(Year 997, 14th of Full Inji, 12:25PM)
Meals with Dad were always a bit awkward, since neither of us really knew how to get a conversation going. He’d say something, I’d make a comment, he’d say “Huh”, and it would die. And then he’d try again, and the same thing would happen. And then, maybe I’d say something, and he’d say something I hadn’t expected, and I’d just drop it.
Lunch today was worse than usual. After our conversation in the woods, we just skipped straight to the same place those conversations always went: Eating together in silence.
That wasn’t necessarily the worst thing in the world, since I had a lot to think about, but it still felt wrong to say nothing. That’s why, when we were about halfway through our sandwiches, I asked, “Are you going back to work after lunch?”
Dad took another bite of his sandwich, took a minute to chew and swallow, and then nodded. “Yeah, the shortage isn’t too bad today. We’ve got enough Druids available to keep trees in stock for a ten-man crew, so they sent home the fellas who live out in the foothills. The guys who live in town get to keep cutting.”
More mention of the Druids. “Dad, are the Druids really that sick? It’s been months… every time I’ve been sick, it’s only taken me a week or two to get over it. Same for all the other kids in the village, I think.”
Dad swallowed the last bite of his sandwich, then took a deep breath. “It’s… complicated. I’ve been asking some questions, and people say it’s not a normal illness, it’s… something is wrong around here magically, but nobody knows what, and it’s making them suffer.” He shook his head. “I’ll ask Bishop Mordecai about it when he’s in town tomorrow, I think. We may be out in the rear end of nowhere, but surely the Church must be doing something about it, and it just… hasn’t been working. I want to know what.”
With a sigh, he pushed out his chair from the table and got up. “But for now, I’ve gotta go do the work. You gonna be alright here?”
That seemed like a weird question to ask… Dad must’ve remembered me being weird in the forest. I nodded. “Yeah, I’m alright. I might… go out into the hills or something?” I wasn’t actually sure what I was going to do, but it was better to say something.
Dad looked at me for a moment, and I couldn’t figure out what he was thinking. Then he nodded. “Probably better than being in your room, at least. Just… be safe and remember the sign.” He started walking off to the door, but then he turned back. “Oh, and no more axe practice without me, alright?”
I nodded, and Dad was out the door, going back to work.
Which meant I was left alone again to try to figure out my Consumption problem.
Really, what even was left for me to try? I’d tried to learn more about [Indulge], but that had just dug a deeper hole by increasing my Level.
I would’ve continued complaining to myself, honestly, but that thought reminded me that I’d made a new “Advancement” when I leveled up. I’d been too frustrated to check it before…
I looked down at my plate, noticed I hadn’t finished my sandwich, and then took another bite.
My problem, as best as I could figure it, was still information – well, really, my problem was that I didn’t have any. I had no idea how I’d gained my first level in Consumption, no idea how that was possible (because apparently it shouldn’t be), no idea whether Dad or Miss Ambrose knew anything that might help me, and really, no idea what would happen to me if Bishop Mordecai checked my Status tomorrow and found out that I had a Level in a Sinful Path.
Other than the fact that whatever happened to me, it would probably be pretty bad.
Unfortunately, that brought me back to two options which were starting to look similarly risky: Ask Dad or Miss Ambrose about my problem without knowing how they’d react, or try to figure things out on my own… at a cost of maybe making things worse by gaining another level.
Considering that Miss Ambrose would still be teaching Lessons for a few hours, and Dad would be in the woods until supper… my choice was clear.
I waved my hand to look at my Status again, and focus on the “Advancement” text. It was time to see what had come with my new Level.
The text of the advancement simply read, Skill Unlocked: [Absorb].
A new skill… as if trying to learn about [Indulge] hadn’t gone badly already.
What other choice did I have, though?
Dismissing the Status illusion to take a look at my Skill Overview instead, I was unsurprised to see the new dot on the “Petal” representing Consumption, connected to [Indulge] by a thin purple line. Focusing on [Absorb] enlarged it to fill the illusionary image, and a description popped up: “Consume and contain your surroundings. Affects the inanimate.”
I’d been lying when I told Dad that I would go for a walk in the field, but this Skill… I had a bad feeling about [Absorb]. I felt like I was about to cross a line… like [Indulge] had been preparing me for something, and [Absorb] was what I’d been prepared for, or at least a part of it.
For a moment, I reconsidered my plan to keep testing my Skills out. If I was right, and I was about to cross a line…
I shook my head. No. There was no point in thinking about that.
Understanding what I was dealing with was the only way I would be able to save myself when Bishop Mordecai came to town, and the best way to do that right now was to study.
With that taken care of, I got right up from my seat at the table and marched out of the house. I nearly forgot to flip the sign on my way out.
I wasn’t quite sure which direction to go when I walked out the door, but it wasn’t hard to figure out. I didn’t want to march through much of town to get into the fields, so that meant following the road west, since there was less town on that side. Past the church, a couple of houses, and the building that used to be the tavern (Barkeep Ewen still owned it, according to Dad, but he’d been letting it sit empty because he didn’t know what to do with it), and I was looking out into the open fields. The land was pretty flat around the village, without a lot of hills (on this side of the village, at least), but it dipped down a fair bit just a few minutes’ walk away from the village, so I wouldn’t be easy to see if I stuck near the bottom of the slope… either that, or I could walk further out to the north, toward the farmers’ fields, until I was out of sight.
Sticking to the bottom of the slope, I decided, would be good enough, so I stumbled my way down (but didn’t fall, which was pretty good), and made my way over to a relatively large and flat rock I recognized, since I needed somewhere to sit.
Now that I’d found a good place to get to work, I had to do the part that might be a problem – actually using my new skill.
“Consume and contain my surroundings”, the Skill Overview had said… That still didn’t sound good, but even if I’d made up my mind to do it, I still had to figure out how.
That got me to think back to the previous night. When I first used [Indulge], almost by accident, all I’d really had to do was think about it, and then it had become… well, it’d become a bit like moving my arm or leg. It took a bit of focus, but I barely had to think about it anymore, I could just do it.
So, then came the issue of trying it out on something… That was solved by just hopping off my rock and kicking around until I found a pebble.
With my newfound pebble in hand, I stared down at it, and tried to focus my mind on the power to [Absorb], the way I did with [Indulge]. For a moment, nothing seemed to happen, but then…
It’s actually hard to describe what happened when I used [Absorb]. It was a bit like the pebble was pulled into my body, sure, but it also seemed like a hole had opened up in the palm of my hand and the pebble fell into it. It looked and felt like a bit of both. I could see the hole, but I could also see my skin bulging, and I could feel the rock moving around inside me, until it just… disappeared.
At the same time the pebble disappeared, though, something else… “Appeared” wasn’t the right word, because it was a feeling, and the best way I could describe it was by saying I felt full. Not heavy, and not ‘full’ the way I would feel after a meal. It was almost like I’d eaten something, but it just wasn’t right.
On a hunch, I took a look at my Personal Statistics to see if anything had changed, and sure enough:
Aedan Omarsson
Peasant
Age: 14
Good: 0
Physique: 0 (0/0)
Evil: 0
Dexterity: 1 (0/1)
Order: 0
Mind: 3 (2/1)
Chaos: 0
Soul: 0 (0/0)
Creation: 0
Fortune: 0 (0/0)
Consumption: 2
Substance Consumed
Energy Consumed
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Earth: 0.5/10
Advancements: [1]
The “Earth” under “Substance”, I figured, would be the stone I’d consumed. It was interesting, though, that “Energy” was blank… A different kind of thing, maybe? Something I hadn’t tried yet?
The fact that it was Earth, too… I got another idea. Before I could attend to that, though, I had to stare at that “0.5” for a moment. What did that mean?
Honestly, I wasn’t really sure what “0.5/10” meant at all. It didn’t really make sense for that to be a “measures above average” thing, the way Statistics were, since this didn’t even have an average… so maybe it was a portion, like we’d learned in classes?
If that were the case, whatever “0.5” was, that was how many portions out of ten I’d Consumed… which meant I could only Consume a certain amount.
On a hunch, I knelt down, pressed my hand to the ground, and focused on [Absorb] again. For a moment, nothing happened, but then I felt a tickling sensation, and then I saw the ground under my hand start to move as it was sucked in. At the same time, I watched the “Earth” number on my Statistics begin to change, counting upward to 1/10, and then to 2/10, and then to 3/10, and then–
I forced myself to stop, and looked back down at the ground. Not much dirt had been removed, but there was a visible hole at my feet… it was a rounded-off hole, though, like it had been there for a while, or like someone had done a good job of making it look that way.
Sure enough, when I looked back up to my Statistics,
Aedan Omarsson
Peasant
Age: 14
Good: 0
Physique: 0 (0/0)
Evil: 0
Dexterity: 1 (0/1)
Order: 0
Mind: 3 (2/1)
Chaos: 0
Soul: 0 (0/0)
Creation: 0
Fortune: 0 (0/0)
Consumption: 2
Substance Consumed
Energy Consumed
Earth: 4.3/10
Life Consumed
Essence Consumed
Plant: 0.2/10
Advancements: [1]
Still no Energy, and now these new categories…
I shook my head. I… I was getting carried away. Sure, I’d never seen anything like this before, but this power… it was sinful, right? I shouldn’t be using it. The only reason I was using it was to figure it out, so I could hopefully figure out how to get rid of it. Sure, I hadn’t figured out what ‘Energy’ was, but this was no time to be playing around.
All the same, I got up off the ground. I’d had another idea earlier, about what “Substance” might include, and I wanted to check it out. I turned myself north-ish (really, it was northeast, but I would be north of the village when it all worked out), and set off for the lake near town.
As I walked, I finally focused in on my new “Advancement”, and saw the message, “Skill Unlocked: [Release]”.
Another new Skill, but without an increase in Level this time…?
I dismissed my Statistics to look at my Skills, and I saw that instead of proceeding further down the “petal”, like the path from [Indulge] to [Absorb], the path from [Absorb] to [Release] shot off to the side, meaning it went upward and to the left. Focusing in on the new Skill revealed the description, “Expel what you have Absorbed.”
‘Expel’... I recognized that word from books, so I knew that it meant pushing one thing out of another… sure enough, when I tried to [Release], I thought of the pebble I’d sucked in, and it reappeared in the palm of my hand. It felt like letting go, in a way… until I re-used [Absorb] to suck it back into me.
So, I could pull things inside me, and then push them back out…
That gave me another new idea.
I’d heard stories (mostly read stories, actually) about mages being able to move the elements around with their magic, throwing rocks at their enemies or setting them on fire, so I pointed my arm straight out ahead of me. Instead of just letting go, I tried to push the pebble out, like I was putting some muscle into it, and –
The pebble I’d absorbed shot out of my arm like I’d tossed it from a sling.
And then I heard a yelp.
I didn’t even have time to feel proud of myself.
I rushed forward, not even sure what I’d hit, and then I saw it. A rabbit, dead on the ground, where it had been hiding in the wheaty grass.
There was an open wound on the back of its head, with my pebble lodged in it. I must’ve hurt it really badly all at once, since it definitely looked dead.
It hadn’t even stood a chance.
I felt bad, obviously, but… was it even really my fault? It couldn’t be anyone else’s fault, but I hadn’t even seen the rabbit. I had no idea that I was pointing my hand at it, or how fast the pebble would fly, so nobody would blame me for–
That was where I stopped myself. Nobody would blame me for killing a rabbit. It was just an animal, after all.
Nobody would blame me but me, anyway.
Still, I knelt down next to it, and reached down to… At first, I just patted its fur, but then I looked at the wound again. My pebble was still in there, and really, it was just a pebble, but… it felt important, somehow? I’d just killed a rabbit with that pebble, it was special now. Besides, it would probably look weird if anyone found it, and I didn’t want anyone to think something weird was going on in the village. I didn’t want to get blood on my hands, though… that would make it obvious that something had happened to me, besides just being gross.
Instead of just reaching out to pull the pebble out of the wound, I held my hand close to it, and tried to pull the pebble out using [Absorb].
I felt a tingling in my hand, and then an illusion popped up in front of me, without me doing anything myself: “This skill has not been unlocked yet. Unlock early?” There was another line below that, reading, “Warning: Early unlock will have a cost. Cost can be paid with 2 units of Substance.”
That was where I should’ve stopped. I didn’t know how much Substance “2 units” was, or what Skill I was even “unlocking”.
I should’ve stopped, but I didn’t. Instead, I assumed, like an idiot, that I was just unlocking a skill to [Absorb] things without touching them, because that’s what I was trying to do. I focused on “Unlock early?” and tried to think positive thoughts, agreeing.
Then, another illusion appeared: “Warning: Capacity not sufficient. Consume units of new Substance to increase Capacity?”
This should’ve been my warning sign that something was wrong, that I was wrong about what I was really doing… but again, I thought about agreeing, and both illusions disappeared.
The tingling in my hand got worse, turning into a pins-and-needles feeling, and then it shot up my entire arm, and then it kept getting worse, until it felt like my arm was going to break…
And then, before my eyes, the entire rabbit was absorbed the same way as the pebble had been. Skin, blood, bone, everything. Nothing left behind.
I just stared forward at the ground, eyes wide, as my Status appeared before me again.
Aedan Omarsson
Peasant
Age: 14
Good: 0
Physique: 0 (0/0)
Evil: 0
Dexterity: 1 (0/1)
Order: 0
Mind: 3 (2/1)
Chaos: 0
Soul: 0 (0/0)
Creation: 0
Fortune: 0 (0/0)
Consumption: 2
Substance Consumed
Energy Consumed
Earth: 2.3/10
Life Consumed
Essence Consumed
Plant: 0.2/10
Beast Soul: 1/10
Hair: 3/10
Flesh: 5/10
Muscle: 7/10
Blood: 10/40
Bone: 4/10
Advancements: [1]
After what had just happened, I needed to check the Advancement. I knew I shouldn’t, it felt like a mistake, but… I had to.
The Advancement message simply read, “Skill [Absorb] has advanced to Skill [Devour].”