A day came and went while I slowly recovered from my mental tampering. Alice and I ‘talked’ a lot with each other trying to get to know each other. We planned what we could for the future. I learned how to return her to the mind stones and then put her back into my mind. It was as easy as she said it was.
I didn’t think she was lying to me about the stones since even if I put them on I could still remember them. The curse seemed to be broken. That said I wouldn’t wear the bracelet until I was confident it wasn’t doing anything to me. So I only put it on when I wanted to communicate with her for now.
First on our list of priorities was figuring out how to get her more freedom without giving her direct control of my body. Even if I could trust her, and to some extent I already did, I just couldn’t justify giving her control. It certainly helped that we were very similar people, which given that she was made from me wasn’t too surprising. We were both rational, practical, and goal oriented. The changes Halcroft had made to her in combination with her not having experienced my first life’s memories first hand made us distinct.
She was a bit more demanding and sassy but that might just be the fact that she didn’t have a body of her own. I would be pissed if I was a disembodied consciousness forced to exist in a body I couldn’t control or to sleep potentially forever in a bracelet.
More of our differences became slowly apparent. She pretty deeply identified with being a princess more than I did. To her, she was a noble and didn’t particularly like dealing with commoners that weren’t also her servants. Apparently Alice also found our wardrobe lacking. Which was absolutely crazy. We literally had more clothes and jewelry than could fit in my room.
I paused for a moment introspecting. I realized pretty quickly that I was combining first person and second person statements when I thought about Alice and I. It was our wardrobe, but my room. That made absolutely no sense, except for some reason it did. My first guess was I claimed more ownership of things that were more important to me, thereby using first person. Yet that seemed to not be true when I realized I was thinking of mom as our mom and not my mom. Like she was my sister.
Suffice to say having another person in my head was difficult. Talking with her for a few hours was pretty much both of our limits. After that we both wanted for her to return to her mind stone to sleep. It didn’t help that she talked constantly, even while I was trying to talk out loud. That just made me lose track of what I was saying. I had made it clear she needed to stop thinking at me while I was talking because it was making us look nuts. In that at least she complied without too much hassle.
I gave her the choice of being in stasis in the mind stones all the time except when I was working on finding a solution to our problem or being around during the day. She wanted to be with me during most day to day times even though she can’t control the body. I agreed as long as she obeyed the rules. I did however always place her into stasis in the stones when I went to sleep, usually before I did my hour of meditation at the end of the day. I trusted her that she couldn’t take over my body while I was asleep, but there just didn’t seem to be much benefit of her being around.
Hmmm, considering these topics made me think of something. I wonder if there is some way for Alice to impart some of her magical expertise onto me without having to actually think it in language. She could send me concepts of physical communication like smiling, shrugging, and posture.
That thought process made me remember something suddenly. Right when Alice first made herself known to me I had gotten an achievement and access to a new skill. I made the system show me the achievement and skill.
*Two Minds are Better than One
Method: Have two stable consciousnesses operate within the same body for an extended period of time.
Bonus: Your Animus and Manipulation are each increased by 5% permanently.
Notice: Only one multiplier can be applied to each stat, if two or more are applied only the highest will be used.
New Skill: Your species class gains access to the skill Dual Consciousness.*
*Dual Consciousness
Prerequisite: Have two separate consciousnesses operating within the same brain.
Type: Species
Passive/Active
Skill cost: 200 mana regen plus 5 mana regen/level; any up to Manipulation, plus 10% of the initial cost for every 1 minute of active use.
You have somehow managed to stuff two different consciousnesses into the same brain despite the fact that only one consciousness can usually control a body at a time. You even managed to enfuse your brain with magic that allows it to run the two consciousnesses simultaneously without overloading it. This skill will allow a dominant consciousness to utilize voluntary aid from the other consciousness within their body. The dominant consciousness will be able to seamlessly synthesize corrections to actions from the non-dominant consciousness. Additionally the dominant consciousness can turn over certain physical actions to the non-dominant consciousness. The dominant consciousness can disable this skill or deny the ability to perform or correct actions of their choice. In addition to the mana regeneration penalty the dominant consciousness can use mana up to their Manipulation to temporarily boost this skill, allowing the non-dominant consciousness to perform more complex tasks. Complexity of corrections and actions with additional mana usage that the non-dominant consciousness can perform increases with level. Reduces the additional skill boosting cost with level.*
Oh… my. I guess our situation was way less likely than I imagined. I knew mental magic was rare, at least for mortal species, but to get an achievement of this quality proved the rarity of our situation. Getting an achievement for this was something absolutely massive. They were rare. The vast majority of people never got one in their entire lifetime. Having one would mark you as the best of the best in your field. Some people would get them for spectacular feats of fighting prowess, major discoveries, or doing something nearly impossible. Feats like One in a Million were considered minor since they only gave you a small static bonus to a stat. Moderate achievements would grant a small multiplier to one stat and maybe offer a special skill. Major achievements are those like Titan’s Fall and Two Minds are Better than One.
For major achievements you generally needed to be among the first few people to ever do that specific action. Each time someone gets the achievement it becomes less powerful for anyone that gets it later on. It is believed that achievements that haven’t happened in a long time will regain some of their potency, but they just aren’t common enough to know for certain. That means One in a Million has probably happened several times in the history of this world, and there are people currently walking the planet with the achievement other than me. There might be a few people that have done Two Minds are Better than One, but I know for a fact I’m the first person to ever get Titan’s Fall. At least that is what Mel said, and based on the fact that my starting class was crazy strong I believed her.
I put my musings to the side for now. I should probably tell Alice about this. Then again, if she knew she would demand I take the skill. So, I needed to decide if I was going to take the skill before I talked to her.
Based on the skill description I was confident I could disallow her to use magic even if I gave her some control. However if I wanted her to help me in using my own magic skills I would need to give her more control than I was happy with. I already knew she had learned some way to modify magic skills to make them do more than they were intended. If she was to be believed she could even do magic outside the skill system with what she called rune magic. She said there is a distinction between ritual magic, like the magic that makes crests and is used in enchanting, and her rune magic. They seem more or less the same to me. I also have never heard of rune magic at all and I’ve read a ton of books about this world.
Giving her access to magic was dangerous, but had a significant upside. She could cast spells for me that I couldn’t and modify my skills like the way she modified Radiant Steps during our fight with the basilisk. Magic was also a very complex action so I doubted a level 1 skill would let her do it anyway. Which meant if I trusted her to use magic I would need to spend additional mana for the spell.
Now physical movement, talking, and other basic actions, those were a different story. Was I comfortable with allowing her to walk for me? Could I turn my body over to her while keeping her from casting magic? I shook my head clearing those thoughts. No, those weren’t the important questions. If I wanted us to work together could I possibly keep this from her? Could I continue to force her to choose between being in stasis and being a prisoner if I could help it? The answer to both questions was an emphatic no.
So the real question was: can I walk the walk or was I just all talk? Sharing a body with her was already uncomfortable and would just become more so. This might make it a lot worse or a lot better, but it would absolutely change things majorly. I can see her never wanting to return to stasis if she was constantly allowed to control some aspects of my body.
I didn’t technically need to decide exactly this second. It had already been a day since I got the achievement, so I could think about it a bit more. Yet that thought didn’t feel right either. Even considering procrastinating made me feel terrible. I felt like waiting any amount of time would be a significant breach of Alice’s trust at a very precarious moment in our relationship.
I sighed and stopped meditating, putting my sword to the side. I had already made my choice, and I knew it. I was just equivocating since this decision would mean another major change in my rather tumultuous life. I looked over at the bracelet, and sighed. I was way too tired to deal with Alice right now. I decided I would tell her tomorrow morning.
--------------------
In the morning I sanged the bracelet that now contained Alice. I didn’t keep it on just in case she was lying about it not having magic to slowly take over my mind anymore. I put it on just long enough to use the magical construct that had embedded itself into my mind to bring Alice out of stasis. Then I took it off and stored it away.
Morning already? Alice said the same joke she had yesterday with the image of a grin in my mind. She didn’t experience the passage of time while she was in the stones, to her it was the very next second after I put her into the stones. She still knew when I put her in or pulled her out the stones, apparently it felt similar to the terrible straining sensation when Mel did whatever she did to me.
Indeed it is, and I have something important to share with you. I got out of bed and headed to the bathroom for a bath. As usual I was up before mom, so there wasn’t anyone to greet me.
Oh? She paused with a thoughtful expression. You’ve decided to trust me and give me control of the body? Her tone was sarcastic, but I got the feeling it held more truth than either of us were willing to acknowledge.
Not exactly. I started the bath filling. Amazing enchantments, this magical plumbing. There was a large underground reservoir that was drawn on for the entire manor. The enchantments teleported the water up to the faucet. They could only teleport water, so it was pure H2O, completely purified of any other substances. Then the enchantment heated the water to whatever temperature you indicated. The drain enchantment teleported the water back, so almost all the water went back to the reservoir, except the drain took all the gunk with it. All these enchantments took constant maintenance and potent monster cores so it wasn’t practical for everyone, but they certainly were convenient.
Well? Are you just going to leave me with that? Alice had a bit of annoyance to her thoughts.
Sorry, got distracted. I slipped into the still filling bath letting out a contented sigh. Then I popped up the descriptions of the new achievement and skill so that Alice could read it using my eyes.
Goddesses above. Alice breathed out. It’s perfect… give me control.
Well just immediately demanding control, that wasn’t a good start to this discussion. I haven’t taken the skill yet.
Why not! It’s everything we needed. I demand you take it this instant!
No? Certainly not if you ask like that. I furrowed my brow. How did I know she was going to make this difficult?
What!? After everything I’ve done for you, how could you? She glared at me in my mind.
Everything she’s done? Is she including not imprisoning me with mind control on that list? Maybe she just meant helping with the basilisk? My, someone thinks rather highly of herself.
Alice sent me an annoyed scowl. Don’t treat me like a child.
Don’t act like one. I immediately responded.
A long moment went by. I heard Alice huff in annoyance in my mind. Why have you not taken the skill? She said through gritted teeth still obviously seething.
At least she asked I guess, better than nothing. Ugh, I felt like the mother of a petulant child. Except she was wickedly sharp and had enough knowledge to be truly dangerous. Because I have conditions before I do so.
She sent me the image of an overly showy curtsy. Oh my lady, would you be so kind as to tell your subservient peon the conditions she needs to meet to have even the remotest ounce of freedom?
I groaned rubbing my eyes to try to alleviate the building annoyance. Alice.
She sent me another image of her on her knees. Yes, my lady? She thought with obviously feigned excitement.
You’re being a bitch, stop it. I thought flatly.
She sent me a shocked expression with her hand covering her mouth. Me? Never, I exist at your gracious mercy afterall.
Alright, whatever, I guess if you are so set on proving your immaturity I can’t trust you anyway. I began to bathe rather than continue to converse with the child. For her part she just huffed then went silent in my mind.
Only about 30 minutes later when I finished bathing did Alice finally speak again. Fine! Tell me already! It sounded as if she had actually exploded in anticipation.
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Aren’t you supposed to be the version of me that Halcroft wanted to mingle in Hakan high society? Why am I the courteous one? I thought while getting ready for a day of training. Hair in a bun, a fine tunic and pants, sword at my waist.
Can you blame me? I’m bored! So incredibly bored!
I rolled my eyes, not sure how to respond. I decided it wasn’t worth it and just moved on. So, I’m willing to take this skill, but I want to lay down some ground rules. I thought to her.
What do you have in mind? Alice sounded defeated.
Not just rules for you, rules for both of us. I sent her an annoyed glare. First thing is, we need to decide if we want to tell other people about you. And if so, who. I paused waiting for Alice’s input.
She gave me a skeptical look for a few long seconds before shaking her head. Well, I think we should eventually tell our family. She paused. However, maybe not until after we escape. I know you aren’t mentally compromised, but from the outside we will both seem very suspect.
I understand the impulse and it is why I raised it as a potential point. Sometimes, like right now, talking to Alice felt like just talking to myself. I had the exact same idea when I considered the problem. Alright, so we’ll plan to tell our family after we are safely away from this place.
Agreed. Alice confirmed.
Then, at least for the immediate future, while you control my body you have to pretend to be me. I realize that’s a bit of a silly statement since you mostly are me, but we are different enough that someone that knew us well could easily find out. Alice sent me a nod to confirm my statement. Then onto number two, I will try to give you control of the body for about half our waking hours, if you agree to keep working toward our goal of becoming as powerful as possible before the escape. I began to make my way down to the training yard while we ‘talked’.
Alice rolls her ‘eyes’ at me. I assume if I fail to do so you will just put me back in my prison.
I sat down on my bed and considered exactly how to respond for a moment. No. That was going to be the other part, I will never take control without your permission as long as you agree to do the same if you should ever become our dominant consciousness somehow. Our situation means either one of us is a prisoner in our own body for at least some of the day, so I want to share it as fairly as possible. Even if you don’t behave exactly how I want to. With only the exception for emergencies or if something is personally important to one of the two of us.
Alice sent me a contemplative look, but didn’t say anything, so I kept going. I want to make it clear, I’m doing this because it's the right thing to do. You are a person and deserve some autonomy. I hope in time we can work together seamlessly and we won’t need to track the amount of time each of us controls the body. This next part is really important; I want your cooperation with helping me with my magical skills, but that isn’t something I’m demanding. Even if you don’t help me, as long as you keep to the rules I’m setting for both of us I won’t demand that you help me with fighting and my skills.
Alright… Alice sounded confused more than anything else.
I wasn’t sure what to make of that response, so I just barreled through. Sex and really any romantic physical intamcy is out for both of us for at least the next couple years, we are 12 after all. Alice sent me a blushing nod. Ah how cute. Neither of us should think at each other while someone is actively talking. Not only is it rude, thought communication is also very distracting.
Even after you don’t need to pretend to me anymore, neither of us should sabotage our interpersonal relationships without the agreement of both of us. That means no doing things like streaking naked, speaking gibberish for no reason, attacking people without just cause, and so on. This also includes telling anyone about my past life in any way. If I’m considering telling someone, and I do me and only me, I will consult with you first, but that is my secret. Alice just shrugged at that, she didn’t seem particularly interested in the topic.
Any new rules, and I’m confident there will be some, have to be agreed on by both of us, no tie breaking, no outside interference, we both need to work together. I finished my list of rules, really there weren’t many. Does that all sound reasonable to you?
Alice sent me an image of her stroking her brow while considering. What happens if you or I break the rules?
I shrugged. We don’t have an arbiter to go to, this is all on the honor system. By following these rules I hope we can start to build trust. The punishment is exclusively lost trust, which I hope is just as important to you as it is to me.
You’re serious about this? Alice gave me an incredulous look. You are just going to let me use your body for large portions of the day, no strings attached?
Well. I’m hoping that by treating you nicely you’ll help me. We are very similar people, we can and should be able to work together. If both of us end up on the same page, want to work together, and can trust each other then the benefits of having two consciousnesses will be enormous. All that was true, it was what I wanted from Alice. With the right skills we could eventually become even stronger than we already were.
I see… Alice seemed very skeptical still. I was trying to make my motives as transparent as possible. I wanted us to work together, but despite the fact that I held most of the power in this situation I still couldn’t force her to help me. That meant trust needed to be established.
I understand and accept your conditions. However, we must make it a goal to eventually give me true freedom. What you propose is fair but only in the sense that it harms us equally. Alice seemed much more composed now.
I agree. We will find a better solution in time, but for now… I trailed off, not sure what to add that won’t just make us more depressed.
For now, we just have to work together. Alice finished for me.
I smiled, for all her antagonizing earlier she actually seemed to be coming around to not being annoying all the time.
I ducked around a corner just outside the training yard. I opened up my system and assigned Dual Consciousness to one of my two open skill slots. Nothing changed immediately. I held my right arm out then consciously thought about giving Alice control of it. Still nothing. Did it work? I asked.
My right hand moved without me doing it. It freaked me out and I recoiled, clenching it. Once I relaxed a bit the arm began to move on its own again. I gripped the hand, but Alice opened it. We were both controlling the arm at the same time. I clenched the hand and kept thinking about clenching it. Can you open the right hand now?
Hmm, no, I can’t move it at all, but I can- My right arm flapped up and down even while my fist remained clenched. -still control the rest of the arm.
I think I can still supersede your control if I concentrate. I tried something else, I consciously thought about restricting Alice’s ability to use magic then gave her control of my body entirely. I continued to stand there. Alright I gave you control over the entire body, go ahead and do what you want.
I did my absolute best to not stop her as my body began to walk around the corridor without my input. “I… I can move again?” Alice said in wonder, using my mouth. I felt tears begin to form at the corner of my eyes despite my not feeling particularly happy or sad.
All of this felt very odd to me. My mouth moving without me intending it, talking suddenly. It was all deeply spooky. However in another way it all felt somewhat natural. It wasn’t like my arms were moving against my will, but instead they were moving without me consciously thinking about it. It still felt like I was the one moving my body. Like when you find yourself tapping along to a song without realizing you were doing it.
“Should we go out to the training yard to start figuring this all out?” I asked out loud.
My body startled. “You can still talk?” Alice said before she shook our head. “No, of course you can. You could still control the right hand.”
Best not to talk out loud between the two of us. We’ll sound like a crazy person. Though, yeah I still have ultimate control. I thought to her.
Right… Then yeah let’s go down to train with this. I turned to leave the hallway, this time I couldn’t tell if I was doing it or Alice was. Am I doing this or you? I asked, bewildered by the feeling that my actions were both my own and not at the same time.
I… I can’t tell either, this is unsettling. I felt a shiver run down my spine.
We came to a split in the path and we could go in either direction. Hold up. I thought and we stopped. Go left, but I’ll think about going right.
Our head nodded and I could somehow tell Alice understood what I was driving at. She, and this time I knew it was her and not me, walked to the left. I concentrated on wanting to go right without overruling control of the body. Now as we walked I could tell it wasn’t me doing it. The walking felt wrong, like my body was moving without my control.
I gave up the idea of heading to the right and just thought about continuing along this path. As my thinking shifted the walking became natural again and I could no longer tell if it was me doing it or Alice. We were walking, it wasn’t just her or just me.
While our intentions matched everything felt natural, like we were both in control of the body. While they contradicted whoever wasn’t controlling the body felt like a passenger. I relayed this new information to Alice.
Then… do we even need to split time? Alice asked.
That was a good point. If we were on the same page everything was fine, but if our interests diverged it would become a problem. I think we do, but not in half. I think instead we each have a certain amount of the day where we get to pursue interests the other doesn’t care as much about or isn’t knowledgeable enough to keep up with.
Alice nodded our head, somehow signaling both of our agreement with my statement. Goddess this was trippy. So get time to work on healing and I get time to study magic that could potentially fix our situation.
We shrugged. That makes sense to me. But… I’m not sure if you can even perform magic or if I can allow you to if you can. We can study though.
At some point you’ll have to trust me with magic. If I’m the mage and you’re the scientist then you have to loosen your grip eventually. Alice thought.
We sighed. I know, let’s just work on becoming powerful for now. I’ll consider our situation again after we escape. I can’t take the risk you are… I trailed off not wanting to say it.
We scoffed, putting our hand to our mouth. That action felt natural to me, but at the same time I knew it was more of an Alice thing to do than me. Worried I’m still loyal to Halcroft? That really stings. I can’t believe you think I would want to work for him.
You might not want to do it right now, it might even feel anathema. However with mental magic involved is there any way to know for certain? I asked somewhat seriously. I would study our condition, but I doubted I could understand it quickly enough to allow me to give her control of magic in the near future.
I take your point. Just being able to move around is enough for now, we’ll just have to come back to magic later I guess. Alice was actually being really mature about this. To some extent that actually raised my suspicions.
We arrived on the training grounds to see several of the guards already well into their morning training routines. I spied Riza and Penelope sparring together. Penelope lunged forward, trying to catch her opponent, but Riza easily parried each strike. For her part Penelope was very good at recovering from parries normally. Each time her spear was pushed to the side she would either spin with the motion flipping the spear around her waist lightning fast, or back away setting the spear to thwart any follow up attack.
Penelope was using all her skills, even active ones, but Riza was using pure sword skill. I saw Penelope activate her strongest attacking skill Pulse Strike. A halo of water surrounded her spear haft where her hands were on the wood. Then the water circle would split and spiral up the spear somehow carrying it forward with it accelerating the lunge. When the water got the spearhead it would surround it slightly increasing the piercing power.
Performed with perfect timing it was a powerful active skill that increased offensive output and speed all at once. However, if the timing was off Penelope could easily overcommit leaving her defenseless.
This training with Riza was designed to alleviate that weakness. Penelope would lunge over and over again, sometimes with the skill, and sometimes without, then recover so Riza didn’t have time to counter.
Alice walked over to the nearest training dummy and drew our sword. She took a few overhead practice swings. Her form was… terrible. Everytime she swung it came out jerky and awkward. What’s going on? She thought.
I didn’t have any intent to swing the sword. I tried to imagine myself training sword swings. Try again. This time the practice swings were perfect exactly like normal. I think using the Sukeshi is too complex for our skill to handle without my fueling mana into it. You can walk and talk without a problem, but anything more and I’ll need to supply mana.
*Dual Consciousness has leveled up, level 2.*
Oh! Try again now that the skill has advanced a level, let’s see if it made a difference. I removed my intent and Alice kept swinging the sword. Without my intent the movements became jerky, but her grip was just a tiny bit firmer. I would need more data points but I imagined it would take many many more levels before she could use my sword as well as I could. Blah the limitations of the skill are pretty significant.
Yeah. We sighed, both annoyed with this outcome.
I accessed the skill and tried to make it take as much mana as if needed to let Alice use my full sword skill without my having to help her. 185 mana dropped from my mana pool. Alright give another try.
We nodded, Alice understood what I was trying without having to ask. Once again she started taking practice swings, now as smooth and powerful as I was usually. Well that certainly works, but it was expensive. Alice wasn’t wrong, the effects would last a minute. Fortunately, upkeeping the skill to extend the duration by a minute only cost 19 mana so I could keep it going for a long time.
With more levels the cost will come down in both directions. You’ll have innate access to more complex actions meaning I won’t have to spend as much to increase the complexity of the actions you can take. Additionally increasing the complexity of your actions will cost less with each level. Keep going for now, I want to get one more level in the skill and see how much the mana cost is reduced. It took another few minutes of Alice training for the skill to advance again.
*Dual Consciousness has leveled up, level 3.*
Alright stop. I thought, removing the effect of the dual consciousness skill. We walked over taking a towel to wipe away some sweat while we waited for a minute. I activated the skill again with the same parameters and my mana pool only dropped by 180. A 5 point difference might not seem like a lot, but if the trend continued 20 levels would make this pretty cheap.
*Level up. Elven Adolescent level 19. You gain 2 free stats, 1 physical stat, and 1 mental stat.*
*Identify has leveled up, level 19.*
*Training has leveled up, level 19.*
*Noble has leveled up, level 19.*
*Dodging has leveled up, level 19.*
A species level? I just gained two a couple days ago. Why was I getting another one so soon? I certainly wasn’t complaining but it was just really strange. Maybe I was on the cusp of getting this level.
We continued to train working on the intricacies of the skill. I didn’t let Alice cast any magic skills, but we started to work on using two minds during battle. It would take us some time to learn to fight together, but since the skill smoothed out the rough edges of having two people controlling a body it was significantly easier than it could have been.
Without this skill I’m confident it would take hundreds of hours of training to learn how to fight this way. With it I believe our reaction speed and combat effectiveness might already be greater than it is when I am fighting alone. Although that tiny benefit is not currently worth the steep cost of the skill.
If we were each able to do what we do best, my sword fighting and Alice’s magic, I think it might actually be worth the cost. However I just can’t bring myself to trust her yet. If I was confident I could deny her access to just mental magic I might try. I might be able to curtail how much Magic she can use with her magic, then she wouldn’t be able to overcome my magic resistance. That of course relied on the theory that the system thought Alice casting a spell on me wasn’t really just me casting a spell on myself.
Suffice to say there was a lot to work out with this strange new skill.
*Dual Consciousness has leveled up, level 5.*