Behind me is the apartment building I live in. I pull out my phone and hop onto the curious navigation app that Mother Crane installed on it. I save the address behind me on the app as "Home", before I slip my phone back in my pocket.
I'm currently wearing a light sweater, one that I grabbed from the apartment, and I take a beat to study my surroundings. Directly in front of me I can see the entrance to the metro station I walked out of when I first found my way here, and to my left and right are sidewalks that lead me towards different parts of the gigantic housing complex.
The streets are not abandoned. I can see a bunch of people heading into the metro station, leaving it, and just as many people wandering the streets on the other side of the metro station. This area is a huge population center and even if I didn't know that the building behind me was an apartment I'd be able to tell that it was some sort of housing area from the way the population here is significant at night.
I begin to wander the streets, studying the various shops that line them. There is a wise intentionality to the way this place is designed, with apartments being located on one side of the area and shops and other places of business being located on the other. It's a pretty consistent part of this place's design. A part of me is tempted to go and buy some groceries but I quickly decide that I don't want to do that when I'd have to walk back in the dark.
As I wander down the street from my home apartment building I pull out my phone and glance at it. I have gotten various notifications in the time since I began my journey to get food. Most of them relate to the apps I'm using, but I've also gotten notifications from Night Orchid. I take the time to tap out a text.
"Going to grab a bite, but not sure what to get. What kind of food do you like?" I ask the businesswoman, before putting my phone away. I'm approaching what looks like one of the department store entrances to a large mall. I can see crowds of folks entering and exiting it, and they all seem pretty pleased. I decide it's as good a place as any to go and grab some food.
I mentally review what I know about my welcome package, as it is directly pertinent to my ability to buy food. The welcome video that I watched earlier today explained that I have a card that lets me buy groceries and also allows me to get two meals a day. So far everything the video told me has played out exactly as the video said, so I should be able to buy some dinner with my card.
As I move across the street I get a text message from Night Orchid. I glance at it with a smile and see that she is fond of pasta, along with an image of the food she attaches to the text. I think she seems to think that because I have "amnesia" I don't… know what pasta is. Which is a curious assumption.
I type a quick message thanking her for the advice and tell her I'll try some pasta. Reaching one of the department store entrances to the mall takes me a minute as I have to walk past some people exiting the mall. When I step past a pair of electric sliding doors into some clothing store, I blink and feel time slow to a crawl.
Internally I shudder as I sense control of my body being wrested from me, and as I watch pinpricks of light appear in my mind's eye. The pinpricks almost remind me of stars, and I am forced to watch as they begin to take on distinctive shapes, still unable to move. I am further surprised when I hear a soft voice in the corner of my mind.
"Relax, this is important and harmless." Says a voice I immediately recognize: The Guide. I relax a little, and the man laughs softly.
"I do apologize. I completely get that this is unpleasant. Still, you're gonna want me to do this by the time it's done." The voice adds, and I am unsure if I can reply. This asshole, reading my thoughts, informs me that I can with a less soft peal of laughter at my expense.
"Before you get mad at me, let me tell you what is going on. I'm awakening your first powers. And allowing you to understand the ones you've already awakened, such as your ability to fly and your boost when in contact with the ground." The Guide tells me, which stuns me into even mental silence for a moment.
"Are you still annoyed at what's happening now that you know what is going on?" He asks, and I inform him that I am in fact still annoyed at the fact that I am currently paralyzed, I'm just also excited that soon I'll know what he did to my body.
"You know what? That's fair. I'm almost done. When I'm finished for you to know what happened to you you'll need to concentrate. Focus on an element and then follow your instincts." He warns me. I mentally wonder if he meets an element like magnesium or hydrogen or a classical element.
"Classical. The big ones. Fire, water, earth, air… Wind, not air. You are naturally more attuned to wind and earth than fire and water, and you're more attuned to water than fire, so if you want to be impressed by what you can do my advice is to start with fire, move to water, and then glance at wind and earth." He advises, and I mentally nod. The stars behind my eyes cease moving and I regain control of my body with a smile.
"Nice." I remark, as I continue forward and suddenly sense the strange star-like dots in my vision engrain themselves in my sight line permanently but it's almost like the heads up display of a video game. I find that I can adjust how intensely it appears with idle thoughts, and when I don't want to see the things they can be dimmed so powerfully they almost disappear from view.
I begin to dart past assorted aisles of clothes as I do as The Guide suggested I do. I focus first on "Fire", and am surprised when a number of star-like dots begin to arrange themselves in a number of different ways. One of the ways that the stars arrange themselves is in the shape of a wizard with a wand, and the word "Pyromancer" appears underneath the image.
"This is an 'Origin'. You are tethered, to differing extents, to a total of twenty-eight such origins. In some cases you will only have a single attribute associated with these origins, though in other cases you will innately start off with a stronger connection to an origin than others." A voice, a neutral sounding one, in my head tells me.
"This is the Pyromancer. They are fire wielding wizards, and you possess the first ability they possess: 'Mana Charge'. 'Mana Charge' lets you convert fire into magical energy. You are also an 'Elementalist', and because of this you can convert more than fire into magical energy, you can also convert water, wind, and earth into magical energy. That said, this ability is slow and until you train it up you won't be able to use it in combat. Nonetheless, this is an excellent ability to use in situations involving fire, and can allow you to do things like gradually extinguish a burning house." The voice tells me.
The stars in my mind's eye reshape themselves into five other images. One is of someone focusing on a burning spoon, the next is of someone forging something, the third is of a cloaked figure, the next is of someone surrounded by each of the classical elements, and the last is of a burning tree. Five voices begin to speak at once. I have to mentally replay the messages I hear when they are done talking.
It turns out that these figures, these constellations, represent each of the origins available to me. They are, in order, a pyrokinetic, a pyrotechnician, an ashen assassin, an elementalist, and "The Pyre". In each case, other than with regards to the elementalist and "The Pyre'' I only have one ability. As a pyrokinetic, I can use my elemental abilities without expending any sort of physical or magical energy (though it still expends mental energy, the sort of mental energy I use up when studying for a class), as a pyrotechnician I can learn more quickly when I am surrounded by fire, and as an ashen assassin I can convert fires into ash.
As a user of "The Pyre", I can make fire and other elements deal harm that is non-elemental in nature, and I can absorb instances of the elements in order to heal my health and restore my energy. My "Elementalist" abilities are a bit more complicated, but with them I can convert the harm my abilities deal into another type of elemental harm, such as making my flames blow my opponents away and deal wind damage, and I can summon golems made of the four classical elements.
I am nearing the exit of the department store and I can see a glittering array of other shops just past the exit of the store that leads into the mall itself. I decide to continue my self-exploration in the order that The Guide recommended and the same process I just committed for fire I commit for fire's opposing element: water. The stars arrange themselves in eight shapes this time.
The first image is of a wizard with a wand that is expelling a steady stream of potent water. The second image is of a figure standing over a bubbling pot. The third image is of a giant mirror, the fourth is of a scientist, the fifth is of someone kneeling in front of a strange octopus-like creature, the sixth is of someone mixing herbs into water, the seventh is of another elementalist and is exactly the same as the last one's image, and the final is of a creature in the shape of a person made of water. In order the images represent a mystic, a hydrokinetic, a mirror demon, a biologist, a cultist of the deep, a herbalist, an elementalist, and a primordial. This time I have the first two abilities for everything except for the elementalist and the primordial. As an elementalist I have three abilities, and as a primordial I only have one.
As a mystic my abilities will ripple out and have more profound effects than they should, and I can understand things I touch with water "Under my control". As a hydrokinetic I can do things with curses that are more powerful than I should be able to do, such as spreading my curses to multiple people even if I only hit one person with water, again "Under my control". I also have an array of curses I can use on people. It seems that I have become a mirror demon with all of the boons that come with that such as power over mirrors and reflections, as well as the ability to turn myself into glass and manipulate my own body through my powers.
My nature as a "Biologist" grants me great power over things I know a great deal about, and allows me to learn faster depending on my surroundings. As a "Cultist" I can speak to anyone, ignoring language barriers, and I am always considered "Insane", which is very decidedly a benefit according to the voice in my head… Who I'm sure I can trust as a neutral judge and commentator on this matter.
Thanks to my nature as a herbalist I can make water extremely corrosive to all non-living things, and I can find things I need in and around water. My elementalist powers are a touch weirder this time than they were before, allowing me to use elements to wear my opponents down, allowing me to entomb enemies if I can get them under enough of an element I control, and even allowing me to remove their souls, or even my soul, from our bodies. This is not always a bad thing, as unbound souls can freely explore their surroundings, but are not readily detectable by science and by mundane senses.
My primordial power gives me the ability to become water, and to manipulate myself as though I were manipulating water "Under my control". That phrase… I know what it means, but I don't want to bring myself to believe it. It is suggesting that I can manipulate water, and because of my elementalist powers other elements as well. If so… that is incredible, and terrifying.
I exit the store and find myself in the mall proper. As I do I shudder at the thought of investigating the changes further, since there's still two whole elements left for me to peruse and I know that I can manipulate them even more than I can manipulate the two elements I've investigated. I decide to take a break and glance at the stores I am now passing.
The mall is a crowded place, filled with groups that include clearly non-human beings as much as they include humans. I see people with skin colorations I've never seen on humans, like neon pink or purple, and with features that could never be seen on humans such as wings or antennae. They freely and happily explore the mall, and unlike malls back on my homeworld I see adults exploring the place as readily as I see teenagers. The shops that attempt to attract customers are both seemingly parodies of shops from Earth and fully original stores that sell assorted goods like furniture or books from worlds unlike Earth.
I glance at the large panes of glass that separate fully clothed and only sometimes human-like mannequins from wandering customers and as I study the things I realize that, at least in theory, there's a lot I could do with them. My abilities as a pyrokinetic mixing with my abilities as an elementalist mean I should be able to use my powers over mirrors without physically gesturing towards the glass. At the same time there are other things that provide water around the mall.
Some of the people walking past me are sweaty. The shops all have assorted types of fire sprinklers. I don't know if I could draw water out of someone, at least without experience and training, but I know for sure that there's a lot I can do with the water, and glass, that is already around me.
I begin to make my way to a series of escalators I can glimpse in the distance. At the same time I wrestle with the urge to glimpse at the other elements. Earth and wind… Somehow, for reasons that elude me, I am more keenly attuned to those elements than I am to water and fire. A part of me curiously speculates that maybe this has to do with the fact that I flew when I first arrived here, and then landed on solid ground?
Going by this logic, if I would have landed in the water and somehow survived then I'd be more attuned to water, though I'm unsure of how I would have attuned to fire. I guess that sounds kind of silly, but not any sillier than any other semi-coherent theories I can come up with.
I am heading towards a machine displaying a map of the mall when my powerful senses faintly detect someone crying out for help in the distance. I sharply turn my head in the direction of the noise and see a tiny black cat stepping into view from behind a mostly closed door, one covered in wounds and lightly bleeding. I dart towards it, my movements unnaturally fast and impossibly quiet and as I wonder about that I realize that it must have to do with one of my origins, most likely one I don't know about yet.
I reach the cat in milliseconds and startle the thing since it was far enough from me for the distance to be measurable in football fields. I start to kneel when the cat hisses at me and I smile when I hear a word escape from between its lips.
"Help!" It hisses, clearly not a polite lad. I stop and nod, and its eyes widen in surprise.
"Understand?" It asks, and I nod. I watch relief appear in the shadow-fur-covered beast's eyes. It turn around and dart off back through the door it was peeking through.
"Follow!" It says, and I quickly do as it as asks. I step through the door and find myself in a narrow and long hallway. In the distance, I can see a doorway that lacks any doors and an area of strange darkness on the other side of it.
"Friend. Danger." The cat warns, as we dart through the hallway. I nod at the cat and tell it that I understand. The cat is also fast, about as fast as I was earlier, which is more than a bit strange but hardly the strangest thing that's happened to me since I first arrived here.
"Use light. Monsters. Hate it." The cat tells me, haltingly, and that piques my curiosity. I expect that I'm going to go and help save another cat from… something.
We reach the edge of the hallway and I get to see something surprising. Beyond the empty doorway is another set of stores, ones that are seemingly abandoned this time, that are all shrouded in darkness. The only illumination in the area comes from the massive letters used to specify which stores are in the area, as they are still turned on and project faint quantities of light into the dark space.
I see a strange confrontation occurring between said stores. I see three shadowy silhouettes of creatures resembling massive tigers approaching a wounded woman who is slowly trying to crawl away from them.
She is fiercely telling the creatures to "Fuck off" but the monsters, quite literally, smell blood. They approach her slowly, and I watch their mouths slowly morph and begin to flash her massive, predatory grins. They remind me vaguely of the Cheshire Cat from Alice In Wonderland, and I wonder if they are… real-life smilers from the Backrooms. Thankfully there is a fountain between the woman and myself that is still operational. The water in the fountain looks less than drinkable, but I don't need to drink it, I need to use it.
I don't dare move forward and reveal myself, but I don't need to do that thanks to my powers. I raise my hands like I'm a young telekinetic using my powers for the first time and I focus on the water in the fountain. The cat turns and glares at me.
"Come!" It hisses, but I shake my head and tell it to wait. I smile when the water in the fountain begins to slowly, shakily rise, snaking out of the fountain and forming a weird-looking elemental tentacle. The fountain is near the smiler-like beings, and they notice the tendril before the woman does, their smiles shifting into looks of confusion as my focus allows me to manipulate the fairly distant water.
I close my eyes and will a curse to infuse the water, a powerful curse of fear. This is something I can do as a hydrokinetist, for some reason.
When I open my eyes again the water has begun to turn a strange shade of pink, one bright enough to stand out even in the gloom of the darkened section of the mall where the monsters lurk. The monsters don't flee, but I recognize that they probably will when I hit them with the water and inflict them with the curse, which I can do by hitting just one of them thanks to my abilities. I flick my hand in their direction and watch as the water chaotically whips towards the one closest to the woman the cat wants me to save. The cat makes a mewling sound in delight as it watches the water flit toward the monsters.
The water strikes one of the cats on its head and I watch as the thing rears in pain. It emits an unearthly noise, something closer to the sound of a car hitting a tree than any noise I've ever heard a living being make, and I see the water spreading across its shadowy, silhouette-like body. When it hits one of the creature's legs I see all three cats freeze in fear and I take advantage of this moment by darting forward, sprinting towards the injured woman. At the same time the woman cusses in confusion and she begins to back away from the frozen monsters.
As the water creeps across the body of the creature I feel the back of my mind filling with unnatural knowledge. This is a manifestation of one of my mystic abilities! I gain insight into the mind of the wicked, cruel beast that is hunting the woman, and I also sense something I can't quite make sense of: a sense of both fear and loyalty to something greater than itself. The cat is loyal to its fellow smilers, which marks this kind of smiler as different from the solitary hunters I know of as fictional in the world of my origin, but it's also something else's faithful, fearful servant. And I also learn that the creature really is a smiler, down to its disdain for light.
The smilers spot me and their eyes widen in panic. It seems that the fearful curse I infused the water with works! I reach the lady, a short girl dressed in a punk-rock tank top, a damaged leather jacket, and black jeans. I scoop her up into my arms and tell her we're leaving. She doesn't cuss me out but she does turn and look at me in confusion, her eyes widening when she sees me.
I keep my eyes on the cats, who have begun to take steps away from me while keeping their eyes firmly locked on me. I don't leap back, knowing that doing so would probably strip me of the bonuses I have to my senses, and instead I begin to walk backward towards the illuminated hallway that connects this strange, eerily empty part of the mall to the rest of the place.
In seconds I have stepped from the darkness to the light and am in the hallway. I don't bother looking away from the cats, as they are definitely still fearfully watching me, and I begin to speak.
"How are you doing?" I ask both the normal-sized cat and the woman. The person who answers my question is the woman.
"Not great, but hey I'm not smiler food so… I'll take it." The woman tells me, astonished by what she's seen. When she's done talking I glance at her more closely this time.
She is a pop-rock girl judging from her attire and her hair, which is far darker than Night Orchid's. She is also somewhat short, standing maybe an even five feet tall. She is more injured than the cat is, but neither look great. I step a bit further into the light, joined now by the cat, and then prop her against one of the walls of the hallway so I can examine her wounds.
I frantically search the back of my mind to see if I somehow know any spells that can heal. It takes me a few seconds to find that I do know spells, including ones that heal, thanks to my nature as a pyromancer and as a mystic. I internally wonder if I can somehow convert elements into other elements, and as I do I sense an ability make itself known to me: "Progenesis", an ability I possess thanks to my nature as an Earth Elementalist. This handy power lets me convert elements into other elements, such as turning earth into fire or turning air into water.
I reach into the air and I begin to will the air around me to become water. Doing so takes me a few moments of intense concentration but before I know it there is a small pool of water in my hand and I smile at the woman. I gently spread the water across her chest, where a nasty gash is slowly bleeding and I chant a few words in a language I don't know. When I'm done chanting I feel some energy of mine waste away, but at the same time the gash begins to heal itself, and I watch the pop rocker's eyes widen as she sucks in a breath of air.
"Whoa…" She whispers, as she begins to feel better. The spell, undoubtedly empowered by one of my powers that allows my actions to be far-reaching, even goes as far as repairing her jacket, which was shredded by the claws of the smilers. As the spell does its thing, I feel supernatural knowledge flow into my mind thanks to the other mystic ability I possess.
This punk rocker is named "Mary Spikemouth", and she is a professional musician. She's also a cultist devoted to the strange "Cat" that went to find somebody to save her, who as it turns out is not a cat at all. I take a deep breath and turn to look at the cat.
"Alright, it's your turn." I tell the thing, even as I slowly activate "Mana Charge" and transform small quantities of the air around me into magical energy so I can recharge my small internal stores of arcane energy.
The cat nods and approaches Mary and I before leaping onto her lap and presenting itself. I smile at the thing, actually a creature named "Bast", and I shut my eyes and turn more air into water. It's a bit easier this time, and when I feel water in my hand I go ahead and begin to pour it on the cat. As I do I sense knowledge regarding this strange eldritch creature begin to fill the back of my mind. I chant the words and watch as the cat visibly heals, its wounds knitting themselves together and its fur regaining some of its lost splendor.
Bast, the cat, regards me differently now. It silently looks at me, and I can see intelligence filling its gaze. As we study each other I wonder just how powerfully I've healed it. I eventually look at Mary and begin to speak.
"I'm starving. And I'm new. Let's go… get some food." I say, laughing internally when her eyes widen in shock when I tell her I'm new. She eventually nods at me after a few moments, and I get up before offering her a hand. She takes it, and I help her up. I turn and glare at the smilers, who only just now flee deeper into the part of the mall they came from. Mary, Bast, and I begin to head towards the populated part of the mall, and I feel faint relief at the thought of leaving this eerie section of the mall.