QuestWright Bk2 C61: The Operational QuestWright (VI) (Patreon)

The third chapter of Tycoon is done, and here we have a ReaderQuest!

Hope all my American friends are having a happy 4th. Second chapter soon to follow.

Quest ID: JDM 0002-SUP-EA

[Tier 1 Support Quest]

Assignment: Pay the Hidden Cost

Every achievement has a cost, even if you’re not the one to pay it.

Your Task

Identify one person who has recently supported, accommodated, tolerated, assisted, or sacrificed for something you wanted to accomplish.

Then take a deliberate action to repay part of that cost.

Examples

Buy them a meal
Take over a responsibility they normally handle
Replace something they used up helping you
Give them time, attention, or assistance they could use
Perform a task that makes their day easier

The action need not be equal, but intentionality matters.

Rules

The support must be real.
The repayment must require effort.
The recipient cannot be obligated to accept it.

Completion Condition: 

One hidden cost identified. One act of support returned.

Timeframe: One Week

Reward: 8 XP

Success is rarely a solo effort.

—

J D Mullenary Sr
The Original QuestWright

Chapter 61: The Operational QuestWright (VI)

The moment the second Tempered Quest was completed, Cass started up Shield Discipline right after. By stacking each Quest on top of one another, Survivor’s Record took note, stacking additional tokens onto everything he was doing.

But it wasn’t going to be enough.

With Cass’s casual single-mindedness, he perfunctorily thanked everyone for their help, then left. Immediately, his feet took him to the apartment and a seat in front of the couch as Adya and Pellin arrived soon after. 

The former out of concern; the latter just to see what would happen next.

Taking a breath and wiping the sweat off his forehead, Cass looked Adya square in the eyes as she sat down in front of him. 

“I’m going to activate a Trial.”

She frowned, “Cass, you might be pushing this too hard.”

“I think it’s great,” Pellin said right after, a smoothie still in hand. “Sometimes I start to think my Calling is really strange. But then I have days like this, and I feel better about everything.”

“Your Calling is strange. Or maybe it’s just you.” Adya said with a snort. She looked at the blood staining Cass’s robe, “How's your wound?”

Cass rolled up his sleeve to show her his already healed arm, “All better, but I need to keep going. I’ve waited for Cinder long enough.”

She nodded, “I think I understand why you’re doing this, but it’s not healthy.”

“This isn’t like it was with the pylon. We’re in a controlled environment. I activate this with you watching over me, then I cut it off when I have enough. No Supercharge, just a normal Trial.”

Adya stared at him, her deep green eyes meeting his brown, then nodded, “Fine, but if things get crazy, I’m dragging you off to Johan, and don’t think it’ll end there.”

Her threat and tacit approval granted, Cass opened up the Trials and looked at one he’d never done before. Overall, it seemed to be the kindest.

The Trial of Instability:

Length: Indeterminate

Control over movement will degrade. Balance, timing, and coordination will become unreliable.

Reward: Scaled Experience and Tempered Tokens based on sustained exposure and intensity.

(System Trust I) Note: Control over movement will be inconsistent.

Before he could reconsider his actions, Cass activated the Trial.

Trial of Instability: Active

Movement is required at all times, or the trial will cease

First Threshold reached: 1x Instability

“Whoa,” Cass immediately said as it felt like he was on quicksand. Standing up, Precision had to help him as his legs wanted to bend in opposite directions. His first step landed wrong, and he had to quickly correct himself before taking another.

On the next step, he adjusted a little better as his leg twitched. There was also a nagging feeling in his ears. Like they were stuffed with something.

“This is so weird.”

“What’s it feel like?” Pellin asked.

“Like the world is twisting around me and my body has a mind of its own at the same time.” He took another step, then did a slight hop as he came down the wrong way. “Shit!”

“So…the big scary Trial makes you uncoordinated?” Cass heard his straw pulling at the bottom of his glass. “Doesn’t seem so bad.”

“Maybe,” Adya said as Cass gently spun around when he reached the end of the room. “But I feel like you saying that has tempted fate.”

“What do you mean?” Pellin replied, and as Cass looked at him, the update came in.

Second Threshold reached: 2x Instability

That nagging, cloying feeling in Cass’s ears increased within an instant. Now, it felt like his head was stuffed. And what’s worse, Precision told him he hadn’t budged, but his brain told him he was still moving. Eyes wide, Cass took a step forward, but instantly bumped into the center table as he slid on the edge of his foot.

“Son of a bitch, that hurts.”

“Oh!” Pellin yelled out. “I did that last week!”

“Not helping, Pellin.”

“Not trying to. This is your trial.”

“Thanks.”

The next five minutes were miserable. Each subsequent upgrade in threshold added more coordination issues, more difficulty holding his balance, and the world began to spin in his mind like a whirlwind.

Cass, like most people, had always taken his center of balance for granted.

It was something, like the blood in his veins or the skin sheathing his body, that he just never thought about. Walking. Turning. Even a person’s place in the world was all decided by a sense of balance that was intuitive to most living creatures. There were a thousand tiny corrections happening beneath the conscious thought. Instinct earned over time and through evolutionary circumstances.

And little by little, over those five minutes, they left Cass as the thresholds increased.

If the first wasn’t so bad, and the second was slightly debilitating, the third, fourth, and fifth increasingly felt like spending every waking moment on the deck of a ship during a storm.

Nothing stayed where it was supposed to. The floor shifted beneath his feet, walls leaned at odd angles, and each time he moved his head, his stomach rolled desperately as he tried to reconcile with his place in the apartment. The apartment was a minefield, and he had already collected a large assortment of bruises and cuts as he just kept repeating the same thing in his mind.

Keep moving. Keep moving. Keep moving.

That mantra was the entirety of the world as the minutes blurred together and the sixth threshold came and went. Then the seventh, as he bounced off the doorframe, Precision did its best to get him going again.

Keep moving.

By the eighth, he’d fallen to the ground and had resolved himself to crawling across it on his hands and knees. When the ninth appeared and his goal had been reached, Cass closed his eyes, felt a burning feeling in his mouth, and turned off the trial.

The relief was more than palpable. It was like he could finally take a breath again. Up was up. Down was down. Everything was back in its proper place, kind of.

Cass’s nose crinkled as there was a distinct smell of vomit in the air, and as he looked around, he found Adya seated high on the couch and glaring at him. The spikey feeling he got from here was not good.

“You done?”

“Let me check…” Cass said quietly, only now realizing that the living room was utterly wrecked and Pellin was gone. There was even a bruise that hadn’t been there before on Adya’s cheek.

Did I do that?

Trial Concluded:

Highest attrition level reached: 9x

Total Time: 9 Minutes 3 Seconds

Reward: 48xp and 72 Tempered Tokens

Experience is held in reserve for Bella the draft-horse.

Cass sighed, “Yeah, I’m done.”

“Good,” Adya replied coldly, the angry emotions radiating out of her plain to feel. Coming down from the couch, she looked around and then groaned, “This is going to take forever to clean.”

“I can help with that.”

“Help?” She laughed, but there was no mirth in it. “You’re doing it all by yourself, Mr. QuestWright. Mr. Survivor. I stayed to make sure you didn’t hurt yourself too badly, but this…” She looked around, then crinkled her nose again, “This is all you, Cass.”

“Yeah,” Cass replied, nodding. “I’ll take care of it.”

“There’s a wash basin under the sink.”

Adya stared at him for another moment, then seemed satisfied that he was taking her seriously and left without another word. Cass opened every window and got to work cleaning up the place. After working in his father’s kitchens for most of his life, he was a pro at it.

Forty minutes later, and while standing next to a heap of broken furniture, Gary came in. The man took a look around, a sniff, looked at Cass, then turned around and walked away.

Cass finished up and did a quick estimate of the cost to replace all the furniture. The number made him wince, but he counted it out from his bag and palmed it. 

He found Adya at Caligula’s End. She was nursing what smelled like a strong drink as he sat across from her.

“Did I hit you?”

“My own fault, really,” She said, taking a sip. “I wasn’t very observant when you spun around one time, though I gotta say. You pack more of a wallop than I expected those skinny arms to carry.”

“Well, I’m sorry all the same.”

“It’s only fair,” She tipped back the rest of her drink before saying, “I nailed you when we first got here. I’ve been feeling bad about it ever since, so I guess we’re even.”

“You can’t punch your feelings.”

“Tell that to the punching bag. Also, you stink really bad.”

Cass handed over the money, then a few more when Adya demanded extra for emotional turmoil. He didn’t mind, as he rarely spent the Crests earned from the Guildtower. 

The ride back was fine, and Bella was happy for the extra experience.

As soon as Cass got into the Guildtower, he immediately went to his room, dodging a questioning Ana over his smell, then closed the door and shucked his filthy robe into a corner before hopping into the shower.

The status screen came up just as the water touched his skin.

Calling: Versatile QuestWright: Cassio Vale

Standing: Journeyman

Level: 23

Experience Accrued: 22,451.86

Experience Required for Next Level: 2,748.14

Unspent Experience: 4561.76

Available System Reputation: 3,235

Available Quests: 402/541

Total Stalwart/Tempered/Survivor Tokens: 260/309/508

Cass didn’t notice the ballooning of his reputation from the last time he’d looked at the status screen. He didn’t notice that he had over four thousand experience points still to use, even after giving Bella every point earned thereafter.

All he had eyes for were three numbers above two-hundred and fifty, and the fact that he’d gone far over the required amount for Tempered.

Could’ve stopped the Trial way sooner. Maybe then Adya wouldn’t have gotten mad at me, and I might not have accidentally hit her.

Still. I can feel bad about that for a long time to come, but I can’t argue with the results.

Even as he thought that, he knew he’d never activate that particular Trial again. Throw burning muscles and enhanced pain receptors at him any day. But total loss of balance and control was a special hell that he had no desire to ever return to.

Moving over to the Survivor path, Cass looked over the options one more time. He didn’t have any doubts over his choice of Cinder, but he’d rarely looked at the last two.

Survivor was built of five Ways. Stalwart on the left, then Cinder, Tempered, Wild, and finally, the Last Light. As always before, the Last Light was far away from the others. Also, as always before, mentally clicking on it produced no results. 

It was immune to his touch. 

While Cinder focused on stamina, endurance, and improving recovery rhythm, the Way of the Wild was all about being out in the unsettled lands. 

Way of the Wild

The world didn’t kill you. You just learned how to move through it.

The QuestWright can assign one Quest per day to themself.

Quests will improve fieldcrafting, supply foraging, and natural evasion.

Passively improves Cassio Vale’s Adaptability.

Way of the Wild used to say it would passively improve his instincts; now it said adaptability after the versatile upgrade. That wasn’t what he was here for, but it was interesting enough that he spent a long few seconds staring at it and trying to foresee what it might do. 

Shaking his head, he clicked on Cinder for one last review of its information.

Way of the Cinder

Your flame burns slowly, but never out.

The QuestWright can assign one Quest per day to themself.

Quests will increase stamina efficiency, recovery rhythm, and physical tolerance.

Passively improves Cassio Vale’s energy.

Similar to Way of the Wild, Cinder had changed. Instead of saying it passively improved his stamina, it now said energy. He didn’t know what that meant, and he couldn’t stand waiting anymore. It was time to find out what the path held for his future.

Cass finalized his choice, and the path lit up yellow between Stalwart and Tempered. A single node at the bottom appeared from the darkness, a cinder surrounded by emptiness. Then, something strange happened.

A bifurcated line stretched forth from the base node. On the left, nearest Stalwart, the path was red. On the right, nearest to Tempered, the path was green.

They continued forth until they stopped and rejoined. Just at their meeting point, a large node formed, and Cass thought it looked like a lamp; then it disappeared. 

Of course, that’s when the notifications came in.

[WAY OF THE CINDER INTEGRATING]

Cass collapsed to the tiled floor of the shower as every part of him screamed. Like the Trial of Attrition and his time dealing with the corrupted object, it felt as if his body were breaking down into tiny pieces, with drops of red joining the water swirling down the drain. 

But unlike those times, as the burn intensely spread across his body, he could feel something different. Through the pain, he was changing. Even as he bit his lip, more red joining the water, his body underwent a transformation.

Cinder was different than those times before. It wasn’t only breaking him down, it was also building him back up. Though all of him burned, parts of him felt it most intensely. 

First, his lungs. 

Between gasps, each breath came easier. Cass was cognizant enough to notice that the air he was sucking in was replenishing at a deeply accelerated rate. Far beyond what he was used to.

Then, his stomach burned, or at least the organs buried beneath the skin. After that were his muscles, moving through another transformation so soon after they’d undergone the corrupted purging’s treatment. 

His skin slowly felt the heat of the shower less, like it had grown tougher and less sensitive. He lost sight for a moment before it came back, no different than before, but that didn’t matter.

Because as each piece of him moved through the treatment Cinder had brought, his body felt…more alive. More aware of everything going on within.

And as the last parts of him changed and transformed, Cass felt it reach a crescendo, just as another notification took over his screen.

[SURVIVOR PATH: WAY OF THE CINDER- INTEGRATION COMPLETE] 

First node unlocked: Burning Capacity.

Current flames registered: 1

Nodes unlocked:

Stalwart: 0 

Next unlock: 10 Stalwart Tokens

Tempered: 0

Next unlock: 10 Tempered Tokens

Bonus experience granted for unlocking your second Way

+5000 xp

WayWalker Achievement progress 4/10