Chapter 26: An Odd Dream

Verity staggered into the Guild owned Inn, exhausted beyond all belief. She had a large stack of spell books neatly wrapped and placed in a simple rucksack on her back. It was quite heavy since none of them were thin books, and spell books were unnaturally dense for their size, each being about twice as heavy as a book should be. If she’d known that she’d be borrowing so many books from Rei, she would have cleared space in her [Inventory] to store them.

As per the deal she’d made with Rei, she was only borrowing the books. Rei had offered to sell them to her, but she had looked at that price and tried not to scream. She might not be as uptight about money as Crimson was, but even she didn’t want to pay 20,000 Royals just for books. She did technically have the money, but she was planning to use it elsewhere and couldn’t afford to give it away. She had another debt she needed to pay first as well as materials to buy for [Affinity Rituals].

She walked carefully past the inn owner - an old lady with intense and scary eyes who stared at every patron - and to her room. Once in the room itself, she ignored the desk in the corner and plopped on the ground with her bag of books. Ruffling through it, she found the copy of [Lesser Healing] for the [Life Affinity], and set about reading it. As she did so, a scroll unfurled in the air in front of her and words started to appear on it, like an invisible hand was writing them.

—————

The Gods have noticed your study.

They extend their help to you.

Would you accept their assistance?

—————

Verity looked at the offer for a long moment. She hated it, hated it so much, but she wasn’t Crimson - even if she wanted to be able to do what he does, she didn’t know how to learn magic on her own - without the Gods’ help - and now wasn’t the time to ask Crimson to teach her how to do it. It was late and she had no idea which inn he stayed in. Not only that…she wanted to do as much as she could without him. The resolution she’d made to herself was that she’d be a help, and not a hinderance to him. He had his own training and issues to look after, and while advice was fine on occasion, constantly disturbing him would only inhibit them both.

She gritted her teeth and sighed through them before informing the Gods that she would accept their help.

Immediately, the invisible hand started writing again.

—————

The Gods have heard your plea, and will assist.

Continue reading the chapter, you have 9 more pages to go.

Chapter read: 10%

—————

With a sigh she resumed reading. The chapter told the story of a meadow, it spoke of the creatures that traveled through it and those that lived in it, it spoke of the plants and the sky, and it did so with language that could practically make her feel she was there, she felt the strong thrumming of life, it was a feeling of nostalgia and vitality, and as that feeling grew in her more and more strongly, she felt as if it were all real.

Like a whisper, Crimson’s voice started speaking, and that voice told her about spell books. It wasn’t a [Skill] or anything special, just Verity’s memory of his lectures. Imagining him explaining it to her made it easier to remember.

The whisper told her a spell book was special, not just because of the words written on the page, but because of the magical nature of the book. It had the ability to generate stronger feelings, emotion, and imagery than a regular book. They were impossible for people to create, and could only be earned from dungeons or very rarely from [Quests].

Fortunately, the whisper continued, they weren’t single use items and could be used over and over again, but the ability to use them over and over again was necessary to prevent the spells from degrading over time, which meant that there frequently was a situation of one person to one book. In cases like the Temple or the Guild they could distribute or permit access to a broad variety of spell books due to the people gathering there, lending them out at needed and helping those who were tied to the organization to maintain their abilities, but anyone who took a magic type [Class] needed to have spell books for themselves, they couldn’t afford to be in a position where they needed to wait on someone else to return the spell book they needed.

The voice stopped as her Crimson Archive finished sharing the information.

There was, of course, an exception to that piece of common sense in the form of Crimson, who had all of his spells perfectly memorized. His very existence was unfair whenever she really thought about it, it was a good thing he was on her side. Case in point, Verity knew all about spell books because, who else, Crimson, otherwise she’d never have learned anything about them since it was the kind of knowledge that she would have laughed at having a year ago.

Slowly and methodically, she finished the chapter. Even though it was only ten pages, the imagery was so strong that it took a while to process, so she finished at about a page every two minutes, which was normal for someone of her [WIS], but when the difficulty of the spell was accounted for, then it was a little on the fast side.

[INT] was required to remember spells, and [WIS] was needed to learn them, which meant that all spells had a minimum stat requirement. [Lesser Healing] had a requirement of 13 in [INT] and 11 in [WIS] to learn - it was technically possible to still learn the spell if she was a little off, but it was more difficult. With a lower [INT] the spell would degrade faster and with a lower [WIS] it would take longer to learn, but only up to a point. If the requirements became high enough, then it was just impossible.

Fortunately, all her time studying meant that she’d gotten an extra [WIS] stat just a few days ago, allowing her to clear the requirements.

—————

You have finished reading the chapter.

The Gods consider you.

They have agreed to support you in casting this spell.

You may now use the spell [Lesser Healing].

—————

With a nod, Verity held up her hand and, with a quick glance at her [Blessing] to read the incantation said, “Bless this child with life, [Lesser Healing].”

After a few seconds, her hand started to glow and a gentle and faint beam of green light was emitted from her palm.

She looked over her [Blessing] and noted the cost - 5MP to cast, and an additional 5 per second. Expensive, but it did heal 10HP per second, so it was a very good [Skill] for new healers, or at least that was why Crimson had recommended it to her. It did have the disadvantage of only having a range of 3 inches which was practically no range at all, but apparently it was a good place to start.

She couldn’t wait to start learning spells like [Healing Bolt] and [Healing Arrow].

With a long sigh and a yawn, she put all the books on her desk and went to bed. Even though it was still early, with the sun still setting, she wanted to start getting up at the same time as Crimson, but no matter how early she’d gotten up he was already awake. What time did he wake up?!

———

Crimson sat on his bed, the sun had set and he’d been forced to rush back to his room since being out late in the part of town his inn was located in remained an extremely bad idea - even after a year living there. His bokken was stretched across his knees with another wooden sword - a Longsword - was resting beside him. He’d bought it cheaply for 50 Royals, the quality wasn’t great and he didn’t plan of keeping it, but it was important for his experiments.

As it turns out, talking to weapons didn’t do much for building familiarity, the more important thing was him trying to actively understand the sword, or - he realized in a facepalm worthy ‘no duh’ moment - to become more familiar with it.

The best way to become familiar with a weapon didn’t exist. Some might disagree with him, but that was the answer he’d reached after thinking about it and experimenting. There were methods, but no best way. The methods he found that worked for him were probably the same methods that worked for everyone else: using it, maintaining it, and meditating with it.

The reason why he didn’t think that a best way existed was because none of the methods, or any combination of two was enough to reach the ‘Intimate’ rank of familiarity, which he’d found to be the max, it took all three methods.

The five ranks were as follows: ‘Unknown,’ ’Alien,’ ‘Acquainted,’ ‘Confidant,’ and ‘Intimate.’ Moving from the first to second rank was extremely easy, but moving from Confidant to Intimate was quite the process.

He grabbed the wooden sword and stood up while setting his bokken to the side. He walked slowly to the center of the room while weighing the sword in his hand and inspecting it. That was all it took to bring it up to ‘Alien’ - it was unfamiliar, unknown, it wasn’t ‘his’ yet, but it wasn’t like he knew nothing about it.

He slowly began to loop the blade through the air, it was elegant and showy, but impractical for a real fight. With slow and measured steps he fell into a kata, a practiced form, and carefully controlled his sword to not hit the walls or ceiling.

It was a common trope he’d seen in fantasy books that fighting in a tight space with a sword was nearly impossible. He disagreed, it was certainly difficult, but fighting with a sword in a tight space wasn’t impossible, but that was only with the caveat that full power swings weren’t going to happen.

After a few minutes of swinging it around, he sat down with the sword and began running his fingers over every inch of it, inspecting and interpreting it. He didn’t try to fall into the meditative state that he’d used in the past, rather, he wanted to try a different method to see what would work.

He frowned as his fingers were catching on small splinters, the whole things was rough and shoddily made which was a little frustrating to him. He had fully known what kind of quality he’d been buying, but that didn’t mean that he was happy to see a sword treated so casually.

Crimson stopped and cocked his head for a second, then went over the thoughts he’d just had once more. After a long moment, he smiled.

“I’ve come a long way,” he said to the empty room, “Back when I first arrived here, I wouldn’t have thought anything of this cheap sword beyond a dissatisfaction of a poor quality product.”

Now, he cared about it, not because it was a product, but because it was a sword - something he’d considered an extension of his own will. It meant that he was indeed playing the ‘role’ of a [Class], not just to cynically fulfill a role out of a desire to gain strength the most efficient way, but also because he was becoming the role. He was truly becoming a swordsman. It was a good feeling.

He launched himself back to his feet and in one swift motion performed three quick slashes at the air, exerting an extreme amount of control to keep all three of those slashes for hitting the wall. He felt so giddy, and he didn’t know how to deal with the feeling, so he kept slashing, he even utilized [Twin Steps] to make it harder on himself, rapidly moving through the room, step by step he adjusted his swings to his steps, utilizing and adapting to fighting in the confined area.

He wasn’t perfect, he heard the quiet clank of wood on wood more than once, but it was never a solid hit on the walls, just a gentle brushing. It was just a matter of practice to keep it from happening again, especially since he wasn’t used to fighting in a confined area.

A thought tickled his mind, and in a moment he shifted the philosophy of his movements. Instead of adapting his swings to his steps, he started adapting his steps to his swings.

Crouching slightly with an overhead chop, stepping twice to keep a sweep from hitting the walls, spinning slightly to keep a thrust from putting a hole in the walls - he pushed his movement further and further, and he reveled in it. It had been a while since he’d had such tangible improvement with the sword. It was one thing to learn a fighting style he considered easy and making a lot of progress with it, and another to take something he did consider challenging and feel himself improving with it.

In a moment, he stopped, then inspected the sword. The cheap wood was a little dented at the tip from the gentle brushes with the wall, but it was minor enough to be nothing more than a nitpick, it wasn’t even enough to drop a durability point, and it was minor enough that it might have gone unnoticed to the untrained eye, but Crimson knew what he was looking for.

With a sigh, he started to stretch as he took a look at his [Blessing], then stopped dead at what he saw.

—————

Minimum Requisite Data has been met…

User has the potential to gain the [Skill: Footwork].

User has the potential to gain the [Skill: Ul Byrn]

Generating [Quest] for [Footwork]…

Generating [Quest] for [Ul Byrn]…

—————

Crimson was stunned for a few second, then grinned. He didn’t know what [Ul Byrn] was, but he had a vague idea of what it meant. Ul should mean something like ‘of’ or ‘from’ or a similar idea, while Byrn was even harder to define in English. It was something like…progress, adaption, and interpretation, all at the same time. The language of origin was unknown, but it was a language he had seen before, even if he didn’t know much of it beyond a few words. He’d never heard it spoken, but he’d seen a bit of it in writing. Coming across it now was almost as exciting as a new [Skill]…almost.

—————

Generated [Quest] for [Footwork]:

[Steps upon the ground]

Withstand blows from an opponent with 30 STR (subject to change) or more without falling 0/50

Utilize 4 different types of footwork effectively 0/25

Recover from a broken stance 0/100

Utilize footwork to dodge blows from an opponent with (at minimum, and subject to change) 25 STR 25 AGI 0/10

Reward: [Footwork]

Time Limit: [N]

Failure Condition: [N]

Generated [Quest] for [Ul Byrn]

[Beginning of a Legend]

Reach Lv. 100 of [Sword Mastery] 58/100

Defeat a powerful foe 0/10

Steal a sword style from an opponent during battle 0/1

Propagate a sword style 120/5 (Completed)

Reward: [Ul Bryn]

Time Limit: [N]

Failure Condition: [N]

—————

[Steps upon the ground] wouldn’t be hard to finish, he could probably do most of it within the week if he got Mars to help - even if some of the requirements were ‘subject to change’ - but his expectations for [Ul Byrn] had been raised. What would it do? Reaching Lv.100 of a [Mastery Skill] was already practically unheard of, and that was just the first requirement. The second one, ‘defeat a powerful foe’ was extremely annoying to him. What constituted a ‘powerful foe?’ Was it relative to his strength? Relative to the max level? Was it influenced by the race of the foe? He needed some clarification on this one…

Well, he wouldn’t get it, so he needed to figure out what a ‘powerful foe’ is.

The third requirement seemed extremely interesting, he already had experience getting ideas from his opponents, but it seemed like the goal of this one was to take someone’s style exactly as they used it. That struck him as… a bad idea. People were fundamentally individual, their skeleton structure, habits, muscular development, experience, preference, and philosophy all influenced their fighting style. Even learning an established style from someone else bred differences.

Those differences were important, for good or for ill, as the style started to suit the user’s needs more. As it is adjusted it becomes mildly warped - something Crimson loved - which meant that trying to take someone else’s style resulted in a poor fit. It was similar to stealing someone else’s clothes. Yes, you could steal their clothes, but they won’t fit right unless you modify the clothes.

While fascinating, trying to use someone else’s style as they did would just weaken him for all the reasons he’d laid out…well, the requirements didn’t seem to be enforcing the theft. He could either stop using it or adjust it to fit him after the theft.

It was really hard for him to explain, but stealing someone else’s form gave him a visceral sense of repulsion - one that he knew shaking off would be unpleasant. The [Skill] had better be good to make him do such a distasteful thing like that to get it.

The last requirement was the easiest one for him - it was already done. It was probably the result of him creating, then teaching others the [True Adventurer’s Style]. He had a lot of people help him as he worked on it, but that didn’t change the fact that he’d been the one to lead the project and the one to build the sword version of the style from the ground up by himself - even if he got help with the other kinds of weapons. However, he was surprised to see how far it has spread.

He tapped the sword in his hand on the palm of the other hand as he considered the requirements as a whole. Whatever the final [Skill] did would be a result of all the things he’d done to meet the requirements, so what kind of result would be produced? There was a general theme - the sword - but it wasn’t specific enough for him to know what it would do. If he had to identify a secondary theme, it would probably be skill. Everything it was asking him to do required a high amount of skill, so maybe it would help him in learning new sword styles, but then there was the aspect about him teaching others, which threw a wrench in things.

After thinking about it for a few minutes, the best conclusion he could reach would be that [Ul Byrn] was an analysis type [Skill], or a buffing [Skill], but there was a chance it could be a debuff [Skill]. He let out a long sigh, as he continued to think.

These [Quests] were the normal way people gained [Skills] and even some [Titles]. They were usually difficult, but as data was accumulated the requirements could be adjusted in various ways, either by reducing the difficulty or changing them all together. The point of them was essentially that the Gods saw the potential to make a [Skill] from the data that had already been collected, and the [Quests] were there to get the last of the data needed to form the [Skill].

It was actually quite easy to get some [Quests], but fulfilling them wasn’t always easy. Verity probably had to do some annoying things to get [Mana Influence], but nothing near as crazy as Crimson had to do for [Ul Byrn]. The Gods would try to adjust the [Quest] to a difficulty that they thought would be possible for the recipient. In Crimson’s case, Raften knew he was competent, so he gave Crimson requirements that had a high quality - which meant that they were difficult - while others might have to deal with more volume.

It was a novel experience for Crimson who had gained all his previous [Skills] from having so much data that they were just given to him. The system had called it ‘overflowing data.’

It was all quite exciting to him, but with a glance outside, he could see that the moon was rising quite high in the sky, and decided that it was time to wrap things up. He wiped down his sword, used magic to clean himself, then he sat on the ground and started to mess with his mana.

He was trying to see if he could once more make mana suffuse his entire body, like it had before it had been jammed back into his mana veins by getting his [Blessing]. It was hard to quantify the effect that having his mana fill him like that had done, but he certainly felt like his casting ability was faster, and that his mana reacted more quickly to his will. Knowing that, and hating how empty he felt, he started working to get it back.

It was…unpleasant, at every level. In the past, when he’d done this before, it hadn’t felt like his mana had been fighting him at every step, but with him being under the system it suddenly hated hanging out in the space between his veins. It constantly tried to slip out of his skin, but he didn’t let it, and the resisting mana felt extremely disgusting, like he’d swallowed a bunch of live insects and could feel them bouncing around inside. It almost made his very heart feel ticklish since his mana center was set in a position mirrored to it.

Ignoring his body, the sensations he felt, and everything trying to stop him, he continued. He started shivering from head to toe the violent shudders ripped through him and his teeth started to chatter, but he refused to stop. He continued to push more and more mana into the empty space. As the shudders elevated to be near something like a spasm, he set a goal for stopping. He wasn’t sure why his body was rejecting what he was doing, but once he’d filled every inch of the empty space and held it there for a minute…no, thirty seconds, he could stop.

He slowly started curling into a ball and wrapped his arms around his chest. The shudders, though violent, had pretty much stabilized, which gave him some room to think. Why was this happening? He wasn’t doing anything that would cause damage to his body, mana was literally a part of who he was, and he had done it before, so why was he reacting like this?

The only reason why he continued was the knowledge that what he was doing wouldn’t damage him, there was no ‘if, and, or, but’ about it, it just wouldn’t damage him. It wasn’t even a unique trait of his, it was just how bodies with whatever this mana organ worked, so whatever was going on was caused by something else, but what?

He gritted his teeth a little to stop them from clicking so loudly and to express his irritation. His mind was a little muddied, so his thoughts had just been caught in a loop, thinking essentially the same things twice.

Getting closer to finishing, Crimson’s shaking didn’t intensify, but it became uncontrollable as the chattering of his teeth was heard through out the room, and his trembling legs forcibly straightened themselves, causing his head to slide on the rough floor. There was a flash of pain from there, he’d probably cut his head on a splinter.

If he didn’t know any better, he’d have thought that he was having a seizure.

The count began, it was a long, slow thirty seconds until he could let go. During that time, he started to wonder if he was just being stupidly stubborn. There shouldn’t be anything wrong with what he was doing, but maybe something had changed that he didn’t know about? There was certainly something wrong, he couldn’t deny that, but what was happening ran contrary to all his understanding of mana.

Five.

Four.

Three.

Two.

One.

He let go, and contrary to his expectations, his mana didn’t immediately flee, but it left in a slow trickle, like it was reluctant to leave him. As it continued to flow, he realized why he hadn’t stopped - he didn’t want to. The emptiness was slowly returning, and it hurt, he hated feeling like this, he hated it, hated it, hated it.

He gritted his teeth, then turned over and slammed his head into the floor, hard. There was something very wrong with him. His mind was all over the place and he couldn’t think clearly, he wanted the mana back, but never wanted to do that again. He wanted to do it again, but he never wanted the mana back. For once, he couldn’t understand his own mind or body. They were in complete discord.

Maybe there was something in his [Blessing]?

—————

Unique data detected.

Unique data detected.

Unique data detected.

All unique data sets have been stored.

Continuing data collection…

Stats UP!

+2 INT for Exertion

+3 WIS for Exertion

[Skills] MAXED!!!

[Skill: Sophisticated Mana Sense] 9>Max

Rewarded: 6 PER for Max [Skill] (partial data withheld)

[Skill: Sophisticated Mana Influence] 8>Max

Rewarded: 3 INT and WIS for Max [Skill] (partial data withheld)

—————

Crimson stared fixedly at the alert. He’d generated three types of ‘unique data’ with what he’d just done, which meant that there were three factors contributing to whatever was happening…or at least it should…he wasn’t sure if he could trust his own logic at the moment.

Looking at the rest of his [Blessing], there was no change aside from some lost health. About 3HP from the splinter plus bleeding, and a further 2 from the blunt force trauma caused by the floor. No titles, no changes to affinities, no new [Skills], nothing that really stood out. The stat changes were welcome, as were the max [Skills], but not an explanation. Well, there was actually one thing.

—————

-Name: Crimson

-Race: Half (High Human, ???) -Age: 16

-Affiliation: [Adventurer’s Guild: Brass]

-Active Title: [Lucky] [Blessings of Trans’Du’Niir] [Rean]

-Titles: Lucky, Linguist, Mentor

-Health (HP): 95/100 Regen/s: 2.0

-Magic (MP): 50/420 Regen/s: 4.4

-Fatigue (FP): 60

-Condition: Exhausted, Tired, Recoil

-Class: [Empty]

-Sub-Class: [Locked]

-Sub-Class: [Locked]

-Status:

Strength (STR): 18 Agility (AGI): 18

Constitution (CON): 15 Vitality (VIT): 20

Intelligence (INT): 42 Wisdom (WIS): 44

Charisma (CHA): 7 Willpower (WIL): 22

Perception (PER): 44 Luck (LUC): 90

-Affinities

-Elemental

Fire: 5 Water: 5

Earth: 5 Wind: 5

Lightning: 5 Metal: 7

Magma: 5 Ice: 5

-Dynamic

Holy: 5 Profane: 5

Purity: 6 Corruption: 5

Life: 5 Death: 5

Mana: 9 (10) Void: 2

-Skills

-Bloodline: [Eyes of Change: [Eyes of Will] 4/10] 1/10, [???] 0/0

-Class: None

-Sets: [System Instincts: [Skill Peak] 4/10 [Locked], [Locked], [Locked]] 1/10

-General: [Sword Mastery] 58/100, [Sophisticated Mana Influence] 10/10, [Sophisticated Mana Sense] 10/10, [Intermediate Linguist] 3/10, [Secret Sense] 3/10, [Advanced Calligraphy] 7/10, [Sword Kinship] 3/10

—————

[Recoil] was the only thing he didn’t recognize. [Exhaustion] meant that his physical recovery was reduced and [Tired] meant the same for his mana regen, but he didn’t know what [Recoil] was. He stared at his [Blessing] long enough that his sight began to blur. He needed sleep.

Absently, he headed to bed while applying a healing spell to the back of his head. He would need the sleep to clear his head.

As he slipped into the warm embrace of sleep, he had a dream, something that never happened to him, and he dreamed of a place he recognized - Trans’Du’Niir.

———

At eight years old, Verity was an adorably clumsy child. Her hair was constantly askew and made her head look like it was three times larger than it actually was, but that all just made her even more adorable. She lived in Rad’in with her mother and they were quite happy together. She was really, really good friends with the local Jeweler’s son, she liked him a lot.

She walked down the road of her home town, heading toward her home after a long day of play. Her town was in the middle of a wasteland, there was nothing for miles around it, but within a few miles of the town there were trees and plants, a river, and more. Despite the desolation that surrounded her home, they had used their [Skills] to carve out a home for themselves. The elves had grown the trees themselves, they had created life where there originally was none, they may have been driven from their homes by a [Natural Dungeon] breaking open years ago, but these new homes were even better.

Well, Verity just thought the new ones were better, she didn’t remember the old ones, she’d just been a baby when they’d fled. Her father had died buying them time, but because of his sacrifice and the sacrifice of a bunch of other really really strong guys, they’d been able to allow most of their village to get away.

They’d ended up living where they did because they found that plants could grow there, and there weren’t any [Natural Dungeons] anywhere near them. It was hard, they had been forced to grow all of their food from scratch and nearly starved but, miraculously, they’d been able to grow everything they needed to in the area. They didn’t have a dungeon, and there weren’t monsters nearby, so strong people were in short supply, but [Life Weaver] became both a necessary and beloved [Class].

It was hard, but they were strong, and Verity’s Momma was the best of them all, the rest were just too stupid to see it!

Verity grinned broadly at the sight of her mother, she looked a bit like Verity would if she was a lot taller, but she always had an expression on her face like she wasn’t there. Her Momma was really smart, but it was the weird kind of smart, one that made her stupid. Verity loved her anyway!

The smile disappeared off her face as she saw who was talking to her Momma, it was that annoying neighbor that always like to yell at her for stupid reasons.

“Get rid of that Gods useless [Class] already! You’re do nothing for Rad’in with how weak you are, and your loud noisy gremlin is nothing but a drain on resources! I’m surprised the Elder hasn’t already banished you,” any further words from the woman were cut off as Verity punched her in the back, hard, right over that spot next to the long bone that was soft and hurt when she didn’t drink enough water.

Verity ran around her to stand in front of her Momma with her arms spread out to protect her, “Stop yelling at my Momma you banshee!”

The ugly elf’s face twisted, “How dare you?! Get lost in the abyss you gremlin! I’ll talk to the Elder and get you both banished for this! I’ll see you both dead for this!”

The woman continued to rant as Verity’s Momma gently pushed her inside the house. Verity sat angrily on the bed of their one room house. Outside, the shouting continued, and it made Verity want to go back out and punch her, but after a few minutes the sound dwindled and the banshee left.

Verity’s Momma came into the house then, smiling at her, said, “Verity, dinner’s ready, please wash up.”

Verity stood up angrily, “Why does that old lady yell at you Momma? She’s doing it all the time, and I don’t want her to do it anymore!”

She gently patted Verity on the head, “She doesn’t like my [Class] sweetie, I don’t have [Life Weaver], just [Cultivator].”

“Why is that a bad thing Momma? You can grow all kinds of plants, not just make thinks out of plants!”

“Well,” her Momma hesitated, “There’s a little more to [Life Weaver] than that, but my [Class] is really hard to make strong. It’ll take me a long time.”

“That’s fine Momma, you’re really young, and she’s over a hundred!” Verity shouted, waving her arms over her head.

“Hush, don’t talk about people like that.”

“Why? She deserves it, she’s a banshee!”

“Ahh, that’s right, you did call her that. Come here Verity.”

Verity froze, realizing that she’d made a big mistake.

“But Momma!”

“No buts, come here.” Verity walked over to her Momma and was forced to sit on the table with some creep roots in her mouth as punishment for saying something so nasty.

As she sat there, sulking and hating the bitter taste of the root, she look around her house and felt really sad for some reason. As she looked, the room started to blur, then disappear. Within a few blinks, Verity found herself standing, the lingering taste of bitter from the creep roots lingering in her mouth as she stood on a glowing platform of white stones. She was no longer eight, she was four decades older, and only slightly more mature.

She looked around the platform, beyond the edge was a wall of dark mist that twisted and turned in the air. There wasn’t any breeze, but it still moved. The whole area just felt…empty.

Turning around, she saw a path of the white stones, leading off into the distance. After some hesitation, she started to follow the path. It wound on, further and further before eventually reaching another platform. This one wasn’t empty.

The large platform was filled with bookcases with hard boxes that had colorful pictures and little statues of girls. In the center of the platform was a weird chair that had wheels and five legs. On the chair was…a floating robe? There was some kind of hard thing that kept going ‘click clack’ floating in the air in front of the robe which had a rope attached to it leading to some kind of black box with moving paintings on it.

She had absolutely no idea what she was looking at.

While she stood in confusion, trying to figure out what was going on, she noticed a glowing…thing, like a wraith floating in the air just behind and to the side of her. She didn’t sense any malice from it, but its form was really inconsistent. It was vaguely humanoid, but the size was constantly changing, like a flickering flame.

Before she could think more about it, a voice interrupted her thoughts.

“Welcome to this place, Verity of the Barren Wastes.”

Verity jerked around and saw that the weird chair had spun in place, and the floating robe was facing her.

“My name is Raften, I’m the Overseer and I’ve been waiting for our meeting for a long time.”

Verity winced and gasped, his words cut through her like knives to her soul. It felt like a single shout from him would be enough to end her. She knew it in her bones, this was a God, but not one she’d heard of.

Not knowing what else to do, she bowed in respect to the unknown God, “This Verity greets the mighty God, Raften.”

The oddly shaped device was placed on a small table and the robe made motions like it was being worn by somebody who stood. It moved closer to her, speaking all the while, “You were an interesting factor in things. You could have failed so many times, yet you stand before me. I have no choice but to respect his decision in this matter, you’ve shown yourself to be quite resilient. It doesn’t feel great that he ignored those I set before him thought…”

“Excuse me, God Raften, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Verity said, nervously. It didn’t seem like was going to destroy her, but those words still cut into her, she was afraid her very existence would melt away in his mighty presence.

“Well, it’s no matter. I suppose you would like an explanation, unfortunately, I won’t be the one to give it. We don’t have enough time, and your soul isn’t as strong as his, if you stay here too long your existence will crumble, and I’ll get in a lot of trouble with a lot of other Gods and Crimson.”

Verity jumped, then shouted without thinking, “How do you know Crimson?!”

“Well, he’s like a prophet of mine. No, that’s a bad way to put it. Just ask him. Anyway, I’ve called you here for a reason.”

The God stopped speaking as a ripple appeared in the air in front of him, with every passing ripple, more and more words appeared until a full contract was in the air.

Verity stared at the contract, it was quite plainly written and was quite short, but before she could read it all, the God spoke once more.

“The terms are simple, for as long as you remain loyal to Crimson and support him, you’ll receive power and my support. You’re also to not reveal his personal secrets without his expressed permission and you’re to help in achieving his goals. I imagine that won’t be an issue for you, since you’ll be able to get what you want as long as you stick with him.”

She felt for the first time, the pressure of this God’s eyes, it reminded her of what it was like to make eye contact with Crimson when he was mad, but infinitely worse.

Despite that, she mustered her courage. She didn’t mind agreeing to stay loyal to Crimson and help him out, even with no promise of power in return, she’d already promised herself that, but power was dangerous. Accepting it blindly would just lead to ruin.

“What kind of power are you offering?”

A booming laugh resounded from the God, he then said, “He really has influenced you, hasn’t he? You’re normally the type to blindly agree or disagree, not think things through. This is such a good change!”

The laugh started once more, then he said, “It’s simple, you will receive the [Blessings of Trans’Du’Niir]. Think of them as five specific ‘buffs’ that make you even better at things you’re already good at. They’re permanent, but they might take a little while to develop, so you’ll probably receive them one at a time. You don’t need to worry about it, Crimson has the same [Blessings], he can attest that they’re powerful and useful.”

Verity sat quietly in thought, then read over the contract again. It laid out everything he’d said, and even mentioned something about being her protective God.

In the end, there was one thought that won out - she’d be able to achieve her dream, she could help Crimson, she’d be able to become strong.

She signed on the dotted line.