The Fool's Freedom

An empty dark path.

Eternal but broken. Broken but whole.

The scars it bore made it stronger than it had the right to be.

The old trodden path remembered.

It remembered those whose feet had walked upon its cold body.

It remembered those whose darkness was only comparable to their light.

It remembered those without shadows.

They would battle gods, laugh in the face of tyrants and spirits alike, and drink shoulder-to-shoulder with death itself.

They would bathe the realms in the carnage, and they would create peace that lasted eons.

Yes, the old stone remembered.

Now, after so very long, another had taken a step on the old empty path.

Another had embraced a legacy better left in the shadows of the past.

The first, but not the last.

It was only natural.

With a new cycle came new worlds. And with new worlds came mortal beings without a concept of the powers that ruled above all or of the system and what it meant. Without proper fear.

They followed paths long forgotten. Paths removed by force. Paths that didn’t exist.

This was… one such path. If it could, it would think it was different, and it would be right. But then again, so would many other paths.

However, paths were not made to think. They were made to connect places. To lead to destinations.

And this particular path led to many things. Many destinies. Many terrible endings.

The first step – an action so minute, so weak, that it was barely registered by the metaphorical dust upon the old metaphorical stones – echoed throughout the many forks and turns of the path.

There were no unimportant steps.

And this one, despite its weakness, was very very important. Not only because it was the first in a long time.

But because of its direction as well. A corner of the past so dark and so strange, it had been erased from the minds of all old enough to remember it. There was a past better left forgotten waiting there. After all, not all legacies should be remembered by history, and not all should be studied.

A flickering candle swayed under a touch of cold. Its efforts were noble, but it was just a weak flash – a tiny drop of a will.

This was just the first step, however. There would be many more.

And what good was a path without the proper twists and turns?

***

Bonez died. It hadn’t been as he imagined, in the arms of beautiful women of flesh and blood, with a full belly and no Bone Lord grinding away at his sanity. It had been a pathetic death, a sad death. Death that had been both a salvation and a sentence. Death by the hands of one weaker than him, of one who had chosen a path and then refused that very same path.

Who would do that? A madman, that’s who!

Ah.

A cold thing, death. Especially when his patron waited on the other end, ready to reap the soul of the one who had promised himself. Of the one who had sacrificed everything for power and made a deal.

Bonez had no lungs to sigh with, no eyes to shed tears with, and no fist to struggle with. His mind was no more, but he was there, he was himself. In a different form, perhaps.

His soul, promised and given to the Bone Lord would know no reincarnation. It was barred from the realms of death and rebirth, and it would only know eternal servitude until the day the Bone Lord was no more. But as the gods who stood above almost all, as the Thrones that decided the fate of the worlds and their inhabitants, so do the accepted patrons also suffer an eternity.

Such was the fate of a [Bone Warlock].

The fate of one who had disappointed his Lord.

***

You have slain a [Bone Warlock] (98)

You have angered a powerful entity.

Level up!

You have reached level 81 in [Warlock]!

+ 3 Attribute Points

+ 1 Mind, Will, and Magic

…

Level up!

You have reached level 87 in [Warlock]!

+ 3 Attribute Points

+ 1 Mind, Will, and Magic

It was cold. Not familiarly so. It was cold like the embrace of a nightmare, the quiet kiss of a knife, or the rhythm of a slowing heartbeat.

Yet, it was also cold as ice cream on a hot day and the relief cold water brought upon a burned wound.

The embrace of the shadows.

It was a strange feeling, all in all.

Alan tried to breathe, but no breath came to him. He tried to talk, but again, no breath came to him. All he could do was stare at the swirling darkness and the silhouettes it hid—strange silhouettes of stranger beings.

One stood out, and all else disappeared. Like in an old noir film, the silhouette moved and the world became grainy for it. A sense of over-the-top mystery, of a lit cigarette touching red lips before the big reveal, an explosion of black and white.

Something was coming. Something terrible and wonderful. But the curtain of darkness froze, and he could only see a glimpse before his attention was taken away. The System was here, and it was impatient.

You have touched upon a lost Legacy.

Inheriting a Legacy may affect you in various ways and fundamentally alter your future.

Do you wish to proc— Error!

…

You can’t say no now~

The last message made his very existence twist. It came into his mind carried by the System. But it was also something else. Someone else. A strand of will so powerful it eclipsed all before it.

Alan felt something inside of him break. Regrow. Change.

There was laughter. A familiar sound. Its beauty put even Enid’s bell-like voice to shame and made the blue screen in the back of his mind tremble. It was not evil. Nor was it empty. It was warm and came from a place of love, a place of wonder, a place of unbridled joy.

The shadows danced under its sweet melody and Alan smiled. Or he would have if he had a body. He was just a shadow here, one of many.

Race change initiated.

Race change?!

The space around him churned and like the shadows in the waking realm, rushed inside of him. Darkness as vast as an unchained mind washed over Alan and made him feel.

He felt the constraints of his flesh. The pain and agony that had walked with him, that had made him curse waking up, and thirst for the fall of dusk and the sweet oblivion of sleep. He felt them all again.

He felt the sadness, the anger, the shame, and the helplessness that had been his companions in life. They were tall and heavy as mountains. They held power that molded and shaped him, that slowly chipped away at the potential inside. They were his and his alone, but they were also slavers of his mind and body.

He also felt the joy, the love, the warmth too. Lesser and difficult to reach and sense. Small things, hazy things. They almost disappeared in the shade of the negative emotions, stunted and put down. They did their best, of course. He was not a villain, nor did he live a life of constant misery. There had been light at times. Friends. A family that was long gone now – at least those that mattered.

There had been small joys. A tasty drink. A warm meal. A fun movie. Music.

He understood then.

All of these things were hands that robbed him of who he could be. They robbed him of the freedom inside. They changed him, constantly.

They were chains binding his mind and soul and body and twisting it into something that was not him.

What was worse was that he was also the one holding them, the one allowing them to bruise flesh and sink deep until his heart was nothing but the faint reflection of events long past. He held onto those memories for dear life and drifted through the present like a shell.

Trauma defined him, controlled him, and made him who he wasn’t supposed to be. And the truly powerful knew how to make use of that.

Weakness.

And now, all was coming undone.

The laughter sounded again and with it came liberation.

Both darkness and light belonged to him. Alan would be no one without them, but they were his to control. They would be… in time.

However, this was only the beginning.

It was not a biological change, but a spiritual enlightenment. Although he felt different in body too. Strange, since his body was nowhere to be seen.

All felt lighter now. Alan knew that he was smiling.

“Ah, now you understand,” a gentle voice said.

He blinked or did the equivalent of blinking in his current state. It was getting tiring being pulled into strange spaces and visions, but it didn’t feel too bad. It was not the same as meeting the spirits, where he felt he was physically present, or the trick of the Bone Lord which was similar and barred him from his system.

Here, he was himself, just… not physically.

A beautiful woman. Too beautiful for comfort, appeared from the darkness. The shadows draped over her like silk and moved slowly over her form. Her eyes, so curious and filled with warmth bore into him until Alan felt like he was falling.

Her voice came to him like the whispers of a mother to a newborn. “To become a shadowless does not entail a biological change. It is not the awakening of a bloodline, nor obtaining alien traits through evolution. It is a state of being. A state of freedom through acceptance. What that means is up to us. All want different things, after all... Things that might have been lost due to circumstances of birth, or tragic happenstance.”

Alan's whole mind was focused on listening. Each word was repeated by space itself. He had never felt something more important than this moment, than the words of the woman before him. Was it a vision, or was she speaking to him?

“Fate mocks all of us, but it also oftentimes leads us to the tools of our salvation. The tools that can help us regain what we, as innocent children, have lost without being given an opportunity to resist,” she smiled a sad smile and Alan felt like weeping for her. For himself. He understood now.

She spun in a circle, smiling, and with her, the empty space smiled. Even the darkness seemed warm and comforting. “Acceptance does not mean to become stale and forego change,” she continued, and Alan felt a soft summer breeze and the touch of fresh grass beneath his feet. “Acceptance means to embrace what you are and what you have become and use it as building blocks of the future you. It is not something unique to us. It is a simple concept that all living beings use one way or another. A building block of existence, if you will.”

Alan nodded to himself. It was learning, plain and simple. Learning who you were and using that knowledge to improve.

“Often living beings fall into one extreme… Either darkness or light. At times, you will do so as well. One cannot be without the other so… try to embrace both. Own them. Use them as fuel. Find joy in the world as if you still have the innocence of a child and fly like you were meant to. Find joy in suffering and sadness in happiness. No gods. No rulers. No masters. Be you, and be free. That is what it meant to me, and, perhaps what it will mean to you.”

Then she was before him. Her perfect face and perfect eyes were a vision that made all else pale in comparison.

“You will inherit my legacy and share my path. A path of carnage, and a path of love. I’m but a remnant will but I will guide you, and help you. Make your choices freely and always know...” Her lips softly shaped the next words. Ever so slowly. “We are free.”

She moved away then. “The first piece of my heritage is a skill that many dreaded in my time. It is a skill I deemed necessary. I don’t know what form it will take when the system molds it for you, but I assure you it can be much more than what you will receive. And once you finally step unto the true path of the strong… you will come to understand who I am better.”

Alan tried to speak once again, but he couldn’t. Perhaps this was a vision left for anyone who stumbled upon her legacy. Perhaps she was not speaking to him.

“Just a few levels away…” she said with another blinding smile. “Now arise, my shadowless.”

Now Alan knew she was talking to him.

A moment later he found himself back in his room. A piece of wall fell where his attack had struck it and left a gaping hole. The mess that was Bonez’s body was still there too.

Your race has changed.

You have become a Variant Human – Shadowless.

You have received the following bonuses:

+100 to Will

+100 to Mind

+200 to Magic

You have met the requirements to inherit a [Heritage] skill.

You have learned: Curse of Buried Shadows [Heritage]

Curse of Buried Shadows (Heritage)

Reveal the darkness inside the mind. Let them live through it and face the results of their own choices. Few can stomach the abyss that lives inside themselves and live to do better…

While under the Curse the affected are tortured by painful memories found in their subconsciousness by the means of nightmares, hallucinations, and phantom pains.

The maximum duration of the curse is a month.

The caster may end the curse at any time.

The caster may adjust the strength and form of the curse.

This may lead to long-lasting harm to the mind of the afflicted.

There’s a chance for the caster to get pulled into the effect during times of weakness.

Heritage tier skills – skills that one acquires through a bloodline, transfer, or inheritance. They are in a class of their own. Their strength is limited by the level of the one who wields them. Their true rank will be revealed once they reach the limits of their potential.

Congratulations you have been granted the Title: Inheritor.

Congratulations you have been granted the Title: Scion.