VRMMO: World's First Glyphborne-Chapter 22: The Awakening

Belladonna cracked her eyes open and let out a low groan. Her head was beginning to throb softly, so she placed her fingers against her temple and started to massage it, only to recoil in pain a second later.

She shot up, hissing and letting out low groans of pain.

"Ugh, What the hell..."

She tenderly touched the temple, feeling another jolt of pain like she was pressing into a fresh cut. At the same time her fingers brushed against the painful area, however, he vision switched. Once more the world was an array of mind bending and stomach churning colours.

Belladonna managed to last a second longer than last time, before her head started to throb once more. On a whim, she gently tapped her temple and held back the winces, as her vision swapped back to normal.

A few more painful taps, which at this point felt like she was stabbing herself with a needle, confirmed her theory. A single tap was all it took to shift her vision now, allowing her to do it completely on command.

She also discovered that only her right temple was painful, the left was perfectly fine.

Once she was satisfied with her new condition, Belladonna finally looked around the room she had been sleeping in. It was rather empty, bar for the bed and the table beside it. However she found herself fascinated with rustic masonry walls that most modern people would absolutely die for. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

A house with walls like this would be a fortune now, as every house now was either printed or pre-fabricated and quickly constructed together. While many decorated their houses to look like they had brick walls, the real thing - especially of old, castle style stone bricks like this - was beyond rare.

Once she was done admiring the walls, Belladonna plucked the cup of water that was resting on the beside table and quickly downed half the glass, before checking her reflection in the dregs that remained.

Her right hand temple had a strange symbol carved into it. The flesh was still slightly red and raw, yet it showed no hints of healing whatsoever.

However, she wasn’t stupid enough to ask the ’How is this possible?’ question twice in one day. Magic, that was going to be the answer. Sure, there might be a more robust and detailed answer, but that was always going to be the gist of it. Magic. It was great for the game devs to brush away whatever they didn’t feel like explaining.

How does a dragon fly even though its too big? Magic. How does this island float? Magic. How does this floating island have enough water for its infinite waterfall? MAGIC!

Clambering out of bed, Belladonna pulled fresh clothes from her bag - which she found laying at the end of the bed as if by magic - before heading out of the strange bedroom and down a spiral stone staircase, checking her missed notifications.

[Time remaining till forced log-out: 00:09:32]

’Forced log out? Must be time to end the beta test. 9 minutes isn’t too bad though. What else...’

[You have formed a source! Source energy may be used to awaken bloodline potential and release your latent innate talent.]

[Awakening Bloodline Potential...]

[Bloodline Potential Awakened! You have unleashed your hidden potential and developed the innate talent - Polaris.]

’Polaris? Is that supposed to be like the north pole? So it’s to do with cold? No, that’s stupid. Magnetic North... something to do with metal then. I wonder how that will work.’

Rummaging around in her bag, Belladonna pulled out her coin pouch. It was easier to find that she expected, as she could almost feel the pull of the coins. It was subtle, so subtle that it took a lot of coins for her to feel it. But it was definitely there.

She pulled out a single Brut coin and rested it in her palm. The copper coin bounced in her hand as she descended down the stairs, but after a few bounces the coin wobbled slightly, and stayed at an inclined angle.

A soft chuckle escaped Belladonna’s lips as, with a little concentration, she slowly made the coin stand up until it was on its edge. Making it float above her palm was the hard part, and she could barely get it a few centimetres from her skin, but once it was in the air she gave it a gentle flick.

It floated above her palm, bobbing along with her movement and slowly spinning from the force of her flick, keeping its momentum with only small amounts of air friction to slow it.

"Ah, I see you’ve discovered your innate ability. Congratulations, not many have one. Hopefully, it will be a useful one to you."

Belladonna was still playing with the coin by the time she reached the bottom of the stairs, but as soon as the wizard spoke she lost her concentration which caused it to flop back onto her palm.

She quickly pocketed the coin and smiled back at him,

"Yeah, It seems like it will. I already have a few ideas of how to use it, but I will need to test out the limitations and practice with it a bit more before its really useful."

The wizard smirked at her comment and gave a respectful nod,

"That is why I like you. Thoughtful, Studious and Persistent. It’s one thing to throw yourself at a wall until you defeat it, like the other graceless. It is another to use it as a chance to dissect the wall so you can build a stronger one yourself."

He nodded at her again, before turning back to his work. He was currently sat at a wooden desk holding something that looked like a strange blend between a scalpel and a fountain pen. It had the two tongs of the pen, but no rounded top or ink well.

Instead the tip, which was made of a strange deep purple stone instead of metal, was sharpened to a deadly point.

He was using this pen to carve strange symbols, similar to the one that was carved into her own head, into a silver gilded skull. The skull in question appeared human, although had much longer k-9 teeth than a human.

Two gems had been slotted into the eye sockets, the left sporting a blue sapphire while the right was fitted with a crimson ruby. Both were carved with their own runes.

Taking some rabbit jerky from her bag to satiate her grumbling stomach, Belladonna idly chewed on it as she leaned on the side of the Wizard’s work desk.

"So, what are you working on? What’s the funky pen for?"

"This ’funky pen’ is a specially enchanted tool specifically made for runic scribing. Not only is the material perfect for cutting through all sorts of materials and for channelling mana with minimal loss, it has the unique trait of subduing increased healing.

You see it is created by.."

Belladonna smirked to herself as the Wizard blabbed on once more. She took another smug bite of her jerky as she thought,

’See? I knew it. Magic pen. Val, you really are a genius. Oh right, I should probably be paying attention. You know my old teachers used to say I drifted off a lot too... Meh, it’s probably nothing. They were boring anyways.’

By the time she tuned back in, the Wizard was still talking but thankfully he was getting near the end of his mini lesson,

"... due to this process, while one might think it would be suitable for creating deadly weapons it is actually very brittle and delicate. Even creating inscribing tools demands an expert craftsmen.

Many have tried making swords or arrows with it, but it always breaks at any attempt to actually harm with it.

As for what I am making, I will tell you once it is finished. No point in telling you if I can’t demonstrate it. Where is the fun in that?

For now, you should be more interested in that object over there."

He gestured with his pen, pointing to a small statue that sat against a wall near the door. It had a little indent in the wall, as if the space had been perfectly created just for the existence of this little statue.

The statue depicted a small humanoid creature, perhaps only two feet tall, with bone thin arms and legs. It was wearing loose rags, which were depicted surprisingly well within the stone visage.

The creature had no nose, instead had a pair of slits where a nose would be like a snake, and had long pointed ears that dropped at the end.

It’s mouth was filled with sharp, needle teeth and was twisted into a mischievous smile. The creature held a small, stone plate above its head as if it was begging for scraps, yet its eyes were filled with a beckoning gaze, almost as if it was daring you to place something on the plate instead. They were the eyes of a troublemaker.