Chapter 160: 160
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Sophie awoke to enticing breakfast smells. She was aching and tired, her damaged arm having given her a restless night. Only in the last few hours did she snatch away some precious, uninterrupted slumber. She crawled delicately out of the tent and followed the smells up a stone stairwell and onto a flat roof. Jason had set out a folding camp table and pair of chairs, one of which he was sitting in.
“Morning,” he greeted her. “Join me?”
He gestured at the other chair with a fork, on the end of which was skewered a piece of sausage. The rest of the sausage was on a plate in front of him, along with poached eggs and hot, buttered toast. As she sat down, he pulled a second plate of food from his inventory, as fresh and hot as the moment he put it there. A pitcher of juice was already out, Jason filling an empty glass to match his own.
“This is surreal,” Sophie said. “I can more or less accept the whole adventuring life. Magic powers, alternate dimensions, astral spaces. Monsters, cultists, even an ancient order of assassins. Yet somehow, seeing you sitting in the middle of it all, comfortably eating breakfast is just too much.”
“Believe it or not, you aren’t the first woman to tell me I was too much.”
“Oh, I believe it,” she said and took a sip of juice. “That’s really good.”
“It’s a blend of delta fruits. I bought a bunch of it from Arash.”
“The guy who sells juice from a cart and keeps calling you a heretic?”
“That’s the one.”
“So when you making preparations to enter this unexplored astral space full of unknown dangers, you went with picnic furniture, plates of hot breakfast and pitchers of fruit juice.”
“Life isn’t for surviving, Wexler. Life is for living.”
Jason had set up the table to overlook the street below. The building was quite high, as were many of the other nearby buildings. It turned the overgrown boulevard they had been walking down into something of a jungle canyon. Jason looked it over with a smile as he sipped at his juice.
“You really like this, don’t you?” Sophie asked him.
“I do,” he said. “I get what you mean about everything being crazy but my advice to you is to surrender to it. I know you’ve spent a lot of time wondering why I helped you so much when I could have gotten you out of the city and been done with it. It wasn’t long ago that I was the one sitting at a table with a more experienced adventurer, no idea what lay ahead and wondering what to do. He helped me realise that I had a chance to start things fresh. To become the person I wanted to be.”
He smiled in reminiscence.
“Give yourself over to the experience, Wexler. This is your chance to take control. The river may be raging but you’ll be amazed how fast you go working with the flow, instead of against it.”
“That seems strange, coming from you,” she said. “I've never met a person who went more against the flow in my life.”
“It's about picking your moments,” Jason said. “I came into this world with the naivety of someone who lived his life in safety. I've had a lot of illusions shattered, about the world and about myself. But sometimes when the world tries to bend you, you have to stand straight until one of you breaks.”
“You think the world will break before you do?”
“Probably not. But there's no chance if I don't try. I decided early on that with my second chance, the one regret I would never have is that I never tried. So I do the things that feel right. When I heard about your situation, I felt for you and Belinda. I know what it’s like to be in an untenable situation. I found friends to guide me out. I know Jory wanted to help you, so I gave the help I had. Now I’m giving you the advice I received. Take this chance to be who you want to be.”
“And if I don’t know who that is?”
“You do, on some level. Just do what feels right until you figure it out. It’s what I’ve been doing and I don’t regret any of it, mistakes and all.”
He gestured at the astral space around the with his fork.
“In my old life, I never had the chance to visit places like this. Yes, this world has brought its share of challenges, but facing those challenges has been more fulfilling than anything in my old life. At some point, I'll be going back o my world but I’m not going to put this world behind me when I do. There’s a means to travel between worlds and I’m going to find it.”
“How?”
“I’ve been talking with Clive, him being the expert. These builder cultists seem to have more advanced astral magic than this world does. Clive thinks they have some means of crossing dimensional boundaries that doesn’t require a diamond ranker, or they wouldn't have so many agents here to be active all over the world. If I can get a hold of their magic, it may well put me on the right path, if not deliver what I need on a platter.”
“A way home.”
“No,” Jason said. “A way here. I’ve been told that I will be going home, sooner or later. I can’t help but feel that I need to go back and deal with the things I left behind. Once I have, though, I’m coming back to this world, even if that trip is one way. My old world is my past, and while I’m compelled to settle that past, this world is my future.”
“And if you can’t find a way back?”
“The thing I realised when I truly came to accept that magic is real is that the impossible is just a limitation I put on my own thinking. If you have the time and the resolve, you can do just about anything. But you already know that.”
“I do?”
“Of course you do. You were in an awful position. Caught between two crime lords and a powerful aristocrat, with none of the connections and power I’ve been enjoying since coming to this world. All you had was a loyal friend. Most people would have capitulated. Found the least awful path and accepted their fate. Not you and not Belinda. You came up with a plan and you threw yourselves into it.”
“It probably wouldn’t have worked, even without your interference.”
“But it could have and you went for it. You saw that glimpse of light that most other people would have dismissed as unreachable and you reached for it. I really admire that.”
He held his glass up in a casual salute.
“Thank you,” she said uncertainly, shifting in her chair. “I don’t… not a lot of people look at me for who I am. My whole life, men have looked at me like an animal they need to break in.”
Jason nodded.
“I have this philosophy in life,” he said. “My brother always had this knack for fitting in. For becoming what he needed to be, but I can’t do that. Every time I tried I ended up losing it and doing something crazy and self-destructive. So, I decided early on that I was going to be who I am and people could take it or leave it. Like me or hate me, I’ll take passion over ambivalence. It lets me know who to avoid and who to be friends with. It makes for a better life.”
“But a lot of times you must have to deal with people who don’t like you.”
“Of course,” Jason said. “I’m from a whole other world, so people were always going to find me strange. I just play that up sometimes to disorient them a bit. If you need to tip someone over, it helps to unbalance them first.”
“I don’t know I entirely believe that,” she said.
“Oh?”
“I’ve been watching you and I’m willing to bet you’re strange, even where you come from. If it was all an act, you wouldn’t be the same around your friends as your enemies.”
“It’s not an act,” Jason said. “I told you that I’m just being who I am and people can take it or leave it. I just crank it up or dial it back a bit for any given situation.”
“And that works?”
“When you take a very specific approach to things, the way I do, you have to accept that some people will respond to it and others will reject it wholesale. It’s a numbers game and you have to accept that a certain number of people are going to tell you to sod off. Some people like what I’m selling, others can’t stand it. I work with the ones that do and don’t bother with the ones that don’t.”
“It sounds like you're just making excuses for doing whatever you like,” Sophie said.
“Oh, I’m absolutely doing that,” Jason said. “I told you it’s a life philosophy. I’ve just found out how to make it work.”
“By manipulating people.”
“You say that like we don't all do it every day. We all put up fronts, adjust who we are, how much we show of ourselves to the different people around us. I just do it more consciously than most. Take Neil, for example. When I went to recruit him, I could have taken a different approach. Presented something more universally appealing to get him on board. Instead, I showed him who I was, cranked up a bit to make the point. I figured he was more likely to turn us down than join but I didn’t want the best person we could find for our team; I wanted the best fit. So I presented a certain version of myself, not to get him on board but to help him decide if the place he wanted to be was with us.”
“You gave me that choice too, didn’t you? Join your merry band of misfits or vanish into some distant land to start over.”
“I like giving people choices.”
“That’s because you like control. If you're the one giving the choices, you get to decide what the choices are. Otherwise, people might go finding their own options that don't fit your narrative.”
Jason chuckled, not denying it.
“How’s the arm?” he asked.
“Not fighting strength but a couple more hours using my meditation power should do it.”
“So now you’ve experienced the power of a bronze-rank monster,” Jason said. “According to Rufus, a good adventurer should be able to handle monsters one rank up, so long as the match-up is good. Meaning only pick fights with the big ones when your powers counter theirs.”
They started discussing the fight, their teamwork in confusing the unintelligent monster to keep it stuck in the doorway. They discussed what they did well, what could have been improved. Jason was impressed with Sophie’s ability to break down the fight, find the errors and look at how to correct them.
“My big mistake,” Jason said, “was getting into a mindset of my powers not working on it. My execute power would have worked just fine but I’d fallen into the trap of dismissing the effectiveness of my abilities. When I was first training, one of the things Rufus said was to think about what every ability can do and how to use each one effectively in a situation.”
“My mistake was trying to counter such an obviously powerful attack,” Sophie said. “I should have hit you instead.”
“What?” Jason asked.
“I could have knocked you out of the way,” she said.
“Oh, right.”
After breakfast, Jason started packing everything into his inventory.
“Did you decide if you wanted to use that awakening stone?” Jason asked.
“I don't think I will,” Sophie said. “I don't think this is the best situation to break-in a completely new power.”
“That’s sensible.”
Jason continued packing up. Sophie didn't have a dimensional bag of her own, yet. She wanted something that wouldn't impede her very mobile fighting style, much like Emir's dimensional storage jacket. Something like that was hard to find, locally. So, for the moment, she was relying on Jason the way Gary and Rufus had done with Farrah.
Sophie settled into a meditation pose as Jason went downstairs. Pausing at the top of the stairwell, he called out to Sophie.
“Hey, Wexler.”
“What?”
“Thanks for stopping my head from getting smeared across the floor.”
He went down the stairs before she could reply. He negated the alarm rituals he put in place and packed up the aura tent. Then he went up and joined Sophie, who had settled herself on the edge of the roof. They sat, meditating side by side. Eventually, a smile crept over Jason’s mouth as he experienced a breakthrough.
Ability [Midnight Eyes] (Dark) has reached Iron 8 (100%).Ability [Midnight Eyes] (Dark) has advanced to Iron 9 (00%).
As a perception power, midnight eyes was the ability Jason was always using and for this reason, it had advanced the most quickly. Like his other abilities, though, it had slowed to a crawl as it drew closer to reaching bronze rank. Despite not being a big part of the fight, taking on a bronze-rank monster had helped it edge up the wall.
After almost two hours, Sophie declared her arm fully restored. To test it, she and Jason did some sparring on the open space of the roof. Sophie had been trained hard since becoming an adventurer but it was not a one-way street. Having someone with her skill who understood his style better than he did was immensely useful for Jason. She had pushed him to use it not just for escapes and sneak attacks but to become stronger in a straight-up fight.
Before he ever met Sophie, Jason had already been working on a deceptive style that baited out the enemy. What Sophie had pointed out was that Jason was massively wasting what could be one of his best combat abilities: his cloak. Because it only had physical substance when he wanted, it could obscure his movements without obstructing them. What’s more, the ability to be real or insubstantial at will offered powerful utility.
Using his cloak to hide his stance, Jason feinted a forward motion, only to duck back as Sophie threw out a fist to counter and wrap her arm in his cloak. He yanked her forward, pulling her arm out of the way as he stepped in with a rising knee. She couldn’t see it coming but anticipated the move, halting Jason’s rising knee with a leg block before it gathered force. She yanked back on her arm and he let the cloak become insubstantial. Without the resistance she used too much force, briefly stumbling back. It was only a moment of lost balance but Jason moved in to capitalise.
Soon after, Jason was sprawled face down on the rooftop.
“You did well,” Sophie said. “You’re improving.”
“Then why does it feel like I’m getting worse?” he groaned.
“You’re getting better but I’m also learning how you fight,” she said. “Given that I know your style and have been doing this a lot longer, it only makes sense that I’ll improve against you faster than you do against me.”
“Doesn’t that mean you should take it easy on me?” he asked as he pushed himself to his feet.
“Probably,” she acknowledged. “Something about hitting you repeatedly is really satisfying, though.”
“Thanks,” he said, disgruntled look. “I’m glad you can use me for your personal gratification.”
He started stripping off his clothes, taking out some healing unguent to rub into the muscles Sophie had tenderised.
“You’re very skinny she said, unashamedly looking him over as he stood there in his boxer shorts.”
“Are you kidding?” Jason asked, looking himself over. “I’ve totally filled out. I used to be way skinnier than this.”
“You did? Do come from a race of twig people?”
“No!”
“You seem very defensive,” she said. “You’re a twig person, aren’t you?”
“I’m not a twig person! I’m a regular person!”
“Uh-huh.”
“Yeah, well, you aren’t so great, with your…”
He waved his arm up and down at her lithe body, her caramel skin set off by the matching silver of her eyes and hair.
“…how is that fair,” he finished limply. “I’m going to put my clothes back on now.”
“What are those things on your shorts?”
“Love hearts,” Jason said.
“That’s not what a heart looks like.”
“How do you know what a heart looks like?” Jason asked. “You don’t strike me as someone who took lessons on internal anatomy.”
“I did, after a fashion,” she said. “A few years back, during my first time in the fighting pits, there was a guy who would rip people’s hearts out and eat them. He had some power where it made him stronger.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah.”
“And they let him participate?”
“It got the crowd riled up.”
“They surely wouldn’t just let that go on, would they?”
“The idea was to build up tension,” she said. “They threw in scrubs to fight him, get some interest in the lower card fight before putting him up against real fighters. Kind of a ‘who can take down the monster’ situation.”
“So he was killed in the arena?”
“No, the Adventure Society came in and did it. Turns out they don’t like essence abilities that require you to eat people’s hearts.”
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Sophie awoke to enticing breakfast smells. She was aching and tired, her damaged arm having given her a restless night. Only in the last few hours did she snatch away some precious, uninterrupted slumber. She crawled delicately out of the tent and followed the smells up a stone stairwell and onto a flat roof. Jason had set out a folding camp table and pair of chairs, one of which he was sitting in.
“Morning,” he greeted her. “Join me?”
He gestured at the other chair with a fork, on the end of which was skewered a piece of sausage. The rest of the sausage was on a plate in front of him, along with poached eggs and hot, buttered toast. As she sat down, he pulled a second plate of food from his inventory, as fresh and hot as the moment he put it there. A pitcher of juice was already out, Jason filling an empty glass to match his own.
“This is surreal,” Sophie said. “I can more or less accept the whole adventuring life. Magic powers, alternate dimensions, astral spaces. Monsters, cultists, even an ancient order of assassins. Yet somehow, seeing you sitting in the middle of it all, comfortably eating breakfast is just too much.”
“Believe it or not, you aren’t the first woman to tell me I was too much.”
“Oh, I believe it,” she said and took a sip of juice. “That’s really good.”
“It’s a blend of delta fruits. I bought a bunch of it from Arash.”
“The guy who sells juice from a cart and keeps calling you a heretic?”
“That’s the one.”
“So when you making preparations to enter this unexplored astral space full of unknown dangers, you went with picnic furniture, plates of hot breakfast and pitchers of fruit juice.”
“Life isn’t for surviving, Wexler. Life is for living.”
Jason had set up the table to overlook the street below. The building was quite high, as were many of the other nearby buildings. It turned the overgrown boulevard they had been walking down into something of a jungle canyon. Jason looked it over with a smile as he sipped at his juice.
“You really like this, don’t you?” Sophie asked him.
“I do,” he said. “I get what you mean about everything being crazy but my advice to you is to surrender to it. I know you’ve spent a lot of time wondering why I helped you so much when I could have gotten you out of the city and been done with it. It wasn’t long ago that I was the one sitting at a table with a more experienced adventurer, no idea what lay ahead and wondering what to do. He helped me realise that I had a chance to start things fresh. To become the person I wanted to be.”
He smiled in reminiscence.
“Give yourself over to the experience, Wexler. This is your chance to take control. The river may be raging but you’ll be amazed how fast you go working with the flow, instead of against it.”
“That seems strange, coming from you,” she said. “I've never met a person who went more against the flow in my life.”
“It's about picking your moments,” Jason said. “I came into this world with the naivety of someone who lived his life in safety. I've had a lot of illusions shattered, about the world and about myself. But sometimes when the world tries to bend you, you have to stand straight until one of you breaks.”
“You think the world will break before you do?”
“Probably not. But there's no chance if I don't try. I decided early on that with my second chance, the one regret I would never have is that I never tried. So I do the things that feel right. When I heard about your situation, I felt for you and Belinda. I know what it’s like to be in an untenable situation. I found friends to guide me out. I know Jory wanted to help you, so I gave the help I had. Now I’m giving you the advice I received. Take this chance to be who you want to be.”
“And if I don’t know who that is?”
“You do, on some level. Just do what feels right until you figure it out. It’s what I’ve been doing and I don’t regret any of it, mistakes and all.”
He gestured at the astral space around the with his fork.
“In my old life, I never had the chance to visit places like this. Yes, this world has brought its share of challenges, but facing those challenges has been more fulfilling than anything in my old life. At some point, I'll be going back o my world but I’m not going to put this world behind me when I do. There’s a means to travel between worlds and I’m going to find it.”
“How?”
“I’ve been talking with Clive, him being the expert. These builder cultists seem to have more advanced astral magic than this world does. Clive thinks they have some means of crossing dimensional boundaries that doesn’t require a diamond ranker, or they wouldn't have so many agents here to be active all over the world. If I can get a hold of their magic, it may well put me on the right path, if not deliver what I need on a platter.”
“A way home.”
“No,” Jason said. “A way here. I’ve been told that I will be going home, sooner or later. I can’t help but feel that I need to go back and deal with the things I left behind. Once I have, though, I’m coming back to this world, even if that trip is one way. My old world is my past, and while I’m compelled to settle that past, this world is my future.”
“And if you can’t find a way back?”
“The thing I realised when I truly came to accept that magic is real is that the impossible is just a limitation I put on my own thinking. If you have the time and the resolve, you can do just about anything. But you already know that.”
“I do?”
“Of course you do. You were in an awful position. Caught between two crime lords and a powerful aristocrat, with none of the connections and power I’ve been enjoying since coming to this world. All you had was a loyal friend. Most people would have capitulated. Found the least awful path and accepted their fate. Not you and not Belinda. You came up with a plan and you threw yourselves into it.”
“It probably wouldn’t have worked, even without your interference.”
“But it could have and you went for it. You saw that glimpse of light that most other people would have dismissed as unreachable and you reached for it. I really admire that.”
He held his glass up in a casual salute.
“Thank you,” she said uncertainly, shifting in her chair. “I don’t… not a lot of people look at me for who I am. My whole life, men have looked at me like an animal they need to break in.”
Jason nodded.
“I have this philosophy in life,” he said. “My brother always had this knack for fitting in. For becoming what he needed to be, but I can’t do that. Every time I tried I ended up losing it and doing something crazy and self-destructive. So, I decided early on that I was going to be who I am and people could take it or leave it. Like me or hate me, I’ll take passion over ambivalence. It lets me know who to avoid and who to be friends with. It makes for a better life.”
“But a lot of times you must have to deal with people who don’t like you.”
“Of course,” Jason said. “I’m from a whole other world, so people were always going to find me strange. I just play that up sometimes to disorient them a bit. If you need to tip someone over, it helps to unbalance them first.”
“I don’t know I entirely believe that,” she said.
“Oh?”
“I’ve been watching you and I’m willing to bet you’re strange, even where you come from. If it was all an act, you wouldn’t be the same around your friends as your enemies.”
“It’s not an act,” Jason said. “I told you that I’m just being who I am and people can take it or leave it. I just crank it up or dial it back a bit for any given situation.”
“And that works?”
“When you take a very specific approach to things, the way I do, you have to accept that some people will respond to it and others will reject it wholesale. It’s a numbers game and you have to accept that a certain number of people are going to tell you to sod off. Some people like what I’m selling, others can’t stand it. I work with the ones that do and don’t bother with the ones that don’t.”
“It sounds like you're just making excuses for doing whatever you like,” Sophie said.
“Oh, I’m absolutely doing that,” Jason said. “I told you it’s a life philosophy. I’ve just found out how to make it work.”
“By manipulating people.”
“You say that like we don't all do it every day. We all put up fronts, adjust who we are, how much we show of ourselves to the different people around us. I just do it more consciously than most. Take Neil, for example. When I went to recruit him, I could have taken a different approach. Presented something more universally appealing to get him on board. Instead, I showed him who I was, cranked up a bit to make the point. I figured he was more likely to turn us down than join but I didn’t want the best person we could find for our team; I wanted the best fit. So I presented a certain version of myself, not to get him on board but to help him decide if the place he wanted to be was with us.”
“You gave me that choice too, didn’t you? Join your merry band of misfits or vanish into some distant land to start over.”
“I like giving people choices.”
“That’s because you like control. If you're the one giving the choices, you get to decide what the choices are. Otherwise, people might go finding their own options that don't fit your narrative.”
Jason chuckled, not denying it.
“How’s the arm?” he asked.
“Not fighting strength but a couple more hours using my meditation power should do it.”
“So now you’ve experienced the power of a bronze-rank monster,” Jason said. “According to Rufus, a good adventurer should be able to handle monsters one rank up, so long as the match-up is good. Meaning only pick fights with the big ones when your powers counter theirs.”
They started discussing the fight, their teamwork in confusing the unintelligent monster to keep it stuck in the doorway. They discussed what they did well, what could have been improved. Jason was impressed with Sophie’s ability to break down the fight, find the errors and look at how to correct them.
“My big mistake,” Jason said, “was getting into a mindset of my powers not working on it. My execute power would have worked just fine but I’d fallen into the trap of dismissing the effectiveness of my abilities. When I was first training, one of the things Rufus said was to think about what every ability can do and how to use each one effectively in a situation.”
“My mistake was trying to counter such an obviously powerful attack,” Sophie said. “I should have hit you instead.”
“What?” Jason asked.
“I could have knocked you out of the way,” she said.
“Oh, right.”
After breakfast, Jason started packing everything into his inventory.
“Did you decide if you wanted to use that awakening stone?” Jason asked.
“I don't think I will,” Sophie said. “I don't think this is the best situation to break-in a completely new power.”
“That’s sensible.”
Jason continued packing up. Sophie didn't have a dimensional bag of her own, yet. She wanted something that wouldn't impede her very mobile fighting style, much like Emir's dimensional storage jacket. Something like that was hard to find, locally. So, for the moment, she was relying on Jason the way Gary and Rufus had done with Farrah.
Sophie settled into a meditation pose as Jason went downstairs. Pausing at the top of the stairwell, he called out to Sophie.
“Hey, Wexler.”
“What?”
“Thanks for stopping my head from getting smeared across the floor.”
He went down the stairs before she could reply. He negated the alarm rituals he put in place and packed up the aura tent. Then he went up and joined Sophie, who had settled herself on the edge of the roof. They sat, meditating side by side. Eventually, a smile crept over Jason’s mouth as he experienced a breakthrough.
Ability [Midnight Eyes] (Dark) has reached Iron 8 (100%).Ability [Midnight Eyes] (Dark) has advanced to Iron 9 (00%).
As a perception power, midnight eyes was the ability Jason was always using and for this reason, it had advanced the most quickly. Like his other abilities, though, it had slowed to a crawl as it drew closer to reaching bronze rank. Despite not being a big part of the fight, taking on a bronze-rank monster had helped it edge up the wall.
After almost two hours, Sophie declared her arm fully restored. To test it, she and Jason did some sparring on the open space of the roof. Sophie had been trained hard since becoming an adventurer but it was not a one-way street. Having someone with her skill who understood his style better than he did was immensely useful for Jason. She had pushed him to use it not just for escapes and sneak attacks but to become stronger in a straight-up fight.
Before he ever met Sophie, Jason had already been working on a deceptive style that baited out the enemy. What Sophie had pointed out was that Jason was massively wasting what could be one of his best combat abilities: his cloak. Because it only had physical substance when he wanted, it could obscure his movements without obstructing them. What’s more, the ability to be real or insubstantial at will offered powerful utility.
Using his cloak to hide his stance, Jason feinted a forward motion, only to duck back as Sophie threw out a fist to counter and wrap her arm in his cloak. He yanked her forward, pulling her arm out of the way as he stepped in with a rising knee. She couldn’t see it coming but anticipated the move, halting Jason’s rising knee with a leg block before it gathered force. She yanked back on her arm and he let the cloak become insubstantial. Without the resistance she used too much force, briefly stumbling back. It was only a moment of lost balance but Jason moved in to capitalise.
Soon after, Jason was sprawled face down on the rooftop.
“You did well,” Sophie said. “You’re improving.”
“Then why does it feel like I’m getting worse?” he groaned.
“You’re getting better but I’m also learning how you fight,” she said. “Given that I know your style and have been doing this a lot longer, it only makes sense that I’ll improve against you faster than you do against me.”
“Doesn’t that mean you should take it easy on me?” he asked as he pushed himself to his feet.
“Probably,” she acknowledged. “Something about hitting you repeatedly is really satisfying, though.”
“Thanks,” he said, disgruntled look. “I’m glad you can use me for your personal gratification.”
He started stripping off his clothes, taking out some healing unguent to rub into the muscles Sophie had tenderised.
“You’re very skinny she said, unashamedly looking him over as he stood there in his boxer shorts.”
“Are you kidding?” Jason asked, looking himself over. “I’ve totally filled out. I used to be way skinnier than this.”
“You did? Do come from a race of twig people?”
“No!”
“You seem very defensive,” she said. “You’re a twig person, aren’t you?”
“I’m not a twig person! I’m a regular person!”
“Uh-huh.”
“Yeah, well, you aren’t so great, with your…”
He waved his arm up and down at her lithe body, her caramel skin set off by the matching silver of her eyes and hair.
“…how is that fair,” he finished limply. “I’m going to put my clothes back on now.”
“What are those things on your shorts?”
“Love hearts,” Jason said.
“That’s not what a heart looks like.”
“How do you know what a heart looks like?” Jason asked. “You don’t strike me as someone who took lessons on internal anatomy.”
“I did, after a fashion,” she said. “A few years back, during my first time in the fighting pits, there was a guy who would rip people’s hearts out and eat them. He had some power where it made him stronger.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah.”
“And they let him participate?”
“It got the crowd riled up.”
“They surely wouldn’t just let that go on, would they?”
“The idea was to build up tension,” she said. “They threw in scrubs to fight him, get some interest in the lower card fight before putting him up against real fighters. Kind of a ‘who can take down the monster’ situation.”
“So he was killed in the arena?”
“No, the Adventure Society came in and did it. Turns out they don’t like essence abilities that require you to eat people’s hearts.”
Sophie awoke to enticing breakfast smells. She was aching and tired, her damaged arm having given her a restless night. Only in the last few hours did she snatch away some precious, uninterrupted slumber. She crawled delicately out of the tent and followed the smells up a stone stairwell and onto a flat roof. Jason had set out a folding camp table and pair of chairs, one of which he was sitting in.Morning, he greeted her. Join me?He gestured at the other chair with a fork, on the end of which was skewered a piece of sausage. The rest of the sausage was on a plate in front of him, along with poached eggs and hot, buttered toast. As she sat down, he pulled a second plate of food from his inventory, as fresh and hot as the moment he put it there. A pitcher of juice was already out, Jason filling an empty glass to match his own.This is surreal, Sophie said. I can more or less accept the whole adventuring life. Magic powers, alternate dimensions, astral spaces. Monsters, cultists, even an ancient order of assassins. Yet somehow, seeing you sitting in the middle of it all, comfortably eating breakfast is just too much.Believe it or not, you aren't the first woman to tell me I was too much.Oh, I believe it, she said and took a sip of juice. That's really good.It's a blend of delta fruits. I bought a bunch of it from Arash.The guy who sells juice from a cart and keeps calling you a heretic?That's the one.So when you making preparations to enter this unexplored astral space full of unknown dangers, you went with picnic furniture, plates of hot breakfast and pitchers of fruit juice.Life isn't for surviving, Wexler. Life is for living.Jason had set up the table to overlook the street below. The building was quite high, as were many of the other nearby buildings. It turned the overgrown boulevard they had been walking down into something of a jungle canyon. Jason looked it over with a smile as he sipped at his juice.You really like this, don't you? Sophie asked him.I do, he said. I get what you mean about everything being crazy but my advice to you is to surrender to it. I know you've spent a lot of time wondering why I helped you so much when I could have gotten you out of the city and been done with it. It wasn't long ago that I was the one sitting at a table with a more experienced adventurer, no idea what lay ahead and wondering what to do. He helped me realise that I had a chance to start things fresh. To become the person I wanted to be.He smiled in reminiscence.Give yourself over to the experience, Wexler. This is your chance to take control. The river may be raging but you'll be amazed how fast you go working with the flow, instead of against it.That seems strange, coming from you, she said. I've never met a person who went more against the flow in my life.It's about picking your moments, Jason said. I came into this world with the naivety of someone who lived his life in safety. I've had a lot of illusions shattered, about the world and about myself. But sometimes when the world tries to bend you, you have to stand straight until one of you breaks.You think the world will break before you do?Probably not. But there's no chance if I don't try. I decided early on that with my second chance, the one regret I would never have is that I never tried. So I do the things that feel right. When I heard about your situation, I felt for you and Belinda. I know what it's like to be in an untenable situation. I found friends to guide me out. I know Jory wanted to help you, so I gave the help I had. Now I'm giving you the advice I received. Take this chance to be who you want to be.And if I don't know who that is?You do, on some level. Just do what feels right until you figure it out. It's what I've been doing and I don't regret any of it, mistakes and all.He gestured at the astral space around the with his fork.In my old life, I never had the chance to visit places like this. Yes, this world has brought its share of challenges, but facing those challenges has been more fulfilling than anything in my old life. At some point, I'll be going back o my world but I'm not going to put this world behind me when I do. There's a means to travel between worlds and I'm going to find it.How?I've been talking with Clive, him being the expert. These builder cultists seem to have more advanced astral magic than this world does. Clive thinks they have some means of crossing dimensional boundaries that doesn't require a diamond ranker, or they wouldn't have so many agents here to be active all over the world. If I can get a hold of their magic, it may well put me on the right path, if not deliver what I need on a platter.A way home.No, Jason said. A way here. I've been told that I will be going home, sooner or later. I can't help but feel that I need to go back and deal with the things I left behind. Once I have, though, I'm coming back to this world, even if that trip is one way. My old world is my past, and while I'm compelled to settle that past, this world is my future.And if you can't find a way back?The thing I realised when I truly came to accept that magic is real is that the impossible is just a limitation I put on my own thinking. If you have the time and the resolve, you can do just about anything. But you already know that.I do?Of course you do. You were in an awful position. Caught between two crime lords and a powerful aristocrat, with none of the connections and power I've been enjoying since coming to this world. All you had was a loyal friend. Most people would have capitulated. Found the least awful path and accepted their fate. Not you and not Belinda. You came up with a plan and you threw yourselves into it.It probably wouldn't have worked, even without your interference.But it could have and you went for it. You saw that glimpse of light that most other people would have dismissed as unreachable and you reached for it. I really admire that.He held his glass up in a casual salute.Thank you, she said uncertainly, shifting in her chair. I don't not a lot of people look at me for who I am. My whole life, men have looked at me like an animal they need to break in.Jason nodded.I have this philosophy in life, he said. My brother always had this knack for fitting in. For becoming what he needed to be, but I can't do that. Every time I tried I ended up losing it and doing something crazy and self-destructive. So, I decided early on that I was going to be who I am and people could take it or leave it. Like me or hate me, I'll take passion over ambivalence. It lets me know who to avoid and who to be friends with. It makes for a better life.But a lot of times you must have to deal with people who don't like you.Of course, Jason said. I'm from a whole other world, so people were always going to find me strange. I just play that up sometimes to disorient them a bit. If you need to tip someone over, it helps to unbalance them first.I don't know I entirely believe that, she said.Oh?I've been watching you and I'm willing to bet you're strange, even where you come from. If it was all an act, you wouldn't be the same around your friends as your enemies.It's not an act, Jason said. I told you that I'm just being who I am and people can take it or leave it. I just crank it up or dial it back a bit for any given situation.And that works?When you take a very specific approach to things, the way I do, you have to accept that some people will respond to it and others will reject it wholesale. It's a numbers game and you have to accept that a certain number of people are going to tell you to sod off. Some people like what I'm selling, others can't stand it. I work with the ones that do and don't bother with the ones that don't.It sounds like you're just making excuses for doing whatever you like, Sophie said.Oh, I'm absolutely doing that, Jason said. I told you it's a life philosophy. I've just found out how to make it work.By manipulating people.You say that like we don't all do it every day. We all put up fronts, adjust who we are, how much we show of ourselves to the different people around us. I just do it more consciously than most. Take Neil, for example. When I went to recruit him, I could have taken a different approach. Presented something more universally appealing to get him on board. Instead, I showed him who I was, cranked up a bit to make the point. I figured he was more likely to turn us down than join but I didn't want the best person we could find for our team; I wanted the best fit. So I presented a certain version of myself, not to get him on board but to help him decide if the place he wanted to be was with us.You gave me that choice too, didn't you? Join your merry band of misfits or vanish into some distant land to start over.I like giving people choices.That's because you like control. If you're the one giving the choices, you get to decide what the choices are. Otherwise, people might go finding their own options that don't fit your narrative.Jason chuckled, not denying it.How's the arm? he asked.Not fighting strength but a couple more hours using my meditation power should do it.So now you've experienced the power of a bronze-rank monster, Jason said. According to Rufus, a good adventurer should be able to handle monsters one rank up, so long as the match-up is good. Meaning only pick fights with the big ones when your powers counter theirs.They started discussing the fight, their teamwork in confusing the unintelligent monster to keep it stuck in the doorway. They discussed what they did well, what could have been improved. Jason was impressed with Sophie's ability to break down the fight, find the errors and look at how to correct them.My big mistake, Jason said, was getting into a mindset of my powers not working on it. My execute power would have worked just fine but I'd fallen into the trap of dismissing the effectiveness of my abilities. When I was first training, one of the things Rufus said was to think about what every ability can do and how to use each one effectively in a situation.My mistake was trying to counter such an obviously powerful attack, Sophie said. I should have hit you instead.What? Jason asked.I could have knocked you out of the way, she said.Oh, right.After breakfast, Jason started packing everything into his inventory.Did you decide if you wanted to use that awakening stone? Jason asked.I don't think I will, Sophie said. I don't think this is the best situation to break-in a completely new power.That's sensible.Jason continued packing up. Sophie didn't have a dimensional bag of her own, yet. She wanted something that wouldn't impede her very mobile fighting style, much like Emir's dimensional storage jacket. Something like that was hard to find, locally. So, for the moment, she was relying on Jason the way Gary and Rufus had done with Farrah.Sophie settled into a meditation pose as Jason went downstairs. Pausing at the top of the stairwell, he called out to Sophie.Hey, Wexler.What?Thanks for stopping my head from getting smeared across the floor.He went down the stairs before she could reply. He negated the alarm rituals he put in place and packed up the aura tent. Then he went up and joined Sophie, who had settled herself on the edge of the roof. They sat, meditating side by side. Eventually, a smile crept over Jason's mouth as he experienced a breakthrough.Ability Midnight Eyes Dark has reached Iron 8 100%.Ability Midnight Eyes Dark has advanced to Iron 9 00%.As a perception power, midnight eyes was the ability Jason was always using and for this reason, it had advanced the most quickly. Like his other abilities, though, it had slowed to a crawl as it drew closer to reaching bronze rank. Despite not being a big part of the fight, taking on a bronze-rank monster had helped it edge up the wall.After almost two hours, Sophie declared her arm fully restored. To test it, she and Jason did some sparring on the open space of the roof. Sophie had been trained hard since becoming an adventurer but it was not a one-way street. Having someone with her skill who understood his style better than he did was immensely useful for Jason. She had pushed him to use it not just for escapes and sneak attacks but to become stronger in a straight-up fight.Before he ever met Sophie, Jason had already been working on a deceptive style that baited out the enemy. What Sophie had pointed out was that Jason was massively wasting what could be one of his best combat abilities: his cloak. Because it only had physical substance when he wanted, it could obscure his movements without obstructing them. What's more, the ability to be real or insubstantial at will offered powerful utility.Using his cloak to hide his stance, Jason feinted a forward motion, only to duck back as Sophie threw out a fist to counter and wrap her arm in his cloak. He yanked her forward, pulling her arm out of the way as he stepped in with a rising knee. She couldn't see it coming but anticipated the move, halting Jason's rising knee with a leg block before it gathered force. She yanked back on her arm and he let the cloak become insubstantial. Without the resistance she used too much force, briefly stumbling back. It was only a moment of lost balance but Jason moved in to capitalise.Soon after, Jason was sprawled face down on the rooftop.You did well, Sophie said. You're improving.Then why does it feel like I'm getting worse? he groaned.You're getting better but I'm also learning how you fight, she said. Given that I know your style and have been doing this a lot longer, it only makes sense that I'll improve against you faster than you do against me.Doesn't that mean you should take it easy on me? he asked as he pushed himself to his feet.Probably, she acknowledged. Something about hitting you repeatedly is really satisfying, though.Thanks, he said, disgruntled look. I'm glad you can use me for your personal gratification.He started stripping off his clothes, taking out some healing unguent to rub into the muscles Sophie had tenderised.You're very skinny she said, unashamedly looking him over as he stood there in his boxer shorts.Are you kidding? Jason asked, looking himself over. I've totally filled out. I used to be way skinnier than this.You did? Do come from a race of twig people?No!You seem very defensive, she said. You're a twig person, aren't you?I'm not a twig person! I'm a regular person!Uh-huh.Yeah, well, you aren't so great, with yourHe waved his arm up and down at her lithe body, her caramel skin set off by the matching silver of her eyes and hair.how is that fair, he finished limply. I'm going to put my clothes back on now.What are those things on your shorts?Love hearts, Jason said.That's not what a heart looks like.How do you know what a heart looks like? Jason asked. You don't strike me as someone who took lessons on internal anatomy.I did, after a fashion, she said. A few years back, during my first time in the fighting pits, there was a guy who would rip people's hearts out and eat them. He had some power where it made him stronger.Seriously?Yeah.And they let him participate?It got the crowd riled up.They surely wouldn't just let that go on, would they?The idea was to build up tension, she said. They threw in scrubs to fight him, get some interest in the lower card fight before putting him up against real fighters. Kind of a who can take down the monster' situation.So he was killed in the arena?No, the Adventure Society came in and did it. Turns out they don't like essence abilities that require you to eat people's hearts.
