Chapter 17: Sixteen – Ready Check

My backpack was nearly completely packed with everything I thought I should bring. It didn’t amount to all that much. Some provisions, a few tools, and some extras, but not as much survival gear as I would have wanted to have before setting out for a long trek through an unfamiliar forest.

Before anything though, I had some points to assign. Insight and Jumping were both at rank D and had enough experience points--or whatever was used to fill their meters--to rank up. I had a suspicion that skills were not supposed to grow as quickly as mine did. A side effect of using non-combat skills in a fight? Makeshift Weapons Proficiency certainly wasn’t growing quickly.

Oh well. I leaned against the headboard of the bed I had picked for myself, a silver spoonful of honey in my mouth. The sweetness helped calm the grumbles in my tummy. Those weren’t helping me think much.

I had two general skill points, earned from the Dungeon, and three class skill points. The class skill points were uncommon, but came fairly steadily. The general skills points, if they all required blowing up a dungeon, were not nearly as easy to get.

That meant using one on Insight was a big risk. But it might lead to a big reward too. My other options right then were a weapon’s skill and Archeology or any future skill I might or might not obtain.

It was worth it, I thought. Insight was handy already. Having it be better seemed like a good idea.

Getting Jumping to Rank C, on the other hand, was a choice so brain-dead easy that I didn’t even really need to think about it.

Jumping

Rank C - 00%

The Ability to jump. Your reflexes and timing for jumps has increased. You can now jump higher and farther. You may now expend Stamina to increase the power of your jumps.

“Oh, shiny,” I said. So Rank C unlocked a secondary ability yet again. Was this a pattern? Two was too few to know. But three results...

Insight

Rank C - 00%

The Ability to know something. The knowledge you gain is further increased. You may now expend Mana to discover hidden knowledge.

“Oh, now that is beautiful!” I said before rolling off the bed. I rooted around in my backpack while licking at the spoon still in my mouth like a very hard lollipop. Soon, I had a row of objects on the crumpled mattress awaiting inspection.

There was the collar from the Dungeon boss, my hat, the soul ring I had found in the next room over, the magic wand I’d been flinging around, and the tea set from Maddy.

“Insight!” I said as I pointed at the collar and pushed some mana... somewhere. It somehow felt right to pull it towards my head, which was a little strange, but the information I got spoke for itself.

A enchanted Cheshire Cat’s Collar of Rare quality, new. Allows the user to summon a spirit cat once a day.

“A what?” I asked aloud before shaking my head. No, that was for later. A glance at my mana status showed that it was down a good ten points. A fair bit, but not too much. I had noticed my magical cleaning costing less and less over time, so maybe that would decrease with experience.

Next was my hat.

Shelled kettle hat of Uncommon quality, new.

“Well, I like it regardless of its quality. It’s fashionable.” I picked up the hat and plopped it onto my head. Only four points of mana this time. A correlation between magical items and plain ones?

Bronze ring of Cleared Soul of Uncommon quality, old. Protects the wearer’s soul from minor to mild soul manipulations.

I put the ring on in a hurry. “Thank you, mister Ghost,” I said as I felt the ring shift to fit just right on my left middle finger. It was plain, just a rough bronze ring, but a bit of a rub and some cleaning magic and it shone quite prettily.

Vibrating Magic Wand of Cure Hysteria of Common quality, old.

I tilted my head to the side as I examined the foot long magic stick. It was made of old, smooth wood with a gnarl at one end and some runes or glyphs carved into it. Maybe the owner suffered from hysteria? Was it a common sickness around here? Well, I wasn’t going to throw the wand away. I’d try to sell it if I found anyone interested. In the backpack it went.

Enchanted Tea Cup, Uncommon quality, new. Keeps tea warm as long as a small amount of mana is fed into the cup.

Enchanted Tea Kettle, Uncommon quality, new. Will boil water rapidly if mana is fed through the handle.

Tea! I liked tea, and the set looked fairly robust for what they were. I would still wrap both in cloth when I packed them away. This meant that I could boil water anywhere! Very handy. Maybe I could check my herbology book later for some local plants that made good tea.

Smug satisfaction radiating through me, I packed all my stuff away and hiked my backpack onto my shoulders.

I had two more stops for the day, then I would be off for real. The storage room that I couldn’t figure out how to enter, and the second tower to the ‘North’ of the city. I was hoping for a nice view of the surroundings

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I stuck my head out of the inn before exiting because I was a clever girl and remembered my lessons--especially when I nearly lost my head to learn them--then I hiked over to the storage building.

It was as I remembered it. The door was tough, not even shifting when I kicked it. I considered ramming the wall in with a long log or something, but that was just silly. Then I noticed that a few of the roof's tiles had gone missing.

No time like the present to test a new skill!

Stamina was a resource my class seemed to like. I got a bunch every other level up. I didn’t know if that meant something or not, but it seemed important. I would need to find out if a magic class gave heaps of mana and stuff every level to compare.

Licking my lips, I set my backpack down, then tensed the muscles of my thighs and squatted to jump as high as I could. I paused before launching myself into the air as I felt a sort of... question from my own body, a sense of it asking me ‘how much’ that was at once utterly bizarre and somehow completely natural. It was like sitting on my hand for a few minutes then trying to pick my nose.

Or something.

I noticed my stamina dropping to nearly half a bare moment before I took off.

Then I screamed as my leap took me over the lip of the roof and almost sent me flying over the other side of the building. I was lucky, and a foot caught on the very tip of the roof. Then I was unlucky because that arrested my momentum too quickly and I ended up slamming into the roof. I slid down along with a few loose tiles until I crashed unceremoniously on the ground on the opposite side of the building. I barely got my feet under me before going splat.

“That,” I said to the open sky. “Was a bad idea.”

I groaned as I got to my feet and huffed when I saw that I had just shaved half a dozen points off of my health. No injuries, but maybe I’d get a nice bruise for my silliness.

“Nevermind this place. It’s a stupid storeroom anyway,” I muttered as I glared at the building.

My next attempt, because I was apparently unable to give up on something once I started, had me using a whole lot less stamina, just enough to land on the very edge of the roof. After that it was all carefully shifting across the top until I gave up and tore some tiles out to peek within.

Even with the sun at my back there wasn’t much light to see with. Still, I could make out big boxes, shelves covered in dusty knick knacks and some barrels. Nothing really inspiring.

“Dang it, Broccoli,” I said. “Do you really need to sneak into the room just to see what’s in it? You have places to be!”

Despite my own protests against myself, I was soon tearing a hole through the roof and jumping down. It was a good thing I was so skinny or else it would’ve been tricky to squeeze in.

The storage room was a dusty mess that had my Cleaning skill itching to get to work, but I wanted to save the mana and didn’t want dust all over while I snooped. And I found... nothing. Empty crates, barrels that sounded hollow, rotten remains of sacks that had been chewed through by generations of mice.

The door, at least, could be unlocked from the inside. It was the only thing that prevented my pout from being absolutely devastating as I stomped out of the silly storage shack and picked up my backpack with a huff.

Spade in hand, I stomped away, not even closing the door behind me to save the next poor idiot like me the trouble of climbing in. It wasn’t fair. The heroine was supposed to find some hidden treasure while looting the last remaining place, it was just good storytelling.

But then, this world didn’t work on storytelling rules. Or maybe it did and I wasn’t the heroine.

Well, if that was the case I’d find the hero and be their best friend.

I reached the last destination I wanted to explore in good time and slowed down to be sure I wasn’t going to be surprised by a wandering ghost. The final tower seemed smaller than its twin, a little thinner on the sides.

Not that that was a bad thing. Ancient towers were to be enjoyed regardless of size.

The large wooden door at its base creaked open with some prying, revealing a small corridor that led into the walls and a stairwell at the end. A few barrels were sitting around, but some snooping revealed that they only held rotten sticks that might have been torches.

The second floor had a row of jail cells, iron bars completely rusted through. There were glyphs on the walls and floor, but I didn’t want to go poking at the symbols inside a cell in case they were meant to hold a prisoner. Accidentally locking myself up in a tower and waiting for some prince to save me was not my style.

I climbed up another floor to a small room with a few chairs and a table. Maybe a lounge area for the guards on duty? A breakroom? A ladder in the corner led to a trapdoor in the ceiling. I was a little wary of the rungs of the ladder but they held my weight with only a lot of creaking.

The trapdoor required some banging and moving before it finally opened with a squelch, decades of rotting leaves pouring down onto my head and face until I had it completely opened. Cleaning, of course, was the greatest skill and fixed the facefull of rotten leaves with a tiny burst of magic.

I clambered out and stood up. The wind was stronger above everything and without the protection of the town’s walls. Still, it meant I had a beautiful view of the surroundings.

There were forests all around, but I could see the winding line of a river to the south. The forest continued to the south for a long, long way, a sea of undulating green as far as I could see. The north was a whole lot more interesting. The horizon to my right was dark with a large spot where all the trees seemed almost black. It looked very far away though. To the left was a distant series of plateaus over a lake, or maybe a swamp. I made a note to avoid that because it was mosquito season.

Directly in the direction I had dubbed north was a mountain that rose to a flat top as if some giant had smashed it with a hammer. There was a city there. Big enough that I could see it from what must have been half a hundred kilometers away. There were even tiny shapes floating in the sky around it. Airships.

I grinned.

I had a destination now!

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