Lloyd sat down and summoned a can of soda from his storage space. Very sought-after type of ability – sadly, I never awakened such a thing. The manifestations for it don’t come often either, so they’re all bloody expensive.
?Ability: [Dimensional Lockbox] (Utility)
Incantation: none
Cost: none
Cooldown: none
Damage Output:
- none
Effects:
-
Tier I
- Open a dimensional storage space.
-
Tier IV
- Temporarily increase space available by continuously channelling mana. Releasing this function will dump the items contained in the extra space back into physical reality.
He took an experimental sip, then nodded approvingly. I rolled my eyes – he’s been addicted to this stuff ever since they started mass-distributing it. It’s just easy to get, I suppose – tastes like shit to me.
“So,” Lloyd leaned in conspiratorially, elbows on knees. “Tell me about the hourglass.”
I sighed, pulled the hourglass out from under my scarf.
It shook on its chain, red sand twinkling.
It shook on its chain, red sand twinkling.
It shook on its chain, red sand twinkling.
“So you know how my parents were some kind of high class in Rueleva.”
“That’s true? Thought you made that up.”
“Of course it’s true. I would never lie to you.”
Lloyd cocked his head. “Ari, you are a disgusting manipulative scoundrel. You would totally lie to me.”
“Oh don’t you fuckin’ – ugh. Whatever! My family’s prestigious in some obscure hellhole and this hourglass was passed down through the line.”
“Okay. That doesn’t explain a lot.”
“Damnit Lloyd, let me finish.”
He stared at me innocently.
“So, my bloodline can do this weird thing we call reality-bending.”
Lloyd choked and spluttered. “I’m sorry, what?”
I bent my fingers to cast and an arc of red lightning snatches Lloyd’s soda right out of his hands, spins it right around and sends it back to him.
“Like that.”
“So you have tele-fuckin-kinesis,” Lloyd gaped.
“Not just, ” I said, and turned his soda into an apple.
“Hey – what the –”
“More nutritious. Tier sevens need their nutrition – you wouldn’t want to present a bad role model to the Verosavs, wouldya?”
“Fuck you, Anyrysm tastes good. Apples are weirdly textured.”
“No they’re goddamn not.”
“Oh, you have no idea – whatever. The fuck d’you mean reality bending???”
“Basically, I can just… change matter. Move, reconfigure… all of that.”
?> Item mailed from [Aryon Hastor]
Title: [Reality Warper]
Gives the user the ability to manipulate reality. This title is unrestricted but does not draw on mana, rather the user’s soul itself. Due to the stress it puts on the soul, it effectively grows in strength as the user’s soul does. Reality manipulation includes: reshaping/repurposing matter, duplicating matter, voiding matter, conjuring matter, and more.
“That’s… really fucking cool,” he said, still looking shocked. “Also – COMPLETELY FUCKING OVERPOWERED? Why d’you get that?”
“No idea. Bloodline bullshit. But for most of them, it’s not so overpowered. The hourglass is the only thing that keeps me from burning to a crisp using it.”
“Ah. That’s… significantly less cool than I thought. But – still, that’s fucking sick for you.”
“Mhmm. I just don’t know why Grim would want the thing, much less this new guy Arodorros. Doesn’t make sense.”
“Ari, are you stupid?”
I raised an eyebrow.
“If it can supply the power for you to not melt into debris when otherwise you would… it’s probably pretty darn powerful by itself yes? And someone else could take that power and use it for their own purposes. It’s a great big MacGuffin of a battery.”
“That’s… that does make sense.”
Lloyd put down his apple after realizing he’d been holding it in drinking position the whole time. I pulled at my hair.
“So… ” I started, gathering thoughts. “So these two separate parties both want my mother’s old hourglass. Which means we have to fend off two separate parties on the way to Troltano.”
“Sounds fun!” Lloyd tried for cheery.
“Ughh… we’re so fucked.”
“Hey,” he patted my shoulder. “It’ll be fine. That Arodorros guy seemed friendly enough ya? Maybe we can just negotiate him out of here. And Grim hasn’t shown up this whole time. And us, we’ve got the fuckin, I dunno, something! We got this.”
I looked at him increduously. “You are so fucking weird.”
“No, you.”
“You.”
“Me, and you.”
“Acceptable compromise,” I laughed.
We shook mock hands, and I stared him in the eye. It was serious time.
“If Arodorros is actually from Dawne though, that implies a lot of political bullshit.”
“I mean… we’re asking your father to help out anyway, right? He’s your contact into the guilds and govs, he can get them to take up the situation from here.”
“Yeah, sure, but one… my father’s kind of an arse.”
Lloyd chortled. “You and me both mate.”
“Okay, buddy,” I snorted. “Two, dunno when you last freshened up on your geopol… but Dawne and most of Rueleva has triple the magic density of Haelcrien. Which also means that their people and assets are far more powerful. And –”
“And if Arodorros is got out of Dawne’s borders, it means he must be either ridiculously overpowered or an officially organized operative. Which means he also has either the Dawne Kingdom’s assets arrayed behind him, or the assets of an even more powerful entity.”
“Which means we’re fucked.”
“Well – hold on, not exactly. There’s always a chance yeah? Haelcrien doesn’t just have local guilds, we’ve also got branches of foreign guilds. Call in some favours?”
“Okay -” I said, then calmed myself. “Here’s the issue: we shouldn’t be having to deal with any of this. Listen to what you’re saying. You’re presuming we can just get my deadbeat father off his lazy gov’ning ass, which is a ridiculous presumption already, and you’re also just throwing around the idea of hiring high rank guilds and shit like we’re dicussing tomorrow’s breakfast. This is wrong.”
“Well, the hell else we s’posed to do?” Lloyd sounded almost angry. “We have to do something, we can’t just leave – abandon this. Grim will kill you if you won’t drop the damn hourglass and I don’t think you want to give it a nuclear battery or whatever. And we can’t just give some spooky foreign power the thing either, they could start a war or something!”
“Well,” I bit my lip.
“You’re not seriously considering – ”
I waved offhandedly.
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“So? The big guns up in Avertine will handle it, or they’ll conscript the Autumnians in Sahrongard. There’s no way we’re stacking up against Grim nor Dawne, they’re not gonna send us to war.”
“You – you can’t just,” Lloyd facepalmed. “Ari. People are going to die.”
“People can run, and I’ll be sure to run first. And all you fuckers with me.”
“But people are gonna fucking die!”
“I just counterpointed that, Lloyd. Do you really care about all those doomed, or do you just like to pretend you’re a good person?”
I winced inwardly at my own words – that came out wrong. “Sorry, no, not that you’re a bad person but – okay, you are, but so is everyone else!”
Lloyd just shook his head.
“Whatever. We have to go to Troltano regardless. I’m making you and Bia will too. We are heading to Troltano and dragging your father out of bed and then he’ll have the guilds save Haelcrien’s ass.”
“Hmph,” I went. “Lloyd, you know you can’t force me into anything. You can’t fight me.”
“Violence is only one form of persuasion.”
“And what else –”
The door swung open: “Hellooo!!!!” Bia called in, crunching down onto the sofa and setting down… also a can of Anyrysm soda. Bloody hell.
“I tried this drink you recommended, Lloyd,” she said with a smile. “Fuckin’ delicious.”
“It’s literally just liquid sugar,” I scoffed.
“Sugar’s good.”
“It’s bloody sugar flavoured water. It’s ridiculous in concept already, much less execution.”
“Whatev, tastes good,” she looked around and seemed to read the room for once in her life. “You okay Lloydie? You look a little red. Which is weird, you’re Golden Boy not… uh… I dunno, Reddish Boy. Radish Boy. Yeah.”
“Never call me that,” he said with an icebreaking laugh.
I turned to my sister. “We’ve got a lot to discuss.”
“Oh, ” she looked around with wide eyes. “I’m about to get loredumped aren’t I?”
***
After the annoyance of explaining something with higher than kindergarten comprehension levels to Bia, I’d taken a lengthy night’s sleep. We didn’t have to leave so early today – it’d be days until the next town and we’d end up camping in the middle anyway. Might as well relax a little.
It would’ve been lengthier if it weren’t for Bia.
“ARI! OI!!”
Fuck’s sake. I turned on the light. Bia had evidently left already.
“Bia, I could probably hear you if you just spoke regularly. Tier seven ears.”
“THIS IS FUNNIER.”
“SHUT THE FUCK UP!” came an unknown voice from the next room over.
Oh, yeah. We’ve been completely embarrassing ourselves, this is a public inn.
“Bia, be quiet,” I said in full confidence of her hearing, despite no response, and got dressed to find her before she caused any more disturbances.
I found her in the inn’s main room in a quiet corner with Rosa, saturated in sweat and triumph, and Dan, saturated with mirth and ridicule. I raised an eyebrow.
“I took Rosie to hunt some monsters this morning,” Bia patted Rosa like a proud parent. “She did well enough to get ta tier one!”
“She almost died again,” Dan supplemented, and I was inclined to believe his version.
“I hate you all,” Rosa glared balefully at us.
“I didn’t say anything,” I smirked.
“Now you did.”
I laughed, as Lloyd came down the stairs, stuffing a book into his bag.
“We’re doing their specializations rituals now, yeah?”
“Yep!” Bia cheered. “Would’ve been earlier, if Ari could wake the fuck up.”
“Didn’t you just come in with Rosa?” I asked incredulously. “How would me not waking up have affected it at all?”
“Well, ya see here Ari, I had to blame someone and poor innocent Rosalie ain’t done nothing wrong, while you are a –”
“Disgusting manipulative scoundrel!” Lloyd finished joyously.
I sighed.
“Why d’you need me for the rituals anyway? Surely Lloyd could do it.”
“I’m all theory no practice,” said the Golden Boy, his knowledgeable facade peeled away.
“Really? You know I’m going to mock you forever now.”
“Don’t worry,” Bia said. “I’ve already been doing it.”
“Alright,” I turned to the Verosavs. “Have you picked a concept?”
“Beer,” said Dan. My eyebrows began levitating off my forehead – though the surprise was quickly quelled by Rosa’s incoming and very much expected statement:
“Nope!”
I’d write myself sighing again, but I think this diary’s already oversaturated with it.
“Right…” I turned to Lloyd. “You want to…”
Pleading eyes. Yeah, go on, I nod.
“Okay, so basically, the specializations like the thing that directs the way your abilities synergize –”
“You said that the first time I got mauled,” Rosa interjected.
“Oh, right,” Lloyd stopped and resumed with the speed of someone who’d forgotten he needed to speak at rate a tier one could comprehend. “Yeah, so you want to go with something super basic and general at the start that can be interpreted a lot of ways because you want versatility while you’re still deciding what to do so this ensures your shit goes well until you can put more effort into refining that specialization and it also leaves less massive weaknesses lying around as you’re not overspecializing into something before your power level can compensate for it and I’d recommend for like a – you’re doing a bow and arrow typa thing right – so probably something with agility based connotations like me and Arrs so like – well actually we didn’t really go for anything agility based haha – but anyway I’d say something to do with nature like Wind or Water or fuck it just go with Nature itself –”
“Lloyd,” Rosa put her hands up in a stopping motion. “Can we not? I’ll take Nature.”
“Wait – wait, but you need to – have to consider more than just –”
“It’s fine ‘Lloydie’,” I said. “Nature’s good enough for now. There’s no such thing as a bad specialization anyway, she’ll just have to refine it later.” I then turned to Dan. “But why Beer?” “I like beer,” he said. “And no specialization’s a bad one, aye? It’ll work out.”
“Whatever,” I stood up and turned about. “We’re not just doing it here are we?”
Bia grinned. “I mean… why the heck not? It’s plenty open space here, empty in the mornings. Gives the locals a bit of a spectacle too ya?”
“Ugh. If we get kicked out I’m pinning it on you.”
“And then I’ll pin the innkeeper to the wall with a knife! It’ll be fine.”
“Arodorros is in town.”
“Ahhh he’s just some old man can’t do nothing.”
I ignored her, fetched a piece of chalk and a big wooden board from my dimensional bag. I placed the board on the ground in front of our little nest of couches and started drawing.
Ritual circles were the fundamental base of all Kaalvalese tech. The arrangement of the lines directs input aura energy in specific patterns to do specific things. A specialization ritual was among the simpler ones: the goal is to have the target’s soul bring out the concept it wants to use, prerequisite being that the soul has been exposed to that concept enough to use it. Fae souls are, by some quirk of evolution, inherently capable of this, so all that’s needed is to provide a power source for the integration.
To do this, I made a simple aura concentration ritual – swirling lines going inward, as aura likes to curve about. Some extra enhancements to stop the tap when enough is enough. I placed a governance core along each side of the circle and directed Rosa in.
“Okay…” she said. “Now what?”
“Reach for Nature, or whatever identification you have with it.”
“How the fuck do I do that?”
“Start by thinking about it, and maybe the soul will do the rest, or you’ll fail catastrophically and we’ll all laugh at you.”
She glared. “Not feeling very appreciated right now.”
“Welcome to the adventuring world,” Bia said mock dramatically. “As Ari will doubtless tell you, it’s a spoopy world of danger and daring, of risk and sacrifice. Watch your back, even around your allies, for truly, you may have none!!!!!”
“Shut the fuck up,” Rosa and I synced.
“Okay, so I’m thinking about Nature.”
“Yeah, keep doing that.”
It took until I’d set up Dan’s ritual that Rosa finally got it working. The chalk lines and flashed bright, healthy green before vaporizing, the light zipping into Rosa in a short lived localized tornado.
“Woah,” she breathed breathlessly.
That was a weird sentence. Anyway.
?> Item mailed from [Rosalith Verosaven]
You have incorporated specialization concept [NATURE]
Your specialization is now: [Nature] + [null] -> [Nature]
Your abilities will now trend towards new specialization.
Dan was done not soon after.
?> Item mailed from [Dan Verosaven]
You have incorporated specialization concept [BEER]
Your specialization is now: [Beer] + [null] -> [Beer]
Your abilities will now trend towards new specialization.
“Good,” I said, glad nothing had gone wrong. Small risk, but stupid people always make small risks bigger ones. “Now we’re done with that…”
I pulled two little blue marbles from my dimensional bag. They were both of the greyish sort of blue, swirling with patterns of jagged wind. Or maybe it was lightning. I’ve no idea, it just looked cool.
?Item: [DASH] (Ability Manifestation)
Tier: 1
A common dash ability contained in physical form.
“Your first somewhat combat abilities,” I grinned. “Don’t look down on its genericism. Dash is incredibly useful even to grownups like us three.”
They both took one.
“So, how do I take this?” Rosa asked. “Do I like, eat it or something? It looks kind of tasty.”
“That is in fact what you do,” Dan said.
“How the hell you know?” I asked him, surprised.
“I serve an inn. Most good innkeepers have telekinesis,” he replied. “I know you sheltered shit wouldn’t notice, but that is a thing.”
“Ah, okay. Very nice of you to say that way.”
They swallowed their Dashes.
?Ability: [Dash] (Movement)
Incantation: none
Cost: very low mana
Cooldown: none
Damage Output:
- none
Effects:
-
Tier I
- Perform a rapid dash movement via meta energy rather than physical energy. Can be aimed any direction, even if you aren’t facing that way.
“Ooh, okay,” Dan read it over. Rosa didn’t.
“Sick,” she said, and crashed herself sideways into the wall.
“Good job.”