New Skill Unlocked! Martial Arts 1/50.

  New Skill Unlocked! Meditation 1/50.

  Chi Core Unlocked! Resonance: Unknown

  Martial Arts. Diligent training has begun transforming your body into a weapon. Further advancement requires a combination of training, practice, and meditation. Spiritual resonance is required for further advancement in martial arts. Meditation and access to Chi Core requires spiritual resonance.

  Meditation. Requires attunement to spiritual resonance. Allows generation and storage of chi energy by synching with attuned resonance.

  “What is spiritual resonance?” I asked, looking to Katarina.

  She gasped. “You unlocked spiritual resonance? What did you get? Mine is wind!”

  “No, I unlocked martial arts. The skill description says I can’t access my chi core or meditation until I get a spiritual resonance. Yours is wind? What does that mean.”

  “Okay.” Katarina sat, patting the ground in front of her. “Take a seat. Are you sure you’re okay?”

  I sat down in front of her. “I’m fine! I took a minor healing potion.”

  “Damned. Hate you had to waste one because I got carried away.”

  “It’s alright, we have plenty. So, spiritual resonance. What is it?”

  “From what I have gathered so far, monk — or martial arts — classes, however you want to lump them, all have an elemental attunement, or ‘spiritual resonance’. Mine is wind. It’s why I am able to do things like run faster, jump higher, all the little wind tricks I have.”

  She chanted, making small gestures with her hand, and a three inch tornado swirled into life on the palm of her hand. She lowered her hand to the ground, whispering to it, and the small tornado slid off her hand and drifted a foot to their left along the roadway before dissipating.

  “That’s a little trick I’ve been working on,” she said with a small laugh. “The way that you meditate is based on your spiritual resonance. My master said that it is easiest for wind and water types. I meditate by focusing on my breathing. I channel that energy into my Chi Core, and generate chi. That is what fuels my monk abilities, like that little tornado.”

  “So I need to find out which affinity I have? How do I do that?”

  “No clue. I started the game with my affinity. My master was attuned to fire, which has a lot more destructive potential but is harder to meditate with as it requires flames, or at least embers. I guess you should try meditating with different elemental foci until we find one that clicks?”

  “How will that affect your Bombastic Busker class?” Abernathy asked, sitting with us. “Can any class learn any skill?”

  “Good question. Hmm.” Katarina hummed to herself, thinking.

  “I’m not sure,” I thought back to when I took the class exam. I still believed that a big reason why I had gotten an explosive-themed bard class was because of the wand I had thrown and exploded at the kobold. “But I have an idea of how it might work. Just based on how evolving skills work, and how I got my first class. I think your class might be based on the skills you level.”

  “So you think your class changes when you reach a certain level?” Abernathy nodded as he asked. “That makes sense, with everything we have learned. I wonder if I can calculate when that would occur.”

  He continued nodding, manipulating something in his HUD that I couldn’t see, murmuring to himself. We watched him for a few seconds before Katarina spoke up.

  “Well I know how to attune to wind, water, and fire. Wind and water are very close. We can try those at least?”

  I nodded, excited about the prospect of intertwining my music with combat on Katarina’s level.

  Encore landed a few feet away from us. He lay down, resting his head on his forepaws as Katarina attempted to guide me through the proper meditations.

  “Okay, we’ll start with air. I know the most about it, for obvious reasons. Your chi core is in your stomach, below your belly-button. Close your eyes and listen to the wind. Feel it. Breathe it.”

  I spent the next half hour trying to attune to the spiritual resonances of air, water, and fire. Water involved focusing on the flow of blood within the body. Katarina placed my hands in a shallow bowl of water to assist, plugging my ears with wax to heighten the sound of my heart pumping blood through my body. It didn’t work. I felt nothing below my navel, where she indicated.

  Fire was different. We pulled out a torch, lit it, and she guided me through several breathing exercises with my hands held near the flame. Her master had carried a bit of coal in a sand box to meditate with. The flame was less important than the heat. That didn’t work either. I ended up with a few blisters on the ends of my fingers and frustration.

  Abernathy mirrored my frustration with a sigh of his own. “I tried calculating it but I just don’t have enough information. Sorry mate, I can’t calculate when a class will evolve.”

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  I laughed. “Don’t worry about it! I need to figure out what I resonate with before I can even think of it, or I might miss out on the opportunity.”

  Katarina stood and began stretching. “Well, might as well spend some time on kata work before we rest.”

  The katas were becoming more natural, though it was nothing compared to the flow I entered when performing music. The movements were not guided by some system. I messed up frequently, but Katarina kept a critical eye and her beloved willow branch handy to correct me. There were no more skill increases that night.

  We fell into the routine of sleeping in watches and broke camp early the next morning.

  The mountain pass continued sloping gradually downward. The foliage had been drying out and becoming sparse over the last day. The valleys had shifted from grass and low bushes to a tan, rocky soil occasionally dotted with tall cacti ranging in color from yellow to vibrant green.

  We turned around a bend in the pass and could see the village ahead. The road continued, a narrow valley that had been blasted through a mountain of dull gray stone. Wind blasted through the corridor of stone, which was about fifteen feet wide. Katarina extended her hand forward, whispering to the wind, and the strong gusts angled up and away from us. It felt like a pressure had been redirected.

  I practiced the illusion song as we walked, Encore assisting me from my shoulder. I hadn’t changed my instrument this time. I wasn’t familiar enough with the bawi to perform while maintaining a decent walking pace, but I was more focused on the nuances of the song and Encore’s help than on the strength of the illusions.

  We were half way through the crevasse. I missed a few notes, distracted by the shifting coloration of the stone as the mountain rose far above us on both sides. There were clear lines where the rocks changed. The closest layer was pitch black with tiny glimmering specks of silver. Ten feet up it abruptly changed to a dark red striation with lighter orange smears of clay. Higher up it shifted again to a slate gray coloration, uniform in texture and material. The higher reached above that shifted on color and texture a dozen more times, but it was swallowed up in shadows that filtered to shades of gray to my elven eyes.

  I returned my focus to the song, and was half-way through another motif when a notification appeared.

  Harmonic Concordance skill increased! 50/50

  New skill available! Enhanced Harmonic Concordance 1/100

  New skill available! Mimicry of Melodies 1/50

  Mimicry of Melodies. Allows bonded companion to recreate any song previously boosted by Harmonic Concordance, allowing the companion to perform the song on their own. Results will be weaker than if performed by the bard.

  Encore and I both stopped performing at the same time. I sent my lute to my inventory and scooped up the small fox in my hands, holding him in front of me.

  “Encore!” My voice reverberated through the corridor. I had barked out his name much louder than I intended, in my excitement.

  “Eh? What happened?” Katarina turned to face us. Abernathy did the same.

  “Everything okay, mates?”

  “We just leveled up Encore’s performance skills!” I laughed. Encore grinned, showing two rows of tiny, sharp teeth

  “Indeed,” he agreed, turning around in my outstretched hands. “I can feel it, a new shape.”

  He shifted, the two fur-covered speakers on his back melding into his body. His tails all merged into one, then split in two. Both tails were connected by fine white string of woven fox fur near the tips, lifted up. A dozen finer strands of fur ran down the thick strand, forming a lyre. A third and fourth tail sprouted behind the strings and began plucking a familiar melody. Radiant Winds.

  The sounds echoed in the tunnel around us, beautiful. It sounded slightly different; the same song played on a different instrument. He finished the motif and a half dozen small orbs appeared from his back, drifted upwards, then split and sank into each of us.

  I wasn’t hurt, but the orbs sent a wave of warmth cascading down my body. A slight soreness in my feet and legs that I hadn’t been mindful of melted away. I had a thought and returned Encore to my shoulder, pulling out my lute.

  Sure enough, his use of Radiant Winds didn’t count towards the minute cooldown. I performed it, just to make sure, and sent a dozen much larger golden orbs spiraling upwards before sinking them into us as well.

  “Showing off?” Katarina asked with a small smile.

  “No!” Abernathy replied, “that was way less than a minute! Seconds! So you both have different cooldowns!”

  “Oohh!” Katarina laughed. “That’s awesome! But your orbs were definitely bigger and brighter than Encore’s. No offense, Encore. You would still beat Chanter in a cuteness contest.”

  Encore chuckled. “Yes, I can now perform songs that we have played together, though they are weaker.”

  “Can you play Cahl’s Tatsu?” I crossed my fingers, hoping. That song was the bane of my existence. Just thinking of the complex performance made my fingers want to fall off.

  Encore formed two more tails and began plucking the frantic, overly-complex series of notes. It sounded right to me. Abernathy laughed, pointing down at my feet. Katarina looks and laughed as well.

  “Well it kinda works.” She continued laughing. “I can see your feet!”

  “It looks like the field Encore generates it much smaller. Maybe eight in diameter. If the distance from him to your boots is any indication. I would say that gives about a four foot radius of influence.”

  Encore stopped the performance. “That is needlessly complicated.” He breathed.

  “Tell me about it.” I reached up, scratching him behind the ears.

  “Wait, can you play him like an instrument?” Katarina asked.

  “That is a rude question.” Encore retorted. He sounded disappointed.

  “Rude? How? I’m sorry.” Katarina looked confused. I could feel the sense of Encore’s discomfort.

  “Well Encore isn’t an instrument. It would be like me swinging you like a club.”

  Katarina snorted. “I’d like to see you try, lute boy. But I get it. I’m sorry, it was just a stray thought.”

  “It’s okay, I know you meant nothing by it. No harm done.” He performed another song, also familiar. Kinetic Overload. He infused me with the red energy and I laughed.

  “Halt! State your business with crossing the Vidicus Pass!” A voice called from further down the corridor. We had been so distracted, none of us had noticed a group of people. They stood about thirty feet away. Seven men and women draped in course tan fabrics.

  Three were a variant of ferret beastkin with tan fur and black tipped ears. They brought a sharp pain to my chest as I remembered Hannah. The other four were dwarves, standing at about half the height but with the bulk to match. The beastkin levelled crossbows at us, the bolts tipped with wicked black shards of obsidian. Two of the dwarves wielded two handed axes, the blades nicked and scored from use. One of the other dwarves gripped a gnarled staff, and the fourth held what appeared to be a bundle of thin, white cloth.