Markets and Multiverses (A Serial Transmigration LitRPG)

I felt a growing sense of unease as we walked through the city of plant-people for the final time, towards the docks at the edge of the water. While the plant people here hadn’t exactly made us feel unwelcome, they had certainly made it clear that they didn’t have the supplies to keep us around for long. Soon, we would set out on our own again - and this time, it would be towards a new home, if all went well.

One of the plant people handed over a small sack of glowing orbs to Sallia before we left, and I was shocked to realize that it was a sack of Embers. They weren’t separated or anything, and they weren’t moving around. They were just… docile. In a way that the embers of our old world had never been. Embers from our old world had been sapient, sentient morons that tried to eat each other at a moment’s notice, often with little consideration for the long-term consequences of doing so. These embers didn’t jostle or move, even when several other embers were placed in the same sack as them. None of them were large enough to be stationary, either - at least in theory.

“Gift for your new settlement/home. We wish you good luck, and hope that in time, you became an excellent ally/trade partner. We have more than enough Embers, so you may take these ones. They are a collection of duplicate embers, and should give you one hundred and three different types of Spark to work with.”

I blinked. One hundred and three Sparks was way more choice than I or my friends had ever had. I’d had a grand total of seven choices for my Sparks, right up until I chose my compound spark. The Embers of this world really were different. I wondered if that was why this world seemed more prosperous and technologically advanced, at least as far as I had seen in the city of plant people. If their embers weren’t constantly trying to run off or kill each other, it would make it far easier to develop a proper settlement.

“Thank you for your assistance,” said Sallia. “We appreciate it.”

The plant person nodded, before he gestured towards the water itself. There, within the water, was a large fleet of twenty boats. Each one was large enough to seat about seventy people, if we all squeezed together. Fortunately, we wouldn’t need to pack ourselves in like sardines in a can - we only had a thousand people, so we could put fifty in each boat. Oddly enough, I didn’t see any way for the boats to actually move.Were they propelled by magic, or was the boat itself alive and capable of rowing itself towards our destination? I wasn’t sure what to expect.

I felt a pang of longing as I realized I couldn’t just swap to my soul sight and take a look at the boat, just to satisfy my curiosity. I had always known that seeing all forms of life around me, and being able to categorize how strong it was, was an incredibly useful scouting ability. It was so strong that my other friends hadn’t even really learned abilities or spells to scout out enemy positions, strength, or power - or at least, their abilities in that respect were severely underdeveloped compared to the rest of their kit of abilities and tools to handle new situations.

However, I hadn’t realized just how psychologically reassuring I personally found the ability. There was something incredibly comforting about the ability to spend a bit of essence to just know random things. Normally, I used my soul sight for almost everything. It let me check for threats, satisfy curiosity, investigate weird magical creatures, and about a dozen other things. There was a sense of certainty in knowing when something might pop out at us and start trying to eat us. In knowing exactly where every single ‘powerful person and monster’ was in the area.

Now that I found myself temporarily unable to use magic, I had suddenly lost that ability, and I felt like I had gone completely blind. It was like someone had ripped the floor out of rom under me, and I was now plummeting freefall into a void I had never even considered before. I started to wonder whether soul sight was secretly my most powerful ability - stronger than extinguish, or my conceptual manipulation based on the concept of hope, or my various spatial abilities. It was incredibly weird to think about - but I was actually quite certain that I missed my soul sight and my spatial sight more than anything else, because the sheer utility of those two abilities rounded out weaknesses in our team that I never thought about until they were missing. And I felt exposed and vulnerable in a way I hadn’t felt in centuries.

Regardless of my anxiety and my swirling thoughts, our group began stepping onto the boats. It took a few minutes of management, but soon, all of us were seated on the giant boats. A moment later, the boats uncoiled, like springs launching into motion. The plants and greenery that constituted the body of the boats started to shift and wriggle, and we lurched forward. I nodded to myself. So the boats were alive. It seemed as if they were actively rowing us towards our destination.

I sighed. I would have known that much sooner, if I could just look at the boats with my soul-sight the way I usually did.

“Hey,” said Sallia, snapping me out of my melancholy as she sat next to me on the boat.

“Hey,” I said. Then I winced. I didn’t sound as cheerful as I usually did when I greeted my friends. I sounded kind of… empty. Not quite bitter - but there was a certain edge to my voice that wasn’t usually there. That wasn’t how I wanted to talk to my friends.

“Holding up all right?”

“I think so,” I said. “I keep wanting to use my soul sight, and I keep wondering if it would be okay to just use a little bit of magic to scout out our surroundings. I keep wondering if a horrible monster is lurking beneath the waves, and I would detect it if I just used my soul sight to check. I also keep wishing that I could use my soul sight to look at the boat - I think it’s probably alive, but I don’t know for sure, because I can’t check right now. I know that activating my soul sight is a terrible idea before my essence pools heal, but I keep wanting the reassurance from using it. I’m starting to realize that on a psychological level, I’ve maybe gotten a tiny bit dependent on Soul Sight for things like feeling safe?” I rolled the thought around on my tongue, before I Nodded. “Yeah, that’s the issue. I don’t feel safe right now, because I haven’t used Soul Sight recently and we’re moving into a new area.”

Sallia looked thoughtfully at the boats, and then at our surroundings. Then, she looked back at me, before she folded me into a gentle hug. I hugged her back, although I was a bit surprised. Sallia initiated hugs with me a lot less than I initiated hugs with her.

“I know what you mean. Having your eyes on our surroundings for so long has always been pretty reassuring - we always know where everything is and how strong it is. Since we have the communication bracelets, it’s not just you that sees stuff - we’re all so used to you constantly feeding us information that we all feel a bit blind now. I won’t lie to you and say that it’s not a big loss for the team. But I also don’t want you to hurt yourself trying to keep us safe.” Sallia’s arms tightened around me.

“You push yourself too hard, Miria. I know we aren’t really in a situation where we can slack off and rest - we have to make the most of every moment if we want to survive what comes after this. We can’t afford to slack off, or die - and right now your lack of eyesight will hurt the team. But we’ll survive. We’ve found our way out of much worse situations than this, and I don’t want you to get permanently injured because you feel obligated to help the team in a moment of crisis.” Then, Sallia pulled back enough that I could see her face. She was grinning at me - more than a little bit unsteadily, but she was smiling.

“Maybe this time we can show you how much we can accomplish on our own. Just for a few days, while you rest.”

I sighed, before I nodded. I hadn’t realized how much I had grown used to being in the thick of things. Now that I was forced to take a bit of time to just rest and heal, I hated every moment of it - but if there was one thing I could do, it was trust my friends. They had always been there for me, when I needed their trust and support, and they had always placed unconditional trust in me when it mattered most. Even if leaving my safety entirely in the hands of my friends felt bad… the least I could do was extend the same trust to them. The trust that they would get me through this safely, and that we would reach the island and survive the next few days safe and sound.

“Also… if we make it out the other end of this chaos after… you know, after all this, I’d like it if we just sat down and relaxed with a movie or something. It has been far too long since we last did that. I think the four of us are a bit worn out after all of this madness.” Sallia chuckled nervously. “We’re almost at the finish line, so now isn’t the time, but…”

I felt myself cheer up a bit at the thought. “You’re right! It really has been a while.” I knew that Sallia was trying to distract me. Being sidelined still felt bad, even if I knew there wasn’t really much I could do about that. Sallia’s suggestion seemed more like an attempt to appeal to what I liked, rather than an important suggestion.

Even so, I felt a bit better. I looked at the massive expanse of dimly lit, black-gray water around us, before I sighed, and gave Sallia one more hug.

“I believe in you guys.”