Chapter 13: Baba Yaga

  "Finish your tea before it gets cold," Celeste said. "Don't waste all the work this old lady put into giving you refreshments. Ungrateful kids."

  Alex took another sip of the liquid in the tiny cup on the table in front of him. It was sweet, with a note of lemon. Not something Alex particularly liked, but he wasn't going to displease the woman in front of him. She may look middle-aged, with graying hair and newly forming wrinkles, but Alex assumed that she was more powerful than she looked, and certainly more powerful than Garret or himself.

  The two men were quickly ushered into the back of the apothecary by Celeste after she had called them out for being World striders -a term Alex still wasn't totally certain he understood- back at the counter. It took a bit of convincing from Alex to have Garret follow along, as the guy was still out of the loop and on guard.

  That hesitation quickly washed away once Celeste slipped on a plain-looking metal ring and told them to follow her into the back. Garret's reaction clearly told Alex that he had understood the woman when she spoke that time, thus the ring she had put on was just like his.

  Now they were both sitting in a rather cozy-looking living area, sipping on tea from surprisingly ornate teacups that Celeste had served to them. It was taking a lot of mental restraint on Alex's part to keep from launching a ceaseless string of questions at the woman as she busied herself in the brewing process. Garret appeared too shocked to spit out his half-baked jokes and simply sat next to Alex on the chair next to him. A blessing that Alex didn't dare point out in case that somehow knocked him out of such quiet.

  Finally, though, Celeste had sat down on a chair across from them and picked up her own teacup, sampling her work for herself. She gave a deep sigh, seemingly pleased, and then sat back into a relaxed posture to survey them in disapproval.

  "I expected Worldstriders to be more... I don't know about powerful, but maybe older? With more common sense. You kids look like toddlers bumbling around in the dark," She tsk'd softly and shook her head. "If it weren't for the rewards."

  "You seem to know that we are not from this world, given the title you keep mentioning, this Worldstrider thing. But we don't know what that means, or what is going on at all. Can you at least start by explaining that?" Alex asked the woman with a bit of annoyance, which earned him a sharp glare.

  "I'll explain what I want when I want. I don't work for you boy. Let's get that ironed out from the start," She snapped back, lowering a gnarled finger at Alex. "Drink your tea. You'll get the information you so desperately desire. Give an old lady time to settle in and breathe."

  "Don't piss off the Baba Yaga Alex, even I know that," Garret whispered.

  Celeste's hand flashed forward, picked up a sugar cube from the dish between them and launched it at Garret's face. It promptly exploded against his forehead in a cloud of sugary mist, making his head snap back and leaving a red mark on the skin, his eye lashes dusted in white powder.

  "Don't piss me off indeed."

  "Ow, damn it. You have some sensitive hearing for a self-proclaimed old lady," Garret grumbled, rubbing his forehead.

  "I do, so don't get funny with me, got it," She dropped a newly plucked sugar cube into her cup and stirred it with a spoon lazily. Alex stifled a chuckle and sipped his tea once again. Garret shifted uncomfortably next to him but didn't say anything more, for now.

  "Worldstrider is the term given to those who come to Aetherios from worlds outside the system," She explained. "You two, I assume, come from a place without the edicts. Without the attributes or the elements. You have strode -unwilling or not- from your world, into this one. Thus, the title fits rather appropriately."

  Alex nodded quietly as she spoke. All that was seemingly true. He saw the welcome message from this so-called Aetherios System when they had arrived. She called the messages edicts, but Alex guessed that's what she meant. These attributes are probably the stats in our character screen. I don't know about the elements she said though, maybe it's related to the magic system? Alex felt a pang of excitement rise inside him at that thought. Could she teach us magic?

  "The system, in its great wisdom, has a process to help any Worldstriders that make their way here into this world. This is where world-teachers come in," Celeste pointed at herself now, making the point clear. "If someone the system decides is capable of teaching a Worldstrider is able to figure out someone's status as such, they are given an available system quest. To become a world-teacher."

  Alex remembered the way Celeste's eyes glazed over for a moment before she started laughing. He realized now that she must have been reading the quest prompt. It made sense, but it also made Alex feel a bit peeved.

  Alex didn't get asked for permission by the system for this, it simply offered the quest to Celeste without his input. That was a problem, as it could potentially out him to other people about his status and he wouldn't even know. His mind went back to his encounter in the forest with the elf as well. The elf did indeed mention the term world-teacher, but Alex didn't understand it at the time. More than likely the system had offered the quest to Sylvaris, and the elf had turned it down.

  "Would it be safe to assume by you bringing us back here and explaining this, that you've decided to accept this quest?" Alex asked.

  "Yes. The rewards are tailored to the individual in order to entice them to accept. It's offering me...well that's not important. Just know I'm now your world-teacher, so I will be explaining how to survive in this place, okay."

  "Alright then. Thank you for accepting, we certainly need the help." Alex said.

  "Tell me about it," Celeste snorted, eyeing them up and down. "Before I go further though, I want to know. How did you get a speaking charm? They don't just give those out. You already complete a quest or what?"

  "No, I didn't do a quest, though I did receive one. Sylvaris, an elf I met in the forest, gave it to me. He is actually the one who told me to come here." Alex fiddled with the ring as he spoke.

  "Sylvaris? The Ranger? Did you meet him in the forest? Lucky break there then. Any other elf might have killed you on the spot. Not a whole lot of their kind out there, but they are all very powerful, far more than what you can handle." Celeste poured herself another cup of tea.

  "Are they all tall, with blonde hair, pointy ears and silky smooth voices?" Garret chimed in now, his eyes wide with excitement.

  "What? No boy, they vary just like us humans do, especially the half-elves. The ears are a bit spot on though. I guess you could say they are typically rather pretty in appearance as well. Not many elven uglies from what I've heard."

  "Damn. I wanted to befriend my very own Legolas." Garret whined.

  "Lego-what? You can be friends with elves, sure, its just not horribly common. Like I said they usually just kill outsiders on sight. They don't share their secrets with others. As I said, they are terribly powerful. Some rumors say that they are born as tier-three beings, but I doubt that rumor."

  "See that, " Alex perked up now. "That there. Tier three, adept tier, system messages, cores, magic spells, skills. We don't know any of these things. That's what we need to know."

  "The gods gag me," Celeste sighed. She sat back and looked sourly at her tea cup with regret plainly written on her face. "Okay, forget everything I said for now. Tell me what you actually know, and I will fill in the gaps where I see fit."

  It didn't take Alex long to explain what they knew. It wasn't very much after all. The basics of experience, and what they understood about interacting with the status screen. He also mentioned the quest involving the looming threat the system had given them. Once that was done, Celeste began asking about the little time they had already spent in this world, and what the world they came from was like. After a few minutes, Alex began to feel like he was the teacher here but eventually Celeste stopped asking questions and began looking off into the distance instead.

  Alex let the woman have some time and continued drinking his tea. A hint of burning irritation was kindling inside him again the more he waited though. So far this whole situation was more them giving info to Celeste, instead of the other way around.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  They were sitting in the back of a shop, unknown dangers all around them, and spilling their entire guts to this unknown woman. She hadn't told them much of anything yet, despite saying that she would have. Alex was starting to feel it was best to cut their losses and just leave at this point. The thought of killing her to keep their secret and be done with this whole mess crossed his mind for a moment.

  We can't do that though. She'd completely destroy us for one thing. Not to mention It would be pretty much elderly abuse and plain evil even if we were the stronger party here. Alex thought. Why was he so agitated again? He wasn't nearly as much as a murder-hobo back in his home world. Far from it.

  "Okay, I think I know where to start with you two welps," Celeste finally broke her silence, once again looking at the two of them.

  "Yes! Finally, I wanna be a Tank! Maybe add some earth magic stuff. Oh, I'll be an earthbender, that'd be sweet." Garret began making a horrible impression of some Eastern martial arts moves and making whooshing noises with his mouth.

  "Just... Just ignore him. That's what we do." Alex said.

  "I see, I think that's probably best," Celeste said. She looked at Garret like seeing a dog chase its own tail. A look of pity mixed with amusement. "Alright then, listen carefully, I don't want to repeat myself. I have to open the shop back up soon anyway, I can't have it closed all day. Regarding your Worldstrider quest, you should definitely not ignore that. In fact, I would take it very seriously.”

  “The quest saying to prove ourselves or die?” Alex asked hesitantly, afraid of the answer.

  “Yes, it is serious. You must become great in the eyes of The System, or you will be killed.” Celeste confirmed.

  “Why? What’s the point of the system testing us like this?” Alex said.

  “Most Worldstriders are pulled into Aetherios by large system events, sudden expansions of The System’s domain and power, or in connection to other citizens of Aetherios. In each case, there’s one thing in common, The System chose to purposefully bring that person or persons into its domain for a predetermined reason. Though, this is not always the case,” Celeste explained. “Sometimes, happenstance itself will create a Worldstrider. In these cases The System didn’t expect this occurrence, and it doesn’t necessarily need the Worldstrider for a specific reason.”

  “You two are in the later group.” Celeste stirred her tea absently as she spoke. “Unfortunate, as The System treats such Worldstriders more harshly. You two even got one of the worst outcomes, a trial quest. As a result, you will be tested. You will have hardships and encounters thrown your way that others simply wont have to deal with.”

  “Shit,” Garret said. “So its an angry step-parent that’s stuck with some step-children then?”

  “Sure?” Celeste looked at the man curiously before continuing. “It’s not all bad. You will get more attention both bad and good. More trials thrown your way will mean more quests. Which in turn means more rewards, and faster progression. Which is what you will want to focus on, progressing.”

  “What do you mean? Aren’t we already doing that? Gaining experience?” Alex asked.

  “Yes and no.” Celeste reached over and dropped another sugar cube into her tea cup. Garret flinched. “You already told me your stats earlier, and I can say you very much have a lot of catching up to do. Your stats are laughably low, even for a citizens here in Vrung’s Quarry, a backwater no-where village at the edge of the kingdom. But even here, citizens have most of their stats past a base five, and their primary stat closer to ten.”

  “That’s just a basic citizen?” Alex asked. He realized now how far behind they really were. Tarvin the shop-keep could probably wipe the floor with both of them.

  “Indeed,” Celeste nodded. “Soldiers of the Terraxum Kingdom, to which Vrung’s Quarry is a vassal, would have most of their stats at double digits. Real elites, would have them nearly fifteen or twenty, beyond in some cases.”

  “Damn…” Garret leaned back in his chair and sighed.

  “So we are basically just children here?” Alex guessed that kids still earned and spent experience points after all.

  “Basically, yes.” Celeste smirked at the two men. “Understand though, that the elite soldiers of Terraxum would be children to many, many other kingdoms and empires of the Urhara continent where we reside upon. Terraxum and its two neighboring kingdoms are but First-Tier powers. None of their rulers have truly crossed the peak of the Adept Tier, or the Second-Tier. As some call it.”

  “Tiers?” Garret and Alex asked simultaneously.

  “Looks like I might be taking a day off from the shop after all,” Celeste sighed and set down her tea cup. “So, the tiers of power. Understand that there are seven tiers of power of in Aetherios..."

  Celeste's explanation took several hours, and despite her insistence to let her finish explaining first as their questions would surely be answered, it still took some time. Garret's antics didn't help in that regard. By the end of it though, Alex got a full breakdown of more than just this so-called tier system.

  From what he understood, beings in this world were categorized into tiers of power. The names or title of these tiers changed based on the culture of the person you asked, the elves, dwarves and other enlightened races (humanoid races that is), including the various cultures of the human race, all called these tiers by different names. Other cultures called them stages, or grades, or even just gave them letter designations of F to S. No matter who you ask though, the answer is the same. Seven possible tiers, even if the final seventh tier is not confirmed and was always the moving horizon of ultimate power to strive for.

  The first tier, the Mortal tier, was where Alex and Garret currently inhabited. Of course, every citizen there town also landed into this tier. Its name implied what those in this tier could achieve pretty much the peak limit of humans. Even the humans from Alex's home world.

  The second tier was the Adept tier. This is the one the shop keep Tarvin mentioned. The basics of magic and power. It was like the wizards of medieval fantasy based on Alex's interpretations of Celeste's descriptions.

  Beyond that was the Magus tier. This was the real magic, spells capable of destroying buildings or people utterly, rather than just swift lethal blows. The Magus tier appeared to allow a single individual to threaten entire armies or mortal men on their own.

  The fourth tier was where Alex began to get excited about what this world was capable of. The Sage tier as Celeste called it; people capable of flying by willpower alone. Entities strong enough to rip apart castles or divert entire rivers with shows of magical force. It was the kind of power that Alex had been imagining when he first thought of magic in this world.

  A sorcerer conquering a country. Summoning an army of golems of elemental power. Yes, that's what I want. Alex thought to himself whimsically.

  The Supreme Aegis tier, the fifth tier, was once again a whole level removed from the others. Supreme Aegis far from a Magus as a Magus was from a mortal. It was at this point Alex realized this power scale was not linear, but exponential. An Aegis couldn't just conquer countries, they could remove them from the map.

  The Celestial tier, the sixth one, was now in the realm of power to start decimating continents. The kind of power that Alex wasn't even sure a person should have. People at that stage would kill Alex with a mere thought, the swipe of a hand, the blowing of a breath. He couldn't help but shudder at the idea of a Celestial tier individual just passing by the forest that Alex and his friends were in, slaughtering them all by sheer accident and never even noticing their existence. Like a slumbering dragon swatting a burglar with their tail while they slept.

  Beyond that, Celeste didn't know anything.

  "As I said boy, the seventh tier is a myth. No one has reached it. At least no one has reached it and stuck around here to tell anyone," Celeste huffed at Alex's pestering question.

  "What do you mean stuck around?"

  "Exactly what I said," The woman snapped her fingers at him once again. She tended to do that a lot when he asked questions she didn't see worth an answer. She kept answering either way though, so Alex kept asking. "It’s a myth. They say the sixth tier is the tier of the gods. Celestial beings, overlooking the elements of the system. The seventh tier is how you go outside that. How one might break out of the Aetherios system itself."

  "Beyond the system itself..." Alex muttered.

  "It's a myth boy, keep your head out of the clouds and grounded on your current situation."

  "Right, right, so I understand what the tiers are now," Alex looked over at Garret and saw him nod. Looked like they both understood so far.

  “So each tier means a jump in power,” Alex said thoughtfully, “at what tier would some be able to cast a spell and return a Worldstrider home?”

  “What now?” Celeste looked at Alex as though he spoke gibberish.”Teleportation is possible, at about Sage tier, or Peak Magus tier if you find the right mage. But that is dangerous magic, easy to mess up and harder to get right. Making portals and traveling by such means requires serious knowledge of where you would want to go. No Sage tier mage would able to make the portal without knowing the world you want to go back to, so your best bet… would be to become that fourth-tier mage yourself. But you are a long ways from that kids. Focus on gaining power and strive towards Adept tier for now.”

  Well that certainly throws a wrench into the plan. Alex thought. He was hoping that magic would be their way out, so they could get back home before this trial quest became an issue. If the mage needs to a Worldstrider from earth, we might need to tackle this trial for two reasons, not just survival.

  "How does someone reach the next tier though?" It was Garret's turn to ask.

  "Simple. Upgrading your magic core of course." Celeste stated matter-of-factly.

  Alex broke from his thoughts at this and leaned in now, sitting at the edge of his seat. His palms once again starting to clam up. Not from fear this time, but from the excitement he felt burning inside his body.

  "Tell us about magic," Alex said.

  ?