The Tattoo Summoner [System Apocalypse]

Will this work?

Tanya started pacing, she stared down at the tattoo on her left forearm. It was a hand from the wrist up, only lineart for the hand shape with long black nails.

She'd always loved hands, ever since she gossiped with her friends about the boys with the hottest hands at high school—that memory made her cringe so hard she involuntarily scrunched her face. All her friends had always bitched about them in art class and how they could never draw them right but she'd loved how expressive they could be on their own. They were doodled down the margins of most of her class books.

It hadn't helped that she'd spent all her tween years trying to be a clone of Wednesday Addams and The Thing was her second favourite character.

System, can I make a Summon outta an old tattoo?

By tattooing over the lines of an existing tattoo, you can create a version of that tattoo that is a Summon. It would overwrite the existing tattoo.

Note: going over tattoos lessens the time and Dexterity needed for the Summon, but it increases the Vitality and Will.

Tanya slammed her hands down on the table in front of her with excitement. Increased Vitality would be perfect for this new Ability because of Amped Up.

Am I sure this'd be useful enough?

She paced again, quicker this time. Her living room wasn't exactly big so she was spinning to go back the way she came pretty frequently and it was making her a bit dizzy.

Well as a tool it's probably most useful. Sooner or later, I'm gonna have trouble reachin' bits of me own body to tattoo—unless I get somethin' to fix that. Oi, System, can you tell me if I'll get an Ability for that later?

Error: Restricted information.

Thought so.

She imagined the hand, a perfect replica of her own, tattooing on the back of her leg. In her mind it had even cleaner lines than her, freeing her to just worry about the Vitality and Will aspects of it. It also helped her a lot with the pain; she'd been nervous about tattooing herself and not messing a line up by flinching ever since she heard how her powers worked.

Then as a weapon, it could help me fight from a distance. Gotta make sure it's got loads of Vitality, like the snake. And that's the best bit—it'll level up quick, so hopefully I can stat it out 'til it can do loads for me.

She pictured a bunch more scenarios as she sketched the hands in different situations, she knew she didn't need to but it helped her get her head around her intentions for it. The fact that she'd designed the original helped too. It was a position she'd drawn lots of hands in over the years, upside down with fingers and thumb splayed out as if holding a crystal ball. It had felt only right to get it as one of her early tattoos. She wasn't very attached to it being overwritten either, the lines were starting to bleed a little. Wracking her brain to remember who did it she settled on the blurry face of one of her apprentice friends back in Brighton.

Thinking of her emotional tattoos brought her eye down to the knife on the inside of her wrist, the one she'd tried to summon in the fight. Cold sharp metal ran over her back in her memory. The bite marks were still there in the same place on the other side. She clenched her teeth remembering the clamping pain of its jaw…

She didn't want to see either of them right now so she pulled on a pair of fingerless gloves and continued drawing.

Outta sight outta mind.

The more situations she drew the more excited she got. She imagined it like a Dungeons and Dragons mage hand—floating around picking locks and opening dungeons. Except, unlike a mage hand hers could carry heavy things for her and fight for her too. Not that she even knew if there were dungeons. She added that to her very long 'Questions I could ask The System' list.

Emotive. That's another thing I want.

She drew a bunch more sketches of it in various poses, tapping its fingers in thought and bracing itself like a tarantula when it was annoyed. The funniest to her was it floating in the air admiring its own nails. She fished some gnarled coloured pencils out of the drawer and scribbled on a different colour to each nail.

Tanya could already tell she was going to have a friend here—an assistant.

I like that. Me assistant.

* * *

A couple of hours later Tanya was sifting through dozens of sketches on her dining room table. It had been a long time since she'd drawn on paper with the convenience of her tablet and despite worrying about electricity being her reasoning, it was a freeing feeling.

Setting up her tattoo gear reminded her of trying out her first gun on pigskin in her dining room; she'd not tattooed outside of her shop in years, well, aside from Fahad. She absentmindedly glanced in the direction of their flat, only just seeing a sliver of their brick out her window.

I hope they're doin' alright.

Tanya was very thankful she had the gun on her already because even with a cool sentient hand on the line she wasn't sure she'd be able to force herself back into the shop. Although the longer she left it the worse it would get, more and more rotten flesh—

Not now. Tomorrow, maybe.

Right now she had better things to think about, like this tattoo coming to life. Her smile grew and then wavered.

System, can I make sure a tattoo don't hurt me?

Yes.

How d'you do that then?

Make it clear in your intentions whilst tattooing.

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Intentions huh?

System, I wanna pick me level up now. I want Amped up.

* * *

Level up!

You have chosen Amped Up.

Amped up is a Consumable Ability.

Would you like to activate Amped Up?

* * *

Yes.

And in an instant her body changed.

She felt stronger—not in a physical way though. It reminded her of the feeling of adrenaline dulling pain after falling over. She froze where she was sat, waiting for something to change, something to hurt. Then she realised why.

I don't hurt. I don't…nothin'?

It felt like silence. She'd never realised before how uncomfortable having a body was; the groove of the lip of the chair digging into her leg, the slight ache behind her eyes from staring into the light so long, a pulling feeling in her leg from sprinting so fast earlier. And that was only what she could notice. Every part of her body was floating in space. She clenched her nails into her hands and she couldn't feel them—only she could. It took her a few seconds but then she felt it, like a faraway nail barely touching her skin at all. She unclenched her hand and the deep etch in her palm from her nails healed before her eyes.

She slapped her thigh and it was like a tap. No, it wasn't like floating or adrenaline, it was topical numbing cream like before a tattoo. It was everywhere and it was incredibly weird.

"System, surely not feeling pain is bad?" She wondered aloud. She didn't even feel her lips touching.

For better awareness of your pain, further your Concentration.

Tanya blinked slowly. She couldn't feel that either.

But it was Vitality what caused it?

* * *

Vitality

Your life force and stamina, influence both your health and mana. Vitality determines your overall resilience and energy pool.

* * *

But that doesn't mention pain at—

It all clicked into place. Attributes worked together. The System was trying to explain to her that if she wanted more awareness of what was happening in her body, she'd need to up her Concentration to match it more.

It was at that moment Tanya realised how advanced this system was. This wasn't some MMORPG where she could ditch all her levelling up into the "magic stat," it was a system that knew it was portraying a flawed representation of capabilities and had balanced that as well as it could into set headings.

* * *

Alert!

Through your efforts, you have increased the following Attributes:

+1 Concentration

* * *

Tanya snorted and then collapsed onto her knees laughing. She didn't feel it and that made the whole thing even funnier. Laughing until she was sure usually her stomach would hurt, Tanya got back to her feet and focused on Concentration.

Is anything different?

She wasn't certain but she thought so. It was like her brain delved into ideas a tiny bit faster after she thought of them. It was a shame she hadn't checked sooner after the snake incident. She wasn't able to remember what her body felt like before anymore so she couldn't compare.

Right, back on topic— Intentions.

Tanya reasoned that splitting her focus between too many intentions would probably allow each to come through less so she decided on three. She wanted her hand to not harm her, to be dexterous, and to be emotive. Not harming her was an obvious one, Dexterity was the main focus of how she wanted to use it, and emotiveness had started to become really important to her through the sketches. If the hand couldn't communicate to her it would lose all of its ability to scout but it also just unsettled her, this robotic thing on her body that wasn't able to communicate as it got more powerful and hopefully more intelligent. That and she thought that it was somehow important for tattooing, although she struggled to word why. Being able to express herself was the core of tattooing for her and a perfectly dextrous emotionless hand didn't embody that.

With those thoughts fresh in her mind, Tanya began tattooing. She traced the lines one by one, deciding against changing any of the original design seeing as she was so used to having it there.

Don't harm me. Be dexterous. Be emotive.

Slowly, line by line, the new version took shape. Now that she could take her time, she could stare at each peculiarity of the tattoo. It was beautiful. She held her arm up to her eye under the multiple reading lamps she'd moved to tattoo. It had cables trailing all over the place but finally gave her the lighting she was used to from downstairs—as well as looking like one of those stereotypical movie interrogation rooms. Right under the light, she saw the way the ink shimmered, white and pink and teal blotches at the edges, somewhere between a reflection and the way the edge of the ink dispersed in her skin.

Then she felt a wave of panic.

Wait—System, is magic ink supposed to change colours?

Applying magic to any human activity can create harmless sensory effects as well as changes to its practicality, changes to its form, and the risk of property damage, injury, and death.

That voice—it sounds exactly like that bloody train announcement tellin' ya not to flush hopes dreams and goldfish down the bog.

It wasn't very comforting, but she supposed at least she'd used an intention and the colourful ink would probably be there whether she'd receive injury or death or not so she might as well enjoy it whilst it lasted.

Tanya let herself get swept up in the tattoo, she'd traced a few tattoos in her time, usually just because over time the ink had started to bleed and a new thinner layer could get them looking new again. Something was soothing about tattooing this design, something she'd drawn so many times before. Seeing the stencil laid down had been special, but this was something else.

Normally touch-ups crisped up the design, but in this case, she could tell the existing lines were vanishing as she drew her new ones. All the more reason to make this as perfect as it could be. Her lips parted slightly as she went around a curve, her tongue touching the back of her top teeth. She didn't notice until she looked up and saw her reflection in her kettle.

Tanya added line after steady line between constant hunger pangs. In each short break, she'd dash to her cupboards and fridge and pick something out with a short date that she could do without. It was changing her food plan but to heck with that, if the strange tattoo magic made her crave food despite giving her no clue about any other sensation then she'd trust it and eat.

An hour passed and the buzzing of the last line filled the air, then the noise stopped and she placed the tattoo gun down on the table next to her. There was no light this time, barely any noise at all except for the gentle whooshing of wind. It fluttered her hair around her face and pulled all of the air out of her lungs. She wasn't sure if that was some effect from the tattoo being complete or if it was the Vitality draining because she suddenly felt like she'd been hit by a freight train.

Her leg twinged again. Her eyes ached more than they'd ever ached before.

Did you even bloody blink?

Tanya couldn't remember. Every muscle in her body was stiff. Moving them hurt as bad as getting the cast off her broken arm after 6 weeks, it hadn't mattered that it was healed because keeping it still had left it so static that every movement was like breaking it all over again.

She wanted to go to bed but there was no way she could move. Inch by inch, she leant over the table, until her cheek was pressed against it. Lying on a table wasn't at all comfortable but moving to lie down was so much worse.

Tanya cursed the plus one to Concentration, begging for the Vitality to return and take the pain away from her. Sleep came slowly. She heard each tick of the clock on the wall as she welcomed the faraway myth of sleep.

When sleep finally took her, she dreamed of the hand tattoo, the graceful pose of the illustration lingering until the darkness took over.