I had expected to be shot. In fact, I had expected to be shot for 12 years, since the day I was born and the midwife declared me level 6 thanks to an annoying Ishira Priestess crashing my mana-flow.
As the device the Infoscope identified as the [Armacus LV 88] opened up like petals of a flower, time around me slowed to a crawl as I accelerated my mind with the [NeuroVista LV 20] that I've been modding for the past 12 years.
The Overseer’s finger brushed past a [Destruction] hexagram, but she did not fire it, twitching ever so slightly.
Instead she shot the [Identify LV 88] spell at me.
The spell slowly crawled towards me from my point of view. I intercepted it with the waiting Infoscope and as it rushed towards me and began to modify it from within, weaving new data into the fractal. It wasn't enough, the LV 88 spell was tough to crack!
I brought in my second LV 20 Infoscope tethered to LV 20 Modify and then a third one. The three Infoscopes working together disassembled the enemy Identify spell completely, rearranging it from within.
When the Overseer’s [Identify] struck me, it was already changed, modified by me. It flew back towards the girl’s armacus with the false information that I was a completely harmless [Level 0], 12 year old boy.
The flow of time resumed.
A frown slid onto the Overseer’s face as she processed the result and stared at me. The class made noises of confusion. I pretended to be as confused as the rest of the students.
“That was a basic info-gathering spell,” Kliss said, trying to explain her actions to the gathered pupils. “My Identify spell just told me that Dante is level zero. His Soul-spark hasn’t ignited, because his Song of the Soul hasn't been attuned by wisdom... Just like many of you gathered here today, Dante is here to learn math to unlock his Spark!”
“Wow! It knows my level! How fun!” I commented, roleplaying the role of a dumb 12 year old.
Kliss nodded, warily looking at me.
“Now, I shall demonstrate another spell to all of you,” she said. “This is a fairly simple spell too, one designed to get to the truth of things.”
Her thumb spun the dial with hexagrams on it, arriving at one I had never seen. I accelerated my mind again, fully identifying the spell as it disconnected from her magitek gun.
[Truth-spell LV 88] my Infoscope reported. I hissed mentally, rapidly disassembling the fractal heading towards me with all three of my Infoscopes, quickly burning through the 20 mana stored in Battie.
The Truth-spell was a series of combinations that were similar to a [Charisma] skill containing the various words such as [Control] [Truth] [Action-Speech]. I attacked the [Truth] part of it, rewriting the Omnicode word before it reached me. I was completely out of mana and felt mentally burned out by the time the truth spell struck my forehead.
“What’s your name?” Kliss asked as the flow of time resumed.
“Dante Alan Skyisle,” I said, rubbing my head. A massive migraine was blossoming there. Disassembling fractals on the fly wasn’t easy to do, especially ones that I’ve never encountered before.
“Are you an Astral Phantom, Dante?” Kliss inquired casually, her thumb spinning the armacus dial to [Destruction].
“No,” I lied. “What’s that?”
My response had seemingly thrown Kliss off. The new Skyisle Overseer looked stumped, not expecting my answer. It looked like some part of her had already decided that I was an Enemy of the People and wanted to execute me on the spot.
“Ah,” Kliss said, her face readjusting into the ‘instructor’ mode. “Just like many of you gathered here today, Dante is also eager to learn about the most dangerous of creatures of all - aberrations!"
Kliss paced around the desk Delta and I were occupying.
"Why are aberrations more dangerous than beasts of the forest? Because they are hard to spot without using high-level Evaluation artefacts. Aberrations are ghosts, spirits, corrupted memories of beasts or even men. Things that refuse to die. They are also known as Astral Phantoms.”
“That sounds rightly terrifying!” I commented. The [Action-Speech] was forcing me to chat, but at the very least I could more or less control what was spewing.
“Indeed,” Kliss said darkly, her emerald eyes examining me. “Aberrations have plagued humanity for aeons.”
“How do they happen?” I asked.
“It’s not often that they occur, but when they do, they… manifest in an extremely injured adult or a child. The soul and the body have to be very damaged or decayed. Enough for a creature from the Astral Ocean to enter into a human. After it finishes consuming the original soul, it makes the infested body act like a beast… but sometimes… sometimes it’s a very smart aberration. A dangerous, clever ghost from some ancient by-gone era, from some long forgotten kingdom. It can masquerade as a person for some time, until it begins to commit great evils,” Kliss said, squinting at me.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“Such as?” I gasped theatrically.
“Slaughter an entire town and drink everyone’s blood,” Kliss replied. “The main mission of the Church of Equality is to make sure no demons take the bodies of unborn children. The Overseers across the Empire make all midwives disclose the level of children at birth. A phantom's skills carry over into the body it invades. Once a Phantom is inside a human, it cannot be banished by a mere hex-lantern.”
“That’s… terrifying,” I said with a shudder. “But why are they so evil?”
"An aberration is fueled by constant hunger for souls of the living. It cannot help but bring up the level of the child, developing insidious skills. Once it feels that it is strong enough, it begins to kill. An aberration's goal is to gain absolute power. When it kills it does not make a distinction between people and beasts.
“We help the citizens of the Empire set up lanterns that keep the Phantoms away. You’re all safe from Phantoms that desire to feast on your soul as long as you stay on the lit path,” she boasted. “All of the great cities of the Empire are lit with eternal tower-beacons. The Imperial roadways are protected by a million hex-lanterns!"
She had gotten into the role of the Instructor, forgotten about me briefly as she loudly narrated.
"The Empire-wide network of beacons that keeps our people safe was built upon the orders of Empress Hallia eight hundred and forty one years ago. An aberration claimed her father’s soul in the battle of Numki - what had returned back from the war wasn’t a man, but a monster. A power-crazed ghost wearing the flesh of Emperor Gabon had nearly destroyed the Empire from within. Gabon's daughter Hallia caught him feasting on human flesh and killed him when his back was turned.”
Interesting. The Empire knew about the Astral Ocean, feared its denizens because of a historic precedent.
Kovac saw that the Overseer wasn't as scary as he thought. He felt brave enough to ask her a question too.
“O-overseer, why is it that people are unable to level up until their Soul-Song is unlocked by maths, but bugs, trees and creatures immediately start gaining levels?” He inquired.
“All creatures are touched by Equality, but humans hold a special place in her heart,” Kliss replied. “We are smarter, more dangerous than beasts. A thousand years ago, Equality saw that foolish Arch-Wizards ceaselessly fought against Arch-Mages of opposing nations, carelessly ravaging her creation. In her Divine wisdom, she took the Soul-Songs away from humanity, granting its use only to those who could pass her test of wisdom - mathematics!”
“So, Goddess Equality created the Sy… Soul-Song?” I asked, nearly calling it ‘The System’. Clearly, Kliss and others didn’t perceive the System the same way I did. I wondered if people who couldn't read had the messages sung to them or something.
“Indeed she has!” Kliss passionately declared. “Every [Quest] granted by it is a test from our Goddess!”
“Can Goddess Equality create a rock so heavy that she herself would not be able to lift it?” I asked before I could stop my mouth.
“What?” Kliss sputtered.
“Sorry, I’m full of really dumb questions for some reason! What’s your [Quest] in Skyisle, Instructor?” I shot another question at her.
“To uplift the local populace and to observe the Valley of Death,” she said.
“What is the Valley of Death, Overseer?” I asked.
“The Valley of Death, as the people of Skyisle call it… is known as the magogenic fault 18 by the Imperial scholars. It is a deep, dangerous scar upon the mountains left more than a thousand years ago by the war between powerful warring nations.”
“Eighteen? Does this mean that there are others?” I asked.
“Indeed,” Kliss nodded. “There are hundreds of magogenic faults across the known world and they are all incredibly dangerous. You must never, ever go into the Valley of Death.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Everything in the magogenic fault 18 is corrupted, poisonous to humans - every grain of sand, every hill, every drop of water in its rivers and lakes!” She spoke darkly. “Every tree, shrub and creature is cursed. Even the air is poisoned. In the year 8038 an Imperial war-ship Titania 441 sailed through the valley. The last message from them sent to the nearby warships were screams of horror, cries that their flesh was peeling off from their bones. The sky-ship 441 lies there still. No walls, no magisteel armor nor defense spells can stop the effulgence of death emanating from the heart of the fault.”
The hair on the back of my neck stood up as I recalled Chernobyl.
“If any of you wish to have a future, you must leave Skyisle when you reach level twenty. The curse emanating from the Valley of Death will not let you advance any further,” Kliss said with a ping of sadness in her voice. “As long as I stay here, I won’t pass Level 24 myself, but such is my solemn duty to watch over and protect the people of Skyisle!”
Would Radiation take away people’s ability to level up? Maybe something else was to blame?
“Is the curse getting worse?” I asked.
“Yes. The touch of death spreads. Skyisle has no future,” Kliss affirmed. “Agromancers like your mother have been finding more and more corrupted seedlings and cursed weeds contaminated with it. The wind and creatures carry the curse out of the valley. Your people have been growing weaker, fighting a losing battle against an invisible enemy for forty generations. I have been talking to the Elders and Guilds, trying to convince them to relocate. Alas, many of them reject my wisdom, refusing to abandon their homes.”
This was bad news, confirming what I already knew.
“You can’t just demand everyone to relocate?” My mouth asked.
“I am Skyisle’s protector, not its ruler. I dispense justice, kill beasts and punish criminals. I cannot simply tell the locals what to do. I have taken an Overseer’s Oath before I came here to uphold justice and law of the Empire,” she said.
I raised an eyebrow. “What is the Overseer’s Oath?”
“A Vow to enforce the Divine Laws of Equality. To kill Aberrations wherever they appear,” she said, staring right at me and trembling ever so slightly. “It is my Angel that guides my hand forevermore.”
I noted how young and tense the Overseer looked upon closer examination. She was wrong, twisted up somehow, her face twitching ever so slightly… and I finally understood her.
I peered above and through her with the [Infoscope] into the depths of the void beyond. A monstrous, mushroom-like thing woven from gold threads flickered above her, swaying in the currents of the Astral Ocean.
Gold threads shimmered in her arms, threaded her fingers, dug into her head and shoulders.
This girl was almost entirely controlled by a Vow, like a human-shaped marionette held up by a gargantuan mushroom hovering in the Astral.