Chapter Fifty-Five — Revelations
Chapter Fifty-Five — Revelations “It’s beautiful,” I said.Gunther shifted a little, the compliment making his deathly pale skin flush just a tiny bit. “It is adequate,” he said.The painting was fairly simple, with a stone wall illuminated by torchlight behind both myself and Amaryllis. It reminded me just a little of American Gothic, but Amaryllis was the only one scowling, her sharp eyes looking at me sideways and there was just a hint of humor in her gaze, probably a trick of Gunther’s brushstrokes that made her eyes pinch at the corners.Standing to Amaryllis’ left was a Broccoli Bunch that I hardly recognized. Sure, that was my smile, the one I always wore when taking a picture with a friend. And I had my trusty spade over my shoulder and my bandoleer on and my spear held up by my side. But something had changed. There was a lot of happiness there, but also... guilt. “It’s really nice,” I repeated.I hated lying.“You can take it with you, if you want. I merely needed the practice,” Gunther said.“We couldn’t,” I said.“Nonsense, it cost me nothing to make,” Gunther insisted.“No, I mean, we literally can’t. It’s too big to carry through the swamps. It’ll get all mushy,” I said.Amaryllis poked the painting and it poofed away. “There. Done. Favour’s paid, painting is in storage, sun is still shining. We should go.”“Amaryllis!” I said. “That was rude. Gunther’s a friend.”“No, no, she is correct. Rude, but correct. If you intend to reach Green Hold by nightfall then it would be best if you left now. A direct route west-southwest will have you intersecting the road leading into the town in... oh, six, seven hours at a fast jog?”That was a lot of jogging. “Um, but that would mean just... leaving, like that.”Gunther’s smile was a little wry, but it was still genuine. “Yes. But no worries, I’m certain we’ll meet again someday. Else I suppose I’ll read of your exploits in some book of myths and tales.”Amaryllis snorted. “Hardly,” she said before eyeing Gunther. “You weren’t all that bad, for a necromancer.”“And you’re passably tolerable, for a harpy,” Gunther replied just as easily.“Aww, you’re getting along,” I said.Amaryllis huffed and walked past me. “I’ll be waiting outside.”I watched her go for a moment before turning back to Gunther. “It really was nice to meet you— and Throat Ripper,” I said. I walked over to the big bony lump. The doggy was laying on his side and looked asleep... or maybe just more dead, though one of his eyes started to glow when I started patting his side. “Thanks for your help earlier,” I said.He replied with a thump-a-thump of his tail so I gave him some extra pats.“Be safe, and may the world watch over your journey,” Gunther said.I smiled. “And may it, um, watch over you as well?” I said.He laughed. “Ask your friend about proper greetings, I’m sure she can talk your ears off about it. Good luck, Broccoli Bunch. We’ll see each other again, I’m certain.”I found Amaryllis eyeing a skeletal harpy, her head tilted to the side as she stared at the only bird-like skeleton in the area. I looked at its thin-boned arms and the way its legs connected to a strange pair of thin hips, then I eyed Amaryllis who was, by then, glaring at me.“Stop staring at me like I’m some sort of chicken,” she said.“Um, but aren’t you just a little bit chicken?” I gestured at her white hair and feathers.Amaryllis squawked and stomped off and out of the fort so fast I had to jog to keep up. “A chicken! She calls a member of the purebred Albatross family a bloody chicken? Why world? Why did you saddle me with this idiot?” Amaryllis asked the skies.“Is being called a chicken an insult?” I asked.It was a strange way to start our voyage back, but Amaryllis' loud and gesture-filled rant about the inferiority of the Chicken clan and how they did little more than scratch at the dirt all day and eat grubs, was entertaining at least.Apparently humans weren’t the only ones that didn’t like insects in their lunch. Most harpies were on the same page.With Orange pouncing ahead of us to scout, we moved down the same path we had that morning. Amaryllis’ rant only stopped when we recrossed the bridge. Nothing happened though, and soon we were walking along at a good clip towards Green Hold.Amaryllis went dull-eyed for a moment, then scowled at the air. “I’m going to be hitting my class evolution soon. I’ll need a second class in abeyance if I want to keep progressing.”“What’s that mean?” I asked.“It means that... if you decide to remain my partner in the guild, which if you have any wisdom in that thick human skull of yours you will, we’ll have to make a detour to a suitable dungeon to pick up a second class.”So, second classes were a thing for real then. “And what’s a class evolution?”Amaryllis stopped walking so suddenly that I took three steps before noticing. I lowered my spear and started to prepare some cleaning magic.“How do you not know that?” she asked. She was eyeing me like I was a bunny and she was a hungry bird of prey. “Everyone knows about it, even peasants. Especially peasants since it’s what keeps them that way.”“Is it that big a deal?” I asked.“It’s the only way to level past ten. Without guards and warriors in the second tier and beyond civilization would collapse in a week.”“Wait, you can’t level past ten without an evolution thing?” I asked. I was beginning to worry. What if they were really expensive?“Broccoli,” Amaryllis said. “Where are you from? How did you survive with such an abysmal education?”“Ah,” I said as I hesitated. I didn’t want to share too much. No, that wasn’t it. I was afraid to share too much because that knowledge might shove a wedge between Amaryllis and I. But now my lack of knowledge was doing the same thing. “It’s a long story?” I tried.Stolen story; please report.“It’s a long walk.”“Right.” There went that excuse. I decided that I might as well bite the bullet. “Do you know what a riftwalker is?”“Yes... no,” she declared. Suddenly she was eyeing me up and down as if I had started dancing a naked jig. “You are not... oh but that would explain a lot.”“So you know what a riftwalker is? Gunther knew, somehow. He was very mysterious about it, but he didn’t seem to think it was a bad thing.”“The only person for whom it’s bad is me. If some of the professors back home learned that I was with a riftwalker and didn’t question her thoroughly they would clip my wings and fling me off the highest tower in Farseeing.” Amaryllis slapped her talons over her face. “That explains why you’re so wildly incompetent at everything.”“Ah,” I said.Amaryllis went on. “Your complete cluelessness about magic. Your ignorance about the local cultures. And to think I thought that you were merely struck in the head.”“That’s rude, I think,” I said.“You must be from some incomprehensibly backwards world where the young are coddled and protected,” Amaryllis said.“Hey! Canada’s not... too backwards. We have the internet in some places,” I defended.Amaryllis made a high-pitched trilling noise, one that I had never heard from her before. “Well, now I’m slightly less disappointed that we’ve become... friends.”She had been disappointed? “You are?”“Oh yes. The last Riftwalker that I learned about was an unassuming man of little talent and worth, or so every test suggested,” she said.“That doesn’t inspire much confidence,” I said.“He went on to be a professor of the Snowland’s greatest academy and pioneered the creation of the gravitic engine that airships use today. That was some hundred-odd years ago.”“Oh,” I said.Now the glint in Amaryllis’ eyes looked kind of scary.“Well, don’t expect anything like that from me,” I said. “I think I already did the thing this world wanted. But we can still be friends anyway.”Amaryllis deflated a little. “Truly?” I nodded. “Well, regardless, you’re still a trove of possibly interesting, if mundane, facts.”“I’ll tell you about my world if you help me learn about the magic you use here,” I said.“Deal!” Amaryllis said. She puffed out her chest, and when she began walking again it was with something of a strut. She really did remind me of a chicken. “With me at the helm of your education you’ll have caught up to the world’s standard in no time.”“Awesome!” I said with a laugh as I jogged to keep up. “So, what’s a class evolution?”She waved a hand dismissively through the air. “A class evolves when it hits its tenth level. This is universal across all classes that I’m aware of. At that point, the world gifts you with some choices on how you guide your future development. Some require certain actions to be taken beforehand, others are more common and are available to everyone. Most classes have the default option to continue with the same class.”“Okay?” I said. “So... level ten lets you evolve your class. Got it. I’ve met a lot of Grenoil who are Fencers, is that because they all evolve into that?”“No. There’s a dungeon in Deepmarsh, the capital, that gives anyone that clears it the Fencer class. It’s a low-level dungeon, purposefully kept that way so that younger grenoil can obtain the class. For a lesser gold you can be escorted to the boss and someone will beat it near to death for you,” Amaryllis said. “By participating in the fight you can replace your main class with Fencer, which is what quite a few grenoil set out to do. It’s a well-documented class with some clear and easy progressions.”I couldn’t keep the smile off my face as I listened. These were the kinds of things I wanted to know for a while now. “So, back to the evolution thing. Can a Fencer become a Sword Dancer?”Amaryllis nodded slowly, as if uncertain. “I think that’s one of the class evolutions from Fencer, but with a focus on two blades?”“That sounds right. I met a grenoil from the exploration guild that had two swords and that class,” I said. “So when I get to level ten I’ll get to pick from a bunch of classes?”“It depends on your accomplishments, but essentially, yes. There are some progressions that are very well documented. Fire and Thunder Mages for example. There’s another evolution at level twenty, and every ten levels after that.”“Brilliant. I can’t wait to find out what my class will evolve into,” I said.“Probably something suitably droll. Your class sounds like something a peasant might obtain from cleaning the lavatory.”“You can get classes from cleaning lavatories?” I asked. “I thought you needed to fight a dungeon boss.”Amaryllis sighed. “No. Your first class is always a gift of the world. And it’s usually awful. That’s why I switched to Thunder Mage about a year ago.”“What were you before?” I asked.“That doesn’t matter,” she said with a lofty wave of her hand. “As of right now, I’m level nine, which means my evolution approaches. Once it’s done I’ll be bottlenecked until I unlock a second class and can start levelling both it and my primary class again. The next bottleneck will be at level twenty for the primary and ten for the secondary class.”“Okay?” I said as I tried to imagine it. Maybe it was like those glass jars in chemistry class, then the first one filled up the excess would pour through a spout to the second and so on. Or maybe not.“I just need to find a suitable dungeon to tackle and I’ll be set for a while. We can even share a secondary class, if you want to come along.”“That sounds like a lot of fun!” I said.I wasn’t too sure where my friendship with Amaryllis stood, but I was hoping for the best.
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Chapter Fifty-Six — Dreaming Big
Chapter Fifty-Six — Dreaming Big “Cleanthrower!” I shouted as I stretched an open hand towards the nearest slime.Cleaning magic poured out of my palm as if I had opened the tap on a garden hose. It splashed over the grey-ish blob of gelatinous magic, melting it apart.“There’s another ahead of you,” Amaryllis said as she raised a hand. She was holding onto a ball of light, kind of like those I had seen Arianne make the first time I ever met a grenoil, only these were a bit brighter and she managed to cast a stronger light forward, like a flashlight that illuminated the way ahead.I looked up ahead, and she was right, a huge slime, bigger than any I had ever seen before, was blubbering its way ahead in the middle of the road. I could see the entire half-digested body of a rabbit near its core. “I got it,” I said as I stepped up. I brought my hands together, palm flat by my side, “Kame!” I took a wide stance. “Ha... meee...” Then I shot my arms out before me with a loud. “Haaa!”A white ball of cleaning magic puttered along through the air in a meandering course that ended when it booped into the slime’s chest. Then it kept going, carving a hole through the entire monster.The slime collapsed.“What was that?” Amaryllis asked.“It’s a, uh,” I flushed. “Magical chant from my homeland. It makes you way more awesome.”“It makes you louder,” Amaryllis corrected. “We’re lucky slimes are deaf else you’d have called every creature across the entire region with your incessant screaming.”“Oops?” I said. I was a little sorry. It wasn’t nice to put myself and Amaryllis at risk like that. On the other hand, that was one more slime down, which meant just a little bit more experience towards the next level. I would need it. I had to be stronger, strong enough that the next time there was a fight, I could fight on my own terms, or at least make people think twice about hurting my friends.Walking through the swamps at night-with only the rune-light on my helmet and Amaryllis light to guide us-was a bit scary, but it wasn’t so bad, especially after getting rid of just about every slime on our path. Amaryllis used her thunder magic liberally at first, but she then suggested we pace ourselves and switch every so often to keep at least one of us topped off with mana.The moon above made the clouds glow silver and refracted off of the humid fogbanks rising up all around us. All the noises of the marsh were damped by the fog, which only made it harder to tell where something might come from.Amaryllis said that monsters could usually sense that messing with a person was a bad idea, but we were also both in our first tier, which made us prime midnight snack material.I had to get strong enough that no one would eat me.“Hey, Amaryllis?” I asked.“What inane question do you have for me now?” she asked as she panned her light across the woods.“What level was Throat Ripper at?” The cervid mercenaries had backed off instead of fighting the bone doggo, so aiming to be at about that level was a good start.“Third tier,” Amaryllis said. “That’s above level twenty of his primary class.”“So he had... three classes total?” I asked as I worked out the information in my head.“To get past twenty he would need his second class at level ten, and a third class, yes,” she said.“How long do you think it would take me to get that strong?” I asked.Amaryllis’ light shifted until it was illuminating me. She didn’t stop moving though, so nor did I. “Is this a riftwalker thing?”“It’s a Broccoli Bunch thing,” I said.She snorted. “Getting past the first tier is simple enough. A few years with safe and well-paced training. Far less with situations like ours where we’re fighting for our lives. Second tier can take anywhere from two to ten years to get past. You’ll rarely see anyone younger than thirty past level twenty. The pinnacle of most civilisations are those in their third and fourth tiers. It can take decades to move past those. Most people succumb to old age before hitting their fifth tier. Mostly because to keep growing at a decent rate you need to start facing challenges that are frankly ridiculous.”I processed that for a bit. Amaryllis was really a fountain of knowledge. I think some people would have pegged her as a nerd back home, and they would have been very rude for placing her in a box like that.So, the more one leveled up, the harder it got, and most people didn’t make it to level forty unless they tried really hard for a long time. That just meant that I had to either work even harder, or I could aim for a point where I’d be respected and stop there.That sounded good enough, and it lined up with my goals in life.“Why are you asking?” Amaryllis asked. “Not that the question is terrible. I’m merely curious as to what brought you to it.”“I want to know how strong I need to be to carry out my dreams.”“And what are those?” Amaryllis asked.“I want a small house with a little fence around it. A dog, two cats, a gentle husband with a really nice chin, and two kids. A boy and a girl,” I said.Amaryllis tripped over a root or something and her light went out. She said bad things while recasting the spell. “That’s it?” she asked.“Well, I’d like it if I lived near my friends, that way I could visit them every night. We could do rotations where every night a new friend cooks supper. And we couple play boardgames! I think it would be cute.”“What kind of peasant aspirations are those?” Amaryllis asked. “Don’t you want... more?”“Not really?” I asked. “I want plenty of little things, but they're not my dreams. Oh, I do want to learn fireball, does that count?”“No, no it doesn’t!”Amaryllis flashed her light ahead of us, illuminating a couple of slimes that were slimming their way closer. She muttered something and arcs of lightning flashed out of her fingers and sizzled as they dug into the slimes.If I ever found a glowing red sword I was giving it to her to complete the image.We continued our trek through the woods at a sedate pace until, finally, I could see a faint glow in the fog ahead. “Is that Green Hold?” I asked.“It might be,” Amaryllis said. “I’m not going to look for a hill to use as a vantage in this lighting.”“Stop here for a bit,” I said. Crouching down, I took off my backpack and shifted my bum like a kitty looking for just the right balance. Then I pushed a chunk of my stamina into my legs and shot into the air.This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.I resisted the urge to scream in delight as the wind whipped at me. Then, when I was at the apex of my jump, I looked ahead. The town was covered in a thin layer of fog, but it was easy enough to see the little towers around it and the plumes of smoke rising into the sky.I landed with an ‘oomph’ and resettled my skirts. “It’s Green Hold,” I said.“Handy skill that,” Amaryllis said. “Just normal Jumping?”“Yup,” I said. “Rank C. That’s, um, disciple?”Amaryllis shrugged a shoulder and began walking again. “Most would try to get rid of it, or find a skill to merge it with. But if it works for you.”“It’s got enough experience to rank up to journeyman, actually,” I said.“Hrm. What’s your skill distribution look like? You only have so many skill points to go around before you hit your class evolution.”“Do I get more after?” I asked.“You do, but it’s slower. It’s best to plan these things out,” she said.“Ah, okay,” I said. It made sense. What did I want to focus on? Having Cleaning at rank A would require three levels worth of skill points. I could do that as soon as it was ready to rank up. Or I could move other skills up a few ranks, or save some points for the next skill I’d unlock at level eight. So many choices.
