Chapter 7:
When we pushed our way through the water, it was with the hope of finding a safe zone, or a shrine to whatever God this ruin had been dedicated to, to hopefully find an out, or at least plan a strategy around an eight year old child with no class, no magic, and kids toys for weapons.
To a point, we’d been right - what was beyond the apparently protective field was indeed a shrine. A small room that looked like a Roman temple, with white marble columns, lit by a solid, golden light that looked like it was meant to be sunlight streamed from sunken recesses between the columns, and flower and spice scented air flowed into the room from the same space, but I could see almost straight away that both were produced by intricate Runework that had somehow remained working since the 5th age, or, perhaps, by the ruins’ transformation into a dungeon. It would have been fascinating to me if it wasn't for what was in the centre.
An anonymous humanoid figure appeared to have once sat on a carved marble throne, but that figure had been overlaid by white fire and golden veins, a vulpine head and wide wings tucked against the back of a feminine but indistinct form.
“Kintsugi…” I whispered, lost for words.
“Mum..?” Boone perked up on my shoulders, and blinked up at the figure. “What are you doing here? This isn't your temple, is it..?”
The figure laughed, covering her face as she snorted and chuckled. “No, no it is not. But he isn't using it, so I moved in temporarily.” She reached out with a free hand and grasped at the shadows near the ceiling, which twisted and turned until she held a wine glass, like she had in that dark place between. “When I saw my Catalyst had gotten in over her head, I thought it would be best to drop in.”
A sudden weight dropped off my shoulders, and I heaved a sigh of relief that left my knees weak. “You're going to get me out of here? Thank you! Thank you!” I let my weakened knees drop me to the floor and felt a shudder of released adrenaline pass through me. Then, of course, Kintsuji dropped the floor from under me.
“No, don't be silly,” she said, and snorted, and I felt my body seize up again. “Why would I waste a perfectly good opportunity? This dungeon is so fresh I can taste it - and there is a lot of essence and rewards to be gained here.”
“But I don't have a class,” I said, lamely, curling Boone into my arms. “Or any way to gather essence. I'm only eight…”
The goddess looked at me and I could feel her smile - and while kindly, it also felt mocking in more than a few angles. “My parents won't even tell me about getting a class till I'm ten. They say I'm not ready to hear the details.”
“Are you eight? Really? Or are you almost in your forties? Or even much older than that? Who knows how long you drifted before I found you.” She said it kindly, And even I didn't know the answer to her questions, but for a brief beat, I could feel that depthless cold of the space between and the slow deadening and hardening of my soul in the void.
“My body is eight. Everybody says it is too dangerous to try and unlock a class early.” Under that smile, my arguments felt foolish. But this was magic, and it had its own rules. It was fascinating and so alien to me that I took every warning at face value. I always got the impression that my last life - my last world - had been completely without magic, and so every time I saw it in this life, it still struck me as wondrous, mysterious, and otherworldly. Kintsuji, however, this larger than life creation of white and gold light wrapped over stone that her body warped and moved like living clay in place of whatever God was supposed to be represented here, lent down to my diminutive form before her, reached out with one stately, feminine hand, and flicked me in the forehead.
“Do you know why they don't allow children to use a Constellation stone before they are ten? Or in fact why it is needed to have a Constellation stone at all in order to receive a class and start empowering your body?” She asked me, a warm smile on her vulpine face, but a note of mockery in her voice. “It is because the souls of this world are comparatively weak - a fault of the local gods I am sure - and it takes several years for them to stabilise enough to accept the power of a quickening. That, and unlike many worlds out there in the greater beyond, when this world was created, the local pantheon decided that a person could only progress their personal power through struggle and strife. So they need an external source of energy to empower their quickening. It is generally accepted that a childs’ soul is too weak to accept a stone, and a childs’ mental state is too immature to go hunting monsters. Tell me, child, how are you different from them?”
I felt my core - the place where both my soul and my essence sat in this body - pulse with warmth as the answer came to me. “My soul is older than my body, tougher. And my mind is that of an adult even if my body doesn't match.” The goddess clapped her hands and gestured in the same way a proud teacher would upon receiving a correct answer from a toddler.
“Very good. Excellent deduction. You probably could have gone through a Quickening the day you were born, if you had had the resources and the help. But now, lacking those resources, you find yourself here - in a Temple, with a goddess, and a trial beyond. Why shouldn't we make the best of this situation? After all - do well enough and you could change the world.” Her smile went from a kindly maternal figure to a savage grin full of teeth, and I recalled vividly her task on Axis - to break and reforge the world. She said I wouldn't be a part of it, but I had the feeling I was swindled in that deal.
“What is a Quickening? That's not a term I've heard before.” As I continued to speak with Kintsuji, Boone wriggled his way out of my grip and approached the goddesses’ image, where she promptly picked him up and placed him in her lap. It was an odd sensation, And nearly distracted me from her answer, as I felt a wave of contentment from Boone, at the same time as a sensation of being touched in a very private area that wasn't supposed to be touched. Like cold hands rubbing across my soul. Still, Kintsuji continued to speak, and I tried my best to pay attention.
“A quickening is simply the act of binding Constellation stones to your attributes and using the resulting changes to create a class. As it would also awaken a person's talents and perhaps a bloodline - like your Mother's Foxkin bloodline from one of her stones - you emerge often as a completely new person. So we refer to this process around the galaxy as a quickening, rather than an awakening, as it is called more locally. It seems here that the gods handed off the process to their priests and something has been lost in translation. I don't intend for that to happen with you.”
You can trust mum, Boone said contentedly as Kintsuji scratched between his ears and he lay there with closed eyes and a dopey grin on his fox face. I swallowed and sighed. The goddess hadn't given me any reason not to trust her, so far, even if I had doubts about her end goal. Using me as a catalyst for whatever plan she had was supposed to be the less destructive option, and while I didn't know about a lot of the world, I liked the people of the Divide, and I loved my family. I didn't want to die here, and I didn't want them to get hurt. However, there was still a problem. “I don't have any Constellation stones,” I said, miserably, and felt my shoulders slump.
“Well, I could certainly help there - though as before, not for free.” The goddess grinned and took a long swig from her shadow-wrought wine glass.
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“Is that how it will always be, between us?” I felt like I was being rude, honestly, but I had to ask. Right now, I didn't have a lot of choice. I didn't see myself getting out of this dungeon without some major help, so I knew whatever she asked for, I'd most likely agree to. I just didn't like the mercenary nature of it.
“For now, yes. Though that may change when you have become more useful to me. But I don't plan on asking for much right now.” She changed her position, curling my fox friend into the crook of one arm, and stood up. She was massive in this form, towering over me, and with her indistinct body made of soft white light, she sort of terrified me, even if the energy she seemed to give off wasn't malicious, but more like a slightly mercenary wine aunt in the two occasions I'd had to speak with her. “In return for a single Constellation stone, I'd like you to agree to two things. The first is to allow me a hand in your class creation. You have a lot of potential, and I do not wish to see it squandered. The second is to allow me to contact your sister, Mia, when she goes for her own quickening.”
That one made me lock up - the protectiveness of a sister kicking into high gear in less than the time it took to blink. I glared up at the giant woman. “Why!?”
Kintsuji rocked back on her heels and chuckled, waving a hand in front of her face. “Nothing sinister, I promise you. She has potential - not as much as you, perhaps, but a fair amount regardless. And two feet in the door is better than one.”
I got properly to my feet and turned away from the goddess to think. On the surface, both requests were tiny, and it didn't sound like I'd be selling my sister down the river. In fact, with how powerful Kintsuji was, I severely doubted my objection would mean much if she wanted to get involved. More - I needed to get out of here if I was going to get back to them in the first place. I ran my hands through my hair and scraped nails into my scalp. End of the day I didn't really have a choice.
“Fine!” I sighed, feeling exasperated all of a sudden. “As long as you can say I'm not selling my sisters’ soul to you or something, I don't mind you approaching her. I'm guessing it has something to do with how a Quickening is supposed to work? And that this is very much not standard?” I realised that, more and more, the childlike persona I wore with my family was slipping away into the adult I had been in my last life, and I didn't know how to feel about that. I liked being Arcadia the eight year old. Whoever I had been before had not had anything close to a happy life.
“Yes, Child. I'm sorry to make you doubt me. You are one of mine, after all, and I am very much the patron of the broken and the lost. Your sister is neither - but you will need allies to be a true Catalyst, and besides,” she smiled, “this will be more fun.”
Kintsuji strode to the back wall of the temple, where the fake sunlight was strongest, and swept a hand through a beam, coming back not with a glass of anything this time, but a shining gemstone caught between two fingers and her thumb. She transferred Boone to her shoulder, and gestured at the marble throne with her other hand, making me jump as it rumbled and scraped its way across the floor. From beneath it, a softly glowing orb rose into the air, and as Kintsuji sat back in the now re-positioned chair, it levitated to sit above her open palm. Boone stood, grabbed the stone, and leapt to the floor, running to me with it in his teeth, before handing it off to me.
It was about the size of an egg, but smooth and warm, and looked like it was made of moonstone or some other semi precious stone. It glimmered in the light, and was deceptively heavy. I thought I saw a glimmer of blue fire flicker at its core.
That feels like me, like us. I think it's more than just a regular Constellation Stone, Arcadia. Boone stared deep into the stone and I did notice that his blue colouration matches the flame at the gems’ core.
“Boone is correct, of course,” Kintsuji said, the glowing ball above her hand looking like a small moon now that it was fully visible. “This one was designed specifically by me, for you. The attribute it unlocks and the powers it grants will be permanently linked to my presence and domain.”
“But, don't I need four stones to gain a class?” I asked, rolling the stone in my fingers as it reflected the light around it in strange patterns and hues. The goddess chuckled, and then cocked her head to one side, as though considering how to respond.
“Arcadia, what would you say if I told you that the way this world works has been delinquent for a very long time?” I thought about that - it sounded something like a trap statement, especially considering my recent thoughts about the absentee gods of Axis. But then, she was here, apparently, to fix a broken world, so…
“It seems that, although this world is more ancient than I can possibly imagine, it hasn't progressed far. Or rather, it has, multiple times, before the gods decided to restart everything.” She clicked her fingers and pointed at me, as though I had made a good point.
“Excellent. You noticed. The gods have been, repeatedly, running this world into the ground, and have only allowed mortals to attain their potential according to the rest of the galaxy once - during what is locally called the 5th age. The same era as this very ruin. Today - the people who get classes are the extremely lucky, or, more often, the extremely rich. Those who can pay for monsters and dungeons to be farmed and for a good selection of crystals to be collected for them while they sit in walled cities and bask in false glory. That isn't how it stands in any part of the multiverse that is run correctly.” Her face gained an intense expression of concentration, and the orb above her hand began to revolve and pulse slowly. Flashes of golden light and shadow crawled across its surface in odd geometries. Beneath my feet I felt the stones of the temple rumble and there was a very slight feeling of movement in my inner ear. Whatever the orb was, it was connected to the dungeon on an intrinsic scale, I felt, and whatever Kintsuji was doing to it, it was doing something to the ruin around me. I swallowed with a suddenly dry throat.
“In the 5th age, the gods took a personal hand in the power and progress of this world - until they grew bored, and afraid, of their creations. When a child came for a Quickening ceremony, they were instead given a trial. Those who completed it were chosen as champions of the temple and the god it represented, and the classes they were given reflected that. Those that failed the challenge were given more mundane classes, or died, whichever came first, and formed the more pedestrian masses of the world.” The light in the temple began to shift, and I realised with a start that the marble columns and throne were shifting, changing shape. The pure white marble was filling with cracks and voids, as though they had been broken but remained standing. Those cracks then seemed to swell with liquid gold and formed back into smooth wholes, rebuilt and stronger than before. The vaulted ceiling grew faint patterns, as though of emerging murals or painting, but that were too faint to make out yet, and the vast throne shrank, becoming only massive, and not immense, and raised itself on a quickly growing platform against the far wall, where braziers seemed to grow from the ground and light with blue flame. Even the light changed colour, becoming a warm autumn gold, rather than a spring morning, and seemed to radiate and fill the room, rather than filling it with harsh beams and deep shadows.
“I propose for you, and for my first major change to this world, we bring the trials back. Starting with this one. A reforging trial. For this, you will be gifted your first Constellation stone, and I shall quicken it for you. Past that, you will have to defeat the guardians of this ruin. Each guardian will gain you a stone representing it in some way. If you gain all four, I shall combine them into a class and name you a champion. And broadcast that far and wide. I'm sure that will gain the attention of the absentee pantheon on this backwater mudball.” Finally she looked away from the orb and to me again, smiling slyly. “While completing the trial is the best thing for you, however, I am not completely unkind. Your family above is getting quite frantic to reach you, and I do not want them to hurt overmuch over things you have no real control over. While you fight, and I would hope succeed, I will ensure that they know you are relatively safe, and working your way back to them. I am sure it will be something of a revelation to meet a god. They have been all too absent in this world for far too long.” The rumbling ceased, and a sprinkle of dust fell from overhead where it gleamed in the light. Kintsuji sat back on the now much reduced chair, and I saw that in the changes her own form had changed size, so that it was a little over seven feet tall, rather than the fifteen the statue of whatever god that had once ruled this trial had been. It was clear that, whatever should have been here, or should have been occupied by another, was now firmly under the Goddesses’ control. “So - are you ready to get started?”
She flicked a hand at me where I still stood, unsteady, filthy, and bruised from the fall in the near centre of the room, and words scrawled themselves across my vision:
The Goddess of Broken Things Reforged, Kintsuji, has offered you a Challenge Trail to be named as her champion, and to receive her blessing as the first stage of your Quickening. Do you Accept?