With the last few words, Hive had made it click. Now, Catori knew. Truth was not ‘gone’ by his volition. She did not want him to be there. And because she did not want, he was not there. So she just had to…
“Thank you”, the eldritch being said.
She looked up from the couch. His eye was just outside the window. The pupil was a thin vertical line that opened slowly into another eye as she looked at him. That eye had the same thing. One by one, more and more tiny eyes opened. Then the big one blinked and it returned to the normal rainbow and stars sclera and iris.
Catori snorted.
“You could’ve told me what was going on.”
“That was literally impossible. This is your soul. It is inviolate.”
Her mouth flopped open, then closed.
“Point. Also, good to know. You know this Hive?”
“Never got along well with them. They get too attached to their kin’s souls. Should just let them go free…”
“So they’re insane…”
“We are not much better”, Truth smirked. She decided to ignore that he did not have a mouth at that point.
“Right. I’ll be right back.”
She dove back into Fio’s conversation with the insane tree. Node. Whatever.
The thing was freaking her out with how it disregarded the souls’ of its kin. She wanted nothing to do with it and its bodies. And told Fio as much when the offer came up. She was working on her own solution, after all.
Catori retreated from Fio’s body as her other self jumped off the tree to meet the bark-kin. Truth was still there but keeping back. She found it was his doing rather than hers. He was respecting their space.
“You’ve got a lot to explain”, she told him before diving back into her starling self. Her body.
It had been a simple test at first. Their new Skill was interesting in theory but how it ended up working surprised them both. Catori had already settled for a life of watching what Fio was doing. The bird was nice but sometimes a bit… clueless. Naive, maybe? No matter. They were part of one whole. She could not deny Fio’s behaviour was part of her personality as well. It just looked different from an outside viewpoint.
The starling body had been getting more and more… homely. Convenient? Familiar. That was the word. Catori was getting familiar with it. Thinking of it as herself. It was not pleasant as such, being tiny and having no hands. But it was her.
She returned to a peaceful scene of Nymph teaching some dwarves about absorbing vis. There was still at least one lesson per week though it had been more and more fighters. The mantis had also gotten much more confident in herself and no longer avoided showing to strangers. The reactions of the dwarves when they saw their tiny Guardian were always cute.
Catori was sitting in a branch a little deeper into the grove. There were no other birds this deep, all of them pushed away by suddenly growing vines and branches, so when she tweeted Nymph immediately knew it was her. The mantis did not interrupt the lesson but gave her a little pat with a nearby leaf.
The starling made her way deeper inside towards the secret underground entrance of the grove. She hopped down the tunnel and towards the node now well hidden underground. The roots underneath her feet wiggled in response. She knew Nymph was ready to crush her into fine paste if she showed any sign of harming her node. The mantis was still a little twitchy but had gotten a lot better after Fio’s carelessly curious approaches.
Catori stopped half a metre in front of the node proper and opened her status menu. Or what she could see of this body, at least.
Species: Starling (mature)
Age: 2
Name: Catori
Gender: female
Status: healthy, vis enrichment (minor)
Level: 22
Class: -
Strength: 9
Constitution: 8
Dexterity: 20
Perception: 12
Intelligence: 8
Wisdom: 7
AP: 0
Skills: [UNKNOWN SKILLS §%&/$]
The Skills were still unknown to her but she had honestly not tried to understand them at all. She was only pushing for those points in Intelligence and Wisdom to get the body sapient. That was done by spending a lot of time absorbing vis and then levelling up. Intelligence and Wisdom had started out at six points each. Now she only needed one more to be acknowledged as sapient by the system. Which was weird to say but not something she could change.
At least she was already acknowledged as Catori since Nymph always called her that. Arctus and Bertha, the arctic fox and beaver, also did. They had properly met a week ago for the first time when Nymph took her out into the city for some… distraction.
Catori shook her tiny head to get her thoughts back on track. One more level. She had gotten one by reaching minor vis enrichment. The other two were hard-fought by living like a ‘normal’ starling. Though she felt she was close to medium enrichment, which would hopefully grant another level.
She turned to the node and stretched her will. Very slowly, her soul extended into reality as a wispy tendril of green and yellow. Herba and aer. Her most-used aspects. Aer was still from when Fio had first attacked this body and then connected their soul to it. Herba was from this very node. Some terra was mixed in as well but she rarely used it.
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The roots grew around her feet in the process, a few reaching up the tiny legs. She pushed some of her vis into them to acknowledge Nymph. Then, she contacted the node. They were connections to souls. Wait. They were connections to souls! She had just learned that. So what…
The connection felt no different. Nothing like [Telepathy] or anything similar they had used in the past. No personality was on the other side. No answer to her query.
A little dejected, Catori started slowly draining some more vis into her body. The flow was steady but at a much safer level than what Fio had done early on in their life. She had that example to learn from, after all. Why not use it?
She spent the rest of the day like that, Nymph eventually joining her with occasional twitches from her scythes. Close to dusk, something finally clicked. The energy flowed much better all of a sudden. And then the system made itself known.
~ding~ Congratulations! For reaching vis enrichment (medium), you have gained experience.
~ding~ You have reached level 23. Attribute point allocated.
~ding~ Congratulations! For reaching a total of 16 points combined in Intelligence and Wisdom, you have gained the status ‘sapience’. You have been granted the Skill [Identify]. You have been granted the ability to take a Class.
~ding~ Error! Soul is already sapient! Recalibrating…
The system went quiet for a few minutes. Catori stopped draining the node and carefully read through the notifications again. What was happening? Nymph’s connection of [Telepathy] calmed her rising nerves.
“What is going on?”, the mantis asked, “You look distraught.”
“Well… I got the Attributes. But the system says there’s an error.”
“An… error? A mistake? The system made a mistake?”
Catori nodded.
“I think so. It says ‘Soul is already sapient! Recalibrating…’ and then just went silent.”
“Well, it seems mighty stupid. Just like those computer things you told me about.”
“Right? But then Fio and I just met a being that said it should be possible to talk to it like a person.”
“You did?”
“Yes. A ‘living node’, going by the status. Though the species is ‘soul tree’. It said it didn’t get an answer though…”
“I… do not understand. What is a living node supposed to be.”
“Something that claims to be older than the system. I… We should have identified that status.”
“Can you not still do it?”
“It will know. It didn’t complain the last time we identified it but it might if we do it again. And it has four Classes. With the corresponding race level.”
That silenced the mantis. Just in time for the system to make its presence known again.
~ding~ Recalibration complete. Attempting repair process… Failed. Soul is already registered. Please stand by.
“What the fuck… Does the system not know how to handle a soul having two bodies? Then why did it give us that Skill?”
“Did you not claim it was supposed to be used while dreaming? It would make sense for the soul to only use one body at a time, then.”
“Yes, but also no. I don’t know.”
~ding~ Two personalities detected. Attempting to separate soul…
A sudden burst of pain rushed over her, stopping as quickly as it had begun. Catori could not even register what was hurting. The only memory left of it was that it hurt a lot.
~ding~ Failure. Personalities are deeply intertwined. Separation impossible. Recalibrating…
“What is it doing this ti…”
~ding~ Recalculating body parameters… Successful. Please enjoy your life. Evolution imminent. Delaying… Successful. Evolution delayed. Readjusting evolution parameters… Operation cancelled. Readjusting body status. Beast Core (unique, enriched – medium) has become vis enrichment (medium). Status inaccurate. Exception granted. Please evolve soon…
Catori sat still as she read through the message. The system had tried to rip her and Fio apart? When they were… Okay, she had her doubts sometimes. At least that was now confirmed. They were absolutely one and the same person. Just different… parts of each other? Or different individuals? Maybe like processors in a computer. Fio was one thread, she was another. Or was that cores? No matter. They were the same but different.
More importantly… the system had asked her to evolve soon. Politely.
“I think it’s sapient, Nymph”, she said in a daze.
“What makes you think that, Catori?”
“It was polite to me. It told me nicely to evolve soon.”
“Okay, slow down. Are you willing to share details?”
Catori met the eyes of the mantis. Then, she made her decision. Nymph let her use her node. Something that intimate should be rewarded with the proper trust.
“Yes. These are my status messages of the last few minutes…”
Catori told her. Nymph listened. When all was said, Nymph spoke up.
“You will push for that evolution. And if you have to drain my node to destruction. Now!”