5.13

“And so the journey *hic* begins. Emmanuel and his holly band of *hic* five go on their great quest to *hic* fuck up that Revealing King!” - Zephyrion the First Seer, at a Lua tavern in the elevated state of consciousness induced by dwarven Holy Water.

“I refuse,” I simply said to the guard captain’s request.

“Sorry, but I do too,” Tai said, “I’m not hurting for money and I don’t want to spend half a month scouring some dark cave for goblins.”

“What they said,” Noam added as he twirled a brown bottle in his hand.

“I can’t… without someone else…” Celine muttered.

Utoqa apparently didn’t have an opinion, instead refusing the request for war council and scouting the area for something worth eating. I would’ve joined him if he didn’t say I couldn’t sneak to feed myself. Sometimes truth really does hurt more than insults.

“But don’t you…” the captain hesitantly began. I could understand the confusion, we’re mercs, we should be jumping at this opportunity, but I wasn’t an OCD side quester that had to complete everything that came along.

“If the local government can’t handle a constant and recurring infestation then that’s a problem of mismanagement and incompetence,” I said. Whilst I would get paid, a private contractor should not be asked to deal with societal problems for payment. That gives a monetary incentive to ensure problems remain unsolved. “You already have backup coming right? My group will stay until they come, but otherwise I don’t plan on working further.”

*POP!* “Fighting in a dank shit-filled cave doesn’t sound my speed,” Noam continued, popping the cork of the bottle open and sniffing the contents.

“I’m of the same opinion,” Tai said since she wasn’t technically part of my group. Celine cautiously nodded, since she was a non-combatant by herself, though I was curious as to what happened to her crow thing.

And like that, we all blew off the guard captain.

“You know I noticed something…” Celine began as we stepped out of the still-standing cabin. “That bottle is that merchant’s right?”

Tai snorted, “Don’t tell me you actually paid for that crap.”

Noam laughed as he sauntered out, “What? No, the guy was crushed under the train, looks like he was at the window when it flipped. I palmed it from his cart thing.”

“A judge could convict you on that sentence alone…” Celine muttered.

“I mean there was no way I was paying for that, it was highway robbery!” he said as he juggled the bottle in his hand.

“Technically what you did was highway robbery,” I replied as he took a swig.

“I thought we established it was train robbery,” Tai said, completely stone-faced.

Noam choked on his alcohol, earning a chuckle from all of us, Celine most likely because it was funny, me because Noam suffered.

Spitting out the liquid, he tossed the bottle, a large fraction still inside, “That reminds me Tai, you said what your second sword does…”

“...But why are you running around? What does earning a merc license has to do with drawing the sword?”

She thought about it for a moment, pausing near one of the upturned cabins, “I suppose it won’t hurt to tell you. I’m following a Path.”

For some reason, all of us felt the capitalization of the word, regardless of her rather normal intonation.

“It is the Path of Discipline, a Path my great-great-grandma made. Everyone in my family has been following this Path save my older sister,” she drew her blade, letting its edge reflect off the afternoon sun, “You need to pass five different tiers to complete it, at which point it becomes the Path of the Master.”

An evolving Path? One that changed with progress? Suddenly I perked up, listening intently to her.

“I’ve only got two of tiers down, the first tier, the Students’ Staples and the second, the Adepts’ Acts,” she said. “The next is the Journeymans’ Jaunt, by following similar steps to my gran I can reach the same level she did.”

“Interesting,” I was semi-aware of such things. Paths that could be taught rather than manifested. Symbiosis and Spitfire were both something we grabbed, and two of the guards I recalled had See, though they seemed to be much weaker compared to the Survive package Utoqa had.

“Hoh? Then what’s the best you can manage right now? Sword wise,” Noam asked, eyes gleaming.

“The best huh…” she turned toward the upturned cabin beside us, “I can only use the Staples at will for now, so it’s kinda weak.”

That does seem to be a worthwhile tradeoff, being able to create a universal teaching programme at the cost of excellence. The multitude could do much more than the few.

Tai’s eyes sharpened.

“But if I focus a bit…” speaking almost absentmindedly, she stared down the metal underbelly of the cabin. I barely noticed both Celine and Noam stepping back.

I glanced at her, sword held at a stance, as her eyes seemed to intensify. Almost as if she were staring holes into the train’s underbelly.

A few moments passed just like that, and Noam was scratching his head as she did nothing.

Then I noticed her blade was glowing.

Tai’s sword flashed twice, leaving deep gouges in the cabin. The ear-bleeding sound of metal getting torn apart rung through my body.

What the fuck?

I was sucking Utoqa’s lizard dick by saying how much damage his shitty axe thing did, but I could probably fit in those fucking gouges she just left in the cabin! Is that the fucking other side I see? Did she cut all the way to- Fuck, “calm down.”

I forcibly calmed myself. Focusing outwards instead of staying inwards.

“... I can do the Adepts’ Acts,” Tai finished, catching her breath as she did so.

Noam was laughing and clapping, “Awesome!” he yelled. Celine was politely clapping along.

Now suitably calmed, I spoke the first thing on my mind, “Do you have to pay for that?”

The elf’s face went blank and the clapping stopped.

“Well I mean that thing still looked salvageable and you kinda just cut all the way through it…”

“Shit!” resheathing her sword, she dashed back where we came, likely to apologise to the poor train staff that had to later explain why there were now two massive sword-shaped gouges decorating the cabin.

Noam waved as she left, but I stepped forward, surveying the damage.

“I’m no metallurgist but that looks like steel,” Declan said, his attention drawn from tutoring the idiot in real life.

Much like older trains in reality, the outer of the cabin was composed of metal, with the inner lined with wood and other material. Her two cuts made it all the way to the other end. Separating the train into three pieces. It happened too fast when she attacked, I only recalled a brief moment where it sounded like an industrial grinder tearing apart a car. Perhaps most impressively, were the train wheels neatly bisected into two. Unlike the rest of the cabin, the metal of the wheels should be significantly tougher and more durable since they not only held up the cabin but also needed to withstand constant heat and force from usage. Yet they were cut as easily as the rest.

I made a mistake.

Back in the caves, I told her to disrupt the cultist with me, having her frontline for me while I supported, but if she dealt this much damage, even with that long cast time where she needed to focus, she could’ve taken out either of them at once. The correct positioning would’ve been me at the front taking attention off her while she prepared that massive blow to one-shot them.

‘I can swing a sword.’ I remember her say back then.

Yeah no shit.

“Fine, let’s take a break,” I muttered with as much dignity I can as someone completely disabled could manage.

Matt whooped, releasing his headlock on me. How a person missing half their body could ever manage such dexterity was beyond me.

“You are rather fat, it isn’t hard,” Matt said frankly.

“So the person with half a body beats the person with one and a half body, I see nothing wrong with that.”

“Hey if we median it out then we’ve got on average one person.”

“It’s mean you idiot,” I replied, “and you didn’t even know those terms until five minutes ago.”

“And I am still including them in my vernacular!” he said as he jumped out the room. “Mom! Dinner time!”

Shrugging, I followed him out of his room, raising an eyebrow as I found him stopped at the base of the stairs.

Turning to me, Matt asked with a somewhat questioning expression, “Is it just me, or have you become harder to bribe recently?”

“What?” Well, it is completely possible given the nature of Gaia, but why was my innate corruption where he decided to point it out? “Our mental stats actually rise when we put stats in our characters, so I’ve been assuming it’s rubbing off on our real-world selves.”

“Really?” Matt asked with an eyebrow raised, “I haven’t felt a thing yet.”

I stared at him.

“Dustin?”

“Here.”

Name: Matt Nguyen

Age: 16

Mind

Intelligence: 13-15

Wisdom: 10-14

Charisma: 12-18

“I see I have grown a third head without noticing, silly me,” Matt said. “But seriously though, give me the number.”

“You aren’t me, and Analyse isn’t technically ‘my’ power,” I said with air quotes, “so there’s still massive inaccuracy with the measurements.”

“Should that mean something to me?”

“If you had another INT point,” I replied as I dodged the roundhouse. Though it was important to note, for all his stupidity, Matt wasn’t an idiot. There was a difference between a person who made bad decisions because they didn’t know the difference and a person who did because they wanted to see what happens.

“At my best estimates, you are about as Intelligent as I am,” I said.

He raised an eyebrow, “Then why am I not finding this easier huh?”

“Because you are also a few Wisdom points lower than me.” I realised I was recently more patient, more willing to accept failure, more prone to learning from mistakes and experiences rather than just saying, ‘I did poorly, nothing could I do about it,’ without fixing a single thing.

“If Intelligence is pure data memorisation and logical ability, then Wisdom must be the application,” I said as I bit my thumbnail, “No even that is wrong somehow, he’s perfectly capable of applying information into practice, so is it a selective thing? Skill-based perhaps?”

“Then what the hell are the Soul stats?”

Will, Psyche and Perception, with the exception of the last, were the most abstract stats. For what measured a person’s Will or Psyche?

“Should I put a few points in to find out?” Matt asked as he saw me deep in thought.

“Aren’t you saving for Back-” I paused at the word.

“Backpfeifengesicht,” he helped. “I could wait another level.”

I shook my head, “Don’t, especially not over a whim, past level six the next three levels may require a full week each, then past that we may need months, then years, the decisions you have to make for the build are final.”

“Given our rate of levelling, even reaching something like level fifteen could take decades.” That was the simple reality of an exponentially scaling system, especially one that increased this quickly.

“Dragons are suddenly looking like a lot better alternative…” he quietly said with a grin. He started walking down the stairs, gesturing for me to follow. I did.

“Please, dragon levelling only becomes better at like level fifteen and eighteen, and that’s assuming my estimations are correct.”

“So I probably should still get Backpfeifengesicht,” he replied.

How the fuck does he keep pronouncing- didn’t matter. “I still think CtH is a bad skill, low applicability for not that good a reward, and you just wasted a skill for learning to beatbox.”

At the mention of it, Matt smiled and quickly ripped a few notes, muttering ‘worth it’ as he finished. “Speaking of Feats, what are you saving up for?”

“Dimension Gate, there are spells on that list that I need.”

“Which are?” he asked as we sat around their dining table.

“Tier Two Spell, Misty Step, a ten-metre teleportation spell.” He whistled at that, indeed, what I severely required was a mobility spell, I lacked not in the damage or durability department, but with my overall low mobility, I couldn’t escape a situation if it went south.

“And the other two?”

“The Tier Two Spell, Summon Wisps and the Tier Three Spell, Create Wisps.”

I glanced one last time at the Scrying Orb the guard mage was using, putting it on my to get list. The relief squad arrived just a few hours earlier and we got recompensed for our troubles. Though as I shoved the coins into the growing pile inside my cap, I realised we’re going to need better storage. Coins were a much better method of currency when you didn’t need to carry hundreds of them. The wisps made a fucking couch out of Gold coins, they were small so it took significantly less but the point stood. My head was mainly storing Gold, if that hat thing the wisps brought didn’t remove weight, we would be fucked just by the few hundred Gold of wealth we had.

I needed to invest in a Bag of Holding or something.

Beside me, Noam was finishing packing everything else we owned. Utoqa carried the most of it, given he was the physically strongest of our three-man group.

“And done!” he said as he slung his bag over his back. “This is how it should be man, just exploring the world with nothing but the clothes on our back and the bags we-”

“We’re hobos,” I said frankly.

“Backpackers,” Noam stressed, “sounds more romantic and more legit.”

“Murder Backpackers,” I muttered, “doesn’t have the same ring as Murder Hobos.”

Around us, numerous other former passengers were making their own preparations, seemingly unsurprised that their train trip was derailed. Though I had to remind myself, in this world there were things more dangerous than people, even in the past, travelling on foot or by any method was dangerous.

“When will we depart?” Utoqa asked.

“When they finish packing,” I said. There was a nearby town called Lake Bayt, out of the way and it didn’t have a Wayshard, but it was the only one nearby. So everyone cept the train staff were heading there.

Noam sighed, “An escort quest huh?”

I shook my head, “No, no, Noam. This isn’t a quest because we didn’t get it through the Merc Guild, we just happen to be on the same road. So we won’t officially get paid for anything.”

He looked at me, funny, “We’re avoiding taxes, just say we’re avoiding taxes.”

I sighed, “No flair for theatre or double meaning.”

“Why is evading taxes the only thing you find worth dramatising?”

“Because it is something with actual real-world impact?”

“It’s morally wrong!”

“You know that’s never stopped either of us…”

And we continued to bicker as we set off.