Cosimo was immobile on his bed with Slo sleeping next to him. He thought it would be a good time to finally review his abilities. His identification crystal was luckily still tied to his hand, and it looks like someone changed him into a brown robe. Finally, clothes. He had to find Timothy and apologize after this.

After that, he figured he should gather some money and leave.

After his experience with Maria, he wanted to be alone. Susanoo said what happened was ‘like a magical explosion’.

He had plenty of time to think of how he wanted to leave Timothy, and figured that his last act as someone who wanted to be his friend was going to be to have him join the Adventurer’s Guild if he was up for it.

It would just be a suggestion.

He didn’t know enough about him after all to make that call for him, but hopefully he could end everything on a good note there.

It would be great to get Aeschyli off his mind too.

He didn’t know why Slo was here though. Did she take care of him all this time?

He would have to repay her for that-

No, get out of here.

That was the firm part of his mind right now.

Cut all ties, find something else to do. He had power now after all.

He closed his eyes and opened his status.

========

A large mansion complex in Grunkirk was Aeschyli old home. Someone getting too close would be turned away by guards who kept watch night and day. There were constant shots and explosions going off. To the city to the south, it was regarded as the Dragon’s Den. It was rumored that a dragon had taken human form and was conducting experiments in magic. They were half right, the dragon was a human though.

Grunnir, heir to the old royal system of Grunkirk, was now a noble. He was pacing the hall with glass to ceiling windows filled with cracks and holes. There were few waitstaff here, as most of the people who lived in the mansion were conducting experiments in original magic.

Grunnir held a red sigil bird and it message in his hand. He stopped in the center of the corridor. Suddenly feeling like it, he chucked the red sigil bird with the mark of Grunkirk out of the broken window, breaking it even further. He read the message a third time and began to talk to himself.

“What a strange combination this time. It can’t all be her fault. The amount of energy needed for that explosion, the dragon’s appearance, and another magic reaction that could cause a flood. I’m missing too many pieces of the puzzle. Someday she’ll have to stop running. Is this her battle call? Too strange. It’s not like her at all. She would stay away from town if she could. Maybe she got bored? I need information. Send someone with the Grunkirk army? Can’t figure it out. How about I just let it go?”

Grunnir tore the message in one stroke.

“I wish they would just let you go. I was too hard on you. Actually, just what was I thinking, raising her like that. Especially here. She could have been amazing anywhere else. Ruined her. All my fault. With all the original magic we’ve tried to make here you made the only one that counted. It’s useless. About the only thing we can do is build shock troops.”

He ran downstairs on a whim. He wanted to check the newest one. There were tubes filled with various monsters and magical sigils were applied to their bodies haphazardly. Some were human.

“It’s no good. No magical resonance. If you can’t even get a magic reaction, then how can you get an original magic? Unique magic is just magic you can learn if you’re the right type after all, and you try to master it. Original magic, oh, that's just adding a new page to the book. New things to do. New things to master. It’s wonderful world for everyone when we get it right.”

He flicked a switch and cast a unique magic on a creature with a nine foot long horn growing out of it’s head.

“Monodon’s should react better with heat magic. Causes implosion in the water unique magic they usually have. Maybe this one was too young. Could build a type of steam magic next. Abomination’s are so useless.”

He ran over to a table with a human meshed with sigils and a crystal at the center. It was an identification crystal.

“Shocktroop. Horrible indeed. Wasted your youth here Aeschyli. ‘Carpe Scaenam’ is such a beautiful one. Original magic composed of unique magics. Instead of going for the magic reaction and trying to control the extremely powerful result, you just went with amplifying the parts of unique magic that you could master until you made a new spell. Absolute genius. Result of upbringing? No doubt. Failure as her father? No doubt. With that kind of thinking, she could have gone much farther. Look at all I struggled for, just a corpse that activates its own magic from when it was alive. Abomination. To think I worked so many years just for this. If I could find another way to build original magic like Aeschyli did, that was actually useful, sorry Aeschyli but that only works for you. Too exceptional. She couldn’t learn the magics normal people could, had to adapt.”

Gunnir leapt down a staircase and ran down to the cellar. There was a guard there who handled useful abominations.

“Follow me.”

The guard came with him.

“She can’t be left alone with that mess around here. Not her. At the very least, those magic reactions and the dragon are enough reason to use it right? I don’t want to have to pull strings at the noble council. They think I’m mad. They’re right, its not that I’m disagreeing, but I have so many reactions setup to go off here and there’s no clues for the ones in Aleppo. Personal unit is the best unit. Aeschyli won’t stand a chance if the capital gets serious. Maybe they already plan to send the dragon hunter units out with the next invasion to get rid of her. They must be wondering what’s going on there too.”

He reached a door a knocked several times.

An abomination opened the door. It was covered in red leather armor with a huge red cape. The head was covered with a helmet of the same color that just looked like a flat plate over the face.

“Hunt down Aeschyli. Find out if she knows anything. Then kill her.”

====

“No, no. Heal her again. She needs to learn the discipline of the sword. After all with this much potential she can’t even learn a single magic,” there was a dignified fencing teacher with a sword in hand. He was out of place in the mansion that was falling apart. A small girl was watching him intently with dull eyes.

“Just what are they thinking raising her here of all places, I haven’t stopped hearing the moaning and strange explosions since I got here…”

The healer was getting the girl back into shape. She had been stabbed several times and was clutching a sword. She had a one point identification crystal placed in a choker on her neck.

“It’s quite simple. Grunnir is a madman. The noble council lets him get away with this nonsense because he produces interesting results. That spell you’re using right now, it was added within the past five years to the identification crystal you know. Someone’s got to make the new ones.

Original magic isn’t an easy process, you’ve basically got to do trial and error, and this is the one place where it happens.”

He easily launched into an explanation to comfort the girl and the new healer. They had to kill the last one, hopefully this one will take to it?

“Those creatures though? I saw a few walking around, they look like corpses.”

“Just ignore it. I do that all the time.”

An explosion sounded off outside like usual and a eight foot horn shot straight through the already broken window aiming at the girl. The healer couldn’t react at all but the girl easily slapped it aside with a flick of her wrist.

“Huh, that happens way too much to you, Aeschyli. I swear they must be aiming for you.” He said it smugly.

“Okay, you’re ready enough, come at me.”

Aeschyli was still bleeding in her vital point of her armpit and the thigh and had bruises from when he deflected her back with his hands or feet. He was fighting seriously.

“Tabil, can’t you try to teach her more? There’s something wrong with the way she’s acting. I can’t explain it, but it’s like she knows she’s going to lose.”

“Healer, I won’t learn your name at this rate. Of course she’s going to lose. She’ll get back up stronger. How many techniques and skills do you think I spent so many long years to acquire, that she can master in a day? How do you expect her to die, with the strength of her body alone?

Healing her is just so she can continue. When I look at her, she makes me proud to be her teacher.”

He had said that many times as well. Aeschyli had memorized it, had practiced it in front of a broken mirror. She mimicked his voice. She wanted to be able to beat him. She mimicked everything. Everything she saw in books in the library. Every magic that she always failed to use. Every attack and shock of the explosion would cause her to react. The same with every blade thrust. It was normal.

An explosion rang out again and a hail of spikes went through a window down the corridor and stood up planted into the weather carpet. A giant sloth’s head followed and crushed them, completely shattering the window.

“So this is why the pay was so high…”

The healer didn’t believe she was going to live past today. After being on the battlefield numerous times, hunted monsters and even survived a dragon attack she decided that she would have to fight her way past whatever sorts of things they had dwelling her just to get out.

Aeschyli moved forward and Tabil sneered as he jabbed straight into her heart. She twisted her entire body and snapped the blade by bracing against the ground.

“Good! ‘Fencing Foil Replicate’! He stabbed her again with a sword he pulled out of thin air. Aeschyli turned again. The sword broke, and she got within her much smaller striking distance.

She got in close and threw her sword straight up into the air.

“‘Foil Rain’”, said Tabil as a bunch of fencing sword pierced her from above.

“You can rest now Ae-”

He began to say, but he saw her tense her whole body and snap every single foil stuck in her.

“Good! So you want to continue!”

Aeschyli gathered the fallen foil parts like needles and tossed them indiscriminately at Tabil.

“‘Defense Arts’”, he called out his attack. He wanted her to know which ones he was using after all.

All of the oncoming foils that Aeschyli sent at him were neatly gathered into a bundle by a skillful whip of his foil.

“‘Foil Rain’, ‘Fencing Foil Replicate’!”

He sent another batch of Foils from the air.

Aeschyli didn’t move. All the foils went straight into her hitting all the parts of the metal that was still inside her. She snapped them again.

“You’re doing good today, but that’s enough get some healing,” said Tabil.

The healer was afraid to go forward until then but she saw Aeschyli gather the broken foils up again and throw them at Tabil.

“‘Defense Arts’,” he said as he whipped the broken foils into a bundle and tossed them aside.

“I got it.”

Tabil was surprised that Aeschyli said something. It was the first time he heard her voice. Her eyes pooled with light and she smiled.

“I got it! I got an ‘Arts’! I’m like a hero now! Tabil! Prepare to die! Dazzling the stage!”

A circle of light opened above her head.

She reached up and put her wounded hand into it.

“What’ll come out, I wonder~”

“Hmm. If you truly learned an ‘Arts’ then I indeed might be at my limit. You’ve grown incredibly strong. I’m satisfied, if you can win that is, ‘Cutlass Cutter’ come to my aid!”

Tabil pulled out a wicked cutlass full of pits in the blade out of his scabbard on his back. Up until now, he was only using foils.

The healer wanted to yell that it was insane, nobody needed to die. They just had to stop the fight. She didn’t believe a single bit that it would matter to them. It was like the dragon attack all over again.

“Tabil! Don’t look down on me! If you were holding back I’ll find a way to revive you and kill you again! Maybe!,” she yelled as she pulled a long box out from within the sphere of light.

She jumped at Tabil.

“Flutter!”

She began a flurry of attacks with the box, each one with such force that Tabil couldn’t even say his ‘Defense Arts’ out loud. He was able to manage taking one hit, but the next was perfectly lined up to oppose his next move. She only got faster. Aeschyli threw the box into the air at the last second before a attack and punched him with glee.

“1st box open!”

The box in the air cracked open and a roll of steel felt out and hit the ground.

“Huh? I don’t get it... “

She was confused.

Tabil regained his balance.

“You’re awful chatty today. Is that your ‘Arts’? It's strange indeed.”

“I picked and tried so many magic spells and helped dad with the explosions. There was nothing in the books like this though. I don’t know why, but it feels like it’s something I unwrap…”

“Get a heal then. We’ll pick this up later.”

“No! I want to kill you today! I promised myself I would!”

“You just gained an ‘Arts’ and you’re not even using it. It doesn’t seem like you to not investigate your own abilities with you identification crystal.”

“It’s uh, I’m sorry but I don’t get why I got it after all.”

“You can reveal it to me. I plan to die by your hand anyways,” Tabil said.

The healer ran away in fear and got impaled by another flying horn.

“A shame. We can’t get another one until tomorrow. How about we end it for today?”

“Yeah… I’ll finish you!”

She jumped forward and picked up the steel cylinder. It was like a piece of paper, but made of a thin steel that bent easily. She thought of the circle above her head.

When she was reading stories she would always imagine herself as part of it. After all, if you could be anyone, she didn’t have to be here. Right now she was a hero. Tabil was playing the evil villain that was bullying her. She would kill him and get married. That was how all the stories she read in the moldy library went.

There were some though that talked about theater. There was a light, and when she thought of that spotlight, she felt alive.

“If the light’s on me, I’m the hero! I’m someone else! What’s there to be afraid of then! It’s someone else’s world!”

What couldn’t she do if she could play around?

Could Tabil stop her?

Could the explosions that kept her awake at night until she passed out and woke two hours later stop her?

Would father pay more attention to her?

Would the healer’s stop putting her back into the fight?

When would the fear end?

When would she be loved?

The light above her head was a spotlight on her. She could decide what she wanted from it right? If she just pulled out something else…

What about this though?

She unfurled the cylinder.

It was a sphere shape, cut like a lily.

She thought it was like a sort of stencil for the light, to change object projected.

As her spotlight grew dim from being blocked out, other parts would open. Maybe if she put it on then looked inside?

She blocked the circle of light with the steel plate.

The identification crystal told her ‘Cast word, stage magic, ‘Gobo Contract’.

So that’s what the box and light were. It’s all to shift the spotlight’s shape.

“Gobo Contract!”, she yelled.

The sphere shot out a single lily burn that hit the ground. She put her hand inside and pull out another box. She swung down with all her strength and examined stage magic in her head, realizing that she needed to use all the commands at once to piece together her original magic.

“Dazzling the Stage! Flutter! Gobo Contract, 1st Open~! Dancing Lily!”

A huge amount of lily shapes started to burn into the ground as she hit Tabil with the 2nd box.

He took Dancing Lily full on. He immediately turned the cutlass on himself and stabbed it in.

“What!”

She was confused. Although the effect was to confuse the other person and cause the mental image of burns, she didn’t check the effect of Dancing Lily itself. Just that it required all the command parts.

Aeschyli disabled her magic and stood over Tabil’s body.

“Awh~”

She began to tear up. This was supposed to be a play. Why was she fine when he was dead. She sat down and sobbed silently thinking it was all her fault. She was glad he was dead, but she couldn’t help feeling incredibly alone as she sobbed over his body. The light had drained from her eyes again.

======

“Seems I’ll have to get a new instructor. Good job beating him. You did it with your body alone? That’s amazing. You would tell me if you mastered spells. ,” said Grunnir.

She was following her father around now after getting tired of crying. She experimented with stage magic too as it took her some time to find father.

He was checking and twisting this dial and that, casting a magic and watching if it exploded or not, then haphazardly writing down notes on the walls. She was looking down. Aeschyli was afraid of the other researchers, so she often carried her foil and chased them off silently.

Grunnir turned and noticed the foil was gone.

“Hmph. You broke your sword? Where’s the healer, you look like you’re going to die. I’ll get Tomas to help heal you, he’s got ‘Medico’ at least.”

“No.”

“What do you mean no. You’re a mess.”

“Tabil is dead so I should die too. It's a double love suicide.”

“What nonsense are you spouting. Come with me,” Grunnir said as he grabbed her and dragged her off to get healing.

She didn’t want to meet them. All of them were scary. Father was scary, but he was less scary.

No new people.

Stay alone.

If the spotlight isn’t on her, she was experimenting for a situation like that. It was a spell she made before stage magic. If she wasn’t going to be the hero, let her tell the hero what to do who was in the spotlight. She would take over the stage.

“‘Carpe Scaenam’”

She cast it on father.

It wasn’t a spell she tested yet. Just like with stage magic, she wanted to use it against Tabil.

It was mental magic, but used elements of her stage magic. When she was toying around with stage magic trying to find father, she found out that Dancing Lily was quite similar. Maybe it was because she wanted to master ‘Carpe Scaenam’ so bad that she developed Dancing Lily the way it was.

“Let go of me. Spend time with me,” is what she told him to do.

However, there was no way something like that could work on first casting, especially on someone as intelligent as her father.

“Is that a spell? That was a spell!”

He laughed and hugged her.

“I’m so proud of you. So, tell me, what does it do? How’d you learn it?”

He was looking at her with pride for the first time.

She started to cry again.

=====

Her newest instructor arrived a few weeks later with a healer in tow.

Aeschyli had told father about all of her magic that she had at that time he challenged her.

It was painful to her that he cared about that. She also felt good about it. It was difficult.

She spent the next few weeks training it and reading. She discovered that she could use the concept of ‘Acts’ to increase her power by making herself feel that the end of the story was near. That was because to her, when the story ended she was herself again, so she could expend far much more energy at once. She had so much though. When she was hungry and exhausted from overusing magic, she happened to pull out the fifth open from the fourth cylinder used on the spotlight above her head. She didn’t understand why the fourth open did nothing. She was just feeling lonely at the time. The fifth open just produced a large round brown hard food. She ate it, and it felt like some sort of destiny was fulfilled.

Her heart would heal with the Glande food summon. She was eating it everyday.

So when the new instructor arrived she made the excuse, “I want to go train right away,” and her father let her go to meet him at the gate. Really, she could have just done that anyways, but she felt like she had to say goodbye.

She cast ‘Carpe Scaenam’ that she had been practicing on researchers on them. The healer resisted, so she used it again and again. When it was apparent that it wouldn’t work, she just took her hostage and hijacked the carriage. Casting ‘Carpe Scaenam’ on the instructor she ordered him to go inside the mansion.

In the carriage was the healer and Aeschyli as it returned the way it came at breakneck speed.

The soldiers keeping up the border to the mansion thought it was weird that the carriage was leaving so soon but by the time the sigil birds came back a few hours later they were long gone.

Aeschyli was staring at the healer. Learning her movements. As she acted out polite conversations she read in books. She went with the truth. She figured the healer would sympathize like last time and she was right.

“I’m Duvessa. I can’t believe it’s true. To think I might have easily died in there from the constant barrage of monster parts… that sounds insane. How many died like this…”

Aeschyli did her best to follow up.

“Go places. Fight dragon. Become a hero.”

“You want to be a hero?”

“Really strong,” she pumped her arm.

“You mean you’re really strong. No one knows where dragons are though, and even if you did-”

“I know.”

“What, really? That’s amazing! You could gather a party of really strong people and subdue it! No doubt there would be a lot of treasure there!”

She saw the value in a healer for the trip.

“You come.”

“Eh, no I don’t want to-”

She wanted a friend, badly.

She was lonely.

So it was only natural that used ‘Act 3 Curtain Calling~!’ in hopes that she could make her a friend. She cast ‘Carpe Scaenam’. Duvessa would be her hero on the stage.

“Be my friend. Love me,” she said.

Duvessa just stayed silent.

It wasn’t that the mental magic didn’t get through.

It was that the command was too complex. She had only tried simple commands on the researchers.

“Hello?”

Duvessa didn’t respond.

Aeschyli pulled her cheeks.

Aeschyli slapped her.

She didn’t move.

The magic worked too well. She was her ‘friend’, she loved ‘me’.

But that was all. That was the only the only thing repeating in her mind.

She suffocated from not breathing.

Aeschyli panicked and ran out of the carriage while it was still moving.

She had seen countless deaths, but she only killed two she tried to love.

========

Aeschyli was wandering and eating Glande. She was able to sniff out water and sleep on the ground no problem. She avoided the cities. Eventually, she decided to go in for clothes and other things. The allure was too much.

She also needed maps.

The real dragon’s den was waiting. She was going to be a hero loved by the people.

She had plenty of money and power to shove around. The noble council of Grunkirk had long caught wind of her and was sending assassin’s. She would with by a hair’s breadth. Sometimes she would just run. She tried disguises but there still was magic to find her. Often she would get woken up by people trying to stab her and have to fight back. She looked to the animals, but remembered Duvessa. She wanted something that could respond a bit more, easy to control though. She kept thinking that over and over.

I just don't use complex commands.

Simple, like ‘go and take a bath’, or ‘leave’ or ‘stay’ or ‘follow my lead’.

‘Carpe Scaenam’ didn’t last long, but she practiced it everyday. Sometimes, she would use it just to get people to talk to her.

She built her knowledge base this way.

And finally-

She found the dragon den.

========

In her father’s lab there were many charts for the collection of monstered. To Aeschyli who read everything, she was able to easily map out the probable population of game based on the amount of captures of monsters made over time. She was looking for a dragon.

Dragon’s are greedy, so they need to eat.

Dragon’s are picky, so they need to have good game.

She made up rules and followed them. She had at least a hundred possible locations that she had discovered through careful analysis of maps. If they were underwater, she was out of luck.

If they were in space, she was out of luck.

She found one though, coming back from a hunt one day through the sky. It was the thirty ninth spot she tried. It was a lucky break.

She snuck into the dragon’s den to defeat it.

She came upon a massive hoard of items and gold.

She passed it.

She entered the main chamber and saw a room that was human sized.

Interested in the story, she went inside.

Inside there was a shining golden room, with a golden bangle sitting on a bed.

She picked it up, interested by the sigils on it.

It was full of ‘curse’ sigils.

It was just written over and over.

She knew what it meant, and stole it.

It would reduce your status.

It had major effect on intelligence.

It could cause memory loss and bad decision making.

It drained energy.

She tried it on with her massive unkept hair.

She felt happier, like she didn’t care anymore.

So she stole it and treasured it always.

The dragon was able to easily sniff her out as she was running away with its treasure, and the battle begun.

=======

“What the heck are you doing stealing a curse bangle? Out of all the things! You probably can’t even read that!”, said the dragon. It was sparkling gold with heavy plates of scales that looked like slabs. It had a twirling snake head with a tongue as long as it’s body, and wings spanning the sky. It could communicate to you directly from your insides.

“I used to build sigil golems all the time, and repair equipment in the dragon’s den,” Aeschyli said.

“Okay, whatever, go put it back and I’ll give you a real prize for managing to sneak past me okay? I was busy mind you, I blacksmith in my spare time,” the dragon roared.

“No, It’s really nice. It makes me feel comfortable,” Aeschyli said.

“It just makes you weaker, I don’t understand,” said the dragon.

“I’ve always been strong, but it was always hard on me. I want to take it easy and have some fun, but I’m afraid of everything. Even after it’s been so long I was at home, I feel like I’m still there,” whined Aeschyli.

“Afraid? If you’re really that strong that you’re more worried about your fear than your strength, then why are you still afraid?”, said the dragon.

“Strength isn’t enough for me,” said Aeschyli.

“Is the curse bangle’s effect enough for you?” , said the dragon.

Aeschyli paused.

“No, but it helps?” , she said.

“Then what you are looking for isn’t that bangle, come back and choose from among my treasures, “ said the dragon.

“Uh, I don’t want to, you’ll probably kill me and take my bangle too,” said Aeschlyi.

“I’m offering you all the riches of the world, in exchange for that bangle you could have anything,” said the dragon.

“Then can I have the bangle? No, it’s my bangle now. Fight me for it if you must,” said Aeschlyi.

The sun shined down onto his massive frame spanning the heaven and earth.

His golden scales sized like slabs glittered in the sun.

There was no stronger, except maybe Slo.

“You humans are so impudent. You throw away what you truly want. You seek the easy road. Where’s your pride? Your accomplishments? Where are you great cities of peerless culture? You want none of that? You don’t want to stand in the heavens like I do?”, said the dragon.

“Not at this time no. Actually, I think I just want some friends, maybe? My new bangle can help with that. Isn’t that enough for someone small to you like me?” ,said Aeschyli.

“Hmph. Fine. Be off with you, I could crush you like a bug but it doesn’t feel worth it. You are but a child,” said the dragon..

“Hey dragon?”, said Aeschyli.

“Can I see how long my ‘Act 3 Curtain Calling~!’ and ‘Parry Arts’ works against you?”, said Aeschyli

“For fun,” said Aeschyli.

“Guess I’ll humor you for a bit. You did catch my interest after all,” said the dragon.

And so a thunder cracked the now darkened cloud filled sky and rain fell upon the earth.

The dragon used his ability ‘Victory’.

‘Victory’ destroys any opponent’s will to continue. The state of victory is declared for the dragon.

There would be no fight. However, with both of her strongest abilities activated the ‘Victory’ was reflected and the dragon lost.

“Huh, well good job there. You only won because of my ability choice though, so don’t get cocky,” said the dragon.

His will to continue to fight destroyed, the dragon took to the sky and dismissed the thunder full clouds.

He went back to his den to blacksmith. It is his hobby.

Aeschyli stood triumphant and put the bangle on her hair and felt a long awaited sense of peace as the wind blew across the now empty plains.

========

“So, that’s my dark history,” said Aeschyli.

“Really? I don’t buy it, sounds too crazy,” said Arge.

He was drinking, now.

She gleefully punched him. She couldn’t do that to Slo.