Unbound

Chapter One Hundred and One - 101

Restless, Felix went outside.

The sun was a faint hint of light above the mountains, but the city was slow to rise. He could hear others shifting and groaning in neighboring rooms, the restless sleep of those soon to wake. He moved as quietly as he could through the inn, but his heavy tread was murder on wooden floors. They creaked and groaned beneath him, as if he weighed twice is current size. He was generally a fan of his increased density and weight, thanks to his Moving Mountain Body, but at times it did not do him any favors.

A few patrons were up and eating in the common room, though Ignatius was apparently still asleep. A slender Elven woman was tending the bar, moving with a practiced efficiency that suggested great familiarity with the job. Either that, Felix mused, or a lot of Dexterity.

The woman met his eyes, but Felix turned away and headed through the back hall just passed the bar. The hallway led to a number of private dining rooms, places where someone could pay extra to have a warded conversation. The way Jacinda explained it, the rooms were inscribed with script circles that kept sounds extremely muffled. Useful, but definitely not cheap. Providing the Mana for the script circles was exhausting for most people, he'd come to understand, and a patron had to pay for that. As he passed the doors and into the rear of the inn, Felix wondered how he'd compare in recharging such things.

My Mana regen is pretty good, far higher thanks to my Resonance and high Willpower. He stepped through the back door and into a wide open space featuring some pens, a coop, and a large stables. The area was mostly empty, though he sensed some movement in the darkened recesses of the stables. Maybe I can get paid to recharge stuff.

He might not need the money currently, but Felix was sure he would in time. Plus, the prospect of being useful was appealing to him. Aside from killing monsters, at which he was growing increasingly proficient, he realized he had no marketable skills in this semi-medieval world.

Looking around the yard, Felix noticed it was mostly packed dirt with patches of weeds sprouting joyfully in the less used corners. It was fairly large, perhaps thirty or forty feet long by a hundred feet wide, though the fence and paddock cut into that space. Felix could see some small feather covered creatures pecking around the coop, a strange, dinosaur-like cross between chickens and reptile. Called Daika, they were no bigger than his head and weak at level 2 or 3. The paddock next to them housed a few heavier beasts, covered in shaggy brown coats and with a series of stumpy horns coming from their skulls in a crown shape. They were otherwise similar to a cow, or maybe a yak. One regarded Felix with calm, dull eyes as they chewed a mouthful of cud.

Farm animals. Huh. Having grown up in a city, Felix was only vaguely familiar with things like cows and chickens and pigs. Everything he'd learned on the subject came from books or TV.

The rest of the space was clear, perfect for some morning exercises. Felix found himself full of energy, despite the night's activities, and needed to burn it off. Plus, his Physical Conditioning Skill was lagging behind and that only leveled when he really pushed himself.

Felix began to run, doing a few laps around the yard. It was wide enough that he didn't get dizzy from the turning, but was too small to really push his speed. He jogged to a stop a few minutes later, not even winded. His Running Skill and Stamina regeneration were both high enough that this level of effort was nothing.

Felix wracked his brain. He had never trained his body back on Earth (either too busy or a lack of motivation, take your pick), and now that his Primary Stats had risen so high it seemed his casual jogging and jumping routine was not going to be enough. He'd already noticed that his stats rarely improved after fighting anymore, only bumping by a point when he'd well and truly pushed himself.

Felix eyed his surroundings, putting his powerful mind behind the problem. While Intelligence increases hadn't made him smarter, per say, it did make his cognition faster. Felix thought about what he knew of training, and, embarassingly what came to mind were a series of montages from various sports movies. Silly though it was, it did spark an idea.

I might not have any slabs of beef to box, he thought as he walked to the side of the stables and picked up a hefty, curved piece of wood. But I can certainly run while carrying this.

It was a heavy shoulder yoke, similar to the kind people used at Rennaisance Festivals to carry water around. There were even a couple huge buckets attached to hooks on either side. Near the yoke, there were a series of empty troughs, and Felix's sharp Perception noted that they extended further into the stables. Nearly all of them were low.

So he got to work. Clearly the Drum Tank got its water from the fountain in the square out front, so Felix slung the yoke over his shoulders and went out. There was a smattering of folk moving about, but no one was using the fountain. Felix jogged over and carefully filled up the buckets, each of which easily held three dozen gallons. Filling them up and setting them down again was easy enough for his Strength, but the challenge came when he had to hook them both to the yoke and stand up.

Here goes nothing. With a soft grunt, Felix stood up. The water sloshed a bit, but he was able to steady them after a moment. Slowly, he began to walk back.

Felix's steps were careful at first, not wanting to jostle the water out of the buckets, but picked up speed as his confidence grew. The weight of the yoke was quite a lot, a couple hundred pounds at least, and it dug into his shoulders and neck a bit. Even so, Felix made it back to the stables within ten minutes and dumped the water into the nearest troughs. The water nearly filled the five foot containers, and he nodded to himself.

Let's get to it. He smiled to himself. Faster this time, maybe.

So it went. As the sun began lightening the sky into a bright blue, Felix continued filling the buckets and refilling the horse troughs. Time blurred, his mind clear for the first time since waking, occupied only by the effort and strain.

By the end Felix wasn't entirely sure how many he'd carried, just that he'd managed to reduce his time between the fountain and troughs to a single minute. It had been extremely challenging to not spill any water, forcing him to use muscles he hadn't known he'd possessed and rely on his Dexterity more than ever before. His Agility too was strained by the situation, forced to push himself just enough to move quickly, but not so much that the counter-force sent water spilling out. Felix still hadn't gotten a true reckoning of his stats as compared to the average person in the Continent, but he knew he was leagues beyond many. Hitting the First Threshold on his Primary Stats at his level was something clearly unusual, so once more Haarwatchers filled the streets, Felix made sure to slow up a bit.

Physical Conditioning is level 24!

Setting down the last two buckets near the stables, Felix met the eye of an impressed worker and nodded. "Here ya go. Some more water if you need it."

The man, a Human with dirty blond hair and scraggly sideburns, laughed. "I think we're good, friend."

Felix grinned a little sheepishly and wiped the sweat off his brow. He turned and realized that a number of the servers and kitchen staff were lounging on the back deck of the inn, watching him. Humans, Dwarves, and even that Elven bartender were there, peering at him above railings and through the posts of the covered porch.

"Ya finished, son?" A gruff, elderly Dwarf asked him, a pipe clenched in his mouth. Felix half smiled ruefully and scratched his head.

"I suppose I am."

"Haha!" cried a Human man next to the Dwarf, pumping his fist into the air. Everyone else groaned. "I called it! Two and a quarter glasses! Pay up, Kivi!"

The Dwarf (Kivi, apparently) grumbled through clenched teeth and slapped a pile of copper coins into the young man's open hand. A few went pinging to the ground, and the Human scrambled after them to the laughter of the others.

"If you're done with that, I've got a few chores that need doin!" Shouted a Dwarven woman among the workers. She had a pile of auburn hair and a noticably buxom figure. Her eyes were on Felix and her smile was wide and predatory. The Elven bartender laughed lightly.

"Keep it in your pants, Hendra!" Light shouts and laughter followed, though the Dwarven woman didn't look upset in the least. The bartender gestured to Felix. "C'mon, traveler. Jacinda sent me after you."

Fighting off a blush, Felix nodded. Before approaching the inn, he flared his Mantle of the Long Night. A swirling, freezing breeze sprung up around him. It cooled the sweat on his skin near instantly, and Felix hopped up the stairs after the Elf. Felix flared his Eye as he passed the workers, some of whom were giving him wide grins. He smiled back and quickly committed their names and faces to memory, a habit he'd been trying to keep up on.

Never know when it'll come in handy. None were particularly impressive, level-wise, but that was hardly their fault. Have to imagine it's hard to gain levels packed into a city. Can you gain experience from tasks other than fighting?

He hadn't thought to ask that before.

The Elven bartender was named Wylla and was just past her First Formation. She boasted an impressive level of 32, and Felix assumed she must have been a Guilder at some point. As he'd noticed before, she moved with an easy grace that meant either a Skill or high investments in Dexterity and Agility. She was wearing a simple linen shirt, leather bracers, and a pair of coarse woolen pants that laced up the side of the legs.

No weapons, he noticed as he followed her into the kitchens. Are they hidden? Or does she not--

"You done gawking, farmboy?"

Felix jerked to a stop and lifted his eyes from Wylla's waist. She was giving him an arch look, her rounded face and almond eyes narrowed. He blushed fully this time.

"No, I'm just--"

"Uh huh," she said, cutting him off and turning toward the rest of the kitchen. A Gnome woman was busy nearby, directing a small staff of Dwarves cooking a variety of things. The place was a riot of noise and smells, all of which hit Felix's senses at once. His stomach growled, loud enough that the Gnome turned in alarm. She smiled when she saw the Elf.

"Oh Wylla dear, you're back. Is that big lug finished back there?" She huffed an annoyed breath. "Those lazy gamblers take advantage of any reason not to work..."

Wylla nodded her head casually to the left, and the Gnome's big eyes followed. The moment they landed on Felix she let out an impressive squeak of fright. "Oh dearie me, I didn't...ah...please, help yourself. We made food for you."

With an embarrassed flourish, the Gnome woman disappeared behind a large Human that suddenly stepped in front of her. Felix's eyes tingled slightly, a sensation annoyingly similar to a mounting sneeze. With a minor effort he flared his Manasight and saw a diminutive form wrapped in layers of twisting Mana vapor. The Gnome was still there, he realized, and the Human blocking his normal vision was simply an illusion she had crafted. Felix smiled, more than a little impressed at the casual crafting.

Wow. I really need to learn illusion magic. He gazed a little longer at the slightly transparent illusion. How does it work? It's like light but twisted--

Elf snapped her fingers at him, and Felix blinked away his Manasight.

"Hey, 'big lug.'" She gestured to a couple steaming dishes on a tray before him. "Take it. On the house, this time."

"Really? Why?"

"Jacinda appreciates when people help out. Hauling that water usually takes half the morning and tires out our people." The Elf shrugged. "That's worth at least a free meal, yeah?"

Felix smiled and the Elven woman rolled her eyes in annoyance, before very clearly shooing him out of the kitchens with his platter of food. He found himself in the short, private hallway again, but he could hear crowds gathering in the common area. Tapping a finger gently against his tin tray, Felix nodded to himself before heading forward and up the stairs to his room.

An unlocked door and a quick conversation with Pit had the two of them Converge. If the shift reared its ugly head again, Pit seemed to be one of the few who could snap him out of it. He couldn't hide away in their rooms forever, not if they planned to live anything close to a normal life on the Continent.

Bracing himself (a task far easier with Pit as co-captain), Felix went back downstairs to eat their food.

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