Chương 188: 12. That's Sensible

Theological debates will have to wait. Lady Talla's education is much better than mine, and even as a priestess I'm not sure how much I'd be able to contribute to such a discussion anyway. I was never a particularly good priestess in the first place, which I now understand to be intentional on the part of my wardens. I was raised to be a convenient tool for healing until the time came to transform me into a much more powerful tool.

I wonder, absently, what the Church of the Great Wheel could accomplish with control of an [Angel]. Or, perhaps, have already accomplished. We arrive at the outcropping that Talla scouted out earlier and climb up the cliff face. The rocks are a little slippery from the rain, but that doesn't trouble me, and River waits for us at the top, sitting on the edge and kicking her feet idly. Lady Talla gives me a sidelong glance, eyeing my unruffled fur.

"I don't suppose you could share whatever trick you're using to keep your fur dry."

"I can't," I reply honestly.

"I just don't want the rain to touch me, so it doesn't. While it did take practice to learn it, I genuinely couldn't tell you how I actually do it." She turns to Reverie, then hesitates as she reconsiders another attempt to glean anything useful from our enigmatic dream companion. Unfortunately for her, River's always more observant than she looks, and makes the choice for her.

"To dream is to experience," she muses without bothering to look at either of us.

"Struggling against the flow of the dream would only lessen that experience."

"You say that," Lady Talla notes sardonically, "yet I can't help but notice that you didn't climb to get up here." River glances over, then shrugs before returning her gaze to the sky—I wonder what she's looking at.

"I didn't want to." I struggle to suppress my laughter. Talla's not going to get anywhere with River by pointing out logical contradictions. Vi's already seen first-hand how useless that is.

"Actually, how did you get up here?" Talla asks, furrowing her brow.

"I can't remember."

"That's one of River's specialties," I provide.

"Maggie's the next best at casually manipulating dreams, but even she can't replicate that odd sort of conceptual action. In essence, she just did it, without bothering to concern herself over how."

"I came up," River concurs. It's hard to articulate. The sort of strange logic that only works in dreams. Even as the one who ostensibly has the dream-based class, I barely understand it myself. In dreams, effects don't need causes—things can simply happen without any reason whatsoever apart from some inscrutable subconscious idea. I wish I could figure out how to do that, since it would be much easier to make use of the clairvoyant nature of dreamwalking to scout if I could go places without needing to travel.

"This skill makes my head hurt," Talla sighs.

"But it really is impressively useful. Didn't you say the range was limited?" She gazes out over the cliff at the sprawling, misty forest beneath us. The pale ringshine is growing dimmer as summer approaches its end, but it's still enough to see the forest stretching out to the edge of the lake, and reveal the tall mangroves on the other side.

"We can see as far as we would normally," I clarify.

"It's our travel that's limited. If we go too far from where we started, the dream becomes hazy." At which point it stops being a projection and becomes just a regular dream.

"I see. Well this is still amazing," she says.

"That ringward ridge looks promising. We should be able to make our way up to it, then switch back anti-ringward to continue ascending. Two or three days of travel should get us close enough to start scouting out potential plateaus above the forest layer." I don't know the first thing about this sort of travel, so I'll take her word for it. That seems like quite a long time to cross such a short distance, but there are no paths beyond whatever natural trails we can find, and the forest below is quite dense.

"Shall we give it a try, then?" I suggest.

"You mean here, in the dream?" Talla asks.

"I don't relish the thought of making a hike like that twice, and it would be difficult to remember the path we took without leaving a trail behind."

"Then it's a good thing I have a skill that will let us perfectly retrace whatever path we take." She sighs and scratches her horns.

"I guess so. Not like we have much else to do with the rest of the night."

"You seem unenthused," I remark.

"I was just struck by the realization that the next few weeks are going to involve constantly retracing the same hikes night after night. How do you do it?" I shrug.

"By sharing the burden with three others, and River." Reverie doesn't like to show herself in person, but she helps in her own ways.

"If it's any consolation, my lady, I doubt we'll need your assistance every night," I tell her.

"Once you've plotted a course for us like this, River and I should be more than capable of exploring it on our own."

"That's something, at least," she concedes.

"Just remember to take care of yourselves."

"Of course, my lady. Shall we?" She nods, and I lead the way by simply stepping off the cliff and plummeting to the ground, where I land harmlessly—another little dream trick.

"Oh come on," Talla complains from up above.

"Now you're just showing off." I have no rebuttal to offer. She is, after all, entirely correct. * We start the next morning with a breakfast that uses up the last of the fresh rations from the tribe. They won't keep much longer while on the move, so it's probably going to be the last nice meal for a while, unless Vi manages to do some hunting along the way. The fish and crackers are salty, if a little bland, and I chat idly with Talla as we eat.

"I think I should pick my next class before we set out," I comment around a mouthful of food.

"Wanna help?" If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

"It's been a while since you asked for my input," Talla muses.

"I'm happy to help, but I was under the impression you'd pretty much already settled on a choice."

"We have, but it's still good to review options before locking anything in."

"It is," she agrees.

"Many people choose their advancements as quickly as possible, but I think that's a bad habit. So what are you looking at?" I feed Nipper a little nibble of fish over my shoulder while I bring up the three tier zero classes we currently have mastered. [Tier 0 Linguist]* A student of languages, studying the essence of communication itself. Skill - Translation: Instantly recall the meaning of words you've previously translated. Attribute bonus: Awareness. Advancement: Study languages.

[Tier 0 Teacher]* One who spreads knowledge. Passing what they know on to others. Skill - Efficient Training: Faster advancement for pupils studying under your tutelage. Attribute bonus: Ego. Advancement: Spread knowledge. [Tier 0 Instigator]* Someone has to cast the first stone, break the first window, or throw furniture into an angry throng. That someone is you. Skill - Provocation: Dramatically increased Ego when inciting anger in others. Attribute bonus: Ego. Advancement: Cause trouble.

It's normally somewhat taboo to share exact classes with someone outside of your immediate family, but Talla and I already exchanged core classes a long time ago, so I don't mind letting her see the specifics of each. She raises an eyebrow at me as she reads the last one." [Instigator]?"

"Revi," I answer with a sigh.

"It's hard to get a read on what she's thinking, sometimes, so I still don't really get why she picked that one. She mostly just used it to stir up a bit of trouble between Evie and the rest of us, which helped bring us closer even if it was a fricked up way to do it. The rest of the levels came from... well, you can probably guess." Instigating a civil war is pretty overkill for a tier zero class.

"Right," Talla says, pursing her lips.

"And you're considering advancing it?" I shrug.

"We're not really sure. According to Vi, we're already juggling enough classes to make it to five stars with one to spare, so we might abandon it."

"But you wanted to at least see what options it allows," Talla concluded.

"That's sensible. Have you gone over the options already?" I shake my head.

"Wanna see them now?"

"If you're willing to share." The first one to look at may as well be the combination I was already planning on taking, combining [Teacher] and [Linguist]. [Tier 1 Language Teacher]** Communication is the heart of civilization, and you have made it your mission to seek out and understand as many ways to communicate as you can. Skill - Polyglot: If you know a word in at least two languages, you will recognize it instantly when seen or heard.

If you know the word in at least three languages, this skill applies to unknown languages as well. Skill - Perfect Pronunciation: You can pronounce words in non-native languages with any accent, even if your physiology would not normally allow it. Attribute bonuses: Awareness, Ego. Advancement: Learn and share languages. Hot diggity dang, that's a great start!

"Talla, am I crazy or does that skill make me instantly fluent in every language as long as I can master three?"

"Not quite," she says.

"You'd be able to understand any language, but it still requires you to spend some time listening to build vocabulary, and it doesn't do a thing for grammar—you'd need to figure that part out by yourself."

"Still a good skill though, right?"

"Extremely," she agrees. The other one is pretty cool too. The People's Tongue is basically impossible to speak without a forked tongue and a stretchy neck, so it would be immensely helpful there. Fa'aun is mostly doable, but trying to copy the accent gives me a sore throat and doesn't even work that well. I also appreciate that the advancement conditions don't require me to do much more than I'm already doing.

Talla is already learning our language, and I could start teaching Msshi and Evelyn to help push things along.

"Well, I'd say that's gonna be hard to top, but we may as well look at the other options," I muse. First up, [Teacher] and [Instigator]. [Tier 1 Rabble Rouser]** Everybody knows that throwing a chair is a surefire way to start a riot. The trick is getting the right people in the right mood at the right time and place. That's where you come in. Skill - Let's Start a Riot: Dramatically increased Awareness and Ego when investigating and inciting dissatisfaction among a group.

Skill - Sense Tension: You gain an additional sense for the level of tension within a crowd, allowing you to pick the perfect time to pull them back from the threshold, or push them over it. Attribute bonuses: Ego. Advancement: Incite collective action.

"Uh... hmm," I begin awkwardly.

"That seems a tad bit dangerous."

"A what?" Talla asks, then shakes her head.

"No, nevermind, I get the gist. That's a [Rebel] domain class. Not technically illegal to have, unless you're a noble, but inquisitors tend to treat it like a forbidden domain anyway."

"Meaning?"

"They'd try to kill you if they found out about it." I purse my lips. It figures that the militant religious zealots would embrace what basically amounts to thought crimes. Albeit, taking the class does presumably come with a certain level of intent.

"They'd try to kill me anyway," I point out.

"On account of the whole 'dusting their leader' thing. Still, I think we can safely shelf this one." The last option is [Linguist] with [Instigator] and after the last option, I don't exactly have high hopes. [Tier 1 Secret Keeper]** One who understands that knowledge kept is more valuable than knowledge given, and uses private language to keep such knowledge safe. Skill - Coded Message: Create up to three secret codes, which can be shared with and between any number of people.

You may encode messages that can only be understood by those with the appropriate code. Skill - Juicy Tidbit: Information shared with you in confidence comes with an intuitive understanding of how damaging that information is to the speaker. Attribute bonuses: Awareness, Ego. Advancement: Gather dangerous information. I frown as I finish processing all of that.

"That feels like a kind of wild turn from the nature of [Linguist]," I comment.

"And [Instigator] for that matter." Talla nods in agreement.

"It can be difficult to predict how the [World Engine] will interpret class fusions. Often two people may have the same or similar classes and end up with wildly differing options." Right. Vi and Anna have talked about it before, over their adorable little chess dates.

"The going theory is that it's based on how the levels were earned, right?" I recall.

"We leveled up [Instigator] by airing out private thoughts and causing civil unrest, so that's what the classes we're offered do." She blinks.

"Is that what Reverie did? It's either that, or associating with the Alchemist and his many mysteries, but unless you gained levels from that, the former seems more likely."

"Makes sense," I agree.

"Well, as fun a diversion as that was, I think this just confirms that my first choice is the correct one." And also that we probably are going to ditch [Instigator], unless we later decide to start upending nations on purpose, but that would be crazy. I put the thought out of my mind entirely as I confirm my selection and review my fancy new status.

[Allison: Tier 2 Human] [Class Slot 1: Tier 2 Incandescent Souls]* - Level 9/10 [Class Slot 2: Tier 1 Language Teacher] - Level 0/10 [Attributes] Power: 63 Resilience: 63 Awareness: 73 Ego: 73 Will: 6 [Skills] Inner Flames Pyrothaumaturgy Burning Innervation Explosive Throw Polyglot Perfect Pronunciation