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  [colpse]Chapter Sixty-Five - Storytime

  Physical ManakinesisRank F - 00%The ability to push mana out of your body using motion as a focal point.

  “Huh?” I said.

  “What?” Amaryllis asked.

  My fusion must have been showing, or maybe she just noticed that my hug and thank-yous had stopped for a moment as I tried to figure out the skill I had just unlocked.

  “Um, I got a new skill,” I said. “It’s a General Skill called... Physical Manakinesis.”

  “Manakinesis?” Amaryllis asked. She frowned as she seemed to think about that for a moment, then gave up with a shrug. “Never heard of that one. I expected you to unlock Fireball, or perhaps Mana Manipution or Mana Shaping. The tter are valuable skills for anyone who wants to practice magic.”

  “Yeah, I imagihe skill description is kind of straoo. It says something about using my body as a focal point for pushing out mana?” That didn’t quite parse for me. Or maybe I just didn’t know enough about magiake sense of it.

  “Let’s go ask the fossils. I’m loath to admit it, but they are both rather experienced, even if they seem somewhat uneducated. Abraham especially,” Amaryllis said.

  I didn’t ent on how rude it was to say that kind of thing, Amaryllis was who she was, and maybe one day she’d learn to look past that, but it wasn’t my right to try and ge her, really. Instead I hopped to my feet and skipped across the deck to the back.

  Abraham was squinting at a grease-and-oil covered book, a ti of spectacles perched on the end of his nose. His brows rose and his look of deep tration faded as soon as he saw us ing closer. “Ah-hah! Figured out your little spell, did you? I bet you ’t wait to unch that monster into some unsuspeg beast’s maw and see what happens!”

  “Not yet,” I said. “I unlocked a skill, and I don’t know what it does.”

  “Oh, what sort of skill is it?” Raynald said. He locked the ship’s wheel ih a metallic devid came to stand on the edge of the castle so that he could look down on us. “I might know a zing or two.”

  “Ah, it’s called Physical Manakinesis,” I said. “Do you know anything about it?”

  Abraham frowned and started tugging at his mustache, but Raynald didn’t have any such problems. “Ah, I know zat skill, yes. I don’t have it myself, but we’ve fought people who did. Abraham, do you remember zose fish-people in ze Hoofbreaker Woods?”

  “The scaly little bastards with the weird dang magic?” Abraham asked.

  “Story time?” I wondered. I didn’t cp my hands like a five year old, because I wasn’t five.

  Abraham ughed and nodded. “Haha! There’s always time food tale or two. Raynald, let’s fix something to eat that isn’t some poor dead i, and we tell the girls all about our adventures in the far East.”

  I think we were all getting a little hungry, because no one disagreed. Soon enough Amaryllis and I were trying to help as the boys pulled some meat out of a rune-covered cooler and, after wiping the top of the engine , started cooking the meat right oal top-pte.

  It was a little weird, but I couldn’t argue with the mouth-watering sts that I caught every so often. There wasn’t any room for a table on the deck, but Raynald pulled a pnk from somewhere a on some of the strange equipment and we found some stools tucked away in one of the little s at the back.

  In no time at all we were having a barbeque a league rassy pin, the bright blue skies all around and the distant call of the flying whales serving as a terpoint to the Shady Lady’s thump-thumping engine.

  “So,” Abraham said after taking a bite of steak and swallowing it whole. “There we were. Out beyond Trenten nds because we ran into a bit of a kerfuffle with some of their royal guards and had to make a bit of a run for it. Unfortunately, they were on the persistent side and wouldn’t just let us go off to mind our own business.”

  “This is a few years after the Cry statuette heist,” Raynald said.

  “It’s not a heist if you’re stealing something back,” Abraham said. “Noere off in the deepest end of the forest known as the Hoofbreaker Woods. Nasty terrain there. Lots of very small cliffs and ridges, and the soil is rocky and hard to travel over.”

  “Hehe name,” I guessed.

  “That’s right,” Abraham said.

  “What does any of this have to do with Broccoli’s new skill?” Amaryllis wondered.

  “Ah, but see, we entered people with that skill deep in the woods. We reached the end of the forest after losing our cervid pursuers, and being just a mite lost, we decided to follow the coast South until we entered the Grey Wall.”

  “The Grey Wall?” I wondered. I knew I was just adding more and more deys until we got the important part of the story, but the little tas were just too much fun not to dive into.

  “A huge wall made of grey stone, built to cut off the advance of those pesky deerfolk,” Abraham expined. “So, here we were, walking along a long shore, mostly well fed because the monsters in those woods were only iwenties and they made food eating. And then we enter a group of strange savages!”

  “I’d hardly call them savages,” Raynald said. “Zey had zeir own culture and were fairly well educated in magical matters. Zey were merely behind in other zings.”

  “They walked around as naked as they were born, haha!” Abraham said. “Little fish-like folk, no taller than my waist, and they didn’t carry a on on them. Niough folk, all things said.”

  “And the skill?” Amaryllis asked.

  “Ah, yes. See, they didn’t have ons, they fought with arms and legs and kicks and, most of all, magistead of casting proper spells though, they would shape their magid strike out with that. It was a little crude, but some of them were exceptionally talented.”

  Raynald shook his head. “It’s not like more traditional casting, where a spell is built and zen activated to unleash an effeot zat zey didn’t have zat as well. Zey just coated zemselves in mana and used it to supplement zeir fighting prowess. Like zis,” he said as he brought his hand up. Mana gathered around his closed fist in a blink, and then his entire hand started to drip with wet-looking mana. Raynald puhe air off to the side and a burst of mana shot out, then he brought his hand bad the maurned.

  As the grenoil man waved his arm about in the air, the watery mana flowed after it, dang through the sky like one of those tassels gymnasts sometimes used.

  “That’s pretty,” Amaryllis said. “And it shows det trol, but it doesn’t look... onizable.”

  “Hrmph,” Raynald said. He brought his arm up, then sshed it down along his side. The watery mana shifted into a narrow band and sliced through the st few inches of our makeshift table. The wood ked to the floor. “Ze issue is range, but some of zose fish people could imbue zeir mana into ze world around zem and use it all as a on. A kick to ze ground would unleash somezing simir to ze earth pilr spell, a punch would unch a weak fireball and so on.”

  “It reminds me a bit of fighting a terramancer, only with water,” Abraham said. “Tough fight those.”

  “Wow,” I said. So, if I uood things correctly, I had just unlocked the ability to bee the avatar, and I was totally okay with that. Though I did hope that it came without tattoos.

  Amaryllis gave me a strange look. “You’re thinking stupid thoughts again,” she said. “It’s sad that I already reize that look on your face.

  “N-no,” I said. “It’s just that the way Mister Raynald describes the skill reminds me of something, and I think it sounds really awesome. I should practitil I hit apprentice rank with it!”

  “That’s the spirit!” Abraham said. “We’ve got another day and a bit before we crash reenshade, that’s plenty of time to hone your skills.”

  “Crash reenshade?” Amaryllis asked.

  Abraham ughed. “It’s a figure of speech!”

  Amaryllis gred at him for a while, then sighed. “So, Broccoli, do you have any skills that aren’t topped off?”

  “You mean that I still improve? Um, yeah, a few. Most even,” I said as I poked Mister Menu.

  NameBroccoli Bunbsp; RaceHuman (Riftwalker) First Cssamon Bun First Css Level7 Age16  Health120 Stamina130 Mana115  Resilience30 Flexibility35 Magibsp;  SkillsRank amon Bun Skills ingB - 12% JumpingC - 100% GardeningD - 13% CuteD - 100%  General Skills InsightC - 33%` Makeshift on ProficyE - 58% ArcheologyF - 57% FriendmakingD - 68% Physical ManakinesisF - 00%  Skill points3 General Skill Points1  Css slots0 General Skill Slots0  “Um. In my general skills I have Insight, Makeshift on Proficy, Archeology, Friendmaking and Physical Manakinesis that all need more experieo rank up. And in my css skills I have ing and Gardening that could use more training. Um. I have three css skill points, but I thought I should save them to get ing up to Expert rank.”

  Amaryllis spped a hand over her face.

  “What?” I asked.

  “How are you so far behind?”

  “I’m behind?” I asked.

  Abraham seemed to think that this was hirious because he guffawed and spped the table a few times. Only Raynald’s intervention saved the pnk from flopping to the ground.

  “Most people, sane, intelligent people, work on any new skill until it’s as good as it be. Accumuting so many skills without actually w on them is just so irresponsible,” she said. “e o up. ractice magic when you have the time to waste on that. We o get your other skills up to par.”

  “Ah, okay?” I asked. “I’m not sure how we’ll grind any of them, though,” I said.

  Amaryllis had a dangerous and frankly kind of scary look in her eyes. “Why, Broccoli, we’ll just o figure out how to practice as many skills at once as possible. I’m sure that on proficy of yours be trained anywhere on this ship while you’re ing and iing it from top to bottom.”

  “Um,” I said.

  “We even practice that new skill of yours. I’m pretty sure pushing mana up against a mana-heavy attack will e... some of the damage, at least.” She raised her talons and aric buzz filled the air.

  “Um,” I said with more feeling this time. The feeling was terror.

  “Haha! That’s the spirit,” Abraham said. “Why, you remind me of that time I trained with an a monk atop the Jade peak. I nearly died three times on that first m alone.”

  “But we’re on an airship,” I pointed out. “Isn’t this a terrible pce to fight.”

  “No worries, Miss Bunch, the Shady Lady is oough old ship. She endure a bit of a scuffle with your feathery friend.”

  Amaryllis jumped to her feet, and I did the same just in case. “Wait, wait, Amaryllis why are you doing this?” I asked as she started to advaowards me.

  “To make you even stronger, of course. That way if we’re ever in trouble again we’ll be able to ha better.”

  That... was actually a pretty good reason to train a little bit. And sharpening my skills didn’t sound like a bad idea. I just wasn't keen oing hurt.

  “Don’t worry! If you lose any limbs I’m great at sewing,” Abraham said. “And Raynald here knows a healing spell or two!”

  “I... I’m more of a lover than a fighter!” I said.

  “Then you’ll love sparring!” Amaryllis said.

  That day, I learhat dodging someone who could fly on an open deck was rather difficult.

  ***