Peak of Autumn, Week 5, Day 4

The world was black, dark, and everything was pain. Time blurred. I couldn’t tell if it was mere moments or hours –every second stretched with the pain. I was sure I was going to be consumed by the abyss. It would devour me. I would be nothing but a little girl in agony for the rest of time. I would never get a chance to grow up, to become a new woman, to take back what was taken from me –everything. That was the thought that helped bring me back.

Nothing else will be taken from me. I had to force my mind to focus enough to make the words. Not like this.

I tried to force my eyes open, just to find out the darkness was not in my head. Not because my eyes were closed. No. Magic was going wild. My magic specifically. I was surrounded by shadow, denser than anything I’d summoned before. It writhed and swirled around me, and I could feel what it felt. This was a Spirit of Darkness.

Through the pain, every thought was slow like molasses, and the only consolation was that I wasn’t screaming. Perhaps, the thought occurred to me, it was rather stupid to try and eat an object to absorb it. It was too late now to consider that overmuch.

Now, I was taking measured breaths and trying to reach out to the shadows and calm them down. The darkness was afraid. But why? Why would it fear for me? I could feel the thin stands of magic connecting us, though I could not feel the ice cold of mana.

“Stay,” I ground out through the overwhelming pain, it came out more as a pant, “Stay your mind. I’m–”

As if the shadow could feel the lie I was about to utter, it rushed towards me in murky tendrils and wrapped me up as if it were a blanket. The shadows pressed against me harshly, but I was still consumed –so consumed–

The pain was ebbing. Just a little. Just enough so that my breathing steadied. I took a deeper breath in my relief, only to set off another harsh reality –my lungs were stinging. Still, I couldn’t not breathe, so I kept it to low, shallow breaths. I focused on the feeling of the shadows pressing against me –it was soothing as it always was, and it helped me to center my mind. To cast out the pain as it came.

I took another breath – it helped me keep time. One breath, two, three, four–

It was on breath 87 that the pain lessened again. Now, it was just above excruciating. On a scale from 1-10, I would put it at 15 – an improvement overall.

Breath one hundred lowered it once more. The pain became manageable. On a scale, it was now on the scale – a marked improvement.

I lost count at some point as I regained movement in my limbs and began pushing away the shadows so I could sit up. It was as I regained control of myself that my veins began aching. Every movement tugged my insides, but I was no longer on fire. The inferno of boiling pain was gone, and I was just sore. That was when the shadows coalesced into a ball in front of me.

“Child,” It whispered, and I was too tired to think who this new voice was.

“Spirit?” I returned.

“You have called me before you are ready.” Its voice was raspy as if it’d spent its formative years as a smoker. I found it quite wonderful.

“I didn’t know I called you at all,” I responded honestly, unable to weigh my words or consider the repercussions in my exhaustion.

“You called me with your soul. It is rare one is so consumed by the Dark –both in love and anger in equal measure.”

“What can I say?” I coughed, covering my mouth weakly, and a dark glob hit my hand, “I’m not scared of the dark.”

“Enough jokes, child. You will call me when you are Level 15. And we shall talk again.”

With that, the orb of darkness fell apart –the shadows returning to their rightful places around the carriage. Light returned in truth, and I dragged the curtain open so I could see what I’d coughed up.

As the light shone down, I could see.

It was blood.

I groaned and reached for one of the pot holders I’d knitted with some obnoxiously chunky yarn –I picked a black one from my stash, to hide the blood. And then I was clean.

And I had notifications.

[Congratulations! Mental Fortitude is now Level 11!]

[Congratulations! You have directly absorbed a Lesser Mana Pearl! You have gained potential in Skills relating to the traits Aberration and Morphic.]

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[Congratulation! You have progressed your Class! Progression has gone from 7.5% to 7.6%!]

[System Notice: Your Class Moderator has rejected your request to progress your Class further. Please try again at a later time.]

I stared at the System, and I worked my jaw. I had no idea what a Class Moderator was, but clearly, it was the Spirit of Darkness I had met. There was no other reason for it to say I’d called it. Also, my Class was [Young Lady of Darkness]. It would make sense if there were Class Moderators that mine was related to my affinity.

But all that pain –no agony. And it progressed a measly tenth of a percent!

“What a load of garbage,” I sighed, exhausted.

I stashed the bloody fabric in its own compartment before tapping my collarbone –I was sticky with sweat, and I was sure I looked a fright. But I couldn’t bring myself to care much. Instead of dwelling on it, I leaned my forehead against the glass of the window and stared at the passing forest. The cool glass was a dream.

The suns were high in the sky and slowly making their way to the horizon. I was a bit surprised we hadn’t stopped yet, but it was fine with me. I was honestly shocked that I hadn’t thrown up from the pain. It was clearly a magical pain –it did come from a Lesser Mana Pearl, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t been in some part physical. I had coughed up blood. Blood!

I closed my eyes, and this time, a gentle darkness surrounded me—the light of the outside reflecting off the back of my eyelids.

Then, a silly thought came to me.

[Shadow Conjuration+Shadow Manipulation]

I summoned a flat sheet of shadow into my palm and began working lightly, running my finger over the shape I wanted and mentally cutting away what I didn’t need. The shadow followed my command with ease. Perhaps my will was stronger than it had been, now. Nevertheless, I stretched the end of it and created a thin thread of shadow protruding from either end of the construct. What had once been a rectangle was now flat on three sides, with the fourth side curved into two half circles and a gap in the middle. I pulled it up to my face, tied the thread around the mess my braids had become, and covered my eyes. Then I leaned back to the cold, cold, wonderfully cold glass and enjoyed my new sleep mask.

Unfortunately, as soon as I drifted off to sleep I was jolted back to wakefulness as the sleep mask disappeared.

So, I did what I knew.

[Weave of Darkness]

I closed the curtain, then I summoned extremely fine thread and used [Shadow Manipulation] to begin knitting the black thread into woven fabric. Fortunately, [Weaving] was helping me to know the best way to work through it. I made as tight of knots as I could so I could keep out as much light as possible. It wasn’t mindless work because I was focusing on making it look as smooth as possible, but it was tedious, so I hummed an old nursery rhyme from elsewhere as I worked.

It was soothing, and as I repeated the tune, I couldn’t help but lightly sing the lyrics.

“All the king’s horses

And all the king’s men

Couldn’t put

Humpty Dumpty

Together again.”

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It was another hour before Arlen knocked on the window, and I had four thin rectangles of cloth.

“Lady Nora, do you want to break?”

I blinked, “Do you all not need to break as well?”

Arlen looked sheepish, “We usually only break so you can stretch your legs–”

“Arlen!” Sir Limrick cut him off, approaching on his horse, a stormy look on his face as he reached over and whacked the back of Arlen’s head.

“Sorry, my Lady,” he sighed, “He’s careless with his words. Are you hungry?”

The thought of them stopping just for me caused little Eunora to wriggle in anxiety, but I felt flattered. And starved.

“I can just eat something light in the carriage, and we can keep going – if that’s fine?”

I really didn’t want to stop. We’d be camping in the wilderness for a while yet, and if we could cut out the hour and a half it took to set up and eat each day, maybe we’d be able to cut out enough time to make up a whole day on our way to Wig.

Sir Limrick nodded, a small smile on his face, “It’s a plan. I’ll grab some supplies from the back to keep in the compartment with you.”

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I sculpted a needle with [Shadow Conjuration] and [Shadow Manipulation]. Threading the needle was easy, but hand-sewing the mask was more difficult. I had to be mindful of the length of my stitches, and though I tried to keep them even, it struck me as a bit of a monstrosity by the time I was done.

But it was functional. After eating a sandwich and some fruit, I was no longer hungry and nauseous, but I still felt the exhaustion of absorbing the mana pearl. So, I opened the curtains up and slid the mask over my face so I could sleep pressed up against the cool glass.

It was exactly what I needed.

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When I awoke, the suns were low in the sky, and I was stiff. Every muscle in my body was sore, and it hurt to lift my arm and take off my skewed sleep mask.

Sliding off the bench, I stood in the small gap between the two benches in the compartment. It was the first time I was really noticing the stability of the carriage. It barely even felt like we were moving. No wonder I could sleep and work with ease.

I stretched my arms first, moving to my shoulders, my back, and worked on my legs last. As I shook out my body, I could feel the tension start to leave me.

It was yet another day of agony. This one was just more physically painful than usual.

It would be fine.

I would be fine.

Be the God of Nora. I repeated what was quickly becoming a new mantra. It was settling in a way an old friend could settle your soul. It was relieving. Empowering. Soft on my heart. Be the God of Nora.

And I would, I decided. I would take Morloch’s guidance to heart. I would pray to myself, believe in myself, and I would practice exactly what he said –my Divine Skills. It couldn’t be any worse than absorbing that mana pearl. I was being stubborn, fighting back against the Divine in a way that was pointless. I already had the Skills. The best revenge against the twins would be to stray from the Path of Order by being myself and to stray from the Path of Chaos by refusing to start a war over it. Yes, I would fade into the background.

I would survive, but I would do so quietly. Growing stronger in the background.

And, one day, I will be strong enough to take down the wretched twin gods.