An Unborn Hero

Hayedalf swore as a large gemstone forcefully shattered, showering the room in crystal shards. Once the clattering had stopped, he lowered the arm he had protectively raised in front of his face, saw what little remained of his previous week's work, and swore again.

The exploding gem had obliterated the detailed mana circuitry he'd spent days etching into the mythril. Not to mention that the mythril would have been contaminated, and needed to be thrown out. Tens of gold coins worth of materials destroyed, on top of the time wasted, just because the gemstone couldn't handle the power. Had it been flawed in some way he hadn't noticed? Had he underestimated the power flow, and the gem simply not been up to the task?

But where was he to get a higher quality gem?

"It was a pity we couldn't strip that pair of dragons..." he muttered to himself. "Surely they would have had... useful... materials...?"

His thoughts stuttered as another strand of consciousness interrupted with the obvious question: what dragons? He'd never encountered one dragon, let alone a pair. He'd never gone far from the capital, after all, and a dragon anywhere near the capital would have been major news.

Heck, for the previous year, he hadn't been outside his tower.

A third strand of thought asked where his food and materials were coming from, if he'd never left the tower, but was promptly dismissed. That sort of question wasn't important; food turning up from nowhere was perfectly normal.

With a glance at a growing pile of laundry, and an insincere promise that he would deal with it tomorrow, or the day after, or next week at the latest, he sat back down at his desk, staring at the detailed sheets of parchment on which he had drawn his designs. Brushing off the thin veneer of fresh crystal dust, he stared at a magnified blueprint of the gem mounting, willing it to give up its secrets and tell him why it hadn't worked.

He was so close. Just one more hurdle, one more problem to overcome, and the rest would be plain sailing. A golem, but not just any golem. The shell was designed to look human, or as close as he could get, but the insides were something truly special. Not in terms of dexterity or raw power—it had plenty of both, but neither on the level worthy of an Artefact. No, what made the design special was the control interface.

This was a golem designed to be directly piloted by an astral projecting soul. Not just controlled by it, but enclosing and protecting it. It wouldn't just shield the otherwise vulnerable soul from external attack, but also protect it from the inherent degradation that came from being outside of a container. Or, looked at another way, it was the container.

The possibilities of such a device were endless. Someone paralysed in a way that couldn't be healed could regain their freedom. Soldiers could punch far above their skills. It could even conquer old age.

Of course, to become an Artefact, it had to be something utterly unique, so it wasn't as if everyone in need of it would be able to get their hands on one. But that was fine. Lesser versions could be made later, and Hayedalf had someone specific in mind for the Artefact, someone in desperate need of such a thing.

... He couldn't quite recall who it was, but she definitely existed, and looking it up wouldn't do much good when he couldn't make the damn thing work!

He continued to stare at the blueprints for an hour, then carefully examined bits of shrapnel and debris for another, before he worked out the problem. Two power feeds crossing closely enough for inductance to occur. It shouldn't have mattered; they were designed to carry a steady load. But he hadn't accounted for the inrush current during startup. The suddenly increasing flux of mana could cause the pair of feeds to interfere, briefly boosting the flow in one. Not for long, but it didn't need to be. It was enough to cause an overload. And all it took to avoid it was a few grams of extra shielding.

Rebuilding the mounting took days, but it didn't matter. Surely that was the last flaw. This time, it would work.

He didn't stop to eat or sleep, and the time simply flew by. It seemed like mere minutes between when he'd spotted the flaw and when the new mount was ready to accept a fresh gem. Nevertheless, the pile of dirty dishes had grown, as had the laundry, despite the way he could have sworn he hadn't done anything to add to either.

Promising yet again to get around to some housework the moment he had a few moments to spare, he plugged in a new gemstone.

Once again, the construction exploded.

This time, Hayedalf didn't swear. He simply flopped into a chair morosely. Why—no matter how hard he tried, how careful he was, how many times he double and triple checked things—did it never work? Mystery would remain... trapped...

Mystery again?

"Who is she?" he wondered. "Why have I forgotten? Have I been so obsessed with building this thing—with finally creating an Artefact of my own—that I've forgotten my motivation? Perhaps if I find her again, I'll get the inspiration I need to successfully complete my work."

Glancing at the piles of waiting housework once more, and promising he would deal with them the moment he got back, he approached the door of his tower and put his hand on the handle.

"But how am I going to find her?" he thought. "If I was building this for her, and I started over a year ago, is she even still alive?"

The hand slowly withdrew from the handle.

"Mystery can't be a common name. I could at least ask around a bit. Maybe at the temples, if she's ill enough to effectively need a new body?"

The hand re-approached, fighting against a strange resistance as it did so.

"But even if I find her, would she want to see me? If I promised her I'd help and then just vanished for a year, she's not going to be happy."

The hand fell limply to his side as he considered that maybe he should deal with the housework before stepping outside.

... Hell no.

He threw open the door and leapt outside before that thought could worm its way in any further, blinking in the unfamiliar daylight.

And then, as his eyes grew used to the natural light, he stared in utter incomprehension.

He lived in the capital, in the noble district. Strictly speaking, he wasn't a noble himself, but being the best enchanter in the kingdom had some perks. One of them was the right to live in the heart of the city, and another was enough money to afford to live there.

So why, now that he gazed upon the outdoors for the first time in a year, was his tower in the middle of a grassy field, which simply ended in every direction?

It really did end, too. He wandered to an edge and peered down, seeing nothing but blue sky below. Then he lay on his stomach, head over the edge, reaching down and feeling underneath himself, the ground so thin he was practically able to touch his torso. Standing back up, he dug a small pit with his fingers, finding the expected soil beneath and not the vast expanse of nothing that the truncated world suggested.

"Well... That's odd," he opined. "Maybe it's a sign I should just go back in and continue working?"

Going back in simply felt right, somehow. As if he wasn't supposed to be outside. Besides, his workshop had no windows, letting him ignore the strange, truncated field.

But he'd promised that as soon as he went back in, he'd deal with the mountain of housework that had built up.

Staying out for a little longer wouldn't hurt.

Instead, he sat with his legs dangling over the edge of the world, staring off into infinity, wondering why the shrunken world didn't bother him. Surely it should? It wasn't normal to step outside of your tower one day and find the planet was only a hundred metres across. Nothing that big could have happened in the year he'd shut himself away, could it?

There was also another issue implied by his tiny world.

"If I'm the only one here, who's going to use my Artefact?" he wondered aloud. It was still worth finishing it, even if the finished product served no purpose; it wasn't as if he was trying to show off. The only person he needed to prove himself to was himself. Third parties were not required.

The only problem would be proving that it worked.

"Should I learn [Astral Projection] myself?" he wondered. "It's not the most sensible skill in the world, and I risk my occupation switching away from [Master Enchanter] if I muck around with soul stuff, but..."

He paused and frowned as a small incongruity managed to worm its way into his head. Out of all the points of oddness he'd been able to ignore, one finally managed to catch his attention.

"I am mucking around with soul stuff. I have been for the past year! Why in the hells am I making an Artefact that interacts with souls? Don't tell me... Did this 'Mystery' kidnap and brainwash me to work on this for her? Am I locked away in some small pocket dimension or other, to be her own personal crafter? That would explain where the food keeps turning up from..."

This time he did jump up and return to the tower, once again ignoring the housework in favour of pulling out garnets, chunks of obsidian, another ingot of mythril. Everything he needed to build the mother of all spatial disruptors.

It was nice of his captor to provide him with all these tools, he thought, as he scanned the shelving and picked out ingredients for a void shield. It wouldn't do to escape this prison only to get immediately recaptured, after all. Then he added the components for a periapt that would defend against mental manipulation, because he obviously wasn't thinking straight.

A spatial disruptor was a complex bit of work, and a void shield was even worse, but neither came close to being an Artefact. He was done with his work within a day, activating the disruptor, which launched a spherical violet pulse. Where it impacted the tower, walls melted and dripped. Furniture evaporated. The grassy field shattered like a plane of glass, and the sky simply winked out, replaced by an infinite nothingness.

"Where are you?" he snapped, spinning around in the darkness and spotting a group of four girls. "Which one of you is Mystery, you evil kidnappers?"

He thought for a bit, his mind starting to work a little more sensibly having escaped from the dream. "And whichever one you are, you're an idiot. If you weren't so fixated on a human-sized shell, and were happy with something grachen-sized, the power requirements would have been far lower and I wouldn't have had all that trouble powering the soul interface!"

"What?" asked Rose, completely nonplussed.

"I... believe he hasn't noticed that he was trapped in a dream world..." suggested Rrillandral.

"Seriously?" asked Grace. "He managed to escape without even noticing he was dreaming? How is that even possible? Did he accidentally blow his dream up?"

Hayedalf blinked, realising he was still missing something rather important. He had a distinct impression that the four women were allies, even if he couldn't remember their names. Fellow prisoners, rather than the kidnappers?

Also, where did the void shield he'd just made go? And when had he changed clothes?

"I think," opined Rose carefully, "in his case, maybe a kiss is called for."

Kellela, only having just escaped herself, and still acutely feeling the intense loneliness her own dream had left her with, didn't need Rose's advice to charge Hayedalf, wrapping him in a hug. There was indeed kissing.

"... Eww..." whispered Mystery. She didn't even feel relief that the last of the magical girls had escaped. After all, the possibility that they wouldn't had never even crossed her mind, so what was there to be relieved about?

Mystery (Human)

Age: -9 months

Occupation: Hero (L)

Skills:

- Soul's Eye (U) (44/100)

>> Sense Vitality (U)

>> Sense Soul (R)

>> Sense Mana (U)

>> Sense Light (C)

>> Sense Sound (C)

>> Pierce Illusions (U)

>> Sense Miasma (R)

>> Multi-focal (R)

>> Sense Spirit (R)

- Astral Projection (U) (26/60)

>> Sure Navigation (U)

>> Uncontainable (U)

>> Tether of Will (L)

- Robust (C) (31/50)

>> Hardened Soul (R)

>> Secured Mana (U)

>> Pain Tolerance (C)

>> Strengthened Will (U)

- Stealth (C) (3/20)

>> Camouflage Vitality (R)

- Magical Girl Transformation (R) (29/30)

>> Age Correction (R)

>> Gender Bending (R)

- Light (C) (12/20)

>> Heterochrome (U)

- Increased Attributes (C) (11/20)

>> Mana Storage (U)

- Investigation (C) (8/10)

- Cosplay (U) (12/20)

>> Skit (U)

- Mana Absorption (U) (14/30)

>> Drain Mana (U)

>> Conduit (U)

- Translate (U) (11/20)

>> Two Way (U)

- Telepathy (U) (21/40)

>> Reciprocity (U)

>> Empathy (U)

>> Guarded Mind (U)

- Lightning Bolt (U) (8/30)

>> Multishot (U)

>> Continuous Discharge (U)

- Fireball (U) (9/30)

>> Multishot (U)

>> Overcharge (U)

- Wall of Light (U) (1/10)

- Energy Resistance (U) (7/10)

- Recharge (U) (4/10)

Achievements:

- Early Bloomer II (R)

- First Skill (C)

- Adept (U)

- Survivor of Zarklaxxos, the Arcane Infernal (R)

- I Broke The System, And All I Got Was This Lousy Achievement (E)

- Astral Explorer II (E)

- First Spell (C)

- I Broke The System Again, And Now The Administrators Hate Me (E)

- Famous Spell Forger (E)

- Demon Slayer III (E)

- Monster Slayer VI (E)

- Curiosity (U)

- War Veteran (U)

- Royal Audience (C)

- Diligent Hero (L)

- Studious (C)

- Pioneering Guider (E)

- Royal Pervert (R)

- I Couldn't Stop Breaking The System, And Now I've Been Smited (E)

- Royal Corrupter (E)

- Blessed of the Forest (C)

- Artefact Wielder (R)

- Veteran of the Corruption (R)

Artefacts:

- The Vale's Finger