by Sarah Lin
Meara laughed wryly, but he thought he saw a flicker of relief in her eyes. "Next time, I'll try to pick something without a drake." She followed him as they headed back to Cresthaven, finding another potion in her robes and handing it to him.
"I do want to do another experiment, but not today. We spent too much time outside, so a second quest might leave us out after night. Safer to spend the day training."
"Oh! I'll be happy to try that. Maybe I could be more useful next time."
Instead of using the training grounds at the Adventurer's Guild, Bloodwraith took them to a clearing just outside the gates where novice adventurers trained. Most importantly, there were practice weapons there that could be used for just a few copper bits.
Fortunately, no one else was there at the time except a few bored guards. Bloodwraith gestured for Meara to join him by the rack of practice weapons. "Any of these stick out to you?"
"Hmm... no, not really. I suppose I should start with a sword? That seems like the standard weapon."
"Actually, I'd recommend a spear. It has many advantages over a sword, both for a beginner and for an expert."
"Why not a huge sword like yours? Am I not strong enough?"
Bloodwraith groaned. "Honestly, I wouldn't recommend a weapon like this at all. The stupid Forest stuck me with this and the boxes have too much inertia to change." He picked up a spear and thrust it a few times. Though he could certainly use it, and given his strength likely kill someone, something was missing. Most likely the "Proficiency" that the boxes spoke of, and he couldn't afford to experiment to see what it would take for the boxes to grant him another one.
Meara took the spear from him and looked at it curiously. A box appeared almost instantly.
[This party member cannot use that item effectively. Combat equipment is restricted to adventurer-level characters.]
She sighed and glanced in the direction of the box. "It's saying that I can't use this, isn't it?"
"Yes. But we've ignored the boxes for other things. Try not to think about them and just see how the weapon feels in your hands."
Unfortunately, though she tried to practice, Meara didn't improve. Bloodwraith was a terrible teacher when it came to such weapons, but he thought even with a master instructor, something wouldn't work. The boxes wouldn't accept it.
Now, presumably given sufficient training she could learn to use the weapon well. Normal people with no access to the box gods' power became adventurers, after all, including women who must have been peasants at some point. But Bloodwraith had a feeling that would take a very long time, and time was an even more limited resource than gold.
Then again, it might be something even stranger than that. Bloodwraith watched Meara, gaze sliding to her twisted box. The meaningless squiggles and flickering surface started to twist a little more and he threw his will against it.
"Bend to my will, feeble box!" A moment later, it snapped into focus.
[Name: Meara
Race: Human
Class: Peasant
Alignment: N/A
Level: 0
EXP: 0/0
Affection: 100/100 (N/A)
Statistics:
Might: 0
Vitality: 10
Quickness: 10
Intellect: 0
Charisma: 10
Willpower: 10
Wisdom: 10
Luck: 0
Piety: 0
Skills: Herbalism (-1), Appraisal (-1), Sewing (6), Repair (4)]
The box dissolved back into nonsense the next moment, but he had gotten enough of a look to memorize the important aspects. Clearly, the boxes didn't know what to make of Meara. It was laughable that she should be rated a 10 in Willpower or Wisdom, for one. And he had never seen a person who was rated a 0 in any statistic.
Not to mention her skills, two of which seemed to be broken. What did a negative level in a skill even mean? Clearly she had above average abilities when it came to brewing potions, but perhaps the negative rating explained the "Failed Potions" she kept creating. The other two skills he presumed were leftovers from her old life, though there might be more there.
"Uh..." Meara had stopped in her spear training, watching him with a strange look. "So... did the feeble box bend to your will?"
Bloodwraith grunted. "Yes, I managed-"
"All hail Raigar the Conqueror!"
"Ahem, I managed to force your box to resolve enough for me to read it. What I saw might not be fully accurate, though. It would be premature to draw any conclusions from it."
"No, I'd like to know." Meara walked closer to him and leaned heavily on her spear as he explained what he'd seen. When he finished, she sighed. "That doesn't surprise me and it matches how I'm feeling. I think I'm... locked into a role somehow."
"Differently than normal people? Because of the Forest?"
"I think so. Think about it: 'Peasant' doesn't make any sense as a classification, shouldn't we be herbalists or smiths or something precise? But the entire system is focused on combat, so what matters is that we're non-combatants. While I might be able to change that... I'm afraid that when I broke, I got stuck this way. No matter how much I practice with the spear, it just feels wrong."
If she had been a minion, Bloodwraith would have exhorted her to try harder. But Meara was an ally, and he respected her intellect no matter what her "Intellect" said. He nodded slowly. "You can try to train again if you want. But perhaps you should focus on the ways in which you've been able to bend the box gods' rules. That might be your true strength."
"Yeah, I'll try that for now." Meara handed him the spear again. "I'll stick around and watch you exercise your bulging muscles."
In actuality, she sat down near the practice yard and closed her eyes. It might have looked as though she was doing nothing, yet whenever he looked at her, Bloodwraith found himself slightly unsettled. When he summoned her box, it seemed to be twisting and flickering with unusual intensity. He decided not to look at her and focused on his own work.
Though training normally made the percentages increment at a painfully slow rate, Bloodwraith had noticed that the effects improved after combat, particularly intense combat. He wasn't sure if that was an arbitrary requirement of the boxes - perhaps to prevent adventurers from training forever - or if it was actually logical, his body adapting to what it had learned in combat.
Either way, the percentages had increased while they escaped the drake and now increased at a tolerable rate. By the time the sun was setting, Bloodwraith had managed to increase his Might and both "Rage" abilities. He spent a while poking at the boxes, trying to rename them, but it was no use. His skill with "Two-handed Weapons" remained stuck at 9, which seemed to be taking especially long to increase.
Finished for the day, he wiped off his sweat and turned back to Meara. She didn't seem to have moved the entire time. When he stepped closer she was unresponsive, even when he waved a hand in front of her face. Growing a little concerned, Bloodwraith tried to focus on her box again, and her eyes flickered open a moment later.
"Has..." Her voice croaked and she had to cough a few times. "Has it really been so long? It seemed to pass so quickly..."
"Figure out anything about yourself?" Bloodwraith extended a hand to her and easily lifted her to her feet when she accepted it.
"Not about myself, but I have something I want to try. Wait just a bit." She closed her eyes tightly and raised her hands to her forehead, concentrating intensely. Bloodwraith felt no mana or any other power, and was about to comment when a box suddenly appeared in front of his face.
[Potential Objective: Equipment Upgrade
Upgrade all equipment to +1 quality or better.
Reward: EXP
Accept? Y/N]
Meara opened her eyes and grinned. "Did it work? It did, didn't it? I feel like there's a new quest box, though this one feels a little different..."
"It worked." Bloodwraith examined the box somberly, considering. "And it's remarkable that you were
able to create something like this. It even explicitly says the reward would be EXP."
"Good! I thought that since time and our paths to improve are limited, one of the only effective methods would be to receive additional benefits for things you were planning to do anyway." Meara seemed very pleased with herself, but saw his expression. "Is something wrong with it, though?"
"The breakthrough is remarkable, but this quest..." Bloodwraith sent his will toward the "No" option, dismissing the objective. "I worry about what the phrase 'all equipment' means. Do I need to find +1 socks? And my sword is unusual, can I even upgrade it in Cresthaven?"
"Oh, I see your point. But I think it will be easier the next time, let me try again..." He didn't have to wait nearly as long before another box appeared.
[Potential Objective: Improved Equipment
Acquire 10 or more pieces of equipment that are +1 quality or better.
Reward: EXP
Accept? Y/N]
"How's that?" Meara opened her eyes and peered in the direction of box. "I tried to lower the number so the goal would be more achievable, but I couldn't manage it. I think the boxes really, really like round numbers."
"Finding ten might be a bit difficult, but the goal is unambiguous. It will do."
[Quest Accepted!
Acquire 10 or more pieces of equipment that are +1 quality or better.
Current Progress: 2/10]
As the objective box flickered away, however, he noticed another box that he had ignored long ago. The option to accept the objective to replace Daek the Knife was still available to him, the box offering the same two choice options. That supported Meara's theory about Daek being an objective for Raigar, but he couldn't think of a way to exploit it for now. Better to leave that potential for later when they understood more.
"So you accepted it? Good." Meara turned toward the city and he walked along with her. "I tried to make it more ambiguous so that it would be more flexible. For example, say that you stumble upon some item that offers +1 to something you don't really want - it might not help you directly, but it can help complete the quest."
"Yes, there's potential there. A great deal more." His gaze shifted to her. "This is remarkable, Meara. You might not have strength as far as the boxes are concerned, but this is something that no amount of strength could acquire."
"You don't need to tell me how amazing I am, I already know." She flashed him a grin, but he saw the real warmth in her eyes. The broken woman she had been not long ago was still there, somewhere, and it would take more time to heal. "I think I deserve a title, don't you? Hmm... 'Meara, Mistress of Boxes!' "
"That makes you sound like a merchant. How about Bestower of Arbitrary Requirements?"
"Hey, if I'm going to give myself the title, why be modest? Queen of the Universe!"
"Meara, Defiler of Puppies."
"Oh, that does it. I'm making myself Mistress of Ragefisting."
"What...? How did you find out about that?"
Meara cackled and ran off into the city, and after a moment Bloodwraith ran after her.
Chapter 18
To avoid creating an obvious pattern, the next day they went to the Adventurers Guild separately and met up at the board of quests. No adventurers called them "quests," but the boxes did, and now that he and Meara had started using the term, he'd grown used to it. The term seemed very grandiose for what usually amounted to minor errands, but it served well enough.
He found Meara examining all the requests thoughtfully. Though her box was flickering wildly, when he drew near it smoothed out and she glanced at him. "Morning, adventurer. I've been spending a lot of time with these to try to avoid a repeat of yesterday."
"Made any progress?"
"Maybe. What I was sensing yesterday was a sort of... weight, I guess you could call it. Thing is, that was the wrong kind. So I tried to judge them a little more carefully." She tapped a paper that described another errand quest. "This one, for example, is almost nothing. I figure it's exactly what it says it is."
"So you can find one that 'weighs' more than it should, but not too much."
"Exactly. I settled on this one." Meara took a different piece of paper out of her cloak and handed it to him.
[New Quest!
Retrieve a nobleman's son's body from the cavern.
The quest can be accepted and turned in at the Cresthaven Adventurers Guild.
Potential Rewards: Low]
This time the box gave him little useful information, so he looked at the paper request more carefully. It seemed the nobleman's son had been an adventurer, but had died while exploring a cavern near the city. The nobleman wanted his son's body returned and was willing to pay for his retrieval, and there was also a section about recovering family heirlooms he had been carrying. To the boxes, that was apparently another fetch quest.
"So, this quest is more difficult than it appears?"
"Actually, I'm not sure that it is." Meara examined the paper again as if it might contain new information. "I just... have a feeling about it. Less dangerous than the one with the drake. But something about it is more complex than it appears at first."
"It's worth the experiment. We can check it out." Yet as Bloodwraith started to turn away, Meara didn't follow. He turned back to her and raised an eyebrow.
"I won't be coming with you this time. I... well, we both know I'm more of a liability than an asset."
She avoided his gaze, a bit embarrassed. Bloodwraith considered for a moment before answering. "You were only partially a liability."
That got a smile from her. "You always know just what to say, you flatterer. But seriously, I've taken several steps to help you, and I plan to be busy today." She pulled several potions from her cloak and handed them to him. "That's all I have for now, but this quest shouldn't be so dangerous, hopefully. By the time you get back, I should have a much larger supply."
"Do you need materials? I know you have plenty of cureleaves, but anything else?"
"Let me take care of that. What I've been trying to do is double up on your quest, but I haven't had any luck so far. Tell me if anything seems strange about it, but I don't have a lot of hope."
Bloodwraith frowned. "Double up?"
"Same concept as the equipment. I wanted to try to give you a second quest to do the same thing, see if we couldn't double the reward. But it was like... trying to pour water into a filled cup. Likewise, I tried to make a completely circular quest - something like 'Acquire 10 EXP' - and that completely failed. There are rules to this, and they don't always bend."
"I trust you'll keep working on that, then. I'll follow arbitrary directions and go kill things."
"My hero." Meara smirked at him as she turned away and he wasn't sure if there was any disappointment left in her. In any case, there was work to be doing.
At the desk they gave him the exact location of the cavern the noble's son had died in, which was only an hour from Cresthaven. Apparently he and his party had fallen together despite the fact that the cavern wasn't considered very dangerous. Though the Guild staff member assured him that it was probably just incompetence, he resolved to be cautious just in case there was another drake waiting.
As Bloodwraith jogged out of the city, he found himself rapidly growing bored. That would be a problem, given how far he needed to go to reach the cavern. Though he could run faster, he would soon grow tired. By checking the personal box carefully and watching his "Stamina" he found that he could alternate between running and jogging in a way that soon became second nature, but it didn't relieve his boredom.
To distract himself, he began looking through the boxes more carefully. He still had the wolves and cureleaves quests from before, which annoyed him in a vague way. It didn't feel like "quests" were something that should just build up on a to do list. Resolving to clear those out if he could, he tried to observe the world around him closely as he moved.
His mind began to wander. Working with Meara was enjoyable and had obvious benefi
ts, but he wondered if they could truly be allies in the long term. She might not know exactly what she wanted from him... though the same could be said of him, in a way.
Soon he found himself drifting into self-reflection, trying to sort through what thoughts were truly his and what came from Raigar's body. The problem was, some thoughts he viewed as "his" were actually just habits and traditions he had picked up throughout his life. They didn't need to be an intrinsic part of him, but that thought troubled-
[You have entered combat.]
Oh, good. There were a couple of wolves off the side of the road. Bloodwraith went off and slaughtered them, identity crises temporarily deferred.
When he returned to the path, he couldn't get back into the same frame of mind. It was satisfying that the boxes had warned him, though. Working with them further, he started trying to bring up boxes for every piece of foliage he saw. Most had no value and he barely noticed them, but a cureleaf might jump out at him. In theory. The problem was, he had no objective way of judging how well he could locate them, since he couldn't measure those he missed, by definition.
The effort occupied his mind as he continued onward... until he heard the sounds of a battle.
Judging from the noises, it was monsters attacking an adventurer. Bloodwraith headed toward the conflict, less out of altruism than the desire for something to interrupt all the the jogging. As he moved off the path, he jumped up onto one of the rocks beside the path to get a better look.
To his surprise, it wasn't mere wolves or some other petty enemy. A gryphon had someone pinned to the ground, clawing and biting to try to get through their heavy armor. It was far from the largest gryphon he'd seen, but they were still dangerous beasts compared to the average creatures in this area. Whoever they had pinned wouldn't last long, their armor...
It was Danniah. Bloodwraith froze for a moment as he realized it. Though it felt like it had been a long time since he had last seen her, he realized that it actually hadn't been so long. What was she doing wandering alone, taking on a monster like a gryphon?
