Eleanora
> You gained 5 Endurance, 5 Mind, 10 Willpower, 5 Magic.
> You unlocked the Ego Attribute.
> You gained 5 Ego.
The illusion faded but the fog blocking the arena bubble remained. Her torn robes were intact, except where she'd soiled herself. The trees, branches, wolves, her spell, all of it disappeared in a puff of smoke. But her nerves were still in tatters and she was shaking.
The pervasive darkness was what unnerved her. She decided she hated it.
Then she saw a glow from behind, casting a long shadow of a girl sitting on the stone floor. Warm shining arms wrapped around her, a nurturing and calming embrace. It was soft, warm, like a mother's embrace.
"Be at ease, Eleanora," the sa voice as before lted away all the dross around her heart and over her mind.
She closed her eyes and felt warm tears stream between her eyelids. She sobbed, the hug tightened, and Eleanora felt a pair of soft breasts press against her back. The calming sll of wildflowers and Spring lted her sorrow as she let herself into that embrace.
"You completed your Quest," the woman told the girl. "You found your strength."
"Goddess? Is that you?" Eleanora asked with a faint whisper. As if the embrace would end if she raised her voice, the dream after the nightmare would end.
"Shh. I'm of no importance," she replied. "Your mind is. I want you to look inside your soul, Eleanora. Quiet your mind, let go of your fears. All the dark feelings your experience brought up, shed them like a pupa sheds their shell to hatch into a gorgeous butterfly."
"I can't. It's too painful!" Eleanora whined.
"You can," she grabbed her hand, sending a comforting jolt of warmth up her arm. "Co with . Co with to the light. Let all the darkness in your heart behind in that ugly forest. Trust and let your body relax."
It felt like an order, and Eleanora felt sleep almost taking over her. She felt the weight leave her, her body becoming light as a plu. In that embrace she placed her trust, in that voice she found her guidance.
She felt as if she was flying over the oceans, over the mountains. She was going around the world but she didn't dare open her eyes. Then she slowed down and descended slowly. She felt the warmth of the sun and the rustle of grass as Eleanora and the woman hugging her landed on a grassy field.
"Open your eyes," the woman said. Eleanora obliged.
She saw the blue sky, cotton-white clouds closer than they should. She felt the grass behind her and she knew she was leaning on the woman's lap. The arms were still crossed over her chest, binding her in a protective shell.
Her tears stopped. her aches soothed. Her weariness vanished, her breathing and heartbeat cald down. She was at peace. She was in heaven. Eleanora spent a mont close to eternity there, feeling the grass, the softness, and the warmth of the arms embracing her. She was fine.
The forest and the wolves now felt like a bad dream. But as she rembered the wolves, she felt no fear. No, she could feel her childhood trauma there, in the back corner of her mind. But it looked so small. On second thought, it wasn't smaller than it was before. It was her mind that was bigger. Stronger. She'd killed the wolves, she'd found her magic. She felt complete, whole. She knew that if she saw a wolf now, she would scold the creature like one scolds a mutt that chewed on one's sandals.
"Thank you," Eleanora said to her hostess.
"You're welco, my child."
"Where are we?"
"If you dare believe my words, we are in my abode floating above Windere."
Eleanora opened her eyes.
*
*
The grassy lawn ended a few dozen ters to the north and south. To the east, she saw an orchard with dozens of trees she didn't recognize. To the west, a palace carved of the purest white marble, with a grand fountain in front. She looked up and she saw a smiling face of a young woman with long fox ears poking up.
"Welco," the fox-woman said.
"Windere is gone. Destroyed," Eleanora lanted. "Is this another dream?"
"Windere was a place, but what gave Windere life was its people. My people. So long they rember, Windere will one day be reborn."
"The silk-folk? Very few of them remain."
"All of my children. The people of the cloth. The beast people. The elves of the stars. The rainbow-scaled lamias. And their children. And you."
Her eyes stung all of a sudden as she felt the pull of kinship tugging her heart. What the fox-woman said was true. Eleanora, the half-satyr, was a child of the Matriarch. Said Matriarch ran her fingers over her head, holding right above her ear and pulling her head to nestle between her shoulder and collarbone. She could hear the Goddess' heartbeat.
"I believe," Eleanora professed. "I believe in Windere. I believe there's a ho for all of us."
The Goddess sighed, "Back in the day, you'll get an enchanted [Tabard] for what you just declared. Alas, it is lost now. So you'll have to be content with just a kiss, child."
The fox-woman kissed Eleanora's forehead. The girl closed her eyes, and she felt the illusion around her vanish. Once more, the grass underneath her beca hard polished stone. Then sound and light returned as the bubble around the arena vanished.
"Eleanora!" Cried the voice of a worried Elizabeth.
*
*
*
*
Using Illusion magic was pretty draining. Not the MP but the ntal energy required to keep the details convincing. Snapping dry twigs in the rain, putting the thunder before the lightning, the owl calmly hooting out of nowhere in the middle of the chaos, I almost screwed up Eleanora's trial a dozen tis over. If she was this much perceptive or this little calr, she would've noticed and the magic would break.
But it ended well. Eleanora overca her trauma, found her branching path, stabilized her magic, and unlocked the hardest Attribute to raise. But even the paltry five points she gained would increase her self-esteem and sense of self by an order of magnitude.
Elizabeth rushed in and repaid the favor as she hugged and comforted Eleanora.
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"I'm okay! I'm okay!" The girl grinned, feigning her usual bubbly deanor. I knew she was still unnerved but she would recover. Back on Earth what I did to her would be torture and would leave the girl a sobbing husk for a long ti but here, with the System and superhuman Attributes, it was just an exercise in exorcising one's inner demons.
Like a worried mother, Elizabeth turned the teenager's head sideways, back and forth, checked her arms. Then she yelped and jumped.
I startled her with my disappointnt.
"I got a branching Path!" Eleanora shared excitedly. "I'm a [Sorceress] now," she revealed, leaving the "bog" part out.
Elizabeth wasn't enthused. "[Sorceress]?" She stole a glance my way.
Barbara approached and picked up. "What's the matter with sorcery?" She asked out loud, probably intending to have anyone answer.
"They are wild and uncontrolled," Elizabeth said as if it was enough.
Elizabeth sputtered. She glanced at Isaac, then at Eleanora, and then back at . "And all I got were three Proficiency points," she lanted.
*
*
With a little MP expenditure on my part, the four students trained for five hours every day, over two weeks. Nothing out of the ordinary happened, we just hamred the basics.
For Barbara, it was drawing speed. She took forever to create one magic circle and complained that she would just use [Spell-Shards] if push ca to shove. I ignored her whining and pushed her harder yet. When she didn't improve, I decided to forget about making her draw the diagram, and skip to the advanced technique. Realization.
If a mage had a perfect picture of the spell diagram they wanted, the whole diagram could appear at once, without being drawn. Most [Wizards] never reached this stage but they drew so fast it was almost like they did the whole circle at once. But it wasn't.
Barbara did that to so degree when she connected to one of the shards of the diagrams engraved on the rubies atop her staff. But I wanted her to do that in thin air. This way, even if the [Crystallomancer] didn't have her crystals to mance with, she wouldn't be defenseless. Never mind that I wouldn't ever leave her side. But I knew better than to just pretend nothing could separate us.
I encouraged Barbara.
The halfling girl had a {Firebolt} spell diagram floating in front of her. The diagram for {Stone Shot} was exactly the sa except for the Essence. Marlowe's theory of interchangeable diagrams said she could swap the outer layer, the Essence section without disturbing the rest of the diagram. But she froze under the watchful gaze of our three friends sitting outside the hexagon on chairs borrowed from the central cafeteria.
"I couldn't hold the diagram that long," Eleanora remarked. "Barbie has quite the Willpower."
"No wonder the System made you switch paths," Elizabeth quipped. "I feel sorry for your MP pool."
The half-satyr girl poked her tongue at the taller one. "Nethe said he'll help get an Ability that will allow to reduce my MP costs. Should make my sorcery cost as much as a wizard's spell."
"Still a waste," Elizabeth scoffed.
"And [Sorcerer] has so many interesting Perks!"
"Shh. You're going to distract Ambrose with your bickering," Isaac shushed them.
"I can't," Barbara whined. "My head is throbbing. If I try to draw sothing, the circle will dissipate." And the diagram wobbled, leaking so energy to the air.
I cast to make her unstable diagram. You took 9 HP of damage from the explosion (Base 250 (-104 hardness) x6 spell level x3 blast proximity x0.07 Titan Body x0.05 Training Arena)
"Nethe!" Barbara shrieked.
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