The Way Ahead

Edwin woke to a beam of sunlight worming its way through a miniscule gap between two boards on the side of the wagon and directly onto his closed eyelids. He grumbled and tried to fall back to sleep at first, but the damage had already been done and he was, if not wide awake, awake enough.

As he sat up, Edwin rubbed the sleep from his eyes with a yawn, casting his gaze around to regain his bearings. It was interesting how, even with over twenty levels in Sleeping, there was still time each morning where he was all but dead to his surroundings, at least until he got his heart going. Magically potent rest didn’t prevent morning grogginess, it seemed. He was just glad he hadn’t been one of those people who needed a cup of coffee to get started in the morning. Tea, sometimes, but he didn’t like coffee, even when it was filled with all the stuff people told him made it ‘barely’ coffee. He wasn’t sure why that always seemed to be phrased as though it were somehow meant to encourage him to try black coffee, not that it ever worked anyway.

“Who’s laughing now, huh, Ryan?” he muttered, “You’d have headaches for weeks without your….” He yawned, “caffeine addiction. Hmm.”

It took him a couple minutes of yawning and stretching, but Edwin eventually got himself up, hopping outside of the wagon to stretch his legs. All around him, the members of the caravan were at work, busily making what appeared to be last-minute preparations before their departure, hitching up horses to the train of wagons, moving a few bags of supplies around, and he even saw one Avior flying over the town, coming from the river, with a bunch of dripping barrels dangling from their talons.

The town, too, seemed to be back to a normal set of operations, with individuals bustling every which way, halflings darting around at high speeds, some so high that Edwin could barely track their movement. A few were carrying around entire trees, or at least most of one, which brought a smile to Edwin’s face. There was something humorous watching a single 3-foot-tall individual carry around a 50-foot tall solid log as though it weighed no more than a couple of pounds. There must have been some Skill involved in just keeping them from having the trailing ends of the log hit anything, or even just walking into one another or their surroundings in general.

How can I get that Skill? I want to stop running into things Edwin thought, rubbing his shoulder. Was it really his fault that he didn’t notice how far he was from the edge of the wagon? Okay, fine, maybe it was. But he still wanted that Skill.

“Dive, you brown-taloned chicks!” a screeching voice broke Edwin from his musings, “Daylight is wasting, let’s get this on the road! Faera, stop messing around and get inside! Sorahna! Get those horses bridled! Come on, dive! Dive! We want to be over the Thardil by nightfall! Edwin! You’re in the front wagon today! Enjoy it! Forsish, why isn’t the water secured? You should already be done with that! Get diving! Sharaf and Rosil! You’re first in the sky! Get up there!”

Wait, he heard his name somewhere in there. Uhh... front wagon, was it? He made his way up the connected chain of wagons until he got to the front, admittedly only a few away, and after staring at the six horses which were apparently supposed to pull the entire train of… 12 wagons, he pushed aside the curtain separating the interior from the exterior and went inside.

Really, he should have expected something to surprise him. Sure, while the casual space-warping that seemed to accompany all buildings he’d entered so far was surprising- especially given how casually everyone treated it, suggesting that it was completely normal for them- had somewhat lost its initial shock factor, it still required a touch of mental recalibration to see how large the lead wagon was on the inside compared to the outside. But no. That wasn’t what surprised him. What was more surprising was that everyone inside was lounging on beanbag chairs. They were just so utterly modern, and in such stark contrast to the distinctly semi-medieval aesthetic the rest of Joriah had thus far that he couldn’t help but stare, and he walked over to investigate one. It looked… just like a beanbag chair. On closer inspection, it was, well, a beanbag chair. A sack of some sort made from some thick cloth, stuffed with… something, Edwin couldn’t tell. Probably straw, though maybe feathers? Would avior feathers be good for something like that? Would they want to use their own feathers, or would that be like having something made out of human skin?

Anyway, people were lounging around on… beanbag chairs. He supposed it made some sense, certainly more than normal chairs on a wagon, and they clearly weren’t hurting for space. It seemed odd that they had at least two wagons basically empty of goods for what was apparently a merchant caravan, but who was he to question their strategy? They’d know better than he would, and asking Aerfa would probably not go over well. He liked his eardrums in one piece, after all, and even now, he could still hear her flying around outside screeching orders to everyone else with some decidedly inventive language, including a few phrases which Polyglot just had no clue how to properly convey their meaning. What was he doing again? Oh yeah! The interior!

There were nineteen other people in the front wagon. While he had initially drawn some attention, most of their gazes had wandered again, a couple to dice games and some others to poring over paperwork. One person seemed to be doing System-related, swiping a feather through the air to interact with some unseen screen. Most were avior, though there were six humans off in one corner. Of the avior, about half were the same burnished brown/bronze of Aerfa and Forala… Forala was part of that group, actually, three remaining had dark gray plumage, two had glossy black feathers and beaks which resembled more a crow’s than an eagle’s like the others, and the final one was a pure white. That one was busy literally preening, straightening their feathers.

The humans were either fairly tanned or just had slightly darker skin naturally, but stuck together for the most part, not mingling with the avior as they rolled dice, speaking some language just as unfamiliar to Edwin as the literal bird calls of the avior. If he were to compare it to some language from Earth, he would have said it sounded vaguely Asian. Trying to tune Polyglot to their conversation led Edwin to an interesting realization: he could only try and interpret a single language at a time, and, at least at the moment, he couldn’t change his focus away from the racket outside as Aerfa continued to wrangle the caravan into motion long enough to switch what tongue it was attempting to translate. So, what the humans were discussing remained a mystery for the time being. He was close enough to Identify them, though. Two were Novice Traveling Merchants, one was an Experienced Traveling Merchant, and the final three were just Traveling Merchants. It was a surprising degree of homogeneity compared to the avior Edwin was in range for, who numbered two Junior Caravanners, four Skyguards, a Feather of Wealth (that was the white one), a Caravan Medic, and Edwin caught the tail (heh) end of a Traveling Beastmaster as they left out the back in response to another loud screech for a ‘Sorahna’ (Edwin made sure to Almanac the name).

It didn’t take too much longer before Edwin felt the wagon begin to rumble under his feet, setting off slowly to start but gradually building momentum as Edwin imagined the six horses straining to somehow pull twice their number in wagons. His beanbag felt quite comfortable as Edwin sunk into his thoughts, musing idly about what Paths he would want to complete next.

He was pulled out of his thoughts as Aerfa swooped in through the entrance, the curtain parting as she entered, landed perfectly and started looking around. She immediately zeroed in on Forala, who seemed to be dozing in his beanbag, laying on his back “Forala! Quit bending your tailfeathers. Edwin has Polyglot. I want you to hit level fifty in it by the time we reach Vinstead!” Following that, she seemed to find some reason to give everyone in the wagon at least one instruction, which everyone moved at least halfheartedly to fulfill. Content, Aerfa leapt back out the entrance, off to do something else, namely… ah. She was looking for her daughter Faera again.

Forala, for his part, dragged his chair over and plopped back into it, sitting in it more like a bird would sit in a nest, “So mum letya come along, I see? Whatya haveta promise her ta let ya?”

Edwin shrugged. No real harm sharing that, it would be public knowledge soon enough, “Minor help setting up, and a formula for concrete, a kind of liquid stone. What’s even the big deal with it? Everyone seems to freak out about it whenever it comes up.”

Forala cocked his head, “Liquid stone? So it’d all be one solid rock whenits dry, ya?” Edwin nodded, “Well, surely yaknow tat ta big ting for sometin tats all one object is tat skills are harder ta use on it, yaknow? Ya need a red sky of power ta try and break down a wall tats all one ting, specially for any kinda magic skill, but if its small pieces any ol’ Destructive Strike or Move Stone could make te ting break, one piece at a time. Ye just can’t use skills on a part of a whole. How dontya know tat?”

Edin nearly spoke up- his Mana Infusion could affect part of an object, couldn’t it? No, wait. It had seemed like that when he Infused his eyes, but he was really just Infusing his Seeing skill, wasn’t he? His fingernail? Eh, that was arguably a separate object, if a wall made of stones counted each rock separately. Hmm... He could Infuse a bit of the air when using Firestarting, but that probably didn’t count as a single object… huh. It seemed like an arbitrary restriction, especially when delving into the subatomic scale, but he’d have to test it out at some point and see if he could get around it, or what exactly the limits were. With that in mind, though, the obsession with concrete the dwarves had made a bit more sense. He offered something revolutionary after a sense, and they wanted to control it. They still seemed a bit desperate for it, though, all told. Eh, people. They probably thought they had some reason for it, and Edwin wasn’t going to try and understand people who may have had a totally different thought process than humans did. He had enough problems trying to figure out how his own thoughts worked.

“Just… slipped my mind, is all,” Edwin lied unconvincingly. He could tell his conversation partner didn’t believe him either, but chose not to follow up on it for whatever reason, “So, ah… what’s your story? Tell me about your life. Where are you from? What brings you out on the road?” that was standard conversation-stuff, right? What else was there? Oh, Forala had started talking.

“Eh, hatched and nested in Farport, yaknow? Along ta water. So many great winds, perfect fer flying. Mum always pulled me alongon her trips, but da would take my clutchsis out to sea for his trips. Tried te water once, didn’t agree wit me. Give me a solid rock ta perch on after a good fly anyday over sometin bein tossed around so much. Farisel always liked te sea air, toh. Tey’ve been preening us ta take over when tey retire. Comin up in a couple years now, bu’ mum says I need ta get all my skills Advanced at least one more time afore she’ll let me take point, ten I’ll haveta do a full round wit her as my aide, before she finally retires. Mum likes ta say tat I may have been set as her successor, but she sure won’t let me underflap even once. Personally, I tink tat…”

Edwin couldn’t really say he cared about what Forala was talking about, but he made sure to at least pretend. That was something he didn’t even need a Skill for, just long years of practice as the bird prattled on.

And on.

And on.

This may have been a mistake.

By the time the caravan started winding down in the late afternoon, Edwin had been subjected to a good ten straight hours of chatter from Forala, mostly about his plans for the future and stuff about his hometown and all sorts of things which Edwin could have gleaned learned all sorts of interesting facts about Joriah from if he was capable of actually giving someone talking to him more than about thirty seconds of attention at a time. After that, Edwin’s focus would just wander off to some corner of the wagon for about a minute, only to snap back to Forala long enough to realize nothing immediately interesting was being said and have the cycle repeat. Even what few potentially interesting tidbits he had heard went mostly in one ear and out the other.

Still, Edwin did glean enough information to know that this caravan was on a fairly long loop across the southern half of Korzan, starting in the harbor city of Farport, going up the coast to Port Torveil, then skirting along the edge of the Verdant on their way to Vinstead, Tyra… and… there were more, he knew it… Kinea, and… ah, forget it, it didn’t matter, then back again. Each step of the journey they’d pick up a set of goods and then slowly sell them off over the course of their trip, taking the excess back to Farport, where it would be loaded on ships and sailed… elsewhere. Edwin was really glad he wouldn’t need to take any tests on it, because he’d fail without a doubt. It was all long and complicated, and sometimes they’d pick up passengers and sometimes they wouldn’t, and there was a whole hour-long tangent about them needing ‘better horses,’ which Edwin found hard to believe given how insanely strong their pack animals must have already been.

It was thankfully brought to a close when the wagon slowly clattered to a stop, and everyone began filing outside to get the camp for the night set up. Edwin didn’t fully understand at first why they didn’t just sleep for the night in their wagons, but he quickly realized they probably did, and this was just to cook dinner. A few avior flew off and returned quickly with fresh game, some deer-looking creatures clutched in their talons. While they were being prepared, he was tasked with starting a fire, which was simple enough. A tap on a few of the piled-up logs was all it took for the fire to start blazing, no need to even use kindling. Not long after that, the designated cook- the human Experienced Merchant- had the prepared venison on a makeshift grill, filling the campsite with the appetizing smell of roasting meat.

It tasted fine. Bit of a surprise, really. He half expected something utterly sublime once Skills got involved, but maybe not? Or did nobody have a cooking skill? Either way, Edwin dug into his provided food with gusto. He wasn’t too hungry, as despite not having eaten all day, he hadn’t been very active and his Survival skill meant he needed less than half the food he would otherwise require. He kept waiting for a notification that his Nutrition level had increased- it did pretty much any time he had a new kind of meal, so long as it was at least somewhat healthy- but when it didn’t come, he remembered he’d turned off notifications earlier in the day.

Level Up!

Nutrition Level 16→17

Research Level 43→44

Polyglot Level 6→13

Huh. Pretty nice gains, considering all he had really done today was sit around and half-listen to the ramblings of a regular chatterbird.

Edwin sat as a silent part of the giant circle around the fire, listening slightly as everyone chatted in their own strange languages. Every once in a while, he was able to pick up on the odd word spoken, neither Forala or Aerfa speaking loudly enough to monopolize his Skill this time. Nobody struck up a conversation with him, not that he expected anyone to. Still left a strange melancholy resting deep within him, as he longed for the social interactions he had… well, never really had back on Earth. But memory was a funny thing, and so it tried to tell him that he actually did have friends who would talk to him in this sort of situation, and it really hadn’t been that bad.

His memory could be such a liar.