As I rushed back to my cabin to get my gear for tracking I mutter to the system "besides giving me quests, what else can you do…?" As I say this I look to the side where the board is gliding next to me.
[Ah, well, I am the QUEST/HELP board, sort of the tutorial… but I also act as the most variable way you have to gain power! Through my main function (completing quests) you can gain access to abilities that you would have only been able to unlock in special circumstances. Such as the reward for this quest, KI sensing, an ability that you would have only been able to unlock if you had a near perfect understanding of your own body. You won't be gaining a near perfect understanding of your body by getting this reward, only the ability to sense KI.]
I look back into the road careful to not fall as I say "very interesting but I was talking about the functions I haven't interacted with yet." I slow down a bit to catch my breath and wait for the response from the system.
[Ok! Well, there are six Boards (two main task boards and four side task boards) that make up this system, you have unlocked four (one main task board, three side task boards) of them those four are:
The quest board. (Me! (Signified by basic grammar.) (Side task board))
THE AUTOMATION BOARD (SIGNIFIED BY ALL CAPS (Side task board))
The Runic Board. (Signified By Always First Letter Caps (Side task board))
The. Sacrifice. Board. (Signified. By. Constant. Periods. (Main task board))
The two you haven't unlocked are:
the function board ( signified by double spaced no caps no periods (side task board.) )
The! skill! tree! board! (Signified! By! Consistent! Exclamation! Marks! (main task board))
These boards make up the E-Rank System known as the 'Tarnished System'.
Thanks for reading all that context!]
With a dry expression on my face I say "they even admitted it, that was a slog to get through" by the time I was finished reading all that I had already gotten half way through the prep work nessisary for a tracking mission, half of my mind as preoccupied with the disappointment of there seemingly being no status board available.
Rob's an old acquaintance of mine, we never really hung out, but he never bullied me with the other kids when they asked him to, he just left me alone…
I strap everything I need onto my person, and make my way for the entrance that Mr. Haleson indicated his son had left into, the eastern entrance was the most troublesome but also the most rewarding, as it existed right in the boundary of the Alderbeste's territory.
What is the Alderbeste? Well, the best I can describe it is a snake, bigger than a titanoboa but way smaller than Jörmungandr, I suppose it's best described as a basilisk, but since in this world basilisks are gigantic slugs who's liquids paralyze people… it's just a massive snake who can stop a person's heart if they look into it's eyes, did I mention it is a magic born beast? Yeah if he went in there…
Luckily, it tends to keep to it's territory.
As I get to the entrance and see the tracks of a human on the ground, I begin to follow them, hoping against hope that Robert was not a fool big enough to willingly go into the Alderbeste's territory…
As I follow the footsteps I notice that it seems like he hasn't stopped once, on top of that, he hasn't turned once, Robert has a tendency to get lost in a good book, in which tends to make him very ignorant of his surroundings…
And it seems he unknowingly walked straight into the one place I really wish he didn't…
As I follow his tracks deeper into the Alderbeste's territory I can't help but feel like I'm being watched, but I know that if I were to look where I knew something is watching me, it would jump out before I was ready…
Or so I thought, as a beast attempts to claw at me from my back, I dodge and I slit it's throat before it can try again, in a last ditch effort to take me with it, the beast jumps at me and forces me to the ground, it's jaws mere inches from my face, it collapses, as my knife pierces the back of its neck… face now inside of the mouth of the unmoving creature, I push it off me and dust myself off…
The creature appears to be a hound of some kind, I've never seen it's likeness in this forest, but then again, I've never been inside the Alderbeste's territory before, but just because it tried to kill me doesn't mean won't be dinner, so I place a tracking curse on the body so I can get to it on my way back from saving that guy.
I start back on tracking Rob once more, though with a bit of difficulty finding the trail again, as the beast I just killed knocked me off kilter…
- - - -
A silent figure cloaked in hide darts through a dark thicket, following the more and more desperate and obvious tracks of a human being, on her path, she comes across a book, open, with a page half torn, it's content seems to be about a world where dragons rule, and humanity is nothing more than a collection of playthings, surprisingly captivating read… she stores it in her bag and carries onward
A sudden spine tingling hiss echos from up ahead, as the Shepard hears the hiss, she climbs onto a tree and jumping from tree to tree, makes her way to a clearing up ahead, in it, are an unconscious boy with blood leaking from his forehead and a massive obsidian scaled serpent with eight glowing red eyes…
The figure whispers to herself and her palm starts glowing, she then tosses the glowing ball at the eyes of the beast from above it, and from that ball exploded a flash of light, the Alderbeste hissed in agony as all eight of it's eyes were temporarily blinded, but in its confusion it started thrashing around violently, the hide cloaked figure leaped from the tree she was in, rolled to the floor and made a break for the unconscious boy, she then picked him up and as stealthily as she could and make her way back out of the territory they were in.
But as she was carrying a heavy load and was more focused on the 45 meter long snake with jaws big enough to eat her and the slightly younger looking boy over shoulder in one gulp, she was not looking where she was going and stepped on a twig…
- - - -
'FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK' 'such a rookie mistake…' 'SHUT THE FUCK UP'
- - - -
As the Alderbeste's attention was pulled to their location, Shepard, full of panic and not in her right mind, decided sprinting directly away from the Alderbeste's territory in a straight line would be enough to get it off their backs, this is, of course, not the best move, as this specific beast is not only very fast, but also, very magic born, meaning, it can cast rudimentary forms of magic, which almost always get cast in either a random direction or in a straight line pointed at whatever it's looking at…
As the blindness effects wear off on the Alderbeste's eyes it notices the figure running away with its quarry in the general direction of sound it just heard, infuriated by this the beast gives chase and is quickly catching up to the two of them.
Snapping out of her panic for a moment by the sound of rustling behind her, she knew the thing was giving chase, having an idea she channels mana into her hand and forms a basic 'Ripper' rune with only enough juice to cut completely through an object once and slapped it onto a tree to her left, attached to it, a mana string that, when pulled will activate the rune and topple the tree down onto the creature. This on top of the overcharged mana bullet back there and the tracking curse she applied to that corpse, have her mana reserves down to half.
As the creature slithers next to the tree it sees its prey tug on a string in it's hand and it notices a very large tree to the left of it falling towards it for no particular reason, this wouldn't be a problem usually but the tree was as thick or thicker than the snake itself, the snake manages to get its head out of the way but the same can't be said for its body, as the tree ends up pinning it to the ground, it lets out a roar of frustration as it sees its prey escaping.
It savagely writhes and the tree breaks from the force of it, it chases with an increased fervour.
The girl begins to breath heavily from the exertion but she new if she stopped now both her and Rob would die, so, she cast another magic bullet, but after it was fully developed in her hand she muttered something under her breath that turned the bullet from a blue to a purple, then just as she was about to cast it blindly behind her, she tripped and fell into a hole, in her panic and self reprimand she did not realize that her spell had hit the beast…
- - - -
'I'm a fucking dumbass…' said a side that was attempting to find solice in stating the truth,
'We were experiencing fight or flight, I feel like we did pretty good for our first time going up against a Magic Born…' said the part of Shepard's mind that was correct
'I hope the bottom of this tunnel has a soft landing,' said another side.
'I wonder…' said a part, wondering
'a light is coming up, we should focus on that' said a side wiser than the rest.
- - - -
As the tunnel came to an end, a small burrow, full of entwining roots, enters Shepard's view, a soft, crimson glow comes from small orbs attached to twigs made of stone jutting out from the ceiling, twisting and angling in a way reminiscent of a thick berry bush,
'Find what's hidden deep between root and hawthorn…'
On the back wall of the root enlaiden cave lays a glowing orange stone, one with curls and shifts engraved into it, even with her worse than average mana sensing capabilities she knew, there was an enormous amount of mana practically pouring off this stone…
[ding.]
[Sacrifice. Board. Activated.]
[scanning. environment. for. potential. S-rank. Item…]
[Item. Found. S-rank. Confirmed…]
[item. Name.: MANA SEED.
Item. Description.: A RELIC FROM THE TIME OF WAR, ONE OF THE LAST REMAINING SAMPLES OF THE FIRST OF THREE WAYS NATURAL MANA USED TO WEAKEN THE WARRING SPECIES.
Item. Abilities.: GRANTS A RANDOM ATTRIBUTE UPON THOSE WITH NO ATTRIBUTE AND LOCKS AWAY THE CAPACITY TO USE ANY OTHER ATTRIBUTE (EFFECT APPLYS TO 100% OF CHILDREN PRODUCED BY CONSUMER)
Item. Activation. requirements.: GRASP IN DOMINANT HAND AND CONSUME ORALLY
[Activation. Specifications.: ONLY ACTIVATES IF USER HAS NOT ALREADY CONSUMED ONE BEFORE HAND, WILL NOT ACTIVATE IF ANY ANCESTOR HAS CONSUMED ONE BEFORE HAND.]
Suggested. Course. Of. Action.: SACRIFICE TO THE SYSTEM FOR GREATER REWARDS
Place. Sacrifice. Here…]
'…?'
"Lore..? Now if all times….?" Shepard said with a deadpan face
'Ahh fuck it… this better not be some shitty Gatcha or something'
As Shepard plucks the stone from the wall, the glow coming from the hawthorns above puttered out and died.
As she did so, whispers flooded her mind, promises of power and prestige of everything she could want bombarded her conscience and subconscious mind.
surprised by the influx of sheer desire, she hesitated for a moment before placing the stone against the part of the board that said 'Place. Sacrifice. Here…' and after a brighter light enveloped the room, the stone was gone, and all the whimsy and comfort here was gone too, as if it had all been an illusion…
[ding.]
[Sacrifice. Accepted…]
[Rewards. Pending…]
[Wait. Time. 23. Hours…]
'Twenty three hours!-'
'Ugh, knew I should've just taken the easier deal…'
Either way, due to the position of the marked corpse I think I know where I am…
As I start to look around for a way out I come across a secondary hole, one a bit more tight, but a breeze is flowing through it, so I start to crawl through it taking Robert's still unconscious form with me.
As I make it to the surface it appears to have turned to dusk, I then make my way back to the corpse only to find it gone, the thing about the tracking curse is that it only marks the place the thing was at when you marked it, so it's not very useful for actual hunting, and seeing the heavy divots in the ground the Alderbeste's gotten a more fulfilling dinner… I wanted to eat that..
I then get back onto the road, and, running on basically fumes at this point, collapse infront of a group of villagers that seemed to have gathered at the entrance of the forest, as if preparing for something..?
Ehh what ever…
- - - -
When word got to my ear that my dumbass apprentice decided to go insane and venture into the Alderbeste's territory to save some brat's life, I was pissed, then and there I decided that even if she somehow survived the only odd job she would be doing for the next year would be cleaning gram gram drudith's out house!
But as my people were about to get to rescue those to problem children, low and behold a bloodied boy gets dragged from the forest on the shoulders of the damn fool I was just cursing…
And before I could even start on a good tirade about the consequences of her actions she went and collapsed on to the ground!
I checked her for injuries, none apparent, just some bruises and some exhaustion, I put both the children on my shoulders and we walk back to town, both relieved and furious…
- - - -
Wooooo! Big chapter, hope it was satisfying, I think I did a good job but we'll see, note, this is an AU, so there are some head canons included and used as explanations, so keep that in mind, this lore, probably won't really make sense at first…
Ok see ya!