Selcouth, God of Wanderers

Equipment(al)

The neighbour's rooster crows me awake in the morning, which is a funny thing to say given that crows are also birds, and crows don't rooster (or pigeon or hawk) but caw-caw-caw (one flies by, near). However, I digress—and, digressing, reveal the present state of mysleeplessmind.

(Even my thoughts are slurred.)

I rub my face.

And go downstairs, where my parents are already sitting at the table, watching me with a silent kind of beaming pride. I can almost hear their loving eyeballs say, "Oh, Gromi, my little Gromi. Growing up so fast."

"Morning," my dad says.

He says it man-to-man-like, but with just enough artifice I can tell he's trying too hard. I don't mind. It feels good to be treated more like an equal, a peer.

I see that my mom has already made breakfast. (Have I mentioned that I like her cooking?) Eggs, sausage, boiled root vegetables. They've evidently been waiting for me to join them. (My parents, not the food; although the food's been waiting too, I suppose.) "Have a seat," my mom says. When I do, I expect her to say more, something along the lines of, "Eduard's back, and he brought your father's sword—it's beautiful, and I told you so," followed by: "Of course, this means, and please don't take it too hard: it means you've failed your quest." Then my father will say words like, "Not everyone completes his first quest, Grom. I know plenty of adventurers, fine adventurers, who did not," and I'll ask if he completed his first quest and he'll say he did. Gods, my mind is scatter-brained today. Or is it my brain that's scatter-minded? Or am I... a mind that my mind just—

I shake my head and both my parents chuckle.

"How is it?" my dad asks.

"How is what?"

"Your inevitable level up hangover."

So that's what it is. "I didn't know that was a thing," I say.

"My sense of self used to feel like a cracking fishbowl afterwards. It's really the only drawback of gaining a level," says my mom.

(In my case, I gained a level but the level is zero, but don't let's get philosophical about it.)

I feel like I'm reading a book but my mind is several pages behind what my eyes are seeing. Symbols: seen, generating images and ideas, delayed. And the book is actually me. And half of it's written in another language, one that I don't know, (which would be any language other than the one I'm speaking in.)

"It passes."

"This will be the least unpleasant level up hangover you ever get too. Because you're home. On some dark night you'll level up and wake up the next day in a ditch with a terrible headache and no memory of how you got there," my dad says.

"True story?" I ask.

"Sadly."

I eat, and eating helps settle my thought process, which arrives at: "Any idea if Eduard is still missing?"

"He is," my mom says.

Which means my sword retrieval quest is still active.

"You can always check your quest log," my dad says. "You didn't sleep through your first quest, if that's what worries you."

I smile. The smile signifies happiness. The happiness is genuine, but there's some part of me—some cowardly and comfortable part—that experiences also a slight disappointment. Nobody told me questing can be scary. (I mean, I knew adventures involve the unknown and danger and beatings,) but what I fear is less tangible than that. It's more low-key, a fear of not having my mom's eggs, sausage and boiled root vegetables for breakfast again; of not having a bed, my bed; of leaving home: yes, that's it: 's a fear of losing what's most dear to me and that I didn't even realize was so dear to me until finding myself on the brink of leaving it all behind for a quest," I say.