Min-Maxing My TRPG Build in Another World - Volume 3 - Chapter 4

Postface

Ending

The terminal point of a session. Combat alone is not the end all be all, and players must return alive to complete their tale. At times, those who exceed their limits may fail to join their companions on the journey home...but that, too, is part of adventure.

“Wow... What a riveting saga! Please, write an epic poem of your tale.”

“I’m afraid I lack the skill in both meter and instrument to oblige.”

In contrast to Sir Feige’s uncharacteristically childlike enthusiasm, it took everything I had to not let my shriveling spirit show. It had slipped my mind that my story would speak so plainly to this gentleman’s tastes.

Two days had passed since then (it’d taken a full day just to recoup the energy needed to move), and we’d finally made it back to Wustrow. We could have called for help with Mika’s familiar—which had been anxiously waiting for its master’s return, judging from how obnoxiously loud its cawing was upon reunion—but I’d figured it would be faster to head back on our own seeing as we could walk, even if barely.

Our trip home had started with both of us being overly worried for the other, and at some point our conversation had devolved into a war of praise that left us both as red-cheeked as a couple of tomatoes. I’ll spare you the details; neither Mika nor I were keen on thinking back on the occasion, and we’d need to find a pillow to punch in ten years or so whenever the memory came back to haunt us.

Oh, and it was worth mentioning that the classic GM malice of unreasonable random encounters being placed on the road to safety had been absent. Despite my fears, none of the zombies could be found in the area—I wasn’t a fan of the large number of missing persons we’d lost, but alas—and no random event had come to wipe us out after the quest objective was in hand.

At any rate, I now found myself in Sir Feige’s office. Mika was still enduring headaches and numbness that spread all across his body, so I’d left him at the inn while I came to turn in our quest and ask to be introduced to a skilled iatrurge.

Medicine alone was already expensive, so it went without saying that a diagnosis from a professional healer cost an exorbitant sum. The real problem lay with how many iatrurges turned away any and all first-time customers.

None of the specialists of this world were willing to sell their services for any less than they were worth. Their professions were how they put bread on the table; with how quickly life could end at any given moment, I couldn’t fault them for not wanting to cheapen their own livelihoods.

Even amongst magia—and I mean magia, not mages—iatrurgy was a highly specialized craft, and its practitioners could afford to choose their clientele. Part of this stemmed from how wasteful it would be to entertain every random citizen wanting to cure their back pain, but the College also required its iatrurges to seek permission before using the most intricate curative spells.

When lost limbs could be readily replaced, a certain amount of discretion was in order. There was little a healer could do when a pauper knocked on their door.

As a result, I thought explaining Mika’s situation to a local figure of authority was the best way of receiving help. After laying out our entire story, the treant took a moment to think.

“Hrm, I would have never suspected such diabolic things to be going on in those woods without my knowing.” The old tree stroked his thick, mossy beard and sat up in his chair. “Come to think of it, I’ve heard many stories of missing hunters, travelers, and even caravans around here as of late. Still, I never would have considered the cause to be an ichor maze—I’ll need to pen a letter to the lord.”

“...You’re not going to doubt me?” I asked. While the local lord should have been the one to handle this issue, I found it bizarre that Sir Feige was willing to bring up such unpleasant news all on my word.

Take a moment to think about it: I was a literal child working as a College researcher’s indentured servant. Why would anybody believe such an outlandish story from an unproven “adventurer” like me? Even more mysteriously, the scrivener was not simply playing along to please an imaginative boy—he’d brought out high-quality paper to write a letter with.

I know I’d been the one to shamelessly report my experiences, but I expected him to distrust me more.

“Hrm... I see you take me for nothing more than an old hunk of bark,” Sir Feige said with a playful smile. “How could I not know the truth, with this dense mana still strewn all about you? The countryside isn’t as well-kept as the Empire’s center, but a normal stroll would never bring this much pollution with it.”

His scarab-like eyes converged on me with a gleam. As a mensch, I could never hope to see the same world as this living pseudo-spirit, and the treant had evidently picked up on something I’d missed.

“Furthermore, you told your tale without hesitation. When you stopped, it was clearly to remember and not to think.” The gentleman laughed heartily and offered me a cup of tea. “Come, you must be thirsty after such an earnest oration.”

I was utterly humbled. With about fifty years of total life under my belt, I was intimately familiar with how one was to get on in the world—or at least, I’d thought so.

This proved that such supposition was pure fantasy: Sir Feige had gleaned the whole of the situation from my speech, and yet I’d doubted his understanding without realizing that I’d been seen through. I hadn’t bothered lying because I didn’t need to, but didn’t realize until being told so that that in and of itself helped validate my claims.

“I am profoundly ashamed of the terrible immaturity I’ve displayed,” I said.

“Nothing to fret over, little one. You’re still young. I may look all withered up, but my age isn’t just for show.”

As he laughed and scrawled on the parchment, my mind was stuck on a single thought: I’m so sorry for being an old man on the inside...

“Here, I’ve thrown together a letter of introduction to a healer I know. Critical mana loss can cause blood to pool in the brain, so it’s best to hurry.”

“Thank you very much! My friend will be able to rest easy now.”

Despite how far we were from a major city, the iatrurge was apparently skilled enough to earn Sir Feige’s approval, so that was one worry off my shoulders. All that was left was to accept the treant’s kindness by heading straight for the doctor’s office. I wanted them to look at Mika as soon as possible.

“Indeed,” Sir Feige went on. “As ignorant as I was, I had been the one to march you into the jaws of death. Don’t worry about the cost of treatment.”

I couldn’t be more thankful. Mika and I had saved up some money by cutting corners, but I had been worried; I didn’t know how much arcane medical treatment would cost. (I would find out later that that line of work saw gold coins tossed about for every little thing.) I’d come out here to gather extra cash for my future, so taking on an entirely new debt would be a cruel twist of fate.

As I tried to push myself to my feet, Sir Feige put a hand on my lap to stop me. With a great big sigh, he said, “Just so I’m clear, that letter is for the both of you.”

“What?”

Sir Feige and I stared at each other in silence for a few seconds in a total breakdown of communication.

“The flow of energy in your body is haywire,” he explained. “Mana is surging every which way—a typical symptom of arcane trauma.”

The treant’s eyes saw me as worthy of hospitalization myself, and apparently I was better suited to resting in bed than coming to report to him in person. And here I’d thought being able to move was evidence of health...

“Why do you find it so hard to care for yourself as much as you do your friend?” Sir Feige put a hand to his temple and shook his head in unmitigated disappointment. Without forewarning, the floor, walls, and ceiling reached out and instantly ensnared me in wooden tendrils.

“Whoa?!”

My limbs were completely trapped. I couldn’t move a muscle: not only were the restraints tough, but they were smartly placed to block the movement of my shoulders, knees, hips, and other major joints.

“You need as much rest as your friend...and you’ll get it whether you like it or not.”

Of course, I realized. Treants were said to be one and the same with the mother tree they emerged from. This entire workshop was part of Sir Feige’s person.

“And feel free to expect great rewards. I shall arrange for everything to work in your favor. Taking advantage of old coots with more years than good sense is a privilege of youth, you know.”

It only took another moment for Sir Feige’s remarkably potent—and inescapable—goodwill to rob me of consciousness.

[Tips] The deadliest wounds are the hardest to spot. This truth applies to any who lack the luxury of a status window.

A light headache and bodily discomfort roused me from my sleep.

“...I’m alive. Thank the gods.”

I opened my eyes to a tall ceiling with countless medicinal herbs hanging from it. The sheets and blankets enfolding me were neatly kept, and taking a light breath brought the smell of incense to tickle my nostrils. As I exhaled, the scented air brought with it memories of the physician in my homeland.

Yesterday, an alarmed iatrurge had forced all manner of drugs down my throat—and boy, had they tasted terrible—before dragging me to bed in this aromatic room. The blanket had a different design than I remembered, though, so I’d likely been asleep for several days.

I turned to my side to see my friend Erich in the same circumstances, although he’d been tucked in far more securely. He wouldn’t stay put no matter what he was told, so the doctor had tied him to his bed. I felt bad for him, but something about the situation tickled me greatly.

Yet put another way, our cases were severe enough to warrant this kind of treatment. I was so, so happy that I’d woken up. My master had told me so many tales of magia falling apart at the seams from undue strain. Some died; others grew senile; none found a happy ending... Even mustering all the courage I had, I had still been scared.

When the healer was diagnosing me, I’d been on the brink of tears. I hadn’t been afraid to give my life to save my friend on the cusp of death. But once we’d made our way to safety and I began thinking about the fun times we’d share going forward, the fear set in all at once.

Maybe I really am going to die, I’d thought. That alone frightened me to the point of tears.

But I was alive. I was also free of pain, save for a headache that had overstayed its welcome, and that too was much more bearable than before. Before sleeping, it had felt like someone had stuck red hot tongs into my eye sockets to melt my brain from inside out. My body felt—wait, what?

My coughing sounded higher in pitch than usual, and the discomfort that had triggered my awakening once again took hold of me. Curiously, I ran a hand across my frame to make a surprising discovery: I had a chest.

Er, well, I’d always had a chest, of course, but, I mean, you know... I had a chest—in the go-shopping-for-new-undergarments sense.

Faint as it was, I knew my own body. There was a bulge that hadn’t been there when I’d been sexless. I pressed my hand against it to find that the exterior was peculiarly elastic, with a more solid inner core. The unfamiliar sensation registered in my mind as a light pain.

My parents had once told me that psychological shock could sometimes trigger our transformations: the loss of a loved one, societal upheaval, or something more personal. My mother—our kind gendered our parents’ titles by who had given birth—had jokingly said it would happen at first love; my father had jokingly said it would happen when I risked my life on something...but really?

I was surprised at my physical changes, but quickly accepted them without any trouble. From a magus’s perspective, this seemed perfectly explicable. Bodily change was a natural facet of life to us tivisco; our brains came built to handle this sort of thing.

I would need to check on my lower half later. Between sexes, my kind only had a small waste outlet on otherwise smooth skin. The shift in physique demanded a different way of picking flowers, not to mention everything else that would change...

I wonder what Erich will think of me.

Would he accept me like he had that night? Or would he... No, it wasn’t good to indulge in fantasy. I’d already promised to protect him as his friend.

I just needed to do my best to be the old chum by his side. To that end, maybe this strange body could turn into an advantage.

My parents had long been puzzled by romantic relations in our canton. They defined boundaries between men and women, and those very boundaries were what repelled and attracted. My parents said that the reason mensch couples argued so much was because neither half of a pair knew what it was like to be the other.

As a tivisco, I could be either. When my male shift came, I would come to know Erich better than I did now. There were some things he could only say to boys and others only to girls; he would be able to say anything to me. Surely, I would become his closest friend.

Perhaps this body wasn’t all that bad. I couldn’t be the princess in the castle that the minstrels sang of, nor was I anything close to the hero, his sword sweeping majestically. However, they alone could not fill a saga. They needed the bridge-building mage, the waitress who filled their bellies, and the friend who cheered the hero in his darkest hour. Only then could his blade strike true and fell the dragon.

I wouldn’t ever be the princess or the hero, but I was happy to leave that to him. Of course, that was too mortifying to put into words. I couldn’t bring myself to call him my gallant knight, even if I filtered it through our usual act.

Oh, the sun is coming up. With the landscape brightening outside, I rose out of bed. I knew I might get scolded for running off on my own, but I couldn’t help it.

The flowers aren’t going to pick themselves.

[Tips] Values pertaining to love, marriage, and fidelity vary wildly by race. Actions that are taken for granted by one group often cause others to cock their heads in confusion, especially in the multicultural Trialist Empire.

The tale that follows is not from the time line we know—but it might have been, had the dice fallen differently...