Otherworldly - A Shadowed Awakening

Peak of Autumn, Week 5, Day 1

I took a deep breath.

Am I going to dwell on this? I asked myself, Am I going to spiral? Or am I going to accept that these Skills are a part of me now? That this Skill’s abilities are my abilities. That I am as responsible for my sanity as [Mental Fortitude].

I chewed on my lip as I continued reading the Skill description. Coming to a decision, I nodded once. I would swallow the feeling that the System saw too much. I would swallow it and leave it be.

“Not everything is an existential crisis, Nora,” I said to myself, steeling my resolve.

I looked to the closed curtains, felt my still quickly beating heart, and nodded once more, deciding to think through [Mental Fortitude] objectively.

I knew it automatically activated. It had happened several times in the past months. That wasn’t the shock. I felt it detach me, remind me of the horrible thoughts, but it was different when it automatically activated. The spike of mana behind my eyes was a drizzle when that happened –rather than the feeling of an actual spike going through my head. That means I’d been truly and deeply mad. It said so in the Skill –it was only meant to activate to [Madness]. Okay, I took a steadying breath. I knew I was going mad. I felt it in the hysterics I would break into.

I thought back to when I received the Skill. Then, instead of trusting myself, I decided to run through the System notifications I’d received.

“[System Notifications]”

It only took a minute of forcing the screens to roll like a virtual rolodex, pulling the notifications out of thin air as I scrolled back in time. Determined, I went back to the very beginning and pulled up what I was looking for.

[Congratulations! You have experienced intense trauma threatening your mental stability and remained sane! You've learned the skill: Mental Fortitude.]

‘Intense trauma threatening your mental stability.’

That had to be the storm within the Dome and the glass shattering around me. Or it was being shunted across space. Or… I swallowed thickly. Realizing I had been refusing to think about the one truth I had been distinctly avoiding. I had been focusing so much on the loss of my everything that I forgot what that meant.

I died. I was dead. I knew this. I knew it from the moment I awoke here.

I didn’t feel empty at the thought. It didn’t consume me as I thought it would. The dull ache of my heart was no worse for the words running through my head. My anger didn’t abate. But I felt as if saying it to myself was important. It was another step. Another reality I had come to consciously accept.

It was as I was sitting there, definitively not spiraling, that I looked down at the field guide I had been reading. Two hours, roughly, I’d spent reading it. I was only a third of the way through. I decided, with the clarity of [Mental Fortitude], I would stop frantically trying to activate my Skills. Especially since I could only use three of them nonverbally, and one of those still required a spoken command. The rest were still levels away from hitting five.

I picked up the book and decided to read, engrossing myself in the knowledge of Maeve –knowledge that would only help me, despite where it came from. No matter how the source grated.

Every two hours or so, the knights driving the carriage would knock and see if I needed anything. Usually, it was the same knight, Sir Limrick. I swallowed my fear each time, answering smoother and easier with each check-in. The third check-in came early, and as Sir Limrick opened the glass partition, he met my eyes as he spoke. They were a deep shade of ruby that shined in the light of the setting suns.

“We’re just outside Adeline, my lady. We’ll be approaching the barrier soon. It’s early enough that we’ll be taking the side entrance to prevent a ruckus.”

I nodded. I wasn’t really sure what he meant, though. Ask, Nora. Just. Ask.

“A ruckus?” I forced out.

He pressed his lips together, not quite a scowl but definitely holding himself back, “We are passing through the Capital of the West, my lady.”

Sir Limrick said it as if that answered everything. But Eunora had never been through Adeline before, and I certainly hadn’t either. I furrowed my brow as he slid back the partition and went back to… whatever it was the two knights up front did besides directing the horses and checking in on me. Probably actually scanning the forest and road for threats.

Without thought or preparation, I crossed the carriage and climbed up onto the opposite bench –gently moving Haze to the side as I stood on my knees to peer out of the front partition. I slid it back open, causing the other knight, the one who hadn’t been checking on me, to glance back.

I cleared my throat as the red-eyed knight shifted to face me, “Um, yeah, you know… I’m still not sure about… the, uh, ruckus?”

I cringed at my own uncertainty, but the knight ran his hand over his hair –it would have rustled it if there was anything to rustle, but it was cropped short– and gave a sheepish smile.

“Right, part of what we’re doing is your Affirmation before the Gods. You’ve never been to Adeline.” He nodded to himself, piecing it together. I gave a tight smile as confirmation, “Well, we’re traveling in a Dawn carriage, with a contingent of the Dusk, escorting a child of the Dawn. It’s going to cause a commotion either way, but it’ll be more controlled if we take the side gate.”

I swallowed, “... A bad commotion?”

The knight blinked, taking a moment to process that, before he furiously shook his head, “Absolutely not. It’s only inconvenient for travel. You are well-loved, my lady.”

It was my turn to blink before I slowly nodded, “Right, then. Thank you…”

I felt the ache of Eunora in my heart. You are well-loved. By the people, by default. I clenched my fists. And then I smacked my forehead.

“I should have asked about the enchantment,” I sighed.

At this point, most of the anxiety with Sir Limrick was in the small things. Actually speaking, in the way we just had, was not perfect. It wasn’t easy to smother Eunora’s anxiety at all times. But it was getting better. Easier to control.

I went back to the field guide and made to dog-ear a page before stopping myself and instead using [Weave of Darkness] to create a piece of yarn to mark the book instead. Books… didn’t necessarily seem precious here. But Eunora was sheltered and surrounded by casual wealth. There was no way to know if that was true.

I closed the book and opened up the mini-library I had with me. I scanned the stacks of books until I came across one titled, The Etiquette of the Noblesse, Series 1, Book 2: The Noble’s Awakening. Paging through the preface and the following chapters, I found what I was looking for –a grimace on my face.

The Affirmation, it read, is to establish one’s presence before the Gods of this realm. It is to verify the Noble in question is not Anathema to the Gods. In addition, it will establish a baseline of Divinity. It is the only way to verify that a Noble is of true birth.

I skimmed it some more, but basically, the Affirmation requires calling upon one of the Divine to verify nobles remain ‘chosen by the Gods’. If a noble were to have a Divinity score of zero, it would mean their family line is no longer blessed. It was interesting that most people could not see their Divinity. The book was extremely vague on what happens during the actual Affirmation other than ‘the Noble shall Commune with the Divine.’ It did, however, state that only a single priest of Abelia, the Goddess of Truth, would be present for the Affirmation. It was a pass/fail test that I already knew the answer to.

After reading more about the Affirmation and what it means politically, I opened the curtains wide and took in the dim light outside. The suns were nearly wholly set, but all I could see was a dark forest, and the lights of the knights were shining around me. I felt a small comfort knowing that it was night.

To be honest, I couldn’t see much of Adeline’s walls –most of the road was in the forest, and once the trees began thinning around the city, we were traveling straight toward Adeline. So, the only glimpse I could get was through the small partition facing the knights, and they were a tad too bulky for me to see anything other than the top of the wall. It was a slow hour as we veered off from the main road and took a dirt path that had us going parallel to the city.

That was when I got to see Adeline’s glory. Her walls were spotted with towers manned by barrier mages. As I watched, there was no indication that there was a barrier at all –until I caught the shadowed forms of a flock of birds approaching the city proper. The air rippled as the birds approached the walls before glowing waves appeared and rolled across a dome around the city. My breath caught.

The Dome. It’s like the Dome.

It wasn’t, really, but at the time, it felt quite like I was home.

Then the waves settled, and it was back to being undetectable. That was unsettling. The Dome was ever-present in elsewhere, protecting us, keeping us safe. Its purpose was to be seen, to make us feel protected on top of actually being protected. I much preferred that.

As we came to a stop before the gates, I watched as each knight spoke with the guards, presumably verifying their identity. They each presented a token that reflected the mage lights that adorned the gate itself. The tokens were the color of a deep sunrise, going from a deep yellow to a burnt orange and ending as a crimson red. The tokens fit inside their palms, and while I’m sure there was an emblem –the emblem of rising suns– they were angled the wrong direction for me to catch a glimpse.

Then the guard began approaching the carriage. He even met my eyes. Discomfort snaked through me, and my stomach turned. I clutched Noir in my hands and shifted closer to the window facing the guard.

Too soon, he was at the window, knocking his fist against the glass. I swallowed and fumbled with the door handle when the carriage door swung open of its own accord. I caught sight of one of the squires –Arlen, my mind supplied– holding the door open. I nodded lightly to him when the guard brought my attention back to him by clearing his throat.

“Yes, terribly sorry, my lady. Would you mind if I used [Identify] to verify your name and general [Class]?” Despite his oversized frame and light grimace, his tone was polite –borderline uncomfortable with even having to ask.

“Well,” I bit my lip, looking behind him and scanning for Sir Rellar. I was unable to see him behind the city guard, “Can you define general?”

The guard’s eyebrow ticked, but his voice remained calm, “Yes. I will employ a 1st Tier [Identify], with an artefact, to verify which of the archetypes you fit into. It will tell me your tier, presuming you are 3rd Tier or below, and if you are a [Fighter], [Mage], [Apostle], [Worker], or other broad category of [Class].”

He very clearly repeated this several times a day, with the way his voice seemed to become rote. He didn’t even add any inflection when referring to being 3rd Tier or below.

“Okay.” I nodded, and the man took out a blue gemstone no bigger than his thumbnail.

“[Identify]” For the first time, I heard the power behind someone using a Skill. And then a shiver crept up my spine. I jolted, and the city guard gave a tight smile.

“That’ll happen. Thank you, Lady Dawn.”

Arlen closed the door, and soon enough, we were moving again.

Then we were in the city, and I understood what Sir Limrick meant about a ruckus.