Steam still rose from the hot water around Jarod in the bathhouse. He sat on the short platform in the water as it lapped at his upper chest. Right now though, thoughts of cleaning, or even of relaxing, had gone out the window. All of his attention was focused on taking in everything that Filgrin said as the old bowyer described his experience with the System.

  “Never knew another person who saw ‘em,” said Filgrin, describing the messages that Jarod had seen in his sixth sense. “Course, I mighta come across more and just didn’t know it. Stopped asking people after a while. Certainly seems a rare thing though, with no accountin’ for who has it. Foolishly asked a rebel leader in Steigland once if he knew anything about it. I thought it might have somethin’ to do with how important they were, but he looked at me like I was mad, so doesn’t seem to be nothin’ to that theory. He went on to marry into the royal family after all.”

  Jarod nodded. He’d certainly been born into a life that didn’t seem like anything special. All the same though, the trifley attacks that happened almost as soon as he’d taken over his new body weren’t an everyday occurrence. “Maybe it’s just that big things happen to them,” Jarod said. “Momentous events.”

  “Could be,” said Filgirn. “Not like much has happened in Cleftshire for the last 20 years though. Not until just a few days ago. Maybe that was why you only just got your power.”

  Jarod felt another pang of the half-lie that he’d told Filgrin. Not that he’d lied exactly, but he’d certainly led Filgrin to believe that he’d been like this his whole life. That the man Filgrin knew had always been Voyager and Jarod as one, not just a ghost, or whatever he was, that had taken over Jarod’s body so recently.

  Maybe it would be helpful to probe Filgrin’s experience to get his thoughts on the matter. “Do you remember anything from the void before you first came here? I don’t really remember anything, not even really existing, before the Voice came. Then it showed me three people and I chose Jarod.”

  Filgrin scrunched his eyebrows. “It started out the same for me, but I didn’t have three people. Just… me. Just a young child back then. Strange. And you say you ‘chose’ Jarod?”

  “Yeah. Well, I chose… me. It’s weird thinking about.”

  “You think you could’ve… become someone else?”

  “As far as I could tell.”

  “Hmm.” Filgrin ran a hand through what sparse hair he had left. When he replied, his eyes didn’t look at Jarod, they were still tracking the distant, unseen courses of incomplete thoughts. “For all these years, I’ve thought that place before was just a prelude to my life. I didn’t know what god that place belonged to, and I didn’t much care. Always figured I’d just go back there when I died. But now I don’t know what it was. Was I Filgrin from the start? I musta been, or else why’d I be there?”

  He looked to regard Jarod without having come to a conclusion. “Strange business lad. Yer soul might belong to more’n one of ‘em.”

  Jarod leaned back, falling into his own contemplation. It was strange business, not having Filgrin experience the same thing. He’d never got the impression that his soul belonged to any one of them, though. Especially considering his experience with himself — Jarod — it felt more like he was taking over for someone else. Was he dooming someone else to non-existence? Or maybe he had kicked the previous Jarod out into the same void he had started from. He could test the next time he was there and try to take over someone else’s body, but was it worth it?

  “Maybe we should talk about less existential things first,” said Jarod. “What about those messages that pop up all the time, especially during fights?”

  “Aye, that might be a good idea,” said Filgrin. “Those I can tell ya about. What questions do ya have?”

  The two men talked at length about the messages they both received, comparing notes on their recent experience in the fight with the trifleys.

  Finally, Jarod was able to get a breakdown of what the messages meant. First, Filgrin described the messages he called “skill checks”. All the checks were divided into different categories and subcategories, each associated with different “dice”. Whenever Filgrin had reached a progress point, the dice had a chance of being upgraded, so his odds of success improved. Just as Jarod had learned the last time he was in the void, all the numbers he saw in brackets were parts of the dice roll. The numbers like [3]+1 corresponded with his ability in that category.

  Also on these skill check messages was the number that needed to be reached to succeed. That was the one after the category declaration and was indicated by parenthesis, like Willpower check (5). Sometimes there were multiple possible levels of success, which would be indicated by multiple numbers in parenthesis. Other times, this System didn’t tell you what needed to be rolled to succeed, which was indicated by (?).

  At the end of the message, the System would indicate if you had succeeded with a final trailing message of Success or Failure. Other times, it wouldn’t even tell you if you succeeded (as was often the case for stealth checks).

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  “I saw those ones often enough,” said Jarod. He had leaned forward on the ledge in the bath, eager to hear what Filgrin had to say.

  “Aye, those’re the one’s you’ll see most often. ‘Specially if yer avoiding combat as much as ya can. As ye well should be.”

  “There was another one that was like that. I had it come up a few times, like when I was grappling with Avery.”

  “Ahh, a strength contest. You’ll see those ones more often when yer fighting against someone else.”

  Next, Filgrin described “contests”, things like tests of strength against an opponent. From the numbers Filgrin had worked out, it seemed like you rolled a bunch of six-sided dice and got a number of successes equal to how many rolled 4 or higher. As Jarod had already seen, sometimes those odds were increased by messages like: Success on 3. The number of dice rolled seemed to correspond with your relevant ability, and whoever had more successes won the contest.

  “What about during fights?” asked Jarod. “The messages that say ‘roll to hit’?”

  Filgrin ran a hand through his messy beard stubble. “Well, that’s the one I don’t fully know. Every time I thought I figured it out, I’d hit a progress point, and things’d change. Was gonna ask about that as my next question, but never got the chance. I’ll tell ya what I do know though.”

  The basics of rolling to hit were easy enough. Just like with skill checks, you would roll dice depending on your ability with the weapon. If you rolled high enough, then you would roll a second time to see how much damage was inflicted on your enemy. Just like the first roll, this second roll also depended on what weapon you were using.

  Unlike skill checks though, determining if you successfully hit an enemy was more complicated. It was easy enough if you were dealing with the same enemy, or ones similar to each other, like the trifleys. They all had a set target that had to be reached. How high this target was depended on things like how much armor your opponent was wearing, how large they were, and how agile they were. However, this target seemed to change throughout Filgrin’s career. He’d fought more or less equivalent opponents over the span of years during his time in the army, but how high he had to roll to hit had changed over time. Not just after another progress point, but also after intensive bouts of training with weapons.

  “I don’t know all the details of it,” said Filgrin, “but most of the time it’s enough to know that getting a higher number is better.”

  Jarod leaned back, letting his head start to dip into the water. It was a lot to take in, more than they’d be able to get through in a single conversation, but it was an excellent starting point. He felt the hot water tickle against his ears as he lay back, and he brought his feet up to float in the water.

  It was a new experience of weightlessness, one he’d never had a chance to appreciate while swimming in frigid mountain water. All around, warm water cushioned him, comforting envelopment in a state as close as he’d get to the void here. He felt the heat stretch and loosen joints that had grown stiff from days of riding, releasing tension that he hadn’t realized he had. He flexed his toes and straightened his knees out, taking advantage of the large private pool that they’d bought with Nikolao’s money.

  Jarod lifted his head out of the water when he heard a muffled yawn from across the pool. Filgrin had given a wide stretch and shut his eyes for a moment to enjoy the luxury

  “All this yappin’ in the hot water is getting me tired,” the older man said. “I hope our meeting with the king starts soon, or I’m gonna need a nap.”

  “Barely an hour of city life, and you’ve already started to go soft,” chuckled Jarod.

  “Ahh, don’t be mindin’ that. I’ll be right as rain in the morning.”

  Jarod smiled across the room. It was easy to forget the troubles in your life when you lived in the city and had a gentry’s coin to throw around. Harder, though, to forget the questions about his own existence, especially with Filgrin in particular right across from him.

  “What about… defying the messages?” asked Jarod quietly. “I worry sometimes that I don’t have a say in the matter. Like everything is already decided.

  “Eh, I’ve played around with it a bit,” said Filgrin. “Everything always works out according to the rolls, but I’ve never felt like I didn’t have free will in it. On the contrary, seems like it always rewards me for makin’ good decisions by adding to my roll, and punishes me for bad ones by takin’ away from it.”

  Filgrin adjusted his seat on the bench. “Only time I’ve defied ‘em is to my own detriment. Snuck successfully behind an enemy once, and thought I’d put it to the test. I started screamin’ and the guy turned around in a heartbeat. Nearly took my arm off for it. Wouldn’t recommend testin’ it out too much.”

  About as Jarod had expected. Still, it could prove life-changing if he could figure out some way to get around it. Some way to succeed even where the System said he had failed. Certainly an idea worth exploring.

  Their conversation was interrupted by a sudden knock on the wall behind the curtain of their bath. Their time on the road and excessive bouts of recent combat had tainted Jarod’s reactions. He instinctively flinched, and looked around for a weapon to use, but calmed down when he heard the voice behind the rapping.

  “Excuse me sirs,” a delicate male voice said. “There’s a courier just stopped by looking for you. Said you’re to return with him to the inn to prepare for tonight.”

  Jarod glanced at Filgrin. It seemed their blissful break was over.

  “Did someone inform our other companion?” asked Jarod. “That would be Basma, over in the ladies’ bath.”

  “Yes sir,” the man said. He seemed hesitant as he began the next part. “Also, I don’t mean to be rude, but the courier insisted I ask you. He wanted to ensure that you’d… washed with soap, sirs?”

  “Who does that damned surveyor think we are?” muttered Filgrin. “What, does he think we don’t have soap in Cleftshire? I’ll bet that bastard’s never even made soap in his life. Had it handed to him on an ivory tray by a damned servant who comes to wipe his bum.”

  Jarod chuckled under his breath and told the bathhouse worker that they had, and that they’d be out shortly. He took one last moment to enjoy the warmth, before pulling himself up out of the water. Any further talk of extrasensory messages and existential meaning would have to wait. They had a king to get ready for.