“What a douchebag!” Kyra and Lucy said together.
“And that was four weeks ago. I went down to see my dad every day the first week then every other day the next week. I saw him last week once and I don’t think I’m going back anymore.”
“Well damn thats a rough start to adventuring.” James said.
Anna gave a sad smile. “I’m never going to be an adventurer. You can’t just be an adventurer from nothing here. You need money to go to a school or apprentice.”
“You have to pay to apprentice?” James asked, happy she would talk to him now.
“Yes normally, unless your parents are adventurers of course.”
“Well you can’t sleep in our alley anymore.” Lucy said and Anna looked at her in hurt confusion. She had just been fed lunch as well, her story had taken so long. “You’ll have to stay with one of us, there’s no way we’re putting you back out on the street until we’ve figured out how we’re going to fix this.”
“Why would you do that for me?”
Teddy spoke for the first time, he had been distracted. Staring into space while she was speaking, he was the one that unnerved her the most with his absent detachment. “Because thats what adventurers do.”
………
Two figures made their way down deeper layers than they ever had need to before. The grimy conditions didn’t bother them as they had seen worse, albeit long long ago. They were both robed and hooded, striding purposefully without the need to look around, they were hard to notice, although they strode down the centre of the street, ones aura gently pushed away attention and the other blurred slightly, making the eyes not want to look.
They moved into a poor neighbourhood, this was the bottom rung for the property market and a desperate place to be, tenants here paid by the week or day as the landlords couldn’t be sure of regular payment from the type of tenant it attracted.
They found the hut they were after, an older man with only two essences and a woman with none. They knocked on the flimsy door and the man answered.
“Mind if we come in?” The lead robed figure asked before pushing past him inside.
The man looked for a moment like he might resist. Then when he reached inside himself for the resolve to do something he found nothing but broken spirit and gave in. The second robed figure also came in and shut the door.
“Who are you?” The woman asked, fearful but also resigned.
The two robed figures took their hoods off, the most beautiful woman with striking blonde hair and mirrors in her eyes and a bald man who’s eyes were like the blackest mineshaft the old man had ever seen, they did not look happy. They cast off their robes and threw them over the only chair in the room that was a small sofa, she wore brilliant armour, ceramic white with black embellishments and covered in huge diamond panels. It was figure hugging showing every curve but looked formidable. The man wore plain dark armour, cloth robes but fairly fitted, held in place to his torso by a waist and cross chest belt. He was covered in different types of blades.
“We’ve just come for a little chat about you’re daughter.” The woman said.
The old man spat, even as intimidated as he was. “She’s gone good riddance, cant help you.”
“Well thats not a good start.” She said in a warning tone. She raised a hand by her side, palm up. It started to glow and although Teddy recognised it as the warm glow of her Life Aura power the others didn’t know and they found it downright menacing. “Don’t spit in front of me again.”
“She is truly gone. The woman picked up. “We threw her out weeks ago, she keeps coming back for handouts but we won’t allow it. She’s not welcome here now or ever.”
“That’s disappointing to hear.”
Whilst not a lie detector they were both searching the couples auras and saw the absolute feelings there. They saw the disgust for their daughter at what she had done and that there was no way they were going to forgive her. That’s not what they were here for, they had only come to talk to the mother and father an see if it was possible, not convince them to take her back, that would be an unhealthy mend to the relationship.
Kyra had thought about this in advance and had a plan. She bent down and scooped her hand through the hard packed dirt of the floor like it was water. She formed the earth in her hand into a two section box with an open lid held in place by her power. She reached into a pouch at her waist and pulled out two bronze coins and placed them inside before sealing the box. She traced her finger around the box in quick movements, digger her fingertip in. The earth shaping abilities and bronze rank agility quickly completing the ritual she had practiced with Lucy a few times to make sure she could get it right and fast. It was a very simple ritual that would hide the contents of the box from casual magical observation, to stop any thieves sweeping their senses through a building looking for treasures.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
The couple were very confused, and looking at the box with disbelieving eyes. They were incredibly intimidated by the couple and had no idea what was going on.
“Dorianna is a good girl. A girl who made a costly mistake but so do we all from time to time. She deserves to have parents in the future but it is evident you don’t deserve her right now. The contents of this box are an insurance policy. You obviously have pride so listen well. You cast out your daughter for fate guiding her hand, she is capable of incredible things and you are shortsighted. I will not have her grieve in decades to come when she hears of your deaths. But you do not deserve a handout. If you ever reach the desperation that you need to use these coins then you may open one half, if you get more desperate then the other. The runes of power I have placed around it will mean that I will know, if I come back here to find you still in the same mind about fate then there will be consequences.”
The man accepted the box like he expected it to burn him. Two bronze rank coins wouldn’t set them for life but it would have them move up a level or two. He had no idea she had lied about knowing if the box was opened and as terrified of the idea.
The two strangers in their hut put their robes back on and put their hoods up, thus far the bald man with the unsettling eyes had been silent. As the woman took two steps towards the door he stepped forward. A dark portal of swirling unsettling energy appeared behind him, a twisting tunnel of kaleidoscopic darkness twisting the way and that. I took up the entire wall and he was sure he could see things climbing the walls of the tunnel towards them.
“Do not disappoint, you’ve made one error of judgement you cannot take back. You do not want to see my judgement the next time we come to this city.”
The couple barely noticed the two figures leave they were pinned to the opposite wall in horror at the portal in their living room, just as a terrible claw gripped the edge of the tunnel of darkness from inside it shrank away to nothing, leaving a terrified sweaty couple clinging onto each other.
………
They fell into a routine for a while, they would get up and train all together, Anna had no foundation at all and they found it refreshing to go back to basics, weight training and agility. They ran around and around the lower levels, sometimes down the old mine shafts to explore while they ran Anna ragged. The others left for their ‘jobs’ at different times of the day, Lucy to the magic society, Kyra to the temple of Healer and Teddy to the adventure society to continue the investigation into the Confederacy in the city. Kyra taught her martial skills, Lucy deepened her understanding of ritual magics from just the basics. Teddy wasn’t ready to engage with the training just yet, he was obsessed with is job at the adventure society, Kyra made a point of dropping him off and picking him up, the oversight keeping him on track. It was left to James then to train Anna the most. For him his powers were difficult to make relevant to a ‘standard’ adventurer, he was fairly unique in his style. What he did very well though and was happy to teach was meditation.
Anna had always been a shy nervous girl. She worried what people thought constantly and had a million thoughts racing through her head. As she sat in a magical glade in and underground moss covered cave pocket dimension she found peace. James had guided her into settling her thoughts and self reflection. She saw the mistakes of her life and who she had been before and saw where she wanted to go, she wasn’t there yet and had a long way to go but she now had hope.
It was a few weeks into this training that they invited her to see the interface. Not wanting to bombard her when she had just received all this new power they had waited. Now she was comfortable in a training routine and had accepted the life they gave her the option.
“It’s how we see the world.” Lucy explained. “But it also gives you a very clear understanding of yourself. You’ll see a detailed description of all of your powers and what they do, I know you’re unsure at the moment and I’ve resisted the urge in looking them up to see if you’ll discover on your own.”
Anna had barely taken a moment. In the last few months she had gone from no essences to having all four, she had been thrown out of her childhood home and fell in with a group of impressive adventurers, she spent part of everyday in a pocket dimension with the biggest man she had ever seen sat cross legged on moss covered rocks while different strange animals waited on them. She was ready for a little clarity.
Dorianna Antoine
Race: Human
Current rank: Iron
Progression to bronze rank 00% (0/4 essences complete)
Attributes
[Power] (Dimension): [Iron 0]
[Speed] (Swift): [Iron 0]
[Spirit] (Void): [Iron 0]
[Recovery] (Dark): [Iron 0]
Racial abilities (Human)
Mighty ambition
-All essence abilities progress faster than the normal human advantage.
Depth of character
-Significant boost to the [Spirit] attribute
Ocean dweller
-Receive combat bonus when fighting in water
Owner of the ocean
-Command nearby water (strength of effect in correlation with [Spirit] attribute). Navigation in bodies of water is instinctual.
Essences (4/4)
Might [Power] (1/5)
Mighty Strike
Ability: [Mighty Strike] (Might)
Special Attack (might)
Base cost: Moderate mana
Cool-down: None
Current rank: Iron 0 (01%)
Effect (iron): User can inflict 5x damage with a single strike.
Deep [Spirit] (1/5)
Unfathomable
Ability: [Unfathomable] (Deep)
Special Ability
Base cost: Nil
Cool-down: None
Current rank: Iron 0 (02%)
Effect (iron): User is immune to pressure differential. Allows the essence user to dive to great depths without taking damage.
Octopus [Recovery] (1/5)
Chromatophore
Ability: [Chromatophore] (Octopus)
Special Ability
Base cost: Low mana
Cool-down: None
Current rank: Iron 0 (01%)
Effect (iron): Allows the user to blend into their surroundings.
Kraken [Speed] (1/5)
Ink Kraken
Ability: [Ink Kraken] (Kraken)
Familiar (ritual, summon)
Cost: Extreme mana, extreme stamina, extreme health.
Cool-down: None
Current rank: Iron 0 (03%)
Effect (iron): Summon an [Ink Kraken] to serve as a familiar. [Ink Kraken] takes the form of a living tattoo in the summoners skin. Whilst absorbed the familiar provides some protection against physical attacks. [Ink Kraken] can be deployed only in salt water pools, when deployed can exit the pool and specialises in constriction attacks.
“Well Anna, you’d have made a crap miner with those powers!” James joked. He turned around to see her looking contemplatively at her Kraken tattoo that was currently on her wrist.
Lucy opened a storage rune and pulled out an honest-to-gods cauldron and a large bag of salt. Emptying a good amount in she then went to the kitchen and came back with a couple of jugs full of water. They mixed it all together and Anna smiled, she could feel the connection to the water straight away, the pull to her familiar. She let him go. In an instant long shiny tentacles were gripping the edge of the cauldron pulling themselves out. The pointed head pulled itself out and they saw the intelligent eyes looking around the room. It sat on the rim and they could see it clearly now, the body was the size of a grapefruit. The long, sinister, spiked tentacles would reach the width of a beach ball but they curled and undulated. It launched itself with no warning, terrifyingly quickly and latched itself around Anna’s throat, a mirror of what it did as a tattoo.
Anna had tears in her eyes, she pulled the little sea monster off her neck and cupped it in both hands so she could see it in front of her and it wrapped its tentacles up her forearms leaving little sucker indents.