Chapter 14: A Tier 2 Skill

She thought through her options.

“You can bite and blink,” she said, thinking it through as she spoke. “But you need to have a target to lock on to first.” She began. “And I can…” She trailed off “Feel things.”

It sounded kind of pathetic when put that way. Here her mouse could teleport, resurrect, and inflict some proper damage. She could however, ‘feel things’ as it were. If she were able to find and, at least slow, or reveal the stealthy creature, Maus could take it down. Only, while she was sure she could find it, she had no confidence in being able to harm it or hold it down long enough for Maus to take advantage.

It then occurred to her that not all bats roosted alone. Much like the carrion thing, Scarlet had no idea which side of the community spectrum a shadow bat fell. Considering her recent luck, she’d be grateful if there was just the one.

She called up her status, her attention going straight to her skills. She had both Bond Communication and Empathy, and neither of them, for all their usefulness, were going to help her deal with the shadow bats once she located them.

“I need a combat-oriented skill,” she told Maus. Only, how did one gain a skill, and what skills could she get?

She queried the Guide about what types of combat skills were available and received no response, which was not unexpected.

Then she queried about how to gain a skill.

[Skill formation occurs when compatibility or execution thresholds are met]

Compatibility, how? Thresholds of what, and what counted as ‘execution’? Scarlet pursed her lips and stared at the floating words. She’d mistakenly thought that if something were clear, it couldn’t also be vague. System wonders never cease; the Guide was both.

Well, if nothing else, it appeared that some level of lowercase ‘s’ skilled action was required in order gain a Skill.

In the words of the adorable nerd she’d met at the convention, and who she’d been affectionately referring to as the Conman in her head (short for convention-man, because she hadn’t actually received his name): If she wanted ‘sick skillz’ she’d have to ‘git gud’.

“It’s a crude little phrase, but it does describe what I believe the Guide is telling us. If we just do something well enough… Only what Skills could I even get. I’m obviously not a good enough shot to get a gun skill. Or maybe I’m incompatible?” She trailed off, allowing her mind to drift when she thought back to the footage she had seen earlier.

The maniac with a knife. He’d stabbed a car with that glowing blade, and the car had lost. The man had just stood there with what was obviously an average kitchen tool – outside of the glow, his hand clutching the weapon that was still inside the driver’s door when the car drove off. His arm didn’t even jerk forwards.

That had to be mana, she figured, thinking back on the clip.

“That had to be mana, right?” She asked Maus, delighted she could now send simple thoughts and images to him. He just sent her back feelings of confusion, which was fair. He was a mouse, though he did have mana. It’s how he used Blink.

Was she using mana when she used Empathy? She didn’t think so. So how was she meant to access her own?

Her mind reached back through her memories, sorting, filtering, retrieving with that unnatural clarity that had become increasingly familiar over the past few hours. The convention. The noise. What was it the Conman had said about this?

The memory surfaced intact, clean, and complete, her mind retrieving the conversation effortlessly.

Meditation.

He had gone on about it. About focus, and breathing, about just how important it was to magical or spiritual development.

She figured it was worth a shot. Worst case, she calms and centers herself and nothing else happens. Best case, she would have access to her mana. Real access.

Time to get a combat skill.

She relaxed slightly, letting out a slow breath as she settled. The process of meditation was not new to Scarlet.

“I suppose that school counsellor did one decent thing for me,” she said under her breath, the words bitter as she adjusted so she was sitting cross-legged on her office chair. One of her favourite perks of being a small person.

Then she closed her eyes, centred herself and began to breathe very intentionally.

In, two, three, four. Hold. Out, two, three, four, five.

And again, and again, until breathing was the only thing she was really focused on. She’d found this rhythm worked best for her to stay engaged without getting lightheaded or losing focus.

As she began to meditate, she did not empty her mind. That had never been the goal. Instead, she focused on her presence, on her body. She flexed every muscle from her toes to her forehead. Then she switched to her senses. From sight to sound, to the feel of the bulky coat around her. Yeah, she unzipped that and hung it over the chair. Then she switched to smell, and the taste of the air around her. Finally, she prodded at her new sense, this ‘Empathy’ she was still getting used to.

She focused on the now, on the sheer weight of sensation pressing in from every direction. As she settled into the rhythm, errant thoughts began to trickle back in. She allowed these stray thoughts to drift, acknowledging and then releasing each one. Imagining them like feathers in the wind or leaves on a river, drifting away in a current she chose not to follow.

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In, two, three, four. Hold. Out, two, three, four, five.

The world did not go quiet. It became louder.

Her perception, already heightened, stretched further, deepened, sharpened. She felt things like she never had before. Like a new limb she was only just beginning to understand she flexed her Skills. The bond between her and Maus flared in response, the connection strengthening until she could feel him with a clarity she didn’t know was possible.

Feeling her reach out, Maus scampered over and crawled up to her shoulder. Tiny paws pressed against the top of her ear, as he stood on his hind legs and began to groom the baby hairs above it. The smile that bloomed on her face was impossible to stop.

Maus was so small, and warm, and she could literally feel his contentment radiating out of him. He was just happy to be there, and the sensation was so alien, so foreign to her that she knew without a doubt it was not her own.

With the assistance of Bond Communication, she let herself drift in the simple, uncomplicated presence of him. Communication did not do the skill justice.

This felt like more than mere ‘communication’. Perhaps the sensations were a byproduct of the bond itself?

What the hell is this if not magic, she thought. She tried to trace the sensation, to ‘just look within’ as so many social media gurus would tell you.

Only, when she followed the sensation back to its source, she was astonished. It felt as though she had lived underground all her life and was seeing the sun for the first time and now had to make sense of what that meant, of its warmth on her skin and its light in the sky, and now she had to figure out how to interpret it.

It was that overwhelming, and that wonderful.

Then a bout of nausea nearly brought her out of her meditation, as she wrestled with the overload of information and sensation. To try and parse through it to find what she was looking for.

It took her a while, but eventually, she felt something.

Mana.