Chapter 13: March To Avalon

I'd been woken up by the internal timer, but the fact that I was also being cuddled tightly and squished into only a third of the double-bed helped too. When I realized I was being smushed because of both Nora and also probably Flurry sleeping in the same bed, I was hit with a smack of cold and warm and weird feelings. It was probably bad. In any case, our morning routine went well — I snuck out of bed, freshening up (washing my face) in the bathroom, and came back to Nora and Flurry having shifted in their sleep to hug each other.

Aww.

Anyways! Time moved swiftly on, and I would need to do the same. I had no idea on what timeframe we would be working with, but I figured that our group would want to head to a nearby capital and set forth from there. We could get some basic supplies and necessities here, but the more complicated stuff I had in mind weren't realistic — we also needed a name. Which would also come later. I'd have a lot of time on the walk.

Okay. Short list of things that we'd need for the trip — a map, firstly. I only needed a single look at it, though, since I was an android, so that'd be pretty easy. We'd also need to have food, camping supplies, and likely weapons. Realistically speaking, Nora had weapons and Flurry probably had an armory, so we were probably good on that front too. 

Hm, what else. Ah, right: metals. I didn't eat them — don't get the wrong idea! — but it would be nice to have stuff to tinker with. Also I'd want to grab some magical potions if possible. And some tools. Maybe some leatherworking stuff..?

Fuck, this was actually a lot. If I had to carry all this, I was gonna be straining my back panels (and no way was anyone without abnormal strength like me gonna be able to carry it.) Maybe there was an inventory..? Wouldn't I have seen it—

Oh, no. Okay, it was right there, sitting alongside all my other organized ones. Which I glossed over when I was sorting them last night. Cool.

What were the limits, then? Why did people not put stuff into their inventories all the time? (Well, I didn't know if they did or didn't. In any case, a lot of people tended to just carry things or bags and the like, so... there had to be some reason why inventory use wasn't too common. Was it just effective time? Did it take too long to pull out your sword or food if it was in your inventory? Hm.

Okay, thinking logically here: Since it was in a menu, that meant that people could see my inventory. But they couldn't see other people's inventories, not without... well, there was likely some exception. Not important right now. Since it's hidden, you might want to hide contraband in there — but that'd make frisking and pat-downs effectively worthless and assassinations extremely simple to orchestrate. Probably not the hardest thing to frisk someone's inventory.

So maybe it was because of space limitations? I could see a good 35 or so slots in mine, a grid of 5 slots by 7 columns. A max of 35 items wasn't the best, but it certainly wasn't too little. If this didn't follow size or weight constraints (to a point), then it'd clearly be the best way to bring things around. So why—!?

Wait.

I was stupid. It was in a menu, and most people's menus were cluttered whenever they were pulled up and blocked a good 90% of your view without moving them to the sides of your person or something. Unless you wanted to constantly have your stats out and blocking space, you were going to deal with cluttered menus. Which meant that unless it was a rare thing to take out that you HAD to have on you, you'd probably want to just keep it in your hands or a backpack or something.

So: Barring any weird shenanigans, inventories were mostly used by people who had stuff like bedrolls and books to lug around; they were likely used for things which only came out once every few days or hours or things too large and cumbersome to carry manually. 

I nodded sharply. A good deduction, one that'd be at least reasonable to use right now. And one that let me use my inventory willy-nilly, because I was able to sort my menus and possibly make them transparent and shit! Er, with the failure that I'd be showing off everything in there to everyone around me. So maybe not willy-nilly, but certainly more often than most!

There was an adorable yawn behind me, and then Nora tapped on my shoulder. She looked like she'd just gotten up. Maybe I spent more time than I needed to ruminating on why the inventory wasn't so widely-used...

"Sorry for tackling you last night. What're you — oh! You've figured out your inventory! Flurry was talking about that, uh... where are all your other screens?"

The rogue's dark hair stood up in all places, and she looked like she'd had a late night. Still. Cute. A-Anyways, I needed to respond! "Er, I figured out where they were stored in my, um. My head? My memories? Uh, and I made a thing to organize them. Last night. Before I went to bed."

She looks blankly at me before chuckling and patting me on the back. "Just like you, huh? I'll be in the bathroom. We asked the tavernkeep to organize some travelling supplies — if I'm right, we're gonna head over to Farlin, so we prepped for a journey of about a week or so."

"Right!" I said, nodding even as she turned to go walk to the bathroom. "See you downstairs!"

Nora just held a hand up to wave me goodbye, and I quickly hurried to the guild's tavernkeep to overlook our supplies. Just as expected, there's a ton of foods and waterskins and the like packed into bundles, along with a map for each of us. I test one to see if I can inventory it — and, indeed, it was easy to slip in and out of the screen. So that was the food, water, map, and weapons down: now I just needed a few more things that would be easy to pick up from Flurry's place.

It'd have to happen after everyone was awake, so I just waited until then. Flurry came down only about fifteen minutes after Nora'd gone to the restroom, and was followed shortly by the rogue herself — I waved at both of them from my spot skulking near the guild's entrance.

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As they neared, I started to explain what I wanted to bring. Nora was initially skeptical, but Flurry understood immediately and dashed off without another word. Mechanics. I knew what she was doing.

The day had quickly come to a good, warm noon by the time we were outside the city limits. All of us had moved our shit to our inventories — Flurry giving me a curious look at my new tab-based status screen — and we waved goodbye for at least 15 minutes to the Damned Sparrows. The two remaining Damned Sparrows. Nora had reassured me that they'd be fine, but I was suspicious — the robot was apparently a one-time deal that would be reported to the government, but if it wasn't for me there would have been a lot more property damage. Somehow. We'd passed by the crater, and it was hard to believe more damage would have been done if I wasn't there.

In any case, that was pretty far behind us by now — a good hour or two's walk. Neither of the women beside me were tired, and I wasn't either, so we forged on. 

Nora hummed as she walked. It was good background noise for me to code stuff to, along with the sound of birds and grass swaying in the wind. The plains around us were nice, but we were walking a relatively well-trodden path so there wasn't any risk of ticks or anything. For the others. Since I didn't get ticks.

Actually, I didn't know if they had ticks here. In any case it was mostly smooth sailing from here on out. Only the odd bugs buzzed around us, and they screwed off after just a few swipes of the hand.

My spellcrafting program was going relatively well. It'd gotten a few curious looks from the others the first few times I'd tested the UI, but they stayed silent. I think. They might have been gossiping, now that I think about it, but I didn't really care.

Why? Well, that's because the progress was explosive. In just the few hours we'd had, I was already able to piece together new spells from what I'd already had. It wasn't as simple as coding reality, but I could modify my light spell to produce a ball of wind and my wind spell to make a beam of light. Nothing bright or fast yet, but it'd be really good if I could pump mana into it just like I could with the wind spell. I was slowly making my way through the spells I'd memorized from Flurry's book and labelling all the inputs and outputs — stuff like the diamond and square were just simple start and endpoints, but the lines in between denoted what each spell did. 

The arcane sigil in my light spell was just that — the sigil for the "LIGHT" element. And it was more of a HTML element than it was an alchemistic element — it was basically just arcane-speak for "LIGHT" as your output. So, since it had nothing in between the start and finish beyond that... light just kind of popped into existence. 

More complicated spells were harder to figure out. I quickly realized that the lines had a very specific cadence to them, and it probably dictated at least to some extent where and when the elements were "run", so to speak, which meant I had to start organizing those into blocks as well. The wind-jet spell was "START-HANDS-INTENT-[WIND]-MANA-POWER-CREATE-[STREAM]-DAMPEN-USER-END", from what I could tell, which was interesting — the reason that I could trace it in any direction was not because it didn't matter, but because the spell's branches would always be put into place anyways. I could trace it physically or mentally through the opposite paths, but the structure of the spell would always remain similar anchor-wise. Groundbreaking, as it implied that I could condense multiple spells into one using this branching path stuff!

I was excited to use my spells, but... mana. And I didn't want to look like an idiot, so all of this was largely theoretical. The most effective stuff I could figure out was still barely visible to the naked eye, which meant anything more complex (like some of the messaging spells or spike-throwing spells) would probably backfire pretty bad... so I just didn't try anything too complex.

All too soon, it was dusk. Flurry volunteered to take first watch, and Nora arranged to take second, so I was third — and while we set up our tents and had our dinner, we made small talk about nothing. Or, well, they made small talk. I listened, mostly, and said things when it was required of me. They really did know each other well, too...

It felt like I was spying on them again, through this body and the half-act I'd been sort of keeping up since I got here. I didn't like that feeling, but... it was probably right, honestly. I felt alone, the night air biting into me like a lion bites into its prey, as if the steps away from Nora's home and well-known roads were getting ever further with each breath. So I excused myself and made my bedroll ready to sleep in, then tried not to cry at the creeping tide of social expulsion.

Guys didn't cry, right?

Yeah. But right now, was I really a guy?

I didn't really know the answer to that question, so I allowed my tears to well up and drop. Not enough to sob or wail. Just enough to make myself feel a tiny bit worse, or better. And most certainly I did not cry loud enough for the others in our encampment to hear. But I wasn't exactly a man right now, especially since I was crying, so I'd allow myself just a little. 

That was the secret to all of this, wasn't it?

Just a little more. I just had to keep going a little further, and then a little further after that. We'd be at the capital in no time if I just held onto that strange, flimsy, stupid belief.

So I did, and then I slept. I'd remember that in the morning.

Only a step further.