Last Command of the Witheld Arc 1: Rebirth

Griffin Tucker, Great House Scion, Reborn lvl 1

Mount Discovery, Province of Aragonia

Griffin took a tentative breath in, but all he smelled was the gently floral perfume of what he increasingly thought of as his prison. He was no longer in his imaginary Benito’s Pizzeria, but back in the impossible luxury hotel room. He opened his eyes, widening them in surprise as the feeling of life and strength continued to build within him until he felt better than he had in years.

Achievement Gained!

Tensa Infusion

Description: Burn new tensa pathways for your body as a Reborn.

Reward: Ability to cycle tensa and use Attributes.

The System message floating in front of him disappeared as he read it and Griffin was left nearly speechless. “What… how did…?” He couldn’t finish his questions as he marveled at the renewed vitality he felt. “This is fuckin’ wild, my mind feels like it’s supercharged! Like I’m Jimmy Neutron having a brainstorm!” He giggled at the ridiculous image in his head of storm clouds gathering around his brain.

Kismet appeared on his knee, weightless and tiny once more. “What you’re feeling right now is a result of cycling your tensa pool. Most Reborn have been trained from a very young age how to control the tensa in their bodies. They’ll use their entire pre-Rebirth lives to train themselves in tensa manipulation, then when they’re Reborn, they’re ready. With my guidance, you were able to burn in your tensa pathways which will allow you to use House Vasilias’s gathering technique: the Ten Star Vortex configuration.”

Kismet turned and created a hologram model of Griffin’s outline. A million tiny, hairlike lines of glowing yellow light were intertwined and knotted in incredibly complex fractal pathways throughout the body. Griffin recognized it instantly as a simplified picture of the pathways he’d just burned into his own body using his anima and tensa energy.

“It’s filled your Arcana Attribute—the only Attribute you have unlocked—meaning you are now infusing yourself with tensa and you’ll become empowered to do incredible things.” The outline of Griffin pulsed with increased light as she spoke and it began to do flips and kicks with kung fu action star speed and power.

“You were very fortunate to have gotten an Heirloom ethershard,” Kismet said. “Heirloom shards grant the graft that the previous Reborn who had the ethershard to any who absorb it, like your Adaptive Conjuration graft. Because it was of Legendary rarity, you also had your starting score of zero increased to seven.”

Griffin’s mind was spinning with all the details she just threw at him and he held up a hand to slow her down. “Hold on,” he said, “I have Attribute scores? And how do you know what all that is? I mean, I know you’re a computer AI thingy—”

“I am a System Eidolon,” Kismet cut in. “I am not a computer. I am an etheric manifestation of the System itself, bound to you upon your Rebirth.” She caught his expression and sighed, “I’m not telling you that to make you feel bad. I’m telling you because it’s a vital distinction: I have your Enhanced Access which allows me to act with quite a bit of freedom. I use that freedom within the System to advise you on things like graft rarity, descriptions, and uses.”

She gestured and a little text box that said, “Adaptive Conjuration” appeared in the air next to her. “Adaptive Conjuration is a Unique graft that was a Quest reward for Ofir Vasilias, the founder of House Vasilias,” a portrait of a handsome man with severe features and a precisely-trimmed beard and dark, nearly black skin appeared in the air next to the text box.

“He used Adaptive Conjuration to catapult House Vasilias from an independent family into an Imperial minor House. He had the Heirloom ritual performed on him when he became Ivory rank,” another gesture showed a short video clip of the same handsome man from before. Griffin assumed it was Ofir Vasilias.

Ofir was lying on a metal table in a dimly lit room. Three white-robed people with white masks that hid their whole faces stood around him: one at his left, one at his right, and one at his head. As one, the robed people raised their arms and stretched their fingers apart as widely as they could. Beams of multicolored light shoot from their outstretched fingers into Ofir Vasilias’ chest. Kismet made a quick chopping gesture and the video disappeared, immediately replaced with a gruesome image of Ofir in a destroyed section of jungle forest. He wore strange-looking black and gold armor with an enormous metal spur jutting from his chest. Blood was everywhere.

“Fortunately, he had such foresight,” Kismet said calmly, “because System records show that he was assassinated before he ever reached Jade Rank. The Adaptive Conjuration Heirloom ethershard then served nineteen generations of House Vasilias nobility before it disappeared a little over ten thousand years ago, presumably in the possession of August Vasilias.”

Griffin turned away from the disturbing image, grimacing. “So… I have someone else’s heart crystal thing…inside me? In my own heart?”

“Your etherheart.”

Griffin nodded, “Right, that.” Seems like a distinction without a difference, Griffin thought, but decided not to comment. Instead, he said, “So…you said I had a seven in Arcana. Is that good? What’s the max?”

Kismet dismissed the images and said, “Considering that the baseline is zero and at your Rank, the maximum value of your Attributes are limited to twenty, a seven is a significant leap ahead in terms of personal power. It’s a head start only for a little while though. The real value of your ethershard is in its relative rarity. As a Legendary graft, there may be other powers that mimic it, but they will be few and far between.

“With Arcana unlocked,” Kismet continued, “you’ll find that your control over your racial gifts and your grafts are much greater and your tensa pool is quite large.” The little hologram outline gestured and blue arcs of electricity curled from its fingers and warped into different shapes before it settled into a lotus position and she allowed it to fade away.

Griffin focused on what he was feeling. It was strange: at first, the energy building in him made him feel like he could do anything: jump over the Moon, pick up a freight train, or something else cartoonishly overblown. But now that he was becoming accustomed to the feeling of the power surging through him, he could feel his tensa pool crackling with more energy and he found that he could, without much difficulty, pull out individual threads of that energy and move them around, though he had no idea what to do with them once he’d grabbed them.

“Arcana isn’t the showiest of Attributes to unlock,” Kismet said, reading his rather downcast expression. “But it’s essential. Without Arcana, your tensa pool would be a fraction of what it is, severely limiting your access to your grafts. Keep practicing with it because as your Arcana grows, you’ll grow your tensa pool and your control will become more effortless.”

Griffin just nodded, still experimenting with his control of his tensa. It wasn’t that he was unimpressed, it was just that he didn’t know what to do with this Attribute now that he had it. “So once I unlock the other Attributes I’ll be able to do more cool shit? Do they, like, correspond to my physical and mental abilities like in D&D? Like Strength, Dexterity, Wisdom, and all that?”

Kismet frowned, “No… I don’t know what D&D is. But your strength, manual dexterity, and physical constitution all factor into your Attributes. Your Attributes are infusions of power that persist so long as you circulate your tensa. If you stop circulating your tensa it would be as if you didn’t have them. If you run out of tensa then it could physically hurt you, depending on what you were doing at the time.” She looked seriously at him. “Don’t run out of tensa. If you do, you’ll suffer physical and mental anguish, you’ll be unable to use any grafts, and your Attributes will be unavailable: you’ll essentially be defenseless.”

Griffin gulped and nodded, “Yeah okay, no problem. Keep myself topped up or suffer the dire consequences. Wait a second, you said, ‘Arcana’ was the name of the Attribute I unlocked but that doesn’t fit into the whole D&D theme. What are the others?”

Kismet circled Griffin and began drawing in the air with a glowing fingertip, vivid pictures emerging as she worked. “Throughout the Empire, they’re known as Dominion,” when she said Dominion, a strange curving symbol appeared hovering in the air in a dark reddish-brown light. “Speed, Precision, Growth, and Arcana.” Speed was a silvery set of slashes; Precision a single brightly glowing yellow dot; Growth resembled a greenish flowering plant; and Arcana was a purple flame. It was all very reminiscent of card games like Magic: The Gathering.

Kismet made another little hologram appear in the air in front of her Griffin, this time in a little athletic outfit, complete with a white headband. The holo-Griffin flexed, and Griffin saw impressive biceps that he’d never had appear on his arms. “Dominion is a measure of physical strength, tensa offensive capability, self-discipline, and mental surety. Classes focusing on lots of offensive capabilities typically have high Dominion requirements.”

“So… Strength,” Griffin said, watching his holographic homunculus flex and pose.

Kismet shook her head, “Yes and no. Yes in that physical strength plays a large factor. But then again Dominion is not strength alone, though many over-simplify it and assume as you have. Your Attribute scores are gestalt measures of a large number of variables. It makes each Reborn’s training path somewhat unique because advancing those Attributes most efficiently will differ wildly.”

“And I need to advance these Attributes. Naturally. If I do, will I be able to run faster? Lift incredibly heavy things? Think…better?” Griffin asked, his curiosity piqued.

“Your Attributes are a fairly direct measure of internal ability,” Kismet said. “Training and advancing your Attributes will allow you to wield incredible power and do amazing feats of prowess that you would have considered impossible before. Most Reborn in the current culture are obsessed with doing everything they can to max out their Attributes, though it comes down to two methods: you can increase your Attributes by absorbing minor ethershards or through intensive training.”

Griffin leaned forward. This sounded just like the games he loved to play, “How do I get the training? Or the ethershards? Ooh! Is there any way for me to see where I am with these Attributes now?”

“I’ll assist you with your basic training for now, though we’ll need to find you a specialized trainer sooner rather than later. As for minor ethershards… Well, those come from defeating monsters. Or you could buy them in the Market in the System.”

Griffin grunted in surprise, “What, really? You can buy them? How do I do that? How do I get money?”

Kismet smiled, “How else? You kill monsters, complete Quests, and employ your skills to be of use to those who need them.”

“That sounds like work,” Griffin said sourly. “But okay, we’ll put a pin in that. Let’s get back to the cool stuff. I assume there’s some way of keeping track of my progress?”

Kismet nodded, “I can show you a data-focused representation of your current status if you’d like.”

“What does that mean? Wait…” Griffin’s eyes widened in surprise, “are you talking about like a character sheet?”

“That is correct. At least, it’s close enough for the translation to make sense.” Kismet gestured and Griffin’s hologram disappeared to be replaced by another holographic text box like he’d seen when he first arrived and he’d accepted a Quest, though this one had a purple outline. “This is your Reborn profile. You can access it anytime through your Enhanced System Access. Simply direct your thoughts to the System and request your profile. Try it now.” The purple box disappeared and Griffin frowned.

Something occurred to him and he asked, “Hey Kismet, what do the different color outlines for these textboxes mean? They seem to switch randomly between purple or gold.”

“Purple for Imperial System and common Achievements,” she recited, “gold for System announcements and Rare Achievements. There are other colors, but they’re even rarer and should be obvious—and they’re not relevant at the moment. Now, direct your thoughts to the System.”

“What do you mean, direct my thoughts to the System? How do I do that? What even is the System?” Kismet didn’t answer, crossing her arms in front of her and looking at him impatiently. “Okay fine, I’ll give it a try.”

He thought, Uh, System? Can I see my character sheet? He felt stupid thinking about something and expecting anything to happen, but to his rapidly numbing disbelief, there it was again, floating in the air like it had when Kismet had displayed it.

Griffin Tucker Vasilias

Race

Human

Rank/Level

Reborn – level 1

House

House Vasilias

Racial Gifts

Great House Seal, Enhanced System Access, Unlimited Inventory, Monster Rendering, DEMI Port, Overcharge

Attributes

Dominion

?? / 20

Speed

?? / 20

Precision

?? / 20

Growth

?? / 20

Arcana

7 [Mind] /20

Tensa Pool

1.7 kilosparks

Gear

Grafts

Adaptive Conjuration [Mind]

“Now this is interesting,” Griffin narrowed his eyes at the floating text box. “It’s a little like D&D—or someone’s weird homebrew really. What does it all mean?”

Kismet hovered over next to the floating text box, gesturing to the information there, “It’s a breakdown of your current status as a Reborn. There’s a lot to it, but the most pertinent information to us right now is your Rank and Level. You’re a Reborn at level 1. That means you’re about as weak as you can be and still be a Reborn.”

“Nowhere to go but up, right?”

Kismet shrugged, “That remains to be seen, but yes, that’s the idea. You underwent Chrysopotheosis and your heart was replaced with an etherheart. That makes you level 1 because you have one graft. It’s bound to your Mind attribute and so your graft will get more powerful as you increase that attribute.”

“You say that like it’s a foregone conclusion that I’ll increase in power,” Griffin said, frowning. “But what I really want…and I can’t believe I’m saying this right now as you’re telling me I literally have magical powers, but this is the world I live in now. What I really want is to find Sarah. Or at least find out if she’s alive at all. Is there any way you can help me with that?”

Kismet waved her hand and the floating character sheet disappeared. She gave Griffin a strange look, something he couldn’t interpret, and floated over to him. “Griffin, you are not from here, I can tell. Your DNA profile says that you are extranolmic in origin so perhaps where you come from, things are different.”

“Extra…nolmic?” Griffin muttered.

Kismet ignored him and continued. “This place is incredibly dangerous. It was designed that way. There are monsters here that make that plasma cybercentipede mother down the hall look like a kitten in comparison.”

Griffin looked at Kismet sharply, “There are cats here? And kittens?”

“My translation subroutine suggested that kittens would be an appropriate idiomatic metaphor in that context, but I am not familiar with the word or its definition myself. Are kittens renowned for their weakness where you come from?”

“No kittens,” Griffin said, “duly noted. The world is crawling with monsters, and I have some kind of magic powers. What, am I in a video game or something?”

“This is no game,” Kismet said seriously. “The monsters here are terrifyingly powerful. They have been the cause of terrible Cataclysms here; the last one broke a nation that used to rival the Eternal Empire. The path of Rebirth was created by the Witheld to allow Reborn to join their army in their war against the cosmic entities from beyond the Void.”

Griffin’s face looked more and more alarmed as she kept talking, “You’re talking like a crazy person! Join the army? Why in the hell would I want to do that?! And why in the ever-living fuck would I want to fight cosmic entities? No, I think—”

Kismet interrupted quickly, “You misunderstand. I am merely telling you history. That is why the Reborn were created. The Witheld are sixty-five million years gone now and their war against the cosmic entities… Well, who knows?” She gestured again and a horrifying-looking monster—a cosmic entity maybe? —appeared in miniature in the air before disappearing with a little pop. “They don’t come back and tell us about it. And those who have Ascended don’t tend to come back—or if they do, they don’t speak to anyone. Rebirth is a way to become more powerful and unless you would like to either die or become a tool in someone else’s game, you’ll grasp at anything you can. Not many are as lucky as you to have a Legacy, Legendary graft as one of their foundational grafts.”

Griffin started pacing up and down, trying to absorb everything Kismet was saying. He didn’t like the idea of fighting anything, let alone terrifying monsters. He might have been comfortable killing giant rats and dragons in a video game, but the reality of the plasma cybercentipedes had filled him with dread so completely he’d nearly just frozen in place and been the monstrous insect’s supper.

“I don’t know that I can fight those things,” he said quietly.

“You’re likely right,” Kismet looked sympathetic, but her eyes had none of Sarah’s warmth. This more than anything else had driven that point home. “I’m sorry, but your mentality seems to be antithetical to the mindset needed to survive—let alone thrive—here.”

Griffin blinked. “Well. Okay then.” He swallowed and sat down on one of the couches in the seating area. He sunk into its soft cushions like it was melded to his body. “Well, I’m not going to die. That’s for sure.” He took a deep breath. “I don’t know if I’m crazy or not—I likely am—but I don’t think I’ve ever been so terrified in my entire life as I was in that…nest. If I wasn’t already crazy, that might have driven me over the edge.” He stood up from the incredibly comfortable couch, feeling a sort of fluttery dread settle in his stomach. “What do I need to do to thrive here? How do I make the numbers go up on that character sheet?”

Kismet grinned. Her smile was at once predatory and triumphant. “I think you’ve already taken the first step, Griffin. Making that decision may be more difficult than you know, but… well, let’s start with using your Adaptive Conjuration graft to conjure up some clothes and we’ll work our way up from there?”