Jiran was having a slow day. Few people passed in or out the eastern gate, leaving him little to do. He was grateful for the pre-winter chill making his plate armor more habitable. He kept his watch, resting his hand on the hilt of his sword and leaving his round-shield hanging at his side. The midday sun cast an even glow over the grassland before him. The eastern gate was his favorite post because of this; it was easy to spot anyone approaching from a long ways off, making it a low-effort assignment. Few monsters and beasts lived in the grasses as well. Overall, a guardsman stationed here would have little to do but take note of people going and briefly question people coming.
Unless they heard screaming.
A blood-curdling wail echoed faintly across the open field, jolting Jiran to full attention.
“Samuel! Go alert the barracks. Have a patrol sent down the road, someone’s been attacked.”
“On it!” His companion on the opposite side of the gateway took off at a sprint.
Roughly ten minutes later, a squad of fully armored men marched up to the gate asked him if there had been any developments; there hadn’t. So they kept marching, leaving the cobbled streets of the city for the lone dirt road leading east. And Jiran just stayed at the gate. Watching, and waiting. Listening for the sound of screaming. Samuel had resumed his post.
“D’you think it’s that shrieker they heard last night?”
“No, Sam. Shriekers are nocturnal. Most monsters that make a man scream like that are.”
“Yeah, but new breeds surface from time to time, right? Could be a new kind of shrieker.”
“If so,” he sighed, “here’s hoping the adventurers kill it before it can breed.”
Silence fell over the gate for a while after that. Then, as the sunlight was yellowing, signaling the transition to evening, the patrol returned. The leader shook his head at Jiran. Just like the patrols that scoured the fields last night, they had found nothing. There were no monsters prowling, no bandits harassing passerby, and no bodies to be found. It had only happened twice now, but it was a worrying trend. Whether it was a man or a monster, anything that made its victims scream like that without leaving any evidence to speak of would spread bad rumors about the roads around Fellgrave. Then they’d see fewer merchant caravans passing by on their routes, which would hurt the town’s businesses in the long run.
As he was considering the recent developments, motion caught his periphery.
But when Jiran turned to look, there was nothing to see except Samuel across from him.
----------------------------------------
Cain walked invisibly through the streets of Fellgrave, using Self-Awareness to avoid bumping into strangers. It was a small boon that some creative use of his light and dark magic together let him reduce his presence to a transparent shiver in the air. He didn’t feel like answering questions about how he got that hole in his cuirass or why there was blood on his gloves. He was just going to go back to his room and practice his magic until it got dark. Then he would sleep.
[ Ethereal Attribute Increased : Obscurity ]
(Current Value: 6 -> 7)
A persistent itch told him there were more notifications waiting to be processed from the fight, but Cain was learning how to control when they appeared. He continued westward, anxious to arrive back at the Adventurer’s Guild so he could rest. The walk passed him by uneventfully, and within a few minutes a silver compass rose had drawn his eye. He passed through the propped-open doors, and the sounds of adventurers newly recovered from their hangovers washed over him. He slipped past anyone who moved between him and the stairway at the back of the room.
He dodged a green-vested employee and walked as quickly as he could up the stairs without stomping every step of the way. He blurred through the hallways, took the second set of stairs, navigated the lounge, and kept walking until he found the room labeled ‘36.’ Cain stopped in front of the door, breathing heavily. Spots floated across his vision, and his heart raced uncontrollably. He hadn’t been able to shake a feeling of paranoia since entering the city, as if the walls knew what he’d done.
With a trembling hand, he knocked softly on the door.
‘Is that you knocking?’
‘Yes.’
Footsteps approached the door from the other side, before a heavy click saw it swing open. Cain walked past a confused Magira and darted into the bathroom, where he finally dropped his spell. A silent pressure that had been building in his head abated.
“Cain? How are you feeling?” Once she spotted him, Magira closed the door and walked over to where he was leaned over the sink.
Cain’s heartbeat began to slow.
“Hey, talk to me.”
His ears rang softly.
“Cain?”
“This… was necessary, right?”
“Of course it was,” she said. “You have to look out for yourself. That’s just… how things are sometimes.”
“Okay…” Cain took off his gloves and dropped them in the wooden basin of the sink. Breathe in, breathe out. “Alright.”
“Do you… need anything?”
“Nothing at the moment… I’m just going to clean up and then get some rest.”
“Okay. Your sandwich is still on the bed, by the way.”
“Thanks.”
He pressed two fingers to an etched copper plate on the back of the sink. When he pushed mana into the runes there, it began pouring out cool water. He dipped his hands into the basin. The water was cold to him as it began clouding with blood, but the cold was only skin deep, as though a steady pyre still gnawed at him from within. This… was necessary. If the path to hell was paved with good intentions, the staircase to heaven was built on the backs of the damned. Fernald was evil; it was that simple. Bad people would try to stop him. Bad people had to be killed. It was necessary. It was how he would make the world a better place.
Cain shook the water from his hands, and saw that they were clean.
He opened the sink’s drain and left his gloves there to dry. He cast off his cloak and set it down on the countertop adjacent the sink, and then began to remove the leather cuirass that now sported a charred hole through the gut. After a minute of fumbling with the buckles, it came loose and he set it down atop his cloak. Cain looked in the mirror, and two fiery brown eyes looked back. Then they looked at the similarly charred hole in his shirt. He stripped himself of the rough cloth, and set that down atop his armor. Now when he looked in the mirror, his eyes fell upon a new scar. Faint white lines spiraled out from where the blast of lightning had struck him, forming an almost fern-like pattern across his abdomen. Cain mused that if he collected any more exotic scars he could join a circus routine. A portion of his hands had been permanently blackened by his own magic, numerous burns covered his back and forearms, and now he had a… what was it called? Lichenburg scar?
Yeesh. And this is only… the evening of my third day here, right?
Looking in his reflection, Cain considered for the first time that he’d seen more debilitating — or rather, what should’ve been debilitating injuries — in his three days here than his entire life on Earth. Things like that can traumatise a person so badly at times that they lose the capacity to function independently. Now, here he was, feeling… fine. Why is that? That level of emotional impermanence was concerning to him. Just minutes ago he’d felt like a target was drawn upon his head, and all it took was a small amount of reassurance and reflection to return to normalcy. Since when had he been this… resilient? That felt like the wrong word.
It’s efficient, said part of him. Emotions that serve no purpose other than to weigh you down are best discarded.
Yes, said another part, but that weight also keeps you grounded. If you’re too quick to discard these things, you’ll lose yourself.
Cain pondered that for a moment… but found he no longer cared. He had already discarded it. What was gone was gone forever. He was gone forever from Earth. Fernald was gone forever from wherever he was now. Everything was temporary. Himself, Fernald, life, death, and pain. It would all stop someday. If pain was temporary, there was no reason for him to allow it to hinder him. He would live as he saw fit, and he would not be burdened by the temporary and unnecessary.
“Are you okay? It felt like something was wrong.” Magira poked her head around the bathroom door. It looked rather comical with her ears.
“I’m fine,” Cain answered. “Just reflecting.”
“You sure?” Asked his temporary companion.
“Positive.” He smiled an unnecessary smile.
“Alright, if you say so…”
Cain turned back to the mirror, and this time looked at his face. His lips lay in a resting frown, and his eyebrows hung low over his eyes, casting a shadow over the already dark bags beneath them. Semi-short brown hair hung over his forehead. Dark brown eyes glared at him as though to call him unnecessary. They were right. Nothing he did was necessary, and everything he did was temporary. He looked at his hands, and saw they were clean. He looked beneath them and saw a sunset.
The reason it’s so beautiful is because it only lasts a little while.
It was necessary for beauty to be temporary. Beauty itself was unnecessary. Cain still enjoyed looking at beautiful things, though. Necessary… is subjective. Only he decided what was and wasn’t necessary to him. Bad and evil people were unnecessary. Beauty was necessary. Life was undecided. Death was necessary in pursuit of beauty. Life is a necessary prerequisite of death. Life… is necessary. Cain wanted to live, and create a beautiful world. An invisible cog seemed to click and snap into place in his mind. The pyre warmed his skin, but it was no longer skin deep. This time, it burned him from within, seeming determined to break through his shell and spread the world over. Cain smiled an easy, natural smile at himself. His eyes looked into his own as if to say they were proud of him. The crackling sunset could be seen burning away at his flesh on the other side. Every moment, it came closer to fruition.
That fire will only burn away at you, said a part of him. And then it will disappear forever.
You’re not real, he replied. Go back to your imaginary corner and die. I don’t need you to tell me what I can’t have.
I kept you alive for seventeen years. You need me, even if you don’t want me.
You mean you only kept me alive for seventeen years. I don’t need a coping mechanism that doesn’t work.
That part of him became quiet, and stopped breathing. A restrictive weight seemed to lift from him. Cain felt as if his senses were ‘fuller’ now; his eyes simply saw more than they had before. Despite his fatigued body and mind, he felt refreshed. He took that as a sign to stop thinking too hard about things before he ruined his own mood again. He would need a distraction, just to be safe. It wasn’t overly difficult to find one. I thought those were supposed to be self-repairing… how do the enchantments work? He gazed at the pile of damaged garments atop the bathroom counter. His shirt, cuirass, and cloak were all in suffering from various degrees of wear-and-tear — particularly tear, in this case. He picked up his shirt from the top of the pile and inspected it.
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The charred hole in the gut wasn’t anything new, so he ignored it. He focused on his mana sight, reasoning that it would be the most useful tool for figuring out how the enchantments worked. Faint lines came into view, tracing symmetrical patterns through the threads. The pattern converged on a point in the back of the shirt, where the mana was formed more densely. Looking down the neck of the shirt revealed it to be… a tag. A tag with runes on it. This… is the most hilarious thing I’ve seen all day. Cain couldn’t quite place why, but medieval societies putting tags on clothing to hold enchantments amused him to no end. Now if my previous experiences with runes is anything to go on… I should just push some mana into the tag, right? A quick experiment showed Cain had been right. Pitch-black char flaked off of the damaged threads, and pristine ones seemed to sprout from the severed stumps of their predecessors. Before long, the shirt looked factory-new.
Cain gladly equipped the fresh shirt, and felt a familiar comfort upon being fully clothed again. He picked up the leather armor next, though he didn’t bother inspecting it with his mana sight. He just checked the likeliest places for a tag — and, sure enough, found one tucked under a shoulder pad. He pushed more of his mana into the piece of cloth. The leather began mending itself similarly to how the shirt’s fabric had, but was notably slower. It took more mana to fully repair, causing a slight throbbing in his head, but it was better to do it now than later. He set it back down on the opposite side of the sink and repeated the process with his cloak. It was even slower than the armor, despite being less damaged, but otherwise went smoothly.
Sighing from the mental exertion of manipulating his mana, Cain threw on the cloak. There was no reason to wear it anymore, but he found he liked its weight. Now… what else can I do with my evening? Anything that required going outside was off the table. He would be very limited in anything that required using his magic; even if he had sufficient mana for it, throwing spells so rapidly earlier had taken a toll. He expected his channeling attribute to have increased some from the fight. Oh, right. His notifications were still waiting to be acknowledged — though, just thinking about them threatened to prematurely assault him with information.
Cain removed his boots, and decided to leave them in the bathroom for now. He picked up his gloves, shook some water off of them, and set them on top of his armor. He then picked up the bulky leathers and carried them into the main room, where he set them down next to the desk that was laden with Magira’s set. She was in her plain set of clothes and cloak, looking out the window and onto the street below. Cain decided to just sit down on the bed, making sure to leave plenty of room in case Magira decided to do the same. He almost sat on the brown paper package still sitting there from earlier, but moved it out of the way at the last second. Exhaling, he braced himself for the inevitable flood of messages that would appear momentarily.
…
[ Ethereal Attribute Manifested : Scrutiny ]
Affects the entity’s ability to discern truth and glean insight on foreign entities. Counteracts the effects of a foreign entity’s obscurity attribute, except for the purposes of skills. (Current Value: 2)
[ Body Attribute Increased : Resilience ]
(Current Value: 7 -> 10)
[ Body Attribute Manifested : Strength ]
Increases the maximum potential acting force of an entity’s body parts, and increases durability as necessary to allow the entity to withstand this effect. (Current Value: 3)
[ Skill Manifested : Efficient Reabsorption (Lesser) ]
The entity’s ability to retain and reabsorb water is somewhat heightened. Blood replenishment and regulation are more efficient. Effects scale slightly with constitution and the entity’s water aspect. (1 SL)
[ Ethereal Attribute Increased : Channeling ]
(Current Value: 9 -> 13)
[ Skill Refined : Adrenaline High (Lesser -> Middling) ]
Increases all body attributes in proportion with the amount of adrenaline currently in the entity’s bloodstream. Effect scales with the severity of the entity’s injuries, if they are wounded. Slightly increases the effects of adrenaline on the entity. (2 SL)
[ Mixed Skill Refined : Mana Control (Lesser, III -> IV) ]
(2) more ranks until (Middling, I).
[ Body Attribute Increased : Resilience ]
(Current Value: 10 -> 19)
[ Skill Manifested : Shock Absorption (Lesser) ]
Allows the entity to distribute the force of physical impacts and electrical discharges more evenly across their body. Slightly decreases the conductivity of the entity’s skin and related secretions. Slightly increases the maximum potential pressure threshold of the entity’s flesh, reducing the impact of blunt-force trauma. Effects scale with resilience. (1 SL)
[ Objective Complete : “The Archer and the Outsider” ]
The entity has brutally slain entity Fernald Cobbins, one of the adventurers responsible for escorting them to safety previously.
Cain resigned himself to having a headache for the rest of the evening. As he sifted through the pile of words floating around his brain, he began picking out the more important details. Two new skills, two new attributes, one skill refinement, and several attribute increases. Oh, and he also improved his mana control. He largely ignored the objective, as it seemed more like an attempt to guilt trip him than to actually provide any useful information. That was curious, since he didn’t get the impression that the Manifestation of Order had been paying attention to him specifically — even the tidbit about Progenitor skills had seemed impersonal — but it was perfectly possible that his own thoughts were influencing the objectives, and the ‘flavor text’ was simply a reflection of that.
Cain turned his focus to the new skills. Efficient Reabsorption just seemed like a blanket improvement to one aspect of his body’s function, which was welcome, but not something he felt strongly about. If he thought of it as a game, this would be one of the quality-of-life features. More interesting was Shock Absorption. He immediately saw the use of distributing damage across his body; he’d rather have a mild sunburn all over than have a severe burn wound just about anywhere. Cain also appreciated that the skill gave him both potential uses implied by the name: protection against electrical injury, and protection against heavy impacts. The likeliest reason he’d manifested the skill was getting hit by that huge blast of lightning, and the order the notifications came in reinforced that idea, but he saw no reason it should have needed to give him protection against physical blows as well. It was just like Self-Awareness in that respect; having a minor existential crisis had given him a skill that sharpened his bodily senses. There was next to no correlation between the two, just as there was little correlation between how he’d acquired Shock Absorption and its actual shock absorption effect. The only thing that linked them was the name itself.
[ Tidbit Unlocked : Terms & Conditions ]
The Manifestation of Order seeks to ease the classification of living things by attaching fractions of itself to the souls of entities. However, because these souls are descendants of the fragments of the Manifestation of Will, they have inherited a degree of its power. Because of this, they are capable of resisting the Manifestation of Order’s mission to classify them. To discourage this behavior, the Manifestation of Order offers several benefits to using their system. One such benefit is allowing the entity access to their own information in as much detail as they are capable of comprehending. Other benefits include the Skill Level Interface, the Classification System, Tidbits, Objectives, and the enhancement of Skill effects, as well as removal of some negative side-effects.
Cain chuckled internally; he knew there was a reason people didn’t mind a cosmic being living rent-free in their heads. That was because it was paying rent, in the form of the tools he’d been using to navigate his new world so far. He also just found amusement in the tidbit that delivered him this information being labeled ‘Terms & Conditions.’ It fit perfectly for a pseudo-god data-mining enough information from him to make the tech giants back on Earth have a stroke. He almost didn’t want to think about them by name, for fear of being sent a cease-and-desist notice.
“Did something good happen?”
“Yeah, I just unlocked a tidbit that made this all make a lot more sense…”
“What about?” She turned her head towards him.
“Well,” Cain said, “you know how the Manifestation of Order just sort of… attaches itself to people here?”
“Of course,” answered Magira, “it’s one of the Seven Primordial Concepts. What, does Earth not have Order?”
“Nope. We don’t have these ‘Manifestations’ you guys have, just like we don’t have mana or magic. Also, remind me to ask about the other six later.”
“Right, you’d probably like to know about those.”
“Yeah, thanks. So, as someone who hasn’t grown up with Order living in my head, I wasn’t quite sure why people would be okay with such a severe invasion of their privacy. Just now I got a tidbit called ‘Terms and Conditions.’”
“Does that one talk about the stuff Order does in exchange for classifying us?”
“Exactly,” Cain snapped. “It makes so much more sense to me that the reason everyone keeps it around is because it gives us all this. The skills, objectives, everything. In fact, as I’ve just demonstrated, the tidbits have been my main way of learning about the world since getting here.”
“I can see why that’d be good to know,” said Magira. “Someone having absolute power over you is bad on its own. If you don’t know their motives, it’s even worse. I got the same tidbit when I was a kid, and my parents were explaining Order to me.”
Cain nodded. “It’s terrifying to have so much power over you be in the hands of something that doesn’t actually care about you. Even without slavery, that was something of an omnipresent feeling where I grew up on Earth. A lot of state officials were in the pockets of massive companies that only cared about making more money, even when it actively hurt people. Worse, there was no real way to be certain who was and wasn’t being bought off.”
Magira blinked. “I figured you’d be more sympathetic than most humans, but… I didn’t expect you to actually relate to me on something like this.”
“I’m full of surprises,” Cain smiled. “Stick around, I’m sure I’ve got some more tricks up my sleeve yet.”
“I’ll hold you to that.” Magira smiled back at him. After a moment though, it faded, being replaced with an expression of concern. “Are you… feeling better now, though? I don’t know much about Earth, but it didn’t sound like… you were used to killing people.”
Cain’s own expression sobered appropriately. “Yeah. I’m doing a lot better than when I got back, at least. You’re right, I’ve never had to kill someone before today, but if I’m going to accomplish anything I need to be able to handle that. Thanks, by the way. You helped me calm down a lot.”
“I… did?” Magira tilted her head, just to emphasize her confusion.
“Yes. You interrupted me when there was something wrong, and that helped me keep my thoughts from going down a darker route.”
“What do you…” Her eyes widened. “Oh… wait. Hey. Wait, you said there wasn’t anything wrong! Why did you lie to me?”
“It was quicker, and I needed to reflect on what happened to be able to get any sleep tonight. If I’d gotten distracted and wound up in a full conversation with you, I would’ve just been laying awake thinking about it all night in the dark.”
“Oh…” Magira deflated slightly, her indignation at being lied to escaping her. “Well, that makes sense, but please don’t lie to me about important stuff. I was just trying to make sure you were okay.”
“I know, and I appreciate you doing so. As I said, it was very helpful. And I promise I won’t lie about important things unless it’s a necessary measure. In this case, I lied as a temporary measure to buy myself time to think, and not out of any desire to actually hide things from you.” He paused, for effect. “I mean, come on. You can hear my thoughts. I’m not dumb enough to genuinely try to hide something from you.”
“Alright,” Magira nodded. “Thank you. Although, speaking of the telepathic link… you haven’t really been using it much, have you?”
It was Cain’s turn to tilt his head. “How so?”
“Well, you respond when I talk to you, but there was only one time when I was just thinking to myself that you actually seemed to hear and react to my thoughts, and that was while you were out shopping. Have you not been trying to listen to what I’ve been thinking at all? It feels like I know a lot more about you now than you know about me.”
“I… can listen? As in, I can just… focus harder and hear more of your thoughts?”
Magira nodded more slowly. “Yes… did you not know?”
“No… I just thought I could talk to you from a distance and hear when you were talking to me. I knew that I could hear some of your thoughts not directed at me, and that the same applied to you, but not that I could increase the effect.”
“That… makes more sense.”
“Are you okay with me doing that, though? It seems like a breach of privacy. More so than the link already is, I mean.”
Magira scoffed at him. “Cain, I’ve been shamelessly spying on your thoughts this entire time. Whenever I had the focus to look into your head, I have been. It’s how I’ve been passing the time in here. I’d feel bad if you didn’t return the favor.”
“You’ve got every reason to distrust me,” Cain retorted. “I’ve got no such problem with you. You’re perfectly justified in spying on me.”
“Still. Just use the damn link, it’d be a waste of money otherwise.” She shook her head at him. “Seriously. I understand not wanting to be invasive, but you already own me. And besides, if we’re going to be working together from now on, it’s best we both know each other. Am I wrong?”
Cain couldn’t really argue with any of her points, though he still felt the urge to contest that he owned her. “Alright, you win Magira. Peeking into your head would also help me learn about your world. But again, you’re free to do what you want. I may own you, but I don’t intend to treat you like property.”
“Cain, I’m not expecting you to treat me like property anymore.” She put up her hands in a placating gesture. “The fact that I am your property is just a fact we both have to deal with, though. Besides, I am doing what I want. I decided to tag along with you of my own free will, remember?”
Cain deflated a bit, realizing he hadn’t needed to react so strongly. “I remember. I just want to make sure, is all. Owning a slave as someone who’s opposed to slavery could get hard to justify to myself very easily.”
She sat on the opposite end of the bed, facing him. “Yeah, I know. It was one of the highest on my list of reasons not to trust you.”
Cain nodded in acknowledgement, and silence fell over the pair of them. It wasn’t long before the lack of stimulation began to get under Cain’s skin. Now that the conversation was over, he was out of things to do again. He still didn’t want to leave the room, and using too much magic would still cause the tension in his head to worsen to a migraine if he wasn’t careful. He had already absorbed most of the important information from his notifications, and he didn’t want to risk damaging his current mental state by dwelling on the events of earlier that day. The silence was starting to feel awkward, too.
“Hey, Magira…”
“Yeah?”
“Do you want me to teach you how to improve your core the way I’ve been doing?”
“Are you okay with doing it now? It sounded like you wanted to save it for later.”
“That was then. This is now. And right now, I feel like my head is liable to explode if I screw around with my own mana too much. I also have nothing to do at the moment, so… how about it?”
Magira thought for a moment, then nodded. “Alright, let’s do it.”