The cool wind caressed my face.
I heard it rustle through the grass in the clearing around me, bringing the sweet smell of fresh dew to my nose. I heard it whistle softly through the trees that surrounded me, shaking leaves and shifting branches. I closed my eyes as it swept over me, refreshing me, evaporating sweat and soothing aching muscles.
I inhaled.
Slowly, painstakingly, drop by drop, the song infused me. Controlling it was second nature now. I let it pervade me bit by bit, a soft hum that reverberated in my form. Using nothing but Entropy, I assumed command of my own body, testing, firing each muscle strand and fiber individually, and feeling my limbs tense and relax in response.
Moving in this way, puppeting myself like a sack of flesh and fluids, was not easy. It’d been unsettling at first, deeply so. It’d taken me quite some time to get used to. But now, it felt even more natural than conventional locomotion. The song flowed as fast as thought, allowing me to react just as quickly. And it allowed for such precise, exact articulation.
Without it, I would have never been able to achieve the next step.
I exhaled.
Gradually, I focused on the sound of Lightning.
Despite the similarities they shared, it was very different from Fire. Fire was an ox that strained steadily against the lead, a stain that gradually consumed the painting. Lightning was different. Energy, in its purest form. It was like trying to cage a storm. Like trying to hold chaos in your hand. Blistering. Deadly. Absolute.
With Fire, you had to clench tightly, firmly, confidently, or you’d get burned. But holding lightning fast would just make it explode in your face. It was impossible. You couldn’t grasp lightning. Such a thing was antithetical to its very nature.
But you could guide it. Lightning wanted to move, to be free. It yearned for release.
And I could provide that.
I inhaled, and began to surge.
Lightning flowed through my blood.
I grit my teeth in concentration. Even influencing it this lightly taxed me to the utmost. I had to build the flux slowly, starting with a mere trickle of sparks. I had to watch it carefully through the song, forming arcane conduits and Entropic channels, magnetic thoroughfares through which it might flow without damaging the surrounding tissue.
I wasn’t perfect. Every now and again, a mote or two would break free and scorch my insides, discharging in a flash of pain. But pain was commonplace to me by now, and Draconic Blood handled the damage quickly and easily.
The first cycle was always the hardest. I could feel it bucking, spasming, fiercely fighting me. But then, just when I was about to lose control, the circuit closed.
I exhaled with a gasp, and my eyes shot open.
My mouth was locked in a silent scream, half agony and half ecstasy. For the very first time, I’d done it. I’d bound the lightning. Gently, still shaking, using Entropy to pilot my motions, I raised my hand and examined it.
From the outside, nothing seemed amiss. Not the slightest flicker of electricity escaped me. Yet gazing deeper, in the song, I could see the raging currents of energy contained within. I grinned broadly, cracking my neck. Now for the fun part.
From my left hand, I tossed a polished stone up high in the air.
I inhaled, crouched, and bade the currents GROW. The increase wasn’t a gradual one. With the circuit completed, feeding the flow was as easy as breathing.
My limbs began to shake. Raw energy pulsed from my very being. I felt invincible. I felt like I could slay Titans, cross miles in a single step, cut mountains in half with but a blow. I felt like a chained storm. Eagerly, I let the lightning within me build to its peak, tensing my body in the song, and then I moved.
Flash Step.
No pain. No damage. The electric river dimmed slightly for an instant, galvanic forces discharging from me in sanguine fulmination, and then I was ten feet away. Fang was already descending, crimson lightning coursing through it as well, slicing a wooden target in half and singing what remained.
Flash Step.
Another strike, and I was somewhere else once more. Another faux adversary cut in two, splinters showering over me, but not finding flesh, because I was already gone.
Flash Step.
Another. I jammed my sword through its timber throat and pulled out, swinging around in one clean motion and down–
Flash Step.
into the next, my pulse pounding in my ears as I twirled and–
Flash Step.
sliced right through the middle of a third, following through the strike to–
Flash Step.
decapitate a fourth, my breath racing, muscles screaming, Draconic Blood raging within my insides, palliating my self-destructive motion.
Flash Step.
Flash Step.
Flash Step.
Flash Step.
Flash Step.
My surroundings were a blur, every half-second greeted by a new scene, my mind striving desperately to maintain pace with the rest of me.
My limbs became a whirlwind of death and dismemberment as I struck with blistering speed. I couldn't keep up mentally, so I allowed the song to guide my motion, striking based on hearing alone, and connecting every time.
Flash Step pulsed rhythmically, a second heart that pounded from within, every activation shocking my flesh anew and driving numbing needles deep into my mind. Fang was crooning euphorically, high on energized plasma and savagely split foes. I could feel myself growing slower, sloppier, running on fumes, but I was almost there.
And then, as suddenly as it had begun, it was over.
I heaved deep and desperate breaths, bent double, panting heavily. Twenty wooden mannequins lay in splintered, charred pieces in the clearing around me.
With a soft, cushioned, thump, the stone I’d tossed not five seconds prior landed at last.
I’d done it.
I let out a great whoop of joy, dancing and prancing a gleeful jig around my inanimate adversaries. Nearly two months of ceaseless practice, of exhaustive training, of countless torn muscles, ablated flesh and cracked bones, and I’d finally done it.
I collapsed into the soft grass beneath me, sighing heavily, Fang lying contentedly by my side like a lover in the throes of afterglow. Staring at the nearly cloudless sapphire sky spread out above me, I called forth my Grimoire.
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~~~
Hero
Attunement: ADMINISTRATION 9.
Grain: Shard Broadcast Attunement. The Host is able to comprehend the Shardsong, the language of Shards and Entities.
Active Slots:
* Draconic Blood 7. The Host’s blood takes on the properties of an ancient dragon, granting increased strength, resilience, and greatly increased healing. The Host gains an affinity to fire and blood.
* Flash Step 9. The Host gains the ability to move any distance in a single step, at the cost of damaging their body. Entropy spent and bodily damage scales with distance traveled. This ability does not enhance the Host’s senses whilst in motion. The Host may not change their body position during a Flash Step. The Host gains an affinity to lightning.
* Soulbound Weapon 6. The Host is granted a personalized weapon, chosen to fit the Host’s subconscious. In this case the weapon is Fang, The Boneblade. This weapon will grow with the Host as they gain Attunement, displaying more esoteric effects as it does so. This weapon may always be recalled to the Host, regardless of location. This weapon may be dismissed and summoned by the Host at will. If this weapon is destroyed, it may be regenerated at the cost of Entropy.
* Empty.
* Empty.
Save Slots:
* Empty.
* Empty.
* Empty.
* Empty.
* Empty.
Good luck, Hero. The survival of both our races depends on you.
~~~
My growth over the past few weeks had been insane. Nothing short of explosive. To be honest, it was difficult to believe. I was no stranger to arduous training, having spent most of my life doing it, but this was frankly unreal.
Blessed would work for years to raise their Attunement even once. I’d done so numerous times, across multiple different Blessings, all in the span of a couple moons. What was more, as your Attunement increased, it was meant to be more and more difficult to raise it further. Growth was supposed to slow exponentially as you leveled.
I, however, felt none of that. If anything, higher Attunement seemed to further drive my insights, the increased connection I felt to my powers only allowing me to better understand them. It was entirely surreal. The detailed descriptions certainly helped, but they couldn’t be doing everything. Was it my ability to hear the Shardsong, then? I still didn’t know.
I twirled a finger in the air, controlling Fang with my mind and watching as he mirrored the motion. My sword swayed and spun, gaily playing as he circled the sky above me. The ability to manipulate him entirely telekinetically was something I’d discovered shortly after Soulbound Weapon had reached 5 Attunement.
All of my Blessings had leveled, even my main one. Their changes were reflected in the song within me.
My azure ocean had evolved.
The once meek clouds producing sporadic flashes of red lightning that struck the sea were no more. Now, what raged high above the ocean’s surface was no less than a crimson tempest, a massive, divine storm wrought of nebulae dark as the void. At its very center, a single sanguine eye pulsed viciously, and periodically emitted a terrible beam of red Lightning that tore forth towards the sea.
Draconic Blood rose up to meet it from the igneous ocean floor in the form of a great and mighty volcano. It was a wrothful God, all sharp obsidian stone and ruby red lava. Where the two titanic forces of nature met, blistering Lightning greeted Fire and Blood, and the echoes of their clash reverberated across the ocean, creating subsonic vibrations beneath the waves.
But their battle was not one of foes.
No, it was one of bosom friends, of blood brothers. They were making each other stronger. Every morsel of damage Flash Step dealt, Draconic Blood would build back better than before. Each exchange was as much a clash of swords as it was a clasp of hands, and each expenditure of Entropy sent off a great spray of magma and basalt all around them. The falling drops of crystallized lava turned into aquatic demons where they struck the surf.
These balls of fire and speed and fury were terrors in the waves, savagely hunting the minute azure minnows that still populated it in vast schools.
But they were not the oceans' apex predators, for the seas were Fang’s demesne.
My boneblade patrolled with impossible grace and teeth sharper than the sharpest steel. It, too, had grown greatly, the once shark-wolf beast now nearing the size of a whale, its mighty maw capable of swallowing the hellfish whole, insides cutting the creatures to pieces. It had taken on the characteristics of the fish it consumed, bony body glowing with orange runes, and ruby-red lightning flickering from its form.
It rumbled a genuflection towards me, knight to lord.
I felt a strong, strong connection to my weapon. I could almost feel some sort of proto-sentience emanate from Fang when I cast my awareness upon it. I imagined that someday soon, the weapon might even be capable of fighting semi-autonomously. I wondered what powers it might manifest in the future.
Draconic Blood had saved my life, more than once. Without question, I would have been lost without it. It allowed me to train more, to push myself harder and further than I ever had before, than I ever could have otherwise. It was the foundation of my might, the strong and solid base of my power.
But the Blessing I felt most kinship with, the one I’d practiced most with, was without a doubt Flash Step.
I was addicted to it.
The feeling of power I got when the Blessing flowed through my veins. The howl of the wind as it tore past me when I moved. The sensation of being somewhere else in a mere moment. I felt a strong connection to lightning, as well. I had a good understanding of it, by now. The song of Lightning was simple, far more so than the others I’d encountered.
It was absolute power and speed.
It was everything I wanted to be. It whispered of the ability to be anywhere, to traverse any distance, with merely a thought. It promised me the capability to annihilate all enemies with but a single blow.
And I was getting close.
Every session, every time that I trained with Flash Step, I got closer. The feeling got stronger. The feeling that it could be greater, that it could be something more, that it was but a single step away.
Every session since I’d reached Attunement 9, the feeling had risen, and every session since, it had fallen away at the end. I knew it in my bones. Whatever the ‘more’ was, I’d reach it when I broke past level 10.
I sighed, dismissing my Grimoire.
My copied Blessings wouldn’t rise above my main one, and ADMINISTRATION was capped at 9 until I passed beyond the Grain stage. Until I had my trial, turned my Grain into a Marble.
The trouble was, I had no idea how.
I mean, I had a general notion. I knew at least that I had to actually go through a trial, and I knew that after I did so, I’d receive my second gift. But, that was all I knew. I’d never done it before, obviously. I’d never known anyone who’d done it.
The specifics, therefore, were what eluded me. After all, many Blessed never even reached the Marble stage. Did I need to train harder? Did I need to put myself in a particularly dangerous situation? Did I need to divine some deeper understanding of my Blessing? Or was it something else entirely? Perhaps it differed from person to person.
Blessed didn’t share their secrets lightly, anyway, especially with mundies, so I was out of luck. As with everything else, I could only hope the answers lay somewhere within my destination.
Talos.
I was almost there now, a day’s trip out for most. For a Blessed like me, though, I could make it in a matter of hours. Travel had been slow at first, when I was still with the rest of the village. What with all the children and the injured, we’d taken nearly a month to make it to Soffehn.
When we’d finally arrived, I didn’t enter with the others. I gave them all of the crystals except the Champion’s, which I kept for myself, and bid them farewell.
Perhaps it was foolish of me, but I was still too wary of other Blessed. I’d no idea what powers were commonplace. Maybe some would have the ability to see my Blessing in more detail than Flange and Surge had. And if they did, well, Aristocrats didn’t exactly have a reputation for charity.
I doubted they’d just help me figure out my situation.
Besides, I didn’t desperately need the food or the supplies. Uther managed their lands meticulously, so there were little in the way of wayward monsters. As such, and with my Blessings, there was literally nothing in these wilds that posed any danger to me. I could hunt easily, cook my food with Entropy alone, and Fang needed neither sharpening nor repair.
A hot bath would have been nice, though. And some clean clothes. I’d washed and laundered where I could, but I’d grown very tired of cleaning myself in ponds and rivers.
Still, it was necessary. In the months since the raid, I’d grown far more confident and comfortable with my Blessings and abilities. I could control fire and blood easily now, and even lightning to a degree. I could use raw Entropy to move things, albeit clumsily, with my mind alone. I could even exercise such an ability upon myself, allowing me a degree of flight.
There was more to learn, more to experiment, but then there always would be. I was done hiding. I was going to Talos today.
And I was going to have a proper fucking bath.