Shielded by Seals [Chapter 20] (Patreon)

ToC: https://www.patreon.com/posts/132353583

Our exploration of the Inner Hand Villas continued.

The first thing I discovered was that the foodstuffs stalls I spotted were only the tip of the iceberg. Various shops offered fabrics, rope, nails, wooden two-by-fours, various books, and even quality of life amenities like toothbrushes for purchase. So long as you had points, you could obtain almost anything.

My second discovery was that this side of the river seemed deserted. Other than the occasional robed attendant, I didn’t see any other children.

Third, and perhaps the most suspicious, I couldn’t find any methods to earn points.

While Toby did cartwheels in bushes and pretended to be a spy, my eyes swiveled to the bridge. Perhaps the answer is on the other side?

I walked across the bridge and my companions eventually wandered after me. As Keekri had indicated, the guards just observed us, but made no move to interfere. On the other side of the bridge, a group of older kids in dirty clothes scrambled to their feet as we approached.

“Hey, midgets,” A chubby boy stood arms akimbo and sneered at us. “I am Yosef, of the One-Legged Hovel. If you want to pass the bridge, you’ll have to fight one of us.”

I squinted at the boy. I had to look up. Shit, it was annoying to be so much smaller than everyone. Maybe-

“That’s no fair,” Toby said. “We are from the Zero-Legged Villa. Stop bullying us just because you are older.”

“Zero…?” Yosef seemed bewildered. The other kids looked at each other. “You can’t be. Zero-leggers are kept indoors.”

Toby shrugged, “We escaped to play spies.”

If anything, Yosef just looked more bewildered. The larger kids stared at us. Eventually, I took another step forward, beginning to have a bit of confidence. “Alright, thank you for this stimulating conversation.”

“You can’t cross!” One of the girls on the side stamped her foot. “Someone your age will fight and beat you up-”

“Can you bring someone our age?” I asked. Inwardly, it made me face an eventuality that I’ve been avoiding: the moment when I would need to fight someone.

I don’t think I’m what Mafia movies have in mind when they call someone a professional ‘Cleaner’...

Yet the outer hand flushed, unable to respond. Yosef kept opening and closing his mouth. 

I shrugged, trying not to let my relief show. “Alright then.”

They didn’t stop us as we walked through the group. As soon as we had passed, the kids leaned together and erupted with whispers. I peeked back but then hurried away. Rather than being a direct arrangement of the Fang Family, it felt like a choice from the Outer Hand side. I began to get an inkling of why Keekri had smiled while looking toward the bridge.

Once I began exploring the outer hand area, the other pieces fell into place.

This side of the river had the same villas, called hovels here, albeit painted a slightly different green However, instead of shops selling raw materials, each stand had various missions. Missions for collecting materials, fetching supplies, exploring the surrounding area, and assisting craftspeople with their work.

Missions on one side, market on the other. Pushing the inner and outer hands to work together. I pondered. Except, even though both work together, it isn’t an even relationship. Outer hands are forbidden from crossing the river. So they create the blockade to protect their leverage.

For now, we were immune to it. So I intended to take advantage of this chance to explore before they figured out a countermeasure.

I glanced over at Toby. He smiled at me and showed me his palm. “Look at this shiny stone.”

“Very nice,” I waved a hand and turned away. Yet right as I did, I paused. Pivoting, I looked back at Toby. “...where did the pebble go?”

His palm was empty. He blinked at me. Tilting his head to the side, he said. “You know, Storage. The Trait. Doesn’t everyone have it?”

Now was my time to be absolutely flabbergasted. “You just have… a Storage? Via Trait? How much can you put into it?”

Toby seemed confused. “Why would I put stuff in? Wouldn’t it be heavy?”

“Oh, you need to carry the things you put into the storage?” I asked. Still, the possibility had my mind dancing. My one complaint about this gamified fantasy world was the lack of an inventory. Yet it seemed that the capabilities were just hidden behind Traits.

Traits could accomplish so many things! What else could you unlock via Traits?

Toby walked over to the side of the path. There were some discarded bricks sitting amongst the grass. He waved a hand and they vanished. His expression brightened. “Oh wow, you are right! I don’t need to carry it! We are going to have so much fun being spies.”

He quickly gathered twigs and fistfuls of grass and they vanished. But just as his enthusiasm was growing, he paused. His expression fell. “Aw. It’s full.”

My lips twitched. Well, you haven’t been grinding it at full capacity, of course its small. Hoho, luckily, you met me… we will streamline this process as soon as possible.

“Do you practice your Skills?” I tested the waters.

Toby shook his head. “I can’t.”

He seemed so saddened by the prospect that I just reached over and patted Toad’s side. Well, even if he is unreliable, he has useful abilities. I can mold him into a perfect pack mule…

Leaving aside the Toby development project for now, I refocused on reading the available missions. Most seemed like menial tasks, but I found two that caught my eye. First, there was a spider silk untangling mission. What was of particular interest was that the mission rewarded a low amount of points, but you received a reward of any extra silk, above what they judged was the baseline could be safely removed. Secondly, there was a task just to provide silk. I wondered whether, in normal situations, you had to make the journey to the gloom in order to do this, but in combination-

Wasn’t this just free points? Did really no one else have the Silk Shot Skill? Perhaps I’d been luckier than I expected with the Skills offered each birthday…

Behind me, Toby followed my advice and decided to keep his Storage space full. Yet now he dragged his feet, holding two shattered bricks and trying to decide which one he should keep. One was a better brick, but the other had been broken in a manner that left its side sharp. 

His expression was tortured; how could he select only a single one?

Shaking my head, I told the attendant I wanted the disentanglement mission. He nodded and led me away from the villa, to a series of warehouses hidden slightly further down the river. As we moved, the attendant kept glancing back at me. I gritted my teeth and forced my chubby legs to pump more quickly to keep up. Mana-Adjusted Physique still wasn’t enough, now that I was out in the wider world.

We reached the warehouse and the man opened the door. “You’ll find the tangled silk within. Process as much as you can, leaving half of each lot in order to earn points. Good luck.”

He bowed and left us. The interior of the warehouse was dimly lit and filled with half a dozen long tables. Every few feet, there was a groove cut into the metal of the tables. On each portion was a similarly sized pile of silk.

I frowned. Looking at the dense mess of silk on each stretch of table, I wondered how an average individual would approach the issue. Could there be some sort of Silk Control Skill that would help? As for me-

I gestured. Clean after Clean blasted out of me. Due to my Proficiency, the Clean’s could hit three clumps of silk at once.

Clean has been used to get rid of a moderate silk mess. Proficiency +1%.

Clean has been used to get rid of a moderate silk mess. Proficiency +3%.

Clean has been used to get rid of a moderate silk mess. Proficiency +2%.

…

Clean has been used to get rid of a moderate silk mess. Proficiency +1%.

Clean has been used to get rid of a moderate silk mess. Proficiency +2%.

Clean has been used to get rid of a moderate silk mess. Proficiency +1%.

My eyes shone with excitement as huge waves of feat-based Proficiency filled me. I had to thank the individuals who ran this mission; because they had gathered so many messes and packed them together, over the course of expending my Mana Pool, I received 25% Proficiency all at once. And they paid me for it?

A glance at my Status Screen tempered my mood; moving through the Proficient Tier simply took too much Proficiency. One session boosted me a fourth of the way to the next Tier, but it also cleared out all the tangled silk laid out in the warehouse. I hoped that the Feng Family would be able to just drag out enough to refill the tables at my request… but I felt a sinking suspicion that was too optimistic a hope. 

With the easy part done, I went table by table and pulled out half of the silk. For the mission, I owed half, while the other half was mine. In the end, I called over Toad from his grunting communications with Toby over which brick to keep. I had to clamber on top of the hog in order to reach up on the table.

Toby wandered along behind us. As I asked him to try storing away the silk for now, he mournfully set aside a small twig he had stored. Then as he moved through, his eyes brightened. “Huh, it all goes to one place. So much silk can be… combined?”

I mulled that over. The same item can be stacked in Storage…

Halfway through the tables, he let out a soft sigh and shook his head; he had reached the limit of silk stacking. In the end, he took another ten minutes hemming and hawing between two fistfuls of ’good mud’. Toad marched closer, offering insightful grunts formed from a lifetime of lying in the precious substance.

Their behavior, one boy wavering and one hog hunking decisively, was maddening, because there was no way they actually understood each other, right? But I left them to it; I had more sorting to do.

…I quickly regretted this thought. Because Toby’s considerations lasted so long that I just sighed and took a quick nap to recover my Mana. By the time I woke up, he had made his decision.

Afterward, we emerged from the warehouse to a sun directly above. Despite the sunlight, the temperature was just one step above frigid. I was very thankful that I had the special silk suit which had a temporary Trait that helped with the environment. The sealwall somehow modulated the weather, but it was still winter. I wondered how prolonged climate control affected plant life.

However, no one else has one of these. I plucked at my grey silk sleeve. The corner of my lips turned down. Did Keekri lie about it? But why…?

Hedging his bets by getting on my good side, in case Argyle eventually shows up and goes homicidal? Bad news, buddy. I’ll probably be one of the first to have my throat slit, when he arrives.

We returned to the hovels and went to the woman who had the silk procurement mission. She took us in the opposite direction up the river, to a different set of building set away from the children’s housing. There, a woman stood at a wooden counter. She dismissed the aide with a nod and said to us. “New outer hands? Small for one-leggers. But I’ll buy anything you have here, for points.”

“We have silk,” Toby said. And without waiting for my direction, swaggered up to the counter and threw down one of his stacks. Considering it was half a warehouse’s worth of product, the area essentially exploded with silk. Strands fluttered off the counter and landed on the ground. It erupted upward until it almost pressed against the ceiling. I couldn’t see the attendant at all, hidden behind the mound of silk.

Very quickly, other attendants appeared and swarmed the room. They goggled at the silk pile for a while, then got to work. Armful by armful, the silk was brought away. Eventually, enough had been taken away that the trembling attendant looked at us. “You… you’ve brought a lot of silk.”

“It’s only the first half,” Toby giggled. Again, he moved forward, but this time I realized his foolishness and put a hand on his shoulder to stop him.

“Is there a better place to put the silk?” I asked.

The woman seemed numb. She led us into the back, where a larger table was already partially filled with silk. Several attendants were in the process of moving through and checking it. I noted that a few of them were teenagers; perhaps they were interns. The workers observed us as we went over to a second massive table… and dropped another silk bomb on top of it.

Sorry about your overtime, I apologized in my heart.

The woman’s trembling worsened by the time she brought us back out into the front area. “It will… take some time to calculate your points reward. Maybe an hour, if that’s fine…?”

Toby looked at me. I waved a hand. “Sure. I do have one question… is there anywhere to spend points on this side of the river?”

The woman gave me a sharp glance, but nodded. “Uh… yes. If you head further upstream on this side of the river, you’ll reach the training area. I guess you are very fresh to the outer hand hovel, if you don’t know about it.”

Toby, Toad, and I headed out and marched in the direction she indicated. Toby’s eyes sparkled as he looked around. “Wow, I’m glad we are best friends. You do whatever you want! From now on, I’ll follow you everywhere.”

Please don’t, I thought. Yet I didn’t refuse him outright. Because that Storage Trait of his was just too useful.

Plus… didn’t this count as making a friend?

For my second attempt at life… I was doing a little better at being human.

After ten more minutes of tiny leg pumping, we found the area the attendant had mentioned. An arc of wooden huts circled a tall stone steele erected at a bend in the river. We saw older kids practicing martial arts stances in the fields around it, but no one stopped us as we walked to the center of the area.

My eyes kept flicking to the stele. There is something about it… does it have… a Mana Pool…?

An old man sat on a small stool next to the stele, fiddling with a tiny piece of wood. The ground around him was littered with wood shavings. He smiled at us as we approached, showing a gap in his teeth. “New arrivals, eh? You’ll be looking for a path, I expect. It will cost 2000 points per person in order to gaze at the stele.”

My eyebrows rose. Not only was the cost expensive, but… “We aren’t here for a path, but to learn Skills.”

The amused look the old man gave me made me feel like a fool; he seemed to have received this very same answer very many times in the past. He licked his lips. “We cannot give you the name of the way you walk, but we can assure you, so long as you keep moving forward, the path you seek will open before you.”

I hesitated for a few seconds. In the end, I opened my mouth and said. “I want a Skill… a path that doesn’t cost Mana.”

Now the old man truly seemed judgmental. “Of course. You should already-... eh? A taboo? So you-”

Then he looked at my hands. His eyes flashed as he offered me a crooked smile. “Ah, it truly is your first day. You have a spirit of adventure. Heh, that can be considered your luck, I suppose. Alright, go ahead. Take a look. The Stele is designed to deduct points automatically.”

Still I hesitated, but Toby surged forward eagerly. I felt exasperated. Does Toby have the points to afford this? When did I become the friend with a fat wallet?

But I fell in beside him and looked at the giant stone stele, trying to understand what I was supposed to be doing. That sensation of Mana from it was quite peculiar-

In retrospect, it was obvious this was designed for kids much more foolish than I. While we looked, the stele began to glow. A wave of energy swept out and covered us.

The energy, as always, formed into seals that tightened around me. The stone stele seemed to grow and grow, until it dominated my entire awareness. Even Toby’s affable size by my side had faded. And although I tried to look upward, my eyes were drawn to the base. A kaleidoscope of strange symbols filled my awareness.

Those symbols coalesced into a notification.

Trial of the Fang Stele has begun.