Downfall And Rise

by Nathan Thompson

  “Those red, squishy things on your world that taste terrible raw, but wonderful if you cook them or put them in other foods as a sauce?” Stell asked, sounding hopeful and wrinkling her nose at the same time. Good to know my dream fantasy woman has my exact same taste for tomatoes. Forget the fact that she's a multi-bodied alien or a crazy delusion, let's go ahead and get married right now. Anyway, back to quoting an ancient, semi-famous thread on the internet.

  “So,” I began. “As I understand it, Strength would help me crush a tomato. Dexterity would help me dodge a thrown tomato. Constitution would help me recover from eating a bad tomato. Intelligence helps me know that a tomato is a fruit, and not a vegetable. Wisdom helps me know not to put a tomato into a fruit salad. And Charisma helps sell a tomato-based fruit salad to someone else, probably someone I intensely dislike.”

  Stell blinked at me.

  “That's... a pretty accurate description, at least for the very basics. How did you know that?”

  “I didn't come up with it myself,” I said with a shrug. I didn't know or remember the person who started that thread online.

  “And,” Stell added. “Isn't a tomato-based fruit salad on your world just salsa?”

  “Found the bard,” I grumbled under my breath.

  “What?” Stell asked, cocking her head at me.

  “Nothing,” I replied. “Look, we've actually been using these... 'stats' for around a hundred years, probably more. These exact same six stats have been in numerous games I've played, computer and otherwise. The fact that I'm seeing them again here, of all places, is actually kind of frightening for me.”

  “Well, darn,” Stell said in a frustrated voice. “I've been using these things for dozens of Challengers. I can try a different configuration if this really bothers you.”

  I shook my head.

  “I get the feeling you'll just show me something else I've already seen, that will worry me just as much. And I don't think that's your fault.”

  Stell nodded. She looked a little sad.

  “It's not your fault for feeling weirded out, either,” she replied. “Nearly every Challenger has been surprised to find that they can suddenly track their own growth. You're just the first one to sound so familiar with being able to. The last Challenger seemed to have a vague idea of this system, but that was it.”

  “Yeah,” I said slowly, and with another shake of my head. “No offense, but this is making a lot harder for me to believe I'm not going crazy. Besides, if these are what I brought over from Earth, then they're definitely off.”

  “How do you know that?” Stell asked with another cock of her head.

  “Ten's the average, right?” I asked calmly.

  “Yes, in most of the worlds,” Stell gave me surprised nod. “For a person with no growth from Challenges, that is. For your world, a strength of 10 would be a person in decent shape, 12 or 14 would be someone who gets a lot of exercise, while a country's leading bodybuilder could be around 25.

  “And what goes below ten?” I asked.

  “A person who doesn't exercise much would be 9 or 8. 7 or 6 if they're completely out of shape. Below 6 are people working with physical disabilities.”

  “My Strength's at least five points too high, then,” I stated calmly.

  Stell's eyes narrowed again in confusion.

  “What? No, you don't have any disabil-” her eyes widened again, and she stopped talking.

  “Cripple-head,” I said, repeating one of the names even Avalon knew I was called. “Back on Earth, I have trouble walking without the use of a cane, holding any kind of weight directly over my head, standing for prolonged periods even with my cane, and remembering random facts. Even shaking my head very quickly can force me to lie down for an hour. Not that I'd been stupid enough to risk any rapid movement in over a year.”

  Stell had the same hurt and confused look she was wearing since the last time she heard that name for me. I just continued talking.

  “At the very least, my Dexterity and Constitution scores should be well below average. I can barely hold my balance, which is a big part of Dexterity, right?” A faint nod from the woman. “And my threshold for being hit has dropped as well, judging by how easily a hit to the back of my head had me unconscious and throwing up. In fact, my Earth body is still recovering from the damage back home. My balance and pain has been even worse ever since.”

  Stell's eyes widened further, and her mouth dropped open. She looked horrified. I didn't understand how a being responsible for stopping dozens of catastrophes all over the place could seem so horrified over what had happened to little ol’ me. Maybe it was because I was a Challenger?

  She suddenly whispered something I couldn't hear.

  “Sorry,” I said calmly. “I didn't catch what you just said.”

  “You're not sick,” she repeated, a little louder.

  “Excuse me?” I asked, trying to keep the edge out of my voice. I had been hopeful before, but this was current conversation was starting to get ridiculous far too fast.

  “The body you're using should mirror the one you have back on Earth,” Stell said in a confused but firm voice. “That's always been true. Challengers always bring their limitations with them to Avalon, where they learn to further overcome them. That's part of what makes them Challengers.”

  “I assure you that having constant pain, memory and balance issues is a challenge I'm constantly working to overcome,” I said dryly. “Numerous doctors have pronounced me disabled, even if they have a hard time diagnosing my condition.”

  “I believe you,” Stell said carefully. But she still seemed baffled, and began tapping the stone she was standing next to. “I mean, we've learned people back home are mocking you for it even, horrible though that is. But... I'm able to scan your body. Thoroughly. There's nothing there.”

  Now I was the one feeling baffled. Again.

  “What do you mean?” I asked her. “Do you mean you can't find the source of the problem, like my doctors back home? That's not weird.”

  “No,” Stell said stubbornly. “I mean there's nothing there. No muscle damage. Your muscles look like a person who used to exercise a lot, then suddenly stopped for two years. Nothing more. Your brain looks fine. You've probably been hit on the head before like you said, but again, no damage. No missing brain cells, weird brain shape, or broken neural pathways. And though my eyes on Earth are limited, I know I've kept up with your world's medical gains. I'm still a long way ahead of your best doctors, especially in examining the human body.”

  She looked a little embarrassed mentioning the last words, but she continued talking, speaking forcefully.

  “Avalon and I can also see what your world can't. We can examine other parts of you, which is how we found out your Deeds and Renown. There is this: Your brain and body doesn't have any damage, but you've stopped making gains. You've continued exercising, right?” She said with a calculating glance.

  I nodded slowly.

  “Just what the muscle therapist recommend for rehabilitation. And you're saying it isn't working at all, I take it?”

  Stell just shook her head.

  “You are having absolutely zero gains, which should be impossible. Even the worst of your world's workouts should still make a tiny difference in you. But aside from getting bigger for growing up, it looks like your body has barely changed at all for the last couple of years.”

  That sounds about right, I realized. It was also supposed to be impossible.

  “The same for your brain,” Stell continued. She was still looking the light from her know-stone (still hate that name, but moving on). “It looks perfectly healthy here, but from what I can tell of your body back home, it locks up perfectly healthy memory pathways at random. Almost as if something blocks you when you try and remember something.” I don't know how she was able to figure that part out, but she was making a lot of wavy circles in the air with one hand while she tapped at her rock with the other. Also, that knowledge surprised me. None
of my real doctors had been able to tell that.

  “Is there a condition that causes that?” I asked, trying not to sound too hopeful. But even here, in this possibly made-up world, I would be grateful for answer to what was wrong with me.

  Stell shook her head.

  “It's impossible for it to be a condition. It would be like a completely healthy person with no allergies or psychological conditions to suddenly start having all the classic, unmistakable symptoms of a virus, when their body was completely virus-free. Even that's a poor analogy. What I'm trying to say is that something else, not part of your body, is affecting you. Because if it was part of your body, it would follow you here.”

  “I don't understand,” I replied.

  “It's the only explanation that makes sense,” she continued. “And here's why: Say a Challenger gets a piece of metal- or arrow, or whatever- lodged into their leg, tearing it up so that they can't walk anymore. Say that they're never able to remove the item, that it stays in their body for years. When they'd come here, the leg would retain all signs of damage, but the splinter wouldn't come with them. The injury would be a part of them, they'd still have to deal with the damage the foreign object caused. But the foreign object would stay on Earth, where it belongs, because it's a foreign object, and not part of the Challenger itself. Clothing is the only exception and it took forever to figure out how to get Challengers here without them being naked.”

  “I appreciate you figuring that last part out for us,” I said dryly. “But I'm still not sure I'm following. It sounds like you're saying something else is actively screwing up both my body and life.”

  “That's exactly what I'm saying,” Stell nodded. “I can't tell what’s screwing up your body back on Earth, but if there was something actually wrong with you now, if you were recovering from a virus, or brain damage or anything else, I'd be able to see it. And I can't. So there isn't. I promise you that.”

  For the first time in Avalon, my head started hurting.

  “I don't even know what to do with that information,” I replied, clutching my forehead with one hand. “You're saying that something, or someone, back on Earth is actively screwing with my head, in a way none of my doctors can detect? That's-”

  I stopped myself before I could say 'crazy.' Because then I would have said that I didn't have any enemies, and that had already been proven to be a lie. I could doubt a lot of things here. Dismiss a lot of things as paranoia. I had even been willing to mark off all the hazing at school as just people being idiots. But then my one of my best friends revealed a plot behind all of the abuse I'd received, one that made sense, and cost him in a huge way when he revealed it to me.

  If I were to ignore that clear warning, then I'd be just as crazy as I was afraid of becoming.

  But who could be my real enemies? How could I have such enemies? I was nobody. A kid with barely any future at all, that could barely dress himself. Heck, on bad days, I couldn't even do that. Mom or my sister had to help.

  My head was spinning. I needed to sit down, but the freaky magic forest didn't have any chairs.

  “Wait a minute Wes,” Stell said. “We'll figure out how to get to the bottom of this. There are things you can learn to counteract foreign influence on your body, and they carry over to Earth. We'll find a way to fix this.”

  I locked onto her words. On the sanity promised in them. If what she was telling me was true, not only could she prove that this place wasn't me going crazy, but she could help fix me.

  When everything else had failed, that promise was an anchor to me. I wasn't going to let go of it.

  “Alright, Stell,” I said, swallowing as I got my nerves under control. “I'll hold you to that. What's next?”

  “I'll take some time to look at it long-term, but for now let's continue with what we were talking about before.”

  “My suspiciously high stats?”

  “Yeah,” Stell said slowly. “If you could really call them that. A person who's Risen even once can probably make mincemeat of you. But we're moving on. I'll list the most important way these traits will affect you, then how they combine to affect you in different ways. Your Strength is going to mainly affect your carrying capacity and your ability to exert force on something, usually to damage it. Your Dexterity will affect your ability to avoid harm, be coordinated, and use tools, especially mechanical ones that aren't affected by extra muscle.”

  “You can just say crossbows and other ranged weapons,” I replied dryly. I pictured Stell at one of my sister's Pathwalker campaigns, and smiled.

  “It's not just those things,” Stell said defensively. I didn't stop smiling. “Ugh! Fine! Moving on. You'll see soon enough. Constitution concerns your overall health, how much physical trauma and injury you can take, and how resistant your body is to disease and magic. And stop looking so smug,” Stell admonished me. I did my best to wipe the smirk off my face and look innocent. She rolled her eyes and kept talking. “It also plays a slight role in all of your physical actions, because how healthy you are can limit how strong you can become and how easy it is for you to move. A poor Constitution will penalize your Strength or Dexterity, and a high one will make it easier for the other two to grow. So there!” Her eyes flashed suddenly. Apparently I finally looked like I didn't already know what she was talking about. She continued speaking. “Intelligence affects your ability to retain information and the speed at which you learn new skills. Most importantly it affects the power of most magic you'll perform as well as the total amount of mana- yes, I can tell you've heard that term before, stop acting smug- the total amount of mana you will have. Wisdom, your current highest trait, primarily affects the speed that you recover mana, but it also plays a role in a lot of different things. It helps you notice your surroundings and keep a clear head, and keeps your decisions from being influenced by outside sources.”

  “So it's also like my willpower?” I asked, paying attention since this one stat was a little different. But Stell shook her head.

  “It's the primary component for your Will, but I'll get to that in a minute. The last one is Charisma, which affects your ability to relate to people and to express yourself. There are a few magical effects, and even a few magic spells, that directly depend on your force of personality to work. And it will help you win people to your side, and generally make them hesitant to kill you.”

  “Question, if you don't mind, Well, actually, two,” I interrupted respectfully. Or at least I tried to.

  “Fire away.” Stell didn't seem offended this time

  “I have a slightly-above-average Charisma, but everyone back home hates me. Why is that?

  “Good question,” Stell deliberated before answering. “Probably because everyone's negativity at you is concerning events outside your control. Aside from 'Cock-blocker'- still trying to figure that one out, by the way- none of the other negative titles seemed to concern what you actually did. Finally,” anger began to creep back into her voice, “A person who is an absolute dung-hole will continue to act like a dung-hole even if they interact with a charismatic person. And your town sounds like it's full of dung-holes. And yes, your slightly-above-average Charisma is keeping the problem from being worse. You should see it when you react with people during your first meetings with them.”

  That did seem to be true, I reflected. That gaming reporter I met seemed to have had a lot of fun meeting me.

  “Okay,” I said. “That all sounds straightforward enough. Second question: Why is my wisdom so high? You say a rating of 25 is just about the maximum for my world. Why am I so close to that?”

  “You don't think you're that wise?” Stell asked calmly.

  “I know I'm not all that wise,” I replied stubbornly. “What I do know about the world could fill a thimble; what I don't about it could fill its oceans. And I could point to a dozen decisions I still wish I had done differently. And my 'awareness of my surroundings' of things is not giving me any certainty right now. All I'm sure about is that a lot of wei
rd and crazy things that I don't understand have been happening, a lot, for the past month. Or longer.”

  Stell nodded.

  “See? There you go.”

  Silence stretched between us as I waited for her to say more.

  She didn't.

  “You're doing this on purpose, aren't you?” I finally said. “For my act of smugging my way through your explanation?”

  “I have no idea what you're talking about,” Stell replied, a triumphant grin flashed over her beautiful brown face. “But to more thoroughly answer your question: If Intelligence reflects an awareness of what you know, then Wisdom reflects an awareness of how much you don't know. That's why most wise people are not impressed with themselves.”

  “If that were true, then everybody with low-self esteem back home is a guru,” I replied dryly. But Stell was undaunted.

  “Nope!” She replied. “Awareness of what you don't know and having low self-esteem are two different things. If you had low self-esteem, you'd be easily bullied into advice you don't agree with, and wouldn't have a lot of confidence in your actions. Let's review: What advice do you usually get from people?”