Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.

Pre-Fall quote

“It’s ridiculous,” Elena Worchester complained for the fourth or maybe fifth time.

As if on cue, light snow had started to fall before the moving army had lost sight of New Benton. So, far, it was a light dusting, and while temperatures had dropped in this late October, it was probably not cold enough for it to stick. But with an expected three days to the garrison at the entrance to the Kootenai Gap, the risk of delays was mounting already.

The ridiculous thing, however, was the flame steadily burning in Johanna’s palm. For nearly two and a half hours now.

The Sorceress of the Mists had requisitioned room on a supplies wagon, pulled by a large draft oxen team, for the duration of the trip, complaining about her age. And then, she’d dragged in Johanna, to figure out “what the blazes had happened yesterday”.

“You’re off-scale. Even with my Stone of Mana, I can’t even reach your endurance.”

“Maybe you will get another mist spell one day,” Johanna offered. “Or maybe there’s a step above a greater sorcerer.”

“We’ve just invented the term, and you’re already proposing a new stage? Preposterous, as Billy-Jo would say.”

Johanna smiled at the name of the sorcerer. She’d gleaned more details beyond what was recorded in the Mages of America. The fire sorcerer, who had a flaming hand like her – well, more like hers’ used to be – had served as a mentor for a younger Elena Worchester, introducing her to the semi-formal community of sorcerers across the Union of States. The Mist Sorceress obviously kept thinking fondly of her former teacher. Even though he still had to reply to her invitation to come and meet Johanna.

“Besides… by then, you’ll probably have left me behind in the dust,” Elena complained.

Johanna winced, but the Sorceress of the Mists wasn’t done.

“Everything about you happens at a frenetic pace, unprecedented in history. You’re a sorceress at 19 when most find their magic in their mid-thirties or even forties. Your minor growth occurs after mere months. You start a dual mage and then gain two new abilities in weeks instead of a decade. And now, you’re somehow jumping tiers, which simply isn’t done without an ability… again, in months.”

Elena looked at Johanna’s palm and shrugged.

“I can’t even begin to guess that tier. You probably jumped over several. Besides, when there is only one example, categories lose meaning. May as well call it S-tier.”

Johanna was about to answer when she felt the pinching, the blink-and-its-gone feeling, and the flame winked out. Elena startled.

“Done?”

“Yes. I’m feeling… empty.”

The older sorceress checked her pocket watch and sighed.

“Two hours. Forty-one minutes. Fifteen seconds. Un-be-lievable. You doubled your endurance.”

“We’re going to check the other spells’ endurance tomorrow,” she continued. “There’s no point trying to do that today, not until you regenerate to full. But I’m going to assume the same insanity applies.”

Elena settled on the wagon’s seat, muttering “nobody’s going to believe me, ever.”

Moore had waited all day long for this to pass. As night fell, and the army encamped, guards standing watch and all, Peter had finally slipped outside the bedroll in the small tent he shared with Laura and slipped into his stealth mode before going out, earning Dexterity skill XP.

And reached just over 5000 personal XP. Moore committed the level 5, and immediately went into the specialization list now offered.

There were two new entries in the list that Peter had available, which only cemented Moore’s hypothesis. While you had weird specializations all over the place, all of the baseline ones – the ones requiring just 16 in a single stat – were going to offer a new enhanced version at level 5. He even already had an example of Agility’s version, after all – the Blade Whirler.

First came 17 Dexterity, 16 Perception. The specialization was named Sharp Discreet, which made Moore non-blink when he saw what changed. Thankfully, it did improve the discretion skill, but it also added a whole lot of mana-based skills. Detect Lies, which had been a Fixer-only skill previously, observation abilities, and a few other skills. Even Mana Sight became an option.

The damning point in that spec was that it didn’t add anything to melee, either defense or weapon skills, not even the Perception-based Accurate Pierce. And Peter was going to need those.

The other one was 17 Dexterity and 16 Agility. Whose name was Improviser. Just that. No Discreet anywhere in the name.

Okay, who names those things? Can’t they stay consistent?

That one was much better. It did not only enhance his stealth, but it did definitively improve his defense, got a +1 multiplier for the Forced Attack skill he had selected for Strength, although it did not raise the current precision bonus on his attacks. Also, just like Sharp Discreet, it did add a few skills that had not gotten a multiplier value for Discreet, mostly around piercing weapons – like bows… and blades.

Well, that’s a proper rogue spec.

Just before committing, however, he hesitated. He’d seen what happened to Johanna yesterday when he upgraded her specialization. The best explanation for the blink-and-you-miss-it, even with his time acceleration when using the interface, was that it had disrupted her control of the spell, and briefly reset to zero her multipliers, sapping her mana reserves.

If he committed right now, stealth was going to drop… and Peter wouldn’t have much stamina to keep sneaking around. Seventeen minutes at best. If he expected to be able to do his usual.

They talked, right? He has to know what happened to her.

Moore decided to commit now. That way, Peter would know what happened. Better than waking up, and not figuring out he was better now. But before he switched specializations, he went back to the skill list, while Peter infinitesimally slowly raised the tent’s cloth opening.

Right now, Peter had two unused skill points, and that started to grate on Moore. Sitting on such an unused potential was not his way of doing things.

However, unlike Johanna, for which the next move was obvious – to recover the wasted skill and reallocate it – he had three different paths open to him.

The first was to wait out 6k XP and invest those to raise Strength to 16 to take Forced Attack, which had been the original plan for level 4. Then, as Empathy-based skills still did not look very appealing, not having any better multipliers than the baseline Discreet, he would need to wait out 8k for level 6, a second point, and get a new skill in any of the four stats that already had one.

Forced Attack

Requires: Dexterity 17/Strength 16/Level 3

Effective: N × Strength + Level (adds stamina)

Passive: Enhance your effective Strength by up to (Eff/10) for skill checks

Active: Your piercing and slashing attacks penetrate (Eff)% deeper than the actual blade.

Action cost: +1 stamina

Improviser

DEX 17/AGI 16/Lvl 5

N=2

Blade Whirler

AGI 17/STR 16/Lvl 5

N=1

Discreet

DEX 16/Lvl 1

N=1

The alternative was to invest immediately two skill points to purchase a second Agility, Dexterity, or Perception-based skill. Then wait for 8k to gain a level and a point, then wait for another 6k for Forced Attack. You ended up at the same point, but Peter would immediately have a new skill to use, and get level 6 faster.

While there was no genuinely interesting skill at 16 Agility – it was either 16 Agility and level 6, or 17 Agility and level 4 – there were two other options for the newly promoted Improviser.

The second path added the staple of rogueish builds, the expected…

Ambidextrous

Requires: Dexterity 18/Level 4

Effective: N × Dexterity + Level (adds stamina)

Passive: Your accuracy, strength and grip with your off-hand is (Eff)% better when it comes to weapons.

Action: Instantly swap one-handed weapon•s between main and off-hand.

Action cost: 1 stamina per (Eff) ounces.

Improviser

DEX 17/AGI 16/Lvl 5

N=3

Blade Whirler

AGI 17/STR 16/Lvl 5

N=2

Discreet

DEX 16/Lvl 1

N=2

Battler

STR 16/Lvl 1

N=1

Although Moore was a little leery of that one, lacking a way to communicate the ability directly to Peter. He assumed that he could count on Peter discovering his ability quickly, as some instinct guide had seemed to be the case for most of them.

The third path, a Perception-based skill, however, was even weirder, even if it went into the mana-based hybrid build he had eschewed before. It involved a previously orphan skill that now had multipliers.

Recall Blade

Requires: Dexterity 17/Agility 16/Perception 16/Level 5

Effective: N × Perception + Level (adds mana)

Passive: You automatically know the balance and sharpness of any blade you see

Active: Recall an echo of any bladed weapon you held in your hand in the last (Eff) hours, provided you handled it for (Lvl) seconds.

Active cost: 1 mana per (Eff) seconds

Improviser

DEX 17/AGI 16/Lvl 5

N=2

Sharp Discreet

DEX 17/PER 16/Lvl 5

N=2

For once, he could see a genuinely different build. While he was certain of his choice of Improviser as Peter’s advanced specialization, it was now a question of how it would go from there.

Ambidextrous tremendously improved Peter’s stamina reserves, his scouting capacity, and his capacity to sustain a fight. On the other hand, Recall Blade was going to make sure he was never truly disarmed, and it worked with a spear and shield, which was what Peter had been mostly using recently. In addition, it suddenly made raising Empathy and the Pay Attention skill more attractive, as extra mana was now helping and it would be cheap at one skill point. Not as powerful as it would be if Moore had gone with Sharp Discreet, but still not useless.

Of course, ultimately, he could pick both. But with Ambidextrous, he was only committed until level 8, where he could decide based on whatever new skills had shown up how to go, whereas Recall Blade was locking him to level 9 – assuming he went with Pay Attention at level 7, because level 6’s skill was certainly not changing – albeit with a potential second skill in Empathy if an interesting one got unveiled.

Welcome to… well, improvised sneaking I guess, Peter.

Peter Malik Donnall

Male human, 19 years

Improviser

Level: 5 (8000 XP needed)

15/214 stamina (+13 per hour)

0 unallocated skill point

XP: 19+4

STR: 13

AUT: 14

AGI: 16 (823 XP needed)

Deflect (53)

PER: 16 (460 XP needed)

Accurate Pierce (37)

DEX: 18 (1746 XP needed)

Reconnaissance (62)

Ambidextrous (62)

EMP: 15

Peter stumbled as if he’d been suddenly winded. He blinked furiously, realizing he was on one knee on the ground just in front of his tent.

Okay, what the fuck?

“You okay, Donnall?” he heard.

He turned, spotting a soldier patrolling the camp. One of the levies from Lakeview, near Valetta, although he didn’t remember the name. He waved lazily.

“Catching my breath, that’s all…”

Fuck, stealth disappeared just like that… what a minute?

“Oh?”

“Yea. They say my wife is a Saint, but believe me… I know better,” he joked.

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Did she bring out the ropes?” the recruit asked, and Peter blinked.

Then he shook his head and turned back into the tent without speaking.

“What happened?” Laura immediately asked as Peter re-entered their tent mere seconds after leaving.

“I… feel faint. I think what happened to Jo also just happened.”

“Wait, you just got… improved? Like her?”

“I think that’s what I felt. My hiding stopped working, and I felt winded as if I’d spent all my energy hiding… like her, yes.”

“But why? I haven’t felt that,” Laura said.

“No. But if what Tom says… then I might need much longer scouting soon. If that’s what the Skeleton thinks I need.”

Laura shuddered at the thought of the Ancient back in the ruins.

“Well, you know what happened to her. You’re going to be useless until tomorrow,” she finally said.

Peter looked dubiously at her. She tapped the extra-large bedroll.

“Don’t bother arguing.”