"This… is gonna be annoying."

Coatli and I stood atop the caldera, looking down at the island. It was shaped like a crescent moon, pinched in the middle. The north end was wide, with a second smaller peak sloping down towards the ocean. Past that, near the shore, I could see wisps of smoke rising into the air; that must be the draconian village.

The southern end dropped off towards the ocean fairly quickly, with much less jungle between the volcano and the water. The west side was narrow and steep, dropping quickly down from the caldera to a rocky beach, but there was a small archipelago out past that, a handful of steep islands topped with greenery.

The lagoon opened to the east, enclosing a brilliant circle of sparkling azure ocean. My ship was down there somewhere; I should salvage what I could, when I had the time.

All in all, the island wasn't what I'd consider huge, but it was large enough that trying to mark the whole shore would be difficult. It had been a few hours hike from the beach to the caldera, when Coatli and I had returned from Cuauhli's fallen Sanctuary, and that had been on the smaller south end - and we'd had a cleared path to follow for most of the way.

Still, even just looking at the view made my heart glad. The lush green of the jungle, the deep blue of the ocean, and the scintillating tropical sun made for a pretty picture.

"We're going to have to deal with beasts as we go, I guess." I pointed towards the east. "Should we mark the beach of the lagoon, or should we try and take the reef? If I had my ship…" I pondered trying to create some sort of boat with Incarnate. "Do we know where Nepenthe's dungeon ends?"

"Dominion, not dungeon," Coatli corrected. "Dominions are what you call 'monster zones'; they spread out around the actual core of the territory. Dungeons are more like… the actual battlefields, where the marks are. The dungeon you entered, it was in a monster zone, right?"

"Yeah. The Marglaves dungeon was in the Marglaves monster zone." I shrugged. "It tended to be fairly low-key; the Dungeon Association did sweeps around the entrance to keep it safe." I thought for a moment. "And once you were in dungeon, it was cut up into fairly obvious sections, I guess. I never really questioned whether you could enter from the back or sides, but there did seem to be some sort of barrier in a few sections."

We moved from one mark to another, and the monsters and terrain would change between them. But we can't really use monster zone borders here, because both the island and the ocean are full of monsters." I shrugged.

"Sure." Coatli nodded. "Well, I can't say for certain, but I'm pretty sure that Nepenthe's dominion stands at least a few hundred meters off the coast, where the ocean floor starts dropping. That's about as far out as I would patrol."

"Alright, that gives us something to aim for. Do you know if marks need to be contiguous?" I pointed out towards the archipelago.

"Sort of." He frowned. "I'm not sure of the specifics, exactly; it is possible to make a mark that's not directly connected to your current dominion, but there's some sort of cost involved. With the islands, if you make them big enough, they should overlap. The reef will be a bigger problem, I think."

"Hrm." I pondered that, and nodded. "Makes me think… maybe I should try taking an artifact from the Path. Cuahuli's journal is in there, it might tell me more about marks."

"Oh?" His eyebrows went up at that. "Right, the Path. Can we look at that?"

"Certainly; follow me." I summoned the door and we stepped back through, then into the Path of Dreams. The rich wood and flickering shadows hadn't changed at all, and the four artifacts - regalia, maybe - were the same as before.

Coatli walked slowly from one to another examining each. He stood for long minutes in front of the journal, before glancing at the ring and mace. When he reached the phial, though, his eyes lit up.

"This…" He reached towards it, but didn't touch. "Edmon, what do you know about this?"

"Just what Analyze shows me." I walked over to him and inspected the display again. "It says 'These are the Tears of Tonalzinti. Consuming them grants the statistic Spirit. They may represent Union, Balance, Fertility, or Fire.'"

"Oh-hoh." He grinned. "Interesting." He rubbed his chin. "So, here are my thoughts." He pointed to the mace. "That one's the trash pick. It's powerful, but the specifics don't match our situation." He pointed to the ring. "That one's the hidden trump; one use, but that ability… used right, it would be like having a second life."

The journal, well, it's the short-term choice. I don't know what's in there, exactly, but I'm sure it would help us figure out how all this works. It's a safe pick; it would help us avoid traps and plan for the future. But it doesn't have any abilities, and although a strong start is nothing to be sneezed at, we're already far behind; doing things the 'right way' may not be enough."

This one, though…" He pointed to the phial. "These are seeds from the Sun Tree. Cuahuli had a few, though I don't know where he got them. He gave them to Raak - another general of his - so I know a little about the Spirit stat."

"Huh. Oh! Do you know how the magic stat works, too?"

"Some! But first.." He looked me up and down, and nodded. "One of the challenges we'll face soon is that, although you're fit for a human, you're going to have trouble simply keeping up with me hiking through the jungle."

I gave an awkward shrug, but he was right. I was an able-bodied seaman; I could climb the rigging and run across the deck all day, but my deck was twenty feet long... and flat. I'd be hard-pressed to march for hours, even if the terrain wasn't filled with towering trees and choked with tropical underbrush.

"Spirit can help with that?"

"I believe so." He nodded. "If Health is pneuma's direct extension of constitution, and Magic is the stat from wisdom, then Spirit is from strength."

"Hoh." My eyes went wide at that. Spirit was a prime stat? That was definitely worth considering, then. The difference between people who had the health stat and those who didn't was night-and-day - although it was exceedingly rare to find someone who hadn't generated the health stat, they took exponentially more time to recover from wounds than people with it. Two months to recover from a broken wrist? Please.

Magic was self-explanatory, as the byword for astounding feats. I'd heard of other stats, but single-attribute ones were rumors at best; I'd heard stories of Psy, for intelligence, and something for dexterity that went by either Knack or Finesse, but I'd never been convinced they actually existed.

Secondary stats were more common. Most people had stamina, of course, from strength and constitution. I'd once hired an assassin who had Forethought, from wisdom and intelligence, and talked with an actor who claimed that a stat called Grace, which combined charisma and dexterity, was the basis for his fame. When he was performing he drew attention magnetically and breathed life into every line. As a merchant, I'd been fascinated, but it apparently took him twenty years of wholehearted devotion to his craft to generate it.

I'd honestly assumed Spirit was a tertiary or even unlinked stat, which often came from very specific classes or circumstances. I'd met driven people with Zeal, but I lacked their devotion to a cause. Some principled adventurers had the Honor stat, which could be quite strong - but after I got the thief class that was basically out of my reach.

"How does it actually work, though?" Stats could be fickle and strange. Health regenerated with food and rest, but Stamina recovered at a fairly constant rate, and Magic… I still didn't know. I'd been told Forethought needed information and time before it could be used with some skills to suggest paths of action, while Grace increased with practice, but could only be used in those practiced situations, although it didn't drop afterwards.

"That…" Coatli hesitated, then shrugged. "I'm not entirely certain. Raak said, if I remember correctly, that it acted something like willpower. When it was used, it didn't exactly make things easier, but it did make her more able to deal with it. Like how a motivated mage can cast stronger spells than a frightened one, or a weak acrobat is going to have trouble performing certain feats, even if he's flexible enough."

"Willpower, huh?" I pondered that for a moment. "Have you heard the theory that there are hidden attributes?"

"No."

"Well… When you talked about willpower like that, it made me think. I once put in at distant port called Ephrates. It was far enough out of the way that they didn't speak common Reman, so I had to use an interpreter there. Anyways, when I tried to hire a porter, I discovered that none of the locals had the Strength stat."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Apparently they used something that translated roughly as Endurance and Vitality instead of Constitution and Strength. At first I thought it was a translation thing, but the interpreter was quite adamant. Turns out he was there to research the Voice of the World, and he assured me they were distinctly different stats, although they acted fairly similarly. The thing is, for them, Stamina was a prime stat, directly derived from Endurance, while Health was a secondary, from combining Endurance and Vitality."

"Strange."

"Yeah. And I've never hired workers who could carry as much for as long as they did. We marched probably nine hundred pounds of cargo across town, and they never even stopped for a break. One of them had a bandage, though, and he told me he'd been in a fight a week earlier. It took longer than a week for a shallow cut to finish healing!

"My interpreter assured me that was normal for them, before telling me his theory. He thought that the way we used pneuma to strengthen ourselves wasn't the only way to do it, that perhaps the people of Ephrates used a different method, that maybe there were countless facets of the mind and body that could be strengthened and turned into attributes if only we knew how, and that if we knew the right combinations, we could generate stronger and stranger stats."

"Intriguing." He frowned. "But are you certain it wasn't a translation error? I find it near-impossible to believe there could be more than seven basic attributes."

"…Seven?" I choked out.

"Of course." He gave me a blank stare, and counted on his fingers. "Deftness, strength, constitution, beauty, intelligence, wisdom, and flexibility. Surely these seven ideals constitute the foundation of every living thing?"

"H-hold on a second." I rubbed my temples, trying to think. "There's so many things wrong with that, I'm having trouble even coming up with an answer."

"…You believe differently?" His eyes went sharp.

"Of course." I nodded, and counted out my own attributes. "The great circle of power is complete with six links: strength, constitution, dexterity, wisdom, intelligence, and charisma."

"Charisma… from charis, grace? What use— what does that even mean?"

"Charisma roughly measures how effectively you can make a good impression on people."

"But beauty… Ah, I see the difference." He nodded slowly. "There are beautiful people who are easily despised, while another may be ugly, but inspire great friendship." He frowned. "And you say dexterity is an attribute?"

"Instead of?"

"A stat, of course." He thought for a moment, before unslinging his spiked club and taking a step back. Working quickly, he extracted a dozen of the razor-sharp obsidian shards from the blade, before returning it to his back. He gathered the fragments up, and held them out to me. "Take these, and then toss me three." I complied. As each one came towards him, he flicked them into the air, and in a moment, he was gracefully juggling them overhead. "I practiced this as a youth. I'm deft and flexible, and well-rested, so I should be fine. Toss me the rest."

For a moment, I considered the knife-edged things. He wasn't going to get cut, but if his scales chipped the blades, I wouldn't be able to replace them for him. Shrugging internally, I tossed them in one after another.

"Now this takes some concentration," he said absently, each of the shards circling overhead. "But if I use my dexterity…"

And the pattern blossomed.

There was no other word for it. His hands blurred, and the trajectories evolved from simple arcs to spinning loops to very nearly flat lines, each piece of rock moving so fast I could barely follow them. There seemed to be a greater pattern to the whole as well, no single piece ever retracing the same path, the trails knotting together into a larger pattern. I watched, astounded, but as quickly as it began, it was over. He set the pieces down gently on the counter, one at a time, without so much as scratching the wood.

"That's… incredible."

"Dexerity slowly regenerates. Practice makes it more efficient, and concentration can push it up, but it depletes like stamina, although more slowly. And if you're short on sleep, it will degenerate somewhat." He gazed at me. "I can only imagine what it must be like to never have to worry if your next swing of the sword will be dull."

"And yet, I don't think I'd ever be able to match you, if moved like that in combat."

"Hmm." His brow creased, and he considered that. "So… you think that dexterity as a stat is better?"

"…I have no idea." I frowned. "It seems like you can get more out of it as a stat, but less often."

I stood there, staring at the phial for long moments.

"Well… Now I want to pick this one, just out of curiosity."

"Better think it over some more." Coatli clapped me on the shoulder, and we headed back out. He replaced the shards in his club one-by-one as we stood in the sunshine, looking down over the island.

"Where should we start?" I pointed towards the south. "Should we head back to your old stomping grounds? We know the path, at least."

"I think I'd better take a look from the air." He gazed upwards. "I wonder if… Oh?"

I followed his gaze, and saw a dark shape winging towards us. "Oh, it's Ankh. I probably should have warned you about her."

She dived towards us, wings held close, before flaring them at the last moment and making a graceful landing.

"Greetings, Edmon." She gave me a polite nod. "And…"

"Please call me Coatli." He practically leaped forwards, taking her hand and bowing over it. "And it is a pleasure to meet you, my lady."

She smiled back hesitantly as he grinned, slow and wide.

…On second thought, maybe she's the one I should've tried to warn.