Chương 10: The Soul

I should have made him study magic with me. Then I could just drag him off to one fountainhead after another, build up his affinities, and we'd be fine. Two sorcerers. No, even better, I should have made him study swords more, practice the rapier and saber, get him ready as a swashbuckler. If we were playing this game on the hard difficulty, the least I could do was to push him into an easier playstyle. The character class generator for this game works as a grid.

On the one hand, which playstyle you like: weapons, spells, or skills. On the other hand, what difficulty setting you select: easy, medium, hard. But, that difficulty is not symmetrical. The difficulty setting is basically whether you are going to be receiving an easy version of the warrior story, the mage story, or the rogue story. But those three stories are not equal. The rogue path is always the hardest.

The easiest rogue setting, thief, is still just as hard as the wizard, which is the medium setting for mages. There is no warrior route that is as hard as the medium rogue, the huntsman. Nathan's not playing the game on hard mode, he's got the nastiest version of the game. The spy route is notorious for having situations where you can trap yourself into a bad ending or premature death and not know about it for weeks of game time.

Even if you savescum the game, you can lose dozens of hours of playtime backtracking to before you made the critical mistake. And we're not savescumming. This is ironman style. I got no save slots, I got no pause menu. He's gonna need my help, big-time. I looked up from what I was doing, staring at my hand. Mother and Father were watching me with concern in their eyes, Nathan looked expectant. He knew me best.

"Is everything all right Natalie?" my mother asked. [Natalie Harigold] [Level 1 Sorceress] [Rival] [Strength 2][Stamina 3][Intellect 9][Charisma 4] [HP: 3/3][MP: 9/9] [Essence Gathered: Air, Cotton, Earth, Gold, Marble, Nathan, Oak, Owl, Silk, Steel, Void, Water] [Condition: Untethered Essence (can fully bind Essence 100%, can bind Essence more easily)] I could feel the different essences that I was attuned to. It was like I had new emotions in my mind. Happy, sad, angry, oak, water.

They were an integral part of me. I held my hand out in front of me, and curved the air. Wind began whipping around me, my curled hair and styled skirts tugged and wafted in the wind that was growing stronger by the second. I held out my other hand, and silk streamed out of my fingers, crimson ribbons of woven worm-webs with a delicate, shimmering texture.

The silk caught in the circling wind, a dust devil that surrounded my body, and the trailing ribbons whirled around and around, all but hiding me from view- And then I stopped, and let it all fall down.

"I thought it would be today," I said simply, as if this was rather expected. Mother gasped, Father beamed; he scooped me up like I was his toddler prodigy again, and flung me into the air. I laughed aloud and he caught me on the way down, handling me as if I was weightless, petticoats, corset, pendant chains and all. I could barely walk for all the ornamentation I was bedecked with, and he launched me like the football, and caught me easily.

And if I'd urged Nathan to take after him more, then we'd have an easier time ahead of us. If my brother had become a big strapping bundle of muscle and outdoorsy energy, he'd be able to solve his problems by collecting the right combination of weapons, accessories, clothing and ornaments. Or as a mage, it was a matter of just hitting the right travel points, unlocking the right flags, and getting the affinities. Spy? Spy's different. There's a certain sequence to it all.

Warrior progresses evenly, knights can equip about twenty magic items at the same time. Gladiators, about fifteen. Swashbucklers, five. That's the simplest to explain. Easy-mode mages are scriveners, who can create long-lasting static magic effects and enchanted items. They can't equip as many magic items as warriors, but they can customize the ones they do carry, and can knock out several plot-related issues permanently.

Wizards are medium-mode mages, and their main ability is to change the weather across any of nine settings at any time, which is actually pretty huge and an interesting way to play the game. As a sorcerer, you basically start with nothing but if you manage to find the right places to meditate you can unlock powers. The pattern there is (1) you can create your own opportunities, (2) you have some limited options, and (3) you need to have prior knowledge just to get by.

As a rogue, the first level is thief, which has the option to take possessions or information from other people. Your second level, huntsman, has some very situational but crucial abilities that can create an entire new style of gameplay. But spy? A much more limited skill set, and no shortcut routes to power. But it gets worse. Each of the nine classes gets a somewhat different story.

The broad strokes are the same- the Academy, the love interests, the blight, the Upheaval, the contest for the succession, the war against The Blind- but there's variations. The knight gets a mentor early on that provides some cool gear and opens up a recurring questline in Sunstall Keep. The wizard develops a rivalry with a cabal of other wizards if you use your powers too much. The thief can join a guild, the huntsman encounters faerie tricksters.

But the spy's story is the most treacherous, difficult, and unforgiving. Every new character is an enemy, and several characters that are friendly in other versions are revealed to be plotting against the player and their allies. So why didn't I see it coming? or do something to prevent it? Well, I've been watching my brother for ten years. We are always side-by-side. I was positive he was either locking in as a swashbuckler or thief. Possibly a scrivener. But nothing he's ever done has ever indicated spy.

He's loyal, honest and true. He's always finding ways for people to get good outcomes without compromising their morals. He's never kept secrets or infringed someone's privacy or their boundaries. But apparently, I missed something. I missed it. A week ago, when he resolved to do whatever it took to help Father with this political maneuver. We were cataloging supplies, and I told him that I had already seen ahead that this would succeed, and he told me that he would make sure of it.

And I looked in his eyes as he erased all doubts from himself. And since then, he's been thinking. Planning. Paying attention. And now he's unraveled some underhanded scheme, and set his class. Espionage agent for the duchy. Could be worse. I've played the spy route. I've won the game on the spy route. It's dangerous and sneaky- but at least Nathan is still himself. It's not like he becomes a manipulative scumbag to the love interests or his friends.

"Silk and wind?" my mother was impressed.

"That's two affinities? Right away?"

"More than that," I admitted.

"I think this is the magic that has been trying to find a way out, my whole life. Building. Hopefully I can start feeling a little more normal now that it's got an outlet!" My father put a hand on top of my head, comforting touch.

"I'm very proud of you, Natalie. But your timing is atrocious. We've all had a hell of a day. I'm wrung out, your mother's wrung out, Nathan- well he seems fine. But he just knocked us all for a loop with this Snairlin information." Nathan patted my shoulder.

"It's all right. Someday she'll let me have my moment in the sun without overshadowing me."

"That's not fair!" I protested.

"I can't -" I stopped, looking at his eyes.

"You're messing with me again." His smile cracked open, broad and bright.

"Hah! I've been teasing you for years about being envious of you and you still fall for it every time!" He hugged me, hard.

"Sister, you're a sorceress! At ten years old! That's amazing! We should celebrate!"

"No," Father protested, clapping his hands together.

"No celebrations. Not for- oh, another week. My voice can't take it. My feet can't take it. My budget is already crying. All day I'm working with chefs and suppliers, all week I'm working with teamsters and porters, I've been wrangling the winds and herding cats all day, bending ears and trying to make silly greedy nobles feel like I really care about how many houses they own. My son has unraveled a mystery and now I've got more work to do. I'll deal with sorcery tomorrow. I need to sleep on this."

I leaned against Nathan.

"Honestly? I feel that. Hell of a day. If coming into my magic is not enough to keep me from sleeping, that's proof enough that I should be in my bed already." There were good nights, and I love yous, and cheek-kisses and bear-hugs. Despite his protestations of exhaustion weariness, His Grace took Her Grace's arm and mounted the stairs like he was going to try finding another brother or sister for us. Some people have different ways of relaxing after a big day.

Nathan and I headed for our own room, moving in relative silence. At the top of the stairs and turning into the corridor, I groaned.

"I smell like honey-glazed pork and fried garlic." I sniffed at my sleeve.

"And I'm pretty sure the smell is saturating my hair."

"Shower?"

"I'm debating with myself whether to take the shortest and dumbest shower, or if I should just crash right out and put these sheets in for washing tomorrow."

"If I didn't smell of hickory smoke and cider, I'd stink of sweat," he replied.

"I'll take the first turn at the shower." As soon as the brass latch turned for our door, I heard movement beyond. The candle was out, and the light coming in from behind us showed my on-duty attendant sitting up on my bed, scrubbing at her eyes with a fist, while Nathan's current valet was rousing himself from a chair he was slouched deeply into.

"Lord, Lady," he said, nodding our way as he pulled himself upright.

"We were unsure when you'd be back."

"Sorry about that," I sighed, and started unpinning my hair.

"Our guests set the schedule for us, and the hosts of the party, like a captain at sea, must go down with the ship." Nathan had already gotten his cravat and cummerbund off, tossing them into a wicker basket.

"We both need showers before bed, but we'll endeavor to be quite quick." While his man helped him out of his coat and waistcoat and shoes, my maid was only just able to unlace my bodice enough to slide it over. She got the seam ripper to let out the back of the gown, and we were still working on that when I heard Nathan open and shut the bathroom door. In this world with no zippers or snaps, most fastenings are either buttons or ties.

And for something fitted as closely as a formal gown, buttons or hook-and-eye would pull unseemly gaps and lacing a gown is Not Done, I think because the current fashion in the land for bodices as a separate piece. So, to get my dress fitting correctly I was sewn into it. Tedious and a ton of work- but paradoxically it is remarkably comfortable once it's done. If you're going to wear a close-fitting item for several hours, you could do a lot worse.

After the back was unstitched and the top of the bell loosened, I could finally unlace the petticoats and get rid of them. Then, with a little extra room in the dress I wriggled out like a snake shedding skin, and was finally free of everything but stockings and shift. I got rid of those, wrapped in a towel, and still had to knock on the door to tell Nathan to hurry up. He was still toweling his hair off when we crossed, and I got into the shower stall.

I was not kidding, I just wanted to be clean and get out of there. I started the water, and it was tepid. The kitchens had been shut down for hours, and our warm-water tank was cooling off and nearly empty. Annoyed, I spent the mana to curve the water, and rather than letting it spill down the drain I had it gather up around me, a pillar of water that clung close to my skin. I warmed it up several degrees, and then swirled it hard, mimicking high-pressure jets.

I pulled the water away to one side, and quickly soaped down, then had the animated water rinse me completely in just a second or so. I held my breath, had it do my hair next, and then I shut off the shower. Then every drop of water that wasn't part of my body pulled away, and swirled down the drain. Forty-five seconds, and I was clean and dry. Magic is bitchin'. I came out in a dry towel, and my handmaid was holding my nightgown. She stared, confused.

"My lady?.."

"I've got magic now," I said, tired.

"I took a magic shower. Now I need about six really good hours of sleep before my day starts tomorrow." It did not work out that way, Nathan and I both slept well past dawn and skipped our morning swim, only rousing for breakfast. This was uncharacteristic, but understandable. In the meantime I had the usual dream: the one where I floated out of Natalie's body, back again in my truest self. Just like the day Nathan and his twin were born, I was back as an ephemeral, cloud-like soul.

All that was left of my last life, the true me. This soul was born on Earth and had grown up with junk food, video games, modern medicine, and existential dread. Then it was grabbed by a goddess and brought here, where there was magic, servants, and also existential dread. And I had to be careful not to completely detach from the body, but I expanded outwards, stretching my borders like a cat flexing its spine and limbs after a long nap.

I settled all over the sleeping girl, soaking into her and the bed and lazily drifting about, my tendrils swirling around her half of the room. For something to do, I unrolled her memories of the day and played them back, giving them space to air out. Some of it was only worth fast-forwarding, and I let those dissipate rather than take up any space.

She had given the same conversation, the same speech, dozens of times during the day, and I only held onto two or three slight variations of that, and added some weight to really establish how many times she had gone over this stuff. The rest I could throw out as filler.

I savored the memories of that feast, not only the flavors and the scent of it all, but also the golden-hued colors that seemed to emanate from every side, and the eager joy that lit up people's faces over and over when the guests discovered some new delicacy. But more than that, the deep sense of satisfaction and pride that she took away from it. I took that feeling and suffused it throughout, like a soundtrack to the whole event, an emotional texture that was stitched to the concrete memories.

She was dreaming, but not about me. She was worried about Nathan. Well, I was worried about Nathan. She and I are not different. She is me, I'm just more aware of it than she is. I am. It's all the same person, I'm just the part that doesn't sleep. The part that pays attention when she's dreaming. Ah, Nathan has leveled up, chosen a class. Oh, he chose the hardest class. Unfortunate.

I went back to her memories, which were normally kept in a tight little ball inside of her head, and I started unrolling some of the long-term storage. Old life, previous world. Video game. Dating sim. Frustrating memories, but determined to clear every mode of the game. Lots of trial-and-error. Lots of searching for gamefaqs and fandom pages. Walkthroughs, helpful guides.

I put strings into all of those, and tugged a little to stitch them a little tighter, make them more accessible, and ran a thread back to her dream from today. The spin of her dream started reeling those memories in, and I left her to that while I moved through the day a little more. Oh, I've been blaming myself for not diverting him from the spy class? I could drop that out, I try not to encourage myself to dwell in regret and recrimination over other people's choices.

But instead I hold onto it, and promote those thoughts a little bit. The reasoning there ties into important stuff- Just as I'd chastised myself for not using my game-knowledge as future-knowledge and not taking an active role in steering his classes, I also need to make sure that in the future I take a more active role in using game-knowledge as future-knowledge. If he's taking the spy route, he's going to need his sister's help, as much as I can give.

So, I should motivate myself to give that help, and sometimes a little guilty regret is a good spur. Not too much. A twinge should be enough. Hmm, seems we got that tenth experience point, just as we were expecting. Used magic a couple times. That's fun. Not really a high priority though, nothing to really take away from this. Tomorrow is going to have a lot more important information on that. I'll just dull that and trim it down, we only need a lossy version of those memories.

She can rationalize by thinking that she was just too tired to really concentrate on those events. I turn back to her dreams, my dreams, the dreams, and how they have started connecting our old knowledge of the spy route. I slipped that off and started rolling it back up, making those memories more available.

Just for fun, I intercut some present and past into her dreams, so she had a fun fancy of sitting on the old couch in the living room, playing the game on a Saturday afternoon with Nathan at my side, cracking jokes and looking up gametips on his phone when we get stuck. It's an impossible memory I've created, our twin brother in a world he could never be part of. But it should be good for a smile. I checked the time. Oh, it's been hours.

We're very tired, I decide not to wake her up for sunrise, ten-year-olds need their rest. I start folding in yesterday's memories, interleaving some old knowledge with today's events so that we can form useful connections. I tie them onto the end of the roll, and wrap it all up tightly. I check in on the dreams again- Oh, she's put Nathan in one of our old hoodies, and he's eating microwave pizza pockets. That's a fun twist on what I made. Innovation is always interesting. Well, time to wrap it up for the night.

I start pulling in my borders, dragging my identity back together. I have infiltrated through the body, through the silken sheets, the cotton batting, the oak bed frame. The pillow is stuffed with owl's feathers because they're softer. The dresser at the bedside has a marble top, steel fittings and handles, full of cotton clothing. The small rings on the corner of the dresser are gold and silver. A small silver cup next to them holds a drink of water, for when she wakes up thirsty in the morning.

Most of my volume is just the room air, though. It does not hold me closely, I move easily through it with little resistance. Far longer for me to compress myself out of the silk and cotton and oak, and back inside the flesh-and-blood body that I would live inside of when I woke up. I nestled in, made myself comfortable again. Idly I spun a couple more dreams, just some background music, but I made sure to keep Nathan and the couch near the top so we'd remember it when we woke up. I woke up. The fuck was that?!