The bad memories come.
"
Lad! You there!" The guard, pointing at you. "Turn out your pockets. You underhive scum are always stealing something. Aren't you
boy?"
The way he just...assumes he KNOWS you, that he KNOWS who you are it makes you so
ANGRY.
You stand, trying to imagine what you'd look like if you got a chance to go the Via Races. You...you think it'd be nice today to go dressed in flowing greens. You like the greens, they tend to be nicer than the blues in this district. But...you also just like the idea of being pretty. And in the right dress, you do look like...well...whatever you want.
The idea fills you with
JOY.
You lay on your back. The old mothers of the beggars circles tell you that when you grow up, your body changes. It grows into what you want it to be, they say. God makes you a man, God makes you a woman, and you just want to be...one or...both or...NEITHER or...you don't know, but you just want to be something other than this.
You're so goddamn
BORED.
.
You are in an alleyway, sobbing. The new hair cut doesn't work it doesn't work it doesn't work. You try to get mad - but instead, you just get...more...
You're so...
SAD.
You run, you run, and behind you, you can hear the other gangers. "Come back, girle! Come back! Haha!"
You sprint as fast as you can, and purple sparks fly behind you because you're so
FRIGHTENED.
You stand before a cracked looking glass in a home that has been destroyed by fire. That's the best time to come picking over the ashes - right after the firemen have put it out with song and strumming guitars, but before the owners have come back to begin to set things to rights. In this part of Dragonspire, the owners were usually five, six levels higher and took forever to check on their tenets. You look into your dusky face, into your bright common purple eyes, and you are so...you can see all the possibilities...of what you...
You're so...
CURIOUS.
It is a day that feels like any other - except that you're glowing. You have noticed, over the past few weeks, that...odd things have been happening around you. The old grannies that you talk to say that people who feel things too strongly go crazy. The Galenzanti say that only Frielanders and their debauched, decadent spellcasters are so grotesque as to simply let their feelings show. It is called an anima. BUt no matter what you try and do, you can't STOP feeling these FEELINGS. You know that they're...they're not right, that you shouldn't. But every time you try and squash it down, try to just be Nike, you...you...
They get stronger.
And today, your anima is crackling around you. You close your eyes and breathe out a small red fog - irritation forking along your back, irritation at yourself. When you cram the last bit of stale bread into your mouth, your teeth clack against hardened stone. The bread has been turned into a rock by how bored you are with your stupid, immature body. When you walk down the alleyway that you're roosting in, you leave behind rimes of slick winter ice. You're afraid that you'll...that someone will throw you in jail or something.
Is it against the law to have your anima flaring like this?
You come to the small tavern where you do your best trade in begging and pickpocketing. But as you step inside, Jonathas, the owner, glares at you.
"Get out."
You flush and the door frame around you - it's cheap wood, fastened over a gaping, almost vaginal maw that was the building's original doorway - begins to smolder. "But-"
"You're gaunting," he snarls, then snaps his finger. He uses that bit of anger he has about you to make a flame at the tip of his thumb, lightning his clay pipe. He puffs, then glares harder at you. "I am not having a gaunt in my establishment!"
You're not. You're just...
You...you've heard stories about gaunts. About people who can't STOP feeling. Who become so consumed by their emotions that they're twisted into monsters. You tremble slightly.
"Get out of the way, lad."
The voice behind you is gruff. Callous. Uncaring.
CRACK.
[
Ahh, there it is.]
You turn and you SCREAM at the man.
"I'M NOT A FUCKING LAD!"
The man is flung backwards and the door frame shatters and you are surround by a multihued explosion of light. You are lifted up, then dropped down onto your knees, gasping heavily. Smoke roils around you and your palms rest against a shimmering skein of crystal-like material that the floor has become. You stagger up to your feet and feel a giddy sensation of purest relief. You're wrung out and loose - and you hear shouts for the guards. You flee, and yet, it's not fear that makes you feel as if you're flying. It is joy.
When you return to your hovel, you probe your body. And you find that you have smallish breasts. Then you focus - and the breasts go away. Your...thing, between your legs, is gone too. You spread your thighs, your eyes widening. You have...the girl part. And then...the male part. Then neither. Then...both. Okay, wow. You lay back, giggling to yourself. You play your own body like a fiddle, wriggling happily.
You are you. For the first time in your life.
And your anima doesn't flare again for a long time.
***
Memories, shuddering, come back to the moment you had been at before. Your hand is reaching out for the belt pouch of the white robed figure.
His robes sweep backwards and a hand - sinewy and tough and unwrinkled. It is the hand of someone maybe five, six years older than you, no more. It is also so strong that you gasp in fear and don't even try to jerk backwards. A pair of swords press to your back as two guards seem to materialize from nowhere, but another hand emerges from the robes, waving them backwards. "Come now," a cheerful voice says and you...look up as the hood is thrown backwards.
He's handsome.
And...
You know him.
Beli of South Sewer. The Mongoose. The Lurking One. The Gnarled Root and the Twisted Maze. The Conqueror of the Horde. The God of Strategy. The Strategos himself.
The Archon of War.
AND YOU JUST TRIED TO PICK HIS POCKET.
"I-I'm sorry!" you squeak as he chuckles, quietly, looking down at you. You're shocked at how
young he looks for a man pushing three centuries. He's also...taller than you expected. The robes had concealed it, but he's nearly nine feet tall, towering above you like a giant. Despite his size, though, he has a kindly face. A well trimmed black goatee, dark brown skin weathered by sun, cold gray eyes that are flecked with gold - like a torch behind a gauzy curtain. He smiles down at you.
"There's nothing to apologize for," he says, quietly. "If I couldn't miss a few gold strata, the Empire would be in a bit of a sorry state."
He releases your hand and you step backwards into one of his soldiers - the bucellarii - who plants a hand upon your shoulder. The stories say that the bucellarii are immortal too, so you freeze in place.
"May I ask your name?" The Archon of War asks you.
"Nike..." You say.
"Victory," he says, quietly. "A good name..." He rubs his chin. "Your hair - it's...odd." He cocks his head.
He is looking at your...well. Ever since you had become
you, ever since you had become able to shift between genders as fluidly as you wished, you had had one mark in your hair that made people look at you oddly. It is a fringe, running from above the left eye to the very back of your head. It begins red, then shifts to blue, purple, orange, green...the entire spectrum, until white hair dangles down the back of your neck.
You gulp. "It's nothing."
"How did you get it?" he asks.
"I..." you pause. "Is it true you can...tell when people are lying to you?"
"Sometimes," he says, chuckling. "And more true every day. So, I would suggest you speak quite carefully, Nike."
Your cheeks burn. You look away. You don't speak.
"Come on, kid," the bucellarii mutters to you - and he sounds so much like one of the dock workers that you've hung out with that you have yo laugh.
So, haltingly, you tell The Archon of War everything. He does not laugh, he does not question. He simply listens. And when you are done, he smiles. "Nike...do you have parents?"
You shake your head.
"Would you like one?"
[
UGH! This is making me RETCH!]
Time stops - green flames crackle outwards and time shudders forward...
YOU WERE WHISKED INTO THE CARE OF BELI OF SOUTH SEWER, THE ARCHON OF WAR. SOON, HE WOULD HAVE A NEW SOBRIQUET FOR YOU...FATHER. FROM THE FIRST DAYS AT HIS ESTATES, YOU...
[] Listened most to Xenophous, the veteran Nightmare Cataphract. (+1 Stealth, +1 Melee)
(Stealth is the skill to hide and conceal oneself. Melee covers unarmed and armed melee combat - everything from swords to fists to poleaxes)
[] Listened most to Rosanos, the finest sharpshooter and scout in the Legion (+1 Aim, +1 Survival)
(Aim covers all manner of ranged weapons, including bows, arrows, slings, muskets and kannon. Survival handles surviving in the woods, knowing beasts, setting traps and tracking.)
[] Listened most to Jon the Historian, the...well, the tutor in history and rhetoric that your father hired for you (+1 History, +1 Presence)
(history covers the deep lore of the history of the world. Presence handles conversation and persuasion - one on one diplomacy, essentially. Also, seduction and sex. Not that Jon would be happy to hear you so abuse his lessons for such an earthly pursuit!)
Tutorial
Nike have used their first BEAT. A BEAT is a coherent "chunk" of emotion - which can be stored in a human soul and spent to perform magic and complete actions. The six "basic" emotions are ANGER/FEAR, JOY/SORROW, CURIOSITY/BOREDOM. Each skill is linked to one emotion and two secondary emotions. For example, Melee uses Anger as a primary emotion, but can also use Joy and Curiosity to a lesser effect.
Whenever Nike feels something, they can take up to 2 Beats or transform up to 2 beats. Transforming across the axis of internal/external emotions causes the beats to DOUBLE. For example, if Nike is afraid (2 fear beats), but then decides to face their fear with a burst of righteous anger, those 2 fear beats can be DOUBLED to make 4 Rage Beats.
When taking actions, you expend beats to get bonus successes (which are added to your dice rolls and your skill bonuses to get your total result.) When casting spells, you expend beats - the more beats, the more powerful the spell.
Nike needed to bank a huge number of beats for their permanent gender transformation spell. This can be dangerous - a large number of beats contained in a human soul causes their anima to flare, causing random, uncontrolled magical effects. 
