Ranthia laid back down after the young woman left, but she never slept. Instead, she laid in bed and forced her eyes to stay open for as long as she could. Every blink made her shudder. When she closed her eyes, she was reminded of the terrifying nothingness that she had escaped. In many ways it was unfair of her mind. Darkness should have never reminded her of that void. Even darkness would have been something, but nothing existed there. Where there was truly nothing, not even darkness could hope to exist. Unfortunately, teenage minds were seldom known for their rationality and so Ranthia passed the remainder of the night terrified of her own eyelids.
Her mind was torn in so many directions, most of them saturated with extreme levels of self-loathing. Ranthia was ultimately left unsure if she had really managed a single coherent thought as she struggled to just… exist again.
It hurt. Her senses still felt unfamiliar to her, even though she couldn’t have possibly been trapped in the prison of nothingness that she had created for very long. She couldn’t have even breathed in that prison of a body; had she been there for more than a short while she would have perished.
…Oh, look, she had created a new nightmare to obsess about. Had she died like that, would she have forever been trapped within that void until it finally eroded her into just another nothingness?
At some point, well after the sun had risen, a loud bang echoed across the room. It scared her half to death and forced her out of her own head. The follow-ups, or perhaps echoes, of the banging seemed equally deafening. It took her many, many long moments to recall this was a perfectly ordinary sound; it was just someone knocking at her door.
In that instant, Ranthia knew nothing about who she was or what she would do. She still was struggling to relearn how to exist. She was in no way ready or willing to speak to anyone or anything.
Naturally, the damned knocking steadily grew more insistent.
A certain less-lizard-y part of her mind whispered that if Tatius or Pupius decided something was wrong with her, the door would not be an obstacle past the point that they decided was polite. And if the door was broken down, well, that would be yet another thing she had to fix. She wasn’t even sure how to fix herself, let alone something complicated like a door.
Standing was an effort, even if she must have stood at some point to get herself into the bed.
She was about to unbar the door and open it when she realized that she had never actually gotten dressed again after the evening’s festivities with the young woman she had scorned so harshly. Somehow, she had never quite noticed, and a small portion of her mind tried to recall if she had carried her nudity over to the image she had failed spectacularly at. She squashed the thought and refused to remember.
She didn’t want to remember anything about her greatest failure.
The barely avoided recollection still very, very nearly sent her back to bed, but the volume of the knocking further increased and successfully convinced her that she had very little time before the door became a problem. She probably should have called out to whoever was at the door, but she wasn’t sure how to speak at that moment. Instead, she tugged on a men’s tunic that probably—definitely—needed to be washed and walked over and unbarred the door.
It flew open—fortunately it opened outward, so she wasn’t maimed by the door—and revealed both Tatius and Pupius. The men seemed momentarily at a loss.
Ranthia just turned and returned to her bed and flopped bonelessly onto it once again. She had learned that standing took more work than just existing. Existing was hard enough.
Tatius entered and came up to her while Pupius hung back. Both men seemed awkward and uncomfortable. A tiny—oh so tiny—piece of Ranthia was amused by Tatius being the one that approached her, usually Pupius was the bolder one.
After an indeterminate length of time, Tatius finally asked her what happened with… a strange word she had never heard before? Perhaps it was some sort of name? She didn’t think it was furniture or an object; she had never worked up the energy required to smash anything, no matter how cathartic that sounded.
“Who?” Ranthia finally asked.
A frown and a look that she barely noted. There was intense scorn, but it washed past her without finding purchase.
“…Your paramour? We just found out you had a big, nasty argument with her. Heard there was screaming.”
“Oh, her. …Wasn’t her fault, don’t worry.”
“Whose fault was it?” Tatius asked. The man was focused on his assumptions, and thus failed to ask the more relevant questions such as what happened.
“Mine.” Not a moment’s hesitation there. Ranthia was sure that, if nothing else, everything was her fault.
“Why?”
“I’m worthless.”
“That’s it,” Pupius interjected, “I’m going to go kick that bitch’s ass.”
“Stay.” Tatius barked.
At least that saved Ranthia the trouble of trying to parse Pupius’ words and figuring out if she needed to intervene. Instead, she dismissed the words from her mind. Having less to think about made existing just a tiny bit easier. Maybe she could get someone to stand near her and ask her simple questions for now on… Things even she would know. Like ‘Does it hurt?’ or ‘Who ruined everything?’.
Tatius sighed. With every fiber of his being, he really didn’t want to deal with teenage relationship drama. It was his disinterest in having children that had been the largest part of his decision to never settle down and take a wife. But life had thrust a daughter he never asked for into his care and, ultimately, he wanted to do his best for her.
And right now, she was in obvious pain; her eyes looked somewhere far, far away.
“Will you tell me about what happened?” He finally asked, as he awkwardly set a hand over hers.
“…I suppose it does affect you both. I can’t be an Adventurer anymore.” The child—still so young—answered in her newfound strange… empty tone of voice.
“Don’t worry, you can’t get pregnant from another girl, silly!” Pupius quipped.
Tatius gritted his teeth and made a note to punch his friend later.
“Why do you believe you can’t be an Adventurer anymore?” Tatius asked, before Ranthia felt a need to respond to Pupius.
“My entire class is broken. I can’t use any of the skills,” the pained teenager shuddered at something unseen, “at least not in any way useful.”
“I’ve never heard of such a thing…” Tatius prompted.
She could be melodramatic sometimes. First the talk of a skill that had established behavior, namely misbehavior, and now this. For all that she pretended to act like an expert on the System and claimed to know things that no one could prove, she had some stupid ideas about it.
Pupius finally came over and wedged himself in to sit on the edge of the bed, near her foot. He patted the foot affectionately.
“Which class was it? Just give us the details and we can work ‘em out together.” Pupius offered, clearly having located his scraps of maturity.
Tatius just waited, worried, while his daughter clearly struggled to formulate a response.
Ranthia was silent for a while. Thinking required a lot of work for the proto-thing that her mind had degraded into, as she struggled to string the different concepts and ideas together again. It hurt, at first, but it gradually became easier to be Ranthia again.
Perhaps, just perhaps, dissecting and solving a problem was something she knew intimately, something that may have been a pillar of her identity.
“[Shards of Reflection], I got a new skill for it, [Distorted Likeness]. Took it and dropped [A Looking Glass] for it. The new skill lets me modify the appearance of my mirror images that [Scattered Reflections] creates. What the skill didn’t say is it means all my mirror images now need a complex, complete image of what they should be. I made my best effort last night; the result looked like something a child painted. Made the almost fatal mistake of using [Reflections of Reality] to enter it. Didn’t think I was going to get out. I was trapped in a void.”
Even to her own ears, her voice was cold and distant as she reported what had transpired. She struggled to keep the memories at bay while she filtered out the pertinent details.
“So… like it was dark?” Pupius tried to engage her once he noticed Tatius going deep into thought.
The teenager shuddered—nearly outright convulsed—when the well-intended question forced her back into that place for a terrible moment. Her mind’s ability to recall would be a real problem.
She needed alcohol—she had heard that it helped destroy one’s ability to remember things.
“Darkness is something. I was in a place where there was nothing. I wasn’t even sure if [Reflections of Reality] was activating as I tried desperately to use it everywhere to escape. There was no sight, no sound, no sensation, just… nothingness.” She finally replied in a tiny voice that, perhaps for the first time ever, seemed young and vulnerable.
She wanted alcohol, but she couldn’t bring herself to ask for it.
The men just fell silent and were there for her. Tatius with his hand atop hers, not even holding it. Pupius with his hand on her foot, like a weirdo who had no idea how to be comforting. A teensy, tiny—nearly unnoticeable—part of her appreciated their incredible awkwardness. In her opinion, most men in Remus seemed to be emotionally stunted and these two ex-soldiers embodied that in a huge way. But that emotional awkwardness that had become a source of comfort in and of itself. Not that the vast majority of the discombobulated mess that Ranthia had become appreciated it, but that miniscule piece of her was, ever so slightly, soothed.
And all recovery started with a first, tiny act of healing. Or something. Life was weird when there were literal [Healers] that fixed the body. She just needed one that could repair her mind and soul.
Everyone remained silent for a time as the men were just there, in the best way they knew how, for the girl that they had unintentionally raised for more than seven years. Neither Tatius nor Pupius could properly comprehend what had disturbed her so. But, for Tatius, it was enough that he could plainly see how it had affected her. Their individual misconceptions of what she experienced were irrelevant to what she had gone through. No soldier that had experienced the frontlines for any length of time was stupid enough to think his individual experience matched that of someone who had clearly been affected by worse. Only the upper leadership had that level of blind, willful ignorance.
“Perhaps with practice…?” Tatius ventured, at last.
“…Oh, you refer to the images. It took a lot of time to build that; even if it had actually worked, I can’t fight like that.” Ranthia replied, her voice returned to the cold, distant tone instead of the scared youth.
“You still have your cool Dark knife class. I can help you train up your footwork better. You can dance around and wear ‘em down with your knives while you build up your image and then bam! It’ll be like an epic finishing move, worthy of the bards!” To Tatius, Pupius seemed way too enthusiastic about the idea.
“Speed is my second worst stat and anyone my level would end me with ease. A finisher is a single skill or a combination of skills. Not an entire class that provides no benefit until I can—maybe, someday—use a single skill from it.”
“We’ll work on it; we’ll figure it out. Together.” Tatius promised.
Tatius never called them a family, not out loud. Perhaps the notion of a found family was too little known as a concept in Remus, or perhaps both he and Pupius were too emotionally stunted from spending the bulk of their adolescent lives in the military. Seven years spent traveling with a bizarrely mature child in tow didn’t magically enrich them enough to overcome their own stumbling blocks.
Had he said it, the word just might have helped Ranthia. Instead, as usual, she found herself in a position where she, ultimately, needed to save herself.
Which was why she, instead, spent the next several days in bed, refusing to even eat.
Eventually, she left her bed. A combination of factors drove her forward. Her gradual reassembly of herself. Hunger and thirst. The soreness that came from being prone and unmoving for far too long. The youthful difficulty of remaining still for too long. Boredom. And more than a bit of eagerness to relieve herself of her self-inflicted constipation.
Also, the smell.
A few days after that, once she had many bowls of over-simmered—Tatius had ensured a pot of it was always ready for her when she finally sought food—rabbit stew in her belly, more than one long session at the baths, and just generally felt more like a complete real being again, Ranthia found herself in front of a place she had dreaded her return to: the apothecary where her (former?) lover lived and worked.
Ranthia chickened out and went to the salon instead. Maybe if she was more [Sexy] and smelled lovely it’d help her face the awkwardness.
One session with her beautician later—with no levels for her since it was more like a return to somewhere close to where she once had been—Ranthia found herself back in front of the shop. She paced nervously as she tried to figure out what to do. What to say.
She had very, very nearly convinced herself to leave and go buy flowers and sweets when the young woman’s very old, very blind grandfather stomped out of the store and pointed directly at her.
“By all the gods stop making such a racket out here and get your wishy-washy butt inside and apologize to my granddaughter before I decide to just call the guards and be done with you!”
Weirdly, that helped. A lot.
In the end, Ranthia apologized politely. Her lover thanked her for the apology. They were in a strange place still, with neither quite sure where they stood. But they did—briefly—hold hands again and agreed to spend time together the next day. That had to be enough to start.
After, absent anything better to do—that she was willing to try, at least—Ranthia returned to her room, stretched, and began to practice her knife techniques for the first time since their battle against the dinosaur. The underground training area would have been too much, but this? This felt just right.
Ranthia fell into a somewhat hollow routine. She divided her day into blocks. Three meals. A bath. Time spent with her lover. Time spent practicing with her knives. The order these things happened in was entirely irregular, but they were the only things she did.
She steadfastly refused to try using any of her mirror skills again.
Things were otherwise far from perfect as well. When Ranthia and her lover tried to spend time together as a couple, doing things other than making out or indulging in other physical acts of affection, they quickly learned that they had absolutely nothing in common. Their relationship had grown out of attraction and been almost entirely physical, with the odd romantic gesture made with the intent to lead to something physical. Ranthia had even gathered the ingredients and tried to cook for her lover, only to be mildly horrified that the young woman hated rabbit stew and, bizarrely, found hunting rabbits—and only rabbits, because they were “cute”—barbaric. They returned to just being physical together, but it was no longer the same for either of them anymore. The damage had been done.
Ranthia knew that they would soon drift apart, but she lacked the motivation to truly try to stop the process. The pleasure they shared would probably be enough to keep them together at least a little longer.
That had to be enough.
None of her skills related to her [Sudden End] class seemed inclined to level from her formulaic training, nor did she pull out any more late natural stat points. She knew she would need to eventually do something more, but her motivation was slow to build back up.
When Tatius and/or Pupius took an Adventuring job, the men made sure to track her down and invite her along, no matter what it was for. She always refused without hesitation though she, somewhat, appreciated the sentiment. Even if another part of her was exasperated that they had yet to take the hint that she wasn’t an Adventurer anymore.
Similarly, she made a real effort to avoid any encounter with the Guildmaster.
She did flirt with other things to occupy her time. One particular project that she had become enamored with for its sheer potential as a distraction was learning to properly read and write. She could read a few basic things related to Adventurer work—like that mattered anymore—and had learned to write what little she needed to for her former profession, even if her signature was simply a mark that she had invented that she presumed would be somewhat unique and recognizable.
Surprisingly, the task proved to be difficult. Her lover—shockingly—didn’t know how to read or write either. The wooden signs had allegedly been written by her completely blind grandfather. Ranthia struggled to believe that her lover’s only contribution had been to place the pieces of wood in very specific places on his desk, but, ultimately, she accepted that it would have been an extremely bizarre thing for the girl to lie about.
None of the other Adventurers that Ranthia was remotely friendly with knew much more—and often quite a bit less—about reading or writing. Each of them suggested the Guildmaster, but she stubbornly continued to avoid the man.
Mid-autumn, there was a festival. The mines had encountered a new vein of silver, and the miners flooded into town to celebrate. The mines had been shut down while the companies brought in an expert [Surveyor] to discern the vein’s size and purity, but spirits were high, especially since the miners were hopeful for bonus pay. A few small silver trinkets and simple jewelry were on sale—the bit that had been mined already—while the town also celebrated the end of the harvest season.
Ranthia danced with her increasingly distant lover. She enjoyed food. And she had a good internal laugh at the sight of a pair of silver wedding bangles that were for sale.
The greatest irony there was that she could have—just barely—afforded them had she still been delusional about her future with the young woman.
Like most indefinite plans completely reliant on inertia, Ranthia’s came to an end by force. While she was doing maintenance on her knives outside—the sunlight helped find spots she missed—a female Adventurer that she respected came up to her. Bex—hey, she had a cool, memorable name—had become an Adventurer young—well, older than Ranthia had been—and made a name for herself until she decided she wanted to be a mother. She had a kid, raised him, then once he got old enough to gain independence, she returned to being an Adventurer. She was proof that a woman can pursue her dreams, even after childbirth. It was inspiring, even if Ranthia had absolutely zero interest in ever being a parent in any capacity.
Bex nodded to her in greeting. Ranthia, politely, nodded back. Then Bex walked over, grabbed Ranthia’s arm, and pulled her to her feet without saying a word. It was all Ranthia could do to sheath her knives—though she dropped her rag—while Bex inexorably pulled her toward the Guildhall.
Instinctively, Ranthia tried to throw a mirror image to the side with the intent to shift to it. The process was, obviously, unsuccessful since she lacked even the most cursory image—let alone whatever monstrosity of an image that it required—in mind for [Scattered Reflections] to grab. It was just a well-worn, battle-tested instinct. And now it was useless.
The fight left Ranthia, and she just allowed herself be pulled along with the woman.
She didn’t even ask where they were going or why.
Soon enough Ranthia found herself seated in the Guildmaster’s office. Bex had confiscated the knives from the wholly compliant teen just before Ranthia had been sat down and then the woman left with a grunt. Ranthia just kind of numbly sat in the chair and struggled to make herself look at the Guildmaster.
“I wanted to be the one to let you know. When this winter comes to an end, your caretakers are heading to Ariminum. I’ve written letters of introduction for them to give to the Guildmaster there. Unfortunately, Adventurers rarely stay in the same town for more than a few years. Your guardians were promoted to A-Ranked after the battle with the ankylosaurus.”
Ranthia very, very nearly missed the ‘guardians’ bit under the rest of her shock. Neither man had mentioned their promotion, she hadn’t even been invited to their party! Still, Ranthia opened her mouth to protest that Tatius was her father, not one of her guardians.
The Guildmaster held up a hand to stave her off. He removed a scroll from his desk and unrolled it in front of her.
“I’m not as naïve as the three of you might hope, young one. Do you know what this is?”
Ranthia reviewed it. She caught a few words, but not enough to glean anything relevant.
“Nope. Can’t read that well.” Inwardly, Ranthia cringed at how snippy she came off.
“Hrm, well this is a message from the Perinthus branch of the Adventurer’s Guild. You had once mentioned to one of the Adventurers that I asked to check in on you that you and Tatius had met Whirling Edge—Pupius—there. I only recently got my suspicions confirmed.
“You are a local girl who lived in Perinthus with your mother and a father that was executed by the 3rd Legion. Most whom the Adventurers there spoke to referred to you as unremarkable and ordinary, though a few, especially the children that had once played with you, noted that you seemed rather different after the plague nearly killed you. Don’t worry, I won’t pry on the details about that. Seems you were saved by a [Healer] there who, oddly, wasn’t in any of the songs I have ever heard about the plague. Then you and your mother left, with a few other sluggard townsfolk that would have been hard-pressed to withstand the leaner times as the town recovered.
“Tatius and Pupius were unknown to everyone in Perinthus, once you discount the obviously unreliable testimony. Oh, by the way, I thought you would like to know that less than a season after you left the Rangers finally located and executed a small group of bandits near Perinthus, so your hometown is now safe.”
Ranthia’s face went pale as she heard the news. The pieces clicked, instantly. Tatius and Pupius’ comrades. The nice—after a fashion—leader of the group that had helped Ranthia out so much and freed Tatius, Pupius and their friend to accompany the group. …Shit, this meant their brothers in arms were dead.
She had long since stopped treating the ex-soldiers turned bandits as noble, even in her own thoughts. They were men that wanted to be done fighting, yet the mere risk that they thought they might be sent back to the war had instead caused them to turn their blades on the very people that they were sworn to protect. The men weren’t noble, even if they had supported her when no one else would.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“Thank you for confirming my suspicions. Your guardians had far better control over their emotions at the news.” Malevolent mischief sparkled in the Guildmaster’s eyes.
“…Fuck.” Ranthia whispered, suddenly afraid.
Being disarmed suddenly took on an entirely new light. Especially now that she had inadvertently revealed she travelled with a pair of deserters who, worse, were also former bandits. …And every other defensive response she had was broken, except for her evasive abilities. And, somehow, she doubted that [Boosted Reflexes] and [Dodging] could handle the level—Gods damn everything, why was [Identify] failing every time she needed it!?
“Peace,” the Guildmaster chuckled. “Somehow, I feel like I’d have a knife at my throat right now were you still armed. I don’t mean any of you any harm, I just like to know about those under my charge. And, frankly, I needed to make sure I was completely certain about your situation.”
“…Okay…?” Ranthia was still guarded. She really had no idea how to feel anymore.
“You had been dragged along with a pair of men with… difficult pasts, let’s say. Even if you were only dragged as a tagalong since you were eight by Adventurers, even if one of them was truly your father like you had claimed, there were many potential circumstances where I would have been forced to see the men dead.
“Instead, I came to learn that you were not only there of your own volition, but you had specifically chosen them over your own people. You plainly thrived in your circumstances, but the important thing was that you chose them. Those men were still damned reckless, but perhaps they actually saved you from being far more reckless.”
Ranthia had to admit, when viewed from the outside all of that made a lot of sense. The Guildmaster had a very major fact wrong—her people had rejected her, after all—but the Guildmaster’s take matched how she felt in her heart, at least. The Guildmaster seemed kindly and decrepit, though even she knew that was an act. He was sharp and iron-willed. …If more than a little mischievous.
“Now that I’ve settled your mind on that,” the scroll was rerolled and stored, “allow me to return to what I was saying. Your guardians are heading to Ariminum. I cannot in good conscience write a letter of introduction for you at this time.”
Ranthia opened her mouth, but the Guildmaster held his hand for silence and continued.
“I had actually quite looked forward to doing so. Yours was to be one of the finest, and most interesting letters of introduction I had ever written. You should have recently become a B-Ranked Adventurer, one with a virtually flawless track record. I don’t need to tell you how unusual that is. In such a letter I would have been able to have honestly, and cheekily, stated that you could readily punch up to most A-Ranked jobs, even without your guardians’ aide. As a trio, the three of you may just have had the potential to eventually surpass any of the capital’s regular A-Ranked teams.”
The Guildmaster sighed, lowered his hand and gripped his desk. The worn wood creaked.
“Instead, you have become lazy and accomplished nothing for weeks now. When I confronted your guardians, Tatius—quite grudgingly—admitted that you had told them that you could no longer be an Adventurer. What I now want to know is why.”
It wasn’t a question; it was a demand made by the Guildmaster of his subordinate.
Ranthia bit her lip and squirmed. She considered lying. Then she considered refusing to answer. She was about to insist that being an Adventurer meant nothing to her. Except... Except she knew in her heart—from the instant she thought the words—that they were nothing but a lie. Being an Adventurer had been a dream. It suited her and fit her perfectly. …Almost as perfectly as her broken class once had.
“I… I got this new skill, [Dis—”
The Guildmaster struck his desk and shushed her before she could say more.
“Are you able to speak in abstractions? I would rather not know the details of your class or your skills, if possible. For your own protection, you understand.”
Ranthia was somewhat startled, but she took a moment. It made sense; the fewer people that knew the full extent of her abilities, the better. Much could be surmised if someone watched her, but there was a clear difference between assumptions and direct knowledge.
At length, she nodded and began anew.
“You’re aware of how I was able to use the mi— …duplicates to counter Pupius. I gained a new skill that improved the skill at the core of that. Unfortunately, the description of the skill did not make it clear to me that it would change how the core skill worked. Now I need a detailed mental image of the duplicate… but I can’t do it. And certainly not well enough or fast enough for it to be… viable.” She felt ridiculously awkward and clumsy as she tried to stick to words that seemed safe.
“Hrm, so it’s a class where many of the skills are connected to the same core ability. Not unheard of. …Apologies, I should not have voiced that aloud. However, a new skill changing the requirements to those you can’t meet… I’ve never even heard such a thing. Would you allow me to, discreetly, make some inquiries related to this? In the meantime, while I’m sure you have thought of this yourself, I want you to actually make a solid effort toward practicing these ‘images’ you mentioned.”
Ranthia nodded her assent to his request to make inquiries. Maybe, just maybe, someone out there could help her.
“I… can try, I guess. I don’t see how I can do any better than I did before.” Ranthia felt much worse about his second request.
“Do try. Otherwise, I’m afraid the Adventurer Ranthia will not have my blessing to go to any other branch of the Adventurer’s Guild.” The Guildmaster gravely noted.
Ranthia chose to stay silent. She didn’t need his permission if she wanted to leave, but she knew better than to act out for no reason.
“Very well then, off with you. I will, of course, let you know once and if I learn anything useful from my contacts.”
Ranthia stiffly nodded and exited the office. Only to run into Tatius almost as soon as she was out the door. He patted her head and gestured for her to follow him.
Soon, she was sat in the—suspiciously empty—tavern, with a bowl of fresh rabbit stew. Even Pupius was absent. Her knives waited for her next to the bowl of stew and she happily returned them to their sheaths.
“So, I take it the old man told you that Pupius and I are leaving in a few weeks?” Tatius began, once she tasted the stew.
Ranthia nodded and ate. She knew that she really should tell Tatius that she had accidentally outed them as former bandits, but she was also more than a little mad at him for everything that he had kept from her.
“Mnm… You have two choices. Three, I guess, actually. One, you fix your problem, get certified as a B-Ranked Adventurer and come with us. Not likely, given the timeframe, so I guess really it’s just the two choices. Either you can stay here until you’ve worked out your issues and gotten certified as a B-Ranked Adventurer… or you can give up on being an Adventurer and come with us as just a simple teenage civilian. We’ll do our best to do right for you, if you want.”
Tatius seemed uncomfortable.
Ranthia felt tears threatening to form and tried to blink them away. To buy herself time, she rapidly consumed several spoonfuls of stew.
“…Either I say goodbye, or I give up and accept that I’m worthless and have no future.”
The bitter words slipped from her mouth, then the tears came anyway. Angry and bitter, Ranthia wept into her stew.
“Hey, no. None of that Little Ma—Ranthia,” a bit late he probably realized that calling attention to her damaged class was a poor idea, “either way you are never worthless. You’re still a wonderful young woman.”
He sighed and quietly watched her cry and poke at her slightly saltier stew with newfound disinterest.
“Ever since I first met you when—well, you know—you’ve seemed like you were in a desperate race to grow up and become something… more. You were 8 and you faced down that idiot Gnaeus with nerves of steel that even most trained soldiers lack. Trust me, I’ve lived the frontlines, I’ve seen far too many nerves just fail and men who came undone before the formorian onslaught.
“Then you sought Pupius and me out. You wanted to become an Adventurer, just like us. We brought you with us and you did everything you could to help. The damned first instant you became—to your own judgment—combat capable you joined in on the fighting. Then you barely became a teenager and got a girl and started fucking constantly.”
Ranthia shot him a glare through her tears.
“You do realize the complaints you got from those that live in the rooms around you went straight to me, right? Let alone the complaints from the guards and other businesses when the two of you couldn’t be bothered to use your room. The two of you were never exactly quiet.”
Ranthia’s face turned scarlet. She found it wildly unfair that the awkward man—somehow—obviously didn’t feel incredibly awkward talking about her sex life and could be so frank about it.
“Look, my point is, you’ve always done everything you could to be an adult. Now,” he paused for a sigh as he built himself up to do something that he knew would hurt her, “now I’m asking you to decide if you’re going to do it again, or if you instead want to give up and just be young. It’s your choice, but you have to do one or the other.”
Ranthia reacted as if he had struck her. The teenager’s face went through the gamut of emotions in short order, probably inventing a few new ones, given some of the weirder expressions she pulled.
Tatius didn’t—wouldn’t—laugh. This was far too important.
“I need air.” Ranthia muttered. She then got up and left without waiting for a response.
She just wandered aimlessly and let her emotions flow.
She wandered for a long time and eventually found herself in front of her lover’s apothecary. She supposed some part of her wished for physical comfort while she tried to work out her emotions. She was still a mess and her face was sticky, but she entered anyway.
“You. My granddaughter wanted me to give you a message. She doesn’t want to see you anymore, she said that it’s done. She has come to regret you. So leave, and don’t you dare enter my store again.” The old, blind man’s voice was ice cold.
A dozen terrible urges entered Ranthia’s mind. Instead, she sucked in a deep breath and forced herself to nod and answer.
“…Very well, let her know that I’m… sorry.” Ranthia managed a respectful tone.
“I won’t. Get!”
Ranthia left. Her apology hadn’t been for her ex-lover’s sake anyway, so the old asshole’s refusal didn’t really matter. The apology was born of self-loathing, what it truly meant was that she was sorry for making her ex deal with her for all that time.
Ranthia resumed her wandering.
Ranthia spent a full week aimless. She woke up before the sun rose and quietly snuck out of her room, making full use of [Shadowed Steps]. She then just… walked. With no destination, sometimes in town, sometimes beyond its walls. She managed to force herself to eat a meal or two per day in various ways while she was out. Then, well after dark, she returned and crept back to her bed for restless sleep. Again and again she repeated the motions.
Yet, it seemed that someone with drive and purpose could only feel sorry for herself for so long.
Ranthia woke up one morning before dawn, immediately walked into the local temple, found an unsecured broom, and started to sweep the temple grounds. For ages now—ever since she had escaped the void that she had trapped herself within—she had been too ashamed of herself to pray to Xaoc. She knew that He was disappointed in her. But, at last, the guilt had outgrown her self-loathing. She needed penance.
When the local priest and temple worker arrived—just one of each, and she should have been surprised to see the habitually absent priest—they were both quite alarmed. The two men tried to gently encourage her to stop cleaning. She ignored them as they had numerous whispered conversations. She just… cleaned.
When she finally left, a runner found her and asked her to come to the Guildhall. The man at the front desk handed her a small pouch of coins and made a show of taking a job form from her that he produced from his sleeve. He thanked her for taking the job to help clean up the temple. And gave her a look that said she better not argue or refute him.
Ranthia rolled her eyes and returned to the temple, determined to return the coins. When the priest refused to take her money, she sought their donation box, only to find that it was conspicuously absent.
Instead, she made her way to the market and waited for the peak crowd… such as it was. She offered the coins to the cause of chaos, then removed them from the pouch and tossed them into the crowd.
She had no reason to watch the little scuffles and incidents that ensued. The coins were given for the sake of chaos, not some twisted personal gratification.
Oddly, after that, she actually felt better. She made her way back to the temple and knelt before the altar to Xaoc, for the first time in entirely too long.
She prayed—finally—and apologized to her god and promised Him that she had found her path forward. To stay in place was, after all, the opposite of chaos. She, for the first time, made her decision and spoke of it to Him before she had even thought through the full ramifications of her decision.
For all she knew—after all of her trouble with [Shards of Reflection]—she might have been cursed by Seira. Ranthia could all too easily imagine the horrid goddess making efforts to undermine Xaoc’s most loyal subject. But she had overcome the issues with [Reflections of Reality] and she would overcome [Distorted Likeness]!
She also apologized to Xaoc for the lack of chaos that she had wrought in Sardonia. The town was small enough that there were precious few opportunities for mischief that didn’t cross her own ethical lines. But if… no, when she restored herself…
Well, the capital just had to be a glorious tapestry upon which to color the world with the full spectrum of the glory of chaos.
After that, Ranthia stopped by her room to retrieve her spending rods. Tatius, Pupius, and she had pooled their finances back after the incident with the Ornithocheirus. The men kept an account at the temples, while they each kept a few rods topped off on their person—or in her case, in her room—for personal or urgent use. Of course, the rooms for the members of the Adventurer’s Guild might, perversely, be safer than the temple, at least in Sardonia. Adventurers milled around virtually all day and all night, and the guild had made a point of coming down jointly and severely on any thieves that trespassed over the years.
She still had to seek out Pupius to get access to her portion of the funds from their savings. Only the men, for whatever reason, had access to the vault.
Ranthia’s private wealth was mostly spent at a single store, where she turned it into three large, standing mirrors. Each was made of some special blend of metals, predominantly bronze of course, and was polished to such perfection that even with her dexterity at over a thousand they were difficult to handle without smudging. She had to carry them back—oh so carefully—to her room one at a time.
Once she had the mirrors set up, she barred her door and disrobed, then stepped into the middle of the mirrors. She studied herself closely, from all angles. Every strand of her hair; her shimmering, reflective eyes that her class had given her; the curves of her face and the shape of her lips; her teeth, despite her hate for closely examining the creepy looking things (seriously, teeth are so weird if you stop and think about it); the folds of her ears; and even the best she could examine the back of her neck. And, of course, everything below, both often seen and typically unseen.
By the end, she had carefully studied parts of herself that she had never directly examined before. Some were lovely and filled her with pride. Others were less flattering, and she developed a bit of a complex about her feet by the time the sun set.
Once the sun set, she forced herself to stop her studies of herself. Instead, in the dark, she practiced with her knives until she felt able to sleep.
The next morning, she rose before dawn and visited the baths. Then by sunup, after a rushed meal, she was back in her room, naked, and repeating the narcissistic exercise. Except she started incorporating one important difference: she made a conscious effort to build a cohesive, complete mental image of herself.
A mental image of her nude body was—for many reasons—less than ideal for her to use with [Scattered Reflections]. But she figured that was the proper place to start before she worked in clothing, the leather cloak that served as her armor, and, ultimately, her full equipment kit.
Shortly before the sky darkened enough to ruin her ability to closely examine her body, she pushed the mental image that she had spent nearly the full day developing into her skill and activated [Scattered Reflections] with her breath held.
The mirror image that appeared was imperfect, but it was leagues beyond what she had generated before. This attempt created an image that actually possessed depth and might—with a quick enough glance—pass for a normal, if naked, person. But there were obvious flaws. She studied the bizarre not-her thing carefully and tried to make note of everything that had gone wrong. She was forced to light a candle to finish, something that promised to get cost prohibitive quickly if she failed to manage her daylight better in the future.
Once she was done, she dismissed the image and ate the leftover bread she had bought that morning, along with a little cheese. The cheese tasted so bad she suspected she might have accidentally bought a wax sculpture of cheese, but she still ate it.
Then it was knife practice until she was ready to sleep.
The next day was similar, though she made sure to make her test mirror image with a bit more daylight left.
She continued her efforts until, at last—yet also all too soon—her routine had to deviate for the day.
She bathed and dressed in her dinosaur hide cloak and kitted up like a real Adventurer for the first time in… far, far too long.
And she met Tatius and Pupius near one of Sardonia’s gates. It was the day they departed for Ariminum. Spring had arrived.
Ranthia hugged both men fiercely and swore over and over that she would meet them in Ariminum as soon as she was able. The men were in high spirits because they believed her. They had seen the change in her and they had absolute faith that she would figure out her skill eventually. Surely, the gods were not so cruel as to truly make a skill that rendered someone’s combat class totally impossible to use.
“Keep at it, you can do it. Be diligent, but don’t be stupid.” Those were Tatius’ final words to her.
“And don’t go broke! We left you with a decent bit of money, but you’ve got to earn your own keep too. I’ll be so pissed if you end up in debt and sold as a slave.” Those were Pupius’ final words to her.
“Don’t finish all the fun jobs in Ariminum before I get there.” Were Ranthia’s final words to her guardians, her voice only broke just a tiny bit with emotion even though her tears fell freely.
She didn’t even try to rein them in.
Not that either man’s eyes were quite dry, but no one pointed that out. The others that saw the men off were all good folk. The Adventurers of Sardonia all were.
It was three weeks after Tatius and Pupius left that Ranthia, finally, got a mirror image that she felt somewhat comfortable with. She still left it there and tried to build another, just to be safe. In the end, the first one was superior.
That was the one that she finally selected when she worked up the courage to attempt the scariest thing she had ever done. Ranthia channeled—then forced herself to remain patient while her mana regenerated enough for a second channel—and then it was time.
She activated [Reflections of Reality] after she prayed to Xaoc to not get trapped in that void again (some horrors were worth violating her rules to avoid).
Ranthia moved, carefully, around the room in the image’s body. She could see. She could hear. She could feel. She could breathe. She thought, maybe, it moved a bit stiffly or unevenly, but it wasn’t a void that imprisoned her soul.
It was real progress.
Ranthia began to work simple jobs, the bottom ranked ones from the board, every now and then. She gathered mushrooms or herbs in the relatively safe regions of the woods. She ran errands in town. She replaced roofing. Every now and then she took on the occasional minor pest extermination job that felt safe enough, even with just her [Sudden End] class.
She also made sure to visit the guild tavern at least every other day for a real meal.
She slowly—oh so slowly—learned some of the tricks behind her mental images. She didn’t actually need to visualize things left unseen. Her personal anatomy beneath her tunic, the contents of her pouch on her belt, none of that mattered. Similarly, to her extensive relief, she didn’t need to know the parts of an eyeball or how they worked; she only needed to know what her eyes looked like to an observer. She didn’t need to know all the bits inside her body or what individual muscles or bones did. Frankly, she doubted anyone on Pallos knew those details. She also didn’t need to visualize anything about her four humors.
Her birthday passed, unremarked upon.
Every so often a low ranked Adventurer was sent to her as a runner to summon her to the Guildmaster’s office. There, with the two of them alone, the wizened man quietly shared his latest piece of correspondence with her and took precious time out of his day to help her with her reading and writing, using the latest scroll as a teaching tool. She appreciated it, as did her neglected [Fast Learner] skill.
Unfortunately, every time the advice in the scrolls was always either inapplicable or largely redundant with what she already knew, but relying on someone else to solve her problem had always been a long shot.
Occasionally, Ranthia got tempted to try to meet someone new, for romantic or even just recreational purposes. But she always refused to succumb to the temptation. Her memory of her former lover—whose name she never did learn, unforgivably—still stung quite a bit.
Eventually, Ranthia grew relatively confident in her ability to craft an image of herself for her mirror images. The problem was they took a significant portion of the day to craft. She had to become far, far faster if she wanted her class to be useful in anything but the most thoroughly staged situation. Worse, she seemed to be unable to use the same image more than once; each mirror image that she created seemed to consume the image that she created in her mind, which meant that every use of her skill required its own image built from scratch.
Her ex’s grandfather passed away. Ranthia watched the small funeral from a distance and paid her respects from afar. She didn’t dare approach the distraught young woman to offer her sympathies or comfort, Xaoc knew that her presence would probably just make the poor dear’s day even worse.
Ranthia was confident that the young woman would be fine though. Her former lover would inherit her grandfather’s shop and Ranthia knew first-hand how into herbs and stuff the girl was.
The season had turned again. She had just pieced together yet another mental image of herself, kitted out in her gear, when she was distracted by a sound she hadn’t heard in far, far too long.
[*ding!*]
She would never admit to anyone just how long it took her to realize it was a system notification.
[*ding!* You have unlocked the General Skill [Image Recall]! Would you like to replace a skill?]
[Image Recall]: You have painstakingly crafted hundreds of complex mental images for whatever reason. Now store them for later use and perfect recollection. Increased number of images stored for recall with level. -88 Mana Regen Rate.
Ranthia stood there, mouth open, torn quite decisively between sheer relief and blind outrage at not getting the skill sooner. It solved everything!
She ditched the extremely low level [Polishing] skill she had picked up to maintain her mirrors. They had turned out to need less maintenance than she had feared, so it wasn’t like she was losing anything useful. She barely even felt any discomfort from losing a skill with only 9 levels.
The new—hard won—image skill settled into her, and she spent much of the day making yet another thorough mental image. The entire time impatience gnawed at her, which made it a bit of a challenge to avoid cutting corners, but she knew that the time she spent on the image was crucial. It needed to be perfect.
Once the mental image was complete to her satisfaction and standards, she fed it into [Image Recall]. Immediately, some inexplicable feeling conveyed that the skill took in the image.
Full of nervous energy, Ranthia sent off a quick prayer to Xaoc, then activated [Image Recall] and [Scattered Reflections]. Intuitively she had the first skill feed its only stored image into the second.
Exactly where she wanted it, a mirror image—a perfect one—of her appeared.
Great! But it was time for the real test. Her heart hammered in her chest as she designated another spot, near the first, and tried again.
A second, identical, mirror image appeared.
[*ding!* [Image Recall] has reached level 2!]
Ranthia, overcome with emotion and chaotic teenage energy, did the only thing that she could. She gleefully danced a terribly embarrassing little happy dance that she would be forever grateful that no one saw.
Ranthia’s tests revealed that she could still control the pose from the same image and manipulate them just as well. The image was only necessary for the physical appearance of the mirror image, not how it functioned. They also, mercifully, worked great for [Reflections of Reality], and at long last the skill worked just as it used to before she took [Distorted Likeness].
Ranthia still spent the next several days experimenting, in an effort to ensure that there were no other quirks. And, more happily, because [Image Recall] seemed to be a skill that was all too eager to level, at least at its lower levels.
[Image Recall] had opened a second slot. Ranthia was in a practical mood, so she decided to create a new mental image that would make her life significantly easier while she travelled to and settled into the capital.
It was high time that she got some damned actual use out of [Distorted Likeness].
The base was, of course, her own form. But from there she made changes. It was a hand taller than her already impressive height. It was more muscular. Its legs were a bit longer. Its torso was a bit wider and thicker. Its hair was lighter. It was a few years older. Oh, and the most obviously different bit, it was male in shape. Fortunately, and she thanked all the gods for this, she did NOT need to examine a male’s genitalia in detail; the detail was unnecessary for the clothed image that she created.
After nearly a full day of effort, the image was stored. Soon after, the mirror image stood in front of her. Ranthia circled it and studied it carefully, quite pleased with herself. He didn’t look like a male version of her—which she had been afraid of—nor did he even seem like close family to her. He was just… some guy. Which was exactly what she wanted.
Shifting into ‘his’ image felt… strange. Ranthia was unused to his proportions and felt clumsy, even though she knew for a fact that her skills probably compensated for a lot of what she convinced herself that she felt. She still spent several days practicing with his body to get used to it. Unfortunately, though not entirely surprisingly, his additional muscles didn’t actually seem to improve the strength her stats offered. Nor did she suffer any dysphoria, likely because the body was just an image. …That or she had been male when she was a [Paladin] in her prior life, but she vastly preferred to believe that she had always been a woman. It was just too much a part of who she was.
That said, it proved surprisingly challenging to make her voice sound more masculine when she spoke from him. [Distorted Likeness] clearly didn’t extend to changing the voice, which crushed her potential career as a master [Spy] before it ever began. All she could do was practice until she could, with effort, do a more masculine-sounding voice that didn’t sound completely like a teenage girl with bad allergies.
Eventually, she felt ready.
That morning, Ranthia visited the baths and got herself nice and clean. She cleaned and readied her leather cloak. She purchased a new weather-resistant traveling cloak made out of some sort of comfortable pelt that she didn’t recognize, one that was light and thin enough that she was able to wear it over her leather cloak and could also easily roll it up and store in her usual backpack when she had no need to wear it.
Once she was ready, she made her way to the Guildmaster’s office. …Where she was forced to wait while he dealt with other Adventurers who had gotten in before her for whatever business they had with the man. Life sometimes just had no sense for dramatics.
At long last, she stood before the man and bowed formally.
“C-Ranked Adventurer, Ranthia, here to see what I need to do to become certified as a B-Ranked Adventurer!”
[Name: Ranthia]
[Species: Human]
[Age: 16]
[Mana: 11330/11330]
[Mana Regen Rate: 6061]
[Stats:]
[Free Stats: 24]
[Strength: 299]
[Dexterity: 1278]
[Vitality: 772]
[Speed: 736]
[Mana: 1133]
[Mana Regeneration: 1238]
[Magic Power: 1095]
[Magic Control: 828]
[Class 1: [Shards of Reflection – Mirror (164)]]
[Mirror Spirit: 164]
[Scattered Reflections: 164]
[Echoes Reflected: 39]
[Reflective Motility: 99]
[Persistent Imagery: 57]
[Mirrored Moves: 42]
[Distorted Likeness: 4]
[Reflections of Reality: 26]
[Class 2: [Sudden End – Dark (91)]]
[Dark Affinity: 91]
[Knives & War: 91]
[Blades of Darkness: 91]
[Critical Strike: 63]
[Shadowed Steps: 85]
[Strengthen Blade: 73]
-
-
[Class 3: Locked]
[General Skills:]
[Identify: 164]
[Ranthia’s Covenant with Xaoc: 40]
[Soups & Stews: 66]
[Dodging: 164]
[Boosted Reflexes: 164]
[Fast Learner: 82]
[Image Recall: 26]
[Sexy: 78]