"WHY?"
"Because I'm terrified!"
Felix's voice felt gunshot-loud in the basin room, echoing slightly against the stone. Silence had fallen, the Geist's voice gone; once more they were only a small creature, more than a dozen feet away."Because ever since I arrived here, I have fought against everything." He dropped his spell and considered his right hand, calloused and coarsened by his experiences. "I have survived on luck, on Skills I barely understand, and on a hope that it's all been leading somewhere. That I can find a way out."
Felix looked up at Vvim, and though he did not know it, his eyes burned blue once more. "But I can't leave someone else here. To be killed and eaten and-and-and used up? For what? More power? More Skill levels?" He shook his head. "I couldn't live with myself if I did that. I wouldn't want to."
Vvim was silent, their raspy breathing the only sound in the basin room. Felix swallowed several times to soothe the lump in his throat, his emotions still a frenetic ball in his head that he couldn't quite parse. Then the Geist spoke.
The Geist nodded at the vials in Felix's free hand. "What do you intend to do with those, Nym Who Is Not?"
Felix narrowed his eyes, anger rising to the top. "Why do you care?"
"Mana lies within blood; life-force itself. Within that Mana is an ancient cry, far older than this one or even the People themselves," Vvim continued, not quite explaining. "The music, the lilting sounds of the Mother, the Song that ties the universe together. It calls to us through Mana."
"The Mother?" Felix repeated. "That's what the Risi called it. I don't."
"But you hear it, yes? A soft sigh beneath every movement, every action? A trumpet blast beyond victory, a lilting note with each sad ending."
Felix felt those emotions, one after the other, as Vvim described them. He was dizzied, his mind boiling with excess feelings. He answered honestly, too disoriented to do otherwise. "...Yes."
"Good. Then you are not beyond hope." Vvim shifted their weight, leaning back and..smiling at Felix. Their teeth were sharp and very white. "Hold tight to that feeling in your chest, the one you felt for the weak. It will serve you well."
Vvim snaped a clawed finger, the sound startling Felix into blinking, and when he opened his eyes again, they were gone.
"And beware the hunger, Nym Who Is Not," their voice creaked across the room, though Felix could no longer sense them at all.
"It is not to be trusted."
The silence after Vvim's departure was loud. It stood prominent in Felix's senses as he strained himself to perceive the tiniest of evidence that the Geist was still there. He found nothing.
All the while, Felix's heart hammered in his chest, his blood still roaring and adrenaline pumping into his veins. That messy ball of emotion still tangled his thoughts, and only after a few more deep breaths did he feel a wobbly sort of balance form. Meditation levels are paying off, I guess.
That icon was still flashing in his vision, temporarily forgotten in the heat of the moment. Felix toggled it and bit back a curse.
Affected by Skill: Touch of Catharsis
Effect: 50% Reduction in Alacrity, Emotional Instability Increased
That weasel made me upset on purpose! Felix huffed an aggrieved breath, but drew it out with an effort of Will. He took two more deep breaths, centering himself.
That tangle of emotions still affected his mind, and it felt like a sort of poison. He activated Fire Within.
Delving within his channels, Felix could see the emotions as a cloud of pale pink energy; pieces of it wafted through his channels but the vast majority was within his head, a storm cloud of rose vapor that shimmered with an internal light. But he'd encountered foreign elements in his system before, so Felix knew what to do.
He fed it to the Fire.
Wisp after wisp was pulled down into his core, where his Fire Within devoured it, burning it for fuel and sustenance. He only stopped when the main concentration of the pink Mana was dissipated, though Felix could still sense wisps floating free within him. Even so, the notification cleared. He opened his eyes and sighed in relief.
Fire Within is level 33!
The emotions were cleared away, leaving Felix feeling steady. His mind felt raw, like an exfoliated stretch of skin, but clean.
Then Felix felt rage. This one was fresh and entirely his own. How dare they do that! Why? What was the point? Felix detected no benefit to the spell, other than upsetting him. Wait, what is Alacrity?
Felix sat down, careful not to break the vials he still held in his hands. He checked through his status page but could find nothing in the term. It wasn't even in his Harmonic Stats listing, which he hadn't checked in a while. Then he felt his core, which had been steadily consuming those few wisps of pink Mana found in his channels, burn up the last of it.
He heard a sound like a far off trilling, sharply rising.
You Have Unlocked A Harmonic Stat!
Alacrity - Affects feats of the mind. Confluence of Intelligence and Agility.
Current Value: ALA - 26
Huh. Felix toggled open his Harmonic Stats and yup, there it was. Alacrity. Did I get that because of Vvim's Skill?
Harmonic Stats
RES:
43
REI:
21
ALA:
26
How many more of these are there? Despite himself, Felix felt a surge of excitement as he sat there, looking at his new stat. What exactly is a "feat of the mind?" It doesn't seem like it affects mental resistance, necessarily. Perhaps mental abilities in general? Harmonic Stats are strange.
He was getting distracted, he knew. Felix has been affected by an emotional manipulation spell. It had blasted right past his Willpower and his Bastion of Will Skill, the stat and Skill he was pretty sure protected his mental state the most. That meant Vvim was powerful. But what did they do with Felix when he was compromised? They asked questions.
Why? What was so important to the Geist that it had to talk to him?
They said they were waiting for the Nym. For me. "A promise kept," they said. Felix shook his head. It seemed more like the Geist was seeing if I knew why I was here, like it was...judging me.
A chill ran down his back.
For what?
Vvim left the boy to ponder their words. It was all they could do.
The strange child was Nymean, that was certain. The Song spoke of his Race, and the Song did not lie; it could be blinded, it could be made false, but not to Vvim.
The Touch of Catharsis made it very clear. The boy seeks out the prisoners not for vanity or power, but out of sympathy.Vvim shook his head in amazement, fragile hands splayed against their heavily dust-coated desk.
The Nym had made it a policy to stamp out those predators that sought dominion over the weak, a policy that long made them the hated enemy of many powerful monsters. Now this strange child appeared in Shelim, Nym of Body and Mind, to save the weak from the corrupt.
It would be storybook perfect, were it not for the hunger Vvim sensed within him.
A mark was upon the boy. Within Vvim's Sight there was a marring of his flesh, of his Spirit. In the Geist's powerful senses, they could sense Felix's body as a wash of electric blue and radiant gold; a strange aura to be sure, but not entirely remarkable. It was the bottom corner of his aura that raise concerns; it was marred by a sickly, insidious red, one that would have been hidden from most, but not Vvim. They would recognize that discordant touch anywhere.
Upon the boy's Spirit there was the faint imprint of teeth, and between them, circular suction cups.
"We are at a crossroads, my dear Family. The world stands on the precipice of a great reckoning, and this one cannot tell if it will be triumph or despair." Vvim's creaking voice sounded flat in the small chamber, the undisturbed dust muffling all sound. It was a sad noise, like an old door shutting behind a loved one headed on a long journey; one they might not survive.
Still. Not every infected fell. The mark was not death, nor was it the end. And despite the Geist's mounting concern, Vvim felt their chest quicken and blood rush through ancient veins. The boy was fierce and a compassion drove his heart, one that marked him as strange far more than his scent.
Alongside the rising excitement, a bubble of odd nerves rose up from Vvim's belly. A puff of ancient breath quivered the thick skein of dust upon the desk, dislodging a fair amount into the air. Only after the third such puff did Vvim realize what was happening.
They laughed.
They hoped.