An Unbound Soul

I awoke the following morning, sweating and shaking from a nightmare. I couldn't remember the details, only that it had been set on Earth, and I'd been laying somewhere uncomfortable, in pain and unable to move, with what seemed like a crowd of spectators staring down at me. Not a great start to the morning...

There was no-one else in the house. No-one had mentioned that they'd be moving, but it wouldn't have been a complete surprise if they'd relocated to the clinic at some point. Hopefully that didn't imply something had gone wrong, especially given the unexplained feelings I'd been having. I threw on my clothes and rushed out of our shack, eager to find out what was going on, and wishing someone had at least written me a note. I'd taught my parents to read and write, but as much as the ability was a point of pride for Dad, they didn't make any use of it in their day-to-day lives.

I tried the clinic first, as the obvious place they might be, and sure enough I could hear happy voices from within. I stepped through the door, and was relieved to see Mum looking well, and holding what I assumed was my new sibling, buried as it was under a blanket.

"Peter," called out Dad as he spotted me, sounding exhausted. "Sorry we left without saying anything, but you were sound asleep."

"No problem—I could guess where you went. Is everything okay?"

Mum was smiling gently and somehow was looking better than Dad was, despite being the main actor here. Maybe it was the advantage of being rank three? "Yes. He was a bit eager, was all," she answered. "Come, see your new little brother."

The term 'little brother' made me shiver a little, but I did my best to hide it. I'd sneak in an [Analysis] and check there was nothing untoward going on, but I still didn't want to say anything to my parents. All I could say would be 'I feel bad whenever I think about having a sibling', and what exactly were they supposed to do with that information?

So I walked over to Mum, looked at the wrinkly little face peeking out from the blanket, and felt terror at a level I hadn't experienced since my first time in front of Lord Reid. I fell back, gasping for air, the feeling dissipating as soon as I backed away. What the heck?! As soon as I saw him, I felt like he was going to kill me. Like I desperately needed to run for my life.

"Peter?! What's wrong?" called Mum, alarmed. Obviously there was no way I could have hidden that reaction.

"I... I..." I stammered, trying to pull my brain back into working order. "I don't know."

I gingerly approached again and looked at the cute and innocent face. This time, braced for the terror, I managed to get in my [Analysis] before being forced back once more.

Unnamed human, Commoner (1/1)

I couldn't get the full status, given that he wasn't yet a year old, but he was at least human and had the regular class and level. What the heck was going on? No-one else had this problem, and I had no skills for intuition or anything of that nature. As far as I knew, such skills didn't even exist. I'd never felt like this about anyone else before, either.

No, wait, that wasn't right. Not completely. I hadn't had this feeling before, but I did have the exact opposite one. It had been a long time ago, the day I'd been born. I'd known Lucy and David were my parents, and I'd loved them. Now I knew this baby was my brother, and I was terrified of him, maybe with a hint of pity. I hadn't made the connection immediately, because this time I didn't need ideas planted in my head to know who he was.

What had Erryn told me? She'd redirected feelings from my old family to the new. Then this fear was something left over from my Earth family? What sort of person had my Earth sibling been?! Some sort of murderous criminal?! Regardless, it wasn't fair to take it out on this newborn. Unless he'd been reincarnated too... But if my experience was anything to go by, Mum would spot that instantly. Thank goodness for magical Mum powers.

I did my best to draw closer again, but however much I told myself he couldn't hurt me, my instincts were still complaining that I needed to run. Both parents were staring at me, obviously with no idea what was going on. I doubted there would be any harm in telling them the truth, but then I'd have to deal with the whole I-met-the-earth-mother topic, and that wasn't something I wanted to casually admit to.

"Sorry," I told them, "it's another leftover from Earth. I'll deal with it."

"Sounds like you have more to tell us later," Mum said pointedly.

Dad looked equally unconvinced, but carried on anyway. "Right," he declared, "now that we're all together. Our second beautiful baby boy, your name is Darren."

I checked my brother again, and [Analysis] confirmed his name. Trying to take my mind off my stupid malfunctioning instincts, I wondered how naming worked, and what sort of security it had. Could anyone name any unnamed baby, or did it only work if it was the parents? How did the System know how to spell the new name? Did that imply that had to come from a limited selection? Could you rename someone once they already had a name? It was amusing to think of a prankster running down a hospital corridor naming all the newborns Baby McBabyface. Conversely, if it had to be the parents, would orphans remain forever unnamed, if the mother died in childbirth? To work properly, the System would have to track legal guardians. The more I thought about it, the more impressive the whole setup seemed.

We soon returned home from the clinic, with me doing my best to keep my distance from baby Darren. The transplanted feelings were frankly debilitating, and if they didn't fade on their own, I was going to need to do something about them. Erryn had expressed surprise that I hadn't undone whatever she did to my memories, which implied I should be able to just turn this off. How, exactly, I had no clue. There was certainly no off button that I could press in the same way as I'd cast a spell.

While Mum and Dad stood around making silly faces at Darren, I sat on my own and tried to do something about it, but I couldn't find anything that I could do. At least not on my own. What Erryn did, she could presumably undo, and she did say that if I wanted to talk to her, I only needed to visit the core room of any dungeon. I wasn't about to miss out on playing with my little brother, so I suddenly found myself with another new reason to complete the quest, or at least to find someone to rush me through the dungeon again.

"Something is still wrong, isn't it little one," Mum commented, watching me sitting on my own.

"I'm not the little one anymore," I observed, giving her a wry smile.

"I suppose not," she agreed.

"Medium one," added Dad with a snort, apparently considering that quip the epitome of humour. "But you didn't answer her question. And don't say it wasn't a question."

"I've mentioned that I'm missing some memories of my old world, stuff about my family and so on. I think some of those missing memories are leaking through. I was scared of my sibling in my old world, and now I'm feeling the same way when I see Darren."

"That's..." started Dad, before stopping. He probably struggled to comprehend any reason of being scared of a sibling, given the Law.

"I'm sure it'll wear off eventually, or I'll get used to it. Darren isn't my old sibling." Or at least, I hoped not. Mum hadn't indicated seeing anything strange, and Erryn should have spotted it too.

"So right now you can't even get close to him? At Richard's clinic, you looked like you were about to collapse when you first tried."

I looked over at Darren, still sleeping peacefully, and flinched as I saw his face. "No, not right now. But I will soon! I'm not going to let my little brother off that easily. I've got a whole education plan ready!"

Frankly, I thought I was doing well right now just by staying in the room. My body was still telling me in no uncertain terms that I needed to run. Hopefully, if I ignored it for long enough, it would shut up. As a distraction, I took a look at my available skills. I'd been rather spectacularly interrupted yesterday and hadn't yet got around to buying my new spells.

Skills available for purchase:

0 points: [Weft Walk] [Item Box] [Distortion]

3 points: [Extended Stamina Pool]

Well, I had three points, and nothing else I was expecting imminently to spend them on, so I might as well get the last enhancement skill to go along with the spells.

New skill acquired: [Weft Walk]

New skill acquired: [Item Box]

New skill acquired: [Distortion]

New skill acquired: [Extended Stamina Pool]

Skill [Enlarged Stamina Pool] consumed by superior skill [Extended Stamina Pool]

Skill [Extended Stamina Pool] advanced to level 2

New title acquired: [Athlete]

And again, like the class change, I felt there should be some sort of fanfare for buying all the skills. I'd bet there were very few other people at rank two who would get to see the 'no skills currently eligible for purchase' message. Also, new title. At this rate, I'd be getting a title for collecting so many titles.

[Athlete] - You possess a significant amount of stamina, able to exert yourself for protracted periods. Stamina regeneration boosted by 10%. (Rank 1)

So the [Athlete] title was the stamina equivalent of [Magician]. It was interesting that the ring counted towards it, but my buff spells didn't. Surely it should ignore all temporary effects? Perhaps the rings weren't classed as temporary? A quick check showed that removing my endurance ring caused me to lose the title, only to regain it once I wore it again. Losing the title in that way was a promising sign that I could eventually get rid of [Self-Destructive] too, at least.

As for the new spells, [Weft Walk] was pretty cool, acting like every step I took was a short ranged [Far Step]. My current mana regeneration rate was a little over one point a minute, so with the two mana per minute base cost I couldn't keep it up indefinitely, but I could walk with it for well over an hour at a time. Less if I combined it with [Endurance] and ran, although I recalled a comment back from the library that running with it active was a bad idea.

My [Item Box] wasn't huge, but I could dump the few ingots I had stashed in the bedroom into it without issue. I didn't have a dire wolf hide around to try, but if I could start stuffing dungeon loot into it, I'd be able to carry a lot more out of each run than I used to. Annoyingly, it didn't fit my staff, so I couldn't lose that bit of weight while travelling. Hopefully, some more levels would fix that. It also had a cost of five mana per item moved in or out, so I couldn't use it completely casually.

Last up was [Distortion]. I tossed a coin into the air and tried to redirect it as it fell, but the portals I produced weren't large enough to fit it. I had more success with a few tiny stones, but aside from being minuscule, the portals I produced were also short-lived, which made it very hard to get the timing right. They only cost a couple of mana each so I had no problems making lots of them, but I still missed most of my attempts. Ironically, faster moving projectiles might have been easier to catch, because the required timing would be looser. I'd need to spend time on floor three of the dungeon with it, where dart traps first started to appear.

With all these skills and titles, my status was starting to get a bit ridiculous. Hopefully rank three would come with some option to hide unused skills, rather than organisational changes.

Name: Peter

Species: Human

Class: Spatial Mage (Level 1/41)

Class History: [Commoner] [Apprentice Mage] [Body Mage]

Soul Points: 0

Health: 44/44

Stamina: 106/106

Mana: 137.28/137.28

Strength: 23(+8)

Dexterity: 24(+8)

Endurance: 24(+8)

Intelligence: 31(+8)

Wisdom: 25(+8)

Charisma: 23(+8)

Rank 1 Spells: [Minor Strength 12] [Far Step 12] [Minor Speed 12] [Minor Dexterity 12] [Minor Endurance 12] [Minor Intelligence 10] [Minor Wisdom 11] [Minor Charisma 12] [Far Reach 12] [Minor Slow 12]

Rank 2 Spells: [Strength 12] [Dexterity 11] [Endurance 11] [Weft Walk 1] [Item Box 1] [Distortion 1]

Rank 1 Skills: [Inspection 10] [Meditation 12] [Concealment 8] [Foraging 4] [Hunting 2] [Musician 4] [Weapon Proficiency: Universal 13] [Basic Crafting 12] [Clock 5]

Rank 2 Skills: [Appraisal 12] [Enhanced Mana Recovery 10] [Greater Mana Finesse 13] [Mana Perception 14] [Greater Mana Control 13] [Weapon Style: Flowing Mist 12] [Extended Mana Pool 3] [Engineering 5] [Secrecy 3] [Enhanced Stamina Recovery 5] [Extended Stamina Pool 2]

Rank 3 Skills: [Analysis 2]

Traits: [Unbound Soul] [Determined Progressor] [Researcher] [Xenophilia]

Titles: [Jack of All Trades 2] [Victorious Underdog] [Skilled 2] [Survivor] [Flexible Combatant] [Versatile Crafter] [Self-Destructive] [Magician] [Athlete]

Quests: [Conquer the Dawnhold Dungeon Solo]

With my stats, I doubted it would be any trouble to travel between the village and Dawnhold even in winter, but getting caught out by a sudden snowstorm wouldn't be fun whether I'd survive it or not, so despite my baby problems, I stuck to my original plan and waited until spring. Fortunately, things did get slightly better, and by the time he was a couple of weeks old, I could at least look at him without flinching, as long as I was far enough away. I still couldn't touch him, though, and I'd be damned if I was going to let some of Erryn's crappy memory manipulation stop me from playing with Darren.

This time last year I'd just survived Erryn's orc, and was nervously waiting to pick up my delving gear. This year I was looking forward to going back, ready to throw my new stats and spells at more goblins. I couldn't deny I'd changed a lot from the old terrified kid who was worried about brainwashers hiding behind every corner, but I didn't hate it. Despite the danger, life was fun. And this time, I had a bone to pick with Erryn.