---Maddy---

After some time shopping, Maddy and Troy finally found Jess wandering about and looking for them.

She seemed panicked for some reason – jumping on her companions as soon as she saw them.

“Did either of you two grab my whip?” Jess asked with much more energy than either of them were expecting.

Maddy paused and glanced down at herself as if checking. Her hands were full of a sweet sort of rolled salad wrap. The bag she had bought earlier was full of her dwindling money, a doll, a book and some rope.

“…no? Troy – did you?” Maddy asked, turning to him.

Shaking his head Troy looked confused at the question.

“I resurrected with a new jumpsuit, but without my weapon. It's important! How will I place barriers far away like this?” Jess seemed surprisingly devastated.

…Maddy should have thought of that.

For some reason, she had just imagined Jess appearing outside of the dungeon with all her stuff – the fact that she hadn’t made sense in hindsight but…

“We got you money? You can buy a new one?” Jerking her head, Maddy nodded to Troy who pulled out and then passed over the bag of pips.

Looking at the bag of cash seemed to calm Jess’s fervour.

“…thanks. Sorry, the death penalty is awful. It's reminding me of…things I didn’t want to remember,” Jess looked around as if noting how public the place was.

“Don’t die, got it…” Maddy spoke giving her a thumbs up and trying to lighten the mood.

“Want a bite?” Troy offered his half-eaten sandwich to a slightly disgusted Jess.

“We’ll get you something else to eat before looking for a weapon for you. There’s lots of street food and handheld options.” Maddy offered instead. “Might as well wait out your current penalty – we don’t want to make it longer than necessary. The worst part of the death penalty seems to be slowing you down and letting others get ahead.”

“Worst part of the penalty is how awful I feel but…yeah. That sounds nice – I’m not hungry but eating might make me feel better.”

The group wandered off again for a second round of shopping.

…

Maddy stood alone in her rented room. It cost twenty pips a night – a good chunk of her cash to get a room to herself but she needed it.

The room was austere yet comfortable – stone floor and walls, an open window with tied curtain. A single lamp lit with some unidentifiable fleshy yellow lump. A raised mattress and wooden bedside table.

In front of her was a stuffed doll she had picked up for the contact – its glassy, yellow-tinged eyes staring up at her. At first glance she could pretty easily call it a “doll” and move on, but actually describing it was a bit more involved.

The doll looked like a cross between a plastic or ceramic creation and a stuffed toy. There were plenty of shaped unknown materials giving it form and structure – bones and rubbery looking chunks and painted hinges…but there were also soft sections full of grey stuffing and fabrics sewed into its body.

It was humanoid but strangely inhuman – she would definitely call it a contender for creepy doll of the year. Everything was a bit off – just a bit too realistic while being a bit too fake.

The doll’s size was about the length of her forearm and she had bought it because she didn’t want to arts and crafts this connection. Getting her friends to not question it was harder, but she had managed somehow.

Taking a deep breath, Maddy sat cross-legged in the center of the room and carefully lay the doll in front of her like a patient.

Maddy reached out with both arms once she was ready, taking another long breath. Continuing before she could stall any longer, Maddy lay both hands on the doll's body and began to infuse death mana – the action more instinctual than anything else. She could tell somehow she was doing it wrong – her casting crude and raw…whispered thoughts told her she didn’t even need her hands! Technically her mana wasn’t coming from her body even if she needed contact of some sort…but that just confused her. Maddy felt better imagining it was seeping out of her hands and didn’t know an easier method.

At first, there wasn’t a sign of anything happening – there wasn’t any living flesh for the necrosis to take hold of.

Slowly however as she continued to fill the container with undirected magic, a soft glow began to ring out.

It was dark dark purple – a UV glow that seemed to reflect off her skin and just barely tint the surroundings.

Suddenly with no warning, the doll's stuffed hand reached up and grabbed her wrist.

“That’s enough”

The light seemed to flicker like a candle despite being a solid lump enclosed in a lamp.

A rustle and the cloth on the window seemed to slip around and almost fuse with the surrounding wall. The door to the room suddenly seemed more locked than before and Maddy was suddenly horrifyingly aware that she was trapped with…something.

With unnatural jerking grace the doll flipped up off the floor – moving from lying down to standing up in a single impossible movement.

Maddy stared in slight nervous shock as the doll began to shake and twist itself. The creature inspected its body and the surroundings and somehow, she could tell it found them lacking.

Somehow between its inspection and current state it had changed – Maddy hadn’t noticed the moment it had, but now the doll's shape was different. Its form thinner, its glassy eyes more alive, its hands – it had hands now. Instead of a fabric glove-like shape, both arms now ended in skeletal hands formed from teeny tiny bones – melted and reformed from places about its body.

Maddy calmed herself down by finding human traits in the creatures’ actions. It's vain, it cares about how it looks. It's performing theatrics because it wants to either impress or frighten me.

She was partway through building a mental profile when the creature flicked both of its wrists – a slight rattle ringing out – then turned to her.

“Alright then, I don’t want to be here. You don’t want me here. Let's just fix your stupid soul defense problem and be done with it.” he spoke.

…this was not turning out how Maddy was hoping. The narrative had been taken hold of – she had been planning on asking what the ritual would do before agreeing to anything.

“Sorry, I haven’t agreed to anything yet – you have to tell me what we are going to do first! I’m not performing some sketchy magic without knowing what’s happening” Maddy blurted out.

… that was jumbled and awkward. I was planning on asking that more slowly, what’s wrong with me? Maddy was more flustered than she thought if that’s how she worded things.

Staring at her with an annoyed face, the doll waved its bony hand at the ground – then glanced at it in even more annoyance when nothing happened.

“Backward ass town replica full of medieval ass practices,” the doll muttered to itself sliding over to the bed. The doll moved without stepping – both “feet” planted firmly on the ground as it skidded over and stopped by Maddy’s bedside table.

“Houses should have wooden floors. None of this medieval shite,” he continued to mutter to himself.

Without appearing to do anything, the wood of the bedside table grew sideways out into a flat surface. Waving its bony hands like a conductor, crude diagrams and words appeared onto the sign like a whiteboard.

“Okay see this? This right here?” the doll pointed to a humanoid outline “ –this is you. Not that fleshy meat sack you’ve been stuck in but your puny little soul.”

Waving his hand again the diagram changed – the outline becoming thick and more defined

“This is soul defense. It prevents any external manipulation, both good and bad.

It's like healing – you have a life affinity now, you’ll find it harder and harder to heal anyone with life defense – regular defense has some life defense mixed into it as a rule but you're lucky that it’s one of the rarest defenses.

Now ‘resurrection’ is a nice little event innit’ it. Nice to get free revives innit’ it. Nice to make more work for me innit’ – some of you seem to get some sort of thrill out of killing yourself as many times and in as hard to notice of a position as possible." The doll spat and waved its hands about before continuing.

"See I'm stuck all the way over here. Past several dimensional locks and whatever else that shifty bugger put in place to isolate this place.

So, here's what happens. Your fleshy meat sack gets damaged somehow and my contractual obligation is to yoink it and shove you into a new body. Easy enough. That's something I can do for squishy souls like this no problem. Then they put me off in the middle of nowhere – this part is tricky, but I’m amazing so I can still get it done.

Soul defense throws a wrench in that. If I’m by you – or even projected by you like I am right now – then it's still no problem. The minuscule number of defensive stats you’ve gained means nothing…

It's still annoying – and that isn’t a viable solution. Forcing me to babysit you by following you around in this body means I’m less able to resurrect everyone else. This takes a load of concentration to pull off by the way – my dead queue is slowly backing up because of you.

So that's where the spell I'm going' have you do comes into place. I'm going' need you to do the metaphorical equivalent of bending over and spreading your soul's asscheeks for me–

I need you to make a hole somewhere in your soul defense big enough such that I can reach through and grab you from wherever you die.

It's just a temporary hole – but one you need to continue holding open if you want more free shit.

Some disclaimer – the chance of a soul attack in these baby zones are minuscule, leaving a hole open won’t make you much worse off than before you gained any stats yada yada.

So, we have three options.

‘A’. Sign something waving all responsibility from me to resurrect you. – you could have done this back in the transitionary area by the way and saved me this trip.

‘B’. Have you open a hole in your annoying ass armour and hold it open so long as you want to be a resurrection target.

‘C’. instead of you poking a hole in yourself I’m going to do it. I’m going to poke a hole in your defense and sew it open because I refuse to babysit you with this twisted obligation any more than I have to.

…and believe me. If I make the hole for you it's going to fucking hurt.

So choose.

Pick your poison.

I'll give you ten more minutes of my precious time and if you don't pick, I'm going to make the choice for you. Three. I'm going to pick three if you don't make a choice.”

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

The last sentence was uttered in a happy matter of fact tone. It was 100% a threat but not presented as one. It wasn't stated as if he was trying to intimidate her – just dropped at the end like a fact.

What's the right answer?

Why did he give me options? He seems to just want to perform ‘C’ – why isn’t he just doing it if that’s what he wants? What’s stopping him?

It seems safer to just tell him off.

…honestly the idea of him reaching around and playing with her soul made Maddy feel ill. He obviously hated her, and she didn't like the idea of her life being in the hands of someone who despised her this way.

On the other hand, snubbing the only safety net – drowning just because I don’t like the creep of a lifeguard seems…moronic. Sometimes you don’t like people and that’s life – this…man is pretty obviously a person.

"Can you tell me more about the world I'm in?" Maddy asked trying to pry any info out of him while she had the chance.

"Oh! Of course. This whole place everything you see here is in a snow globe I keep on my desk. Sometimes I sit on it – that's nighttime – and sometimes I piss on it when I'm bored – that's what you call rain."

Maddy stared at him, "so you're not going tell me anything?"

"Nope.” He radiated smugness and refused to elaborate.

…its really really hard to read this doll. He doesn’t have any visible reactions I can base stuff off of…but he’s strangely human. I could try and make small talk? Get to know him better?

“What’s your name? What do you want me to refer to you as?” Maddy asked.

“Don’t. Don’t try that, don’t touch that and piss off. Names sometimes have power, even if they don’t have power they are for mates, I can tell you're trying to weasel yourself into my good graces and it just pisses me off.

Five minutes left now for being annoying. I'm not a tour guide or help desk or escort you’ve hired here to answer your every childish question," the doll snapped and glanced pointedly as if at an invisible watch.

"Could I learn to resurrect myself?" Maddy asked searching for an alternative. A fourth option.

"Giheeehehehehehe," suddenly the doll's head snapped up and it began to laugh. Its whole demeanor changed and a low giggle rang loudly across her rented room.

"You think this is easy? Something you can just learn? Go ahead. Figure it out if you want. I’m not a professor so find your own method. Become a proper lich like the rest of us – I respect you wanting to make less work for me…but does that mean you are picking option A? Times up girly,"

That was not five minutes.

"No…no I’ll do it. I'll make a link for you." Maddy cut in not wanting the choice to be made for her. "What do I have to do?" She continued – trying to keep her option open.

"Shame…alright. I haven’t got all night. Tell me the concepts you got, I'll fudge something together with them," he responded, mirth gone.

Maddy paused…"Application? I think one of the other things mentioned is transference? I'm sorry a lot was happening at the time I can't remember…" she trailed off.

The necromancer groaned then muttered something about the youth of today losing their memory.

He twisted his arm a bunch then held out a hand staring pointedly.

"Give me a cr– a pip, not the worst kind I'll do it for you. Yes one of the bigger ones you daft broad."

Maddy considered not complying but figured she had pushed him too much. Fishing around in her bag and grabbing one of the larger sized crystals left, she passed it to the doll.

Mumbling something under his breath – either a spell or an insult – the necromancer crushed her pip then twisted his head as if reading something.

"You have an application concept. Scythe collection and transference shapes or proto concepts. Remember those the next time someone asks you ‘ait? – this is what happens when crystal spooned leeches get handed skills for basically free and break them without much effort either ...and okay here's what we are going to do."

Once more heading to the whiteboard, the doll waved and pulled a long sheet of wood out. Pausing for half a second he slashed with a finger and broke it off into a thin panel.

"Shouldn't have actualized any of your concepts yet. What I'm going to need you to do is think about application really hard. What it means to you, everything you think is possible with it, everything you need it for, everything you might need it for. Etcetera etcetera"

The doll passed Maddy the board and a black stick of something like charcoal – once more the items appearing out of thin air.

"Got that? Anything come to mind? Any shapes or words or anything? Nothing? Good. Now you are going to draw this symbol" – sketching something out of the sheet he continued – "while thinking of that concept as hard as your little mind can. If you can't do it the easy way I can always leave and come back once you've actualized the thing. Its okay to say you aren’t capable – I’m not expecting much.”

Maddy droned out his bored, annoyed and resentful voice.

He said he’s not a teacher, but this is the first hint I’ve had about how to use magic. What does application mean to me? Its…well…

* Something used on something else?

* Makeup or bruise cream being ‘applied’?

It’s…applying myself maybe. That sounds like a pun though. Application is…why is it so generic? Why are there so many options?

* Putting something somewhere.

* Talking to people and using what I was taught…

Maddy continued to try and picture what application meant. Several different parts of her mind began brainstorming down different paths and slowly a net of ideas formed. She had a rough picture and could hold it in her mind – application was simply application.

Reaching out she began to sketch the symbol the necromancer had shown her – trying to imagine it as part of the application held in her mind.

It felt…mostly right. Mostly right but that little tail over there seemed weird and that line was too long and this section should have a loop to properly convey her application.

"And she's changing it, of course she has to be different the special little snowflake.

…its mostly the same. Should still work if you actually actuated it correctly.” Directing the last line towards Maddy the necromancer seemed more resigned than he had.

Sliding forward the doll jabbed a boney finger down onto the wooden board and continued the lesson.

"This right here is your rune of application – figure out how to use it properly for other stuff on your own time. Or don’t, waste the free help. I literally don’t care.

Anyways, just that should be enough – what I'm going need you to do next is draw this set of symbols perfectly – no improv please – and link that rune here, here and here. It needs to be on something close to you at all times. I'm talking write it on your arm level of closeness, and then you'll have to power it nearly constantly. Don't worry once it's activated you won't notice the draw.”

Maddy stared about before pulling her pant leg up and beginning to write it on her leg.

She felt kind of silly painting herself in front of the doll before he nodded satisfied with her work.

“Now…activate it from here with life mana and here with death mana. Ideally mix them properly here to activate with a neutral mana as well but it's simple enough that shouldn't be needed. Your rune is just different enough from mine it might not work but I added in enough redundancies i'd be surprised.”

Maddy stared down at her leg. "Should I have written on something that’s not my body? Put it on my clothes or something? I don't want to use death mana on myself if I can help it – that doesn't seem safe…” she began to worry.

"Oh stop being a wimp. All good mages have a few arcane tattoos – it comes with the job. Let's go I don't have all night. Worst case you die, and I bring you right back so we can try again."

Considering it and then finally giving in Maddy pushed out. First healing life mana in one side then – bringing her other hand around – deadly necrotizing death in the other.

Everything rapidly began to come into effect.

A price of pain flared up her leg as necrosis ripped through all of her drawn runes in a second. A pulse of life mana wafted through everything right after struggling to heal the lines of dying flesh.

Back and forth the two pulsed – as if her drawn runes were a racetrack, the two lines of magic running laps about her leg.

Slowly the stinging feeling began to fade – her flesh gaining a sickly sort of pale scar in the shape of her drawn runes.

"…actually worst case you rip apart your soul and I can’t bring you back but hey! You did it! You're lucky with your affinity pair by the way, Fire mages have to wait longer to burn a mage tattoo as good as that and don't have such a nice healing from icing themselves afterwards." The doll spoke giving her a thumbs up.

…of course it was more dangerous than he let on. I can’t trust anything he says without golden text.

“Okay any minute now it should be activated.” The doll dropped his arm as he spoke and stared deep into her.

Crossing his arms and tapping his skeletal hands against himself the doll waited – not staring at Maddy exactly but staring past her… looking at something around her navel.

“Done” He nodded and suddenly Maddy felt it.

It wasn’t a physical feeling more an emotional one. It felt like suddenly she was exposed – vulnerable. She felt like she was naked and standing in front of a crowd of eyes – she hated it.

Slowly the initial rush of vulnerability began to fade but it never seemed to disappear entirely. It never went back to a feeling of “normal”

She felt…on edge. Not immediately unsafe but like she didn’t want to fall asleep alone. Like she was walking home after dark in a less-than-stellar neighborhood.

The necromancer studied her for a moment longer then made a business sort of nod “Finally – seems to have set,” and Maddy could tell he was about to leave.

…She needed to know something before he did. The question was burning up inside of her. it had been burning up inside of her from the very first blue box she had read of his.

“Why are you so hostile? Why…why do you hate me? The system rewards us for being unique – doing things that others don’t. Why are you so angry that I’m doing what the system wants – don’t you work for it? Why are you mad that we are just fol…“

The necromancer raised a single bony finger and Maddy trailed off. He looked like he was struggling between responding and not and finally settled on something – a deep sigh rattling out.

“First off, I don’t work for the system – I work for that prick 'R' and not because I love the job but because of a stupid deal.

Second off that right there? So called ‘unique things’? That’s exactly what pissed me off.” The light in the room flickered and dimmed as the necromancer spoke – as if reality itself was affected by his anger.

“The system is a great arbiter of fairness and progress and it's being fucking abused and violated to accommodate you brats. Did you know rarity gets slightly reset when it’s integrated with a new species? Of course you don’t. You first time settlers are getting achievements left and right for doing something first in your species – hey you wiped your ass properly! Well done lil miss baby – here’s a permeant increase in wisdom or some horseshit! You don’t even know how good you all have it! That’s even worse innit? Some of you worthless bellends have the gall to complain about your situation.

– and you think you're unique? You really think a single thing you’ve done so far is worthy of the highest normal rarity level ‘unique’???”

The light was nearly out now – a suffocating feeling gripping Maddy’s throat as the creature raged, his voice coming from all directions. Shadows flickered across the wall a swirling mess of shapes spewing out of the monster before her.

“The system is a noble creation of the highest power and it is being abused in this stupid achievement farm you all signed up for. You’re being power leveled and babied and not a single one of you petulant pests deserve' it. YOU. Do you actually think anything you have done is unique? Do you think what you have done is even rare? Noteworthy? Deserving of the tiniest smidgen of ‘achievement’?

You were the first to use a rare weapon brat – but there’s dozens of others after you with the same one. You decided the free points – free points you didn’t deserve of course – should be used on the hardest stats to increase – your soul – making my life much harder than it needed to be.

‘Let’s be unique’ you say and then turn around and do absolutely everything by the book. You fought some monsters – by the book, in the most standard type of team paring – not nearly anything worth reaching the first tier of course because some loopholes lets R fuck with the natural difficulty and provide some gimped tier 1 nothings as an actual monster.

You left the ‘tutorial’ slightly early. Big WOOP. Give the cunt a trophy!

You went straight to a settlement, found some info and then beat a rank one dungeon just a weeeeee bit faster than most. Itty bitty bit. Not some first clear of a dungeon hundreds ve' tried – no you waltzed through a common dungeon and it showered you in stats.

NOTHING YOU HAVE DONE IS NOTEWORTHY GIRLY.

Do you really think what you have done so far is that special? Do you really think you deserve the power you have gained? I spent THREE YEARS creating a unique spell – THREE YEARS! – you picked up a peasant weapon after a few seconds of brainstorming. A scythe, the best your little mind could come up with worth as much as my apprenticeship.

You know there are other brats using actually unique weapons right? One has a pair of frying pans tied to a string. Another has a small little rake and garden trowel as his weapons. One even decided to fight with a bag of nails – each and every one of them at least deserves their 'unique' achievements for at least picking not weapons that are hard to use.

Other than picking a scythe – every single one of your decisions was the blandest most common option done evvveeerrr so slightly faster than others for some undeserved rarity!” the creature raged and spat.

Maddy literally couldn’t breathe. She felt…she kind of understood – some hidden parts to his personality clicked into place – but ultimately his anger felt misplaced. She had…shed been picking rare options at least? She hadn't complained once? It didn’t matter right now he was choking her.

With a gasp of breath she tried to defend herself struggling to speak without air “I chose a distributed mind foundation. Only 42% to the specialized 56%. That’s a less common option right? Something other than picking a scythe?”

Staring directly at her the doll seemed to realize the effect his emotions were having and calmed.

The vibrating air began to still – the boiling shadows disappeared. The necromancer’s anger didn’t disappear but was put away. Controlled and back to simmering beneath the surface.

“You left at a time where only fifty others had chosen mental options before you. At the time you picked that foundation it was twenty-one to twenty eight on the choice – thousands have passed through by now. Of the brats that chose a mental foundation, distributive is by far the most popular coming in at 86% of the mental pickers. Maths are fun arn't they?

It just goes to show, nothing you have done is special. None of your “smart ideas” really mean much. You know what you could do if you really want to pick something unique? You could jump in the pit outside.

Swim down to the bottom of its murky depths and come back. That’s an equivalent to the work I did as a child gaining my first rank – no breathing apparatus, no fancy water breathing spell just swim to the depths healing yourself past your mortal limits.

That’s a proper achievement – one no one else has gained yet too! Do it – or don’t – I don’t care, for even if you do ‘that’ it will have been my suggestion not your own. Remember that – you haven’t thought of anything ‘unique’. You’ve abused the system. True unique is something no one has done from any race or lifestyle. Get something with a true or absolute unique rating and maybe then I’ll give a shit. Actually put in some effort and maybe I won't think you’re a waste of conjured air.

It's going to be hard.

Even if you try my suggestion the reward won’t be as good as the one I gained – because there won't be any danger. I’ll be here to save you if you fail. Meaningless actions from a meaningless babied existence. Nothing you could do has any meaning while I’m here to save you and will continue to have no meaning until you finish this ‘game’… I’ve already spent too much time here.”

Like it was a puppet and its strings had just been cut the doll fell – the necromancer leaving without any other effects. Leaving almost mid sentence – his last words echoing in Maddy’s mind.

She lay there for a moment feeling a lingering vulnerability. A need for something. Some measure of defense she didn’t have. Human contact.

…I don’t want to be alone. I wonder if Jess wants to sleep in my room? That’s…weird isn’t it. After I had us rent separate ones?

…

I’m going to ask her anyways.