It took Daniel eight seconds to go from looking at the stump of his arm to panicked screaming. It wasn’t just the shock of the old injury catching up with him but the dysphoria in his mind. It felt like he’d just spent an entire day next to Hunter with the Empathic Link fully active, only to wake up with it gone. That’s exactly what happened, Daniel thought as he cut off the scream and tried to slow his rapid breathing. Thomas was already at his side examining the arm.
“It’s not bleeding!” Thomas exclaimed, the earlier friction between them gone as he turned on medic mode. “Not tainted or cursed as far as I can tell. Didn’t look like Gtoll hit you with anything special but you never know. Is it still painful?”
“N-no,” Daniel grunted, still struggling to come to terms with the amputation. Knowing it would eventually grow back helped, but he was still in a state of light shock from his rude awakening.
“Could’ve warned us you could turn back, Guy,” Thomas said, trying for a humorous inflection to settle him, though it came out strained. “I thought I’d be stuck with Mr. Fuzzywiskers from now on.”
An ominous foreboding cut into Daniel’s waning panic. “I didn’t know either,” he said, trying to just ignore the joke in hopes it died on its own.
“Oh, good, 'cause when I said you should get some tail once you got to Aughal, this isn’t what I meant.”
Daniel raised his half arm towards Thomas and put some more suffering in his face. “I don’t think I can handle this much right now, Thomas.”
“As your Cleric, yeah, you can.” Thomas slapped the arm away, not even squeamish. “No idea how long that’s going to take to fully grow back, but it should. Just avoid fire or necrosis until then.” He must have read the surprise in Daniel’s eyes at the change that had come over the Cleric because he shrugged in response to it. “Yeah, I know. You’re the Guy I know. Dunno who that was yesterday, but he kind of sucked.”
“That was still me,” Daniel replied with a shake of his head, confident in his answer. He tried to smile at everyone else to show he was ok and mostly managed it. “I can remember everything and it doesn’t feel like someone else’s memories. Just me, but more focused I guess?” He looked at his injured arm again. “Sorry, I know everyone has questions, but I need to see if my phone has anything about this before I say anything.”
“Phone?” Silora’s voice raised in curiosity, adding an admiring pitch when he pulled it out. “Oh, I love that pattern. What is it? I’m impressed you found a material that even I can’t identify.”
Daniel was suddenly incensed at his cat-self for the promises he made as Silora’s question provoked them. He hadn’t told the Fate herself he’d answer everything, but he would have to get her on board and couldn’t be selective now. All the justified caution he’d had just hadn’t seemed to matter to the Daniel of yesterday, who hadn’t seen any problems with telling someone who could contact other regions his secrets. “What do you mean?” Daniel deflected, as he also tapped the screen and was relieved to find it working.
“I have a power that lets me detect and identify rare materials,” she bragged airily, and then closed her mouth quickly. When it became clear that the group hadn’t missed what she said, she went on. “It’s not like I can use it now. Most of my powers do function without a Focus but only in a very limited range. Aughal never had anything interesting either, all of it was buried too deep to ever dig for.”
“Right.” Silora seemed satisfied that he didn’t press for details and forgot about her question. That gave Daniel time to investigate, and happily, it seemed his phone had been suspended when it died. The notifications that had come up right before he lost the Artificer class were still there, though he froze time briefly to read them in case they were just about to expire.
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You have reached the threshold for Bond Progression.
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System Alert: Bond Progression failed due to the prior loss of targeted Bond.
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System Alert: Your failed Bond Progression has created the opportunity for Bond Reforging. Bond reforging radically changes the nature and benefits of the former Bond. Proceeding with the available bond reforging may lead to unpredictable effects. This opportunity may or may not remain available if refused.
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You have formed Oath Bond: Memory! You have gained the following benefits:
• Strength in Memory: You may temporarily acquire up to two Powers associated with the primary subject of your Bond.
• Power Evolution opportunity for Feature: Beast Friend*.
• ???
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System Alert: Power Evolution available for Feature: Beast Friend*. The influence Fundamental Law: Karma has allowed you to ignore typical restrictions for power evolution.
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System Alert: Power Evolution of Feature: Beast Friend* has converted it to Ability: Beast Mode*.
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Triggering a Power Evolution has unlocked an addition benefit of Oath Bond: Memory!
- Inherited Vitality: You gain a second Health Pool bound to the transmutative state of Ability: Beast Mode*. Upon activation, your current and secondary health pools will be swapped, including any injuries taken to either form. While in reserve, ongoing Healing or Damaging effects affecting the reserved health pool will be significantly diminished.
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Daniel could have been satisfied with just those notifications, especially now that no one was hiding anything new. Instead, he went to his Settings app to try and locate the new ability through the backdoored Encyclopedia, only to find a new option. The button that had once led to Hunter’s outline now had an icon of linked chains, and pressing it opened a detailed list of both of his current bonds. Seeing this made him wonder if Torch or Earth-Daniel had been suppressing this ability all along, or if it was some combination of the conditions of the Collapse and a type of bond he’d never seen before.
He ignored the questions of his traveling companions as he focused on the new information. When the description included a particular hyperlink, he read that information too, delighted to find it was mostly free of unidentification. At the same time, the description had troubling implications.
Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.
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Beast Mode* (Ability, Charisma, Spell, Domain: Universal, Bond, Cooldown, Level: -):
You possess the Power to draw on the subject of your Oath Bond: Memory to gain various benefits. This is a Spiritual Ability that requires no Mana for use. After using this ability, you cannot use it again until after a one hour Cooldown. Activating this ability triggers a fundamental change of one or more of your Archetypes, dramatically influencing Class Powers. These changes persist until the ability is activated again, or you are subject to a System Reset. This is a spiritual ability that functions in an area of Magical Suppression.
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Archetypes (Concept, Universal, Soul)
Archetypes are core values held by sentient Creatures which together influence both Awakening and Spiritual Identity. Archetypes remain dormant until an individual reaches the first Threshold of Power, locally determined by ???. On World: Octyrrum, archetypes influence Class Awakening, Power Awakening, and Bond Awakening, though the presence of ??? inconsistently influences this.
Your current archetypes are: friendship, commerce, creativity, crafting, ranged, and invention.
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The information from the Collapse, as well as his alerts suddenly becoming ‘System Alerts’, had given Daniel enough to guess that at least some of the unidentification tags would lead to a page titled ‘The System’ or something similar. The gods on this world appeared to be as much administrators of magic as well as the subject of faith. This wasn’t necessarily new information, but the context was important, especially in what he could determine by assuming which tags referenced the system. It seemed the gods were influencing mortals on the deepest level they could, something to ask Cloak about later when he wouldn’t be subjecting his friends to more mind wipes.
More immediately concerning was how his archetypes would change. It did fit with his impression of the shift. If each archetype was a lens his soul was projected through before reaching the world, not only would that alter his powers, but his personality too. One of them has to be ‘reckless’, Daniel thought, wishing his phone would tell him exactly which archetypes he’d gain in Beast Mode. Honestly, he’d be less averse to using the power if it didn’t come with a personality change, even if Thomas was busying himself thinking up more cat jokes.
As it was, he couldn’t question the power of the new bond. His ‘Beast Mode’ was far more capable in fights if the duel with Gtoll was anything to go by and had more absurd healing than he did for his level. That it improved with the damage he dealt through Ferocious Healing meant he could confidently take on harder hitting opponents so long as he kept up with the damage. It made him wonder why the system suppressed bonds in the first place. If the goal was to push back the Crest by creating strong mortals, why would they throw away this source of power? If Gtoll had lived his entire life without that weighing him down, what could he have awakened?
Daniel tried to scratch his head with his left hand and when nothing happened he was dragged out of his contemplative haze. Everyone else was packing up at this point, most of the workload foisted on Rait as Thomas and Daniel could just put things in their bags of holding, and Khiat was helping Willow. The avianoid didn’t have Thomas’ problems with duskers and he could see her smiling while talking with the archer.
“I need to enchant something,” he muttered to himself, shaking out the bedroll one-handed. Restorative Craft stacking with his Regeneration didn’t turn out as much healing as the other combo, but that wouldn’t help him now. Neither could he enchant on the move, not for any meaningful length of time. The best thing he could do was wear the light cloak he had for sandstorms over the injured arm and let it heal. Activating Beast Mode would instantly grow it back, but not really.
Worse, it would stunt the regrowth of his actual arm and bring out a side of him he wasn’t sure about yet. He was pretty sure the bond reforging had eaten the determination and willpower he’d been forcing himself to express in the moments leading up to his fight with Gtoll, making them actual traits instead of feigned ones. If he hadn’t been running with such a hot head he might not have punched Thomas. Or ever escaped Aughal, he added uncomfortably.
When they started traveling he decided to at least explain what he’d figured out about his new bond. They’d seen all the important details, and while he was rethinking his earlier commitment to radical honesty, this was information they should know if they got into a monster attack. The last thing he did before surrendering to the mindless walk down the desert road was to borrow Lion Charge from Hunter’s power pool. There was no indication Hunter was granting him the powers from the beyond, but he liked to think his friend still had some say in it.
…
It was later in the day that Daniel decided to give another one of Hunter’s powers a try. This was after they’d stopped during the hottest few hours as Silora pointedly refused to go further. The fact that she didn’t exaggerate, and that her long-suffering assistant also recommended this, at least gave Daniel another attempt to make the blast marbles. He failed, but the time spent enchanting still counted for Restorative Craft. His arm was slowly regrowing itself, a few centimeters over the day and that much again while he enchanted.
Now back on the road, there was nothing but sand and the need to keep a constant watch for monsters. The further out from Aughal they got the likelier it was they’d run into something. Keeping this in mind, Daniel hesitantly hovered over Hunter’s Keen Senses feature in his mind. “I’m about to do something that might make me freak out. Just a warning.”
“Are you going to use your transformation power?” Willow asked, showing the most interest out of the group aside from Khare, who was still hung up on how they might learn a similar power.
“No. It’s just one of the things I can borrow that hasn’t historically worked well with me. But, if I can handle it, it’ll make sensing things easier.” While Lion Charge would be useful in combat, he wouldn’t be while missing both an arm and primary weapon. Daniel mentally shelved the power and pulled at the spine for the sensory one. The world exploded around him as the faint shifting of sand around him became the average of loud, while the bland, dry air now smelled like he was standing in the center of a botanical garden, if only in intensity and not quality. Nothing else changed as the feature affected just those two senses, and all heightening did was improve the effect.
What didn’t happen was the normal sensory overload. In fact, Daniel was more disoriented by how little he was affected. It took him about three seconds to realize why. God damnit, was the only reason I couldn’t tolerate Hunter’s senses because I didn’t have his power?
“Guy, you feeling ok?” Thomas asked a little nervously as a deep frown spread across the Artificer’s face.
“It works.”
“What works?”
“Your stomach is grumbling. We’ve got plenty of food, you don’t need to starve yourself.”
The Cleric put a hand over his abdomen self-consciously. “You’ve got Hunter’s senses?”
“No, it’s more like mine are better. It’s weird. I think the power is doing some background work or else I couldn’t handle all this raw input.” Daniel Jumped to the top of one of the dunes the road plowed through and closed his eyes, focusing on his hearing. “I can hear something far away. It’s like… it’s like if Hunter was pointing things out to me and then I notice them. You know, I’ve never actually used Identify Creature this way but now’s as good a time as any to start.”
Normally, when Daniel used his identification feature he would investigate the target closely with his eyes for a moment. The correlation wasn’t exactly there with hearing, and he couldn’t ‘hear’ the aura, but after half a minute of experimenting he figured it out. Smell would take longer to attune to, though his beast form might take readily to it.
“Nice. That’s at least a kilometer away.”
“Impressive,” Silora commented, obviously sucking up to him. With Cloak removing her memories of him, she’d still think he was the most powerful person here and seemed the kind of person to try idle flattery to manipulate people. “Not as far as my powers could go, of course, but without a Focus you have me beat. Have I mentioned I’ll need some help making a new one?”
“Monster?” Khare asked, drawing a sharp glance from Silora as they interrupted her attempt at fundraising. Daniel put a mark on the creature first so Khare could get a sense of its location and then mentally willed the name on it to expand to a size he could read. There was no way in hell they were hunting whatever this was, but if there was some moderate-sized level 4 charging towards them they might need to go offroad and find somewhere to shelter. A village, or the remains of one, wasn’t too far away.
As the tag magnified, Daniel gasped.
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Spinner - (Silk Shocker - (3), Possessed)
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Tlara Seliri - (Avianoid, Beastmaster - 3)
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A few moments later, he heard what was chasing Tlara. She was bringing a monster horde right to them.