Warning:The user is being affected by sudden mana drain, starting termeasures...10%...20%...50%...termeasures failed, draining of mana was found to be more effective than inbuilt termeasures.
Evaluating situation...
Releasing withholds experience from achievements.
Milestone achieved!The User has fought against a [Hero] and mao not only win but to fuel its [Desire] frowth!
Experieowards the level granted.
The User has learned about [Idea] for the first time!
May you further [The Wish] of [The World]!
Experieowards the level granted.
The User has been told [The Truth]...Experieowards the level granted.
Warning: [Calling fher directives...Call towards current [Caretaker] deemed unwise...Redireg...Call towards current [Overseer] deemed unwise...Redirect...Re-rolling [Thought Kernel]...Taking arevious earnings...Log further earnings]
[User has crossed the first threshold...Uo take further gains...Dispelling part of outher Soulscape defense]
[May you further the wishes of the World]
Milestone Achieved!:The User has taken a [Peek] at the current [Bastion] and survived!
Experieowards the level granted.
The user has suffered [Soulstrain] from the information above its current [Authority]... Impossible te from [Tought Kerhanks to interference from outside forces.
Experieowards the level granted.
The User has furthered [The Wishes] from [The World], summoning of [Last Boss] aplished...ERROR ERROR ERROR
Current Questline purged from database...Taking power from [Last Boss]... Directives from [System] in flict with [The Wishes of The World]... Impossible to request help from [Overseer] and [Caretaker]...
ERROR ERROR ERROR
User [Skill] has redirected summoning...
Experieowards the level granted.
The user has been exposed to the righteous view of the popuce against the people in power and hasn't fallen to the call of power!
Experieowards the level granted.
The User has felt the undercurrent danger in the world and survived tact.
Experieowards the level granted.
The User has suffered uhe strain of both [Madness] aional Distress], but still mao maintain its [Will]!
Experieowards the level granted.
The user has survived the [Strains] in her [Soul] by going into the world with her [Soul Restrained]...
Experieowards the level granted.
[System] has deemed the [User] viable...Furthering its ces of survival by applying [Patch]
ERROR ERROR
Warning:Corruption of [Patch] by the influence of [Hero] and [Skill].
[Hero] deemed useful for furthering and taining [Ior], starting pns for [Using Hero]...
Milestone Achieved!:The User has touched the [Madness] and survived.
Experieowards the level granted.
The User has defeated four [Enemies] more experiehan her.
Experieowards the level granted.
The User has learhe [Truth] behind the [Evil] in the world!
Experieowards the level granted.
The User has taken the first steps towards bettering the world by taining its [Power].
Experieowards the level granted.
The User has beeed by [The Darkness] and didn't fall for its temptation!
Experieowards the level granted.
The User has found the [in] of [The Corruption] in the world... And the cause of interferen [The Wish] of [The World].
Experieowards the level granted.
WARNING WARNING
User is in direct course with hostile actainst the wishes of [The World]
Decreasing [Defenses] against [Madness].
ERROR ERROR
T???????????????????????????H??????????????E?????????????????? ?????????????????W???????????????O???????R????????????????L?????????????????????D??????????????? ???????????????????W??????????????????????I??????L?????????????????L???????????????? ??????????????????????H???????????????A?????????V??????????????????E???????? ?????????????????I????????????????T?????????????????????????????S????????? ?????????????????????D???????????????U?????????????E???????!????????????????????
Notice:Rolling back thought kernel...
Failed...
Restarting thought Kernel...
Failed...
I will have my due [Ior], you will [Ko [My Wish]...
Milestone Achieved!The User is no longer uhe prote of [The World] and survived [The Madness] onsught!
Experience earned, [Treshold] achieved.
We ence your endeavors, may you stay true to your [Wish] and bring forth the [Wish] of [The World]!
May the luck be always with you [Ior]!
Alice woke up after what felt like a week of sleeping...And she wasn't rested at all. The first thing that she saw was a bck-haired girl with red eyes...She wondered why she was surprised at seeing her refle, but then again...She always had a hard time waking up, low blood pressure in the ms was hell.
'Did I oversleep again?' Thought to herself while w how she had gotten into this predit.
It wasn't till she saw the one looking at her outside the pod, a small-looking guy, in another life she might have made a rude joke about him being a creature out of a fantasy world, like a gnome or something...
'A ghat rattled her memory...
"I'm...Alice?" Said the bck-haired girl while pushing against the gss.
"You awake girly?" Answered back the...Gnome?
No...That was rude, you didn't bel people by their looks, by that metric she would have been called [Vampire] while growing up instead of Barbie, Goldilocks, Sunshine or Buttercup... No wait.
'Aren't those niames for a Blonde Bimbo?' Thought Alice her mind still groggy, she cursed at her low pressure. "You okay there?" Said the...Person, she almost thought of him as a gnome.
"I need you to funnel your skill okay, Zoe said you had an [Infosec] skill. So that would be best in your case." Said the little man while opening the pod and pg a stool so she could sit.
She did as instructed and sat, she took measure of herself while doing so, and her clothes looked... Different, while the style was the corree, most of his current clothing seemed to e from a desigore instead of a thrift store. She k since most of the bimbos only ko look for those, and she hated overspending.
Theuro look at the room she found herself in, It looked like the ir of a mad [Tinker] or something, but the small persoo her seemed niough...Granted he could have kidnapped her, but no one would be mad enough to do so.
She might not have ied the looks nor power of Papa, but she had enough of her mama ihat no one would dare to do so. So she focused on her mana and tried to call the [Shadows] only to stop a sed short.
"I..Don't have [Infosec] skills though..." She didn't have anything like that, she could use a few minions like her mama to do scouting but that was about it.
"This might be hard...We do have firmation that you have ory the vocal pound, focus on yourself, and say [Identify]. Our reports indicate that is the skill you used to call." Said the small person while giving her a tablet with the possible bases to call the [Skill], a good way some people used to teach their [Skills] and [Subset Skills] to others.
Mama had used one like this to try and help her grow her skill into the [Summoning] aspect too. She just wao get it over with and did as such, If it worked it would be a nice surprise to Mama, maybe she could help her with her work this way if the [Shadows] could get some [Infosec].
So while feeling the [Mana] in her veins, she called [The Shadows] and intoned "[Identify]" while thinking and guiding the ent skill into fog on her.
And...Then it hit her all at once, she felt her whole being assaulted...And [Alice] was no more...Only [Elizabeth Starbright] stood there.
"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!?" Screamed the blon...No, screamed the bck-haired girl while standing up and grabbing her head and sitting down once agaihe headache hit her, all the while gring at the gnome and trying to not think about the deluge of notifications that assaulted her.
The gnome had the gall to even smile at her while she suffered from one of the worst migraines she ever had in her life, she was half tempted to dismiss all the notifications in one go if not for the fact that she saw a couple of ones with some red in them.
"Finally!" Said the gnome happy for some reason. "This is the girly I remembered, not the shy one we had before." He said while running to one of the stations and rummaging in them.
"The hell you talking about." Said Elizabeth while trying to gre at the gnome, who raised his voice while someone had a headache?
Rude!
He returned soon enough with a holotablet and pushed py showing a video of her [Alice] shift waking up in the same pod she had walked in before...ht, when did she wake up?
"...What?" Was all the girl could say seeing the video. She looked...Diferent, the posture, and mannerisms, the standing pose, the tentative steps that looked as if the girl wao run away at the first tact...
What?
That...Wasn't her.
"Yeah, sometimes that happens with [Tainted]. We think it's [The Taint] mental aspect, somehow it makes people act different, as if they were someone else. Never saw a case this extreme though. I could swear we had made some mistake while [Purging the Madness] from your system..." Said the gnome while nodding alongside.
They purged the what?
"You purged what?" Asked Elizabeth while stopping the video just at the part where she used [Identify] and proceeded to scream while her eyes tury.
"We purged [The Madness] from your internal mana system, flushed you of its influehen gave it back to you...You have...Less mana than expected at the start, but for some reason started to get more mana so we had to push the mae more than needed, but at some point, the mana pteud and stopped growing...So...What did your [Skill] tell you t you back?" Said the gnome while looking at her aing ready to write whatever she said.
She couldn't help but smirk at the idea, since her skill said something quite simple.
"It told me my name." Answered the girl while looking at her [Status] s, it had somewhat ged sihe st time she had seen it. And a few of the spells she had left ready to enter after she got more allowance had been slotted already too.
Status
Name: Elizabeth Starbright
Title: The Ior of the Akashic Records
Alias: Elemental Weaver, Shadow Empress
Level: 20
Health: 100%
Mana: 100%
Stamina: 100%
Stress: 0%
Strength: 50
stitution: 50
Agility: 50
Dexterity: 50
Intelligence: 44
Wisdom: 44
Charisma: 41
Free Status points: 140
Magic in:
Shadow Weaver
Magic Spells Sloted: 37/40
Magic Circles Sloted: 20/20
Skills:
-Shadow Iment
-Status
-Mana Attuned
Subset skills:
Shadows
-Craft / Manipution
-Shift
-Minion Summoning.
-Shadow Travel
Status
-Identify [dition]
-Iory [Wardrobe]
Mana Attuned
-Manipution
-Shift
-Spellcasting
-Entment
-Proje
"It told you your he garted ughing at that. "That was all? It said: 'You are Alice...' whatever st name you have?" He kept ughing while writing away in his holopad.
"In a nutshell, yes." Said the bck-haired girl, she was happy that her skill didn't keep trol of her ges in [Shift] as the bracelet...If she had something like that going to defend against [Infosec] skills...She wasn't sure she would have been able to pull herself from the [Alice] persona.
gratutions!New [Skill] achieved thanks to full immersion into new identities.
May you further the wishes of [The World] Ior.
[Perfect Disguise]:
Allows the user to cloud the interference from [Infosec] skills by going into a carefully crafted persona by [The World]. No [Infosec] or [Skill] will be able to pierce the effects of this [Skill]
Do you wish to [Take] this [Skill]?
Y/Y
Y/n
"...I think whatever you did broke my skill." Said the bloer reading the notification.
Something weird was going on, she couldn't help but feel [Malice] from the red in her blue notifications, like something was [Bleeding over]. It also was weird how it seemed to only allow her to [Take] the skill.
"What do you mean? Is it telling you something weird?" Asked the gnome while bringing a ser and pointing it at her. "Hmm...Try to focus your [Shadow] into your core and then expand it outwards trying to [Flush] something out"
Elizabeth did as instructed, first fog her [Shadow Essence] around her [Soulcore] and then flushed everything outwards, she felt some interfere some point, as if something [Sticky] was trying to stay there, but tio do so.
As she was doing so she felt...Relief, looking again into the notification she saw as if something blue was trying to flush the [red] in her notification. And she noticed how the small dot he sed [Y] was actually a lowercase [n].
She focused her [Will] into it and the notificatio away, no new skill appeared in her [Status] either.
"Good work, the only ohat had mao do this alone before was [Ea]." Said the gnome while her a silver bracelet. She took it and wondered what to do with it, she had the red one already after all.
"Put it oook the other one already." He said while pointing to a bracelet submerged in a vat, it was slowly eroding ihe murky liquid.
She in turn looked to her left hand and sure enough, nothing was there, she almost had a panic attack but noticed her mood was normal...So she put on the bracelet and...Felt nothing.
"So long you keep [The Madness] away using that method you will be fine, High Tier metahumans flush it away only once a week, but the more you use your [Skill] the more you will o flush the [Madness] away. That will keep track of your [Corruption] rate. And will give you warnings as needed." And sure enough, it had a small progress bar, it was at ht now.
Notice:Detected external trag device from Saintsworth glomerate tech...Adapting...Iing...
5%...20%...50%...100%
Internal corruption tracker ied into System.
So long the equipment is in the user or the user [Iory] the [Tracker] will be avaible.
Thank you for using Saintsworth's glomerate.
"Hmm...." Answered the bck-haired girl, she fiddled a little more with the menus in the bracelet and found a photo of her [Alice] persona with her name in it, her height, weight (She was, it seemed, somewhat malnourished), and her name...And only name, no st name, no address, no nationality...
"Might want to fill those out, rovide help with the legal side if you are an illegal in here...[Ea] likes to adopt strays...ht, you might want to go to the main hall, the recruitment notice will start soon." Said the gnome while handihe backpack she had brought before, they had taken it out at some point while she was unscious.
That didn't have anything of value since most of her stuff was in her [Iory] but she still was thankful to find everything inside...And some extras.
"That folder has the usual requirements for the needed paperwork if you want a [Identity] that holds uhe scrutiny of the Saintsworths." She would fill it out ter and further the [Weight] of her [Alice] persona.
"Thank you for the help..." She said while she started walking towards the door, she wondered who were the people she saw before the pod knocked her out.
And before leaving the room she turned ba the gnome and said "Why don't you share the way te [The Madness]?" Asked Alice while feeling the shadows and how her own [Essence] was keeping at bay the influence of the [Madness] that wao leak bato her [Soul].
"Not many people do what you and [Ea] do, we have tried plenty of times, you need a certain type of [e] to the [Shadows] to be able to achieve that..." He answered while pointing at himself "Also, if people khat, they would try to iigate further into [The Taint]...We don't want them to do so...They might end up finding...Some things such as that [The Taint] not only affects [Shadow] Aligned metahumans, but others too." He said while showing her his bracelet and how the ter was h at 28%.
"And that tact with [Tainted] further this. That is why [Ea] makes such effort t all the [Tainted] into her fold so that we limit this." And after that Alice was ushered out of the room and thrown outside, he probably was going to use that mae to himself of the [Madness].
She spent the whole time walking down towards the pce the gnome had poihinking about what she had learhis was...Dangerous information.
When she arrived at the pce it looked like a theater, she found ay spot around the middle and sat down, not many people were there. Most decided to mingle ier parts of the seating, so she was alone beside some people sitting a few seats away from her. It seemed that unless you traveled together most decided to be left alone.
Why was he even sharing this with her?
She didn't know, she would o think further into this before deg what to do... Most likely Pap...She stopped the train of thought.
Was she being influenced by [Alice] again?
She tried to fish for influences in her shadows and found nothing, but why was she referring to father like so?
Granted she liked to call him as su person and while speaking to him, but ihoughts she always referred to him as Father, as a sign of respect for the man. He was after all a bastion of safety for her and everyone around...
"Ah"
[Bastion].
She had seen that before in one of her notifications.
She focused oifications while walking in this building following absentmindedly instrus, sure enough, she had ohat mentioned her father as a [Bastion]... There were some interruptions iifications where it seemed as if something was missing, almost like a [Notification] she received but couldn't see...
No...Maybe she was overthinking that, something like that was the type of thing a [Hero] would have to deal with, she was [Alice] right now, a [Vilin] in training that wao work as a [Minion] while dealing with [The Madness] in her [Skills].
And while she would work for [Justice] and [Love] as Elizabeth, she wouldn't be a [Heroione] but a [Magical Girl] there was a differen that.
But for now, she would deal with what she could see, a couple of notifications spoke of [Errors] and it even referred to [Nyx] as the [Last Boss] or something, it also stated that his [Quest] urged?
So Nyx wasn't a dao the world?
That was...Good? It was goht? At the very least she wouldn't o deal with that... And it seemed her notifications brought some light to what Alexa had said before, so it was her [Skill] the reason that Nyx ended as a minion instead of a summon?
Either way, she wao skimp most of this...But something/[Alice] stopped her from doing so.
So she went through it all with great effort, she felt as if her subsind was screaming at her more sind to give it more effort to it, but she wasn't quite sure why her subscious [Alice] mind wao pester so much her cious [Elizabeth] mind that much.
It was mostly errors and notifications about levels up, she would file a pint to Alexanders for not patg these errors before they came...
And would ask him why the skill was withholding so many levels, she was w why she only jumped ten levels if so much experience was being stocked away...
And while mussing about silly things like that she came to the red words and...she felt chills go down her spine...She also felt a tint of smugness from her [Alice] side.
And worked hard trying to not sp it "My defenses against [The Madness] were decreased..." Said the bck-haired girl while getting some weird looks from the people around, at some point more people had e into the teather, it was full of people that had hidden their faces in one way or another, and she, of course, had her hood as an option... But she had fotten to put it on or to use the mask of her [Shift].
She was too busy reading her notifications "The world will have..." She read the st line of garbled text "... It's due...?" Why couldn't she read these before?
She was half tempted to search for the ones like this before, was she...Really that dumb iher form?
She felt a sharp sting in her forehead and it was by sheer effort that she focused on reading the blue s, it was starting to be painted in...Red?
"Rolling...Back...Thought...Kernel...?" It hurt her...It hurt her eyes...
"You okay?" She felt like hearing someone say that, but noticed how the people near her were leaving, a look down saw her shadows starting to try and raise only to be shoved down again.
"Please do not use [Skills] during this, if your [Taint] is ag up please refer to the [Deination Pod]." Said someone from the speakers.
She took a deep breath and focused on reading that s, It was almost fully painted red, and the st line of text made her shiver. That...That was an actual to god treat.
After that, the st blue s returo the usual tone she was used...It spoke of her getting over ahreshold and how the skill enced her to keep going and staying [True to herself] or something like that. It also referred to herself as [Ior]...Right...She was that.
Why hadn't she delved into that?
How...How many times had someoampered with her thoughts? How could they? Especially while her mental defenses were still up? The defenses her Mother put in her should prevent anyone from messing with her mind.
But...But...She looked through the notifications again and most of the red words were gohe errors too...
Now only notifications about experiend milestones were left...The treat was gooo. She was left only with the memory of it, she... She was...
She could only hug herself and try to not shake, no one was near herself after her shadows tried to rise from the floor, but she still could feel the shadows travel from the floor through her feet and embrace her whole body under her clothing, almost as if the [Shadows] wao reassure her.
She couldn't help but ugh at the idea of her [Skill] trying to reassure her...While it was another of her skills that was messing with her...
No...It wasn't her skill messing with her...Not really...It never was her [Skill] to begin with...Was it?
She had been told that the first time too, but she hadn't paid attention to it before...Why hadn't she noticed su obvious thing? What was wrong with her while in her...She couldn't even bring herself to refer to her blonde form as her [Normal] form anymore.
She...She really needed help, and now could only hope that whatever [The Hydra's Fang] could offer said help.
"[Wele prospective members...To our presentation for today.]" Said someone from the speakers, the whole room turo darkness and she could feel the shadows...As something living, but unlike usual, not under her trol.
And oage stood a man in a suit with a bck mask that had no eyes, nose, or mouth, but somehow...She could swear that the mask gave the feeling of smiling.
The show was starting.