The fist thumped Zavier on the forehead again. "Pay attention! As I was saying, you don't need to see the skill, or seed, or whatever, to make it work for you - you just have to look at what's right in front of you. Your first step should be to understand a skill so fully that you could reproduce it without thinking about it. Use the pen - that seems like a good tool, but don't rely on it too much. Use your Intelligence, that's the real tool here. Then, once you understand how it works, why it works, and why it doesn't do more than it does, you will be able to create your own versions that don't fit into any molds. Understanding why something doesn't work is just as important as why it does."
"Right now you're still thinking along the lines of learning pre-set skills that The System shows you. You're thinking inside the box they gave you, even though it's a much bigger box than most people have gotten. You're coloring inside the lines, even if you get to pick the page. But you don't have to stop there."
He wiped away the drawing of the hand and created the symbol for his life finding spell. "Can you tell what this does?"
Zavier stared at the intricate patterns and almost seemed to understand it. Something tickled in the back of his brain. "It looks like… hmmmm… I don't know why but it feels like part of my Tactical Synergyskill."
"Huh. What does that skill do?"
Zavier shared the screen with him.
Name: Tactical Synergy
Level: 1
Description: This enhancement has been provided due to your proficiency in planning and your successful attempts to create team tactics. This skill will allow you to create a squad of up to four individuals. At its current level the skill will allow instant mental communication between all members as well as a visual readout of any buffs, impairments, and the current percentage of health for each member.
Ed beamed a smile. "Yes! Okay, that's why. I had something similar. It wasn't a tactical skill, it just gave my wife and I a mental link. We couldn't communicate like you can but we could always find each other and see each other's health."
Zavier noted the very obvious absence of a wife and chose not to say anything.
"After learning the skill I realized that it'd be better if I could have something to follow. Some sort of guide that led me to her rather than a general direction. The System didn't give me anything like that, and I couldn't think of anything to practice to make it give me that skill, so I just created my own. I studied how it worked night after night until I was able to do this," he colored in the lines and a shimmering stained glass shape turned into motes of colored lights and flew off through the walls.
"Does that point to your wife?"
Ed's face went dark and Zavier immediately regretted his comment. Moments passed before Ed took a shuddering breath. "No, she's gone. After that I realized I still had a template to work off of. I actually used it to create two different skills." He moved the pen and the colors rushed back into the room. With a few strokes he divided them up into two smaller patterns, one simple and the other a fractal pattern of shapes identical to the simple one.
"This one," he pointed to the simple one, "can be used to track a single individual. I have to know them well, have a strong impression of how they look, and have an incredibly focused will to trace them, but it will always point me in the direction of where they are." The shape formed into an arrow and turned to point through the garage door towards the cul-de-sac outside.
Zavier nodded in understanding. "Gabriel."
"Gabriel," Ed nodded.
"This one I modified to find any living human. It only works in a short range - basically as far as I can see with the naked eye, but it's less specific." He pushed with his hand and it broke into tiny shards of light that flitted out through the walls. After a minute of silence they returned and were absorbed into Ed's open palm. "There are 32 living humans in the area. I don't know exactly where they are but I could follow them if I wanted to - it'd lead me to them."
A troubling thought occurred to Zavier then. "How many were there when you got here?"
Ed nodded as if expecting this question. "38."
It was late in the evening a few days later. Tess was out scouting and Ed and Zavier had spent every waking moment in the garage practicing what they were calling Emotional Sunscreen.
"Concentrate," Ed whispered. Unhelpfully so, Zavier thought. "Form it in a way you understand. How does the spell feel?"
Zavier was covered in the spectral light again, aurora borealis shimmering off of it. "It feels like it's halting the atoms in the air around me, like it's forming a barrier."
"Not the atoms, or you wouldn't be able to breathe or hear me. It's freezing the 'code' from The System and preventing its influence on you. There's no reason it has to be blocking emotion, it could be blocking anything created by The System."
Zavier gritted his teeth. "Not helpful, dude. I need it to block emotion."
"No, you need to understand what it's blocking and how, then you can decide what it blocks. How is it blocking the code?"
"It's…" Zavier grunted in frustration, sweat beading on his brow. The garage had started turning cold with the coming fall and the distraction was causing his frustration to grow. He'd long since purged the Arcane Lightning skill from the pen and he could tell it was anxiously awaiting a replacement, he just couldn't move past his mental blocks to give it what it wanted. "It'd be nice if you could help," he said.
"I'm trying to!" Ed's voice was as frustrated as his.
"Not you, this stupid pen," Zavier said. He held its tip against the last line, the last perfect line of the perfectly drawn skill that he had drawn perfectly hundreds of fucking times over the last week. It vibrated in his hand as if waiting for him to finally come to an understanding.
He took a deep breath and started talking to himself. "Okay, replace atoms or molecules with System code. It doesn't matter what type, this one just happens to be a horrible mind-stealing, cancerous, deadly emotional one that will tear my family apart and destroy everything I love if I don't get it right. It's just code - numbers on a screen. If I can freeze the code I can…"
Inspiration struck as he realized that he'd been thinking of it on too grand of a scale. He was trying to stop EVERYTHING that The System was putting out, but The System was everywhere. It permeated everything and was giving off its own version of radiation that was like trying to block the sun. No, not the sun, because that could be blocked. It was like trying to block the sun, the wind, air, scents, pollen, sound… it was all too much. He'd never be able to block all of that. But what if he just picked one thing to block?
He shifted his focus and realized that he could sense differences in the energy around him. He chose to block one of them and everything went silent. He looked up and saw Ed's mouth moving, his eyes wide, but couldn't hear what he was saying. He couldn't hear anything at all. He shifted a line and Ed's voice came to him.
"... get it?"
"What?"
"Did you get it?" Ed's voice was breathless in anticipation.
"No, but I did block all sound. It was great not being able to hear you for a few seconds." Ed smiled and leaned back, moving his hand across his mouth like he was zippering it shut. "Hang on, I think I got it. Turn off your spell."
Ed twitched his pen and the shield surrounding Zavier shattered and faded. Zavier focused again and realized he could sense the energy flowing towards him from the cul-de-sac outside. As much as he'd love to say it felt poisonous, it actually felt warm and comforting, promising peaceful rest and total happiness if he'd just let it flow into him. He gritted his teeth against it and realized it had a flavor that could only be described as golden. A scent that reminded him of peaceful nights. He focused on just that sensation and curved some of the lines of his pattern. There was a shift in the air and a notification.
Zavier Torres: Level 11
New skill stored:
Name: System Block
Level: 1
Description: This skill allows the user to block incoming System energy, as defined by the user.
Note: This is a new skill, modified by the user. The energy blocked is defined by the user and can be overpowered by greater force, depending on the nature of the energy being blocked. Note: This skill is currently only available as a stored skill in the Sonic Screwdriver.
"Holy fucking shit!" Zavier whooped as he launched out of his chair, he and Ed hugging and jumping with excitement..
Then the lights went out.