80. A Day in the Life (Patreon)

“Is there something wrong, Zasha?” Aluali looked with concern at my bowl still half full. “Do the dumplings not taste good?”

He’d made them with Bihei’s help; the two waking early to assemble them from shredded smoked musk ox meat and acorn flour. The dumplings were served in a bowl of soup made from bones that’d been left to simmer overnight.

“They’re delicious,” I said. And it was true--the soup was rich and nourishing, full of umami.

I took another bite, and he smiled with relief. The quiet meal livened with the talk of his and Billisha’s plans for the day. I did my part by giving breakfast the attention it was due. Besides, the moment my thoughts strayed and my spoon slowed down, I caught Aluali glancing my way.

“Actually, there is something you can help me with,” I said.

That got their attention right quick, and I explained my idea for a pair of animal handling gloves studded with bone. Even though I was currently preoccupied with what I’d learned from Borba’s dreams, that didn’t mean I was willing to put my plans on hold. Fortunately, the documentary film business gave me plenty of experience juggling ten thousand balls at once.

Bihei showed me examples of the hides she had on hand, while the kids talked about cutting and shaving some of the uncooked musk ox bones down into small squares. I thought the bones were too thick, but the kids weren’t sure. They’d see what they could do. And if the musk ox bones didn’t work, they’d trade for others.

That made me smile. So enterprising, these children. They were thrilled when I told them I planned to stay a couple of extra days in Voorhei.

###

The sun’d been up for an hour, and Voorhei hummed with activity. The villagers fed their chickens and collected the eggs. Goats were milked and taken to pasture. Children ran to the wells for water, and their parents scolded them for spilling too much on the way back. It was a good time to be out and about in the village; running errands.

I nodded to Kesa and her team as they headed toward the village gate. After the success of the musk ox hunt, Inleio put into motion the lodge’s first steps to prepare for the lightning bear’s hunt. Sure, Banan and his team had a plan, but the Hunter’s Lodge had its own way of doing things. And the first step was scouting for the most advantageous terrain for the coming hunt.

Today, it was Kesa’s team’s turn. Tomorrow, it was Borba’s.

I sighed. I didn’t know Grunthen, so his murder didn’t mean much to me. Intellectually, I knew that it was wrong, but it was hard to feel much sympathy. By all accounts, the man was egoist and a jerk.

Borba, on the other hand, was well-liked by everyone. They appreciated his willingness to work hard and sacrifice for the good of the lodge and the village. The only problem was that he wasn’t as Talented as others. Certainly, not as Talented as Grunthen.

I wondered… if the village had the opportunity to trade ordinary-but-decent Borba for element-touched-but-jerk Grunthen, would they? My suspicion was that the answer was yes.

Talents meant a lot to the people of Voorhei. They drove people’s choice of profession, who they married, and their overall value to the community. With my outrageous number of Talents, I benefited from this system, but I also recognized that there were others who weren’t as lucky; people who were relegated to basic farm labor because of their mediocre Talents.

In a way, Ghitha was a victim of this culture too. His Family was prized for being Earth-Touched, but when he showed no signs of developing the Talent, he was relegated to taking care of the household, even though he possessed Talents that would make him a decent hunter. If I recalled correctly, he had the Methodical, Soft-Walker, and Even-Tempered Talents.

Yuki felt compelled to comment. Ghitha is a jerk too.

Yes, but justice shouldn’t depend on who we like and don’t like.

But it does, Yuki said. In your old world…

As an ideal, I said, interrupting. The ideal of justice.

But you don’t believe in blind justice, Yuki said. I’ve seen it in your memories.

That’s true, I said. Context matters, but context shouldn’t include things like likability or commonality.

Yuki ruffled through my memories. A crime of passion is context? Like Borba killing Grunthen because of his role in Kiertie’s death?

I shook my head. I’ve never been comfortable with the whole idea of crimes of passion. Seems to me, it rewards a person for losing control.

So what context should justice have?

I walked through the village mulling over Yuki’s question. The best example I can think of is an abused spouse killing their partner; when they can’t take it anymore and they don’t see any other way out. Or it’s self defense.

This situation--Borba’s situation--is nothing like that, Yuki said.

“No,” I said with a sigh. “It’s not.”

Ah, I’d reached Ghitha’s house. Unlike the traditional longhouses, it was two stories tall and built from quarried stone. The double doors were white oak with brass handles, and there were green-tinted windows to let in the light.

I was on my way to the village’s smithy and detoured by Ghitha’s house to case the joint. Whether I liked him or not, there was enough evidence now to justify an investigation of his qi. No, I needed to call it what it was--an invasion of his body in order to eavesdrop on his thoughts.

I joined with Yuki as we walked past, admiring the orderliness of the house’s construction. The walls and windows would likely block our entry. The quality of their workmanship was good. We noted the chimney, though, and the keyholes in the doors. Both should provide adequate opportunities for ingress.

Nodding to ourselves, we stopped in the shadow of Ghitha’s neighbor’s house to leave a portion of ourselves behind. It stretched us thin to do so, not leaving any further room to separate ourselves without compromising the integrity of our consciousness. Our current limit was one main body and three subsidiary bodies.

Yuki and Ollie/Eight unmerged, and I continued my stroll to the smithy. Although, there was one more stop along the way--the village’s pyramid.

So you can’t go through walls? I asked.

It depends, Yuki said. If there are holes or cracks, our tendrils can squeeze through or we can use our qi body. Otherwise, the intent of the walls blocks us. We learned this during the time of our excursion.

That’s right. They’d gone wandering through the village a couple of times while I slept. This was back before we came to an understanding though.

How is that different than entering people? You don’t seem to have any problems with that.

Yuki’s qi swayed, the equivalent of shaking their head. It’s the same. If an animal is completely encased in their defense--be it armor, fur, or carapace--then we’d have trouble entering into their qi space. Fortunately, most creatures need to breathe, eat, see, and hear, so there are usually soft places to attack. The only difficulty is if an animal has powerful qi. In that case, it’s possible that they resist our entrance even if it’s through a wound or soft spot.

Did that happen often? I have a hard time imagining many creatures having more powerful qi than you.

Sometimes, Yuki said, with a shiver. The lightning bear, for example, when he first found the Red Room. He was too big to fit through the passage, but he pawed at the eilesheile to get what he could. We thought at the time that easy prey had come, but we were wrong. Very wrong. His qi rebuffed us and sent lightning after us. So much of the eilesheile burned, it took months to recover them.

“And the parasitism didn’t affect him?” I asked, surprised.

Not as far as we could tell, Yuki said. The lightning bear ate as much of the eilesheile as he could reach.

“And that’s why you were so afraid of his qi when we came across it in the forest.”

He came back often, Yuki said. Always trying to reach farther and farther into the Red Room. And then one day, he stopped.

I realized that I’d spoken aloud earlier and looked around to make sure no one saw me. It was too easy to get distracted talking to Yuki. Fortunately, no one was paying attention. I started my climb up the pyramid steps. A couple of villagers were on their way down, and they nodded to me.

I nodded back, and continued the conversation with Yuki. That’s because Woldec sealed the cave in the fight against the lightning bear.

Yes, the qi intent of the wall he built was very strong.

Not that it did him and Kiertie any good, I said.

No, but it saved the children, Akbash and Biaka, Yuki said. At least until the chliapp lions got them.

The pyramid was the tallest building in Voorhei. The style reminded of the Mayan ruins at Chichen Itza in Yucatan. Similar to the Temple of Kukulkan there, the exterior of Voorhei’s pyramid consisted of a series of square terraces with a stairway up to the enclosure at the top.

Standing at the top of the stairs, I saw across the whole village, all the way to the walls. From the communal oven nearby came the smell of tamales. Well, they probably weren’t tamales exactly, but they sure smelled the same.

Down below, people went into and out of the Farmer’s Lodge. Meanwhile from the Hunter’s Lodge’s courtyard, I heard the thunk of arrows hitting their targets.

Inside the enclosure, a stone spiral staircase led down into the pyramid. It was just wide enough for one person, but was studded with alcoves for people to pass by each other if necessary. The stairs were one more choke point in a village full of them. 

At the bottom was the room that held the village’s Dasekua, its Life Stone. Everytime I visited, the hairs on the back of my neck rose, and the air smelled of ozone.

The Life Stone was the heart of Voorhei, the most sophisticated magic tool in the village. The villagers fed it their mana, and in return the Life Stone produced five blessings for everyone within its boundary--fertility, health, protection, growth, and a stronger connection to the World Spirit.

Around the room, ramps led to different parts of a larger underground complex--storage for food, a cistern for water, and shelter in case the village was overrun. The scrying room was also down here, as well as other work and living spaces for the World Speaker.

I raised my hands, palms facing the Life Stone, and donated the equivalent of ten points of mana to the village. Most of the energy would be used to power the village’s blessings, but a portion would be set aside for emergencies.

I’d asked Sheedi about it. Apparently, not every village could afford a Life Stone, but Voorhei was well-to-do. The spirits of the land were friendly (for the most part), the city of Albei was close by, and several Talented Families lived here.

In many ways, I was quite lucky to land nearby. Well, surely luck had nothing to do with it.

Thank you, Diriktot, I thought.

Yes, thank you, Diriktot, Yuki said. For bringing Ollie/Eight to us.

###

The smiths--two husbands and a wife--worked the forge, while one of their sons measured me for a new chainmail shirt. As fond as I was of the patchwork (Hawaiian-style) I’d made in my first days in this world, it was time for an upgrade. The lightning bear hunt was only four tendays away, and I needed to be ready.

The price was an astounding five antaak, the equivalent of almost three years of peasant labor. There was no way I had that much money, even after selling the hides and bandit gear to Ghitha, but Mumu agreed to loan me the rest. It was an investment, she said, in a lucky, money-making talisman also known as Eight.

Well, given the riches that the eilesheile represented, I didn’t blame her for thinking that way. She’d make back the two antaak I owed her in no time once we were able to sell the eilesheile.

When the negotiations with the son heated up, one of the fathers intervened. We were eventually able to reach a deal though. The price stayed the same, however the smiths added a helm, a new spear, and a number of tools to the deal, including a shovel, a wood axe, two hammers, nails, two different saws, a plane, and an adze. 

My old patchwork shirt and I had been through a lot together, and the smith saw I was reluctant to part with it. That’s when he offered to include the chain links from it in the new armor. We grow, he said, so should our tools grow with us.

He meant it literally. Part of the deal included the sacrifice of silverlight from five deer to the new armor. That would be enough for the chainimal to reach Level 1.

Amazing stuff, silverlight. It helped any and everything become a better, stronger, purer, more powerful version of itself. I’d noticed the effect on my bow in the aftermath of the spirit journey to release my mana.

I’d killed a spirit tree monster along the way, and its silverlight spilled over me and my bow. That’s how I reached Level 1. My bow did too, although I didn’t know it at the time. All I noticed was that the bowstave and the draw smoothed out. It didn’t stack as hard at the end of my pull.

According to the smith, there were two ways to enchant items. The city way involved rituals to etch magic runes into the item. The process was intricate, time-consuming, and required a lot of study. The village way was simpler--all one had to do was sacrifice their own growth for the growth of the item by giving it silverlight. Anyone could do it. They only had to be willing.

For the record, we’d be buying the silverlight for the new mail from the Hunter’s Lodge. Also for the record, it was possible to grow powerful but cursed items by feeding them darklight. The smith didn’t approve of the practice though. He told me that he’d seen a cursed spear once and that was enough to know that he’d never torture a weapon or armor that way. Ever.

Between the measurements, the story telling, and the negotiations, I was there for a good two hours. We also talked about the different ways to make the armor silent. Apparently, the smiths ran thin strips of hide between the links to keep them from clinking against each other. I made sure the service was included in the price.

By then the other husband and wife were free, and they invited me to a meal with the rest of their Family. Commissioning a set of mail was a big deal, and they wanted to celebrate

Three hours later, stuffed full of braised goat, roasted blue potatoes, and greens, I waddled home.

###

I caught Bihei just as she was heading out to the fields after lunch. The kids had run ahead, anxious to get their work done early, so that they could start on the animal handling gloves. They’d left stew and dumplings for me, but I couldn’t eat another bite.

Bihei looked amused at my state, which made for a pleasant development. The shadows at the back of her eyes were starting to dissipate; the young widow becoming more settled the longer Billisha and Aluali stayed with her. She was, of course, still haunted by the loss of her spouses and children, but the weight of those losses was starting to be counterbalanced by the new lives residing in her longhouse.

Well, I understood how bright Billisha and Aluali could be; how they filled an empty space. I smiled, and Bihei smiled back, the expression reaching the corners of her eyes. She wished me well, and left for the fields with a wave.

I watched her go and marveled at people’s capacity to live on. I’d done it. Mostly. Bihei was starting to do it. Even Ghitha was doing it--the lightning bear’s hunt and the search for the Red Room were his way of moving forward. Too bad it clashed with me and my way.

The question of his involvement in Grunthen and Bindesei’s murders continued to niggle at me, pestering my thoughts no matter how much I tried to distract myself. I’d learn the answer tonight, once Yuki had a chance to infiltrate his house and invade his body. Till then, it wouldn’t do any good to speculate. All it’d do is spin my thoughts around until I was dizzy.

So I kept myself busy the best way I knew: training. I worked on my new spells and the footwork for the spear forms, the patterns that didn’t need a lot of space.

Partway, Sheedi stopped by to arrange a visit to Ikfael Glen for the Family coming to build the shrine. The plan was for the Family heads to visit first, get the lay of the land, and mark the trees they’d likely need for construction. Then, once the lightning bear hunt was complete and the forest hopefully more settled, the Family would head out en masse to fell the trees and begin construction. I’d do my part by liaising between them and Ikfael, and Sheedi handed me an eltaak as the first installment on my wages. 

Huzzah! I wasn’t broke anymore. Just thirty-nine more, and I’d be debt free.

After finishing her tea, Sheedi left, and I continued working up a heavy sweat in the afternoon heat. I started mixing Spirit Eyes into the steps--trying to overcome the disorientation without resorting to Dog’s Agility--and I noticed some of the village’s ghost dogs stopping by to watch, their tongues lolling. Ah, Bindesei was there too. He absentmindedly petted a couple of the dogs that sat by him.

I grabbed a towel to wipe my face and neck, moving slowly so that the world didn’t tilt too much around me. Well, it didn’t work--the world still spun--but I somehow managed in spite of it. I was able to walk back and forth across the garden without tripping or falling once. My body and senses were slowly becoming accustomed to the extra sensory information that came with the land after my encounter with the Deer God.

Spirit Magic 1 -> 2

Ah, that felt good, a recognition of the effort put into my training. I’d gotten my first rank in Spirit Magic practicing the Grace spell, and here was the second come quickly after.

Huzzah! Yuki said, their qi bursting like fireworks.

Huzzah indeed, I said, smiling at their antics.

How are we now? We wish we could see!

I conjured the image of my phone in my head in order to describe my current Status to Yuki.

Eight (Hidden Status, Oliver Michael Sandoval)

Path of the Young Forester  3

Age 8

Silverlight 846 / 2,250

Soul Marks

• God-Touched
• Spontaneous Formation
• Memories of Another World
• The Way of the Hunter

Attributes

• Strength 8 (9)
• Constitution 10
• Agility 9
• Intelligence 15
• Wisdom 15
• Spirit 15
• Charm 11
• Luck 13

• Hit Points 12/12
• Mana 5/21
• Qi 14/35

Talents

• Jack of All Trades
• Talent Scout
• Qi Sensitive
• Uncanny Tracker
• Multilingual
• Enduring
• Spirit Hunter

Blessings

• Diriktot (Fallen Clockwork God)
• Helen Miriam Sandoval (Spirit)
• Ikfael Glen (Spirit, Temporary)

Curses

Conditions

Occupied (Evolving)

Skills

Artisan

• Appraisal 5
• Construction 8
• Pottery 5
• Woodworking 8

Domestic

• Cooking 6
• Repairs 6

Magical

• Aeromancy 4
• Hydromancy 4
• Nature Magic 5
• Qi Body 9
• Qi Body Arts 6
• Spirit Arts 6
• Spirit Magic 2

Martial

• Archery 9
• Knife Arts 3
• Logistics 11
• Marksmanship 6
• Spear Arts 6
• Strategy 5

Mercantile

• Accounting 12
• Administration 12
• Barter 5

Scholarship

• Biology 5
• Chemistry 4
• Diaksh 7
• English 13
• Signed Diaksh 6
• Spanish 8
• Nonverbal Communication 6
• Numeracy 8
• Physics 4

Social

• Gaming 12
• Relationships 9
• Storytelling 10

Spiritualism

• Meditation 9
• Taoism 8

Survival

• Caves 3
• Forest 9
• Ocean 3
• Stealth 7

It’d been a long while since I last comprehensively reviewed my Status. Sure, the upgrade notifications were a nice surprise whenever they popped up, but I’d fallen out of the habit of looking at the whole picture.

I didn’t need to fret over my “build” like I had to before. I wasn’t alone in a game trying to min-max my way to completion. Instead, there were teachers to show the way--the Way of the Hunter that I’d chosen and that chose me back. There were sensible guides and markers I could follow, although none were exactly right for my particular circumstances. They were enough to point the way though.

We are one in a million, Yuki said.

That we are, I said.

Still, a review of my full Status was useful for charting my progress. My Strength was in the process of increasing from 9 to 10. And my relationship to Yuki was reflected in the Condition Occupied (Evolving).

Evolving to what, we weren’t exactly sure. The two of us were excited, though, by the prospect of what came next.

Ah, if Inleio and the village leadership knew I had seven Talents, they’d spit. As for the rest, the time spent training and learning from the people of Voorhei was fruitful. A number of Skills ranked up over the past several tendays:

Pottery 4 -> 5

Aeromancy 2 -> 4

Hydromancy 2 -> 4

Nature Magic 3 -> 5

Qi Body Arts 5 -> 6

Spirit Arts 5 -> 6

Spirit Magic 0 -> 2

Archery 8 -> 9

Knife Arts 2 -> 3

Spear Arts 5 -> 6

Diaksh 4 -> 7

Nonverbal Communication 5 -> 6

Signed Diaksh 3 -> 6

Meditation 8 -> 9

Survival Forest 7 -> 9

Stealth 5 -> 7

My magical, survival, and language skills in particular were rapidly developing. The only laggard was my Spear Skill. After some quick early gains, I found that progress depended on burning the forms into muscle memory. That meant practice, practice, and more practice. But with everything I had to train, I wasn’t getting as much time as I needed, even with my attempts at mixed martial arts.

Hmm… learning from Spear Skill-Sensei was slow going. I needed to devote more time to sparring and learning with others. Maybe I should head to the lodge after all…

###

By the time I got back to Bihei’s longhouse, I was exhausted. A wet noodle. A bedraggled rat fished from the salty, sweaty ocean barely hanging on to his spear. Bihei and the kids met me at the door, and I swear they all sighed to see me so.

They helped me clean up, fed me, and put me to bed. I didn’t sleep though, no matter how much I wanted to. There was still work to be done.

The day had passed, and night fallen. The villagers were all in their homes. The way was clear for the Yuki outside of Ghitha’s house to move.