Chapter

Twenty-Nine

Amirror image of Hogg returned minutes later. Brin expected to get right back into training, but Hogg said, “Hey, how much money you got left?”

“More than a thousand gold. Why?” Brin asked.

“The merchant caravan is leaving soon.”

“I know. They’re only staying for two days, and I’m banned for three. I think Elmon was thinking of that when he banned us from town for three days,” said Brin. “He saw how excited I was to see it.”

“Pfft. Like he even thinks about you that much. Anyway, you still want to invest some of your money? If so, we’ve got a good opportunity here. I don’t know if you knew this, but the average level of Hammon’s Bog is quite a bit higher than the average in a city. Being isolated like this can mean a lot of extra work and danger, but it also means levels. We have some crafters here who can make things as good as the very best in the city.

“Since caravans have been so rare this year, the town has a lot of built-up inventory on their high-Skill, high-quality stuff, especially Toros and Chamylla. We could front the merchants the money to buy it here, and they’ll sell it for you for a portion of the profit once they get to the city. And they’re headed straight to Blackcliff after this. With the Prefit guarding them on the way back as far as Oud’s Bog, well, it’s about as close to a sure thing as you’ll ever get in this life.”

“How much?”

“Five hundred gold, I think. More than that and they won’t bother to haggle,” said Hogg.

A huge chunk of his savings, but honestly he was glad to finally invest some money. He hated the idea that it was just sitting there. “Let’s do it.”

“Good. Someone will come by the house later to finalize things, but just to be clear: you’re fine with me negotiating on your behalf?”

“Of course,” said Brin.

Hogg nodded. “They’re going to have to meet me at the town gates and then do all the purchasing by running back and forth across town. It’s going to make Prefit Elmon look like a jackass.”

“Somehow I can live with that,” said Brin.

Hogg chuckled. “Me too. Now let’s talk about training. I don’t think you’re going to get to the second threshold on Will or Vitality, but with that 10% bonus it may be in reach for Dexterity.”

“I’d really like to get to the first threshold in Magic and Mental Control,” said Brin.

“In that case, getting Mental Control to the first threshold is your best bet for locking in one last achievement before System Day.”

Brin had thoughts on that. It still bothered him that System Day gave nearly every other kid in town more time to rack up achievements, while it had stolen nearly six months from him, just because of an inconvenient birthday. If he left town, could he get more time? Maybe he could get to the first threshold in every attribute. There had to be something cool for doing that.

He didn’t bring it up, though, in case Hogg actually said yes and wanted to start packing immediately. He still wanted to hunt alone in the forest first. Once he’d killed a monster and got the achievement for that, then he’d bring it up.

“What about Magic?” asked Brin.

“If we had another year, and Lumina’s help… maybe. As it is, Mental Control will still help your chances at getting a magical Class, if that’s what you’re aiming at. It’s by far the most important attribute for magic. Hands down.”

Brin shrugged. “Mental Control it is.”

“Did you ever get any while practicing with Jeffrey?”

“No…” Brin guiltily thought of his lute gathering dust in his room. “I got a few Dexterity for it at first, but I sort of stopped playing after the attributes dried up.”

Thinking about it, he hadn’t wanted to play music for the sake of gaining attributes. He’d wanted to make music. He’d learned the first few songs Jeffrey had taught him with gusto, and figured out how to play “Sweet Home Alabama” from memory, even including the sweet little guitar solos between the verses. He didn’t remember the words past the first verse, but he’d started revising the lyrics to match his new home. At the time, he hadn’t been thinking about attributes at all. He’d been doing it because it was fun. When had that stopped?

Maybe everyone was right about him. He’d been consumed with his goals of gaining as much power as the System would give him, and completely forgotten to enjoy his life. Even if he wasn’t just a kid, an ambitious adult should remember to have fun now and again. He promised himself that after System Day, he’d slow down and live his life a little.

He realized he was zoning out while Hogg was talking. It almost felt good because that was a key personality trait from the old Brin, back when he had been Mark.

“...from concentrating on more than one task at once, and from taking control of your mind. Music is a good way to do that, but you have to be learning deliberately. Just playing your favorite three songs over and over won’t do anything. Actually, I’ll have someone fetch Jeffrey over. I’ll summon Gustaff too, if you catch my drift.”

Was Hogg hinting that he was going to use a mirror image to create a fake Gustaff? Wait a second. Did he do that all the time? He could. Now that he thought about it, had Brin ever actually seen Gustaff? Like, the real [Illusionist]? He only ever remembered seeing mirror images of the man, like the one near the town square that played movies and stuff.

“Is Gustaff real?” Brin asked.

Hogg’s hand twitched, like he wanted to slap Brin on the back of the head, but he didn’t. Well, he couldn’t because he was a mirror image, but he likely wouldn’t have anyway. Instead, he frowned and said, “Of course he’s real. You think I want to waste my magic with that garbage? Get a grip.”

“Sorry,” said Brin, emphasizing it hard enough to make it clear he wasn’t really sorry.

Hogg shook his head derisively. “We’ll have you meditate, I think.”

“Meditate? Isn’t there something useful I could be doing?”

“Meditation is useful. It trains your concentration. You’ll likely be able to snatch up a point in Mental Control or two before I get home. Now sit down.”

Brin sat. “Do you do this?”

“Not for years,” said Hogg. “My Class and achievements give me an absurd amount of Mental Control. One more point isn’t worth the days or weeks of daily meditation I’d need to get it, not when I can train it by using my illusions to their fullest instead.”

Hogg’s instructions were surprisingly similar to stuff he’d learned about meditation in his past life, but like everything he went a bit harder. Where Brin had learned that it didn’t matter how you sat, Hogg was adamant that he do the classic crossed legs and ramrod straight back. “We’re learning how to concentrate, not trying to put you to sleep.”

He talked about breathing, and set a long, slow rhythm. “Don’t try to stop yourself from thinking. If you’re thinking about not thinking then you’re getting distracted. Let the thoughts come and go, but never stop concentrating. Now, is there a prayer you like to do?”

“No, not really,” said Brin.

“Then make a sound with your voice. Anything you want. You’re going to concentrate on making the sound and on listening to the sound. Only that.”

Brin thought back to the old cliche of the Buddhist monk sitting exactly like this saying “Aum” over and over. He always thought that was a Hollywood exaggeration. Was that a real thing?

“Aum.” He gave it a try, and to his surprise, meditation was actually kind of hard. His mind kept going to Jeffrey, the merchants, his night in town. Sure, he wasn’t supposed to try to stop all thoughts, but he was supposed to acknowledge those thoughts and then dismiss them, rather than dwell on them.

Part of what made it so hard was that he was exhausted. His rhythm was all messed up now that he’d been awake through the night two nights in a row. But doing mental work while you were tired was one of the best things for training Mental Control. He’d figured that one out all on his own.

He was a little jealous of Marksi, actually. The snake had climbed into his tank and passed out the second they got back from town.

“Stop saying it over and over. Say it once and draw it out as long as you can,” said Hogg. “Now concentrate!”

Brin tried again. It was still difficult, but he gave it his all, and after what was probably two hours or more, he got his first notification.

Through training you have increased the following attribute.

Mental Control +1

“Huh. You got that in twenty minutes. Not bad,” said Hogg.

“This is harder than I thought!” said Brin, feeling gratified but also a little annoyed that his “two hours” was actually only twenty minutes. Could he blame this on the child body, or was he really that impatient?

“Take a break. Do some push-ups or something, then try again,” said Hogg.

Brin scowled at him, but he did the push-ups and they really did make him feel better. He hadn’t gone this long without weight training for months now, and he was starting to feel the itch.

The second time he tried it went a lot easier, but that also meant that he wouldn’t get rewards as quickly. He chased that thought away with every other, and meditated.

“Don’t scratch your nose! Concentrate on your aum. All other thoughts are irrelevant,” said Hogg, about halfway through.

Through training you have increased the following attribute.

Mental Control +1

Two in one day. And the promise of more on the way. Maybe he really could do this. Three weeks was a tight deadline, and he knew that he’d run into dwindling returns, but if Hogg only knew two or three more tricks like this, Brin would be there. He wasn’t as excited as he should be; sitting still for so long really drove home how tired he was. He slapped his cheeks a couple times, trying to jolt himself awake.

“Got one more, huh? Good work. I wasn’t sure if you were really awake there for a minute.”

Brin yawned. “I’m awake. Somehow.”

Hogg wasn’t in his usual lounge chair and he didn’t have a drink; he was standing stock-still. Easier to render that way. This was still the mirror image, and Jeffrey wasn’t anywhere in sight.

“Jeffrey wouldn’t come. He’s still asleep, which I should have guessed. [Bards] keep odd hours. But I got him to spill on a good way to train Mental Control. Better this way, actually, since now I don’t have to conjure up a pretend Gustaff. Basically, you’re going to play some music and I’m going to be a very annoying and distracting audience, just like what a real [Bard] has to go through. Let’s get started. Play something.”

Brin went to his room, dusted off his lute, and brought it out. Wanting to show off a little, Brin played his “Sweet Home in the Boglands.” Hogg interrupted him after two bars.

“Did you make that up?”

“Nah, it’s from Earth. I adjusted the words a little,” said Brin.

“It’s never going to work. No [Bard] in Frenaria would write lyrics like that. It needs to be more poetic,” said Hogg.

“Now that I think of it, the songs [Bards] sing are really snooty and pretentious-sounding,” said Brin. “What’s with that?”

Hogg smiled at the insult to his people’s music and culture. “That’s High Frenarian. It’s a little archaic-sounding, on purpose. It’s how the nobles are taught to speak and it’s how they speak at court. Maybe in your world it’s cool to pretend to be dirty and ignorant, but here people want to be elegant and refined. Everyone likes to think they’re good enough for high society, so you’ll never find a [Bard] alive or dead singing any other way. This is good, though. Translate your song, not just from English to Frenarian, but from English to High Frenarian.”

That would be difficult. The System had imprinted Frenarian straight into his brain, but High Frenarian he’d learned by picking up bits and pieces here and there from music and movies.

Brin cleared his throat and started to play what he was now calling “Fair Home in the Boglands.”

“Oh faithful wheels, thou stalwart rollers,

Bearing me forth past trees and boulders,

To the land where dwells my family,

And I will deem it sinful, verily!”

The meter was all off. He was trying to cram twice as many syllables into the same line of music, which made the whole thing even harder. Even that wouldn’t have been too bad if Hogg had just sat and listened quietly.

Hogg didn’t listen quietly. He walked around and bumped into a table, which sent a glass of water to the ground, where it shattered. Neither the bump nor the glass were real, but the illusion was good enough that it was pretty distracting.

“I hearkened well to Master Young, who sang her woe,

Also hearkened I to Master Neil, who scorned her so,

I hope Master Neil will bethink to hear this truth,

A boggish man doth not require him, forsooth!”

Hogg met his eyes. He summoned up some colorful lights, then casually started to juggle them. The lights started to strobe, flashing different colors. It was enough that Marksi peeked out of his cage, before sneezing at the racket and lying back down to sleep. Brin pressed forward, trying to translate the words without slowing down the song.

“Fair home in the Boglands! Thy skies are of uncommon blueness,

Oh, home in the Boglands sweet, I hasten back to thee with trueness.”

Hogg bit his lip. His juggling orbs started to make chirping sounds.

Brin held his gaze steadily and blew through the solo without skipping a beat. He really had practiced the song quite a lot, so this wasn’t enough to throw him. Then he went into the solo from after the second verse as well, because he still didn’t remember the rest of the words, and there was no way he was going to be able to make something up.

He only remembered one more line, and he translated it on the fly.

“In Oud’s Bog they love the ruler. Fie! Fie! Fie!”

Hogg burst out laughing, and his colorful distractions disappeared. “Ok. Ok. You got me. That song. I can’t handle it. Is that what music is like in your world? It’s killing me.”

For your feat of mental discipline, you have been awarded the following.

Mental Control +1

Brin smiled, more at the notification than at Hogg’s insult to his people’s music and culture. A feat! That meant the reward was probably more for outlasting Hogg than from the training itself. Which meant that he likely still had another point in store from completing the actual training. “It sounds better in English.”

“It has to. It literally has to,” said Hogg.

“I don’t know. I think people are really going to like this,” said Brin.

“I didn’t say I didn’t like it. I just don’t think they’ll like it for the reasons you think,” said Hogg. “I mean, come on. The only good thing you can think to say about it here is that the skies are blue? The skies are blue everywhere.”

“They’re uncommonly blue,” Brin said, grinning.

“They’re less blue than almost anywhere! They’re usually gray,” said Hogg.

“Ten years from now, everyone is going to be singing this,” said Brin, mostly enjoying how much this was getting under Hogg’s skin.

Hogg rubbed his face. “Please no. Well, if you’ll take some notes, there are some [Bards] who have songs trashing the Boglands. Guibertil and Hipolit, to name two. Only [Bards] aren’t Master, they’re Maestro.”

“I’ll work that in. I just decided; I’m teaching this to Jeffrey. I’ll pay him to play it if I have to,” said Brin.

“Then all I have to do is convince him to leave with the merchants. Got it,” said Hogg.

“Won’t they leave in a couple hours? He’s not going to wake up that early,” said Brin.

“So you do understand [Bards].” Hogg looked up into space. “I’m almost back with a merchant. Remember, I’m not an [Illusionist], I haven’t been here, and you haven’t seen me at all today.”

Hogg’s illusion faded away.

Soon after, Brin saw the real Hogg walking up the street with a merchant. The man wore traveling clothes, a long overcoat and hat, and kept a spear on his back. From what he’d seen of them in town, the merchants had been wearing bright, colorful robes. Fun, but also expensive-looking. Now the merchant could easily pass for a soldier marching off to war.

“Hey, Hogg!” said Brin. “I haven’t seen you all day!”

Hogg scowled at him, then remembered his company. “I’d like you to meet Master Moura. Master Moura, meet Young Master the Mistaken.”

The formal use of honorifics and last names was sort of surprising. In Hammon’s Bog everyone used first names, to the point where he didn’t know the last names of many of his acquaintances. Apparently, that wasn’t the norm in the wider world.

The merchant widened his eyes in surprise when he entered Hogg’s living room. He probably expected the man’s house to look as weather-worn and practical as the man himself, but Hogg lived in style. Moura stepped gingerly on the plush rug, as if not sure he should really be allowed in.

The negotiations were already done, so all Brin had to do was sign the document and let Hogg hand over the gold. Gemstones, in this case. He’d negotiated to have the entire original sale price plus eighty percent of the profits go to Brin, which was much more than he’d expected considering he wasn’t doing any of the work. Then again, the merchants had nothing to lose by bringing along extra cargo on a route they were already planning on traveling, so this was a win-win.

The entire affair was concluded in minutes, without Master Moura ever sitting down or taking off his hat.

Then he and Hogg were back to training.

Hogg found some sheet music for Brin, and while he’d never learned to read music in this world’s style, Hogg also had a guide on where to place fingers for each note. He had Brin use that to try to learn the songs while learning to read sheet music in the first place, all while being as annoying and distracting as possible.

Marksi woke up after ten or so minutes of that and chirped angrily at Hogg for waking him up, but when he realized the point of all of it was to annoy Brin, he joined in. The little monster scrambled around the floor, flashing all different colors. The part that really tested Brin’s concentration was when Marksi went into camouflage, snuck up close, and then changed back to rainbow colors all at once.

Brin thought he made a pretty good showing. If he had a main stat in his past life, it was Mental Control. Going through a Computer Science degree when all his roommates had party majors like Education and Art History had been an extreme test of his ability to stay focused when the people around him were acting stupid. Compared to that, this wasn’t much.

After an hour of work, and with no point in Mental Control to show for it, Brin had learned to play through the first song.

“Sounds pretty good,” said Hogg.

“Thanks, but I’m not sure if it sounds right, not without hearing someone else play it,” said Brin.

Hogg took the lute from Brin’s hands. He played through the entire song effortlessly, and yeah, it turned out Brin had misunderstood a little slash through some notes and held them too long instead of cutting them short.

“Just don’t ask me to sing,” said Hogg.

Personally, Brin thought Hogg had a great voice for singing. He could really pull off the rugged cowboy style, which apparently was not an appropriate way to sing in Frenaria. “I’m surprised you can play at all, honestly.”

“It pays to be able to do all kinds of things,” said Hogg. “And with high Dexterity you’d be surprised how easy it is to pick these things up.”

“I’ve noticed that, actually.”

Hogg handed the lute back. “Let’s switch things up a bit. I want you to keep practicing that song, but now you’re going to start dancing with your feet.”

“[Bards] dance?” asked Brin.

“Some do. This will also help you learn the steps for your first dance at the solstice festival. Which if you think about it, the Prefit might’ve shortened our exile to only three days so that you wouldn’t miss it.”

“Pfft. Like he even thinks about me that much,” said Brin.

“Touché,” said Hogg. “But maybe he does. Alright, on your feet.”

Not for the first time, Brin regretted not taking the three-day vacation option. But he’d asked for this, and he’d see it through.