The Wanderer's Rebirth: Other Paths

*3 hours later

“I’m done…” Joram said, panting in the hallway outside of his apartment.

Altaea, it seems, had added solid walls where his apartment building… hadn’t come along for the ride. He’d discovered that a sphere roughly thirteen metres in diameter had come along with him for the ride, as it were. Since he’d been in his living room at the time of the… incident, that distance had barely covered his bathroom and bedroom. On the other hand, it included a significant chunk of the apartment next door, as well as most of the one above him.

Fortunately for him, and the people who’d lived next to, and above him, they hadn’t been home at the time. He didn’t want to even consider what would have happened to them if they’d been pulled along for the ride.

That said, it seemed as though enough “spare” materials had arrived with their transit that Altaea had been able to “recycle” the other chunks of the building to properly enclose the various openings that would have otherwise been there. He shook his head again as he could only imagine what the apartment had looked like just after arriving. That said, the “hallway” was now effectively an extra storage room for his apartment. Which, really, was a bonus, as Altaea had taken the extra appliances from the other apartments and had stored them there.

As well as the extra construction materials, and the random belongings she’d found in the other spaces. That said, the “hallway” was really more of an extra room now, and a large one at that. Which was why he and Avi were in there. For the space. Space needed to try dodging the telekinetic projectiles that she had been lobbing at him.

‘I’m sure that you can get the [Dodge] Skill if we go a bit longer,’ Avi said, completely blank faced.

He was sure that she was somehow enjoying the whole process. But given her status as a virtual intelligence, he really wasn’t too sure about that. But given just how… enthusiastic she was in that carefully neutral way of hers, he was sure that something was there. Had she lied about being a virtual intelligence? Had Altaea actually made a full artificial intelligence?

Well, he was sure that she was more than capable of doing something like that, as intelligent items weren’t exactly unheard of on her home planet. Then there was the fact that she’d already gotten the memories from at least a few of her other selves, and everything pointed at the very real possibility that Avi was indeed a fully self-aware construct with her own personality and quirks.

One of which seemed to be a budding tendency towards sadism…

“I literally cannot move from here right now,” he said, feebly trying to roll off one of the stones she’d been using to fling at him.

‘Hmm,’ Avi hmm’d as she regarded him. ‘Then you should meditate to help restore yourself, and get some practice while you’re at it,’ she finished by telekinetically pulling the rock out from under his back for him, garnering some goodwill from him in the process.

He just nodded at that as he closed his eyes and started going through the advanced meditation technique that Altaea had left for him.

It wasn’t easy.

Every muscle he’d strained in his body constantly complained at him, making themselves known as he tried to concentrate. It had been much easier when he’d just woken up, not having any distractions besides a timer to “integration”. Overexerted muscles and developing bruises proved to be more of a distraction than he’d originally thought they’d be.

But, eventually, he got there. And by “there” he meant his headspace. Well, what he thought of as his headspace anyways. It was an office-like room, complete with a large desk, an amazingly comfortable chair for him to sit in, bookshelves loaded with many of his favourite books- though they were almost all blank at the moment, as he hadn’t taken the time to populate them. Which, really, would probably take a long time to do. But he was confident that he’d eventually get there.

Not that he really needed to with his physical and digital collections, but he still wanted to. Who knew if he’d ever lose them in the future? He quickly knocked on wood, well, virtual wood, to ward off any potential jinx that he’d unwittingly called down upon himself and his precious books.

Anyways. In his office, sitting in his comfy chair, he looked at his laptop and smiled. It wasn’t that he was a crazy programmer and thought of everything like that, but he was a geek, and having the various functions of his body represented as executable icons or file folders just seemed right to him. That said, he was also setting up various diagnostic/performance “applications” so that he could try to get a better understanding of his body and how it functioned with the System. And how the System affected him.

Given that the data he had was almost non-existent, he wasn’t sure how far he’d get with the System affecting him part, but at least he could gather data on how he performed pre-Skills, post-Skills, pre-Path, and post-Path. And class(es).

To make it click a bit better for him, he thought of Paths like the basic Classes in his favourite tabletop RPG, Pathfinder. Then, the various “classes” under a Path were basically the various “Archetypes” available to those Classes. But with a wider range and variety of abilities and specializations, but also broader umbrella in which they fell.

Basically, what he’d call any arcane caster, were all under the umbrella of “Arcane Path”. Then the divine casters were under the umbrella of “Divine Path”. His psionics were classified under “Psionic Path”. Then, each Class that he was used to seeing, like Sorcerer or Wizard, were their own categories, with many subcategories underneath those categories.

The initial classes were basically all “common” classes. Then, as you went further along the Path, depending on what you’ve done or accomplished, you’d be offered increasingly more rare classes that offered either crazy specialization, or absurd generalization that were all nevertheless quite powerful in their own rights.

Joram shook the mental image of his head, ridding himself of those thoughts as he tried to focus. His objective was to consolidate what he’d learned while trying to dodge Avi’s projectiles. So, he focussed first on how his muscles felt, which ones that had been used the most. From there, he stated visualizing how to better move, how to reduce wasted movement, and thus energy.

After that, he focussed on what he’d seen. The small wooden balls hadn’t been exceptionally fast to the point where he couldn’t follow their movements. But. They had definitely been fast enough to leave bruises. Focussing again, he concentrated on what he could remember. Given that Altaea had given him [Autohypnosis], it was easier than it could have been.

So, from there, he started working on remembering the trajectories of the wooden balls. Where they started and where they impacted him. Or, in the rare instance, where they’d just missed him. Over and over again, he went over that information, tying it together with the movements of his body, how he reacted; working on building good muscle memory as opposed to just “jump somewhere not there!” when something was flying at him.

Even though he was, he thought, especially good at visualization, it was hard. He’d like to say that he had been able to create some sort of program to help internalize and set everything that he went through, but that would be a lie. It was all done manually. Every hit or miss was gone over dozens of times, in as much detail as he could muster.

‘Time to get up,’ Avi said, appearing in his office, much to his astonishment.

“How’re you here?” He asked dumbly, staring at the vision of beauty standing before him.

‘I’m a part of you, remember?’ She asked, slightly tilting her head to the side.

“In my headspace too?” He asked, not quite wanting to get it.

‘Yes.’

Joram processed that for a bit before he exploded.

He was, more than generally, a private person. People asking too many questions, even the mundane ones people asked in everyday polite society, bugged him. So, as a rule, he never asked the questions of other people that he didn’t want to either know, or have people ask him. That then extended to person space. Sure, his family were huggers, and he was inclined to give them out to people close to him and such. But. He also had a bubble that pretty much extended to anyone he didn’t know, or who he wasn’t close with.

Going further, that also extended to his living space. And the living space of others. “Don’t poke around in what isn’t yours” was the basic rule. When visiting a friend’s house, the only places he’d willingly go were the living room, dining room, den, and bathroom. Unless invited, he didn’t go into the kitchen, even if the place was an open-concept layout.

Now, given all that, he had very strong beliefs regarding privacy. He was of the opinion that almost no one had a right to know anything about you that you didn’t first willingly and knowingly share with them. That included governments, corporations, and just plain everyone else on the planet.

That Avi was able to enter his own headspace was a violation of just about everything he viewed of as “privacy”. The sanctity of one’s mind was paramount to him, and anyone, or anything, messing with that was the highest crime he could think of.

That Altaea had left him a VI in his head wasn’t something that he was at all comfortable with. That she could enter his own mental projection of a “safe place” was even worse. The only reason that he hadn’t blown up at Avi already was that Altaea had had the best intentions for him by leaving Avi with him. But.

“Avi?”

‘Yes, Joram?’

“We need to discuss boundaries,” he said, absolutely hating the conversation and possibly confrontation that was about to occur.

‘Can we do so after you confront the beings who’ve broken into your apartment?’ Avi asked, calm as a cucumber.

That jarred him enough to derail his thoughts more than a little.

“What? How many? What are they?”

Avi looked at him, then sighed.

‘From what I have gathered, there are three of them. Very likely goblins, though more the goblins from the Slayer of Goblins comic-‘

“Manga,” Joram interjected.

‘- that you used to read rather than the ones from that Innworld series you kept up with,’ she finished, shaking her head.

“Are they armed?” He asked, suspecting that they would indeed be armed, and dangerous.

‘Indeed they are,’ she said, then added. ‘They also seem to have found your knife block in the kitchen, so they’re currently upgrading.’

Joram just about cursed, then quickly calmed down.

He’d practiced a few Powers with Avi already, so that may very well help keep him alive seeing as how he had zero combat experience. Sure, he’d practiced with a shinai and bokken in the past… but that was just… play. Fun. Not to-the-death stuff. Like what this was turning out to be like.

“Avi? Are you able to us a Power at the same time as me?” He asked, thinking that he just may survive if she could.

‘Yes.’

“Great, then here’s the plan…” he said, then proceeded to share what he’d come up with.

- - -

‘Are you ready?’ Avi asked, looking at him with what he thought of as worry.

Joram just nodded, not wanting to risk the goblin outside, or rather, inside, his apartment hearing him. He was still in the hallway/storage room, and he could hear the faint shuffling of feet between the occasional grunt or weird guttural language.

After a brief discussion, they’d decided that it would be best for the goblins to open the door themselves due to the door opening inwards, into the apartment. If the door had opened outwards into the once-hallway, then it would have been trivial to make the door a chokepoint with some of the construction materials sitting around. Just pile up some of the concrete, some random stone blocks that Altaea had gotten from somewhere, and they’d have a decent blockade to keep more than one of them coming through at once.

As-is, the door opened inwards, limiting what he felt that he could do. So, he and Avi waited for the door to open. And waited.

It was another few minutes before the door handle wiggles a bit, distracting him from how unrealistically full his bladder felt.

Quickly, he concentrated on [Entangling Ectoplasm]. It felt much harder to get the Power fueled and ready than it had while practicing earlier with Avi. He was also sure that he took longer than he should have, but he was more than comfortable attributing that to nerves. Like, “I’m gonna die if I mess this up” kind of nerves.

His left hand was free to grab the goblin if he needed to, while his right hand held his hunting knife. Now, again, it wasn’t anything to write home about, and Mik would have laughed at it while showing him what a real knife looked like… but it was all that he had right now. He’d gone and left his katana on his bed, not bothering to keep it with him during his training.

Now? Now he felt like an idiot. Never leave your weapon where you couldn’t reach it in an emergency. He’d have tried to make an improvised one with [Ectoplasmic Creation], but hadn’t quite managed to get that Power working how he wanted it to. Especially when his life would depend on it.

He looked at his Power Pool, noting that holding the Powers like he and Avi were doing also seemed to keep his PP from regenerating. Still, having 36/38 PP available wasn’t anything to sneeze at, especially when he was the equivalent of a level 0 character. Well, maybe a level 1 NPC or something, given that he hadn’t chosen a Path yet-

The door opened, revealing a green figure casually holding his meat cleaver. The goblin was only about four feet tall, gangly, and as ugly as those from Slayer of Goblins. The yellowish eyes looked like a goat’s eyes, while the long and lumpy nose was very much as ugly as those drawings made it out to be.

The surprise on it’s face was evident as he release [Entangling Ectoplasm] at the same time as Avi. He targeted the goblin in front of him while Avi targeted the goblin at the back, leaving the one in the middle more or less sandwiched between the two.

White the goblin was distracted, Joram did the hardest thing he’d had to do: he stabbed forward with his hunting knife, aiming for the middle of the goblin’s chest. Sure, he could have aimed at the thing’s face, but he really didn’t want to risk missing the eye socket and having his knife skid off the skull or something. That said, ribs were a thing.

The tip of his knife entered the bare skin of the goblin’s chest easily enough, but then glanced off a rib before sliding between it and its neighbour, finally entering the chest cavity. He briefly registered that the knife was between the fourth and fifth ribs before the goblin’s pained shriek jarred him out of his weird funk. Then the cleaver slicing across his ribs jolted him into action.

He jumped back, leaving the hunting knife in the goblin as it slumped over, dropping the meat cleaver as both hands grasped at the hunting knife.

I wouldn’t do that if I were you, he thought as the prepared his next Power, looking to the goblin in the middle as he used his right hand to clutch at his bleeding side.

Just as [Crystal Shard] was about to complete, the first goblin pulled the knife out of its chest, sending a spray of blood across his face, blinding his right eye. He tried desperately to hold onto the Power, but it slipped through his mental grasp and fizzled. And also gave him the mother of all headaches at the same time.

Avi, bless her, managed to get her [Crystal Shard] off and into the head of the second goblin, spraying grey matter, blood, and bone shards across the closed door behind it.

That focussed his mind enough to stand straight again, sudden rage flooding his system and filling him with more strength that he expected. Not that he was thinking clearly at that point, no. The surprise only registered peripherally as he leaned over again and retrieved his hunting knife from the goblin’s loose hands.

He knew that he had about thirty seconds or so once [Entangling Ectoplasm] was manifested. The problem was, he’d lost count. Not that that stopped him as he stepped over the first body, then over the second one so that he could lean over and finish off the third goblin. Well, that was easier said than done.

People thought that being tangled in a net rendered a person helpless, probably from how they were portrayed in movies and tv and all that. Contrary to that popular portrayal, people could still try to, say, stab you if you got too close. Just like the goblin did as it thrust his carving knife at him.

Fun fact: knife thrusts were generally a lot slower than a thrown object. With that in mind, Joram was also a lot slower than he’d been when he first started his training with Avi a few hours ago.

The carving knife rammed home, catching him in the pelvis and digging into his iliac crest. The burst of pain that flooded his mind nearly blacked him out, his vision narrowing sufficiently that he could only see the ecstatic-looking goblin in front of him.

That expression froze, then turned into one of shock as Joram’s own knife found its throat.

Then they both fell to the ground together.