Chapter 179: Learning To See

“So, just to clarify, you picked an eye Ability on the night before a critical duel, and now you can’t see?” Loth asked.

“Sounds familiar,” Alicia whispered.

“Sure, it sounds bad, when you say it like that,” Will groaned, holding his head in his hands.

“Hey, Will, how many fingers am I holding up?” Travis asked.

Will couldn’t feel body heat with enough accuracy to count fingers, but judging by his tone and the angle Travis’s blob of an arm protruded from his torso…

“You’re flipping me off,” Will said with complete confidence.

“Wrong, I was holding up two fingers.” Travis said.

“He was flipping you off.” Reggie said, dipping a piece of bread in his soup and watching the situation with vague amusement. The Tank didn’t really have anything to add to the conversation, but he wasn’t being annoying like Travis, at least.

“What face am I making?” Travis asked. His face sounded a bit more hollow immediately afterwards, so…

“You’re sticking out your tongue,” Will said.

“Wow, damn. You sure you’re blind?” Travis asked, waving his hand in front of Will’s face.

“Yes, I’m sure. I can only see…”

Blue…or, something like it. It reminded him of the glowing blue of miasmatic light.

Opaque, and blocking his vision no matter where he looked.

“…Blue.”

“Let me try something,” Loth said, her chair shifting under her as she got up and walked over to her gear on the other side of the camp.

“You said you were supposed to see Charge and dimensional energy?” Alicia whispered.

“Dimensional effects, Charge, and miasma,” Will said.

“So, are you just seeing the miasma that’s…everywhere at all times?” Travis asked.

Like a fog. Will realized, straightening. It was in the atmosphere.

Then how do Uru drakes see anything? Will thought sourly as Loth came back from her pack with something metal in her left hand, a handful of grubs wiggling in her right.

Glowbugs. And a parabolic mirror.

“Face towards me and keep your eyes wide. I’m going to shine a light in them.” Loth said.

Will complied, and a moment later, a searing pain in his eyes forced him to blink and flinch away.

“Pupilary response is there,” Loth mused, “And the pain response.”

“…Ow.” Will muttered, rubbing tears out of his aching eyes.

“So good news:” Loth said, rubbing her chin as she studied him. “Your eyes are still receiving light and responding to overstimulation. Bad news: Whatever the problem is, it might not actually be with your eyes.”

“How could a problem with my eyes not be in my eyes?” Will demanded. For once, Loth seemed to be as puzzled as he was.

“Maybe the Ability is incomplete?” June suggested.

It wasn’t a bad suggestion. Will’s Uru Drake Breath was an example of an incomplete Ability, since it only gave some of the powerful reality-warping effect of an Uru Drake’s breath.

The problem was, incomplete or nerfed Abilities would always say they were incomplete.

This one had said nothing of the sort.

“…really?” Reese asked from his perch near the wagons. “Nobody else knows? Just me?” The skinny immortal scanned the group of young Climbers in apparent disbelief.

Will couldn’t see his expression, but he assumed the old man was shaking his head ruefully as he hopped down off the wagon. “The way the education system is failing kids these days is downright criminal…

“Alright, listen up. You don’t live as long as I have without visiting the optometrist a few thousand times and picking a few things up. When light goes into the eye, it’s not processed in the eye. The image is transmitted down a pair of nerves that go aaall the way to the back of the brain to the visual cortex. The visual cortex is what processes vision, then it relays that to the rest of the brain, which decides what to do with it.” As Reese spoke, he walked around behind Will and tapped the back of his head to illustrate.

“And…why is my…visual core-tecks not processing it anymore? Did it get damaged when the Ability activated or something?” Will asked. He did remember pressure in the back of his head when he added the Ability to his Class.

As weird as it was to think, if the problem was simply damage to his brain, that was a good thing. His Immortal Serpent Ability would have that sorted out in a matter of time.

Unless it just continues damaging it every time it heals. That would suck…

“If my guess is right, it’s a bit more complicated than ‘damage’.” Reese said, giving air quotes to ‘damage’…Will guessed by the way he felt Reese raise his arms at that exact moment.

“Loth, what do you think happens when you restore the sight of someone who has been blind from birth?” Reese pointed at the kobold listening in fascination.

Will could tell from the way she was holding her breath. Like a predator that had located a juicy new source of knowledge, and was waiting to tear it apart.

Loth cocked her head. “Their visual cortex has never processed sight before, so it’s...bad at it?”

“Correct! Someone who has never seen something before will only be able to make out light and dark, then shapeless blobs of color, then eventually, over many months, their vision will refine into something closer to what we know, although it may never be as good as someone who was born with it.”

“But…I’ve been seeing things my entire life.” Will said.

“Have you been seeing Miasma, Dimensional Effects and Charge your entire life?” Loth asked.

“…No.” Will admitted.

“So what I’m getting at, is that your eyes are perceiving things that your brain has no context for. What color are you seeing?” Reese asked.

“Miasmatic blue.” Will said.

“See, that’s the only link your brain has to work with, is the blue glow when miasma is concentrated enough to be visible to the naked eye. That is the closest thing to what you’re seeing that your brain understands, so it’s perceiving it as miasmatic blue.”

“You know, the brain is super cool, especially with regards to language and vision. For example, some tribes have a hundred different words for snow, while people in a tropical area have never seen it before. The people with the snow-descriptors can perceive dozens of variations in different types of snow because their brain has built categories for each kind using language and experience, while the ones in a tropical area can only perceive ‘snow’, and ‘not snow’.”

“So you’re saying…I’ll get it eventually?”

“If I’m right,” The ancient cracked climber said with a shrug. “Then your brain is currently building the neural network required to understand what you’re seeing. Seems likely.”

“And if you’re wrong?” Will asked.

“Then you’re probably screwed.”

“Well. Hopefully not,” Will mused, digesting Reese’s diatribe about people with experience being able to see things better, and the blind needing time to learn how to see.

There was a common denominator between them:

Practice.

How do I practice seeing things? I can’t see anything.

Will’s brow twitched as he recalled Travis’s comment about the Miasma drowning everything else out like a thick fog.

“You look like you just figured something out.” Loth said. He could tell she was grinning by her voice.

“Maybe.” Will mused, holding a finger up.

He could not see the finger through the thick fog in his vision.

Loth said light is still making it into my eye… Will mused.

Will started bringing his finger closer and closer, until it was a mere inch away from his eye.

Like a ship emerging from fog, Will’s blurry fingertip came into view, dominating his entire field of vision. 

“Yeah, I can still see regular stuff if it’s almost poking me in the eye.” Will mused. There wasn’t enough miasma between the finger and his eye to overload his brain.

Now as for practice, maybe…

Will put his thumb and forefinger in front of his eye and pinched down on the air, solidifying it directly in front of his eye with Aspect.

Will saw a blob of blue shifting between his fingers in front of his eye. He was seeing his Aspect grab the air. It was a squiggly, worm-like blob that stood out from the surrounding miasma. The same color as everything else…but not.

…It’s a start. Uru drakes aren’t blinded by the Miasma, and it’s much denser up higher where they live. This means I should eventually be able to see further.

If I can practice seeing my fingers from further and further away, then once it’s past an arm’s length, I can have my Party show me different kinds of Actives, miasma subtypes, and passive Abilities to allow my brain to categorize them and further differentiate what Im seeing from an unfocused blue blob.

I might be able to master this…

“Okay, good news: I think Reese is right, and I’ll be able to see again eventually. Bad news: I’m still going to have to go into the fight tomorrow completely blind.” Will said.

            “Well, good luck with that,” Travis said, giving him what seemed like a flippant thumb’s up.

“…You could reschedule?” Anna said hesitantly.

“Or I could just help you scour this Kincaid piece of shit off the face of the Tower,” Ria said, the tall protector aspect of Brianna crossing her arms.

“BOOM!” Bee shouted, making an explosion gesture and standing on her tiptoes for emphasis.

“Yeah, the rest of us could probably help catch any of the strays.” Mason said, breaking the silence from where he had been devouring his dinner. Will didn’t know how the Nuker was that skinny with such an appetite.

Worms, maybe?

“I could bury the castle in flesh-eating insects.” Loth offered.

“I could stop his heart.” Alicia whispered.

Will shook his head, trying and failing not to smile as his Party brainstormed ways to save his ass. It was nice to know they were that interested in keeping him alive.

“It’s alright,” Will said, raising his hand in a calming gesture. “I promised the Fae Lords I would be there, and I don’t want to even imagine what would happen if I unite all three of them against me at once by breaking a promise. I think I can still take Kincaid even blind, and even if I can’t, Lord Bakton has offered to pull my ass out of the fire in exchange for a favor.”

“Do you-“ Loth started.

“A favor he already owes me.” Will clarified.

“How does Bakton owe you a favor after you already got him to rescue Kearney and Eolande?” Mason asked.

Will sighed and turned to Jason.

“Jason, I sold your Relic Seed for six favors from Lord Bakton. I’m sorry I didn’t consult you first.”

Will felt the Debt respond to his apology.

“It’s fine,” Jason said reflexively, scattering the Debt, but Will could hear a hint of hurt in his voice.

“It really isn’t completely fine, but I think I can balance the scales a bit. I think I owe you three of those favors. They’re all yours.”

Will felt the majority of the Debt binding Bakton to him flutter away and alight on Jason.

“…You mean I get three wishes from Lord Bakton?”

“Favors,” Will clarified.

“What’s the difference?”

“Limitations. A favor is generally considered something that is well within someone’s power and moral restrictions, and not anything your mind could conjure up. But since he’s a Lord, that still covers a lot.”

“Hmmm…” Jason rubbed his chin, and Will could imagine the devious look blooming on his face as he imagined all the inane favors he was going to ask for.

“Please don’t waste them on pranks.” Will said.

“I wasn--.” Jason’s words died out as he found himself unable to deny it, since they were still in Bakton Keep, and lying was tricky.

“Will, this is all good fun, but you’re missing a hand, and now you’re blind. How in the Abyss do you expect to single-handedly kill a Fae Lord, in this condition?” Travis asked.

Will frowned, looking over at Travis. He didn’t actually see him, but knew exactly where he was.

“Are you worried about me?”

“Nnn…” Travis’s lips sealed around the words, rendering him unable to complete the lie before he changed tactics. “I’m concerned that if you die, I won’t get my bespoke Relic.”

That less-than-graceful deflection got a good laugh out everyone, and after a bit more discussion they went to bed:

Big day tomorrow.

Will spent a good portion of the night staring at the blue haze where his tent roof should be, pinching the air in front of his eyeball, trying to get the range of his vision to go out further.

“Will?” Anna’s voice called out as she slipped inside his tent. He had been so absorbed in his practice that he hadn’t paid attention to the sound of her approaching.

“Eh?” He asked, turning towards her.

“Loth said you weren’t asleep yet?” she asked, some unspoken question that Will didn’t quite understand hanging in the air.

Does loth have me under surveillance? That wouldn’t surprise me, actually. Probably has everyone under surveillance.

“That…seems to be the case.” Will answered with a shrug.

“I…I’m gonna help.” She said, taking deep breaths like someone psyching themselves up to jump off a cliff.

Will frowned. “How are-“

Anna lifted the covers and dove into his bed, snuggling up against his side and falling asleep beside him in a matter of seconds.

She must be really tuckered out.

Still, it really did help take his mind off the fact he was probably going to die tomorrow.