It is said that in the beginning there were twelve. Six god’s of Man and Six god’s of Beast. Through the First Era both man and beast prospered. Each claimed large amounts of land for themselves and the continent of Aven was divided by wilds and nations. Borders of Beast and Man.
However not all things can last. It is said that the second era was signaled by the coming of Mana. A new source of power. A source of power that divided the gods. A source of power that led to their downfall. The Second Era ended with the deaths of our gods at the hands of those who truly controlled the mana.
Then the Third Era began. All hail System. Glory to the Numbers.
* Knowledge from Atria the Fallen, Ancient Aether Wyrm
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Aika POV
A few days ago . . .
How do I go about delivering a letter to the adventurers outside? I’m not allowed to go myself or send any of the dungeon creatures to do it. If I can’t use anyone from the dungeon then how do I get it delivered!
I rage at the wall of my room for several moments, lashing out at it harmlessly with my tails. I wasn’t stupid, I knew exactly who was left to do the delivery if all the dungeon creatures were out. I just really didn’t want to have to ask one of them for help.
“Stupid Adventurers. Stupid Outsiders. Nothing more than thieving intruders.” I angrily mumbled under my breath.
Fortunately Lord Eternal had turned most of his attention away from me. I know that he would never punish me for having my own opinions and thoughts, but it still felt strange to disagree with him on something.
I have no idea why he sees value in those not of the dungeon. Perhaps if he just valued them as a food source I could accept it, but it goes beyond that. The Lord values their lives and even helps to train them using his domain.
Even after he explained to me what a dungeon is and what they are normally used for, I still didn’t get it. Lord Eternal was a god, an all powerful and immortal being. Why did he bother to disguise his true power? Why did bother to cater to these pathetic and frail mortals?
I feel my spirit begin to churn chaotically. The dissonance within my mind causes a physical reaction in my body due to my spiritual nature.
I'm forced to hold my head in my hands as it's wracked with terrible pain. My thoughts spinning in a dozen different directions. My entire being rejects the idea of questioning Lord Eternal, yet at the same time it is the Lord’s own will that allows me to question him in the first place.
The headache intensifies along with a strange tightness in my chest as well. My spirit churned like an ocean during a typhoon.
These pains have been happening ever since I was first selected to be a Chosen. My mind has been completely unable to keep up with my body and my spiritual nature only makes it worse. I’ve been doing everything in my power to suppress this so that Lord Eternal doesn’t find out, I don’t want to trouble him.
No, that’s a lie.
I know that the real reason I hide it is because I’m afraid of what he’ll do if he finds out. If he were to know how much pain becoming his Chosen has caused me he might take it away. I’m willing to endure any amount of suffering if it means I can be by the Lord’s side.
I’m the only Spirit that still remembers what it was like before. Before the Eternal Lord saved us, before he gave us physical forms and a place to belong. As Spirits we were . . . less. We were the insignificant prey of every other entity that inhabited our plane.
Yet now we were truly alive. We were thriving. All the others don’t seem to remember, but I do. It is my duty to remember. I will never let my people forget what Lord Eternal has done for us.
I sense the Lord’s attention moving towards me, I allowed too much of my pain to bleed through our bond. I quickly pick up one of my bladed whips and cut myself with it, focusing on the very real injury to distract from my mentally inflicted pains. I know that it will only work for a moment, a moment is all I need.
“Aika, are you alright?” The Lord’s voice echoes through my mind.
I feel relief, for some reason the Lord’s presence always stabilizes my mental condition. I’m still not entirely sure why, but I welcome it. Just another reason why I need to stay by his side.
“I am fine, my Lord. I was simply debating over how to complete my task and cut myself on my weapon. I won’t let myself get injured due to thoughtlessness again.” I say. I’m unable to directly lie to Lord Eternal, so I’m forced to speak in a delicate manner.
“Very well, in the future try and remember that you can heal yourself.” Lord Eternal says with a slight chuckle, making my cheeks turn pink.
I hurriedly heal myself with my Wyld magic and his attention moves away from me. I’m fortunate that my biological reactions worked in my favor. I am embarrassed that I forgot about my Wyld magic, not because I forgot to heal but because I forgot that I can heal. It would’ve made my lie so obvious.
For once I’m glad that the Lord still sees me as a child. A simple mistake is something he can easily overlook so long as it is learned from.
I breathe a deep sigh and sit on the edge of my bed.
With my head now clear and the pain mostly gone I’m able to think straight again. I know that I need to ask one of the adventurers for help delivering Lord Eternal’s letter. It would be best if I go now, before I’m afflicted with another bout of pain from my psyche.
I stand up and move in front of my mirror, spending several moments carefully controlling my expression. As soon as I leave my room I need to present myself as a proper Chosen, an embodiment of the Lord’s will and one of his representatives.
I really need to get my own place so that I don’t have to always watch how I act all the time. Perhaps I can ask after I complete this task for the Lord. He always likes to reward people for doing a good job. Even when it’s completely unnecessary.
Alright, enough stalling. Time to go outside and find a tolerable adventurer to deliver this letter.
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Z POV
I whistled an upbeat tune as I strolled through the town. Spiritkin would often stop to give me polite greetings or to strike up short conversations. I always returned the gestures and I was happy to stop and chat with them. More often than not we would end up talking about some mundane facet of life, however occasionally I would learn something more interesting.
Like how a pair of girls who worked at the townhall were bragging that they got to have positions of importance. The Spiritkin loved to compete with each other about how close they were to the Eternal Lord. I had gotten used to it and had quickly learned the rules to it. I couldn’t ever compete myself since I was an outsider still, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying the banter.
I walked into a small shop and picked up my team's order. Ever since we died in the Wyrmscale Caverns we had been pushing ourselves to be better. Ava was especially focused on her training, improving both her magic and leadership skills. She even started taking classes from the Guild again.
The main improvement that I was happy about was our increase in levels. We had been neglecting leveling up for too long in my opinion and now we were focusing on it again. While I agreed that leveling up skills before the class upgrade cap was important, I wasn’t as worried as the rest of my team.
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Sure upgrading and changing your class became much harder once you were past the free class ascensions in Zero star, but it wasn’t impossible. While it was commonly accepted that you were stuck with your class’s quality once you passed your free ascension level it was actually still possible to increase it further.
One of the ancient rank up tomes that were made during the second era could do it, if you were lucky enough to find one. You could also gamble on trying to rank up during an ascension. That was a major risk because it meant forgoing the normal ascension benefits and you could still fail resulting in losing a hundred levels and being forced to redo that star rank from scratch.
Personally, I was betting on option number three. This dungeon. The Eternal Dungeon has proven time and time again that it has some pretty potent blueprints when it comes to both monsters and rewards. Plus it was a legacy dungeon that was possibly thousands of years old. There was a chance that it still had the blueprints for class upgrade tomes.
Even if it didn’t and I ended up stuck with my Greater class forever I think I could live with that. I was tired of being in zero star, being stuck at the bottom of the power scale. I wanted to level up, to increase my strength. I needed to be strong if I ever wanted to put my past to rest.
The ringing of a bell and the call of my name pulled me out of my thoughts. The young Spiritkin boy who was manning the front desk of the shop had finished getting my order. I walked forwards and picked it up, moving the items into my inventory for easier transportation. I thanked the kid and tipped him an extra coin.
His smile after receiving it was well worth the 10 gold that the coin could’ve been turned into. It was strange to me. We had been living in the dungeon for a couple weeks and I had already stopped valuing gold as much. Here, Eternal Coins were the currency and gold was worthless. The dungeon thought it was so worthless in fact that the value of EC in gold was constantly rising.
As the dungeon gains popularity the value of its currency only increases. I suppose it makes sense considering that no amount of gold can bring you back from death.
My idle thoughts are once again interrupted when I sight a familiar figure walking down the street. The six tails and fluffy fox ears are definitely familiar, but the scowl on her face is new. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her this angry just walking around.
The other Spiritkin give her reverent looks and move aside to allow her easy passage through the street. Normally she would wave them off and try to make them feel at ease in her presence, but today she doesn’t even notice.
I can feel my innate ability taking hold of me, tugging on me, urging me to go talk to her. I know how it’ll end if I listen to it, the Spiritkin Chosen has some kind of special disklike for adventurers. Perhaps it's even strong enough to be called hatred, although I’ve never seen her attack someone that didn’t have it coming.
I still feel a little bad for that poor noble that team Ironside tricked into approaching her. On the brightside we at least learned more about her from that encounter. Plus that noble brat kinda deserved it, you have to be pretty dumb to think that a dungeon cares about your noble title.
Despite all my better judgment, I still let my ability guide me towards her. Why not make the attempt, maybe if I’m really lucky she’ll snap and kill me and then the dungeon will give me some kind of compensation. If I’m unlucky, I might just end up dead.
As I approach her the Chosen quickly notices me and turns her scowl in my direction. She seems to be contemplating something as I approach.
“Greetings Chosen, may the blessings of Wyla be with you.” I speak my formal greeting smoothly. I had managed to learn what the Spiritkin considered culturally appropriate.
As token bearers of Wyla we are supposedly blessed by the World Tree and therefore are to invoke her name in place of the Eternal Lords. It took me a bit to learn that, but it's been invaluable ever since. Knowing the customs makes it much easier to fit in with the Spiritkin and make them more at ease with my presence.
The Chosen seems surprised by my greeting, her scowl slips away for a moment and returns less severely than before. Now it's more of a frown, quite close to her neutral face from what I remember.
“Greetings Token Bearer, may the blessings of Eternity be with you.” The Chosen says, her look of contemplation turning to decision.
“Would you walk with me for a moment? I have need of a Token Bearer’s service.” She says motioning towards Wyla.
Her request shocks me for a moment, but my training allows me to quickly recover.
“Certainly my lady, lead the way.” I say, she begins to lead and I follow.
This day is certainly becoming interesting, a quest of some sort from the aloof and mysterious Chosen! This could be a major boon for both myself and my party.
The Chosen leads me towards the center of town, to the World Tree Wyla. Once we enter the trunk of the massive tree she begins to move towards the town hall. We walk in silence, the Chosen clearly deep in thought. As much as I want to break the silence and say something, my ability warns against it.
I allow the Chosen to simply think as I follow her, my own thoughts swirling around in my head. I desperately want to know what has finally caused her to reach out to an outsider. Perhaps it was luck that I crossed her path first, perhaps it was because of my many attempts to speak with her in the past. I have no idea and until she tells me something I simply let myself speculate.
The Chosen leads me into the town hall and she gives a quick nod to the desk attendant. The desk attendant respectfully bows to her in return. The Chosen leads me down one of the halls and into a small meeting room.
I spend most of the time looking around like a tourist. I’ve never been this deep into the town hall, hell I never even knew it was this deep. The town hall building is much larger than I thought it was. Larger than it even appears to be outside. I really wish I had Ava’s expertise on spatial magic right now.
The Chosen walks to the opposite side of the table in the room and sits on a plush looking armchair.
“Be seated so we can talk.” She says motioning to the chair across from her.
I shuffle into the chair and find myself surprised at how comfortable it is. It reminds me of the time I visited Ava’s family home. The parlor of the Viscount had chairs like this, only those were less comfortable and more gaudy.
“What task did you require my assistance with?” I ask the Chosen once I’m seated.
Her expression shifts to one of annoyance. Whoops, I messed up. I think I was supposed to let her speak first. Fortunately for me the Chosen’s expression settles again, it seems she’s willing to move past my mistake.
“I need an Adventurer to deliver a letter to the desk of your Guild Master. Your skills seem uniquely suited to such a task.” She says with a quick glance towards my piece of class equipment.
“You want me to secretly place a letter on the desk of the Guildmaster, the strongest person in the local region?!” I say, barely managing to restrain my voice.
The Chosen simply raises a single eyebrow at me.
“Yes. Will that be a problem?” She says in a slightly taunting tone.
“No problem, so long as the payment is appropriate.” I respond, quickly recovering from my shocked outburst.
“Right, I suppose your kind requires payment for everything.” She grumbles angrily.
Interesting. I’ve never seen a spiritkin act like this before, perhaps this quest of hers isn’t actually an official one. I suppose as a Chosen she must have some kind of special permissions from the dungeon. I quickly rethink my strategy and manage to come with an idea with some helpful prodding from my ability.
“Well, I wouldn’t mind doing something like this for a friend.” I say, placing emphasis on the word.
“A friend?” The Chosen says in a deadpan voice, her eyebrow rising higher.
“Indeed a friend. That is if you’d be ok with having a Token Bearer as a friend?” I say in a slightly taunting manner.
She bristles, her face gaining an angry look and her tails puffing out. She spends several moments staring angrily at me while breathing heavily, her tails lashing back and forth. Eventually she lets out a defeated sigh and slumps in her chair.
“So long as it's just you, I suppose I’ll allow it.” She says trying to reclaim some of previous aloofness.
I give her a genuine smile, which seems to surprise her for some reason.
“Of course, I wouldn’t try to push a friend too far out of their comfort zone. I’ll get your letter delivered and then perhaps we can meet up for a chat over some tea. You know Miss Sakazuki has been experimenting with new fruits recently, I’ve been wanting to try one of her new confections.” I say allowing my excitement to bleed into my voice.
“Oh. but before I forget, we should introduce ourselves. I still don’t know your actual name. I’m Zarik, the rogue of Ava’s Own, but everyone just calls me Z.” I say with an outstretched hand.
The Chosen looks slightly nervous as she reaches out to shake my hand. For just a moment my ability shows me a glimpse of a young girl inexperienced in the world and trying her best.
“I’m Aika Aeternus, the First Protector of Eternity.” She starts in a mumble but quickly regains confidence as she grows comfortable shaking my hand.
My smile brightens even more. She reminds me of all my younger sisters back at the orphanage. I guess I won’t tell my party too much about this, I don’t need to abuse every connection I make. Especially since this girl clearly needs a real friend.
“Nice to finally meet you for real, Aika.”