We jogged through the night at a modest pace, occasionally alarming some merchant group’s sentry or another as we passed by. I lit the way with my Radiance, and all of us were used to long, hard days.
Well.
Almost all of us. Poor Auri was curled up in my hands, sleeping. Iona was still carrying Fenrir.
We didn’t move back north nearly as quickly as we’d gone south to fight the spiders. Plain and simple, we were tired, but given the lackluster state of our supplies, we elected to just carry through.
We were going slow enough that Iona kept helping us with the language, and we gradually unraveled our stories and adventures to her. [Passionate Learning] along with our ability to speak quickly helped me with the language, but I was tired, which slowed me down. I knew I needed to rest now and then to let my subconscious process things, and generally let my brain reorganize itself with the new information.
We made it back to the little village where we’d dropped off Amber a bit before sunrise, and decided to take a much needed break.
“Good run!” Iona was like an Energizer Bunny. Filled with boundless energy, running for miles, getting into a fight, exterminating the remaining spiders, then running all the way back seemed like a light warmup for her. That must be some skill.
Or maybe it was just raw physicality?
Artemis and Julius didn’t say anything. They just silently slipped their hand into the others like it was rehearsed.
“Brrrrrpt……..” Auri sleepily agreed, turning over in my hands and resettling herself into a more comfortable spot.
“That would be… ‘nice run’?” I ventured in Hakka.
Iona tilted her hand back and forth.
“Yes, but no… but it’s close enough.” She sat down, flipping open the pouch the [Countess] had given her. She ruffled through it, took out some sheets of - wait holy shit there was paper here!?
It was rough, coarse, and not at all uniform in color, but it was unmistakably, undeniably, paper. And where there was paper, there were books.
And where there were books there was a happy Elaine.
I immediately plonked myself down next to Iona, shuffling up close to her, just to peer around her arm at the paper. To see if there were words, if I could divine some story or another.
Iona subtly shifted, making it easier for me to look around her, and making it more comfortable.
“Anything you’re looking for?” She asked.
“Books.” I promptly replied. “I am a sucker for a good book.”
“None here, sorry. The School’s got a bunch.” She started scribbling on the paper, writing a letter.
A realization crashed over me:
All the books the School had?
They’d be written in a bunch of different languages, and unless one of them was Creation, I couldn’t read them.
“Can you tell me what you’re writing?” I asked Iona, somewhat leaning into her arm. I’d shamelessly get closer to her to get a better view, if there was any room left between us.
“It’s in Sanglo.” She warned me.
“Eh. I’ll have to learn it one day.” I said.
“Ok, this word here is ‘Valkyrie’.” Iona pointed to the word in question. On one hand, Iona was doing me numerous favors, helping me find my feet in the world. Teaching me the language. Smoothing things over with the local nobility, and not throwing me under a bus. I wanted to be polite and respectful.
On the other hand. WORDS! BOOKS! GIVE ME THE SECRETS TO READING SO THAT I MAY DEVOUR ALL!
Scrolls just didn’t do it the same way paper did, and Remus had shit libraries.
“Any chance you can give me the alphabet used here?” I asked Iona.
“Hakka or Sanglo?” She asked, and I mentally cursed. There were two alphabets to learn?! Why hadn’t someone invented a [Universal Translation] skill or something?
I wanted everything. I needed all the languages in the world, to crack open the tasty nuts that were books hidden in every library. Never again did I want to find myself in the worst position possible, like I had in Lun’Kat’s lair - surrounded by hundreds of books, unable to touch or read any of them. Simply terrible.
I mean, being next to a dragon that could kill me with a thought was also bad, but the inability to read had been worse.
At the same time, I knew that I should narrow my focus, and learn one thing at a time. But… I was greedy.
“How many languages are there?”
Iona shrugged.
“A few dozen? My blessing lets me understand them, not list and categorize them. That’s before we get into dialects, accents so thick they might as well be different languages, dead languages, and whatever else there is.”
I wanted to groan. I needed a skill or five to help me out.
[*ding!* Congratulations! You’ve unlocked a new General Skill [Tongue Twisting]!]
“Hang on, I’m getting offered some new skills.” I told Iona.
“No worries.” Her quill moved with supernatural speed, as she quickly penned the rest of her letter - then flipped it over, and drew what I presumed was a quick alphabet. I was busy reading through the skills.
Tongue Twisting: You’re fluent in two languages, and have minor achievements in three more! All those words are tricky to pronounce though! Tongue Twisting will help you perfectly pronounce all these words, and do other tricks with your nimble mouth!
An entire skill for pronunciation? No thank you. Also, what was with that extra stuff!?
Ok. Fine. I’ll admit it. I was a little curious to see how nimble a tongue could be with insane warrior dexterity stats. Not curious enough to be competitive and preemptively take a manipulation skill though.
[*ding!* Congratulations! You’ve unlocked a new General Skill [Polyglot]!]
Polyglot: You’ve got several languages under your belt, and you’re raring to get more! Polyglot will help you remember acquired languages, identify which language is being spoken, fill in minor words and details, help with dialects and accents, and stop you from slipping up in conversations!
The strongest line there looked like the remembering languages line. And that was looking at the skill in a vacuum, entirely ignoring the fact that I had a perfect memory skill. After that was factored in, help with accents and dialects was the best part.
Weirdly, the skill wasn’t a total joke. Was the System broken, or actually being helpful for once!? Was I finally not getting joke skills from the System?
[*ding!* Congratulations! You’ve unlocked a new General Skill [Cunning Linguist]!]
Nevermind. Back to the joke skills. The skill did… yup. Exactly what I thought it’d do.
Oh gods. Iona could see my skills. I’d die of embarrassment if she saw I’d taken that.
[*ding!* Congratulations! You’ve unlocked a new General Skill [Learning Languages]!]
Learning Languages: Is hard! You’ve mastered two, and you need to master a couple more! Take this skill, and learn them quickly! Reading, writing, letters and numbers will all be a breeze to pick up, and you’ll be speaking like a native in no time!
Yaaay. Another joke -
Wait.
WAIT.
That wasn’t a joke skill. Sure, the System offered it with a number of other things, but I needed to learn a number of languages, and fast. Iona was nice - really nice, I should ask her why she was being so nice to somebody she thought would start a war - but I couldn’t rely on her to translate for me forever. She’d go her own way eventually, and we’d be back where we started - nobody able to speak with anybody. It had happened with the elves, it was happening again, and it was frankly a terrible position to be in.
I wasn’t big on relying on others.
Plus, the sooner I learned the languages, the faster I’d be able to read books!
My look was unfocused, and I vaguely noticed Iona had finished her letter, and had taken a new piece of paper and was sketching on it, drawing Julius and Artemis.
There was a slim chance that some people still spoke Creation. However, I couldn’t rely on that. I needed to be able to communicate with people.
The skill looked like it’d dramatically help, and best of all? The skill wasn’t like [Polyglot] which would stop having an impact if I ever dropped it. The skill was to help me learn the language faster, which meant once I was satisfied with my languages, I could drop it and have a free general skill slot again.
I’d been debating dropping [Bullet Time] for [Meditate] for some time now, figuring that it’d help with my initial third class offerings. However, right now I had a pressing need for more languages. I checked over my general skills one more time.
[Long-Range Identify] helped me figure out what was dangerous and what wasn’t in the world. It was a keep.
[Immortal Recollections] I was hoping would continue to help with my language acquisition, and doubling up was nice. I also planned to live forever, and the skill, while looking a little tasty to axe right now, would pay massive dividends in the future.
[Companion Bond] was naturally staying, and [Oath] had to stay. It was binding.
[Bullet Time] had certainly helped me plenty throughout the years. It had saved my life against the pirates. The shimagu. And more! Except it was activating less and less frequently these days, my skills and abilities slowly overpowering most mundane threats. As time went on, the band of enemies the skill was useful against shrunk. They needed to be strong enough to threaten my life, but weak enough that I could actually fight back against them.
Now I had a critically useful skill that I wanted to find a spot for. Speaking and communication was my bread and butter in daily life, as opposed to the occasional terrifying fight for my life.
I wasn’t ditching [Sentinel’s Superiority]. The skill was insane, and let me know one critical fact of life - I was not alone. When it came to “Skills saving my life in a fight”, [Sentinel’s Superiority] was significantly better than [Bullet Time].
[Persistent Casting] was better at saving me than [Bullet Time] was by a long shot.
I’d never dump [Passionate Learning]. It was just too much of who I was. Plus, I was planning on using it with [Learning Languages] to speed up how quickly I picked up new tongues. Be pointless to trade the skills like that.
“Sorry, one moment.” I told Iona.
“No worries. We’re just waiting for your friend.” She continued sketching, Julius and Artemis coming to life under her quill. Iona was good.
I put a sleeping Auri down next to Iona, getting up into the middle of the road.
“Hey Artemis!” I called out to my twitchy friend after checking that there was nothing behind me. “Do me a favor!”
“Sure!”
“Throw some rocks at my shoulders, not super fast though.” I asked her.
Artemis didn’t hesitate a moment. A barrage of sharp road rocks rocketed up towards me, but I was both prepared, and had [Bullet Time]. Giving the skill one last hurrah, I threw myself backwards, windmilling my arms to dodge all of Artemis’s deliberately-slow attacks.
I got to watch the rocks whiz by me in one glorious moment, then I’d thrown myself back enough, [Bullet Time] ended, and I was safe and clear, having finally fulfilled the promise of the skill way back when I first got it.
I had dodged ‘bullets’.
With a small flicker of regret and nostalgia, I traded [Bullet Time] for [Learning Languages], feeling a massive wave of nausea pass through me as I was disoriented from losing the skill. I puked a little.
“Elaine, everything ok?” Julius was by my side.
“Yeah.” I spat the last chunks out of my mouth, then grabbed Julius’s tunic and wiped my face on it.
“Hey!” He protested. “What’s wrong with your own shirt!?”
“I didn’t want to get it dirty.” I explained to him, getting the most doubtful look back.
“The one you’ve been wearing for weeks without changing or washing.” He gave my shirt a significant look.
“No sense in making it worse.” I primly replied.
“Hey Healy-bug, you going to explain?” Artemis asked.
“Yeah. I dropped one of my skills to get [Learning Languages]. New world. New languages. Need the edge.”
Artemis smacked her forehead with the palm of her hand.
“Why didn’t I think of that!” She spent a moment in thought, then shuddered as a wave of nausea went through her.
“I spent so much time on these skills.” Julius grumbled. “If you, Artemis, and Amber all are grabbing language skills, I might take it the slow way.”
“Especially since you and Artemis are sticking together.” I said.
“Yeah…”
“What makes you so sure Amber’s going to take a language skill?” Iona curiously and deftly inserted herself into the conversation.
“What, and miss a chance to make money?” I joked.
Iona laughed.
“From what you’ve told me of your trip through the fae realm, and what she got out of it, I can believe it!”
Iona presented Artemis and Julius with a picture of the two of them cuddling.
“For you!” She said.
Artemis gasped.
“It’s beautiful. Thank you!”
“Brrpt? BRRRPT??” Auri had woken up, and had flown over to examine Iona’s artwork.
“Sure.” She stuck out her thumb at Auri, getting a gauge. Then she started dancing her quill over a second sheet, unconsciously sticking out her tongue a bit and biting it as she focused.
Amazingly, she was free-form drawing, standing, with nothing backing the paper. She either had a skill for it, or such fine control over her drawing tool that she didn’t need a backstop to draw. She moved superhumanly fast as she sketched, leaning on her massive stats to move quicker.
“Why are you being so nice to us?” I asked Iona. “It really feels like you’ve gone above and beyond.”
Iona tilted her head a fraction, squinting at Auri again. The phoenix was already coming to life on her paper. I wanted one of me.
“Well, to start, you did save my life. By extension, Fenrir’s life.” Iona told me. The sleepy wyvern raised its head up, but not seeing anything he wanted - food, I assumed - he put his head back down.
“You don’t have a concept of a life-debt or anything, do you?” I asked, somewhat dreading that the answer would be ‘yes’.
“No, I’m not a minotaur.” Iona said. “It helps though. It’s not your fault you’re here, so I don’t hold a grudge against you for taking skills that were… somehow not problematic where you’re from?”
I snorted.
“Believe me, it was plenty problematic. I was the first though.”
“Sure. You didn’t know. The entire reason why you’d be trouble is if people found out, and started a war over you. The best way to stop that happening? You going somewhere where your class and skills aren’t an issue. The School’s a relatively safe spot. They accept mortals and Immortals alike. For the rest of you? The whole idea behind swearing to a power is to control and restrain Classers who can kill a whole lot of people. The three of you were sworn to a power. You clearly have restraint, respect for the rule of law, and were more than willing to help me with the vorler. In that respect, you’re not a problem.”
“The help?”
Iona shrugged.
“It’s just the right, honorable thing to do. Of course I’d do it.”
That… huh. I never thought that’d be why.
“Regardless of your reasons, you’ve got our eternal gratitude.” Julius thanked Iona, while shooting me the biggest ‘SHUT UP’ stinkeye I’d ever seen from my once-commander.
Wasn’t sure why, buuuuuuuuuuut I was going to listen to him. Somewhat. I still wanted to learn more things. Like the alphabet. Artemis beat me to the punch.
“What year is it anyways?” Artemis asked.
“28,257.” Iona answered. “What year was it when you left?”
I knew it was going to be bad. I didn’t think it was going to be that bad. I would’ve preferred that she just punch me in the gut.
“4801.” Artemis answered.
Still. New world. Looked pretty similar to the old world, and I mentally marked why onto my list of things to find out.
I wasn’t going to make it here by lying down and dying. I would survive.
No, more than survive.
I would thrive. The world would be my oyster, mangos and books being the delicious pearls that I needed to crack out for my enjoyment. I would forge a path for my own happiness in the world.
It’s what my parents always wanted for me. They just… weren’t going to see it.
“Can you show me the alphabet?” I asked Iona, dragging my thoughts out of the abyss as I looked at the piece of paper in question.
“Sure! Ok, the first letters are the most important ones.” Iona shuffled the paper around, pointing to the alphabet she’d written. “This is U. I. E. A. And O.”
[ding! Learning Languages leveled up! 1->2]
“Next, we have…”
Iona continued to show me the alphabet for Sanglo, as my newest skill rang in the back of my mind like a boxer beating the stuffing out of a punching bag.
Soon enough, Amber had gotten up and met us outside, and we were ready to set off again north, Iona carrying Amber so the Valkyrie would make it to the place she was going in time without leaving anyone behind.
“Brrrrrpt brrrrrrrpt!!!” Auri made appreciative noises at the drawing Iona had made of her.
“Yes you do simply look the best.” I praised the little fire starter.
“Bbrrrpt!”
“She absolutely brings out your good side!” I told Auri, knowing that Iona could hear the compliment. Ha! Who said I couldn’t learn to be social! One small step at a time, I'd figure this out!
Auri flew over to some flowers by the side of the road, quickly foraging for sustenance. She then fluttered over to Iona, hovering over her.
“Brrrpt?” She asked.
“What do you mean make a nest with - AURI NO!”
I managed to up the pace we were going at as I fled in embarrassment.
Traveling with no money sucked. Food, water, lodging, supplies and more all cost money, and while I could live off the land, that usually necessitated finding a river and following it, not following a road. I was keenly feeling the monetary pinch, but not as badly as some members of the party.
Which had me asking about money, which Iona was only too happy to tell us about.
Money was completely different now. Each country did their own fancy thing, but the fundamentals were the same. Each coin had a small gemstone in the middle of it. Depending on the type of the gemstone, it was worth more or less, with arcanite being the most common coin that everyone had jostling around in their pocket, and diamond and rubies being the most valuable, almost to the point where they were used to show wealth, and only got traded for the largest deals. Each tier of gems was worth roughly ten times as much as the previous tier, and an Arcanite coin was worth roughly half of a Remus coin. So a loaf of bread was more like two Arcanite coins, instead of one Remus coin. Simple enough.
Amber was surprisingly happy at the news.
“Well if I’d brought my iron coins, they’d be useless.” She explained. “I would’ve felt robbed. But because I left them behind it’s not a problem.”
I didn’t track that at all.
“Glad you’re happy.”
We also found out about Iona! She was a Valkyrie, and from the sounds of it, a Valkyrie was something like a cross between a Sentinel, and a Ranger team. Not quite a solo operative, and they weren’t as hyper specialized as Sentinels were, but they did wander around fixing problems that came up, similar to how a Ranger team operated. They tended towards being physical fighters, although they had no issues with any other type of combatants, and generally had a steed or a bondmate acting as a force multiplier.
She told us all about her classes, how she had [The Dusk Valkyrie], [Traveling Archer], and [Paladin of the Moons]. I found it interesting that she was Dusk, while I was Dawn.
I learned that divine classes were basically always blue, which felt massively unfair. I got offered all sorts of joke classes because of Papilion, but Iona got an amazing [Paladin] class from her patrons!?
So unfair.
Maybe I should try praying to the moon goddesses more, it might get me a cool divine class later on!
We traveled at high speed, avoiding towns because trying to get Artemis and Julius inside would be too difficult - and running around the town was significantly faster than trying to wade through the streets.
Iona also had an idea for the Julius and Artemis problem.
“Join the World Bank or something as guards.” She suggested. “Easy, well paying work, plus nobody will blink twice at you.”
My two friends traded looks at that.
“It’s not the worst idea.” Julius muttered.
“I kinda hate it.” Artemis admitted. “But if that’s what we need to do to survive, I’ll do it. Anyone else hiring?”
“Oh there’s a ton.” Iona said. “Let’s see… most of the guilds could use guards. Like the Alchemist’s. Merchant’s. Tailor’s. For every profession, there’s a guild, and generally they need some guards, although not all of them are hiring, and there’s obviously different rates of pay. That’s why I suggested the World Bank. You could always join the retinue of a noble, but that’s difficult, and you’d be second class members, compared to the people they’ve grown up and spent all their lives with. Then there are some guilds that you could work as an active member. Adventurer’s. Delver’s. Hunter’s. Each does something different, but your skill would be put to more active use. ”
Oh no.
Oh no.
Iona was happily suggesting my friends become adventurers. My opinion of her plummeted. What good person would suggest my honest and upright friends become adventurers!?
Well, ok. Artemis… might have a checkered enough history to qualify. She did join the Rangers though!
We continued to travel on terrible roads, dodging around towns, until at last our destination was in sight.
In what felt like no time at all, the walls of Lyon were visible in the distance.
We jogged through the night at a modest pace, occasionally alarming some merchant group’s sentry or another as we passed by. I lit the way with my Radiance, and all of us were used to long, hard days.
Well.
Almost all of us. Poor Auri was curled up in my hands, sleeping. Iona was still carrying Fenrir.
We didn’t move back north nearly as quickly as we’d gone south to fight the spiders. Plain and simple, we were tired, but given the lackluster state of our supplies, we elected to just carry through.
We were going slow enough that Iona kept helping us with the language, and we gradually unraveled our stories and adventures to her. [Passionate Learning] along with our ability to speak quickly helped me with the language, but I was tired, which slowed me down. I knew I needed to rest now and then to let my subconscious process things, and generally let my brain reorganize itself with the new information.
We made it back to the little village where we’d dropped off Amber a bit before sunrise, and decided to take a much needed break.
“Good run!” Iona was like an Energizer Bunny. Filled with boundless energy, running for miles, getting into a fight, exterminating the remaining spiders, then running all the way back seemed like a light warmup for her. That must be some skill.
Or maybe it was just raw physicality?
Artemis and Julius didn’t say anything. They just silently slipped their hand into the others like it was rehearsed.
“Brrrrrpt……..” Auri sleepily agreed, turning over in my hands and resettling herself into a more comfortable spot.
“That would be… ‘nice run’?” I ventured in Hakka.
Iona tilted her hand back and forth.
“Yes, but no… but it’s close enough.” She sat down, flipping open the pouch the [Countess] had given her. She ruffled through it, took out some sheets of - wait holy shit there was paper here!?
It was rough, coarse, and not at all uniform in color, but it was unmistakably, undeniably, paper. And where there was paper, there were books.
And where there were books there was a happy Elaine.
I immediately plonked myself down next to Iona, shuffling up close to her, just to peer around her arm at the paper. To see if there were words, if I could divine some story or another.
Iona subtly shifted, making it easier for me to look around her, and making it more comfortable.
“Anything you’re looking for?” She asked.
“Books.” I promptly replied. “I am a sucker for a good book.”
“None here, sorry. The School’s got a bunch.” She started scribbling on the paper, writing a letter.
A realization crashed over me:
All the books the School had?
They’d be written in a bunch of different languages, and unless one of them was Creation, I couldn’t read them.
“Can you tell me what you’re writing?” I asked Iona, somewhat leaning into her arm. I’d shamelessly get closer to her to get a better view, if there was any room left between us.
“It’s in Sanglo.” She warned me.
“Eh. I’ll have to learn it one day.” I said.
“Ok, this word here is ‘Valkyrie’.” Iona pointed to the word in question. On one hand, Iona was doing me numerous favors, helping me find my feet in the world. Teaching me the language. Smoothing things over with the local nobility, and not throwing me under a bus. I wanted to be polite and respectful.
On the other hand. WORDS! BOOKS! GIVE ME THE SECRETS TO READING SO THAT I MAY DEVOUR ALL!
Scrolls just didn’t do it the same way paper did, and Remus had shit libraries.
“Any chance you can give me the alphabet used here?” I asked Iona.
“Hakka or Sanglo?” She asked, and I mentally cursed. There were two alphabets to learn?! Why hadn’t someone invented a [Universal Translation] skill or something?
I wanted everything. I needed all the languages in the world, to crack open the tasty nuts that were books hidden in every library. Never again did I want to find myself in the worst position possible, like I had in Lun’Kat’s lair - surrounded by hundreds of books, unable to touch or read any of them. Simply terrible.
I mean, being next to a dragon that could kill me with a thought was also bad, but the inability to read had been worse.
At the same time, I knew that I should narrow my focus, and learn one thing at a time. But… I was greedy.
“How many languages are there?”
Iona shrugged.
“A few dozen? My blessing lets me understand them, not list and categorize them. That’s before we get into dialects, accents so thick they might as well be different languages, dead languages, and whatever else there is.”
I wanted to groan. I needed a skill or five to help me out.
[*ding!* Congratulations! You’ve unlocked a new General Skill [Tongue Twisting]!]
“Hang on, I’m getting offered some new skills.” I told Iona.
“No worries.” Her quill moved with supernatural speed, as she quickly penned the rest of her letter - then flipped it over, and drew what I presumed was a quick alphabet. I was busy reading through the skills.
Tongue Twisting: You’re fluent in two languages, and have minor achievements in three more! All those words are tricky to pronounce though! Tongue Twisting will help you perfectly pronounce all these words, and do other tricks with your nimble mouth!
An entire skill for pronunciation? No thank you. Also, what was with that extra stuff!?
Ok. Fine. I’ll admit it. I was a little curious to see how nimble a tongue could be with insane warrior dexterity stats. Not curious enough to be competitive and preemptively take a manipulation skill though.
[*ding!* Congratulations! You’ve unlocked a new General Skill [Polyglot]!]
Polyglot: You’ve got several languages under your belt, and you’re raring to get more! Polyglot will help you remember acquired languages, identify which language is being spoken, fill in minor words and details, help with dialects and accents, and stop you from slipping up in conversations!
The strongest line there looked like the remembering languages line. And that was looking at the skill in a vacuum, entirely ignoring the fact that I had a perfect memory skill. After that was factored in, help with accents and dialects was the best part.
Weirdly, the skill wasn’t a total joke. Was the System broken, or actually being helpful for once!? Was I finally not getting joke skills from the System?
[*ding!* Congratulations! You’ve unlocked a new General Skill [Cunning Linguist]!]
Nevermind. Back to the joke skills. The skill did… yup. Exactly what I thought it’d do.
Oh gods. Iona could see my skills. I’d die of embarrassment if she saw I’d taken that.
[*ding!* Congratulations! You’ve unlocked a new General Skill [Learning Languages]!]
Learning Languages: Is hard! You’ve mastered two, and you need to master a couple more! Take this skill, and learn them quickly! Reading, writing, letters and numbers will all be a breeze to pick up, and you’ll be speaking like a native in no time!
Yaaay. Another joke -
Wait.
WAIT.
That wasn’t a joke skill. Sure, the System offered it with a number of other things, but I needed to learn a number of languages, and fast. Iona was nice - really nice, I should ask her why she was being so nice to somebody she thought would start a war - but I couldn’t rely on her to translate for me forever. She’d go her own way eventually, and we’d be back where we started - nobody able to speak with anybody. It had happened with the elves, it was happening again, and it was frankly a terrible position to be in.
I wasn’t big on relying on others.
Plus, the sooner I learned the languages, the faster I’d be able to read books!
My look was unfocused, and I vaguely noticed Iona had finished her letter, and had taken a new piece of paper and was sketching on it, drawing Julius and Artemis.
There was a slim chance that some people still spoke Creation. However, I couldn’t rely on that. I needed to be able to communicate with people.
The skill looked like it’d dramatically help, and best of all? The skill wasn’t like [Polyglot] which would stop having an impact if I ever dropped it. The skill was to help me learn the language faster, which meant once I was satisfied with my languages, I could drop it and have a free general skill slot again.
I’d been debating dropping [Bullet Time] for [Meditate] for some time now, figuring that it’d help with my initial third class offerings. However, right now I had a pressing need for more languages. I checked over my general skills one more time.
[Long-Range Identify] helped me figure out what was dangerous and what wasn’t in the world. It was a keep.
[Immortal Recollections] I was hoping would continue to help with my language acquisition, and doubling up was nice. I also planned to live forever, and the skill, while looking a little tasty to axe right now, would pay massive dividends in the future.
[Companion Bond] was naturally staying, and [Oath] had to stay. It was binding.
[Bullet Time] had certainly helped me plenty throughout the years. It had saved my life against the pirates. The shimagu. And more! Except it was activating less and less frequently these days, my skills and abilities slowly overpowering most mundane threats. As time went on, the band of enemies the skill was useful against shrunk. They needed to be strong enough to threaten my life, but weak enough that I could actually fight back against them.
Now I had a critically useful skill that I wanted to find a spot for. Speaking and communication was my bread and butter in daily life, as opposed to the occasional terrifying fight for my life.
I wasn’t ditching [Sentinel’s Superiority]. The skill was insane, and let me know one critical fact of life - I was not alone. When it came to “Skills saving my life in a fight”, [Sentinel’s Superiority] was significantly better than [Bullet Time].
[Persistent Casting] was better at saving me than [Bullet Time] was by a long shot.
I’d never dump [Passionate Learning]. It was just too much of who I was. Plus, I was planning on using it with [Learning Languages] to speed up how quickly I picked up new tongues. Be pointless to trade the skills like that.
“Sorry, one moment.” I told Iona.
“No worries. We’re just waiting for your friend.” She continued sketching, Julius and Artemis coming to life under her quill. Iona was good.
I put a sleeping Auri down next to Iona, getting up into the middle of the road.
“Hey Artemis!” I called out to my twitchy friend after checking that there was nothing behind me. “Do me a favor!”
“Sure!”
“Throw some rocks at my shoulders, not super fast though.” I asked her.
Artemis didn’t hesitate a moment. A barrage of sharp road rocks rocketed up towards me, but I was both prepared, and had [Bullet Time]. Giving the skill one last hurrah, I threw myself backwards, windmilling my arms to dodge all of Artemis’s deliberately-slow attacks.
I got to watch the rocks whiz by me in one glorious moment, then I’d thrown myself back enough, [Bullet Time] ended, and I was safe and clear, having finally fulfilled the promise of the skill way back when I first got it.
I had dodged ‘bullets’.
With a small flicker of regret and nostalgia, I traded [Bullet Time] for [Learning Languages], feeling a massive wave of nausea pass through me as I was disoriented from losing the skill. I puked a little.
“Elaine, everything ok?” Julius was by my side.
“Yeah.” I spat the last chunks out of my mouth, then grabbed Julius’s tunic and wiped my face on it.
“Hey!” He protested. “What’s wrong with your own shirt!?”
“I didn’t want to get it dirty.” I explained to him, getting the most doubtful look back.
“The one you’ve been wearing for weeks without changing or washing.” He gave my shirt a significant look.
“No sense in making it worse.” I primly replied.
“Hey Healy-bug, you going to explain?” Artemis asked.
“Yeah. I dropped one of my skills to get [Learning Languages]. New world. New languages. Need the edge.”
Artemis smacked her forehead with the palm of her hand.
“Why didn’t I think of that!” She spent a moment in thought, then shuddered as a wave of nausea went through her.
“I spent so much time on these skills.” Julius grumbled. “If you, Artemis, and Amber all are grabbing language skills, I might take it the slow way.”
“Especially since you and Artemis are sticking together.” I said.
“Yeah…”
“What makes you so sure Amber’s going to take a language skill?” Iona curiously and deftly inserted herself into the conversation.
“What, and miss a chance to make money?” I joked.
Iona laughed.
“From what you’ve told me of your trip through the fae realm, and what she got out of it, I can believe it!”
Iona presented Artemis and Julius with a picture of the two of them cuddling.
“For you!” She said.
Artemis gasped.
“It’s beautiful. Thank you!”
“Brrpt? BRRRPT??” Auri had woken up, and had flown over to examine Iona’s artwork.
“Sure.” She stuck out her thumb at Auri, getting a gauge. Then she started dancing her quill over a second sheet, unconsciously sticking out her tongue a bit and biting it as she focused.
Amazingly, she was free-form drawing, standing, with nothing backing the paper. She either had a skill for it, or such fine control over her drawing tool that she didn’t need a backstop to draw. She moved superhumanly fast as she sketched, leaning on her massive stats to move quicker.
“Why are you being so nice to us?” I asked Iona. “It really feels like you’ve gone above and beyond.”
Iona tilted her head a fraction, squinting at Auri again. The phoenix was already coming to life on her paper. I wanted one of me.
“Well, to start, you did save my life. By extension, Fenrir’s life.” Iona told me. The sleepy wyvern raised its head up, but not seeing anything he wanted - food, I assumed - he put his head back down.
“You don’t have a concept of a life-debt or anything, do you?” I asked, somewhat dreading that the answer would be ‘yes’.
“No, I’m not a minotaur.” Iona said. “It helps though. It’s not your fault you’re here, so I don’t hold a grudge against you for taking skills that were… somehow not problematic where you’re from?”
I snorted.
“Believe me, it was plenty problematic. I was the first though.”
“Sure. You didn’t know. The entire reason why you’d be trouble is if people found out, and started a war over you. The best way to stop that happening? You going somewhere where your class and skills aren’t an issue. The School’s a relatively safe spot. They accept mortals and Immortals alike. For the rest of you? The whole idea behind swearing to a power is to control and restrain Classers who can kill a whole lot of people. The three of you were sworn to a power. You clearly have restraint, respect for the rule of law, and were more than willing to help me with the vorler. In that respect, you’re not a problem.”
“The help?”
Iona shrugged.
“It’s just the right, honorable thing to do. Of course I’d do it.”
That… huh. I never thought that’d be why.
“Regardless of your reasons, you’ve got our eternal gratitude.” Julius thanked Iona, while shooting me the biggest ‘SHUT UP’ stinkeye I’d ever seen from my once-commander.
Wasn’t sure why, buuuuuuuuuuut I was going to listen to him. Somewhat. I still wanted to learn more things. Like the alphabet. Artemis beat me to the punch.
“What year is it anyways?” Artemis asked.
“28,257.” Iona answered. “What year was it when you left?”
I knew it was going to be bad. I didn’t think it was going to be that bad. I would’ve preferred that she just punch me in the gut.
“4801.” Artemis answered.
Still. New world. Looked pretty similar to the old world, and I mentally marked why onto my list of things to find out.
I wasn’t going to make it here by lying down and dying. I would survive.
No, more than survive.
I would thrive. The world would be my oyster, mangos and books being the delicious pearls that I needed to crack out for my enjoyment. I would forge a path for my own happiness in the world.
It’s what my parents always wanted for me. They just… weren’t going to see it.
“Can you show me the alphabet?” I asked Iona, dragging my thoughts out of the abyss as I looked at the piece of paper in question.
“Sure! Ok, the first letters are the most important ones.” Iona shuffled the paper around, pointing to the alphabet she’d written. “This is U. I. E. A. And O.”
[ding! Learning Languages leveled up! 1->2]
“Next, we have…”
Iona continued to show me the alphabet for Sanglo, as my newest skill rang in the back of my mind like a boxer beating the stuffing out of a punching bag.
Soon enough, Amber had gotten up and met us outside, and we were ready to set off again north, Iona carrying Amber so the Valkyrie would make it to the place she was going in time without leaving anyone behind.
“Brrrrrpt brrrrrrrpt!!!” Auri made appreciative noises at the drawing Iona had made of her.
“Yes you do simply look the best.” I praised the little fire starter.
“Bbrrrpt!”
“She absolutely brings out your good side!” I told Auri, knowing that Iona could hear the compliment. Ha! Who said I couldn’t learn to be social! One small step at a time, I'd figure this out!
Auri flew over to some flowers by the side of the road, quickly foraging for sustenance. She then fluttered over to Iona, hovering over her.
“Brrrpt?” She asked.
“What do you mean make a nest with - AURI NO!”
I managed to up the pace we were going at as I fled in embarrassment.
Traveling with no money sucked. Food, water, lodging, supplies and more all cost money, and while I could live off the land, that usually necessitated finding a river and following it, not following a road. I was keenly feeling the monetary pinch, but not as badly as some members of the party.
Which had me asking about money, which Iona was only too happy to tell us about.
Money was completely different now. Each country did their own fancy thing, but the fundamentals were the same. Each coin had a small gemstone in the middle of it. Depending on the type of the gemstone, it was worth more or less, with arcanite being the most common coin that everyone had jostling around in their pocket, and diamond and rubies being the most valuable, almost to the point where they were used to show wealth, and only got traded for the largest deals. Each tier of gems was worth roughly ten times as much as the previous tier, and an Arcanite coin was worth roughly half of a Remus coin. So a loaf of bread was more like two Arcanite coins, instead of one Remus coin. Simple enough.
Amber was surprisingly happy at the news.
“Well if I’d brought my iron coins, they’d be useless.” She explained. “I would’ve felt robbed. But because I left them behind it’s not a problem.”
I didn’t track that at all.
“Glad you’re happy.”
We also found out about Iona! She was a Valkyrie, and from the sounds of it, a Valkyrie was something like a cross between a Sentinel, and a Ranger team. Not quite a solo operative, and they weren’t as hyper specialized as Sentinels were, but they did wander around fixing problems that came up, similar to how a Ranger team operated. They tended towards being physical fighters, although they had no issues with any other type of combatants, and generally had a steed or a bondmate acting as a force multiplier.
She told us all about her classes, how she had [The Dusk Valkyrie], [Traveling Archer], and [Paladin of the Moons]. I found it interesting that she was Dusk, while I was Dawn.
I learned that divine classes were basically always blue, which felt massively unfair. I got offered all sorts of joke classes because of Papilion, but Iona got an amazing [Paladin] class from her patrons!?
So unfair.
Maybe I should try praying to the moon goddesses more, it might get me a cool divine class later on!
We traveled at high speed, avoiding towns because trying to get Artemis and Julius inside would be too difficult - and running around the town was significantly faster than trying to wade through the streets.
Iona also had an idea for the Julius and Artemis problem.
“Join the World Bank or something as guards.” She suggested. “Easy, well paying work, plus nobody will blink twice at you.”
My two friends traded looks at that.
“It’s not the worst idea.” Julius muttered.
“I kinda hate it.” Artemis admitted. “But if that’s what we need to do to survive, I’ll do it. Anyone else hiring?”
“Oh there’s a ton.” Iona said. “Let’s see… most of the guilds could use guards. Like the Alchemist’s. Merchant’s. Tailor’s. For every profession, there’s a guild, and generally they need some guards, although not all of them are hiring, and there’s obviously different rates of pay. That’s why I suggested the World Bank. You could always join the retinue of a noble, but that’s difficult, and you’d be second class members, compared to the people they’ve grown up and spent all their lives with. Then there are some guilds that you could work as an active member. Adventurer’s. Delver’s. Hunter’s. Each does something different, but your skill would be put to more active use. ”
Oh no.
Oh no.
Iona was happily suggesting my friends become adventurers. My opinion of her plummeted. What good person would suggest my honest and upright friends become adventurers!?
Well, ok. Artemis… might have a checkered enough history to qualify. She did join the Rangers though!
We continued to travel on terrible roads, dodging around towns, until at last our destination was in sight.
In what felt like no time at all, the walls of Lyon were visible in the distance.
