The core room has changed since I was last in it. Rather than simply being a single room containing the core on a pedestal and plaques of a century of dead dwarves, there is now a staircase down leading into a new core room. The pedestal with the currently orange-glowing orb has been relocated here, and there’s one wooden plaque displaying its latest member.
Basalt examines his image on the plaque. “Is that what I look like?”
“Sorry my [Stoneworking] skill isn’t higher.”
He rubs his ruddy beard. “Hey, I’m not gonna complain. I’m alive and get to be a dwarf.”
[Welcome,] Hebron’s voice speaks mentally. [Yes, I chose a soul that previously expressed enjoyment of being a dwarf.]
“Whoa, voices in my head? Who said that?”
I point to the little glowing marble. “That’s Hebron.”
Basalt comes and takes a closer look. “Oh! Sorry, I thought that was just a lamp.”
[Quite understandable.]
I explain what I know of how aether cores work in brief.
“So that’s an alien,” Basalt says, nodding. “Very cool. Very cool.”
“You’re taking this all in stride.”
Basalt shrugs. “What, did you want me to break down about how this can’t be happening, magic isn’t real, and so forth? I don’t think any drugs the doctors might have put me on would have caused a trip that didn’t blur off into nonsense before I even got down the hallway. I’d rather just enjoy being a dwarf until some orc or monster or whatever else kills me.”
“I suppose you’ll also need to decide whether, once we get rescued, you want to stay here and start to rebuild, go off on your own, or join my party.”
Basalt snorts. “Dude, what sort of a question is that? Of course I’ll join your party. What else am I doing with my afterlife?”
“Good to hear it,” I say with a grin. “I don’t go adventuring as much as I might like. Once we get out of here, I’ll probably be spending the rest of the year not going far from my village and working on skills that don’t involve surviving on my own in caves.”
“Sounds good. Tell me about skills. How do I learn more? The crafting stuff is great and all but I’d like to have more skills to avoid dying than just [Rapid Healing]. Some actual armor would be nice too.”
I head for the stairs. “The Elite orc left some armor, but it’s probably too big for us. Let’s see what we can do with it, though. You won’t be able to do ‘real’ magic until you reach Elite rank, but I will need to show you how to learn enhancement skills like Enhanced Heart (Rapid Healing). What’s the description on your class?”
“It says I get bonuses on dwarf skills and skills used while maintaining or improving a structure or vehicle.”
“What are ‘dwarf skills’?” I ask.
Basalt shrugs. “Doesn’t say and there isn’t a list under race, either. I’m a dwarf, so isn’t anything I do a ‘dwarf skill’?”
“It probably means skills that are stereotypically ‘dwarfy’,” I say. “Magic is based on conceptual energy, or you might say the power of ideas.”
“Uh-huh.”
We go to the workshop where Rowan left the armor and examine it. Definitely a poor fit for any of us, but there’s another use it would be good for. Training Enhanced Muscles (Thick Skin). The recommendation in the Corwen skill book was to use a piece of armor like this to draw the concept from, since the mind can associate wanting your skin to be more similar to leather.
Basalt is silent after my explanations about what I think magic works like as though he were just told some complicated physics concept, except it’s a complicated psychics concept.
I say sheepishly, “Yeah, sorry, you’re probably still adjusting to being a dwarf in a fantasy world, never mind trying to make sense of the magic system. And you’re not even at the ‘normal 7 year old’ level of skill knowledge. Fortunately, the system will keep track of that stuff for you. Let me see if I can figure out ‘explain as though to a brand new reincarnator’ because I have this feeling you won’t be the last new reincarnator I run across. I’ve already run across three other reincarnators.”
We bring the meditation materials with us to the guard room. The highly fragrant orc leather armor as well as some centipede carapaces I’d set aside for crafting materials. I become intimately familiar with the smell of sweaty orc. Rowan is still sitting in the guard room, diligently keeping watch.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“Rowan, when did you last sleep?” I ask.
“Not sure,” Rowan says. “But I’m definitely about to unlock Enhanced Senses (Tireless Vigil), so I’m going to keep at it a bit longer.”
Normally I would be encouraging this teenager to get himself to bed, but under the circumstances, I just have to wish him luck.
“I want to work on getting [Thick Skin] unlocked,” I say. “Afterward, I want to do a hunting trip and see if we can find some more giant centipedes to fight. Hopefully Basalt can unlock a skill or two against something we know won’t kill us.”
“Good idea,” Rowan says, and turns to Basalt. “What did you do in your first life? What sort of skills did you have?”
“Not much that would be useful here,” Basalt says with a shrug. “I stocked shelves at a supermarket. 40 hours a week could pay the bills and give me time to play games. Then the economy got stupid, I lost my job, the landlord jacked up the rent, even the prices of food kept going up. I had to get two jobs and cancel my subscriptions and didn’t have enough spare time for anything but casual games.”
“Why didn’t you just go back to your Hearth?” Rowan asks. “Surely your family would have supported you.”
“They kicked me out when I turned 18.”
Rowan blinks as he tries to process that. “That is possibly the most baffling thing I have heard about Earth.”
“Won’t argue that. In any case, I don’t think I can deal with monsters and orcs the same way I had to deal with unruly customers.”
This guy was nobody special. He was just a basic cog in the machine who got crushed when everything started going wrong.
“So, what are your classes?” Basalt wonders as he sits down next to the armor.
“[Apprentice Guardian],” Rowan says.
“[Psychic Child]. I’m looking to attend magic school in my teens and then build a skyship to fly around and explore the universe. Assuming I don’t die before I turn nine from being stepped on by a Heroic swamp monster.”
“Cool, cool. Anyone else in your party, or is it just you two so far?”
We spend some time discussing skills and describing my family to him. I maybe slightly fail to mention the devil-goats just to see what he does when he sees one.
Rowan and I help explain how enhancement skills work and how exactly you’re supposed to absorb concepts and all that. It takes a fair bit of work (by which I mean thinking hard and trying to explain magical nonsense to a regular dude), but Basalt actually unlocks the skill before I do. I’m gonna put that up to it being ‘dwarfy’ somehow.
“Yes, got it!” Basalt exclaims.
“Man, that was fast,” I say. “I’m sure I will figure it out soon enough. Let’s get something to eat. You tired?”
Basalt shakes his head. “This was just a nice break. Sit down, close your eyes, and breathe deeply of the weird monster smells. Do you have the skill already, Rowan?”
Rowan nods. “Though I actually just got another level of it here.”
We go off and stuff ourselves with grapes and centipede meat. (Basalt shrugs and tries it, and proclaims it “not bad”.) After bringing Rowan a lunch of armloads of grapes, we discuss how our hunting and gathering trips usually go.
“Clairvoyance certainly sounds useful,” Basalt says.
“You can learn it too,” I say.
Basalt shakes his head. “I’ve already done enough heavy thinking for today. I want to see some action.”
“Fair enough.”
We grab some gathering baskets and secure the fort behind us before heading out. Rowan isn’t built for stealth but Basalt has no levels in it at all yet, so I’m extra cautious about extending my senses as far as I can to receive advance warning of hostiles.
[One giant centipede at ten o’clock,] I send to my party.
Since it’s alone, we let Basalt take a shot at it by himself. He grips his axe and grins like he’s seen bigger cockroaches, and charges at the thing. His first swipe completely misses and the monster lunges at him.
Basalt manages to block the creature with his axe and takes another valiant swing at the air. The centipede tries to get in under his weapon and bite him in the foot, only to get stomped on repeatedly.
He gives a thumbs up and we load the corpse into one of the gathering baskets. The broken carapace probably won’t be worth much as a crafting material but the meat will be good and all the scraps can be converted into essence. No sense leaving it out here to dissolve unless we have to abandon the baskets in an emergency.
We keep going, gathering some roots and fungi and killing a few more centipedes along the way. I keep my senses open for any signs of orcs, including checking if there’s any lingering traces of them having passed through recently. Nothing, and that’s making me nervous. If no orcs have patrolled the area recently, there’s a good chance that they might patrol soon. The baskets are nearly full, so I order us back into the fort. I don’t want to go too far in case we get cut off from safety.
Once back inside, Rowan asks tiredly, “Did you unlock any new skills, Basalt?”
The dwarf nods. “I got Blocking (Staffwork), Striking (Polearm Proficiency), and Survival (Caving). The dwarfiest of dwarfy skills. You know, aside from mining. And alcoholism. Are there skills for alcoholism?”
“You should ask my mom about her skill set sometime,” I say with a snicker.
“Alright, I’m going back to keeping watch,” Rowan says.
“You work too hard, kid,” Basalt says.
“I’m an [Apprentice Guardian],” Rowan says. “This is literally my job.”
“There’s three of us here now and one of them isn’t spending all his time carving me anymore. I’m sure you don’t need to get [Tireless Vigil] in a single unbroken stretch and we’ll need you at full if there’s a fight. I saw how much you were flagging out there.”
I’m glad Hebron picked a stable soul to reincarnate who takes all this weird stuff in stride rather than freaks out about it. Which was probably the point. The sort who freak out are probably best reincarnated into situations where they’re allowed time to get used to the situation.
With Basalt insisting Rowan get some rest, our vigilant [Apprentice Guardian] reluctantly goes to take a nap. I work on butchering the centipedes and putting away the mushrooms into the “don’t eat” section to experiment with later. And the roots might not be great for twine but they do well enough for firewood when dried. I’m kind of glad the Hearthkeepers insist that every child of the Hearth learns the basics of cooking.
I keep getting levels in [Organization] for making sure the poisonous mushrooms don’t get mixed in with the food. Funny, that.