Jumping? Fog, I’ll take it!

  It may not have been the Skill Rylan had been trying to get, but it would definitely be useful. He could already imagine himself leaping over a foe and raining down death from above.

  “Yes please!” he said out loud.

  Tamina ignored him, remaining limp on her back next to him on their somewhat precarious perch over the raging water.

  《Initiating Skill conversion.》

  “Nice work, Ryles!” Soren called over, right as Quintessence came flying over from up above. “Wait—did one of you just get a Skill?!”

  That finally got Tamina’s attention, though she merely rolled her head over to look at Rylan. “What... what did you get?”

  Rylan kept his eyes closed a moment longer, savouring the moment the small hub of power settled into his chest.

  《Skill conversion successful. 100 Quintessence Credits have been added to your balance. Awarded 2 Free Attribute Points.》

  That’s right, I get Attributes too!

  Though the extra Credits were nice, the Attribute Points were the real prize. But he wasn’t going to take any chances with distributing those; he’d talk to Soren and Tamina about them later.

  “I got Jumping,” he finally replied.

  “What was that?” Soren called over. “I can’t hear you!”

  “He got Jumping!” Tamina shouted back.

  “Oh, awesome!”

  “Thanks, by the way,” Tamina said at a normal volume. “For the save.”

  “You’re welcome,” Rylan said, sitting up and looking out over the churning water. “Though to be honest, I’m not even sure what I saved you from. This water... it can’t all just be from the rain, can it?”

  Tamina sat up as well, with a sigh. “Actually, I think it probably is. Lots of little drops that flowed down towards the lowest point, gathered up in one big stream... Which means you were probably right about this being a ravine. Would also explain the smooth clay, if this happens every time it rains.”

  Rylan hummed, glancing up. Some drops were still falling down on them, but they were becoming less and less frequent. “I guess we’ll find out soon enough. If you’re right, the water should go down pretty quick now. Then we can look for the opposite wall, hopefully find a way up.”

  “Or at least a dry place to sleep,” she replied.

  Rylan snorted. They hadn’t been dry in weeks.

  She rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean.”

  “A place high enough that we won’t be washed away would be nice, yeah. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a new Skill to check out.” Taking the wave of her hand as permission, he continued. “Ethereon, please show me the Jumping Skill Window.”

  Jumping

  Rank 1

  Effects

  Improved launch velocity

  Assisted landing

  Foot guard

  Attribute requirements

  Strength ≥ 2

  Dexterity ≥ 3

  Endurance ≥ 1

  It seemed like compared to Running, Jumping relied a little less on Endurance, and more on Dexterity. Rylan would not have been surprised if Strength had been emphasized more, but he supposed Ethereon valued technique and proper form more in this case.

  Perhaps that had to do with the way the Skill worked. The ‘Improved launch velocity’ seemed to suggest that the role of Strength was indeed partially adopted by mana.

  The foot guard effect seemed simple enough, but the assisted landing was an interesting one. Down here in the floaty fog, Rylan hadn’t been too worried about landings, but he could see how it might be a necessary component of a Jumping Skill, especially once he started overcharging it.

  There wasn’t much more he could glean from the window without testing the Skill, and this wasn’t the time. So he waved it away.

  He and Tamina sat in amicable silence for a bit, pressed shoulder to shoulder due to the lack of space, Tamina’s cold prosthetic digging into Rylan’s right side.

  “How’s your, ehm, left arm?” he asked, glancing down at it. “I couldn’t help but notice it wasn’t much help just now...”

  She shrugged, lifting her metallic hand and flexing its fingers. “It’s holding up. It’s just hard to get a grip with a hand that can’t feel.”

  “Makes sense.” He hesitated, then decided to press a little. “But you also seem to be using it less.”

  She let out a sigh, her shoulders drooping. “You noticed, huh? Yeah... it’s not moving as smoothly as it used to. It really needs to be fully dismantled and cleaned, but I didn’t bring my tools. I’ll just have to make do until we make it out of here; the Talons will replace it entirely if necessary.”

  “How’d you wind up working for them, anyway?”

  She glanced over at him, seeming a little bemused. “Isn’t it obvious? I became a Quinthar, and they came to scout me.”

  “No, I get that part,” Rylan hastily said, even though he hadn’t really thought it through to that extent. “What I meant was: why not get a job in a free city? I mean, I’m sure the Talons made you a good offer, but... a Contract? Wouldn’t you rather be able to go and do as you pleased?”

  “Sure,” she replied, turning back to stare into the fog with a wry smile. “But we had debts too. I couldn’t risk striking out on my own, because if I’d died hunting some Malequint, my mother and little brother would’ve been left to fend for themselves. And if I was going to work for someone anyway, why not the ones who offered the best benefits? Who could pay off our debts immediately, and guarantee that my family would be provided for if anything happened to me?”

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Rylan frowned. “So you did it all for them... Aren’t you worried that, if you continue providing for your family, they’re just going to keep leaning on you?”

  She looked back over, her eyes locking onto his for a long moment, her gaze intense, before she spoke. “You really have no idea how privileged you grew up, do you?”

  Rylan immediately bristled, feeling his hackles rise. “What? I—”

  “Don’t get me wrong,” Tamina continued, holding up a hand to forestall his argument. “The stuff with the anklet and the debt sounded bad, I’m not arguing it didn’t. But from what I gathered, you also had a private bedroom with central heating, and three meals a day, correct?”

  “I mean, yeah...”

  “Plus clothing, hot baths, access to medical care should you need it...”

  “What’s your point?”

  “Well, where I grew up, many families lived in run-down shacks and struggled to put food on the table,” Tamina said. “My mother worked as a seamstress back then, and while she always came home with a smile, there were usually bloody bandages on her fingers. Even then, when there wasn’t enough food to go around, she would always eat last, claiming she wasn’t hungry, like I couldn’t see her cheeks grow hollow in the colder seasons.”

  Rylan stared at her profile with wide eyes. He’d gone hungry in the cooler once or twice, but he’d never had to bleed for food. Honestly, he’d considered going on a hunger strike once to avoid his chores...

  He shifted uncomfortably as Tamina continued.

  “So no, I’m not worried about them leaning on me. I’d sooner give up my other arm than abandon her. Or my little brother, for that matter. You know, you seem to be under the impression that you’ll be happier leaving everyone you know and love behind, but I suspect you may be sorely disappointed if you ever fully succeed.”

  She turned away from him then, leaving him to process her words. He didn’t get much of a chance to, however, as an unfamiliar sound interrupted the monotony of the water’s roar. A drumming; not the kind produced by the rain—which had by now fully let up—but deeper and more rhythmic somehow. Moreover, it was steadily growing closer.

  “Look!” Soren cried suddenly, pointing at something from his distant perch.

  Rylan turned his head and squinted into the fog, before his eyes widened at the sight in front of them.

  He’d seen and even petted kelpies before, as caravans that travelled the cloudsea on foot tended to use the blue quadrupeds as beasts of burden, but the experience had not prepared him for the sight of a wild herd galloping majestically through the stream, their dark-blue scales gleaming and their lighter-blue manes and tails streaming after them in the floaty fog.

  “Wow,” he whispered under his breath, glancing over at Soren. The young noble absolutely loved kelpies, and even used to joke that his blue hair came from distant kelpie-ancestry. That had ended very abruptly after his father had overheard him saying that once. Soren hadn’t been able to sit for a week.

  Suddenly Rylan heard a rather shrill, panicked whinny, followed by a gasp from Tamina. Following her gaze, he spotted a kelpie foal, desperately trying to stay afloat in the churning water.

  The herd was chasing it through the shallows, unwilling to brave the faster rapids near them. Unfortunately, the foal wasn’t floating by close enough to their perch for them to do anything about it.

  The sound of snarling from the other side of the stream caused Rylan to whip his head around. There, he spotted a pack of armadons also chasing after the little foal. These were thankfully regular-sized—about as large as the mistsheep back at Thistlebloom—and none of them appeared to be Malequints. However, there were still seven of them, and they were, unfortunately, able to get much closer to the foal than its herd.

  “Poor thing,” Tamina muttered, rising to her feet on their precarious perch, her hands clenching and unclenching. “I wish we could help it...”

  “I don’t really see how,” Rylan replied as he similarly got up, fingering a knife. “Although... is it just me, or is the water level dropping?”

  As they watched, the flow of water indeed seemed to be lessening, until the foal was actually able to get its legs under it a little. Unfortunately it had flushed further downstream, away from Rylan and Tamina, and was still separated from its herd by the deepest part of the stream.

  But not from the pack of armadons.

  Rylan’s heart sank as the ugly, armour-plated beasts started to rush over. As they were about to descend upon the poor little creature, Tamina turned her head away. However, before the armadons could reach it, Soren burst forth with an angry cry.

  The young noble twirled through the air with his weapon drawn and landed right on top of the lead armadon, his glowing rapier boring deeply into its skull.

  The armadon crumpled into the shallow flowing water, but there were still a bunch more. Most of them jumped back, baring their teeth, but at least one managed to circle around Soren and made for the foal.

  Rylan stopped hesitating and activated his new Skill. Mana rapidly flowed down to both of his feet, and entered the soles of his shoes. It wasn’t a lot of mana—only about 0.1 points of it, as far as he could tell—but in the floaty fog, he didn’t need a lot.

  He leapt and the Skill pushed, propelling him upward and forward, using only half the mana it had taken with surprising efficiency. His jump still wasn’t quite going to carry him to the foal, but it got him far enough. As he sailed through the air, he drew his hefty cleaver and started to charge it with mana. Within moments, his feet splashed down into the water, where his Jumping Skill discharged the second half of its stored mana to make his touchdown on the solid clay fully pain-free. Then he threw.

  The intimidating blade performed a full rotation and, with a meaty thud and the crack of bone, bored into the side of the armadon that had slipped past his friend. The creature collapsed and did not get up.

  A splash behind him told him that Tamina was making her way over as well. Glancing back, he saw that while she’d landed in slightly deeper, faster-flowing water, the glow coming from her feet was keeping her well-anchored as she waded forward with grim determination.

  “Eyes ahead!” she barked.

  He spun only to see that another armadon had made it past Soren. Gritting his teeth, he drew his prep knife.

  It wasn’t until the third armadon fell that the final four armadons at last gave up. Soren had taken some bites and scratches for his trouble, but his Mana Shell had fended off nearly all of it.

  The foal had seemed to quickly understand they were protecting it, and huddled behind Tamina on shaking legs. Once the last armadon disappeared into the fog, she put away her shield and turned around towards it.

  The kelpie foal looked up at her with big blue eyes, its short cerulean mane floating and flowing in the breeze, and let out a plaintive whinny.

  “Shh, you’re all right, girl,” Tamina cooed as she slowly reached out her hand. “That’s it...”

  The foal took a tentative step forward and sniffed the offered appendage. Its pointy, scaly nose clearly tickled Tamina’s palm, as she let out an unexpected burst of laughter, her arm twitching. The sound surprised Rylan so much that he almost cut himself on the knife he was pulling out of a dead armadon.

  The foal allowed her to pet it, then actually stepped forward to rub its neck against her waist, and she knelt down to hug it with a huge smile on her face.

  “Aww,” Soren spoke from right beside Rylan, startling him out of his reverie. “Isn’t she just the cutest thing?”

  “Yeah,” Rylan replied, his voice coming out a little strangled. “She really is.”

  Soren gave him a curious glance, but before he could comment, the herd finally crossed the weakened flow of water.

  Rylan tensed up as over a dozen full-grown kelpies came trotting over. It didn’t ease his mind either when the stallion leading them pranced up to Tamina, blowing out its lips on an exhale in a way that showed off its sharp canines.

  The stoic Quinthar didn’t let herself be intimidated, however. She calmly stood, releasing the foal, and stared the stallion down as the young kelpie happily darted over to one of the mares.

  Finally, the stallion snorted and bowed his head to her, allowing her to gently pet it.

  Another kelpie—a young mare—came up to Rylan and Soren, curiously sniffing at them. As Soren patted her neck and cooed at her, Rylan carefully reached out to rub her scaly snout for a moment, the way he’d learned from the caravaneers.

  Her dark-blue nose was hard and wet, but warm.

  Something moved overhead, and the kelpies grew restless. The stallion took off again, and the herd followed, galloping back upstream, away from where the remaining armadons had gone.

  “You think we should go after them?” Soren asked eagerly. “If we tame a couple of kelpies, that could make our journey a lot quicker!”

  Tamina shook her head with a sigh. “Properly taming a kelpie would take weeks. Besides, we’re getting close to the signal, right?”

  Rylan met her questioning look and nodded. “I think so. Can’t really tell right now, I’m afraid.”

  “Let’s just get out of this deathtrap then,” she said, “and go find some shelter. I’m getting hungry.”

  Rylan held out his hand to Soren, who mournfully stared after the kelpies for a moment longer, then handed over the backpack and started rolling his shoulders.

  “You know,” the young noble said as they started walking. “Where there are kelpies, there’s usually a kelp forest somewhere nearby. I’ve never seen one before, but they’re supposed to be quite beautiful.”

  “We’re not here to sight-see, Soren,” Tamina replied.

  “Stop crushing my dreams!”

  Rylan tuned them out as he glanced back at the trail of hoofprints that led into the fog, thinking of Tamina’s story and the little foal they’d saved.

  Despite his convictions, he couldn’t help but wonder: if he’d been in her shoes, and the Talons had offered him a Contract... Would he have chosen any differently?

  really likes kelpies. But then, who wouldn't? ^^

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