Echoes Of The Seven

“Regardless of the current circumstances of the Obelisk,” Professor Konderlacht loudly cleared her throat- commanding attention back from the room. “The fact of the matter is that the Obelisk is still holding together, and seems that it will continue to do so for at least the next while.”

“Do we evacuate the school?” Professor Peace asked from his seat beside her. Konderlacht shook her head.

“No. If it truly is as powerful as we imagine it to be, no evacuation radius will save anyone. Our efforts are better spent attempting to understand it, fixing the Obelisk, or trying to neutralize the magic so that if it does break, it does not turn into a bomb.”

“Fix the Obelisk?” This time, it was Alex that chirped up- about half a second before Eris herself was going to ask the same thing. The pale, muscular Metalsmith- Baker- who was standing by the kitchen counter and calmly polishing off the last of her girlfriend’s cookie gave a shrug.

“Well, yeah. We crafters don’t just make things- we fix them, too. By Grihm, some of us get more skills dedicated to making repairs than we do for actually making the stuff. Obviously it’s still diminishing returns since you can only patch armor so many times before you’ve basically got a whole new suit made of replacement parts, but you can keep the same thing going for a long damned time.”

“And with the knowledge that there are almost certainly other Echoes within the Obelisk being used for power, it lends credence to the theory that your energy was helping the Obelisk to fix itself.”

Eris looked back over to the voice, which came from the black haired mother of Jaxie’s future child. Private Grace McMerkel. The black-haired girl suddenly seemed a bit awkward about all the eyes on her, but cleared her throat.

“I mean, if it was already using the energy of other Echoes to supplement for the physical damage it has sustained, then adding Eris to the pool almost definitely meant it started using her energy naturally. Since it also seemed to have a bigger effect than any other Echo that may be inside, it means being an Artificer means there is a deeper connection there. If anyone can fix it, it would be her.”

“Uhh, but what about the Warden?” Bailey asked. Eris raised an eyebrow.

“What about it?”

Elmas idly twisted her wedding ring. “The Warden’s effects that you Inspected, Eris. Only the first Echo of Alda within that prison realm was bound to the Obelisk and giving it power.”

“And I know you only gave us a quick rundown of the business,” Bailey tossed a poof of hair over her shoulder, “but didn’t you say you’re an Echo of Demeri?”

Eris thought back to her Gifting; that black abyss of endlessness with the shimmering shape of rainbow mist that spoke to her. She nodded.

“I mean, I think so? That’s what the thing told me it was.” Recalling the encounter was easy. Sure, it had happened a month ago now, but it was so strange and important that it had practically been branded into Eris’s memory word for word.

“It said it was a memory. A will to continue left after the existence of the gods faded. It was the ghost that was left behind, what remains of the Seven, and was what we all bound our oath to. It was what did the Gifting in the first place. It gave us all our power.”

“And it decided to use the last of its power to turn you into an Artificer?” Konderlacht raised an eyebrow. Eris nodded.

“Apparently. Though the Seven were gone, Demeri left behind the ghost to… give humanity a chance, I guess? However, it could only do that for so long, and it was getting weaker. Then it said that I was ‘the instrument of cleansing it had been waiting for’. It chose me, and made me an Echo while apparently using the last of its power to do so.”

“Anything else?” Professor Kull asked. Eris shrugged.

“The last thing it said was for me to ‘continue the cycle’. I don’t really know what it meant by that, though.”

“Maybe it just meant to keep the cycle of life and death going?” Bailey offered. “I mean, if the Hollow takes over and corrupts the world, then it’s just… death. No more life, and no more cycle.”

“That would be my assumption,” Konderlacht nodded. “Regardless, you are an Echo of Demeri the Augur, not Alda the Promise. The Warden should not have been capable of binding your essence to the Obelisk in the way that Miss McMerkel is theorizing.”

The short Weaver, idly playing with the incredibly long black-and-green grands of her hair, cocked her head. “But there was definitely a connection- even before Eris was inside, right? All the groups that went in with Eris’s items got really weird stuff, a prophecy, and glowing items. All that was before Eris even touched the thing.”

The room fell quiet for a long moment. Eventually, it was the mohawk Stonecutter who brought up the Magus bombs that coughed. “Really? Nobody’s got a theory?”

“I don’t see you dropping any offers…” the caramel-skinned Leatherworker sitting on the ground beside her shrugged. Man, Eris really needed to work on learning their names. Meanwhile, the Stonecutter rolled her eyes.

“Yeah, but we’ve got twenty damned people in this room. One of us has to think of something.”

Once again, the living room went quiet. Eris opted for another nibble of the delicious cookie in her grip, which tasted just as good as the first bite. Gods, she needed to ask for this recipe. After a long while, it was a person that Eris didn’t expect to speak that broke the silence. A person with rainbow-coloured hair and eyes that almost went unblinking as she surveyed every single person in the room.

“It is possible that the reason there was a connection is because the Obelisk was meant to connect with her?”

All eyes turned to Nima, who sat calmly with her back against the wall. That unblinking stare of hers went immediately to Professor Greene as the blonde man chirped up.

“What do you mean by that?”

Nima raised an eyebrow in thoughtful contemplation, then fixed her gaze on Eris. “The ghost of Demeri said you were ‘the cleansing instrument they were waiting for’, correct? Exact wording?”

“I think so?” Eris mumbled. Nima nodded.

“If that is the exact wording that was used, there are two ways of interpretation. Option one is that Eris was the first one the ghost deemed worthy to bestow with the power of an Echo, but I find that unlikely if it really had been the one bestowing power for over four hundred years. There have been hundreds of thousands of Gifted. Logically, one should have been chosen to be an Echo centuries ago.”

“It’s not that simple,” Eris said. “Pravala…”

Her voice faltered. Jaxie gave a helpful squeeze to Eris’s hand, and the redhead took a shaky breath.

“Pravala said that only the purest of hearts can be chosen as Echoes because all of our power comes from sin. Only by doing bad things can we have the power to do good, so the Seven only choose the purest hearts to bear that power.”

Eris squeezed Jaxie’s hand back. “I suppose it’s like a form of self-regulation in that way. It’s much harder for anyone to abuse the power if anyone who has it despises what they have to do to become stronger.”

“You can’t have been the one and only pure-hearted person to have ever partaken in the Gifting,” Nima said flatly. “It is a statistical impossibility. With hundreds of thousands of Gifted, there would have been one before you that qualified, and they should have been the one to become an Echo, but they didn’t. If Demeri’s ghost was simply looking for the first qualified applicant to make into an Echo, it would have picked centuries ago.”

“Then why is Ell the Echo?” Jaxie asked. Nima blinked. Jaxie sighed and clarified. “Ell is Eris’s nickname.”

The rainbow-haired girl nodded. “Thank you for the clarification. I think that Eris was turned into an Echo because Demeri picked her to be an Echo. Nobody else.”

Bailey raised an eyebrow. “Uhh, yeah? That’s why she’s an Echo? She was picked.”

Nima blinked again. “I don’t believe my point is coming across. Let me attempt to rephrase.”

The room went silent for a number of moments, waiting for Nima’s response. It was a while before Eris realized that Nima was likely piecing the sentences together in her head- trying to figure out a different way of saying what she meant. It was nearly twenty seconds of painfully awkward silence before Nima finally, blessedly, began talking again.

“Demeri is the goddess of fate and prophecy. Foresight and knowing future events is her domain. There is a possibility that Eris wasn’t chosen at the time she partook in the Gifting, she could have been chosen by Demeri to become an Echo sometime in the past. Possibly before the Sundering altogether. When the ghost said it had been waiting for her, it might not have meant that it was waiting for someone ‘like’ Eris. It was specifically waiting for Eris herself.”

Lots of eyebrows in the room furrowed. Professor Powell grunted. “That’s a bold claim.”

Nima blinked, unbothered. “There are other supporting facts to the theory.”

The dean went quiet, an obvious invitation for Nima to explain. Nima, however, stayed silent. She looked out at the room, all staring at her expectantly. After a moment, she narrowed her eyes. “Is there something on my face?”

“Excuse me?” Jaxie asked.

“All of you are staring at me.”

“Yeah, because we’re waiting for you to explain,” Bailey smirked.

Nima let out a little ‘Oh’. She cleared her throat. “Apologies. Other facts that may support this theory is the effects of the Obelisk itself when it came into contact with Eris’s magic. Our party and a few others entered with Eris’s created items, and all of us encountered strange puzzles before being shown the same poem which we assume is a prophecy. As far as we are aware, that has never, ever happened before- not even when parties have entered bearing other Artificer artifacts. Eris’s were the only ones that caused a reaction, implying that it is not the energy of Artificers in general, but rather her presence in specific. I think that prophecy was meant for Eris herself to see when she entered the Obelisk as her authorization would grant.”

“If I really was being expected from some ancient preparations, then why was I sent to a prison instead of where I could see this prophecy?” Eris cocked her head. Nima responded as calm and collected as usual.

“We have already established that the Obelisk was not functioning as intended because of the drastic extent of damage, have we not? Your energy either as an Artificer, or an expected individual, should have allowed you to access a message left behind for you. However, there is a chance that the severe damage of the Obelisk caused your permissions to instead slip into a location that had likely been deemed ‘Off-limits’- the prison realms. It was us, with a fraction of your energy in the form of your items, that got slightly adjusted to where you were originally supposed to be instead of shoved where you ended up.”

Boy, this was getting strange. Well, strange-er. Of course, it was just a theory, but Eris didn’t know what to believe at this point. Someone could come along and say that the Obelisk was actually made of cheese and Eris might consider it. She sighed- the edges of an informational overload headache tingling her temples.

“And what is this prophecy anyway? I haven’t actually heard it yet.”

“Oh, right,” Bailey muttered. “She was still asleep when we had this conversation…”

Elmas cleared her throat. “It had been translated from Ra’lan, so the wording is stiff and unclear. It goes; ‘Four pains control the mountain fear, three storms rage for grove of war. Two people trapped for lost punish, one soul awakens the endless beast’. Considering the context clues of your energy causing it to appear in the first place, and your last name meaning ‘Soul’ in Ra’lan, we believe that ‘one soul’ may be referring to you. That is as much as we can decipher without any other information, however.”

Unfortunately, something was tickling in the back of Eris’s head. ‘One soul awakens the endless beast’. Something about that just wasn’t rubbing the right way and causing friction- a connection desperately trying to form right on the tip of Eris’s tongue. She was almost elated when that connected finally formed- until the actual realization turned her heart cold. Obviously, something changed in her face since Jaxie narrowed her eyes and gently squeezed Eris’s hand. “Eris, you okay?”

“I- uhh…” Eris swallowed, her throat feeling dry. “When Pravala was showing me the memory of her being judged by the Conclave, and everything about Miknalor and Akkaru’um and stuff, one of the Conclave members referred to Akkaru’um as the ‘Endless Beast’.”

The room went quiet and the temperature seemed to drop like ice. Goosebumps rose on Eris’s arms. Nima furrowed her brow. “If the prophecy states that you awaken the Endless Beast, does that not imply that you are to release Akkaru’um from the Obelisk and cause the end of the world through Miknalor?”

Meghan coughed. “No shit, Rainbow. Did you not notice everyone collectively shit a brick?”

“... How would someone defecate a brick?”

“Nothing has been confirmed” Professor Konderlacht cleared her throat far louder than necessary- stifling the silence in the room before it could settle.

“We don’t even know if it is a prophecy to begin with, nor if Miss Kadell is a part of it. We have no confirmations on anything right now and can only operate on theories. There is only one certainty right now, and that is that Miss Kadell is an Artificer. An Echo, blessed with power beyond others, and that she is on our side in this war against the Hollow. Furthermore, there are many tests that still need to be done to understand the extent of her capabilities.” She narrowed her eyes. “On that matter, did you learn anything of note about Desire’s Reap?”

The goosebumps of anxiety on Eris’s arms faded into a deep blush on her face as the realization set in. Everyone in this room, including Dad who was sitting right beside her, was acutely aware of the fact that Eris, Alex, and Jaxie had just spent the last hour upstairs in her room, banging each other’s brains out multiple times. Eris coughed, trying to ignore the heat in her cheeks.

“Uhh- erm… you seem to be right about reducing the cooldown when the skill levelled up, because it doesn’t have one. Not anymore.”

“It doesn’t?” Professor Kull narrowed his eyes. “You were able to gather Desire multiple times in succession?”

Alex nodded, though Eris could see that the Knight was just as red as she was. “Yes. That’s the main reason it- umm… took so long?” Alex looked like she wanted to die as she sputtered. “We tested it… a few times.”

Thankfully, Jaxie came to both of the embarrassed girls’ rescue. Though, even her own face was not completely devoid of red.

“Eris also got significantly more points than previously. Usually, a session between the three of us would have given fourty to fifty points. The one we did with Bailey the morning we all went into the Obelisk gave about seventy.”

It was the quiet blonde Woodcarver sitting on the stairs, who had been completely silent for the entire conversation up to this point, that asked. “How many points did you get?”

Eris cleared her throat. “About three hundred and fifty points per test.”

“-And we tested four times.” Jaxie concluded. “Now, it definitely would have been a lot less if we weren’t her Wonders. After all, it says that Eris gets skill progression from our sins. She already gets Desire from sex, so having all three of us doing it with each other was probably tripling the amount she would have gotten otherwise.”

Dad suddenly looked far more awkward, scratching the back of his head from his seat beside Eris. “That-... that math still doesn’t add up?”

Gods, this was embarrassing. Eris wanted to shrivel up into a ball. Thankfully, even Jaxie had a definitive blush on her cheeks as she described the specifics of their sex lives to Dad.

“Well- the final upgrade of the skill also removed all the specifications of the activities that give Desire, so it probably encompasses everything- from the actual thing to even something like undressing each other. Honestly, the amount of points Eris was getting just from the three of us looking at each other naked in between tests was more than any of our previous sessions before the Obelisk.”

Dad nodded awkwardly, averting his gaze. “Yeah- okay, okay.”

Alex then coughed quietly. “And we weren’t alone.”

Eris managed a nod, her face burning. “It seems to encompass all sexual acts, with bonuses on the arousal of everyone and the… the depravity of the actions. If we’re doing it in front of people, it’d probably be a big bonus.”

“Especially if they like the show…” Jaxie grinned.

Of course, every eye in the room turned to the fully armoured bodyguard who was standing in the corner, having been completely silent for the entire meeting. Carmine Charlotte had, at one point, taken off her helmet to eat the cookie provided for her and not put it back on- instead holding it under one arm. It let Eris see the woman’s lightly-tanned face turning a deep shade of pink. Her soft brown eyes stared in humility at the floor between her metal boots as if counting the strands on the carpet, and a few locks of curly brown hair peeked out from underneath a simple, pale green bandana wrapped tight to keep it all in place and out of her eyes. A remarkably plain-looking woman, who was once again covered up as Charlotte quickly slid her full-face helmet back on to most definitely hide her blush.

Professor Kull acknowledged loudly.

“Regardless, there being no apparent cooldown anymore since the skill has not only been levelled up, but reached its maximum level means that Miss Kadell can increase the rate of her progression even faster than we anticipated. How many points do you have currently?”

Eris took a quick look inwards.

Desire’s Reap {Passive} {Level 4 - Maxed}

Engage in sexual acts with others to collect Desire. Additional Desire is collected based on the arousal of the active participant(s) and depravity of the acts performed. Current Desire: 8,036

“Eight thousand and thirty-six points.”

“Are there any skills you can level up with that amount?” Professor Konderlacht asked, the superintendent interlacing her fingers in her lap. Eris shook her head.

“I don’t think so. They all seem to increase in a predictable way of ten times the previous amount. For all of my first-level skills, they took twenty-five points to bring to second level, two hundred and fifty for level three, twenty-five hundred for four, then twenty-five thousand for five. Except bringing them to level five also evolved them into an upgraded version that was then level one again. For example, Novice Artificer started at a twenty-five percent bonus to Quality at level one, went to fifty percent at two, seventy five at three and a hundred percent at four. However, instead of going to a hundred and twenty five percent at level five, it went up to a hundred and fifty percent, with the skill then being Adept Artificer, Evolution one, level one. It also added the effect that if I only use my own tools, the bonus is doubled. When levelling it up in the evolved state, it also went from a twenty-five percent boost per level to seventy five, I think?”

Professor Peace leaned forward, his aged face clearly intrigued. “Fascinating…” Eris swallowed and continued.

“It also partially reset the cost to level it up again, but increased the base that it multiplied from. It was ten times the cost of the previous level like before, but instead of it being twenty five points to go from level one to two, it was a hundred. Then it went to a thousand, then ten thousand. The same went for my other first-level skills, Resilience and Crafting Points. All of them are Evolution one, Level four, and are probably going to take a hundred thousand points each to bring them to level five. I don’t know if that’s going to make them evolve again or not, though, and it’s a lot of points to invest.”

“And your other skills?” Kull asked.

“The skills that I got when I reached level two naturally took ten times more. While my first level skills took twenty-five to reach level two, and then two hundred and fifty to reach level three, Allies of Artifice and Perfection took two hundred and fifty, then twenty-five hundred, then twenty-five thousand, then two-hundred and fifty thousand to evolve. The base cost for them after that went to a thousand. If my math is right, then Wonders of Artifice and Perfection should take ten thousand each to bring to third level.”

“Just for absolute clarification,” Professor Konderlacht leaned forward in her seat, eyes boring into Eris. “What are all of your skills, right now?”

Eris took a deep breath, expanded her internal look for all of the information, then shared everything. She didn’t hide a thing. Every detail.

Name: Eris Limeen Kadell

Age: 18

Class: Artificer of Lust

Level: 2

Vitality: F-

Physical Defence: F-

Magical Defence: F-

Tenacity: F-

Strength: F-

Dexterity: F-

Mind: F+

Control: E

Craftsmanship: D

Skills: 12

Artificer’s Cunning {Passive} {Maxed}

You are the foremost expert when it comes to items. You may Inspect unknown materials and items. When Inspecting a crafted object, you receive additional information about it. Information includes:

Material construction

Current durability

The crafter’s name

Active magical effects

Adept Artificer {Passive} {Evolution 1} {Level 4}

You have a natural talent for crafting. Any product you craft gains a {375%} bonus to its Quality, applied after all other bonuses. This bonus is doubled when crafting items using only equipment made by you.

Mana {Passive} {Maxed}

You gain a reservoir of Mana, which you may spend on certain abilities.

Artificer’s Grace {Active} {Maxed}

While in the process of crafting, you may expend Mana in place of Crafting Points to use certain abilities.

Enhanced Crafting Points {Passive} {Evolution 1} {Level 4}

You have {125} Crafting Points, which you may spend on certain abilities while in the process of crafting. When beginning a new craft, current number of Crafting Points resets to {125}. For every 5 Crafting Points spent on a single ability during a craft, you gain {4} additional Crafting Points that can be spent on any other ability.

Excellence {Active} {Evolution 1} {Level 2}

For each Crafting Point spent on Excellence, the Potency of the craft is increased by {100%}. This bonus is increased by {200%} when 50% or less of your total Crafting Points are spent on this ability.

Unbroken {Active} {Evolution 1} {Level 4}

For each Crafting Point spent on Unbroken, the Durability of the craft is increased by {200%}. Consumable crafts, such as potions or food, have their Duration increased instead. When used on crafted armour, Unbroken also increases the Potency of the craft by {100%} for each Crafting Point spent.

Wonders of Artifice {Active} {Evolution 1} {Level 2}

Designate up to 5 willing people as your Allies. Until you designate different targets, the chosen Allies gain {750%} faster level progression, you receive the same amount of level progression they do, and you receive skill progression resources from their sinful acts.

Obfuscation {Active} {Maxed}

When finishing a craft, you may change, hide, or add information to determine how the craft appears when Inspected by others. This does not affect the craft’s abilities in any way.

Pacifist {Passive} {Maxed}

You cannot directly bring harm to any creature, monster, or person.

Desire’s Reap {Passive} {Level 4 - Maxed}

Engage in sexual acts with others to collect Desire. Additional Desire is collected based on the arousal of the active participant(s) and depravity of the acts performed. Current Desire: 0

Enhance {Active} {Maxed}

Expend collected Desire to advance skill progression.

Every crafter in the room all stared on with wide eyes and slack jaws. The Stonecutter with the mohawk even let out a little breath. “Arbiter’s asshole, that’s something else…”

Grace spoke up, almost seeming like she didn’t mean to since she shrivelled partway through her question.

“What bonus do you think… do you think they’ll have on Wonders and Excellence if you level them up?”

Eris shrugged. “It seems pretty linear so far, and I don’t see that changing suddenly. By my best guess, bringing Excellence to level three will bring it to a hundred and fifty percent Potency per point, increasing by three hundred percent if I only use half my points on it. For Wonders of Artifice, I imagine it will go to an even one-thousand percent bonus to level progression for each of the five I designate.”

The room went quiet. Somewhat surprisingly, it was the odd girl with rainbow hair that broke the silence.

“If you get Desire from the sexual acts of yourself and all your Wonders,” Nima began with a completely straight face, “the six of us could go upstairs and probably get enough points to level both of those skills by the end of the day. More if people are willing to come and watch.”

Eris went red. Dad made a noise like he was going to have heart palpitations, Jaxie fought to suppress a smile, Alex sounded like a frog that got dropkicked, and Claire choked on her spit.

Meanwhile, Meghan’s howling laughter echoed through the room.