Bk. 2, Chapter 4: It's Not You, It's Me

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nRv4SjoSUw1vwcbjbL4dawwlq8g3CfEkLBPgvEzhIxA/edit?usp=sharing

--

Unfortunately for Cayden and Elise, the academy was large enough that – despite the recent emptiness since the official end of the semester – they had no shot of tracking down Tiana unless they were extremely lucky. Fortunately, though, they didn’t have to track down Tiana to ensure she didn’t make a hasty deal with the princess out of spite.

After a short walk up the stairs to the floor above his own in the dorms, he and Elise knocked on the door to Princess Valeria’s dorm room, which opened a few seconds later.

“Cayden! Elise! Good to see you,” he heard Henrietta say, and he struggled to contain a cringe.

Henrietta was a gorgon, lower noble attendant and team member of Princess Valeria, fellow frontliner, and – most prominently in Cayden’s mind – Cayden’s sort-of girlfriend.

It had started innocently enough. Halfway through the semester, Cayden had agreed to surreptitiously work for the princess in exchange for her attempting to gain Tiana’s freedom. But in order to maintain secrecy, he needed a method of communicating with the princess without arousing suspicion – and the solution they’d found was Henrietta.

Lower nobles courting powerful non-nobles was a common enough occurrence at the academy that their relationship wouldn’t arouse suspicion, especially with the two of them sharing the frontline combat class. And with Henrietta living with the princess, she’d be able to pass along any messages between the two with no one the wiser – a simple arrangement that only required a bit of acting on Cayden and Henrietta’s part.

Cayden wasn’t sure when it happened, but at some point Henrietta’s investment into the relationship ceased to feel like acting, or at least it became good enough to fool Cayden. Now that the duke was defeated and Tiana freed, there was no further need for the subterfuge, yet Henrietta’s actions hadn’t changed. Which worried Cayden.

It hadn’t overly bothered him when under the effects of [Immutable]. It wasn’t like they were doing anything untoward, and there wasn’t really any rush to clarify the potential misunderstanding with the girl. Yet the now-clearheaded Cayden – standing face to face with the eager-sounding girl – knew that leading Henrietta on any longer than was necessary would be cruel.

He would have to have a conversation he really wasn’t looking forward to.

But first: Tiana.

“Hey Henrietta,” Elise said while Cayden futilely tried to plan out some way broach the uncomfortable topic. “Is Princess Valeria here? Or have you seen Tiana recently?”

“Nope! Princess Valeria is running an errand at the castle, and won’t be back until later tonight. I can take a message for you, if you like? And I haven’t seen Tiana, not since yesterday afternoon.”

There was a pause as Elise squeezed Cayden’s arm, at which point he realized Henrietta’s words were likely directed at him. “No, no message, thanks,” he hurried to say. “Although if you see Tiana before tomorrow, could you let her know we want to talk to her? And that it’s…kinda important?”

“Sure! I can do that. Was there anything else you wanted?” Henrietta asked, and Cayden hoped he was imagining the slightly suggestive tone to her voice.

“...er, yeah,” he said, firming his resolve. “Elise, could you give us a bit of privacy? I’ll meet you back at the dorm in a few minutes.”

He felt Elise squeeze his arm again before her presence disappeared, her footsteps clacking as she walked away. He wanted to reach out after her, to say he changed his mind or beg her to stay around, but he managed to restrain the impulse.

This was something he needed to do. Regardless of how uncomfortable it might be.

“What did you want to talk to me about?” Henrietta asked in her eternally-peppy tone.

Cayden took a deep breath – and then began to speak.

--

That could have gone worse, Cayden thought to himself fifteen minutes later as he gingerly tried to navigate himself down the stairs without a guide. He considered just throwing himself down the flight of stairs – his vitality stat and defensive skills were high enough that such a short fall was unlikely leave him with anything worse than small bruises. But even for Cayden, that was more undignified than he was willing to accept, so he accepted the glacial pace of feeling his way down one step at a time.

Yes, the conversation with Henrietta could have gone worse, but it certainly could have gone better. He’d tried to let her down easy, explaining that their courting was no longer necessary now that Cayden was no longer a secret agent of the princess. He, ‘of course’, knew that she already knew that, but just wanted to set the record straight that there was no need for their fake relationship.

She hadn’t cried, thankfully, but her stuttered response made it clear she believed there to be something more to their relationship, despite her words stating the opposite. Which, awkward though it was, made Cayden doubly glad he’d decided to have the conversation with the gorgon girl.

He just hoped it wouldn’t have any negative repercussions on the princess’ opinion of him. He didn’t think Henrietta was the type of girl to do something out of spite, but her abrupt retreat back into the dorm after their talk was proof she wasn’t exactly pleased. And while he would be more than happy to never interact with the princess or anyone else in politics ever again, Valeria was a princess of the kingdom – he definitely didn’t want to be on her bad side. It wouldn’t take much effort on her part to make life difficult for Cayden.

Regardless, there was nothing he could do about it now. He’d done what his conscience demanded and set the record straight with Henrietta – he’d have to deal with any repercussions if and when they appeared. In the meantime, he wouldn’t obsess over it.

Unfortunately, that was easier said than done.

By the time he finally made it back to his dorm, he was already second-guessing his choice and every word he’d said to Henrietta. He couldn’t go back and set things back to how they’d been, obviously. But perhaps he could do some damage control?

“Ah, that was quick,” Elise said when he opened the door. “Are you busy now?”

“No, not at all,” Cayden said with relief. “Need me for something?”

“Well, now that you aren’t being mind-controlled by your skill, I think it’s time we put [Immutable] through its paces. Figure out exactly what it can do. It’s annoyingly vague, especially for a tier-three skill.”

“Already? Shouldn’t we give it some time to…I don’t know, let my mindset ‘sink in’ or something?”

“...you don’t really think that’s how it works, do you?”

“It could!” Cayden defensively answered. “You don’t know.”

“Well, there’s an easy way to test – you can just reacquire [Immutable] for a few seconds now. If I have to persuade you to lose it, then more testing isn’t safe.”

Cayden grimaced, but nodded. She had a point. He would have to test if he could safely reacquire [Immutable] eventually. Elise – and, if he was honest with himself, he as well – was too curious about the tier-three skill to abandon it without any further testing. So, after taking a deep breath to brace himself, he reacquired [Immutable] from [Save Progress].

He paused, waiting for some sensation to sweep over him, for everything to feel different…and kept waiting. He frowned, trying to grasp the feeling of his thoughts as he went through the process of [Saving Progress] once again on [Immutable].

“How does it feel? Can you get rid of it again?” Elise asked.

“Already did. It felt…honestly, like nothing. No different from how I feel now.” He frowned. “Is that good or bad?”

He heard the familiar sound of Elise opening her soul-notebook – her oft-used racial skill that granted her constant access to an infinitely-long, indestructible notebook – and flipping through the pages. “Maybe a bit of both? It means we probably don’t have to worry about doing short stints testing the skill, but the subtlety with how it affects you could be dangerous. It makes sense with the description, though. It only affects ‘external forces’ – so as long as nothing ‘external’ changes while you’ve got the skill up, you should be the exact same as if you didn’t have the skill.”

“I suppose that makes sense…” Cayden mumbled. He was relieved that testing [Immutable] was unlikely to be dangerous, at least in terms of him getting mind-controlled by his own skills. But he also couldn’t help the small feeling of disappointment that [Immutable] didn’t help with dealing with any of his recent memories.

He remembered how he’d felt for the last week, how content he’d been despite all the life-changing circumstances. Losing his eyes. Em dying. Killing the duke. Delphia disappearing. None of them had touched him, not beyond the surface-level acknowledgement that they were events that had happened.

It wasn’t good, or healthy, especially not for the long term. But now that he had to face the unvarnished reality of those events, all at once and with all the raw emotion that came with them…he couldn’t help but wish for a bit of that distance back.

He sighed.

If he wanted a distraction from his thoughts, he supposed he would have to get it the old-fashioned way.

“Where do you want to do the tests?”

--

They ended up going back to the same arena Cayden had left just over an hour earlier. It was getting later in the afternoon, but there were enough glowstones scattered around the academy’s arenas that darkness wouldn’t be an issue, not that it would affect Cayden either way.

After the day he’d had, he was exhausted. Not physically – his endurance and strength were plenty high enough that he’d already recovered from his short workout earlier in the day. But mentally and emotionally, he felt as if he were at the end of his rope. If he could have his way, he would have loved to return to his bed, to dive into unconsciousness to escape the memories plaguing him. But he knew he’d be foolish to try.

If he were to try to go to sleep as he was, he’d end up tossing and turning for hours before finally succumbing in the wee hours of the morning. He needed something else to distract him, preferably something physical enough to wear him out so that he could sleep when he finally got to bed.

Luckily, Elise was more than prepared to provide that distraction.

It started simply enough, striking out at a training dummy with and without [Immutable] active. But it quickly progressed to different and unusual training methods.

He ran back and forth across the arena, trusting when Elise assured him his path was empty, changing direction as quickly as possible. He jumped as high as he could, both from a standstill and from a run. He lifted different weights to exhaustion. He endured strikes from a bat-wielding Elise. Every exercise he had ever done, Elise had him perform both with and without [Immutable] active – and that was only the beginning.

Elise directed him to hit the dummy slower and slower, until he was eventually attempting to touch the dummy as lightly as possible, shrinking back the moment his claws made contact. She guided him up the wall surrounding the sands of the arena, having him jump off at different heights. She strapped various weights to all parts of his body and directed him to repeat all of his previous exercises. She held his arm and pinched his skin as Cayden learned and then unlearned [Immutable] over and over. She held a flame under his hand, closer and closer until he flinched back. And all the while, she wrote in her soul notebook, unwilling to share her findings until she had a more complete picture.

Until finally, after hours of non-stop testing, Elise called a halt.

“There’s a lot more I still want to test, but this is good for now,” she explained. “The rest we can either do back at the dorm, or we’ll need more specialized equipment than we have here. And I’m sure I’ll think of more, later.”

Cayden gave a sigh of relief as he [Saved Progress] on [Immutable] for what he hoped was the last time in the near future and collapsed back into the sand, arms spread wide like a starfish as he took the opportunity to just breathe.

A few minutes passed before Cayden sat up with a groan, turning to where he could still hear Elise scratching out her thoughts in her notebook. “So, what do you think?”

“It’s…definitely interesting. On one hand, its effects are different from anything I’ve ever seen. But on the other hand…it’s perfectly simple, and does exactly as the skill describes.”

“...what?”

Elise chuckled. “Yeah, I suppose that doesn’t make much sense.” And then her voice changed, a slight shift to her cadence that Cayden recognized as her entering her ‘lecture mode.’ “What do you know about how many ‘attack’ skills, such as your old [Empowered Strike], work?”

Cayden took a moment to think. [Empowered Strike] was one of his oldest skills, part of his original [Apprentice Blacksmith] class that increased the force behind any blow at a small mana cost. “It just makes the attack stronger, right?”

“Correct, but how does it make the blow stronger? It’s not magic,” she paused. “Well, I suppose it could be called magic, depending on how you define ‘magic’. But it still follows the rules of physics. The additional power has to come from somewhere.”

“Doesn’t it come from your mana? From the system?”

“Ah, sorry, that’s not what I meant. I mean…the force of an attack comes from two things: the speed of the blow and the weight behind the blow. Decrease either of those things, and an attack will lose power. Increase either of those things, and an attack will be more powerful. Which is how most attack skills work. [Empowered Strike], since it was part of your blacksmith class, would increase the weight of your hammer without making it feel any heavier to you, thus increasing the overall force. Other attack skills may increase the speed of the strike, accomplishing essentially the same thing.”

“...I suppose that makes sense,” Cayden said, reminded of half-forgotten science classes from a lifetime before. “But what does that have to do with [Immutable]?”

“All your strikes are stronger when you have [Immutable] active. Even when you barely touched the training dummy, you were ‘touching’ it with more force than you otherwise would have – but that’s the thing. Your speed and weight remained the exact same, yet you still hit with more force. Not a lot, maybe only thirty percent or so. But still…more force.”

“How is that possible? Is it breaking physics, then?”

“I don’t think so. I don’t want to discount that possibility, since skills can do all sorts of weird things. But…I think it’s doing exactly as it describes: reducing the force acting against you. And the reason it looks like you’re hitting harder is just because the forces opposing your hits are lessened, resulting in an overall greater transference of momentum.” She paused. “I don’t know. It’s different from how I thought physics works…but it makes sense. Mostly. I’ll have to run some more tests on my own, and it’ll be helpful to talk to Basura.”

Cayden nodded. Basura was Elise’s mentor in the affiliate academy, an apparently genius gnome who would be much better than Cayden for brainstorming the mechanics of the physics governing skills, regardless of Cayden’s otherworldly knowledge. “What does this mean for me, then? Is that good for [Immutable’s] power?”

“I’m not quite sure of all the ramifications, but I’m certain it’s powerful. Gravity affects you less, so you can jump higher and you fall slower. You hit harder and are harder to move by anything else – basically, you have all of the benefits of a higher [Inertia], but none of the downsides. Though, like with [Inertia], those benefits don’t carry over to things you are carrying. When you swing your spear, it doesn’t hit any harder than it normally would.”

“That definitely seems good. That was the big issue with [Inertia]: increased or decreased, I had to deal with the drawbacks along with the positives,” Cayden paused. “Though it still doesn’t seem as good as I’d expect of a tier-three skill. Especially with the downsides it comes with.”

“Well, we haven’t gotten to any of the non-physical effects of [Immutable]. We’ll have to do more testing to know for sure, but I’d assume [Immutable] has a ‘lessening’ effect on pretty much everything. We already know it works against ideas and healing, and those are two of the most esoteric effects I can imagine anything resisting – already much more broad than your [Resistance] skill. I think it’s safe to assume it’s similar to [Resistance]: the power of the skill doesn’t come from specificity, but from its broadness. It reduces the effects of everything acting on you, regardless of the type or source of that effect.”

Cayden grunted as he nodded his understanding. He’d been similarly disappointed with [Resistance] as his first tier-three skill, but he’d since become more than convinced of its usefulness. From what Elise was saying, [Immutable] would effectively be a second [Resistance], making him even more defensibly invulnerable. Unquestionably, it would be another powerful tool in his arsenal of skills, if he could figure out a way to get around its negative effects.

Yet still, he couldn’t help a small sense of dissatisfaction with the latest tier-three skill. Perhaps it was unfair of him to have such high expectations, but after the sacrifices he had to make to get the skill, he expected more. Something…unique, rather than just a slightly different flavor of his existing tier-three skill.

He shook his head. Even if it was only internally, he shouldn’t complain. Hadn’t he been expecting to get rid of this skill just a few hours earlier? If Tiana couldn’t get him the [Opened Mind] skill – which he hoped wouldn’t happen, if the price was for her to work for the princess – he would still likely need to lose the skill. In which case, his dissatisfaction was for the best. He could view it as him choosing to forgo a sub-par skill, rather than being forced to give up an amazing skill due to its downsides. That would be a much easier pill to swallow.

Yeah, Cayden decided. [Immutable] being less exciting than he’d hoped for was for the best.

He was almost able to make himself believe it.

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Alternate chapter title: In which Elise learn's Newton's Third Law of motion