Often, he dreamt of Bianca, the first living person to ever die by his hands. He’d feel her warm blood on his fingers and she’d scream and cry and beg for mercy. In his dreams, there were none of the important details like how she’d also been trying to kill him with a meat cleaver at the time, or how she’d set her abomination of a familiar on him. No, in this particular nightmare, he entered her home on his own and murdered an innocent woman. He felt all of the dread, guilt and revulsion that he hadn’t processed at the time, looking on with horror as his own hand plunged the knife again and again, powerless to stop it.
Then onto the next. He dreamt of Basil, and this nightmare followed pretty closely to the way it had actually happened in real life. Torture, and Brin with a smile on his face. Then he was in the forest, being pursued by undead.
But mostly, he dreamt of [Witches]. Horrible Siphani, with her thin white body clawing him to pieces, or implacable Awnadil, breaking him to pieces with spells that hurt his sanity to witness. “Mine! You’re mine! You belong to me! I’m your mother!”
Only then, it wouldn’t be Awnadil. Her face would change and he’d see that it was Aberfa the whole time. How he knew it was Aberfa he couldn’t say, since he’d actually never seen Aberthol’s mother. Somehow, in the way of dreams, he knew.
The only thing that made it at all bearable, was the fact that he knew it wasn’t real.
When Basil cut him, when the undead caught up to him, while Awnadil or Aberfa ranted in his face while twisting his body into something terrible, he felt the pain and fear, but [Know What’s Real] gave him a lifeline. This was all a dream.
At first, that realization always startled him awake, but he’d gotten some practice at this. If he let himself wake up, he’d be exhausted all day again. He needed to stay asleep. He had to endure it.
When he finally let himself wake up, he could see the light of dawn through his window. He’d slept for six whole hours. Not nearly enough to pay off the sleep debt, but enough to make him feel like a person. Today was going to be a good day.
He started with his regular workout. He hadn’t been pushing it as hard as when Davi was around, but it was important to keep up a routine, if only so that he wouldn’t be out of shape when Davi got back. Still, he’d made some progress since Lumina had arrived. Most of it from the training rather than his own workouts. Strength +4 Dexterity +10 Vitality +4 Magic +21 Mental Control +15 Will +11 Athleticism 7 -> 17
Now that [Athleticism] had gained some levels, he was starting to feel its effects, though it was hard to describe. Back in his old world, he’d had a few forays into the world of organized sports. There were always a few guys on the team that just seemed to understand what they were supposed to be doing, how to move their bodies to the best effect. Mark had always needed to be told, and usually more than once. It was different now. When they’d moved from bows to slings, then throwing knives, and then javelins, he’d taken to each of them a lot more quickly than he had the ones before.
Even his weightlifting was getting better. He knew how to stand to hit the right muscles, how to hold the weights so that they’d burn his arms without straining his joints. He figured that as soon as he figured out how to get rid of these nightmares, the gains in his Strength would start picking up again.
After he washed up, Lumina told him that he had the day free and that he could do what he wanted, then shooed him out the house. It was suspicious, to say the least, but he figured he knew what was going on. There was one number on his status screen that had ticked up today. Age: 13 -> 14
Finally. Because of the way this town had placed its System Day, he was a lot younger than he should’ve been when he’d gotten his Class. If he’d been able to leave town with Hogg like he’d initially wanted, he would’ve had all this time to gain Achievements, and it would only be today that he’d finally have gotten a Class. Would it be worth it? His first instinct was to say yes, he’d probably have trained enough to get 2 or 3 points per level from Magic, and most likely one more from some of the others. But on second thought, he wouldn’t have had the chance to get all the Achievements he had, so his points per level might be close to the same, and the Achievements did much, much more than only that. There’s no way a [Child] would’ve been able to do even a tenth of the incredible things he’d done.
He’d never have become a [Glassbound Illusionist], a Class he really loved. He might have earned [Mage], though.
Whatever the case, the thought of it didn’t make him as angry as it had before. No one got to choose the way their life went; he just had to make the best of the cards he was dealt.
He didn’t quite know what to do with his morning. He’d go to the glass shop, probably. Before that, though, why not check in with Perris? There wasn’t really any chance that the adventurer’s shop would have anything interesting, not with Toros still out of commission and no new caravans yet, but there was still something he needed. Despite the fact that he’d kept to Calisto’s instructions and only taken one sleep-replacement pill per week, he was starting to worry he was developing potion sickness. He’d gotten a very bad stomach ache last time.
He made his way over to the shop, but stopped in the doorway, shocked at what he saw.
Perris was nowhere in sight, and a woman in a yellow dress was sitting on his counter as if she owned the place, chatting with a younger woman in a very tight blue dress standing to the side. It almost felt sacreligious, that counter was practically sacred to Perris.
He almost marched over to ask what she was doing, but something stopped him. He knew both of these women. Susana the [Carpenter] and Deborine the [Leatherworker], they were two of the people who always stopped to chat every time he passed them in the street. Susana was light-haired and pretty even in middle-age, while Deborine was very tall and had straight black hair. They were clearly mother and daughter, though Deborine also had very distinctive eyebrows, dark and long and somewhat villainous-looking.
He figured it out the same second that Susana, who could only be Perris’ wife, said, “Well, why are you standing in the doorway looking confused? Come in!”
“Mom, I think it’s because he’s expecting this.” Deborine put a hand under her chin and titled her head up, looking down at him with sneer. “Look, a little fly has flown into our web. Wo ho ho ho ho!”
Susana twirled one finger in the air and stared at him imperiously, “Don’t be afraid little fly. You won’t feel a thing when we squeeze you dry. Ne he he he he!”
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Then they both burst into real laughter, and Brin laughed along. Marksi skittered past his feet, noticing that Perris wasn’t there, and raced around, circling the shop in glee.
Brin stepped inside, feeling sheepish. “Sorry, it’s just strange not to see Perris here.”
“It’s true, but with business so slow lately, we decided to fill in and give him more time to practice his leather,” said Susana.
Brin shook his head. “Sorry. It’s still weird to wrap my head around the fact that Perris is actually married. No offense. What’s he– what’s he like at home? If you don’t mind my asking.”
Susana waved his concern away. “My husband has his oddities, to be sure, but who doesn’t? He works as hard as any two men, while at the same time he’s the sweetest and gentlest man I’ve ever known. You mustn’t tell him I said so, of course.”
“My lips are sealed,” said Brin.
Suddenly, the daughter took his hand in both of hers. “Thank you for being such a good friend to my dad. He talks about you, you know. He’s always telling us about the funny thing Brin told him today.” Deborine looked to be about 22, which was painfully old to not be married in this culture, but Brin didn’t find her unattractive at all. She’d be cast the villain in any movie for sure, but as the hot villain. Most likely she was only single because none of these rural townies were up to the challenge.
She gazed into his eyes, holding his hand tight, waiting for his response, and he felt his cheeks grow warm. “Ah. Um. He really says that?”
“Well, I think his exact words are closer to ‘You must listen to the most confounding bit of nonsense that the scarred brat said to me today!’” Deborine had an impeccable Perris impression.
Brin laughed. “That sounds like him. But I should be thanking you. Perris is one of the coolest people I’ve ever met, and he’s done a lot for me.”
“He mentioned that, that you say cool when you mean admirable or impressive. Do you think that’s going to catch on?” asked Deborine.
“Only with cool people,” said Brin.
“So what brings you in?” asked Susana.
“Uh, I’ve been studying hard lately, and it’s tough to keep my eyes open when I’m staying up half the night with a bunch of old books. I was wondering if you had a Cylo replacement.”
Some of that was partly true, at least. Cylo was basically this world's coffee, and he hated it. It tasted like mushrooms, because it was made from mushrooms, and they added bacon grease to give it a little bit of extra oomph.
He’d had a huge caffeine addiction in his old life, and with his inability to sleep, he didn’t mind the idea of bringing that over here. It was a better idea than asking for more drugs from Calisto. He didn’t think he had a chemical dependence yet, but at the same time on days where he couldn’t take the drug, he was always thinking about it.
“Oh, I have just the thing! Tulla grass makes a very nice tea. Adventurers chew it, but I like to boil it with lots of sugar and then drink it cold,” said Susana.
“That sounds perfect,” said Brin. Food in Hammon’s Bog always seemed to have something weird about it. Dare he hope that this was actually kind of normal?
He bought a bag of the tea, and blushed again when Deborine brushed his skin while placing the bag in his hands. Curse this fourteen-year-old body!
He said his goodbyes and made his way over to the glasser shop.
Ademsi wasn’t in. Well, that didn’t matter much, he could work alone. This place had filled up with projects and half-finished ideas. He’d tried what felt like a hundred different things to get a perfectly spherical Prince Rupert’s drop, but they either cracked, or his magic told him they were flawed in some other way. He’d made marbles of tempered glass wholly from his magic, but they just weren’t the same. He wanted to make one physically.
On one table, there sat an actual anti-gravity enchantment. Lumina had helped him with the first experiment, but when he hadn’t been able to make it work, she’d done the enchantment for him. It let him reproduce the experiment and prove once and for all that doing a drop in zero gravity and letting it form into a sphere on its own wasn’t a solution. It still cracked as it cooled.
He would get it soon, he was sure. He was just missing something.
His work with lenses had been a lot more fruitful. He had a working telescope and binoculars, and more interestingly, he’d made a giant fresnel lens. He’d crafted that thing over the course of three weeks, working on and off. It was ten feet wide and covered in a blanket–it was much too dangerous to leave exposed to sunlight.
The heat he could generate with it was simply incredible, able to melt straight through solid steel. It would be useful in combat, but only assuming the enemy held still while he aimed it, and also assuming they attacked him here, because moving that lens anywhere would be a pain in the neck.
He also had some ideas for lasers, but he had a ways to go before he wanted to take that on. In his mind, he’d sort of had the idea that lasers were just a series of lenses to focus and direct the light, but the one diagram he’d managed to find in his [Memories in Glass] wasn’t like that at all. Lasers were mostly mirrors not lenses. He thought he could reproduce most of the parts in glass, he didn’t want to start until he was ready to really dig into it, instead of the hour here, two hours there that Lumina gave him.
With all these projects, plus the magic practice with Lumina, his Skills had gone up quite a bit. No more levels in his Class, but everyone had warned him that they’d be hard to come by now. Summon Glass 21 -> 25 Shape Glass 19 -> 31 Call Light through Glass 26 -> 31 Call Sound through Glass 15 -> 21
Despite the hard work in the shop, the biggest jump in levels had been the time that Lumina had asked him to describe what glass meant to him. He’d given her a good technical description of glass, but not a personal one. She’d directed him to spend three hours meditating on it.
When the three hours were done, he’d told her about Denver. Back when he was Mark and Mark was six years old, he’d gone to what to him had been the “big city” for the first time. He remembered seeing skyscrapers for the first time, the way they seemed to soar into the air, to literally scrape the sky. He’d seen all this on TV before, of course, but TV hadn’t prepared the way that they seemed to dominate the surroundings, and the feeling of solidity and sense of awe he felt when he stood on the street and looked up, and up, and up. He’d told Lumina about it, which had made her much more curious about details from his world. Smartphones she didn’t seem to care about, but big buildings? That’s impressive.
He’d said that to him, glass meant the future. It was science, reason, and bold, transparent, honesty.
He gained 3 points in [Shape Glass] that day, and his word for <Glass> in the language had taken on a weight that even Lumina’s understanding couldn’t match.
But what to work on today?
He still had that tea, and that made him wonder if he could boil water with hot glass. Sure, he had an enchanted burner that Chamylla had gifted him, and he could heat it up the normal way, but he wanted to try it with magic. He filled a bottle with water, and then floated it in the air and gradually started to heat it with [Shape Glass]. If Lumina were here, she’d scold him with “Use your words”, but she wasn’t, so Brin wastefully did it all with instinctive casting.
The water started to boil, but then the entire thing shattered. Brin sighed. Cleaning up the glass was no problem, but he’d have to get a rag for the water. In his old life, spilled water was no problem. He’d lived in a dry place and it would be gone in minutes. Here, the air was so humid that water sort of hung around forever. Water would actually stain wood if you left it to dry on its own. More than a year in this world, and it was still hard to get used to. He grabbed a rag and wiped it up.
The next attempt he successfully boiled water and then cooled it down again. He didn’t actually want to boil his tea like this, he realized. He’d use a regular teapot at home, because he didn’t want to lose the tea if he screwed up again. Besides, he’d proven he could, which is what he really wanted from this exercise. No, he’d really wanted another point in [Shape Glass] for discovering something new he could do. Those were becoming difficult to earn now, as well.
He walked home, and popped a bit of the tea in his mouth like a savage, chewing it dry. It had long leaves like grass, but the taste wasn’t bad. Sort of musty, but also fruity and a tiny bit spicy. If sweetened, he bet this really would taste good. Much better than nasty Cylo.
When he got home, Lumina rushed out the door and then closed it behind her. “Back so soon? Well, perhaps we’ll practice in the yard… for a bit…”
“Why? Is there something in there I shouldn’t see?”
“Well…” Lumina sighed. “Well happy birthday, by the way.”
“Thanks,” said Brin. “I only told Hogg the date one time. I wasn’t sure if you even knew.”
“I knew.” Lumina thought for a moment. “Oh, I suppose there’s no reason you can’t see it now. Come on in, and let me show you your present.