Chapter 65: House of cards

“Telling one lie almost always requires another, and before the storyteller knows it, they will be caught inside of their own web.”

Jenna Alatari

“You’re lying.” was an interesting sentence to wake up to. But that’s what I found happening to me. After a long day dissecting my stats with my family we had all fallen asleep with none of us the wiser for how to solve my crippled status. Grandfather said he had some ideas to try out but he had yet to illuminate the rest of us with them.

Or maybe he had just been waiting to get me alone for a second before trying.

You see I was no longer in my bed, box or any other family member's bed.

It was just me and him.

Hidden away in the mountain, not ominous or foreboding at all.

Especially with the line, “You’re lying.” Being the one that woke me up. I had been sleeping deeper than usual since I had gained my new trait and had not noticed, being picked up or carried down the tunnel deeper into the mountain to a room I had never seen before. A room he had kept hidden from us all.

“I can tell your awake I have a skill called Foes Focus. You don’t have to be a foe for me to be able to tell if you are awake and looking or listening to me.” He said before repeating the line I had awoke to, “I know you’re lying. I just don’t know what you are lying about.” He said pacing back and forth in the hidden room. It was filled with an assortment of books he had kept hidden from the family, a variety of weapons, and some extra wealth all hidden away in chests that failed to protect the items from the gaze of my mana sense and echolocation.

He started speaking again, “You see I can buy the Vitality trait based on your mother adding to your stats, the same thing happened to your mother. But . . . no.”

Before he backtracked again, “Actually here is where I get stuck. Aleera is right. An infant, a fetus in the womb, simply would not be able to amass enough experience for 8 levels unless their mother was waging war while pregnant. It simply isn’t possible. Unless . . .”

and here he paused,

“We are looking at the progress of your development wrong. The only way I can explain how you could possibly have 8 levels worth of experience considering the relatively idyllic setting your mother currently lives in now. Is if somehow . . .” he struggled to speculate, to prove his point even to himself. Eventually, after pacing back and forth a couple more times in front of the chests stacked against the wall he started talking again.

“The only way I can see you achieving any of this is if you were aware of your status, skills and how to gain experience from the very second you were conceived let alone born.”

“Are you truly Aliyah and Kaius’s son?”

I didn’t know how to respond to this. Was he accusing me of being someone else’s child? A changeling switched at birth? Either way, I didn’t have to respond and was wary of doing so to a man who seemed increasingly unstable. He had laid some wool out on the table but I didn’t respond immediately with it. The answer was yes but he was clearly suspicious, suspecting me of something although I didn’t know what. But he had been very clear that he thought I was lying. Stuck in a stalemate and unlikely to be rescued from it anytime soon. I finally decided to respond with a question of my own.

“Why lying?” I wrote. There was no point in pretending to be unconscious if he was fully aware I was awake. This was probably the skill that he had used all those months ago when he kept prodding me ‘awake’. He had known I wasn’t actually sleeping just pretending and unforgiving of my pretense.

“Why do I think you are lying?” He asked again he had already suggested . . . Thinking back on it he hadn’t really suggested anything other than the fact that he thought my progress was unreasonable. Which in all fairness it probably was. Although he had offered up some interesting alternatives at how to level up or at least give children greater experience, levels or stats when they were born.

“Yes,” I responded. Perhaps I could get him to convince himself that this didn’t make sense. But I felt that the less I said the better off I would be.

After another minute of pacing back and forth, he finally seemed to have his thoughts in order, “The lower levels may be easy to pick up. But you have to be aware. You need to make a conscious effort, choose to push yourself forward otherwise you wouldn’t just level. Now that means first you could understand levels before you were born. What kind of mind would you need to understand that. So although vitality might have been the first trait that was given to you by the system that was based on your mother’s actions and the levels had already been acquired. Ergo your mind has to have been significantly stronger before everything else caught up.”

He wasn’t wrong but I was getting confused by his logic which seemed to be going round in circles more than in a straight line.

“It’s just not possible that a baby, a newborn an infant, a fetus even could have leveled eight times before being born.” He seemed adamant about it. “It’s just not possible.” He repeated muttering.

I would have loved to have answered, “You’ll have to take my word for it.” But didn’t think that would have gone too well with him at the moment. Or at any point in the past either when I thought about it. I opted for something similar but less confrontational.

“Trust

. . .

Me.”

“The problem is not in trusting your word but rather taking you at your written word.” He continued to mutter to himself as he opened up one of his chests before pulling out a small glass bottle filled with what to my mana sense looked like a little glowing bottle of red light. “So let’s do something about that imbalance.”

Well, that was slightly alarming. If he had a solution to my imbalance why didn’t he bring it up earlier, when we were with the rest of the family.

“What’s

. . .

That?”

“Oh this, this is a dexterity elixir. Very expensive, very rare, and not a permanent solution to your problem but it should be enough to allow you to reconnect enough to your body to talk.” He waved away my question and all the following questions like, Where did you get it from? Why is it hidden away in here? What are all the books? Why do you have a chest of weapons? Etc.

“Trust me.” He mimicked my earlier statement. Although he backed up his words with action taking a shallow sip of the liquid himself before he dropped a few drops of the potion into my mouth. My body began to twitch a little, the mind slowing down to control my movement, or my body speeding up enough to catch up to the signals my brain was sending. Either way, I was finally able to control my face, my eyes blinking in relief, mouth opening rather than drooling, tongue finally more than a lump of flesh in my mouth.

The relief was so immense I couldn’t help but express it in anger, “Why didn’t you give this to me earlier?” Still despite being somewhat apprehensive of my current situation I was still pleased to find that was there was a solution to my problem even if it was only temporary in availability.

“Because I want you to answer my question truthfully.” He replied. “The rest of your family is too defensive.” He explained before concluding with, “And you will notice that we are both talking a little bit quicker than normal the rest of your family wouldn’t have been able to keep up, would have felt excluded, and I would have ended up translating between the lot of you!”

“I haven’t lied.” I promptly replied, the words speeding their way out of my mouth, simply happy to be able to talk.

“No, but I hardly feel like you’re telling the whole truth either.” He said pursing his lips in displeasure. The conversation was flowing rapidly between us and his comment was followed by a barrage of questions, “How did you level within the womb? How can you talk so quickly? How are you picking up skills so quickly? How can you read and write so quickly? All of this should take longer. Even if you are a catalyst that doesn’t explain everything away.”

Despite the volley of questions, I kept my response simple, “I’m special” It’s what my parents had said again and again. Probably to the frustration of my older sister and I was sure that it was being said to the frustration of my grandfather now.

“Okay.” He visibly put his frustration to the side. “Let’s keep the simply what is your name

“Kai.”

“Is that your whole name?”

“Kai, Lord of the Wester Isles.”

“Do you have another name?”

“Brother, Son, Grandson.”

“Kai, Lord of the Wester Isles, brother, son, and grandson. Any other names?”

So far I have managed to evade answering my grandfather’s questions with a lie. He has always been exceptionally good at calling our bluffs when playing games. So good at it in fact that I feared he has a skill to detect lies. So when he asked me any other names for the third time I wasn’t left with a lot of wiggle room. That didn’t mean I wasn’t going to try.

“No other names.” I flared my skills, acting, lie, misdirection, deception, hoping they would help me sell my story.

“Ear for Deception, Lie.” He smiled finally at catching me in an outright lie. Our skills clearly fighting one another and mine failing to hold up against his. t appeared my fears were correct he did indeed have a skill or he was just calling my bluff either way it wasn’t good. Was naming the skill simply part of the bluff. I liked to think so. But to be honest it had felt like my skills had not taken hold. Maybe even rebounded leaving me sweating just a little but that might have been the tense situation more than him managing to break any of my skills. Maybe being so honest with what skills I had was already coming back to bite me if he knew what I had and I still didn’t have a clue as to his skills then he had a clear advantage on top of his level, skills and wealth of experience given by both the system and his age. How old was he anyway?

Well, the best thing to do is to learn from our mistakes and the perfect time to do that is the present, “What does Ear for Deception do? What am I lying about?” I quizzed deflecting for a moment to try and come up with something.

“Ear for Deception tells me when some is trying to be misleading. Better than simply catching the truth it helps me to know when someone is using the truth to mislead or deceive. That being said that was a fairly simple question with a simple if false answer. You are something or at least someone else besides Kai.”

“I am Kai.” I responded before quietly adding, “But I remember another life.”

“Yes,” He confirmed my statement clearly still using his skill, “Kai but also someone else, at least that is better than something else.”

“But who, how, where, why and when that’s what you need to convince me of now. I will protect Aliyah and Aleera from anything and anyone even you, Kai, if you turn out not to be their kin.”

“I am their son, their sister and your grandson.” I defended myself. My image of my body in my mind as continued to regress growing smaller and younger with each new day. I am not who I once was and more and more I find myself thinking of myself and only of myself as Kai.

“Yes, but I have questions. Who were you? How are you Kai? Where did you live? Why did you become Kai? When were you going to tell us the truth?” He finished his interrogation with a final skill. “Compel truth.”

I felt his skill wrap around me and although I liked to believe I could have fought the compulsion I let it flow through me as the words came babbling forth. There were too many secrets holding me tight. I would finally be free from the web I had woven around myself not with outright lies but simple, general and unrelenting omissions.

I would let the cards fall where they may and hope the consequences wouldn’t be too steep. As the rest of my family slept on, deep in the mountain, my secrets were finally uncovered.