After the debut ceremony, Otonia ◐ begged and pleaded with her parents for her to go play with Krateros ◮. After eleven straight days pleading, her mother finally relented and scheduled for going over to Krateros’ home.

Right now, Otonia was holding her mother’s hand as they crossed the town, Otonia skipping gleefully—or at least in so much as a bipedal hedgehog could skip. Wait a minute. “Mama, what are we?”

“What do you mean, sweetie?”

“Like a bird is a bird and a snake is a snake. What do we call us?”

Orthia snorted at her daughter’s question. Where does she get the context for these? “If you’re being fancy and talking to our kind, you could just call us The People. Good for speeches. But we do have another name when we are dealing with other sapients: The Fell.”

“Huh,” Otonia acknowledged. Never heard of them before.

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“Orthia! So good to see you!” Krateros’ mother greeted us at the door.

“Hello, Hyacintha. I just couldn’t believe how much this little brat was desperate to come over.”

“Oh, I know, I’m so glad you called. Krato was at me twice a day every day and I was just about at the end of my wit.”

“Oh jolly, that’s a lot worse than Ota, was—”

Krateros came bounding past the two older women and slammed into Otonia with a huge hug.

“Oh, this again,” Hyacintha sighed. “I tried to explain to Krato why this wasn’t appropriate and, well—oh look they’re separating now.”

Sheepish looks on their face, the duo walked off holding hands deeper into the house as the two mothers went into the kitchen for tea. Finding an empty room with some privacy, the pair sat in a corner with a good view of the door to talk.

Maybe after another quick hug.

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Otonia ◐ spoke first when they finally separated. “Tell me everything that’s happened since the last life.”

“Oh, where to begin?” he asked rhetorically.

“Birth?”

“Birth was… definitely atypical. My senses were all over the place and I couldn’t maintain any clear line of thought. I was,” he trailed over briefly. “I fell, into instinct. Suckle, sleep, the infant routine. I’m not sure how long it was, but eventually I managed to put enough thoughts together to notice something was weird. I mean, if nothing else, I hadn’t heard from you yet. But of course the birth was—“ Krateros shuddered, and Otonia rubbed his baby spines around his shoulders in comfort.

“Go on,” she offered quietly.

“I then noticed [Early System Access] wasn’t working and neither was [Speak with Elves]. I didn’t think much of it at the time, and so fell back into a routine again. You know our Race—“ Krateros gestured collectively.

“The Fell,” Otonia informed him helpfully. “Trying to get the name out of my mother was hard. I don’t know why it didn’t come up earlier in learning the language.”

“The Fell, huh. Can’t say I’ve heard of us.”

“Nor I.”

“Anyways, the Fell mature quickly as newborns, and soon my mother got to teaching me the language. That went about as well as expected. Of course, I finally got to move around a bit, and I couldn’t get any Skills to trigger. Something…” Krateros waived his hands around. “Some aspect of my mind had me still ignore it, but once my vocabulary was large enough, I went ahead and asked my mother about Skills. And, well, she said those were for the Pantheon’s game pieces.”

“Game pieces?”

“Her words, not mine. She seemed rather angry about it too. Well, anyways, I freaked out at that point. Threw a tantrum, yadda yadda, not relevant. Then next thing I know, I’m being whisked off to see you,” he ended with a smile.

“Hmm,” Otonia hummed. “That’s more or less what happened to me too. My mother said the System was foul and a thing of nightmares. I—I may have thrown my father as at fault.”

“What did your father ever do to you?”

“Nothing! He was just convenient at the time. But still—it means we’re on Ager doesn’t it?”

“It must. They know of the Pantheon and System, even if they’re not a part of it. Do you,” Krateros swallowed. “Do you think we’re at The Top of the World?”

“The Top? That’s surrounded by [Dragons]. How could any people live there?”

“I don’t know. But if we are on Ager, why don’t we—and I do mean specifically you and I—why don’t we know where this place is. We were so thorough, when we made those maps.”

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“It was a lot of ocean.”

“It was. And I don’t remember any valley resembling this, and I think I would have remembered seeing a new Race like the Fell. Sure, we saw a lot of Races we hadn’t seen before, but we’re… distinct, right?”

“Distinct is one way to put it. My first impression was [Hedgehog]/[Penguin].”

“Oh yeah. I was just thinking about the spines, but that’s a good impression.”

“But there’s something more important. My mother said we were The Fell, not [The Fell]. Almost like the System didn’t or wouldn’t even recognize us as a Race.”

“Oh? Oh!” Krateros eyes widened, then fell. “Wait, what does that mean?”

“I don’t know. I’m not even sure our language has the vocalizations for the [ and the ]. Just now, I slipped in the vocalization from Aengeesh, the language in the Free Desert Cities.”

“Huh. Didn’t even notice when you did that. But if our parents weren’t going to mention the System until much later in our language tutoring, maybe the [ and the ] vocalizations come later?”

“Maybe. It’s a lot of language theory and it’s giving me a headache… Sometimes I feel like I am just a child.”

“You’ve become overly dependent on the System easing childhood for us.”

“Me? I think you mean ‘we.’”

“Yes, of course, dear. But, subject change: so what’s going on with the magic?”

“Ugh, something else I don’t know. I didn’t think there was any magic in my household at first.”

“Really? I noticed it right away. Water closet, bathing room, kitchen.”

“What? How? I didn’t sense anything.”

“I mean, I didn’t either. But I’m not really a mage, even when I take the Class. But I saw weird shit happening and was like ‘magic.’ I wasn’t surprised I couldn’t sense it.”

“Goddess I’m blind,” Otonia facepalmed. “Anyways, the important thing is that Fell magic is weird. Like there’s no mana involved. And, yeah, I don’t have the System, but I should still be able to sense the mana, damn it. Hell, I know I can because I can sense the mana in me.”

“You still have mana? Have you tried casting anything yet?”

“I’m less than a year old. If it weren’t for the Traits, even a simple fireball would knock me out.”

“You don’t need to qualify for a [Mage] Class. Just a little cantrip or something. Maybe a bit of light?”

“I guess,” she conceded, then sat back as she started to visualize the right symbols to make a spell form. She kept rejecting it, simplifying it down to the bare basics. Though her mana was still sluggish, she had enough control over it to pull it out of her body and shape it just right.

It took nearly an hour, but finally, a small pebble-sized ball of yellow light appeared over her hand.

“Well, magic still works,” Krateros stated the obvious. “Why yellow?”

“Because,” she lectured, folding her hand to wink out the light. “Yellow is the baseline color for light spellforms. Very mana efficient. Also, did you feel that?”

“Yeah, I did. Probably not enough to cast it, but your mana usage was clear enough.”

“Okay. Well, I think we have two other short term goals. Keep an eye out for any mana usage, and figure out what’s going on with the Fell magic. How old is your sibling?”

“She’s six years. Why?”

“Hmm, guess this infant growth spurt will slow down soon. Anyways, if the Fell are anything like any other race, they won’t begin magical instruction until at least that age. But see if you can find out if she’s learned anything and, if not, when she will start. Should be innocuous enough for you to inquire, especially if you see your parents use Fell magic around the house.”

“I suppose I can do that,” Krateros pondered. “But I feel like we’re missing a beat.”

“What?”

“What—” Krateros licked his lips nervously, “What do we do this life?”

Otonia sighed. “It’s unsatisfactory, but I think we need to make that a later problem. There’s too little we understand about what’s going on. And while I have no idea how we’re going to find answers to some of these questions, others we can resolve just by growing up and learning. I don’t know how long our Race lives, but it’s not short. We can spare the time to make an informed decision.”

“Procrastination. And if there’s nothing? If we can’t reincarnate again?”

“Well, if there’s nothing we can do, well… we know how to live a good life, don’t we?” Otonia smirked melancholy. “Boy meets girl, girl likes boy. You know…”

“Yeah. I suppose we do.”

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Three months passed, and Otonia ◐ and Krateros ◮ were growing fast. They were very much still young children, but the pair could now hold conversations with adults in the local tongue or go out and play with local children near their homes. Their parents actually lived fairly far apart, which made visiting each other difficult. But they were “pair bonded”—they still hadn’t figured out what that meant—so there was extra effort made to allow them to spend time together.

Still, Otonia was a great [Mage]. And three months into her investigation of the Fell magic had been frustratingly opaque. Now though, she was willing to throw subtlety out the window.

“Mama. I want to learn magic.”

“Oh? You’re too young to learn magic. You have to wait until you’re five before you can start attending the college.”

“Oh. Well, can you tell me a little bit about magic anyways? Please?” she asked, giving her best begging eyes. “Doesn’t have to be spells or anything.”

“Oh, all right. I suppose we can have a little chat,” her mother gave in, sitting down on a chair, and picking up Otonia to sit on her lap. So, what is magic? Magic is using the World’s energy processed by your soul in order to impress your will upon the World.”

“Right! That’s mana!”

“Who taught you that heathen word?” her mother asked sharply.

Heathen word? Not this again. Apologies father! “Uhh, papa?” Otonia ◐ offered.

“I know you’re smarter than you act sometimes, missy. Who. Was. It?”

“Uhh, I don’t know. I heard it from another child,” 18 lifetimes ago, she left unsaid.

“Bah, whatever. Just know that mana is only used for lesser magics, and we have no use for it.”

Lesser magics?! She thought, but wisely kept to herself this time. “Okay, so what’s the energy called?”

“Well, when it’s raw, it’s called aether. But when it’s been processed by your soul and is ready to use, it’s called experience.”

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