Vina screamed in rage as she punched the barrier. Her mother was gone, and the barrier soon popped out of existence. As she hung on the window frame, she could see her mother had carved runes around it. She felt sick when she saw it was the same handwriting as the notes and the portal rings she had already seen.
She looked up through the window and could see Etana and Annalina standing there at the far side of the room. They spoke to her as one, “Come inside, Vina. We can be a family again.” Vina pushed away from the window, tears in her eyes.
The danger was still real despite her distraught grief over losing her mother. Vina felt her blood begin to boil, and it was the only blood in the city she could feel right now. “Everyone is fake”, she said to herself. She tried to psych herself up as she stormed toward the castle amidst the rain. As she neared, more and more doors opened. She saw school friends begging her to play or help. She saw everyone she had ever seen on the streets of Seattle. They all welcomed her to come inside, to help them, or they threatened her.
When she couldn’t take it anymore, she ran as fast as she could without draining her stamina. She covered her ears, now secure that no one could physically hurt her unless she went into the buildings. Finally she stood in front of the open castle gate. She steeled her emotions, trying to keep her anger on the forefront. “I will kill whoever did that to Priya”, she said to herself. She immediately created several blood blades and attached them to her belt and the bandolier across her body. She created a blood claw in her right hand and waited for her body to replace some of the blood she used. The process was so slow, she wasn’t really sure why she waited. When the thought came up, she told herself she was actually waiting for her stamina.
Finally she touched the lantern at her hip to turn it on. She felt the comforting red glow surrounding her and she took a deep breath. She tried to clear her mind and prepare for what might be waiting for her inside the castle. “It may be dark inside and you can’t sense the memories”, she said to herself, “You’ll have to rely on your other senses.”
Suddenly the sounds around her stopped. She looked around trying to figure out what was going on. When she looked to the large open gate that allowed the only entrance through the main stone walls, she saw a man standing just inside the doors. She almost lost her resolve when she saw who it was. The man’s glowing green hands told her everything she needed to know. However, the man did not chant. He had a look of confusion on his face.
He raised a hand, obviously switching through his various stat windows. He moved quickly through his information before closing it all with a swipe. “Vina?” he called out in a loud voice. “Why aren’t the shadows controlling me anymore?”
Vina looked at him with caution, but she could tell something was different about him. “I’m so sorry, but you’re not real. You’re a memory, created by an aspect of someone inside the castle”, Vina yelled back.
The man took a deep breath and shook his head. “Just a memory. I had hoped I was free, but it seems my fate is to be controlled. I don’t want to hurt you, but there is something telling me to. Thank you for giving me a few moments of clarity, Vina. I’m sorry, but I am going to be opting out of this. I refused to be controlled anymore. You may not want to watch.”
Vina’s heart was moved and she couldn’t help but ask, “What’s your name?”
The man smiled at her, “My name is Klarx.” Klarx paused before speaking again, “Vina, I suspect the controller of the Aspect is very bad at it. They can’t fully control me, recreate the shadows, or my aspect.”
Vina’s eyes opened in understanding. “When you appeared, the others disappeared”, she said.
Klarx nodded, “When I leave, I suspect it will take the owner a little bit of time to recover their divinity before they can bring someone else that is strong. You must be fast if you wish to succeed. Good luck, Vina.”
Klarx raised his hands above his head and a green cloud formed above him. Vina looked away when she realized what he was doing. She heard a sizzling noise and waited for a second. Then she activated Free Running, and ran straight toward the castle gates.
Beyond the castle gate was a massive open courtyard leading to the castle proper. She activated her parkour skill and jumped over the various bushes, fences, and benches that got in her way. She had no idea what she was looking for in the castle, but she had a simple plan. “Whoever is doing this has blood. I just need to find them with Blood Sense”, she said to herself as she ran. Her blood sense skill had a limited distance, but it seemed to have grown since the first day she had received the skill. She knew she had about 90 feet of detection in a sphere around her.
She raced across the courtyard, but hadn’t completely cleared the distance when memories began to appear again. “I thought they only appeared inside buildings?” She thought as she became distracted. She nearly tripped when dozens of people she knew suddenly appeared immediately in front of her. They ran toward her and she was forced to retaliate with her knives to keep them from swarming her. Her heart hurt when she killed those who had helped her. The innkeeper’s wife, Rana, grabbed her and Vina hesitated. The woman had been so nice to her when she first arrived in Prosit that Vina couldn’t bring herself to kill her. She instead kicked Rana in the stomach and ran onward. She gasped when six more Ranas appeared in the area around her, all intent on running at her.
Vina gritted her teeth and managed to reach the gates to the castle proper. She pulled on the doors even as people moved in behind her. The door didn’t budge. Vina launched blades behind herself, clearing an area. Then, using her parkour skill ability, she ran at the wall and jumped to a nearby lamp post. She pulled herself up and jumped to an arrow slit window. She missed the ledge and her Catch Yourself skill activated. Her hand suddenly caught the edge in a firm grip. She used her climbing skill to hold on and swung her body to a wall edge. Using her feet for more leverage, she struggled to pull herself up. “I need more strength!” she grunted to herself. But she managed to get an elbow over the edge and then another before cresting the wall entirely. She turned back to call all of her blood knives, trying hard to not waste any of her blood.
While her running did not currently take any stamina, the parkour and climbing skills did. She looked at her stamina bar and cringed at seeing she had burned through about a quarter of her stamina with that last stunt. “Let’s hope there aren’t any more of those”, she thought.
Atop the wall, Vina ran into a nearby tower. To her great luck, she found the door had been left open and inside she found a staircase that led down. Vina eyed her free running skill and saw she had just four minutes of running available to her now. She raced down a narrow hallway that began to slowly fill with people. She cursed when she saw people appearing behind her as well. “Fuck… this better work!” she shouted as she ran down the hallway. She threw more knives out, trying to cut down the number of people in front of her. She felt increasingly horrible at seeing the faces of people she cared for. They looked at her with faces filled with confusion, fear, and pain as she killed them over and over again. “I’m sorry”, she said until the words didn’t make sense to her anymore.
At the end of the hallway, she turned inward toward the center of the castle, hoping her blood sense skill could get the best coverage there. She saw two more large doors and once again tried opening them, and much to her relief they were not locked. She found herself in a wide open area. “A throne room?” she wondered aloud. She ran inside, sweeping the area with her blood sense skill. Behind her, the doors slammed shut and two men in armor appeared. “Marit? Trip?” Vina said in surprise. “Please. I don’t want to kill any more”, Vina begged them. They rushed her with swords drawn and shields held in front of them.
Vina looked for an exit, but when she looked around she saw another copy of the same guards. She threw her knives at the two that had yet to move, striking both in the chest area. The two charging guards were almost upon her and Vina raised her Ruby Claw in defense. The swords came down fast and hard, but they had aimed for the same spot and she easily blocked their strikes. They attacked together in the exact same manner and in an untrained way. Vina used her claw to intercept them once more, knocking the swords to the side. She threw her knives at their exposed area and found weak points to exploit. “They’re just bad copies”, she thought, trying to comfort herself by echoing her mother’s earlier assessment. More Marit and Trip guards appeared in the throne room. She groaned and ran to the nearest door. Even if they were bad copies, they seemed to be infinite, and her stamina was not.
Vina ran through the door and into a side wing of the castle. Just as she ran down the hall, passing numerous rooms, her free running skill ran out. She groaned, and looked around, “Why isn’t there anyone here?” she thought. She rounded a corner and was suddenly face to face with Klarx. His face grinned evilly and he kicked her with enough force to knock her off her feet and into the wall. This time, however, she didn’t feel anything break. His face softened, “In Trina’s name! I’m sorry Vina. It made me again?” he asked.
Vina gasped as she tried to regain her breath, “Yes. Are you going to kill me?”
Klarx clenched his fists, “It wants me to. But I won’t be controlled anymore.”
“Do you have any skills that can tell you where the Aspect is?” Vina asked quickly.
Klarx closed his eyes and focused for a moment, “I don’t have any skills that do that, but I feel a connection. It’s outside the castle though, Vina. It’s over there somewhere”, he said as he pointed behind the building. He began to walk, but slowly turned to mist.
Vina got to her feet and ran to the nearest window. She busted it open with her claw and climbed down to the ground. She slowly jogged the length of the castle, trying to keep an eye on her stamina. She was hopeful no more memories would spawn outside, but that had not been the case in the courtyard. She struggled to understand why there was a difference to this aspect.
Behind the castle she once again started seeing people appear. “Bandits!” she exclaimed as an arrow flew past her. She looked around at the six bandits, two with spears and others with bows. She recognized all of them of course. They were the same ones she apprehended. She felt a pang of guilt at the one pale guard that sighted down on her now. The arrow flew toward her and she knocked it away with her claw almost effortlessly.
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Vina saw what Klarx had been pointing at. It was a larger stone building with doors wide open. She saw a crest above and carved statues of a woman near the doors. She had seen the same crest in Prosit and immediately knew it was a Refuge of Trina. Vina walked toward the refuge, trying to restore some of her stamina. The archers seemed to be of no significant threat. Her agility’s reaction speed was fast enough to deflect these arrows with minimal effort. The two spear wielding bandits received knives in their bodies for daring to approach her. When she got close enough, she eliminated the archers as well.
She looked around and saw no one else had reformed around her. She anticipated Klarx reappearing, but the garden around her remained quiet. Vina stood in front of the refuge and rested for a moment. She had received only minor damage with Klarx’s kick, but her stamina was suffering. “Nori is right. I need way more stamina”, she huffed to herself.
She had a hard time allowing herself to recover. She kept looking around and jumping at every sound. Each movement caused her recovery to dip momentarily, but she managed to rest for dozens of minutes without being disturbed. When she was finally sitting at 75% stamina, she walked toward the Refuge of Trina. When she was still some distance away, she stopped. “What’s that sound?” she thought. Then she recognized it, “Oh fuck no”, she muttered just as a wasp-like scorpion creature burst out from the chapel. “A Craelid!” Vina exclaimed as she immediately launched a few daggers at the creature.
She already knew the weak point of these creatures. Its massive eyes made for easy targets. Suddenly another Craelid exited the Chapel and then another. Vina gritted her teeth when they spread their insect wings and flew into the sky. She had never seen them do that before, but it was exactly how she had dreamed it in her nightmares.
Up to this point, she had been merely throwing her knives. As the chapel began to make craelid after craelid, Vina began juggling. She threw knives out, aiming for eyes. The knives in eyes were not enough to outright kill a craelid. It was merely enough to disable them. But as the insects fell from the sky they landed with enough force to crack their carapaces. Vina slowly walked toward the chapel, keeping the insects at bay. Those in the air tried to dive on her, their scorpion tails held in front of them like a stinger. The ones that remained on the ground skittered toward her and tried to stab her with their needle arms.
She dodged and avoided as best she could, but her Kaliter armor began to take damage from the attacks she could not get away from fast enough. Although the item was labeled indestructible, Vina began to suspect that it meant something different to the system than what it meant to her. Clearly it could still be damaged. She tried switching to blocking with her claw, but its armor was less than what she wore. Her claw began to chip and fracture with the number of attacks she managed to keep from striking her body.
Vina quickly burned through her three mobility uses and avoidance wasn’t up to the task of the constant attacks she was experiencing. Vina launched knife after knife and creatures fell from the sky. When they got too close, she struck them with a knife in her hand while she held it with her claw. Soon her claw began to completely fracture and fall apart from all the blocking she was doing. Vina yelled in rage as she reformed the claw from her blood to cover her arm. She stood at the entryway to the chapel, being attacked from the craelids inside and those outside. For the first time, Vina’s Blood Sense found the blood of another person.
Vina used Blood Call and pulled every knife that existed in the garden. Like a wave, they flew back to her through the bodies of the numerous craelids that threatened to overwhelm her. When the blades got close to her body, she dismissed them into blood which she then reabsorbed. She was disappointed at just how little she got back. With the craelids in the garden temporarily cut down, Vina turned to the inside of the chapel.
For the first time in a while, Vina pulled her piercing sword from her hip and stabbed the nearest Craelid through the eye. Her Weak Points skill casually informed her how far to push the sword in. When she reached the brain, the creature fell limply to the ground. The other one backed away slightly but she rushed it, reaching for it with her clawed hand. She swept the claw down, cutting the armored face of the creature and then held the carapace between its two multifaceted eyes like a handle. She plunged the sword into this one as well. Still holding the piercing sword in her hand, Vina looked around like a crazed animal for the next threats, but there weren’t any.
By now she had seen the pattern. She had killed so many creatures, she likely used up the aspect owner’s divinity. “The memories would return once their divinity had refilled”, she whispered to herself. She turned to the person whose blood she felt. Vina wanted to run toward the person in the chapel, but she was exhausted. Her stamina hovered at around 10% and her blood bar showed to be just 20% above the death mark despite her earlier absorption
She took a step forward and was surprised to see her leg couldn’t support her weight very well. She looked down and saw a needle-like arm had punctured her armor and calf. “When did that happen?” she thought to herself. She reached around and yanked the appendage free from her leg. Her blood tried to leak out of the wound, but she called it back, mentally holding it inside the wound.
She looked at her health bar and saw she was at 63 health out of her maximum pool of 180. Vina reached into her backpack and drank one of her mixtures. She did not wait for the mixture to repair her body. Instead, she limped forward toward the person she could see in the distance.
Before the pulpit sat a small person. They wore a white dress with gold buttons while sitting in the lotus position. As Vina limped toward them, she could see the quality of the clothing and that the person here was a young teenager. She couldn’t have been much older than sixteen from what Vina could see. When Vina grew near, the girls’ eyes opened and she glared at Vina. “I know your name. There is nothing anyone can hide from me, Vina. I even know your mother!” The young girl spat at her.
“Then you know, I am going to kill you for torturing her memory!” Vina growled back. She created a knife in her hand and threw it across the room. The girl barely had time to move before the knife hit her. Vina limped up to her and saw the girl was not dead. She used her clawed hand to hold her down as she searched for The Aspect of Memory. The blood red stone was easily found, fused to the side of her head.
Vina pulled another knife from her blood and began carving into the girl’s scalp. The girl screamed in pain as Vina held her down and continued cutting. She cut around the stone until she could get her fingernails around it. Then she ripped it free and the girl screamed once more.
“No!” she wailed. She struggled against Vina’s grasp. “Oh Trina what did she do!” she cried out as the hole in the side of her head pumped out her blood. Vina threw the aspect into her backpack.
Vina looked at the girl with rage in her eyes. She barely noticed a blue flash behind her as she raised the knife one last time. She brought it down with as much strength as she could muster, but her wrist was suddenly stopped by an even greater strength.
“You cry when I ask you to kill grown men, but you excitedly kill a child with a smile on your face”, Nori said, her voice filled the Refuge. “What is wrong with you?”
Vina’s head snapped to Nori’s face. She didn’t even realize she was smiling. Her smile faltered as she dropped her knife. “She.. she…” Vina started, but the words caught in her throat.
Nori pointed to the Refuge entrance, “We don’t kill in Trina’s Refuge. Go outside and calm down. I will talk with you in a moment.”
Vina canceled her ruby claw and Norimor released her hand. Vina slowly stalked out of the Refuge, her injured calf slowed her slightly. Her rage demanded the girl’s life, but she was confused by her guilt at trying to kill this girl. “How could I have gone from saving Milly to killing this one?” she thought.
As she left she could hear the child crying still, “She took my aspect. I need it! I’m going to die!” she cried.
Outside, Vina could see the clouds surrounding the city were dissipating, and the rain had stopped. In the garden, there were no Craelid bodies. But the bodies of people could be seen everywhere. It was clear to Vina that these were the actual citizens of this city that the girl in the Chapel had killed. “Why didn’t I see them before?” Vina wondered to herself absently. A notification popped up in her vision.
Mission Update: Investigate the City of Valanire Completed. Turn in your mission for your reward.
She swiped it away quickly along with all of the other notifications. Vina had a large list of skill and combat notifications, but she ignored them for now. As she sat and her adrenaline began to wane, she discovered numerous little injuries on her body.
You have a broken finger. Your dexterity is reduced by 2. You have 7 open wounds. Your chance of infection is increased by 87% minus bonus to vitality. You have 3 puncture wounds. You are experiencing mild bleeding. You will receive 2 points of damage per minute for the next 30 minutes.
She brought out the bandages from her backpack and got to work covering all of her wounds. For now she did her best to splint her broken finger. Most of her health warnings went away and she simply chose to keep the blood inside her body using her blood runes ability instead of bleeding. It took a bit of her mental focus to do it however.
Some time later, Nori sat down beside her. “Tell me what happened”, she said calmly.
Vina looked at her, unsure where to start or even what to share. Much of what she had seen was personal and desperately needed to be hidden to keep her family safe. “The town was covered in a fog just as they said. Inside the city I started to see things. I fought them off as best I could until I managed to locate that girl. She was the one making the horrible things here.”
“Did you kill these people?” Nori asked softly.
“No. I was killing creatures like Pilidar and Craelids. These people were not here when I was under attack by the Aspect”, Vina said confidently.
Vina watched Nori look around. “It does appear these bodies are several weeks old at this point”, she said.
Vina nodded in relief at her confirmation. She had been worrying since she had seen them that she had slaughtered everyone whilst under the power of the Aspect of Memories. “I’ve only been here a single day.”
Nori shook her head, “Vina, you’ve been inside the mists of Valanire for four days now. I asked for an extension from the Twelve. They wanted to destroy the city, but when I told them we were making progress, they backed away from that threat.”
Vina looked at Nori in surprise, “Four days…” her voice wandered off and her mind tried to comprehend how that could have happened. “Who is the girl? Where is she?” Vina asked.
“I don’t know who she is yet. There is a portal ring inside Trina’s Refuge. I opened it back up and dropped her off somewhere safe. Where is the aspect? Is it a real one?” Nori asked, pointedly.
Vina looked Nori in the eye, “I have it”, she answered, choosing to not answer the second question. “How could a child have bonded with an Aspect?” Vina asked.
Nori sighed, “She is like me. Someone broke her age limiter. I don’t know yet if she was forcefully bonded or if she sought it out herself. Which aspect was it, Vina?”
Vina shook her head, “I’m not giving it away to anyone, Norimor. This aspect shouldn’t be used by anyone, ever.”
Vina saw a hardness in Nori’s eyes which she met with her own. For a moment she thought Nori might force the issue, but then Nori relaxed. “I’ll get that information from the girl you know. If we are going to work together, we need to trust each other more.”
Vina stood up and snapped, “Trust? You threw me into a portal and abandoned me here. I did this all alone. You had my trust at first, and now you’ve lost it”, she said angrily. Nori opened her mouth to respond, but Vina interrupted her, “I need some sleep and then I have more work to do here”, Vina stalked away, leaving Nori alone with her thoughts.