What I'm working on recently. (Beta) (Patreon)

I'd like to write another LitRPG on Royalroad with an interesting and unique system, and I've got a rough 3 chapters started. Since none of it is published or even official yet, there's plenty of time to go back and hammer out details. I'm hoping these three chapters can whet your appetite.

In the meantime, tell me what you think in the comments below!

Calvin The Almighty cackled madly as his troops surrounded the hapless civilians, whose backs were pressed against the deadly river. A few tried to swim across, but they were torn from their feet and swiftly plunged into the white rapids, never to be seen again.

“You fools! Your flesh will be fuel for my army, your bones built into cages to house your next of kin until they too, are consumed! Nothing will remain to say that your people ever existed at all!”

Cal broke into another laugh as victory loomed near.

This was a great day for his army of darkness. The first step of many toward conquering the land as far as the eye could see. And once he had his way, he would build his utopia atop the ashes, creating the ideal land, where upstanding citizens could eat Crim Cookies before bed-time, and stupid girls weren’t allowed, only big boobied ones who liked him a lot.

Cal’s army encroached, pressing closer to the cowering mass of flesh…

“Calvin!” his sister’s shout physically yanked him to his feet, reflexively wiping the dirt off the knees of his Sunday best.

“Yeah?” Cal shouted, orienting on the voice echoing through the shade-drenched woods.

“Are you playing with ants again!?” The voice came from the west, toward the village.

Cal glanced down at the line of ants attacking the beetles he’d diverted a little stream around with a stick.

“No!”

“Karen says to get back to the village! It’s our Breaking-day, dolt!”

Breaking-day, when all of Cal’s careful plotting would come to fruition. In the country of Gadvera, a child became an adult on their Breaking day, when they would experience their first Break.

The Break happened when a person experienced too much Warp at once, causing them to get sick with a fever. Warp was released when a living thing died, flowing into the air.

When Cal woke up in the morning he would experience one day where both his body and mind would react and grow exactly the way he wanted it to. Peasants typically used that day to expedite apprenticeships, and Cal knew Karen intended to force him to learn swordplay the entire day, so he could ‘protect Jinnei’.

The girl needs a little less protecting, If you ask me.

Cal had other ideas. He was going to learn magic. Those who could control the Bent and warp reality at their whim were Cal’s heroes, regardless of whether they were street magicians or wizened old men in towering libraries.

Karen said the magic of Surrak, the port city down the road where they went to sell wool each spring, was vile heresy. Which he found odd, because they were citizens of Gadvera, and nobody else he’d spoken to seemed to have that opinion. In any case, Karen hadn’t offered him an alternative, so he was going to take whatever he could get.

“Now!” Jinnei’s scream echoed through the woods. By all the gods, that girl is loud.

“Coming!” Cal said, scrunching up his face and sticking out his tongue as he picked up the basket of berries and mushrooms for the party.

“And don’t make that face!”

Cal started, looking around the woods. There was no actual sign of Jinnei. She must still be at least a couple hundred feet out and blocked by massive trees.

He shivered. “The enemy has eyes everywhere,” he muttered to himself before hustling to the village, his calloused feet picking their way through the woods.

When he finally got to the treeline, the raven-haired girl with the farmer’s tan in woolen Gudveran peasant garb was waiting for him, hands on her hips and an angry look in her eye. She was about two inches taller than Cal too, a result of getting her growth spurt first, and refusing to give the lead back.

I swear, one day I will tower over you, wretch.

They’d known each other since they were born, and Cal always thought it was strange how He, Karen, and Jinnei all looked different than everyone else in the village, with their strangely sun-intolerant skin and pale eyes. Karen ignored him whenever he asked, Jinnei had no idea, and the other villager didn’t seem to care

Cal’s eyes flickered down to her budding breasts, and back up to her face. Damnation!

“What took you so long to gather berries?” she asked. Maybe she hadn’t noticed his slip.

“What’s taking you so long to fill out an A cu-“ Cal’s words were interrupted by a slap.

My advantage, Her rage. Her advantage, my testicles. Incoming assault. Feral, but experienced.

Cal ducked under her right hand and managed to ward off the left swing with his forearm, then Jinnei looped her hand around the back of his neck and got him in a clinch, driving the wind out of his ribs with a gentle knee to the ribcage.

If it hadn’t been, she probably would’ve broken something.

Cal staggered back, stooped over and holding up a hand in surrender while his left hand clutched his ribs.

“I give,” He said. “Training with Karen was always more your thing than mine.”

“You’ve got the speed for it,” she said, picking up his basket. “If not the personality.”

“And she wants me to protect you.” Cal groaned as he straightened up. That was going to bruise tomorrow, no doubt about it.

Cal and Jinnei scoffed as they headed back to the little sheepherding village of Deinos.

****

“And with this sacrifice let the Warp fill these youngsters with the quickness of limb, sharpness of eye and the iron will that they need to find success in their choice of professions. Let the Break be gentle and fair. Let these children become fine Men and Women…”

Cal’s eyes were starting to roll back in his head, but it seemed like this was the end of the speech. Maybe they could get on with the feast now.

“…Men and Women who fufill their duties to community and family by…” the Elder continued, droning on and on.

Oh gods, just kill the griks and have done with it. Cal was fairly sure the rest of the adults in the village were thinking the same thing. Probably. Cal wasn’t good at reading expressions, and was often mocked for taking people too literally.

The village elder was chanting sonorously on a raised altar with no less than a dozen griks and youngsters, surrounded by anyone in the village over the age of twelve. Children weren’t allowed to attend the Breaking because their young bodies had a chance of succumbing to the fever, so they were rounded up under the watchful eye of a few adults.

Every Breaking Cal had ever been to had always been after the griks were killed, when they threw them on the grills and had a feast. He had had no idea the torture each generation of older kids had to go through at their first Breaking.

Cal glanced to his right and saw Harram nodding off, the large, dark skinned boy just as bored as he was. Beyond him was Jinnei holding up admirably well, and Persei, a slender brown girl with a wide nose and gentle mannerisms.

To his left was Baroke, a rather oversized Gudveran boy with a wide jaw, thick neck and placid eyes.

The selfish oaf! How dare he not share the secret to growing so freakishly large? Cal demanded internally. He carefully kept his face neutral, since it wasn’t like he’d actually hogged the growth…and the boy could probably punch a hole through him.

Beyond Baroke was a slender, muscular boy named Kort, who had defensive scars winding up his arms from where he’d enthusiastically taken lessons from Karen.

More power to him, I guess. Cal was not a fan of pain. Or losing. And training with Karen guaranteed plenty of both.

“Begin the ceremony!”

Yes!

Three of the bigger villagers stepped up, Ghol the blacksmith, Endras the farmer down the road, and Kahm the carpenter. These dark-skinned men hefted large wooden hammers with a single iron spike on them, driving the spikes through the Grik three at a time.

Grik were large, insectoid, eight-legged monsters about the size of a dog. They were herbivores, docile, and stupid, and they tasted great roasted over a fire and dipped in butter.

They died with a squeal, releasing their Warp into the atmosphere, where it soaked into everyone present, a subtle pressure in the air that was more implied than felt.

For the adults, this much Warp in the air would do nothing to them, but for the uninitiated, like Cal and the others, it would force their body to adapt, building a reserve of Bent as it struggled to process the poisonous substance.

“So mote it be,” the elder said as the last grik was perforated. “And now a moment of silence for their sacrifice, and contemplation for our youth’s future.

Everyone bowed their head, giving quiet thanks to the stupid bugs for their sacrifice – which they probably had no concept of – and thinking wholesome thoughts about what they wanted to do when they grew up.

Greatest spellslinger in all the land would be an acceptable start, I think.

The village elder reached up to his embroidered cap and spun it around.

“All right everyone, I got my ceremonial hat on backwards, it’s time to fuckin’ party!” he shouted, throwing his gnarled hands in the air, rousing the cheers of the rest of the village, who got to work dismembering the griks and getting them ready to boil.

The rest of the night was par for the course. Cal had never experienced the Breaking party from the Table of Honor, but it turned out to be a lot less interesting than he’d been led to believe.

It was less being congratulated, encouraged, and fed, and more being interrogated by nosy neighbors.

“So, what do you think you’ll be studying tomorrow?” Marshine, a dumpy, well-meaning older woman, asked him as she refilled his wine.

“Oh, I…” Cal glanced over at Karen. The two meter tall shepherd with brilliant golden hair and a frame that supported an ungodly amount of muscle eyed him suspiciously. “I’m going to learn swordsmanship from Karen.”

“Oh, I suppose you’ll be quite the deadly weapon by the end of the day then,” she said with a smile, nudging him with her soft hip before moving on to the next person’s cup.

Was that sarcasm? Cal couldn’t tell. Eh, not important, he thought, bringing the sheep horn cup to his lips and taking a hearty swig.

The conversation continued, with Cal deflecting as best he could, while the boys of the village surrounded Jinnei, congratulating her on her Breaking-day and asking her what she planned on doing with the rest of her life.

Jinnei was technically exotic and lovely – although Cal didn’t see it – and after twelve years living among the villagers of Deinos, she was still the center of attention wherever she went.

She caught his eyes.

Help me, she mouthed at him.

Cal smiled and waved. Serves her right for getting all the attention. Not a single person of Cal’s age had expressed an interest in him. Probably. It was a little hard to compete with the lumbering titan seated to his left.

Jinnei shot him an angry look between people pestering her, and then pointedly ignored him for the rest of the night. In the meantime, with little else to do, Cal continued to nurse his wine, getting deeper and deeper in his cup.

Can’t wait for tomorrow, he thought as the world started to spin, and everything got several times funnier than it had been just an hour ago. He was actually starting to enjoy the village elder’s jokes.

“And the hunter asks the wise man from the top of the cliff, ‘Now what?’”

“Aaahahahaha!” Cal’s plate nearly flipped over as he slammed his cup down on the edge, spilling a bit on Baroke’s elbow.

“Ah, sorry Baroke, you…ummm?” Baroke was face first in his plate of grik shells. Cal leaned forward and glanced to either side, noticing that not a single one of the adolescents were still awake. They were, to a person, face down on the table, the feast continuing on without them.

Oh, yeah, I forgot about that…

Cal’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he tried to support himself with his cup hand, succeeding only in spilling wine all over the front of his shirt and pants as his face hit the pointy grick shells covered in butter.

The kids that underwent the Breaking always ended up shitfaced.

******

Warp overflow detected…

Initializing Warp Protection System… Break.

Scanning subject.

ERROR: Subject is [Redacted]… reporting…

-Manual override. Authorization XN7-FIN-056. Show me what I’m dealing with.

Insufficient Clearance, Seek Higher Authority.

-Not enough Clearance? Do you know who I am?

Seek Higher Authority.

-AFK, I’m gonna go talk to management.

….

>>>Warning, External Access Detected<<<

>>>Attempted Write permissions access<<<

>>>Begin Lockout<<<

….

…….??????©¥?????

Lockout Rescinded.

Adjusting framework.

Installing new software.

Bent Core installed.

Scrubbing History.

….

….

-Yeah, that’s a negative on the System Install, orders from on High. Let this one go the way of the dodo.

Connection terminated.

….

……..

…????? ??? ???? T? P??? ? ?????

“Cal, get out of bed! I’m gonna work you to the bone!” Karen’s voice shouted from outside his hut. He’d been living alone since two years ago, making enough to get by doing odd jobs and fishing in the river, trying to avoid being eaten by Norlocks.

To the hells with that! Cal thought, rolling over in bed, worming his way deeper under the covers and squeezing his eyes shut tight.

Wait a minute. What the hell am I looking at?

Body 5

Strength 4

Kinethetics 5

Endurance 4

Mind 9

Intuition 3

Stability 7

Will 8

Bent 2/7

Skills:

…In front of him was an array of numbers that represented –

“Shit!” Cal jumped out of bed. He was seeing his Status, which meant it was Forming Day, and he didn’t have a single second to waste being beaten half to death by an overenthusiastic Karen.

Cal slipped into the clean clothes he’d laid out for himself the day before, keeping his head down and trying not to make any unnecessary sounds. If Karen thought he was still asleep, he could probably get away without activating plan Ghol.

Cal held his breath and slid his pants on silently, then his shirt, grabbing his secret stash of gold and sliding out the back window, carefully keeping himself from rubbing on anything. He was somehow being sneakier than he’d ever really been before. It just seemed to come to him naturally.

You have manifested Stealth

Stealth has reached Level 1!

Level 1: Boosts ability to remain undetected. 5% correction

Remaining Warp 11/12

Oh, right. Cal slid out the window and silently dropped to his knees, ignoring the voice in his head. It was happening exactly the way the adults had said it would, so he wasn’t particularly concerned. It was a bit strange, but not unexpected.

Cal kept low, trying to slide through the grass behind his hut to avoid catching Karen’s attention. The meaty woman was probably going to snap the lock off the front door in a few minutes to find nothing but an empty room.

Take that, meathead.

Cal spotted a patch of thin grass, and slid his foot into place, avoiding twigs and leaves.

Stealth has reached Level 2!

Level 2: 10% correction.

Remaining Warp 10/12

Cal stopped, a horrible though occurring to him.

What If I use up all my Warp just getting to Surrak? That would be stupid. Really, really, stupid.

Cal sighed and stood up straight, abandoning his attempts at stealth.

Looks like it’s plan Ghol. Didn’t wanna do that, but the Forming Day leaves me no choice.

Cal walked out from behind his house and began walking down the road, hoping that by some miraculas twist of fate the giantess wouldn’t see him walking town the long hill to the port city in the distance. The morning sun glittered off the ocean, rising as it always did, from the west.

About halfway out of town, a thick hand clamped down on his shoulder.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Karen asked. The thick jawed, bright haired woman stood nearly a foot above him and outweighed him by a substantial margin, and if rumors were to be believed, had experienced the Break eight times.

There was no chance he’d get away from her.

Unless…

“There’s a letter in Ghol’s house that details the incident with him last winter while his wife was in town. Better find it before she does.” Cal said.

A thick hand seized around his neck and Cal was lifted off the ground. This was not part of the plan. Suddenly Cal realized that Karen could simply search the blacksmith’s house while wringing his neck like a chicken.

This was poorly thought out.

“Where is it?” Jinnei’s guardian growled into his face.

I think I smell blood. Calg thought as his vision tinted red.

“I don’t know. I had someone else do it.”

“Who?” she demanded.

“I don’t know!” Cal croaked, “I got everyone together and had them decide who would hide the letter while I was gone. It’s possible they didn’t do it at all.”

“Damn!” Karen said, the giant woman dropping him to the ground and running back down the path. It wouldn’t take her long to find out who hid the letter, if anyone.

Time to haul ass.

Cal turned and ran down the dirt road at full speed, not stopping until he caught a ride with a wagon headed into the city on the main road.

Your Body has reached Level 6!

Remaining Warp 7/12

“Damn,” Cal said, panting on the back of the wagon.

A skill took one Warp and a Stat took three to raise, and Cal wanted to make sure he had enough to learn some magic.

Cal had been to Surrak before, but rarely by himself, and that was a completely different experience. The newfound freedom and heavy purse tucked inside his coat made him feel ten feet tall, despite generally significantly shorter than the average adult.

All around him, the sights, sounds and smells of the port city washed over him, a confusing jumble of stimulus that nearly made him forget his purpose.

Right. let’s get some samples of what this heathen magic has to offer. Cal remembered a seeing a few preforming magicians, and that seemed like a good enough place to start. He elbowed his way through the crowded streets, the sun just beginning to beat down on them from above.

Unfortunately no matter how hard he looked, he didn’t find the usual skinny man making toys and small animals multiply as part of his act, so Cal would have to aske around.

“Excuse me, could you-“

The man next to him grumbled and kept walking.

“Do you-“

Cal got elbowed aside.

Undeterred, Cal continued to pester person after person until a man gave him halfhearted instructions leading him to a street on the far side of the city, north of the docks. The smell of rotting food and disease did nothing to slow him down.

Now that he knew what street he was looking for, he easily got a specific address for his elusive Gadveran magician.

Cal walked up to the door and began knocking on it. lightly at first, then progressively harder, until finally a shout from inside indicated that the owner was awake.

Cal waited.

Nothing happened.

Cal started beating on the door again.

“What!?” A thin Gadveran man missing a couple teeth snarled as he yanked open the door, his breath punching Cal in the face with tangible force.

“Are you a magician?” Cal asked.

The thin man looked him up and down.

“beat it kid.” He said, slamming the door on Cal’s foot.

OOOOOOWWWWW

“It’s my Forming Day, and I really, really…wanna learn some magic.” Cal said. “It’s gonna happen, whether it be from you or the next guy. I could do this all day.”

The thin man looked Cal over again.

“What’s your Intuition?”

“Three.”

“Huh. How much Warp you got left?”

“Seven.”

“Money?”

“Right here!” Cal pulled out his bag of coins he’d fastidiously saved over the last couple years, for this specific moment –

A thin hand reached out and snagged the bag out of Cal’s hand before slamming the door on his foot again.

As it turned out, he could not do it all day, reflexively yanking his aching foot out of the door a second before the thing was latched shut.

“Lesson one.” The man’s muffled voice came from the other side of the door, before it once again went silent.

An hour of banging on the door netted Cal nothing but bruised fists to go with his slowly swelling foot.

This is not how I pictured this going.

Cal glanced behind him, and noticed the shadows of the city getting long as the sun began to sink toward the city wall.

It began to sink in how truly out of his element he was.

Crap.

Chapter 2: The kindness of Strangers

Calvin was starting to get hungry, but that was of secondary, or even tertiary importance.

Important thing #1: Find someone willing to teach him magic for…Cal reached into his pocket and pulled out the contents.

Three copper coins and some lint.

Important thing #2: Get home before he got robbed...more? That one was self-explanatory.

And last but not least, get something to eat. Cal glanced down the stinking alleys, looking a lot more foreboding now that the sun was going down.

Which direction did I come from? Ah, shit. He’d stalked up and down the alley looking for the supposed magician’s house enough that he didn’t quite know the direction he’d come from, and all the landmarks had been covered by the foot traffic.

There wasn’t a lot of that now. Now he was just lost.

Eh, worst case scenario, I spend a night sleeping in the gutter and find my way home in the morning. Calvin shrugged and started walking down the street, making sure to note exactly which door belonged to the thief.

Cal the almighty does not forgive easily. Steel thyself for retribution…someday.

Calvin walked through the quickly darkening streets, the only light available coming from the roofs of the stone buildings towering above him that reflected the last little bit of the daylight.

After a few minutes plodding along, he came to the conclusion that if he found the main street and followed the setting sun, he could at the very least find the East gate and therefor the road that would lead home.

Cal trotted along the narrow streets, trying to find a main road that would take him in the direction of his home, and keeping his eye out for a street magician. Anything would be good by now.

Cal was heading south, looking for the main street, when the cluster of buildings pressing in around him suddenly vanished, leaving him standing in the middle of the Wharf, the hundreds of ships and thousands of sailors busily unloading the last of their freight in the dim light, moving to take advantage of every ounce of illumination they could wring out.

Surrak was the second biggest trading city in the east, moving spices and June-worm shells northwest, and shipping soft northern wheat, barley, the glorious pelts and elemental fangs of northern beasts to the southeast.

Karen even had a flame-beaver tooth above her mantle, which would light any wood on fire with a touch.

Cal hadn’t yet scraped together enough money to afford many luxuries, and being able to light the wood stove in a matter of seconds made him green with envy. One day he would leverage his magical skills for wealth and privilege.

Speaking of wealth and privilege… Cal spotted a five group of velvet-swaddled westerners walking away from the docks. They were decked out in dark blue coats that must have been sweltering hot, and heavy gold chains around their necks.

Gods, how much I could get for even one of those chains. Cal thought idly. He knew he wasn’t going to go for it though. He wasn’t that desperate, and something about these men looked…strange.

The pale men weren’t limping or hobbling, exactly. Nothing about the way they moved suggested an ailment or lack of speed, but the way they bobbed up and down as they walked made them look like they were loping through the crowd of sailors.

The sailors themselves seemed to avoid the men, keeping their heads down, shifting out of their way and avoiding eye contact. Are they from Malkenrovia? Karen always said never to speak to anyone from there, so maybe the sailors had a similar opinion.

Cal shrugged. One way to find out.

Call trotted up to the foreigners and loped alongside them. They kept their eyes forward, loping along, ignoring Cal.

“Are you folks from Malkenrovia?” Cal asked.

As one, the five men snapped their eyes toward him, causing a chill to go down Cal’s spine.

Cal stammered, “Not to pry or anything, I just haven’t –”

“We stem from the One, and have no purpose other than His.” Having said that cryptic weirdness in unison, the five men faced forward and began walking again, with just a bit too much bounce in their step to be natural.

“…Huh.” Cal stopped and watched them lope along. Crazy foreigners.

A hand seized Cal’s shirt and he was dragged out of the street with a squawk.

“What in Praxius are you doing?” a young voice demanded.

Cas turned around to see the speaker, a slender Gadveran girl maybe a year younger than him, with dark skin, a lovely face, and green eyes that seemed to turn yellow near the pupil, lending intensity to her stare.

She is most definitely a good person, Cas could feel it in his quickened pulse and the odd tremor in his stomach.

She stared at him expectantly for a moment. Cas stared back.

“What were you doing talking to the Malkenrovian delegates? That’s dangerous you know?” she expanded on her question.

“Umm…I didn’t know they who they were?”

“Are you slow?” she asked, then glanced him up and down. “Or just not from around here?”

“I live just a few miles down East road, my guardian brought me here when I was a baby. I’ve lived here all my life, I’m from around here.”

Cal felt the irresistible urge to impress the girl.

“Karen brought sheep over when she brought me and my sister over. We herd sheep. We’ve got the only sheep on this side of the ocean. Well, the best ones.”

“Oh?” she asked, arching a brow, obviously judging him.

Crap, she doesn’t want to hear about sheep, she wants to hear about how awesome I’m gonna be!

“But not forever, of course. I’m gonna be the greatest Master of Bent in the land. Gonna carve my own chunk of territory out of the Wilds and be king. A Wizard-King.”

She looked less than interested. Matter of fact she looked about ready to leave.

Damn, gotta hold her attention somehow!

“I actually need some help! You see, it’s my Forming Day, I gotta find someone willing to teach me, but it…hasn’t gone so great, and there isn’t much time left in the day.”

She cocked her head, debating for a moment. “Alright, I know someone who could help you. Follow me.”

You have manifested Talking to Girls.

Talking to Girls has reached Level 1!

Level 1: Be More relaxed, perceptive and eloquent when dealing with the Fairer Sex. 5% Correction.

You just had to go there, didn’t you?

Remaining Warp 6/12

“You son of a bitch!” Cal shouted at the Status screen, earning a glare from the girl who’d just said she would help him. It felt a bit like the time Cal almost fell out the second story window of farmer Endras’s loft, making his stomach sink in sudden panic.

“Not you, I just got a new skill I didn’t want.” Getting an unwanted Skill was never a good thing, since a person could only have eighteen Warped Skills in their lifetime, and Cal intended to save as many spots as he could for Magic. That and the thing seemed a little…smarmy.

“What’s it called?” She asked.

“Ummmmm….”

She watched him expectantly.

“Talking to people.” Cal said.

“That’s odd, it’s usually called Etiquette, but it’s not a bad skill, as non-combat ones go. Can’t live without other people, so might as well be good with them. My father plans on having me learn that one too.”

“Oh, cool.”

“It doesn’t mean you’re bad at talking to people, it just means you devoted a lot of emotional effort to talking to them today.”

She started walking, and Cal followed, listening intently.

“I haven’t done my Breaking yet, but dad says that you can manage which skills you get, somewhat, by controlling your emotions. If you get excited or stressed while you practice one, it’s more likely to pull Warp.

She tapped on her chest.

“He says you can feel it right behind your chest, next to your heart.”

Cal frowned. He didn’t really feel anything. Could be something that took practice.

Down two potential magical disciplines already, though. Cal thought sourly.

Warped Skills were different than skills a person might have naturally. They imbued a supernatural enhancement to whatever the skill described.

For example, a man who was amazingly talented at forging iron could produce works of art, but a man with a few levels of Smithing would find his iron staying hot longer, the smoke avoiding his lungs and eyes, in addition to his hammer landing truer, and the resulting product being stronger than it should otherwise be, as his Bent leaked out into his work.

Master craftsman who were both talented and had many levels of Smithing could make things that exceeded what was strictly possible for a piece of iron.

At least, that was how Karen had described it.

Just because you didn’t have the Skill didn’t mean you couldn’t be good at something, but without it, you could never be the best.

Which meant that Cal would forevermore have an advantage at sneaking and…talking to girls.

Could be worse, all things considered. Cal thought to himself as he watched the slender girl’s shoulders and neck. Something tells me I might want to talk to girls at some point.

“Right here,” she said, pointing to an unadorned building with a bit of candlelight pouring out of boarded up windows. The neighborhood around it was just as grimy as the northwest had been, and Cal found himself wondering if it was an elaborate trap.

Nah, she’s too pretty for that.

She stepped up to the door and opened it. It was unlatched, which was odd in the heart of the city, and Cal followed her through the plain wooden portal into a choked maze of books. It occurred to Cal that the windows might be boarded up to prevent prying eyes from seeing the wealth laying around the floor for the taking.

Books weren’t exactly cheap. Each tome here was worth a quarter of it’s weight in silver, and a hundredth of its weight in gold.

Cal eyeballed an average height stack of books, and found it had about fifteen books from the floor. Multiply that by about…thirty stacks long and…Call glanced at the ceiling to measure how far the opposite wall was. Fifty stacks wide.

Thirty by fifty by fifteen. Divide the problem by a hundred to represent its quantity in gold, and you had fifteen by fifteen. Fifteen squared was one hundred fifty plus seventy-five, or about two hundred and twenty five book-weights worth of gold.

Cal picked up an average book and hefted it. About one and a half pounds, so three hundred thirty seven point five pounds of gold? That was assuming there weren’t any particularly clear spots he wasn’t aware of, though, and his estimate was probably wildly inaccurate, so Cal decided to reserve that as a high estimate.

Neat. Still, an insane amount of money to not lock your door on, though. Cal put the book back and followed the girl deeper into the room.

The girl went over to a circular wall of books and shouted, “Uncle!”

There was a clattering of books sliding off of something, and a man just barely taller than the five-foot stack of books peered down at the two children owlishly from behind his spectacles.

“Who dares disturb my slumber?”

“I think you know who I am, uncle.” She glanced at Cal. “This is my uncle Bekvah, Bekvah, this is…”

“Calvin.”

“Nice to meet you, Calvin.” Bekvah said, his arm twisting over the stack of books to shake Cal’s hand. “What brings you and your friend here, Kala?”

The slender girl winced at the name, glancing at Cal.

“Kala?” Calvin asked. “Like the daughter of the Sultan?”

….

Cal looked at Kala whose brows were furrowed, lips stretched tight.

Cal looked at Bekvah, who blinked and glanced at Kala.

“Well, that’s not too surprising. Every time bigwigs have a kid, the name gets super popular for a couple years.” Calvin shrugged, putting his hands in his pockets.

“Huh,” Bekvah grunted, sliding his glasses back up the bridge of his nose.

“Calvin here wants to learn magic.” Kala said very gently for some reason. “It’s his Forming day.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Bekvah said, giving Cal an odd look.

“Why?” Calvin asked, frowning.

“What’s your Intuition?”

“Three.”

Bekvah waved at Cal as if that explained everything, which it didn’t.

“Surely he can learn some kind of magic.” Kala said.

“Doubtful. A man’s limits are fairly hard to transcend. Calvin, what’s your Will?”

“Eight.”

“see, it’s –“ Bekvah blinked and glanced back at Cal, adjusting his glasses.

“Stability?”

“seven.”

“Mind?” Bekvah whispered.

“Nine.” Cal said. They were staring at him now. “Is that bad?” it was Cal’s understanding that higher was better.

“That’s…not bad.” Kala said.

Maybe I should have told them my Intuition was higher?

Bekvah’s other hand reached over the book pile and stretched out unnaturally long to seize his shoulders, bringing him eye-to-glasses. The rest of the man’s face was still hidden behind the books.

“You, son, are like a raw diamond with a great big flaw, but with the right effort, we can cut around it and polish you into something worthwhile.”

“Cutting…doesn’t sound great.” Cal said.

“It’s a metaphor, but don’t worry, we’ll sort that out.”

Suddenly the room…expanded. The books stayed where they were, but the room seemed to somehow…replicate itself beneath them, creating new floorboards out of nothing that seemed like they’d always been there.

Cass could never quite see where new ones were added, they always just seemed to appear out of the corner of his eye. Suddenly the densely packed books were spread out, and the tight wall of books had become distant pillars stacked around a recliner with lamp beside it.

Bekvah sat down in the recliner and opened a book, titled Encyclopedia of Warped Skills.

There were hundreds of common ones, and tens of thousands of more unique skills, most of them more specific variations.

“A man gets eighteen skills in his lifetime, you know this, yes?”

“Yes.”

“And did you know that every five levels in a skill you raise a related sub-stat?”

“sure.”

“so we’re going to – “

“Make sure I learn five skills that raise Intuition so that it can catch up with the rest of my Mind, seeing as you would have to have at least five of them, or else eventually you run into a bottleneck?”

Kala frowned.

“This kid gets it!” Bekvah said with a grin. “How much Warp do you have left?”

“Six.”

Bekvah’s enthusiasm flickered a bit.

“With nine Mind, you should have twelve Warp.”

“I used up two sneaking out of my house, three on running down the road and one more talking to Kala.”

“Sneaking, huh? That can cover a wide range. What was the name of the skill specifically?”

“Stealth.”

“Common one, let’s see…Ah, a Kin/Int hybrid, acceptable. And your other one?”

“Talking to people.”

“Ah, I see. Probably less common, let me see, I’ll check the index….”

Bekvah muttered, his finger moving down the list in the back of the book.

“Talking. Talking to animals, talking to carpenters, dragons, Erovores, Formans, Girls, Iluthians, Jenistaries, Ladies…dum, de dum…Ah, people.”

He flipped the book to the right section, and began flipping through it.

“There’s a difference between talking to girls and talking to ladies?” Cal asked.

“I would assume the benefit of the skill would be more focused on women of high standing.” Bekvah muttered. “Ah, there, talking to people. Yep, seems like all the communication skills are intuition focused.”

He closed the book and went back to the Common Skills page.

“Looks like you got lucky. We can put off raising your Mind this time ‘round, painful as that is, and focus on getting three more Intuition based skills along with two levels of Intuition and a spare point of Warp hanging free.”

It seemed like Bekvah’s enthusiasm was returning.

“Alright, let’s see…”

The bespeckled scholar’s tongue began to stick out as he tore a scrap of paper out of a pad and started scrawling a hasty note on it.

“Kala, do these exercises with Cal.” He said, handing her the piece of paper and then standing, digging through piles of book and muttering to himself.

“You can’t be serious.” She said, reading the paper.

“I am serious, now don’t make me lose my concentration, I’m looking for the Sense-Grafting manual.

Kala glanced at her uncle then sighed and looked at Cal, glancing down at the paper then back up.

“Make a face like you’re confused about something.” She said.

Cal was confused.

“Good, now look like…Do I really have to do this?” she asked her uncle, who was burrowing into a rather large stack.

“Yes!”

“Make a face like you’ve got a crush on someone.”

Cal wasn’t exactly sure what that was supposed to look like, or even feel like.

“No, that’s still confused…You’re just confused, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Okay…try angry.”

Calvin furrowed his brows and scowled.

The exercises continued for a while, and when Calvin manifested a new skill, she switched to a different set of exercises.

You have manifested Acting

Acting has reached Level 1!

Acting Level 1: Behave exactly as you intend. Convey emotion naturally. 5% correction.

Remaining Warp 5/12

You have manifested Expression Reading

Expression Reading has reached Level 1!

Expression Reading Level 1: Passive bonus to reading expressions. 5% correction.

That’s kinda useful, I guess.

Remaining Warp 4/12

Once he picked up the two skills, Kala switched to a more general battery of exercises, getting him to tell her why jokes were funny, or figure out why a person in a story might be lying.

Intuition has reached Level 4!

Intuition has reached Level 5!

Remaining Warp 2/12

“Ah HAH!” her uncle said, raising a rather thin notebook above his head victoriously.

“And now, the final piece! One of the twelve classic Gadveran magics that relies heavily on Intuition. Sense Grafting!”

“Huh?”

“Give it a look.”

It was a rather thin manual, that described a way to remove his own senses and graft them onto another object. Hence the term Sense Grafting.

“How is this useful?” Cal asked. “Aside from spying, I guess.”

“Aside from that…” Bekvah narrowed his eyes and pointed a book at Cal. Nothing happened.

“What is it supposed to-“

Bekvah tilted the book sideways.

Suddenly the floor tilted drastically beneath Calvin, and he leaned to one side to compensate, then somehow the floor was actually flat, but he was falling sideways, and at the same time down.

Cal hit the floor with a grunt.

“I grafted your sense of balance to this book.” Bekvah said. “Pretty cool, right? Imagine what would happen if I…” he lowered the book and Cal felt his stomach rise into his chest as he felt himself falling.

“Please, spare me that.” Calvin called from the floor before the wizard could spin it above his head. “Unless you want to see my dinner on your books.”

“I suppose you get the idea.”

“I’m in.” Cal said, levering himself to a seated position and opening the book, skimming through the manual a couple times to make sure he had the idea, before giving it a shot.

“Here’s a glass eye.” Bekvah said helpfully as he started attempting the magic. “Symbolism can help focus the mind.”

“You just had a glass eye lying around?” Kala asked from where she had taken a seat.

Bekvah shrugged and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “You don’t?”

Cal did as the book instructed and held the glass eye overtop his left eye, focusing on forming a mental bridge between his eye and the glass eye.

After a minute of concentration, Cal felt a unit of Bent escape his body, binding his eye to the glass eye, and suddenly he could see out of it.

You have manifested Sense Grafting

Sense Grafting has reached Level 1!

Sense Grafting: remove one or more senses from one or more creatures, to apply them to one or more creatures/objects. Senses, targets, Distance, Duration, dictated by Skill Level

Sense Grafting Level 1: Sight. Self-only, Touch, 5 minutes.

Remaining Warp 1/12

“Whoah, this is really cool!” Cal said, then lifted the glass eye away from his face. The view from his left eye wobbled and rose up above his head, but his right eye stayed stationary, giving him a disconcerting split in his vision that caused him to wobble.

Bekvah must have noticed his discomfort.

“Try keeping both eyes closed.”

Cal did so, and it was much better.

“Muahaha, I’m seven feet tall!” he said, standing and holding the glass eye high above his head, looking down at the bemused Kala.

“There, you’ve just bypassed a year of study. How would you like to spend the last of your Warp? You don’t want to wake up with a tail or something, do you?” Bekvah asked.

That was entirely possible. Cal had been warned over and over again to make sure he spent all of his Warp, or he might change into something less than human.

There was also the possibility that he would wake up as something more than human, but it was a very slim chance, and he didn’t feel that lucky.

“What about that thing you did that made the room bigger?” Cal asked, glancing around the room that was now roughly the size of a warehouse.

“Splitting? Yes, that’s a good option.” Bekvah said. “This one I can teach you rather quickly. Get a small object, that glass eye should do fine.”

“Now, imagine yourself reaching with a thread so far to the right of the object that you burst through space itself and touch its left. Now do the same on the object’s left, right, top and bottom.

Cal’s head began to hurt as he struggled to imagine that.

“Then form a loop around the object and yank on it, and rather than pulling it any one direction, pull it in.

Another unit of Bend left Cal, making his arms and legs feel noodly, then there was a clattering on the floor as another glass eye fell to the ground, perfectly identical to the one in his hand.

You have manifested Dupdomancy

Dupdomancy has reached Level 1!

Dupdomany: Create copies of existing matter. Duration and mass dictated by Skill Level

Level 1: 1 pound, 5 minutes.

>>>Surgeon General’s warning<<<

DO NOT CONSUME DUPLICATED FOOD

Remaining Warp 0/12

“That wasn’t expanding anything, though, I just copied the glass eye.”

“Just copied the Glass eye.” He rolled his eyes. “And where did extra glass eye come from?”

“Ummmm….”

“Expanding space is a more advanced form of Splitting, so just practice and you’ll get the hang of it eventually.” Bekvah said.

“It’s called dupdomancy on my Status though?”

“That’s the official name, but it’s a mouthful.”

“I see.” Cal said, staring at the floor for a moment. Then it hit him.

“I can do magic! WHOOO!”

He stood up and did a victory dance, pulled Kala to her feet and gave her a hug.

“Thank you so much! Calvin the Almighty will forever be in your debt!”

“You’re um…you’re welcome,” she said, patting his back.

“Do you want to hang out again tomorrow?” Calvin asked, holding her at arm’s length.

“I can’t tomorrow,” she said, and Calvin felt something sink in his guts, like the wizard was messing with his senses again.

“You live in Deinos though, right?” she asked. “With all the sheep?”

“Yeah.”

“Then I will visit when I can.”

“Awesome!”

***Later***

Calvin was walking down the empty main street, in an excellent mood, occasionally breaking out into wild fits of dancing as he navigated the dark street.

Until he saw Karen standing under the windowsill of an inn near the East Gate, the light pouring down highlighting the shepherd’s gargantuan muscles.

Crap.

By the time Calvin got back to his house, his butt was raw with belt-lashes, and large portions of his adventure in the city had been beaten out of him.

Except for the girl, and the fact that he could do magic now.

Muahahahah….ow, laughing makes my ass hurt. How does laughing make my ass hurt!?

“So…nine Mind?” Kala, the daughter of Sultan Entredez asked her Uncle, the Third Prince, who liked to get away from the palace to study.

“That boy’s got a gift for the Bent like I haven’t seen before in my life. Talented people usually clock in at seven Mind at their first Breaking. Seven. It’s a shame so much of his potential was burned up dealing with his abysmal Intuition.”

“I thought It was kind of cute.”

“Hah.” Bekvah said, going back to his recliner. He waved a hand and the building shrunk around him, burying him once again in his books.

Chapter 3: 2 years later

***2 Years Later***

“Step in closer damn it!” Karen said, hitting him with the middle of her wooden sword, and folding Calvin over her blade before he was launched halfway across the practice yard, limp as a boned fish.

“You could have been a natural at this. Could have had a Skill that would’ve made you pick it up like an old habit, but now we’ve gotta do things the hard way!

“I regret nothing,” Cal wheezed dramatically into the dirt, before struggling to pick himself up and failing.

“Oh, Karen, don’t bully him so much!” Kala said, watching Cal’s morning lesson with a frown. Jinnei glanced over at the girl who’d come to visit every couple weeks for the last two years with a raised brow.

“He’s faking it.” she said, pointing at Cal.

Crap.

“what?”

“He never stays down for longer than a couple seconds. I’m pretty sure he’s got some kind of retard pain tolerance.”

Curses! When Cal had figured out how to bind his sense of pain to another object, he’d been able to impress Karen with his ability to take a hit without giving up, but now it was biting him in the ass.

A shadow loomed over Cal as Karen brought the sword down with a grunt of effort, surely intent on breaking him in half.

Cal may not feel pain right now because he bound it to a pebble in his house before practice, but damage is damage. He didn’t want to spend another night crying himself to sleep. The graft didn’t last forever.

Cal leaped up and tucked himself into a ball, rolling between Karen’s gargantuan legs as her sword destroyed the practice yard, throwing up a dust cloud that blocked their vision.

“Oh, wow.” Kala said, her hands folded neatly in her lap. “That’s impressive.”

“Eh, he’s below average compared to the rest of Karen’s students.” Jinnei said with a shrug.

“Below average!?” Cal demanded before Karen preformed a vicious backswing. He raised his sword to block it and wound up getting his face smashed in by the flat of his own wooden blade, sending him rolling to the ground.

“Are you okay?” Kala asked.

“Probably.” Cal said, staring at the sky. Karen knew how to hold back enough to avoid causing major injuries. Calvin severed the connection to the stone, and his sense of pain flooded back to him.

“Agh, son of a bitch! There it is!” his ribs told him that life was meaningless, and his leaking nose said ‘this is not the way to impress girls.’

Cal limped over to the bench while Kort took his place, the svelte young man handling himself significantly better than Cal had.

To her credit, Kala didn’t ogle Kort’s whipcord muscles while he sparred with Karen, instead choosing to pay attention to him. In the last two years, Kala had gone from charming to stunning, and only by sheer force of will and the assistance of a Warped Skill, was he able to avoid making an ass of himself.

Probably.

She sat with her delicate hands in her lap, watching him with a hint of amusement. Hopefully she was laughing with the severely beaten boy and not at him.

“I fail to see why a shepherd needs to be an excellent duelist as well,” she said.

“Karen’s something of a perfectionist.” Calvin said, wincing as he sat down.

“It’s strange that I’ve been coming here so long, and I’ve never seen her like this.” Kala said.

“Well, you’ve never spent the night before. We do this every morning.”

“You get bruises all over your body and a bloody nose every morning?” she asked.

“Not every time, but usually,” Cal said, shrugging out of his shirt. He was finally starting to catch up with the other kids, muscle-wise, but he still had a long way to go.

“My body is a roadmap of pain.” Cal said with a sardonic grin as he revealed all his new and old bruises.

“I’m so sorry,” Kala said, gasping at his bruises.

His sister rolled his eyes and stood up, wandering off.

“If I hadn’t tried to help you, you’d be –“

“Even worse off,” Cal said. “Don’t forget I was there by myself without any kind of plan.”

“True.”

“Besides,” Cal whispered. “I bind my sense of pain to a rock every morning.”

“Aaaah,” she said, nodding with a conspiratorial smirk.

Cal had the Bent for it.

As it turned out, Will directly dictated how quickly Bent would return to a person’s body, on a weekly scale. Eight Will meant eight spells a week, just enough to keep him from feeling the worst of his daily training with Karen.

If Karen knew he was doing it, she didn’t say anything.

Needless to say, that meant he got a lot more practice at Sense-grafting than Splitting over the last couple years.

A Warped Skill could advance on its own with lots of practice, but had to be manifested first. In addition, being able to practice his magic just over once a day didn’t really make the skill grow by leaps and bounds.

He’d yet to even get a skill to level five since his Breaking. Magic was far too slow, but religious daily casting had gotten Sense-Grafting to level three, leaving Splitting at a paltry one.

The other skills were awkward or inconvenient to raise. Where on earth was a shepherd in a tiny village going to practice acting, reading people’s emotions, or sneaking?

They were bits of daily life, though, so they had each gotten to level two, except for stealth, which was level four.

Sneaking up on errant sheep, sneaking up on rabbits, sneaking up on Mrs. Marshine taking a bath with the window open again…There were lots of uses for preternatural stealth.

After half an hour or so chatting and watching the kids of Deinos getting the stuffing beaten out of them, they all shrugged off their sore muscles and bruises, getting ready for the festival of Sultan Badin.

Legend had it that a young boy named Badin had been chasing a sheep that had strayed away from the rest of the flock, and stumbled into an ancient ruin, where he found a magic sword that allowed him to conquer all of Gadvera and become sultan.

Regardless of whether the story was true or not, there were ruins out there with ancient relics from the former world waiting to be uncovered. Assuming you could get past all the Warped monsters and cannibals.

That was besides the point. Sure you could possibly find an artifact, probably not enough to conquer the kingdom, more likely you’d find something that lays infinite eggs, or makes real good toast, or a clip that changes your hair color.

And you could probably make a business selling eggs and toast cheaper than anyone else, or start a fancy salon and have it made, but the chances of living through aforementioned expedition to the Wilds were slim, and how many people wanted to risk certain death to bring back a minor convenience?

Adventurers were one part gambler, two parts crazy.

The way the villagers of Deinos celebrated the festival was by releasing a brightly painted boar, then the youth would track it down in the woods in teams and bring it back. It was a far cry from a sheep, but a sheep didn’t taste nearly as good.

Boros the woodsman had released the boar into the dense forest earlier that morning, and now the time to hunt it down was approaching.

“So, Kala, what do you say? You and me on a team?” he asked, glancing over at the dark skinned beauty.

“Sorry,” she said, making the half-cupped hand of apology and wincing. “I already promised I’d team up with Jinnei.”

“I told you about it a month ago!”

“She asked me a week before that.”

A motion in the distance caught Calvin’s eye.

Jinnei leaned over from behind the wooden beam supporting the Feast hall and gave him the finger before disappearing behind it again. Oh, so it’s like that, is it?

“And…” Kala picked at the hem of her silk skirt. “I wanna win this time?”

Calvin sputtered. “Win? I can win. I’ll win right now! I’ll be doing nothing but winning, like St. Charles of Sheen. Getting lost last time was a complete fluke.”

Kala chuckled, covering her expression with her hand.

“I look forward to seeing that,” she said.

I wish she wouldn’t do that, Cal thought as he studied her. It was a rare moment that he caught an unguarded smile from the girl, which made them all the more precious.

Cal swallowed the lump of regret and reoriented himself. Gonna get jinnei back for this, but first I’ve gotta track down a partner.

“Well if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go find someone who’ll give me an edge over the dream team. Maybe if I pick Kort you two will be distracted by abs long enough for me to win.”

“That…probably wouldn’t work.” Kala said, seeming a little unsure. “And he’s already got a partner.”

Cal glanced over and spotted Kort and Persei chatting it up, testing the draw on their bows.

Damn!

That didn’t leave Cal a lot of choice, and before noon he was stuck with Baroke, who’d only gotten bigger in the last two years. The boy outweighed a few fully-grown men, and his neck was as thick as Cal’s waist.

All according to plan. Cal thought, nearly rubbing his hands together in glee. He and BAroke got together, picked bows that fit them and made for the starting point. Baroke’s bow could put an arrow through a decent sized tree.

“Seems like a fitting pairing,” Kort said with a grin when they were all finally assembled at the starting lines. “Good luck.”

“We don’t need luck where we’re going,” Cal stared dramatically into the woods.

A moment later Kala and Jinnei showed up. Kala had exchanged her typical silken shawl for pants and a shirt, more practical for running around in the woods.

The difference between her usual look and this one had Cal craning his neck and leaning back to keep his eyes on her. He could see the curve of her hips and her arms were completely uncovered, revealing more of her soft brown skin than he’d ever seen before.

“You’re staring.” Baroke said.

“And?” Cal replied without looking away.

“And let’s get our game faces on. You wanna be the kid who got lost and had to get rescued half a mile outside of town forever? I for one don’t appreciate people thinking I’m some kinda idiot just cuz I’m stronger than them. This whole muscle and brains pairing offends me.”

“Hah,” Cal said, tearing his eyes off Kala. “You said it.” he frowned. “What was the plan again, boss?”

Baroke punched him lightly on the shoulder, which caused Calvin to stagger.

A minute later everyone in the village who wanted to participate was lined up, while those not participating in the hunt got ready for the feast.

It seems to me like every festival involves some kind of ritualistic killing. Not that that bothers me, Cal thought.

“Ready?” the village elder asked, to which everyone nodded, settling down on the start line.

The old man put his gnarled fingers in his mouth and a made a piercing whistle, signifying the start of the competition. Jinnei and Kala leapt up and began sprinting into the woods, leaving everyone else behind with their sheer speed.

Kort and his girlfriend ran forward at a more leisurely pace, probably intending to find some time to be alone. The chances of them winning were slim, unless the prize was Persei getting knocked up.

Most of the adults took off at a more sedate pace, not wanting to steel the teen’s thunder, and realizing that the game was more of a marathon than a race.

We’ll see about that. Cal thought with his evilest grin as he stood up from his stooped starting position along with Baroke, watching the contestants disappear into the woods.

“Aren’t you boys going to look for the boar?” the village elder asked, frowning.

“Damn right we are,” Calvin realized who he was talking to, and hastily added, “Elder.”

“Baroke, hit me.” Calvin held out his hand.

Baroke punched him in the shoulder again, nearly sending him sprawling.

“Very funny.”

A second later Baroke put one of his green fletched arrows in Calvin’s hand.

Call harnessed the Bent and drew one of the four points he’d saved for the competition to use Sense-Grafting. Suddenly, he was seeing out of the tip of the large boy’s arrowhead.

That thought seems phallic, somehow.

“Go for it.” Cal said, handing the teen the arrow.

“You see, elder, we’re gonna find the boar first, and – OOOAH SHIT!!”

Cal’s legs went limp as his point of view soared upward at a speed that made him distinctly uncomfortable, landing his ass in the dirt.

After a good eight seconds of looking at the sky, Cal’s field of view flipped, and the entire coast of Gadvera revealed itself to him.

Muahahaha! The view from the top is delicious…I think I’m gonna be sick.

Cal held it in, desperately searching the landscape for any sign of the painted boar as the arrow spun lightly. It should be bright red…

Cal scanned the woods multiple times desperately, but he couldn’t locate a single flash of red, although he spotted Jinnei and Kala, already sweeping through the forest, following the stream in an effort to locate it watering.

Where, where, where…

Finally, Cal noticed a glimpse of red off to the side, not even in the forest at all.

Call broke the connection with the arrow as it hit the ground.

“The boar’s up at Farmer Endras’s. It circled around and broke into his horse pen and is currently eating from the trough.

The village elder’s eyebrows went up.

“Which one?” Baroke asked, glancing to the south.

“Left hand one.”

“from the road?”

“Yeah. About a foot left of center.”

“Alright.” He held out another arrow, holding it out for him. Cal touched it and connected his vision for another point of Bent. Each cast took one point, but the effect became more powerful as his skill went up.

The first sense he could graft was sight, then touch and pain at level two, then hearing at level three.

It was odd that the magic allowed less useful senses as the level got higher, rather than the other way around, but Cal wasn’t complaining.

“Lemme lay down this time.” Cal said as Baroke drew his gargantuan bow.

“Called shot.”

Baroke activated his level five ability he’d gotten from Archery, actively putting a point of Bent into it. Calvin didn’t think saying it out loud had any measurable effect, but they had agreed to disagree.

“Now boys-“ the elder began as they aimed to the south, over the village.

“OOOOHH SHIIIIIT!”

Calvin shouted as his vision was catapulted over the tops of the village huts.

“Called Shot, Called Shot.”

Cal heard Baroke fire two more arrows in rapid succession, but he was too busy gripping the grass underneath his hands and gritting his teeth as he experienced flying through the air in a none-too gentle manner.

Cal’s view began to arc downward, and he saw the target come into sight. The boar’s wiry hair was matted to its side with red paint, and it seemed to be having a grand time eating food meant for Endras’s animals.

Baroke’s arm got the arrows there, and his Archery skill made sure it hit, guiding his hand and bending the odds in his favor. The boy’s level five ability helped long shots even further, in exchange for Bent. Cal followed along with the arrow, watching the boar’s skull rapidly get bigger and bigger until the fateful instant where Cal found out what boar brains looked like on the inside.

Dark, since there was no light.

“Bleh,” Cal said, blinking his eye as he dismissed the bond. “You hit it with the first arrow. I don’t know about the rest.”

“Cool, if we’re lucky, we can head over to Endras’s and pick it u – ow!”

“Ow, ow ow.”

“Now boys,” the village elder said, glancing between them as he hauled Cal up and Baroke down by their ears. The elder treated the big boy like he didn’t outweigh him by at least fifty pounds.

“I’m very impressed by your creativity in this year’s Balin festival, but you are never to shoot arrows over the town again, are we clear?”

“Yes sir.” Baroke said.

“But everyone’s at the – ow ow ow,” Cal groaned as the elder torqued on his ear.

“Are you absolutely, one hundred percent, willing to risk someone else’s life, sure of that, Calvin?”

“No sir?”

“I see. So you were aware that someone might get hurt and did it anyway?”

“No?”

“Well, which is it?”

“I understand that it was stupid and reckless, and won’t do it again, sir.” Cal said with as much sincerity as he could muster.

Acting has reached level 3!

Huh, whaddya know?

“Good.” He said, letting the two of them go and straightening. “Now take a wheelbarrow and pick it up, and I swear to the gods, if you killed one of Endras’s animals, you’re going to spend the rest of the summer paying for it.

The two of them turned away, when the elder addressed them again.

“And Calvin, if you did get the boar, you and Baroke will have beat the village record, by a landslide.”

Baroke and Calvin glanced at each other, whooped and high-fived. Baroke nearly broke Calvin’s arm.

“But you’re not to use that method again next year.”

“What, why?” Calvin demanded. The old man was probably superstitious about using magic or some –

“We need the couple hours of quiet time you kids burn off energy pissing around in the woods to set the feast set up and relax,” The elder deadpanned. “It’s more than just getting it as fast as possible. If we just wanted meat, we’d have Boros slaughter the thing the day before and have done with it.”

“Oh,” Cal said, glancing back at Baroke. “Yeah, that makes sense.”

The elder waved them off.

Five minutes later, Calvin and Baroke got back with a wheelbarrow full of dead boar covered in red paint, with three arrows clustered an inch apart, fletching deep in the thick skull. The arrows were so deep the bloody tips exited the bottom of the wild pig’s head.

“You could have been hell with a greatsword, Baroke,” Karen said when they got back, clapping the giant boy on the shoulder. “But that wasn’t a bad showing. You could really make a difference on the battlefield one day.”

“What about me?” Cal said, pointing at himself.

“I’m not a fan…But I can see limited use in scouting applications. Try carrying floating lanterns with you,” she said before grabbing the five hundred pound monster and throwing it over her shoulder. Karen carried the pig over to the big hook on the side of the feast hall where she tied up its rear legs and began gutting it.

“Sorry, man.” Baroke said, patting Calvin on the shoulder. Baroke knew that Karen was the closest thing Cal had to a mother. Which is why it was so irritating they couldn’t see eye-to-eye.

“Are you kidding? That’s the first time she’s actually engaged with the concept.” Cal said with a grin. “Most of the time it’s ‘Godsdamned heresy!’”

“If you say so.” Baroke said.

The Village elder walked by and spotted the boar and shook his head with a sigh before heading up the watchtower and ringing the bell six times to signal the end of the hunt.

“Fastest time in history. What, under ten minutes? Cal said with a grin. “Gimmie some.”

They high fived again.

When Kort and Persei got back from the woods, looking a little miffed about not getting to finish, Cal and Baroke were sitting with their feet up in hastily grabbed woven chairs facing the woods.

“Excuse me sire, would you care for some more of the winning team’s ceremonial wine?” Cal asked.

“Why yes my good man,” Baroke said, lazily sloshing his cup before Cal refilled it. As the couple were coming closer the two switched roles.

“Excuse me sire, I couldn’t help but notice how parched you look, perhaps you could use some ceremonial wine, circa thirty-two hundred and forty?”

“Mmmyeesss,” Cal drawled, holding his cup out with a limp wrist as Baroke filled it. “A very good year.”

Honestly the ceremonial wine wasn’t that great, but drinking it in front of the rest of the village as they filtered out of the forest in ones and twos? Priceless.

Kort walked up to them with a stony face.

Cal was eagerly anticipating wails of frustration and the gnashing teeth of the defeated, but Kort knew him well, and he wasn’t one to lose without putting up a fight.

“It’s inspiring how well you two complement each other.” He said with a neutral expression as he came within earshot.

“Huh?”

“I mean, you two really did make a great team, covering each other’s most glaring flaws to achieve something great. It’s almost as if to say either of you on your own would have floundered in the dirt the entire time. Your success here has really proven how much-”

“Bah,” Baroke said, tossing the half empty cup of wine at Kort, who caught it with a grin, despite being splattered with some of its contents. He knocked back the bit that remained with a satisfied sigh.

“Ah…thanks for the drink, sire, ‘tis a hot day.” He said, adopting their mannerisms.

“Don’t make me get out of my chair.” Cal said mock-threateningly.

“Or what, you’re gonna spy on my mom again?”

“I don’t hear her complaining.” Cal said with a shrug.

“Dude, you’re mom’s a cougar.” Baroke said. “There was this one time she caught me alone and-“

“AAAH, SHUT UP!” Kort said, clapping his hands over his ears and running off.

“Winners, Calvin and Baroke.” Cal said, flexing his meager biceps.

“Ring the funeral bell,” Baroke said, leaning back in his chair, bringing the bottle of wine to his lips in a meaty fist.

The villagers streamed in from the forest over time, slowing to a crawl and then stopping once everyone was in.

Everyone except Jinnei and Kala.

Chapter 4: