Chapter 36: Taking the Step (Patreon)

The way out was only slightly less harrowing than that in. A restlessness had spread through the myr since Elliot claimed the staff. They moved more erratically, stalking around corners like they somehow knew he had what was theirs and he was getting away. A near-constant hissing came from all directions, keeping him on edge.

The Ghost Eye’s vertigo had become more manageable, which was good, because he found himself using it almost constantly. At the slightest sound he would press up against the nearest rock, stay low, and flip the switch, all while hiding his eyes to avoid meeting anything’s gaze.

It was nearly full dark by the time he passed through the embossed bronze gates. Letting out a huge sigh, Elliot shoved the Ghost Eye as far into his pack as it would go and pulled out a glowstone lantern.

“You live,” a voice came from behind him. “Breka will be pleased.”

Elliot let out a strangled shriek, spinning to find Hadrian leaning against the vine-covered wall.

“You are,” Elliot replied hoarsely, “the worst.”

Hadrian smiled faintly. “Did you acquire what you sought?” His eyes strayed to the staff.

“I’d better have,” Elliot replied grimly. “If I just dodged terrifying goatworms for hours while something tried to eat my brain and I didn’t get the right item, I don’t know what I’d do. Not give up. Maybe pivot and try marrying into power.” It was a measure of his current strain that the joke actually lingered in his mind for a second, hanging temptingly.

Hadrian nodded. “Perhaps wise.” He turned and set off through the forest. “Come.”

Later, as their broadback approached the canyon, Elliot got his first look at the full scope of Tular at night. The clouds had cleared to reveal an incandescent sea of stars stretching across the black vastness above. Mother Yarba’s giant leaves glowed softly silver, and the city gleamed with the yellow of glowstones.

They landed a short walk from the Westbranch and their inn. It was an effort to keep from sprinting, thoughts of advancement ricocheting through his mind. When they finally arrived, he practically skipped up the stairs.

“Breka!” he shouted, raising the staff. “I got it. That warren was absolutely insane, but I got it.” Even the dim, cramped confines of the room couldn’t dull his excitement.

The old lady was curled up in her massive armchair, reading what looked almost like a newspaper. She tucked it aside as they walked in. “Well done, boy. Now, sell it to me.”

His grip tightened on the wood. “That’ll give me enough vitae to move up to the second step?”

“Correct. It’s time.”

This was it. Time to put Breka’s plan through its first stress test, and see if the skills he was offered matched her expectations. But first he wanted to confirm a hypothesis. “It counts as an antique because someone left it in the warren years ago, right? Why would it work that way? I thought the valuable things you can find were created from the extra ethera.”

“It belonged to a former delver, yes. The ethera can create something wholesale, but it's easier for it to grab on to an existing enchantment, and then magnify it. Like lightning seeks the easiest path to the ground. Warrens keep producing new items of power for as long as they exist, so it’s not almost inevitable to have a few long-dead delvers lying around with their gear.”

Elliot looked down at the jade patterns carved into the wood. Who carried you?

“Pay attention. I’ll give you five gold for the staff.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Really? How does that even work? Isn’t it cheating for you to buy it from me?”

“What’s cheating?” she asked, flapping her hand at him. “You risked your life for it. You possess it. I have a real interest in it—you should see my collection—and five golds is a fair price. It’s not like I bought it at auction and I’m trying to gift it to you in order to trade it back to me for free vitae.”

Gripping the artifact tightly he passed it to Breka, who then reached into the pocket of her robe and drew out five golden coins. They were larger than the silvers, and featured a mountain on one side and a stylized bird on the other.

As soon as they touched his hand energy swelled in his chest. His heart was racing almost as fast as it had been in the warren. What if he got the wrong skills?

The energy coalesced in his core, thrumming, and overflowed, the excess forming a clear shard. Beyond it was an array of choices, colors fanned out like a hand of cards. 

He squeezed his eyes closed, realizing too late that the loss of actual vision only made his internal world clearer. Under the everpresent soft, white light of the Beacon, he took in what he’d been offered. There were six shards, one white, two grey, two brown, and one black.

“So?” Breka asked, leaning in. Her eyes glittered. “What do you see? Are they new abilities, or just upgrades?”

“New abilities. What order do the colors come in again?” Elliot replied, delaying.

She sniffed. “White, grey, brown, black, gold, violet. If you have black we’ve done well.”

“I do,” he said, feeling lightheaded. “I only have six options. Why aren’t there more? I feel like I’ve done a lot of things.”

“Six is already more than you’ll receive at most steps. Some have a tendency to circle back, especially the strong, but while it can be manipulated there is also some random chance dictating which particular selection will come around each time.”

“I see.” He bit his lip.

“By all the Gods,” Hadrian interjected, “will you simply speak? What has the Beacon offered?”

Taking a deep breath, Elliot started with the white. His eyebrows shot up. “I got [Barter]!”

“The base version? Is that your white skill?” Breka replied.

“Yes, but that’s what we were shooting for, right? Or one thing?” he asked, hope rising.

“Absolutely not,” she barked, “No pupil of mine will take a white-tier [Barter].”

“Oh,” he said, wilting. “Gotcha.”

Moving on, he took in the gray skills. “I have two grays, [Seize the Moment] and [Adroitness]. The first—”

“Skip them.”

“Alright then,” he replied, trying to contain a sense of panic. “Skipping those. The two browns are [Merchant’s Instincts] and [Combative Bartering].”

“Ohhhh,” Breka sat back in the armchair, stroking her chin with one hand. “[Combative Bartering] is better than I thought for an entry point to that skill chain. Not for us today, hopefully, but promising. The mental warfare from the warren must have paid off, in conjunction with our training. [Merchant’s Instincts] isn’t for you, but I suspect it’s a good sign that you got an instinct skill this early regardless of type.”

“Mental warfare? You mean the memory eating effect?”

“Yes, the mind worm.”

“The what?”

“Get on with it,” she said, making a chivvying gesture. “We still have the meat of the matter. What’s the final skill?”

“Was there a mind worm in my head? Is there still a mind worm in my head?”

“No, no, and did you hear what I said? Get a move on!”

A soft sound escaped his lips that was half sigh and half moan. “The black skill is called [Golden Touch].” His eyes shot up immediately in an attempt to read Breka’s expression.

“Well then,” she said, settling back into her chair with a faint smile. “Perhaps we aren’t chasing our tails.”

“It’s good then? It’s what we wanted? Black is rare right?” He felt himself babbling, hope surging.

“It’s a rare ability, certainly rare to receive at your level,” Breka replied, the gleam back in her eyes. “And it was our goal.”

“Oh wow,” he practically sighed out, belatedly turning his attention to the skill details. “It’s…” he tilted his head. “It’s a skill to minorly empower enchantments?”

“Yes, and it will be a pillar of your near-future development. Perhaps far-future as well, if I can make everything come together.”

“Oh,” Elliot replied awkwardly. “Cool, I suppose.” His legs had gone wobbly with relief, but if he was being honest, the skill seemed like a bit of a let down. It seemed more like a classic merchant skill than any kind of clever twist. Activating the ability permanently increased the power of any basic enchantments on an item in his possession by roughly ten percent. Not exactly a flamethrower, or an exploding boulder.

“I am gifting this back to you,” Breka said, thrusting the engraved staff in his direction. “Take it.”

He grabbed the end obediently, hefting the weapon. “Do I have to give the gold back?”

“No. That was a fair purchase price. I am giving this to you as part of my plans for your training, which is an entirely different affair. Focus on it, and think of your heartbeat as a thrumming in your fingers. Then imagine that same thrumming traveling into the staff.”

Interesting. Some kind of activation effect?

Elliot stared intently at the emerald designs spiraling up and down the length of dark wood. He followed her directions, gripping the staff tightly enough that he could feel his own pulse, and trying to imagine it passing into the weapon. For a solid minute nothing changed, then it twitched in his hands.

As soon as it moved his perception of the staff shifted completely. It wasn’t quite an additional limb, but when he closed his eyes he knew vaguely where it was in space, and he could sense a charge inside, like a coiled spring.

“Do you feel it?” Breka asked.

“I definitely feel something.”

“You’ve bonded with the staff.” She let out a contented huff. “That means another hour a day for weapons work. Hadrian will enjoy having a new physical exercise to torment you with.”

The hunter snorted.

“What?” Elliot asked. The wood felt almost warm to the touch now. “What does that mean, bonded?”

“A bond is a bond. Only one can be maintained at any given time, which is fine, because it’s impossible to carry too many powerful enchanted items at once anyway. They start to interact poorly. You can use any number of weaker enchanted objects without a bond, like the Ghost Eye, but that doesn’t compare to the control and power you can build over time with a semi-permanent connection. I think you’ll be able to make good use of it as a weapon, and it’s about time we increased your combat capacity, but its primary purpose is instructive. I intend it to help you train [Golden Touch] in a very specific direction.”

Elliot considered the skill’s information again. He just didn’t see the combat potential.

“When twisting skills in unusual directions—a personal interest of mine, with my core—the great key to everything is consistency.” She reached out and laid a gentle hand on the wood of the staff. “Take [Golden Touch]. It’s generally accepted to be a lucrative skill, carefully cultivated by several prominent merchant families. And it is. Given time and effort, you could train it to the point that you could significantly increase the value of an enchanted item.” She tightened her grip. “But you will never, not once, use it for that purpose. Instead, you will infuse the staff with power, then take it away. Then infuse it, then take it away. Endlessly, never allowing the skill to fully set. With sufficient time, and a complete commitment to using the ability in that way and none other, the skill will transform from a permanent mild enhancement into a temporary potent boost. It will require incredible control and focus to use, but will also carry many times the benefit for someone in your position.”

He frowned. “Does everyone do this, then? If it’s that simple?”

“Few even understand the method. It’s a means of changing the purpose of an ability, not making it stronger. A [Warrior] with a striking skill would have no need to waste countless hours adjusting it, since the striking skill is what they require. There are few who have any desire to twist what the Beacon gives them. Most take steps to be granted the profession they wish, or one close enough to what they wish. Also, a key component of this process is commitment, and foresight. It works far better if the ability is used exclusively in the intended manner, especially at the beginning. If you took [Golden Touch] and began to use it as normal, then thought to try this approach, you would find it almost impossible to make meaningful strides. Who out there is willing to avoid using their abilities as intended for months or years at a time, unless absolutely necessary?”

The continental power masquerading as a frail, elderly woman began to rub her hands together, expression gleeful. “You can consider this a successful beginning. [Golden Touch] was a gamble. Even with the figurine and the focus on your profession, it wasn’t guaranteed. With [Combative Bartering] also in the loop for later, we’re off to a good start.”

Elliot let his attention shift to the requirements he’d met for [Golden Touch]. Having a merchant profession with an appropriate specialty—antiques no doubt often carrying enchantments in this world—was the first, followed by handling an incredibly powerful enchanted item and gaining expertise with managing a challenging enchantment effect. That had to be the figurine and the Ghost Eye, respectively. “Do skills have consistent requirements between people?”

“Not even slightly,” Breka replied. “You can achieve almost any skill in many different ways, and the Beacon can fail to recognize an established pathway if the context varies too far from previous examples. It’s part of what makes controlled development so complicated.”

“This is all fine and good,” Hadrian said from where he leaned against the far wall, “but have you no interest in testing your new weapon?”

Gripping the staff with both hands, feeling the energy coiled inside of it, Elliot grinned. He selected [Golden Touch], the shard filling with color and shifting until it had the same band-like appearance as his other two skills, both already wrapped around his core. “You want to spar?”

“You have many things to learn,” Hadrian replied, stepping forward and gesturing to the door. “Why not begin.”