She gulped at the implication that there were limits to that mercy. "Yeah. Well. Could we go over my options again?" Fishing for information, she said, "I could be an Agent or a Merchant, right?" Tradewind, appropriately, showed up as a Merchant like Bluemoon.

Bluemoon dipped a nut, cracked it with his beak, and gobbled it down, confusing Selen for a moment. No teeth. He said, "You've seen a bit of the Merchant lifestyle, and the peacetime side of being an Agent by running around with the delivery folk." His eyes narrowed. "And a bit of what being an Agent in wartime is like, unfortunately."

Tradewind said, "Ask our mother sometime about Melody Bay, if you and she have had a stiff drink first."

So Agent is something like a messenger, spy or rogue. Was that for her? No, she'd already spent enough time in a dungeon with people asking hard questions. "I think I've seen enough of that side of things. Magic seems like a lot of fun now that I've tried it."

"She learned it right away," Bluemoon told Tradewind, puffing up. He added, "Mage is an option, though I suspect the thrill will wear off in time. Nothing wrong with experimenting a bit."

"Not like I'm locked into it, right?" asked Selen, still trying to pry the rules from them.

It seemed that there weren't rigid social rules about allowed jobs. Her ancestors just a few generations ago, back on Earth, would've assumed there were.

Bluemoon said, "No, you can switch if you don't take well to the class. At worst you're delayed one season in getting something better suited, and you might keep the first one as your secondary class. You could even go Craftsman if you wanted to try something different."

"Or Bard!" said Tradewind. Bluemoon snorted and rolled his eyes, muttering about "useless carousers".

Selen felt linguistic vertigo, because bird and bard weren't similar words in this language. She had a chance at a whole new category of puns!

She clicked her finger-talons together, hesitant to say more ignorant things. She stalled for time by taking one of the nuts and experimentally cracking it on the edge of her beak. The nutcracker function worked just fine, and she gobbled down the fragments with a bit of something like watered-down barbecue sauce. "I'd like to try magic for now."

"I can help a little," said Tradewind. "Though of course you'll need to deal with the guild once you go beyond the basics. A problem for another day."

Bluemoon asked, "Will the first spell be enough?"

"It should be. Selen, take the rest of the morning off and go do the meditation on what you want. If you have trouble, try this as a second spell." She held her hands together and let a trickle of magic flow up from them. With no explanation.

Bluemoon dropped a nut into the air above his sister's hands, and watched it bob in an updraft. The feathers on the back of his head flicked higher.

Selen said, "Um, focusing the Mana upward?"

Tradewind nodded. "Same basic spell, focused to flow from the hands, that's all. Good luck! Now off to the temple with you; shoo."

The two of them looked expectantly at Selen. She stood up and thanked them, then grabbed a handful of the nuts. They trickled through her fingers; her actual palm was small. She tried again and walked out to the street.

Now, she fretted again. A temple? She didn't know the name of the city, let alone how to find anything in it. She took a good look at her home tower and the tavern, then wandered off in a random direction. Slightly downhill. That brought her to a river that seemed to run north-south, assuming that the sun on her left meant an Earthlike planet in the northern hemisphere. Too many unknowns. She tried asking random strangers about "the temple".

Many of the people walking the cobblestone streets were Humans, dressed in what she took for farm clothes or just low tech. One man told her, "Couple of streets north, west side of the river."

The river smelled like these people had little idea of water treatment, though she'd seen that some form of plumbing existed. Now, she found some kind of drawbridge! A little island in the middle helped support an elaborate mechanical winch that could swing part of the east section out of the way for tall boats. More complex than she'd expected around here.

She had a little quest to finish. She crossed with a gaggle of pedestrians and wagons. So far she'd seen the bone-and-vines Woven race, plus Elves and Humans. Then there were Centaurs, her own kind the Aves, a few lizardfolk, and a race of fuzzy fox people. She had a dozen questions for every one of them. But instead of being a complete nuisance she snacked on the nuts and made her way to an unmistakeable temple.

It resembled an inverted basket, its wooden pillars curling around each other and meeting in a spiral. She opened the heavy door and found a pillared space smelling of pungent incense.

A robed Human with his thinning hair in a ponytail -- a glance told her he was officially a Monk class -- was writing with a quill pen at a front desk. "A youngster. Are you seeking your first level?"

"Yes, please. I want to be a Mage. I'm told I have to show off a spell?"

"Yes; in your case no tangible items are needed. Go to the altar and demonstrate, then meditate upon your goals."

Feeling slightly less clueless, she bobbed her head and walked up to an altar with a braided triad design, like Celtic art. Two other people, both Human, sat quietly on cushions. Selen picked an empty spot and tried her single spell.

The energy of the element of Wind came to her only with struggle. Without a coach she hardly knew what part of her mind could touch this new thing. Was it really an updraft if it pulled her up, or more of a downdraft countered by Newton's Third Law? Did physics even work in this world? She stood there with her wing-arms outstretched, her thoughts ceaseless and directionless.

To some extent that was how they'd always been. In a faraway world her grade school had told her parents to give their kid drugs, to make her better at sitting still in a government classroom. Instead she'd been allowed to grow in her own way, and to find her own methods for getting things done.

This new skill confused her, but it was demonstrably a real thing here. To concentrate, Selen pictured a certain abstract symbol and the act of drawing it, stilling all other thought processes until the simple mark stood bright in her imagination. She then directed all that focus toward recalling the way she'd reached into the pool of Mana, tuning it in the way that felt most natural, letting it enter reality as a bubbling along her fingers and into her wings. She spread out her feathers and gave a single magic-assisted flap, staggering forward as she did.

Aha, it worked! She hopped back into place, feeling the feather-crest on the back of her head flick higher. Oh! I'm smiling? That's what it looks like for my kind. So that was another bit of learning already.

Before she could lapse into a mental discourse on non-human face expressions, she settled down onto the cushion and focused on the goal. I want to be a Mage. I want to learn all sorts of things and find a place here, and do amazing things like flying.

Without casting another spell, she felt lighter, buoyed by something. Silver light flickered beyond her closed eyes. Then words appeared:

[You are now a Level 1 Mage! You have chosen a geas of Learning. You have been given the feat of Slowfall.]

It worked! She felt herself feather-grinning again, and let out a happy chirp. Now, what it all meant, she didn't know. And Slowfall wasn't what she'd used already, but some extra power? Neat.

A mental itch caught her attention. Ah: it was an intuition just like the method for seeing the numbers behind her Health and so on. She attended to it and saw a more complete profile on herself:

[

Selen Moonlit, Aves Female

Mage 1

Physical: None

Mental: Learning 1, Wits 1, Sanity 1

Social: Charm 1

Feats: Slowfall

Skills: Literacy 2 (Learning)

These meters are based on 25 + (10 points per stat):

Health (Toughness + Will): 25/25

Mana (Sanity + Will): 35/35

Stamina (Toughness + Sanity): 35/35

Go forth and advance!

]

She returned to the man at the front and spoke quietly. "I got it! I have questions, though. Hope I'm not interrupting you."

He'd been writing, but shrugged. "It's what I'm here for, not this tedious copying. How can I help?"

"I got a 'Geas of Learning'. What's that?"

"If you strive to learn something new each day, there's a chance that the gods will tell you something interesting. I serve the god of Love, of course, so that I'm bound to try serving others each day. Naturally that's easy in my job."

Just as learning something ought to be easy in Selen's position. "I know very little about these gods," she said, shifting her weight uncomfortably. She'd grown up with just one.

"Labor, Lore, and Love. You may have your own favorite, but hard work and growth and devotion will all serve you well. Are you looking for specific methods of prayer, or the theories we have, or...?"

"I should probably save that for another time. If I'm going to learn, I should study, right? Is there a good place where someone like me can read books without being rich?"

"Your best bet is probably the Grandbridge Knowledge Society. Here at the temple we believe in basic education, so we offer training in the Literacy skill if you haven't already got that."

"I seem to already have two points of it. So that's good by the standards of, ah, Grandbridge?"

The monk peered oddly at her. "For someone who's obviously just begun using the System? Yes, it's impressive."

Selen winced. "Yeah, I was knocked around pretty badly the other day and feel like I've forgotten some important things. Maybe these gods are scrambling the rules on me or something, ha ha."

"The gods do not torment us, ma'am. Their actions may be subtle, but not malicious. Do you need the help of a more experienced priest?"

"I think I'm all right for now. Thank you. I might have more to ask later, but for now could you help me find this Knowledge Society?"

#

She left the conversation with directions and one other hint: the idea that she could improve one of her statistics per season, starting now in the spring. To do that she had to trade away three earned skills of the same type. So, she could be a point less good at Literacy and two other things to lift her Learning in general, boosting the skills' base level with no net loss. Or train herself in three Strength skills to become a more beefy bird. How the heck this System could improve her mind or body, she didn't know. It was not in her top five most urgent mysteries to solve.

The Knowledge Society stood a quiet district of tall houses. It looked like a converted mansion, with its own surrounding brick wall and garden. An Elf man dressed in a fine brown jacket answered the door, saying, "Do you have business here?"

"I'm told you have the best library in the city." It wasn't exactly what she'd been planning to say; could that be the effects of that Charm ability? Never mind that.

The doorman said, "Indeed. Are you a resident?"

"I'm Selen, of the family that owns the Two Hoots."

"Ah. You may enjoy the Public Room." He let her in, and paused at a niche with a bowl of scented water and a towel.

Selen washed her hands, feeling a minor cut stinging. Alcohol for cleaning. Good. Satisfied, her escort took her to a room with comfortable chairs and tables, and... a single two-level shelf of hardbacks.

"Is there any particular topic you seek?"

"History, magic theory, and... just those for now."

"I'll leave you to it, then." He nodded and left.

Selen huffed. No need for a librarian with such a small collection. No other readers here either. She got the sense that this man was here to keep out riff-raff and she'd barely passed muster. So! She browsed the shelf. Everything looked hand-copied, primitive. She grabbed a volume of Sundry Lands of the World and another on The Prepared Arcanist and sat down to read.

She struggled reading the handwriting on the first one. But there were sketched maps, invaluable for someone like her. Okay! This area was part of a country called the River Kingdom, mostly lining the south-flowing Starry River for hundreds of miles to a sea coast. It included a good chunk of eastern land blessed with more rippling rivers too. West and northwest stood the Scaled Nation, a land of Kobolds. Ah, those must be the lizards she'd seen. The book called them "savage and hateful unbelievers". Her ruler was King Franz, who was of course a wise and benevolent lord. His palace was way south on the sea coast. Beyond the Kingdom's east lay two more countries of "sorcery, blasted land and wickedness". Selen scoffed. No world map, and hardly even what a grade-school geography text would contain.

One detail stood out though: something about "vast dungeons enriching the brave and foolish" in the east, "including the largest ever discovered". The word translated perfectly for her and it sure didn't sound like these were prisons. Were they talking about the imaginary kind full of treasure? Ha, what a job it'd be to explore places like that for a living.