“I’m merely making sure you haven’t forgotten its existence, sir,” said Mortimer. “You did specifically instruct me to question your judgment.”
Coming from anyone but the bartender, that might have miffed Hunter. Mort, though, had stood by him through thick and thin. If he was bringing it up now, there was probably a good reason. Hunter pulled up the Trait’s description and set out to find out what that reason was.
This Trait allows the bearer to invent and acquire Improvised Abilities. Improvised Abilities are inherently less effective, less powerful, or more costly than their formal equivalents.
In certain cases, when improved and refined enough, Improvised Abilities may be evolved into their formal equivalents at the cost of additional Inspiration.
Mort was right; Hunter had forgotten about it. He’d only used it once to teach himself Low-Light Vision, and even then, he’d done so unwittingly. He’d only learned about Improvised Abilities later, when he used Mystic Eye to study his Traits.
The part about them being less effective, less powerful, or more costly than their non-improvised equivalents had been an immediate turn-off. Improvised or not, learning new Abilities still cost Inspiration—and back then, Inspiration had been scarce. Wasting it on something inherently suboptimal had been unthinkable.
Now, however, he had more than enough, and getting any Skill or Ability to 25 would grant him even more. He could finally afford to get a little creative, even if it meant sacrificing some potential quality for the sake of flexibility.
“This is about me asking you to help me learn Occlumency, isn’t it?” he asked Mortimer.
“Partly, sir,” Mortimer replied. “But not just that. Occlumency may have sparked the thought, but it’s really about the broader principle. You have the tools to adapt, sir. You simply haven’t been using them.”
“I know,” Hunter said. “It’s just that I’d rather not build on weak foundations.”
“A sound line of thinking, sir,” Mortimer said with an approving nod. “So let’s make sure we find a way to do this properly.”
Hunter glanced at the clock above the bar.
“Think it’s too early for a Manhattan?”
“I believe it’s, as they say, always five o’clock somewhere, sir,” the bartender replied, and there was definite glimmer of amusement in his eyes.
***
Lately, Hunter had slowly been developing a habit of invoking Mystic Reflection whenever he needed to think things through properly. What had started as an occasional aid had become almost reflexive, a way to sharpen his focus, to feel his thoughts align with a clarity that bordered on the uncanny.
That’s what he did now, too. He settled into the armchair by his reading nook, crossed his legs into a meditative posture, and activated Mystic Reflection. By the time Mortimer set his Manhattan on the coffee table beside him, Hunter was already too deep in thought to notice.
What he wanted to create was an Ability that would encase his mind in armor, warding off any attempt at intrusion. Ideally, it would do so passively, without requiring his constant focus. He quickly discovered, however, that this was a tall order—especially for an improvised Ability.
His initial attempts were discouraging; creating a moderately effective mental ward that was always active would put a constant strain on his Essence reserves. That was impractical, not to say dangerous. Activating the ward manually would solve that problem, but it also defeated the purpose; by the time he realized his mind was under attack, it might already be too late to do anything about it.
After a few iterations, he managed to devise a barrier that could guard his mind continuously without draining too much Essence. The trade-off, however, was a drastic loss in effectiveness. That wouldn’t do either; if his ward wasn’t strong enough to at least stand a fighting chance against the Sage’s intrusions, he might as well give up now.
Two hours and four Manhattans later, Hunter was no closer to a workable solution. What he was trying to do, in essence, was assemble an intricate Ability out of the mental equivalents of duct tape, chewing gum, paper clips, and string. And while his Trait allowed him to take a crack at it, it didn’t make him MacGyver. The solution, if there even was one, was simply out of his reach.
“Might I offer some input, sir?” Mortimer asked as he set down Hunter’s fifth Manhattan. It was a non-alcoholic one; the bartender had cut him off after the third.
“Always.”
“It sounds like you want to have your cake and eat it too.”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Hunter looked up from the notebook he’d been using to document his attempts and rubbed his eyes.
“Uh… That’s the gist of it, yes.”
“It may be wise to consider the possibility that what you’re attempting lies beyond the scope of the Trait, sir—and that’s before accounting for a complication you seem to have overlooked.”
“What complication?”
“How would such a mental ward affect the connection you already share with your familiars?”
That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Hunter slumped forward over the desk, burying his face in the notebook’s pages. He didn’t care if the ink was still wet; he was simply too tired to move.
He remained there for three full minutes, despondent. Then, just as Mortimer opened his mouth to offer a few words of comfort, inspiration struck out of the blue.
“That’s it!” he said. “The familiars!”
Sir, there’s ink smudged all over your forehead.”
“No, no, you don’t see,” Hunter went on, too caught up in his excitement to care. “They’re not a complication—they’re the solution!”
“How so, sir?”
“Remember back in the Blood Grove, when the Penitent tried to mess with my head?”
“Vividly.”
“It was Biggs and Wedge that barged in my mind and helped me shake off the Penitent’s hold! In fact, that’s how I unlocked Synaptic Communion!”
The bartender thought about it for a moment.
“It is certainly something to consider, sir,” he said at last, though he did not look nearly as enthusiastic as Hunter.
“Well, back to the drawing table!”
It took Hunter another hour of trial and error, but he finally came up with a halfway-workable solution.
Improvised. This Ability harnesses the Mystic’s link to a bound familiar or similar servitor entity to guard against psychic intrusion. The servitor acts as a vigilant sentry within the Mystic’s mind, constantly scanning for hostile influences and alerting its master before they can take hold.
When a threat is detected, the servitor triggers the Mystic’s mental defenses, rebuking intrusions and disrupting attempts to cloud thought or twist emotion. This shared vigilance allows the Mystic to focus on other matters while maintaining constant protection against unseen manipulation.
At higher ranks, the servitor sustains its detection with reduced strain, lessening the cost of continuous watchfulness. The defensive response also becomes more efficient, expelling intrusions with greater force while consuming less Essence in the process.
On paper, it looked good enough. It didn’t obstruct the connection he shared with Biggs and Wedge, and outsourced the detection part to them. There was an added benefit to that; most mental attacks and intrusions would probably be aimed at him, not the familiars. Even if Hunter was somehow prevented from reacting to a threat, the familiars would be able to detect it and activate the defensive part of the Ability independently.
Of course, it still was an improvised ability, which meant its proverbial mileage might vary. Hunter, however, had designed it in such a way to synergize well with other, tried and true Abilities. Even if Thought Sentry was than perfectly reliable on its own, his already maxed out Conjure Familiar and Augmented Familiar would do a lot of the heavy lifting. And if push came to shove, he could also combine them with Resonant Flow and Synaptic Communion to allow the familiars shore up his mental defenses. Hell, it could even synergize with Danger-Sense to detect threats faster and more effectively.
All in all, Hunter was very satisfied. It all would require extensive testing and practice, of course—but then again, so did every single one of his Skills and Abilities. That was nothing new.
“So, what do you think?” he asked Mortimer.
“I’m not sure whether it would prove effective enough to stave off an intrusion or manipulation attempt by the Sage, sir,” the bartender said. “But, improvised or not, it certainly looks like an Ability worth having. In time, you might even get the chance to upgrade it to a proper one.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought too.”
Hunter considered to spend a few more hours studying Thought Sentry, trying to optimize it, but ultimately decided against it. He doubted he’d be able to improve its specifics any further. Per Perfect, after all, was the enemy of good. He focused his will, and spent one point of Inspiration to acquire the Ability.
Your Thought Sentry has increased to 1. Your Inspiration is now 6.
There. Between that and his newly-improved Willpower, his defenses against the Sage’s intrisions were pretty much as good as they were going to get.
“Should I try to create another Ability?” he asked Mortimer. “What else do you think would come in handy?”
“I’d suggest not getting ahead of ourselves, sir,” said the bartender. “It would be prudent to wait and see how Thought Sentry turned out before attempting more improvisations. Besides, there are many Skills and Abilities already in your skillset, so to speak, that could use some practice.”
Mort was, of course, right. Hunter pulled up his list of Skills and Abilities and started to go through them one by one, looking for any low-hanging fruit.
From his list of Skills, two stood out: Artifact Handling and Stealth. The latter has been a side-effect of his hunting, not something he’d consciously pursuited. Still, it was a nice utility option to have, and besides, it was already at 12. If he got the chance, it might be worth investing some time and effort into getting it to 25.
And as for the former, the main use Hunter had for Artifact Handling was to help him store and retrieve items from the Arsenal Bracer. He was getting good at it, but the blink-it-and-you-miss-it speed with which Fawkes had made various items appear or disappear at will was still out of his reach. If he could manage that, he already had a few more combat-oriented uses for the extradimensional storage artifact he’d like to try.
His list of Abilities presented him with far more options: Conditioning, Danger-Sense, and Fulcrum were at 23, 21, and 22 respectively. It shouldn’t be too hard to make the push and get them to 25, if for no other reason than to get three additional points of Inspiration. With those out of the way, Hunter would then be able to finally focus on his more mystical Abilities.
“Wanna help me create a training regimen, then?” he asked Mortimer.
“Gladly, sir,” the bartender replied. “What would you like to start with?”
“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” Hunter half-sighed, half-chuckled despite himself, “but I think I should start running laps again.”
?? Thank you for reading Elderpyre!
If you enjoyed it, please consider leaving a review—it helps a lot!
You can also support the story and read 20 chapters ahead on Patreon.