Normann Hawkins hadn’t seen that message, not since he first integrated ninety-three years ago. “That’s not right,” he said as he looked around the room. It wasn’t ninety-three yeas ago, not any more. He had moved through time to when he was first offered the opportunity to become an operator and declined it.
Standing in his classroom of his youth, back when he was twenty seven years ago, Normann hadn’t been integrated at this time. He declined and life when on. He would eight blissful years despite the chaos and destruction around where he wasn’t an operator and forced to fight. Eight years before he was forcibly integrated with the [Core of the Penitent Lost].
No other operator, not even other Penitents, had seen a similar one. He assumed they hid the truth as he did or that it was just an anomaly that manufactured cores had.
Ignoring the confusing time dynamics at the moment, Normann had other issues to focus on, like what if anything had changed for him. The SYSTEM’s appearance in his HUD had altered from the Blue and white vibrate colors to the more ominous red and black. He doubted that cosmetic changes were the only thing, especially with a different core infusing his body. The [Core of the Penitent Lost] did not alter his body this much, though he wasn’t certain it was due to his new core or something else entirely.
Normann tapped his chest, right in the middle of his Core, and focused on his HUD. Wwith a brief haptic buzz at the base of his skull, a new box appeared in his field of vision, titled “Character Sheet”:
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OPERATOR NAME: NORMANN EDWARD HAWKINS
AGE: 25 YEARS (ERROR—TEMPORAL FLUX DETECTED)
RANK: NORMAL—1 OF 5 COMPONENTS INTEGRATED (ERROR—CORRUPTION WITHIN COMPONENT/CORE DETECTED; SEEK LOCAL ADMINISTRATOR FOR ASSISTANCE)
CURRENT LEVEL – 0 OF 10
ATTRIBUTES:
BRAWN – 2
FLUIDITY – 0
WIT – 3
PRESENCE – 2
FORM – 6
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“Well, this is interesting,” he said staring at his attributes.
Each attribute represented the ways that anything interacted and existed within the world, the SYSTEM’s method of informing just how much a single being could change reality around them. Brawn was the attribute governing how well an entity moved the world around them, interacted with it. Most viewed it simply as the strength behind attacks, but it also affected how strong an operator was with their abilities and utilizing their anima. Fluidity referred to how well one moved within the world, both the speed and agility incorporated within it, making it easy to navigate the world without being stopped or hindered by anything. Wit was the attribute that showed how well one perceived and understood the world around them, like a combined version of the classic role-playing-games’ intelligence and wisdom stats, but also including how capable an operator was with magic runes, enchantments, and rituals. Presence focused on how others perceived and interacted with the entity, a mix of beauty, charisma, and charm though the attribute also affected how easily an operator could hide or be noticed. Form was a strange one, representing how an entity took up space within the world. Endurance and vitality, recovery and health, stability and structure: probably a few others things, all wrapped together to indict just how the operator stood within the world.
The numbers for a given attribute were somewhat relative and arbitrary: a 0 did not mean that a person was incapable of moving, but that they were the weakest possible. A normal human possessed attributes in the range of 0 to 3, with the average leaning more towards 0 than not. A human with a 3 Brawn would be considered at an Olympic athlete level of strength, while a 3 Wit meant they were geniuses.
Normann didn''t have these attributes his first go around. When he obtained his core the first time, only a single attribute was above a 2, and three of them were 0s. He was pathetic and weak then. It seems sending his mind back to his past had altered how the SYSTEM viewed him or perhaps a better integration with his new Core provided higher attributes, though that made little sense as well.
Perhaps the altered attributes explained his body not being as he remembered. He wasn’t a rail-thin skeleton any more, like he had been before he went back in time. Nor was he a sloven slob as he always remembered himself being when he was young.
He closed out the screen, and his HUD faded back from his focus, turning nearly invisible except when he focused on them. Normann sat down heavily, and the chair dropped slightly. The integration process wasn’t exhausting physically, but it felt as though this were the first time he’d been able to relax in weeks.
“Kinda is,” he said; he hadn’t decided if his liked his voice without its gravel and raspy timbre. The low tone was at least familiar, so that helped. Normann closed his eyes and exhaled heavily in an effort to remove the tension he carried for the longest time.
A moment ago, everything was normal. He stood outside a rift to the [Lasting Sunrise], a Mythic Raid that started with a two hundred and forty of the top S-Rank operators, thirty heavy squads. Six of them walked out of the raid, including him. It was supposed to be the last Rift humanity needed to close according to the SYSTEM. The theory was that all other Rifts would close and humanity wouldn’t need to suffer under the constant onslaught from them, finally able to rest and recover.
Two hundred and thirty nine S-rank operators and one C-rank walked into the [Lasting Sunrise] and six walked out. The five greatest of all of them survived, as did Normann Hawkins, the lowly Penitent. Six weeks fighting, nearly non-stop, grinding through dozens of bosses and scenarios, victorious despite the heavy loses each step of the way. They fought for a world finally at peace, when they and no one else would have to fight to survive.
They had walked out victorious, expecting to see, well, Normann didn’t know what he expected exactly, but certainly not monsters bloating out the sun with their numerous or toxic plumes littering the earth. Humanity was supposed to have been safe, but with their entrance into the Rift, something horrendous occurred and cost the world itself. Instead of seeing the peace and serenity that so many had died for, that they depended on, they were met with a shattered horizon of a blazing city overrun by various demons, monsters, and eldritch horrors.
For the first time that Normann could remember, Lucas stopped smiling.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Six against a horde was suicide, and Normann stood back as four charged the unleashed monsters. At C-Rank, he was the weakest and already exhausted every ounce of anima in him, he had nothing left. Pennant Oliver stood next to him as he watched the four friends run to their deaths.
Considered the smartest operator in the world, he revealed to Normann about one of the rewards they found at the end the raid, the artifact grade [Core of the Embodiment of Omens]. More importantly, Oliver told him to use it. It shouldn’t be possible; no operator could use a second core. Normann’s was a constructed piece of shit and finicky at times, and while he was meant to be fodder for the armies that had fought against the hordes spilling out from collapsed Rifts, he had leveraged his abilities to great effect, leading to him standing with the other powerful operators. He aged in comparison to his nigh timeless and godly companions, and he had no real combat abilities or means of learning magic. But apparently Oliver had known something no one else did. The artifact-grade core glowed in Normann’s hands as his comrade-in-arms explained the truth of the matter.
Oliver rushed through his explanation: he believed the core to actually be and how it was to be used. The [Core of the Embodiment of Omens] was a tether to a moment in the past when Normann originally interacted with the core, a moment that Oliver assured him occurred even if Normann couldn’t remember it. As they spoke, a new screen, red and white with flares of gold with black text, stared at him, waiting for him to accept the impossibility. If he did, he’d overwrite the second-rate core he possessed. But the second half of what would occur was more outlandish: Normann would be drawn to the other side of that line to the past, back in time to a choice that he didn’t remember making.
Oliver revealed his core and the secret he carried with him since becoming an operator all those years ago. Through their HUDs, he shared the truth that led him to the insane possibility of time travel; he possessed a [Core of the Embodiment of Discovery], not a [Core of the Orphan of the Storm] as Normann previously believed. Another artifact-grade core. Their existence was theoretical and Norman now held one and Oliver possessed another.
None of that mattered because the world was lost and humanity at their final end. With the insanity that was Oliver’s theory and reality of Normann’s transportation into his past self, maybe things didn’t have to end.
Possessing a new core meant that he would have different abilities. He flicked his hand to the side and the menu changed, turning the page to a portion that the defined the components of his frame. As expected, four of the five components slots were empty, with only the core filled in:
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COMPONENT – CORE
EIDOLON – {CORRUPTED FROM ------}
PASSIVES: 1 OF 2 UNLOCKED
PASSIVE – CASSANDRIC KNOWLEDGE
RANK F – PROVIDES [READ THE BONES] BOON TO OPERATOR PERMANENTLY. IF THE OPERATOR RECEIVES A DEBUFF, [READ THE BONES] ALTERS ACCORDING TO THE ELEMENT OF THE DEBUFF TO PROVIDE ADDITIONAL BENEFITS.
PROVIDES ACCESS TO [AUGURY LOGS]
[READ THE BONES] ||BOON, MAGIC, OMEN, THREAT||PROVIDES THE OPERATOR WITH INFORMATION REGARDING RELATIVE HEALTH, MANA, AND STAMINA OF AN ENEMY DAMAGED BY THE OPERATOR. ENEMY IS CONSIDERED THREATENED FOR THE PURPOSES OF OTHER ABILITIES AND COMBAT
[AUGURY LOGS] ||QUEST SYSTEM|| - ALLOWS OPERATOR TO ACCESS A UNIQUE QUEST SYSTEM OUTSIDE OF RIFTS
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If his core acted like Oliver’s, then he would assume that the name of the eidolon would appear differently, probably as [The Penitent Lost], which had its own issues given that the core was man made and far inferior to any from the SYSTEM. Given that it wouldn’t be made for another eight years, he could play off his core from an extremely rare or newly discovered eidolon. At least the ability granted this time would be useful.
When he possessed a [Core of the Penitent Lost], his first passive acted almost in the reverse. It provided a debuff to any enemy in range then would broadcast the same information out to all operators in a given range, and more as he ranked up. Useless at low ranks, as only he was capable of perceiving the information and in order to place the debuff on an enemy, he was required to attack and damage them. Operators who possessed that core often had terrible passives and abilities.
Probably why most of them died within a year of integration.
The changes to his passive and the additional benefit were interesting though. Now, instead of a debuff that he applied to others through combat, it was a flat boon on himself, providing him directly the information of those he fought. [Read the Bones] provided the same information, though the additional benefits would be interesting. The fact that he also had these [Augury Logs], though he wasn’t certain what it meant by ‘unique quest system’. Would have to test it out later.
Along with the other changes he now had.
Normann traced the seam of his new core embedded in his sternum. Again, no raw skin or exposed core, just a sheen of crystalline skin that almost glowed in time with his heart. It felt smooth and followed the contours of his muscles and bodies. Once, it had been jagged and torn, an open wound that refused to heal, constantly burning and itching as his body attempted to repel the invading energy and power. Even as he ranked up, where other operators grew with their cores, he remained in constant conflict with it. Here and now, it was different. The integration was as others described to him. His magic still raged within him and would continue to do so until he obtained the rest of his components, but at least it didn’t feel like it was fighting against him, wanting to hurt him, like it had before.
This body wasn’t his. Not the one he had grown into over the ninety-three years of being an operator. Time had not been kind to him, and neither had the Rifts and various raids. Ranking up was supposed to improve ones attributes, and while he somewhat grew stronger and more powerful, his body was ravaged by his flawed core, leaving him with the appearance of a middle aged man in a group of young lively people. The oldest and weakest of them all.
This body wasn’t the same. Life vibrated within, his anima, the power granted by the SYSTEM that enabled everything an operator did, swarming inside ready to erupt out and move. Ready for him to move. Ready for him to use. It was whole again, unshattered by humanity’s failed attempt to usurp the power of unworldly beings, and it felt like it wanted to get up and move.
He opened his eyes to stare at the ceiling. It was strange to be in a body that wasn’t his, except it was. Something about it, he couldn’t quite describe it, but it felt so different from before. Something was missing from his body and it wasn’t a bad thing. Good, rather. Like a splinter he didn’t know was in him had been removed and he could rest easier now.
The power swirling around in him, and he frankly never cared about how it occurred biologically, and for once it was a pleasant feeling, as though it were at home within him. As if he belonged here and now. A feeling he hadn’t ever had before.
It was strange. But nice.