“Can someone tell me what her new Ideal does? And maybe what mine does as well?”
“The Ideal of Wood is an Ideal that allows for extremely effective, efficient healing,” Guineve explained calmly. “It also allows for enhanced growth, especially of other plants. Which mean our little fairy will have an easier time of growing quickly. If she wants,” the regal, but mischievous woman added with a wink. “Again, congratulations, Wes.”
“Guineve!” Breena screamed. “Stop treating me like Stell!”
“Yes, dear,” the stately woman replied.
“That's actually great news, considering how often I get hurt,” I decided to interrupt. “This really just helps Breena do more of what she already has to do around me anyway. What about my new domain, Guineve? What should I expect to do with it?”
“I can't see you like Breena does, dear,” Guineve replied easily. “You're going to have to tell me which Ideal you gained.”
“Sorry,” I replied. “It's blood. I gained the Ideal of Blood.”
The Lady of the Mists' eyes widened.
“Oh,” she said quietly. “That's one of the rarer ones.”
“Is that bad?” I asked worriedly. “What's it do?”
“Most magic isn't really good or evil, Wes,” Guineve answered, her calm expression back. “As you probably saw, the Ideal of Blood helps you heal, attack another's body directly, and manage people's passions and relationships. It's a more complicated grouping that actually has fewer structured spells than a Foundational Ideal would.”
“Oh wow,” I replied. “That's more than what my mind-screen told me. And a little worrisome. Have you guys seen this Ideal before?”
“Very rarely,” Guineve replied, and Breena nodded. “It can be used to cause a lot of good or a lot of harm. But as long as you use it wisely, Wes, everything will be fine.”
“Okay,” I responded, trying to not look upset. Hey Wes, no pressure or anything but here, have another nuclear bomb! Be careful with it!
“I'll let you know if I see things get weird with that one, Wes,” Breena replied confidently. “It's still my job to teach you magic. And we're going to take that one slow.”
I remembered Stell's encouragement, about how it was having friends, and not avoiding power, that kept people from going dark. I shook off the last of my apprehension and tried to move on.
“Okay, ladies. And I appreciate your help, as always. Should we take a look at my status now?”
“If you're ready dear,” Guineve replied. “I'll be nearby if either of you need me.”
“Thanks, Guineve,” Breena muttered. “Okay, Wes, open 'er up, and let's take a look.”
I willed my mind-screen to close the message about my Ideals. But before I could look at my status, several waiting messages popped open.
The one I noticed first was the one announcing that something was trying to take over my body. It appeared to have started during my battle with the howlers. I don't know why it happened then. I remembered that I had been on the edge of my control, and unlike back when I was being tortured, I was unrestrained that time.
Maybe I had been on the edge the whole time, and the exhaustion had finally gotten to be too much, and without me noticing.
But at any rate, it looked like the entity had managed to possess part of myself. And when it got a hold of me, it awakened something in that part of me. And then that part took control of the rest of me and began shredding and eating monsters.
That part of me also had its own status.
Wes Malcolm, Draconis Ascendant.
Race: Altered Dusk-Era Earthborn, Altered Avalonian (Challenger)(Nascent Lord)
Subrace: Dragon-man, Wyrmborn
Age: Hatchling
Powers Awakened:
Fire.
Voice.
Enhancements:
Dragon-bond.
Bond’s Condition: confused, divided from origin-mind.
Dragon Form: created over the original body, increasing physical and magical might by twofold. Duration limited.
Condition is improved by Challenger's recognition of Flesh-bond.
What? I thought to myself. I don't even know how to make sense of most of this?
That's because it's my status, New Guy replied. And it's poorly described because it's still disconnected from yours.
Yeah, I need to know what the hell is going on, I growled back. You just came out of nowhere, took control, starting eating a bunch of things when you didn't even know where they'd been, and nearly got us both killed.
In my defense, FNG replied, you were about to die anyway. Those things had you dead to rights before I showed up.
That, I started to argue, and then stopped. Because he had a point. Fine, I replied. But why then? You were clearly waiting until I was at my limit. Why didn't you try to take control while I was being tortured?
You were imprisoned, and in your projected body, FNG replied. I could not follow you there. Nor would I want to. You were drowning in weakness.
I was not! I snapped. I was biding my time. Every minute I lived I was both gaining more power and a better chance to escape!
But you still feel weak, FNG replied. I can still hear you scream in here, over the wounds you received. And it was not even in your true body.
Yeah well, you clearly didn't have a better idea yourself! I snapped. I had to calm down then, because I realized I was clenching my teeth. This conversation was going quick because it was in my mind but in a few more seconds Breena would start to worry about me.
Look, we don't have a lot of time to talk because people are going to start thinking I'm crazy. Just tell me your name and we'll figure out the rest later.
Wes, the other guy replied. My name is Wes Malcolm. Heir of Aegrim. And Vinclum now. I am Dragonheir.
What? I asked, confused, and angry about how often I was getting confused these days.
Hold on, Fake Wes said. Father is fighting with New Father again. I have to go.
I shook my head at that, and Breena noticed.
“Wes? You okay?”
“Yeah...” I started to say. “I mean no. Weird things are happening to my head. Are you seeing anything from my mind-screen?”
“I was waiting for your status screen to load but... oh,” she said suddenly. “I... see. No wonder.”
“No wonder what?”
“The part of you that formed a flesh-bond, and soul-bond, is changing on its own. That's supposed to happen.”
“Is it—” I swallowed—“is it supposed to be able to talk to me?”
“Not yet,” Breena shook her head. “But given just how impossibly advanced the beings that bonded with you are, I'm honestly not surprised if it already has a consciousness. It's also going to have a lot of racial memories from the two beings that created the bond. So it's probably really confused and only paying attention half of the time. Sort of like a new-born.”
Except it can talk and breathe fire, I added bitterly.
Why are you still talking about me? FNG said suddenly. And who is she? She's really cute.
No one! I growled. Too small! Off limits! Go play with your dads!
He seemed to go away at that.
“Sorry,” I said.
“Is he talking a lot?” Breena asked sympathetically. “Poor dear. He's probably even more confused than you are about everything.”
“He's kind of an ass,” I muttered. To my surprise she giggled at that.
“Silly Wes,” she tittered. “You do realize you're talking about a part of yourself, right?”
Yikes.
A couple of people (well, dragons) had already said that, but it hadn't set in yet, and the idea had all sorts of uncomfortable implications for me.
“Yeah, let me go ahead and get back to my mind-screen,” I said suddenly, returning to reading the notices. It looked like when he tried to take control of my body, my Saga and Charisma's special abilities let me wrench it back. Then there were a bunch of notices about my vital guar
d failing to recover due to lack of rest and something else eventually healing me while I was unconscious. That reminded me. I needed to do research and probably come up with a name for the happy fun ball.
There were some more notices about destroying a Horde Pit, and how a Dark Icon named the Raw-Mawed Wolf, or just Raw-Maws, had become aware of my action. So that was probably why the howlers were able to find me so easily.
It also meant I needed to come up with a way to deal with a Dark Icon in my same neighborhood. I had another reason to be glad we had rescued Guineve. Stell had said her power was on the same level as an Icon. I still didn't quite have a grid for that, but from what I understood Icons were sort of on the same level as the polytheistic gods on Earth. So dealing with Raw-Maw wasn't a matter I could afford to take lightly, even with Guineve on my side.
Back to the mind-screen. I skimmed over the notice about the dragon bonds I had formed because it didn't say anything different from what Avalon and the two dragons had already told me. So after noting all of that as well as the changes brought on from acquiring another new Ideal, I was finally able to look at my status page.
Wes Malcolm
Race: Human/Avalonian. Origin: Earth (Dusk Era), Avalon (Challenger)
Growth Level: Ninth Rise (Flash)
(Saga/Path List Truncated)
Vital Pool: 2140
Stamina Pool: 2140
Mana Pool: 1840
Strength: 114
Dexterity: 97
Constitution: 114
Intelligence: 94
Wisdom: 95
Charisma: 114
Speed: 123
Deftness: 119
Wits: 108
Will: 150
28 skill points remaining
New skills
Magic:
Fire: 10 (Increased via super-saturation)
Blood: 4 (Increased by salvaged super-saturation of other Ideals)
“Welp,” Breena said. “Stell just lost all six or so of the bets we made. She disabled the notifications because the last bunch embarrassed her too much, but they're all still happening as soon as everyone's safe.” She seemed to bounce in the air somehow, with an excited grin. “I think I know a good spot for the Breena-zone too. Want to check it out with me?”
“Um, she actually told me not to do that,” I said carefully. My fairy friend had kind of an excited, mad-scientist look to her at the moment, so I didn't exactly feel safe helping her out with one of her projects.
“Shoot,” she said in frustration. “Oh well. Worth a shot. Back to you, Wes.” She looked up at me. “Well, the bad news is that your Traits and skills are so beyond what even a normal Challenger who is five Risen levels above you has, that I have no idea how to help train you in like anything. If we were still preparing for upcoming Tumults, I would have gone to Stell and called in all my vacation days, because there just wouldn't have been an appropriate way to train you. The good news is that we can't train you anymore anyway,” she said brightly. “Because all the Tumults and Trials and stuff are about to happen soon, and we don't have any more time.” Her bright smile faded a bit as she mentioned that. “Assuming some haven't already happened anyway.”
“Yeah,” I said unhappily. “It's a good thing failed Tumults can be reversed though, according to Avalon.”
“Wait,” Breena chirped. “What?”
“Avalon told me when I became its Lord and knocked most of the Malus Members off this planet,” I answered. “Apparently destroying their base and freeing their slaves ended a Tumult here. Started learning a bit about Universal Law too.”
“Universal...” Breena trailed off. “Those are real after all. We thought they were just happy children stories. That's good news!” She clapped her hands. “That's really good news!”
“It sounds like you've heard about a few of them.”
“I have! They're supposed to be from a time when the Expanse wasn't as dark as it is today! They might even be some of the oldest Laws around! Alright!” Breena clapped her hands again. “Back to hoping we can fix everything! And back to you! The reality, Wes, is that you're more powerful than your Risen level indicates. And that's good because it's easier to guess the number of Rises a person has than to calculate their raw power, so you're going to take some of your opponents by surprise!”
“I'm just glad the changes didn't hurt this time,” I replied, looking down at my body. My muscle mass had improved, but I still just looked really, really toned. A person wouldn't automatically know that I could lift over a thousand pounds right now and hold the weight steady. That reminded me that my magical storage could hold even more right now since the space was tied to my Strength Trait.
In fact, a new message in my mind-screen indicated that hitting the triple digits of that Trait allowed me to carry even more per point of Strength, for a total increase of 50%. That was hard to calculate, but a good rule of thumb was that one point of Strength used to let me carry ten pounds comfortably for the entirety of the day, as long as my Stamina pool hadn't already depleted. So I could probably lift a small car over my head if I was still back on Earth, though I couldn't hold it for very long.
“Hey Breena,” I asked suddenly.
“Yeah, Wes?”
“You taught me once about objects’ vital guards, right? How certain types of equipment can keep up with a Challenger's supernatural abilities?”
“Yeah,” she nodded her pink-haired head. “A lot of objects actually grow stronger when their owner Rises. Especially if they were high-quality stuff beforehand, like your silver short-bladed sword, or owned before by a person who had Risen in the past. And sometimes magical items just change on their own, especially when they develop their own legends or such.”
I looked uncomfortably at the magic sword handle in my possession. Breaker, Talitha had called it. And she had said it was possibly as old as Avalon itself. Maybe even older.
“Right, and a lot of my other equipment came from the Malus idiots I killed earlier.”
“Wasn't there for most of that, but I'll take your word for it. And next time let me have more than one assist.”
That last part was actually growled out. I looked at Breena in surprise, but she seemed completely unrepentant in her expression. “Don't ask me to apologize,” she said quietly. “Everyone told me what they did to you.”
“Okay,” I said, choosing to move on for now. We had talked about my torture for quite a bit and right now I didn't want to think about it again. “But I've learned that the Malus Members can advance at least as quickly as I can, plus getting a handful of their own weird powers, so their gear should have worked better than it did. That long arming sword I picked up broke right away, and that other guy's chain mail was crap.”
“Right,” Breena nodded. “That was the only thing about them that made sense.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
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