Robin’s stomach churned. It had been restless since he’d woken up in the tower after falling from the ladder. He forced the sensation out of his mind with some difficulty.

A day had passed since the events with the sky-rowan. Robin had feigned feeling weaker than he actually did from the fall in order to gain some time to think and some space to act.

The first thing he did, before Eli even returned with his water, was to steal a large piece of the root used for making red paint and stow it in his storage ring with several of the smaller twigs of rowan, the ones he could snap off without making it too obvious that part of the branch was missing.

Currently, he was standing in the main room of the tower, going through the Greater and Lesser Arcana database looking for spells he could learn, or more powerful ones to aim for learning in the future. At least that was what he had intended to do. At the moment he was staring into the middle distance, thinking.

Why hadn’t he been more suspicious of Eli? Why hadn’t he noticed the priest’s lying and evasions earlier? Well, obviously part of it was the circumstances he’d awoken in, imprisoned with another. That was a classic move; he should have expected something there. Then there was no denying that Eli was distractingly handsome. Another cliche, but well, sometimes things were cliche because there was an element of truth to them.

Robin shook his head. No point in self-recrimination. It was a bad habit from his old world. Maybe he should try some fresh ones in this new world. Starting with choosing proactive solutions over crippling over-analysis.

Eli had lied. Robin had been taken in. Ergo, Robin wasn’t good enough at spotting lies, even if he was proving pretty talented at spinning illusions and deceptions of his own. What was the opposite of Deception? Probably Insight. Possibly Perception.

He pulled up the proficiency descriptions.

Insight

Insight is a measure of how well you can understand the motivations of other beings, how quickly (and how effectively) you see through attempts to deceive you, and other, related uses. This proficiency can also be used to see patterns in events and aid in connecting seemingly-unrelated events into a larger picture. Insight is generally conceived to govern subtle or hidden truths, as opposed to hard-to-notice but unbidden aspects of a physical environment.

Perception

Perception is a measure of your awareness. It generally covers all manner of noticing fine details about your environment. This proficiency can also have a minor effect on how likely or not you are to be surprised by an ambush or fooled by a sensory illusion. Where Insight is often considered to be focused on the interior truths of a situation, Perception is often viewed as most concerned with external details.

After reading the entries, Robin decided he needed both of them at maximum. It was clear he didn’t know nearly enough about what was going on here. He had some experience after his encounter with the pixie, possibly also from his successful retrieval of the sky-rowan wood. What could he afford right now?

He played with the interface a tad and bit back a curse. He didn’t have enough to raise both Insight and Perception to 5. He could manage a 5 in one and a 4 in the other. That’s it.

Unless he used one of his banked proficiency ranks. Robin was loath to do that, though. He had no idea how common such rewards were, and using them now meant spending more experience later.

Of course if he didn’t live to see later because he was deceived or ambushed, it might be a moot point.

Robin went back and forth on that in his head. Part of him, the gamer part, really hated to lose that bit of efficiency. But the more practical side of him won out. He hadn’t seen anything to suggest there were experience or level caps of some kind in place, and the evidence he’d gotten from the interface suggested it rewarded him as long as he kept on learning, growing, and trying new things.

Right. He would use experience and one of his banked points to bring both Insight and Perception to 5. One stat at a time. He didn’t want to risk a sensory overload again.

Robin willed the changes through his interface. He decided to start with Insight, as it was the lower of the two scores. The pop-up dialogue box appeared, asking for confirmation. Before he could confirm, however, the text blurred from Insight to Perception.

Odd. Well, it wasn’t like he didn’t intend to raise that proficiency as well, so Robin willed through the change.

The world sharpened, slightly, like putting on a new pair of glasses for the first time. It was also a little bit like the fishbowl effect. Nothing seemed to be quite where it should be.

His stomach roiled. Robin pushed the discomfort away and refocused on his interface.

He paused.

What was he doing again? His mind felt as fuzzy as his vision seemed clear. He shook his head. Vision. Perception. Right. Insight.

Robin willed the changes to Insight, riding the wave of discomfort that came with the change. It was somehow worse than the Perception shift.

Should he hold off on upping Insight to 5? No. He had the free rank to use and he needed every edge he could muster. Something odd was going on here.

He forced through the change. This time it was easier, for some reason. Robin pulled up his character sheet to examine it.

ROBIN PARKER Heritage: Shadeling, Mature Profession: None Tier: 0 (Progress to Tier 1: 68%) Properties

Free Ranks Available: 1 Physical Mental Social Strength: 11 Intelligence: 17 Charisma: 15 Dexterity: 14 Cunning: 19 Manipulation: 13 Fortitude: 11 Resilience: 14 Poise: 15 Proficiencies

Free Ranks Available: 1 Physical (9/9) Mental (9/9) Social (9/9) Athletics: 1 Arcane Lore: 4 Animism: 0 Brawl: 0 Bureaucracy: 1 Deception: 5 Dodge: 4 Concentration: 5 Empathy: 1 Melee Combat: 2 Crafting: 5 Expression: 5 Pilot: 4 Healing: 0 Gossip: 0 Ranged Combat: 0 Insight: 5 Intimidation: 3 Sleight of Hand: 1 Learning: 4 Persuasion: 3 Stealth: 5 Natural Wisdom: 3 Socialise: 1 Survival: 1 Perception: 5 Streetwise: 0 Peculiarities Blessing of Rhyth Tongue of the Fallen Tower Mark of the Trickster Chronicle of Infinite Visions Moment of the Manymind Perks

Wayfaring Stranger

It flickered as he looked at it. How could a magical interface possible be glitching? That was not something he had expected to need to worry about. The lettering kept shifting, as if someone was cycling the whole document through some sort of mad translation algorithm.

On the one hand, it was kind of nice, as he absorbed fragments of dozens of new languages that he could use with [Tongue of the Broken Tower]. On the other hand, it was distracting as frak and he kept seeing unexpected words out of the corner of his eye.

Was this connected to Eli somehow? It was hard to say. But this was a world of magic, and he of all people knew it was pretty trivial to mess with someone’s perceptions. There were so many ways.

Wait, what was [Moment of the Manymind]? He didn’t remember getting a notification for that peculiarity. Robin focused his will on the tooltip function. What did the extra information there say?

Eli chose that moment to enter the room. Robin glanced over, reflexively minimising his interface. He needed all of his wits about him right now. No distractions.

‘Ready to go hunt for Crimson Bedstraw?’ The cleric was almost annoyingly cheery.

‘Yeah. Just let me shut this down.’ Robin powered down the interface.

Technically, he didn’t need to go hunting for more of the root. He had the large one he’d swiped from Eli’s pack, and that was more than enough to dye the small amount of thread needed for the charm. Mounting another expedition with Eli into the wood, however, would give him a chance to test the priest some more.

It would also give him a chance to pick up some other useful herbs and magical plants. He’d spent enough time looking through the magical database in the tower that his Bureaucracy had naturally risen to 1 without the need for any experience, and what he remembered of growing crops from the farm had combined with his exploration of the Botany and Biology to similarly lift his Natural Wisdom to 3.

He had chosen the spot to gather Crimson Bedstraw carefully. Close enough to the tower not to alarm Eli, but along a meandering path that would take him past several specimens he could stealthily nab and stow in his ring. There was plenty of room. Right now the staff he’d kept from the fight with the ghourds was the only thing taking up an appreciable amount of space in there. Adding the herbs and plants would give him a bit more to work with.

Robin gestured and the illusory interface vanished. He resolved, not for the first time, to figure out how to create one of these on his own some day. He was certainly coming back here when he had the chance to salvage what was left.

Provided someone else didn’t get here first. He shot a glance at Eli. The priest smiled at him.

‘Shall we?’

‘Let’s.’ Robin willed an illusory pair of sunglasses to form on his face. They wouldn’t keep the light out, but by the same token they were very easy to see through, even in the dim light inside the tower.

Huh. The more powerful his illusions, the more reality they carried. He would have to be careful with that. Right now, part of the advantage of his illusory powers was his ability to see through his own illusions without a problem. The demi-real ones, however, didn’t offer that option. Or they didn’t yet. There had to be a peculiarity to deal with that.

Robin mused on the possibilities a bit as he and Eli delved once more into the forest, but he had to set the train of thought aside after a few minutes. This was still Cherry’s forest, and there were plenty of dangers to be on the lookout for.

As well as opportunities. Robin pocketed several clumps of herbs as Eli scouted a bit ahead, keeping his finely tuned senses peeled for any sign of Cherry or the pixies.

They moved quietly and carefully through the wood. This meant slowly, as well, but that suited Robin’s purposes just fine. More time to sneak in some gathering, and more time to ask Eli any number of questions about him, his past, and his devotion to Vané. Hopefully something would be useful.

Robin discovered that Eli was relatively young, for an elf. He had grown up on another of the floating continents and travelled here in search of new and beautiful sights with which to glorify Vané. Personally, Robin’s new suspicions made him think Eli was laying it on a bit thick, but there was no way he could prove or disprove the priest’s devotion. Or even Vané’s existence, come to think of it.

But he discovered other things. Eli was very fond of berries and had a tendency to eat them (even though at this time of year, they should still be merely flowers). Then again, magical wood in a magical world, so frak the order of the seasons, right?

Eli also had a wicked sense of humour. He laughed loudest and longest at the rudest jokes Robin could remember. Robin had to shush him numerous times and remind him they were very much still in enemy territory. And if anything was going to bring a cloud of curious pixies down on them, it was laughter echoing through the trees.

‘—then I returned the Golden Idol to the temple the Jhonzes had stolen it from and leapt back through the World Tree Seedling before it was too late.’ Eli was regaling him with tales of his previous adventures.

Robin frowned. That last bit, though, that was a lie. Elvish High Magic could do many miraculous things, but it was as much spiritual as it was anything else and would never be used for so frivolous a purpose as transporting adventurers. Evacuations, sure. But not something like this. The High Mages held too much control over the knowledge, and the Elvish Pantheon generally united in backing up that exclusivity.

Robin frowned. How did he know that? He didn’t recall Lantha saying anything about it, and he certainly hadn’t read it in the tower database. Had he?

‘Here we are,’ Eli said, interrupting his train of thought again.

They had reached the clearing. Small red flowers dotted the grass of the clearing. Crimson Bedstraw. But that wasn’t the only thing of note.

‘Looks like we should have gone with the patch I was thinking of after all,’ Eli whispered.

Robin bit back a curse. The clearing was home not only to a large patch of Crimson Bedstraw but also to a large community of thornlings.