Shade's First Rule

by A F Kay

  “Yes, probably for the rest of your life.”

  “Thanks.”

  Ruwen placed his open hand over Sift’s fist.

  Sift smiled and then touched the wall with his wrist. “Rec room.”

  A portal appeared in the stone.

  “Hey, I’m glad you’re coming back with us,” Ruwen said.

  Sift rubbed his hands together. “Oh, me too. I’ve never had my own Novice to torture before. This is going to be fun.”

  Ruwen couldn’t tell if that was a joke, and Sift stepped through the portal before he could ask. A moment later, the portal vanished. Ruwen’s Step lesson earlier today had gone terribly. Maybe joining a Clan hadn’t been the best idea.

  He touched his right wrist to the wall. “Sift’s room.”

  A portal opened. Ruwen turned and looked at the storm again. Every few seconds, a giant piece of ice would strike the invisible barrier that Blapy had erected. The more he learned about himself, the more anxious he became. It felt like he was following a path Uru had made for him who knows how long ago, and it didn’t feel good. He wanted to find his parents and then do great and marvelous things. But it didn’t seem like his wants mattered. He was just being manipulated, marched down a predestined path. It felt terrible.

  Turning away from the storm, he stepped through the portal and into the hallway in front of Sift’s room.

  “Thanks for the portal, Blapy,” Ruwen said to the empty air.

  Ruwen noticed the bins by the door had clean clothes, and he brought the clothes into the room with him. After placing his into his Void Band, he sat on Sift’s bed and sorted Sift’s clothes into two piles: stained and unstained.

  Not wanting to ruin any of Sift’s clothes, he decided to experiment on his own first. He sat on the floor cross-legged and pulled the hem of his pants away from his leg. He didn’t know if he could channel Scrub into just one hand, so he decided to try that first. He thought of the icon, and his hands glowed. His Energy bar flashed a small one every second. He willed his left hand off, and the glow disappeared. The energy consumption stayed at one per second, though. Smiling, he grabbed the hem of his pants with his left hand and carefully brought his right hand near the cloth.

  The dirt and mud that clung to the pants disappeared without any visible damage to the pants. When Ruwen’s right hand neared his left, he felt a warm vibration that made his hand itchy. Satisfied, he grabbed Sift’s pants with the bloody hem and set them on his lap. This time when he thought of the Scrub icon, he only willed it to his right hand. His left hand remained normal, and he picked up the pants.

  It took him ten minutes to realize he could safely increase the channeled power level. Things went much faster after that, but it forced Ruwen to cast Campfire in the middle of the room. An hour later, he’d cleaned all the blood out of Sift’s clothes. Ruwen didn’t know how much of it was Sift’s, but it demonstrated how dangerous Blapy was to anyone entering her halls.

  As much as he’d looked down on Workers for these mundane tasks, there was a real pleasure in what he’d just done. It felt good to immediately see the result of your work, and Ruwen felt a small sense of accomplishment. It had also allowed him to let his brain rest without having to venture into his center and the blazing sun that waited for him there. He knew he was avoiding what had just happened to him, but he felt overwhelmed, and this needed to be done anyway.

  But he couldn’t put off going through his notifications any longer. When he’d opened them earlier, there had been too many to deal with, but now was a good time to sort through it all. He stretched out on his bed and opened the first one.

  Ting!

  You have completed the Quest – What’s Your Point (Cultivation Stage 1).

  You have received 100 experience.

  The next one was the same. They were the all from the chain quest Madda had given him.

  Ting!

  You have completed the Quest – Two Points Make a Line (Cultivation Stage 2).

  You have received 150 experience.

  In fact, the notifications were all completed Cultivation quests that increased in experience by fifty each time. It wasn’t until after the Level nine quest, which was to form a circle in his center, that anything changed.

  Ting!

  You have completed the Quest – Going Around in Circles (Cultivation Stage 9).

  You have received 500 experience.

  Ting!

  You have completed the Quest – Two Dimensions are for Novices

  You have received 1000 experience.

  He had moved from Novice to Initiate in Cultivation! But the next notification made him even happier.

  Ding!

  Uru’s Blessings, Worker! You have reached level 4.

  You have gained +1 to Strength!

  You have gained +1 to Stamina!

  You have 2 unassigned points.

  Uru’s Blessings, Root! You have reached level 4.

  You have 2 unassigned points.

  New Spells and Abilities are available to you. Choose wisely.

  Ruwen’s skin prickled when reading the notification. He had to fight the urge to open his Profile and start assigning attribute points. There would be time for that shortly. He took a deep breath and gave himself a moment to bask in his accomplishment. Then he resumed going through the remaining notifications.

  They were still Cultivation quests. This time going through the three-dimensional geometric shapes. They started at six hundred experience, and each new one added another fifty experience. The last Cultivation quest Ruwen had completed required him to form a sphere in his center.

  Ting!

  You have completed the Quest – Sphere of Influence (Cultivation Stage 19).

  You have received 1000 experience.

  A different notification appeared.

  Gong!

  You have increased your Knowledge!

  Level: 37

  The intelligent know true power is held by knowledge. The wise know knowledge can be dangerous. Greatness is found between them.

  The Knowledge increase must be from learning Cultivation. The final notification gave him the only remaining Cultivation quest.

  Ting!

  You have received the quest…

  Pick One Side

  As a Novice, you Cultivated into two dimensions and as an Initiate, three. An Apprentice must embrace the whole, twisting their center to encompass both simultaneously.

  Reward: Cultivation Rank of Apprentice (Stage 20)

  Reward: 2,000 experience

  Well, that made zero sense. Ruwen shook his head and closed the notification. Immediately he opened his Profile and planned how to spend the four attribute points that he had control over. His Worker Class had already put a point into Strength and Stamina, bringing them both to twelve. Because they would both level as he did, he didn’t want to waste any more points there.

  Both his Dexterity and Wisdom were still 9. His weapon’s modifiers had brought them high enough to get rid of his debuffs. But if he changed weapons, they would come back. Plus, he really wanted to get back to where he’d started before he’d taken a chaos blade to the eye and lost twelve attribute points.

  He added a point to Dexterity and Wisdom, bringing them both back to his original ten again. That left two points. Many of the Observer Class spells and skills were based on Dexterity. That would be an excellent place to add points. Charisma was an option, but he already had a decent value of twelve, and a point there would benefit him the least. Wisdom was something he should seriously consider. He had made some poor decisions lately, and Wisdom would help with that. Finally, there was Intelligence. He had built most of his identity around this attribute because it had significantly shaped the last few years of his life. It also directly improved his ability to cast spells.

  He thought about it for another minute and then added a point to Dexterity and one to Intelligence. Glancing through the other sections of his Profile, he noticed some changes. He had made good prog
ress toward level five, and he now had a Cultivation Stage and a Cultivation Rank. Not only that, but his Cultivation Stage had affected some of his other attributes in a big way. His Resilience had increased dramatically, which had increased all his Resistances. Maybe even more significantly, his Perception ability had massively increased. He studied the items that had changed the most in his Profile.

  Cultivation Stage: 19

  Cultivation Rank: Initiate

  Experience: 7,558/10,000

  Strength: 12

  Stamina: 12

  Dexterity: 13

  Intelligence: 18

  Wisdom: 11

  Charisma: 12

  Knowledge: 37

  Health: 145/145

  Mana:180/180

  Energy: 247/247

  Resilience %: 14.10%

  Cleverness %: 39.70%

  Perception %: 32.10%

  His Resilience received half of his Cultivation Stage, and his Perception received all of it. With his Pacifist’s Cloak bonus of 10%, it put his Perception over 30%! All his Resistances were now over 16% too, except for Dark and Chaos, which were just over 12%. It appeared that Cultivating had effects other than creating a terrifying ball of energy inside yourself. Those quests had also gotten him three-quarters of the way to level five. He closed his Profile and shut his eyes.

  Another emotion overtook his happiness: fear. If he died here, before he could cross back over and synchronize with Uru, all this would be lost. He wouldn’t even have memories of it. The thought of losing the last day terrified him. It felt like he’d packed an entire life of adventure and learning into his time here. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more scared he became. It paralyzed him.

  “Hey,” Sift said.

  Ruwen screamed, his fear exploding like a bomb.

  “Whoa,” Sift said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  Ruwen’s heart beat so quickly his chest hurt. He took a few deep breaths, and his heart rate slowed.

  “It’s okay,” Ruwen said as he sat up.

  Sift stood by his bed. He slowly reached down and picked up a pair of his pants. He rolled the hem, now free of Lylan’s blood, between his fingers. After a few moments, he turned and looked at Ruwen, his eyes glistening in the light.

  “Thank you,” Sift whispered.

  “Of course.”

  Sift sat on the bed, and tears fell silently down his cheeks.

  “It’s my fault Lylan died,” Sift said. “Ky said to not blame myself, but I do.”

  “I assumed she was Ascended. Wouldn’t she just be reborn?”

  Sift wiped the tears away. “She was, but she lost all her memories of this place when it happened, and Ky wanted to wait before bringing her back.”

  “Did Lylan say where she came from?”

  “Stone Harbor. That isn’t too far from Deepwell if I remember right.”

  Ruwen nodded. “It’s just a few days’ ride east. All the way to the coast. Stone Harbor is way bigger than Deepwell.” Ruwen thought for a few seconds. “If she accepted the Black Pyramid mark there, then she’d have memories of Ky and accepting it. So from Lylan’s perspective, she stepped through the rock portal and then immediately woke up in the temple basement?”

  “I guess. Ky didn’t say why Lylan wasn’t brought right back here.”

  “Poor Lylan. It’s terrible enough to wake up from a death knowing how it happened. But to not remember it must be terrible.”

  Thoughts of the high priest’s son flashed through Ruwen’s mind. That is exactly what had happened to him and partly why Ruwen had been punished with his Worker Class. But whatever had happened in that distant valley, his parents hadn’t killed anyone. His parents were good people.

  Sift squeezed his eyes with his fingers. “That accident changed the trajectory of Lylan’s whole life. She doesn’t even remember me.”

  Ruwen finally understood. Sift had liked this girl, and her death had caused their relationship to be lost. It made him wonder if Sift had other reasons for wanting to cross to the other side. It also reinforced his own fears, which had just crystallized.

  “I don’t want to die,” Ruwen blurted out.

  “I don’t want you to either. I couldn’t bear to have that happen again.”

  They sat in silence for a minute, both lost in their own thoughts of death and loss.

  “I have an idea,” Sift said.

  Ruwen looked up.

  “You learned the cipher today, which gives you access to the lab. Let’s go make some potions for tomorrow,” Sift said.

  “But I don’t have many ingredients.”

  Sift set the pants down and waved a hand. “We can use the quartermaster’s stock. He just keeps nine of every ten things we make.”

  Ruwen liked working in the lab at school. He still needed to choose his level three spells, but he could do that later.

  “That sounds fun, actually,” Ruwen said.

  Sift stood. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter 29

  They walked through the open double doors into a room almost as wide and long as the rec room. Rows of tables filled the room. Shelves that reached from floor to ceiling spanned the entire length of the room, covering the walls. They were filled with more jars, pots, and bottles than Ruwen had ever seen in one place.

  There were four workbenches in each of the nine rows. A young man in dark clothes, a tan smock, and large glasses stared intently at a boiling flask. Other than Fluffy and the Addas, this was the first person Ruwen had seen here. The young man glanced up at them, and Ruwen waved.

  “You see them?” Sift asked.

  “Them? I see the guy in the tan smock and glasses.”

  “Well, that’s progress.”

  “How many people are in here?”

  “I see two and sense another two. But Ky’s people are really good. That you saw anyone is amazing.”

  Ruwen’s Cultivation had ramped up his Perception and if felt good to see the results of that. To be fair, the Shade had been highly focused on another task and probably wasn’t concentrating on staying hidden, but it still felt satisfying.

  Each table had a small fire pit on one end and a small fountain on the other. The space in between had a large work area, and flasks and beakers were lined up on a shelf that ran along the entire table. Under each table, there were additional glassware, metal bowls, and pots.

  “Stop staring and come on,” Sift said.

  Ruwen followed Sift to a table right next to the door.

  Sift removed a brown leather book from his belt, and Ruwen recognized it.

  “That looks like the same book I got: Five-Minute Fare to Die For,” Ruwen said.

  Sift tilted it so Ruwen could read the cover, but the words were gibberish. It must be encoded in a higher-level cipher than Ruwen’s level one.

  “Mine’s volume three,” Sift said. “Get yours out.”

  Ruwen removed his book and set it on the table.

  “Find a healing recipe you like,” Sift said.

  Ruwen opened his book and scanned at the table of contents. The contents were broken up into four main chapters: Contact, Injected, Inhaled, and Ingested. In each chapter, there were the following topics: Poison, Antidote, Recreational, and Healing.

  The first healing recipe was in the Contact chapter.

  Swab, Minor

  Effect: Reduce Bleed damage by 1 HP/s for 10 seconds.

  Effect: Heal 2 HP/s for 15 seconds.

  Ingredients: 1 3x3 absorbent fabric, 1 Gintyl Leaf, 2 drops Felk Blood, 1 cup water, 1 pinch Pyramid Ash.

  Recipe: 1) Add Ash to water 2) Bring water to boil, reduce heat 3) Add Felk Blood and simmer until dissolved 4) Crush Gintyl Leaf and add to solution 5) Boil for three minutes 6) Remove from heat 7) Place fabric in solution and let cool.

  “I found one for Minor Swab,” Ruwen said.

  Sift nodded. “That’s a good one to start. Let me show you how to find the ingredients. Bring your book.”

  As they approached the c
losest wall, Ruwen marveled at the vast amount of ingredients. Sift pointed to the shelf under a large jar containing what looked like small river rocks.

  “See the value under this jar?” Sift asked.

  “L1709.”

  “Stare at the first ingredient in your recipe. What do you see?”

  Ruwen stared at ‘3x3 absorbent fabric,’ and after a second, a value appeared.

  “Woah, the text disappeared and L3411 appeared,” Ruwen said.

  Sift turned to face the doors. “Pretend you’re working at your bench.” Sift stuck out his left arm. “Left side, that’s what ‘L’ stands for. ‘R’ is for the other wall. The ‘3’ is for the third row of tables. ‘4’ means the fourth shelf up from the bottom. ‘11’ means the eleventh item on the shelf.”

  “That is really clever.”

  “A huge book in the back lists all the ingredients and their locations. It makes finding things a breeze. But you don’t need to fetch things yourself if you don’t want to. There is an easier method.”

  Sift walked back to Ruwen’s workbench, and Ruwen followed.

  “Place the wrist with your Pyramid mark on the bench and say ‘ten Minor Swabs,’” Sift said.

  Ruwen placed his wrist on the table. “Ten Minor Swabs.”

  Ingredients rose out of the table. In moments, Ruwen’s bench contained the ingredients to make ten Minor Swabs.

  “That is amazing,” Ruwen said.

  “You can just leave all your things on the bench when you’re done. Blapy will clean it all.”

  “What happens if I fail?” Ruwen asked.

  “The recipes in your volume all have a 100% success rate. If you drop a beaker or something, the cost is reflected on Fluffy’s ledger. The big book in the back will also tell you what everything costs.”