The way to the Rainbow House seemed shortened for Kiresula. She felt as if she had a bit of her [Endurance] back. As she checked her stats screen while waiting at the gate, she gasped. It had indeed risen, except that its name had changed:
Name: K%*x\|(
Class: Seferian Mage
Species: Glitchling
Level: 255
Strength: 255
Fortitude: 256
Agility: 255
Charisma: 255
Aura: 255
Thought: 255
Magic: 293/320 Seren, Recovery: 15/min
Skills: Improved casting, Seferian Fortitude
Learned Spells: Illuminate, Sunlight, Freedom of Movement
Irrelevant, empty or glitched sections excluded
As they arrived, the stick’s tip glowed as soon as it reached the synthic magic. Mayana took one careful step into the area and gasped. “You are right, the second number is increasing here. That is… unexpected.” She reached for her wife’s hand and they walked towards the Rainbow House. While doing so, Mayana whispered: “Wow, [Synthic Resistance] seems to do what it says on the stat screen.”
Kiresula asked about it and Mayana explained that is isolated her from mild to medium synthic magic upon reaching her synthic magical capacity to prevent glitching.
A moment later, they knocked and Kshi opened the door. “Hi Kysan. Were your wife and you successful?”
“Hi Kshi,” Kiresula responded, “Yes, but not really in the way anyone of us expected. We’d like to come in and talk about what happened.”
Kshi looked angry: “I cannot allow someone not a glitchling inside as this house contains things that are purely glitchling matters.”
Mayana looked him straight into the eyes “Like green classes, magic points and skills?” she whispered towards him.
Kshi looked pale for a moment: “Who told you?”
Kiresula responded to the implied accusation: “She told me.”
Kshi invited them both in. After the door closed, Mayana spoke: “I know that you will have issues believing me. So let me explain.”
She then made the gesture to show her stats publicly. Generally, this was not something that people do. It was showing their weaknesses and strengths for everyone to see. Mayana and Kiresula had only seen each other’s on their wedding night. But in this case, Mayana did so as she felt that she needed the trust and potentially later the assistance. The new green values were visible to everyone in the house. She quickly retracted her display and Kiresula showed her stat screen as well, saying an uncertain: “So yeah, this happened…”
They explained the various things they learned: How to form regular enchantments for synthic spells, how synthic magic flows slightly more viscously than regular one and thus spells needed to be adjusted, the existence of two types of magic points, which classes were offered and what their description had been, as well as their new skills. It all was quite confusing to listen to and even more confusing to understand, but they didn’t want to let anything be unsaid. Shla understood and formed another basic spell into a synthic version: [Minor Cure]. Apparently, she had a healing class before and had cut herself this morning cutting vegetables. She shouted: “It worked. I got [Minor Respite]! It’s a green spell!”
Now the others who used to know spells worked on green versions of them. Kiresula went around, assisting others with their casting. Soon others gained classes: Shla gained [Organic Mage], which seemed a class that could heal and inflict condition on others, akin to [Healer] and [Affliction Mage] rolled up into one. As a previous [Healer], this extension of her spell list greatly interested her. Kshi gained [Generalist Mage] as he wanted to have “as many available spells as possible”. Ziyik had not been a mage before, but with Kiresula’s instruction and the fact that she had been on a source of synthic magic for a while, took to it like a duck to water. Her class [Kuvvetian Mage] related to using magic for feats of strength and might in both battle and peaceful uses like construction. Former [Enchanter] Mak flocked to Mayana to regain her class. She struggled a lot to understand how different Enchantments had to be constructed. Kiresula tried to assist as well as Mayana’s understanding of synthic magic was still a bit lacking and her synthic sense was still developing. Kiresula showed where Mak’s structures had weaknesses. Eventually, a simple conditional enchantment stuck and Mak gained the class [Conditional Enchanter], allowing her to add more complex conditions in Enchantments. She preferred that over the generalised Enchanter class that also was offered. Kju documented everything but didn’t try for a class yet. The glitchling felt unhappy immediately committing himself. While many glitchlings were eager to regain a bit of their humanity by gaining a class, any class. Kju felt kind of apprehensive of choosing incorrectly. Kju had regretted his class choice previously.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
In the evening, Kshi turned to Kiresula: “Your class is supposed to be good for travel, right?”
Kiresula nodded: “That is its description, yeah, and many spells in the in-class list seem to be optimised for it, including a synthic version of [Longstrider]. Why do you ask?”
Kshi pointed to Kju’s notes: “We need to inform Ilkshehir and other glitchling communities of it. I will copy Kju’s notes tomorrow and I would appreciate if you could bring it to the Centrality.”
Kiresula raised an eyebrow: “Centrality?”
“The original group in Ilkshehir hid their writings in the Karan cave system near the city. This is still used as a central repository for all of our own knowledge about glitchlings. That repository is called Centrality. The Ilkshehir group has the goal of collating, ordering and correlating these pieces of information. They are not as much researchers as the rest of the groups as they are guardians. With your [Fortitude], you will be back before [System] day.” That day was still months away.
“I guess so, sure. I will need to talk with my family though. Even with [Freedom of Movement] and [Valiant Stride], which I currently have not learned, it will be a long absence. Especially as I am not sure if Mayana and I can afford to take some time off.” Kiresula hedged.
“I understand that, but as a [Seferian Mage], you are the ideal candidate.” Kshi urged her.
Mayana had heard the discussion: “Road trip?”
Kiresula nodded: “I would like to go, but we need to make sure that we can. I mean, we can’t just up and leave. You have open commissions. We need rations, bedrolls and all the good stuff.”
Mayana smiled at her: “We are making it a joint effort?”
Kiresula nodded, reached out for her right hand and held it in both of hers. ”I could never go on such a trip without you! You know what happened last time I went to a dungeon without you!”
Mayana nodded and grinned: “We both got a new class.” She pressed Kiresula’s right hand with both of her hands.
Sidik looked at the two lovebirds and said: “Get a room, you two!”
They put their hands to their sides again, looking slightly embarrassed. “Sorry, we didn’t want to make anyone feel awkward.”
Kshi looked serious all of a sudden: “Some people were abandoned by those who professed to love them. So, you are unwittingly rubbing salt into their wounds. Please be mindful of that.”
Mayana and Kiresula looked guilty and murmured apologies.
The gongs from the church of the [System] ended the awkward silence that happened after these apologies. Once again, after the noise passed, the group did their choir practice. This time, the group started with a song thanking the [System] for their classes.
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Mayana and Kiresula arrived home in the evening. Makit greeted them and asked how things went. Mayana proudly showed how her rod had an enchantment to light up on exposure to broken magic. She didn’t mention her or Kiresula’s new classes, attributes or skills.
Makit looked impressed and asked it this was a repeatable enchantment.
Mayana nodded and explained that she just needed Kiresula’s assistance for it.
Makit looked eager: “A few of my mates wanted to go into the dungeon and fight some goblins. But with the bouts of broken magic, I wasn’t sure that it was a wise choice. If you could make four of these, our entire party could be protected.”
Mayana nodded: “I can do this, but would request one favour: Talk about where you got this from and that only I can make these enchantments. Advertise for me. As I need to make a trip to Ilkshehir, I need the funds.”
Makit nodded: “Absolutely! But if you need some ingredients for the enchantment, just wait for a [Merchant], you don’t need to go there.”
Kiresula shook her head: “Longer story.”
Mayana stated: “The enchantment itself is actually pretty simple as it uses ambient magic, well, ambient broken magic and you don’t need an external source like a monster core. You just need some really complex magical structures and… things we had to develop from scratch.”
Makit looked flustered: “Do I even want to know?”
Mayana shook her head: “Probably not, unless you have a few hours while my better half talks your ears off about altistructuralism, yukaristructuralism and transient conditions. We were only able to develop this because we both studied that stuff for a long time.” Altistructuralism referred to the substructures that enchantments needed. Yukaristructuralism related to the easily shapeable structures of spells.
Makit nodded: “I can imagine. I was never the person for that stuff. I need to touch things to work with them.”
Mayana responded: “Nothing wrong with that. The [System] made all classes worthwhile.”
Makit responded, still defensively: “I prefer to work in Dad’s workshop. Making things. Working with my hands.”
Mayana responded: “And you could talk my ears off about correct materials and techniques there. And I would not understand a single thing. We all have an area of expertise. I didn’t mean anything negative about it.”
Kiresula nodded. “In addition, it sounds as if Mayana just doesn’t want to talk about it. And to be honest, right now, I get it. I am spent as well. We went to the glitchlings to test it… and you know how little endurance I have.”
“And Mayana is spent from dealing with cranky you?” he asked.
Kiresula nodded. While she actually felt like she finally had her endurance back, she sure as heck would not tell anyone about green stats and classes. “Yeah… I don’t do well behind an insanely low racial modifier as a Glitchling. It sucks to be so frail that a gust of wind could blow you over and have so little endurance that a rat bite could be your peril. I am trying, but yeah… not even sure how I will make it to Ilkshehir, but yannow, someone needs to go over there to find out if anything had changed. If the glitchlings there had found out more about the condition.”
Makit looked at her: “Yikes! Mayana’s going with you?”
Kiresula nodded: “Yeah. It’s not that we are departing in a few hours or even days, but it’s in the future. And my number one goal until then is getting my attitude in check.” She pressed her wife’s hand as if to say: “Just go with it!”
“And right now, I need to give her an incentive to do so.” As Makit raised an eyebrow and grinned wordlessly, she continued: “Having to deal with moody me when I am working on commissions.”