Stumbling Up: A Loser's Guide to Progression - Chapter 39: Until You Believe It

Silence.

I didn't realize until that moment how much noise Richard created in my head. Like his slime, his thoughts tended to get in everything.

I'd fought my whole life for silence.

When I was a kid, I fought so hard for my own time, my own space. We never had enough of either. I'd go out in the woods trying to escape. Flo accused me of dodging chores, but that was only half of it.

Until I left home, and realized silence was overrated when my mind filled it for me.

I’m not sure if other people are like this. Never really talked to Tandy or Leo. Or Share, for that matter. But when I'm alone, my brain takes over. It's why I tried so hard to pick up [Meditation] to quiet the voices in my head.

That's why I had to leave Richard.

I sat in the cold morning fog, looking out across the swamp. I'd agreed to take the early watch because I wanted this time alone.

Before the questions started.

To sit with my thoughts.

Meredeath moaned, caught in a nightmare. She’d done it every night she’d slept. I asked her if she wanted me to wake her up. Her response still gave me a shiver.

“If you woke me up every time I have a nightmare, I’d never get any sleep,” she said it dead-eyed, as though this was normal.

I ran my fingers across my neck, feeling the scaly gills on my skin. Maybe walking nightmares were the new normal.

The gills were now a permanent part of my body. A nightmare I couldn’t escape. The gills fought with my normal lungs. Everything worked, sure, but only just. Breathing felt like slipping air through a straw reed.

When the system notified me that I was losing [Dead Wrong] and all the attributing skills, I'd hoped that [Gills] would go too.

A cough wracked my body. I spit a wad of phlegm into the dirt.

My stamina was halved. It made sense with only half the lung capacity.

The problem with becoming an [Adventurer] is that I'd lost most of my mundane skills. So [Meditation] wasn't something I could trigger with a thought. I went back to my first lessons, sitting calmly. One eye scanning the swamp for threats, the other trying to find the inner peace I desperately needed.

"Hey."

I almost jumped out of my skin.

Tandy sat down next to me on the log.

"You're supposed to be sleeping," I said, wondering why she was up.

Tandy ignored my question and started her first morning chore, unbraiding her hair. Unbraided, her hair sat in wild waves. I think her hair was as straight as a board, like mine, but a lifetime of weaving made it wild.

"Did you sleep much?" she asked in her quiet voice, as she too watched the swamp.

I had not, as I found it hard to get comfortable. I’d taken breathing for granted my entire life, and now that I couldn’t seem to get a full breath, it was impossible not to think about it.

"Not really," I admitted. We sat like that for a while, waiting for the other to continue.

A dull rumble rippled across the swamp.

“That still happening often?” Tandy asked.

“Yep,” I replied. Ever since the tidemaw had died, the swamp seemed to be adapting and or taking note of us. I wasn’t sure what was going on, but I sure didn’t feel like talking.

Morning came late this close to the Ursine Wall. I stared off into the distance at the looming peaks, dark against the predawn light.

"Why'd you go off and fight the tidemaw alone?" Tandy's question wasn't the one I expected.

I played with a reed, bending the fibers back and forth, daring it to crack.

"I wanted to prove to myself that I wasn't just a tag-along. That I belonged on a team with you, Leo, and Meredeath." I left Richard off I wasn't sure any of us belonged on a team with him.

Tandy shook her head, running fingers through her hair. Bits of leaf and twig fell out. Once satisfied, she started her daily task of rebraiding the strands together.

"I think I'm the useless one," she said, surprising me again. Before I could protest, she cut me off with a glance. "I have no real combat capabilities. I've almost died a dozen times. I don't know what I'm doing most of the time, and I've lost most of the skills I'd earned as a [Weaver]. Objectively, I am the most useless of the party. You've at least killed a few monsters. I haven't even done that."

I thought back through the fights and realized she was right. Tandy hadn't earned a kill per se, but she'd saved my life more than a couple of times.

"You’ve pulled me out of death’s jaws more times than Leo’s stolen your scissors.” I wheezed at the joke, my debuff deflating my laugh. “It just doesn’t tally up the same way.”

The crickets chirped. An owl hooted a farewell to the night.

“My value came from Richard," I said, my throat closing on his name. The truth was, I'd never had Richard. I was his. My dreams of having a dire wolf someday seemed so childish. So out of the realm of possibility. I couldn't even be trusted with the charge of a slug.

"I'm sorry about that. I, we, should have told you, but..." Tandy stopped braiding and turned to me. "The longer we waited, the more it was going to hurt. Cole, I love you like a brother. I know that means something different to you, you've got six actual siblings."

I tried to protest, but she stopped me.

"What I'm trying to say is that I don't have any siblings. You and Leo are it. You're my family. So I'm going to say this as kindly as I can, because I think you need the truth." I braced as she took a steadying breath.

"The problem isn't us. None of us has viewed you as a tag-along. Richard didn't seem to treat you like a pet. I mean, he’s a jerk, but he treats us all like that." I forced my eyes to meet hers. "You're the one who needs to decide you belong here. You need to believe it."

That was it? I needed to believe in myself? If only I hadn’t thought of that.

"If only that were true," I laughed, looking back over the swamp. A red-winged blackbird flew overhead, perching on a cattail. It let loose a shrill call.

"It's true, and I'll be by your side until you figure out what you need to do to believe in yourself." She stood up, saving me the embarrassment of trying to hide my tears. "Come on, let's cook some breakfast. If we're going to face the bone lady, we might as well do it with a full stomach."

I stood, my knees creaking.

"Thanks, Tandy."

"No problem, if we survive this, we need to sit down and have a talk. I need to do something I should have done a long time ago."

"What's that?" I threw my reed into the grass, brushing off my pants.

"I'm going to tell you my family's progression secrets," she said confidently. I was surprised. Both Leo and I had noticed how she watched us struggle with our broken builds. We never held her secrets against her. She'd wanted to tell us, but the three of us knew it would have cost her relationships with her family.

Leo snored as I got the fire going, and Tandy sliced up a couple of apples to add to the oatmeal.

"Do you think we'll find her today?" Meredeath asked.

I blocked out Richard's voice. I could hear him now through the [Partial Rapport] since I was back at the party, but I didn't have to. The glory of it was that now I could choose to lock his voice out, and so far I had.

"That's good," Tandy said. Which I surmised meant we'd make it. No one wanted to be in this swamp longer than a day.

"It'll be fine, Richard. If you want, we can leave you here. I can find Rhi Voss on my own." Meredeath looked up at the rest of us and continued, "Honestly, that's true for all of you. You don't have to be here." She looked straight at me when she said it.

"I belong with the party as much as anyone," the words bubbled out of me. Why did she want to leave me behind?

"That's not what I meant. Damn it, Cole, you almost died in the tidemaw for me. This is my quest. My problem." I could tell Meredeath was angry, but I didn't understand why. She was clutching the pendant at her neck, and I realized it was glowing red under her hand.

"I didn't die, and going after the tidemaw was my choice, not yours," I said, trying to calm her down. I stepped closer, my hands out. Richard was still lying on the log next to her. "Everything's okay."

Meredeath's knuckles were turning white as she clutched at the skull pendant, her eyes had gained a red haze. I could see her jaw clenched, as though trying to prevent her from saying something. Or...

"Are you taking damage?" I brought up our party interface to confirm. Yes, she'd dipped below 50%.

"I am, got to work off the Dunglord still, much less that damn bear," she said between clenched teeth.

I nodded, meeting her red eyes, "What I did with the tidemaw wasn't any different. You're not the only one who can sacrifice for the team."

Her eyes flashed, slitting vertically as she repressed a snarl. I backed away.

Maybe my [Gills] weren’t so bad. It seemed like the [Adventurer] gig extracted a price.

Meredeath shook, trembling, until the haze in her eyes dulled, and her hand released the pendant. Meredeath turned away, her blue hair glowing in the morning light.

I made myself busy by walking off to find some dry wood for the fire.

Why did everyone feel like they needed to protect me? I kicked a rotten log, reveling in the splintering of wood. Meredeath was literally torturing herself to protect us. Some small part of my brain knew I was being whiny, and if Richard were still in my head, I'm sure he would have told me.

I picked up a barkless stick that had worm tracks across the wood. Using it, I poked at a wine-capped mushroom. It was Richard's favorite.

Did I want to be an adventurer without a safety net like Richard? Did I have enough guts to tell Tandy and Leo that I wanted out?

"Cole, we need you back here!" Leo called frantically, his voice echoing in the woods. I dropped my stick and started running.

They needed me.