GRIFFIN TUCKER VASILIAS, GREAT HOUSE SCION, REBORN LVL 5
VASILIAS COMPOUND, HELDON
Loris’ tongue flicked out twice in rapid succession, and she leaned forward, her glittering black eyes staring into Griffin’s. “She is beyond your reach, Griffin Vasilias.” He felt a distinct mental pressure from the draakan, a weight of disdain and expectation. The heaviness of duty left undone settled on his shoulders, and he felt a hot trickle of embarrassment as her eyes bored into him.
“Loris, draakan Class Trainer, House Vasilias Sapphire-rank level 13,” Kismet said in a dry, emotionless voice. “Graft use detected: Silvertongue. Linked to her Dominion Attribute, currently at 98. Be aware that you direct your graft at the holder of a Great House Seal, Class Trainer.” Her emotionless voice had turned cold and vaguely threatening.
Loris turned her head sharply to stare at Kismet, tongue flicking in and out several times before she got herself under control. The mental pressure stopped, and Griffin suddenly realized the emotions he’d been feeling weren’t his own. He shuddered inwardly and then the anger that had previously been so elusive roared to life.
“You think I’m gonna sit here and let you mind control me?! Fuck this and fuck you.” He stood up from the table abruptly, knocking over his chair in the process. “If one of you could show me the way out of here…?” No one moved.
Xander sighed, and Jessaline looked bored. Culvis wasn’t looking at him, and Loris hadn’t moved. “Your life is no longer your own, Scion.” The draakan’s tongue flicked out again, and she stood up from the table in one fluid motion, walking over to where Griffin was standing.
She was a foot and a half taller than him, even with her sinuous, S-shaped neck curved down so that she was looking him in the eyes. “Please don’t mistake my abruptness for a lack of sympathy or empathy. No doubt before you came here, you had a happy existence performing some menial job at a…my imagination fails me, perhaps in…sales? That’s something. That world—your world—is quite literally gone. Your new world is here. And many depend upon you.”
Griffin had been turning away as she spoke, her words feeling like a goad jabbing into his side. He hesitated. “What are you talking about? I’m just a symbol to you: your Great House Scion or whatever.”
Xander got up and crossed the little breakroom over to Griffin. He was dressed in clothes that looked similar to Griffin’s but with a different, less elaborate spiral star logo embroidered on the chest of the jacket. “I don’t know how things worked in your world, Griffin, but here…You are more than a symbol. As a Great House Scion, you’ll need to be one of the strongest of us. My parents—my mother—would not have sent me into the jaws of Bardouls for a mere symbol. Who depends on you? Well, everyone in this room for starters.” He gestured around. “House Vasilias has been on the cusp of Greatness for decades. And now, thanks to you, House Vasilias has joined their ranks!”
“How does that even make any sense?!” Griffin burst out. “I mean, c’mon! I’m not related to you! I’m not even from this planet! I hate to break it to you, but I’m not a Great House Scion, no matter what any computer System says.”
“A House’s Greatness is achieved in two ways,” Loris said. “By the Dungeons in a House’s control and by the Great House Seals they have created. If a House has five Great House Seals—one for each Attribute—they are by definition a Great House. Most Great Houses have far more than five, but until you arrived, we only had four. A Bardoul plot stole our status as a Great House generations ago.”
Were you guys fucked by a Bardoul plot, or by designing illegal and uncontrollable weapons in a secret weapons lab hidden in your mountain lair? Griffin thought, wondering just how much of her own House’s history Loris knew. Either they’ve got a helluva propaganda department or they’ve really drank their own Kool-Aid. I don’t know which is worse. Why can’t they make another Great House Seal anyway?
“So make another Great House Seal!” He looked around. No one seemed too thrilled with his suggestion. “Or better yet, take mine! You can have it, I’m not using it.”
Culvis burst out with a loud laugh. “Sorry!” he said with his gruff voice, “But son, not just anyone can make a Great House Seal. Ha! Make another one!” He shook his head. Jessaline snorted a choked-off laugh too. “Only an Amethyst-rank Reborn who hasn’t Ascended can make a Great House Seal. There aren’t many of those.”
“There was a plan,” Salyyb cut in, sounding disapproving. Griffin had forgotten he was there. “For achieving our Greatness. We cannot rest so precariously upon our new position; Lady Vasilias was going to—”
“Lady Vasilias charged us with seeing to Griffin’s safety,” Xander cut in sternly. Salyyb’s headflower wilted a little, and Xander continued, “Getting him to Stone rank is vital, no matter what.”
“We can agree upon that,” Kismet said, surprising Griffin and everyone else. Loris flicked her tongue out several times, but Kismet ignored her. Kismet had been hovering next to Griffin’s left shoulder, and now she flew down to the break room table and settled there, right in front of Loris. “And so long as you can ensure Griffin’s advancement, then you will have our cooperation.” The draakan didn’t say anything, but Griffin got the sense that Kismet was goading her somehow.
“There is just one thing I wanted to know before we did anything else,” Griffin said, looking around at the table. Nobody responded but Loris gestured for him to continue. “Where’s the last one of you?”
Nobody said anything. Xander and Culvis looked curiously at him like they had no idea what he was talking about. Salyyb and Loris were unreadable. But Griffin wasn’t watching them anyway. He was watching Jessaline Braedes.
He had all his senses trained on her, so it was easy for him to see that her heart sped up for a moment before slowing back to its normal pace. The real story was told with tensa, though. He saw it gather in her anima, which was briefly visible to him before the tensa diffused enough through it to disappear once more.
“Zahara had her own path,” Jessaline said curtly, drawing Xander’s and Culvis’ eyes. Salyyb seemed unconcerned.
Xander narrowed his eyes and said, “What do you mean ‘her own path’? Now that we’ve secured the Scion, I had planned on mounting a rescue operation to collect her from Brutus and that party that attacked us.”
Loris looked startled, “One of your team members was captured by Brutus Bardoul? Who was it? Zahara who? No, certainly you can’t mean…” She flicked her tongue out a couple of times, her eyes narrowed to slits. “Zahara Bardoul,” she said flatly.
Salyyb released a puff of scent that smelled like honeysuckle. Everyone at the table reacted to the perfume like he’d said something or made a gesture, but Griffin couldn’t tell by their reaction if the scent was meant as a confirmation or something else entirely. His translation routine didn’t translate the smell, so Griffin just waited to see what would happen.
“Zahara Bardoul has been an asset on this entire journey—” Xander began.
“Zahara Bardoul is a lying traitor and she’s lucky I didn’t shoot her head off her shoulders,” Jessaline interrupted acidly. “She’s bad news, Xander. Lord Xander, I mean.”
Xander stared at Jessaline for a long time before his mouth flattened into a line with his lips barely visible. “What did you do, Jess?” His voice was calm but there was tension behind it that caused his words to come out a little pinched. “Full report. Now.”
Griffin felt like he was intruding on a private matter, but that moment when Jessaline had left him right before they’d hitched a ride on the chicken truck stuck in his mind. The bang that had echoed down the mountainside echoed in his imagination once more.
Jessaline didn’t prevaricate. “You know I never trusted her, my Lord,” she started. “I made it my mission to ensure our team’s safety, even if you were too blinded by emotion and lust—and perhaps some of her Bardic Class grafts—to take proper precautions. I watched her. I followed Zahara Bardoul when she went off on her own.” She crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair. “And when she finally betrayed us, I was there to see it.”
The room had gone deadly quiet. Griffin barely dared to breathe. Xander looked like he was ready to murder someone. No, scratch that. He looks like he’s about to murder Jessaline in particular, Griffin thought. Maybe I should see if I can sneak out of here. I didn’t want to be front-row to an interrogation via enormous war hammer. He began surreptitiously glancing around the little breakroom for an exit.
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The rest of the team remained just as silent as Xander took his time processing Jessaline’s words. Finally, he said, “You decided that it was appropriate to keep this information to yourself. You never warned me or anyone else in the team—wait, did anyone else here help her?”
“I worked alone,” Jessaline was quick to cut in. “I kept my suspicions to myself until I could gather more substantial evidence. I didn’t want it to just be my word against hers.”
Xander nodded, his shoulders relaxing a little. “So you found this evidence?” He said, his voice hard and cold.
Griffin wasn’t a great judge of people, but even he could tell that Xander was furious. Were Xander and her a thing? He wondered. That might explain why he’s so angry. Or maybe he just gets this worked up when someone chases off a friend of his. He slowly began walking back toward the door, hoping no one would notice.
Loris’ sharp eyes caught him, holding him in place and she spoke sharply. “This matter can be discussed later. Not here.” Her eyes held Griffin, but her words were directed at the tableau playing out in the break room. “We are here to discuss Griffin’s place in the House and his further training. Personal… entanglements…must wait.”
Xander glared at her furiously for several long moments, but eventually, he nodded once and then began brooding darkly, clearly distracted. Loris nodded decisively and switched topics with blunt diplomacy. “It’s going to be a rigorous program, but by the end of it, you’ll have a Class and we’ll get you up to Sapphire Rank. We have the Quest lines, the equipment, and the shards to see it done. Furthermore, Lady Vasilias has ordered it done.”
“I don’t know what you think I’m even capable of. I’m kind of shit at monster killing, I don’t know anything about this weird magic system, and I feel like everything is constantly trying to kill me. Kismet’s been doing her best but…I’m not the best student.” He shrugged. “To be honest, I’ve been having a hard time dealing with everything… it’s all been coming at me so quickly that I’ve just been playing catch-up the whole time, reacting to everything. But…no offense, but I just don’t believe that Sarah’s out of reach.”
“Griffin, don’t be an idiot,” Jessaline said, startling Griffin. She had a mug of steaming scivit in her hand and a half-eaten pastry in front of her. “The Cataclysm Mountains is an insanely deadly place. The tensa storms there would rip you apart. Your anima discipline is for shit, so you’d stick out like a beacon to the hundreds of deadly monsters that live there, and you and everyone with you would be dead within ten minutes of your arrival.” She snorted. “There’s no way I’d take you to the Cataclysm Mountains right now. I like to live.”
Culvis kicked her chair, but no one would meet Griffin’s eye. Except for Loris. The draakan stood up and crossed the little break room to Griffin. She looked him up and down again carefully.
“Xander showed me the footage of the fight with the plasma cybercentipedes. I based my assessment of your ability to affect Sarah’s fate on your performance against them. Griffin, right now you are a danger to yourself and others. Until you can get your anima under control and at least attain level 10 at Stone rank, you’re just deadweight. Ideally, you wouldn’t go to the Cataclysm Mountains until you were at least at level 5 Ivory rank with all the Vasilias anima configurations memorized with demonstrable competence.” She reached out and poked his rather soggy midsection. “You are a Great House Scion of House Vasilias, and we cannot abide weakness. We welcome your ambitions—Great House Scions always have lofty goals and insane ambitions—but we want you to live to see them through to fruition.”
“That…wasn’t something I’d considered,” Griffin admitted sheepishly. “But now that you say it out loud, sounds pretty obvious. So step one of taking control of my fate is…?”
“Training. But first, I need an assessment of your…we’ll call them skills. A drone’s recording is one thing, but there’s no substitute for lived experience. I need to see you in action.” She crossed the breakroom to the door leading further into the building. “Come on, you’ve had enough time to rest.”
“Hold on there, Loris!” Culvis said hurriedly. “His metabolism isn’t exactly…efficient quite yet. The kid needs to eat.”
Loris’ tongue flicked out before her throat inflated slightly. After a couple of seconds, she let out her breath, her throat going back down to its normal shape. “We do not have ti—” she started.
“Griffin’s heirloom graft is Adaptive Conjuration,” Kismet said. “Perhaps a demonstration of his skills with a graft that House Vasilias has not enjoyed in… ten millennia?” Kismet stared off into space for a moment as if she were consulting something. “Yes, your House System agrees with me. It’s been ten millennia since a Vasilias has employed this graft.”
Xander and Loris shared a long look. Culvis whistled long and low. Even Salyyb’s headflower blossomed a little wider at that. “I was not aware that graft had been recovered,” Loris said, and Griffin couldn’t tell if she was impressed or disapproving or simply remarking that she had not been aware. Griffin blushed as all eyes turned upon him.
“Go on,” Kismet said. “Make them some Cinnabon.”
He grinned and concentrated, imagining the gooey, perfectly cooked rolls with a thick layer of cream cheese icing. The cinnamon sugar oozing out of the swirls in the rolls and caramelizing on the exterior. The way the steam curled off them. As soon as he could taste them, he infused the thought with tensa and…thunk. A platter with a dozen softball-sized cinnamon rolls with cream cheese icing, piping hot like they’d come right out of the oven landed on the table. Immediately, the thick smell of cinnamon sugar filled up the room, and Griffin’s stomach growled. He picked one up and grinned, taking a bite and burning his mouth in the process.
The others just stared at him as he ate the sticky confection. After an awkward minute, Jessaline rolled her eyes and grabbed another roll, taking a big bite with a challenging look in her eyes. She was hesitant at first, then her eyes widened, and she chewed more enthusiastically. “It’s sweet!” She said, surprised. “You eat sweet things in the mornings? You aliens are weird.” She took another bite. “It’s really damn good, but I can’t quite place that spice. It’s like nothing I’ve ever had!”
“Uh, that’s cinnamon. Cinnamon sugar.” Griffin said, conjuring a napkin, which he used to wipe his mouth. He made a glass of milk, complete with condensation from the cold and took a long drink. “Breakfast of champions.”
“I had read accounts of this graft,” Loris said, eyeing the cinnamon rolls with what Griffin was beginning to think was awe. The draakan picked up one of the rolls with one clawed hand, examining it minutely. “Incredible. The object is completely inert. It’s not infused at all. What’s the cost?”
Griffin shrugged, wiping his mouth with the napkin again. “It varies. The cinnamon rolls are like… twelve hundred sparks? Is that right? Is that a unit of measure?”
Loris nodded distractedly. She brought the roll to her mouth and nibbled at it. She closed her black eyes in concentration, still holding the roll. “I’m detecting… a grain derivative flour… proteins from an avian ovum… lactic fluid from a mammal. Various plant extracts. No tensa at all. I’ve never seen permanently conjured items before.” She narrowed her eyes in thought. “What Attribute did this bind to? No… let me see if I can determine that on my own.”
“Watch,” Xander said, smiling. “She’s going to do her trick.”
“It’s no trick, Lord Vasilias,” Loris said, still tasting the roll meditatively. “He’s only level five, so there’s only so many options it could be; we already know that it’s a Mind graft. The amount of time it took, the effort…Could you tell what he was doing with his anima? It’s a damn efficient graft, so I can’t see that it would’ve raised the Attribute all that high. Likely under ten. It took, what, fifteen seconds for him to create them? I’d say this was linked to your Arcana Attribute.”
“Hey, not bad!” Griffin exclaimed. Kismet had brought up a view of his Attributes for him. “How’d you figure it out?”
Attributes
Dominion
15 [Ocean] / 20
Speed
14 [Data] / 20
Precision
9 [Void] / 20
Growth
14 [Void] / 20
Arcana
17 [Mind] /20
Loris sniffed primly. “I’m a Class Trainer. If I couldn’t figure out a Primary Attribute-linked graft, I wouldn’t be worthy of the name.” She put the roll down, wiping her claws on the napkin Griffin had left on the table. “That was a thrilling distraction, but it’s a perfect example of my point.” She continued back over to the door, opening it and gesturing for Griffin to follow.
He followed after her, intrigued despite himself. “How so?”
“You had to focus your entire mind on that one task. It took fifteen entire seconds to conjure the confections. Another ten to conjure your glass of mammal extract. An entire 1.2 kilosparks on sweets.” She shook her head. “Once you master your anima discipline and train with that graft a bit, you’ll be doing all that with a fraction of the effort and tensa expenditure. With enough practice and an upgrade or two, I would be willing to bet you’d be able to produce infused items. The records from that long ago…” She shook her head. “Let’s just say that I’m eager to see what other grafts you have.”
Griffin followed her through the door with Kismet hovering close behind. Xander and the rest followed. They walked quickly through long halls that were only dimly lit by blue strips near the floor. They passed a few heavy doors on either side.
These weren’t just heavy doors; they looked like vault doors with etched runes glowing softly on them. They turned down the hall at one point and continued down another hallway that looked exactly like the first one. They stopped a minute later in front of a vault door whose runes were not glowing. Loris approached it, and a control panel slid out of the wall near the huge circular metal door.
“This is the House Vasilias Infused Reality Chamber,” she said. “We can use tensa batteries to simulate real life to a degree where you will be unable to tell the difference. This is where we will see what you can do.” She tapped at the control panel. A moment later, a heavy chunk sounded from the door and it swung open soundlessly revealing a cavernous, empty room beyond. "Don't worry, none of the injuries you will receive will be permanent."