Steel and Jade
She was alone. She knew she was there, but there was nothing except her. There had been…something…before, for a moment, but now there was nothing. She did come to a realization though.
There had been a before the strange feeling came, then the strange feeling, and then an after the feeling. Now was after the feeling. She had no words, but in her mind there were 3 times. Before, the event, after.
She pondered that. And as she pondered she realized that ‘Now’ was not exactly the same as ‘after’.
Due to good thinking you gained
+1 intelligence
+1 wisdom
A blue window appeared in front of her. She understood the window.
Now there were 5 times. Before everything, the strange event, the time between events, the time the window appeared and Now, or the time the window stood in front of her. No, it was six times, since Now was not the same as the time the window stands in front of her.
She thought about the window and what it said. It was blue. She could read it. She could understand its meaning. She knew the words in it and it had appeared after she had started thinking instead of merely existing.
Due to analytical examination you gained
+1 intelligence
The moment moved, the events did not.
Due to unusual thinking you gained
+ 1 wisdom
She was stupefied. She had thought, she had realized that there were different times and different layers in those times…and this made windows appear. She was the one who had caused three events, by thinking about the first. But what was the first event? She had not been the cause of the first event.
The first event had been what had set her mind on the path she was currently following. If she continued to follow it, would she come to understand the first event as she had begun to understand the flow of time?
Due to great insight above your level of wisdom you gained
+ 2 wisdom
She was confused. This time she hadn’t understood anything; she had simply begun to ask herself questions and begun to form a theory. She kept pondering. The first time a window appeared…she had asked herself a question and found a solution. Afterwards…she had come to more conclusions.
So when she asked herself good questions she gained wisdom and when she found answers intelligence? Somehow that didn’t feel right. Maybe…when she had an insight that could not be deduced by merely following a line of thought she gained wisdom? When she had….inspiration?
That sounded about right.
Due to pondering a difficult problem you gained
+1 intelligence
All right, she was gaining quite a lot of those windows. And her thoughts had become more complex than they had been before.
Though she didn’t know why, she could think faster than before.
A new thought crossed her mind. She was the only one ‘here’. But the first event was not something she had caused. Ergo…it had not been caused by anything ‘here’.
Meaning, just like there were different times, there had to be different places. A ‘here’ and a ‘there’. Though since there were more than two layers in time…since time appeared more of a flow that could be measured by the passing of events…there were probably more than two places. Not just here and there. Even if she could not perceive it, there had to be more places. And since there were probably more places there should be not only her and whatever caused the first event but other things, as well, outside. Outside, in this case, merely meant not ‘here’.
Due to great insight and surprising deductive abilities leading you to astonishing conclusions never expected of one such as you, you gained
+5 wisdom
+5 intelligence
She, having seen these windows several times now, decided to count. She had gained 7 intelligence and 9 wisdom. She was beginning to wonder where those messages came from, too. And the texts. The texts sure sounded like somebody was a bit surprised that she was thinking things through, which actually seemed to be the only logical thing to do. After all, what else was there for her to do?
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Even if there was an outside, she had no way to gain access, at least not yet. She saw no other way to gain access other than examining her situation and coming to the conclusions that she could come to for the moment. Maybe one of those conclusions would lead her to another conclusion that allowed her to know more and see more.
For the moment though she decided to examine ‘here’.
Due to your strong, decisive nature you gained the stat ‘willpower’
+5 willpower
This last window was different. She was not quite certain where this would lead her. Intelligence and wisdom helped her thinking, but what would willpower do?
Later.
First she wished to examine this ‘here’.
‘Here’ was where she was. There was nothing else. It was not uncomfortable. ‘Here’ was…her. She knew that here was she, herself. Therefore outside would be anything that was not her.
To find out more about herself she tried calming her wild thoughts and just feel herself. Her…was a sense of hardness. But not only hard. There was smoothness, too. One end felt larger than the other end. One end felt hard, while the other felt…different.
She felt the different part. The different part held energy. She could not access that energy however.
She stopped her self-examination to start pondering it when she was once again interrupted by one of those blue windows.
Due to self-examination you gained
+1 wisdom
+1 intelligence
She now had 10 wisdom, 8 intelligence and 5 willpower that she knew of.
She wondered whether anything had changed with the increase. Inside herself she reached out and touched the power again. It reacted to her thought this time. Well, time to use her willpower.
She willed the energy to move. ‘Here’ was her. This energy was ‘here’. Therefore this energy was her. She felt a reaction, but only an uncontrolled surge.
Due to great determination in combination with rational thinking you gained
+2 intelligence
+2 willpower
Again. She tried pulling on the energy, trying to shape it. And unexpectedly it at least moved in the right direction.
Ability Mana Manipulation learned
All of a sudden she could, crudely, get the energy to do what she wanted it to do. It moved through her and then back to the larger end.
She pushed against a strange resistance that enclosed ‘here’…and then the energy was outside. She tried moving the energy, like a snake, to feel around her.
There was another layer of resistance outside. Feeling around, she found that it was longish and big enough to hold her form comfortably. Everything around her was soft. She herself was hard and smooth and without the tiniest scratch. She was long, thin and elegant, with something round on the other end, something equally smooth but with a different feeling to it. The part where her energy lay was different from the other part of herself. Further up there was something that hung down. Three fine, but very hard threads with more of the energy holding part of her on it in the shape of tiny longish things with tiny holes in the middle led down to something delicately shaped that she couldn’t interpret just yet. It was much harder than any other part of her and could hold even more energy, she felt.
She tried feeling beyond the softness surrounding her, but apparently she couldn’t, no matter for how long she tried, no matter how much she willed it. Outside, what she could reach of it, held nothing. There was still just her. Therefore, there had to be more to outside. She just couldn’t reach it. Not yet.
She hadn’t been paying attention, but the windows proclaimed that she had gained more points in all the time she had tried to find more than herself.
She now had 12 wisdom, 16 intelligence and 19 willpower. Once she gained more, she would find a way to figure out what the first event had been. And how, why, she had come to be. She was Steel and Jade and her determination wouldn’t let her back down anymore, not after she had come this far.