System Lost: My Own Best Friend

During one of our breaks, Draga takes me into the forest to do some hunting and gathering while Talla does some maintenance on the vehicle. Apparently it's not just the engine that's finicky.

"If you're going to be a ranger, you should know how to live off the land," he says. "You did well to survive in a place as inhospitable as a dungeon, but the outside world can be just as dangerous in its way."

I nod along as he speaks. A bit of wilderness survival training could come in handy in case living in the city doesn't work out. I was a little bit worried when I found out we're surrounded by desert, but the river is pretty consistently flanked by greenery. It varies from actual forest to loose brushland, but there's always something there.

"You're one of the quiet ones today, huh?" Draga observes. "What should I call you?"

"It's Vi," I tell him.

It feels weird to use my own nickname like that, but my name in particular is apparently difficult for Fa'aun to pronounce—not that I've ever heard them attempt "Magdalena."

He does that odd duck-bow that they do with their longer necks—I'd probably hurt myself trying to replicate it, but it seems to be a pretty common gesture for them.

"Vi it is, then. Let's start small and take things slow," he suggests. "I still feel guilty about how much we pushed you back in the dungeon. Things were a bit urgent at the time but...well, it's hard not to imagine how things might have gone differently."

That his teammate might still be alive, he means. I might not have Allie's social graces, but even I can read between those lines. I refrain from comment—not that I know much of the language yet anyway—and wait for him to continue.

"I suppose the most natural place to begin is stingroot," he sighs. "I admit, half the reason we're doing this is because I'm getting sick of stingroot soup and lizard jerky, but it's a quintessential part of survival so I'll show you how to find it."

Draga adjusts the small pack on his shoulder and gestures at an innocuous looking patch of grass.

"Despite how common it is, stingroot is a sneaky plant," he says. "It hides among other grasses and bushes, or in the roots of trees. In the right season, the bright red berries are a giveaway, but you can almost forget about finding those in the wild. Animals love them, and fruiting stingroot doesn't often last more than a day. Villages will scare the local wildlife off so that they can harvest the fruit, but out here you're competing like everything else."

He's really getting into it. Draga's as enthusiastic about wilderness survival as Talla is about observing the sky. Following his lead, I furtively pick through the grass with a walking stick, though I quickly realize I have no idea what I'm actually looking for.

I've only seen the dried roots—which look a bit like ginger—and the berries. The leaves, stem, and other parts of the plant have generally been conspicuously absent from Draga's cooking.

"What...um..." I start to speak in a butchered, broken attempt at Fa'aun and falter on the second word. "Look?" I hedge.

"That's the wrong word order," Allie chimes in. "And you can't just use a rising tone for questions, they have a whole like, word that's basically a spoken question mark."

"Great," I mutter. "Which one was that again?"

With a bit of help from Allison, I eventually manage to say what I hope means something along the lines of "What does it look like?"

"Good," Draga says with a hint of approval. "I was worried for a moment that you were going to find it the rookie way before asking the right question. Well, almost the right question."

He takes a step forward and then kneels down next to me. With a small trowel, he expertly digs out a little patch of grass, which he flicks aside. He then reaches into the dirt and pulls out a familiar-looking scraggly root.

"Once you dig it out, the roots are simple enough to identify," he explains, setting them aside then carefully separating the bits of discarded grass with his shovel. "There are a few ways to find the right spot to dig for it. Number one is something most rookies find out on their first day..."

Draga reaches into the nearly identical looking bits of separated grass and gingerly picks one up. It does not bend or flex whatsoever as he shows it to me. A yellowish green spike that blends in perfectly with its neighbors.

"This is a stingroot thorn," he explains. "Step on one of these—even with hooves—and you're gonna be feeling it for the rest of the week. If you stab yourself on one of these, see Talla right away. It's not bad at first, but it gets worse over time and it keeps getting worse."

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And he was just going to let me figure that out the hard way if I didn't ask the right questions? I think back to the life-saving lessons he gave me when we were fighting the laser gecko nest. He's kind of a trial-by-fire type, isn't he?

"Other ways?" I ask, then belatedly add. "Uh, q-question?"

"No that's not—" Allie sighs. "You had it right the first time."

I blush and Draga chuckles. "You can spot the berries, though that's rare and it's getting late in the season for that, or use a skill if you have it. But the basic method I learned is this..."

He takes his trowel and presses the patch of grass down into the ground with the flat side, then slowly starts to drag it along the ground. Most of the grass either stays flat or slowly springs back up as the shovel passes over it, but when a few spikes instantly bounce back he points them out.

"There—thorns," he says. "You cut those out so that it's safe to dig, and you can get edible roots that way. Stingroot even grows out in the desert, so if you know how to find it, you'll never go hungry—though thirst is a much bigger danger out there."

While he's at it, he also shows me the main body of the plant itself. It looks similar enough to the other long grasses around it, but with a more sturdy, twiggy stem and more of those thin sharp thorns hiding among its leafy blades.

"It's not flowering right now, but when it does the ends will split apart and slowly turn yellow, then red."

"Do eat...?" I try to find the right words then give up and just gesture vaguely at the whole thing.

He furrows his brow for a moment, then seems to get it. "Ah, the grass itself? You can, but it's...ah...not good. Bitter and tough—takes a lot of chewing. Tastes like pain going down...and then again on the way out."

Ah. I grimace, very glad I didn't have to learn that lesson the hard way. Going to the bathroom out here is enough of a trial already, and the less said about that the better. I'm just glad we're close enough to a river that we can wash our hands.

Draga and I spend a few minutes picking through the grass—though it's mostly just him gathering up the roots while I try to refine my amateurish attempts at identifying them without skewering myself on the thorns. It's too bad we don't have [Foraging] anymore—though that gives me an idea.

"Draga," I call over. "Can try...spell?"

"Huh?"

"Sorry," I sigh. "I'm not...word-good."

I hate how stupid I sound when trying to speak their language. Even in our own language I'm not as eloquent as Allison, but in Fa'aun I'm downright moronic. It doesn't help that it includes sounds that I just straight-up cannot make. It hurts my throat. I don't know how Eva or Allie can manage even a simple conversation without going hoarse.

"It's fine," he assures me. "I'm no expert, but I think you're doing well. You want to try a spell?"

He stops to consider it, then shrugs. "I suppose we're in a safe enough spot to try it. Just don't burn down the forest."

Right—that's a valid concern, I guess. I'll try to be careful. So far when I've created spells, it's given me an idea of what they are and how to use them before creating any actual effect, so it should be fine.

I take a step back and close my eyes, conjuring up the images of [Pyrothaumaturgy] and [Foraging] in my mind. As with the other spells I've tried, they feel like puzzle pieces that need to be oriented just right in order to fit together. With a bit of concentration, they click into place, and another new spell is created.

[Faerie Fire]

Conjure a harmless aura of flame that surrounds nearby plants, animals, or tracks designated by the caster.

Draga jumps as purple-blue flames flicker into existence around the nearby stingroot, isolating it from the surrounding grasses. I've got a sense that this will only work if I know what I'm looking for and be specific. I can't, for example, just ask it to highlight the tracks of the nearest edible animal that won't put up much of a fight. Instead, I'd have to single out something like "rabbit tracks" and even then, only if I know what they look like—and I don't.

Still, it's so spot-on that I'm starting to wonder if the [World Engine] takes the circumstances and intent of the caster into account when creating spells like this. Once a combination is formed, it's always the same—but is it predetermined, or dynamically generated based on the situation?

If I'm right, and thaumaturgy spells are purpose-made, it might be better to reserve certain combinations for moments of need rather than comprehensively exploring them. I'll have to ask Talla about it when I get the chance.

"Huh, would you look at that?" Draga says, once he realizes that the fire isn't going to burn down the entire patch. "Talla tried to come up with a spell like that, but as far as I know she never quite figured it out. Said she'd try again when she got her ranger class to three-star."

"It's good?" I ask.

"Very good," he replies with a nod. "What else can you do with it?"

I give him the details via [Message] and he rubs his hands together gleefully.

"Oh, excellent!" he chuckles. "I was ready to teach you that most hunts end in failure, but with a skill like that, I think we can all but guarantee a nicer dinner tonight. Let's finish gathering this patch and then go catch ourselves some real food."

His enthusiasm is infectious, and I return his smile with one of my own. Admittedly, I don't have the greatest track record with hunting. I mean, I guess I'm one for one, having successfully caught and killed the only thing I've ever hunted, but it was a whole ordeal and nearly got us killed in the process.

I'm looking forward to learning how to do things properly from a real pro.

As much as I wish I could convey all of that to him, I have to make do with an enthusiastic nod. "Yes! Let's hunt!"

I'm pretty sure I got the words right that time.