“Emma.” The Priest called, voice belying his small frame and running through the building’s interior, “You have proven yourself a valuable servant of the Gods, and earned the right to be made a citizen of Tepetlmoseua. You have valiantly trekked through the Scoured Plains, overcome adversity and done a great service in the name of the Irethani. You are welcome here, so long as you abide by our laws, honour the true Gods, and vow to use your powers for the good of the traditions.”
It was a big, wordy speech that Emma had to fight in order to avoid losing focus halfway through. But Aexilica had warned her something like that was coming, told her what to expect as they made their way to the temple.
Emma kept her eyes on the Priest, waiting for him to reach something at least tangentially similar to a point. Fortunately, he did. Eventually.
“As a reward for your deeds, I hereby grant you permission to remain within the abode of citizen Aexilica.” He finished. Emma didn’t squeal with joy, but it was a near thing. She glanced over to the now-watching Aexilica and found the woman…Tight. She wasn’t scowling, or screaming, but looked like she was actively resisting the urge to do both with every ounce of willpower she could muster. Emma wondered why, but found she could think of no reason.
Oh, shit, she was meant to say something now.
“I am honoured by your kindness, noble Priest, and thank you for it.” Emma bowed as she replied, and glanced up to see the room was about as impassive as ever.
“You may go.” The Priest nodded. Emma half-turned, remembered she wasn’t supposed to put her back to the man, and sort of awkwardly side-shuffled out to the door. As she went, she found herself catching the man’s gaze.
It sent a chill down her spine. Something about it, the way he was looking at her. Fascinated, but scientifically so. It was the sort of stare a vivisectionist might give to someone tied down on their operating table. Emma saved her shiver until she was out of sight.
The moment she was out of the temple, a hand came down hard on her shoulder and started pulling.
Aexilica was bigger than Emma, she’d known that. Six feet where she was five, built like somebody who swung a broadsword into monsters for a living rather than someone who made Skyrim sex mods. Still, though, the ridiculous ease with which she started hauling Emma down after her was surprising. There had to be something supernatural about it.
“Let’s go home.” The woman growled, fury clear enough in her voice. She was tugging the fabric of Emma’s jerkin back up into her neck, which Emma immediately noticed and started trying to shift around in the hopes of making it cut off circulation. Unfortunately Aexilica let go of her within another minute. She bit back her disappointment and followed after the woman.
“You should’ve seen me.” Emma began, grinning as she thought back to her quest. “I was amazing! So this cyclops came up behind me-”
“-Cyclops?” Aexilica snapped, suddenly staring at her, suddenly concerned.
“Yeah. I mean, that’s what we call them where I’m from. Ten feet tall, six feet wide, more muscle than anything else, big single eye, club, right?”
Aexilica studied her for a moment, perhaps scrutinising Emma for deception.
“That’s what we call them too.” She said at last. “You fought one?”
“It attacked me.” Emma confirmed. “I was in trouble for a bit, but it only took the one blast to knock him on his ass and convince him to give up.” She felt another shimmer of pride at that. “Man I was so cool. Wonder what else I can do…”
Emma started looking around at the various buildings, estimating which ones she could and couldn’t blow up in a single blast.
Soon, they were back at their home. Emma wasn’t even given chance to say anything clever and funny before Aexilica had left again, leaving her alone in the small building.
That was when the trembles hit her.
For some reason, Emma hadn’t really felt much in the way of shock on her journey back. It’d probably been the imminent threat of attack, keeping her priorities forever locked on immediate survival, never letting her dwell on what had happened. There was no imminent attack now, though. And her mind was free to roll around screaming as much as it wanted.
Emma shook, shivered, almost convulsed. Her breaths came in short, sharp gasps, her eyes watered. Her hands were near-unusable, shaking even if she held them in her pockets.
Holy shit, I almost died. I-
Emma caught that thought, stifled it, threw it down into the ground and then spent a good few minutes jumping up and down on it. She hadn’t almost died, she had imagined almost dying. This was her world, she could do what she wanted in it. It didn’t exist without her. It didn’t exist without her. Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
It didn’t exist.
The mantra soothed her, giving her thoughts something to focus on besides the shock of what she’d- thought she’d- seen. By the tenth or so iteration, Emma was feeling calmer. She made her way to one of the pots in the corner of the room, one holding unwashed clothing, and began emptying it out.
At the bottom, beneath all the fabric, was a scowling, glaring, swearing severed head.
“There you are!” He spat. “Her majesty, eh? Queen Bitch herself. Where have you been your holiness? Terrorising someone else? Tearing any other bodyparts off? Drooling over-”
Emma raised a handful of clothing up, and he changed his tune instantly.
“-The very thought of helping people, given what a kind and generous soul you so clearly are. How was your epic quest, fair hero, did you slay any maidens or seduce any monsters?”
Smiling just as falsely as him, Emma dropped the clothes back beside the pot and gently lifted him out. “You’d have liked it.” She told him. “I almost died.”
“Ha!” He grinned, clearly liking it even more than she’d anticipated he would.
“Not funny, you’re an asshole, and I need help to avoid it happening again.” Emma flicked his forehead, weathered his insults, and waited for him to continue more constructively.
“So…” Larry began. “You want my knowledge of Untethering, some tips, tricks, a few shortcuts to power, eh?”
“Yes.” She nodded eagerly.
“Put me in the basket and bury me.” Larry turned his nose up. “Not happening, sorry sweetheart.”
Emma blinked.
“What…I could actually do that, you know. Forever.”
“Ha!” He cackled. “Not forever, idiot. I will live forever, that basket and those clothes will erode in a few centuries if they’re lucky. Your kind die so fast it’s hilarious, you can’t threaten me with time dumbass.”
Emma ground her teeth.
“So you have an offer you want me to make in mind, right?” She asked. She had seen his eyes light up as she asked for help, clearly Larry knew he had something to gain from it. She just had to find out what he wanted, then decide whether it was worth it.
“Do you seriously not know what it’s gonna be without asking?” The head frowned, as if she were being terribly stupid.
“Do you want me to put you between my legs while I sleep?” Emma offered. He actually shuddered at that, as if he’d just been forced to drink vomit.
“Alright I’ll tell you, Christ.” He sighed. “You need a Focus first.”
Emma grinned. “Is that like a wizard staff?”
“You could say that.” Larry nodded eagerly. “If you were a drooling moron, at least. No, it’s a mental device to…Hm, okay how do I explain this. Magic, right? It’s terrifying, blows your mind up if you look at it straight-on. Doesn’t matter how “untethered” you think you are, you ain’t got shit on capital-M-magic. So how do you use it without exploding?”
Emma thought about it. “...Magic orbs?”
“Stop trying to be Gandalf.” He snapped. “No, you use a mental device to focus the magic and interpret it in a way that your tiny little shrivelled-raisin of a brain can actually make sense of without going poof. These are called Foci, and they’re basically what stand between you and window-licking insanity.”
“Wow, you’re really good at explaining stuff!” Emma beamed. “You should make a job out of introducing people to mysterious new powers, or something.”
“Fuck you.” Larry replied, curtly. “Now start trying to find your Focus.”
Emma did start, and spent a solid ten seconds trying before it occurred to her there was more she ought to be asking.
“Uh, how do I do that?”
“Took you long enough to wonder, idiot.” Larry grinned again. Emma bounced a spare sandal off his face. “Ow! Asshole! Okay, you need to fucking…Uh, look inside yourelf, like, open your third eye kinda shit. Be introspective and crap.”
Emma’s scepticism was clearly worn on her face.
“I’ve never coached one of you types before, alright? First I ever met one of you, it was this crazy broad who yanked my head off. Just try and feel around your consciousness for any…Unexplored parts. That’s as clear as I can make it, rest’s on you sweetheart.”
Emma started again, and this time she had a shade more direction, and a lot more irritation, to help her. It took time. It took a lot of damned time, half an hour, then close to the rest of one. Finally, though, she found her Focus. Or either she found something that looked weird enough to question her sanity if it wasn’t.
Question her sanity, funny.
Fundaments:
Energy 1, Matter 1, Force 1, Entropy 1, Cognition 1, Space 1, Time 1
Crafts:
Alchemy 1, Talismans 1, Enchanting 1, Animacy 1,
Cores:
Attunement 10, Mastery 1
Okay, that was a lot of data all at once. And in…Very convenient form.
“What do the numbers mean?” Emma asked, seeing a blank look upon Larry’s face.
“Numbers?” He frowned.
“I’m seeing numbers.” She explained. “Like, just, sort of…” How did she explain it? It wasn’t exactly in the air, but it wasn’t quite in her mind either. Actually, she realised they weren’t fully visible. It felt like her eyes were seeing just enough to make her think they were there, and her brain was instantly being given all the information that light alone would have left out. A puzzle with the pieces handed and lined up so seamlessly that, technically unassembled though it was, she barely even registered anything but the complete picture. Not unless she tried to look for it.
By the time Emma had finished putting that into words, Larry had already moved past confused, annoyed, snarky, face-down in the basket, apologetic, snarky again and then, finally, gasping in realisation.
“I…I think you’ve found your Focus.” He said at last. Emma’s frown only deepened.
“You think? I thought you were meant to be some expert, how did you now recognise this at first mention? How do you even know what a Craft is if you’ve never seen the things that tell people that?”
“I have seen Foci.” He snapped. “Idiot, they vary from person to person. Artists see ink splotches, writers hear poems, physicists have equations to solve. As far as I can tell, the only real trend unifying all Foci is that a more powerful Untethered will generally have one that gives them their relevant information more directly and clearly.”
Emma thought about that. She knew where hers was coming from, of course. She’d been a gamer her whole life; pulling all-nighters to beat one more level, swearing in voice chat, letting people on Discord call her “kitten” for free nitro, even sending death-threats to feminists on the internet. So the only question was…
“...How rare is it to get numeric values for all of your relevant Untethered abilities?” She asked.
At that, finally, Larry smiled.
“I’ve never heard of a Focus manifesting so clearly.”