The Fool's Freedom

Alan’s initial excitement quickly turned into untold agony as feelings not belonging to him crashed against his psyche and made him scream. Maybe it was not him screaming, but an echo of what he had touched upon. Was it a physical act or the mind tearing itself apart trying to hold on to a sense of identity?

Was a shred of a will, a remnant of someone long gone, raging against being violated by the skill? Who would want their most intimate feelings and moments being seen through by an intruder, after all?

The visions broke apart and Alan felt himself falling back. They were not much different than anything he had seen so far – snippets of life that ultimately led to death. However, all the feelings and the thoughts he could catch were magnified as if someone had turned the volume up or increased his sensitivity to unbearable levels. He hadn’t lasted long enough to witness the end this time.

“It’s alright, take your time,” Isind said, handing him a glass of water. Alan took it with a shaky hand and tried to gather himself. The shadows whispered their sweet calming song, grounding him, helping him remember who he was now. And who he was becoming.

“It’s heavy. The thoughts, the emotions. They’re like a mountain pressing down on my own. If I experience death like this…”

“Don’t quit on me now,” Isind said anxiously. It was plain the man wasn’t that worried about Alan’s well-being. His expression betrayed his true feelings on the matter.

Alan laughed. It was an involuntary act but it came straight from his heart. Give up? Now? He shook his head. He didn’t care if all Isind wanted was to see where their path would lead. He had fulfilled all other conditions for his tier two breakthrough. He wondered if everyone had to go through this. Maybe it was different for others, and all of his strange meetings and choices had led to him struggling now.

He was reaching for concepts that were a gateway to yet another world. Different than the all-encompassing emptiness and different than the constant flow of the universe.

“The thought never passed my head. This skill is too intriguing to pass up. I feel like I’m touching upon something that… that I shouldn’t be. And I want more,” he said.

Isind’s eyes gleamed with dangerous light but whatever thoughts were roaming inside the man’s head he kept them to himself. “Good man,” he said. There was passion in his voice and something else… Alan was too tired to care.

“A higher tier is more than a class change or ability to access better skills. If, for example, a tier two used a normal skill, while you were using an (epic) one, he would still overpower you. Maybe if your attributes were overwhelmingly higher it would matter, but that’s almost impossible.” Isind explained slowly.

“Why? Does it mean skill rarity doesn’t matter?”

Isind shook his head. “Don’t look at it as a rarity – that’s wrong. It doesn’t show how many beings in the vast universe and beyond hold it. What it shows, or hints at, is a skill's potential and its complexity, and maybe its danger. I’m sure you’ve some more skills and you see that the stronger they get the higher the chance of backlash or a misstep grows. That’s not always the case, especially when the complexity is only tied to the power the skill can unleash. However, the more complex a skill matrix becomes, the more power it can make manifest. It is the same with your mind and your will. As you get used to it and become more, you can inflict more of yourself on the world.”

“So a tier two…

“A tier two makes you be more. Your existence simply becomes more defined. You can output more power. You’re one step closer to the building blocks of it all – the truths and the laws that hold everything together. And most importantly,” Isind crouched to get level with Alan who was still sat on the ground and stared at his eyes, “it brings you closer to the System.”

That… what does that even mean?

“What is the System?” Alan asked. He couldn’t believe the words were leaving his lips just now. He’d had so many opportunities to ask, yet… I just accepted it because it saved me. Because it gave me what I wanted and what I needed. A gateway, an escape. An opportunity to be someone. And now… I am someone.

Isind laughed, “Good question. When you find the answer, tell me.”

Alan nodded and stood up with newfound fire inside. “Let’s try again.”

A Scion is never caught lacking, is it? I’m a pretty shit Scion so far.

Alan reached for the same tier-two corpse he’d just experienced. There were only a few and each was at a different level at the time of their death. The one he was trying it on had died shortly after advancing to tier two apparently. Isind didn’t know the woman’s class, but Alan had seen quite a few instances of brutal ice magic from the brief glimpses he had managed to handle.

He focused and for some reason instinctively pulled at the whispers, willing them to help and ground him. Good voices, help me and I’ll get you a treat. He felt [Shadow Mind] activate preemptively and the dark cloud that descended to cover his mind was like internal armor ready to defend his sovereignty of mind.

The visions this time around didn’t feel like a punch to the jaw, or at least not as strongly as they had. He saw places of snow and ice, and people slinging powerful skills against strange monsters covered in fur. Words were hard to understand, as the feelings of the skills and concepts the woman was utilizing were overwhelming.

Alan tried to tune them out and focus on each piece of information by itself. It was a difficult process, but Isind explained in detail the process of breaking skills down into separate components. And even if what he had seen was just a vision, it was still a product of his skill – a memory taken without permission. So in theory it was his to mold to an extent – he was not trying to change the content as that would be pointless.

First, he removed the words and the sounds while trying to preserve only those relating to skills. Next, he focused on tuning out the concepts that were interfering with him and weighing heavy on his soul. It was like playing with a sharp knife and trying to hold it by the edge and squeeze, without cutting yourself. Only, he didn’t know what a knife or being cut was. Like a newborn with enough motor skills to hurt itself.

Just as he succeeded he saw what appeared to be a tiny fractal of fire inhabited by a giant monster of lava and crystal.

The battle lasted a while and each skill the woman cast threatened to shatter Alan’s perception and pull him out of the vision. It became more and more difficult to control what he was seeing and to filter through the different stimuli the skill was inflicting.

Soon he felt the shadow of death. He had seen it enough to know it was coming, and the skill warned him too. There was real danger this time and Alan quickly interrupted the skill just as he felt some piercing force reach the woman’s back.

Once again Isind was there to hold him.

Alan heaved heavily, thankful for air. Was he forgetting to breathe? “Better,” he managed to say.

He felt that his meager vitality wouldn’t have been able to undergo this amount of stress before his change, but now that he had no vitality… He didn’t feel much different, apart from not worrying about suddenly dying.

Alan rested and tried again. And then again. Each time he filtered through everything choosing and picking what to focus on and making the experience much more manageable. He wondered if some of this expertise could be combined with the [Curse of Buried Shadows]… As much as he hated the mind magic after what Florence had done to him, Alan found himself drawn to the power it offered. His was different though. He was not a manipulator, but he didn’t shy away from using it as punishment or a tool.

The experiments continued, and Isind’s support seemed like a bottomless well. His tonics, his words and guidance, his care. All of it was new to Alan and made him feel both strange and thankful. It was not done out of good or because the man cared about Alan, but still, it felt nice.

Days later, or maybe more – time was behaving strangely in the Bazaar – Alan breathed a sigh of relief.

Strangely, apart from the insights and concepts that he put aside fully, the most difficult to handle were not skills, but emotions.

He found fiery love like a blazing sun that seemed impossible and like something out of fairytales for children who had yet to meet the world. He felt anxiety so strong it put his own experiences to shame and seemed to trigger something that left him unable to continue for hours. He felt a lot of anger but that he knew well, and it was easier to deal with.

The full spectrum was revealed before him and little by little he dipped his toes and then submerged fully in the new experience. Until finally…

Congratulations! Your skill has advanced. Do you accept?

Alan was surprised he was given a choice. Why would anyone deny a skill advancement? He focused on the screen that had appeared in his mind but just as the information reached him, it became blurry and a familiar voice stole his attention.

“This is not worthy of you. How about…” a beautiful voice whispered silencing the murmur of shadows. Alan was worried Isind had heard it too but the man did not indicate that. He just stood to the side, waiting for Alan to report his new findings.

You have received another option for your skill advancement due to the influence of your Legacy.

Please wait.

***

An infinite lake of death. Beneath its dark waters were the invisible hands that grabbed the souls of the damned and dragged them further and further into the endless depths.

It was black and smooth like a mirror with not a single ripple – a serenity of lightless obsidian. No speck of dust dared to come close to the smooth surface, nor was anyone but one allowed to drink the strength of the unfathomable waters.

Only one.

A man of middle age, dressed in simple loose robes of pitch black. It was as if he was not even there. There was no raging will around him, nor suffocating presence.

They were there, just not around him.

They were all over the hall, in each crevice and corner.

They were beyond the walls, covering the trees and observing the lifespan of each leaf and root and each seed that fell into the earth.

They covered the skies that churned slowly, dark and endless like the lake, and suffocated the storms brewing in them.

They washed over the mountains and the valleys like an invisible blanket or the thought of a cold executioner.

They took the life of each being that was deemed unnecessary and allowed the deserving to breathe long after their time.

They wrapped around the core of the planet and protected it, threatening instant obliteration to anyone who even dared to look toward this world.

And so, through death, a world of perfection had come into being.

A world for one man and no one else.

Such was the head of the dynasty.

For the first time in a long while, he opened his eyes and the Realm trembled. There was a ripple on the lake – small as if a fly had barely touched its surface before flying away.

The man remained calm. Every few millennia such a thing would happen. And once the anomaly was fully formed and grew enough it would be his, because Death was his. More often than not, such events ended in failures, but each variable was worth exploring.

It mattered not who the owner was – a new lifeform or a god of old hiding in some forgotten hole.

Every skill that connected to the waters would find its way here if it was worthy.

Every skill that touched upon the Throne rightfully belonged to the one who sat upon it.

Because the Throne was his too.

Eternally.