvious slip. The noble girl hadn’t been shy about her suspicion towards the false knight, but after seeing him in action at the Cairn Glade, she hadn’t pressed the issue, trusting his motives if not his identity. “Okay, whatever you want.”
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The older girl started to turn around, then hesitated, before she added, “Hey, meet me out here tonight, okay? After dinner.”
Caden arched an eyebrow and looked around the empty field they used for their practice bouts, the question of why obvious on his face.
Alyssia rolled her eyes. “Just do it, or I’ll stop holding back and really leave you with some bruises.”
Caden snorted and waved. “Whatever you want,” he echoed with a smirk. “Have fun at the quarry.”
#
Kellister had recovered quickly from the brutal raid, Caden reflected as he moved through the village. In just over a week, much of the damage from the gnoll attack was no longer apparent, the completely ruined buildings torn down and the recoverable homes and business repaired by the industrious villagers. Idly, as he walked the village’s streets, Caden wondered if Felisen would have been able to recover so quickly.
The quarry was no small part of it. In addition to allowing the larger number of stone and brick buildings, which had proven more resilient to fire than traditional wood and thatch, it gave Kellister a valuable additional industry, a form of wealth that supplemented the lumber and reagent trades Felisen was entirely dependent on.
Caden paused at a fire-scarred plot of land where a handful of burly men and women were laying out the stone for a new house. The workers didn’t pause their work, but they acknowledged Caden’s presence with brief waves and small nods. After a week of fighting storm monsters alongside Alyssia and the village’s hunters, most of the town was aware of the visiting knight’s squire and treated him with a distant sort of respect, unsure of his actual social status.
Admittedly, it had thrown a few of them when Caden emerged from his inn room a few days before, hair pulled back under a cap and clothing adjusted to present cleaner, tighter lines and conceal what little curves his body had. Caden had always found it amusing how little it took to present himself in what others considered a lunar way. In fact, the first time he had done so, when he had snuck in amongst a large trade caravan visiting Felisen, it had been by accident, and hadn’t realized it until a flattering merchant addressed him as “young sir,” and Cadence had found themself liking the title.
Storyteller had cautioned him against making such a noticeable change while they were in Kellister, not wanting to draw any additional attention to his no-doubt paper thin persona, but Caden had decided that he had spent enough time letting fear govern how he presented himself. He had gone ahead with wearing the clothes and personality that had felt right, and the villagers had reacted with the same sort of earthy indifference Caden was used to. The boy was still smart and capable, and the people who lived in the villages like this had bigger concerns than how a passing traveler like Caden chose to dress and act.
As he watched, the group of laborers finished stacking a large pile of rough-hewn stone to one side of the lot. While most of them left, wheeling carts to load with more stone, two women stayed standing in front of the pile of stone. They both closed their eyes, looks of intense concentration on their faces, and they began to slowly lift their hands, as if they were lifting a heavy object.
As they did, the stone began to change. A chorus of tiny popping noises accompanied a cloud of fine white dust falling from the stones. Soon, Caden could only barely make out the shape of the stone pile through the obscuring dust–then the two women abruptly dropped their hands, and the popping was replaced with loud clunking noise. Slowly, the cloud settled to reveal a wall of simple gray brick, constructing itself before Caden’s eyes. Over the course of a few minutes, the wall finished cobbling itself together, and two women suddenly relaxed, gasping for breath as they surveyed the newly constructed square section of brick wall, ten feet to a side.
Interested, Caden reached out with his augment, his most rarely used ability.
[Gift Divination] - Wanderer, Echo - Active, Utility, Soul - Learn the gifts possessed by a target. Can only be used on targets your level or lower.
He was pleased to feel the ability successfully activate–at Novice level, Gift Divination’s level limitation was a difficult hill to overcome, and Caden was far more used to the ability failing than anything else.
[Gift Divination] successful
Novice Level
[Gift of the Mason]
[Gift of the Laborer]
He recognized the name of the first gift, though Storyteller had not spent much time on the gifts granted by the Artisan, the archetype of craftspeople. Though far from dangerous in combat, the Artisan’s gifts were crucial to trade in the Realm. Old Man Callahan’s carpenter blessing had come from the same archetype, as did many other precious gifts like the blacksmith, the weaver, and the tanner.
The gift of the laborer, however, was significantly more familiar. One of the gifts of the Elder, it was as common among the quarry workers of Kellister as it had been amongst the loggers in Felisen. Its abilities were simple–a boon to stamina, a temporary strength buff, and the ability to increase the potency of non-combat tools like lumber axes or hammers. Despite that simplicity, it was an invaluable gift among the communities of the Heartland, and Storyteller had assured Caden it was common amongst caravaners and even porters in the larger cities.
That was typical of the gifts of the Elder. Though the Greater Triad were considered to grant the most common blessingsin the Realm, Caden was willing to bet that the Elder, the archetype of the common folk, could give any of them a run for their scepters. It was just that his blessings were more straight-forward and less showy than the famed martial, magical, and elemental gifts of the Greater Triad.
The hunter gift, with its abilities to increase damage on a single mark and to bolster survival skills, wasn’t as obviously powerful as certain Warrior gifts, but it was hunters that worked to safeguard the villages of the Heartlands, not brawlers or skirmishers. And without the gift of the farmer and rancher allowing for small numbers of gifted yeomen to cultivate large surpluses of crops and livestock, the supply lines the bastion cities depended on would wither.
Caden resumed walking, his steps soon taking him through the well square in the center of Kellister. His eyes drifted to the large building that directly abutted the square. Caden recalled noticing the place and the large crowd that had built up around it in the wake of the gnoll raid. Alyssia had later explained that a pair of herbalists, a married couple, lived there, catering to the ills and injuries of Kellister’s residents. Both were Apprentice level, and skilled enough that people from other smaller villages would come to Kellister for help treating their more dangerous maladies.
In the cities, Storyteller claimed, alchemy was far more common than in the Heartlands. Alchemists could distill the magic absorbed by reagents in nature to create a variety of magically-infused concoctions, including the potions Caden kept in a tight pocket of his vest. But in the Heartlands, alchemy was too wasteful to be sustainable. The gift of the herbalist, another gift from the Elder, not only allowed for the cultivation of reagents in small gardens like the one adjacent to Kellister’s town square, but gave them the ability to temporarily improve the magic of a given reagent, making glintcaps and shimmerberries effective enough to treat even severe wounds without the need to decant potions.
Caden’s mother had sought out an herbalist to live in Felisen for years, but only recently had someone proven to have the proper inclination to receive the gift–Ellie, a girl a couple years older than Caden was. The girl Brian started seeing after they had broken things off.
Caden was faintly surprised to find that the thought of her first partner and the comely blonde herbalist didn’t stir up the dark emotions he had anticipated. Instead, he found himself thankful that Storyteller had helped Ellie gain the gift of the alchemist to go with her herbalism. Given enough time, her arts would be an immeasurable boon to Felisen.
Finally, Caden decided that yes, his home would be as capable of rebounding from such a severe attack as Kellister was. That was, in many ways, the true gift of the Elder–the ability to persevere and flourish, even in the face of constant danger like that which still haunted the supposedly settled Heartlands.
If only he could say the same for his own powers. Sometimes, it felt like he had moved backwards since he had left home with Storyteller. He had more experience than ever, and had defeated dozens of minor monsters, but against other battle-gifted, his skills were stagnating. He felt little better than he had fighting Brian in the makeshift practice ring back home.
All around him were people, from hunters to laborers to healers, who found the perfect gifts for what they wanted to do and wanted to be and cultivated their talents around them. But Caden was different. His gift of the wanderer, a gift he wasn’t even supposed to have at Novice level, was handy enough to have on the road, but offered nothing worthwhile in combat. It was the gift of the echo that had occupied all of his training time, still to little effect.
Sure, when he could copy an ability as potent as Storyteller’s Lightning Bolt, or when he was boosted by his Soul Surge, he was more than able to handle himself, but both of those offered significant drawbacks. They couldn’t be relied on. And without them, he was little better than someone with no gifts at all!
Caden frowned, pensive and dissatisfied, as he finished making his way back to the inn, wondering if he had made the right choice on the bonfire hill all those weeks ago.