The small apartment home that we’ve been packed into isn’t comforting by any measure but I’m not sure I’ve truly felt genuinely comfortable for a long while. There are moments, hesitant fleeting moments when everything seems fine, but they never last, and I’ve experienced enough of the world to know that they never will.

Life is anything but stagnant.

Last night, while discussing this situation with the others everything seemed so clear and simple, but this morning is different. I’ve woken early and they’re all still deep asleep, I have only my own mind as company.

The doors and windows of our room are conspicuously absent, simply carved holes in the front of the house, empty apertures into the dark waters that still fill the streets outside. Magic is inscribed into the walls to keep the water out, but I see nothing that would prevent intruders.

This town is peaceful, and the people here see no need for locks or even doors. At least that’s how it was before this incident. The disappearances led to the discovery of a dark god hiding deep within this world, resting as it takes on the challenge of consuming the core of this planet.

The makings of a fine horror story, at least for those who don’t know the finer details. A dark god is nothing more than a powerful world consuming beast, the alteration of minds and flesh simply an ordinary occurrence, though still vile when forced upon others. The Unified States might do many wrongs, but at the very least their use of collars doesn’t entirely steal away a person’s identity.

We may not know everything about this world and its troubles, but we know enough to make plans of our own.

Gehnna is the biggest unknown in all this thus far. Who is she? What are her intentions? What’s her goal?

She’s pleasant enough and seems honest from what can see, but she keeps dangerous secrets. As much as I’d like to think the best of her, I’m already expecting her to backstab us and toss us into the proverbial Sarlacc pit. It’s just the way things tend to go for us, and I have come to expect it.

“Time’s wasting,” I grunt, pressuring myself into moving. The act of verbalising it like a verbal contract with myself, demanding that I stay true to my word and roll up and out of the bed.

I don’t want to bother the others while they’re still sleeping, so I keep quiet as I go to the door, the portal onto the deep darkness outside. Faint ripples hint at movement just beyond reach, some monster creeping about in the darkness of a watery night, a drifting tentacle drifting lazily in the gentle currents. It’s an illusion made by the rippling water… probably.

“First up, repellent skin,” I vocalise my thoughts to try and get myself back on track. It’s too easy to get lost in my own head, especially on mornings like this.

The adaption changed how mana flows through my skin, the cells themselves have adapted to allow the mana to be realised as a physical thing. A crystalline weave that wraps about the physical form, though for now, it’s more a hollow cavity ready for me to take the next step in my development.

More than this, my skin has changed to channel new magics. It feels like a muscle in need of stretching, calling for mana to realize its potential. A familiar sensation.

Stretching the magic with a steady flow of energy there is no delay in its effect. My clothes bloat up like someone’s shoved a blow drier in my skirt, but without any of the airflow. My clothes, as if suddenly disgusted by the touch of my skin, try to flee from me. More accurately, it’s repulsed by my skin.

Reaching out through the door and into the dark waters, I find just the same phenomenon. Just like with my clothes, the water is pushed off of me by nearly an inch. I stretch out my fingers and the energy field stretches, repelling the water from each of my individual digits. When I press more mana into the magic it pushes the water back even further, maxing out at about hands-length from my skin.

My mana is slowly trickling into the ability, burning away at a slow but steady rate. I can afford it because I’m good at wasting mana and recovering it later, but for others something like this would be a little too expensive.

That leads me to the next adaption, blood fuel. With it, I slowly convert my blood into mana, the process is wasteful enough that I can’t exactly just rely on this in place of drawing mana from other sources, but in a pinch it’s invaluable.

I give up on playing with that ability for now, I don’t need to contend with low blood pressure today.

I’ve already been messing around with my prehensile hair adaption, but there’s not really much to learn about it. I can move my hair around like it’s a limb of its own. I can stretch it out like I’ve been given an electric shock, gather it together into a ponytail, or anything in-between. With some practice, I can style my hair however I please without any effort, and it won’t ever get in the way during a fight.

Strange and subtle in its utility but a meaningful improvement no less.

Then there is bone magic storage, which allows me to hold prepared magic inside of my bones. It’s… almost boring. I gather together a small force push spell and set it into a bone in my wrist. It stays there cycling in perfect balance.

With a thought I cast it, sending ripples through the water before me. Simple, but useful.

Finally, I have mana drive. The ability to fuel organic functions with my mana.

“How to test this…” I ask, tapping at my chin. Resigning myself to a little exercise when I can’t think up a better idea. “No reason to delay….”

I lie down on the hard ground and brace my hands against the ground. Holding my breath, I ignite the adaption to fuel my body as I squeeze out as many push-ups as I can as fast as I can. I burn through my mana surprisingly slowly, even after a minute I’m not slowing down, my muscles are starting to ache, but I can easily push through the pain.

I stop at the two-minute mark, my arms trembling slightly from the work.

“That’s going to be useful,” I mutter, thinking of the battles I’ve been through. With this I can push myself to the limit for much longer without tiring, it’s not just about the air.

“That’s one way to put it,” Eshya says, crawling from the bed and practically rolling to the ground. She’s still not on friendly terms with mornings, but through determination, she rises.

“Want to join my morning training?” I ask.

“Yeah…” She groans. “What’s that thing you were doing with the push-ups, I didn’t think you were that athletic?”

“My new adaption, it lets me burn mana in place of energy.”

“So, you don’t need to pause and breath, you just keep on going?” She asks. “I think I’ll need to get that one.”

“Not until you’ve saved up enough mana for it,” I reply.

“Speaking of, I’ll have my morning dose if you have enough spare mana,” She says.

“All according to my master plan, now you’re addicted and you’ll never be able to survive without me.” I imitate an evil laugh in a whisper to keep from bothering the others still sleeping.

“You’ll still have enough to fight this monster in the depths?” Eshya asks, repressing a yawn as she swallows the mana.

“Probably not, but the plan was always predicated on me stealing mana anyway,” I reply.

“You’re not nervous?”

“I’m… tired,” I admit, glaring into the dark waters that are beginning to recede from the windows. “Everything is a fight, a struggle. Even politics is just more crap that I don’t want to deal with, and now we have some new villain to fight.”

“It’s different this time.”

“It’s always different,” I say, “but it’s always the same.”

“That makes no sense.”

“I am under no obligation to make sense,” I reply.

The shadows recede from the water outside as this city’s version of dawn slowly arrives. There is no longer any time to be reticent.

“Are you happy?” Eshya asks.

“What are you talking about?”

“Are you happy?” She reiterates. “If this isn’t what you want to be doing, then we should find another way.”

“I’ll be happy when we get things under control,” I say. “This is another necessary step on that path. I just need some time to gather myself, a problem that’s easy and without some great and terrible stakes. I need a holiday.”

“Then, let’s find a way to make that happen,” Eshya says, squeezing my hand. “We’re in this together, you don’t need to keep this to yourself.”

“I don’t mean to,” I say. “I just don’t feel like this when I’m with you all, or when I’m busy. It’s when I wake up early and the sun is yet to rise, it’s when I’m on my own with nothing to distract me.”

She squeezes my hand tighter but says nothing more as we watch the waters outside slowly recede.

“Let’s wake the others,” Eshya says after some time has passed, a mean grin rising on her lips.

“I’ll leave it to you.”

Vii is, as always, bursting with energy from the moment she’s up, and in only a few minutes we’re forced through the doors out into the waterlogged streets. She’s a whirlwind of energy, but thankfully she represses the literal whirlwind.

“Good morning, you’re up early!” Gehnna says, meeting us with a bright smile as she slides out from the house opposite us. She’s not even pretending that she hasn’t been watching us the whole time.

“We were hoping to get some training in,” I say. “Is there anywhere we can go that we won’t cause any trouble?”

“Oh, the arena is free at the moment,” Gehnna says, perking up. “You can practice there if you like. You don’t mind my watching?”

“Feel free,” I reply. It’s not as if we’re going to show any of our more secretive abilities while she’s watching, and Eshya’s sword work isn’t going to be the make or break of our battle against the dark god here.

No, it’s more important that we can get an idea of what Gehnna’s thoughts are. In theory, I should be able to push through her mental defences, but I’m still new to all this.

“What’s it like living here?” Vii asks, hopping along beside the sluggish body of the enigmatic woman. She glances back at me with a firm nod, understanding my intentions. “What sort of work do you do?”

“Me? Oh, I’m kind of… sort of new… I just help people with the pilgrimage and I help them recover when they’re out of sorts. So, I guess I’m like a healer of sorts, maybe?”

“You’re new? Where did you come from?”

“I… I came from below,” she says, looking away from us with an awkward shrug. Now that I think of it, while her features are largely elven, her skin tone is unusually dark compared to the bronze to vaguely green colour of the mixed-species that I know. It’s not entirely unseen, but it is still uncommon.

“Below?” Vii asks, “There are cities down there?”

“Ah, that’s… it’s complicated,” She replies. “I don’t mean to keep so much from you, it’s just that trying to explain it would be…” Focusing on her thoughts, the ones that I can read from the top of her mind, I can sense a hint of something familiar.

Fear.

She’s frightened of us.

“You can say what you like, you know. We won’t judge, we know some really weird people. Kyra, who was that guy you were complaining about the other day?”

“The incest king?” I ask, “He’s not actually that bad, as much as I’d like him to be a proper villain.”

“I’m sorry, what was that again?” Gehnna asks, her eyes open wide in horror at the title alone.

“The incest king,” I say again. “A few thousand years ago their ancestor, a warlord, wiped out all other life in his territory. All people living there today are direct descendants of his, and they like to keep their bloodline pure. Their family tree is more like a family rope, interwoven into itself over and again.”

“That’s… rather unusual,” Gehnna says.

“Sure, but as much as I hate to admit it, they’re not actually evil or anything. I mean I’d certainly consider that first warlord evil, but his children that came after? They’re living their lives as anyone else does. The same kindness, the same cruelty, and the same drama.”

“Is that so?” The slug woman relaxes a little, “The Unified States are really this welcoming?”

“Not… not always,” I reply hesitantly.

“I hope everything goes well,” She whispers under her breath, so quiet that no one should be able to hear it.

The arena is like the inside of a large egg, armoured windows supported by magic line the floor, the ceiling, and the walls. The entire place is designed around the rotational nature of this city.

Eshya wastes no time in working her body, using familiar Skills to move through sequences of attacks. She breaks from a familiar pattern, working in a few new attacks to respond to enemies that only exist in her mind today, but tomorrow might be made real. The more she practices, the better she can respond to the chaos of battle in the future.

I follow her lead, moving through my own exercises but I lag behind her in this. It’s like trying to catch a speeding supercar on a pushbike, unless you have one hell of a shortcut you’re not going to win.

Is this how everyone else feels when they watch me grow in power?

“You’re really good at this, aren’t you?” Gehnna says, her eyes sparkling as she watches us, lamely swinging her arms about in a weak imitation of our Skills.

“Not good enough,” Eshya says. “Not until we’re strong enough to cut the gods from the sky.”

“Gods?” Gehnna asks, tilting her head.

“Gods, titans, whatever else, we’re aiming to become strong enough to face them all. For today we have powerful allies looking out for us, but we can’t rely on them forever.”

“That must be nice,” she says, smiling up at us with no hint of deception. “Is there a reason you’re wanting to become that strong?”

“I don’t want any of my people to suffer, so I must be strong enough to defend them against anything. I will not be anyone’s prey.”

“Then, I hope we can be friends long into the future,” Gehnna says, but her face turns downcast as some thought moves through her mind. A blend of hope and terror so overwhelming that goosebumps rise on my own arms.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Stats and Skills

~Mana Form:

Current mana density: 42,391 / 60,892 units

Current mana volume: 21,073 / 30,271 shards

Mana volume at crystallisation density (Max. mana volume):

Kyra: 30,271 shards

Kyra’s armour: 20,777 shards

Kyra’s throne: 1,109,298 shards

~Forms

Mana Canon

-Annihilation Heart (Adapted)

-Blood Fuel (Adapted)

-Bone Magic Storage (Adapted)

-Nail Shifters (50,000 mana shards)

Dancer

-Flash Nerves (Adapted)

-Quick Perception Mind (Adapted)

-Burst Reflex Muscles (35,000 mana shards)

-Layered space Muscles (80,000 mana shards)

Turtle

-Rebinding Tissue (Adapted)

-Catalyst Sweat Glands (140,000 mana shards)

-Repulsive Skin (Adapted)

-Prehensile hair (Adapted)

-Fatty Tissue Blood Storage (100,000 mana shards)

Investigator

-Wide eyes (Adapted)

-Wide ears (Adapted)

-Sharp nose (Adapted)

Misc.

-Clean bowels (Adapted)

-Mana Drive (Adapted)

~Favourited Skills:

Magic:

-Annihilation Magic (Customised)

-Fire Magic (Functional)

-Space magic (Broken)

-Force magic (Functional)

-Ice magic (Broken)

-Wind magic (Broken)

Movement:

-Hand-to-hand casting (Functional)

-Mana surge movement (Functional)

-Stealth (Functional)

Senses:

-Eyes of an Empire (Customised)

-Combat Awareness (Functional)

-Watchmen (Functional)

-Hidden bug (Mastered)

-De-tagging (Mastered)

-Anti-stealth sight (Mastered)

Special:

-Spirit Transformation (Broken)

-Conformity (Broken)

-Training mana form (Functional)