Chapter 10:

The family had not taken well to a god appearing and telling them their daughter was trapped in a dungeon and they must not interfere.

Kintsuji sighed and rubbed at her muzzle with her clawed fingertips. The fact that the Mother was a Foxkin and not one of hers annoyed her to no end. One of the local deities had clearly chosen the fox as its symbol, as the changes to the woman stank of low grade deific magic. It had the stink of a trickster god of some kind. That, unfortunately, made a certain kind of sense. When Kintsuji had sent the soon to be named Arcadias’ soul down to Axis, it hadn't been with any particular aim, but a large part of her symbology was foxes and vulpines as a group. So having her born to a Foxkin had not seemed massively unusual.

But for that Foxkin to be the touched of a trickster god made a strange amount of sense, when one realised that tricksters were almost always somewhat precinct. They had to be able to see the future to some degree for their tricks to always work - ones that didn't have this talent often didn't survive long as gods. They simply couldn't absorb the essence of people who didn't believe in their ability to pull off the perfect trick.

It might be a very long coincidence, but Kintsuji had long given up on believing in them when it came to Tricksters. The god most likely wanted the Mother to be a message of some kind. The only question now was a message of what. Tricksters could be great allies or annoying foes - but they were always unpredictable.

Regardless of trickster influence or not, though, it had been a long time since Kintsuji had played a herald role, and talking with Mortals as a goddess had never been her strong suit. Dealing with emotions running high even less so. Some days she thanked her stars that her rise to divinity had made chemical reactions being able to influence her mind a thing of the past. Still, now she was…uncomfortable, dealing with the truly mortal and their oh so fragile view of reality.

That was what she blamed for her lack of ability to talk to and properly awe the purely mortal family of her new apprentice - not that Arcadia had ever accepted the position, or that Kintsuji had even offered it. It was just a foregone conclusion to the goddess that if the offer was made, Arcadia would say yes. Who wouldn't after all? If it wasn't meant to be, Arcadia wouldn't have unlocked the Vulpecula constellation - the Little Fox, and an illusion ability that so closely mimicked her own. It was quite literally written in the stars.

The parents were currently in Stasis. Sleep would have perhaps been a more kind option, but when they had had the temerity to actually try and attack her, Kintsuji had lashed out almost as an instinct. It had only taken seconds to put them back together - and it wasn't as though they wouldn't be stronger for it, that was her purview after all - but even the temporary destruction of another gods’ property was something that would come back to bite her in the ass.

Kintsuji could already feel one of the local powers had noticed the divine essence in the attack, and would arrive at some point to see what was happening. Most likely it was the trickster god themselves, and that would throw a wrench in Kintsujis’ plans here, but that was the reason for the stasis. It slowed the flow of time in the local area, and Kintsuji far outstripped the local powers in terms of raw power. She could keep the Pantheon here at bay for the time it took for Arcadia to complete her mission.

The other girl, though, the Sister. She was a different story. Kintsuji hated her soft heart sometimes, but she couldn't bare to see a child traumatised. When she had lashed out, even instinctively, she had reached out with her perception abilities and changed what the child saw in real time. Even now, a solid and convincing illusion of her family huddled and arguing covered the spot where they stood frozen in time, and with the power gap between god and mortal, it was a strong enough illusion that the child would never disbelieve it. The smartest thing to do would be to place her in stasis along with her family, but Kintsuji had secured permission to approach the girl, even if technically it shouldn't have been for a year, as the mortals reckoned it.

Now the white haired, yellow eyed child stared at the goddess before her with a mixture of fear, anger, and determination. The only reason that she wasn't in stasis yet as well was that Kintsuji could see the thoughts building in her head and wanted to see them spoken.

“I want to go in there too. Put me in with my sister.” She said at last, mulishly, and looking at the ruin that was over past their caravan. Kintsuji smiled, perhaps a little wolfishly, as she towered over the child.

“And why should I agree to that, little one? Your sister made a deal, and now she has to live up to her end of it. It would be very bad of me to change the rules of that deal now it is in motion.” Kintsuji pulled from the long shadows of the wagon a glass of her favorite tipple - the recalled memories of a wine she had drunk often when she was mortal, but had long since fallen into the forgotten past, along with the world it had been grown and pressed on. She drank, and watched the cogs whir in the little mortals’ mind, while secretly, she looked at the threads of the girls’ fate and pulled from the weave a Constellation stone that would match her well, and pair well with what she had planned for Arcadia. Finally, Mia seemed to make up her mind about the question, firmed her shoulders, and stuck out her chin, with all the bravado a nine year old could summon - which any parent would know is a surprising amount.

“Then make a new deal with me, so I can look after Arcadia. I'm the big sister, that's my job.” Kintsuji felt the threads of fate open up with those words and her grin was savage. This was not her world, and her power here was limited. She could not take a mortal soul from the local Pantheon, and so without Arcadia, she would be much less than she even was now. But if one should freely open themselves up to her?

Kintsuji revealed the Constellation stone with a slight of hand and a flick of shadow and light, and bent down until she was closer to eye level with the girl.

“Very well, that is something I can do. But nothing comes for free. I will place you inside the dungeon, and even give you a way to help your sister. But in return…” Kintsuji laid out her plans into the ears of a nine year old, who upon agreeing to the bargain would forget the conversation even happened, and laughed silently to herself. Like a pebble in a pond, the smallest impacts brought the largest change, and before the local Pantheon realized she was here, Kintsuji fully intended to throw as many pebbles as she could.

Now, to check on the slightly-more-than-mortal girl she’d taken under her wing and find the perfect moment to insert her sister into the situation. A place that caused the largest break - and the best reforging - she could get out of this opportunity.

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It took me longer than I would have liked to translate the rune journals from my bag to a usable form on the bottle. Every Rune inscription was practically unique, even if made of the same elements. This one not only had to account for a different base medium - fruit juice rather than water - but also for the curvature of the bottle, the amount of liquid inside, the thickness and purity of the glass, the flavour of my personal essence…the list went on.

Added to that was the difficulty of the inscription of the bottle itself with the tools I had - which wasn't easy as every single Rune and linking structure had to be perfect, so I had to go slowly, as well as the overall cost of the empowering of both my scriber and the enchantment itself. The inscription had a tiny induction rune that drew from my essence to fill a small reservoir in the handle, and filling that took another 5% of my essence.

The enchantment on the inscriber didn't carve or scratch the glass, instead, when powered it would convert a fraction of a millimetre of the material it touched to electrum, as long as the material was inert and inorganic. Electrum was incredibly inferior to some other materials at essence conduction than others - especially an alloy like Maxwellian Bronze - but it was the best I had, and I doubted I had the essence reserves or the class skulls to use anything better, hence why apprentice tools always used the silver alloy.

An hour later, I completed the inscription, which allowed me to apparently regain another 10% of my essence total - filling me back to full, but then the bottle took a full 20% of my essence to fill the Rune script and create the enchantment. The cold that washed over me made me shake and shudder as it left me, and I felt my empty stomach roil - the food I had eaten, after all, had all been converted to energy, and now I was running on a completely empty stomach.

I considered the benefits of lunch vs. possible emergency healing, and decided I could afford to be hungry if it might save my life.

With the inscription charged, though, I watched as the essence sank into the juice though the bottle, and turned the liquid a ruby red colour, becoming a basic healing concoction.

Something I had unlocked when with my Perception attribute came to mind and for the first time I activated my Identify ability, while staring hard at the former bottle of fruit juice:

[Basic healing concoction]: Wood 1. [Crafted Item] [Rechargeable] (5/5) uses remaining. Each drink of this potion will heal 30 hit points of damage over 5 minutes. User must wait 1 hour between uses or risk Essence Sickness.

I felt a warm glow of achievement well up inside of me. I had inscribed runes before, but I had never made my own item - Papa said it was dangerous if things went wrong, and Mother once told me of the time Papa had sent the caravan on fire with a misaligned heating Rune that was supposed to make a permanently warm blanket for her during the frigid desert nights. Still, there it sat, apparently stable and exactly as I had envisioned it. Adversity really did lead to innovation, as the most warlike countries of my old world had said.

Are you finally done, Arcadia? I know the potion is important, but I've been waiting to show you things for an age! The fox was sitting on top of a small mound of items, his tail wagging in exasperation. He hadn't interrupted me while he knew a mistake could cost me the whole bottle and all my progress, but now he knew that the potion wouldn’t explode, his impatience barrelled into me like a tidal wave. Boone was many things, but patient was not one of them - especially when he was excited. I sighed and rolled my eyes, before sticking my tongue out at the fox to show I didn't mean it. I tucked the newly minted health potion into my Travellers' Bag, and climbed to my feet to see what he had found.

Boone had hated not being able to help when I was hurt, and I think he felt that helping me gather whatever valuables I could from the room was both his best way to contribute, and a way to assuage his guilt on not being able to both hold back the second skeleton and catch the axe it threw.

The pile of goods Boone had gathered wouldn't have been too impressive - it was the first real pair of creatures in this challenge after all. , except for one thing. There was the now dented breastplate and the scratched helmet - the straps on both were dry and brittle, and both were too big for me anyway, even if all I had to protect me was a bloody shirt and a few scraps of cloth right now.

There was also the hammer, sword, axe and shield. Apart from the axe, they were either too heavy or too decrepit to use, and even the axe I'd need two hands to wield effectively at my size. It was all basically rotten and dry junk, barely worth its metal, except for the last two items.

Boone sat proudly behind two dark black marbles, sitting next to each other, and I gasped. Ability crystals, two of them. I had seen them before, obviously, and more times than the first, when my Father had harvested the monster core of a giant scorpion that had attacked us on my birthday when I was six, but now, two years later, I knew a little bit more about them too.

Ability crystals were a creation of the same System that allowed us to use the supernatural abilities of Constellation Stones. They were a material form of where a monster kept its essence, and were harvested and used to strengthen a person over and above what they could achieve through training, admittedly, with a few stipulations.

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Firstly, they could only work on a stat or talent that has been unlocked, or powers from that stat, which meant you couldn't use them at all if you had no Constellation stones bound to you. Technically, I might have been able to use them on my talents, as they were unlocked from birth, but they were always too rare a resource for me to sneak one away to test it.

Secondly, all Ability crystals had a level that was representative of the amount of levels and ranks the monster had in life. This was important because, in order to get to the next rank of a talent, ability, or stat, you had to use enough leveled crystals to pay for both your current and last rank - though if you overpaid, the extra essence levels were wasted. This meant to get to level 2, you'd need to use three levels of crystals, but to get to Wood rank 20, you'd need 39 levels.

Thirdly, not every monster dropped a crystal. The chance was roughly one in ten, so getting two at once was extremely lucky.

Lastly, when you used a crystal - any crystal - it was applied randomly. So even if you had the 39 levels to pay for a level 20 stat, they might end up getting applied to two or more abilities, so there was no guarantee of gaining strength where you thought you needed it.

I picked both crystals up carefully, and concentrated on my Identify ability again:

Wood Rank Ability Crystal: 3

Wood Rank Ability Crystal: 2

I frowned. Ostensibly, this was great news. Both crystals would provide five whole levels of Essence to increase abilities. So unless I was very unlucky, I was almost guaranteed to increase one of my abilities - though it was unlikely. Currently I had seven unlocked talents and abilities, six at Wood 1, and Boones’ ability at Wood 2.

What confuses me though was why I got so little information with Identify compared to the healing potion I made. Was it because they were of a higher level? Or because I made the potion myself and therefore got to know more about it?

This is an amazing opportunity, Arcadia. You should use them immediately. There is no telling what lies ahead through those doors, and almost any level-up would help right now. Boone looked excited and his tail wagged intermittently as he stared from the crystals to me and back again. Of course - he might have ulterior motives. The most unlikely, but still possible, result would be that all five levels of Essence would be applied to my Boone Companion Talent, and would result in Boone levelling again.

I sighed. He was right, regardless of his reasoning, but I still remembered the horrendous, debilitating pain of the Constellation stone activating, and hoped it wouldn't be similar. My only problem though was I wasn't sure how to use them. Boone seemed to see the noticeable confusion on my face when looking at the stones, and poked me in the ankle with his nose to get my attention.

I have seen your parents use them, occasionally. They swallowed them like a pill. I looked doubtfully at the roughly apricot sized piece of crystal, but finally shrugged. They were magic and magic was strange. I had just finished eating for over an hour and none of it had even reached my stomach. I took the lower rank crystal in hand and stuck it in my mouth, forcing myself not to gag as it took up pretty much all of the available space, and I was just about to get my lips closed over it.

I had no idea how I was going to swallow it from there, but the problem seemed to solve itself. As I nearly gagged on the rock, it suddenly wasn't a rock any more. The crystal seemed to almost pop and turn to a thick liquid that I had to struggle to swallow before I accidentally spat it out.

It hit my stomach in a rush of warmth, like vague memories of good whiskey from my last life, and quickly spread throughout my body. I felt my cheeks heat and my whole body began to sweat. With a sudden rush I felt my Core suck in every thread of energy it could, and I could almost see the liquid - that I realised must be compressed essence - flow through the spinning ball at my navel and get shoved down a channel to one of the receptacles attached to it.

Ability Crystal Detected. Applying upgrades. Perception Ability: Field of Illusions increased [Wood 1: 0/3] > [Wood 1: 2 /3].

I sighed. Of all the options the gem could have increased, Field of Illusions was the worst for me right now. It said it only affected non-mindless enemies, and basic undead monsters were practically famous for being idiots. With a look at Boone and his expectant look to me, I swallowed my trepidation and shoved the other rock into my mouth. Might as well get it over with. Like the first one, the second barely for in my mouth, and when it popped, I had to do my level best not to gag and choke on the thick, energy filled liquid as my mouth filled up.

I managed to swallow, and felt the energy flow and get pulled into my Core, but this time it didn't flow toward one of the new receptacles where I felt Essence pool for my abilities. It flowed down an older path that I realised had always been there, but had been a part of me since day one and I had never really thought about how it connected. The energy flowed to one of my Talents, and I saw in my minds eye the more self-contained bubble that represented one get coated in the flowing liquid and gain mass:

Ability Crystal Detected. Applying Upgrades. Inborn Talent: Resilience increased [Wood 1: 0/3] > [Wood 2: 0/5].

Resilience. Level: Wood 2

* 11% of each unique instance of received damage is resisted and converted to a Boon, granting an instance of [steadfast].

* [Steadfast] (Boon, Holy, stacking) each instance of [Steadfast] grants a 11% bonus to all attributes. May accrue one stack for each level of the body attribute (current stack maximum: 2) Boons fade swiftly once damage ceases or when healing is applied.

My mouth split in a wide grin. Perhaps Resilience wasn't the optimum ability to level up - Foxfire Imbuement or Repletion would have been my personal choices, if I had actually been able to choose - but Resilience both reduced the damage I took, and increased my survivability with the [Steadfast] boon. Going from 10% to 11% wasn't much - but being able to stack two instances of the boon meant I could now boost my stats by 22% during a fight if I received two different types of damage. That would help immensely, though looking down I saw that Boone looked glum suddenly.

“I'm sorry, buddy - as it's all random, chances were good your ability wouldn't get anything this time. But I'm sure we can level you up again soon.” I knelt down and scratched him between his ears and stroked his cheeks, making him whine almost against his will, before he snorted.

It's alright. I'm still stronger than you for now. That's all that matters at the end of the day. He nodded concisely and I smiled.

“Well, I think we’ve done all we can at this point. We should probably move on. I don't know how long we've been down here already, but mum and my dad's are probably getting very worried - Kintsujis’ reassurance or not.” A thought occurred to me that made my stomach flip, “in fact it probably made things worse.”

I have been looking at the doors. There are titles above them. I looked, and saw that the fox was right. Above the Bull, was the title “Trial of Brawn”, above the feathered serpent was written “Trial of Intellect”, and above the lion was “Trial of Courage”. Of the three I knew which one I'd prefer - intellect sounded far more up my street than courage or brawn. But I had the feeling I would need to complete all three. Three trials, three unbound attributes. And they seemed to match up too - brawn to body, intellect to mind, and courage to Will.

“At the moment, my skills are almost all utility abilities, with a tiny bit of attack and damage mitigation. My biggest strength is that I have an adult mind and you here to help me. Getting a second stone - any stone - should help complete further challenges easier, right?”

I'd say your logic is sound, yes. So, Trial of Intellect?

I nodded. It was the best choice, I felt. I grabbed a drink of water from a skin I kept in my traveller's bag to settle my nerves, and with Boone by my side, pushed open the door with the feathered serpent.

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Mia came to with a swimming head and the fading pain of the Constellation stone twisting and jerking at her nerves. Wherever she was, it was dark, and her eyes were failing to adjust properly, but that didn't impede her Soul Card as she brought it up, to see what the stupid Goddess that had kidnapped Arcadia - and now her, probably - had stuck her with. She thought she had been sneaky, trying to trick her while she messed with Mias’ parents, but she clearly didn't know her Mum and Dads. They would have never argued when it came to Arcadia or her - and absolutely wouldn't have done it in front of either of them.

No, the dumb Goddess with the fox head has done something to them. At first, she thought it must be Mischief, playing a prank like he did in the stories, but when Mia had agreed to the deal she offered, the notification had called her ‘Kintsuji’. Mia had never heard of a Goddess with that name - or any name like a person would have. The gods were named after what they represented. Mischief, War, Knowledge, Beauty…

Mia didn't trust the Goddess one bit, but she had her parents and had disappeared Arcadia somewhere in the ruins her and Papa had been investigating. Mia knew something bad had happened, but her parents, while clearly scared, had been trying to hide what it was. So Mia had decided to be the best big sister she could be and go and save Arcadia herself. So she’d take the Stone from the Goddess and done as she was told…and had apparently passed out from the pain.

Constellation stone of the Umbra Vulpes consumed. This Constellation stone will bond with your Mind attribute.

Body Attribute Unlocked. The Body attribute governs your physical strength, balance, speed, flexibility and overall health. As you gain levels in the body attribute, you will find yourself healthier, stronger, more acrobatic, and can look forward to a longer lifespan.

Additionally, Unlocking the Body Attribute grants you the Innate physical ability, Adrenaline Surge. When activated, this Ability grants you a severe boost to physical strength, durability, and reaction times, but concurrently you will suffer a period of extreme weakness when the ability fades.

Umbra Vulpes Passive Ability unlocked: Shards of Midnight.

Umbra Vulpes Constellation Stone is trying to unlock an Inborn Talent. Success. Umbra Vulpes Constellation stone has unlocked the linked Talent: Born to Shadows.

Shards of Midnight: Wood 1

* When you reach into a shadow, you may channel essence to grasp and remove a sharp edged blade of shadow that may be used as a knife, dagger, or throwing weapon. You may form a dagger for each hand, and the weapon will maintain solid form as long as you are in contact with it, and for a short duration after you release it if thrown.

Born to Shadows: Wood 1

* As an Umbra Foxkin, you have an Inborn connection to shadows and they respond easier to your will. You may add your Mind attribute plus the level of this Talent to the damage or difficulty class of a shadow related skill. In addition, when actively using Stealth in a shadowed environment, you become much harder to discover.

I read over the words in a daze. This was an Awakening. The stone must have been a Constellation stone. But…Mia wasn't ten for another few months. That shouldn't be possible. Still - it wasn't a priest who did the ceremony, it was a goddess. Maybe they could change the rules.

Other things didn't make sense as well. The talent referred to her as an Umbra Foxkin, but Mia was human. Mum was a Foxkin, sure, and that had happened during her Awakening ceremony, but Mia had always been told it was a choice. Mia hadn't made any choices. Still, she called up her main Soul Card and stared at a particular line:

Race: Umbra Foxkin (humanborn)

* A race of duality, Umbra Foxkin are deeply tied to both the shadow and the light. Marked both by their odd eyes and often white hair, Umbra Foxkin are often unfairly linked with criminality and deception when they display a talent with shadow magic.

Something rustled nearby, and something on Mias’ head twitched in its direction. Her eyes followed the sound almost immediately, and at first, just seeing where she was distracted her from the odd feeling.

Mia had heard the word Forest before, and had seen pictures in books, but living in the Divide meant she had never seen one. But now she lay in a grassy clearing surrounded by thick, knotted old trees. It was also the dead of night where it had been just after dawn a few minutes ago - the forest was dark and eerie and it cut down on her ability to see by a great deal. She could smell them and the flowers in the undergrowth. The scents and sounds were intoxicating.

The sound came again, a rustling of the bushes, and the things on Mias' head twitched toward it again. Curious and scared, Mia reached up to find two large, furry triangles sat perched over her hair.

They were sensitive and flexible, and Mia began to panic somewhat. Ears. They were triangular fox ears. She probably would have panicked more over the discovery of her body changing, but about that time the source of the noise made its presence properly known, and Mia had a new, and very different reason to be afraid.

An enormous, black furred lion strode from between the trees, and pushed the undergrowth aside with its mass. It paused at the edge of the clearing and stared at Mia with Gimlet eyes. Its jaw opened and it's cheeks curled in what could almost be called a smile, if it wasn't for the dagger-like teeth that shone white against the otherwise dark fur.

“Well, well, well. It has been so long since I had a plaything in this place, I had thought I had truly been forgotten.” The Lion spoke in a deep and velvety growl that sent shudders down Mias’ spine, and she couldn't help a whimper from escaping her lips. “You are scrawny though. I doubt you will be much fun. Still, rules are rules. Welcome to the trial of Courage. You have twenty minutes to start running, then I will follow.” It smiled and it took a moment for Mias’ terrified brain to understand what it said. “Basically: Run!”

Scared or not, wobbly legs or not - Mia obeyed, and started running for her life.