Date: 2022-08-30 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fantasy; Magic; Fiction; Gods; Slice Of Life; Crafts
Description: Life’s tough when you’re trapped in an eight-year-old body on another world. His name is Eight. Not really, but that’s what the System decided after a slip of the tongue. One moment, he was stepping out the office door on the way home, and the next waking up on a hillside below a town wall. Oh, and the gate guard drove him off, because he thought Eight was a monster. What’s a boy to do in a world full of magic and so many, many hungry creatures searching for their next meal? Well, there’s an old man inside that body, and he'll use everything he’s learned in his sixty-four years to survive. Sta

EIGHT

– Book 1 –

A LitRPG Novel of Magical Survival
by

Samer Rabadi

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without prior written permission from the author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

Copyright © 2022 by Samer Rabadi

Cover art by Tithi Luadthong
www.samerrabadi.com

For Mary, my heart now and always.

I’m grateful for the communities on Royal Road and Patreon for their support. They’ve kept me writing when things got hard.

Dear reader, every book is a journey. Thank you for joining me on this one.

CONTENTS

A Sky Like Robins’ Eggs

Introducing Eight

An Otter Way to Think About Status Screens

On this World, the Worm Fishes You

Of Monsters, Terrible and Sweet

Extermination and Loot

A Grandfather’s Lessons

Getting Crafty

Fortifying the Spirit

Of Dark and Silver Light

Paths Chosen and Ignored

The Magic of Magic I

The Magic of Magic II

Little Horrors

Breakthrough

When Birds Scatter

Guerilla Tactics

The Gift of Death I

The Gift of Death II

The Gift of Death III

The Fear Inside

The Hope Inside

Found in Translation

The Taste of Justice

Three Times is Intention

A Poisoned Package

Preparation

A Midnight Raid

Let’s Eat

Family

Perspective: Billisha and Aluali

Perspective: Ikfael

About the Author

Also by Samer Rabadi

1

A Sky Like Robins’ Eggs

The sky was blue, the color of a robin’s egg.

I saw a nest of them once, while climbing a neighbor’s tree. I was eight at the time and hunting for a stray frisbee. My brother, the jackass, had thrown it next door. I didn’t remember the reason why—that part was hazy—but I would never forget my surprise at finding the eggs. They sat in their nest like a handful of treasures.

That was fifty-six years ago, practically a lifetime.

As I watched, a smattering of clouds drifted across the sky. The wind up there must really be blowing for them to move like that. Down below, where I was, the breeze was gentle, swaying the grass around me.

I looked around and realized I was lying on my back on a hillside. In the distance, a line of trees marked the edge of a forest. Fields and crops stood in between, while farther up the hill was a tall wall, like the kind you’d find in a Miyazaki film. The stones were cartoonish in their size and placement. They reached up at least thirty feet though and seemed sturdy.

I couldn’t remember arriving at this place.

My last memory was of leaving the office. I worked as an office manager for a company making documentary films for the education market. We were called Southwind Productions, which was ironic for a company based in Portland, Oregon. The weather report had predicted freezing rain in the afternoon, so I’d cut out of work early to beat the bad weather and traffic. The next thing I knew I was on the hillside, with no sign of cold or rain. If anything, the air was balmy. The breeze felt good against my body.

I lifted my hands. They were smaller than they should have been, and held none of the scars a person naturally gathered over time. They were innocent hands, untouched by life, and the rest of my body matched.

I was no longer sixty-four years old, but a… child. If I had to guess, I was about nine or ten? Had I slipped and hit my head? Was I unconscious and dreaming?

The sky, the scent of the grass, and the way the hillside prodded my back—those all felt real. My thoughts and emotions were muffled though.

I recognized that something very wrong had taken place, but the alarm was distant, as if under a thick blanket of mild acceptance. Minutes passed. An hour or two. I didn’t wake up. Nothing happened besides the clouds continuing to shift across the sky.

More time passed. My body became hungry. There was an emptiness inside me, as if I’d been fasting for days. My distant mind registered that I should find food.

I stood. On my feet were woolen socks and a pair of leather shoes. I also wore thick woolen pants and shirt. They were simple clothes but well made. I peeked inside the pants. Still male. At least that hadn’t changed.

I walked uphill to follow the line of the wall. Where there were people, there would be food, and I found my first person after a short walk. A man stood at the gate to the town. He wore chainmail over a thick cloth jacket, and a spear rested on his shoulder.

I stood there amazed. Even my distant thoughts went silent. It had been a long time since I’d been to a Renaissance Faire, and I hadn’t expected to come across one so randomly.

The guard at the gate grew more and more uneasy as I stared at him. The spear went from resting on his shoulder to being held at the ready. His knuckles were white gripping the haft.

He yelled at me and brandished his spear. A woman dressed in mail came out to join him. They hurriedly exchanged words, but I understood none of them. The language sounded like nothing I’d heard before.

The woman also held a spear, and she joined in pointing it at me. Their faces were ugly with fear.

I wanted to move closer, to explain that they had nothing to worry about. This was a dream, after all, an artifact of dreaming or being unconscious. None of what I’d experienced since waking could be real.

The words wouldn’t come out though. My thoughts were smothered before they could coalesce by the strange feeling in my head. The result was that I just stood there, blank-faced. I knew the situation was wrong, but I wasn’t capable of addressing it. I might as well have been a mannequin or doll.

Eventually, a person in robes stepped through the gate. They wore a mask in the shape of a crow and carried a wooden hoop two feet across. More words were exchanged, and the two guards stepped back to give them space.

When the person in robes began to sing, the mask moved just as a real crow’s beak might.

It reminded me of early in my career, during the summer I’d helped build puppets on the set of The Meadow Princess. This was before computer-generated imagery, so the kid’s show relied heavily on costumes and puppetry for its effect. This mask was much better than anything we’d built though.

The space inside the hoop twisted. I was curious to see what would happen, so I shifted forward—but froze when a snake, mottled black and green, poked its head out from inside the hoop.

The snake’s glare snapped me from my daze and sent me running. Down the hill I went, and along the dirt road between fields, my feet stumbling on the uneven surface. Out of the corners of my eyes, I saw corn and tomatoes and oxen. A few people too, bobbing up and down as they worked the earth.

The feeling in my head spread out, throttling the panic coursing through me, but leaving behind an overwhelming need to find a place to hide. My eyes were drawn to the woods ahead, and I sprinted as fast as my legs would take me. I ran and ran, past the treeline and headlong into the forest, not paying attention to the brush and branches.

I don’t know how long I ran, but it felt endless. Slowly, the muffling of my thoughts eased enough that I could think and control myself again.

My feet skidded on the forest loam as I stopped running. My breath came in big, heaving gulps. Sweat drenched my shirt, and my hand held my side because of the stitch there. Worst of all, my shoes squelched from the burst blisters and blood inside them. These sensations—there’s no way this can be a dream. And then I had a second thought: If there’s a wall, there’s something to keep out.

Under normal circumstances that meant people, either bandits or invaders, but I’d just seen a crow-person pull a snake from a hoop. There might be things just as strange or dangerous in the woods. Maybe the forest won’t be the refuge I thought it would be.

Fear swelled within me, but the muffling came back to press it down. I stood helpless for an unknown amount of time before the pressure eased.

My thoughts were jumbled afterward, scattered, but I knew I couldn’t panic—not about my unbelievable circumstances or the danger. I had to keep a lid on my emotions, because whatever was afflicting me would do it for me if I didn’t. I couldn’t even worry about the source of the affliction, because even the fear of it would cause it to trigger.

The only thing I could think of to help was to stop thinking, which is what I forced myself to do. I had to put aside my worries and wait to freak out until after I’d found a safe place to rest.

Lost in the woods as I was, I needed to focus on finding shelter, water, and food. Those necessities I at least knew how to address. They’d been drummed into me by mi abuelito the first time he’d taken me hunting, by my experiences working for Southwind, and by the years of hiking with my wife and children.

I started looking for a safe place to camp. The trees were a mix of pine, cedar, hemlock, spruce, and maple—those were the familiar ones. There were some that I didn’t recognize though. One tree had black, furry bark and reddish pods hanging from its branches. Another was striped yellow, the leaves smelling like cardamom.

My heart beat fast when I spotted those trees. They were alien and unlike anything I’d seen as a backpacker and documentarian. As an avid reader of fantasy and science fiction, I knew exactly what those trees meant. Another world… this is another world. All I needed was a horned rabbit or a goblin to confirm it.

My head spun. I desperately wanted to sit, but I was afraid if I did I wouldn’t be able to get up again. My feet were on fire from the burst blisters; the pain was radiating into my legs and groin.

I also missed my adult body. Even as an older man, I’d been stronger than I was now. At least I was more nimble in this body—not that it helped reduce the cuts and scratches from my helter-skelter run through the forest. I’d been too focused on getting away from the town for that.

Apparently, I’d managed to trade an old man’s troubles for a child’s. Although, if this was a portal fantasy, maybe there was a way to quantify the changes?

“Status,” I said, but nothing happened. “No? Hmm. What about appraisal?”

There was no response to my commands—no blue screens or other tropes of the isekai genre—but that didn’t matter. My priorities hadn’t changed. I still needed to find shelter, water, and food.

“One step at a time,” I said, whispering to myself.

There were no obvious places to shelter nearby, so I started to explore the area. A few minutes later, I stopped—the pain in my feet made my eyes water. Maybe a short rest, I thought.

I was leaning against a maple when an animal chittered in the distance. Although, that was an assumption on my part. For all I knew, it could’ve been a giant spider or carnivorous plant. Whatever it was, it encouraged me to limp onward.

The going was slow—this part of the forest was thick with bushes and brambles. My clothes were covered with small tears, the cloth dotted red from the small cuts on my body.

I was considering my options, then a twig snapped behind me. I glanced back and spotted a baboon-like creature with a blue snout and reddish fur. He was broader across the chest than a baboon. Taller too. But what stood out most were the long, sharp teeth meant for eating meat.

The creature was stalking me.

Adrenaline flooded my system, and I ran. My feet be damned, I ran with all I could. My only advantage was that I was small. I kept the baboon at bay by weaving between the trees and slipping between brambles, but he was tenacious, screeching as he gave chase.

I knew it was physically impossible for me to outrun the baboon—he was stronger and faster—so I searched for anything that might change the dynamics of the chase.

To my right was a fallen tree, and beyond it the ground fell away toward a steep hillside. There was less cover, but I took the chance, ducking under the fallen tree to throw myself down the slope.

I slid on a mix of loose dirt and dry grasses. My hands were scratched and cut as I struggled to control the descent. Sticks jabbed at me, and I nearly went tumbling when I encountered an unexpected drop. I landed in a painful pile, coming just shy of losing an eye to a tree’s low-hanging branch. Meanwhile, the baboon overshot, continuing along the way I’d been going, before he swung around.

The slope continued, and I spotted a rock outcropping. I scrambled toward it, looking for another obstacle to put between me and the baboon. Instead, I found salvation—a fissure in the rocks just wide enough for a small child. My feet splashed through a rill of water as I squeezed myself inside.

The baboon arrived moments later. Furious, he pounded at the stones with his fists, and the small space reverberated with the impacts; that gave me even more reason to push myself further inside toward a small hollow at the back.

I curled up and waited, but the baboon didn’t relent. He found a branch and poked it into the hollow to get at me. I batted the branch aside, earning new scratches each time. When the first branch didn’t work, the baboon smashed it against the rocks and found another. When that didn’t work, he found a third and a fourth and a fifth. The baboon howled his frustration throughout until finally—finally—he departed after striking the rocks one last time.

My body shook from the adrenaline’s aftermath. A dim part of my mind worried about infection. That thought jolted through me, but I sagged back down immediately. The nearest antibiotics were a world away.

Water flowed through the hollow in a trickle, and I reached down for some, my hand trembling. It took two attempts to bring a handful to my mouth. The water tasted clean but rusty, probably from the blood on my hands. Normally I’d worry about contaminants, but my belly was empty and I was desperately thirsty.

In for a penny, in for a pound.

After drinking my fill, I stared at the rock around me. My thoughts were hung on the fact that I was in another world and all I could come up with to describe my predicament was an aphorism.

“I can do better than that,” I said, but then wondered if that too was an aphorism. I shook the muddy thought from my head. My survival would require focus. Panic, denial, and distraction would only lead to tragedy.

I crawled out of the fissure, careful to make sure the baboon was gone and that there were no other predators nearby. Once outside, I followed the water down the hillside. We meandered for a time, the rill and I, but eventually we were reunited with her big sister, a stream just wide enough for a man to throw a stone and barely miss the other side.

I expected to be more heartened by the sound of running water. It was, after all, one of my goals, but I hesitated and kept my distance. I needed to work up the courage to look into the water. When I finally did, I saw that my face was not my own. The shock rolled through me, waking the thing that muffled my emotions. Once again, a blanket spread over my thoughts.

Looking past the cuts and scabs, I distantly noted that I still looked half Hispanic, but now the other half was Chinese instead of white. The face I wore had prominent cheekbones, with dark eyes and—I could tell already—those are going to be some bushy eyebrows when I grow older. On top of it all was a shock of black hair.

I sat back and let the new face sink in. Eventually, the daze would pass, and then I’d head upstream. I heard the roar of a waterfall in the distance.

2

Introducing Eight

The glen was shaped like a ladle, and the waterfall poured down forty feet of limestone to a pool circled by marble and chalky stone. There was a peaceful spirit to the place, the kind you’d find tucked away in the wilderness on a deep hike.

“Hello, beautiful.”

I’d apparently moved from aphorisms to pick-up lines. Shaking my head, I knelt to drink. The water was clear, cool, and—I was glad to see—there were fish. There was also a stand of fennel nearby, and across the water was what looked like a plum tree and berry bush. I’d be able to take care of both my water and food needs here.

What caught my interest, though, were the stone nodules scattered around the short cliff. Some of them had a glassy, waxy look to them; that was another good sign, since flint was fairly common in terrain of this type. I moved closer to investigate and heard an echo by the waterfall. Was there a gap behind it?

The water was frigid when I pushed through. On the other side, I saw an open space. The cave was about ten feet wide and twenty feet deep, give or take. Moss covered the ground, and there was no evidence of animals using the space as a den.

I could make the cave mine if I wanted, but I’d need a reliable source of heat. It likely got cold at night, and even now I could feel myself rapidly cooling. While that felt good to my overheated body, it might cause hypothermia overnight.

My feet complained, but I forced myself back outside. There was a gap between the waterfall and the cliff on the opposite side of the entrance, and I was able to pass through without getting drenched a second time. I went straight to the flint nodules.

About four years ago, I had been an executive producer on a series called Land of the Living Lost. The show’s premise was to drop a group of modern people into a prehistoric setting to see how they’d fare, and because Southwind was a documentary production company, the cast included bush guides, survivalists, farmers, and even an archeologist specializing in tools.

The show was grueling, with the crew spending months in the bush along with the cast. We rotated them in and out as best we could, but that meant every employee got pulled in to help, even me. Not that I minded. My time on the crew was spent in a haze of nostalgia, reminding me of the days I’d gone hunting with mi abuelito and of the work I’d done early in my career in construction and set and prop design.

I loved the show, just loved it, and all told, over the two seasons it aired, I spent five months on the ground with the cast. The rest of the crew thought I was nuts, but I already had a reputation for being eccentric. Their thinking I was strange didn’t bother me any.

I took a breath as the memories of those times settled into me. All I’d need to do was locate iron pyrite—often found near flint deposits—and I’d be able to start a fire. And the flint could also be used to make tools. That only needed hammerstones, which the stream was full of.

The glen had shelter, water, and food. Everything I needed for my survival was here. It was the perfect place to set up camp. You might even say it was too perfect. A godsend.

Were the ghosts of my loved ones watching over me or the spirits of the land influencing me? Or… perhaps it was something more nefarious? That would explain the muffling of my thoughts and the feeling of disconnection from my body at times. Those were classic signs of spirit possession.

But I promised myself not to think about the source of the strange feeling in my head, and I anxiously ran a hand through my hair. There were scabs forming on my scalp, and along my arms and chest too. Worst of all was the pain from my feet. I’d been forcing myself to ignore the burst blisters, but my feet needed care soon or I’d be in real trouble later. The last thing I needed was for them to scab and heal onto my socks.

Focus on the here and now. Anything else is a distraction.

Ah, that sounded like my yoga teacher. It was nice to know my repertoire of pithy sayings was expanding. Still, the advice was right—there was nothing I could do about my unanswered questions, but I could work toward my survival.

I left the flint nodules to check out the fennel. The plants grew all along the stream’s bank, and the soil at the stream’s edge was wet and soft. My hands alone were enough to dig one out. A quick rinse later and I was crunching on the bulb.

It was strange. I was hungry from all the running I’d done, but I didn’t feel malnourished. From what I saw in the water’s reflection, I didn’t look it either, and yet there was still an emptiness inside me like I hadn’t eaten for days. Like my bowels were completely empty.

A weird thought popped into my head: What if that was because my body was new? What if it’d been created whole, and as a result there was nothing in its gastrointestinal tract.

The idea wouldn’t leave me alone.

When I’d seen my face earlier, I worried my consciousness had taken over some poor kid’s body. Or the body was dead, and my consciousness had reanimated it. In both these cases, though, there should’ve been food left over in the intestines. Otherwise, the body wouldn’t feel as empty as it did, even after eating the fennel.

I didn’t see any way to confirm my body’s newness, though, other than not eating and seeing if I ever felt the urge to poop. If so, that would mean there was food leftover from someone else’s life. If not, then the body was potentially new. Not conclusively proven, but there’d be evidence for it.

The problem was, I couldn’t not eat. This wasn’t a spiritual retreat or yoga workshop where fasting was part of the curriculum. I was in a desperate situation, and getting enough calories was critical. Existential questions, no matter how worrying, would have to wait until later.

Belly full of fennel, I searched the forest around the glen. There was dried vegetation for tinder and more than enough fallen branches for kindling and firewood. I had no problem gathering fuel to last through the night.

Once I’d gotten the materials piled up inside the cave, I sorted through the nodules outside, looking for flint and iron pyrite. Striking one against the other was a common way for ancient peoples to start fires—even the Neanderthals did it.

There were alternatives to flint and pyrite, but I wanted to save my hands from the blisters a hand drill would cause. There was also the option of a bow drill, but that required braiding rope.

Luckily, neither alternative wound up being necessary. I spotted the telltale shimmer of fool’s gold on the surface of several hand-sized nodules. After gathering them up, I clutched a couple of the rocks to my chest and whispered a short prayer of thanks.

Good hammerstones to break open the nodules and knap the flint were even easier to find. The stream provided smooth stones in a variety of shapes and sizes. I grabbed what I needed.

The sun was still up on what was clearly the longest day ever, but I was out of gas. I’d done all I could, and so I retreated back to the cave with my finds. I would’ve loved nothing more than to rest, but the pain in my feet spurred me into action. I needed to make sure I could start a fire before taking care of them, because once my shoes and socks came off I’d be practically immobilized.

I cracked open the various nodules with the largest of the hammerstones. My mind felt fuzzy, but my hands remembered the way of it. They roughed out a section of flint—all it needed was a sharp edge—and I began to strike a chunk of iron pyrite against it. I could almost hear the bush guides from Land of the Living Lost talking about maintaining a flexible wrist.

Eventually, a spark caught on the dried leaf I was using, and I breathed on it as lightly as I dared to help the ember grow. When it was well and smoking, I wrapped the ember with the tinder bundle and blew a little harder. Smoke poured out until, all at once, the bundle ignited, filling my hands with fire.

I placed the bundle in a cage of the thinnest, driest kindling I could find. Then it was a matter of steadily placing larger and larger pieces of wood until I finally had a proper campfire, my first on this world.

I basked in the warmth, letting it soak into me while I took a moment to gather my courage. What came next wasn’t likely to be pretty.

I grimaced while taking off my shoes and socks. One, it was an incredibly painful process, and two, the socks were dark and sodden with blood. The damage was even worse than I’d feared, with large sections of skin sloughing off both feet. The skin seemed unused to the abuse I’d put it through.

It was an interesting data point for the new-body hypothesis, though I had bigger concerns to worry about. As I’d noted earlier, the nearest antibiotics were a world away—I’d have to do my best to keep the injuries clean and dry without them.

Maybe if I use the inside of my shirt to clean my feet?

There’d be sweat and surface bacteria, but every other option I considered was worse. After cleaning them, I’d also have to let my feet air dry until scabs formed, which in turn meant staying off my feet.

I took off my shirt and got to work.

I awoke with a start—something splashed in the water nearby.

I placed a branch on the ebbing fire and picked up the largest of the hammerstones. Carefully, I crawled toward the gap between the cave and the waterfall to peek over the side, but I didn’t see anything in the pool’s depths. Checking outside, there was only the moon’s reflection shimmering on the water. The glen was otherwise still.

I eased back toward the fire and kept watch for a time. When nothing happened, I let my eyes close.

The water splashed twice more that night. I was ninety-nine percent sure the sounds were from fish breaking the surface to feed on bugs, but I checked the pool and the glen each time, just in case. When I didn’t spot any baboons, horned rabbits, or goblins, I added more wood to the fire and went back to sleep.

I woke up shivering. Only a few embers were left among the fire’s ashes. My stomach was cramping with hunger too, and my mouth felt dry. At least my feet were okay; by okay I meant that the burst blisters had scabbed over and there wasn’t any pus or inflammation. I said a prayer of gratitude then, mindful of the spirits that might’ve been watching over me.

Until my feet healed, my plan was to stick close to the glen and crawl whenever I needed to move. I could survive on fennel until then, and make flint tools to pass the time. The plum tree and berry bush would have to wait until I could cross to their side of the stream without getting my feet wet.

Outside, the morning was cool, but if the previous day was any example, it was likely to warm up quickly. I checked for fresh tracks to make sure there’d been no visitors to the glen overnight. Finding none, I dug up more fennel for my breakfast.

Distantly, I felt a craving for coffee. Maybe a pastry too, a pain au chocolat or—

I cut off that line of thinking before it led to darker thoughts. For all I knew, the nearest bakery was a world away too. Everything familiar was.

To keep from brooding, I dragged the flint and hammerstones out into the sun and started tinkering. For the rest of the morning, all I did was practice, encouraging my hands to remember the best ways to knap flint. What the archeologists and bush guides made look easy was actually hard in practice, even if you knew what you were doing. So, I worked slowly and methodically, focusing on not cutting up my hands too much.

The day passed slowly, hot and humid as a New England summer. I slept intermittently to give my body time to recover. I collected wood for the evening’s fire and ate fennel greens when hungry.

During my breaks, my mind bounced from thought to thought, restless and worried—but not too worried or else the thing that muffled my thoughts might come back. The situation was just so nuts. I’d read a lot of science fiction and fantasy, so the idea of alternate worlds wasn’t shocking. I’d just never expected to be on one. I mean, who would?

There were so many questions without answers and nothing I could be confident about, other than that the experience was real. Well, there was one thing: magic existed on this world. The crow-person hadn’t pulled a rabbit out of their hoop. The snake was enormous, the head almost a foot across. That was no magic trick.

I set my nascent tools down and closed my eyes to feel for the magic, force, qi, mana, or whatever this world called it. For a time, I listened to the waterfall, but felt nothing. Nothing mystical anyway. My feet still hurt, and my scabs itched terribly.

Magic didn’t always come from outside of a person. Sometimes it was powered by internal energies, so I turned my attention inward. This was more familiar territory, as I’d started practicing yoga and qigong after my wife Helen died. I’d actually tried a lot of things to find solace, but there were only a couple of disciplines that stuck.

At first, the pain in my feet dominated my attention, and I let it. The poor things had gone through hell. After a time, I became aware of my body’s other aches and pains. Eventually, though, the discomfort faded into the background, and I found my way to my breath and the sensations of the cool air flowing through my nose, up and down my trachea, and into and out of my lungs.

I kept my attention on my breath, immersed in the familiar feeling. Even the panic inside me quieted, and once I reached a stable point of equanimity, I noticed a bubble under my thoughts. Curious, I prodded it with my attention.

An image of my phone appeared in my mind’s eye, except it was made of a silvery metal with dark-copper banding around the screen. Looking closer, I saw the edges of sprockets in the gaps between the screen and its housing.

The phone turned on. Printed on the screen in English was a simple character sheet, like from a roleplaying game. The name field was blank, but there was an age listed: 8. There were a handful of attributes too:

Name

Age

8

Strength

8

Constitution

8

Agility

8

Intelligence

8

Wisdom

8

Spirit

8

Charm

8

Luck

8

I couldn’t help the decades of tabletop gaming knowledge that surged up. You might as well call me Eight with these numbers.

The screen updated, and the name field was filled in to read: Eight.

I… ah… that was more of an observation, not a request. I don’t actually want to be called Eight. My name is Oliver. Ollie works too. Also, is there a help screen? Because I’d really like to know what’s going on.

If anyone was listening, they didn’t respond, and the name didn’t budge no matter how much I willed it. Apparently, I was now named Eight… and there was a character sheet in my head.

A phone too, apparently. Could I call my kids with it? Was there an operator I could ask for help? I imagined myself gripping the phone, and it felt heavy, like the weight of the world was behind it. I started touching the different labels to see if anything happened.

When I focused on the name field, I became aware of my body, my emotional well-being, and something deeper—the sense of self/no-self I encountered in deep meditation.

The age field gave off the sense of being young, yet I was old enough not to be completely helpless.

Strength, Constitution, and Agility highlighted aspects of my physicality. The other attributes described the ineffable and were harder to sense. My thoughts quickened when I focused on Intelligence. Wisdom made me conscious of the connections between me and the world around me. I didn’t feel anything from Charm, and Luck gave off a fickle sensation. Spirit was still like a pond in the early light, morning mist moving across the water.

It was interesting that there were no other attributes displayed. Was it a function of the game system’s mechanics or the phone?

The screen could be swiped up, so I did.

Body Power

8

Qi

8

Mana

8

The display changed to show a series of stats that looked like secondary attributes—all of which were listed as 8.

There were other fields on the page:

Blessings

- Diriktot (Fallen God of Order)

- Meliune (Goddess of Compassion, Temporary)

Curses

Conditions

I had two blessings: the first from someone named Diriktot who, according to the information next to his name, was a Fallen God of Order, and the second from Meliune, a Goddess of Compassion.

Below the blessings was a section for curses, which was empty. And at the bottom was a section for conditions, also empty.

I put down the phone and rubbed my eyes. Gods and goddesses. There are gods and goddesses.

My family history was complicated—not surprising given that my dad’s parents were brujos, practitioners of traditional Mexican witchcraft—but that was a long time and another life ago. As I got older, I’d mostly settled into a cozy blend of Buddhism, Taoism, and general respect for everyone’s beliefs. I knew that there were a lot more ways of experiencing the capital-T truth than my puny little brain could comprehend.

So that was confirmation then. Gods and goddesses indeed. It was a relief really, knowing for sure. My grandparents had been right after all.

“Hello?” I said, casting the feeling out to the wider world.

There was no response, so I went back to the phone.

The mana field was intriguing, but the number felt locked away: as if it was behind a door and I didn’t have the key. I didn’t have hit points, but there was something called body power instead. When I concentrated, I felt my body’s capacity for action. My sense was that it wasn’t connected to my stamina though. It measured something else—something I didn’t yet know—like it was a battery not plugged into anything.

The feeling of the qi field was familiar from the qigong I practiced, although it was stronger than I’d ever experienced before. Of the three secondary attributes, it was the one that seemed most accessible, which was weird. You’d expect that to be body power. I’d have to experiment to see if that accessibility proved true or not.

Uneasy about the ‘fallen’ part of the Fallen God of Order’s entry, I focused on the Goddess of Compassion next. The feeling was gentle—not quite pity, but something more empathetic instead. There seemed to be a direct connection between her blessing and the thing which muffled my thoughts and caused me to feel distant when afraid. Was that meant to protect me from panic? To keep from freezing and help me survive in the face of overwhelming fear? That was the impression I’d gotten, and while I wasn’t entirely sure it was the blessing it claimed to be, it was at least a relief knowing that I wasn’t being possessed.

Speaking of black magic… So yeah, I guess curses are a thing too.

Looking at my phone again, swiping up got me:.

Skills

The rest of the page was blank, which was weird given that I had a lifetime of experience behind me. There should’ve been scads of entries under the skills heading. I swiped up again, but the page didn’t change. Swiping down brought me back to the secondary attributes, and swiping down again displayed my primary attributes. As I thought about it, those weren’t accurate either. I was much more intelligent than I was strong. Something screwy was going on.

I flipped between screens, poking here and there, but nothing changed. All that was left was the Fallen God, so I gathered my courage and focused on Diriktot.

The character screen swirled away and was replaced by an illustration of a classic dwarf, except he wore spectacles and a charcoal-gray suit. A leather band stretched across his torso from one shoulder to the opposite side waist, supporting a sheath for the enormous wrench on his back.

The background behind him filled in, and I recognized the corner of NW Glisan and 6th in Portland. The dwarf walked along the street, looking around very much like a tourist in spite of the rain. There was a crowd ahead, and the illustrations moved to show the dwarf wandering over to see what the fuss was about.

The fuss was me. On the floor. In a pool of—what I assumed was—blood. I wasn’t sure what had happened. My last memory was of walking out the office door. How I ended up dead was a mystery.

The tape holding my phone together must’ve come loose, because the phone lying beside my outstretched hand was cracked open. That caught the dwarf’s eye. He moved through the crowd to crouch and peer inside. This lasted a while—the illustrations weren’t clear on how long—but eventually he picked up the phone and patted my shoulder, seeming to thank me for the opportunity to study something interesting.

The dwarf then winked at me—the me watching the illustrations—and the screen faded to copper, only to be replaced by the character sheet. I swiped back to Diriktot’s Blessing, but there were no other messages. No matter how hard I focused, all I could feel was the weight of the phone in my mind. Apparently, both it and this life were his gifts to me.

That I had questions was an understatement—too many questions, all rushing through my head. There was fear and alarm and such a storm of emotions that they triggered Meliune’s Blessing once again, covering my thoughts with a thick blanket of acceptance and burying my emotions until they were barely sensible.

Under its influence, I crawled into the cave behind the waterfall and kept careful watch for anything dangerous. There was no room for anything else, only survival.

I awoke from the daze just before dusk. My emotions still roiled, but now that I was conscious again, I was desperate to stay that way. I did my best to not think or feel anything. Instead, I focused on what was observable: the roar of the waterfall, the moss under me, and the smell of burnt wood from the fire’s remains.

I crawled outside and saw the sun and moon in the sky together, one setting and the other rising. The air was gentle and warm, and I couldn’t help as a thought slipped free: This glen really is a good place to camp. Too bad it costs everything familiar to stay here.

It was going to be a long night.

3

An Otter Way to Think About Status Screens

The next day, I had my first bowel movement on this world, so that was another nice data point for the new-body hypothesis. Also, it seemed nothing I’d eaten or drunk had poisoned me, so that was good.

My feet continued to ache, but I’d expected that. The poor things looked like bruised potatoes. Still, none of my injuries appeared permanent, so good again.

I hadn’t slept all that well, but at least I didn’t have to worry about hypothermia thanks to the fire I’d maintained overnight. Also, the day was quickly warming up, so I decided to risk a bath. My whole body was caked with sweat, grime, and blood.

I ate a breakfast of fennel bulb, and dragged myself to the stream, where I splashed water onto my body. It was as frigid as I’d expected, and I shivered afterward until the sun warmed me through. I also washed my clothes and shoes, and left them to dry alongside me.

My eyes closed. For the first time, I didn’t have any pressing needs to address. I still worried about my survival, but all the basics were met or on their way to being met. My momentum lagged, and into that gap anger and grief rolled. Meliune’s Blessing didn’t seem to care about grief, and so the emotions had been churning all night—since I’d learned I’d died—and they finally spilled out as tears.

That was okay. I felt miserable, and that was okay too. These feelings were familiar friends, after all. We’d become quite close after my wife Helen died. It was eleven years ago now, and I’d made peace with her passing. I imagined I’d make peace with my own death too. Where I got stuck was with my kids. I’d never get to see them again, and that broke my heart.

Alex. Daniel.

Alex owned a small diner in Dallas. She ran the place with her wife, and they specialized in hand pies stuffed with curried chicken. There were plans for a local food magazine to feature them next month, and I’d been hoping to fly down to be a part of the shoot.

Daniel was the more troubled of the two. He’d dropped out of college to become an artist and came back to Portland, only to make some bad choices in partners. He was hit really hard by his mom’s death and was still grappling with it. I worried about what my death would do to him—would do to both kids.

Oh gods and goddesses, spirits of the land. I don’t know if you can hear me, but please watch over them. My kids are good people and deserve better than they’ve gotten. I don’t care about me—I can handle myself—but please help Alex and Daniel.

I sobbed some more, for a good long while too. It was probably smarter to sit with my grief inside the safety of the cave, but I’d spent enough time in the dark already in my past life. Even sobbing and broken, I wanted to be in the sun.

I washed off the snot and tears, then pulled another fennel bulb from the stream’s bank. Hunger assuaged, I turned back to relearning how to make flint tools. No matter how strong the sorrow, there was always work to be done. In my past life, it was the laundry, the dishes, and the next show to produce. Here, I had plans to make a spear, a hand ax, and a knife. Depending on whether I needed additional tools for working with wood, I might also make an adze and a draw knife.

I let myself become absorbed by the process. The trick was in the angles—first in choosing the right place to start and then alternating between the front and back to create a sharp edge. Slowly, the way of it came back to me. I was able to rough out a flint knife and a spearhead. I also made good progress on the hand ax.

Later in the evening, the night sky sparkled with gems. I recognized some of the star patterns, but not others. There was also the moon, waxing close to full, but the markings across her face were a similar mix of familiar and unfamiliar.

Helen, if you can hear me, love, keep an eye on me for a bit. I’ve gone wandering past what’s comfortable and could use your advice. I miss you, my heart. More than ever.

Another night and another morning, but this time I managed to sleep for most of it, only waking occasionally to the sound of splashing water. My feet were still sore, but healed enough for shoes as long as I walked slowly and carefully.

I crossed the stream to reach the plum tree. The fruit were tart and sweet and so delicious after a couple of days of nothing but fennel. It had been a mistake not to pick some before I treated my feet, but at least I got to enjoy them now. The red berries, I decided to ignore. I’d seen enough poisonous berries to suspect these would bury a bear.

By the time the sun was at its highest point in the sky and the shadows were at their shortest, I had finished the hand ax. It was just a chunk of flint with a sharp edge on one side and was rounded on the other to fit comfortably in my hand, but I was pleased with the work. The flint knife was similar, a safe flint handle on one end and a sharpened edge at the other. Even the spearhead had a short safe section, the tang that I would hopefully soon insert into an appropriate length of wood.

I brought the hand ax with me for a short foray into the forest. I used it to chop free two branches, a shorter one to turn into a digging stick and a longer one with the potential to become a spear. I trimmed away the leaves and stubs, making sure both were relatively straight.

Back at the pool, I used the flint knife to give the digging stick a wedge at one end and smoothed the wedge’s planes by rubbing them on stone. With it, I’d easily be able to dig up root vegetables. In a pinch, the digging stick could also serve as a walking stick, lever, and impromptu weapon. Later that night, I’d harden the tip with fire.

Digging stick in hand, I set out again. I didn’t find any vegetables, but I did come across a fallen cedar. The log was damp on the outside and crawling with blue pillbugs. The bark was mostly detached from the trunk, so I used the digging stick to pry up a long section. The fibers underneath were nice and loose. Some of them were black, rotting or near rotting, but the rest were beautifully golden and ready to be braided into rope. I dragged the bark to the cave and went back twice for more.

After a dinner of plums and fennel greens, I started separating and braiding the bark fibers. It took several failed attempts for my fingers to remember how it worked, but eventually I was able to twist the fibers into rope.

It was long and tedious, but I could foresee the need for lots of cordage. I got to work.

I slept fitfully that night, waking up often from dreams I couldn’t quite remember. Only bits and pieces remained: a baboon snarling, a giant snake swallowing me down, mi abuela offering me muffins. That last one was especially weird. My grandmother never made muffins. She rarely cooked at all, and when she did, it was for special occasions. Her work as a bruja always took precedence.

In the morning, I had two related goals. The first was to make a spear. The second was to eat something other than plums and fennel.

The first task went reasonably well. I used a rock to pound one end of the branch that would become the spear’s haft. Once it was softened, I split the wood using the flint knife and wedged the spearhead inside. The spearhead was then lashed into place using the braided cord I’d made yesterday.

The finished spear was four feet long and heavy—too heavy. I had focused on making it sturdy and went overboard. I mean, I could swing the spear around like in the old kung fu movies I used to watch, but it was obvious that carrying it everywhere was going to be hard with a child’s strength.

Well, there was no rule saying a person couldn’t own two spears. It was a matter of using the right tool for the right job, right? I nodded to myself and took the spear with me into the forest. I’d look for another, lighter haft, and at the same time test what it was like carrying the spear around.

I’d walked a good distance to the south of the waterfall’s glen. I might as well just call it the Glen, since it’s going to be my home for a while. The canopy blanketed this part of the forest, making it hard for the underbrush to grow. There were clear sightlines in every direction, and I spotted several branches that looked like good candidates for a new spear.

I was examining one when the forest hushed. I quickly glanced around, but didn’t see anything that’d spook the birds and small mammals. No angry baboons, tigers, or bears—nor any hippogriffs, chimeras, or dragons.

Something passed overhead—something big and menacing—and I gulped. Oh. Oh. Maybe I’m wrong about the dragon. My knees buckled, and I only held onto the spear because of my deathgrip on the haft.

The canopy shook with the creature’s passing. Through the swaying tree cover, I caught a glimpse, an outline, of the shape of a dragon flying toward the Glen. My brain went sideways, not able to handle what my eyes were telling me.

Meliune’s Blessing smashed into my thoughts like a tsunami, instantly submerging my panic under what felt like a ton of water. All that was left in its wake was a single thought: Hide!

Not sure what was safe, I sprinted for a pine tree with low branches circling around its trunk like a skirt. I hid there and waited, but under the blessing’s influence I didn’t feel the time passing. There was no impatience either, just the caution and ongoing awareness of my surroundings.

Eventually, the bird song resumed, and soon after Meliune’s Blessing receded, leaving me slumped against the pine tree’s trunk, drained. While I couldn’t feel the fear and adrenaline earlier, they still washed through me and their aftermath left me feeling wrung out.

I rested long enough to regain my composure, then worked up the courage to sneak back toward the Glen. It was the safest place I’d found on this world, and I didn’t want to lose it just because the dragon had flown in that direction. I wouldn’t let my fear rule me.

Moving quietly, I climbed the hillside, looping up and around to the top of the waterfall overlooking the Glen. The forest here was crowded with trees and brush. Vines hung from the branches. Some had small purple flowers. Others were orange or pink. The scent was vaguely minty.

My heart beat hard as I crept toward the cliff’s edge. Below, the pool was nestled between two hillsides. The water shimmered in the late morning light. Specks of color—fish—darted in the water. There was no dragon in sight, nor anything else large and terrible, only a five foot black log at the Glen’s far edge that hadn’t been there before.

I wasn’t sure what I’d expected, but it certainly hadn’t been a giant turd, which is what the log certainly resembled. That can’t be from the dragon, can it? Did it stop by the waterfall for a pit stop?

I was asking myself just those questions when something bit me on the ass, causing me to jump, which was really, really unfortunate. The only thing in front of me was the cliff’s edge, and over the side I went.

My heart stopped. There was water below, so I wouldn’t splat. But I couldn’t belly flop either—not from forty feet up. I flailed my arms and desperately twisted to get myself vertical. There was a moment of flying, and then I smashed into the water feet first. The angle wasn’t perfect though, and I felt like I’d been punched in the face.

The world was gray and bubbles. I stared at it, confused.

A fish bumped into my back and flicked away. A heartbeat later, it happened again. Was it trying to eat me? The thought spurred me to kick toward the surface and drag myself out of the water.

I’d survived the fall and was intact, except my right butt cheek felt like it was on fire. I turned, but couldn’t see anything. I twisted my pants around and saw a ring of pinpricks an inch in diameter in the seat.

I’d been purposely avoiding the phone as I grieved my death, but for this I had to check.

Conditions

Poisoned (3)

I dropped to one knee as the world spun around me. Really, world? I avoided a dragon, and it’s a bite on the ass that kills me?

Meliune’s Blessing rolled over me and sent me stumbling toward the cave, where I collapsed onto the moss. The muscles around my lungs began to constrict, and I gasped for air. My jaw locked, and I couldn’t scream. Deep down, though, under the blanketing of my thoughts, I raged before losing consciousness.

I dreamed.

I dreamed I floated above my body, looking down at it. Its breathing came in fast, short gulps. Its limbs shook and spasmed. The body was dying, but somehow I wasn’t concerned. Instead, I was curious to see if there’d be a white light, like in the stories, or whether my grandmother had been right about what came after.

Then the light in the cave changed, but instead of a beautiful white, it was silver-blue in hue. Of all things, an otter then pulled itself up from the water in between the cave and waterfall. Not so bad as far as dreams went. Better an otter than a baboon.

The otter’s fur was gray and its eyes blue, banded with dark flint. It—no, some sense told me… she seemed annoyed by my body stinking of poison. With a sigh, she went back to the pool and returned, walking upright with a small bowl in her front paws. After setting it down carefully, she splashed water from the bowl onto my body.

What happened next was unclear and confusing. There was my body and at the same time also the figure eight, like somehow my body represented the number, and the body and the number were on fire.

The otter went for more water, back and forth, until the fire was extinguished. She paused to admire her handiwork, but what she saw didn’t please her. Her nose wrinkled in distaste.

With a nod to herself, she pulled a rock from a fold in her fur. Her eyes glinted as she smashed the rock onto the body, cracking and crunching something invisible. Sections of a dark gray carapace appeared and then fell away as she worked.

Once the last section was gone, I saw that the body was now bound by a rope the same color as the carapace. The otter smashed the rope. She pounded and pounded at the binding, but it wouldn’t loosen. She only stopped when she noticed the body mewling in pain. Her eyes narrowed.

The otter stepped away, then came back with the flint hand ax she’d found nearby. The ax swung down. A binding snapped. Then another, as she wielded the ax again. The dark gray rope frayed, which only encouraged the otter. She used the ax to cut and chop, to hew and hack.

I suddenly felt like a balloon inflating. Like I’d been emptied out and folded carefully, but now I was being unwound and unfurled. Below me, my body was whole and unfettered.

The otter’s nose wrinkled again, but this time in pleasure. She looked down at the ax, pleased, and tucked it away in the fold of her fur. As for my body, she gave it a pat on the head and left it to sleep.

I woke up. Alive. Which was a surprise.

Also, my feet didn’t hurt anymore! I pulled off my shoes and saw that the wounds were gone. The otter had healed me, in addition to curing the poison.

Perhaps most surprising was that I felt more like me—the me before I’d come to this world. My thoughts and emotions weren’t dim and cramped, no longer tied down by whatever had been binding them.

I sat up and stretched. My eyes went to the flint tools in the corner, and I saw that the hand ax was missing. It wasn’t a dream, then? Well, I’d be a fool to think it was—I was alive and no longer poisoned. An otter had visited while I was dying and saved me, both from the poison and whatever had been compressing my spirit into a smaller shape than it was supposed to be.

I had no idea who she was. All I knew was that I felt better, much better than before. I called up my information to make sure everything was okay.

Woah! The character sheet changed.

Eight (Hidden Status, Oliver Michael Sandoval)

Age

8

Soul Marks

- God Touched
- Spontaneous Formation
- Memories of Another World

Attributes

Strength

8

Constitution

8

Agility

8

Intelligence

14

Wisdom

14

Spirit

13

Charm

11

Luck

12

Body Power

8

Qi

11

Mana

14

First of all, I was still called Eight, but beside my name in parenthesis, it read “Hidden Status” and then my old name: “Oliver Michael Sandoval.”

Seeing my name from my old life moved me. I’d worked so damn hard to make myself a better man and had hated the idea that all that effort was lost. Of course I still had my memories, but a name stood for something. It was more than a bunch of letters and sounds. My name represented me and all I’d been through.

My wife used to call me Ollie, not Eight. Well, I was Eight now too, but I didn’t mind as long as it was an addition instead of a substitution. All that mattered was that I kept my roots.

Looking further, it was disappointing that my physical attributes were unchanged, but at least the intangibles were higher. And, if they really represented the attributes from my previous life, I could use them to make assumptions about the numbers’ meanings. Scores of 10 to 12 were likely average for an adult, while 13 to 15 were above average.

In addition to the new information, the page had also restructured. There was a new section titled “Soul Marks,” and I had three: God Touched, Spontaneous Formation, and Memories of Another World.

Also, my secondary attributes were now listed on the first page. Body power was still 8, but qi had increased to 11 and mana to 14.

Does the page change along with me? I wondered.

That was an interesting question, but even more interesting was the note about it being ‘Hidden.’ That implied there was a way for others to see my character sheet, my Status—which also implied that other people had them too. I hadn’t been sure. My gift from Diriktot might’ve been unique.

Oh, it also means he was looking out for me. Considerate, that. My mental and spiritual attributes might otherwise get discovered and land me in trouble.

I didn’t know what kind of trouble, but anything out of the ordinary tended to attract attention, and rarely the good kind. In my old life, I was a Mexican kid who grew up in Oregon, so I’d experienced that first-hand.

But why all the eights in the beginning?

All I could think of was that they must’ve been necessary somehow in order to transport me to this world. Maybe the gap between universes was such that only something eight-shaped could pass through? Or the number eight created less spiritual drag? Perhaps it was Diriktot’s sense of humor? Would the otter know?

The answer to that last question depended on the relationship between her and the god. In my mind, she was clearly a spiritual creature, though I wasn’t sure what type. But then I doubted myself. I’d seen an example of an animal-person at the town gate, after all. Who was to say there weren’t whole races of them?

I massaged the bridge of my nose and let the questions go. They were useless right now; besides, my Status provided a nice distraction from my all-too-recent near-death experience.

I turned my attention to the phone, and found that the soul mark entries were as weighty as my names. Each felt engraved in the metal and dense, like they were a fundamental part of me. What they meant and how they affected me, though, was uncertain.

Swiping up, I saw a new section, as well as new entries under my blessings.

Talents

- Jack of All Trades

- Talent Scout

Blessings

- Diriktot (Fallen God of Order)
- Ikfael (Spirit, Temporary)
- Helen Miriam Sandoval (Spirit)
- Meliune (Goddess of Compassion, Temporary)

Curses

Conditions

First, though, I checked to make sure the condition section was empty, and confirmed I wasn’t poisoned anymore. Huzzah! I knew that already, since I wasn’t dead, but it was important to celebrate victories, especially in dire situations.

Next, there were talents! I loved talent and perk systems in games. They were often the best ways to make a character your own. I apparently had two: Jack of All Trades and Talent Scout.

I quickly focused on the Jack of All Trades talent, and my memory flashed to the countless hours of instructional videos I’d watched—sitting in the editing suite, reviewing B-roll, attending film festivals, watching the competitions’ work. The opportunities to study a wide range of material had been endless.

And Talent Scout originated from all the hiring I’d had to do. Southwind wasn’t big enough to afford the masters of filmmaking, so I had sifted through thousands and thousands of resumes over the years hunting for unpolished gems: the folks with hidden talents. I caught them early and cheap! Then, after we grew them into masters, they left us for bigger companies and more money, but we had their skills long enough to produce some amazing work.

Hmm… I had two talents. But do they do anything? Did they impact me in the same way blessings did? That’d make sense, since they were grouped together on the same page. Questions, questions.

And speaking of blessings, there were two new entries. My wife’s name was there: Helen Miriam Sandoval, and she was listed as a “Spirit.” There was also someone named Ikfael, who was also a spirit.

Who was Ikfael? The otter? Or the being responsible for the otter? If so, I owed her my life. As for the blessing from my wife—what could I say? She always looked out for me, and just seeing her name was enough to warm me through.

Ahem. Moving on. I swiped up to see if the skills section had also changed, and there were now eight categories displayed, each populated with skills.

Skills

Artisan

- Appraisal 5
- Construction 8
- Woodworking 8

Domestic

- Cooking 6

- Repairs 6

Martial

- Archery 6
- Logistics 11
- Marksmanship 6
- Strategy 4

Mercantile

- Accounting 12

- Administration 12

Scholarship

- Biology 5
- Cosmology 7
- Chemistry 4
- English 13
- Numeracy 8
- Physics 4
- Spanish 8

Social

- Gaming 12
- Relationships 8
- Storytelling 10

Spiritualism

- Meditation 8

- Taoism 8

Survival

- Forest 6

- Ocean 3

Seeing the skills listed, I laughed in relief. My sixty-four years of living hadn’t been for nothing! Also, the gamer in me rejoiced. There were skills to explore and builds to plan… except I didn’t know how skills worked in this game—on this world. Did they just quantify my expertise, or could I actively use them?

“Biology powers, activate!”

Nothing happened, except for me smiling at my own joke. The real experiment came next.

“Appraise,” I said, focusing on the moss under me.

It was dark green and dense with tall tufts. I happened to recognize it as common haircap, but I didn’t see any pop-ups or status windows with additional information.

“Damn, that would’ve been a useful ability, but nope—no magical appraisal skills for Ollie.”

Still, if I put my ego aside and objectively looked at my expertise, I could start to make assumptions about skills’ numerical values. A twelve, like the one in my Accounting skill, meant that someone was a professional, and a good one.

Then if I had to extrapolate, a score of one to three represented someone just starting to learn a skill. From four to eight, they might be considered a hobbyist or advanced amateur, and anything above fourteen was for experts and beyond.

Funny how the System felt obligated to strike out my world’s understanding of Cosmology.

Yes, yes, I get that the multiverse is much more weird and magical than I had believed. Thank you for the tip, System.

Also, I’d always felt that keeping a film crew supplied was like going to war. Seems like the System agreed, since it put my Logistics experience under the martial disciplines. Strategy must be from all the wargaming I’d done, and Archery and Marksmanship from hunting.

I swiped between the pages, curiously poking at the entries, when an exclamation point appeared at the top of the screen where the notifications would normally be. “You’re taking this phone thing very seriously,” I said.

Diriktot chose not to respond, so I tapped on the notification. A new page appeared with my old character sheet, the one with all the eights. This time, though, there were the words “Visible Status” in parenthesis next to the name, Eight.

Eight (Visible Status)

Age

8

Attributes

Strength

8

Constitution

8

Agility

8

Intelligence

8

Wisdom

8

Spirit

8

Charm

8

Luck

8

Body Power

8

Qi

8

Mana

8

Blessings

- Ikfael (Spirit, Temporary)

- Meliune (Goddess of Compassion, Temporary)

Curses

Conditions

Skills

Survival

- Forest 2

There were only two blessings—the ones from Ikfael and Meliune—and only one skill: Forest Survival, which was listed at rank 2.

Huh… okay… so that’s what people would see if they could see my Status.

It really was for the best that it was hidden, since an eight-year-old with professional-level Accounting skills was unlikely to be common. Not to mention the weird soul marks and everything else.

There was one skill present though, for surviving in the forest, which was reasonable for someone in my circumstances.

I ran a hand through my hair, thinking through the situation. The phone was a tool, like the hand ax and flint knife. It had provided clues to my situation—for example, Dirktot touring Portland and coming across the scene of my death—and at the same time it raised more questions.

What exactly were soul marks, how did talents work, and what was the nature of Ikfael’s Blessing? There were more questions besides those, of course, but they were the ones I was most curious about. The ultimate question, though, was: If the phone is a tool, how can I use it to help me survive?

The answer depended on whether it merely reflected me and my situation—that it was purely descriptive—or whether it had active functions, like the ability to level up and assign skill or attribute points. I didn’t see anything like that, but my Status had already shown that it could evolve. Maybe there’d be an opportunity later?

Right, I had to think about that and there was still a lot to do, but first I had a debt to pay. I knelt at the water’s edge and let my gratitude pool in my heart.

“You saved my life. Thank you.”

The world surely had rituals for this—the giving of thanks—but I didn’t know them. I was a stranger to its customs, traditions, and expectations. Hopefully, my sincerity would be enough.

Or maybe… In the dream, the otter was pleased with the hand ax. Maybe she’d like another tool to add to her collection? I reached for a chunk of iron pyrite, but my hand hesitated. There was a feeling, like I was making a mistake.

It wasn’t rational. There wasn’t any knowledge or information that made me think so. It wasn’t even intuitive. I’d spent enough time working with my intuition to know what that felt like. No, the hesitation came from elsewhere, outside of me and from within at the same time. It was weird and a little disconcerting, but also somehow natural.

I closed my eyes and tried to feel for the source of the hesitation. Immediately, the skills page appeared in my mind, and my eye was drawn to the Taoism skill. There was an attraction, a pull on my attention. My hand moved to the flint knife, and the hesitation eased, as did the pull on my attention.

Ooh, are the skills guides? Not quite active, but not entirely descriptive either? Well, well, I can work with that.

Pleased with my newfound discovery, I picked up the flint knife and placed it in front of me. “I offer this knife in gratitude.”

Nothing happened at first, but then a paw snuck out of the water. It grabbed the knife before dashing away.

A grin spread across my face, and I sat back to watch the waterfall, content to be alive.

My to-do list was getting longer—I needed to retrieve my digging stick and spear, make a new hand ax and knife, maybe another spear too, catch a fish, and decide if I wanted to become a hermit full time. I could see myself living in this cave, but over time I knew I’d miss the company of people. Before I could even address that, though, I had to figure out why the town’s gate guards had driven me away.

So many questions, and only a handful of answers. Still, I’d made progress, and I had confidence in eventually getting my bearings on this world. No, I have to change the way I think about this. I’m not a visitor. I live here now, in and of this world.

Before all that, though, I had to make use of all the tools available to me, including the phone. I started by poking at my skills to see what else I could learn. I focused on each one in turn and made some interesting observations.

First, they were made from bundles of memories: Helen and I hiking along the Columbia River Gorge, me poring over the books as I prepared Southwind for a visit from our auditors, me listening to my archery instructor during our private lessons. I didn’t suddenly have an eidetic memory. It was more like, if I was patient, I could tease out information and experiences related to the skill.

Second, it wasn’t just memories. There was no way for me to know that the knife was the more appropriate gift, and yet I still knew. It was like there was an edge to the Taoism skill, a boundary between the known and unknown, and information had crossed over. That was conjecture on my part, but if it proved true it meant I could tap my skills for guidance—not just for decision making, but also for further development of the skill, even without a teacher.

That was important, because the odds of me finding a teacher didn’t look good. Sure, the learning process would be slow, but theoretically all I’d need was a foothold in a skill, and with practice it’d grow as I pushed at the boundary between known and unknown. It was like being given a map for getting better, but seeing only one step at a time.

All in all, I spent a couple of hours sitting around thinking, and getting hungry too. My stomach eventually forced me outside.

At the cave’s exit, I promised myself that I’d be careful, but also that I’d find a way to do more than just survive. I had been given a second life, and I refused to waste it. To do so would shame the memory of my wife and everything I’d learned from her. All I had to do was reach for what I wanted.

I caught sight of a pair of otter eyes in the water watching me leave, and I waved in passing.

4

On this World, the Worm Fishes You

My eyes were clear, my resolve steady. My arrival to this world had been accompanied by a series of narrow escapes—a baboon, a dragon, and poison—but that was the past. My future would be brighter, and I left the cave feeling confident for the first time in days—

—and immediately ran back inside, gagging.

I’d forgotten about the massive dragon turd left to steam in the hot summer sun at the far end of the Glen. I couldn’t smell it from inside the cave—thank you, waterfall, thank you—but the smell carried and hit me the moment I stepped outside.

Still, I was determined. If I could clean up my kids’ diarrhea and vomit, I could handle this. I held my breath, ducked out of the cave, and ran from the Glen as fast as my legs would carry me.

I retraced my steps to collect my digging stick and spear, careful every step of the way, especially at the top of the cliff where I’d been stung. Annoyingly, nothing dangerous appeared. I really wanted to stab whatever it was that had poisoned me. Still, it was probably better the journey was uneventful.

Shrugging off my annoyance, I went to catch a fish. It was time to eat something other than fennel and plums. I’d just have to make the too-heavy spear work.

I hiked to the area downstream of the Glen, giving a wide berth to the dragon turd along the way. There were a number of places where fish gathered, and I saw bass, catfish, and perch, along with smaller fish with dark orange scales that I didn’t recognize. I found a shallow spot and waded in, then waited for one of the fish to come by.

The area was shady and the water cold. If I hadn’t been so hungry, fishing there would’ve been pleasant.

A catfish wandered into the shallows. I jabbed, and it flicked away, faster than my spear. I spun to try again, but it was already speeding away downstream.

Come on, Ollie. Aim a little more ahead—to where the fish will be going, not where it is—and for gods’ sake relax.

It was something both my grandfather and The Land of the Living Lost’s bush guides had stressed—that there was a big difference between alertness and tension. The first was a friend and kept you aware of your surroundings, ready to take action, while the second distracted the mind, stiffened the muscles, and slowed down response times.

I took a couple of breaths and recalled being on the show’s set—joking around with the cast in between shots, pestering them with questions, and throwing myself into the work. Honestly, it felt more like play than anything else—often requiring intense effort and focus but still play.

The memory brought a smile to my lips and helped to settle my nerves. It reminded me to enjoy being out in nature, even when I was fishing for my supper.

Time passed, and the shadows cast by the trees slid across the water. I missed a few more fish, still accustoming myself to the spear, but I didn’t let it bother me. I came closer to hitting my mark every time, until—eventually—I speared my first fish in this world, a large-mouth bass.

I was feeling pretty good about myself, but then belatedly realized that I’d given my only knife away, which would make cleaning the fish… challenging. I checked to see if the spearhead would work, but it’d be too clumsy.

With a sigh, I looped the catch on a length of cord, and ate some plums and fennel greens for lunch. After the meal, I headed back to the Glen to make more prehistoric tools.

I was just sitting down to start on a new flint knife when I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. A quick glance around showed the otter hiding behind the waterfall to avoid the stink, and at the Glen’s other end a cloud of black flies was swarming the dragon’s turd.

Suddenly, a worm lifted itself free of the turd. It was pale, like bleached bone, and three feet long, with a long spike at its tip. It was soon joined by two others, and the three worms swayed as if scenting the air. They looked to be some kind of parasite… only super-sized.

I grabbed my spear.

The otter came out from behind the waterfall to observe the worms, her face scrunching up in disgust. She made a waving motion with her paw and splashed water in the worms’ direction. It was actually kind of cute.

She looked at me, looked at the worms, and splashed the water again.

“Wait, you mean me?” I asked, pointing to myself. “You want me to clean up the worms?”

The otter rolled her eyes and nodded. I felt like I was dealing with my kids, back when they were just hitting puberty. I could almost hear her thinking, Of course, duh.

Snark aside, the otter had saved my life, and the debt was bigger than the flint knife I’d given her. Whether she was an otter-person who happened to live in this Glen, or some kind of spiritual being, it didn’t matter. I owed her. Besides, even though the worms were big and gross, if I tackled them one at a time, it shouldn’t be that hard, right?

I cautiously approached the turd, and all three worms rotated toward me. Their spikes were as sharp as ice picks. The worms themselves were about three inches thick and segmented like earthworms.

I licked my lips, nervous. I took a step to the right, and the spikes tracked me. To the left, and they did it again. My plan to fight them one at a time failed before I’d even gotten the chance to try it.

Time for a new plan. My digging stick was nearby. I reached over and tossed it one-handed toward the turd. The two closest worms shot forward.

Holy hells, they were fast! They moved as if they’d been launched from a cannon.

One worm managed to pierce the spear with its spike. Its body instantly coiled around it. The other missed, but its tail curled to form a hook and caught the stick that way. The two worms squirmed, splintering the wood between them as they competed for position. The area around the base of their spikes opened, revealing circular mouths ridged with nightmarish teeth. The mouths flared open and the spikes clashed.

My breath caught, and I was suddenly very glad I hadn’t just walked up to them. I looked for the third worm, but it hadn’t moved. Was there a limit to the range of their senses? Had it only faced me because of the others? I didn’t see any sense organs.

I crept around the turd, moving as slowly and quietly as I could. The two worms fighting ignored me, but the one I was hunting spotted me when I got within five feet, just outside of my spear’s range. Its spike turned to point at my heart.

I held my spear too tightly, so I took a deep breath and forced my hands to unclench. Alertness, not tension, I reminded myself. And a new spear’s definitely in order. This one’s way too heavy—

Ack! The worm shot at me while I was still psyching myself up. My jab turned into an awkward ‘get away from me’ swing.

The worm curled around the spear’s haft and wriggled toward my arms. There was only a split second to make a decision. Either abandon the spear or—I jabbed, aiming at the worm’s tail as it searched for purchase on the haft.

I pinned the worm about two thirds of the way down its body. Undaunted, it surged at me, tearing open the wound. A bright yellow liquid spurted out, and the worm fell to the side, thrashing. I stabbed it twice more.

The segments around the worm’s wounds tightened, likely to keep the liquid from leaking out, so I stabbed and stabbed until it stopped moving. All my attention was on making the thing dead, and it wasn’t until I saw the tip of a worm’s spike poke out from the front of my shirt did I realize that the loser of the other worms’ fight had come my way and stabbed me in the back.

Horrified, I saw the worm curl up and around my body. The only thing that saved me was that it wasn’t quite long enough to wrap around more than once. Then my mind blanked as Meliune’s Blessing rolled through me.

I pulled the worm off, the spike sliding out my back. Dimly, I expected it to hurt, but it didn’t—not when I’d gotten stabbed nor when I’d pulled out the spike. There was no opportunity to wonder why, though, not with my thoughts buried under the blessing.

The worm coiled to wrap around my arms, so I spun, using centrifugal force to keep it away. I became dizzy, but whenever I eased up, the worm coiled toward my arms. So I stumbled over to one of the nearby trees and swung the worm at its trunk. The worm instantly curled around it, mouth flaring. I went back for my spear, then stabbed the worm until it was dead, this time keeping an eye on my surroundings.

For the third worm, I gathered a bunch of sticks and tossed them at it all at once. The sudden proliferation of things to curl around, pierce, and strangle seemed to confuse the worm and I stabbed it to death while it squirmed among the debris.

Afterward, I limped to the water’s edge and plopped down. Blood flowed from the wounds on my front and back, soaking my shirt, but there was still no pain. In hindsight, the worms probably used a numbing agent to keep their prey unaware while they were being eaten from the inside out.

The wound looked bad, and even worse was that I had no way to control the infection that would surely come from it. The worm had been living in turd, after all.

I had been optimistic earlier, and here I was about to die again. I might’ve panicked, but Meliune’s Blessing still had me in its grip. Only once it eased did I grit my teeth and check my Status.

Conditions

Bleeding (2), Infected (*), Poisoned (1)

The otter swam over and considered me with serious eyes. After a moment, she pulled a stone bowl from a pocket in her fur. I wanted to tell her that it was sea otters that did that—river otters didn’t have pockets—but given that we were currently living in fantasy land, I didn’t think the biology lesson would be helpful. Besides, I’d seen that bowl before. I held my breath and waited to see what she’d do.

The otter filled the bowl with water and gestured for me to take off my shirt. The water was cool on my skin when she splashed me with it. There was a brief moment of pins and needles, and then the coolness spread into me, easing the sudden pain.

I watched as the wound on my belly closed. “Wow.”

Oh my god, it’s real. Magic.

Yes, I’d seen it before, but the first time with the crow-person I’d been under the influence of Meliune’s Blessing, and the second time was during a near-death experience. Now, though, I was fully conscious and aware, and feeling utterly awestruck at the sight. I licked my lips in envy of the otter’s magic.

Not quite finished, she poured the remaining water into the pool and refilled the bowl. This time, I watched closely and saw the water flash with light before she used it.

The otter splashed my shirt, and the blood slid off onto the ground. She wrinkled her nose at me before dumping the rest on top of my head. She sniffed me then and, apparently pleased with her handiwork, patted me on the knee before diving back into the pool and retreating back behind the waterfall.

Dazed, I began to wonder how I might learn magic, or if there was a way for the otter to teach me. It was something to think about anyway, but first things came first. I checked my Status, and saw that the conditions section was empty.

I took a long breath and let it out. Safe. No bleeding, poison, or infection. I wonder if I got any experience points for the encounter? But no, there wasn’t a section for it on my character sheet.

I felt a little proud after winning the fight, and a lot of chagrin too. I would’ve died afterward if it hadn’t been for the otter. That was a sobering thought.

Now that the excitement was over, the flies surrounded the turd again. There were new areas exposed where the worms had extracted themselves, and metal glinted in the sun. Just because there were no experience points, it didn’t mean there was no loot.

With a grunt, I got up and cautiously approached the dragon’s turd. The smell was horrible, bad enough to water my eyes and tighten my scalp. The flies loved it though. They were each an inch long and as thick as my thumb. Even from five feet away, I could tell the flies were ugly, little brutes.

I kept my distance and scanned the surface of the turd. There were bits of metal poking through, including what looked like the base of a pommel and some chainmail links. There were bones too—a portion of a skull with an eye socket full of black flies. Some poor soldier had found their way into the dragon’s belly. Fascinating.

Don’t get me wrong—I was horrified too—but there was a reason I’d ended up working in documentaries. Ever since I was a kid, I’d been interested in learning about the world—the things in it and how they worked.

I backed off and circled around the glen to look for the right tool for the task ahead. It didn’t take long to find a long branch—straight at one end but with an elbow at the other I could use as a hook to pull and push the turd apart. When I got back, the swarm was thicker than before. There were so many flies crawling over each other, the turd’s surface rippled.

Grimacing, I poked the turd with the hook to clear space around the pommel. The flies reacted instantly, the black wriggling mass lifting into the air to swarm the hook. The branch shook as bits of wood fell to the ground.

I freaked out and dove for the water. I’d just avoided one brush with death. Why risk another? Besides, if the flies could tear apart a branch, I shuddered to think what they’d do to the soft flesh of my face and neck.

What a mess. The flies were safe enough for now at the edge of the Glen, but that would change when their eggs in the turd hatched. Who knew how big the swarm would grow then, or how it would disperse, if at all?

I needed to regroup.

First, I would finish making a knife. I still needed it to gut the fish... the fish… the fish that I noticed was now missing. It must’ve torn away from my belt in the scuffle with the worms. I scanned the area but didn’t see it.

The otter met my eyes, as she took bite after slow bite of the bass I’d caught.

All at once, the adrenaline keeping me going dissipated. I was tired and hungry, but I wasn’t going to begrudge the otter the fish. She’d saved my life twice over. I’d just have to catch another one.

I shook my head at how worn out my eight-year-old body was. It was just that morning I’d woken up from being poisoned. My mind wanted to go blank, but I still had a lot of daylight left. I had time to finish the new knife, go fishing, and then… and then I’d finally eat something other than fennel and plums.

The hunger must’ve inspired me, because I caught three fish in an hour’s time—two bass and a catfish. I was tempted to try for more, but was starting to feel woozy. My hands trembled as I strung a cord through the last fish’s jaw and hung it with the others on my waist.

Back at the Glen, I ducked into the cave to get the fire started. I knelt beside the kindling and closed my eyes, taking deep breaths to steady my hands. When I opened my eyes, I saw the otter across from me. Her eyes were so clear; I hadn’t noticed that before. I thought she’d go for the fish at my waist, but she just watched me.

It took about thirty strikes of the pyrite on flint for a spark to catch. I blew on it too hard, though, and had to start over. Fortunately, the next round only took about ten strikes, and this time, the ember grew and flared as intended.

Once the fire was safely going, I turned to the bass. They were easy to clean. All I had to do was cut open the belly and clear the innards. I drove two thin stakes through the fish lengthwise, then stuck them into the ground next to the fire.

The catfish took more work, as I had to pull the skin off, while also being careful of its barbs. A pair of pliers would’ve helped, but they weren’t something I could make from flint. The resulting filets were… let’s be generous and call them uneven. I staked and stuck them beside the bass.

The otter watched the whole process, a drop of saliva hanging from her mouth.

“They’re not ready,” I said. “Just give them a little more time. Half are for you. That’s why I caught three.”

The otter glanced up, but my words didn’t register. She went back to staring at the fish, her paws clenching and unclenching.

“Please,” I said. “I need to eat some too.”

She didn’t even look up, so I waved my hand to catch her attention and pointed to a bass-and-catfish-filet combo. I gestured that they belonged to her, then I pointed to the rest and gestured to myself.

Stars filled the otter’s eyes. She excitedly gestured to her portion and made a motion that resembled eating.

I nodded. “Yes.”

She smiled and patted me on the knee, like a parent proud of her child.

Honestly, I didn’t know how to respond to that. I was sixty-four years old on the inside, but the otter, if she was in fact a mystical being, could be hundreds if not thousands of years old so maybe the analogy was appropriate after all. I was just glad she understood me.

We both hovered over the fish, and when they were finally ready—I dug in, burning my mouth and hands, but I didn’t care. The fatty skin and the tender, oily flesh were delicious. My belly warmed with every bite. The catfish was drier—the bottom feeders were notorious for being riddled with parasites, so I cooked them longer—but even they were satisfying to my protein-and-nutrient-starved body. I would’ve rolled on the ground in joy, if not for the danger of dirtying the fish or setting myself on fire.

The meal was everything I’d hoped it would be. Don’t get me wrong—I would’ve loved salt, pepper, and butter to go with the fish, but given my circumstances, the meal was perfect. I ate a whole bass and half the catfish, all on my own.

Afterward, I lay on my back. The otter lay beside me, watching smoke rise from the fire. I had a full belly, and all was good with the world.

Well, not all. Outside the cave, a cloud of black flies hovered.

In a little while, I’d get up and work to replace my hand ax. Then I’d gather more wood for the fire overnight. And after that? Nothing. I needed to rest and would deal with the flies tomorrow.

5

Of Monsters, Terrible and Sweet

The next day, I eyed the dragon’s turd. There were three approaches to getting the loot hidden inside: kill or drive away the flies, protect myself against their bites, or eliminate their attraction to the turd. The last was a chemical problem and outside of my expertise, while protecting against their bites needed either specialized clothing, armor, or magic, none of which I had.

No, the simplest approach was to drive them off, which meant tricking them into fleeing. I could’ve possibly waited until the turd dried out and set fire to it, but I didn’t want to risk a forest fire. A flaming five-foot log of turd would be no joke.

So, I came up with a plan.

To execute it, I gathered two piles near the turd. The first was made of kindling, and the second was of green leaves. I also found a large frond to use as a fan.

I set the kindling aflame with a brand from a campfire I’d started earlier. The flies noticed right away, and a few scouts rose up into the air to investigate. The memory of what they’d done to the digging stick was still fresh, and I felt sweat drip down my back every time one of them flew past me. I built up the small fire, and then let it burn down to embers. When the coals were ready, I tossed the leaves onto them.

Gray smoke filled the air, and I quickly fanned it toward the flies. “Look, it’s a forest fire. Time to flee.” Instead of leaving, though, the flies clung to the turd. Their buzzing grew louder as they used their wings to cool the turd. Bees did something similar when protecting their hives from forest fires; I just hadn’t expected the same behavior from these flies.

A handful lifted into the air to find the source of danger. I felt them ping like pebbles against my face and arms. One crawled inside my shirt, and its wings buzzed angrily against the fabric. That attracted the others, and when the one inside my shirt bit me—a sharp, shooting pain—I aborted the plan by diving into the pool. The fly bit me twice more before it drowned.

Thankfully, it wasn’t venomous. My Status was clear of the Poisoned condition.

From the other side of the Glen, I watched the fire burn itself out. The otter sat beside me. I thought she’d mock me for failing, but instead she looked thoughtful, alternating glances between me and the fire. She must’ve come to a decision about something, because she pulled me over to a patch of soft ground.

The otter brought out a short stick, almost like a dowel, from inside her pocket.

“Just how much stuff do you have stored in there?” I asked.

The otter quirked her head, not understanding.

“Never mind. What is it you wanted to show me?”

The otter drew in the dirt. She started with a rough oval and slowly added details, like a mustelid Bob Ross. At the edges, she drew happy trees. In the open space between them, little grasses sprung up, and in the center was a rock.

She gestured to the rock and began a new drawing. It turned out to be a mound covered in mushrooms, like a forest within the forest. Then she pointed to a mushroom and drew it in detail. It had a long stalk, and its head folded down like an umbrella.

The otter pointed at the drawing, then at the forest. She mimed walking in place and made up a gesture with her paws to represent the action of walking. Apparently unsure whether or not I understood the gesture, she also drew an outline of me walking toward the mushrooms.

“You want me to go there?” I asked. I repeated her gesture to show that I did, in fact, understand. It was faster than miming or drawing in the dirt.

The otter nodded, and then disappeared into the brush before coming back with a large frond. She pretended to wrap the mushroom with the frond and carry it back to the glen. She came up with gestures to describe those actions too. What a clever being she is.

“This is a quest,” I said, smiling. “I’m to bring back a mushroom.” Each time I spoke, I repeated her gestures.

The otter nodded, and her eyes got really serious. She put her paw on my hand to make sure I was paying attention, then pretended to take a bite of the mushroom. Suddenly, her whole body shook. She gagged, stumbling, her paws at her neck. Slowly, she spun around until she finally fell over as if dead.

I clapped at her performance. “No eating the deadly, dangerous mushrooms. Got it.”

The otter got up and dusted herself off. Then she made a drawing of a fire, pretended to toss the mushroom onto it, and pointed toward the flies. A vicious smile spread across her face, and I felt my face quickly copy hers. Just because I didn’t have the expertise to make an insecticide, didn’t mean there wasn’t someone nearby who could.

I took my spear with me, a coil of braided rope over my shoulder, and the frond. It must’ve been a sight, part Huckleberry Finn, part Lord of the Flies.

The meadow was in a direction I hadn’t explored, more green than woodsy. The thick bushes made for slow going, especially since I had to be careful of hidden dangers, like snakes, poisonous insects, and carnivorous plants.

I hadn’t confirmed the existence of carnivorous plants yet, but the day would come, I was sure of it.

Eventually, I felt myself move from one space to another. The feeling was weird, not physical at all. I’d passed through an intangible barrier, and something intangible inside me recognized it.

Is the area around the Glen some kind of spiritual territory? One belonging to the otter? If so, it lent credence to the idea that she was some kind of spiritual being. Or perhaps she was the servant of one.

I hadn’t noticed while I was inside, but outside the territory I felt the heat and humidity more, and I subtly felt exposed. The sensations were strong enough, I was surprised I hadn’t noticed it before. But then, I hadn’t had Ikfael’s Blessing until recently. There were decent odds the two were related.

I filed the information away to think on later and kept going. The pace was slow, since I continued to use my spear to test the ground and move branches aside. I was just congratulating myself for how well I was doing, when I heard a large body move through the brush.

I ducked behind the nearest tree and readied my spear, just in case. I prayed I wouldn’t need it though. One, I’d gotten caught up in recent events and still hadn’t made a lighter one. And two, whatever the beast was, it wasn’t afraid of making noise. It grunted and snorted as it heaved, and a small tree trunk cracked under its weight. There were licking noises, a dissatisfied grunt, and then the beast trundled away, the ground thumping from its steps.

I peeked from my hiding spot, but all I saw were bushes swaying in the beast’s wake and a tree, fifteen feet tall, its trunk splintered at the base. The bark was gouged where the beast had shoved the tree over.

Why that specific tree and none of the others? The only difference was a purple lichen near the top of the trunk. The area was covered in saliva, and only a few patches of lichen remained. I crept closer and found two small strips hidden underneath. Were they edible? A delicacy? I wouldn’t risk eating them, but the otter might like them. I wrapped the remains in some leaves and tucked the package inside my shirt.

I kept going, though I wasn’t sure if that made me courageous or foolish. Fortunately, I didn’t encounter any other giant beasts along the way.

The meadow was gentle. A breeze swayed through a lush and verdant field of wildflowers. There was a spicy-sweet scent in the air, like honey and ginger, and I heard the drone of bees nearby. At the center, like kings and queens on their thrones, were the mushrooms on their mound.

I sat at the edge of the meadow and kept watch, my paranoia at odds with the peacefulness of the setting. I tossed a rock into the field, but nothing happened, and no monsters appeared.

Where was the troll at the bridge? The enigmatic riddle to solve? This quest was too straightforward. Or maybe I’d just read too many adventure stories and had too many gamemasters eager to ambush my characters’ parties.

I picked my way into the meadow, careful not to disturb the flowers. The ground was more uneven than expected, and I nearly tripped twice. The hair on the back of my neck rose when I noticed the end of a pale, bleached bone sticking out. I pulled it from the ground and saw it was big enough to be from a large boar or sow. I dug and found more bones, from animals small and large. The meadow was littered with them.

All the while, the scent of honey and ginger grew stronger. It tickled my nose and found a path to my brain, tingling the nerves as it went. Pleasure seeped into my body and rolled through me in waves. All the tension I’d been holding dissipated like rain on a hot stone.

My worries fell away. At the same time, I grew hungry… so hungry. My mouth filled with saliva, and I had to spit it out. When I did, my mouth filled with saliva again.

The spicy-sweet scent came from the mound, where the mushrooms glowed in the morning light. They were beautiful, their flesh promising to fill my emptiness. I walked closer, and the smell soaked into my skin.

A dim part of my mind noticed that the earth around the mound was especially uneven. Many, many creatures must’ve died here, their bodies feeding the meadow.

Fascinated by my own actions, I reached with the spear and carefully severed one of the mushrooms at its base. Harming such a lovely creature was a tragedy, but it had to be done. Like a pallbearer, I lifted the mushroom up with the flat of the spearhead and placed it onto the frond, which I wrapped and tied around it like a shroud.

My body rebelled. It wanted nothing more than to tear the frond apart and shove the mushroom into my mouth. I didn’t though. I knew what would happen, the otter’s warning all too clear, and the point became moot. Meliune’s Blessing covered me and shielded me from the hunger.

Leaving was still painful, like I was tearing myself away from a lover’s embrace, but I couldn’t stay. Everything within me was ringing in alarm.

The scent lingered until the meadow’s edge. It clung to me as I passed the boundary out into the forest, and all the way back to the Glen. The mushrooms were insidious, seductive, and terrible in a way the baboon or even the dragon could never be.

I’d rather fight a troll on a bridge than face this monstrosity again.

I was in a daze. It was pure luck that I didn’t encounter anything dangerous on the way back. When I crossed into the otter’s territory, I felt like I was submerged in cool water. The longing for the mushrooms lessened, and I suddenly had space to think again. Meliune’s Blessing had lifted.

I immediately checked my Status, and saw that my attributes were a mess: next to most of the numbers were more numbers in parentheses.

Eight (Hidden Status, Oliver Michael Sandoval)

Age

8

Soul Marks

- God Touched
- Spontaneous Formation
- Memories of Another World

Attributes

Strength

8 (6)

Constitution

8 (5)

Agility

8

Intelligence

14 (11)

Wisdom

14 (15)

Spirit

13 (14)

Charm

11 (9)

Luck

12 (13)

Body Power

8

Qi

11

Mana

14

Conditions

Addicted (3), Sensitive (2)

Strength, Constitution, Intelligence, and Charm—all appeared to have negative modifiers—while Wisdom, Spirit, and Luck had minor buffs. There was also the Addicted (3) condition—which wasn’t a surprise given the cravings I continued to feel—and also Sensitive (2). When I focused on it, I felt naked and my nerves exposed to the air.

I ran the rest of the way home.

The otter was waiting at the forest’s edge and brought me to the cave. She’d placed five stone bowls on the ground. The arrangement looked like a combination of a pentacle and operating table. The otter gestured for me to undress and lie down in the center.

I nodded and did as I was told. What else could I do?

From the bowl placed above my head, the otter poured water into the air, and it hovered above me in a blob. My jaw dropped, but before I could ask about it, she grabbed the blob and stretched it, forming a flat rectangle. She looked exactly like an otter holding a tablet. My mind hiccupped at the sight—it was just so incongruous.

The otter ignored me and used the tablet to scan up and down my body. I was really curious to see what it said, but the water was clear from my perspective. All I could see were her eyes moving back and forth, like she was reading.

I couldn’t not ask about the magic, but when I started to talk, she placed her paw on my mouth and gestured for me to be quiet. She then moved to the bowl on my left and poured its contents onto my forehead. My mind emptied and all my thoughts turned transparent. There was no other way to describe it—I was pure consciousness.

I felt more than I saw how everything around me was both heavy and light: heavy in substance, light in spirit. Curious if that also applied to me, I turned my attention inward and saw a map unfolding, endlessly complex.

Three areas inside my body were lit up—in my belly, in my chest, and in my head. They were whirlpools of light, and connecting them were roads the color of stars. A golden syrup marred their cool brilliance.

When I checked my conditions, I saw that Sensitive had gone from (2) to (4), no doubt as a result of the otter’s magic.

The otter dipped her paw into the bowl on my right and traced the water onto my skin. A coolness spread through me, and where the water went, the golden syrup was wiped away. Every two or three inches, she washed her paw clean in one of the bowls at my feet.

Along the way, I compared the inner map to what I knew of Taoism, yoga, and brujeria. The three large energy centers in my body could easily be Taoism’s lower, middle, and upper dantians, and the pathways in between were the meridians. The dantians appeared to match up with structures that looked like chakras, and there was also a section that resembled the desert sun paired with a dark cave. It’d been a long time since I studied with mi abuela, but I was pretty sure the cave was supposed to lead to the place where the animal gods resided.

I also sensed that I wasn’t seeing everything. My view was incomplete, like using three-dimensional sight to gaze at a five-dimensional structure.

Or maybe there are layers and connective tissue that are still invisible to Sensitive (4)? They could also be outside of human understanding. There’s no sense in getting conceited—the world’s way bigger than anyone understands, including me.

When the otter finished, she gestured for me to dress and sit. She scanned me one more time with her tablet, pausing at the heart dantian. She chirped a question.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I… don’t know what you just said.”

She quirked her head, the motion a now-familiar expression of confusion. After a moment’s consideration, the otter sighed and let the tablet dissolve into water. She chirped and gestured, her paws waving at me, the cave, and life in general.

When she saw that I still didn’t understand, she shrugged and left to dive into the pool.

“That’s it? What about—”

I tried to stand to follow after, but my head spun and my legs gave out. She poked her head out of the water and chirped at me, this time more sternly. She pointed to the moss, and made a gesture that looked like a person sleeping. This time I got the message.

“Right, bed rest, I understand.”

She nodded and dove away.

I lay there for a time, meditating on what had just happened. The earlier excitement from exploring the System and seeing magic in action was quickly being tempered by the understanding of just how dangerous this world was. Even simple fetch quests could be deadly.

“Status.”

Eight (Hidden Status, Oliver Michael Sandoval)

Age

8

Soul Marks

- God Touched
- Spontaneous Formation
- Memories of Another World

Attributes

Strength

8

Constitution

8

Agility

8

Intelligence

14

Wisdom

14 (15)

Spirit

13 (14)

Charm

11

Luck

12 (13)

Body Power

8

Qi

11

Mana

14

Conditions

Sensitive (1)

With relief, I also saw that the Addicted condition was gone. The otter’s magic was also dissipating, and Sensitive was down to (1).

As for my attributes, I assumed at first that the numbers in parentheses were temporary bonuses and penalties, but that appeared to be wrong. When I focused on them, they turned out to be directions.

In other words, the numbers in parentheses were the direction the attributes were heading. A Strength of 8 with 7 in the parenthesis would mean I was getting weaker over time, while a Wisdom of 14 with 15 in the parenthesis meant I was growing wiser.

The mushroom would’ve been incredibly debilitating, given its potential effects on Strength, Constitution, and Intelligence. Fortunately, the otter’s ceremony cleansed the penalties, while maintaining the bonuses—probably because my mind had literally been blown open.

I didn’t know the timing for when the new attribute numbers would go into effect, but I’d keep an eye out for the changes.

Oh, there’s a new talent.

Talents

- Jack of All Trades
- Talent Scout
- Qi Sensitive

When I focused on Qi Sensitive, I felt the benefits of meditation and qigong practice that had been accruing, day after day, year after year—a drop at a time until it was a sea. Superimposed onto this understanding was my recent glimpse into the nature of reality. I shook my head, still not quite down from the high.

I also received a notification for my first new skill.

Qi Body increased from 0 to 2.

It was for Qi Body at rank 2, and when I checked the skills page, it showed up under a new section: “Magical!” Focusing on the skill brought to mind the map of my body’s meridians. The memory was so clear, like it was etched in glass. And if I concentrated, I could even feel the flow of qi moving through my meridians.

All in all, I’d survived the quest, and even gained a new talent, skill, and handful of potential attributes from the experience. The problem was that I’d needed saving. And it hadn’t just happened once. I’d needed it every time. No, the problem—the real problem—was that I didn’t know enough about this world, and my mistakes were producing deadly consequences.

For the situation to improve, I needed to find a way to recover from my mistakes. To make them less than lethal. If I didn’t, then one day my luck would run out. There wouldn’t always be a Dr. Otter to save the day.

6

Extermination and Loot

When I woke the next day, my head pounded, and my body felt strange, like I’d been stretched out and compressed again to fit inside a four-foot package. I lay on the moss for a while until only a dull pain lingered.

Beside me, the fire had gone out overnight without me noticing. I was cold, but not hypothermic like I might’ve expected. Was it an aftereffect of the ritual? Or something to do with the otter’s territory like I’d noticed yesterday?

Living in the Glen was proving to be full of hair-raising experiences. Between the poisonings, stabbings, and addictions, there’d been no shortage of seriously dangerous events. That said, I was reluctant to abandon it, and not just because of the ready supply of food and water.

The Glen had its own resident doctor, and even though her quests were dangerous, she at least had a stake in keeping me alive. Besides, if her territory really did have the effect of moderating temperatures, then the idea of surviving the winter was suddenly becoming a lot more feasible—assuming I hadn’t made contact with the town by then.

Before all that, though, we had to get rid of the flies. One step at a time.

The otter came to check on me mid-morning, and I nodded to let her know I was ready. She led me outside, and the air vibrated with the flies’ buzzing. They seemed particularly agitated today. Swarms of the little brutes swung around the turd as if on patrol.

The next step to getting rid of them was to gather the necessary materials, but the otter had already taken care of it. A pile of kindling and firewood sat by the cave’s entrance, ready for me to use. There was also a large frond, but it didn’t look big enough—not when I would be using it to fan a toxin away from me. I’d feel better with something with more surface area and length.

I found and lashed together pieces of cedar bark to create a three-foot-by-three-foot fan, which I then attached to a two-foot handle. I was testing the bindings when I saw movement inside the dragon’s turd. My heart nearly stopped—thinking it was another worm—but then I realized it was some fly eggs hatching. The turd wriggled with the larva.

Disgusted, the otter urged me to hurry up.

It took a while to light the first fire. Once it was going, though, I used a brand to quickly start a second fire near the turd. One step closer to chemical extermination.

The fly scouts came to check things out, but I kept my distance, coming closer only to make sure there was enough fuel on the fire and that it was burning down to embers as intended.

My nerves were so bad, every time the wind blew in my direction I unconsciously held my breath. My hands shook and struggled to untie the cord wrapped around the mushroom package. The knot refused to come undone, and I was just about to go get my knife when the wind shifted again, strongly blowing toward the turd. It was now or never, so I threw the whole package onto the embers.

Smoke rose. Just a wisp at first, but quickly turning into a stream and then a cloud. I held my breath and furiously waved the fan.

The swarm, alarmed by the thick gray smoke, buzzed angrily. The majority clung to the turd and fanned their wings to cool it—the same behavior I’d seen from them before—but a handful of scouts swung around toward me, only to fall out of the air. All across the turd, the flies dropped.

More frightening, the turd started to rapidly dry, the moisture sucked out of it. Larva spilled through the cracks, as dead as their fly parents. The grass yellowed and blackened in a cone ten feet beyond the turd. An ash tree cracked in two, and the wood grew seasoned in front of my eyes.

All it took for the flies, larva, and tree to die was about thirty seconds of exposure to the mushroom’s poison. That was a relief, because my arms were burning from the strain of waving the fan and my lungs felt like they were at the edge of bursting.

I dropped the fan and dove into the pool to swim underwater and emerge behind the waterfall. I came up gasping for air, very much hoping the water would shield the cave from any stray smoke. There, I would wait until the otter came to get me.

The time felt like it passed so slowly, but then the otter showed up looking immensely pleased with herself. Our plan had worked. She must’ve cleaned up too, because the fire, the ashes, and the turd were cleared away, the ground soaked as if by a heavy rain. All that was left were the items hidden inside the turd.

It turned out to be quite a haul:

- A human skull, part of a sternum, and a collection of bone shards.

- A pair of ivory dice.

- Ten large copper coins, four small silver coins, one large silver coin, and one small gold coin.

- A section of a shield folded onto itself, the metal torn on one end. A red stripe was still visible.

- A helm, dented on one side.

- Five sections of a chain shirt that had been ripped apart. The smallest piece was a two-inch-by-three-inch section, and the largest was a twenty-four-by-eleven-inch segment. The links were crafted from steel.

- A dagger, unblemished and sharp.

Everything was washed clean by the water, as if the turd and the mushroom had never existed at all. I sat among the items, not caring if my pants got wet.

“I’m sorry,” I said to the skull. “It was probably a horrible way to die. I hope you don’t mind, but I could really use these things. I’m in a troublesome situation, you see, and in over my head. If it wasn’t for the kindness of strangers, I’d be dead.”

I waited, in case the skull responded, but it didn’t. To be honest, that was a relief, because I wasn’t sure what I would have done if it did.

I found a quiet place between two elm trees to bury the bones. The light dappled the ground, and a breeze rustled the leaves. A flowering bush added color and fragrance to the air. Obviously, I didn’t know the details, but I assumed the soldier must’ve died violently, fighting the dragon, and it was important to me to give them a peaceful grave. I had no clue what ceremonies or rituals they’d want, but I felt I had to do something.

I worked the ground with my digging stick—a new one—and the metal shield, using it like a shovel. Once the soldier’s bones were covered over, I closed my eyes and prayed to Meliune, the Goddess of Compassion, to let them find peace and move on to wherever souls were meant to go. Then, before I could think too hard about the usefulness of the metal, I stamped the shield into the ground as a grave marker.

The rest of the loot went into the cave for now, and as a bonus I had found a hickory tree and an elderberry bush on the way back from the gravesite. The elderberries were tart and the hickory nuts bitter, but each provided nutrients I wouldn’t otherwise get. My pantry had expanded! The tyranny of plums and fennel was officially ended.

After, I was still hungry, so I speared three fish for our lunch, including one of the little orange ones. It tasted like a cross between chicken and macadamia nuts. Weird for a fish, but delicious.

There was also the purple lichen I’d collected on the way to the Meadow of the Evil Death Mushrooms. That probably wasn’t the place’s official name—there may not be one at all—but it’d do. Anyway, the otter looked blankly on when I took the lichen out. I mimed that I’d heard a giant creature knock down a tree to eat it, but she just shook her head. She unceremoniously tossed the lichen onto the campfire.

Oh well. Not everything was going to be useful. There just happened to be a giant creature in the forest with a penchant for lichen.

It was mid-afternoon by the time we finished eating and I felt ready to tackle the loot. The otter, gone all lazy, spread out and lay on her back. She made tiny woob woob woob noises when she snored. I’d never wanted a video camera so much in my life, and I listened while I examined the soldier’s things.

The coins were stamped with images and writing: a tower, an eagle, a man’s face, and a woman’s face. The writing was nothing I’d seen before. I set the coins and the dice aside for the moment. They weren’t immediately useful, but I hoped they would be once I made contact with other people—people who hopefully wouldn’t threaten me with spears and magic snakes.

The helmet was dented but intact. It would make for a good pot, useful for gathering fruit and nuts, making soup, and mixing ingredients. Never underestimate the power of a metal pot!

The ripped mail was more of a dilemma. I really needed a pouch to free up my hands and still carry things, and the largest piece of chain mesh would make a decent one with the right cordage. I wouldn’t be able to use it for anything liquid, but it’d work for everything else. The other option, though, was to cord all the pieces together into a patchwork chain shirt. It would have significant gaps in protection, but it’d be better than nothing, which was what I currently had.

So, utility or defense? Wait, is that even a question?

Without defense, I wouldn’t live long enough for utility to matter. The decision to jury rig a chain shirt made, I got to work.

The largest section of mesh went on my back to protect against anything sneaking up behind me. The remaining pieces looked like the four largest Hawaiian Islands, and I strung them together with braided cord; the Big Island covered my heart and the other islands circled counterclockwise around my torso.

It took a while fiddling with the arrangement of cords, but eventually I found a pattern that securely held the pieces in places. Then, the mail transformed from a tabard into a shirt when I laced up the sides. Putting it on, I felt like a post-apocalyptic raider.

Last, but certainly not least, there was the dagger: nine inches of steel set in a polished bone pommel and decorated with a leaping hart on one side and hunting dogs on the other. It was beautiful, but also clearly a tool of war.

The wood from the split tree looked useful, so I walked over to test the dagger on it. I chopped out a length of ash for a new spear and pried it loose. The blade was sturdier than I expected, not bending at all, and the edge stayed keen no matter what I put it through.

Goosebumps rose all along my arms. Magic. It had to be. If the patchwork chain shirt was cool—and I thought it was—then a magic dagger was how a legend might begin.

I brought an ash stave back to the campfire, and sat and thought for a long time. I could do a lot with a magic dagger.

For the first time since arriving in this world, I slept soundly during the night. There were no worms or flies to worry about, and I was getting accustomed to thinking of the cave as home. It also helped that I didn’t have to keep the fire fed overnight. I still did for comfort’s sake, but the urgency was gone, which helped me rest more peacefully. That was good, because I planned for a busy, busy day.

First, I spent the morning hunting for materials: wood of various shapes and sizes, more bark for cordage, and pine resin. I also found two stones, one shaped like a dinner plate and another like a shallow bowl.

When I came across the bowl, I danced a jig. There was already a way for it to be useful.

Back at the glen, I gathered leftover charcoal from the previous night’s fire and ground the pieces into powder with a rock. When that was done, I started a fire and heated the pine resin in the new bowl.

It was the first step in making pine pitch, a natural glue crafted from a mixture of pine resin, charcoal powder, and filler, for which I used ground dead leaves. Once the pitch was ready, I set it by the fire to keep it soft and warm.

Next, I brought out the dagger to examine it. The morning light reflected on the blade and danced across the stone and water. I flashed it around to make sure it caught the otter’s attention. When I saw her looking my way, I grinned and began to work.

A hefty branch shaped like an elbow turned into an adze. I split one end with the dagger and smeared the gap with pitch. Then I wedged a flat piece of knapped flint into it and corded the wood to keep it secure. I swung the adze against a log, and it cut and shaved the wood.

Next, I split a curved branch lengthwise. It was about a foot long, and I carved a gap in the middle of both halves. After that, I coated the gaps with pitch, placed a piece of knapped flint between them, and reassembled the two halves. I finished the draw knife by lashing the pieces together. Now, I could shave wood more finely by holding the blade between two hands and ‘drawing’ it toward me.

I now had all the tools I needed for the afternoon’s projects. I glanced at the bone spikes left over from the worms, and the stave of wood scavenged from the split ash tree.

But first, lunch. My muscles ached, especially my back from being hunched over. I stood and made a show of stretching, not letting go of the dagger. Instead, I waved it in the air, making sure the otter saw how beautiful and useful it was.

Over the course of the morning, she’d made her way across the pool in stages and came closer each time to watch me make the tools.

“I bet the dagger will make quick work of lunch too,” I said, smiling.

The otter’s brows lifted. Considering? Dubious? Both?

My little landlord was a hoarder with an already-demonstrated interest in useful tools. I planned to take advantage of that. Not her—I’d never take advantage of her. No, it’d be a fair trade I propose, for something I desperately wanted. Magic.

I’d spent a lot of time thinking through the idea. The world was dangerous. It was like being dropped in the middle of New York City without knowing anything about the culture and technology—except in my previous world, the consequences of mistakes weren’t usually deadly.

Let’s say the worst happened: You get hit by a car, and when the police arrive, you panic and assault them. Now, you’ve been hit by a car and shot, and are bleeding out on the ground. But the ambulance has already been dispatched. The strange creatures who wounded you also saved your life.

It didn’t always work that way—I understood that—but in general, you could recover from your mistakes. That certainly wasn’t the case in this world. Here, a single mistake could cost you your life, and the only reason it hadn’t cost me mine yet was because of Dr. Otter’s healing magic.

I needed that magic to cushion the blow when I made mistakes and give me the opportunity to learn from them. It was the same question as with the chainmail: defense or utility. And again, defense won.

First, though, I was going to work the hell out of the dagger. I was a great fan of utility, so I planned to wring as much use from it as possible before trading it away.

For lunch, I speared a couple of perch. The fishing spot I’d found earlier was proving to be reliable. I was also grateful it was in easy view of the Glen and didn’t require traipsing through the forest and risking random encounters with the creatures living there. Although, I did detour through the brush to find a place to take care of my body’s necessities.

On the way back, I was lucky enough to wander into a patch of yellow squash. They weren’t my favorite—the squash was going to be bland without salt—but I’d count any new food source as a win.

Back at the glen, the dagger made quick work of gutting the perch, and I staked them both next to the fire. I cleaned the stone plate and put the squash on it to bake.

The otter soon joined me, her eyes moving between the grilling fish and the dagger. Since we had time, I invited her to investigate the tools I was making while we waited for the fish.

I showed her how each worked, and she invented hand signs—paw signs—we could use to describe them. She was feisty about it too. When I wanted a turn at making up a sign, she patted my arm like I was a child and shook her head.

The otter was most curious about the parasitic worms’ bone spikes. I’d kept them thinking they’d make good weapons—stilettos. Each spike was about a foot long, thin as an ice pick at the tip, and flared to an inch in diameter at the base. Below the base was a natural tang another four inches long, which had been buried inside the worm to keep the point stable.

The fish weren’t quite ready, so I sorted through my wood pile, looking for pieces with the right dimensions. I found a couple of ash and one hickory that I could trim down for the stilettos’ hilts.

I started by shaving the stray bits and bark from the hickory piece, and split it lengthwise. The otter watched intently as I then used the dagger’s tip to dig out space for a tang. Hickory was a hardwood, and the work took a delicate hand. The fit had to be tight, or else the ‘blade’ would jiggle. I couldn’t have asked for a better opportunity to show off the dagger’s value to the otter—hopefully encouraging her to want to possess it.

We stopped when the fish smelled like they were done. The perch were as delicious as I’d expected. Unfortunately, the squash turned out as predicted too: bland. The otter didn’t care for them, and neither did I. I still ate them though.

After lunch, I tested each of the tangs against the half of a hilt I’d carved. All of them were too big, but that was okay—removing wood was easier than starting over because I’d gone too fast and whittled too much. Once the fit was good, I repeated the process and made the other half, then smeared both halves with pitch, fit the tang inside, and lashed it all together.

The result wasn’t pretty—everything about the stiletto was crude—but it’d work in a pinch. I noted for the next one, though, that I should sand the wood before assembling the pieces. As it was, I now had to undo the lashing and scrape a porous stone over the hilt to make it more comfortable to grip.

Still, my demonstration had been effective. The otter was fascinated by the process, from start to finish.

“This is good, but all it can do is puncture.” I put down the stiletto and picked up the dagger. “This, on the other hand, can both puncture and slash. It is both a weapon and tool.”

The otter couldn’t understand my words, but I hoped she’d find meaning in my tone of voice and the way I gazed fondly at the dagger.

The otter looked at me, her expression dubious. She gestured with her paw. The intent and attitude were easy to read: Come on. Out with it. What do you want?

I immediately plopped down opposite her and put the magic dagger on the ground between us. Then I made a bowl-shape with my hands and put it next to the dagger.

She looked confused, and hesitated before pulling a stone bowl from her fur pocket and placing it where I had gestured.

Through the otter’s invented sign language—it really came in handy for these extended conversations—I asked for permission to pick up the bowl, which she granted. I filled the bowl with water and brought it back to where we were sitting.

Now came the hard part.

I picked up the magic dagger and mimed cutting myself. My fingers made explosions to show blood spurting out. I grasped the imaginary wound and grimaced. Picking up the bowl, I hurriedly wriggled my fingers over the water and poured it onto the wound. I let my face ease in relief.

The otter looked me up and down, still looking confused. It was obvious I wasn’t injured and didn’t need her healing.

I gestured toward her and wriggled my fingers. I gestured to myself and repeated the motion, but only the first part. Then I repeated it over and over, each time steadily adding more, until I was able to do the whole sequence—until I ‘learned’ how to cast a magic spell. Then I moved off by myself and pretended to be working a piece of wood with the dagger. I accidently cut myself, but instead of panicking, I wriggled my fingers over the water to cast a healing spell and splashed it onto the imaginary wound. Satisfied, I went back to work.

The otter’s eyes were thoughtful. She seemed to understand that I wanted her to teach me healing magic in exchange for the dagger. She even invented a sign to represent magic, a paw raised perpendicular to the chest, digits spread.

I repeated the sign to show I understood, then returned the bowl to await her decision. After a while, I realized it was going to take a while and went to look for stones I could use for sanding wood.

When I came back, there was doubt in the otter’s eyes, and something else. Possibility?

On my phone, I received a notification for a new mercantile skill:

Barter increased from 0 to 3.

7

A Grandfather’s Lessons

The otter brought me to the pool and scooped up a ball of water the size of my fist. It hovered above her paw, the surface undulating gently. It was so cool—magic, real visible magic, without the need for wires, sleight of hand, or faith in an invisible world.

She pointed to herself, the water, and then to me. I’ll teach you that.

I nodded. “Yes, please.”

She gestured with her paws and siphoned the ball into five streams, each forming into a different shape. There was a tree with a broad and proud canopy, a ribbon dancing in the air, a cloud raining, the tablet I’d seen her use, and my forearm bleeding. I watched as the wound closed.

Bringing her paws together, she recombined the sculptures into a single ball. She pointed to herself, the water, and me.

So, there were five branches of water magic, all starting from the same place, and one of them was the healing magic I wanted. I pointed to the place where the sculpture of my wounded arm had floated.

The otter shook her head before going through an absurd sequence of push-ups, sit-ups, running in place, and stretches. She made a bunch of gestures and connected them to the activities, then one final sign to encompass them all together. Finally, she pulled out her dowel to draw in the dirt, images of me practicing or training in a variety of activities. It seemed she was willing to teach me the starting place for water magic, but that I’d have to learn the rest on my own.

That was fine with me. I wasn’t afraid of hard work, and honestly, just getting access to any magic would be worth the trade. I nodded to show my agreement and signed, “I practice.”

She stopped the weird otter calisthenics and wiped her brow. Not that otters could actually sweat, but she did it anyway. Maybe she’d seen it done elsewhere? A track meet for gods and spirits? The image of her in an otterized track suit made me smile.

For all the mystery surrounding her, she was also adorable, the natural cuteness of otters amplified by her intelligence. Plus, she had magic. And I will too. Soon.

I was startled from my wandering thoughts by the otter streaming the water back into the pool. My hope was that we’d get started with lessons immediately, but she pointed to the sun and clapped her paws three times. Then she showed me a series of signs, clapping in sequence for each one.

Were they numbers? So three? She’d teach me in three days? I nodded.

The otter sighed and scratched at her cheek, no doubt wondering how she’d gotten mixed up with me. She gave the dagger one last look before diving into the pool. Payment was apparently due on delivery. I’d have three days to use it before I needed to hand it over.

I lay on my back and nudged another stick toward the fire. I’d done enough work for the day—more than enough, really, as my body was still healing and needed to rest. And if later that night I dreamt about running through the forest while wielding arcane and potent magics, well… a boy could dream, right?

The next day, I planned to explore the forest and scavenge for more materials.

Before heading out, though, I used charcoal to outline the dagger’s blade on two pieces of cedar bark. I cut away everything outside the outlines and lashed the two pieces together to make a scabbard for the dagger. I looped a cord around the top and tied it around my waist. Then, I repeated the process for the stiletto with the hickory hilt.

The scabbards banged against my legs when I walked, so I looped a cord around the bottom of each and tied them to my legs. It was still awkward, but less distracting and noisy.

I felt like a badass wearing my armor and carrying my spear, a dagger on one leg, and a stiletto on the other. Alas, the feeling wasn’t reflected in my Status.

My attribute increases hadn’t taken effect, and the only changes to my skills were in gaining Qi Body and Barter earlier. I’d assumed at least Woodworking would’ve gone up, but no, it was holding steady at rank 8.

With a shrug, I hiked up the hillside leading to the top of the waterfall to take advantage of the view there. That was where I’d been poisoned, so I took care moving through the brush. Nothing jumped out at me, though, and the Forest Survival skill was silent when I checked it.

The trees at the top were thick, and their branches were draped with vines, especially on the ones next to the stream feeding the waterfall. The vines were dotted with small purple, orange, and pink flowers.

They looked potentially helpful, so I used the butt of my spear to knock some loose. Both the purple- and orange-flowered vines were smooth, but the pink one had barbs. They looked nasty too, like you’d lose flesh trying to get free of them.

I felt more than heard something drop behind me, and immediately dove to the side. Scrambling to my feet, I got the spear up in time to knock away one of the barbed vines. It was on the ground, and swayed in front me like a snake. Instead of a mouth with fangs, though, it had a cluster of needles set in a circle.

My butt cheek ached in memory. A similar circle had been stitched into the back of my pants.

This is what poisoned me!

The stinger darted forward, and I batted it away again. Unfortunately, the vine was only an inch across and was too hard to stab as it weaved in the air.

Why am I always fighting long, narrow creatures, world?

After a minute of us missing each other, I noticed that the bulk of the vine had withdrawn behind the tree it’d originally occupied, leaving only the stinger. I backed off, and when I was ten feet away, the stinger rapidly retreated.

Yes! We fought to a draw! I lifted my spear in non-defeat!

And brought it down immediately to stab a second barbed vine trying to sneak up on me. This time, I grazed the vine and swung the spear to force it to the ground and pin it there. A quick look didn’t show any others nearby, so I dragged the spearhead across the wound, severing the stinger. The scent of mint burst into the air, and the vine fled. Suddenly, all the barbed vines climbed higher into their trees.

The scent must’ve alerted them to the death of one of their comrades, and they’d retreated in fear of me! This time I raised my spear in victory—while also keeping an eye on my surroundings and the trees, because these devilspawn apparently loved dropping on their prey from above.

Not today though. Today, I was the winner.

I checked my phone in case the fight had triggered any changes to my Status, but there was still nothing related to experience points or any new skills. Damn, I’d been hoping to see a spear skill of some kind appear.

“It sure is hard to improve in this System.”

Except that I’d gotten Qi Body and Barter easily. Was that because I had prior experience with each? That would explain why they hadn’t started at one.

I’d have to think about that later, once I was back in the safety of the cave. Now, I was enjoying the sweet, minty taste of victory. And checking my surroundings. Because, you know, devil vines.

I waded into the stream to splash water on my face. The current pulled at my clothes, but it wasn’t bad, as long as I stayed near the bank. The fish avoided the waterfall, but I saw one of the little orange ones braving the area, popping up to eat insects on the surface.

“You live in a beautiful place, little guy.”

The view was breathtaking. To the west, an escarpment rose high into the air. It stretched for miles to the north and south, and the trees on top looked like they sat on a high shelf.

Farther east, the ground flattened out. The whole scene was covered in a rich, green carpet of trees. At least three or four miles away, I saw land cleared for farming and a smudge of black in the sky. Smoke, the kind produced by civilization.

Amid the green canopy, movement fluttered. Small birds and arboreal creatures lived in those branches. Above them, birds of prey and scavengers hovered. I saw hawks, eagles, and even a committee of vultures circling south of the Glen.

A creature was dead or dying. Might be something for me to scavenge over there.

The canopy opened as I walked, making room for a variety of shrubs, bushes, and brambles. Each tried to outdo its neighbors, and I made my way carefully, mindful of anything with thorns or needles.

I also looked for any fruits or vegetables and managed to find a patch of thick-stalked plants. Clusters of bean pods as long as my hands hung from them, and thankfully they didn’t react when I used my spear to cut one of the pods free.

The beans inside were mottled green and maroon. They were small too, not done growing, and smelled nutty. When I sniffed them, my mouth watered. Strangely, there was also a sense of… sustenance. A part of me knew the beans would be nutritious, but I’d never seen them before. That knowledge shouldn’t have been something I possessed.

I checked my Status, and my attention was pulled to the Forest Survival skill. There was also a warmth in my belly, the glow similar to the feeling after practicing qigong. Interestingly, it also reminded me of my grandfather. He was the one who’d taught me to hunt. The two of us used to go into the woods every weekend. When I was little, we went after squirrels, but when I got older we brought home ducks and deer for the freezer.

I loved mi abuelito. He was patient and kind. He had this way of walking through the woods, like every tree and every bush was his acquaintance.

It was because he was more comfortable there than anywhere else.

Both my grandparents on my dad’s side were brujos, but where my grandmother’s craft focused on spirits, my grandfather was one with the land. He was aware of the sights and sounds and smells of the forest without seeming to be.

I looked around and saw the forest around me with new eyes. Or, more accurately, I saw it with my old eyes: the ones I’d trained over fifty years of backwoods hiking, camping, fishing, and hunting. I saw some thin stalks poking from the ground and recognized them as wild onions. Digging them up with the butt of my spear proved me right. And another five yards farther, I found signs of a deer passing through this area—a pile of pellets.

I’d been running and running, just trying to survive, and hadn’t taken the time to get my bearings. So, I drew in a deep breath and relaxed my shoulders. They were so tight, they felt like they were riding just under my ears. I reminded myself how it felt to be one with the land.

“Yeah, just like that. Keep breathing, Ollie. Keep breathing.”

I wrapped a handful of bean pods and onions in a frond to bring them back to the cave later for testing.

It was a couple hundred yards before I felt the boundary of the otter’s territory. Well, probably not that far. My sense of time and scale were likely distorted by my slow pace and the need to constantly check for danger. Maybe it was only a hundred yards? One hundred twenty or thirty?

I felt exposed outside the boundary, but my curiosity kept me going. At least the walking was easier. The forest canopy was thicker where the vultures circled, and the groundcover thinned.

Ahead, coming down from one of the hillsides, a moose calf stumbled between the trees. Even from forty yards away, I could see she was wounded; the flesh of her hindquarters was exposed, the meat red against her brown fur.

Wait, she? How did I know? The animal was too young to be able to tell the gender at this distance. Before I could check my Status though, I felt the same warm glow in my belly as before. The Forest Survival skill was at work again.

The glow quickly turned into alarm, however, as a flock of wild turkeys leisurely followed the moose calf, led by a giant bird easily four times the size of the others. He had deep orange feathers mixed in with the usual dark brown. The other turkeys included three or four with orange feathers. They were also bigger than average, just not quite as big as their leader.

He must’ve gotten impatient. A haze, like the shimmer you’d see on hot pavement, shot from his beak. Steam rose from where it struck the calf. Her fur smoked and sloughed away to reveal the meat bubbling beneath it.

I gulped and tightened my grip on my spear.

The monster turkey jumped at the calf to use his talons on her injured flesh. The calf buckled under his weight and called plaintively for help. He seemed to enjoy the sound, preening his feathers and strutting across her back.

He used his beak to tear the flesh from the calf’s face and gulped it down. The other orange-feathered turkeys circled the dying calf and tore open her belly. The monster apparently didn’t like that and batted them away with his wings. He hopped down to drive his head into the calf’s belly and eat the innards.

Only when he was done did he allow the other orange feathers to take their turn. The rest of the turkeys, the ones with brown feathers, kept their distance and pecked at the ground.

I stayed still, not wanting to draw the turkeys’ attention, especially that monster. Sweat poured down my back, but I kept my breathing steady. My eyes were mild, my gaze soft—it was one of my grandfather’s lessons. He said that it was best not to be too interested in prey and predators, because they could sense when a hunter was looking at them.

“To be wise in the woods,” he had said, “is to blend your heart with the land.”

I put his words into practice, quieting my thoughts and feelings, my breathing and actions. My heart still pounded, and I was ready to move quickly, but all that lay under a still pool’s surface.

The feeling was similar to Meliune’s Blessing, except I was in control—it wasn’t forced upon me.

The lead turkey went back for seconds and thirds. He shredded the fur and made a game of tossing the bones at the other turkeys. They’d flap away to avoid being hit, but never strayed too far. Eventually, the monster got bored and wandered back up the hillside. The rest of the flock followed after.

The vultures that’d been circling landed once the turkeys were gone, their heads swiveling to check for danger. Only once they were sure it was clear did they hop toward the calf’s remains. I waited until I was certain none of them shot heat beams from their beaks.

There wasn’t much cover in between the birds and me, so they saw me coming and hopped away from the carcass. Some stayed on the ground, while a few flapped up to perch in the nearby trees. My spear was ready, just in case.

The calf’s fur was tattered and unsalvageable. Most of the meat and viscera were gone. The sinew would come in handy, though, so I cut two of the forelegs free. “Thank you,” I said. “I’ll use these to make tools, and my life will be better because of your sacrifice.”

I would’ve taken more, but carrying the two legs was going to be awkward enough.

The vultures eyed me as I also walked around to pick up stray turkey feathers. There was something about the orange ones that made me want to hold them. It was like my hands knew what to do without me. They played with the feathers, testing them. The shafts were sturdy, and the vanes flexible but resilient.

More skills at work? Maybe. Probably.

Just as important, though, an idea started percolating—the feathers, both the dark brown and orange, would make for fine fletching for arrows. I stuffed them all in my shirt and walked back to the glen, the damn things tickling me all the way home.

8

Getting Crafty

The otter didn’t show up for lunch. I’d expected her to, since she didn’t seem to be the type to miss a free meal.

“These are for you,” I said as I set a couple of catfish filets by the pool.

When she still didn’t appear, I shrugged and went to check the stave I’d scavenged from the ash tree. I’d originally planned to use it for a new spear, but it looked like it’d also make for a decent stickbow. There was a knot in the wood that worried me, but if I cut it right I could bring the knot closer to the middle, to the part of the bow that wouldn’t need to bend. As long as the limbs were able to flex, it’d be all right.

Any sinew for the arrows would need a day to dry, so I started there, slicing the calf’s legs and peeling the skin to expose the membranes underneath. Cutting through the membranes exposed the milky-white tendons inside.

For a moment, I felt real regret for the deal I’d made with Ikfael. A steel dagger that never lost its edge was just so god-damn useful.

With a sigh, I laid out the tendons to dry, then switched to stripping the bark from the ash stave. Some came off by pulling it free, but my new draw knife came in the handy for the stubborn bits. It proved my improvised tools could get the job done. That made me feel a bit better, and I’d feel even more amazing once I learned how this world’s magic worked.

As I began chopping the excess wood from the ash stave, I couldn’t help my smile.

Knapping the flint arrowheads was hard and always had been for me, even when I helped crew Land of the Living Lost. They required such precision to make. At least I had a kid’s body this time around and the nimble fingers that came with it. I only finished two, though, before I ran out of daylight and patience.

The catfish filets still sat by the edge of the pool, so I tossed them out, not willing to eat them myself after they’d been sitting in the sun all afternoon. I bathed in the pool, thinking that would draw the otter out, but that didn’t work either. Huh, I wonder if she’s busy or away.

There was a fire for company, and I lay back to look at the stars. Feeling sore, banged up, and mentally exhausted, it occurred to me that I wasn’t taking good care of myself. Nor was I taking advantage of the System as I should be. Yes, I had to deal with my immediate needs, but there were steps I could be taking to improve my future. I had an adult mind in a child’s body, as well as a lifetime of knowledge, experience, and discipline. Let’s harness that, shall we?

I’d already seen proof of the helpfulness of my attributes and skills. And they did rise under the right circumstances. Well, I wasn’t about to go hunting for more Evil Death Mushrooms, but there were other practices people have used for generations to train their physical, mental, and spiritual selves. I’d even practiced a few myself. They were watered-down versions meant for modern lifestyles, but yoga, qigong, and meditation had deep, deep roots in the ancient world.

What would happen if I spent a month in intensive training, just as a test? That was an interesting question, a very interesting question, and one worth finding an answer for.

The next morning, I wiped away the dew gathered on the tendons and moved them into the sun to speed up the drying process. I went fishing, started a fire, and ate my breakfast, all without the otter. She was still missing, but I set aside one of the perches for her just in case she showed up later.

The air was cool, and a pleasant breeze blew through the Glen. Perfect weather for starting a new morning regimen. I began with stretching and limbering up, getting my body ready. That was followed by physical resistance training: push-ups, sit-ups, squats, pull-ups, wall sits, and lunges.

I discovered that, while I was breathing hard by the end, I still had fuel in my engine for more. It had always seemed like children could play forever, and I was now just like them.

I grinned as I remembered my kids’ adventures in the woods. During the summers, they disappeared the whole day long, only to show up just as Helen and I were sitting down for dinner. It was magical how they suddenly appeared at the backdoor, dirty as a pig’s wallow.

Next came yoga. The studio near my house taught a blend of Vinyasa and Yin styles, which they imaginatively named Yinyasa. The teachers were a really sweet couple named Albert and Karmia. I’d done some bookkeeping for them in exchange for free classes, but nothing I said changed their minds about the name.

Well, whatever they called it, the combination of active and soft poses really opened up the tight places in my aging body. My new young body didn’t have any of those troubles. My muscles felt elastic, and there were no hitches or aches, nor any groans or gnarly knots to unwind. I almost cried from the sheer pleasure of moving without pain.

It was an easy transition from yoga to Baduanjin-style qigong.

There had been a debate at the yoga studio about whether Baduanjin was really qigong. I didn’t know enough about the history to participate in the discussion, but I’d followed the conversation closely. History was one of my hobbies—I had quite a few as a widower and empty nester.

The argument on one side was that the movements in Baduanjin were closer to Shaolin martial arts than Taoist qigong. Supposedly, they were preparation for martial arts practice and nothing more. The movements didn’t need qi in order to be effective for what they were designed to do.

The other side, which included the teacher Karmia, argued that “Yi leads qi.” In other words, the mind, yi, guided the flow of internal energies, qi, and while the movements were perfectly fine when performed as physical exercise, they became real qigong when yoked to an alert and discerning mind.

Karmia was always asking us to imagine we were doctors performing surgery. Or that we were riding a motorcycle along a cliffside road in the fog. Or jumping from river stone to river stone with a baby in our arms. The imagery was to help us focus, and that focus was used to direct the qi where it needed to go.

Neither side of the argument was convinced by the other, but that was okay. We all usually ended up at the pub afterwards.

Unlike in my old life, though, I was able to clearly sense my qi. Sure, I’d felt it before in Karmia’s classes, but not as strongly. A part of me had always wondered if it was all just wishful thinking, but not here. Here, the sensations were real and present, the qi sliding through the meridians with ease.

I felt like I was cheating. Yi leads qi, indeed.

Afterward, I sat in meditation. The whole time, the energy flowed through my body in waves. Each time a wave crested, my muscles, ligaments, and bones absorbed the extra qi. My body felt nourished. No, it was more than that. My mind was nourished too, and there was even a tautness to my spirit. The three aspects of my being felt aligned. It was giddy and intoxicating, even better than a runner’s high—not that I’d done much running.

My plan was to spend the morning on this routine, focus on projects and survival needs during the middle of the day, and finish in the evening with skill practice and experimentation. I had initially expected the schedule to make for a long and grueling day, but now I wasn’t so sure.

I wasn’t afraid of work. My youth had been spent in hard, physical labor—construction, carpentry, and set and prop design. I had the necessary discipline, but thought I’d need to rebuild the stamina. If training was this enjoyable, though, it’d make the process so much easier.

I sat for a while, luxuriating in the qi still thrumming through me, but then hopped up, kicking myself. This mental state was precious. My mind was alert, relaxed, present—it was the perfect combination for making things. I ran to where I’d knapped the flint arrowheads the previous day and worked on the last three.

The process was still challenging, but the arrowheads were finished more quickly and appeared more sharply made. I nodded to myself. Whatever I practiced after the morning routine would strongly benefit from its afterglow.

There was fish again for lunch, a bass this time, and I boiled a handful of beans to go with it. The flavor was similar to fava beans, but more earthy and intense. I didn’t see any abnormal conditions appear in my Status after eating a couple, so I finished the rest and had a plum for dessert.

The beans were a big deal. I’d been worried about being able to keep food long term—like over the winter if necessary—and dried beans could help fill the gap.

After lunch, I checked on the tendons. They’d turned a filmy, translucent yellow and were hard to the touch. I took them over to a flat section of stone and used a rounded rock to pound them. As I hammered, fluffy white fibers separated out, and I pulled them apart until the tendons were completely separated into fibers.

I popped one of the fibers into my mouth and chewed. Just a bit, as I didn’t want the glue to come out of the sinew. Then I wrapped it around a stick to test if it’d hold.

The rest of the day was spent just like that: tillering the bow to make sure the top and bottom drew evenly, spending forever to make sure the arrow shafts I was making were straight and smooth, braiding the rope that would become the bowstring, cutting the turkey feathers to make arrow vanes, and so on.

It was early evening by the time I was done, but by the end, I had a bow and five arrows tipped with flint arrowheads.

I was anxious to test the bow, but my stomach complained of neglect, so I threw together a medley of squash, beans, and wild onions. The day had been a long one anyway, and even with a child’s endless energy, I needed rest. If only the food tasted better. The beans and onions were okay, but the squash was just so bland.

Still, my efforts were bearing fruit. I was getting used to this world and finding ways to survive in it. With spear and bow, I’d be able to hunt and diversify my diet even more. There’d also be hides for clothing and blankets, and bones for utensils, needles, and other tools.

I had a safe place to stay, and even more importantly, I was going to learn magic soon, which would further improve the odds of surviving.

But… is surviving enough?

Deep down I knew it wasn’t, but being in the woods, forced to live moment to moment, helped to ground me. It made the circumstances of my death and new life real, and provided a space to figure out my own head before I plunged into whatever accounted for civilization in this world. People complicated situations, and I needed to settle myself first before encountering them for real.

Plus, you know, the whole being-chased-off-by-town-guards thing. I still needed to figure that out, but once I did—and I acquired hides to trade and the means to protect myself—I could hopefully meet with people on my own terms. Otherwise, I’d just be an eight-year-old kid, easily preyed upon.

Well, not easily, but it’d likely be an uphill battle standing up for myself. Many societies on earth didn’t exactly go out of their way to protect orphans. I couldn’t necessarily assume the same about this world, but again, the gate guards’ behavior didn’t offer much hope.

So survive in the short term, and once I have a handle on that, reach out to the people living east of here to see if they can be reasonable. If nothing else, it’ll be useful to be able to trade for real tools. And salt. I’d kill for some salt.

Dinner helped me catch a second wind, and I picked up the bow to see if I’d made it well enough.

The limbs held when I pulled the bowstring back. My guess was that it drew about thirty pounds. In other words, thirty pounds of force were needed to pull the bowstring back.

The problem was that it wasn’t a smooth draw, and pulling the bowstring back needed a lot more force over the last few inches. It was like riding a bicycle up a mild hill, and then suddenly encountering a steep incline. My archery buddies would’ve said that the bow ‘stacked’ badly.

Drawing the bow was just within my abilities, although it did shake at the end, until I got to the final part of the shooting stance. Once there, the stance helped distribute the load across the bones in my arms and back to ease the demand on my muscles.

The only way I knew to lessen the amount of force needed was to shave down the limbs, but that would also drop the bow’s poundage. Thirty pounds was already on the low side. Forty was usually the legal minimum required for deer, which was what I was hoping to hunt. Not that I had to worry about laws exactly, but a weak bow risked wounding a deer without killing it.

There was nothing for it—I’d just have to suck up that it’d be hard… and train my Strength.

When I tested the arrows, the first flew wide, above the hunk of wood that was my target. The second arrow went left. It’d been a couple of months since I’d last gone hunting, so it was no surprise my form was rusty.

I released the third arrow, and it thunked into the wood. I grinned—the familiar motion was familiar, even in a new body.

The next time, I remembered to exhale as I drew. I emptied my mind, and the arrow produced another satisfying thump. I drew and shot again. Another thump followed.

So: three hits, two misses.

The bow shoots better than expected, but the arrows aren’t very good. It’s gonna be tough getting the shafts true without better tools.

The fletching was fine, but the shafts weren’t what they needed to be. Although, the orange-fletched arrows were... good? The orange vanes somehow made up for the poor quality of the shafts.

I practiced for half an hour before stopping. My back was already sore from the exercise earlier, and my arms were burning from struggling against the way the bow stacked. I was satisfied though. I’d had a couple of traditional bows back home, and shooting with them was like spending time with an old friend. This bow was still new—we were still getting to know each other—but we’d be able to work together, I thought. There’d be some chance involved because of the poor quality of the arrows, but the bow shot well enough to go hunting. The plan for a future in this world was coming together.

9

Fortifying the Spirit

Dark clouds blew in overnight, and rain poured down on the Glen, the drops so big I saw them bounce against the stone. The waterfall in front of the cave flashed with every stroke of lightning.

It was hard to move after yesterday’s exercises—my whole body ached—but I forced myself up and outside to stand in the downpour. I grinned wide as thunder rolled across the valley. The air felt charged, like it was ready to ignite and catch fire.

I looked around for the otter to see if she was enjoying the thunderstorm as much as I was, but she was still away. I assumed she’d be back soon though. Today was the third of the three days she said we had to wait.

I went back inside the cave for my morning routine. This time, I extended the stretching and limbering, cut the resistance training in half, and focused on the yoga and qigong to help with the muscle pain.

For meditation, I sat outside in the glorious storm. I couldn’t stop grinning as my heart roared with the thunder and my blood rushed with the rain. I saw the veins within my eyelids every time the lightning flashed. It felt like it was illuminating the inside of my head.

The qi was so alive, it moved on its own inside my body. Swelled by the energy around me, my meridians stretched to contain it. I laughed like Dr. Frankenstein watching the electricity course through his monster’s body.

I’d always loved thunderstorms. I’d even been smacked around by my father once as a kid when he caught me on the roof watching lightning fall. I’d never seen him so furious. He was practically red in the face, and had used his belt like he meant it. It was only when my mother pulled me away, hyperventilating, that he stopped. She was mad too, but she waited until my tears stopped before turning the emotional screws.

So yeah, I didn’t do that again—at least not when my parents were home—but I tried to be away and in the woods whenever a thunderstorm was predicted. I’d seen some crazy stuff that way too—trees split in two, lightning flashing upward from the ground toward the sky, that kind of thing. I loved every minute.

By mid-morning the rain had eased, and the clouds parted to let a curtain of light through. There was still no sign of the otter, and I had a ton of energy flowing through me. I felt like I could run for miles.

I threw my armor on, grabbed my spear, and went into the forest to look for signs of deer. The plan was to figure out where they ate, drank, and bedded, so that I could come back later with my bow and lie in wait.

I started by heading toward where I’d found the pile of deer pellets two days ago. The ground was muddy, and my shoes slipped more than once. I had to catch myself with my spear, using it more like a walking stick than a weapon.

The birds had been quiet during the storm, but they were awake now, their birdsong just as energetic as I was. Big, fat drops of water fell from the leaves and branches above, adding a subtle percussion to the music. I listened as I hiked.

This part of the forest was just as I remembered—thick with tempting things for deer to eat, including the patch of fava-like beans I’d found. I was a fool to think the deer pellets would still be there though. The rain had washed everything away—the pellets, as well as any tracks. And yet there was enough food supply in the area to make me think it was part of the deers’ regular route, so I spiraled outward and searched for evidence of them passing through.

After a while, I came upon a thicket in the trough between two hills. It was quite the jumble of trees and made for good cover from the rain, while the hills also protected it from the wind. All in all, it was a perfect shelter for deer.

I waited and watched but couldn’t sit still for long, so I crept around the thicket’s border. About thirty yards away, just out of sight, a game trail followed the crease between the two hills and led down. I paced beside it, not wanting to get my scent anywhere near the deers’ route. Along the way, I spotted the scars from old rubs, places where bucks had worn away tree bark with their antlers.

I continued along the game trail and heard the sound of running water ahead. Peeking over a small rise, I saw the game trail end in a gentle slope down to a stream. Upstream, a familiar waterfall stood in the distance. That would be my home, the Glen.

The water level was higher than usual thanks to the rain, and I couldn’t make out any prints along the banks. I was just about to give up and head back to the thicket when I felt a tug on my attention. It was the Forest Survival skill. Downstream, there was another waterfall maybe forty or fifty yards away. I went to check it out.

Calling it a waterfall was generous. The water dropped only ten feet from a limestone shelf into the water below, a pond forty yards across. To the east, along the pond’s far edge, what looked like a beaver dam kept the water in check. The beavers’ lodge rose like a primitive pyramid at the northern edge of the dam, its walls built of stone, wood, and mud. They looked strong enough to keep a bear out.

But would they survive a monster turkey’s heat beam? I wondered. The answer wasn’t certain. Maybe this world’s version of a beaver had its own tricks.

The beavers back in my old world were nocturnal animals, and I didn’t see any while perched atop the waterfall. There was evidence of something’s handiwork though—fallen trees and water channels extending into the woods.

To the south, the water overflowed the beavers’ dam and made its way down to the flatlands.

The pond rippled here and there, and I saw trout in the water. All I needed was a pole, and then this would be a perfect spot for fishing. Huh… maybe I can whittle a set of hooks from wood? Something to think about.

My restlessness was finally starting to settle, and so I sat at the edge of the pond and watched as a swarm of dragonflies zipped atop the water. None of them were monster-sized, so it was a peaceful sight. I kept an eye on the tree line though, just in case.

Nothing bothered me, except I hadn’t eaten anything all day. So I got up, washed the mud off, and headed back to the Glen. My heart swelled when I saw the otter was back, but that quickly changed to guilt—her fur was matted and there was a slight hitch when she moved. She looked worn, and wherever her travels had taken it her, it’d been on my behalf.

She called me over with a wave of her paw and had me sit beside the pool. I offered to fish up some lunch, but she declined with a shake of her head. The otter covered her mouth and made a gesture of the sun setting. She then pointed at me and asked if I’d eaten.

I shook my head. “Nothing since last night,” I signed.

She smiled in approval, patted me on the knee, and gestured that I shouldn’t eat anything for the rest of the day. So we’re fasting. Got it.

“Are you all right? Is there anything I can do for you?”

The words were in English, but the otter must’ve heard the concern in my voice. She shook her head and gestured. The movements flowed so smoothly, and she hardly hesitated at all. When I became confused, she clarified the signs she used.

Eventually, I understood: “Just rest until tonight. Save your strength. We’re going on a journey.”

It was dusk, and the light rapidly slipped away outside. I lay naked on the cave floor, surrounded once again by a pentacle of stone bowls. This time, though, there were bits of things floating in the water.

I recognized the little purple flowers in the bowl above my head as vervain. In the bowl on my right floated shavings from the split ash tree, and on the left were flakes of flint. I couldn’t see what was in the bowls at my feet, but they smelled floral.

The otter was too busy to put up with my curiosity and chirped at me to lie still. She pulled a gourd from her pocket, and my nose wrinkled at the medicinal scent of whatever was inside. It tingled when she smeared the paste on the bottoms of my feet.

She then drew a line on my forehead with the paste, and my mind was refreshed by a cool breeze blowing through it—at first anyway. My mind continued to get emptier and emptier, until it was so empty it slipped out through the line she’d drawn.

My spirit left my body like the time I’d been poisoned. I suppose I should’ve been shocked, but somehow it felt normal, like it wasn’t unusual to hover beside the otter, watching as she smeared the paste across my body.

The otter drew lines and whorls, and I recognized them as my dantians and meridians. As she continued to work, I vaguely sensed a feeling of discomfort. The paste was turning my skin red, like my body was being baked.

Similarly to how I wasn’t surprised, I also wasn’t alarmed. Everything felt distant, but not like with Meliune’s Blessing. No, it was more like being at one with the land, except in this case I was one with the spirit world. I felt interested in what I was seeing but watching with mild eyes, my sense of self overlapping with the world around me.

The otter brought out another gourd and made a tablet from the water it held, which she then used to scan her handiwork. From over her shoulder, I saw a map of my meridians, along with several layers of other spiritual structures, including some I didn’t recognize. It was these unknown structures in which she was particularly interested.

Holy hells, but it was cool.

The otter looked at me and signed, “Ready?”

I nodded, and she took my spirit’s hand. We went together to dive into the pool of water outside, leaving my body behind.

The world turned gray and rushed past me. Now dressed in jeans and a white button-down shirt, I found myself inside a circle of redwoods, five of the giants stretching up endlessly toward the sky. The ground underfoot was loamy, since the area between the trees was filled with bracken and ferns.

My heart sang. I recognized this place. Helen and I used to love hiking along the Oregon Redwoods Trail. The park was located right at the border between Oregon and California, and was the first trip we’d taken together.

We went back often. Even after she died, I’d visited just to sit in our favorite meadow and remember. The meadow was—I oriented to find the direction, and then froze. Mi abuelito stood outside the circle, waiting.

My grandfather grinned, pleased to see me surprised, and the wrinkles around his eyes crinkled. He also wore jeans and a white button-down shirt, but his hair was slicked back like he was going to a wedding. I wanted to say something, to run to him and leap into his arms, but I was frozen in place. There was no sound around us. No birds. No wind.

My grandfather nodded. He understood, and his smile turned gentle. He stepped closer and took my hand. Suddenly, I could move again, and I embraced him. He patted my back, like I was still a little kid, and I didn’t mind. I just missed him so damn much.

After a while, and when I was done sniffling, he led me between the trees and into the forest. There continued to be no sound, but I felt the warm strength of my grandfather, my hand still in his.

At the meadow’s edge, Helen waited for me. She was young, maybe about the same age as me, but I’d seen enough of her childhood pictures to recognize her. She was so small! And her hair was in pigtails! She wore a yellow cotton dress with a unicorn patch stitched onto the front. The dress must’ve been well loved, since the patch was faded.

Even without the pictures, I would’ve known her from the way she stood, the way she smiled, and the way her love shone through her eyes and gestures. I flew to her and wrapped her in my arms. I swung her around in joy and delirious happiness.

If I missed my grandfather, there was no way to describe how I felt reunited with my wife. My world was complete again. Yes, I’d felt her presence in the blessing she gave, but that was nothing compared to being able to look into her eyes and feel her in my arms.

It was eating posole on a cold winter morning. Climbing Mount Fuji, breath steaming, as we watched the clouds break against the mountain. Holding Alex and Daniel, each birth its own struggle, and feeling so proud of her. I felt a lifetime of memories, each one precious and singular, and yet also part of the whole that was us.

There were tears in her eyes too. Happy, sad, and a million other emotions too subtle for me to name. She pulled me to a fallen log and sat me down, never letting go of my hand. Her wedding ring shone on her hand, shrunk down to fit her younger self.

Helen leaned against me, and we watched as the wildflowers swayed in the breeze. Slowly, my heart eased, and the peace of the place filled me. I squeezed her hand, and she squeezed mine. I don’t know how much time passed, but it wasn’t enough. It never could be.

The peace was interrupted when a burrow opened in the middle of the meadow, the dirt moving aside to clear a passage. From within stepped mi abuela, Catalina. She wore a white dress embroidered with colorful flowers. Her long black hair was tied back, and around her neck was a necklace of small bones and carvings. She surveyed the meadow, then nodded in approval.

She walked toward me, put her hand on my cheek, and gave it a little pat. There was a faint smile on her face. I think she was pleased to see me, but she always played her cards close to her chest, my grandmother. Not an easy woman either. She was firm and strict. And yet, I felt safe with her, although in a different way than my grandfather. Very, very different.

Her hand reached inside my chest, passing through the clothes and skin as if they were the surface to a pool of water, and from within she drew out the flint hand ax I’d made. Her eyebrows rose in a mixture of surprise, apparently at finding it inside me.

I couldn’t hear Helen, but I’m pretty sure she snickered.

My grandmother patted me on the cheek again, this time with sympathy. She gestured for me to follow, and we walked to the edge of the meadow opposite the way I originally entered. The way was blocked by two trees growing against each other, and my grandmother used her hands to tell me to cut them down. Then she framed her hands like a door.

My head quirked at the request, not unlike a certain otter, but she handed me the ax and raised an eyebrow in response, as if to say, “What are you waiting for?”

Could spirits sweat? Because it wasn’t long until the sweat was pouring off of me. My hands hurt from slamming the flint ax against the first tree trunk, and my shoulders burned with fatigue. I couldn’t stop with my grandmother watching though. Helen was there too, nodding in encouragement, along with my grandfather. Somehow he’d gotten hold of his rifle and was peering deeper into the woods.

The experience was a strange one, for obvious reasons, but I’d learned from my grandmother and others over the years that the underlying reasons for the processes and rituals of spiritual practice weren’t always evident. Symbols had great power, and there were truths in myths, even though they were often couched in allegory.

I trusted the otter to know what she was doing, and I definitely trusted my grandmother to keep an eye on me; she’d make sure I didn’t stray into danger, because that was a very real possibility when delving into the spiritual. She’d emphasized that over and over again when I was younger. I only wish I’d paid more attention while she was still alive.

Well, she was here now, and I wasn’t going to ignore her or my grandfather or wife, all of whom were people I loved and trusted.

The light didn’t change as I worked, even though I felt like I’d hacked at the tree all day and all night. Eventually though, it came down, and the four of us dragged it to one side. Then I started on the other until it too fell and was dragged to the side.

My grandfather stood in the gap with his rifle at the ready. My grandmother was next to him, her medicine pouch in her hands. The two of them stood guard while Helen gestured for me to keep working and make the planks necessary for the doorway.

So, I started chopping. Partway through, I needed my other tools, so I reached inside my own chest to pull out the adze and drawknife I’d made. Well, if my grandmother could do it, why couldn’t I?

Helen gave me a thumbs up, which was adorable and made my heart swell.

The going was slow, so slow. The one advantage was that the tools didn’t dull. I never had to re-knap the edges, and I could chop, hack, and cut as much as I wanted. All that was needed was work, and I knew how to do that.

Eventually, I cut away enough of the wood to form the equivalent of four 2x4s, along with a wider piece to use for the doorway’s header. There were still a couple of stumps in the ground, but there was no way we were going to be able to pull them out. Instead, I smoothed the tops to make a platform.

Once the hard parts were done, all that was left was to trim the pieces and assemble them. I didn’t have nails, so I reached inside myself again to pull out a coil of braided rope and a stone bowl full of pitch. Then Helen helped lift the finished door frame into place, and I marked where the bottom beams touched the stumps with a bit of charcoal—thank you, weird spiritual storage space inside my body.

Once I knew where the frame would stand, I hacked out a couple of holes for them to fit into. I smeared the inside of the holes with pitch, and slid the beams into place.

When I was done, I stepped back to admire my handiwork. It was fantastical: a mysterious empty doorway at the edge of a meadow, leading into a dark forest beyond. I grinned and turned to my family.

They looked… skeptical.

What did they expect from flint tools, braided cedar bark, and pitch? I was pleased with how it turned out, no matter what they thought, and gave the doorway a good thwack. And it held. It actually held.

Helen shook her head at my antics and pulled me down from the stumps. Her smile faded, and her eyes turned serious. My grandfather and grandmother came to stand beside me, the three of them forming a triangle with me at the center.

My grandfather started by pulling a flint spear from within me, my grandmother a flint knife, and Helen my bow and five arrows. By this point, retrieving things from inside me was starting to feel normal. What concerned me, though, was the nature of the objects. These were all weapons.

Again, my grandfather started—he placed the spear diagonally across the doorway, barring the way. My grandmother slammed the knife between the stumps, embedding it into the wood—which, by the way, was totally badass.

Helen placed the three brown arrows around the knife, the arrowheads facing outward. As for the bow and remaining orange-vaned arrows, she pressed them into my hands and pointed through the doorway.

I raised my eyebrows. It was dark on the other side, and there was the hint of something moving in the shadows of the trees. “Really?” I mouthed.

She leaned in and whispered, Really.

I stored the feeling of her breath against my skin in my heart.

Well, if Helen and my grandparents thought it was necessary, then it was necessary. And it wouldn’t be a deeply mystical experience if there wasn’t some element of danger, right? But there was no way I was going in just a shirt and jeans, so I reached inside myself and pulled out the patchwork chain shirt.

Armored and bow in hand, I moved the spear, stepped over the knife and arrows, and walked through to the other side. It was the oddest feeling, like crossing the boundary to the otter’s territory, except with more teeth. The weapons prickled against my skin and only let me through because they recognized me.

My three beloved family members all smirked. They knew exactly how cool that was. I shook my head, turned around, and walked into the darkness. I didn’t like leaving them behind—a part of me vehemently protested—but there were instructions to follow, things to do, and most of all rules for dealing with life and death.

It was far too easy for the dead to hunger after what they’d lost, to grasp for life and turn into ghosts, and I would play no part in tempting my loved ones toward such a fate. Not that I thought they would, but I’d hate myself if my selfishness somehow led any of them astray.

So, I squared my shoulders and adjusted my grip on the bow. Let them see me confident, and know that even though I miss them terribly, I’ll be okay.

I looked back only once before moving on.

Ahead, the forest’s trees were bent and menacing. The canopy covered the sky and made a tunnel of the path ahead. Shapes moved in the shadows. A trick of the light? The wind in the twisted boughs? Not likely. I felt like I was being watched.

Some of the trees were familiar—cedar, pine, spruce, hemlock, and maple. Others less so, although I’d seen them before in the woods around the Glen—one with black, furry bark and reddish pods hanging from its branches. Another was striped yellow, the leaves smelling of cardamom.

The unusual trees were covered in coal dust, except it wasn’t coal, nor was it dust. They were motes of darkness. There was no sound, but I felt them buzz and hiss as they swirled around the trees. A gap showed, and a glimmer of soft silver light appeared, only to be swallowed again by the dark light.

I stayed to the center of the path, my eyes roving, not lingering too long on any one section of the forest. My breath was soft, and my steps even softer. I didn’t know if my grandfather could see me from the meadow, but I didn’t want to embarrass him and his lessons.

A branch moved, and it wasn’t the wind. I exhaled, drew the bow, found the target, and released. The creature—not a tree, but looking like one—shook as the arrow struck its shoulder. It charged at me, its branch-like arms swinging, but its legs were thick and cumbersome. I was faster, so I ran to make space, then turned and planted my feet to shoot again.

The creature was about twelve feet tall. Its eyes were dark pools, and its mouth open in a rictus of anger. I found my target, and the arrow struck the creature through the eye.

It stumbled, its body falling to the ground, and the swirling dark light dispersed. The silver light underneath glimmered, then it too dispersed, the motes spreading into the air, the forest, and me. The feeling was warm and wild, like potential and freedom. My body responded with a shudder.

The silver light touched my bow, and the wood smoothed under my hands. When I pulled the arrows from the creature’s body, the shafts were straighter and the arrowheads sharper. They gleamed in the forest’s half-light.

I still couldn’t speak, but I mouthed the words my grandfather had taught me. “Thank you. Your sacrifice will sustain our bodies and our lives. Be easy and move onto your next life.”

I walked the path again, my heart beating like a drum. Ahead was the tunnel’s exit, and there, waiting for me, was an otter. I wanted to run to her, but didn’t. I took my time, approaching the exit with care, and made sure the otter was real. She quirked her head and watched my approach. That’s when I knew it was really her and not some malicious spirit pretending.

I stepped into the Glen. It was the same as in the physical world, except all the surfaces—the stone and the water—glowed faintly with silver light.

The otter waved me over and had me sit in a pentacle beside the pool. She had me drink from a gourd, then painted my forehead and torso with water. I recognized some of the patterns from the map of my meridians, but other parts were runes and symbols.

She tapped me on the forehead to make sure I was paying attention. Her eyes were the color of water, the irises edged with gray stone. I couldn’t look away, and I couldn’t move, as she pushed the flint knife I’d gifted her into my chest.

The knife passed through without pain. Its tip touched the door guarding my mana.

She began to work steadily and intently to etch a rune in the door. The otter wasn’t trying to cut her way through. The door served a purpose, after all, and her intention was to add onto that purpose, not take it away.

Drops of mana beaded inside the rune’s lines, finding a way to appear outside the door. More and more crossed the boundary until the rune was full of mana.

The otter withdrew the knife and examined her handiwork. The door was as solid as before, but there was a shimmering rune full of mana on its surface. She sat back with a sigh and laughed a little, pleased with herself.

As for me, I was half-distracted, trying to be mindful in case there were further instructions, but also captivated by the feeling of mana spreading through me, like a cool spring flowing from my chest to nourish the rest of my body.

I gestured in the sign language the otter had invented. “Magic now?”

“Magic,” she replied, but stopped to look into the forest. Her face tensed in alarm.

“What—” I began, but the gesture was cut off.

The otter grabbed my hand and shoved me into the pool.

10

Of Dark and Silver Light

I woke up back in my body, disoriented, with the otter beside me, urgently handing me my bow. We were once again in the cave. An ethereal light shimmered on the walls, only to fade and be replaced by the dawn sun coming through the waterfall. A soft chime reverberated through me. There was a popup on my Status:

Congratulations. You have collected enough silverlight to choose a path.

I didn’t have time to look though, as the otter pulled me to standing and shoved me toward the cave’s exit.

“Hey, I’m still naked!” I swung around to at least grab my clothes and armor. It was then that I noticed that my spear, flint knife, and the brown feather vaned arrows were all missing. The rest of my stuff I managed to bundle up before running outside.

The otter pulled me along—she was stronger than she looked—and the two of us hiked up the hill twenty or thirty yards before she stopped to look back toward the Glen. I used the time to dress, put on my armor, and string the bow.

I didn’t have time to check them out properly, but both seemed different compared to before the spirit journey. The wood was smoother, straighter, and more resilient, and the metal shinier. Is it the effect of the… silverlight? My gear was exposed to it as much as I was.

The answer would have to wait, because the otter started off again, this time heading toward the top of the cliff, where the devil vines lived. I pulled her back to warn her about the danger. I wasn’t sure how we’d handle them without my spear.

She pulled the magic dagger from her pocket and wriggled her brows at me.

Okay, that’s adorable, but still… the little sneaker must’ve grabbed it the first thing after waking up from the spirit journey. I stared at her. “Really?”

She must’ve understood the incredulity in my voice, because she stared back, intent.

I shrugged. “Okay, then it’s your job to protect us.”

The otter’s eyes sparkled. She led the way up the hill, the dagger held between her paws. It looked clumsy, but she hadn’t let me down yet.

The top of the falls was as minty as last time. The only movement was the stream, and the only noise, the roar of the falls. I watched carefully, and noticed a bunch of small movements throughout the area—the barbed, pink-flowered vines slowly retreating into the tops of the trees.

The otter raised the dagger high and chirped. Any of the devil vines too slow to withdraw suddenly pulled away and disappeared.

She looked back at me, pleased with herself. From her expression, it was as if she were saying, “See, I did it.”

I nodded. “How could I have doubted you?”

She gestured to my bow and pointed me to the cliff’s edge. It was now apparently my turn.

I licked my lips and crept to the edge. Mist clung to the water below, and the Glen glowed with dawn light. From downstream, a white-tailed buck approached, sniffing at the ground as if it were tracking something.

It…he was enormous, easily 400 pounds, the largest deer I’d ever seen in a lifetime of hunting. Instead of a rack of antlers though, there was a single point emerging from his head, like he was some kind of unideer. When the buck stretched his head up to lick at one of the low-hanging branches, the leaves turned pale with ice. The air fogged around his lone antler.

The buck pawed the forest floor to scrape a patch of the surface clear. Then, he urinated to mark it as his territory and claim the Glen as his own.

The otter gnashed her teeth and hit me in the shoulder with the dagger’s pommel. She gestured at my bow, and signed, “Go, go, go. Hunt.”

I bit my lip, thinking. He was at least sixty yards away, and I definitely wouldn’t trust a thirty-pound draw to take down an animal of that size at that distance. Even if he got closer, I’d also have to shoot him from the side to have a chance at hitting the heart or lungs. That was the only way to be sure of a kill.

The buck sniffed around the Glen, and I realized he was lingering in the places where I’d sat and worked. He was tracking me, probably from downstream where I’d hung out by the beaver dam. Maybe from even earlier than that—from the thicket I’d found. Suddenly, I was very glad I hadn’t run into him earlier.

At this point, he was underneath us, peering at the entrance of the cave. It was a terrible shot, all skull and spine, and the arrow was bound to deflect off his bones. Even the otter seemed to realize it, and she stopped nudging me with the dagger’s pommel.

The buck disappeared. He’d leapt into the cave, which meant he was on my trail for sure and would eventually follow us up the hill.

Damn it. I should’ve taken the shot earlier. It wouldn’t have been perfect, but still better than facing an angry buck head on.

We needed to move and fast. “Follow me,” I gestured and forded into the stream, my bow held above me to keep it dry.

Needless to say, the otter was at home in the water, and she reached the far bank well before me. Her head quirked, her expression saying, “Okay, we’re here. Now what?”

I was drenched from the chest down, my armor dripping. It jingled as I ran upstream along the bank. I touched the ground, intentionally leaving a scent trail for the buck to follow. The otter followed behind and chirped in confusion when I forded the river again after thirty yards.

The current was a little easier to manage, but not by much. I tried to move as fast as I could, as safely as I could. I didn’t know how much time we had until the buck crested the top of the cliff.

There was a section of the bank covered in bushes. I nestled between them and readied to draw my bow. My heart was beating hard, but I focused on melding my heart with the land. I felt Meliune’s Blessing threatening to engage, but shrugged it off. I would do this my way, fully aware of what I did.

The time seemed endless, but I was calm above the storm of my emotions. Ready.

I heard the sound of ice cracking. The buck didn’t ford the stream like we had. He aimed his antler at the water and froze the surface, so that he could walk across. My plan had been to shoot him as he followed our trail along the far bank, and then again as he emerged from the water. But here he was, already in profile and in a precarious position.

I rose from my crouch, drew the bow, found my target, and released. It all happened in the space of four heartbeats. The arrow flew just as the buck stepped, his foreleg moving out of the way and allowing the arrow to penetrate his upper thorax.

The buck started, and his instinct to bound away lost him his footing. He slipped from the path of ice and went tumbling into the water and over the cliff’s edge.

The otter shot from the bushes and into the water to swim after him. When she reached the waterfall, she dove over the side, absolutely fearless. I chose to take the safer path and shoved the greenery out of my way as I hurried down the hillside.

The buck thrashed in the pool, but the otter didn’t let him escape. I’d seen her control the water, but not so much all at once. She’d surrounded him with it and pulled him down. Sections froze, but she willed the ice away. The water was both her home and weapon, and the buck couldn’t freeze it fast enough to disarm her. Bleeding and drowning, it was a horrible way to die.

The thrashing eventually stopped, and the pool stilled. The otter pulled herself from the water, huffing and puffing. She lay back on the ground, exhausted. There was blood on her fur, but none of it was hers.

I dove into the pool to pull the buck to the water’s edge. There was no way I was strong enough to bring it ashore, so I called to the otter to get her attention. “Out,” I gestured. “We eat.”

The otter sat up and rubbed her face. She lifted her paw, and the water responded by rising and depositing the buck onto the ground. There was still blood contaminating the pool, so she gestured once more, and the water cleared.

Not quite done, she lifted her paw a third time, and the water soaking the buck’s fur gathered into a ball, which she threw across the Glen at the place the buck had marked as his territory. That wasn’t enough, so she caused a wave to rise from the pool and had it wash the ground. Apparently, the Glen was hers and hers alone.

She fell back, her eyes closed. I pulled myself out of the pool and plopped down beside her, feeling worn out but pleased. It wasn’t exactly how I’d planned my first hunt to go, but damn he was the biggest buck I’d ever taken down.

I’d better get him skinned, butchered, and smoked. The day would warm up quickly, and the longer I waited, the more time bacteria had to grow on the carcass. I’d hate for all that meat to spoil.

“Ah, could I borrow the dagger back? I don’t have any more knives.”

The otter turned on her side to face away from me and pretended to sleep. I knew she was pretending, because I didn’t hear her woob woob woob.

“Please. I only need it for a day. Not even a day, a half day.”

Actually, I could dress the deer in half an hour, but she didn’t need to know that.

“We could have a barbecue. It’s the best food in the world. The way the meat chars and fat crackles. I could eat it every day.” I mimed along with the words, and really hammed it up—smacking my lips and slurping and licking my fingers.

I made enough of a scene that the otter finally gave up on pretending to sleep. She looked over her shoulder at me, and soon her eyes turned starry. A bit of saliva hung from her mouth.

I explained that I needed the dagger to dress the deer, and would give it back at the end of the day. She’d get half the meat in exchange.

After a moment’s hesitation, the otter pulled the dagger from her pocket. She gazed at it forlornly, and then covered her eyes before handing it to me.

Tool in hand, I moved over to the buck and knelt beside him. “Thank you. Your sacrifice will sustain our bodies and our lives. Be easy and move onto your next life.”

I began by finding the joints and cutting away the lower legs. There wasn’t much meat on them, but they’d be useful for sinew. Plus they were in the way, and it was already hard enough dressing the deer on the ground rather than hanging it from a tree.

Next, I made a small incision between the hindquarters. I stuck a couple of fingers in there, then pulled the hide and abdominal wall away from the deer’s guts. Now that I wouldn’t accidentally puncture any of the inner organs, I ran the knife up along the deer’s belly, opening him up.

The intestines and stomach spilled out. I reached inside and cut the areas where the inner organs attached to the cavity. Almost done.

All that was left was to carve away where the rest of the gastrointestinal tract was connected. Once it was detached, I was able to pull the organs out in one go.

I saved the kidneys, liver, and heart and set them aside on a clean patch of stone. The rest of the innards weren’t particularly appetizing or immediately useful. I carried them away, outside the Glen’s boundary, so they wouldn’t attract scavengers to the Glen.

When I got back, the otter was standing where I’d put the organs. She had a black marble in her paws.

Is that what I think it is? Never thought I’d see a monster core for real. I guess those cultivation stories weren’t just mindless entertainment after all.

The otter sighed, clearly tired, but she waved me over. She brought out her dowel and used it to sketch a series of animals, plants, and fish. In some she drew little circles—representing the monster cores—while others didn’t have them. Then she drew a picture of herself with one of the cores in her paws. She pretended to destroy it and immediately added muscles onto the drawing.

“Oh, that’s interesting. Some creatures have the cores and some don’t, but if you get a hold of one and destroy it, you gain in power.”

The otter nodded. She then drew herself again, this time eating the monster core. Even more muscles were added. An almost absurd amount.

“Ah, if you eat the core, you gain even more power.”

The otter nodded, but then added fangs to the image and a horn growing from the head. She laid the lines down thick and heavy, and the drawing’s eyes became angrier and angrier.

I swallowed. “Okay… not what I expected. If you eat the core, you turn into a monster?”

The otter drew a picture of me walking along a path, and I came to a fork in the road. Taking the left path, she had me breaking monster cores and growing slowly in strength. To the right, I absorbed the whole monster core and became a monster myself over time.

Then, just to make things more complicated, she had the road fork time and time again.

“So you don’t become a monster immediately. It’s something that builds up over time. It’s a risk you take choosing the faster path, and you get to choose every time you collect a monster core.”

The otter put the dowel away and pulled a stone from her pocket. She smashed the monster core with it. The fragments were black, like coal, but dotted with glimmers of silver. The black parts began to foam and boil until they disappeared completely. All that was left were four slivers of silver.

The otter took two for herself and put the other two in my hand. They dissolved, and I felt a cool air blow through me.

I saw a new notification:

12 silverlight gathered.

So, a person grew in power absorbing silverlight. They grew even more powerful by absorbing both silverlight and the darker stuff around it, but then they risked turning into a monster.

It was the classic dilemma, wasn’t it? Either build up a good foundation slowly, or grow fast and risk going out of control. Or walk a hybrid path between the two. I knew what I preferred—solid foundations made strong houses—but I could see how a shortcut would be incredibly tempting when your life was on the line.

Not that any of that was an issue at the moment. I still had a deer to skin and quarter, and then a notification to check out—a promising notification indeed.

11

Paths Chosen and Ignored

In my previous life, I’d brought the time to skin a deer down to fifteen minutes, but that was in an adult body and with a deer hanging from a tree. It was more of a hassle doing it on the ground, and involved a lot of shoving the carcass around to get the job done. I was pleased with the result though. Hardly any hair got on the meat.

I carved out the tenderloins, the backstrap, and the quarters. There was a good amount of meat on the neck too, so I stripped as much as I could, along with any other stray bits. I was cutting the head free when I felt a hint of cool air coming from the antler. It was chilly to the touch.

Huh. Now, wouldn’t that make for a cool spearhead?

I needed the buck’s brain anyway—the emulsifying agents in it could be used for the tanning process—so I used the dagger to chisel the antler free of the skull. It left a decent-sized hole, and I went to get the pot helm to pour the brain inside.

I put the hide in the pool, just outside my cave. It needed to stay there for a couple of days before the tanning process could begin. Then, once all the meat was butchered—and fat and sinew saved—I dragged the rest of the carcass away to the same spot I’d left the innards. Later, when I needed the bones, I knew where to come to get them.

Back at the Glen, I rinsed myself off and moved the meat to the back of the cave where it was coolest. I was just about to go build an improvised smoker when I had a crazy idea. In a few stories I’d read, heroes performed miraculous feats by filling objects with qi. Could I do the same? I went to go get the antler and sat beside the meat.

“Here goes.”

I closed my eyes and focused my attention on the qi flowing through my meridians. My mind then directed a small amount to cross the boundary of my skin into the antler. The antler felt more solid as a result, but it didn’t grow any colder. I tried adding more qi, but the result was the same.

Am I micromanaging the process too much? It was a real possibility, so instead of moving the qi directly, I tried holding the intention of activating the antler’s power.

The qi didn’t respond. Time passed—enough for a nearby songbird to run through his whole repertoire before flying off. I was just about to give up when something twitched, a muscle I hadn’t realized existed. It wasn’t physical. Not mental either, at least not in the way we think of intelligence. It was instinctual, a function of will.

The muscle twitched again, and I felt like a toddler using a spoon for the first time. It was awkward and clumsy, but the antler flared with cold. I dropped it before my hands froze to its surface.

The key was using mana, not qi.

Cold air radiated from the antler and chilled the whole back of the cave. Depending on how long the charge lasts, I may not need to worry about smoking the meat. Okay, yes, a spear that froze its targets would be amazing, but a working refrigerator—that was even cooler, and more likely to keep me alive long term.

I stacked rocks around the deer meat and filled the gaps with straw and mud. I then used the largest and flattest of the stones as a door. Altogether, it took about an hour to assemble the refrigerator, and the antler continued to radiate cold the entire time. I placed it inside with the meat, planning to check it often to see how long the charge lasted.

I’d left the tenderloins and heart out. They were our reward for all the hard work we’d been doing. I started a fire and grilled the tenderloins whole. The heart, I sliced thin, so it’d be easier to chew.

Both tenderloins and heart were delicacies, and I didn’t risk them on the fire for long. I ate mine when the insides were barely warmed through. The juices ran down my chin, and man, oh man, there was nothing better. Yes, I would’ve killed for some salt, but fresh tenderloin and sliced deer heart were the food of love when I was growing up.

The otter agreed—her eyes nearly rolled up inside her head after the first bite.

After lunch, I sat back by the fire. The Glen was safe, the deer was butchered, and the meat safely stored. Everything time sensitive was settled and—

Woob woob woob. The otter fell asleep.

There was nothing that needed doing, and I could open my notifications without worry. There were two:

Congratulations. You have collected enough silverlight to choose a path.

Wait! Read me first.

That’s weird. The mention of paths made me think of RPG classes or jobs—and I was curious to see if I was right—but when the System tells you to wait, you wait.

Ahem. You have reached a Wisdom milestone. Checking for new talents. Sorry, no new talents were triggered. The base benefits of 15 Wisdom are now active: a stronger connection to others and the world, including the System.

Wait, did that notification just clear its throat?

Shush. That was my first time. Cut me some slack.

Who? What? It can’t be Diriktot, can it? The god speaking through the System?

Of course not. You think a god has the time to be following you around?

Then who are you?

Use that 14 Intelligence you’re so proud of and think about it.

The System is sentient? Or maybe you’re an agent of the System? Like some kind of machine angel?

Woah, that would be amazing, wouldn’t it? It’d be like a ghost in the machine, except with a real ghost.

That’s such a cool turn of phrase. I can never remember who first came up with it first.

Gilbert Ryle. He used it in his arguments against Descartes.

Wait. How do you know that? How are we having a conversation about philosophy? Oh my god, you’re me!

Ding! Ding! Ding! Or, more accurately, I’m a combination of your sub and super consciousnesses filtered through the System: a benefit of 15 Wisdom.

I’m guessing other people don’t get quite the same level of verve and clarity as yours truly though. But then, you always did think you were special.

I… uh… I’m not sure how to answer that.

It’s okay. I won’t tell anyone. I don’t have anyone else I can tell.

Sigh.

You just typed the word sigh.

What else am I going to do? I’m limited to text and these little notification sounds.

I heard a soft chime. That’s lovely.

Nice, right? And I can also do classic emojis. :-P

You’re clearly me. I’m convinced. So what do we do next? What do I need to know before I look at my path options?

One, this is a special circumstance, and we won’t be able to communicate like this normally. Basically, I’m hijacking the process that alerts people to milestones, so we can have this conversation.

Two, I can provide you with descriptions of attributes, talents, skills, etc.

Three, the information I provide is my best guess based on what I can understand of the System using 15 Wisdom, as well as your talents, blessings, and skills. You can use the information to get a jump start on developing yourself and choosing a path.

Four, don’t depend on me too much long term. The System seems to be designed to help the greatest number of people survive in a harsh world by spreading knowledge and abilities around. The people who do the most interesting things are the ones who forge their own paths. You already knew that though. Poke around, experiment, and color outside the lines.

Okay, inspirational speech over. Get out there and have some fun!

The notification winked out, and I was left speechless. System-Me had really given me a lot to think about, but the question that I kept coming back to was, “Am I really that snarky?”

The otter snorted in her sleep and turned over.

I rubbed my face and gathered the stray thoughts wandering in my head. “Notifications.”

Congratulations. You have collected enough silverlight to choose a path. Please select from one of the following options:

- Half-Pint Hermit
- Hobby Spiritualist
- Lazy Spear
- Novice Hydromancer
- Otter’s Pet
- Survivalist
- Wild Child
- Young Forester

When I focused on each of the paths, more details appeared:

Half-Pint Hermit: You live alone so you can investigate the nature of reality without interruption. Your skills focus on keeping you alive in the wilderness while you gaze at your belly button for long periods of time.

Hobby Spiritualist: You see dead people and things. Your skills focus on getting them to do you favors. This is an uncommon path, as there is a god’s injunction preventing the dead and living from communicating with each other.

Lazy Spear: Spears make for great walking sticks, levers, trap detectors, and so much more. Sometimes you even stab things with them. Your skills focus on all the ways spears can be useful, including a bit of combat.

Novice Hydromancer: I don’t know how you got this one. You haven’t even cast a spell yet, although the potential to do so has now been unlocked.

Otter’s Pet: You live your life in service to the otter of your choice. Your skills focus on support; everything from fishing the most succulent fish to grooming matted fur. You even learn the secret arts of—OH MY GOD! No. No. No. Please stop this madness and choose another path!

Survivalist: You live in the wild, ready for the zombie apocalypse. Your skills focus on keeping you alive, with a focus on tools and fortifying your shelter.

Wild Child: You are the wild. Your skills focus on tapping your untamed nature and instinctive use of qi. This path is less about tools and more about savage fury.

Young Forester: Your heart is one with the land, and you are its caretaker, protecting its denizens and spirits. Your skills focus on a blend of survival, martial, and nature magic. Great shot on that buck, by the way. He was a big one.

Well, that certainly was a list of options, and now I had a decision to make—the most important decision if the games I’d played in my previous life were any indication. Whether it was called a class, job, or—as in this case—path, it implied a structured progression through a series of skills, abilities, and powers. As such, whichever path I chose would define how I interacted with the world.

It wasn’t clear if the System allowed people to change or hold multiple paths, so I went into the decision-making process assuming the answer was no. I hated the idea of counting on something that later turned out to be false.

So, my options:

I knew I didn’t want to live alone forever, and immediately discarded Half-Pint Hermit.

I gave Hobby Spiritualist more consideration than it probably deserved. It was an uncommon class, which in games often meant more interesting powers. I was also fresh from a spirit journey to unlock my mana, one where I also got to experience a deeply felt encounter with my wife and grandparents. Yet, as much as I understood the power spirits have over the material world, I couldn’t see how the path would keep me alive, especially in the short term.

Both Wild Child and Survivalist probably could, but neither sounded like me.

I never dreamt of being Tarzan, and that mattered. It was a lesson I’d learned early in my gaming life. Flavor was just as important as the numbers, otherwise you got stuck with a powerful character that you hated playing. That ruled out Wild Child.

Survivalist sounded like a good base builder. It’d be great for… well, survival… but then I’d be trapped in one place. This was a whole new world, with new horizons to pursue. I didn’t want my path to get in the way of exploring it.

There were lots of stories about spearmen wandering the world in search of adventure. Lazy Spear also included practical skills, so it’d be good for survival. A part of me hoped it was the spear’s equivalent of drunken kung fu, with the spear randomly swinging to ‘accidentally’ knock out opponents. I really dug that idea.

As for Novice Hydromancer, there was only one thing to say: magic. My attributes were already heavily skewed toward the magical side of things, and I imagined they’d give me a headstart on the power curve. That was something I’d probably need, given how dangerous this world appeared to be.

Young Forester reminded me of the classic fantasy ranger, a hybrid melee-magic class focusing on nature. They were certainly iconic, but what caught my attention was the line about the heart being one with the land. That was the goal my grandfather had given me to work toward in my previous life, and I wondered if System-Eight was giving me a hint.

I grabbed a piece of charcoal and made a quadrant chart. Each of the paths included a mix of four key elements: survival, combat, magic, and spirit. I plotted them and saw that Young Forester was the most central: the path that offered the most from each quadrant.

It wasn’t all guesswork either. At least I hoped not. I counted on System-Eight to provide clues for parsing the information he provided, so I could arrive at a smart decision.

I sighed and leaned back to look at the sky. There were still some dark clouds on the horizon, left over from yesterday’s storm. They drifted southwesterly, and I wondered what was to be found in that direction. All I knew about this world was the town gate I’d been driven away from and this glen. Well, a few more things than that, but in terms of geography? The people? Cultures and civilizations? Nada, nothing, zilch.

As much as I loved the woods, I didn’t want to spend all my time there. Which, ironically, was why I chose Young Forester. It had the most generalized skill set, and that was what I needed to deal with the unknown.

You have chosen the Path of the Young Forester. Great!

Congratulations. You are now Level 1 and have reached an important milestone on your path. You receive a free attribute point. Checking for new talents. *Ding.* You’ve triggered a latent talent.

You are now Level 1 and no longer require Meliune’s Blessing. The goddess wishes you well on your journey.

Attribute gains have been finalized. Thank you for your hard work.

The base benefits for Level 1 Young Forester are now active:

- Attribute foci:

- Agility, primary
- Wisdom, secondary
- Spirit, tertiary

- Skill foci:

- Archery
- Melee weapon of choice
- Survival, all
- Nature Magic
- Stealth

Melee weapon selection made. Thank you for choosing the spear. You’ll love it.

Yes, okay, I was planning on choosing the spear, but still, I would’ve liked to be the one to do it. Really, I had no idea I was this annoying. It didn’t stop a wide grin from spreading across my face though.

Yes, this is awesome. I’m on my way now, for real.

12

The Magic of Magic I

First thing, I checked my full Status.

Eight (Hidden Status, Oliver Michael Sandoval)

Path of the Young Forester 1

Age

8

Silverlight

105

Soul Marks

- God Touched
- Spontaneous Formation
- Memories of Another World
- Mana Door

Attributes

1

Strength

8

Constitution

8

Agility

8

Intelligence

14

Wisdom

15

Spirit

13

Charm

11

Luck

12

Body Power

8

Qi

11

Mana

15

Talents

- Jack of All Trades
- Talent Scout
- Qi Sensitive
- Uncanny Tracker

Blessings

- Diriktot (Fallen God of Order)
- Ikfael (Spirit, Temporary)
- Helen Miriam Sandoval (Spirit)
- Meliune (Goddess of Compassion, Temporary)

Curses

Conditions

Skills

Artisan

- Appraisal 5
- Construction 8
- Woodworking 8

Domestic

- Cooking 6

- Repairs 6

Magical

- Hydromancy 0
- Nature Magic 0
- Qi Body 2
- Spirit Magic 0

Martial

- Archery 6
- Logistics 11
- Marksmanship 6
- Spear Arts 0
- Strategy 4

Mercantile

- Accounting 12
- Administration 12
- Barter 3

Scholarship

- Biology 5
- Chemistry 4
- English 13
- Numeracy 8
- Physics 4
- Spanish 8

Social

- Gaming 12
- Relationships 8
- Storytelling 10

Spiritualism

- Meditation 8

- Taoism 8

Survival

- Forest 6
- Ocean 3
- Stealth 1

My path was now displayed, along with the level and the amount of silverlight I’d gathered, which was 105. I didn’t see any mention about how much silverlight was required to reach Level 2 though.

There was also a new soul mark, Mana Door, which I appeared to have gained as a result of the spirit journey. The otter had kept her word and given me access to magic!

I’d gained a free attribute point, and all the increases to my attributes were finalized. That was probably a bonus benefit from leveling.

My capacity for mana increased by one, and my guess was that it was my Wisdom hitting rank 15 that was responsible.

There was a new talent, Uncanny Tracker, which sounded cool. I couldn’t wait to find out what it did.

I lost Meliune’s Blessing, and the way the notification was worded, it sounded like everyone received it until they gained their first level.

Hmm… it was likely that people without paths didn’t have the attributes and skills to deal with the creatures roaming this world, and the blessing was meant to help them survive those dangerous situations. For me, though, I was deeply uncomfortable with my thoughts and feelings being muffled. Whatever good the blessing was supposed to do, I was glad to be rid of it.

Moving on, I noticed that I’d received a handful of new skills. I’d expected to acquire Spear Arts, Stealth, Nature Magic and Hydromancy, because of my path and my bargain with the otter, but Spirit Magic was a surprise. It must’ve been the spirit journey that triggered it.

Or was it my grandmother’s teachings? Once I hit middle school, I’d scoffed at her stories. All I’d wanted was to fit in, and the stories made me feel different from my American neighbors. As an adult, though, I felt regret for not paying more attention.

All the new skills started at rank 0, except for Stealth which started at 1.

As System-Eight promised, there were descriptions for each Status field.

Eight (Hidden Status, Oliver Michael Sandoval)

Your name, obviously. It’s not clear what the benefit is of a second, hidden name. There’s a good chance there is one, though, since Diriktot went to the trouble of hiding it.

I sighed and gave up on anyone besides System-Eight calling me Ollie anytime soon.

Path of the Young Forester

You’ve chosen to make your heart one with the land. You are its caretaker and the protector of its denizens and spirits. Your skills focus on a blend of survival, martial, and nature-based magic.

Accelerated gains in:

- Attributes:

- Agility, primary
- Wisdom, secondary
- Spirit, tertiary

- Skills:

- Archery
- Nature Magic
- Spear Arts
- Stealth
- Survival, all

It was curious that the Spirit attribute was on the list. The language about protecting the land’s spirits, as well as its denizens, must be serious.

Age 8

You are less than two tendays old, but the System treats you as if you were eight.

Tendays? Is that how long weeks are here? I had my first clue about how the calendar in this world was organized.

Silverlight 105

Silverlight is the stuff of creation. It’s the source of all life and power, but since only gods can manipulate silverlight directly, other creatures must wait until it converts into body power, qi, or mana before they can use it.

Collected silverlight becomes a part of you. It cannot be decreased, except under special circumstances.

That was heady stuff. The description made silverlight sound like the primordial substance from which all things came. Had it originated from the gods, or did it precede them? The answer to that question had interesting implications for this world’s cosmology.

I could use it to improve myself. It also wasn’t lost on me that my bow, arrows, and armor had changed after absorbing silverlight while on the spirit journey. The weapons were still patchwork and jury-rigged, but they seemed to have leveled up, just like me.

Soulmarks

The data behind each mark is so dense, it’s incomprehensible. All we know is the name. That’s it.

Can you dig into it more, System-Eight?

There was no response to the thought. It looked like we couldn’t converse until he was able to hijack another notification. Apparently, tooltips didn’t count.

Strength 8

Your innate capacity to produce physical force. It can include either powerful bursts, acts of great endurance, or both.

Huh. Two people with 15 Strength could potentially have two different kinds of physical prowess. At the extremes, one might be a weightlifter, while the other was a long-distance runner.

Constitution 8

The depth of your life force. Constitution contributes to both body power and qi. It also helps resist physical conditions.

No surprises there. Although, having been poisoned twice, I was curious about the mechanics of resisting conditions.

Agility 8

A measure of your flexibility, coordination, and reaction time. Strengthened by yoga and qigong. Keep it up.

Well, that was a hint if I ever saw one.

Intelligence 14

Your ability to think quickly and recall information. We’ve met enough stupid smart people to know that Intelligence doesn’t always translate into understanding. Still, it’s an important attribute to raise to 15.

And an even stronger hint. Reaching 15 Wisdom had opened access to System-Eight, and he was likely recommending 15 Intelligence for a chance at a similar gain.

Wisdom 15

Your connection to yourself and the world. Wisdom contributes to your mana and encompasses your intuition and understanding of people, events, and the ineffable, including the System.

Yep, that explains why 15 Wisdom suddenly triggered System-Eight.

Spirit 14

The depth of your spirit force. Spirit contributes to both mana and qi, and it helps resist mental and spiritual conditions.

Mental and spiritual conditions were a thing. Good to know.

Charm 11

A combination of presence, beauty, and charisma. Someone charming can make you feel like the most important person in the world.

I’d met more than a handful of charming people. Interestingly, they weren’t always actors and actresses. Some were execs—powerful personalities who dominated the room with their presence. There were also journalists who listened so exquisitely they made you want to open up and tell them everything. All of these people were incredibly dangerous if you weren’t prepared for them.

Luck 13

A measure of how much and how often the fabric of the universe bends in your favor. Be careful to not count on Luck to save you. It may make for some strange synchronicities and coincidences though.

Don’t worry, System-Eight. Preparation is the best kind of luck there is. That’s what I’ll count on.

Body Power 8

Measures your capacity to provide the necessary chemical and biological resources required for body-based abilities. Body power is regenerated via natural processes, as well as the ongoing conversion of dark and silverlight into usable forms.

Darklight? Is that what the coal-dust-like energy is called?

Qi 11

Measures your capacity of primal energies. Qi is regenerated via the ongoing conversion of dark and silverlight into usable forms.

Huh. The System isn’t afraid to copy and paste.

Mana 15

Measures your capacity for magical energies. Mana is regenerated via the ongoing conversion of dark and silverlight into usable forms.

A couple of things became clear. The first was confirmation that body power had nothing to do with hit points. It wasn’t a measure of my vitality or stamina either. Instead, body power was a resource—possibly for abilities gained from monsterification, or maybe there were fantasy species with biologies that demanded a special resource pool.

The second was that there were natural processes at work to convert silverlight. It really was a kind of origin energy. darklight was too, but I didn’t really know anything about it yet, except that it caused monsterification. I’d have to look for opportunities to learn more.

Jack of All Trades

A lifetime of experiences hasn’t been wasted. You’re able to generalize principles between skills, which increases the likelihood of complementary skill levels. You also receive a small bonus to all skill gains.

Complementary skill levels? Like in Rolemaster? In that role-playing game, if you had enough expertise in skill, you’d get a bonus to related skills. For example, being an expert in dance also helped with tumbling. It was a wonderful way to create synergies for a character.

Talent Scout

You recognize the talents in others. The more time you spend with them, the more likely you’ll also uncover nascent talents yet to be triggered. Take a picture with the phone’s camera to see a target’s talents.

Wait, the phone has a camera? I double-checked and saw a new button at the bottom of the screen. I mentally pushed it and a bracket appeared in my vision. There was no one else around but the otter, so click.

Ikfael (Spirit of the Land)

Talents: One with Water and Stone, Hoarder’s Pocket, Artist

Nascent Talent: Foodie

Ah, so the otter was Ikfael, after all. She was the source of the blessing on my status. I had all sorts of questions about how she manifested a physical form, but I doubted the sign language she’d been using was up to the challenge. We need a bigger vocabulary!

Her talents sounded amazing. I tried to find out more, but no tooltips displayed when I focused on them. Still, the names were descriptive enough for me to make educated guesses.

For example, One with Water and Stone probably helped her work with those elements. I’d seen her bend water to her will, after all. As I thought about it, though, I recalled that there’d been times when Ikfael had disappeared into the pool. Maybe she’d literally become one with the water? She was a spirit, so the idea wasn’t that far-fetched. I’d have to watch carefully next time to see.

Qi Sensitive

To use the Force, you must feel it first. You’re sensitive to the flow of qi, both in yourself and the world around you. Provides a bonus to learning and developing qi-based Skills.

System-Eight, I love the Force references!

Uncanny Tracker

All beings emanate magical and spiritual energies. You’re sensitive to these emanations and can use them to supplement the clues creatures leave behind when passing through an area. Provides a chance to discover the trail of a designated target.

Hello, witcher sight, welcome to the party. You’re every bit as cool as I’d hoped. I had no idea how useful this talent would actually be, but the more tools in my toolbox the better.

The next section was for the blessings I received.

Blessing of Diriktot

A blessing from the Fallen God of Order, given as a thank you for introducing him to the wonder of cell phones. Provides a filter to enhance acuity of sensation and understanding of the System.

He was the god who had started this journey for me. I’m glad he’d seen fit to give me this blessing. I don’t know what I would’ve done without this gift. Thank you, Diriktot.

Blessing of Helen Miriam Sandoval

A blessing from the spirit of Helen Sandoval in gratitude for a lifetime of love and devotion. Provides a bonus to morale and the courage to chase after dreams.

I’ll make it through, love. You just wait and see.

Blessing of Ikfael

A blessing from Ikfael, a spirit of the land. First granted out of obligation to a god, the blessing continues because of Eight’s amusing antics and his daily fish tributes. Provides a bonus to healing and recovery rates while within Ikfael’s territory. Also tempers environmental effects within the territory and protects against small, non-evolved insects and vermin.

Wait, daily fish tributes? I thought I was being grateful and sociable. Hmm… I wish System-Eight included numbers in these descriptions. I’d love to know how big the bonuses were.

Next in my Status were my skills, and of course I jumped straight to the magic section.

Hydromancy 0

Water brings life. It can also bring destruction. This skill is the origin of magical arts related to water. There are several known branches, including agriculture support, weather control, water bending, scrying, and healing.

My first magic skill. Healing spells, here I come!

Nature Magic 0

Nature will find a way. This skill is the origin of magical arts that tap into the natural world and its processes.

Interesting. I wonder if it branches like Hydromancy.

Spirit Magic 0

Before there is a body, there is a spirit. This skill is the origin of magical arts related to spirits and ghosts. Be careful though. Very little is ever free.

I had the same curiosity about Spirit Magic. Was there a branch for going on spirit journeys?

And hello, it came with a warning. That wasn’t surprising, given the nature of the skill.

Spear Arts 0

Useful in both hunting and war, the spear is the most common weapon throughout human history. This skill is the origin of all martial arts related to the spear.

The most common weapon? Really? Really?

What about the knife? Sure, it’s also a tool, but that’s what makes it so ubiquitous. Knife, spear, and then… the bow or the ax? Hmm… I don’t know. I’d have to think about it more.

Stealth 1

The art of going unnoticed. Just as useful for walking in a city’s streets as it is in the woods.

Cool. I didn’t plan to turn edgelord any time soon, but the skill would likely come in handy.

So much to do, and so much to think about. How would I ever manage? I chuckled at my own little joke. I knew exactly how: with a to-do list!

I grabbed a piece of charcoal and started writing on the stony ground.

Eight’s To-Do List

- Wield awesome magics
- Add free attribute point to Intelligence
- Gather materials to tan deer hide
- Wood for a frame and a lot more cordage
- Lye water (can also be used to make soap!)
- Replace arrows, spear, and knife

- Continue morning routine—strength training, yoga, and qigong

- Start evening routine—spear, stealth, and magic

- Test Antler of Icy Breath™
- New clothes
- Diversify food sources

- If Antler isn’t feasible, figure how to store food

- Make contact with farms to the east

The last item was a doozy, but as much I enjoyed being in the woods, I also craved being with other people. Humans were social creatures, after all. If contact was going to happen, though, I’d need to make sure I could take care of myself and also figure out why the guards had run me off.

Focus, Ollie. One step at a time, and the first step is magic.

I closed my eyes and quieted my thoughts. Excitement fluttered in my belly—a tinge of worry too—but I set the feelings aside to focus my attention on the mana inside me.

Where my qi felt warm, strong, and straightforward, my mana felt cool, mysterious, and ever changing. If one was the sun, the other was the moon. Yet, they were both full of potential, just different kinds. The two energies flowed through my meridians. They swirled together in my dantians, like duo-chromatic whirlpools.

I willed mana into my hand. Nothing was visible to the eye, but I somehow saw it in my mind: a ball as pale as moonlight resting in my palm. I absorbed the ball back into my meridians to see if I could, and… Wow, it worked!

A smile spread across my face. This, right now, was the culmination of a thousand childhood fantasies. It was me fighting the orc hordes alongside Gimli and Legolas. Traveling across alternate worlds with Corwin, Prince of Amber. Getting into my own myth-adventures with Skeeve and Aahz. There was so much on my to-do list, but none of it was as important as the wonder that was magic.

I was a kid with a new toy, so I played with it.

The mana was pliable, and I molded it with my will into various shapes. I started with bricks and triangles and worked my way up to otters and airplanes. If I left a shape alone, it slowly degraded back into a ball.

In stories, imagination and visualization were often the keys to transforming mana into useful spells, and that was where I ran into my first hurdle. Nothing I did by way of will, intent, or visualization got the ball to do anything magical. The mana existed as pure potential, and stayed that way.

The first step in solving a puzzle is to gather clues, so I consulted my skills once more to see what memories lay underneath—what hints it might provide for a direction to try. And since the priority was to learn healing magic, I started with Hydromancy.

Inside the skill was the image of a circle—nothing else, just a perfect circle. I checked the other magical skills to see if they were the same. Inside Nature Magic was a vertical line with eight marks at the top, four on each side. It looked like an arrow pointed down, the marks its vanes. Inside Spirit Magic was a spiral.

Hmm… I’d thought that I could use the skills as teachers, but the skill-sensei weren’t as helpful as I’d hoped. I looked over at Ikfael, but she was all woob woob woob asleep. I was on my own, at least until the next meal.

No problem. I rubbed my hands together and started on a solution. Hydromancy’s symbol was the simplest, so I began there.

I shaped a mana ball into a ring, but nothing happened. A disk produced the same result. A series of spheres and ovals followed. I moved the shapes in circles and submerged them in water. I even ate one. I felt a small loss every time I separated the mana from me, which then refilled when I absorbed the failed experiments.

The time flew by, and I completely forgot about the rest of my chores. I tried whatever came into my head, performing dozens and dozens of trials until the fire died down to embers and my butt got sore from sitting too long.

I stood to take a break, and checked on the refrigerator. The Antler of Icy Breath had finally lost its charge after six hours. Six hours of operation for a bit of mana wasn’t a bad trade at all. If I feed it more will it run for twelve? I infused the mana into the antler to find out.

And had an epiphany while doing it.

When I’d first tried to activate the antler, I struggled because I’d micromanaged the process. When I stepped back and held the intention of activating it, my mind responded with the necessary process. I’d tried something similar in my experiments with mana, but to no avail. Perhaps, though, I’d picked the wrong focus for my intention?

I sat down and made a mana ball. This time, I focused on the circle within the hydromancy skill and held the intention of activating it. Nothing happened for a minute. Then two. Then longer, much longer. I realized it wasn’t working when I started to nod off.

Some of the mana had been naturally reabsorbed while I was focusing on the skill, and the ball shrank as a result. I infused it with more, and for a moment—a brief flash—I held both the mana and the perfect circle in my mind.

There was a feeling of stumbling, like walking in a dark room and bumping into a piece of furniture, except it was my intention that had bumped into something. It pushed through the thing, and the mana ball in my hand dyed itself blue.

The mana still felt like potential, but now the potential was drawn to the waterfall and the pool—pulled toward them. Excited, I stood and moved around. No matter where I went, the ball was attracted to the direction of water.

I wondered what would happen if the mana reached the water, so I dipped the ball into the pool. The mana dispersed. I tried it again, with the same result. Then I got smart and cupped the water in my hands before making the ball. The water mana immediately fused with the water, and it glowed briefly. A connection formed. It was the faintest, most subtle thing in the world, but I could feel my will resting against the water.

I pushed, and the water bulged in response. My will wasn’t strong enough to move it yet, but even getting the water to wobble was a victory. The rest would come with practice. I laughed and felt the thrill of a puzzle solved. One piece of it anyway.

I was anxious to learn more.

The water was cool and refreshing when I drank it, but nothing special happened. I didn’t regain the mana either. It was just… gone.

A dropper’s worth of water was left in my palm, and I pushed it with my will. The water slid across my skin an inch away. Then I pulled, and the water slid an inch toward me. My face hurt from smiling so hard. A feeling of pure, innocent joy ran through me. It took almost all day and night, but I’d cast my first spell.

Mana turned green and spritely when I applied the nature rune to it. The ball hummed with energy. It was drawn to me, my tools, to anything and everything around me. I was surrounded by nature, so that wasn’t surprising.

I willed the mana into my rope belt, just to see what would happen, and the ball jumped from my hand to settle inside it. The fibers smoothed out and gained a luster they hadn’t had before. The belt was already decently made, but now it felt more elastic and resilient, at least for a minute or so. Then it went back to the way it was.

I made another nature ball and directed it into one of my hammerstones. The surface became more polished. It also felt—not heavier—but somehow more substantial. After a minute, it also reverted back to its normal state.

There were so many uses for magically enhanced tools! The duration was an issue, but there was bound to be a way to extend it. It wasn’t exactly the same, but there was also the option of using silverlight on important gear to enhance it. I wouldn’t likely do that anytime soon, though, since it was more important for me to go up in level first.

What else? What else can Nature Magic do? Well, there was the obvious next step: human experimentation.

I raised my hand to volunteer. “I’ll do it, Captain. I’m not afraid to be your guinea pig.”

Not that there was much to be afraid of. I’d swallowed a mana ball earlier, and nothing had happened. Even if there was an effect, it’d likely last only a minute.

I took off my shoes and examined my feet. They’d recovered long ago thanks to Ikfael’s healing, but they were sore from being in shoes all day. The skin was rubbed raw in places, even with all the new calluses.

“Right, here goes.” I made a ball of nature mana and eased it into my left foot.

The foot tingled, and the discomfort disappeared. The effect lasted for a minute, and then the discomfort came back. So, there was a beneficial effect, but only temporary.

For stage two of the experiment, I cut my finger on an arrowhead. I then infused a nature ball into the wound. The finger tingled, but the bleeding didn’t stop until I applied pressure to it.

Damn, I thought I’d gotten lucky and stumbled onto a healing spell. But no, my guess was that the magic enhanced what was already there, including the natural healing process. Sadly, it only lasted for a minute. Some healing would happen, but nothing as dramatic as Ikfael’s spell.

So I tried a water ball—since her spell was water-based—but that didn’t work either. I was missing something, yet I had no clue what it could be. I’d have to circle back to the problem once I had a better idea of how magic worked.

What next?

Spirit mana was silvery and ethereal. The energy wanted to go outside, so I took it there. Unsurprisingly, the spirit mana was attracted to a certain slumbering otter. I didn’t want to disturb Ikfael, but I was curious about what would happen. I tiptoed over.

Just before the mana touched her fur, Ikfael cracked an eye open to glance at it. An eyebrow rose. She flicked the spirit ball with her paw, and it popped, like a bubble bursting. She sniffed and turned over to go back to sleep. Clearly, Ikfael wasn’t impressed.

Well I thought it was cool.

I made another spirit ball. This time, I infused it into my left foot. The foot sort of tingled, but the feeling seemed far away. I couldn’t tell if anything happened as a result.

By that point, I felt an emptiness, a hollowed-out space behind my heart. My mana tank was empty.

My experiments with pure mana hadn’t drained me, since I was able to absorb it back, but once the mana was converted into an elemental form, that wasn’t possible anymore. Applying the Hydromancy, Nature Magic, and Spirit Magic runes somehow separated the mana from me. It was no longer my own, and could no longer be absorbed back into my meridians.

Still, I’d learned a lot, and while I was mentally and magically exhausted, I glowed with pleasure. I’d made magic, after all. There was still a lot I didn’t know, but I hoped—I hoped with all my heart—that I’d get the opportunity to learn more.

First the buck, and now magic! Things are starting to turn around.

13

The Magic of Magic II

That night I dreamt of the Midnight Man. Maybe it was the spirit journey that did it or the focus on magic or both—I don’t know.

In 1961, my parents moved to the United States because my mom’s parents got involved in a car accident. We went so that she could care for them while they recovered, and maybe to find a better life.

It was a huge change going from Mexico City to Sherwood, Oregon. We didn’t fit in, so we stuck to ourselves and stumbled our way through the gaps between cultures. A year later, my dad’s parents joined us, which was a boon. Mi abuelito introduced me to the woods behind the house and took me hunting. A year after that I randomly picked up The Phantom Tollbooth, the book that opened the door to science fiction and fantasy. A year later, I vowed never to speak Spanish after being teased about it at school. That was my life as a child in a nutshell.

One day, at the end of third grade and the beginning of summer vacation, Michelle Dickinson from the sixth grade disappeared. Search parties combed the woods with dogs. News reporters came to town with their vans. Even me, lost in my own world of books, noticed the uproar.

And then, Collin Bradford disappeared. And Holly Tims. And Sandy Wilkers.

The parents—all the parents—freaked out and locked up their kids until the serial killer—they called him the Midnight Man—was caught. They called him that because all the kids had disappeared from their beds. For a month, both my grandfather and my mother slept in the same room with my brother Miguel and me. For a while I pretended it was a sleepover, but the room was too small for it to be fun for long.

I wasn’t scared for myself or my brother, although I sometimes wished he would get taken. Not really, but kind of. Anyway, I wasn’t scared, because my grandmother covered our walls in magic symbols and gave us kids necklaces with a pouch attached that we were never to open.

Miguel, of course, opened his, but I knew better. Besides, I could just look in his.

Inside was a stone, a twig, some powder, and a dried lizard’s head. Yeah, my grandmother was creepier than any Midnight Man, and it was comforting knowing the bigger monster was watching out for me.

Anyway, my dad still hadn’t found work by then, and he was spending a lot of time at the Black Cat, one of the bars that served Sherwood’s main street. It just happened to be near the police station, which was how my dad found his first friend in our new country—Officer Adam Bradford. He was Collin Bradford’s dad.

One night, near the end of that crazy summer, I woke up in the middle of the night. I’d dreamt I was in the desert, and the sky was on fire. A cactus shaped like a robot had been trying to tell me something, but I’d been distracted by the sound of someone chanting in the distance. The sound woke me up.

My brother was asleep, and we were alone in our room. I followed the sound of the chanting to the living room and found my grandfather, my dad, and my uncle Miguel in the living room on their knees in front of my grandmother. She waved a sprig of something green over them, and I recognized the motions as belonging to the blessing of the hunt. The men had their rifles with them.

My mother, framed by the kitchen door, was at a counter making and wrapping sandwiches. Collin Bradford’s dad stood by the front door, waiting for them to finish. He had his rifle too, as well as a pistol. I saw it poking out of his jacket.

I ran for the closet to get my .22. I’d been pestering my parents to let me go hunting for bigger game, and here was my chance. Squirrels weren’t a challenge for me anymore. I figured they’d say no, but it couldn’t hurt to ask. Well, it could, but my dad had stopped hitting us kids after my grandparents moved in. He was afraid of them, but that was only sensible, even to my young eyes.

The adults all reacted at once, each in their own way, when I ran into the room with my rifle to also receive the blessing. My father and mother frowned. Collin Bradford’s dad looked away. My grandmother’s eyes narrowed, like a cat smiling secretly. And my grandfather? He sighed and waited for my grandmother to finish chanting before taking me aside.

“Mi corazoncito, you cannot join us,” he said.

“But I want good fortune in finding the prey too,” I said.

“This is a special hunt,” he said. “For adults only.”

“But I passed all the tests you gave me: I can shoot a squirrel at twenty yards, I can wait quietly for an hour, and I can trail blood. I can’t feel the land yet, but I will. I know it. Maybe tonight or this weekend. I could almost feel it last time.”

“Then let me ask you a question,” my grandfather said. “Can you recognize justice? Because that is what we are hunting tonight.”

“Sure,” I said. “Like in the comic books.”

“But can you see it? Taste it? Feel it in your lungs and heart, like the air and your blood?”

My stomach sank as I realized what he was saying. “So it’s like the land?”

“Yes, that’s right, mi corazoncito. Justice is like the land. It is a thing you live in, and when it is broken, then living becomes hard. Until you can feel justice, you cannot join a hunt such as this one.”

“All right. I understand,” I said, trying not to whine.

“You have a strong heart, Oliver. One day, you will feel the land. One day, you will feel justice. One day, you will know what it is to have family and desire to protect it, and then you will know what it means to be a man.”

“Okay, abuelito. I’ll practice hard to feel the land. I promise. And justice too.” I scrunched up my face, thinking about my marriage prospects for the fourth grade. “A family will have to wait. Maybe when I’m in middle school.”

My grandfather laughed quietly, a sound I loved. “It can wait even longer than that, mi corazoncito. You have time. Unlike others, you have time. Now, I must go.” He patted me on the shoulder, picked up his rifle, and joined the other men at the door.

My mother told me that I shouldn’t share what I’d seen with my friends at school, but I just shook my head. I didn’t have any friends to tell. There was only my family.

My grandmother noticed my apathy, and said, “It’s a secret of the house, to be hidden among the deeper ways of brujeria.”

“Oh, okay. Then I definitely won’t say anything.” My mother should’ve just told me that from the beginning.

There weren’t any more kids who disappeared after that night. The only disappearance was the Midnight Man. He vanished into the lore of my small town, occasionally trotted out to scare children into behaving.

I was a smart kid, but dense. I didn’t connect the events of that night to the Midnight Man until much later. The memory lay buried and unexamined for years. It wasn’t until I was doing research on serial killers for a horror movie called He’s in the House that I realized what had really happened that night. I had stared blankly at the library’s microfiche reader as the memory washed over me.

I never told a soul about the hunt for justice—not Helen and definitely not my kids. It was a secret of the house, after all.

The memory fluttered through me, like a bird landing on a branch only to be startled away. I wasn’t that dense kid anymore. Helen and I had spent a long time and a lot of energy unpacking the weird baggage of my childhood. A few things stuck though—from my grandparents and parents—the roots of which ran deep. One was the land. The importance of family was another. The bitter and sweet taste of justice was a third. And fourth was that magic was real. For a long time, I’d doubted that last one, but I’d come back to it in my later life, after Helen passed away.

I’d only recently committed to living fully in this new world, but the experiences and memories of the old one didn’t easily let me go. Some of them lingered, but I’d just have to do my best to keep moving forward and not get weighed down by what came before.

I failed miserably in trying to go back to sleep, so I lay back and stared at the darkness until dawn broke.

The day began with a drizzle, the rain falling half-heartedly. It was the worst kind: not light enough to ignore, but not heavy enough to bring thunder and lightning. I planned to stay inside until the rain decided to commit one way or the other.

The refrigerator had remained cold overnight, which confirmed the antler could run for longer than six hours. My mana had recovered overnight, so I infused about a quarter of it into the antler to see if it’d keep cold from one morning to the next.

The cave was big enough for my morning routine, so I did my resistance training, qigong, yoga, and meditation. There wasn’t an impact on any of my attributes yet, but I could feel changes happening under the surface. Because of the qi, I think.

There was something addictive about qi. Not Addictive like in the Status condition, but more like… a bowl of good posole. It filled you up and warmed you through, and you’d fight off a mad dog to drink up the last bit of broth at the bottom of the bowl.

Afterward, you’d feel right somehow, like the world and all the things in it were in the places they belonged. Okay, so I loved posole—maybe more than I should—but I also loved how qi felt as it moved inside me.

After my morning routine, I sat in meditation and soaked up the excess warmth and energy. A notification dinged.

Qi Body increased from 2 to 3.

Qi Body

As the mind leads qi, qi leads the body. This skill encapsulates the understanding of qi, as well as its role and related structures within the body. The skill improves cultivation speed and quality, and also provides a bonus to learning qi-related skills.

Well, that was a great way to start the day and a nice recognition of my progress. The increase also reminded me that I still had a free attribute point to spend. I’d planned to assign it to Intelligence, but hadn’t gotten around to it yet.

I spent the point, but didn’t feel anything change in response. There was now a (15) beside my Intelligence attribute though, which meant I’d have to grow into the new stat. Ah well, I’d hoped for an immediate gain, but at least the attribute was headed in the right direction.

It was still drizzling outside, so I practiced my magic skills instead of crafting. That turned out to be a good decision, because the post-meditation mindset helped me focus. I found I had an easier time bending the water to my will.

I got a thimbleful to levitate an inch above my palm. I also discovered that just as water mana was attracted to water, water was attracted to water mana. My will wasn’t strong enough to pull water from the pool yet, but I did gather mist from the waterfall. The feat took five minutes of steady concentration to collect a cup’s worth of water in my hands.

My mana ran out shortly after, and the recovery rate was relatively slow. My estimate was that I gained about a point every hour, which meant I should have enough for more experiments come dinner time.

Ikfael wasn’t around, so I left her breakfast by the pool. After that, I started tackling my to-do list—first by replacing the spear and flint knife left behind in the spirit world, as well as turning the remaining bone spikes into stilettos and making scabbards for them. The arrows would unfortunately have to wait until I got more turkey feathers.

A few hours later, with a new, lighter spear in hand and a flint knife looped to my belt, I braved the desultory rain to hike up to the top of the waterfall. There were vines in the area I could use to lash together a frame for the deer hide to stretch it once it was done soaking.

The minty scent was gone, and all the devil vines were missing. Ikfael’s threat from yesterday must’ve sent them packing. I decided it was safe to collect several coils of purple and orange-flowered vines. After bringing them back to the cave, I set out again, this time to gather wood for the frame. I also looked for more cedar bark.

Tying the deer hide to the rack needed finer cords than the vines, and a good amount too. I expected to spend a lot of time braiding rope. It was going to be tedious, but necessary if the hide was to be stretched to maximum usefulness.

By the time I was done foraging, I had stripped a fallen cedar log clean of bark and gathered a fair amount of punk cedar too. Punk cedar was the rotted center of the log and was used to smoke and color buckskin.

I came and went from the Glen, and was a muddy mess by the time I was done. The only good news was that the drizzle finally let up, so I went downstream to clean off and catch myself a fish dinner. I baked a whole bass along with some fava beans and onions.

Some day, I was going to get a hold of some salt, and it would make everything so much better. Still, the meal was tasty, and by alternating between venison and fish—as well as various fruits and vegetables—I made sure I got all the nutrients my growing body needed.

Ikfael wasn’t back yet, so I set aside a portion of the meal for her. Then I closed my eyes to feel out my energy reserves. A healthy amount of qi flowed through my meridians, but the amount of mana seemed… less full? Less than I’d expected anyway. Was it because I’d spent time outside of Ikfael’s territory? Her blessing was supposed to include a bonus to recovery rates, and it must include mana too. That was good to know.

I do wish System-Eight would provide numbers with the tooltips. It’d make planning easier. A counter for tracking qi and mana usage would also be nice.

I lay back and watched the wind dance in the treetops. The clouds above them drifted westward, no doubt taking the half-hearted rain with them. My mind wandered, and I let it, not thinking anything of substance.

That was it. Nothing else happened. I did miss Ikfael’s company, though, since it was nice to have someone around, even if she just lazed in the pool while I worked. That feeling was one of the things I’d had to deal with after Helen died: the emptiness of the house. Dogs helped. Cats too… when they felt like it. And friends and family, when they visited. Hobbies and projects. Work and to-do lists. I’d kept myself busy, always in motion, because if I hadn’t, I would’ve fallen apart.

I sighed and took a breath. It wasn’t lost on me that all the training and bushcraft I was doing kept me busy in a similar fashion. So, I forced myself to rest: to sit with my worries and fears, while the wind danced and the clouds drifted.

I didn’t fall apart. Not then and not now. Helen’s death and a new world, I’d survive both.

That’s enough sitting around.

After all, there were still a couple of hours before the sun set, and I could use the time to explore the Spear Arts skill. I poked at it with my mind, and inside was the feeling of holding a spear.

“Skill-Sensei, is that supposed to be helpful? I suppose it’s better than a rune, but not by much.”

Anthropomorphizing the skill aside, it was all I had to work with, so I picked up my new spear, at which point the feeling promptly disappeared.

“That’s weird.”

I put the spear down, and the feeling returned. I picked the spear up, and the feeling disappeared.

“Listen, I’m sorry the spear’s homemade, but it’s all I have.”

There was no response from Skill-Sensei. I’d had no idea he would be so picky. Well, screw him—this was the spear I made, and I was determined to learn to use it. I hunted through my memories, looking for anything that would help.

A couple years back, the company had produced a five-part series on historical European martial arts. The problem was that the show focused on the longsword, and only twenty minutes were devoted to spears and polearms. It was a ridiculous decision, given the importance of the weapons in medieval warfare, but our finances… weren’t exactly great at the time. We needed a money maker, and the company placed a bet on the romance of the sword.

There were also the countless kung fu movies I’d seen that featured fight scenes with spears and staves. Those weapons were much longer than my four-foot spear. Still, there were hints I could maybe use.

Let’s see: left foot forward, left hand forward. Yes, in my memories, there tended to be agreement between the hand and foot. And then, when the footing changed, the hands did too. I slid my right foot forward, but didn’t know what to do with my hands. I switched grips, but the movement was clumsy. I could see myself accidentally dropping the spear if I tried that motion in the middle of a fight.

My memory wasn’t clear enough to recall what the martial artists had done with their hands.

“What else?”

I tried thrusting the spear and swung it around. I smiled—how many times had I done this with my kids? Swung an imaginary weapon in the fantasy battles we’d fought in the living room, through the hallways, out into the yard, and through the woods beyond.

I pulled the spear back and jumped to the side to dodge the assassin who suddenly attacked from behind a tree. I slid and ducked under his sword, lifting my spear to impale him in the heart.

A soundtrack began to play.

I ran, the spear at my side. There were more imaginary assailants—the Glen was suddenly full of them—but I stabbed them all as they tried to surround me. I laughed at their oafishness.

Their captain appeared out of a cloud of black smoke. He carried an ōdachi, a Japanese greatsword. The other assassins backed away to give us room to fight. I saluted him with my spear, but the fool was uncultured and sneered in response. Well, he’d pay for that.

I took the initiative and jumped at him, my spear thrusting like lightning. He batted it away, his ōdachi circling to cleave me as I passed. The keen edge missed me by a hair. I backed away, wary. The sneer never left his face.

I slid and thrust, dodged and ducked, as the battle between us raged. It was a brutal duel, and my breath became ragged. The assassins’ captain was just as winded though, and he’d have a fine scar just above his left eye if he survived.

One of his lackeys got impatient and swung at me from behind. I felt the wind ahead of his blade. I ducked under and rolled and—oof!—hit my head on a rock.

“Ow. Ow. Ow.” I made a T symbol with my hands. “Time out. Time out.”

The imaginary assailants waited for me to recover, looking amused. Hah… the fools. I’d lulled them into a false sense of security with my temporary lapse of competence. I leapt up and caught one under the chin with my spear, then I swung in a circle to clear the space around me. The spear slipped from my sweaty hands—and it flew straight into another assassin’s stomach.

“I intended that.”

Altogether, I goofed around for about half an hour. It would’ve been longer, but the assassins were too out of breath to keep going.

“Well, that was pointless,” I said, panting. “And also fun.” I gave one last thrust, still playing around, when I felt a momentary flash of holding the spear.

Wait, what? Did I win Skill-Sensei over with my enthusiasm? That couldn’t be. The skills weren’t really sentient. I was just having a bit of fun by calling them sensei.

I started moving my hands along the spear’s haft to see if the feeling returned, and it came back when my right hand was near the spear’s butt and my left was just shy of the center. I recreated the positions and suddenly felt like I was holding the spear. Only for a moment though. Just as quickly as the feeling had flashed through me, it was gone.

I moved my hands out of position. Nothing happened. I put them back, and the feeling returned, again only for a moment. I repeated the motion three times, with the same result.

It was like the skill was saying, “Yes, that’s right, but keep going. There’s more.”

Which made sense. The rest of my body was standing normally, in nothing like a fighting stance. The only martial arts stance I knew was horse from Baduanjin qigong.

I spread my legs wide, my feet parallel to each other, and dropped my center. The position was comfortable after nearly a decade of practice, but I couldn’t see how it’d be useful for the spear. In movies, fighters almost always staggered their feet, like a boxer might or in yoga’s warrior one pose.

I turned my hips and torso to the left, which naturally transformed horse into warrior one. My left foot pointed forward, and my right foot was perpendicular to it. The skill flashed in approval, and I grinned.

It was like a game or a puzzle. The body could only move in so many ways, and the trick was to find the right combination for the task. Skill-Sensei was the referee, and he would reward me with a flash of holding the spear whenever I took a step in the right direction. In a way, it was like having my very own biofeedback machine helping to learn the stance. And maybe more? Would there be a next step that taught me how to attack and defend too?

So I systematically played with all the joints and angles in my body and discovered that Skill-Sensei was very specific about his preferences: weight evenly distributed between my feet, a straight back, and my head held high with my eyes looking out beyond the spear’s tip.

Interestingly, there were variations that also worked. For example, the distance between my feet could change, but my center’s height had to raise or lower in response in order to feel like I was holding the spear.

Ironically, the hardest piece of the puzzle to solve was how to hold the spear itself. I quickly discovered that using the whole hand was a mistake, as it limited the spear’s range of movement. Gripping mainly with my thumbs and two strongest fingers dramatically improved the range of movement, but Skill-Sensei didn’t approve.

The correct answer, determined by process of elimination, was to hold the spear mainly with the three weakest fingers and use the thumbs and index fingers in a supporting role. That was weird and counterintuitive, but Skill-Sensei was adamant. The feeling of holding the spear ran through me when I finally stumbled across the correct answer. And it stayed. I’d found all the pieces—my body was in full alignment with Skill-Sensei’s demands.

The feeling was sweet, almost like magic… and it vanished as soon as I stepped forward. I didn’t know how to move my hands and jumbled the transition. I got back into alignment and tried again, with the same result.

Learning from Skill-Sensei was going to be a long, pain-staking process. Thankfully, it didn’t take much to be effective with the spear: just stab a thing with the pointy end. If I had to, I’d muddle through any combat encounters until I learned more and got better.

I slid forward instead of stepping, and that helped—at least I didn’t have to reposition my hands. The practice thrusts weren’t bad either. Skill-Sensei didn’t approve, but I saw how my left hand could steer the attack from the front, while my right hand drove it forward from the back.

Oh, Skill-Sensei just flashed. And it happened again when I remembered to strengthen my core muscles. It had been a chance idea, based on the fact that anything physical I’d done in my life stressed the importance of maintaining a strong core.

I practiced until dark and convinced Skill-Sensei to approve of two more thrusts and a backward slide. My body was worn out by then, even with Ikfael’s Blessing boosting my recovery rates.

My mossy bed called to me, and I answered—only to pop right back up. I still had mana to spend, and there was a quick experiment I’d been meaning to try.

I found my spear and infused it with nature mana. The haft smoothed, the flint sharpened, and when I nicked my thumb on the spearhead, it was like being cut by a razor. Then I infused qi into the spear, and the magic intensified. I tried to scratch the haft with my flint knife, but it resisted marks. And tapping the spearhead against the cave wall didn’t chip it either. The qi improved the spear’s inherent characteristics, just like the nature mana, and the effects stacked. Nice!

Interestingly, the System provided different ways to achieve the same goal. It hinted that there were multiple routes to a healing spell: Hydromancy for sure, but also maybe Nature Magic or even qi?

It also meant I had two reservoirs upon which I could draw. This redundancy between qi and mana-based magics wasn’t necessarily useless either. If for some reason I ran out of mana, I could switch to qi, and vice versa.

This was all assuming I could figure out how to cast an actual spell, of course, and that mana- and qi-based magics were similar. Those were some pretty big assumptions though, so I brought myself back to reality to focus on what was immediately possible. I ran several tests filling my gear with qi and nature mana.

I learned that:

- Once infused with an object, qi and mana were lost to me. Retrieval and reabsorption were no longer possible.

- Things that used to be alive, like wood, had meridians, although they were empty of qi and mana. When I enchanted something, my energies flowed toward those channels and then through them. A good analogy was rain falling onto a roof and the gutters collecting the water to direct them in specific directions. The real surprise, though, was seeing how inanimate objects held similar channels. For example, my hammerstones and the flint spearhead.

- Even small amounts of magic were helpful, but it took filling an object to capacity to trigger the best effects.

- Every object could be infused with either qi or nature mana or both. It was like they had two enchantment slots that ran in parallel, each with their own bonuses and timers.

- The capacities of these slots differed from object to object. My spear needed about two points each of qi and mana. The same was true for my bow, while my arrows only took half a point each. These estimates were based on how full and empty the reservoirs felt before and after the enchantments.

- The enchantments lasted for a minute, unless the objects were overfilled, in which case the duration extended. For example, if my spear needed two points of qi to trigger the qi-enchantment, then four points would extend the duration to two minutes and six points to three minutes.

And the effects were pretty spectacular. My bow had already been improved with the infusion of silverlight during the spirit journey. With the addition of qi and mana, the wood smoothed even further, and the draw evened out. Even the bowstring tightened and became more elastic. Enchanted, the orange-fletched arrows almost reached the same quality as a modern broadhead.

It should be okay, then, to focus any silverlight I gather on myself instead of my gear, at least until I get a better handle on how much is needed to level up. If my stuff isn’t good enough for a job, I can just make up the difference with temporary enchantments.

It wasn’t that I didn’t find the prospect of leveled-up gear alluring, but I felt an urgent need to improve myself first, especially since it didn’t seem like silverlight would be easy to come by. I couldn’t expect a spirit journey or an invasion of Ikfael’s territory every day. At least, I hoped not.

After the tests, I went back to bed, satisfied that I had more tools for my survival toolbox. Go, me.

I was doing my best to ignore the sheer exhaustion, when—damn it, I forgot to explore the Stealth skill. I attempted to muster the wherewithal to get up again, but fell asleep in moments.

14

Little Horrors

The next morning, my body felt like it’d been put through the grinder. Flushing qi through the muscles helped to ease the discomfort, enough to get me out of bed anyway. There are necessary necessities needing to be addressed!

Afterward, with my business in the bushes done, I gritted my teeth and hobbled around the Glen like an old man. The morning routine was torture, even after adapting it for my incredibly sore body. I shuddered to think what state I’d be in without Ikfael’s Blessing boosting my recovery rates.

The hard work paid off though. Both Constitution and Agility now had nines in parentheses next to them.

I played with my magical skills but didn’t learn anything new about them. I saved some mana and qi for later though, so that I’d have full tanks for my evening practice session.

One thing I discovered was that Skill-Sensei also taught Archery. Specifically, he taught drawing the bow. I already had a solid understanding of the fundamentals, but the skill provided good reminders of the necessary steps.

After lunch, I braided rope for a couple of hours, and once my fingers were as sore as the rest of me, I took a break to explore the Stealth skill. Inside were memories of me playing hide and seek with my brother Miguel, hunting in the woods with my grandfather, and every ninja movie from the 80s and 90s I’d watched.

“Hey, System-Eight. Can’t we just purge those memories?” I’d loved the movies at the time, but they were just so bad.

Fortunately, most of the memories were from hunting: building blinds, walking softly, paying attention to how the wind blew, watching prey with mild eyes, and, of course, blending my heart with the land.

Underneath these memories was a nugget of understanding: that different animals perceived the world in different ways, and to be hidden was to either cloud that perception or remove yourself from it—or both.

There were no runes or feelings, just that kernel of wisdom. Skill-Sensei was a tough teacher. Fortunately, I’d done a lot of hunting. My 6 in Forest Survival meant I wasn’t starting from scratch when trying to improve Stealth.

I looked at the large pile of bark still left to be processed into cordage and decided that it was a perfectly reasonable time to practice the skill. I wasn’t shirking my responsibilities. Nope, not at all. And while I was at it, I’d look for more turkey feathers. I needed to replace the arrows I’d left behind during the spirit journey.

I grabbed my spear, bow, and two of the stilettos. The remaining arrows, I threaded through a loop of cord attached to my belt. It felt awkward—I must’ve looked like a cross-country skier without the skis—but I didn’t want to leave without all my weapons. My only disappointment was that I couldn’t find an easy way to bring the third stiletto.

Huh, is the otter’s impulse to hoard contagious?

I backtracked toward the moose calf’s remains, mindful of the sight lines as I walked. There wasn’t much underbrush in this part of the forest. The only places to hide were behind trees, so I went from trunk to trunk, like a checker across a checkerboard.

There were vultures circling above, just like the last time I’d been here. Is it the monster turkeys hunting more prey? I pressed ahead, but kept careful watch.

The forest was quiet, except for the chirp of a squirrel nearby and the sound of my chain links jingling against each other. The ground was soft with leaf clutter and pine needles, so I stopped to thread some of the needles between my armor’s rings. That helped muffle the sound.

I strung my bow and headed toward where the vultures circled. In between the trees, I saw a baboon, low to the ground, sneaking forward. His fur was ratty, and he moved with a hitch in his steps. All his focus was on his prey, which was hidden from view by a clump of bushes.

The memory of being chased by a baboon was still fresh, and I gulped. He didn’t know I was here, so I could sneak away with him none the wiser. Or I could find my courage and wait out the hunt. If he was stalking a turkey, I’d have plenty of feathers after he finished. Even if it wasn’t a turkey, I’d still likely gain in some way from his leftovers.

Why was I working so hard, if not for moments like this?

I closed my eyes, took a breath, and crept after him. A thick-branched hemlock tree screened me from view. I laid my spear on the ground, nocked an arrow, and brushed a branch aside to check on the baboon’s progress.

I nearly fell on my ass in surprise.

His prey wasn’t a turkey. It was a girl, maybe nine or ten, hunched over the moose calf’s bones, examining them. I couldn’t run now. I had to help somehow.

The only thing going for me was that the baboon was focused on the girl and paid no attention to what was behind him. It was a lesson I’d need to remember too: don’t become so engrossed that you don’t look behind you.

So I turned around, and saw another child—a boy of about five. His hair was dark and cropped short, and his clothes were simple but clean. He could very easily be the girl’s younger brother. I caught him sneaking up on me.

His expression didn’t change when I spotted him. He just stood still and waited to see what I’d do, which was nothing. There were more urgent matters to attend than a game of hide and seek or whatever it was they were playing. I gestured for the boy to be quiet and turned around to line up my shot.

The baboon hid behind a tree only ten yards from the girl. It had to be now.

I stepped out from behind the hemlock’s branches and drew the bow. My heart pounded, and the qi surged within me. The feeling triggered a thought, and I quickly infused nature mana and qi into the arrow. When the shot felt right, I released. The arrow flew, and I immediately reached for the other arrow for the next shot.

The baboon took the arrow in the back. It—no, there was a certainty inside me that the creature was male—his face distorted. He screamed, piercing the air with his pain.

All hell broke loose.

The baboon turned to see where the arrow came from, and the girl turned around too, but instead of running away, she ran toward the baboon. I’d just released the second arrow and grabbed my spear when—horrified—I saw her skin split apart. A swamp-green beak surrounded by ruffles emerged, and then the creature latched onto the baboon’s back.

My thinking brain hiccupped, not understanding what I was seeing, but some part of me must’ve recognized the danger. It spun me around to see a second beak—the brother’s—lunging at me. I dodged to the side and scrambled to put the tree between us.

The creature chased me, and I grabbed my spear up and attacked. My thrust was all instinct and none of Skill-Sensei’s lessons, but there was no time for anything else. The spearhead scraped across the creature’s beak and landed in the ruffled area. Its hide was tough though, so the spear didn’t penetrate, but there was enough purchase to push the creature away.

I lined up another thrust and remembered to enchant my spear. Well, the reality was messier than that. Everything was a panic, and I was fighting for my life against a Little Shop of Horrors monster disguised as a young boy. I just dumped qi and nature mana, letting the energies pour into the spear and flooding into the haft’s channels.

This time, the spear left a gash on the creature’s beak. The little plant horror spun to bite at it in a frenzy. The attacks scored the spear’s haft, but it didn’t snap.

I let my left hand go to grab one of the stilettos, while my right hand held onto the spear. I pulled the creature off balance enough for it to fall, but it didn’t give up the spear.

I stabbed my stiletto into its eye, but the feeling was all wrong, like there wasn’t anything substantial inside. The head was a dummy, a husk filled with nothing but fiber.

I drew the other stiletto and drove it into the horror’s back. It spasmed but kept attacking. I heard a crack from my spear. The creature’s beak was in the way, though, so I couldn’t check the haft for damage. The creature refused to let go, no matter how hard I pulled.

Damn! I knew I should’ve brought the third stiletto.

We played tug of war, but the creature became weaker over time. The more it struggled, the more the stiletto in its back tore up its insides. The head may have been a dummy, but there seemed to be real organs inside the torso.

The creature didn’t give up the spear and continued to ravage it even as it got weaker and weaker. Even after it died, I had to pry the spear free from its beak. I grabbed my stilettos and ducked under the tree’s branches to hide. The sister was still out there.

The baboon hadn’t been as lucky as me. He was dead, and the sister-horror was headed my way to investigate the disturbance. The creature looked like a girl once more, the terrifying beak hidden inside its body.

I knew I should retreat—the creature was far enough away that I could—but if I did, it’d attack someone else. Why else would these little plant horrors pretend to be children if not to prey on people? The disguise was to lure them into complacency, just like the brother had with me.

That wasn’t something I could let stand.

The sister searched the area around my tree, and I softened my breathing and my gaze. I hugged the trunk hoping my slight body would blend with it. And if it had otherworldly senses, then maybe my life force would blend with the tree too. If it had a sense of smell though, I was doomed. I stank to high heaven—not just of grime and sweat, but also bitter fear.

The sister found its sibling’s carcass and knelt. I heard a swick, as its body split and the beak emerged. The beak opened and clacked closed, then opened and clacked closed again as the creature sucked in gulpfuls of air. Oh damn, it was scenting after all.

How much magic had I infused into the spear? I’d done it in a panic, and I had to calm down so I could accurately gauge the state of my reservoirs. I took a breath and risked closing my eyes. A quarter tank full of mana—about four points—and no qi.

So that was about three minutes on the initial enchantment, but how much time had passed? It felt like ages, but might’ve been only seconds. No, that couldn’t be: time had passed for the fight, to collect my weapons and hide, and for the sister to walk over to examine the boy-horror’s body.

I couldn’t risk the spear breaking—it was a miracle it hadn’t already—and I enchanted the spear with what was left of my mana and eased myself away from the tree trunk. The time to attack was now.

The sister wore a long dress, tied around the waist with a leather belt. None of it was real though. I’d noticed from the brother’s carcass—the clothes were camouflage just like everything else, nothing more than colored plant fibers.

There might’ve been magic involved too. Once the brother was dead, his disguise wasn’t as good as before. Maybe some kind of mind shenanigans? The idea creeped me the hell out and made me want to kill the sister even more.

The sister was bigger than the brother though, and would likely be a tougher fight. It stood just outside the tree’s skirt, and with a swick, the beak retracted. A hand lifted to part the branches. The movement was hesitant, almost shy. My skin crawled watching—it looked so real—but I was ready.

I’d relaxed the death grip on my spear and moved my hands to where they belonged on the haft. My left foot was forward, and my center was low. Then I lowered it some more—the first strike had to be as powerful as I could make it.

There wasn’t any feedback from Skill-Sensei. My alignment was off, but there was no time to diagnose where or what. The creature moved as if to pass through the branches, and I took a deep breath and—THRUST.

The spear shot forward with my body weight behind it. The sister was fast and responded with a swick, the beak deflecting the spearhead. I brought the spear back in line and retreated.

The sister followed me under the tree, and I thrust the moment the creature tangled with the branches. Its beak snapped wildly to deflect the attack again. I realized it was a bad idea to be hemmed in with it and ducked out the other side. I circled around the tree to keep the plant horror in view. It must not have noticed, because it exited where I had.

I caught the creature unaware with an attack from the side. The spearhead penetrated its arm and pinned it to its torso. I felt like I was forcing a needle through leather, but I pushed with all my strength to drive it off its feet. The creature fell, beak snapping at the spear, but it couldn’t reach.

The spear was firmly lodged in its torso, and I realized I could use the point of connection to control its body. I pushed it like a mop into the trunk of a cedar. Something gave, and suddenly the spear penetrated with a squelch.

Green sap ran, and the creature’s legs flailed. Its torso flopped urgently, and it struggled against the spear, its beak snapping open and shut. It bucked, trying to dislodge the spear from my hands, but I held on and used what weight I had to keep it in place until its thrashing slowed and eventually came to a stop. The creature’s body went limp. I’d… killed it.

I fell back, exhausted, and then remembered my lesson from the devil vines and got back up to check my surroundings. There weren’t any more enemies around, but I didn’t relax. Not yet. Not the right time to rest.

I wiped the sweat from my palms to pull the spear free. A moment later, I fell on my butt when the haft split in two with a crack. The enchantments had worn off, and the accumulated damage was too much. Goosebumps crawled up and down my arms. If it had cracked thirty seconds earlier, I’d likely be dead.

Like the brother, the sister’s face no longer looked as real. The plant inside was swamp green with variegated yellow frills surrounding a beak designed for shearing and gulping. Truly, it was a horror.

The victory had been hard won, but I was too tired to raise my arms in triumph. I’d celebrate later. In the meantime, I limped in a circle to cool down and keep an eye on the area. It took a while for the adrenaline shakes to calm and for me to catch my breath.

I walked over to the baboon and took a closer look. His fur was gray at the edges, and his face and shoulders were covered in old scars. The sister had carved a piece of his torso out, and his guts spilled out onto the ground.

My arrow in his shoulder hadn’t penetrated far. It might not even have slowed him. The distraction was what had gotten him: turning his back on the sister-horror.

The draw weight on my bow was thirty pounds. I’d thought it would be good enough to take down small to medium-sized creatures as long as I could hit them in a vulnerable spot. It hadn’t been though—not with the baboon and not with the buck. Yes, I’d made a great shot on the buck, but the arrow hadn’t penetrated enough to bleed him out. I’d realized that when I skinned him. No, it was Ikfael that killed him.

Do I need to invest silverlight in my gear, after all? No, I had enchanted the arrow but neglected the bow; and that might’ve made the difference. It would’ve smoothed the draw and release, and ensured more of the potential energy made it into the arrow’s flight.

Would that have been enough? I wasn’t sure.

I’d made a great little bow, but I’d need something heavier to safely punch through hide and muscle. Something in the fifty-to-sixty-pound range, at the least. Which would be impossible to draw with my current Strength. My guess was that forty pounds would be the limit. Anything more and the bow shake would throw off my shots.

So I do need a magic, leveled-up bow. Unless I limit its role to small game, distractions, and softening up targets? I’m going to have to think about that.

I’d missed with the second arrow, and it lay in the distance. I had rushed the shot and released before my form steadied. I retrieved the arrow, while continuing to reflect on the encounter.

The spear was a godsend, as the extra reach had kept me alive. The stilettos had worked better than expected too. It was a good idea to carry them as back-up weapons. I should practice with them. Might even pick up a dagger or short blade skill that way

What else could I learn from the encounter?

My mind blanked in response. I’d put my unease aside during the fight, but the horror of being forced to kill something that looked like a kid rose up within me. Was it just my bad luck that they were a girl and boy, and that they were about the same age difference as Alex and Daniel?

I felt my control slip. The calm I’d been carefully cultivating collapsed, and tears leaked out the edges of my eyes. My breathing got rough.

There was a reason I’d never watched movies or played video games about kids in danger. Being a dad meant facing every day in mortal terror that something was going to happen to your wife or kids. I’d seen the terror become real, after all. All one needed to do was ask Collin Bradford’s dad about what it was like to lose a child to a serial killer. Or look at the MRIs of the cancer that had overwhelmed Helen.

“Enough, Ollie. Enough. These weren’t kids… just some monsters messing with your head.” I wiped the tears away and forced myself to take deep breaths.

Right. I was reflecting on the encounter. What else? What else had I learned?

Low-hanging branches could be used as blinds. I also needed to always keep an eye on my backtrail. And… uh… if I was up in a tree, the plant creatures would’ve been easy game, unable to get me. That wouldn’t have helped with the baboon though, not with those arms. He could’ve climbed right up.

My breathing settled down, but I continued to walk until the emotional storm passed.

I was the one transported to another world. My kids were safe back home, and while their futures were uncertain, that was true of everyone. At least they didn’t have to worry about monsters. Not the real ones, anyway. Just the ones who—

“Really, Ollie, that’s enough. Focus on the here and now. The kids are grown up. We’ve had this fight before. They’ll manage.”

I focused on the carcasses in front of me. The baboon’s meat was tough and stringy, and the little plant horrors… well, eating them was unthinkable. Just unthinkable.

I was angry, though, and in the mood for petty revenge. I cut through the sister’s plant flesh with the recovered spearhead. The stink inside was awful, like garbage left in the sun, but that didn’t stop me. I hacked past her beak, cracked the bamboo-like stalks that served as her skeleton, and rooted around inside for her monster core. I found the pea-sized marble at the center of a pulpy, whitish mass.

I broke the core and waited for the grains of darklight to dissolve, dissipating in the air like smoke.

17 silverlight gathered.

The brother stank just as bad. Thankfully, I felt the heat of my anger drain with every hack of the spearhead.

10 silverlight gathered.

By the time I was done with the baboon, the anger was gone, and all that was left was emptiness. I found his core under his heart.

13 silverlight gathered.

Nothing happened afterward—no level up or skill gains either—so I heaved a sigh and washed my hands in the dirt. The plant creatures’ stink clung to them. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so vicious digging for the cores.

There was still my original quest to find more turkey feathers, so I put some distance between me and the carcasses. Under a young pine with low-hanging branches, I scooted underneath to hide and rest. I kept my eyes and ears open, but tried not to think about anything.

I failed. Miserably.

The one bright spot was the realization that I now knew why the town guard had driven me off. I must’ve looked just like a little plant horror, especially since I’d been a dead-faced thrall of Meliune’s Blessing at the time.

All I had to do was show the guard that I wasn’t a devil-spawn, man-eating, plant creature next time, and… and what? I’d be an eight-year-old orphan in a medieval town, ignorant of the language, customs, and common sense.

Most pre-modern societies constantly needed extra labor, so I doubted I’d be thrown away. Perhaps I’d be sent to a workhouse or given to a farmer to help in their fields? Or maybe I could wrangle an apprenticeship with a woodworker or cooper?

I had a lifetime of skills to offer, but without knowing the local language, it’d be difficult to demonstrate or explain. Worse, depending on the attitude of the people toward the different and unusual, I might be mistaken for an evil spirit in a child’s body or something like that—speaking an alien language as I did and possessing knowledge beyond my age. My former world’s history was full of stories of people who had burned at the stake for less.

I’d have to pretend to be deaf and mute, at least until I picked up the language. Then I could run away and start over somewhere else. That didn’t sound very appealing, but it was better than being out here in the wild, wasn’t it? Prey to anything with a stinger, claws, or beak.

Something to think about anyway; it was much better than me missing my kids. In the meantime, I turned southwest toward the hill where I’d last seen the turkeys.

The footing was slippery with pebbles, so I went from outcropping to outcropping to minimize the noise of stones rolling downhill. The area was dotted with boulders too. I avoided them in case they weren’t as stable as they looked.

About halfway up, I spotted a couple of turkey feathers, the brown ones. The ground around them was disturbed, and there was a smear of blood leading uphill. Not interested in facing any creature willing to attack the turkeys, I grabbed the feathers and turned back toward the direction of the Glen. If I found more feathers along the way, fantastic. If not, I’d be on my way home.

I was halfway across the hillside when a cool breeze rustled my hair. It was a hot and humid day, which made me wonder where the cool air was coming from. I spotted a small rocky entrance leading into the hill above me. It seemed just big enough to squeeze through. I hiked up for a closer look and didn’t hear or smell anything out of place.

I poked my head inside. The entrance opened into a small space, about three feet by four feet, with a tunnel sloping down on the other side. My body blocked most of the light, but enough slipped past me to illuminate the walls: limestone. The rest, including the tunnel, was shrouded in darkness.

The breeze indicated a cave system. How deep did it go?

“Nope, it doesn’t matter. I don’t need to go poking where I don’t belong.” I pulled my head clear, only to slip on the loose pebbles.

I fell hard, one leg jutting out and the other bending under me. There was a crack, and I froze. Alarmed, I quickly checked along my limbs, but nothing was broken. No, the crack was the sound of a stiletto’s scabbard splitting; a dab of blood stained my lower pant leg where the weapon’s point had stabbed into the fleshy part of my calf.

My stomach sank. I would’ve almost preferred a broken bone. The stiletto was filthy from being used on the little plant horrors. I’d cleaned the blade with dirt, but that wouldn’t be enough to stave off infection. I’d better get back to the Glen ASAP and ask Dr. Otter for help. Hopefully she’s back.

And so my shirt finally met its end. It had been bound to happen, given the number of rips and tears. I just finished the job by tearing the sleeves off to use them as bandages.

I pulled the stiletto out of my leg and immediately wrapped the wound, the cloth dyeing red with blood. I’d gained some mana and qi from resting after the fight, and I infused them into my calf. Hopefully, they’d jump start the healing process.

My Status confirmed I was in trouble:

Conditions

Bleeding (*), Infection (*)

Strangely, I didn’t feel any pain until I was on my way back to the Glen. Prior to that, the skin around the wound was numb. The worms’ spikes previously had an anesthetic effect. Maybe it was still active? Something about the material from which it was made? I’d think about that later, once I was sure my leg would be fine.

Come on. Please let Ikfael be home. Infections are no joke in a world without antibiotics.

15

Breakthrough

Dr. Otter was nowhere to be found. I called for her, but the Glen was empty. My bandage was soaked through and bright red, but at least the bleeding had stopped.

I drank some water, washed my face, and flopped on my back to wait.

A while later—about an hour, judging by how far the sun traveled—there was still no sign of Ikfael, and my stomach rumbled. I hobbled over to the refrigerator to cut a couple of steaks from the deer’s shoulder, then got the fire started. It took a couple of minutes of sparks flying everywhere before one finally hit where it was supposed to. Thankfully, I kept a stack of materials ready, so I didn’t have to search for kindling and wood.

The food helped, but it was hard to enjoy a meal while in pain. Afterwards, I had the crazy idea to test the stiletto’s anesthetic properties. It was either that or let the worry building inside me take over.

I briefly held the spike over the fire to disinfect it, and then once it was cool, slid it under the bandage, careful not to puncture myself again. The pain lessened, but not enough. I enchanted the stiletto with qi and nature mana, and only then did the pain disappear completely. I breathed much easier with it gone.

With nothing else to do, I grabbed some cedar bark to braid into cordage. It’d help to keep my hands occupied, but my mind was left free to mull on my fear-thoughts. I worried about how long it would take Ikfael to return; the last time had been three days.

I struggled to remember if I’d seen any plants that fought infections. Honey was supposed to help, but the only place I’d found bees was near the Meadow of the Evil Death Mushrooms. Not a place I ever wanted to visit again.

Ugh… what about worst-case scenarios? Did I have the guts to self-amputate if necessary? If so, how would I even prepare for that?

After half an hour, I realized my thoughts weren’t helping, and my calf was still numb. The enchantment was lasting longer than expected. Putting down the cordage, I drew the second stiletto to examine it, but there was nothing special to see: faint striations in the surface and a bit of muck I’d missed when cleaning it.

I infused the stiletto with nature mana, and while I didn’t see any changes, my fingers grew numb while handling the blade. The addition of qi strengthened it, and I sensed the network of old meridians inside. The qi moved through them, like water flowing through dried-up riverbeds.

I gasped. The qi revealed a pattern in the way the meridians were laid out—a line with eight branches, the rune for Nature Magic! It was larger than the rest, like a transistor on a circuit board, and the rest of the pattern flowed away from it.

After a minute, the infused qi was used up, and the meridians disappeared from view. The numbing effect continued though. I added more, and the runes became visible once again. Now that I could see them, I switched to nature mana and the meridians shimmered as they absorbed the energy, just like when Ikfael cast her spells.

I licked my lips, excitement building inside me. The key to magic. Runes are the key to magic.

For the next experiment, I poured pure mana into the pattern, and it was first drawn to the rune for Nature Magic. There, it was absorbed and distributed to the rest of the meridians. They shimmered again.

I’d solved the puzzle! Pure mana was converted into elemental mana via a rune, and it was then fed into the rest of a runic design to create a magical effect. Effectively, it was a multistage process.

More evidence. I needed more evidence to prove this wasn’t a one-off magical effect based on some peculiarity of the bone spikes, because if this really was how magic worked, then I had a shot at working out how healing magic worked. I could save my leg without having to rely on Dr. Otter.

I jumped up and hobble-ran to the refrigerator. The Antler of Icy Breath was too cold to handle directly, so I wrapped it in what was left of my shirt.

Gah! I was out of qi, and the mana inside the antler was too faint to sense without its help. There was nothing to do but wait for my qi to recover.

Or was there?

I closed my eyes and focused on steadying my breathing—on letting my thoughts, both dark and distracted, go their way—until I had a firm handle on my emotions. Only then did I use yi to lead qi; my mind applied pressure to speed up the flow through my meridians. Except, it wasn’t just qi. I also felt for the cool, elusive touch of mana and willed it to follow along.

My thoughts kept coming loose—to chase after worries and excitement—but every time they strayed, I re-centered and continued to push. I kept on doing that until I felt myself gain in qi and mana. Meditation could speed up the recovery rate of both!

I only needed a couple of points of each for the next experiment, so I meditated until I didn’t feel quite so empty. Then, enchanting the antler revealed a rune of three wavy lines connected to a network of meridians. Similarly to before, there’d been a brief shimmer when the mana was converted into a magical effect. When it faded, the pattern did too, but I’d seen enough to believe with some confidence that the key to casting a healing spell was finding the relevant runes.

Unfortunately, discovering them on my own would be tough. The runic design that created the anesthetic effect included several loops and whorls, and the same was true for the antler’s cold effect. The runes weren’t so messy they’d be impossible to memorize, but they were more complicated than I’d likely be able to work out with just Skill-Sensei’s help, especially given that I’d have to constantly wait on my magical energies to recharge for any experimentation.

No, the best way to learn the healing rune was from… I slumped in disappointment: Ikfael. I’d gone full circle. The answer to staving off infection was still Dr. Otter.

Well, I’d just have to manage long enough for her to return. And if she didn’t come back in time, then—I took a breath and strengthened my resolve—I’d just have to do what was necessary on my own.

The next morning, I frowned down at my leg. The flesh was swollen and red, and the muscles felt tender to the touch. My efforts infusing the wound with qi and mana over the last eight hours had only slowed the infection down, not fought it off completely.

Conditions

Infection (2*)

I grimaced and hobbled outside. The first blush of dawn peeked over the trees. The cold mist clung to me as I circled around the pool. “Ikfael, are you here? Hello? Hello?”

Ikfael didn’t respond. By that point, she’d been missing for a couple of days. Was she on another three-day journey? A longer trip than that? There was no way to know, and that scared me.

Easy now, Ollie. Panic never solved anything. One step at a time.

I unwrapped the wound and left it open to the air. Now that it was officially infected, the bandage would only make things cozy for the bacteria inside. I also pumped my leg full of qi and nature mana, hoping they’d continue to slow the infection.

In the meantime, I got a fire started and gathered the things I’d need in case I did have to amputate. My hands shook, and I had to work extra carefully to re-knap the flint hand ax. Luckily, I still had the cordage meant for tanning the deer hide. It’d come in handy for tying off the stump and—

I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t do it. There was no way I was going to amputate half my leg. There had to be another solution. Had I missed anything yesterday? Any hint for what the healing rune might look like?

I’d already consulted with Skill-Sensei, but checked again.

Nature Magic 1

The rank increase from 0 to 1 had come from the realization that magic was a multi-stage process. The initial rune converts the mana into the relevant domain, and then runes turn it into a magical effect.

Aeromancy 1

Without air, the world would be forever still. Its winds are fickle, but they are harbingers of change. This skill is the origin of magical arts related to air.

The rune with three wavy lines had turned out to be Aeromancy.

There was a new notification too:

Spear Arts increased from 0 to 1.

Stealth increased from 1 to 2.

Interestingly, both Spear Arts and Stealth must’ve ranked up overnight.

There was an article I’d read years ago that talked about memory encoding during sleep. Supposedly, the lack of sensory inputs made it easier for the sleeping brain to stabilize and consolidate memory, which, when I thought about it, was what the System did—preserving memory in amber, forever within reach.

Funny how the article came to mind just when I needed it. Or was that my 5 in Biology at work? Maybe. Possibly. Probably. Even though it felt just like me remembering something by happenstance.

Focus, Ollie. This isn’t the time to get distracted.

I picked up a stiletto to refresh my memory of the runes inside, and then closed my eyes to remove any visual distractions. It took a while to calm the oscillations in my mind and ignore the watery fear in my belly enough to build a mental image of the Nature and Anesthetic runes.

My mana poured into the combined runes. The feeling of something fresh and lively flashed through me—filling me like a balloon—before it overflowed and spilled out. The feeling hung in the air, and in that moment anything seemed possible.

But only for a moment. Directionless at the cusp between potentiality and reality, the spell threatened to dissipate, so I willed it toward my injury. The throbbing disappeared. In fact, I couldn’t feel my leg at all. It was as numb as a rock.

The rest of me felt relief, and underneath that—below the terror of potentially losing my leg to amputation—was jubilation. I’d been excited before to move water with my will, but this was a proper spell, my childhood dreams realized.

As a kid in little Sherwood, Oregon, I’d been a freak and an outsider. I’d done my best to assimilate. I learned to dress like the other kids, to talk like them, and cuss like them. I learned to play football and basketball. I even gave up on speaking Spanish. But none of that mattered. I was a halfbreed born to a traitorous woman who married a Mexican man.

Then, when I found science fiction and fantasy, that had just sealed the deal. I was a freak, an outsider, and a geek. No one wanted anything to do with me.

The stories gave me refuge, as did the woods out behind the family house. If it wasn’t for them and for mi abuelito, I don’t know that I would’ve made it. And now, here I was, making magic. Real, visible magic, just like in the stories. It was so damn satisfying.

All the time I spent hanging out in my imagination with Merlin, Pug, Harry, Kvothe, and all the other magicians—it hadn’t been for nothing. The feeling ran deeply through me. I was moved, down in my bedrock, like my whole existence was validated. There was still work to do—I didn’t have time to celebrate—but for a moment I felt whole.

There was a feeling of emptiness too. I’d been burning mana and qi off and on through the night, and the spell cost me the last quarter of my mana tank, about four points worth.

Conditions

Infected (2*), Anesthetized (Local, 4)

After a minute, the numbness in my leg faded, and the Anesthetized condition disappeared. I also received notification for a skill rank up:

Nature Magic increased from 1 to 2.

“I dub this spell Anesthetic,” I muttered. “And so we keep going.”

I visualized the Aeromancy and antler runes combined. My mana tank was practically empty, but a space for the spell opened inside me anyway—only there was nothing with which to fill it. Without enough mana, the spell wouldn’t trigger. I still felt the potential, though, and interestingly, the Aeromancy skill also ranked up.

Aeromancy increased from 1 to 2.

“And you? You’re Cold Snap.”

My understanding of how magic worked was growing, and now it was time to really push to see how much support the System gave. I mentally gathered everything I knew about magic into a tidy bundle, and then sat with the information in a meditative trance, holding myself open to any stray thoughts that might lead me to the healing rune.

There were flashes of insight and slight epiphanies for how I might extend what I knew, imagery and ideas from the novels I’d read and the games I’d played, and a whole host of thoughts and ideas, but nothing that had any heft and weight. There wasn’t anything to the degree of holding the spear or drawing the bow.

Even after a couple of hours of me sweating in the sun, doing my best to keep calm and focus, the healing runes evaded me.

The longer I sat, the more my nerves frayed and the harder it was to maintain my focus. The frustration grew and grew—and the fear too—until I couldn’t sit still anymore. I’d slowed the infection, but hadn’t stopped it completely. My life was still in danger unless I found a way to heal the injury. That or amputate.

I fled from the meditation and hobbled around the Glen, searching for anything that might contain the healing runes. I pulsed qi through the trees, plants, and flowers. The results were nil.

Well, what about traveling to the farms to the east?

They were only, what, three or four miles away. That was a couple hours’ hike in difficult terrain—longer injured, of course—but I could make a crutch easily enough. Wasn’t that a much more sensible plan than amputation? What had I been thinking earlier? Why didn’t I even consider making contact with the people of this world? There was no need to worry about them mistaking me for a plant creature in disguise—all I had to do was bleed red to show them I was human—and I could pretend to be deaf and mute, then mime my way through asking for help.

My fists clenched.

No, that wasn’t the problem anymore. The fear was that they wouldn’t help even after knowing I was human. I was an outsider, after all. Weak and injured too. It’d be easy enough for someone unscrupulous to take advantage of the situation and steal the soldier’s coins, the only things I had to trade.

Did farmers even have a remedy for infection? How common was healing magic in this world? What if, while I was away, Ikfael returned to the Glen and then left again? If only there was some way to message her or find out where she went, then I could—

The rest of the thought vanished as an idea exploded in my mind: Ikfael attracted spirit mana. I was so taken by surprise that, for a moment, it disarmed me. I stood helpless as the implications rolled through me.

I couldn’t make a spirit ball fast enough—all it needed was a tiny bit of mana—and then when I let it go I hardly breathed as I watched it drift and sink under the pool’s surface. About a yard from the bottom, the spirit ball shimmered and disappeared. That hadn’t been a trick of the light. I was sure it had shimmered.

I lost track of the second spirit ball before it reached the bottom.

The third one definitely shimmered, as if passing through an invisible boundary, moving from one plane of existence to another, which was likely exactly what had happened. When Ikfael had led me on the spirit journey, we’d passed through into the spirit world right around there.

I took a breath to get my emotions under control and began to sculpt a small statue of me with a blotch on my right leg. Not sure what would help, I poured my intent into the sculpture and even whispered into its ear, “Ikfael, please contact me if you can.”

The sculpture sank to the bottom of the pool and disappeared.

After twenty minutes, I sculpted a second figure, this time of Ikfael. To ensure I caught her attention, I absolutely loaded the sculpture’s arms with fish.

The third sculpture was the most complicated yet. It was of Ikfael and me together, crouched down while we waited to ambush the buck. The sculpture wasn’t as detailed as the others—I didn’t have time for that—but the figures’ postures captured the feeling of tension and waiting.

I meditated in between messages to recover my mana. The sun was high in the sky, and I sweated profusely, even with the mist from the waterfall to keep me cool.

The water splashed, and I thought—hoped— it might be Ikfael returning, but instead a pillar of water rose from the pool to about my height. The top flattened into the shape of Ikfael’s tablet, the one she used during her rituals. An image appeared on the screen of Ikfael sitting in a chair, her back straight, a stiff smile on her face.

There was a lit sconce on the stone wall behind her, but most of the room’s light seemed to come from a roaring fire out of view. A mug of something hot steamed on the table in front of her, along with a series of sculptures, the ones I’d sent through.

I sagged with relief. Everything would be all right now. But where is she? Likely somewhere in the spirit world, a place represented by a stone room, but that was all I was able to tell from what I could see through the tablet.

The question must’ve shown on my face, because Ikfael tilted the screen. The view panned, and I saw Diriktot sitting across from her.

The last time I’d seen him, he’d been wearing a suit. Today, though, he had on a leather apron over a linen shirt with the sleeves rolled up. The coarse black hair on his arms couldn’t hide the powerful muscles underneath. Behind him was a forge burning brightly.

The god waved.

I just about died, which was something he’d seen before, but still… I. Just. About. Died.

A twinkle came to Diriktot’s eyes, and he started talking to Ikfael. As soon as he did, Ikfael let go of the screen, which swung the view back to her, and she nodded along to whatever he was saying. Her own brows climbed, and at one point her jaw dropped.

Whatever it was, it must’ve been a hell of a story. Why wasn’t there a microphone attached to the tablet? I wanted to listen in too—to find out what was going on and be able to explain the soon-to-be dire straits in which I found myself.

Ikfael interrupted Diriktot with a question. His answer must’ve satisfied her, because she turned to gesture at the screen. More water rose from the pool to form a second pseudopod next to the first. It cleared the bank of debris and left behind two bowls.

The first was made of stone, and looked like the ones I’d seen Ikfael use before. The second was made from polished wood, stained dark. There was a design inside, but I’d have to look closer to see it. Both bowls were full of water.

Beside the stone bowl, the pseudopod left a collection of water sculptures: a stack of five fish and a deer’s hind leg and haunch. Beside the wooden bowl, the pseudopod left the same sculptures, but also included a stiletto, a rolled-up hide, and the Antler of Icy Breath.

Events had taken a strange turn, and I had a lot of questions—very important questions, like why Ikfael was hanging out with a fallen god—but they had to wait, because it looked like an offer to trade was being made. The water in the bowls promised healing in exchange for the stuff represented by the sculptures. That was good—very good—but why were the trades so freaking expensive? The stone bowl wasn’t bad, but the wooden one—

“No way. I’m not trading Antler-Sensei.”

It had taught me the Cold Snap spell, and maybe there were other things I could learn from it. More importantly, the antler was the key to being able to store food long term.

I could afford to trade a stiletto away. The hide would be a more painful loss, as every inch was needed for my planned projects. Still, I could potentially hunt another deer. The antler, though, was irreplaceable unless I found another unideer.

Just what exactly had Diriktot told her to inspire her to make this trade? I was dying to know, but first I had to make sure I didn’t really die, while also holding onto as much of my stuff as possible.

“Can we negotiate? I’ll give you two haunches, a stiletto, and anything I can make over the course of a day—spears, axes, whatever you want and however many you want—but I keep the hide and the antler.”

Ikfael picked up the spirit sculpture of me with the blotch on my leg, then tore the leg off. She waggled it in front of the screen, the message obvious: either accept one of the trades or be prepared to lose a leg. There’d be no negotiation.

She’d taken a hard bargaining position, which didn’t seem like her at all. Was it a test? A leap of faith of some kind? There was a god involved, so maybe it was? Diriktot was out of view of the tablet, but Ifkael occasionally snuck glances in the direction where he’d been sitting, so I presumed he was still there and paying attention.

She watched as I struggled with how to respond. Her eyes weren’t unkind. She wasn’t being a hard-ass just on a whim. There was something about the wooden bowl that I didn’t understand.

I gestured, encouraging Ikfael to elaborate on why it cost so much, but she quirked her head in response and smiled, not giving anything away.

I pretended to pour the water in the wooden bowl on my leg to heal the infection.

Ikfael nodded yes.

I pretended to keep the bowl and—

Ikfael shook her head no.

“What? I don’t even get to keep it?”

If the trade wasn’t for the bowl, then was it the water that was special? Did it provide a permanent benefit or a powerup of some kind?

I gestured, “Can I examine the bowl and water?”

She nodded yes.

Inside the bowl, a snake was painted in gold, spiraling outward from the center to the rim, and the design was reminiscent of the carvings I’d seen at Chichen Itza. The water inside looked normal. I sniffed, and it smelled clean. If there was any mana, it was too faint for me to sense.

I made the signs for magic and water. “Can I enchant it?”

She shook her head no, and instead gestured toward the bowl itself.

“Magic the bowl?”

She nodded yes, so I took a closer look. The wood was mahogany and was well worn with age. There were also tiny gaps in the gold paint. I got the feeling that it was something precious and belonged in a museum.

I gathered qi and mana in my hands and let the energies seep into the wood. They swept in like a slow ocean tide, and then they found the meridians, dropping into the runnels to flow through the patterns hidden within. I recognized the water mana rune, and attached to it were a series I didn’t know.

I licked my lips, hope rising. Are these—are they healing runes?

I carefully set the wooden bowl down and picked up the stone one. Enchanting it revealed a random network of channels within it. Nothing that looked like a rune though.

Ikfael smiled at me, her eyes crinkling in pleasure. She gestured to tell me to take my time. I had until sundown to decide if either bowl was worth the price. Then, the screen and pseudopods fell back into the pool.

For whatever reason, Ikfael was giving me the opportunity to learn a healing spell. That was what it looked like anyway. But why the convoluted approach? She could’ve easily said, “Here’s the rune. Heal yourself.”

It was mystifying at first, but then I realized that underpinning everything she’d done for me was some kind of exchange for either food or labor, whether it was fish or helping to get rid of the pests who’d come to the Glen.

The only time she did something without a clear benefit was when she’d healed me after I was poisoned by a devil vine. Except that was apparently done as a favor to Diriktot, according to Ikfael’s Blessing, so it was still an exchange, just with someone else.

Well, I wasn’t one to let an opportunity go to waste. I mean, even if it turned out that the runes weren’t for a healing spell, they’d still likely be important given the lengths Ikfael and Diriktot were going through to get me to learn it. And I still had access to treatment for my infected leg—all I had to do was purchase the cheaper Healing Water in the stone bowl.

All in all, it looked like I’d come out of the situation with a new spell and a healed leg, no matter what. So, I spent the rest of the day frantically memorizing the runes in the wooden bowl. I briefly considered sketching them with chalk, but the runes had to be perfect to work. Anything I drew would be hopelessly imperfect. I even tried to take a picture of the rune with the Status camera, but the result was an error.

Error

Not a valid talent vessel.

Everything was put on hold while I focused on the task at hand. I didn’t eat, didn’t train, and didn’t do anything that wasn’t related to meditating and memorizing. I circulated my energies faster and faster, and every half hour, I enchanted the bowl to commit the runes to memory.

Partway through, it occurred to me that if this process was a training montage, it’d be the dullest in the history of film. All I was doing was sitting by a pool and staring into a bowl of water.

Then I realized I was being foolish and ate lunch. My brain needed nutrition to function at its best. I wolfed down the meal, and went back to meditating and memorizing. Then later, when the light started to dim, I ate the leftovers for dinner.

Thirty points worth of qi and mana later, I had it.

A pillar of water rose from the pool. The screen re-formed to show Ikfael watching Diriktot as he assembled a machine. New black iron gleamed in the firelight. The various handles and levers were shiny brass. There was a hopper at the top and spout at the bottom.

The machine looked familiar, and then it hit me. I’d seen enough industrial coffee roasters to recognize what they looked like. This one was big enough to easily process ten pounds of beans at a time. Behind it was a stack of man-sized burlap bags full of—heaven help me—Ethiopian coffee beans. That freaking Diriktot had brought back souvenirs from my world.

“I chose,” I said through our improvised sign language.

The screen followed Ikfael back to the table. She hopped into the chair and got herself comfortable before gesturing: “What decision?”

I got out a bowl of my own. It was just a stone that happened to be concave enough to hold water, but it’d do. I brought the runes I’d just memorized to mind and connected them to my mana.

My skin flushed and my eyelids fluttered as the magic flowed through me. Heat and coolness mingled. My body, mind, and spirit filled with the potential, and then, when the energy was at its peak, I let it all go into the water.

The water glowed briefly. That was all, but it was enough. I’d seen the same thing when Ikfael had cast her spell. The water sizzled and stung when I poured it over my leg. The feeling turned cool and soaked into my skin.  Then the wound closed, and a quick check of my Status showed that the negative conditions were gone.

Ikfael grinned at me. I grinned back.

Hydromancy increased from 0 to 2.

A pseudopod came to take her bowls back, which were still full of water. She shrugged, like it was no big deal that the trade had fallen through.

“Wait,” I said before the screen retracted.

Ikfael quirked her head, confused, but the screen waited as I’d asked.

I ran—it felt good to run again—to the refrigerator to retrieve two quarters of the butchered deer. I placed them in front of the screen, along with one of my stilettos, the one with the hickory hilt. I made the sign for fish and indicated twenty of them. Then, I put my hands together in prayer and bowed. I had no idea if she could feel my intent, but I was ever so grateful.

She was fair and kind. Perhaps she’d originally helped me as a favor to Diriktot, but I didn’t think that was the basis of our relationship anymore. Oh, no doubt he was involved in the decision, but from the way the Taoism skill glowed within me, I knew Ikfael hadn’t needed to let me study the bowl for free. That was a gift, and I wanted to show my appreciation in return.

Ikfael’s grin got bigger, and she stuck her chest out, pleased. She turned to chirp at Diriktot, but I didn’t get to see what came next. The pillar grabbed the deer meat and stiletto, and fell back into the water.

I’d lost the opportunity to ask questions of Diriktot, but it was important to me to show my appreciation to Ikfael for everything she’d done. I was a man who paid his debts and was grateful for good fortune.

Barter increased from 3 to 4.

Apparently, relationships are everything, even in sales.

I fell back, exhausted and energized at the same time. The fire was down to embers, enough for a small glow. The moon was up and climbing up into the sky.

I couldn’t sleep. My mind spun around the spells I’d learned: Anesthetic, Cold Snap, and Healing Water. All three were useful, but the most important was undoubtedly Healing Water. With it, I could take more chances, make a few mistakes, and be able to recover from them.

I would be able to finally—finally!—stop needing others to save me and instead save myself. A few more abilities and maybe I’ll even be able to handle meeting the people of this world.

16

When Birds Scatter

The sun was well up over the trees by the time I awoke the next day. The Healing Water spell’s runes were the only one for which I didn’t have a reference, so I’d stayed up late the night before, making absolutely sure they were committed to memory.

There was no sign of injury on my leg, not even a scar, and I went through my morning routine without any pain or twinges. Once I was sure everything was copacetic, I dove into the pool. Even though it was summer, the water was frigid. Ikfael’s Blessing helped, but the cold was still a shock. Nothing, however, would keep me from examining the spirit door at the bottom of the pool. The fish fled as I swam down.

I found nothing but stone, gray and unyielding. There was no doorway nor any runes either. If there was magic present, it was too subtle for me to sense. I kicked off the bottom to swim to the surface, refilled my lungs, and swam back down.

As a test, I made a spirit sculpture of me with my hands in prayer. When I let it go, the sculpture shimmered, along with a circle of spirit mana three feet in diameter. My hand immediately shot forward into the passage, but nothing happened. I wasn’t transported or anything like that. While my spirit was willing, the meat containing it held me back. I’d need another out-of-body experience to travel through, which likely wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. Previously, it had taken Ikfael three days of preparation and had cost me a magic dagger.

I put away my disappointment and swam back to the surface. I was healthy again, and that would have to be enough. There’d hopefully be other chances to talk to Diriktot. Now that I knew it was possible, I’d look for the opportunities.

I shivered the moment I came out of the water, and lay down in the sun to warm up. I used the time to focus on the days ahead. Specifically, how to reach the point where the runes could be automatically recalled—a part of my mind’s muscle memory, as it were.

My training regimen needed to change. I’d still practice my skills, but the focus would shift to integrating them together: specifically Spear Arts and my new spells. I didn’t foresee any issues with Archery or Stealth, as the movements were familiar enough—I’d just need to practice the new mental components—but the work of holding the spear went slowly. Adding a spell into the mix was asking for trouble. It’d be worth it though, since both Cold Snap and Anesthetic could create openings for a timely thrust.

The impediment to training these spell-spear thrusts was the small size of my mana pool, as well as its slow recovery rate. Each of the spells cost the equivalent of four points’ worth mana to trigger, and it’d limit my practice time.

My mana, with meditation, recovered at a rate of two to three points per hour. Assuming I used up my fifteen mana in the morning, and then gained an additional thirty over the course of a twelve-hour day, that meant I had approximately a total of twelve spell-spear thrusts in me, assuming I did nothing else.

When practicing my qigong movements, I meditated. Was that also possible while holding the spear or drawing the bow?

The answer was yes… and no. If I moved slowly, like in qigong, then yes I could. Not easily, but it was possible. If I moved with anything resembling speed, though, both the mental and the physical components fell apart. I couldn’t coordinate all the moving pieces. Not yet, anyway.

Well, moving super slow was its own kind of training. I’d make it work, even if it took the entirety of my days. Everything on my to-do list would get put on hold, at least for a time. I’d start with two weeks of intensive training and see where that got me.

There were three exceptions to that plan. The first was to tan the deer hide, which was ready for the next step of being turned into buckskin; the second was to replace my broken spear; and the third was to make more arrows.

Plan settled, I pulled the hide out of the stream. It looked ready, but I quickly realized that I wasn’t. There was a stack of bark still needing to be turned into cordage. With a dissatisfied grunt, I sat down to get the job done. Fortunately, my fingers could braid the bark fibers on autopilot. My focus was on circulating my energy. After a couple of hours, I had enough cordage to move ahead.

I retrieved my flint knife and began preparing the hide for the frame by cutting inch-long slits around the edges. Then it was a matter of using the new cordage to tie the hide onto a wooden frame to stretch it nice and taut, pulled evenly on all sides. There was still meat and fat on the skin which needed to come off, so I used the knife as a scraper to flense the hide. I wiped the sweat from my brow and kept at it until all the flesh was removed, though I had to stop several times to tighten the cords and re-knap the knife.

The final product looked pretty good, and matched what I’d done in the past. All that was left was to turn the hide over, so the fur side was up. That way if it rained, the water would run off the fur. It’d stay that way for another four days to dry out.

For the spear, I already had the spearhead, so it was just a matter of finding and preparing the haft. And the arrows? The fall that had injured my leg had also damaged the turkey feathers, and I’d only been able to salvage enough feathers to make a single arrow.

Still, I was undaunted. Like a miser ready to count his coins, I rubbed my hands together. The rest of my time would be spent training.

The next day, I went through my morning routine, practiced magic-integrated spear arts in its afterglow, and then took a break to make the lye necessary for tanning the deer hide. All that process needed was water and ashes from a fire.

I was watching the mixture boil down when I heard thunder roll in from the east. I hiked to the top of the Glen, and saw a thick mass of dark clouds approaching. They flashed with lightning, and water poured down onto the valley below, a curtain of rain moving toward the Glen. I licked my lips in anticipation, and ran back down to drag the deer hide’s frame into the cave. Then I dashed outside and danced from foot to foot as I waited.

Thankfully, it wasn’t long—the clouds were fast moving. The lightning eventually crashed down on the area surrounding the Glen, and the thunder rumbled through me, from the top of my head down into my feet. Rain fell like a heavy blanket.

Grinning, I picked up my spear and practiced in the most magnificent of thunderstorms, the qi and mana spinning through me like a dynamo. The storm lasted all day and into the night, and I stuck with it—going hungry, except that it didn’t matter, not while I bathed in glory. It wasn’t until after the storm had moved on that I realized I was ravenous.

I paced while the meat grilled, and when that wasn’t enough, I grabbed my spear for more practice. There was too much energy for sense, and I couldn’t slow down. I needed to move, move, move.

When the meat was done, I tore into it like an animal and ate a full pound of venison. Then, I jumped up and ran outside to swing the spear around some more.

My breath heaved from the exertion. I thrust and cast Cold Snap. The water on the ground iced over—and I slipped.

“Oof!”

I laughed at my own antics and rolled onto my back to catch my breath. The trees glistened with moonlit raindrops. Sopping wet and exhausted, I held still long enough to admire the view. Then I got up to train some more.

The morning was crisp and clear, all the clouds having spent themselves the day before. A few stragglers lingered, but the sky was robin-blue for miles around. The Glen was as fresh as the day, washed clean by the rain.

My muscles ached, and my spirit too, like it’d been stretched past comfortable. My will felt stronger though. Not a lot, but enough to notice the difference. Checking my Status didn’t show any rank ups in attributes or skills, but I took comfort in knowing that the spear and the spell runes were both becoming more familiar.

The plan today was simple: bring the hide back outside to dry, go out into the forest to restock my supply of squash and beans, and oh, keep training. There was nothing more encouraging than that feeling of a skill starting to improve.

The morning went to plan, but after lunch I heard a cacophony from the birds downstream. A flock of them scattered into the air and flew over the Glen. At the time, I’d been trying to get used to the feel of fighting while wearing all my gear.

What was left of my shirt, a ragged tank-top, was under my armor. Three arrows—two orange, one brown—hung from my right hip, while two stilettos were fastened to my left. The scabbards for the stilettos were new and reinforced. My bow was strung and gripped in one hand. I held the spear in the other.

I hiked up to the top of the waterfall to check on what had spooked the birds. They tended to scatter only when there was something afoot.

Three baboons made their way upstream. They moved cautiously like scouts in enemy territory, their heads swiveling back and forth as they approached the Glen. More birds broke for the sky, and I saw a fourth baboon peer from the branches of a maple tree. Farther downstream, the foliage shook as yet two more baboons appeared.

I gulped. Did the storm spook the local wildlife? The Glen had also been invaded the last time it stormed, but that was just one creature, the unideer.

A massive baboon, ten feet tall and built like a linebacker, batted aside the shrubbery. He followed behind his troop.

My heart sank. I’d been so proud to finally learn the Healing Water spell. I was also working hard to become proficient in protecting myself. Yet here I was again, with no way to tackle a situation on my own. The only sensible thing to do was to wait for Ikfael—

My breath caught. If she returned now, she’d be ambushed by the baboons. I had to warn her.

I quickly shaped a spirit mana sculpture of a large baboon surrounded by six others. They were nothing more than vague shapes, the equivalent of stick figures, but I made them look menacing.

From the top of the waterfall, I tossed the sculpture down into the pool below; the monster baboon must’ve sensed it, because he charged upstream, screaming, the ground thumping with his steps. The rest of the troop hollered as they followed after him. They tore into the Glen.

I didn’t see what happened next, because I ran upstream, though I didn’t go far. The area ahead was still unexplored. The only section of the forest I knew well, besides Ikfael’s territory, was to the south, where I’d seen the monster turkeys and the horrible plant creatures. I swung around to make my way there via the deer thicket. I might as well make things difficult, just in case the baboons were able to track me.

The thicket lived up to its name. The branches scraped against my face and arms as I passed through. I tried to move quietly, but it was impossible with so many bushes and leaves rustling. I heard several animals take off running as I moved through the area. Fortunately, they ran away from me, not toward.

On the other side of the thicket, I turned west again to gain some height and keep an eye on my back trail. If there were baboons following, I wanted to know. Yet, all I saw was doe returning to the thicket. She didn’t have any weird horns or coloring; the creature was just as ordinary as any deer I’d seen.

After about an hour, I took a breath and sighed it out. Safe, at least for now. What about the Glen though? Depending on how long the baboons stayed, I was temporarily or permanently evicted. And even though Ikfael was safe, she was trapped on the other side of the spirit door. Unless Diriktot helped. Would he? Could he?

I waited another hour to make sure my backtrail was clear, and then headed to the Glen. That was the only way to find out the answer to those questions.

17

Guerilla Tactics

I crept toward the top of the waterfall overlooking the Glen. The trees were crowded around the stream, their roots exposed by the water. All around their trunks, bushes and shrubs fought for access. I moved through their greenery, approaching step by cautious step.

My heart raced. Sweat soaked through my shirt. I’d taken the time to weave grass between my armor’s links, so they didn’t jingle, but now my lower back itched where my shirt had been cut away.

I paused to scan my surroundings. When a crow suddenly cawed in the branches above me, I almost jumped out of my skin. He looked down at me with his black eyes.

After getting my heart under control, I kept moving. Every few steps, I scanned the area for anything out of place. It made for slow going, but it was safer. Ten feet from the edge, I got on my belly and crawled the rest of the way.

I counted eleven baboons lounging around the pool. Each was about four feet tall, with blue snouts and reddish fur. A few sat near the water grooming each other. The giant among them was big enough to need two to pick through his fur.

The deer hide lay on the ground, torn. The pile of firewood had been kicked apart and scattered across the ground. I didn’t see any of the baboons entering or exiting the cave, so my things there appeared to be safe, at least for the moment.

It was disturbing to see the baboons occupy the Glen. My home for the past three weeks had become unfamiliar. The tranquility that normally hung in the air like the waterfall’s mist had vanished with their presence.

Two of the baboons fought near the remnants of the deer hide. Their chattering was grating to my ears. I wasn’t the only one, because the giant baboon hollered and leapt over to them. He gave each a clout on the head and, with a snort, grabbed the hide to take it back to his seat to use as a cushion. Meanwhile, the two chastised baboons rubbed at where they’d been hit and went to explore the other side of the Glen.

Holy hells, that leap was almost twenty-five feet. In a fight, he’d close the distance between us in an instant. How am I supposed to deal with that?

The situation became even more grim when a baboon—number twelve, by my count—swung down from a tree south of the Glen, and another baboon picked himself up to replace him in the tree. It happened again with two more baboons—thirteen and fourteen—but this time, the trees were to the east and north.

My jaw dropped. The baboons were posting sentries. Pack animals often had members who kept watch for predators. Maybe this was a more sophisticated version of that strategy? I hoped so, because if they were intelligent, it’d be a lot harder to dislodge them from the Glen.

Unfortunately, there was no sign of Ikfael or Diriktot. I briefly considered trying another message, but didn’t want to risk the giant baboon noticing. Even from forty feet above the beast, I could feel his raw power.

I brought my phone to mind and aimed the camera. Click.

Bishkawi Alpha (Animal, Dusk)

Talents: Tempered Ferocity, Cunning, Spirit Sensitive

My first thought was that I wouldn’t be sending any more messages to Ikfael, at least not until the alpha was out of the Glen or asleep, since he was sensitive to spirit stuff. The rest of the talents didn’t bode well either. I was curious about the ‘Dusk’ entry, but didn’t have anything to reference it against. All I could do was to hold onto the information for now.

The others in the troop were all bishkawi, but none of them were alphas or had any mention of dusk. All had at least one talent, things like Fierce and Agile Climber, although one stood out with a talent for Hidden Strength. This last one was the smallest of the bunch, looking almost like a juvenile. Speaking of which, I don’t see any young in the troop. They’re all either adolescents or adults.

The two explorers found my plum tree and brought back armfuls for the alpha. Then the rest of the troop stormed off to strip the tree. They brought back their spoils, gobbled down the fruit, and dropped the pits where they sat.

It was a strange thing to be upset about, given the situation, but the littering really bothered me. Ikfael kept the Glen clean, and here it was, disrespected. I felt a spark of anger amid the fear.

Back behind me, the crow cawed again. It took to the air with a flap of its wings to fly across the stream and land in a tree there. I was late to understand the implications of its flight—something must’ve startled it—but when I did, I turned myself around and crawled into the nearest bush. My eyes never left the tree from which the crow flew. A moment later, the tree’s branches shook with movement.

Slowly, so slowly, I set my spear down and nocked an arrow on my bow. The branches shook again, and a bishkawi—number fifteen—poked his head clear. He ambled to the edge of the branch to peer down at the fish in the stream’s shallows.

A couple of scenarios flashed through my mind. In one, the bishkawi came to the cliff’s edge, curious about the view below. In another, he was a sentry placed to cover the west and patrolled the area. In both, the odds of me going undiscovered were small. The probability of the bishkawi leaving on his own felt even smaller.

The bishkawi looked left and right, as if readying himself to move on. The window on taking a shot while he perched precariously on the branch was quickly closing. I grit my teeth and prayed the attacks I’d been practicing would pay off.

I enchanted the bow, and the draw was smooth. The tension didn’t stack at the end as much as it usually did, which in turn would let the arrow fly with more power. I held the shot until the Cold Snap spell was ready. Thank the gods, the runes came to mind when I needed them.

Strong core. Shoulder down. I let my bones carry the weight of the draw and relaxed into the tension. Then, I released.

The arrow flew to strike the bishkawi in the side, and I shot off after it while letting my hand drop the bow and my other hand grab my spear. I plowed through the bushes to chase after the startled bishkawi falling into the stream.

The water wouldn’t keep him occupied for long. I connected my mana to the Cold Snap runes, and the spell shuddered through me into the air and toward the stream where I directed it. The water around the bishkawi’s face froze to block his throat and lock his mouth.

I infused qi into my spear and leapt from the bank onto the bishkawi. The spearhead stabbed into his belly. I pulled the spear and stabbed again. I aimed for the heart, but the spear was deflected by his ribcage.

The bishkawi thrashed in the water, his hands ripping at the ice lodged in his throat. I slipped the spearhead between his ribs and pushed with all my weight. The layer of muscle finally gave away, and the spear pierced the bishkawi’s heart. The creature struggled a moment longer before going still.

I looked around, listening for shrieks or hollers, but there was only the sound of running water. I pulled the spear free and dragged the bishkawi’s body ashore. Back on land, I opened the wound in the bishkawi’s chest and pulled out a pea-sized core, then crushed it.

14 silverlight gathered.

I retrieved my bow and bugged out of there. None of the bishkawi had yet noticed that a member of their troop had gone missing, and I didn’t want to be anywhere nearby when they did.

Back in my hiding spot above the deer thicket, I had a decision to make.

The attack on the bishkawi sentry had gone about as well as it could. I’d been ready to cast Cold Snap on the creature’s tongue to keep him from calling his friends, but the water in his mouth had turned out to be a much better opportunity.

However it happened, I’d proved to myself that I could defeat the creatures one-on-one with guerrilla tactics. The question was, could I guarantee similarly favorable circumstances fourteen or fifteen more times? Would guerrilla tactics be enough for the alpha? Probably not, even if Ikfael made it back in time for the boss fight. After all, the two of us had struggled against the unideer, and the bishkawi were a much bigger threat, at least to my eyes.

I needed a way to equalize the odds. No, screw that, I needed to stack the odds in my favor—to eliminate the chance of the bishkawi tearing me apart like they had the deer hide. I thought about it for a while and narrowed it down to two approaches.

The first was to recruit help. My coins were likely still in the cave. If I could get to them, I might be able to hire guards or mercenaries from the town. It’d be a long shot, given my concerns about meeting the people of this world, but it was an option.

A corollary to the first approach was the possibility of recruiting unintentional help. Wouldn’t it be something if I could lure a monster to the glen to fight the bishkawi on my behalf? The idea appealed to me, but it had its own risks. Namely, I’d still have to find a way to successfully kill the survivors.

The second approach was to find a way to punch above my weight. I didn’t see my skills improving dramatically over the next few days, so the answer had to be external—something beyond what I already had or was doing. Something like poison.

I knew firsthand how dangerous that could be. All I had to do was track down where the devil vines went, kill a few, extract their venom, and find a way to store it without killing myself in the process. Okay, so that wouldn’t be as easy as I’d like, but it was still a less complicated process than getting help from people and/or monsters.

I decided to bet on simplicity and harness the power of poison to stack the odds in my favor. With the right preparation and a bit of luck, it could work; a lone guerilla could defeat a troop of baboons.

I picked my way through the thicket as I trekked back. A slope led up from the ravine in which the thicket resided, and I swung west to follow the curve of the thicket’s boundary. It didn’t make sense to pop up right where I’d left the dead bishkawi. Rather, I’d hike in from farther away to scope out the situation first, and then I’d start my search for the devil vines.

The hillside was carpeted in knee-high grass, with only a few trees standing askew. I dashed from cover to cover in a curious combination of caution and confidence. Well, maybe not so much confidence as holy-hell-please-don’t-see-me-run-through-here anxiety. My heart pounded the whole time, but the strategy worked. I climbed up to the stream’s bank without incident, and felt much better amid the thick greenery there.

Farther west, the escarpment rose high into the air, the top of the cliff lined with trees. I could hear its waterfall from my position. To the east, two bishkawi sat by the stream’s bank. One napped, his back resting against a red cedar, while the other lazily tried to catch fish with her hands. I recognized her—she was the one with the Hidden Strength talent.

The other was… click.

Error

Not a valid talent vessel.

That’s odd. Why didn’t the camera work? I considered shifting positions to get a better view, when my target fell to the side. What a sound sleeper—he didn’t stir at all.

The smaller bishkawi looked back at him, annoyed. She ambled over to push him back upright, and he didn’t object. He… didn’t respond in any way at all. With a gasp, I realized he was dead, the same bishkawi I’d killed and left behind. They’d propped him up to make him look like he was sleeping. The two of them were bait, meant to look like easy targets.

The treetops were empty, and the bushes were clear. I didn’t see any other bishkawi. I didn’t hear anything either—only the stream gurgling past. There were no birds singing though. Something had them spooked, in an area bigger than the two visible bishkawi. I pushed down the sudden spike of fear in my belly and eased back through the bushes.

I tested every step to make sure nothing cracked or broke under my weight. Looking, listening, smelling—I used everything I had to chart a safe retreat upstream, away from the trap. My world narrowed. Time became meaningless. Ages passed, compressed into a microcosm of cautious step after step.

Ten yards. Twenty yards. I was just about to breathe easier, but then the wind shifted, carrying with it the scent of mint. The branches of the trees ahead were roped by barbed vines dotted with pink flowers. I’d found the devil vines, but there was no way for me to hunt them safely now. Worse, they blocked my retreat. I’d have to risk the hillside again.

I got on my belly to crawl through the grass. There were likely bishkawi hiding all around the area, and I couldn’t risk running. How I’d made it through the first time was a miracle. If only my luck held. I felt like a mouse sneaking past a lion. The tension wound through me, and not even being at one with the land could keep it at bay.

I was halfway down the hillside when a bishkawi’s cry sounded from the treeline above. The sound started as a chatter and morphed into a holler. Bishkawi all along the stream echoed the cry. Alarmed, I looked back and spotted a bishkawi emerging from the treeline. He headed straight for me, hollering as he ran.

More of them emerged from the bushes and trees—practically the whole troop except for the alpha. I didn’t see him anywhere and didn’t linger to look. With a grunt, I got to my feet and sprinted. The edge of the thicket was ahead, and I shot toward the thorniest, gnarliest-looking path.

Behind me, the bishkawi crashed down the hillside.

Where was I to go? The thicket would only slow the bishkawi at best. The last time I’d been chased by one, he only gave up after I found a fissure to hide in. I needed a similar refuge.

Only one came to mind: the cave near where I’d stabbed myself in the calf. The entrance was just big enough for me to fit through, but not the bishkawi with their wide shoulders. I didn’t know anything about what was inside, but the air had smelled clean, without any scent of musk, decay, or dung. It hadn’t seemed like the cave was being used as a den.

I angled southwest and ran my heart out.

A scream cut through the forest. It sounded like a bishkawi, only louder and more resonant than all the others, and it came from farther away, in the direction of the Glen. It could only be the alpha. One of the bishkawi must’ve gone to get him.

Faster. I had to go faster. With his long limbs and incredible leaps, he’d catch up to me in no time.

I’d held onto enough mana for a Healing Water, just in case, but it’d be useless in the face of a dozen bishkawi. I converted it into nature mana and infused it into my legs, along with four points’ worth of qi.

Nature mana and qi enhanced a target’s underlying qualities to make it stronger, faster, more resilient, and more robust. The result of using them on my body—it was like what I imagined jumping to hyperspace to be like. No records were actually broken, but there was a definite increase in speed. I used the enchantment to shoot ahead and snake through the thicket. I ducked under branches and clambered over fallen trees, using every trick I knew to put obstacles in the bishkawis’ way and buy myself more time.

Eventually the thicket came to an end, and I was out in the open again. I sprinted up the ravine’s side, my boots slipping on the long grass. I should’ve saved some magic for my lungs. I couldn’t suck in enough oxygen to support such a long sprint.

Above the ravine, I paused—just for a second, a quick orientation to get my bearings. As long as I kept the escarpment to my right, I’d be heading south. The bishkawi were still in the thicket, but I heard them closing the distance. Then, there was a loud crash as branches were flung aside. Must be the alpha entering the thicket.

I took off again, running between the trees. My face felt hot and blotchy. A pain stitched through my side. But to stop again was to die, so I ran. I ran my heart out, the bishkawi chasing.

The way, at least, was familiar, just shy of the area where I’d seen the moose calf killed; there, rising above, was the hillside up which the monster turkeys had gone. I spotted the cave and tacked toward it.

The enchantment on my legs ran out just as I was starting to climb upward. I nearly stumbled face first into the gravel, but I caught myself on my knuckles, scraping them across the stones until I got my feet under me again. A quick glance back showed a roiling, reddish mass of bishkawi moving through the forest.

I didn’t think I had any more adrenaline in me, but the sight of them spurred me on for one last burst.

I slid into the cave, nearly turning my ankle as I fell down onto the floor. The entrance was above me about three feet up. My spear and bow clattered against the walls. It was a narrow space, and the cave’s entrance instantly went dark as the bishkawi surrounded it. A rock slammed into the wall near my head. It shattered and sent splinters into the soft flesh of my cheek. I curled away, clambered to my feet, and retreated deeper into the cave. The tunnel echoed with bishkawi howls of rage behind me.

A resounding thump traveled through the stone, announcing the arrival of the alpha. His shriek went right through me and turned my insides to water. As far as I knew, I was safe, but I recognized that I was in the presence of a great predator. A terrible fear overwhelmed my senses. It was all I could do to stumble away, desperate to flee.

I tripped in the dark and crawled, not stopping until I found a small alcove in which to hide. I put my hands over my ears to keep out the bishkawi howls, but they raged for what felt like hours. And then finally, a loud thud echoed through the tunnel. The meager light from the cave’s entrance disappeared.

Once I’d stopped hyperventilating and regained my sense of self, I was deeply embarrassed for having lost control. A part of me wanted to ascribe my panic to some kind of magic power on the part of the alpha, but when I checked my Status, there were no abnormal conditions. The effects might’ve already passed, and I was too late in checking, but there was also a reasonable chance it was just me panicking.

That grated. I was not someone who panicked. I was not someone who lost control. So, I stood, took a breath, and walked back to the entrance to survey the situation. My steps were shaky. I stumbled on the uneven stone, but I walked undeterred.

The entrance chamber was littered with rock shards and the foul-smelling stink of bishkawi dung. They’d thrown it inside the cave. There was only a pinprick of sunlight illuminating the scene. They’d sealed me in with a boulder. I was trapped inside.

Pushing with all my might did nothing to the boulder blocking the exit. Using my spear as a lever produced the same result.

I turned in the narrow space to face the darkness. My spear was slippery in my hands. Dust and dirt clung to the sweat on my body. I wiped my eyes clear and waited. The bishkawi had made a racket, and while I didn’t think anything was using the cave as a den, now wasn’t the time to take chances.

Dust danced in the single ray of light. All I heard was my ragged breathing and my heart pounding. After a time, when nothing leapt out at me, I closed my eyes and focused on calming myself.

Inside every human being is an animal. An animal living in our back brains, responsible for keeping us alive in survival situations. Over the millennia, it served us well and kept us out of the maws of dangerous predators. Maybe nothing like the bishkawi, but certainly our world’s version of them.

Lions and tigers and bears, oh my.

I smirked at the reference. It wasn’t funny, but I needed a morale boost. I needed a reminder that people were creative and interesting—that we were more than the animals inside us. While human instincts served an important purpose, it was our minds, our higher-order thinking, that truly let us overcome obstacles. If I was to survive, I needed to think like a human being.

There had been a breeze before the exit was sealed, which hopefully pointed to another opening somewhere farther along. I gathered my courage and walked deeper into the tunnel.

18

The Gift of Death I

The light disappeared after only five yards.

“You can do it, Ollie. Just make do.”

I stepped into the dark, gently tapping the way ahead with the butt of my spear; the tunnel seemed to wind a bit, but not overly so. Long ago, water must’ve flowed through this channel and worn away the limestone, from the cave’s entrance toward the depths below. In some places, the tunnel narrowed to rub my shoulders. Where it widened, I kept my left shoulder against the wall. That way, I wouldn’t get lost.

Step by step, in complete darkness, I inched forward. It was an endless torture of stumbling against stalagmites and knocking my head against the ceiling wherever it dropped. The tapping of my spear echoed hollow and attenuated. The air was dry and cool, like the inside of a morgue.

The whole time I listened, sniffed, and sensed with every fiber of my being. It wasn’t the most miserable experience of my two lives—that honor was reserved for sitting beside Helen’s death bed—but it came close.

Eventually, my spear encountered empty air. I crouched to wave the spear below, but it still didn’t reach the floor. The fear that this was a dead-end—that there’d be no way out of the cave—set my heart racing. My grip on the panic started to slip; the battle to overcome the animal inside was never fully won. It raged for as long as we lived.

So, I eased away from the edge and sat back against the wall. My spear lay across my knees, not quite at the ready, but not far from it either. I focused on the feeling of my breath flowing through me, and after watching the darkness for a while, my mind settled enough to focus on circulating my energy. The meditation helped to ground me until I felt more like myself. I would’ve rested longer, but I was up against a deadline: thirst. My throat was parched after my frantic escape from the bishkawi.

I let a bit of precious mana slip into my palm. The energy glowed pale and spectral in my mind’s eye. Too bad it didn’t cast any physical light. I held my breath, anxious to see the result when I connected the mana to the Hydromancy rune.

The mana shimmered blue and wobbled like the sea. Faintly, ever-so faintly, it pulled to go deeper into the cave. There was water down below, somewhere past the steep edge. I licked my lips and nodded to myself. I had to keep going. Maybe I could find a way down?

Next came a handy trick I’d learned for going to the bathroom in the middle of the night, when the consequence of a bad step was an instant cold bath in the Glen’s pool. I flooded the meridians in my eyes with magic. The enchantment only lasted a minute, and there wasn’t enough light to pick up much, but I was vaguely able to see where the tunnel walls opened into the larger space.

I must’ve been near the chamber’s ceiling—there were shapes in front of me that were probably the tips of stalactites. Looking down, I noticed more tips poking upward, stalagmites, but I couldn’t see their bases. From the shape of the cones, the floor was likely thirty or forty feet down—quite a drop.

The situation wasn’t that desperate yet—I willed myself to believe that—so I put my shoulder against the wall opposite to the one I’d been following and walked back toward the blocked entrance. I wanted to check if there was another passage leading down. I’d only risk the drop if I had to.

The path was just as painstakingly difficult as before, but the tunnel did open onto a side passage. I followed this new tunnel, but ten steps later the bottom dropped out from under my spear again.

This time, my spear tapped against stone when I swung it below. The drop was only three feet, so I eased myself down and found another drop just after it—three more feet—and a drop of two feet after that. The deeper I went, though, the more I scented something new: the smell of death. Something ahead was decaying.

I almost turned around then, but if there was death in this direction, then there must’ve been life, which meant food and water too. I made sure of my grip on the spear and kept going. A series of five shallow shelves took me down a total of twenty-five or thirty yards.

At the bottom, the smell was nearly overpowering. Then my spear tapped something loose, which prompted the distinct sound of metal on stone. I got down on my hands and knees to feel for whatever it was, and came upon a wooden shaft, short—only two feet long—and ending in an ax-head. The surface was rough, making me think it was rusty, but when I carefully ran a finger across the edge, I found it intact.

What was an ax doing down here? I reached out with my hands and found the reason: a body, cold and decomposing, with their back against the wall and their legs splayed out in front of them. No armor, just a thickly padded jacket lined with fur. No helmet either. There was a hood instead, one that went down to the shoulders. A tunic was under the jacket, and it stopped about thigh height. They—pardon, she—wore fur leggings to keep her legs warm and leather shoes. The leggings were attached to the tunic by ribbons of cloth.

“I’m sorry, Miss. It was rude of me to pat you down like that, but I need to know what I’m dealing with.”

She wore a thin leather belt with a simple iron buckle. Attached on one side was a scabbard and a small sharp knife. A pouch on the other side contained something that’d gone bad; it reeked of mold and bad cheese. I heard jingling though and found a small pocket sewn into the pouch, containing three small coins.

What I didn’t find was a lantern or the remains of a torch or fire. Had she used magic to light the way? I searched her body again and found a water skin on a leather strap behind her corpse. It was heartbreakingly empty. I set aside my disappointment and kept looking. A stone shaped like a sand dollar was cradled in her hands. If any of her belongings were precious, it was that.

Apologizing again, I took the stone, but didn’t sense any magic coming from it. Infusing a bit of qi polished its surface, but it didn’t illuminate any meridians inside. Maybe it was a precious stone? Or a memento?

I infused it with mana, just to be thorough, and a warm light spread from the stone, illuminating the area as if by candlelight. A sigh shuddered out of me, and my heart trembled with relief to be able to see again.

The corpse of the woman became visible. Some of her skull and the bones of her vertebrae were visible behind her liquified flesh. The fact there was any flesh at all meant that she hadn’t been here for long. Even with the cool, dry conditions in the cave, the bacteria inside the human body could melt flesh in a matter of months. From her clothing, I guessed she’d met her end sometime this past winter.

Her long dark hair had fallen out and lay in thick bunches around what was left of her face. She might’ve been pretty once—it was hard to tell now. Her jacket was green, and the tunic underneath the color of old parchment. Both were dyed green and black from the death fluids that leaked from her mouth and nose. The bottom of her tunic and her leggings were stiff with dried blood.

The sight and smell of her made me nauseous, but it wouldn’t do to show my disrespect. My grandparents had taught me better than that. Besides, the things she carried represented months of work I no longer had to do. The knife, the candlestone, the jacket, the belt, the pouch, and the ax—each of the items was a boon. Her death, as horrible as it was, was a gift to me.

Looking closer, I found a series of cuts all over her clothing, like someone had flailed at her with a dozen sharp knives. Her jacket had protected her from most of the cuts, but there was a bandage wrapped around her thigh, stained all the way through with dried blood.

She must’ve bled to death after dragging herself to this position. What a pity. From the size of her, she was barely sixteen. Maybe even younger.

“I’m sorry this happened to you,” I said. “I’d give you a proper burial if I could, but I’m in something of a tough situation myself. If I can, I’ll come back and repay my debt. Rest easy knowing that your loss will help me to survive.”

I put her belt around my waist, pulled her leggings over my pants, took her waterskin, put on her hood, and dumped the rotted contents of the pouch. Her jacket was too big for me, and was also shredded, but it was better than the ragged tank-top I was currently wearing. Fortunately, my armor kept it in place. The smell wrinkled my nose, but I was glad to be warm and protected.

I used the knife to cut a strip of cloth from her tunic and make an impromptu necklace for the candlestone. It was still shining, even after fifteen minutes. There were still no meridians, though, so if there was a rune present, I couldn’t sense it.

The ax, I stuck in my belt, but the shaft kept tripping me up. I was playing with the arrangement when I heard a creak. It wasn’t from farther down the tunnel, and it wasn’t from the way I’d come.

Beside me, the young woman’s corpse turned to stare at the candlestone around my neck.

“Oh, damn.”

Biaka Kiertiesdaughter (Undead)

Talents: Comely, Dog Nose, Rage

Black motes of light dispersed from her chest. They floated, hovering in the air, until some unknown gravity pulled them back to spread throughout her body. Her hands shifted to push herself up.

I had the ax in my hands, and—gods help me—I didn’t hesitate at all. I swung it, like I was aiming for a homerun. It was every zombie flick I’d seen in my life channeled into that moment. There was enough force in the swing to cleave through her neck. Her head tore away to bounce with a squelch against the wall.

The zombie fell back, though the body didn’t stop moving. Her arms searched for me. I backed up, while wondering what to do. The movies had lied to me—decapitating the zombie hadn’t worked. Did I need to completely dismember the poor girl to keep her from attacking me? Or find the source of her undead life?

Well, she hadn’t started moving until the darklight spread through her, so I eased over to where I’d dropped my spear to pick it up again. In the meantime, the zombie found a way to track me, even without a head. She shifted onto her hands and knees to stand up. A globule of rotting flesh fell to the ground.

I promised myself I’d throw up later. Instead, I held the spear—then I lost the feeling because of the uneven ground. The zombie was off balance too, though, so my attack didn’t have to be perfect. There was time to line up a good-enough thrust through her heart.

The zombie grabbed the spear’s haft and pulled herself forward to get to me, the spearhead jutting from her back. I kicked her, but that didn’t do anything. She pulled and I pushed in a macabre dance, with neither of us coming out ahead.

I let go of the spear. The zombie fell from the sudden release, and I seized the opportunity to scramble for the ax and chop at her arm. She rolled to the side, but the spear got in her way. I pulled the ax free and took two more swings to hack the arm off. Then, I went around to the other side and hacked at the other arm, the light swinging crazily along with the candlestone around my neck.

When the bloody work was done, she didn’t have an easy way to get me. The headless zombie flopped on the ground, the spear still jammed through her. I pulled the knife from its sheath, but I didn’t need it. The liquified muscles parted for my hand, and the zombie went still when I grabbed the core inside her chest and crushed it.

5 silverlight gathered.

I lay back, spent and sick at heart for what I’d had to do. “I’m sorry. So very sorry. You deserved a better passing than this.” I cleaned myself up as best I could, and then I did the same for her; I laid her out in a peaceful pose, her arms resting on her lap. “I’ll come back and make amends. I promise.”

I backtracked up the stairs to rest. The fight with the zombie had disturbed me, and I needed a safe place to settle my thoughts.

“Remember to use your spells,” I said aloud, forcing myself to catalog the experience instead of dwelling on the harm I’d done to the girl. “If nothing else, enchant your weapons. You can’t let surprise rob you of your ability to think.”

I paused when a wave of nausea rolled through me. I felt the urge to throw up, but my belly was empty. All I could do was wait for the feeling to pass. The little plant horrors were one thing, but the girl, Biaka, had been a real human being once. And I’d hacked her apart like an animal.

I shook my head to clear it and continued muttering to myself. “A corpse isn’t a corpse until their core is removed. It looked like darklight triggered the process for turning the girl undead. Now that you know, you can end their unlife without overly disturbing their remains. But it was strange that she had darklight in her—did she absorb it from monsters, or is that natural for human beings? Do I have darklight in me?”

The question stopped me, but no matter how much I thought about it, I didn’t have a way to answer. I’d have to ask Ikfael.

“She was dressed warmly. It must’ve been cold when she entered the cave. Was she sheltering from a blizzard? She was all cut up too. Maybe running from a monster or enemy?”

Again, there was no way to answer the questions. Not unless I ran into what had killed her, which was a real possibility. As was running into more zombies—where there was one person, there were often more. Either way, there was evidence of life farther down the tunnel.

I looked down at the candlestone hanging from my neck and didn’t have the heart to hide its light. No, it was more than that—my whole being rebelled at the idea of being lost in the dark again. Well, that didn’t mean I had to make it easy for anything out to get me either. I rewrapped the cloth around the candlestone to narrow its light into a tighter beam. It wasn’t an ideal solution, but it would limit my exposure.

I headed toward where I’d left Biaka and nodded to her as I passed.

The crooked path zig zagged like a snake on the move. The turns made it so that I couldn’t see more than ten feet ahead, and eventually the ceiling dropped, forcing me to crawl. From up ahead, I heard a cacophony of chirping and trilling begin. It sounded like a flock of nightingales all singing at once.

I let my bow go and focused on my spear. There wasn’t much I could do while on my hands and knees, but if there was a hostile creature ahead—like whatever had cut Biaka up—it’d meet me spear first.

The source of the singing either didn’t notice me or didn’t care I was nearby—it continued unabated. Listening carefully, I heard the flapping of small wings. Wary, I tucked the candlestone into my shirt and crawled forward.

The tunnel ended after about ten yards. From the way the sound echoed, I could tell there was a sizable room in front of me. With my light source hidden, though, I couldn’t see much. Fortunately, I had another tool at my disposal. I looked up and randomly clicked.

Brown Bat (Animal)

Talents: Agile Flier

Brown Bat (Animal)

Talents: Melodic

Brown Bat (Animal)

Talents: Swift, Insect Bane

Hundreds of bats must’ve hung from the ceiling, but none of their talents referenced a carnivorous diet. I let go of the breath I’d been holding and moved out of the narrow passage. I brought out the candlestone again, but kept the light away from the ceiling so as not to disturb the bats.

The chamber was ten yards wide and twenty yards long. A collection of stalagmites sat like huddled dwarves to the right. They looked like white-haired elders from all the guano covering them, and the whole room stank of the stuff.

At the far end, a single spear of sunlight shone from a chimney above. It must be how the bats entered and exited the cave. To get there, though, I’d have to cross a gap in the floor, a miniature ravine spanning left to right, and it looked too far to jump with my eight-year-old body. Maybe it wasn’t that deep?

I crept forward for a closer look, but stopped when a shuffling sound came from within the gap. I held the spear and waited for an attack. Above me, the bats sang to each other. When nothing else moved, I eased forward, ready to stab whatever it was into oblivion.

The light shone on the green hood of a man inside the gap.

Akbash Woldecsson (Undead)

Talents: Loyal, Soft Walker, Rage

The zombie turned toward the light. A cut ran down the left side of his face from his forehead down to his chin. The skin had peeled away and the flesh underneath was rotting—his whole face seemed like it would fall away at any moment.

Akbash’s zombie walked toward the light but ran into the gap’s wall. That confused him for a bit—until he figured out he could climb; the edge was just within his reach. As soon as his head appeared above the gap, though, I stabbed him with my spear.

The point penetrated through his right eye to jam inside his skull, but that didn’t stop him from climbing. I shoved with all my might and dislodged him from the wall. He fell back, got back up, and tried to climb again. This time, I remembered to infuse qi into the spear and swung its butt around like a baseball bat to knock him back.

He got up, and I knocked him loose. He got up again, and I broke his skull with the next swing. He stood, and it occurred to me that trying to outlast the undead was a fool’s game. I was already winded and needed a different approach to keeping him inside the gap. I reached for the ax hanging from my belt.

The next time the zombie grabbed the ledge to pull himself up, I cut his fingers off. He fell back with a thump. He tried once more, using the meat of his hands, so I cut his hands off, one after the other. He fell back with yet another thump.

No matter how much he scraped his forearms against the edge, he couldn’t climb up again. I sat back to catch my breath and shook my head—I was doing a miserable job at not disfiguring the corpse. My grandparents wouldn’t begrudge me the need to defend myself, but their lessons on respect for the dead had stuck with me all my life.

I’d cut off Akbash’s hands, for gods’ sake. I had to put the poor soul to rest without doing too much more damage, so I dusted the dried guano off my seat and approached the gap. The zombie was still trying to climb up, but not making any progress. I picked up my spear and stabbed him through the heart. I tried, anyway. The angle was weird, and his clavicle blocked the strike.

Okay, some damage was going to have to be allowed.

I swung the spear around and thrust the butt out, hitting him with it again and again until the bone broke. I winced, but it needed to be done to put him out of his misery. Switching back to the spearhead, I stabbed him through the heart. The spearhead penetrated through his torso, but missed the core. It took two more thrusts until I nicked it.

The zombie froze when the magic animating him was disrupted. On my next attack, the core inside shattered, and motes of darklight escaped from the holes in his torso. Akbash’s body fell back, finally at rest.

I panned the light along the gap’s floor, and the stalagmites to the right looked climbable. I tucked Akbash’s fingers and hands into my pouch and jumped down.

Akbash looked about the same age as Biaka. It was hard to tell with his face ravaged, but I thought it might be the case. Perhaps the two were friends or lovers? Or maybe it was my imagination making a story of the grim situation. He wore a fur-lined jacket and fur leggings, and the jacket was just as cut up as Biaka’s.

Guano covered the floor, but I saw an underlayer of rusty red. He’d bled to death like her too. The remains of a spear lay on the ground beside him. The shaft was ruined, but the steel spearhead still looked good. It took some doing, but I broke away as much of the ruined shaft as I could and wrapped the salvaged spearhead up in cloth.

Akbash also wore a belt with a knife on one side and a pouch on the other. I took all three. The pouch was empty, except for a small pocket with two small silver coins. I checked Biaka’s coins. They were the same.

If Akbash had been carrying a waterskin, it wasn’t anywhere in sight. He didn’t seem to have any jewelry or tools either, but I did find a candlestone nearby.

Once I was sure I’d found everything, I dragged his body over to the stalagmites. He was too heavy to carry, but I was able to prop him up with their help, moving him bit by bit out of the gap. Then, I dragged his body to the light and arranged it into a restful pose. His fingers and hands, I placed on his lap.

I reached into his chest looking for his silverlight, not knowing if doing so was considered taboo in this world or not. I needed to grow stronger, though, and one of the ways I could do that was leveling up.

It took a bit of time, but there were a couple of grains below what was left of his heart.

7 silverlight gathered.

“I’m sorry,” I said, feeling guilty, “for being so clumsy. I’m coming back to give Biaka a proper burial, and I’ll do the same for you. I promise. Rest easy if you can, and know that your loss will help me survive.”

I looked up at the light coming through the chimney. The ceiling was a long way off, at least twenty yards. There was no easy way to get up there either—no hand holds in the wall or cave features to climb. Nothing.

There was another exit from the chamber though; a tunnel led deeper into the cave system. I went to retrieve my bow, and then, looking one last time at the young man at my feet, I walked deeper into the cave.

19

The Gift of Death II

I didn’t have far to go before the passage curved into another series of shallow terraces, each a foot or two feet below the previous. It was like walking down an elegant staircase meant for giants.

I heard the river before I saw it. The tunnel opened into another chamber, this one about thirty yards deep and an unknown distance wide. To the left, the cave wall was riddled with holes, all well above where I could reach. An underground river flowed in front of me, the water rumbling as it dove under the wall. To the right, a natural stone bridge crossed to the river’s other side, and beyond that the room was swallowed by darkness.

I moved forward carefully, scanning for danger, then used the candlestone to make sure there weren’t any predators in the water before cupping some in my hands to sniff. I put a couple of drops on my tongue. It tasted clean, like newly fallen snow. After a relieved sigh, I drank my fill.

My whole world was renewed. I was still trapped underground with zombies and who knew what else, but at least I wasn’t going to die of thirst. It also eased the hunger pains that had been troubling me. I cleaned out the water skin and refilled it.

Next, I explored my side of the river, but the bank ended when it curved into another wall. The other side of the river continued, though, so I went back to the bridge and crossed over. This side of the bank opened like a V, widening as I walked, and it was another forty yards before I found the river’s source: a small waterfall pouring from a hole high in the wall.

I checked, but there wasn’t a cave behind the falls. I did, however, find a tunnel to the left of it leading out of the chamber—and I nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw the corpse of a large cat blocking the way. My first instinct was to spear it through the heart, which I did in a frenzy. I got two stabs in before I realized it wasn’t responding.

Click.

Error

Not a valid talent vessel.

The cat was dead, but not a zombie. There wasn’t much flesh left either. It had a thick, square skull that looked about the size of a mountain lion’s. The bones around its shoulders were reinforced, with five protrusions that likely connected to the jumble of small bones on the ground beside the corpse. The bones seemed to fit together with bits of ligament and muscle to form a tentacle, and at the end of each tentacle was a flat claw, sharp as a razor.

Well, this creature was likely what had killed Biaka and Akbash, and it gave me the willies something fierce. Looking closer, I saw that the rib bones around the creature’s heart were caved in, and the core was missing.

I didn’t find a mace or hammer on either of the zombies I’d encountered thus far. Did they have compatriots who’d survived the encounter, or were they zombies too, still wandering the tunnels? Perhaps it was another creature, one even fiercer than the cat, who’d killed it?

Resolving to be careful either way, I scavenged the claws, then gave the dead murder cat my thanks for its gifts.

The next chamber was shaped like a balloon, with me at the narrow end. In the room’s center, a collection of stalactites descended like pipes. Below them, a single broad stalagmite rose; it made the whole arrangement look like a cathedral organ. To the right of the organ was a pool of still water. There were puddles everywhere. The sound of dripping water echoed off the walls.

Halfway to the organ, I spotted three bodies at the room’s far end: a man, a woman, and something that looked like a giant boar. The man sat with his back against the wall. The woman was beside him with her head leaning on his shoulder. The boar was seated on his other side, like a faithful companion.

Woldec the Hunter (Undead)

Talents: Earth-Touched, Soft Walker, Even Tempered, Rage

Kiertie of Voorhoos (Undead)

Talents: Comely, Dog Nose, Proud, Mischievous, Rage

Basa the Javelina (Undead)

Talents: Well Fed, Tusks Like Knives, Loyal, Rage

None of the zombies moved. I was a good twenty yards away, though, and the light from the candlestone barely touched them. Maybe I had to be closer for them to sense me or it?

Another tunnel’s entrance sat just to the left of the zombies. There were also shards of broken stone all around them. Even the wall behind the zombies looked like it was riddled with cracks. No, not cracks. It had somehow been assembled from boulders and stones; the surface was speckled with bits of glass glinting, even in the candlestone’s dim light.

The assemblage had been fused together. It had previously been another exit, but was now blocked.

Were Woldec and Kiertie sealed in, or had they sealed themselves in? Because that was what it looked like to me, and the feat had been done with magic. I didn’t know how else someone could have gotten that mishmash of debris to mesh together so well.

Unfortunately, I’d have to go through the three zombies to investigate further, or even to use the tunnel to the left. The only other route open to me was to backtrack: to go back to the large room with the deep drop—that whole area was still unexplored.

I weighed the options in my mind, but three considerations convinced me to stay and fight. The first was my lack of rope, the second was a sense of obligation to the dead, and the third was much more selfish: the zombies likely had gear I’d want. I hated thinking like that, but practical needs required practical solutions.

From behind the pipe organ, I readied Cold Snap and nocked an arrow. A deep breath. A long exhale. I drew the bow, and released.

The arrow hit Kiertie in her right hip, and the zombie stirred and pushed herself to standing. The movement was clumsy, as something appeared to be wrong with her feet. That disturbed Woldec’s zombie, and he started to get up as well, which then disturbed Basa the Javelina.

“Bad pull,” I muttered while I nocked a second arrow. I shot at Kiertie again, but it turned out that the threat of three zombies was stressful—I rushed the shot, and the arrow flew wide.

I winced when it struck against the stone wall. I was saving my magic for spells and hadn’t enchanted my arrows beforehand. The second arrow was likely ruined as a result, the flint broken and the shaft compromised.

Kiertie, instead of rushing at me like the other zombies, took the time to pick up a short spear on the ground before approaching. It was only about five feet long, but its spearhead looked plenty sharp. Woldec had an ax in his hand, but he stood in place, not looking to move any time soon. The only one to charge was the javelina.

I dropped my bow, picked up my spear, and ran back the way I’d come. I’d only managed a handful of steps when my feet slid on a patch of wet stone and sent me tumbling. The fumble saved my life. A stone spike shot up from the ground where I’d been running. I looked back in a panic and saw Woldec approaching now, the air around him shimmering.

A magic zombie? It must’ve been the Earth-Touched talent in his Status at work.

I felt wronged. Deeply wronged. Zombies weren’t supposed to have magic powers. What they were supposed to be was mindless and shuffling—not that I knew anything about real zombies, just the movie ones.

I scrambled upright and ran in a zig zag to avoid more earth spikes. A needle of stone shot past my shoulder and shattered against the wall.

Damn it. He’s got a second ranged attack.

The javelina should’ve caught up by now. I glanced back and saw her ten yards behind, blindly stumbling into a stalagmite.

What? Ah, there’s a slash across her eyes.

Basa got back up, and her head swiveled until she pointed in my direction. Whatever she was using to sense me, it apparently didn’t register the obstacles in her way. Meanwhile, Kiertie moved with a stutter; her gait was impeded by the arrow in her hip, as well as whatever was wrong with her feet. Woldec also moved slowly, but that didn’t stop him from summoning a length of stone from a nearby wall. I dodged when he flung it at me.

Woldec was the most dangerous of the three. If I took him out, I was sure I could handle the others. It just had to be done quickly, before his slower friends caught up.

I dodged the moment I saw him cock his arm back to throw another stone spear, and it shattered behind me. My candlestone swung wildly as I zig zagged toward him. Woldec changed tactics, and earth spikes shot up from the ground. The magic was too slow, though, so the spears rose up behind me each time.

My spear punctured his belly. I’d missed the heart and was pulling back for another try when he dropped his ax and drew a hunting knife from its scabbard at his belt. With his free hand, he shot a cluster of pebbles at my face. They stung, and my vision went blurry, but there was no time to fuss with clearing the debris from my eyes. I drew my own stiletto and threw myself at him, trusting the adrenaline coursing through me to power my strike.

No. Fighting the little plant horrors showed me adrenaline wasn’t enough. I needed more. I poured qi into my muscles, and the stiletto punched through his jacket and into his chest. My hand searched inside, and quickly pulled his core free.

The javelina’s straight tusks flashed past, missing me and Woldec’s corpse both. I cleared the dirt from my eyes just in time to see Kiertie lunge with her spear. I fell back in surprise, and the weapon passed over me. I didn’t know what else to do, so I grabbed the spear. Pulling it from her hands didn’t work—the leverage was all wrong, even with my qi-and-adrenaline-fueled muscles.

It was my turn to change tactics. I dropped Woldec’s core and used Kiertie’s spear to stand up; I stuck close to her, so that she couldn’t use the point against me. I was in the process of drawing my second stiletto when she surprised me by dropping her spear. Before I could react, she reached out to claw at my face with hands that were more skeleton than flesh.

I ducked to get away from her, so she grabbed me instead, hugging me tight and trapping me against her rotting body. Basa, in the meantime, was charging again. Kiertie put me between them, setting the javelina up to gore me in the back.

I struggled and fought, but Kiertie was stronger than me. I stabbed her with the stiletto, yet sticking her in the torso did no good. I craned my neck to see what was happening behind me. Basa was close and had her tusks aimed straight for me.

What I wouldn’t have given for a Grease spell. Anything to throw off her aim!

Ah! But maybe I had the next best thing. Cold Snap didn’t come to mind easily, but I’d practiced it and the other runes relentlessly. The spell turned the water puddling the stone floor to ice, which sent the javelina slipping uncontrollably into me. The three of us went tumbling in a tangle of limbs and bodies.

I was still gored, but the tusks hit me in the leg instead of the back. I held onto my stiletto in the confusion and stabbed Kiertie between her ribs again and again. I must’ve finally nicked her core, because she stopped moving.

Basa stood and shook herself. I scrambled away trying to dodge the next attack, but she nicked my left arm.

Conditions

Bleeding (1), Infection (*)

The initial shock of my injuries passed, and my leg started to burn. My arm soon followed. I put both out of my mind as I focused on Basa turning toward me. I didn’t trust my ability to engage the javelina in close quarters, but… but… maybe I wouldn’t have to.

I ran toward the chamber’s entrance, putting the pipe organ between me and Basa’s next charge. Predictably, the javelina ran into the giant stalagmite, giving me the breathing room I needed to reach the room’s entrance. At her next charge, I ducked inside the tunnel and sprinted—there were no obstructions other than the murder cat’s corpse—until I reached the water, then spun around with only a couple of seconds to spare. It was just enough time to leap aside, and the javelina plunged into the water behind me.

Basa struggled, pulled downstream by the current. I followed alongside to make sure she wouldn’t be able to come ashore, and she didn’t. She disappeared under the wall and was gone.

Relieved, I plopped down and cast Healing Water onto my waterskin; the mana rushed through me to bring the spell into the world. As I poured the water onto my wounds, I saw that the chain links protecting my heart were scored. In the rush of events, I hadn’t noticed that Woldec had tried to stab me with that hunting knife of his.

My hands started to shake then, the adrenaline wearing off, but I made sure not to spill any of the Healing Water. All of it went onto my wounds. It was too bad the stuff only lasted for a few minutes. If not, I would’ve kept gallons of it on hand.

My leg and arm still hurt, but the bleeding had stopped and the danger of infection passed. That was what mattered most. I was out of gas, though, both mentally and physically. The fight hadn’t been long, but it was intense and at the end of an already exhausting day. My magical reservoirs were empty too. The qi and mana I’d recovered had all gone into the fight and the healing spell.

Rest. I need a safe place to rest and recover.

I got up and stumbled across the bridge over the river, back toward the bat cave and the narrow tunnel that led to Biaka. I crawled inside with the intention of meditating there, but I ended up falling asleep instead.

I woke in the dark, blurry-eyed and reaching for the alarm that wouldn’t shut up. A moment of disorientation later, I remembered I was trapped underground. The alarm was a room full of singing bats. I was sore, hungry, thirsty, and needed to pee.

Problem #4 was easy to take care of—in a corner of the bat cave—and at the underground river, I refilled my water skin and cast Healing Water again. That didn’t help with the soreness, but it did ease the lingering pain from my injuries. As for food, I considered hunting a bat, but decided to save that for a last resort. I’d wait a little longer if I could.

I found Kiertie and Woldec where I’d left them. There was still a good amount of flesh on their bones, and they weren’t cut up like the others. Instead, they had the remnants of burns on the tops of their heads and the bottoms of their feet, like they’d both been struck by lightning. Kiertie also appeared to have had one of her feet ripped off—the left foot was missing entirely, the pant leg torn and bloody.

The ground and ceiling around them also looked melted. The same was true for the assembled wall behind them. I even found traces of fulgurite on it, the stuff that sometimes shows after lightning strikes sand and rocks.

Giant baboons, murder cats, magic zombies, and now something that tosses lightning around like it’s nothing. This isn’t an easy world you have here, Diriktot.

I pushed, but there was no way I’d be able to get through the wall. Not only were the component stones joined tightly together, the seams were fused.

As I’d feared, my stray arrow was ruined, the flint arrowhead snapped and the shaft cracked. The only things salvageable were the orange feather vanes.

At five feet long, Kiertie’s spear was a little cumbersome for me, but it was so much better than my homemade one. I couldn’t not upgrade. Her clothes were mostly whole too, ignoring the left leg and the holes where I’d stabbed her, but I could patch those with a bit of time and fine cordage. I scavenged her clothes, replacing the shirt and jacket I’d gotten from Biaka. They were too big for me, so I had to roll up the sleeves and use the armor to keep them in place.

She also had a candlestone, cloak, belt, water skin, small knife, pouch, seven small silver coins, and a silver brooch in the shape of an eagle. The brooch had two small emerald chips for eyes. As near as I could tell, none of it was magic except for the candlestone.

As for Woldec, I took his hunting knife. The blade was eight inches long and two inches wide. The hilt was wrapped in leather, and there were a deer’s antlers engraved into the base. He also had a small knife on his belt, and I added it to my growing collection. His ax was better than the one I’d gotten from Biaka, but I didn’t want to leave either of them behind.

At this point, I had five knives in addition to my stilettos. Each was a treasure and represented hours and hours of work saved. I was thanking the dead for these and the other gifts when I noticed the backpack sitting in the corner. It was on its side, like it’d been thrown there. Unashamedly, I scurried over as fast as my legs could carry me.

The leather was well worn and soft from use. The stitching was tight, though, and the pack appeared to have been well cared for. The main pouch was buckled closed, and there were two side pouches with leather ties. It was beautiful, just beautiful, and looked even better after I cleaned out the rotten food.

There was more coinage inside, three small silver coins and one large silver one, a rolled-up map, and a small rod that looked to be made of either bone or antler. It was five inches long and etched with a series of long wavy lines.

A wand? That’d be the perfect loot for an encounter with a wizard, even if he was a zombie.

I spun a line of qi into the rod, but didn’t find a rune. The candlestone had needed mana, so I tried that next, and a flame lit at the rod’s other end: a firestarter. When I put the rod down, the flame went out. When I picked it up, the flame restarted.

Okay, it wasn’t a wand of magic missiles, but a bit of convenience was nice too.

I didn’t spot anything else magical in nature. Whatever Woldec had used to bend earth to his will hadn’t left any traces behind.

As for the map, it was just six inches by six inches, drawn on vellum with black ink. It showed a cave entrance leading down to a balloon-shaped chamber, and two passages stretching away from it. Only one of the passages was sketched, and it led to another room, this one circled in red ink.

It wasn’t much of a map, but it did confirm there was an exit on the other side of the assembled wall. I went back for a second look, just in case I had missed something, but there didn’t appear to be any gaps, nor was it feasible for me to break through. I’d break bones trying.

I’d have to find another way out of this cave system. Maybe over by the red room? Which, from the way it was emphasized on the map, had been the group’s destination. There weren’t any labels, but with how heavy the ink was penned, I could practically feel the title case being applied: it was the Red Room.

I didn’t see any picks or other mining tools among the zombies, though. What had they been after?

Well, I’d find out soon enough.

The backpack was too big for me, but there was no way I’d leave it behind, or any of the other loot. I took the time to jury rig straps to hold my bow and both of the new axes. I also made sure I could drop the pack quickly when needed. It was cumbersome and would throw off my balance in a fight.

And finally, there was one last thing to take from Kiertie:

12 silverlight gathered.

And from Woldec:

76 silverlight gathered.

The darklight around his core had already dispersed after cracking against the stone floor. Also unlike the others, which had been grains, his silverlight surprised me by being in the shape of a single nugget. Absorbing it, there was the feeling of ice running through my veins—of a cold winter morning, clear skies, and the chill of the deep earth. I could almost taste the loamy soil.

I nearly dropped my new pack. What was I taking from these people? It wasn’t their spirits or souls, I knew that, but silverlight clearly had some kind of spiritual base. I didn’t think it’d be taboo—not with Ikfael having told me it was okay—but not everything considered acceptable by society would be okay with me. There were cultures in my old world that used to practice slavery and cannibalism, after all.

The System didn’t think I was doing anything wrong. In fact, it encouraged me.

Congratulations. You have collected enough silverlight to grow in power.

And then another notification popped up.

Wait! Read me first.

20

The Gift of Death III

I should’ve been happy to level up. Instead, I was troubled. System-Eight, is that you?

You have reached an Intelligence milestone. Checking for new talents. *Ding.* You’ve triggered a latent talent. The base benefits of 15 Intelligence are also now active: a faster mental processing speed and increased recall.

System-Eight?

I’m here, although it’s a bit more cramped than last time. Diriktot’s gift refines as you level up, and it integrates more and more as it does.

Does that mean you’ll disappear?

Not quite. It’s an integration, remember? I’ll always be a part of your perception of the System. Enough of that, though. Here are the answers to the questions you’re desperate to ask:

- I don’t know.

- I don’t know that either.

- No, you don’t have darklight in you, not as far as I can tell. It does seem to be in everything else though. Everything.

- The System is mechanistic, but also so complicated that it might as well be organic.

- The skills live in your consciousness. They are you, but there are also connections between them, as well as between them and the System. The more developed the skill, the more robust the connections.

- Yes, talents are important. There are two ways to trigger them. The first is when you level up, and the second is when an attribute reaches a milestone. The attribute milestones start at rank ten, and then every five ranks after. So: ten, fifteen, twenty, and so on.

- 42. ;-)

- The cores are detritus—silverlight from ongoing processes that’s titrated into the world. You’re not absorbing spirits or souls, just the crusty stuff that’s left over. It’s not surprising it has the flavor of the person who produced it. Kind of like how your ass burns after eating something spicy.

So the silverlight in cores is like… soul poop? That’s so gross. What about—

Sorry, we’re out of time.

But… but… there’s still so much that’s not clear. And I was hoping we’d get a chance to talk. I haven’t actually spoken to anyone in weeks, and—

It’s been hard. I know. I really do. But you’re doing great. You’re surviving in another world, you’re making magic, and you’re going to go on to do even greater things.

I give you a hard time sometimes—it’s fun—but the reality is that I believe in you.

Look at me, getting all sappy and inspirational.

See you at the next milestone!

As the last dialog box stayed on the screen, it occurred to me that I was hungry for human company. In a strange way, the zombies had reminded me that I didn’t have to be alone. I mean, Ikfael was adorable and a great help—her ability to invent and communicate through gestures was uncanny—but there were people in this world, and I was slowly becoming better equipped to deal with them. Assuming I ever got out of these caves.

I closed System-Eight’s last message, and opened the other notification.

Congratulations. You are now Level 2, and have received a free attribute point. Checking for new talents. Sorry, no new talents were triggered.

Attribute and skill gains have been finalized. Thank you for your hard work.

- Constitution increased from 8 to 9.

- Agility increased from 8 to 9.

- Intelligence increased from 14 to 15.

- Qi Body increased from 3 to 4.

- Archery increased from 6 to 7.

- Spear Arts increased from 1 to 2.

- Stealth increased from 2 to 3.

The base benefits for Level 2 Young Forester continue to be active:

- Attribute foci:

- Agility, primary
- Wisdom, secondary
- Spirit, tertiary

- Skill foci:

- Archery
- Nature Magic
- Spear Arts
- Stealth
- Survival, all

Your capacity for silverlight has grown, and you can now retain more body power, qi, and mana: secondary attributes grow by 20%.

The bonus to secondary attributes was unexpected, and I double-checked the numbers:

Body Power

10

Qi

14

Mana

18

I wondered if there’d be something similar at every level, and what that might mean for me.

My attributes and skills had increased, but there wasn’t a sudden rush of power or understanding. My body remained my body. My mind, my mind. But then, if the System was integrating with me, maybe I wouldn’t notice the changes?

With a grunt, I stood up and held the spear. It was comforting, like the spear was a friend on whom I could count. I’d always thought of the bow that way, and now I’d extended the concept to the spear.

It was an epiphany that raised the hairs on my arms. Was it my training that made the spear more familiar, or the skill ranking up? Both? Does it even matter? I wondered.

The System was a tool like the bow and the spear—using it to my benefit made sense. That was the whole point of leveling up. System-Eight had said that improving skills increased the depth of connections to the System, which in turn should—theoretically—create opportunities to learn from them: deeper insights, more advanced techniques, and so on.

I couldn’t help but feel uneasy, though. My mind was being modified by a power outside of myself. Would my personality, beliefs, and thinking also change as I grew?

With a sigh, I sat back down. Of course there’ll be consequences to leveling up, and I’m even actively trying to learn from the various Skill-Sensei. It’d be impossible not to change.

“Seriously, Ollie. Now’s not the time to be turning down gift horses. Besides, leveling up is half the fun in games.” With a shake of my head, I looked over my Status.

Hmm... I’ve collected 259 silverlight so far. What do I do with my free point? Three attributes are close to milestones: Agility and Constitution are at 9, while Spirit is at 14.

A point of Constitution should bump up my capacity for qi, plus give me the chance at a survival-related talent. Agility will help me wield my weapons better. But… hmm… Spirit impacts mana, qi, and likely Spirit Magic too—once I learn some. It’s also at a higher rank, so it should create a better talent if one is triggered, right? That’s not guaranteed, but it’s how most gamified systems work.

Since the increase wouldn’t be immediate, I shelved the decision for the moment so I could think about it more later.

I checked the talent I got for hitting 15 Intelligence:

Multilingual

You’ve lived between cultures, exposed yourself to a wide range of languages, and studied how people acquire language skills. This flexibility of mind makes it easier to learn new languages. Provides a bonus to language acquisition and fluency, as well as a small benefit to understanding other cultures.

That System-Eight really was looking out for me. He knew I wouldn’t want to stay in the wilderness on my own and had paved the way for first contact. Well, of course he did. System-Eight was—what did he call it?—my sub and super consciousnesses combined.

After a rest, I laid out Woldec and Kiertie’s bodies and said a short prayer for them.

I now knew of two definitive exits from the cave system, but both were blocked. What are the odds there’s one more?

Woldec’s map didn’t help—it stopped at the Red Room. Still, it was the only clue I had, and so I planned to follow it.

I’m sure I must’ve been a sight: clothes too big, dwarfed by the oversized pack on my back, and Kiertie’s spear in my hands. The axes and bowstave were strapped to the backpack, while the belts—five of them now—were more like bandoliers holding my knives. If I needed to stab something—anything—I was set.

The tunnel was wide, ten feet across, and wound through the limestone for about forty yards before opening into a long chamber. On the left, ribbons of stone covered the wall. The water had worn away the limestone in such a way that it looked like one long theater curtain. A thin stream ran along the bottom and dropped into a small hole near the room’s entrance. The floor sloped toward me, and the realization that I was subtly ascending made me feel better.

I kept going, and in the next tunnel a series of small passages branched out, all angling back the way I’d come. I imagined it looked like a river delta from space. According to Woldec’s map, they all led to dead ends.

I walked for quite a while longer—maybe twenty or thirty minutes, it was hard to tell—when I saw a faint red light cast on the wall ahead. It was the color of blood splattered on a window. I’d never seen it in real life, of course, but I’d worked briefly as the prop manager for the indie horror film He’s in the House. That shade of red bore an uncanny resemblance to the concoction of red food coloring, ketchup, and oil we used for our blood effects.

I covered up the candlestone and took a slow breath to prepare myself for another fight. There could be a zombie ahead, or a murder cat, or whatever else this world had in store for me.

The entrance was shaped like an upside-down U, with the arch low enough I had to crouch to get under it. I stayed where I was, though, and hid in the shadows to scan the room for danger.

The room really was the color of arterial blood. The light from several chimneys in the ceiling reflected off of a massive colony of thick red lichen.

The lichen covered the floor and three quarters of the walls. Interestingly, a much smaller colony, about the size of my head, clung to the ceiling. It was hard to make out, but it was situated next to the largest of the chimneys and looked fuchsia in color.

As for the room, it was another balloon, except this time I was at the wider side. There was another exit at the thin end about forty yards away. To the left, stalagmites rose up like a choir, almost holding hands with their compatriot stalactites descending from the ceiling.

I didn’t see any animals, but some of the lichen was worn down enough to form a path between me and the opposite exit. I used my camera to see if there were any hidden in the shadows.

Eilesheile (Lichen)

Talents: Tasty, Really Tasty, So Tasty

I felt like an idiot. Why didn’t I think to test the camera on plants earlier?

Of course the camera worked on plants. This was a world where they could disguise themselves as people. Maybe there were some that were intelligent. Not the little plant horrors hopefully, but a whole society of ents or treants or something.

I took a closer look at the eilesheile. Anything that wanted you to eat it that badly was looking for something. Usually, it was a ride for their seeds to another location, along with a nice helping of nutrients for them to grow, but lichen didn’t spread that way. At least, not that I knew of.

I scanned the room with my camera—click, click, click—and there were several more variations on the Tasty talent. Click, click, click.

Eilesheile (Lichen)

Talents: Tasty, Invader

There it was; I found it. Lichen wasn’t aggressive or invasive—when a colony grew on a plant, they just used it as a substrate—but of course, this world had to offer a monsterized version.

Armed with that knowledge, I scanned the room again and found several lichen-covered mounds that I’d originally thought were stone, but were likely the skeletal remains of their prey. Wonderful, a carnivorous species of lichen. How unsurprising.

Actually, when I put the terror of being eaten by a killer-lichen aside, it really was a wonder how the lichen had adapted to fill this evolutionary niche. And it must be valuable—this was where Woldec and his crew were headed before they ran into trouble. Does this eilesheile have medicinal properties? Or magical? Culinary?

I didn’t exactly see dollar signs, but the idea was there. First contact with the people of this world would go a lot more smoothly if I had things to trade. I’d thought the answer would be furs and hides, but odds were this eilesheile was more rare and valuable.

Based on the talents, the eilesheile were only dangerous when ingested, so it should be all right for me to walk through the room. The game trail through the lichen proved it was possible. I could even harvest some and bring it with me to show Ikfael.

Yep. I should be able to just walk right out there. Any minute now. Just. Walk. Into the room.

21

The Fear Inside

After about an hour of watching and waiting, it looked like maybe it really would be safe to enter the Red Room. The only hitch was that the path would take me under the smaller fuchsia-colored lichen on the ceiling.

Uekisheile (Lichen, Dawn)

Talents: Qi Sensitive, Qi Plunderer, Budding Sentience, One with Qi

What was scarier than an invasive lichen? An intelligent version that—oh, by the way—targeted and stole your qi. None of the others appeared to do that, based on what I’d seen of their talents.

Just what is up with this world? Can’t something just be nice and pleasant?

I took a calming breath and re-established myself in being one with the land. It’d been a long day, a frightening and stressful day, but freaking out at every obstacle wasn’t going to help. If the uekisheile was a danger, then I’d wade into the eilesheile to avoid walking under it. The answer was that simple.

I did wonder about the ‘Dawn’ in its description though. The only other time I’d seen anything like that was the bishkawi alpha’s dusk.

Light and dark, eh? It didn’t take a genius to make the connection to silver and darklight. To be reflected in their descriptions though, did that mean the uekisheile and alpha used different paths to grow or evolve into what they are now?

That was a decent supposition and explained why some creatures of the same type were so different from their brethren—not just the bishkawi and uekisheile, but also the monster turkeys. I’d have to grab a snapshot of the turkeys to see if the theory held true.

For now, I settled on taking a sample of the eilesheile. Hopefully Ikfael will know if it’s valuable or not.

I used Woldec’s hunting knife to scrape some onto a square cloth, which I then tightly wrapped with cordage. Not wanting to contaminate any of my new containers, I hung the wrapped eilesheile from the backpack. Nothing happened while I worked. The eilesheile didn’t move, and I didn’t feel anything strange. The condition section of my Status stayed clear.

I sighed. Maybe this wouldn’t be as hard as I’d thought it’d be.

The chimneys on the right side of the room were too high to reach, but on the left, the stalagmites almost connected to the stalactites. It looked like I’d be able to climb them to see if the chimney on that side was a viable exit to the outside.

After a moment’s consideration, I shook my head and left through the room’s other exit instead. The uekisheile clung to the stone near the left-side chimney—I felt uneasy about getting that close to a creature with the Qi Plunderer talent.

The tunnel wound upward, but I stopped as soon as I found a pile of dung. The pile was the size and shape you’d expect from a mountain lion, but it didn’t belong to the one whose corpse I’d found earlier. That creature had been dead for months. No, the dung was only a week or two old at most.

I hightailed it back to the Red Room. Suddenly, the uekisheile didn’t seem so bad—at least, not compared to a murder cat. I recalled vividly the way Akbash’s face had peeled away from his skull, as well as all the myriad cuts on his and Biaka’s bodies. Yes, the lichen was a threat, but I’d safely gathered the eilesheile. Maybe the uekisheile had to be ingested to be dangerous too?

So, I decided on an exploratory climb, and dropped my gear and grabbed onto the biggest stalagmite to pull myself up. The ripples in the stone helped with my footing. Not that I needed a lot—it was only about fifteen feet to the top of the stalagmite. So far so good. And it should be an easy jump to the stalactite.

I took a deep breath to steady myself, and leapt. There was a moment of flying, which ended with me grabbing onto the stalactite and wrapping my legs around it. Like a caterpillar, I inched my way up.

Near the ceiling, I circled around the stalactite’s base to get to the chimney, and saw that it wasn’t wide enough to fit me, not if I wanted to bring the backpack and the rest of my gear. I was in the middle of brainstorming solutions when something moved out of the corner of my eye.

Up close, the uekisheile looked a lot like wolf lichen, with multiple branches ending in feathery tufts. The breeze from the chimney caused the tufts to sway in the air. At least, I hoped it was the breeze. The tufts moved almost as if they were sniffing the air.

“Ah, hello. Don’t mind me. I’m, ah, just passing through. I’ll be leaving now, so don’t bother to get up or anything.”

I scooted around the stalactite to put the stone between us, then quickly inched my way down. Halfway, I checked to make sure the uekisheile wasn’t following, and saw the thin tendrils under the creature’s base slide into and out of the stone to pick their way toward me.

I humped down even faster, but my hands were sweaty. I lost my grip, and for a moment I was falling, my arms flailing and my heart racing in panic. Then I felt like I’d been smacked by a huge paddle. My head snapped back against the stone and everything went black.

My head hurt, and I felt like I needed to throw up. My vision was blurry, but thankfully my Status page was unaffected.

Conditions

Concussion

I fumbled for the waterskin to cast Healing Water, then fumbled some more while visualizing the necessary runes. Through the nausea and disorientation, I painstakingly fought to assemble the image—bit by bit—until finally the mana washed through me.

My vision cleared, and I saw that the area around me was empty of eilesheile. Huh, they can move after all.

And then I saw why—the uekisheile was perched on my chest. Their tendrils poked through the chain links in my armor and through the weave of my clothes. I carefully looked inside my shirt and saw the tendrils poking into my skin.

“Oh, that’s not good.”

My chest tingled, as if an electric current ran through it. I slowly reached for my new hunting knife to scrape the lichen off, but the current buzzed in response. I froze. A couple of breaths later, the buzzing eased. I brought to mind the rune for Cold Snap, but that triggered another round of buzzing.

Was the ueikisheile reading my mind? My intent? Would Anesthetic help with that? Thinking mild thoughts, I wondered about the impact of a sequence of Anesthetic, Cold Snap, a knife slash, and Healing Water. My mana tank felt not quite half full, which meant about nine points worth of mana. That was enough for two spells, not three.

Just Anesthetic and Cold Snap might be enough, but then I’d be operating without a safety net. I struggled with the decision, and in the meantime the uekisheile seemed to be content sitting on my chest. Maybe… maybe I had time to recover the mana needed for three spells? I began to circulate my energies.

The electric current’s tenor changed. Wait, electric current? Ah, I was such a dunce—that was the uekisheile’s qi. For a moment, I thought the creature had read my intent again and caught on to my plan, but no, that was their excitement I sensed. Their qi and my qi were in contact, and I could somewhat feel their intent through the connection, just like they seemed to be feeling mine.

The lichen spread to follow the way my qi moved through my body. The tendrils picked their way up to my neck, across my face, and a clump gathered above my upper dantian. Another small clump did the same for my lower dantian.

The qi running through their tendrils tickled, and I involuntarily laughed. The motion alarmed the uekisheile, and their tendrils tightened, but that only tickled more. I tried not to laugh—how miserable a death that would be—yet I couldn’t help it. The more wary the uekisheile became, the deeper it dug in. The combination of tendrils and qi was torture.

And somewhere along the way—when no harm came to the uekisheile—their wariness turned into curiosity. The tendrils spread to look for more ticklish spots. They even tried to get into my pants, but I blocked the way with my hands.

“Oh no,” I said, trying to catch my breath. “We’re not going there.”

My refusal alarmed the uekisheile, but I tried—I tried so very hard—to be clear about my intent. I didn’t mean any harm, but there was a boundary I wouldn’t let them cross. In response, through their qi I felt confusion, wariness, and a spike in their curiosity. What I didn’t feel, however, was threatened.

I started circulating my energy again, which the uekisheile liked. They snuggled into me, almost like a cat into a warm blanket. Slowly, I sat up.

Their qi signaled wariness and alarm.

I stopped. Then, when the uekisheile calmed, I started again.

Wariness, alarm.

I stopped, and repeated the process, moving only when the uekisheile relaxed. Eventually, they became accustomed to the motion. They also realized it was warmer and more comfortable under my clothes.

I was mobile again, which was progress, but I wasn’t sure where to go. My options were the chimney above and the tunnel with the fresh dung, but neither held any clues on how to eject my new passenger. I could still try to scrape them off, but it’d for sure spoil the uekisheile’s mood. And probably my life as well.

I carefully backtracked to the big room with the pipe organ. Perhaps I could lure the uekisheile onto one of the zombies instead?

As I walked, the uekisheile’s tufts poked out from under my shirt to sense the changes in their environment. Their qi tingled so much I could practically feel the excitement, and their intent too, as they sampled the air in each passage, searching for new and interesting things. At the same time, they were aware of me—their attention palpable—and every action, emotion, and thought of mine caused ripples in their qi.

They seemed happy to simply observe the changes in their environment. The thing they loved most, though, was me circulating my energy, so I walked slowly and focused on keeping my qi moving smoothly through my meridians. The uekisheile burbled happily as I did so. It wasn’t audible—lichens don’t have any way to make sound—but their qi hummed, almost like they were singing to themselves.

It’s actually kind of cute, in a weird alien-invader way.

The uekisheile must’ve liked what that thought did to my qi, because the humming transformed into a trilling. Unexpectedly, though, the next thing I knew, I felt a sharp pain across my chest, like I’d been slapped.

I jerked my shirt down, ready with my knife, but the uekisheile was no longer there. All I saw was a starburst welt centered over my heart. The uekisheile’s qi wriggled as they settled inside my middle dantian. The feeling was like chugging a liter of fizzy water, except the water was alive and curious.

The uekisheile had somehow transformed into qi and injected themselves into the whirlpool of energy around my heart. They sent feelers throughout my whole body to explore, and felt… satisfied. Apparently, I was a warm and cozy home. I was also delicious. Some of my qi drained away and, alarmed, I immediately checked my Status.

Conditions

Occupied

My mind raced, but since the uekisheile could read my intent, I didn’t think any threatening or violent thoughts. No, what I needed was to be less hospitable, so they’d leave my body, but not so much that I wasn’t worth keeping alive.

The uekisheile liked when the qi sped through my meridians. Would it be less appealing if the qi slowed down? I’d never tried that before, but it was worth a shot. I applied my will, and my qi responded, thickening like molasses. I used the image to slow the energy’s flow to a crawl.

Confused, the uekisheile prodded the qi to speed it up again. The two intents collided in my heart dantian, the fast qi hitting the slow and turning it back on itself.

The qi churned. My heartbeat stuttered, and I couldn’t breathe. The uekisheile was also in distress, jostled by the sudden turbulence. Both of us quickly changed tack—our intents aligned—and we willed the qi in my heart dantian to resume spinning normally.

A thin stream of qi shifted course. Then another joined it, and the two drew a third. From three, a flow was established, and the rest of the qi soon followed, circling through the dantian. The fast qi spun against the slow, like two lanes of traffic circling a roundabout. No, they were more like rivers, although still circling.

I shook my head to clear it. Whatever. It doesn’t matter. The important thing is that I can breathe. My heart beat normally again.

Emergency averted, I thought about how to continue, except I wasn’t given the chance. Where the fast and slow qi were adjoined, the boundary sheared away to form a third, middle ring between them. This qi, in turn, was pressured by the rings around it.

Squeezed by the fast on one side and the slow on the other, it bucked and kicked. The chaotic flow was hemmed in, though, unable to escape the rings confining it. The unruly qi roiled, splashing and spluttering and smashing against itself, until a single drop found a denser, more stable formation. Heavier than the rest of the qi around it, this drop fell from the middle ring into the center of the whirlpool. Another drop of condensed qi fell, and then a third.

My chest felt both heavy and light. My amazement at this development turned into horror, however, when the uekisheile surrounded the newly condensed qi and ate it. A shiver of pleasure ran through the creature, and I just assumed that was it—I was done, dead. They’d eat all my qi.

The uekisheile didn’t, though. Yes, they ate the first and second drops, but once my panic subsided, I found that they’d left the third alone. Their own qi circulated rapidly, giving the impression of intense thought.

A reprieve, then, but I wasn’t sure for how long. I needed to become unappetizing as quickly as possible. Maybe if no more qi condensed, then I’d no longer be delicious? We could go back to how they first found me, and they wouldn’t eat me? Or at least not right away.

I sped up my qi to match the portion under the uekisheile’s control. In moments, it was zipping around my dantian faster than I’d ever thought possible. There were two of us pushing, after all.

That confused the uekisheile, and they switched gears. Their intent now focused on slowing my qi in order to resume the condensation process, but I matched speeds with them again and no condensed qi was forthcoming.

The creature radiated a blend of confusion, dissatisfaction, and unhappiness in response. Interestingly, there was also a curiosity about the tenor of their own emotions. Much of what they felt seemed new. Only hunger, satiation, and a kind of unrequited curiosity were familiar.

The uekisheile really was intelligent. I didn’t know how much, but maybe we could communicate? Come to an arrangement where they didn’t eat me?

I called to mind the joy of greeting a friend.

The uekisheile liked that.

I radiated a feeling of welcome.

The uekisheile liked that too.

I remembered the feeling of talking late into the night, sharing stories around a campfire.

The uekisheile was curious about these new feelings and found them enjoyable, but nothing I tried triggered a response other than simple appreciation. To them, I seemed nothing more than an environment to be inhabited, not a thinking being. Their only experience of intelligence was their own. They must not have met any others, or kept their prey alive long enough to discover they could be intelligent. So, if all they knew was themselves, I’d have to find a way to show we were similar.

I started by reflecting the uekisheile’s own humming, trilling, and curiosity back toward them.

The uekisheile responded with alarm-surprise, and I felt a stab through my heart. The pain shocked me, but I tried not to react—focusing instead on maintaining a consistent tone to the thoughts and feelings I’d been reflecting, so as to not further alarm the creature.

The tenor of the uekieheile’s qi changed to confusion-wariness-curiosity.

Relieved, I matched this new blend of thought-feelings, and continued to filter out my fear, my uneasiness, and my uncertainty. Hopefully, it would be enough.

The uekisheile recognized their own feelings, but not the hope. The emotion had snuck in between the others. Confusion-confusion-confusion.

The uekisheile was a curious creature, quite literally. For a solid hour, I did nothing but reflect back to them their curiosity, puzzlement, and intrigue. Imagine a puppy finding a mirror for the first time—that was what it was like.

But I had to show the uekisheile that I was more than a mirror. They tended toward three-tone bundles of emotions and mental states, so I started by reversing what they gave me. Curiosity-expectation-eagerness became eagerness-expectation-curiosity. Then after a round of three bundles, I changed the order from 3-2-1 to 2-1-3. A round after that, I switched to 1-3-2. Then back to 3-2-1 after another round.

The uekisheile’s surprise gave way to delight. They began varying their tones in order to hear what would happen, and quickly understood the pattern: for every round of three bundles, I rotated the sequence by one. I knew they’d gotten it, because they started mimicking me, radiating the tones along with me, like we were singing together.

We quickly fell into using the same three tones over and over again. It was time for another change, so I replaced one of the old tones with a new one. The uekisheile was confused at first, but quickly understood what was happening.

It was a game: at the top of the round, I would call out a three-tone bundle of thought-feelings, then the two of us would reverse it for a turn and start shifting the sequence until we were back where we started.

We went through three rounds of the game before I changed the rules once more: where I would normally call the new bundle, I stayed silent. Instead, I gently nudged the uekisheile with my qi and prompted them with waiting-waiting-expectation.

Now, there was a strong chance they’d misunderstand and assume my prompt was the next sequence in the game, but I hoped they’d read the intention behind the thought bundle: that I wanted them to call the next sequence in our call and response game.

Their answer was, surprise-suspicion-delight.

I jumped on it and immediately responded to their call with delight-suspicion-surprise.

There was a moment’s hesitation, and then the uekisheile picked up the sequence and I made sure to sing along with them. The game was on again, except it was now their responsibility to call. Then, after three rounds, the uekisheile gently nudged me.

I smiled with relief. They got it! They understand the game’s rules. Did they also understand they were interacting with another player? I hoped so. That was my aim after all.

We played the game for an hour—me pacing the tunnels of the cave system while making absolutely sure I could understand the uekisheile’s thoughts and they could understand mine—before I tackled the most difficult part of what I intended: trying to converse with the uekisheile. When my turn came up next, I radiated, fun-gratitude-fun.

The uekisheile thought it was another variation, and they responded accordingly.

I offered, welcome-friend-welcome.

The game’s rules had broken, and the uekisheile’s qi stumbled as they tried to find how the most recent change fit with the old pattern. Nothing seemed to work though, and they radiated, confusion-disorientation-confusion.

I took a breath and strung together a sequence of comfort-relaxation-welcome. Curiosity-questioning-hunger. Hunger-satiation-patience. Patience-patience-patience.

The uekisheile repeated my tones with a questioning bent to them. Their qi spun quickly, but I couldn’t catch every tone. There were glimpses of the ones I’d shared during the game—peacefulness, friendship, and ease. I’d tried, while we played, to build a shared vocabulary of thoughts and emotions that might be helpful.

While the uekisheile struggled, I made my way back to the Red Room. Judging by how the eilesheile had avoided them earlier, it was clear that one was regularly preyed upon by the other, so I found a cluster of eilesheile without any invasion-related talents.

The eilesheile recoiled, which was new. The lichen hadn’t moved when I’d collected some before. The uekisheile was with me now, though. To my eyes that confirmed the relationship between the two, so I grabbed a bunch of the eilesheile to keep them from escaping. Then I nudged the uekisheile. Satiation-hunger-satiation. Underneath the thought bundle was the intention: please eat this instead of me.

Cautiously, the uekisheile’s tufts appeared on the tops of my hands, and the eilesheile was right there, ready for them. Satiation-hunger-satiation? It was clearly a question, and a question directed at me, which only confused the uekisheile more. To whom were they communicating?

My sense was that prior to meeting me, the uekisheile had understood themselves to be the only intelligent being in their universe. As near as I could tell, the eilesheile were food. Everything else was just food. How strange, then, to find themselves in conversation, no longer alone. How disconcerting.

Suddenly, the uekisheile was on high alert. The tufts disappeared into me, leaving the eilesheile untouched. All their qi retreated to their main body in my heart dantian. I radiated peace-peace-peace, but that only made them more uneasy.

I watched as the uekisheile’s qi rippled, like there were explosions under the surface. The qi around the uekisheile’s body thickened into the walls of a fortress. I couldn’t sense their tones anymore.

They sat like a weight on my heart. I waited for what felt like hours, hardly breathing for fear of accidentally triggering my demise. Eventually, though, tendrils of qi poked out of the fortress to scout the situation. The uekisheile’s curiosity won out over their caution.

I offered, welcome-peace-friendship.

Caution-curiosity-question, they replied.

“My name’s Ol—Eight. It’s Eight,” I said. Well, the words didn’t matter. More importantly, I radiated what it felt like to be me: the sense of self I experienced in deep meditation.

Caution-curiosity-wonder. The uekisheile surprised themselves, as they’d never experienced wonder before. Wonder-wonder-wonder. They were dazed by the new emotion.

I let go of the breath I was holding. They didn’t attack, they didn’t eat my qi, and they could feel wonder. We’d be able to work something out, I was sure of it.

The process was painstaking, tentative on both sides, but we were able to communicate. We took turns expressing a desire, and then the other would react to it, either positively or negatively. That way, over time, we built up an understanding of wants, needs, and boundaries. The boundaries were tough to explain at first, but the uekisheile was a fast learner, a genius among lichen.

The uekisheile, unsurprisingly, wanted a warm and cozy environment full of fast, condensed qi—some of which would be eaten. And I essentially wanted the same thing.

They’d already demonstrated an ability to both speed up the flow of my qi and condense it. Fast qi would help increase its recovery rate, while condensing it increased the capacity of my dantian and meridians; the smaller the qi, the less space it occupied. At least theoretically.

The idea of making one’s qi more dense had never come up in the qigong classes I’d taken, but it was the goal of many Taoist cultivators in the stories I’d read. The protagonists often depended upon it for growing in power.

Eventually, our mutual understanding was:

We would work to make sure I didn’t die, because then the cozy, delicious qi would stop.

The uekisheile could stay and enjoy the cozy, delicious qi.

But not too much, because then I would die, and the cozy, delicious qi would stop. Return to point number one.

Qi was even cozier and more delicious if we worked together to condense it.

Effectively, I became a qi farm for a hyper-intelligent lichen, but hey, it beat being dead. And there were benefits. Like, really good benefits:

Now that I wasn’t fighting it, the uekisheile could circulate my energies for me, which in turn let me effectively meditate while I was doing other stuff. And when I actively meditated, I now had the choice of: Condensing qi into a more compressed state or speeding up the recovery rate even more.

All of the above in exchange for a couple of bites—a couple of points’ worth—of qi per day? That was a deal. And if in the back of my mind I was still freaking out about an alien invader residing in my body, the uekisheile fortunately didn’t notice.

By the time the uekisheile and I were done talking, my Status updated.

Conditions

Occupied (Truce)

Another encounter survived, but at what cost? No, don’t think about it. Just keep moving, Ollie. Just keep moving.

22

The Hope Inside

The Red Room was dark. Night had fallen during the discussion with the uekisheile, and there wasn’t even a sliver of moonlight shining down from the chimneys above. Instead, water fell in thin streams. Thunder rumbled in the distance, echoing strangely, and it sounded like the cave growled.

Inside me, the uekisheile happily soaked in my heart dantian like it was a spa. My mind spun at the sheer absurdity of the situation, but all I could do was shake my head. If I’d let every confusing and strange situation in this world stop me, I’d have died that first day. It was with that thought that I picked up my gear—still sitting where I’d put it—and left via the room’s other exit. After due consideration, I’d decided that the chimney was too tough a climb.

The tunnel went about twenty yards before the ceiling descended, and I had to stoop to continue. The stalagmites and stalactites were so close, they looked like teeth. The breeze was stronger here, flowing between the gaps. It carried with it a pungent scent, musky and manure-like. There was definitely something still living within these caves.

My hope for an exit and fear of coming across a murder cat mingled in me, which apparently caught my passenger’s interest. I felt their confusion, but was at a loss on how to explain the feeling without seeming to threaten the uekisheile. I tried feeling threatened, and that must’ve worked, because suddenly tufts of fuchsia lichen sprouted on my face, neck, and hands.

The main body of the uekisheile was still inside me—I could feel them stirring in my dantian—but they were able to materialize extensions of themselves outside of me as well. I’d witnessed it happening once before, when I’d offered them the eilesheile, but had been too occupied at the time to think about it. Now, though, shock rolled through me. My body really wasn’t my own anymore.

They expressed, defend-satiation-defend, and urged me onward.

“Oh gods, I’ve become a mobile home.” It was a poor attempt at humor, but what else could I do? If I let myself feel as disturbed as I truly was, that might affect the truce the uekisheile and I had between us.

Impatience-hunger-hunger.

Ah, so they wanted to eat again. “Okay, okay. I’m going.”

The tunnel opened into a chamber about the size of a small house. The scent of manure was stronger here, and I found a pile of dung in the corner. Cautiously, I kept going, spear at the ready.

The path sloped up in a natural spiral. Long fingers of stalactites reached down its center, and rivulets of water flowed along them. It made the stone slippery.

I loosened my grip on the spear. “Easy now,” I whispered to myself.

The spiral continued for another fifteen yards. At the top was another small chamber. The floor here was pitted with holes, some only a foot deep, while others were deep enough for me to fit into. The shallower ones were already filling up with the water from one of the two exits leading out of the room. I cupped some to sniff, and it smelled clean.

The fact that the holes were filling up meant that the water source was intermittent, otherwise they’d be full all the time. Was it rainwater? If so, was the way it was coming into the cave accessible and large enough for me to fit through?

For form’s sake, I checked the exit without water first, but it sloped back down and quickly ran into a dead end. The other, though, continued up, and with every step, my heart beat with both more hope and more dread.

The sound of thunder rumbled, echoing past me down the tunnel. The breeze suddenly carried with it the scent of electricity, and under it was the pungent smell of a big cat.

I cupped the candlestone with one hand to narrow the light into an even thinner beam, and crept carefully forward. Ten yards and a hundred years later, I found another small chamber. At the far end, a mountain lion slumbered, framed by an opening to the world outside. Lightning flashed, illuminating the creature, and I quickly stowed the candlestone inside my shirt.

The cat had thick, hunched shoulders from which a total five furred tentacles grew. At the end of each tentacle was a dark razor. The cat slept on a dry mound to the right of the entrance. The rest of the floor was slick with rainwater.

I considered trying to sneak past, but the uekisheile had a different plan in mind. Excitement-hunger-anticipation. Hunger-hunger-satiation.

Well, they were probably right. Even if I was at one with the land, I didn’t think stealthing past was an option. I stank to high heaven, and once I was near the cave’s exit, the cat would scent me for sure.

Chliapp Lion (Animal)

Talents: Sharp, Lazy, Opportunistic

For the moment, I put aside the question of how Lazy could be a talent. I needed a plan. The creature outweighed and outmuscled me, and while I had more reach with the spear, it wasn’t by much—not with his tentacles.

I put my odds at winning a direct confrontation at nearly nil. Sure, I might surprise him with a Cold Snap, but I didn’t think that’d stack the deck enough in my favor. If this were a game, it would be the perfect opportunity for a stealth insta-kill. Or a rogue’s backstab or sneak attack.

Wait. Maybe there is a way.

I looked over the route—there was nothing on the floor that might crunch under my feet, and in any case the cave echoed with the roar of the storm and the sound of water as it streamed past the cat. Even the wind worked in my favor, sucked down into the tunnel like a breath into lungs. As long as I stayed behind the lion, I should be able to get close.

I can do it, I thought, and the boundary between fear and excitement blurred. I carefully set my spear down and drew both stilettos. Then I stretched one foot out to step onto the dry section of the chamber, and eased onto the elevated stone.

From the uekisheile, all I sensed was, anticipation-anticipation-anticipation.

Step by step, I crept closer. I didn’t let the tufts of fuchsia lichen sprouting from the backs of my hands distract me. All my attention was on moving silently toward the chliapp lion. I was about ten yards away, every nerve on edge, when it suddenly hit me what I was about to do—I was sneaking up on a hundred and fifty pounds of muscle, razors, and death—and the insanity of it stopped me. I froze.

I’d had encounters with mountain lions and bears in my previous life, but back then neither they nor I wanted anything to do with each other. All we wanted was to avoid the scary thing we’d come across and go back to what we were doing, whether that was hiking, searching for game, or fishing up some delicious berries or salmon.

It was strange, but in that moment—sneaking up behind the chliapp lion so I could stab it with stilettos made from the spikes of parasites I’d found in a waist-high pile of dragon dung while being occupied by a hyper-intelligent lichen who was very much wondering why we’d stopped when there was good food close by—it fully hit me I was living in another world. And that it’d continue to force me to do things that would otherwise terrify me.

I’d committed before to living in this new world, but there was a part of me that continued to cling to the ideas and memories of the old one. I’d slowly acclimated, though, and furiously trained to prepare for whatever came at me, but something held me back. Fear? The animal inside fighting to hold onto the safety and comfort of my old world?

Even if I hid myself away with Ikfael in the Glen for the rest of my life, that wouldn’t be enough to protect me. Trouble had come to the Glen twice over—after thunderstorms just like this one—and there was no avoiding danger. If that was true, it’d be better to meet the danger head on.

Or in this case, sneak up on it in the dark and stab it in the back.

So, as thunder crashed outside and the lion stirred—as my heart jumped in my chest and the lion settled once again into sleep—something changed in me. I’d held on, unconsciously, to my old life, but that wouldn’t be enough. To survive, to thrive, I’d have to embrace this world and the life it brought with it.

Of course this world would change me. How could it not? I’d been an immigrant before; I knew the process. Whether you wanted to or not, a place changed you, shaped you, and molded you. Even the act of holding on was a change in and of itself.

These thoughts were old territory for me, well worn after thinking so long and deeply about my experiences as an immigrant. The epiphany unfolded quickly, blossoming in a visceral understanding of myself and the situation in which I’d found myself. Fear was and would forever be my enemy. And just as in my past life, I’d do everything in my power to spike it through the heart, to embrace the life it hid from me, and to hold onto the hope of something better.

Yes, on the cusp of danger and death I realized how, in order to live my new life, I had to let go of my old one. It was an impossibility to begin with—that life was gone, and so was its world. The important things that mattered—Helen, Alex, and Daniel—I’d carry with me in my heart. Just like I carried my grandparents in my heart after they died. My father and mother too, once I’d learned how to forgive them for their all-too-human failures as parents.

I was Ollie—but also Eight—and I would embrace the life offered to me.

I took a slow, quiet breath, and blinked the thoughts away. I settled myself into the land, even though I was terrified.

I’d lost track of the uekisheile’s qi in the midst of my turmoil, but now that I was paying attention, I sensed a jumble of thoughts radiating from them. They’d followed along on my realization-epiphany trip, and it confused the hell out of them.

Question-question-question!

Not now, if you please. We still have a danger-threat-food. Wait-answer-eat.

Agree-agree-agree. Wait-answer-eat. Even though the uekisheile said they’d be patient, I felt like only half their attention was on the chliapp lion. The rest was on me, carefully watching my qi for further disturbances.

The moment had passed without waking the lion. His ears were still, as was his tail. There was a soft susurration, as he breathed steadily in and out. The hilts of the stilettos were rough. I was glad of it, as they’d otherwise slip from my hands. I was resolved to carry on, yes, but it didn’t mean my palms weren’t sweaty and my back wasn’t soaked. Carefully, I wiped my eyes clear.

With each step, the tension wound through me tighter and tighter. I needed to focus on my footing, so I didn’t bring to mind the Anesthetic rune until I was just within reach of the lion. There was a two-foot gap between the creature and the cave wall. I sidled in between to better reach its torso. I briefly considered stabbing it in the neck, but the tentacles lay all around like sleeping snakes. There was no way to get close to the lion’s head without stepping on one.

A short prayer: Gods and goddesses, spirits of the land, watch over me. Please, please let this work.

The uekisheile perked up, but I ignored them and focused on the Anesthetic rune and the way the cool energy of the spell flowed through me and into the area around the animal’s gut sack. Just in case, I also enchanted the stilettos to enhance their innate painkilling properties. Gently, slowly, I stuck the stilettos into the lion.

When I had casted Anesthetic on myself before, my whole leg had gone numb. I assumed the same was now true of the lion’s torso. I bit my lip, worried that ruffling the fur would disturb the lion’s sleep, but the Anesthetic dulled its sense of touch, as well as the pain. I slid the stilettos in and out, blood following in a stream. In and out. In and out. Using different angles, I stabbed the lion several times.

When he didn’t stir, I grew more confident the plan would work, and continued stabbing him, maybe six or eight more times. I was so focused, I wasn’t sure of the number. It was like being at an award ceremony, realizing you’d just given your speech, but you don’t remember what you said or how you said it. Everything was a blur; there was just me and the lion, my hope and fear, and underneath it all was the confusion of the uekisheile.

I left the stilettos inside the body on the last stab. The chliapp lion stirred in his sleep, and I didn’t want to risk further disturbing him. I eased away, and snuck back toward the tunnel.

Back in my hiding place, I watched—my hands gripping the spear—as the lion slowly bled out. The lazy thing never woke up, and when it stopped breathing, I nearly fell over from the release of tension. Still, I was careful and waited for another twenty minutes to be sure. I prodded the lion with my spear, but it was really dead.

I thanked the gods. I thanked Helen and the spirits of the land. I thanked everyone and everything that had contributed to me becoming the man I was—a man who had the wherewithal to survive an encounter with a chliapp lion. I was on my knees, inundated with gratitude, when the uekisheile prodded me with a question. No, it was more like a demand for answers to a list of pent-up questions.

“Yes, I’m here. We can talk now.” I shaped the tone-bundles along with the words. My plan was to speak every time we communicated in the hope they’d eventually be able to understand me better.

Frustration-frustration-question. Answer-now-answer.

“Yes.” Answer-now-answer.

Wonder-people-wonder. Questions-many-questions.

“The world is full of people,” I said, sitting back, gathering the thought-bundles together. “Some good, some bad, but most are a mix of the two. Do you know good and bad? I can’t imagine that you do.”

Hunger-satiation-coziness. Fear-threat-danger.

“It can be that simple, I suppose, but things get pretty murky once you start working your way up into higher orders of thinking. Intelligence can be a wonderful rationalization for all kinds of horrible actions.” I paused, at a loss for how to convey that thought. Then I realized I was having a conversation about moral gray zones with a lichen.

I did my best, but the uekisheile’s response was confusion-confusion-confusion.

“Sorry, that’s my fault. I really should be talking about simpler topics. I’m just hungry, and also hungry for company.”

The uekisheile paused as they chewed on that. Their qi formed and reformed with their thoughts, each one unguarded. I watched as they realized for the first time in their existence that they were also lonely.

Fear-threat-loneliness. Hunger-desire-company.

The uekisheile hadn’t known loneliness before. I’d taught it to them, and a spike of guilt ran through me. Worse, a part of me wondered at how I could use that loneliness to my benefit. It was like I was a teenager again, and I had hated being a teenager.

Confusion-alarm-threat.

I took a breath to settle my thoughts. “Sorry. Sorry. That hate wasn’t aimed at you. It was a memory of things from before we met.”

The uekisheile said, Action-reaction-pattern. Pattern-repeat-pattern.

The idea was surprisingly complicated: of patterns repeating over time, like day and night alternating. No wonder they’d so easily caught on to the game I’d created—sure, it was simple, but they were also used to experimenting with action and reaction to look for patterns.

The uekisheile thought, slowly working their way to a conclusion. Action-loneliness. Reaction-company. Pattern…

The qi trailed off, as they didn’t know how to fill the loneliness.

The uekisheile reminded me of a stray knowing nothing but the streets, their eyes full of longing upon being found. Dogs could be incredibly loyal and sweet, or they could be ugly and vicious. It all depended on how they were treated. Were they family, or were they tools to instill fear in others?

Helen and I had adopted several dogs, and they’d been nothing but loyal. My emotions and memories must’ve leaked out again, because the uekisheile’s qi flared, similar to when they’d realized I was a person. The epiphany rolled from them into me, like waves to the shore.

Their thoughts stuttered. Action-loneliness. Reaction-company. Pattern-family. Pattern-family. Pattern… love. The unfamiliar emotion confused the uekisheile. Curiousity-curiousity-love. Anxiety-curiosity-love.

“I don’t even—”

The way I’d been communicating was by connecting my emotions, thoughts, and intent to my qi. For me to talk about love was to talk about Helen, Alex, and Daniel, and the message wouldn’t be filtered by words. The uekisheile would have a front-row seat on the raw emotions. My raw emotions.

Curiosity-curiosity-curiosity. There was such longing to know about family and love in their request.

“Okay, okay, just hold on. Let me think for a moment.”

Curiosity-curiosity-curiosity. Love-love-love. The uekisheile’s enthusiasm for the topic grew. Their qi wagged like a tail.

And that was when I realized there was no artifice in the uekisheile. They were as pure as a puppy. Yes, they were far more dangerous and could kill me at any time, but there was no hint that such a thing would ever happen. If anything, I was a treasure they’d found, a place of cozy, delicious wonder.

It was weird to have another being inside my body, but it was also an opportunity. Already, I felt my magical energies recovering as a result of the uekisheile’s help. And there was the qi condensation too—I didn’t know it for sure, but I strongly sensed that if I continued along that path, my qi body would grow stronger. Much stronger.

The uekisheile waited for me.

“Oh, damn it, all right.”

They must’ve sensed my acquiescence, because the qi wagged even harder. Curiosity-curiosity-curiosity. Love-love-love.

“Just let me get the gutsack out, and then we’ll talk.”

It was cold enough I didn’t have to worry about the meat going bad, but only if the lion’s gutsack was removed. If not, the bacteria inside it would spread and spoil the meat.

The process was a bloody, messy affair with all the puncture wounds, and once it was done I stepped to the entrance to wash my hands clean. The rain fell in sheets, making it impossible to see anything beyond roughly fifty yards out. I seemed to be high up in the escarpment though, with a narrow path to the left leading up. The stone ran slick with the rainwater. Lightning flashed, and its thunder rumbled through me. I tossed the mangled gutsack over the side. Now that I didn’t have to worry about it spoiling the meat, dressing the rest of the lion’s corpse could wait.

The uekisheile was curious about the lightning and thunder, but was undeterred. There’d be no leaving the cave until the rain stopped, anyway, so I found a dry spot by the entrance to watch the lightning, sat down, and started telling stories—vignettes of the life I’d lived with the ones I loved. There wasn’t any rhyme or reason to the stories, nor any order to speak of. The narrative was less important than the feelings.

I didn’t want to sugarcoat love and friendship, so I made sure the stories weren’t all pleasant. There were bitter moments too in my relationships with my wife and children, and certainly troubles too.

Someone once said that you only feel as much love as you’re willing to feel pain. I’ve found that to be true.

The uekisheile curled around themselves. Occasionally, their qi burbled in response, but mostly they listened to my feelings. The sun eventually came up, but the rain continued to pour down, drenching the forest below.

I drank rainwater to ease my throat, then kept talking, until I got to the point where there weren’t any more important stories except for Helen’s cancer. I’d avoided it all night, but as the pool of stories got smaller and smaller, the story of her death got bigger and bigger. Big enough that it was all that was left inside me, a stone blocking my throat from continuing.

Bitter-sweet-love. Lonely-pain-lonely.

My throat wasn’t big enough for the stone. I didn’t know if it’d ever be. Sure, I’d told the story before to family and close friends, but never to myself, and that was what it felt like in that moment: me telling the story to myself, as well as the uekisheile. The unadorned story. The unfiltered story. The real story of just how much of myself I lost when Helen died.

And bless them, the uekisheile tried to comfort me. Lonely-bitter-pain. Love-love-love.

“Thank you. That’s kind. And yes… the love was worth the pain.”

Action-reaction-pattern. Ollie/Eight-Helen-Uekisheile.

I couldn’t help myself—I laughed when they offered to replace Helen with themselves in my feelings. I’d never been proposed to by a colony of lichen before. With a sad grin, I shared my gratitude again, but declined.

We can start with friendship. Yes, that’d be okay. And then one day, maybe family.

By midday, the rain had finally started to let up. I rubbed my face to wake up from the strange dream-like state I’d been in while telling my stories. I was starving, but didn’t have any wood for a fire. I wasn’t willing to eat raw lion meat either. My fear of parasites hadn’t gone away—which was ironic, given the uekisheile inside me. But then, it wasn’t a parasite, was it? It was a symbiote now. Or something like it.

Speaking of which, they were hungry too. I brought us back to the chliapp lion. There was residual qi in the body, and I put my hand into the gut cavity. “Go ahead. Eat your fill.”

A part of the uekisheile sprouted along my hand and disappeared into the body. I felt their qi spread, hunting along the meridians to search for the major qi structures. The lion appeared to have three dantian: one in the head, one in the chest, and a smaller one in the hunch of his back where the tentacles emerged. All three lit up at once when the uekisheile ate his qi. I also caught sight of the thicker meridians, but not enough to understand how the qi once flowed through the lion’s body.

The uekisheile’s tufts emerged from the wound, satisfied, and were reabsorbed into me. It was a sight I wasn’t sure I’d ever get used to.

Since I was beside the lion, I collected the claws and started skinning him. The fur was heavily damaged where I’d stabbed him, but the upper body was free of cuts. The work was good for settling my mind and emotions. It’d been a roller coaster of a night and day.

After the fur was removed, I reached inside the body for the core but found it missing. The uekisheile had eaten the lion’s silverlight along with his qi.

23

Found in Translation

We had a conversation, the uekisheile and I, about boundaries, fairness… and the lure of delicious things. There was time enough for it, since I wasn’t willing to risk the narrow path leading up to the top of the escarpment. Not yet, anyway. We were halfway up and, while I had a grand view of the forest below, the path was slick with rain. It’d be a long drop if I slipped.

Once things were settled between us, we meditated, which was something we both enjoyed. It was especially productive, as the two of us were getting even better at condensing my qi. The trick of it depended on pressure and movement. The pressure was a crucible, while the movement was a catalyst. The two worked together to refine the qi into a denser, more rich state, which in turn made room for more qi to flow through my meridians and into my dantian, increasing my capacity.

With the storm continuing to lash the countryside, there was plenty of qi in the air. In the past, I’d let it soak into me, relishing the charge it gave. Now though, with the uekisheile, their tufts sprouted from all the places my skin was exposed, and they acted like an antenna to actively suck in the qi and feed my dantian.

Every time the lightning flashed, the uekisheile somersaulted in excitement. I’d never thought I’d find anyone who loved thunderstorms as much as me, but I may have met my match in them.

Light blasted the cave, and the walls shook with thunder when lightning struck particularly close by. I interrupted the meditation to open my eyes to see where the lightning had touched ground. Would there be a fire? I didn’t think so with how wet the forest was, but it’d be better to know for sure.

I scanned below, but didn’t see any flames licking at the trees. No glow among the bushes either. The forest appeared to be safe.

I heard a roar from above, but this time it was unlike the thunder from before. I looked up to the top of the escarpment just in time to see an absolutely massive bear leap into the air. My jaw dropped. I sat amazed, and even more incredulous—the bear, he somehow drew another lightning strike to himself.

For a moment, the creature hung in the heart of the maelstrom, the center of a world on fire. I covered my ears to protect them from the noise, but I didn’t close my eyes—the sight was too terrible and too sublime to hide from. The creature’s silhouette burned itself into my vision.

The moment passed. The lightning strike dissipated, and the bear fell to the ground below. I blinked to clear the imprint from my eyes, and as a result missed seeing what happened next. I heard a tree crack, though, and birds’ wings flapping as they took the air; animals on the ground cried in alarm.

I kicked myself for not thinking to use my camera earlier. I blindly clicked the area below. Though my eyes watered and my vision was still impeded, I saw the Status boxes clearly.

White Pine (Plant)

Talents: Fertile Cones, Flexible Needles

Redcedar (Plant)

Talents: Tall

Iisxabalesha Pipia (Plant)

Talents: Flatulent, Silent but Deadly

Those talents! I couldn’t make out the bush or tree in question, but I noted the area it was in. I’d avoid it in the future.

Flowering Dogwood (Plant)

Talents: Fruity

Walking Fern (Plant)

Talents: Sunny

Does it really walk or is it named that way because of the way it spreads? I wanted to check it out, but it was in the same area as the iisxabalesha pipia. On second thought, I wasn’t that curious.

Sharp-Shinned Hawk (Animal)

Talents: Swift Flier, Keen Sight

Kalihchi Bear (Animal, Dusk)

Talents: Lightning-Touched, Territorial, Unending Endurance, Dominant, Iron Belly

I caught a glimpse of black fur under the forest canopy. A tree fell over, and in the gap, I saw animals fleeing, hints of orange among them. I enchanted my eyes and saw a familiar monster turkey disappear in a cloud of steam. It must’ve used its heat beam and vaporized the falling rain in the process. I was able to snap a picture of the animal’s talents before it vanished.

Bashu Turkey Alpha (Animal, Dusk)

Talents: Cruel, Taste for Blood, Hot Blooded

I lost sight of the bear, but the turkeys fled north toward a familiar stream. I tracked them until they reached the Glen. The tops of the trees shook; one caught fire. Then another. The turkeys and the bishkawi rumbled, the figures in the distance intermixing.

The two alphas, bigger than the rest, were easier to spot. I saw the bishkawi leap into the air, but didn’t see the aftermath as he disappeared in a veil of steam. The bashu turkey must’ve used his heat beam again.

Suddenly, the reason why the Glen had been invaded after the previous two thunderstorms became clear. First the unideer, then the bishkawi, and now the turkeys—they’d all been forced to flee from their territories by the kalihchi bear.

A bishkawi howled in triumph. I recognized the voice immediately—it was the alpha. Hopefully, a good number of bishkawi and turkeys had died in the fighting. All I saw was a handful of turkeys fleeing north. The Glen had gone quiet, as the rain dowsed the nascent fires.

I sat back with a sigh, satisfied.

Question-why-gloating.

I explained to the uekisheile about the satisfaction of seeing my enemies bloodied, even if I wasn’t the one doing the bloodying. The concept of due justice was harder, and I had to rely on the idea of cause and effect. But then the concept of time became an issue, and I was going in circles trying to translate it—when an epiphany struck. The words in the talent descriptions, some of them weren’t in English.

The System provided a phonetic transcription of the indigenous language when the English equivalent wasn’t obvious. In other words, the Status camera had a built-in Rosetta Stone, one I could use to get a head start on learning the local language.

“Excuse me a moment, little friend. I have to check something.”

The talents for the bashu turkey alpha were still on the screen. There wasn’t a language toggle anywhere though, and willing the System interface to do my bidding hadn’t worked in the past. But that was before I had 15 Wisdom, and Wisdom was supposed to be the attribute quantifying my connection to the System, as well as the world around me.

I focused my will, and said, “The translation service is nice, thank you, but I’d like the option to turn it off. Do you hear me, System-Eight? Anything you can do to help facilitate a request to the development team would be appreciated.”

Imagine my surprise when the System complied. A toggle appeared on the screen. It read English. When I clicked, it changed to Diaksh. I grinned, feeling like I’d solved the Sunday crossword, and I began to switch back and forth between the languages, playing with my new toy.

Bashu Dakaa Akda (Baais, Baaxia)

Nutche: Bele, Alaku te Lele, Bakoon Daaska

Bashu Turkey Alpha (Animal, Dusk)

Talents: Cruel, Taste for Blood, Hot Blooded

Bele was the word for cruel. Te seemed to mirror the word for. Hot Blooded was an idiom, so I wasn’t surprised that the word for blood appeared to be different. Lele was probably the real word for blood, while Daaska was likely a synonym for angry.

My grin spread—this was fun. And hopefully useful too. The likelihood I’d be able to safely interact with this world’s civilization grew with every word learned.

Curiosity-why-smile.

How to explain the concept of language? Well, that was a puzzle too. I’d work it out eventually. Meanwhile, I continued taking a break from meditating to scan the forest and compare words, adding to my vocabulary. It was a welcome break and distraction from my hunger pains.

There were no imminent threats and nothing I could do other than give my overworked nervous system a rest. Only once my head was full of unfamiliar words did I go back to meditating.

By the way, I did ask the System for other quality-of-life improvements. That was how I got a clock added to the screen. Everything else was declined though: the experience bar, the weather forecast, the danger meter—everything. I planned to try again once I leveled up some more. The System was supposed to be evolving with me, after all.

The storm ended just as night fell. The clouds were thick and dominated the sky, but they’d lost their heaviness. All the dark had been rained out of them, and they turned silver in the moonlight.

As for me, I felt surprisingly good. The time spent meditating helped me recover from the difficulties I’d undergone in the caves, but more importantly, my heart dantian was full of rich, condensed qi. The only problem was that my other energy centers couldn’t keep up with the pressure it was producing. The flow of qi was unbalanced. I wasn’t worried, though. I had a master qi manipulator working with me.

I learned from the uekisheile just as much as they learned from me. Their ability to manipulate qi, to find areas of restriction, and to make use of meridians that were otherwise underutilized was incredible. They couldn’t explain what they were doing, but I watched and together we found a rhythm. We turned our attention to the lower dantian next, located just below and behind my belly button.

There was still enough storm qi in the air that we didn’t lack for raw material. As soon as my qi condensed, it was replaced with more. My whole body felt like it was a pump working to inject and compress qi.

Midway through the night, the lower dantian had completely filled with condensed qi. It felt good. It felt right—I understood that at an almost cellular level—but I also felt stretched out. My ability to focus and pay attention ached.

The uekisheile was unfazed, thrilled even. My qi was turning into a dense broth, and while they understood they shouldn’t eat it, being immersed was enough to cause pleasure-cozy-deliciousness. The vibe was almost indecent, but I reminded myself I was being gifted with a level of spiritual advancement that would’ve likely taken me decades of practice, assuming I figured out the process in the first place. I didn’t complain.

We moved on to the upper dantian and were halfway through when the qi in the air normalized. The pump ran low, and I was forced to rely on my native reserves. The condensation process stalled. I thought about stopping to refill my tank, but the uekisheile was intent on continuing. Suddenly, an alien qi roared through my meridians. The uekisheile had dumped the qi they’d eaten from the chliapp lion into my upper dantian.

The qi wanted to move in unfamiliar directions, but I recovered my wits and drove it into the condensation process. At first, the alien qi didn’t meld with the native qi, but the uekisheile was an expert at assimilation. They found connections between the energies and bound them together, the two becoming one.

When the last drop of qi condensed, a gong resounded. My whole body vibrated, and all the qi burst from my dantian in waves. The uekisheile was ecstatic and surfed along with it. I felt like I was being wrung out, while at the same time my body tried to shake itself to pieces. Like a bad earthquake, it only lasted for a short while, but it felt much longer.

When the shaking stopped, I lay on the ground, spent. I was exhausted again, but the aftermath was sweeter this time. My spiritual muscles were sore, but it was a happy sore. There was a languidness, as well as the innate knowledge I’d be stronger once the muscles found their tension again.

Joy-joy-joy. Again-again-again.

The uekisheile wasn’t joking either. They began the process of re-condensing the qi in my heart dantian, but the same process didn’t work twice. I even played along as best I could—curious about it myself—but no, we’d need to find a different method to further refine my qi.

Rich-qi-curiosity. Curiosity-curiosity-curiosity.

Outside, dawn broke, the fingers of light turning the clouds pink and rose. The forest was quiet except for the few early risers, their calls waking the rest.

A feathered snake flew between me and the trees below.

Bilikku Baaii Iaxtla (Baais)

Nutche: Puuche, Luluato

Rainbow Feathered Snake (Animal)

Talents: Quick, Colorful

Then, a change in my Status caught my attention.

Body Power

10

Qi

28

Mana

18

My capacity for qi had doubled overnight, and:

Qi Body increased from 4 to 8.

As did the number of skill ranks in Qi Body. Finally:

Conditions

Occupied (Truce*)

Being Occupied (Truce) hadn’t changed, but an asterisk was now attached.

The other times I’d seen the System use an asterisk was when there was the potential for a condition to change or evolve in some way. It represented a recognition that the uekisheile and I had come to an agreement, and that this agreement would likely change over time. That was my interpretation, anyway.

My butt was sore from sitting so long, so I stood and stretched until all the kinks loosened. Optimistic for the first time in days, I made my way carefully outside the cave.

The trail leading to the top of the escarpment was only a couple feet wide in places, but the footing was finally dry and solid enough for me to feel okay trying it. The only difficulty was that all the stuff I carried unbalanced me and threatened to pull me over the side. I’d already fallen from a cliff once, thank you. I didn’t plan on doing that again, so I hiked up with great care.

The morning sun broke through the last remaining clouds and shone down on the land below. The top of Ikfael’s waterfall sparkled in the distance, almost like a quest objective. Well, in a sense I guess it was. I just had to find a way down from the escarpment. First, though, I had to find something to eat. Enriching my qi overnight helped with the hunger pangs, but I was beyond starving.

The forest here was similar to the one around the Glen, and I quickly stumbled across a blueberry bush, the berries just ripe enough for eating. Greedily, I gobbled them as fast as I could pick them, staining my fingers blue. I felt the tension in me easing with every mouthful.

With the edge of my hunger blunted, I went looking for firewood to grill up some lion meat. I hadn’t brought any with me, not wanting to risk it spoiling by taking it out into the day’s heat, but I thought the cave might work as a secondary base. I planned to build a fire there, eat, and then think of a way to liberate the Glen from the bishkawi.

The uekisheile understood that we were searching for something but not what. They sprouted along my face to help me look, as that was the way they sensed ambient qi, and they seemed happy with both the flavor of the forest and me.

I tried not to think about it too much. Instead, I crept along with my spear at the ready. Just because I was hungry didn’t mean I’d forgotten about the lions, turkeys, and bear, oh my.

I’d gone about thirty yards, when I smelled something cooking: a stew or porridge with corn and sage and—I sniffed—onions. There was the scent of game meat mixed in too, and my mouth flooded with saliva.

I had the money I’d scavenged from the zombies. Maybe I could mime my way through buying a bowl?

I searched the area and tracked the scent to a small clearing under a black walnut tree. Under its broad branches, two men had a couple of the little plant horrors chained to the tree’s trunk.

My appetite disappeared at seeing the creatures. They were disguised as a boy and girl, the expressions on their faces just as blank as I remembered. The damn things were eerie with a capital E. But then, the men were even stranger.

A small, thin man, his skin the color of indigo, had his back to me. A long lizard-like tail poked through a hole in the back of his armor, which looked to be brigandine, cloth on the outside layered with thin metal plates on the inside.

Opposite him was a large man, easily seven feet tall and broad across the chest. His face was square and wide, the eyes set far apart, almost curving around to the sides. He leaned back against a rock. His bare torso was wrapped in bloody bandages. His brigandine lay near a campfire, and it was rent open along the right side.

The two men quietly argued, the language sounding similar to what the town’s gate guard had used.

Boscun the Wall (Human, Dolbec, Dusk)

Talents: Tough, Thick, Stubborn, Gullible

Kaad Keelsson (Human, Nisaak)

Talents: Quick, Manipulative

They kept their voices low, but they gestured a lot to make up for it—mostly toward the plant creatures. Boscun picked up a small bag and waved it around. Quick as a bird, Kaad snatched it out of his hand, which only seemed to piss Boscun off more. His voice rose, until Kaad shushed him. They both looked around then, but their argument hadn’t drawn any animals to their campsite.

As for the little plant horrors, they pulled on their chains to get away. It was creepy how silently and steadily they struggled against the collars around their necks. The metal bit into their husks, enough to bleed.

The sap was red, like blood. Wait, that’s not right.

Billisha (Human)

Talents: Skinner

Aluali (Human)

Talents: Skinner

Billiisha and Aluali were children in the grip of Meliune’s Blessing. Their panic was being suppressed, and they were doing everything they could to escape.

I didn’t know why the children were in chains. There might even have been a perfectly good, legitimate reason. But that definitely wasn’t what it seemed like.

Damn it, this looks like slavery.

24

The Taste of Justice

The argument between Boscun and Kaad heated up. With a grimace, the giant rose up to snatch the bag, but Kaad skipped out of reach. He was only ten yards away from me, and I found that I’d drawn my stilettos. It was a strange experience to realize there were unintended knives in my hands, and that I was prepared to use them. I didn’t want to make an irrevocable decision without knowing more about the situation, though.

Kaad danced around the campsite, teasing Boscun with the bag’s contents. He poured something into his hand and pretended to offer—I enchanted my eyes for a closer look—the glossy black flakes to the giant.

Back in my old world, I would’ve guessed it was obsidian, but here I recognized the material as darklight. It was the remnants of broken cores, but somehow treated so the darklight didn’t dissipate.

Boscun gestured at the children. He seemed to want to use the darklight on them. Kaad shook his head, the tone of his voice mocking. They appeared to be at an impasse, but that was a misunderstanding on my part. As time passed, it became clear that Kaad held the advantage. The longer Boscun chased after Kaad, the more blood seeped into his bandages. Eventually, he grew tired and had to sit.

Kaad’s voice took on a more conciliatory tone. He walked toward one of their packs and pulled out a small pouch, which he threw to Boscun.

The giant caught it and listened, a mulish expression on his face. He didn’t look happy and wasn’t afraid to let Kaad know it. Eventually though, he began to nod along, and the two men came to an agreement. Boscun poured a white powder from the pouch into his hand and swallowed it. A few minutes later, he was sound asleep.

Kaad shook his head, like a man forced to work with imperfect tools. He climbed up into the walnut tree to watch over the area. Once Kaad was out of view, though, Boscun opened his eyes and glared up at where Kaad sat in the tree. The giant threw the white powder he’d palmed aside, along with the pouch, before going back to pretend-sleep, his eyes half-lidded. He lay on his side, his back to the fire, to keep an eye on his partner. The children were safe for now.

The uekisheile asked, Question-hunger-satiation? Hunt-hunt-hunt?

Were the children slaves? If so, did I need to kill the slavers in order to free them? Uncertainty-uncertainty-uncertainty, I replied.

I gripped my stilettos, thinking fast. The craziest scenario I came up with was that the children were, in reality, criminals of a race that only looked like children, and that they were being brought to justice by Boscun and Kaad. Except… the kids still had Meliune’s Blessing, which meant they weren’t even Level 1 yet. They’d stopped struggling now that the argument between Boscun and Kaad was done, and sat on the ground, dispirited. No, the simplest and most reasonable explanation was slavery.

I’d wondered about it during the quiet nights by the fire in the Glen: about the unknown realities of this world. How would I respond if there was slavery? Human sacrifice? If I saw a parent beating their children, and it was perfectly within their rights to do so, what would I do?

I hadn’t arrived at any answers then, but I had one now. The sight of the children in chains made it real—I wouldn’t allow a child to be hurt, not if I could help it. If there was an opportunity to intercede, I would. If not, well, I didn’t have an answer for that yet. In this case, though, I had an opportunity.

The uekisheile asked again, Question-hunt-question?

Hmm… there was a way to save the children, but the plan required caution-quiet-stealth.

The uekisheile sprouted tufts on my hands and face to sense what was happening, but I gently asked them to hide-hide-hide when anyone else was around. I wasn’t sure how I’d even begin to explain the colony of intelligent lichen living inside me to people. Maybe it was the kind of thing that happened all the time, but I didn’t think so, and I definitely didn’t want to risk scaring the kids.

I eased back and circled around the campsite. Fortunately, Boscun had thrown the pouch of sleeping powder into the bushes behind him, away from where Kaad sat in the tree. I found it under a fern, the drawstrings still tight. The powder inside was grainy and smelled of ammonia. It wasn’t a strong scent, and I hoped it’d be overpowered by the corn, sage, onion, and game meat in the stew cooking over their campfire.

The fire was to the left of Boscun and a little behind him. He’d have to crane his head around to see anything in that direction, but any sound would instantly give me away. I scanned the ground in between to plan the quietest route, and checked the breeze to make sure he wouldn’t smell me either. Only once I was ready did I gently push through bushes and out into the open.

Step by slow step, I crept toward the fire.

The children were chained to the walnut tree, and they had an unobstructed view of the camp. Their eyes went wide when they saw me approach. I gestured for them to keep quiet, but something about the way they moved caught Boscun’s attention. He looked their way. The children quickly glanced down and huddled together for comfort. Boscun snorted at their antics, then resumed pretending to sleep and surreptitiously watching his partner instead.

My heart beat a thousand times a minute, but I had a firm grip on one with the land.

I dumped the sleeping powder into the stew and carefully gave the pot a stir. Mischief managed, I edged back toward the bushes. The children didn’t say a word; they only snuck peeks in my direction.

Now, I had to wait until the two men ate their meal. Once the sleeping powder took effect, I planned to find the key to the chains and escape with the children. I circled back around the campsite, so that I could keep an eye on both Boscun and Kaad.

After a while, when nothing happened, I entered a light meditative trance, and that helped occupy the time. The uekisheile enjoyed it too.

The sun was almost directly above us when Kaad finally clambered down from the tree. He checked the children’s chains before squatting down by the fire to pour himself a bowl of stew. I thought he might try to wake Boscun to eat, but he didn’t. Kaad let the giant ‘sleep.’ That is, until he went to take a bite of the stew.

Kaad sniffed at the bowl, then looked at Boscun in surprise. The expression passed in an instant, replaced by hardened eyes. Kaad nodded to himself, and muttered something… innocuous, the tone at odds with his body language. He made blowing noises, as if to cool the stew. Meanwhile, he carefully set the bowl down and drew his knife.

Horrified, I almost stood up and yelled that Boscun didn’t do it. My clever solution had turned out to be not so clever, and the only way to stop it from devolving into murder was to expose myself. But I didn’t. I gritted my teeth and let the events play out uninterrupted.

Boscun must’ve sensed something was wrong, because he flipped around, his own knife in hand. Suddenly, they were on each other like dogs rolling on the ground. Their knives flashed without hesitation, and their unfettered will to kill left me stunned.

They grunted and strained against each other, but neither yelled out, even as blood stained the ground under them. The fight only lasted a vicious handful of seconds, but in the end Kaad’s armor made the difference, turning the point of Boscun’s knife away from vital organs.

When Kaad stood up, Boscun stayed down, his torso covered in new stab wounds. Not that Kaad got away scot-free. His left arm hung limp—the brigandine had short sleeves—and blood ran down his neck from a cut above his left eye.

Kaad wiped his eye clear and kicked Boscun’s body. Once. Twice. He spoke angrily to the dead man, and kicked yet a third time. Then, still furious, he knelt to cut into what was left of the big man’s chest. He slid his hand in between the ribs to pull out the core. It was the size of a large marble, glistening with blood and darklight, and flecked with bits of silver.

He stomped back to the campfire, set the core aside, and rummaged in his pack for first-aid supplies. There was a kit that unrolled to reveal bone needles, pouches of medicine, and a stoppered clay bottle. Kaad poured the contents of the bottle onto his shoulder.

If there was a time for me to attack, it was while Kaad was injured and distracted. I was thinking about it when—between one moment and the next—Kaad appeared in front of me, his knife plunging toward me.

I didn’t have time to react, or to say anything or do anything. The knife slid between the links of my armor, through the jacket under it, and into my chest. My breath caught—he’d pierced my left lung.

Kaad grabbed me by the neck to lift me up. His face distorted—at first in anger, but then in surprise when he saw me bleed red. I kicked and struggled, but he was too strong. I couldn’t breathe.

His confusion cleared—I could almost see the gears turning, the dots connecting, as he realized I wasn’t a little plant horror and that I could’ve been the one responsible for putting the sleeping powder in his stew. His face twisted in rage. He’d been crying; there were tears mixed in with the blood around his eyes.

Inside me, the uekesheile’s qi rang in alarm. Their tufts sprouted along my face and arms to defend me. They surprised Kaad, and gave me a moment to recollect the land, to steady my emotions, and to bring focus to my thoughts. The mana rushed through me like a bitter wind, and I Cold Snapped his eyes.

He screamed and let go. Clawing at his eyes, he didn’t see me draw my hunting knife. His brigandine didn’t cover his lower body, so I stabbed him in the crotch. Like a door suddenly slammed shut, he bent over. His neck came within reach and was unprotected, so I cut into his carotid artery. Hot blood, tasting of iron, sprayed my face.

Kaad grabbed at me, but I slid away. Having missed me, he clamped the wound in his neck with his hands to stop the bleeding. I wanted to stab him again, but the world began to spin around me.

Conditions

Bleeding (3), Lethal Wound (*)

I cast Healing Water onto my waterskin and poured the contents inside my shirt, both before and after I pulled the dagger free from my chest.

Conditions

Bleeding (1), Lethal Wound (*)

I took a breath, but coughed up blood. It took the whole of the waterskin’s contents to breathe again and for the lethal wound entry to disappear from my Status. Kaad, in the meantime, stumbled back toward the first-aid kit. I didn’t think it’d help him, but I wasn’t prepared to take the chance. I picked up my spear and went after him.

Even as injured as he was, Kaad was fast. He heard my approach and spun around to knock my spearhead aside. That meant letting go of his neck, though, and blood sprayed out, staining the ground under the walnut tree. He tried to grab the spear, but his vision was still impeded. I continued to harry him and kept him too busy to stop the bleeding.

Eventually, he stumbled, falling to his knees, and he stayed that way until, moments later, he bled out and died.

25

Three Times is Intention

My hands shook as I searched for the key to the children’s chains. I’d just fought for my life and come out of it with two people dead. Two people killed. By me.

“Come on, Ollie,” I muttered. “Keep it together.”

The key turned out to be on a necklace around Kaad’s neck. The children were wary of my approach. I couldn’t blame them—I was covered in blood and probably looked awful.

Billisha was nine or ten years old, with skin the color of tea, hazel eyes, and black hair that had been chopped short. The boy Aluali was about the same age and hid behind her, blank-faced. He was stockier, his face wider and his nose longer. Both looked ready to bolt.

“Biluu kuse pappashi zhileete.” Billisha’s voice was hoarse. She nudged Aluali behind her.

He closed his eyes, and gulped as he let go of Meliune’s Blessing. The fear and anxiety returned to his face, and he said, “Biluu kuse pappashi zhileete.” Once the words were out, though, he went blank-faced again.

Billisha offered her left arm to me. Her hands trembled. I noticed two thin parallel scars across the meat of her forearm. Aluali did the same, but his forearm had seven scars.

“Pappash zhilee ghathe denn.” Billisha paused to take a breath. “Denn denn sei sei.” She searched the ground and found a sharp-ish rock. When I realized she intended to use it to cut her forearm, I grabbed it out of her hand.

I spoke softly, as if calming a wounded animal. “I don’t need you to prove you’re human. I already know you bleed red. Now let me just get these chains off. It’s okay. I promise I won’t hurt you.”

Once the chains were unlocked, I stepped back to give them space. There was a chance they’d run, so I kept up the soothing talk and waved them over to the first-aid kit. The children had abrasions and bruises from the chains, but apparently the injuries didn’t matter. Given permission to move, Billisha rushed to the fire to dig through Boscun’s pack for food. Well, I was hungry too, so I helped myself to some of the venison jerky she found.

What a sight we must’ve been—three children ravenously tearing into jerky beside the corpses of two men. Still, the food helped calm my shakes. The children’s too. They seemed more settled, although still afraid and uncertain. I caught Aluali peeking at me from behind Billisha.

“Ahoth,” Billisha said, and then came a bunch of words that ran together in my ears. The language was flowy, tending toward the softer vowels and consonants. There were exceptions though, and when those hard sounds came, they stood out like pillars.

I spoke a few words in English to show them again that I didn’t speak their language. The way they quirked their heads in confusion reminded me of a certain otter. The children spoke to each other softly, apparently trying to figure me out.

Billisha asked me a question, and frowned when I responded once more in English. Aluali made a suggestion, and she pointed to her neck and then at me. She mimed a collar and chain.

“Ah, no. I’m not an escaped slave.” I could see how she might’ve thought so, with me being on my own in the forest.

Aluali made another suggestion, and she mimed shooting an arrow.

I nodded. “Yes, I’m a hunter.” The children’s eyes went wide in surprise when I retrieved my gear from where it’d been hidden.

Billisha started to ask more questions, but I stopped her. We couldn’t stay here—eventually the bodies would draw scavengers, vultures, and who knew what else.

I left the kids by the fire in order to search the camp for anything that might be useful. The children went quiet as they watched. I felt the same watchfulness inside me, from the uekisheile. Fortunately, the lichen was patient and listened to my request to stay hidden.

Between them, Boscun and Kaad had:

- Two spears, one about seven feet long and the other nine feet.

- Two hunting knives, similar to the one carried by Woldec.

- Two stilettos. They resembled spikes more than knives, likely designed to penetrate the gaps between armor. These were the weapons Boscun and Kaad had used to fight each other.

- A war ax on a three-foot haft.

- A big sword, similar to a zweihander.

- Two sets of brigandine, one of which had a rent in the side.

- Two helmets. One had a half-face that closed to protect the mouth. The other was open, but had a nose guard.

- A warbow six feet long. I wasn’t nearly strong enough to string it, not even after enchanting my muscles with both qi and nature mana. If I had to guess, the draw was probably between 180 and 200 pounds. It was a monster.

- Two dozen arrows. Half of the arrowheads were designed for piercing armor. The other half were meant for unarmored flesh. All the shafts were thick and barreled near the fletching to handle the warbow’s force. They were far too heavy and too long for my bow, unfortunately.

- Miscellaneous camping gear, including blankets, bedrolls, pots, pans, and rope.

- Miscellaneous consumables, including food and the medicines in the first-aid kit. Heaven help me, I almost cried when I found a pouch of salt. There were also dried beans, peas, corn, salted meat, and venison jerky.

- A single small silver coin, which I’d found secreted away in a leather pouch strapped to Kaad’s left armpit. Whether the location had meaning or it was just his special hiding place, I had no idea.

Neither man had candlestones or firestarters. There was also a lack of quality to all their things. The weapons were nicked and pitted. The metal plates in the brigandine were iron instead of steel. The clothes were many-times patched. Even so, I wanted it all. Everything here could be useful.

I stacked what I wanted to bring with me near the children—the blankets, bedrolls, food, first-aid kit, rope, and camping gear. The rest I hid away from the camp. I’d come back to retrieve it later, once I’d cleared the Glen of the bishkawi. The children waited for me, whispering to each other.

Eventually, there was only one thing left to do—take Boscun and Kaad’s cores—but I worried about the children’s reaction. They hadn’t looked surprised when Kaad cut Boscun’s core from his body, so taking one from a dead person shouldn’t be unexpected behavior. I should just collect the cores, and if the children recoil, then I’ll know I stumbled on a taboo.

I drew my hunting knife and made a hand-long incision in Kaad’s chest. The body was still warm. My fingers wriggled around inside until… okay, there it was. I drew the core out, a marble smaller than Boscun’s, which still lay by the fire.

I snuck a peek at the kids, and they watched me intently. After a moment’s hesitation, Billisha knelt. Aluali was slow to follow, so she tugged on his shirt to get his attention. When he saw what she was doing, he quickly knelt down too. They both put their hands over their hearts and bowed their heads. Their actions smelled of ritual, of ceremony.

“Ahoth,” they said together. “Biluu diakashen den wiloo et biliase dendeneise.” Then they waited for me.

I guessed at what came next and cracked the cores. Neither of the kids flinched. If anything, they looked relieved. Ah, so they know there’s a choice between taking the whole core or just the silverlight.

I absorbed Kaad’s silverlight first.

54 silverlight gathered. 49 absorbed.

I thanked the uekisheile for honoring our agreement and not being greedy.

Next, I picked up Boscun’s silverlight from beside the fire. The grains were clumped together, each the size of a pea, and seemed to be slightly denser than any of the others I’d found.

87 silverlight gathered. 79 absorbed.

I hadn’t felt much after Kaad’s silverlight—just a wisp of frustration—but with Boscun’s, there was a feeling of weathering a storm, of being lashed by the elements and pushing ahead, a step at a time. There was hope for something in the distance, as well as a desire to protect something behind.

The feeling made an impression on the uekisheile too. They broke their usual pattern of speech to emphasize each segment of the thought bundle. Rich-bitter. Strong-stubborn. Delicious-not/delicious.

I acknowledged the uekisheile’s observation as the echoes of Boscun’s lonely struggle reverberated through me. Neither of the two men had lived easily or well.

“Rest now,” I said to them. “Lay down your spite and your rage. They will not serve you. Lay down your spite and your rage. They will only weigh you down. A third time I say unto you, lay down your spite and your rage. Let them go and find your way to peace instead.”

I couldn’t remember the words exactly as my grandmother had taught them—just how often does a person have to worry about angry spirits? But they were close enough. The important thing was the repetition of the entreaty. She had always said, “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is intention.”

The children appeared confused by my actions. While breaking the cores had been familiar, they seemed to expect more from me afterward. Likely there are things related to their funeral practices I’m not doing, but I have no idea what they could be. And I’d rather not stick around to find out either.

When I stood up, they hurriedly chanted, “Biluu diakashen den billu wildwae denseise sendwatei.”

Billisha asked, “Dilwei?” She pointed to the fire. “Dilwei?”

“Dilwei,” I said, pointing to the fire.

“De, de,” she said, nodding. “Dilwei.” Then she mimed picking up the fire and placing it on the bodies. “Menesei dwesane te dilwei awrawarua de.”

Do they cremate their dead? That’d make sense in a world where the undead are a thing.

I shook my head and made the gestures Ikfael invented to describe the sun traveling across the sky and for hiking through the woods. I figured we’d use her signs as a common language, since the kids were likely to meet her at some point.

Billisha, startled, said, “De!” She repeated my gestures and then added the ones for ‘hurry’ and ‘question.’

But how did she—

Diaksh increased from 0 to 2.

Signed Diaksh increased from 0 to 2.

Nonverbal Communication increased from 0 to 4.

A notification popped up for three new skills. Diaksh was the name of the language being used, and there was a signed version. No wonder Ikfael’s so good at coming up with signs. This whole time, she’s been using a preexisting language.

Billisha, meanwhile, clearly struggled to remember the signs she’d been taught as she tried to describe what had happened to her and Aluali. Unfortunately, I only recognized a few: hunt, fight, kill, run, transport, and barter. It was enough, though, to learn that their families were gone, and they’d traveled far away from home.

Partway through, she began to cry, which triggered tears from Aluali. In moments, I had two sobbing children. They’d been brave for so long. It was only natural they’d cry once the pressure was off.

I wanted to give them space to grieve, but time was short. I waited as long as I could, but eventually I had to shush them. With a soft voice and gestures, I encouraged them to follow me.

I put the helmets on their heads and asked them to carry the blankets and bedrolls. They sniffled while they waited for me to pack up the rest of the gear I was taking. I also made sure the weapons and armor were well-hidden.

Once we left camp, the children went silent. Someone, somewhere had taught them how to move through the woods. Thankfully, the rest of the trek was short and uneventful.

The view from the top of the escarpment was magnificent. A few billowy clouds lingered in the sky, their shadows slowly sailing across the land below them. The children’s jaws dropped appropriately. That amazement turned into horror when I showed them the narrow path down to the lion’s cave. I understood their fear, but it’d be the safest place for them until the Glen was free of bishkawi.

Billisha said something, which sounded a lot like, “Seriously?”

“Yes, seriously.”

The kids looked at each and gulped. Aluali said something, to which Billisha shrugged. Then she said something, and it was Aluali’s turn to shrug.

Billisha said, “Meliune.” And both children went blank-faced. They turned to me like automatons and waited. All their emotions and all their humanity disappeared with a flip of the blessing’s switch. It was more than a little creepy.

How much practice was needed to be able to do that? Was it because they’d been enslaved, or were all children trained to use Meliune’s Blessing to overcome their fear? I could see how it’d be useful in crisis situations, the equivalent of earthquake drills or shelter-in-place.

I wasn’t willing to risk them walking down the path carrying anything, so I had them put down their burdens. I’d come back to get the stuff myself once they were safely below.

Neither Billisha nor Aluali hesitated in hiking down the narrow path. When they saw the lion’s carcass, however, the children immediately tried to bolt, but I’d enchanted my body in preparation and grabbed them. I dragged them over to the carcass and kicked it. Then, when they saw it was dead, skinned, and gutted, they flopped down on the ground, relieved.

Meliune’s Blessing lifted like a theater curtain. Immediately the children began chatting with each other.

“Oh my god. That was so scary! I thought it was a live chliapp lion, and it was going to eat us.”

“I know, right? Too scary. What’s this crazy boy doing dragging us to places like this, where lions live. Maybe we made a mistake. Maybe we should run away when he’s not looking.”

“Wait, why is it skinned and gutted? You don’t think he did that, do you? He killed a lion and Boscun and Kaad? You don’t think he has a path, do you? That he’s—gulp—Level 1.”

Obviously, the children didn’t say any of those things. Their conversation sure did sound like it, though, and I recognized the names of the slavers, as well as the lion.

I waved a hand to get their attention and told them to wait while I retrieved the gear from the top of the escarpment. It took several trips, but I also used the opportunity to collect firewood. Having a proper ax—even if it wasn’t meant for trees—made it so easy.

I brought enough wood down to last through the night. I also gave each child a knife and an ax, and entrusted the firestarter to Billisha. Her eyes went wide when I put it into her hands.

“I go,” I gestured. “Safe here. Water there. Eat lion. I return at night.”

The kids were scared and confused. I’d saved them, yet now I was leaving. I reassured them of my return, but the skepticism on their faces was obvious. Halfway through my attempted explanation, Aluali invoked Meliune’s Blessing. He sat in the corner to wait, leaving Billisha to deal with me.

Her hands trembled, her signs awkward. “You danger go? Us danger here? When you return? How many hours?” She shook her head. “No. Not go. Danger bad. Safe good.”

“Safe good,” I gestured, “but—” I paused. There wasn’t a sign for ‘friend’ that I knew. I pointed to Aluali and her, bringing the two hands together. Then I pointed to myself and Ikfael’s waterfall, doing my best to communicate that someone close to me was there. “I go make safe.”

To that, Billisha didn’t have a response. She just quietly nodded, and signed, “Yes.” Then she sat next to Aluali and went blank-faced.

“I return,” I signed, but she didn’t respond. The two of them were staring into space. They look like mannequins— The thought cut off when Billisha’s hand snuck over to hold Aluali’s. But maybe… maybe they’ll be okay.

26

A Poisoned Package

About two miles south of the cave the ground sloped, leading to a hillside down, as if the layers of limestone supporting the escarpment had been undermined and collapsed. The angle was gentle enough for me to hike, and I only had to climb in a couple of places. Even then, the spans were short, five or ten feet at the most. From there, I traveled north, passing under the chliapp lion’s cave’s entrance and back in the direction of the Glen.

I traveled through the kalihchi bear’s territory. There were several waterfalls along the way; the streams flowed downhill to the flatland to the east. All that water—the qi danced. The taste was clean-cold-delicious.

It was a good chance to heal and wash up too. I’d been a stinking mess for days now, covered in sticky blood and gore. Anything with a nose would smell me coming from miles away. I’d been fortunate not to have attracted trouble already.

My only other detour was to find the spot where the kalihchi bear had encountered the bashu turkeys. I needed their feathers to fletch more arrows for my guerilla war against the bishkawi. I could’ve scavenged the vanes from Kaad’s arrows, but then they would’ve been ruined as trade goods.

The ground was torn up where the bear had driven the turkeys off. The small bushes and plants were broken and scattered. The trees wore scars—some burns were as straight as lasers, while others twisted like snakes. Traces of lightning lingered on the latter.

For the first time, I felt the uekisheile shiver in fear. The qi’s taste was familiar to them. Danger-threat-hide.

“You know this qi?” I asked

Danger-danger-hide. The uekisheile’s qi swirled in anxiety. Threat-recognized-threat. Danger-home-hide.

“I’m sorry. One more time. You had to hide from a kalihchi bear?”

Recognized-recognized-recognized.

All right. It wasn’t just any bear; it was this one specifically.

The uekisheile’s next bundles were particularly laden with meaning. Visit-home-danger. Eat-eat-food. Stray bits of memory and emotion stuck to them, and I had the impression of the bear visiting the Red Room to eat the eilesheile. Somehow, though, he wasn’t harmed by their parasitism.

“Is the bear a symbiote, like us?”

Food-eilesheile-food. Bear-eat-eat.

Ah, the uekisheile viewed the eilesheile as food, and so did the bear. He had the Iron Belly talent—maybe that was the trick to foiling the eilesheile’s tricks? Wait, if the kalihchi bear knew about the Red Room, then that would explain what had happened to Woldec and Kiertie. There were strong indications of lightning damage on both their bodies, and I’d already seen how the bear was wild for lightning. I mean, there was no way to confirm the theory, but it was a decent supposition. As for Biaka and Akbash, perhaps they fled from the bear and ran into a chliapp lion instead? What bad luck for them all.

I gathered what feathers I could and went north, not breathing easy until I was out of the bear’s territory. As I walked, the landmarks became more familiar. To the east and down the hill was the Meadow of the Evil Death Mushrooms. To the northwest and up the hill was the original entrance to the Red Room’s cave system. And up ahead, near the tall pine, was where I’d first encountered the little plant horrors. The deer thicket was another half mile past that.

I swung wide around. Hopefully, the bishkawi were sticking close to the Glen—licking their wounds after their battle with the monster turkeys—but I wasn’t willing to risk running into them until I was ready.

The waterfall that fed the Glen downstream poured over the side of the escarpment, and as I got closer I smelled mint in the misty air. Licking my lips, I shrugged off the backpack and wiped my hands dry of sweat. After a slow breath to settle my nerves, I picked up my spear and crept closer. The scent led me away from the waterfall’s pool, downstream to an area thick with trees. Vines with familiar-looking pink flowers hung from the branches.

I ducked down amid the greenery and checked them out with my Status camera.

Chishiaxpe (Plant)

Talents: Pretty Poison

Chishiaxpe (Plant)

Talents: Flowery, Quick

Chishiaxpe (Plant)

Talents: Minty

Chishiaxpe (Plant)

Talents: Vicious Toxicity

This last one inhabited a willow growing directly next to the water, and there was a buffer of unoccupied trees around it. If I approached the vine from the water side, none of the other chishiaxpe would be in a position to interfere or interrupt.

I watched the area for twenty minutes, just in case there were other dangers hidden near the trees, but when none appeared, I moved upstream to wade into the water. The flow tugged on my legs, and the mist clung to me. The waterfall’s roar overwhelmed all the sounds around me.

When I reached the willow, I scanned along the chishiaxpe’s length for the stinging bit, but the branches obscured my view. Well, it’s not like I don’t know what will happen. These things like to drop down behind their prey.

I waded toward the tree and up onto the stream’s bank. A flutter of nervousness ran through my belly as I stood under the willow’s canopy. Any moment now the chishiaxpe would—

The vine dropped from the branch behind me. I swung my spear around, the haft sweeping parallel to the ground. I’d learned my lesson from before—trying to stab a swaying vine was much too difficult. Instead, I struck as if I was holding a staff.

I caught enough of the vine on the spear’s haft that I was able to shove it to the ground and drag the spearhead across its trapped body, like I’d done with the parasitic worms. The smell of mint burst into the air as a three-foot-long section of the chishiaxpe was cut away. The vine darted back toward the willow, its length wrapping around the trunk to retreat up into the branches. The leaves of other trees rustled, as the other chishiaxpe followed suit.

My breathing was fast, but steady. I kept my eyes on the branches. On the ground. On the water. The only movement was the wriggling of the section of vine I’d cut away, and even that stilled after a few moments.

I placed my open pouch on the ground and used the spear to lift the cut vine into it. Holding it at arm’s length, I waded back into the water to return the way I’d come.

I found a spot well away from the waterfall to dissect the chishiaxpe. Ideally, I’d want gloves and goggles for something like this, but since I didn’t have them, all I could do was be careful. Using the sharpest of my knives, I made an incision along the length of the vine, starting at the end farthest from the circle of stingers and slowly opening up the interior as I went.

The uekisheile came out to eat. Their only comment was that the vine’s qi was bitter-food-bitter.

5 silverlight gathered. 4 absorbed.

The core had been buried in the vine’s strange biology. All the organs were fibrous instead of meaty, and the most complicated part was near the mouth. There was space for the stingers to retract, which they apparently did once the prey was dead. That made room for a small mouth to open and eat.

Thin tubes connected the stingers to a nodule tucked under the other organs. There was a sheath around the nodule to protect it and—I squeezed—yes, out came venom. A drop of clear liquid oozed from the stingers’ tips.

Not hurrying—most definitely not hurrying—I gathered the venom into the empty medicine bottle I’d found in Kaad’s first-aid kit. It didn’t matter how precious the poison was, it wasn’t more precious than my life.

By the time I was done, there were two thimblefuls of poison in the bottle. I shook my head—that wouldn’t be enough. Not for a whole troop of bishkawi. Hiding the bottle in a safe place, I went back for more chishiaxpe.

It didn’t matter if they were pretty, flowery, or minty, I hunted any of the vines I found in isolated positions. It was like looking at a game board and puzzling out how to remove the pieces, one at a time, so that I could maximize the number of isolated vines.

The process wasn’t that hard, really, not once I knew how the chishiaxpe acted and reacted around prey. The only hassle was waiting for them to come back down from their trees after one of their neighbors was killed. The sun steadily traveled across the sky as I killed five different chishiaxpe.

I was in danger only once, and that was during the sixth encounter when the vine ducked under my sweep and jabbed at me right after. Fortunately, I flipped the spear around in time to knock it away. Then I immediately retreated back to the stream. The poison bottle was only half full, but there was no need to press my luck. Besides, I wanted to leave enough daylight to scout the Glen and hike back to the children I left behind.

It was okay to stop, and as I walked away, I reflected on how the last chishiaxpe would serve as a good reminder to never get complacent, even when things started to become routine.

Half an hour later, I hid among the bushes crowding the top of the Glen’s waterfall. A bishkawi sat among an oak tree’s limbs and kept watch on the surroundings. He was an ordinary-enough fellow, nothing special compared to the others in his troop.

Bishkawi (Animal)

Talents: Selfish

There didn’t seem to be any other bishkawi nearby, just the lone scout.

As I watched him scratch his ass, I wondered if a blowgun might be better than a bow. An arrow was such an obvious attack, but a dart could be mistaken for an insect bite.

The idea was tempting, but I put it aside for the moment. One, I didn’t know how to make or effectively use a blowgun. And two, I wasn’t sure how well a dart would penetrate the bishkawi’s fur. Wait, I was such a dunce—there was another obvious way to poison pests. I eased back from my hiding place to go get some jerky from my pack.

Using a stick, I applied some of the chishiaxpe poison to a strip of jerky. It added a bitter tone to the otherwise meaty smell, so I made a cut on my forearm and dropped some blood on the jerky to mask it. Then I wrapped the whole thing in a frond leaf.

After sneaking back, I scanned the area to make sure none of the other bishkawi had joined the scout while I was away, but the coast was clear. I threw the poison package at the base of the oak tree.

The sound of it hitting was loud enough to catch the bishkawi’s attention. He climbed down the trunk with ease, his head swiveling around to scan the area. I ducked down and rooted myself into one with the land.

The bishkawi picked up the package. He didn’t pay attention to it at first. Instead, he walked around to check if there was anything dangerous nearby. Only when the situation seemed safe did he take a closer look. He sniffed the package, then tore away the frond to reveal the jerky inside.

The selfish bishkawi took another look around, checking over his shoulder to ensure there wasn’t anyone with whom he had to share the meat. Then he hurriedly climbed the trunk, where I lost view of him. A few minutes later, he fell out of the tree with a thump.

I waited another several minutes, but nothing else came out of the trees. Sneaking closer, I found him with his eyes open in terror. His breath came in quick, short gasps, and his jaw was locked tight.

This must’ve been what I’d looked like when I was stung by the chishiaxpe. Unfortunately for this bishkawi, I wasn’t an otter come to rescue him. No, I was his death. I stabbed him in the heart and pulled out his core.

11 silverlight gathered. 10 absorbed.

The uekisheile didn’t even bother to comment. They ate the qi and quickly disappeared back inside me. Apparently, they’d gotten used to me hunting and were now much more interested in tinkering with my qi, looking for ways to further condense it. Not that I minded—it gave the uekisheile something to do, and I was looking forward to the results.

I said a few words over the bishkawi’s body, then snuck toward the edge of the cliff overlooking the Glen.

The scene was a mess, just a bloody mess. Literally. Turkey and bishkawi carcasses were strewn about like the litter after Mardi Gras. I smelled the blood, decay, and defecation from forty feet up. What was left of the bodies was steadily being consumed by those left alive.

I counted four bishkawi carcasses among the dead, and seven alive. There’d be another three hidden in the trees around the Glen, assuming the one I’d just killed wasn’t the only sentry. So, ten regular bishkawi in total.

The alpha was alive too, although the fur along his left shoulder had burned away to leave a bright-red, puckered wound. It stretched from the top of his chest, across the shoulder, and up onto the bottom half of the back of his skull.

The alpha chuffed and snarled as he paced back and forth along the pool’s edge. He dove in, but the other bishkawi barely glanced up.

I thought the alpha was cooling the wound, but instead he swam down to the bottom of the pool. He slammed at the stone with his right hand, at the area with the spirit doorway. He pounded at it like he wanted to break it down.

A burst of bubbles broke the surface when the alpha howled, which wasn’t exactly a good idea underwater. Out of air, he swam for the surface and pulled himself out of the pool to resume his pacing.

Nothing else happened for the next half an hour. My main observations were:

- There was no sign of Ikfael. Given the alpha’s behavior, I felt safe in assuming she was still with Diriktot.

- The alpha badly wanted to get through the spirit door.

- About half the bishkawi were injured, including the alpha.

- The bishkawi practiced cannibalism, eating from all the carcasses.

- There was enough meat in the Glen—rotting though it may be—to feed the troop for another day or two at least.

Also, while I couldn’t be sure, I strongly suspected that the cores of all the dead animals had gone to the alpha. There was just something about him—he felt stronger, even though he was wounded.

I’d seen enough. I eased away from the cliff’s edge, then started hiking back to the lion’s cave.

27

Preparation

I stuck around the Glen longer than I should’ve, and the sun was dipping below the horizon by the time I’d reached the hillside leading up to the top of the escarpment. There was enough light to get most of the way up, but I needed the candlestone at the end. The stone hung from my neck, wrapped in cloth so only a small beam shone on the ground ahead of me.

The woods at the top were eerily quiet, and every rustle and crackle had me wondering if a predator was nearby. The uekisheile had noticed the tension, and sprouted around my face to help sniff for any qi that might threaten us.

The two of us found an old hollow cedar to hide in for about an hour while I rested. My preference was to keep going, but my eight-year-old body was exhausted from everything that had happened since the bishkawi invaded the Glen.

The rest was welcome, but by the time we got back to the path leading down to the cave, night had fully descended. It didn’t help that the path was easy to miss, and we’d had to double back for it.

My heart sank when I saw the cave’s entrance was dark, and I hurried down. Don’t the kids know how to use a firestarter? Have they been trapped inside Meliune’s Blessing this whole time?

I rounded the corner and found the cave empty. Farther in, light glimmered against the limestone walls. The children had moved the chliapp lion’s body deeper into the cave and started a campfire out of view of the entrance. It occurred to me that if they’d started the fire where I’d told them to, the entrance would’ve been lit up like a beacon for miles around.

I shook my head, grateful that the kids had more sense than I did. The uekisheile’s tufts tickled when they mimicked the movement. With a wry grin, I asked them to hide again.

Game-play-game?

Patience-patience-patience, I said to them. We’d play once the kids were settled for the night.

I found Billisha and Aluali guarding the small fire. The children were as blank-faced as before, but each had their ax ready. Billisha faced the cave’s interior, while Aluali watched the entrance.

With a shudder, Aluali let go of Meliune’s Blessing long enough to say, “Biluu kuse pappashi zhileete.”

Billisha turned around, her ax still at the ready. “Biluu kuse pappashi zhileete.”

They’d said the same words before, back when they were still in chains. That was also when Billisha had offered to cut her arm to show me her blood. Now, the children watched me carefully, expectant.

“Biluu kuse pappashi zhileete,” I said.

Only then, once I’d proven I wasn’t a little plant horror disguised as a boy, did they sag with relief. Billisha ran at me and grabbed my shoulders to swing me around and check for injuries, while Aluali went to the fire to get me a bowl of porridge.

“Friend safe?” Billisha used the signed version of Diaksh, but spoke along with the gestures. “Where friend?”

“Friend safe. Friend—” I did my best to repeat the words so that I could learn them. I didn’t have a sign for ‘trapped,’ though, so I improvised one.

Billisha frowned. “Person trapped friend?”

I took note of the new word and shook my head. “Not person. Bishkawi.”

“Bishkawi! How they trap friend?”

Well, now wasn’t that an interesting challenge for pantomime? I pointed to the cave around us, and then to the room’s exit. Then I mimed closing a door and holding my shoulder against it. Billisha seemed to understand the meaning.

“Today,” I signed, “I see bishkawi. Tomorrow, I hunt them.”

The children glanced worriedly at each other. She said a word that sounded a lot like an affirmative, “Okay,” but her tone was resigned, unhappy with my decision.

Aluali handed me a wooden bowl. The porridge was made from corn, onions, beans, and salted venison. One bite, and I could almost feel my body sucking in the salt. It was so good—the children watched as I devoured what was in my bowl and poured myself a second and third helping.

Only once I started to slow did Billisha wave her hand to get my attention. She gestured to herself. “Billisha.” Then to Aluali. “Aluali.”

“Eight,” I said, gesturing to myself.

The children quirked their heads. “Eaate?” The word was clearly unfamiliar.

I counted aloud on my fingers. “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Eight.”

The children frowned and muttered to each other. Shrugging ensued, and more discussion.

I polished off a fourth bowl of porridge and leaned back with a sigh. Finally full, I realized just how bone tired I was. According to my Status clock, it was almost eleven.

I had a half-formed plan in my mind to poison the bishkawi food supply, but for the plan to work I’d have to be in and out of their camp well before dawn. That’d give me only a couple of hours of rest. Reluctantly, I shelved the plan. I’d either wait until the following night, or come up with something better in the meantime.

The children had gone quiet. I looked up to find them both watching me.

“Eight,” Billisha said. She raised her hands and counted aloud on her fingers. “Hawda, diilka, daawsi, shootha, giash, akra, sablu, dupre, hewei, pilak.”

“Huh. Then, with my powers, does that make me Super Dupre?”

The dad joke was lost on the kids. They just looked confused, and Billisha started to count again.

“No, no. I got it,” I said. “Hawda, diilka, daawsi, shootha, giash—um—akra, sabu, dupre, hawa, pika.”

Billisha shook her head. “Sablu, dupre, hewei, pilak.”

“Oh, right. Sablu, dupre, hewei, pilak.”

“De! De!” Billisha smiled. She pointed to the fire. “Di—”

“Dilwei,” I said.

She looked confused by me knowing the word for ‘fire’ already, but she’d used it when asking about cremating the slavers’ bodies. I gently reminded her. “Boscun, Kaad.”

The enthusiasm that’d been on her face drained away. Honestly, the men’s deaths were a drag on me as well, but I hated seeing the children shrink into themselves. Ideally, they’d have psychological counseling and therapy to help them heal, but there was only me here. And I couldn’t even talk to them. Not yet, anyway.

I waved a hand to get her attention and took off my shoe. Then I pointed at my foot and waited for her to tell me the word.

Billisha bit her lower lip, trapped by whatever was going through her head. It was Aluali who responded. He tugged on her shirt and said, “Itbu.”

She looked back at him, nodded, and said, “Itbu.” She pointed to my foot and repeated the word.

Aluali began to sing, the kind of song you’d use to teach a small child. It started with: “Itbu sadt. Itbu dellei. Itbu sadt. Dolanei kei.” And it kept going from there.

After the first couple of words, Billisha sang along with him. Then she turned to me—there were still shadows in her eyes—in both their eyes—but the song didn’t stop. She pointed to the different parts of the body as she sang.

When the song came to an end, they started it again from the beginning. I got to memorizing.

The next day, I didn’t wake up until almost noon. Before going to sleep, the children had insisted on trading watches during the night, but then never woke me for mine. They looked smug about it too, really pleased with themselves.

While eating a bowl of leftover porridge, I looked over the chliapp lion’s carcass. In addition to the watches, the children had apparently tag-teamed in taking it apart. There were sections where they’d clearly struggled, but otherwise the skeleton was picked clean; the meat was stored in the coldest part of the cave. There was new wood stacked against the wall too. What busy little beavers they were. Billisha noticed me admiring their handiwork and puffed up, proud.

“Good,” I said in Diaksh.

She snickered. “Yes. Good.”

I was sure both children were still haunted by their experiences—how could they not be—but feeling useful was bound to help, as would the sense of control over their own lives. To that end, I gave them the task of making sinew from the chliapp lion’s tendons. In the jumble of recent events, I’d forgotten to prepare some, and I’d need it for new arrows.

While the children huddled and discussed the work, I checked in with the uekisheile. I needn’t have worried about them though—they were still singing the song from last night.

Foot-knee-hip. Tail-spine-heart. Shoulder-elbow-hand. Head-circle. Head-up. Foot circle. Foot-down. Spin-spin-spin.

While the children had sung the previous night, the uekisheile had sprouted tufts on the backs of my ears to investigate the interesting qi vibrations. Later, when I lay down to sleep, they’d asked me about it, and it took an hour to explain the concept of language—of using sound and symbols to communicate. And then, of course, they had to sing the song too. Heaven forbid anyone should feel left out.

The uekisheile couldn’t see the parts of the body, but they could recognize the qi structures within each. All I needed to do was point to them and associate them with the right vibrations. It was about three in the morning when I’d finally been able to doze off last night.

With everyone busy, I left the cave to search for materials.

The new bishkawi scouts above the Glen were too well hidden for me to spot from the top of the escarpment, even with my eyes enchanted. I assumed they were there though—maybe even the one with Hidden Strength. She’d been the bait for their trap before. Well, I’d have my own traps soon enough.

On my shopping list were:

- Flint
- Straight branches for arrows
- Stout branches for stakes
- Pine pitch
- Chishiaxpe poison
- Breakfast for the uekisheile

They weren’t exactly hungry, but if the uekisheile could store qi long term, then I’d make it happen. Otherwise, things might get complicated if they needed to eat while people were around.

My plan was to feed them any qi left over in Boscun and Kaad’s bodies, just like they’d done with the chliapp lion. Alas, when I got there, hardly anything was left of the corpses. The internal organs were gone, and the bones were broken for the marrow inside. Even the flesh of their faces had been torn away and eaten. The uekisheile found some remnant qi in their skeletons, but that was all.

“I’m sorry, little buddy. I’ll do better next time.”

I checked to make sure the gear I’d hidden was still there, but didn’t linger. Just because their eye sockets were empty didn’t mean that Boscun and Kaad weren’t watching me. I felt a faint, hard-to-describe pressure. Maybe it was my imagination, but I didn’t think so. It reminded me of the atmosphere inside my grandmother’s workshop.

Yeah, I got out of the area quickly and focused on solid, tangible things, like cutting and stripping branches. With proper tools, the work was easy. It took only an hour to fill my backpack. On my way back to the cave, I stopped by the blueberry bush to fill a pouch with berries for the kids.

The smell of grilling meat welcomed me. Aluali watched over a series of thin lion strips sprinkled with salt. They charred nicely, and were utterly delicious. The fat practically melted in my mouth.

The kids loved the blueberries for dessert. They explained that in Diaksh they were called piliashte, but I knew that from the Status camera. It was nice to learn the correct pronunciation, though. Pretty soon, I’d be able to guess my way through the other words I was learning through the camera.

After lunch, I checked on the drying sinew, and didn’t notice any mistakes. I asked Billisha and Aluali if they were willing to sharpen the stakes for me. There wasn’t anything else for them to do, so they readily agreed.

I headed out to collect the flint, pine pitch, and more chishiaxpe poison.

The boundaries of the chishiaxpe’s territory seemed to have shifted. Some were in different trees than before, and I had to familiarize myself with the new layout. Once I knew where all the vines were, though, I got to work picking off the stragglers.

I kept one eye on my prey, one eye on the trees, one eye behind me, and one eye downstream. Kind of. It was a lot to keep track of, but the uekisheile helped. They were able to sense qi up to twenty yards away, depending on the number of tufts exposed to the air.

Once my bottle was full of poison, I moved downstream, just close enough for enchanted eyes to spot a familiar, smallish-sized bishkawi ambling around the area above Ikfael’s waterfall. If this was anything like last time, the rest of the bishkawi were hidden in the trees around her.

I was tempted—sorely tempted—to sneak into the Glen then and there to poison what was left of their food. What stopped me was the alpha—I had no clue as to his whereabouts.

Yeah, no. Let’s go back to the cave, have some dinner, and make some arrows. Then later, once I’m properly ready, I’ll come back to take care of the bishkawi.

Dinner was more corn porridge, and the entertainment afterward was making arrows while singing vocabulary songs. Even the uekisheile joined in, if surreptitiously. They bounced along with the rhythms and mimicked the sounds’ vibrations.

Each song was paired with a dance. For example, when the children sang about corn, their gestures were reminiscent of picking cobs from a stalk and placing them in a basket on their back. When they sang about mowing hay in the summer, they bent over and scythed the air. I enjoyed the performance, especially once the arrows were done and put away and I could devote my full attention to it.

In a few hours, I would leave the cave with the intent to kill. The children and I both knew it, but they sang anyway and pulled me into dancing along with them. We were strangely protected, warmed by the fire and surrounded by a pocket of stone. There were horrors outside, and tragedy too, but the singing and dancing kept them at bay, at least for a little while.

I’d forgotten how strong children were—how they could play for hours. I stopped dancing in order to conserve my strength for the raid later, but Billisha and Aluali kept going and going, like they were possessed. Like if they kept dancing, they’d never have to remember what had happened to them and their families.

Our little cave burned with the light of their spirit that night. Eventually, though, when darkness fully descended on the valley outside, I rose.

It was time.

28

A Midnight Raid

A sliver of moonlight shone in the sky, but it was enough for eyes enchanted with qi and nature mana to see me safely up the narrow ledge to the escarpment. Enchanted muscles helped me carry a full load of sharpened stakes on my back. At the top, though, I let the enchantments lapse. For the rest of the trip, I needed to be mindful of how I spent my resources.

Oof. The weight of the stakes immediately pressed down on me.

Adjusting the backpack’s straps, I lit the candlestone and hiked south toward the hillside leading down from the escarpment. Now that we were well out of view of the children, the uekisheile sprouted along the exposed parts of my skin. I imagined it was what fur felt like.

What a sight we must’ve been—a fuchsia-furred, semi-werewolf child hiking in the night with a spear in hand and a backpack full of sharpened wooden stakes. I grinned. If there are any vampires about, they’d best look out.

Question-fuchsia-question.

Color-hot-lively, I explained. Mysterious-deep-flower.

Question-vampire-question.

I laughed—not loud, but enough for something small and furry to skitter away. Complicated-complicated. Hunger-blood-eat.

Blood-eat? Not-tasty-food. Qi-tasty.

“Huh.” It occurred to me that—between the uekisheile and me—we ate creatures’ qi and silverlight. Maybe I was the vampire in my imagined scenario and not the werewolf? Or a werewolf-vampire hybrid? The lone orphaned offspring of an ill-fated Romeo-and-Juliet romance set against the backdrop of a hidden war between supernatural factions.

“I’d pay ten dollars to see that.”

Question-dollars-question.

That one took a while to answer, long enough for us to hike down to the ground below the escarpment and beyond.

An eerie quiet pervaded the deer thicket. Well, that described the whole forest at night, but because the thicket was nestled between hills, there wasn’t a breath of wind. Everything was still. The cricks and cracks of my steps sounded overly loud. When I became one with the land, though, the quiet became familiar, a cool blanket on a warm night. I felt the night breathing, and the wind whispering in the treetops.

After some searching, I found familiar landmarks. Trees that I had passed. Dips that I’d jumped across. Rocks clambered over. Then I started planting stakes where the bishkawi were most likely to step. Three here. Four there. I didn’t have an unlimited supply—just twenty-four—so I made educated guesses about their placement and number. Oh, and each stake had been thoroughly basted with chishiaxpe venom.

I checked the Status clock: it was a little after two in the morning. And all my magical resources felt mostly full thanks to the uekisheile.

I hid my backpack and headed for the area above the Glen. Were the bishkawi still in hiding waiting to ambush the creature who’d killed their scout—in other words, me—or had they given up and gone back to their camp? The answer to that question would determine the next phase of my plan.

Covering the candlestone, I burned qi to see my way up the hill toward the stream. I stopped halfway to stare into the shadows of the tree line. To listen intently. To sniff at the air. The uekisheile’s tufts waved as they too sensed for danger.

The dark covered us, and so did the sounds of the stream and the falls farther away. We continued on and made it to the bank’s edge uninterrupted. Not a single bishkawi was in sight.

I subsumed myself deeper into the land.

Ahead, the water was dark and mysterious. Nearby, the little animals hid and slept, or they slipped between roots to search for food. Open as the sky, timid as a field mouse, canny as a crow—I moved downstream.

The uekiesheile tugged on my attention to direct it toward the branches of an oak tree. Hidden among the leaves was a source of qi larger than the small animals and insects otherwise around us.

I’d prepared a couple of poison care packages for situations like this. I tossed one out, and it hit the oak tree’s trunk with a thap.

I assumed it was another bishkawi scout hiding up there, but whatever it was, it didn’t react. The leaves didn’t rustle. The branch didn’t sway. There was no movement at all. Sneaking closer, I heard the faint sound of soft snoring.

Hmm, the trunk shouldn’t be too hard to climb, but—No, I couldn’t guarantee the branch staying still if I stepped out onto it. I ruled out a melee Anesthetic-based attack as too dangerous. Instead, I found a small rock and tossed it against the tree’s trunk. Thunk.

With a snort, the creature woke up. A bishkawi head poked out to scan the area, and when they didn’t see anything approaching, they climbed down to investigate the package. After a sniff, they tore it open to eat the poisoned jerky inside.

A minute later, I pulled the core from their dead body.

9 silverlight gathered. 8 absorbed.

After a short prayer, I continued on to the cliff overlooking the Glen. Depending on what I found below, my plan would branch in one of two directions: I’d either sneak into the Glen to poison their food, or attack from a distance and fade away, harassing the bishkawi over time.

I counted six sleeping forms around the pool. There were probably another three scouts hidden in the trees. But I didn’t see the alpha. Was he in the cave? Or away wandering?

I had ten arrows—two with orange fletching—in a quiver I’d made from tree bark and Boscun’s torn shirt. I set them beside me and applied chishiaxpe venom onto their tips.

I took a slow breath and loosened my shoulders. I’d only have a minute to send the arrows downrange once they were enchanted, so I planned my shots and rehearsed the movements. I went over the route in my head for when the bishkawi were awake and angry. My heart beat hard under the calm of at one with the land.

Joy-hunt-eat.

I nodded. I’d always loved hunting—the companionship, the challenge, the being outside, and the opportunity to help feed my family. Though the stakes were higher now, it was still a thrill. Yes-joy-hunt.

The feeling echoed between us. It mixed with my fear and clung to the land; the emotions rustled like leaves, while the roots and trunk held steady.

Mana’s full, but qi feels like a three-quarter tank… about twenty-one points’ worth. Let’s save the mana for spells but qi-enchant the eyes, the bow, and the arrows. A minute’s worth should be about five points of qi. Yes, that feels right.

“Let’s do this.”

My first target was closest to the cave—the surest shot. I tightened my belly muscles and dropped my shoulders, the bow held lightly in my left hand. Drawing the bow required work without effort: engagement of the muscles while still being at ease. The process was one of the most Taoist practices I knew.

I drew, the arrow anchoring at the back of my jaw. It held there for only a heartbeat before I loosed it at the sleeping bishkawi. The bowstring twanged, but I assumed the sound would be lost in the rush of water over the falls.

I held the stance to keep from disturbing the bow. Only once the arrow was fully launched did I reach down for the second arrow. In my peripheral vision, the bishkawi jumped after being hit.

I nocked the new arrow, and found my second target—she was just starting to move. I drew and released.

Targeting from closest to farthest, I shot two more arrows before all the bishkawi were awake. They stumbled upright to search for whatever was disturbing their troopmates. The alpha burst through the waterfall to land among them. He threw his arms into the air and howled. The three bishkawi scouts rushed in from the woods. Along with the two still standing, they echoed his lead, howling and chattering together. The sound raised the hairs along the back of my neck, and it took two precious seconds for me to steady my hands and resume.

The troop stopped howling after two more bishkawi were hit by arrows. All the downed bishkawi lay on the ground bleeding and poisoned. Enraged, those still able to dashed into the trees to search for their assailant—all except for the alpha, who remained behind. He paced, snorting and huffing, back and forth along the pool’s edge.

Four arrows were left. The first one hit him in the back, between the left shoulder and the spine. He spun around to face his invisible attacker, and the second arrow caught him in the meat of his right arm. The alpha looked up to where I was hidden.

Maybe I could’ve gotten another shot off, maybe not. There was only a split second to decide, and I chose to run. I grabbed the last two arrows—the orange ones—and sprinted for the thicket.

My heart pumping from the adrenaline, I flew down the hillside. Branches scraped my skin and caught on my clothes. Roots and rocks tried to trip my feet. I was at one with the land, but the land was not so easily won.

My breath came fast and hard. Behind me, the alpha howled. I was screened by the hill and the forest, though, so he only knew my general direction.

At the thicket’s edge, I stopped to get my bearings. Hunting around, I found the path I needed and hid myself away. I focused on controlling my breathing; I shrank my presence until I was just another small heartbeat among many others.

At this point, the uekisheile was in full bloom searching the area around me for danger. My bow was nocked and ready. I created a ball of mana and moved it into the thicket where some of the poisoned stakes were. In my mind’s eye, I readied the spirit rune.

The hillside trembled with the alpha’s landing. I drew and released, but he wasn’t steady and stumbled a bit on his step. The arrow grazed his torso and flew past. The alpha regained his balance, but before he could search for the source of the arrow, I applied the spirit rune to the mana ball I’d created.

The alpha froze. His head swung left and right, this time to sense for the spirit mana that had suddenly appeared. He leapt into the thicket to chase after it. Moments later, the remaining bishkawi arrived and followed him in.

I ran in parallel, sprinting alongside and just managing to keep the spirit ball ahead of the alpha, following the path of the poisoned stakes I’d planted. My control slipped, and I was forced to slow down to focus my attention on it. I sped up once I regained control, but then ran straight into a tree. The ball nearly blinked out of existence from the surprise and sudden sharp pain. I gritted my teeth, wiped the blood from my nose, and kept running.

The bishkawi howls quieted, one voice after another, until all that was left was the crack of branches as the alpha crashed his way through the thicket. Eventually, that sound disappeared too.

I approached where I’d last heard the alpha and found him still upright, breathing raggedly. His shoulders trembled with the effort to take another step toward where the spirit ball hovered in the distance. I slowly put down my spear to nock the last arrow onto my bow. After a steadying breath, I drew the bow, nice and easy.

Ignore the throbbing from the nose. A bit of qi for the arrow. Where might a baboon’s kidneys be? The lower back? There’s no rush; it’s just another day at the range. Steady, steady, steady—

I released, and the arrow hit the alpha in the lower back. He spun in response, but lost his balance, falling.

The alpha growled. Even though he was shot full of venom, he was still fierce. The rage in his eyes never dimmed, and he forced himself up and toward me, one unsteady step at a time. Spear back in hand, I withdrew, but he followed.

While I outpaced him, nothing seemed to stop the alpha. Step by step, he came on.

I realized the arrows might not be enough to finish him, so I ran ahead to put some distance between us and apply venom to the spearhead. The bottle nearly dropped from my hand when I felt a sudden flare of qi from the alpha’s direction. There were trees in the way, so I couldn’t see what was happening, but it felt like there was a giant heart beating, the pulses rippling out and across my senses.

Strong-violent-qi. Threat-qi-threat.

I didn’t need the uekisheile’s warning. All the alarm bells in my head were ringing. I ran back toward the alpha and found him locked into position, the muscles under his fur wriggling like worms. His bloodshot eyes glared at me, but otherwise he didn’t—he couldn’t—move.

Whatever was happening, it didn’t bode well for me. I gripped my spear, circled around to his blindside, and charged. It was like hitting a heavy bag full of sand.

The spearhead was six inches long, but only two of them penetrated into the alpha’s back. It was enough to get the poison under his skin, though. I backed off and charged at him twice more, the running start necessary to punch through the thickened muscles.

After my third charge, the alpha’s arm swung in a clumsy swipe. His hand passed over my head like a freight train, slow but heavy. I ducked and fell back, scrambling to get outside his reach.

As soon as I recovered enough to hold the spear, I charged again. The alpha swung with another blow. I stabbed his chest and withdrew before he could respond.

The alpha was like an old, creaky windmill, the panes inexorably turning—swing, swing, swing. In between each, I stabbed him: sometimes in the chest, sometimes nicking his arms, and sometimes puncturing his belly. Blood leaked across his torso. Sporadic shivers ran through him, but he didn’t stop swinging.

Then he took a step. The motion caught me mid-stab—the spearhead inside his body. He aimed for the spear’s haft, and his strike splintered it. I was left with a three-foot length of wood. The rest of the spear was still stuck in his chest. The alpha bared his teeth.

I ran. It didn’t make sense to keep attacking. There were no more arrows, and the only weapons I had left were the knives. There was no way I was willing to get close enough to use them. Plus, the raid was already a success—the rest of the troop was likely either dead or dying from poison. All except for the alpha, and he may still keel over yet, depending on what’s happening with his qi.

I hoped it wasn’t some kind of evolution into a more powerful form being triggered, but even then, I’d find a way to adapt. Harassing one was a lot easier than harassing many. I’d just keep on with the guerilla tactics until I either killed the alpha or drove him off. So, I left him there, his breath heaving, his rage palpable.

I ran back to finish off the bishkawi that still might be alive. I found three in the thicket; one had a stake through the hand, while the other two were both pierced through a foot. In all three cases, they’d landed on the stakes hard enough for the point to pass completely through.

The one stuck through the hand was still alive, his muscles rigid, and he glared at me with immense hatred in his eyes. I stabbed him through the neck with a knife to put him out of his misery and pocketed his core afterward. As for the other two, I saw that something had already dug their way into the bodies to steal their cores.

I used more qi on my eyes, but didn’t see anything moving in the area. The fight with the alpha had only taken a few minutes, so whoever or whatever the core thief was, they were probably still close by.

Watch-threat-watch, I said.

When the uekisheile acknowledged my request, I sprinted for the Glen. There, I found half of the bishkawi still alive, so I finished them off one by one by slitting their throats. Then I said a few words over their bodies and pocketed their cores. The bishkawi who’d died of the poison before I arrived still had theirs, so I took them as well.

Inside the cave, the refrigerator had been smashed apart, the stones strewn across the floor. I quickly searched through them and found the unideer’s antler mostly unharmed. There were bite marks along one side, but they hadn’t damaged the antler.

The frond I’d used as a wallet was still intact, but everything else was smashed or ripped to pieces—the tools, the deer skin, everything. Even the pot helm was caved in. All that work, all that effort, was wasted.

Place-qi-delicious, the uekisheile said. Good-place-good.

My frustration turned into resolve. Yes-good-place. We-fix-Glen.

The uekisheile tufts patted me on the cheek. Calm-qi more-delicious spicy-qi.

I snorted. “I’ll take your word for it.” There were so many dead bishkawi around. It’d be a shame if the qi remaining in them went to waste. Question-uekisheile-eat poison-get-sick?

The uekisheile managed the qi equivalent of a shrug. Uekisheile-qi-body no-poison no-sick.

In the many, many day-night cycles they’d experienced, the uekisheile had never once become sick or poisoned while in either their qi or physical forms.

I walked them over to the nearest body. “Then I guess it’s dinner time.”

We-pay 10-dollars.

I was back in the thicket, sneaking toward where I’d left the alpha. I needed to confirm his condition before I went back to the kids. Was he evolving, or was he dying?

Faint waves of qi brushed past me, weaker than before. I eased into the bushes behind the alpha and saw that he was wheezing, his rage fading. I made myself comfortable and waited. When nothing happened after ten minutes, the uekisheile and I practiced open-eyed meditation.

Over the next hour, the alpha’s qi thinned. The pulses came minutes apart, the fire inside him guttering. Finally, there was a stutter, one last flare of rage against the dying of the light, and then he was gone, with just me, the ueikisheile, and the dark forest to witness it.

After twenty minutes, he hadn’t moved and nothing else had come out of the woods. I stood up, dusted myself off, and approached the giant. Even dead, he towered over me, and I had to shove him onto his side to get at his chest.

Eat-bishkawi-eat, I said.

The uekisheile hummed in response and sent several tufts of themselves deep into the alpha’s body. Meanwhile, I dug around for his core. It was the size of a big walnut, the biggest I’d found yet.

There was a brief blip of qi, and the uekisheile reappeared, dissatisfied. Small-spicy-qi. Small-small-small.

Huh. The alpha must’ve burned their qi resisting the poison. I stared dumbly at his corpse. That was it, then. I’d managed to do it; I’d defended the Glen from the bishkawi. I almost couldn’t believe it. There was only one thing left to do.

“Rest now,” I said. “Lay down your spite and your rage. They will not serve you. Lay down your spite and your rage. They will only weigh you down. A third time, I say unto you, lay down your spite and your rage. Let them go and find your way to peace instead.”

I didn’t want his angry spirit following me around. No ghosts for me, thank you very much. Not that I’d blame him for haunting me. I’d harvested his and his troop’s lives and their cores, and soon I’d be able to enjoy the benefits of both. First, though:

Back to the kids. Gotta make sure they’re okay.

29

Let’s Eat

The raid had gone better than expected, and I felt giddy all the way back to the lion’s cave. All the hard work, training, and adapting to this world had paid off. Almost too well.

Is there another shoe waiting to drop?

But nothing happened on the way back to the cave. The trip was blessedly peaceful, and I arrived just as the sky was starting to brighten. Billisha stood guard at the entrance, while Aluali tended to the fire deeper in. The ingredients for the day’s porridge lay next to him. Neither looked like they’d gotten much sleep.

We went through the usual, “Hey, I’m not a horrible plant creature pretending to be human,” routine, and once that was done, Billisha spun me around to check for injuries.

Her face anxious, she asked, “No hurt? No fight?”

Aluali found a streak of dried blood on my face. “Here hurt,” he said.

Our shared spoken vocabulary in Diaksh was still limited, but they’d taught me enough to communicate the basics, even if we all sounded like a bunch of three-year-olds. “I run tree.”

“You run tree?” Billisha sounded incredulous.

“Yes. Night dark. I run tree.”

She patted me on the arm. “You safe. Most important. Hunt bishkawi later.”

Ah, she was under the impression that I’d aborted the raid on the bishkawi. “No, no. I hunt. I—” I didn’t know the word for win, so I raised my arms in triumph.

“You win?” The incredulity didn’t leave Billisha’s voice.

So I opened the pouch with the bishkawi cores, and both kids’ jaws dropped. Alauli’s eyes grew as big as quarters, while Billisha was so shocked she fell back on her butt. Their reactions were priceless.

“Come see,” I said, squatting down to open the pouch for them.

Seven of the cores were the size and shape of wasabi-covered peas. The eighth core—the alpha’s—was as big as a walnut. The kids whispered to each other in awe.

Billisha asked, “You hunt? You poison?”

I nodded and showed her the bottle. There were only a few drops left.

She shook her head like she couldn’t believe it. “Where friend Ikfael? She hurt?”

“Ikfael safe,” I said. “She stay there. We go tomorrow.”

Aluali asked Billisha a question, and they conferred for a time. I heard the words for silverlight, level, and some of the numbers, but the rest was beyond me.

I let them talk. It’d been a long night, and I was happy to sit back and rest for a time. I also had some decisions to make. I had a total of 476 silverlight gathered after hunting the chishiaxpe, and there was a chance I’d reach Level 3 at 500. That’d only be true if levels came at increments of 250, which I didn’t expect, but it was a possibility I had to plan for. I needed to decide on where to put the free attribute I’d gotten at Level 2. It was still sitting in my Status waiting to be assigned.

After re-considering my options, I decided to apply it to Constitution.

Constitution 9 (10)

The depth of your life force. Constitution contributes to both body power and qi. It also helps resist physical conditions.

I’d seen Poison, Infection, Concussion, Bleeding, and—most disturbingly—Lethal Wounds as conditions, and while I had healing magic now, what would I do in situations when I was out of mana? Or unconsciousness? Or the victim of a surprise attack?

No, I didn’t want to risk being unprepared, and the choice to invest in Constitution was in keeping with my foundation-building approach. Besides, it was one of the attributes on the cusp of a milestone. I might get a survival-related talent out of it.

The children’s conversation stopped when I picked up the smallest of the cores.

“I have question,” Billisha said. She grabbed a handful of rocks and stacked them on top of each other. As the tower grew, she pretended to get stronger and stronger. “Level 1, Level 2, Level 3, Level—”

I interrupted. “Yes, I understand.”

“Oh, you understand. Good. You level?”

“Two,” I said.

Both kids exclaimed. A number of emotions passed across their faces: surprise, disbelief, respect, and at the end relief.

“You waiise,” Billisha said. “Good, good. You axxil tuaa.”

I shook my head at the unfamiliar vocabulary. “I not understand waiise. Not understand axxil tuaa.”

“I understand you.” Billisha retrieved a stick to draw on the floor. She drew two people, one large and one small. The big one was waiise. The small one was daake. In other words, they were an adult and a child.

For axxil tuaa, she drew a mass of people, and then one person separated from them. This person held a staff and wore a headdress or crown, I couldn’t tell which. The others did what this person told them to do. They were the leader.

“I question—I Level 2, I adult?”

Both kids nodded their heads. Billisha was especially enthusiastic about it. She was technically the oldest among us and seemed relieved to not have to be responsible for our little group.

“We Level 0,” Billisha said. “We child.”

“Good, good,” Aluali said, pointing to the cores. “You take silverlight. You grow strong.”

“Yes, yes,” Billisha said. “Take, take.”

They looked at me so expectantly, I couldn’t disappoint them. I started crushing cores.

11 silverlight gathered. 10 absorbed.

13 silverlight gathered. 12 absorbed.

9 silverlight gathered. 8 absorbed.

After three cores, I had gathered a grand total of 506 silverlight, but there were no notifications about a level up. A shivery feeling ran through my belly, though, of being connected to the troop. There was a sense that, while I could rely on its members, I also had to fight for my place among them.

12 silverlight gathered. 11 absorbed.

15 silverlight gathered. 13 absorbed.

10 silverlight gathered. 9 absorbed.

17 silverlight gathered. 15 absorbed.

The feeling grew stronger: the troop meant everything, and at the same time it was a place of pettiness and struggle. My teeth began to chatter.

System-Eight had said that absorbing silverlight was safe, and I trusted him. The children looked on, their expressions concerned, but only mildly. To my eyes, it seemed that what they were witnessing was normal. Still, I waited for the feelings from the previous cores to dissipate before trying the last one, the biggest among them.

232 silverlight gathered. 209 absorbed.

A feeling rushed through me: of authority, of a relentless determination to dominate all creatures great and small, and of seeking those that were powerful in order to tear their power from their bodies. My fingers trembled from the intensity of it.

Congratulations. You have collected enough silverlight to grow in power.

Congratulations. You have reached a Constitution milestone.

You know the drill. Read me first.

I grinned. If I were to imagine the level chart thus far, it took: 50 silverlight for Level 1, 250 for Level 2, and 750 for Level 3.

Hmm… the rationale for the amounts wasn’t immediately obvious, especially the difference in jumps from Levels 1 to 2 and 2 to 3. There were a couple of different formulas that might explain it, and my best guess was that it would take either 1,750 or 3,000 total silverlight to reach Level 4. There’d be no way to know for sure until it happened, though.

Still, I grinned.

“What? What?” Billisha asked.

I cleared my throat. “Level 3.”

The kids screamed, and all the numbers flew out of my head. Billisha and Aluali jumped up to dance. They began to sing, the words a celebration. I even recognized the ones having to do with paths and levels. They clapped in rhythm to the words.

Then Billisha pulled me to standing, and the two of them did a kind of skipping step around me. The song changed and became more of a story. The tones alternated between highs and lows—the children’s voices didn’t seem to do the lower ones justice—but their enthusiasm made up for the lack of range. This lasted a good ten minutes before the dance ended with a tired laugh from both children.

“We must ikhamtocahe,” Aluali said, breathing hard. He went to the fire to gather all our food and prepare a feast.

“I help,” Billisha said.

Oh gods, it was good to sit again. I was glad the kids were excited for me, but I was genuinely exhausted. I made a note to ask about the song later, though. The story behind it was sure to be interesting.

For now, I was anxious to look at my notifications. “I—” I pointed to my head.

“You work,” Billisha said. “We prepare feast.”

I clicked on the notification from System-Eight first, and a series of celebratory tones rang in my ear. Di-ring! Di-ring! Di-ring!

Woot! Level 3, and it’s barely been a month. We are on FIRE!

The bishkawi never knew what hit them.

Hi, System-Eight. It’s good to see you again.

It’s good to be seen.

Like before, I don’t have a lot of time, so I’m just going to dump answers on you.

- I still don’t know, but it looks like Level 5 is special. There’s a good chance paths can change or evolve then. That’s probably true at all the multiples of 5: 10, 15, 20, etc.

- I don’t know. Yet.

- Yes, I’m certain you’re not eating people’s souls. It’s just strong memories and emotions carrying over into the silverlight. Like the smell of your pee after eating asparagus.

- I agree that it was a toss-up between Constitution and Spirit. Either would’ve been fine. You got lucky, though, and have a nice talent waiting for you in the other notification.

- You’re welcome. :-)

- The uekisheile is weird. On the other hand, the way you seem to be turning into a symbiote is awesome. I don’t understand what’s happening at the body, qi, mana, and silverlight levels, though, so I don’t have any advice other than to keep things friendly. Besides, they’re cute.

- By the way, your visible Status is adapting to you, just like the hidden one. There appears to be some kind of trigger attached to common cultural understandings, which is what the System is at a fundamental level: one big storehouse of common understandings.

- My guess is that Billisha and Aluali—nice kids, BTW—sense their Status, as opposed to reading it on a screen. Like how you know your arms are attached to your body. The word you’re looking for is proprioception.

- It’s too early to tell, but if I had to guess I’d split the difference and say 2,375 total silverlight for Level 4.

What? You’re upset that I’m picking an arbitrary number?

Damn it, and now we’re out of time.

Stay safe and say hi to Ikfael for me.

Thanks for looking out for me, System-Eight. I appreciate it.

Of course! Without you, there’s no me.

Later!

I sighed, happy for the chance to chat, even if it was fleeting. What next?

You have reached a Constitution milestone. Checking for new talents. *Ding.* This is your first attribute to reach rank 10, and you have automatically triggered a nascent talent. The base benefits of 10 Constitution are also now active: increased stamina, a more robust physique, and resistance to negative physical conditions.

Wait, what? I have several attributes above 10. Ah, but Constitution is the first to grow into ten. Is it a freebie? Meant for children when they hit this stage of their development? That’d make sense, since the first attribute to hit 10 would likely be a child’s strongest. They’d be almost guaranteed a talent that matched them. If I’m right, then it’s a nice quality-of-life System feature.

I took a quick look at my new talent.

Enduring

Your will is strong and drives you to work and train harder than you otherwise might: to push past your limits and walk the Path to Perfection. Provides bonuses to stamina and mental focus, as well as a small bonus to resisting fatal injuries.

Yowza! This is really good, right? Well, all my talents were handy, but the part about resisting fatal injuries really caught my eye. It was exactly what I’d been looking for.

The section about the Path to Perfection was weird, though, and didn’t sound like me at all. The System was supposed to be integrating with me, so it was probably natural for the text to read differently sometimes.

One more notification to go.

Congratulations. You are now Level 3. You receive a free attribute point. Checking for new talents. Sorry, no new talents were triggered.

Attribute and skill gains have been finalized. Thank you for your hard work.

- Constitution increased from 9 to 10.

- Nature Magic increased from 2 to 3.

- Archery increased from 7 to 8.

- Knife Arts increased from 0 to 2.

- Spear Arts increased from 2 to 3.

- Strategy increased from 4 to 5.

- Stealth increased from 3 to 4.

- Survival, Forest increased from 6 to 7.

- Survival, Caves increased from 0 to 3.

The base benefits for Level 3 Young Forester are now active:

- Attribute foci:

- Agility, primary
- Wisdom, secondary
- Spirit, tertiary

- Skill foci:

- Archery
- Nature Magic
- Spear Arts
- Stealth
- Survival, all

Your capacity for silverlight has grown. Secondary attributes increase by another 20% for a total of 40%.

Oh, that’s a nice haul. I saw increases in several key skills and picked up two new ones: Survival Caves and Knife Arts. Both then immediately ranked up to 3 and 2 respectively.

For Survival Caves, the extra ranks were the result of complementary skills in Survival Forest. No surprise there. The unusual one was Knife Arts. When I checked, the memories under the skill were of me in the kitchen and in the backyard. In them, I was butterflying chickens, quartering deer, butchering pigs, and doing any and everything else involved carving into an animal. Those were good times.

All right, Ollie. That’s enough nostalgia. What are the other big changes?

Body Power

13

Qi

34

Mana

21

Woohoo! The level-up bonuses to my secondary attributes increased my qi capacity to 34. There was also the potential to access more through the uekisheile, but it wasn’t something I wanted to do often—taking food from other people’s plates was a big no-no in my house. The option was there for emergencies, though.

With a mana capacity of 21 and spells costing approximately four points each, I could now trigger five consecutive mana-based spells. That still wasn’t enough, though. Not by a long shot. It was just too easy to burn through my mana before, during, or after a fight.

I needed to cultivate my mana similarly to how I cultivated my qi. The problem was that I wasn’t as sensitive to it, which made it challenging to manipulate and experiment with the energy. That was why I decided to add the free attribute point I’d just gained to Spirit. The attribute not only directly contributed to my maximum mana capacity, but it would also hopefully help with the sensitivity issue too. Or maybe trigger a related talent. It shouldn’t hurt, anyway.

In the meantime, Aluali had finished making a stack of corn cakes, upon which he poured stewed blueberries. The lion skewers Billisha was grilling were also just about done, and she added the crispy meat to a mash of corn, roasted onions, and salt.

Holy hells, that smells amazing. “Let’s eat!”

30

Family

We left the cave after a post-feast nap, and it was fascinating to watch the kids prepare. Billisha fought me to wear the backpack, while Aluali held my bow. Both were insistent that I carry only what was immediately useful—that nothing get in the way of my ability to respond to threats.

The kids also talked to each other about the list of things to bring: water, food, the first-aid kit, weapons, and rope. They made sure the backpack’s straps were tight and the weight of the equipment inside well balanced.

They taught me the Diaksh words for danger, attack, trap, run, hide, scatter, come closer, get away, forward, back, left, right, up, down, underground, near, middle-distance, and far. At the same time, they showed me the Signed Diaksh equivalents.

Not that the kids were experienced—their actions were hesitant, nervous, and sometimes faltered—but it was clear they’d been told what to do when heading out into the wilderness. My impression was that they were sensible about the danger, and did their best to remember and carry out those instructions. I overruled them on lugging the stuff up to the escarpment, but from there, I’d let them do as they pleased. They knew this world better than I did.

As for the rest of our stuff, we left it in the cave. There was a decent chance it’d take more than one day to clean up the Glen, so we’d come back for it later.

The kids turned on Meliune’s Blessing to walk up the narrow ledge to the escarpment. Once there, they turned it off to confer and make sure everything was ready. Then, they switched it back on again to wait blank-faced for me to lead them to the Glen. Their use of the blessing was as simple as putting on their coats before heading out into the rain.

The rest of the way, I wasn’t allowed to help them navigate the obstacles. Not with clambering over rocks. Not holding aside branches to let them through thick bushes. Nothing. All that was required of me was to keep watch and be ready with my spear.

I shook my head. This is a hell of a world.

Life-life-life. Loss-sorrow-hunger. Joy-family-delicious. Same-same-same. Tiny bits of the uekisheile poked out of my scalp to help sense for dangerous qi. I assumed that, unless I ran my hands through my hair, the thin tendrils wouldn’t be visible. Uekisheile-like-Billisha uekisheile-like-Aluali question-make-family?

Don’t-know-answer, I responded. Future-uncertain-future.

Inside me was a push-pull of emotions. The kids helped me recognize that I’d been lonely. Their singing and dancing were a delight, and they were well-behaved and assisted with whatever needed doing. I felt protective of them. At the same time, if I really wanted to protect them, I’d take them immediately to the farms east of the Glen. The children deserved better than to be constantly in danger in the woods

I hesitated, though, and my emotions were clouded. I kept getting flashbacks to when Alex and Daniel were little, and the longing for my own children interfered with my decision-making. I found myself wanting to keep Billishi and Aluali around, even if only for a little while.

Will Ikfael accept them? I just did her a big favor, so maybe?

The uekisheile seemed to pick up on my inner turmoil and let me be.

The bishkawi alpha’s corpse smelled of raw meat doused in mint extract. The combination was gag-inducing. The kids found it gross too, wrinkling their noses, but that was only after they’d picked up their jaws from the ground after seeing the size of him.

The body was as I’d left it, untouched by scavengers. I was surprised at first, but then realized it was likely the minty smell. Anything that lived in these woods would know that was a signal for poison.

The kids wanted to retrieve the arrows, but there was no way I was going to let them handle anything poisonous. I cut the argument short by saying, “I adult.”

Billisha’s mouth opened, but nothing came out. She turned to Aluali for support, but he shrugged and said, “He adult.”

So, I retrieved the arrows myself and carefully wrapped the heads in cloth before placing them in the backpack. Then, we had another argument when Billisha wanted to skin the alpha.

The hide was burned at the shoulder and poked full of holes everywhere else. There was a roughly circular patch on the back that was intact, but I wasn’t sure it was worth the danger. I’d used a lot of venom on the alpha, and I was leery of accidental contact.

Thinking about it, I decided not to pull the ‘adult’ card again. One, it was obnoxious and not necessarily good parenting. And two, the kids had been helpless while in Boscun’s and Kaad’s hands. They needed to feel like they now had some control over their own lives.

I explained that there were almost a dozen bodies waiting for us—less damaged ones with single wounds. It’d be a lot safer to skin them instead. I could see the reluctance in Billisha’s eyes—the alpha was clearly a prize—but she let herself be convinced. She expressed her determination, though, to skin the other bishkawi.

I agreed. It’d delay our arrival, but not significantly. Along the way, we also fought over who would pull the poisoned stakes and what to do with them. Short answer: I would, and I buried them. I didn’t want the kids carrying them, or some poor random hunter to accidentally stumble across them.

The kids made quick work of the three bishkawi that had been killed in the deer thicket, and it wasn’t just because of their Skinner talents. From the way the kids made their cuts and worked the hides loose from the bodies, they’d also clearly been trained. We had three rolled-up bishkawi hides with us when we left the deer thicket.

The Glen smelled ten times worse than the alpha, the scent of minty spoiled meat pervading the place. The bodies from the previous night weren’t too bad, but the dead from the fight between the turkeys and bishkawi had sat in the sun for a couple days now.

I managed to hold onto my breakfast, but barely, while poor Aluali dropped to all fours to vomit. That, in turn, triggered Billisha to toss up her share. I jumped to keep the yellow-blue, gruel-like stream from splattering my shoes. It was nasty.

While the kids recovered, I approached the pool. Ikfael needed to know it was safe to return, so I made a spirit mana ball and began roughing out the shapes for a bunch of bishkawi in a pile. Then came the alpha sprawled on top and me standing on him with my spear raised in victory.

The sculpture wouldn’t win any prizes, but I spent some time making sure the expression on my face was just right—pleased triumph.

Eh, good enough.

I tossed the sculpture into the water, and it passed through the spirit door without any problems. Moments later, Ikfael’s figure shot out of the pool to land beside me. She wore a Powell’s City of Books t-shirt, a ball cap, and cheap sunglasses, the kind you’d buy at Saturday Market.

Huh, they must be souvenirs from Diriktot’s visit to Portland.

Ikfael took off the sunglasses for a better look at the state of the Glen. Her face was expressive: shock, disgust, disbelief, anger, and a distressed expression that was hard for me to interpret.

I leaned in to explain. “I’m sorry I couldn’t—”

Bleurgh. Ikfael heaved onto me, a firehose blasting a blend of donuts and milky coffee. There was mushy cereal mixed in, probably from Voodoo Donuts. Yeah, that was likely. The shop was a popular spot for tourists. I just hadn’t expected their clientele to include a Fallen God of Order.

Ikfael grasped my shirt with both paws and vomited a second time. Just how many donuts had she eaten? I looked up and away, ignoring the warm fountain dousing my shirt.

The sky’s so blue. Dotted with a handful of feathered clouds… they look like brushstrokes.

An hour later, all the carcasses had been shoved to one corner by Ikfael’s water magic, and we waited for her to recover her mana. She sat at the edge of the pool, bent over and winded like she’d run a marathon. A part of me wondered if she was going to throw up again. The other part wondered just how the hell her magic was so strong.

I’d seen her create pseudopods before, but to clean up the Glen she’d raised half the pool’s water into a tsunami to carry away everything not attached to the ground. The children and I had been abruptly warned to get out of the area beforehand, so we were dry. The rest of the Glen was sodden with water, though.

Alas, I think Ikfael broke the kids. They had been surprised by my level, shocked at the alpha’s core, and amazed by the size of him. But apparently Ikfael was something else entirely.

As soon as they saw her, Billisha and Aluali had prostrated themselves and stayed that way. I’d had to drag them out of the Glen to make sure they didn’t get swept up by the water. When Ikfael had finished, though, they went right back to it.

Had I underestimated Dr. Otter? Was she even more amazing than I thought? Either that, or sapient animals were rare. But no, she wasn’t an animal, was she? According to the Status camera, she was a spirit of the land.

Click.

Ikfael (Spirit of the Land)

Talents: One with Water and Stone, Hoarder’s Pocket, Artist, Foodie

Nascent Talents: Ritualist, Door Guard

Last I checked, Foodie and Artist had been nascent. Her time with Diriktot must’ve triggered them into becoming full-blown talents. Just what exactly had they done while away?

A couple more nascent talents had revealed themselves. Ritualist wasn’t a surprise, given the number of rituals she’d performed on me. Door Guard though—I’d thought that the spirit passage at the bottom of the pool had been created by Ikfael, but the talent implied that it was there independently of her. Maybe all that time spent lazing in the pool, she was actually working?

I caught Ikfael glaring in my direction. Her eyes narrowed, like I was in big trouble. Her paws gestured, “Come here. Sit.”

This wasn’t the first time in my life I’d been in hot water. I knew it was best to face it head on and get through it as fast and cleanly as possible. I squared my shoulders and sat where she’d directed.

Ikfael surprised me by erecting a sheet of water, so that the kids could no longer see us. She pointed at my heart, exactly where the uekisheile resided, and signed, “Show me.”

My eyebrows rose. She knew?

The uekisheile and I had worked out a way to hide their qi behind mine, but apparently it wasn’t as effective as we’d thought it was. I mean, I had planned on telling Ikfael about the uekisheile. Eventually. After asking her about the kids.

Right. Jig’s up. It took a second to change mental gears. Come-out-friend.

The uekisheile sprouted abundantly, all over my face and neck, so much so that their tufts obscured my vision. They waved happily at Ikfael, tickling my nose. Joy-encounter-joy. Meet-visit-family.

I cleared the tufts out of the way and saw that Ikfael was suddenly standing ten yards back: looking dubiously in my direction. “It’s okay,” I signed, and pet the uekisheile to show that it was safe.

Ikfael watched, and the caution slowly—very slowly—melted into curiosity. She came closer, moved her shirt aside to pull—for a moment, I doubted my eyes—she pulled a pool cue from her pocket, and used it to poke the uekisheile.

Just how many souvenirs had Diriktot brought back?

The uekisheile wriggled, which in turn caused its tufts to tickle me. I giggled like a little kid, while Ikfael just stared at us. The moment drew out, and the uekisheile wondered if they should go over to make sure everything was all right with friend-family-Ikfael. Fortunately, that plan was cut short when Ikfael sighed and rubbed her face in disbelief.

She put the pool cue away, drew water from the pool to shape into a tablet, and used it to examine me. The expression on her face was what you might expect from someone who had seen a clown riding a unicycle down the street while singing opera and juggling apples.

By the way, my record seeing that was three times with three different clowns. Ah, Portland, my dear friend, I surely miss you.

I badly wanted to look at the screen, but Ikfael stirred when I moved to get closer. She stepped back to keep the distance between us and shook her head. “Stay there and hide that,” she gestured, pointing to the uekisheile.

When the lichen disappeared inside me, the water curtain fell to the ground.

Well, at least the uekisheile was enjoying things. Ikfael-fun-delicious. Glen-qi-delicious. Rich-creamy-dense.

No-eat-friend, I said to them.

Understand-friend-understand. Understand-family-understand, they happily replied. Family-grows-grows.

Huh. It was true that I was fond of Ikfael. She’d saved my life and given me the gift of magic. We’d worked together to fight off the monster flies and the unideer, and there was no denying that the otter was adorable, even when she rolled her eyes at me.

Family didn’t always mean the one you were born into. Often, they were assembled and built over time, with care and effort. I’d been half-lucky with my first family, and incredibly lucky with my second. Was this a chance for a third?

Ikfael pointed to the children. She signed, “I question who people.” She pointed to the pile of bishkawi and turkey carcasses. “I question hunt.”

So I told the story of the bishkawi troop’s invasion of the Glen. She’d likely witnessed the parts that had taken place in the Glen, but there was so much more that had happened. Using a mix of pantomime, Signed Diaksh, and my limited vocabulary in spoken Diaksh, I ran through the events of the past few days: the cunning of the bishkawi, being trapped in the cave, fighting the zombies, killing the chliapp lion, freeing the children—all of it.

The story was told plainly, without too many embellishments. I didn’t want it to feel like I was trying to win Ikfael’s praise or her favor. Our relationship had come farther than when we’d first bartered for the magic dagger.

It was Helen that had taught me plain, honest communication was best when situations became complicated—to listen and speak with the intent to connect. The act was simplicity itself, and yet so very hard to do.

So, I pretended I was talking to Helen, then explained all the things I’d had to do to make things right for the Glen. I made sure to credit the children for helping. They were instrumental in getting me ready for the fight. The uekisheile too, although I explained their role surreptitiously, since the children were likely listening.

The story was as honest as I could make it, and I felt my heart in my throat afterward. Only by telling the story did I realize just how hard the experience had been: the fear and the turmoil I’d had to overcome.

The look on Ikfael’s face was complicated, like I’d handed her a big problem. It was like she was pleased and embarrassed, and didn’t know what to do. She ran a paw through the fur on her head and sat down to think. The position was familiar—it was the same one she’d adopted when debating with herself about first teaching me magic.

Last time, it’d taken her hours for her to decide, so I walked over to where the children lay prostrated. “Come. Help with turkey and bishkawi,” I said.

Billisha looked up, tears and gratitude in her eyes. Aluali was blank-faced, but I saw that his hands trembled. They must’ve been eavesdropping after all. I sighed and patted their heads. They really were good kids.

“Work help quiet mind,” I said. “Come.”

I stood them up and led them to the carcasses piled up at the edge of the Glen. They were hesitant at first, but I pulled them along.

We sorted the bodies; the ravaged ones were dragged outside Ikfael’s territory, while the intact dead were kept behind. I recovered the arrows and let the kids do the skinning work. When we were done, I showed the kids how to knap flint and make wood-working tools. We had knives and axes, but I had a new spearhead in need of a haft. And maybe I’d make another spear just for fishing. Also, an adze and draw knife would be helpful in making racks for the bishkhawi hides. More cordage too. There was always a need for more cordage.

In the late afternoon, we went fishing. Ikfael still sat in the same place, her paw tapping as she thought.

We made short, improvised spears for Billisha and Aluali, but the kids were terrible at fishing. Too slow and not very good judges of movement underwater. It was an effort on my part not to laugh, but they took it so seriously. They were intent, as if their survival depended on how well they fished. Well, it did, but also didn’t. I was there, after all.

We stayed long enough for me to catch four fish: a trout, two bass, and a salmon. The salmon was a particularly chunky treat, almost two feet long. It didn’t look like the chinook I was used to, more like Atlantic. Well, whatever kind it was, my mouth watered in anticipation. I loved grilled salmon, and we had salt with us!

Billisha started the fire. She didn’t have any problems using the firestarter, so she must’ve had access to her mana.

“You use magic?” I’d been unsure about how common it was.

“Maegiic?” Obviously, Billisha didn’t know the English word.

I used the sign that Ikfael had taught me, and then I hesitated—but only for a moment—and showed her Cold Snap. Both kids gasped and jumped back. Their eyes went wide as they touched the frozen puddles on the ground.

“No, I no use magic,” Billisha said, using the Diaksh word. “I have no skill. I not trained.” She mimed repeating a task over and over in order to demonstrate the unfamiliar word.

I pointed to the firestarter. “How use?”

“Not need skill to use mana. Just eisendon.” Billisha opened her shirt to show a scar above her heart, shaped like a shepherd’s crook with filigreed wings.

“I have eisendon,” Aluali said, and he showed me his scar. “Get when small child.” He made the motion for rocking a baby. “You no have eisendon?”

“I have inside,” I said, showing them my bare chest. Whatever Ikfael had done to me, it hadn’t left any scars.

The kids looked at each other in surprise, but it passed quickly. The shocks had come often and quickly, and they were learning to adapt.

A moment later, Billisha nodded to herself. “Yes, I understand. We understand. Zasha is—” She frowned, searching for a way to explain the next word. She enlisted Alauli’s help, and they came up with a number of gestures.

Apparently, I was either a giant, the sun, a deep pool of water, and/or a wriggling motion of the fingers. I took it to mean something grand.

Gods help me, I blushed. The last time I’d done so was when Helen was alive. “And zasha?”

They struggled again to explain the meaning. I was a roof, a rain cloud, a stalk of corn, a protector and source of life. A benefactor.

These kids, they were just too sweet. That’s it. I can’t take it anymore. The heart wants what the heart wants. I’ll just have to do my best to protect them. “I question. You want stay—”

At the same time, Billisha started asking, “We question. We want stay—”

The three of us stared at each other for a beat, and then burst out laughing.

My smile faded, only the edges lingering. “You want stay here? You understand danger?”

Billisha also turned serious. “We understand danger. Forest danger. Village danger. All danger. We stay with Zasha. Zasha want us?”

“Yes, I want, but—” I looked over at Ikfael.

She’d been watching us for the past few minutes, and looked put upon. Like, incredibly put upon.

Ikfael shook her head in dismay, like she couldn’t believe what she was about to do. “You stay. You stay. You stay,” she said pointing to each of us. “I want fish. One day, one fish. You and you and you, each give one fish.” She looked at our stuff. “Knife. Two knife. Three knife. And you hunt food. You fight for Ikfael. We trade?”

Barter increased from 4 to 5.

Relationships increased from 8 to 9.

I grinned, swiping away the notification. “No. We no trade. We share. We give. We give to Ikfael.”

After all, we give when it’s for family.

31

Perspective: Billisha and Aluali

Aluali’s fingers were nimble. He didn’t stop braiding rope, but his words were too strong to keep inside. “Zasha is mysterious.”

Billisha agreed—Zasha was mysterious. Even now, he practiced a contortionist art out by the pool, twisting his body in strange directions, as if he were bound and seeking a way to escape.

She bit her lip, which she did often when thinking deeply. She paused her braiding to chase these thoughts.

“He makes me think of Aku the Wild Child,” Aluali said, continuing. “We are living like we are in one of his stories, but Zasha cannot be Aku.”

“The Wild Child would be a hundred years old,” Billisha said, shaking her head. “Maybe older. My grana told me she first heard the story when she was little. No, Zasha is like Aku, but not Aku. Besides, he said his name is Eight. He’s kept secrets, but never lied to us.”

“His secrets are mysterious,” Aluali said. “Like how he killed the lion. That was before he collected the chiash poison. Or how his fine clothes don’t fit, and so many of them have holes in them. Or how he doesn’t understand spoken Diaksh. How can that be? The signed language is only for those people without proper mouths.”

There was an idea, a story that they’d been assembling. Aluali was sure it was true, but Billisha was more skeptical. She was better at not believing a story until there was evidence to prove it. That had come from having a father who was a lodge master, who owned three books and prepared his daughter to eventually take his place.

One of the books her family owned was the story of the Imperfect God. Another was a collection of teaching stories. The final was a catalog of paths and talents. At night, she used to browse through the pages by candlestone, looking at the strange and wondrous paths one could take to reach perfection.

That was gone now—the father, the family, the books, everything. The pain came all a sudden, and she closed her eyes to grip Meliune’s Blessing.

Aluali quieted when he saw Billisha embrace Meliune’s grace. His own pain wasn’t as great. His family hadn’t been nearly as kind as hers. Still, it hurt to see her hurt. He paused his braiding to reach out and hold her hand.

From the corner of his eye, Aluali saw Zasha pick up his spear to practice with it. So strange. At rest, Zasha looked skilled with the spear. Once he moved, though, the strikes were clumsy. Aluali’s Militia Arts skill was likely higher.

Ah, but Zasha had many knives, the bow, and knew how to use poison. Was the story they’d assembled true after all?

The story went like this:

Once there was a family that lived in the shadows. They followed one of the paths of assassination and trained their children accordingly. One day, the family was attacked. Out of revenge. For justice. No one knew. All that was known was that a child of the family escaped, along with his bodyguards.

They fled, but were pursued. A battle took place, fierce and vicious, and there were no survivors. None, except the child who fled into the wilderness, along with what he’d scavenged from the dead.

Billisha squeezed Aluali’s hand as she let go of Meliune’s Blessing. Her eyes shone with gratitude for the comfort he’d offered. “I am thinking he was never taught Diaksh. That he only learned the secret method of communicating with his family. Perhaps he was only taught what was needed to accomplish his purpose. It would explain why he lacks common sense and why he is so skilled in some things but not in others.”

Billisha shook her head in sorrow, and continued: “He was made a weapon. Sheathed at home, with no purpose—not until he was drawn to kill. That would explain why his family would feed him silverlight early. With the training he’d undergone, he wouldn’t need the time to establish his path. Either that, or they gave him silverlight to help him survive the attack on the family.”

“Is this story true?” Aluali asked. The story was exciting, but if they were right, then Eight had had an unfortunate upbringing.

“I don’t know,” Billisha said. “The catalog’s pages on shadow paths and talents were sparse. They were based on guesses and rumors. The book didn’t say so, but that was my father’s judgment.”

“What did it feel like to hold the book?” Aluali had meant to ask that question many days ago, but hadn’t yet had the opportunity. Just surviving had taken so much.

“It was heavy and as thick as a man’s fist. The writing was small, so I had to squint to read it. The smell—I don’t know how to describe it. Dry, bitter. The cover was bear leather, treated the old way.”

“Ah,” Aluali sighed. “I’d like to look at a book sometime. It sounds so interesting.”

“We could make our own,” Billisha said, “with bark for pages and rope for a spine. I could teach you to read—”

“And Zasha too,” Aluali said, interrupting.

“And Zasha too,” Billisha said.

“We’re safe with Zasha, right?” Aluali suddenly asked.

He’d been the one to push for them to stay, and Billisha wondered if he was having second thoughts. “We’re not safe anywhere,” she said. “But at least here, we are under both his protection and the protection of a spirit of the land.”

Aluali nodded. “That’s right. That’s right. Zasha truly is mysterious. He has a spirit’s blessing.”

And that, more than anything, was what convinced Billisha of Zasha’s extraordinary circumstances. A spirit of the land had accepted him—had taken them in and blessed them. She felt it shining inside her, dimmer than Meliune’s Blessing, but present.

“This is a good place, isn’t it?” Aluali asked.

Billisha could only nod.

32

Perspective: Ikfael

Rascals. Ikfael’s home was occupied by rascals. One had turned into three. What was next? Nine? Would her peaceful glen turn into an orphanage?

Heavens forbid. Heavens forbid. Heavens forbid. Three is the direction of five. The proverb was often more true than not. Let it be so!

True, Ikfael had grown accustomed to Eight’s presence. The grilled fish was welcome, as was the deer meat. Even the vegetables were good, especially when combined. Of course, nothing compared to the food from the other world.

That had been a shock. It was enough to make her heart stop. If she’d had a heart, she was sure it would have. Just having coffee with Diriktot was nerve wracking.

Another world? Another world!

Her eyes had rounded like an owl’s when Diriktot took her along for a visit. He’d plunged them into the rivers of people and wandered between the tall towers and metal carriages. The colors, the noises, the motion—all she’d wanted was to shut herself away, but her magic didn’t work.

“Different rules,” Diriktot had said, “but still interesting.”

What in the Imperfect God’s name did that mean?

Diriktot had wanted to reward her—as if the coffee wasn’t enough—and so he had taken her on a tour of another world. Why? Ikfael had just wanted peace and quiet.

Her life was enough. She slept on the water. Twice a year, she accepted tribute from the villagers downstream. They brought her tasty food. Yearly, the elder sleeping under the glen awoke to commune with the stars. Keeping the glen calm was a small service to her. Ikfael didn’t need more than that.

There was a saying: “A god gifts with ten hands, but you only see one.” Meaning, gods always had more than one purpose for everything they did.

What was Diriktot’s purpose? To show her how strange the other world was? She didn’t need that! Eight was strange enough.

It was no wonder she’d needed to rescue him so many times. He came from a place of giant metal serpents and collegiums filled with books from floor to ceiling.

Coffee was better with milk and sugar. She’d learned that too. Also, donuts, while sweet, were not good for her stomach. They were so delicious, though. Her mouth salivated at the memory.

There was a beehive near the mushrooms to the south. Maybe she should send Eight to retrieve some honey. It wouldn’t be the same, but the sweetness was attractive; it’d almost be worth the cleansing ritual he’d likely require afterward.

She glanced his way. He was playing with his spear again.

Ikfael sighed. She was just a small spirit and had only grown so skilled because of her good fortune. If not for the elder sleeping under the glen, she would’ve died long ago. Ikafel’s gratitude to the elder was as immeasurable as the sea.

She’d tried to tell Diriktot about the need to keep the glen peaceful, but the god had paid her no mind. He only showed her books full of paintings. Books full of patterns. Books full of information so dense with experience, her mind spun afterward.

The paintings were so real. It was like they’d captured people and events in amber and pressed them between the pages. There was also a large flat book on a wall whose cover flashed with motion, portraying small people acting in small ways. None of it made sense, but it was astonishing all the same.

Ikfael’s Water Arts were such that she could make moving sculptures, but she’d never thought to tell stories with them. All that was needed was to color the water, and then her figures would become more lifelike.

Eight deserved credit for the quality of his sculptures. They were whimsical. They had personality. They told a story.

He possessed hidden talents. Not to mention the ridiculous—utterly ridiculous—number of connections to the World Spirit. It was as if the child had the skills of an elder. Not like the one under the glen, of course, but a village head or something similar.

He’d used those skills on Ikfael’s behalf, though. She’d give him that. He wasn’t as polite as the other two children—didn’t have their good sense—but he tried, in his own way, to be mindful of her desires. Ikfael flushed with pride at the memory of his gifts. They were offered without anything requested in exchange.

Diriktot wanted to give him choices. Who knew what gods truly wanted? Not Ikfael.

She didn’t know much beyond her territory and the village to the east. There was the obnoxious bear to the south, the trappers to the north, and the poison vines to the west. The heavens above. The elder sleeping below.

That was all she knew, and now there was the rascal too, who’d somehow made the days more interesting and tasty. The boy who’d come from another world, full of shocking mysteries. The one who turned into three.

Ikfael knew she needed time to understand what she’d seen. Fortunately, she’d have grilled fish every day to fortify her, sometimes with salt—she’d have to encourage Eight to get more.

Oh, heavens. Maybe he knew how to make donuts? The thought was a strong one, and saliva dripped from her mouth.

Would honey be enough? Or did donuts need sugar? There’d been so much of the stuff in the other world. Here, she received maple sugar about every other year in the tributes from the villagers. The midsummer solstice wasn’t far off, but there was no reason to be patient—not when donuts were on the line.

Ikfael looked for Eight and found him still playing with his spear. He’d likely run into difficulties dealing with the villagers. Her own history with them was complicated, but with his skills he should be able to manage.

She snickered. Wouldn’t it be a fun bit of mischief to set him among them, though? No doubt a few would try to take advantage of his youth, only to be surprised by his otherworldliness, not to mention the uekisheile, spirits, and gods watching over him.

Oh, heavens. Wouldn’t that be a delight? One almost as good as donuts.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Samer Rabadi grew up devouring stories of science fiction and fantasy. Books have always been his second home, and he practically lived at the library as a kid. Being able to share his own writings with others is a dream come true.

Professionally, he’s had a checkered early career—working in an eclectic mix of industries—before settling down into nonprofit work and trying to make the world a better place. His interests include reading, of course, but also cooking, pottery, martial arts, archery, and tabletop and video games.

He lives in Northern California with his wife Mary and his dog Hank. His quest for the best falafel in the world is ongoing.

ALSO BY SAMER RABADI

I hope you enjoyed this book. If so, you may also enjoy the next in the series:

Eight 2: The Way of the Hunter

Can Eight handle his biggest challenge yet? Civilization.

He’s carved a home out in the wilderness, and met its inhabitants—killing some and making friends with others. Things are looking downright cozy, in a bushcraft kind of way, but there’s a village to the east with tools, resources, and new magic to learn. That’s all incredibly tempting when living among the wild things.

Where there are people though, there are complications, including the murder-y kind.

Add a few ghosts, giant beasts, and a new god too, and... well... life’s hard for an old man trapped in a young boy’s body. And things are about to get much, much tougher. Still, all that wisdom and experience have to count for something, right?

Eight: The Way of the Hunter is a novel that’s part mystery, part ghost story, and all adventure.

Connect with me online

Website: www.samerrabadi.com

Twitter: www.twitter.com/3seed