Zeroth Moment: My Cheat Skill Is Stupid, So I'll Just Ignore It

What happened next was very strange.

Topher was only about thirty feet up when the spell dropped, which was very unfortunate; if he'd been higher up, he would have had more time to react, and if he'd been lower, Zanasha probably would have caught him without issue. But, as events played out, he found himself occupying exactly the correct height and velocity for his brain to register what had happened before impact, but not have enough time before impact to do anything useful about it. All that happened was a terrified, involuntary tightening of his muscles and faculties; the former were good (preventing, as they did, an embarrassing accident of the biological variety) but the latter were more complex.

Topher accelerated rapidly downwards as his mouth opened into a bearded O of shock and horror (the acceleration speed of gravity here was not quite thirty-two feet per second squared, but close enough); as he fell, he pulled on Zanasha much harder than he'd intended, and the world did something extremely unsettling. From Topher's perspective, he fell into Zanasha, somehow missed the impact, and then found himself falling upwards.

Frantically, he gabbled out the runes for another Feather Fall, then tugged on a distant peak to turn himself back over to face the ground; as he did so, his stomach froze in horror as he saw Zanasha, dragged up with him but out of range of the spell, dropping away from him as gravity reasserted its dominion. Heart in his throat, he panicked.

No.

He couldn't pull her back; the whiplash might break her neck or her spine, if it didn't pull her organs out of her body or anything even more gruesome. He couldn't cast Feather Fall on her too; she was already too far away. And the problem was getting worse by the instant, as her velocity mounted and became more and more inescapable with each passing fraction of a moment. He was watching her die right in front of him.

No.

He had to do something, but there was nothing he could do. In his mind, he could see the ironclad tyranny of her plight with exceptional clarity, thanks to his new knowledge of physics; he didn't have enough time to pull on something below them both to catch up to her, and anything he tried to do to manipulate her own momentum would have horrific consequences. He needed a third option. He needed another thing to pull with. He needed help...!

Help. Something else. Another object.

Slingshot.

Desperately, he pulled with a conviction and emotion more powerful than anything he'd ever used before; it was like he was throwing his whole heart outside of his body, with all the agonizing effort and risk that such a thing entailed. He didn't pull on Zanasha directly -- he knew that would end in unimaginable horror -- but instead pulled through her, anchoring at right angles to an outcropping of rock several hundred miles distant at right angles to her current position, then another object beyond that higher up, then a third further beyond that, chaining each link to another in a dizzying blur of rapid calculation so fast he couldn't even follow his own logic. And further and further in turn, spiraling in a self-terminating loop in three dimensions that reduced her momentum further and further with each turn...

Then, abruptly, he was sitting down. How am I sitting down in midair? He looked around, confused, but nothing made sense; he was under Zanasha now, somehow, who was staring at him with wide eyes and an expression he couldn't make any sense of. Gently, she touched down, as though she'd been floating, then stared at him further. There was silence for a few moments.

Then, calmly, Rudo cleared his throat. "Mister Bailey, would you perhaps be able to explain what just occurred?"

Topher blinked again, then again; swallowed to try to regain the power of speech. "I don't... what? How did I...?" He managed to get to his feet, dusting himself off; his suit and cloak were covered with black ash. "Tell me what you saw, maybe. I'm really turned around."

Hana's voice was barely above a whisper. "You fell; she tried to catch you. Then she fell over you, and then you both fell up..." She shook her head. "And then you did something impossible." She pointed, with a hand that betrayed only the smallest tremor, to a point high above them all. "You were falling upwards really, really fast... centripetal force... and then you were here." She pointed at him, frowning. "I'm guessing you stopped her with your Telekinesis spell, but other than that..." She cocked her head. "Did you teleport? Or unlock a new power?"

"I don't think so..." Topher's head felt muzzy, and his eyes hurt like he'd been punched in the face. Blinking, he summoned his Status:

Name:

Christopher Bailey

Level:

43

Class:

Clerk

HP:

131/131

MP:

180/222

SP:

38/43

Strength:

Rank D

Dexterity:

Rank F

Constitution:

Rank C

Intelligence:

Rank D

Wisdom:

Rank D

Charisma:

Rank F

Skills:

Literacy (Rank D)

Mathematics (Rank B)

Cooking (Rank F)

Customer Service (Rank D)

Data Entry and Filing (Rank B)

Packaging and Shipping (Rank D)

Home Appliance Repair (Rank F)

Pen Spinning (Rank A)

[Disease Resistance (Rank C)]

[Poison Resistance (Rank C)]

[Obscure Location (Rank C)]

[Nondetection (Rank C)]

Special Skills:

Disrupt Illusion

Conjure Shield (Rank C)

Conjure Light (Rank C)

Improved Status

Summon Ledger

Remove Fatigue (Rank D)

Minor Sorcery (Rank C)

Summon Stylus

Sanctuary (Rank F)

Detect Status

Metaphrasty (Rank D)

Encrypt Document

Authenticate Document

[Pass Without Trace (Rank C)]

[Elemental Resistance (Rank C)]

[Damage Resistance (Rank C)]

[Status Resistance (Rank C)]

[Improved Mana (Rank D)]

Unique Skill:

Attract Object

It took him several seconds to notice it. I spent five SP. On what? How? He frowned more deeply, then shook his head. "I don't know. And it's probably not as important as what I saw." He pointed to the south and east. "To the south, that way, are two landmarks -- a bright dot of some kinda light, and an island in the middle of a big lava lake that looks suspiciously similar to where we came out. And then, to the east, some kind of foresty-like area made of sparkly... somethings. But I don't know which one we should be investigating."

Rudo pondered. "The south seems like the more promising avenue, with two notable landmarks and the highest probability of an exit." He turned to the others. "What say you all?"

"I agree." Hana crossed her arms and nodded. "The 'forest' may be noteworthy, but I doubt it would provide us any kind of path towards our goal." She half-turned, raising an eyebrow in Zanasha's direction. "Zee?"

The half-orc was still staring at Topher; with an effort, she composed herself. "I concur. It seems... the safest option." She turned away, looking to the south with what seemed like difficulty. "The traveling in that direction is also easier; the east has more mountainous terrain."

"Guess that's that, then," agreed Topher with a shrug. "Rudo, you're the guy with Minor Wilderness Mastery -- how do we get there without getting lost?"

The older man chuckled. "Among other things, the Skill allows me to determine direction without fail; that part will be no difficulty. But one or both of the landmarks may indicate other inhabitations; I recommend we move stealthily, and try to minimize altercations with the local wildlife. Our Levels may suffer, but it might avoid further complications."

Topher snorted. "Good goals. Let's see how well the world cooperates."

They made good time; Topher was also able to take more sightings simply by standing on a rock, casting Feather Fall, jumping off, and then using his Attract Object Skill to loft himself into the sky without involving anyone else or risking any other mishaps. By keeping a low profile, they managed to avoid more than a handful of scuffles with the various weird beasts that roamed the plains; in particular, they found that keeping a healthy distance from lava pools meant that they could avoid the magma-blooded hand creatures entirely, which was a huge relief (since only Topher and Hana could fight them effectively). By the end of the second day, Topher took another sighting which showed them to be already halfway to the glowing dot; we should make it there by the end of the week at this rate, he thought to himself, but most of his thoughts were elsewhere.

Discovering that he could "chain" attractions between multiple anchor points allowed him to do strange and difficult things, like arresting an object's momentum as he had Zanasha's; he had a dim, fuzzy memory of doing something similar once before with a crossbow bolt, but couldn't place it and was frustrated with himself for not figuring it out sooner. It did, however, cost SP, unlike his typical usage; for each "anchor" he added to the attraction, he had to pay one SP, but using himself as the base point was always free, which he didn't understand but didn't have the patience to question further. His other problems were much more pressing.

Hana had become obsessed with understanding Topher's new abilities; their discussions about physics had reawakened an old interest in her, and she spent hours each night at camp reading through his Ledger by the light of her Flux Blade. She hounded him with questions and calculations, quizzed him on interactions and laws, and pestered him for his subjective experiences in both his Skill and his magery; Topher, who felt deeply uncomfortable around the beautiful young woman at the best of times, often had to steel himself not to flee in terror from her bright-eyed, breathless queries.

Worse yet, such attention from Hana seemed to drive the wedge between him and Zanasha deeper with each interaction; seeing what doubtless looked, to her, like a burgeoning romance pushed the half-orc further and further away each time, despite all Topher's voiceless wails. They shared many sad glances, each with polarized meaning, but the collapse was inescapable; Topher's own complicity in the unspoken lie that lay between them prevented either of them from reaching out.

And into this void went Rudo, who seemed consumed with driving their journey forward; some nameless pressure Topher knew nothing about drove him night and day, and the peaceful, easy demeanor the innkeeper had shown for the first half of their journey slowly eroded beneath its friction as the challenges of the trek met the steel of the older man's will. Though he remained genial and amiable, their meals became less full of laughter; their breaks became shorter, the hours of their rising earlier and earlier. When Topher managed to gather enough of the shredded tatters of his will to confront him, Rudo merely met his gaze with sorrowful resolve. "Neither can I articulate it," he attempted to explain, shrugging. "This place affects me. Perhaps the mana here interacts poorly with the conjunction of my Minor Ki Mastery and my Minor Wilderness Mastery; on the other hand, it may simply be fatigue and stress." He looked away, facing the east, where a dim glow from the strange forest-like area speckled the hilltops most nights. "Or, for a third option, it may be the sixth sense of a man who has spent many years being hunted, when he feels the hounds draw near. I am restless; more than that I do not know."

And so they ventured forth, pulling together as they fell apart, for another two days; then they arrived at the place of the light.

As soon as morning dawned, Topher saw that this was not going to be an uneventful day of travel; what had seemed from above to be long, gentle slopes were in fact blast craters, impossibly wide and large to the point that they would have been bodies of water if this place experienced any rain. As they moved closer, the terrain became even more outlandish; sharp ravines and huge cliffs seemed to appear from nowhere as they crossed the rock, without any corresponding geological process which would have given rise to such things. Topher's sense of unease grew and grew, until they crested another hill and stood upon its top, looking down at what lay below.

The land here had been brutally, violently savaged; what stone remained was somehow blacker than black, as though the volcanic rock had been subjected to some force that had left it burnt and charred beyond even what molten rock itself could bear. For nearly a quarter mile in every direction, strange arcs and whorls in the stone lanced out from some central point, burrowing and spinning across a glass-flat plane that looked as though it had been scourged flat with the swipe of some titanic blade. And, in the center, the mote Topher had seen -- blinding at this close distance even in daylight -- rested, shedding an illumination so potent that it seemed to drown out the sun itself.

They crossed the distance slowly, trepidatiously, but nothing stirred to oppose them; the land itself felt dead, scourged of even the possibility of life, and Topher worried helplessly about things like radiation poisoning and ancient death curses. When they finally drew near enough to see the source of the light, no one could approach, for it shed heat that made the lava around them seem like ice-cold snow that seared right through their environmental-negation items and even Topher's Protection from Heat.

Topher blinked tears out of his eyes as he stared at the source of the light, straining to make out its shape; it was long and slender, rising up from the ground like a flower or sapling. "What do you think it is?" he half-shouted to his companions, though the object made no noise; it seemed to drown out sound purely by the presence of its power. "Some kind of warning?"

"It is a sword," Zanasha breathed, stepping closer before the heat forced her back. "A sword, buried point-first in the stone! What power could make it emit such a force?"

Rudo wrestled a potion out of his weird bag, drank it, then took two steps before shaking his head and falling back. "It is too hot. No protection will avail us."

Hana started to put her hand in her own pocket, searching for a potion, but her hand stopped halfway; instead she brought up her Flux Blade. "Is it possible..." she murmured, then gestured for the others to fall back; Topher, not understanding but aware he didn't want to be near ground zero of whatever was going to happen, pulled the other two away.

Hana flourished the blade, licked her lips, and murmured something; Topher didn't get it. Who's she showing off for? Then, in an instant, the Flux Blade changed again.

Its form remained the same -- a long, slender sword which glowed with bluish-white light -- but a piercing, freezing coldness erupted from it like an icy waterfall that splashed across their exposed limbs. Topher swore, spinning his Stylus and biting out the words to more castings of both Protection from Heat and Protection from Cold and boosting them to the maximum level he could handle, but none of it seemed to make a difference; the temperature alternated between searing, incandescent boiling and biting, bitter cold as Hana's blade shifted and moved relative to the source of the heat.

At first, it seemed as though she could shield them; but quickly it became apparent that no matter how much cold her Flux Blade emitted, the heat from the other blade outstripped it. Topher, basting in sweat, grasped the truth instinctively; the other sword could emit as much heat as it wanted, but Hana's sword could never get below zero kelvins (and probably couldn't even reach that, due to the third law of Thermodynamics). "Hana!" He shouted, summoning a Shield of Faith between them to protect the others. "It's not physics! It's magic! You need negative kelvins!"

"Negative kelvins." The young Japanese woman's face was slicked with perspiration even as frost formed on her eyelashes; she looked weirdly ethereal and fey. "Negative kelvins. Of course." Her brows furrowed, and steam began to rise from her as she bent her newly-formed willpower to the attempt.

The result was slow, gradual at first; but within seconds, Topher could feel the difference. The heat wavered, then receded as Hana tilted and poised her Flux Blade; the incandescent aura of heat around the other sword began to warp, then distort, and finally shrink into a bright line which connected the two blades -- red at one end, blue at the other -- with a point of brilliant white light in the center.

As they watched, the white light spread outwards, stretching from the center towards each of the two swords, then consumed the entirety of the connecting line; after a moment, it flared, like a camera flash, then winked out in an instant as Topher blinked purple blotches out of his vision. As he struggled for sight, Hana reached down with her empty hand and withdrew the other sword from the stone.

"Kiku-no-Tsurugi," she breathed, holding the blade up high. "Oshima-sama's sword." It was, as Topher had expected, a katana; the metal of the blade was a satiny, milky white as though it had been forged from some manner of metallicized ivory, but the long hilt was wrapped in bands of orange and indigo. Hana hefted it, staring at it wondrously, for several long seconds before remembering she wasn't alone.

She turned around, her eyes alight, and faced the others, a sword in each hand. "This is it. This is where she fell." Hana trembled slightly, and Topher winced. Oh boy, here we go again.