N. Francis
patreon
Chapter 134: Skill Slate
🕑 Added 2025-08-06 14:00:20 +0000 UTC“What is what?” Rory frowned, turning from his work dissecting the Wyrm Newt.
“I have no idea, that’s why I’m asking you.”
Curious, Rory made his way to where Zoey was bent over, hands on her knees as she examined something peaking out from beneath the large keystone.
“It…. Looks like a piece of slate?” Rory pondered out loud. “Let’s move this keystone.”
Grunting, the two of them began to shift the large, pyramid-shaped stone slowly. Whatever the keystone was made of, it was heavy, requiring the two of them to move it.
As if it were one big joke, the minute they managed to move it several inches, the entire thing shrank to the size of a small mug, and just as heavy.
“Couldn’t have done that sooner?” Zoey grumbled, paying it no attention after a moment, instead turning to look at the slate which had been pinned beneath the large keystone.
“Magic,” Rory waved his hands mystically, eliciting an eyeroll from Zoey.
“Anyway,” She pointed to the slate on the ground, “It looks like a cave painting,” Zoey said, pointing out the obvious.
“No, not a painting,” Rory corrected. “That’s a diagram.”
“Of?”
“Well, let’s find out,” Rory said as he examined the slate.
Imbued Skill Slate
Skill: Earth Touch
“What’s a skill slate?” Zoey questioned.
“I was hoping you might know since you’ve gotten around so much more than I.”
“Huh… Well, no idea,” Zoey shrugged.
“Hmm,” Rory mumbled, thinking. It took only a few moments for him to sigh, waving his hand like a conductor. “The obvious is that it grants a skill.”
“Right, but how?”
“No idea,” Rory said with a shrugf, just like Zoey a few moments prior. “Want me to try something?”
“No exploding death bombs, right?”
“No exploding death bombs,” Rory confirmed as he rolled his eyes. Placing his hand on the slate, Rory shifted his ‘mind’ toward the slate, much as he did when switching in and out of his Mind Palace.
“Oh…. Strange,” Rory said, eyes moving beneath his closed eyelids as if reading through a script.
“What’s strange?”
“We were half right. Definitely a way to gain a skill.”
“And?”
“It’s not just that. I can…. I can alter the skill. Oh, that’s strange. You won’t understand any of this, but within, it’s sort of like the impression I get when working with gems, except rather than convergence points, it’s more like direct wiring between circuits. No, wait, that’s not it either. The intent of the skill is laid out like a diagram within, with each node representing a different facet of the individual ‘components’ that comprise the skill, the ‘steps’ that are followed. Grasping the overall ‘directions’ I can tweak and swap them out. Still, it’s a delicate process, a touch too much ‘effort’ and I risk shattering a node. Each node shattered risks breaking the entire skill, rendering it inert.”
“You’re right, I didn’t understand any of that,” Zoey answered.
“It’s a skill that can be customized before ‘absorbing’ it or whatever.”
“And the skill itself does what?”
“Shockingly, not much, even with as much… stuff is packed in here. While active, it simply lets you work through the earth more easily. For example, if you were to activate this while shoveling, you’d find that the earth would be as easy to cut through as butter.”
“I guess that could maybe be useful?” Zoey said, doubting herself even as she spoke.
“It’s definitely useful,” Rory said with a half frown. “I could expand through the mountain in half, no, a quarter of the time.”
“But?”
“But once you absorb the skill or whatever, it’s finalized, the slate that the nodes within exist has a conceptual or metaphysical presence like wet clay, I can sense that the act of drawing in the skill will harden that clay.”
“Gotcha. So, you believe you can make it better, therefore you don’t want to do any absorbing or whatever.”
“Basically, and hell, even if I can’t do anything interesting with this, it’s a chance to understand how skills work better. Shifting how you use a skill is something that takes only some practice, but direct reworking or shaping of a skill? That’s something that normally requires an accolade expenditure. If I could figure out how to perhaps adjust a skill over time, I could, we could, save on ever using accolades for them.”
“Might save time just to buy a skill modification with an accolade, though.”
“Fair,” Rory admitted. “But my point still stands.”
“Do you have room in your inventory to bring it along?”
Rory glanced down at the slate, the size of a rolling whiteboard, before sighing. “If I toss some stuff.”
“Don’t be a hoarder,” Zoey chided.
“Not a hoarder, just well prepared,” Rory grumbled before a massive pile of rocks appeared from nowhere, crashing upon the ground.
“Prepared?” Zoey raised her eyebrows at Rory. “For what? A boulder rolling competition?”
“Those stones had high concentrations of- you know what, forget it.” Rory sighed.
“Smart man,” Zoey thumped him on the back. “Well, let’s finish up here and make our way back to that altar.”
-------------------------------
Several days later, the pair returned to the altar of the keystones, having taken their time making their way back. Whenever they stopped to camp out for the night, hiding from any packs of Night Jackals, Rory dove into the skill slate, at first simply observing and understanding the complex structure.
While Rory had a background in inscription, gem crafting, and many other fields to fall back on, he still found himself metaphorically scratching his non-existent beard in confusion.
Really, what am I looking at?
The more time he spent focusing on a single ‘node’, the more he slowly absorbed what exactly it was meant to do, the more he realized just how much of a clusterfuck the skill slate was. Having barely even scratched the surface, each node was accompanied by at least a dozen redundant skill nodes, not to mention skill nodes that didn’t do anything. It would be like printing out driving directions to the nearby store, only to randomly have a page with instructions on baking a cake, entirely unrelated and seemingly there to take up space.
Or maybe that’s the point?
While the sample size was exactly one, Rory was beginning to wonder if a skill slate was meant to come out of the ‘packaging’ extremely inefficiently. Sure, if they absorbed the skill, it would do what it was supposed to do, but it would also cost nearly ten or twenty times as much on the low end.
But I can do so much more with this. Right now, it’s essentially a minor buff, but what if I can turn this into a direct manipulation skill?
Direct manipulation skills, as the name suggests, would grant the ability to manipulate the subject matter directly. Three people in Ehkorrus had direct manipulation skills as far as he was aware, two of the three had simple hydrokinesis-
I still think it’s weird that even without water existing, the term for generic fluid manipulation is hydrokinesis.
-whereas the last person had thermal kinesis, the ability to manipulate the movement of thermal energy directly. Someone like Violet could manipulate fire, sure, but she didn’t directly have a skill meant for that purpose; it was instead packaged into several other skills at once, and general practice.
With enough work, Rory believed it would be possible to repurpose the Earth Touch skill not just to be a generic buff for working with dirt and stone, but also a way to control its movement, at least in part, with nothing more than pneuma and intent. Even if someone could brute force it with free-form magic, using the skill to accomplish the same goal was far more efficient and easier to manage than the directed intent of free-form magic.
Plus, as Rory had realized after spending as much time as he had with Zoey, those well-practiced with free-form magic were looking to be a rare breed. If you didn’t directly receive some form of magic-archetype skill, it seemed as if most people wouldn’t bother.
Question number…. I don’t know, question number five billion, I haven’t actually kept track. Anyway, question number five billion: Is this slate reusable? Single use? Limited use? Will it explode if you don’t meet some prerequisites? Scratch that last part. I can tell that at the very least, this skill slate doesn’t seem to have one, unless I can add one. Wait, getting distracted.
Snapping back to attention, Rory unfolded his arms and legs, getting up from where he had taken a seat, and sank into his Mind Palace. Zoey was currently out on a crusade to commit insecticide after she’d been harassed by one of her many archenemies, this one the humble monster dragonfly.
I feel like everything is her archenemy… Whatever, it’s her fault for taking it so personally when a dragonfly tries to eat her face.
Alone, Rory began twiddling his fingers, small pneuma constructs conjured as Rory played around with them absent-mindedly. It was one of the key methods Rory had utilized to familiarize himself with pneuma manipulation, the basis of his ability to use free-form and projection magic.
Slowly, the constructs became more and more intricate, until Rory utilized three split mental threads to individually puppet and manipulate each construct. Smiling to himself, the constructs began to work in perfect synchrony, possible only due to his split mental threads being on the perfect wavelength with one another.
Eventually growing bored, the constructs vanished.
It was with perfect timing as well, as Zoey emerged from between several trees, covered in green gore.
“Have fun?” Rory asked.
“Killed a small cluster. You know those hair-needles they fire?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s a paralyzing agent.”
“And you know that, why?”
“One managed to prick me when my guard was down and hadn’t restored my attributes. Once my durability was restored, it wasn’t enough to paralyze me, obviously, but my ass is still tingly.”
“Great, wonderful to know,” Rory said sarcastically.
“Figured you’d want to know,” Zoey snorted. “How’s the skill slate going?”
“It’s not,” Rory grumbled.
“Want to go chase down the second keystone then?”
“It’s that way,” Rory pointed off to a mountain far in the distance. “I was already investigating earlier. With the first keystone in place, I was able to detect the ‘signal’ of the next keystone.”
“That’s pretty far,” Zoey whistled as she placed her hand over her eyes, shielding them from the bright sunlight coming from the sun that didn’t make sense far above. “Like, what, two or three weeks of a journey from here?”
“My estimate as well,” Rory confirmed.
“And the next keystone?”
“Based on the fact that I can ‘sense’ it but it’s too faint to pinpoint a direction, it’s damn far out.”
“Once more, nothing about this place makes sense,” Zoey snorted. “We’re inside a volcano that is admittedly pretty fuck all large but not travel for weeks and months between points large.”
“Magic,” Was all that Rory said, his only real explanation.
“And it’s not like this is some portal location that doesn’t actually exist in real space, that’s the oddest part,” Zoey continued.
“Magic,” Rory repeated with a shrug.
“Right.” Zoey glanced upward, mumbling something.
“What was that?” Rory questioned.
“I said, ‘Wanna spar?’”
“A bit out of left field,” Rory said, taken aback.
“It’s that or I go find another pack of dragonflies to murder.”
Rory thought about it for a moment before sighing.
“Is that a no?”
“No,” Rory shook his head. “It’s me sighing that I’m going to say yes.”
“Hah, that’s the spirit!”
-------------------------------------
Clambering out of a rather large crater, Zoey spat a gob of blood and mud from her mouth, flipping Rory the bird from where he stood at the lip of the crater.
“I hate your meteors.”
“You’re fine.”
“They’re bullshit and rude.”
“I think you’re just pissy.”
“Yeah, I am.” Zoey agreed. “You know how I fight! I can’t get close to you if you’re going to summon those lightning zones, not with my attributes inverted at least.”
“And without inverting your attributes, you can’t do anything to me,” Rory added, pointing out the obvious.
“I thought my diamond skin would be enough,” Zoey moped. “How were you able to bypass it?”
“You know how you gained that skill from watching Eia?”
“Yeah?”
“You think I haven’t studied the principles involved?”
“Fuck you,” Zoey said, not sounding angry in the least.
As it had been nothing more than a friendly spar, neither of them had gone all out. Rory was sure that if she really wanted to, Zoey would have chosen to brave his lightning dome to punch him in the face with her inverted attributes. It wouldn’t have been easy on her, as over time, Rory had begun analyzing concepts that best undercut the durability attribute, and shockingly, pure lightning was currently the frontrunner as far as what he could personally manage. Without her diamond skin and his armor, being caught in his thunder cage with her attributes inverted would be damn close to an instant loss.
But, given she did have those two advantages, it would be a coin flip in an actual fight to the finish, whether she could withstand the lightning storm with just her diamond skin and armor or if Rory could play keep away and bog her down for log enough that her diamond skin would wear out and he’d emerge victorious.
Their current ‘spar’ had ended with his victory, when a zone of lightning prevented her from closing in on Rory, he had more than enough time for a whole chant and magic circle boosted Dragon’s Fall. The result had been a large meteor crashing upon his fellow founder, who’d been cussing the entire time, squashing her like a bug.
And much like a bug, she’d crawled out like an unkillable cockroach.
With her damage nullification skill burnt up, she’d conceded the spar.
Having destroyed a patch of forest near the altar, the two of them relocated their camp to the opposite side of the keystone altar. Once back at their camp, the two had sat around their campfire, Rory motioning and explaining something for quite some time as Zoey frowned. As even more time passed, Zoey finally held her hands out, frowning.
“I can’t do it.”
Between her hands, what looked like a wispy thread of fishing spool appeared, only to flicker out of existence a moment after.
“You just have to hold the image solid with your intent, force your intent to give shape and form over reality.”
“Oh yeah, great instructions,” Zoey muttered. “What next? Just do it?”
“That would be plagiarism.”
Zoey gave him a confused look before Rory sighed, shaking his head. “Never mind.”
Finally giving up, Zoey folded her arms in her lap. “I’ll get the hang of it eventually, but that eventually won’t be today.”
“Ehh, I wasn’t great to start, either,” Rory said, hoping to ease her frustrations a little. “Magic is weird, especially free-form magic, which is essentially what pneuma constructs can be likened to. Back home, only a few people were able to manage that with any real success.”
“Back home,” Zoey tested the words before inclining her head. “What is home to you? Is it Earth? Or wherever you were before here?’
Rory frowned for a moment before shrugging. “Honestly? Not sure. Well, Earth isn’t home anymore, that’s for certain.”
“What was life on Earth like for you?” Zoey questioned, taking more curiosity in his personal life than he was accustomed to.
“Ehh, fine? Nothing too special, my family was lovable but with their own quirks. My job was fine, though bland at times, it was still better than a regular office job. Aside from that, I sort of just… went through the motions?”
“Were you depressed or bored?”
“What? No, not at all. Six and a half stars out of ten. I think my curiosity was atrophied, though, that’s the big difference between then and now.”
“That’s the only difference?” Zoey questioned, smirking.
“Hmmm, well, I guess the existence of face-eating dragonflies and monsters is a tad different as well.”
Zoey snorted, half smiling as she chuckled.
“I ran away from home,” Zoey said, opening up. “Not a child runaway, mind you, but when I was nineteen, I fucked off from my family, wasn’t all that interested in involving myself with all the expectations. I regret leaving it to my younger sister in hindsight, but I can’t change the past. I just… I loved exploring, you know? I realized that when I was young, the one aspect I did like of traveling around the world with my parents was seeing new sights.”
“Sounds like you had a rougher life than me,” Rory pointed out, still avoiding prying, a whole lot of not his problem.
“You surely realize I was a rich girl, right?”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t take away from struggles,” Rory said with a shrug. “I didn’t struggle much, my life was just fine, but you actively sound like you weren’t happy for large portions of your life.”
“I wasn’t.” Zoey agreed. “But here we are now, two once strangers from a fallen planet in a universe that makes no sense, doing magic and shit.”
“Well, I’m doing magic,” Rory corrected.
Smiling, Zoey shook her head.
“Rory?”
“Yeah?”
“Screw off.”
