An excerpt from ‘A History of The College of Zandeim’ by Thrask the Historian
Perhaps the greatest example of a post-wave society, the College of Zandeim was founded by individuals from different waves who shared the same values. A passion to understand and use Mana, a desire to change their world, and a powerful moral code. Now, whether they created an organization that embodies those things is up to debate.
With his foot raised up above his body as he lays down on the ground, Hakim watches the ink hang heavily on the needle. A drop of ink slowly drips from the point, stretching out time like thick molasses. At long last, the thin connections finally snap and the ink falls to the ground, splashing down and marking the rocks below.
A whining ring begins to fill his ears as he stares at the needle, all thoughts of power and strength and protection gone from his mind. All that exists is the noise and the needle, both increasing in vibrancy through each passing second. To Hakim, it is as if the world around him has disappeared.
He’d kept up his brave façade as Alejandro and Cael had cautioned him about his decision, brushing their worries off in an attempt to appear more confident than he really was. The idea of permanently marking himself in the attempt to gain power was something he had never even imagined in his wildest dreams, but reality has that tendency. Just when you think you know how something is going to turn out, life has a way of turning around and smacking you.
“Gonna start.”
The voice seems to come from the direction of the needle, echoing like the bodiless voice of some long-forgotten god. A distant part of Hakim notices that he is nodding but he doesn’t really register the motion as the whining picks up in intensity.
The needle pushes into his skin, lighting his nerves on fire, and pain brings forth things he had suppressed long ago. The memories he’d managed to hide for so long come flashing to the surface.
----------------------------------------
The bottle comes flying down from above and breaks upon his back, filling his back with the fiery pain of a fresh cut. It’s not the first time he’s experienced this but it’s certainly the most intense one so far. A warm and wet feeling, mixing in with the pain threatening to break him apart, begins to drip down his back as he tries to squirm away from the source.
Standing tall above him is his father, yet another bottle in his hand as he takes a large gulp of the liquor. The amber liquid drips from his chin and falls onto the shirt, joining hundreds of other stains from hundreds of other drops that fell exactly like this one does.
“You think you better than me, that what you think? You are a little shit, just like your mom. Go ahead, stand up to me again, see what it gets you.”
Crawling to his knees, Hakim manages to stumble up on two legs, nearly falling over and eventually supporting himself against the wall. Thick cotton fills his mind, blurring out the sights around him, and the only thing that keeps him present is the pain. Little flickers of light begin to fill his vision and his nausea suddenly overwhelms him, causing him to puke on the floor before falling back down.
“Ah what the hell kid!? Now you’re gonna make a mess of my kitchen? Hell noo.”
Lying on the floor, barely conscious and with the strange lights in his vision blocking his sight, he manages to see the stumbling and weaving steps of his father. The last thing he sees before the darkness is his father’s foot and his father’s voice, echoing down from above.
“You ain’t strong enough to do that shit kid.”
Everything goes dark.
----------------------------------------
Hakim comes back to the present with a scream, rolling around and raising his hands in a fighting stance as he gets onto his feet. Breathing heavily, he looks around with crazed eyes that chase the specters of his past, returned at long last to claim their toll. Cael and Alejandro instantly raise their hands to calm him down, backing up as they recognize his fighting intent.
“Woah woah, Hakim, calm down. Everything’s okay, you just passed out for a bit. We finished the tattoo and you’re all good. Calm down man, you’re all right.” Slowly stepping forward, Cael moves closer and closer, open palms out to show Hakim that he means no threat. Were Hakim in a more lucid state of mind he’d have known that the man could end his life with his eyes closed and hands behind his back, but that fact doesn’t register with him.
Having just relived the terror of his past, Hakim is barely able to understand what is and isn’t real. The memory had been … intensely vivid, bringing about the familiar feelings of fear and anger. He’d repressed that memory for the last ten years and its reemergence was terrifying. If he had forgotten about that … what else was hidden within his mind?
However, the Hakim of the present is not the same person as he had once been. Taking a deep breath and closing his eyes, he finds his center and tries to let the emotion go. The fear, rage, sadness, and bitterness remain however, too vivid and fresh in his mind to let themselves disappear once more. It does remind him of where he is though, and Hakim opens his eyes with recognition in them, finding his mentor in front of him.
The man who offered him strength, who offered him a way out of the fear and loathing that came from being weak. He stands with open hands to try and calm him down, not using his prodigious strength to destroy Hakim on sight. It is only recognition of who this man is and what he had done that brings Hakim back to himself, regaining control of his body and his mind, albeit with some very fresh and painful memories.
“I’m.. I’m okay.”
Cael looks at him with skeptical eyes, palms still open and outstretched in a display of passiveness. “Are you sure? It’s fine if you need to have some recovery time, we can wait.”
To think that this man, with his power to obliterate all that opposed him, was so caring and controlled always managed to blow him away. Hakim had never seen strength that wasn’t used for personal gain, retribution, and petty aggressiveness in his life. Hell, even some of the guards used their meager positions for their own gain. To think that Cael was still a kind person after all that had happened to him… Hakim was just grateful that he had been chosen to train under him.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
In Hakim’s mind, they were two sides of a similar coin. The only difference between the two of them was how they reacted to their situation. Hakim turned into himself, finding himself embodying aspects of the very thing that he hated, while Cael became a protector for those below him.
It was awe-inspiring.
Shaking his head, Hakim focuses in on the present and pushes the emotions to the side, intent on dealing with them later. “No, I’m good. More importantly, did the tattoo work?”
It’s Alejandro who responds, the short and quiet man who’d shown surprising strength during their spar. Hakim had initially looked down upon him, not respecting the seemingly passive Technocrat, but that had evaporated after he had shown what he was capable of. If there was one thing that commanded respect, it was strength. Perhaps even more for those who didn’t flaunt it. Motioning at his foot with his hand, he says, “You tell us.”
Looking down at his foot, Hakim sees the strange symbol on his sole, the black ink appearing to draw in the light with a voracious appetite. With the base of a spiral that seems to continue endlessly, a large V shape is interposed on the top, enhancing the design to create a sum greater than its parts.
With a deep breath and a scattered prayer for luck, he gathers the Mana from his Well and sends it rushing through his body, once again taken aback by the feeling of power rushing through his veins. It’s enticing, an almost drug-like feeling of potential and life and destruction and a thousand other things that fly through his body like lightning.
In less than a second, the Mana accumulates down by his foot and he once again tries to push it outwards, hitting the now familiar barrier of his skin. Instead of building up in pressure until he feels the risk of blowing of one of his limbs, this time he feels the Mana begin to be absorbed and drained away by something new. A vortex that forms on the sole of his foot, sucking in the Mana in endless hunger. Bursts of power rush through his entire body and he feels the awareness and capability of his body increase,
Not wanting to miss his opportunity to experiment with the thing that may propel him to his long coveted strength, he begins to run around the hill and finds himself flying with each step. His body feels as if it weighs nothing, allowing him to quickly cut directions and flow between acrobatic motions without a seconds delay.
A laugh escapes from his lips, pushing all of the Mana in his Well towards the tattoo that has given him this incredible feeling. Finally! The strength he’d been seeking since he was a kid, his only possible escape from his lack of strength, was finally within his reach. A tear of happiness falls down his face as he continues moving around, moving at nearly three times the speed that he had been during his spar with Alejandro.
His crazed series of acrobatic moves and practice is interrupted by a notification that appears within his vision, breaking through the elation of the movement.
You have discovered the Skill Runic Tattoo of Dexterity (R-4) Lvl 1! By combining a Mana conductive metal with ink and tattooing the Rune of Dexterity on your skin, you have created a Runic Tattoo! Channeling your Mana through this tattoo will allow you to temporarily increase your Dexterity. Cost: 40 Mana per minute for 20 Dexterity. More Mana can be used for a diminished increases in Dexterity. Increased Skill level will increase efficiency. Notice: Use of a Runic Tattoo has thickened your skin and crippled your ability to manifest Mana.
His elation drops for a second as he considers the notice at the end of the Skill but he brushes the sadness off quickly. He hadn’t been able to manifest his Mana in the first place and now he had a way to massively increase his combat effectiveness. Wait … Alejandro had mentioned a few different runes, not just the single one related to Dexterity. Did that mean he could potentially get even more Skills?
Filling in Cael and Alejandro on the wording of the Skill, he watches them debate the issue for a few moments, barely able to keep himself quiet. The two of them hold Hakim’s future in their hands and he refuses to let go after having finally tasted power. After a few moments of silence, he ask his question, curiosity overwhelming any sense of patience. “What other Runes were on that ring?”
Alejandro responds, looking at Hakim with discerning eyes that seem to understand the deeper truth behind the question. Silence is his answer for a few moments and then his gruff voice says, “Physique. Recovery. Endurance.”
The possibilities of the other Attributes flash through his mind as he considers their application in combat. Physique could help him temporarily survive enemies who do massive amounts of damage. A new voice, one he’d never heard before, whispers that it could also give his allies time to escape while he tanked the damage. The voice sounds surprisingly like Cael’s, suggesting an application that would be selfless. Perhaps … perhaps these new abilities would help him become like his mentor.
Motivated by a sudden influx of these strange ideas, a selfless feeling he had never truly experienced with full sincerity, he looks at Alejandro with resolute eyes and says, “Well? We going to get started on those tattoos?”
The older Technocrat looks over at Cael, the question obvious in the context. Cael sits there in silence for a few seconds, his hand unconsciously rubbing against his chin in deep thought. He then nods his head.
“Okay Hakim, if that’s what you want then let’s get started on them.”
Deciding to roll with the new motivation, Hakim takes off his shirt and walks back toward Alejandro. The older man picks up the needle, dipping it into the metal infused ink, and then turns back around, eyes widening at the sight of the shirtless young man in front of him.
Before he has the chance to speak out with some sardonic comment, Hakim speaks first. “Let’s start with Physique on my chest. I want it over my heart.”
Nodding his head, Alejandro leans down with the pen and begins to lay out the outline of the Rune. His other hand holds the needle, the familiar feeling of fear threatening to overwhelm Hakim’s mind. Knowing the pain that is coming, the memories of his father burn with an increased intensity, reminding him of his past failures. Instead of bringing about desperation and depression, however, this only serves to strengthen his resolve.
“What’s your motivation?” Cael asks him, curiosity in his eyes. He kneels on the ground looking upward.
“Excuse me?”
“I know you want power, that’s obvious. But I don’t know if that’s enough for you to do what you’re doing. So I want to know why”
Hakim remains silent for a while, the only noise being the sound of the pen setting in the outline. His voice then breaks through the white noise of Alejandro’s work.
“When Genesis first appeared, I was with my mother. She … she had lost use in her legs years before and we got trapped underneath a building in the change. I tried to carry her with me but she refused to let me help, kept telling me that things would be alright and we’d find a way out.”
Stillness permeates as Hakim delves into the silence of the repeated sound, remembering the experience. He then continues. “I managed to crawl out of the wreckage and went looking for help. I ran into some people from Everwall after a few hours and got them to return with me but … by the time we returned … the building had collapsed.”
Holding back his emotion. “She was the last person I cared about in this world and she died because I wasn’t strong enough to help.”
Cael is the first one to respond after a few quiet moments, allowing the younger man to experience his sorrow without worrying about his companions. “Good reason. You agree?” He asks Alejandro.
The gruff man pats Hakim on the shoulder, making eye contact with him as he nods supportively. The silent gesture is able to convey more support and understanding than words ever could. Picking up the needle, he brings it toward Hakim’s skin and, at a nod, begins to ink out the second Rune.