I'm out of water and staring at the cup is boring. It's helping though. My emotions settle. I try to regulate my breathing. There are memories that say steady breathing can help bring peace of mind. Usually there is a brown paper bag. In annnnnd out, innnnnn and ouuuuuut. My eyes droop, innnnnn ouuuuuut.
A hand nudges my shoulder, I jerk awake.
“Enjoy the nap?” The captain inquires.
I murmur that it wasn't long enough and look around the room. Bartholomew, the old man, is back in the corner, Jacob is at the table, quill at the ready, the captain is rounding the table to be opposite of me, Johnston is not here. The captain starts again.
“Let's get started on the next line, actually how is the display still up.” Guess the nap was longer than I thought.
The old man replies, “I believe Sara dumped all her mana into stone when she touched it.”
The captain arches an eyebrow at that, “Even still . . . It's not important, can you tell how much longer it will last?”
“I say another hour.”
“What's mana?” I interject. The duo turned to me, not understanding how I could pose the question.
“Did you not pay attention when your elders explained the system to you.” Jacob this time.
“If you're talking about the voice of god, I was told to wait until I heard it before lessons would begin.”
The captain is holding the bridge of her nose again. I wonder if that's a universal guard habit. She murmurs something about fundamentalist, then motions to the old man to explain.
“Mana is what empowers magical effects and phenomena. How much mana an individual has is determined by the combination of their soul and mental fortitude levels. Many would try to quantify this as a number, but in the end I feel it would be short sighted as magic is as much an art as a science. An example of this—”
The captains interrupts, “Enough, I know you delight in lecture, but we only have an hour.”
I'm grateful for this, it felt like the old man was going to go on forever. Learning fine and all, but not knowing half the words he said really makes it hard to follow. Mana empowers, and that's about all I understood.
“As you say, perhaps a small explanation as we go through each line, if only to grant Sara the education she sorely needs.”
“Fine, but I'll be explaining. Sara the third line should be strength, it's how strong your body is, what is the number next to it?”
The old man scoffs at the brief explanation, but at this point I prefer it. I answer with eight. Jacob notes it down. The captain continues.
“Good, the next line is your agility, it's how agile and flexible you are.” She raises an eyebrow in question. I replied with ten. “Right this one is perception, it improves your senses. Being faster doesn't help much if you run into a tree.” Jacob laughs at that, I simply state fifteen.
The captain is pointing at the lines now. “Constitution, how sturdy your body is” six, the captain winces at that, then continues “Presence, it determines how charismatic you are.”
I'm not sure what ‘charismatic’ means, but cha is usually Charisma memories, so I interrupt to make sure, “Will I become prettier if I raise that stat?”
The old man answers, "Beauty is different for everyone, increasing strength or agility can redefine how you look. No, presence is more like an aura of command. A general giving a speech to his troops will greatly benefit from having a higher presence stat.”
“Oh. . . Eight” I try not to sound too disappointed.
“Contining, you know what mental fortitude does.” Nineteen, the captain nods, “this line is intelligence, it determines how fast you can think. Before you ask, you're not smarter, you just come to your conclusion faster.”
“Some would say having more time to think should make you smarter.” the old man again.
“That's the trick of it isn't, if you think up a stupid idea in five seconds or five minutes, it's still a stupid idea.”
Before the old man can argue further, I interject with forty. That gets me a few looks. The captain points to the skill line. I stop her before she begins. “What about the stat below intelligence, I don't see it in this display but it's in my personal one.”
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“Right, before you blurt a number out, don't. That's soul, it is a measure of your life memories. It should increase by one every year and one every level. You're the first one I've heard of who has a title that gives more.”
I start to feel clammy at that statement. Without these memories or my title, I would've had twelve soul. Instead there are forty-four extra from memories and two extra from level ups.
“Why is it bad to tell people your soul level?”
“People will kill you.” Jacob again.
“What?”
The old man explains, “Your soul level directly correlates to how much experience you give when killed. As you level you'll only become a bigger target. In some ways, your aura might dissuade people from attacking you.”
O great, making people think I'm worthless could save my life. Now I'm pinching the bridge of my nose. Best to get as much information as I can.
“Is there a way for others to know my soul level without me telling them?”
The old man thinks for a moment, then answers. “A high enough [Identify] should reveal it, monsters naturally can sense it and depending on the creature it will either draw them to you or scare them away. I've heard certain aura sense skills can see soul levels as well.” He turned his head to the captain at that last part.
The captain points at the first bracketed word on the skill line. “Enough, what is this skill?”
“[English]” the captain raises an eyebrow, I elaborate, “it's what this status screen written in.”
The old man is back at it, “Ah, if language is the first skill, it's certain to be inherited. Sara, what is the skill’s level.”
I answer honestly, “I don't know the word in [Common], but it's followed by a nine.”
The old man frowns at that, “We might be able to figure it out based off your stats, I see that the next skill also has the same skill tier, can you describe what it does.”
“That's [Math]. Um so if I have one thing and I bring another so that I now have two things, what would that be called”
Jacob chimes in, “Addition.”
Well that could be a word for math, or it could be a word for addition.
“And to be clear, if I took one away and now only had one that would be?”
“Subtraction” Jacob again.
Not the same word, so definitely not the word for math.
“So if I group addition and subtraction together as a field of study, what would that be called?”
This stumps Jacob, the old man answers “Math.”
At this point it's either math or algebra.
“[Math] is math. Its unknown word eight.” My notification word pulsed again. I really should see what that's about.
“The next one is [Yell], another unknown word three.”
The old man nods, he is standing behind Jacob at this point, looking between my screen and the parchment. He speaks after a moment. “Ah [Yell]. No more inheritance skills then, going by your strength stat the skill tier is basic.”
“Can you explain why knowing my strength stat led to that.”
The captain stops the old man before he gets two words in. “After, I see the next one has common at the end, clearly [Speak:Common] would be the first of the series anyone would gain. Its level is apprentice one, I saw it change after Sara learned the word for math. The next skill, Sara.”
It takes me a moment to catch up, holy shit it did change. The old man looks like he is back to thinking. At least I know the next few words. “[Running] basic five.” Jacob continues writing. “[Tough Skin] basic one, [Status Screen] apprentice one, um” I hesitate at the last one, cringing.
Jacob has finished writing the last part and looks up expectingly. The captain rolls her eyes, “It's [Tell Lies], every child gets that one. I'm shocked it's still basic, a high apprentice or competent would be what I expected for your age. What's the number”
“It's three. Father had the [Detect Falsehood] skill, I generally didn't talk to other people when he wasn't around.”
The captain looks at me a bit after that statement. “Bart, have you figured out the tier to her inherited skills yet?”
“Going by the intelligence stat of forty, I can only conclude its intermediate. You see Sara, skills are categorized by stats. When they level up you gain a stat for that skills category, up to a certain threshold. In this case the intermediate's threshold is forty, and since competent is thirty, that means it has to be intermediate to push you past thirty intelligence. Just so you know, basic and apprentice thresholds are ten and twenty respectively. If your stat is already at a threshold when you level a skill you gain experience instead.”
That was a lot, I ask the question after thinking about the [Status Screen] skill. “I got two stats when [Status Screen] leveled, perception and mental fortitude and they were already over the basic threshold, what gives?” I regret asking already.
“Well that's a combo skill, it—”
The captain saves me, “Enough, we have more to discuss, Sara what were you doing traveling up the southern road alone, I was told you arrived covered in blood and had a poorly shorn hide as a cloak. Jacob had to peel it off you from what I heard.”
I proceeded to tell my story. There were some hiccups in the telling and tears but I got through it.
The captain asks a question, “Do you know the name of the village?”
I shake my head in the negative. The captain pushes, “Surely, the village has a name if there is a barrier fountain.”
“What's a barrier?”
“It's what you ran into when you arrived at town, funny enough it's suppose to let anyone below a certain soul level through though, I think it's rated at.”
The captain interrupts before he can finish, “Jacob, Not another word. Sara, can you give me a basic idea of where the village is?”
“It's about ten-thousand kings feet south of Grafteir.”
The old man murmurs loud enough to hear. “The sacrifice.”
The captain gives a really dirty look for that statement. Her hand is pinching the bridge of her nose again. “I'll send a runner down to see if we can't reunite you with your family, your father's name was Emil right?” I nod.
The captain then yells, “Johnston, I figured out a task for you to stave off your boredom.” Sandy hair is back and she tells him to go down the southern road to find my village, she motions him closer and whispers additional instructions. “That's that then, till we get word back, how bout we get some more food in you. Aside from the loaf of bread, you haven't eaten anything substantial in three days, right?”
My stomach growl was enough to answer that question.
