[Valerianne Yul]

I found myself awake on the shore of a river. I was soaking wet and cold. Everything pulsated with maddening pleasure.

“Status.” I whimpered.

Valerianne Yul

[Race]: Human

[Level]: [0] Pathetic weakling

[Progression to next level]: 0% [123’000 points required]

Stats:

[Mana] : 5’257 [Void]

[HP] : 10

[Affinity] :

[Aura] : 100% White

Inventory:

Divine gem of healing [Order of Virtue] [internal]

“Damn it all!” I groaned. I still had five thousand Void mana in me. I didn’t manage to use it all to destroy the spiral labyrinth. At least I healed the forest.

Wait. Internal amulet? My hand reached from my neck. The choker wasn’t there anymore. Fucking hell! Did that fucker make me swallow it? Surely it was too big to fit down my windpipe.

“Did you like that?” A melodic voice sang from somewhere nearby. I turned my head and saw a girl made entirely of sparkling, azure water.

“Uh, sorry?” I blinked.

An enormous hand made of water shot out of the river, grabbing my legs. It started to drag me into the water.

“I hope you know how to swim.” The water elemental giggled.

I did not know how to swim as I had grown up on the farm. This was a problem. A very big problem.

“I’m sorry! Please forgive me if I offended you somehow!” I cried as I instantly became submerged in icy, rushing water.

“Oh, what’s that?” The nymph leaned in towards my face. The giant hand stopped its progress towards drowning me. Everything but my face was now submerged in the river.

“I beg for your forgiveness, oh divine spirit of the river. I’m sorry, I do not know your name.” I whimpered.

“I’m river Altaira. You drank from me without even offering a prayer, mortal.” Altaira said.

“Please forgive me. I didn’t mean to drink here without asking. I didn’t know! I was not myself, delirious with thirst.” I stuttered in terror.

“Well… I suppose I’ll let you live. But, you have to do something for me if you want to avoid drowning.”

“Yes?” I asked, sputtering as I struggled to keep my face out of the water.

“The human city of Kleinberg downstream from here is polluting me with sewer waste. It’s disgusting and unsightly. I want you to make them stop. I’d do it myself, but I can’t seem to manifest there. I think it might be too far from my source… or something.” She shrugged.

New Quest:

Help the river Altaira with her sewage waste problem. Reward 10’000 points.

“Well?” Altaira raised an eyebrow.

“I accept.” I nodded and the Quest attached itself to my soul.

“Excellent.” Altaira clapped. “Off you go then.” The river let go of me and I crawled back to the shore, shaking from fright and cold.

“I’m really tired, how far is Kleinburg from here?” I whispered, looking down the river trying to spot the city. It must have been quite far. Too far to see with the naked eye anyway. The damn evil ghost must have walked me north for some reason.

“Before you ask for a ride - I’m a river, not a boat. I’m not wasting any more of my magic on a rude human. Be glad I didn’t drown you for your insolence. Also, you’d probably die of hypothermia before I got you anywhere. I start at the glaciers, you know.” Altaria smiled, pointing at the tall, ice capped mountains behind her.

I sighed, shivering.

“Chop chop. The Quest awaits! You have feets, use them.” She made a pair of tiny feet with her fingers pretending to walk them.

“Damn it, I lost my shoes,” I muttered, looking at my bare feet.

“They’re my shoes now. Consider it payment for drinking from me.”

I sighed. The city looked like it was very far away and I had no footwear. On the positive sides: I was still alive. I wasn’t thirsty.

Everything else was pretty dreadful. I stood up, wobbling ever slightly and started to walk downstream.

Altaira waved at me cheerfully, sinking back into her current with a wink. Icy gale winds blew from the distant glaciers. The corona of ringshine was slowly warming me up, blessing me with a dark tan. I could see no signs of civilization anywhere.

I was tired and hungry. My stomach felt like it was full of water. Afternoon ringlight shined down upon me as I trudged downstream, trying to avoid difficult terrain. I made myself extremely basic shoes out of thick leaves and ripped up cape bits. They kept falling apart and I had to keep readjusting them.

There was nothing else to do but walk. I decided to check on my quest status.

“Quests,” I muttered.

Quest: Listen up, human imbecile! DO NOT lose any more void mana or you will die horribly as your blood turns into dust and your organs shrivel up. Reward: 0 points.

Quest: Stop being a moron. If you do anything else stupid like cancelling high reward quests I swear to me I will cut off half of your limbs. Lets see how you like being without limbs! Reward: 0 points.

Quest: [A] If you have enough neurons to understand me, cancel this quest. Reward: 0 points.

Quest: [B] If you reject me and want to let me know that you outright refuse to cooperate with me, cancel this quest. Just be aware that I will find your human family and friends and murder all of them in their sleep. In fact, I’ll go out of my way to vaporise the entire village where you were born. I know everything you know. Reward: 0 points.

Quest: Help the river Altaira with her sewage waste problem. Reward 10’000 points.

My mouth dropped open. This was insane. How was the vampire ghost doing this? You couldn't just give quests to yourself. They had to come from someone else, from an organization like the Adventurer’s Guild, the church of Virtue or from a higher power like the river spirit! Did he go back to the dungeon while I was out? Impossible. I had blasted that place to smithereens, demolished it, buried it. I didn't have any Dark artifacts on me either!

I started to shake, both from tiredness and also from the panic. None of this made any sense. I was dealing with something truly monstrous, a violation of the natural order.

The monster inside me was threatening me into submission. I ground my teeth. I would not give into his demands. I would kill myself rather than surrender or cooperate with evil. I looked around. There was nobody, nothing for miles except for wild country.

I had no hope left. I was too exhausted, sunburned and hungry to go on. I had no idea where the amulet of healing was, but it was working poorly, healing me much slower. I looked at the purple sky for one last time and smiled.

I lifted my hand up and started to form a healing circle with the Void mana in my soul, putting all of it into it. If I died, the evil in me would go no further than this. It would all end here. My family, the world at large would be safe from whatever lived within me. The Void mana number dropped. Four thousand, three, two, one...

The healing circle lost cohesion, exploding with a blinding flash.

[Nicodemus Rim Schwartz]

I was enjoying some nice vintage, overpriced, luck-bringing, circa 5984 wine in my quarters, when a crewman knocked on my cabin’s door. My personal foxkin maid in a black and white dress, that had brought me the wine, went to the door and unlocked it for me.

“Enter,” I said.

The maid picked up her skirts retreating into a corner.

I nooded at her and she vanished. Good maids were not to be seen or heard.

“Captain! There’s a girl on the shore,” the crewman bowed.

“A girl?” I raised an eyebrow.

“Yes. There is a girl passed out on the Western bank of Altaira.”

“Very well. I’ll come up,” I put my glass of wine down. It magically clipped itself to the dark panel in my desk, swaying upright in perfect synch with every wobble of the ship. I stood up and followed the crewman to the top deck of the Resurgence.

There was indeed a redhead girl on the shore, a torn, dirty red cape draped over her. The girl and the cape were caked with mud. She could be of value. A runaway slave maybe? I told the crew to halt the Resurgence and boarded a glider with two of the crewmen. The glider took us straight towards her, the runes etched into its surface shimmering with power, taking a bit of magic from me and the two crewmen to stay in the air. It also kept the water elementals pacified. Altaira has been known for harassing people, forcing them into moronic Quests relating to river cleanup.

The crewmen grabbed the girl, pulling her into the glider. I pointed my small evaluator-gem ring at her to check if she was indeed a slave.

Valerianne Yul

[Race]: Human

[Level]: [0]

Stats:

[Mana] : 1 [Void]

[HP] : 1

[Affinity] :

[Aura] : 100% White

I blinked. This couldn't be right. Void!? Void mana in someone of age?! The Void mages were exterminated millennia ago. Even light gray mages were being actively hunted down by the church of Virtue!

Impossible. I ran the scan again, drawing even deeper from the well of power located inside the large dungeon core hidden within the center of my ship. There was no mistake!

There it was.

One Void mana. I looked at the last line. White Aura. Even weirder. How did this girl even exist without spontaneously combusting? It was a miracle that she was even alive with one HP out here in the absolute wilderness.

How did the Church of Virtue miss her? Did she grow up in the world’s Edge mountains or something? She didn’t look like a wild halfbreed. She had a cape on, albeit quite full of holes. The Knights kept a registry of all human children born across the continent as a way to keep track of darklings. Any child showing even the barest of talent for darkness in their soul was taken and never seen again. She was not a Rimmer, either. She looked like a 100% natural born, mainland resident. She didn't have our middle name and a level zero adventurer would absolutely not survive a trip through the edge mountains.

Did this girl survive because her void mana harnessing skill was hidden inside of the white aura, not showing up as an affinity for some reason? Truly extraordinary. I had to have her. I waved my hand over her wrist, etching an invisible tracker onto her. What a fine find indeed.

[-=Nox=-]

I opened one eye. That was all I had the energy for. I looked around. I was in a wooden room of some sort. The room creaked, lanterns swinging on ropes overhead. The healing amulet within me worked at full power now. I felt that I was almost entirely drained, nearly out of Void. I was in incredible mental pain, balancing on a blade of knife between sentience and dissolving into the ether. The lack of Void hurt, aching immensely on a metaphysical, divine level. No amount of messing with human nerves would stop this suffering. My human would totally be dead if it wasn’t for the amulet inside me. It had saved us both.

Blasted river spirit!

“You’ll be alright now dear, don’t be afraid.” A voice spoke. I rotated my eye towards it. It was a human woman in a gray dress. I blinked.

“Nicodemus, our Captain, found you on the shore of Altaira. You’re currently on our ship, the Resurgence. I’m the cook, Tamara Rim Keppler. We’re Rimmer merchants, travelling down several rivers, currently en route to the South-East to trade our goods. Have some soup. It’s chicken broth! It’ll help you feel better.”

I didn’t want no damned human soup! I wanted, hungered for the Void. A spoonful of soup was stuffed into my mouth. I lapped it up. There was no Void in it. I wept in despair. This was a nightmare. No matter how much I stuck out my tongue, I could not naturally gather Void from the environment in this body. I despaired, hovering on the very edge of nonexistence.

“I know, it hurts.” Tamara said. “You’re terribly injured, but you’re somehow still alive. You’re a little miracle! You’ve got a fighting spirit in you, girl. Eat up.” Another spoon of soup was shoved into my mouth.

I ate the chicken broth, crying softly, unable to move or to do anything. I didn’t want to be forgotten, didn’t want to dissolve away. I was a goddess. I once ruled the world, extinguished stars, bent reality at my whim. All of humanity used the Rewards System I had created for them. Millions bowed down to me, worshipped me! How had I fallen so far? Where did I go wrong?

“We’ll be stopping in Kleinburg for a week. Captain has some business there. We found some gold in your pouch. It’ll cover your passage with us, a local healer and an inn on shore for you to rest up. This ship ain’t got much in terms of hospice, I’m afraid.” Tamara said.

“My name is Nox. Please believe in me.” I whispered with the last of my strength, my voice barely audible. I didn’t give a damn about inns, ships or human money. I just wanted to be remembered, to exist as myself.

Tamara smiled gently and nodded, petting my forehead.

“I believe in you, dear,” she said.

The tiniest bit of her belief kept me alive, held me together, kept me from slipping into infinity.

“Thank you, human,” I said and closed my eyes, not knowing if I would ever wake up again.

[Valerianne Yul]

I woke up on a bed of soft linen. Moonlight poured from an open window in front of me. I was alive. Someone had found me, taken care of me. I had failed to finish off myself and the vampire ghost. I immediately checked my stats.

[Mana] : 1 [Void]

[HP] : 4

There was one Void mana left in me. Just one! Damn it all! I pushed off the white linens, standing up. I was in an inn room of some sort. There was a small letter opener on the bedside table. I stabbed it into the edge of my left finger, wanting to know if I was still a monster. My blood was still purple, it sparkled like stardust in the darkness of the room. I gritted my teeth. I didn’t want to be a damned vampire! I looked at the open window. Cool, night air poured in. I didn’t want to go out there and drink people’s blood! I didn't want to trade human lives for absolute power.

I looked back down at my left hand.

There was still terrible, Dark magic within my blood. Magic and power that I could not spend, could not push out naturally. That’s why the Void mana count hovered at one and would not drop any lower.

I watched as my glowing, cursed, glittering blood slowly dripped from my finger. I would not let the monster win. I would heal myself! I would not bow to him, would not submit. I pointed my right finger at my left and formed the healing diagram in my mind and uttered only one word. “HEAL!”

The blood on my finger ignited with a blinding flash, exploding with a tremendous release of energy. The window frame banged closed and I heard a girly scream as I was thrown backwards into a wall.