Despite Paul’s accelerated healing, it took him days before he felt fully recovered from his encounter with the trolls. Eventually, though, his burnt skin healed, his wounds faded, his ribs knit themselves back together entirely, and Paul fell back into his familiar routines.

Just hunting, butchering, and processing a single cave-muskox took enough time to fill two “days,” and what time Paul had left he used to replace and repair his damaged clothing and equipment. He wound up sewing himself an entirely new set of buckskins, the previous leathers so rent and burnt by combat that they were unsalvageable. His efforts earned him another rank in both [Leatherworking] and [Tailoring] and resulted in buckskins that were both comfortable and rugged.

He took on other projects as well. A warm hood-less cloak knitted from spun cave-muskox wool, which took weeks of combing out the soft Qiviut from musk-ox pelts, spinning it on a bone spindle, then knitting the resulting woolen yarn with carved bone knitting needles. A second bar of soap.

In the back of his mind, he knew he was delaying the inevitable, but every time Paul thought about going back to the mantis-troll territory, he found himself busying himself with other tasks instead. It was always one more project, one more chore. Then he would be ready.

Before Paul fell asleep each night, however, without the chores and projects he tasked himself with to keep his brain occupied, visions of his fight with the trolls came unbidden to his mind.

The trolls weren’t cave rats, or snakes, or spiders, or any one of the other dangerous animals that prowled the cavern depths. They were thinking sentient beings. And Paul had killed them. Worse, he wasn’t sure if he had to. After deflecting their rocks with his make-shift shield of light, he could have run. Instead, he turned and fought.

He replayed the battle over and over again in his mind. There was a moment when one of the trolls had struggled to rise, and Paul had brought a club down on the back of its head like it had been a mindless cave rat. In the moment he didn’t even think about it, but in reflection, his actions seemed unnecessary and brutal. Had the troll been a threat at that point, wounded and struggling to rise? He didn’t think so. No, he knew it wasn’t. But Paul had killed it all the same.

It wasn’t the first time that Paul had killed - the short, disastrous battle that ended in his death had been chaotic and terrifying, but he had always been a good shot. It was different though. He was under orders. Fighting for a bigger cause. Struggling against the aliens that had landed their impossibly huge ships and massacred civilians. There had been right and wrong, and Paul had known what side he was on. This time though, Paul had been fighting only for himself. In the moment he had made a choice, and it ended with the death of three sentients.

He still wasn’t sure why they had attacked him. Was it because he was in their territory? Was it because they thought he was a threat? One thing was for sure if they didn’t believe he was a threat before, killing several of them seemed to have changed their mind. Paul cursed himself, playing the events over and over, wondering what he could have done differently. Could these trolls have been allies, been friends, if he had done things differently? He didn’t know, and the question ate at him.

The first night he came back, staring at the feather he now wore on a thong around his neck along with his rat-claw knife, he had made a decision. To find the feather’s origin, even if he had to go through the trolls, even if he had to kill more of them. The thought sat uneasily in his mind. Why did Paul have the right to take their lives, and why was his life more important than theirs?

Paul grappled with these questions nightly. It was during one of these nights, uncertainty plaguing his thoughts and keeping him from sleep, that Paul received a new notification.

*New Skill Gained: [Philosophy: Ethics] Rank 1*

Paul burst out laughing, startling Seymore who had curled up next to him. The little lizard chittered at Paul in annoyance while Paul wiped tears from his eyes.

“Seymore, I’m better at philosophizing!” Seymore looked back up at Paul like he understood Paul's words. It was one of the reasons that Paul liked him so much. “Of all the useless skills I could get, I’m now evidently better at internally debating myself. Great.”

Paul rubbed the bridge of his nose and sighed.

When he laid back down, however, he was reminded of all the other strange and inexplicable skills that he had gained over the last few months, and how strange they would all seem to his friends back on Trappist IV. He wondered how many, if any, were still alive.

“Sure wish I could help them,” he said to Seymore. “I thought these caves were hell, but maybe I’m the lucky one.” Paul dismissed the thought. He couldn’t help them. He couldn’t help them when he fought, and he certainly couldn’t help them now, trapped in a cave labyrinth with only a lizard for company.

Paul frowned, and conjured an orb of light.

“What if I could though, Seymore?” Paul moved the light around the shelf-fungus he lay on, tracing a pattern in the air. He willed a second light into existence, and then a third.

Paul propped himself up on his elbows. “I didn’t think any of this was possible either when I first came here.” He exerted intent, and a fourth light materialized, joining the small group of orbs that surrounded him. “But if I continue to grow like this, what will I be capable of in six months from now? A year?” Paul’s voice had a new energy in it now, and in an effort of will, he brought a fifth light into being.

“I don’t know if will work Seymore, I don’t know how to get out of these caves, much less get back to Trappist IV,” Paul continued, “But I think I have to try.”

For the first time, Paul created a sixth orb of light, which was accompanied by a rank increase in his [Manifold Intent].

He collapsed on his back, sweat betraying the intense concentration it had taken him to bring the final light into existence. His mind, however, was more at ease than it had been in weeks. The feather had been a symbol, but now Paul had a cause. A goal greater than himself. A mission.

Seymore snuggled back into the furs, and for the first time since escaping the trolls, Paul had no trouble falling asleep.