Cali’s eyes fixated on the upper-left corner of the aetherial tablet. Calisandra Arceneaux: her full name. She whispered it to herself, letting her tongue play with each syllable. It sounded unnatural. When was the last time she’d heard it? Had it been ten years? Eleven. He’d called her that the day he’d died. Before everything had changed, before she’d become... No, before Vale had forced her to become a thief.

Her eyes flicked to the next line. Thief of Fortune. Vale, Aeyla, Gale and even this damned tablet, all any of them saw in her was a thief. Cali twisted wisps of hair that had escaped from her ponytail between gloved fingers. It was all anyone cared about. Not her, but what she could do. What she could steal.

Not that she wasn’t proud of her accomplishments. She’d committed heists that everyone believed were more than impossible. Anyone in the UMC with valuables had been terrified that they’d be her next target. And all of it had been her doing, hers alone, and yet...

Every accomplishment was tainted with Vale’s fingerprints. Whenever she felt pride, she saw Vale’s smirk. Anxiety, his shadow. Cali pulled the hair from her mouth. She’d caught herself nibbling on the ends. What was she, a child? There was nothing to be nervous about; she was beyond the threats Vale had used to shackle her. Free. And, no matter what the cøras said, she wasn’t going to defined by what Vale had molded her into.

Cali took a couple of deep breaths. It didn’t matter that the tablet described her as a thief. What mattered was: where did this information come from and could it end up in the hands of the UMC... or Vale? Direct access seemed improbable. But, if word of her heist reached Llyr, then someone could sell the information. Of course, that was predicated on the notion that anyone on Llyr could access it. Fen had called the cøras ‘the legacy of the fheadhain,’ who had vanished. Maybe the information was inaccessible to anyone who could use it to harm her, but until she confirmed that, she needed to be cautious.

Focusing on the tablet, Cali peering past its outer shell, to examine the formulae within. Towards the edges, she could see fragments of mathematical equations, but the centre was like an inky black box. Had the ancients masked it somehow? Cali willed her consciousness closer, towards the cusp where the letters and numbers disappeared into the darkness. Only, it wasn’t that they disappeared. Upon closer inspection, the darkness was made up of hundreds of calculations overlaid atop one another. And when she honed in on any particular letter or number, its curves were filled with microscopic formulae. The construction was intricate, delicate, and completely beyond Cali’s ability to comprehend.

Cali sucked in a deep breath, her body crying out for oxygen. She’d been so absorbed by the marvels before her that she’d forgotten to breathe.

The ancients’ mastery of magic was incredible to behold. She could spend hours studying the construction of these formulae. But, without decades of research, she was unlikely to discern how they worked. Answers for her present quandary would have to be found elsewhere. Cali’s attention lingered on the formulae for a second, longing to explore the magic’s properties and construction. At last, she withdrew from it, allowing herself to take in the whole picture. There were numerous skeins of magic emerging from the back of the tablet. If there was a pattern, it was indistinguishable, as the threads disappeared off into the walls, ceiling, and floor. Placing her fingers on one of the aetherial threads, Cali traced its path from the floor up into the tablet. When her fingers brushed against the tablet for the first time, everything went brilliant white. Her consciousness overwhelmed by a sudden burst of extra-sensory stimuli, Cali fell backwards, fingers parting from the tablet.

When her brain recovered from the shock, Cali discovered that she lay in a soft pile of blankets. Above her, dappled sunlight trickled through a window, illuminating the colourful wood of the ceiling. How long had it been? Cali sent her fingers into one of her pouches; they came out clutching a miniature ceramic clock. The paint had faded and rubbed off, but the years hadn’t altered the shape of her 11th birthday present. It was phocid in nature, the form of a mythical creature from one of her dad’s books. He’d got it fashioned for her after she’d begged him to retell the story for the hundredth time.

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

Her eyes settled on the clock’s face; at the same moment, she realized it didn’t hold any useful information. She had no point of reference; she hadn’t looked at it since arriving on Llyr. Noting the present time, she returned it to her pouch.

Time was a matter for later; if it was morning, someone would come and get her. Right now she wanted to find out what had happened with the tablet. Still lying down, Cali peeked past the veil. Before her, obscuring her view of the tablet, was a simple black box.

New User Recognized - Calisandra Arceneaux

Welcome!

A tutorial will guide you through the basic elements of the system. Once you have completed the tutorial, you will be ready to begin fighting monsters to earn XP.

What!? Fighting monsters, did that mean the UMC propaganda about magic was true? Regardless, she wasn’t stupid enough to throw herself into danger at the behest of some mysterious text box. She’d escaped Vale and could make her own path.

Seeming to respond to her thoughts, the box vanished, revealing the tablet once more. Cali scrutinized the virtual stone surface. Her class was now listed as ‘undefined’ and the skill section was empty. The change was indisputable, but why had it happened? Had her touch triggered it? More importantly, was the tablet safe to touch? The burst that had toppled her hadn’t hurt, but it hadn’t been a pleasant experience.

Without sitting up, Cali reached out and placed a single finger on the bottom corner of the tablet. Nothing happened. Another finger, still nothing. Finally, Cali tugged on one of the threads. The extra-sensory barrage didn’t reoccur. Whatever had triggered it was inert now. What could have triggered it the first time? There were a couple of possibilities: she’d rejected its label for her, and it had also been her first time touching it. Either reason seemed like a plausible explanation.

Everything about the cøras raised questions; would the primeval ones have answers? Cali suspected their answers would be legends and here-say. Her best bet for understanding the cøras was to follow the threads of magic to their source, and hope what she found there was illuminating. Given what Fen had said, Cali pictured an ancient ruin, where old formulae continued to run despite the absence of their creators.

Another box materialized between her and the tablet.

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Override Accepted.

Condition ‘XP_Earned’ set to  

   Var ‘Ruin_Explored’

Tutorial State Disabled.

Had it reacted to her thoughts? Cali pulled her hand away from the slate as if it were hot. Mind reading was a threat to her desire for a new life, but it would explain how it acquired all that information about her. Still, her class hadn’t changed until she touched it. Did it need to acquire information by direct contact?

Cali sat up, the tablet tracking her motion such that it remained floating in front of her. Focusing on her name, she imagined most of it disappearing, leaving only ‘Cali’. The slate didn’t change. With tentative fingers, she reached out and brushed them against the tablet. Character by character, letters melted away from her name, until only Cali remained. It did need direct contact!

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a new black box materialize. This time, it had appeared beside the tablet.

Confused?

There was an ineffable difference between this box and the previous ones. Something beyond the change in font and position. Cali’s fingers dropped from the tablet. If contact allowed it to read her mind, she had to be careful, and yet, she had so many questions.