Book 2, Chapter 7

Adrian clicked through the interface

Pathway of Intelligence   - 21% (+ 21%)

It was better than expected and probably reflected him having completed one of the assigned texts. What to read next? The answer was obvious: Magic Flavours and Application. It was a book that could really open up his knowledge and propel his magical knowledge even further than it was.

There was a flash of light. His fingers spasmed, making him drop the book. For a moment disorientation hit him as he struggled to understand what was happening. Was he under attack? Pushing up from his chair and shadow stepping over to the side of the room. His head was ringing like a bell. No one was looking at him.

What happened?

It was a question he did not expect and answer for. The interface was silent. People were looking at him funny.

Am I under attack?

An image. This time it was a thin black dude with a goatee. The type of smarmy guy any normal person would want to hit. The man was looking at him like he was an idiot. Then gave a dismissive gesture, like Adrian was the greatest waste of space in the universe before walking away.

Not an attack, then. Trying to understand. The book he had tried to open was still at the table. The light and pain had felt real. Maybe the book was warded with a spell. Walking back to the table feeling embarrassed and like everyone was watching him. Casually looking up sharply but no eyes darted away. Possibly no one had noticed.

The book tingled when he touched it. Trying to open it would be worse than last time. There was no quarter given in the knowledge he just knew it was a fact. If he was stupid enough to ignore the warning, the backlash would leave quivering on the floor, at best. Starting hard at the book with magic focus and flipping it over and around to check it over carefully. There was no warding visible or even magic associated with the book. It was not a spell that had stopped him.

While holding the book marvelling at the tingling sensation it was somehow generating even if it was not magical he remembered or possibly experienced for the first time one of the lecture fragments that had come with the pathway knowledge

Moustache dude pausing his machine gun lecture to look him straight in the eye. “Taking shortcuts in acquiring knowledge is a bad idea.” The man emphasised the words bad idea and winked before continuing, “If it is within your power you should always aim to form an opinion before consulting expert knowledge lest the expert knowledge blinker you.”

Ouch.

The tingling lessened. The pathway had stopped a bad idea, with far more force than was warranted. The intention however was clear, he needed to understand magic flavours himself before checking the answers in the book.

What were the magic flavours? Of the ones he could cast, there was ice, fire, dark, wind, earth. Plus, nature / healing was definitely a thing. Mental note: he needed to see if healers differed from druids. Then there was also water, as he had seen it used. Mind magic was a thing, both from the bow and his Ambusher skills. Some form of movement magic from his ambusher steps or maybe that one was more of a stop time ability. Dimensional magic from the Imp portals.

What else? It was a lot to take in. The intelligence pathway expected him to unravel the mysteries of magic all by himself… It was a steep ask.

Susie was still waving him over. Sheepishly, he shelved his thoughts and packed the books away.

“You were in a trance,” Susie told him “I thought it was best not to interrupt. Were they spell books?” she asked, nodding towards his bag of holding.

“No,” he said, pulling out the interface and the trader's book and handing it over to her. “It is just a textbook that tries to explain what is happening.”

“The whole Alpha physics Armageddon stuff?” Jules asked questioningly.

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Explaining why there are interfaces, experience points, traders. The choices that the aliens have made. Alluding to why we receive a skill after a hundred kills and how powerful that gained skill is. Mind you, most of it is redacted like the government does when it tries to hide stuff”

“Why are you making time for that?” Kozzie asked, genuinely confused. “That won’t help you survive the next fight.”

“Part of my level up. I am on a pathway to increase my intelligence. This book is one of six books I need to study. Plus, I enjoyed it.”

“Anything interesting?”

“Not sure there was anything interesting for you dummies,” Adrian said, sticking out his tongue.

Jules looked annoyed. Kozzie burst into laughter.

“Who is a dummy,” he asked. “You're the dummy.”

“We are all dummies,” Adrian protested back

“Nah, I am not the one who did not know the difference between Sapient.”

“Not that again.” He interrupted hurriedly. Kozzie just gave a shit eating grin back.

“You are the dummy,” Susie said authoritatively. “Everyone knows how badly you went in the trivia. He was the worst.” She whispered to Jules in a loud conspiratorial way. “Dead last,”

“Well, anything interesting?” Kozzie repeated.

“Traders and interfaces talk to themselves. Traders are all fundamentally the same, with slight tweaks to physical appearance and personality. They are all linked and in a way they are part of the one entity. Traders also have portals built into their wagons that transfer stuff from one side of the world to the other, so there are never any supply / demand issues. Everything that goes in just goes into some huge spatial warehouse. Any other trader can then extract it, like a bag of holding with multiple exit points. They have placed restrictions one of which is preventing them using it as a postal service for example.” Adrian grimaced at that thought. “I can’t for example get them to check whether Emily is ok… Ummm the only relevant thing is they communicate threat assessments local, regional and global with each other.”

“What do you mean?”

“They can not tell us that London survived untouched but New York was destroyed or vice versa but if let us say if sparrows became immensely dangerous they could share that information with us or if there is a plague of emperor locusts taking over Australia that would kill everything they might provide a warning.”

“Weird rule choices.”

“You know Aliens,” he shrugged, no one went with his joke. “Great job leaving me hanging guys. On a serious note, the aliens have their reasons for things. They seemed to have been running studies over billions of years to gather supporting evidence.”

“Anything else?” Susie questioned.

“Nothing else interesting,” Adrian told them, deciding not to elaborate on survival odds or his thoughts regarding why so much had been removed.

“On a fresh note, what are your and our plans?” Susie asked.

“Keep following the master plan from last night.”

Susie looked at him blankly.

“I am sure we wrote it on a napkin.”

Susie looked towards Jules for help. Her daughter had a look that said like I ever know what he is talking about.

“I have two things I need to do before we leave here,” he jumped in before more dumbass comments came his way. “One, I want to learn the flame spout skill. I think that will probably involve a few days hunting fire salamanders. Second, I want to complete as many of these books as possible.”

“So you want to get your intelligence increased before we move?” Susie said knowledgeably “and then be almost as smart as the rest of us, hey.” The three of them giggled.

“Some of it,” he said, deciding not to respond to the bait. “the rest I can work on while moving. Reading the book in the evening.”

“So you're still going to go?” Kozzie asked

“Yes, you guys are welcome to come or to stay.” Adrian put his hands on the table, taking up the managerial stance he used when he wanted to get the point across. “You guys do not have to come.” He told them. “Wagga Wagga is safe, it has good people. The sensible thing is for the three of you to put down roots here. There is no need to risk your life going back to Melbourne.” He stopped speaking for a moment, wondering whether he should talk about his stealth ability. In the end, he went for it. “With my shadow step I will probably be safer on my own anyway, and if you are not coming, I will enhance that skill.”

Kozzie turned to face Jules, “I have friends and family in Melbourne but there's no guarantee that they have survived this long.” he hesitated, swallowed nervously and looked into her eyes. “I am happy to do what you want.”

Her mouth formed a little Ow. and her hand dropped to Kozzie’s hand. She smiled.

“I want to go to Melbourne,” Susie said, ignoring the poignant moment between Jules and Kozzie. “Outside the three of you all my ties are in Melbourne. Plus,” Susie’s cheeks reddened, “it will be fun,” she said hurriedly in a much quieter tone.

Jules heard and gave a little squeal “my mum's an adrenaline junkie!”

Susie rolled her eyes and her cheeks went redder. “I'm not totally boring.”

Jules laughed. “We will go to,” she declared pointedly, continuing to hold Kozzie’s hand. “I think it will be fun and Kozzie loves throwing sharp objects at things.”

The group was coming with him so shadow fighters would not help him. Could they act as sentries at night?

Can Shadow fighters guard us at night?

The image was dismissive. A young puppy running around and doing stupid things. Lot of exhausting training till it became an old dog that could guard appropriately. No longer barking at everything moving nearby and instead only focusing on the occasional threats.

The shadow fighters eventually could do guard duty, but it would be a long time at least till they developed sufficient knowledge to do it effectively.

“I am aiming to leave in four days' time,” Adrian told them, not sure whether he was feeling relieved or disappointed that they were coming. Getting shadow fighters would be so cool.

Was shadow a magic flavour?

“Best thing for now is to work on experience and skills. Everyone should talk to a trader to see if there's anything they need. I am sure between us we have a couple of thousand energy to spend before we go, even after getting essentials like tents.”

“Any specific plans for the next few days,” Susie asked when he came back from grabbing lunch and another coffee. The Bird had been reheated and still tasted like yummy victory.

“I was thinking you guys raid and I hunt salamanders,”

“Wait, a moment Mr level two,” Kozzie said, “you're the one who needs to go hunting and raiding.”

“You are an assassin, Right. Mr Big Shot!” Adrian shot back. “When you can sneak at something close to my level, we can have that discussion.”

Kozzie blushed and muttered something about unfair armour bonuses why everyone laughed.

“Or save the town from a slug infestation.” Jules giggled. “Or after you kill a boss monster,” Adrian continued, driving the dagger in. The girls continued to laugh and Kozzie rolled his eyes.

The three of them left to link up with Rupa’s group and Adrian smiled, looking forward to collecting salamander cores.

The sun was high in the sky and beating down on him. There were patchy clouds around, but none above him currently. They would bring frequent relief. Overall was a lovely day, the sort of day where you could get slightly too hot in the sun but easily cool down in the shade.. The town bubbled around him. Snatches of distant conversation, a burst of laughter and no fighting. Right here in the center of Wagga Wagga they had created an oasis of normality. Breathing in deeply. Clean air, a touch of wood smoke and the smell of fried potato that made his mouth water despite a full stomach. The scene would have filled him with hope, if the statistics from the book did not keep ricocheting around his skull. Sixteen percent of species go extinct within two generations. It was the sort of hard number which was truly sickening.

Instead of hope the normality gave a sense of peace. Despite the chaos of the first three weeks, they had stabilised the area. Risen to the challenge, beaten the world into submission for now. There were more fights coming, potentially for generations. There was something nasty out there that humans had yet to face, or at least this town had not seen. The only choice was to go and get stronger. The world was now about strength.

Deciding not to rush with shadow steps but to walk openly in the relaxed atmosphere while his mind churned away. What were the flavours of magic? Lightning, he had forgotten about Mark briefly. Lightning was definitely a flavour. Yet maybe he was on the wrong track after all, his fire magic needed two different types to work. The fireball appeared in his hands and when he moved it; it illustrated the two types of magic. He kept his tattered leather armour on as opposed to his ambusher set of armour. It felt almost pleasant walking along the street. People were openly smiling; there was no sense of distrust. None of those he passed knew that he was Adrian the Bird killer, and no one even blinked at the fireball.

Switching to an ice missile, the magic played around, jumping from fingers to elbow back to fingers. Same thing as fire, two different types, one identical to what he used with fire, the other different. More experimentation was needed, particularly with those with distinct skill sets.

“Adrian,”

Jerking his head up. The barricades were in front of him, and Dave was on duty looking worse for wear. Everyone was looking at him. Only the most reclusive of residents would not know the name of Adrian the Bird killer.

The guards with their connections to people who had fought with him would surely put two and two together. The group of people gathered at the makeshift leather tannery might not. He could almost see them weighing what they were looking at versus their imagination. It was probably not a pretty comparison. Strong, massive hero with shiny weapons vs the slightly above average height, non imposing young man with tattered leathers that stood there in front of them.

“Dave,” he greeted back with slight annoyance. His anonymity was gone. From the tannery crowd, he could already hear people talking about the Bird slayer. Though a number had gone back to their work dismissing him as just another guy, so maybe his fame was not that bad.

Need to get away from here.

The one thing that he was sure of was that he was not a hero and did not want anyone treating him like one. Just a man who got lucky with his interface and then again when fighting the Bird.

“Good hunting,” Dave said, patting him on the back encouraging as he pushed through the barricade. Adrian heard one man asking whether they should allow someone to go out by themselves. Another one man behind the Barricades shushed him ‘that's the Bird slayer.’

Rolling his eyes he waited till he was about fifteen meters clear before engaging Ambusher’s Fade hearing the immediate sharp intake of breath behind him after his first shadow step. No more speculation about magic. This was the wildland, and he needed to be on guard.

A thought switched his armour to Ambusher set, and he pulled the bow and quiver from the bag of holding.

It was time to kill lizards.

In less than two minutes, he was looking out at the lizard territory. The shattered burnt our remnants of people's houses. The only things still standing were an occasional chimney stack, and most of those had toppled over. The street grid was still visible, even though the bitchumen of the road had melted or evaporated away.

Hell on earth

Where the road used to be, it was just smooth ash. It looked like a dead land and nothing stirred apart from the occasion swirl of soot caused by the wind. Time ticked by and he felt more and more agitated. Where were they? Not a single lizard showed themselves.

Somehow he would need to draw them out. That was enough to make him sweat. The lizards swarmed when he wounded the first lizard. Then tracking him somehow. Till the last explosion of energy, when he counterattacked.

Calm Down

The lizards were powerful, but they were also passive. They did not chase him outside their territory or did not chase him very far. That behaviour mattered, as it meant that if he could run, then he could survive. Almost dying teaches you a lot. Though if he was honest with himself, he was a slow learner in this space. What was he up to ten, fifteen near deaths? If his interface had a reliable voice, he was sure it would be first in line to agree. Despite everything, he had spent a lot of his spare time reviewing his previous admittedly brief lizard encounter. The lizards had used smell to follow his magic. What he could not determine was whether it was tracking his scent, ice aura, or something else. This time he would mix it up and rely on actual ice instead of the aura. If they tracked by scent, it would not matter, but maybe the aura created an imprint they could follow. At worst, it was worth the test.

Below him still nothing stirred.

Probably for the best

Despite what regional knowledge suggested, he was paranoid of poking a hornet's nest and having the lizards swarm out into the center of Wagga. Attacking from the river would prevent that. The lizards would be doubly careful about approaching the river improving his own personal safety and then there was the bonus that if they went all psycho, then the counterattack would be away from the town.

Coating himself with Ice. The general plan was to sneak at the edge of the zone. From here he could leave quickly and possibly take out any lizards that he disturbed. Bait, run, then kill from afar, Lizards coming for you.