“Good evening Rory.” Said the voice in a chillingly quiet tone “I’m afraid I’ll be taking your patient with me now.”
The hustle and bustle of the guild hall continued to either side, most people unaware of the standoff happening mere feet from them. Rory, who’s complexion was now as pale as a sheet of paper, looked on with dread while the clerk at the desk, Maggie, appeared calm, but was betrayed by the bead of sweat rolling down her face.
“Now, Sayrin, I think that-”
“It’s Captain. For this situation, I think we ought to keep it official. I am acting in my duties, as you are in yours. Which is why I don’t much give a damn what you think.”
He turned his burning eyes to Kya, and the raw hatred he saw therein was enough to make her try and back away, but was unable to shake his ironlike grip on her shoulder.
“So it’s true… I have many questions for you, but that can wait. We’re leaving, now.”
“Captain” Said Maggie, her voice only slightly wavering, “That isn’t possible any longer, I don’t think.” Before holding up the piece of paper with her star mark copied and prominently displayed at the top. Below it clearly listed her class as “Space”.
A deep frown appeared on his face, and faster than she could track, Sayrin had yanked her left hand up to eye level “Show me” He said, his voice still calm, but sounding a bit more like a wolf's snarl than a simple request.
Kya tried to pull away, tried to rip her arm free from his hand, but again it was like his hands were made of stone, unyielding and unmoving.
“Unless you want to lose the hand right here and now” He said quietly “Show me your star.”
The blood draining from her face, Kya reluctantly complied and her star once more bleed to life on her hand.
No one moved, as this Sayrin person stared at her hand like it was the most disgusting, reviling thing he’d seen in his life, before releasing her hand, but still holding her shoulder.
He was taking slow deep breaths, and then said “It’s not sent out until completed, correct?”
“No, captain, it enters the log as I update it. Right now, anyone in the world can check their guild registrars and see a new spatial user has been added in.”
At these words, his grip on her shoulder became painful, she felt like he was trying to grind her shoulder to dust in his fist.
“And is your guild master in today?” His voice could have frozen oceans at this point.
“Yes” She said, managing a smile “A ring of this bell will signal that I need assistance at the front, he’s just in his office you see.’
Kya couldn’t move, She simply waited with held breath as he slowly relaxed his hand, and finally let go.
“I’m not fool enough to cross the guild. Even if I did, they’d just reclaim you by the time we go to Loterre, and I’d be… disciplined.” Turning to face her directly, and gazing into her radiant rose colored eyes, he said with dripping scorn “But you need to remember this, for the rest of your wretched life. Me, My army, and my country have not forgotten what you people have done. There are still people with memories of those events first hand, and the atrocities committed. A single step out of line, a single mistake, and you’re mine. I will travel across the world to take you if need be, and bring you to justice. Permanently.”
With that, he turned on his heel, and stalked out of the guild hall.
The small group collectively let out a breath, then turned and all eyed each other.
Speaking first, Kya said “So what the actual fuck was that?”
A smile tugging at Maggie's lips, looking out of place on her now haggard face, she said “let's finish this, and then I can explain.”
“Actually, do you have a library in this place?”
Her expression now lighting up with excitement, she hurriedly nodded, “yes, it’s one of the finest collections on this side of the ocean in fact! It’s just upstairs, if want me to-”
“No. Thank you, but no. Turning to Rory, she said “I’m truly grateful for what you’ve given me, and shown me. I suspect I’d be dead without you many times over, or worse, and that’s no small thing. I will never forget my debt to you, and I will come by later to speak with Tom about starting to repay you. But for now, I think I’d like to be on my own. Same to you, Maggie, I believe you just saved me as well. I’ve only been in this town for a few hours, but if I keep accruing debts like this, I’ll never be able to stand on my own.”
She took a deep breath and then simply said “I want to explore the town, do research, and figure things out for myself.” Then shrugged. “I hope you understand.”
Nodding immediately, Maggie said “Absolutely, I never let anyone do my research for me, I could never.” Then making a shooing motion at the flummoxed Rory, she said “You go away, she has reading to do, and you’ll just be bothering her. In fact, you’re bothering me just by standing here. Go back to your little clinic and make yourself useful. Poor Tom is probably trying to remove some poor saps lungs to see if that’ll stop his coughing, now go.”
Sighing, Rory replied “You’re probably right about Tom. But Kya, if you need a place to go, just know my doors will always be open to you.” he put a hand on her shoulder and then walked away with a wave without looking back.
In a delayed realization, she noticed her shoulder no longer hurt from where that other man had been gripping it. Rory must have healed her with that simple touch. Again, she didn’t really know anything about him, but she didn’t need to. He had healed, helped, and healed her again. No matter what skeletons may be in his closet, she thought he was a good man at heart.
Grinning excitedly, her bronze eyes having dimmed to the color of dried soil, Maggie said “Alright, lets get this form done and get you up to the library!”
- - -
Kya walked through the large double doors, and immediately appreciated the sheer silence of the space beyond.
Maggie had excitedly told her the library was straight through these doors and up the stairs. Practically the entire second floor was books and records, and that she’d be delighted to stop working and join her any time.
But after only a few hours in the company of other people, Kya had grown tired of them. For reasons she didn’t fully grasp, there had seemingly been a tug of war with her as the rope between different groups. She normally prefered solitude anyway, but after that mess? Definitely.
Going up the stairs, and seeing the rows and rows of shelves, some with hexagonal scrolls neatly stacked and some with more standard tomes, she took her time to browse the many sections.
There were few other people here, a couple with bronze eyes like Maggie sat reading thick volumes at some of the tables scattered between shelves, others with eyes of red or blue wandered the shelves like her, not sure where to start.
- - -
Finally settling into a thick armchair, Kya placed her eclectic stack of books on a table beside her. She had chosen a spot next to one of the large windows in order to have proper light and also enjoy the view of the capital circle in front of her. The crowds of people going back and forth like tides in the sea somehow calmed her.
Before opening a book, however, Kya took a minute to try something she’d been longing to do since waking up, but hadn’t had the time to as they had rushed from place to place without much chance to stop and catch one's breath.
- - - - -
Character Screen
* Name: Kya Ophelia Vesper
* Race: Human/Founder
* Race Benefits: Loot the Corpse, Identify, Translation
* Class: Space - 1-Star 0%
* Class Abilities: Push and Pull - 0%
* Class Benefits: Aura, Inventory
- - - - -
Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
She stared at her own name for some time, not really moving on the other parts that should have been significantly more interesting to her. She hadn’t gone by her family name in a long time. Not since the argument. It felt strange, seeing it there, like it wasn’t really hers anymore.
- - - - -
Would you like to alter {Name} in {Character Screen}?
(Yes)/(No)
- - - - -
At the first thought that this wasn’t really her name, the window popped up, and again, she was frozen to the spot, simply staring at the two choices.
- - - - -
Character Screen
* Name: Kya Ophelia
* Race: Human/Founder
* Race Benefits: Loot the Corpse, Identify, Translation
* Class: Space - 1-Star 0%
* Class Abilities: Push and pull - 0%
* Class Benefits: Aura, Inventory
- - - - -
She took a deep breath, and tried to quell the errant emotions welling up inside her. They were an absolute mess, and not something she could deal with right now. Of course, they were never something she could deal with “right now” which is why she kept them in a nice secure bottle in a corner of her mind, labeled “later.”
Shaking her head, and rubbing her temples, Kya went to the very next line and paused. Founder? What the hell was a founder? It still said human but... why wasn't she just entirely human? Another question for the library she supposed, or at the very least later, as when she focused on it, nothing more came up about it. So then, she dove into her abilities, and what exactly they could do. She had already known about her aura, and though she wanted to work on it more, didn’t feel the need to read about it right now.
- - - - -
Race Benefits - Loot the Corpse
Effect - Upon the death of any magically attuned being at your hands, automatically converts their bodies into spoils of war.
- - - - -
This was pretty much as she had expected. Though she hadn’t been able to see the exact description of her ability, it wasn’t that hard to figure out.
Moving along then:
- - - - -
Class Benefits - Inventory 1-Star
Effect - Your soul has been attuned to the concepts of Space. Through this, you have gained the ability to open a soul space for the storage of objects.
Note: Placing an object in your soul space does not constitute consent to soul-based magic.
- - - - -
This was significantly more interesting to Kya, and also made her wonder “can I store a spatial storage in a spatial storage?” Taking out her bag, she tried to… store it? She wasn’t sure how this worked yet, but was rewarded with a new screen appearing.
It looked exactly like the mental image she got when she looked into her spatial bag. It was a Large empty room. No real adornments or details, the walls were gray and indistinct, but she could tell it was about the same size as her current bag. Not sure what else to do, she tried to place the bag within, and… got no response.
Frowning, she took out a coin from one of the spiders and tried to place it in, and was delighted to see it enter the imaginary room, sitting directly in the center of the floor.
After about ten minutes of using her arm as a vacuum cleaner to transfer everything over from the bag to what was apparently her soul, she was happy to know that now the entirety of her possessions couldn’t be stolen by a clever pickpocket. She was also happy to see that her storage bag was able to go in without anything left in it. This was a relief, because although it was now semi-redundant, she had a soft spot for the little brown bag, and didn’t want to simply replace it or sell it off, at least not yet anyway.
Returning to her character window, she focused on the last benefit she hadn’t really been aware of, but made practical sense when thinking about it.
- - - - -
Race Benefits: Translation
Effect: Your soul was directly touched and altered by the concepts of space. There are thousands of planets, and on each one, thousands of languages. You have gained the ability to understand all languages at a base level in order to communicate in your travels.
- - - - -
So from confirmation that souls exist, to confirmation of extraterrestrials, this was getting to be a bit daunting with its implications. Putting that aside, she was curious about why this was a class skill. Presumably, she’d been using it when she first woke up in order to talk with Wade and Rory. She guessed it had to do with her “soul being touched” or something, but truly didn’t understand the rationale, or workings of the world in which she’d found herself.
Which of course, brought her back to the stack of large books next to her. She hoped that her new magical brain was improved over her ordinary one, or this would take several hours longer than she wanted.
Taking the top one off the stack, she opened Basic Magic for the Newly Ascended 1-Star and began to read.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Sayrin boarded their vessel, and immediately, they set sail back to Loterre. He was fuming, and had been since leaving the guild hall. It was possible he could have convinced the Guild Master to hand over Kya. Possible, but unlikely. He was from Kasei after all, and wasn’t likely to make concessions to the Loterrans that easily.
“Sir, what exactly is happening? Why are we heading back so abruptly? And why was Wade confined to the brig???” Asked Aldrin heatedly, walking up to the senior officer.
“Aldrin… Not right now.” Said Sayrin through clenched teeth, thoroughly at his wits end with any sort of interactions. He was tired. So tired. It had been four days since he'd last slept and was tearing at the seams at being denied the spatial user, let alone having to now deal with his soldiers and the situation with Wade.
But, rethinking it, said “On second thought, come with me, let's go see Wade right now. We need information before I sleep for the rest of this voyage.”
With a confused and upset Aldrin following behind, Sayrin stormed down the narrow flight of stairs below decks and sought out the imprisoned warrior.
The brig on the ship was tiny. It was basically a single small bed with bars and a door. "You're relieved" Said Sayrin to the 1-Star left guarding her, "Go and make sure that no one comes down here until I say so."
Wade, who was sitting and defiantly looking out the tiny window at the sea speeding by underneath them, didn't look as Sayrin addressed her.
"Wade, we need more information from you. I want the whole story, every detail, including what I already know. I want you to brief you're Squad leader here as well."
But she remained steadfast, looking out the window, not uttering a word.
"Blast it Wade" He shouted, slamming into the bars, bending them under his fists, "You need to talk to us. When we get back, I'm reporting straight to Orrin, and it won't go well if I'm not crystal clear on what the hell happened."
Turning and facing them at last, Wade said in a low voice "What happened was, you suppressed, arrested, and interrogated one of your own soldiers, on the basis of carrying out a personal grudge. You may know of Sampson, but I'll be damned if he isn't as outraged as you are now at your treatment of one of your own, especially in a stressful and complicated situation."
Aldrin took in a sharp breath "Sir... You didn't really suppress her, did you?" a shadow passing over his face.
He was too tired for this. To be questioned and insulted, especially by those he outranked. This wouldn't do, not at all. He needed rest. He needed to-
"Sayrin, did you suppress her!?" Shouted Aldrin.
Something snapped inside Sayrin.
Reaching out, he clamped his hand around Aldrin's throat "I think, that's enough out of you" he said, his voice a dead whisper.
He lifted Aldrin off the ground, while the younger man fought and resisted, his face slowly turning from tan to purple. He was just a 2-Star though, it would be months or years before he could match Sayrin in strength. His flailing arms grew weaker and weaker as the seconds ticked by, in some far-off place he heard Wade yelling and banging against the bars.
As Aldrin's eyes, bulging and bloodshot, finally closed Sayrin unlocked the door and tossed him in with Wade.
"Be quiet now" He ordered, still so soft "He isn't dead. He'll just need to rest for a while. He was rather affected by the area, you see."
Turning and walking away, he told the guard that Aldrin had been confined as well, and that neither were to be set free unless he gave the order himself.
"Yes sir" the guard said, looking hesitant "and where will you be?"
"I'm going to my cabin. Don't wake me unless someone is dying, or the ship is sinking, do you understand?"
"Yes sir, of course, sir."
As Sayrin walked towards the rear of the ship where the officers' cabins were, he realized that had been Mouley talking with so much respect in his voice. "Good. It was about time that man started to understand his place in the army."
Thoroughly beneath Sayrin himself.
He hadn't gotten to explore a break and gain the wealth that would naturally come with it. He hadn't been able to claim a spatial user and take her back for trial. He hadn't even been able to interrogate Wade properly and had subsequently had to imprison one of his own lieutenants for insubordination.
What a mess. He'd fix it when he woke up, however. For now, he was too tired to care. Too tired to worry. Too tired. He hit his bed, and, alone at last, finally welcomed the nightmares.