An Unborn Hero

In a meeting room at the royal palace, Hayedalf Catter was sat at a table, calmly sipping at a cup of tea served by a discreet maid. Opposite him sat an imposing figure in full plate armour.

"Can you guess why you were summoned?" asked the [Royal Knight], having had him brought in after the [Chief Scribe] failed to find anyone else who had interacted with the Recorder and had any link to the upper-class residential district.

"Obviously," answered Hayedalf, much to the knight's surprise. "But I haven't had a chance to inspect the prison yet, so you're a bit premature. All I can say is that none of the internal warning systems fired and there's no sign of escape or contamination. It's almost as if someone intruded from the outside, in which case we need to ensure nothing was tampered with as a matter of urgency."

"What?" asked the [Royal Knight], completely lost.

"What do you mean, what? That's what you called me for, isn't it? Zarklaxxos's escape alarm yesterday?"

"What the hell?! The Arcane Infernal escaped?"

"No, like I said, it didn't. Which is why I think there was an intruder in its cell."

"I... Right, forget that. It will be dealt with in due course. No, you were summoned to talk about the Recorder of Merit."

"What? That hardly seems important compared to... well, okay then. As far as I could tell, it was working perfectly."

"Yes, so I've heard. Which makes its behaviour all the more suspicious. In your opinion, would it be possible to fool the Recorder into recording false information? Hiding an achievement completely? Recording incorrect data about the name of an achievement or achiever, or its location? Maybe injecting fake achievements?"

"Nope. No way. It's not scanning people to see what achievements they earn. It directly accesses the information stream that underpins the entire skill system. Manipulating the stream in such a way as to fool the Recorder would actually grant the achievement to the recorded recipient."

"That's not evidence that it's impossible. It's evidence that if it is possible, it's equally possible to add achievements to anyone at will."

"I suppose... but if someone had actually done that, I'm fairly sure one of the gods would have sent an oracle about it. You know how pissed they get when people break their system."

"True. So, is there anything else you would like to add to the subject?"

"Not really. I'm just an enchanter. A damn good one, if you'll forgive me for tooting my own horn, but when it comes to this investigation malarkey, I'll leave it to the experts."

"What if I pointed out that of the three anomalous achievements, two displayed coordinates consistent with your residence?"

Hayedalf frowned, finally clued in to the fact he was being treated as a suspect.

"I'd say I know exactly how imprecise the coordinates are, and they're consistent with the entire district. I'd also say that if I wanted to manipulate it, I wouldn't be stupid enough to point the coordinates at myself like that."

He paused as the frown grew further.

"Wait... Maybe this really is related to that?"

"That? Care to elaborate?"

"For the past week, something has been setting off my [Detect Scrying] while I've been at home."

"Oh? That's... rather convenient."

"Convenient?! Like hell it is! Every time I... well... Uh..."

The knight waited patiently.

"Look, having a skill inform me I'm being watched every time my wife and I try doing that is really not what I would describe as 'convenient'."

"And you have no suspects? As our kingdom's foremost [Master Enchanter], I struggle to believe you aren't able to determine who is doing the scrying."

"Well, yes, but it's obviously wrong."

The knight raised a quizzical eyebrow, which was completely wasted given that it was hidden within his helmet. "How so?"

"Both my skill and a scanner I built to double check show the same thing. They keep blaming my wife."

"Your wife who works at Rumah Magika?"

"Well, yes, but..." started Hayedalf, before remembering when each of the anomalous achievements had happened. The one that had zero coordinates had fired while Kellela was at work. The others had fired while she was at home. She kept triggering his scrying detection. The Arcane Infernal had nearly escaped minutes after she'd arrived.

She was certainly a common denominator.

"Crap..." he said. "Okay, this is going to sound really bad, so please don't jump to any conclusions..."

The knight held up a hand to forestall Hayedalf's admission, just as a hammering sounded outside the door.

"Come on in," he said, at which a messenger entered the room and whispered in his ear, his [Discreet Delivery] skill ensuring Hayedalf couldn't catch any of what was said.

The [Royal Knight] sighed. "It seems there's been a fourth achievement made by our nameless achiever. With zero coordinates again. Alas, the Zarklaxxos incident delayed its notice."

Hayedalf applied the simple logic necessary to conclude that if the achievement was missed due to the Zarklaxxos commotion, it would have happened while his wife was at work.

"Right... As I was saying..."

The hero zipped in circles around her mum, flat out refusing to go exploring anywhere she couldn't see in case there turned out to be a soul-eating monster on the other side of every wall. The way her latest achievement seemed to think she was going to die imminently was not exactly reassuring, but tethered as she was, running wasn't an option. Even if she wasn't tethered, running was kinda hard without legs. Running to another planet wouldn't have been an option even if she had the best legs in the world.

"Well, I knew this world had antagonistic demons, so it's not too unbelievable that they're keeping some sort of monster prisoner. At least it's chained up, so it's probably not going to come after me. Hopefully. Given that Mum ran away and hid in that shelter, she's obviously not a fighter, so I can't rely on her for defence if anything comes after me. Let's just hope the monster has a short memory."

Despite the hero's concerns, Zarklaxxos did not have a memory at all, at least in the conventional sense. It was, in fact, the reason why making babies was now technically illegal. Some of the brightest minds in the kingdom had come together to conduct research into mana based lifeforms, specifically into overcoming their largest limitation; anything composed of mana required mana to sustain. Any clump of mana, even if it was alive and ensouled, would decay to nothing in a region of low background mana. It was a perfectly comprehensible survival mechanism, then, that the lower, instinct-driven forms of mana-life would be naturally attracted to areas of high mana.

Humans, even non-mages, tended to collect quite a lot of mana in their bodies. This frequently led to attacks.

Of course, faced with such dangerous wildlife, the response was obvious; the kingdom's military leaders demanded their researchers come up with a way of weaponising the monsters. Given their easily exploitable weaknesses, most scholars expressed scepticism, but one small group of mages instead answered the question with another of their own; what if we engineered a mana-beast to be capable of producing its own mana?

The answer to that question was Zarklaxxos, and it took somewhere under a minute following its awakening for the researchers to realise that while it was indeed capable of producing its own mana, they'd neglected to remove its instincts. Despite not needing to seek out mana to survive, it ate them all anyway.

No-one had been able to kill it; trying to do so was like trying to exsanguinate someone who was hooked up to a blood bank the size of the world. At much cost of life, they had been able to trap it, though, tying it down with chains that continuously drained it of mana and sealing off any external sources. And thus the immortal creation had become little more than a power source for the kingdom, with no-one daring to use it as the weapon it had been designed as.

The hero, who knew none of that, decided that wherever her mum worked wasn't the place to wander around aimlessly, at least until [Soul's Eye] gained a sub-skill that let her see through walls. Instead, she clung close until work hours were over and Kellela returned home. Where a pair of blobs were visible to [Sense Soul], hiding behind a tree, despite nothing being visible by means of light, vitality or mana.

Alarmed, the hero did a loop at maximum range, which wasn't far, but was enough to see someone in full plate armour hanging around in their entranceway, another of the invisible blobs alongside them. Another pair sidled into position outside the estate entrance, blocking any escape.

"Look out!" thought the hero as loudly as possible, but, of course, Kellela couldn't hear.

She opened their front door, completely oblivious to the intruders, then stopped in shock as she saw the armoured individual. The pair of hiding blobs approached from behind, except now one of them was visible to the hero's [Sense Mana] sub-skill. It was distorted, though, as if part of it was being viewed through water, or a thick lens.

"What's going on? How much longer till I can see properly?!" she complained, as if having [Soul's Eye] at level thirteen only a few days after implanting into her mother's womb was an unacceptably slow rate of progress.

Then everything went wrong.

The blob that looked distorted approached her mum, and then her mum was distorted instead, and the world was burning and pain.

The hero desperately fled back to her little ball of blastomeres, alarmed to find she wasn't moving as she wanted. More than the usual resistance posed by moving through the body of another, something seemed to be trying to blow her off course. Or suck her up. Or just burn her away to nothing. It was hard to tell.

ding

You have resisted attempts to drain your mana while in a precarious situation, upgrading [Robust] with [Secured Mana]. Level cap of [Robust] increased by 10.

For experiencing a new aspect of injury, [Robust] advances to level 4.

You have successfully navigated outside of your body despite attempts to entrap you, upgrading [Astral Projection] with [Sure Navigation]. Level cap of [Astral Projection] increased by 10.

For learning to separate body and soul with slightly improved safety, [Astral Projection] advances to level 9.

For your efforts to pierce interference in your vision, [Soul's Eye] advances to level 14.

Secured Mana (Uncommon)

The most obvious way of rendering a mage helpless is to drain their mana. Someone has attempted this on you, or perhaps a mana-beast identified you as a tasty-looking meal and you managed to survive. Either way, [Robust] will now provide some defence against anything trying to steal your mana.

Sure Navigation (Uncommon)

No-one wants to get lost, but getting lost while astral projecting is a worse situation than most. This sub-skill won't help you with reading a map, but it will aid against those trying to throw you off course or cause you disorientation while using [Astral Projection].

"What the heck was that?!" thought the hero, back in the safety of the womb, although a few seconds' thought was more than enough to work out a part of the answer, as was the fact that [Sense Mana] was displaying a far darker internal environment than she was used to. The thing that distorted her ability to see mana was the obvious culprit. Given the new [Secured Mana] sub-skill, it must be something to drain mana. Then why would someone put it on her mum? Was it a kidnapping?

"I'm supposed to be a magical girl, dammit! What sort of heroine would I be if I let my own mum get kidnapped right under my nose? Or right under... or all around... all of me? Dammit. None of my idioms work anymore!"

While the hero was getting sidetracked by a general lack of noses, her mother was being escorted by a squad of half a dozen guards through the streets of the capital, her wrists shackled together behind her back with irons that were indeed enchanted to drain her mana.

"What's going on?" she asked, getting as much response to her questions as the hero was getting to her own: none at all. "Where are you taking me?"

As the hero had deduced, despite having the prestigious occupation of [Court Mage], she was no fighter. Her captors consisted of a pair of knights and four highly trained counter-intelligence operatives. She couldn't have fought against them even before having her mana stolen, and even if she could, she would have found herself in the middle of the capital with everyone after her and no way out. She had no choice but to go along with the guards as they very politely interrupted her homecoming, cordially checked her for contraband, amiably cuffed her like some sort of common criminal and graciously escorted her from her own home in full view of the other travellers.

As she walked the streets back towards the central district, with neighbours and an occasional work colleague stopping to stare as she passed them in the street, she made the decision to never set foot in Rumah Magika again, and preferably to get out of the capital as soon as possible.

Her polite but firm escort squad ushered her into a guard station, and then an interrogation room. Behind a desk was seated another knight, this one in fancier armour.

"Please, take a seat," said the [Royal Knight], gesturing at the chair placed on the opposite side of the desk. In front of it was a steaming cup of tea.

Kellela stared.

"Well?" asked the [Royal Knight] after a few seconds of awkward silence.

Kellela carefully perched herself at the front of the chair, twisting her arms so her still-handcuffed hands behind her weren't trying to squeeze themselves into the same physical space as the chair-back. No-one mentioned the tea, which was certainly not appropriate for someone with immobilised limbs.

"So? What the hell is going on?" she asked. "Why did you parade me in front of everyone in the capital like that?"

"Would you like to hazard a guess?"

"I have no clue! Tell me!"

The [Royal Knight] paused, then turned to look at his subordinates standing behind her. "Why is she cuffed? I believe I said she was a person of interest, and not, at this point, a suspect."

"She set off our scry wards the moment she got close, sir. All of us, despite [Stealth]. John has eleven sub-skills for it, and she still saw him. The scrying ceased the moment we cuffed her."

"What? That again? I swear I'm not doing anything!" said Kellela. "If I 'saw him', why would I have walked right into you?!"

"And you wouldn't know anything about the repeated odd achievement messages we've been getting from your location, or the incident yesterday in which the wards around the arcane infernal triggered an alarm minutes after you arrived?"

"No! I have no idea whatsoever what's going on!"

The [Royal Knight] frowned, his oddly specific but highly effective [Interrogation Over A Cup Of Tea] skill confirming that she wasn't engaging in any sort of deception or misdirection.

"You seriously don't know why you keep triggering scry detection wards and spells?"

"No! I honestly haven't done anything!" she exclaimed, just as the mana sealing cuffs exploded from her wrists, showering everyone in the room with shards of steel.

Unnamed Human

Age: -9 months

Occupation: Hero (L)

Skills:

- Soul's Eye (U) (14/50)

>> Sense Vitality (U)

>> Sense Soul (R)

>> Sense Mana (U)

>> Sense Light (C)

- Astral Projection (U) (9/20)

>> Sure Navigation (U)

- Robust (C) (4/30)

>> Hardened Soul (R)

>> Secured Mana (U)

Achievements:

- Early Bloomer I (U)

- First Skill (C)

- Novice (C)

- Survivor of Zarklaxxos, the Arcane Infernal (R)