[Valerianne Yul]

I came into awareness, feeling overwhelming bliss. That was not good, I already knew. I weaved a healing spell, pulling power from the mech and shot it at myself. The blissful sensation started to fade.

"Fucking hell." I noticed that I had colored a lot of sand below me with my purple blood.

[Quest completed!

Heal yourself quickly and prepare to run into the mech, Yul! Run, run, run! There's a crystal centipede about to eat you!

+100 points.]

I heard a noise and looked forward.

A crystal centipede was reforming right in front of me. I screamed and leapt up, turning towards the mech. As I ran at the mech I noticed that it was running at me! This was a problem for later. Right now? It was exactly what I needed. The glass centipede screeched from behind, clattering after me.

I rushed forward and the mech rushed at me. I tried to time it just right. Just as the mech was about to collide with me, I leapt up, throwing myself forward. The mech leapt, a hundred tons of metal flying right over me.

The huge, metal machine landed right atop the crystalline centipede with a satisfying crunch.

[10’000 points for defeating a high level enemy!] The System dinged.

[Congratulations, you feeble weakling. You've levelled up to: Level Two! Good for you!]

The congratulatory voice of the System sounded kind of mean with a sprinkle of condescending... I realised that it sounded exactly like Nox. Damn.

I sighed and shot another healing spell at myself, seeing that I was still bleeding. The mech was repeating my motions. The sky suddenly grew very dark. I looked up and gaped at the gargantuan wall of white clouds rolling towards me. Not good. Not good at all.

I quickly tried to make the mech head my way. It was incredibly difficult as it kept repeating my motions. I pulled the control rings off my arms and feet and ran towards the mech. I started to climb up the ladder just as the wall of clouds arrived.

Glass spheres the size of my fist started to slam into the metal machine with unending clangs. A few of them smacked me, leaving deep bruises as I climbed inside and pushed the door shut. More glass spheres were flying into the interior through the open window at the top. I put on one of the rings and raised a hand above my head, making the hand of the mech cover up the porthole at the top.

I had no idea where Nox/June was. I was shaking from stress. Was I finally free from Nox? Did she leave me here, flee in June’s body using Shadowmancy? Where would she even go in this horrible place with that storm? A dungeon maybe? The Sextant chavalier had mentioned that there were dungeons here.

“Status.” I whispered, twitching as the storm bombarded the mech from the outside.

Valerianne Yul

[Race]: Human

[Level]: [2] Mediocre Weakling [Healer]

[Progression to next level]: 1%

Stats:

[Mana] : 3 [Void]

[HP] : 3/15

[Affinity] :

[Aura] : 100% White

The progression to the next level was still ticking up on its own as more people talked about Nox destroying the Convent, I guessed. The Sextant invasion didn't stop conversations, only slowed them down a bit.

I pointed at myself and cast heal again. My HP shot up to 4. I did it again and again until my HP went all the way up to 15. The storm raged outside. I went to the window, seeing if there was a way to shut it. There was! I saw a lever there and pulled on it with my free hand. The metal top slid over the window as the gun retreated. Thank Gaia!

I put my hand down and looked around. I was alone, in a magitek machine on an alien… moon Magraterra? Is that what Nox had called this continent? I sighed, walked to the water tube and started to gulp water down. The temperature within the mech slowly dropped, likely due to the sandstorm blocking out the ringlight.

The glassy hail outside intensified further and then suddenly quieted as the storm had buried the mech in its entirety in crystal dust.

The [Healer] option in my Status blinked. I focused on it. It expanded into something new!

[Spell available] - [Diagnosis]

I focused on the [Diagnosis] and it opened up into a visual of a magic circle. I stared at the intricacies of it, ready to burn the glyph into memory. Except, I already knew this spell circle by heart! Wow!

I drew the circle and pointed the spell at myself to test it out. “Diagnosis!” I said.

Valerianne Yul

[Patient Assessment, Level 2]:

Poisoning detected [Affliction] - Curse of Misfortune.

Symptoms: depression, anger, negative feelings, poor decision making.

Treatment spell: [Not available]

Alternative treatment: Brighten the patient’s aura with calmness and positive emotions. Note that Darker-aura beings will suffer increased affliction from this curse.

Calmness? Hmmm. I did know how to calm myself.

I sat down in the middle of the mech in a lotus pose and started to meditate as… Aloenna had once taught me, trying to calm myself, trying to arrange my thoughts.

As I thought about my past week I realised that I was trapped in a shitty pattern - mainly due to lack of agency. The Dryads created me to be the host for Nox. June forced me to leave the Convent. Nox kept driving my body into all sorts of awful, misfortunate situations. Sextants put me on Magraterra. I was all alone now though. Did I finally have agency to do whatever I wanted? Could I even do anything at all here? Was Nox still at the wheel of my future... with more Quests?

I decided that I had to know more before I made any further decisions.

“Quests.” I muttered.

Quest:

Hey Yul. Listen. I lost June. She doesn’t remember me. She ran off into the desert while the crystal centipede bit through your leg. Yes, your leg. I admit it. I'm a magical parasite living in your soul.

I’m inside you now, sleeping. I exited June, because you were terrible at fighting the damn centipede and also because I wanted to check if she was okay. She wasn’t. She forgot me along with four years of her life. After she died, I tried to bring her back with Necromancy and failed to get all of her.

Look, this is really hard for me to admit, but I’m not really a Goddess anymore. I’m more akin to a ghost, a memory of something great, held together by Necromancy. I know what you’re probably thinking. Necromancy is horrible and dark. Whatever. There are a lot of horrible and dark things out there, far more awful than you can possibly imagine. I do admit this - Necromancers are very selfish because a Necromancer has to believe in themselves over everything else, think of themselves as the center of the universe incessantly in order to reinforce their own existence with magic after their body is dead.

I made a lot of regrettable choices in my life. I sacrificed much to destroy and to devour all of the other Gods. I freed humanity from their evil and in doing so I became evil. Long ago, I had devoured the Necromancers and in doing so I had learned their secrets and became immortal. My entire life I fought to become almighty. When I had finally reached my goal, I had lost all connection to humanity and forgot what it was like to care about someone.

I just wanted to stop the heat death of the universe, to reverse entropy with my black hole engine, okay? I don’t know why I’m even bothering to explain myself. It’s not like you can understand how or why all of the stars in the universe will one day die, how the universe would cool down and evolve to a state of thermodynamic equilibrium. I know that you think of me as a villain. You probably hate me. I accept it. I know that you can’t even begin to understand why I was doing what I was doing. It doesn’t matter anymore. I screwed up. I failed.

I lost June. She’s probably dead out there now. She can’t survive the glass storm. She’s clueless and lost. I’m not making things better. I’m the last remnant, just a broken shard of a Void Goddess. I’ve done many terrible things in the name of a future so distant that humanity can’t even begin to comprehend it.

I... give up. Do whatever you want to do. Live your brief life, my little firefly. When you die, I’ll take over. I slept in my prison for six thousand years. I can sleep for another eighty or however long it is that you will live. Maybe by then the continental shards will fall into the black hole… or not.

It doesn’t matter anymore. I don’t care. I don’t have anyone to share the future with. My June’s gone. I just don’t have it in me to make another connection like that. Losing her is too painful to endure as it is.

I want to thank you for letting me pilot your body. Thanks to you, I finally remembered what it was like to... love someone, to have a friend.

I’m sorry for everything. Take care of yourself and try not to die,

~Noxxy

Reward: 0 points

My mouth fell open. Oh Gaia! This wasn’t how I wanted things to end. I didn’t want to be stuck alone on a dead rock!

“Nox really cared about June and now she is dead.” I whispered, tears falling from my eyes. Nox was indeed evil… but from this Quest message she had finally shown me that she possessed empathy, possessed the potential for being something more than a monster and a villain.

“I’m not dead yet.” June said, appearing from behind me.

I yelped in surprise at the sudden declaration, nearly toppling over.