Chương 200: 24. I'm Not Nobody

What moves me? Talla's implicit question hangs in the silence between us, broken only by the occasional scratch of her quill on paper as she jots down notes about her observations. Her skill highlights the sky brightly enough for her to read and write under without damaging her night vision. It wears her out to maintain for too long, so Maggie recommended turning her usual light mote red, which Talla politely informed us she already knows about, but I'm getting distracted. Or rather, I'm distracting myself.

It's a hard question to answer. Hard to even think about, in a way. It's not just a question of what I find beautiful or meaningful—the starry sky above us is moving, as is the fact that Talla shared something so precious and close to her heart with us, but that's a cop-out answer. She's not asking what stirs my emotions, she's asking about something deeper. What drives me? What gets me out of bed each day and keeps me putting one foot in front of the other? In other words—what do I want? I don't know.

Before I came to this world I probably would have answered with something flippant like a cushy job or a cute boyfriend—a warm bed and someone to share it with. Aside from being pathetically basic, I don't think it would have been an honest answer even then—just an easy one. While stuck in the convergence point, I just wanted to go home, to wake up from the nightmare we found ourselves in and go back to a life that I can't even really remember. That was, what, three months ago? It feels like it's been longer.

Maybe it has been longer. I don't know if days are the same length here, and it's not like I have a way of measuring. Not that it matters—that's just another distraction. The point is that even though it hasn't been that long, I don't feel like the same person I was. On a whim, I focus on the words and numbers that always hang in the back of my mind—like a song I can't get out of my head. You get used to them, learn to tune them out, but they're always there.

[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 It says a lot about me—enough that the people of this world consider it to be something very private—and also nothing.

Strengths, weaknesses, abilities, accomplishments—the interface is a comprehensive breakdown of what I am, especially if one follows all the mental hyperlinks, but says precious little about who I am. No, I don't think it's the levels that have changed me. If anything, it's the opposite—who I am is what led me to shape what I've used the [World Engine] to become. But even then, I barely know what that is. [Language Teacher]? No. I don't regret taking the class, but it remains a means to an end.

I don't want to be a language teacher. In my old life, I might have—or something similar. I could kind of see it, finishing college then going on to be a teacher or a professor. Probably not a full-on academic. I could teach high school sociology or something, that would have been nice. Or history. But that's not who I am anymore, if it ever really was. I feel like I was just sort of coasting before. Letting my life happen to me, just following the signposts and going through the motions.

I didn't really care about my future, and just had whatever fun I could find. I realize, with a hint of bitterness, that the mechanism probably had good cause to offer me a class like [Hedonist], even if I'd only called myself that as a joke. It wouldn't have been funny if there weren't a hint of truth underlying it. It doesn't feel very funny anymore. In the convergence point, I was useless. The moment I was needed most, I shrunk away and disaster struck.

Maggie and Vi still break out in a cold sweat whenever our first contact with Fa'aun comes up, and I feel like such a fraud every time I recite the names of the people we've killed—or gotten killed. I can remember it, but distantly, like recalling a dream. They lived it, and it hurt them, while I just cowered away in some dark corner of our head. What have I done since? Befriended the rangers—all of whom are now dead except for Talla. Got us drunk and kidnapped—twice.

Mouthed off to a noblewoman and got slapped silly for it. Oh, and delivered an impassioned speech in defense of our friend, which got us shot for the trouble—the bullet still hurts when we breathe in too deeply. If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it. Heck, the entire hike up here I've mostly just been standing aside and letting the others do all the work. Who am I really, aside from the albatross around their neck and the monkey on their back?

This isn't about self-loathing—or at least, not just that. I know that I've done some good, too. I helped save the serpentfolk of Stebaari from plague, and made important connections through our friendship with Rara. The others are picking up on the language now, but it was my efforts that got that ball rolling in the first place—without which we'd be stuck using Maggie's spell all the time, with all the literal and figurative headaches that come with it.

I know that I'm not useless, and I take pride in what I've accomplished, even if it does sometimes feel like it's outweighed by my mistakes. But it's all reactive. I'm still just letting myself stumble through life, tackling the problems I know how to solve and letting the rest pass me by. That might work for River, who loves to go with the flow so much that she nicknamed herself after it, but it's not what I want. Which just brings me full circle again.

I can come up with things I don't want all day, and the status quo is one of them, but what do I want? There's an answer on the tip of my tongue, but it feels wrong. Shallow, somehow. My thoughts drift to Draga's letter, which we read every night—though Violet wisely chose to leave it behind with the tribe rather than bring it with us up the mountain. He wanted to spend his life well, which is such a tragic and typical wish for someone who didn't believe that he had any value of his own.

Vi's made it her mission to carry on that dream, to leave the world better than we found it. I respect that wish—even share it. But is it enough? I want to help people, but that's the vapid sort of motivation that can only come from someone who doesn't really think they can make a difference. The sort of answer that sounds good, to a college student in her twenties, but falls apart under the slightest scrutiny. Help people how? By doing what?

Surely not by coasting through my studies and hooking up at parties every weekend. Draga's wish was a product of who he was—or believed himself to be. A nobody. A soldier with too much blood in his fur to ever wash out. He had no real expectations of himself because nobody had any expectations of him. It feels dirty to compare myself to him, though. He had no self-respect because he lived in a society that had beaten it out of him at every opportunity. I had no self-respect because I was lazy.

Because the world felt pointless and boring, and I was too small a person to make a difference even if I wanted to. And shamefully, I don't think I did want to. Do I now? Part of me still feels the same way. Who am I, even? Some random weirdo Talla picked up in a cave? Even in Stebaari, where multiple powerful people subtly vied for influence over me, none of them cared who I was. It was all about what I am. Dungeon-borne—a source of alien knowledge and powerful classes.

A Vessel of—I don't want to think the whole thing. There's a weird block around Evie's former class, but it's clear that the cult or the inquisition or somebody had—or has—a plan to take advantage of it somehow. But I'm not nobody, am I? Talla and Rara are important nobles. Jira is the chief of her entire tribe, and Fargo has connections all over the world—even if I suspect that we're going to discover a lot of broken hearts among them.

If I'm being honest with myself, I'm probably more important to this world than I ever would have been on my own. I've just been pretending otherwise—telling myself I'm a nobody, that I can't make a difference, all the little platitudes that once made me feel better about wasting my life one weekend at a time. I'm not somebody, either—at least, not yet—it's all just potential. Little threads of influence reaching from point to point in a complex web, just waiting to be tugged on.

I don't have the whole picture, just bits and pieces, but it's enough to extrapolate what sort of patterns might emerge. If I wanted to, if I really put my mind to it, I could take hold of those threads and start shaping the pattern myself. I can almost see it, as I stare up at the magically brightened night sky. Shapes forming among the stars—constellations waiting to be found, forming one line at a time as I connect the points in my mind.

It's incomplete, but there's one key point missing—the place where everything will converge, where I could truly make a difference. It's right there. Like I could just reach out and— For just a brief instant, it almost feels like the entire span of the future is laid out before me, but it passes with a shiver and the inexplicable feeling of having my hand swatted away from the cookie jar. That probably isn't something I want to witness anyway, given how much my last brush with the infinite has stayed with me.

Nevertheless, I still have what I was reaching for. An idea—a place where everything will come together, where we have a chance to truly matter. It's not an answer, but it's the first step towards finding one. The pieces—an empire on the edge of a pivotal moment in history, factions vying for control over whatever comes next, a land of scarcity facing a rapid improvement in the average quality of life, and an independent colony settled in a neighboring land of plenty.

The civil war in Stebaa is a prelude, and there is little left that I can do to influence it now. But any student of history would be able to guess where trouble will stir next—where the real conflict is slowly boiling.

"Talla," I begin, only to be interrupted by a yawn—how long have we been up?

"Yes?" I take off my glasses and rub my eyes blearily, my tiredness catching up to me now that my focus is broken.

"I'm still not sure what I want to do, or who I want to be." She puts down her quill and gives me her full attention as I replace my glasses, studying my expression.

"But...?"

"But I think I know where we need to go. Where I'll find the answer."

"Do tell," she prompts me. I stretch until I feel my spine pop in places, working out the kinks from sitting on a rock and craning my neck up at the sky for hours, then give her a weary smile.

"Have you ever visited the Blessed Lands?" I ask.

"I can't say I've had the pleasure, no."

"Would you like to?" Talla chuckles and shakes her head with a heavy sigh.

"I've always wanted to see the sky from the equator."