Chapter 20:
Mia looked again at her Constellations and Talents in despair. Arcadia was just coming round, and looked to be mesmerised by a new addition to her body. Mia would have loved to have celebrated with her sister and seen whatever cool thing she had uncovered that her body could now do with three of her four constellations unlocked. But, Mia couldn't. She had slowly come back to herself in the recovery room, and the feeling of being trapped in a younger mindset has been utterly terrifying for her to comprehend. She had nearly gotten through it though, when this should happen. Mia felt sick, and the food from the never ending buffet suddenly felt like lead in her stomach.
When her race had changed to Umbra Foxkin and she gained abilities with shadows, it had been bad enough. Shadow magic wasn't something Mia knew a lot about, but it wasn't necessarily bad. The ability for her to produce wickedly sharp blades with the Shards of Midnight Ability had probably saved her life in the nightmare of the Courage Trial.
But she looked at her newly unlocked Constellation and wept inside for what it must reflect of her soul and spirit - because after all, weren’t the classes and abilities you gained entirely tied to your own soul and its expression?
Her Will Attribute had unlocked to a Constellation called the [Noctiuagus], the Nightstalker in the language of the System. It had granted her, of all things, an affinity with Darkness magic. Shadow was one thing, it was a gray area, but it had non evil applications. Even the System said the race she had been turned into was distrusted if they were proven to have affinity with Shadow magic. If people found out she had Darkness affinity, they would probably lock her in a hole and throw away the key.
Darkness was the stuff of children's stories. The bad man in the night who came to take small girls away always welded the power of Darkness. It was the power of cold, creeping death. The absence of light, of warmth. It was entropy and the banishing of hope and light.
Darkness was a magic solely used to terrorise, and Mia had an affinity for learning it.
Worse, even, the Ability and the Talent that had unlocked filled her with disgust. Especially the passive ability of the [Noctiuagus] stone:
Chill of the Grave: Wood 1 (0/3)
* The Nightstalker is a creature that instils fear in all who feel its presence. You may channel this Ability to project an aura of fear in a ten foot area around you. At its lowest levels, this will make animals and mindless creatures unwilling to approach, and sapient enemies will be unsettled. Aura area and strength will increase with higher levels.
Having the ability to channel the same ability as the Namean Lion sent a shudder all the way down her spine and Mia nearly threw up her dinner. The idea that the System thought that was a power that reflected her soul terrified her. Was she bad? Was she a horrible girl? The Talent she unlocked was just as horrifying, but for different reasons:
Grasping Shadows. Wood 1 (0/3)
* Your attacks with shadow magic have a chance to make an opponents’ own shadow work against him, Grasping and his limbs and disrupting his motions for a brief moment. The duration and strength of these disruptions increases with the level of this Talent
The very idea of making a creatures’ shadow reach out and choke them was horrifying. When Arcadia and she had been little, and their parents had gone off on an expedition without them, they had often been left in the care of an old lady who had tended the house and cooked the two of them meals in return for a stipend from their parents each year.
But the problem had always been that said old lady had been very fond of scary bedtime stories. When Mia had been very little, she was terrified of shadow-men coming from beneath her bed to steal her away.
What if she was only being granted powers of things that terrified her? What if she was becoming something only designed to terrify others?
“Mimi, what’s wrong? Did you get a weird power?” Arcadia asked, her voice a rough scrape of damaged vocal cords and badly scarred muscle. Mia looked at her sister, who had refused to leave the Courage Trial because she had been too afraid to succeed herself. Her sister whose voice has been completely ruined by the monster that Mia herself had roughly ripped away from her throat.
The biggest problem, though, was that when she had killed the Zombies, stabbed them and shown she was the stronger fighter, she hadn't just enjoyed it, it had thrilled her. Papa Milos always told her to remain detached during a fight. That emotion clouded the mind and only brought ruin to the fighters who gave into it. But since becoming this thing, this Umbra Foxkin…it was like she’d been thrown out into the desert night in the middle of winter. It was so cold and desolate that her blood felt like it would freeze. But the rush of combat, of facing creatures that wanted her dead, it was like a blazing bonfire that heated her through to the core. That wasn't how good girls were meant to feel about fighting.
It wasn't a what if, was it? There was something wrong with her, and her Constellation stones were proving that. Either that or the gods were a thousand times more cruel than she had ever been led to believe. She needed to get away; She needed to be somewhere she couldn’t hurt people who felt it. A place where the only things she could hurt deserved it.
Heart racing, tears in her eyes, Mia leapt to her feet and raced through the door to the Intellect Trial, grabbing her Tiger skin Cloak as she passed. She didn't look back to see the look of worry that crossed Arcadias’ face, as the door swung shut behind her.
Even in the mood she was in, Mia had to stop and stare at the cave, at the Jungle within it, and at the pyramid in the distance. It was so much different to the Courage Trial. It was warm, and light, and blooming. The trees were filled with fruit and the stone was dry and ancient. There was no mud, or rain, or darkness. It looked like a paradise.
But this was a Trial, and monsters lay waiting in the shadows under the trees. Arcadia had spent days making her memorise the answers to the questions. It would be so easy to just walk down the path, answer the riddles and puzzles, and get her reward from the Serpent. She hesitated, torn as to what to do. The serpent was supposed to be a spirit of Intellect, though, wasn't it? Maybe she would know the answer.
But if Mia completed the challenges, she would get a reward, but she doubted she would want it, not that iit would lead to another dark constellation. The ones she currently had burned black in her spirit, and she desperately wanted to find the light.
Cheating would only prove that she was bad. Mia needed to prove she was anything but. She needed to prove it her own way as well, and Skeletons were very, very bad.
Mia made a decision. If she was only meant to be good at killing and scaring things, then setting one monster on another was surely more good than bad.
Mia reached under her cloak, and pulled out two Shards. She didn't want to cheat, but if she already knew the answers, she needed another way to get the Feathered Serpents’ attention.
When Mia came to the first challenge, the 9 squared grid with the coloured rollers, she waited until the four skeletons turned up. The fear started bubbling up when she saw their flaming blue eyes, but it was nothing compared to the horrid, rotting zombies. They may have been taller than Mia, and their spears looked very dangerous, but they were just stood there, like statues. Mia reached under her cloak and grabbed the shadows inside like two shards of burning ice.
The shadows - the absence of light - shouldn't have had any physical substance at all, but when her hands grabbed them with essence running through them, she could feel the shadows as jagged pieces of glass, like when she picked up the pieces of a drinking glass that she had broken.
Long handles found their way into her hands, and with a last, traitorous thought about whether this was a good idea, Mia threw the two knives she had gripped, empowered with her Talent Born To Shadows, and drilled them as fast as arrows into the skulls of the world lead skeletons.
The skulls shattered like broken crockery, and Mia danced backwards into the ruined clearing, as the other two flickered forwards, faster than she could see - but apparently not faster than she could hear.
The bony feet of the skeletons hit with a tak tak tak in rapid succession, and Mia activated the Body special ability, Adrenaline Surge, doubling her body of 2 to 4 for a brief flicker of a moment, speeding her up till she was quicker than the two skeletons, and she could leap backwards away from the scything blades of their spears. She produced and threw two more knives just as time resumed its normal speed, and the attacking skeletons fell into piles of dusty bone and old fur.
Mia was Nine. In Arcadias’ old life, she was led to believe that would mean she was still the very definition of a child. Barely trusted with anything. Possibly with a few self defence lessons thrown in if she was lucky. But otherwise expected to rely on her parents and guardians to keep her safe while she grew to a more ‘trusted’ age. Mia had thought recently how awful it would be to live in a world where threats were so rare that humans grew up with the expectation of safety. It was an alien concept that she had previously associated with the privileged, rich elite who used their money to pay for advancement at the sweat, blood, and death of others.
But Mia was Nine on Axis - and one of her parents was a warrior who fought monsters for a living and had a lot of free time. Mia knew how to fight - she'd been doing it for years. Even more, whatever else the Abilities did for or to her, they gave her an instinctive knowledge of how to use them. Even the single extra point of Body had come with a host of muscle memory that Mia had never trained, on how to move better, jump higher, bend in new and interesting ways. Along with the muscle memory to make basic use of the knowledge.
She’d had all these skills in the Courage Trial, but she was, at heart, still a child. She hadn't had the mental defences to fight against the terror - not without her sisters’ and Boones’ help. A help she repaid by getting them hurt, which was repeated when the Namean Lion had made her that much more of a monster with a Nightstalker Constellation.
More skeletons rushed onto the path and started to charge toward her, and Mia reached into her core and tipped more essence into her Shards of midnight ability, refilling the receptacle to full. She had agreed to come into this Dungeon to save Arcadia. Instead, her little sister had had to save her. Her little sister, who was actually so much older than her. An old lady in a young body. That was done to her by the fox headed goddess, and then she'd tricked Mias’ parents and her into letting all this happen.
Mia just wanted to be good. To look after her sister and protect mum and dad and papa. She just wanted to be good.
She wasn't a bad girl…
Mia pulled out two more knives. No matter how good it felt, she wasn’t bad…
Was she?
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“Enough!* A new voice cracked like a whip and all the skeletons stood to attention, apart from the one that Mia had just finished carving through its femur, who fell down and laid still.
As the rhythm of combat suddenly halted, Mia found herself off balance, and stumbled. Her legs were cut in a half dozen long gashes, her wrists, arms and torso in a dozen more. The tiger cloak had mercifully protected her spine, neck and head, but it couldn’t cover everything and the spears had a longer reach than Mias’ daggers.
The weight of her own arms was suddenly too much, and Mia allowed them to drop, swaying on her feet like the drunks they would see when ‘Cadia and she had trained with the adventurers at the sunken temple three years ago. Her breath came in ragged gasps, and her head was fuzzy, her eyes tunnels that were only now starting to widen again. Her Core was over-strained and nearly empty. It felt like Mias’ veins were full of ice and slurry.
But the ground was littered with bones, and those that stood in the clearing hadn’t managed to either stop or make her solve the puzzle and continue.
“What in all the Gods’ names do you think you are doing, young lady! This is a trial of Intellect, not barroom brawling!” a serpentfolk woman in long robes and feathers for hair had appeared at the gate to the next challenge, looking furious. Mia let her daggers dissipate, the shadows reappearing inside her cloak as they did.
“I needed…to get your attention,” Mia grasped, her lungs burning from the fight still. Even if it had only been a few minutes, it had felt like hours, as time stretched and her vision tunnelled.
“And why did you decide destroying my skeletons was the best way to do that, rather than, I don't know - solving the problems and meeting me? I even know for a fact that you have all the answers. I let you have all the answers. This makes no sense.” the snake woman waved a hand, and the skeletons dissipated into rainbow smoke, as though they had never been there in the first place. She huffed in annoyance, and made her way over to the battered and bloody girl. Looking at her, though, she couldn't help taking pity on her. The Rainbow Serpent had heard from the Lion what this one had been through, and she should have expected something like this. The poor girl had been through a literal hell and survived, but her psyche had most likely taken a heavy hit. The serpent far in the distance wove together runes from three different languages, with linkages that were as much pure will as solid direction, and sent a pulse of positive energy through the link to her avatar and into the girl. Much like a healing bottle, but far more powerful, the spell flooded Mias’ body with healing energy and restorative infusions, closing wounds and giving her back the energy she had spent. As with every instant healing, there would be scars - Kintsuji had briefed them that anything higher than Stone level healing was banned on this world, but it should at least stop her from bleeding to death. The girl looked both amazed and guilty at the sudden disappearance of her wounds, and the Serpent sighed. The young ones were always a mixture of so very easy to deal with, and so frustratingly complex.
“I didn't want to cheat. I didn't want to follow the path the stupid goddess who put me here wants me to. I'm not a bad girl!” Mia nearly shouted the last line, realizing she still sounded like the child she had been reduced to in the last trial, but unable to throw off the spectre of that place. The Rainbow Serpent felt her millennia old heart twitch at it. She honestly hadn't understood what Kintsuji had been thinking, throwing a literal child into a champion trial, but this one especially was hard. At least the sister had the maturity of another life to draw on. This one reminded her too much of her brother the Lion. With a flourish, the serpentfolk activated some of the enchantments woven into this space, and moved a tiny amount of matter from one place to another, changing its form as she did so. Within a blink of the young girls’ eye, a table and two chairs appeared as though they had always been there. The table was laid with a teapot, two cups, and a plate of scones, jam, and thick sweet clotted cream. The avatar may not need to eat, but the act of eating and drinking the tea, she had found, was one of the best ways to allow a guest who needed it to gather their thoughts.
“Tell me what this is about, child. Perhaps I can offer a solution that isn't decimating skeletons until you eventually succumb to your wounds." They both sat, the serpentfolk calmly and primly, with practised posture, and Mia in whatever way she felt the least exposed to scrutiny. She did at least pull down the hood of her cloak - her stolen cloak, mind, but that had been the Sisters’ actions, not hers. The serpentfolk poured the tea, and offered the plate of scones, but it took a few minutes for Mia to take one, picking at it more than eating, but keeping her hands busy and letting her thoughts run in whichever way they needed. Eventually, she began to speak.
She spoke of, what the Serpent guessed, was the Illusion Kintsuji had put up of her parents. Of the deal the goddess made with the girl, and the advantage she took from it. Of the horrors of the Courage Trial, and how she had come here to save Arcadia, but had ended up, not only needing to be saved, but also very nearly getting her sister killed.
She spoke of the truths she had learned about Arcadias’ origins and how she didn't know where she fit in their dynamic anymore - was she even still the older sister, when Arcadia was ‘practically an old lady?’ The serpent took some manner of hurt from this statement, herself being thousands of years older than either child, but she didn't let it show.
Mostly, she spoke about her Constellations and her race change, and what she thought that meant. The serpent listened, and was somewhat shocked by the choices the goddess and the system had made for her with her stones, it must be said.
From what she could tell, the girl was someone who loved to fight, yes, but was overall a caring and protective individual, if perhaps a little jealous of her younger sister, but then, what sibling wasn't in their own way? The Feathered Serpent felt that her enforced choice of stones were very harsh, and didn’t really fit the girl at all.
They talked for several hours, until the girl seemed to run out of steam. When she cried, the serpent summoned tissues and chocolate. When the tea ran out she summoned more, and when she needed a minute, the serpentfolk left, and gave her the space to gather herself, but eventually, the tirade ran out, and Mia waited for what the snake lady would have to say.
“Mia, the first thing I have to say is, from what I can tell, you are not a ‘bad girl’. You are a young woman who has been put in a bad situation that you had no control over. Choices which should have been yours have been taken away from you, yes, but that doesn't have to be the path you walk from here on out.” She readjusted her posture, and frowned, as she moved into a topic that she knew more than she ought to, but which had fascinated her nonetheless; Reincarnators were not unknown in the multiverse - the mechanisms of the River were uncountably ancient, and not well understood by their caretakers in this age. The existence of Dragons only proved that. But Reincarnated souls as…resilient as Arcadias’ were rare enough that they almost always became a linchpin on whatever world they were eventually placed upon. “As for Arcadia and her past life, and what that means for the two of you…I happen to know that, whatever family Arcadia may have had in her last life, she does not remember any of it. Not because it was taken from her, but because she did not lead a happy life. To her, you are the only family she has ever known, and we, the servants of Kintsuji, have been watching as she grew into a wonderful young woman; Mostly because of you. The way you feel protective of her, she feels doubly for you, and I genuinely fear for any force that is out between you.”
They talked briefly, after that, of nothing truly important, just things to bring Mia back to a level field, and help her to digest the information before they moved on to other topics. “As for your Constellations…what has been done cannot be undone, true.” Mia looked slightly panicked at this, but the Serpentfolk held up a hand to stall her. “But what can be done is to alter your path from here. You still have two stones, and I, as well as my brother, can…alter…the instructions we have been handed to some degree. We can balance the scales, at least. But you have an equally large part you can play in what happens as you grow. During the Wood ranks, as your Attributes increase, you will unlock other powers of your Constellations at levels five, ten, and fifteen. These Abilities are mostly set. But when you reach the Stone ranks and beyond, those abilities will evolve, and continue to evolve, based on how you use them, and how you see them - and not even the gods can interfere with that.”
Mia looked at her, and for the first time during the conversation, hope bloomed in her eyes. “I can change the Dark Constellations to Light ones?”
“Or light ones to Dark, yes. Eventually, the Abilities you have, if you should get strong enough, will not resemble anything you have now or may gain in the future. Remember, when it comes to Magic and the System, Intent matters more than anything else. If you want something strongly enough, you will find a way to get it. You just have to keep moving forward, keep climbing, and one day you will reach the stars themselves.”
Their conversation wound down a couple of hours later, with Mia looking a little more stable, but with some work left to do, and the Serpent having come to a decision on how to proceed. Her Avatar summoned a stone to her that was quickly created from the magic the Feathered Serpent had been imbued with as a Trial Master, and the Serpentfolk laid the scintillating crystal on the table between them, along with a small number of Ability Crystals the girl would have earned from her mass combat with the Skeletons of her Jungle.
“Normally, you would have to complete my trial to receive this, but as you already have the answers and have shown you are more than capable of defending against the Guardians, I can skip the preamble. This Stone is not the one we were told to give you, but it is close. Notably, it will generate a Light Constellation, with no possibility of it being Dark - which I will warn you is a coin toss on any creation of the system unless a higher power wills it. I would brace yourself before you use it, but you will have to decide whether to use the crystals before or after you take the Constellation.”
Imagining that she wanted to hopefully improve her chances with a new Constellation, rather than increase the risk of improving the ones she already had, Mia decided to unlock her new Constellation first, and the Serpent watched over her while she did.
Constellation stone of the Damselfly Vitri consumed. This Constellation stone will bond with your Perception Attribute.
Perception Attribute Unlocked. Perception governs the ability to see, hear, smell, and perceive the world. As you gain levels in Perception, you will be able to sense more in your surroundings, see further and in greater detail, and feel things more clearly with each level. Additionally, unlocking the Perception Ability grants you the Targeted Ability: Identify. At its most basic level, Identity will allow you to know the name and level of Wood Rank items. The amount you can discover, and the Rank of what you can identify, will increase as you gain levels in the Perception Stat.
Damselfly Vitri passive ability unlocked: Stained Glass Wings.
Damselfly Vitri Constellation Stone is trying to unlock an Inborn Talent. Success. Damselfly Vitri Constellation stone has unlocked the linked Talent: Glimmers of Radiance.
Stained Glass Wings: Wood 1 (0/3)
* Transmutation Ability. Ability may be activated to summon a physical transformation. You gain the four wings of the Legendary creature the Stained Glass Dragonfly. Once summoned, the wings require a minimal essence upkeep to remain summoned. At its lowest level, these wings of bonded rare metals and toughened glass act as a physical shield for you that will protect you from attacks at your direction. In addition, the wings are strong enough to slow a fall or assist you in gliding from a great height, but without further abilities, the wings will be unable to offer flight. Magical clothing will adjust to accommodate the wings, but mundane clothing may be damaged or destroyed.
* The wings of the stained glass dragonfly also act as a casting focus for light and radiance based abilities. These wings constantly glimmer with fragmented light unless actively suppressed. This is a Radiance Effect.
Glimmers of Radiance: Wood 1 (0/3)
* You have been graced with an understanding of Radiance, to balance the darkness that crowds your soul. When using an ability that has the Light, Healing, or Radiance Keyword, those who see the light you project will be bolstered and find it easier to throw off or negate negative emotional effects.
Ability Crystal Detected. Applying upgrades. Body Attribute Level Increased: [Wood 2 4/5] > [Wood 3 0/7].
Ability Crystal Detected. Applying upgrades. Perception Attribute Level Increased: [Wood 1 0/3] > [Wood 2 0/5].
Ability Crystal Detected. Applying Upgrades. Inborn Talent: Born to Shadow increased [Wood 2: 3/5] > [Wood 3: 0/7].
Ability Crystal Detected. Applying Upgrades. Perception Ability: Stained Glass Wings Increases [Wood 1 0/3] > [Wood 2 (0/5)].
The Rainbow Serpent watched through the eyes of her Avatar as Mia absorbed the Constellation Stone, going ridged with an agonised expression on her face as her very spirit was twisted into a new configuration. When the broken shards of the crystal had fallen from her chest and she had recovered enough, she made her way stubbornly through the Ability Crystals. The serpent didn't even think she had looked at her notifications yet, refusing to do so until the end in case there was yet another upset. But when she was all done, the Serpent sat back in muted pleasure as she watched a smile break through on Mias’ face like the dawning of the sun. Tears began to flow from her eyes freely, and she pushed herself away from the table, removing her Tiger skin cloak as she did so, the shadow magic in her blood leaving the garment and returning it to its black and orange colouration as she did so, before she summoned her new Ability in a flash of blue fire.
Gold filigree wings erupted from the Nine year olds’ back, two pairs, one above and one below each other, with each gap between the golden metal filled with what looked like multi coloured stained glass.
The wings moved freely, and Mia spread them to their limits with a look of wonder on her face. Because she thought it would be appropriate, the Serpent caused a concentrated beam of the usually sourceless light to hit the wings at just the right angle to make the glass explode in color, and the ancient snake was very pleased to see the pure joy that burst from the girl at the sight. She would have a long and drawn out argument with her mother over the decisions she had made here today, but she had always taken a slightly different view on reforgings than the Goddess of Broken Things. Sometimes, it wasn't the item that had to reforge itself, sometimes, they needed someone who knew what they were doing to help.