The Way Ahead

Edwin immediately started panicking. He had just escaped captivity, he didn’t want to go back into any other kind of forced working situation! No. He would run into the woods and take his chances in the wilds before he let that happen to him again. Even still, he did not want to be on any kind of Empire watchlist, no thank you! Sensing his distress, Tara immediately made a placating motion with her hands- some things transcended planets, it seemed.

“Calm yourself. I understand your plight more now, Out-” she cut herself off, clearing her throat, “Edwin. Rest assured, as I swore, I will still not disclose your origins to any you do not grant me leave for.” She sat back, looking into the distance with a starry look in her silver- wait, her eyes were silver too?- eyes, “An Outsider, then. A living legend. One who comes from the heavens themselves.” She looked him in the eye, “You did well to tell me, there is much I can do to aid you. However, your hesitance to do so is a tremendous asset. You must never tell anyone else of where you come from. They will seek to exploit you, to kill you, to enslave you,” she said, catching a hint of a flinch on Edwin’s face, “That is why you sought escape from the Highpeak Kingdoms, then? They found out and attempted to use you?” Edwin hesitated before giving a tiny nod, and she continued, “Blasted greedy dwarves! They’ll be the death of us all, angering Outsiders.” She breathed deeply, then continued, “Tell me your story. Leave nothing out.”

Edwin hesitated at first, but the ferocity of Tara’s gaze managed to persuade him otherwise. It had nothing to do with that very sharp sword in her hand. Not at all. Eventually, he started to recap his arrival in the forest, his fight against the Stonehide, his arrival and subsequent capture and forced debtor’s position and a general skimming over of his escape. At first, he made specifically sure to never give any specifics about his weapons or what he was trying to make, instead saying that ‘he fought his way out’ and that ‘he was doing research.’ That position changed with another glance at Tara’s sword, though, and he went more into detail about his weapons, not explaining how they worked, just what they did.

As soon as he finished, though, he started regretting it. He had absolutely said too much. Why was he so trusting? Nevermind that he had been threatened with death, he should have just taken his chances with… well, no. That was a terrible idea. But was this really any better? She’d sell him out the first chance she got, he knew. He could see it in her eyes, already calculating how best she could profit from knowing he was an Outsider. Well, at least he had managed to change his class tag, or else everyone would know. But still, did she have to know? Aaarrghh. He was such an idiot, he was so-

“I see. Well done, I must say. You need not explain further regarding your methods, I would not glean anything from them myself, and I understand the secrecy alchemists like to exercise over their work,” an action which prompted Edwin to roll his eyes, “Yes?”

“No, no. It’s just… my old world, we had giant webs of communication, of sharing information. It let people on one side of the planet benefit from experiments that others had done on the other side. I should have figured that it wouldn’t be quite the same way here, but it’s still sad.” A thought crossed his mind, and Edwin sat up straighter, “Wait, alchemists? I got a message from the System saying that alchemy isn’t highly regarded. What’s up with that, if they’re common enough to have a stereotype?”

Tara thought for a moment, “Interesting. I… don’t know. I’ve never heard of the System being wrong before. What did the message say?”

Edwin stared blankly at her, “Uhh… I don’t know? It was like a month ago that I got it, my memory isn’t that good.”

She returned the stare, “Just… scroll back? Status Log is one of the first skill upgrades anyone ever gets, don’t you have it?”

“…How would I have gotten it?”

“The Beginner Path, naturally. It almost always upgrades Status, lets you review previous skill unlocks, Path notifications, and more. Ah. Right. It happens from time to time, where either a particularly bright or dim child doesn’t get Status until after the Management comes into effect, and so they don’t blindly spend points on whatever Path they can unlock. Something similar happened to you, didn’t it? Well, can you upgrade now? Not much advances Status, go ahead, do it.”

“Well…”

She cocked her head, “Is there a problem? Do it.”

“I already have my Status evolved.”

“Do tell.” Her words were clipped and no-nonsense. He’d clearly done something to annoy her, but what?

“It’s an information-storing Skill. It lets me take notes and see them later with Identify.”

She rolled her eyes, “And here I thought you might have actually gotten something useful. So, how many Skill Points was that Path? Twelve? Twenty four?”

“…A hundred and twenty?”

That seemed to break her, and Tara just blinked, staring blankly at the wall, “Say that again?”

“One hundred and twenty points.”

“A hundred and twenty, what the hells.” She shook her head and looked incredulously at Edwin, “And it lets you take notes? What sort of flightless skill is that? How did the System ever justify such an obscene price?”

“Hey, hey, hey!” Edwin felt suddenly quite defensive of his favorite Skill, “It’s really cool! I can do all sorts of things with it, and it’s an absolute lifesaver for remembering na… encoding my notes! Nobody can see what I’ve written. Great for experimental safety, you said that was popular right?”

Tara just looked at him in bewilderment, “I know not what you must have done to anger the System so much, but you utterly wasted enough points to get two to four good Skill advancements. At the very least, your other skill advancements must have been worthwhile? You must have Alchemy and Polyglot at the very least, yes? What else?” Edwin hesitated, which just annoyed her, “Oh, come on. We’ll be here until Vinstead if you stop every time I ask you a new question. I swore on my Honor that I wouldn’t tell your secrets, that includes your Class, private or not.”

“…fine. I also have Bomb Thrower, an evolution of Throwing Weapons, and Mana Infusion, evolved from Basic Mana Manipulation.”

She jerked her head up at that, “You have a mana skill?”

“Uhh… two, actually. Mana Infusion and Basic Mana Sense.”

Her eyebrows danced once more, “Alchemy would be wasted on you if you already have both. You’ll make a fantastic mage. So your skills are Walking, Identify, Seeing, Eating, Polyglot, Mana Infusion, your useless Status advancement, Alchemy, Basic Mana Sense, and what else?”

Edwin pulled up his Status, “Breathing, Flexibility, Sleeping, Survival,”

Tara interrupted him with a wave of her hand, “Wait. Not only do you have more than twelve skills, you wasted them on things like sleeping? Dear gods. I retract my statement. You’re hopeless.”

“Hey! I didn’t know any better,” Edwin defended himself, “I was lost in the middle of really strange woods and trying to survive. I’ve only picked up two skills since I did know any better. Packing, because… ah, my arsenal was really heavy and I needed the help, and First Aid, because I needed to not die.”

She seemed unconvinced, “Very well. I perhaps know someone who might be able to advise you on your Class, but you’ve already set yourself down a path which ensures you’ll be mediocre in all you attempt.”

Edwin sat in silence for a few seconds, staring into space, “Well. I suppose that’s what I was before, I can stand being average again. Do you have to always make sure your Class is the best it could possibly be? What about just… doing what you want?”

She chuckled, “There’s always a few people who share your philosophy. They always think that doing just whatever, not following the wisdom of those who’ve walked their paths before is the best way to go. They inevitably fail, and they just can’t keep a job, and inevitably find themselves wandering around, throwing themselves into suicidal situations just to make a living. Others turn to banditry or a life of crime. Those with ill intent are a scourge on the Empire, and even those who want to help…. Bloody adventurers just make my job harder. They always think they know best, interfering and getting their grubby hands all over everything, totally wrecking the standard call-response order of the Guardsmen and Army.” She muttered more uncharitable statements about adventurers, but Edwin mentally filtered them out.

After a moment, it seemed like she wasn’t about to leave her current thought track, so Edwin stepped in, “Hello?”

Tara’s attention snapped back to Edwin, “Right. Adventurers. They cause more problems than they solve. Everything works far better when following official Class formulas. Thousands of years of experimentation has determined the optimal combination of Skills and Paths for any conceivable occupation.”

That made sense, though Edwin couldn’t help but wonder, “What if someone thinks they want to be a blacksmith, but later decides they want to be a… baker, or whatever?”

She scoffed, “Please. People are given Classes according to what they’re naturally talented at and what they want. The amount of training you need to even become competent in a job is far more than anyone could manage to undertake on a mere whim.”

That seemed… not great. Well, then again, Edwin thought, I suppose the ability to change careers is a pretty modern concept. Not like a blacksmith could have become a baker back on Earth in the early thousands anyway. No real change there. I guess it makes sense?

“I see.”

“Now, you said you hadn’t taken any of the Beginner, Novice, or Trainee paths?” she asked, and Edwin nodded in response, “Good. Complete them all. Upgrading your skills is important. Do you even have Common Knowledge?”

Edwin’s first instinct was to recoil, but then his curiosity got the best of him, “Common Knowledge?”

“Basic Identify upgrade, usually comes alongside the Beginner path. Allows you to use Identify on things other than creatures.”

That… sounded actually kind of useful, but still… “I’d rather not? My Identify is only level thirty, I wanted to get it to sixty before I evolved… err… upgraded it.”

“Thirty? That’s plenty. That should give you about twelve spans, yes? More than enough. You always want to upgrade a skill as soon as possible, the improvement is always worthwhile.”

Edwin really wasn’t comfortable with the degree of authority she was trying to display over something like his skills. They were his skills, darn it. He wasn’t going to let someone boss him around over them. He looked for some kind of conversation diversion, “Didn’t you say you’d point me to someone else to help with my Build, as it’s already completely screwed up?”

She saw right through his effort, but conceded, “Very well. I shall… abstain from further comments in such matters for the time being. Is there any other matter in which I can aid you for the time being?”

“What’s the name of the Empire? The dwarves just called it the ‘Pretentious Empire,’ which I don’t think was right. What’s your job exactly? Actually, could you give me a brief rundown of what I can expect?”

She scoffed, “Blasted dwarves. They like to act as though they’re superior to us and act like we’re the stuck-up ones. Maybe if the cavers didn’t spend all their time singing while smacking rocks around with steel, they’d….”

Even after her rant about dwarves, including a fairly long diversion complaining about a few Empire officials who acted more pretentious than the Empire had “earned the right for, which is already a lot,” she continued on unabated answering Edwin’s questions. Now that he was listening to someone actually interesting, he easily kept himself from getting distracted or zoning out as Tara talked for the rest of the day. She seemed to get more comfortable as time went on, and he realized that she couldn’t have been much older than him. She bore herself with a lot of formality, but even that seemed to be slipping away as she continued with her talking, filling Edwin in on information new and old alike.

The Liras Empire was a massive, mostly avior-controlled supernation which stretched across two continents and was the result of their emperor, Xares unifying countless small, warring nations under his wing almost two thousand years ago, and swept forward on an expansion campaign until he controlled everything east of ‘the Spine of the World,’ an absolutely massive mountain range that served as a natural border against their jealous neighbors on the western side. From what Edwin could gather, Tara was a huge personal fan of the Emperor himself, who in turn seemed to be some immortal, magic-wielding combination of Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and Napoleon. He combined brilliant military might with literal centuries of study, a magnetic personality, and a keen political mind into what may as well have been a living god, and, at least according to Tara, was absolutely perfect, had never lost a battle, and remembered the name of every soldier that had ever died in his service. If he was even half the man she made him out to be, Edwin kind of had to agree that there likely wasn’t a better monarch to possibly exist.

Tara, for her part, functioned as an Enforcer, which was part of a chain of command set aside from the normal chain, but was just a few steps under the Emperor himself. Her area of jurisdiction was massive, and within it, she had from the sounds of it, complete and total say as judge, jury, and executioner, exemplifying the Law of the Empire and bringing order to most of the continent. When there was a giant monster roaming around, a crime spree, or, yes, a bandit group making trouble, she was dispatched to track down the disturbance and end it, by any means needed. If she came across something that might develop into a problem, she was to deal with it similarly.

While she apologized that she wasn’t able to disclose her Class details, as doing so would potentially grant future adversaries the ability to exploit chinks in her metaphorical (and physical) armor. She was able to tell Edwin that it was an advanced variant of the standard guard skills, though, namely including Identify, Status, Language, Seeing, Walking, Eating, Swordplay, Heavy Armor, Reflexes, Athletics, Teamwork, and Authority, which made Edwin curious.

“Wait. If this is supposedly the most advanced possible combination of skills-”

“It is.”

He waved her off, “skills for a Guard, why does it include Eating? Wouldn’t there be a better skill to use than that?”

She gave him a quizzical look, “Because it’s one of the Basic Six… oh right. You wouldn’t know that.”

Edwin gave a flat stare in response, “Yes. I know nothing, remember?”

“Yes, yes. The Basic Six are the six skills which everyone has from their childhood, before they become Citizens of the Empire and checks can be put into place.” She counted them off on her fingers, “Eating, Seeing, Identify, Status, Walking, and Language. The six things which any infant can try to get and practice enough to be rewarded with a Skill for it.”

That… seemed reasonable enough, but… “Wait, but what if-” an ungodly loud screech cut him off, a torrent of swearing filtering its way through Polyglot as his train of thought was discarded.

Tara cursed as well, and her helmet materialized over her head. Maybe it helped block out sound? “What the hells is that?” she asked.

“It sounds to me,” Edwin responded, lightly covering his ears to help block the noise, “As though Aerfa just woke up.”