Chapter 95: Getting Muddy (Patreon)

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Cayden took a single, eager step toward the primordial mud, every cell in his body calling out for the enchanting material. And now that he knew exactly what it meant for his race, Cayden’s mind was in complete agreement – he wanted nothing more than to rush over and absorb the substance. Yet after that first step, he paused, his eyes darting to where Delphia stood to the side, her dark hood directed toward Cayden.

He’d never been a big proponent of keeping his build entirely secret, especially from his friends and teammates. His skills were meant to be used against monsters, not against other people, and though his training at the academy often taught him otherwise, he never forgot their true purpose. His memories of an empty, bloodstained village would never let him forget.

So there was no need to keep his skills secret. By that logic, he should even share his skills far and wide to help others become the best they could be to help fight monsters. And he’d even done that somewhat by helping with Elise’s yet-to-be-published book.

Yet despite his ideals, he couldn’t deny entirely the truth of reality.

People fought. Both in ultimately meaningless competitions to gain skills from an academy, and for real, in attempts to harm or protect those around them. This world was not a peaceful place. It was inevitable that he would be forced into combat against others, either through the academy, in a desperate bid for Tiana’s freedom, or some other situation that was impossible to predict. And in those situations, having his skills hidden would be an undeniable advantage.

Was it worth it? The effort and frustration that came with having to dance around any explanations of his skills effects? To hide those effects from those who might one day be his enemies? For most of his skills, Cayden didn’t think so. In general terms, pretty much anyone at the academy could figure out what Cayden was capable of, at least before his most recent class change. But there were two things he’d always been careful to keep secret.

His tier-three skill and his ability to acquire new racial skills.

Each of those just seemed like too unique and powerful of advantages for him to go around sharing them willy-nilly. Everything he’d heard stated that racial skills were impossible to gain or level after gaining a race, and while they’d discussed merging skills into ‘higher tiered’ skills in his classes at the academy, no one had ever mentioned the possibility of tier-three skills.

Yet he was tired of keeping secrets. In the grand scheme of things, it didn’t take too much effort, but Cayden still found it exhausting, dancing around topics that he’d rather just explain in simple terms, coming up with excuses for actions that would have been self-explanatory if only people knew the truth. It was tiring in a way that went beyond the physical, and he wanted no more part of it, at least not beyond those secrets he considered absolutely essential.

His ability to gain new racial skills, he decided, was not a secret he considered essential.

If Elise ever got around to publishing her book, it would become common knowledge anyway. He refused to be the reason others were left in the dark about the racial change when he’d hated being in that position himself not too long ago. And besides, it wasn’t like he’d be able to hide the sudden appearance of horns or whatever other feature this primordial mud gave him.

Rationalizations made, Cayden dutifully ignored Delphia’s presence and allowed the gravity of the primordial mud to pull him toward it.

This patch was the smallest he’d seen, significantly less than the one that had given him [Skin of Stone] and about three-quarters of the size of the one that had given him [Clawed Grasp]. It looked like it used to be larger, but the saw ants had been cutting and then carrying away pieces of the enchanting material for who-knows-what purpose. For a moment, Cayden felt the urge to race through the mush of saw ant corpses in search of more pieces of primordial mud. More was obviously better, right?

But even if that was a worthwhile use of their time, he lacked the self-control to wait that long before absorbing what he already had before him. He reached out with a clawed hand and touched the edge of the mud.

Primordial Mud obtained! Choose a new racial skill:

The One Who Watches (passive): No evil shall escape your sight. No movement abilities can activate under your gaze.

Implacable Hunter (active): Escape is not an option. Never lose track of a single marked target. Total mana cost.

Cayden looked at Elise, who was hopping from foot to foot, obviously intensely curious about his options but keeping silent to keep his secret from Delphia. Cayden simply shook his head and read the message aloud.

Elise copied his words into her notebook and then immediately reread them. “This is interesting. There’s some new stuff here.”

“Yeah, I’ve never seen ‘total mana cost’ before. What do you think that means?”

Elise waved away his question. “That just means your entire mana pool, regardless of the amount. It’s rare, but not unheard of for certain skills. I was talking about the fact that [Implacable Hunter] is an active skill. All your other options have been passives, right?”

Cayden nodded. That did seem strange, now that Elise mentioned it. With [Boost Passive] as his original racial skill, it had seemed that passive skills were a theme of the gargoyle race, yet [Implacable Hunter] seemed to break that theme. “Well, with it draining my entire mana pool, it kinda acts like a passive skill. It’s not like I’d be able to spam it over and over like [Taunt].”

“True, but I doubt that’s enough for [Boost Passive] to treat it as a passive. Labels matter. Also, for [The One Who Watches]...are you sure it says ‘movement abilities’? Not ‘movement skills?”

Cayden turned back to his status message to double-check. “Yeah, ‘movement abilities.’ Why is that important?”

“Like I said, labels are important. The fact that it says ‘abilities’ rather than ‘skills’, means it could apply to enchantments, runed items, and monsters’ powers as well, rather than just other people’s skills. Not guaranteed, but for that possibility alone I’d suggest taking that one. There aren’t many things that have such a wide breadth of uses.”

“That does seem good…almost too good,” Cayden responded. From what he’d been taught, aside from tiered-up skills of the same type, no single skill was inherently better than any other skill – they were just useful in different ways. Yet that didn’t mean that all skills were created equal, either, as for an adventurer like Cayden, combat skills would always be ‘better’ than non-combat skills. But he would expect that two skills offered by his race from the same chunk of primordial mud would be of roughly comparable use – but at first glance, [The One Who Watches] seemed much better than [Implacable Hunter]. “What would count as a ‘movement ability’ anyway?”

“That’s the important question,” Elise responded. “I doubt it would apply to boosts to the dexterity stat. And probably not to many passive skills, since I would probably classify those as physical boosts before I would classify them as ‘movement abilities’. Probably things [Reckless Charge] or [Dodge] would count, I would think.” She paused. “Also, remember that nothing is absolute, even if the skill talks in absolutes. [The One Who Watches] probably has a range limit, even if you get some vision-boosting skills, and [Implacable Hunter] is unlikely to work if the target flees into a dungeon. Though if it does, that would be a one-in-a-kind skill.”

Cayden nodded as he once more reviewed his options.

At first glance, the choice seemed obvious. [The One Who Watches] would be so much better than [Implacable Hunter] in ninety-nine percent of the situations Cayden could imagine himself in. Even if it didn’t have as many uses as Elise suspected, being able to surprise enemies who normally relied on movement skills would be a huge advantage. His spars with Ignar had shown him that his lack of mobility could be easily taken advantage of if his opponents had the right skills for it, and [The One Who Watches] would hopefully even that playing field. Plus, it was a passive, so it synergized with [Boost Passive].

In contrast, [Implacable Hunter] only had a single possible use, a use that Cayden doubted would come up often. But that single use would make it all but impossible for him to lose track of his sister again.

He hesitated.

Part of him wanted to choose [Implacable Hunter] immediately for that reason alone. That in any measurement of something’s usefulness, his sister should trump any potential gain to his combat strength. But he knew it wasn’t so simple.

What if he was in a situation where [The One Who Watches] could prevent a monster or someone else from hurting his sister? Or Elise? Or anyone else? He could think of a dozen hypothetical situations where that might be the case.

He looked at Delphia consideringly. Up to then, she had simply listened to his and Elise’s conversation in silence. “Got any advice, Delphia?” He figured that as long as she was there, he might as well ask. He didn’t think any less of Elise, but Delphia’s suggestion to consult their teacher over his class choices had revealed that, despite all of her intelligence, Elise – and him as well – could have blind spots just like anyone else.

He couldn’t read her expression under the hood, but from the way she jerked backward, Delphia was surprised to have Cayden asking her advice. But she collected herself quickly.

“Do you have to decide now?” she asked.

“...I guess not,” Cayden replied after minimizing the status message. He no longer felt the overwhelming urge that he’d felt when the primordial mud was still outside of his body, so that wouldn’t be an issue.

Delphia shrugged. “I typically find thinking on it for a day or two before making decisions is helpful.”

Cayden frowned as, once again, Delphia revealed a blind spot in his own reasoning, proposing a temporary ‘solution’ he’d never considered. It hadn’t been a possibility for his first two racial skills, since for the first he’d needed the immediate power boost and the second had been, at least in Cayden’s eyes, an easy decision. And he’d unwittingly almost followed that pattern of choosing immediately for this third racial skill.

“Good idea,” he said, and then with mental effort, he forced himself to stop agonizing between the two choices and returned to harvesting experience crystals.

He was only moderately successful.

He completed the rest of the delve in a slight daze. Luckily, he was strong enough that, even distracted, the dungeon didn’t present any overt danger. Giant wasps and then two more monstrous rats were dispatched without much trouble, Delphia healing his wounds as they reached the end of the ‘house’ and backtracked their way through the dungeon, checking those areas they’d skipped like the top of the bed for ambushers or more enchanting materials.

They found nothing, and a few minutes later they exited the dungeon with their haul.

“Oh man, what happened to you guys?” Marrianne asked as they cleared the entrance. She, the princess, the gorgon girl – Henrietta, Cayden reminded himself – and the ice mage stood waiting for them just beyond the entrance, along with the princess’ two bodyguards.

Cayden looked down at himself. They were all uninjured, but he’d forgotten how many saw ant guts had accumulated on their bodies from their extermination and then trawl for experience crystals. It was easy to ignore when they were mid-delve, but in the afternoon sunlight outside of the dungeon, he winced from the smell that drifted up from his clothes.

“Saw ant swarm,” he replied in explanation as Henrietta approached him with a shy smile. Heedless of the mess, she pulled him into a hug, which Cayden awkwardly returned. Thankfully, their ‘relationship’ was still new, so Cayden’s awkwardness would be justified to any hidden watchers.

“Anything interesting in the dungeon?” the princess asked without inflection after Henrietta released Cayden, though she stayed by his side.

“No. Normal run, overall,” Cayden answered after pulling his eyes away from the ant leg that was stuck to the gorgon’s heavy armor, and the princess gave a small nod. The princess’ team – along with her bodyguards – would remain at the entrance to the dungeon for the few hours it took for it to recharge, ensuring no one would be able to sneak in before her team entered.

The two groups settled into silence, a deeply uncomfortable one for Cayden. He studiously tried to ignore Henrietta smiling at him from his side as Marrianne nudged the ice mage and whispered something under her breath. Elise had been buried in her soul notebook since they’d defeated the last monster of the dungeon, and Delphia was unlikely to speak up without being directly addressed, which unfortunately left Cayden to break the tension.

“Er…I guess we’ll be going, then,” he said, and Henrietta’s smile dimmed as the princess nodded in response. After another quick hug – once again initiated by Henrietta – Caydan all but fled from the clearing outside the dungeon, Elise and Delphia trailing behind.

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