[Delta Alana Skyisle]

Discovering that mom’s lullaby had hidden meaning to it had managed to cheer me up… somewhat. I was trying hard to appear happy, to be useful and helpful, but the dark undercurrent still nipped at my mind, composed of sad thoughts that I’d never get back what I lost due to massive soul-corruption. I couldn't help but constantly think that we had lost twelve years of development because of me. Because I had failed to do my job as an observer, failed to spot Kliss underneath the invisibility cloak.

On the other hand, I felt jealous of Dante. His soul got to sleep in my tendrils while I fled from the Phantoms across the Astral. His body got to live out a peaceful, carefree life in Skyisle, something that I’d never get to enjoy at this rate. He got to grow up, got to have friends, got to spend time with mom and dad. I felt that the infinite darkness of the deep Astral had extinguished, smothered the hearth of hope and joy in my soul.

I didn’t join Dante in his dreams. I couldn't rest or relax. While he slept, I watched the house with all of my tendrils, twitching at every change in the air currents. I didn’t trust Kliss. Even if the damned woman was bound by her Vows, she could still hire someone from Agamemnon to attack us. Worst of all, I suspected, feared that my decay was at a point where it was irreversible, that soon I would become useless to Dante, fade into senility or insanity and he would be forced to erase whatever was left.

To pass the time I decided to fidget with the Alanian song, since something felt off about it. The more I poked and prodded it, the more my theory was confirmed. It took me half the night to figure out what exactly was up with it - there was a spell of calmness embedded into its tone-structure. It was a 'song-spell' - the most inefficient, most ridiculous thing I’ve laid my sensors upon. I ran the song through a bunch of algorithms and the result was a bunch of tones that anyone could whistle in about 45 seconds. It didn't even appear as a skill in my menu as I played it back to myself. Was this arcane… song-magic?

The Infoscope had no mouth to whistle the tones, but running the tones in a loop inside my mind managed to calm me. I recalled how Vladislav’s mom in USSR fed him valerian when he couldn't sleep and wondered if this musical-magic was designed to replace such a chemical effect in magical-constructs. Did Alanians use magical constructs like me? Was all of their magic done through songs like this? I had no idea and only one song to work with.

Night passed into morning and Dante woke up with a groan when light spilled onto his face from the round windows.

“Magicking some coffee would be nice right about now,” he yawned rubbing his neck. “Sleeping on the floor on a bunch of sweaters wasn't my wisest decision.”

He glanced at me in the real, without manifesting an avatar in the Mindspace. “Have you been up all night?”

“As nice as it would be to share dreams, I’d rather keep watch,” I replied. “I am not dragging your soul through the Astral again! Pretty sure I have Post-traumatic-Astral stress disorder now!”

“Understandable,” he nodded with a wince.

“I’m sorry, Dante. I should have been more diligent that night. I should have…” I muttered angrily.

“Please stop flogging yourself about it,” He shook his head. “It wasn’t a scenario we could win. I set events in motion when I unlocked the System and gained my first level. People in Skyisle do NOT study math until they are eleven! They unlock the System when they are teenagers.”

“I should have killed Kliss when I had the chance,” I growled. “Should have burned her to ashes before she returned with the knife and the invisibility cloak!”

The Mindspace unfolded the Computational Institute around us. Dante still looked like a teenager, but now his voice gained a twinge of his old-self.

“Now I know that you’re not just my alter-ego, not just a copy of me,” he stated firmly. “Everyone makes mistakes, Delta, it's how we learn. Stop piling regrets on yourself and focus on the future. If we killed Kliss then the Empire would have just sent a smarter, more dangerous Overseer and then we'd be permanently dead and I'd have no body."

I huffed.

“Question?” Dante said.

“Yes?”

“How did you know I would be there?” He asked.

“Where?”

“In the forest… off the path.”

“I didn’t,” I confided. "I tried to drive the whale to Skyisle, dangling one of my threads in front of its face. I didn't expect you’d be there when I emerged. Why were you in the forest?”

“A dream,” he replied. “I had a dream.”

“Hrmmm,” I frowned, not sure what to make of it. “Suspicious. Neither of us has the luck stat for subconscious bending of probability… and yet we ran into each other in the forest.”

Dante nodded. Both of us fell silent contemplating the statistical improbability of running into each other without intending to do so.

“Why don’t you level up while I get breakfast? The corruption might go down with the level up.” He suggested.

“You’re going to be okay on your own? Not going to die while I’m not watching you?” I prodded.

“What’s the house ward battery at?”

“Around sixty thousand mana in each...” I glanced at the ward stats. “If we subtract the five-minute activation delay it's enough to Rewind the house a minute back in time... twice. Our Astral Engine needs a lot of work. I don’t even know where to begin, half of the runes on it are decayed and it barely left an imprint in the Astral.”

“We should check other houses in the village, see if they have the same Astral Engine underneath they might be less decayed in different parts,” Dante suggested. “After you level up, that is. We have the ward-master-key necklace, right?”

“We do. It’s buried deep inside of the beeswax nest,” I nodded. “I’ve just told bees to go spend time outside. Dig it out.”

He ripped the nest apart, right after the swarm departed. In a few minutes the Master-Key to the wards of the village was on his neck. “Anything else of note to report?” He asked with a big smile.

“The Alanian song that mom sang to us is... song magic. It provides a calming effect without a channel.”

“Magic without a skill to host it?” He blinked. "Without a level to it?"

“Extremely slow and inefficient too, but yes. It’s essentially channel-less magic without a level. I don’t understand where the mana for it is coming from and I’d rather not scan things too deeply until I get repaired.”

“I’ll see you after you level up, then?”

“Till then,” I muttered, initiating a level up.

[Dante Alan Skyisle]

I felt bad for Delta. She didn’t have the best time in the Astral. When her voice fell silent, I noted that my Infoscope-shaped soul-sister was asleep in my Mindspace, took off the invisibility cloak and went downstairs for breakfast.

“Danteeeeeee!” Diana nearly collided with me in the hallway. “You weren’t in your room since yesterday! You really went to Agamemnon?!”

I nodded to her.

“What’s Elder Delta like?”

“Grouchy,” I sighed.

“Why?” Diana inquired.

“She got badly hurt,” I replied. “She barely has any energy to do anything.”

“That sucks,” she muttered. “What’s Agamemnon like?”

“Boring and dirty,” I replied.

“Danteeee you suck at describing things,” she groaned. “Are you going to teach me maths or magics?”

“Eventually,” I nodded.

“Are you here for breakfast?” She inquired.

I nodded. We went downstairs. Mom and dad asked me similar questions to which I gave the same vague, brief answers. I got a large backpack from dad and stuffed it full of old tools from his workshop, plus a bedroll and tent that he had from his days as an adventurer.

“I see that our parents have replaced me already,” Delta grumbled, flashing into the space beside me.

“Are you talking about Diana?” I asked. “Our parents don’t know about you.”

“Not even born and already replaced by another,” she lamented dramatically.

“You’re still the best... older sister,” I commented. “How’s the decay? Did the level up help?”

“Yes,” she answered. “Marginal improvements. A few percentile up to skills across the board.”

“Good. Level up again. Don't stop until you've used up all of the experience,” I ordered.

“Yes, boss,” she grumbled, initiating the next level up.

[Delta Alana Skyisle]

The corruption had been reduced almost in half, with my final level up. I was now level eight, matching Dante. I glanced at my chart and put most of my points into Soul adding 10 to Vitality and 10 to Magic. I had to get a [Soul-Repair] skill stat!

Name: Delta Alana Skyisle Age: [computational error] Species: Homomagicus [+ 4 in base Agility & Dexterity] Affinity: Infoscope [Affiliated skill bonus] Specialization: Soul hunter [+ Soul Devourer skill] Level: 8 Experience: 1001/4050 Health: 8/8 [-21%] Stamina: 8/8 [-22%] Mana: 8/8 [-5%] Mana regen: 8 m/hr [-3%] Strength: Agility: 0 [+4] [-31%] Dexterity: 0 [+4] [-26%] Vitality: 10 [-11%] Charisma: 0 Magic: 10 [-2%] Luck: 0 Intelligence: 239 [-22%] Wisdom: 0 [-42%] Soul: 158 [-16] [-22%] Skills: [Infoscope LV 191] [x2] [-24%] [Soul-Devourer LV 8] [Info-tether LV 72] [-33%] [Beemancer LV 15] [-9%] [Vox Colony LV 4] [-4%] [_____________] [_____________] [_____________] Vows: Sacrifice of: [Destruction] Affliction: [Soul Decay] [ - various % ] [ x 2 ]

“How are you feeling?” He asked.

“Better,” I answered. “Going to channel a high-level [Soul-Repair] skill so that I can finish fixing myself.”

He nodded and smiled. “Take a look outside.”

I flashed out of his head. Dante was wearing an enormous backpack filled with tools. He had just pulled an invisibility cloak off himself. A hex-lantern that was clearly cut off from the attic beam of our parents' house was hanging off his belt.

Green, wet, moss covered rocks lay strewn about. Directly in front of us stood an ancient… tower. It looked like a derelict, neglected, overgrown light-house. Purple flowers and shrubs hung from the huge rocks composing its base. A warped, steampunk-looking, bent metal structure was at the top.

“Wow,” I uttered, scanning the lighthouse.

“Yep,” Dante nodded. “We’re here… our new home. It’s well out of the way of the village, far enough that nobody will try to look for us here. The path to it has no lanterns so it is doubtful that anyone will come this way to bother us.”

“Dante, do you know what this is?” I asked, taking the ghostly shape of a teenager, following him into the structure.

“Nope, but it looks pretty cool,” he said.

“It’s a thousand-year-old… hex-beacon!” my voice vibrated. “Probably built in the time of the Alanian Empire! It goes down into the bedrock as far as it does into the sky! The Astral Engine obelisk it possesses... is absolutely massive, at least seven times that of the one in our house. If we fix it, we’ll have the best defense against the damn Phantoms in the valley!”

“That’s pretty neat,” he brushed silver hair out of his eyes, stepping closer to the derelict. “How long do you think that’ll take us?”

“Several months… minimum to reconnect basic things,” I replied. “For the advanced stuff maybe longer… a year? Two? There’s a lot of damage. It hasn’t been maintained in half a millennia, maybe longer. All of the ley lines are decayed beyond use, completely gone.”

The front door of the tower had crumbled long ago, exposing the interior. There was a huge tree growing inside of the structure, the lower floor looking like a wild cavern, randomly strewn with flowers and grasses.

“It’s beautiful,” I uttered. “Beautiful, but sad… all of the stuff exposed to the elements is gone… all of the controlling runes are erased… at least the good stuff like the batteries and the obelisk are safe underground.”

“It’s a shard of the past, just like me,” Dante nodded, touching an uneven, moss covered wall. “An old shell, waiting to be filled with purpose... How are the batteries?”

“Three out of twelve,” I replied. “They’re bigger too… approximately… five hundred thousand mana!”

“That’s great!” He rubbed his hands excitedly.

“We’ll have to be smart about it,” I said.

My brother nodded, his silver-blue eyes glittering with excitement at the prospect of having so much mana to work with.

“Do you think we can find an echo of it in the Astral, try to rebuild it... as it once was?” He inquired, looking up at the rusted, warped stairwell leading to the metal platform at the top.

“There was a lot of magic here once, long ago. A hundred times that of what was in our parents house. It actually might have left a decent imprint,” I nodded. “We can certainly try to fix this place… and if nobody comes to murder us, we might even succeed at it.”