Bound Evil

“Emily, SwordsWoman is still your best choice. It offers the most immediate benefits!”

“No thanks, I’ve told you I don’t like swinging a stick of metal around. I can’t make that more more clear.”

Alex sighed and sat down on the chair in her room.

“Then, I don’t know. Cyclum touched is out, because, and I Quoet. ‘they’re a douche’, and Performer has little offensive ability unless your bridge is red or black. Don’t even get me started on Godstriken or Scarlet sister”

When the two of them had returned from their night adventure, Alex had joined Emily in her room to go over her choices again

In the morning they planned to head out as they already had everything they needed but right now all they were doing was going in circles.

“Look, I’ll have another look at my favorites and go from there, but this isn’t helping. What about you? You're an Explorer, right? What's that like?”

Alex’s brows drew together at the sudden shift in conversation, melancholy plastered on his face.

“... My active title was my first real choice, being an Explorer used to mean everything to me. That's why I would have liked to give you more time to think this through, sadly we don’t have that luxury now.”

Emily shifted on the bed, seeing a gap in his armor.

“Used to?”

Alex got up and went to stand near the hearth eyes falling on Emily.

“...yeah, used to. Sometimes what we want to do, and need to do are too far apart. When I get to rank twenty-five I plan on changing my active title.”

“To what?”

“Whatever looks the most useful at the time.”

Emily frowned at this, something about that didn’t sit right with her, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.

Alex suddenly looked a lot more thoughtful and when he realized they hadn’t spoken for a couple of minutes, he cleared his throat.

“Alright, I’m going to go, forget what I said earlier. Pick whatever feels right, just make sure it's what you want. I’ll see you in the morning. ”

Emily watched quietly as Alex left the room.

As the door shut, she realized what was bothering her. Alex had placed great importance on her choosing the right title, even equating titles to lifelong paths. For someone to say that and seemingly care so little about their own titles was strange to Emily.

She wasn’t about to go after the guy, the likelihood of him being even remotely cooperative were zero, so she filed it away for later.

Sitting on the bed Emily glanced over to her nearby pack. Reaching down she pulled it onto the bed with her and dumped its contents out on the soft surface.

Her treasures came tumbling out. A coin purse, broach, a vial, a change of clothes, sticks of glittering chalk, and her book.

They would divide the traveling gear tomorrow, so she would have more to carry then, but what caught her eye now was the book from the illusionist.

She’d looked over it once before but had never managed to make heads or tails of it.

The book looked to be a simple leatherbound notebook and inside the ink was reddish against the crisp pages.

There were hundreds of symbols and strange-looking formations littering the book along with neat writing in the columns.

The longer Emily stared at the little mystery, the more she wanted to decipher it.

Her love for science had landed her in this situation in the first place, how different could magic be?

It was a completely new system of understanding, and she’d be lying if she’d said she wasn’t interested.

In this world, magic was understandable and had rules, which meant she could learn how to use it, and that excited her to no end.

There was just one thing standing in her path now. The inability to read.

Even more frustratingly, this body already knew how. It was just a matter of finding the right memories.

Emily let her fingertips trail over the smooth leather tome.

Just a peak couldn’t hurt that much, could it?

Closing her eyes Emily rightened herself and began her breathing exercises.

Sinking into that calm darkness, she stopped herself from entering the world of stars and just floated there for a while. Gradually moving towards the corner of her mind where the large set of doors that held Eve’s memories rested.

With a thought, the doors slowly began to creak open, allowing a steam of decaying consciousness to escape.

Making sure to rein it in, Emily gingerly lowered herself towards the torrent of memories. Immediately, the foreign memories pressed in from all sides, writhing against her mental walls. Like worms attempting to burrow into her mind and sweep her away.

Emily resisted against the current, holding on for as long as possible.

She was fishing for a particular quarry, and while waiting for a bite, it felt like countless bees were trying to find a way into her protective suit.

Then a particularly old and powerful memory surfaced at the end of her line.

Without waiting she reeled it in and Emily felt her world shift.

The room was small and covered in layers of grime and dust. The smell of rotting wood and sweet perfume assaulted her nostrils.

The room had a bundle of material in the corner that, if one was being generous, they could call a bed. Other than that, it was bare, save for the window that let in a small amount of moonlight, allowing Eva to see the skyline of the lower districts. Downstairs, music lulled its way from the parlor where her mother was currently entertaining the men.

But none of that mattered right now. Eva had a secret that no one could know, not even her mom.

Using her small hands to pull the mattress aside, she pulled up the creaky floorboard and reached into her hiding hole, withdrawing a partly crumbled page of fancy cream paper. It was a flyer she’d picked up near the main street.

Now, by the light of the moon, she could just make out the words again: “Reward offered for inform…ation regar… the location of the ‘silent Murderer.’”

There was a detailed image of the man along with a reward of ten whole pentagons. That was more money than she had seen in her whole life.

There were other words on the page, but she didn’t know how to sound them out yet. The reason why Eva was so excited was because this man had been staying in the brothel for the last three days. If she could notify the Guards, her mom would get the reward money, and they would be set forever and ever.

Getting up from their mattress, Eva snuck downstairs and out into the night. The details began to blur at this stage, but not before she felt the heavy weight of regret burning at the edges of the memory. How Eva wished she had never found that flyer, or gone to the guard station, or even that her mom had taught her to read in the first place. At least then, she’d still be alive.

Emily pulled herself from the memory while panting, sweat running down her neck and back.

Eva couldn’t have been older than nine or ten at that stage, she couldn’t have known. Emily couldn’t help but feel a sense of kinship with the woman. Eva had been born into the world kicking and screaming, and just like Emily, had to fight for her right to survive.

Emily wanted to keep on going, but it was too dangerous right now. Anymore and Emily would struggle to tell herself apart from Eva.

She’d made sure to fight against the child's memories, but they still lingered in her mind like a drop of dye in water.

It would take a while to purge the foreign emotions, but at least Emily had gotten what she needed, sort of.

To say she could now read would be a stretch but she’d managed to separate Eva’s knowledge on a basic level. Giving her the reading level of about a nine-year-old.

It may not sound like much but it was a start.

After repeating her breathing techniques a couple more times to steady herself. Emily spent the next couple of hours trying to break into the notebook.

To be honest, she only recognized every fifth word, but the longer she kept at it more of a feel she got for it.

As far as she could tell blood magic was about building a ‘life source’ as they termed it, inside themselves. Instead of drawing from one of the five other sources.

Which were Red, Green, Yellow, and Blue and the last one was a duality of black and white. Each one represents an integral part of this world. Emily did wonder why there were five colors, as she’d seen six entities in that place, but honestly, she wasn't too interested in that at the moment

As far as she could tell, blood mages were working with other’s life force similarly to how she manipulated her own.

The difference was that they needed the rituals if they wanted to recharge their source, and as far as she could tell they had severe limits on how much life force they could hold at once.

The more she managed to make out from the book, the more she recognized just how well Blood Mage synergized with her natural abilities.

When Emily was ready, she sunk into the world of stars, each trip here getting easier to accomplish.

When the collections of stars came to greet her. Emily smiled at them. Causing the world to shake in anticipation.

They knew.

Some of them were getting picked tonight, and they were ecstatic.

Emily sat down on the grass, but she didn’t relax all the way this time.

Putting a bend in her index finger, Emily called two titles down.

Less than half a dozen stars began to dance around her, all the while the rest of them rushed around with restless energy, even though they weren't being considered.

Void plagued and Scarlet sister hovered in front of Emily, willing her to stare deeper into them, but she resisted. Of the six stars here, five were red and the single one was an undulating violet.

As they glittered in front of her, Emily tried to get a better handle on their pros and cons.

She’d chosen these two because she felt they matched her the best and –except for Cyclum touched – were by far the most powerful in terms of combat.

Void plagued was raw power that seemed like it would offer Emily the most abilities, and yet it would probably make her beholden to another entity.

On the other hand, Scarlet sister offered less upfront but gave her a true sense of freedom.

Unlike the solitary Blood mage, there was still an aspect of unity tied into the title. Because of this, Emily wasn’t sure how she felt about the title. She hated relying on anyone other than herself, so then why was the title so alluring?

It was a gamble either way.

Once all the options were out there, the choice was not hard. Making a flicking motion, the single star shot back up into the sky, leaving the others behind.

Which had been lazily orbiting Emily, but when she called them to her palm, they rushed there all at once.

Five brilliant dots of red light floated there, each giving off waves of light.

Emily closed her fist around them trapping them in her grasp and calling to them to fill her active title.

There was a large burst of radiance in her closed fist as information began to pour into her mind. Unlike the passive title, she could feel the presence of something larger than herself as she aligned herself with a long and twisting path ahead.

All around Emily, the stars screamed with joy as the world danced with blazing trails. The spinning in the skies above sped up and the pinpicks of light became streaks of power.

Her fist shook as the five stars in her hand imparted their knowledge and then as though pulled from her hand, they shot back up into the skies. Slamming into the center of the space and releasing a ripple of crimson power.

Burning themselves into the dark canvas as a permanent constellation.

The speeding stars around it scattered like embers from a flame and rushed to the front to begin forming words.

The Scarlet sister’s path has opened to you.

Rank 1 - New features

Life conduit - Excess life energy given off by living creatures naturally gravitates towards the Scarlet sister, allowing her to fill up her life source. This feature deactivates when the Scarlet sister’s reserves are full.

and

Blood dagger - the signature technique of the Blood mage. Allowing one to enhance the piercing power of a dagger with their blood. The strength of this feature is determined by how much life source is used.

Curse in effect!

Result: The feature Blood daggers had been destroyed.

“My blood for the people, for the people are my blood.”