'Seed of Chaos' System

Edelle woke up screaming, soaked in sweat, her mind still deeply shaken from the overwhelming presence of that awful being that had called Herself, "Toltura, Goddess of Chaos." Her whole body trembled and shook as she hugged herself, trying to calm down. 

As her mind gradually settled, she slowly became aware of a raw, stinging sensation on her forehead. It felt like a fresh cut. Had she cut herself while sleeping? Removing Bana Laoch from its sheath next to the inn's bed, she used the flat of the blade to examine her reflection; while most of the flat of the blade was tinted golden, it could still serve as a mirror to some degree. 

She gasped when she saw what the reflection showed. A swooping, radial pattern with four axes was etched into her forehead. As one of the King's close associates, Edelle recognized the pattern as some sort of symbol or sigil immediately. Some unknown instinct told her that it belonged to that Goddess from her dream. Was this Her way of reminding Edelle of Her demands? The symbol reminded her of interwoven ribbons of fire: regal yet dangerous. Blood had already leaked and dried from the wound, breaking the pattern in some places as it scabbed over, as if several minutes had passed since the skin had been breached. 

Lowering the sword, Edelle sighed. What did this mean? What was the Goddess's "seedling," and who had provoked her by tampering with it? She felt instinctively that she was very lucky that the Goddess had judged her to be innocent; and she pitied whoever had offended Her, for they had a storm of punishment coming. Which, apparently, the Goddess was requiring her to take part in dishing out. Leaving aside the practical avalanche of religious implications that came from the fact that another Goddess besides Helia existed, how was she supposed to punish the offender, let alone know who the offender was to begin with? She hadn't the faintest clue.

As if in answer to her questions, a new window appeared, though it looked different from the ones she'd seen before. While its main hue was still golden, dozens of diamond shapes of a faded, reddish purple color were scattered across its surface, and the window seemed to be disintegrating and reforming in succession in these areas. Flecks of various other colors winked in and out of existence around the reddish purple diamonds. The color zones didn't remain fixed, either -- they seemed to slowly migrate across the window in unpredictable patterns.

The window's message was also different from any she had seen before.

*****

QUEST: Wake the seedling sealed inside Bana Laoch

*****

Upon reading the words, her heart sank. The "seedling" the Goddess had mentioned was sealed inside Bana Laoch? Did that mean one of the incredibly rare ingredients in this new forging method was a Goddess's favorite little tree?! What's more, the "quest" stated that she needed to "wake" it, which implied that it had been conscious before, but wasn't currently -- possibly because of the seal that it mentioned. Did that mean the one who had offended the Goddess Toltura was the King? She loved and trusted His Majesty, and had loyally followed his orders without question for years, but this was going too far. Just how desperate was the King to risk provoking a Goddess?!! And now that Goddess was requiring her to punish him?! This was madness!

She breathed deeply, assuring herself that there must be a rational explanation for this. She could deal with the King later. Hopefully, there would be a possibility of some kind of workaround or compromise; it was a thin, probably vain, hope, but she could dream.

Now, how did one go about waking up a plant sealed inside a magic sword?

----

A week later, Captain Edelle "White Swallow" ventured into a particular cave that was rumored to have a small colony of Psychic Grubs. These oversized maggots were famous for being found near strong sources of psychic magic; they were resistant to mental manipulation and, as such, were known to coexist alongside a variety of monsters that used mental magic to control their prey. They would subsist on the leftovers of those monsters' food, as well as their excrement, which tended to be rich in residual psychic magic. 

While the Psychic Grubs were what had brought Captain Swallow to this cave, they weren't really what she was after. She wanted to hunt the monsters the grubs lived near. After much deliberation, she had theorized that perhaps acquiring mental manipulation skills could wake up the sleeping seedling. Hopefully this cave would have a good quantity of them. 

If it weren't for one of the skills that Bana Laoch had originally come with, "Mental Fortitude," which protected against mental manipulation, the Captain would have been much more hesitant to come here. After all, there would have been no guarantee she wouldn't fall prey to the monsters' mind-controlling magic herself. With the sword's shared skill, however, she felt confident that she could face anything she found here. 

Progressing systematically, Captain Swallow fought monsters she encountered in the caves. Numerous minor cuts and bruises gradually accumulated and healed as she battled, navigating the dark corridors by the light of a magically enchanted headlamp (an invention from the last generation of Heroes). Bana Laoch's "Keen Instincts" and "Battle Foresight" skills came in handy many times. Without them, even though she was the Captain of the King's elite order of Swallow Knights, she would likely have been ambushed and significantly wounded many times over. She was immensely grateful for the sword's strength.

That gratitude was newly tempered by wariness, however. The sigil-shaped wound on her forehead, which had been healing slowly despite "Troll's Regeneration," reminded her of the Goddess's words. "Bana Laoch," which translated to "Hero's Bane" in the common tongue, had been made using a holy seedling belonging to the Goddess of Chaos. Had the King realized what he was doing when he had crafted such a double-edged sword?

Though she had always used to trust him before, somehow, she doubted it.

While momentarily lost in her contemplations, Captain Swallow felt a ringing sense of alarm pulse through her body and she instantly came alert. She looked around the cave in search of the threat. 

Instead of any danger, all she could see were a collection of stalactites, stalagmites and columns, as well as a stagnant pool of water off to one side. The only light source was from her magical headlamp, which gave the cavern an eerie atmosphere. Various mineral growths decorated the ceilings and walls. Most notably, crystalline quartz structures had formed in great quantities around the room. These sparkled magnificently as her headlamp's beam of light flashed across their planar surfaces.

Then, as suddenly as the warning had come, it was gone. Had the danger passed?

Ah, no, that isn't the case at all, she thought as her field of vision traveled in an arc, meeting the ground before bouncing once and rocking gently.

She watched the lower half of her body slump to the floor nearby, and wondered if she had been too cocky just because she'd gotten her hands on a little bit of strength.

What an amateurish mistake.