Born a Monster

Chapter Type: World Lore, Class Ability, Training

“What do you mean, ethical code?” I asked. “Tell no lies. It’s that simple.”

Kong Bai’s eyes went wide, and his mouth opened. He raised his cup to his mouth, and took in a large gulp of tea. He closed his eyes then, took a deep breath, and then opened them. “How long have you been a Truthspeaker? Three years, I believe you said?”

“Most of my life.” I agreed. “It was my breakthough class, and I think it’s lodged at the core of my System.”

“It is at the core of your existence and you’ve never pondered the ethics of how to live as one?”

“I’ve been a bit busy surviving to worry about things like ethics.” I said. I dimly understood that there were ethics, and morals, and that most of the people I met were going to follow neither.

He set down his suddenly empty cup. “This, I can see, is going to require more than a single pot of tea. And more than a day of training.”

“Training?” I asked. “I thought I was to be tested.”

.....

“Giving you a test that you will fail will only waste both of our times.”

I spread my hands. “What has telling the truth got to do with ethics, or morality, or ...”

“How much damage have you done by telling the truth?” he asked.

I blinked. “Well... Okay, there’s a substantial amount of damage in and around my life. I can only imagine that a good portion of that revolves around the truth.”

“And have you considered NOT telling the truth?”

“Of course.” I said. “Not all truths need to be spoken.”

“Ah-ah. So you have misled me.”

“No, I’ve told you the truth. You seem to be misleading yourself, though.”

He found that hilarious, slapping his leg and gaining stares from nearby monks. “Come, the orchard will be a better place to continue this.”

I didn’t understand what the trees had to contribute to the lesson, but I did feel more at ease among the cultivation than inside with the incense fumes. I wasn’t about to raise an objection. I put my back against a tree trunk and coiled my tail in my lap, using two roots as props for my legs.

I’d had worse and less comfortable chairs.

“My pupil, without meaning to, you have already begun to develop a code of ethics, a set of rules and principles regarding how to use your abilities.”

“More principles than rules, then.” I said. Where was this monk leading the conversation? I wasn’t agreeing to any porcelain tower nonsense, not with the way my oaths became binding. I needed to survive in the real world, not some theoretical or ideal one.

Monk Kong mistook my unease, with an audible sigh. “Please do not get confrontational over this. That will needlessly extend the training beyond the normal week.”

“A week?” I asked. “You expect me to take a week off my spiritual duty to learn how to use my original class?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Do you know how to use our shared class? Have you unlocked any abilities beyond the Title?”

Well, okay, he had that right. I scratched my face. “All right, explain to me how any of these abilities help me.”

“Ah-ah, I see. So tell me, what would you use to defend yourself from a curse that made people want to attack you?”

“Drown Curse.” I said, without even hesitating.

“What if it were a type of magic that did not count as a curse?”

“I suppose it sounds like a mind altering effect, I might try developing a Telepath ability to stop it.”

“What if I told you that it didn’t even require magic?”

“Oh, you mean social skills, like a Gossip slander.” I said.

“Indeed.” he agreed. “How would you fight a Gossip slander that you were a murderer?”

“My name is Rhishisikk, and I am a Speaker of Truth. I literally cannot lie to you. Although I have committed murder, I am innocent of this murder.”

He tried to contain it, but the laughter burst out of him anyway. “I see now why you wear the black band. Remain here, I will need to fetch a table, some serving bowls, and a pitcher of tea.”

He did so, while I wondered what he had found so funny.

And the first day went like that, him asking questions, and me answering them. I started to notice a pattern on the second day, where he tried to use his questions to guide me to the answer he wanted me to reach.

“Why use trickery like this?” I asked, “Why not just tell me what I should be learning?”

“Which manner of learning will stay with you longer, just parroting the answers, or discovering them on your own?”

“Rrmngrnr.” I mumbled.

“Yes, I thought that would be your answer. Here, drink some tea and feel better.”

My System hadn’t thrown any messages about poison, or emotional adjustments, or any such nonsense. But the tea did help me feel better.

Many of the lessons were ones I didn’t need. Not all truths need to be spoken. Not all truths are mine to tell. The truth is not always the best answer. Questions are neither true nor false. When in doubt, the truth is best. Truth now is worth more than truth a week from now.

The whole gamut of sayings, many of which contradicted others. He tried first to get me to put them into a priority order, and then tore that order apart with situations at first common, and later more unlikely.

I gained skill in Ethics, Morality, Philosophy, Psychology... Not through use of development points, but much like using Shield Block repeatedly had gotten me Melee Block, and then XP toward Melee Defense, which was a sub-stat of Valor.

In theory, one could even raise the root statistics through nothing more than use of skills. In practice, this didn’t happen very often. I hadn’t experienced it yet, myself. My understanding was it was more like finding an ancient sword while plowing your field, or having an entirely cordial discussion with a hungry dragon; one of those things that people talked about, and was possible, but whose actual occurrence was reason to take note and pay attention to surrounding events.

In any case, nothing like that happened during the two weeks that I trained there. Yeah, yeah, I originally hated giving up the first week. As visitors filed in and out, I began to realize exactly how much time the monastery had saved me. Word was spreading south, and more importantly, had spread north to the front, about what exactly had happened to the Eastern Loyalist Repatriation Encampment and why.

“Ah, I wasn’t looking forward to telling them. That is so much stress off my back.”

“You seem experienced with military matters.” Kong Bai said. “Why should that be stressful?”

“Oh, they want to kill me. A prophecy that I am the doom of Lord Xaodong Hwang, whom I hear is now being called the First Loyalist.”

Kong Bai took two gulps of his tea. “Why would you not tell me this?” he asked. “Truth now is better than truth a week from now.”

I shrugged. “It didn’t seem important.” I said.

“Do they know what you look like?”

I blinked at him, pointed my fingers at my head. “Snake. Face. Yes, they obviously...”

“You must leave immediately.” he said. “If news from the front has reached us, soldiers seeking your life cannot be far behind.”

“Oh.” I said. “Yes, spattering their blood all over the sacred tapestries would be poor end to my hospitable visit.”

“This is nothing to joke about.” he said.

“Who is joking?” I asked. “I have been lax in directly fighting with them. I’m certain they don’t understand my full abilities.”

“Is one of those abilities one of concealment?”

“Of course.” I said.

“You must use it immediately.” he urged.

“I’m certain there is enough time to go outside first.”

He looked at me quizzically, but he followed me out the side door and four paces from the wall.

“This should be far enough.” I said.

“Far enough for what?” Monk Kong asked.

“To not spatter blood on the walls.”

“To not... from what? Why are you discarding your clothing?”

[Human transformation begun. Transformation will take 22 minutes.]

Gods! I had forgotten how much transformation HURT. My nerves were on fire, organs and tendons dissolved, only to reform in new shapes. Everything resembling a fat cell was consumed to fuel the process, and then other tissues began shrinking. My brain alone... well, I suppose as nerves redefined who their neighbors were, there may have been some shrinkage.

I took inventory of discarded evolutions, and flagged re-building those that would not have obvious effect.

Oh, I also had to go through the usual purging, of fluids from stomach, lungs, intestines, and bladder, all of it mixed with blood and other fluids. Three gasps, each shorter than the last, and I was able to breathe again.

“That wasn’t so bad.” I said, trying to stand and slipping in my own mess. “A bath, and I should make a passable orchard worker.”