by Arthur Stone
For several hours we rowed backwards, keeping to the cliff face. At the end of this, we were so exhausted that we could barely stand. Sunrise was still distant when we hit the rapids. It was just bright enough to see how hopeless our situation was. Here, the river narrowed to two hundred yards across. Both sides were sheer cliffs without so much as a hint of a way up. Only a well-equipped climber could tackle them. They were a hundred feet tall at their shortest points, and generally devoid of cracks and ledges.
The roar of the water ahead of us was growing to a deafening volume. I would have thought it was a waterfall, but I believed Beko. It was just a riffle, a shallow stretch of river—with some resultingly violent water. The sound was amplified by the canyon walls. If any boats could get through, our lightweight raft might, too. Still, I decided to maximize our chances.
I activated my fishing talent and saw that the waters were packed full of kotes. Most were tiny, gathering at the start of the shelf and not daring to proceed any farther, where even such nimble predators as they would have trouble. The rapids were a barrier to the fishes’ migration. I had never seen so many fish in one place before.
Without hesitation, I grabbed my oar and tried to cheer Beko up. He was shaking in terror. “Calm down. We’re getting off here.”
“How? These is no shore here. Only cliffs.”
“We don’t need a shore.”
Perhaps there was once a large rock in the middle of the river here, like the one our trading post sat on top of. But, as time has passed, the water has had its way with it. Now, it’s just a flooded shelf, covered in rocks and debris. There is, however, something like our old sandbar, reaching out thirty yards into the water. At its widest point, it’s hardly ten steps across. The approaches to this area were shielded by huge boulders which dwarfed our raft.
I led us between two such behemoths, and we gently bumped into a bottom of pebbles.
We tied ourselves down with what was left of our anchor rope. Beko looked around. “This is not dry land. As soon as it rains somewhere upriver, we’ll be swept away. We have to get ashore somehow.”
I shook my head. “The current is too strong here for us to row against it. Besides, look that way. The cliffs just continue. We’ll never have the strength to get far enough, rowing against the current. And it is too deep there for the poles to be of use. We cannot return upriver. I see no way for us to survive but to cross the rapids of the shelf.”
“Then what are we waiting for?”
“I want us to be ready. To that end, I have an important question for you.”
“Which is?”
“I know it’s not polite to ask about your ORDER parameters. But I have to know what you’re capable of, Beko. If I do, I might be able to help you become stronger. We will need to be strong in order to get across the shelf. So, tell me everything about you. Attribute, talents, degrees, all of it.
* * *
I could have guessed that Beko was far from an alpha. But I would not have been able to tell anything more. In order to discern information about a character’s ORDER parameters, you needed special talents of observation. Unless your Degree of Enlightenment exceeded the degree of the target by orders of magnitude. In both cases, you would still be unlikely to access more than a partial set of numbers.
The ghoul didn’t even ask why I needed his information. His trust in me was nearly absolute. After all, I had not just treated him as an equal, I had provided the poor boy with a life more fulfilling than he had ever dreamed of. By this point, what I said, he did.
He was level four. In other words, using ORDER parlance, he had reached the Fourth Degree of Enlightenment. In infancy and early childhood, his mother had made sure that he developed all three of the attributes which common people could access. She had chosen a different focus for the first and second degrees. Apparently, she had been trying to achieve roughly uniform development for her boy. In addition, she had fed him the commonly available spices. Each attribute had absorbed between 20 and 30 units of energy, which was quite good for the average person.
The third degree, however, was a mess. Beko had developed all six attributes there—but each had received fewer than 15 units. It was these that made you stronger, smarter, and possessing of more stamina. He had accumulated a decent number of attribute levels, but there was little point to it when he did not use them to unlock high-level skills.
Beko had just begun developing his fourth degree, and so far had only scored one Stamina level. Strength and Agility were still in progress. Despite my position at degree zero, I was noticeably superior to the ghoul in absolute terms, as far as these three core attributes were concerned. Only in attribute levels was I inferior, and that currently mattered little to me. I really am a freak, I thought to myself.
Beko’s talents were terrible. He had pumped Herbalism from level 0 to level 2 three times, choosing different branches each time. I knew why. It was so he would not starve during the non-work season. But in our current situation, the ability to pick and prepare healthy plants was unlikely to be very helpful.
Hand-to-Hand Combat was in the same boat. As was Carpentry. Romris had been a scoundrel, yes—but he had made the raft well. It did not need any repairs yet. The level 3 Trapmaster talent surprised me—I had not expected to encounter a hunting talent in Beko’s book of tricks, much less a highly-developed one. But right now, it was just as useless as everything else.
For the hellish night during which we had managed to escape from the sandbar with ourselves and our raft intact, to survive the arrows of the infamous archer, and to blindly paddle as we tried to find a shore, the ORDER had awarded me 7 personal talent marks for the Boatman talent. I was not about to protest that I should have received Raftman marks, instead.
The talent’s name and description made it clear that it would greatly improve my ability to work with small watercraft. This was, in the current situation, a very valuable upgrade. Sadly, starting talents could not be transferred to another person. You had to kick off a new talent with a trophy you had received from the ORDER—not one you had traded for. Marks would work, but only after you used a starting mark you yourself had obtained.
Thankfully, Beko had also received one such mark. I immediately ordered him to activate it, and then gave the ghoul 100 lesser chi symbols and 4 greater universal talent marks. “Here, take these. This will be enough for you to maximize that talent on level one. And here’s the same amount again. Activate your fishing talent and develop it just as much.”
Beko’s face was indescribable. “Ged, where did you get all of this? This is a fortune! How?”
I winked mysteriously. “I am able to quickly win a large number of drops from the ORDER. Now, let’s get some rest, but not for too long. We’ll be spending all day here. And probably all day tomorrow. This place is full of kotes, and I’ve been seeing a lot of garpike splashes. We’ll feed you a bunch of caviar and boost your talents and attributes. When we leave here, you’ll be at degree five. I think we’ll be able to get you at least 30 attribute levels, too. Garpike spices are valued for more than their taste, you know.”
“We could sell them,” Beko said in avaricious regret. “And I could eat kote brains instead. And liver. Those aren’t as expensive.”
I chuckled and gestured to the surrounding area. “Where’s the nearest merchant, then? Does your ghoul vision let you see one that I cannot? Who do we sell our catch to, then? That’s right—there’s no one here. Everything we caught yesterday will have to be thrown away as soon as it starts to go bad. The only reason for us to catch new fish today is to get the drops. We will have plenty to eat.”
“Two days isn’t a long time to boost your parameters,” Beko noted.
“It is with me. We’ll bring our boating talents up to a fully-developed level 2 or even 3. Maybe we can even start a second branch. We’ll see what’s on offer then. Also, we’ll increase your attributes. Then, we head for the shelf.”
“We won’t have time,” the ghoul continued with his d
oubts. “We’ll need so much chi and so many marks...”
“We have enough of both. Trust me.”
Chapter 35
Water, Water Everywhere
Degrees of Enlightenment: 0 (449/888)
Shadow: 449
Attributes:
Stamina: level 7, 350 points
Strength: level 4, 200 points
Agility: level 5, 250 points
Perception: level 3, 150 points
Spirit: level 2, 100 points
Energy:
Warrior Energy: 150 points
Mage Energy: 100 points
Talents:
Extreme Boatman (tier 3): 10/10
Fishing Connoisseur (tier 3): 10/10
Cure Wounds (tier 3): 10/10
Throwing Knives (tier 3): 10/10
Free Talents:
Spinning Rod Master (tier 3): 10/10
States:
Equilibrium (15.21): level 15
Enhanced Enlightenment (0.50): level 0
Shadow of Chi (0.50): level 0
Measure of Order (3.00): level 3
Everything worked out just as I had predicted. We fished all day, slept, and gobbled up the invaluable caviar from the garpikes, in addition to the spices from the kotes. Variety was a good thing, for our purposes.
The next day, we repeated the same. Instead of further improving talents, though, I moved to attributes. Beko’s, of course. I could not develop my own any further. I had 21 attribute levels now. That was my original limit of 6, plus my 15 Equilibrium. I had no way to push these further, so I had to accept the impossibility for now.
I would not be able to obtain enough chi within such a short time. That first day, Beko boosted his spinning rod talent as much as he could. I myself reached tier 3 Boatman. That talent was excellent for navigating extreme conditions. Which was what we were preparing to do.
I also took Melee Weaponry up to level 3, selecting the Throwing Knives specialization as I did. Beko pumped the Crossbow talent to level 3, as well. Even the grittiest bandits feared to brave this stretch of the river. I wanted us to be ready for anything. If we ended up in melee, we would almost certainly be disabled or killed. Keeping our distance would be the optimal option. So, we focused on ranged fighting talents.
I was sorry not to reach tier 4 for Throwing Knives. Yes, a fully-developed tier 4 skill would cost 400 chi. That wasn’t the obstacle. I could scrape that together somehow. And we were well-fed out here, and not under attack. We could have stayed here as long as we liked, until the fish decided to flee.
But above tier 3, other requirements came into play. I had to reach Degree 1 Enlightenment, for example, in order to push the talent’s branch further. Meaning that tier 3 was, for me, the ceiling.
I did consider pushing out of degree 0. Cool talents were something I yearned for. But not at the price of a potential nerfing of my drop rates. Even if my greed in this matter led me to an early grave, I would hold onto it. The mountains of treasure which fell at my feet were my one chance at escaping the very bottom of this society.
With rewards like this, I could practically purchase eternal life. No health problems. No financial problems.
Why would anyone risk such an opportunity?
We completed Beko’s final attribute level on the evening of the second day. He would feel his normal self by morning, and we could set off.
As I had promised, these attributes had been developed to the max. We pushed this last one to a record 37 units. Even a nobleman would sit back in satisfaction at such a result. Assuming he was, of course, only a modest nobleman.
But for a commoner, such growth was jaw-dropping.
The spices helped, along with the valuable attribute-pumping trophies consumed at the right moments. I tried to repeat the same processes which had pushed my attributes up so high. The results were less impressive this time, but Beko was ecstatic.
And, I began to think, a little scared of me.
He was a greedy creature, and here he saw all of this wealth evaporating before his very eyes. The fact that the results were being applied to him evoked within him powerful emotions bordering on terror.
And here’s the thing: despite all my efforts, Beko’s math skills still left much to be desired.. But as soon as it came to the distribution of parameter points and units, mathematical abilities emerged.
I was certain that this was some kind of a native instinct. Otherwise, how could illiterate creatures develop their ORDER parameters at all? They had to make choices and keep track of things.
Or was the distribution made automatically? It reminded me of a friend I once had at school. His math skills were terrible, but as soon as real money was involved, he could run formulas like a grad student.
Perhaps this was similar.
* * *
I stretched my hands over the smoldering coals. “Summer is here, and yet it’s still freezing out.”
“At least it’s not raining.”
“Yeah, it was drizzling all night. Good thing we have that tarp. Well, are you ready?”
“I don’t know. Aren’t you scared?” Beko worried.
“Winners don’t get scared. But yeah—it is a little scary. If anything crazy happens, we’ll regroup on the left bank, remember?”
“If our raft splinters on the rocks, no one will be making it to the left bank,” Beko sighed. “Why don’t we stay one more day? There are lots of fish. We could get a bunch of good stuff and cook it up.”
“We’re out of salt.”
“Fish still tastes good without it. Plus, you can salt it with ashes. I’ll teach you how.”
I shook my head firmly. “No. Winners do not avoid what must be done. And that rain was not encouraging. If it moves upriver, the water level may start rising, like you said. That sandbar doesn’t have any wild leeks growing on it—do you know what that means?”
Beko nodded. “It’s almost always underwater. Lousy sandbar.”
“Right. We were lucky to arrive here with water levels low. The water might go up at any time. So far, it hasn’t. It’s even dropped a little. But that is no reason for us to delay. Things can change rapidly.”
We had to heave the raft from the rocks with brute force and a deadwood lever. Once we were out on the water, we picked up an uncomfortable amount of speed. This was just the beginning of the shelf. Perhaps it was not quite an area deserving of the name. Not yet. The water was moving fast, but the loud noise we had grown accustomed to was still up ahead. There, the canyon walls pressed their embrace of the river even tighter. Even from here, we could see foam spraying into the sky.
Perhaps splinters of our raft would join the foam in not too long.
We surged right into the corridor between boulders which I had targeted in advance.
The final few yards of water before the foamy rush began to slow, it seemed. As if even it was terrified of what lay beyond. It slowed and rose, our raft with it, as everyone prepared for the main event.
Then, it cast us down, into the roaring, foamy maw of hell.
I screamed with all the force my lungs could muster. Beko’s mouth was open, too. But neither of us could hear the other.
Here, our voices meant nothing. A yelling man was as loud as a mute. One sound ruled all. The sound of rushing water.
The sound of rushing death. A sound with no hesitation about shattering the raft, and us with it.
* * *
I don’t think the adventure lasted very long. The entire stretch of rapids probably took us about three minutes to clear. But every second in those three minutes felt like an hour.
When it was over, I didn’t even realize it right away.
Over for now, at least.
Our raft was moving quickly again, but it was just a strong river current bearing us along, not another deadly micro-waterfall trying to throw us into a boulder. The water was obscured by an impenetrable layer of foam. The whitish gray swirled as though hordes of krakens and crocodiles roamed beneath, ready t
o break out upon us at any instant. But there was no nightmare causing this foam but the one we had already passed through.
We.
I turned—and smiled wearily to see Beko in place. Pole at the ready. His eyes had widened to the size of record pinecones. I was sure that mine had, too.
Beko was also realizing I was alive—but he looked in horror at the place where, a few minutes ago, the empty baskets had been stored. It was gone. He pushed his pole into the water and began to pull the tarp back on board.
Shouting over the water in a voice that was almost sane, he said, “Good thing we didn’t lose this. It might rain again.”
We were, of course, drenched more than any rain could make us, but neither of us mentioned that. We would dry our clothes and the tarpaulin, and it would indeed come in handy if we encountered bad weather. Everything but the cargo area could be restored to normal quickly.
Perhaps even our shattered nerves. Beko roaring in my face, without me hearing a bit of it. Our solid poles bending nearly into horseshoe shape as we feverishly used them to ward off the massive, stationary bringers of death.
