20

Trekking through the forest didn’t feel any less unnerving to Hunter this time around. If anything, he felt more of a trespasser than ever, all too conscious of even the smallest crunch of leaves or snap of twigs under his feet. Fawkes was leading the way through the twisting forest paths, silent and sullen, too–even more so than usual. Hunter had a thousand things he wanted to ask her, now that they were out of earshot of the folken, but wisely left them for later. For the moment, he decided to take a mental inventory of himself and his abilities, and opened his character sheet.

Character Information:

Name: Hunter

Class: Transient

Qualities:

Aether 100

Élan 9

Insight 1

Inspiration 1

Serendipity 1

Attributes:

Health 100

Mana 100

Stamina 100

Strength 10

Dexterity 10

Intellect 10

Willpower 10

Presence 10

Nothing new here, really. That single point of Serendipity was sooner or later bound to get him a special encounter, and the hundred Aether he got for completing a task was just enough for him to upgrade one of his Attributes–if he ever got around to deciding which. Plus, he had that point of Inspiration, which would allow him to learn a new Ability, but he’d decided he’d keep onto it too for the time being.

Hunter willed the Character Sheet to scroll down to the next section–his Skills and Abilities. These were the meat and potatoes of his character, the things he could actively do–and thus were far more interesting:

Skills:

Close Combat 11

Evasion 2

Meditation 1

Occultism 6

Polearm Mastery 11

Survival 19

Abilities:

Conjure Familiar 4

Low-Light Vision 8

Mystic’s Eye 5

What a damn mess, he caught himself thinking. As a gamer, he’d always been a fan of specialization. All of his characters were tuned to do one thing, and do it well. In Elderpyre, however, his skillset had ended up looking like a mixed bag of odds and ends with no focus or direction whatsoever. It wasn’t his fault, exactly; there was no tutorial, no manual, no wiki to look up and learn the ins and outs of the game. He was flying blind. He hated flying blind.

Of course, browsing through the semi-transparent window that was his Character Sheet while walking through the uneven, shifty paths and game trails of the Weald was a ticking bomb of trouble waiting to go off–and before long, off it went. Hunter never really saw whether it was a rock, a fallen tree branch, or a root. He tripped, lost his balance, and fell more-or-less on his face. The fact that he was lugging around an eight-and-a-half-foot long glaive didn’t help much, either.

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

“If you wanted the whole Weald to know we’re here, congratulations,” said Fawkes as she helped him up, the edges of her tight mouth struggling to conceal a crooked grin despite herself. “Something on your mind?”

“Transient stuff,” he said as he was patting his new poncho down, and then it hit him. “In fact, you could actually help me with it.”

“As soon as it doesn’t slow us down.”

“Okay, so, you know how there are these Character Sheets that detail how much Health and Strength and Dexterity and whatnot you have, and how high your Skill levels are, and what Abilities you know how to use?”

Fawkes said nothing.

“…you don’t have the slightest idea what I’m talking about, do you?”

“I know of this magic, yes, though I cannot use it myself” she finally said. “That is something transients do. It is possible for other embered to learn it through discipline and meditation, but I only ever met one who actually did.”

“Embered?”

Fawkes shot Hunter a sideways glance.

“Grimnir’s beard, I forget even babes know more than you. Do you know the myth of the Elderpyre?”

“Uh… please assume that I don’t.”

“Right”, she sighed. “So, when the world was still young, the old gods who ruled over mortal men were, as you’d expect, very possessive of the thing that made them gods in the first place–the Elderpyre. One day a goddess–the one some still worship as our goddess, the Goddess–took pity on us. She went against her fellow gods stole a fragment of the Elderpyre to share it freely with all mortal men and women. Angry at her betrayal, the other gods hunted her down and managed to take the Elderpyre fragment back–but not before the Goddess spread its ashes and embers in the four winds. As the story goes, each of us has a tiny piece of those in our heart. Some even manage to spark it back to life, and wake a speck of the Elderpyre within themselves. These are the embered, the ones that carry the gift of the Goddess.”

“I see,” Hunter said. “I’ve heard variations of that myth before, we have a few of our own back in my world.”

“Every culture has its own variation, yes, but they all more or less agree with the quick rundown I gave you.”

“So, transients are embered?”

“It would seem so, though you must understand that, as I said, this is mostly conjecture. My master used to say that all transients are embered, yes, even if not all embered are outlanders.

“Your mast-?”

“One story at a day, lad,” Fawkes cut him short, and Hunter got the impression there was more to that particular story than just an offhand comment – and that Fawkes wasn’t really willing to share it. “Let’s leave that for another time and get back to your question about that Character Sheet of yours.”

“Right. It’s less about the Character Sheet, per se, and more about me honing my skills.”

“If that’s the case, my advice to you is that practice makes perfect.”

“No, yeah, I know. I mean… if I’m to run around the Weald and go snooping in dark places and fight low-dwellers and stuff, I have to learn new skills, get better at new things. Problem is, I don’t really know where to start or what to aim for. I don’t want to end up a jack of all trades.”

“What’s wrong with a jack of all trades?” Fawkes asked.

“Well, you know how the saying goes. Jack of all trades, master of none.”

“…though oftentimes better than a master of one”, Fawkes added.

“I didn’t know that last part.”

“It means that yes, dabbling aimlessly in a number of disciplines won’t get you the best results–but neither will mastering a single skill and expect it to solve every challenge you encounter. Choosing what to practice, of course, depends on what you wish to become good at. Have you given that any thought?”

Hunter gave it some thought. To his surprise, something did come to mind–and it wasn’t what he expected.

“Yes, I think. I wanna become good at avoiding getting hurt. In a fight, I mean, or when I have to stick my nose in dangerous places.”

“The way of the coward, then” Fawkes teased with a smirk. “A noble pursuit.”

“Well, you know what they say. A coward’s mother never weeps.”

“They also say that fortune favors the bold.”

“Well, they haven’t had to cross this scary forest to go crawl down even scarier ghost people tombs, have they?”

“Fair point. Well, for starters, that thing you carry around, your glaive. You may brandish it like an old maid brandishes her broomstick, but it’s actually a decent weapon. Good for keeping enemies in check, although dangerous to use in narrow and cramped spaces. You should consider getting yourself some kind of sidearm, too–something easier to carry and use and conceal. A dagger, maybe. And learn to handle both weapons adequately.”

“Get a sidearm, learn to fight better than an old maid. Got it. Anything else?”

“Yes–the most important thing”, Fawkes added. “Knowledge is power–even more so when it comes to survival. If your goal is to stay out of harm’s way, you have to assume everyone and everything is a threat, and stay vigilant.”

“Be paranoid about everything,” Hunter half-joked. “Got that too.”

“In fact,” Fawkes continued, refusing to engage his attempt at levity, “what happened to those birds of yours? I haven’t seen them in a while.”

Neither had Hunter, he realized. He had unsummoned them the previous day–sent them back to their spiritual plane of existence–and then pretty much forgotten about them.

“Yeah, Biggs and Wedge. What about them?”

“Am I correct to assume they are your spirit servants–or the transient equivalent, whatever you may call them?”

“Familiars. Yes.”

Fawkes nodded.

“Having a couple of extra pairs of eyes and ears is invaluable–especially if they’re inconspicuous and trustworthy beyond doubt. Those are rare. Learn to capitalize on them. What’s more, these kinds of spiritual servants often have supernatural abilities beyond what their animalistic form would suggest–or so I’ve gathered. I won’t pretend to know how your transient magics work, but I would suggest you learned to use them to the fullest.”

“Use the feathery bastards more. Okay, can do.”

“In short,” Fawkes concluded, “play to your strengths.”

Hunter decided to start doing that right away. He reached out through the Mental link he shared with Biggs and Wedge and summoned them to scout ahead. They appeared out of thin air and took wing immediately, two dark blurs of feathers, excited caws, and incessant mental chattering. He went on to focus on that mental link for the next half hour, getting live feedback about the layout of the surrounding area as they traversed it. Soon enough, that netted him a couple of interesting skill and ability increases, too.

Your Conjure Familiar has increased to 5.

Your Survival has increased to 20.

Wildcrafting–an ability akin to Herbalism–is the practice of harvesting plants, herbs, mushrooms, and other natural resources, and using them to create a variety of items, including crafting materials, remedies, and more.

Pathfinder offers an in-depth, innate understanding of the land and those who travel it, allowing you to discover and navigate fast and safe routes through almost any kind of terrain and natural environment.

Those new Abilities had become available just as his Survival Skill hit twenty, Hunter realized. Both of them sounded very interesting, but now he was curious what other Abilities would he’d gain access to once some of his other Skills reached that twenty-point mark. That might take a while, though; his Close Combat and Polearm Mastery were at eleven, his Occultism at six, and his far less interesting Evasion and Meditation were at a measly two and one respectively. If he wanted to raise any of those Skills, he’d have to stop riding on Fawkes’s coattails and actively seek out to practice them.

Well, look at that, he thought, realizing how eager and motivated he suddenly felt. Gamification–it actually worked! If only he’d used it to get his sorry ass though college instead of shirking off assignments to crawl through virtual dungeons with his raiding group, things might have actually played out a bit differently.

Well, if pigs had wings.

“Daydreaming again, lad?” Fawkes teased him as he tripped over some fallen branch or something–again. “Come on, pick up the pace–the Ghostbarrows are waiting for us!”