The Way Ahead

Chapter 74a: The Wheel Turns Ever Onward

Edwin slept fitfully, dreaming of fire and water, of shadows and blood. He woke up several times to find Inion next to him, tending to his wounds.

When finally he awoke fully, it was nighttime, and Inion was cradling his head in her lap. While Edwin felt mostly light and sturdy, he was still sore in many places, leading to him trying to pull himself into a sitting position, only for Inion to gently keep him down. Not wanting to really cross her after what he had just seen, he obliged.

“Not yet,” she reassured him, “You may feel better, but you still need your rest.”

“How long?”

“Were you out? Only about a day. You still have a few bones that are cracked, and it took a while to get all the poison out, but you’re recovering nicely. Health suits you well.”

“You can tell? Wait, of course you can. My Class changed besides, and you can apparently see my Status?” he finished processing the rest of what she had said, “Poison?”

Inion nodded, “It was a slow poison, but a poison nonetheless. Quite tricky to purge, but I got it all in the end.”

“…Thanks,” Edwin admitted, “This is what, the second time you’ve directly saved my life? Have I thanked you properly before?”

“Not quite.” She agreed, and Edwin winced.

“Sorry. I’m not very good at it.”

“It’s okay. You don’t need to say it, I can feel it.”

“You can?” Edwin frowned, to which Inion only replied with a smile. Did that mean she was joking or agreeing with him? “But it doesn’t matter. I want to get better at it. I need to get better at it. You’re my friend, and while that can be a thankless job, I don’t want it to be.”

“I finally managed to be your friend? I feel honored,” Inion teased him, and he halfheartedly swatted at her leg.

“Best in the whole world.”

“You don’t… have any other friends on Joriah.”

“Well, how else would you ever come out on top?”

She laughed and shoved him playfully. It hurt, but Edwin was still able to smile through the pain.

“So… bugbears?”

Another good night’s sleep with First Aid and Sleeping active had Edwin to ‘mostly functional, though don’t push it’ status. That meant his break from training was blessedly extended, and left them chatting about the attack. Edwin had a lot of questions.

“Ya.” Inion nodded, “Big and strong yet sneaky, usually live in the Beneath. Cousin to goblins and orcs with a strong aversion to strong light. They love taunting their prey, terrifying them and playing with them until they collapse from fear. They basically never go for the kill at their first opportunity, which probably kept you alive.”

Edwin frowned, “I’m pretty sure this one did go for the kill right away, but I got lucky.”

“Oh? Do tell, do tell.”

“I was looking to carve a log,” Edwin explained, “and it popped out of the ground just in time to intercept a bolt to my throat. Kind of unnerving, and that was the first glimpse I got of the… bugbear.”

“Interesting. That’s unusual behavior for a bugbear. Though you’re somewhat wrong about one thing.”

“Oh?”

“Probably not luck that kept you alive.”

“What else could it have been?” Edwin cut in, “Were you messing with me?” he accused.

“If you’d let me finish.”

“Sorry,” Edwin mumbled in apology.

“Anyway. You mentioned you thought he might have been from the dwarves, ya?” Edwin nodded, “Ya. Their violation of hospitality rights would mean you’ll find these little coincidences happening a lot more than usual. You’ve probably exhausted it now? What with it saving your life and all, but its effects are a bit more pronounced when living with me.”

“Why’s that-” Edwin cut himself off as he realized, “Fey thing?”

Inion nodded, “You’ve bound yourself to me, which means that I get some human-like abilities from you, but that also means that you get some fey-like abilities from me. But perhaps most importantly,” she gestured around, “This is your home. A place to be safe, to defend you from attack. Obairlann itself will come to your aid in ways much like what you saw. The walls are nigh-unbreakable in the face of all but the most overwhelming of power, and things will fall in your favor more than with any who try to attack you here.”

Huh. That was really interesting, “Does that affect you too?”

Inion nodded, “I’m far stronger here than I would be anywhere else, because not only is my home here, but your home is here as well, and I’d usually be acting in service to try and protect you, which also lends some aid to my might.”

Edwin mentally revised his assessment of Inion’s strength from ‘utterly and obscenely terrifying’ to ‘really darn intimidating, do not annoy,’ “I’m not sure if that’s reassuring or not. If you attack me, who gets the advantage?

“Also… I don’t think I ever got an answer. Can you see my Status?”

Inion weighed her hands, “I can after a fashion. I can see your Skills to a certain extent, and I could pry further if I tried, but you’d notice if I did.”

“You were able to tell what the bugbear had for his Paths, though?”

“Only vaguely. He had a lot of them aimed in a very particular direction, and that’s noticeable.”

“I don’t suppose you could teach me how to do that?”

“We’ll see what Skills you get. Take some of your fey Paths, it might help. You’re getting closer, ya?”

“Tell me about it,” Edwin agreed, looking at his gains from the past few days.josei

Level Up!

Skill Points 1219→1235

Progress to Tier 2: 1370/1770 (Avg level: 66/77)

First Aid 71→ 73

Athletics 69 → 70

Breathing 66 → 68

Bomb Throwing 31→ 39

Sleeping 61→ 62

Firestarting 77→ 79

No major jumps, perhaps, but compared to the gains he usually got for a single day, which may have been a single level at best, he’d take it. Plus, he got days off! Win-win, if he didn’t count the bruise that was his entire body as a negative.

“Just an average of eleven levels, or… four hundred total? Wait no, that’s not right.”

A couple seconds of math had Edwin realize his mistake, “Ah, that’s right. I still have all my Attribute paths mixed in with my progress section.”

“I’m going to assume that makes sense in your head, with whatever Status setup you have.”

“Yeah, it does. Ah, it’s not something I need to worry about at the moment.”

They sat in silence for a few moments, broken only by Edwin wincing in pain and stretching his shoulder to try and work out a sore spot.

“So, now that I think about it, what are you going to do with all those rocks in your pond?” Edwin asked after a bit of time.

“Those? Ah, I tossed them out while you were asleep.”

Edwin raised an eyebrow at that, but given what he’d seen, it also sounded about right. He wondered idly how long it had taken the pond to refill, but it also reminded him of the last thing he’d wanted to confront his friend about.

“What was up with all that with the bugbear, anyway? Was all of that… brutality really necessary?”

Inion looked at him like he’d said something absurd, “He hurt you.” She replied, as though that was all the justification needed.

“I mean, I get that for just killing him, or throwing him away, but like… that was beyond any of that.”

She shrugged, “Got off easy, if you ask me. He hurt you.”

“Easy? He was beaten half to death, you ripped his arm into pieces, and threw him ten miles!”

“Eh, more like five. And you gotta be sure to be thorough when killing them. Buggers can be tough. Like cockroaches, but the size of a bear. Maybe where they got the name, actually.”

“Really?”

“Eh, probably not, but I dunno how they did. So maybe.”

“I’m getting distracted. But like, why were you so cruel to him?”

“Cruel? Boy, you haven’t seen what fey cruelty is like.” It may have been Edwin’s imagination, but Inion seemed to be… deeper in some way as she addressed him, something about her shifting to remind Edwin sharply that his friend was not human in the slightest. No matter how she looked.

“That someone else does it worse doesn’t make what you do any better,” he countered.

Inion thought for a moment, “Perhaps. It doesn’t make it worse, though.”

“Could you… try to scale it back a bit, though? I just… I dislike seeing that much pain.”

“You’re fine with killing, though?”

“Kind of? That’s more a self-defense thing. Torture, on the other hand...”

“I don’t torture,” she spat, “I administer payback.”

“Seems a bit… excessive, perhaps? You scare me like that.”

“Oh, Edwin,” she wrapped him in a hug, “You don’t have anything to fear from me. Not now, not ever.”

“I… that’s not…” Edwin sighed. He was too tired for this, and the hug was… very nice. He was still holding firm on his ‘no dating the unknowable nature spirit’ stance, particularly after the showing from the other day, but hugs? Hugs he could appreciate.

Something was strange with his Packing skill. Edwin knew that much, it played around with momentum and weight in strange ways. He let his eyes skim over his Almanac entry for the Skill, reading through it and ensuring his recent reorganization of his old experiments fit properly. If he was going to turn Almanac into the ultimate guide to everything, that included Skills.

Almanac Entry: The Packing Skill

Description:

Useful when trying to bear the whole weight of the world on your shoulders

Carry heavy loads easier

Strength when carrying objects increased per level.

PackingUnlocks

[Attempting to put explosives in a bag in such a way that wouldn’t result in their detonation.]

PackingLeveling

[Carrying heavy objects, packing objects in a careful manner.]

PackingEvolutions

[]

Packing is unusual in that the description provided, “Strength when carrying objects increased by level,” is demonstrably wrong. The Skill does nothing for brute strength (see PackingTestA1), but instead affects the objects carried in some fashion. Testing (PackingTestB1) indicates that gravity is reduced on the objects affected by Packing.

PackingExploits

[Objects carried with Packing are less likely to break, and picking up something with Packing will result in lessened internal stress- something flexible will bend less than usual, currently investigating the possibility of utilizing Packing for flight or levitation (see PackingTestC)]

PackingNotes

[]

PackingCombinations

[When used with Mana Infusion, a carried object will become more durable. This can unlock the Mana Reinforcement skill.]

PackingTestIndex

[PackingTestA1

PackingTestBConclusions: the B series is pertaining to the investigation of Packing reducing the weight of affected objects

PackingTestB1

PackingTestB2

….]

Nothing new there… He frowned at the reminder of his A series test, and that he needed to relabel A and B into a single series, changing his flight experiments to series B. Series A’s tests of if Packing truly increased his raw strength had just been an attempt to lift tough objects and then see if he could break them, which if his strength was truly increased, should have been trivial. It hadn’t worked out, and he’d abandoned the series after only a single test, as reducing weight seemed to be a better explanation. It had held up to testing, too! He’d done 5 different tests, and number 5 had seemed to reallly confirm his hypothesis.

Hypothesis: Packing decreases the weight of objects it is used upon.

Test 5: If weight is decreased, the weight of myself holding heavy objects should be significantly less than the weight of myself and the heavy objects individually. Set heavy object onto a sinking plate, then stepped onto sinking plate, then stepped onto sinking plate holding said heavy object, with depth sank in each step compared.

Results: Set heavy rocks on a flat stone resting on mud. Sank approximately 8 inches.

Reset standing stone and stepped onto. Sank approximately 10 inches.

Reset standing stone and stepped onto. Sank approximately 14 inches.

Conclusion: Hypothesis confirmed. Packing reduces weight of carried objects.

Now, though? With his failure to lift a boulder during the attack? He needed to revisit his tests. First up, seeing if the difficulty of lifting things underwater was replicable.

Hypothesis: Packing decreases the weight of objects it is used upon.

Testing: if weight is decreased, the density of lifted objects ought to be decreased, resulting in the capability of flying akin to a hot-air balloon, or utilizing even very dense objects as flotation devices within water. This test was performed with a Packing level of approximately 70, which from PackingTestA6 should grant a weight reduction of approximately 1/30.

Test 9: Rocks (density of 1.5 g/cm^3) dropped into water (density of 1 g/cm^3) and attempted to lift while underwater. With the current level of Packing, the resulting density of stone should have been approximately .04 g/cm^3 and be highly buoyant in water.

Results: Stone refused to float. Lifting the rocks was just as hard as normal while swimming, though lifting the rocks when bracing against the bottom was quite easy. Similarly, lifting a rock submerged in water from the shore was not significantly easier nor harder than lifting the same rock from dry land.

Conclusion: Packing does not reduce the weight of objects. As this contradicts PackingTest5, re-attempting Test 5 with more rigorous measurement technique. See PackingTest10.

Edwin was coming to realize he’d likely made some incorrect conclusions regarding the nature of Packing. He’d previously thought it directly lightened whatever he carried, and he wasn’t quite convinced that wasn’t what happened, but his experiments underwater showed a distinct lack of buoyancy from pretty much anything he tested that didn’t already float, so that meant he would at the very least need to revisit his plans for flight.

Hmmm.

Maybe it was a limitation of the water in some form? Skills could seem to be somewhat arbitrary at times, maybe Packing just needed his feet planted. Perhaps that was just the fundamental problem?

Hypothesis: Packing does not decrease the weight of objects it is used upon when in water, but said property is unique to water. Outside of water, weight is reduced by Packing as normal.

Testing: Setting up a makeshift scale, and stepping onto it while holding heavy objects. Once the scale has settled, the heavy objects will be set directly onto the scale, and will then be stood upon. If weight is decreased by Packing, the scale should shift significantly once the objects are no longer held and thus having their weight reduced via Packing. If it is not decreased but rather redirected somehow, the scale should shift only a small amount if at all.

This test was performed with a Packing level of approximately 70, which from PackingTestA6 should grant a weight reduction of approximately 1/30.

Test 10: Set a log up as a lever, and stood on one end while holding a heavy rock while stones were added to the other side, until the two sides reached parity. Then, set down rock and stood upon it.

Results: The scale did not noticeably shift towards the experiment’s side, meaning there was no difference in weight measured between holding and standing upon weights.

Conclusion: Results are more in line with PackingTest9, and overturn PackingTest5. Notes have been made. New methodology is required.

So if it didn’t help by reducing weight, what did it do, then? Did the weight somehow ‘skip’ him?

Hypothesis: Packing ‘offloads’ weight of carried objects, making much of the weight of affected things not apply force to hands, arms, or legs, but are directly supported by the ground beneath the carrier. The percentage of this is determined by Packing’s skill level.

Testing: Attempting to see if this force reduction affects stacked objects when carried via Packing. Placing a heavy object on top of a fragile object while held in-hand, then setting down the stack onto another surface.

Test 12: Held a pottery bowl upside down, then placed a large rock on top of the bowl. The bowl did not break. Carefully set the bowl onto the table.

Results: Initial versions of this test had the bowl not break at all, as the rock used was insufficiently large. However, once the stone was large enough, holding the rock and bowl enabled the bowl to support the rock, but the pottery was crushed immediately upon setting it on the table.

Conclusion: Force between carried objects is lessened. Hypothesis tentatively confirmed.

So, it offloaded force between objects. Was it a form of tactile telekinesis, perhaps? If so, that was even better than the gravity-manipulation idea. His dreams of flight weren’t yet grounded!

However, that would depend on if he was able to convince the Skill to accept shoes or something he was standing on as part of ‘him’ to exclude from the force distribution. If he did it properly, he might manage to airwalk!

Hypothesis: Packing shunts force off to the exterior of the individual’s frame of reference. Namely, anything which travels alongside the individual with Packing is excluded from excessive forces, whereas what is stepped on gets the full force of all carried weight.

Testing: Creating relatively fragile platform ‘shoes’ which supports full bodyweight and a matching platform with similar structural stability. Will stand upon platform wearing the shoes, gradually holding more and more weight and see whether the shoes break before the platform. If the platform breaks significantly prior to the shoes, hypothesis is confirmed.

Test 15: Created clay clogs with three ½” diameter, 2” tall pillars as support, and platforms with matching pillars. Gradually held more and more stones until one broke.

Results: Platforms broke well before the shoes did. Shoes never broke; ran out of ability to hold rocks before it did.

Conclusion: Hypothesis confirmed. The limits of how the System determines what counts as shoes or not needs further testing.

It took more work to properly determine what he could get to count as part of ‘him’ for Packing to work on. The general guideline did end up being what he suspected, however; namely that if an object moved along with him as he walked, it was freed from internal forces.

He ended up being able to push his Skill pretty far, as well. He made shoes supported by stalks of grass, tiny twigs, even wet clay. It all worked out just fine, breaking only under fairly extreme circumstances… most of the time. Every once in a while, it just didn’t work, and Edwin couldn’t figure out why.

The ‘attached to him’ restriction seemed quite arbitrary. Edwin understood it from a magical perspective, perhaps, where objects could be discrete and laws of nature were more…. guidelines, than actual rules. But from a physical perspective? He was attached to literally everything in the universe via gravity and electromagnetic forces, no matter how weakly, and gravity and electromagnetism were the only forces which kept macroscopic objects together. There was bound to be some kind of trick he could exploit, it was just a question of what….

He kept working at it, though. He still had plenty of time.

That time slowly vanished as Inion slowly ramped her training back up, but it was still, as fall slowly fell past, one of the few things that Edwin had in abundance.