> Time Mana Crystallization
>
> attempt 1 — turned into sand. slipped out from between my fingers. vanished. failure
>
> attempt 2 — clumped up into a wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey sphere of something. very confusing. failure
>
> attempt 3 — I have baby hands. failure
>
> attempt 4 — more sand. accidentally inhaled some and saw myself die. failure
>
> attempt 5 — aged the table to dust, have to buy a new one now. failure
>
> Conclusion: I fucking hate this job. Fuck you. I quit.
— Excerpt from an unidentified Time Mage’s research notes, found in a time capsule in a farmer’s attic.
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All of the superhero movies and the sci-fi shows that had telepathic characters or technology that enabled them failed to pay proper respects to one crucial detail of telepathy. And that would be how incredibly weird it feels. Cain could give himself a headache trying to find the words to describe it. It was as if another person’s thoughts were just rubbing up against his. It even allowed him a surface-level look at Magira’s thoughts and feelings. First, her intense disdain for him. Followed by skepticism and confusion when she saw what he was thinking. He could feel her noticing the relief that washed over him when they were finally able to leave the enchanter’s workshop, which also happened to be where the other slaves were kept and processed. The auctioneer had tried to sell him several on the way in, much to his disgust. Her confusion mounted as Cain thought up increasingly colorful names for the human waste he’d just had the pleasure of interacting with.
‘Um… could you maybe… explain what’s happening to me?’
‘Oh, uh, sure. By the way, I’m Cain. Nice to meet you, Magira.’
‘Uh, yeah… you too, I guess. So… explain?’
‘Right. The short version is, I’m a dead person from a world called Earth and I have no clue where I am but slavery was illegal where I grew up and I view it as an affront against all things good. I basically only bought you and got those extra runes to learn more about how it works since we didn’t have any magic on Earth, and I also wanted to ask if maybe you wanted to help me start a war of liberation at some point. Make more sense now?’
‘Not really, no. But I do understand the dead person bit, the souls from Earth in particular tend to get a lot of attention.’
‘Cool. Let’s just get someplace we can talk in private, having you speak into my head feels really fucking weird.’
‘Agreed. I want a better explanation once we get there.’
Cain didn’t bother voicing his agreement, figuring it would probably still come through without him consciously relaying it to Magira. For now, he just tried to focus on keeping that weird sensation as far to the back of his thoughts as possible as they walked calmly down the street. If the notifications from Order were an itch at the back of his head, this was a constant tug behind his eyeballs in Magira’s general direction. He was constantly aware that she was right there in the back of his mind, able to see just enough of his thoughts to make him uncomfortable. He could already tell that this would make so many things so much more awkward.
The number of people walking the streets was steadily thinning now as the paved road was cast in a red glow. Merry chatter could be heard from the doors of what Cain assumed to be a bar of some sort. He paused at a stall selling what looked like chicken skewers that featured baby tomatoes and slices of some sort of tuber. He could both hear and feel Magira’s stomach growl at the scent of the cooked meat, and remembered ruefully that the only coins he had with him were silver. He was a few denominations off what one would expect a food stall to charge. Disappointment leaked through the link and was quickly pushed away somewhere Cain couldn’t see.
‘Don’t worry, I should be able to get something for you to eat at the Adventurer’s Guild. If not, you can wait in my room while I find someone to break a silver.’
Magira didn’t acknowledge him.
He continued down the street towards the guild building, carefully watching his pace and body language to avoid looking distressed or agitated. It may have been slightly paranoid now that there weren’t any slave traders close enough for Self-Awareness to make him aware of their every move, but Cain figured it was better to be safe than sorry in a situation with so many unknowns — which was little more than a fancy way for him to describe his present anxiety. Every sideways glance in his direction was like a warm ray of sunlight, minus the pleasant connotation. Each pair of eyes was a prickling warmth on his skin, making the hairs on his arms and neck all stand on end. Oddly, he felt relieved when they reached the Adventurer’s Guild and stepped through the door.
The cluttered lobby had turned claustrophobic while he’d been away, and the ruckus was even louder now that the adventurers had even more alcohol in them, but nobody paid Cain and Magira any mind. They were all too drunk and too happy to care about some unremarkable face they didn’t recognize. Being constantly enclosed in moving, talking bodies was rather overstimulating, but he much preferred annoyance to anxiety. A clearing in the center of the room caught his attention as he approached it, and when he got closer he realized what it was. An enormous pot sat atop a crackling fire, with bowls stacked shoulder-high to one side and kitchen staff tossing in ingredients to the other. Two attendants that had been working the kiosks on the left side of the room earlier were filling bowls and handing them out to the crowd. Cain identified a loosely organized queue and made to join it, stopping for a moment to check that Magira was still behind him.
Eventually he found himself at the front. “Two bowls, please.”
“One moment,” said the harassed-sounding lady. “Here, that’s four bronze.”
“It’s on Simon Wells,” said Cain as he walked off.
He began wading through the crowd once more, a bowl in each hand, headed for the general direction of the front desk. Raucous laughter and off-key singing surrounded him. Soup bowls were discarded on the floor, several chairs were knocked over, and everyone was having a grand old time. And it will be even grander once I get up those stairs. Finally managing to break through the congested mass of humans, Cain practically hugged the front desk as he walked around to the back area where the ascension would commence. He made it to the bottom, began climbing, and felt like crying tears of joy as the festivities slowly grew quieter beneath him. He took a right at the end of the hallway, proceeded all the way to the end, and went up a second flight of stairs. The all-consuming din was now little more than a merry hum beneath his feet. Several exhausted-looking employees were lounging in the lounge, and a couple were playing chess at a stout coffee table in the corner of the room. Cain simply ignored the curious stares he received and walked under the open arch, down more hallway, handed Magira one of the soup bowls, and finally opened the doorway marked ‘36.’ Magira closed the door behind her, and blessed silence graced Cain’s ears.
“So,” interrupted Magira. “Can you explain now?”
“Ah, right, of course.” Cain scratched his neck with his free hand. “You go ahead and get started eating and I’ll start trying to explain things as best I can. I can’t promise I’ll make any sense, though.”
“… Okay.” She walked over to the desk and seated herself before indulging her hunger, taking greedy gulps of the watery-looking soup.
Cain made his way to the bed and sat down facing Magira. A gray, fur-covered ear twitched and folded back to face him. He hadn’t noticed those before; they blended in with her matte black hair and he may have been slightly distracted earlier.
“I should probably begin with the story of my first day here. You said you understood the dead person part, so I’ll just skip the bit about dying and ask you about that later.” Magira mentally urged him to continue, still inhaling soup.
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
“I woke up at the edge of a grassland next to a forest, either mid-morning or mid-day, one of those two, buck-naked with no clue what was happening. There’s nobody around and I had a weird voice in my head rattling off stuff about Tidbits and Objectives. That’s still really fucking weird, by the way. I decide to try foraging for food in the forest. That didn’t pan out, save for a magic flower and a bush of poisonous berries, but I did find flowing water. I followed it downstream for a while, had an existential crisis, and developed my first skill. Eventually the sun starts going down, and I start looking for shelter. Then, when the sun went out, I got a tidbit telling me that I was in an entropic forest, and that undead monsters would start waking up and trying to eat me soon. So, I panicked and climbed a tree. I then started experimenting with my mana to try and figure out a way out of that mess, since there were silhouettes gathering at the bottom of my tree.
Magira finished her soup, and Cain briefly paused to hand her the second bowl.
“I eventually figured out fire magic. But since it was pitch-black out, I blinded myself and fell out of the tree. I managed to survive by throwing fire at everything until I passed out from mana exhaustion. When I woke up, the entire forest was on fire, and a party of four was carrying me out. My hands were burnt to a crisp and I hurt just about everywhere, so I tried to heal myself with magic. It worked out, and I was back on my feet. I made my way out of the forest and back here alongside that same party, and spent most of my time either trying to learn more about the Manifestation of Order or dodging questions I had no idea how to answer. It was morning when we reached Fellgrave. They brought me back to the Adventurer’s Guild to answer some questions for the section chief who had been organizing the raid on the forest I burned down, and I got rewarded with ten silvers, free food and a guest room.
Cain took a moment to think. Magira drank her soup.
“Now is where you come in. It was from the window of this room that I saw the auction happening.” An uncomfortable knot twisted his stomach. He knew Magira picked up on his uneasiness through the mental link, and could tell she was listening closely. “What you need to understand is that, in my world, the civilized world had outlawed slavery before I was even born. It was almost universally considered an evil and immoral practice. Which means that all the experience I ever had with it was reading about it in history books, writing essays about the wars that were fought over it. I never — at any point in my life — expected I’d witness people being handled like merchandise. That I’d watch people be so openly stripped of their freedoms. But here, it’s apparently an accepted practice, and worse, you even have magic to enforce it. Considering the effects that those runes can produce, I doubt the slave crests are just for show. So when I saw the auction happening out the window, and realized what it was, I felt sick. And I felt angry.”
He paused to take a breath. He laced his fingers and rested his forehead on his knuckles, elbows pressed into his knees. Magira now stared at him silently. There was no more soup.
“Slavery goes against the very foundation of my beliefs. I believe that all people, of any race, age, nationality or sex deserve the same opportunities and the same freedom to pursue their own health and happiness. I believe that taking away that freedom for personal gains is nothing short of evil.” Cain took a breath and raised his head. “And I believe that, with time and effort, I can change things for the better. The reason I bought you was to learn about slave crests. The reason for the telepathy rune was to talk without being overheard. And the reason for the attribute sharing rune was to give you some of my own attributes, since I’d expect anyone to have some health problems after being abused and treated like an object for any length of time. Another reason I bought you was that I’m in a strange world, and above all else, what I need right now is someone I can trust and rely on. I want to fight back against this fucked up world, and I need a few friends in my corner to do that. What I want to ask is: will you help me? If so, I will do everything in my power to look after you and grow strong enough to make a difference. If not? I will put my efforts towards finding a way to remove your slave crest so that you can have your freedom.
Magira just stared, slightly wide-eyed. Then, her eyes narrowed and her ears folded back, and Cain felt her probing him through the mental link. She seemed to be looking for any sign that he’d been lying to her. It was an uncomfortable sensation, but it was better to let her satisfy her concerns. Cain would be skeptical too. Maybe even more so. Several minutes passed of Magira staring him down, trying to will him into revealing his secrets. Confusion and worry began to leak through the bond, and eventually even leaked through her expression. Eventually, the mental pressure ceased, and she deflated slightly.
“Are you… being serious?” She asked in anxious disbelief.
“As silly and unserious as I’m sure that all sounded to you, yes. I promise you, I am being serious.”
“So, what, you… think of me as a normal person, then? The same as another human?”
“Yes.” Cain kept eye contact. Gray eyes, brown around the edges, black hair.
“And, you want me to help you end slavery…”
“Yes.”
“And you’ll just… set me free if I don’t want to?” Magira had the look of someone finding out their entire life had been a lie.
“Yes,” he replied. “I’ll need to figure out how to do that first, since I was technically born yesterday, but yes. I’ll respect your choice.”
Magira had no response to that. Her breathing was slightly uneven, and her hands were twitching nervously. The whirlwind of confused emotions and jumbled thoughts sweeping through her were only made more obvious by the telepathy. Cain figured there was nothing more he could say that would bring anything new to the conversation. He tried to exude calmness and patience, and got up from the bed. He walked over to the window and watched the street below. The last dregs of glowing red sunlight were slowly draining of their color, growing dimmer and sparser as the sun sank lower. Only a few people were still running about. Red light turned purple as the minutes passed, then everything went black. Cain remembered he had never turned on the lights, and began searching the room for anything resembling a switch. Only Self-Awareness prevented him from bumping into every piece of furniture.
‘Cain?’
Cain turned to face the direction he thought Magira was. ‘Yes?’
‘I’ll help you.’
Cain smiled at the darkness, feeling pure, unadulterated happiness for the first time since coming to this world.
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Cold wind swept through Cain’s hair as he walked down the street towards the gate he’d entered Fellgrave from. It was fully dark out now, and the unnaturally large moon was obscured behind clouds, only managing to radiate a dim glow that did little more than indicate which direction the sky was in. But despite the darkness, and despite the recent exhaustions he’d endured, Cain was even less tired than he usually was at this hour, with the usual being ‘not at all.’ After all, he’d just woken up a couple hours ago at most! That was the reason for this, he told himself. It had nothing at all to do with his unhealthy sleep schedule. And I resent the implication! Cain found slight mirth in his internal dialogue as he walked. He realized that he’d been in somewhat higher spirits since Magira agreed to help him. Now, why is that? There was the fact that the conversation went better than he’d expected, for one. Then there was the fact that every other conversation up to that point had either been ‘neutral’ or ‘extremely unpleasant’ in his mind, and all had been laced with anxiety. Talking with Magira might have been the first normal interaction I’ve had with another person since coming here, as funny as that may sound with how abnormal of a conversation it was. Cain passed under the open portcullis, his surroundings briefly illuminated by the lanterns in the guardsmen’s hands. I wonder if she got to sleep alright?
‘You know I can hear you, right?’
‘No, I did not! Thank you for informing me. Please excuse me while I go die of embarrassment.’
Amusement flickered through the link. ‘While you’re doing that, answer this: what are you even doing out there?’
‘Training.’ Obviously.
‘Training?’ Obviously!
‘That’s what I said.’ Just call him Captain Obvious, why don’t you.
‘…’
‘What?’
‘That… doesn’t really narrow it down much. Could you be more specific?’
Aha. That was no Captain Obvious… it was his evil twin, Captain Vague, all along! ‘Oh, right. I’m training my attributes since I won’t be able to sleep for a while anyway.’
‘Okay. Which attributes are you focusing on?’
‘For now, I’m focusing vigor and constitution, since the attribute sharing rune will give you some of the benefits too.’
‘Vigor and constitution are some of the hardest attributes to increase, since vigor requires you to recover from injuries, and constitution requires you to fight off disease or poison. How are you even planning to train them?’
‘Like that, yeah. I can use fire magic and blood magic together to constantly injure and heal myself for vigor, and for constitution I’m going to experiment with poison to see if I can get a poison aspect of some sort while I’m at it. I can probably improve one or two of my skills in the process, come to think of it.’
‘… Cain. Are you insane?’
‘I’ve not discounted the possibility. Why?’
‘That’s going to be incredibly painful.’
‘Yeah, but it’s worth it. A short-term loss for long-term gains. Besides, there’s only one way to find out if I can handle it.’
‘Oh, heavens, you are insane. I’m going to sleep, try not to kill yourself before I wake up.’
‘I’ll do my best. Good night, Magira.’
‘Good night…’
The link went silent and Cain felt Magira’s mind pull away from his. He’d try to wait until she fell asleep to start actually training, but in the meantime, he could look for a good spot to practice. He didn’t want to accidentally start anymore fires, so either a large open space devoid of vegetation or a body of water shallow enough to stand in would be best. He walked down the now dirt road, getting farther and farther away from the town, and scanned the surrounding plains for any useful features. Unfortunately, the darkness was obscuring anything of interest he might have otherwise seen. He couldn’t see any clearings in the tall grass, he couldn’t hear the gurgle of flowing water, and Self-Awareness registered nothing except the packed dirt road within three meters of himself. Wait… packed dirt? Dirt was not flammable, last Cain checked. And the road was wide enough that he could sit in the center and not worry about accidentally setting the grass on fire. Sure, he’d be clearly visible to anyone nearby, and he’d be blocking the road, but it was the middle of the night. As long as he got far enough away to not be visible from the gate, he should be fine. Checking over his shoulder revealed the twin pinpricks of light that were the guards’ lanterns. He had some walking to do, it seemed.