Gestation

by John Gold

  I sit on the ground, healing myself after the hit father gave me, and think. The worst part is that Vaalsie found out I can talk. Also, that I was working at the space port. He’s losing money by not having me in his collection crew. I told Galboa about the cameras and where they usually were, as we often repaired the electric systems on ships, including video surveillance systems. Anyway, I’m going to have a problem with the collectors. And if Eliza tells them I can talk, they’re really going to come after me. She could hurt Galboa, too!

  My heart clenches with pain and anger. He could suffer because of me. I need to send him my savings from the anonymous account. If there’s a problem, that will help a little. I can’t use the money officially anyway.

  Vaalsie did a good job—I can’t get rid of the debuff. It’s the kind you can only give to the people under you, and it means that I won’t be playing or using the time as effectively as possible. A quick pang tugs at my heart as that word reminds me of Galboa.

  “Sagie, I get that you’re hurting right now.” Father can read me like an open book. “Still, you need to realize that the situation isn’t hopeless. Mama can teach you cooking, and that’s a skill you can use to make simple potions. We have other professions, too: tailor, blacksmith, carpenter, mage. And thirty meters…well, that takes us right down to the lake. We’ll fish from the shore.”

  “Thank you.”

  Galboa said that solving problems gives you experience and makes solving the next one even easier. The opposite is true, too: run away, and you’ll be weaker the next time. For some reason, the most valuable lessons people can learn are the ones that hurt the most. Pain… Hey, there’s an idea!

  “We have the dogs, too,” I say with a smile. Father realizes what I mean.

  “That we do.”

  Meditation: +1

  Mana restoration speed: +2%

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Oh, and meditation.

  You got a debuff: Vow of silence

  Effect: You can’t speak or use the internal chat.

  Duration: 6 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes, 59 seconds… 58… 57…

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Father reads the description of the debuff and simply grins. So, he really can read my effect panel.

  Then, he comes at me with a horrific combination of blows. The finishing touch is held back at the last moment, but I can tell the difference in everything. What I know about hand-to-hand combat is how to win or defend myself without killing anyone. What father knows is the art of killing. It’s the same ability, just different ways of using it.

  Rachel… She comes by twice a day and teases me, telling me that I have put down roots. I like listening to her chatter on about life in the city. I like how she laughs as father tosses me around like a windmill. In the morning, while we’re fishing, she swims in the lake with the guys. It’s nice to know that she’s nearby. Her red, disheveled hair is down to her shoulder blades, and the dress she bought at the fair looks great on her. She’s so beautiful.

  Real life is nothing but a series of fights. The collectors tell me I’m disrespecting them by ignoring them when they talk to me.

  “What, tiny, you couldn’t stop blathering and kissing ass over at the space port, but talking with us is too much? What if–”

  A punch to the Adam’s apple stops that nonsense. The psychologist kept her word; they know I was over in the space port and that I can talk. I’m going to have to cooperate or double down.

  The whole week, as soon as I pull myself out of the capsule, I have company looking to “chat.” And every time, the sound system goes off with a significant delay. Vaalsie is purposely ignoring the whole thing. My body is slowly turning into one big bruise, but I always hit back in reply. Now, my attackers walk around with polished faces, and by the end of the week, they’re leaving me alone. All I have to deal with is two more weeks of extended studies.

  Five days with your family means a lot to an orphan. In the morning, father goes off to fish, while mama and I walk him out. There’s just a little more than two more days left until astral anchor is lifted. Mama taught me how to cook and sew, and it turns out that sewing with enchanted thread gives the clothes a better bonus. You can make regular clothes more durable that way, too.

  Mama watches me cook, correcting me when I make mistakes. When father comes home, we train the dogs or make traps for wild beasts. Then, in the evening, we sit around the fire, and he shows me his carpentry skills.

  “Sagie, look. This is a wolf call. It howls when you blow into it, calling the wolves to the hunt. Craftsmen all have a skill, something that makes the items they produce even better. If you got one of these from a master carpenter, you’d be able to summon everything living within five hundred meters of where you are. Masters are better at working with the material. More effective, really. This material is low quality, so this call is only good for one use.”

  I look at the tool in his hand with surprise. Father stares into the fire thoughtfully, and then he takes a drink of the thick berry juice in his cup before continuing.

  “There’s always a balance between how durable something is and how many times you can use it. To make the right sound, you need to have a lot of stamina, too. Blowing into the wolf call makes it lose half its durability. Of course, that makes sense. What else would you expect from normal wood? It’s a wolf call made out of yew wood. Masters use better-quality materials, and they can even fortify them with magic. They try not to do that though, since you can’t enchant the material once you do.”

  Father tells and shows me so much. It turns out that ice takes years to melt on the sun, bones bend, and wood can become stone. He uses a large bone to show me. After washing a special solution off it, he straightens it out, cuts off the end, and makes a stool leg. Out of bone!

  “When it dries, it will become hard enough that you can carve something into the surface.”

  The craftsman skill gives you big bonuses. To compare, I carved wooden knives, my 1-2 damage against my father’s 20-25. That doesn’t even take into account the +4 bonuses for strength and stamina.

  “Here, take this knife. It’ll remind you of your first time working with wood.”

  Wooden knife

  Knife carved out of a block of yew wood by a skilled master.

  Physical damage: 20-25

  Durability: 400/400

  Strength: +4

  Stamina: +4

  I don’t have a class, not to mention another level. The knife could as well be legendary! It looks great in my hand, something like a short, one-handed sword. On the other hand, I’m not a warrior, so I don’t get any additional damage for my fighting skills. I do more with my fists.

  It’s the final day of my punishment, and we’re training the dogs - using me. Not being afraid of pain is an odd sensation, and you feel much more confident when you know that you can heal up any cuts the dogs’ teeth make.

  Rachel stops by in the evening. She stops by a lot, always asking me to tell her how I learned my spells. She’s wearing a dress with a corset and a short, light-green skirt with matching tall boots. When she comes, I just look at her and smile. Father shouting at me and the dog latching onto my arm bring me to my senses pretty quickly, though I almost die before I’ve had my fill of looking at her.

  “You’re too young to be staring at girls.”

  Rachel turns bright red and spins around. Grunt and Ownie, who popped out from behind her, practically double over laughing.

  As soon as night falls, father tells me that we’re done for the day.

  “Hey, Sagie, sweetie, help me out…” When Rachel uses that voice, I can’t help but say yes. “I want to learn magic, too. The problem is that mages won’t listen to me, though they might think twice or give me some terms if you asked. I definitely can’t fight, and paying a hundred gold for a spell… I don’t have that kind of money. When father found out, he started looking at me funny.”

  Why does she have to look at me like that?

  “My pu
nishment is over tomorrow, so we’ll go together. I’ve been wanting to go to the library anyway. I was there, but I didn’t get to read anything.”

  “You know how to read? But you’re so little! Or do you need picture books?” Rachel, feeling cheered up, goes back to laughing at me.

  I’m not five; I’m twelve! She has such a biting tongue.

  “I’m not little!” Everyone who sees me laughs at my tone and the expression on my face.

  When everyone leaves, I sit down and start to think about other skills I could pick up. I’m almost maxed out with the ones I have, which means it’s time to learn new ones. Also, I’d like to pick up a pet for myself at the fair. When I told father, he recommended that I find something useful. It’s been more than a week since the game officially opened, and I’ve noticed a lot of new players. There are more kids in our village, though I don’t talk with them much. I’m still stuck to my house with astral anchor.

  I want to be a wizard! I make up my mind to start working in that direction. I’ll need information about magic and mages as well as the class.

  Also, I need to find a way out of the orphanage. Project Chrysalis could help with that, though nothing’s coming to mind.

  You can read about mages at the library or ask at the magic stand, and I’d like to visit the Academy of Magic, too. If the training there is similar to what I do in real life, I can start preparing even now. I need to find everything out. It’s almost an hour to run to the city, three if you’re walking. I can’t run every day, so tomorrow will be all about looking for information.

  It’s a long walk, and Rachel talks the whole way. I think she spends all her free time in the city. But she came to visit me every morning and evening, right? Her athleticism is only up to 3, so we have to walk to the city.

  Bernard teaches me a Space spell.

  Spell: Telekinesis

  Description: Lets you move things with your mind. The maximum weight and distance is equal to your intellect.

  Effect: Move items weighing up to 20.4 kg

  Distance: 20.4 meters

  Mana: 1/kg

  I practice the whole way. While I wait for Rachel, I find a good-sized stone and get to work. First, I send it spinning around in a circle, then I send it hovering above my head. That turns out to be a valuable lesson: when I relax, it falls and hits me right on the top of my skull. Rachel howls when things like that happen, making wisecracks about the level of my intellect. I’ve never heard anything like it at the orphanage or even at the space port—we have plenty of direct insults there, but not so many round-about hints.

  Rachel doesn’t ask about my attributes, and I hid them at father’s recommendation. “Never show your attribute window to anyone—that would show them your weaknesses.” Because of that, Rachel can’t tell that none of the stones do me any damage. I can’t work two spells at once though. When I activate the second, the first one goes inactive. On the other hand, I can control several rocks along the same plane, though keeping even two going separately is beyond me. I need something more for that. I have the feeling that I need to do two different things at once, and my consciousness just isn’t ready yet. The same is true for my other spells.

  As we walk into the city, Rachel tells me that she’s going to look for Bernard, and I set off for the library. Murokami is still sitting there at his desk.

  “Hi, Murokami. I need to get in, but I can’t ask my father to come. I can leave you money as security for the books though.”

  “You can go in. Here’s my card. Use it if you want to check some books out.” I wasn’t expecting that at all. The one-eyed monster grunts. “I saw the battle at the fair. You beat my nephew in the final, and I trained him myself.”

  “Thanks,” I say as I take the card from him. “Hey, what class are you? That friar was really strong.”

  “Not telling you. Why do you ask?”

  That didn’t go well—learning that would have told me about his weaknesses, too.

  “I’m sorry. What I’m looking for is information about mage training and the academy.”

  My answer elicits a barrage of laughter. Murokami even falls off the chair, though he continues his horse-like whinnying.

  “Kid, do you want to go to jail for high treason, too?” He goes back to laughing. “Their training program, the way they develop skills, and everything about magic potential are academy secrets, and considered state secrets. You can find information about the academy on the second floor. Everything about the magic arts is up there.”

  “I don’t need your secrets! I just want to know what they teach there and what the academy is.”

  “Ah, that’s okay. Second floor, east wing, last row. That’s where we have books about the Academy of Magic for the human nations.”

  “Why the human nations?”

  “You’d have to be a kid like you not to know that, with some hints but no real knowledge. Nobody really likes humans. Dwarves and elves are immortal, and they think of humans as untalented, shortlived, and disjointed. Orcs despise us for being weak. Trolls and orcs both think of us as something between food and the dirt under their feet, while goblins only like us when we’re fried. Kobolds are wild, without a single city—just villages. Anyway, that’s why humans set up the Academy of Magic. The races all protect their knowledge, and here you are just asking about how people study at the academy.”

  “It’s so complicated! Does everyone talk in different languages?”

  “Yep.”

  “Crazy! Will I be able to read the books up there?”

  “Yes, human children know our language from the time they’re born.”

  It really is complicated. All I wanted to do was read about magic, and now this. How do they write? I decide not to ask. I can just read about it.

  “Do mages speak the normal language?”

  “Each race has its own language. I’ve heard that mages all use one alphabet—the true mage alphabet. The academy itself is in the capital, so go read and see what you can find. Bernard sometimes hangs around here, and he’s up on the second floor now. You can ask him.”

  “Thanks. Do you know where I can learn the animal taming or cartography skills?”

  “Those are class skills, so you won’t get them if you become a mage. But I’m not some stranger you can just ask everything. Go in, though first, leave ten gold here.”

  “Wow, that’s a lot.”

  “The right to use the library costs five gold a month. You get to use it for free, so stop whining.”

  Murokami wasn’t lying. The books about the Academy of Magic make up a whole wall, and I read the spines until I find what I’m looking for: A Description of the Academy of Magic for Visitors and Future Students. It isn’t your usual academy. It’s more a library, a training range, and a testing center all at once. Graduates can get the mage class and a specialty, learn class skills, and study the magical arts. There are ten steps to the program, after which you get the rank of apprentice. Then, there’s master, followed by grand master. Each course and test gives you an additional 5% bonus to the damage you do within your specialty. Each new rank adds 12.5%.

  Students at the academy have to wear a mage’s ring. For battle mages, tests are a duel with their teacher, first, with a Level 75 teacher who has the same level skill, second, with a Level 100 teacher. For the tenth step, the teacher is all the way up at Level 300. Knowledge tests are harder though: the apprentice test is given by a Level 350 teacher, who’s both a master swordsman and a mage. From what the book says, in all the time the Academy of Magic has been around, only 27 people have reached the rank of grand master in their specialty. There’s nothing about archmages. And why did Bernard say that your specialty gives you a 50% bonus? It’s actually up to 100%. Mages at the third step and higher can work with their own mental body. That’s the focus of half the fourth step, though there isn’t anything about skills. With that in mind, I go off looking for a book about them. I also want to find out what mages learn after the fifth cir
cle, though I can’t find so much as a hint.

  Bernard told me a lot last time that isn’t in the books. I have everything stored in the logs, so cutting out the best parts leaves me with what I need to know. “The mental body and the ability to work with it; enchanting; creating artifacts; the path of the sword in magic; assassination methods; working with the astral; magic sieges; a general course on blood magic, ritual magic, demonology, chemerology, malefism, mysticism, necromancy; and part of how to fight them.” At the fair, he said that they teach kids born into mage families from the time they’re born. Let’s just say I’m that kind of kid. Thanks to father, I’ll teach myself.

  I walk away from the shelves with a bag full of books—just a few more, and I won’t be able to run. Bernard gave me the most valuable information I have without even knowing it. Now, I have a few reasons to talk with him.

  He’s sitting in the same spot as the first time I met him here. Rachel is hovering around in the corner, not able to make up her mind whether to bother him or not. She has already written in chat that she found him, though I was busy reading. Just like last time, he isn’t surprised to see me.

  “Get out of here. I’m not going to play your games.”

  “Hi, Bernard. I’m actually not here to ask about me; there’s a girl that really wants to become a mage, so maybe–”

  “If you leave now, they won’t find your body in a gutter somewhere.” Bernard is in a lousy mood.

  “Is there something I can help you with so you’ll help the girl?”

  “Hm, a child…” Bernard looks at me closely. “Okay, but you should know that this isn’t exactly legal. I need a book…a forbidden book. It’s in the basement of the main Temple of Teurus, the god of moderation. The author is Gunther Moro, Belief and Its Meaning in Our World. I’m positive that it’s there.”

  I figured that Bernard was a turncoat mage when he first agreed to teach me magic. He obviously wants more than the Academy of Magic can give him.

  “If you bring me the book, I’ll teach the girl the same spells I taught you.”