My father was a mysterious man. I knew only three things about him. One, he was a diver. Two, he loved his family dearly. That’s why I’m curious as to why he decided to dive down and never surface.
Diving is a dangerous profession, sure, but if there’s another thing I know about my father is that he’s strong. Crazy strong. One of the strongest divers ever, according to my mom at least.
So I simply couldn’t contain my curiosity when I was cleaning my room and happened upon a loose wooden board. I rapped my knuckles against the wood, putting my ear up against the creaky wooden floorboards.
With a bit of elbow grease and some exemplary tool use, I peeled it open. The hole in the floor revealed a small, leather-bound book. It was coated in a thick layer of dust, yet seemed to thrum with power.
The title was ‘Juno Ikosia’s Guide to the Abyssal Trench.’ That was my father's name.
As I neared closer, I heard incredibly faint angelic singing along with a beautiful melody. Trying to listen and discern what they were saying made my head throb. It felt like I was sticking my neck into a guillotine, a feeling of dread when I got closer to the book.
I reached out my hand, enthralled, and just as I was about to touch the book-
“Valentine!” My mom called, breaking me out of my stupor.
“Coming!” I shouted. I’ll be back for you, mysterious singing book.
My mind was already aflame with what the book was, quickly forgetting my upcoming birthday. My room was my dad’s room, so I figure it’s one of his notebooks. I had the pleasure of seeing his art once, a drawing of one of the Trench’s creatures.
Although, it seemed to be in tune with the song. I knew a scarce amount about the song, just from what mother told me.
Every living creature can use the song, after a certain age their bodies get attuned to it and can use it to their whims, as much as their mind can take it at least. The song has different attunements that can be used for differing effects, such as the flame attunement.
I’ve read tales of great fire musicians able to melt stone and burn powerful monsters to a crisp with a hand gesture. (Probably embellished, but even the biggest of myths have a kernel of truth in them.)
You can also use the song to strengthen your physical and mental attributes. Like my mom, who can easily lift tree logs over her shoulder.
I padded through the short wooden hall to the dining room table, where a large piece of cake sat right in the middle. Candles poked out of it. My mother was standing to the side, her beige hair and pale skin reflected the moonlight shining through the opening in the roof.
I scowled. sunroofs.
“Late to your own birthday?” She asked with a raised brow.
I shrugged. “I got distracted.”
She sighed. “So very much like you. Just try not to get distracted by colorful flowers-”
“That was one time! You’re never gonna let me live that one down, are you!?” Seriously, you try to examine one brightly colored attuned flower and burn your eyebrows off and she won’t shut up about it.
She reached over and booped me on the nose. “No, I won’t.” She leaned back and snapped her fingers, and the sound reverberated in my mind.
I heard faint humming and the space above the candles warped and ignited. The demonstration hurt my brain, I was still amazed.
“When are you gonna teach me how to do that?”
“Literally tomorrow doofus, your attuning happens once you go to sleep.” She softly bopped me on the head. “Now sit down and blow out these candles and eat some cake.”
I did. I shimmied to the edge of my seat and gripped the wooden table, I took a deep breath, and blew the candles out.
“Now that you did that,” My mom began, and turned around and hefted a large thin wooden box and let it drop onto the table. “A present from me.”
I think I already knew what it was, considering the shape and the lack of a mounted sword on the wall. “No, you didn’t…” I jumped out of my seat and rushed over, quickly pulling off the lid and opening it.
It was a one handed sword, with a long thin blade and a long thin crossguard. Not anything fancy, all things considered, but it was my father’s blade that he gave to us before he took his final dive.
I laughed, “Get out.”
She smiled, seeing my reaction. “Since I figured now that you're attuning, you’re going to explore the world. I want you to be safe, so I’m also going to train you on how to fight. It’s a bit of a bad birthday gift, since I don’t even think you can hold it at your cadence, but once you do, this will keep you safe.” I smiled to myself. Best birthday gift ever!
“Thank you.” I was beyond words, truly.
“Hah, no problem kid. Think of it as a birthday present from me and your dad.” She idly reached into the box and grabbed the sword, giving it a twirl. It seemed to weigh nothing in her hands, showing her skill and strength.
We sat down and ate some cake. It wasn’t the best, my mom wasn’t that good of a cook, but it still tasted awesome. Eventually the sun sunk below the horizon, cutting off the light to our shack.
I retired to my room. I cracked open the door and held a candle aloft, navigating to my bedside. My foot hit something and I tripped, barely catching myself and the candle. Oh yeah, the book. Can’t believe I forgot about that.
I crouched down and heard the singing again, and paid it no heed as I reached down and touched it.
I gasped, feeling something connect to me. I tumbled back, retracting my fear as I felt an omnipresent feeling deep within.
I vaguely tugged on that feeling, not really knowing what I was doing. The book appeared in my hands, teleporting straight into them.
Well, that’s quite odd.
I didn’t feel anything else, the feeling on what I think is my soul isn’t really a bad one, just a constant reminder that it’s there.
I cracked open the book and started to read.
‘ Hello, if you are reading this, I am not of this world. Hopefully, whoever finds this book is of my own blood. If not, drats, if so, hello Valentine. This old book is my greatest partner, for I’ve had her as long as I’ve been diving. I’ve recounted every rhythm, every attunement, every resonance, every requirement, vow, or weird shit that I could possibly find. It also has in depth maps of each step of the Trench, except the last I suppose. It’s quite complete.
I’ve talked to many, interviewed thousands to get every single bit of information I could possibly find. If you are my kid, you’ll know exactly what to do with this information. It’s up to you, I don’t care if you sell it for millions, or use it for power.
If you’re my kid then you will do something amazing with it. Hell, one day you might come and find me, on the final step.’
I felt my heartbeat speed up. Blood was rushing in my ears and I felt like electricity was sparking at my fingertips.
Holy shit! This was huge! First off, is my father alive? Second off, holy shit!! I navigated to the index, and flipped through the weathered pages to the basic information section.
‘There are many different applications of the song, one of which is strengthening your body. The song lets you strengthen your core attributes, Intelligence, perception, willpower, strength and vitality.
At certain levels of strength, the song gives you rhythms. Rhythms are special abilities that let you do superhuman feats as easily as breathing. Such as one of mine that makes whoever was slashed by my sword get drunk instantly.
A bit of a weird one, I know, but it’s easy to fight a bandit when he can barely stand straight. The second application of the song I’d like to cover is melodies.
Melodies let a musician conjure a great ball of fire or a crushing hammer of ice. It’s already predetermined, you can pick and choose which melodies you want. However, please get the rhythm called conductor. It lets you twist melodies so that they resemble something completely new. Go to page 237 to learn more.
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Now for one of the important parts, pay attention to this. Cadence is your tier of strength, and is when the song gives you new boons and gifts. You go up in cadence when you absorb enough of the song off of dead monsters and enemies, or find rare artifacts that have large amounts of song residing in them. It also lets you increase your physical attributes more with song.
Also another important part, mana. Mana is what lets you control the song, and having enough mana is crucial. You can get more mana via increasing your soul or with passive rhythms that increase it.
Be very careful, becoming more in tune with the song erodes your sanity. I’ve seen good men turn into bloodthirsty killers no better than monsters because of the song whispering in their ears, I assume you're going to explore the Trench, so be sure to invest in mind.
Oh, I almost forgot! The way you actually interact with the song and choose what rhythms you want is your mindspace. Every single person who uses the song has one, and it’s how they interact with the song in a tangible way.’
Wow, a shit ton of information. Really good information though, and it was already filling in the blanks my mother didn’t talk about. Probably because of the whole withering sanity thing. I flipped back to the index then quickly flipped to attuning.
‘Attuning is a process where your body starts to become open to the song, and in most cases, mimic the attunement around it. For you Valentine, since you have my blood running in your veins, you will have no attunement. Rejoice, this is a good thing.
I assume you're still with your mother, and you must know by now she is a fire musician. If you were any normal kid you would attune with that, but as a result of a curse I got, you will have none.
Don’t be afraid, you can still use the song to reinforce your body, but you can’t use any elemental attunement. This is a good thing though, since you can adopt whichever style of music suits your fancy.
It’s an easy process I figured out, it’s not hard to have your soul start playing to a tune you desire. Go to page 137 to see basic song exercises to increase your control over basic manipulation, I recommend it.’
I breathed out. Okay, well I sure as hell wasn’t getting any fucking sleep tonight. A smile slowly stretched onto my face.
What a fucking birthday gift. You’re telling me, I get to plan out everything. I get to plan and plot my path? Sell this shit? Hell fucking no I’m not selling this. I could easily become one of the most powerful people on this planet if everything goes right.
Well maybe not easily, but at least I don’t have to rely on where the cards fall for my path.
But more than anything, I wanted to see the bottom. I wanted to go where my father went and see what he found down there, my curiosity simply can’t resist. So I need to plan my path with that in mind.
I grabbed a spare notebook of mine and quickly started planning, researching every last thing and reading the book front to back. I looked at every rhythm, melody, vow, resonance to plan out. If there’s one good thing about me, I’m thorough. And not to toot my own horn, but clever as well.
My path needs to be something to let me resist the sanity sapping monsters in the Trench. I spent the night looking into different combinations and what I need.
----------------------------------------
I did actually go to sleep, not to do something so naive as rest, but to explore my mind space. When I first entered it turned out to be a library. How very apt, even the song is calling me a nerd. But mainly because I wanted to see if-
Aha! I pulled on the feeling in my soul and teleported the book into my hands. So I can study even in my sleep, wonderful.
I perused the isles of books, occasionally picking some out and looking at them. The books detail all my memories, which is interesting to say the least. The handwriting is microscopic, I don’t know how I’m able to perfectly understand it but I can.
It was a relatively small space, with an opened up space in the middle with a comfy lounge chair and a table. Next to it was a half empty bookshelf, I assume the most recent book had my current memories in it.
There were a few quick tips from the book about the mindspace. You can conjure objects if you think really hard, and if you write something in a conjured book you cannot forget it. I was planning on writing my plan here so I wouldn’t have papers someone could steal that would end up in disaster.
I’ve already decided on the attunement I want, Illusion. It was detailed in my father’s texts about how he met an illusionist on the third step of the Trench. He learned much about him, but one thing stood out to me, there wasn’t nearly enough information on illusion music in general. Only the ability to make clones that attacked people and another melody that made him invisible.
It stuck out to me that every other special music that he found had way more information on it, it was off. I think that my father must have dismissed it as not that powerful, I however, disagree. Considering that the mindspace is important to getting attuned to illusion, and it involves bending perception of people. I figure there is a lot of room to work with.
It’s a gamble, sure. I could just go with the powerful light music, one that has abundant information and is incredibly strong, but I had a gut feeling. Something was telling me to look into this. And with the combination of Conductor, well, it might be powerful.
It was also fueled by my desire to go off the beaten path, but mostly the gut feeling.
I spent all night forming a plan, and finally I had a rough outline. But I wanted to make sure of my main weapon before I made a selection. Some advice in the book was to choose your weapon before you make use of the information.
It could factor into your fighting style and you want to make sure it feels right. Whatever that means.
So once I woke up to a knock on my door I got ready and went outside with my mother. We lived on an island. With my mother being my mother, she of course had to choose the ‘coolest’ spot to build a house. I have to agree with her judgment, this is a pretty kick ass place to build a house.
I didn’t really see much of anyone, my mother kept me separate from the village near us because some people were hunting her to ransom to my father. She ended up liking this place so much she stayed here.
Some part of me aches that I’ll never know what it's like growing up in a relatively normal village, but was quickly vanquished. No point, after all.
We were right smack dab in the middle of what looks like a hollowed out mountain. Our cottage is right in the middle of the clearing of grass, with the sun shining through a hole at the top. There were various holes in it, letting the sun shine through and keep the crops and her garden nice and pretty.
“So, I’ve been itching to do this, but I was going to wait until you attuned to make things easier. Now, the song is a powerful tool, but dangerous. You can’t use it too much or else it will take its payment from your sanity. I mean it Valentine, It’s dangerous.” She said, completely serious with a hard voice. I nodded.
She sighed. “But knowing you, I can’t stop you even if I wanted to. So I’m going to completely prepare you for when you adventure out. I’ll bet you want to follow in your father’s footsteps? Not literally I hope.”
I nodded.
“Yeah, I thought so. So,” She clapped. “Let’s start with your attunem-”
“Oh yeah, I’ve been meaning to tell you, I found this book in my room.” I teleported the book into my hands. She seemed baffled for a moment, before groaning.
“That fucking asshole, I should’ve known he had something like that. He loved that type of stuff, hiding shit for me to find it.”
“It’s a journal from him, documenting every bit of information he’s found. It’s very, very thorough." I said.
She let out a whistle. "Helluva gift you got there. You got the palm of the world in your hands kid, what are you gonna do with it?” I frowned, this wasn’t the reaction I was expecting. I wanted perhaps a bit of shouting and screaming, proclaiming jealousy or something like that.
She smiled with smug superiority like she read my mind. She probably knew exactly what I was thinking huh.
“I was going to dive and get to the final step of course. I already have some ideas. I just want to figure out which weapon I click with before I start.”
She let out some laughter. “Remember me when you are dubbed Emperor Godking Valentine please.”
“Of course, my reign will be magnanimous.”
“Anyways, here are some weapons, swing them around and give each of them a shot. Oh yeah, what’s your attunement?”
“I don’t have one.” I said while walking over to the rack of weapons. I observed each of them, and grabbed a dagger. I walked over to the scarecrow that sometimes doubles as a dummy and did a few swings.
“Probably for the best to be honest, you have a wide range of options ahead of you. You’re a smart cookie, you’ll figure it out. Really, you just used magnanimous in a sentence you’ll be fine.”
“You would use it too, if you opened a book for once.” I huffed. “Also how do I know if a weapon is good for me?”
“Just if you like it, nothing else. I didn’t want to lock you into using a sword like me and your dad.” She said while lounging on a stump and snacking on some dried berries.
I nodded in lieu of an answer. I liked how fast the dagger was but I didn’t like the range. I went over and grabbed the spear, but it felt wrong. I systematically went through the rest of the weapons set out. Greatsword, greataxe, greathammer, mace, gauntlets, bow, flintlocks, rapier. None of them quite fit. Finally I walked over to my father’s sword.
I reached to pick it up and felt the familiar thrum of power. As soon as I touched it I felt a familiar connection. Holy shit, two soul binds in twenty four hours. A new record no doubt.
The sword seems to weaken in power instantly, the song inhabiting it weakening. I pick it up and give it a few swings. It’s good, but it’s missing something.
A single sword represents perfect balance. It can be one handed or two, short ranged or long range. It can be used as a blunt weapon, piercing or slashing. It’s fair.
I don’t like fighting fair.
I’m not the strongest, nor the smartest- as much as I loathe to admit it. But if there was one thing I prided myself in, was being a right little asshole.
So I took a good look around, double checking the rack of weapons she laid out, and something next to the dagger caught my attention. A large dagger- more of a shortsword really, with notches in the back and large guard. It was wider than my father’s blade.
“Oh yeah, forgot I put that out. It can catch swords and disarm people if you're good enough. Never seen it work in a real fight except for this one time.” She trailed off, realizing I didn’t care.
On a whim I reached out and picked up the dagger and held it in my off hand, I knew it was perfect as soon as my fingers curled around the dagger. An extra vector of attack, a constant threat looming on my opponent’s mind. I smiled.
“Looks like you found it. I can tell with that glint in your eyes.” She said with uncharacteristic seriousness.
I burst out laughing. “Fuck off, swordswoman.” My duck did not save me from a swift backhand.
But it was perfect, it synergizes with my planned path and it’s also one of the weapons my mother has proficiency in so she can teach me some tricks.
“Perfect. Let’s start.” She said standing up swiftly. “Okay, defend.”
“What?” I blinked, and she had already picked up a sword and was dashing towards me.
I barely had time to bring my sword up before she struck with a horizontal slash and hit it with a deafening clang. My sword spun out of my hands and I lashed out with my dagger.
She stepped into my dagger and weaved to the right while batting my arms aside with her offhand.
She reared back her head and-
WHACK
Stars.