---Maddy---
After waiting for a while in line, Maddy heard someone speaking French and connected up with a group of fellow travelers from France. The group was right in front of her in line and connected with someone a spot ahead of them from China.
There was a brief period of greeting where everyone spoke of coming from Earth…but it died down quickly and Maddy found herself having more in common with the Chinese man than anyone else.
After a period of hesitance, Maddy ended up being let ahead of the French group to talk to the more magic heavy conversation partner.
And, slowly, as the line moved forward, the two sent translated messages back and forth and learned of each other. Maddy obviously offered parts of her own journey to make sure he didn’t feel grilled, but most of the wait was spent reading his story.
The man’s name was Jing. Age unknown. Friendly, but incredibly vague about his past. His story started a bit after the start of the teleportation to this world.
As a condensed overview, Jing had taken a long time to break his first skill. It took him a long time to understand what the world was like or what he was supposed to do – to make matters worse he had been added to an ‘zone’ full of people who spoke a different language. Jing had taken to the end of the last zone to get a translator and had been put through some rough events in his early days. Rough events translated to stats, which eventually translated to enough personal strength to take matters into his own hands. Mental stats had chased away the confusion and raised his awareness and critical thinking skills.
Once he finally touched magic his potential exploded. Jing had met someone briefly who had given him a few tips near the beginning a ‘Mr Renshu’ from his homeland who had had a better start.
And this is where the meat of their conversation lay. Chinese characters were incredibly strong for enchantments – each character was almost equivalent to a rune. Many characters represented a single word – a single concept – and contained a potency phonetic representation lacked.
Unlike how Maddy had sunk into the concept of sound using words and the rune on her tongue to convey her intent. Jing had sunk deeper into the idea of writing his spells down with the actual act of writing influencing his magic. He had a few ‘more permanent spellworks’, but nearly every single spell he cast was painted. Many at the time he wanted to use them and always using a variety of inks and dyes. Different colours gave different meanings – some increased or decreased the strength of certain types of spells based on a convoluted set of rules. Some of his inks contained the blood or powdered scales of a specific monster he had fought – while others were simple and yet maintained a strength that seemed more like superstition than true power. He had a red dye that was rarely used for example. His ‘lucky ink’ that had to be saved for important rituals or insurmountable obstacles.
Maddy noted this down but tried to make sure her own path wasn’t ‘corrupted’ by someone else’s. In his case she probably would have switched to only creating spells with that dye but it was clearly working for him and she did know that rules and restrictions had power.
Something more important than their shared experiences with magic was their shared ‘view’ of the world. Not so much their philosophical view or anything, but their magical one.
Jing was adamant that the world was full of spirits. Tiny invisible motes of energy – potentially ‘qi’ along with greater wisps that held great power.
These spirits could be communicated with or pushed into spells. Harnessed and bound or contracted and placated. Take your pick they both worked. Considering many spirits could survive being shoved through a spell, it was better to use them consensually – having an angry entity following you around after it was used as a surprise amp wasn’t ideal, even if there was little direct danger.
Jing had taken the exact same concept leap as Maddy. He had figured out his original base element of light had a meaning towards sight. He too had used that meaning to create all sorts of ways of seeing the world. That had seamlessly been integrated in the last area before he had even gained his second affinity of ice and fire.
The main spell he ran nearly constantly let him better see these spirits – he had already been able to see them in glimses since all the way back on earth – and allowed him point to several seemingly empty spots in their surroundings as places with high concentrations of them.
This whole conversation was slightly strange because it felt like his words weren’t true. The spirits…nothing Maddy had seen, heard or had even been hinted they might exist. The only hint that magic might have even been able to reach earth was the system box arriving there.
It felt like if Jing hadn’t told her about these so called spirts, she would have never learned about them till the day she died. A part of magic that had he had tacked on all of a sudden. An afterthought that didn’t need to exist.
If Jing hadn’t demonstrated a spell supposedly with and without – a single small crystal of ice that lazily moved about, or a dense sword of ice that spun and acted out a imaginary fight with intelligence…well then she would have been confident saying he had just made it all up.
He also seemed to use this description to describe her own sights in a dismissive manner. Maddy had spoken of the haze of death energy that was released when things died and Jing – after nodding a bunch – mentioned it was probably just such a high concentration of death sprites that she could see them. Similarly life sprites tended to cluster around living things, so if she saw green about humans with her life sight, she was ’probably just partly seeing the life sprites in that position’.
That just felt wrong.
Of course they couldn’t just show off magic in a semi crowded hallway – Jing had been warned by a gruff-looking man to cut it out after the ice sword flew about his head.
Finally after what felt like hours, Maddy had reached the front and the conversation was done. There at the front she found an incredibly overworked and stressed looking clerk. The man quickly rushed through a trade and moved on, shooing her off as soon as he was done counting out the clear coins.
Hours of waiting for a three minute exchange of items? That was annoying. was this the only exchange place in town? Why was it so busy? Just the high volume of travelers the city wasn’t used to?
Maddy had offered to try giving the clerk a healing spell with her ‘awake’ concept as a pick me up, but had been refused and shooed along.
The whole experience felt like a waste of time. Maddy kind of wished there was an achievement for waiting in line to sweeten the deal – but no dice. Maybe if she were the first to sit through that or had done something unique while waiting – maybe then?
Maddy really had gotten bad at chasing down achievements. She’d do some brainstorming later today. She couldn’t just ignore it to focus on the more exciting spell manipulation.
…
The rest of the day was simply repeating the “question a shopkeeper about places to stay” plan. This time they picked shopkeepers around the adventurers district who all seemed friendlier. The first mark was someone who created vials of healing liquid.
They didn’t need the healing with Maddy filling that spot, but bought a small vial each ‘just in case’. Bonus of course, was it made the shopkeeper more likely to answer their questions.
It was funny how such a vital service – healing consumables – hadn’t been filled in the previous zone. In this moment, the city gained a sense of realism all the cities in the last area had lacked.
It was like, of course adventurers buy healing items. They could die in a dungeon! It was a vital safety measure that all natives would be using if it existed!
Not having them in the previous zone almost…almost felt purposefully done?
Like R removed it from the cities, knowing that the travelers would be more likely to get hurt or die… and the added danger and pain would give better achievements because there wasn’t an enormous cost to death…And! And now that they could permanently die after their fourth death, it meant the healing items were added back?
That seemed right.
Any world that evolved naturally, would have something like this built in from step one. Maybe that was a hint the world was becoming more real?
…
“I’ve decided.” Troy spoke up after they settled into their apartment for the night.
This ‘proclamation’ was noteworthy for a few reasons. Troy…Troy nearly never spoke if he could help it. He responded when prompted, but usually nodded or shook his head or even just gestured if he could get away with it.
“I’ve decided to look down.” He spoke again. He turned and gave a slow purposeful nod to first Maddy and then Jess.
“Ayyy! Finally someone mentioned it!” Jess laughed even as Maddy shook her head and began to respond.
“I don’t know. I wouldn’t look down without a good reason or hint of what we might see. You know there’s literally only three laws, with the last being little more than a slight inconvenience. If it–”
Troy continued again cutting Maddy off.
“I’m doing this, I just thought I ought to tell you two in case something happens. Please stay back, I don’t want to drag you into my choices.” he mumbled, refusing to look her in the eye.
Raising both hands in front of his face before Maddy could talk him out of it, Troy took a deep breath then pulled his arms apart. Directly in front of him bulging slightly around his hands, the air seemed to stretch. The air quickly solidified as he pulled it ‘taut’. Maddy felt almost like the action was similar to how he pulled back his bow… the same concept being used?
As his mirror finished forming, Maddy got a brief glimpse of the ceiling before suddenly Troy was gone.
“Hey!” Jess jumped up – a panicked look on her face.
“Where did he go?” Jess spun her head, straining slightly as she tried to bend it downwards.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
“I’m pretty sure he just fell, or was pulled downwards… give me a second,” Maddy spoke even as she joined Jess in spinning about the room.
And suddenly Maddy had a choice. To follow her recent oath…or to join her companion of several weeks in his decision.
Her mind went in several directions. It felt like her brain was splintering, a dozen separate trains of thought suddenly popping to the forefront of her mind.
On one side, a twinge of anger that Troy hadn’t consulted them more before jumping ahead. This felt like it had come out of nowhere.
On another side, frustration at herself. She should have been able to notice he was plotting this long before it became an issue. When did he decide this? Why hadn’t she been able to talk him out of it?
On another side, there was curiosity. She wanted to know what was down too! She had been taking it safe – there was a good chance there was a good reason for this rule after all. Enough to put it on the same level as murder in the law…it didn’t change the fact that she burned with a desire to know what was happening.
Was there some tentacle monster lurking below, puppeting people and preventing everyone from seeing that some people didn’t have legs? A society of little people who all died if anyone stared at them?
On another side, there was a seed of what she could do to follow him. The easiest way to replicate his feat. The words she would use, the way she might imagine her spell twisting to work on short notice.
On another particularly heavy side, there was a stupid memory of psychology class. There was a question her teacher had asked once – something that came up a lot as a conversation topic or personality quiz. ‘Would you help your best friend hide a body? Would you turn your friend in if they came to you and confessed to murder?’. The teacher hadn’t seemed to have a good reason for bringing it up at the time – it seemed to be presented to the class for no reason other than to spark discussion and it was equally as useless right now.
That train of thought was annoying because while placed in the same category as murder in the oath, it was obviously not the same. The fact that her mind drew a parallel was unconstructive right now. Especially with the idea of “laws” shifting in a world like this full of danger. If a law was something enacted by a single king instead of something created and agreed to by society like she was used to…well then blindly following it was just as dumb as breaking it for the sake of rebellion.
Several trains of thought attempted to brainstorm dangers and – in and amongst the web Maddy’s mind had just spun, her ‘mind spider’ awoke and took control. The central bit of her, cut through the panic and made a choice.
…
“With eyes of life and light; created quickly short but bright; ever formed in sound and sight. Tell me what you see; please reveal the truth before me; your job to form from sound and simply be. Look down and scout; see if I must help; surround me and sprout!” Maddy stumbled through the rhyme, visualizing her eye scouts appearing on anything they could inside her room.
Her rhyme…kind of sucked. It wouldn’t win any awards, but it wasn’t designed to. It linked relevant concepts and had a pattern with three chunks of three. That was the part that felt important. If spells want meaning well then there they hecking go.
As far as ideas went it was already a wasteful plan, but she didn’t have time to copy Troy’s trick of making a mirror. It was easier to reuse and try and shift the goal of an existing spell than to make something from scratch on short notice.
It was going to be wasteful and she wanted to save as much of her mana as she could to deal with whatever might happen but she just didn’t have the time.
Maddy pushed mana towards her scythe’s scout enchantment, trying to keep some in reserve. She tried to keep as much of her mana in reserve and actively found herself fighting the spell. She actually found it trying and drag all of her mana out to complete and had to clamp down.
As she finished her last word, Maddy’s mana buckled. It felt like her spell was a living creature greedily biting down on the mana she was holding back from.
Her toungue bled slightly – the spell had been dragging itself out of her mouth after all and biting caught the fleshy appendage in the crossfire.
Still the spell had taken too much. A final gluttonous chunk of her mana.
She had been aiming for a quarter of her pool and it felt like she ended up with two thirds being taken instead.
It would have to be enough.
One, by One, by One. Eyes grew out of her surroundings like eldritch mushrooms. Hundreds on the wooden bed and desk and door. Thousands on her arms and legs. Two big ones on one side of her face, One on the back – a single sticking to Jess’s forehead like a tumour.
In one single blink, every single eye opened.
Maybe it was their relative proximity to Maddy. Maybe it was her desire or the words she used and the idea she only needed them for a short duration…but the eyes all sent back a crystal clear view of what they saw. Thousands of nearly identical perspectives merged in Maddy’s brain into a single clear picture. Very quickly she found herself closing her own eyes and staring through the spell instead - she saw everything from several several sides and yet her mind did the hard part of combining it.
And, more importantly, in that moment, she ‘looked down’.
🙈 Achievement get: Looked down when you weren't supposed to look. (Rare)
Description: In the perfect copy of a famous city, you rebelled and broke its most important rule. Now we figure out if you researched what you were doing first. Remember kids, freedom to act as you like, does not excuse you from the consequences of those actions.
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Stat: +9 mental power
Stat: +1 soul power
She was also looking up and sideways – and technically it wasn’t her doing the ‘looking’…
But still…she looked down, by looking at all directions at once and that counted.
The floor was dark and blue looking – darker than Maddy had been sure it had been earlier today. At least darker then the twinge of colour from the outer unrecognizable edge of her peripheral vision had seemed…
Except it wasn’t.
The floor itself was glass. Polished clear glass, or crystal, or ‘something’. It provided a clear view of the lake below, dark as the sun set and the hidden moon rose.
Far, far down below, Maddy’s clear vision almost zoomed forward as she focused and cut through the distance. In the water she saw what looked like a young girl. A young woman in what looked like a frilly white and pink dress swimming? The woman was far from shore and moving strangely in the water.
Was she drowning? Finding it hard to swim in that dress?
The girl spun slightly and looked up and in that moment Maddy found herself gazing deep into two of the most gorgeous eyes she had ever seen. She stared at those eyes from thousands of viewpoints – every single one of her eyes captivated until they were all she could see, the multiple perspective fading.
Those eyes were nearly distracting enough Maddy almost didn’t notice the woman was naked. Continuing her spin as if giving Maddison a better look, the women’s glistening chest slipped out of the water and suddenly Maddy realized the glass floor wasn’t a floor at all.
It was nothing more than a weak barrier – one that had vanished in this endless blink.
…And Maddy was now falling. A rising rush of vertigo pulled her out of her daze as she wrenched her eyes away from the women below. A second achivement flickered into place but maddy had a hard time focusing on it with the world spinning about her.
😵 Achievement get: Broke out of a hypnotic gaze I. (uncommon)
Description: Through either effort of will or luck, you've found yourself mesmerized for a moment and broken away. Maybe with a few more stats you'll find yourself no longer dazed through sight-based attacks.
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Stat: +3 mental defence (visual filter).
Maddy had just enough time to realize she was in the air. She no longer had her scythe, the weapon spinning dangerously beside her and then suddenly –
Crash.
Maddy hit the water hard.
It wasn’t quite ‘slamming into concrete’ levels of damage, but Maddy had every single bit of breath knocked out of her in the most violent manner she had ever experienced. It felt like part of her insides were rearranged and her entire front was suddenly bruised. Maddy’s mouth gasped and filled with water, the surroundings a disorienting whirl of bubbles and pain.
Nearly all her premade spells were on her scythe. Where had it landed? Which way was up? The surface? Why was her mouth full of water – what had just happened? Where was she?
Maddy coughed and spluttered and pushed a trickle of dark mana into her mind in an attempt to focus.
Healing. I have to heal myself and retrieve my scythe. I just fell into the lake. Troy, I did this to follow him. I have to see if he’s about as well. I think I’m in shock – healing first
Maddy tried desperately to use her life mana on her body and found it annoyingly ineffectual. Mana…mana was a fuel that lacked the oomf a proper spell did. It also refused to listen to her when all she could give it was wishes. It honestly felt like she was pointing a laser pointer about her body with her mind and hoping the mana would move towards where she was screaming at it to move.
This wouldn’t be a problem if she had picked an internal path instead, but she had wanted greater flexibility and ability outside of her own body. Why was her self healing spell written on her scythe and not her robes or even her own skin?
Focus.
Maddy needed more than just her visualization. More than just her thoughts and wishes.
She gasped, pushing her voice to work underwater.
“Heal,” she just barely enunciated, lungs full of water and mouth and throat lacking air to communicate with.
It wasn’t speaking – not truly – and yet a sound was made, a concept invoked and her mana heard. As if only just now listening to her wishes, life mana reacted to her burning desire.
It felt like a wave rushed out around her, the mana swirling away in all directions.
No! I’m already wasting too much.
Choking out a second time, Maddy managed to make just enough noise for a second concept, this one dumped with dark mana.
“Orb”
All the mana which had been shot out in all directions with intent to heal, began to pull back towards. Dark tendrils wrapped around and filled her surroundings, her dark mana merged and mixed with the water like dye. Bit by bit her goal was realized.
She had already determined that the orb concept pulled a spell into and then held in in an oblong sphere-like shape. It shouldn’t work on spells already cast – it shouldn’t have an ability to pull anything towards it. It wasn’t like the concept was a black hole or anything; it was just a simple orb.
But…that’s what Maddy wanted it to do and there was no reason she saw for the spell to be done already. If that was what the concept did to itself, she just had to extend what counted as ‘itself’. What said a spell was done? When you said the last word? What if you pause and then start up again?
I misspoke, I meant to say “heal orb” not just heal. Don’t worry about it.
🐡 Achievement get: Forceful aquatic chant. (unique)
Description: Verbally cast a spell under water...without having accounted for the water first. You know you need to breathe right? Some lung defence might help right about now.
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Stat: +9 mental power.
The life mana was pulled towards Maddy and held in the water directly around her like a healing cocoon. She was a creature nurturing in an egg.
More accurately, it really just felt like she was creating a dilute healing potion and then sleeping in it.
My emergency healing potion! Where did that end up? Oh, I think I left it in my bag on the bedside table.
Slowly the roughly cast mana got to work. Maddy was pretty sure she now knew what direction was up – the healing liquid trickling through her mouth and nose were extending her life more effectively than raw mana had been. All disorientation was gone so that was good – even if suddenly the pain was harder to ignore it was worth it.
But it wasn’t enough. She had to reach the surface if she was to have any chance of staying alive. The spell itself was fading after all – faster than her pool could refill and be recast.
…
Just as the last bits of the spell were fading and Maddy was ready to start swimming upwards, she found herself face to face with a beautiful woman.
The one who had stared up at her from the lake below – now floating in front of her, a wide smile upon her face.
The naked woman was holding Maddy’s scythe and drifting closer and closer, her hair moving in a mesmerizing manner in the water.
Don’t look her in the eye. Maddy flinched her gaze downwards as her mind attempted to remember the dazed feeling she had felt back in the room above.
Below the waistline this women’s body seamlessly morphed into what looked like a jellyfish. What Maddy had thought was a dress was nothing more than the bottom half of a chimera-like creature. Legs were nothing more than thick, murky and transparent tentacles.
All across the jellyfish body, hypnotic patterns glowed and spiralled and pulsed.
Maddy attempted to backpedal, readying what little of her combined pool remained – she was nearly empty on life/death and light/dark. All she had was less than half a pool of the more potent mixed affinity left.
On three I shout ‘die’?
In front of her, the monster opened her beautiful lips and revealed a mouth full of gums.
She has no teeth?
That was the last thought and hesitation Maddy had before the monster shot forward towards her and everything went dark.