"A Lurin?" I asked. "What exactly is that?"
"That is a complicated question. What would you say if soone asked you what is a human?"
I opened my mouth, but quickly closed it again. She wasn't entirely wrong. It would be very hard to explain what exactly is a human. But at the sa ti it felt like the type of thing that you should be able to tell or at least help explain if soone were to ask.
"But it's not like I don't have an answer for you. I just don't know if you're going to like it. I, well, we are Lurins. I, myself, am nad Wistra. We are... history tells us that we once were a creature known as moths. Which one of us specifically that started all this I can't tell you. But not because I don't want to. I just really don't know. It would be like asking you which type of monkey do you co from."
I was taken back by that line. "You know we ca from monkeys?"
"We do. Our education is pretty good, and we strive to learn the secrets of the world. That being said, we are hardly experts on it. This is just knowledge that we acquired from, well, you."
"From us?"
"Yes. But that's a bit more complicated and we're going off track. I'm not entirely sure we'll have enough ti to get into the et of it. What you need to know is that we existed here for generations and we grew with the System since the beginning."
"How many generations?" Michael was the one who spoke up this ti.
"Oh, I don't know. Honestly, it's way too far back for to rember."
"But how is that possible?" Michael asked. "How can an entire civilization of you exist and we know nothing about it? I an no one ntioned you in the old world."
"Yes, because we were not there." Wistra replied.
"How can you not be there?" Riley's asked, making her master sigh.
"Do you know how long is the lifespan of a moth?"
Michael stared back at , but I didn't have an answer for him. "Maybe a couple years."
Wistra chuckled. "I wish. A regular moth can live for a couple of months if they are lucky. There is even a type of us who only lived for a couple of days and only a couple of hours as an adult. Sohow, despite evolution being the all powerful force that it is, that particular species after going through their pupa stage would be reborn without mouths. aning that the only energy they had to use was the ones they got as larvae."
"Wait, you have a larva form?" Riley asked with a worried expression.
Wistra nodded. "Yes. I had one. But the ti I stayed on it might be shorter than you might think."
"How long?" Riley pressed.
"Now that is another complicated question. And if you don't mind, I have sothing else to say before we get to that. You see, we have discovered that every species who gains access to the System is able to activate a specific ability. One that is available only to them. aning that it's a skill that no matter how hard you try, you could never get. And that's sa from us. I have a skill that is exclusive to the Lurin would never be accessed by human, a rodenti, an Eaters, an aranean, nothing." Wistra continued.
"We've t so of them, too. There are still two species missing from that list, according to the System. Do you know them?" I asked, wanting to know more about what was going on.
"I'm not entirely sure. There were rumors about a group down south. So flying creature, but I don't know if it's a different type of bird or what. Anyway, the skill I have is called {Threads Of mory}. This skill allows us to essentially use mories as a form of currency. I can take a mory that I like and offer to soone so they could also enjoy. I could copy a mory. Or I could pass it along to soone else. And that is sothing that people like who are tasked with experints related to The Grand Design, do."
"Hang on, you just tossed a bunch of information at us. I have questions," I rubbed my temple trying to process all that.
"I'm sure you do. But I won't be able to answer most of them. A lot of what I'm saying here is already pushing the wrong buttons and soon I won't be able to say anything else. So just take the information I'm giving you and try to figure the rest on your own."
"Wait? Why?" Riley asked, her voice full of worry.
"I'm afraid that is sothing I can't say right now. The mont I talk about this, it's likely that our conversation will stop. Again, let just finish explaining and then I'll try to answer so questions. Now, do you rember when I said that moths live for a month or so?"
"Oh, you an what you said less than 30 seconds ago? Yeah, I do rember." I rolled my eyes, gaining a blank stare from everybody. "Sorry," I added, and Wistra just shook her head.
"That's fine I guess. Anyway, that was true for our ancestors. But slowly we managed to increase our lifespan. Through a combination of various skills and mutations and I imagine just general evolution."
"And how long can you live now?" Michael asked.
"So of us for very, very long periods. Our queen is known as the Eternal Queen for a reason. But others sadly not so long. I'm on the longer side of things, my lifespan should be around a year. Or by now 7 to 8 months."
"What?" Riley gasped. "You only have 7 months to live?"
"My dear. My entire life happens in the span of a year. You see, your master, your original master, that's not . And if I am being honest, technically speaking, you and I have never t."
"The {Threads Of mory}," I said as the pieces fell into place.
Wistra nodded. "That is correct. Our exclusive skill which allows us to give mories to soone else. That is how my lineage was able to continue working on the project with the spiders for many years. Every ti we were reaching the end of our life, we would give all our mories to the next generation so they would continue their work. Our work."
"But if you get all the previous generation's mories, are you even soone different?" Michael asked. "I an, aren't our mories the things that make us who we are?"
Astrid, for the first ti since this conversation started, spoke up. "Ship of Theseus."
"What?" Michael turned to her with a confused expression. And I felt the need to explain.
"It's a philosophy question. Basically, imagine you have a ship. And you call it the Spider or whatever." As I started speaking, Wistra raised an eyebrow. "But then you go on a journey and you start rebuilding the ship, fixing it and changing parts. By the end of the journey, there's not a single piece of the original ship left, but you never changed ships. You never lost it or left it. At the end, is it even the sa ship?"
"I don't know. I guess?" Michael rubbed the back of his head.
"It's a good analogy, although I do believe that I am not my predecessor. That being said, I do share all their mories and their intentions." Wistra turned to face Riley. "And all their love. For we do love you, Riley. All these years that we spend together, even though we didn't spend them together, are still in my mory. And I feel all the joy, all the love and all the tis you drove nuts, as if every single experience was my own."
"So you're telling that every year when you left, and you never told where you were going, was because of this?" It was clear to everybody that Riley still didn't know how to process what they had just learned. But instead of dwelling on that subject, they were trying to make sense of other things. Maybe that was just a way to help her cope with the current situation.
Wistra nodded. "Yes. We used to spend the sumr with you and once winter ca, when we would get a bit more frail and a bit older. Unable to keep up the charade, we would leave to care for the next generation. After helping them through their larva state, we would give them our mories and pass on. Becoming just part of the new generation. That was what we did in the past 5 years."
I could feel the sincerity behind Wistra's words, although I wasn't entirely sure if that was a natural thing or not. Maybe she was using so sort of skill to share part of their mories or sothing. But I didn't believe that she was outright lying. Then again, there was sothing else in her words that caught my attention.
"You an that literally, don't you? You literally beco part of the next generation and I don't an just with the mories, right?"
"What do you an by that?" Riley turned to face .
"I an, she's pretty powerful. And according to her story, it hasn't been long since she was born or at least beca this. Which ans that she got to that level really quickly, maybe even quicker than I got to mine. So am I right in assuming that once the previous generation dies, the new generation uses their body to level up?"
"You were correct. Every ti a generation cos, the previous generation offers their own body so that we can inherit all their skills and abilities," Wistra said matter-of-factly, as if that wasn't even sothing to worry about, "We don't have enough ti between our cocoon stage and the death of our predecessor. Occasionally, as it was this ti, I was able to get so of the skills from the old Wistra, but not all of them. So are still not with , which is sothing I was working on."
"What do you an, working on?" Riley turned to Wistra with a mix of anger and confusion.
"You have the System, Riley. You understand how we gain skills, don't you? We can level up, we can stay near things that could give us the skills or, the easiest way and the most effective way is to eat."
"You're eating my master?"
"Yes. She is nothing more than food now. But it takes ti to process all the skills and all the Energy inside her body, especially since we use a specific skill to maintain the particles inside so we could share them with a new generation. It's not a perfect conversion, as we always lose so levels in the process, but by the ti I'm finished eating, I should be on the cusp of Tier 3 again."
"So the previous Wistra was a Tier 3?" I asked, interrupting Riley a bit to both help her calm down and satisfy my own curiosity.
"Yes. She was, I believe, level 10," Wistra closed her eyes for a mont and nodded, "Yes. She had been there for a while. It gets really hard to level up once you reach the higher tiers." Wistra turned back to Riley. "But know this, despite the shock and the strangeness of all this. You had five masters that truly genuinely loved you. I would say six and add to the mix, but technically speaking, I was never your master. But I do love you still."
"But how can I believe that?" Riley's eyes were starting to be filled with tears.
"Well, for one, I really shouldn't be telling you any of this, and I'm going to pay a very big price for it. Speaking of which, I'm sorry to dump this on you but..." She paused. And turned to Astrid. "Actually, you. Is your weapon sharp enough to kill in a single swing?"
The Frosted Lumberjack just nodded.
"Perfect. If it was up to , I would say that I wish that Riley didn't want to kill , but I am not entirely sure if they would be up for this. So instead I ask any of you, please kill soon."
"Wait, why?" Riley gasped.
"Because I am telling you think that you shouldn't know. I am revealing information about my people that goes against the direct order of our queen. And the Luminaria do not take kindly to betrayal."
"Luminaria?" I asked.
"That is one of the many titles our queen has. Unfortunately, even though her magic has been cast generations ago and it's been a very long ti since I had an interaction with her, I still am unable to give you her na. She binds us to never betray our kind. Or at least, to never do anything that she herself would consider a betrayal. And telling this information to you is a betrayal. According to her, at least. In addition, I am now forced to tell her about the existence of more people with the System," Wistra's hand jerked but she quickly grabbed it with the other one and held by her side.
"I can fight the urge to leave and go to her for a few monts. But soon I will lose myself to her powers and start rushing towards her in order to give my mories. Dying in the process, of course. If you don't wish to reveal your existence to her and put a target on all humans' backs I recomnd you to kill . More than that, once her power has completely taken over I will see anything that is not a Lurin as an enemy and I will attack relentlessly. So, please kill whilst I still maintain so sort of control over my actions. If at all possible, I would like to give my particles to Riley, as I trust that they will know what to do with them. And all the skills that co with it. But I understand that this might be too much to ask of you."
"But we can't kill you," Riley yelled.
"Don't worry, I'm not going to be fighting back. As long as you have a strong enough weapon or a skill, you surely can kill . Then again, if I am controlled by the Queen's power, I will lose all my reason so I won't be using any skills to attack you. Even then, I suppose you do have a good chance of killing . You know, in fairness, without my spells, I am not all that powerful."
"I'm not talking about that," Riley protested. "Why are you giving up so easily? Why are you not fighting? Do you really want to die like that?"
Wistra stared at Riley. "I don't. But I, unlike you, who have still decades, maybe even a hundred years, to look forward to, I am already at the end of my days. Sure, for that sounds like much more ti than I already spent here. But I know through my mories that my life is just a blip when compared to yours. It's one of the benefits of sharing mories like that. We get a different sense of perspective about the end. As long as I'm sure you're safe, I'm fine if today is my last day."
Wistra smiled, but she quickly jerked back and put both hands around her mouth. The expression in her eyes turned severe, as if she was staring at food after being starved for countless years. But she quickly pulled back and kept holding one of her arms with her other hand.
"Please do it quickly. You can eat later. Get so skills. Rember how I taught you how to cook cricket? Do the sa. I'm delicious. The old Wistra is behind the door on the left. What remains of her anyhow. Kill now or I will-"
"Wait, wait," Riley protested, standing between us and Wistra, but before her master could say anything else, a pair of wings burst from behind. On the wings themselves, there was what looked like a pair of glowing eyes shimring against the torchlight.
Wistra's mouth split open, breaking part of her cheeks as blood started to drip down from her face and a set of extra fangs and pincers ca out from inside of her throat, snapping towards Riley. Her old master was no longer there. Now she was just a mindless beast being controlled by a much more powerful force.
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