Arri woke up suddenly, fully aware at once, as it was normal for her. Remains of a cozy dream dispersed fast. A dream with long sidewalks along canals and a smiling, dark-haired, green-eyed sorceress in a deep blue, starry robe. They were having a conversation, and while it was now impossible to tell about what, it somehow made Arri smile. She silently slipped from under her rag covers, stood up in her cluttered, tiny room and stretched. Which was immediately painful to her tendons, which she overused last night. She contemplated the sudden pain with a silent grimace and a note to myself: do not do that again. She was trying to get ready to work and her body was already starting to fail! Irritating, but manageable. After all, she had many years to adapt to her failings. At least she wasn't fat anymore. When Xaldaz took her in, her body reacted to the sudden abundance of food and she became a very plushy child. Working and exercising allowed to got rid of it when she noticed that her height made her mass too big a strain to her tendons. Becoming lighter and stronger also allowed to awaken Rita… but Rita, for her part, loved to dance, which helped to keep fit. Arri was now paying Rita's debt for overusing her body and it was a fair price for a modicum of fitness.
"Hands too long, neck too thin, always watch for too pale skin…" She hummed, grimacing in a bright smile to the fact how the monster described in this old song looked so much like her. She would concede to a possibility that she had twisted the words to fit her story better.
She looked around her room, from the window covered by curtains of dark leather, to the door, surrounded by Tower's black stones. Or rather, where a door would be in a normal room, because the Tower had all the doors removed. If the lack of defense against anyone barging in here or seeing her bothered Arri at all, then no more than usually. The Tower had influenced her in more profound ways than just taking absence of doors as normal. When she first arrived here, still a kid, however smart - the Tower seemed like a living fairytale. It was magical in the most literal sense of the word. Light, heating, plumbing, cooking, all powered by a combination of arcane circles, fueled by mana-rich ores (just like the life root). This has awakened her curiosity and pushed to really get into Xaldaz's lessons on magic. Her Master was an old archmage and her sole co-inhabitant in this tower. At least if you don't count the… temporary ones. Nor the undead. Anyway, probably due to being bored, probably as a payment for her work to keep the tower clean and tidy, at some point he started to teach his art. A master of magic circles, he repaired and improved this tower himself when he moved in. Arri followed his teachings but eventually hit a proverbial wall. The equations to find out the exact pattern of the needed circles were growing very complex for many tasks. She was around 10 at the time, the phase when the brain of a… gremling like her was developing the means to grasp complex mathematics. And she did grasp them - in a way. After weeks of trying to crack the problem, it suddenly occurred to her that many of these issues disappear if you think three dimensionally. Imaging everything as material, touchable and tasteable had always been much easier for her anyway. And even easier was working with physical parts and adjusting them until they fit and did what she wanted them to do, but that she had only discovered later. Notably, it took Xaldaz several months before he discovered her improper (and limited) way of solving formulas. She threw a fit and he terminated the lessons. Not completely, but the lessons became an uncomfortable activity for the both of them. When she grew older, she tried to convince him that her method was better, but to no avail. It only ended in another row. Since then, she started to hide from his sight her independent… research. If you can call these…
She looked at her toys. Many toys she made during these years, trying to use whatever little mana ores she had for her use…
That pair of weird looking shoes for example. The idea was to use her Diagrams - no, Enchantments, since they were three-dimensional - to allow water walking. This was to be achieved through [Liquid Thickening], which increased viscosity of a fluid and therefore should also increase surface tension. In that, she wasn't wrong, but the effect was still too weak to hold her weight and she almost drowned that scary day. Didn't matter! She became a better swimmer since, and she knew better now than to walk on water while clothed! In general, she came to an opinion that magic experiments were best done without clothes on, unless strong protective clothing was a better idea.
Next item was this dart. Pretty useless, it had [Gas Thinning] enchantment which allowed it to fly longer and straighter. But she had a lot of fun throwing it, at least back then. What's entertaining for a kid, became boring to her several years ago, replaced by yearning for something unspeakable but exciting.
She wasn't bored by the doll, though. She was proud of it. She made the doll move! The detailed doll was made from some eternal material, weathered by elements, but still keeping its original color of porcelain skin. Even the dark hair on doll's head (and… elsewhere) was undamaged, and the sparkling emerald-like stones in place of her eyes completed the almost uncanny similarity to Arri. Only it was not taller than Arri's forearm. She had found the doll's carcass in the ruins to the north. Summit Island, the place was once called. A huge floating island that fell from the sky centuries ago, forming a jagged, rocky plateau crisscrossed with deep fissures and covered with ruins. The Tower stood on its edge, hewn from the same black rock, rich in mana which once powered the island.
She moved to the window and parted the curtains. The light of day immediately entered her eyes, hurting them. She covered them by her hand. In the distance, she could make out a dark, torn shape of hills. The island. Home to her… people. People, who cast her out because she was born different, a thing they contemptuously called a Gremling! People who banished her at the age of five, and that's supposedly because as much as they hated her, they detested murdering children and wanted to give her a survival chance! People, who… were once called Starlight Gnomes. It was written that they formed a mighty nation of astronomers and artists, inhabiting the remains of the flying island, their sovereign and proud state, The Summit, named so after the first rulers declared it a beacon to gather all the dispersed Gnomes in this world. Nowadays, however, they were reduced to hardy survivors, trying to eke out their living in this monster-ridden area, while at the same time resisting the human pressure. The former island provided plenty of hiding places, but its less dangerous areas have long fallen prey to human conquests, driven by the thirst for magical ore. Of a special importance was the town, a big swathe of ruins, only a couple days of travel from the tower, which the humans have seized and turned into a hub of their activity. The place was surrounded by several large farms, an unusual sight on the Summit, created by cutting down and converting the orchards which grew wild across the centuries, but still provided the only realistically cultivable land to support their herds of goats, swine and rats.
Closer to the tower, she saw the only outgoing road, winding downhill into the wild woods and meadows spread all around. It was going east, towards the town, and away from the Zombie Forest. It was a smart move. The zombie forest itself, a huge area of woody hills stretching to horizon, was not visible from this window. The Zombie Forest…! Suddenly, she remembered.
I have touched a Zombie. I have touched a Zombie for the first time…!
However, she wasn't Rita now, therefore the intellectual aspect of this situation soon overcame the sensual. It means my Skill worked… which means, I have behaved normally, or at least normally enough, to be taken for a Zombie, at least for a limited amount of time. Which means what I observed is true, because if they use mana transfer of some sort, physical proximity is a must. It cannot be, however, hive connection… no, impossible. She shivered. Hivesouls she read about were a logical abstract. A type of creature which had one soul, but could occupy multiple bodies, which also implied full mana compatibility, would quickly multiply and cover the whole planet in itself, subsuming all the other forms of life. But this didn't happen, apparently. So, however unlikely, it had to be something else…
Mana channels, she thought, remembering the flows of mana she sensed through Rita's connection to the Circle of Life. They use these to communicate, for sure, but they must also be using them as external mana cloud. Or a web! It is a web to catch ambient mana, which then can be processed. This web can also be fed mana. This is how they must operate! They do share mana! But this can be only possible if one's soul becomes blank, or… chaotic? Ambient! One must become ambient to interchange ambient… thus almost dead, yet they're so alive! How it is to become ambient like them? Can one keep their… life, in some form?
The time was ticking away. She spent ten years here already. In ten years from now, she will start to lose all her hard-earned fitness. In ten more years, she was going to get old. How likely it was for her to live ten more years than that? And then… She pushed the thought away. She will be buried before getting any old, she knew that.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
"Buried naked in the soft soil… continue through the cycle of life…" she muttered. She refocused her attention on something else. The maid skill had worked, and she needed to check…
She turned to the mirror. Broken in half as it was, a half of it was enough to reflect her image from thighs up. But it was not her body what has drawn her sudden interest. She moved her hand across the reflective surface and willed the interface to appear. The mirror was not an important part of it. Summoning the interface was available to any person, but first they needed to learn how, not unlike a person learns how to move their ears. Imagining the messages to be displayed on the surface of a window helped her to focus. The hazy glow of icons surrounding her mirror image, now framed in a happy mosaic of pastel colors, was just a figment of her imagination, so were the fonts and highlights, but the rows of text written in the Universal Language were exact same as they would be for anyone else. Well, anyone else possessing her exact set of augments.
The mana had returned to full, she noticed immediately. Well, that was why she drank the spirits, her natural mana recovery took 11 days to fully replenish her reserves of 10. Below the mana counter, the image presented her six basic abilities, three active and three passive.
[Active Attributes: Magnify {0}, Flow {0}, Resonate {1}]
[Passive Attributes: Sensitivity {1}, Flair {0}, Splendour {0}]
Two of each were inactive, the remaining two presented a proud '1'. A normal situation for a typical citizen of her world. Her active one was [Resonate], marked by a ghost-girl icon. Channeling mana into it allowed Arri to better connect with the world, with other beings, with herself (whatever her true nature was?!). As much as she understood it, Resonance worked by attuning the 'frequency' of the soul - it's complex wave pattern - to another frequency, making the souls more alike. And the soul was the source of mana, so their mana was becoming more alike too, in some way. It was sometimes also called finding or making 'links', that is 'points of interest' in a spiritual or informational sense (or so was written in the book). Can I maybe somehow use this to attune myself to the zombies in a way that makes it possible to take part in their mana exchange? The only problem was, Resonance alone could burn through her mana reserves in less than a minute… She decided to think about it later.
The second basic ability, the passive one, her mind adorned the icon of a fairy, sniffing a flower. It was called [Sensitivity] and it provided Arri with enhanced perception. It was a difference of roughly 20% compared to unaugmented state, but for someone with such keen senses as her - senses were easily her strongest physical aspect - it was kind of a big deal. Arri didn't know when she had received (or awakened?) these "basic abilities" augments, it was definitely in her childhood, but this was also definitely before her 10th year, when she learned how to summon this status interface. What she knew was that each of them opened up one of her "Subclasses", offering further magical enhancement. Her sub-classes were Maid and Artificer, which roughly described the entirety of her activity at the tower, with her third trade of the herbalist and gardener being a mix of both.
Her real third trade… third Subclass was hidden. A slate of stone, oozing with blueish light. A mere potential but an ironclad promise at the same time: shall she ever find out the prerequisites, it will become active. Not like she had a slightest clue what should it be… maybe it needed more Resonance? Or something else?
What she knew was that after fully developing both her sub-classes to level 10, she would be able to get a true Class. Which meant some fairytale magical warrior of sorts! Or so her books told her, the only person with a Class she really knew was Xaldaz and he was not exactly forthcoming with personal information. Complication: she had to visit a System Shrine to do this, to receive this augmentation in honor of her achievements. The closest Shrine she knew about was in the nearby human town, and, although she never actually ventured out of the Tower before, she felt confident in pulling that off. Especially since this event was very likely to be many years away yet.
The rest of the display was covered by descriptions of her Subskills, as well as all the learned enchantments, both magic circles and three-dimensional ones. Subskills were just like Skills only for people without a Class, meaning to everyone but heroes. They allowed a certain complex magical manipulation in exchange for mana, and the more times one used them, the better they were becoming… until their further rise was blocked by some hidden, unfulfilled prerequisite...
She mentally tapped her finger on an icon of a maid surrounded by green glow. The act was nothing but pantomime, but she found it difficult and lame to will things to existence without physically expressing the will. Meanwhile, the skill title expanded in her mind into full text.
[Very Unimportant Person lvl 7/10 {75.5%}]
[Requires: Resonate 1, 1 Mana per 10 seconds, one needs to fit in the environment]
[It’s said a perfect servant should be unnoticeable, but even in the art of Necromancy controlling your presence makes precedence. It’s an achievement of itself to be in balance with yourself. But only when in such state, one can resonate with the ambient presence.]
It rose! It rose by 9%! She smiled. Previously, it was impossible to her to raise the skill any further. It gradually rose through her years of service in the tower, but many months ago it has stopped on 66.6% to level 8 and no amount of trying was able to change that, even with the help of life root-fueled Resonance. So, the whole thing about it being connected to some outwards maidly perfection was untrue, at least. But did it rise specifically because she had tried it on zombies? She did so before, but never it involved… touching? Therefore, maybe the act itself? Testing the boundaries of her ability? Wow, this has potential. What if… what if I summoned Rita while Xaldaz was around? Or… while someone else was at the tower? Arri wanted to experiment, and she knew she has to do it here, because trying the skill on Zombies was very risky for such, after all, relatively small gains, but she didn't want Xaldaz to find out about Rita… at least not yet. I need to find a way to train it here… and if it doesn't work, I can always take a… a deeper dive… if I stayed with that zombie longer… She remembered touching the thoughtless creature with her whole body. She shivered. I can burn more mana… I can take life roots or other energy source with me, and burn it to keep this going for a minute, or two! Maybe I can learn how to exchange mana with them… or maybe even communicate! But it would be better to increase the skill first…
She shook her head. She dissolved the picture and turned towards the doorless exit. She grabbed her special broom and was going to step outside when she remembered.
"Right… maids wear clothes."
She turned to her wardrobe. It was easy to obtain old clothing here, but most of it would be ill fit. She took a liking to one-piece robes which can be easily pulled on or removed, while at the same time being comfortable and generally as warm - or breezy - as needed. Apparently, wizard fashion fitted her tastes. She had torn enough clothing to pieces to sew together a dozen robes, in a full array of colors from gray through brown to black. Therefore, she always had a replacement when washing them or… misplacing, as it happened yesterday. She secured the robe with a thick, leather belt. It had pouches to keep various stuff she always had a tendency to carry, like a multi-bladed, folded knife or various pieces of bone.
I'll tell him I have to gather mushrooms, and I will snatch the robe from the border of the Zombie Forest then, she thought, slipping into her loafers and grabbing her broom. And I will totally ignore Zombie Forest for now otherwise. Honestly. It would be dumb to go right back in. I smell of alcohol and food now. I'll do it next month.
To drive the point home, she had a hearty breakfast of processed meat with a side dish of tomatoes and miniature cucumbers from her garden. She dreamt of a time when she could fully automate the kitchen, but the energy requirements… And the energy was short these days.
But I have a breakthrough! She thought again. She already knew what she was going to do after finishing her chores… and her mushroom picking, robe retrieving trek. We have some prisoners…
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How much a life is worth? For people of old, to kill meant to brand oneself. For life was the only way to pursuit future. For taking a life of a sentient, was to harm oneself.
As such, the life was sacred. Not in the sense of individuals, but in the scale of thousands of years, in the purpose of society, and in the context of eternal soul, as one’s life will always bear more weight than a life of another. For individuals, ways to achieve this meaningful balance were infinite.
Those teachings died alongside the bygone civilization. Were they true? Were they literal in the messages they sent?
Yes, but people of today couldn’t possibly comprehend that.
Those became the sacred texts of many, but the meaning behind them was now warped. By the reality, by the circumstances, and finally by the people themselves.
How much a life is worth?
In the emptiness beyond one’s soul, the answers lay. Hidden behind impenetrable curtains of darkness. Unbeknown to none, even the God-blessed.
Nothing can scare more than a vision of nonexistence. Worse yet it should be for those who venture the paths leading to their soul, as the irrational fear grows more tangible with each step. But in a grotesque parody of sapience, the more they fear, the more they kill.
Birthrate was barely managing to balance the scales. For someone to live past thirty was a blessing. It was easier to disregard the danger when others have gone first. It was easier to kill when the same fear permeated all beings.
A life is worth as much, as they pay – is a common notion nowadays.
But they are wrong.
A life is worth the more, the more you know.