My frustration gave way to a sharp, frantic curiosity. The gears in my head were spinning so fast I thought they might catch fire.
She called him 'my son'. And she was a god. Which means Ronan... is what, a demigod? A god-in-training? And he never mentioned it. Not once in ten years. He'd talked about his 'Lady of Light', sure, but he'd framed it like a faith, not a family reunion.
And why did she call me the disease? The cancer in his head? Not a person?! What the actual fuck was that about?! He's the one living rent-free in my skull, not the other way around. My mind, my rules, lady.
The worst part? The absolute kicker? I couldn't even ask him about it. His memory of the whole insane encounter had been wiped clean. He was just... blissfully, moronically unaware.
So unaware, in fact, that while my brain was busy trying to process a six-month death warrant from a goddess who thinks I'm a sentient cancer, what was the noble paladin doing?
He was playing music. I could hear it playing in the back of my skull, a tinny, familiar acoustic guitar riff. 'Country Roads'. He was the literal son of a divine being, and he was blissfully replaying a folk song about homesick nostalgia for a place he'd never even been, and I was left with a handful of impossible questions and a brand-new suspicion about the one person in the universe I was supposed to be able to trust. But he was all I had. For now, I'd have to put it on a shelf. File it under 'Cosmic Bullshit to Sort Out Later'.
Still, she'd left a parting gift. Time to see what the crazy god-bitch had left behind.
I stood in the centre of the firelit room, closed my eyes, and reached inward for the simple, trickling pathway of my old Art.
It was gone.
The simple circuit had been scoured out and replaced by a new, intricate lattice of power that hummed with a terrifying potential. Time to see what the new engine could do. I took a breath and pushed a stream of energy down the new path.
It wasn't a trickle. It was a flood. The air in front of me shimmered, and within seconds, a perfect, solid copy of myself knitted itself into existence.
Standing before me was... me. It blinked, its—my—eyes wide with a confusion that mirrored my own, then looked down at its own hands.
"What the hell?" the clone said, its voice a perfect replica of my own. "How did I get over here?" It took a defensive step back. "Is this an illusion? Some kind of trick?"
Oh, great. My first clone is having an existential crisis. "Easy," I said aloud. "You're the copy."
The clone's eyes widened. It reached inward, searching for the familiar presence in our shared skull, and found only silence. A look of raw, absolute panic washed over its face. "Where is he?" the clone whispered, its voice trembling. "Ronan... I can't hear him. He's gone."
'By the Light...' Ronan's own voice was a gasp of pure shock in my head. 'It has your memories... but not our soul. It's... empty. Murphy, what did you do?'
As if trying to wipe the lie away, I instinctively dismissed the clone and said, 'I don't know what happened, when I used the Art, something must have... catalysed. It's not a water puppet anymore.'
The lie was thin, and Ronan saw right through it.
'A spontaneous evolution? Murphy, what are you talking about?' he projected, his own confusion sharp and suspicious. 'Arts don't just evolve. Not like this. This is a complete change in function, a massive leap in complexity. That shouldn't be possible without your Core changing rank. We're still Light Blue.'
He had me cornered. The logician was demanding a logical answer I couldn't give.
'Something happened in that tavern,' Ronan pressed, his voice losing its awe and gaining a hard, demanding edge. 'You completely zoned out, and now... this. What aren't you telling me?'
Backed into a corner, I couldn't tell him the truth. So I did the only logical thing: I decided to make him think he was the crazy one. I threw a flaming bomb into the conversation and gaslit the son of a bitch.
'Alright, fine, you got me,' I shot back, my mental voice dripping with sarcastic grandeur. 'I'm secretly a primordial, all-powerful deity, and I just decided to upgrade our powers on a whim because I was bored. Happy now?'
I expected him to call bullshit. To get angry. To give me a lecture on taking things seriously. Instead, a profound, unnerving silence filled our shared mind.
It wasn't an angry silence. It was the silence of a man who had just been stopped dead in his tracks. It was the mental equivalent of watching someone's face go pale, the look you see when a wild, stray comment accidentally hits a nerve you didn't even know was there. My joke, my ridiculous, over-the-top lie, hadn't been dismissed. It had landed. And I had a thin suspicion why.
The cold, demanding pressure in my mind vanished, replaced by a strange, calculated calm.
'Right,' Ronan finally projected, his voice now carefully neutral, all traces of his earlier suspicion gone. 'A primordial deity. Of course.'
He deftly changed the subject. 'Let's just... test the limits of your "upgrade," then.'
That was it. He didn't believe me, not for a second. But he had dropped the interrogation completely. It was like he suddenly decided he didn't want to know the real answer anymore. He was holding out on me, and to be fair, so was I. The weight of the secret was still there, but now it was a shared one.
Getting back to the matter at hand, I said, "Let's test the limits," and created a new one. This clone shimmered into existence without any panic. It walked over to the washroom, tracing the thin silver scar on its cheek in the mirror with a detached fascination.
It came to stand directly in front of me, so close I could feel its warmth, scrutinising every flaw on my face. Its expression shifted, the analytical curiosity melting away into a slow, evil grin that I knew all too well.
Before I could even process the look, its hand shot out and slapped me, hard, across the cheek. The sting was sharp and shockingly real.
The clone's grin widened into a full, manic smile. And then, it just dispelled itself, vanishing into a swirl of fading light.
I stood there for a second, my hand flying up to my stinging cheek, utterly stunned.
"THAT SON OF A BITCH!"
A dizzying rush of its entire, short, pathetic life slammed into my brain.
'What the hell was that?' Ronan projected, his thought a spike of pure, baffled confusion. 'It just... slapped you and vanished. Why would it do that?'
I didn't answer him because I was too busy reliving the moment from the clone's perspective. I felt its detached fascination in the mirror, followed by its critical analysis of my—our—face.
And then came the final, brilliant thought. I felt the decision solidify, the arm swing, and the satisfying, sharp sting of its palm connecting with my own cheek. The feedback loop was complete. The clone hadn't just been a puppet; it had been me. It had seen an opportunity for the perfect, unanswerable crime and taken it.
I finally responded to Ronan's lingering question. A slow, predatory, and slightly manic grin spread across my face as I rubbed my stinging cheek. 'Yeah, but you've got to respect the clever bastard for thinking of it.'
'Respect him? For assaulting you? Murphy, what are you talking about?'
I ignored his confusion. I had to give myself credit. That son of a bitch was clever.
"The experience returns," I told Ronan aloud. "It all comes back to me."
'A perfect, disposable scout,' Ronan said, latching onto the tactical implications. 'An extra set of eyes that can die without consequence.'
'Better yet,' I thought, my paranoia seizing on the idea, 'a decoy. An alibi. A perfect, disposable 'me' to take the next knife in the back.' I pulled out the heavy, deep-hooded cloak and created a new clone already wearing it, its face a void of pure shadow. Anonymous. Imposing. Perfect.
The instant the new clone solidified, I felt the slow, steady drain on my Core. A constant tax. The maths was simple, and it was skabbing terrifying. At this rate, I could sustain one bodyguard for maybe an hour or two a day before I was running on empty. It was like trying to keep a car running by feeding it thimblefuls of petrol.
'This isn't going to work,' I projected, the grim reality of our situation crashing down. 'We need a much bigger battery, and we need it yesterday. Otherwise, this whole thing is a non-starter.'
I expected him to agree, to share my despair. Instead, I felt a wave of smug, theatrical confidence radiate from his side of our mind. He let the dramatic silence hang for a beat, like a stage magician about to pull a rabbit out of a hat.
'You're forgetting, Murphy,' he finally projected, his voice practically beaming with self-satisfaction, 'that the catalyst was only the first part of my grand plan. Now comes the second: The Path of Patience. I will teach you the proper technique. It is a far more reliable path to power.'
Oh, great. Another secret technique. This one probably involved interpretive dance.
'It's like breathing, Murphy. You just... breathe,' he coached, his tone that of a man explaining the concept of "water" to a fish. 'You don't force it. You just open your spirit and allow the ambient Aether to flow into you.'
Easy for you to say. 'Breathing' magic probably came as naturally to him as breathing air. But I sat on the floor, crossed my legs, and tried it his way.
For an hour, I sat there, following his "flawless" instructions. I tried to 'allow', to 'open my spirit', to do everything but the one thing that felt natural: to grab the power and yank it inside. All I had to show for it was a splitting headache and the distinct feeling that I was trying to suck a river through a straw.
'Well?' I finally grumbled, slumping against the wall. 'Did it work?'
There was a long, confused pause. 'I... felt a trickle,' Ronan admitted, his voice laced with pure bafflement. 'A bare whisper of Aether. But... that's not right. My technique is perfect. It should have been a torrent.'
Yeah. A torrent. Instead, we had a leaky tap. Ronan's grand, heroic plan to save the day with his brilliant teaching skills had just face-planted into a brick wall. We were back to square one.
'Feel what?' I shot back, staring into the blackness behind my eyelids. 'The only thing I feel is the floorboards digging into my arse.'
'It's like... a current in the air,' he tried to explain. 'You're not grabbing the water; you're just dipping an empty cup into the river and letting it fill.'
Right. Dipping a cup. Easy for him to say. I tried to picture it, to feel this invisible "current." For twenty minutes, I sat there, "dipping my cup." All I got was a dull throb starting behind my eyes.
'The cup is empty, Ronan. I think there might be a hole in the cup, RONAN!'
A wave of frustration washed over from his side. 'No, you're still forcing it! Stop trying to wrestle with it! It's not a muscle, Murphy, it's a flow! Relax! Stop fighting!'
'Relax?' I seethed internally, the throb in my head sharpening into a spike. 'Every time I 'relaxed' for a thousand years, I ended up with a knife in my back or an anvil on my head! I don't do 'Relax'.'
I tried for another half-hour, his increasingly clipped instructions echoing in my skull as my headache blossomed into a full-blown migraine.
'Your technique is awful, Murphy,' Ronan's voice finally said, his own frustration palpable. 'You're just... pushing. You're trying to force the river uphill. My knowledge of the theory can't overcome your ineptitudes.'
My ineptitudes? The word hit me like a slap. I shot up from the floor, the headache a white-hot spike behind my eyes.
'MY INEPTITUDES?!' I roared back in my head, the thought a raw nerve. 'Easy for you to say! You're not the one with a migraine trying to 'feel the flow'! You're just a voice, a backseat driver offering useless commentary while I'm the one actually trying to steer this piece of junk! You want to try it? Oh, wait, you can't!'
This was idiotic. The universe hands me magic, and the instruction manual says the first step is to become a houseplant. Sit. Breathe. Photosynthesise power. I was getting a pathetic trickle, and my arse was going numb. I got up and started pacing the room, the frustration a physical itch under my skin.
'It's a discipline, Murphy,' Ronan said, his tone that of a patient coach trying to teach a rock to swim. 'You can't brute-force it.'
'I can't do it at all!' I shot back. 'My brain isn't wired for this zen bullshit. It almost feels like that part of my mind is already being used for something else. Something important… Like the part of me that was able to sense the curse coming for us.'
'We don't have a choice,' he said grimly.
I just sat there thinking for a while. It's not like I wasn't trying. I was giving it everything I had, but my mind simply refused. I realised I needed to think outside the box and approached the problem from a different angle.
'Wait a minute,' I thought, the idea hitting me like a stray bullet. I can't do this for shit... but 'I' don't have to.
A profound silence filled our shared mind. It wasn't angry. It was calculating. 'Ronan… are you thinking what I'm thinking?'
'Fine,' Ronan finally projected, his voice now devoid of frustration, replaced by a cold, challenging calm. 'You want me to drive? Then let me drive. Sit down. Close your eyes. And for once in your miserable existence, shut up and do exactly as I say. Don't think. Don't push. Just follow my lead. I will guide you.'
The sheer arrogance of it was infuriating. But what choice did I have? I slumped back to the floor, crossed my legs, and closed my eyes. 'Alright, maestro. Let's see what you've got.'
'Breathe,' Ronan commanded. 'Slower. Match my rhythm.' I felt a subtle shift inside my own mind—a deep, resonant pulse that my body began to follow. 'Now, feel the Aether,' he said. 'Just... listen.'
He guided my senses, tuning my spiritual awareness until the faint, ambient static of the Aether resolved into a clear, humming signal. It had been there all along; I just hadn't known how to listen. The pathetic trickle of Aether I had managed before became a smooth, steady, and ruthlessly efficient flow, pouring into my Core. The splitting headache didn't just fade; it was washed away.
This is... easy, I thought, a spike of pure suspicion cutting through the blissful sensation. Too easy. After a thousand lifetimes, I knew one universal truth: nothing good is ever this easy.
So I decided to test it.
While keeping my posture perfect and my breathing even, I completely disengaged my mind from the process. I stopped trying. I stopped focusing. I let my thoughts drift, picturing a rubber chicken, then a Ford Pinto from the 1970s, then the lyrics to a sea shanty.
The flow of Aether didn't even stutter. It continued its smooth, powerful intake, utterly independent of my focus.
I wasn't doing anything at all.
My eyes snapped open. The grin that spread across my face was not a pleasant one.
'You magnificent bastard,' I projected, my mental voice a low, appreciative chuckle. 'You're not "guiding" me, are you? You're doing all the work. You've been doing it this whole time.'
The flow of Aether instantly ceased. A wave of pure, theatrical shock washed over me from his side, the performance of a man caught red-handed.
'By the Light!' he projected, his voice filled with feigned, wide-eyed wonder. 'You're right! I wasn't just guiding you... I was... doing it! Murphy, this is a miracle! I can channel my technique directly through you! I had no idea!'
He was a terrible actor, but I didn't care. The implications were too glorious. I didn't have to meditate. I didn't have to do the single most boring, frustrating thing I had ever attempted in any of my lives. I just had to sit here and be the hardware he ran the programme on.
'Incredible,' I projected back, playing along with his little discovery. 'So, how long can you keep it up for?'
'Indefinitely, I suppose,' Ronan replied instantly, his mind on his own nature. 'My spirit doesn't tire.'
He fell right into the trap.
'Great,' I thought, a grin stretching my face as I lay back on the floor and put my hands behind my head. 'You take the night shift.'
A beat of horrified silence echoed in my skull as he realised what I meant.
Waking up didn't feel like waking up. It felt like the low, electric hum of a server farm had been installed in my chest.
The night's "forging," as Ronan so dramatically called it, had worked. His method was brutally simple: spiritual weightlifting for the masochist. To expand the Core, we had to drain our mana to absolute zero, stretch the container, and then refill it.
But since voluntarily dispelling a clone just refunded the energy, we had to get violent. We would summon our maximum of three clones and then... well, we had to kill them. A simple, efficient stab to the gut was enough to shatter the containment shell and force the mana to dissipate into the air. It was a waste, but it was the only way to hit empty.
The kicker was the memory feedback. Every time a clone popped, I got the vivid, first-person experience of being stabbed to death. For anyone else, doing that three times a night would be a one-way ticket to the asylum. But me? I'm probably the only being in existence messed up enough to remain mentally stable through it. I spent a thousand years dying in creative ways; a gut wound is just a Tuesday.
Then, we would lie there, hollowed out and aching, letting the ambient magical radiation slowly trickle-charge the Core back up. Then we'd do it again.
The process felt less like magic and more like tearing a muscle, which was apparently the point. Scar tissue is stronger than skin. Each cycle expanded the Core's capacity, pushing it from 'Light' to 'Solid' to 'Dark'. The final step to levelling up involved taking that fully expanded 'Dark' core and crushing it down into a new, denser 'Light' version of the next tier.
It hurt like hell. The universe, as always, demanded its pound of flesh.