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

Topher slept poorly.

Some of it he attributed to the general discomfort he always experienced when trying to get any sleep on any surface whatsoever (and the hard floor of a rocking, bumping wagon was hardly a bed of feathers), but he also kept waking up gasping from vivid nightmares involving a shadowy figure that kept slashing him or ripping things out of his stomach; he figured out fairly quickly that the motion must be bringing back memories of his near-death in Strathmore, but knowing what was happening unfortunately didn't empower him to do jack shit about it. After the eighth time he sat bolt upright clutching his stomach, he gave up and summoned his Ledger, using a persistent casting of his Conjure Light spell to read by.

He wanted to do more work on mapping the emergent Tanok-space and its interactions, but the wagon was too bumpy for him to write anything and he didn't trust himself not to make embarrassing math errors in his current state, so instead he simply re-read his copy of the prayer scroll he'd purchased from Jerp for the ninth time. Tok's insistence on casting Conjure Shield from the Priest Magic perspective had made him curious what other differences he'd missed, and he forced himself to read more carefully through the random, chaotic theology that the majority of the scroll contained, which he'd skipped over and ignored almost entirely once he'd found out that the runes were the same as the Mage ones. He was annoyed to discover this late in the game that Summon Light was normally cast entirely differently than Mage Light (being targeted upon a touched object rather than creating a free-floating light source) and that a lot of his basic assumptions about sophotic vectors were completely wrong for Priest magic, which explained why he'd had absolutely zero luck performing any High Rune or Grand Rune transforms on any of his Priest spells -- and worse, that meant that his transformations for his Mage spells were probably inefficient at best. He was going to have to start over completely on all his iterated rune projection work. With a sigh, he dismissed his Ledger and turned over, wishing he could sleep; If the Clerk Class had been able to cast the Sleep spell, I'd probably still be in bed in Frostford, he observed grimly.

He gave it another hour, then sighed and wearily clambered up front with Tok; the eastern horizon was beginning to look slightly gray instead of black, but that was the closest the night had gotten to dawn thus far. "Don't suppose you've got any kind of sleep enhancement ability, do you?"

Tok chuckled. "That's like asking if humans get any bonuses to flight. Dwarves sleep and wake up about as easily as we breathe or blink; I'm not going to be much help." He twitched the reins slightly, guiding the horse around some obstruction in the road Topher couldn't see. "But we'll have to stop pretty soon; just because I can go all night doesn't mean the horse can. We'll find somewhere safe, rest and eat, then get back on the road around noon."

"Makes sense." Topher groaned as he stretched out his back, then cast Remove Fatigue on himself; if he wasn't going to get any sleep, he could at least pretend he had. "Need me to do anything?"

The dwarf shook his head. "Biggest thing you bring to the table at the moment is conversation, stretch, and I'm too busy watching for founder risks to be chatty. Don't worry, though; you'll have plenty to do once we get over that bridge." He pointed at a large suspension bridge in the distance, higher up in the mountains, which Topher judged to be about three or four days away. "That's where the residual curse magic of the dungeon starts makin' dead folks itchy. They're slow, so I usually just drive around 'em, but it'll be a good opportunity for you to snipe a few with those spells of yours. Maybe get another Level, if you're lucky."

"Are they stronger than goblins?" Topher wondered. "I'm not sure my spells will have much effect if they are."

Tok shrugged. "A fair bit, but you can blow all your MP on killing one zombie if you have to; should probably be doable. Until then, your job is mostly to dispense snacks."

"Oh, right, the food." Topher shook himself, trying to get all the dust out of his skull; belatedly, he realized that he hadn't practiced casting Create Food And Drink since he'd gotten a single half-ass result in the inn. "You got an empty glass or a bottle? If I summon the water without one, it kind of makes a mess."

"Under the seat," Tok grunted. "Starboard ones are full, port ones are empty."

Nautical terms on a wagon? Maybe Tok was a sailor? Topher obligingly fished around for a while, eventually discovering that "port" meant "left" after being too embarrassed to ask and getting the wrong bottle. Empty bottle in hand, he mumbled something about a watched pot and clambered back into the rear of the wagon; he wanted to be able to dump out his first couple of attempts if they sucked.

It took him about 5 MP, but he eventually managed to produce a bottle of clear, crisp water he was pretty proud of; the visualizations were even more finicky than they were for Mending, but at least the runes were consistent. He drank it, felt slightly better, then wondered what other liquids he could create; after all, the spell specified drink, not just water. His first attempts at coffee were so disastrous that he dumped them over the side, hoping they wouldn't become sentient and try to eat other travelers, but his progress was pretty steady and by the time he was down to half his MP he'd managed to produce both coffee and milk (albeit not at the same time). He took a swig, hummed with pleasure at the result, and assayed a scone to go with it (which he eventually did manage after another 10 MP, by which point the coffee had gotten cold) -- it was a little underbaked and bland, but it was undeniably a scone. He shuffled back to the front and presented them to Tok. "Here you go. Hopefully not poisonous."

"Dwarves are immune to poison, too," Tok demurred. He took a bite of the scone, grimaced a little, and washed it down with a sip of the coffee; that had a much more profound effect. The dwarf's eyes widened, but he didn't cough; instead, he immediately went back for another sip, then another, and whistled. "Well, I don't know what that is, but you just earned yourself every penny of your cost on this trip. Is this a drink from your world?"

Topher nodded. "Yeah. It's actually two drinks, coffee and milk, mixed to..." he slowly stopped talking, and turned to look at Tok carefully. "How'd you know? What gave me away?"

Tok rolled his eyes. "Topher, when a human shows up in my wagon hacked and burned half to death and covered in dirt, wearing clothes I've never seen before, less than a month after the Summoning Spell gets cast, with a weird name and a homeland I've never heard of, exactly how hard did you think it was going to be for me to put the pieces together? Or anyone else, for that matter?" He pointed at Topher's feet. "The robe might help, but you're still wearing shoes nobody could confuse for anything people wear in our world. Everybody in Frostford probably also knew, unless they never looked at your feet."

Topher groaned. "And I thought I was doing so well. Topher Bailey, Master of Disguise." He sank back against the hard seat of the wagon, dejected, and covered his face with his hands. "I don't suppose you've got any more 'normal' equipment you can sell me? I'm rich now, you know." He jingled his coin pouch meaningfully, heavy with its eighty-seven gold and change. "Load me up with some more magic gear."

The dwarf snorted. "The only pair of magic boots I have is worth at least five times that, long-legs. But I probably have some basic things that might fit you; at minimum, we could wrap your crazy rubber shoes in some cloth, so they look less weird. Probably wouldn't hurt to get you a better weapon than that spear, too; I don't imagine you'll be hitting anything with it at this Level."

Topher shrugged. "I mostly use it as a walking stick, anyway; the most impressive thing it's ever done is kill slimes. You can have it if you want."

"What am I, a trash can? Shoulda sold it to that gnome before we left." Tok began angling the cart towards a clearing off to the side of the road; the sun was coming up now, painting the horizon in gentle pink and orange hues, and Topher could see the dwarf squinting in the burgeoning light. "Here's your chance to be useful, lanky. I'm gonna catch a few winks while the horse rests; you mind keeping a watch?"

"Hell, no. Anything I can do." Topher waited until the cart had come to a stop, then unhooked the horse and led it to drink at a small creek which wound near the edge of the glade; looking back, he could see that Tok had already lain down on the bare earth and closed his eyes. Jesus. I'd trade every mage power I have for that ability.

When the horse seemed sufficiently hydrated, he walked it over to a patch of grass where it could graze, then tied its rope around a tree so it couldn't wander terribly far; "Wonder if Tok's even actually given you a name," he murmured to the horse, petting its muzzle a little. The beast whickered, but didn't look up; he figured it was too hungry for conversation.

Shivering, he pulled up the hood of his robe; even though the sun was rising, the air was still bitterly cold, and would probably continue to get colder the closer they got to Wanbourne. Probably the altitude, he thought to himself. Who knows if this planet even has axial tilt. Or is even a planet. I should probably get Tok to teach me some basic geography. He wanted to study his Ledger some more, but knew he had to keep an eye out for trouble, so he started pacing around the clearing's perimeter; at least I've got my spear to lean on. Maybe I should replace it with a staff? The Boss Wizard guy had one.

By his fifth circuit around the clearing, he was bored; by his tenth, he was in a sort of trance, thinking about vectors and emotional node graphs. The day wore on as he stumped around and around the wagon; he imagined his trajectory across the grass as a boring circle, then as a looping, recursive inward spiral, then as a time-series progression of circular transforms and got lost in trying to figure out what the equation to produce that would be. He was standing perfectly still, leaning on his staff and thinking about cosines (he'd independently derived them along with other trigonometric identities, but hated the names and was trying to think of something more descriptive that still retained the identities the properties expressed and their relationships to each other); eventually, it dawned on him that he, Tok, and the horse were no longer alone. Another animal stood at the edge of the clearing, its head barely poking out of the forest.

It looked like, and yet unlike, a huge deer; its skin was a sort of purplish-turquoise color, and its antlers glimmered as though they were made of gemstones. Topher held his breath, not wanting to spook it. Maybe it's some kind of forest spirit. As he watched, the creature sniffed the air; it looked around, slowly and warily, in a fashion that was totally unlike a real deer's quick, nervous movements. Eventually, its eyes seemed to settle on the stream, and it began to stalk, smoothly and languidly, out into the clearing.

As it emerged into the light, Topher realized the creature was even stranger than he'd imagined; the creature's legs ended not in dainty hooves, but in massive, taloned claws like an eagle's, and a pair of folded amethyst wings adorned its back. The damn thing must be twelve feet tall, he thought in awe as it strode forward majestically, talons splaying out over the ground and gouging up dirt with each step. A cold fear began to creep up his spine. Shit. What if it's dangerous? I'm supposed to be keeping watch. "Tok," he whispered quietly. "Wake up, but carefully. I don't know what this thing is."

Topher couldn't see Tok's eyes snap open behind his dark goggles, and the dwarf didn't stir an inch, but Topher could immediately tell that he was alert. The creature took another step forward, and Topher realized that it wasn't going for the stream after all; it was heading for the horse, and its lips had curled back to reveal not an herbivore's flat rows of molars, but a mouthful of sharp, jagged fangs made for tearing and rending. "Oh shit, Tok, it's gonna eat our horse."

"Stay calm. No sudden moves." The dwarf's lips barely moved, but Topher could feel the heat of Tok's Last Stand Skill activating. Ohh, fuckballs. This thing must be really dangerous. "I'll try to surprise it. Shield me if you can." Topher nodded, gripping his spear with sweaty hands; his mind began readying the visualizations for Shield of Faith. He swallowed, nervously; anything that could scare Tok into using his Skill was definitely enough to scare Topher, who would flee from a rabbit if he thought it might be aggressive.

Abruptly, with a flicker of motion, Tok leapt to his feet and charged the creature, bellowing; Topher yelped and threw a Shield of Faith around the dwarf as the creature spun, impossibly quick, on its talons and flared its wings out hugely. Topher felt his bones go cold at the sheer size of the thing; it had been impressively large with its wings folded, but now it appeared truly massive, with a thirty-foot wingspan and a nineteen-foot height in full rear. It's just puffing itself up, like a cat, observed the distant part of his mind, but knowing that it was a simple trick didn't make it less impressive; Topher's knees threatened to buckle, and he found himself taking an unconscious half-step backwards. Damn it!

Roaring, Tok swiped at the creature's knees; the beast opened its horrid fanged maw widely and emitted a deafening vocalization, half roar and half screech, that knocked Topher onto his ass just from the sound alone. Tok missed, stumbled, and had to dive and roll under a slash from one of the creature's enormous talons; it still struck him a glancing blow, but Topher could see it skip off the surface of the Shield he'd thrown up around Tok and let out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding. Jesus. Too close. Murmuring the runes, he refreshed the spell, just in case; he still didn't know exactly how casting it on an ally functioned differently than on himself, but he wasn't going to gamble with Tok's life to find out.

Beneath the beast, Tok dashed and swiped about, but Topher could see he was at a disadvantage; the creature was simply too tall for him to reach anything but its feet and legs, which were covered with tough scales that threw sparks as they rejected the steel of the dwarf's axe. "Tok! Fall back!" he shouted, preparing another spell as he clawed his way up the shaft of his spear, trying to get back on his feet. "I'll try to bring it lower!"

As the dwarf hopped back, dodging a vicious bite from the creature's huge jaws, Topher cast a Dahf-enhanced Entangle spell; thick ropes of gray ash erupted from the ground, wrapping around the creature and pulling it down to the ground with a crash. It screamed again, thrashing; Tok got a single good blow in against the side of the creature's face before it tore itself free, and got gashed by the crystalline antlers in exchange. The wound bled, but didn't look serious; Topher just hoped this thing didn't have poison attacks, or something. "Shit. What is this thing?"

"Peryton," Tok huffed, clutching his wounded arm; it wasn't his axe arm, thankfully, but Topher was suddenly painfully aware that the dwarf didn't have a shield. "Probably Level 10 or more. We can take it, but it'll be ugly; I was hoping just to scare it off." He limped over to Topher, spinning his axe experimentally, as the creature wheeled about to face them with a snarl; Topher hoped it wasn't about to breathe fire. Fire. Maybe I can burn it with Flame Jet.

As the creature gathered itself to charge, Topher held his hand out and tried to ignore its trembling. "Ru, Koreq... K-Korpu!" he managed, stuttering a little as his brain creaked under the ratiocinatory effort of cross-factoring Xym against both Dahf and Mii. He wasn't prepared for what happened next.

Instead of hot gray flame or scalding ash, a cone of swirling gray magma erupted from his hand; he felt his fingers singe and blister from the heat of simply being near the lahar as it surged forth and fell over the peryton. Lightning-nimble, it managed to dodge the main body of the blast, but its huge wings were too big to maneuver quickly, and they erupted in boiling flames almost instantly as the shimmering violet feathers caught fire. The creature screamed hideously, tripping and sprawling across the ground in a mad scramble as it fought furiously to get away from the clinging, searing pain. It clawed the dirt, shrieking, then scrabbled furiously towards Topher in a sudden rush, and he squawked and fell backwards, his mind blaring a silent scream of alert. I'm dead. Even if I shield myself, the heat from the convection will fry me.

Suddenly, Tok was there; he leapt into the air, rocketing towards the creature as it charged, and Topher howled in dismay. He'll be impaled on the horns. He'll die. The dwarf's axe thundered down, but glanced off the peryton's thick, rock-hard skull; Topher could only watch, horrified, as the momentum from the dwarf's bound carried him forward onto the crystalline points.

No. Tok.

Momentum.

Topher gasped, then leapt backwards; in the same moment, he focused on the back of Tok's leather chestplate and pulled with every ounce of his will, straining with all the power of his Attract Object Skill to pull Tok back from the acuminate peril of the creature's antlers. As he expected, he was jerked forwards with tremendous force; but this was the third time it had happened, and he was ready for it, wrapping his arms around the dwarf and then pulling just as hard on a tree to his right. Still in midair, the whiplash of sudden redoubled inertia crunched his teeth together and whipped his body about with punishing force, but it worked; it jerked them to the side, out of the peryton's path, as it thundered past them with wails of agony and fury and tore away into the forest, crashing straight through stones and the solid trunks of trees as it wailed its pain. Topher wanted to shoot a Magic Dart at it, just to see if it was wounded enough to take down, but decided against it; the creature looked hurt, but not dying, and pissing it off might make it come back and squash the both of them. Instead, he simply lay there, his arms around Tok's waist, and panted for breath; he didn't know if he'd been fast enough, but he was too stunned and hurt to move. "Tok," he gasped. "Tok, are you...?"

The dwarf grunted. "Not that I ain't flattered, human, but how long are you gonna hug me, exactly?" He squirmed out of Topher's grip and scrambled up, looking after the fleeing peryton as he hefted his axe; Topher could tell he wanted the kill, but also doubted their ability to pull it off. Eventually, he shrugged and sheathed his axe, turning back around; Topher could see huge punctures in the dwarf's skin where the antlers had pierced him, tearing right through the dwarf's armor as though it had been paper, but Topher's last-second intervention had stopped their penetration before they'd reached any organs. Topher let out a huge sigh of relief.

The dwarf shook his head in mock disgust. "First you slack off so hard on guard duty you let a giant killer deer monster bigger than our wagon sneak up on you, then you about break my neck with some kind of telekinesis, and then you sexually assault me? I can't wait to see what you do for your second day on the job." Smirking, he went to the river to wash himself off; Topher could see that the dwarf's wounds were mostly superficial, but they still looked painful.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know what it was at first -- I could only see the deer head, and the teeth were..." he stopped, blinking. "You're fucking with me."

"More sexual harassment? I should report you to the Adventurer's Guild." Tok was openly chuckling now. "Still, it coulda been worse. At least you warned me before it was digesting our horse; I've had to pull the cart myself before, and let me tell ya, it ain't a thing you do for fun." He finished washing off his wounds, then grimaced at the holes in his armor. "Damn. I just bought this, too."

"Hey, hang on, wait a minute." Topher peered at the armor carefully, then checked his Status: the Shields and souped-up Flame Jet had cost him nearly all his MP, and he'd already been low from all the experimentation with Conjure Food and Drink, but he still had 1 MP remaining. "Let me see if I can fix it." Carefully tweaking his sequence for Mending, he chanted the long runic sequence cautiously; Tok blinked as he watched the holes in the leather repair themselves, as if being worked closed by invisible tools.

"Lookit you. More tricks than a circus juggler." Examining the chestplate, he nodded in satisfaction, then went to go hitch up the horse; the animal, apparently more used to this than Topher would have expected, was munching a mouthful of grass placidly despite having been at thirty feet's distance from the entire battle. When Tok had the wagon ready to depart, he gestured to Topher impatiently. "Come on, Grabby Hands. I don't wanna be here when that thing comes back; it'd be some nice experience, but it was a good bit tougher than I expected. We're gonna have enough trouble on this trip without looking for more."

Aching, Topher clambered up into the wagon and held on white-knuckled as Tok maneuvered it back onto the road; he sighed, knowing that an entire long day of travel was just beginning. And me out of MP. I can't even cast Remove Fatigue on myself to recover.

They drove for a while, keeping their ears open for any signs of pursuit or other threats; but after an hour or two, the threat seemed to have passed for good, and they both collectively released a sigh of relief. Tok, noticing this, chuckled. "Better get used to it, string bean. We're gonna be seeing things worse than that around every corner once we get past that bridge."

Topher scowled. "Never mind that. What about your wounds? Do you have bandages?"

Tok shook his head. "I'll be fine. Last Stand gives me accelerated healing for a while after it wears off; as long as I don't have any major injuries, I'll be as good as new by tomorrow morning. You, on the other hand, might not be so lucky."

Topher winced, examining his bright red and blistering fingers. "Don't suppose you've got any potions or anything?"

"Well, there is one remedy I swear by." The dwarf reached under the seat, pulled something out, and offered it to Topher.

Topher sighed, took the silver flask, and unscrewed it; he took a long, painful swallow, gasping for breath as the fiery liquor seared down his throat. "Yeah. My name's Topher Bailey, and I'm an alcoholic."