Untapped ~ Chapter Fourteen!

“Woo!” A guard recruit dressed in clearly non-regulation gear called over. “Baldy almost got tapped, know what I’m sayin’?”

“I literally don’t. Somehow I left, and the lingo went feral.” Joe tiredly rubbed at his eyes.

“Ya know… tapped.” The guard looked at him askance, as though the Ritualist were only playing around. “Went to take the big nap? Body is around but no longer breathin’?”

“Enough of that chatter, get back to practicing your forms if you want your position to become permanent. As for you, citizen, would you like to tell us what that was all about?” A more senior guardsman carefully inquired as he drew closer to the Ritualist, who had flopped to the ground breathing heavily. “Abyss, is that Joe? That is… would you like to file a report?”

“Absolutely I would!” Joe grunted as his health quickly ticked upward. “That guy was the head librarian, and he attacked me for absolutely no reason. If I hadn't been able to get here, I probably wouldn't have survived another minute without having to make things real ugly.”

“I see.” The guard sheathed his sword and pulled out a notepad. “So you were walking down the street minding your own business, and you were attacked out of nowhere? I can see from here that you're a powerful individual; why is it you weren't able to defend yourself?”

Joe paused and clenched his jaw, knowing how his next words were going to sound. “No, I had just entered the library and was asking for assistance when he attacked me unprovoked. As to why I didn't fight back with everything I had, well…”

Here he gestured down at his body, which seemed to be covered in a thin, swirling mirage or heat shimmer. “I have combat abilities in the Master rank, and using more of them would’ve been… detrimental. Other than that, my class is one that thrives on preparation, and I wasn't ready for a fight.”

Clicking his tongue, the guard shook his head and put his notepad away. “I'm sorry to say, there's nothing more I can do for you.”

“It's because I was in the library when he first attacked, isn't it?” Joe let out a heavy sigh and stood, feeling much better already. “I get it. He probably has some kind of right to initiate combat in his area, no matter what.”

“Exactly that. However, if he does hunt you outside of the walls of his territory, please come directly back here, and we will handle him. Otherwise… well, I shouldn't have to be explaining this to someone of your apparent strength, but being unprepared for combat is the standard for anyone who goes out and about, unless they’re seeking to fight. Yet, if you’re only ready on your terms, ninety-five percent of the time, you're going to be cut down where you stand.” The guard offered him a hand, shaking it firmly as he looked at Joe with a bright grin. “Good to have you back.”

“Yeah, yeah.” The sour expression on the Ritualist's face faded as he smiled in return. “Mind walking me around your infirmary? Should be able to get anyone feeling a bit under the weather back on their feet pretty quick.”

A quick stroll through the barracks, infirmary, and prison area generated a swarm of reputation—desperately needed after having lost two thousand reputation with the guard when being exiled so long ago. 

You have gained +100 reputation with the guards of Ardania.

You have gained +100 reputation with the guards of Ardania.

You have gained…

Quest update: Living for justice (Ongoing). Every day, people are arrested. Many of them are critically injured and will perish before trial without help. Some are innocent! Most are not. 

Reward: 1,300 guild and personal reputation with the city guard.

Your reputation rank with the city guard of Ardania has increased! Reluctantly Friendly → Friend. 

Nine guardsmen had been injured in the line of duty, five of them severely, the others bad enough that they wouldn't have been able to get back to their patrols in the next few days. Thirteen prisoners had been in critical condition but were now healthy and hale, glowering at him with rage now that they were sure to finish out their sentence instead of being sent to respawn.

“You know, keep this up, and the next time you're having trouble with an overdue book, we might be able to ignore the circumstances a little bit and help you out,” Joe's escort told him with a knowing wink. “Can't make any promises just yet, but…”

“I'm not planning to get close enough to him for there to be an issue.” The Ritualist amended his words a moment later, “At least, not unless I'm completely ready for him. Thanks for the offer, but for now I’m just happy to help out.”

Thinking about having fought Lindon made Joe remember that he had heard and ignored a notification in the middle of combat. As they walked through the halls of the guard outpost, he pulled up a waiting notification. His eyes went wide with interest at the immense amount of information scrawling across his vision, almost running into the wall thanks to his inattention.

Quest gained: Mastering Ritual Combat I. This is a Ritualist-tower generated chain quest consisting of five quests of increasing difficulty, which will help you determine your final specialization for combat-based rituals. You have taken your first step into the world of structured combat rituals. As you now have access to the required material to unlock this quest, the Standardized Ritual Combat Manual, the system has recognized your intent to master the battlefield through preparation and control. 

This first quest is meant to help you gain an understanding of your personal combat prowess and teach you the tools required for fusing the various sub-disciplines of ritual magic for the purposes of combat. It is a philosophy few are able to master. Will you? 

Quest objectives: 

1) Use 500 Novice ritual combat circles in live combat. 

2) Use 300 two-discipline ritual combat circles in live combat. (Choose any combination of the following: Ritual Circles, Magical Matrices, Alchemical Rituals, Enchanted Rituals, or Ritualistic Forging.)

3) Use 200 three-discipline ritual combat circles in live combat. 

Progress toward the next quests in this quest line, such as using higher-ranked rituals, will be tracked but locked until the current quest is completed. 

Reward: Upon completion, choose one of the skills used in the creation of any of the rituals you created to receive: +10 to the skill if it is currently in the Beginner rank OR +8 to the skill if it is in the Apprentice rank OR +6 to the skill if it is in the Student rank OR +4 to the skill if it is in the Journeyman rank OR +2 to the skill if it is in the Expert rank.

Additional rewards and profession opportunities may be unlocked based on your performance. 

After being walked out of the building and the door firmly closed behind him, Joe started slowly walking down the street. “Well, I was just thoroughly trounced. I haven't been smacked around that badly since… Alfenheim? Maybe I'm just rusty. I have been pretty reliant on indirect combat with my ritual towers and such, building up a lot of survivability, but I'm going to have direct combat situations in the future. If any of them go like that… yeah. I guess Pete had the right of it; I need to get in a lot of practice if I want to hold my own up on Vanaheim. At least now I have a quest that’ll get me motivated to make it happen.”

The Ritualist had barely made it forty feet from the guard station when he was yanked from his contemplation by a low growl reaching his ears. Looking up curiously, wondering what sort of monster might be loose on the streets of the city itself, Joe felt his jaw drop as a ragged figure darted toward him out of the mouth of an alley. With a flash of intent, his trio of Ritual Orbs jumped off his bandolier and began hovering above him, fully prepared to lash out and beat down whoever wanted to test him. 

He had plenty of frustration to work out.

Yet just before he attacked, he saw the man's face. Wild, greasy hair framed a gaunt, furious expression, but it was the light glinting off a pair of familiar, filthy half-moon scholarly spectacles that brought clarity crashing down like a hammer. Just before the ragged man got in grappling distance, Joe whispered, “Boris? Is that you?”

The force of the man's tackle was absolutely laughable compared to the earlier beatdown Joe had endured. The Scholar slammed into his midsection with all the force of a stuffed animal being thrown into a wall, his fists pounding on Joe's chest and shoulders with pure emotion instead of skill or killing intent. 

“I trusted you! Vouched for you!” Boris tried to roar, though his words were hoarse and weak. Still, he punctuated his statements with an ineffectual haymaker, which lightly creased Joe's robes, any actual damage easily being repaired without Joe even noticing. “Then you were caught out and vanished just as I was dragged before the Provost himself! My life's work, taken away! Funding, gone. I don't even have a library card anymore, Joe!”

Not bothering to block or even raising a hand to defend himself, Joe simply stood and took the strikes. Boris vented all his rage, or at least as much as he was able, on the powerful Ritualist, but his body had clearly degraded over the last long years. Not only had he certainly been doing nothing for physical training, it was obvious he was malnourished and running on fumes. Even so, his eyes were bright and canny, burning with emotion while being ringed with exhaustion. “I've been blacklisted from any kind of scholarly pursuit. Research! Fact-finding missions! Journalism, for celestials’ sake, and they'll take anyone!”

Finally, the ex-librarian slumped forward against Joe, being caught by the Ritualist before he could drop all the way to the ground. Swallowing hard, Joe bobbed his head while refusing to look away from his long-lost friend. “You're right, Boris. I couldn't find you. I never had the opportunity to come and explain myself. I only got back last night, and first thing this morning, I came looking for you. Please, give me a chance to make this right.”

“Pah!” Boris tried to shove him away but only succeeded in showing how weak he had become. “You think you can make it right? We were doing amazing things, finding secrets lost to time! I thought we were building something that could be peer reviewed, and all the time you were just… just an Occultist!”

“I'll fix it,” Joe promised the man, who simply shook his head and went limp. Lowering Boris to the ground, the Ritualist crouched until he was sitting opposite of him, watching as the last hints of fury shifted to bitter resentment. “Until then, I'll think of something to get you back on your feet.”

“Haa…” Boris reached up and rubbed his face, leaving a streak of grime where his hands touched. “I suppose, if nothing else, I missed your boundless optimism. Abyss, Joe, I just wanted a proper explanation. That's all any scholar actually wants, though I suppose I can't officially call myself that anymore.”

“Come on. Let me buy you a meal, and let's catch up?” Joe pulled Boris to his feet, noticing both how feather-light he seemed, as well as how the accumulated grime and filth that had been coating him was already melting away under the effects of his Neutrality Aura. The man merely offered a defeated nod and trudged alongside Joe, though his skin started to regain some color as his body was subtly rehydrated.

Much to Joe's consternation, at that moment, the system decided to reward him for the encounter.

Congratulations! You have managed to enter and exit combat without attempting to escape, nor attacking in return, for the 100th time! You have remained outwardly calm in these situations, no matter how you may have felt about them. Your Constitution Characteristic has been influenced by these actions and has been adjusted accordingly. 

Constitution has become Stoic Constitution. This shift does not come with any immediate effects, other than the ability to absorb and integrate permanent energies which resonate with this Characteristic.

Warning! This shift has caused a cataclysmic dissonance between you and your Ritual Orb of Constitution.

“Abyss!” With a mental tug, Joe pulled out his Ritual Orb and sent it hurtling into the sky, where it promptly detonated with a massive explosion, burning away with blue and orange flames as if someone had launched a firework into the atmosphere. Luckily, no guards swarmed toward him, though several people in the vicinity began clapping and cheering for more. 

The Ritualist groaned as his total Constitution was instantly halved, though a quick glance revealed it had only dropped to one thirty-eight. Bizarrely, he actually felt better than he had moments ago, as his limiting device immediately stopped restricting some of his movements. “Well… I’ll need to make a new one, but there's nothing I can do about it right now.” 

The tavern Joe picked for the two of them to eat in wasn't the nicest in Ardania, but it was the closest. Boris didn't say much on the walk there, only occasionally muttering to himself or shaking his head as he found an easy counter to his own internal arguments. Still, when a bowl of thick stew and a hunk of buttered bread was pushed in front of him, Joe could see the man come alive, the glassy look in his eyes fading with each bite. 

“Good stuff?”

Boris snorted and started to shake his head, then froze with his spoon hovering over his bowl. “Yes… somehow, being around you throws me right back to better days, when I wouldn't have touched this food with a ten-foot pole. Now? Now it's the best thing I've eaten in months. At least I didn't have to pull it out of a garbage can.” 

Giving his hopefully soon-to-be friend a few minutes to digest, Joe ordered him a second serving before finally breaking the silence. “You know, I never really understood why Scholars hate Occultists. I mean, you know, I get the general head-butting and such, but-”

Giving him a half-hearted glare, Boris leaned away from his food and slowly chewed his most recent bite, swallowing and taking a drink of water before finally responding. “Fine, Joe. You want to know why people like me are cast into the outer darkness, left to devolve into feral hobos the moment it's discovered that we've been duped by someone like… well, you? Not to put too fine a point on it.”

Joe began to nod, but Boris had already started speaking again, his eyes fixed on the sad lumps of poorly cut vegetables floating in his bowl. “It's because Occultists don't care about what gets broken in their pursuit of knowledge. On the other hand, Scholars build structures, literal and metaphorical, for knowledge to grow within. What we do is tested, able to be replicated. We try to make sure the knowledge outlives us. The people on your side are like wildfire. You burn down a forest and leave behind a note that says ‘fire is hot’ before skipping away and leaving the devastation in your wake for someone else to clean up. Someone like me.”

“I'll say it again, Boris. I didn't even know what was going to happen to myself, let alone you.” Joe's platitudes were waved away as the Scholar angrily shoved his spoon into his bowl.

“We work with civilization to uplift it, Joe. How many Occultists’ experiments are able to be replicated? Let's say you go find a passage in a book somewhere that tells you how to unleash a creature that has been pushed outside our dimension. Let's say that you go and free that creature, either on a whim or because you think you can control it. Now, even if you meticulously document every step of what you've done… the creature is free. That experiment is over. There is nothing left for others to do with that, which means the research you put together is useless. Therein lies the main difference between the two professions.”

“That's not completely fair, Boris. I’ve handed over blueprints, documents, and lots of research that can be tested and seen by others. Abyss, I've even upgraded my profession to Arcanologist. Just because something’s been one way in the past doesn't mean it always will be in the future, right? Isn't there room for both to exist?”

“Ah yes. The blueprint you handed over. You mean for that one building that was instrumental in your creation and unleashing of an eldritch spell, which ended up killing off almost all life within hundreds of miles of its origin? That blueprint?” Now Boris looked up at Joe, meeting his eyes with a steely stare.

“There were extenuating circumstances. I wasn't…” Joe grit his teeth before he accidentally threw his coven members under the bus, which would have made his entire exile pointless. “Let's just say I took more responsibility for that than I truly deserved. Besides, it wasn't the building that set all of that off. That would be like blaming the palace for a tyrant's decision to burn a village.”

Boris returned his gaze to the stew, slowly stirring it as he thought of how to best word his thoughts. “That right there, Joe, is the other main issue. A Scholar takes responsibility for his research. An Occultist can only frantically apologize for the damage that was done.”

“Then let me make it up to you, like I said I would.” A flash of inspiration struck Joe. “You say you haven't been able to find anywhere to work? Join my guild. I'll guarantee you a high-level position as a researcher in anything you want to pursue, even if it has to come out of my own pocket. Then I'll-”

“Not a chance-”

“What else do you have, Boris?” Joe carefully responded, feeling like he’d been punched in the gut as he watched his friend's face crumple.

“Then…” Boris began to nod. “You really want to take responsibility? You aren't just saying that?”

“Absolutely.”

“Then accept this quest.” Boris quickly tapped on the table, his eyes distant as he interacted with the system.

Quest offered: Academia and Diplomacy. You have been offered a quest to restore your friendship with Boris, so long as you manage to repair both your and his reputation with the Scholars. Failing this, so long as you are able to get Boris reinstated among the Society of Scholars, your reputation with Boris will return to ‘Reluctantly Friendly’. Should you fail to complete this quest within two years, your Arcanologist profession will be stripped.

Rewards: 1) Reputational recovery with Boris. 2) A method to further advance your Arcanologist profession.

“Society of Scholars. Whoops, I've been calling that the ‘Scholars Guild’ in my head for a while.” Seeing the determined look in Boris's eyes, Joe knew he wouldn't accept any further procrastination. Letting out a deep sigh, he shook his head and accepted the quest. “I hope this means you're taking the job.”

“Under duress, but I do hope we can become friends again in the future.” Boris tilted his head slightly to the side. “I guess that remains to be seen, doesn't it?”

“Sure. I assume you don't have anywhere to live, so I suppose there's nothing stopping us from heading out right away?” Joe pushed back from the table, scraped the last few coppers he had to his name out of his storage ring to pay for their meals, then stood and offered a hand to the ex-Scholar.

“Heading out? To where, if I may be so bold as to question you?”

Finally, a full smile appeared on Joe's face as he thought about seeing the people he hadn't been able to visit within the last few years. “Home, Boris. For now, at least, while we are on Midgard. Come on, I know the perfect place for you to live. You’re gonna love Towny McTownface.”