Meager Power

The rest of our travel proceeded well. Descending the mountain remained quite harrowing, but really only because of the terrain and the general anxiety. At one point, we heard some great, piercing cry from deeper within, but otherwise, there was no stopping of our progress, nothing keeping us from escaping the danger. I'd say part of me was disappointed that we didn't encounter any more danger birds or glow worms, but I consider that part of me 'a dumbass that needs to shut her fucking mouth.' Yeah, I'm okay with my thighs burning because of a long hike, rather than risking my life against dumb beasts.

I learned more from our friends as we proceeded as well. I tried to set aside my preconcieved notions about how things worked, and listened. Obviously, something didn't work the same. 'Phases' of moons meant nothing when almost all of them were perfect spheres whenever they showed, and had no regularity. Strangely, gravity seemed to work the same, but I supposed that could just as well happen with a flat world. I did remain skeptical of the world not being a sphere - we'd been high enough in the mountains that I spied a bit of a curve in the distance, but I felt that arguing the point without a clear way to prove myself would be a foolish endeavor. I even supposed they'd believed me about germ theory not because they thought little microscopic creatures in and on them all the time made sense, but because my facts and figures had been shocking. Maybe Daniel believed me, but he was a weird science guy.

Regardless, I was especially glad that paper was far more common than I would have expected. Arla was good enough to give me a fully bound journal to write down my findings, though it was really on the professor's urging. He'd offered to pay for the thing to give to me so that he could interrogate me about earth stuff. Rachel stayed pretty tight-lipped around the new people, so I tanked all of the attention and questions. I didn't mind, honestly. I liked talking to people, and didn't have many secrets to keep track of, no real lies to worry about needing to double back on.

First thing I did was make myself a nice chart of the divinities, explained to me over the course of a few nights with the people teaching me to keep watch.

- Agven, The Blood. Big dark red moon. Domains - war, conflict, blood. Group - High Hand

- Cetia, The Day. Rare, small pale blue moon. Domains - luck, sun. Group - None

- Dhaire, The Flow. Big vibrant blue moon. Domains - ocean, water. Group - None

- Esch, The Turmoil. White fractured moon. Domains - chaos, irreverence. Group - High Hand

- Hastrun, The Storm. Gray moon with yellow streaks. Domains - weather, storms, disaster. Group - None

- Irbyllis, The Mage. Red, purple, and white spotted moon. Domains - magic, legend. Group - None

- Jeyl, The Lord. Deep green moon. Domains - power, dominion. Group - High Hand

- Karottus, The Mountain. Dark brown moon. Domains - nature, ground, rock. Group - Gray Hand

- Loken, The Traveler. Green moon with red streaks. Domains - winds, travel, journeys. Group - None

- Medla, The Mother. Gray moon with teal streaks. Domains - motherhood, healing, home. Group - The Twins

- Mosrin, The Maiden. Teal-blue moon. Domains - youth, love, art. Group - The Twins

- Nollnine - The Aged Lady. Small white moon. Domains - age, learning. Group - Gray Hand

- Ohulla, The End. Ghostly blue moon with black streaks. Domains - death, rituals, silence. Group - None

- Pernillia, The Trick. Purple moon with pink streaks. Domains - mischief, secrets. Group - None

- Qhazoty, The Host. Golden-yellow moon. Domains - civilization, revelry, peace. Group - Gray Hand

- Sudos, The Wheel. Light brown moon with yellow spots. Domains - seasons, animals. Group - None

- Timir, The Artisan. Orange and white speckled moon. Domains - professions, crafting, perfection. Group - High Hand

- Utar, The Truth. Pink moon with gray streaks. Domains - law, fact, pacts. Group - High Hand

- Vontun, The Lost. Dark gray, barely visible moon. Domains - loss, grief, sadness. Group - Gray Hand

- Zent, The Hunter. Red and white spotted moon. Domains - hunting, survival. Group - Gray Hand

Certainly an eccentric bunch. The Score nominally got along, but there were two slash three factions as a whole, though even then, 'faction' is a misnomer, but it was the closest thing one could pick. There were no familial connections other than the Twins, and they all seemed like they left each other mostly alone. The Gray Hand, like was described to me before, stayed generally out of things, preferring not to have a direct hand in worldly affairs. In pretty much the opposite way, The High Hand was made up of divinity that did their best to push their followers to excel. They distributed blessings regularly, and tended to be active amongst us 'grateful' mortals. The Twins were their own little pair, who generally had temples and worshippers overlapping between them more often than not.

The gods weren't the only things I learned about. I got a better idea of the political layout of the world, and a bit of some of the geography, as well as I could have without an actual map. Curvor, the Western Continent, was mostly wild. It had a couple of political entities, the biggest of which were the Moloran Republic to the north and Witry to the southwest, a kingdom. Otherwise, besides a couple minor little places, it was a loose collection of colonies and civilizations that had pushed into it without any kind of political ties.

The Eastern Continent, Vellin, was much more widely populated and known. Four powers dominated it, all kind of ringing the "Bay of Clouds." You had the Aldon empire in the southwest, the Brotherhood of Orleia in the southeast, Lauchwal in the northeast, and then Halia in the northwest. There were a couple of minor powers, but otherwise, they were the big ones.

Of course, digging deeper, I learned that the nations of this world couldn't really compare to the nations that we knew of on Earth. Other than Halia, which was incredibly centralized, most countries were in reality loose collections of city-states that were allied with another, with some sort of nominal central authority. Discussing it, Evelyn had actually been very surprised by my assumptions, and the fact that governments had such granular control over all of their territory. In Avare, Aldon claimed a huge swathe of territory, but in reality, it really only 'controlled' about 40% of it, and that was due to proximity to powerful cities. Though the Emperor carried a lot of military might with a standing army, most of the power was relegated to the governors. The capital was extremely dependent on trade with its allied cities, and it created a somewhat symbiotic relationship. Borders changed regularly, and every few decades, some outlying settlement or city would inevitably attempt to claim independence. This wasn't limited to the empire; pretty much any central authority always had to keep a lid of separatist attitudes.

Such revolutions had only been successful a few times, and most of them had been snapped up later. The world was becoming smaller, though, if only by little steps here and there. The Web was a network of connections, called 'spokes,' that were semi-permanently laid between certain places. It was incredibly expensive to set them up, but once they were, small unliving objects could easily be sent between them. A nascent international bank had been formed as recently as two decades prior, and already it was causing some upheaval in various places. Faster communication and access to money from afar was invaluable, after all, even if getting to use the Web at all was an irritant and a half. An enormous amount of power went into the upkeep of the spokes, so as always, it took money to make money using this new innovation.

Rachel and I also shared a look of absolute exasperation when we learned just how shitty our Lenses had been. Apparently, modern Lenses would confer the "Introspection" upon use, which would allow one to, twice per day, view their status, and actually level up. It was unable to be shared with others, but it was still way fucking better than having to sit by a room all the time. In addition to that, our Lenses weren't giving us the whole story, either. The modern ones would actually give the costs of spells and skills, had a nicer layout, and could also identify magical objects. I'd have words with the damn Aged Lady if I ever actually got to talk with my patron after she got back from getting cigs and milk.

I had to beg off learning more, at least for now. The vast amount of information going through my poor brain was making me unable to focus on our travel, and I needed time to process it anyway. It took us longer than expected to fully divest ourselves of the mountains, a good four days spent carefully making our way down. We could have gone faster, but the adventurers were concerned with getting into any fights while still within the ranges of what had chased us out in the first place. Like I'd said before, I absolutely didn't mind avoiding said fights. I needed to get stronger, but maybe I didn't need to do so while waiting to get squished by a giant, angry bird monster.

Daniel never let up with the questions, though. I appreciated that about him, honestly. I liked curious people that liked to learn. Whenever we stopped for the evening, now that we were far away enough that we could get a fire running and have some warm food, he'd interrogate me about earth stuff. We usually had some kind of audience as well, given that we were the only entertainment for like a thousand miles. Apparently, a decent-sized city named Akh-Bhor was somewhere to the east, but going there would add weeks to our trip to Molora.

Things were kept light, for the most part. It wasn't constant questioning. The professor would ask a question, give me time to answer, and then take the time to write down both what I'd said and his findings. I took the time to chat with the others while he did so. The adventurers were a nice, personable bunch, and that only seemed to grow as we trusted each other more. That first week had been a little tense, especially with the time limit, but now we were on a month-long journey and had no choice but to properly get to know each other.

"And these 'phones' really had no magic in them?" He asked, disbelieving me. The other two around the fire - Kelessta and Basrith - shook their heads as well.

"Nope. Not a lick. Every time you ask, I'm gonna answer in the negative. Just physics," I answered, maybe a bit too smug.

"Still unpleasant to think that you only had humans around," Basrith muttered as Daniel scribbled in his notebook, one of at least a dozen now.

"I mean, it's all we ever knew, so it wasn't weird for us. What're the demographics like on Avare?" I asked, curious.

After defining the word for him, he responded, "I think it's around even overall? I think sekiss," he said, motioning over at Kelessta, "faskin, and yenra are the rarest of the species of the world, but otherwise, it's very much a mix."

Sekiss were the snake-like people of which Kelessta was one. They mostly lived loosely in a big desert that was 'technically' in the western edge of the empire, but considered themselves independent. An insular people, but not unkind. Apparently it was rare for any of them to leave home, like our companion had. Their lower body, below their waist, was that of a serpent, and above it was mostly human, though occasionally some serpent-like features would manifest there as well.

Those known as faskin were what us earthlings would likely call pixies. Generally fully grown anywhere from 3-5 feet tall, they had insectoid wings on their back that allowed for limited, magically-assisted flight. They apparently didn't have any sort of ancestral home, and drifted throughout the world with very little care. Whenever you found a faskin that was settled down, it was considered a very good omen. It was hard for them not to stand out, with their scintillating wings and bright eyes that seemed to glow.

Yenra people lived almost exclusively underground. They were bipedal and humanoid, and might be mistaken for a human, but only when they were very young. Stone and metal are part of their diets, and very quickly they'd develop an exoskeleton-like crag all over their bodies. It of course depended on what their diets were, but because of the requirement, they were the 'miners' of the world. They were also apparently the longest-lived of all the species of the world, some claiming that they'd been alive for five centuries.

"Hum. Well, at least that should mean less discrimination, I hope. Even with all humans around, we liked to be assholes to each other over the smallest physical differences."

Basrith laughed at that. "Those with big heads are universal, I think. It is uncommon, but occasionally there are communities that spring up that espouse supremacist values. They are tolerated at best, and often ostracized until they can no longer support themselves."

"Good," I responded. No need to let that shit grow. Ugh.

Daniel was ready for his next question. "The phones are fascinating, but without the capabilities to make these things, I'm afraid it's entirely academic on my part. But, as they say, knowledge is its own reward. Now. I am curious," he said, leveling a gaze at me.

I cut him off. "Really?"

"Absolutely," he gushed, either not noticing the jab or not caring. "Given your level of education, I assume you have a great knowledge of physics and the such. How is this accomplished, though? I am not naive enough to believe that it was achieved peacefully. There are few better ways to arm a populace than education."

I sat and considered the question. I was reasonably sure of the reasons - the industrial revolution primarily, but a big part of it was guns. The big equalizer. A big, expensive suit of armor did jack shit against a hunk of metal competing with sound for speed. "I... I'm uncertain I'm ready to open pandora's box," I said cautiously.

"Pandora's box?" He asked.

"Ah. It's a box that, when opened, it can never be closed again. Technology can be absolutely wonderful, but it can destroy, too." With the addition of magic, how long before a simple steam engine became a hydrogen bomb? Ah, hell, no, assumptions again. Who was to say that people out there with super powerful magic couldn't already match the sheer destructive power of one? It's not like they were easy to make. Maybe. I sighed. How much to say? I looked over at Rachel, who was sitting with her arms around her egg, quietly listening to the conversation while leaning against a tree nearby.

It would be nice to have a way to converse with her privately, especially about these kind of things. Could we come up with some kind of cipher? It would honestly be really nice if we could converse in English.

...English. Am I stupid? I think I'm stupid. I literally had said the word "microprocessor" an hour ago. Commercial had no word for that. What was stopping me from speaking the language? Whatever boon I'd gotten was a weird translation thing, but what if I just tried to circumvent that? Rachel had tilted her head, no doubt confused by the storm of emotions rolling across my face as I considered the idea. Before she could ask me what was wrong, I bored ahead and attempted it. "Testing, testing, this coming through?" Augh, that felt extremely weird. Like holding ice directly to my brain without actually feeling any cold.

Rachel's eyes went wide, though, and the others around the first jerked back. "What kind of language was that?" Kelessta asked.

"Yes, I can understand that. Oh, that is a vile feeling," Rachel responded.

I turned back to Kelessta. "Our native language, English. I need to confer with my friend here, because there's some information that... I hope is buried forever, honestly."

"I don't like that idea," Daniel said, frowning. "Knowledge should be furthered whenever possible."

I ignored him on that one, turning back to my fellow earthling. "So, like, I don't want to tell them about nukes and stuff, but I feel like going with the steam engine and stuff is okay, right? I imagine it can't do anything magic already can't."

"I think that is reasonable. Perhaps we ought to decide what kind of topics are off limits?"

Rubbing my chin, I decided that sounded fine. "Good idea. Any suggestions?"

"I think I would like not to be the reason for the advent of firearms in this world. One of our rivals undoubtedly will, but my conscience rails against me doing it myself." She got a really disgusted look at that.

"Probably with you, there. I think I'll try to keep it to topics that don't have to do with war. It's not like I'm an expert anyway, you know? Just paid attention back in high school, though I'm probably losing some of that info too. Been a hot minute."

Rachel thought, and nodded. "Agreed," she intoned, switching back to Commercial.

Turning back to our newer friends, I gave a thin smile. "So, yeah, I'm afraid we're gonna have to disagree on that point, prof. I'm not interested in becoming the arbiter of that much death. But, I've got a good amount of stuff that doesn't lead to that kind of thing. You ever heard of a steam engine?"

The night, as well as the few after that, progressed more calmly. I shared what little engineering knowledge I had, trading it for more info about the world here. I was honestly excited to learn more about magic, and even though he couldn't really educate me on it, he promised to put me in contact with one of his expert friends once we were back in more populated lands. I also felt myself getting closer to the adventurers as well, joking and laughing, doing our best to stay positive. We actually started to run into scrapes at the base of the mountain, but with seven combatants, most went by with minimal effort.

Another few days passed, and the forested area eventually gave way to a great marsh, and it was here that we'd start to have to put in real effort. We'd escaped the creatures - now, our enemy was going to be trudging through the land itself.

At least my ass was gonna be great by the time we got to the republic.