Runeblade

B2 Chapter 194: Revelations, pt. 1

Reclining deep into the overstuffed armchair next to the fireplace in his room, Kaius did his best to tune out the desperate keening of his ignited aspect.

After their discussion with Rieker had finished, the man had escorted them out of his training hall and quarters. At first Kaius had been worried that they would need the guildmaster’s timetable to be completely free every time they were to train, but he’d let them know there were other ways there—Ro would show them tomorrow.

Even if Rieker had insisted on them celebrating, they’d done nothing of the sort. Immediately upon returning to the Dusty Stables, Kaius had ignored the inviting warmth and tuned out the welcoming hiss of ale hitting tankards in favour of retreating to his room, Porkchop and Ianmus in tow. He’d even gone so far as to decline Hensch’s offer of bringing dinner to his rooms.

After all, who knew how long his Aspect would take.

Now he sat and readied himself, Porkchop and Ianmus leaning in with wide eyes from their seats on the ground and opposite armchair respectively.

Taking a breath, Kaius gave his team a nod and gave in to the keening of the burning pillar above his soul.

**Ding! Pillar of Self Discovered, Mentis Ignited. Would you like to initiate Aspect Formation?**

He accepted the systems waiting prompt, and dropped into his soul-space.

Now that he was no longer hiding from the change, Kaius got his first good look at the burning flame above the pillar—tasted the racing energy that flowed from it in waves.

A simple flicker of will connected him to the construct more fully. Kaius saw his truth. Saw what the light of the burning pyre had seen revealed within him.

Desire to grow, and strive, and survive. To face trial and tribulation willingly. To learn from the experiences, and draw upon his history to pave his next step, to see him through the next danger. What he wanted was ephemeral and changeable—it wasn’t Truth.

How he got there? How he approached barriers and obstacles? How he worked to grow and learn and change? That was Truth.

Visions flooded his mind.

A soldier—aged, bloody, and tall—stood shoulder to shoulder with ten-thousand others, facing down an iron and flesh wall across a field littered with the fallen. Enemies and allies alike were shuffling, hiding their discomfort and fear in small movements.

The soldier stood tall, unphased. He’d already seen it all.

Kaius could see it in his eyes. A want, a need, a desire. It threw the soldier back into battle again and again—through heroic victories and crushing losses. Yet still—they stood tall, every battle leaving them a little older, a little wiser, and a little more scarred.

Yet still, the soldier was unphased—trusting in his mind, and his blade.

The sword drew him in. It was plain. Simple honed and oiled steel, scratched and brushed by the ministrations of a thousand failed challengers.

The blade held memories. The blood, essence, and reminders of a thousand battles. Chipped it might have been, simplistic and unadorned it might have been, but it remembered. The stabs. The parries and feints. The cuts. The false-charges. The openings. The maneuvers. The guards. The formations. The guard-breakers. The sieges. The hikes. The camps. The drills. The orders. The plans. The failures.

The victories.

Every scratch, chip, and scar was a treatise on war.

The blade remembered, and it guided the way.

Kaius snapped back to himself, reeling within his soulspace.

The fugue left from the vision was heavy, blanketing his mind like a roux. It shaded his perception in his soul-space, making his vision blurry and indistinct. ℞аΝổ฿Ěṣ

But even through that haze, the burning light of his aspect was visible. Radiant and full of splendour, it burst with light. Growing more and more intense, until all he could see was a burning yellow that reeked of wisdom.

From deep within himself, the power of Mentis rose. Claws closed around his mind, plunging deep as they rearranged his thoughts, shifted lobes, and metamorphosed his cognition. Twisting them, reinforcing the connections and easing the flow of sensation.

His thoughts expanded. A second stream burst into existence. Not a full duplicate, but where once he was limited to a single thread, now two focused on his changing mind.

It was violating, exposing, and revealing. The crux of who he was, how he thought, reinforced and infused with power.

Yet despite the vulnerability, he found himself at ease. It wasn’t the forced change of corruption, nor a destroying fire that left ashes in its wake. Potent, yes. Overwhelming, definitely. But it felt…right.

Like he had taken a step to being more whole.

Slowly, the light of Mentis dimmed, leaving fullness in its wake.

**Ding! Mentis Aspect Founded - The Veteran’s Blade**

**Ding! Significant Feat of Strength performed under Observation. You have been awarded an Honour: Trailblazer II**

Kaius gasped, his eyes snapping open. The light of the room flooded in, bringing with it the faces of his team watching him closely with eyes that reflected the gentle flicks of the hearthflame.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

There was no moment of confusion, no split second of disorientation like he normally experienced—he was simply there.

“Fucking hells, this is bizzare.” he said, shaking his head.

“What was it like? The bond got all…wishy washy for a while there.” Porkchop asked.

Kaius gripped his knee, idly noting the supple texture while he thought on his next words.

“Strange… There were visions, similar to the impression you get from skill merging, but far far more in depth and immersive, and far more personal.” Kaius paused, gathering his words as Ianmus leaned in closely—obviously eager to learn as much about the experience as he could. “Once the Aspect ignited…it did something to my mind. Some generalised boost—I keep expecting it to be overwhelming, how fast everything is coming in. But it isn’t—which is almost disorienting in its own right.”

With every word he spoke, thoughts flitted across his mind like a flock of migrating starlings, creating connections and making inferences that would have otherwise been out of reach. It was different from the reinforcement of stats—that he could tell immediately.

More…qualitative.

Everything seemed to be broader. Rather than just thinking faster, he was comfortably holding a conversation while assessing the changes that had been wrought on him. The second thread wasn’t as good—slow, ponderous, and lackadaisical—but it was there

“Colours seem deeper, my thoughts more fluid, and I’m pretty sure that I'm thinking about two things at once.” Kaius continued, frowning as he adjusted to having an entire second stream of consciousness, even one throttled, slow, and lacking in spoken awareness.

“Fascinating.” Ianmus replied, watching him with a hungry avarice. “That is definitely not something that occurs with Intelligence, even at drastically high levels. What of the general base, has your speed of thought increased?”

Kaius nodded. It had, though to what extent he found it hard to say—it was noticeable, but he had no way to tell if he could sense it because of the other changes. He’d know more soon, the changes to his thoughts had made the buzz of his waiting notifications into a piercing drone.

“I’m checking it now—and the Honour that came with it.” he replied, shooting his team a sly grin.

He heard them suck in a breath, and before they could heave him back into more questions, he pulled up his notifications.

Honour first—if only because it would be the fastest to digest and explain.

Trailblazer II:

Honour

Pillars of the self, enshrining fundamental truths. Soon to be reforged in a platinum crucible so that they may support the foundation of all that will come.

Awarded to the first five to found an Aspect in a given cohort. Provides a Moderate decrease to the difficulty of the discovery and development of Aspects. +5 all stats, +3% all stats.

Bonus: For being the first in your cohort to achieve this Honour the stat bonus is increased to +8 all stats, +4% all stats and receive an Aspect Informational Package

…or apparently not. What the fuck was an Informational Package?!

His newly enlightened mind raced, trawling its way through his memories and plucking threads of the knowledge he held on the system and its functions.

It had to be. That fucking bastard.

Kaius growled, head throbbing with the sudden intensity of his hatred of someone long dead. Frustration that he couldn’t kill them himself quickly weaving its way into a tapestry of scorching heat that left a flush on his face.

Yet it did not cloud him—he still thought clearly.

“What’s wrong?!”

Kaius chewed on his words—stewing on the sudden unexpected intensity of his emotions. “The Honour… It’s a sequential one—one awarded to the first five to found an Aspect.”

“Why would that frustrate you?” Ianmus asked. “Were you not the first?”

“It’s not that.” Kaius said with a sharp shake of his head. “It’s the first bonus—it comes with a system-granted information package on Aspects.”

The warmth of the fire became sweltering, pooling under his shirt and inflaming his disgust.

“Think—the Aspects followed on from Legacy skills. There is no doubt in my mind that the first Honour went to the first to found a Legacy. If they received information from the system on how to discover merged skills, they never shared.”

His team looked at him in shock—both at the notoriously opaque workings of the system being shared, and at the potential former existence of information on Legacy skills.

A deep look of despondence crossed Ianmus’s face, the mage mourning the loss of knowledge.

“It can’t be true. It can’t. The loss…Where would we be now if that had been known?” he asked.

“Probably well past the integration.” Porkchop spat, his disgust mirroring Kaius’s own. Of all of their members, he was the most at odds with the pervasive secrecy that oozed from every layer of society—his own had no such compunctions about sharing.

“Exactly.” Kaius nodded stiffly, before he sighed and turned away from the potential tragedy. To his surprise, the raging flood of distaste retreated quickly—vanishing once he had decided it was no longer time to indulge.

“I’m going to check my Aspect, if I dive straight into the information package I’ll go mad.” he said, getting understanding nods from his team.

He pulled up the description of his latest discovery—his Pillar Mentis.

The Veteran’s Edge:

Pillar Mentis - Seed Stage

The Veteran holds wants that have no place on the battlefield, its Edge does not. Slayer, and drawer of blood. Giver and taker of life. The Veteran’s Edge has seen a thousand campaigns—victories and defeats both. It has been honed, oiled, shattered, reforged, imbued, lost, found, and reclaimed. Kings, Tyrants, and the meek alike have fallen before it, as it has before them. It does not seek rest, nor solace, for that is not where its purpose lies. It does not desire victory and conquest, because such things are ephemeral and short-lived. There is only the urge to temper and quench in viscera—to grow and learn and cut. There is only the faint hope that maybe, once the campaign is done and the sun sets on the field of battle—when the Veteran has achieved their goal—it might be laid down at rest. Not forgotten and dull, never that, but instead left remembered and ready for when the next dawn breaks on war once more. Afterall, there is always something else worth killing for.

As an aspect of Mentis, The Veteran’s Edge reforges the mind with the wisdom of a thousand battles. The Veteran does not survive through strength of arm, but through wit, will, and control.

Mental Reinforcement: Glass Mind

The Pillar Mentis reinforces the mind, purifying it into glass. Improves multi-tasking and meta-cognitive abilities.

Seed: Campaigner’s Reasoning

Imbued with the wisdom of a thousand battles, remember what happened before.

Greatly improves your Glass Mind’s memory of previous combat related experiences, insights, lessons, and tactics. Automatic recall and synthesis of information is improved to facilitate a path to victory.