Dreamland

“Stop staring into her eyes” - idiot, but she did not say that. She didn't want to insult him.

Geral raised his head.

“Sorry. I have never seen such purple eyes. I've seen you two a couple of times before, but I did not realize her eyes were purple.”

Noviel sighed. Now that Awa and Anabella had gone to the outhouse, she could talk to him. He had spent the whole evening staring into Awa's eyes. That nerved her. Should she tell him that he had no chance in hell with her? What did he hope? True, Awa's eyes have turned purple as if the red would have mixed with the blue. Maybe it was just that.

“Maybe because she wore a mask before?”

“Oh, true. Was that the reason why she wore a mask? Stunning eyes. The colour seems to move inside them. Have you noticed that too?”

Noviel rolled her eyes. No, she had not noticed that; she did not stare into Awa's eyes.

Was she angry that the sole man in their group had eyes only for Awa? She tried to be honest with herself.

“You'll scare her if you'll constantly look into her eyes.”

“Oh. Sorry, I did not mean that. So, what about that quest? Have you thought about us working together?”

“Yes. I talked with the girls, and they agreed. We want to do it together!”

“The four of us? But that would mean to divide the reward by four?”

Noviel gave him a mischievous grin:

“Are those eyes no longer so beautiful?”

Geral threw her a hurt glance.

“I understand Awa is a mage. You know we could be thrown out of town if the guards find that out? What can that other girl do? Anabella? Is she a mage too? She doesn't seem to be the fighter type either.”

“She is a heal.”

Geral huffed:

“A heal? Would we need one?”

Noviel sighed. How could he ask that stupid question?

“Probably. Comes cheaper than using potions.”

Geral looked alarmed around and whispered:

“OK, OK, you are right. Don't talk loud about using potions. Everybody does that, but nobody speaks about it; somebody may hear us. My bad, actually a heal is good; she would help us close the quest faster and with fewer problems. Is she a priest or a druid? Druids are not appreciated here, but priests are accepted. If so, to what heal order does she belong?”

Noviel whispered back:

“None of your... OK, not from any in the country. She belongs to a secret exotic order.”

Gerald huffed again, unhappy.

“That may also be a problem...”

Noviel shrugged.

“A mage is as much of a problem or more, isn't it?”

Geral sighed at his turn.

“Indeed. Is she also as low level as Awa is?”

“No, she is as high as us.”

Geral answered, satisfied: “Yeah, I had that sensation, but I wanted to be sure. That is good! She might even do some damage.”

Noviel watched him slantwise. “You did not identify her?”

Geral took his beer and sipped from it.

“Warrior's identify is not as precise as yours. You are a rogue archer, isn't it? I did not know your identification skill was so good. Our identify upgrades at higher levels but still with some limitations.”

“Why don't you take a better skill that would give you more info?”

“You mean the identify skill from other classes, or do you talk about spells?”

Noviel nodded.

"Skill from other classes. Are there spells too?"

He watched her, alarmed.

“Oh, no, taking skills from other classes is a no go!”

“Why?”

Geral took a deep breath. Noviel watched him: Is this so complicated?

“You know the legends that explain where the skill scrolls come from?”

Noviel shook her head.

“No.”

“Oh. That explains! The legend says that Hermantes, the greatest king that ruled over Spartonia, a kingdom that occupied much of the lands that now belong to the Golden Empire...”

Noviel rolled her eyes.

“You don't have to start from the beginning!”

“But yes, start from the beginning!”

A happy Awa had just leaned over Noviel as she came back to the table whilst Anabella was going around the table to her place. Geral filled his lungs with air, looking at her lovely twitching ears with a grin.

“OK" - he looked at Noviel - "I'll be short. Hermantes was anxious not to lose his best warriors. His kingdom was fighting a bloody war with a troll nation that was at the time ruling over parts of the continent. And then it happened, in the fight for the capital, his best warrior, Avramethides, was about to die. He had been turned into stone by a gorgone. Some people said that he was already dead, others that he was still living inside the stone statue. He had sacrificed himself and managed to severely wound the gorgone who died in the fight, but he was also as good as dead. There was no known cure for his predicament.

It is then that the archmage Touramus proposed to the king to extract Avramethides soul and all his knowledge from the stone statue and place it in a different body. The mage was doing secret tests to remove and transfer souls from one person to another and hoped that he could buy the king's support for his mad experiments. He was known under the name of the mad mage. Even today, his tower exists on the other side of the Golden Empire and is known as the mad mage's tower. It is supposed to have many secrets, but very few people who go inside that building come out alive.

Well, he tried, but something did not work. He did extract what he thought was Avramethides soul into a crystal. He received several 'test subjects' from the king, but when he tried to transfer the soul from the crystal to their bodies, it did not work. He tried to transfer it to a dead body, but that did nothing. He was able to do magic backups of the crystal.

The results of his experiments were that some people learned skills. Always the same skill for most, a couple of more evolved skills too for the other. Avramethides' skills.

With the time, it became clear that what he had done was to extract the skills that Avramethides had. He worked with several other mages from the kingdom's academy, and they managed to separate all skills and find out that there was a magical level needed to learn a skill.

After he learned that, the king wanted to have all his warriors trained with Avramethides skills. Even now, one line of warrior's skills is named Avramethides' line. This is what it is called. It does not make the legend true, but it is like this.

They had found a way to teach people some skills, but the respective person had to level to veteran themselves to be able to learn the skills. The higher the veteran level, the more and better skills they could learn.

Other sets of skills were produced in this way. Warlock's skills, archer skills, mage's skills. But all these skills come from different people. So when you mix a skill from Avramethides with a skill from a mage, that may conflict. Many idiots had tried that, and the results were again and again bad."

Anabella chuckled but did not say anything. Noviel rolled her eyes. Geral continued, unaware that he had just made Noviel an idiot:

"Since the mad mage died, nobody else was able to extract skills. The legend says that he died extracting his skills as he tried to transfer his own soul to a younger body.

All existing skills are just copies of those skills he extracted from the best of each class during his lifetime.

If we had better magic control, probably we wouldn't need any skills; we could do everything directly through magic. However, with our limited magic control, we need to repeat a movement and try to add the magic effect to it, and sometimes we succeed in learning it as a skill. Your body and the magic inside it achieve that higher level of coordination and control. It is how most spawns acquire skills; however, that is slow, and you get many skill variations.

The skill is this magic construct based on cells, muscles, nerves and magic itself. What he extracted was not the soul but this magic construct. If you have the needed requirement, your body can learn the skills. It is much easier to do it from scrolls, but if you mix skills from different lines, that would mean you combine magic constructs from different people, and then you put contradictory information to your cells, nerves and muscles that may screw you.”

Awa grinned and looked into his eyes:

“You are not from this world!”

Anabella put a hand over her face. This was Awa's conclusion from what she'd heard? But it was an exciting conclusion.

There was a moment of silence, and then Geral looked worried around:

“Don't say that aloud. Why do you say something like this?”

Awa continued to grin:

“Tell me, is it true?”

Geral sighed and shrugged.

“People are very nervous about demons that infiltrate us. I am no demon. I do not want to destroy this world!”

Noviel was observing him carefully. She whispered:

“I know that, but be honest to us if we want to work together.”

Geral smiled:

“To kill some wolves, you want to know everything about me?” - he sighed again - “well, even if you have some truth spell, I cannot tell you more. It is true that I sometimes dream of a different world. I don't know where those dreams come from. A strange world. Does this make me a demon?”

His hands were on the table, but he was ready to jump and fight. Anabella tried to calm everybody. She put her gloved hand over his.

“No, this does not. Everybody has his little secrets. As long as you do not try to harm us, we have no problem with your dreams.”

She ended that with a grin. Noviel looked slantwise at him:

“You do have a card to use the adventurer's guild shop, isn't it?”

He confirmed surprised by the sudden turn around in the conversation:

“Yes?”

“I observed that all suspect people have that. How did you get that? They did not let me in! Do they have scrolls there too?”

He smiled, surprised.

“They do not let you in?”

“Yes. They say you get in only with a card. How did you get it?”

He watched her, confused. He shrugged.

“Ahm? I simply asked for it. The receptionists make one for you if you ask.”

An unbelieving Noviel looked at him:

“You simply asked?”

The three girls looked at each other. They did not ask. He added:

“Yes, they do have scrolls there” - he then turned to Awa - “How did you know that?” - he then tried to reformulate his question - “Why did you say that about… another world?”

Awa shrugged:

“It was the way you spoke, the things you know. The way you explained those skills. I recognized the way Spartacius spoke.”

“Spartacius?”

Noviel rolled her eyes but then added:

“We are investigating him and his mother." - she then turned towards Awa - "I spoke today with a little city spy named Mertan who had seen them. He told me that it was Spartacius' mother Cala who destroyed the market in a fight with a crazy, renegade mage, Grackak. He had also seen how she murdered four very high-level fighters who attacked her in the woods. He blabbered something about her being in cahoots with that beast, the lynx.”

“You speak about Cala the assassin? That's her job, killing high levels. Did she take it up to Grackak? Respect! People say that you should flee when you see him, he is crazy, and nothing can stop him. So Cala did it?” - he huffed - "They are still working to fix the marketplace!"

“Cala the assassin?” Awa and Noviel looked at each other

“I don't think players can have children here... but who knows?”

“Players? Are you a player? Why do you say that?”

“Psst... I don't know. Believe me. I do not know, but I heard about her. She is very high level. I know they call themselves... we call ourselves players. I don't know why.”

“Is this a surname? The assassin?”

“No. It is her class. I do not doubt she could kill four high-level. She could kill us four with her right hand bound back. About the lynx, I know the quest is closed; the lynx is no longer here. I do not know if that is possible about her being in cahoots with him. Some people said that she made it her mount. That can be.”

Anabella watched him, surprised:

“The beast that was terrorizing the region? She made it her mount?”

Geral shrugged:

“That's what people say. It fits her random behaviour. People also say that the dragon's attack on the region was caused by her. That may also be true. So what do you want from her?”

Awa and Noviel looked at each other. It was Awa who spoke:

“We are just inquiring on her... and her son.”

“Why do you keep saying her son?”

“Because he called her 'mother'?”

“Oh. OK. That's weird. Maybe she is not a player after all? I don't know. Or it is her son in the other world?”

He shrugged.