Have you seen?

Name: MoonLily

Daughter of MountLily and MakeLily

Prominent features: Human, red hair and green eyes; Height- 5’ 4”

One among eleven that are suspected to be kidnapped by gangs for their Freedom counters

Their new headquarters was a business that belonged to a fellow Don.

As Corn and Wall walked across the streets, they could see an abundance of Purpose Slaves. They wore pretty dresses and a few of them winked and waved at Corn. Some of the wilder ones even tried groping him. But Corn did not react.

“Wall, if they ever ask you what life was as a Base Slave, don’t tell them anything.”

“Hmmm? Why not?”

“They’re not people. Look around you, look at how they treat us slaves. Like animals. Why should we treat them any better?”

“Hmmm,” she assented.

The first floor of their new HQ was covered with rich velvet sofas, marble walls and a series of mini pools. More incubi and succubi than Corn had seen in his entire life were casually cavorting across the room. Soft slurping, whispers and piano music filled the room.

He noted with surprise that they weren’t in the arms of their fellow crazies. Instead it was people of the Assigned Race: elves, dwarves and nymphs.

A smiling succubus walked towards him, “Private rooms are in the floor above.”

“I’m a member of Blood Falls.”

Her smile crumbled, “Come with me. And next time, please use the back entrance.”

He followed her to a lift, “How much do you pay them?”

She giggled and covered her mouth, “They are our clients. They pay us. Quite well, honestly.”

Is this what Alt meant by a ‘blood bank’? People who would willingly let others consume their Stats. And even pay for them. He was quite impressed with the Purple Hearts. Despite being called Blood Falls, they had a total of two vampires and had already lost their main base.

Then again he doubted that anyone who wasn’t as browbeaten as they were would let him join. The System was everything.

The eighth floor was theirs. For now.

Most of the members hung about, watching Screens and otherwise lying low. The Barren Lords were assigned rooms. So the when the fairy saw Corn, she quickly pointed Corn towards Care’s room.

Care sat behind a desk while Alt lay on the sofa.

“Why didn’t you tell us he was Winged?” asked Care. Her ink black eyes stared straight at him.

“Here we go,” smirked Alt.

“Is there something wrong with your logical facilities?”

“She means, are you brain dead?” quipped Alt.

“What I mean is: why did you not tell us he was Winged?”

“I don’t see what the problem is. I helped to procure the soul lamp and you helped to retrieve Wall’s ghost. The deal is done and over,” Corn crossed his arms.

“Hey Wall? How’s it going?” Alt waved his hands and searched the room for a response.

“’Your friend is Winged: a skilled user of Vitality. Unlike our brethren who drink blood or rub crotches and think themselves skilled in Vitality, he could mend torn flesh and bones. And not only could he mend his own, he could heal others. He was a full-fledged Healer.”

Wall revealed herself and waved at Alt, “Hello there.”

“Have you heard of the saying ‘Never touch those with Vitality’. It is the one of the riskiest Stats to practice. Loss of life is a frequent occurrence. People have to invest considerable amounts of money and time to train a Winged. You have made us an enemy of those people. Do you understand what level of risk you have put us under? It could have cost us our lives.”

“Do you want to maybe hang out sometime?”

“But it didn’t. Everyone is fine. Except for the baton thingy, you disposed all of his possessions right? So what’s the fuss for.”

The baton that BlueEyes used to command slaves was too dangerous to let go but it might have a tracking spell. So he had no choice but to store it in the gang vault.

“Nah, I don’t think so. I’ve already got someone,” Wall floated on to Corn’s shoulder and wagged her eyebrows.

“Will the two of you please shut up?!” Care banged the desk.

Alt held his hands up in a peace gesture and Wall flickered out of normal sight.

“Fine. The deal is done. We have nothing between us. Now leave!”

Corn wanted to have Care as a Barren Lord for there was much to learn from her. But clearly, she saw him as too much risk.

The One That Meanders reported that Wall had left the building.

Care exhaled deeply, “He betrayed us.”

“Relax, sis. We took care of it,” replied Alt nonchalantly.

“If it weren’t for the two of us, he would have never defeated a mage, a Winged and a Rooted. Even if all of them were stoned.”

Alt got up and sat on the sofa, “I followed all your instructions to the tee. None of my moves or your moves were ever life threatening. So they can’t track us that way. And instead of dumping the hand, I sold it under a false identity of PopCorn. So if they need someone to blame, it’s not us. You created the identity, you arranged all the details. So why are you worried?”

She massaged her forehead, “Sorry, it’s just that emotion is hard for me.”

Alt lay back on the sofa, “Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s all part of your Desire.”

“There’s actually one more issue.”

“What?”

“The soul link between Corn’s bracelet and Wall. It won’t last a death.”

Alt shrugged his shoulders and went back to his mini screen.

Runes.

Yes, runes.

Now that he had a foothold on understanding them, Corn had been tinkering with every combination he could understand for two days. The amount of power he put into the spell circle determined the effects. Even an ice explosion spell circle was powerless if he didn’t feed in any mana. All it did was release a slight amount of cold air.

“Change the channel,” shouted Wall. She was sitting in front of a TV screen. Well, not sitting. Just floating on top of the leather sofa.

Corn reached for the remote screen and pressed next.

First he had to draw the outer circle, then he had to inscribe the runes he wanted. Each rune was like a word in a language, all he had to-

“This is so boooring, change the channel.”

Corn pressed next.

The outer circle hung where Corn left it. All he had to do was-

“Neeext! This guy won’t stop yapping.”

Corn ignored her. All he had to do was chose the right words. He was aiming for something powerful. There was a rune to describe blade. If he could describe it right-

“Change the channel. Change the channel,” chanted Wall.

He would get a storm of ice blades. He did not have the control to do it manually and it could be lethal if used right. After all, for an ice explosion spell, he lacked range. He would have to be right next to the target and run off after setting the-

Wall floated next to his ear, “Change the channel! Change the channel!”

Spell circle. He inscribed the runes and-

“CHANGE THE CHANNEL! CHANGE THE CHANNEL!”

“OK! Ok! Shheesh! You really need to figure out how to affect reality.” Corn pressed next on the remote.

“Yaaay,” Wall waved her arms and floated back to the sofa.

He input the mana without thinking and the spell went wrong.

The world expanded a hundred times.

It felt like his head was being split open.

The world was a storm. Shifting shades of wetness floated and flowed. Petals twirled, seasons bloomed, waves roared, trickles flowed.

“C-o-r-n?” he heard someone whisper.

Blobs of wetness and dryness danced in each other’s embrace.

“A-r-e”

All around him life bloomed and withered. Bloomed and withered. Bloomed and withered. Bloomed and withered.

“Y-o-u”

Bloomed and withered. Bloomed and suddenly…. nothing. Just darkness.

“O-k?”

The change was too much. He fainted.

Corn felt something poke his ribs. He turned to his side.

“You ok?” asked Bull.

“Do something! He’s obviously not ok,” shouted Wall.

It was still dark. He tried contracting his mana vision and shifting to first vision but his head felt like someone had bludgeoned it a thousand times. By instinct he flicked his tongue out towards Bull’s nape.

She caught it but he leeched the mana from her anyway.

“What the hell are you doing?”

He felt better but lost consciousness again.

He woke up on the sofa. His head still hurt like the Abyss.

“Are you ok? I’m so sorry, Imsosorry, Imsosorry. Please don’t die. You’re not dead right?” Wall whispered into his ear.

Corn moaned and clutched his head, “I’m not dead, yet.”

“Yaay. Now could you maaaybe change the channel. No one here listens to me,” Wall pouted.

He groggily shifted to second vision and then third. Thankfully he had enough mana to see. He inspected his body. Both the nodes were fine, though all the circuits around his primary node (at the back of his head) were missing as well as any circuits connecting the two nodes. Whatever that spell was, ate into all his mana reserves including his circuits.

He needed food.

He first pressed next on the remote screen and left to find the fairy.

“Oh great, not this guy again.”

In the next room, Bull was doing squats along with a few other orcs. There were no training dummies and weights here. A few trained using their own equipment.

“Have any of you seen the fairy?”

Bull placed another orc on the ground and her friend lifted Bull and started squatting. Bull waved, “Howdy partner. What were you doing?”

“Experimenting. Err, do you know where the equipment we brought from the vault is?”

“No fucking idea. Haven’t had a Core crystal to eat in 5 days. Rationing sucks,” Bull said. Her friend grunted and let Bull to the ground. Bull lifted her and repeated the motions.

“Wonder how long we will survive like this,” gasped Bull and continued the motion.

Corn continued his line of questioning until he found a couple of trolls whose hearts beat faster when they told him that they had no idea. He waited and followed them to a room suspiciously full of trolls and orcs. Using third vision he could see the equipment as well as the fairy doing some work.

Corn swore. He could probably eat through the wall but there was no way he was evading the sight of the fairy and all those people guarding the room.

First, he stored the baton with the fairy. Gang members could store their own items in the vault. He went back to Wall.

“Hey Wall? Do you remember the runes on my spell circle?”

“Hmmmmm. Not really, but I think there was this one,” she said and signed with her fingers.

Corn used her input and wrote down the runes he had used on a mini screen.

“I know three of them, one is water, the other is blade and the other is ice. What could the others be?”

“Hey! Didn’t you almost die from this magic? You want to do it again?”

“Of course! It was amazing. It felt mystical and bizarre, like actual Magic. There must be some way I can use it,” Corn removed his shirts and pants. He began to examine all the runes he had scratched on his skin.

Originally, he had scratched the rune and its meaning. But the scratches had healed funnily and obscured the words. Normally Corn would be annoyed his body wasn’t healing immediately. Now, he was annoyed that it was healing too fast.

“That one there, then that one,” Wall pointed at the runes she recognised.

After re-examining all his runes, they decided the rune with squiggles meant ‘see’.

“So I was seeing ice water blades? Then again, all the books do mention that rune logic is tricky and it’s better to use existing spell circles.”

“Ahhh, what a waste! Why didn’t you write those?”

“I did, but all of them require fire mana, lightening mana or earth mana. Most of the ones that require water or ice mana weren’t in the same book. Besides weren’t you just watching TV?”

“Nah, this is more interesting.”

“Sooo what happens if you create a spell circle without runes?”

“You… that’s a good question.”

His mana reserves were full so he created the outer circle and connected it to the inner circle. The spell circle was empty so, as usual, he input ice mana. At the centre a misshaped blob of ice formed. In surprise, he cut of his connection to the spell circle. The circle faded and the blob of ice fell to the ground.

“It didn’t dispel?”

The ice block just lay there.

He picked it up and examined it. Some of the threads of mana were arranged in rows, looping back on each other. He shifted to second vision. It was leaking less ambient mana then his ice blades normally would. Just like a weapon.

Corn stood up, “Yes! I created a mana made object. Actual circled mana.”

Like every other Stat, his mana reserves would slowly accumulate with time. Once he could produce circled mana, he would actually be able to eat what he produced.

It wouldn’t be like swallowing salty ice blades and mana water that would never really sate his appetite. He would be satiated now.

But without any external food source, his Hunger wouldn’t grow and experimentation would be hard.

Wall nodded sagely and thumped her chest, “Yep and it’s all because of me.”

“These things are harder, stronger and more durable. They’re almost indestructible,” he tossed it in the air and caught it. “A normal ice blade will barely affect the wall but this thing will-” Corn cocked his arm and threw it into the wall.

Boom! It tore through as though the wall was paper.

Shit.

“What the fuck was that?!” the fairy’s voice reverberated across the whole floor.

Corn turned to Wall, “It’s all because of you.”

As everyone ran to their room, Corn’s Barren Lord entered the hallway of the floor and announced loudly, “Flunkeys unite! We have a job.”