With a swipe of her fingers Demi set the permissions of her status screen so that Aelfric could also view it.
After looking at it for a moment, his only comment was, “I see.”
Well, that was understandable, she supposed. It was a lot to take in at once.
He was reticent by nature. It was probably best to go straight to the heart of the matter.
She flipped over to her skills page and advanced until she got to the magic skills.
“Can you help me understand these?” she asked.
He looked at the page for several seconds, but then he gave an unexpected answer.
“No,” he said, his voice low and even.
Demi squirmed in place.
“Look,” she said. “I know that I’m probably supposed to go on a voyage of self-discovery to learn how to use all of these things, but I’m overwhelmed. I don’t have any idea where to begin. Just give me some basic guidance.”
The lines between Aelfric’s eyes deepened, his brows drawing together as she spoke.
Finally, he raised his hand to stop her.
“You misunderstand me,” he said, his voice quiet and flat. “I have no idea what any of that means.”
...
...
Demi could feel the ellipses piling up in her brain.
At last it burst out of her.
“Aren’t you an Archmage?” she asked incredulously.
That was quite a rude thing to say, and she immediately regretted it, but fortunately, Aelfric did not take offense.
“I have never seen magic skills like that before. The magic of this world appears to function according to a different logic,” he explained. He gestured at the words “from another world” on her status screen. “I suspect it has much to do with that.”
Before she could question him on this curious statement, he opened his own skill listing for her to consider.
As he did, Demi suddenly realized, Oh, I suppose I could have just peeked at them at any time to give myself an idea of things. But that still feels really terribly rude.
In the end, it turned out that it would probably have left her more confused than when she started.
Aelfric also had a wealth of skills, although not quite fifteen pages, which was something of a relief. He sorted them so that his magic skills were grouped and they could compare.
Just like Demi’s, his magic skills were roughly divided into passive skills and active ones. Most of the active skills appeared to be specific spells. There were elemental bolts, and wider area-of-effect spells as well, along with some utility magic, like the light spell he was currently maintaining.
In contrast, Demi’s inscrutable magic skills were much more broad. If she drew upon her knowledge of games and fantasy novels, then her skills were not so much individual spells, but instead different schools of magic, that is, different ways of thinking about, shaping, and using magic.
“I’d say you’re the Archmage in the room,” he pointed out dryly.
“But I don’t understand,” Demi said helplessly. “I don’t understand any of that. Is this because I became a goddess?”
Aelfric shook his head, “No. Not even the goddesses of this world use magic like that, the magic that you used to purify the blightwood. Even they have to abide by the logic of this world.”
“I didn’t purify it,” Demi answered absently, lost in thought. “I unmade it. That isn’t the original forest, or whatever was there before the blightwood took root. It’s a new place. All of the things in it are new things. I wove them out of the stuff that had been the blightwood.”
Even if she didn’t understand any of the vague and complicated information on her skills page, she naturally had the language to think about and talk about what she had done at the blightwood, and before, when she had saved Aelfric’s life. She wasn’t entirely sure how to trigger that state, outside of intense emotional distress, but she understood what it was: greenweaving.
And then she found it, right there on her skill listing: Greenweaving.
But the level number beside it made no sense. It wasn’t even a number, but an inexplicable collection of symbols. That was definitely different than the last time she had looked at it. She would have remembered something so bizarre. She wasn’t even sure she had even seen “Greenweaving” among her skills the first time she had looked at the listing, but it was always possible she had simply overlooked it. She had been absolutely overwhelmed at the time.
I have got to ask him what he thinks about that weird not-a-number, she decided.
And then he said something that pulled her completely out of her thoughts.
“That is not something that even Hollyhope could do,” he said.
“What?” Demi asked, her eyes widening. “What do you mean?” she asked.
“Exactly what I said,” he answered, then closed his eyes briefly and shook his head. “Although I have had regular dealings with the goddess-administrators, I cannot claim to be an expert on all of their powers. But I do know, based on the state of things, that if she could do what you did, with only four days of sleep as a consequence, then she would have already done it.”
Oh, Demi realized. Elder Ashbark said something similar, didn’t he? That if the problem was as simple as just going there to fix it, then Hollyhope would have done it already.
“Do you mind?” Demi asked hesitantly. “Do you mind telling me what’s going on?”
She felt that there was something critical about the nature of this world that she did not yet understand.
After all, that bear-elk monster thing was super far over the line of “invasive species.” It was more like “crawling interstellar horror,” she reflected.
Aelfric took a deep breath and then closed his eyes. When he opened them, his gaze was clear and direct.
“You have already surmised this,” he said quietly, “But my name is not Alt Irondale. I am Aelfric Pwyll Farrant. The princess-king of Prystir dispatched me to this area because we intercepted information concerning a revelation received by the high priestess of the Verdant Cathedral. It revealed that a goddess would descend in the unorganized territories of the west, somewhere in the vicinity of the town of Cradle. The princess-king wished for me to find this goddess and escort her back to the court, where she could be protected and her skills utilized in the most efficient way.”
She wanted to put me on a leash, she thought grimly to herself. I can’t say I’m surprised. The princess-king has a responsibility to her people. It’s no wonder she would want to secure me solely for the prosperity of Prystir. But I’m not here just to help Prystir, and I certainly don’t want to be detained in a royal court.
I’m sure Hollyhope predicted this might happen. That’s why she didn’t send a revelation to the princess-king or the queen of Annarrow, but she did inform the beavers in Rushford and the foxes of Hollyhain Assembly, she thought to herself.
Aelfric continued.
“I arrived in Cradle three months ago and established my cover story as Alt Irondale at that time. I am working as a physician,” he clarified.
“Three months ago?” Demi asked in surprise. “That’s a long time before I actually arrived.”
He nodded.
“We didn’t have specific information on when you would arrive, so I was dispatched immediately,” he explained. But then his brows drew together. “Unfortunately, a situation had been developing at the southern border of Annarrow, on the front lines, right at the edge of the continental barrier. Prystir and Annarrow do not currently enjoy a positive diplomatic relationship, so Prystir could not send aid directly.”
“Wait,” Demi said in confusion, drawing both of her hands up to halt his explanation. She had heard a term she did not recognize, and in a context that was concerning. “Continental barrier? The front lines? The front lines of what?”
Aelfric sighed and then closed his eyes. He brought his hand to his forehead and rubbed the space above the bridge of his nose. He seemed very tired at that moment, exhausted, almost fragile.
But then he carefully put all of it away, and when his eyes flicked open again, they were steady, and his voice was even, and he began to speak as if he might be giving a history lesson.