An Unbound Soul

It turned out that board games based on skill were not novel, but were simply not popular among the poorly educated. Which wasn't to say that there was no market at all in our village. By some weird chain of events, starting with Dad boasting in the tavern that I'd made something that increased his intelligence, Richard of all people was now sitting opposite me in my own home and beating me soundly at draughts. I stared at the board, pondering whether to draw my agony out for another few turns or to surrender. This was only his second game, for goodness' sake. It wasn't even as if I'd won the first one by a landslide.

Actually, since he was here, I might as well make use of him for an experiment. "Richard, would you mind using [Analysis] on me and checking how many traits you can see?"

"Huh? Are you sure? I don't mind, but people normally want to keep their status private."

"Believe me, I have nothing worse in there than the [Xenophilia] that you've already seen."

Richard stared at me for a few seconds. "Hah. Dunno what you're so embarrassed about. And I can't see [Curious] any more. How does that work? What's [Privacy]? Does it let you hide traits at will?"

No level up, but it was only one attempt, and I didn't even know if it would count at all if I gave permission. [Privacy] was going to be hard to level... I needed to hang out in front of Cliff and Lord Reid for a while or something. "No, not at will. But yes, it does interfere with appraisal type skills. Thanks for checking."

"No problem. Also, it seems that this one is my victory."

Drat. I wonder what this guy's intelligence stat was like? "Okay, since you've surpassed me at draughts already, would you like to try reversi?"

Reversi went very slightly better. It took until the third game for Richard to soundly whoop my ass. It didn't take any longer for Kari to overtake me, either. It was alarming how much difference mental stats made; while I was used to the System's physical stats, quantifying intelligence down to a few numbers was weird. I suggested the higher level mage types should play against each other instead. Thus I ended up selling my first ever Earth product for a large copper. My first bit of income in this world. A large copper wasn't exactly much, but I clung to it proudly nonetheless. At least until Mum reminded me that Dad had made the whole thing, and that I'd probably have to have paid someone a large copper to take my own attempts away. Leave my ego alone, dammit!

Annoyingly, I now had [Inspection] at ten, but didn't have the soul points to advance it. [Researcher] had yet to kick in since I obtained it, so now I had a skill I really wanted sitting in the skill shop staring at me.

Skills available for purchase:

1 point: [Minor Dexterity] [Minor Endurance] [Minor Intelligence] [Minor Wisdom] [Minor Charisma] [Far Reach] [Minor Slow]

2 points: [Basic Cooking] [Basic Tailoring] [Foraging] [Basic Farming] [Enlarged Stamina Pool] [Basic Carpentry]

5 points: [Appraisal]

Looking through my available two point skills, I did spot one fantasy crafting staple that was still missing: smithing. If novel situations granted stats and skills faster than doing the same thing repeatedly, maybe I should try to rectify that. I'd never met our town smith. Somehow, I doubted he'd appreciate a four-year-old helper for a few days, but it wouldn't hurt to ask.

"Mum, do you know the village smith? Do you think he would let me help out for a bit, enough to unlock [Basic Smithing]?"

"Huh? You want to learn smithing now? If you bounce around too much, you'll never be able to advance to higher ranks."

"I don't want to buy the skill. I would if I had unlimited points to buy it with, but for now I just want to unlock it. I have a theory that trying new things lets you boost levels quicker. Like the way Dad gained intelligence for playing a board game when it hadn't gone up in ages."

Mum peered at me. "I'm pretty sure your father's intelligence hasn't gone up in years because he hasn't used his brain in all that time, but I'll admit it's an interesting theory. The village smith is a dogkin by the name of Remous. I can't say I've spoken to him beyond the occasional good morning when we pass in the street, but your father has. Remous is the one who has to repair his tools every time he breaks them."

And thus the improbable chain of events continued. What started with me trying to craft a game of reversi had now ended up with me standing in the smithy, watching Remous at work. Realistically, there wasn't anything that I could usefully help out with, but he seemed to find the whole idea amusing and was happy to play along with my experiment anyway. Plus, I think he wanted the chance to see our village's genius child up close. He explained the various steps to me as he hammered lumps of metal into various farming implements. That didn't quite fit the image of a fantasy world blacksmith, who should be producing swords and armour rather than tools, but this was a peaceful world after all. Besides, the pitchforks that he produced looked like they would be every bit as lethal as any weapon.

Once he was done with the day's work, he let me have a go. I tried to make a dagger, on account of it being small and flat. It was either that or a trowel, but a trowel had a more complicated shape, and I thought that maybe I could unlock a weapon skill by swinging a dagger around for a bit. The end result was... a dagger. Definitely a dagger. Even [Inspection] agreed.

Iron dagger (abysmal quality)

Why was it that [Inspection] only added those extra bracketed bits at the end when it wanted to mock me? Okay, so it had no guard, the grip was flat metal, the blade wasn't straight and the edge was so dull and uneven that I could run my finger along it, but it was my first attempt! At least it was better than my carpentry. My cooking abilities were starting to look pretty good by comparison. And, even better, I had heard multiple dings during the process. Time to check my messages.

For your efforts to experience many varieties of crafts, [Researcher] awards 2 soul points.

Strength increased by 1

Skill [Minor Strength] advanced to level 6

Class [Apprentice Mage] advanced to level 3

Totally worth it. [Researcher] seemed to double my soul point gain, and now I'd gained the three more I needed in a single swoop.

ding

New skill acquired: [Appraisal]

[Appraisal] - View the identity and basic information of a target. Higher levels increase range and permit viewing information of higher level targets. (Rank 2)

Right, let's see what this could do!

Iron dagger (Rank 0)

...Yup, the System was definitely mocking me. Since when was there such a thing as rank zero?

Remous, Beastkin, Smith (?/?)

I couldn't see his level. From the [Appraisal] skill description, that was probably because he was too high level for my skill. There were also two parts to his level in there, with no indication as to why. I should have looked this up while I was in the library... I had no idea what level range I was actually supposed to see. Meanwhile, Remous was busy inspecting my creation.

"Impressive..."

Really? He thought it was impressive? Yay, there was hope for me yet. It must be pretty spectacular for my first attempt after all!

"Didn't know... Rank zero... Existed."

And another truck struck my ego, stopped, reversed, and ran again to finish the job. Remous was a very slow talker. Dammit, building up my hope like that... Also, he knew it was rank zero. Did he have [Appraisal] too, or is there some smithing specific version?

"Experiment... Worked?"

"Yes. [Basic Smithing] showed up in the shop, and I had some stat and level ups. Thanks a lot for the help."

Rubbish as it was, I wanted to keep the dagger, so I paid a few coppers for the cost of the metal and took it home with me.

"Peter!"

Eep, what was she doing out this late in the evening? I grinned to myself as the incoming hug missile approached, before doing a last-minute sidestep and firing off my new [Appraisal] from behind.

ding

Skill [Far Step] advanced to level 5

Cluma, Beastkin, Commoner (4/4)

Level four... I still had no idea why it was repeated, but from what Lord Reid said, she was doing fairly impressively herself. Did she have any skills yet?

Oblivious to my internal praise of her, Cluma stopped dead, her expression looking as if I'd just kicked a puppy and obviously about to burst into tears. Right, lesson learnt: do not separate Cluma from her hugs. I [Far Step]'d in and glomped her from behind. "Got you!"

"Peter mean!"

"Oh, I am, am I? I guess that since I'm mean you don't want any more hugs from me then?"

That made her freeze up. Not giving more hugs was mean, but if she said I was mean, there would be no more hugs. It was a terrible contradiction. She spoke back up in a small voice. "Peter not mean. No stop hugs."

I grinned again and rubbed her head, being a little careful since I was still holding my dagger, something that didn't escape her notice.

"What that?"

"Remous let me have a go at smithing. This is what I made. It's... not very good."

She tilted her head, still looking confused. I figured I shouldn't be introducing toddlers to bladed weapons, even if calling this particular example 'bladed' would be charitable, so I quickly tucked it away into my clothes. Perhaps not quickly enough though, since I could see Camus squinting at me from the front of their house. In the evening, Clana was cooking at the tavern, so Camus was assigned childcare duties.

"That looked like a dagger. Why did you make a dagger?"

My eyes very nearly teared up. He could recognise it as a dagger! And from such a distance, too! Whatever anyone said, this was my victory! "Because it's small and flat and it had the greatest chance of the result being recognisable, even if not functional."

"Then let me ask a different question. How do you know what a dagger is?"

Cluma looked between the two of us in confusion, obviously not following. I was confused myself. Camus sounded, if not angry, at least highly concerned. He was making it very clear that he did not like seeing me with a dagger. Why wouldn't I know what a dagger was, and why would he care? I suppose that in this world of enforced peace, weapons weren't exactly a requirement, except for one particular occupation. My eyes were drawn again to the scar on his face, and I made a logical leap from a standing start. "Could it be that you were a delver in the past?"

Camus, Beastkin, Farmer (?/?)

That wasn't exactly a delver compatible class, but he could have changed it.

His eyes narrowed, he frowned intensely and I would swear that he hissed. "If you're thinking about it, don't. Not ever. It's not worth it."

That sounded like he had a Past with a capital P. I rotated Cluma towards him and launched the missile. "Cluma, your daddy needs hugs. I think I've reminded him of something painful."

"Hugs!"

I watched the missile strike the target dead centre. I felt that asking any further questions would be insensitive, and that asking if he could teach me weapon skills would be even worse, so I waved goodbye and stepped into my house. Dad had made it home before me today and greeted me as I walked in. "How did it go?"

"Perfectly. I unlocked the [Basic Smithing] skill, got a stat, skill and class level up and even bonus soul points, which I spent to learn [Appraisal]."

They both looked surprised. As usual, Mum recovered first. "My my. Only four years old and already with a rank two skill. You are as scary as ever, little one."

Also as usual, she was smiling as she said it, so I knew she was proud. Personally, I was still wondering what was going on with Camus. My parents were their neighbours, so would probably know something, and there had been that time when Dad said nobody 'would' teach me weapon skills, rather than 'could'. Asking them would be more tactful than asking directly. "On another topic entirely, did Camus used to be a delver?"

Mum and Dad looked at each other with slight frowns, and I was sure there was some non-verbal communication going on there. A Past indeed... Mum answered again. "Clana has asked us to not ask questions about Camus's history. Please would you do the same?"

Dad added a little more information. "He's let some things slip in the tavern, late at night and with enough booze in him. There's not a happy story there. Don't poke at it."

I nodded. "That was the impression I got when I bumped into him just now. This is exactly why I checked with you rather than questioning him. I won't ask any more."

Mum offered her thanks. I had to admit I was curious what had happened, but there would be a time and place for finding out, and this wasn't it.