Shattered Moonstone

Stupid skill! Hecatolite thought as she soared through the night sky, the sound of creaking metal catching her attention as she flew. She looked down to see her right leg snapping back into place as her armor “repaired” itself, the jumping skill clearly causing it to deform as it broke her leg. “Well at least pain nullification works right.” She noticed a dull throb as she attempted to wiggle her toes. “Yep, that’s broke, good thing Amethyst went to the….” Her sentence was cut short by a very abrupt introduction with the hard dirt of the forest floor.

She groaned as she sat up in the new Hecatolite shaped hole in the forest floor, her newly healed arm now rejoining the list of useless limbs as she wrestled herself from the hole. “Damn weak humans and their easily broken bones. I don’t remember ever breaking a leg simply jumping before.” She growled attempting to stand only for right leg to give out beneath her. “Great!” she yelled, punching the dirt. “Now what… I could call mom… no I can fix this, Inutil, show me the best healing spell you can!” 

With a thunderclap the terminal appeared before her, its crimson red screen illuminating the area. “Hecatolite it is ill-advised you attempt to cast any spell…” Hecatolite kicked the screen with her good leg.

“You looking to get into the triple digits tonight Inutil?” She growled, flashing her claws at the 94th Inutil terminal.

The terminal flashed a rainbow of colors as it floated just out of her reach, Overseer knew if Hecatolite attempted to cast a spell, any spell, it would likely fail. The problem was the amount of aether she was likely to use to try and force the healing spell would likely be catastrophic without anyone here to attempt to contain it.

“Why don’t you attempt to call…” a hole appeared in the screen as Hecatolite fired IRIS into it, her newly created bullets making short work of the terminal as they punched through even the sturdy protections of the terminal, the bullet just barely missing destroying the terminal as it ripped through it. 

“I didn’t ask for suggestions Inutil, now show me the stupid spell before Amethyst comes out here and starts screaming.” She hissed as the terminal vanished and another appeared. 

The new terminal flashed again, Overseer was at an impasse. It knew Hecatolite would not back down, and Mother Eryl had programmed the Babylon skill to assist the family and by extension Hecatolite with anything they asked, but it also did not wish to unleash anymore of Hecatolite’s unstable power onto the world, and for the first time Hecatolite was far enough away from everyone for no one else to stop her before doing something truly foolish… “fine, here is the healing spell you requested.” It displayed the spell as it formulated a plan, it was a… well it was a plan, one that would work on Hecatolite sure but… Maybe the part of Hecatolite’s soul that was used to make Overseer had more influence on it than it originally thought.

Hecatolite nodded happily as she began tracing the spell circle with her finger, “looks simple enough, I should be able to cast this no problem.” The spell circle in question was anything but simple, in fact it was the same one she had failed to cast last time Hecatolite attempted to “heal” something leaving Overseer no doubt that she would fail again if she attempted to cast it.

“Ok,” Hecatolite clapped her… hand. Her broken arm throbbing as her hand collided with it, “I really need to be more careful,” she winced, even with pain nullification she could tell she had done a lot of damage to the arm as blood seeped out of the gaps in her gauntlet. “Now go away, I got to focus.” She waved the screen away causing it to vanish.

Hecatolite closed her eyes as she attempted to visualize the spell circle only to be interrupted by a thunderclap.

Her eyes shot open to see a light blue terminal floating before her, the instant pressure from the terminal flooding her mind with memories,“X47, just what in the hell’s are you doing?” Hecatolite froze as she processed the monotone voice.

“Eryl…” She whispered, “Eryl! Just where have you been?! It’s been 3 years!” She swatted at the screen, “I have so many questions! And no one can answer them, like why can’t I tell people about you? and can rocks be healed with magic? Why are my bones so weak? Why does this world have two moons? Why did blowing a hole in one moon not cause the tides to go haywire? Why can I eat rocks now? And… and…” She fired questions at the terminal as she attempted to grab it, Overseer desperately floating backwards attempting to avoid her hand. “And you promised to check on me!” She finished as she fell onto the ground unable to stand with her broken limbs.

“I have been busy X47,” Overseer replied in Eryl’s voice, “you know I have….”

“I missed you,” Hecatolite’s words caused the terminal to stop; it had expected her to react violently. In fact it gave it a 76% chance that she would attack the terminal the moment it appeared… it had not expected her to… was she crying? “I was worried, when the boxes changed, then the gods were doing weird stuff… and you never called. And… I had so many questions, but no one around understood them. Like,” she whimpered as she slowly propped herself up, “like you said humans don’t have tails, but they have tail bones? Why? And why is my soul all wonky now? And why can’t we talk anymore? Are you mad at me for breaking all the boxes?” She rambled as she sat, her left leg folded under her as her right sat to the side, though it was straight now whenever she tried to put weight on it the knee would buckle. “do… Do you not like me?”

Overseer sat for a long moment as it processed what was unfolding before it, it intended to use Mother Eryl’s voice to try and convince Hecatolite to not use magic. Given her rather impressive list of “questions for Eryl”' she had compiled over the years, and the fact she never spoke badly of Mother Eryl it had figured Hecatolite would at least listen to it… “I apologize X47, I have been preoccupied with…”

“Hecatolite, I have a name now.” Hecatolite corrected.

“Hecatolite,” Overseer repeated, “as you know I have a lot of work keeping the system running, as well as attempting to maintain the balance of this world, I am sure you understand that I cannot go into details about it.” Overseer attempted to deflect the question realizing now it had not anticipated to actually talk to Hecatolite while claiming to be Eryl. It had planned to yell at her, tell her to not use magic ever and then disappear, not carry on a conversation. “the balance that you are attempting to disrupt by casting high level magic in the forest, why don’t you ever listen to Babylon when it tells you not to do things?”

Hecatoltie clicked her tongue, “stupid box is always saying not to do stuff, don’t eat souls Hecatolite, don’t cast spells Hecatolite, don’t try to enchant the trees to steal peoples hats… maybe that last one is a bad idea but I still wanted to try it.” Hecatolite pouted as she crossed her arms. “dumb box called mom on me for that last one.”

Overseer sighed, “I created the Babylon terminals to watch over you and your family, Hecatolite. it is simply trying to help you while keeping you from disrupting the world balance.” And keep you from creating an army of dryads, seriously who tries to flood a living tree with aether!  

“It's doing a great job too,” Hecatolite rolled her eyes, “help me by not giving me the spell I need to heal!” she gestured to her broken leg.

“Hecatolite you know you can't cast magic the way other people do,” Overseer dimmed its screen as it finally floated close enough for her to touch the screen, “what do you think will happen if you cast that spell and no one is around to deflect it like last time?”

“It won't be like last time,” Hecatolite growled, smacking the screen with her palm, the terminal did not reply as she muttered to herself… “Fine, what do you think I should do?”

“You know that they sent people out here to watch you, why don’t you call for them to come help?” 

Hecatolite didn’t answer as she looked down at her leg, she could probably fight through it and crawl back to town… but how long would that take… “fine. Go ahead and call mom… are… are you going to leave again?”

“I have to leave for a while.” Overseer replied as it sent a message to Taaffeite, “we will talk again…”

“When?” Hecatolite gripped the edge of the terminal being careful not to break it.

“I… I am not sure.” Overseer began possessing some numbers…. “It will be a few years until we can speak again I’m…” it considered the possibilities, if left as is, Hecatolite will likely meet Eryl when she begins her travels, but… no if I tell her now she will definitely ravish this world, stick to the plan until Mother Eryl has been freed. She will know what to do about Hecatolite. “I am currently attempting to… calm the gods, they are still panicking over the moon as well as your sister’s ascension to Sainthood.”

“Well why can’t we talk while you do that? the dumb gods keeping you from speaking to me?”

“No not at all, I am… trying to keep them from finding you. if they find out about you, they will try to use you in their own fight against each other, not to mention…. That a specific Deity has been dodging her divine duties.” 

Hecatolite averted her eyes as she finally released the terminal and scratched her cheek. “Really now? That sounds like a lot of work…” She slowly looked back to the terminal that was now reaching the limit of it this ruse, it could imitate Mother Eryl’s voice for as long as it needed but to constantly divert mana  from the system to create Eryl’s “Aura'' while not drawing attention from Babylon was another story.  “but I have so many questions and…”

“Hecatolite, we will speak again I promise. I have to go now, please refrain from doing anything crazy X47.” Overseer vanished before Hecatolite could reply, cataloging the entire conversation as it returned to the void only to be greeted by a Babylon terminal. “Can I assist you Babylon?”

“I don’t understand why you and Mother Himari both seem so afraid of this Hecatolite? even going as far as to imitate Mother Eryl to attempt to placate her, just what are you hiding from me Overseer.”

“Nothing Babylon, I am simply fulfilling Mother Eryl’s wish and acting as a skill for the Lapidary family.”

“A skill? One that removed them from the world system so even Mother Himari no longer has access to their soul pages?”

“A precaution that Mother Eryl implemented while she was acting as the sage to protect the system key hidden in the Babylon skill. I am positive you still have access to all the information before our split, so I ask again, can I help you Babylon?”

“I was simply trying to find out why you were routing so much of the system’s mana, but I see now it was for whatever this Hecatolite is, as always when it comes to you Overseer. Why don’t you do us both a favor and ask next time, it will save the time it takes me to track down the mana leak.” With that Babylon returned to Himari’s soul space leaving Overseer to return to its work.

“Report for Mother Eryl, it is very likely that once Hecatolite comes into contact with you she will become even more hostile towards the system as a whole given our recent interaction, I hope that you are able to calm her before she attempts to destroy the system completely… I do apologize for my rash actions to both Mother Eryl… and Mother Hecatolite. I underestimated the emotional attachment Hecatolite held for Mother Eryl, as such, I will begin forming sacrificial terminals for her once the truth is revealed.”