An Unbound Soul

I lay in bed, giving myself a metaphorical kicking. Once again, I'd failed to spot the obvious. I could see why tournaments hadn't been invented here now that I thought about it, although it was the kids back in the village that made it the most apparent. And there I was thinking that I was embracing my inner child playing with them, when they weren't behaving anything like what kids on Earth would have done. So that was something else that was brainwashed out of existence here then; jealousy and envy. Sure, some people were competitive, but I'd never see anyone get upset or angry when they lost at something. At worst, there was some mild frustration, and even then, it wasn't directed at the person who beat them. If real kids had been beaten by Cluma over and over, they wouldn't have kept on playing; they would have shouted and screamed and excluded her from any more of their games.

No wonder everyone was content despite our village being, in absolute terms, as poor as a church mouse. It simply wasn't an important fact to anyone that other people might have more. Clana had wanted to start a restaurant for the love of cooking, not for money or fame. The worst I'd seen had been Chris, but even then the source of his annoyance was the delvers' guild for not letting him into the dungeon, rather than at me for having gifts that he didn't, and I was just a softer target for him to take his frustration out on.

It wasn't just on the losing side, either. It wouldn't be fair to say that winners had no pride at all, but I'd certainly never seen anyone feel the need to show off. I'd never seen anyone rub their ability into anyone else's face. It was stupid; people didn't spar to increase their abilities because they valued the other side's time above their own rapid growth. Didn't they ever stop to think that maybe the other side was thinking the same thing and secretly wanted to train with them too?

While the primary purpose of the brainwashing here seemed to be to make everyone 'nice', there were certainly some knock-on effects. Originally, I'd thought the lack of people reaching rank four was due to inherent human limits. Later I thought it was because it was normal here to play safe and be conservative, so people never pushed themselves. My new opinion was that it was a lack of competition between people causing a generalised lack of ambition. No-one cared if someone else was better, and plodded along at their own comfortable pace. Not just in the dungeon, but everywhere. Even my mum, with her rank four dreams, had settled into a life of making general stuff for the village. She was never pushing her skill, so her growth slowed to a crawl. She was content and happy, so did it matter? Bleh, it was too late at night to be debating philosophy with myself. It was time to sleep.

I woke up late the next morning, thanks to the previous night's exertion, and the bar was nearly deserted by the time I dragged myself down for breakfast. I was in my traditional clothing today, intending to spend the day running errands instead of the dungeon. At reception I asked if they could suggest anyone who may be willing to teach me enchanting, to which they suggested inquiring at the delvers' store. I also asked if anywhere sold magical items, to which they again suggested the delvers' store, this time with more of an isn't-that-obvious look about them. By the time I got around to asking about maps, I felt like I could guess the general direction of this conversation, and indeed I was not surprised by their answer.

The delvers' store contained its usual quantity of Adele; one unit. "Good morning, Peter. Not in uniform today?"

"Not today. I was hoping to find someone who might be willing to teach me some runecrafting. And also to check what sort of magic items are for sale and how much they cost, and if I can get some maps."

Her eyes drifted to my finger, where my ring was no longer hidden under gauntlets. "We never have many magic items in stock, but something like that would be a large silver at least. I believe we currently have a ring for plus one endurance for two small silver, a necklace that provides some protection from environmental temperature for three small silver or a bracelet that reduces spell costs by one percent for one small silver. As for maps, you can pick some up from the general equipment counter, but there's not any need for everyone to have one. Leave navigation to your party's leader or scout."

Reasonable advice, except that I was both my party's leader and its scout. And mage. And front-line warrior. Even healer, if I counted my emergency potions. I was, in short, my party. Thus I was in need of maps. As for magical items, none of those sounded like something I really wanted. I'd happily use all three of them if someone handed them over, but I didn't feel the need to pay for them.

"As for runecrafting, what sort of thing are you looking for? You want to be employed as an enchanter? Or combine it with another class?"

"I just want to unlock the [Basic Runecrafting] skill. I'm not looking for a proper apprenticeship or employment."

"Hmm... I don't think any of the enchanters that work here would have the time for that then, not unless you threw a lot of money at them to make it worth their while. There is a class that runs over at the academy each year. It won't be until the summer, though. Will that do?"

"Yup, I'm not in any rush."

"Great. You'll have to ask there for the details, and it'll still cost you some amount of silver."

"Thanks."

Over at the general counter, maps cost a couple of large copper per floor, and I had to spend a sizeable chunk of my money for the first five floors. That would be enough for now; I wouldn't be going below there for a while yet.

Business at the delvers' store over, I headed back to the merchants' guild, which was once again manned by Eric.

"Hello again. Was there something else you need?"

"Maybe. I had an idea for a product to sell and wanted to check if anything like it currently exists."

From my pack, I took out a ridiculously simple music box that I had put together while I was back in the village. Instead of a cylinder, it used a wooden board with dowels stuck in, which when pulled along the base of the box pushed little sticks that rang bells. It only had five notes, none of which were properly tuned. The length of the board was only enough for a few rings of each bell, so it really just played a few notes, rather than anything that could be called music. Despite the simplicity, it was this that had single-handedly got me the carpentry level and one of the smithing levels last week.

"I apologise for the quality, but I threw this together quickly as a proof of concept. I have ideas on how to improve it, but if this is something that already exists, then I won't waste my time."

Eric stared at my creation as I dragged the board across the pins. "You threw this together? You have more ideas? You're what, seven or eight? Are you sure your parents shouldn't be here with you?"

Right... He was so professional last time that I didn't think about it, but of course claiming to have made something like this was on a different level than asking after a friend. Maybe I should use Dad and Remous as cover; Remous had helped out with the metal parts, and Dad with the wood. "Well, maybe that's another reason for the poor quality. But yes, I did make this myself, mostly. I had a bit of help from my dad and a friend."

"Automatic music... No, I can't say I've ever seen anything like that. Serious music is more of an elven thing, and I can't see them liking the idea of trapping it in a box. We don't have many people here who bother buying music skills, but we do get the odd entertainer or travelling bard playing in a tavern. They aren't particularly popular though, which means you'd probably not find a market among the general population in Dawnhold. You'd be better off trying to make the case extravagant and selling it as a novelty item to the richer citizens than focusing on the actual musical function."

Bah. That was a pity. I was hoping I'd be on to something here. But once again, people's obsession with skills reared its head. You could learn an instrument without a skill, and what sort of extra effect could a skill have here? Invoking more emotion in people that heard your music? Making good sounding music even if the instrument was completely out of tune? For that matter, could someone with the [Musician] skill make a better music box? What about the person operating it? Could someone with a rank four or five music skill take this crude box of mine and extract from it the harmonies of a full orchestra? While there were possibilities, they just sounded like excuses to me. Maybe people were brainwashed to not try to do anything without using official skills?

Eric seemed to see my disappointment and interrupted my line of thought. "I take it you wouldn't be able to produce something appropriate for that yourself then. I can give you an introduction to a smith if you want."

"No thanks, I already know one. The person who taught me in the first place. I'll see what he can make."

So I couldn't learn runecrafting till the summer, and I needed some help from Remous to produce a saleable music box. Today was turning into a bit of a bust. At least I'd managed to get my maps.

I was really struggling to think of what I could do with my Earth knowledge. Food? There were cooking skills that made it all moot. Farming knowledge? Replaced by earth magic and farming skills. Modern medicine? Life magic or potions. Electricity? Perhaps I could make a generator, but what would I do with it? Light crystals were better than a bulb for lighting. It wasn't as if I could build a computer or TV. I could maybe build a radio, but I doubted that would be any more popular than a music box. Sewers and water pipes were replaced by more magic crystals.

Transportation was perhaps one area where people could use some improvement; there were teleportation spells and portals, but they weren't available to the general population. Unfortunately, I couldn't build a car or a plane. Perhaps I could throw together some suspension for carts, but for all I knew a comfort enchantment could be used on a carriage to give it a perfectly smooth ride, and our village simply couldn't afford it. How about a bike? Yeah, I could see that being useful; not too complicated, and wouldn't be completely unaffordable for the general populace. I wasn't sure how to handle tires, though; it would have to be suitable for use off-road given the lack of roads. Still, it was worth filing away as an idea for my next project once I was done with a music box.

The problem was that this System and its skills were too convenient. Nothing that was low tech enough for me to introduce easily could match what the natives could do for the cost of a couple of soul points. Now I wanted to find out how sugar got made from our sugar beet, or how wheat got ground down in large quantities. For the small quantities we used in our village, a hand mill was sufficient. Did bigger places have windmills or waterwheels, or was there magic for that too? Maybe they just got someone with a high strength stat to punch it for a bit. It just makes any sort of low-tech knowledge useless. Maybe if I got my intelligence stat high enough, I could build a computer.

I waved my goodbyes to Eric with a promise to be back in a couple of weeks' time and went to visit the town's school. It was a small single story building, mainly taken up by a single room that was obviously used to hold classes. Unfortunately, it lacked a reception, and I didn't want to just walk in in the middle of a class, so I had no idea how to go about making inquiries there. Equally unfortunately, the teacher running whichever class was currently going on saw me looking in through the window. At less than eight years old, standing outside the school building and looking in did not appear to be the position the teacher felt I should be in, and I found myself being dragged inside without so much as a chance to explain myself.

I'd been thinking about hanging around until the class finished anyway, and waiting inside was more comfortable than standing around outside, so I decided to go with the flow. It would also be interesting to see what the town kids were actually learning here. I found myself subjected to an hour of basic maths, and between my Earth knowledge and Kari's tuition, there was nothing even close to new.

Lesson over, the [Teacher] came over to speak to me, [Appraisal] informing me her name was Bethany and that teacher was her actual class as well as occupation.

"I haven't seen you around before. Are you a new arrival in Dawnhold? Don't worry, we'll have you up to speed in no time."

Yeah, not so worried about that... "Actually, I just stopped by to find out about the runecrafting class in the summer."

"That won't do at all. Children should be in school. If you're going to be staying in Dawnhold, I'm going to see to it that you get educated. Where are your parents?"

"Back in my village. Where I'll be returning to shortly."

Bethany frowned. "Then for as long as you are here..."

I interrupted by walking up to her blackboard and writing in all the answers to the questions she had set for homework. "I appreciate the enthusiasm, but I've already had an education."

She blinked at the board. "So you've learnt simple sums. There's still long multiplication and division, geometry, plenty more."

Maths was actually a thing that I remembered from Earth fairly well. It had always been a strong point while I was in school. It just wasn't the sort of thing I could build something out of to sell. "I can do all that. I can even remember (calculus), mostly."

"What's (calculus)?"

Oh heck. That was invented pretty recently on Earth, wasn't it? Seventeenth century or thereabouts. They probably didn't have it here... Should I explain? Sure, why not? I'd already wandered into the town's dungeon on my own, for goodness' sake. Any attempts at pretending to be normal had long since been a lost cause. I started explaining the concepts of differentiation and integration, while Bethany's eyes opened wider and wider, up until the point they threatened to pop out of her head entirely.

"Just... How? Who are you?"

"Just someone who happens to be slightly good at maths. Now if that's enough to convince you my education is handled already, please can you explain how the summer classes work?"

"What? But that's... Fine. But please tell me where you learnt this (calculus)."

Hmm, that was going to be hard... "Not anywhere in Dawnhold, I'm afraid."

"Pity. Let me grab the list of summer classes. They're normally targeted at people older than you, and they cost three small silver each to enrol, but it doesn't look like that worries you?"

"Nope, I'd already been warned about the cost." I looked over the list of classes. There were mage and fighter basics, as well as classes for most of the crafting types I'd seen; smithing, carpentry, tailoring, farming, even dismantling. Cooking was missing, as were hunting or foraging. So was music. I did see alchemy on there, which was interesting. Might as well try to pick that one up, too.

Fortunately, they didn't want the whole cost upfront, just a deposit to buy the required materials for the students, but even that was stretching my finances. The rest of my week would have to be spent in the dungeon.