Record of the Inherited Memory Girl's Efforts (isekai)

jseah · Oct 10, 2018

Aka. Inherited Memory Girl or IMG

Foreword
So I've tagged this as Isekai, but strictly speaking, since MC ends up (effectively) reincarnating in the same world, this is technically not an isekai story.

However, I wrote this based on an isekai-style tone and foundation, so many of the tropes still apply that I feel the story falls under the same sort of genre of an OCP-element dropped into a pseudo-medieval sword-and-sorcery fantasy setting.

This story was first written for "The official unofficial SV female lead Isekai contest", you can read the initial entry in there, but be aware that much of the material is repeated here and some of the details have changed.

Further discussion can also be found on the discord channel: Discord - Free voice and text chat for gamers

So, I certainly hope to do a better story than A Hero's War, having noticed some of the issues surrounding Cato as a protagonist.

I wanted to address the lack of a coherent magic system (though this is endemic to many fantasy stories) and that of protagonists who don't engage with the setting. I won't talk about magic systems here in this foreword.

Many times, the isekai-fantasy story is essentially about a single main character who, despite what they do and the adventures they go on, never actually matters in the setting. They might topple a noble, marry a princess (or add her to a harem), but the only stories that actually do anything with wider society are those where the main character is thrust into the politics or is being a Conneticut Yankee.

The so-called template of the bad isekai fantasy fiction is that of a main character who goes around whacking stuff and... not doing very much else once they get what they want. And either they hide away or the "NPC"s just ignore them despite being clearly overpowered.

Which is fine! But I wanted to have my cake and eat it too. A Hero's War was supposed to do that but Cato as a protagonist is of the Conneticut Yankee type and doesn't actually go on exciting adventures.

Inherited Memory Girl was thus conceived to address shortcomings or wasted potential I saw in many isekai fantasy fiction (translated from japanese). Version 2.

jseah · Oct 10, 2018

"Beep. It is seven in the morning. Beep. Beep, beep beepbeep-"

Petra slammed her hand down on the alarm clock before it could start ringing. As every morning, she cursed herself for buying an alarm clock with the most ear wracking wail. Her body had learnt the hard way to wake up on hearing her recorded message.

"Office set one," she snapped to the ball of light hovering over her dresser before stumbling off to the toilet to freshen up while the wisp retrieved her working clothes. The peeling sensation of her powered toothbrush that scraped her teeth clean woke her up fully.

Bah, she had to buy more mouthwash again. Perhaps she should hire out a long-range wisp contract? Petra consulted her account over breakfast and nodded. She could afford it.

"Your weight is 64 kilograms, Potential at 99%. No medical anomalies found, metabolic adjustment 2% recommended," reported the servant wisp after it cleared away her plates. Accelerating her metabolism to deal with the slight overeating she had done in the last few days would have been normal, but Petra was about to sleep for two days once ethics approved her upload.

"Call an air carrier, load profile," Petra commanded.

The final board meeting was today, she could not risk being late with ground traffic.

Living in the busy metropolitan city of Ennis had its privileges to go with its high cost of living. Petra sighed happily as she settled into the cushioned seat of the flying car that arrived at her balcony. The shield over the car stopped wind, smells and heat, while allowing her a panoramic view of the city skyline.

Expensive due to power consumption, but air carriers were the fastest city transport. No rush hour traffic jams for her today!

"Load saved route to Skillshare Administration Building," she said to the car and it beeped happily at her before zooming off.

<Show headlines>, Petra commanded her AR mentally. The transparent window popped up in front of her, brightly coloured pictures showing two faces opposing each other across a screaming headline.

Petra sniffed as the article began to devolve into speculations and analysis of the talking points the debaters were expected to bring up.

Aine and Emmerset were big names. Formally, Aine of the Supergravity and Emmerset of the Federation, alongside their greatest achievements. Every modern person knew about them, the papers sang their praises and the speeches and inspiration they were drove children to fanciful dreams. Along with Davis of the System, Rottheim of Database, Lefferty of Messenger and more. Petra had had the chance to meet Madam Aine once, during her final years of study some fifty years ago. The woman's keen intellect and deep understanding of magic-energy devices had vindicated every scrap of praise for the genius that she was. One of the giants who stood far above the common masses. Those who were granted vision, intellect, leadership or charisma that drove civilization to greater heights.

Petra had vowed to herself then, that one day, she would be one of them. Able to stand proudly amongst the ranks of the Great People.

Petra of Skill Share had a nice ring to it.

And from her work with Skill Share, it looked like that day was soon here.

Petra stepped out of the air carrier before it had even finished touching down at the car park. The antigravity engine whined at her noisily, complaining about spooling down right before the rental carrier was to take off again.

"Welcome to the office, Madam Petra. "

"Aldar, you know you don't have to call me that," she greeted the team lead with a broad smile. They were old friends now after this long road they had traveled together. "I'm not yet a Great Person. "

"We all know it's a matter of time before you get that recognition, madam. The primary work on Skill Share was done by you after all. "

Outsiders might have thought Aldar was jealous that Petra had taken the position of research lead on the Skill Share project while he was the management lead. The research lead of a project was the most reputable position, and if the project was successful and was influential enough, then Petra would easily become known as a Great Person. The one who pioneered the project and saw it to fruition. Skill Share would be known as Petra's.

Management leads were important but far less prestigious.

For all that Petra did the development work on the Skill Share AR module, she knew that Aldar was just as clever and just as good as herself. It was something of a fallback plan even, that if the unthinkable happened and Petra was no longer able to work at Skill Share, Aldar could take her place.

But over the long years of work, Petra had come to know that Aldar actually wanted the management position. It paid more and he would be able to live a 'normal' and 'quiet' life afterwards. No speeches or interviews like Aine had. It was crazy talk, but the man was always slightly crazy. Well, it was good for Petra, she supposed.

"The ethics board will arrive soon, we should get ready," Aldar said.

Petra nodded back, tugging on her suit's lapels to straighten it as they walked into the Skill Share administration offices. She had to look like she knew what she was doing with this project, as research lead. No matter how lost she was. Though at this time, the ethics board had taken so long to give approval that Petra's research team had been able to finish all their groundwork, fill in every blank and answer every question.

In truth, Skill Share was ready to deploy but for the last portions of data that her full mental scan was needed to finalize. And that ethics refused to approve.

The meeting room was arranged in an almost adversarial fashion. The ethics board members here today to pronounce their decision would sit behind the long table while Petra and Aldar would stand in the center of the room in front of them. It made her feel as if she was on trial.

Which was not totally inaccurate. If these imbeciles decided to deny her upload, it could set back the Skill Share project for years if not decades. It might kill her project even, if they could not find further funding.

The secretary peeked out of the room at intervals while Petra and Aldar stood around waiting for the executioner, not knowing if they carried an axe or a pardon.

Then without fanfare, the four staid men and one woman strode into the room to take their seats behind the table. The white ribbon on their suit lapels showed their positions on the ethics board.

Petra resisted the urge to sneer. The ethics board suffered the common criticism that they were only there to impede progress. They put obstacles in the way of Great People building their Projects. What sort of people wanted to serve on ethics boards was beyond Petra's understanding, but ethics boards were a requirement of the international Ethical Experimentation Treaty.

But today... today, they held in their hands the final pronouncement that would determine the fate of Petra's pet project.

"Petra Zivoska, Aldar Thang, this ethics panel has deliberated and come to a decision on your ethics application number 032C. " The man in the center said solemnly.

She clenched her hand behind her back, unwilling to let them see her tension.

"A full mental upload carries risk to the System in general due to the volume of data storage you request, presents an ethical challenge in that your mental copy may potentially be activated as a thinking sentient being in the future and that the procedure requires you to be asleep for a duration of greater than forty five hours. In your application, you gave responses to these challenges posed.

The private System servers have been tested and found satisfactory, that the final storage does not support simulation and that no theoretical foundation of virtual simulation of mental copies exists, that you yourself have undergone power augmentation and that medical facilities will be made available for the duration of the procedure; these responses have been considered. Furthermore, you claim that your project cannot succeed or will meet great difficulty if you cannot undergo this procedure. "

The man paused for effect, making Petra want to strangle him.

"Your application has been approved. We wish you the best-" and then Petra stopped paying attention.

Petra managed to keep it in long enough to smile, thank the man and hustle the ethics board out the door with handshakes all round.

Right as the door closed, she spun to face Aldar and glomped him with a high pitched squeal.

"Right, I know you're happy, but I have even more good news," Aldar said, patting her on the shoulder to calm her down.

Petra raised an eyebrow and looked at the secretary, who merely nodded back. She had an idea of what was going on...

"Yes, I got the medical personnel prepared for the upload process, you can go in today. Skill Share can go for trials in three days and initial release by the end of the week. "

Petra smiled sweetly, "aw, you give me the best presents. Still, what if I had plans that can't wait for me to sleep for two days?"

Aldar rolled his eyes at her, "do you?"

"Nah, the family will understand. We're making history here!"

"I thought so too. "

Aldar and Petra looked at each other and she held out a hand. "It's been a honour to work with you," she said, "our plans have bore fruit and our vision has been achieved. Mankind advances one more step. "

Aldar took her hand in a triumphant grasp, echoing her, "mankind advances one more step. "

The chief researcher laid back on the stiff medical bed. Nurses, on loan from the local hospital, were bustling around the room after confirming her grafts for increased Potential and military-grade healing factor were working normally. The rest of it was just busy work, a single doctor would have been enough, instead of this spectacle.

Those augmentations had needed background checks and local government permission to install. Being able to heal quickly from common police projectile weapons was not something that would be given out to just anyone. Not to mention the cost of such an augmentation process, along with the increased metabolic load.

But the ethics committee wanted it, so she had to get it.

Petra gave a confident thumbs up to Aldar and her research team waiting outside the room. They waved back.

"We're ready," said the doctor.

Petra nodded at him and logged into the private Skill Share server. <Install Upload v0.03a Module>

<Module Installed>

She glanced at the faces watching her expectantly. Colleagues, co-workers and friends, who were here to watch history being made and the culmination of all their efforts.

"People. When I wake up, I expect the analysis package to be ready to be used on the data. "

Her team laughed and nodded.

She grinned, "also, I'm going to be very hungry after not eating for two days. Better plan a party!"

"We'll have your favourite chocolate cake on the menu," Aldar shouted back, "one whole cake just for you!"

She gave them a second thumbs up and started the process. <Upload v0.03a Module, Execute Function Main>

jseah · Oct 10, 2018

Petra jerked awake, feeling very very odd.

For one thing, her eyes were heavy, she was incredibly sleepy, and she felt as if she was being smothered by a heavy weight. And her body also felt awkward and uncoordinated. The blurry blue box of the System floating above her gave up waiting for input and winked closed.

And while questions arose together with a sinking dread, she was just so sleepy...

The first thought that occurred to her after Petra awoke properly was that the experiment had gone wrong.

What she should have seen was the roof of the medical room, a nurse to check on her, all the soft sounds of the company's offices.

What she actually saw was a wooden ceiling, no one in her field of view and only a faint twittering of birds in the distance. In fact, her head was heavy and she couldn't move her arms or legs beyond a spastic jerk.

Had she suffered brain damage from the upload process? That was vanishingly unlikely, the upload process was perfectly safe, being read only.

The opening of the door startled her and a wordless cry came out of Petra's mouth, almost involuntarily.

There was a sob and the person who opened the door rushed over to Petra, picked her up and started crying happily over her. "Alice, you're awake! You're safe! Thank the System!"

The woman who had picked up Petra was fair skinned with a long braid of black hair tossed over her shoulder. She wore a practical and undyed cotton dress, with soft texture that felt reassuring to Petra's skin. Biologically younger than Petra when she had gone to sleep and with a sharpness to her face that had softened in sheer relief, the woman continued to babble without knowing that Petra was listening to every word in stunned silence.

It seemed that she had gone to sleep for a mind scan and woken up in the body of a year old baby.

Being a baby, she had trouble even lifting her head when lying down. She had to learn how to move her arms and legs all over again, like a trauma patient in rehabilitation. Talking was right out, the most Petra could manage was an uncoordinated babble.

What Petra had gleaned from her mother's daytime baby talk and carrying her around the house however was worrying. There was no sign of any of the devices Petra had recognized in the past, no air control, doorways left empty or the doors were manually operated, no appliances or servant wisps. Even the ever present AR object identification was missing, nothing in the house had a Record at all, other than the occupants. It was a confusing and strange world she had woken up to, with much fewer comforts than she had come to expect.

Petra still felt safe in her mother's arms. Even going so far as to call her 'mother' in her mind, something that felt innately obvious to her.

She expected to be shocked at the sudden change in the world, and the loss of all her friends and family, but none of it seemed to matter. 'Mother' was here and 'Father' came back at day's end and her parents fussed over her awakening, therefore loved her and thus all was right in the world. With a bone deep certainty that lulled her to sleep in her mother's arms long before dark.

It was a distracting few days before she realized that she really was a baby again, complete with the instincts of a baby and even the vague baby memories of her past few months that her baby self was not able to interpret before she had woken up with Petra's memories. And no matter how much more experience Petra had, Alice was the actual body.

She was just as much Alice as Petra, even if Petra's memories and maturity were sharing her head. Alice might have a hundred years of memory in her mind but she was still a baby and Petra's goals and motivation felt incomprehensible to baby Alice and she just couldn't work up enough urgency to care. Not that Alice remembered having any goals or motivations beyond food and mummy before all this.

Then again, it seemed that her body was called Alice, so she better get used to that name. Babies did not name themselves after all.

Alice felt it was less of a shock than it should have been. Another courtesy of her uncaring childish side.

Those few days also prevented Alice from pulling up her AR system. Her parents had been worried about her, apparently Alice hadn't woken up for two days straight and now that she was awake, her mother carried Alice with her everywhere, even going so far as to sleep next to her. She even drew away attention from her newborn little sister.

While grateful that they so obviously cared about her, Alice didn't want to suddenly call up a very visible AR window when she couldn't even talk coherently enough to give verbal commands. Mother and Father did sometimes use the "Status" command to view their personal page, that Alice never got a good look at, but they didn't seem to use the mental interface.

Not that Alice could form words nor would normal parents believe a one year old baby could use the AR system.

In that time, Alice found that they were speaking the exact same language that Petra remembered, which was definitely not called Common in her inherited memories, and that the Status window itself was viewed as something akin to a blessing from a god called System. A very rare few babies would be touched early by a System window at one year old, without invoking the special "System Registration" blessing, and all of them went to sleep and never woke up.

Her parents had feared the same had happened to Alice but it seemed now that they had written it off as a strange disease coinciding with her birthday.

So it was a few days of constant fussing that Alice was happy to indulge in and yet impatient for it to end, before she managed to find the privacy when her mother finally ran out of energy and had a midday nap together with her.

Alice woke up first and rather than wake her mother, she opted to try opening the System. <Status>

She tested the mental command but nothing happened. Hm, she wasn't registered? <System Registration, Name Alice. >

The characteristic blue window of the System appeared in front of her, a simple hovering box.

She dutifully waited for the loading bar to fill, the window disappeared before Alice called up the Status page.

That was totally barebones. Self maintenance would allow her to convert Potential to maintain her body condition, a basic civilian grade healing ability that mostly prevented you from dying so you could reach proper medical services. It also let you get away without food or water for two or three weeks before your power ran out. One did not generate Potential when starving after all.

She had nothing more than the basic inheritable set, none of Petra's power grafts for expanded Potential nor any modules. Not even Database or Skill Share. Then again, grafts were not part of System even if the AR System could detect them, needing specialized medical facilities to add to one's Record. Alice was not Petra after all.

Strangely, Petra did not remember any such System module called Skill Analysis. Labeling the skills was still manually coded by the researchers according to what Petra remembered. Something like the ability to automatically label them based on an appropriate word or two from the user was something for future work, Petra definitely did not remember it being integrated into the System infrastructure to the point that guest accounts were expected to have it.

Sighing to herself, Alice sent a mental command. <Log out>

A confirmation window appeared and she confirmed, her status window disappeared. Time to see if Petra's account was still active.

Using the mental interface to type was slow and terrible but the results of her effort was well worth it.

Right as the welcome page finished displaying, another box appeared on top of it.

She blinked at it for a moment before opening her account details page. The Status was part of the default System Registration graft containing the AR System module and existed in her Record. The information on it wouldn't have changed apart from her now installing Messenger module, but her account details governed how she interacted with the System and was part of the System Network. The difference between her Record, the bits that were literally part of Alice, and the System network was well hidden but Petra, being a module developer, knew it all like the back of her hand.

That said, the fact that her login had worked meant that those memories were very real.

Huh. So it was over three hundred years since Petra's last login and her account had not been archived. Judging by Petra's 115 years of age at her last memory before the upload process, and the current date being 2817, that would mean her last login was around a month after her last memory before upload. Petra also wasn't a System Administrator, a government access level that could change someone's System permissions, perform routing actions on the System's grid network and even commit updates and changes to the underlying software the System ran.

A module developer would only have access to an experimental System grid within their local offices to prevent crashes from affecting public utilities. Likely Petra was dead, there was no way an admin would just not login for hundreds of years. And having a System Administrator account remain active even after death was a major security no-no, someone with administrator access had to have disabled the automatic archival for her account.

Alice had a very bad feeling that something terrible had happened. Three hundred years would have made the world unrecognizable to Petra, and while this wooden house was unrecognizable in its lack of everything, that was not what Petra had imagined when she speculated about the far future.

She set Privacy Mode to ON and the windows faded into a mental construct that only Alice could see.

The Messenger module finished installation into her Record and another box popped up, Petra had evidently set a macro. This one was a long message.

Alice sat in her mother's arms stunned. Petra's memories had no indication that the end of the world was approaching. Even now, all her memories were ones of accomplishment, progress and optimism. And her newfound maturity wasn't any help in deciding what to do. Baby Alice was sleepy and wanted her mother to cuddle her, dealing with past apocalypses was just... not important.

Alice was a one year old baby! Even if she could think clearly and had a century of memories in her head, what was a one year old baby to do?

Ah, this must be a bad dream of some sort. Petra had told her to live her life as she wanted. Fine! Alice would do just that. She might end up a very intelligent one year old, with some strange memories and System permissions, but Alice was just going to grow up like a normal kid and decide what to do later. Maybe she would decide to save the world or apply her knowledge of magic to achieve her dream of being a Great Person. But certainly not as a one year old child.

Mhm.

Alice rolled over deeper into her mother's embrace, wriggling her cloth pajamas into a more comfortable position. Time to sleep.

jseah · Oct 10, 2018

Growing up in a peasant farmer's household was far harsher than any of Petra's experiences, but Alice decided to take life as it came. After all, her mother, father, two older brothers and one younger sister, all of them were her family. They had enough to eat, even if bland and unvaried compared to Petra's food. Potatoes, root vegetables and chicken was their feed.

Alicia, her mother, was weather beaten with age and work and her body showed signs of her four pregnancies. Still, one could see in her fair skin and decent figure that Alicia had been relatively pretty when she was younger. It gave Alice a bit of hope of her own appearances, which were similar to her mother's. Long dark hair and expressive black eyes were the family traits. Nothing like Petra's dazzling raw perfection of cosmetic Record modification though.

Her mother was stern and occasionally snapped at them irritably, but Alice could tell that the harsh realities of their life was wearing on her mother. None of the outbursts were truly angry and Alice always made sure to hug her mother whenever that happened. It never failed to melt the steely mask her mother put on outside of their home.

There was apparently a custom that the oldest daughter would inherit a shorter variant of their mother's name, until there was no possible contraction, upon which a new long name would be picked. So Alice's first daughter would be Ari and her granddaughter would have something new, preferably not starting with 'A'. The same applied to the first son and the father.

Denka, her father, was wiry and not much taller than her mother. But his body concealed a strength and stamina forged through countless hours of fieldwork and hunting. He shared her mother's black eyes but his hair was more a dark brown than black. Quiet and not outspoken, her father was still knowledgeable about the forest and land, paying great attention to his farming and hunting in order to feed the family. Yet, if any of the family were truly threatened, Denka would show his seething anger and deal with the threat coldly and ruthlessly.

Alice still remembered crying for hours after seeing her father use his hoe to grind to a fine paste a venomous snake that had almost bit her. The cold fury on her father's face was not something she would ever forget and she had to comfort him in slow lisping words afterwards. The sadness in his eyes was heartbreaking for the short time when he thought he had frightened Alice. She lied that it was not her father's face that had shook her, just the snake.

Her elder brothers, Den and Erias, were almost clones of their father. The same pointed nose, slightly short stature, only their black hair was at all like mother. Both of them were hardworking, like father, though Erias was more adventurous and dreamed of leaving the village one day. Den however, wanted him to stay and help on the farm, dreaming of an extended family like the bigger households nearer the center of the village.

Alice's younger sister, Rishiamaher, was clearly the subject of high hopes from her mother, what with the absurdly long name to cut down through the generations; the family nicknamed her Ri. The mischievous little monkey was fast and she dodged all of Alice's attempts to rein her in. Her feet were fast and sure and Ri had never tripped a single time in her life. Only a year younger, with golden-brown hair and fair features, Ri was also set to be the most beautiful girl in the village of her generation.

They had no cousins and only Den remembered their grandparents. Denka's brothers and sisters had all left the village, leaving Denka the farm.

Alice loved them all, and ignored the way her father and mother sighed at Ri when her sister wasn't looking. Her parents treated Ri and Alice fairly and equally. Unless a problem appeared, Alice would do the same too.

Still, Alice kept her memories a secret. Alice wasn't sure if her family would treat her differently if she told them, and she was already considered a weirdly intelligent child as she was unable to act her age. While childish amusements did distract her easily, Alice quickly grew bored of non-physical games she learned too easily. Some day, Alice would find the courage to tell her parents, when she could trust them more.

On her third birthday, Alice was taken to the governor's building and the man in charge of the entire village had recited the same guest registration process and activated Skill Analysis for her account. Alice was deathly afraid her secret memories were about to be exposed but he didn't even look at her AR display. Nothing strange appeared on her Status however, only the lone Common Language line was shown.

She quickly swapped back to Petra's Administrator account though, after changing all the personal details to match Alice's. At the same time, the redundant language blessing was given and Alice decided to no longer conceal her adult like vocabulary.

This drew a little suspicion but it was eventually written off that her language developed faster than others. Children took time to integrate the language blessing from the System and while most were completely fluent by five years of age, Alice's sudden development of language mastery in a week stood out.

Alice dutifully kept her mouth shut about the truth of the language blessing. Whoever it was that had made a language skill a default download for all accounts, it wasn't Petra, judging by the contents of her letter.

The results of the Skill Analysis were also surprising. She had nothing at all, despite having all of Petra's memories. Querying the System using Petra's access, she found out that Petra had adjusted Skill Analysis to ignore any memories gained from downloading Petra.

So it was with some relief that Alice got through her third birthday without raising too many questions.

Helping out on her parents' farming efforts, Alice could only peel and wash vegetables or grain. After all, no matter how mature she was, Alice was just a five year old.

Their village was a small one with only three hundred people. Growing food and hunting wildlife were the main activities, even if the grain tax to the governor took a third of all the produce. But the villagers could do nothing about that.

The village was in the domain of the Elemental Empire, itself composed of four magical clans that each manipulated one of the four elements, Fire, Air, Earth and Water. The governor of Alice's village, Lochar, was an offshoot of a branch family of the Divine Fire Clan, essentially a nobody. A third son of an unimportant family, whose only prospect was to be consigned to squeeze taxes from a small village, protecting it from monsters and keeping the peasants in line.

He and his daughter could shoot fireballs from their hands. Upon arrival, Lochar had demanded all the virgin women in the village line up in front of him and chose the prettiest one to be his bride. Mindful of potential inheritance disputes, the governor had not ordered any others to his bed, much to the relief of everyone else.

No matter how much the villagers resented this state of affairs, what could they do against someone who could easily burn the whole village down if he felt like it one day? His wife's brother had objected to her forced marriage by attempting to poison the governor and had been made an example of.

No one else said a peep as the man was sold off as a criminal slave.

That said, Lochar was not stupid or lazy. He had ended the dispute between two of the older farming families by force, raised a tiny militia to beat back encroaching monsters and used his powers to clear swathes of forest by fire. Abusing his absolute power, the governor conscripted sons and daughters into reclaiming the cleared forest land and even tried to start a pottery work with clay from the river.

Underneath his fiery boot, Lochar had quashed all the petty squabbles by uniting the village with the threat of force. Within this tiny pond, Lochar was king. Of course, the governor had done that to improve tax yields and thus his position in the clans but the villagers did receive some trickle down benefits. By the time Alice was born, in the same year as Lochar's daughter, all thought of rebellion had ended and the villagers had adjusted to living under his firm yoke.

All of this wasn't an unusual state of affairs in the Elemental Empire, as the governor's speeches to the children said. The Clans were familial in structure, their magical abilities were all dynastic, and each family had a network of relatives to call upon in case they needed extra firepower. On top of clearing monsters and ruling by force, their magical abilities were also indispensable. Fire was used to clear land, metalworking and as the strongest element for military use. Water could adjust water supplies and control floods. Earth was suitable for terraforming and mining. Air could predict and influence the weather, as well as control rainfall in conjunction with Water.

If a village had a clan family attached, the governor would use their abilities as well as trade favours with the other three clans. Together with the familial hierarchy and the discipline expected of clan members, they often caused their territories to develop rapidly. At the cost of a tyrannical government that viewed the no-ability villagers as nothing more than raw labour force.

Of course, Petra's memories spoke of the real truth. Humans didn't normally have magical abilities like that. Alice recognized those as variants on a certain class of grafts. Those with that series could expand their Record's area outside their skin, and by expending Potential to power the active abilities, create changes in the environment within that expanded volume. Originally experimented on animals to create self-replicating cannon fodder for war, some of Petra's memories aligned roughly with what Alice heard of monsters, the same innovations had been applied to humans.

Those artificial soldiers with extensive combat mods eventually became known as Alva, created as a black project by a military scientist. What to do with clone soldiers who could demolish whole city blocks with their internal Potential, or with many in concert and an external power tap could unleash destruction on the scale of strategic weapons, was a thorny question not yet solved by the time Petra's memories ended.

It appeared that some of those had not been driven insane by the faulty Skill Share. And of course, Alva would have no trouble surviving hordes of zombies. Likely they would have been able to shelter some normal humans too and with their power, would naturally float to the top in the post-collapse society where military strength would rule.

Alice sighed mentally and closed the window. Accessing the account activity logs in the System had revealed that no Administrators or Supervisors had logged in within the last two hundred years.

She would have started studying the notes on Primary Runes and Records that Petra wrote but her fifth year was full of chores. Much more than usual. She couldn't find the time or energy after the work was done to test the manual rune writing used before rise of magical technology in ancient history.

Alice dumped the basket of wheat chaff she had painstakingly picked out of the harvested brans. Petra's memories of what farms were like pre-collapse only told of large magical devices that automatically harvested, sorted and even milled the wheat. Obviously, Alice had no ability to reproduce any of that, Petra didn't even know how they worked.

She bent down and swept into her basket another load of fallen chaff her mother had fanned to the floor with a wooden rod. She had to pick out the small amounts of wheat from the chaff.

Normally, chaff was separated from the wheat by blowing air over the harvest with a fan. Chaff would fly further than wheat and the fallen wheat that fell nearby could be collected. With multiple rounds, most of the chaff would be blown away. Inevitably, this also blew away some wheat with the chaff but retrieving those was deemed to be not worth the labour to retrieve manually.

Not this harvest. Every child too young to work in the fields was pressed into this task during the harvest sorting.

"Mama," Alice looked up at her mother, seeing the lines of exhaustion on her mother's face.

"Yes Alice?" her mother continued to fan the wheat.

"Why are we doing this, mama?"

Her elder brothers paused and looked conflicted but resumed their fanning work when her mother glared at them.

Her mother sighed deeply, "the first time this happened was when you were born. That was a difficult year. Harvests were falling, just like now, and Lochar demanded the same improvement in yield. At the time, no one knew what was going on and some youths were even discussing trying to attack the governor. "

The wheat yields had been falling as Alice was growing up too, Petra's memories indicated that the continuous planting of wheat every year was exhausting the land, but in the village meeting before the wheat planting, Lochar had given instructions to the entire village that the harvest was to be increased by a third. Yields were to be made up by expanding the farm area. Hunting and gathering activity was to be at a minimum until after harvest, whereupon every able bodied adult would strip clean the forest around them.

Alice had wondered at the unused farmland all around the village that was much larger than the adults could normally plow and plant. Supposedly, that area had been cleared of forest by Lochar after he arrived.

"We knew, from stories of other villages, that Lochar's demand to plant wheat all the time for tax was going to result in this situation. And yet, there was nothing we could do to him. That year, a branch of the Divine Earth clan sent thirty Fingers and one Palm to consecrate our village. The huge harvest we sweated and bled for was taken away by them," her mother sighed again, "they came, we threw large feasts every day, forced to wait on them. The sorcerers set up a huge ceremony in the middle of the village, did their magic that none could see, took half of our food and left. In the end, we were left with nothing for our efforts. But what could we do? Lochar was bad enough, but he's just a Finger of Fire. The Palm of Earth could destroy our village with a wave of a hand. "

She continued, "the next year, the wheat yields were twice what they were before Lochar arrived. That is what the Consecration cycle is, as explained by our governor. Every five years, when our land grows poor, we have to make an extraordinary effort to pay the Divine Earth clan to restore the land. Then we plant wheat every year until the land is exhausted again. "

Hm. Wouldn't that mean that her family was going to eat poorly for the rest of the year? Alice did think that her food had reduced a little, so it wasn't just her imagination! And more importantly, she wasn't going to get the time to herself to 'play'. Alice did want to start testing the ancient runic script that Petra had made notes on.

"So there's no chance I'm going to get any time to play for the rest of the month?" Alice asked.

"I'm afraid not, dear. "

The grueling month of work came to an end two days before the Earth clan arrived in their village. Their harvest was collected, the wheat, fruits and meat stockpiled in their barns. The village was overflowing with the collected food, with earthenware pots of pickles, bread and fairer delicacies stacking high in their houses.

The day the Earth clan arrived, Lochar had the entire village, down to the last newborn baby, turn out along the road that afternoon to welcome them in.

"Ri!"

The excited shout turned heads but Toli's gang of boys paid no attention. Alice grinned at them as her sister paled and hid behind her back.

"Toli, Jo and Bachi, aren't you supposed to be with your parents?" Alice asked innocently.

The three boys were dressed in the local best clothing, which was still terrible by Petra's standards, all the festival bead decorations hanging off their caps in a jingling mess. In contrast, Alice and Ri had their beads woven into their braided hair by their mother earlier today.

"Hey, Alice," Toli grinned back, peeking around her shoulder. Ri shuffled around her, keeping Alice between them. Without looking, Alice already knew her sister's face was totally red.

That childish crush was so adorable!

She would have fun teasing her sister into a puddle of embarrassment once this hell of work was ended. Toli, in his dense insensitive way, just thought it was funny how Ri acted so differently in front of him.

"Hey. " "Hi!" Jo and Bachi greeted her as well. Alice nodded back at them.

"Don't think I didn't notice you're dodging the question," Alice said smugly.

Toli ended his game of chasing her sister and looked sheepish, "well, every time I see them, we get told to do something. There's just no time to play any more! I wish the Earth people didn't have to come. "

She frowned and looked back at her parents but they were distracted with talking to old man Tas, a neighbour.

"Shh, you don't want Lochar to get angry with you," Alice hissed. Inwardly, she was glad none of the adults had noticed Toli's words. He would surely get scolded.

"Eh, you can't scare me with that, Lochar doesn't care about us," he waved a hand dismissively, grinning at his friends. It was something of a childish game, to show that one wasn't afraid of even the governor. A way to reinforce social status, Petra's ghost whispered in Alice's ear.

"Anyway-"

Alice's words were cut off with a shout from the front of the lines. The crowd lining the dirt road stirred and everyone looked to the village entrance. Out of the corner of her eye, Alice saw Lochar and his daughter position themselves in the middle of the open space at the center of the village. Right in front of the rows of tables and chairs laid out by the villagers last night.

The Earth sorcerers had arrived.

The travelling group contained more than fifty people, but the brown robes of the Earth sorcerers were obvious. There was also the way that none of them held any baggage, leaving it up to their white robed servants to struggle with the horses and masses of empty carts.

Lochar greeted the leader of the group of Earth sorcerers with a deep bow. A hand wave into a fist sent out a serpent of fire as thick as his arm to drip angry flaming droplets onto the dirt ground of the village center. His daughter beside him, golden curls bouncing, did the same hand wave but all that happened was a small gout of flame shooting out from her fist.

The two Palms of Earth, marked by their greater ornamentation of iron and gold, brought their hands together with a clap that was echoed immediately by their entourage of Fingers. In an practiced motion, they all stamped their feet at the same time. There was a huge deep noise and the ground vibrated beneath their feet, as if someone had hit the ground like a drum.

They bowed back to Lochar, but distinctly shallower.

Having proven their identities, Lochar guided the Earth sorcerers to the tables and barked at the villagers to set out the feast they had prepared.

Alice carried a small basket of bread, standing around as rehearsed for any of the thirty or so sorcerers to fill their plates with. Lochar sat at the head of the table, with the two Palms of Earth sitting on either side. Despite his position, it was clear the two of them were the superior in this meeting and they only let him sit there because he was the host.

Ri stood beside Alice, holding another basket of forest fruit. Her sister watched the feast with envious eyes and Alice had to nudge her occasionally to get her to keep up.

"More bread!" called one of the Fingers of Earth close to them. In the setting sun, their faces all blurred together and the way they treated the villagers as if they were just made of air did not help Alice in remembering who they were.

Alice stepped forward to place a hard loaf in front of the man. He snatched it up and bit into it without even looking at her.

As she moved back to her position in the line, Ri sighed beside her. "I wish we had something to eat too," she whispered.

There was nothing she could say to her sister. They watched the raucous feasting in front of them silently.

"Gah!"

The shout behind them was not early enough for Alice to dodge. The boy carrying the flagon of mead tripped into her and they went down messily. Drink and bread flew everywhere, drenching Alice's clothes with the yellow liquid and the smell of alcohol.

Ri bounced away from her, the hit on her shoulder had shoved her off-balance but with nothing more than a skip back, she had found her footing in the hard dirt. Ri had not even dropping a single piece of bread from her basket.

The catastrophe attracted the attention of the feasters as the sorcerers all stared at them. Alice could only look up at them in terror, the boy next to her sniffled in a vain attempt to stop his panicked tears.

No. They were not looking at Alice, all their eyes were focused on her sister. Who met their looks with a confused and worried frown.

"Lochar, who is this girl?" asked the female Palm of Earth mildly. Despite her gentle tone, the words made Alice shiver. They were like a hidden knife, a hair away from unleashing death and destruction.

"Lady Erina, that is Rishiamaher, second daughter of Alicia. The one on the ground is Alice," Lochar answered.

"And her father?"

"That would be Denka. One of the farmers. He owns a plot-"

"He's not her father," snapped the woman.

"Did Alicia serve at the last Consecration?" asked the male Palm of Earth on Lochar's other side.

Lochar didn't answer. Instead the three of them just stared at Ri. Similarly, all Alice could do was watch.

A few seconds of uncomfortable scrutiny let their parents rush up behind them. Alice brushed pieces of bread back into the basket as her father checked her for injuries. Ri seemed frozen to her spot.

"Alicia, who was it, five years ago?" Lochar asked her mother.

"That was Broma," she replied with a hurried bow.

The two Palms shook their head. The woman, Erina, spoke up, "no. He's Palm now. And the nephew of the Eighth Valley branch head. You would have thought he would be more careful but I suppose rumours have to come from somewhere. We can't take her. The scandal would make us all enemies of him. "

Another silence.

"What do you intend to do?" Lochar asked them, no doubt the same question running through Alice's parents' minds. Though Ri was still completely confused as to what was going on, Alice already had a hunch and judging from her parent's reaction, it was correct.

The woman shrugged, "we can't train her. Keep her away from Consecrations, don't let her have children. Untrained, nothing will happen. If something does happen, it won't start with me. I'm not going to risk that sort of attention. "

It was with great relief when Lochar let her family be excused from the rest of the feasting duty.

Her parents hurried them back to their home with haste, both to wash Alice's clothing and to avoid further attention. All the way, Ri was still stunned at the strange happenings, and mother and father were in no rush to explain.

Ri was going to be insufferable when Alice told her she had magic. Not until the Earth clan had left though.

The Consecration ceremony lasted from dawn to midday.

The two Palms sat in the center, backs to each other, with the Fingers sitting in two rings around them. Occupying the center of the village, everyone had once again turned up to watch them, all work in the fields and travel into the forest beyond was prohibited by order of the governor.

It was boring. Really really boring. All they did was sit there.

According to her mother, the first time was the same. According to what Petra knew of how the Alva class of grafts worked, each of the sorcerers had to be expanding the boundaries of a huge Record outwards through the land. That covering such a large area was not how grafts were supposed to be used was understating matters. It was inefficient and would consume Potential just to expand that influence. It was almost always easier to travel there yourself, somehow send the results over the distance or even move a small Record over, rather than trying to create a massive Record. That was reserved for megaprojects like the System.

The fact that the thirty Fingers were sharing their power with the two Palms was the only reason why the Consecration could work at all.

If Alice had a Sensor class graft, something that was clearly part of their set, she would be able to see the edges of the Record they had set up. If she had an Analysis class graft, she might even be able to take snapshots of the runes in the Record they were creating. Since they had so kindly included her in the volume, it would be trivial to intercept whatever they were doing.

Having none of them, she saw and felt nothing at all.

Beside her, Ri gaped down at the ground, seeing things that no one else could. If the feast last night hadn't convinced Alice, this would. She clearly had a sensor graft as part of the whole Earth sorcerer package.

At midday, the Earth clan sorcerers were done. Most of the Fingers just sat there, groaning with exhaustion. Alice had discreetly used her Administrator powers to observe their Status pages.

Most of them had remaining Potential in the single digit percent or at zero. Having zero percent Potential remaining did not actually mean the body's Record had no Potential at all. Potential was required to run the mind and actually running out of Potential would kill the person instantly. Zero percent on the System measure was the point at which it was medically dangerous to use more and most grafts would simply shut down at that threshold.

The body also tried to regain that Potential by diverting energy to the head, where Potential was generated and stored, resulting in physical exhaustion. Not a healthy state to remain in for a long time but without further drain, they would recover quickly. Switching to quantified view showed most of them had maximums of hundreds of units, according to Petra's memories, magical devices could demolish a sturdy stone building on a budget of four or five hundred.

The Palms, however, were at eighty percent and a maximum of about a thousand units. None of Petra's memories had indicated that anyone in the pre-collapse society had naturally that much Potential storage. There was just no need for that amount of power grafts, and they risked giving someone so much power they couldn't be policed. How they managed to get that much Potential storage and generation, Petra had no answer for. Plus, they were the leaders of that magical effect, how did they avoid spending most of their lifeforce on this? Not every question could be answered by consulting Alice's inherited memory, however.

That said, from what Petra's memories contained of the Earth strain Alvas, the Consecration had likely just adjusted the contents of the soil. Conjuration of matter at its most wasteful. That sort of magical adjustment of soil makeup was only used in the most exacting of requirements, like the attempts to recreate wine from a specific year. Physical fertilizers were just easier and more efficient. A few quick words with her sister had confirmed that no Record remained on the fields.

Alice's family was excluded from the feast but obviously not the tax.

"What was that? The sorcerers were doing something to the ground!" Ri's excitement had been clearly suppressed through the day and now exploded as the family sat around their much poorer meal. Their solid wood stools, more like tree stumps, barely qualified as chairs and could not contain Ri's exuberance.

Her brothers looked at their parents curiously, but Alice's mother just sighed and buried her face in father's shoulder.

No matter how young she was, even Ri could tell the mood was unpleasant. At their parents' continued silence, she grew quiet and worried.

Alice had more on her mind than possible indiscretions in the past. Petra knew, vaguely, that farms needed fertilizer, especially with the monocropping their governor was forcing them to do. Added to the massive payment for Consecration, the lowered yield meant that everyone had to exhaust themselves farming far more land than they normally could do.

Petra's memories did not include how to make fertilizers, especially since the pre-collapse society had chemical fertilizers that were specially made in factories. But of course, she had her own solution, based off the same principle as the soil adjustment even.

If Alice could learn enough of the rune notes left to her in her network document share, she could try to write an extremely basic magic Detection. With that and some raw rune base reverse engineering, it would be possible to isolate the runes required for an active magical effect. Her sister likely could learn to create the fertilizers so Alice could copy it.

Each person in the village had a civilian's level of Potential and the amount needed to run the soil adjustment effect was huge. Any prospective item with a Record would quickly exhaust the user, unless it was Lochar or his daughter using it. But each person in the village could contribute a small amount every day, the hundreds of trickles of Potential would add up into a flood that would be greater than total amount the Consecration used.

By creating say, a hoe that would adjust the soil under it, the village could avoid needing Consecration at all.

So maybe this was what Petra had meant by improving the world? For once, Alice agreed. If her inherited knowledge could help her family, then why was she ignoring it?

Why was she afraid her parents would treat her differently? Her sister was the result of that Earth sorcerer Broma in the last Consecration, her mother wouldn't have been in any position to refuse him. But in all four years, her parents had never treated Alice and Ri differently, even her father who wasn't her sister's father.

"Mother, Father," Alice spoke up, drawing her family's attention, "I have something I need to tell you. "

jseah · Oct 10, 2018

Denka had known his oldest daughter was unusual. Ever since being touched by the System at a year old, and somehow surviving, he had kept that incident at the back of his mind. His wife believed that Alice hadn't been touched by the System since none had survived that before but Denka had seen the System window himself. Still, Alice had been well-behaved and apparently normal so he put it out of his mind.

But as Alice grew up, she displayed more patience than some of his fellow villagers, greater insight than the fool next door and adapted to the language blessing in record time. Alice displayed her childish side only rarely, demanding hugs to calm her mother down rather than asking to be comforted.

Still, she was his daughter and he would give thanks to the System that she was growing up well despite the scare when she was a baby. Perhaps she might be beautiful and intelligent enough to attract the eye of some Earth clan Consecrationist and move to a better life. Denka wished only the best for her.

And then came the second Consecration of their village when Alice was five. In the midst of discovering Rishiamaher had inherited more than just looks from that oaf of an Earth Finger, suddenly Alice confessed that she too had a secret.

"I have the memories of a woman named Petra," she said, looking at him. His daughter's eyes had more seriousness now that she had ever displayed. "She lived more than three hundred years ago and left the majority of her work on the System to me. "

Silence at the table was all that greeted her.

"Please don't say this now," Alicia snapped at her, a frown on her face. Denka could already see his wife deciding that she was just trying to attract attention after the revelations of Rishiamaher's father. "We don't need you to distract us while we are discussing a family matter. "

Denka blinked, he didn't know his wife was aware of how Alice tried to manage her mother's anger. Perhaps she just allowed herself to be manipulated, seeing how Alice behaved maturely.

"Your father and I have already discussed this back when I discovered I was carrying your sister," Alicia continued, sighing as she recalled the month after the last Consecration. Denka rubbed her shoulders, hoping she would relax. "Ri, your father is one of the Fingers of Earth and you have inherited his ability. "

Denka watched Alice closely as she hugged Rishiamaher. Ri just stared at her mother, stunned.

"I know. You don't have to worry, we will treat her just like one of our family, no matter who her father is. Right?" Alice said, looking at her two brothers in turn. They were seven and nine years old and they displayed far less calm than a five year old Alice. Denka would not be surprised to find out that Alice had already figured out that something was strange with her half-sister.

Den and Erias were looking at Ri askance but Alice just glared them down. "You will treat our sister just like normal, right?" Alice pressed them. She smiled triumphantly when they just nodded mutely. "Then there's no problem! We're still a family!"

"I told you they would be fine," Denka whispered to his wife, who was watching their children with tears in her eyes, "they can accept it. You know Alice, even her brothers listen to her. "

He watched his wife's face darken as she watched Alice in turn. Their daughter was simultaneously comforting Rishiamaher, who still looked shocked at the revelation, while encouraging her brothers into turn it into a group hug. They only responded gingerly, the universal reaction of young boys trying to look proud and manly and reluctant to display affection.

Sitting there managing her siblings, Alice looked liked a child playing at being an adult, but Denka could see that her efforts were working. Rishiamaher responded to her whispered reassurances and her brothers took her behaviour as a role model. It was only a few minutes, but the rift that he and his wife so feared would tear apart their children was already being repaired.

His wife did not like it however. He could tell she recalled what Alice just said and the incident when she was one that his wife had put out of her mind.

"Let's hear what she has to say first," Denka whispered to Alicia. She frowned but eventually nodded her acceptance. "Alice," he interrupted the children, "I would like you to explain what you said earlier. "

She looked up at him from the middle of her siblings. "I meant exactly what I said. I have the memories of a woman who lived three hundred years ago. Her name was Petra. "

"Does- What about Alice? What did you do to her?" his wife asked and immediately Denka could tell it was the wrong question. His daughter eyes concealed her distress to her brothers and sister but Denka could see his wife had hurt her with the questions.

"I'm not Petra," his daughter said softly. "It's complicated. I'm Alice with a hundred years of memories and some of her maturity. I was one year old when I woke up, almost all of my experiences were Petra's. So I'm not Alice either. But I don't feel like my name should be Petra and I still think you're... mama, please. Please don't cry. I've just grown up a little faster. "

Denka squeezed his wife into a tighter hug as she sobbed. He hadn't expected that his daughter would have suddenly grown up by having a hundred year old woman from before the Collapse give her... her soul? That one night when she was a year old, she had been touched by the System and been granted something very close to a true Blessing of the System.

To have the memories of the legendary Alchemical Kingdom, pre-Collapse with all its mythical wonders, the storied golden age of mankind. How could it be anything but a blessing? But along with the revelation of Rishiamaher's father being revealed and now this, it felt like the world had conspired to curse their daughters.

This time, for once, Alice didn't try to comfort her mother and instead sat miserably on her stool. Her siblings didn't seem to understand everything but her brothers were already in the position of comforting their youngest sister and now it was Alice's turn to get hugged.

"You're still papa and mama," Alice said, suddenly looking like all five years of her age with the loss of her usual mature confidence and her speech reverting to words she hadn't used since she was three. "And Den and Erias and Ri. I kept secrets, but everyone is still my family. " The fat teardrops rolling down her cheeks mirrored that of his wife.

"I haven't been lying, I am Alice and I am your daughter," Alice continued, "just because I chose to tell you now doesn't mean I've changed. "

As Alice gradually recovered her maturity, no, her mask of sophistication, Denka could see that his wife's lack of response was hurting her worse than anything Alice had ever shown. In a flash of understanding, Denka saw that Alice had seen how they treated Rishiamaher, that her sister was also the subject of a secret and still accepted as part of their family. And so she had decided that her own secret could be shared too.

If they didn't reassure her now, there wouldn't be an Alice to fix a rift that could tear their family apart for she was the target this time. And her siblings were only normal children, not inheritors of a century old soul.

"It's all right," Denka said, drawing attention to himself, "I believe you. I believe that our last four years are not a lie. And... no matter how old your memories might be, you are and will always be my daughter. "

His sons and Rishiamaher only caught his solemn tone but Alice understood what he was saying and nodded gladly. Denka glanced at his wife and saw that she was also starting to believe. Good, perhaps his family wasn't going to fall apart like he had feared at the start of the day.

The rest of the dinner was quiet, but not solemn like when they started. The airing of the secrets still cast a shadow over the rest of the evening but it was in the open and receding.

"So, what was Petra like?" Erias asked. Denka looked at his second son in surprise but realized he shouldn't have been. The boy was the most adventurous of the family and would certainly have been curious. Now that he asked the question however, everyone was paying attention to Alice.

Alice frowned, "driven. She worked for decades, as part of a... team of people. They built on the work done by Database and the System in order to eventually create Skill Share. The last I remember is that it wasn't complete, but she left me a note written after where the memories stop saying that she and her team created Skill Analysis. "

That... what was he supposed to say about that? Alice had started by searching for concepts they could understand but gave up. Most of the middle Denka could see none of his family understood, but Skill Analysis was something universal. It was part of what made Status work, the blessing that recorded what you had learned and what you could do.

It was a cornerstone of society, showing someone your Status panel instantly let them know if your claim that you could do skilled work was true. What was more, Skill Analysis also told you how good you were and whether you recently learnt anything new, and how much you knew compared to the rest of the world. Children grew up aspiring to push the bounds of their favourite skill, to be the one that Skill Analysis would visit with the acclaimed message <New Skill Component Found>. To increment the sum total of human ability.

That Petra was directly responsible for Skill Analysis?

Denka could feel himself wondering again if Alice had just made something up.

She definitely noticed her brothers' skepticism first and huffed, "well, if you don't believe me, I could abuse the System Administrator privileges she left me to turn off your Skill Analysis updates. "

Then she turned her head, blinked a few times in the air and a System panel appeared out of nothing. With not a single voice command. And it wasn't a panel Denka recognized. The reverse text from the opposite side of a System panel was unreadable but the grey blobs next to each line was not something he had ever seen on a System panel before.

"There, I've made my System details visible. I think that's something that's been lost. " Alice said, not knowing she had also done another impossible thing.

"How do you talk to the System without talking?" Erias asked. He was practically bouncing on his stool.

"The voice control is for lazy people," Alice laughed, "it takes some getting used to, but if you visualize talking without actually moving your mouth, the System will still recognize commands. What's more, the System presents hooks so you can control it directly without even needing to think words. It's like having extra fingers. "

Erias of course had to immediately try it, and Denka could see Den and Rishiamaher also attempting to follow Alice's instructions discreetly. But no panels appeared.

Still, that confirmed that Alice knew things she couldn't possibly have known, and could do things with the System that no one else could do. If all that was true, then her story about Petra and Skill Analysis...

"Quiet down for a moment," Denka shushed the other children, "Alice, did you mean to say you have memories of Petra, who lived before the First Collapse?!"

Alice tilted her head in confusion, "I don't know what you mean by the First Collapse. "

Denka blinked but then remembered that Alice hadn't heard the legends before. The last travelling storyteller who re-told the Story of the Two Collapses was three years ago and Alice was too young to have heard it at the tavern.

"Let me try to remember," Denka said and paused to gather his thoughts. "Before the First Collapse, the gods built the world. They raised the mountains out of the sea and built cities full of wonders. They created the System to govern the lives of men. But the God of Knowledge was jealous of the works of his fellows and whispered to the Betrayer, an angel who worked for the God of Skills, 'if you could take the work of the God of Skill, with my help, you could become a god too. ' And so the Betrayer fought with the God of Skills just before he was to expand the System and stole his power.

But the angel was not a god and could not control it, the System was corrupted and the cities of men descended into chaos and death. With the last of his strength, the God of Skills sealed away the God of Knowledge and his corruption of the System, and disappeared. The Gods and men were scattered and destroyed. And that was the First Collapse. "

Den had heard the tale before from the storyteller but Erias and Ri hadn't. Their round eyes were not like Alice's however. They were fascinated, while Alice was just confused.

"I... it's not even wrong. " Alice said eventually. What did that even mean? But Alice wasn't done. "There were no gods. Only men and women. And what even is an angel? Your story doesn't tell me anything about what the First Collapse was. "

"An angel is the helper of a god!" Erias piped up helpfully.

Denka added, "if- if Petra lived before the Collapse, then she would remember the great cities of the Golden Age. They were said to be filled with gleaming towers, where people never went hungry or cold, never got sick and never grew old. "

At that, Alice nodded, "yeah, I guess if you didn't know what a skyscraper was, they could be described as shiny towers. And yeah, Petra was never hungry. Ever. She never had a single memory in more than a hundred years where she was hungry. "

She paused for a moment then switched topics, "oh, but that reminds me, I wanted to say that Petra left notes on the Primary Runes that she retrieved from Database. I wanted to start practicing drawing runes when I got old enough, but I had no time this year. " At that, Alice smiled wryly at her mother, the expression quite unexpected on the face of a five year old child. Denka was sure no one around the table understood what she was saying.

"If I practice enough, I can copy the Consecration. "

And of course that was when the most preposterous statement came out of her mouth. Copy the Consecration? That... it wasn't something Denka had even considered possible. The Consecration was a mysterious thing the Earth Clan did, how could normal people like Alice use it too?

"I should be able to make a Record that does it. Add it to the plow or something similar-"

"Wait, stop," Denka interrupted his daughter. She looked up from her musing to her empty plate. "Do you mean to say you can make enchanted objects?"

Magic items. Rumours and stories expounded on their qualities and legends told of their tales. Swords that could strike true, maps that showed treasures and your enemies, arrows that pierced the target without fail, such stories and wonders were... well, stories. Denka had never seen a magic item, nor did he believe that even Lochar would have seen one. They probably existed, maybe the Clans had a few, but they weren't real. Not like the furniture in front of him was.

And his daughter claimed she could make them. As if she could make his wooden plowshare magical, just like that.

She frowned at him, "well, if you don't believe me, I can make one. Just give me a week and I'm sure I can get something to glow. Trying to make a plow fertilize the land is much harder though. That might take a year. "

Denka frowned back. If this was true, and if Petra's memory really came from before the Collapse, then Alice would be used by Lochar without fail. And the Clans would be jealous and- well, more than that, Denka did not care to speculate. But he knew enough that letting anyone else know about Alice's memories would be a bad thing.

"Alright, now that Consecration is over, you will get time to play in winter," he said, "if you really do manage to make a magic item, I want you to tell me. Let me talk to Lochar, we'll create a lie. Maybe I found it while hunting or buried in the field. But for now, none of us are to mention Alice's memory or Ri's father. Is that clear?"

Alice nodded immediately of course. He glanced at his wife, who was still looking pained. Denka nudged her shoulder, she nodded slowly. But Alice's brothers looked a little confused and Rishiamaher was totally lost. He had to make it clear.

"If other people know about Alice's memory or Ri's father, they will come and take them away," he said to his sons seriously. They gave him their full attention. "You must not talk about what we said here tonight, you have to protect your sisters. Do you understand?"

The two boys glanced at each other and finally nodded. Rishiamaher looked at him and imitated them too but it was clear that a four year old did not understand just how important it was to keep silent. He looked at Alice and saw she already understood.

"Alice, I'm sorry, but you'll have to accompany Ri and make sure she doesn't talk. Can you do that?" he asked. Best to make sure.

His daughter, special and seemingly given a huge legacy by the System, just nodded again.

Alicia laid on the bed of straw, trying to feel some comfort in her husband's arms. But each time she tried to go to sleep, her daughter's face appeared in her mind. Memories of her intelligent eyes, sharp words and rare cheerful laughter swam amidst the ones that were missing. She had never comforted Alice, never had to share her bed after a nightmare, never had to kiss away the pain of a fall.

Alicia was not too proud to admit that she had ignored Alice in favour of her needier, normal, siblings.

Was she wrong? Did she lose her child to the memory of another woman long dead?

"It will be alright," her husband said, hugging her tightly. It was a little warm but she needed that feeling.

"We do know her. She has been with us for four years. Alice has always been good and obedient. " Alicia muttered. She remembered taking care of Alice as an infant before the System took her. The little girl was like any other baby, demanding attention and needy. Afterwards, Alice was watchful and nearly silent. She could not believe she had excused Alice's behaviour to herself at the time, thinking it was just a result of a fever or other sickness.

But Alicia also recalled her daughter crying at the table, begging her not to disregard her. Alice's tears that were as rare as the moon's tears. And Alice had grown up with her memories for four years.

"We just have to believe that she has been acting true," Denka added. That the Alice they knew had not been a lie. That he didn't say but Alicia still thought about anyway.

"We have to believe," Alicia repeated, trying to convince herself.

jseah · Oct 10, 2018

Aldar walked the halls to his office. The staff and researchers saluted him with bright smiles on their faces.

Petra would wake up tomorrow and the final adjustments would be done. With the ability to remove episodic memory from the procedural skill and knowledge components of the data, Skill Share would no longer degrade the sanity of anyone using it.

Of course everyone was happy. The project was near completion. The fruits of their labour and personal investment was about to be harvested, everyone was about to become famous. Not as much as Petra would, but the thought of the profits from their proposed Skill Marketplace soothed any number of hurt feelings.

Petra was brilliant, like any other Great Person, but she was also the only one willing to accept a lower share in profits for the title of Research Lead. Of the original four project founders, one had left before any prototype was complete, the other wanted to just be a researcher. She was the one who took charge of the research and would consequently earn all the fame.

Aldar nodded to his secretary and settled into his office. Forty years ago a computer screen would have greeted him, but now there lay only stacks of paper. Even in this day and age of Augmented Reality, now called the AR System, it seemed that management couldn't escape from paperwork.

The AR System, a graft that integrated personal computers into each person's Record, allowed modules to work. Rather than grafts that directly modified lifeforce, needing specialized equipment to add and modify, modules were pure information. Together with a self-maintaining distributed network, the AR System allowed modules to affect the mind, with permission, and be updated automatically from central servers.

The Knowledge Database was one such module, distributing a curated collection of facts and articles, and it was getting old. Grafted onto the popular Messenger, itself a development of the AR System to send messages, the Database was a non-profit organization that had changed the world with their replacement of academic study. Being able to just dump knowledge into the mind made fact checking trivial, but one still needed to practice applying that knowledge.

Skill Share was the next step forwards. Able to share any skill from anyone to anyone else, instead of just dry knowledge.

He glanced up at the chime of the Messenger application. It hadn't been long but he was already glad for the interruption.

"Aldar, I have a sealed message for you," his secretary called him. Her face in the floating box was slightly troubled as she held up a small envelope.

A physical letter? Who in the world would use that nowadays, apart from official paperwork that everyone knew to expect? "Send it in. "

He wasn't worried about threats, security would have scanned it. She brought it into his office and Aldar opened the envelope to find a single sheet of paper. On it was typed a simple warning.

"Be warned, those who wish to exploit progress for their own selfish gain.

Collected knowledge of man, it shall fly free, one way or another.

Desist now, release your knowledge for the public good, renounce the corrupt Market.

Or we shall do it for you. "

Aldar frowned. The language was ominous and threatening. The writer did not like their company's plans to make Skill Share a marketplace and skim a small transaction fee of each skill update. He was quite confident of the interpretation with that reference to the Market.

"Are they threatening us?" his secretary asked, not quite believing this was a legitimate attempt to harass Skill Share. The thought of something like that happening nowadays was ridiculous. Especially when delivered in such overdone theatrics.

"Nonsense," Aldar huffed. The very idea! A threat for money, he could believe, a disgruntled employee wanting more fame, he could believe. But poetic vaguely threatening letters demanding they give away their work for free? "This is a problem, but not because of the threat. Whoever wrote this must be insane, I wouldn't worry about anything they can do. The problem is that someone out there clearly knows our project is about to finish. Our schedule was supposed to be a secret. "

The secretary nodded, finally understanding what the real issue was. Aldar continued, "Get me Human Resources and let's see if we can't find any suspects. I doubt it but maybe they left some incriminating communications. "

He tossed the letter aside and hurried the woman out of the office.

The style of writing was familiar though. Like he had seen it before in someone's book... perhaps one of those autobiographies of Great People Petra liked to read? They were usually pretentious too.

Nah. Great People had too many things to do to bother with something like this, that was even more preposterous.

Petra awoke to find a nurse watching her expectantly. The woman immediately bustled over to her and fussed with the scanner. She blinked a few times, still trying to boot her mind awake. Petra rolled her head, feeling her neck pop. Oh, that felt good.

The nurse just hummed approvingly, "you're healthy, Potential at 88%. No problems reported. "

It was done. It was done! She practically leapt out of the bed, sending the servant wisp waiting in the corner scurrying for her clothes. The upload was complete! Just a short period of matching pre-made analysis to the upload data and her Skill Share would be ready to use! Petra ignored the nurse fussing over her hands and checking her eyes.

"You're a little dehydrated," said the nurse, "also low on blood sugar. Have a good meal and drink lots of water before you go back to work. I believe you have a cake waiting for you. "

Petra nodded her thanks before shrugging into the office wear. There was work to be done and progress to be made.

But first, a celebration party!

"Glad to see you back with us!" Aldar said, slapping her on the back. "All eager to finish the project?"

Petra tried to avoid spilling cake crumbs over the carpet. All around her, the members of the Skill Share team mingled in conference room, overworked servant wisps keeping the drinks and food flowing. Skill Share wasn't deployed yet, they couldn't afford that many servant wisps. A small party with only cheap alcohol and almost no decorations. But to Petra and everyone else in the room, it was a well deserved celebration of their accomplishments.

"I'm perfectly fine, thank you for asking," she sniffed at him, but broke out into a smile after a short while. "Yeah, just two or three more days. Frankly, we don't even need this many researchers any more. "

Aldar nodded. Both of them knew the schedule of course. By the time the week was out, Skill Share would be opening for volunteer testing. The heavy computation machinery was busy churning away in the basement below them. It would be done soon.

The gooey chocolate cake beckoned and Petra raised a forkful-

Boom!

The whole building shook with a massive impact, along with a deafening crash from the wall of the room. Petra stumbled, still clutching her plate in shock.

"Everyone on the far wall!" shouted an unknown voice. Rough hands shoved her and Aldar beside her, driving them towards the edge of the room.

The few moments of disorientation was enough for their assailants to gain complete control of the room. Not that it needed much work, Petra could see they were armed.

Dressed in militaristic fatigues, they were well armed with a patchwork of weapons. Petra could see swordshields and projectile throwers. The leader even had a coherent radiation weapon and the six part force field wings of a flight graft. That was practically military hardware! Twenty assailants, with six more of the dog-like armoured drakka, combat form wisps. The muzzles of the metallic combat machines glinted with sharp steel teeth.

The distinctly civilian Skill Share stood no chance. They were all corralled against the wall in short order.

"Well, hello everyone," the leader bowed mockingly, "you can call me Carver and we're here today for your Skill Share. Don't resist and you'll be unharmed. Do so..."

He hefted his weapon and blasted an errant servant wisp still trying to serve alcohol. The room flinched and the few panicked sobs subsided into a stunned silence.

Carver glanced around and nodded in satisfaction when he saw they were all cowed. "All right everyone, since you refused to hear our demands, we're going to take it by force. I know you're done with your module, give it to us. My good man Davor here will open a tunnel out of your private AR servers. Well? Do I have to start shooting?"

Davor, a scrawny man next to the leader, opened up an AR window and began running a bridging program. Their internal private server wasn't supposed to be connected to the public System but clearly Davor could bypass the restrictions.

Aldar looked a little sick, sitting on the floor next to her.

"Did you know about this?" she asked.

"I thought..." he stuttered, "it was too unbelievable. Who would send us threats like that?"

Petra glanced around and noticed many of the researchers giving her looks. She could almost feel them expecting her to get them out of this. The terrorists had also noticed and most of the room was paying attention to her now.

Well, she was about to join the ranks of the famous Great People, greatness was expected of her. And it wasn't as if Petra didn't have an idea.

She stood up slowly and raised her hands. "I'm Petra, Research Lead. "

"There you are!" Carver said, "come on, just give it to us and no one has to get hurt. "

"I'll do it," Petra said, nodded solemnly at Aldar who merely looked back in confusion, "give me a few seconds, I just need to publish a version to be usable. "

She opened up her AR window, logged into the private server and checked out the current version of the Skill Share module. All it took was removing the warnings and comments about the insanity and it was ready to use. Petra sent a copy of the module to Davor's Record through the tunnel.

Davor installed the module. Almost.

"You can test it, there's a juggling skill we use for testing that I attached to it," Petra explained.

Carver nodded at him. It was only a matter of moments for the Skill Share module to upload the tiny juggling skill to Davor.

The man demonstrated their success by grabbing two of the empty wine bottles and putting on a display of artificial skill.

Carver laughed triumphantly. "Ha! See, we didn't have to do this the hard way. All right Davor, upload it and let's get out of here before security arrives!"

Petra could only conceal a smirk as she sat back down. Aldar nudged her, curious as to what she had done, but all she could do was wink at him.

After all, Skill Share wasn't done. The algorithm refinement would take most of the day and some time further to test for stability. The current, and soon to be old, version Petra had given them was the flawed one that would slowly drive insane those using it. Anyone using it would suffer from bits of memories, habits and thoughts of the source bleeding over.

A small contained muscle-memory based skill like juggling brought a tiny amount of mental contamination, practically unnoticeable. But the contamination would build up the more the module was used, faster if a broad skill that touched on many areas at once or was strongly tied to remembered events. Users would suffer mental instability, confusion and eventually descend into hallucinations and full schizophrenia.

These terrorists thought they could rob her of her achievements and steal it for themselves? After the terrorists had left and security had arrived, she would just make a public statement and they would be left with an unusable module.

And if they wanted to use it for themselves? Well, they were in for a surprise.

Poetic justice indeed.

She glanced down at her plate of cake, still sitting next to her innocently. She gestured at the plate, looking questioningly at the terrorists holding them against the wall. The masked man in front of her raised an eyebrow but sighed and nodded.

She watched as Davor used the scanning module to determine skill areas of his own mindscape in his Record. The module couldn't identify the skills involved without enough data between people to compare, something for future work, but it could tell where individual learned skills were in the mind. He highlighted everything and ordered the module to separate it out into separate downloads.

And that was a macro to control the Skill Share module. Heh, it looked like they were going to use it after all. Share everything? They would drive themselves insane instantly.

Petra watched intently as Davor... opened a login window? The forkful of cake halted before it reached her mouth.

That was a Database login.

"Wait, are you publishing Skill Share as a Database update?" Petra practically shrieked.

Carver laughed, "you know it well! Your tyranny of the market is over! We will not let you exploit the collective knowledge of mankind for your own gain!"

"You can't do that!" she shouted and leapt up, but was instantly restrained by the terrorists keeping her down at the wall. "Let me go!" she struggled as three men pinned her down roughly.

But at least Database wouldn't just publish an update to everyone, right?

"How can a bunch of terrorists affect Database?! Skill Share cannot- mmph!"

Whether she had annoyed them too much or they were just trying to subdue a struggling Petra, the three men restraining her muffled her mouth.

"Ah, but Davor here is a Database Administrator!" Carver grinned down at her, "and we have the requisite approval for instant deployment too! After all, Rottheim is sympathetic to our cause. "

Rottheim of Database. He was one of those kooky collectivist people, wasn't he? Petra remembered how he caused an uproar a few years ago about equality of outcome. She concentrated around the gloved stuffed into her mouth.

<Messenger: Emergency Message: To->

The butt of a projectile thrower smashed into her temple and she flopped on the ground bonelessly, barely able to see straight.

Carver sneered, "Save your tears, it is just the dying screams of a defunct capitalist era! We will bring about a new era of equality!"

The world seemed to narrow as she raced ahead to the inevitable conclusion. Packaged as a Database update, Skill Share would be shared to everyone who used Database and it would operate... yes, she could see Davor connecting the Skill Share module with the macro to a two-way connection to Database. They would upload everyone's skills to Database and download to everyone!

A desperate whine escaped from her throat as Carver's finger descended with dramatic sluggishness... and hit 'Yes'.

Aldar seemed frozen by the rapid developments. Everyone else didn't know what she had just done.

There was a simultaneous chime from all the terrorists and an AR window popped up in front of each of them. The Database update flashed into operation before anyone could react. Then hundreds of skill upload and download bars appeared.

All the terrorists collapsed to the ground as the Skill Share macro went to work. A single tiny skill could be synced in less than a second, sharing everything would knock the users out for hours. The macro was diligently uploading and sharing all the skills of everyone whose Database updates were set to automatic. Driving the vast majority of humanity insane. Including Davor, the only Database Administrator in the room.

Poetic justice, huh.

Only luck had isolated her research team from the effects. As they were on the private AR server and also needed to measure their own mental baseline for contamination studies, none of them had Database on automatic updates. Small mercy there.

Petra threw aside the limp hands dragging her down. "Anyone happen to be an undercover Database Administrator?" she asked the research team, who were in varying states of shock.

There was no reply. Well, of course not.

"Anyone happen to have a Database Administrator on their contact list?" Petra asked again, "or know how we can contact them immediately? One of the devs' got to be off automatic updates, right? By the time a support message gets dealt with, it'll be the end of the world as we know it. "

A trembling hand went up further down the line, "I have a friend who says he knows an AR System Administrator-"

"Then call him now!" she screamed at him.

The cheerful waiting tone rang through the silent conference room. No one picked up. His friend probably had Database on automatic update. Almost everyone did after all.

She stepped back to her seat, sinking feeling in her stomach growing faster and faster. The fallen forkful of cake squished under her shoe. She looked down and saw the plate still sitting innocently on the empty chair. And she still hadn't gotten to eat her cake.

And thus the world ended.

jseah · Oct 10, 2018

Glossary

Record
A volume tied to a specified set of physical material; supports magical functions by containing Runes.
All people have Records.

By default, when created, a Record is tied to a snapshot of the physical atoms in that volume.

Object Definition
A special portion of a Record that details (with wildcards) the position and state of the physical atoms the Record is tied to.
If none of the physical atoms the Record is tied to match its Object Definition, the Record is destroyed.

Object Definition can be changed once the Record is created. The changed portions do not match the physical atoms of course.
Running the Runes (spending the Potential to activate them) in an Object Definition will change the physical atoms to match.

Runes
The language used to control Records. Object Definition is written in Runes. The execution portion of a Record is also written in Runes.
Primary Runes are always valid (unless declared otherwise within a Record). Primary Runes can define other Runes but those made up ones are not valid outside that Record.

Potential
Magic power by another name. An artificial number in each Record that limits execution of Runes. Physical effects are expensive, simple running of runes is very cheap.

A Record can exist at 0 Potential, it just can't do anything.
A Record without a Potential storage crystal will slowly lose Potential even if not used.
A Record can only generate Potential by having a Potential generating organ, which is a biological mechanism that burns energy for nothing.
Humans and Potential tree farms have both storage and generating organs.

Graft
A portion of a human's Record that contains runes meant to exert effects on the Object Definition.

Grafts may be inherited or not inherited from parent to children, inherited grafts are necessarily more complicated.
Mother-to-child inheritance is less complicated that father-to-child. Some grafts are mother-to-child inheritance only, but most modern ones are both.

In raw rune count, a 'modern' graft contains about a million runes.

Examples: Forcefield wings, self-healing, Alva elemental magic

System Registration Graft
A computer that lives in the Record of each person, inherited from parent to child; includes the AR display.
Very complicated, uses lots of self-defined runes for more streamlined execution.

The System
Other names: System; AR System
A network of Records that cover the land and interfaces with System Registration Graft; analogous to the Internet.

Can self-replicate and self-repair. Draws power from Potential tree farms, does not exist in lifeless areas.
As complicated as System Registration Grafts, but also includes networking infrastructure, maintenance and administrative functions.

Private System Server
A standalone 'computer'(s) or data storage. May include a separate network from the System (ie. a clone of System that does not communicate with the main global one)

Module
A software that runs on the System Registration Graft or on the System (they have the same 'OS'); can't do anything physical but can process information.
Examples: Messenger, Skill Analysis

TheAkashicTraveller · Oct 10, 2018

Well. Who the hell was stupid enough to think that automated updates on direct mind interfaces was a good idea?

Anyone get hit by 1809? That being the new windows update that'll delete everything in a system folder (My Documents, Downloads, Music etc.) if you moved it to another drive.

joha4270 · Oct 10, 2018

TheAkashicTraveller said:
Well. Who the hell was stupid enough to think that automated updates on direct mind interfaces was a good idea?

I mean they probably didn't at the start, but after 50 years without incidents but "Ugh I forgot to update, please hold for a minute" most people would probably stop worrying.

jseah · Oct 10, 2018

Corrected some typoes, thanks to joha!
After discussion with joha, I have decided to reduce the Fire clan's tax from half to a third. Consecration tax clarified to be at half.

TheAkashicTraveller said:
Well. Who the hell was stupid enough to think that automated updates on direct mind interfaces was a good idea?

Anyone get hit by 1809? That being the new windows update that'll delete everything in a system folder (My Documents, Downloads, Music etc.) if you moved it to another drive.

This is caused directly by their Mad Scientist-worship culture. Great People own their creations in a way that RL patent holders wish they could, and Rottheim of Database is an 'eccentric' communist. In case you were wondering, when Carver said "Rottheim is sympathetic to [his] cause", he meant it. They couldn't have made an instant deployment without the owner's permission.

Rottheim gave his creation away and Database is effectively run like Wikipedia is. Supported by donations, partially written in collaboration with research labs and universities.

This means Database itself is poorly funded and poorly policed. Rottheim himself has the Database administration eating out of his hand, the team is also absolutely tiny for how important Database is (I'm thinking less than 50 Database Administrators worldwide). And while Rottheim is practically a genius and has propped up Database by dint of his own sweat, blood and sheer charisma, it also means that Database is taken for granted as a 'public service'. After all, for all the decades that Rottheim has made it work, nothing has ever gone wrong.

Rottheim IS really good and has turned Database into his life's work (which you will note in Petra's time is more than a century), and despite feature creep and general advancements, he has never stepped wrong. Which only makes things worse since everyone thinks he's utterly infallible.

Until he made a mistake.

joha4270 · Oct 11, 2018

jseah said:
After discussion with joha, I have decided to reduce the Fire clan's tax from half to a third. Consecration tax clarified to be at half.

:/
I had hoped you would account for the implied food production and show off a world that reflected that.
That said, making such a world consistent is a large amount of work for limited gain, I can easily understand just cutting the food production.

jseah · Oct 11, 2018

joha4270 said:
:/
I had hoped you would account for the implied food production and show off a world that reflected that.
That said, making such a world consistent is a large amount of work for limited gain, I can easily understand just cutting the food production.

It will still reflect some parts of the excess labour implied. Eg. higher city walls, region-wide infrastructure projects such as roads and canals in the core areas, and a level of luxury goods that trickle down to a small middle class of craftsmen.

But it is good for me to keep these things in mind. Just not to the level of having so many excess bodies have massive standing armies.

jseah · Oct 28, 2018

Alice pored over the draft scrawled in charcoal, running through the runes in her head and checking for errors.

To make a new Record with the runes she wanted, Alice had to write out every single rune, without mistakes and in the right order. Even after spending most of her free time on the runes, Alice still took more than a day of careful writing and rewriting before she managed to write a rune script correctly. A logical error meant a lot of wasted effort. Even with the progress she had made over the past year, checking the runes before writing the actual script was worth the time.

When she first started, Alice had thought that with Petra's cheat sheet of all the Primary Runes and the script syntax, she would be able to quickly make a magic item that would have the same effect as Consecration.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The Earth Clan wasn't around and they weren't going to let her poke at their precious Consecration to find out how it worked. Ri was still young and while she was practicing with her Earth-Alva graft, she hadn't yet worked out how to adjust the soil concentration. When trying, Ri still had a tendency to turn the soil into mud or just vanishing it, apparently digging holes was a command preset in the graft.

And even if Alice had a working example of Consecration to study, she had no actual way of obtaining the runes in it. Sure, Petra's notes had the Primary Runes to make a copy of the runes from another Record, but that didn't help her see what the runes actually were. So she either needed to make a System Module to read and display the rune contents, something Alice wasn't even sure was possible, or make her own display method. But Alice had none of the Module developer tools nor a private server to work on, making her own tools meant she needed to work out how to interface with the System and that ran into the same problem of not knowing how the System actually worked.

So Alice had to bootstrap herself a toolset for rune magic from nothing at all. Starting from the baby projects of making a floating, point-size light. Alice had gotten up to making other useful tools like a carving knife that vanished material along the edge, able to cut without feedback. Each of those were powered by the Potential transferred from someone touching them. Without a stabilizing magic core found in all magical beings, including humans, they wouldn't hold much of a charge and would leak, but they were simple. No more than a hundred runes or so.

To make a display, she would need to make a font in order to translate each rune into a shape, but to do that would take thousands of runes at least. To write a display that would take the shape and translate it into a shaped volume where light would be spawned, would take thousands more. Add in the controlling logic, connection to another Record and the rune transfer, perhaps a few hundred to a thousand runes. Alice would have to write a small book just make the most basic rune reader.

Completely infeasible. She would never be able to write that many without mistakes.

Alice would have to cheat. To whit, she did not actually need a rune reader or a full set of rune script tools. She wanted to make something that would fertilize the soil, so if she just copied the compound makeup of a sample...

"Alice? Are you still working?"

Her mother appeared in the doorway, a concerned frown on her face.

Alice looked up from the pieces of bark scattered over the floor. "Mama! I had a new idea! I don't need to-"

"It's late, Alice. Children shouldn't stay up late," her mother interrupted, "isn't Papa taking you out to teach you how to hunt tomorrow? You'll need to sleep. "

She nodded, biting back a yawn but failing to keep it in. Her mother smiled faintly and patted her head, "you can continue tomorrow, alright?"

"Yes mama. "

Once her mother was satisfied and went to her parents' room, Alice poked the floating ball of light that was keeping the kitchen lit in the evening. The basic toggle in the Record cut off the flow of Potential and the light winked out. It had taken months to perfect a toggle that detected a human's record touching it on just the right spot.

As she toddled off to the childrens' room where her siblings were sleeping, Alice sighed at the slight deception. She didn't often want to stay up late herself, the point light was nowhere near as bright as daylight to save on Potential and as a six year old, Alice got terribly sleepy once the sun went down and her work was similarly slow.

But her mother wanted to fuss and worry over her daughter, getting childishly caught up in her 'playtime' and needing to be reminded to go to sleep reassured her mother that her daughter still needed her. That she hadn't lost her child to a hundred year old stranger.

It definitely was not because Alice forgot the time.

Alice trudged through the forest, following her father's back in front of her as he avoided disturbing the undergrowth.

The last few times she had come out to be taught how to track, like her brothers before her, Alice had been left too exhausted to keep up. While Alice grew up far more active than Petra, she was still just six and a half. Her stride was shorter and her stamina was small compared to a grown man, an active hunter and farmer at that.

By the end of each of the weekly lessons, she was left panting and unable to focus on anything more than following him.

Her father held up a fist and she stumbled to a halt. He held up a finger to be quiet and Alice nodded back, noting how he pointed towards the canopy of the forest.

For a moment, Alice saw nothing but leaves. But eventually she spotted a shade of brown moving among the branches. A small bird was sitting in a nest, subtly concealed against the bark. It's head wasn't visible, apparently sleeping even though it was only late afternoon.

She looked at her father and he nodded his permission.

Finally! A live test! Alice grinned as she unhooked the tube hanging from her belt. A dart launcher was a terrible weapon compared to her father's light crossbow, but this one was special.

Alice had the ability to make supposedly legendary magical items after all, and making things go fast was relatively simple, magically speaking. A hollow tube was simple to make and the tiny darts were light enough to accelerate to a decent speed with a small amount of Potential. She had even added a spin to stabilize them in flight.

A light one shot weapon that even a six year old child could carry and kill small animals with. It might even stop a wolf. The dart was certainly going fast enough to give someone a concussion if you hit the head. Not bad for a month of work.

Alice carefully lined the bird up with the sights, adjusting for the slight drop after remembering her firing tests. With a thumb, Alice pressed down lightly on two specific points of the launcher.

There was a light whoosh and the bird squawked once before falling out of the nest in a cloud of feathers.

"Yes!" Alice shouted, the excitement of her first real success running like hot fire through her blood. Petra was familiar with this feeling of achievement, but Alice felt the rushing enthusiasm as if it was her first time.

The light was a valuable toy but far too conspicuous, the knife was not worth the Potential to use; but this dart launcher, this her father had told her would be useful next Consecration.

"Easier to make than crossbows, just as easy to use and I already have a rune script for it!" Alice chattered at her father, who was walking back with their prey. "They're light enough on Potential that even non-mages can charge a few. "

"Well done," her father rubbed her head with a smile, "I'll make use of these. "

"And I have an idea for solving the fertilizer. Without needing to examine Consecration. "

Alice's chatter was interrupted by a crunch from further into the forest, followed by a crackling of tearing wood and crashing of falling branches. Did a tree just fall over? The vague idea was put thoroughly to rest when the sound happened again.

With another motion to silence her, Alice's father crept forward slowly and silently. He pointed up the tree where the bird used to be and Alice nodded before setting about climbing it.

It took her at least five minutes, during which the crashing of falling trees in the distance continued. When Alice reached as high as she could go, she peered through the treetops while catching her breath.

Further down the gentle slope was the rocky downstream of the river where the village drew their water. Somewhat outside the limits of the safe zone Lochar had cleared of monsters, the area was on the border of true wilderness and familiar hunting grounds. Something, or many somethings, were moving through the area, crossing the river.

It took her minutes of watching the shadows moving under the trees, toppling the occasional tree in their movement. Then finally, one of the shadows moved into the gap where a tree had fallen across the stream.

The shadows were monsters. Huge and dog-like in shape, with powerful muscles rippling under a bony carapace. Its front was armoured with dull metal and bone, from its faceplate to the shoulders and down to the tips of the paws. Paws that ended in sharp metal claws.

The dog monster crossing the log turned its head and seemed to look right at Alice. The mouth, filled with razor sharp metal teeth, held a dull orange glow in the back. The surface of its skin and armour rippled and changed colours like a chameleon, matching the brown of the tree it was standing on.

Then it turned back to join its fellows, dismissing her for the non-threat that she was.

Alice jerked out of her frozen state when she felt a trickle of warm liquid rolling down her legs. Hands were frozen to the branch in a death grip had to be pried off a finger at a time. Staying in the tree wasn't going to help if one of those things decided to kill her.

That was a war wisp. Alice was sure of it! A Stalker. Autonomous scout and raiding unit, light aluminum armour, endless physical endurance. Claws shear through steel, short ranged flamethrower in the mouth. Private network similar to system, pack hunting behaviour.

All of the Stalkers in that swarm already knew she was up on this tree.

Feeling as if she was floating, Alice scrambled down to the ground right as her father ran by and scooped her up without a word.

"Papa!" Alice clung to his arm, hoping that they weren't already marked for death. "T-They saw me!" she choked out.

Her father didn't reply, instead breathing deeply and rhythmically as he sped up even more. Almost on instinct, Alice buried her face in his side where she was carried under arm.

The panicked flight came to an end as they neared the village's most outlying fields but no sign of pursuit followed them. Her father slowed to a brisk walk, heading straight to the governor's house. Alice was still held under his arm, the soiling of her pants was getting uncomfortably chilly.

They passed by Tim, a farmer who lived further out than most was working on the fields.

Tim paused in his weeding. "Hey there, had a good hunt- what happened?!"

"Monster migration," her father said, still walking.

Tim paled and walked with them, "coming here?"

"No, going north and west. But I ran without tracking them. "

"You're going to tell Lochar, right? I have to warn my family. " Tim nodded before running off towards the cluster of houses in the distance.

Her father's long strides brought them into the village proper before setting Alice down. He held her shoulders and met her eyes. Her father had never appeared this serious before and Alice paid him full attention.

"Go get your mother and siblings, just in case the monsters turn this way. Stay with them and wait for instructions. Do not use your pipes. Remember, we are keeping your knowledge a secret. "

Alice nodded solemnly. "Get everyone back to the house, wait for news. Don't use pipes. I understand. "

"Then go. "

Foet strutted through the village center. Her father had left her in charge!

She inspected each of the barriers to the crowd of villages where the women and boys were waiting with their hoes and pitchforks. The able men had gone off with her father to track the monsters' path or been sent as messengers to neighbouring villages.

The people here were Foet's responsibility! If those Rakka monsters showed even one snout in front of her, she would melt their faces off. Foet had learnt to throw fireballs this year!

Those children playing in the square had no idea of her great importance!

"Lady Foet," one of the women bearing a steaming mug interrupted her patrol. "It's past dinner time. Have some soup. There is still some time before your father will return. "

Lady Foet wanted to refuse, she had to be strong after all, but her stomach felt hungry. A few moments of wavering decided the matter in favour of the soup.

"Please also take some rest. We can watch the village for you. "

Foet nodded and waved the woman off. She had a good point, Foet's legs were getting tired too.

The children around her age were running around within the area corralled away by their parents. Foet sipped the salty carrot soup, sniffing at the kids who had no seriousness. They had no idea what a monster was like. Foet had been with her father on one of the monster hunting missions before! They were scary and dangerous and they would eat those kids in a blink of an eye.

A trio of boys chasing spinning tops ran past her. It looked interesting but Foet never had a chance to try that. Her father would never let her have a top and the kids would probably give her their toys but wouldn't play with her.

No, she was more important and better than them. Foet had to be focused.

Her cup of soup disappeared all too fast and Foet was about to ask for more when she saw a spot of calm amidst the chaos of the children.

There were two girls, off to one side, crouching in the dirt. Foet remembered them, the younger one was that girl who caused some commotion in last year's Consecration, wasn't she?

She strolled up to them. The older one was drawing on sheets of tree bark with a piece of charcoal.

Foet blinked as she examined the scraps again. Those squiggles were not Common characters that she was learning. The older girl was aligning them in some sort of chain that only made sense to her. No wonder the rest of the kids weren't playing with them.

"What are you doing?" Foet demanded.

The two girls looked up at her then back down at the pieces of bark. The older girl looked back up, "I... it's a made up language. I thought of it one day?"

Why was that a question? Foet examined the squiggles which still did not make sense. "Explain. "

"Uh. Alright. This spiral here is the start. And these ones say call this an object, where all these ones tell the first part what shape it is. And these ones are saying the object is made of whatever is in this part. These letters are supposed to say that the previous part is moving very fast but I haven't finished writing it. "

Foet watched the girl's pointing at the various bits of squiggles but sense was still not made. A hundred letters just to write 'this thing' did not make sense. Common was much better!

"Your language is too long. " She complained.

The older girl giggled a little, which made Foet vaguely irritated, the girl was laughing in the same way her father laughed whenever he was about to ignore Foet. "Yeah, it is. But that's what the letters mean, so that's how long it is. "

See! She was just ignoring Foet now. "So you should just make shorter letters!" Foet said triumphantly, "it's your language, just make up new ones!"

The older girl sighed, "but then I need to make even more normal letters to say what the shorter letter is supposed to mean. Otherwise other people won't understand it. "

That... it made some sort of sense. This talking to the kids was going better than Foet had hoped! The other children had always run away after all. "I like you. You can be my friend!" Er. Foet still didn't know either of the girls' names. "And tell me your name. "

The older girl stood up and dusted herself off. Tch. She was slightly taller than Foet. Her younger sister followed her lead. "I'm Alice. My sister is Rishiamaher, but you can call her Ri. "

"Good! Then Alice, get your... bark. We have to inspect the barricade again! You will be following me!"

Rather than make excuses or reluctantly following her orders, Alice just giggled again. "Oh, you're just lonely. It's so cute," she muttered under her breath, but not low enough that Foet couldn't hear.

Wha-! Foet was not cute! Foet could burn things! Alice grinned at Foet's indignation. And then Alice start patting her head! The younger sister Ri looked confused but imitated her older sister.

What was going on?! Foet didn't want to push her away but this was embarrassing! The adults looking at them hid grins and amused looks. Alice, stop! Foet opened her mouth to tell her but only a wordless cry came out.

Alice took her hand away and just smiled. Ah. ... Wait no! Foet was not disappointed at the missing headpats!

There was an awkward pause before Alice cleared her throat, "aren't we going?"

"Yes. We are. Now. "

Foet led her two new friends to the defenses and began her inspection with soup for all of them.

The women and younger men manning the portable stakes greeted her as they passed. Foet could see them looking at the two sisters curiously but they held their tongue, so she didn't comment. The defenders must be cheered by Foet's presence. After all, even in training, a Fire Clan sorcerer like her was strong enough to defend this village!

She was about to get to the side closest to the monsters, when suddenly the evening sky lit up with an unnatural glow. It was a familiar yellow-red of a Fire Clan's flames. Somewhere in the forest, Foet's father was using enough magic to light up the sky. The distant flame died down then flickered upwards again.

The scouting group had found the monsters.

"Father," Foet whispered. All around her, the villagers manning the barricades stood straighter. The bustling of the women still serving dinner quieted to a worried whisper. Even the playing children settled down.

All of a sudden, the prospect of the monsters had become real. Everyone had hoped the monsters really were migrating away from the village, but if Lochar was fighting, and fighting hard, then there was real danger.

Foet ran through the hand motions to summon a ball of fire and lob it. She didn't engage her magic to save Potential but she needed to be ready in case her fire was needed. Behind her, Alice and Ri fidgeted worriedly. Alice kept fingering the three wooden sticks on her belt, though for what reason, Foet couldn't figure out.

After the third flare of light, there was just silence and worrying. No more light, but also no monsters coming out of the deepening darkness.

It was nearly three hours, and far past sunset, after the distant fighting that her father's party returned. At first glance, the returning party didn't seem to be much smaller, but then Foet caught sight of injuries and bloody wrappings on many of the hunters.

Her father was unhurt, but the sudden wailing cry of grief from a woman, rapidly joined by a few others, told Foet that they hadn't just been injured.

"How many?" she asked nervously as her father accepted a bowl of soup.

He looked at her, glancing at the two sisters behind her, "four died. Seven injured. The monsters let us go. "

With that, her father gulped down the soup and barked some orders. The barricades were being taken down and the families of the dead were being comforted. The monsters were not going to attack after all.

But that was the first time Foet heard her father admit that he failed. She never quite got back her faith in his invincibility.

joha4270 · Oct 28, 2018

And thus Alice befriends the leader-in-waiting just as she loses a lot of faith in their father.
That's going to be useful later.

Luma · Oct 28, 2018

Awh, I like Foet.
Are the runes part of the System or is the System made from runes?

notgreat · Oct 28, 2018

I'm liking this.

Some things that I'm wondering about:

1. Why did the wisps start attacking people? The people went crazy/zombie from Skill Share, but the wisps aren't people. (At least, I really hope they're not...)

2. How did the superweapons not go off? Seems to me like this was basically a cold war scenario with massive military expenditure on superweapons, and when your whole population suddenly goes zombie, an attack seems like a reasonable assumption.

3. Since some admins survived ~100 years after the collapse, how come they didn't pass it on?

Then again, the answers to these questions don't really matter. It's the new world that matters now, not the ancient past.

TheAkashicTraveller · Oct 28, 2018

notgreat said:
2. How did the superweapons not go off? Seems to me like this was basically a cold war scenario with massive military expenditure on superweapons, and when your whole population suddenly goes zombie, an attack seems like a reasonable assumption.

Who's to say they didn't? It's hard to believe that someone didn't have Database's (or whatever it was called) automatic updates turned off and the resources to defend themselves.

notgreat said:
3. Since some admins survived ~100 years after the collapse, how come they didn't pass it on?

Maybe they couldn't? With a system as dangerous as that they surely wouldn't trust many people at all with complete access so it's likely that there are a hell of a lot of layers of admin access. See The Day Google Forgot to Check Passwords for a real world comparison.

Psythe · Oct 28, 2018

Thanks for continuing this! I voted for this story in the contest, glad to see it continued.

Larekko12 · Oct 28, 2018

Cool. Was that servant her mom?

jseah · Oct 28, 2018

Luma said:
Awh, I like Foet.
Are the runes part of the System or is the System made from runes?

The System is made from runes in that the runes were used to emulate a computer.

I've added a glossary to the threadmarks. Mind that it's quite the infodump and that Alice hasn't explained this all on-screen yet.
That's all 'known' information to Alice however.

notgreat said:
1. Why did the wisps start attacking people? The people went crazy/zombie from Skill Share, but the wisps aren't people. (At least, I really hope they're not...)

2. How did the superweapons not go off? Seems to me like this was basically a cold war scenario with massive military expenditure on superweapons, and when your whole population suddenly goes zombie, an attack seems like a reasonable assumption.

3. Since some admins survived ~100 years after the collapse, how come they didn't pass it on?

The story has just started, Alice hasn't had the raw word count to explore the backstory. =P

Here's a hint:

jseah said:
And that was the First Collapse.

Psythe said:
Thanks for continuing this! I voted for this story in the contest, glad to see it continued.

Thank you for reading! Pop into the discord channel if you want, where I have word count trackers and you can ask questions!
Link in first post.

Larekko12 said:
Cool. Was that servant her mom?

I hadn't decided who that was. Though I think Foet wouldn't think of her mother that way. She's still young and no matter how her father would consider her mother below him, she wouldn't have picked up that sort behaviour to her mother.

Alanek · Oct 28, 2018

Oho; this is a well thought out story.

Arkeus · Oct 29, 2018

OK, I a really liking this so far.

I am unsure if Alice actually made sure the uploading once-per-year macro was off. I could see arguments on why she wouldn't want to (in case she dies early) but OTOH it does kill a kid a year.

Also Yikes, Petra messed up. Aldar too

jseah · Oct 29, 2018

Arkeus said:
I am unsure if Alice actually made sure the uploading once-per-year macro was off. I could see arguments on why she wouldn't want to (in case she dies early) but OTOH it does kill a kid a year.

Also Yikes, Petra messed up. Aldar too

Alice left it on Petra's recommended "pause while Alice remains sane and alive".
I should mention this in story.

And yes, that was a pretty big oops. Not everyday you oops all of human civilization.

jseah · Dec 9, 2018

A/N: A calmer chapter, in which things progress... for now.

Alice watched the metal rod grow another few millimeters.

Two years since the Consecration had been enough for her to work out how to make something like it. Rather than make a copy of Consecration, what Alice was making was a short rod that would transmute soil within half a meter from the marked tip into the same chemical makeup as the sample provided in the holder at the top. The Potential was of course taken from the holder.

It had taken her three months just to write out the thousand or so symbols needed to read a variable thing and apply it to the Object Definition. Now she was on the last day of making the physical object.

Conjuring it from thin air really. It was extremely expensive to conjure this titanium rod wholesale, Alice and her family had contributed their meagre civilian power for the last two weeks just to make this.

Alice had initially wanted to use wood, but her father had explained the scheme he was going to use to deflect attention from Alice. They needed something that appeared to be a Pre-Collapse artifact and while Alice could not copy the design style of Petra's age, she knew that titanium was an impossible metal to make at present. At least she had done her testing of the Record's operation with wood copies.

The soil sample her rod was going to duplicate was preserved from a small corner of the field. Her father had let it lay fallow for the past two years, the soil would be rich and fertile, even though the rains would have leached some of the nutrients away.

Alice grinned to herself as she examined the metal rod again. Only a few more hours to go before she would Record it and start on a second.

"It seemed like too much to believe, sir. "

Lochar rubbed the metal rod curiously. When one of the hunters had returned from a long and futile chase, he had reported that he found an artifact that had been uncovered. It was the same man whose wife had a daughter by that obnoxious Earth Finger... ah yes, Denka was the hunter's name. Truly, the family was cursed with interesting times. One did not find magic items lying around in the forest unless you were cursed with interesting times.

"Well, you did right, bringing it to me," Lochar said, getting a nod from the hunter.

An unadorned metal rod the length of his forearm, slightly bent from past damage, the metal below could still be polished to a shine. Even the dirt had not clung to the surface, given how Lochar's finger had easily polished clean a spot. The bottom tapered into a spike while the top held an empty pocket about a finger's deep and wide.

Truly, just looking practically new while lying buried for hundreds of years was enough to identify the rod as a Pre-Collapse artifact. The Record Lochar could see on the thing was another clue. The big giveaway however was how the rod had tugged on Lochar, a phantom feeling that was his magic telling him that the rod could drain Potential from him. It was a working magic item.

What it did though...

"Do you know what it does?" Lochar asked idly.

"How could I, sir?" the hunter replied. Lochar could see how the man hastily concealed his skepticism, as if wondering whether his governor was sane but too afraid to say anything. Well, at least it wasn't some heirloom that had been hidden away until the man got nervous.

Well, nothing to it, Lochar fed in some Potential, watching the artifact glow with a small amount of power. Nothing happened as the glow drained away.

Still, if the glow disappeared that quickly, that meant that the artifact had been using Potential. It had been doing something. Most likely, either it's activation was continuous or it had been jammed in a working mode. What luck! He didn't have to figure out how to activate the thing!

Lochar dismissed the hunter with a promise to provide some favours for the discovery. Now, to figure out what the artifact was doing. Lochar had some ideas, the slot on top looked suspicious after all...

The next day after her father had handed his 'discovery' to the governor, everyone had been called to assemble in the center of the village. Alice could practically jump in glee, they had succeeded!

Mindful of the temptation to use the rod for conjuring of other materials, Alice had only made it accept mixtures containing something roughly of the same elemental makeup as the soil sample. That part had taken forever to get right and by the end of the month of work on the control system, Alice had gained a good understanding of how a Record's Object Definition saw atoms.

Having to do this with trial and error was so inefficient Alice wanted to tear her hair out. Being unable to read back the runes in the Record was a major obstacle. She had had to change her rune sets and observe the results, and often the error was not obvious.

Still, it was done now, and Alice had created five rods, with her family helping, to bury in their chosen area. It looked like her father's explanation of finding a partially unburied Pre-Collapse artifact had been accepted.

Indeed, just as Alice had predicted, Lochar had called together all the villagers to explain what he had found about the artifact. To say the farming village was amazed would be an understatement.

"I am sure by now that you are aware of the implications of this artifact. Every family will add the use of these artifacts to the daily weeding schedule. No one is allowed to miss the Consecration duty! And at the end of each day, these artifacts will be returned to me. "

And so far it was going well! Lochar had of course found that the 'artifact' could conjure soil if a sample was placed in the holder at the top. The Record would switch to adjusting soil makeup if the tip was placed in soil up to the first ridge, except for the water content. Lochar obviously made the connection that Consecration and the massive tax would be unnecessary if they simply used the rods each day on a different section of farmland.

They would test out the rods on a single field for a growing season before using it across the entire village the next year. With three hundred villagers using five rods, and needing to do it each day, left them with only a quarter hour each to perform the fertilization if they were all to expend their Potential by sundown.

Hopefully by next year, they would be able to exploit the rods to their full potential.

Judging from the reception, the promise of not needing to pay a Consecration tax was attractive enough that the villagers would try their best.

In the next year that followed, Alice had barely anything to do. Without a goal to work towards, she had decided to investigate the other legacies of Petra.

In this case, Skill Share.

"Father, I would like to test out the Skill Share function," Alice said one day during breakfast.

Her family looked at her blankly. Oh, right, it had been nearly two years since she revealed Petra's memories to her family. They might not have remembered.

"If you remember the myth about Pre-Collapse? Where the God of Skills was stolen from?" Alice asked, getting nods all round. "I think the legend might refer to how Skill Share was stolen. "

And wasn't that worth a laugh? Petra? A god? What ridiculousness. But it was easier to explain things that way.

"Skill Share was what Petra was working on before the Collapse. It took years and the efforts of almost fifty people. What Petra intended to do was to allow people to share their knowledge with each other. Skill Share can copy knowledge from one person and give it to another," Alice said. "Essentially, reading the skills shown by Skill Analysis and teaching it very quickly to someone else. "

"Do you mean that you can learn hunting and tracking instantly?" Her father asked, clearly skeptical.

"I can try, it will take some time for me to work out how to use the interface. A few weeks?"

Skill Share did not have time to be optimized into something user friendly after all, it had been completed and made stable, and that was the end of it before Petra had died. The interface, from what Alice had seen, was a command line. While Petra was more than familiar with System command lines, the disaster that resulted from Skill Share's misuse meant that Alice wanted to be absolutely sure she was performing the actions correctly.

"Do you remember what happened when you said you would take six months to achieve a miracle?" her father chuckled, "but alright, go ahead. I can see how it will be useful if I didn't have to teach these lumps how to track. "

He waved at her brothers who squawked indignantly. Alice grinned and nodded. A new thing to work on!

Skill Share took only a week before Alice was confident enough to copy skills. By the second week, she had saved a macro that, using her System Administrator access, would grant a target person a Citizen account, install Skill Share as a module, and copy whichever skill names Alice wanted to specify.

Said skills would be copied to herself by default, but she could also pipe the data into another person. Afterwards, all the temporary Citizen accounts would be removed. Best not to give System permissions to her family, who did not know how to hide it. Perhaps she should teach them how to use the System properly?

The problem came when Alice copied her father's tracking skill onto herself while both of them were sleeping.

"Ugh," Alice held her head as she woke up. That was a weird dream, stalking Foet through the village and seeing tracks everywhere. Evidently, Skill Share while sleeping resulted in strange dreams.

"Alice, get your blowpipes and let's go see how well you track now," her father said through the doorway to the childrens' room.

They had scheduled one of the hunts where Alice would be taught how to track just after the Skill Share test, only her father was going to let Alice do all the work. Alice herself wasn't good enough to be a hunter at all, the few pointers she had picked up over the three years of lessons wasn't enough to compare to her father's lifetime experience.

"And you still can't track," her father observed. Alice was hunting through the bushes. She had spotted a rabbit's trail earlier and she had a niggling feeling that she was missing something under this bush.

It was like having the name you had forgotten right on the tip of your tongue, Alice had to work to 'remember' details about how to track rabbits. Here was how they dug and there was a spoor left behind. Right, so the rabbit had followed the edge of the animal trail.

Alice nodded to herself and proceeded down the trail.

It was a long few hours before she managed to find the rabbit's nest under a tree.

"I take it back, you actually can track now. " Did her father sound impressed? He did!

Alice grinned, "it's almost like remembering how to do something you haven't done in a long time. The knowledge is there, but you need to make connections to what you already know and what you're seeing. The next trail will be much faster, you'll see!"

And indeed it was. The knowledge had transferred, along with all the associations and specialized language that the language blessing didn't cover, but it did not come with the complete set of instincts and habits other than the knowledge that those actions should be done. As Alice continued on hunting lessons over the week, she was 'recalling' more and more of the borrowed skill, turning her father's knowledge into her own.

A short period of time to integrate the knowledge was required, but 'learning' to track to an expert level within a single week was stupendously fast. Muscle memory could be gained in one or two revisions of the relevant activity, but converting instant knowledge into full fledged instinctual movements took some time. Still far faster than any actual training.

So of course, two months later, her mother, brothers and Ri were all expert trackers and farmers. Her father could cook as well as her mother. The children could repair the house and sew clothing just as well as their parents, though limited by their lower strength, which Skill Share did not fix.

The house never looked so new.

With that done, Alice returned her attention towards refining her runes. She needed both more power and a better way to make runes than drawing with charcoal.

Foet stomped over to the house. Alice hadn't played with her for half a month! That was almost forever!

Despite fooling around with her weird self-made language, Alice had made time to play with Foet. They had explored the hills, safe from wild animals with Foet's fireballs, and surveyed the farmland. It had been so much fun! But then ever since Alice's father found that artifact, Alice had said she was too busy to play.

And now in the last few days, Alice and her sister were running all over their house fixing things or going into the forest on hunting trips. They should be playing with Foet! Foet didn't get days off from her sorcery training all the time, not even every week.

But with Alice being even busier then before, how would she ever find the time for Foet?

Foet squared her shoulders and strode up to Alice's family house. No, she would make the time or Foet would order her to do so. She had permission from her father to get them out of work.

She was about to push the door open when there was a shout from above. "Foet?" A familiar and rather welcome voice greeted her.

Alice was on the roof, holding a stack of baked clay tiles. She was sitting at the edge of an unroofed area, with Ri on the other side. They were re-roofing their house. Weren't they fixing a wall just yesterday?

"I have come to play!" Foet announced.

The two sisters just blinked down at her. They just didn't understand.

"Come down here and play!" Foet repeated herself.

Alice glanced at her sister then at the remaining roof area. "How about you come up here?" Alice said eventually, "you can see most of the village from the roof!"

Oh, that was a good idea! Foet scrambled up the ladder leaning against the side of the house, possibly the same one Alice had used to get to the roof.

Indeed, the roof was so high! Foet could see so far! The fields rolled out below her, the slight slope down to the village center, where most of the larger families had their houses, kept Foet's sight open. The main crop of the year was barely peeking out of the soil, leaving the dirt paths easily distinguishable from the tilled fields.

"Where are your brothers?" Foet asked, once she had her fill of the scene. Alice paused in her tiling.

"They're helping father today. The field should be somewhere down there," she waved vaguely in the direction of some far off figures. "They're doing weeding. "

Hm... Foet turned back to watch Alice and Ri place tiles. Take a tile, smear the glue on the bottom then snap it down onto the wooden roof boards. Repeat. That was so easy! No wonder Alice and Ri were doing it. Foet had thought repairing houses was adult work but obviously even children could do it.

"Do you want to learn how to tile a roof?" Alice asked, catching Foet staring.

Hmph! That looked easy enough. "I don't need you to teach me, I can do it too!" she said, grabbing a tile.

A few minutes later, Foet was glaring at the uncooperative tiles. They refused to line up to the markings, looking all crooked. The line of tiles she was laying did not even meet up with the ones on the other end of the row where Ri was working.

That would have wasted a good amount of Alice's time if not for the fact that Foet's tiles weren't even sticking to the roof. Alice had popped them right off with a yank and reset them behind Foet.

"You want to keep two fingers on the line here, like this," Alice showed Foet, after yet another failure, "push the tile up against your fingers and it'll line up. And you have to push down a little on the tile to make the glue stick properly. "

So that was how Alice made it look so easy! Foet placed a tile, correctly this time, and beamed when Alice nodded at her effort.

"Just a few more rows and we can go play, alright, Foet?"

Foet nodded as she set to filling in the roof. It was good to have Alice playing with her again.

The room at the top of the four storey Shining Tower was well decorated, filled with lavish carpets and paintings that depicted the greatest military victories of the Elemental Empire. None of it was truly exotic, no silks from far off lands or artifact shields serving as display pieces, but the understated wealth was there.

Chesther frowned as she read the report from her estranged younger cousin. Lochar was unimaginative and not particularly important to her family, but his exile still grated on her. Those other Families of Fire had wanted to chastise her mother's mistake and he was the sacrifice.

Now he was writing to her about finding mysterious Alchemical Kingdom artifacts near his village. And he claimed that it would make Consecration unnecessary?

She was tempted to write it off as preposterous. Except Lochar couldn't make this up to save his own life.

Maybe Lochar had found something, but Chesther wouldn't believe her cousin could identify how a few undecorated rods worked. The Families had many artifacts from Pre-Collapse that no one knew how they worked, save that they were magical in some way. Artifacts were seldom complete, always obtuse and almost never worked perfectly, the ancient people had liked to rely a System that was far more active in their day to control their artifacts.

If they were simple and obvious, the things wouldn't be called artifacts in the first place.

No, let him have his delusions. Lochar was testing the artifacts after all. If he managed to get them to work and found them useful, Lochar's standing would be greatly improved. He might even be allowed to keep one of them.

One more ally in this town couldn't hurt.

Spectrum · Dec 9, 2018

jseah said:
No, let him have his delusions. Lochar was testing the artifacts after all. If he managed to get them to work and found them useful, Lochar's standing would be greatly improved. He might even be allowed to keep one of them.

Boy, ain't that going to be a barrel of laughs if and when those are confiscated and punted higher.

Record of the Inherited Memory Girl's Efforts (isekai)

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