Last Command of the Witheld Arc 1: Rebirth

Griffin Tucker Vasilias, Great House Scion, Reborn Lvl 1

Mount Discovery, Province of Aragonia

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

10 [Mind] /20

Tensa Pool

2.0 ks

Gear

Grafts

Adaptive Conjuration [Mind]

Griffin willed the tiny amount of tensa in his pool to start moving through his channels again and immediately the tired, stuffy feeling receded. His tensa pool began to refill as he configured his anima into the Ten Star Vortex gathering technique. The return of his Attribute was noticeable. He immediately felt more mentally stable and able to think more clearly. The fog that had descended on him when he’d stopped circulating his tensa was burned away and he felt awake and aware.

“That’s incredible!” He breathed. “And when I unlock my other grafts, I’ll be able to get the other Attributes? That can let me do even more?”

“When you unlock your other Attributes, you’ll have superhuman potential. Reflexes, strength, mental acuity… Your lifespan will increase even.”

Kismet made a little hologram of Griffin as he was now. He smiled as he saw himself walking around the divan in a t-shirt and pair of shorts. The little holo-Griffin found some sparkling crystal things and picked them up, absorbing them and glowing. The little figure started running around lighting miniature fires and making arcane, dramatic gestures, flipping around like a kung-fu expert. He couldn’t help it, Griffin burst out laughing at that.

Kismet smiled and continued, “As you increase in rank and increase your Attributes, your natural life will extend into the hundreds, even thousands of years. The natural lifespan of an Amethyst-rank Reborn has never been reached, not in sixty-five million years.”

“So not only do you get incredible magic powers, super speed, super strength, and all that jazz, you also get immortality?” Griffin ran a hand through his hair, making it stick up even more. “That’s…how did I win this fuckin’ lottery?”

“It’s not free,” Kismet said. “You can squander it. If you neglect to…”

Griffin sighed and laid back on the divan, kicking his legs up and scattering the little model gates he made all over the marble floor. “PRACTICE!” He yelled up at the ceiling. “Practice! Practice! Practice!” He rolled off the divan and onto the floor. “Okay, I get it! But what about these racial abilities? Monster Rendering? Is that like an illusion ability where I can render a monster in 3-D?”

“Monster Rendering is an amazingly useful racial ability, but it’s not anything to do with illusion,” Kismet said. “It’s all about what you do with a monster after it’s dead. There are many harvesting abilities, but a Rendering power is extremely rare. That will process the entire monster into tensa energy and then crystallize it into components and infused items. Many would covet the ability. Here, take a look at the power from a System perspective.” She gestured and the power popped up as a holographic, purple-outlined text box.

Monster Rendering – Human Racial Gift

Description: Touch a dead monster and scan it with your anima in the Hunter’s Bounty configuration. The monster will be broken down into its constituent parts and materials, including any ethershards or infused items. If you have an Inventory, the harvested items will be placed in your Inventory.

Passive: Hunter’s Bounty anima configuration.

Macro: Selling Off Junk [Move *marked* items to and set to % of ; Transfer % credits to ]

“Monster…rendering. Oh. That definition. Gross. What happens to the monster?”

Kismet shrugged, “It gets rendered down into protoplasm and other base elements. It’s a little messy, but it means that you need to touch the creature you just killed, and then your ability will essentially ‘loot’ the monster and place what is found in a neat little package at your feet. Of course, you have that Unlimited Inventory racial ability granted by your Human race combined with your Enhanced System Access, so that means you’ll receive those little packages directly into your personal Inventory.”

Griffin used his foot to prop up the little gates he’d knocked over as he lay on the divan. He conjured a tennis ball with his Adaptive Conjuration ability, feeling the tensa drain as the fuzzy ball materialized in his hand. It even had the fresh-out-of-the-can smell. He tossed it into the air, and then, when he caught it, he sucked it into his Inventory, making it disappear from his hand entirely. He stared at his hand in mild shock. It had gone so smoothly.

He grinned and then stopped, scrunching his face in thought, wondering aloud, “Why in the world do humans get an extra-dimensional Inventory as a racial ability? It’s bizarre.” He thought about his Inventory and a little holographic screen popped up

“Humans are an extremely adaptable race on Nolm. All humans get racial abilities that will best help them adjust to their Rebirth. Of course, all races in the Empire have System Access as a racial ability. And the Great House Seal is an incredible boon for a Reborn. It grants you access to Great House resources: SynthSkills, maps, infused item database, graft encyclopedia… The Great Houses truly have every advantage.”

“Well, how in the hell can I leverage that advantage now?” Griffin complained. “The training we’ve been doing is amazing and cool and all—I totally feel like a parkour ninja or whatever—but it’s pointless.”

“What do you think I’ve been trying to do?” Kismet retorted, “As a System Eidolon, I am trying to advise you of the best course of action at all times. It’s a resource most would kill for and you listen to me like I’m asking you to clean your room or brush your teeth: childishly.”

“That’s a bit harsh, don’t you think?” Griffin asked.

He realized he’d been playing with little model gates he’d created and throwing a tennis ball around and shouting in an empty room. He blushed, but didn’t retract his statement; it was harsh. He’d been in this same fucking room for weeks and just staring down at that little town down there just a kilometer or so away. It was maddening! He wandered back over to the windowall, staring down at Heldon.

“There is no clear exit from this facility,” Kismet reminded him for the ninth time that day. “Even with your malformed anima configuration, you can feel the monsters in the hall, can’t you? You’ve developed enough as a Reborn that your concentrated tensa pool will be irresistible to them—especially because you haven’t learned to use your anima to shield your tensa yet.”

Griffin shuddered, thinking of the scratching noises he heard every night—of his early attempts to leave the complex. The door leading from the bedroom to the rest of the complex was made of thick metal that Griffin didn’t think was iron or steel. It had been beautifully decorated with exquisite sculpting to resemble a fantastical garden scene all picked out in coppery-silver metal. But the door, thick and carved as it was, did not muffle the shrieking scratching noises that filtered through it as the plasma cybercentipedes on the other side desperately tried to dig their way through.

Kismet flew off his shoulder and around his head until she was looking him in the eye from half a meter away. “Incidentally,” she said, “perfecting the sphere array will also help you to learn how to mask your tensa pool from the senses of monsters. So the practice is necessary.”

“What about these Tutorial Realm things you told me about? That sounds perfect! I accept a floating message and get whisked away to a timeless dimension where I learn everything I need to know!” Griffin threw his arms out, “But nooooo. Instead, I spend ten hours a day sitting with my legs crossed, pushing and poking and prodding my anima into weird shapes. The rest of the time you have me jumping around and practicing some kind of weird martial arts.”

“Don’t forget practicing your graft,” Kismet added. “The Tutorial Realm is closed to you because you were granted a System Eidolon. Me. A Tutorial Realm would involve even more practice than you’re doing now.”

She flitted down and alighted onto one of the end tables and shook a finger at him. “And there’s more to learn, once you get those ethershards! The Tutorial Realm, once accepted, is only offered once. As a System Eidolon, I’m a permanent boon, capable of providing context for the System messages and menus and providing guidance on Class advancement and graft evolution.”

“Don’t think I’m not grateful for your help,” Griffin said. “I truly am. You’ve kept me alive this past month. Kept me sane. Ish. I’m glad you’ve been here to talk to.” He still didn’t know how he felt about her being a ‘permanent boon’. That had uncomfortably weird implications on her free will and—it was pointless to think about that. She’d told him many times that she wasn’t Sarah. That she wasn’t even what he’d think of as a living being, despite her current appearance.

“Besides, how could I forget about the ethershards?” he asked rhetorically. “It’s all you ever talk about! Well. Other than practicing the movement training, the martial arts, the various internal and external anima array shapes… It’s a lot. Anyway, I have been practicing my grafts.”

Griffin struck a pose on the divan and declaimed, “Behold! I give you…” He flung a hand out dramatically and conjured a plate of cinnamon rolls. They were still hot and the cream cheese frosting on them was melting in big gooey globs and he carefully picked one up and gazed lovingly at it before he announced, “CINNABON!”

He took a big bite. “Mmm—This is the one useful—oops,” a dollop of frosting dripped onto his lap, “Dammit. That’s gonna stain. This is the one useful thing that you’ve taught me out of this whole crazy setup.” He held out his hand again and a white cloth napkin appeared in it, the same kind that Sarah and he had stashed in the “fancy” drawer in the kitchen.

He wiped the icing off his pants and took another big bite of his cinnamon roll before putting it down and chewing thoughtfully. After a minute, he swallowed and said, “Look, maybe I was wrong about the plan. I mean, it seems like a stupid idea on balance. There probably aren’t any even left.”

“No, it’s the only good idea you’ve had besides finally deciding to listen to me and learn how to use your abilities,” Kismet replied. She gestured toward the windowall and Heldon far below. “That little town is going to have its own Reborn and its own factions that you don’t know anything about. You can’t afford to head into that place ignorant and powerless. I’m advising you as your System Eidolon not to leave this compound until you’ve retrieved at least some of the ethershards August left you.”

“But when I woke up I was in that disgusting centipede nest! I didn’t see the box—”

“Yes you did,” Kismet interrupted. “You saw them near the door where the monster burst in. You told me.”

“I was disoriented! I don’t know what I saw!”

“Why won’t you follow through with the plan?” Kismet demanded. “You need those ethershards! Even if most of them have been absorbed by the monsters here—a likely scenario—there will be some left. You have to get your other Attributes activated and fill out your grafts. And those ethershards that August sent with you will have been hand-picked by an Ascendant of a Great House!”

Griffin sighed in exasperation. “August wasn’t ascending anything… except maybe the list of creepy assholes who probably killed my mom. He’s number-fucking-one on that shortlist. What does it matter what shards he picked? While it’s certainly cool to be able to summon less than five pounds of mundane stuff, how is that going to help me against plasma cybercentipedes?” Griffin scoffed bitterly.

“Adaptive Conjuration is not useless,” Kismet insisted. “It’s explicitly a utility graft. It’s one of the rarest and most useful Heirloom grafts I’ve ever seen. It’s a conjuration ability limited only by your tensa and the complexity of the object you conjure. Essentially your imagination. As you progress to the Stone Gate—”

“—Which is a metaphysical gate and not a real thing,” Griffin interrupted.

“Which is the first Rubicon of power which a Reborn must pass to get their Class,” Kismet amended. “As you progress in power your tensa pool deepens and your grafts will grow with you. Feed them with enough and the right kind of ethershards, and they will evolve into incredible new Class abilities. That’s the only way you’re going to thrive here Griffin.”

Griffin stood back up from the divan and walked back over to the windowall. He tried conjuring a pair of binoculars. What landed in his hand was the pair of broken binoculars he had in his car from back home. There was still water in it from the time he’d dropped them in the lake and the left lens had cracked. He tossed the binoculars aside and stared down at the buildings and roads of Heldon all laid out in miniature in the valley below and started tapping his foot unconsciously.

Kismet flew down and sat on the arm of the chair, cross-legged. “The people in this world are not kind and trusting. They are ambitious, proud, and eager to prove their superiority. If you look weak to them, they’ll eat you alive. If you’re not a target, you’re a game piece and the only way to buck that status is with power: personal or political. Both are best.”

“You’re so sure they’ll want to kill me or use me,” Griffin argued for what felt like the twentieth time. “That place doesn’t look like a murderous hive of scum and villainy. We’re not even in the desert.”

Kismet shook her head, “Don’t be so naïve. You’ve told me a little of what your world was like and I thought it would have prepared you for this. There’s one movie you mentioned once, Glengarry Glen Ross, I think? That kind of pressure, expectation, and ambition is the rule here. If you adjust your mentality to that, you will have a much greater chance of survival.”

“Well, that sounds great. If I’m in an important fight, I’ll conjure a big rock. It’ll be a surprise.” Griffin shook his head. “Are you sure I’ll get combat abilities?”

Kismet nodded, her face serious. “Most grafts are going to be somehow related to combat or have a combat utility, even if it’s not strictly an attack or defense. Your final racial ability is the Direct Etheric Mechanism Interface Port—a DEMI port. That’s interesting. Humans don’t usually get DEMI ports as racial abilities. They’re reserved for the more arcane-inclined races of Nolm, generally speaking.”

“Direct Etheric… Does that mean…magic items?”

Kismet rolled her eyes. “When you say ‘magic’ it makes you sound like a primitive. Like there’s no science or effort behind it. If you persist, it’ll mark you out even more as an outsider.” She considered for a moment. “But yes, it does mean ‘magic items’. That is, you’ll be able to interface far more fully with any infused item. Almost anyone can use infused items, but those with a DEMI port can use them like it’s second nature and can operate advanced etheric mechanisms that no one else could.” She made a quick gesture with her hand and another System menu popped up with a description of his DEMI port.

DEMI Port– Human Racial Gift

Description: You have a Direct Etheric Mechanism Interface Port which grants you the ability to commune on a deeper level with infused items. This will grant a deeper connection to basic infused items and will allow you to access advanced infused items. A DEMI Port cannot be removed.

Passive: Identification anima configuration.

“It’s nice to be able to identify stuff, I guess,” Griffin said, reading over the notification. “But I don’t have any, uh, infused items, right?”

“The Systablo is infused,” Kismet reminded him. “And no, you can’t have any screen time right now. You still need to perfect your anima configuration.”

Griffin pouted and stuck his tongue out at Kismet. He’d had to limit himself to just a couple hours at night or he’d have disappeared into the Systablo’s interactive holographic menus and entertainments until he starved. He made his way back over to the Oneness Chamber and stared into the semi-transparent slime that filled the pool. His warped reflection stared back at him, a large bubble slowly rose through the gel and eventually right through his reflected head, popping wetly a minute later.

“Tell you what, let’s make a deal,” Griffin said.

“I don’t negotiate with terrorists,” Kismet replied.

Griffin rolled his eyes and laughed, “Just listen and you’ll see if I’m a terrorist! Kismet…” and here, the joking tone left his voice. “I need to get out of this room. I need to. If I don’t, I think I will literally explode or go completely bonkers. If I can get my anima to do these configuration things… We go exploring. You said there’s no clear exit, but we haven’t exactly been able to look.”

Kismet nodded immediately, “Yes! That’s a great idea!”

Griffin, an argument ready to go to convince her, blinked in surprise as the words died on his tongue. Instead, he said, “Um. Yeah, that’s a great idea!” He paused for a beat and then said, “Why? I thought you’d try to tell me I was too inexperienced or whatever. You’ve been dead-set against me doing anything like this for weeks and now you say yes?”

Kismet flew up to him with an exasperated look, “You’re still thinking like a regular person, Griffin. You’re not.” She gestured to the side and little holograms showing Griffin training from various perspectives popped up briefly before they faded.

She continued, “The training you’ve undergone in this room is meant to prepare you to face threats that you would find unimaginable in their scope and danger in your previous life. I don’t think you’re ready to fight even a single one of those plasma cybercentipedes. But you’re at a point where you require more real-world experience with your grafts and racial abilities and that has intrinsic risk. But you have to want it, that’s the first step. I can’t tell you to do it.”

Griffin nodded slowly, a grin spreading across his face. Finally, he thought, I can do something worthwhile with this magic! He used his Adaptive Conjuration to create a mug of hot chocolate and took a sip. Damn, I’m getting better at this. I even managed to get the marshmallows right. Now if only I could like find an open window I could practice my ability to make rope ladders! It’s only a matter of time before I find the exit and we can just waltz on out of here.

He didn’t for a moment think that would happen, but it felt good at the moment to be optimistic.