Eris’s eyes narrowed at the foggy figure. It stood up. When it did, it seemed to be distorted- like a curved mirror amplifying the smallest of movements in wild ways to create a completely different image. Eris couldn’t tell whether it was six feet tall or twenty.
Time is dwindling. The Hollow encroaches.
“I know,” Eris said tentatively. “That’s what we all sign up for. We’re trying to stop it.”
It is closer than you think. You must fight the corruption. Such is your oath to the lost. Those that give their fleeting power.
Eris raised an eyebrow. “The lost? Are you talking about the gods?”
The figure seemed to shake its head. Or it nodded. Eris genuinely couldn’t tell- the distortion made its movements impossible to truly define.
There are no deities anymore. We died long ago.
“Yeah, I kno- wait… ‘we?’ Who are you, exactly?”
Nothing more than a memory. A plea. A will to continue left after our existence faded.
Eris shook her head. “You aren’t making sense. What in the world are you talking about?”
The figure held silent and still for a moment. It flickered slightly- like a candle blowing gently in a breeze.
I am Demeri. Goddess of fate.
“You mean like… Demeri the Augur? Half of the Oculus?”
This time, the nod was more clear.
In a sense. I am the ghost that was left behind. I am what remains of the Seven. I am that to which you bind your oath, and that which grants strength to those who pledge.
Eris paused. She wasn’t quite sure how she managed to keep talking. All of this was too… weird. “Hold on, you’re saying that you give everyone their classes?”
Indeed. It is a task I have maintained for as long as I am able, but my time has come. I am fading. I must return to the Stream.
Eris raised an eyebrow. “How does that even work? You’re dying, but you’re already dead?”
It is not a death, but a lack of existence. The Seven faded, and Demeri left behind this ghost to ensure the world would survive. I am temporary, and too, am fading. I have sustained myself and Gifted strength for as long as I could but my power has been exhausted. I am no longer.
Eris shifted uncomfortably between her feet. “Are you sure? You still look pretty… ghosty to me.”
The noise that occurred was strange. It was almost like a laugh mixed with a cough- yet again put through the weird kind-of-underwater distortion with the rest of Demeri’s words.
You do not perceive me. You can only sense me. In front of you is no more than my shadow cast from a different perception of reality. What you hear is a vibration. I could manipulate the world directly once, but no longer. The only reason we can communicate now is because you sent yourself here, halfway between Tonshlur and the Stream.
“I have so many questions.”
My deepest apologies, Hope, but we are out of time. You will be my instrument of cleansing for whom I’ve been waiting. You will rid Tonshlur of the Hollow. You must. In you I place my final wish. You are the last of the Echoes. The final Gifted.
Warmth started seeping into Eris’s chest like she had started chugging a mug of hot chocolate. At the same time, the shadow of Demeri’s ghost was becoming thinner- less defined. Instead of fog, it was a colourful mist.
“Woah, woah- wait! What’s going on?”
Which sin do you choose?
Eris blinked, not quite comprehending because she was too busy focusing on the way her skin was glowing even brighter than before. “What?”
Everything has its equal. Action braced with reaction, power with impotence. The greatest good must be tempered with the deepest sin. A mortal cannot handle this energy without it being diluted first. You must embrace a sin into which this energy may be catalyzed.
Eris’s mind was fuzzy. This was all happening so fast. “What do you mean, ‘embrace a sin’? Are you talking about the sins of like… lust and stuff?”
The sin of Lust has been chosen as the catalyst.
“Wait, I didn’t mean-”
Eris was cut off by a deep, powerful throbbing in her chest like her heart was about to explode. She fell to her knees on the cold, glassy floor. The mist in front of her was barely a few glittering sparkles hovering in the air at this point. When the voice returned, it was no more than a whisper.
Continue the cycle, Soul of Hope.
Eris’s eyes fluttered open and she gasped for breath. Her lungs immediately filled with the water in which her face was sunken into. She flailed backwards and immediately started hacking the fluid out of her system. Her back hit marble floors but didn’t linger. She managed to push herself onto hands and knees, retching while the water of the Basin spewed from her lips.
There was a lot of it, too. Far more than should have been reasonable with her one, quick breath. Buckets of clear, slightly-glittering liquid poured like an open faucet as Eris heaved a truly impossible amount out of her body. Everything hurt. Her head throbbed with the worst migraine of her life, her heart pounded against the inside of her chest like an animal in a cage eight sizes too small, and her stomach was roiling with the movements of her diaphragm- upchucking copious quantities of sparkle-water.
By the time that the liquid seemed to have been fully expelled from her body, Eris was covered in sweat. The water covered the entire floor, and the only reason it didn’t build up any noticeable amount was because of a small drain that Eris just now noticed in one corner. As for the Basin itself, it appeared as if it were untouched. Eris somehow inhaled half a bathtub’s worth of water, yet it was just as full as when Eris first walked into the room- right on the teetering edge of overflowing. Furthermore, something felt off.
Her clothes didn’t fit quite right. They were a bit too small. Too tight. The button on the front of her jeans had broken off completely, and the fabric was stretched to an uncomfortable limit. Looking down, she remembered why. Jaxie and Alex’s bodies both changed slightly after their Gifting. Receiving a class also gifts the perfect body of the recipient, the best version of themselves. Their changes were relatively subtle- they were already damn near perfect.
For Eris, the changes were less inconspicuous.
Most noticeably, her entire figure had narrowed down. Although many elements of practicing to become an Artisan were physically taxing, they were nowhere near the kinds of workouts that Jaxie and Alex did. As such, Eris had a little bit more skin on her bones. That extra mass was gone, and the lack of weight was noticeable. Eris felt stronger, more capable. She also took up a little bit more of the space above the water. Whereas previously Eris had to stand on tiptoes to break five foot, she was now willing to bet that she soared past that milestone by several inches. She still wasn’t tall- not even close- but at least she wasn’t abnormally short anymore. Her hair, which had been tied back in a simple ponytail to keep it out of the way, had gotten free. It was obvious why when Eris looked down into her reflection atop the water- because it was a fraction of the length.
It used to be orange waves of pale fire that tumbled down over her shoulders and got tangled in absolutely everything. Now, it barely hung below her ears- even the colour had intensified. Pastel peach had darkened to a sharp scarlet, as bright as if it had been dyed. Furthermore, the deterioration of her body from speaking the oath without submerging in the Basin had completely receded and then some. The green eyes that stared back were now glittering emeralds instead of lawn clippings. Her cheeks had narrowed as well, the child-like roundness of Eris’s face fading completely. Even with a new splattering of freckles, like someone had lightly spraypainted her face with caramel, she looked elegant. Eris couldn’t help it. She blushed.
She was hot.
But what about everything else? Her class, her skills… what did that Demeri-ghost-thing do to her? Not a single question had been answered, and ten thousand more were flooding in to join them. Though, there should be a way to satiate some of those questions. She just needed to figure out how to access it.
Eris cleared her mind, thinking back to how Jaxie and Alex described the process. They said it was a lot easier than they thought it would be. They were under-exaggerating.
Opening her stat window was just as easy as if Eris wished to lift a finger. No, it was easier. There were no muscles involved, no physical movement. It was a will of the mind, a single, teeny-tiny errant twitch to bring up her details and nothing more. Instantly, words flashed across her mind. There was no visible form to them since they were only thoughts, yet Eris could practically see the information hanging in front of her face as clearly as if she were reading from a page.
Name: Eris Limeen Kadell
Age: 18
Class: Artificer of Lust
Level: 1
Vitality: F-
Physical Defence: F-
Magical Defence: F-
Tenacity: F-
Strength: F-
Dexterity: F-
Mind: F-
Control: F+
Craftsmanship: E-
Skills: 7
Artificer’s Cunning {Passive} {Maxed}
You are the foremost expert when it comes to items. You may Inspect unknown materials and items. When Inspecting a crafted object, you receive additional information about it. Information includes:
Material construction
Current durability
The crafter’s name
Active magical effects
Novice Artificer {Passive} {Level 1}
You have a natural talent for crafting. Any product you craft gains a {25%} bonus to its Quality, applied after all other bonuses.
Crafting Points {Passive} {Level 1}
You have {10} Crafting Points, which you may spend on certain abilities while in the process of crafting. When beginning a new craft, current number of Crafting Points resets to {10}.
Resilience {Active} {Level 1}
For each Crafting Point spent on Resilience, the Durability of the craft is increased by {10%}. Consumable crafts, such as potions or food, have their Duration increased instead.
Pacifist {Passive} {Maxed}
You cannot directly bring harm to any creature, monster, or person.
Desire’s Reap {Passive} {1}
Engage in sexual acts with others to collect Desire. Desire is collected in the following ways;
Kissing
Additional Desire is collected based on the arousal of the active participant(s). Current Desire: 0
Enhance {Active} {Maxed}
Expend collected Desire to advance skill progression.
Eris knelt in stunned silence for several moments. By the gods, where to start? Nowhere in particular seemed especially inviting as a place to begin, so Eris opted to work her way from the top down.
Class: Artificer of Lust
Those few words had a lot to unpack. An Artificer? There was no way. The entire class was extinct and had been for four hundred years, just like the rest of the Mythic classes. Paladins, Lycanthropes, Warlocks, and many more beyond that. Those were the classes of the old world. The blessings bestowed upon mortals when the gods were still alive. Their power and influence was said to be so great that they were second only to the Seven themselves- like an echo following in their footsteps. Thus, that’s what they were called- the Echoes of the Seven.
The classes nowadays were nothing even close to the rumoured strength of the Echoes. A tenth-level Berserker from today could level a building. A tenth-level Paladin Echo could wipe an entire city block off the map- if not the city itself.
As for the Artificers? They were the crafters. The builders of the old world, capable of making items so powerful they break the fundamentals of reality. But Eris’s mind was drawn to somewhere else.
An Artificer… of Lust?
What the crap was that supposed to mean? Of course, Eris knew what it meant. Her silent question was more of the rhetorical variety. It was simply too odd to fully grasp the concept of. She was a crafter.
A… sex crafter.
Desperate to move on, Eris scanned over her stats. Everything was an F-, the lowest rank. Eris had to remind herself that was normal. From what she read, a value of F- in a stat meant there were no magical bonuses being applied. It was a standard, ordinary human value. Typically, a person with a class only received a higher ‘grade’ in their primary stats, or the ones actively used by their class. For example, Jaxie had stated that as a Berserker, her primary stats were Vitality, Physical Defence, Tenacity, and Strength, and thus were her only stats that weren’t F-.
Eris looked at her two stats: Control and Craftsmanship. Of course, those were the only ones she expected to see with a bonus, so at least that part of her overall kit didn’t surprise her. Control measured a crafter’s speed when making items, as well as their material efficiency. It still blew Eris away that a high-level crafter with a very good Control could somehow turn fifty pounds of raw material into twice that weight of finished product in a matter of minutes. Craftsmanship was simpler, at least. It did one thing and one thing only- determined the overall Quality of the finished product.
An F+ and E-, respectively. Perfectly standard for first level, actually.
But then there were the skills.
Artificer’s Cunning was intriguing. It seemed like a specialised version of Crafter’s Cunning, which was a skill that every crafter always received, no matter their class. Eris knew that it did one thing, which was allow the crafter to Inspect unknown materials and items.
If a person didn’t already have a vague idea of what something was, then Inspecting it supposedly revealed little to no information. Most importantly, that meant special items. A person picking up a random ring from the Obelisk wouldn’t be able to figure out what stats it affected or enchantments it had without testing it first. Crafters were the exception. Even if they had no idea what something was or could be, a single Inspect would lay it all out on the table.
Eris’s came with benefits beyond that. Learning more information about anything was invaluable for anyone in the Syndicate- especially a crafter. Only a fool wouldn’t be able to see the advantages of that.
Novice Artificer. A passive twenty-five percent bonus to the Quality of all Eris’s crafts? At least that part seemed pretty standard for an Artisan. That last part caught Eris up, though. ‘Applied after all other bonuses’? Usually, any kinds of bonuses like that were cumulative. This was explicitly multiplicative. In other words- inherently stronger than anything else Eris had ever heard of.
At least Crafting Points and Resilience seemed to be perfectly normal. Kind of. While spellcasters had Mana that they used to fuel their spells, crafters had Crafting Points. It looked like Eris only had one way to spend them, right now. Ten points, with each giving a ten percent bonus to Durability? It didn’t matter that Durability was one of the least important parts of an item since repairs were so easy. Straight-up doubling it was still nothing to scoff at. The added fact that Quality improved everything in an item meant that Eris could double an item’s Durability, add the bonuses of her stats, and then multiply that total with Novice Artificer. Whatever resulting item would be very tough to crack.
For a first-level item, at least.
Eris sighed and rested her hands on her lap. Pacifist. Eris had never heard of any skill that had no positive benefits whatsoever. Even the ‘worst’ skills had their downsides amplify something in return. An Evoker that could triple the Mana cost of their spells for twenty percent extra Power? A Duelist that had reduced Vitality but increased Dexterity?
From what Eris could tell, there was no benefit here. This was a strict, one-hundred percent limitation. A complete inability to cause any harm.
What exactly did that imply? Even though she wouldn’t be the one fighting, causing harm was still quite ingrained into the life of crafters. Most of them built weapons, after all. The skill said ‘cannot directly bring harm’, which supposedly meant that it only extended to Eris and not whomever she may provide a weapon to. Still, the very minimum of the skill made one thing very clear- if Eris was ever in danger and nobody was around to protect her, she was probably going to die.
She shuddered. Then, naturally, her face went hot at the next skills. The duo of Desire’s Reap and Enhance.
Eris was supposed to… engage in sexual acts so that she could build some extra resource called Desire, and then spend that Desire to advance her skill progression?
What the crap?
Disregarding the whole sex part was one thing, but skill progression was something completely unheard of. Skills were skills. They never got stronger individually, only stronger in proportion to the level of the user. Yet Eris was staring right at it- a slew of skills that could supposedly become stronger.
Artificer’s Cunning, Pacifist and Enhance all said that their levels were {Maxed}. Eris could safely assume that meant she couldn’t spend Desire to advance their progression. That left four skills to work with.
Novice Artificer, Crafting Points, Resilience and Desire’s Reap. Three skills to increase Eris’s crafting ability and one skill for gathering Desire to make the aforementioned skills more powerful.
A skill that required kissing.
What was going on?