For the Record

She was right.

Sodaca dragged me off to a side room surrounded by shelves covered with gadgets whose purposes I couldn’t guess, then promptly retrieved a ring from one. After putting it on, a floating square appeared in front of her, and after swiping around on it for a moment a book appeared in her hand.

“This one,” she’d said while flipping it open, then skimming to a specific section. “The god that made our cities at least a few thousand years ago had Spellspeech. Tell me you’re at least literate.”

“Of course I am!” I snarl, snatching the book from her hands and…

…What?

I… I can’t read this at all.

(Gods, you’re dumb. That’s not Common, it’s Indra, so of course you can’t read it,) Nyx interjects.

“Aha. Ha. Okay, so I don’t know Indra… Wait, unless…”

My mother-in-law furrows her brow darkly as I focus my will on the scribbles… until –

[Available Skill: Indra Indigenous used for the first time!]

[Indra Indigenous added to Skills!]

…And the words coalesce into something usable.

(You’re fucking kidding me… that’s cheating!)

Hey, I don’t make the rules, I just break them. Sue me. What does that mean, anyway?

I accept the massive sigh as her response and turn back to Sodaca. “Nevermind, I can read it after all. I just needed to divine-will the Skill into my head. Problem solved. Anyway…”

She sighs in an odd mirroring of Nyx’s only a moment earlier.

Skimming the page, I see…

Huh.

Yeah, this god – Vulcan, apparently – saw the Sand Sea not as the empty wastes his peers had dismissed it as, but as a space of endless possibility. And so he forged a winding staircase of fused silica a meter thick into the shifting sands, to create the first of his subterranean cities – the Glass Anvil. And it was first of many. With a simple breath, the words of creation carved from the land itself great architecture. Then, lacking a people of his own, he called for those who despaired of their nomadic living aboveground – the indra. And so, their teeming masses did inhabit his newborn nation, and it was made strong in his image. The new inhabitants followed his lead, searching for and finding new ways to use the sand of their plane to craft runic technology, a technology spoken into existence by Vulcan himself to narrow the gap between them and himself.

I can’t help but wonder if he was lonely.

Anyway, looking through all this, while it’s hardly a thorough history and much more closely resembles a collection of legends, there isn’t a single mention of Vulcan ever resting, falling unconscious, or having any kind of consequences at all for endlessly using Spellspeech. Instead, he seems to have been the perfect guardian deity, even living among his people and treating them nearly as equals.

“Yeah, I don’t see anything about that either. I wonder what’s different for me?”

“Maybe you’re not supposed to have it? Why do you, anyway? Class Skill?”

I doublecheck my Status. “Nope, it’s not there. It never was, I just accidentally found out I could talk things into happening?”

Ah, Sodaca’s glaring at me again. “Fine, show me your Status. You can do that, right?”

“Well, yeah, but it’ll give me a headache again. Arty won’t be happy about that… She’s really protective. But, I at least shouldn’t pass out, I think.”

“’Arty’, is it? What exactly is that fox woman to you?”

Oh.

“Orv, uh. He didn’t talk to you about that?” I ask. “Actually, nevermind, that’s not important right now. Here, {appraise Status display}.”

After a sudden return of the pounding in my head, sure enough, a panel appears floating between us, showing my Status in plain text. My mother-in-law skims through it for a moment.

And then she says, “I don’t see anything about Spellspeech in your Status… other than, well. I’m not familiar with the Domain of Control… Tool of the Origin? What origin? And who the hells is this ‘Ananke’? I’ve done extensive reading on the pantheons and past divinities, and I don’t remember ever seeing that name…”

I shrug. “Yeah, when I first got offered the Class I’m pretty sure my System Assistant knew who that was, but then suddenly she didn’t. Nobody else I’ve asked knew who they were either… but when I took my Class I apparently had a vision from them? I’m not sure but I think the thing I saw was the Record, but. From the outside? Not sure how that works.”

That’s when I realize that she’s got some kind of writing tablet in her hands, and frantically taking notes.

“Oh.”

“No, not 'oh'. You’re going to describe that right now.”

Wonderful. Guess I’m going to be busy for the next, what five hours at least? Why are information collectors so damned thorough?

***

“Is that the one?” a voice behind me whispers.

I glance over my shoulder to see the rest of my squad quietly approach me in the alleyway.

Habitually pulling my hood lower to make sure my face is concealed, I nod lightly. If any of them had remotely near my mana capacity, their robes would have the same grade of stealth enhancement as my own, and then I wouldn’t have to act as a solitary scout.

No matter.

“Stick to the plan,” I direct, near silently. “Spread out and scatter them. Distract the ash monster, capture the ascendants and deliver them to the client. Go.”

We start moving…

And it suddenly occurs to me that I’m not actually getting any closer to the end of the alleyway…

A honeyed laugh sounds behind me… I snap my head back toward the source and am suddenly disoriented by the view of the alleyway following my gaze. I feel myself starting to fall until a vicelike grip snatches me by the back of the neck.

“This one spies meat, a morsel,” the voice says quietly in my ear as I squirm helplessly… What the hells is this thing?

A flash of blue fire blossoms around me and I find myself floating in the air in a dark place…

Dark other than the stars, and the baleful glare of the moon. I barely have time to scream before my body begins to disintegrate, starting with my limbs, then moving excruciatingly to my torso, and finally my face.

I can feel the nerves in my skin cry out as the bone is exposed and my eyes pop.

And then my bodily remains impact a cold stone floor, rattling free what little is left of my teeth. My ears – one of my few remaining senses – register familiar gurgling screams and impacts a short distance around me… but muffled, as though separated by walls…

“Weak,” the honeyed voice whispers in my ear with a hint of mirth.

And then I hear an airy whine of suffering, that I barely recognize as my own voice.

Ah…

I understand… I finally understand.

All my levels… All my experience…

I thought we were the hunters.

But we were always just children playing with sticks.

…

Weren’t we?

***

A flash of blue in the corner of my eye catches my attention.

“Hm? Did you go somewhere?”

Arty gives me a broad smile, then leans toward me and flicks her ears in a way I’ve learned to recognize.

Well, fine. I’ll give her what she wants. I plop a hand on top of her head and ruffle her hair, dragging my claws lightly around the back. She rewards me with a delighted whine, and then flops her body against me while wrapping me up in her arms.

The others stop momentarily, offering us a mix between indignance, impatience, and simple curiosity…

But I don’t blame them, not really. We’re even holding up foot traffic… We’ve been walking to some “sit-down” that Orv insisted we should go to “as a family.”

Meaning that even Sodaca is here, although the scowl hasn’t left her face since my father-in-law dragged her from her study.

Oh well, she’ll get over it.

…

I’m sure whatever they make won’t be nearly as good as Arty’s cooking anyway.

And that thought is enough to make her squeak happily and wrap herself tightly around my arm, though thankfully not in a way that prevents me from walking… although…

Screw it.

I manifest a few feelers and pick her up as she is, then disperse just enough to float.

“Alright, sorry. Let’s go.”

Izzy radiates something unmistakably like jealousy, but she’ll have to get over it – it’s not like Arty was the one pressed against me in bed last night, no matter how much she coveted it. Maybe she got too used to it from the eight years she spent reviving me…

As we continue along through the throngs of mostly-indra pedestrians, it occurs to me that my fox wife smells…

Different? Unfamiliar?

What… is that?

…Ash?

Something like Ash?

I raise an eyebrow at her, and she just offers a quiet purr in response while repeatedly rubbing her face on my shoulder.

Huh.

Well, it’s probably not important… she’d tell me if it was.

Probably.