~ CHAPTER 11 ~

THE MAGIC OF CARING AND BELONGING, PART 1

I actually somehow managed to make it back to the Keeper’s sanctuary without really noticing. How does one leap a stone wall and balance on the edge of a magical sewage dump, not to mention crawl under buildings and jump over others without noticing? Well whatever, it had been a long day.

My thoughts were... occupied. What kind of a person had Essy really been under that immature exterior? The way she'd almost talked down to me had made me think she was maybe a college student, but in the end, did I really know anything? I'd thought I kind of liked her, but had that person even been real? Or just an act shown to outsiders.

And that was the thing. That had been a tight knit group if I'd ever seen one. Comfortable enough in each other’s presence that they could go off and do totally different things, and not even have to say anything, while just assuming that the others were doing what they had to be. They hadn’t even needed to be in a party with each other, yet it had apparently never so much as crossed Essy’s mind that she could temporarily drop party to work with me. Then at the end, Essy had said to Amii 'you know we'll be here for you' like, rather than anything in-game, she was offering emotional support. That wasn't the kind of party you found on day one of a newly launched game. It wasn't the kind of party you found anywhere in fact, if my netgame experience was anything to go by - it was a family.

Which made that final message from Desirée that much more disturbing. What kind of person warns other people to stay away from their own family? I'd assumed she was aloof and maybe a little arrogant, but what if she had been worried the whole time about me. About me getting too involved. What kind of relationship was that?

And, finally, who had been the 'trouble' that I didn’t want to meet? Who Essy had talked about like she was some unwelcome chore to be endured - was this person another part of the family?

I didn't have anything to say. If I could help, I wanted to help, but what could I offer when I didn’t know anything? What could I offer when I couldn’t even figure out how to play my own class properly, let alone finish a simple collection quest without having to rely on others.

But, in the end, I had finished. Essy and I had parted on friendly terms, and she’d even invited me to visit her future shop. It would be rude not to take her up on the offer, and if I was being perfectly honest, I actually wanted to do it. I wanted to be her friend.

So…

So whatever Desirée had been trying to warn me away from, I guess she’d been right about at least one thing - it was too late. This was my story. I was the one who got to decide how it went.

I glanced out over the forest of rooftops, noting the position of the clocktower at just before three. I wasn’t sure what time the Keeper had planned to have supper, but it occurred to me I might have actually come back a little early. I hesitated, looking anxiously at the little green door, but eventually decided that if she didn’t need me I could always come back later.

I descended the dark staircase, enjoying the cool air and the sense of closeness that worn interior gave off, then knocked on the door at the bottom. For a moment I didn’t hear anything, then the Keeper’s voice sounded like she was calling from a couple rooms away. “Who is it?”

I raised my voice to call back. “River!”

More silence, then I heard “Just a moment” drift from inside.

There were a couple miscellaneous thumps, then a click, and the door pulled open and I saw the Keeper standing in the light wearing a stained apron with her arms covered in some strange white powder.

“Oh, hello again dear. I wasn’t expecting to see you back so early. Did everything go as planned?”

“Eh, not exactly, but I did get a jar of resin.” I pulled it out to show to her, “I had to ge-”

“Ooh what’s this?” She interrupted me, looking appreciatively at the jar in my hand. “This looks like the thicker stuff from down underwater. Did you wind up going for a swim then?”

“Yeah I… I’m sorry I…” I hung my head. “I couldn’t complete it on my own. I had to get someone to help me.”

She frowned. “Well did you properly thank them then?”

I nodded. “Oh yeah, I wound up helping her with her own quest, which is how I found out about the underwater mushrooms in the end, and she even invited me to come visit her later, once her shop is up and running.”

“Well then there’s no issue, is there?”

I blinked at her. “Um… well… ah. Yeah, I guess.”

She smiled and stepped back from the door. “Why don’t you come in and sit down for a bit?”

“Alright, sounds good.”

She waited for me to come in, then shut the door behind me. As I stepped into the room, I heard the now familiar *ping* to announce the completion of my quest.

Quest Complete!

[The Ancient Keeper of Runic Magic (Part 2)]

Gather a [Jar of Resin] from the fungi growing on the charred logs in [Evelyn’s Bog], and bring it back to the Keeper.

[Optional] Gather resin only from the fungi that still remember the ancient flame.

I was surprised but pleased when I saw my realisation about the mushrooms was recognized even by the Quest System. It would have been nice to get some official confirmation a little earlier, but I hadn’t ever really doubted.

As I was admiring the completion text, the Keeper bustled into the next room. “You’ll have to forgive me I don’t have anything prepared for you. I wasn’t expecting you back until around suppertime. I thought you’d want to check out the town for a bit at least, now you’re here. Maybe buy something pretty.”

“That’s alright.” I followed her back. “I uh, don’t really have any money to buy anything with right now anyway, other than the bit you gave me. Thanks for that by the way, especially the fruit.”

Standing in the doorway, I found I was looking at what appeared to a perfectly ordinary kitchen, albeit one a little on the small side and missing all the modern conveniences of the real world. On the counter was a small mound of something soft and yellowish surrounded by a thin layer of the same white powder I’d seen on the Keeper. It wasn’t some mysterious magical substance I realised… it was flour. She was making dough.

She glanced back at me. “Oh that’s right, I suppose you wouldn’t. Well there’s always jobs to be done in a town like this, I’m sure you’ll have plenty in no time. Speaking of-” She handed me a knife and nodded to a pile of blue-green leafy things to her right. “If you’re going to just stand there, why don't you make yourself useful?”

I took the knife and went over to begin chopping. It was… kind of stressful. Beside me the Keeper set to work rolling out her dough, and on the other side a large black pot was starting to boil.

All in all, the kitchen was about the same size as the first room, but long and narrow instead of squarish, with shelves stacked above and below the long countertop on one side, and what were probably cupboards running floor to ceiling on the other. I could see nothing that looked like an open flame, other than the fireplace in the other room framed in the doorway, but clearly something was heating the pot - most likely magic.

At the end nearest the door where I’d come in, on the other side of the Keeper, was a series of hanging baskets filled with small hard-looking roundish brown things, slightly larger oblong red things, and mushy-looking spiky purple things, as well as a small collection of what I recognized as Sunfruit. There was also a large number of dry brown stalks hanging from the ceiling in bundles. On the other side, past the pot, was what appeared to be a large wash basin, followed by an open doorway leading into another room. The light from the fireplace didn’t reach that far in, though, so all I could see past that point was blackness.

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The Keeper glanced over at me. “A bit smaller than that dear, or it’ll come out all chewy.”

I stared helplessly at the tangled pile of zigzaggy stems and crinkly leaves, not sure how to achieve what she was asking. Whatever plant this was, I was sure that getting it to lay in nice orderly rows for me was definitely not on the agenda.

The Keeper held out a hand wordlessly, and I passed her the knife. “Like this.” She demonstrated a series of quick sliding and scooping motions with the knife, then handed it back to me. There was no way I’d be able to imitate her deftness, but at least now I knew where to start.

We worked in silence for a little while longer, then the Keeper spoke again. “You know, River, we’re all social creatures. Mistborn maybe less so than some of the other races, but even for us, you can always achieve better things when you work together.”

I looked at her with a frown, not sure what she was getting at.

She continued. “I’m just saying that there’s no shame in asking for help. In fact, as Runemasters, it is perhaps not so different from what we do all the time.”

I understood what she was saying now. I wanted to protest, but she held up a hand to stop me. “Knowing when you’ve reached your limit is just as important a skill as any other, as is knowing how to approach others, and when you have something to offer them in return. As long as you properly thank them, and work together, then that strength is as real as if you had ever pushed through on your own.”

I was staring a hole in the countertop, not moving a muscle. The Keeper wasn’t finished, though. “Don’t be ashamed of who you are, River. There’s only one of you, and however long it takes you to find your strength, whatever it winds up being, when you do find it, it will be something only you can offer. Out here on the frontier, everyone has something they’re trying to hide, something they’re running away from. No one has the time to make you be anyone else but you.”

I wanted to say something, anything, to refute what she was saying, but my throat wouldn’t respond. There was something uncomfortable stuck in it.

The silence stretched out painfully. Finally, after what felt like minutes, I managed to get a word out edgeways. “What… what would you do if you knew… someone was running… but they never asked you for help.” I still didn’t look at her.

The Keeper’s voice was soft. “I would let them know that I was there for them, when they’re ready.”

I shook my head slowly. “I don’t think it would be enough. I’m too… far outside.”

The Keeper chuckled. “Like I said sweetie, everyone’s running from something. At some point it’s up to them to know what they need. You can only give them what they ask, or a friendly face otherwise. It’s not your place to do any more than that.”

I finally looked up and nodded, though I still couldn’t look at her face. “I’ll do that then.”

“I believe we were talking about you, though. Do you know what you’re running from?”

That question blindsided me. “I… don’t know.”

She chuckled. “Well, I’m sure you’ll figure it out eventually. In the meantime…”

I looked up at her face to see her smiling. “You’ll be here for me?” I asked.

She snorted. “Maybe, depends how long it takes you. I was going to say, in the meantime you might as well finish chopping those veggies.”

“Right!” I returned to work with renewed energy. I wasn’t sure what the Keeper had meant about me running away, but it dawned on me that she hadn’t actually been criticising me. Her advice was… strange, but if she said it was ok, then all I could do was believe her.

I finished chopping and went over to the black pot. “Do I just dump these in here?”

The Keeper looked at me in alarm. “Oh no! Not unless you want your skin to burn off later!”

I quickly withdrew my hand. “Huh?”

“I was going to tell you later, but I guess now is fine. The truth is, as much as due diligence is important, it would probably be preferred not to keep the Creator Flame guessing for days or weeks while you gather the other ingredients, not to mention you yourself now this path is open to you. Of course I’ll have you regather what we use to replenish my stock, but before then, there should be no problem to use what I have on hand.”

I was about to protest, not liking the idea of cutting any corners, but, thinking about it, what she said made sense. There was a balance between doing everything correctly, and not taking forever to do it. “Sooo… what’s boiling in this pot is actually the Flame-Seared Ink I’ll be using?”

“Not precisely, it’s one of the other components. We’ll distill this lovely resin you gathered just before supper and leave it to set while we eat, then we can transmute it all together as soon as you’re ready. This part has to be done early though, or it won’t properly separate when the time comes.”

I realised this meant I’d be able to inscribe my Rune in only a few more hours. Now that I fully appreciated just how futile my pretending to be a martial artist had been, the thought greatly appealed to me. On top of that, if I was being honest, seeing what Essy had been able to do with just a little extra knowledge had left me feeling slightly inferior. I didn’t think the comparison was exactly being fair, but it still left me wanting to push myself harder.

I smiled at the Keeper. “I think I’d like that.”

Apparently that counted as an important agreement, because a moment later, I heard the *ping* to announce a new quest.

New Quest!

[The Ancient Keeper of Runic Magic (Part 3)]

Follow the Keeper’s guidance to become a new [Runemaster].

There were still several hours to go, though.

I continued to help the Keeper as she worked, learning bits and pieces about what she was doing. It seemed the whole process of preparing the ink would be way too involved for me to learn in a short time, but I enjoyed watching her and asking the occasional question. It turned out that actually most of what we were doing was preparing supper, but that was no less mysterious.

At some point I heard another *ping* and gained the Skill: [Elementary Ingredient Preparation (passive)], but… well... if it was supposed to help me in actually preparing ingredients, I eventually concluded it must be broken. The small brown things tasted like sour yogurt… taffy. Don’t ask how I knew. Secret.

I found out the next room was some kind of cross between a library, an alchemical workshop, and a sleeping space. It was larger than either of the other rooms, and had various desks and tables organized neatly around its edges on its right side. Most of the level space was occupied by large pieces of parchment covered in strange patterns and diagrams, but a few had racks of metal rods sticking up, almost like dish racks, between which were suspended odd-shaped glass containers filled with substances of various obviously unnatural colours.

On the room’s left side was a partition like a chinese screen, behind which appeared to be a bed carved into the natural stone wall. That seemed to be the entire apartment, fitting into a space only slightly larger than my living room in the real world. If there were any other doors, I didn’t see them.

Eventually, after an hour of this peaceful scene, the Keeper reached into a drawer and pressed a small vial into my hand. “We’ve got just about everything we need here, but since there’s two of us I thought it might be nice to have some meat to go along with the dumplings. I was going to have that man go do it, but since you’re here that works out nicely.” She nodded to the door. “Why don’t you take this and go see what you can find, some of those Mistroot Kebabs from Melthor’s might work, and while you’re at it, pick up something nice for yourself. Go explore for a bit, and try to be back in a couple of hours.”

And with that, I was dismissed. I headed up the staircase and out into town, wondering where I’d start. I didn’t actually know where ‘Melthor’s’ was, but it didn’t sound like it was all that important, and besides there were only so many shops to look for in a town this size - at least until the outer district had sprung up.

~ ~ 26/1/1/15:33 ~ ~

Status: [River]

Class: [Novice Mistborn Magical Martial Artist]

Location: [Cowl’s Landing - The Keeper's Terrace]

Health 35/39 ~ Mana 40/40 ~ Stamina 37/41 Equipped Skills (6/8):

[Force Infused Palm]

[Myriad Fists]

[Imbued Defence]

[Unarmed Discipline (Passive)]

[Body Conditioning (Passive)]

[Elementary Ingredient Preparation (Passive)] Statistics:

Defence +8

Resistance +4

Constitution +4

Willpower +4

Endurance +4 Equipped Items (2/8):

[New Arrival’s Simple Dress]

[New Arrival’s Simple Shoes]

Other Skills:

[Inscribe: Rune of the Creator Flame (0/1)] Other Items:

[Special Edition Founder’s Token]

[Novice Healing Potion]

[Novice Mana Potion]

[Small Pouch]

[Vial of Silver Gemdust (10)]

[Small Iron Key]

[Sugary Biscuit]x2

[Vial of Ochre Gemdust (5)]

Active Quests:

[Acquire Ancient Flame-Seared Ink]

[The Ancient Keeper of Runic Magic (Part 3)]

[State of Becoming]