Fork This Life!

Chapter 17: Fork Gets Skillz

(POV Gerald)

At first glance, the status windows look like the menus in a game. Second and third glance too.

But the thing about a game, y’see, is that everything is pre-programmed. Sure, there are AIs and all that, but even they are limited. In their speech options, the different animations, how they act… you look at them long enough, and things begin to repeat.

Now, I’m not about to say that I think the people here are like AIs or something, that’d be stupid. But menus are the same way as well. All your stats have limits, upper and lower ones. There are a limited range of skills and abilities you can obtain.

And titles are generally only obtained from quests or by performing special feats – they’re also pre-programmed. And the descriptions. And skills themselves are programmed to do certain things.

Now, while in a game, say there’s a fireball spell and a firebolt spell. Generally, you can get one without the other, and the only relation between the two is the similar effects.

Here though, everything is caused by something. It’s not just, ‘cast x skill, y mana deducted’, the mana actually goes somewhere and carries out the skill. And the descriptions… some of them almost feel tailored specifically for me.

Eh, enough of that. What I’m getting at here, is that the energies: mana, psi, ki, they all go and do something when I use the telepathy skill or ki blast skill or whatever.

And that’s mostly automatic.

But… It doesn’t have to be. I can cancel it or direct it however I want. And if I’m doing that, doesn’t it mean I’m manipulating the energies themselves?

And if I can manipulate those energies, why the heck am I restricted to the few skills I know? It’s not like the first mages got taught magic, or warriors were born with their skills.

So, here I am, trying to figure out how to use my energies in a different way than my skills dictate. Right now, I’m trying to get a feel for how telepathy works, to sense how the psi moves when I use it.

I can feel… almost like a link of energy between me and Ferdinand. I can control it, but anything I do just disrupts the skill. And what little I can sense is faint. Well, right now there’s only one way I can think of using psi.

BRUTE FORCE FOR THE WIN!

I grab some psi, and push it out, controlling it to push against the back of a wooden chair.

Skill gained: Telekinesis (Basic)

Through using the powerful energy of a highly developed mind like some savage barbarian, you have learned how to push things with your mind. Force generated varies with psi used. Currently very inefficient.

See what I mean!? That description CAN’T be pre-written!

…I should have used less psi. The chair is currently lying on the ground with a few cracks running through it.

Maybe I should do the other tests in the great outdoors…

Sitting, or rather lying, on the ground, I begin my tests. Now, onto ki. Ki blast just shoves a bunch of ki out of your body, then it just runs wild.

Now, what if I try and control it after ejecting it?

This time, I start small. 10 points of ki should do fine. I control it to rise to the surface of my body. So far, so good. Then I push it beyond, and the strain instantly magnifies twentyfold.

I barely manage to keep a handle on it, but I can easily imagine that had I used much more ki, it would have run wild. After a short while, I get it in a somewhat stable state, and try and send it to attack a pebble.

After floating away half a meter, it escapes my control and fizzles in a tiny burst of air.

Skill gained: External Ki manipulation (Basic)

Most people use Ki internally (wink wink, nudge nudge), but you have decided to use it externally, with minimal success. Difficulty of control increases drastically with distance and quantity of Ki.

For gods’ sake… I DON’T HAVE A BODY TO DO ANYTHING WITH, STATUS WINDOWS! GET A CLUE!

Hah… Calm down, me. Okay, next. What if I do a normal ki blast, but instead of just letting it go, I give it a direction to go in? Maintaining direction should be much easier than maintaining shape.

I hop over to a rock and give it a go. It’s nowhere near as difficult as what I tried before, but still harder than a normal burst. The beam of ki sends the rock, and me flying in opposite directions. I check on the rock and it has a shallow hole bored into it. Nice.

…No skill? That’s strange. I check through my skills, and notice the proficiency for ki blast has jumped up around 30%.

So, it’s not just repetition to increase proficiency? I should have known.

Now, I have a few other things I’d like to try with ki, but unfortunately, I don’t have a body, and my ki is running low as it is.

Last but most anticipated, mana. Honestly, I don’t have much to go off, here. I mean, I have 3 magic skills – Absorb, self-repair and form manipulation – self, but I have no clue how exactly they work.

Wait, there was that magic edge too, right? That one’s easy enough.

Anyway, let’s just try the old magic missile.

Skill gained: Magic missile (Basic)

Congratulations, after all this time you’ve just now learnt how to use one of the most basic magical attacks in existence. Good job. Now you just have to figure out how to do it correctly. Power scales with mana consumption, unable to exceed 10 mana per shot. Maximum range = Intelligence*1/metres. If remotely controlling, there is an additional mana cost of 1 mana/sec, otherwise direction of travel is set at initial creation of shot.

Hey, I was busy. Playing minesweeper…

Ahem. Let’s just get to training, shall we? There are a couple of skills that I’ve been neglecting: Body of deadly poison, and body of weak acid. Obviously, this is because I don’t want to be even more poisonous than I am, but as things are, I might need to be.

So, I find myself the largest creature around and use ki blasts to hop over to it. Then, I embed myself in its hide with another series of ki blasts. After that, I just wait.

The giant elk starts panicking, running around frantically, rolling over to try to get me off. Another burst of ki makes me dig deeper into it, and it stops rolling.

After another few seconds, it starts frothing at the mouth, then stops moving altogether. I haven’t gotten a notification, so it must still be alive, just paralysed.

Another few seconds, and it’s dead. I get 20.25 exp, then a further 360 from absorbing most of its body. Unfortunately, no skills. I seem to have had a run of bad luck lately.

…I’m completely out of ki now, aren’t I?

Ferdinand! Come pick me up!

(POV Ferdinand)

In the past day, I have spent most of my time finding and talking to various members of Richard’s crew. It didn’t taken me long to find out where he had gone, but why was a different matter.

It wasn’t until I found the man who had been the lookout that day that I was able to figure it out. He said that before the battle, there was someone who looked a lot like Richard’s dead son standing on the deck of the other ship, and that the captain was found after the battle standing in front of a recently used portal.

I must admit I had to ask him what a portal was, but after that I could mostly guess what happened. Richard must have gone to the navy headquarters looking for information… which means we must as well. Only problem is, I don’t know anyone there.

So, I made the rounds again, and asked for the details of anyone he might have turned to for help. They were more than glad to help me out, and I eventually compiled a long list of names. They did warn me, however, that they couldn’t be sure if those people still lived in the city, or if they were even still alive.

Still, it was a start.

After all that, it was nearly dark, and I went outside of the city to where I left Gerald. For a while, I couldn’t find him. That is, until I saw him moving towards me, shaking and bobbing unsteadily in the air.

So, he can fly now. Okay.

Taking out a piece of old fabric, I carefully pinch the levitating cutlery within its folds.

A voice pops into my head. ‘Thanks for picking me up, Ferdinand. Did you find out anything?’

‘No problem.’ I think back. ‘I’ve found out where he was going, and a list of people he may have contacted while there. And, perhaps, the reason he left: apparently, someone who looked like his dead son was on that ship. Also, there was a portal in the hold.’

‘Interesting… I don’t think that will help us much, though. We don’t exactly know what he looks like, after all.’

‘True,’ I concede, ‘But any information is helpful with how little we know. How did your… ‘serious’ training go?’

‘Let’s see here…’ He says, trailing off for a moment. ‘Three new skills, one of which is a ranged attack and the other I was just using to move around… The other won’t be useful until I train it to the advanced, perhaps expert level…’

He says that so casually that it throws me completely.

‘Do you… Have skills at expert proficiency?’ I ask tentatively.

‘Oh yeah, I’ve got a few. One of them is mostly useless, though. Speaking of proficiency, I got the skill that makes me highly poisonous and the skill that makes me slightly acidic to advanced proficiency, and guess what? I can turn them on and off now!’ He sounds very happy about this, understandably.

‘That’s good.’ I think back.

His voice sounds hesitant this time. ‘There’s something I need to ask. Would you mind if I…’

Early the next morning, in a very neat and impressive building situated near the centre of port Acktown, a thin man dressed elegantly in bright colours sits at a large desk.

Ceaselessly, he reads over the scores of documents and reports piled up in front of him. Some he signs, some he makes alterations to, and others he put to the side. People flit in and out of the room, taking or bringing papers.

It seems a never-ending cycle; if the man looks over ten reports and signed eleven documents, a similar number will replace them within moments.

This is the office of the lord of the port, and all things of importance go through him, and him alone.

In a brief moment of respite from the flurry of papers, he rolls his shoulders, stretching his arms and sighing as he mutters under his breath, “I really need to find someone who can help me with this… But…”

The rest he leaves unsaid.

There is nobody in the governance of this city that he is completely sure he can trust. There are too many who could be spies, or bribed by… whoever. Criminals, opposing factions… it all has the same effect in the end.

However, by some twist of fate or whimsy of gods, his woes are due to end that day.

Suddenly, his brows tighten into a frown, and he opens his mouth slightly as if to call out. Then his face turns pensive, and after a moment’s consideration, he takes out a fresh sheet of paper and starts writing on it furiously.

Names, places, descriptions, crimes, evidence… line after line of neat script printed across the page as his hand blazes back and forth, occasionally darting across to the inkwell to smear more ink across the point of his quill.

Finally, he reaches the end of the sheet, and takes out another, again writing furiously. His eyes widen and continued to widen as page after page are gradually filled with text.

It is possible, of course, that every word on the pages are false. However, if they aren’t…

The city will likely be thrown into turmoil.

The voice in his head disappears, and he begins to consider what to do. The first thing to do, he decides, would be to determine the validity of the claims. Flipping through the pages, he picks out a relatively innocent crime, and writes it on a separate slip of paper.

He calls some of the city guards, and gives it to them, telling them to search the location on it.

Later, they came back, reporting that they had found… well, exactly what the voice had said they would.

One is hardly enough to ensure validity, however. He sends them out again and again as the day wears on, to different places, to different people, each time his eyebrows furrowing further as each and every case is a success.

At this point he is thoroughly convinced that most, if not all of the claims are legitimate.

And this is only what that person had seen in the past couple of weeks? He sighs heavily.

It seems his work has only just begun.

(POV Gerald)

Utilising a combination of absorb and ki blasts, I slide through the earth from where I had been for the last while, not a metre below the man’s feet. If I wasn’t so close, I would never have been able to use telepathy for as long as I had. It wasn’t as if I could reliably get inside the place while remaining hidden, so getting below it was the next best thing.

My small size ensures that the tunnels I dug have little effect on the surrounding earth, and even the entrance is barely visible.

After popping myself back out of the ground, Ferdinand picks me up and we head out of the city. Unfortunately, he hadn’t been able to find any escort requests en route to our destination, so we are on our own this time.

Not that it matters all that much. With how much I – and Ferdinand, to a lesser extent – have improved, the only things that can pose much difficulty to us are…

…And I gave Ferdinand that much flak for jinxing us the last few times.

“We have a large group of people blocking the road ahead, probably bandits by what they’re saying.” I alert Ferdinand.

He pauses. “And how can you hear what they’re saying?”

“Lip reading.” Anticipating the impending query, I explain. “It’s where you guess what people are saying based on how they move their lips.”

“Alright then, any chance we can go around them?” He asks.

“…Probably…” I admit reluctantly.

“Why do you sound disappointed by that?” He asks suspiciously.

“I sort of wanted to try out my new skills, but it doesn’t matter. Monsters are better for that sort of thing anyway.”

So, we give the bandit group a wide berth, re-joining the road some distance behind them. And that is – not that. jinxes can’t be avoided that easily, apparently.

One of the bandits clearly has some sort of vision enhancement skill, because he calls out to his companions and points at us walking away. I mean, really? Group of 13 chasing after one guy. Yeah, totally not overkill.

Well, it might not be overkill since it’s us, but they don’t know that.

Regarding the capabilities of the bandits, their lack of proper armaments speaks for itself. Barely one in four have a proper sword, and the rest are basically just holding farming implements: sickles, pitchforks, one guy even has a shovel. They have no armour to speak of.

“They’re chasing us! Looks like I’ll be able to test out my new ranged attack after all…” I muse.

“Don’t kill them, please.” Ferdinand says.

Well, they are probably trying to kill us, but there is no time to complain. “I can aim at their legs, but that’s about all I can do.”

Moving myself out of his bag with a quick use of telekinesis, I flop onto the ground and fire a single magic missile at them. Just in case it’s secretly super OP.

Okay, maybe not.

With me being at ground level and casting the spell near parallel to the ground, the only place it can hit is leg. And there’s a lot of leg to go around in this group.

Ever heard of ‘spreading out’?

Clearly not. Anyway, the small magic missile impacts on a leg, knocking it backwards slightly and leaving a shallow wound.

This won’t do at all. Improvisation time!

Normal magic missile, compress into needle, fire. It pierces a few centimetres into a leg, drawing blood and eliciting a cry of pain from the wounded man.

Sufficient power to disable. Engaging rapid fire.

I fire out a barrage of twenty magic needles at the forest of legs, causing several of them to swerve to avoid them - remember how I recommended you spread out? – into their companions, basically making almost all of them collapse in a moaning heap.

Their flailing limbs send their weapons waving all over the place, doing much more damage to themselves than I did.

…I didn’t expect that to happen. But it was surprisingly simple to create so many shots at once. Even turning them all into needles wasn’t too hard.

The only one left standing is shovel man, completely clueless as to why all his friends have just fallen over.

I wonder what Ferdinand’s gonna do now?

(POV Ferdinand)

Walking up to them, I can easily see that these people were farmers, now that I have a closer look.

Why would farmers turn bandit? As long as you put in the work and there isn’t terrible weather, your livelihood is mostly guaranteed.

Which means that either these men’s fields had been affected by plague or infestation, or something else had forced them out of the village. It happens more often than people seem to think. Farmers by and large aren’t that strong, and your average farming village may have only a few soldiers guarding it.

If a strong monster comes, or even enough weak ones, a village can be quickly overwhelmed.

Stopping a short distance away from the pile of people struggling to untangle themselves without hurting each other even more in the process, I call out to the only one who isn’t too preoccupied to negotiate with – a shortish man with a dirt-smeared face, awkwardly holding a shovel as if he can’t decide whether he should be hitting me with it, helping up the others or planting turnips.

“Hello there. Why did you all come to attack me?”

I try to keep an amiable tone, but I must admit I am less than pleased with them all chasing after us like that.

It seems to relax him a bit, because he lowers his shovel. “We wasn’ gonna actually hurt ya, ye see. We was jus’ gonna scare you a bit, take a peck at ya coins n’ let ya go agin. We meant no ‘arm, honest.”

His accent is so thick it takes me a few moments to understand what he is saying, but once I do I am somewhat relieved. But at the same time, he doesn’t answer my question.

“That’s nice of you, but why do you need my money in the first place?”

He scratches his wild mop of brown hair, scowling as he said, “Well, we got no farms no more, have we? Asked the people in town for ‘elp, but all they did was ask wot we’re gonna pay ‘em with. Pay ‘em? We put food on their table fer years, and they ‘ave the gall to ask us to pay? Bunch of ungrateful louts, I say. Ain’t nobody respects farmers these days, I tell yah.”

At his words, I can’t help but think back to when the famine struck my own village. Nobody sent help for us then, either. I feel a surge of sympathy towards them, and after a moment of thought, decide to help them, if I can.

If I don’t, who will?

“How did you lose your farms?” I ask kindly.

His face droops in sorrow. “They came in the night, they did. Got woken up by screaming, an’ I knew sommat was up. Went outside, n’ there were skeletons swarming the fields! Hardly managed to grab a shovel and fend ‘em off while the missus got away.” He shakes his head, his voice hiccupping slightly. “Some of the others didn’ do so well.”

By this point in time, most of the others have managed to get themselves up, and have moved behind the shovel man to treat their wounds.

“Where is your village?”

He looks at me in astonishment.

Gerald: Skillz Galore!

Ferdinand: Level Up!