Bog Standard Isekai

Book 2. Chapter 25

They walked in ominous silence. Brin and Zilly were side by side, following Hogg whose black-clad form seemed to be the living embodiment of night. He couldn't quite figure out how Hogg was doing it, or even what he was doing. [Know What’s Real] didn’t complain about anything. There was no visible illusion or effect of the light, but at the same time Hogg just felt more menacing than he usually did. More solid. More dangerous.

He tried to give Zilly an encouraging smile, but she barely even glanced at him. Her face was pale and sunken. The expression of someone marching to her death. Marksi sensed her worry and crawled up into her arms. She stroked him gratefully but didn't look any less terrified.

At the door leading down into the cellar, Zilly paused and took a deep breath. She swallowed, then went inside. Brin followed her.

She froze at the sight of the ring on the floor. To him, it was pretty clear that this was the work of an [Enchantress] while the sigils on the floor of that silo had been the work of a [Witch], but he wasn't sure if Zilly would be able to distinguish them. A [Warrior] wouldn't have any reason to learn the Language that he knew of.

Hogg was already waiting at one of the chairs inside the circle. He indicated the other chairs with a nod of his head.

"Why? What's the circle?" Zilly asked shakily, but of course Hogg couldn't hear her from inside the circle.

Brin clapped a hand on her shoulder, and she flinched. "It's a ward against prying ears."

"Why would you need something like that in Hammon's Bog?" asked Zilly.

"We'll tell you. Inside the circle."

Zilly turned to leave, but the door was gone, replaced with a wall of solid blackness. "This... this is... It all makes sense!" She pointed an accusing finger. "Hogg is the [Witch]!"

Brin stopped. He blinked. Marksi frowned and slapped Zilly's arm with his tail, then jumped out of her arms and crawled away. Brin burst out laughing.

"It all makes sense! All the [Witch] stuff started happening when you and him got back to town. And then you got an evil Class. I bet you still have it! And why does he call himself a [Warrior] even though everyone knows he's a [Rogue]? Because he's not a [Rogue]! If he called himself a [Rogue] people with lie detection Skills would figure it out, so he hides a lie behind another lie. It's all making sense now!"

Brin couldn't stop laughing. He felt the heat of Hogg's gaze. No doubt he was trying to maintain the dark and gloomy mood he'd been trying to cultivate and Brin's laughter was ruining it, but he just couldn't stop. The worst part was that she really was making a pretty good guess based on the information she had.

Zilly had her back turned to the circle, so Hogg wouldn't have been able to read her lips to see what she'd just said. He must think Brin was just being obtuse.

"Come on," he gasped and pulled her into the circle. She moved without any struggle; his laughter seemed to take the wind out of her sails.

Hogg glared at him until he stopped laughing. He cleared his throat and waited, but Hogg kept glaring at him in silence for a full thirty seconds after that, no doubt trying to regain some of the ominous dread from before.

"The two of you are in big trouble," said Hogg.

Zilly's face went pale again.

"Both of us? What did I do?" asked Brin.

"You deliberately disobeyed me. I ordered you to stop your little one-man [Witch]-hunt. You didn't even wait a full day before completely ignoring my directions!" That was partially true, but Hogg would never phrase it that way if it was just him and Brin. He was doing it like this for Zilly's sake.

"Not just that," Hogg continued. "You broke in and entered private property. Again! I thought you'd left that little habit behind. More fool me."

"What? He's been breaking into places?" Zilly asked.

"Hey! I just wanted to peek inside. It's not like I stole something this time," said Brin.

"This time?" Zilly asked, looking at Brin with wide eyes.

"Don't think I forgot about you, little lady," said Hogg. "You did steal something."

"No, I di--"

"There were only two keys made to that silo. I still have mine, which means you stole that one from the Prefit."

"Then you knew about it. I was right. You're the [Witch]," said Zilly. He could tell from her pale face that she was still terrified, but she put up an admirably brave front. Brin was impressed. It took a lot of guts to say something like that to someone you were pretty sure was going to kill you.

Hogg gave something like a half-snort half-hiccup. He started to smile, then hid it with a hand, but it was too late. The facade was cracked. He chuckled openly and said to Brin, "From the information she has, that's not a bad guess."

"Right? That's what I said!"

Hogg shook his head. “Zilly, let me ask you something. If you thought that I was an evil [Witch], why did you think it would be a good idea to accuse me to my face, while we were alone and no one else knew where you were?”

“Um…”

Hogg rubbed his eyes. "All right. You both need to hear this now, so here's the story. There are several [Witches] in Hammon's Bog. I've known they were there for years, but I leave them alone as long as they don't kill anyone or start any plagues or the like. As far as I knew, I was the only one who was aware of them at that point. After the events on System Day, I knew I needed to readjust that position. Before I could act, the Council of Elders started to discuss the possibility that there was a [Witch] here in Hammon's Bog working for the enemy. It would explain why they were so able to predict my and Brin's movements that day.

"The Prefit warned the council to not discuss such things in public. He reminded them that as bad as [Witches] are, [Witch]-hunts are often worse. We closed the meeting and we expected that was the end of it.

"Only, it wasn't the end of it. The [Witches] went to the Prefit in secret and revealed themselves to him. They begged for protection. They promised that they were loyal to the town and promised to use their craft against the outside [Witches] threatening us. The Prefit told me, of course. Together we interrogated each of them, one by one. I won't tell you what methods we employed, but I will say that as far as either of us could determine, none of them were lying. None of them have betrayed the town or otherwise used their powers to harm anyone. You must know that there’s no perfect way to tell if a [Witch] is lying, but I don’t think they were.

“So we put them to work, in different ways. One of the key things we wanted for the town was levels. You know, for previous years we used to take the new adults out into the forest and have them kill monsters, under strict supervision of course. For [Hunters] this would be a lengthy apprenticeship, but even crafting Classes got at least one. This year we couldn’t do that, so we had the [Witches] come up with something else. They started raising those chimeras in captivity.”

Zilly hugged herself, looking cold. It actually was sort of cold in the cellar, but it was probably more than that. “The Prefit told me that [Farmers] did it. They used their animal husbandry Skills to grow the monsters like they do their cattle or Odilon’s dogs.”

“I don’t know if that would be possible or not, to be honest,” said Hogg. “But that’s not what happened.”

Brin wondered if Bruna was involved with this, or Clementine, or both. Or maybe someone else was involved. He needed to find out who owned that silo. He also needed to look into Hela. He was willing to bet that the giant snake-tasting meat he’d eaten in her tavern the other day was actually chimera meat. He just needed to figure out how it got from point A to point B. If Hela wasn’t a [Witch] then her supplier was.

“Now,” said Hogg. “The one part I don’t understand is why you took that key in the first place. You weren’t planning on sneaking in there and fighting one on your own, were you?”

“No!”

“Then why?”

“I don’t… I don’t know. I just wanted to,” said Zilly.

“That’s not acceptable. Why did you want to?”

“I just did!”

“There’s no one else listening. If someone put you up to this, there’s no way they’ll be able to know if you tell me,” said Hogg.

“It’s not like that. I took the key on my own,” said Zilly.

“Have you ever sworn an Oath?” said Hogg.

“No.”

“Then why don’t you know why you stole the key?”

“I do know!” Zilly shouted, standing up. “It was just a dumb joke. The Prefit thinks he lost it, he’d start panicking and throwing a fit, then I’d reveal that I had it, and we’d both have a laugh. That’s all it was. Just a dumb joke.”

Hogg frowned at her. “Fine. You can go.”

She paused in confusion. “Wait. That’s all?”

“That’s all,” said Hogg. “I’ll talk to the Prefit about this and we’ll decide what to do next. You give that back to him next time you see him. In the meantime, stay away from that silo, and don’t tell anyone what I just told you.”

“I won’t,” said Zilly, already backing out of the circle.

“Brin, you stay.”

Zilly didn’t waste time finding the door, now unblocked. She gave one last regretful look to Brin, but she was already out of the circle, and he wouldn’t be able to hear anything she said. She left.

“That last part was weird,” said Brin.

“She doesn’t remember why she stole the key. She was lying about the whole ‘joke’ thing.”

“You think a [Witch] messed with her? Why bother? They’re the ones who set that up. I know you said only you and the Prefit had a key, but I can’t imagine they wouldn’t have access if they wanted it,” said Brin.

“The Prefit and I have the only keys so that we can be sure that one of us witnesses anything they do in there. But you’re right. I don’t think it’s one of our [Witches]. I think it was the spy.”

“So what are we going to do?”

“We are going to do nothing. You’re going to go back to your regular routine and stop worrying about this stuff. I’m going to add Zilly to my ever-growing list of people I keep my eyes on. But when you work on your [Meditation] from now on, I want you to also review your day in your head. Try to check whether or not any of your memories have been messed with.”

“Wow. That’s not going to keep me up all night worrying.”

“I hope not. Your workout with Davi starts in about five hours. That’s what happens when you stay up all night fighting monsters when you were supposed to be asleep.”

Brin sighed. “Tomorrow’s going to be a long day. Oh, and thanks for the spear by the way.”

“I figured as long as you were out there you might as well get some practice in,” said Hogg.

“That leads me to another question. How do you know so much? You always seem to know what’s going on. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that you had your illusion spy-network back. But that can’t be true. Can it?”

Hogg shrugged, a twinkle in his eye. “Who knows?”

“Oh come on. Is there any reason for this? Just tell me!”

Hogg laughed. “Oh, alright, but only because I want to brag a little.”

Hogg held up his hand and a dull white ball appeared above his open palm. The ball spun, until a green iris turned to look straight at Brin.

“I call it the visible eye,” said Hogg.

[Know What’s Real] told Brin that it wasn’t a real floating eyeball the size of a baseball. Very helpful, that Skill. He reached up and touched its smooth surface. “You made an eyeball out of hard light. Why?”

“The first thing you need to know is that I’m a genius. This shouldn’t even be possible, but I made it possible.”

“You can see through this thing,” said Brin.

“I can see through this thing. I can hear through it, too,” said Hogg. “It’s not as convenient as in [Illusionist’s] invisible eye. I can’t make it invisible. In fact, it has to stay that approximate size and color. I can change the iris, though. There’s also a much more limited range. I can’t get very far outside of town.”

Brin smiled. “Who cares? This is a game changer. You’re back!”

Hogg punched the air. “I’m back, son!”

The next day started just as early as Brin feared it would. He struggled through his workout with Davi, gasping and panting the entire time. Next was Language with Chamylla, who had zero patience for his fatigue-addled brain. She pounded the Language into his thick skull mercilessly. The only bright side to that part was the fact that he had a good enough grasp on his glass Skills that he could practice on something real.

She had him practice what Hogg taught him, and use [Summon Glass] to coat a sheet of paper with a thin but even layer of glass. Only, when she did it, she made sure he understood each word and why they interacted with each other the way they did.

When they were finally done, his headache was as bad as it had been that first day, but there were benefits.

Alert! [Summon Glass] leveled up! 11->12

Congratulations! Through training you have increased the following attribute: Magic +1

Actually using the words to channel the magic left them feeling a lot more solid in his mind. He understood them in an almost spiritual way that rote memorization couldn’t match. It was clear why people didn’t care that much about learning the Language before they had a Class. It was much easier to pick it up when you could feel the way it channeled the magic inside of him. It was also much more rewarding to learn the language while training his magic stat at the same time. Before System Day, that stat had been nearly impossible to train, but now it seemed like every little thing made it shoot up.

Magic was still his most favored choice for all the free stats he’d been hoarding, but if it was so easy to train, he might be better off choosing something else. There was a point with diminishing returns as far as training went. Strength was getting harder to train, even for Davi, and he’d never been that good at training Dexterity. Maybe one of those would be a better choice for now. Either way, he’d be better off plucking all the low-hanging fruit while he could and waiting to use the free points until he really needed them.

After Chamylla, he went home and took a nap. Hogg said he was supposed to relax, right? He felt almost guilty that he was taking a few minutes to catch up on some desperately-needed sleep, which just drilled home the fact that Hogg had been right. He’d been overdoing things. In his old life, he’d never hesitate to take a nap for any reason or no reason at all, and he’d been considered a workaholic back then.

When he woke up, he was feeling much better. His mana had recharged a significant amount, and the headache from Chamylla was completely gone.

Then it was time for [Meditation]. He didn’t find anything when he combed through his memories looking for interference, but it was still rewarding in another way.

Alert! [Meditation] leveled up! 19 -> 20

Hogg had told him to spend an hour a day [Meditating], but the level up made him want to keep going.

He decided to try what he’d done with Hogg when he’d made his first mirror for the box trick. He summoned a ball of glass, and then used [Meditation] to help himself focus. He cleared his mind completely, expelling any thoughts except for the feeling of his magic, the sight of the glass in his hand, and what he wanted.

With [Shape Glass], he formed the image of the glass turning thin like a rod. He pushed his magic into place, but the calm state of [Meditation] gave him a patience he was lacking before. He moved his mana in a trickle, letting the glass flow slowly as minutes ticked by. The glass took its time, but slowly, gently, he was able to coax it into exactly the shape he wanted. He put a point on it, next. Then a sharp blade. He made it sharper and sharper, until he was sure it was matching the sharpness he’d gotten through knapping.

He thought about making it harder and stronger, but the magic didn’t take hold. What about flexibility? He focused on making the glass bendy and flexible, and the magic took hold long enough that he started to daydream about glass threads for cutting, or glass gloves as armor.

That threw him out of his [Meditation] state, and when he picked up the glass and tried it, it bent easily but also shattered to pieces.

He [Meditated] again, and focused on combining all the pieces back together into one, clear, smooth whole. He didn’t know how long it took. The minutes dripped by and there was no sound except his own breathing, no thought except his purpose, until finally, it was done.

His next goal was movement. One minute in, he had the glass rolling across the table, and the excitement broke him out of his concentration. He [Meditated] again, and kept going. Slowly, carefully, he raised the glass into the air. This time, he didn’t let himself thrill in victory, but focused on moving it where he wanted. The mana drained gently but steadily, and the piece of glass climbed into the air. Then to the left. Then the right. Brin tried to make it go faster and faster, but he couldn’t get it as fast as throwing it would move it, much less fast enough to use as a weapon. Still, it was a start.

One last idea popped into his head. He had a memory, and he let it come. It was one of those old daytime news shows. A company had offloaded a bunch of defective glass bowls, and customers found that they broke when they took them out of the dishwasher. But rather than just shatter, they’d actually exploded, sending glass flying into the air.

The news segment actually interviewed a glass maker about how such a thing could happen, and he’d described exactly what defects in the tempered glass could make them react that way. Most of it had been the heat from the washer hitting the cool air, of course, but maybe that could be replaced with magic?

The company that sold the glass bowls had offloaded them last-minute as part of going out of business, so the poor customers had no one to sue or even get refunds from, but their loss was Brin’s gain.

He focused on his piece of glass again, slowly transforming it with the instability in mind. Suddenly, and out of nowhere, the glass shattered violently. One tiny speck even flew far enough to hit his hand. Not strong enough to use as a weapon. But again, it was a start.

He’d try this again tomorrow, and he’d make sure to bring eye protection.

He was too thrilled with his progress to keep going, and his mana was nearly drained.

The System was thrilled with him, too.

Alert! [Shape Glass] leveled up! 15->18

Congratulations! Through training you have increased the following attribute: Magic +1

Congratulations! You have gained an achievement! Meditative (Rare) You have reached level 20 in the Meditation Skill. +10 Mental Control. You may use 1 general Skill point to upgrade Meditation to Directed Meditation.

The flat bonus to Mental Control was cool. It would’ve been nice to get a percentage increase, but he wasn’t about to complain. As far as the possible Skill upgrade, he didn’t have to think about it that long. He didn’t have anything else urgent for his Skill points right now, and with the success he’d just seen, [Directed Meditation] would be incredibly useful.

Directed Meditation In addition to regular meditation, you may now use Directed Meditation to obtain a state of perfect concentration when performing a single task. You may use mana to increase the effectiveness of the task you are performing. Effects vary.

The sun was already set. It was past time to go train with Hogg, but it was more than worth it. This Skill would help him with any task, it sounded like. He might even beat Davi for the first time.