NOVEL NEXT Ch. 64: Concepts
“I don’t think there is anything for us here,” Alyx said after another minute of searching through the shelves of the hidden room.
Cass nodded in agreement. It was disappointingly void of clues to get her home.
“Did you get the (gem?) from the Lord when you killed it?” Alyx asked.
“The what?” Cass asked. “I don’t know that word, (gem?)?”
“Do you have all your (ideas?)?” Alyx tried.
Cass shook her head, “I don’t recognize that one either.”
“Did you get anything from the Lord?” There was an unmistakable frustration burrowing in Alyx’s voice.
“Just the quest reward,” Cass said helplessly.
“I had a feeling. Come on, show me where you found the Lord.”
Cass led the way back into the nursery. The Caretaker’s remains were no less gruesome scattered around the floor where they’d killed him. Cass tried not to look at it or the purple ichor still oozing from the corpse.
Alyx seemed to have no such problem, going so far as to pause and pick something off the corpse as they passed. “Wait. Here.”
Alyx held out two objects. One was a circlet, the other a broach.
Aura Crown
Class: Accessory
[A circlet crafted to broadcast the wearer’s aura in a defensive halo and projects peerless confidence to all who see it. This is an artifact from another age, knowledge of its construction has long been lost.
Increases Effective Frt by 20% in areas covered by the Aura.
Increases Effective Frt by 5% over rest of contiguous body.
Increases the effect of Aura, Leadership, and Taming-related skills.]
Aura Cloak
Class: Accessory
[A broach which manifests the wearer’s aura in a defensive cloak. This is an artifact from another age, knowledge of its construction has long been lost.
Increases Effective Frt by 20% in areas covered by the Aura.
Increases Effective Frt by 5% over rest of contiguous body.
Increases the effect of Aura, Movement, and Defensive skills.]
“You want me to take these?” Cass asked.
Alyx nodded.
Cass still hesitated. By all rights, she’d already taken some of the loot in the form of the Core. Maybe Alyx didn’t see her take it? Or didn’t remember?
Or maybe she didn’t realize it was valuable. Then again, maybe it wasn’t valuable. Cass wasn’t sure what uses crystallized souls had for most people.
Setting that aside, Cass wasn’t sure she deserved any loot from the Caretaker. Cass hadn’t killed it, after all. That honor belonged to Alyx. Moreover, Cass had recklessly charged in before abandoning her in the middle.
“I’m just (...) pay you back,” Alyx attempted to explain, seeing Cass hesitating. “This is the least that I (debt?). You didn’t have to bring me with you. You didn’t even need to save me.”
There was a reservation in Alyx’s voice at odds with the words. Was she bitter about the way things had gone? Was she disappointed to be missing out on the treasure?
Cass shook her head. “I would have died if you hadn’t finished off the Caretaker. Hell, I wouldn’t have been able to sneak off to kill the Lord, much less sneak attack the Caretaker if you hadn’t held its attention. You should take at least one of them.”
Alyx’s eyes narrowed, though whether that was from attempting to decode Cass’s likely broken Jothi or because she didn’t trust Cass, Cass could only guess.
Cass could imagine Salos berating her for giving up an advantage for nothing like this, but Cass didn’t care. He still wasn’t saying anything and she could do what she wanted. This was the least she could do to apologize for the unmitigated mess she’d pulled them into.
“I’ll take the crown, then, if you (...),” Alyx said slowly, still holding her hand out with the two objects.
Cass took the broach. “Fine by me.”
Alyx fit the circlet on her head. It flared to life in an amber halo around her head, like what the Caretaker had worn but significantly smaller and less intense.
Cass struggled to pin the broach to what remained of her PJs. She dropped her staff in the struggle. It bounced across the wet floor with a clatter and a splash.
With both hands, Cass got her loot pinned in place and watched in awe as a cloak of light billowed around her shoulders. It was a soft blue, the color of the sky along the horizon, and hung weightless from her shoulders. She touched it with one hand and found it warm.
As she bent down to pick up her staff, she found her hand passed right through the cloak, as did her staff.
Interesting, so it was only solid when she wanted it to be.
“Neat, then should we—“ Cass pointed back to the door they’d come from and the teleporter beyond it.
Alyx shook her head. “The Lord should have more (loot?) for you. Where is its corpse?”
“Oh, right. Um, this way,” Cass pointed deeper into the room.
She retraced her steps to the basin she’d fought the Lord in. She hadn’t been sure she would be able to find it, but there were only so many filled with blood. It didn’t end up being too hard to find.
“This one?” Alyx confirmed, grimacing in front of the bloody basin.
Cass nodded.
Alyx tapped it with one foot. “I don’t suppose you want to go (…) in there?”
“What are we looking for?” Cass asked, not any happier about the idea of splashing around in there. The fact it was probably half her blood didn’t make her any more eager.
Alyx sighed and shook her head. “One moment. Let me try something.”
She drew her sword and lifted it above her head. It and the aura crown glowed gold, growing brighter as she held it high. Brighter and brighter and brighter.
Just as Cass had to look away from the intensity of the light, Alyx drove the sword down. It crashed through the basin’s wall, cutting a deep and wide gash in the side.
Bloody water came spilling out. Cass and Alyx both scurried to either side to avoid the worst of it.
When the water had settled again, it was only a couple of inches deep, revealing the corpse of the lizard monster.
Alyx stabbed her sword through its chest, butchering the lizard with uncomfortable comfort. A moment later she had bent over and picked a gem out from its chest. It shimmered in the green light of the Deep.
“This is a (gem?),” Alyx said, holding it out to Cass.
Concept Gem (Twilight)
[Class: System
A crystallized Concept, distilled through the death of a significant foe. This particular gem holds the concept of Twilight, where the light meets the dark.]
As soon as Cass read Identify’s description, the word Alyx had been saying clicked into place as if she’d always understood it.
Concept Gem.
It was unsettling, but she ignored the discomfort. She had other questions.
“What is a Concept?” It was a question she’d had for a long while but which had never been relevant enough of a priority to ask Salos. Ever since she first saw:
Concepts:
-None
on her status window.
Alyx scratched her head. “You don’t know that word either?”
Cass nodded.
“It's like, an understanding of a…” Alyx spun her hand, gesturing at something ineffable. “Or maybe like a (basic?) part of the world? A (…) for your skills to grow more powerful?”
Cass shook her head. None of what she gathered from that cleared anything up. She really wished that Salos was available right now.
“It's part of who you are,” Alyx continued trying. “How you (link?) to the (everything?). (…) but growing. Absolute but changing.”
“Sorry, I caught even less of that.” Cass shook her head, even more confused now than she’d been before.
Alyx shook her head. “Look it doesn’t matter. You know what this is now that you’ve seen it, right?”
Cass looked between the gem Alyx held out for her and the woman. She wanted to say, ‘yes, of course, this all makes sense now’, but it really, really didn’t.
Alyx sighed. “Look, just take it. You killed the Lord, so this one is yours. Besides, I have all three of mine and this is a bad (interlock?) for my Concepts.”
“Oh, okay,” Cass said, gingerly taking the gem from Alyx. It shimmered in her hand, hypnotic and swirling.
Absorb Concept Gem (Twilight)?
Cass blinked. She hadn’t expected the prompt. Once again, she wished Salos was awake to tell her what the hell was happening.
Without another option, she asked Alyx, “Should I absorb this?”
“Up to you. Does it sound like it will (mix?) well with your (current?) Concepts? If you want to use it, now is a good time before we leave the Temple.”
That didn’t help. But it sounded like Concepts were desirable. And she didn’t dislike the sound of Twilight.
As she mentally agreed to absorb the thing, it exploded into a ball of light.
Absorbing Concept Gem.
[Open Concept slot available.
Decomposing Gem into compatible Concepts.
Select Concept to fill slot:
Astral
Liminal
Harmony]
Great, another menu that Cass didn’t understand. Did she pick at random? Should she have waited until Salos was awake to help her?
“What should I pick?” Cass asked, once again, without other options.
Alyx raised an eyebrow. “You want my (opinion?)? I don’t know enough about what Concepts you already have, how you have them (spread?), or what plans you might be (aiming?). You can’t possibly want to share all that with me.”
Salos’s warnings about sharing details of her stats with others rang in her ears. She shook her head. But where did that leave her? Picking randomly?
“Aren’t there some general principles you could share?” Cass begged.
Alyx hummed to herself in thought. “Unless you have a (...) goal, there is no wrong answer?”
Cass shook her head, that did not help.
Alyx shrugged. “Pick what (rings?) with you. Er, what feels right? Pick who you want to be. The mark you want to leave on the world.”
What feels right? What did that even mean?
Cass shook her head. She knew too little about the consequences to spend a long time thinking about it. What she did know was that Concepts affected her skills somehow. She flipped through her skills for examples.
Stealth (lvl 8) (Wind)
[Slink through the shadows through places you should not be or do not wish to be found. Unseen as the wind. As quiet as a breath.
…
Association with the Concept of Wind increases the effect of these bonuses while user is in motion
…]
Sprint (lvl 2) (Wind)
[Run! Run like the wind!
…
Association with the Concept of Wind passively decreases the SP cost of all running related activities.]
Wind Blade (lvl 6) (Wind)
[Through the study of the winds, you have discovered how to shape them into a weapon of your will. None can stop the wind.
…
Association with the Concept of Wind increases the speed of the blades and allows for greater control of shape and direction.
…]
Beacon of Home and Hearth (lvl 5) (Hearth)
[Home is what you make of it. You carry yours in your heart. Keep the hearth stoked and there will always be a place to welcome you home.
…
Association with the Concept of Hearth doubles the effect of all Rest buffs and Home buffs on you.]
And that was it. Not a large sample pool, but it was more than nothing. If these were something to go off of, Wind affected speed and movement of skills, while Hearth heightened buffs or maybe regeneration. There was a kind of intuitive sense to that.
Wind was wild and free. It blew where it wanted when it wanted.
Hearth on the other hand was the center of a home in ancient times. The place food was cooked and the warmest part of the house on cold nights.
So what did she want to add? What did these words mean to her?
Astral was the stars above. The planets. The sun. All things she hadn’t seen since stepping into this world. They’d been obscured the entire time, either behind the heavy clouds or by a firmament of stone. Were they the same here?
She pushed that longing for the sky aside. What would Astral be as a Concept modifying her skills? The stars were constant. They existed whether she could see them or not. If you knew enough, they could act as guides, pointing north. So, perhaps constant guidance?
How about Liminal? That was a transition or a place in between. It could be uncanny or strange. But they were also inherently interesting. They captured the imagination in a way other spaces just couldn’t. And, in some sense, wasn’t her very existence Liminal? She was human, yet the System had declared her slyphid. One could construe her to be both, or at any point neither.
As for what it might do for her skills? What would they be transitioning between? The skills of a human and a slyphid? Was there a difference? Maybe it would apply paradoxical effects, attacks that miss hitting anyway, for example?
And finally, there was Harmony. It was something she wanted for her life. She wanted the fighting which had been her existence since she arrived to stop. She wanted peace. She wanted to get along with whoever lived here, and for them to send her home.
What would that look like on her skills though? She had a hard time imagining how it might get applied. Forced calming effects? Non-lethal attacks? Healing? Heightened balance?
She discarded the option without too much thought. It was the one she had the hardest time imagining how it might work.
That left Astral and Liminal. Astral appealed to her. Or the stars did, at least. It appealed to her an unnatural amount. She’d always liked astronomy. She’d gone through a star girl phase in elementary school, checking out every book on astronomy and mythology from the school library. But, she hadn’t thought much about it in the years since. Was it as simple as not having seen them in the couple of weeks she’d been here? Or was it the slyphid part of her begging to see open skies again? And how much did she want to give in to that impulse?
How much of it was her and how much was it something the System had done to her?
On the other hand, Liminal seemed to embrace both the human she still thought of herself as and the slyphid she’d become without commenting on either one. Without changing that balance.
That was what it came down to in the end. Perhaps she was picking out of fear, instead of based on the potential each promised. But right now, it felt right.
The light that had exploded out of the gem rushed into her, its green sheen shifting to lilac as it disappeared into her skin before fading out entirely. The light was accompanied by a rush of energy. Different than a level-up. Less solid? More nebulous? It was more like a promise for the future than a reward right now.
And just as suddenly as it started, it ended again. Nothing had changed except, that her status screen now said:
Concepts:
[- Wind
- Hearth
- Liminal]
“Is that it?” Cass asked when nothing else happened.
Alyx nodded. “You have never used a Gem before?”
Cass shook her head.
“That wasn’t your first Concept was it?”
Cass shook her head again.
Alyx raised an eyebrow. “Were the earlier ones (…) then? Or did you (cook?) them yourself?”
Cass shrugged. She didn’t know what any of that meant.
“Fair enough,” Alyx said. “Anyway, I think that’s everything for us here. We should get going.”
Cass tried to think of any other reasons to loiter. Anything to stall until Salos woke up, but she didn’t have any ideas. They were both as healed up as they could expect to be from the Angel’s Grace and the Safe Zone, their resources refilled. They’d looted what could be looted. It was time to get moving.