Stumbling Up: A Loser's Guide to Progression - Chapter 46: Progression for a Price

With a full stomach and aching feet from the day, I should have been asleep immediately.

I envied Richard. He was curled up on his half of the pillow in a wet spot of slime and drool. He even breathed in time with Leo's log-cutting snore.

Rrriiiiiip.

And then there was Tandy. Every night, she fell asleep practicing. She’d rip or cut her practice cloth, then mend it with a faint shimmer of golden light.

I’d cursed her with longer cooldowns, but the gods weren’t listening.

She needed spells. We were going to buy her one at Eddie’s Mill. Unfortunately, I suspected we wouldn’t be able to afford it, even if we found one.

It might take years for us to buy a single spell.

Rrriiiiiip.

Between Leo’s bear snore and Tandy’s endless tear-and-weave loop, sleep was a lost cause.

Meredeath had found another bed, probably just to avoid these two. My mind refused to think of the other reasons.

Tandy's face was a study in concentration as she poked at the different threads of fabric, then triggered a skill.

"Why are you doing that?" She started, her skill fizzling as she looked at me, annoyed. My whispered question came out harsher than planned.

"I'm practicing and trying to figure the skill out," Tandy said, as though this was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Why practice a skill? You've already learned it. And what are you trying to figure out?" It didn't make sense. Skills just worked. There was nothing to figure out.

She turned her head to look at me, eyes flicking to the loudly snoring Leo.

"Tomorrow, I can go over it with both of you. Right now, I just need to do this one more time,” Tandy lied. It wasn’t going to be one more time, but fifty more times, a hundred.

Her skill triggered, knitting the weave back together like it had a thousand times. I watched as the skill worked, the golden magic connecting each thread and pulling the fabric together.

She glanced at me guiltily as she ripped the fabric again.

"I have a theory about skills," she whispered as though the explanation was her apology. Maybe it was. "I think all skills, martial, magical, crafting, [Mundane], and [Adventurer] are magic."

Her words made no sense. Everyone knew that [Mundane] and [Adventurer] skills were completely different, and that [Mages] like her, or Lael Voss, were few and far between.

It took a special type of [Adventurer] to wield true magic. The great wonders of the world had all been done with greater magic than modern [Mages] could even imagine. It was a class that was in decline.

"That's ridiculous." The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. Tandy's expression darkened.

"And that's why I hadn't told you,” she dismissed me, returning to her fabric. "[Detect Weave], [Seamless Fix]."

Eventually, sleep found me in the hot, stuffy attic. I dreamed of muttered skills and a hibernating bear.

Meredeath shook me awake.

"Is it really morning?" I asked groggily.

"Yep, and breakfast is waiting. Get dressed. I’ll meet you downstairs." Meredeath made sure we were all awake before skipping downstairs like a ray of sunshine. I refused to imagine why she was in a good mood.

"I hate mornings," I said, carefully stretching so I didn't boop Richard. He was awake, but ill-tempered until he ate breakfast.

Tandy looked at me bleary-eyed.

We made an odd group sitting in a booth. Meredeath and Leo cheerily made small talk with the one waitress on duty, while Tandy and I slumped over cups of coffee. Richard sat in the middle of the table, glaring at anyone talking too loudly.

Breakfast was ordered, put on a tab we couldn't pay.

Meredeath unwrapped her silverware from the neatly folded cloth napkin. She placed the cloth in her lap and picked up her mug of coffee, blowing on it gently.

“How’d you all sleep?” she asked, taking a small sip.

“Good, and you?” Tandy responded, mirroring Meredeath’s actions.

“Very good,” Meredeath said with a smile that made my stomach nauseous.

Leo reached across the table to grab the canister of sugar. He spooned a heavy amount into his coffee before offering it up to the table. I shook my head, preferring black coffee.

"So, we've got our first real [Quest]." -- "I need to tell you about my family's progression strategy."

Meredeath and Tandy talked over each other.

"[Quest] first, then strategy," I said, making the call. I needed food in me before I heard the secret that Leo and I had wanted our entire lives.

"Yes, well, I talked to Mistress Del last night. She gave me some details about a problem they've been having. We managed to get the [System] to trigger a formal [Quest], let me share it across the party." Meredeath's eyes went unfocused, and a [System Notification] pinged.

[Quest Granted: [Missing Shipments].

Mistress Del has lost several shipments of supplies in the underground supply tunnels underneath Eddie's Mill. Investigate the missing shipments, identify the culprit, and dispatch the problem. This is a non-Adventurer's Guild quest and is not rated. Base reward: Mistress Del will grant free room and board for a month upon the Identification of the problem. Additional rewards may be available if all criteria are completed. Adventure Onward!]

"Not very specific, is it?" Tandy said, as the waitress plunked down a family-style feast including a mess of scrambled eggs, crispy hashbrowns, and rosemary roasted tomatoes.

"If this is what free room and board looks like, I'm in," I said, starting to scrape some of the food onto a plate.

Save some for me.

"We should still hit up the Adventurer's Guild. There might be some easier [Quests] to work in parallel." No one argued. Meredeath just made sense.

"So Tandy, about that progression strategy," Leo said around a mouth full of eggs.

Tandy nodded, holding her coffee cup with both hands. Her leg was jittering nervously next to mine.

"Yeah, so we're a team," she spoke the words carefully as though not believing what she was about to do. "And it is dumb to hold back information that I know would make us stronger. But," she paused.

The pause extended uncomfortably.

"But, it's your family's secrets, and if we blab to everyone, it will look really bad," I finished for her, taking pity on my friend.

She gave me a grateful nod, "Yes, but it's not only that. We paid a pretty high price to the," her voice dropped, "null--"

Leo gasped, cutting her off from finishing. Meredeath looked at us like we were crazy, but we knew what she was going to say. The nullwrights were a rumored organization that was a power broker. They made soul-rending back-alley deals to grant fame, money, and political power. Admission to a deal was considered a death sentence.

Tandy’s family had sold their souls to the shadows.

I remembered her parents’ sudden divorce. Her grandmother and mom were behind it, I was sure.

Tandy’s face was white, her hands shaking.

What price had they paid?

"I'll explain later," I told Meredeath, not wanting Tandy to chicken out. "Go on, Tandy. We got it. Won't tell a soul."

She took a deep breath, her voice shaking only slightly as she continued, "So if you tell anyone and they find out, I'm dead, and likely my family as well."

We nodded solemnly, agreeing to the unspoken oath. This was serious.

Suddenly, her secretiveness made sense. If Leo or I had made any huge strides in progress, they would have noticed immediately. It all clicked together.

Richard sat on the table, chewing a potato with all of his tentacles as attuned to Tandy.

"I was the first generation of my family to use the shared progression method. It's a simple truth, but when utilized as a strategy, you can build a strong enough base to make it to [Sage]." She paused again. I could see her willing the courage to spill the secret.

"The trick is--"

Stop.

Four pairs of eyes swiveled to Richard. He sat, mouth mashing a potato in his mouth, looking like an overgrown pet slug. His yellow skin glistened with a healthy amount of slime. Swallowing, he looked at us, as though each tentacle examined us in turn.

The nullwrights magically track breaches in contracts.

Tandy swore using a word I'd never heard out of her. I didn't blame her. She'd been seconds away from dooming herself and her family.

Besides, I suspect I know what Tandy was going to reveal. She knows one of the three tenets of progression.

Now that I hadn't predicted. Richard preened under our scrutiny.

"And? Go on already, Richard," Leo pushed. His hands clenched his coffee cup, as though it was the only thing preventing him from slug murder.

Practice makes perfect.

My eyes were glued to Tandy, trying to gauge her reaction. She closed her eyes, giving a faint smile as a tear traced down her cheek.

"That's it?" Leo said, unable to control his anger, slammed his mug down on the table inches away from Richard.

Richard's head swung around, his dark eyes almost glowing.

Did you know that the main reason people lose a skill is due to disuse? That the main reason a skill fails is because someone tried to use it on a project several times larger than they'd ever attempted? His head swung toward me. That specializations are earned through rote? The [Trial Dungeon] kept threatening that your choices matter, why is it so surprising that they do?

I shook my head. Sure, I'd practiced creating nails over and over. I just wanted to master the twist and pull of metal. And Marta had me on breakfasts the first three months I'd been a [Chef], which put me in charge of the morning gruel. I'd always focused on the details, knowing the importance of a foundation. I looked at Tandy, realizing that she and I had shared that passion.

She'd just gone about it a lot smarter. In a way that bent the [System] to her family's will.

I looked at Leo. He was pissed.

"That doesn't explain anything. I wasn't able to even get a class," his words were angry. I didn't blame him. I was mad at myself, the echoes of [Self Flagellation] kicking in.

"How long did you ever try mastering a skill? Staying at a job?" Tandy's voice cut across Leo's anger like fabric scissors across a yard.

"I didn't have a choice. Artie put me to work to make rent." The panic, the heartbreak over years wasted, came through in Leo's voice. I reached for my friend.

He was standing, "This is bullshit. I'm going for a walk. I'll meet you at the Adventurer's Guild in an hour." He left before I could squeak out the words to reach him.

Silence hung about the table.

"So, practicing with your cloth wasn't just your neurosis?" Tandy didn't respond to my comment as I unwound our childhood. "We made fun of you that whole time, and it was all wrapped around your progression strategy?"

The food lost its flavor; it was just texture and regret. How foolish we'd been. I understood Leo's need to flee.

And that's just the first tenet.

"I spent so many years blaming the [System]... and it was my own fault the whole time," I said, despondently as I moved cold scrambled eggs around my plate.

There's a lot to put at the [System's] feet, don’t feel too bad.

I raised my eyes to Richard's. For the first time, I really saw him. He was a theoretical [Immortal] in the confines of a banana slug's body. A shiver of fear traveled up my spine.

"I'm afraid of what else you know," I whispered, glancing at white-faced Tandy.

Richard’s tentacles looked out into space as he absentmindedly reached for a tomato skin.

Red juice sluiced down his chin, and his eyes swung creepily towards me.

You should be afraid.