I fell asleep in Anna’s warm embrace, tears going down my face and into her clothes. I didn’t even realize I was asleep until I heard the voice.
“[Saint of Death] Has absorbed [Disembodied Soul Level 24] experience earned.
[Saint of Death] Has absorbed [Disembodied Soul Level 24] experience earned.
[Ditchdigger] has gained a level, and is now level 20!
Congratulations, [Ditchdigger] has reached its level 20 Milestone, you gain +1 Endurance per level.
[Ditchdigger] has banked its experience.
[Green thumb] has banked its experience.”
It was jarring, but my body was so very tired. And then I blinked. It was so very confusing that blink. It was like when you blinked and woke up, accompanied by the sensation of something being wrong. It had happened a few times when I was at a lower level, falling asleep only to wake up after nightfall.
It was like waking up in another world where everything was similar but very different. The level of light, the background noise, the smell. It made you feel like you were in a bad dream and that some big monster would jump on you, only to realize that you had just fallen asleep without knowing it.
“[Ditchdigger] has gained the skill [Last Rites].
Congratulations, your level is high enough for [Green thumb] to undergo class evolution.
Would you like to evolve your class?
Warning, excessive refusal to evolve class will cause banked experience to be lost.”
I blearily accepted. Not so much an action as a thought of acceptance.
“Error, inconsistencies within your anima must be rectified to undergo class evolution.
…
Anima has been rectified.”
The dreamy feeling suddenly faded away. Only to be replaced with the feeling of a plunging fall. I freaked out for a moment until I felt what was around me. I was lying down on, or rather in, something that bent around me.
“Please open your eyes and begin class evolution.” The voice told me.
Open my eyes? What is going o-
My trail of thought cut off as I did open my eyes. Above me, was one of the most wonderous sights I had even seen. It looked like the night sky, with pinpricks of multi-hued starlight with swirls of turbulent clouds whirling around them. But the truly breathtaking sight was the lights. Above me, closer than the stars and clouds, was a swirling shimmer in the air.
“An aurora…” I managed to let out.
The voice got slightly impatient with me, “Yes, the same aurora that’s always been there, you’ve seen it each time you come here. Are you lucid? That is… not supposed to happen.” It or I suppose she said.
It felt distantly familiar. It sounded like a young woman, no strange specifics in the way it spoke like a lisp. She did speak in my native language, Kirish, but that wasn’t what made it feel familiar.
“Why do you sound familiar?” I asked her, not taking my eyes off the ever-shifting waves of colour above me.
“Because I’m your [Guide] you dummy,” she told me.
What’s a [Guide]? Is that what the voices are, just other things? I suppose it makes sense, the system was just a term of phrase…
I stared up at the aurora, my mind not following the girls murmuring nor getting pulled into it. The aurora’s happened every so often, and it was important for Deerfoxes. The last aurora was when my mother was alive. No one ever talked about it, assumably it was something to do with the second trait I never got. But me and her would get up on the roof of the workhouse during an aurora, and just stare up at it for hours.
The first aurora I ever saw was the night I was born; apparently, most Deerfoxes did, but it went deeper than that. The second trait or innate skill as [Status] had shown it, whatever it was, was based on the Kobold’s subrace, and the Deerfoxes had something to do with the aurora.
I wonder what it say’s that I didn’t get it… I don’t even know what it is called. Am I some sort of Deerfox reject? Maybe losing my subrace was for the best, it's not like it means much on its own especially now, but I still feel it should mean something.
“Are you even listening to me? Get up, come on, we only have so long to get this done, and kicking the tin down the road is straining for your anima.” She said.
She sounded cute, but not attractive cute like Anna, more like an adorable little one. Like when a six year old repeated a cuss word, and people would laugh.
“Get up you silly Psychopomp, I figured out what happened, so get your butt out of your essence!” She said, her voice getting louder until it practically bordered on a shout.
My essence?
I looked down at the perfectly conforming thing. It was a black void, with little ripples tracing out from around me, interrupting what would presumably be a perfect mirror-smooth lake. I also saw that my body, or rather, what I understood to be my body, was not normal. I had some sort of translucent faux body.
I lifted up my torso, propping my hands into the void, and it held them like it was solid to take a look at myself.
I was made out of tiny shapes, strand upon strand of shapes that had depth. Each was both transparent and visible simultaneously. And they were very familiar. I noticed one in particular that I remember well. It was the same shape feeling I made when I cast my spell, the skill [Magi].
“Am I made out of skills?” I asked, dumbfounded.
The voice let out a huff, “You're made of anima, skills are anima, your soul, which is currently holding experience outside to not explode, is made of anima, so yes, your shape is made out of ‘skills’ it’s the only viable anima inside that can form you a ‘body.’” She told me. I could feel the air quotes as she spoke. It’s like I knew exactly how she spoke, which bothered me.
“What the heck is anima? And what do you mean by explode?” I asked, the stupor of the aurora fading as I levered myself up to stand on the pool of liquid pitch.
“Anima is anima, I’m not permitted to tell you. Which is something you will at least remember this time.”
“Remember? Wait, if I’m evolving my class, then I should be dreaming, no one remembers themselves evolving a class or getting a skill.” I said.
The place was seemingly enormous, far off in the distance, I could see tiny lights that were like the stars above. No foggy clouds or aurora wreathed around them, and between the two of us was just black as far as I could see.
“As for the explosion bit, do you know how much experience you have banked? There’s a reason you get your first five levels over the course of five years, if you got all five levels, your anima would denature, and you would drop dead from the lack of having a soul.” She interrupts.
I start turning around towards her to ask another question when the words die on my lips.
The young woman before me is rather solid looking. If my height was anything to go by, she would be something like 5’ 6”, but instead of being made of body, she is made from fiendishly complex skills or anima or whatever it was, so dense she was a solid object.
No hair, no eyes, no features to mark her species. Her hands were five fingered, but twice as long as a human hand, each finger with five joins. She held in her hands what looked like an extra long coil of rope, with little nubby teeth like a key, the rope wiggled like it was a living thing being lulled asleep by her touch.
I stared in stupefaction at her, unable to process the alien feeling of looking at her. Whatever part of me was doing the thinking stopped thinking about the horror of magical puberty making a soul explode, totally overlook the freaky snake thing in her long hands and focus entirely on her.
“What are you?” I managed to say, leveraging every point I had to not look away.
It would, after all, be incredibly rude to shun the person who was actively trying to stop me from blowing up. Even if she did make every part of me scream, ‘It’s going to eat your brain and take your skin for itself!’ All that would do is insult her and make the situation more complicated.
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“I’m your [Guide] dummy, I walked you through getting your first class, would you like me to hold your hand on this one, too?” she said teasingly.
She had no face, but she somehow managed to get across a smirk. It was bizarre how well I could read her.
“Not literally, but covering what I have to do would be nice, I don’t remember anything. How about you start with why I know what's going on.” I asked her. I try to grin awkwardly, but I don’t think I have a face either; I’m all wispy right now after all.
Gosh, that's weird to think about, too, this whole thing is bizarre.
She lets out a whistling sigh, which is quite the feat without lips and gives very brief explanations.
“Ok, from the beginning. I’m a [Guide]. I help you shape your skills and classes. I’m a type of Spirit, but not the only spirit you’ve encountered, I only work while you dream. You need my help because you can’t shape your anima. You’re conscious now because you’re a Psychopomp, you should have been able to before, but whoever handled you was a klutz and didn’t notice your anima wouldn’t accept the change right because of a misfold in your structure. I rectified the misfold manually, so your traits should be functional for both the Kobold and Psychopomp parts. Do you require any further explanation?” she asked.
It was not genuine at all, she sounded like it was a line she had to say. I, of course, wanted to ask her a million questions but decided it was best to listen to the [Guide], who looked like she had skills beyond my comprehension.
I did ask a simple question as a compromise.
“Weren’t the three new traits I got from my subrace?” I asked, unable to look at her.
“No, they were from you dying and gaining the title [Saint of Death].” She said briskly.
What? I got three from Dying? What kind of bullshit is that? I have more traits than someone twice my level, and those were only from dying and being a Saint?
“What am I doing then?” I replied.
“We have to bind this into your class.” She said, hefting the snake-like object in her hands.
“And how do we-”
“We work out your options, here, hold it.” She cut me off, holding out the coil to me.
I reached out and took it, or rather I tried to. It was immensely heavy, I managed to get it out of her hands by hefting it with both hands and pulling them close to me.
“Now what?” I asked.
“Now you pick a skill, this refined anima will alter your class, I will do the rest for you.” She told me.
I looked down at the serpent, then further down at my body.
Ok, think Saphine, what skills do I have in [Green Thumb]? [Green Thumb], [Planters Delight], [Aid Yield], [Revitalize Land] and [Aura of Renewal]. I have Five skills, so five choices by the sound of it. What would [Green Thumb] do? Probably make me tend to plants better, it’s very general, which is both useful but also kind of sucky.
[Planters Delight] and [Aid Yield] would have been great choices, if I was still in my indenture, I could make coin from them, but I’m getting paid major coin by Anna already, and I don’t exactly want to become a [Farmer] or something.
That leaves the last two, one of them lets me refresh the land, but it’s active. I have to do things to get it to work, while the second is my capstone, and capstones are generally strong. It’s always up because it’s an aura, and it seems to do something similar. It’s presumably also magical, which would be kind of cool.
It was a gamble, but considering how rapidly I had gotten it, the me of earlier must have chosen it for a reason.
“I’m picking [Aura of Renewal],” I told her.
She nodded and spoke, and the thing in my hand answered.
“Congratulations, your class [Green thumb] has evolved into [Renewing Loci].”
Her words were penetrating as she said them, in more than one way. The words themselves felt like they etched onto me, and the wiggler in my hand jerked, spontaneously flexing and curving. It folded and folded, zipping into me and anchoring first on a central part of me, then slowly, as it became more and more compact, it looped into another part, contorted the shape of me before pulling them together until it simply fit.
The weight faded as it settled in, and my [Guide] spoke.
“[Renewing Loci] has gained a level, and is now level 11!
Congratulations, you are now level 16!” She boomed.
It once again etched itself into me, and I let out a sigh of relief, sagging ever so slightly.
“Well, I’m glad that’s over, thank you for helping me,” I told her, looking up to stare her in her wibbly face.
She looked at me, before pointing up at the sky, “We’re not done yet, that aurora is still up there, your experience is trying to take form, and if we leave it, it’s gone, all that experience will burn off withering out in the next day or so. It will make you feel bloated until it’s gone too, better to shape it now than draw it out.”
I looked at her, that thought of the giant sky-spanning aurora. I gulped.
“I- I don’t know if I can take that, it's way too big,” I told her.
I didn’t know why, but she started chuckling, her young voice tinkling at my words.
“Don’t worry, it's big, but I think it will fit.” She said, stifling her laugh.
I was about to ask what she was laughing about, when a ripple overtook me, or at least part of me.
I looked up at it, I just was not ready, at all. A few minutes ago, I was crying into Anna, and now I’m doing something while a freaky thing that sounds like a girl makes some kind of joke. I look up at the aurora and I can feel it soothe me as I watched a chunk get pulled down and into the black. The ripples passed past my feet without me feeling it.
“I am not ready for this,” I say, tone flat.
“[Renewing Loci] has gained a level, and is now level 12!”
I felt the need to shiver as the area around the site started bubbling. Another chunk gets pulled down, then another, I shudder as I feel the pressure in me change, going from feeling overfull and swollen to a sucking emptiness.
“[Renewing Loci] has gained a level, and is now level 13!
Congratulations, you are now level 17!
[Renewing Loci] has gained a level, and is now level 14!
[Renewing Loci] has gained a level, and is now level 15!
Congratulations, you are now level 18!
[Renewing Loci] has gained a level, and is now level 16!”
I crash to my knees as it compounded on itself. Jittering as the number went up and up.
“[Renewing Loci] has gained a level, and is now level 17!
Congratulations, you are now level 19!
[Renewing Loci] has gained a level, and is now level 18!
[Renewing Loci] has gained a level, and is now level 19!
[Renewing Loci] has gained a level, and is now level 20!
Congratulations, [Renewing Loci] has reached its level 20 Milestone, you gain +1 spirit per level.”
Congratulations, you are now level 20!
The vista of the black liquid boils like mad, the aurora beyond still present but significantly reduced. Small strings, far thinner than the first, more twine than rope, pull themselves out of the boiling muck, skittering out and out. All in all, five strings land in her hand before the empty feeling lessens, one slightly thicker than the rest.
I sit there dazed, only managing to pull myself up and look towards my [Guide].
“Are you sure you’re not a demon? Because that was incredibly terrible.” I told her.
She shrugged, hands staying still where they were, locked in place while the rest of her upper body moves.
“I know it is, but it needs to be done. It's surprising, but it would have taken you years to gain enough experience to rival those two.” She said, “Honestly, the fact that those two held out so well was bonkers,” she said.
That caught me for a second.
Those two.
“Hold on, do you mean I got this experience from them?” I asked, a bit of fear entering my voice.
“Hmm? I mean, yeah, when your skill takes them in, shields them, pulls off their excess experience, and generates additional experience.” She said, as if I was a moron for not understanding.
“But not hurting them, right!” I snapped at her.
Her faceless head looks right at me.
“Ehh? No, they're off over there, they seem to be fine, look,” she said, pointing past me.
I turned around to stare off into the distance. The distant stars. Two of them were larger than the others.
There ok…
“Thank the gods,” I whispered.
“What did those two mean something to you?” she asked.
I turned back to her.
“Yes, they were like family, I suppose it makes it easier if I know they're out there still, so thank you,” I told her.
Saying it lets a little of the pain go, even if it still hurts. The lake ripples a little, even if it doesn’t reach me.
“Mortals sure are strange with your emotions and stuff. It makes no sense to me; us spirits don’t have a family.” She speaks. Shrugging in her indifference.
“All though, I suppose you’re not mortal, wow that’s strange… Wait, if you’re not mortal, I can tell you some stuff about anima, even if I can’t tell you everything.” She said, getting a bit excited.
That confuses me but also interested me, “Why would my mortality mean anything, also, you just said you could tell me, why not everything.” I ask the change of her earlier statement, considerably jarring me.
“It means a whole lot,” she says, holding up one hand, finger raised as if to make a point, “Our rules are different for both the living and the mortal. I can’t [Guide] you sometimes like if it’s the process of making a skill that we don’t shape, like your traits or if it only takes the right shape if you do it on your own, like that [Magi] skill you have. I can explain some stuff but not everything.” She tells me.
Is that why Anna couldn’t help me cast my spell? She couldn’t because it doesn’t work, right? But if that’s the case, how does Anna know, is it just that every [Magi] teaches that way… No, wait, the first mage was taught by the god of the Arcane. That would make sense, if a god told me that I needed to teach everyone to take a bath after digging, I would do it. But what about my traits?
“So I can learn about this anima stuff because I’m not mortal? Also, didn’t you tell me the traits were fixed?” I asked her.
She bops her free hand on her head, “Right, I’m getting lost in the explanation. So you can learn about anima, because mortals aren’t supposed to know about it. Trust me, it never works out well, when you get some free time think about it. Most high-level [Necromancers], for example, start using anima.” She says, lowering her hand to gesture to me with one of her long, little fingers before continuing.
“If you were mortal, why wouldn’t you want to become, for example, immortal? Why not try and give yourself a skill for it? Sure, you can’t see what your soul is made out of, but you can do it. One thing leads to another, and you get a lich which needs to consume the living for their anima, so their soul doesn’t collapse and kill them. And hey, there’s a village right over there. One thing leads to another, and suddenly they're massacring others to sate an unending hunger. You don’t have that problem, because your soul is naturally more resilient, you can also see me and are conscious of this, so you can learn to not explode your own soul and become an unholy fiend.” She told me, taking on the professor tone Skip always did.
I, uh. Yeh, that might be bad… I can see that being a reason to not teach mortals something that won’t work.
“As for your traits,” she continued, “Those come from your parents, they're part of you, not part of me, look at yourself what do you see.” She instructs.
I look down at myself and see what I presume are my skills.
What am I looking for? They're just there… Well, I suppose there connected, each one kind of attached to one another, except…
Except they weren’t all connected. There were multiple sets of them that didn’t connect, there were, in fact, three bundles of them. Each connects to another back to a central point. There were two big ones and the stretched set that held them inside my form.
My perusal was interrupted by my [Guide].
“You have three in there, inside are your two classes, each acts as a main point for the skills, which are what bud off of it. Your container is you, though, its core is in your head, you’re a Kobold, so your form takes that of a Kobold. When I rectified your anima I kind of went in and unbent you. When whoever it was that made you a Psychopomp, because there’s no way Death was the one who bent you like that, you were all crunched up from where they put in the core of the subrace. But I wasn’t the one who gave you those skills, they just bud off of the main Kobold bit.” She explains, before levelling her hand, one long pointy finger extended.
“Can we keep going, we're only like part way done here. We have five skills here we need to give you,” she told me impatiently.
Oh boy, more wiggly bits. Gods, they look gross.