“Emmeth, why do you sometimes just not answer my questions?” Peak asked Emmeth from its usual spot in Emmeth’s hand. “Like, they aren’t even that difficult. ‘Why are we going to the barn, Emmeth? What kind of weapon are we going to find there?' A blade’s a very specific answer. JUST KIDDING!”

Emmeth didn’t say anything in response, just set Peak on the ground so that he could pull open the door. The hinges were rusted, so it was taking a lot of effort to open the door. 

“Does leaving me in the dark bring you some sort of perverse joy?”

“No.” Emmeth lied.

“THEN WHY. THE FUCK. ARE YOU LIKE THIS!?”

“I think you should be asking a more specific question.” Emmeth answered in a monotone voice, doing his best not to relay his amusement.

Peak felt the urge to scream, but kept itself from doing so. Screaming might cause lots of chaos again, and it didn’t want to piss off Emmeth by doing something so stupid.

“I will have my revenge! Just you wait,” Peak swore.

Emmeth finished opening the door at Peak’s words. “I’m sure you will,” he said before walking inside.

…

“DAMNIT, HEY! COME PICK ME UP!” Peak called after Emmeth.

Emmeth started searching the interior of the barn for a very specific tool.

“Meh. Damnit.” Peak groaned before pushing himself after Emmeth with earth manipulation.

The barn was pretty empty, as far as barns went. There weren’t any animals, the floor was clear of grasses and manure, and it looked like the place had been emptied some time ago. Emmeth wasn’t sure why, considering the old man was still here. Maybe someone ran off with them? More likely, he couldn’t take care of them anymore and sold them off. Still, Emmeth hoped that the farmer had left him the one thing he really needed.

And there it was. His hope for a weapon. He reached up and took it from its hooks on the wall.

Emmeth held the scythe aloft.

Peak could not see what Emmeth was holding and so the undead just looked like it was dramatically posing. 

“Whaddya got there?”

“A scythe.”

“... You’re going full grim reaper, eh? I get it. It fits with the whole ‘spooky undead of vengeance’ thing you’ve got going.”

Emmeth had no idea what Peak was talking about, but it was obvious the stone was mocking him. He ignored his jeers and looked over the weapon in his hand. He let it tilt and fall to the side and grabbed the handle with his other hand, letting it rest on his palm. 

Kyla had always said he was quicker than her father at harvesting. Despite being a poor farmer in almost every other way, when harvest time came, he was done far earlier compared to the rest. He had a technique for it, [Scythe Work], but hadn’t thought much of it after the bow skill for hunting turned out to be a dead end as well. Now, he was finally willing to try. 

He spun the blade around before raising the blade and slashing it downwards.

… 

“So, uh… What are you doing?” Peak asked.

Emmeth waited for a moment before twirling the blade and slashing to the side.

Once more, the message that he hoped for did not arrive.

“... Why?” Emmeth asked, his voice laced with vexation.

“Uh, what?”

“Why does it still…” he slashed the air once more, “Why can I learn even a single weapon!?”

“... Maybe you’re not suited for it?”

“Not suited. Not suited.” Emmeth repeated the words as he continued to slash the air, no longer attempting to be careful with his technique. “I have practiced with swords, with axes, with hammer, shield, spear, polearm, cudgel, mace, ball and chain, and yet I have only gained one skill from each of them. Do you know what it was?”

“... No?” Peak answered, unsure.

“[Sword: Conceptualization], [Axe: Conceptualization], [Hammer: Conceptualization],” Emmeth continued down the list through all the weapons he had once tried to learn, “and yet, despite understanding their mechanics, the mechanics of fighting with such weapons…

“I REMAIN USELESS!” Emmeth tossed the scythe away, it twirling through the air before hitting the ground. 

At this point a window appeared before him.

Emmeth almost screamed at this, but held it in. He ran his hand through his hair as he glared at the weapon, slowly walking towards it. 

“So much time spent training, so much time being given for learning different weapons, other lessons cut short with the belief that I was a boy destined for talent, such with my variety of weapon skills. With such knowledge of different weapons, I would be able to perfectly counter any enemy. A master duelist, that’s what I was going to be. A mighty warrior, a great knight who would bring honor to my family!” 

Emmeth picked up the scythe once more. 

“I was the golden child, the blessed one! I was to be the greatest warrior our family had ever seen! BUT NO! USELESS! I--”

“Jeez, dude, chill out.” Peak cut into Emmeth’s monologue. “Seriously, I get it. Rough home life, too many expectations from your family, you’re in some kind of disgrace or banishment or something, it’s fine. What the hell does that have to do with a scythe?”

Emmeth glared daggers at Peak. “... Yes. I wonder.” He said sarcastically as he reached down to pick up the scythe. 

“Is there some sort of metaphor here I’m missing?” Peak asked.

“I am trying to learn a weapon skill.” Emmeth said, slashing down again.

“... So, even though you’ve learned that you’re shit with all those bladed weapons, you just pick up another?”

“Not just bladed weapons.”

“That’s not the point.” Peak said, annoyed. “Think outside the box some more. Anything is a weapon if you try wrong enough.”

Emmeth lowered the scythe. “... What?” 

“If it can hurt someone, it can be used as a weapon.” Peak declared. “Why not try to master the way of the fork?”

Emmeth was entirely baffled by this. “... There is no fork skill group.”

“There is no fork skill group so far!” 

Emmeth struggled to process the deep wisdom the stone had just granted him. While Emmeth agreed, while it was certainly within the realm of possibility…

“There is absolutely no chance that forks are--”

[ ) ( ] [ ) ( ] [ ) ( ]

“I cannot believe that you have successfully convinced me to do this.” Emmeth muttered. He was standing in front of a table in the main house. He had searched the house for anything that might be used for the most basic of offensive purposes. He had found a broom, a brush, a variety of kitchen implements sans knives (Emmeth had tried those long ago), a sewing kit, a bottle, a glass shard, a lantern, a horseshoe (the barn didn’t have any animals, but it seemed to at some point), and a rock. The rock was Peak, and Emmeth was prepared to use the stone as a weapon if he got a skill for it, much to Peak’s displeasure.

“I can’t believe you haven’t tried this already.”

“Not all of us have thoughts so…” Emmeth struggled to find the word, “unique.”

“Then you’re not thinking the right thoughts.” Peak lectured. “You have to think outside the box more.”

The idiom passed over Emmeth’s head. Instead mulling over the words, he grabbed the first item, the broom. 

He wasn’t entirely certain how he should be wielding it. Should he treat it like a staff or a spear?

Best to try it both ways. 

Emmeth took a stance he knew was optimal for most spear users and stabbed forwards with the brush part forwards. Once, twice, three times in quick succession. 

His form was terrible and it accomplished nothing.

Next, he swung the broom like a staff, trying to twirl it over his head.

Emmeth dropped the broom.

Peak couldn’t see the broom and was doing its best not to laugh at how silly Emmeth looked. 

“Not the broom.” Emmeth declared and kicked it across the floor. He picked up the brush.

This brush was a hairbrush. Not a hairbrush for people, mind you, but for horses. Horse brush? Emmeth wasn’t sure if the thing had a specific name or not. He swiped it through the air. 

He swiped through the air a couple times for good measure, but nothing happened. 

“Any luck?” Peak asked.

“Not yet.” Emmeth grabbed a spatula. 

“This may take some time.” He noted as he swung the wooden implement like he would a club.

[ ) ( ] [ ) ( ] [ ) ( ]

Despite wielding a spatula, a ladle, a whisk, a corkscrew, and a cutting board, Emmeth gained nothing. That was, until he swung the cutting board one last time.

Emmeth felt like the world was mocking him and his efforts. He tossed the cutting board back on the table, narrowly missing the lantern. 

“Alright, Emmeth, next up we have the, uh… What was it again? I can’t remember.”

“Sewing kit.” Emmeth evenly replied. 

“Yep, that. Do the thing!”

Emmeth opened up the kit and examined what he had. There was a needle, a pair of scissors, four spools of thread, and a tape measure. 

He decided to start with the needle. Sharp, pointy things would probably work the best.

Emmeth took the needle out of the kit and stabbed the air, as though he were holding a dagger or a shank.

No, the form seemed off. Not a very efficient way of doing it. Emmeth pinched the needle like a dart and stabbed downwards. 

Cutting with the damn thing didn’t seem to be an option. If it was, it would require skill he currently did not have. 

He stabbed to the left and then to the right. 

Sure enough, he got exactly what he had been expecting.

Emmeth was trying very hard to keep his cool.

“Those were some nice dance moves.” Peak commented.

Emmeth was failing at it horrendously.

He hadn’t been trying to wield the random items as weapons for long, but it made him think of his failures. Even if it was a fresh idea, even if it was giving him new weapon conceptualization skills… 

It wasn’t giving Emmeth anything he could use to fight. 

Emmeth threw the needle away. “Peak, I will not continue. I--” A notification appeared, but he ignored it for the moment. “I give up. I cannot make proper use of any weapon. I will find some other way to fight with my current skills.”

“Come on, you don’t want to try the lantern? I bet you’ll love the lantern.” Peak joked. 

“No. I’m done with this silly idea of yours. This is ridiculous.” 

“Well, it’s better than any idea you have.”

Unfortunately for Emmeth, the stone was right. Sighing for the first time that Peak had ever seen him do so, Emmeth looked at the window.

… 

Emmeth stared in stunned silence. 

… 

“Emmeth?” Peak called out.

…

“Hello?”

“I’ll be damned,” Emmeth cursed, “needles.”

“Needles?”

“Needles.”

“Well well well… What was that about my ideas being too ridiculous?” Peak gloated.

Emmeth said nothing, too engrossed in his own thoughts. The truth was, he had barely touched a needle in his life. He was taught long ago that sewing and embroidery was a pastime not fitting for men, and he had agreed wholeheartedly with the sentiment. While he had certainly held needles before, he had never truly attempted to use them.

Now though… Now Emmeth no longer cared about its “femininity.” He had lost most of his preconceptions about such things a long time ago.

Emmeth was ready to practice needlework. There was just one problem with that… 

Looking at the sewing kit, Emmeth was unable to find any additional needles.

He had thrown the one needle and had no idea where it went.

“Peak, can you sense metal?” Emmeth asked.

The stone just laughed. 

[ ) ( ] [ ) ( ] [ ) ( ]

“Searching for a needle in a haystack” is a fairly well known phrase. It’s used as a simile to show how unreasonably difficult a search is. After all, a needle is tiny and thin, and mixed in with all that hay, it might take days or even weeks to properly search through it.

Unsurprisingly, the idiom was not one Emmeth had heard of. He had heard of a similar idiom though, “Bronze among copper.” It was based on a story in which an apprentice blacksmith dropped a puck of bronze in with the copper pucks and couldn’t find the bronze anymore. He spent the whole day searching the bin, carefully comparing all of the pucks, trying to find out which one was the bronze. The story ended with the boy developing a skill for sensing impurities in metal, and using it, found the bronze alloy. It was a common tale to teach children about how skills often develop when you need them the most.

Emmeth did not have the luck the boy did in the tale. 

He knew that the needle was around here somewhere. It bounced or rolled or something, but Emmeth couldn’t find the thing. Crawling about on the ground for an hour while Peak watched on from his perch on the table was demeaning. 

‘Who would stock a sewing kit with only one needle?’ Emmeth wondered to himself for the 37th time.

Meanwhile, Peak was bored. While usually a bad sign for Emmeth, Peak understood that if Emmeth was distracted, it was going to take him even longer to find the needle, which meant spending even more time bored.

Without any earth nearby to manipulate, Peak decided to focus more on its other abilities. It had four other skill groups: Mana, vibration, meditation, and soul. Mana was a bit difficult, as the stone could only sense the mana within itself or earth, and without any spare earth nearby, Peak was disinclined to try and manipulate the stuff within its own self.

For vibration, whatever Peak did would probably be chaotic, so that was off the table. 

…

There had to be a joke there. Peak was on the table, and vibration was off the table…

Damn, the rock was really off its game today. Tough luck.

Anyways, experimenting with soul was just asking for trouble.

So, Peak was left with one option. It was something the stone really didn’t want to do, but it was severely underutilized.

Meditation.

The ultimate… 

Yeah, no, meditation was shit. Fuck that. Peak didn’t want to do that shit anymore.

But, when there’s nothing better to do, why not? Maybe developing a way to stop thinking would be lovely.

So, Peak concentrated for a moment before remembering that concentrating was the opposite of what was needed. Peak let itself relax and--

Suddenly, Peak’s soul and earth sense cut itself out. 

‘... wat?’ Peak contemplated before popping out of its stupor.

Peak immediately stopped meditating and its senses returned.

Yeah, that was… Nope, Peak decided. 

To Peak, this wasn’t like closing your eyes. It was closer to going deaf and numb, a not at all pleasant feeling.

‘Nope, nuh uh, never again, let’s not do that shit again, that was a bad idea.’ 

Boredom is an interesting feeling. Someone feels bored when they are in a high energy state but are unable to properly use that energy in a way that feels important or entertaining enough. While in such a state, people search for stimulation, any kind of stimulation.

Such stimulation can include pain, if the person is bored enough.

Peak’s resolution lasted two minutes. Peak was really fucking bored.

‘Why do I do this to myself?’ the stone asked itself before cutting off its senses once more.