The Wanderer's Rebirth: Other Paths

Celys looked from her sweat-drenched son to her daughter’s door and back a few times as his last words tried to find purchase in her mind. The words “admitting defeat” and her daughter were like oil and water, air and stone, fire and water… they just didn’t mix.

Eventually, she registered that Kalduin had fully entered the house, tugging along a very reluctant-looking Theril and pointing him at one of the empty cushions in the living room. Soon, their boots were off, and they were both seated; practically laying down as they recovered from an apparently prolonged run.

To help calm and organize her thoughts, Celys went to the kitchen and prepared some tea and light snacks.

What could possibly get Myra to admit defeat? That child has always resented being pushed in any direction, developing a stubbornness that could make her queen of the mules….

As she thought, she went over the countless times where her daughter had pushed back against anything, or anyone, that had tried to get her to do something that she didn’t want. Eventually, she had even started pushing back against good advice, going so far as to get herself into trouble because she’d done precisely the opposite of what had been advised or suggested.

They, she and her husband Nalun, had thought to take advantage of that at one point. But no, Myra was still a smart young woman and could tell when they’d tried reversing things on her.

But, what could have possibly happened during a lesson on common that could get her famously stubborn daughter to admit defeat?

The kettle on the kitchen stove started to boil, so she carefully removed it from its place before putting the place-covering back on to help keep in the warmth. That done, she quickly poured the bubbling water into the waiting tea pot and replaced its lid.

Once everything was placed on the serving tray, she made her way back to the living room where her son and Theril seemed to have recovered enough to sit a bit straighter. So, she placed the tray between the two young men before quickly pouring herself a cup. With that done, she made her way to her own cushion and sat down, waiting for the two to finish before getting to the thick of things.

They quickly served themselves tea, but surprisingly only barely touched the snacks; crackers, cheese, and some cured meat. After a bit of tea-blowing, sipping, and polite nibbling, her son finally cracked under her expectant gaze.

“So… the lesson went well,” he said, which got an emphatic nod from Theril. “Joram is an astute student, and has picked up the language remarkably well,” he said, nodding to himself with great satisfaction.

Then sat there, quietly blowing on his tea a bit more, pointedly not looking her way. At which point, Theril seemed to understand that he’d been thrown under the wagon.

“Yes, he’s a wonderful student,” he began, then cleared his throat. “Can’t say that I’ve met a better one in all my days…” he trailed off under the weight of her increasing glower. “So, did I mention that he’s an amazing cook? Might even be a [Cook]…” he said, then broke. “So, Joram had this strange bottle of sauce…” he began, then proceeded to explain in great detail what had happened.

Celys would have liked to say that she was surprised that her daughter had insisted on having the sauce as well, but that would have been such a lie that the Great Protector might have punished her for it. That she’d suffered for her stubbornness wasn’t a new thing though. But that she’d practically been poisoned for it- but hadn’t been, as Kalduin had checked with detection and truth spells- was new.

But for the fact that it was her daughter, she’d have laughed at what had followed… up until the part where her daughter had set Joram’s home on fire. She was about to get up and give her daughter a good tongue lashing when Kalduin piped in to also assure her that her daughter hadn’t burned his house down.

What was more impressive was that Joram had agreed to their return in two days’ time for another lesson.

Is that young man a [Paragon of Patience]? She silently wondered, then nearly choked when Kalduin added in one last tidbit.

“But the best part of the whole thing,” he said, his eyes glistening with mirth, “was when, after the fire had been put out, Joram patted Myra on the head!” he finished, no longer able to hold in his laughter. Even Theril couldn’t help but chuckle at that.

For her part, Celys sat there in silent shock. Sure, any human who’d never met an animal-kin usually stared at their ears and tails the first time they met. As rude as that was, it was understandable, especially when seeing more than one tail. So, she could forgive the young human his unknowing rudeness. But a head pat was something else entirely.

“And she didn’t try to burn down his house again after that?” she asked incredulously, now suspecting why her daughter never wanted to leave the house again.

“Nope!” Kalduin practically crowed. “Myra may be one of the top beauties of Kirkwall, but she’s the at the peak of the Ineligible Bachelorettes Ranking because she’s… how she is. But finally, she’s met her match!” he said, then began unpacking his backpack.

She was about to chide her son when she noticed that the things coming out of the backpack weren’t books, but strange little clear boxes with red lids. She was then about to ask about them when she heard Myra’s door open.

Celys turned in time to see her daughter rush over to Kalduin and kick him in the head.

“Shut it, Kal! No one’s beat me!” she growled before taking two of the unpacked things and rushing back to her room, slamming the door behind her, her tails barely missing being caught in the door.

Celys blinked a few times, once again processing what had just happened before she turned to Theril and spoke.

“Go find Nalun and bring him here,” she said, sending the young [Guardian] off with a quick wave. “As for you, Kalduin Manelle, you’re going to describe everything about this young human, down to how much hair was on his chest,” she said, fixing her son with such a stare that he reflexively swallowed.

* * * * *

Joram paused as a shiver ran down his spine, earning him a wooden ball to the head.

‘No distractions,’ Avi said with a smirk on her face as she watched him rub his forehead.

He just grumbled a bit before getting back to his [Dodge] training.

- - -

Later that evening, after having gone through hellish training with Avi- and earning another point in [Dodge] and one in Speed!- he was once again practicing with [Astral Construct].

It was really hard to describe how he altered their shape while in the process of manifesting the power. Real-time adjustments were beyond difficult and, for the moment, all he could manage was to basically pull at the wire-mesh that was its set form while it was coming into being. He was sure that there was something that he was missing in there, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

He knew that imagination and the ability to visualize the end product were almost as important as knowing the formula for the power itself, but he couldn’t quite figure out how to get those two key features to affect his constructs.

It as almost like there was a wall that he couldn’t see that was keeping him from getting there. Was it that his preconceived notions of things were getting in the way? Or did he just not quite understand the power itself well enough yet?

With that thought in mind, and the fact that he was low on Power, he mentally turned to the theory behind the Discipline of Metacreation. Which, really, turned into [True Creation] later, but who was he to argue semantics?

He dove into the theory, immersing himself in things that he’d never thought possible, or even realistic. Which then brought him through the night and into the next morning before he finally dragged himself out of those nearly bottomless depths of knowledge.

‘Welcome back,’ Avi greeted… from beside him on the bed, causing him to nearly have a heart attack.

He still wasn’t used to how damn beautiful she was, and seeing her there, laying beside him in bed, had done things to him that he was ashamed to admit.

She’s a damn figment of my mind, damn it! He thought as he turned away from her and stood up.

From there, he proceeded to go through some stretches as he went into light meditation to help restore his befuddled mind and renew his body. And especially to avoid looking at Avi.

After some light roasting from Avi, he escaped her once again by heading to the living room. He’d have preferred the setup with his other laptop in his bedroom, but decided that sitting at the table instead of laying in bed where Avi could continue messing with him for some inexplicable reason, was the wise choice here.

So, he booted up his secondary laptop and connected to his old server that sat in his room. It wasn’t anything fancy, but it did contain the vast majority of what he’d digitally collected over the years. After a few seconds of clicking through directories and subdirectories, he found what he was looking for.

It was his folder on materials research. It had anything from proposed chemical structures to proven structures all the way to the processes used in making them. Sure, due to copyright, intellectual property, and all that, he had very little in the way of technical specifications for the machines and technology used in the manufacturing of the materials. But that didn’t matter so much in this case.

At the moment, he really just needed the broad strokes, as it were. Especially since he still wasn’t ready to tackle [Delve] just yet. No, getting the gist of things was better right now.

So, the next several hours were spent between going over molecular structures, crystalline structures, and the general properties of various substances once combined. He’d even pulled out his old chemistry program he’d used in university to model molecules and used that a few times to get a better sense and understanding of things.

He could see why his Other Self had been so good with [Delve], as he-they, were very visual people.

Well, with his brain now overfull of information, he got up and made his way to the back hallway to start exercising. He’d noticed with that last point in Speed, his Strength was his lowest attribute… if he didn’t count Charisma… or that mysterious attribute at the bottom.

Shaking his head, he got back to the task at hand.

He didn’t have nearly enough metal to make himself a full set of free weights, so he figured that some dumbbells would have to do. Even then, he only used enough metal to make the small bars needed for them. Why? So that he could add more weight to them in the future, of course.

So, his next task involved the extra stone that Altaea had left him in convenient blocks off to the side. He wasn’t sure what type of rock they were, especially since he was on another planet, in another universe, but he thought it looked like granite. It was certainly heavy enough, anyways.

Which more than served his purposes for it.

The next hour was spent using [Modify Matter] in an effort to get reasonably circular discs of the stuff “cut” out. The hardest part, he thought, was getting them to be uniform in size, and thus mass. He wanted to work in 5kg increments, seeing as how he’d been more than a bit out of shape before the incident that had brought him here six days ago.

And since he still wasn’t sure how the attributes really worked, he figured that he’d get some answers with this.

Once done, he was happy to see that the weights for each dumbbell had turned out smooth on the edges and flat on the sides.

Ding! [Sculpting] 3 -> 4

He grinned, pleased with the further reduced pop-up. Not that he’d ever get tired of seeing his progress, but he did get tired of all the extra in there that didn’t truly need to be there. So, after a bit of messing around last night, he’d managed to get the notifications to look more like that.

Pleased with his progress, Joram slid a few stone weights onto the shaped bars. He’d put holes into the bar at regular intervals, each as far apart as the weights were wide so that he could put a pin in to keep the weights from sliding off and ruining his day.

With that done, he realized that he truly wasn’t a gym rat, and that most of his motivation was derived from his intense desire to live as well as his curiosity surrounding his attributes.

“I need music,” he muttered before quickly heading back to grab a phone and a Bluetooth speaker. With that done, and some music that he thought would do well for workout music, he got started.

Now, even though he wasn’t a gym rat, he was still knowledgeable about how the body worked, and how to work it to get the results one wanted to achieve. Which was why he was taking it slow.

He knew that he was pretty wimpy compared to most people his size, so he just started with 20kg on each dumbbell as Avi shook her head in silent disbelief behind him.

As he went through the various exercises he’d planned for himself, he also concentrated on [Meditation]. For one, he needed to keep himself from getting bored and just stopping, which was why he’d never been a gym rat. The other reason was to pay attention to his body.

With the ridiculous awareness of his body that came with being a High Elan, he could see his muscles at work. From how they contracted and extended to the minute tears forming in them as he continued to push forward. As those tears formed, he concentrated on the part of the meditation he’d been taught that renewed his body. And, as he “watched”, the muscle not only repaired themselves, but also did what he’d been hoping they’d do; they grew larger.

Sure, the progress wasn’t earth shattering, but it was there.

Then he paused when he finished that exercise and laughed at himself. Anyone from Earth would have been flabbergasted at his progress! Scientists across the globe would have been chomping at the bit to study him!

Shaking his head, he got back to it, this time doing lunges while holding the 20kg dumbbells in each hand. Strengthening ones’ legs and core was beyond important. It didn’t matter how much you could bench press if you couldn’t sit up properly, let alone go through what he had planned for himself once he got better at using [Modify Matter].

For now, he’d just have to keep up with the crazy routines he’d planned for himself so that he’d be ready when it came time to eliminate the goblins that had been attacking him.

- - -

Captain’s log, day 7, 0314.

Having spent the past day in rigorous training, I have found that being a High Elan with the PP reserves to keep up that kind of training that I’ve put myself through, is a few levels of broken.

I have, somehow, managed to increase my Strength score to 14. Now, back in the tabletop days, that would be a respectable score for the tank of a party, or maybe a rogue that was dead-set on being able to carry their loot, or some such. But here?

Holy Arny Batman!

I can’t express how glad I am that I was consciously directing and rebuilding myself as I was working out, because I’ve managed to increase my muscle density to the point that it’s absurd. If I hadn’t done that, though, I’d make old Arnold green with envy. Because, I’m not quite sure of the stats here, but I think I’ve well passed his old record of about a 500lbs bench press. In fact, I’m sure that I’ve gone well past that mark, but I’ve run out of stuff to add to test that.

So, if the other attributes follow along the same gradient type as Strength does, then any gain in attributes is kind of massive. Like, it’s important on the level that it is in PFRPG, or D&D back home for characters. Possibly more so, in fact.

I know that my Spirit score is pretty high at 13 already, but I don’t know if that’s amazing for a caster-type or not. But given just how much improvement I’ve seen in my physical strength, I’m starting to think that it’s well above average here.

My biggest problem is not knowing anything about this System. Sure, the help section does indeed help, but it does nothing to relay the common sense of this world. Well, that might be because I’ve not gone down that rabbit hole of knowledge yet for fear of getting lost.

Maybe I can ask Theril when he gets back? Hmm, I wonder if that little pyro will be coming back too? I’m not sure if I would, given how embarrassing that whole debacle was….

Ah, well, doesn’t really matter unless my lessons stop entirely.

Or are interrupted by goblins.

Which reminds me, they’ve been pretty quiet lately. As in, no attack in the past two days quiet. Are they waiting to build up a stronger force to attack me? Or is it something else?

Bah! Who knows?! I certainly don’t!

I should nap, I’m getting grumpy.

End of captain’s log.