The Way Ahead 5 E-Book

Kaleb England

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

Seitenzahl: 309

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

An old enemy threatens to destroy everything Edwin has achieved in the final installment of this witty and inventive blend of science, fantasy, and LitRPG. Life in Joriah isn't exactly easy . . . especially since it's only been two years since Edwin Maxlin fell out of the sky and crash-landed in this strange, magical world. Still, despite some near-fatal challenges, he's managed to make pretty good use of his time. Drawing on his innate blend of curiosity and perseverance, he's learned spellcasting, forged alliances, and even formed a motley crew of adventurers with whom to journey. Unfortunately, not all of Edwin's exploits have been positive, and a particularly nasty blast from his past has unexpectedly reappeared. It turns out the outlaw alchemist Niall isn't as dead as Edwin thought. And while Edwin's been leveling up his skills and learning to fly, Niall's been perfecting a dangerous type of enchantment. Now, if our unlikely hero hopes to not only save his own skin but also keep his crew from being ripped apart at the seams, he'll need to draw on every last reserve of cunning and creativity to stop a man who's truly out for blood. Another irresistible entry in the must-read series, The Way Ahead 5 is the heart-pounding conclusion of a progression fantasy known for flawless world-building, unforgettable characters, and an ingenious blend of magic and science. The fifth volume of the hit LitRPG adventure series—with almost four million views on Royal Road—now available on Audible and wherever ebooks are sold!

Leseprobe

THE

WAY

AHEAD

— Book 5 —

Kaleb England

aka NorskDaedalus

To my wife, Sara

For everything

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 © 2023 by Kaleb England

Cover design by Podium Publishing

ISBN: 978-1-0394-3577-3

Published in 2023 by Podium Publishing, ULC

www.podiumaudio.com

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1 Cutting It Short

CHAPTER 2 Pizza Cutter Personality

CHAPTER 3 Splitting Edge

CHAPTER 4 Growing from Rocks

CHAPTER 5 Something Is Ahand

CHAPTER 6 Blood Is Thicker

CHAPTER 7 The Right Ingredient

CHAPTER 8 A Sense of Wounder

CHAPTER 9 Bad Blood

CHAPTER 10 Red the Earth

CHAPTER 11 Black the Heart

CHAPTER 12 Fertile Grounds

CHAPTER 13 The Way Ahead

Epilogue

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CHAPTER 1

Cutting It Short

A stray gust of wind caught Edwin’s hair, blowing it into his face and breaking him out of his thoughts. In the moment of disorientation, he lost his grip on Flight and the Skill suddenly ended, sending him to the cart roof six inches below.

He sat up, rubbing his head. Fortunately, nobody else seemed to have noticed his lapse. Lefi and Inion were driving the cart, Yathal was off-road playing with Kynigos, and Rillah was far above him, her white-and-green wings swooping through the cloudless skies. She was actually what Edwin had been thinking about and had been watching for most of the afternoon. Thinking about it in that way was kind of weird, but the Adventurer was a really graceful flier. Her Powerful Flight Skill was level 59, just two shy of her current goal, and she was hoping to reach it in the next few weeks.

In any case, Rillah was also using the time to improve some of her midair handling, and that was what Edwin had been watching all afternoon. Not … anything else about the very attractive half elf.

Just shut up, me.

Besides, he wasn’t even certain if Rillah wanted him as a friend, let alone anything more. She seemed friendly, but he still didn’t know how much that was her being polite, him reading into things too much, or how much it was, as Inion was convinced was the case, her simply trying to use him. After all—

The cart went over a bump in the road, rattling Edwin and reminding him that he was still sitting on the cart rather than flying right above it, and also that his hair was far too long.

He frowned in annoyance and reactivated Flight to lift himself just far enough off the ground to not deal with the bumps in the road. He’d need to give himself a haircut before too long; it wasn’t like they …

He caught himself. Of course they’d have barbers here. Fantasy people still needed haircuts, even if it was color-changing or animated or flickered like golden flames. Heck, he could probably get Lefi to give him the best haircut of his entire life.

With a mental nudge, Edwin drifted off the top of the carriage to the front where the Adventurer sat, one hand on Bill the pony’s reins as the uncomplaining workhorse pulled along Edwin’s carriage. There was a tiny part of Edwin that still had trouble reconciling the appearance of a sixteen-year-old boy with the probably century-old omnicompetent figure Lefi actually was, but two and a half years was a long time to get used to the bizarre.

“Hey, Lefi, you don’t happen to have a Haircutting Skill, do you?” Edwin asked, then he immediately shook his head. “Never mind, of course you’d have it, stupid question. Rather, I don’t suppose I could get a haircut from you? They never …”

“As a matter of fact, friend Edwin, I do not!”

“Oh, cool, so as I was saying … wait, did you just say you didn’t?” Edwin dropped down to float next to the Adventurer as he consulted his Status. “There are basic-level Skills you don’t have?”

“So it would seem. Indeed! I will gladly give you a haircut.”

“So you can get the Skill, now that you realize you don’t have it?”

The annoyingly wide ever-present smile on Lefi’s face grew even wider. “You know me so well.”

Their motley crew of Adventurers stopped for camp somewhat earlier that night, Lefi quite eager to rectify the newfound hole in his Skill set. Having both initiated the process and with the most normal hair out of all of them, Edwin went first. Despite some slight misgivings, the end result was actually really impressive. For all that Lefi might not have had a dedicated Barber Skill, the compounding effects of at a minimum twenty related Skills made for a phenomenally comfortable and quality haircut by the end of the process. Yathal was next in line, more than willing to comply with the request of his hero.

As the boy slowly lost the appearance of a wild, untamed child to Lefi’s knife, Edwin examined his new haircut in a reflective pool that Inion had conjured. “You know, I like it. In the past, whenever I had my hair this short my ears would always get uncomfortably cold, but Adaptive Defense pushes past that.”

“I thought it didn’t help with discomfort?” Rillah asked.

“It doesn’t,” Inion supplied. “So I don’t know why that makes any difference.”

“Well, if you’d let me actually answer for myself, I could tell you.”

The fey just rolled her eyes and floated off to chat with Lefi about something, which was a bit more than Edwin was really expecting—she’d actually removed herself from the situation for once.

“Anyway, the way it feels like Adaptive Defense works for me is that there’s this ‘pool’ of defense that it can supply. If I stick my hand in a fire, it works to cut the heat from the flames before it gets to my hand and tries to burn me. It’s not instantaneous, and definitely has some level of upper bound, but at almost level fifty it does a pretty good job of protecting me from whatever might hurt. I mean, it also fades after a while, and I think that’s just because it switches to protecting me against stuff like UV radiation and general atmospheric pollutants, because it sticks around way longer when I stay inside and that means I might be aging slightly slower and … you’re not following any of this, are you?”

“No,” Rillah admitted, “but it’s fun to watch you get so excited over this sort of thing. It’s very human.”

Is that a compliment? Edwin wondered, but didn’t voice. “Right, so anyway. Adaptive Defense will interpose itself between me and whatever external force might be present, but it doesn’t go away just because the stimulant does. So when I get really cold … it sticks around until something else replaces it.”

“So you got really cold at one point and now you’re just gliding on that Adaption?”

“Spent an hour outside in the cold without my coat on.” He shrugged.

“And you didn’t ask me to help with this?”

“I didn’t want to bother you …”

“Edwin, it would take all of three seconds to use Chilling Grasp on you, and I can guarantee that it would be more effective than sitting out in the cold for an hour, and way more comfortable.”

“Okay, okay. It doesn’t take an hour, though. Like ten minutes was enough for this.” He vaguely indicated his ears.

“Hmm. How fast does it change over?”

“Well, the speed varies somewhat. It’s definitely based on how damaging something is, as well as my level. Well, only sort of my level. I think it still takes the same amount of time for the full Skill to change, it’s just that as the Skill gets stronger, there’s more for it to actually switch and a smaller fraction of the Skill has a more obvious effect.”

Rillah nodded in understanding.

“Also … oh, that’s a thought. Remind me to try that out a bit later.”

“Try what?”

“Right, sorry. Adaptive Defense’s speed seems to key off Stamina. At least, I definitely sense Stamina working whenever it’s switching targets.”

Rillah nodded in understanding. “You want to see if your Stamina Manipulation will let you manually change what your defense is against.”

“Yeah. It might make it actually useful for once against something that I actually come across without needing like an hour under its exposure. Or if nothing else, keep my resistances at a level where they’re actually useful.”

“That would be nice. I don’t want you getting frostbite just so you feel moderately warm. We can get you a coat, you know.”

“Eh, my torso is fine. I swear my shirt is heated sometimes. But maybe I should get a hat or something, yeah. It certainly wouldn’t hurt,” he mused.

“Lefi says it’s your turn!” Yathal cut in. His haircut was over, and while not quite as short as Edwin’s new hairstyle was still significantly more tamed than Edwin had ever seen. There was probably some kind of clever name for the kind of cut that the boy had but blight if he knew what it was.

“Oh, is it now?” Rillah asked. “And you look very dapper,” she told Yathal, reaching over to ruffle his hair slightly, earning a quiet protest from Lefi.

She stood up from her seat, fingers combing through her hair to free it of the loose braid she normally kept it in, allowing it to fall to its full length about halfway down her back.

Edwin reflected it was kind of amusing they were talking about him being cold, in really thick travel and lab gear, when Rillah had more skin exposed than covered on her entire upper torso, but seasonal ice mages did as seasonal ice mages did. Or would it be her fire mage talents that would render her more comfortable in the cold? Come to think of it, how would cold “resistance” even work. Well no, that was stupid. It would just be an insulator of some sort. That was the one kind of resistance that actually made sense, definitely more than … Well, no, poison resistance also made sense. Social Skill resistance? Eh, it seemed to act on the brain not dissimilarly to emotions or presumably drugs, so … no, actually that didn’t really make sense unless he could configure Adaptive Defense to protect himself from his emotions.

Could he key it against his social anxiousness?

Actually …

Rillah’s haircut didn’t take long, certainly not long enough for Edwin to figure out how he could use Stamina Manipulation to affect Adaptive Defense, let alone how he could turn it against the parts of his brain that annoyed him. But it was enough for a bit of a start, and he felt decently confident that with a bit of practice and likely a few more levels in the Skill he’d make it.

By the end, Rillah’s hair had lost several inches, bringing it to just below her shoulders, and Edwin wandered over to where she and Inion were engaged in some very animated discussion about …

Ah. They were arguing again.

“Well, couldn’t you just think about someone else for once?” Rillah asked.

“It’s my hair. And no mangy little mortal is going to touch it with their rusty little knives! My hair is wonderful and it will not be touched!” Inion responded.

“Oh, excuse me, miss princess. I didn’t realize that you care more about your hair than all of us combined!”

“Ha! As though you aren’t the exact same. I know all about your kind, and what sorts of things you get up to! At least I’m honest about what I do, I don’t hide behind a smile and a lowered attachment to a part of me.”

“Friends! It is all right, I needn’t cut Lady Inion’s hair. I assure you, there simply is no need! There’s no need to fight over such a trivial matter.”

“Yeah, well it’s not just this and you know that full well! If you don’t want to lose even a single hair for the group, I’m so happy to know that we can count on your help if we ever actually need it. Will you decide to help us out only if you don’t get dust on your talons?”

“When was the last time you decided to actually help instead of foisting it off to someone else? You haven’t driven in almost two weeks!”

“Hey, hey,” Edwin protested, “I volunteered for that, I didn’t realize it would be some big thing that grew into all this.”

Neither seemed to hear him, and they just continued to escalate in volume and vitriol heedless of his protests. Edwin wasn’t sure if even theyfully were cognizant of what they were saying; he certainly wasn’t able to follow the overlapping shouts. They only stopped when Lefi physically stepped in, grabbing each of them by the scruff of their neck and hauling them apart. “That’s enough.” His voice was stern. “Edwin is trying to talk to you.”

Edwin was stunned by this revelation and took a moment to collect himself. “Oh, um, right. Um. Can you guys just … not, please? Um.”

“Yeah, well, you tell her that!” and “Only if she stops!” they yelled simultaneously, then glared daggers at each other.

“What changed anyway? I mean, I know you guys don’t get along, but like … you could at least tolerate each other. I also thought both of you were … never mind.”

Edwin mostly counted himself lucky that Inion was keeping herself as constrained as she was. He knew from experience just how terrifying the fey could be when he was truly threatened. Now that he thought about it … that made her claims that Rillah was mentally manipulating him ring somewhat hollow—if she genuinely thought that, she would be much more aggressive about trying to stop Rillah, wouldn’t she? He shuddered slightly at the memory of the alien-looking Inion utterly brutalizing the last person to truly threaten him … he definitely wanted to avoid that. She’d calmed down somewhat since he’d helped her change her bonded body of water from a small forest pool to the largest river on the continent, but she was still the same person, deep down.

“How about this.” Lefi stepped back in. “Both of you, take a break. Inion, hop into a river. Rillah, you fly a cloud. Neither of you come back until you can look the other in the eye and not get mad, got it? Good. Now go. Yathal is being more mature than both of you right now.”

The praise made the kid puff his chest out in pride, but that broke down into giggles when Kyni gave him a big congratulatory lick.

Meanwhile, Rillah and Inion couldn’t resist each throwing out a final barb, and Edwin was very glad that Yathal was apparently distracted by his Companion and hadn’t heard them.

Then they were gone, and with them, most of the tension in the camp. Edwin breathed a sigh of relief. “Honestly, most of the time they behave so maturely and properly, then you put them in the same room and it’s like they turn into quarreling kids.”

Lefi shrugged. “It’s not unusual when … well, it’s not that rare, shall we say?”

“Humans.” Edwin sighed, then frowned. “Wait, that’s not accurate. People.”

Lefi chuckled, sat down at his own temporary barber salon while Edwin got their campfire started.

Edwin was about halfway done gathering wood—Firestarting meant he never had to worry about how dry it was, which was nice—when Kynigos suddenly sat up from his relaxed position by the cart, giving out a quick bark.

“We’re gonna have people,” Yathal translated. “And Kyni doesn’t think they’ll be friendly.” He wrapped his arms around his legs, pulling himself into a bit of a ball.

Edwin nodded, turning to Lefi. “What’s even up with all these bandit groups, anyway? It was never this bad in the past when I traveled. I just had my single dedicated random encounter, but this is the third one this week.”

“Many turn to pillaging during the winter months,” Lefi explained, trying to cut a lock of blond hair—he’d extinguished the golden flames that normally covered his head while trying to cut it, which made it lose luster and animation. “As their villages might not be able to support all those within it, some might be cast out and forced to fend for themselves. Other times entire villages may take to raiding their neighbors for supplies while the couriers are more restricted. Here in particular, we’re skirting slightly along the edges of provinces, so there are fewer patrols, less opportunity for criminals to be hunted down, so more take the opportunity. Then, of course, we look like a tempting target to those who lack a significant range to their Identify.”

“Hmm, fair. I keep forgetting that most people have an Identify range of like … four meters, instead of fifty,” he mused.

“It is very useful for the likes of us, but it is rare that those with no adventure in their life would have much cause for it, yes.”

“Any idea how long out they are?” Edwin asked Yathal. “Or how many?”

“Uh … Kyni says a few minutes? And more than one, but maybe some tryna hide?”

“Eh, good enough. Should I get my stuff?”

The first time they’d encountered bandits, Edwin had been fairly nervous. His encounters with the more murderous or extortive variety of outlaws hadn’t gone terribly well previously, but Lefi essentially trivialized the possibility. If he couldn’t just straight-up intimidate them into leaving, he was easily the best fighter Edwin had actually seen in action other than maybe Tara. Well, that was the assumption at least. The four times their encounters had actually come to blows, they were practically blink-and-miss-it affairs.

Lefi had mentioned that Edwin should get practice at some point, and he didn’t travel carrying all his weapons any more than his traveling companions did.

Lefi shook his head, though. “Should it prove applicable for you to fight, it would be better that you utilize just what you carry on you.”

“So, what? Three fireballs and six smoke bombs?”

“Is that truly all you have?”

“Well, no, but it’s not that far off … Look, I’m just hesitant about carrying high explosives on my person, okay? But if you want healing potions, that I can help you with.”

“It will be sufficient. Should you need aid, I will be there.”

“Hope we aren’t interruptin’ nothin,” a voice yelled out, “but ye’ll have ta pay the road tax if ye wanna camp here.”

A young man—okay, a few years older than Edwin at most—in mismatched clothes emerged from the nearby tree line. While most of his getup was unkempt, as were those of his allies emerging behind him, the sickle he carried gleamed with light and two distinct Skills.

“What would this tax be then?” Lefi called out.

“Let’s say … oh, half of what you’ve got in that there cart?”

Edwin suppressed a grin. Well, if they insisted … there was definitely some stuff that he’d love for them to “get.” Possibly at two hundred meters per second to the face.

“Do you want me to get them? That phrasing is way too perfect,” he whispered to Lefi.

“Not this time, I do not think. I believe they have another compatriot hiding nearby, and I do not wish for you to potentially be put into jeopardy.”

“Sure, I can sit this one out I guess.” Edwin wouldn’t complain too much. He wasn’t a fighter, despite the best efforts of both Lefi and Inion.

Lefi didn’t reignite his hair as he strode forward toward the motley crew, leaving his weapons and even his haircutting dagger behind. Edwin knew from prior experience that while Lefi was insanely good with all his weapons, when he was actually fighting instead of training, he rarely actually used any of them. Instead, he preferred using everything in his surroundings and his own opponents’ weapons against them, and this would be no different.

He was, after all, only outnumbered six to one.

“Hello, friends! I believe there’s been a bit of a misunderstanding, but I believe I may be able to help you in other ways,” Lefi started.

“Has that ever worked?” Edwin asked the air, not really expecting a reply, but Yathal piped up from his place beside Kynigos, still speaking quietly enough his voice didn’t carry far.

“It did this one time a bit after he picked us up. There was this one guy who tried to mug us and Kyni wanted to protect me but Lefi just kicked the guy’s legs out from under him and then helped him up and tried ta teach him about how ta properly hold a sword. By the end of it, the guy was really sorry and happy. He followed us to … to … to the next city, and Lefi got him set up as an Adventurer.”

“Huh. Well, good for him, I guess?” Edwin idly wondered if Lefi had some sort of Persuasion Skill that he was trying to level. It wouldn’t surprise him. Honestly, if he didn’t have it, that would be the real shock. Two Skills that the Adventurer didn’t have in a single day?

Edwin cast his Perception back to where Lefi was exchanging words with the Protective Lirasian Rancher who seemed to be the small band’s leader. It wasn’t going well, which wasn’t that much of a surprise, but there was apparently some hidden bandit somewhere?

Edwin flexed his Perception trying to pick out a humanoid figure somewhere, but no luck … Hmm.

The lead bandit drew back his arm, preparing to cut down Lefi with his sickle.

Then the man’s chest exploded.

A shower of blood and gore burst out where the bandit’s lungs had been mere seconds prior, a black, partially curved blade piercing the man’s heart—the only remaining recognizable organ in the viscera spilling out—and pulling it back on a thin silver chain. The heart vanished into black smoke, being seemingly drunk in by the khopeshlike blade as the weapon struck out once more, burying itself in the back of the next bandit’s head. From there, it was a very bloody few moments of carnage that left Edwin mostly shell-shocked and all the bandits very dead.

Lefi had found the time to react to the carnage, sheltering his face behind an elbow that nonetheless left him fairly covered in blood. He didn’t remain dirty for long, though, and with just a quick brush-down, all the blood that was on him simply dripped off.

What the heck had that been?

Edwin looked at Yathal. The eight-year-old was frozen in place, eyes wide and unresponsive to Kyni’s prodding nudges. The dog in turn looked very concerned about his boy, but Edwin didn’t have much time to really check on him, not when there was something dangerous about.

A hooded figure emerged from the woods, looking almost like a living shadow slinking away from the cover and approaching them. As it drew closer, an even smaller piece of shadow broke away and flew toward the fallen bandits, resolving into a raven—a Skill of some sort, not an actual creature—and picking over the fallen bodies of the bandits.

Edwin pulled out a fireball, the magically enhanced white phosphorus hidden in his palm as this new reaper drew closer and closer. “That’s close enough!” he yelled.

“Hello there!” Lefi called out at the same time. “How may we help you?”

“Bah,” the shadow spat out, and the obscuring effect faded to show a tall, lanky figure, face gaunt and pale like a skull, a silver scar crossing one eye and standing in sharp contrast to almost pitch-black hair the color of a moonless sky. He stalked dangerously toward them, an intimidating figure of …

What the heck am I thinking? Edwin frowned. That was a mental Skill, he could tell, but it just … affected his internal monologue? Biased his thoughts?

Hmm. Well, while the exact Skill at play was tricky to pick out, Skillful Assessment simply revealing the man—no, that was the Skill again, Edwin was definitely older than he was—to have a figure absolutely full of black, red, and purple Skills all so intertwined it was difficult to tell where one began and the previous one ended. If he dedicated enough Perception to it—toning back Numeracy and his arcanoception to compensate—he could pick out a reddish-purple Skill with a structure similar to Rillah’s Good Impression, so that was probably the culprit.

With his mind now free of Skill-induced biases, Edwin was able to take a proper look at the new arrival. He was a bit shorter than Edwin, wore a black leather Trophy longcoat, and just so many belts, each with at least one knife strapped to it, none of which were a physically manifested Skill. On one hand, a manacle attached to a silver chain connected his wrist to the same black khopeshlike blade that had heralded his arrival.

Edwin could already feel a headache coming on, and the guy hadn’t even opened his mouth yet.

“You’re welcome. They would have killed and gutted you all. Bandits don’t care about your feelings, what you want, or whatever pathetic pleas to emotion you were preparing to spew at them. You’re lucky I was around to save you.”

Edwin raised an eyebrow, and he could even imagine Lefi being taken aback by the boy’s utter dismissal of them. Did he just … not have Identify, or did he not use it? He could also just have it at level 5, he supposed, but he was definitely close enough for the average person’s Identify range. Lefi’s currently displayed Class was as an “Adventurer-Mage,” and nobody would think a mage wasn’t able to take care of themselves. Even if Lefi was just a fake mage, that didn’t really matter.

“Well, friend. What brings you out here?”

“I’m not your friend. And I was tracking these bandits; they took something from me and I want it back.”

His raven returned to his shoulder, and the … Edwin sighed … the Ebony Blade of Midnight Darkness turned his scowl to even more of a glare. “Great. It’s not here. Well, guess I need to track down their hideout now. I suppose you had best come with me so as to keep yourselves out of trouble, but … Don’t. Get. In. My. Way. Understood?”

It might have been wishful thinking, but Edwin could have almost sworn he saw Lefi’s fingers twitch in frustration at the newcomer’s attitude. They did look about the same age, and Edwin would be lying if he didn’t cringe heavily about the sorts of things that he aspired to at that age, but the guy just took it … just too far. At least Edwin could take solace in the fact that he was at least not alone in his feelings.

Yathal had wide eyes and looked almost starstruck.

Oh great.

CHAPTER 2

Pizza Cutter Personality

“That was so cool!” Yathal yelled. “You were all, like, whoa, and then slice and chop and they didn’t even see it coming! How’d you do it?”

“You saying something, kid?” the newcomer asked. “Speak properly or don’t at all.”

“I know! Getting big and strong, just like you. That’s what I wanna do. Just you watch me, I’ll do it too!”

“Hey there, kid, stay back. Quit blabbering and go play with your dog.”

“Yeah! I know, it was so cool! Can you teach me that?”

Wait, they were just talking completely past each other, what was …

Oh right.

“You don’t have Polyglot, do you?” Edwin asked. “I know Yathal doesn’t because he’s still pushing Language to sixty—”

Kyni barked.

“Sixty-six, whatever. Doesn’t matter right now. But you’re what, Tier 3?” Edwin sized up the Skills slowly beating within the boy’s body, trying to get a feel for their nature and density. None felt that high of a level, but quite a few complex Skill structures were present. Not quite so complex as Inion, more than the average citizen or Lefi, more on par with Rillah. “Tier 4? And you didn’t take the single most useful Skill in the entire System?”

“Words are meaningless. The only language I need is the one of blood and Skills. What did words ever do?”

“Found empires, topple tyrants, create civilization, delve into the nature of reality, enlighten thousands of individuals to said reality? Tell you what your Skills can do?”

“Nothing but dust on the wind. The moment anyone finds themselves out of their depth, the first thing they always want to do is talk. It’s disgusting, they don’t have the strength to defend themselves so they debase themselves pleading for mercy or proclaiming their innocence as though that has anything to do with their survival.”

“Are you listening to me … at all?”

“What makes you worth listening to?”

“We … have stuff to say?” Edwin shook his head. “Never mind.”

Lefi said, “It is impressive that you have achieved such a high tier at such a young age, young …”

“Don’t call me young, and don’t you go dismissing me just because of my age. I’ll tear you inside out if you aren’t careful, you little brat.”

The blade was back in the boy’s hand and aimed at Lefi’s throat. Lefi took a half-step back and raised his hands in a placating gesture. “Peace. I apologize for offending you.”

The raven-haired rogue nodded grimly, scowling as he stowed his weapon once more, flitting like a shadow …

Edwin squashed the slight influence he felt from the Skill, twisting his perceptions to make the kid seem more intimidating than he really was. It wasn’t powerful, but it was annoyingly persistent, and Adaptive Defense didn’t deem it enough of a hazard to actually defend against. Not that he’d want it to undefend from the cold, that was much too useful. Though Rillah had offered to help him out if he needed it next time and he wouldn’t mind taking her up on that offer …

Bad Edwin. Stay focused. He blinked and tried to pull his inner thoughts back in order, coming to an amusing realization. Heh. So much for “words being meaningless.”

“Good.”

“So … what’s your name?” Edwin finally asked.

“I have no name. None that the world hasn’t already taken from me. I am but a nameless shadow of vengeance, so you may call me just that. I am Dark Shadow of Vengeance.”

Edwin sighed. Hmm … According to Alchemy and a brief consultation with some of his alchemy notes, he could make a fairly effective bright pink dye with mostly just what he had, assuming he could get some … wait, a “pink” was a kind of flower? Was that where the color name had come from?

He privately swore to give the guy a coat of bright pink paint at some point. He didn’t expect it would have much of a positive impact on his behavior, but it would at least be amusing to see, and honestly that was all he could really hope for at this point.

“So then … what are you avenging?”

“My parents. I never knew them, but I managed to track down an old friend of theirs, and before he was murdered, he told me that my parents were exceptionally wealthy and powerful, to the point where they inspired jealousy in the eyes of their neighbors. So they were murdered and their killers never brought to justice. So now, I’m hunting down every last clue I can find about them, trying to discover who wielded the knife that threw me to the streets. I am a perfect weapon, carefully crafted to discover secrets, prying them from the lips of scum who may have them if needed, to return the same kind of care to those who helped my parents’ murder as they showed me. That’s what Sanguine Shadow is for, finding the things I can’t see.” He summoned his shadow raven once more, giving it a brief stroke with his hand before sending it into the air, where it flew off into the distance.

“So did you ever get actual advice from a Registrar? I’m … not sure how you got to your current Class choices.”

“As though I’d ever let them strap me into their little chairs and pick apart everything that makes me me. No, I’ve crawled my way from the ground since I was born.”

Edwin felt the boy—he refused to call him by that absolutely absurd name, he’d go with … Bob. Nobody scary could be called Bob.

Okay, that was decidedly untrue. Humor of name and actual danger were entirely unrelated, but it would be much harder to take them seriously. Actually, he wondered if he could …

Edwin “pushed” at the Skill, and he felt Polyglot click surprisingly easily. He’d need someone to actually say Bob’s name, but if he did it right, it should translate for him as simply “Bob,” and probably the other way around as well.

Where was he? Oh, right. There was a mental Skill probing at his defenses. Well, it seemed to have subsided after his momentary distraction, so … mission success? Whatever. A quick query to Memory filled him in on what he’d missed.

“I grew up on the streets, you see. No mother or father to coddle me, make me weak. No, all I ever had was what nobody could take from me. My Skills and my fists. So I used them, and I used them well. By the time I grew up, everyone knew better than to mess with me. They did, I’d kill them and use their head as a stone to throw at the next fool who wanted to pick a fight.”

Well, that was a morbid picture, though Edwin couldn’t help but wonder how long these heads usually sat around before being used. Were they decomposed at all?

“I learned real quickly that none of the other kids were my friends, either, and the ones who said they were were always the worst. I threw a bunch of their heads over the years, though a few just ended up dying on me, being too weak to truly survive the moment I left them alone. So, better to be alone. I was fast and I was strong, though, and my little corner always had fresh blood from the latest little punk trying to prove themselves with their stupid, weak little ‘Imperial Classes.’ That weakness isn’t for me, so I embraced the darkness. The Imperials all use the light, you see, and it weakens them. So I knew better, and the night became mine. I was reborn in the darkness, molded it, made it my ally and my kingdom. But evil still lurks in the bright rays of day, so I must venture beyond my home to confront it, and to spare the innocent for one more day.”

“So what brought you out here?” Lefi prompted. Yathal was sitting wide-eyed and in awe of Bob. Edwin didn’t know how much he could understand of the morbid tale, but he hoped it was minimal.

“The trail for my parents’ murder is old, so I need to find every last possible lead that might exist, and one of those leads was a silver-and-gold medallion that belonged to my mother. I had it for some time, after I pried it out of the cold, dead hands of the assassin who killed the avior who knew my parents’ friend, who was also murdered while I was asking them questions, and their killer enslaved me for several years as an assassin.

“Eventually, I got good enough I was able to assassinate my employer and took the medallion back, and I tried to uncover what the writing on its back meant. I nearly had deciphered its secrets when a pickpocket swiped it from me. I taught the pickpocket a lesson in why you don’t do that, of course, but he had already passed it along to his fence. He, I needed to beat out that he’d passed it along to a merchant headed south, but before I could track down and find that merchant, I discovered that he’d been murdered and eaten by a river drake. Then, that drake was killed by a hunter who …”

This is getting ridiculous, Edwin mused as he tuned out the endlessly talkative man. Are all Adventurers living caricatures, or is this just really unlikely? And if it’s the former, what am I a caricature of?

“Then, after I escaped my enslavement, which is what gave me this