Hard Mode Awakening Challenge

"I really wish we had time to go over everything with the other three," Claire said with a sigh as she pulled the car into her parents' driveway.

Ian smirked as he unbuckled himself. "It's not like we really had all that much time. Yelling at each other through the door as I took a quick shower isn't exactly considered a comprehensive discussion, and it wasn't like we could talk about it during our quick stop at the cafeteria."

"Point," she admitted with a smirk. "Let's get into the house so we can talk more about it. Just remember what I said, my mom can be a little bit…much. Just don't let her overwhelm you."

Ian smiled as they walked up and knocked on the door. It only took a moment before it opened up, and Walter smiled at them. With Walter wearing normal clothes, Ian didn't think he looked older than his late thirties.

"Well, I can honestly say I'm excited you came with my daughter tonight, son. Come on in!"

"It's good to see you again. Thank you for extending the invitation."

Ian followed Claire inside, as she led him down the hall into a large, open kitchen. They walked in just as a slightly older version of Claire was placing a plate of sugar cookies next to a large pitcher of iced tea. Four glasses and small plates were set at the seats.

"Welcome, welcome," said the woman, wiping her hands off on a towel. "It's such a pleasure to finally meet you, Ian. I'm Irene, and yes, I am also the adventurer known as Prophet.

"It is a pleasure to meet you, ma'am," Ian said, earning him a click of Irene's tongue.

"None of that now. Call me Irene, or…dare I say mom?" she said with a mischievous smile and a wink.

"Mother! You promised not to do things like this anymore," Claire hissed before quickly turning to Ian. "She actually can't see things like love and relationships. There are too many variables involved."

"Maybe not with any accuracy, but I do see glimpses of possibilities," she told her daughter, a smug expression plastered to her face.

Claire rolled her eyes and shook her head at her mother with a less-than-amused expression.

"Now, ladies," Walter said, still chuckling. "We should probably sit down and discuss what needs to be discussed. Irene and I only have about forty minutes before we need to be off to dinner with Mavis."

"Ian, sit next to my dad," Claire said, heading around the table to take the seat next to her mom.

"Don't trust him over here? The table isn't exactly huge, so I couldn't have told him anything without you hearing it anyway."

"Honestly, I don't really want him hanging out around you. I can never tell if you are helping because it's what we would want, or if you're manipulating situations to see your desired outcome," Claire said, giving her mother a serious look. "I don't want him to feel like someone is trying to control him."

Irene gave her daughter a mildly perturbed look.

"The problem is that they are too similar," Walter whispered, loud enough for both women to hear. He smiled as both women directed their scowls at him. Nudging Ian, he pointed at his wife and daughter and nodded.

"Anyways," Irene said, drawing everyone's attention. "I wanted to warn you about something that has a high likelihood of happening during tomorrows meeting, Ian."

Ian's eyes got wide as he leaned forward. The meeting itself was beginning to stress Ian out. Very few people had ever met anyone from the enlightened planets, and now he was being requested by name to meet the top adventurer of another world. He was having difficulty even imagining what he had to potentially offer the man.

"Other worlds have different standards and ideologies that drive their culture. That will become very apparent when you meet up with Leonian tomorrow. Things that should be the most valuable to a person in our culture are not treated with the same reverence in theirs. He will bring his youngest daughter with him, though he will treat her as if she were a servant."

"What? Why?" Ian asked as he took one of the offered cookies. Taking a bite, he was surprised to find they were some of the best he had ever tasted. They also paired perfectly with the mint iced tea.

"That is a good question," she said with a sardonic smile. "Unfortunately, I have no idea. I can only see what might happen and the potential outcomes. I do know that in nine out of ten times, he offers to give her to you."

Ian's eyebrows came together. "Give her to me…how?"

"As in offer her to him for marriage?" Claire asked, holding a half-eaten cookie.

"Unfortunately, no," Irene said, wincing. "He is going to give her to you as a blood servant."

"Yeah, that's a no," Ian said, tossing that idea right out the window. "That sounds way too much like she's a slave. It also seems like a great way for me to get in a metric shit-ton of trouble with those vultures in the media, some of which are still trying to run hate pieces on me even after we released all those documents. It would be social suicide."

"Which is why I invited you over here," she said with an apologetic smile. "I am requesting that you don't turn him down. Take on some initial hate and help give this woman a chance at a better life. Her being your blood servant here is much better than her going back home."

"Uh, what?" Ian said, putting the rest of his cookie down. "I know you're Prophet, but I'm gonna need a little more…" Ian struggled to find the words. He sighed before shaking his head, "What is a blood servant?"

"It is a form of magic that roots itself in the blood of a person to make them listen to the commands of the owner. They are trapped in the confines of the arrangement until they are purposefully released from their servitude by their owner."

Ian sighed as he looked at the neutral expression on Irene's face. "And he wants me to become this poor girl's owner?"

"Poor young woman, but yes," she said with a placating smile. "You should accept and keep her on as a blood servant for the next couple of years, letting her run the dungeon with you. It will allow her to be useful to you all and not create tension between our peoples." Irene paused for a moment before continuing, "And not to add any pressure, but if you don't, her father's wives will have her killed by the end of the year."

Ian sputtered, nearly spitting out his tea.

"God damn it, mom," Claire said, getting up out of her seat. "This is what I'm talking about. This isn't his problem, but you just made it his problem. You know damn well that he can't leave her alone now. Who could?"

"Now, dear—" Walter started.

"Don't you even attempt to defend her, Dad," Claire said, turning on her father. "It isn't on the rest of us to fix every bit of injustice that Mom sees. She promised me—she promised me she wouldn't do this to him. That she was just going to give him a bit of advice to make tomorrow easier for him. Instead she pulls this shit."

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Ian closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. He thought he was going to get helpful information to soothe his nerves about tomorrow's meeting. Now he was pretty sure he wasn't going to be able to sleep even if he didn't have a nervous breakdown.

"—just don't understand how important this can be fo—" Irene was yelling at her daughter as Claire tapped him on the shoulder, bringing him out of his thoughts.

"We're leaving, Ian," she said, catching his gaze. "Let's go."

"Claire! This is imp—" Irene said, before Claire held up her hand, cutting her off.

"No, mother. This," Claire pointing at her, "is why Laurence left."

Irene froze as Walter sighed.

"Claire," Walter said quietly. "There are some things that you can't take back."

"Trust me, I'm fully aware," she replied, her cold gaze never leaving her mom.

She grabbed Ian by the arm and guided him out of the home, leaving her parents at their table. As they buckled in, she looked back at the house before putting her head in her hands, screaming into them. After a few seconds, she quieted and looked up to find Ian staring at her.

"You gonna be alright?" he asked.

"Are you?"

"Good point."

They both sat in silence as she put the car into reverse and backed out of the driveway.

*~*~*

Ian skipped dinner. He didn't feel like eating when they arrived back at the AO campus, and had instead decided to go sit down at his computer to see what he could learn about the Faeorcen people.

After nearly three hours of going through the archives, he found humanity had very little contact with their world—and even less real information. This was actually the first time anyone traveled directly between the two worlds, mainly because neither was capable of traveling very often. Leonian was financing this trip with his own essence stones, which constituted years' worth of dungeon runs.

This entire situation was a conundrum. He wasn't sure he could handle the pressure of going back to hiding his face and name while praying that nobody recognized him. Nor did he want his sister to get treated poorly again for his supposed actions. He needed to find a way to get past this obstacle…or he could just wipe his hands clean of the issues and try not to think about possibly condemning a woman to death.

"What the world am I supposed to I do?" he said into the empty room.

He almost blinked when his doorbell chimed. Getting up and opening the door, he was surprised to see Claire outside in her fuzzy pajama bottoms and hoodie. As he moved out of the way for her to come in, he realized that she was wearing her monster feet slippers, just like the first time he had met her.

"Take a seat, I'll make some hot tea," Ian said.

"Mmm. Thanks, Ian."

She sat down, watching him as he started heating up the water. Ian held up two boxes, of which she selected the Darjeeling, which didn't surprise him as he only kept the box for her. He was happy with his normal, off-brand mint.

"I'm sorry about taking you over there, Ian," she said as he added a half spoonful of sugar and mixed it into her cup. "I should have known she would do something like that, but I had hoped that she would try to help you out instead of forcing your hand. She even promised me…"

"Don't worry about it," Ian said as he placed both cups down on the coffee table. Looking up at her face, he could see she had been crying. "You want to talk about it?"

"No," she said before taking a deep breath. "Maybe?"

Ian gave her a soft smile before pulling her in for a hug. He held her for a second before letting her go and taking a seat next to her on the couch.

"She's always been like that. Growing up in that household gave me incredible insight into the life of adventurers and the inner workings of the AO and dungeon system. Combining that with the fact that my parents are filthy rich and immensely famous, most people probably wish they could have been me.

"But my father…can literally see everything. It was impossible to get away with anything growing up. You've seen all the stuff that he can see, and I can guarantee you that he sees more than what he wrote down in your report. It was hard to keep friends when your dad would always let their parents know what was going on. It forced us to grow up quickly."

"Us?" Ian asked.

"Us," Claire replied. "I had an older brother named Laurence, though I don't really remember what he looks like anymore. My parents don't talk about it much, and my mother has removed all the pictures of him from the house.

"He was quite a few years older than me and began adventuring when he was sixteen to get away from my parents. My mother never comes to the AO—Mavis has barred her from the grounds for her own mental wellbeing. She passively gets hints of potential futures, which causes her to want to fix them. It's beyond a compulsion at this point, and she apparently can't help but to keep messing with things until the outcome she wants takes place.

"That must have been a nightmare for you and Laurence. I can't imagine the things she probably made you to do to get good grades or not get in trouble at different times. It would have been hard to learn from your mistakes that way."

"Not so much," she said with a soft smile. "Mom can't see our futures at all. We are in her visions, but they can't account for our actions. I can guarantee you that she had planned to talk you through exactly what she wanted you to do and finish right before she needed to leave. I wasn't going to let her do that to you, especially since I am going to be there, so she has no idea for sure what will actually happen."

"So, she can't see your actions at all?"

"Nope, not a single thing," she said with a smile before her eyebrows creased.

"I take it Laurence had it harder than you?"

She nodded. "Yeah, much harder. He pushed to get away and ended up adventuring with a group. He even found himself a girlfriend. I only saw her once or twice—he refused to bring her home. He didn't want Dad to tell him everything about her past, and he didn't want Mom trying to change her or coerce her into doing things. I can't really blame him for it, though I wish I had the chance to spend time with her. When he would tell me about her, I remember thinking that his eyes would come alive, and the smile on his face was finally real.

"Everything was going pretty well, and they had been dating for a couple of years when he came home one weekend and said they had decided to elope. It had caused a huge argument because my mother had wanted to be there for her only son's wedding, and he was adamant that she would ruin everything, like he believed that she always had.

"My father understood…mostly. He had started to realize he was stifling his son, and even saw what it was starting to do the same to me. He was beginning to regret many of the things his sight was preventing us from learning ourselves while growing up. We've talked about it a lot now that I'm older.

"Either way, Mom was furious, or at least she was until his best friend came to pick him up for their dungeon run. She had a vision that the man was going to be seriously hurt in the dungeon and tried to explain it to Laurence. He told her to keep her visions to herself, but she refused, promising to forgive him for the wedding if he would just listen to what she saw."

Ian looked over as Claire paused and saw a tear running down her cheek.

"I was only eight, but I remember waking up to the sounds of things being thrown around downstairs while my brother screamed in rage. I crept down to see nearly every piece of furniture broken and holes in half the walls. My dad had Laurence's arms pinned behind his back as my mother was talking to someone on the phone. I remember Laurence bleeding all over as he sobbed. He just kept saying that everything was her fault, that he hated her, and wished he had never been a part of our family."

Claire put her tea down and leaned up against Ian. "It wasn't until after Aunt Mavis arrived with a couple of healers that we learned that most of Laurence's party had died in the dungeon run. In acting to save his friend from being hurt, Laurence had moved out of formation to knock him out of the way. The arrow that would have hit his friend in the arm flew right past them both and caught his wife in the eye, killing her almost instantly.

"She was the party healer, and when she fell, the rest weren't able to handle the onslaught from the double spawn. Laurence was the only one standing after fighting off the wave of monsters. The friend that mom had wanted to save was bleeding out, so Laurence made the impossible decision of leaving his wife's body behind to carry his friend out—ultimately saving his life. As soon as his friend was with the AO representative, Laurance rushed back in the hopes that he would be able to reach her body in time, but the dungeon had already absorbed it along with the rest of his party."

"That's a heartbreaking story," Ian murmured, giving her a small, one-armed hug. "I'm sorry your brother went through that. Is he…?"

Claire let out a slow breath, "I don't even know if he's still alive. When he recovered and was released from the treatment facility, he purchased the prestige skill and left. He left a note for his best friend saying that he was sorry, but he couldn't stay here. That he was going to start a new life elsewhere.

"I don't think his friend ever really recovered from losing their party. He went back to soloing and now spends most of his time helping newbies so they don't make the same mistakes his party did."

Ian looked down, meeting Claire's eyes, "Jason?"

Claire nodded, "Yeah, but don't bring it up, and never tell him what you know about what happened. I think the guilt would crush him."

"Never," Ian agreed, sitting there thinking.

"Hey Ian?" Claire asked quietly.

"Yeah?"

"Can I stay like this for a bit?"

"As long as you need," he replied. "Want me to turn on a movie?"

"Something happy, please," she whispered.

Grabbing the remote, he turned on the display.