Gestation by John Gold (love books to read .txt) 📗

There’s almost no talking, just fishing. Father praises me, tells me I’m a real fisherman’s kid, that I picked it up right away. We enjoy the silence and have fun catching fish. Maybe, I just enjoy not being alone. There’s a new, unbelievably dear person sitting next to me and smiling.

“This is a good catch—we can head back home. Camelia promised a fish pie, but first I need to teach you how to swim!”

Before I have time to blink, he tosses me overboard. How could a kid who’s never seen water deeper than the tubs in the personal compartments on the ships being repaired know how to swim? Swimming? More like floundering.

“Use your legs and arms. Push through the water.” Dad just keeps smiling.

I start getting the hang of it once I’ve swallowed a stomachful of water.

Ability learned: Swimming

Swimming +1

“There you go… Now, swim to the shore.”

“It’s so far!” I call back, sinking and gulping down another mouthful of water.

“Swim, swim. Your eyes are afraid, but your arms know what to do.”

Once I pull myself up onto the shore, I vomit up all the water. Father just laughs. My strength is down to nothing, my health is halfway gone.

Strength +1

Stamina +1

“We’ll go for a walk tomorrow in the forest. That’ll be a nice reward for being so brave.”

“What do you mean, brave? I would’ve drowned if I’d stopped.”

“You could’ve climbed back into the boat.”

Father practically glows with innocence.

“Yeah, right! You would’ve just pushed me back in.” That’s easy enough to predict. “You just want me to get stronger?”

I laugh nervously. Father straightens up instantly, his reply serious.

“Exactly! Train, and even a child can do so much. You can get new skills, professions, protection…you can boost your attributes and improve your reputation. Play with other kids and do what people ask you to do. Childhood is the school of life. People will forgive your mistakes, they’ll be more open, and you don’t have to worry about keeping a roof over your head.”

My father turns out to be strong and wise. I know what he was saying, but I just haven’t been able to phrase it in my head.

“We’re going to fish every morning. The rest of the time, you can walk or help your mother,” father says softly, though still with the same gravity in his voice.

I check the time—there are only ten minutes left. That little? Switching the capsule over to sleep mode, I decide to catch up on sleep during studies. For now, I’m going to play. The game doesn’t completely replace sleep, but you don’t need as much of it to catch up later.

The whole next week is heaven. There are friends for me, with 15-year-old Rachel on the next street over and Grunt and Ownie there, too. I haven’t seen their families yet, though. Rachel is the daughter of a blacksmith, also an orphan in real life. Grunt and Ownie are from the same orphanage. Lucky. Playing is much easier that way.

Father is a great hunter. He has taught me how to shoot a bow, how to hide, how to set and disarm traps, even taught me the herbalist profession. In the morning, we set traps; in the evening, we picked them up and collected our trophies. And the whole week led up to Sunday, market day.

Rachel and I beat a quest and learned stealth. Then, when we were swimming in the lake, we picked up the ability to hold our breath. She may not be the most beautiful girl, she talks endlessly, and she teases me sometimes, but she’s my best and only friend. Sometimes, she says something, and then she pauses and looks at me sadly, almost as though she pities me. Why? She makes a lot of mistakes. She talks about her parents like they’re alive, too. It sounds like they just recently died, and she hasn’t got used to it, yet. She didn’t like her dad, though—she always frowns when she mentions him. The dad in her Project Chrysalis family isn’t her cup of tea.

One evening, I had dinner at Rachel’s house. Her dad taught me the blacksmith profession after he gave me a quest for hauling wood and coal. Rachel’s father is a stocky dwarf. He’s always covered in soot, his beard is all the way down to his chest, and he almost never takes off his blacksmith’s apron. After four hours of hard work, I picked up +2 to my strength and +3 to my stamina. Then, he found out that I was Arman’s son and offered to teach me carpentry. How do you turn that down? But he was a clever guy. He told me he’d do it if I brought him three walk-tree branches to make into bows.

When I got home, my mom was really worried. I’d forgotten that it was late. My father glowered when he found out that I had the chance to learn carpentry in exchange for the three branches, too. The next morning, he handed them to me, and I took them over to the blacksmith. Rachel’s dad just grunted triumphantly and taught me carpentry, even throwing in the ability to make a simple bow, before showing me the door. When I got home, father wanted to have a word with me. “Walk-tree is a local Level 75 boss that does what the forest keeper tells him to do. You wouldn’t have been able to get his branches, though you could very easily have died trying. The blacksmith knew that, just like he knew that you wouldn’t be able to get them yourself. I’ve had them for years. This is the last one—take it. Hopefully, I’ll see the bow you made from it one day.”

Then, father relaxed, smelling of tobacco. I’d already noticed that he grabs his pipe and heads out back when he’s nervous.

Suddenly, I realized what had been bothering me. It was a rare material. That blacksmith was a cunning bastard, too. I’m never talking to him again. I’m