System Change

Once Derek was seated comfortably in his chair, he went ahead and pulled another out and sat it across from him on the rug. Alanah half-snorted, then walked over to it and sat down. “You and your chairs…” she quipped, but then sighed. “Do I really need to do this now?”

“No,” Derek said. “Not at all. Whatever it is, it’s yours to share or keep secret. If you don’t feel comfortable sharing it with me, then, by all means, don’t. I wouldn’t want you to do something you don’t want to.”

“No…” Alanah sighed again and shook her head. “There’s no point in delaying the inevitable—I might as well tell you sooner rather than later, so you’re not wondering about it while we are running the dungeons.”

“It’s something important?” Derek asked. “Is it bad?”

“That depends on who you ask,” Alanah replied. “Personally… I’m quite thrilled. But also, I’m sure there are going to be many, many people who are even more thrilled than I am about what is going on.”

“Stella didn’t seem too thrilled,” Derek replied. “She seemed pretty put off, actually.”

“Mhm…” Alanah nodded her head. “She doesn’t know the specifics—I can’t… I can’t tell her the exact specifics. But, it affects her and Avery the most… well, other than myself. I’m unsure if I’ll be able to tell you the specifics, but something tells me that I’ll be able to tell you more than I can most people.”

“Oh?” Derek leaned forward. He was pretty interested in what had kept Alanah from visiting for so long, but with what she was currently saying, he was on the edge of his seat… quite literally.

“Mhm…” she muttered again, then sighed for the third time. “I think—I’m not sure—but I think that I’ll be leaving soon.”

“Leaving?” Derek furrowed his brows. “We already left,” he said. “We’re not even in Cydaria anymore. Do you mean that you’re leaving the continent—going across the sea? That’s where you’re from, right? Is there something there that you need to do?”

“No… well, yes, actually,” Alanah said. “If we have time, I would like us to cross the sea and explore over there. And there is a place that I would love to visit now that I’m not a young girl. It’s a place that I spent a very long time in, and all I could do the whole time was try to survive. However, that is not what I’m talking about.”

“Oh,” Derek said. “Well, I would be happy to check out the other continent with you.”

“Thank you,” Alanah chuckled. “But what I’m talking about is that I think I will be leaving everyone… behind.”

“What do you mean?” Derek asked.

“That’s the tricky part,” Alanah replied. “When I try to say more than that…” she looked up into the sky. “When I try to say more than that, the Great System…”

“Gotcha,” Derek said. “It’s a system oath.” It wasn’t hard to figure out what she was hinting at. He also had a forced system oath that he had to abide by unless he was speaking to Silvi—who was kind of part of him—or the weird elf, Dave. He knew that the reason he could speak to Dave about the other systems and everything else was because the guy was likely an admin for the Great System, so he already knew everything—most things—that was going on with Derek.

“Exactly!” Alanah said with a bright smile. “I wasn’t even able to get that far with my words when I was speaking with Stella and Avery.”

“So that’s why Stella didn’t seem herself,” Derek said.

“Yes. I basically told her that I may be leaving, but I couldn’t give her an actual answer on why. She isn’t mad at me… she’s just mad at the world right now,” Alanah said.

“And Avery?” Derek asked.

“He took it much better,” Alanah said. “It was easier for him to understand that it is something that I must do. He was disappointed, of course, and sad. He has been with me since he was very young. He…” she chuckled again. “He’s like a son to me and my best friend. I practically raised him, so he understands me better than anyone.”

“I see,” Derek said.

“Stella… I met when she was still a young girl, but she was quite a bit older than Avery was when I met him. She also hadn’t gone through quite as much as him. I helped her out a lot, and she ended up where she’s at because she believed that she owed me a debt.” Alanah smiled warmly and shook her head. “She didn’t. She never did. But soon enough, she was always there. So, I took her in and gave her some duties—which she accomplished swiftly and perfectly. It was to the point where she even veered off of her preferred path so she could help me better.

“I told her time and time again that she didn’t need to do anything for me, but she wouldn’t listen.” Alanah chuckled loudly. “That’s pretty ironic, huh? Someone not listening? To me?”

“I guess it is,” Derek said with a laugh. “There aren’t many people who are able to not listen to you.”

“Too true,” Alanah replied, and let out a breath. “Soon enough, I began to rely on her—probably too much. If Avery was my right hand, then she became my left. I began giving her more and more tasks because I knew she could do them better than anyone else—better than Avery, even. Eventually, it was too much, and that’s when she met you in Torith—she was taking a break from me.”

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“Oh…”

“To be honest, I was happy when she left without me telling her to,” Alanah said. “Sure, it made everything much more lonely without her, but I thought that maybe once she got some time to herself, she would continue on her preferred path. Then she met you and she quickly switched back to being the manager of the Crown and that was that.”

“Sorry,” Derek said.

“Don’t be,” Alanah replied. “Because of you… so many great things have happened. You took down the Toriths and made the kingdom safer. You lit a fire under Avery and he began doing things that he wanted to do instead of just being there in case I needed him. Even Stella got a lot of fight back in her—so much so that she joined an adventuring party with your friends. You don’t know how happy that made me.” Again, Alanah’s smile turned warm. “And that is all without mentioning fighting beside me and turning a war into a complete alliance.”

“I guess I’m pretty awesome,” Derek said shamelessly.

“And then there’s your companion, that horned rabbit,” Alanah said. “In all my years, I’ve never seen a bonded beast companion be that unique. Most of the time, beast companions do nothing but wait around for their bonded masters to need them. But, I believe, that since you do not actually rely on her strength, and instead treat her as family—as an equal—she became something great. She is a beast companion who could become independent.

“I also believe that Avery saw that, and Lyra is becoming such a beast companion,” Alanah said. “She has taken to watching over those dragonkin. Not because she was ordered to, but because she wants to. I am indebted to you for allowing those two to meet.”

“Stop it,” Derek said and waved her comments away. “You’re going to make me blush.” He laughed. “It’s too bad for Edgar, though. Blitz…”

“Indeed,” Alanah said. “That dragon has a hard enough time flying and spitting lightning at the same time. If not for Edgar’s commands, he wouldn’t know which way was up.”

Derek and Alanah both had a good laugh at that. Once they were finished laughing, Alanah looked at Derek seriously.

“Now…” she began. “Let’s see how much I can actually tell you.”

“I’m all ears,” Derek answered. He hadn’t said anything, but hearing that she was going to be leaving everyone—leaving him—had created a bit of a knot in his stomach. With the short amount of time they had spent together, he had come to recognize her as a very good friend, and someone who could possibly keep up with him—someone who he wouldn’t just leave completely in the dust. And, by the fact that she had brought him out to dungeon dive privately with her, she thought of him in the same way.

“The… system oath…” she said, testing it out on her tongue—probably to make sure that it wasn’t a fluke. She smiled again when nothing happened. “The system oath, it was… forced.” She winced when she spoke, but her smiled brightened again.

“As I expected,” Derek said. “I… believe that if it is something that we both already know about or have experienced, we can talk about it,” he explained.

“In that case,” Alanah said. “Let me start at the beginning.”

“Go ahead.”

“My Metamorphosis skill…” she said.

“The one that turns you into an actual siren?”

“Yes,” she replied. “It is called Metamorphosis: Dawn Siren,” she explained. “It was both an active and passive skill. My class already causes my voice to have influence over others, but I had begun to be able to control that. Then, I received my class upgrade, and with it, that skill. It was the only way I was able to survive like I did, so, even though I couldn’t control it at all, I still used it.

“If we go to the other continent, I’m sure there will still be horror stories being told of the Dawn Siren because of my lack of control when I used it,” she said with a sigh. “It wasn’t especially bad at the beginning, but when it started out leveling my other skills and my wisdom stat, I began to lose more and more control. When it was at level 19, I crossed the sea. After that, I was more cautious. Nobody knew who I was. So I never had to use it again.

“Unfortunately, as the skill leveled, so too did the passive influence of it—to the point where very few people would be able to hold a conversation with me. It took a very long time to gain what control I had and allow the influence to fade once someone was with me for a long period. That is also how I learned that there was something else other than wisdom that could combat it—something innate…” she explained.

“Willpower,” Derek said.

“Exactly,” Alanah said with a nod. “Avery has more willpower than anybody I’ve ever met—anyone other than you. I believe that you may be the one person whose willpower may surpass his own.”

“I can see that,” Derek said. I suppose you gain quite a bit of willpower being stuck in the void for decade or centuries… or millennia even. “Or maybe it’s my insanity working in place of willpower,” he chuckled. Maybe my mind broke so many times that it’s too fucked up for someone else to gain control over, he thought, but didn’t say.

“You’re actually being serious…” Alanah said with raised eyebrows. “I… I want to know more… but later.”

“Sounds good,” Derek said. It’s about time I let someone know about me.

“Anyway,” Alanah said before continuing her story. “Because I was finally able to speak freely with Avery, I was terrified that if I ever leveled that skill again, I would never be able to speak freely with anyone again. So, I refused to even acknowledge its existence. But again, you came along. I used my full active voice on you, and you barely flinched. That gave me a bit of hope.”

“That’s what I’m here for,” Derek said with a chuckle.

“Yes… I’m sure it is…” Alanah rolled her eyes. “But yes, when the combined army of Indria and Astrus attacked and things were looking grim, I was forced to use Metamorphosis once again. In my head, I prayed that I could use it just long enough to not level it, then your raid party would return and I wouldn’t have to use it again. However, if it did level, in the back of my mind, I knew that I would still have you to speak to.”

“That’s putting a lot of faith in me,” Derek said.

“No, it’s not. You’re strong. Stronger than me, and you aren’t even finished growing.” She pointed at the dungeon orb. “All of this is proof of that.”

“Okay… I probably would have been fine,” Derek said.

“Exactly,” Alanah said with a nod. “So,” she continued her story. “With all that in mind, I transformed. Surprisingly, I had much more control over the transformation than ever before. Of course, my wisdom and other stats had increased greatly over that time, but I have to imagine that my willpower did so too.

“I went all out in the fight. I drove back the entire army—including Ryven and his barriers. Savannah was safe. Then I saw Edgar appear on Blitz. After that, I lost consciousness.” Alanah took another deep breath. “When I woke up, Stella came in to speak with me. And when I spoke back, she was fine. So, I believed that the skill hadn’t leveled during the fight.

“However, after she left, I looked over my notifications, and, to my shock and happiness, the skill had leveled. You do not know how immensely happy I was at that moment. My Metamorphosis skill had leveled to max, and Stella was able to speak freely with me as usual, without me putting in any extra effort to control it than usual.”

“I can imagine the relief,” Derek said, then waited for the siren to continue.

“The skill was level 20, and I could control it. Not only that, but I could also speak to my people like usual. Instantly, I knew that I had a trump card and that I, along with Edgar and Blitz, would be able to hold the army off until you and the raid party returned,” the woman explained. “Then, however, I reached the final notification I had gotten once the fighting was over.”

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