The Weight of Legacy

Malwine hadn’t touched Visible Status Effects in what felt like ages. They remained unchanged, so she saw little reason to, especially when the curse would ruin her day if she looked at it.

[Mental Defense] changed things—hopefully.

A part of her still wanted to back out. What if it didn’t work? She didn’t particularly want to spend upwards of an hour waiting for the headache to recede. There was a reason why she hadn’t brought that panel up ever since the Resilience boosts to be drawn from it had dried up.

Don’t be a coward, she told herself. If it really went that badly, she could get some [Meditation] time in, and extend her alleged naptime. She doubted Bernie would push if she said she wanted to stay in bed for a longer while. Malwine still slept for most of the day often enough as it was, so it wouldn’t be out of character.

Before she could spiral again, Malwine simply summoned her Visible Status Effects. The curse still stood out, as menacing as ever.

Visible Status Effects

Buffs: N/A | Boons: N/A | Neutral Effects: N/A | Debuffs: N/A

Curses: [Lament of a Salvation Denied]

I should get some Skills or Traits that give buffs. Those have to exist, right? Anything that made her status effects panel look less… terrible would probably do the trick.

Malwine admittedly hadn’t paid that much attention to the details. Thinking of it as merely ‘the curse’ had been enough. Needless speculation wasn’t likely to be helpful, but Malwine knew more now. She was still clueless in many ways, some of which she probably wasn’t even yet aware of, but the conversation with Teach during the trial for OBeryl, as confusing as that had been, helped somewhat.

Beryl had gotten cursed for having {Foresight}. That, Malwine was almost certain of. Katrina had enemies as well, perhaps for the same reason, but it wasn’t a true equivalence. If anyone else in the family were affected by some curse stemming from the freaky non-mermaids, it would probably have been obvious enough for Malwine to notice.

Not once had she regretted getting rid of [Expressed Reversal], but she was glad to have used it on her family members while she’d had it.

There was some disconnect between Katrina and Beryl’s {Foresight}, for the mother to have Foresight V and the daughter to have Foresight I. In that sense, Malwine’s understanding stopped there.

Giving one last cheer to her efforts at procrastination, Malwine braced herself. If this didn’t get her at least 10 Skill levels, she was going to dedicate a full new panel to complaints directed at the system. If the curse’s mere existence had been enough to get her that many levels on [Enforced Longevity], then it stood to reason a Skill that could directly face it should benefit just as much, if not more.

A line from one of Matilda’s books echoed in her mind, unbidden. Resilience is the defense within . That had been what gave her the idea—after all, that had been the attribute that increased with this, all those months ago.

Malwine brought up the dreaded panel.

[Lament of a Salvation Denied]

Cast by F̵̋̽͜l̴̠̰͑̌ō̸̫̗̹͔̿ş̵̗̬̬̌̆͛̑b̵̪̩̫̽̒̕l̴͍̻̿͊̆ò̴̼̣̈̀͌m̶̧̰͙̭̌ḙ̷̓̍ of the Court of U̴̘̻͖̗͂͂n̴̙̐̎̏̏f̸̘̈̉́̏ȁ̶͎͚̲̠͐t̴̝̀͂ẖ̵̻̍̀̅ȏ̵̯́̈́̀m̶̨͔̱̍͊ā̸͎́b̷̧̥̠̖̒́̃͋ļ̴̥͕̣̌̈e̵͙͙̻̒̎͘͜ ̶̦͙̓͑F̸̨͙̳̱͌̚û̶͍͎͇͊̉t̸̳̣͕̾͝u̸̪͔̗͎̾͛r̵̦̹͋̆̊͘é̵̬̙̀s̴͍̦̃̿́͗

MAY YOU AND YOURS NEVER AGAIN KNOW A HAVEN, USURPER BERYL RĪSANIN. MAY YOUR FLOWERS NEVER BLOOM, AND MAY YOUR LAST DAY COME TOO SOON.

Her senses—magical or otherwise—were far better now than they had been then. It wasn’t something she’d explored in earnest, even though she’d had some time to spare, and while they didn’t hold a candle to what they could be like with [Enforced Longevity] enabled, they still made everything worse.

Where glancing at the curse had once been a mere headache, it now felt like spikes were being driven through her skull, burning through her eye sockets all the way to her lower jaw. Malwine twitched in her bed, wincing.

Worse yet, the words remained wrong.

Malwine focused on it still.

Your [Mental Defense] Skill has improved! 0 → 1

Her vision cleared, but nowhere near enough for it to matter. She screwed her eyes shut, ignoring the tears that welled, not letting go of the panel. It was visible even then—she’d practiced enough with using [Blank Panel] within her [Meditation] mindscape. The act itself was almost easy, given how she couldn’t read the contents either way. She might as well have been gripping a random, pointless screen.

Your [Mental Defense] Skill has improved! 1 → 2

Malwine opened her eyes. The outlines of the panel sharpened, her vision shrouded by minuscule stars that faded within a second. It was but a shadow of what she recalled preceded her rebirth—she still shuddered.

Tears blurred her image of the panel, negating what little ground she’d regained. It was as if the text itself had a life of its own, exuding hostility towards her. It did not wish to be read.

Your [Mental Defense] Skill has improved! 2 → 3

Malwine wiped her eyes, pushing against the unsurmountable barrier. She’d never beat the curse itself alone, that… she hated it, but she knew she had to accept it.

What she could do was regain ground. These were her status effects, dammit, and this Skill had to be worth something. On a whim, she drew on {Foresight}. Her core felt distant, neglected as it was. She hadn’t bothered trying her hand at cultivation in a while, her frustration at the bottleneck dissuading her from any attempts. Now, she could see just how frail her second Root was.

{Legacy} came naturally to her. She didn’t have to do anything for the Root to simply grow, thrive. {Foresight} was different. She might have planted it, but it wouldn’t grow by itself. Oh, how she wished she’d realized that sooner.

Still, it should have been possible. [Imitation Beyond Filiality]’s description said nothing about Affinities, but that hadn’t stopped {Legacy} from barging in and completely derailing that trial. Just because an ability didn’t require mana clearly didn’t mean she couldn’t shove mana in.

Your [Mental Defense] Skill has improved! 3 → 4

She hoped she was right.

Acting more on instinct than anything else, Malwine pulled on what little {Foresight} could give. It barely trickled—barely any power had been gathered by it. {Legacy} had spoiled her, to the point she had been acting as if mana simply manifested into existence.

Malwine had wanted to use {Foresight} for this—it would have been right. Yet just as she was about to switch to her reliable, oldest Root, the thought struck her—didn’t [Enforced Longevity] promise her Roots could share power?

Couldn’t she just force one to back the other, then?

The panel in front of her flickered. She hadn’t been paying that much attention to it anymore, [Multitasking] having activated without her explicit command. The thought didn’t worry her—Skills were supposed to be a part of her, after all.

She renewed her grip on the panel, and started shunting mana from {Legacy}’s seemingly endless stream in her core, to {Foresight}’s feeble attempts. She could do nothing for the little Root itself, but the blue-purple droplets burned with light. The two Affinities shifted as if braided, blue-purple pushed forward by quintessential citrine.

Malwine winced, trying to grit the teeth she had, and directed the stream at [Mental Defense]’s efforts. She could have sworn the Skill shook—it wasn’t meant for this. It could take it, but in the end, it was a Forged Skill. Malwine still didn’t understand the full implications of that, but being used beyond its specifications nearly made the Skill falter.

No. Don’t.

[Toll] 72 → 79

[Integrity] 903 → 897

She’d regained much [Integrity] through sleep, and there it had gone.

Strands of citrine grew translucent, fading as blue-purple chains further brightened.

All at once, everything buzzed, and the unreadable panel trembled in the face of the very thing it—at its core—sought to suppress. Something as undefined and unknowable as the source of the curse itself.

The deck, once stacked, accounts for tomorrow.

The reprieve lasted for a moment only, before Malwine found the shimmering chains she’d formed cracking. They snapped back, no longer able to put the panel in its place.

Even this Legendary {Foresight} was nothing in the face of… Mythic {Psyche}. Had she reached that conclusion because of the Affinities those she saw Katrina kill during the trial had, or did the answer come from somewhere deeper?

Malwine had no idea.

But it was a mind Affinity. The memory of the three dead seablooded only served as confirmation of what the curse’s interactions with the Resilience attribute—and now with her [Mental Defense] Skill—already implied.

Your [Mental Defense] Skill has improved! 4 → 5

Five levels. Malwine did not want to give up at this point. Ten minimum, she reminded herself. That was the lowest she’d take before stepping back.

[Mental Defense] could not defeat something as powerful as a curse, but it was a Skill geared towards protection of the mind, and the curse was rooted in such an attack. She might have inherited it, but the fact stood. What had it been like for her mother? Malwine had only ever known its presence, in this life.

She couldn’t identify what a life without it would have felt like. That realization stung—no matter how strong this Skill grew, even if she was right about how the curse anchored itself, she wouldn’t get rid of it through something this simple.

But her resolve strengthened—not all of the curse’s effects were mental, clearly. Those, she would have had to deal with differently anyway. What she could focus on were its active attacks with each glimpse she caught of the panel, the letters that swirled and fled from her as she tried to read them.

Your [Mental Defense] Skill has improved! 5 → 6

You have reached Level 59!

Her first thousand-points level came with the echoes of chimes. Malwine took those and the unassigned leftovers, dumping them into Resilience without a second thought. 4,313 Resilience became 43, her attributes flickering as they always did when she put points into them. She couldn’t bear an activation of [Enforced Longevity] right now—otherwise, she would have reached for it. She wished she’d thought of that beforehand, waited longer before doing this.

Malwine’s gaze was still on the panel. Slowly, parts of it started to make sense to her. Barely. Just barely.

Your [Mental Defense] Skill has improved! 6 → 7

Your [Multitasking] Skill has improved! 6 → 7

There was still a layer of fog between her and the curse’s description. The words she could see made no sense to her.

After some more staring, the letters stabilized, and Malwine realized she had been wrong. There was no fog.

The words simply didn’t make sense to her.

They certainly must have meant something to their enemy—and probably to her mother—but to Malwine, they felt like flavor text at most. The description had nothing to do with the curse.

A pang of annoyance rose from her—all this effort, for this? Just to confirm the curse didn’t even deign to offer any hints or context about its existence? Perhaps she should have expected it, but Malwine could hardly stand for it.

Usurper Beryl Rīsanin. She supposed that could be it. {Foresight} was a sore spot, if Teach was to be believed. This… being that had cursed Malwine’s mother clearly didn’t think her worthy of possessing the Affinity.

If only Malwine could see its name.

Your [Mental Defense] Skill has improved! 7 → 8

The name remained illegible even as her understanding of the text grew. She could see the curse’s name, clearly, even in the panel itself. It burned, but it could no longer keep her away.

Slowly, the words after the curse-caster’s name unraveled, expanding like flowers in bloom—ironic, given the description. Unfathomable futures. A somewhat fitting name for what had to be a group obsessed with gatekeeping {Foresight}. It sounded petty enough, tinged with arrogance. That impression clung to the words themselves.

Your [Mental Defense] Skill has improved! 8 → 9

[Integrity] 897 → 888

What remained was the problem of the name itself—that much refused to reveal itself.

No matter how hard she pushed.

Your [Mental Defense] Skill has improved! 9 → 10

Your [Mental Defense] Skill has gained 10 levels. No Aspect was developed.

No matter for how long she stared.

In time, the thought came to her—another vague memory of Teach’s words. Seafarers had a hex to their names, or so the masked woman had claimed. Their names could not be shared. Did the seablooded have the same thing going on? If she recalled correctly, Teach had shifted gears quite quickly on the matter, borrowing some version of a seafarer nicknaming custom, but not actually explaining anything.

I ought to meet a seafarer, sometime. Perhaps only then would she understand.

Still, it made enough sense to Malwine. The name was hiding itself from her, as if it were forbidden knowledge or something. Rude. If you curse me, you should at least have to own up for it.

Her complaint achieved nothing.

Sighing, Malwine took a mental step back. The sight of the panel itself no longer bothered her, so long as she didn’t try to pierce the veil over the curse-caster’s name. Maybe Teach had a point. Nicknames were useful.

‘Unfathomable Futures Mofo’ had quite a ring to it, as did ‘Flowery Bastard’—she wasn’t even sure why she thought of the latter. Probably because of the bizarre threat the curse’s description ended with. But if she meant to actually start thinking of her enemy by a nickname, it should likely be something she could actually say out loud if it came to that.

Most of her next ideas were shamelessly uncreative—Flor was the first. But that was too pretty to be an insult, and Malwine very much wanted it to be one. She briefly wondered whether going out of her way to be antagonistic to someone responsible for a curse was a good idea, but she figured that ship had sailed ages ago. Likely before Malwine even existed.

Her next—and final—idea was terrible. Malwine thought back to the beings Katrina had killed. The knowledge that they were referred to as seablooded was the sole thing keeping Malwine from comparing them to elves, but she probably needn’t have bothered—they looked the part regardless. It was a reality Malwine found herself willing to accept just for the sake of a pun.

Your [Mental Defense] Skill has improved! 10 → 11

She genuinely wasn’t sure if it had been the panel or the terror of her own nickname work-shopping that had prompted that last level, considering how hard it was to decide whether she felt incredibly proud or utterly embarrassed by what she came up with. Maybe that counted for Skill development.

She’d thought of every word she could connect with the senseless flower mentions, sighed repeatedly, and decided she was going to call this personification of her enmity by the name of Elflorescence.

It’s so bad. So absolutely bad. Then again, at some point, she’d taken to calling her own great-grandmother OBeryl just to minimize the effort it took to distinguish her from the mother she’d never met, so maybe Malwine should never have expected it to go in any other way.

She snickered as she scribbled this new assigned name just under the illegible name on the panel—she’d known it was possible, but she’d never found a valid reason to try. A part of her had worried she might somehow break a panel by writing on it, but this panel was already a mess. It somehow shivered, as if it could recognize the text should not be there, but it stabilized in an instant.

Your [Write Anywhere] Skill has improved! 25 → 26

The fact that it had been this, of all things, that had broken the bottleneck of her Skill was almost offensive.

Malwine couldn’t help but laugh. It took far more effort than it should have to keep herself from annotating the panel any further—the urge to dish out some extra insults was strong.

Don’t push your luck. She chastised herself, but there was no heart to it. Having some confirmation that she could, in fact, just write on preexisting panels thrilled her, but it seemed risky. Something told her most wouldn’t be as sturdy as the curse’s panel.

We’ll see. We’ll see. She wouldn’t try anything else now, but she’d try eventually.

As she finally dismissed the panel, Malwine found she was still smiling.

Small as the step was, it felt like she had at last started reclaiming some of that which was owed to her, one piece at a time.