The Squiggles responded to Charlemagne’s inquiry immediately.

  “Bawk,” Charlemagne asked the other two members of his Party.

  “I would recommend the Intermediate Boon Token,” Phatagin responded.

  “Get more skills!” Bridget shouted at the same time.

  The rooster gave an annoyed cluck upon receiving conflicting advice. He had no idea what any of the items actually did and was expecting the others to do the heavy lifting, mentally speaking.

  “Bawak,” he complained as he allowed mana to surge out from his Ember Core and flood the area.

  “I would uh…I would suggest asking the System guide for the definitions,” the pangolin responded with a gulp.

  “Bawk!” the rooster announced.

  “A new skill? That’s great, boss!” Bridget cheered.

  “Yes, rather, er, impressive,” Phatagin added. “But I would recommend seeing what the System guide has to say about the various rewards before choosing them.”

  The rooster concentrated on asking the Squiggles to describe each of the reward options. Nothing happened, at first. Then a flood of information rushed into Charlemagne’s mind. It was almost too much for the young rooster to handle.

  Charlemagne’s mind reeled from the massive number of skills that he could choose from. Just in the “A” section, there was a dizzying array of possibilities. There was no way that he was going to be able to read the options, let alone choose between them all. The last two skills, however, were very tantalizing to him, since he had largely already forgotten those at the top of the list. He had also forgotten that he already possessed the Athletics skill. But the cunning rooster had a plan.

  “Bawk, bawk bawk bawk,” he commanded imperiously.

  “Ohhh, ok,” Bridget answered. “Well, I think that, since your advanced skill is related to mana, you should take one of the attribute boosting potions and get an extra twenty-five points to your Special attribute. That will make manipulating mana even easier. You do some sort of body-strengthening with it, right?”

  “Bawk,” Charlemagne agreed.

  “Wait, that’s preposterous,” Phatagin broke in. “I can’t believe what I am hearing! Are you saying, our dear rooster, that you are constantly using mana to fortify your corporeal form? I didn’t think that was going to be possible until Earth’s mana saturation had reached at least double what it is now. How are you doing that?”

  “Bawk.”

  “You just do it? I can’t…I mean…okay, can you please explain it to me like I’m a pangopup?”

  “Bawk…bawk baawak,” came the ready reply.

  Phatagin’s posh diction slipped a bit as he whined in response, “well that makes absolutely no sense! How am I supposed to do that? Go inside my own body, burn my metaphysical body to a crisp, survive the process, and then somehow regenerate it from the ground up? How is that even possible? This has gotta be a joke right? Bridget, please tell me that he’s joking.”

  The mosquito’s joy at squashing the pangolin’s disbelief was on full display as she immediately shot back, “I’m afraid not, Scaly. As far as I can tell, the boss doesn’t really go in for jokes. I’ve seen our feathered friend’s full power attack, and it packs a serious punch. Also, did you see that his ‘Tempered Soul’ and ‘Not Enough Energy’ Achievements are back-to-back? I would hazard a guess that he first obtained his ability to manipulate mana then. Am I right, boss?”

  “Bawk,” the rooster confirmed.

  “So does your above-average size come from that ability?” Phatagin asked.

  “Bawk!”

  “Well, that follows then, I suppose,” the pangolin continued as he uncurled himself and stretched out with a yawn. There was a lull in the conversation as both Charlemagne and Bridget felt compelled to watch the lazy display. After a moment, Phatagin’s eyes popped open and his expression brightened. “Well then,” he exclaimed, “we’ve gone a bit further afield in this discussion than I had planned. I would offer a slightly different suggestion for how to spend your rewards. I think that you should go for the two common skill tokens and then use the skill combination token to fuse them together. You could look for skills that synergize with your ‘Ember Core’ skill, as that seems to be your greatest asset.

  “Bawak?” asked Charlemagne.

  “'Synergize’ means to work well with something else,” explained Bridget. “Like when I puncture another creature’s blood vessels, I can inject not only an anticoagulant but also a mild anesthetic. It helps me feed faster and prevents my victim from noticing I’m stealing all their blood until it’s too late.”

  “Bawk, bawk,” the rooster agreed.

  “Splendid,” Phatagin responded, eliciting a frown from Bridget. “I think that you’ll be pleased with the result. The first thing that we need to do is to go through the list of all the skills, discarding the ones that will not work well for your body type, goals, fighting style, and existing competencies. In order to best aid you, could you please let us know what your goals are? I think I’ve seen enough of the other categories to make an informed opinion.

  “Bawk, bawak, buuuuuck,” said Charlemagne.

  “Well, that’s certainly straightforward,” the pangolin noted as Bridget sighed and shook her head. Phatagin pushed himself up to his feet and began to pace back and forth on the hot sand. There was another short silence before he spoke again.

  “Well then, it seems to me that your priorities should be tracking, long-range senses, alimentation, and combat…in that order. What do you think?”

  “Alimentation is a fancy way to say ‘eating’, by the way,” Bridget added.

  “Bawwwk.”

  “Hmmm, combat is the priority? I’m afraid I don’t understand. You are the strongest creature I have ever seen or heard about. Why not round out your capabilities a bit more,” Phatagin asked.

  “Bawk,” the rooster asserted.

  “Ah, that’s what we’re for,” the mosquito laughed. “Well, at least it’s nice to be wanted. So, you’re going to pick two combat skills, and then fuse them?”

  Charlemagne nodded his agreement.

  “Well that certainly brings a bit more clarity to the situation,” the pangolin noted. “All right, then. We should see if you can get the System to display only combat-related skills that you qualify for. Then we’ll discard the worst while looking for synergistic combos.”

  There was a long moment as the two other creatures watched Charlemagne, each wondering if he had already asked the System guide for assistance.

  “Have you chosen the rewards yet?” Phatagin finally asked.

  There was another long pause before the rooster slowly nodded in the affirmative again. He had managed to convey his intent to the Squiggles and received his belated rewards. He was now examining a much shorter list of relevant skills. It was still far too many options for his bird brain to parse, however, and he gave up after reaching the end of the options starting with “C”.

  “Bawk,” he complained.

  “Still too many, I take it,” Phatagin mused as he continued to pace. “Well, could you ask it only to show energy-related skills?”

  It took the rooster a moment to figure out what the pangolin was suggesting. It took even longer to convey that intent to the Squiggles. It took the longest of all to realize that the Squiggles weren’t showing him anything because there were no skills to show.

  “Zombified ants!” the pangolin swore after Charlemagne reported that there was nothing to choose. “All right, maybe we’re asking it the wrong questions. Could you ask the System guide about skills that are valid combinations either with each other or with your existing skills?”

  The trio sought better shade while Charlemagne continued to attempt to find the right set of skills to acquire. Asking for skill combinations was a dead end, as many of the skills were either compatible with each other or with one of the enormous bird’s existing skills. Trying to enhance Charlemagne’s beak, claws, and feathers yielded some promising results, but the Party agreed that they could do better. Both Phatagin and Bridget had gotten swept away in the excitement of helping the rooster find the perfect set of skills, and hours passed as they worked together, debating the merits of different options and what skills would best suit Charlemagne’s personality and goals. It was not until late in the evening that the pair finally agreed that they would not find a better combination. There was only one problem: Charlemagne had already gone to bed, so they would have to wait until the next morning to tell him about it.

  Bridget went off to hunt up some fresh blood and have a nice bit of egg-laying, leaving the passed-out Charlemagne alone with Phatagin.