Chapter 58: Chapter 58 A Crisis of Faith

It was time to tell the Heirs of Earth. And that Nathan was from there, and not from Davrar. He was primarily doing it because he didn’t want Eldred or any of the other Adventurers who opposed Sudraiel - like Simla - to use it to drive a wedge between Nathan and the Heirs. But he had also come to trust them more and more recently, and wanted to share this part of himself.

His perception of the Heirs had come a long way since he’d first met them. His first impression hadn’t been great, but they really were quite a bit more than spoiled teenagers. For one thing, most of them weren’t actually teenagers. For another thing, they were smart, reliable and willing to face down death at his side. They were his comrades, siblings-in-arms, and that wasn’t a bond that Nathan wanted to treat lightly.

So, he launched right into it. “I told you a bit about the United States of America, the place I come from? Well, that place isn’t on Davrar. It’s not some place I can see overhead. There is no Davrar there. No Talents. No classes. No magic. No monsters. No dungeons. We have advanced machines that do amazing things without magic. Taeol dho Droxol, archmage of Giantsrest, kidnapped me to learn about my world. Which we call ‘Earth’.”

The Heirs all walked on in stunned silence for a moment before Stella wryly replied. “I suppose how you know all this math makes sense now. But I can’t imagine a world without magic. It would be… so dark. No lights. No healing.” She shivered.

Nathan grinned. “That’s where you’re wrong. We tamed lightning with the same knowledge I’m working to teach you now. Put it in metal wires, use it to make lights glow. We have doctors, and very advanced knowledge of the body to aid natural healing. I was studying to be a scholar, to push that knowledge farther forward. That’s how I was able to develop my healing Talent.”

There was another moment while the Heirs digested Nathan’s words. He noticed Aarl and Sarah shooting each other complicated looks. After a moment, Aarl spoke up. “I suppose that’s a secret and a half. Got any more you feel like sharing in the meantime?” The question was asked half-sarcastically, half seriously. He was probing, seeing if Nathan would share more before he made up his mind.

In for a penny, in for a pound. This seems like the time to be totally honest, so that I know this alliance is solid come hell or high water. I don’t want there to be any gaps.

Nathan sighed. “When I got abducted to Davrar, I didn’t have any skills or Talents or anything. I picked up everything that would help me survive. The other classes I could have picked…” Nathan shook his head, remembering the [Scientist] and [Student] classes he’d turned down for [Antimagic Brawler] in his frantic desire to get the hell out of Taeol’s tower.

But that wasn’t the secret he wanted to reveal. “I also picked up a social manipulation skill, to help me try to placate Taeol, the archmage who kidnapped me.”

I want to make more excuses, but I think that would be counterproductive. I think my best path here is to be honest and say as little as possible. Make it clear I’m not influencing them. This is a big issue and I want to let them work through it without worrying that I’m pressuring them.

The Heirs tensed. Stella asked in a low voice. “Do you still have it?”

Nathan nodded, afraid of looking around to see the expressions on the Heirs’ faces. “Yeah. I do. It’s always active. I used it when I first met you, and back there with Eldred. I think I’m using it now too.”

The Heirs drew back from him, as if a little distance would shield them from his words.

Stella’s voice was small, and sounded hurt beyond words. “You’re using it on us? And hid that you’re not from Davrar from us? For this long?”

Nathan couldn’t help but look back at the short, ever-enthusiastic mage. There were tears in her eyes, and she looked at him with an expression of hurt and betrayal. Her hands worked, fire flickering in her fists.

Aarl and Sarah were also looking at Nathan with concern. Aarl in particular had backed away, and had one of his hands in his pouch ready to draw a weapon.

Khachi was frowning at Nathan, but his expression looked as thoughtful as it was upset. “Peace. Remember Nathan’s actions, not just his words. He admitted his temptation to leave us to the Last Dungeon, but he did not. He has stood by us over and over. And helped each of us. We should not react without thinking.”

Then he turned to Nathan. “But this is concerning. Nathan, I know this is against tradition, but can you please tell us the nature of your social manipulation skill? It may be hasty to judge before we know what it does. [Adept Convincing] is a more insidious skill than [Clear conversation].”

I’m so glad you asked, I think this is better than if I just volunteered the information.

Nathan called up the description of [Earnestness], reading it aloud. “This skill will help you portray your intense conviction and honesty when you speak to people. This skill will encourage people to be honest in return. Cannot fool truth spells or skills.”

Khachi relaxed even more. “Ah, yes. That is not a bad skill. It encourages honesty. Have you used it to lie to us? Aside from where you were from, which was rather a large lie.”

Aarl and Stella nodded along with Khachi’s final words. They had also relaxed some, but were still regarding Nathan with suspicious gazes.

Nathan considered, shaking his head after a moment. “I think it doesn’t work very well when I lie. It’s best when I tell the truth. Which I’ve mostly done. Except for lies of omission like my homeland. I told you the truth about what I wanted, and my own legacy.” He spread his hands. “Taeol kidnapped me because I was from another world, and I have unique and powerful Insights. I want to control how those are used, and not let those like Eldred or Taeol use me like a tool for their own gain. That is why I was so confrontational with him earlier.”

There was a moment of silence as they stood there on the path. Then Sarah spoke up, slowly.

“And that's why he made a reference to you not being familiar with Davrar? How does he know?”

Nathan sighed. “The Giantraiders know, because they were the first people I met after escaping from Taeol’s tower, and they told me most of what I know about Davrar. I was talking to Artha about it and somebody spied on us. I tried to catch them but Eldred stopped me.”

Now the Heirs were pissed all over again, but at Eldred this time.

Then Aarl pointed out, “We don’t know if that’s actually true. Nathan might be using his skill to convince us of something that looks best for him.” He turned to Nathan with flinty eyes. “Would you be willing to permanently rid yourself of the skill and swear, upon your class, that you have just told us the truth?”

Nathan nodded and opened his mouth, but was cut off by Sarah.

“That is unnecessary, though I appreciate your willingness to swear.” She turned a sharp look towards her brother. “Nathan has saved my life and I have saved his, and his actions are how I will judge him. He has treated us with dignity, and begun sharing his Insights with Stella.

“When we first met him he told us he was heir to a tradition as weighty as they come, and none of us weighed those words heavily. After all, we are the envy of Gemore for the Insights we inherit, and are called the Heirs because of it. But many times it seems that Nathan’s Insights are greater than our own. Can you imagine coming to a new city, knowing nobody, and worrying what might happen if they learned who your parents were?”

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Stella blew her nose, the sound incongruous. She scrubbed her eyes with a handkerchief and looked up at Nathan, taking a deep breath. “Yeah. She’s right. Sorry I reacted badly. It’s just the thought that you were manipulating us this whole time… it hurt. A lot. I shouldn’t have made that assumption. Sorry.”

Nathan smiled at her. “Thank you. I’m sorry I kept secrets.” He looked around to the rest of the Heirs. “Is it ok if I keep the skill? It’s been very useful, especially for dealing with Eldred. I think it let me call his bluff back there, which probably kept him from pushing harder.”

The Heirs looked to Aarl, who had been the one to ask if Nathan would drop the skill. He sighed and scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Yeah. We’ll talk about it later if it’s a problem. Thanks for telling us. Just… don’t be a muckgrabber about it? Keep it firm in your mind that we’re your teammates, not people you can manipulate to get what you want.”

Sarah and Stella both punched him in opposite shoulders, but Nathan just smiled. He held out a hand to Aarl. “Deal.”

Aarl shook the hand, looking a bit wry. "Teammates unto the future."

Stella also held out her hand. “I still want to learn more about lightning, if you’ll still teach me. Even more so now that I know why you know about it! Putting lightning into metal? That sounds interesting.”

Nathan went through and shook all of the Heirs' hands, getting a quick comment from each of them. Khachi asked what the gods were like in Nathan's world. Nathan told him that there was religion, but no godly powers, just as there was no magic.

Sarah asked him what kind of weapon she would be getting, showing excitement and expectation that it might be useful for the first time. Nathan just grinned, and told her to be patient.

It felt a bit like a second introduction. And it was, in a way. They were meeting Nathan Lark, of Earth.

They spent the rest of the walk to Stonefall asking him questions about Earth, and Nathan did his best to answer them without giving away any great secrets. They were boggled by the number of people on Earth, and took some time to wrap their heads around a place where neither monsters or magic existed.

It was such a large paradigm shift that it was hard to explain how many things worked differently. “How do you deal with dungeons?” was answered by “We don’t have dungeons,” which led to “What do your fighters do all day?” which led Nathan to describe how few people on Earth were truly specialized in violence. And that the primary purpose of standing militaries was to deter foreign aggression, not to actually fight.

Stella piped up with an insightful point. “Ah, so that’s why the system of duels offended you so much. Not very many people know how to fight, and there are so many people that personal reputation is less important. How do you manage disputes? Just rules for everything like how the guard handles crimes?”

Nathan nodded. “Basically. The law is complicated because there are so many people and so many rules. When there’s a conflict you each hire somebody who is trained to interpret the law and then they argue about it. They’re called lawyers and we make a lot of jokes about them.”

“Ah. Huh.” Stella didn’t know what to say to that. “That sounds expensive. And rough. So if somebody falsely accuses you of things then you need to spend a bunch of money to hire a lawyer and prove yourself innocent?”

“Yup, exactly. There’s a problem where rich people will sue people - that’s the term for that kind of dispute - not with the intent of winning but with the intent of costing them a lot of money by making them hire a lawyer. But at least they don’t have to fight and submit to somebody who might be wrong but is a better fighter than they are.”

Aarl looked over at him, cocking his head. “Well, the more capable Adventurers are treated with more respect because they’ve earned it. They have more Insights, they can protect more people. They know more. The better fighter is more valuable and should win those disputes. But in your system that’s whoever has more money, no matter how they got it. Who even makes your laws anyway?”

Nathan shrugged. “Supposedly an elected council of the people. But at the scale of a nation of hundreds of millions it gets… complicated.” Nathan took a mental step back. He didn’t want to get embroiled in a discussion of American politics vs. the ol’ buddy system Gemore seemed to have going. Governance was hard, and Nathan didn't want to pretend he had answers. “We can talk more about this later, it’s a pretty darn difficult topic. Do you want to ask me more questions of Earth?”

Over the next few hours Nathan found himself talking of the natural history of Earth, and the difference of cosmology. He explained what a star was, and how plate tectonics and the solar system worked. It was tricky because the Heirs had no frame of reference for what he said, but they accepted what he said at face value. The idea of a planet as a sphere was bizarre to them. If he lived in Davrar the idea of the planet as a sphere wouldn’t have occurred to him either.

Is Davrar a sphere? The easiest way to find out would involve a long and still body of water, especially since the sun doesn't move across the sky.

All in all they were shocked at how small Earth was compared to Davrar. On Davrar, there was no limit to the horizon. You could keep going and going and always expect to find new things. As Sarah put it “There is always another danger over every horizon.”

Eventually, Stella asked about Nathan’s past. “Nathan, what were you doing in that world? Not violence, based on what you said. Though you seemed reasonably capable when we first met you.”

Khachi pitched in, grinning slightly. “Not very good, really. Not terrible, but not good.”

Nathan snorted at Khachi’s reminder of their first duel. “I never had a real fight before I came to Davrar. I trained to fight as a hobby, to get some exercise. I never expected to need to use it.”

Then he answered Stella’s question. “I was training to be a scientist, to push forward the knowledge of our world a little bit. Allow us to do new things without magic or classes. It’s a job that takes twenty years of schooling to learn, and I was about done. And then Taeol kidnapped me. I’m pretty pissed at him for that, because so much of what I learned is useless on Davrar.”

Sarah raised her eyebrows. “Some of it seems pretty useful. What were you learning about?”

Nathan’s brows knitted, trying to parse down all of his academic research and goals into a few pithy sentences. He had a practiced patter on his research, but that required an understanding of things like DNA. So instead he spoke in generalities. “I studied how life works at its most detailed level. How a baby grows into an adult, and why offspring get some traits from their parents and not others. Why scar tissue forms, and what the healing process is like."

He shrugged. “It’s all pretty complicated. Like I said, twenty years of school. And all I got from it was this stupid [Regeneration]!”

They don’t even know about t-shirts.

The joke triggered a round of laughs regardless, and then they asked more questions as night fell. Nathan found himself describing the barest bones of the World Wars, and briefly skating over the thousands of years of history before. The Heirs were enthralled by the idea of ancient epics, and Nathan promised to tell them about Beowulf and the Iliad later. Maybe even Le Morte d'Arthur and The Song of Roland.

I wasn’t much of a fan of the Epic of Gilgamesh. I never actually read the Edda, but I know most of Norse mythology from various sources. I know snippets of the Mahabharata too, but that one’s just dang long.

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