The cause for this could be easily deduced from the logs of her System notifications.
***
[Agility: 11 -> 14]
[Strength: 6 -> 9]
[Flexibility: 8 -> 11]
[Main Body: 8 -> 11]
[Cognition: 12 -> 14]
[Memory: 8 -> 11]
[Will: 13 -> 14]
[Main Mind: 12 -> 14]
***
Not only was she suffering from a brain freeze worse than she’d ever felt before, one perhaps even eclipsing the instance of it she had to suffer through when her Mind reached 10, but her body felt like it was melting in a feverish haze.
Who would have thought getting that 10 stat point metamorphosis for something as integral to her being as Body would be fucking excruciating? It was like her whole body was a single muscle cramped up into a single ball of agony, every muscle locked up from the tips of her ears to her little toes. Just a tiny movement, even just a twitch from her could bring about waves of searing agony. It didn’t help at all that Mia’s muscles were twitching from the pain.
Carmilla was there, hovering around her and trying to be helpful by placing wet towels on her head while Helene tried to distract Mia from the pain with some inane story. It took Mia back to when her mother read bedtime stories, her small hand gripping her mother’s like a body pillow. It was working; she was distracted enough not to want to claw her skin off.
Stupid. I’m so damned stupid. What did I think would happen if I ate that many Natural Treasures? Mia berated herself. She had no excuses either as she’d gone through something like this before. It wasn’t the first time, so she should have known better than to increase her Attributes so quickly and by so much at once.
After what felt like hours, maybe days even, but was only about fifteen minutes in reality, the pain in her body and mind started fading. Mia was left there, her muscles going lax as she heaved out one ragged breath after the other with beads of sweat rolling down her face.
***
[Attributes]
[Free Attribute Points: 0]
[Gained Attributes: 50 / 100]
[Body: 11]
- Agility: 14 - (80%)
- Strength: 9 - (40%)
- Flexibility: 11 - (70%)
[Mind: 14]
- Cognition: 14 - (70%)
- Memory: 11 - (60%)
- Will: 14 - (50%)
[Spirit: 13]
- Control: 11 - (60%)
- Sensitivity: 11 - (90%)
- Manifestation: 14 - (70%)
***
The moment she felt a weak grin spread on her lips at the sight of her increased Attributes, she scowled. This was the problem. Increasing those numbers was addicting, and that addiction was turning her into a moron.
“Mia?” Helene asked, echoed by Carmilla a moment later. “Are you alright, sweetie? Talk to me?”
“Yes,” Mia said, wincing as she turned this way and that to feel out whether the cramps were gone entirely or not. They were, and she was feeling great. No, she was feeling phenomenal. Sitting up, she rolled her shoulders a little before turning a contrite look up at the two women. Bowing her head a little, Mia apologised. “Sorry for worrying you. I’ve been stupid.”
“What did you do?” Helene asked, sounding reproachful now that she made sure Mia was truly alright. Carmilla looked similarly put off, looking at Mia with a hint of reproach, but seemingly not wanting to be too stern.
“I went ahead and ate all of my Natural Treasure fruits,” Mia said sheepishly. “My Main Body stat went up by three whole points over the course of the last few hours and crossed over to ten when I … cramped up, then to eleven just now.”
“That’s … pretty up there on the dumb scale,” Carmilla murmured, looking down at Mia through narrowed eyes. “Why did you do that?”
“I don’t know,” Mia said, grimacing. She really didn’t, there wasn’t any particular reason behind her lack of care. She was just … stupid. That was the beginning and end of it. “I sort of … forgot it hurt that much?”
“I don’t remember raising an airhead!” Helene said, huffing as she glared down at Mia with the same look she usually had on before grounding her growing up. “You are supposed to get smarter with your Mind Attribute going up, not dumber.”
“Sorry,” Mia said, averting her gaze as she scratched her cheek. There really wasn’t much else she could do here but apologise and make sure she didn’t do it again. Actions spoke louder than words … though her track record wasn’t looking too good so far.
“Are you sure you are good now?” Helene asked, casting an examining look over Mia to which she just nodded. “Good. You’re not a child anymore, Maria. Don’t act like one. Have some forethought put into your actions, for goodness’ sake!”
“Sorry,” Mia repeated, hanging her head and flinching as her mother called her by her full name. “I won’t do it again.”
“Good!” Helene said, huffing a little in motherly anger before letting all of it drain out of her with a sigh. She patted the top of Mia’s hung head gently. “Be careful. I know you probably let yourself go lax since you were at home, but you- no, we all need to be careful. We are fighting monsters with magic and eating magical fruits from another universe, I know one clearly looks more dangerous, but they come from the same source … so do take some care with everything concerning this new reality of ours, please?”
Mia nodded meekly.
“Okay,” Helene said. “I’ll go and prepare lunch, you two have fun or talk. I’ll call when food’s ready.”
That left the two girls alone in the room, and Mia gingerly took a peek up at the vampire’s face when the redhead made no move to speak or even to just move from where she stood next to the bed with her arms crossed.
Carmilla wore a conflicted expression and chewed on her lips.
“Want to chew me out too?” Mia asked. “Might be good to get whatever’s troubling you off your chest.”
“I just realised that you’re … pretty dumb,” Carmilla said matter-of-factly, frowning. “Is that what pushed you into our … relationship? Lack of thinking things through? This stunt with those fruits was by far less dangerous than even entertaining the idea of getting into a relationship with a vampire.”
“Oh, come on,” Mia said, scowling as she stood up to face Carmilla. “Yes, I might not have entirely known the dangers coming with courting you. But no, I put thought into it even before bringing it up, and even after spending days introspecting over that decision, I still haven’t changed my mind. I want to be with you, even with you being a vampire. End of story.”
“Why?” Carmilla asked, looking entirely too confused as she asked that and her crossed arms tightened. She looked more like she was hugging herself than just crossing her arms. “Is it just my body? I noticed you staring after I first fed on your bloo-”
“No,” Mia said sternly enough that it stopped Carmilla’s words in their tracks. A part of Mia was screaming inside, terrified of the direction this conversation was going towards, but a much larger part couldn’t stand seeing that kind and gentle vampire looking so … fragile. “Carmilla, you are gorgeous. Anyone with a pair of working eyes could tell you that. But that would only be reason enough for me to want to sleep with you, not date you. Do you know when it was that I felt like I really wanted to just get to know you and when I started hoping for more? For this?”
Carmilla just stared, a vulnerable, but curious glint in the depths of her crimson eyes.
“When you saved me from that Juggernaut,” Mia said. “And then went right back to save Mark just because I asked. Then you just came back to me, comforted me and made me feel safe. You are kind, caring, gentle and a whole lot of other things, neither of which has anything to do with either your body or your being a vampire.”
That seemed to only confuse Carmilla, who looked more disbelieving than anything. Mia paused, practically seeing the cogs turning behind those enthralling ruby orbs of hers. Carmilla had problems, a lot of them, and Mia was uncovering more the deeper she dug. How was it that a girl couldn’t comprehend that someone thought of her as kind and gentle? Or was she confused about something else?
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“Anyone with a bit of strength could make you feel safe,” the girl said, uncertainty tugging at her tone, but Mia felt like her heart wasn’t in it anymore. She was just saying words, almost as if to beg Mia to convince her.
“Strength was part of it yes,” Mia admitted, then stepped up to the girl and with more bluster than she’d ever shown before while sober, she wrapped her arms around the girl’s waist and stared up into her eyes with the most sincere look she could manage. “But strength alone didn’t make me feel safe, cared for … you did. You.”
“Why would you feel safe with me?” Carmilla asked rhetorically, letting out a resigned sigh as she returned Mia’s hug. “Your judgement is … horrible. Do you know how close I came to draining you dry, to tearing your throat out dozens of times? You shouldn’t feel safe with me.”
Mia couldn’t help but feel a sense of dread at those words, despite her conviction that Carmilla wouldn’t do anything to her. It was just primal survival instincts flaring up when an apex predator had her all wrapped up in its arms. She pressed it right back down. Her instincts were helpful most of the time, but not now.
“But did you?” Mia asked, her resolve hardening. She wanted to be with Carmilla, like she’d realised so many times already, and Carmilla really needed someone. Mark would call her a ‘fix-it girl’ if he heard her thoughts, poke fun at her for trying to ‘fix’ Carmilla. “You never did, never once even as much touched me wrong. I saw how my blood affected you … would any other vampire in your position have been able to resist the temptation to pounce on me and drain me dry? Hmmm?”
“Higher Ranking ones probably would have been able to,” Carmilla said in a small voice, glancing down to the side. “Or maybe other purebloods like me, I’m not unique. I’m just … I just don’t want to be a monster. I’m sure I’m not the only vampire who wants to be normal.”
“Now who’s being dumb?” Mia huffed, growing a touch annoyed with the stubbornly self-derogatory vampire. Mia wasn’t going to let that go on, not if she could do anything about it. “Out of a thousand, how many purebloods at your Rank would have refrained from doing as much as forcing me to give them more of my blood? How many would have been happy with just asking for it and making sure I knew I could refuse?”
“I don’t know,” Carmilla admitted. “Ten? A hundred? Half?”
“Well, I don’t really give a shit anyway,” Mia said. “I only care that you didn’t do all that, that you cared enough and that you were good to me. Can’t you at least accept that? That I like you because you are nice, soft, warm and caring? Do that much for me, pretty please?”
“Okay,” Carmilla said, but Mia knew it was just to get her to leave her alone. She didn’t believe it. Likely, the vampire was still thinking that Mia’s judgement was severely impaired by something for her to have done something as stupid as getting into a relationship with a vampire.
“Now try saying that like you mean it?” Mia tried, but knew it was a longshot. “What do I have to do to make you believe what I’m saying?”
“I- I don’t know,” Carmilla said, smiling down at Mia awkwardly.
“Fine,” Mia said, slipping out of a hug to glare at the stupid vampire. “I’ll make you believe it. So what if I’m dumb to want to date you? I still do and you’ll not be getting rid of me. I’ll stick to you like a leech until you realise how dumb you are being.”
Carmilla had no response to that, just watching Mia glare at her like it was a natural disaster she couldn’t take her eyes off, but knew she really should.
“Girls!” Helene’s voice echoed up to the upper floor. “Food’s ready!”
*****
“This will likely hurt like a bitch again.” Mia stared down at the bead, its surface holding a swirling rainbow-coloured storm. It was called the ‘Pill of Harmonic Power’ and it was the reward for her latest completed Quest. “Did anyone else take this thing already? Or am I the first? How bad was it?”
***
[{Newcomer} Introductory (13)]
Objective:
- Raise all three Main Attributes to above 10. ( 3 / 3 ) COMPLETED
Reward: A Natural Treasure that grants +1 Attribute to all 9 Sub-Attributes. CLAIMED!
***
“It was manageable,” Brent said evenly, still slurping down some noodles as he glanced over at the bead in Mia’s palm. “But you only get one point per Main Attribute, so it’s far less … taxing than getting three points into a single one. I believe so, at least. I’ve never had the latter happen to me.”
“Well, I did and I can tell you that Brent’s right. It’s barely painful, so no need to worry about it,” Mark supplied sagely. “But the bead-thing is a bitch on the stomach, so I recommend taking it while sitting on the toilet and with a bucket in hand in case the contents of your stomach don’t want to bother taking the long way out.”
“Thank you Mark,” Mia said, about 85% sure he was just talking straight out of his ass. “Very helpful as always.”
“I live to please.” The dwarf ran his fingers through his beard, nodding like some sage wizard of old.
“Take it with some water,” Lina said, looking over curiously and then wincing as her arm instinctively went up to caress her throat. “It busted my throat like nothing else, it started melting the moment it touched my tongue and rampaged around all the way until it reached my stomach.”
“How the hell did all of you get all three Main stats up to 10 before me?” Mia asked in exasperation, mainly looking at Brent and Lina who were supposedly baseline humans without that initial stat boost every Awakened species got.
“I have a balanced spread among my Sub-Attributes,” Brent said, shrugging. “And I almost always got Natural Treasures from the weekly Realm Events … while you got a bathing rock.”
“Well, I’m not too balanced,” Lina admitted flippantly. “But I trained my Base Stats up like my life depended on it … thanks for those training ideas, by the way, they worked quite well for all three Spirit Sub-stats. Also, that rock was probably worth more Natural Treasures in the System’s eye than you got from the army as a reward … you really shot yourself in the leg there.”
“I regret nothing,” Mia said indignantly under her breath, she’d have gone crazy sooner rather than later without being able to take a proper bath now and then. Even now that the rock was mostly used to sell barrelfuls of water to Zeigler, she still had it producing baths for herself every other day. “Alright. I guess that means the next week’s rewards got to be amazing.”
“We even destroyed a Rift,” Lina said, a greedy grin spreading on her face that was only slightly marred by the spots of sauce on her chin. “That’s got to be worth a whole lot of … oh, YES. I’m up to ‘Mid’ on both contribution markers. This is going to be juicy.”
Putting Lina and her loud musings about what rewards she was going to get out of her mind, Mia stared down at the many-coloured bead. Grabbing her glass of water, she looked up at her mother across the table from her … then over at Carmilla.
The vampire was acting like a kicked puppy that didn’t know whether you’d kick it again if it dared coming close again. It was half endearingly adorable and half again borderline hilarious. But it was mostly annoying Mia, who just sighed. Sharing a quick, but meaningful glance with Helene, Mia stood up, grabbed Carmilla by the arm and dragged her over to the sofa where she sat down, then pulled the vampire to sit down next to her.
“If what I said at the end is troubling you so much you can ignore it and act like I never said anything,” Mia said, staring up into her eyes. The vampire looked back like Mia was a strange puzzle box she couldn’t solve and was even more afraid of what she could find inside if she did solve it. “Not the first part, though. That was important. Anyway, this changes mostly nothing between us, does it? I’m still sticking to you just the same as before. There is no need for you to act like I’m lava.”
“I’m not-”
“You are,” Mia said, squishing the girl’s hand a bit with her own. Seeing as the girl was not going to change from just a few short words, Mia sighed and decided to just get onto what she wanted to do. Actions spoke louder than words, and she’d make sure her actions showed the silly vampire just how deeply she meant the words she spoke before. “So, I’m going to eat this thing. Can I trust you to haul me back into my bed again if I start cramping up again?”
“Y-yeah.” Carmilla nodded, putting on a serious look.
Without further ado, Mia threw it into her mouth and quickly sent it down her throat with a few gulps of water. It seared, zapped and stretched as it travelled down and Mia had to resist the urge to clutch at her throat.
Then it was down. She felt it pulsing, sending out waves of some strange energy she wasn’t familiar with. Though, perhaps it was just such a muddled mix of many energies she did know that she just couldn’t make out any particular one.
It expanded, flowing into every cell of her body, into the deepest crevices of her mind and surged into her spirit like a tidal-wave. Everything it touched grew stronger, more flexible, denser, deeper and just overall better.
[Agility: 14 -> 15]
[Strength: 9 -> 10]
[Flexibility: 11 -> 12]
[Main Body: 11 -> 12]
[Cognition: 14 -> 15]
[Memory: 11 -> 12]
[Will: 14 -> 15]
[Main Mind: 14 -> 15]
[Control: 11 -> 12]
[Sensitivity: 11 -> 12]
[Manifestation: 14 -> 15]
[Main Spirit: 13 -> 14]
Mia shuddered, feeling a much milder repeat of the previous full body cramp. It blessedly let up after just a few seconds though, even before Carmilla could pick her up to shove her into bed again. Letting out a relieved sigh, Mia smiled.
With that done, she had every Natural Treasure available to her absorbed. Next on her list was continuing with assimilating the runes for her chosen new spells and, likely some training. It was looking like they would be staying in the city as nobody even brought up the topic of leaving and that meant Mia was likely going to be heading into a Rift in the not so distant future. Which was also what her next Quest wanted her to do, so it was hitting two birds with one stone.
***
[{Newcomer} Introductory (14)]
‘Notification: This Questline is coming to an end with Introductory #15.’
Objective:
- Dive three Rifts and contribute to Clearing them! ( 1 / 3 )
Bonus Objective:
- Take part in dives that end with Destroying Rifts: 1
Reward: A spatially expanded satchel. (Two cubic metres of volume.)
Bonus Reward: The satchel may be further enchanted with: Expanded volume, reduced weight, slowed time inside.
*****
The next couple of days went by quickly. The army moved out, slowly cutting through the city and killing some groups of wandering monsters without facing too much resistance.
Largely, that was probably because each platoon moved out with at least two or three mages attached to them for covering fire.
Mia’s party took part in this too, helping out with hunting the monsters down as they slowly cleared out street after street and let the refugees go back to their homes.
The army slowly regained some cohesion, the now three living Colonels having come together and established a council of sorts. Zeigler somehow managed to weasel his way into being named the commanding officer of the remaining troops, likely due to his popularity with the survivors because of his defence of Andritz and his seniority over the other two Colonels.
The push towards the city centre was in full swing, and they were getting closer and closer to the place where Mia and Helene had spotted the Goblin Rift a week or so ago.
Mia had also been made aware that the location of another two rifts was also known to the army. The Rat Rift was buried under a collapsed sewer system, the handiwork of the late General to buy himself time to deal with the Goblins. The final known rift’s location was the Bird Rift up atop the Science Tower, the tallest building in the city.
The Goblin Rift remained the primary goal of both Mia’s party and the army and with the help of the mages, now bolstered in both numbers and morale after the victory over the Troll, they reached it just four days after the battle on the wall.
By this point, all they were waiting for before sending in a group to destroy the Rift was the third week’s Realm Event Rewards, as per many of the strongest fighters’ requests. Once everyone had the opportunity to claim that, a delving party would be assembled, loaded full of whatever potions remained with the army, and sent inside.