CH 40 - Offense

Peak of Autumn, Week 5, Day 4

Dame Arella and Klein gave me curious looks, but I ignored them as I paid for the spellbook.

It was as we meandered around the rest of the square that Klein pointed out a toy shop. In the window was a pristine white bunny with black embroidered eyes. It was clearly expertly crafted and looked perfectly stuffed.

“You should get that,” he said, not unkindly, “It’s better than that black bunny you’re always carrying around.”

Offense welled within me, and my eyes snapped to Noir’s head poking out of my bag. The bunny was currently lifeless, but that didn’t have much to do with my irritation. I had made Noir. He was a creation from my own hands. And sure, the stitches weren’t perfectly even, and he could get a bit lumpy in different places because he was stuffed with yarn, but he was mine. I had made him. I produced every part of him.

As I stewed in my offense, I pulled Noir gently out of the bag and hugged him to my chest.

“That’s pretty rude of you,” I mumbled, but not so quiet that the four members of the Dusk couldn’t hear me.

Klein worked his jaw for a moment before saying, “It’s a very pretty bunny, Lady Nora.”

“Yes, but is it Noir?” I countered before storming off past the toy shop and finally arriving back at the entrance to the square.

I could practically hear him glowering as we finished walking around the square, but he didn’t say anything else. I mentally resolved myself to practice [Weaving] more intentionally so that Noir wouldn’t be comparable to even that well-crafted bunny in the window.

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Packing up and loading myself into the carriage felt suffocating now that I knew what it was like to roam freely without limits. It filled me with resentment towards the Dawns for sending me thousands of miles away from the estate. Surely, Juvel was far enough. But there were still months left of the journey. It had only been three days since I’d left the manor. I was closer to the estate than my destination.

I sighed as I stared out the window. It would be hours before we stopped for lunch –if we stopped for lunch. Now was the time to practice my Skills. From [Weaving] to [Shadow Animation].

As the city passed us by, I began working through different phrasing of the commands for [Shadow Animation]. I focused on what I wanted to do the most –speak with Noir. I wanted him to talk to me like he was talking to a friend. I wanted that so badly. There were so many words to convey what I wanted –my intentions had always seemed to matter just as much as the words themselves.

I told Noir to breathe, and he helped me breathe. I begged for comfort, and he gave it. I just needed to figure out the best way to share what I wanted. I sighed and decided trial and error was better than thinking too hard about it. Taking Noir out of my bag, I closed the curtains and sat him next to me. I shifted in my seat so I was sitting cross-legged, facing him. I reached out one hand to him and pulsed my will.

[Shadow Animation]

A cloud of shadow seeped from my palm and covered Noir’s chest before seeping into the knit fabric. I watched as a dim purple glow pulsed once and disappeared.

“Talk with me, Noir. Please.” I whispered, putting my whole heart into my intentions. I prayed –not to any God, but to my own control– that it was enough.

The knit bunny’s arm twitched, and suddenly, his body was standing on its own, looking up at me. Noir’s iridescent eyes were sparkling with intelligence –or maybe I was projecting.

“Noir?” I said shakily.

A beat passed, and the knit bunny tilted its head. Then–

“Hello.”

I reeled back –the voice was different. Last time, it had been an energetic, high-pitched voice. This time, it was a deep sound that was hard to hear. I thought back to a piece of the new description I’d ignored before: personality.

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“Are–” I swallowed, “Are you really Noir? The same Noir from last night?”

Straightening up, the bunny seemed to hesitate.

“No. I am Commander.”

“Commander?” I parroted, confused.

“Spirit of Darkness. Commander.”

Silently, I pulled up the new description of [Shadow Animation] and whispered several [Inspect]s. What I was left with was a single line of personality types.

[Personality Types: Commander, Advocate, Defender, Adventurer, Entertainer.]

I took a second to consider this, thinking back to the changes meeting the First Threshold had made to the Skill –specifically the Spirit changes, “So, each personality is a different spirit?”

Commander nodded, “Yes. Created. New spirits.”

I swallowed, “Do you –do you know who I got last time?”

“Entertainer. Braggart.” Commander’s voice took on a bitter tone, and I held back a laugh.

“Braggart?”

“Summoned. Annoying after.” Despite Commander’s short sentences, I could feel the intentions behind the words. Whatever ‘limited speech’ alluded to, it wasn’t limiting the spirit’s intelligence.

I felt a smile split my face as I leaned sideways into the cushioned back of the carriage.

“Commander, what is the difference between you and Entertainer?”

Commander made a sound that sounded too much like a snort to be anything but, “I am leader. Entertainer is clown.”

I thought back to the energetic way Entertainer had said ‘speak-speak-speak’. This was a revelation.

“What happens if I use all five animations at once?”

“You get all five.” He said simply.

My grin widened.

Hours passed as I chatted with Commander, until his animation expired. The longer we spoke, the more I realized he was more no-nonsense than I had expected Noir to be. And once he was gone, I felt the loss of a friend. It was the kind of loss that reminds you the next time you meet, it will be all the sweeter.

It was after Commander had faded from Noir that I pulled out the rest of the items in my bag, emptying them out onto the cushion.

It was several vials of Cloudgazer, the three teas, the coin purse –significantly lighter now–, and Shadow: Your First Spellbook, with its black leather cover and white embossed lettering. As I sifted through everything, I patted down my bag to make sure I’d gotten everything. That was when my fingers landed on a smooth marble. A smooth, blue marble.

The smooth, blue marble that had been left behind by the Mimic.

The Mimic I killed.

I held the marble up to my face and sighed out a command.

“[Inspect]”

[Lesser Mana Pearl, Tier 1, Common]

[Lesser Mana Pearl that was left behind by a juvenile monster. The energy within can be used to fuel Spells, Rituals, Skills, or be absorbed directly by a User and used to progress further in their Class]

[Traits: Aberration, Morphic]

[Produced by a Mimic – Tier 1]

I hadn’t thought much of the marble when I first found it, too busy with the possibility of Dame Arella overhearing the fight –if the clumsy way I flung knives at an eldritch being really counted as a fight. The System thought it did. As I held the mana pearl, I wondered what it would mean to absorb it. To push my Class forward with a mana pearl instead of experience. And it had those traits –Aberattion and Morphic. Would that impact my future Class options? Did I want it to? Maybe I did. There was no telling what would pop up if I absorbed something with the trait Morphic. Aberrant seemed as if it would only take me further from the Divine. And while I didn’t actually know how to absorb it, the longer I held it, the less solid it seemed to feel. Wisps of the same rainbow miasma from the Mimic’s body were beginning to circle the mana pearl. It was pretty. Actually, it looked like a piece of hard candy.

Candy.

“Well,” I said slowly, glancing at Noir, thinking of how the shadow is always seeping into him from his body, “What’s the worst that could happen?”

I put it in my mouth and bit down roughly. As the marble shattered into a storm of ice-cold particles, I didn’t give myself time to think –I just swallowed. As the shards migrated down my throat, it felt as if a thousand tiny knives were stabbing my insides. Not unbearable but not pleasant either. The discomfort grew with every inch it migrated through my intestines until it truly was a pain I couldn’t ignore. I could feel the ice of the mana pearl moving through my body, turn by agonizing turn, every time a sharper and sharper pain hit me. But once the shard landed in my stomach –that was when the true pain started. Everything beforehand was child's play in comparison to the heat that began forming.

It was as if my insides were boiling. It radiated from my stomach, then moved outward –from my center to my upper and lower abdomen, to my chest and legs. Once it hit my head, I had my hands covering my mouth as I dry heaved. The heat was too much. It was too much. Gone was the ice of mana. Everything felt as if it was on fire. An inferno was consuming me, head to toe. I collapsed backward, lying across the bench.

The world went black.