Caden looked from Allana’s satisfied smile to Tenebres’s amused face, and took a mild sip of his cider. It was a good batch. When he had first gotten to Correntry, the celestial had tried to drink more “masculinely” when in his lunar aspect, attempting a couple times to order ale, or the dark liquors Allana enjoyed.
He had quickly come to the conclusion that wasn’t the kind of guy he wanted to be and returned to his cider. Now if only he could figure out that trick of air magic the bartender used to make it so bubbly…
Finally, Caden asked the pair what he felt was the obvious question. “So what exactly did we accomplish today? Besides, you know, pissing off an Adept level mercenary?”
“We kept his attention,” Tenebres said, pointing a finger at Allana. “I definitely know that much. He’s convinced you want to rob that warehouse.”
Allana shook her head. “No. He was at the time, but he’ll figure it out. After today, he’ll be ready for me to rob anywhere besides that warehouse.”
Caden nodded. “Uh-huuuh. But you do want to rob that one, right? It seems pretty obvious that’s where the fetter is.”
“Almost certainly,” Allana agreed. “But we don’t need to rob it–we just needed to confirm that was where they were keeping their supply. Now I can start on the next part of the plan.”
Tenebres and Cadence shared a speculative look. “Which is?”
“It’s… Look, I’ll tell you when it’s time.”
“You don’t know what it is either, do you?”
Allana shot Tenebres a glare. “Shut up. I got you two the chance to see him fight–any idea what gifts he was using? I figured out wind, but that’s about it.”
Tenebres and Cadence shared a thoughtful look. “You said he was weakening you somehow during the fight, right?” Tenebres asked.
Allana nodded. “Yeah. I was getting tired way too easily, and it felt like I was starting to slow down more than normal too.”
Caden smiled grimly, remembering the same feeling when he practiced fighting with Alyssia in Kellister. “Gift of the skirmisher,” he claimed, confident in his guess. “It’s got a few debuff attacks–one that drains stamina on hit, the other strength and speed.”
“Sound about right then,” Allana acknowledged. “That’s two–and his third gift has to be an ensouled item. I’m sure that’s what that throwing knife of his is.”
Caden blew out a low breath. “An Adept level ensouled item… That must’ve cost him a pretty penny.” He had spent some time looking into relic prices, hoping to find a bear totem, and knew first-hand just how much gold an in-demand relic could cost.
“Well, he does have the richest man in the city in his corner,” Allana pointed out begrudgingly.
“I’ll bet solid gold it's the gift of perception,” Tenebres said.
“Yeah?” Caden asked.
“Oh, right,” Allana said, “you’ve been reading that book on relic gifts lately, haven’t you?”
Tenebres nodded excitedly. “If he really has the gift of wind and the skirmisher, he’s got speed, coordination, and stamina boons already. For a mercenary in his field, boosting his awareness with the gift of perception makes sense.”
“So does resilience or strength, though,” Caden pointed out.
Tenebres shook his head firmly. “You can’t bind those kinds of gifts to a light, ranged weapon like a throwing knife. Speed or coordination I could see, but that would only be a marginal boost over the boons from the gift of wind. It’s gotta be awareness.”
“Well, there we go,” Allana said with a satisfied grin. “See? It was totally worth it to start a fight with him. Now we know his gifts.”
“Mhmmm…” Tenebres hummed doubtfully. “So how are you going to beat an Adept from just knowing that?”
Allana gave the boy a petulant look. “Shut up. I’ll figure it out. How’s your brass knocker thing or whatever going?”
“Copper clang,” Tenebres corrected her. Then he sighed, turning back to his drink, a watered-down wine that suited the slender boy’s meager constitution just fine. “It’s going… not great. But I’ve earned a little more experience just trying to figure it out–I’m convinced that when I finally get it, I’ll jump to Apprentice.”
“I know the feeling,” Caden told him, happy to commiserate. “This city is giant and awesome and all of that, but I’m finally running out of new things to check out. My gift is starting to stall out again.”
[Gift of the Wanderer]
Level: Novice
Experience: 87%
“Well,” Olivia said, joining the conversation as she sat down, “the good news is, that should be changing soon.”
“How’s that?” Allana asked. “Did you go and hit Apprentice without telling us?”
She rolled her eyes. “No. But Adeline said that the adventurers she’s been waiting on should be here soon. Two other silver knights, one bringing his partner and the other a whole cadre from Arsilet, and a third wandering adventurer on top of that.”
“So?” Caden asked. “You think she’s going to have something for us to do? Cus last I checked, our level problem is just as true now as it was when we left Jellis. We’re closer to Apprentice, but none of us have made it over the line yet.”
Oli shrugged. “I don’t know. They might have something for us to go do instead of just sitting around and training.”
Tenebres took a mild sip of his wine. “Personally, I’ve enjoyed the downtime.”
“‘Downtime’ for you maybe, I’ve been working my butt off!” Allana argued.
Caden turned to look at the eclipsed girl. “Haven’t you been going out on freelance monster hunting jobs with Adeline? How is that ‘sitting around?’”
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Oli rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean.”
“That you’re obsessive?”
“That we’re adventurers!” Oli threw her arms out in frustration. “There’s gotta be better things to do than just milling around a trade city, looking for ways to pass the time!”
“Again, I’m trying to bring down a merchant-backed drug ring, not ‘passing the time.’” Allana reminded her.
Caden snorted–but he was relieved to see the two trading good-natured barbs again, instead of the very real arguments of a few days before. The celestial still wasn’t sure what Oli had done, but she had managed to fix her relationship with the wraith rogue shockingly quickly.
While the two teased each other, Caden found his gaze wandering to Tenebres. The sunny boy quickly noticed the look, and cocked his head.
“I’ve got a question for you, Tenebres.”
Allana immediately broke from her chatting with Olivia to groan. “Ugh, that’s the ‘I wanna talk about weird obscure gift shit’ tone isn’t it?”
Caden grinned. “Maybe.”
“Then that’s my cue to go,” Allana said, taking her mug and standing up. “I’m gonna go work on my bracelet.”
“Can I come?” Oli asked.
Caden was halfway through rolling his eyes when Allana shrugged and responded, “Sure.”
Tenebres seemed as confused as Caden as the two walked away, still verbally jabbing at each other.
“So that’s… weird…” Caden commented.
Tenebres shrugged and took a sip of wine. “Trust me, trying to figure out Allana isn’t worth the effort.”
“You don’t think she and Olivia…”
“Pfft. No. You think she could keep quiet about that? Or that Oli could act at all normal afterwards?”
Caden shrugged, conceding the point. At the end of the day, he decided that it was best to just be happy that the two were getting along, in their own weird way.
“So you had a question?” Tenebres prompted Caden.
The celestial blinked, trying to pull his thoughts back together. “Right. Yeah. I was talking to Allana about the Rogue, and she told me about the archetype pairings that you apparently taught her?”
Tenebres nodded. “Yeah, I remember. I told her about the Rogue and the Arbiter.”
“Right. So, I thought that was weird. When my mentor taught me about archetypes, he taught them as sets of three–triads, he called them.”
Tenebres arched an eyebrow. “Triad theory? Seriously?”
“Uhm… yep. You’ve heard of it?” Caden asked.
Tenebres wiggled his wine glass in a half-hearted motion. “Heard of it, yeah. I don’t know too much about it, though–most gift scholars left it behind years ago, once dichotomy theory started gaining traction.”
“Dichotomy being these pairs?” Caden guessed.
“Exactly. A couple decades back, some gift scholars started pushing this theory, and it quickly got adopted over triads because it’s cleaner. Half the scholars you talked to couldn’t even decide who was in most of the triads, so there were like half a dozen different systems for trying to organize them. The pairings were much neater and simpler for everyone–you just take two archetypes that share some major traits, but are defined by some opposition between them, and you have a dichotomy.”
“Like the Arbiter and the Rogue,” Caden said thoughtfully. “One supports the law, one defies it.”
“Exactly. But even though their goals differ, they still have a lot in common in the nature of their powers–they each have a unique school of magic, their gifts are both exclusive, their power bases are centralized in the cities–but their motives form a dichotomy.”
Caden continued nodding, his drink long forgotten at this point as he mentally went through the archetypes he knew from his time with Storyteller. With a thought, he reached for Soul Surge.
[Soul Surge] activated
Knowledge attribute boosted
Knowledge was a weird attribute to boost, as most of the mental stats were. It didn’t actually bestow knowledge–but it did make it easier to remember things Caden had learned in the past, and it helped him absorb new information, even if he couldn’t parse it quite as well once the Surge wore off.
“Okay, so let me guess the rest then… Mage and Warrior, that’s easy.”
“Yep, both are extremely common, their gifts are inclusive, but they’re defined by their dichotomous approaches, study versus training, arcane versus physical. Veteran and Sage are the same way, since they’re so linked to the Warrior and the Mage.”
“Okay, okay… So the Noble would be paired with… the Elder, right? One for the aristocrats, one for the commoners, but both essential to the operation of the Realm.”
Tenebres looked vaguely surprised. “Good guess. They’re one of the odder pairs, too, since the Noble is exclusive with its gifts while the Elder is inclusive, but that’s just another representation of their philosophies.”
Only then did Caden finally understand what Tenebres meant with “exclusive” and “inclusive.” It was a question that had always bugged him, one even Storyteller hadn’t had a satisfying answer for. The archetypes Tenebres called “exclusive” reserved their blessings primarily for Initiates, while the “inclusive” ones were available to everyone.
“The Soldier in Terast and the Sailor in Westerlen, that’s easy,” Caden said, Tenebres nodding agreement. “Then… the Artisan and the Professional? As the main archetypes for trade-gifted?”
“Not quite. The Artisan is paired with Artist–both emphasize creation, but one is form, the other function. Aesthetic versus utility.”
Caden frowned. He always forgot about the Artist–its gifted were exceedingly rare. Adeline’s gift of passion was one of the few Caden had ever seen in action. “Who does that leave to pair with the Professional then?”
“The Outlaw,” Tenebres said. “Both are inclusive, but one is key to the stability of the Realm and the other is opposed to it. Like the Rogue and the Arbiter, but on a smaller scale.”
Caden nodded along, running through his list. The two forbidden archetypes, the Tyrant and the Blood-soaked, were an obvious pair, dichotomous in their methods, Tenebres would probably say, but Caden didn’t want to discuss those in the busy taproom. That left… “The only others I can think of are the Primal and the Adventurer. They don’t seem like much of a pair.”
Tenebres sighed. As the conversation had continued, the boy had progressively leaned forward in his seat, but now he sat back, taking a sip of his watered-down wine. “They’re not,” he said simply. “The Primal is one of the only exceptions to the rules–but then, that’s always been the case. Unlike every other archetype, it isn’t based on a discipline or philosophy or skill or anything. It just is, with or without a pairing.”
“And the Adventurer?”
Tenebres shrugged. “Caden, I barely even knew the Adventurer existed before you told me you had a gift from it. And I still haven’t found a book that references it as anything more than a vague name. I’m not gonna deny it's real, since you and Adeline both have its blessings, but it's not mentioned anywhere any more than our other gifts are.”
Caden frowned. In all the talk of archetypes, she had almost forgotten. “So no mention of the echo or the void in all of your books?”
“In six weeks of study, I found one mention of the void, in a tome discussing the Chained World, but nothing more than that. Of the echo, I haven’t even found that much. All I can say for sure is that they’re not the only weird gifts that aren’t aligned to an archetype or a relic.”
“Oh?”
“I found reference to exactly one other, a gift that’s puzzled gift scholars for centuries. The gift of the crown–the unique gift of the royal lineage.”
Caden blinked, unsure of how exactly to react to that piece of information. “Well. I uh… I guess that’s something.”
Primevus: Adventurer Academia is now up on RoyalRoad, with 11 chapters ready to read as of this posting! Pleasepleaseplease take a moment to jump over and check it out, and push all those critical buttons to help my new work shoot for Rising Stars!
