[ Dr. Kerenski / Kopusha / Leemy ]

Luck could show me the future. I need a lot more luck as phantom monsters gathered around me, seeking to devour me. Luck was the perfect skill necessary for my survival.

I dumped the rest of my points into Luck and set [Chrysalis] to disconnect me from the fissure beneath the battery, to shed my bark and to create a spring-like muscle that wound tighter and tighter beneath me. At the same time, I started to create a special kind of Astral spore using the Life-Forge. One that could store as much energy as possible. A battery-spore.

As warm and lovely as this place was, Mother was coming. Mother wanted to steal my knowledge, wanted to add me to her collection of specimens and servants.

There was only one place to go now - the blue thread. Wherever it would lead me, it was better than the cold darkness of the Astral Ocean and its hungry, hungry monsters.

I also considered burying myself in the ground made up of ossified corpses, but decided against it. I didn't know what was down there. All of Kopusha's knowledge or perhaps the sense of Luck screamed at me - do not dig into the Astral. The bodies beneath me were attracted by something, and just maybe the gargantuan diatom wasn't just a dead structure.

Everything had a purpose. Everything mattered.

Mother had a very high level, maybe she had a skill in tracking scents too... that is if soul-scents existed in the Astral.

I glanced down at the battery and looked at the black obelisk. Someday, I would come back here. Someday, when I was strong enough, I would claim this place for myself, grow, thrive and multiply, drive back the decay and the monsters... light up the dreary darkness, bloom and spread my spores.

The unfortunate downside to [Chrysalis] was that it made my mind incredibly foggy, messed with my perception of time. I had no idea how many days passed as the skill rebuilt my body beneath me turning me from a tree into a tight, compressed spring ready to uncoil.

. . .

Something within me told me that the spring was ready. The [Battery-spore] was ready too!

It was now collecting power from the leaking Astral Engine, looking like a spark hovering near me that grew brighter and brighter with every passing moment.

I turned the Chrysalis [OFF] and used Tamus and Sectus to carve a little piece of my soul out from myself. Using the [Conjugo-Anima] song I inserted my soul-shard into the battery spore so that it would not decay away, become a permanent part of me forever.

Congratulations on creating an [Astral Battery : Phylactery] +100 XP

The Soul-Song commented. The Astral battery felt like it was alive now, feeling like it was part of me but also not really. I decided to call her Battie.

I aimed Identify at my construct.

[Battie]

[Astral Battery] [Phylactery]

[Mana containment : 2/10 m]

Ten mana? Not bad. I only held 2 mana by myself.

As Battie absorbed more mana, she became even brighter, shining like a star in the night.

The visible brightness of my battery-spore agitated the Phantom whale squid even more. It slammed into the shield harder than ever, screeching hungrily and trying to claw at me. Thankfully, the ancient shield held. Kopusha recalled that it wasn't just protection for the obelisk, it was also designed to be a little haven for lost souls that died. A place from which they could be rescued, if they were conscious enough. Too bad all of my potential rescuers were dead.

I aimed [Identify LV 3] at the blue thread in the distance.

[Pathway / Tether]

Identify defined the blue thread. Not very informative, but definitely something to work with.

I extrapolated, broke down the words [Tether] using sky-god language. I decided to call the language Omnicode, because it seemed to define absolutely everything in extraordinary mathematical complexity.

I slowly combined the word [Sectus] with the word [Tether] creating an entirely new spell song. It took me ages to extrapolate both words and to combine them together into a single functional fractal superstructure. My soul-mind or whatever I was using to compute these was starting to hurt immensely as I brought the spell up to Level 3.

I needed more intelligence. Maybe I should have invested more points into Intelligence instead of luck?

Whatever.

I kept up at it, until something began to glow in the distance. It was her. Mother and her brood.

Something told me that she was here earlier that before. She had gotten here faster than in my dream, potentially knew that I was trying to escape!

Something had gone off-script. As some of her children attacked the whale, Mother didn't bother chasing the whale herself, focused right at me, heading straight for the fissure to strike at me with her ray, hundreds of her children surrounding the shield.

She also had LUCK on her side, also somehow knew, subconsciously perceived the future.

Just as her ray ignited, I released the tightly wound spring-muscle. Her ray struck the battery, carving a path across it to where I was growing moments before.

I flew out of the shield, away from the obelisk like a fiery star. As one of her phantom children tried to grab at me, I fired [Sectus-Tether LV 3] at it. It didn't get cut, but it became momentarily confused, the silver tentacles unable to grab at me.

Mother fired her beam at me again. Thankfully it had a slow reload rate, wasn't instant.

The second attack missed me by a hair, as I spun a little to the side right before it struck me. The beam ignited, was blocked by the confused phantom-child right behind me.

Success!

I caught onto the blue thread and was flung down its path to wherever it was leading.

The pathway no longer felt like it fit me. It felt wrong, awkward, like I no longer belonged to to it. My movement across it was a lot slower, definitely not as rapid as before. Either the blue thread had decayed over time or my Astral body had grown stronger, bigger and no longer fit it properly.

I used my threads to push me down the blue-thread, accelerating myself.

I heard something screech behind me. I turned several of my eye-stalks to glance behind me.

Mother!

She was chasing me down the path, accelerating, catching up to me, clinging to blue thread with her tentacles.

Hell!

I aimed [Sectus-Tether] at the thread behind me and let the spell go. The entire thread behind me shattered, tore apart. Mother screeched as she was flung sideways, her horrid ray nearly clipping me once again.

"Take that you..." I gloated.

The tunnel-thread suddenly felt tighter. It crushed, folded, squeezed me into... something.

I screamed as darkness claimed me.

The God-damned hollow Mother phantom drove me into a trap... got me stuck in a phylactery of some sort. I sighed inwardly.

My entire Astral tree felt like had been injected into something, the blue thread acting akin to a hypodermic needle.

Welcome to Novazem, transient soul.

The Soul-Song declared jovially. Well, at least I'm out of the Astral. That's one problem solved.

I no longer felt cold and miserable. Wherever I was, even if Mother had acted by some sinister design, I was certain that I could figure things out, change my path, break away for whatever had been prepared for me by whomever...

"Stats," I said.

Re-computing soul stats.

The Soul-Song commented. This didn't bode well.

Name:

_______ Alana Skyisle

Age:

22 weeks

Species & Subtype:

female - human - foetus

Affinity:

Astral Phantom [Various stat bonuses from subsumed soul-shards and affiliated affliction]

Spark of the Morningstar [+ 3 skill channels]

Blessing of Lunaria [+ Soul-Song skill]

Agromancer [+ Life-Forge skill]

Dryad [+Chrysalis skill]

Level:

2

Experience:

198/450

Health:

2/2

Stamina:

2/2

Mana:

2/2

Mana regen:

2 m/hr

Strength:

0

Agility:

0

Dexterity:

0

Vitality:

0 [+3]

Charisma:

0

Magic:

0 [+3]

Luck:

15

Intelligence:

0

Wisdom:

0

Soul:

1 [+3] [-3]

Skills:

[Soul-Song LV 0] [ON]

[Raising Spell efficiency by 0.1%]

[Providing detailed Soul-Stats]

[Translating the Soul-Song's Language]

Known Song-Spells:

[Tamus-Anima] [Sectus-Anima] [Conjugo-Anima] [Identify]

[Life-Forge LV 1] [OFF]

[Chrysalis LV 0] [PAUSED]

[Sectus-Tether LV 3]

Affliction:

[Soul decay: - 3]

I obsessively read the first line again and again, feeling growing confusion and dread.

_______ Alana Skyisle

"Why the hell am I... Fill in the blank, Alana Skyisle all of a sudden?" I grouchily mumbled to myself mentally. "I don't understand..."

[An unfilled name. An unfilled name is an unwritten path. [+1] in Vitality, [+1] in Magic, [+1] in Soul and [-1] in Soul decay... this means one thing only,] the memory of Kopusha revealed. [This is an unborn child. You have been merged with a soul and body of an unborn child!]

"WHAT?! W-what?! What kind of a monster would do this?!" I yelled into the darkness. There was no answer from either of my two other memories, but I felt my anger boiling to the surface with every second.

This Phylactery was... a human... an unborn, human girl!

[Conceal self]