The Way Ahead 3 E-Book

Kaleb England

• Herausgeber: Podium Publishing
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Serie: The Way Ahead
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 625

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Outsider Edwin Maxlin must play a tricky game of politics to level up his alchemy skills in the third book of this witty LitRPG fantasy series.   Like any good student of science, Edwin Maxlin knows there's no better way to gain knowledge than through trial and error. But if his trials since being magically transported from Earth to the land of Joriah have taught him anything, it's that he doesn't have much room for error.   Edwin has spent a year in the Verdant now, working with a strange, but seemingly benevolent, fey Inion to get a grasp on how skills, paths, and mana operate in his new home. He's finally ready to leave the relative comfort of the wild and venture into the cities of the Lirasian Empire to take his alchemical and healing abilities to the next level.   But training with an alchemy guild isn't as easy as it may seem. Not only will Edwin need all his talents—magical and scientific alike—to stay ahead in his studies, he'll have to tread carefully to avoid attracting too much attention from guildmasters, governors, even the Emperor himself. Because Outsiders aren't common in Joriah, and Edwin's very existence could be seen as a threat . . .   The continuation of an imaginative, addictive, and altogether entertaining adventure, The Way Ahead 3 is perfect for fans of role-playing games, epic fantasy, and, of course, the scientific method.   The third volume of the hit LitRPG adventure series—with more than three million views on Royal Road—now available on Audible and wherever ebooks are sold! 

Leseprobe

THE

WAY AHEAD

— Book 3 —

Kaleb England

aka NorskDaedalus

To my beta readers

Roland Hansson, Aelia Aeldyne, Pel-Mel, Magma,

Pastafarian, Heavenly Daoist, and w1k3d

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without prior written permission from Podium Publishing.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living, dead, or undead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2022 by Kaleb England

Cover design by Podium Publishing

ISBN: 978-1-0394-1602-4

Published in 2022 by Podium Publishing, ULC

www.podiumaudio.com

CONTENTS

Chapter 1Settling Off

Chapter 2 Study Skills

Chapter 3 Meet and Greet

Chapter 4 Speaking with the Manager

Chapter 5 Daily Dallying

Chapter 6 Focus Is Key

Chapter 7 Recipe for Success

Chapter 8 The Even One Out

Chapter 9 Burning Questions

Chapter 10 Clearly Magical

Chapter 11 Cell Attributes

Chapter 12 Closed-Dish Cultivation

Chapter 13 Local Cultures

Chapter 14 Eightfold Strategy

Chapter 15 Petty Concerns

Chapter 16 On Tracks

Chapter 17 Proper Attribution

Chapter 18 Moonlie

Chapter 19 Where There’s Smoke

Chapter 20 Injecting Levity

Epilogue Of Skill and Ink

Preview: The Way Ahead 4

About the Author

CHAPTER 1

Settling Off

“So. I just want to be very clear about this.” Edwin suspiciously eyed his companion. “You’re sure that this won’t hurt, won’t permanently fuse us together into some kind of abomination, won’t create an utterly unbreakable bond between us, won’t corrupt me into something else, won’t turn me into your eternal servant—”

“Yes! Blight, Edwin, why are you so worried? You’re usually so much more willing to go along with this sort of thing,” Inion cut him off with a cocky grin, her dark green hair drifting around her head as though she were floating underwater.

Edwin rolled his eyes. “Well, usually I’m not about to allow a literal fey—who, I will remind you, are infamous for trying to trick foolish mortals into silly contracts—to perform a binding ritual to attach herself to my physical body. I’m still skeptical about that deal we made about letting you watch me in exchange for general help, and this is way more . . . intimate.”

“Oh come on, Edwin. It’s not a binding ritual, it’s a magical ritual meant to transfer my binding point from the spring to the fey-primed Skill that manifests in and across your body.”

“That explanation literally included both the words ritual and binding in it.”

“Did it? Hmm. Well, that’s on your language for not having adequate vocabulary, then.”

“We don’t . . .” He sighed. “Never mind.”

It may not have made Edwin feel any better, but he was already sitting half reclined in Inion’s pond, Fey’s Caress at full bore turning his skin and hair to water, while the fey was flitting around, arranging floating plants in an approximate circle around him. “And you’re absolutely certain this won’t have any negative consequences for me in the long run?”

No matter how many times he’d done it, Edwin wasn’t sure if he’d ever get used to being able to see his muscles exposed through his “skin.” His Anatomy Skill loved it, naturally—in the week it had taken to get him prepared for this, it had already passed level 20, higher than even Flying had reached and he used that almost constantly. Because of course he would.

“Yes! Now, calm down or something might actually go wrong.”

“You’re not doing a very good job of reassuring me, you know.”

“Oh, you’ll be fine. It’s only for a few hours anyway.”

The idea was “simple,” apparently. While Inion was bound to her spring and thus sharply limited in power anywhere else, she could change the exact target for her binding relatively easily if it wasn’t a “major” change—namely, something of the same type of material and in close proximity. With a newly acquired Skill that allowed him to change the composition of his skin in a very feylike manner, Edwin could sit in her pond and be about as “minor” of a change as possible. Theoretically. Assuming nothing went wrong.

Of course, even a complete success still meant that he’d have a real-life fey literally bound to him, physically as well as contractually, which Edwin still wasn’t sure how to process. Still, once they left the Verdant, and the magic-disrupting barrier that surrounded it, Inion planned to bind to a river, possibly even the Rhothos itself, and leave Edwin once again to his own skin.

He’d even required an oath as binding as he could sufficiently wrangle that Inion would not harm him in any way during the transfer, and that she would leave him as soon as she could, making all reasonable effort to ensure that “as soon as she could” came around quickly. Edwin was almost positive he’d messed up somehow, though. Maybe-sorta friend or not, Inion was not human and it was a constant struggle to remind himself of that, despite how critical it was that he did.

Even so, he was nervous. Inion may have been his only, or at least the closest, thing to a friend he had in this new world and even seemed to genuinely care about his well-being, and she was magically obligated to not harm him, but none of those precluded accidents.

He screwed his eyes shut as Inion sang a melodious song with neither lyric nor rhyme, keeping them closed as tightly as possible until the itching in his watery skin and the sound around him faded away. He peeked out with a single eye. “. . . Did it work?” he hazarded.

“Ya! You’re good!” Inion cheerfully exclaimed, pulling him from the water.

Edwin breathed a sigh of relief as Fey’s Caress faded away upon his exit from the pond, returning his skin to its normal, solid and opaque state. He could feel . . . power coursing through him, magical strength flowing through his limbs and torso in a new way that was both disquieting and reassuring at the same time.

Congratulations! For willingly serving as a Bind for an ancient fey, you have unlocked the Fey Supplicant Path!

Congratulations! For fusing yourself with an ancient fey, you have unlocked the Feykind Path!

Level Up!

Fey’s Caress Level 16→28

He mentioned how he felt to Inion as he dressed, and she nodded thoughtfully. “That . . . that sounds about right? I know there are some fey—we call them fairies—who choose to bind themselves closely to mortals. Those they tie themselves to tend to get some interesting abilities. I’ve heard of eternal youth, the ability to fly, some transformations, that sort of thing. I doubt you’ll really get too much that way, ’cause you’re not a true Bind and it won’t last for very long, but it’s not impossible, either. Just part of the magic involved—I become more like you, you become more like me.”

Edwin nodded. Sounded rather fun, all told, and trying to call up his mana was significantly easier than it had been previously. At the mention of flight, he took to the air, reveling in the comparative river of mana he was able to call upon, letting him rise some two meters into the air, a good four times higher than his normal limit. “Pity!” he called back down. “I could get used to this.”

“Oh? You want me to keep you as a Bind?”

“Uh . . .”

“Kidding!”

Edwin breathed a faint sigh of relief as he returned to the ground and gathered his travel possessions together. He also swept through Obairlann one last time, just to ensure he hadn’t left anything behind. It wouldn’t be the last time he ever came to the little home he’d made for himself deep within the magical Verdant, but it would be the last time for quite a while. He was in a contemplative mood, he mused, running his hand along the living wood frame of the place he’d lived in and trained at for the past year.

It had been a bit of a chore to fully pack up everything he could use, including harvesting what crops were ready from his garden, but he’d eventually managed it. He had tried to stack Improbable Arsenal containers endlessly, to see if he could fit everything he had into his pocket, but it unfortunately didn’t work.

Whenever he put one container affected by Improbable Arsenal inside of another, only the one farthest inside actually benefited from the Skill. The outer container’s increased volume shrank by the exact amount of additional space within the subcontainer. Also, he found that for whatever reason, using Improbable Arsenal on his Apparatus containers, while still functional, was less effective than on more “real” objects, not that it mattered all that much in the end, thanks to the stacking issues.

However, instead of being able to load up on everything he could want, Edwin had to be somewhat pickier with what he’d take with him. Fortunately, he still managed to get most of what was actually important packed away, though the result was a bag nearly as big as he was between both the basic backpack and all the stuff and improvised bags strapped onto it.

He was having to leave pretty much all his pottery behind, but with his new Sapper’s Apparatus Skill, that wasn’t too great a loss. After all, he didn’t really have a use for most of his simple clay labware and only really needed to bring materials and potions with him.

Speaking of materials, Edwin had two notable absences from his basic supply for being an Alchemist-Errant. Namely, actual explosives and smoke bombs. Sure, the former he could mimic through careful use of Firestarting, only made easier with Basic Thermokinesis, but it was still far from reliable. All he really had in the direct offense sense was his alchemist’s fire, the not-really-a Molotov cocktail he’d devised from firevine. Anything more than that had no assurance it would actually work, as his explosive grenades required him to Infuse them while mid-flight, a tactic he had firmly abandoned after many frustrated months of getting it to work even twice in a row, let alone a majority of the time.

No, he needed genuine bombs, preferably ones he could detonate with his Skills but that didn’t require them to work. If he couldn’t get it to reliably work in practice, no way was he ever going to try to do so in actual life-or-death combat. And without grenades, he really didn’t have much in the way of true force projection. Hmm. Perhaps he should have taken an explosives-related Path, though he wasn’t sure what he would have been willing to give away for it.

He almost wished he was back at Clan Blackstone, ironically. Sure, they had enslaved him for a month trying to get him to make cement, insulted and threatened him regularly, and held him a prisoner underground against his will, but they had provided him with the materials he needed to make explosives. His homemade kiln, even post-rebuild— especially post-rebuild, he just hadn’t put the same amount of work into it as its predecessor—simply couldn’t get hot enough to turn limestone into lime, which was what he used for all his gear back then. The few times he had tried, the bricks had crumbled and given out, breaking under the extreme temperatures well before the limestone he’d collected could react properly.

Thinking back on his escape, it was honestly a miracle he hadn’t blown himself up while trying to escape. Though, with the benefit of hindsight, Packing likely helped reduce the chance of his “will explode if shaken too hard” arsenal going up in flames. He’d probably gotten much closer to death with that whole escapade than even he had realized at the time, and far closer than he wanted to be in the future.

But that tied back into his other desire of making smoke bombs. What better way to help ensure his safety than to obscure everything that was going on? If he could make it an aerosol dispenser, he might have a decent way to disperse sleeping gas, but more pertinent to the concept itself, he would lose pretty much any straight-up fight he found himself in against a competent foe. His “fight” with the bugbear assassin sent after him by the Blackstones was proof enough of that.

So, the obvious solution was to just never put himself in a straight-up fight. He’d need to obscure what was going on, blanket the battlefield with explosives, and run away. Not necessarily in that order, either, but misdirection would have to be a major tool of his going forward.

Even though his bag felt as light as a feather, compared to the sorts of weights he lifted when training his Skills, it still was about as big as he was, once he had everything factored in. Well, nobody could deny that he didn’t look like an alchemist if nothing else. Not with the glowing potions tied like Christmas lights ringing his pack. It was kind of nice, in a way.

All of his actually valuable things were in the very bottom of his bag, inside a sealed Apparatus box, and his coin pouch was locked in a similar construction that utilized the way Improbable Arsenal worked— namely, that it didn’t expand the opening—to be outright impossible to remove while the Apparatus was active. Dismissing his own conjurations was merely the work of tapping it while activating the Skill again, but breaking them was significantly harder and certainly not subtle.

Edwin had no doubt that there were pickpocketing Skills that could bypass all his precautions, but he had no way to prevent them totally, just make it harder for them. Hopefully they’d be rare, anyway, what with the way the Empire had their Skill Management system set up. It mostly raised the question of how the Phantom Pickpocket Tara apprehended in his first visit to Vinstead got his Class, but perhaps he was just an Outlaw. There had to be a few within the city itself, especially if they were focused on stealth, right? Something to ask while he was in Vinstead.

“Ready?” he asked Inion, shouldering his pack and hefting his walking stick.

“I’ve been here so long, it’s strange to leave.”

Edwin nodded sympathetically. “I know what you mean, and it’s only been a year for me. We’ll be back here eventually; I want to harvest that hispera when it reaches maturity in two years if nothing else.”

“Always the alchemy with you, isn’t it?” she asked, and Edwin took a moment to parse her tone. She didn’t sound mad, that much was a relief. Rather, it seemed like she was genuinely asking.

He gave a curt shrug. “It’s who I want to be. Interacting with people may be a lost cause, but I at least have some hope of figuring out how my chemicals and potions work.”

“Who you want to be, eh?” she prodded. Huh. Inion wasn’t normally quite this inquisitive about Edwin’s personal thoughts. Perhaps moving out got her sentimental?

“Well, I am a scientist. Sure, we settle into the role of peeling back the mysteries of the universe—which is amazing and rewarding in its own right—but we don’t get into science without some part deep down that wants to be a mad scientist, doing all sorts of things that just flatly contradict everything we know about creation. Freeze rays, teleportation, time travel, interdimensional portals, warp drives, lightsabers . . . That’s the sort of thing that drives us, on a deep and fundamental level. Because we want them to be true, and now I find myself in a world where all that stuff might actually be possible?” He shook his head as they drifted along the riverbank. “It’s like if I had been told I was going to wizard academy when I was ten, but better because I know how to scientifically test stuff. Everything I thought I knew is vastly incomplete.”

“Wizard academy, eh? But you aren’t trying to be a mage?”

Edwin shrugged. “I have no basis for how to be a decent mage; you’ve admitted yourself you don’t know how to teach me anything.” Inion reluctantly nodded. “But science? I can do that. Besides, my mana manipulation is pitiful. Sure, I want to improve it in time, but I already have a solid base for Alchemy, why would I not use that? It doesn’t matter if it takes me ten minutes to charge up a dagger with mana if there’s no time pressure for it. Doing most of my magic stuff beforehand means I can neatly bypass past-Edwin’s mistakes. One day, maybe I’ll try to figure out magic without the science, but the science will do nicely until then.”

Inion hemmed in agreement as they flew forward.

“You know, I’m kind of nervous this time,” Edwin admitted, faced with what he knew to be an invisible wall that kept all the crazy magical stuff—like fey—inside the Verdant.

“Why? Last time you didn’t even notice it,” Inion countered as she toed the line demarcating the forest from the rest of Rhothos.

“Sure . . . but last time I wasn’t half fey.”

“You’re not half fey. You’re . . . fey-adjacent.”

“Still not sure how much of an impact that has, though.”

Edwin vaguely mumbled some kind of agreement and brought his hand up toward where the barrier apparently was . . . and felt no resistance.

“Huh. Guess it still doesn’t affect me,” he noted, uneventfully stepping out of the forest. “You having trouble there?” he asked Inion, who was slowly struggling against the fierce “wind” keeping her penned inside.

“I . . . can . . . got it!” She stumbled forward as she pushed through the resistance, recovering her balance before she fell in the dirt, fortunately without needing Edwin’s help; if he had tried, who knew how his backpack would react, and he did not want to have to repack it all. “It was easier that time,” she remarked, brushing imaginary dirt from her arms.

“Glad you have it so easy,” Edwin wryly replied. “I’d hate to see you have to work.”

Inion stuck her tongue out at him as they floated to the road, and Edwin drew his tone into a more serious one, checking in on his friend, “But you’re feeling all right? No water deprivation or sensation of slowly dying?”

She shook her head. “Nope. It feels more like I’m in Obairlann, other than the lower magic out here.”

Edwin frowned, trying to sense the mana in their surroundings. It did feel rather anemic and was only made more obvious by directing his Perception toward the task. Using Ritual Intuition, too, there was little of the feel of nature he had come to associate with his surroundings. Instead, it felt more like a faint breeze tapping at the edge of his senses. There was still a hint of life and nature, but it felt like sprawling grasslands rather than the greenhouse-like sensation within the Verdant. “Huh. I think I can feel what you mean.”

As they reached the road, Edwin sank back to the ground, taking the strain off Flight.

Level Up!

Flight Level 18→21

Ritual Intuition Level 14→16

Fast leveling or no, the Skill still had a strain on him that was just tiring. Granted, he could probably keep it up for most of the day thanks to his Stamina and Mana, but doing so would be like if he spent the entire day hiking pre-System. Meanwhile, walking essentially didn’t tire him in the slightest. He had plenty of time to level Flight, after all.

He wasn’t planning to try and reach Tier 3 until his Alchemy was at least level 120 and he got the Alchemy Specialist Path. By then, Flight and what it evolved into would have had more than enough time to hit level 60, he was sure. He’d make sure to use it as much as possible to help speed it along, but he wasn’t pushing himself that fast anymore.

Besides, he could use the Skill’s existence as a Path lightning rod to give him security when completing Attribute-granting Paths, giving him another shot to unlock them before he went for the full Tier 3 jump.

Edwin felt much more confident now in his ability to take care of himself. Not only did he have an actual defensive Skill—two if he counted Fey’s Caress—but he had Health, First Aid in the 80s, and a whole suite of health potions. He could take a few bumps, even if he couldn’t return the favor.

“So how does it work, when you bind to something like the Rhothos? How does it compare to your pond?” he asked Inion as they walked down the road.

“I’ll be stronger once I’m bonded to it than with my pond, but it’ll also be less localized. Basically, I get more freedom and more power!”

Edwin raised an eyebrow. “Then why weren’t you bonded to it before, if it’s so much better?”

“Eh”—she waved her hand dismissively—“Aenliss had bonded to its spring so she had a strong claim to it. With whatever is keeping the Verdant separate, though, the main river’ll be unclaimed, just for me!”

“What if another naiad is already bonded to it, though?”

“No big deal. The river is big enough to support loads of fey as proper river spirits. It’ll just mean the power is divided up some. Still great for me, and still with loads of mobility.”

“So again . . . why didn’t you do this earlier?”

“Because I had people visiting me, that’s why. I enjoyed having my own little cult who came and asked me for wisdom and stuff. I was a big deal back when, I’ll have you know!”

“Sure you were,” Edwin replied, placating her in a manner he knew would irk her pride, speeding up as he did so.

“I was! Oh, come on. Don’t be like that. Edwin! Edwiiiinnnnn!”

Longstrider helped hasten their journey significantly, not that Edwin really anticipated anything else, and the pair found themselves at the bank of the Rhothos by noon. The flooding wasn’t as extreme as the last time they had come through, and was even lower than the first time Edwin had come through, but the river was still far larger than anything Edwin had ever seen on Earth, to the point where he couldn’t even see the far bank.

Fortunately, there were still plenty of quiet places where the current wasn’t as strong, curling into eddies along the bank, forming semi-stagnant pools of water perfect for their purposes.

Before Inion began the ritual, the two of them worked to create a circular hole that would serve as the “circle” for the magic. Inion didn’t know much about the basics of what she was doing, just following her instincts and what she had been taught, sort of like how most people could ride a bike, but fewer knew how to build one, and possibly knew why they worked. Last Edwin had heard, at least, it was still at least marginally debated. Something about knowing the forces involved, but not how they combined?

Anyway. Once the hole was dug, it was a relatively simple matter for Inion to weave some nearby rhoreed into further circles and glyphs for the magic and set them floating around him. As she began the ritual, Edwin sank into Fey’s Caress, turning even more of himself than before to water. Huh. Was that what the inside of his bones looked like? Interesting. And those must be his arteries—wow, it was strange to see blood just vanish and reappear elsewhere as the veins switched in and out of being transformed into water.

If he twisted his head—yep, his heart too. Man, he’d have to be careful to never turn into wind at this level of the Skill—he’d literally flay himself alive. He kind of wished he had a mirror of some sort, that he could see what his skull looked like. Had his eyes turned to water as well? What was he seeing through? Could he see his brain?

Ooh. Would he be able to evolve or develop this Skill to transform other things? It would be an absolutely phenomenal Skill for doctors and surgeons: be able to just peek below the skin and into the body’s makeup with no harm, no fancy equipment.

“—done now, you know. You don’t have to keep lying there.”

Inion’s voice broke him out of his thoughts. “Really? That was fast. Everything went that smoothly?”

“Ha! It took me an hour to get everything ready because it all went so badly. You were just floating there checking yourself out, didn’t even react when I pulled the bond away.”

“An hour? No way.” Inion just nodded. “Seriously?”

“Ya! Haven’t seen you that focused in all the time I’ve known ya.”

Edwin sheepishly withdrew from the water, the transformation fading away as he did so, leaving him slightly damp as the last bit of water clung to his recently re-formed and magically dead skin. He wasn’t as cold as he expected, and he directed a bit of Basic Thermokinesis along the surface of his skin to encourage further evaporation while he got dressed.

Level Up!

Adaptive Defense 11→12

Anatomy Level 23→26

Basic Thermokinesis 13→14

Fey’s Caress Level 28→35

Adaptive Defense? That was . . . ah, that was probably why he didn’t feel cold, wasn’t it? It had adapted to help keep him warm? He suspected as much; nice to see it not exactly confirmed, but at least lend a bit more evidence to his hypothesis. He didn’t feel as bad as he’d expected, with some echos of the power he’d felt when bound to Inion still lingering.

“How does it feel?” Edwin asked, getting dressed as he watched Inion splash around in the river with all the acrobatics of a dolphin and the enthusiasm of an eight-year-old.

“Great! So free, so much space! There’s nobody else in this river, and it’s amazing!” she sang out.

Edwin chuckled as his friend played around in the water while he geared up. Fortunately, it didn’t end up being too complicated, he just needed to be careful to not overbalance when picking up his backpack and slipping it on. Once he was done, he called out, “Okay! We don’t have all day!”

“Five more minutes!”

Edwin sighed and conjured himself some solid spheres to practice juggling. It had been a while, but he picked it back up within just a few minutes, and even after Inion finally emerged from the water—soaking wet, naturally—she just floated around watching him for a minute. Eventually, Edwin dismissed the constructs, the blue crystal disintegrating into drifting motes of light, and they set off once more.

Level Up!

Longstrider 18→19

It wasn’t quite nighttime yet when they arrived at the Curicnan shrine they’d slept in on their last visit to Vinstead, but it was close enough that they decided to stop anyway. Edwin reclined on his bunk, luxuriating in the feeling of being on a mattress instead of in a hammock, and Inion sat at the foot of his bed while they chatted.

“So what exactly are you planning now? You’ve always just said you want to travel, but where and why? Also, why head to Vinstead?”

Edwin shrugged. “Honestly . . . I don’t know. I want to get more Alchemy stuff, but I don’t really know where I can find that sort of thing. I’m hopeful I might be able to find out where it’s usually grown and head in that direction, maybe see if I can’t be useful in some capacity either here or there.

“As for why Vinstead? Well, I do still have the commitment that comes with being an Adventurer to talk about what Skills and Paths I get.” He forestalled Inion’s interjection with a raised hand. “I’m allowed to keep some secrets, so whatever you’re about to say I shouldn’t share, I won’t.”

Inion frowned. “No, that’s not it. Explaining your Paths wouldn’t require telling any of my secrets. I was just surprised that you were so open about being an Outsider, you know, what with not wanting to tell me, but that’s the secret, isn’t it?”

Edwin nodded. “Yeah, pretty much. Anyway, I want to keep my end of the bargain, and I want to take a healing course to get properly licensed for using medical Skills, so I don’t get arrested or killed for trying to bandage a cut. Plus, a cart of some kind would be rather nice, so I don’t have to haul around my every worldly possession on my back. Other than that . . . just a few odds and ends, I suppose, and Vinstead is the primary place I know to get that sort of thing. I’d prefer to not stay that long, but I don’t think it’ll be possible to avoid Sash . . . Shash . . . the governor forever, may as well get it over with, you know?”

She shrugged. “If you say so.”

Edwin mirrored the gesture. “So yeah. It’s the closest thing I have on Joriah to a home city and I want to get my bearings, possibly pick up some miscellaneous supplies and Skills, and figure out where I’m going from there.”

He fell into silence for a little while, trying to persuade himself that he really did know what he wanted and wasn’t just wandering . . . well, for the sake of wandering. That’s what people who didn’t know what they wanted in life did, and he was better than that! He was only out here because he wanted to see the world and expand his knowledge! It wasn’t at all because he just needed to get out of Obairlann before it started feeling claustrophobic, before the loneliness set in too quickly. . . .

And he most certainly wasn’t wandering in the hopes that he might be able to find people who liked him, then moving on before they could get sick of him.

He breathed out and closed his eyes. Nothing good would come out of that line of thinking. Not tonight, at least.

“G’night, Inion.”

“Good night, Edwin.”

Watchful Rest made sleeping interesting. Some tiny part of Edwin stayed awake throughout the night, letting him know as the air cooled overnight, when the wind picked up outside, whipping around their little shelter. Then, when the first birds began their morning symphony and the sun began to rise.

Because he wasn’t actually awake, though, he only got vague impressions, and he wasn’t sure if he genuinely experienced all that in real time or just had it all shoved into his memories upon waking up. There was no conscious thought, at least not yet. It also meant he didn’t get any System notifications until after he was actually awake.

Level Up!

Watchful Rest 8→9

Magical sleep or no, Edwin was still bleary-eyed when he dragged himself out of bed, extricating himself around Inion, who had lain down next to him at . . . some point. Clearly, Watchful Rest still had a ways to go before he could actually feel safe at night in unknown territory if it missed her joining him at some point.

Interestingly, it almost looked like Inion was asleep, which was certainly an unusual development. He gently prodded her, and her eyes fluttered open, “Whazza. . . . Oh, hi, Edwin.” She yawned, sitting up and stretching provocatively.

Edwin rolled his eyes and turned away. Once upon a time, he would have been flustered, but it was hard to not be inured to the fey’s antics after a year of living in close proximity.

“Get up and get dressed. I’d like to make it to Vinstead before noon.”

There was a bit of good-natured grumbling as Inion got ready, and Edwin took the time to have some breakfast; he was trying to develop good eating habits, but the food he had tasted like cardboard. Ugh. He’d need to figure out some trick for living with Arcadian Elixir, wouldn’t he?

He wasn’t an idiot; he figured out what the Skill was doing to him within the first day of having it. Anything he had made since his tier-up had tasted sublime, whereas anything he’d made before then, including most of his travel food, tasted bland and flavorless by comparison.

Even turning off the Skill—which was surprisingly difficult, it kept trying to spring back up and if it did so, whatever he was making would be enhanced by it—didn’t help, because he’d already tried food made with the Skill, so turning it off didn’t do anything to help with the fundamental problem.

Fey food was a well-worn staple of fantasy, and considering the unusual degree to which Joriah liked to cleave to that standard, it wasn’t a surprise that a feylike Skill pertaining to food would mean he’d get a similar effect of his own. At least he wasn’t dependent on an outside source for it, so he could enjoy the fruits of his labor.

The primary question he was left with was whether or not the Skill actively made other things he tasted worse, or if what he ate with the Skill really was that delicious and filling, as it would impact how moral it would be for him to make other people food. Maybe both? In any case, he should default to caution until he knew better. He absolutely didn’t want to deal with the ramifications of making a bunch of people addicted to, well, him.

In the meantime, he was stuck eating cardboard. As the Skill would only level up—and at level 8 the same food made with the Skill was easily twice as good if not more than made without it—he should make sure that he got rid of all his old food before it started tasting even worse. There had to be some way to cheat this, he was sure. Maybe he could make a spice mix, then apply that to food he didn’t make? Even if he only tasted the spice, it might be enough to get him through this. Something to try once he got to Vinstead, perhaps. He could probably dry some of his herbs and make them into a spice.

Somewhere in the distance, a hawk cried out. Edwin narrowed his eyes looking for it and spotted a bird diving toward the Rhothos. It snagged some prey from the river and took off, flying a short distance before settling on the ground and starting to eat its meal.

Edwin blinked and came back to himself. It must have been half a mile away, but he could still see the scene in startling clarity. “Perception and Seeing is weird.”

Inion nodded in vague agreement, and Edwin let his mind wander once more as they carried on with their walk.

Level Up!

Longstrider 19→20

Getting into the city was relatively uneventful, especially without Inion there to cause problems. She was splashing around in the Rhothos, and Edwin would see about meeting up with her as soon as it was practical, which they both knew may be a while. Meanwhile, he just handed his Adventurer’s license to the guards—different ones than last time—answered a few questions about what he was bringing in, and that was it.

He took a bit of a winding route to the garrison, which was absolutely intentional and not at all because he got turned around at one point, and entered through the massive front gates under the watchful eye of Xares, before taking some increasingly familiar stairs to Rizzali’s office. Best to get it out of the way early, and if history was anything to go off, Tara might track him down while he was there and spare him the effort of finding her.

Rizzali’s office was no different from the last time Edwin was here. Piles of paper buried the solitary desk against the leftmost wall, and a wooden chair stood facing the wooden construction. The far side of the room had no wall, instead opening into the grand space above the central foyer, giving Edwin a clear view of Xares’s shoulder. The gnome’s head was initially only visible as a shock of blue hair amid a sea of off-white, but when Edwin stepped through the doorway, it snapped up to assess him.

“Edwin! My friend! Back at last! Delightful new Class you have there, you simply must enlighten me. Sit, sit!”

Edwin smiled as he set his bag down and pulled up the chair.

CHAPTER 2

Study Skills

“Well, you’re braver than I, that’s certain,” Rizzali noted, reclining in his seat as he made the last few notes on his stack of papers. “Taking two Paths pertaining to the fey?” He shook his head, whistling softly. “This is what sets the successful Adventurers apart from the failures, I do suppose.

“Although I must say, your Skill Researcher Path . . . it seems quite promising. It is quite worthy of a special note, and it seems as though it were relatively simple to earn? If the information you provided is actionable, we may seek you out for a commendation of some sort.”

Edwin nodded and had a thought strike him. “Oh yeah,” he spoke up. “I was wondering about something. How many Adventurers are there, anyway?”

“Well, that’s a tricky question, young man.” The gnome set his papers off to the side as he finished writing on them, and Edwin caught the brief flash of a Skill illuminating them as he did so. “As the individual identity of Outlaws is rarely accounted—how does one tally the absence of something? However, it is estimated that some half of all Outlaws in Rhothos are Adventurers, a number which I can only commend Lady Tara for, as said count is largely from her work.”

“I thought she hated Adventurers?” Edwin cut in, his brow furrowed.

“Lady Tara is an exemplary Enforcer and doesn’t allow her personal feelings to interfere with the duties of her office. The benefit of Adventurers for the grander society is not found in their futile efforts to do the work of the guards, but in their sacrifice providing new information for the Registrars that we might always determine greater Skills and Paths for future generations.”

“What prevents someone from just lying?”

“We have our ways,” the Registrar replied with a smirk. “And as all Skills have weaknesses, I shall not reveal what it is to you lest you determine how to circumvent it.”

“That’s what you get from knowing Adventurers’ complete Classes, isn’t it?” Edwin realized. “So you can try to figure out what their pressure points are.”

“Their what?”

“Their, uh . . . weak points. The places where you can leverage just a bit of strength to cripple a powerful Skill.”

Rizzali nodded in understanding and winked at him. Yeah, that checked out, and Edwin probably could have figured it out himself if he had put more than two minutes of thought into the matter at some point, but he had never really bothered.

“What about my unknown Skills, then? If you don’t know them . . .”

The gnome dismissed the concern with a sweeping hand. “I needn’t know the specifics of your Skills that allow you to . . . Take notes, yes?” Edwin nodded. “And an Efficient Space variant, and while such being at Tier 2 is exceptionally rare, it is something only a mage can take advantage of and thus not useful to us.”

“. . . Fair enough,” Edwin conceded.

“In addition, Tara vouched for you personally, which is far from typical, I assure you. Speaking of, did you have any questions for me in my capacity as Skill adviser?”

“Yeah, actually,” Edwin recalled, “I had a few. What’s the Skill set for normal alchemists like? I’m curious how mine compares.”

Rizzali’s eyes briefly flashed with a Skill and he rifled through a stack of papers, consulting one near the bottom. He muttered something and tossed it to the side, then hopped off his high chair and started ransacking some unseen drawers in his desk. Just as Edwin began to zone out and start meddling with Almanac, Rizzali jumped up clutching a paper.

“Aha! Here it is. I knew I still had the basics stashed somewhere. Let’s see . . .” he muttered, scanning over the page, eyes aglow with some ability. “Process, Herbalism, Mixing, Measure, Reading, and Writing!”

“No Alchemy?”

“If you had found a way to directly obtain Alchemy as a basic Skill, young man, you’d be the hero of Panastalis! But no. The Potioneer Path upgrades Eating to Potion-Making, and taking the Alchemist Path once more brings the Skill to proper Alchemy by the third tier.”

“So late?”

“My dear friend, the third tier is usually considered a mark of adulthood! You truly were secluded in your youth, were you not?”

That was . . . true enough, so Edwin vaguely nodded in agreement.

“What else? I may have exactly none of those Skills, but it’s still interesting to learn about what they have to work with.”

In response, the gnome just handed the paper to Edwin. It took a moment for Polyglot to help him adjust to the written language, and a bit longer to parse the lingo being used, but he got there in the end. Hmm . . . Let’s just copy this down into the Almanac while we’re here. . . .

Edwin ignored the conjecture and hypotheses scribbled all over the page, as well as what the Class name should be at each step of the way, focusing instead on the bare essentials, but even that provided a wealth of new information.

Walking through Sentry: Standing, through Sentry again: Sentry’s Vigilance, through Marathon Reader: Project Focus

Seeing through Artist: Colorimetry, through Nighttime Hunter: Thermal Vision

Language through Chanter: Chanting, through Astrologer: Timing

Identify, Beginner: Common Knowledge, Alchemist: Alchemist’s Insight

Status, Novice: Status Log, Expert: Detailed Record

Herbalism, Medic: Poultice, Potioneer: Potency

Reading + Scholar: Book Smarts + Mental Memorialist: Mental Notebook

Writing + Scribe: Transcribing + Marksman: Steady Hand

Mixing + Cook: Emulsify + Blacksmith: Alloy

Measure + Merchant: Precision Measurement + Alchemist: Allocate

Process + Alchemist: Induce Reaction + Batch Alchemist: Speed Reaction + Practiced Alchemist: Potent Reaction

Eating + Potioneer: Potion-Making + Alchemist: Alchemy

“I expected more uses of the Alchemist Path, I’ll admit.”

“That’s the common mistake! Utilizing only a single Path can result in your Skills merging with one another in function, reducing the spectrum of distinct abilities you can call upon. Whereas with our expertise, it is possible to gain a vast array of utility Skills! After all, the Alchemist Path would never grant the capabilities of Sentry’s Vigilance!”

Edwin furrowed his brow. “Oh yeah, what does that do? What’s up with the Sentry Paths in general, actually?”

Rizzali nodded, and Edwin noticed a faint flash of Skill light around his ears as he answered, “’Tis a common upgrade for many tedious jobs. Standing does exactly as it suggests and enables its users to stay motionless for exceptional lengths of time. Sentry’s Vigilance chases off weariness and sleep while standing. Together, they enable alchemists to brew potions that take hours or even days of continuous attention.”

“Huh.” Okay, he had to admit, that was pretty neat. Edwin made a quick note in the Almanac about their functions. “I see how that’d be useful. I would have never thought of that on my own.”

A beaming smile spread across the gnome’s face. “That is what we provide! And why I am always oh so very sad when a promising individual breaks free from the Management because they feel as though they know better than millennia of accumulated knowledge.”

Edwin nodded. “Makes sense, I suppose. Man, I really wish I had you when I first—” He caught himself just in time. “Actually, nope, can’t say that. I wish I had you as an adviser a few years ago. Out of curiosity,” he added, “what does Walking give if evolved using Alchemist?”

“Walking and Alchemist . . .” Rizzali looked into the air and tapped his desk. “Ah! Alchemical Stamina, which improves the efficiency of stamina-restoring alchemical potions. Not terribly useful, you understand?”

Edwin nodded. “Wow. You guys really have a lot cataloged, don’t you?”

The gnome spread his (tiny) arms at the piles of paper around the room. “These are my most common references, and you can see how many I have called upon in the previous two seasons alone.”

“So I was wondering what a lot of those Skills did? It’s not on the paper? Can you help fill me in on that sort of thing?” Edwin asked.

“But of course! As it is directly related to your profession, I can answer any questions you may have about the Skills! Unfortunately, I am not cleared to discuss further Skills that you do not possess. If you desire such, Xarenia and its Grand Library has the records you would seek and is open for all scholars.”

“Wait, why?”

“Imperial policy. I believe the reasoning I was given was ensuring that such information does not fall into too many hands.”

“How does going to the library help with that, though?”

“How many blue-feathered youths would be liable to make the journey and then go diving off trying to determine their own Classes? With a single location, it aids in increasing the barrier for such individuals.”

“Fair enough, but it still doesn’t seem like that would be enough for the people living near it?”

“Young man, would you like to hear what I have to say or not?”

“Right, right. Sorry.”

The gnome cleared his throat and began, a Skill soothing his throat as he spoke. Edwin, for his part, scrambled to get it all written in the Almanac as the Registrar provided his explanation.

Standing: Reduces strain when standing. By the time it hits level 60, can be done indefinitely and even when sleeping

Sentry’s Vigilance: Pushes off need for sleep while standing, with the maximum length increasing with level

Project Focus: Aids with attention span when focusing on a single task

Colorimetry: Improves color perception—apparently useful in some potions

Thermal Vision: Allows for estimation of temperature with a glance; something about Detailed Record?

Chanting: Reduces vocal strain and improves rhythm, useful for potions that require actions repeated on a tempo

Timing: Accurate estimation of time passed; apparently useful with Detailed Record

Alchemist’s Insight: Learn quality and effects of ingredients/potions (Man, that sounds useful.)

Status Log: Look back on previous System notifications

Detailed Record: System records all uses of Skills. Such as the exact temperature of an object measured with Thermal Vision, or time passed with Timing. (Oooh. That’s cool.)

Herbalism: Aids in the growing and harvesting of herbs—more specific than Gardening, usually only T2 or above

Poultice: Make medical potions with improved quality, power, and proficiency

Potency: All potions made are more potent

Reading: Read faster

Book Smarts: Recall information from books, and where to find information in a read book easier.

Mental Notebook: Store memories and notes in a mental book with perfect recall

Writing: Speed of writing is improved

Transcribing: Ability to copy a text precisely greatly improved

Steady Hand: Improves hand-eye coordination and reduces hand shakiness

Mixing: Mixed ingredients are mixed more completely; also includes what is being mixed in Detailed Record

Emulsify: Incompatible elements are more easily mixed

Alloy: Mixed ingredients become permanently mixed

Measurement: Similar to Numeracy, but based around counting and quantities, allows Detailed Record to access the information

Precision Measurement: Increased precision of measurement, improving Detailed Record precision

Allocate: Dole out precise amounts of substances (exactly 1 gram grain of water, etc)

Process: Following a formula or recipe has improved accuracy and is Recorded

Induce Reaction: A Catalyst Skill, makes components that might not react to do so

Speed Reaction: Speed up a targeted reaction

Potent Reaction: The results of anything made that has a reaction involved have the end product be stronger

Potion-Making: Improved proficiency and potency with potions

“That’s a lot of potency improvements.” Edwin whistled as Rizzali finished and took a sip of water from a goblet retrieved from his desk somewhere.

“Indeed. Their quality is unmatched,” the gnome agreed.

“I wasn’t expecting Detailed Record to be so impressive, either. How’d that combination show up?”

“Such is the might of the Empire’s knowledge. It was originally found by a warrior who had little use for its endless tales of how her strikes landed true or missed. However, such information was capitalized upon by my predecessors, who swiftly determined which Classes could benefit from said information more than other possible Status upgrades.”

“So how do you know that what you have is the best possible Skill evolution?”

“The best? Alas, we usually fall short of such a prestigious standard, as the truly fantastic Skills require accomplishments that are simply impractical to be obtained by many, be it on account of time, lethality, or unknown factors.

“However, all we have determined is still more than satisfactory, and even beyond the third tier we are capable of providing a stunning amount of guidance. In time, we can hopefully determine in totality which Skills are optimal within the fourth tier and so ensure that none waste their precious Skills on failed Paths.”

“I . . . guess that makes sense? Also, that reminds me of what I was going to ask a while ago. Adventurers? How many are there, that they can keep expanding what you know?”

“Ah, well as I said, half of Rhothos’s Outlaws had been registered as Adventurers, and while I am not the only Registrar in the province, far from it, I am rather commonly consulted among your kind. I have . . . oh, perhaps two or three dozen whom I see regularly?”

“That’s it?” It seemed . . . low. There had to be hundreds of thousands of people at least living in Vinstead alone, and only a few dozen Adventurers in total?

Rizzali nodded sadly. “Alas, on account of them frequently ignoring the quality advice dispensed by my peers and I, it is quite common for Outlaws and Adventurers to gain Skills they are ill-suited for, and when combined with a hazardous lifestyle, very, very few survive long. I have met and registered hundreds of Adventurers, yet only the truly exemplary survive. Sadly, those few inspire the hotheaded youths who think that being an Adventurer means they will be exemplary and so seek to reject their citizenship. Those poor, poor fools. If I could strengthen the Management, I would. But alas, only the Emperor knows what is required to obtain or strengthen it.”

Ouch. That had to sting. It sounded like Rizzali had had something personal happen, but Edwin didn’t pry. It wasn’t his place. He tried steering the conversation to something less tragic.

“Do you have any advice for my Flight Skill? You must have seen something like it before, as you work with avior?”

“I have seen the Flying Skill, yes. Flight, however, particularly magical, is utterly outside of my experience. Mages are truly, truly rare. Even here, where plant mages are so common, that is still mere dozens out of thousands of citizens. With such few numbers, we are mostly blind to their grand potential, and so we find that their abilities are squandered. Such individuals have their own Registrar whom they tend to visit, and I know not their stratagems.”

“Huh. So not many people can use magic, then?”

Rizzali shook his head. “With precious few exceptions, no. Those who can are greatly valued by all of Rhothos for their grand nature-related spells, but every single individual is unique and irreplaceable, making it problematic when one does pass on, no matter how rare such an occurrence may be.”

“Wait, they don’t die much? Why’s that?”

“One of their Skills, I do believe. This is once again far out of my specialty, but one of the few established Path guides aids them in upgrading Eating all the way to Boundless Verdancy, a Tier 6 Immortality Skill.”

“An Immortality Skill? That’s a category?”

“Any Skill that adds more to your life span than it takes to level it is considered such. Immortality itself is perhaps the most well known of such, as it adds one year to your life span every level, and levels once a year.”

“That seems . . .”

“Less than ideal, yes. Even when the Skill is upgraded, all too often it does not become an Immortality Skill of its own, but rather something which bestows some benefit based on age. Losing immortality after decades of use . . . it is rarely pleasant, and a pitfall we have steered many away from. Unaging, Eternal Youth, Incorruptible, and Living Legend are all generally considered superior, as they do not require one to never tier up again to continue being immortal.”

“How do you get those?”

“That is restricted information.”

Edwin tried to control himself, but failed quite quickly. “Restricted? Restricted? You know how to make people immortal and you’re withholding the information? You’re almost literally killing people by not giving them the tools you have that would save them.”

Rizzali held up a hand to calm Edwin, and he reluctantly complied.

“It is restricted because the Skills and Paths required to get said Skills are nonreplicable by the general populace. Incorruptible requires no less than two uses of the Unkillable Path, among other hazardous Paths and Skills, which I believe you have experience with? Yes. To obtain that Path, one must survive a situation that would ordinarily kill them save for extraordinary circumstances. While there have been attempts to determine a systematic and relatively safe way to obtain Unkillable, the high life cost has forestalled significant progress from being made. Is it immoral to pursue an avenue of immortality at the cost of so many lives? And what if an Outlaw were to obtain the secrets to the Skill? There is one Immortality Skill which has been found that requires the regular consumption of, and bathing in, the blood of children. Would you like such knowledge to be publicly known, Edwin?”

He closed his mouth, slightly mollified but still indignant. “Well . . . no, but maybe? But also, shouldn’t you be pursuing that sort of thing really heavily? You’re still kind of condemning people to death through inaction.”

The gnome inclined his head in agreement. “I will not dispute that such Skills are tremendously beneficial for the common folk, and that is why we are attempting to replicate them reliably. In the meantime, I have faith in my superiors and colleagues that they are upholding their duties to the best of their ability. That they have not yet found a way for all to benefit from an Immortality Skill speaks to the difficulty of the problem at hand, not their motives.”

I don’t have faith. Not concerning their motives on Immortality. They’ve got to just be controlling it for themselves. Edwin didn’t voice his thoughts, nodding in agreement instead.

“I . . . see, I suppose.”

Rizzali grinned at him. “You may not believe me, but I do have faith in the Empire. We’ve done many great works these past centuries.”

“I suppose I’ll have to take your word for it. Though with your Management Skills and the like, how are there any criminals? I mean other than Outlaws.” Edwin preempted the obvious case by saying, “Surely there are more lawbreakers than those who would wholly revoke association with the Empire?”

“An excellent and frequently asked question. The simple fact of the matter is that there are those who would seek to improve their capabilities outside of the System. Pickpockets learn to choose their targets from those without Perception or a Vigilance Skill and cut purses, thieves use the Running Skill for ill gain, and so forth. Such petty criminals are scarcely much threat to any but the naive and unaware. It is with Outlaws where such crime becomes problematic, for reasons I am certain you can grasp. They make for the most legendary of burglars, able to pull coin from a sealed pouch and leaving the owner none the wiser.”

It wasn’t a perfect explanation, but it did explain enough to set Edwin at ease that his coins likely weren’t to be stolen from where he kept them by some stupid undetectable pickpocketing Skill.

He sat silent for a moment before speaking up again, “Thank you for your time. I’ll be honest; I kind of expected Tara to have come and snatched me away at this point, so I don’t really have a plan for what I should do now. Do you have any input on that matter?”

The gnome stroked his chin. “Yes, I suppose Lady Tara is off on some mission or other at the moment, which would forestall her normal greeting of you. What is your remaining purpose in Vinstead?”

Edwin shrugged. “Not entirely sure, to be honest. I want to get a healer’s license, but I don’t really know how to go about doing so.”

“I see. I do not know the process there, though I presume that it likely involves speaking with the Senior Physician.”

“Do you know where I . . .”

“No.”

Edwin sighed. Of course it wouldn’t be that easy. “Well, do you at least know where I can start?”

Rizzali shook his head again, and Edwin had to suppress his reactions. Fortunately, while he hadn’t needed to control his emotions that much in the past year, being around Inion who didn’t care what he was actually like, he still had the required Skills to hold back a rant or at least some rather rude exclamations.

“Fine. Do you at least know where I might be able to find an inn for the time while I’m staying in the city? Or know who I can ask?”

“Hmm. Yes, I suppose so. Two of the better establishments of which I am aware would be the Golden Grain, not far from here, and the Black Wheat near the outskirts of the city.”

“The outskirts?” Edwin asked, surprised.

“Popular among merchants, I believe,” he clarified. “Nearer that end of the city.”

Edwin nodded in understanding. Okay, that made enough sense.

“How about getting a friend into the city? I don’t think she’d want to be an Adventurer, but she did want to see the city. Last time we were here, though, the guards wouldn’t let her in.”

“I am once again unable to aid you with that, I am afraid. The governor or Lady Tara would be the ones who might know the proper procedures for foreign guests to enter.”

“I see. Well, I suppose I’ll take my leave then. Thanks for all the information.” Edwin bowed out, hefting his bag. He looked out at the massive central foyer, dozens of feet below, and had a thought cross his mind. On a whim, Edwin stepped off the stone platform that held Rizzali’s office, tying his Flight tether to the wall.

Even though he had to stay within about a foot of the side, Edwin couldn’t help but feel satisfied as he drifted to the ground. Even still, the sight of hundreds of avior flocking up and down the garrison’s spire still inspired a pang of jealousy in Edwin, and he vowed to figure out how to fly freely at some point.

Level Up!

Flight Level 21→22

Edwin contentedly flopped onto his bed, his bag sitting in the corner of the room. The mattress wasn’t the softest he’d ever slept on, but it was comparable to the sort he encountered in the Curicnan shrines he usually spent the night on and thus felt like a cloud at the moment.

He was so socially drained, he just wanted to lie here for the rest of the night. He’d found the Golden Grain without too many difficulties, albeit with a few wrong turns that had lengthened the trip considerably, but between his talking with Rizzali and the loud bottom floor of his inn, to say nothing of the crowds of people he’d had to navigate on his way to his temporary home, Edwin was exhausted. Even if he hadn’t had to individually interact with them, that many people still wore him out by sheer proximity, and as it turned out, being almost completely alone for a full year didn’t help in that regard.