The first sign Arden had that let him know he was still alive was the splitting headache. It felt like someone stuck an ice pick through his eye and gave it a twist. With a groan, he clutched his head in agony and slowly sat up. After a few minutes of taking deep breaths, the pain passed. With one last breath, he sighed and lowered his hand.

  With the pain gone, he had the mental faculties in place to realize that he was in an unfamiliar location. The room he was in now only had an exposed lightbulb hanging from the ceiling and a naked mattress that vaguely smelled of brutal romantic conquest.

  “Oh wow,” he said. “I’m in a torture dungeon.”

  Arden briefly wondered if this place would be better or worse than his old digs. At the thought of his old house, the memories of what happened flooded into Arden’s mind.

  He scowled and summoned his Status, hoping that it was a dream brought on by accidentally taking some of the sketchy drugs that the other slum rats liked to spike each other’s food with. One glance at the message on his colorless Status told him that it was all real.

  Paradox in Progress.

  It all happened.

  His doppelganger showing up. Him trying to force Arden to give up the Legacy by force. All of the broken arms he sustained. When Arden remembered smashing in Other-Arden’s head with a breezeblock he couldn't help but laugh to himself. It was the one good thing he’d done in that fight, if he could even call it that.

  It was a complete wash.

  The doppelganger’s words echoed faintly in Arden’s mind, reminding him of his weak state.

  “Jeez, look at you. I didn’t know I would be this sloppy.”

  “Your body really is weak.”

  “How the hell haven’t you died yet?”

  Arden was weak. There was no way around it. And he could only blame himself for it.

  He had a Legacy Ability. To his knowledge, it was a power that belonged to something else that occasionally lends it out for certain purposes. He didn’t know the purposes were, or why he was selected, but what matters was that he had it.

  He could heal from any injury. That was proven when he woke up from having a building fall on top of him.

  He had a healing ability that defied logic, and the only thing he had used it for was taking a beating. Anytime he insulted Yaan, he only did so because he knew he would heal from any injury they inflicted on him. He didn't know if he would act the same if it was taken away from him.

  Right now, the ability was a crutch. He needed to work on that.

  But that came after he learned where he was, and what Sya’s current status was.

  The answer came to him fairly quickly because Vera appeared standing in the doorway during his thinking.

  “It’s not a dungeon,” she said with a smile. “It’s a fungeon. And I plan to keep it that way when I find some more handcuffs.”

  Arden’s brain short-circuited looking at her and hearing her words. Back at the municipal building, she wore a hood over her face, so he could only see a part of her face. Now, her face was on full display.

  To call her attractive would be an understatement. She could give models a run for their money. Like him, she had black hair. But unlike his, it was maintained and held in a high ponytail, with her bangs hanging just above her eyes.

  Prominent streaks of icy blue ran through her black hair that Arden thought was very appealing. Whether it was a stylistic choice or a genetic one, he didn’t know. He just thought she looked fantastic with it.

  It felt kind of at odds with her attire, which consisted of grey sweatpants and an old graphic t-shirt that displayed frozen letters that read IM ALL ABOUT DAT ICE.

  ‘Good to know,’ Arden thought.

  All in all, Vera looked like she was a cool beauty who had the day off and decided to just relax. With the muscles that Arden could see on her arms, he decided to reevaluate his opinion of her. She looked like an extremely hot beauty who had the day off and decided to just relax.

  “A fungeon?” Arden asked.

  “Like a dungeon, but much more fun,” she explained.

  “I’m familiar with the concept. Why do you need handcuffs for that?”

  “For fun,” she said, not elucidating any further. “What was all that back there? One minute I’m trying to get to you so you don’t get killed by an angry mob of people who think you’re a murderer, the next minute your building comes down on top of you.”

  “Wait. Back up. People think I’m a murderer?”

  “For a few days now, yeah. We even found a bounty notice for you.”

  She pulled a piece of paper from her inventory and handed it to him for him to read. It showed a crudely drawn sketch of him with a rather large number beneath it.

  “I’m worth a million credits? That's enough to live several years comfortably in Ring 4!”

  The city of Foruta was unique in the modern age. Like some remnant of a fantasy world, the city-state of Foruta was designed to be a ringed city, with every ring closer to Ring 1 being more decadent and higher class.

  Ring 4 was full of the middle-class and beginner Starborn. There wasn’t much distinguishing from a typical city from before the StarFall. Ring 3 was the Starborn district, where the majority of the Starborn guilds were, alongside many different Starborn amenities. Ring 2 was the home of government workers and the truly upper-class individuals. The great guilds also had branches there as well. Ring 1 was the smallest ring, but it was the most important, as it was the home to the Starborn Association Headquarters and the leaders of the city.

  Meanwhile, Arden wasn’t even in Ring 4. The slums weren't counted for the census, so they were never a real ring.

  Looking at the seal on the bounty slip that looked like a cloud, Arden crumpled it in his hand.

  “Miasma put the bounty on me?”

  Some of Vera’s words finally caught up to Arden’s brain.

  “Wait a minute. ‘Days?’ ‘We?’”

  “It’s a long story,” Vera said. “You’ve been out for a week now. Your sister’s been worried sick.”

  “Sya’s here?” Arden asked, standing up from his crusty mattress. “Is she okay?”

  “She’s fine,” Vera assured him. “Just a little banged up from the collapse, but otherwise fine. From what I saw, you took most of the damage. We both want to know what actually happened back there.”

  “You’re not the only one. I’m still trying to piece it together myself. Did you see anything weird back there?”

  “Besides the version of you who looks like a severe drought or you glowing like an LED light? No. Nothing strange at all.”

  “...I see.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  So she had seen enough to know that Arden was keeping some secrets. He’d vastly prefer having no one know about either the doppelganger or his power, but there was nothing he could do. The cat was out of the bag, and now there were two people who knew about both, excluding Arden.

  Arden wondered if Vera was trustworthy. They barely knew each other, but so far she hadn’t done anything bad to him. He wanted a bit more to go on, but that was all he knew. Maybe trusting her wouldn’t be all that bad.

  It wasn’t like he had a choice.

  “Is Sya awake?” he asked.

  “Yeah, but I'm not sure for how much longer. She’s chilling on my Satellite couch. That thing knocks people out.”

  Vera led Arden out of his room. Most of the building they were in was just like how his room was: empty, covered in dust, and naked light bulbs.

  “I thought you weren't a Starborn. How do you have a Satellite?”

  “Mundanes can still kill Celestials, so they can still acquire them.”

  “You killed Celestials as a mundane?”

  “Yeah. No big deal, though. I’m pretty awesome,” she said. “But that’s not how I got the Usurper’s Throne. I stole it from my family when they kicked me out.”

  “You stole a couch Satellite from your family?”

  “They deserved it!” she said defensively. “Plus, If I was going to hide out in the slums, I needed somewhere to sleep. I wasn’t going to try and find a mattress and carry it around when I could just summon one from the depths of my soul. The only mattress I found was yours. You’ve smelled it right?"

  “A couch Satellite,” Arden repeated.

  “What’s the big deal? Satellites come in every shape or form you could ask for. It’s not too weird for Starborn to have Satellite furniture. It makes exploring the wilds a lot easier if you have a home to carry with you.”

  “That’s not what I find weird. What I find weird is that to get back at your family, you didn’t steal a prized sword, or a bunch of their money, but you stole a couch.”

  “The Usurper’s Throne was one of their most prized possessions. They were waiting for someone to get strong enough so they could bequeath it to them when they kicked me out. I thought it was a shame to go alone, so I took it. And a slingshot Satellite to be safe.”

  “Alright, so you stole a super-couch out of spite. I get that. It’s fun to play into your spite like that, isn’t it? What can it do?”

  “You get a lot more rest when you sleep on it.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Hey, that is a very good trait to have! Imagine how much more you could achieve if you only need to sleep for an hour a day. Besides, it can also shapeshift to other types of furniture of the same type. Chair, bed, couch. You know, the comfortable stuff. Of course, I won’t be able to use its active aspects without stellar essence, so as a mundane, I can only use the passive recovery boost.”

  Everything Vera said about her Satellite made sense to Arden, but he had to remember that in matters of Starborn, he was a layman. He did know about Satellites, though.

  A Satellite was a piece of magical equipment that could sometimes be obtained from slaying Celestials or clearing stargates. They could be almost anything. From a weapon, to a piece of furniture, to a summon. They all had aspects, powers that made them unique. For example, a sword could have the Hemorrhage aspect, which would make blood loss for the opponent even worse.

  The only thing he didn’t know was how the Satellites were stored. He thought that only Starborn could store them inside themselves. So he asked Vera, who appeared to have plenty of Starborn knowledge.

  “It’s a misconception,” she explained. “Starborn have a second special type of inventory called a Soul Cluster. It's formed as part of the awakening process, and it holds all of your Satellites after it forms. Everything in it becomes bound to your soul, so when you use Satellites after the creation of a Soul Cluster, you are attacking with your soul in the shape of a weapon. But a mundane doesn’t have a Soul Cluster, so Satellites will instead be in your inventory until ascension.”

  “So then what happens if they get destroyed? Will your soul break as well?”

  “No, actually. One of the most important lessons that a Starborn learns is the nature of the inviolable soul. A living soul cannot be destroyed. It cannot be entered unless the owner of the soul allows it. If you refuse entry, nothing is getting inside your soul. But because a Satellite is attached to your soul after ascending to a Starborn, it would affect the soul if it gets damaged. But when they are destroyed, to avoid soul trauma, the soul cuts the Satellite out of your soul as a form of self-defense.”

  They found Sya at peace with the world, sitting on the most luxurious piece of furniture Arden had ever seen. With red cushions and gold accents, it looked like the throne of a king, if it were a two-person loveseat instead.

  “I see why it's called a throne,” Arden said.

  At the sound of his voice, Sya’s eyes snapped open.

  Like all Blight Walkers, her eyes were black and silver. Her hair, like everyone else who was here, was black. She routinely cut it short because trying to maintain a longer hairstyle from the cesspit of the slums as a pariah would be a futile endeavor. As a result, she had something similar to a choppy bob cut with the occasional hint of Blight Essence pouring into it giving it a two-tone look. She raised one of her hands covered in silver veins and gave it a lazy wave.

  “You’re finally awake.”

  “You seem surprisingly non-chalant for someone who was in a building collapse a week ago.”

  Sya shrugged.

  “It’s been a week. You live too much in the past. The future is now, old man.”

  Arden furrowed his brows.

  “I’m only 20, Sya. You’re 19.”

  “Whatever, old man.”

  Arden groaned.

  “You annoy me so much.”

  “It's what I do.”

  Sya reluctantly pushed herself up off of the mysterious Satellite before it pulled her to the land of dreams. She gave her brother a hug.

  “Thank you for protecting me.”

  “It’s what I do.”

  “It’s good to see you alive.”

  Arden smiled.

  “It's good to see you too.”

  *****

  A few hours later the trio sat in front of a makeshift table that had clearly been inspired by Arden’s own DIY table. The only difference was that it had been improved upon. The sheet of plywood was as long as it was wide and rested on four stacks of cinder blocks instead of just two. The main purpose of this innovation was to allow more than just two people to sit at the table.

  They each sat at one end of the table with the fourth side going unused. They each had a large can of soup in front them, which all three of them were immensely grateful for.

  While Arden slept off the building collapse, the other two could only share the remaining cans that Vera had gotten with Arden. The other six cans were in Arden’s inventory along with Cirai’s ID that allowed them to get more.

  By day five, they had to make do with the slop that was the lowest level rations. Vera went out to grab several days of the stuff with the help of Cirai giving her a confiscated ID because neither Vera nor Sya had one yet. Vera because the higher-ups still refused to issue one, and Sya because she was a Blight Walker.

  All of that changed tonight, though.

  After Arden woke up and handed out the cans of soup for dinner, all was right with the world.

  Except for the evil doppelganger with a murder-on for Arden.

  “So to recap,” Vera said, pointing a plastic spoon towards Arden. “You have a weird power that allows you to heal, but it's not of Starborn origin. And this cracked version of you that we all saw is trying to take from you because he wants to die.”

  “That pretty much sums it up,” Arden confirmed.

  “You don’t know where he came from, or how he got here. But he is here, and you got a weird message on your Status telling you about it.”

  Arden summoned his Status and let them read off the message.

  “Also correct. He told me that he didn't want to get me involved in whatever was going on.”

  “Right before he kicked your ass, right?” Sya asked.

  “I would like to point out that I caved his head in with a breeze block.”

  “And then he stabbed you with a chunk of concrete and brought the building down on top of us.”

  “Yes. After I caved his head in.”

  “Why are you so fixated on that part?” Sya asked.

  Arden stopped eating for a moment and looked up at the naked lightbulb. With a sigh, he explained.

  “Because it was the only thing I was able to do against him. I thought I would be able to put up a fight against him because he was mundane, but he rocked my shit. All of his attacks were well-coordinated. All of his movements were small, but effective. None of my attacks landed. I was only able to wound him with the brick because of luck. In short, I’m weak.”

  “Do you want to get stronger?” Vera asked.

  “Yes. I need to be able to survive whatever comes next.”

  Vera shook her head then looked at Arden with a serious expression. The normal joviality that Arden quickly grew fond of was gone.

  “I didn’t ask if you needed to get stronger. I asked if you wanted to. If you try to grow stronger out of obligation, you will always fall short. But if you try and get stronger for the sake of it, you'll go much farther. It's a motivational thing.”

  “So I shouldn't just train out of desperation to survive?”

  “Desperation should be a catalyst to train harder and get stronger faster, not the reason to train. Do you want to be stronger?”

  Arden didn't hesitate. His eyes shined with resolution, and he answered.

  “I don't want to be weak. I want to be strong.”

  Vera smiled.

  “Then I will help you.”