PreCursive

  I flopped down on my bed in Grey’s tower with a groan.

  It had been several days now since we had arrived in Hollow Hill, and nothing iing had been happening. Most of the time, I had been following around Grey as his now official apprentice. During that time, I’d pretty much just been a hanger-on. I didn’t have much to input oings about administration, or military ma. When I’d poihat out to Grey, he’d just raised an eyebrow at me and said I had to learn somehow.

  Which, yeah. That was fair. I just wasn’t enjoying feeling even more out of my depth.

  I should have followed Azarus and Sylvia’s lead and bailed. Azarus had excused himself early on to go keep himself busy iy fes, whio one had pined about. While Sylvia had just vanished into the wind. I had no idea what she was doing. I’d only seen them over the st few days when we all met up for dinner iower.

  I’d just gotten out of a meeting where Grey had been briefed on the logistical state of the Uprising. From what I’d gathered? Not very good.

  Without the support of the noble families that had their children and heirs kidhe Uprising was having trouble supplying their troops. Food and gear were thin on the ground without the support. Apparently, the Uprising only had a handful of months worth of operational capacity before they were essentially extinct as a viable bat force.

  In other words, ‘will you please get a move on and free those hostages’ had been the uone of the meeting.

  Ially, that was likely going to happen tomorrow. Grey had told me privately that the excuse of gathering supplies for the trip oppycock’. He could have gotten the necessary supplies for our run on the prison in hours, with how desperate the Uprising anders were. Instead, he’d wanted a few more days for his strength to recover, as apparently, he was nearing a breakthrough in that regard. He’d given me a wink at that, which, you know, I hadn’t uood.

  Grey being Grey, I suppose.

  Still, we were ready now. I should be going to sleep early for the trip, but…

  I just wasn’t tired.

  Sitting back up with a groan, I decided to try a little experiment. I’d been putting something off for a while, and with how bored I was, that boredom was outweighing my apprehension. You see, I had a skill that I hadn’t figured out yet.

  For freeing Grey from his sve brand, I’d gotten a title from the System. However, what was important about the title, was what it gave me. The general skill Synergy.

  I had no idea what it did.

  I’d pyed around with it after our escape from Addersfield and during the trip to Hollow Hill, but had gotten nowhere with it. When I tried to activate it on its own, I received the mental equivalent of an error message. The damn thing just didn’t want to work.

  That had pretty much made me decide to put it off until ter, and ter was now.

  I was already a little frustrated from the endless meetings, why not add to that frustration by beating my head against a figurative brick wall?

  Let’s give it ary.

  Synergy.

  There it was again. The ‘error message’ that I essentially received to activate the skill was essentially a metal check mark. It was like the skill didn’t have everything that it o activate. I gave it a few more tries after that, in different ways. I tried to dey the activation like I could with Hidden Amidist the Spheres. I tried to forental energy into the activation. Hell, I even tried to speak the skill out loud.

  Nothing.

  I fell back down on the bed, frustrated. Ugh, whatever.

  Still, I’d thought of something else. Remembering Hidden Amidst the Spheres had reminded me of what had happened after killing Magnus.

  I still hadn’t said a word about that to anyone.

  I shivered, remembering the feeling of Magnus’s fug skill infiltrating my Status. Raising a hand, I called it up.

  Poisonfang Fist.

  My haed in green and bck smoke, roiling over my fingers. I eyed my hand with a disgruntled eye.

  I’d discovered that this skill was not only a reminder of a person I deeply hated, but it was worthless for me. It was inpatible with my fighting style. I fought with ons, while this piece of shit didn’t affect them. It only worked on bare hands. Hell, even then, I doubted this skill was better than Stilnt Bde. That at least worked on bded ons.

  Idly, I tried to call up Synergy again, only to jolt upright. Something had just clicked into pce with the skill. At the same time, the visible effect of Poisonfang Fist disappeared, but the skill didn’t pletely cel.

  Somehow, both Synergy and Poisonfang Fist were active, but idle at the same time. It was as if they were waiting for something.

  Wait.

  Was that it?

  I think…that Synergy had something to do with skills…

  With a surge of adrenaline, I decided to call up another skill. Let’s go with Observe. Just as an experiment, I tried to Observe the flickering dle on my bedside table. For the first time though, Observe failed o was as if the skill was being blocked by something. At the same time though, I felt an almost sense of reje ing from Synergy. Narrowing my eyes, I tried to call up another skill.

  This time, I decided to go with one of my least used ohorn Shot. I didn’t get much use out of it these days, with how closely I teo fight things. Either with my spear, or my dagger. I didn’t think Synergy would hurt me in any way, but that was no reason to get reckless. I didn’t want to risk my only other two active skills that I used much more than Thorn Shot. Thorn Cloak and Thrapple were just too valuable.

  I gave it a, ah, shot.

  Thorn Shot.

  Momentarily, a familiar blood-red thorn the size of my palm materialized over my outstretched finger before winking away. At the same time, I felt a sense of acceptance from Synergy.

  I wasn’t prepared for what happened .

  I felt it as, within my Status, both Poisonfang Fist and Thorn Shot somehow…detached themselves from their position within my soul. Simultaneously, I felt Synergy begin to almost open up and draw both skills into itself. Oh skills had been taken in, I felt it as Synergy truly activated for the first time.

  It began to draw in ambieher from my surroundings. Just like I’d felt when I drew Poisonfang Fist from Magnus…

  The ambieher began to trate within the skill, growing denser. It was strahough. From what I could feel, it actually wasn’t drawing in that much Aether. After a few minutes of this, whatever it was that Synergy was doing, it finished. With an almost popping he bubble that Synergy had created to hold the two skills dissipated.

  Only ohing emerged from the bubble. Slowly, it drifted down into my soul aled in.

  Blinking open my eyes, I emerged from the impromptu trance I’d fallen into, trag what had just happened.

  Huh.

  Pulling up my Status, I decided to see if my suspis were correct about what had just happened.

  You have learhe Css Skill, Poisonthorn Shot!Yup.

  So that’s what Synergy did. It bined skills…

  But…

  What could I actually bine? Did it o involve skills that I stole from other people like I had with Magnus? Did it only work with Css Skills? It seemed like it had rejected Observe when I tried to throw that into the mix.

  I tried out my new skill.

  Poisonthorn Shot.

  Materializing over my palm was a far different thorn that I was used to seeing. Where before the thorn that Thorn Shot made was blood red in color, this one was both red and green. The same shade of green from the smoke that Poisonfang Fist had used. Speaking of smoke, that was still present as well. Bck, ethereal smoke idly drifted around the form of the thorn floating over my fihe shape of the thorn was altered, as well. Where before it had been both long and thick, this one was noticeably thinner, but still very long, ending in a wicked-looking barb.

  Fasated, I shot the thorn at the wooden paneled wall of my room before I realized what I was doing. Only whehorn was in mid-flight trailing smoke did I remember how destructive Poisonfang Fist had been. Not only that, but I was beihis room by Grey…

  I watched as the thorn embedded itself into the wood and immediately eat through it. In fact, the ‘poison’ of the thorn began to rapidly eat through all of the wood surrounding it. Hurriedly, I raced over to the wall and yahe thorn out of the wall before it could eat through the stone of the tower beh. Holding the thorn in my bare hand, uned about my own skill, I watched as the wood of the wall rotted away from the impact spot.

  When the sizzling of the poison was fihere was a hole the size of my torso in the wooden paneling. Leaning closer to the hole and waving off the fumes, I saw that the poison had actually touched the stonework beh. There ortion of the stohat looked as if it had been scoured by acid.

  Gng down at the thorn in my hand, I watched as it dissipated.

  Huh.

  You know, I could use that.

  But, uh. I had to do something about this hole, first.

  ……………………………………..

  I had just finished moving a nearby bookcase over the hole in the wall when I was startled by a knoy door. Jumping, I hit my head oop shelf of the bookcase with a curse. Clutg my head, I turned around just in time to watch as Azarus opened my door and poked his through.

  “Oi, Nate. Ya wanna-” He paused, catg sight of me clutg my head in front of the bookcase. “The hells are ya doing’?”

  “Oh, uh, nothing,” I said, l my head and pstering a smile on my face. “Just…looking at the…books?”

  Judging by the ft stare I received from Azarus, he didn’t really believe me. He snorted. “Whatever. Like I was saying, do ya wanna e with me to the tavern? I don’t know about you, but I’m feeliless. I’m thinking some ale will calm me nerves. Maybe get some food, too.”

  “Uh, sure,” I said to him. “That sounds good, actually. I couldn’t sleep either. I’ll meet you downstairs, okay?”

  Azarus grunted in assent before moving to close the door. He paused though, taking a test sniff of the air and sg up his rge dwarven nose. He gave me a strange look, before shaking his head. He left after that.

  Taking a sniff myself, I sched up my own nose.

  It smelled like I had been smoking something…recreational in here.

  Oh, whatever.

  I got dressed in my own clothes for once, and not the clothes I’d been given by Sylvia. When I was done, I left my room.

  ……………………………………..

  Several hours ter, I was drunk. In fact, I was so drunk that I was having a fug great time. Turns out, this tavern had a bard on hand, and the locals had been teag me and Azarus some of the local songs.

  “-b on the end!” I bellowed along with the locals to the sound of the bard's lyre. Me and about four uys were standio each other in a line, our arms thrown over each other’s shoulders and singing at the top of our lungs. I was on one end of the line, while Azarus was oher. You’d think being a dwarf he couldn’t reach our shoulders, but Azarus was tall for a dwarf. He was getting along just fine, and might be singing the loudest of us. Hell, Azarus was enjoying himself more than I’d ever seen him, ruddy-faced and wild-eyed.

  As roup finished our test song, the rest of the tavern burst into cheers and whoops. Laughing, our entire line bowed with our hands still over each other's shoulders before breaking apart. Our entire group retreated back to a table, where more ale and our likely cold food awaited us.

  When we reached the table, Azarus picked up his mug and smmed the ehing ba one draw. “MORE!” He bellowed, waving his empty mug to catch the barmaid's attention. As for myself, I picked up my dinner, some kind of local meat on a stick. It was good, so I didn’t care that I had no idea what animal it was from. One of our new local friends cpped me on my back as I was chewing, nearly causio choke if not for a swig of ale.

  The local, a guy named Rudy, ughed at me. “Careful now!” He said, ign that it was him that nearly caused me to choke. “Wouldn’t wao cark it afore yer big day!”

  His words caused another of the locals to ugh drunkenly, this time a guy named Finnick. He picked up his own mug and dow as well, leaning ba the bench. In fact, he leaned so far back that he fell off and hit the ground. Leaning over the table, I saw that Finnick was out cold, sn. I ughed drunkenly at him, along with the rest of the table.

  The man’s brother, a guy named Eirick, stood up on wobbly legs. “I’m thinkin’ that’s that, ds.” He slurred. “I gotta get this ‘ere fool back to his missus or she’ll have me ‘ead.” Eirick picked up his brother easily at that, before slinging him over his shoulder in a fireman carry. I retained just barely enough pieind to wonder if they called it that here, before shaking it off.

  Leaning over and catg the attention of the st guy at our table, a local simply named CJ, I gri him. “Now, what’s this you were telling me about a mysterious door uhe hill?”