The party retreated. The dwarves and Darmon exhausted, Rum suffering from internal damages, and Elrith… well she was fine actually, just out of bolts and a little tired.

As they reached their camp Rum pretty much immediately went into a long magical meditation, in which he tried to the best of his abilities to adapt the Restore Body spell for repairing himself. He really didn’t want to go the rest of his life being feeble from this one arrow. After hours of such meditation he was finally coming to a point where no more repairs could be done by his power. However, while he was fortunate enough that he no longer felt directly ill, he still didn’t feel entirely right either. Even after trading for one of the party’s last remaining descent healing potions with a few pieces of his share of the loot, even after that he still wasn’t entirely fixed. The remaining cure would have to be found in the city.

Nobody had been in the mood to comment on White Rose, but as they ate a larger-than-usual evening meal, everyone being mightily hungry, they all continued to glance over at White Rose. Rum had taken to hold White Rose’s hand, trying to keep the skeleton calm and seated. But White Rose was curious and the skeleton’s free hand would point and prod at everything and anything around them, and Rum would have to explain all kinds of things he’d never thought he’d have to explain before. Things such as: what is fire? That question by itself had led Rum into a 5-10 minutes long monologue on the nature of flames, the theories used to explain the phenomenon, and through a bit of a detour Rum had also given an introductory lesson on the relationship between magic and fire, using his Channel Bio-Energy spell for demonstration. Throughout it all, White Rose had listened and presumably soaked in the entire lesson like a sponge. Ze – the indefinite article Rum mentally decided to use for referring to a genderless skeleton – had also shown somewhat of an addiction for Rum’s answers. Ze kept on pointing and prodding things showing ever more eagerness and curiosity. It was when the skeleton prodded its bony finger into the nearby Heart-Piercer’s round cheeks that Elrith finally had had enough:

“Will you please make your skeleton stop poking anyone and everything around it?”

Rum pulled White Rose close to him before replying: “White Rose is not an it, White Rose is a ze. The term ze is what they used in Magical History to refer to genderless gods of magic, so I think it’s the best one we can use for White Rose. Zes an intelligent sentient species of unspecified gender now, and deserves to be treated with the respectful terms you’d show any sentient being.”

“Rum…” Elrith facepalmed, a pained expression on her face, “The skeleton you call White Rose – IS A SKELETON! It’s a heap of bones animated by a necromancer. You might have pacified it with your spell, but it is still a skeleton created to murder to death any real sentient being like you and me.”

“Ze is a skeleton.” Rum insisted.

“FINE! Ze, zi, za, whatever. ZE is a skeleton, and skeletons are not sentient beings. They just aren’t.”

“White Rose is a sweetheart of bones about to blossom, that is how it is, Elrith. Ze might’ve been originally created by Jorteg or one of his underlings for murder, but now I have given ze a personality. And behold! Watch the harmless curiosity of ze. White Rose only wants to know about the world.” Rum pointed at Elrith and then spoke to White Rose, “See that woman you were wondering about, White Rose? That is Elrith, her nickname is the The Heart-Piercer. She is not a dwarf but a human being, despite how short she is.”

Elrith threw Rum a disappointed look, almost as if trying to telepathically communicate Not a dwarf? Really? You had to say it like that? She shook her head after a while and they sat in silence for a few seconds. Then Elrith's face slowly grew a malevolent grin.

“That reminds me Rum” she began, “could you care to explain to me, and especially to Rulli and Gilda over there, why you pulled up your robe in the middle of battle today to literally take a piss and pee on the people who were saving you? After I saw it I still can’t understand how and why that happened. You really have to enlighten us.”

Rum opened his mouth to say something, but ended up stroking his forehead in a pained attempt to try and figure out how he was gonna explain this. In the end though he just went for the straight-forward reply: “I was using the spell Filter Body on myself to remove necrotic magic. The spell requires of me to dispose of that magic, and I just thought peeing would do the job. I wasn’t particularly aiming, you see it was a bit difficult to aim with an arrow stuck inside my back.” Rum looked over at the 2 dwarves, “Sorry for peeing on you two. It was not intentional.”

Rulli and Gilda just stared blankly at Rum, not knowing exactly how to respond. They ended up breaking eye-contact and just not responding at all, wishing they hadn’t been part of the conversation to begin with, and had never known its content. Elrith felt defeated she hadn’t embarrassed Rum more after he’d implied she looked like a dwarf, but she left it at that.

It was soon night and they all slept, Rum tying himself with rope to White Rose to avoid ze roaming about while they all slept. As the morning came they got up and entered the dungeon one last time, but this time just to grab as much of the loot as they’d left behind. Fortunately for them they faced no repaired doors and no new skeletons. In the afternoon of that day they left Jorteg’s dungeon entirely, including packing up and leaving their camp.

The sum of looted weapons and armor had turned out to be much beyond what they could’ve hoped for. Of course, it was all also very much well-deserved, as they’d fought within inches of their lives, and desperately outnumbered. The situation could’ve ended much differently if Disrupt Skeleton hadn’t worked out. Rum mused to himself while carrying bags upon bags of loot on the way back to Ermos City. He really regretted having made this deal to carry as much of it as possible. Because even with the Beast of Burden spell active it was a long trip, and after coming so close to death he was really looking forward to relaxing from all and any adventure for a week at least. Two weeks if it was possible.

Next to Rum walked White Rose. Ze too carried some of the spoils of war. When Elrith had insisted upon it, Rum hadn’t been able to get himself out of her demands. Elrith didn’t seem to get it: White Rose wasn’t Rum’s property. Ze was zes own being now, the being of a whole new species perhaps, but ze – like any being – should make zes own choices. The communication barrier still being not entirely developed however, Elrith had managed to get the skeleton to carry the weapons and armor before Rum had managed to convey the more nuanced problem of personal decision-making. Elrith treated the skeleton like a troop in the military, with her as zes general; ready to bark simple effective orders, and never saying a word too many. Rum meanwhile had the potential fault of tending to pose statements as a question deserving of full sentences containing reflections, arguments, counter-arguments and extensive elaborations, sometimes spiced up by academic detours seeking to bring a subject matter, and its surrounding areas, into its full light. But for a skeleton who had literally been born yesterday: that was a very ineffective way of trying to get a message across.

At the moment the party was a day’s walking left from the outskirts of Ermos City. As they’d gotten closer to the city, Rum had decided to trade one of their swords with a travelling merchant to dress up White Rose with a black hooded robe, black boots, black gloves and black face veil to protect her from curious, and even worse scared – onlookers. White Rose, as a new species, would naturally gain way more attention than Rum would be able to deal with, and he might even be accused of necromancy and persecuted by one of Ermos City’s many authorities for that kind of magic. Actually, Rum wasn’t sure if he now would technically qualify as a necromancer. I mean, I have two spells that deal with the undead. But on the other hand both of the spells were counters to the undead, and didn’t aid in making more of them. His Bony Love might even be considered a life-bestowing spell depending on one’s point of view. Either way, White Rose looked quite a bit suspicious in zes new outfit, but it was much better ze looked suspicious than if White Rose accidentally invited zealous anti-undead lynching upon them.

The party was walking along the main road, with Elrith ahead of the party, and the group following the same ordered line they’d used going in the opposite direction. Now though, Elrith had stopped. On the right side of the road an entire caravan, or possibly more people, had set up camp. She turned around, looking at her party members.

“Camp people?” she asked, “We won’t reach Ermos City before tomorrow, so we should rest, eat and sleep.” Nobody bothered responding, not even Elrith waited for a response to her own question, they all just one by one walked off the road and into the large network of campfires. All kinds of groups of dwarves, mecha-gnomes, green elves and humans sat in circles about the different bonfires. As they walked through the encampment, Rum even saw some dark elves and sky elves, which were unusual elven lineages. The dark elves had light-blue and greyish skin, with usually completely black-eyes, with sometimes light-blue pupils. They tended to hide themselves from the sun under large hooded cloaks, and were easily sunburnt. Their small clans tended to prefer nightlife, often serving as night guards when living in other settlements, or living off of night-time hunting when they chose to live in their own tiny settlements, which traditionally were lone, multifloored wooden houses hidden away in areas with little daylight, such as ravines. There the dark elves would practice a communal but otherwise isolationist life, occasionally trading with nearby human or dwarven settlements. The sky elves meanwhile had only two known homes, and they were large ancient cities on the peak of some of the known world’s largest mountains. These elves too were generally isolationist, but unlike the dark elves, when they first descend from their mountain top cities, they were quite social beings, including jovial, energetic, and with a curiosity that could rival the gnomes. They were also among the tallest peoples in the known world. Used to living in the cold of the mountains they tended to wear brightly colored skin-revealing apparel when their frost resistance came into contact with the warmer lowland environment.

Neither Rum nor his party were particularly interested in mingling with the other groups though. Rum himself had already met sky elves three times before in his travels, one of which had been to a town called Sunseen, lying at the slope of one of the sky elven mountains, which in turn was called Sunpeak. At Sunseen there had lived lots of dwarves and sky elves side-by-side, sometimes even in interracial families, producing long-bearded sky elves and tall skinny dwarves.

“Let’s take this spot” Elrith lazily pointed at a vacant spot with a few trees and a small pond a bit further away from the rest of the campfires. The benefits of setting up camp next to other travelers was well known: there was security in large groups. That’s how caravans got going to begin with. Also it provided opportunities for trading goods and -services, as well as socializing on the otherwise boring and lonely roads.

As they all began setting up camp, Rum and White Rose put down their many sacks of loot, while Darmon quickly walked off in his noisy armor to start collecting twigs to start a fire. Elrith soon after joined Darmon in finding twigs. The dwarves spread out in the grass meanwhile and took off their boots and socks to reveal hairy feet. Rum too rested, first casting Softify before spreading out on the grass and closing his eyes for an immediate quick nap. As he tried resting though Rum heard a duo of bards playing a lute and singing, with what sounded like a merry assembly of kids, adults and old people of all kin and genders. Halfway into his slumber Rum felt a tug at his robe, and opened his eyes to see the hooded and covered up White Rose pointing zes gloved finger somewhere. Rum followed the finger and it landed on the bard duo, a beautiful green-elven woman stringing along on her lute a strange but enchanting melody, while a human man told poetic stories of the old times; of the time before the three lost cities were lost. White Rose eagerly pulled at Rum’s robe and animatedly pointed repeatedly at the scene of the fun. It was clear ze wanted to join the crowd gathered in front of the entertainers, and Rum figured she may want an explanation about what it was as well. Regardless, Rum relented and got up, casting a Restore Body spell on himself for good measure, along with the usual mix of Become Clean and Renew Clothes.

“Now hold onto my hand, okay?” White Rose nodded zes head in response. Together they walked towards the gathering. “Now see that person over there?” Rum pointed at the lute player. “She’s an elven woman, and she’s playing an instrument called a lute, that piece of wood she’s holding. The lute is what makes this sound you hear; the melody. When someone is good at playing the lute, they can use it to make beautiful sounds like this.” White Rose stared at the woman while they were approaching the scene.

“And that man next to her” Rum pointed, lowering his voice to a whisper as they came close, “is a poet, or a storyteller. The two can be the same really, as it is here.” The two inserted themselves with a group of older dwarves at the back of the entertainment, White Rose completely captured by the performance, while Rum mentally fact-checked the bardic rhymes.

“And thus Uva great troll,

from dwarf king Ruffaring,

stole his golden sword, (No she didn’t! It was awarded fairly for military service)

her dreadful voice laughing. (That’s definitely thick embellishment)

From golden sword I will,

said Uva the terrible troll,

a necklace smith and enchant, (Yeah this line is true)

for I will wear a king’s soul. (She definitely didn’t say that though)

Uva with the king’s soul, (Again, she didn’t steal his soul)

ruled the king’s sentiment, (She just talked to him, no ruling)

and a will to wage war, (Uva reasoned with the king, she didn’t hex him)

was lost to dwarven detriment.“ (Actually 100 years of economic prosperity followed)

Rum enjoyed music, he also enjoyed a good story, but as someone who’d actually studied history he had some issues with the liberal way in which bards tended to deal with it. Even if most people, at least Rum hoped so, didn’t take the stories to be fully real, there was always some idiot who’d take a story and act as if it was real. And things like that was a recipe for stupid wars between families, clans, city states, or the kingdoms of old times. Of course, the fact that the most trusted historical accounts and evidence studied by the scholars was sometimes sprinkled in between the lines, was precisely what made the stories so captivating. But Rum figured pretending to reflect truth was less important to storytelling, than the act of guiding a perspective. A storyteller isn’t someone who relay information; a storyteller expands the imagination. They allow people to have thoughts and feelings they otherwise wouldn’t be able to. Information, poetically expressed, can of course give us these additional thoughts and feelings. But, there’s a difference between story and information, in the moral responsibility of this expanded imagination. Because when I, or any of these people here, hear a story as but a story, we come to own that story in our imagination, and with it we own the moral responsibility for its growth, transformation, and use in us. But when that story pretends to be real in any sense, that responsibility lands differently. Then we tend to depend on outside forces, for this bard for instance, on how to interpret it in a socially acceptable way. And that’s how someone can inject historical injustices into the stories and drive a crowd of people to interpret the same injustices in what’s told. And then, using norms such as descency, or loyalty to family, clan, city, or kingdom, those stories cease to be but stories, but become catalysts towards destructive interpretations and destructive ends.

Rum didn’t outwardly express any of these thoughts though. Even he could tell that it was better for White Rose to get to enjoy and marvel at this experience, to soak it all in, than for him to rant about its deficiencies. Rum eventually sat down, pulling on White Rose’s hand and gesturing for ze to do the same, and together they sat, holding hands and watching the entertainment for upwards of half an hour before the bardic duo finished, the sun about to set in the horizon. Throughout the whole set of performances the singing bard, whose name had been introduced as Lartho along with his wife Maveli, had gone around in between each performance collecting donation-payments for their next performance. I call them donation-payments because they are donations where everyone expects you to give, unfortunately I don’t have any money, and so Rum got a little embarrassed repeatedly having to decline providing a donation. Rum wasn’t sure but it felt like White Rose had also been embarrassed by Rum’s unwillingness – as ze must’ve seen it from ze perspective – to participate in the donation. Ze kept gesturing, pulling at and otherwise trying to insist that Rum give money as well. If only I could have, Rum thought concerning White Rose’s disappointment. I’m sure if White Rose had any money ze would’ve happily personally handed it all over zeself, like so many of the kids do on behalf of their parents. But Rum had lots of loot to sell, and so soon he’d not be so completely without money as he was now. Consequently, if any new entertainers were to show up anytime soon he’d happily give White Rose money to donate. Bards may be terrible historians, but their services were an important disruption to the otherwise monotony of everyday life, or travelling on the road such as now.

Leaving the finished entertainment like everyone else in the crowd, Rum and White Rose strolled back to the camp, where their party members had managed to get a fire going without Rum, and people were either eating or resting. As Rum sat down and started to eat some salted mini-sausages himself given by Elrith, White Rose stared at him taking in the sustenance; eating was a ritual of life ze didn’t completely understand or had the capacity to appreciate, as the skeleton had no taste buds and couldn’t feel any hunger. Rum just ignored the stare and let ze study him freely as much as ze wanted.

“You know Rum” Rulli suddenly started saying from his bedroll, Gilda’s head resting sleepily on his chest, “there’s something odd about you. I mean Elrith has told me you are just power level 8, but what I’ve experienced of you so far just doesn’t add up to what anyone would expect of a level 8. The way you used that new spell of yours, Disrupt Skeleton, that was more like what I’d expect of a level 40 mage or thereabouts. I mean, how can you even have so much mana that you can afford to kill dozens of skeletons that way?”

Rum licked his fingers from the taste of the sausages. After finishing each finger he took a sip from an available waterskin before turning towards Rulli to reply.

“I was taught Akalios’ Calculus in my first year at Flip University. I’m not a master of the method, but I am familiar with it enough to be pretty confident my calculations are not wrong. I’ve been at power level 8 for many years now. Why I’m not progressing I don’t know, my life has been eventful enough that I should’ve seen some growth. What power level are you guys?” Rum gestured around to his team. The party members took some time to reply, Rulli being the first to respond:

“36” he said, “she is 37” he added, gesturing at Gilda half-asleep on Rulli’s rising and falling chest.

“39” said Elrith, looking at the fire.

“34” said Darmon, he too staring at the fire instead of meeting Rum’s eyes.

“Wow.” Rum remarked, “Well you said–” Rum looked at Elrith “–Jorteg’s Dungeon was for power levels 30-40, seems I am very much outside the normal for it.”

“It should’ve been 30-40” Elrith responded softly, “but what we faced on that last day was way beyond what a 5-person group of level 40s should even be able to handle.”

“Yes” Rulli nodded from his laid down position, “something must’ve changed in that dungeon. I heard the last party that went in there lost a team member, but I just took it to be an accident or mistake on their part. But, it seems like Jorteg is taking quite an active role in defending his dungeon. That swarm of skeletons was supposed to kill us all, not just scare us or test us. Jorteg must’ve been building up a force for the explicit purpose of taking out parties coming after his base. In all honesty Rum, your spell saved us. Which makes it all the stranger you’re just power level 8. Are you being all honest with us? If you want to hide your real power level from us, I’m not going to complain about that seeing as how you saved us, but I’m just asking if you really honestly believe you are power level 8?”

“Yes” Rum smiled at the recognition of his efforts, “I honestly believe I am power level 8, or at least that’s all I can prove that I am. Even if I too doubt a bit whether it can really be right that I’m still just level 8.” Rum stopped talking, then shook his head slowly, thinking about the strangeness. Thinking like this naturally also caused him to start stroking his beard.

“You saved us” Elrith mumbled quietly, then she sighed, and repeated herself, a little bit louder now, “You saved us Rum. Really you did. I don’t know how you were able to, since you say you’re just level 8, but you did. If and when we return to Jorteg’s Dungeon, I’m betting on that last spell of yours for our success. I can only say that killing that many skeletons was impressive.”

Rum felt himself smile a true genuine smile of quiet happiness. He might also have been a little flushed, getting compliments of this degree he wasn’t used to. Though it bothered him just a little bit that they’d said he’d killed the skeletons. That hadn’t been his intention, and technically he didn’t feel like that was what he’d done.

“Technically” he started saying, and felt excessively scholarly as he did so, “I didn’t so much kill the skeletons. I guess it’s more accurate to say I disabled them. Or if comparing it to a human: it would be a bit like if I put a human into a permanent coma. Disrupt Skeleton very predictably severs a critical mechanism of functional skeletal intelligence and animation. Now that I think about it, if Jorteg has discovered what I’ve done to his skeletons, he might actually very easily be able to restore them all back to a functional state before we get back. The one’s you destroyed will still be permanently destroyed of course, and all the weapons and armor we took from the skeletons will have to be replaced, but… “ Rum stopped briefly as he was seeing the familiar sight of Elrith’s open, amazed and disappointed expression, “… we don’t know. Maybe I did more damage than I thought, or maybe Jorteg isn’t as capable as I’m imagining. The important point I want to get across is that I didn’t kill any skeletons, I only disrupted them – turned them off from killing us permanently, or until someone fixes them.”

For a whole half a minute Elrith didn’t have words, but everyone who wasn’t sleeping and wasn’t White Rose, that meaning Rulli and Darmon, both understood that The Heart-Piercer was very much building up towards a comment of frustration.

“YOU DIDN’T KILL THEM? RUUUM, THAT’S OUR JOB! We are part of an army, remember? And THAT’S THE ENEMY ARMY! Oh gods, how is this possible. We had the opportunity to destroy over a hundred skeletons, and something like half of them we just let be for Jorteg to come bring back to life. Those skeletons may now end up ambushing the next party and killing their members!” She stopped yelling after that, and just dropped the implied moral condemnation into Rum’s lap, letting him deal with it. She shook her head, added some facepalming, but said nothing more. Instead she laid down in her bedroll and tried to sleep off her frustration and disappointment.

Rum’s self-esteem fell from a tall height. He’d just been praised and felt really good about it, and now he was down at the level of a disappointment again, because of his aversion to power. He sighed and said nothing more while one by one the others went to bed. Fortunately, but for unfortunate reasons, this wasn’t to last though. Rum was used to being looked down on, and thus it wasn’t too long before his mind strafed from a general negative mood to one of curiosity, lingering on the unbelievability of his power level being at just 8. He too, even though he’d done the calculations himself, understood that something wasn’t matching up between his calculated power level and his actual performance. In fact he hadn’t changed in power level since roughly a year before he set out on his 6 year journey. What did this mean? What held him back?

Rum decided to try and calculate again, just in case, just to see if he might’ve gone up after this dungeon. If he truly was at level 8 this dungeon trip should’ve surely seen him shoot forward in level progression, possibly going up 2 or 3 levels even. So Rum went through what he remembered of Akalios’ Calculus. The calculus consisted of 4 steps, or aspects, by which it was at all possible to derive numerical values from abstract physical, mental and magical characteristics. These were:

A manipulation of mana into some kind of shape, such as a flat square surface, which was supposed to act as a membrane. The making of a form of mana thread, or mana wire, going from the membrane and into one of the FAOMs – the Far Away Origins of Magic – which where the extremes of the world where people believed the gods of magic to reside. They included The North Peak, a tall mountain in the far north rumored to be inhabited by a group of old powerful deities, this was the most common one. But also The Vibrant Moon, which was the smaller of the two moons orbiting the planet and world of Aclima, where the Lands of Ermos lay. This one was easier to use at night, and here it was rumored the sibling gods Naghmath and Trivili resided. There was also The Great Coral Jungle out at sea, a point in the ocean to the far south where far deep within a ravine a small city of gods is rumored to exist. Because no normal person would likely have the mana to reach all the way to any of these places, one was supposed to send out pulses of mana from the mana wires until giant spells cast long ago by the gods would attach themselves to the wires, and then as the person pulled or pushed the mana membrane across themselves, the mage using the method would gain magical feedback like little tinglings filling them with sensations. The different sensations would come at various intervals and intensities, and would be felt at various places of one’s mana. By carefully recording all of these sensations and qualitatively separating them, one could then use the method of calculation in Akalios’ Calculus to gain knowledge of the various different physical, mental and magical characteristics of an individual.

Rum performed this method on himself, using the lazy old North Peak as a reference. For the rest of the evening Rum worked on this calculation, making sure to be as thorough as he could. White Rose meanwhile patiently observed the caravan from their own campfire while standing next to the seated Rum. The observations of White Rose must’ve been freakish for the caravan guards, who would’ve experienced being looked at continuously, without end, for hours, their onlooker never faltering, never swaying, never taking away its gaze.

As Rum finally finished his calculations, the results were in. And he did not understand at all how they were possible:

Rum (male human)

Level

2

Health Pool

High, but unknown

Stamina Pool

Weak, but unknown

Mana Pool

High, but unknown

Constitution Score

Unknown (natural) + 5 (level)

Strength Score

High, but unknown (natural) + 3 (level)

Dexterity Score

Weak, but unknown (natural) + 0 (level)

Intelligence Score

High, but unknown (natural) + 7 (level)

Wisdom Score

Unknown (natural) + 2 (level)

Willpower Score

Weak, but unknown (natural) + 0 (level)

Luck Score

Unknown (natural) + 3 (level)

Known Basic Effects

None

HOW AM I JUST LEVEL 2? HOW CAN A PERSON EVEN LOSE LEVELS? Rum felt increasingly sure that something was terribly, terribly wrong with his use of Akalios’ Calculus. Was it his own incompetence? Was he just that bad at using this method, which he thought he knew so adequately well? He pondered for a while in a kind of despair, his heart feeling heavier and heavier as the feeling before of being so bad at things started to come back. But then he had an idea. What if the reason I’m only able to measure level 2, and can’t even measure my natural attributes, is because I’ve forsaken the gods? What if the gods don’t understand my mana? What if Akalios’ Calculus was never meant to be used independently of the gods, but only as an extension of their magic, like the spells taught at Flip University?

Rum got up, stroked his beard for confidence, and started pacing back and forth in heavy thinking. What if I could make my own method? But how would I even know if my measurements were correct, or even more importantly, comparable? Rum started furiously rubbing his bald head, feeling like he was way over his head on this one. How could little me make a method that probably took Akalios years, if not decades, to figure out. He walked up to a tree and started to kick it. White Rose walked up to him and watched while zes odd – master? No… partner? Guardian? Something like that – abused the tree and hurt himself. After beating the anxiety and feeling of inadequacy out of him for a while, Rum stopped and looked up into White Rose’s gleaming eyes peeking out from zes mask.

“You wouldn’t know how to calculate the attributes from a person’s power level independent of the gods, would you?”

The skeleton shrugged. Rum walked past ze and gazed at the stars, as if expecting an answer from above. He admired their beauty, his mind calming for a bit. Finally, after a while of star-gazing, he looked down again at the world before him.

“Curse it!” Rum shouted, mostly speaking to himself, “Curse it all! This is the problem Rum, you are thinking too narrowly! You could develop a method independent of the expectations this world. You could develop a measure of power level that spited it all. The numbers don’t need to match, at least not first. I can calibrate the numbers afterwards, by comparison. All I need is a measurement… to do any measurement, a way of knowing when I progress, and when I’m under a buff or a debuff. Curse you gods for making this hard!” Rum symbolically beat the air in the general direction of north, as if aiming for The North Peak.

He went to work immediately. He was gonna make his own method! Earlier he had felt the membrane as it moved across him, and thus he knew, generally speaking, how the membrane worked. So he tried, making a mana membrane for himself. For feedback he made not one, but a myriad of threads which he willed to report about the features which the previous membrane had reported about, things such as muscles, the state of muscles, the interconnectedness of his brain, and so forth. For hours he labored, well into the night, even going back to doing Akalios’ Calculus again just to better understand what was happening under the effects of it. Rum also figured out that what was wrong with the earlier steps of Akalios’ Calculus was that the magic of the gods was repelling him, almost like the magic didn’t like him. But Rum always managed to make the magic stay just long enough to tell him what it was doing. And after many hours, Rum thought he’d finally figured it out, with the mana, the magic and the math haven driven him slightly insane on the way there. He still hadn’t calibrated his new method of course, so his comparable level was still unknown, but by the accounts of this new method, which felt even more precise than Akalios’ Calculus, he got these results:

Rum (male human) – Using Rum’s Calculus

Level

678

Health Pool

15240

Stamina Pool

6760

Mana Pool

20440

Constitution Score

194 (natural) + 1330 (level)

Strength Score

226 (natural) + 1080 (level)

Dexterity Score

97 (natural) + 549 (level)

Intelligence Score

210 (natural) + 1834 (level)

Wisdom Score

97 (natural) + 634 (level)

Willpower Score

129 (natural) + 498 (level)

Luck Score

178 (natural) + 855 (level)

Known Basic Effects

None

Rum laughed out loud to himself cathartically, thinking about the ridiculously high level his method portrayed him as. Of course this level didn’t mean anything in a social context, because he wouldn’t be power level 678 if he had managed to use Akalios’ Calculus successfully and gotten the traditional power level measure. Elrith, Rulli, Gilda and Darmon would probably all be hundreds if not thousands of levels high in his system as well. The only thing Rum felt really sure about after seeing these readings is that he must be way above level 2 or level 8, as it would be really strange if a true level 2 in Akalios’ Calculus translated into not just level 678 using his method, but also had over 15000 health and over 20000 mana. Of course it was theoretically possible, just unlikely.

As yet another dawn creeped up on Rum’s nightly activities, and he finally went to bed with his Magical Blanket, cursing the sun for its appearance, he thought about what he should do next.

Wait a minute… if I used this new method on Elrith, which said she was level 39. What level would she be in my system?