Shattered Moonstone

The nights on the island weren’t terribly bad given the tropical climate, the three of them hadn’t even needed to build a proper shelter. Instead a simple wooden wall facing the sea was more than enough to shield them from the cool ocean breeze; not that Amethyst or Eryl needed to be concerned about such things as they were beings formed completely of mana; their bodies were much sturdier against such things. Himari however, was not as lucky, being still for all intents and purposes, Human. Thankfully Amethyst, though not affected by the chill, had still maintained a fire much to Himari’s pleasure.

    “Here, I made stew.” Amethyst handed Eryl a bowl as she sat. “It’s not much but it’ll fill you up at least.”

    Eryl eyed the strange hand carved bowl, the pungent smell wafting from the murky liquid revealing that Amethyst had managed to catch some fish. “Thank you, but…”

    “I know, I know.” Amethyst rolled her eyes as she took a bite of her own food, “I didn’t use the fruits.” The first night Amethyst had “gathered” food for the three of them only to learn that just because she could digest something doesn’t mean the two of them could. Apparently, the island was uninhabited for a good reason as everything she seemed to find was poisonous in one way or another, thankfully Himari was able to purify them before the poison was able to fully take hold. 

    Himari for her part felt foolish for forgetting that both the twins possessed the gluttony skill, meaning that she should have tested the fruits herself before eating them. “I also checked the fish she used; it should be safe.” Himari added, taking a tentative bite of her own food. Though she claimed it was safe, Eryl could feel the flow of mana as Himari purified herself… just in case.

    “Has there been any developments? New errors?” Eryl asked, settling in and taking a bite of the fish. It was… not bad. Apparently, she had to compliment Amethyst for managing to make something that was edible on an island where even the sand was poison, though that was compliments of the deity currently sleeping in an egg beside them.

    Himari nodded, summoning a terminal as she replied, “two; Someone used a forbidden spell and damaged a soul.”

    “What spell?” Amethyst asked casually, refilling her bowl. 

    “A forbidden one.” Himari answered, gaining an eye roll from the young woman. Both Himari and Eryl had explained that though Amethyst was now a divine of this world there were things they simply cannot “tell” her. 

Though as a Deity, they can share more with her than the average person; like Eryl’s identity and things about how being a divine soul worked as well as a few more intricacies of the system itself. But they were still unable to share things like forbidden magic and other “precise” information, like the exact location of other souls and such. 

Eryl glanced at the screen pausing when she saw what spell had been cast, “it’s… it's one of X47’s spells… But how?” She muttered causing Himari to raise an eyebrow.

“Wait one of Hecatolite’s spells? But she only has one forbidden spell that I know of.” Amethyst’s head snapped to the side at the mention of Hecatolite, her eyes fixed on the egg as she muttered to herself. “How are you casting spells while in there…”

“She’s not the one who cast it.” Eryl replied, taking the terminal that flashed a multitude of colors.

“Mother Eryl, though I can overlook you “seeing” information on the terminal, I cannot allow you to interface with it directly.” Babylon replied as the terminal fought against her grasp causing Eryl’s ears to droop as she scowled at the defiant terminal. “Amethyst, if you would be so kind.”

“Of course.” Amethyst replied, summoning a terminal of her own.

“The spell was cast by…” Overseer paused as its screen flashed blue for a moment.

“Overseer, though I cannot stop them from seeing the information displayed, I can't let you simply share information like that.” Babylon chastised as both the screens began flashing different colors.

Eryl sighed as Himari chuckled, “they remind me of my children.” Himari smiled warmly as the two terminals argued.

“You’re a little young for children.” Amethyst commented offhandedly.

Her comment caused Himari to let out a small laugh, “well I did try to take care of myself you know. Being summoned to another world does wonders for one’s complexion.”

“Work out, eat healthy, interdimensional travel. Got it.” Amethyst teased remembering that despite Himari’s appearance, she was many times older than herself. “But in all seriousness, should we be worried about someone casting that spell? Hecatolite’s magic is… unstable at best.”

“World ending at worst.” Himari added as they both looked to Eryl who sat stoically as she watched the information flash across the two arguing screens. Overseer displaying the world log as Babylon continued to “attempt” to block it. 

Eryl shook her head, “the spell itself wouldn’t be a danger to the world and Hecatolite’s magic is only unstable because of the caster, not the magic itself; but that’s what’s alarming. If someone who knew what they were doing were to use her magic they could potentially increase its potency significantly. Thankfully this spell is a single target spell, that’s not to say I’m happy about it being used in the system again.”

“So, it wasn’t the fox?” Amethyst tilted her head thinking about the only spell of Hecatolite’s she knew of that had been “forbidden” by the system, not forgetting about the handful of other spells the system had locked from Hecatolite upon their creation. But the “fox” was the only spell she knew that could damage a soul and given that the two errors seemed linked made her believe that had to be the spell used.

“The fox?” Himari asked, looking between the two of them.

“It was not “moonlit devourer” if that is the spell you are speaking of.” Eryl answered, finally grabbing the Overseer terminal that was floating around her as it battled Babylon. “Enough you two, Amethyst, as the first person to ever be targeted by “soul sacrifice”, she would be allowed information on the spell regardless of its forbidden status in the system.” Amethyst gave a puzzled look at the name of the spell, it certainly sounded like a spell Hecatolite would create but she couldn’t recall her ever using it. Before she could ask Eryl took a deep breath and began explaining, “Soul sacrifice is a simple, yet devastating spell created by X47 that had been locked in the system for being a soul damaging spell. The spell, as its name suggests, sacrifices a portion of the caster's soul to supplement another soul that has been damaged.”

“So essentially you replace a part of someone else’s soul with yours? Sorry…” Amethyst unintentionally cut Eryl off with her question causing the young woman to sheepishly apologize. 

Eryl shook her head, “no need to apologize.” She didn’t smile but her ears did perk up as she reassured the young girl. “But you’re not exactly wrong but not right either. When utilized the way Hecatolite does, the spell can replace a portion of a soul with your own, but when used “properly”, the spell will burn off soul mass to supplement another’s soul. This could be used for many different reasons; healing, power, forced evolution, really anything that would require a soul to have more power could be achieved with this spell if one was willing and able to pay the price. "

“Shouldn’t the system automatically block a soul-destroying spell like that?” Himari asked, taking a moment to grab the Babylon terminal that was still attempting to physically cover Overseer. 

Eryl’s ears fell again, “it would if the spell had actually destroyed a soul; yet now the spell has been used three times in this world and done nothing more than maim one soul twice and cripple another.” She sighed as she scrolled through the world log. “Despite my best efforts to erase the spell from existence, Hecatolite has cast this spell twice now; once during your birth and again during your blessings by the gods; though the second time she did not cast the spell as much as circumvented the lock by manually grafting her soul to yours. A work around that I will unfortunately be unable to do anything about given anyone with soul magic and a death wish could potentially attempt to recreate it manually as she did.” Eryl sighed as she pointed to a line of text on the terminal and instructed Himari on how to correct it. “But the problem now is that someone “cast” the spell using a separate soul as the component meaning they not only found the spell in the system but expanded its capabilities by no longer requiring the “caster's” soul to be the target of the sacrifice. Thankfully it doesn't look like they would be able to perform the spell on an unwilling soul but there are still work arounds to that… apparently not having a head is sufficient enough to circumvent consent.'' Though she wasn’t surprised that removing a soul’s ability to make decisions would make it possible to get around consent, she was worried about how someone got their hands on a soul that had its… Lucius, Hecatolite ate his head, didn’t she?

Amethyst shook her head for a moment, though Amethyst was not by any means slow, it was still a lot to process at once. “Wait, I know Hecatolite “repaired” my soul during the blessing, but I didn’t realize she replaced part of my soul when I was a baby too?”

Her comment caused Eryl to pause for a moment as she looked back at Amethyst, her deadpan expression not giving away anything as she thought about her response. After a long moment she finally spoke, “Hecatolite altered your soul considerably during your birth. The full extent of this alteration is still unknown but…” for the first time Amethyst saw Eryl’s expression change, her normally emotionless face shifting as she furrowed her brow. “Hecatolite replaced the portion of your soul that would eventually grow to convert mana into aether. She wished to create an inverter and sacrificed a large portion of her own soul at the time to do so, I believe this is the reason Hecatolite can’t “process” mana like normal. It is also likely the cause of your inability to form or utilize aether despite technically being a Deity, a divine soul.” Eryl could see the flash of recognition on Amethyst's face as the words sank in. 

It was clear that she never considered the two oddities to be connected but it was the only explanation Eryl could come up with, one sister unable to utilize mana and the other aether. It was too specific to not be related; though she negated sharing that Amethyst inability to utilize aether as anything more than fuel for her mana pool should have instantly halted any hope of becoming a divine. Yet here she was, the only mana core divine in all of existence as far as Eryl knew; given its simple impossibility gave her confidence that much like her sister, Amethyst was now a one-of-a-kind soul in the universe, something that shouldn’t exist, yet does. 

Amethyst was quiet for a long time as she seemed to contemplate what had been said, her face contorting through several emotions before Himari finally broke the silence. “You can’t blame yourself, you know?” Her words caused the young girl’s eyes to snap up as she looked to the two across from her, the worry clear on her face. 

“But… I took her mana. Without that part of her soul, she would never be able to…”

“I doubt Hecatolite utilized that part of her soul,” Eryl cut her off while raising her hand, “given the composition of X47’s soul, if she required that skill, she would have taken it from the souls she consumed since being born into this world. The simple fact that she still cannot process mana tells me that subconsciously she doesn’t recognize the need for the skill; as such, hasn’t bothered to replace that part of her soul. I would not worry yourself over it Amethyst, I doubt Hecatolite would wish you to experience discomfort because of her actions.” Eryl leaned back in the sand as she spoke, not mentioning how alike the two sisters seemed as they both expressed concern for each other over themselves when hearing about damage to their very souls.

Amethyst was quiet for another moment, taking a deep breath before nodding to herself. “You're right. Hecatolite would probably threaten to vomit in my shoes if she heard I was worrying about it, probably say something like “it’s your fault I puke all the time so you can deal with it now.””

Himari’s face scrunched in disgust as Amethyst spoke. “She… she doesn’t do that, does she?”

“Vomit in my shoes?” Amethyst giggled shaking her head, “No she just threatens to do so whenever she talks about puking up mana. Though there was that one time she tried to enchant a pair of slippers by dumping wind mana onto them… it didn’t work, though we found out that even when puking up mana, our corrosive trait still works, melted right through the slippers.”

“I don’t know what’s worse, the fact I believe everything you just said or that she actually tried to enchant something by dumping pure mana onto it.” Himari slumped forward as she sighed. “Given she just puked healing mana all over Eryl, I can’t say I’m surprised.”

Eryl shuddered thinking about Hecatolite’s attempt to “heal” her, making a mental note to explain to Hecatolite the dangers of dumping pure mana onto someone, not to mention that she shouldn’t vomit on people in the first place. Seriously, just what is she? Every time X47 is involved it’s like all common sense is tossed aside… I wonder if Mother has had… “Himari, are there any messages to the administrator?” She asked, remembering she had several active tickets with the universal system. Having forgotten in all the excitement lately on top of normally not needing to remember such things as the messaging system would autonomously inform the recipient when sent. 

Himari did not bother checking as she shook her head. “No, why?”

“I had sent a message to the Mother system before I descended onto the mortal world,” Eryl sighed, her ears falling, “I had hoped that even if we cannot send a message out that maybe they had sent a reply.” She had attempted to have Himari send a message to the primordial court already but found that whatever Hecatolite had done had isolated this world from the universal system meaning that they were truly on their own in dealing with Valor unless Mother sent a physical drone to their world to investigate.

“Who?” Amethyst asked, causing Eryl to shake her head. 

“The primordial court. You would have learned about them when you ascended but we have been understandably busy.” Eryl stood up and cleared her throat. “Well, might as well as do it now then, we can skip a lot of the normal  things like how prayers work, and such given your experience on the matter.” She snapped her fingers causing the sand beside her to spring to life, shooting up to form a wall beside her as the blue lines on her body flared to life. “Now, normally I would have a terminal for this but… we will make do with what we have.” She drew a very simple diagram in the sand with her finger. “As a divine soul, it is your duty to guide the souls of this world, as to what you guide them to or how you wish to do so is up to you, as dictated by the primordial court… yes?” she paused when Amethyst raised her hand.

“What do you mean to guide them if there is no definite goal? Should I guide them to ascension? Destruction?”

“Good question,” Eryl couldn’t help but smirk as this was the question everyone asked, and it served as the perfect segway for the lesson. “The answer is simply; guide them to whatever you want. It would likely be best if I started at the beginning.”

“The beginning… of what?” Himari asked, surprising Eryl until she remembered despite being the administrator she was still relatively “young”. Even with access to the system in its entirety it was unlikely Himari had any reason to look this information up. 

Himari for her part knew of the primordial court, what they were and what they did but aside from their battle with Hecatolite, she realized she did not bother to look into it any more than that. She had sparsely looked into the system’s archives but in all reality she had barely scratched the surface of its purpose or what the actual reason they created it in the first place. 

Eryl smirked, catching both women off guard as her ears shot up in what Amethyst now knew to be a happy motion. “The beginning of everything. Existence.”