New Skill Acquired!

|Shadow Step| - {EX}

Sepeti threw the small canvas bag Ciel-Ko had given him over his shoulder. It held practically nothing and was more ornamental than anything. He’d already stashed the few sets of clothes the Congregation had provided him in his pocket dimension, feeling they would be much safer there than in a flimsy little bag. His loose fitting pants and shirt felt nice as they billowed in the hot wind.

“We thank you for your offering/ We thank you for your stay/ Should you require healing/ Please return, come what may.” Ciel-Ko draped a deep purple shawl over his shoulders. She gave him a smile and nodded at her fellow healer, Mo-Ka’ilo.

The large bald healer offered no words of parting. He held out a headwrap which Sepeti took and stuffed into his bag. They eyed one another up and down for a moment before coming to a tacit agreement. Mo-Ka’ilo nodded and Sepeti returned the gesture.

He hadn’t taken much time to get to know the people who had nursed him back to health. Hell, he hadn’t noticed until the very end of his stay that there were other healers who had been busy tending to other ‘guests’ of the House of the Congregants. Not that he would have bothered with learning their names or getting to know them had he noticed earlier. Still, a bittersweet tang tickled the back of his throat as he said his goodbyes.

“Thank you,” he said, raising his hands in a prayer clasp up to his forehead as he’d seen other visitors to the Congregation do.

What more did he need to say? He felt no real attachment to the healers or to the church of the Sun. If anything, what he regretted most was the loss of the ability to laze around without having to fend for himself. He wasn’t so heartless that he didn’t feel a smidge of gratitude towards the two healers who had, basically, saved his life. But Sepeti was never one to linger on emotional attachments.

He turned on his heels, carefully so he didn’t trigger a painful spasm. Despite all the healing he’d undergone and the slow development of his self-regeneration skill, he still had yet to figure out what caused his body so much pain. Nerve damage should have been dealt with, structural damage should have been healed due to the healers. There was no lingering pain from his broken ankle, if anything it felt stronger than before. Yet, the shooting pain still plagued him. Not as prevalent as when he’d first arrived on the planet but it was still enough to be an annoyance at best and a hindrance at worst.

Without glancing back at the healers, he raised a hand and waved at them. It would have been embarrassing if they’d already turned and walked into the building but he didn’t really care. He definitely didn’t care.

The vibrance of the city did little for him now that he was used to it. If anything, it made his mood worse. A smoldering anger burned in his gut as he dropped the calm facade he’d maintained in front of the healers. Sure, they didn’t worship Boba, but they probably wouldn’t look too kindly on someone who was constantly maligning a deity. Sepeti had been doing so ever since his rage had cooled down. All he could do was think and ponder and malign the idiot God’s name.

His anger clung to him like some sort of invisible armor. The locals avoided him, possibly sensing his foul mood. Or it was probably due to the fact that he was scowling at the ground while muttering under his breath.

Sepeti knew where he was going but he allowed his feet to carry him along a longer route than was necessary. He’d spent his last few days under the Congregation's protection exploring the city-state on his own. The guided tours the healers had given him were all fine and dandy but they never took him to where the good stuff happened. They only showed him the nicest parts of the city. He wanted to see where the nitty gritty went down. It had also given him a chance to vent some of his frustrations. He might not be the nicest person around but he wasn’t going to take out his anger on people who had taken care of him.

A scraggly looking child bumped into him as he was deep in thought. He bowled them over, knocking the child onto their back.

“Oww, that hurts/ Watch where you’re going!” The child wailed as they scrambled to their feet. Without looking him in the eye the little scamp turned and ran down the nearest street.

Sepeti activated his newest skill, |Shadow Step|, and followed. He effortlessly jumped from shadow to shadow. The city made his life so much easier, what with all the awnings and building shadows. He’d chosen the skill from a long list that he hadn’t even bothered to look over. His anger had made him hasty but he didn’t regret the choice. If anything, he thanked his anger for helping him overcome the indecision he would have most definitely been stuck with.

The child’s short legs didn’t carry it very far. It stumbled into a shabby looking house.

Sepeti slipped in like a cool breeze. |Shadow Step| allowed him to hide within any and all shadows along with being able to ride along them. Normally, it would have drained his energy and focus at an exorbitant rate just to stay concealed for a few seconds. But the ‘reward’ from Boba’s forced quest had upgraded the skill to its absolute limits.

His vision shifted as if there were a smoky layer simmering before his eyes. All of his senses worked normally with the added benefit of him being able to extend them to wherever a shadow was present.

He followed the child as they entered a small room. An elderly man and three other children sat huddled around a small pot. They eagerly shoveled bits of vegetable soup into their mouths using a flaky, flat piece of bread as a spoon. Without looking up from their meal, the others greeted the newly returned child.

Sepeti watched as the child hurried toward a small vanity. They didn’t announce their triumphant return or gloat about their successful venture. Rather, the child blocked what they were doing with their body as they quietly deposited the contents of the little coin purse they had pinched off of him. They also deposited a few other loose coins, taking care not to jangle them too much.

Honestly, Sepeti didn’t much care about the coins or the fact that the child had stolen from him. He’d purposely kept a small coin purse in one of his many pockets just for such an occasion. He’d been hoping for someone older, someone much more challenging, to steal it. Alas, he’d have to settle for the child.

The dingy room was bare. Much of the floor was covered by a once-vibrant carpet, its designs having long faded over years of use. Three bundles were stacked in a corner, one larger than the others. It was all very spartan.

The child joined the group, eagerly scooping a small bowl for themselves and grabbing a crusted piece of flatbread.

Sepeti watched as the ‘family’ happily ate their food. Riding one of the children’s shadows, he got close and took a whiff of the soup. It smelled like spice and vegetable, obviously, and didn’t look all that appetizing. But he wasn’t judging their meal. No, all he wanted to do was see what all the fuss was about. The family made it look like fine dining and a small part of him wanted to join them. If only to experience something he hadn’t experienced in years.

He watched as they finished their paltry meal, keeping his eyes on the child who had led him here. They looked to be no more than ten or eleven years old. A bit on the small side but he’d never spent much time around children to be able to tell what was small or large. He was pretty sure this one was a girl but second guessed himself. At that age, boys and girls looked a lot alike.

“Thank you, blessed Zen-La’ihe/ For bringing Noje-Se back safely/ From her long day of work/ To provide for us.” The old man accentuated his prayer with a weak clap which the children imitated. They all raised similar prayers, thanking the sun for a new day and for watching over them.

Sepeti watched and waited. The sun shone through latticed windows as threadbare curtains swayed. He had places to be, giants to meet. But he couldn’t pull himself away from his observation. A part of him wanted to experiment. To see the absolute limits of his new skill. How would it affect someone if he were to drag them into the shadows?

Sure, he could go to the Association and see about taking on some easy extermination quests. That would give him a legal avenue to test his skill. But where was the fun in that?

It had been so long since he last toyed with a living human being. Not that he was sadistic or anything, it was just different when you ran tests on sentient humanoids. They gave so much more information and feedback.

Sepeti shook his head as he began to feel woozy. A tightness in his gut nauseated him. He was sure this was the host body reacting to his thoughts and plans. It had acted like this the last few times he’d taken the new skill for a spin. When he’d stalked some of the local bourgeoisie all the way back to their homes.

He shook the body’s pensivity off, snorting as he began to slide out of the room. One of the children turned around suddenly and looked directly at him. Maybe not directly but definitely in his direction. They stood and walked toward where he had been, looking around.

“Anybody hear that?/ Did someone bring a pig home?” The child went so far as checking outside the little house.

Sepeti rode the shadows out of the house, suppressing a chuckle. He hadn’t realized he could emit noises from within his shadowy realm. At least something had come from this detour. He jumped around haphazardly. Again, he reminded himself that he had somewhere to be. But he wasn’t in any real rush.

He wove in and out of homes, eavesdropping on random conversations as he made his way toward the outskirts of the city. He rode the tailcoats of random locals and visitors. It exhilarated him that he was able to get so close to people without their being aware of his presence. He wondered what would happen if he were to emerge from the shadow of a living being.

Would he rip through their clothes if he were busy writhing around in them? Or would he be forcefully ejected to an open space? What would happen if he jumped out of a shadow made by the natural folds of a person's skin? What was the extent of the definition of a shadow?

He explored his random lines of thought as he continued to ride around on the clothes and bodies of unsuspecting strangers. So far, he found he was able to get under clothes. It seemed to him that the definition of ‘shadows’ was rather broad, as far as the skill was concerned. If he ran with such a broad definition then it could be logically extrapolated that he could invade and inhabit any portion of darkness regardless of whether a source of light were present to cast a shadow. This needed more testing but a spark of enthusiasm made him smile.

He was growing more and more thankful for his rushed skill choice as he zoomed through the city. Walking would have been a pain in the ass. This way, all he had to do was look at a shadowy spot and his body and consciousness were transferred to it.

Sepeti pulled up his character screen and found that he was able to interact with it while subconsciously driving himself through the shadows.

Character Screen

Name:

[Sepeti]

Level:

9*

Class:

*class available

*General learning speed x100

Title:

Dual Contractee, Unhomed

Questions cropped up one after the other as he looked over his screen. How important were levels in this world? How much weight did a level carry if there weren’t any numerical values to show growth other than the increase of the levels? We’re skills and magic the main way of keeping track of a person's growth? Was there a benchmark for how many skills the average denizen of the world should have at a certain level?

He needed answers and he knew where he could get some. His main gripe was having to divulge some information to a, possibly, shady source in order to attain that knowledge. Trusting someone was a scary prospect and something he’d rarely done in his previous life. Sure, he’d had acquaintances. But most of them had just been incidental relationships due to their goals being similar.

Speaking of a shady source, the very same source caught his eye as he rounded a corner.

Gran sat under an awning on a bench that looked like it was ready to split down the middle. Still in the shadows, Sepeti crept up on the giant and observed him for a second. All of his questions wanted to spill out at once. He wanted to bombard the mysterious anthropologist with all his misgivings and misunderstandings. Most pressing, he wanted to know what the damned giant really was.

But he controlled himself. There was no point in rushing. He would get his answers sooner or later. And preferably, he’d get them without having to give away too much of his own identity.

Sepeti retreated back around the corner. The urge to test his ability on the old giant was great but he kept himself under control. Revealing his most powerful skill wasn’t the smartest move. Especially not to someone he barely even trusted. After checking to make sure no one was watching, he stepped out of the nearest available shadow. It felt like stepping out of a deep pool of water. The shadows stuck to his body for a second before releasing him from its grip. He felt naked as he exited. The shadows called for him to return to its protective embrace but he resisted, tamping down the urge with all his mental fortitude.

He rounded the corner after a quick pat down. Gran turned and flashed a jagged toothed smile at him.

“Ho there sonny, looking nice and spiffy.” The giant stretched his legs as the bench creaked beneath him. “Thought ya’d be here earlier. Did ya get lost?”

The man’s amiability felt real enough but a niggling doubt wriggled about in the back of Sepeti’s mind.

For one, how had the giant known he was there so quickly? There was also his bizarre character screen that made no sense. Sepeti had expected Gran’s screen to be incomplete just like how that strong woman’s had been. But what he had observed was weird enough to more than pique his interest. Either the giant had some sort of skill that allowed him to hide his status from others or the level of his own skill was much too low to fully understand the, surprisingly, high leveled giants screen.

“Nah, I took a detour,” Sepeti said after a short pause. He squinted at the giant as thoughts tumbled about in his head. Misgivings were a hard thing to shake and he had never been one to not trust his gut. “What’d you wanna meet up for? I might not seem like it, but I got things to do.”

Gran’s smile grew wider, creasing his eyes and making them disappear. Rather than answering Sepeti’s question, the giant stood and motioned for him to follow. Sepeti had to hustle to keep up with the large man’s long stride.

The pair walked in relative silence, passing locals as they hustled about. The people kept busy even on the outskirts of the city, hustling to and fro. They passed a shack that looked like it could be blown over by a stiff wind and a guard waved them through. This was the first time Sepeti had even noticed any guards within the city-state and he found it interesting that security seemed so lax for such a large city.

“The Peacekeepers provide security ‘round here,” Gran rumbled as they stepped out onto a plateau that looked like it eventually became the desert proper. “Not that they’re worth anything. Extuahal-Tol is probably one of the safest cities I’ve ever visited. Monsters, or non-humanoids as the Association likes to say, rarely bother the locals. Even within the city, there ain’t no real crime to worry about. On the surface, anyway.”

“Cool.” Sepeti wasn’t interested in the low crime rate or relative safety of the city. Sure, he’d been pickpocketed but that was petty. He was interested in the seedy underbelly that he was sure existed and little else. “What’s that gotta do with you dragging me out here?”

“You Offworlders, always in a rush to get yer questions answered and yer ducks in a row. Relax a little. Enjoy the build-up. We’ll get there when we get there.” Gran grinned at Sepeti as they approached an area where the plateau suddenly ended. “Here, put these on. It’ll make it a little easier to walk across the sand. We got some hiking to do.”

The giant held out a pair of woven boots with a flat contraption attached to the bottom. They appeared to be large enough to go over his current footwear.

“I call ‘em skidders but the Extuano got their own name for ‘em.” The giant didn’t bother waiting for Sepeti to don the ‘skidders’ as he continued walking across the sand as if it were a paved road.

Sepeti grumbled under his breath as he pulled on the boots. They were a bit snug but that was better than having them slip off as he tried to walk across the sand. He took a few tentative steps and immediately felt awkward. He felt that he looked like how animals looked when they were forced to wear things over their paws.

“Don’t try to walk with ‘em, you gotta slide or skid,” Gran called over his shoulder. How the giant knew what he was doing was beyond Sepeti.

He stubbornly continued trying to walk across the sand for a few more steps before giving in and focusing on sliding the odd boots. The difference in movement was immense as he began to skid smoothly along the sand. Within a few slides he had caught up to Gran. An odd sense of jubilation curdled in his stomach as a memory tickled the back of his brain. It reminded him of a toy he’d had as a child.

“Got the hang of it huh?” Gran said as the giant’s long gait kept the pair even. “Won’t take us long now.”

Sepeti resisted the urge to ask, yet again, their purpose out in the desert. He hated repeating himself. It was another one of his many pet peeves. He had long made it a personal rule to never reiterate himself more than once. And if he did, it was probably an accident and he quickly forgot about the incident.

He had expected the desert to be nothing but rising dunes as far as the eye could see with little to no vegetation. Yet, here he was striding through an arid desert that was flatter than he’d imagined. He occasionally spotted odd plant life that was just as vibrantly colorful as the swatches of cloth and paint in the city. He figured the plants had probably been the original source of the dyes used by the Extuano and was surprised the giant hadn’t brought up any bits of knowledge.

Despite the flatness of the desert Sepeti was still sure that it was probably plenty hard to walk across the sand without the ‘skidders.’ He watched the giant out of the corner of his eye and quietly marveled at how easily the huge being moved across the difficult terrain. Gran looked like he weighed quite a bit but his footsteps were light enough to barely leave a print. One would have to be pretty skilled to be able to track the giant’s light footprints.

Was this due to a skill or was it because of his obfuscated class? Or was it something to do with his high level? Questions continued to pile up as Sepeti tacitly observed the giant. His gut was still blaring, warning him about the large man and begging him to get away. But his need for answers won out.

“We’re here,” Gran said as his arm suddenly shot out. Sepeti’s lungs were emptied as the arm, which felt like he’d run into a lump of metal, caught him across the chest. He would have been wiped off his feet had Gran not held him up by his vest. “Mind yer manners and let me do all the talking.”

Sepeti pushed the giant's arm away and gathered himself. Dark skinned people stepped out of domed tents and eyed the pair down. They wore head wraps that doubled as masks, hiding most of their faces and possibly keeping them safe from sudden sand flurries. Much like the Extuano, they wore loose fitting clothes that helped keep them cool and protected them from the glaring sun.

“Who are they?” Sepeti asked, massaging his sore chest.

“The Elefani, the people who found you out here.” Gran spoke in a low voice like he was worried about the strangers hearing them. “Nomads who live on the Zen.”

“Ok,” Sepeti said as he scanned the steadily growing group of people. He could just barely make out voices as they spoke to one another in hushed tones. Incredulity roiled in his chest as he wondered why Gran would waste his time by bringing him out here. They’d saved him but he felt the trek had been useless. Did the giant expect him to fall on his face and worship his so-called saviors?

“That’s good to know. But why are we here?”

“Heh, I thought you’d be a little more grateful,” Gran chuckled.

“Should I be? I don’t even know them.” Sepeti absolutely meant to come off as cold and callous.

“No, no you don’t need to be…” Gran’s voice trailed off as he appeared to fall into deep thought. Whatever the giant was thinking, Sepeti was sure he couldn’t guess at it. Or rather, wouldn’t. This had proven to be a complete waste of time.

“Then is there another reason to be here? A beneficial reason?”

“No,” Gran mumbled, rubbing his chin. “Not that I can think of. Unless you wanted to retrieve that?”

The giant pointed at one of the people and Sepeti followed his large finger. At first, he wasn’t sure what he was looking at. They were far enough that he couldn’t make out much more than basic details. The group all looked alike, right down to the way they wore their clothes. There was very little differentiating them from one another.

He focused and activated some of his marksmanship skills. His eyesight sharpened and the smaller details became easier to make out. Chief among them was the thing Gran was pointing at. Hanging off the hip of one of the first people who had come out to see them was a familiar leather flask.