"Hero! Bard! Are you okay?" asked a voice, one finally getting through to me, and I turned my head, the menu following, but for a brief moment I saw Fitoria's face, and so I took a moment to stand up straight, trying to catch my breath after what just happened, and then nodding, nearly falling backwards again, before her strong arms caught me, and held me up.

"I'm…not fine exactly, but I think I just discovered why you were feeling something weird from the Carriage earlier," I told her, and I could hear her scoff a bit.

"Is that all? I thought you were having some kind of an attack. Here, let me guide you somewhere you can take a seat," she said, concern in her voice as she did just that. I soon had hard stone beneath my butt, allowing me to settle, as I read through the descriptions.

"What do you see?" she asked, and I took a moment to think before answering.

"My menu, but you probably already guessed that," I said, and I could almost feel her staring at me for even saying it.

"Beyond that, I'm being offered two ways to use the 'Follower' power up method," I told her, and pressed the first one, skimming it again, to make sure I understood it well enough.

"The first would give me a skill point for everyone who is a follower of mine. That doesn't seem that great, given I have no idea how the system recognizes those, and though it seems even if I lose their faith, I'd keep it. Even better it would be to every single person, human, demi, or otherwise that is considered my 'Follower' by the system, which is well over a thousand according to a list that just popped up, one that I've never seen before," I explained.

Said list had names I recognized, including Trader 'Elder' Marie, with the Elder part crossed out, and the Trader in parentheses. Not sure if that was because of how she saw herself or what. The others, like Ben, who had a last name apparently, and even some of the ones identified with Levels and Classes that had to be other Adventurers. Good stuff to know, as I scrolled through it.

"Skill point, I believe I've heard of that before. Would that be good, however?" she asked, and I nodded.

"It's several times what I've gotten the entire time I've been here. I get five per level, and have to spend them on stats or skills. These would allow me to gain quite a bit of power for myself," I tell her, and I can almost hear her considering that, before speaking again.

"What of the other choice?" she asked, and I turned my attention to it, reading through.

"It's less focused on me, interestingly enough. Instead of my power going up, it's my Followers who will gain in power. Everyone who follows me, so long as they do, gains the ability to level," I say, and I can hear her suck in a breath at that, something I understand. No Hourglass, no Church, just Follow the Bow Hero, and you can become a super human...well super being anyway.

"That is…extreme to say the least. An army at the snap of your fingers, though it would require trust on the part of you and the one you so bless," she opined, and I had to agree.

"It gets better. If they're 'Loyal' to me, which I can actually see as a rating on the list, they get an EXP bonus too. Nothing even close to being in my party, a few percent, but nothing to sneeze at. Though it becomes a penalty if they stop being loyal in some way. It doesn't explain details there," I explain, scrolling down a bit more.

"There is a cost here though. I lose the ability to form a larger party. I can only have two of them with me at any point, A Left Hand and a Right Hand. They keep the full 'Hero Party' EXP bonus, and I gain a new skill to boot," I tell her, looking at the Skill, wondering how I could find out what it did, only for the menu to helpfully open up beside it, and I read through it quickly.

It was, to put it bluntly, the sort of skill that was always growing in power. The first would allow me to buy enough skills and points to turn myself into a modestly powerful god, permanently. Heck, with the right distribution of them I would have been able to deal with the T-Rex solo, blowing it away. That meant whatever the skill was, it had to be worth giving up not only four party slots(actually said I could have had ten, but the four beyond the primary six were listed as 'rotational), but also that kind of power.

And it was. One to ten percent of all stat points of my Followers were 'copied' onto the two I designated as my 'Hands'. The amount copied was based on a formula that went up as they gained loyalty to me, which, since many were at the highest tier of that, meant quite a lot of power for the two I picked. Not as much as I'd like, honestly, given the skill cost itself meant it couldn't be permanent, but it was quite good.

"The skill would allow me to do what you do to the two designated 'Hands' whom I pick for my party. They'd get stat buffs based off my Followers. It wouldn't be as permanent as my own boost, I can see the cost in SP, and a quick and dirty calculation says five or ten minutes before I drain myself. But it is a significant boost," I told her, banishing the menus from my sight so I could see again, save the menu with the choice.

"That is quite the choice to make," she said as she came back into view, and I couldn't do anything but nod again. It was…difficult honestly. The former was going to increase my ability to be agile. I could see whole skill lines in my menu that I'd finally be able to afford, some of which might be able to outpower the 'Hand' skills in the long term, but not by much, and even then, I was speculating on how to use them.

The Hand skills themselves would be useful, even better when it became known that my Followers would gain the power of Leveling from simply BEING my Follower. Still not sure how it determined that, though the simplest answer was moving into Sanctuary. It wouldn't be as versatile, but it was the sort of power that could keep growing, as more people joined up, I'd be able to increase their power more and more, especially as they leveled up themselves.

"The first would make me far more powerful right now, but the second would have a higher ceiling on power I could give, both to my Hands, but also to my Followers," I say, looking at the options, and then finally, closing my eyes. Focusing, I tried to close the window with the option, but on opening my eyes again, it was still there, telling me this was a decision I had to make now, no putting it off, and finally, I decided.

"I'm playing support anyway, might as well go all the way," I said, and selected the second option. Instantly, the world filled with more menus, the list of Followers, now filled with stat blocks for everyone, not just the stats everyone had, but classes and everything else. I could almost feel the people involved starting, as they were asked to select their class, with my menu not offering to let me select it for them this time, which was good as I wouldn't have bothered with this many.

I glanced at my Party list, and watched as it emptied, which I found odd, though perhaps it was to encourage me to pick from my Follower pool as well as those I'd had in my Party? Whatever the case, I really hoped the others didn't think this was me dismissing them, or that I died or something, as I could see them being very angry with me when I reappeared, especially since I now only had two slots to work with.

Still, it was over a few moments later, the list closing, and with a thought, I dismissed the menu. Standing there, in the clearing beside the Carriage, I looked down at my hands, and briefly used my skill, 'Hand of the Hero' One for my left, one for my right. The chosen hand glowed a bit, with a golden aura, and when I did both together, it was quite the shine, which made me smile, as I nodded to Fitoria.

"I believe we can consider our question and answer period over for now, wouldn't you?" I asked, and she nodded, smirking a little, as she motioned, and we returned to the place where the others were still waiting, Naofumi having only just started finishing the big drums, with Raphtalia easily picking one up and dumping the contents into a trough that had been found somewhere, the filolials taking to it like horses to water.

Fitoria helped herself to another bowl from the second drum…then three more, along with Filo who did much the same, still stopping to help with the cooking where they could. Meanwhile, with the Princess' help, I took a few of the drums to the small lake at the edge of the ruins, and gently washed them out with the crystal clear water, returning them to take another, and then another, as Naofumi made more and more of the stuff.

The moon was waning towards the horizon, slowly drifting out of the sky, by the time everything was done, and the ladies had passed out amid the fluffy gatherings of filolials. Even Raphtalia and the Princess, with a huge number gathered around Filo in her natural form, which made them look like they were 'her' children, something Fitoria dismissed as she motioned for the Shield Hero to follow her, eyeing me when I got up to come too.

Before I could do much to protest, a few of the loose birds had gotten up, and dog…birdpiled me, gathering on top and below me, in a way that made me not protest at all, instead finding their feathers softer than my bed back home, and certainly softer than anything I'd found on this world. I needed little more incentive, and within a few minutes, I joined the others in slumber, to await the coming dawn.

(A/N: Just to be clear, this is probably not how the Vassal Carriage power up method works in canon. I got contradictory info, ranging from it levels up based off distance traveled to monsters encountered/studied(Though what that last means was never defined). Most of its combat use was by ramming into things too. So I'm going with this instead.

The first is the level up system from Fable III…sort of, that one involved spending Crests you earned from each follower on chests in the Road to Glory since Fable doesn't do normal menus if it can help it. Here, it was just a direct stat up as I wasn't going to rip that out wholesale, and to be fair, it wasn't the choice he was going to pick anyway given his support build.

The second choice, and the one he went with is one used in a few of the 'Disciples' games where commander type units could get skills to power up themselves based off their armies, creating a larger incentive to keep the army back, and allow the commander to charge forward instead, a unique twist on the Heroes of Might and Magic formula the game otherwise plays straight. I hear that series does something similar in HOMM6&7…though I refuse to give Ubisoft money to find out.

Anyway, to say this early, I'm going to go with each Hero and Vassal weapon uses a different power up method, same as in canon. Each one Levels the same, kill monsters get EXP, but each also comes with a personal way to gain power(Bow gets skill points, Shield can stuff things into it outside of monster parts, etc). I'll try and list where the systems come from when we get there.

Beyond that Vassal Weapons give the corresponding Hero a choice when they 'sync' with it on how to use it, similar to how the Carriage did here, mostly to allow them to customize a bit. But only with the Weapon that spawned from, otherwise the others get the same powerup from it.

And for anyone who wants to do the math and says this will make the Lucia…er I mean the Hands overpowered, well, it will, but not as fast as you might think. Remember, this is 'percentage of what they have in stats' based. So basically, since no one STARTS with more than 100 in a stat, which is the upper limit most start far lower, and as I established it takes a while to level, this will have a major boost to the stats of the Hands, but basically starts as equal to ALL the stat boosts Bard could already do, but all as one skill, and focused on 2 people at once. Though with time and effort on the parts of the Followers, they can and will grow even stronger.)