“So, CLR. What’s that about?”
Aila looked askance at Jay, her seat on the large wagon combined with her height putting her head close to level with Jay’s. Her brow furrowed over her blue eyes, her look a mixture of suspicion and confusion which was really quite cute on her face.
“What do you mean, what’s it about?” Aila responded after a moment. “It’s CLR.”
“Well, I’m assuming it stands for ‘Combined Level Rating’ but I’ve never heard it abbreviated like that before so I just wanted to make sure.” Jay shrugged her shoulders. “We’re speaking the same language, but this isn’t my native tongue. I might be missing context.”
English was not only her native language, but it was also the only language Jadis spoke with any confidence. However, since she was supposed to be a trio of Nephilim villagers who lived their entire lives on a remote mountain with no contact, pretending English wasn’t her first language seemed like a good cover for any gaps in knowledge she might display. The language they were speaking was called ‘Imperial’ by the mercenaries, anyway, plus whatever writing system they were using was not using the same alphabet she was familiar with.
Aila gave Jay a guarded look, then a nod. “No, you’re right, it stands for ‘Combined Level Rating’. Nothing else.”
The cart driver went silent after that, brow still furrowed, but staring off ahead and down the road.
Jadis sighed internally. She was getting some pretty obvious ‘I’m pissed’ vibes from the redhead. Maybe trying to force a conversation was a bad idea.
Other than the fairly informative conversations Jadis had had with the wagon guards all morning long, the trip had been uneventful. Around noon they had stopped for a short meal by a stream, letting the zebra-bison, actually called aurochs she’d been informed, drink their fill. After the quick lunch of dried meat and some kind of pear fruit, they’d gotten back on the road.
Jadis used the opportunity to try and position her selves so that one of her would be alone with Aila and out of earshot of the others. Syd had taken to ranging ahead once again, only this time Gerwas and Ludwas also scouted ahead with her, telling her about mercenary life or pointing out local plants and wildlife that were interesting. Dys had moved back with Volker and Specht, striking up a conversation about the kinds of demons they’d been fighting and the battles they had been in. Most of what Volker told Dys was a repeat of things he’d already told to Syd, so Jadis was already familiar, but he didn’t know that.
With her two selves running interference, Jadis’ third self Jay was free to talk openly with Aila, test the waters and see what might happen without a peanut gallery to get in the way. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem like Aila was particularly receptive to any of Jay’s attempts at conversation.
“You seem like you know a lot about levels and classes and the like. Did you study somewhere?” Jay asked, trying again to get Aila talking.
“No,” she answered shortly.
That was a definite frown on her lips. Jadis crossed education off her mental list of topics to talk about. There was clearly some kind of sore spot to avoid there.
As Jadis tried to think up another topic while also weighing the pros and cons of just abandoning the attempt all together and just leaving the seemingly sour girl to her own business, Aila spoke up first.
“Do you have a divine class? I’m not asking for specifics. You don’t have to answer that question, not if it bothers you. But it’s divine-based, right? Your primary class? Maybe your secondary?”
The words seemed to tumble out of Aila, like she had to force it all out at once or she wouldn’t have been able to ask anything at all.
Jadis considered what she was asking, running a hand through her white hair. “Divine? Do you mean… gifted to me by a god?”
Aila scrunched her nose up, an odd grimace crossing her freckled features. “No, all classes are a gift from the gods. I mean, is one of your classes based off the divine attribute? Are you and your sisters able to heal each other or do holy damage to demons or something like that? Tell me you got paladin archetypes. You did, didn’t you? That’s why you three are killing demons so easily, leveling so fast?”
Oh. So the divine stat was linked to healing and holy damage, huh? Interesting.
“No,” Jay refuted Aila’s assertions. “Divine is one of my lowest stats. Same for my sisters.”
That was true. Along with Arcane, zero was a pretty damn low number.
The girl seemed to deflate in her seat, slumping forward. She mumbled something that Jadis couldn’t quite hear over the sound of the wagon wheels, but she thought might have been to the tune of ‘unfair’.
“Hey,” Jay said, turning to walk backwards and look Aila in the eye, “I know we just met and I don’t really know you, but I feel like you’re kind of taking me leveling up fast and all that unusually personally. I mean, why does it bother you so much?”
Aila’s head popped up, glaring at Jay for a moment, mouth opening briefly before she shut it with an audible click of her teeth. A few seconds later, she started again.
“It’s nothing to do with you.” She paused, seemed to rethink her words, then clarified, “I mean, it’s not your fault. I just—I look at what you and your sisters have done and I wish it were me.”
Huh. So she was envious of her? That… wasn’t the best place to start. But it was a point of conversation. She could work with it.
“So,” Jay drawled, eyebrows raised and one hand rubbing her chin, “You wish you were being stalked by bone thieves on a daily basis for weeks on end, constantly fighting for your life? You have interesting fantasies there, Blue.”
“What!?” Aila spluttered. “I’m not—I’m not fantasizing about stalking and, and, fighting for my life!” She huffed, composing herself. “And who are you calling Blue?”
“Would you rather I call you Bean Pole?” Jay shot her a lopsided grin. “Because, no offense, that seems like a horrible nickname. Plus, you’ve got nice blue eyes. So, Blue.”
Aila leveled a stony glare at Jay, failing to break down Jay’s defiant grin.
“Don’t call me Bean Pole,” Aila finally said, breaking eye contact.
“Alright then,” Jay readily agreed, her smile growing a little brighter. “So, tell me Blue, what’s bothering you?”
She didn’t respond right away, blue-eyed gaze locked on her uncles a few hundred feet ahead where they were talking with Syd. Eventually she motioned one hand to Jay, saying, “Turn around, you’re going to walk into that bush.”
Jadis had already seen it through Dys and Syd so Jay was in no danger of tripping, but she appreciated the concern Aila displayed. Jay turned back around, skipping a few steps around the small bush that had grown up between the cobblestones.
“Well?” Jay prompted. “The hindquarters of those aurochs cannot be more interesting than talking with me, can they?”
A small huff of a laugh escaped the redhead’s lips. Progress.
“I didn’t get the class I was hoping for when I reached majority,” Aila finally admitted, a small frown pulling down the sides of her lips. “I didn’t even get something in the same archetype of what I wanted.”
“Sorry, language thing. Majority?” Jay asked for clarification.
“Majority. Age of Majority. When you get your primary class,” Aila explained.
“Ah, I understand,” Jay nodded. “So, the sys—gods gave you a class you didn’t want. Couldn’t you wait until they offered you something better?”
“No,” Aila said with a defeated sigh. “It would have been pointless. When the gods revealed my status sheet, it was clear I hadn’t been born with any innate talent in the arcane attribute.” She looked sidelong at Jay, her frown turning mournful. “One of my lowest scores, if you’re wondering.”
“Arcane? You wanted to be a spell slinger then?” Jay asked, risking a term she wasn’t sure was shared between their cultures.
“Spell slinger?” Aila gave her an odd look. Clearly that wasn’t a common phrase. She’d nix it from her lexicon for now. “I wanted a class in the wizard archetype. Gods, I would have taken sorcerer, too. Anything that uses arcane spells, really.” Her look turned wistful. “I spent so many years of my childhood helping Old Hele with her chores just for the chance to be near someone with a wizard class, hoping and praying it’d be enough to prove to the gods I was worthy. It wasn’t.”
The last was said with a sour tone.
“So that’s it? You’re not trying to be a wizard anymore?” Jay asked, not with any accusation in her voice, just trying to understand.
“Of course I’m still trying. I’m level seventeen now. I’ve been putting every free attribute point I’ve been given into arcane, and I’ve taken all five levels of Minor Attribute Improvement for the same purpose. It’s taken two years, but I’m almost there. Just three more levels and I’ll be twenty and I’ll finally be able to get an actually useful class.”
“Should you be telling me your skill choices like that?” Jay pointed out.
“It doesn’t matter,” she dismissed the concern. “Who cares what skills a Cart Driver has. That’s my class, by the way. Cart Driver. Not even one of the valuable or high skill labor classes. Cart Driver.”
Jadis felt she had a pretty clear picture now. Aila had wanted to be a wizard or sorcerer, a badass goal in her opinion, but had been dealt shitty cards by the system or gods or however it worked and hadn’t gotten a class she wanted. She’d been forced to take a class she hated and spent a couple of years working her way up to the point where she was close to possibly getting what she wanted.
Then three strangers come along and announce that they had gone up almost the same number of levels in only a few months. That would probably put a bitter taste in her mouth, too.
Jadis decided she probably shouldn’t ever tell the discouraged woman that she’d actually gone up thirty levels in about a month and a half.
“I’m sorry,” Aila broke the silence again, seeming to physically brush the bitter frustration off her shoulders by straightening her back and giving a little shake of her head. “I didn’t mean to burden you with all that. Forget it. And I also apologize if I’ve been rude to you and your sisters. I’ll apologize to them too.”
“No, it’s fine,” Jay assured her. “No problem. Sometimes it’s good to vent. Let all the bad eating at you out.”
Once more Aila gave Jay an odd, indecipherable look. Jadis wondered how many of the things she said were things that didn’t translate well. She could only hope the language barrier excuse kept up.
“This is an assumption on my part,” Jay started, motioning a hand towards Aila, “But I’m guessing you came to Weigrun with your uncles because demons give extra experience when killed, right?”
Aila nodded in agreement after a short moment of hesitation.
“But I’m guessing you aren’t actually doing much demon slaying since you’re not a combat class. Sometimes you tag along with some of the mercenaries and get some incidental experience, just for being around or something like that, right?”
Aila nodded again.
Thank D that assumptive leap of logic had panned out. Jadis hadn’t known if experience was shared across ‘parties’ or groups or whatever, but she’d figured something of the like had to be the case or there probably wouldn’t be much point at all to Aila putting herself in harm’s way for no reward.
Well, there were other ways Jadis could think of to power level someone, so to speak, but she was glad her first guess had been the correct one.
“I’ll also bet you either don’t get taken along for the fights that often, or when you do, it’s in such a large group that whatever experience you’re getting is lackluster at best.”
With no denial from the redhead, Jay continued, coming to the point of her questions.
“Well, if you want, you can come along with me and my sisters to slay some demons. We decided we’ll be sticking around for at least as long as it takes to get our matriarch bounty, maybe longer depending on how things go in Felsen. I can tell you we’re definitely going to be killing a lot more demons in the near future. We’ve got a lot to pay them back for. If you’re interested, I’ll ask them to make sure they’re okay with it, and you can join us. I bet we can get you those last three levels pretty fast.”
Jadis watched Aila’s face for any reaction to her proposal, positive or negative. There wasn’t much for her to go on, the redhead’s visage held in a perfectly neutral expression. As the moment stretched on and the wagon continued to roll, Jadis started to think her pitch had been received poorly. Then, Aila muttered a strange comment under her breath.
“Second time in two days…”
“Huh?” Jay asked, not sure if she had heard correctly.
“Nothing,” Aila waved Jay off. “I’ll consider it.”
“Sure! Offer’s open any time,” Jay said with a smile.
Even if Aila ended up not reciprocating her interest, Jadis did genuinely hope the Cart Driver took her up on the offer. It had to suck not getting the class you’d been dreaming of for most of your life. Jadis didn’t mind helping out, even if she didn’t get anything out of it. She doubted it’d even take that much effort on her part anyway.
As Jay walked next to Aila on her wagon in what she now thought was a companionable silence, Jadis’ attention was drawn to something Gerwas was saying from his spot far to the front, next to Syd.
“That rockfall looks new,” Gerwas was pointing out, indicating a pile of stones and rubble that seemed to have fallen from the side of one of the hills, partially obstructing the road. “We’ll have to let the lord know in Felsen. Should send a crew to clear that away.”
“Aye,” Ludwas agreed, turning his head up to Syd. “You see, my young friend, some demons will set up rocks or fallen trees or the like along the roads to use for ambushes. They’re clever in a devious sort of way.”
“So there might be demons hiding over there right now, waiting to ambush us?” Syd asked, pointing her spear towards the rocks.
“Not much chance,” Gerwas assured her. “We’ve both got skills to help us spot the hidden or sense when things are trying to sneak up on us. Maybe this lout here wouldn’t notice, but I’d have heard or seen something if any demons were lying in wait. Not much gets past Ol’ Gerwas, you can trust that.”
“You mean like how my sisters and I snuck up on the two of you yesterday, and you didn’t even know they were nearby until I told you?”
“Uh, hm,” Gerwas grumbled, stroking his beard, “That was an exception—”
His words were cut off as a loud rumbling roar shook the air, a huge inhuman figure rising up from behind the fallen stones.
“Fucking useless scouts!” Jadis heard from far away, middle distance, and right up close as Volker and Specht cursed at the two brothers, shouldering their crossbows.
In all honesty, Jadis mirrored the sentiment.
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