Forged Legacy

“So, what do we do next?” Cassandra asked. “I promise I’ll do my best to stay calm, but I want to be kept in the loop.”

“I think the first step is for Dad and Tyler to create their classes. Fighting now doesn’t do much good if you can’t gain any levels,” Harvey explained.

“Not me?” Eleanor asked. Harvey looked at his sister. She’d grown up a lot since he left home, breaking free of her cocoon and leaving the shy little caterpillar he’d known so well behind. That didn’t stop him from seeing that right now she’d love nothing more than to furl her wings around her and crawl back into her shell. Still, he wasn’t going to make the decision for her.

“Do you want to?”

“Umm… do you think you need me?” she asked.

Harvey laughed. It was just like when they were kids. Going back and forth because they were both too polite to make a decision. Part of him wanted to press a little further, but he’d give her the out she was looking for.

“Keeping track of Dad and Tyler is going to be hard enough as it is. You’re better off sticking to the curriculum unless you really want to fight.”

“Ok, great. I’ll wait then,” she eagerly agreed.

Harvey didn’t say anything, but he could see the relief wash over his father.

“So, should we head for the Loom?” Steve asked.

“Not yet. Cash said he’d swing by this afternoon, and I think it’s a good idea to talk to him first. Why don’t you spend some time coming up with a plan for what you want your class to be? You’ll create it with memories from your lives, your legacy, and the things you’ve learned in angel school.”

“But I don’t have a Legacy yet,” Tyler replied. “I haven’t gotten a Mark like Mom and Dad. Is that a problem?”

“Hannah still didn’t have her first Mark when we finished our trial,” Harvey said. “You’ll be fine. Even if the System hasn’t tattooed it on your body yet, you still have a legacy. You’ve lived a great life so far. Just try and find parts of you that you love and can turn into something.”

“I’ve spent half my life on baseball. I don’t see how that’s going to help me,” Tyler muttered.

“Why not? Swinging a bat, strength training, throwing stuff… Didn’t one of your teammates break a rib last season when he got hit by a pitch?” Harvey asked.

“Yeah?”

“So figure out a way to combine baseball with the Templar Class the angels use. Make it your own. Today, you saw the dark side of our new world, but there’s a lot to love about essence. Magic is real. It’s limitless. The System listens to what you want and helps you make it real.”

Unknowingly, his family had all started nodding. Brains paralyzed by fear sputtered back to life, replacing burning bodies with novel ideas. Except for Max. He’d gotten bored a while ago and fallen asleep with his mouth open.

“But… really?” Tyler hesitated, clearly struggling to bridge the gap between the game he loved and killing demons.

“Dream big! Until then, I’ll be in the garage,” Harvey smiled.

The door swung closed behind him, and he returned to his workbench, where the bottle of inferno ink still radiated a subtle, destructive aura.

[I have to say, Harvey. I’m impressed,] Julius said.

What do you mean?

[It’s like you’re a new person. I keep waiting for the scared guy I found stuck in a tree to come out, but you’re really keeping it together.]

He’s in here somewhere, but someone has to step up now that you… Harvey paused. Now that Julian is gone.

[He’s not gone, but he is proud. You know, when I first woke up, I thought I’d have to glue the pieces of you back together. I’m really glad I didn’t have to.]

Me too, Harvey chuckled. How are you doing? I’m sorry I don’t ask you more, things have just been pretty crazy.

[Actually, I’m pretty good. Amazing, even. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. Some existential dread to wash over me from knowing the old me died and got mashed into a large language model, but it hasn’t.]

I’m happy to hear that. You let me know if that changes. I want to help you any way I can.

[Thanks! That means a lot.]

Julian did the same for me.

[And now, you’re stepping up for your people.]

Harvey pulled out his gun and got to work inscribing the final arrays. Rings of absorption, dampening, and storage arrays stretched down the barrel in a complex network of interlocking runes. Instead of creating a System that splits the load equally, Harvey modified it so each of the three rings would charge completely before diverting energy to the next. Doing so gave him an easy visual to check how charged the gun was, and allowed him to regulate the power of the flames he released from the hammer. For normal enemies, he could release a single ring of energy for a moderate boost to bullet velocity. For harder targets, he could shoot until all three rings were chock full of energy before releasing it all at once.

With the kinetic half complete, he swapped to his newest bottle of ink and inscribed a set of transmutation and burst arrays that were nearly identical to Aftershocks. Doing so on a gun was much harder since he had less room to work with, but his dexterity and control had improved a lot since then. Harvey and Julius combined Willpower poured into the array, infusing the ink with both his Tempered Heart and Architect of the Veils End Imprint. He hoped his Legacy would reinforce the arrays while amplifying the essence inside as it all gathered in a single point no larger than a pencil eraser on the face of the revolver’s heavy hammer.

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“Done,” Harvey gasped, his hands heavy as the gun and steel tine he used as a pen clattered onto the workbench.

“Looks good,” Cash smiled from the doorway.

Burning light radiated from Harvey’s body as his Profession reached Level 42, giving him another 8 Free Points that he added to Dexterity with the rest from his last few levels.

“How long have you been standing there?” Harvey asked.

“Not long. I saw you were busy, so I had a chat with your Mom while you finished up.”

“How did you know I was done?”

“Your aura. I could feel your Imprints fading. Just how many do you have?”

“Three,” Harvey admitted.

“Damn, really? That explains a lot,” Cash chuckled.

“Explains what? Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Whenever I’ve heard people say that before, it was always a bad thing,” Harvey fussed.

“Could be both. Depends what the Imprints are. Narrow and wide paths both have their pros and cons.”

“Well, I’m going to stick with mine being a good thing. I was hoping you could help my dad and brother workshop a few ideas about their classes, though,” Harvey said.

“Sure! I was planning on giving you the integration crash course anyway, so it wouldn’t hurt to have them sit in. I hear you convinced your mom to let them keep fighting with us?”

“Begrudgingly, but I think she’ll get more comfortable once she sees how powerful Dad gets.”

Harvey rushed upstairs to grab his brother. “Cash is here!”

“Oh, really?”

A sonorous grating of wood against tile answered the question, and Harvey peered over the banister to see his mother dragging the ottoman from the living room couch into the kitchen.

“Our wings get caught on the chairs,” Cash explained.

“So that’s why the lounge I saw only had stools,” Harvey laughed.

His family gathered around the table, Eleanor and Cassandra joining in despite their decision to wait to create their own Class.

“Thanks again for helping us out,” Harvey said.

“No problem! I…” Cash began.

“So Harvey says I should include baseball in my Class, but that sounds stupid to me. Is that stupid?” Tyler blurted.

“Umm… I don’t know. What’s baseball?” Cash asked.

“Heaven doesn’t have baseball?!” Tyler gasped. “Come on, it’s the best!”

“It’s a sport,” Harvey clarified. “One team is trying to hit a ball with a bat so they can run a lap around the field before the other team catches the ball and tags them.”

“Not even close,” Tyler rejected.

“It’s pretty close,” Eleanor mumbled.

“No! Baseball is so much more than that! The crack of the bat when you finally hit the splitter that’s been painting the corner of the box all day. The rush of sliding on base just as the ball hits the glove. Snatching a missile right out of the air and making a double-play!" Tyler urged, eyes darting between his parents like he was waiting for backup.

“I didn’t understand a word you just said, but you clearly love it. If this sport is such a big part of your legacy, why wouldn’t you include some of it in your Class?” Cash asked.

“Because how is any of that supposed to help me kill dragons?”

“First off, you’re not going toe-to-toe with a dragon anytime soon. Beasts like that are taken down by tactics, not raw Strength. An entire platoon with frontline defenders, specialized damage dealers, and a few healers is needed to kill one without mass casualties.”

“But Harvey got reckless and ignored all that and tried to do it all himself?” Cassandra scoffed.

“I wouldn’t call it reckless. A healthy mix of brave and arrogant,” Cash smiled. “But to get back to your question. The most important thing when it comes to your Class and Profession is that it resonates with you. Who you are, what you like, and who you want to become.”

“So then why did we all get the same profession?” Steve asked.

“You wouldn’t be here if that Profession wasn’t a good fit. The integration trial you appear in is chosen by your Legacy. If you love baseball as much as it sounds like you do, then using it as a component of your Class will make sure that you love your chosen path.”

“Then why are we being trained to become Templars, Sentinels, and Shepards?” Tyler asked.

“Honestly? Most people don’t know what their legacy is. They might have a path that is a better fit than others, but their heart isn’t so set on something that walking an unproven path is worth it.”

“He’s only 17,” Cassandra said. “I’m almost 50, and I don’t even know what my Legacy is.”

Cash smiled warmly. “You don’t? I sense the Mark of the Devout on you. Both of you.”

“Yeah, but I hope that’s not the only thing I’m remembered for. I want people to remember that I was a good mother. A good friend. Someone you could rely on no matter what.”

“That’s another aspect, but one the System has yet to codify into a Mark. You humans seem to believe Legacy only matters when you die, but that’s not how the multiverse sees it. Your legacy is the tapestry of your life, added to the tapestry of the heavens. It’s the things you’ve done and the person you’ve become, and that is all constantly changing.”

“I’ve thought about this a lot,” Harvey interrupted. “Right now, Legacy is all theoretical, but I’ve seen how much it affects us with the System. What happens to all the skills and decisions we made based on it if our legacy changes down the road?”

“That’s why it’s important to build your life around principles you really care about. If it changes a little, you might find a mismatch with your skills that keeps you from infusing them with the power of your Legacy. I’m guessing you’re already running into this problem since there is no way all three of your Imprints overlap with the skills you’ve created so far,” Cash answered.

It was true. The concept of Innovation that birthed his Architect of the Veils End was generally useful with his skills since he’d created them with the goal of versatility, but Tempered Heart and The Guardian of the Gilded Return were too abstract to cleanly infuse anything other than his new bunker. They were both about protection, with one encapsulating his reforged willpower and the other relating to his role as the guardian for the dead returning to Earth. Besides Legacy’s Redoubt, only Fangburner had a direct connection to the concept, making it hard to take full advantage of his Imprints.

“Yeah. I kind of ended up with a hodgepodge of abilities,” Harvey admitted.

“That’s fine. You’re still early in your ascension and have plenty of time to solidify your path. If your Legacy changes too much, you might find that your Imprints turn to Scars. Gradual changes are fine, but violating your chosen path too much leads to punishment by the System.”

“I still don’t understand how any of this makes adding baseball to my Class a good idea,” Tyler said.

“It’s not about the game,” Cash said. “It’s about the person the game made you.”

“Think about it. You’ve spent thousands of hours at the batting cages, swinging over and over again, learning to see the spin of the laces coming out of the pitcher’s hand until you know when and where to swing before it gets anywhere close to you,” Harvey explained.

“Your Class should be something you’re willing to spend millions of hours doing. If that’s swinging a bat and throwing a ball, we can find a way to turn that into a path to power,” Cash added.

“Instead of reading a pitch, you’ll be reading an enemy's movements, finding the perfect moment to crack them with a homerun swing! You’ve worked on your strength, timing, and body control for years. The only difference now is you’re using it to fight demons instead of smacking the cover off a ball.”

Nobody spoke as disbelief gave way to excitement on Tyler’s face. He leaned forward, tapping the wooden table as they watched puzzle pieces slipping into place behind his eyes. To be honest, Harvey hadn’t been sure the idea was any good until Cash confirmed his hunch that the System rewarded a path that was true to your identity. That could pose problems for his own skillset, since he’d intentionally tried to become someone who could do everything all at once. Hopefully, his embracing the ‘Harvey path’ hadn’t sent him down a path of no return.

“So it’s less about the sport and more about all the training?” Tyler finally asked.

“The System doesn’t care what you like. It cares about what you’ve done. Your training is the foundation that Legacy, skills, and attuning your weave to the resonances of your path will be built on,” Cash said.

“Alright,” Tyler smiled. “This could work!”