After only a few short hours of slumber and another shift of work, Iris took a seat on a cross beam with her back against the mast. She would have preferred to blip down to her favorite platform on the bow, but didn’t dare risk that while the ship was barely lower than the clouds. As if to punctuate a point, a strong gust of wind came from the starboard side and slightly tipped the ship, and Iris almost had to blip to avoid falling. One factor of flying she hadn’t expected was that the ship would be less stable than when it was sailing.
The ship had traveled far enough now that the cliff face it took flight from had disappeared beyond the horizon, and now all that was visible in any direction were clouds and the seemingly infinite vastness of the swamp. It felt almost as much like being out to sea as traveling cross the mostly empty expanse of Giantrock Lake, but at least the enormous trees they occasionally past felt like islands in the ocean.
There was a creature flying in the distance, little more than a dot and the silhouette of wings — yet, Iris was pretty sure she recognized that dot. After zooming in with her spyglass, she grinned at the confirmation. It was Glimmer, still faithfully following Eli wherever he went. They hadn’t seen much of the griffin lately, though Iris had recently learned that every evening Autumn would throw some food into the air for her to swoop by and snatch up.
Still smiling, Iris returned the spyglass to her bottomless bag and pulled out her journal to write an entry. The journal didn’t open to a blank page like she had wanted, however, and instead landed on her character sheet, where she was pleasantly surprised to see she had leveled up.
IRIS ORION
Hero Rank, Level 13
Experience Points: 125 / 13,330
Progress to next level: 00.93%
Attribute Scores:
- Vitality : 42
- Strength : 58
- Speed : 37
- Intellect : 41
- Spirit : 52
Unspent attribute points : 5
Iris had known she was close to leveling up, but still hadn’t expected it to happen today. She guessed that she must have gained slightly extra than the usually small trickle of experience she gained from each day’s work, probably due to the novel differences in her duties now that the ship was in flight.
She knew she wanted to put more points into strength to help with the weight of her new sword, but felt like that wasn’t the only stat that needed attention. The more she paid attention to those around her in combat, the more obvious it was becoming that — her blip ability notwithstanding — she was woefully slower than all of them. Much of that could be explained by the level gap, of course, but she felt it was time she stopped ignoring the Speed stat. Ultimately, she decided on placing three points into Strength and two into Speed.
After finding no new journal entry from her mother, Iris tried to close the book. The journal had other plans, however, as it forced itself back open in her hands and landed on the page that listed her abilities. She wasn’t expecting a new ability until Level 15, so she diligently read through the page in search of what the journal wanted her to see — and it didn’t take long to find.
Send and Retrieve
Source : Thread of Power (Void)
Cooldown : N/A
Mana cost : Low, varies
Description :
Temporarily lapse an object into the void, reappearing a short distance away in a location of your choosing with a velocity and direction of your choosing. Max velocity is approximately the speed at which user can throw the affected item. Cannot be used on items that too large or heavy to be lifted by the user. Cannot be used on items worn or held by others.
Discovered trait : can be used on other living beings at extremely high mana costs. Mana cost is dependent on physical makeup of the target creature.
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Discovered trait : can be used to withdraw items directly from your Void Pocket, or return items directly to it. Mana usage is increased when used in this way.
Available Evolutions : 1
Her eyes widened in surprise. For the first time, one of her abilities had an available evolution. She wasn’t even sure how ability evolutions even worked, let alone when to expect them or how they were obtained. The journal flipped through pages on its own, landing on a page full of incoherent scribbles that drifted and merged until they formed into words.
Send and Retrieve
Available Evolution : Mouth of the Void
Description :
Source : Thread of Power (Void)
Cooldown : N/A
Mana cost : Low, varies
Temporarily lapse small objects into the void. Objects may either be deposited in your Void Pocket or directly into your grasp. Cannot be used on items which are too large or heavy to be lifted by the user. Cannot be used on items worn or held by others. Can be used on living creatures at a substantially higher mana cost dependent on the creature’s physical characteristics and size.
Tear open a window to the void in the palm of the user’s hand. This window connects directly to the user’s Void Pocket. Objects can be ejected from the void at a chosen velocity, maximum is approximately twice the velocity of which the user is able to throw the object.
Iris clapped the book closed and blipped it into her bottomless void before launching into an ascent up the mast with a series of blips, jumps, and a somewhat superfluous rope swing. When she reached the top of the mast she kicked off of it and blipped across the gap to the main mast, which she then scaled until she soon blipped into the crow’s nest. Eli was facing away from her, leaning on the edge of the half-wall and peering out across the sky.
Realizing he hadn’t noticed her, she politely announced herself, “blip.”
“Fuck!” Eli shouted as he spun around, “what is your problem?” he demanded in an exasperated tone.
“I don’t know what you people want from me,” Iris complained, I literally made a noise like you’ve asked me to.”
Eli tiredly rubbed his temples.
“Anyway, I need your help,” Iris blipped the journal into her hand, opened it to the ability evolution page, and handed it to Eli.
He took and read through the page, nodding in appreciation, “it’s pretty early to get your first evolution, good job.”
“Thanks. I’m not exactly sure what I did to get it, though.”
Eli handed the journal back to her, “you’ve been experimenting with your powers a lot lately, right? I’ve heard that increases your chances of getting an evolution. The other way is by just using an ability enough times to brute force it, most people get their first evolution around level 20 that way with whichever ability they use the most.”
“Well, should I accept it?”
Eli tapped a foot while he thought for a moment, “I guess that depends on if you like the sound of it. Evolutions are usually positive in nature, but they also mess with the way an ability works. You might find new quirks, or discover that old tricks don’t quite work anymore while new ones have become possible. You can’t go back once you’ve accepted it, though, and I’ve heard that if you sit on it too long without accepting the evolution will disappear altogether.”
“It does sound pretty cool. I mean, a hole to the void in the palm of my hand? That’s gotta open up some possibilities. I’m not sure what any of them are yet, but I’m sure there are plenty.”
“Then go for it,” Eli shrugged.
“Alright then, I guess I am,” Iris held the book out with the spine resting in the palm of her hand and took a deep breath as she mentally focused on accepting the evolution in a similar manner to how she allocated stat points.
At first nothing happened, and she didn’t feel any different. Then the text on the page updated to include “Evolution accepted.” A loud tearing sound came from beneath the journal, and then it warped and shrank as it was sucked into a jagged tear in the skin of her palm extending from the knuckle of her index finger down to edge of her wrist opposite her thumb. Inside the tear was only empty black void.
“Whoa,” she whispered.
“That’s pretty freaky,” Eli said, cautiously leaning forward to peek at her upturned palm.
The tear abruptly closed at Iris’s mental command, and then ripped open again the instant she wanted it to. She picked the first item that came to mind and tried to eject it from the tear. A pebble of marble shot out of her palm and slammed hard into the ceiling before clattering to the floor.
Iris laughed, “yeah, I think I like this.”
She blipped to the half-wall of the crow’s nest and extended her hand out to the sky, summoning another pebble and ejecting it at full speed. The pebble shot from her palm with shocking speed and soared in a straight line through the air until it grew too far to see. Iris looked at her palm in surprise.
“You’re getting pretty strong, and it did say it could shoot things twice as fast as you can throw them,” Eli observed, “might want to be careful where you point that thing.”
Affirmative tones emanated from the tear in her palm.
“Abby?” she blinked in surprise before quickly realizing that it made sense. The tear was connected to the void pocket within her bottomless bag, which meant Abby was as much inside her palm as she was inside of the bag.
“Wait, hang on,” she said, turning her palm towards Eli, “tell me how freaky this looks.”
“Whoa,” Eli ducked out of the direct line of fire of her palm, “I just said to watch where you point that.”
“Oh, calm down, I’m not going to shoot you,” Iris rolled her eyes, “give it a try, Abby.”
Vicious roaring tones emanated from her palm as three tentacles squeezed their way out of the tear and writhed around like an angry monster emerging from the darkness. Eli took a step back and held up a defensive hand, his face half intrigued and half stricken with horror.
“That’s terrifying,” he said, “and disgusting.”
Sad tones came from the tear as the tentacles shrank back inside.
“Eli!” Iris chastised, “you hurt her feelings!”
“Wha— I didn’t mean— she’s a tentacle monster, I didn’t even know she had feelings!”
Iris scoffed, “of course she has feelings!” She gripped the corner post of the crow’s nest and stepped up onto the half wall, “unbelievable.”
“Iris—” Eli started, giving up with a sigh when she blipped away.