6.06

“Journeys end, but another always starts.” - Discovery

“What- what is this?” Tignflut, the guild receptionist asked as he read through the report I handed him.

“An encounter we had in Lake Bayt, against an entity that ate memories,” I told him, “I’ve followed regulation and listed as much detail as I could, but as you might expect, my memory is a bit spotty on the subject.”

“Is it dead?” he asked.

“It is dead,” I confirmed. “You can contact the priest in the town to get more information, his name is Corvian, he may also be looking to post some quests.”

I left after that, no one else in the party was the bookkeeping type, so writing up reports was left up to me.

Not that they weren’t busy.

Outside, Utoqa hacked away and Scavenged the corpse of our hunt, and as my True Sight faded, I saw the Scales.

After spending all his creations during the battle in the cave and suffering heavy damage from the Accumulation of White Lies, he was due a small win, and from the spider corpse he was able to make dozens of web like balls, along with two daggers made from its fangs.

Next to him, Celine was grinding and processing potion materials, several health potions were already stacked by her side, her Balance was even, probably the safest place it could be.

The sound of wood smacking onto each other signalled Tai and Noam’s spar. They had radically different martial styles, Noam was largely self taught, focusing on evasion and lots of rapid hits, while Tai swung her blade with practised purpose, she didn’t do as many attacks but made up for it by the strength of her swing.

Noam’s Balance was slightly against his favour, likely because of the new staff he had gained. It manifested in small ways, a bit of difficulty channelling Aura the way Tai was teaching it, a single misstep or mistake that slowed down his attempts at learning Martial Arts.

Noam would likely end up being frustrated today, and not make great progress, but the act of training, of spending time and effort on the endeavour was dragging him closer to Balance. Not as fast as something grand like slaying a great monster, but it was steady progress.

They were all near or approaching Balance.

Then I glanced upwards, seeing my Scales leaning slightly in my favour.

I had played a crucial role in defeating the giant spider.

And I had also given up most of my rewards.

An advantage of a party, I was starting to realise, was that we could all shoulder the weights of Balance.

For now, I’ll refer to the acts of the Scales as either negative or positive karma.

Everyone who participated in killing the spider had the right to claim something, as every single one of us were instrumental to the battle.

The Elder Brood Spider was not an opponent any single one of us could’ve soloed. Even in pairs it would’ve been near impossible. I could see me and Utoqa doing it, but it would’ve been an utter slog. Neither of us had the ability to kill the spider in one hit, my Rot Spores was powerful but it did not kill it. In an ideal scenario, me and Utoqa would be forced into a slow attrition battle, while I held off the massive spider swarms and healed Utoqa, he would’ve slowly worn down the main spider.

But then the spider’s Path, Reproduce, would’ve thrown a complete wrench in that plan. Suddenly dealing with two large spiders, I would not have been able to manage. My mana was almost completely spent in the battle just holding off the swarm, if I also spent it supporting Utoqa I would be utterly spent whenever the spider activated its Path.

Leaving a manaless mage to the mercy of the reproduced spider while Utoqa was stuck fighting the main one.

Threes or fours would’ve been an easier time, but all five of us made it a certainty. Celine brought the support so I didn’t have to, I dealt with the swarm, Tai brought the damage and instakill potential while Utoqa and Noam brought the duelling power to keep each large spider occupied.

We all had an equal- or so close that it didn’t matter- claim on the positive karma earned from the battle. It split our gains obviously, but when one of us renounced and gave away all they could gain, it left me with positive karma to spare, while the negative karma was split amongst the party meant it was divided fourways, making it pretty much negligible.

I did this by giving a large portion of my gold rewards into funding Celine’s potions. It seemed like acts of charity would lead to an excess of positive karma, but in Celine’s case, since some of the potions will inevitably go to me, it didn’t have the full passing effect as true charity, but it was close enough.

I wonder how much good karma I could stack up before something happened.

That was all I dared to learn of the Balance that day.

Even now, I could see the slight shifts on the Scales as my knowledge weighed against me. I couldn’t stop myself from considering the nature of Balance, but I shut my ability to see it, just to not exacerbate it anymore.

Accurate knowledge of the Balance of yourself and others was dangerous. It gave the opportunity to exploit, and in giving opportunity, it created weight.

Even in exploiting the system, the system exploits were weighed and tallied all the same. God, it was like that obscure tax law that said you had to declare even illegal forms of income. Almost like they’re saying, ‘Robbery is illegal but if you do rob a bank, all earnings must be taxed.’

Jesus, I can’t tell if they’re asking me to try to exploit the system or not, it feels like they’re waving a finger at me and daring me to cross that line again.

I might.

But not now, and until then, I’ll use the information I have to stack things in my favour. My Traveller level up has to be seamless, and without any risk attached.

Every condition has to be perfect.

I have to prove that I can control such an event.

Later, in Gaia, at a pizza shop run by a potato and tree, a mushroom knocked on the door.

“Morning Murphy,” Dustin called out. “I have something for you.”

Behind him, Noam dragged a bag full of dead maggot-like creatures.

Murphy smiled.

The store had a limited time sale that day.

You want to visit your mother?” Ba asked.

“I do,” I replied.

“Why the sudden urge?” he asked over the video call.

“Nothing much,” I lied, “I just suddenly want to go out and Discover some things.”

He looked at me weirdly.

“Alright, get your tickets to Taiwan booked, I’ll call her.”

I nodded, “If that’s all, then see you later.”

He nodded back, “Be safe Declan, I still have work to do.”

And the video call ended.

“He cares about you, you know?” the voice in my head whispered.

“I know,” I replied.

Sometime ago, it was Dustin’s voice in there, myself but slightly different.

This voice wasn’t him.

“Still, to see this world with eyes, I am getting rather excited.”

“Don’t be too excited, there’s nothing interesting in a fucked world like mine, Discovery.”

The god chuckled.

“That remains to be seen.”

Back when Dustin was first knocked out in the battle against the Accumulation, I saw the defeat, and made a deal with Discovery.

He would get me in there to use Dustin’s body while he was unconscious and tell me how to defeat the Accumulation.

But I had also lost.

Even with the knowledge of how to fight it, I had been beaten back, Observe was ripped out of my eyes and the blow somehow left me bleeding in real life.

That was terrifying.

Even now I could feel my eye ache a bit. It wasn’t the first time I’ve felt pain, but it was the first time I’ve felt pain in my real body inflicted by something malicious.

Eve didn’t count, that car crash was in part an accident, while Accumulation’s attack on me was targeted.

And though I returned the blow through the knowledge Discovery gave me, all I managed to do was get a clue to Dustin through Analyse, before the Accumulation and I were both forced to retreat.

But even if I lost, the deal I made with Discovery still stood.

I would show him my world, as far as I could go.

As a teenager, my travel mobility was still low, I had my parents to consider, but since ma was already in Taiwan mourning the death of my grandparents, I had an easy excuse to go visit her.

“Naturally, we take the scenic route,” Discovery said.

I didn’t comment. My parents- or ba at least, treated me like an adult, and thought me as mature enough to undertake this cross country journey on my own-

There was a knock on the door.

And though I no longer had Observe to see through the front facing camera, when you’ve been with someone for long enough, you start to recognise things like their habits and footsteps.

“Yo!” Matt called out as the door opened, “Your pops told me to look after you!”

“Goddamn,” Noam said as he looked at the selection of spell crystals in front of him.

“This is what the girls have been getting,” Murphy explained, at the front, Peps was selling out the maggot skewers, along with someone else who looked very similar to him. “We’re branching out into an all around store, if you have anything you want to sell, we’re buying.”

“Not a single tier two spell though?” I noted, looking around at the selection.

Murphy shook his head, “Sadly Dustin, bringing back the maggot skewers for a limited time isn’t going to pay for a T2 spell. Unless you want to work here full time, that is?” he asked with a sparkle in his eyes.

I shook my head, “Not currently looking to settle down, I might take you up on that later, but I plan on exploring.”

“Is Indiri that appealing?” Murphy asked.

I nodded. “I have seen some things I have never seen before.”

‘And things I wish never to see again,’ I thought to myself.

Noam put a wand on the table.

I raised an eyebrow, “You want to sell that?”

It was the wand he looted off the… what was his name? He was a noble or something.

“I’m willing to trade this,” Noam spoke, detailing the abilities and spells within the wand, “show me what tier two spells you have.”

Murphy obliged, standing up to head to the storage rooms.

I glanced at Noam, questioning.

He pointed at two spells he had already picked out, Firebolt and Control Flame.

I nodded in understanding. He didn’t need the wand for long range anymore, plus he got a new staff as a magic focus, and inside of a group he had more leeway to specialise.

Murphy brought out several tier two spell crystals. “The wand is good, but it’s only worth one of these…”

He carefully looked over each of them, but upon seeing one in particular, he chose it with glee.

Taking his four spell crystals, he quickly learnt them, before turning to Dustin, “Let’s test them out!”

We quickly bid farewell to Murphy, Peps and the other employee, along with the small crowd that cheered me for bringing back the maggot skewers.

I do admit they did taste kinda good.

Noam was playing with fire as we walked. His new T0, Control Flame worked in creating small flames, but he could also control the flames created from his other spells, his napalm spit worked with it as well.

When we reached a more secluded spot, he turned to me with a smile.

I didn’t need any more prompting.

I threw my hand out, casting a spell, “Poison-”

“-Knife!” he interrupted.

The ball of spores forming in my hand collapsed, and instead became a singular green blade which he dodged easily.

Raising an eyebrow, I tried something else,

“Sneezing-”

“-Hands!”

The yellow spores collapsed, giving my hands a strange yellow glow that quickly faded.

Noam’s smile was wide this entire time, though he did hold his head in pain.

That was his new Tier Two spell, Otto’s Irresistible Correction.

Against spells with a verbal component, he could interrupt and forcibly change the nature of the spell during its cast.

“It’s OttoCorrect!” Noam yelled, his hands still rubbing his forehead. “Fuck that hurts.”

“It’s a Tier Two spell,” I replied, seeing his pained expression. “Even I have trouble throwing multiple of them out at once.”

I could cast four in a row at best. Barkskin was a completely passive spell, so I didn’t need to spend much on maintaining it, but Fix-Up Fungus and Rot Spores both took a lot out of me.

“Fuck, I need to raise my int or I can’t use it more than twice or something,” he muttered.

I nodded, after he recovered somewhat, he tried his fourth spell, the Tier One Hideous Laughter.

It required Concentration, much like my Barkskin, and when cast, made a single target laugh uncontrollably until they forcibly resisted the spell or received stimuli that forced them to pay attention.

It didn’t work well on me.

I found the concept of bees hilarious for about a second before I snapped out of it, my high Wisdom and Intelligence stat meant I could break out of it easier. It was a source of hard CC, which our group was currently lacking, so it was a good choice, but it also needed him to stay close to the target.

Those two spells, along with the Tier 0 Control Flame and Firebolt, were all that we got from Murphy’s store.

“A good haul huh?”

“It’s pretty good,” I agreed.

With those spells and his recent level six level up, Noam moved to a significant Jack of All Trades within our party, able to do ranged attacks, fight in melee, buff and debuff. The only thing he really couldn’t do was take a hit.

He wasn’t great at any single one of those things, our individual specialisations still beat him out, but altogether he could act as a glue covering all our bases.

Not only that…

Given all his skills, Noam may be the actual strongest within our group right now. At least in terms of one on one combat. Level Six was a greater power spike than I expected, Noam at the current moment had far too many stat buffs, bringing him to the same level as Tai and Utoqa but with some specialist skills to back it up. I had a very low chance of beating him before, but now there was simply no chance.

He was overall, the most optimised for fighting.

Tai, Utoqa and Celine weren’t Travellers, they didn’t have a convenient level up system, and the Accumulation, while extremely dangerous, was largely focused on me, so they couldn’t reap the benefits.

While they were with me, I should try raising them up.

That's what I should focus on right now, raising my allies instead of myself.

And so, we returned to Indiri.

Utoqa nodded towards us as we came back.

Our carriage restocked, our party made and named, we set out of the forest.

Discovery was like an excited child as we travelled to the station.

Asking dozens of questions on how every single little thing worked, why the sky was purple rather than blue, the designs of the trains that came to take us, and a thousand other things I couldn’t be bothered to list.

“Why does the train lead underground?” he asked.

“Because we can’t travel above ground into the Equator.”

“Why is that?”

“You’ll see soon enough,” I replied, settling down into my seat, Noam- Matt, following me. I’ve been in Indiri too long, I was starting to mix up his names.

And like that, we started on a train journey to see our fucked up world.