'Menu' 3.5

568-9-23a

Evening Continued

Home of Raphael Whitebuckle, Tanzar, North West Coast, Mrilchift, Riches of Renfros

With exaggerated slowness, Granny V — no, she was Stoni! — picked herself up from the defaced garden bed into which she'd tumbled.  First she rolled from her side onto her back, then she pulled herself into a sitting positon, and finally she awkwardly rose up, barely maintaining her balance.  In spite of her hand clutched over her nose, she could feel the blood dripping down her face.

She glared down at the traitorous rake, judging it for having found its way under her foot.

How could it have possibly moved there?  Is this something like the book and the bottle?  And maybe the wire?  Was the rake plucking the wire?  Ergh, I can hardly think!

She belatedly thought of a solution to the problem of pain.

"ALI, set my pain percpetion to the minimum."

The pain melted away into something far more manageable, but somehow no less distracting.

Of course that didn't work.  Stupid cheating dream game!

Repeatedly looking at the scene and willing her Observe skill to give her an answer didn't work either.  Skills didn't work like that.  Her progress had stalled, but she didn't want to give up and go inside without gaining some clue as to what was going on.  But even with her borrowed fur coat, she was growing cold.  Standing in the freezing night air wouldn't do her any good.

Maybe having a class will help...

"ALI, show me that class list again."

Alright, let's see...  Scholar gives me Concentrate, Detect Connection, and Detect Pattern.  Those sound quite useful.  Acrobat... doesn't really help me at all with tonight's problems.  Teacher doesn't help either, except maybe Distill Knowledge.  Strategist isn't really applicable without enemies, allies and conflicts.  I don't even know for sure that I have an enemy.  Trader... nothing good there, other than Spot Opportunity, maybe.  Looks like Scholar is the way to go.

Stoni carefully peeled her hand away from her sticky face.  Her nose seemed to have stopped bleeding.  She considered asking how much damage the rake had dealt, but decided it didn't really matter.  What counted was that she wasn't appreciably closer to death, and wouldn't be smelling much for the rest of the night.  Now that her hand was free again, she picked up the lantern from where it had fallen.  That moved the shadows around, but didn't show her anything new.

"To get the class I want, do I just ask for it?  Or are there other steps?  Can I remove it if I change my mind?"

A class will be removed if you do not raise at least three of its abilities to Poor rank within a week.  You may purge a class up until you have raised all of its abilities to Poor rank or any of its abilities to Sufficient tier.  Upon reaching those rank conditions, you will be prompted with a final chance to purge the class.

"Seems like a decent way to try out new classes without too much risk.  Alright, sign me up for the Scholar class."

• You are now a Scholar.
• The abilities Appear Brilliant, Concentrate, Detect Connection, Detect Pattern, and Escape Notice are each at Poor rank, tier 0.

"I don't feel any different."

She eschewed speaking out loud, not wanting to interfere with her injured nose.  It felt blocked too, and she didn't want to sound ridiculous.

You are not any different yet.

"Oh.  Right.  I'd better get to work."

She again looked at the rake and the ground around it.  Even with the lantern held close by, no useful details stood out.  Hoping to prevent further accidents, she turned the rake over before turning away.  A close inspection of the symbols scratched in the garden bed — those that remained after she'd fallen on it — yielded only the guess that it had been done with a stick.  On a hunch, she put down the lantern and picked up the rake, holding it with the working end up.  She dragged it through the soil, producing a mark extremely similar to those already there.

Aha!  That was done with the rake.  But if so, where was the person holding it standing?  I didn't see any footprints, and it doesn't look like anything was covered up by raking.

• Detect Connection to Dreadful-5, Observe to Poor-25.

Progress, nice!  But does that mean I'm on the right track?  Um...  If no one could have been holding the rake, then maybe...

She bent down and examined the rake closely, expecting to find a string tied to it, or something similar.  There was nothing.  It was just an ordinary rake with nothing attached to it.

"Argh!  Ow!"  Stoni kicked at the dirt in pained frustration.  She was only growing colder, not closer to an understanding.

Some scholar I am.  But this is going nowhere.  I really need to get myself patched up, clean, and warm.

Abandoning the scene of the rake attack, she carried the lantern back into Raphael Whitebuckle's home.  Though she'd made sure all the windows were closed, it wasn't much warmer inside than out.  That was easily solved by lighting a fire in the loungeroom stove.  She was pleased and relieved to find that it was set ready to light.  She had some worries of a 'weird accident' causing the fire to spread out of control, but the wide hearth and firmly latching door on the stove alleviated those enough.  The danger of freezing was more imminent than that of a conflagration.

While that starts heating the place up, I'd better see how frightful my face looks.

To that end, she climbed the stairs to the main bedroom and entered its attached bathroom, still carrying the lantern.  She tossed the fur coat over the back of a carved wooden chair and entered the huge bathroom.  The mirror revealed a ghastly sight.  It took a few heart-pounding seconds to understand that the blood-masked face staring back at her was her own.  Or more precisely, the one she was borrowing for a few hours.  Much of the blood had settled in wrinkles.  The grey eyes looked tired, as if they had watched generations pass.

Did I ever grow old?  What colour were my eyes?  Why does no answer feel right?  What happened to me?

Sighing at the futility of her questions, Stoni moistened a washcloth in the bathroom sink and carefully dabbed at her face.  Her nose was swolen and tender, but it didn't seem to be actually broken.

I'm looking forward to leaving this body behind now.  Now let's see if there's something I can use as a bandage.  Or maybe some cotton in case it starts bleeding again?  Or... actually, what I'd really like is a bath.  Or maybe a shower.  I definitely remember liking showers.

• Detect Connection to Dreadful-10, Observe to Poor-27.

She was puzzled but pleased by the ability and skill progress, but didn't dwell on it.  Her priority was figuring out how to get hot water.  She first tried filling the spa.  Nothing happened until she realised the water required manual pumping.  Once she got the water flowing, she was very pleasantly surprised that the water ran hot.  It was actually too hot, but after a few minutes of labour the flow cooled significantly.  She realised the water must be heated by the wood stove, and the water in the pipes had heated much more than the flowing water.  The amount of hottest water implied a long length of tubing was being heated.  She concluded it was likely coiled around the chimney, and was rewarded by a few more levels of Detect Connection and Observe.

After a few more minutes the merely warm water brought the temperature in the tub down to a bearable level.  The bathroom had already steamed up significantly, warming the air to a pleasantly balmy temperature.  She slipped out of Granny V's outfit — a forest green dress with tiny cream leaf patterns and puffy cream sleeves — and sank into the soothing water with a deep sigh.

This is lovely, but how do I turn the jets on?  Do they need pumping too?  Maybe I missed something.  But what?

She let herself slid almost completely underwater and soaked in the liquid warmth.  On one hand, it felt perfectly real.  On the other hand she wasn't sure whether she actually remembered what 'real' felt like.  Also she could only feel one of her hands.  She decided there was no point in worrying about that and let herself relax.

Deep breaths.  Out and in.  There's no hurry.  Nothing to fear.  Just be cosy in the moment.  Maybe I should have brought up a bottle of wine.  Bottle...  The bottle fell off the middle of the bench, the book fell off a narrow shelf.  The rake moved a lot further.  If some unseen forced moved all of them, could it be growing stronger?

• Detect Connection to Dreadful-25, Concentrate to Dreadful-10.

Stoni's rejoicing at her new achievement was short lived, as the bathwater grew cold.  Not gradually unpleasantly cold, but suddenly bitterly cold.  She sprang up over the side and landed on the fluffy towel she'd placed at the ready.  The room swam around her, due to the disorientation from moving so quickly.  She'd largely ignored her vision trouble, but now it was causing her serious trouble.

Visibility was low and the air still felt extremely humid.  She absently noted that she would need to find a way to air the room out without chilling the house in the process.  Most of her attention was on trying to wrap the towel around herself with one working arm, and removing the frigid water as rapidly as possible.

How?  What just happened?  There's no way that was possible!  Water doesn't just almost freeze out of nowhere!

The vapour cleared a little, allowing her to see the foggy mirror.  Some parts of it were distinctly lacking in fog.  Not just parts, lines.  Symbols.  Words.

YOU CAN NOT HIDE

PROOF RESTS BELOW