“Well, no,” I sputtered, “but...”
“But nothing, Wes! The only reason I said 'we're short on time' was so that you wouldn't spend forever teleporting between worlds to go get rocks again!”
“I wouldn't have gone to get rocks,” I said tiredly. “People can't eat rocks. I would have found food, and possibly money, on another planet.”
“Exactly! And I didn't want you to try and do it this time, because when the real problems start you won't be able to just teleport all over the place and ruin economies! So when I said 'we don't have time for that!' I was trying to get you stop breaking my training sessions, Wes! And it didn't! Work!”
“Huh,” I said. “Didn't know that. So how long does teleporting take? Because we only had like a week before the storm hit last time and I still had enough time to move several tons of rocks.”
“Don't ask me that!” Breen said, getting flustered. “Just accept that it's magic, and that it takes however long I say it does!”
Breena would have made a bad dungeon or game master, I realized. But having somehow grown wiser through my constant Rising, I didn't say that out loud.
“Ugh, I mean seriously!” The little fairy continued. “How hard is it to not break the rules? Almost every Challenger before you never broke the rules! They listened to me, followed the obvious hints about what to do or where to go, did the logical solution to the problem, and we had a nice, healthy progression for them so that they ready for when the Trial or Tumult started. They had much less time than you, Wes! But it was still enough to follow all the rules!”
“How was I breaking the rules?” I asked. I couldn't help it. It was like I was back in my sister's game, explaining how I was able to make a building explode or how I got my paladin's armor value to be so high.
“You know how you were breaking the rules!” Breena screamed. “Don't tell me you thought I was expecting you to use the monsters you killed to feed the village! These people are literally going to eat their problems now!”
“Why not?” I asked. “They were eating the village's grain and sheep. They had the same diet as humans do. Except for the fact that they tried to eat me. Besides, people and animals that size eat each other all the time back on my world.”
Granted, those animals were at least several points ahead on eating us, last time I checked. Especially the bears. Bears are pretty much the only guys who go around saying “I brought claws to a gun fight and won,” on a regular basis. But I wasn't even fighting bears. I was just fighting very large moles. That came up to my shoulder. And had massive retractable bone spikes jutting out all of their bodies at strictly nightmarish angles. Dread moles, they were called. And the name fit. Fighting those things underground was barely more terrifying than fighting Ilklings and maybe two hairs calmer than being caught by a pack of rabid gibber-kin.
I had no idea why something that terrifying and bloodthirsty had roots and grains as their favorite food. But I supposed that was just what they ate when they couldn't get Challengers.
I did learn, however, that the best way to kill a dread mole is with a long spear, at the right enclosed spot, with lots and lots of lightning magic.
And on further reflection, it was starting to feel like the only problems not solvable with lots of lightning bolts were those caused by lightning bolts in the first place.
“Really?” she asked. “That made sense to you? Not, go to a nearby village and try and buy or beg for more food?”
“Why would I do that?” I asked. “I don't know anyone here who sells anything, much less food, I have no idea how much food costs, and I only have a dim idea of how the local currency works. Besides, I don't carry money because Stell and Avalon currently provide everything I need.”
“That's what this quest was supposed to teach you!” Breena practically shouted. “You were supposed to be forced to learn how much things cost! And how to get money when you needed it! In case we ever had to fund an army or something and because Stell didn't have any hard currency on her, because even on Avalon money doesn't grow on trees!”
“But didn't I learn all of that by doing what I did?” I countered.
“Well let's see,” Breena harumphed while crossing her arms. “How much will that leftover dread mole meat sell for?”
“I asked about that,” I said proudly. “They'll make at least thirty silver pieces per pound. But their merchant says he can get fifty silver from his contacts.”
Giant mole meat was apparently a delicacy. But I had already guessed that.
“And how much leftover meat do they think they'll have?” Breena continued.
“According to their butcher, even if they use techniques to preserve it, they have about a hundred pounds that will go bad before they can eat it.”
“One hundred pounds?” Breena sputtered. “How were you even...” she trailed off, somehow looking lost and angry at the same time.
“They were big moles,” I said defensively. “Those things must've weighed over five hundred pounds each, and there were a dozen of them.”
“I wasn't expecting you to kill all of them Wes! Some were almost ten miles away!”
I had learned that some of the more 'natural' monsters, those derived almost entirely from animals, only became a Challenge when they came near where people lived. That was the only time they were deemed to be a danger to the environment. Unlike Horde and the gibber-kin, which got a 'kill-with-fire-on-sight' designation as soon as we became aware of their existence.
“They seemed like they would have become a Challenge later,” I said with a shrug. “And I would have left them alone if they hadn't started attacking me first. But since they acted like they were part of the problem, I treated them like it.”
“That's not the point!” Breena sputtered again. “The point is that you just whisked up five thousand silvers, or fifty gold coins, practically out of nowhere! And you didn't even realize it!”
“Yes I did,” I argued. “That's why I dragged every mole corpse back to the village, even if the trip was several miles. You think I did that for fun? I did that because of the way everyone kept getting excited about every corpse.”
Well, it was fun at first, because I realized that I was able to move five hundred pounds now with just my muscles and a little bit of magic. But then I realized that five hundred pounds was still heavy for a miles-long trip.
“No, I thought you did that because you were crazy. And I thought they were all shouting at you because they also thought you were crazy. And you wouldn't stop doing it when I told you to. Now do you realize what you did?”
“Yeah, now I do,” I said. “I didn't expect their tanners and butchers to be able to use everything I brought them. I thought more would be wasted, but the only way to make sure was to drag back every single corpse. Besides,” I added. “It was free strength and stamina training.”
After years back home with no idea whether or not my exercises were working, being able to automatically tell when I was making progress was amazingly addictive.
“Well yes, but... ugh!” For a moment it seemed like the little fairy would give up and just give me the silent treatment for the rest of the way back. But after a minute she battled through her frustration. She took a deep breath and continued speaking again.
“Let me try again, Wes. Let me see if I can ask you two simple questions, and clear everything up. How many bags of grain were you expecting them to need for the winter, and how much were you expecting each bag to cost?”
“Right,” I said. “I was thinking about that. I couldn't get an accurate amount from the villagers. I think they were too embarrassed? But anyway, I had to estimate. I figured, worst case scenario, a hundred pound bag of grain would cost up to a hundred silvers each, and that each family would need two, or at most three bags to get through the winter. There were several hundred people in this place, so I figured I'd need to come up with three hundred gold pieces max... wait, why are you shaking your head at me?”
“Wes..
.” Breena began. She was covering her tiny face with both of her palms. “I can't even.... I just can't. I give up.” She shook her still-covered head slowly. “Where do I even begin? How?”
“Hey,” I protested. “I did say it was a worse-case scenario. Since no one told me an exact amount, I figured I should high-ball it to be safe. That's why I was surprised that the Challenge ended when it did.”
“Wes,” Breena groaned. “Fifty coppers, okay? That's the current price for a bag of grain here. When times are tough it can get up to two and a half silver pieces at the very most, during the most severe famines. And they would have made it with fifty bags. One hundred bags would have let them completely recover and have a surplus left over.”
“Wow, really?” I asked. “That's good news then.”
“You exceeded their needs by a hundred times over!” The little fairy shouted. The pink glow on her face was starting to deepen into an angry shade of red. Thinking back, I probably should have stopped talking then, but listening to my Wisdom score all the time proved harder than I expected.
“Really?” I said instead. “That doesn't sound quite right.”
“Wes,” my tiny friend grated. “Do not. Insult. My basic math.”
“Your math's fine, but only if you're counting just the meat,” I said. “But I saved as much as I could of the pelts too. I heard the tanner talk to the merchant and they said the village would get at least fifteen gold pieces for each one.”
“Pelts,” Breena repeated in a clipped voice. “That's right. I remember now. You saved the pelts.”
“Well yeah,” I replied. Didn't she see me drag those whole corpses back to the village? Why would I have just taken the meat?
“I couldn't get a price on the bones, fangs and claws though,” I continued. “But everyone seemed about as excited about those as they were about the pelts. I'm going to have to get someone else to explain the significance on that... Breena are you okay?”
That got me another punch.
It didn’t hurt, of course.
But Stell really needed to look at Breena’s empathy again, because this behaviour was starting to become habit-forming.
Eventually, she calmed down and explained that she and Stell weren't anticipating me to strip my enemies bare for resources because I had not done so in the past and from what they had learned about my background, it wasn't something I did in my daily life. Breena and Stell were aware that I came from a resource-rich environment where most of my basic needs were provided for me, and that since my people generated so much waste, that they were going to have to teach me about conserving resources.
I had to explain then that my friends and I actually simulated situations like this in table-top and video games, where you had to think of every advantage you could. Then she asked if I was a dirty rotten cheater when I played those games too, and I didn't have an answer for her.
At any rate, I had apparently reached the point where I needed to be for when the Trials and Tumults began. I looked at my status on my mind-screen once again:
Wes Malcolm
Race: Human. Origin: Earth (Challenger)
Growth Level: Fifth Rise (Spark)
Path: Unknown
Saga: Unknown
Profession: Unknown
Vital Pool: 820 points
Stamina Pool: 820 points.
Mana Pool: 840 points
Strength: 34
Dexterity: 34
Constitution: 32
Intelligence: 34
Wisdom: 34
Charisma: 29
Speed: 42
Deftness: 40
Wits: 43
Will: 42
Rise Points Remaining: 12 (can increase the six primary traits at a 1:1 ratio, or the four secondary traits at a 1:2 ratio.
Insight into the Following Ideals
Earth: lvl 5
Air: lvl 5
Lightning: lvl 5
Skill List truncated
Spell list truncated
4 skill points available.
Signature Spells have improved since last viewing.
“Wes stop looking at that so much or you'll go blind,” Breena said tiredly between slurps, her voice echoing out of the cup of mist-juice she was hovered inside of. She seemed pretty exhausted, even after Guineve's lunch.
“You don't understand,” I said excitedly. “I was beginning to walk on my own even before my last Rise. My mind and body are at the best they've ever been since the accident. If I'm not fully recovered by now I'm at least very, very close.”
“That's good, Wes,” my little fairy told me. She seemed to mean it, even if she was still upset over my 'cheating' earlier. “But it's honestly hard to believe you suffer from any kind of disability back home. You seem like you were born for this place- for all of these worlds. It's hard to teach you things because you keep learning and improvising so fast. I have seriously never been this exhausted as a guide.”
“Really?” I asked. That did sound difficult. Breena didn't strike me as the kind of person who was low-energy.
“She's right, Wes.” Stell said. She had joined us for lunch. And, she had changed again, even more quickly than last time. She had gone to a much paler skin color, with curly blonde hair that hung loosely over her head, as if she had just gotten done with a shower. Her eyes were a bright green. She had changed t-shirts once again, to a brown one with a velociraptor holding a rubix cube, with the words 'Clever Girl' written over its head.
She refused to explain why she changed again. The other Satellites had said that this was faster than normal but they wouldn't share anything more either.
“You keep insisting you weren't trained,” the now-blonde woman began. “But you already have foundations that you shouldn't have. You have instincts you shouldn't have gotten in your Earth suburb and claim you've never practiced most of these skills, but you hold a short blade like you've swung it before and brace behind a spear like you've had to stop an enemy's charge at some point in your life. If you were from the same period as Arthur or Roland it would have made sense, but you keep insisting that all of these weapons are obsolete by now. There's a mystery about you Wes. And it's honestly fascinating. When you're not being aggravating, that is,” she huffed.
“Thanks,” I replied. “I think.”
“Well, at any rate, I think it's time to admit we've run out of basic skills to teach you,” Stell continued. “There's always more to learn, but you think so well on the spur of the moment that I have no idea what to teach you next right now. I have no idea what Path or Saga you'll take eventually- don't ask, those are just specializations based on your skills and choices- and this is the first time it's ever taken me this long to predict. But as long as you keep growing and thinking as fast as you do it won't matter. In fact, Breena could probably use a break for a couple of nights from trying to train you or take you on Challenges.”
There was a tired burble of agreement from the cup of mist-juice Breena was currently in.
“Okay,” I said. “Can I still come here and train? Do random Challenges if they show up?”
The cup made a tiny wail.
“Sure, fine Wes,” Stell said with a smile that was somehow the same no matter how much the rest of her changed. “You can work your little muscles and mind to your heart's content. Just don't break anything the rest of us can't fix.” Another wail sounded from the cup. “And Breena needs the next few nights off.”
“Deal,” I said. “And I'll try and make it up to her.” I needed to find a way to bring snacks from back home here. That always worked on my sister when I made her mad after a game.
“You do realize you don't have to train so much,” Stell added, looking a little concerned. “For our timetable your progress is phenomenal. If you miss a Challenge here and there someone else can handle it. Really. I mean it.”
“Thanks,” I said, a little uncomfortable with what I was about to admit. “But, while I like helping your people, I'm kind of doing this mos
tly for me. Since I started coming here, my condition has been improving phenomenally. I'm starting to walk without my cane now. And my mind doesn't freeze on me whenever I take a practice test. This change is happening quickly, and I can even track it with my eye-screen. That's a phenomenal help.”
“Yeah, it's taken for granted everywhere else that people can track their own progress,” Stell admitted. “I'd hate to think how the people on your world must flounder around in trying to improve something in their lives. It probably makes it easier for self-improvement scams to exist too.”
“Those are both problems,” I nodded. “It's been that way especially for me. I've gone from doctor to doctor, trying all kinds of treatment for over a year without being able to tell it was working, until I finally found one that let me slowly progress. And even then my family wasn’t sure the treatment was working. This has been a huge benefit to me, Stell. So much that I don't feel like I'm doing you any favors at all.”
Downfall And Rise (Challenger's Call Book 1) Page 41
