“I thought you said Brands used to be Skills.”

“They are,” Ferrith confirmed. “A Brand is a way to give someone a copy of an existing Skill. When the Power Brokers transfer it, they burn it into your skin. As long as the Brand stays intact you can use the Skill like it was your own. Branding is just a Skill like any other. It’s been around for a few hundred years. I didn’t really pay attention to the whole origin of it, but as far as I know some guy got the Branding Skill and was able to just sort of pass it on.” He removed one sleeve of his scale mail armor and pointed to an intricate swirl of burn marks that made a sort of circle on the back side of his arm where his triceps was located. To me it sort of looked like a scaled-up fingerprint, except it was contained within a more-or-less perfect circle. “This one here is Tongues. That’s how we’re even talking right now. I’ve got a few. They’re pretty expensive, but some of them are worth the money.”

“Wait, what did you mean about Tongues?” I asked. “What does a Brand have to do with us talking?”

Ferrith was already clasping his sleeve back into place. “You think I really speak whatever language you speak on… whatever the name of your world was?” he asked. “Of course not. I got this Brand a while back so even the stupid ogres would understand my commands. It’s not worth the months of work it normally takes to train them properly. Now I just summon them and they listen right away. I’m actually speaking Kelian right now; the Brand makes you hear whatever language it is you speak.”

“English,” I supplied. “The language I’m speaking is English. And the world I come from is called Earth.”

“Right, so you’re speaking English, but because of the Tongues Brand I hear everything you say in Kelian. Likewise, everything I say you hear in the closest possible English translation. It’s pretty seamless. Most of the time you won’t even notice it. Coming from a different world like you are, though, you’ll probably have to get the same Brand or something similar eventually. If not, you’ll only be able to communicate with a few people. You’re lucky I bothered to get it. Most people only get it if they need to for their job or if they travel a lot.”

“Yes, please remind me how lucky I am,” I replied with as much sarcasm as possible. This time Ferrith gave me a look that told me he understood. I leaned down and got to plucking more feathers before he could complain I wasn’t holding up my end of our conversational bargain.

“So I told you what I do,” Ferrith said after an appropriate pause, “what did you do back on Dirt? You’re pretty good at picking out feathers. You humans sure have a lot more dexterity than the average ogre breed.”

I decided to let the ogre comment go. It looked like I’d be correcting Ferrith constantly if I put up a stink every time he compared me to one of those mindless brutes. At least he was referring to me as a human now. “Back on Earth,” I said, stressing the word so he’d get the correction. “I’m what’s called a college dropout. I specialize in video games.” I figured there was no reason to lie. It’s not like anyone from an entirely different planet and culture would be able to figure out how useless that made me.

Ferrith furrowed his eyebrows. “That’s weird,” he said. “My Brand must not be working, because it only translated half of those words. What is a vidygames?”

“Video games,” I corrected him. “They are a system of combat and critical thinking puzzles made using that technology I told you about earlier.”

“And you spent your whole life mastering these video games?” Ferrith asked. “Does it pay well? Are you good at them?”

My stomach fell as I realized the answer to both those questions was going to cause me to re-evaluate my own sense of self-worth in a decidedly negative light. I decided it was about time to change the subject. This world had magic. Maybe this could be a chance to find the answers I’d been looking for. Science had failed to cure the disease that was killing me, but maybe here I could get a second chance. “Hey, does your world have healing magic?” I asked, ignoring Ferrith’s earlier question.

Ferrith looked me up and down. “Of course it does. Why? You don’t look injured.”

“Trust me,” I told him. “I’m plenty injured. On the inside. I have a disease that’s killing me. In my world we have really advanced medical technology that can treat almost any illness. I just have the misfortune of having one of the few illnesses that can’t be treated.” I cut out the part about moving home to die in comfort. He didn’t need to know my life story, and I was reasonably sure he wouldn’t care even if I told him. If I could use magic to heal my cancer, then I could return home and actually have a life. Maybe I was lucky. Maybe that was why I’d been brought to this strange world in the first place.

“That sucks,” Ferrith said. “Yeah, there’s definitely healing magic. Most adventurers like to group up in parties when they go out on contracts, and it’s rare not to bring someone with a healing Brand.” He held up a finger to stop me from interrupting. “No, I don’t have one. It’s never been an issue for me. My ogres are the ones who do all the fighting. But something occurred to me when you mentioned your illness.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“People’s Skills,” Ferrith said. “They’re not just random. They’re usually connected to their personalities or unconscious desires in some way.” He shrugged. “Most of the time anyway. For instance, one of the talking ogres I summoned a while back wanted to go home so bad he ended up with a Skill that could teleport him. Stuff like that. It just occurred to me that your Skill might be connected to that illness you have.”

“You mean… I might be able to cure my own cancer?” I asked. It sounded too good to be true. Nothing in my short life had ever seemed to go right. I had already accepted that life just wasn’t fair sometimes, that some people just got dealt a shit hand. Hope glimmered within me for the first time in a long time. I tried to shove it down, smother the spark before it could take light. I didn’t think I could take another disappointment.

“Only one way to find out,” Ferrith said. “Try to use your Skill.”

“How?” I asked.

“Don’t look at me; you’re the only one who would know how it works. Try something. You should be able to just… feel it.”

“Feel it, huh?” I asked. “Okay, I’ll try.” I closed my eyes and focused. Yes. There was something there. A sense I never knew I had. Now that I was paying attention to it, I found I could feel my own body on a level I never could before. It was like there was an energy inside me. I reached out and grabbed ahold of that energy with my mind. Something started to happen. I could feel a sort of warmth moving up from my torso to my hands. Cure my cancer. Cure my cancer, I chanted in my mind. My hands got warmer. I started to feel lightheaded.

“I think its working!” I shouted in surprise. I was so excited I could hardly breathe. Then I realized it was more than just excitement. I really couldn’t breathe! My lungs refused to obey. My muscles weren’t responding. I opened my eyes only to see my vision was narrowing to a pinprick. Ferrith’s gray face watched me with a mixture of mild amusement and curiosity.

The ground rushed forward to meet me. I was out before I even felt the impact.

“You’re awake,” Ferrith said.

I looked around. It was dark out. I could tell a good amount of time had elapsed even though it had only felt like an instant. Ferrith sat across from me with a campfire burning between us. A fully-plucked harpy corpse was roasting on sticks next to the fire, fat dripping as it browned. I’d had surgeries before where I lost hours in a blink. Waking up felt like that. “Wha happen’d?” I asked through fat lips that slurred my speech. I flexed them to get the blood flowing again, something I was used to doing.

“You passed out, kid,” Ferrith said. “Sucks, I know. Not everyone gets a useful Skill. You should be thankful though. You could do a lot worse than a Skill that helps you sleep.” Ferrith delivered those words so casually, unconcerned with how they drove a figurative knife in my gut. He then reached out and tore off a clawed hand from the roasting harpy. “Hungry?” he asked, offering the meat out to me.

I let out a sigh. “Sure,” I said. Sometimes… life just wasn’t fair.