Sense: A Fantasy LitRPG Saga (A Touch of Power Book 3)

by Jay Boyce

  “Victor, we’ll have you escort Jade.” He glanced curiously at his mother, and she said in a quick undertone, “He’s less likely to cause a fuss if you’re escorting her than if Will does, since you’re of equal rank.” Jade barely held back her groan. It was going to be such fun if the whole night was basically one big pissing match. A frown crossed Ashanna’s face as she turned to Jade, studying her as she muttered, “Actually, we need to get your rank sorted out...it’ll have to wait until later, I suppose…” Shaking her head, she threaded her arm through Derrick’s as she reminded her children, “Remember to use Lady Jade’s title during dinner. Yes, Jade, I know you don’t like it,” she’d caught the look Jade gave her and shrugged apologetically, “But we need to set the example, and while you know we mean you no disrespect, it would not be the case if they were to omit it.”

  Yay. Another thing to keep track of: not using her title was apparently a serious insult. Ashanna gestured for them to begin walking, and Victor held out his arm. Mentally calling to her little ones, “Move to the right so you don’t get squished,” she waited for them to be in the clear before trying to take Victor’s arm. Her dress was being flattened between them and it was causing her gait to be unsteady until she managed to take the other side with her free hand and lift it slightly, relieving the imbalance a bit. Grumbling as Victor held in his laughter, she glowered at him, “Sure, laugh it up, fuzzball. You’re not the one trying to walk in this deathtrap. I’m convinced that women in Resaigh must have learned not to breathe.” She no longer blamed Elizabeth for taking a swan dive off the wall. She understood. It wasn’t weakness or a lack of tolerance like she’d once thought. After all, why would you let someone tighten your corset so much you couldn’t breathe? So you could fit into the dang dress and not offend stupid important people, obviously. Politics sucked.

  Victor patted her hand consolingly, obviously still trying not to laugh. Shaking her head, she informed him, “If I pass out, cut this stupid corset off of me so I can breathe.” If she couldn’t have an awesome pirate save her, at least it would be a prince. She couldn’t stop the slight smile that came to her lips at the thought. She knew she was being silly in an attempt to avoid thinking about the banquet she was about to attend. Or maybe she was light headed from lack of oxygen? She might never know.

  He smiled awkwardly, and Camille spoke with feeling from behind her, “Sure, I’ll cut yours off, right after I shred mine.”

  She couldn’t help it. She laughed, or tried to. It came out more as a breathy wheeze, but she was perversely comforted by the fact that she wasn’t the only one suffering. The rest of the family chuckled softly as well, though Ashanna shushed them as they got closer. They were in a wing of the castle she’d never been to before, and when they approached a giant pair of doors, Victor whispered, “This is the West Ballroom.”

  “Right, West Ballroom. Makes sense.” She nodded absently as the guards opened the doors, and one of them preceded the royal family, announcing each of them as they entered the room.

  “Presenting King Derrick and Queen Ashannna, Crown Prince Victor and Lady Jade, Prince William and Princess Camille, Princess Tisha, Prince Hunter, and Prince Hayden.” The guard’s booming voice took her off guard for a moment, but she relaxed, her fingers tightening ever so slightly on Victor’s arm as she plastered a small smile on her face. The rest of the royal family wore matching fake smiles, an exercise in politeness as they made their way to the head table.

  A’Udar Jamil Faris was there with his highest ranked counselors, awaiting them patiently. He and his retinue put their hand over their hearts and moved them in a welcoming motion to the royal family. It was so strange, him welcoming them in their castle, but whatever. She supposed he was the one ‘in charge’ of the feast, and they’d merely lent him the room to make it happen. “King Derrick, Queen Ashanna. It’s lovely to see you again.” Belatedly, she followed a half second behind as everyone used their free hand to return the gesture. She was rather impressed with his inclusion of the queen, and his manners in general. “Please, all of you, have a seat.”

  She’d noticed a slight tic in his cheek when he noticed her on Victor’s arm, and she realized Victor was leading her to sit on his left, while the King and Queen took the seats immediately to his right, the rest filling in around the table as Derrick spoke, “A’Udar Faris, it’s good to see you as well. Hopefully we didn’t make you wait too long for us.”

  “Nonsense, I’ve only just arrived as well.” He replied smoothly, and before Victor could do so, he pulled her chair out for her so she would take the seat next to him, instead of Victor providing a buffer between them. “Lady Jade, I’d be honored if you’d sit by me.”

  She hesitated for a moment, realizing he’d totally lied about not waiting, then smiled and nodded, letting go of Victor to arrange her skirts and make sure her little ones were safely arranged. “The honor is mine, A’Udar Faris,” she managed to reply smoothly as he pushed the chair beneath her and the rest of the table managed to take their seats. Somewhere in between pushing her chair in and taking his own, his hand brushed against her skin. Unable to contain her curiosity, she mentally pulled up the new blinking blue dot.

  You have touched Jamil Diya Al Din Amirad Faris, Siphon activated. Assessing stats and experience...

  Choose a stat to siphon: Strength(5), Dexterity(2), Constitution(1), Intelligence(4), Magic(3), Charisma(6), or Luck(7).

  Choose a skill to siphon: Archery(A), Compulsion Magic(I), Contractual Magic(I), Poison Resistance(A), or Riding(I).

  “Is something wrong, Lady Jade?” She realized she’d been staring into the air and shook her head, quickly dismissing the window.

  “No, I apologize, A’Udar Faris. I saw your ring and was reminded of something from my home world.” His ring genuinely was quite pretty, and if she had to stretch the truth, it literally did remind her of one of those fake James Bond rings that held either an antidote or poison in the setting. Which really fit with her thought process, because her mind was screaming over and over, Archery and Poison Resistance are at ADVANCED!? What on Earth did they do to this poor boy to make his poison resistance go up to advanced!?

  Despite her cheat ability, the fact was that she’d seen very few people who were able to get their skills to advanced. That he possessed two at such a young age was astounding. She could only surmise that his bonded had something to do with it, or they poisoned him over and over again until he’d finally become mostly immune to it. Whatever the case was, she knew getting a resistance to advanced without cheating was insane.

  A light smile played on his lips, and she realized he’d caught her in her white lie, but he didn’t say anything about it. Instead, he motioned for the servants to begin bringing out the food as he changed the subject. “Let’s eat. I’m interested to see how you like the delicacies of Resaigh.”

  A more genuine grin appeared on her face as she nodded. “I look forward to trying them.”

  Maybe this dinner wouldn’t be so bad after all. Jamil actually seemed...decent.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven – Earth

  She wasn’t sure what the catalyst was, but this meal seemed much more relaxed than she’d been told to expect. Well, a relaxed atmosphere. She was dying to change, having been unable to sit comfortably or breathe properly the entire time. Jamil was a surprisingly good ‘host’ and engaged her and the others around her in small talk the entire time, introducing a variety of dishes to her that she quite enjoyed. The only one that she refused to touch was essentially a turkey-sized spider.

  “Lady Jade, is something wrong?” Jamil asked politely as the dish was presented quite beautifully in front of him for approval before it would be carved up.

  Blanching slightly, Jade shook her head at first, then nodded. “It um...reminds me of something that I hated in my old world. I’ll pass on trying this one.” One of his counselors looked about to speak up, but Jamil cut him off with a sharp glare before he gestured for his servant to remove the dish. Ja
de immediately protested, “Oh, you don’t have to put it away on my account. You can still eat it.”

  Shaking his head with a small smile, he spoke, “If it makes you uncomfortable, there’s no need to have it here. It’s not as though we lack things to eat.” His words were a subtle reminder for his counselors to behave. If she had to guess, she’d say that the accommodating behavior was a result of her tantrum at tea. She’d already proved she had no problem causing a mess if someone offended her. This wasn’t actually the intended effect, but it seemed to have worked quite nicely in her favor nonetheless. His next words were unexpected, however. “Can you tell us a bit about your old world? Was it very different from here?”

  Silence fell around them, everyone looking at her expectantly. It was obvious everyone was curious, and why wouldn’t they be? How often did you get a chance to learn about another world? Almost never, really. There was something in Jamil’s eyes that she instinctively understood: he was trying to get a read on her through how she described the world. Nodding, she spoke calmly, “Of course, but it’s perhaps easier if I use visuals to show you. Do you mind?”

  “Not at all!” he responded quickly, and as she stood and turned around so that she could use the open space behind them, everyone turned their chairs to get a better look at whatever she was about to do. Taking a breath, she decided to use this as an opportunity to educate, as there was not only the Resaigh delegation present, but also the royal family and many important nobles from Caoi.

  Calling upon her illusion magic, she created a black space and filled it with a model of the solar system, the planets rotating around the sun, and began to explain. “This is what we call our solar system. My world was one without any of the magic that you know here, but what we had instead was thousands of years in which we advanced our science. We learned that our planet was one of nine rotating around our sun, and the many stars in the sky were other suns in their own systems, which could potentially hold millions of other planets in their orbit. We learned this because of many powerful telescopes and explorations into space, though we never left our own solar system, and to send anything into space was still very hard.”

  Pointing at the rotation of the planets, she explained, “The planets rotate around the sun, creating day and night, as well as seasons. These planets are too close to the sun, and thus are too hot to support life. These are too cold. My planet, the third from the sun, was called Earth.” Here she zoomed in, dismissing the rest of the solar system in favor of a large, rotating globe. She even made shifting clouds because she was having fun. Absently, she noticed that most of the hall besides her table got up from their seats and walked closer in order to get a better look and hear her explanation.

  “As you can see, about two thirds of our planet was covered in water, leaving seven continents, of which humans mainly lived on six. The seventh, this down here, is a land of ice and snow.” Next to the planet, she basically put up a ‘screen’ of moving pictures that was footage she remembered of Antarctica, showing penguins and seals and brilliant white vistas. She was suddenly glad she’d been so obsessed with studying the places she wanted to travel someday.

  Taking a steadying breath, she went on, lighting up each continent as a different color rather than the aerial view she’d been showing before. “This is Africa, Europe, Asia, Australia, and then North and South America. Where I lived was North America.” She paused, then as she zoomed in and showed an outline of the United States as she spoke further, “This was my country. As I mentioned, we had no magic, only science. There are also no monsters in my world. There are animals, but we subdued them all. The only true enemy of humans were…other humans.” Yeah, no need to go into that too deeply.

  Dismissing the globe, she showed a picture of downtown New York City streets, the skyscrapers towering above the sidewalks and people rushing all around. She then switched it a few times, showing different cities that she’d seen in movies or on YouTube. “As the top of the food chain, the world was developed into giant interconnected cities. People got around by using cars–these large metal carriages that were run by electricity–trains, or airplanes.” She showed each vehicle as she spoke, then moved on.

  “While we didn’t have message mirrors, what we used were cell phones and computers. These were all connected to one giant network called the internet. Thousands of years of information was made available at the touch of a finger, and you could contact people on the other side of the world without much effort. Almost everything was mass produced by machines we’d built, allowing most people to spend their time creating new and innovative things, or even choosing professions similar to storytellers. Entertainment and the arts, science, and improving our technology were the main areas of focus in the world.”

  Okay, she may have been generalizing a LOT there, but it was kinda true. She wasn’t even going to touch politics or crime. Sure, it may leave them with an idealized version of her world, but with such a basic overview, she didn’t think it mattered that much. After all, the focus of the world really was like she said. Entertainment included everything: authors, artists, athletes, actors, musicians, etc. Dang, she totally wanted to make that an A too. Oh well.

  Plus, while there was still manual labor, obviously, it was greatly reduced to overseers of machines, and the focus was on technology to perform basic tasks. Or just...technology in general. That was the crux of the matter. Basic necessity had been met, and the only thing left was to keep it running and try to make it better. To her, that encompassed almost everything else.

  “What did you do on that world, and how did you come here?” Jamil interrupted her musings with a question that hit close to home. He obviously wanted to know why she’d been chosen, and everyone was curious as to how one crossed worlds, especially when she made Earth sound so appealing without explaining any of the negative things that existed. They heard of a marvelous world with infinite information and no monsters. No wonder they would want to go there.

  Smiling a little helplessly, she changed the picture in front of her to one she’d practically perfected at this point: her hospital room. “I didn’t do much on my world, honestly. I was very sick. As I mentioned, we had no healing magic, and we never figured out what was wrong with me. I spent almost my entire life in this little room, reading and learning about the outside world that I would never see. As for how I came to this world… I’m not really sure. I think I died and the gods of your world brought me here, but that’s just my best guess.”

  Silence greeted her words, their dreams of moving worlds shattered by the simple expedient of her telling them she’d likely done it by dying, and that while she painted a beautiful picture of her world, she herself hadn’t even gotten to experience it. It left them with the understanding that not everything was quite as bright as she said.

  “And this...this was you?” Jamil walked forward, looking at the sickly girl on the table who bore only the tiniest resemblance to the vivacious young woman in front of him. She had so many tubes coming out of her, and his voice was full of disbelief.

  Nodding sadly, she looked at her past self and then twitched the illusion, making a small spider appear on the white sheets. She gestured to it, explaining, “Yes, that was me, trapped forever in one place while longing to go out. The creature you presented earlier is similar to the spiders of my world. Tiny insects, but I was helpless against them. The few times they got into my room, I could do nothing but wait for someone else to come in and take care of it.” She didn’t mention that she’d once decided to try and befriend a spider for the sake of having another living creature to talk at. Nope, that wasn’t important at all.

  “What were your stats, to be in such a state?” He asked curiously, and she laughed, shaking her head.

  “I didn’t have any. In that world, profiles were a thing of imagination. We had no way of knowing what they might be, other than comparison. However, when I arrived in this world, though weak, I was healed of my sickness. Despite that, my strength, c
onstitution, and dexterity were all around an eight. So if I had to guess, I’d say those would have been around maybe three or four in my old world.”

  He looked confused, and one of the young men from his country asked quietly, “But didn’t you only arrive in this world a few weeks ago?”

  Turning to smile at him, she confirmed. “Yes, that’s true.”

  One of the counselors spluttered as he asked, “So you’re saying you went from an eight to…whatever you are now...in a matter of weeks?”

  She shrugged as much as her dress would allow, which admittedly, was almost nothing. “Yes, that’s what I’m telling you. The special ability I was given when I was brought to this world is Accelerated Growth. It’s been quite helpful in my adaptation.”

  There were a few sidelong glances, and she realized she may have been a little too open with that information, even if it wasn’t entirely true. What it did do was explain her growth without giving them information on the side effects such as her helplessness when she siphoned too much or the boost it gave to others. It would make those who meant her ill either hesitate or determined to act against her sooner than later. After all, with her speed of growth, she’d be a monster in no time. That was logical. What they might not know was that she was basically already a monster, which is why she didn’t care all that much.

  It seemed Jamil caught onto something she’d mentioned, however, as he motioned for everyone to return to their seats. As she sat down again, he spoke softly, “It seems the gods have blessed you for the suffering you faced there. As you were unable to leave there, I’m sure that’s something you’ve enjoyed doing here. I would be honored if you’d come visit Resaigh. It would be a shame if you could not see the world, now that you have the chance.”