An Unbound Soul

The next morning, I stopped off at reception on my way to breakfast, accompanied by a much more cheerful Cluma. She wasn't back to her usual hyperactive self yet, but it was a start. Ella was no longer manning the desk, but there was a new shift on duty. "Good morning. We were wondering if Cluma here could register for the tournament? Rank one singles."

"A bit young, isn't she? Not that there's any point saying that to you, of all people. Does she have combat experience?"

"I think I've won one duel against her out of... how many?"

"Two hundred and thirty-eight," Cluma answered promptly, because of course she had been counting...

"That was before I started dungeon delving," I added in response to the receptionist's disbelieving look. "I suspect things would be different if we tried again now, but yes, she has experience. Level eight apprentice fighter, with dagger and bow proficiencies and a few artes."

"Hey, how do you know that?!" exclaimed Cluma. "I never told you about the bow."

"Sorry, I took a look at your status with [Analysis]. Do you mind? There's a [Privacy] skill you can pick up if you want to hide it."

"You... You saw my traits?" Cluma asked, ears flattening again.

"No, my skill wasn't high enough level to see any of them. Anyway, I doubt yours are worse than mine."

"It's... never mind. It's fine if you didn't see."

Strange... I took another look at Cluma and found that she now did indeed have [Privacy] at level one. Whatever did she want to hide from me?

"There's no official age limit, and the rank one competition is supposed to be for, well, rank ones... So I suppose that's okay. Cluma, was it?"

The receptionist wrote down her name and confirmed the rules were the same as for my grouping before we headed to the bar for breakfast. I wasn't convinced Cluma had been eating properly recently, given that she looked a little thinner than I remembered, but she seemed determined to make up for it all now; she wolfed down thrice as much as I did. She also attracted lots of attention from the delvers, who despite being used to me, weren't expecting to see another kid of my age here, and each time she finished a plate, they burst into cheers. Hopefully we didn't just accidentally start eating competitions... One type of tournament was enough.

Following that was the guild shop, where Adele bustled over immediately. "I thought you weren't going to be back for weeks," she needled. "How can I help you today?"

"It's not me today, it's this lovely young lady," I said, presenting Cluma.

"Oi! How are you introducing me?!" she exclaimed, blushing.

"With the truth, obviously," I answered, getting my revenge for yesterday's princess trap.

"So, what are you after?" Adele asked again, confused as to what was going on.

"She'll be entering the tournament with me, and needs her own armour set. Light armour, with the normal comfort and durability, and best to ask her for the third one. Can you do stealth or agility effects?"

"Oh my! Seriously? I get to make an outfit for that little cutie too? You've already made my day, and it's not even lunchtime."

Adele whipped out her tape measure and started poking around Cluma. "There's a silence effect that our enchanter can do. There's no such thing as invisibility, and the only agility effect I know of would be a dexterity boost, which is an accessory enchantment."

"Silence? It makes me quiet?" asked Cluma, curiously.

"With a silence enchantment, your footsteps won't make any noise, nor will your armour rustle as you move. It'll mask your breathing, as long as you're quiet, but it won't stop you talking."

"That sounds fun! Surprise hugs... are the best hugs..." Cluma said, starting excitedly but trailing off towards the end, as her ears flattened once again.

"Silence then," I stated definitively. I still wasn't sure what was up with Cluma, aside from the obvious of her enslaved parents, but apparently it involved hugging somehow? Had she been deprived of them in the Emerald Nest?

Her armour set cost a little more than mine, due to the extra tail guard that it required, but was still well within budget; I may not have been working the past season, but I hadn't been spending anything either. Plus, the institute probably owed me money by now. I should have checked that at some point...

Now that Cluma had an order too, it would be worthwhile to pick it up as soon as it was ready, so that she could experience sparring in it before the tournament started. Let's hope she could get the hang of [Weft Walk], or it would take a lot of walking.

Everything in Dawnhold taken care of, it was time to return to the village. Outside the town, and out of sight of anyone who might be watching, I spun up [Weft Walk] around us both.

"Be careful," I advised. "Remember when I first learnt [Far Step], and kept falling over every time I used it? This is worse."

"I remember. You were funny," said Cluma, with a small smile, before taking a step forward and face-planting straight into the earth.

I didn't know quite what I was expecting, but somehow I'd imagined her managing it perfectly first time. She'd always been the agile, fast one. Even now, her base dexterity was higher than mine, but her next few attempts didn't go any better either.

"This is hard!" she exclaimed happily, for some reason enjoying the experience.

"Here, see if this helps," I said, casting [Dexterity] on her.

"Oh, I'm faster!" she said excitedly, jumping back to her feet, the act of which caused [Weft Walk] to do its thing again, which once more sent her sprawling.

"Careful. Keep your feet on the floor when standing," I advised, watching her climb back up more carefully.

This time, she managed to take a couple of steps before falling over, so the extra points in dexterity seemed to help. It took another twenty minutes of practice and another cast of [Dexterity] before she could walk fluently, after which a very brief attempt at jogging was enough to tell us that was never going to happen today. By the time we'd walked home, she could walk without the aid of [Dexterity], so maybe we'd make another attempt at jogging next time.

ding

Skill [Weft Walk] advanced to level 4

A small part of me wondered if bringing Cluma along contributed to levelling, but the bulk of me was wondering how to introduce Cluma to my parents. I'd basically just signed that they would foster her for three years without even asking them, and while I was certain they would have agreed, it still would have been polite to ask first.

I hesitated briefly outside the front door, but waiting wasn't going to help, so I pushed it open and stepped in. "Mum?" I called.

"Peter? Welcome ba..." started Mum before freezing up, causing Darren to look up from her lap in confusion. A gentle clatter accompanied her dropping her needles. It had taken me more than eight years to manage that feat, while Cluma had managed it just by stepping into the doorway. Apparently, in some ways, she still exceeded me.

"Hello Auntie Lucy," greeted Cluma politely.

"Cluma? How?" Mum started in confusion, before catching my expression. "I think you had better explain," she stated flatly.

I told the story. All of it, including how I was responsible for the anti-dungeon movement, and how I thought I could have done more to search for them. Mum was already well aware of Camus having cut off all contact, but, like me, not what had happened since. Story over, Mum stood up, handed me Darren without a word, then pulled Cluma into a hug. "Of course you're welcome to stay with us," she said.

"And as for you," she continued to me, retrieving Darren, "it's not your fault. You haven't done anything wrong."

"Something can be caused by me without doing anything wrong," I said, expressing my current thoughts on philosophy. "But I don't blame myself."

"Good. I'll tell your dad once he gets home, so take Cluma outside and say hello to her old friends. You know how much they've been missing her."

Me and Cluma dropped off the luggage we had that hadn't fit in my [Item Box] and went back outside. As expected on a sunny summer's day, the other children of the village were out playing, and they didn't take long to spot us. Sadly, some of the younger children didn't recognise Cluma, but they were in the minority. A half-dozen children quickly gathered around her.

"Cluma, you came back!"

"Yay, welcome back!"

"Are you staying long?"

Cluma stood there looking uncertain, so I decided to take matters into my own hands. "Last person to give her welcome back hugs loses!" I called, causing everyone to pile onto her.

"What?" she exclaimed in surprise, smiling briefly before her expression turned into a big frown. "No, I'm a big girl. I'm not... supposed to..."

What was that? If Camus told her to stop randomly hugging people, I was going to stab him in the face, never mind the punches I already owe him. That was a defining feature of her personality! "You're not supposed to what?" I asked, joining the pile. I didn't want to lose my own game, after all.

"Holly is the loser!" someone shouted.

"Am not! Joseph was slower than me!" she shouted back.

I heard a burst of wind, followed by the crackle of sparks. It sounded like the two mage twins had resorted to their usual method of resolving victors, and I could see Cluma trying to stifle her own laughter. She managed it for all of two seconds before giving up, laughing freely, running around and hugging everyone back in turn.

She ran up to me last. "Thank you," she said quietly, while squeezing me. The pair of us joined in the games, which were a lot less chaotic these days with the children's increased mental stats. It took Cluma a little while to get going, but an hour in I could have believed she'd never left.

When Dad returned from the fields, I let Mum repeat the explanation, to which his first response was, "You've warned her that I snore, right?"

I hadn't, and neither had I considered that there would now be five of us crammed into the bedroom. I wondered if my carpentry skill was high enough to build an extension? Speaking of which, with the shack being as small as it was, I was used to having no privacy from my parents, but that didn't extend to Cluma. Would we have to always change in the bathroom now? I'd focused on the fact they'd be happy to have her, but hadn't stopped to consider the logistics.

I turned out to be worried about the wrong thing, because Cluma was utterly shameless and had no restraint whatsoever, leaving me to very rapidly learn how to navigate the bedroom with my eyes closed. Apparently, I'd only got away with it the previous night because neither of us had changed... Not that my parents seemed bothered in the slightest, so I guessed this was just another case of me carrying baggage over from Earth. With the Law, it was doubtful that nakedness ended up with any of the connotations I was used to. She was only eight, anyway, and I remember my young cousins back on Earth behaving in the same way... The incongruity of her being my age but me thinking of myself as an adult only added another layer of confusion.

The next day, I decided it was time to get this sorted. "Cluma, can you go ahead without me for a minute?"

"You don't want to play today?"

"I'll be out soon, but I need to speak to Mum first. About that thing the guild receptionist mentioned."

"Pfft," went Cluma, trying and failing to hold in a giggle. "I know something Peter doesn't know!"

I watched her go running out of the door, before turning to Mum. A very interesting, educational and embarrassing half hour followed, in which I carefully cross-checked all my Earth assumptions, more than once accidentally triggering Mum's Law-induced blank, unfocused gaze when I touched on things she literally wasn't allowed to imagine, and my questions got edited straight back out of her memory.

I learnt that cross-species children between any of the sentient races weren't possible, and Mum was rather weirded out by the way I'd even considered it. On the face of it, that alone didn't prevent cross-species relationships, which did happen, and if they wanted children, they had the option of adoption. Orphans were rare, between healing magic and few opportunities for fatal accidents, particularly with delving regulations that discouraged both parents from entering a dungeon at once, but they weren't non-existent. Mum didn't know why no-one took that route, but did point out that I should be glad that they didn't, because if dad had ended up with Clana, I wouldn't have been born. That was a valid point; I did quite appreciate being born. Or reborn, or whatever.

And yes, apparently a couple of weeks around the start of summer really was beastkin heat season, although it apparently wasn't so bad as to rob them of their rationality, so long as they didn't stay cooped up in an enclosed space together. Some sort of pheromone thing, by the sound of it. That did seem to tie in with Cluma's birthdate, and the fact that all beastkin seemed to have their birthdays in the second half of winter.

ding

For your efforts to uncover the secrets of the world, [Researcher] awards 2 soul points.

Seriously? For the sex talk? I hadn't had one of them for ages, and then I get one for the sex talk? It had been a long while since I'd last felt the System was mocking me, but that one certainly qualified.