Obtaining A Skill

The empire’s castle. Nir and Rain are in the main hall.

Rain seems shocked. She doesn’t react in any way for a few seconds. Then suddenly, she drops all the things she was carrying and starts running towards their room.

-”Wait! Rain!” - Nir calls her.

Rain keeps running. She seems really upset.

-”Should I… Run after her?” - He thinks to himself.

-”She’s probably not accustomed to this world yet. It makes sense when you think about it, really”. - One of the soldiers says.

-”Just give her some time…” - Another soldier adds.

-”Anyway, now that the empress approved of your enlisting, we can show you around”. - Says Ranmei.

-”Oh, by the way…” - Nir turns to Ranmei. “I think I may have heard your name before…”

-”I originate from a village outside the empire”. - He replies. “The empress saved me when I was young. She looked younger than me, but she wasn’t”.

Nir notices something about this reply. -”A village?” - He asks. “Meaning, not the one we came from?”

-”That’s right. But most of the villages surrounding the empire share the same culture, at least to some degree. Some of the names may be similar or even identical. The language may slightly vary too, but we all generally understand each other’s tongue, including the empire”.

-”Interesting…” - Nir says.

-”But enough about this. The empress will fill you in on those topics. Let’s show you around”. - Ranmei says.

-”What about all of the items Rain brought with her? Where should I put those?”

Ranmei asks a maid in his vicinity to get Rain’s items to the kitchen. As she does, yells to her: ”Thank you!” - He does not forget to show appreciation. He then turns to Nir and says: “You will recognize the items being stored in a cooled environment by the flowers she had with those, which will seem somewhat misplaced in the kitchen”.

Nir assumes they should have a pen or a pencil, or perhaps some sort of alternative - to write one’s name on a note next to their food items, but decides not to ask about it, thinking he may look like a fool.

They then go to a lobby in the opposite direction to the personal room’s area in order to show Nir around.

“This is the way to the barracks. We have some beds there too, but most of us live in the castle like you two, you know… In the luxury residency area. We don’t sleep here too often. We do train here though”.

They reach a room that has a continuous passage to many similar rooms, without any doors or much separation between them, besides the passages themselves being slightly narrow compared to the actual rooms.

“As you can see, each room has some training dummies and two beds. Some equipment as well. We have wooden swords but as you can see here…” - Ranmei points at a dummy that is “wearing” a piece of armor that befits it - “...We are prepared to train with real swords as well”.

-”Do you have a space for training in archery?” - Nir asks.

-”We do”. - Ranmei replies. “Although it is used very rarely for that purpose. We don’t have many archers. For skills to work well - archers need a good line of sight, and in order for them to not get killed - they require protection from frontliners who may block their sight and endanger themselves”.

-”I guess strategies involving many people may differ…” - Nir acknowledges, having mostly their own experience as precedent for knowing how the battlefield looks like.

-”The archery space is outside. It’s where we conduct most of our “none-dummy-training”, in the forms of duals, teams, or simulating specific scenarios”. - He explains.

“Now, it’s probably a good time for us to take you to the statue”.

-”You mean the two statues at the entrance to the castle?” - Nir asks.

-”Yes”. - Ranmei replies. “The first skill you get from the statue doesn’t cost hearts, but it does require having a transformed hearts count. People without it can’t use any heart-skills”.

-”I see. Let’s go to the statues then”. - Nir says.

The soldiers remain at the barracks to train. Nir and Ranmei go to the statues. They reach them and stand in front of the male one.

-”You kind of look like him”. - Ranmei says.

Nir realizes he is correct. He didn’t notice that up to now as most of the attention is usually drawn to Rain, along with her being pretty like the goddess.

“Now, touch the statue”. - Ranmei tells Nir.

Nir touches the male statue. His eyes start glowing red. He then looks at Ranmei and notices he can see his hearts.

“Feel anything different?”

-”Not really, but… I can see your hearts, Ranmei. You have 35”.

-”So you got that skill, huh?” - Ranmei replies. “It’s quite a common skill to get for the first time, not to mention, to have in general. But it is very useful”.

-”Hey, Ranmei…” - Nir suddenly calls him.

-”Yea?”

-”Happy birthday”. - Nir tells him, as he just saw his heart count increasing to “36”.

-”Hahahahaha”. - Ranmei laughs as he realizes what happened. “Thank you”.

At the same time, in Nir and Rain’s room.

Rain is on the bed. The bed is soaked with tears. She has been crying for a while.

She had enough of feeling sorry for herself. She decides to get out of bed and walk around the town before going to sleep as it’s getting dark.

She goes around the castle, close to the empire’s wall. After walking for a while, she sees the empress standing on top of a turret that is seemingly built there to serve as a guard’s post, as many of those are present within a certain distance from each other on the empire’s walls.

-”Hey empress!” - Rain calls her. The empress notices Rain is looking up from below, as she - herself - looks down from above - both staring straight into each other’s eyes.

-”Hey there goddess girl!” - She tells her. “Come here. Take the stairs up”.

Rain takes the tower’s stairs and gets to the top.

“Look”. - The empress tells her. “Those are the villages surrounding us. Each and every one of them wants us destroyed”.

-”That is… Harsh. But if you don’t mind, I would rather not hear about politics”.

-”No. It’s important that you hear this. In fact, there are more villages that aren’t visible from here. The vast majority of them also share the sentiment I mentioned. Realistically, I would prefer Nir hears this too, but you will have to tell him later. I’m actually more busy than I look”. - Says the empress.

-”I’m…” - Rain struggles to answer.

-”You aren’t talking to him? You will soon enough”.

Rain doesn’t say anything, as she knows that’s correct.

“Are you mad at him for joining the guards?”

-”I don’t blame him. I’m more pissed that he doesn’t have any better options”.

The empress smiles. -”You are a lot more mature than I thought”. - She tells Rain.

“Soon, you will join the guard too. There is no way you will be okay with dying so young. This is natural. Don’t blame yourself either”.

-”I just wish we could live like the town’s people”. - Rain tells her.

-”That’s what we are fighting to protect”. - She replies

The empress then proceeds to tell Rain about the history of the empire. After a while, it becomes really dark. “Follow me”. - The empress tells her.

They both get down the stairs and walk towards the castle. The empress stops next to the female statue. “This is the statue of the goddess. Female warriors get skills from this one while the male warriors get them from the statue of the god, the male one”. - She explains. “Together, these are our two gods I told you about. Now touch the statue”.

Rain’s eyes glow red. She suddenly sees more clearly compared to before.

-”I… Can see better!”

-”You got the night vision skill. That is a really rare one! Your next skills will require hearts”. - She explains. “The more skills you have, the more a new one will cost you. It’s risky though, because you can’t usually tell how many it will take exactly, unless you have a skill for it. Not to mention, it changes from person to person, which is why we assume a person’s next skill is determined before they even attain it”.

-”Why is it risky?” - Rain asks.

-”Since if you have enough hearts… You will get the skill. If you don’t know how many hearts this would cost - you may find out it cost you too much when it’s already too late. Most people on low hearts would be slightly on edge”.

-”How many hearts do you need to unlock a new skill?” - Rain asks her.

-”You don’t wanna know”.

-”How many hearts do you even have?”

-You don’t wanna know that either”.