29 – Extorsion

Julian stared at the skill selection window for a long time, pondering over it with pensive brooding. Cal was yet to return from his Runes hunting, he had gone quite far today, Julian knew, since the Runes were not being shared with him anymore due to the distance. He still had some time, then.

“Wow, all these are damn good!” he exclaimed. However, there was one that was clearly above the rest in terms of how useful it was going to be. It was the extra choice he got thanks to his high Arcane stat, Uncanny Observant. He greedily chose the skill, and immediately decided to test it.

The forest around him became grey. Little spots of color hid in the most remote and secluded corners of the world, at the edges of his vision. Those spots, he knew, were the things he had control over, that he could change to his own benefit. Everything else was beyond the scope of the skill, out of the realm of the little things only he had noticed and part of the normal world.

He realized that the more he observed the world, the more points of color appeared. Every time a new detail, a new minutia about his surroundings was registered by his brain, the vibrant colors of orange, red and brown of the dead forest returned to that spot. A spot where everything could happen, if he so wished. He only needed to express his vision and impose it upon reality.

He flexed his mind’s power. Staring at a little twig, he wished for it to be something else, something useful.

He blinked, and when his eyes opened again the twig was no longer wood but shining in the refined luster of metal. As his SP and MP dropped to almost zero, he disabled the skill and let the world regain the former colors and approached the former twig with heavy steps. He slowly crouched to pick the reforged stick up, struggling against the low Stamina.

“Appraisal.”

>Metal stick. Rare Rarity. Metallic stick made of a particular stabilized mix of Iron, Cobalt, Carbon, Titanium and Uranium.

“Nice,” Julian said, and pocketed it in his storage ring. For a moment he was disappointed he only had one single twig, and now the two rings he was wearing were no longer the same in their contents, but soon his mind went elsewhere. He saw some Runes appear on his status. Cal was getting closer, close enough that the Rune duping was again in effect. When he returned he was soaked in monster blood, dirty and with his clothes torn.

“Did you have fun?” Julian asked. If there was blood, then the fights must have been quite something. He didn’t know how many Air Blades it took to Bleed someone, but he guessed a lot.

“Yes, actually.” He said. “I need a rest now. Can you open the Oasis for me please?”

“Sure. I’ll start to walk towards the village, though, I’m bored.”

“I’ll be ready. Just open the portal when you’re there. Do you want me to take some stuff from your rings and store it inside as I go?”

After giving all his non-essentials to Cal to free up space in his storage rings, and bringing them back to parity again, Julian opened up the portal and his friend vanished into it. He idly thought about needing to purchase a bigger set of storage rings because, despite his skill multiplying the space from one to 2.5 cubic meters for a total of five with the two rings, he was running tight on space.

***

Bob, the elf village elder, sat pensively on his wooden throne at the top of the tallest of the elven trees. The knotting wood that made up the tree’s sturdy exterior bark coiled around and about, making openings and windows for him to observe the whole forest below. The leaves all around him were the green crown of the tree, and in a sense they also were his own crown as king of this Habitat. But the Habitat was dying, and the Yellowing had passed through the village and turned all the greenery into swaying gold. Only the Alltrees, such as where his throne was, were still green, but even their leaves were about to wither and die like everything else. The life energy they needed was gone, and their vitality was spent. They drooped sad and empty, malnourished and dying.

Soon would come the Browning, and then death of all things. He would of course endure, live on, the sole survivor of this catastrophe brought about by his own greed. No, this was not his fault. He was only doing what was best for his village when he accepted the System’s offer to become Contractors, and the other elves had all agreed that it was their best shot to save the village from its slow death. It wasn’t him who doomed them. It was the reckless adventurers with their shortsighted actions who did.

Bel’Oor had told him what happened. Of the unspeakable things the two adventurers had done. Of how they killed his Habitat, doomed him and his people to die and suffer. Soon, the Treefields would be unable to produce food, and eventually the very air would turn against them. He would have to flee back into the multiverse, but what of his people?

***

Cal told Julian about his hunting as they made good time towards the village. Julian kept saying that he feared it was just a phase, but in all fairness Cal found himself thinking back about what Julian said about not having ties and being rewarded for the hard work, and agreed more and more with the assessment. The system, despite the unfairness and suffering, was a boon in disguise. He had never felt this free and motivated to grow powerful, a sentiment that stemmed from his own desire to become something more than the son of his father rather than trying to impress a man who didn’t have eyes for him. Finally he was overcoming his mental blocks.

“You gotta be careful, though,” Julian warned him. “You will encounter failure, along the way. Do not let failure kill this whole motivated mood you got yourself going. Let failure be a teacher, learn the lesson and move on. Kay?”

Cal nodded. He got the point, he thought, even though he really didn’t see how it applied to him. Of course he knew the risk associated with failure, he had seen it happen so many times to so many people. Of the two, he was the one good with people, not Julian. He didn’t need to be told this kind of stuff.

In truth, but this was going to be a lesson Cal only learned a long time later, Julian was speaking from his own experience. He might not have been good with people, that much was true, but he had overcome his own issues. He was, in a way, more mature than Cal, at least in that regard. And he knew very well what failure could do to a half-assed spur of determination, doomed to end in nothing but more resentment and pain. Cal was good with people in the sense that he understood them and their problems, their thoughts and their emotions, but in doing so he never paused to look inwards at himself. Julian on the other hand had always looked inwards, ever since he was a little boy. He was the only one who could really understand Cal, and help him, for he was the only one both willing to help and able to relate to him to such a deep level.

***

Bob appeared in a swirl of leaves, yellow and brown like the rest of the plants in this section of the Habitat. The two returning adventurers stopped in their tracks a small distance away. Cal appeared relaxed, while Julian didn’t hide his suspicion as he looked around in search of hidden enemies.

“Adventurers!” Bob said without acknowledging nor denying Julian’s suspicion. He feigned ignorance instead, voice full of worry and sorrow. “What’s happening? The trees have begun to wither and die, and darkness came and a pillar of light descended from the heavens! Earthquakes have shaken the earth ever since.”

Cal looked at him for a long moment, and their eyes met. A fierce battle happened in those few moments, a battle between minds.

“He’s pretending, he knows.” Cal whispered to Julian, bending down to speak to his ear and not bothering to hide it.

Julian scoffed. “Drop the act old man or I smite you here and now. I know you know.”

Suddenly the knotty old man, curved and twisted like the wood of his great tree rose. He straightened his back, and appeared as tall as Cal, solid and full of vitality. He brandished his wooden staff and tapped it on the ground, where fresh grass sprouted from the dead soil.

“You like to play by your own rules, renegade, but even you must know when it’s best not to tempt fate.” He boomed.

Julian took out the Oscillator radio, making sure Bob saw it.

“I don’t know, Bob. Do you want to tempt fate? You must have seen the state of those two tharlaxians, who surely told you what I did to them, their team and the Habitat.”

Bob laughed. “Your weapon didn’t even kill some weak adventurers, what makes you think it can kill me?”

“Perhaps you’re right. But it can destroy this place, leave you floating powerless in the void of space for all eternity. Tell me, elf, does your magic make you fly?”

The elf face went red from rage. “You would die too! You would never—”

“Tempt me.” Julian said.

Cal fought the urge to speak. He knew that in this situation Julian’s approach, even if not the best possible approach, was at least sustainable. He was holding the knife, the gun, and the radio, after all. The elf had to give in, unless he had gone completely mad and wanted to attempt at their life even at the cost of his own and his village. There was the possibility, however remote, especially considering that Bel’Oor and Trex’Oor had spoken to him, and System knows what they told him. However, there was no point in stopping Julian now, and it would do no good. He was like this, impulsive and easy to taunt, and he was not going to change. If he wanted him as a friend, he better accept his weaknesses and let him do his thing.

Eventually the elf spoke, prompted by Julian’s theatrical act of fiddling with the radio.

“Fine. What are your demands.”

“I can fix your little shithole here, for a price.” Julian said. “Empty your vaults and secret stashes and we’ll see if that’s enough.”