Excerpt from the second draft of An Earthling’s Guide to the Larger Universe

Common Utility Path Abilities (Continued)

Inventory

Inventory is an odd skill, because it requires the use of an external item or location. All it does is allow for a more convenient interaction with storage - whether this is a dimensional bag or simply the contents of a trunk. It seems to be more related to a low-end teleportation skill than to anything that would properly be considered storage. As with most utility skills, it comes in several grades; some will not work with anything you can’t touch, while others will work with anything you ‘own’.

As a general guideline, Inventory won’t allow you to “carry” more weight than you could easily carry, but it may well allow you to carry more bulk or things that would be awkward. Even with that guideline, Inventory can’t be increased simply by increasing your Might; instead, you have to get an upgraded version of the skill to “carry” more.

With that said, the skill is supposed to get quite impressive at higher Tiers; one song is about a King who could “carry” his castle and bring it out when he chose. This was apparently not good for the castle, as the song details all the repairs that had to be performed each time he moved it. The ground is never quite level after all, and adding the weight of a castle can reveal all sorts of things.

There are stories about inventory being used for all sorts of tricks, but no one in the Tutorial has been able to confirm to me that it can be used for anything other than moving items that you could reasonably pick up. It seems likely that there are some Paths that have an Inventory that can improve a preexisting Skill. Stage magic, for example.

After the Corn Maze, it was still several hours until Morwen had to be back at the rockfin’s portal. Unfortunately, that still meant there wasn’t enough time available to count on being able to complete a dungeon. They’d blazed through the Corn Maze in about an hour and a half, but they couldn’t count on the next dungeon being as fast, and it was a good fifteen minutes away, directly away from the camp.

They went to the next likely nexus anyway. Since Morwen was the one on a schedule, she made the call; she wanted to see another dungeon more than she wanted to get back to camp on time, and she figured she’d likely make it anyway.

The next nexus point had another dungeon. This one was a far more traditional underground dungeon, with small earth and rock elementals as the primary enemy. Serenity was glad that he and Doyle were the only ones attacking with actual weapons; his axe would regenerate and Doyle had picked up the ability to summon a shadow dagger. Serenity found himself somewhat envious of the skill. Even though it was weaker than a normal Tier 1 weapon, Doyle would never be weaponless.

Serenity found himself looking down at his claws ruefully as they approached the dungeon’s boss room. He would also not be caught weaponless, and his claws would heal if they were damaged, but they definitely made some things more difficult. Shapeshifting solved a lot of the problem, but not everything.

Serenity stopped walking and took a better look at his claws. He’d just seen something strange. He turned his claws and once again saw it. As the claw moved in front of the light, it didn’t block it; instead, the light diffused through it. He remembered his claws being translucent only at the tip, where they were as thin as fingernails, but this was at the base of the claw.

Perhaps he simply hadn’t noticed before. He couldn’t recall deliberately putting them in front of a light before, after all. They were still the same deep bluish purple as his scales; he wouldn’t normally expect something that dark to be translucent. Serenity shook his head and moved forward again.

The dungeon’s boss was a Stone Golem, and it put up a bit more fight than the previous monsters. Even so, it was dumb enough that “rock for brains” was descriptive in more than one way. Serenity held its attention while the others attacked, and even though it managed to get a few good hits in, they did little to him. He was fully healed before they reached the dungeon core.

Once again, there was no final reward, but this time the core was eager to work with Gaia. It reminded Serenity more than a little of the Ancient Temple, only this dungeon’s spirit didn’t have a Wraith and was horribly lonely.

Serenity’s XP reward from the dungeon was 50 once again. He’d have to run a lot of dungeons for it to be worth anything. The solo dungeon in the Tutorial was still worth more than that, but he was getting close to the end of it. He’d need to find another source of experience if he wanted to finish his Path before he finished his core’s Tier.

As they left the dungeon, Doyle seemed to remember something. “On the way out of the last dungeon, you grabbed a couple stones from the broken core, didn’t you? Are they worth anything?”

Serenity paused for a moment before he remembered what Doyle was talking about. He’d stuffed the green stones in a pocket and forgotten them. “Oh yeah! I didn’t look.”

Small Nature Affinity Stone

An Affinity Stone holds mana that is already touched with a particular Affinity. They can be used for anything from powering a magic item of that Affinity to aiding a mage in learning about the Affinity.

An Affinity Stone holds far less mana than an equivalently sized monster core.

Small Jealousy Affinity Stone

An Affinity Stone holds mana that is already touched with a particular Affinity. They can be used for anything from powering a magic item of that Affinity to aiding a mage in learning about the Affinity.

An Affinity Stone holds far less mana than an equivalently sized monster core.

As Serenity explained the Affinity Stones, he found himself adding that they were more valuable than their mana amount alone justified; for items they were more mana-efficient, but in many places their other uses were even more valuable, because unlike monster cores, they could be pulled on to fuel actual spells and Path Skills as long as the spell or Skill was using the Affinity the stone held.

Even so, even though the stones were nearly golf ball-sized, they held only slightly more mana than the rice grain sized monster cores Serenity had gathered as they went through the two dungeons. They were probably worth two or three times the value of an individual monster core, but offplanet that was still not all that much.

“I think you’re underestimating them.” Morwen stated bluntly. “You’re telling us the price comparison for a society that runs on monster cores. We don’t. There’s a glut of monster cores now, but something a mage could use to cast a spell in a dungeon after they’ve run out? You should be pricing it like a mana potion, and those are still pretty pricey.”

Serenity nodded. “Fair point. I guess we should split up what we got, not that it’s much.”

“Do you always get Affinity stones from breaking a dungeon core?” Echo glanced back at the dungeon they’d just left, then at the stones in Serenity’s hand.

Serenity shook his head. “I think you always get something but I don’t think it’s usually Affinity stones. Supposedly it’s about the same as what a few days of the normal delves of the dungeon would get you, so generally it’s just not worth breaking the core even for the people who can do it. The payback for running the dungeon instead is too fast. Most dungeons are owned and they don’t want them broken, after all.”

Echo ended up with the Nature Affinity Stone while Morwen took the Jealousy Affinity Stone. Echo wanted to plant hers in the Settlement Garden to see if it would help the plants and animals grow faster; Morwen planned to get with some of her coworkers to see if they could figure out what exactly the stone was. She hinted that a lot of the testing would be destructive, and Serenity warned her to use precautions. Jealousy was not a good thing to encourage, after all.

Serenity and Doyle split the monster cores between them. Everyone was relatively happy with the split; Serenity didn’t need either Affinity Stone, but there were things he could do with monster cores, while Doyle was interested in the Nature stone for the same reason as Echo, but had no interest in the Jealousy stone. Morwen didn’t care which stone she got as long as she could take it apart.

They arrived back at the rockfin portal with a little over half an hour to spare for Morwen to get ready for the day. Echo and Doyle headed back to Serenity Settlement while Serenity went to find Dr. Mattingly.

When Serenity walked up, she was watching two scientists argue about what their results meant with a small smile. She gave him a small nod, but didn’t say anything. Serenity stopped to listen; after a few minutes, he determined that the argument was about whether some reading they were getting was inherent in the portal itself or because of something about the other side.

They were completely missing the obvious, weren’t they?

“Why don’t you send someone with instruments through the portal to check? Do you have anything small enough to carry?” Serenity didn’t see any point in arguing about something that could easily be tested.

Dr. Mattingly’s smile grew into a grin as the two scientists jumped and turned to look at him. She’d known Serenity was there, but they hadn’t. “We do. Allen, Rachel, please take care of getting whatever you want someone to take through; also, please let the rest of the night group know that Serenity will be heading through the portal once everyone is ready. I believe Richard had a test he wanted to run that required portal activation.”

Rachel had to be the blond woman; she nodded as she hurried away.

Allen, on the other hand, looked doubtfully at Serenity, then turned to Dr. Mattingly. “Are you sure it’s safe to send someone through? From what I’ve heard, that rockfin’s no joke and there could be a while group on the other side. No offense.” For the last two words, he turned to look at Serenity.

Serenity smiled to himself. He might be in his human shape right now, but he was confident enough in his own ability that he didn’t take any offense at Allen’s assumption that he was less capable than he was. Almost any other Earth-human would need to be very careful against a rockfin. “I’ll be fine. I’ve fought a rockfin before; even if there are several, I’ll be able to get back through the portal quickly. I don’t expect there will be more than one, though; they’re not pack creatures. They’re loners.”

Allen appeared to be working on another objection when Dr.Mattingly spoke. Her voice was stern. “It’s approved all the way up, Mr. Ridge. This isn’t a spur of the moment thing; Serenity is the best choice to go through the portal. He’s one of four people to have fought a rockfin before, and the only one to do so alone.”

Allen Ridge’s mouth hung open for a moment. “Wait - you’re Serenity? The Serenity that found the portal? The one with the interesting report on frequency variation?”

Serenity had the feeling that Allen Ridge didn’t spend much time paying attention to the outside world if those were the first things that came to mind for the name Serenity. “Yes. Is that really a surprise?”

“I expected someone, ah, taller. And with ah, normal hair?” Allen didn’t seem to be able to take the figurative foot out of his mouth.

“What’s wrong with my hair?” Serenity ignored the crack about his height. He wasn’t tall, but it wasn’t like he was terribly short either.

Allen sounded slightly strangled as he replied. “It’s purple?”

Serenity had forgotten about his hair color. It matched his scale color, which actually meant it was a mix of blue and purple. He could see how someone would take it as purple in the poor light they had. Maybe he should dye his hair?

Nah. Not unless he really needed to. Serenity wasn’t confident a dye job would last through a shapeshift anyway. It might, the same way his clothes did, but he wasn’t confident. It would probably come up at some point; he probably ought to try, just in case, but he wouldn’t change his hair color just to make people he’d never met think he was “normal”.

Instead, Serenity shrugged. “It’s my natural hair color. I decided there was no point in hiding.”

Allen looked like a fish out of water until Dr. Mattingly reminded him to get things ready for Serenity’s trip through the portal. She was smiling again.