Chapter Three: Skills and Survivability

Chapter Three

SKILLS AND SURVIVABILITY

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“The opposition of the elements is not contradictory, but complementary. It is in their contrast that they lend one another strength.”

– Penour D’egais, Famed playwright of Giaval

~*~

Mind racing, Liv turned her attention back to the odd, magical book, but it was gone. She’d been so distracted by the airship, she hadn’t noticed its weight leave her fingers. A quick survey of the surrounding grass told her she hadn’t dropped the damn thing, so where had it gone? Surely she would have noticed a flash of light if its spontaneous exit was as dramatic as its arrival?

“Wait– Come back, I wasn’t finished!” She called.

Amber light flashed and the book thumped unceremoniously into her lap.

“Could have been nicer about it,” she muttered.

The book only ruffled its pages.

She chose to ignore its sass as she snatched it up and flipped to the first page. Much like before, it was empty. Lips thinning, she rifled through the tome. Its pages were blank. They were all blank. Stupid book. At over an inch thick, you’d assume she’d be able to read something without having to explicitly ask, but no.

“Alright, fine,” she sighed, “Is this Earth?”

A familiar, fiery script burned itself into the page.

No.

The hair along the back of her neck rose and prickled.

“Is there a way for me to go back?”

Yes.

She didn’t dare breathe a sigh of relief, “How?”

Unknown.

Of course the damn book didn’t know.

“Do you know someone who does?”

No, then a second later, Would you like to see your suggested course of action?

Liv rubbed at her brow, “Sure. Why not?”

The writing disappeared and was quickly replaced.

You are currently stranded in the Angaeli forest of Orenthium. You have no food, no shelter and no supplies. Remedying the situation is in your best interest.

Suggestions:

* Find a way to survive in the new world.

* Make your first selections in the cultivation tree. Who knows, maybe they’ll increase your survivability?

“I’d appreciate a little less snark, book. I’ll use you as kindling, if I have to.”

This would be unwise. My destruction will only hasten your inevitable end.

Well, that certainly wasn’t comforting. It was impossible to tell whether or not the book was bluffing, but she made a mental note to keep it safe in the future. Which should be relatively easy if it popped out of existence every time she closed it.

“Fine, show me the tree.”

The page blanked.

Then, a flow chart of sorts began to form. The diamond shape at the center rose first, its lines and edges accented by little, leafing, flowering vines. It read: Cultivation. Two paths stemmed from the top and bottom point in a central through-line leading to similarly accented rectangles reading Governance and Creation respectively. Both led to a category called First Order along their individual path lines and it was there that the differences became apparent.

Two paths branched from each corner of the first order governance box: Detect Life to the left and Detect Energy to the right. A central line continued through the center of the main category, but faded before it reached what Liv assumed was the next order. Detect Life branched to a subsequent Detect Decay square and Detect Energy led to Read Energy.

Liv pursed her lips. It may have been a few years since she’d had the free time to play games like Skyrim or Dragon Age, but she knew a skill tree when she saw one. She assumed the first order represented the beginner level, if not something similar. The through line likely led to the next rank, which meant the offshoots were skills.

Maybe the Braddock Estate had some sort of VR room after all and she’d been strapped to it. If this really was some sort of simulation, it was the best she’d ever seen. She wasn’t even sure technology had even advanced to a point where something like this would be possible. She had to admit, though, the explanation made more sense than some magical, teleporting crystal sending her to who-knew where.

Either way, she decided to play along. It wasn’t as if she really had a choice in the matter. One way or another, she was stranded.

She glanced down the creation path, noting there were three offshoots: one to the right and left like that of governance with the third bisecting the central line to the next rank. Tap Arcane Spring. Was it a prerequisite of some sort? Encourage Growth on the left and Energy Transduction on the right both seemed like starting points in and of themselves, so she supposed it wasn’t a stretch. Neither one led to an additional skill either.

“Can you explain some of these?” She asked the book.

It scribbled its response along the bottom of the page.

You’ll have to be more specific.

“Fair enough,” she sighed, “What’s the difference between detect energy and read energy? They sound like they might as well be the same thing.”

Detect energy grants you the ability to sense whether or not an energy field is present. You feel it, you know it's there, but that’s it. Read energy allows you to distinguish positive from negative. At higher orders, the aspect of the energy may also be determined.

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

She supposed that made sense. At least, to some degree. The usefulness of the skill seemed like a matter of some debate, but if it was present, it had to serve some sort of purpose, right?

Detect life and detect death were both fairly self explanatory, but again, she wasn’t sure how useful they actually were. She was in a forest, of course there was life. She could see it. Did she really need to waste one of these selections on a skill she could compensate for elsewhere? There had to be more to it. Maybe she could detect what sort of life was around her? Like animals or people? She supposed she could chance it, but being smart about all this was likely in her best interest.

Encourage growth spoke for itself, however its sibling skills were less forthcoming. The page listing out all her information, questionable and inaccurate as some of it may be, had mentioned an arcane spring status and listed hers as none. Did that mean she lacked a connection?

“What’s this center skill here?” She asked, tapping the page, “Tap Arcane Spring?”

Creation, regardless of form, requires energy. The arcane spring is the well from which its raw essence is drawn. Selecting the skill grants you access to this power, but the amount you are able to channel and store in reserve is dependent upon the order of your gemcore.

“The higher my order, the more I can channel?”

Correct.

Which meant she wouldn’t be able to do much of anything at her current stage.

“What about energy transduction?”

This skill refers to the ability to convert energy into matter.

The beginner creation skills were definitely starting to sound like prerequisites.

“Alright, so if arcane spring gives me access to this mystical woo-woo energy, does that mean I also need energy transduction unlocked in order to do anything with it?”

Yes. Encourage growth is also recommended.

She could work with that, she only wondered what she could actually do with any of this.

“Can you show me the next order?” She asked.

Both halves of the tree expanded to include the next rank and corresponding skills. Third Order. Liv blinked.

“Third? Are there no second order skills?”

No.

“Wonderful.”

The third order of the governance branch led to two new skill categories: Basic Corporeal Manipulation and Basic Energy Manipulation. Corporeal led to the skills Wield Flora and Shape Flora while energy offered Read Aura and Disrupt Energy. It appeared the left half of the overall tree was dedicated to aspects pertaining to life while the right was dedicated to that of energy.

Interesting, she thought.

Cultivation offered a similar selection, only with manipulation swapped in favor for generation, which made sense given the apparent nature of the branch. Generate Barkskin and Cultivate Microorganism were available under corporeal generation with Arcane Shield and Arcane Strike open on the energy side of things.

Liv sat back, reading over the tree as she weighed its options as well as its implications. The governance path suggested an ability to manipulate something that already existed, so while creation gave her the ability to make something, she may not be able to do much with it without a corresponding governance skill. In that case, she’d have to distribute her selections accordingly instead of just picking whatever sounded cool like she sometimes did in the games she used to play. She’d played games to escape and turn off her brain, but this . . . she’d have to handle this differently.

“How many orders are there?”

Twelve.

She blew out a breath, “And how do I advance from one to another?”

By practicing your chosen skills, obviously.

“Obviously,” she snorted.

Through her annoyance, a thought struck her. Her gaze flicked between detect life and cultivate microorganism. Maybe detect life was more useful than she’d initially given it credit for? Microorganisms were, by their very nature, exceptionally small. She wouldn’t be able to see them, but maybe she’d be able to sense or detect them with the skill? If that were the case, maybe she could tell what sort of plants or animals were nearby? She wasn’t sure what her range was, per se, but a skill like that could be handy in the dark or in an exceptionally dense patch of forest.

“Does detect life tell me what something is? Is it some sort of sixth sense?”

Yes.

“I’d like that to be my first selection, then,” she said.

Excellent.

The change was more subtle than she’d expected. Instead of spasming or blacking out a second time, she simply felt more. Grasses and shrubs and hidden mosses revealed themselves as secondary extensions of her own body within what she’d guess was roughly a four-foot radius around her. She could tell where each was without necessarily having to look or think about them. They were just . . . there, like an arm or leg or other appendage.

You have three selections remaining.

She didn’t hesitate, “Detect energy, read energy and tap arcane spring.”

Excellent. All available selections have been made.

At first, she wasn’t sure if detect and read energy had made any difference, but then a nagging, sickly sort of feeling arose from one of the ferns behind her. When she focused on it, her new sense honed in on the singular plant. She twisted to face it, searching the leaves for the source until she spotted the browning frond. While she couldn’t tell what was wrong with it, she could sense the negative energy rising from the affected area.

She leaned forward and pinched the leaf from the plant with her free hand. Her little bubble of detection shifted with her, granting her an updated mental map of her surroundings. Her spine tingled and she shivered at the change. Seamless as the integration of the sense was, it was going to take time to get used to.

Tap arcane spring came with its own unique sensation. It was distant, but somewhere beyond her, perhaps even beyond the physical world, she felt something. It encompassed everything, yet nothing at all. Her connection to it was no larger than a pinprick, but somehow, that tiny window into the unseen space was enough. Power beaded through it and into what she assumed was the reserve the book had mentioned before. And a particularly small one at that, given what she sensed was no larger than a teacup.

Calling her a beginner might be too generous a term, but some magic was better than no magic at all, right? She only wondered how she compared to the rest of this world. Wherever and whatever this world was. She glanced down at her right arm and the tattoos that had faded from gold to a rusted shade of red.

“Bound artifact, huh?”

Where had it gone after she’d touched it? Was it still in that private museum? Had it been sold? If it was bound to her, presumably it had come here with her, but all she saw were her shoes and mask. This stupid dress didn’t have any pockets either and even if it did, there wouldn’t be any hiding a crystal of that size.

“Can you show me the artifact page again?” She asked.

Her spiritbook flipped to a new page, unveiling the illustration as well as what limited information was available.

Artifact: Spiritshard

Alignment: Authority

Class: Divine

Discovered Abilities:

* Dimensional Travel

* Unknown

* Unknown

“Do you know where this mysterious shard is hiding?”

In your soulspace. Would you like to summon it?

She bit her lip. Did she? If she touched it again, maybe it would send her home . . .

“Yes.”

A faint glow arose from the center of her chest before golden dust began to filter out in a flowing ribbon. The crystal took shape in the air before her, hovering, just as her book had. In the light, it appeared like a giant amethyst, gold lettering glinting in stark contrast to the deep purple facets. It was a gem worthy of queens or empresses and some small, selfish part of her wanted to keep it for herself.

With a careful breath, Liv reached out to touch it once more. Warmth radiated through her fingers and up her arm, awakening the script along her skin. The golden light rose anew, but nothing happened. The energy within pulsed in anticipation, but without an application or use, she sensed there was nothing she could do with it.

“Take me home,” she said, panic rising.

Nothing.

Her heartbeat began to race with a certain desperation. This damned crystal was what had gotten her into this mess in the first place. It had to be the answer. It had to take her home.

“Take me back, now!”

Again, nothing happened.

The writing at the bottom of the artifact page drew her attention.

Suggestion:

* Find a way to survive in the new world.