It was early on Monday morning and Nera stood atop a four-story building that was an office space for a small miscellaneous textile company. However, at this time with the sun barely out there was no one ever there, except the young woman with monochrome black and white hair and violet eyes.
Nera was wearing a close-fitting black tanktop that left her arm exposed with the black “A” tattoo on her shoulder and black tights with each leg of them being circled by two purple lines. She was also wearing black and white sneakers. The rooftop was spacious and the high fence that surrounded it was completely covered with posters that advertised the textile company.
This made it the perfect studio for Nera to practice her skills. Nera pulled the large purple exercise mat out of the satchel she had on her and rolled it out onto the ground. The young woman took out her MP3 players and promptly placed the earbuds into her ears to listen to the music of her favorite band, PANDEMØNI∩M.
After some stretching, Nera started her training. The exercise was light at first with her slowly doing a number of stances with her arms outstretched such as ones with the soles of her feet placed firmly on the ground, ones with her heels raised, and ones with her feet twisted oppositely from each other.
She then performed various handstands with one being where she held herself up with her hands and had her legs outstretched in different ways. Once she was done with her stances, she moved on to more dynamic training that involved cartwheels, twists, flips, and twirls.
She had brought out her ribbon baton for this and used it gracefully in conjunction with her routine. The fluttering cloth accented her performance mesmerizingly. Fittingly, it was due to the ribbon baton that Nera had begun her dance training a long time ago even if she could not remember who gave it to her.
Nera wondered many times if this was her way of trying to connect with that person whoever they were.
‘If that person turns out to be the Grim Reaper, do I really want to continue with this?’, Nera grimaced at the thought.
This quandary of hers did not stop her routine. Instead, it became even more energetic and expressive. Her twirls became blurs and her flips became leaps that sent Nera high into the air. She treated the hard ground of the rooftop like a springboard.
While mid-air, Nera glanced at the ribbon baton and thought about the feelings she first had right before it transformed. That was when she had wanted something that could defeat the foe that stood in her way.
‘When I wanted a weapon that equaled that magical blade, it appeared…’, Nera conjured up that feeling again and with a burst of a mystical glow, the ribbon baton shifted into a large lavender scythe.
Nera came back down to the ground with an altered routine that involved the scythe. She began twirling it in her hands and spinning the scythe around as if she was slashing at phantom enemies.
As time went on, her slashes become fiercer and fiercer. She was putting her full weight behind each attack and striking the air after building up force through her rotations.
The music stopped playing.
Nera stopped moving immediately. She was breathing heavily and sweat dripped down from her face. Nera lowered the scythe to her side and it shifted back into a ribbon baton with a violet shimmer of light.
Nera looked up at the steadily lightening blue sky. The time was up on her routine. This hour during the dawn was the only time when Nera allowed herself to indulge in this dream of her past and future.
***
During that same day, Allen was walking down the street from his apartment. He was planning to meet up with Nera at Trinkets & Treasures. While en route there, he passed by the same construction site he had seen earlier where a building was made using cutting-edge reformation technology. There were some people there still working on smaller stuff in and outside the building like electrical wiring and placing windows.
“Yo! Mind if I grab one of your sandwiches!?” Allen heard one of the workers shout and looked over to see a burly guy wearing a green bandanna with crossbones on it yelling loudly at a young man with black hair and thick yellow goggles sitting down a bench with a lunch box beside him. The other man did not seem bothered by this though and just pulled out a sandwich for his co-worker and then one for himself.
The man with the green bandanna then sat down and started talking about trivial stuff all on his own. They appeared to be on a lunch break which made sense since it was around noon currently. Allen turned his head forward again and continued walking to his destination.
***
When he arrived at Trinkets & Treasures, he saw Nera was already there leaning by the front door. The store she was leaning against was an average-sized two-story building made of beige brick with a sign over the entrance that read out the name of the store, each letter in the sign being made of a different material ranging from aluminum to bronze.
“You’re two minutes from being late," Nera reprimanded.
“Which is still two minutes early.”Allen fired back.
“Plus, you didn’t have to wait for me to get here to go inside.”
“Nah, I’d rather you act as an annoyance lightning rod instead," Nera stated and walked into the store ahead of him as he followed. Inside, Wit was screwing in some bolts on a weird looking contraption next to the counter while Owlette was laying on top of it wearing a form-fitting red jumpsuit that looked straight out of some kind of sci-fi show that did not leave much to Allen’s imagination with the black lines along the sides of it accentuating her curvaceous figure. She also seemed to be watching some sort of space opera drearily on her phone.
From her bronze skin and hair to her mechanical eyes and extravagant outfit, she stuck out like a sore thumb compared to the rest of the rustic establishment. Allen did not let the automaton’s presence distract him much and brought up what they were here for.
“There’s something we want you to check out.” Allen told Wit.
“And what may they be young lad?” Wit asked disinterestedly without looking up from his tinkering.
“It’s this, it’s some kind of magical weapon but we don’t know what kind.” Nera unzipped one of the pockets of her tracksuit and pulled out her small ribbon baton.
“Dear Da Vinci, why did you not start with that!?” Wit exclaimed as he threw his screwdriver and gadget behind him haphazardly.
“Go on then, continue.” He urged anxiously.
“Well, while running that errand for you the other day. We ran into a crazy powerful Crafter who attacked us and an entire city block, emphasis on the crazy. We were able to stall him for a while but couldn’t eventually and just as I thought we were goners, Nera pulls that out of nowhere and it turned into a massive magical scythe.” Allen conveyed the size change by spreading out his hands.
“Oh really?”
“That’s true as hard as it is to believe after having this for so long. It’s never done anything like that before.” Nera affirmed.
“What was weirder is that I don’t think it even left a scratch on him, but he still left immediately after he was hit by the blade. You got any ideas what it could be, Nitwit?”
“Hmm…” The brown-haired man leaned closer then pulled out a small monocular from his faded yellow jacket and peered through it with his green eye to examine the mysterious item.
“Can you transform it back into the scythe form?” Wit asked calmly.
“Sure, no problem.” In a blur, the mundane purple baton warped into a fantastical staff with Allen not being able to see the blade-like before. Allen was also caught off guard how quickly and easily she was able to do this despite only knowing it could transform for a few days.
Nera noticed this and elaborated, “I got the hang of it almost immediately after I got back home that day. All I need to do is think about wanting a magical weapon like the one that Slasher Hobo had and it just turns into this with blade missing. To put it back, I just envision the ribbon baton and wanting that back.” she showcased the fluidity of the transformation by switching between the two forms very quickly with no apparent difficulty before settling into the scythe form. Meanwhile, Wit muttered to himself unfazed by the display.
“made with mithril ore...multi-lattice structuring...it’s at least upper-moderate grade for sure and its composition is…fascinating.”
“Alright, I think I got it.” Wit announced suddenly and placed his monocular back into his pocket.
“But first, could you give me some more details?”
Allen and Nera explained what happened to them after they encountered the violent Crafter including what weapon he was using and the abilities it had although they left out the parts about the Grim Inheritors.
“I see, that makes things a little clearer, this scythe and that sword. They’re both Instrumentum, items made with ether that possess supernatural functions.”
“But isn’t that the same for my tracksuit and gauntlets? They’re made with ether too.”
“That is true. However, the ether in Instrumentum is especially synthesized to give them mystical abilities besides just strengthening them physically. Ether is the material that acts as the conduit of mystical energy that all Crafters possess in their bodies. Process it in a particular way and it can manifest substantial magical abilities.”
“So do you know what ability this one has?” Allen asked to which Wit shook his head. He twirled his cane to hold with both hands and looked at the lion-shaped end of it absentmindedly.
“I’m afraid I can not. Being able to discern the composition and quality of its ethereal structure is easy but telling what abilities it has just based on that is a little outside my range of expertise. Maybe you can find an Ether Appraiser to help with that.”
“You sure that’s all you can tell us? Because it wasn’t really helpful.”
“Well, I can tell that the reason that blade didn’t leave a scratch is because it’s intangible which is also why you can’t see it right now. The blade is made completely out of ether so it doesn’t affect physical objects.”
“Figure it was something like that. Allen, can you cloak yourself in mystic energy to look at it?”
Allen nodded and proceeded to draw out the mystic energy from the crystal of his harmonica’s that was still wrapped under his bandages. He then covered himself in a wispy mist of aura that allowed him to now view the scythe’s blade which had the words “quit” written on it in bold violet letters.
“Ok, I can see it now.”
“Alright, I need something to test it out.” Immediately, Owlette chucked one of Wit’s gadgets that was lying on the counter in the air and without wasting a moment, Nera ran the scythe straight through it with Wit looking on in horror. Fortunately for his emotional stability, the scythe passed through it like a ghost’s incorporeal hand and the gadget fell down on the floor relatively unharmed.
Wit breathed a sigh of relief and hastily picked up the device and stored it securely in one of his pockets.
“Do you know how hard it is to make a good bottle opener? Next time, use something less valuable as a test dummy such as one of Owlette’s figurines.” Wit uttered, slightly showing some annoyance but covering it up mostly with a smile.
“Pfft.’, was all Owelette said in reply.
“No hit again. You’re right I guess but I still don’t know what this thing is supposed to do.”
“Maybe it has an ability that only works on living beings.” Allen theorized. This would explain why it affected Erno in some way but not the inanimate object.
“That could be right but unless you want to volunteer. We don’t really have a way to see if that’s true or not. Actually, maybe specters would be suitable guinea pigs.” With a bloodthirsty grin she slashed the air in front of her with the back of the scythe in long wide arcs and Allen backed far away to make sure he was not hit.
“Hey! Watch where you’re swinging that thing!”
“Alright Squirrel boy, don’t climb up a tree or anything.” Nera stopped in her tracks. She shifted the scythe back into a ribbon baton and put it away. She then started walking out of the store.The young woman ran her hand over the various knick-knacks and tool supplies strewn on the shelves as she went along.
“If that’s all you can tell me then I’m off, I got other stuff to do today. I’ll just have to figure out what my new toy can do on my own." Nera reached the front door and left the store without another word, the blinding white light of the noon sun momentarily filled the dreary building before shrinking down to a sliver of light on Allen that completely disappeared as the door closed fully.
“Hmph, that lass is always rather troublesome, isn’t she? No respect for fine craftsmanship, I am going to go put this somewhere safe.” Wit stated, patting the pocket with the misshapen bottle opener and walked away from Allen and further into the store behind the counter leaving Allen alone with Owlette. He stood there awkwardly for several moments.
“What’s up? You look like a Kronalian trying to speak through their mandibles.”
“Uhh, that’s from Helmeted Driver: Space Combatant, right?”
When she heard this, Owlette suddenly got off her back into a criss-cross position with stars in her eyes.
“You watched that show too!? I’ve hardly met anyone who’s seen it since it’s an old 80’s show.”
“Yeah, I actually watched reruns of it when I was a kid. The CGI models of the mechas are really outdated but they’re fairly good for the time they came out.”
“I know, exactly! It was ahead of its time, a revolutionary show for the mecha genre that pioneered the use of cgi in mecha designs.” Owlette gushed, showing off the unbridled enthusiasm of a fan of a niche pastime.
“I guess that’s true. I did notice a lot more shows came out like that after its release but don’t you think it could’ve been because of…” Allen stopped talking when he remembered what he actually stayed to discuss.
‘Crap, I almost got swept into her place talking about mecha.’, at the same time as he was thinking this, his eyes drifted to Owlette’s partially exposed cleavage from her barely zipped up jumpsuit and he quickly averted his eyes in embarrassment. Regaining his composure, he began to speak with Owlette still beaming at him, eager to talk more about the genre they were both interested in.
“Sorry, what actually I wanted to talk to you about are those…people we saw in the Luminaire, the Marionettes.” Allen said this and the automaton’s eyes seemed to visibly dim with disinterest.
“You really want to talk about that, why?” She asked in a disgruntled tone.
“Well, you both seem to have artificial bodies, are you one yourself?”
“Eh? You think I’m one of them? We both have artificial bodies, yes, but while the bodies you saw were created independent of the minds attached to them, my body and mind were made as a complete whole together.” Owlette declared.
“So you’re not a…” Allen thought carefully about the word at the tip of his tongue before uttering it out and Owlette was sure she knew what it was he was going to say.
“Zombie.”
“Human.”
They both spoke in unison with Owlette being surprised that she was wrong about her prediction and subsequently bursting out in laughter while clutching her stomach. She even swiped turquoise tears of mirth out of her eyes.
“Woah, that’s a new one. Never been doubted if I was a zombie before, maybe a golem. What makes you say that, boy?”
“You really didn’t have to laugh that hard. It’s just that those Marionettes looked like humans but didn’t act like one, more like lifeless drones. But honestly, the memory of witnessing what I thought were their mangled corpses still unsettles me. ”
“And you were hoping I could tell you how to discern between Marionettes and “real people” so you would prioritize the latter’s safety and wouldn’t have to worry so much about seeing the former get butchered.” Owlette bluntly replied and Allen sharply inhaled.
“Bingo, got that one right. I thought I was losing my touch.” Seeing that Allen was struggling to find words she continued.
“Don’t sweat it, it’s okay for you to think that way. You two are trying to be monster hunters, anything that helps you make the tough calls that will come is a plus.” Owlette assured.
Allen rested back against one of the shelves, loosening up some of the tension he had and sighed, “I didn’t think you’d be that frank about it but it’s the truth. If it’s worth the risk, I’ll save both regular people and Marionettes. However, if a situation occurs where it looks like I can only protect one of them happens, saving the ones that can’t pull themselves together after being ripped to shreds is the objectively best option.” Allen calmly stated.
‘A pragmatic realistic, that’s nice. I’ve met a lot of humans with more noble aspirations that ended up falling short. Anyway, it’s simple to tell the difference between me and Marionettes once you get the hang of sensing aura. We’re both Instrumentum so are aura's of that nature which is distinct from those of Crafters.”
‘She’s just some item someone made? Seeing her sitting there and talking to me so normally makes it hard to believe.’, Allen pondered and an image of a mechanical framework of gears and wires whirring under the automaton’s bronze skin suddenly popped into his head.
“I see, thanks for the info. I’ll be sure to put it to good use.” Allen said and started to turn to leave.
“No problem, come back sometime when you want to talk about something actually interesting. Also, people’s bodies and minds may be made by the world with different circumstances but your soul is crafted by yourself. With the task you’re undertaking, crafting your soul with “fear”, “doubt, “uncertainty” as the main materials will surely cause it to break.” Owlette hauntingly warned. She then laid back onto the counter lazily to the sound of the store’s doorbell going off as Allen silently left the building.
***
It was the next day around four o'clock, Allen was currently taking a nap at the meeting Nera and Amy had discussed.
“Psst! Get up.”
Allen woke up from his slumber to see three people in the front of the room. Two of them were young women, one with brown hair and a spiral ponytail wearing a shirt with floral print on it, the other had long blue hair in a black tank top. The one beside those two was a tall young man with black hair with blonde highlights.
Allen rubbed the sleep out of his eyes as he listened to Dezigner’s director, Mr. Joel Howard, continue speaking. He was a rather tall man at one-hundred and eighty-eight centimeters with black hair and wore a plain collared gray shirt with what looked to be splotches of paint on it. He seemed to usually have these on his clothes so Allen was not sure if this was unintentional or a fashion statement. Regardless, he was focused and stern when it came to his position as the group’s director.
“These are temporary transfers to our group. The building for their group, Myriad Emporium, unfortunately burnt down in a sudden fire earlier this week, so they will be working here until it can be rebuilt. Although, they’ll be mostly working in one of our extra rooms while we focus on our current project. Be sure to treat them with respect and civility as fellow members of Diagram.” Mr. Howard announced.
With this out of the way, the three newcomers promptly left the art studio room that Dezigners primarily used for artistry and meetings. The room was around eight-hundred square feet with egg-white walls, ceilings, and floors and large windows to allow an ample amount of sunlight in on one side of the room while the other had numerous canvases leaning across it.
Currently, there were six small tables strewn over the art studio where the thirty-five members of Dezigners took their seats.
“Look alert, Allen. You were about to miss the most important overview about our current project." Ethan Ellis, a friend of Allen’s who was also in Dezigners warned. He had short black hair, wore blue jeans, and had a sky blue shirt with the image of Mt. Helena on it.
“Oh yeah, thanks.” They sat towards the back of the studio room and Allen often used this vantage point to take occasional naps during meetings. When this happened, he found he could usually catch up to what was going on by asking a few questions from other people or looking at an itinerary. However, he had heard a little about this event and was worried he would not be able to do the same as easily with this one.
“Alright, rise to attention everyone! I’ll be going over the necessary tasks we need to perform for the upcoming Sun Mirror Festival!”, Mr. Howard declared and turned on the screen of the electronic board next to him.
“The Sun Mirror Festival is a summer celebration of the development of the revolutionary agriculture drone that Atelier City developed that allows for the storage of solar power during the day to provide sunlight to crops during night. Due to its significant impact on farming, the city has placed a lot of importance on the festival that commemorates its finalization. “ He continued to explain the festival then went to get a canvas and begin demonstrating the kind of art pieces they would make for it. While he was directing his attention on this, Ethan brought up something to Allen.
“You know, receiving a lot of praise for our contribution on this could boost our standings by a lot.”
“Definitely, if all the fuss there is about it is true. This could be what gets us an apprenticeship.” Allen agreed.
There were twenty-seven art groups within Atelier City belonging to the public works organization, Diagram, that all vied for attention from the city’s main benefactor, Hieronymus Conglomerate. Many of the new residents of Atelier City that came after the city was officially open to the wider populace were here on a conditional one-year term in which they had to join one of the city’s art groups.
Not only that, by the end of the year, they had to obtain an internship at Hieronymus Conglomerate or one of its subsidiaries such as Hyper Collage Mixed Media, Starway Records, or Holo-Zero Digital Arts in order to be able to become a permanent resident. The number one path to accomplish this was by being part of a high standing art group and performing greatly in it.
“We better buckle down and put some real effort into this.” Allen continued halfheartedly.
“Especially you," Ethan snidely remarked.
“What do you mean by that?”
“It’s just a wonder you were even able to make it into Atelier with your crap drawing skills. I really thought you had to have some sort of talent in art to get in but I guess I was wrong.” Ethan bluntly stated.
“Shut up. I’m just that exceptional.” The words bit harder than Allen would have ve liked to admit because of how true they were. Even Ethan was a gifted artist who drew landscapes very well. The design on his shirt was something he made himself.
“Seriously, you need to step it up if you want to get an internship. You haven’t spent all your time gaming instead of practicing with you? We haven’t even gotten to have a gaming session lately. You even ditched our plan to go to the arcade out of nowhere the other day.”
“Yeah, I’ve been doing a lot of practice.” Allen actually had been practicing in various ways. For one, he was developing his ability to control the ebb and flow of magical energy from the mandrake specter stone and the harmonica’s mana crystal.
He also found out from Nera that specter stones and mana crystals could refill themselves with ambient mystic energy in their surroundings over time and Allen measured that it took about six hours for the ones he had in his possession to do so. Along with that, he had been reading the Layman’s Necronomicon and drawing sketches of various images that appeared in it so he was practicing in that aspect as well.
Allen flipped through his notebook to show the sketches, and the other young man stopped him at one. It was a page where Allen drew a sketch of the mandrake specter he saw the day he met Nera. The drawn beast was illuminated by moonlight coming from the top right corner of the page.
“Woah, a lot of these actually look fairly decent, especially that one. You really improved your linework and use of shadows. You actually managed to have the shadows align really good with light from the moon. Well, it’s good you’re not slacking off then. We only have a year after all.” Ethan reminded.
“Yeah, only a year…" Allen leaned back and sighed drearily, thinking back to the additional time limit he had of four months to find a way to stop from becoming a specter, a sense of dread washing over him all over again.
***
When Allen got back to his apartment that night. He focused again on earnestly trying to improve his mana manipulation. Finding out about blood vessels being efficient mana pathways helped but even with an extensive amount of practice. He still was not able to compress all of the mana from a replete mana crystal into his arm.
‘Not only that, I have to practice my art as well if I want to get an internship as well, but that will take away a lot of time from mana training. If only getting good at something like linework could help me out with mastering the arcane forces of magic.’
Allen sighed in exasperation as he fell backwards onto his bed. He then opened his eyes wide with a sudden realization.
‘Wait, maybe it can!’
Allen decided to test his new idea immediately. He focused on the mana in his mana crystal and flowed mana out from it into his bloodstream. He took note of where the mana traveled throughout his body. This allowed him to get a handle on his circulatory system in an almost uncomfortable detail. It was like he was seeing his body with x-ray vision.
Now that he got a grasp on the network of his blood vessels, he envisioned them with his mind and willed the mana to go through them like drawing lines on a page. Just like how Allen discovered before, visualization was a key part of mana manipulation. The more accurate and accustomed you were to the visualization shorthand you were using, you could vastly improve the efficiency of mana manipulation.
Likewise, this way of gathering mana improved his ability to compress mana significantly and Allen noticed the mana take on a slightly darker shade as he did so. With this new insight, he condensed almost all the mana from the specter stone into his limb.
To test its power, Allen piled a bunch of paper on a table and set it across his apartment from him. Allen reeled his fist and punched the air in front of him. A massive force was generated with it that blasted the stack of papers into every direction and sent Allen flying into the wall behind him.
‘Sheesh…I didn’t realize there would be such a large kickback from it.’, Allen’s back was sore, but he was grinning from ear to ear in spite of that. The result of the successful experiment was worth the unexpected cost. Allen felt that he would finally be able to accomplish the new technique he was trying to develop.
After several hours, he succeeded in what he felt was a breaththough. He decided to look at his status again and noticed something new this time. There was two window options this time. One was listed as <Standings> which was what was what he was familiar with while the other, "Attributes".
'That's peculiar.'
Allen opened up <Attributes>.
Health 20/20
Mana 0/0
Strength 11
Vitality 14
Resilence 17
Agility 15
Magic 1
'it's just like the stats in a video game. Did I unlock this by developing my magical ability?'
Allen continued on to the third window option, <Inventory>.
Skills 0
Items 1
Familiars 0
Inscriptions 0
When he clicked on each of the status categories, it revealed more information about them. It revealed that strength was aptly based on physical might, vitality dealt with stamina and resistance to ailments, resilience was a measure of a body's toughness, and agility was a measure of speed and mobility. Health and mana spoke for themselves. He was glad to see that his health was full but was bitterly reminded how he lacked any mana of his own.
'I'm not sure about this <Inventory> feature through. The only two things I'm sure on are skills and items. What are familiars and inscriptions. Is it possible to control spirits or something like that? That's a question I'll have to wonder more about. Right now, I'll focus on what I can understand. It seems that <Inventory> only keeps track of magical items.'
He tapped on <Items> and <Mystical Harmonica> was what popped up along with a short description of it.
Mystical Harmonica A harmonica made out of silver and embedded with a low quality ether crystal.
"Hmm, it seems like this will be good for helping me keep track of my progression.' Allen put away his status and returned to his training. Almost immediately, a chime went off.
"NEW ITEM EQUIPPED!"
'Huh, but I just have my harmonica on me.'
Confused, he checked his status again and was surprised to see that he it said he equipped another item. When he tapped the category for more information, he realized what it meant. He sighed as he came to the understanding.
'I really don't have any idea what I'm doing, do I?'
The new technique he had developed was registered as an item all its own.
