Issekina Silksoul was a girl of many talents: she was a [Soul Shaper], she was a [Spy], she had some basic knowledge when it came to weaving and, if you counted Siidi as an integral part of her (like she did) instead of just a person living in her head, then she was also a [Soul Curator]. That was a lot of talents for a girl who was, by the standards of this world, not even a year old. Stars, even if you considered the previous seventeen years of her life back on Earth, you’d still be hard pressed to find someone her age that had as many Classes and Levels as her. But that, obviously, didn’t matter, because Earth lacked a System. The gods there had been merciful, in the times when there had been more than one.
Still, you know what they say: Jack of all Trades, Master of None. Now, Isse was far from being a Jack of all Trades, even in her main Class… or did she, seeing how she was probably the last Soul Mage in the world? If you’re the only one of your kind in doing something, does that make you a master of it? That wasn’t the kind of questions she was asking herself, naturally, these are just an Author’s wonderings and musings.
What Isse was wondering was where Albert kept the interesting books. The man had a collection of academic reading materials that would garner the approval of her English teacher, and while it was interesting, because even a history book of this world read like a fantasy novel from Earth, she had come to appreciate the beauty and complexity of the stories written for entertainment in this world. After all, when you lived in a place where your neighbor knew magic and dragons were a thing you had to work hard to create something capable of entertaining your readers. She’d also found out that biographies and autobiographies were much more popular than on Earth.
But, again, she wasn’t looking for those. She wanted fantasy books and she would find them. That, or the secret stash of porn that Albert probably had hidden somewhere. Like, come on! All men had one.
Albert walked into the chaos that had become his kitchen, looked at the books strewn all over the table, the ones piled carefully on the floor, the ones dangerously close to the oven (it wasn’t on, but it was sooty after he had used it for lunch), assessed the situation, nodded, and turned around trying to escape whatever this was.
He failed.
“Are these all the books you have? Don’t you have something more… entertaining?”
Albert sighed in relief. For a moment there he’d feared… what? He actually didn’t know. Gods dammit, his old age was finally catching up with his nerves.
“Meh, not much of a reader myself. I’m married to my job, or so Creanza says. I’m not that bad.”
Isse stared at Albert for a single moment, stupor clearly evident on her face: “Albert, in your free time you polish gears.”
“And file them into shape. Or divide them by type. Or make coils. Or chains. Or any other components of the apparatuses. So what? It’s relaxing? Just repetitive, precise, motions. It’s second nature by now.”
He’d actually done it. He’d actually become something close to any capitalist’s wet dream of a tireless worker who does menial tasks and is happy about it.
“Albert, you know, sometimes you scare me,” she said with a slight note of disgust.
He laughed out loud: “I sure hope I do girl. Seems rightful payback with how much you scare me sometimes.”
“I’m not scary,” she said with a pout, arms crossed in fake outrage.
“Oh, sure, an arachne, a being born to be a killing machine, who turned her bedroom in a giant nest of silk and who purposefully acts creepy whenever she can is not scary at all,” his lips were quirked and she noticed a quick bobbing of his throat as he attempted to hold in a chuckle.
“What’s so creepy about the way I act?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe, as an example, how every time I enter a room you’re in I find you staring my way when I open the door? Actually, how do you do that? I know for a fact I don’t make any noise when I walk around.”
She shrugged: “That’s not creepy. It’s just how we do it. It’s a funny little gag,” she chuckled, then her hand moved towards the ground, to the gown of her dress, and she pinched something between her fingers, lifting it upwards.
“And as for how, sure, you don’t make any sound when you walk, which, by the way, is much creepier than what I do, but you don’t have eyes that can see through things.”
Albert squinted at Isse’s hand as she moved it around, towards the light coming from the window. When the rays of sunlight hit her extended arm, something appeared: a little bit of string.
“I tied this to my leg and the door. It broke when you opened it.”
All the doors in the house opened towards the central corridor, which made it much easier to set up these little wires. Had it been any other way she would’ve probably been scared by Albert multiple times a day. He was so silent you sometimes could forget he was in the same room as you.
“Ah, cute little trick. And the silk is so fine it doesn’t even oppose any resistance when I open the door, so I never noticed. Well, now that I know your trick I know how to get around it, dear.”
She laughed incredulously: “Get around it? What, you gonna start walking through the walls? Enter rooms from the windows?”
Albert smiled, and she did not like how gleeful it looked: “Now where would the fun be if I told you.”
… You know what? Let’s web the door and window shut in our room, proposed Siidi
Agreed.
Meanwhile Albert smiled as he had an idea.
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The next day Isse woke up to the sound of Albert grunting in effort around the stairs to the second floor.
Blearily, she opened her eyes and let them get used to the light filtering through her silk, glad she didn’t have to worry about squinting or getting blinded. She turned around in her empty hammock, feeling the empty space beside her and not feeling anything in her chest constrict in sadness because of it. She loved and hated the lack of feelings there. On one side, she didn’t feel like her heart would tear itself apart and, sometimes, like yesterday, she could smile and laugh and be merry. At the same time, she knew this was unnatural, that it was wrong and that, to obtain this ‘peace’, she had to pay the price of being unable to recall the happiness of her past life in full, both the one in this world and the one on Earth.
Slowly, carefully, she put her legs underneath her and skittered down her hammock to the ground and outside, carefully removing the webs she’d used to seal her door shut after Albert’s admission of having a fun idea. In that moment, he had sounded exactly like Makira when she got a horrible idea to prank someone, and she’d come to fear that tone, like everyone else in the clan.
It’s understandable, then, that she was a bit apprehensive when she opened the door and peeked out, expecting at least a bucket of cold water over it, at most a web (or rather, a net). Instead she only saw Albert finish dragging a small wooden crate up the stairs, huffing and puffing as he placed it down and went to noisily crack his spine multiple times, limbering up.
She looked back and forth between the box and the man, before finally leaving her room and asking: “What in Airm are you doing?”
Albert looked away from that spot on the wall he’d started staring at pensively and at her.
“Ah, good morning Isse. Oh, it’s nothing: today was market day and, seeing how you had lamented a lack of… interesting, if probably lacking in quality, reading material, I decided to get you a little present.”
Isse’s eyes alighted in happiness when she heard that, her legs moving with a will of their own closer to the crate, her hands moving to the lid excitedly.
Then she stopped, looking up at Albert for permission, which he gave with a small nod and a smile.
That was when she opened the crate and found herself in heaven. Or Larnos. Or however you prefer to call it. The covers were all made out of leather with different colors: some were red, others black, some still even purple! There weren’t any images printed on them, naturally, only the titles embossed in gold or silver letters.
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
She took one at random and read the title: The Mother of Dragons.
Then she looked down and read a few more: The War of Worms, The Witch of Fear, The Arsonist and the Necromancer, Pirates and Stars, The Clockworker’s Last Day, and many many more. Most of them were trilogies, and quite thick at that.
She looked up at Albert and, after a moment of hesitation, opened her arms and gave him a big, if short, hug.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
Reading was something she had missed a lot in this world. Oh, sure, the arachne had had a small ‘library’, if you could call a wall of spidersilk with two dozen books hanging from it a library. And most of them weren’t even fun to read! They were, well, like the books she’d found in Albert’s library before.
So, yes, she had missed this.
Books? Here? To read? I want them! Gimme gimme gimme! said quite enthusiastically Siidi in her mind, making her smile grow just a little bigger.
Isse chuckled in the hug and skittered away a step.
“Well, I’m gonna start reading then. Thank you so very much again.”
She looked down, trying to decide what she was going to read first, and again today Albert came to the rescue.
Groaning, he bowed down and, after inspecting the titles for a moment, took one: “The [Book Merchant] I bought these from said that this was his favorite and that he suggested you start with it.”
The book was as thick as two of her fingers, which wasn’t that much, but it was probably enough to start with. The cover was a deep, dark, red and the silvery title read: The Mind [Detective].
“It’s a trilogy of short books. I think he defined them as ‘short but breathtaking’. Wanna try it?”
She did and, nodding, took the book in her hands, sinking her fingers in the soft cover and already savoring the sensation of turning the pages, of feeling the paper in her fingers and smelling the scent of paper and ink.
Albert watched her as she skittered towards the kitchen and, for a single moment, felt bad about what he was about to do.
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The jolly murderer, feet crossed on top of the table, smiled and threw the coin at the [Detective], who caught it in mid air, not letting it touch the table. Nobody really knew what Skills the man had, therefore it was best not to take any risks.
“What face did it land on?” he asked cheerfully, a hand moving to his chin in exaggerated curiosity while he let the other fall limply towards the floor.
Against his better judgment he looked down at the simple bit of metal in his hand and saw… a man, kneeling in front of a woman, who had her hand placed kindly on his shoulder. Around them was carved time and time again the word ‘Forgive’. This was no coin he had ever seen.
“What game are you playing?”
The man chuckled: “Oh, no game. Not this time. I’ve led you ‘round and ‘round up ‘till now, and you’ve been a great adversary. That, and my purpose is done. I’ve played my game, put the cards down, taken the chips, bowed to the deserving audience and grimaced at my worst enemies. You weren’t one of them, by the way.”
The [Detective] looked at him, then down at the coin, finally sitting down at the table and placing it far enough away that the murderer couldn’t have reached it without moving around a lot.
“What is this?” he asked.
“That, is a Storyteller’s Coin. A strange little trinket I found outside the Walls. A coin with seven faces, supposedly once used by [Writers] and their ilk to choose how their stories went. It was said that, at any given moment, a character always had seven possible choices: four basic ones, represented by Heads, Tails, the Side and the Other Side, then Forgiveness, Forgetfulness, and finally Chaos. It was also said that anyone could ever throw the coin and get the seventh side, Chaos, only seven times in their life. After the seventh, they would die.”
He chuckled, moving an arm grandiously, as if he weren’t sprawled in the most uncomfortable position possible on a small chair: “Care to guess how many times I got the Seventh side?”
Isse kept reading rapturously, uncaring of the world around her, feeling like she was standing right beside that table, watching the (admittedly very cliché) dark and broody [Detective] confront his polar opposite, the ever cheerful murderer simply known as Chaos. Again, not very imaginative in the character design, but that wasn’t the important bit, oh no, not by a great stretch: the interesting part was the rest of the story: the investigation, the past of the people who had died slowly revealing a global conspiracy, the lives of the people outside the Walls, and… it was simply amazing.
“How’s the reading?” asked Albert, who had peeked through the door into her room, a rueful smile in place.
“This is the best thing I’ve read in a very long while,” she answered without looking up from the page, putting a finger where she’d stopped to make sure not to lose that point.
“I’m happy to hear that. Well, if you need me, I’ll be out for a commission, so please don’t need me because I don’t want you to go alone to the noble’s quarter, alright?”
“Alright,” she said rather dismissively.
She heard him chuckle and leave, then went back to that room, to that table and its two occupants. For the first time since she’d arrived in this city, she felt truly at home.
[Reader Level 2!]
[Skill - Bookmark Obtained!]
[Soul Curator Level 10!]
[Skill - I Saw Through Eyes of My Own Obtained!]
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The next morning Isse woke up in her comfortable hammock, her book lying by her side, finished. It had taken her around two days, but she’d finished it. The ending…
Nope, I won’t spoiler that part, sorry. Still, the ending was great, and it had left her with so many questions that she hoped would be answered in the future.
Slowly, and sluggishly, she moved around the remnants of the candle by which she had read late into the night, book safely kept tucked against her navel.
Walking out of her room she didn’t notice the unnatural silence of the house: usually at this hour she could hear Albert in the kitchen cooking up something, but today, there was only silence. The reason revealed itself soon enough after she opened the door to the kitchen: on the table was a big plate of crispy bacon and eggs covered by another plate with a little note left beside it.
It read: Sorry Isse, had to go on a sudden job. Will see you soon. Have a good breakfast.
Isse had never noticed, but Albert’s writing was rather hurried and clipped, as if he was always ready to bolt whenever he sat down, and yet it somehow managed to also be rather neat and very readable.
Well, at least he got us food, said Siidi with an undertone of approval, Did you also Level Up last night?
And at that, she smiled: Yes! I got a new Class, [Reader]! With a useful Skill too!
She called upon her new Skill, [Bookmark], and a bit of string appeared in her hand. It was red and looked ethereal, as if it would disappear in a puff of smoke the moment she let go of it. Experimentally, she opened her book and placed it inside, noticing how the moment it touched the page the little string became more solid, more there.
“This is so cool.”
She heard Siidi laugh in her mind and joined her with a smile. She was a [Mage], she had seen wonders in Grandmother’s soul, things both happy and soul wrecking, and still she could marvel at something so simple. Truly, she was still a child at heart sometimes. A broken child, but a child still.
“Did you Level? I think I heard it, but I’m not sure.”
Yes, I reached Level 10! I got a cool capstone Skill! [I Saw Through Eyes of My Own]! Finally something good!!!
“[I Saw Through Eyes of My Own]? What’s it do?”
I can now see without having to look through your eyes. I’m no longer bound to your sight!
Even Isse could understand just how incredible, and useful, that was: “You can quite literally watch my back now.”
Exactly! And if you ever find another lover, I can decide to look away from your subpar lovemaking.
“Hey!! Last time you said I did well!”
You can do better.
They kept on bantering as Isse put down the book in the library and sat on her haunches to eat. They laughed and talked about the book and, for a while, forgot about everything. This was the true power of a story, the power of literature: the ability to make people become someone else, to change their thoughts and change the way they saw the world, to shape a better reality. That was a book’s purpose.
A purpose which the next book of that trilogy would’ve gladly fulfilled… had it been there.
After they finished breakfast Isse and Siidi skittered to the library and began looking for where Albert had placed the next book of the ‘The Mind [Detective]’ series, but they couldn’t find it. They spent ten minutes fruitlessly looking through all of them, but… it just wasn’t there.
Isse, I… I noticed something, said Siidi, and her tone didn’t promise anything good.
“What?”
These books… they’re all the first in a trilogy or a pair or anything. There’s no ‘book 2’ here, no books that are just the one. They’re all the start, but there’s no ending.
Slowly, realization dawned on Isse as she realized just what her soul half meant.
Then she felt angry. Then she wanted to laugh. Finally, she wanted to bite Albert. Her poison wasn’t lethal, but it had to be unpleasant, right?
Look, there’s a note up there.
Isse looked up and, sure enough, there was a small piece of paper tucked between two of Albert’s ‘serious’ books. Gingerly, she took it out, reading it.
Hello dear Isse. If you’ve found this note it means you’ve probably noticed that most of the books I bought you are gone. Indeed, I took all the follow up books hostage and am keeping them hidden in a secret little place. If you want them back, you’ll have to find it. Good luck!
Isse screamed bloody murder.