With her new cloak on her back, Kya walked with a purpose towards the eastern gates of the city. She wasn’t sure if it was a new part of her quest system, or if it was a result of some magic of the guilds doing, but she had a vague feeling of the direction she needed to go whenever she concentrated on her quest. Thus, she knew it was one of the eastern farms out of the city, and she knew it was relatively far.
Luckily, she still had a full twenty-four hours or so until the quest contract back in the guild hall would be available for another to take, so she had time to spare. Doubly so because there was apparently a train network that led out of the city and passed by the farmlands. She was trying to hurry though because she wasn’t sure, and regretted not asking, if another taking the quest would disqualify her from completing it, or simply mean she had competition in completing it.
Regardless, she made her way towards the train station out of the city in the morning light, a few other people beginning to open shops and buildings on either side of the wide cobbled streets. She wasn’t sure if “train” was the right word for it, as she had sincere doubts about a steam engine pulling little cars along a track, when their inner-city bus network involved flying clouds like it was designed by the monkey king.
Kya reached a smaller city circle, looking almost directly like a downsized version of the one outside the guild hall. There was a small fountain in the center, bubbling merrily in morning light, and glowing faintly with inset glow stones. She had noticed several of these smaller circles throughout the city near high trafficked areas or around important buildings.
This was no exception, as both important and likely a busy area of the city. To her right, was an incredible church, and this time there was no doubt in her mind this was a church. It had two resplendent towers to either side of the main building, bright blue stained glass making the illusion of waterfalls pouring down, and massive golden bells able to be seen within.
Unable to help herself and justifying it by saying she had a full day so a little curious peek couldn't hurt, Kya poked her head through one of the four massive oak double doors and whistled softly. The antechamber alone was gilded in aquamarine crystals and lapis lazuli tiles along the floor. Small rivers of water gurgled gently along the walls, with small trickles pouring down from above. Large pillars of teal and violet soared to the ceiling above, between which were large pews leading all the way up to a large stage and podium.
She got a feeling of serene calm the moment she entered the church. It was similar to how she felt back in the temple of space in the forest, but more intense and almost deliberate. Rather than a vague sense of wonder and appreciation, it was more like someone was directly taking her hand and reassuring her that everything would be alright. Kya found it to be a profoundly and fundamentally wrong experience.
She didn't hear the man she hadn’t even known was there, before a geyser of water hit her like a runaway truck, blasting her out the doors and sprawling onto the stones outside.
"What the hell?!" She called "why would you just throw me out like that!?"
“'Why' she asks, as if she knows not” Shouted an elderly man, standing framed in the doors of the church. He was undoubtedly talking to her... but she got the feeling his words were meant for everyone nearby “How dare you even gaze upon the house of Kanaloa with your sinful eyes. If not for the will of our Pi’leo, I would strike you down where you lay.” His sapphire eyes burned under his stark white eyebrows and topknot of silver hair. “However, you are fortunate to have a second chance at life. Come here again, touch any part of our holdings again, and I will personally boil your blood from within your veins for the atrocities committed by your people. There are not many in this town who remember, but I do. I was there. I won’t forget. Not ever.”
Sweeping his white and aqua marine robes dramatically as he turned on his heel, he marched back within the church, slamming the doors behind him.
Kya, for her part, sat soaked in her clothes, staring wide eyed up at the doors of the church, several goers by hurrying along and deliberately not coming anywhere near her.
She knew that being a spatial user had something of a bad reputation around it, but atrocities? What exactly had happened to cause both such a visceral reaction from some people, and such a non-reaction in others. As she started walking towards the train station on the other side of the square, she was lost in thought, not really paying attention to her surroundings.
First was that captain in the guild hall, and now a priest in a church. Both hating her, or at least reviling her, soley on her choice of class. She had hoped the man from the guild hall to be an outlier, afterall every other person had treated her with relative normalcy. Merivan even knew specifically that she was a spatial user, and still made her a cloak free of charge.
She hated this feeling. Like there was a glaring hole in her knowledge, something she should know but didn't. At this point, she had only one real thought in her mind: When I get back, I need to do some more reading. If for no other reason than to fully and fundamentally understand what all went on when her predecessors were eradicated. As always, she simply needed to know more.
Trying to push it away for now, she instead refocused on her present surroundings and found them... oddly lacking.
Compared to the marvels of architecture she had seen; the train station was positively mundane. Where the spatial temple had soaring ceilings and marvelous stained-glass windows, the guild hall with its pillars of living trees and library fit for Versailles, even the church next door with its integrated water features and magnificent towers awesome in its appearance… well, the train station had a nice floor?
It was made up of solid granite tiles, each about a meter long, and polished smooth. Stone benches ran along the walls, and the ticket counter held a very bored looking young man, practically falling asleep.
The real showstopper was the train itself, housed in the long hall behind the gates of the booth. A sleek silvery metal, rather than wheels or clouds, it simply hovered in place, swaying side to side softly as bright golden crystals illuminated the tracks below. Although the train’s body somewhat resembled bullet trains she was familiar with, it was like it plunged fully into the uncanny valley in her mind. So similar to something so normal, but so incredibly, fundamentally different.
“Excuse me, how much for a ride to the easter farm district?” She asked the young attendant.
His head slipping off his hand and jerking up at her voice, he said “Huh? What..? Oh! Uh, five ferens tuh the mines, a curen fur the fields.” he said with an accent reminiscent of the farmer she’d met back in the guild hall.
Wordlessly handing over a copper coin, he tore off and handed over a simple amber ticket marked fields and opened the gate to the left. “You have a lil under half an hour ‘til the train takes off. Have a good day… Wait miss, yur eyes… are you a User?”
She nodded, growing wary, worried about a repeat or similar beratement of the interaction from minutes earlier.
“Miss, I-I can’t take yur coin, you can ride for free anytime, p-please take it back” He tried to hand back her coin, eyes wide and hands shaking.
“So you’re saying I spent a coin I didn’t need to?” She asked, her voice cool and even.
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“I-” He gulped past a lump in his throat “I’m sorry ma’am, please, I was working the night shift and I didn’t notice your eyes right away, it won’t happen again, I swear!”
She closed his shaking hands over the coin, and said simply “Keep the coin, as a thanks for your honesty. And get some rest”
Without looking back or waiting for a reply, she walked through the gates, again struck by the simple incongruity of being blasted by a priest, and ten minutes later being treated with courtesy and borderline reverence.
She shook her head as she boarded the train, trying to clear her head. A task, she found to have absolutely no trouble with whatsoever. The entire hull of the train was see through from the inside. Where from outside it had been a silver and metal sheen, on the inside it was like the body of the train wasn’t there at all. Cushioned seats sat on a carpeted floor, simply floating in the open air. She sat in her plush seat with only two other people in her section, both of whom were users like her. This must be a luxury compartment or something, because… this was marvelous.
The only thing to outdo it was when the train actually began to move, and rocketed out over the waves of the sea below, and it gave her the impression of pure freedom and joy. This is what magic is for. She thought, gazing out, waves crashing against the pillars of stone below.
Finally alone, or at least relatively so, and after a good twenty minutes of simply enjoying her surroundings and the pure euphoria that was transit in this world, she took out the first monster token she’d ever received, the 1-Star common rat from her first day out in the woods. It was hardly more than a week ago, but felt like years to her now.
Eyeing the coin, truly studying its surface, she found what she’d been looking for. The image of its death by her staff began to glow ever so faintly pink, telling her this was a spatially attuned coin.
“But how do I…” she muttered, calling up the description once again
- - - - -
- Item: Lesser Monster Token
- Rarity: 1-Star - Common
- Description: The condensed memory of a life-or-death struggle. Can be exchanged or consumed.
- Enchantments: N/A
- Requirements: Possess at least a Common Class.
- - - - -
“Hmm… Consume?” She tried with a fleeting sense of hope. Unfortunately, not only did nothing happen, but there wasn’t even a text screen to explain what to do. Sighing, she resolves herself to do what she had feared might be needed.
With reluctance, she placed the token in her mouth, and… hang on she thought, as it began to dissolve instantly. It reminded her of maple syrup or raw honey, mixed oddly with pop rocks. It was a purely sweet and yet fizzy feeling as she felt a tiny well of power in stomach for just a moment before it all faded away and she was left sitting on her chair in the floating train wondering what exactly that had all been for. When, fortunately, she didn’t have to.
- - - - -
- You have consumed {Lesser Monster Token}. Experience of the life-or-death struggle will be applied to a random class ability.
- Class Ability {Push and Pull} has been slightly improved as a result of the struggle for life.
- - - - -
Her eyes like saucers and a small grin coming over her face, she quickly pulled up the ability screen to see her ability.
- - - - -
- Ability {Push and Pull} 1-Star - 0.5%
- Description: Through your experience and understanding of space, you are able to moderately affect any object, directing towards or away from your center of mass.
- - - - -
“Huh” was all she could say as she looked over the ability. Although it made a certain kind of sense, obviously the easiest monster to kill in the whole forest wouldn’t be skyrocketing her abilities… but come on, half of a percentage point? That was a bit harsh, and made her feel slightly bad for the rats if anything else.
On the other hand, she could absolutely understand why the merchants had been so eager to get their hands on all of her fire attuned tokens; these things were a free experience to people who didn’t want to go out and fight a monster. After she’d gotten her own strength to a respectable point, she’d absolutely try and farm these things to make money, that was ridiculous.
But speaking of, she had quite a few tokens more, and from some notably more impressive monsters than the simple rat.
She decided to try the polar opposite next so she could get both extremes. Placing on her tongue the token of the tiger, she felt this time a much more powerful reaction.
- - - - -
- You have consumed {Lesser Monster Token}. Experience of the life-or-death struggle will be applied to a random class ability.
- Class Ability {Push and Pull} has been slightly improved as a result of the struggle for life.
- - - - -
- Ability {Push and Pull} 1-Star - 10.5%
- Description: Through your experience and understanding of space, you are able to moderately affect any object, directing towards or away from your center of mass.
- - - - -
Ten percent? Again, she wasn’t expecting to shoot up in level after a day, be an immortal, world conquering witch by the end of the week, but… that tiger was seriously only worth ten percent? She was in for a long road of ‘struggles’ if that was the case.
- - -
By the time the train pulled to a stop at the farm land station an hour and a half later, she had consumed every monster token in her inventory she could. As she walked off the train, she pulled up her overall character screen to see the gains she’d earned from her time in the woods.
- - - - -
Character Screen
* Name: Kya Ophelia
* Race: Human/Founder
* Race Benefits: Loot the Corpse, Identify, Translation
* Class: Space - 1-Star - 17%
* Class Abilities: Push and pull - 51%
* Class Benefits: Aura, Inventory
- - - - -
This led her to an obvious and important realization. Her class went up one percent for every three percent of her ability. She assumed then, that this was the path of progress for her. Get her current ability to one hundred percent, and unlock the next one, and the next one. Get all three to one hundred percent, and she should rank up to two stars.
From a single week in the woods, she had gotten enough experience to get one ability halfway there. So, unless something unexpectedly tedious and a side-tracking event comes up, she should be able to make two stars within a couple of months!
It was at this point that Kya slapped herself in the face, found a nearby tree, and promptly knocked on the wood three times. “I’m sorry, universe, for tempting you. Please do not make my life any harder than it needs to be.”
Several onlookers had seen this, and after staring in stunned silence, simply shook their heads, some with mutterings of “Users” under their breath and kept going about their day.
For Kya’s part, she paid them no mind. She could tell she was in the right area, or at least a few miles away from it, and was ready to get to it. She had an ability to strengthen, a farmer to help, and a quest to complete.
It was time to kill some demon dogs.