M34

Morgan made his way out of the ancient vault in the early light of the dawn. As he climbed the steps out of the foundation of the crumbling tower, he marveled at the clean, crisp air and the way motes of pollen and dust danced in the rays of the sun peeking through the canopy. Everything was so fresh, and it matched his mood perfectly; Morgan felt refreshed and inspired by his experience with the spirit of the Azure Paladin. He regretted not questioning the figure before he’d bestowed Morgan with his legacy. He was curious about who the old spirit had been in life, other than his title. What had been his name? What had become of his civilization? Who were the six, and why were they buried here together? He consoled himself in the knowledge that he’d hopefully have more meetings with the paladin as he gained some levels.

Once out of the ruin, Morgan got his bearings with Guardian’s Senses and then continued his hike toward the settlement. Throughout the night, while he’d been meditating on his cultivation drill, a portion of Morgan’s mind had wandered, still affected by the wonder of what the ancient paladin had done for him. Now, as Morgan walked, he reflected on some decisions he had made: he’d thought about how the paladin had called him a “protector,” and he thought about the class he had chosen for himself - a Hollow Guard. He’d thought about the way he’d been forced to sneak around so much and stab creatures in the back to earn victories. Sure, a victory was a victory, but he didn’t want the way he’d been thrust into situations by the System to dictate the way he cultivated his own fighting style. He had thought about the description of Azure Blast: “A true paladin wades into the thick of the battle, fearing not the surrounding hordes.”

He had spent a long time thinking about his battle with the guardian on the third floor of his tower, the elemental duelist. He hadn’t liked feeling outclassed in a face-to-face fight, even if he had won in the end. He felt almost like he had cheated. This thought led him to think about how he’d been able to win against Yovashi, and in every case, he’d started with a backstab. At the time, he hadn’t had a problem with it because the Yovashi were terrifying creatures, and he was happy to slay them in any way that he could. However, did he want to have to rely on subterfuge to win every difficult conflict?

All of these thoughts had run through his mind, but most of all, Morgan had been struck with a pure sense of admiration for the Azure Paladin. He’d come to the, perhaps naive, realization that he wanted to be more like that. Coming to terms with that over the long course of his meditation, Morgan had felt a renewed sense of purpose and, in fact, a cheerful outlook for the day to come. That mood still carried him forward as he veritably galloped through the woods, making short work of his trip to the walls around First Landing.

In the last mile or so of his jaunt through the woods, Morgan encountered no less than three different hunting parties. Two of the groups had let him run right past, unchallenged, but the third had seen him coming and hollered out a greeting; Morgan had yelled back a hello, a little surprised that they hadn’t considered him a threat at all. Apparently, there wasn’t any fear of him being mistaken for a Yeksa. When he got to the gate, he was pleased to see that there were five guards on duty, and they all were wielding long spears and wearing identical leather armor and shiny, conical helms. He strode up to the group of guards, two of which were playing some sort of dice game in the grass. The other three seemed alert enough, though. “Hey, everyone. I like the uniform. Did you guys get that from the Contribution Store?”

“Woah, hey there. You’re Morgan, right?” A tall woman with a long brown braid hanging down behind her metal helm stepped forward.

“You know me?” Morgan stopped in front of the woman, smiling.

“Well, no, but I saw you hanging around the Colony Stone with Olivia and those guys a couple of times. And, you know, when you created a huge fucking tower in there.” She gestured over her shoulder toward the wall.

“Ahh, yeah, right.”

“Also, Bronwyn put the word out to be on the lookout for you. I guess you disappeared or something?”

“Hah, yeah. That was a trip. How long have I been gone, by the way? Just to be sure - in my mind, I’ve been gone just over a day.”

“Hmm. More like a day and a half, I think. Anyway, we got the armor from the Contribution Store, yeah. The council paid for ‘em in exchange for a weekly guard rotation. They did the same for a couple of hundred folks.”

“Alright, well, I’m gonna head in. Look for some hot food.” Morgan waved, and the guards waved back, and he walked through the open gate. He was surprised to find that in the time he’d been away, more buildings had gone up. There was a gatehouse now with an attached guard station. While looking at the new structure, he realized he was walking on a cobbled road. He followed the road westward toward the little knoll that was in the center of the colony. On the way, he passed a few tents, but a lot fewer than when he had last been in town. Off to the southwest, he could see the sizeable dormitory-style housing units that the settlers had built over the last week.

As he approached the Colony Stone, he saw that the road ran all the way up to the base of the hill, and off to the right was a long, low building. The building was roofed in clay tiles, and there were a dozen tile-capped vents along the building’s roof producing prodigious amounts of steam that wafted into the morning sky. As Morgan walked by the front of the building, he saw that the walls were planked in a wood that reminded him of cedar. Double doors leading into the building were situated on a slightly raised wooden porch. The doors had dark wooden frames with stained windows depicting red-skinned people with bushy white manes bathing in a steamy blue pool. “Oh, hell yes. Baths?” Morgan stepped up on the deck and pulled the doors open.

He walked into a darkly tiled foyer with pale-blue plaster walls. Shelves filled with white towels lined the far wall. A large wicker basket for dirty towels was in front of the shelves. Morgan didn’t see any attendant or anything, so he walked through the door on the left side of the towel shelves; it was marked with an engraved M. He picked up a towel as he walked by. The door opened into a locker room of sorts, though there weren’t lockers, just wooden cubbies. Morgan sat at one of the benches and began to get undressed. He’d never been shy, but if he had been, his service in military units had made sure to extinguish it. He kept his storage ring on, but he stuffed the rest of his belongings in one of the cubbies, wrapped the towel around his waist, and exited through the far door.

He stepped into a steamy bathing area much like he’d seen in movies about ancient Greece or Rome. A large, pale-blue pool filled with steaming water dominated the majority of the expansive room. Clay-tiled decking surrounded the pool, with wooden lounge chairs scattered about. Little dishes of soaps were placed along the edge of the pool. Morgan immediately saw that there were five or six men in the bath, lounging quietly. He waved happily, walking over to one of the wooden chairs and taking off his towel. As far as he could tell, the men in the pool were naked, so he figured it would be fine.  As he slipped into the hot water, the guys already in the water politely looked away, except for one older fellow who stared at him and said, “Hey, good morning!”

“Ahh, good morning!” Morgan splashed hot water over his face and head. “Damn, that feels good! Hey, folks, not to be a jerk or anything, but you might want to get out. This is the first bath I’ve had since I got to this planet, and I’ve been in some shit!” Morgan was half laughing while he spoke, but, in his mind, he knew he really was filthy. Some of the men soaking nearby started to angle away from him surreptitiously.

“Oh, no worries, pardner. This bathhouse has some neat features due to the power-stones in the back room. As long as we keep ‘em charged, they’ll pull water through the heater and filter it at the same time.”

“Ahh, that’s cool. I was wondering how all this was working. Energy makes the world go round, I guess.” Morgan couldn’t help smiling as he vigorously scrubbed himself with one of the little soap bars. It smelled like beeswax. “So, is there an attendant or something?”

“That’s right, pardner. I work here. I have to work here for free for a while ‘cause the council paid for the bathhouse, but they told me after things get settled, I’ll be allowed to start charging a small fee for each person.”

“Ahh, sounds good to me.” Morgan laid back in the water, just floating, letting the heat soak through him. After a while, he heard the sounds of people getting in and getting out, but he kept floating and soaking. It must have been nearly an hour later when he went back to his cubby and got himself dressed. Morgan tossed his used towel in the basket on his way out, making his way up the hill to the Colony Stone. More people were out and about, but the ones he was looking for weren’t around; no sign of Olivia, Bronwyn, or any of the other defacto leaders of the colony.

Before wandering the colony to find someone, Morgan decided to do some business with the Contribution Store. He pulled one of the black pouches filled with the blue, smoky Energy beads, looking for the sale prompt. The System was offering him 2,000 contribution points for, what it called, 50 Cold and Rot attuned Energy beads. “Huh, forty apiece, eh?” Morgan didn’t even know you could have more than one attunement, let alone attune a bead with more than one.

Morgan slipped the pouch back into his ring for now and pulled out one of the bolts of silky material. It was a dark, midnight blue color, and the way it was tightly wrapped around a central rod, Morgan thought there might be dozens of yards of it. Once again, a green sell bar lit up on the Stone’s menu, offering him 4,000 contribution points for a bolt of Yovashi Uirgha silk. “Goddamn,” he muttered, one by one pulling out the other four bolts and making sure they were the same. They were, meaning he had 20,000 contribution points worth of silk here. No trade menu appeared when he held the crystal knife up to the Stone. Out of curiosity, he tried trading a few of the books he’d pilfered from the Yovashi dwelling, but again, the Stone didn’t seem interested.

Before he traded away any of his goods, Morgan wanted to see if he could get any of the things he had hoped for when he’d had his epiphany earlier about how to start directing his development more intentionally. He opened up the Contribution Store menu and searched through the categories until he found a “Skills” submenu. He parsed through it until he saw “Weapon Skills.” He clicked the menu and saw a massive list populate. Many of the list items were green, but quite a few were red. On the top of the list, highlighted in green, was “Brawling - basic.” He scrolled down to the first item highlighted in red, “Firebolt - basic.” Experimenting, Morgan tapped the red skill, and a System message popped up:

***This skill requires either a qualifying class or an affinity for fire-based Energy.***

Understanding flooded his mind as he started to read through the list carefully. Lots of spells were available to him; apparently, they were low-level, generalist spells like “Light,” “Find Direction,” “Ward Door,” and hundreds of others. However, many more powerful spells were barred; evidently, his Hollow Guard class and his vanilla Energy-based Core didn’t qualify him. Morgan wasn’t after spells right now, though. He clicked the filter button and sorted by melee combat skills, revealing dozens of basic weapon proficiencies. Two were grayed out: “Dagger Mastery - Basic” and “Spear Mastery - Basic.” Each of the basic mastery skills cost 1,500 contribution points, but morgan saw one that cost 5,000: “Melee Weapon Mastery - Basic.” This one was highlighted a brighter shade of green, and Morgan clicked it to see the description:

***Qualifying Class Detected: Melee Weapon Mastery - Basic: You have basic combat capabilities with most common melee weapons. This general combat skill will allow you to advance individual melee weapon skills beyond the Basic level with training and experience.***

Morgan pulled out a bolt of silk and a couple of sacks of Energy beads, selling them for 9,000 contribution points, then he purchased the “Melee Weapon Mastery - Basic” skill. Blue and yellow smoke coalesced near his feet and, when it cleared, a small, ornate scroll was sitting there on the ground. Morgan picked it up and opened it, looking intently at the odd, swirling characters moving around on the page. They continued to move more and more quickly and then streamed off the page and into his eyes. The sensation of having the information in that scroll streaming directly into his brain wasn’t something Morgan felt he could ever get used to. Just as it seemed that it was almost over, a message flashed in his vision:

***Warning: This skill will overwrite the Dagger Mastery - Basic and Spear Mastery - Basic skills. Do you wish to proceed? Y/N***

Morgan selected the yes option, and then another message appeared:

***Congratulations! You’ve learned the skill, Melee Weapon Mastery - Basic***

Morgan knew he hadn’t gained anything other than some options with this procedure, but it was leading in the right direction to fit his plan for himself. He scrolled down the list of combat skills, beyond the basic mastery skills, into more specialized areas. During his meditation in the vault of the Azure Paladin, Morgan had made the decision that he wanted to learn how to fight with a sword. He didn’t plan to throw his spear away, but when he envisioned the way he saw himself as a guardian, or a protector, or even a paladin, he saw himself with a sword. He wasn’t sure why; for all he knew, it was because of movies he’d watched as a kid or the pulpy fantasy novels he’d read on long patrols with his squad. Whatever the case, he wanted to learn to use a sword.

Under the “Sword Skills” category, there were several that interested him. Among the generic-sounding skills like “Broad Slash” and “Riposte” were a couple that really caught his attention. The first was called “Fighting Crane Style - Basic.” Morgan selected it and read the description:

***Qualifying Class Detected, Qualifying Skill Detected: Fighting Crane Style - Basic: The first step onto the mysterious path of the Fighting Crane Swordsmen. This method, recovered from ancient relics, may open the door to great power for the individual capable of recreating the style lost to the ages.***

Morgan assumed that his qualifying skill was the new Melee Weapon Mastery. The idea of recovering a lost style appealed to the romantic in him, and Morgan impulsively selected the purchase option. Only after he’d paid did he have a pang of regret, seeing the price tag of 4,000 credits. Again, a scroll appeared, and he opened it to learn the new skill. This time, a lot more runes seemed to be crammed onto the parchment, and as they streamed into his eyes, Morgan began to see something more: the scene before him of the Colony Stone and the grassy hillside dotted with people, standing and walking around, faded.

In Morgan’s vision, a different sort of meadow took shape. The grass here was green, and corpses littered the ground. Long red swaths of blood streaked the grass, sunlight shimmering in the wetness. A man stood among the bodies, facing off against four other men. They all wore loose clothing - baggy trousers with belted tunics hanging down to mid-thigh. The lone man’s clothes were black. His tunic had a shiny silver and blue crane embroidered on the back. He wore a wide-brimmed straw hat and wielded a long, narrow, single-edged sword with a slight curve to it. The men facing him were similarly garbed, but their clothes were a deep red color, and they bore a variety of weapons: one wielded a spear, one a sword and shield, and two had swords similar to the lone man’s.

As Morgan watched, the lone swordsman walked toward the other four, his sword held high over his head. They moved to attack him from multiple angles. Morgan saw the men move, and he heard the whistle-whip of a blade moving through the air, but before he could figure out what had happened, the lone swordsman was whipping his sword free of blood and sheathing it. In pieces, the four other men collapsed, looks of shock on their faces. Morgan’s heart started beating again, and his vision faded, to be replaced by the familiar presence of the Colony Stone.

***Congratulations! You’ve learned the skill, Fighting Crane Style - Basic***