Shattered Moonstone

Alexa insisted the Hecatolite needed to get out of the house now that she could suppress her aether to a tolerable level. A change of environment could do wonders for one’s mood, not to mention Amethyst was notorious for visiting the city every chance she could get, causing people to notice that after the magic battle 2 weeks ago she was strangely absent, whispers and rumors were rampant, and just the sight of her would be enough to quell the masses.

“don’t know why I have to go” Hecatolite sighed as Alexa all but dragged the girl out. “Smelly, to many people.”

“You can’t stay cooped up in the house forever Hecatolite.” Alexa spoke as she handed the young girl a pair of boots, “besides Amethyst has a reputation to uphold. She doesn’t have the social butterfly trait for sitting in the house all day you know.”

“But shoes are not comfortable.” Hecatolite deposited the boots to the side, “squish toes, hard to walk.”

“You can’t go out without boots on.” Alexa rubbed her temples as she looked down at the young girl’s bare feet. “Is that why you don’t go into town? Because you don’t like shoes?”

“And it's smelly, too many people.” Hecatolite crossed her arms.

“It's a city, of course there’s a lot of people. And it’s the cleanest city in this half of the Empire. Come one Hecatolite if you come, I’ll buy you some nice food.” 

“You go, buy food, come back.” Hecatolite turned her head at the mention of food solicitation and a chuckle from Alexa.

“But how will I know what to get if you’re not there?” Alexa said turning her back to Hecatolite and shrugging, “there are so many options I would hate to buy something you don’t like?”

The young girl growled as she snatched the boots from the ground, “persuading children with food.” she quickly put the boots on, refusing to lace them as she stood, “ok pervert, where is your van.”

Alexa sighed, she was hoping Hecatolite would grow out of calling her such a vulgar thing, even going as far as to refuse to teach her how to pronounce it. But Hecatolite was smart, any words Alexa refused to teach her she would sound out, or simply ask their parents. Taaffeite would refuse most of the time, realizing the words she was asking for were unsuitable for a child, their father however… Let's just say him and Taaffeite have very different senses of humor.

  “I don’t know what a “van” is,” Alexa said mimicking the unfamiliar language, “but I feel it's offensive.” She tapped Hecatolite on the top of the head with the back of her hand. “Remember, you have to be Amethyst while we are in the city.”

“Difficult, I haven’t met her yet.” Hecatolite replied holding her head in defense from another strike, “this is a bad idea” was the last she spoke as they started from the house.

Hecatolite did not technically dislike being outside, but the word city stirred memories of crowded, stifling places that always smelled and were full of unsavory people trying to steal its belongings. They were always filled with smog that burned the lungs, and it had more than one memory of being attacked in “city’s”. It would much rather go somewhere nicer, like camping, it only had one bad camping memory; well two if you include the burning marshmallow incident but that was still funny after the swelling went down, but the other one involved a small black bear. Hecatolite was confident it could fight a black bear with its claws now.

Hecatolite let out a small scream as she was suddenly picked up from behind, lashing out with her claws as they flashed into existence. She was shocked to find they bounced harmlessly off the large arms that held her.

“Whoa there,” Alastair’s jovial voice boomed, “just where are my girls off to today?” 

Hecatolite calmed, letting her claws vanish as he hoisted her onto his shoulders, “why no cut?” she asked, never failing to cut anything with her claws.

“You’re not the only one who can use reinforcement magic Hecatolite,” Taaffeite calm voice called out as she caught up to the trio, “also please look before you start slashing, I doubt anyone aside from Alastair could shrug off an attack that cuts the Babylon terminals so easily.”

“I’m more surprised she didn’t feel you two coming, it’s not like you were hiding.” Alexa said as Hecatolite began inspecting her tiny hand and muttering to herself. “Not that I think she bothers with defensive spells or aura detection…” she had trained with Hecatolite once, it was all she needed to know what kind of fighting style Hecatolite would use. It would best be described as Hecatolite put it “full frontal assault” using her self-enchantments and claws to close and attempt to shred whatever offender was in front of her. All that magical knowledge she has and the best she can come up with is “scratch it till it dies.”

“We saw our daughters going out for a walk and figured it was a good day for a family…” Alastair started before a small hand began roughly patting the top of his head.

“Babysitters,” Hecatolite spoke, patting the large man’s head much like one would a child. “Worried, understand. Could be attacked in city, safety in numbers.”

This gave pause to their parents, had Hecatolite seen through them? What they didn’t know is that Hecatolite was simply stating facts from memories of a different world, and fear for any place called a city.

“Well, she caught us,” he laughed as Taaffeite sighed. 

“With the unrest with the church, and how concerned people were over Amethyst’s absence, we were worried that you two might cause a commotion.” Taaffeite spoke as she watched Hecatolite start to look around, clearly pleased with her new higher vantage point on Alastair’s shoulder. Not failing to notice the soft blue glow emanating from rune carved metal bands around both her arms. “As you said yourself Alexa, Hecatolite isn’t exactly subtle. Which brings us back to, where are you two heading.”

Alexa smiled at her parents, slightly annoyed they didn’t seem to trust her to watch over Hecatolite while on a walk through the city, but happy for the help in keeping the young woman under control as she realized that if Hecatolite decided to truly cause a commotion she would have no choice but to fight the strangely powerful girl with her full power to stop her. “Hecatolite can’t stay cooped up forever, she needs fresh air. Besides as you said, Amethyst has a reputation of running freely through the city, it will cause unrest if she’s gone for too long.”

With that the four of them walked, each one pointing out things of interest to Hecatolite who never left Alastair’s shoulders. Once they hit the city proper the street all but parted for the family as they walked, people gawking as they made way for the family, everyone greeting them with large smiles and good graces as they passed. They even gained a small following as they walked.

Well, that’s good, Hecatolite thought as it watched Alexa calm some children, they seem well liked. I was worried that they might be the bad kind of “nobles” in my mind. But people really seem to like them, and the city is in great condition, it's not dirty, or smelly really. I would hardly call this a city, maybe a large town… does the wall make it a city?

“Inutil what’s the difference between a city and a large town?” All the commotion seemed to stop as a Babylon screen appeared before Hecatolite.

“A city is defined as a large town. A large town is called a city.”

“Amethyst dear,” Taaffeite grabbed her arm that was already turning black with aether. “Maybe we shouldn’t use Babylon so openly?” Her glare seemed to placate Hecatolite who sat frozen as the Babylon terminal dissipated.

Hecatolite’s eyes slowly looked over the crowd of amazed onlookers, before meeting the frustrated face of its mother. She could hear people whispering how “the rumors were true”, and “they really are blessed with the voice of the world”

“Oops.” Hecatolite whispered remembering that the dumb boxes were all but worshiped by the people of this world. “Sorry.” She could hear Alexa release an exasperated sigh from behind her as Alastair laughed.

The made a quick escape, feigning work at the northern gate, before the crowd could get to worked up over the young girls slip up, the whole family all but disappearing from the public eye as Taaffeite obscured them with a concealment spell.

“Seriously, we did talk about this before, you can’t just call Babylon in public like that.” Alexa chastised Hecatolite as they walked. “And you sure as hell can’t go tearing them apart where people can see you.”

“It’s not my fault, the boxes are dumb, and I can’t help myself.” Hecatolite replied defensively, crossing her arms.

“And how did you plan to explain the Space mage suddenly growing claws?” Alexa asked, “or did you forget that Amethyst can’t use any spells like that?”

“It was an accident, I said sorry.” 

“Oh, it's fine Alexa,” Alastair said, patting his daughter’s shoulder as they walked, Hecatolite still on his shoulders. “No harm, no foul. People already know about Babylon, just confirming the rumors won’t hurt. Besides, it truly will only be a matter of time before someone realizes Amethyst doesn’t have black eyes.”

Both Alexa and Taaffeite stopped. Neither of them even considered that Amethyst's eye color is the embodiment of her name, it's what caused Taaffeite to pick it. Hecatolite however had inky black eyes, the color even bleeding into the whites. Alexa looked at her mother, color draining from her face as Taaffeite coughed into her hand. Both had been looking into Hecatolite’s eyes lately as her and Alexa trained their soul sight, yet the only one to remember such a crucial piece of information was Alastair whom Hecatolite refused to use for training stating, “no too bright hurts eyes.”

“I assure you that they won’t.” Taaffeite said, wavering her hand and reciting a spell, Hecatolite feeling a mask of mana cover her face. “Now just stay where I can see you, understand?” 

Hecatolite nodded, it did not understand. It was looking at a large bird that flew overhead. Its thoughts caught up in how to catch such a bird and cook it, it would have been easy with Moonlit Devour, that giant fox could probably easily catch a bird twice that size. But since the system ban on the spell, and its adjustment of the skill soul manifestation, it found itself truly lacking any ranged offense. 

After the skill was used to “destroy” a soul the world system somehow locked the ability and later sent out a notification with a “patch” stating that soul manifestation will now be limited to the physical body only and no longer be capable of projecting one’s soul, or part of the soul, beyond the physical body. Hecatolite quickly realized this meant it could only call its soul claws drawing the conclusion that it was only because its soul form had claws.

Wait, does that mean I have a giant fox in my soul? Was the logical thought one would have at that revelation, Hecatolite however, was more concerned with other matters at the time and has yet to come back to the thought.

“Need… far touch attacks?… soul mage no good.” Hecatolite whispered looking back up at the bird, unable to find the word ranged. What it did know is that soul magic was not a strong offensive magic type unlike the other magic school’s soul magic was used mainly in rituals and “curses”. It was used to miniplate a soul directly by enhancing one’s own capabilities to resist skills or spells that would influence someone, or to weaken an opponent by disrupting their skills or weakening their effects. It was labeled firmly in the support magic specifically “de buff”, but it could be used in some restoration as well coaxing the soul to repair itself or removing hexes. 

Its soul manifestation spell was a very rare exception, one that every member of its family had pointed out would not work for anyone but Hecatolite, given that its soul happened to have claws. Hecatolite however disagreed believing that if Alastair happened to cast the spell, he would likely melt anyone around him. But aside from that Babylon informed them that soul manifestation was normally used to physically inspect one’s soul and manipulate it to remove hex’s, curses, or ailments, not as an attack, and to do so was the very definition of reckless given that it requires one to manifest their soul into the physical realm making it susceptible to damage. But without using the skill Hecatolite had truly no way to attack, sure it could use self-reinforcement magics, but it was still in the body of a 10-year-old girl. And given its coordination issues, all of its attempts at swordplay were laughable at best, even if it was more coordinated it felt that a sword was not for it.

“Maybe a gun?” Hecatolite said absent mindedly as its family chatted around it.

“Guns?” Alastair perked up at the mention of armaments, he was the captain of the city’s guard, which was one of the largest private militias in all of Crown. Given its location to the “wild lands” of  Ecrein to the north. “What about a gun?

“You have guns?” Hecatolite asked as it looked down at the man’s waist, noticing both him and Taaffeite carried swords. “If this world has guns, why use swords?”

“Guns are weak Hecatolite.” Taaffeite said looking up at her, “they are only really useful to hunt small non magical beasts. They can’t really harm anyone who has magic, pluses given their design they are very difficult and costly to enchant, they are composed of a lot of small parts many of which are too small to enchant. And since they are not a single piece like a sword one can’t enchant the whole thing, every individual part needs to be enchanted itself.”

“What about enchanted bullets?” Hecatolite pondered, if the weapon itself couldn’t be enchanted why not the ammunition, one can make enchanted arrows so why not bullets.

“Who would enchant something they can’t reuse? Not to mention the cost of doing so, I know you don’t know this but enchanting something normally takes a long time and is expensive.” Alexa said, “I mean think about it Hecatolite, our family became a noble family simply because we were enchanters to begin with.”

Hecatolite never thought about it, but the Lapidary family were world renowned enchanters before they became dragon slayers, they amassed a fortune making items for other nobility, in fact its grandparents on Taaffeite’s side were still very active enchanters running a shop out of the port town in their territory. “But enchanting easy, push aether in get magic out?”

“No, that’s excessively dangerous Hecatolite. Enchanting is a very delicate process that you have been very lucky with up to this point. Normally pushing mana into an item like you tend to do causes a lot of those “bomb rings” you keep tossing out your window.” Taaffeite sighed, remembering her once lovely back yard that was not full of gaping holes, she had a garden and a shed with a nice bench to enjoy the sparse downtime she got. “And it's normally very taxing on the enchanter given they need to bathe the item they are enchanting in their mana while they inscribe the enchantment rings on it. It's only easy for you because you seemingly have near endless power reserves. Which brings us back to the main point of why you’re bringing up guns?”

“Need weapon. Claws are short, can’t reach birds.” Hecatolite said pointing at the large bird that was now all but a dot on the horizon. “Not good with sword, and dumb box says claws are bad for attacking, can damage soul again.”

Alastair couldn’t help but laugh when Hecatolite said she could not reach birds, “why not simply learn another magic?”

“I could,” Hecatolite said, scrunching her face as she thought, “but, would be best to have a backup. Magic can be blocked or deflected. Alexa keeps stopping skills, but if I had a weapon and magic. Besides, can’t hunt with fireballs, will burn birds, can't eat if burnt.”

Even Taaffeite laughed at the simple stamen, the audacity of skipping directly to the most destructive flame spell to hunt birds catching the matriarch off guard. 

“Can’t argue with that logic. Definitely cannot hunt birds with fireballs.” Alexa stifled a laugh as she shook her head. 

“And it never hurts to have a weapon.” Alastair said tapping his own sword, “I can’t say I am overly fond of my daughter carrying a weapon around but given recent events it might not be a bad idea.”

“But a gun? What is she going to tickle the next priest as he prays? It would be more useful to just throw rocks with her self-enchantments.” Alexa stated, mimicking shooting with her hand. “Bullets tend to just bounce off even weak protection spells. They are mostly used as a signal, aren’t they? I mean if she wants to hunt birds why not wind or water magic? A net or bow? At least a bow can be enchanted, and there is no end to archery skills, theirs what 3 marksman skills? They aren’t interchangeable remember.”

“Ok so no gun, still need a weapon?” Hecatolite stated somewhat dejectedly, this world had guns, but they seemed useless, it would still check them given the chance, but it could feel they were right. With its self-enchantments it could probably survive a firing squad. 

“There is an armory at the northern gate, we can stop in and check.” Taaffeite said, patting the young girls back. “It would not be a bad idea for you either Alexa, Hecatolite is not wrong about it being useful to have skills outside of magic if it comes down to a fight.”