It being spring, the Rhothos river had once again burst its banks, flooding a huge swath of the valley. It felt strangely nostalgic being back in the area, particularly given that he’d only been gone… actually, something like a year now between his time at Panastalis and Sheraith. That was… weird to think about.

Anyway, the last time he’d been here for it, Edwin hadn’t been fully able to appreciate the sights, but now? There was an absolute tapestry of Skills at play while everyone worked. Some farmers walked atop the water, planting river-based crops in fertile ground while others waded up to their waist to do the same. The river itself was absolutely teeming with life, hundreds to thousands of fish happily swimming every which way, nibbling on weeds while leaving the actual crops alone, an effect that Edwin identified as split between the fish and the plants themselves.

Wait, was that Inion?

Well, it was a bit of her presence anyway. As soon as they’d gotten within sight of her home river, she’d made a beeline for the water and promptly discorporated, leaving the rest of them behind. He didn’t really mind that much, but he wished that the fey would just be honest with him in regards to how much she actually wanted him around.

“Is it an ocean?” Yathal had asked in awe.

Rillah had chuckled, “No, it’s not an ocean. Oceans are way bigger, they stretch on further you can see and are deeper than you can imagine, and hold up the entire world.

“That’s not how oceans work, though,” Edwin protested, “Rock doesn’t float no matter how big you get it.”

“Now that’s just not true.”

“What? Oh, some Skill would make it possible I suppose, but that’s not the point. Rock doesn't float unless actively being held up by something- which I would say doesn’t count as floating, personally.”

“No, not even with Skills. There’s the stone ships, you know?”

“I do not, no.”

“Yeah, these big black stone things. There’s only like two of them, but they’re super cool. Bit warm to the touch, but they can float!”

“Wait, what? Blackstone ships? I mean… I guess you could make a ship out of them? It is strong enough, even if it were that thin, and it would provide quite the strong hull. I want to see these now.”

“Oh so now you believe me?”

“Well, if it’s a boat that’s different. It’s not that hard to make something float, but solid rock, like continents, won’t float on water. They float on liquid rock.”

“Liquid rock? Please.”

“Well, magma. It’s magma that’s underground, right?” he mused, then shook his head, “Nevermind. Polyglot would take care of it anyway. But that’s just liquid rock, so yeah. Continents float on liquid rock, but they don’t float on water.”

“Oh yeah? So then why do the Stoneships not sink then, smart guy?” Rillah playfully jabbed him in the arm.

“I mean… buoyancy? It’s not that complicated… right, you guys don’t have physics classes here. Um, what do you know about why things float?”

“What do you mean? They float because they float. They’re lighter than water, so they float. What else is there to it?”

“Okay, well yes, but… Okay, let me start from the beginning.”

“So this naked guy in a bathtub realized all this at once?”

“Wait, that’s what you got out of all of that? Archimedes in the tub?”

“Well he’s the most memorable. I have it!” she shouted.

“Yes, yes. Eureka. Anyway, that’s not the point. Well, it kind of is the point? Anyway, does stuff make more sense now?”

“Nope!”

“Ugh. I’ll try this again,” he started summoning a few models out of Apparatite, “Okay, so buoyancy…”

“Does it make sense now?”

“So you’re saying that wood boats don’t float because they’re wood, but because they… what, bigger than water?”

“They’re less dense. Everything-”

“Everything’s being pulled down by gravity, yes, and the things that are heavier are pulled down more.”

“No, they’re pulled down the same amount. Gravity is a constant for everything and everyone, it’s just that heavier things are… well, they’re harder to move out of the way, so lighter things just sit on top of them.”

“Uhuh. So you make a ship lighter how?”

“By making it mostly air. The stone, or wood, or metal, or whatever that makes up the ship might be way heavier than the water it moves out of the way, but because of the air inside of it, it can’t sink.”

Edwin felt a cold nose bump against his hand, and he looked down to see Kynigos at his side.

“Oh, hello there Kynigos. What’s up?”

He yipped softly, and Edwin frowned, “Agreement… oh! You understand what I’m saying?”

The pup nodded, and Edwin chuckled as he gave him a good scratch behind the ear for a reward.

“How does it feel that Kynigos figured this out faster than you?” he teased.

“Oh, shush you. He has Intelligence, Wisdom, and Learning. Of course he can figure it out.”

“Don’t you have Intelligence?”

“Yeah, and you don’t. Maybe if you did you’d be better at teaching this.” she shot back, “But I think I understand now. It’s like if you’ve got an updraft pointed at a feather, the feather goes up because it’s being pushed by the wind but if you try to put anything on the feather it sinks.”

“That’s about right, I think?” Edwin shrugged, “Well, it’s close enough. Anyway, what were we talking about? Oh, right. Oceans.”

“That was an hour ago.”

“Was it? Well… okay, what do you want to talk about then?”

“I’m just… done for now.”

Well okay then. Still, he wasn’t about to complain. Much more talking and Adaptive Defense might move to protect his throat. He fished out his canteen and took a big gulp of water, loving the sensation of letting his parched throat rehydrate. It was the little things, sometimes.

Alas, Rillah being maybe-annoyed with him didn’t leave Edwin with a whole lot of options. He watched Kynigos bound around for a couple minutes before remembering why he didn’t usually do that. Kynigos was like a perfectly-behaved dog to the point where it legitimately didn’t feel real.

I mean, he is a magical sapient dog with more mental Attributes than I have, so… not sure how that compares. I guess it checks out that he doesn’t really feel like a dog.

He sat in silence as Bill trundled along up the road. He… he wasn’t really good at people, he knew. His mouth tended to run ahead of his brain, but not in the sticking his foot in his mouth sense, just in a… not stopping to think if what he was saying was actually worth saying, and it tended to drive off what few people were actually likely to be friendly with him to begin with. It wasn’t great, but what was he supposed to do? It meant that, when he was actually thinking about what he wanted to say, he usually tried to make that be ‘nothing.’ He wouldn’t say anything unless he was prompted in some way. He’d also had to learn that people randomly asking him questions wasn’t always a prompt to tell them everything that he knew about a subject… so he tried to follow that, deflecting answers instead of answering them head-on.

Of course, that deflection also meant that anyone who might be actually interested in him and his emotions had quite the challenge ahead of them. As soon as any conversation drifted towards him, he immediately locked down to prevent oversharing- he had some very bad experiences always replaying in his mind as to why- but that would also mean that, if someone really, truly wanted to find out how he was and what his emotional state was, they’d have to prod him and then not take his brief dismissal as an answer. They’d need to push a little bit, make sure that he actually was alright, or was whatever the socially-appropriate emotion was to have at the time. If they did push, didn’t take a dismissal as an answer, then he’d maybe, finally have a friend? Someone who actually cared about him beyond politeness, someone who he knew wasn’t just trying to spare his feelings… was that too much to ask for?

Yes, a part of him whispered, I should be perfectly fine with no friends, nothing solid, why do I even need other people anyway? They’re obnoxious, too loud, bothersome, and demanding. I’m better on my own, and I definitely need to stop moping before anyone notices.

He sighed, refocusing on his surroundings. What had he missed? Hopefully nothing too important, hopefully he hadn’t zoned out right when someone was trying to talk to him…

Nothing. There he was, sitting all alone on the cart as it trundled along the road, rattling him with every step Bill took. He didn’t have anyone he was ignoring because nobody was trying to talk to him, there wasn’t any major stuff happening that demanded his attention. It was just a normal day, and he should try to enjoy it.

Edwin felt a flicker of strange magic trigger his mana senses, snapping him out of idle speculation and back into the present. It didn’t feel like Rillah’s abilities, and it was way stronger and more defined than the normal background, were they under attack? Off to the left… there.

It was… a farmer. Huh?

Well, no, not a farmer. Thanks to Seeing, even from hundreds of feet away he could pick out tiny details on the man’s build and outfit, which was definitely a cut above what most of the farmers wore. He wasn’t built like a physical laborer, and while he couldn’t tell thanks to the man’s elaborate outfit, Edwin suspected that even he might have more muscle on him than the man did. The Skills woven into the fabric were really intricate, indicating a level of expense above even Edwin’s own outfit. That looked like… self-cleaning, waterproofing, durability, comfort, and even self-repairing effects. Very much not a farmer, then. Self-repairing garments were ludicrously expensive from what he recalled, and…

Oh! Magic again. That was interesting, it felt a bit like… hm. Edwin got an image of budding life, of a tree branch blossoming and bearing fruit, as he focused on the magic. A life mage, perhaps?

It would fit. The man’s hair was cut short, but a very vivid green that matched the magic he had around his hands, raining down like sparks as he passed through the plowed fields. Everywhere the specks of light landed, a small shoot poked its way out of the dirt a few moments later.

He was still slightly out of Identify range, but getting closer all the time. Eventually though, he drew close enough that Edwin could check.

Vivacious Tender of the Bountiful Fields

Hmm. Given that Class name, and the Skills Edwin could pick out, he guessed that the mage was probably… tier five or six. He was able to pick out the basic Skills of Walking, Identify, Status, and Language no problem- confirming his guesses with Identify, but other than that… he strained his eyes. Was that… okay, the Skill that he was using to spread the life-sparks definitely resembled Rillah’s Vivacious Caress, but didn’t look quite as high level and seemed a lot less focused. Then that maybe… no, that was a different Skill altogether.

He shook his head. He’d need to track down a bunch of people and really study their Skills if he wanted to ever have his speculation confirmed. Not that it was any easier to really analyze someone so high-Tier. Skills just spread into a giant mess of tangled webs and strands, as they built upon one another and started influencing their peers constantly.

He checked his notifications, hoping that… nothing. Alas, Lefi leaving and taking his skill-growth aura really impacted Edwin’s leveling, and he hadn’t realized by how much until it was too late. Ah well, he wasn’t in any particular rush.

He yawned, the afternoon sun warming him up just enough to make him a bit sleepy, and turned his attention back to the road.

“So then, the governor insists that we have a face-off to determine who was really worthy of the job. So I pulled out a merry old Veteran Cornal, whereas she tries to play On the Hills, if you can believe it! So sure, she did do it just fine, but it was so boring. Like oh good job, you know how to tap a string. You know who else can do that? A magpie! No, seriously. I once saw one pluck out the first couple notes. I assume it was an accident, but you can never tell with those little birdbrains.”

Edwin chuckled. Even if he wasn’t quite able to follow all the musical references, Rillah was an engaging enough storyteller as they sat around their campfire that night, stationed around a Curicnan shrine.

“So what happened then?”

“Oh, I won of course. But because of ‘extenuating circumstances’ she still got the position. I’m sure the circumstances in question had absolutely nothing to do with where she slept that night, but what can you do?”

“Yeah, isn’t that supposed to be your thing?”

Rillah rolled her eyes, flicking a small stone at him in retaliation. With barely a second thought, he caught the pebble in Unbound Tether and sent it right back at her. A twitch of her hand let her dodge the projectile, and she finally settled on just rudely flicking her wrist at him.

Edwin didn’t retaliate this time, instead just sipping at his soup. It really was incredible, what just a few vegetables tossed into a pot with a hearty dose of Skills could taste like, while being insanely filling.

“So the shrines,” he asked, “What’s up with them?”

“You don’t know about Curicna?”

“Well, I mean I know a bit from what Lefi and Inion told me. Some god that in the old times would wander the lands and reward people who hosted him, and that spread into these little waystations throughout the Rhothos region in time. But that’s about it.”

“Oh is that where they come from? Neat. Didn’t know that. But you don’t know about Curicna?”

“He wasn't worshiped or anything back home for me,” Edwin honestly admitted, “Honestly, I’m kind of surprised that there aren’t more worshippers and gods that are worshiped around here. I think I can count on one hand the number I’ve heard about.”

“Did you expect more?”

“I mean… I don’t know? Yeah, I don’t know. It’s just weird, I guess. There’s practically no religious presence here, Lefi is the only person I actually know that I know adheres to a god’s teaching and even that I don’t know that much about.”

“Why would you expect something different?”

“Well… back home for me, there were lots of religions and it was one of the biggest things that defined people. If you weren’t part of a religion, that was notable in itself.”

“Why was it so common?”

“I mean, communing with a higher power? Having purpose in life? Answers to life’s biggest questions?”

Rillah shrugged, “Why bother trying to make good with some sort of higher power when you can be more powerful with that same level of commitment?”

“Mooching off people with power? Strength by association? Honestly, not sure. It seems like power or popularity always attracts people happy to make themselves notable via association."

“Weird. Just tier up a time or two and become strong yourself.”

“Okay, but what about the other stuff? Life’s great mysteries? A purpose in life?”

“Who cares? It’s not like that sort of stuff really matters, and it’s not hard to figure out a good purpose given half a chance.”

I suppose it does make some amount of sense that the gamification of everyday life might result in a slightly lesser obsession with finding the meaning of life, but that barely covers any of it, he mused.

“Mostly, why bother? There’s stuff right here on Joriah to deal with, who cares about what some super-powerful may or may not hear or care about you individual could think. We’ve got much bigger and more local work to deal with.”

“But what are the gods? Where did they come from? Who made the world?

Rillah shrugged again, “Dunno. Dunno who’d care, either. I care much more about how much dinner’s still left in the bowl?”

“Oh, plenty, go for it.” he nodded, and Rillah set in on her task. When she returned, Edwin pulled back on his line of questioning, “No, but seriously. What’s up with… everything? What’s the meaning of life, who made the System, how does it work?”

She raised an eyebrow, gulping down a mouthful of food before responding, “You question that sort of stuff?”

“Okay, first off, I question everything and you should know that. Secondly, don’t you?”

“Eh, not really. I want to get stronger, obviously. What more do you need? And the System is as the System does, you may as well ask why the sun rises.”

“Because the planet is spinning at unimaginably vast speeds as it orbits an absolutely enormous ball of… basically fire, and that gives the illusion of the sun rising and setting.” How did one go about proving heliocentrism? Not that it really mattered to him, but it would be nice to have it as a standard… even if he’d need to figure out the orbital periodicity… Rillah was talking again. He quickly used Memory to pull up what she’d said before he started listening.

“You know that, but you can’t answer your questions?”

“Well obviously not, if I did know I wouldn’t be asking, and I still have trouble believing that nobody questions this. Are there religions about the mysterious thing that probably gives you magical powers? Cultists who sacrifice people to it? Scholars who try to figure out where it comes from?”

“Nah. Why would there be?”

“...I guess it’s just me, then,” Edwin sighed, “ah well. I suppose it’s just one more thing for me to figure out on my own.”

He lapsed into silence, staring into the fire. He felt so alone in his task, and for whatever reason it was all the more prevalent out on the road. Maybe it was some general positivity aura around Lefi that offset his tendencies to mope? Was he truly so helpless on his own? Granted, that thought didn’t really help his general feeling of loneliness… and he was starting to slip into self-fulfilling loops again, so nope!

“Edwin?”

“Huh? What?”

“You alright? You zoned out there pretty hard.”

“What? Oh, yeah, I’m fine,” he sighed.

Rillah assessed him for a moment, her… he was pretty sure that was Social Savvy lighting up.

She didn’t say anything, though. So, it wouldn’t be tonight. That was alright, though. He’d been waiting a long time for someone to really take an interest in him, he could wait a while longer.

They didn’t quite pass through Vinstead. The city was a few day’s journey out of the way, and with no real reason to head that way, they didn’t bother. Instead, they made their crossing at a fairly major ‘bridge,’ a stone wall which thanks to what looked like a drainage-related Skill allowed the floodwaters of the Rhothos- and the fish, somehow- to pass straight through. It was still solid to Edwin, he had checked, but it did make him really curious what that Skill was and how he could get a variant for his alchemy. Some sort of selectively permeable membrane? Yes please. It would be so perfect for purification of everything from water to powders depending on how it worked.

Unfortunately- or perhaps fortunately- Rillah was driving the carriage the day when they crossed over, so Edwin had to keep up with the group and not spend several days figuring out what the perfectly-fit cobblestone would or wouldn’t allow through. The rocks themselves were all fit together too perfectly for him to slip one out easily, so he had to leave them were they were. Sadly, copying the rocks onto himself with Fey’s Caress didn’t work, whatever Skill was responsible for their supernatural properties not transferring alongside the material structure.

Meanwhile, the soil was no less Skill-infused, thin but unmistakable nets of Skill light wove through probably half the fields they passed, farmers and their kids sowing seeds by hand wherever they were seen. Of course, the relative Skills of the farmers was readily apparent. Kids usually tossed a couple seeds at a time, scattering them coarsely across the ground. Adults, meanwhile, tended to throw by the handful, clouds of seeds falling and providing ample space for one another. There was one exception, a middle-aged farmer whose sowing was downright preternatural, hundreds of seeds flying and burying themselves into the soil with such perfect regularity Edwin had to blink to ensure he wasn’t seeing things. But no, he wasn’t, and unsurprisingly that farmer, despite having the same ‘Lirasian Farmer of Plenty’ class that several others had, had basic Skill levels at least double what most of the others had.

“Someone’s a perfectionist,” he muttered to himself, enjoying the almost hypnotic patterns traced out by the seeds against a perfect blue sky.

Valenasis was a fair bit bigger than Edwin had been imagining. Far from the tiny collection of houses that made up most of the villages they passed through, it was something of a regional city a couple weeks south of Vinstead about the size of…

“Dangit,” Edwin scolded himself.

“So what didya do this time?” Inion had rejoined them as they pulled away from the Rhothos, much cheerier after reuniting with her actual bond after a year. Honestly, Edwin wasn’t sure how fey could simultaneously be intimately bonded with something to the point where simply leaving it could seriously impact their well-being and also be fine after about a year apart, but what did he know?

“Oi! That’s not fair. It might have been something someone else did, it doesn’t have to be me who did something.”

“So was it someone else?”

“...No,” he conceded.

“So! What didya do this time?”

“Well, Valenasis looks like it’s about the same size as Panastalis, and that reminded me that I meant to stop by there and get my payment, but I guess it slipped my mind?”

Inion furrowed her eyebrows, and considering she was floating upside-down at roughly eye level the actual effect was more along the lines of her raising said eyebrows.

“Look, I think I was experimenting with Apparatite around that time. It’s about the only way I wouldn’t have caught my Almanac signposts or reminders.”

“Only you would get so wrapped up in studying a Skill they forget to get paid.”

“Yes, well it’s their loss. I’ll just get my money next time we pass that way.”

“You won’t forget again?”

Edwin brushed the fey off as they approached the city. Unlike Panastalis, Valenasis had a proper wall, albeit a small one, and only a single guard at the simple wooden gates.

After a brief discussion about paying the gate toll, they paid the small handful of coins required and were waved along. Inside, a chaotic collection of houses and buildings vaguely kept in check by a spiderweb of streets stretched out before them. Yathal looked very emotional, and hopped up onto the wagon next to Rillah. She put her arm around him in comfort, and Kynigos curled up next to his boy, head nestled in his lap.

“I didn’t realize that cities this big had shepherds,” Edwin quietly noted to Inion. Because Valenasis didn’t have a river running through it, she had just hidden in the wagon as a barrel of water while they entered.

“Hm? Why’s that a surprise?”

“Well, it’s just that it seems like that would be the sort of thing you’d do more out there,” he waved his hand at the rolling grasslands that made up much of the landscape past the city’s immediate surroundings, “And not here, where there’s already so much competing for space.”

Inion looked at him like he was an idiot.

“What am I missing this time?” he sighed.

“That’s exactly the point of a shepherd. They keep livestock safe and in one place out in the wild, letting the flocks expand and take up loads of space out there, then bring them back when they’re needed.”

“That… that makes sense. So then where would they be kept around here?”

“Why are you asking me, instead of the actual former shepherd on the cart?”

“He really doesn’t look like he’s up to a question and answer session right now.”

“Since when have you cared about that sort of thing?”

“Hey, that’s not fair. I’ve always cared, I just have a really hard time figuring out when-”

Edwin froze.

“Hey Edwin,” she poked his shoulder, “Don’t you go zoning out on me like that. Finish what you were saying first.

“Edwin? You there? Come on, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Yeah,” he agreed.

Inion looked around, scanning the light crowds of the small city, “Where? They all look pretty alive to me.”

“That’s the problem,” Edwin absently muttered, “They shouldn’t all be.”

He’d only caught the briefest of glimpses, buried deep within his pile of System notifications that came with Identifying everything and everyone, but he knew he wasn’t mistaken in what he saw. And that meant that this little stop had suddenly become way more complicated.

Salutary Alchemist

Niall ?

Helpful Outlaw alchemist who showed me the Zosiman grimoire