Chapter 12: Chapter 11

It has been nearly a week since Hecatolite took control of the body, it has made great strides in controlling the unfamiliar limbs and now is able to walk on its own… mostly. It still trips over its own feet sometimes but at least it's making progress. It found out if it drains aether once every few days it can keep it from building up in the body’s mana channels and the constant draining keeps its soul from overpowering amethyst, Inutil has informed it that this is an acceptable short-term solution but will be unsustainable in the long term. So, it spends most of its time researching ways to drain aether from its soul though this has proven difficult, it is now working on maybe making some form of storage enchantment to drain the power into, luckily the Lapidary family happens to be some of the best enchanters in all the world, unfortunately aether processing is very different than mana processing and this endeavor has yet to yield results.

It is ok however, Hecatolite is finding no end of enjoyment being in a physical body. Though it is weak and easily damaged it seems to heal fast. Not to mention food, Eryl did not tell it just how good the act of eating was and sleeping! Sleeping in a physical body is way better than in the soul space! You wake up refreshed and while you’re sleeping you don’t just drift into unconsciousness but you're able to dream! Sleeping was by far Hecatolite’s favorite pastime and it has even started notes in Inutil on where the best places to sleep are. Though there was that one incident the first day when it woke up to find the pervert had snuck into its bed.

First, she peeps on my void then crawls into my bed, I need to be careful around that woman. Hecatolite thought as it eyed Alexa across the dinner table. Only to be distracted by an Inutil screen that flashed into existence before her.

“Have you made any progress on your enchanting?” Taaffeite inquired from the head of the table.

“Yes, and no. I will require a sturdy base material, it will need to be strong yet flexible, and need to fold the enchantment rings repeatedly into one another much like the dumb boxes enchantments.” She spoke still unable to use the languages of this world though with the Babylon skill it has no issues communicating with the members of the family. “And given how fast aether seems to burn through enchantments I will need a lot of power diffusion rings. Not to mention the storage is a headache.”

“Have you considered defusal instead of storage? It is common in high power enchantments to burn any access off into the air and let it dissipate.”

“I did consider that in the beginning however,” she set her food aside and looked towards Taaffeite, as became the custom while they communicated. “I fear defusing aether into the air will have adverse effects, after reading up on these “tainted beast” they seem very alike to what this body is like when I first possessed it, so best go with the safe route of storing it. Plus, if we can store it, it can be saved and used for other things, like a battery.”

Alexa sighed heavily as she watched her mother and Hecatolite converse. It has been a week, yet she has been unable to talk to the girl, especially after the first day after she fell asleep next to her. Hecatolite seemed very off put to find the older woman in her bed and had lashed out when she awoke, and now whenever they are in a room together Hecatolite seemed leery of her.

“Mother, how long do you plan to coddle her,” she asked interrupting the two, “she will need to learn to speak sooner rather than later if she’s going to survive in this world.”

Hecatolite spoke something at Alexa’s interruption and Taaffeite smiled then chastised the young woman for calling her sister such a thing leaving Alexa confused as she summoned her own Babylon terminals to use as a translator.

In less than a week the whole family has grown very accustomed to the screens, at all times any one of them could be seen with at least a tablet sized one either in their hand or floating nearby. Taaffeite used hers for managing the territory, tracking notes on it, and using it as a timer, it did not take the matriarch long to find an alarm feature on the skill, she has even joked that if the terminals was ever accessed by someone outside the family the whole city would crumble. Alexa found it to be a plethora of knowledge, some so long lost to history that even the languages were lost to time, she had spent days studying it and improving her own spell circles with the knowledge found with it. Alastair was likely the oddest, he has taken to bringing it to the guards at its full size of 5 feet by 3 feet and using it to map the city for patrols and tracking the guard expenses with it, he also uses it to keep fight tabs on who he beat and when. Hecatolite was quick to teach the family how to lock the skill from prying eyes, apparently by naming one’s terminal they could “personalize” the skill and create a part of the system only accessible to them so no one could look at anyone else’s notes unless they were shared.

Taaffeite was delighted to find that she could use it to send letters to Jasper near instantly, filling her son in on all that happened in moments instead of sending a letter and waiting months for a reply if it ever even reaches him.

“I know Alexa, it’s just I haven’t the time with the coming raid on the church and work.”  Taaffeite shrugged, “If only we had a trusted scholar, we could have taught her.” Her sly smile betrays her inner thoughts as she looked at the archmage.

Alexa knew she was the only person in the city to have a scholar title, Hecatolite was honestly a close second having the trait much to Alexa’s surprise until she remembered the sheer quantity of books the young girl has read.

“Fine.” Alexa said standing. “Hecatolite follow me.” She turned to leave glancing back at the confused girl.

Hecatolite was stunned, she didn’t actually pay attention to what was said instead focusing on its meal once the two women began speaking to one another, but it had learned to recognize its name looking up to see the pervert staring back at it with determination in her eyes.

Uh oh. What does she want now? Hecatolite thought looking to Taaffeite only for her to smile and nod at it. Why do I feel I missed something important?

---

Hecatolite cautiously followed Alexa to a part of the house it had yet to explore only to find itself standing in a small room with two chairs next to a desk besides a large bookshelf that wrapped around half of the room, what looked like a blackboard leaning against the wall.

“What is this?” Hecatolite asked walking to the bookshelf and plucking a book at random. 

“This is the… was the Lapidary library” Alexa replied sitting at the desk and motioning for it to sit across from her. “it’s where I taught Amethyst magical theory, and where I will now teach you how to speak.”

Hecatolite sat placing its Inutil screen on the table. “But I can already speak.”

“Can you?” Alexa said with a mischievous grin, “Babylon you are dismissed.”

Hecatolite’s eyes grew wide as Inutil vanished and cursed as it tried to re summon it. Only for Alexa to snap her fingers and block the skill somehow.

What the hell… how did she. Hecatolite’s mind reeled as it tried again to summon its skill, only to be blocked again causing panic to set in. I’m stuck, its eyes darted around the room, the walls seeming to close in around it as it jumped from the desk. Why wont the stupid box come… what’s the pervert doing… Why is… what?

---

Alexa smirked, Hecatolite might be powerful, but she was a brute when it came to magic, one well-placed burst of mana was more than enough to completely disrupt its skill before she could summon the screen. She couldn’t help but feel a bit smug as she saw the shocked expression of the younger girl only for her to jump from her seat… was she hyperventilating.  

Alexa watched in dread as her well placed plan to separate Hecatolite from the Babylon screen backfired as black veins began to pulsate on the girl’s neck, her eyes wide in terror as her breathing all but stopped before her eyes seemed to roll up and she fell face first into the desk.

“What the hell was that!?” Alexa yelled lunging to catch her just barely keeping her from slamming her head on the wooden desk. Alexa quickly checked the girl’s pulse only to find it racing at an alarming pace. “Babylon, what's going on?” she called hoping the skill could pull some information from the now unconscious girl.

“It would appear Hecatolite has developed the trait claustrophobic severe, and is suffering from a severe panic attack.”

Alexa was stunned, she was fine when we came in. Was it because she couldn’t summon Babylon? She thought as she hosted Hecatolite up and carried her out of the small windowless room, bringing her to the yard outside the house. She held her breath as the unconscious girl's breathing seemed to stabilize and her heart rate slowed.

She watched as Hecatolite took a few deep breaths as sweat began to form on her brow before the black veins began to shrink, moments later she shot bolt upright eyes wide as she looked around the yard. Alexa watched as Hecatolite inspected her body, staring at her hands for a long moment before summing a Babylon screen… then snapping it in half and summoning another one.

---

“Stupid box, not coming when you are called, I’ll teach you.” Hecatolite hissed as she broke the Inutil box, it was about to break another when she felt a warm hand on her back, turning to see the pervert looking at it with a worried expression. It held up a Babylon screen.

“I am sorry, I did not know you were scared.” Alexa said letting the screen translate for her, only to have it ripped from her hand and crudely broken and tossed aside. “that’s fair I guess.” Alexa sighed knowing without the screen Hecatolite couldn’t understand her.

After a thorough destruction of three Inutil boxes Hecatolite’s anger seemed to subside, it felt a bit empty breaking the Babylon screens since they just dissolved into mist after a certain point, and it hadn’t been able to get into their enchantment rings which seemed way more densely packed than the world screens.

“Someday I’ll figure out how to trap you, then I’ll really break every one of you dumb boxes. Then I’ll find that box lover Eryl and make her make more boxes and break those as well” it said as it summoned a fourth and began carving insults into the box. It has learned that they poof away if damaged, it seemed carving into them would not pass the threshold of breaking it. However, it also found trying to put a spell circle on the box would cause it to disappear as well.

---

Alexa watched Hecatolite murmur to herself as she destroyed three Babylon screens and then started defacing a fourth. It's not the first time she has seen the young girl go into a tangent and break the screens, but it was still surprising every time. They may not be world voice screens, but they are still molded after the sacred objects to see someone deface one so blatantly was jarring to say the least. She summoned her own screen which she felt to be a safe distance away and set it to translate the almost manic mutterings.

“Who’s this Eryl?” Alexa said, it's not the first time she had seen the name, Hecatolite speaks of her often though the Babylon screen seems to censor everything but the name itself. “Was she a god that Hecatolite worshiped? She seems to think this Eryl has something to do with the Babylon screens. I have never heard of a god with that name. Babel make note to search for Eryl in the archives.”

The sound of Alexa’s voice caught Hecatolite’s attention looking up from the screen in its hands.

Oh yea the pervert was going to teach me something right? What was it… how to talk? But I can already talk. It thought as it cocked its head from side to side. I guess I could learn how to speak Solresol. That's what people speak around here isn’t it.

And like that almost two hours later Alexa began to teach Hecatolite how to speak the common language of humans.

Studying has… been strenuous but productive. Alexa can't help but be reminded of Amethyst when teaching Hecatolite both seemed to learn at an increased pace. Yet Hecatolite seems to still be having a lot of trouble with the subtle nuances of the human tongue, it was full of repeating sounds and very subtle changes in pronunciation, which seemed to leave the young girl quite tongue tied several times Alexa found herself having to pause as Hecatolite went on a very long tangent about how “pointless this entire dumb language was, who thought of such a convoluted way of speaking!” even going so far as to ask what other languages Alexa knew. And though Alexa knew both Solresol and Elven she doubted the young girl would have any easier time with elven given it was a way more subtle language requiring a more musical tone and the slightest change in pitch could cause a harmless comment to become a scathing insult, it had taken Alexa years to learn it and even then, she is not confident enough to try and teach it to another. 

“Why…” Hecatolite started scrunching her face in anger. “Talk dumb. Easier way?”  

“No” Alexa held up a Babylon screen, despite the earlier failure inside the house, once they were outside, she had managed to separate the young girl from the skill and force her to try and speak. “Solresol is the foundation language of all 3 spoken languages. once you have it down it will be easier to learn the other two.” Alexa let the screen translate for her as she spoke out loud, speaking slowly so Hecatolite could read and listen at the same time.

“Three…. But five?” Hecatolite spoke, holding up a hand. 

“No, only 3. I don’t know where the other two you know came from, what were the Aquin and… what was the other one? Babylon?” Alexa asked, turning the screen to look at it herself.

“Celestial is the fifth language of this world. It is spoken by a small tribe of celestials found “error” unable to acquire locational data of the celestial tribe. However, Celestial is the oldest language in this world and multiple texts can be found with writings from it.” Babylon replied. “Aquin is similar and can only be found along the southern and western coastline as well as in the city of “error” unable to acquire locational data of the Aquin people.”

“That is so strange, it will teach you the languages but not where to find the people who speak them. Babylon, can you tell me what language Hecatolite normally speaks when she talks? Maybe if I can find some similarities in her normal speech it will be easier.” Alexa asked as she watched Hecatolite spring up from a sitting position.

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“Eat!” Hecatolite exclaimed and ran off to the kitchen. Clearly done with the language lesson for the day.

“Unlikely. Hecatolite does not speak one language when it speaks. It appears that it uses whatever the simplest word for whatever it is trying to say. Hecatolite uses… 147 different dialects when speaking. Including a multitude of long dead languages. though its dialect seems to be derived mainly from the earthen language English. However, when agitated it changes to mainly draconic or demonic insults” 

“147 different dialects… Babylon… What is Hecatolite?” Alexa asked, not expecting an answer. 

“Unknown.”

“Unknown, or you cannot say?”

“Hecatolite is “unknown”.”

“Then what is known about her?”

“Searching for data on Hecatolite” Babylon was still for a long time, subtly changing colors, loading as Hecatolite called it. “Hecatolite is not a natural born soul of this world, and after several attempts to identify it the world system was unable to come to any conclusions on what the being designation, Hecatolite is. It is consciousness that should not be possible given its soul composition, yet it very clearly is a conscious creature. Hecatolite has been labeled by the world system as “extremely dangerous yet acutely harmless” given its disposition for fleeting interest in every activity it has be observed doing. The only times Hecatolite has been stirred to action that would be considered violent were to protect its twin soul Amethyst, and an absolute distrust/hatred for system terminals that it refers to as “dumb boxes”. 

Alexa was quiet for a long moment; she never expected the skill to answer her and now that it did, she had even more questions. For one, why did the skill always refer to Hecatolite as it, or creature. And what did it mean about her soul composition? “Can you elaborate on Hecatolite’s soul composition?”

“Negative, that would require a world terminal. The data I do have is from before Babylon was removed from the world system and conformed into a Bloodline ability.”  

“That makes sense, no single family would be given access to the world voice.” She sighed, “of course it wouldn’t be able to give me a look into her soul itself, only gods can look at a person’s soul”, she said out loud.

“Negative. Hecatolite has access to the skill soul sight. As well as the bishop that Hecatolite assimilated into its soul was blessed with a lesser soul sight to ascertain one's blessing status.” Babylon flashed Hecatolite soul page again, for some reason she never bothered to make it private like the rest of the family had. “School of magic; soul, skill; soul sight, allows one to look directly into another’s soul, with this one can gleam relative magical power density, and possible magical affinity. It is possible to gauge an average person’s strength by the size and shape of their soul. This skill is considered to be an obsolete skill compared to Inspection given soul sight will only give rough details and inspection gives certain data. The tradeoff between the two is Soul sight cannot be deceived. One can forge their page but not their very soul.”

“Wait!” she yelled, grabbing the screen, quickly looking around remembering she was sitting in the yard. If such a sensitive piece of information was to be leaked outside the family, they would have a much bigger problem than trying to remove one church from their city. She let out a content sigh as she realized no one was around, given their home's location just a bit removed from town butted up to the southern wall, and the time of day with the sun setting most people have returned home for the night. “Can… Can I learn that skill?” she whispered as she brought the screen inside.

“Possible yes. I have data on the spell that the skill replicates.” Babylon flashed an incantation as well as a step-by-step casting guide in elven. “It is also possible to use as a ritual, however it would require the target to remain still for the duration of the casting to look at its soul.” It showed her a complex spell circle. “Casting soul magic without an affinity or supporting skill is difficult and taxing, however after estimating your mana pool you should be able to cast this spell… once. Before needing to recover your power.”

“Only once!” she nearly screamed. “I am an Archmage! How many times can Hecatolite cast soul sight?” 

“Hecatolite seems to have skill; soul sight as an autonomous skill. Activating with eye contact. It is capable of using the skill…  for an indefinite period. Without the support of the soul sight skill and the soul affinity trait Hecatolite would likely be able to force cast the spell….”

She heard a strange growling sound and Suddenly Babylon flashed, “pervert, trying to peep at people’s souls again.”

She spun to see Hecatolite… sitting on the floor her knees had scrapes on them clearly indicating another tumble, yet the girl was sitting happily eating… sandwiches. One in each hand. 

“Just where does she put all that food?” Alexa sighed. Hecatolite’s appetite was awe inspiring to say the least. “And what do you mean pervert! I’m trying to learn a new spell, one might I remind you; you have. Meaning you have used it enough to get a skill for it!”

Hecatolite looked up at the woman incredulously and slowly motioned to the two sandwiches indicating that she could not understand Alexa, who grit her teeth as she held out her screen to show her. Hecatolite smiled as she put one of the sandwiches on the screen and continued eating the other one.

“Is… is that for me?” she asked suspiciously as Hecatolite nodded.

“Thanks… for… words.” Hecatolite’s words were broken, and she needed to pause almost as if trying to find the words.

Alexa let out a long sigh trying to release her anger at the young girl before sitting down beside her, letting the screen float between the two of them.

“Why do you keep calling me a pervert?” she asked, taking a bite of the sandwich and Hecatolite shrugged.

“Peeping tom. Look at Hecatolite in void space.” Though Alexa could hear some Solresol in her speech though not nearly enough to piece together what she said without Babylon.

“I did not peep on you in the void? I didn’t even know you were in there.” She replied, eyeing the young girl, her expression seemed to change a handful of times before settling back into neutral.

Hecatolite spoke again but this time Babylon did not translate and simply replied.

“Alexandrite has no skills that would allow her to see into another’s soul space. It is most likely that Hecatolite looked into Alexandrite soul space when she attempted to identify the timer on Amethyst soul page.” This reply seemed to cause Hecatolite to become agitated as she fruitlessly kicked at the screen only managing to hike up her dress and smash her heel on the stone floor.

Alexa laughed as the small girl rolled on the floor growling holding her foot before coming to rest a few feet away laying face down on the floor and mumbling into the stone.

“I’m sorry.” Babylon displayed. “I didn't mean to peek at your soul. It’s really pretty though if that helps.”

Alexa was caught off guard by the sudden apology, she thought the young girl was too headstrong to say sorry about something like that. And she was oddly flush at the very strange complement.

“Is it pretty? Can a soul be appealing?” she asked as the screen floated over to the girl and landed in front of her causing her to look up.

“of course, a soul is who a person is. Taaffeite has a beautiful and strong soul, and Alastair soul is strong and scary, the bastard of Valor his soul was gross and ugly. Yours was pretty and gentle. It's light blue with green swirls that seem to dance in it. Not like mine. My soul… is small, it's dark and has jagged lines on it.” Though she was reading what Hecatolite said Alexa could hear her tone become dejected, “even sparkle… Amethyst’s soul grew up some, it will be really pretty too, it's purple and has stars in it.”

Alexa sat processing this, Hecatolite at some point had looked at everyone’s soul, their most intimate being. Something she didn’t even think fully possible until moments ago, she knew magic existed that would let someone feel a person’s soul but to see it, that was a right reserved for gods wasn’t it.

“Can you show me.” Her words came without a thought. This was powerful magic, a lost art as far as she knew, of course she would want to use it. “It’s only fair since you peeked at mine.” She quickly said not wanting to be branded a pervert again by Hecatolite

Hecatolite sighed as it fought to stand. “Possible?” she asked, looking at Babylon.

“Affirmative. If Hecatolite were to fuel the spell circle with aether or share its senses with Alexandrite it would allow her to use the spell without a draw on her mana. one could also share their magical power with another but this is unadvised given the difference in magic source between the two of you.” Babylon flashed then changed colors again before continuing. “It is also possible for Hecatolite to grant the skill in a lesser form as a blessing using the blessings skill it has gained.”

Both were speechless looking at this new information before after a long tense moment Alexa finally asked. “What is the blessing skill?

“Skill; Blessing, grant a portion of one’s power or skills to another person. With this skill one can grant another a lesser form of a skill they possess, skills gifted will be one level less than the original skill, or access to a portion of their aether pool depending on the desire of the blessing. This skill can only be gained by someone with an aether based soul. Acquisition, grant a boon to a mortal to garner faith. Boons granted 1.”

“Who did I give a boon to? Who’s running around with my power!” Hecatolite yelled, grabbing the screen.

“Hecatolite blessed the soul Dora with a boon of sight and power. Using Soul Alexander Von Helix eyes that contained a blessing from Valor you were able to grant a dual boon. Soul Dora will be born with increased physical status as to “not need tools, specifically weapons” and the blessing of sight that Soul Alexander Von Helix had at the time of his death.”

“That's not what I meant when I said that,” Hecatolite bellowed, snapping the screen and throwing the pieces down the hall. Alexa did not catch what she said next but in short order another screen was summoned, inscribed with a large crude 15 into the back of it. “Do… Do you want the skill?”

She sheepishly showed the screen to Alexa, and for the first time Alexa truly did not have an answer to the question. She was a true adventure when it came to magic, never shying away from a new spell or magical study. But this… this was allowing something to interact with her soul directly. She knew that one’s skills and traits were an intrinsic part of the soul, transcribed on their page by the world when one gets the skills. She knew gods could grant boons, but she did not know they could grant skills. All of this was too much for her, and not to mention… Did she trust this girl enough to do such a thing? As far as she knew, this would be the first time anyone has been granted a skill by something other than a god, or the world. 

Hidden trait: Blessed by X47, Aether touched, seedling.

Skill: Soul sight.

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