《Heir to the Throne》 Prologue I: One in Two Hundred Fifty Six ''I don''t want to be here,'' Corvus thought. Even now it was hard to stop himself from crying. At the age of 16, he really didn''t want to cry around so many others. He was currently standing in a large room. All round the room there were wrought iron chairs, encrusted with large gems and upholstered with fluffy cushions. If this were an ordinary house, these chairs would be the focal point. However, here they were nearly insignificant. Looking up a short set of steps there was the only chair in this room that mattered. It was gilded in gold and adorned with jewels. Even one of those would feed a family for years, but here it was just a symbol of wealth. He had been lead here when he approached the castle requesting an audience. Corvus counted himself lucky to not have been treated rougher. He was little more than your average peasant. It was only the seal on the message he had been asked to deliver that had gotten him through the gates. He had been standing there on the verge of running off, when the guards looked at him as if they were judging a new recruit. ''I just want to hand over this dumb letter and get out of here.'' He wanted so badly to just leave, but he couldn''t bring himself to do it. Blinking back more tears, he crumpled the letter a bit in his hands. Were his circumstances different he might just want to go home, but now he wasn''t sure of where home really was any more. Up until a few days ago his home had been a small cottage, just outside the city walls. There wasn''t much there. A few bedrooms, and a kitchen. Not much at all, but more than enough for him and his mother. He could still remember waking up to the smell of her baking bread. "Hah," he couldn''t stop the choked chuckle form coming out. He might smell fresh bread again, but it would never be quite the same. How could it? Not when his mother was gone. It was her time, is what she said but Corvus didn''t understand how that could be she barely looked old enough to have a son his age. That was when she gave him the letter. She told him that if he presented it to the king, he would get the answers he sought. ''Why didn''t you just tell me yourself! Why! Why. Why ... ?'' Corvus started to lose himself in his grief. "A~hem!" Looking up with a start, Corvus saw a small man standing near the front of the room. "If everyone could please sit, we can begin to get things under way," the man requested. ''Get what under way? Was I lead to the wrong place? No, the butler was quite clear on why I was here'' As Corvus was thinking the people at the front of the room had started shuffling around and taking their seats. Not entirely sure what to do, Corvus just stepped forward a bit grabbing the seat farthest from the throne. He figured that way if he was in the wrong place he wouldn''t be a hindrance to the others, and he could take the opportunity at the end of the audience to present the letter to the king. Seated he looked through the crowded seats, watching the little man up front. "*cough**cough*" the speaker cleared his throat before announcing, "Presenting his majesty, King Telrok the Void Lord." A door on the left side of the front of the hall opened and out stepped a young man. This confused Corvus. His mother told him that the king had been ruling for over twenty years before Corvus''s birth. Was this the new king? ''No, that''s not it,'' he decided. He hadn''t heard anything about a new king, and as isolated as he was, he wasn''t that separated from the city. Besides the troubadour announced him, giving the old king''s name. *Thwump* The cushion on the throne, poofed as the king dropped himself onto it. Looking at him closely, Corvus began to notice something. Even though the king had a youthful appearance he had grey hair. Not the kind of grey you would expect, it didn''t seem like it had turned grey from ageing it looked as thought it had always been grey. For a moment, Corvus remembered seeing someone who had that same hair colour. He just couldn''t recall the image clearly. ''It''s like ... I was looking at someone''s reflec...'' ''No! No, that can''t be right.'' "Hello," the king greeted everyone, "I imagine you are all wondering why you are here. I imagine for at least one of you here is the last place you want to be right now." The Void Lord seemed to be looking directly at Corvus as he spoke. To Corvus the kings eyes looked so sad and weary. Like there was no lift left in the man. "So," Telrock continued, "I will waste no time getting to the point. I have grown weary. I have lived for hundreds of years, and over the course of those years I have lost eight wives, thrice that number in concubines, and just a few days past, my last remaining child passed." Corvus could almost hear everyone gulp. Had any other stranger tried to tell them this, he would have thought the man mad, people just didn''t live that long. Coming from the man on the throne, though, he believed it. Having just suffered a loss himself, he could hear the overwhelming grief in the king''s voice. Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. "Before I move on to why I called you all here, I need to impart to you some information. I am a god, or near enough that making a distinction is irrelevant for you," The king stated. At that moment, the room went still. Had a feather fallen you would have been able to hear it swish in the air. Continuing his speech the Void Lord explained, "And this Realm of existence is but one that I control." "As I have said, I am weary. I no longer wish to bear the responsibilities of my position. However, were I to abandon my position and leave, the Realms I control would collapse and all the worlds within would be destroyed. This ... ," Telrok paused sweeping his gaze across the seated crowd, " ... this is why I have gathered you all here." Murmurs spread through the crowd as each person wondered what this had to do with them. Corvus on the other hand, already had a guess. ''It really is like that, huh...'' Corvus took a quick count of the rows of chairs in front of him. ''Sixteen rows of chairs.'' Looking to the side he did another quick count. ''Eight chairs per row. That''s one-hundred twenty eight chairs on this side of the audience chamber. If the other side is the same then ...,'' Corvus continued calculating in his head,''two-hundred fifty six.'' ''Ha ha ha ha,'' he sorrowfully chuckled in his mind. Had he done so out loud, he was sure someone would have thought he''d gone insane. Though, in a way one could say he had or perhaps that he felt the world had gone mad. He had thought he was alone in the world now and had been lost in the grief of losing his only family. He was still mourning, but he knew now that he wasn''t alone. He had two-hundred fifty six living cousins. Having given them a moment to settle down the king began again, "You, each and every one of you, are my direct descendants. My grandchildren to be exact. As such ..." Most everyone seemed like the had gone completely loose. Corvus kind of understood. Had he not noticed the similarities between him and his grandfather he would have received three major shocks in the past hour. Of course, he probably still wouldn''t have been as affected as the others because from the start he was already in a bit of a daze. "... each of you, has some claim to my position." Telrock stated. "However, should you fight over it the result could be devastating and though I have faith that each of you has the potential to be a great ruler ... I have also seen too many people fail to live up to their potential to leave the fate of the realms to chance." ''I''m not sure I''m gonna like this ...'' worried Corvus. Several of the others seemed quite intrigued, leaning forward in their chairs. "I have decided thus: I will hold a contest, and the winner shall be my heir." "Contest?! What sort of contest?!" shouted several of the gathered people. "Simply put, one that will test your determination, ability and worthiness. I will send you all to worlds in the Lower Realm, and assign you a task to complete, succeed and you will proceed to the next round, fail and your soul will become part of that planes reincarnation cycle." Having said that the king waved his hand, and several small lights rose from each of the people in front of Corvus. Pushing his seat back in surprise Corvus didn''t even have time to scream before he felt his soul gently separated from his body.
[Authors Notes] There it is the first prologue I''ve managed to write. This was mostly written without planning, so there are areas it''s going to be weak. If you have any constructive criticism to share, please feel free. Though, please do try to be specific or provide links to resources for areas you think I have done poorly on. Hopefully you enjoyed it. As I haven''t really planned this story out, I have left the tags mostly blank. I checked Mature so I wouldn''t need to censor myself when I write, Original because it is an original fiction as opposed to a fan fiction, and Reader Interactive because I have no clue where I am going with this story. I do have a rough direction I want to head but I am working on improving my writing and trying to actually write. As opposed to spending all my energy planning the story out, so the events of this story aren''t plotted out. I do have stories I want to flesh out in that way but there are also times when I just need to write, that is what this story will be. Also I don''t know if I can change it but title suggestion would be welcome. As would any name suggestions. I may or may not use name suggestion but I hate naming things so if you don''t like one drop a suggestion and I might change it. Prologue II: The Void [Corvus] Floating there Corvus'' soul bobbed up and down, sharing a rhythm the all the others. It was a weird sensation. Unlike in his body he could see everything around him. It was the most disorienting experience he had every had. The other souls came in all sorts of shapes and colors. Red, Blue, Yellow, Green, really there was a shade of each color present, but the most plentiful were on a grey scale. Easily one half were grey, a fifth of the remainder were a nearly black purple, only a few white ones could be seen. The shapes tended to be fairly simple globes, squares, pyramids, and prisms. There were only two that really stood out, the first was in the shape of a sword, the other was a bow. Just as Corvus had fully gotten himself used to his new orientation, he was slammed with a massive force that pushed him downward. ''No, no, no, no!'' he yelled internally. Pulling forth great effort he managed to resist the force. Swooshing around the room, he came to a stop in front of the king. Telrok just gazed in his direction. His face was completely inexpressive, as if he didn''t care about anything. ''He probably doesn''t,'' Corvus couldn''t help but rage to himself. "Oiii," he tried to scream, " you bastard." Even after being insulted, the young looking king''s expression remained deadpan as he made a downward gesture with two of his fingers. The light that was Corvus'' soul started to sink downwards again. "Ah, my liege, that youth," the short servant spoke as he gestured to Corvus'' body, "came to deliver a letter from his late mother." "A letter, from his mother?" Telrok seemed to ask. Corvus'' form was halfway merged through the floor as the king with a wave of his hand the letter lifted out of the motionless hand and soared into Telroks. Unfolding it he read it his face becoming a complicated mask of emotions. "Aaargh!" Corvus'' soul shot up hovering into the same space covering the letter. He felt a flash of anger, which turned to shock quickly as he noticed the letter begin to burn up. The king''s eyes narrowed and his brow furrowed as he imperiously said, "Be gone." Corvus couldn''t see what shape his own soul took, but he was sure that right then under the pressure his grandfather was exerting on him it looked quite flattened. Frustrated at his own weakness, at his mother''s death, at his grandfather''s indifference, he screamed, "You could have saved her! You let my mother die! You Fuc-" Telrok stood straightening to his full height, and Corvus'' resistance shattered. His soul flew downward and became engulfed in darkness.
[Telrok] Looking at the bits of paper and ashes that had fallen to the ground, a wave of grief washed over him. "Leave," he dismissed Ort, his Drus manservant. The man seemed to understand, exiting the audience hall through the main entrance. As he left he closed the large doors behind him. Finally alone, Telrok waved his hand over the remnants of the letter, watching as the large pieces found their place. With a twist of his hand the paper rose, the ashes seeming melding into the burnt gaps. He couldn''t help but sigh. Even though he could restore the paper, the words written on it, her words, were gone forever. As close as he might be to a god in his domain, he still wasn''t one. Though it was usually a taboo for a parent, she had always been his favourite child. So vibrant and full of life. Wiping a small stream of water from his face, he felt as though he was being ripped apart inside. The boy had been wrong, Telrok hadn''t let his mother die, he had killed her.
[Corvus] "-ker." Corvus finished. Trying to sense his surroundings, Corvus noticed that there was nothing there. Void, all around. Though still angry, Corvus found himself unable to ignore his current situation. The void grew dimmer as he restrained himself, as though calming himself reduced the intensity of the light given off by his soul. He tried moving forward. Unlike in the audience chamber, here it felt as though he was trying to walk across the bottom of a lake. In the end nothing around him changed so he stopped trying. ''How long have I been here,'' he wasn''t sure any more. Nothing seemed right in this void, he knew he had been angry but now he was calm. Not restrained as if he was holding his anger back but as if he had never been angry at all. ''Why was I angry in the first place?'' Before he could follow that train of thought further, he was distracted by the appearance of a large sprout tree soul. Corvus had heard the phrase world tree before but before now he had thought of it like a massive oak tree. Never again. Before him he could see what looked like a tree, but made of vines of pure white light. The roots ran from the bottom of the space meeting up and coiling together becoming a solid trunk before short leafless branches shot off from it. It was a stunning sight. "Hello, young one." a female voice boomed. "This stage of your training has been entrusted to me." "Training ...?" Corvus didn''t understand, hadn''t he always been here? ''No!'' he heard something inside of himself scream. Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. "Ah," the voice seemed to be trying to correct itself, "it was supposed to be testing, wasn''t it?" "... entrusted?" something inside of Corvus was struggling as if trying to get free. He didn''t know why but the answer to that question was important to him. One of the branches of the tree seemed to twist and extend towards him. It hovered near him for a moment as if examining him. "It doesn''t matter. You won''t remember soon anyway." Frowning Corvus''s mind drifted for a moment, "Why won''t I remember?" then a little voice inside him seemed to ask, ''Shouldn''t it be why don''t I remember?'' ''Remember? Remember what?'' he mused, noticing his perception of the void flickered as if the light was faltering. ''It did that before too when I calmed my anger.'' ''Wait, I was angry? Why was I angry?'' "I sai~d it doesn''t matter. Let''s get this over with, little soul." the voice of the tree said almost chuckling, "Don''t want to keep your grandfather waiting for another millenia." "Grandfather?!" Corvus felt something inside snap, and as if the flood gate had cracked things began to seep through. His grandfather was testing him, and his cousins. Looking for an heir. He didn''t know why but he felt like he wanted to go against that man''s designs. He also came to understand that this void, was a place between realms. It seemed as though it washed away who you were in preparation for rebirth. Corvus would have frowned if he could have, he couldn''t understand the logic of such a test if people didn''t know they were being tested. "As per orders from your grandfather you are allowed to select a Trait and a Skill to be born with!" the voice began to explain. "What you pick is entirely up to you but it is strongly recommended you pick Soul Memory as your Trait." the tree soul continued in a chipper voice, "After all, how can you do well on a test you don''t remember you''re taking. Let''s see what your options are ..." "It''s fine," Corvus spoke coldly, "I want nothing from that man." The tree''s branches seemed to wither inwards when he said this. Then a single branch extended towards him seeming to examine him again. "I see ..." the voice almost mumbled, " ... well if it''s like that I suppose it''s fine. Now then ..." Corvus was suddenly jarred as the void seemed to blur around him and the tree. When it finally settled, He could see a world below him. He had seen things like globes and maps, they showed the world having green land, white clouds, and blue. What he saw underneath him was dark clouds, and a lot of brown land. He couldn''t make out if the world had any water at all. "What are you waiting for, get going." he was chided. Then he felt one of the branches whack him in the back propelling him down to the world. And all of a sudden he could no longer see anything. The something popped up in front of his eyes.
Welcome to the Primordial World, Belys.
Author''s Note Sooo, more than a chapter one this turned out to be more like a second part of the prologue ... oh well. I tried out new colors for the thoughts and speech, and dropped the italics on the speech. I do have a poll regarding that in the prologue so please feel free to make your voice heard. Actually on that topic any sort of feedback would be nice. Let me know what you think needs work, or if you want to give me a boost tell me where you think I did well. I tried to plan this chapter out a bit more, which is why it took longer despite being roughly the same length. Did it make the story a bit better? I did a very short POV scene with Telrok. It was really short, but I thought it turned out quite well and added a lot to the story for how short it was. What did you think? Lastly another poll. This one''s important so please vote. Note that whatever creature he becomes will probably eventually end up humanoid, so keep that in mind. Edit: I forgot about tags. I am not positive what direction this story is going to take in the end, this is partly because it is being written to work on writing rather than planning, plotting, and world building. The other reason is because I want it to be reader interactive. I won''t have polls every chapter, but when big events are coming I will ask for input. Anyway back on point if you thing this story is lacking the appropriate tags just point it out and I will update them. It''s a little early to make a proper judgement though. I used ~ to indicate that a person extended the vowel in the word on the left during speech. I don''t know what to call that or the proper grammatical way to do so. Probably an M-dash but I can''t get it to come out so ... I''ll be using tildes for that purpose. Chapter One: Belys, The Primordial World Notice Just a notice that I have done several fairly minor revision to the prologue chapters. I have also changed two names. Ulric is now Corvus, and Zalik has been changed to Belys. I''ll blabber more at the end as usual but wanted to warn readers ahead of time.
[Corvus POV] [Low Realm: Primordial World, Belys] As Corvus was falling the [window] welcoming him to Belys floated in front of his vision. He couldn''t really see what was beyond it too clearly but as he was a soul he wasn''t too worried. ''What could hurt me in this state?'' he thought as he waited to reach the world''s surface. *Swoosh* He felt a rush of resistance as he passed some sort of barrier around the world. Peeking past the still present [window] all he could see was a billowing black cloud. The air rushed past him as he hit penetrated into the cloud. ''It stings.'' Corvus cringed as his eyes began to blink and water, trying to clear themselves. A few seconds later he burst out through the bottom of the cloud. As he did though, he felt like something was itching at the back of his mind. Then it hit him, his eyes had been stinging. He tried to scream. "Caw." "Caw?" "Caw!" Confused he looked the direction he was falling, but his vision was blocked by that message. ''Dammit, go away'' he screamed in his mind, only to be shocked as it vanished almost instantly. Now he could see below him, see the ground racing towards him. He could feel his heart beating through his chest as he tried flailing his arms. Corvus felt them yanked backwards. Looking to his side he saw that he no longer had arms but instead had black feathered wings. He was no longer exactly falling, doing something more akin to gliding. He was still going too fast, so he tried to flap his wings to slow himself down more. He soon realized he would crash into the mountain in front of him before he managed to slow down enough. Closing his left wing he gave his right a bit of a flap and tucked his head towards his left. This caused him to twist almost his body now parallel to the ground. Corvus'' body crashed into the mountain rolling upwards a bit before coming to a complete stop. ''Ugggh,'' Corvus groaned internally, ''that hurt.'' He was laying on his back. Shifting his weight he spread one of his wings using it to push himself so that his feet were under him. Corvus gave himself a bit a shake to knock some of the dirt off. *Ding* *Ding* Two [windows] popped up in front of him on hiding the other.
Skill Prompt
Skill NameFlight
Skill Description
This skills is for those who wish to take to the skies. While it won''t help just any Dive bombing dunce become an aerial ace, for any species that commonly flies.. It is the quickest way to become and Adept Avian, even more so if it wasn''t your original form. Requires a winged form.
Skill RankAmateurRank Progress02%
Register Flight?
Quickly reading the top window Corvus noticed it was prompting where or not he wanted to learn the skill Flight. ''Flight skill, huh? Well, I''m definitely some kind of bird. Now how do I do this? Register Flight? Accept Skill? Yes?'' *Ding* A new window popped up in the old ones place. Before he could begin to read it, he heard a hissing sound. ''Go away, go away!'' Corvus dismissed the windows worried about whatever made the sound. *Ding* ''Argh, Go away!'' His vision now clear, he could see a snake coiled on the dirt ahead of him. It looked like it was about to strike. Extending his wings, he watched the snake carefully. When the snake launched itself at him, Corvus jumped towards the side giving his wings a small flap. As he landed he started to watch the snake again. The snake was mostly a brown color but had a stripe of vibrant red from just above it''s eyes to the tip of it''s tail. More than anything else, this red stripe concerned Corvus. He wasn''t sure why though. He had felt like this a lot, since he entered that void but he had only realized after the talking white tree appeared. He hadn''t really had a proper moment to think since then. The snake lashed out again. Repeating the same manoeuvre from before Corvus barely managed dodge. ''Not the time to think about that,'' he chided himself. Having decided he needed to get away somewhere safe to think about things, Corvus hopped back continuously until he thought he was certain the snake presented no danger. Turning away he gave his wings a flap. He was about to try for his first real flight. As he did, several blue rings appeared close together in front of him. ''Whaa!'' he exclaimed giving his wings a couple quick flaps, making him rise in the air a a bit. As he did the rings moved appearing elsewhere. ''Could this be the Flight skill?'' he asked no one in particular as he touched ground again. The rings vanished. Looking off into the sky, Corvus decided to try again wanting to reach that point. A bunch of the blue rings appeared forming something like a path to the point he wanted to reach. There were a bunch of rings close together right at the start but they became further apart the closer to the end they got. He had a vague feeling that each ring should represent a flap of his wings. Trying to time his flaps with passing through the rings Corvus launched himself forward. It was a bit of a struggle to flap his wings at the start but as the distance between the grew it became easier. Somehow he had miraculously managed to reach the final ring of his path. Once he did he just spread his wings, and let himself glide. He knew he had things he needed to think about, but right then he just couldn''t bring himself to do anything but enjoy the experience.
[????? POV] [High Realm: Hallway Outside Audience Chamber] She sensed a short red headed man stands outside the chamber. This is the one she was searching for. ''Now, I just need ...'' her mind rambles as she cast her perception around the area, settling on a decorative plant. It looks like a miniature tree with fall orange leaves. ''... that one!'' she exclaimed exuberantly. Slowly two small shoots grow of one of the branches. They grow until they have both produced a single ovalish leaf. Unlike the rest of the tree the two small leaves are white with a green border. A couple seconds pass as they grow a bit more revealing small green veins. As they stop growing the two small shoots fall from tree drifting through the air, until they touch the ground about a foot or so apart. Now that everything is prepared she moves her conciousness over the two, and the grow rapidly. The two grow upwards arching towards each other eventually twisting together as they met. They continued to grow and when they reached a certain height two fairly thick branches grew out perpendicular to the main trunk. As those branches, grew the main trunk extended upwards a bit. Branches of varying thickness grew so fast they almost shot out, wrapping around what was already present causing the trees to take on a short human shape. Leaves began to burst forth covering the figure. Like the leaves that started this whole process, these were white with green borders and veins. When the figure was entirely covered by these leaves the overlapping leaves seemed to merge into each other, the colors shifting as they did. Standing there now she examined herself. She was quite pleased to note that her skin was even more unblemished and translucent as it had been before, and glad that her hair seemed to have retained it''s length, reaching between her shoulder blades, and it''s extremely near white green. Since that hadn''t changed she assumed her eyes were still green, but she couldn''t check. ''Well, there''s no reason, the should have changed.'' she mused to herself. The one thing she really hadn''t expected was the dress. All of the green from the leaves seemed to have gathered on the single layer of leaves that formed it. The edges of the dress looked exactly like someone had cut a cloth in a pattern of overlapping leaves, color wise they formed a gradient going from the green of the leaves, to almost pure white. After a couple of moments testing out her new body she couldn''t help but run towards the red headed man who had yet to notice her. As she reached him she leaped on to him. As they were similar in height, it seemed as though she should cause the man to topple, but she knew she wouldn''t. "Daddy!" she exclaimed, grabbing on to him, her arms around his neck. "Uwaa!" The man was startled for a moment before leaning forward, flipping the girl around as he did, somehow managing to set her on her feet. "You''re too old to still be climbing all over me like that." her father scolded her. "I''m not old, I''m only 20." The girl pouted. "That''s old enough," he barked. Sticking her lower lip out she grumbled, "Mean old Drus." "Ort!" came a summons from inside the audience chamber. She jumped a bit, snapping out of her pout. ''That was uncle Telrok,'' she reasoned. He was the reason she had come to the High Realm today. Supposedly he had some instructions regarding his grand children for her and the other Celestials. "Wait here, Belys," Ort ordered, "daddy has to go talk to his majesty." With that he opened the doors, stepped through and closed them behind him. ''Bor~ing'' Belys complained to herself as she leaned her back against the doors. She almost let her self slide down to the ground, before she got inspired, and started to manipulate some of the plants.
[Corvus POV] [Low Realm: Primordial World, Belys] Corvus had flown around for about an hour or two before he finally found a rocky ledge near the middle of a sheer cliff. He managed to land there, this time his landing was slightly more graceful, he only ran into the wall. Standing there, for the first time in days his mind was actually clear enough to think. That bothered him a bit. He wasn''t clear on why but he definitely felt like his mind shouldn''t be so calm. Thinking about it he decided it was an effect of the void he had been in. Corvus clearly remembered that he had been somewhere and something else before the void. What he could recall was vague. He knew he had recently lost something, but couldn''t recall what. The next thing from before the void he could recall was that his grandfather was somehow responsible, both for him losing whatever it was he lost, and his current situation. The final thing he could recall was that whatever this situation was, he was being tested somehow and there was a reward for doing well. Corvus no longer recalled what the reward was but, he didn''t care, he knew he had no interest in it as it would help the bastard responsible for this mess somehow. He was still unclear as to what exactly his current situation was. He knew he was a bird of some kind, but beyond that he wasn''t sure. He had seen what looked like water, but it was so murky he doubted that he would get any sort of reflection off of it. Grumbling to himself he thought, ''Come on, give me something to work with here.'' He halfway hoped that one of those [windows] would pop up, but nothing did. He had rushed to close them earlier, when he had encountered the snake so he hadn''t had a chance to read them, but he did catch the word reopen. So, he knew the windows could be brought up again, but had no clue how to do so. ''Nothing I can do about it though,'' Corvus resigned himself. as he settled down for the night. ---The Next Day--- He unfurled his wings as he jumped off the ledge. As he had been accustomed he flapped his wings whenever he passed through a blue circle. Corvus began to worry. He had been scouting the immediate are looking for some sort of plant or insect to eat. While he had gotten an idea of the landscape he hadn''t found any other life than snakes like the one he''d encountered early on. It had turned out that he had started not that far from the shoreline and that the snake was amphibious. *Growl* Corvus was hungry he hadn''t eaten in over two days or one, he wasn''t sure the day in his original form still counted. Knowing he needed to do something about his food situation, Corvus decide to observe one of the snakes, as they had all seemed healthy and full. At first he had circled one of them from up in the sky, but he lost the snake when it went back into the water. Next he tried to force a snake away from the water, in the hopes it was one of the varieties that would die if they didn''t go back into the water every once in a while. This seemed like it might work but eventually he ended up in the same sort of stand off he had with the first one. It would strike at him, forcing him to dodge and the snake would move closer to the water. By then the sky had begun to darken, casting a subdued orange glow across the landscape. As his night vision was nothing special, Corvus decided to retire to his ledge as he had done the night before. More tired than usual because of his hunger, he descended for a break. Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. While he resting, Corvus walked around, looking for any seeds or signs of insects. Finding nothing, Corvus snapped, screaming in his mind, ''Damn you, you old bastard, I wanted no part of this.'' ''Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!'' ''I''m so hungry ...'' he almost wept to himself not realizing he had been cawing when he let loose.. "Caw!" "Caw!" "Caw!" "Caw!" "Caw!?" Corvus almost yelped, as he was bombarded by the sound of others. Looking up from the ground, Corvus saw, four birds. He recognized them as crows where he was from. These for seemed to be a pair of two mates, and they all looked terrible. They were thin, their feathers were ruffled, dirty, some were even bent or missing. Not bad enough to stop them from flying but more than bad enough to make it difficult. "Caw!" he greeted them more firmly. The largest bird hopped forward flapping it''s wings. Frightened Corvus did the same only to have the other knock him on his back. ''A show of dominance? From a crow?'' he mused incredulously. Pecking towards the other crow, he forced it to jump back. Righting himself, Corvus pulled his head up and stretched his wings back. Part of this was to make himself seem larger hoping to intimidate the other, the other part he adapted from his encounters with the snakes. He noticed that they had pulled back their head before they struck and that it seemed to allow them to strike faster. The other crow jumped towards him taking off a bit, Corvus waited until it had committed, then sidestep to it''s side using his beak to grab the feathers on the other''s wing dragging it to the ground. Once there Corvus let the feathers go, jumping with a few flaps only to land on the other birds back. It struggled to knock him off, and the other three kept cawing, as if trying to encourage the one he had pinned. ''What do I do now?'' Corvus wondered to himself. He didn''t want to have to fight the other three but he knew that if the one below him didn''t yield the other three wouldn''t either. Their was still a part of Corvus that hoped the other birds would accept him, because he figured that the five of them together could probably kill the snakes. The bird beneath him, nearly knocked him off causing Corvus to resign himself to a less than ideal outcome. Bending down he started rifling through the pinned crow''s feathers, finding one that was bent and didn''t have a big impact on the bird''s ability to fly. Clamping with his beak he pulled it out. This caused the bird below him to struggle even more. Jumping up and down, to avoid getting knocked off Corvus managed to keep the bird pinned. Giving up Corvus clamped down on a feather that would have a major impact on flight. The bird beneath him went dead still, while those around him went quiet. Torn and uncertain of what to do, Corvus'' beady black eyes narrowed. ''Hrrrr!'' he grumbled to himself. ''Fine, then. I''ll try this!'' Releasing the feather, Corvus turned to face one of the other crows and belted out, "Caw!" He watched the other crow silently, until it replied. "Caw!" "Caw!Caw!" Corvus tested. "Caw!Caw!" Satisfied Corvus turned to the next crow repeating the process. Then third, once again testing the response. Finally he lowered his beak towards the head of the one he had pinned, and repeated the process. Happily, all four responded the same. Deciding to risk it, Corvus jumped off and shuffled a bit away. All four crows lined up in front of him let loose a caw. He wasn''t sure why but he almost instinctively replied. Then all four jumped around a bit flapping their wings. Unlike before this seemed almost celebratory, it felt silly to do so, but Corvus joined in as well. The sun was beginning to fall below the horizon, so Corvus gave the foursome a caw and hopped in the direction of his ledge to see if they would follow. He was almost ecstatic when they did, and he flapped his wings several times. This was half in celebration but it also served to indicate he intended to fly. A bit of a rush forward he took off and flew towards his roost. He still wasn''t a very good flyer so it wasn''t until he landed on the ledge that he was able to verify that the four had actually followed. It was a little tight on the ledge with all five of them on there, but Corvus just figured, ''At least we''ll be warm.'' ---The Following Morning--- ''So stiff,'' Corvus complained. He had been right that, it was warmer with all five of them on the ledge, but he had ended up sandwiched between the two pairs of mates. So when he work up he wasn''t even able to stretch his wings until they had flown down to the base of the cliff. He had been a littel worried that they might have just flown off, but luckily the didn''t. ''Maybe they view me as their leader now.; he considered. He hoped so, because he really wanted their help taking on one of those snakes. Flying down, Corvus went through his little ritual of cawing and flapping his wings to get the others to follow him before taking off towards the shore. Disappointingly, he had to stop to rest three times for the other birds. It appeared they had been much worse off than he had thought. Finally reaching the shore Corvus saw something new. With a swoop he dropped himself closer to the ground, to get a better look. ''Seaweed!'' he cheered when he recognized it. Falling quickly he swooped in, only noticing at the last moment that there was a snake entagled in the seaweed, Corvus let out a shrill warning caw just before the snake''s fangs struck him. The other birds landed aroud the snake cawing and pecking at it, causing it to let Corvus go. Feeling his insides begin to burn, Corvus knew that nothing could save him. Leaping forward, he aimed his feet to scratch at the snake''s eyes while simultaneously pecking at it''s back. At first he just pecked randomly but he noticed rather quickly that his beak wasn''t sharp enough to penetrate with each strike. He managed to peck the snake nine times. The first two in different spots. Then two in the same spot, breaking through the snake''s skin. Reacting quickly he attacked a spot a small distance away from the first puncture, nailing it twice with his beak. Clamping his beak down on the seventh he ripped a small chunk of flesh out, instantly tossing it aside. Again moving slightly further down the snakes back he slams his beak down. Feeling the snake position itself beneath him, Corvus drove his beak down onto the same spot, this time with more force than before. Rather than pull out this time, Corvus opened his beak while still in the wound, causing it to create a tear wound on top of the snake. However, this last move afforded the snake the time necessary to clamp down on his leg. Dragging him along, the snake headed towards the water. Looking at the other crows doing nothing Corvus let out a caw too weak for them to hear, he accused them, ''You cowards.'' Almost as though, they had been woken up by this Two of them jumped forward to block the snakes path, while the other two, began to peck at it''s tail. Bleeding from the wound Corvus had created, and the small punctures cause by the others, the snake released it''s grip on him. Then it started to move forward snapping at the birds to drive them back. Corvus struggled to right himself, while the others were failing to prevent the snake from escaping. By the time he managed to right himself the snake had already entered the water. Corvus was about to despair, feeling that his life here had been entirely futile, when he noticed a small red-ish brown tinge in the water. Flapping his wings as he took off, following it. As he flew past the trail got a little clear, as blood flowed from his own puncture wounds splashing into the water. He hadn''t explored out into the water because he was afraid of getting lost, but right now it didn''t matter too much. The longer he flew the lower he flew, his talons started to skip along the water. Looking down, he struggled desperately to flap his wings harder, but he just didn''t have anything left. He collapsed, crashing into the water. Corvus closed his eyes, hoping to keep the water out of them as he fell, but only the lower half of his body felt wet. Peeking he took in his surroundings. He saw fronds of seaweed peaking up out of the water, while small tadpoles swum in it. He could hear croaking off in the distance, so he assumed there were adult frogs around. All of a sudden a [window] popped up.
Inheritance Test Goal
Primary ConditionSurvive
Sub Conditions
TaskCompletion
Be Healthy001%
Establish Roost100%
Find Five Crows080%
Find Food Source100%
Mate000%
Total Completion056%
Participant NameCorvusGoal StatusFailure
''Hahahahahahahaa,'' Corvus couldn''t help but laugh hysterically. ''This is the perfect end to quite possibly the shittiest week of my life.'' ''Go away,'' he pleaded, ''let me at least die in piece.'' "Kaw!Kaw!Kaw!" he heard as the four other crows landed. He was kind of glad they had followed him. At least that way his life would have had some meaning. His body had gone numb, but by the scenery sliding past his fading vision he guessed the other crows dragged him out of the water. One of the crows walked near him looking him straight in the eye, then reared it''s head back. Corvus felt a flash of pain in his eye, as the other birds beak pierced through it, then felt nothing as he was soul was released from his body.
Authors Note And there is the first true chapter. I felt the need to warn reader of the changes I made before they read hence the notice, but writing an authors note always blows up on me, so as before the will remain at the end of the chapter. I have no set word count on how long I intend to make chapters, but this one came in at over 4,500 words, which is nearly triple what the prologue chapters were. As the poll came out with over half voting for crow, that is what I went with. I did some research on crows, most of which I completely ignored during this chapter. The whole crow dominance bit is all me, but some sources did claim that crows will fight and kill each other. Sometimes when a crow was weak or injured so they don''t teach predators how to hunt them. Anyway it was interesting to learn about them to say the least. As I stated at the top I changed Ulric''s name to Corvus which is actually the Genus name of crows. I thought it fit a bit better but you can feel free to whine about it if you want. Actually that goes for the title as well as any of the names, I am always open to suggestions, though I may not use all suggestions. Spent a fair amount of time properly introducing a character from the prologue, she will be popping from time to time and is one of the possibilities for a love interest. Characters are in my opinion one of the weakest parts of this story at the moment. This is because I started writing the story before planning. I know this is a bad practice, but for me it was something I needed to do as otherwise I would remain in planning forever. To clarify on Dryad and Drus, I am using them as tree spirits, but defining them as I see fit beyond that. Several places I looked cited crows as being omnivores which wasn''t a big surprise, but some mentioned they eat snakes, and I thought it would make a good antagonistic force for this chapter. There are actually videos on youtube about crows fighting against snakes, as well as other animals. Most though seem to indicate a certain lack of ability on the crows part. While there are ways I intend to mitigate this later on, for the immediate future I will probably be forced to use Corvus'' nature as reincarnated soul to bootstrap them on to the same playing field. One thing I have been trying incredibly hard to do is avoid an info dump, but I am really not sure how well that has worked out. I also spent a lot of time on Belys'' entrance trying to be detailed. I have the scene in my head so I can see it playing out, and I tried to describe it to you guys but that may not have worked out well. If you want an idea of what the leaves look like they are colored similarly to the ones in this link except they are more like maple leaves. As always feedback would be appreciated. Next chapter will come when it comes. I spent a fair chunk of today writing this chapter and a bit of time on the days since the last chapter looking into crows and doing a bit of setting creation. For those of you in BC that had one I hope you enjoyed the long weekend. Chapter Two: Judgement [Belys POV] [High Realm: Audience Chamber] ''So Bor~ing.'' Belys thought. She had come to the High Realm for the first time but had ended up being stuck listening to her uncle Telrok prattle on about the conditions the participants of his test need to meet to advance to the next stage. As if her father hadn''t gone over it with her again and again when her uncle had let her participate. She thought back a bit, biting her lip as she did. The trip hadn''t been a total waste. When her father and her uncle kept her waiting for hours. That on it''s own had been fun, making some of the sturdier ones grow and form benches, and some of the more vine like grow up to the ceiling or across and create a canopy or carpet. She''d always loved making plants grow, they were the best playmates. They always did what she said and she never needed to share. What had made it even greater though was the look on her father''s face when he opened the door with her uncle in tow. Her father had been quite upset and Belys knew she was going to get scolded but her Uncle Telrok had just laughed and said, "Let it be, Ort. She''s a Dryad, she can''t deny her nature." And shockingly, her daddy just let it go. He''d never done that before, not even for her uncle. Belys knew something was up but she really didn''t understand. ''Maybe it had something to do with why Uncle''s laugh sounded so hollow?'' she speculated. Telrok had said that she couldn''t help it as it was a Dryad''s nature to be flighty and airheaded, which she knew was true, but sometimes it frustrated her to be that way. Her frustration more than anything is what confused her, Dryads never got frustrated. Angry, sure, for the few moments it took them to act on it but frustration was something of an alien topic to them. The only reason she had any comprehension of what the feeling was, was because her father had told her what is was. According to him, frustration was almost a natural state for the Drus, the Dryad''s male counterpart. She felt a shiver run up her spine. She couldn''t imagine feeling like that all the time, so she decide to move on. If she needed to know something she was sure her daddy would tell her. After that she had followed them into the audience chamber to await the other Celestials involved in the administering the test to arrive to receive instructions. While waiting the three of them played several board games together. She one a few of the luck based ones, but both her and her father always lost to her uncle Telrok in most games where thinking and skill mattered. She noticed her uncle smiling and felt the urge to scream, ''Wrong! You''re doing it wrong, that''s not how you smile!'' at him. She couldn''t put her finger on just what was wrong though, and she started to get frustrated. Noticing her frustration, she took a deep breath and stopped thinking about it. Her aunts had told her she shouldn''t waste time thinking about things that made her miserable, and she was pretty sure they knew everything. Frowning, she heard a small voice inside her say, ''They didn''t know about frustration thought did they?'' Ultimately she decided that however true that may have been, they were sort of right in that it made no sense to intentionally make yourself miserable. In the end she let the thoughts slip away and just enjoyed her time with them, she would need to go back to the Low Realm soon enough anyway. After the other Celestials finally arrived, her uncle explained for an hour what was expected of them during their participation in this test. Just as her uncle wrapped up and the others had departed, Belys felt one of the souls entrusted to her released from it''s body on her Plane. Frowning, uncertainty painted across her face she ran up to her uncle giving a bit of a yank of his sleeve. "Hey! Hey! Uncle," she pestered, "I forgot, what am I supposed to do if someone dies during the test?"
[Corvus] [The Void] Corvus found himself once again floating in the void. This time though he could still perceive the world below. ''Wonder where I was?'' he thought idly. Unable to grasp any idea, Corvus gave up noticing another difference. That tree soul was already there, as was another he couldn''t quite make out. Floating over the other''s soul came into focus. It appeared to be some sort of sword, Corvus was still too far away to tell what type. The swords inner light was an icy blue color, but where it met the void it radiated a gentle pure light. As he drifted closer, Corvus saw that the tree had one if it''s branches extended out towards the other soul. ''That''s what it did to me before sending me down,'' he couldn''t help but think. That other soul too, it seemed familiar somehow. Weaving forward, he crashed into a barrier that he hadn''t seen. His form now stinging, he carefully hovered closer, observing in front of him. A nearly transparent green wall appeared in front when he was only about a finger width away. Testing it out, he eased himself against the barrier. It didn''t hurt, however, he was still unable to pass through. Corvus could only watch as the tree withdrew it''s branch, and the soul inside the barrier shot down towards the planet. The barrier began to retract, the lower half of the sphere receding towards the bottom, while the upper went to the top. Completely vanishing when they were little more than points. "Ah, you too, little soul?" the tree''s voice almost sighed. "Too? You mean that other soul is like me?" Flickering brightly for a moment the tree seemed to become re-energized before confirming, "Yep, Yep. She''s been placed in my care for the inheritance test, just like you. Anyways, let''s get on with your judgement." As one of the tree''s branches reached towards his chest, two green lights shot out, one upwards, the other downwards. Corvus just watched as the green light spread out, forming the dome barrier once more. Once it reached a sphere shape, the barrier became invisible having lost it''s color. Feeling a warm, almost burning sensation in his chest he focused his attention back towards where the tree had been. Floating there was the most mystifying female he had ever seen. She had playful brilliant green eyes, and her hair that flowed down just above her breasts, had just a slight green tinged to it. Her skin looked smooth and was so pale it almost seemed to shine. ''Maybe it''s because of the void but she''s almost glowing.'' If he hadn''t noticed a slight point to her ears, as they poked through her hair, the rest of her appearance would still have made him question whether or not she was human. That wasn''t really what mystified him though, instead it was whether or not he should consider her a child, or a woman. She was shorter than he was, and he still hadn''t finished growing before this mess started, but was tall enough it was possible she wouldn''t grow any taller. A thin book appeared halfway out of the center of his chest, and with one finger placed on the top of the book she pulled it out. "Now, let''s see ..." she muttered to herself, as if she had forgotten he was present. She pulled her legs up, sitting cross legged and placed the book in her lap. Flipping it open she began to read it. Corvus watched as her face took on an exaggerated and somewhat forced looking expression of seriousness. ''Hah,'' thought Corvus as he watched, ''she seems just like a child when she does that.'' Really just about everything she said or did made her seem like a child, but if someone where to judge her just by her looks they would probably think she was a woman. There was just something ... seductive about her. ''Gotta keep focused.'' Corvus reminded himself shaking his head to break himself out of his reverie. He had questions he needed to ask and he couldn''t do that if he kept on getting distracted. "Ah, hey listen, girl-" he began. "Girl? How rude! I''m a woman." she interrupted, scolding him. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. "Whatever, just listen for a moment," Corvus instructed, "I don''t care about the inheritance, I just want to go home. Would you go tell my grandfather that, so I can?" "No." she rejected. Pissed Corvus spoke, as though he was doing so through gritted teeth. "Why not?" "You''re rude!" Realizing he had been somewhat rude, Corvus apologized, "Alright, I''m sorry for being rude. Please, is there any way you can go tell him I don''t want to take part in this test anymore. Nor did I ever want to." "Hmmmm," she mumbled while seeming to examine Corvus. With a slight nod she declared, "Apology accepted," apparently deciding he had been sincere. "Ummm, I can go speak to him for you," she continued, "but I don''t think there is much point." Glad to be making some headway, Corvus frowned when she finished speaking. "Why?" "Well, you see," she started to explain, "your body doesn''t exist there anymore. Your grandfather dispersed it shortly after sending you down to me." "What the hell! That shitty old man," Corvus cursed, "Fuck. Bastard." *Whap* Corvus'' head snapped to the right as the woman smacked him with the book. "Don''t ever talk about my uncle like that!" she demanded holding the book ready for another swing. ''Fuuuck!'' he groaned mentally. ''When''s this shit streak gonna end.'' "Wait, wait, if he''s your uncle," he spoke, rubbing his eyes with one hand as he put his thoughts together, "why aren''t you taking the inheritance test? Hell, why doesn''t he just give it to you, you''re probably closer to him than any of us." As she shook her head and went "Nnnnn,", Corvus noticed she had a genuinely serious expression on her face, "He''s not actually my uncle, he''s my dad''s old friend, or boss. I''m not too clear on that to be honest. But he''s known me since I was little more than a sprout, so he let''s me call him uncle." ''Sprout? No, that doesn''t matter right now.'' Still Corvus tucked that bit of information away, before returning to the issues at hand. "Alright, I won''t. I hope you can understand why I did though, I''ve never even had a conversation with the man. The first time I even saw him was before that-" Corvus stopped himself from cursing the man again, "- before he sent me here.I starved as a crow for three days before being killed. Then I came here only to be told I can never go back to my life because he destroyed my body." Corvus watched her, as she lowered the book, a look of consternation crossing her face as if she didn''t completely understand. However, in the end she was apparently appeased, as she announced in a chipper voice, "Fine then. I''ll forgive you this time." "Haaa." Corvus'' tension seemed to release when she said so. "It isn''t as though you can never go back though. You just need to reach my level." "Your level?" "Yep," she nodded clearly not intending to explain. Deciding not to press the matter, Corvus moved on to the more important question. "How do I get to your level?" "Ehhh, didn''t you read the notification?" ''Notification. notification ...,'' something tugged at his memory but he was struggling to place it. "Ahhh! You mean those windows? I only managed to read the Flight skill one." "There was a snake nearby and they were blocking my vision, so I dismissed them. After that I wasn''t sure how to open them again, and before I could work it out I died." he told her. "Pfffft," the girl smirked before letting loose,"Pahaahhaahahahahahaa" ''C''mon it''s really not that funny,'' Corvus'' thought to himself. He would have told her that, but he wasn''t sure how she''d take it. Well, that and after he got with the book he started thinking being on her bad side probably wasn''t worth it. It took her a while, but eventually she stopped laughing, but still had a radiant smile as she apologized, "Sorry, my imagination went wild there for a moment, and the situation just seemed so hilarious." "It wasn''t." Corvus stated calmly. "No, I don''t expect you would think so. Then that being the case I''ll explain the windows," she offered. "They are something your grandfather helped set up. Basically they are to help speed along the inheritance test. If you complete the goals presented you will eventually reach my level." Placing a finger on her lips, she closed her eyes. "Let''s see the windows are: Goal, Skills, Traits, Titles, and Status. If you want to open one, you need to think one of those words with the intention to examine the information present. If you don''t intend to review the information the window won''t appear." "It was set up like that so that you wouldn''t end up with your vision obscured during a critical situation," she explained the edges of her mouth curling upwards. "I see." While he was still upset about the situation, he had already begun to resign himself to the fact the only way back home was to clear the goals. "Satisfied?" Wanting time to think Corvus answered off-handedly, "For now." "Good. Now for your judgement." Pointing her finger at him, she announced, "I judge your soul clean, and grant you the right of reincarnation." Still trying to wrap his head around some of the information he had gained, Corvus snapped to attention when it became clear she wasn''t intending to give him time to collect his thoughts. He felt a brief wave of energy pass over him, washing some of his mental and emotional fatigue away as it passed. Two small white petals shone on his shirt just as he closed his eyes and let the darkness take him. Chapter Three: Egged on by a Memory When Corvus regained consciousness, he panicked for a brief moment, not because he recalled his last descent to Belys, but because even though he was awake, he couldn''t open his eyes. He probably would have completely freaked out if he hadn''t remembered what the lady of the void had said about the windows. ''Goals'' he thought while desiring to see the task he needed to complete bringing a window up.
Inheritance Test Goal
Primary ConditionSurvive
Sub Conditions
TaskCompletion
Hatch000%
Feed000%
Fledge000%
???????????000%
??????000%
????????????????000%
???????????????000%
????000%
Total Completion000%
Participant NameCorvusGoal StatusFailure
''What the hell!'' was the first thing that crossed his mind. ''This is way more complicated than before.'' Still he was a little relieved by the first sub condition. It explained why he couldn''t see anything. ''One more thing,'' he noted to himself. Everything Corvus had experienced since that day, had made his whole life spin entirely out of his control. He was mature enough to know that there were some things nothing could be done about, but he couldn''t help but get frustrated with all the things he had no control over and just had to accept. ''One day there''ll be a reckoning, you old bastard.'' he shouted upwards. Corvus had started to keep a count of the number of times events had been yanked out of his control and he intended to make sure his grandfather answered for all of them. The question marks were a little concerning, but Corvus concluded that knowing them wouldn''t serve any purpose if he didn''t accomplish the first three. In fact the most worrisome entry was fledge. Corvus didn''t know what it meant. ''Hatch and Feed are easy enough, but to do something I know nothing about?'' Having taken the time to absorb that information Corvus decided to take a look at the other window. ''Hmmm, the others were Skills, Traits, Titles, and Status. I''m pretty sure I don''t have any Titles or Traits, but is there a chance I still have my Flight skill? Skills!''
Skills
Void Resistance
The Void is a place outside of the physical Realms. The nature of the Void is governed by a Void Lord. However, there is one trait that all Voids share, that is the cleansing of one''s most recent identity. Your memories and emotions are slowly wiped away as spend time in the void. Through sheer force of will you have managed to create a bubble of protection that allows you to carry through the reincarnation process the equivalent of a few days worth of memories.
Skill RankAmateurRank Progress10%
Flight (suppressed)
This skills is for those who wish to take to the skies. While it won''t help just any Dive bombing dunce become an aerial ace, for any species that commonly flies. It is the quickest way to become an Adept Avian, even more so if it wasn''t your original form. Requires a winged form. *You have retained this skill from a previous life, however due to your current form''s inability to support it, the skill has been suppressed. It has also been reduced from Skill Rank Novice due to time spent in the Void.
Skill RankAmateurRank Progress95%
He reread the information presented in the skill windows several times, trying to be sure he caught everything. Corvus didn''t find anything that surprising in the details of Void Resistance. The only surprise he had discovered was that it only tried to remove things from the most recent life. He''d only lived as a crow for a few days the first time so he remembered it all, but he knew he could only recall a minuscule fraction of his original life. For that reason alone, he was relieved and happy about the tiny bit of information it had provided. Flight was similar. The information the skills window shared wasn''t all that surprising and what surprise it did have was all positive. ''It''s the piece of information deduce-able from what''s stated that''s worth noting.'' he reasoned. ''No notification will be given on ranking up, meaning if I want to know I''ll actually have to check my skills.'' He took the suppression of Flight in stride because it indicated that it would cease to be so when his body was capable of it. Imagining himself swiping away the window he thought, ''Vanish.'' Taking this cue the skill window shrunk to side and disappeared, leaving the goals window floating there. ''Interesting,'' he mused to himself. Previously he had simply thought go away to get rid of the windows, but this time he imagined a manner for them to disappear. While it wasn''t exactly the same, the window had still reacted his imagination. He reopened the skill window, this time he imagined both the skill and goals windows being swiped away to the left. Sure enough, both windows responded. ''That would have been nice to know sooner.'' Corvus complained. ''Well, I know it now. I guess all that''s left is Status.''
Status
NameCorvusAge0y 0m -19d
GenderMaleTest StageOne
SpeciesCrowSpecies RankAnimal
Skills2/3
Titles---Empty---
Traits---Empty---
Three words stood out to Corvus, as if they had been written in burning letters: "Test Stage One." This was something he had never considered. All he could do now was stare at it dumbfounded. He''d asked the tree woman about how to get to her stage, but looking at this window he realized that he had been assuming clearing the goal would be the end of the test. It was really starting to sink in that this wasn''t going to be quick. Corvus began to feel as though he couldn''t breathe as wave after wave of emotion broke forth. Shock, Dismay, Frustration, Helplessness. Everything he had been suppressing since this whole mess started surged to the surface, demanding to be felt. With his spirit a bit broken, Corvus swiped the Status window closed. He wasn''t sure what his form was like right then, but he imagined himself curling up into a ball. "Heh, heh, he*cough*cough*" sobs broke forth. Corvus clutched at his chest, managing to breathe evenly as tears silently rolled down his cheeks. Losing track of time, Corvus was unable to stop it so he just let himself cry. When he stopped, he was exhausted and it didn''t take long for him to drift off.
He wasn''t sure how long he''d been out of it when he first came to. Even after waking Corvus just stared off into the dark. He just let his mind drift not thinking about anything. Time seemed to stretch on forever, and that suited him just fine. He just let himself float there until he was able to fall back to sleep. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Corvus woke again. ''How many times does that make? Ten? Fifteen?'' he wondered idly to himself. Lifting his faux arm above his face he stretched his hand out as though he was reaching for something. He remained just staring vacantly at the back of his hand, his thoughts flitting about. ''What''s the point of trying? Even if I complete stage one who knows how many stages there are. On top of that I have no clue how long it will take to complete each stage.'' ''Fuck,'' he whimpered, ''It''s not even like anyone tricked me. I was just deceiving myself, thinking I could finish this quickly.'' Corvus let his hand fall. ''Whatever, I don''t care anymore.'' Sensing rather than seeing Corvus noticed a small flickering light. It would strobe on and off annoyingly, never giving his sense time to get used to either it''s presence or absence. Angry, Corvus reached out his imaginary hand wrapping around the source of the light. As he did he felt a burning sensation run up his arm, through his chest, before finally arriving in his head where it exploded. "Aaarrrrghhhh!" Corvus screamed in pain, grabbing at his hair. His mind seared as he felt a memory reform in his mind. Looking for an escape, any escape from his suffering Corvus dove into the memory.
"Hahahahaha," a child''s playful laughter split through the air. Following the sound to it''s source, Corvus saw himself. His younger self, Corvus wasn''t positive but he thought this might has been around the time he was eight or nine. He watched as the dark haired boy ran off through the field of tall grass. Bursting through his ghostly form, another child ran after the youth that was him. ''Leilah,'' Corvus reminisced, with a sad smile. Trailing the children he just observed them as they played. He remembered how much he loved it when Leilah and her father would come visit. Living outside the city as he did, their visits were the only time he really ever got to play with someone his age. When Leilah tagged his child self, she turned around running back towards his house. Her dirty blonde braid of thick, coarse hair floating along behind her revealing the caramel skin on her neck. "Pfft," Corvus chuckled to himself mildly as he recalled how this scenario almost always went. As a youth he had learned early on, that he just wasn''t anywhere near as fast as Leilah. The first few times they had played tag he would chase straight after her, but even if she stood still until she saw he was an arms length away she would be able to get away. That had been frustrating, to be so close only to have victory snatched away from him so easily every time. He''d finally gotten smart about it though, and instead of immediately following he would dart of to the side. Normally this would have made the situation worse but every time Leilah noticed he wasn''t chasing after her she would stop and look around. Only then would he pop out of the tall grass and tag her back. In the end, both Corvus and Leilah ended up playing for different reasons. Corvus just played for the fun of it, but Leilah seemed to play for the challenge. She watched her surroundings like a hawk when she stopped, seemingly looking for any signs of which direction he was going to come from. This forced him to come at her from all different sides, sometimes he would even double back coming at her from the same direction. This time Corvus could see as the child him approached her from just to the right of her back. Just as the boy was about to strike forth, tagging the little girl. "Leilah! Time to go!" a male voice boomed out. Young Corvus had frozen for an instant at the shout, allowing the girl to notice him. Smirking she proudly declared, "I win," then grabbed his hand, pulling him along as she ran to her father. He was a tall man well built man. He kept his head shaved, apparently because he too had thick rough hair. His skin was darker than Leilah''s, having more of a copper tone. Zahid rubbed his hand through his daughters hair as she hugged him before greeting, "Good Day, Corvus." "Good Day, -" he heard himself say, before he tuned it out. Moving his ghostly form over to the house he tried passing through the wall. He felt a chill as he passed through, before him a surreal scene. A scene he knew he hadn''t seen. All around the cabin every bit of color he could see had been washed away, leaving only grey. In this memory he shouldn''t have, he saw his mother crumpled on the floor sobbing. This pained him in a way he couldn''t explain, to see his mother hurting and not to be able to do anything for her. Kneeling his form near her, he sunk into the ground so he could look at her face. There were tears streaming down her face, but what really stood out was the pair of shining blue eyes the tears flowed from. The only color in this entire space. Her head snapped up, forcing Corvus to look around for the reason, before he realized it had been laughter from outside that caused it. He watched as his mother stood wiping her tears with the sleeve of her dress, and patting the dust of her apron. Corvus moved himself over, floating in the counter as his mother began preparing their evening meal. He heard the door creak open, looking over to see it let in a flood of color. "I''m back," young Corvus announced walking in. "How was your visit with Leilah," his mother asked as she turned around. The only trace of her previous state being a slight redness around her eyes. "It was fun. We played tag, I was just about to win when her dad called her." "Win?" his mother asked bemused, a loving smile on her face. "How does one win at tag?" Corvus knew his youthful self would go on to explain how they played cheerfully, but the memory faded to white then black around him, once again leaving him in the darkness that was his unhatched egg. ''What was that?'' he thought to himself. A thousand questions ran through his mind; Why had she been so sad? Why didn''t she tell him? Was what he saw real? If it was how did he see it? ''Did I ever really know my mother at all?'' Corvus wanted answers, but it was clear to him that their would only be one way to get them. He needed to play their game, clear their goals. Resolving himself Corvus thought ''Status'' bringing up the window.
Status
NameCorvusAge0y 0m -2d
GenderMaleTest StageOne
SpeciesCrowSpecies RankAnimal
Skills2/3
Titles---Empty---
TraitsInsomniac
Most of the information provided was useless as he already knew them or had no clue about the context of them. Knowing what testing stage he was on was only helpful if he knew how many testing stages there were. Beside the point that had sent him spiralling into depression, there were three other bits of information that caught his attention. His age was a little confusing, until he realized that he hadn''t technically been born yet. As such, Corvus started thinking of it as his hatching date. He wasn''t positive but it seemed like a reasonable assumption to him. ''Two days until my new life,'' Corvus mused to himself. ''That gives me plenty of time to think, to plan.'' Having a Trait was a bit of a surprise. Waving away the status window he brought up the Traits window.
Insomniac
Trait Description
You have been granted this trait as a result of an excessive, unnecessary, lack of activity and an excessive, unnecessary abundance of sleep. As such your system has been knocked out of balance. You will find yourself unable to sleep easily or for long until you reduce the number of stored hours by a large margin, unless you exert yourself heavily. Unlike true Insomnia, you have some control over the effects of this trait.
Stored Hours153
''Pft. Hahahahahahaa,'' Corvus began to laugh maniacally, amused by the absurdity of what his life had become as much as anything else. When he eventually settled down again, Corvus began to form his own goals for his upcoming life. Chapter Four: Hatching and Fledging ''So cramped.'' During the past two days Corvus seemed to fuse with what would be his new body, and it was as though he had been forcefully maintained in a fetal position. Wanting to stretch his stiff neck he tried moving it, only to feel it push against the shell of his egg. Pushing with all his might he felt it give a little. and realized a crack had formed. He was still unable to see anything so he assumed the crack just wasn''t letting a lot of light in. A short moment later, Corvus redoubled his earlier effort trying to burst forth from his egg. Aggravatingly, he barely managed to enlarge the crack before he needed to rest and recover. As this process of pushing the shell and resting repeated, Corvus began to worry. ''I still can''t see?'' He knew that the crack in the eggs shell was wide enough for him to stick a limb out of, but his vision remained dark. ''No, don''t let yourself panic.'' giving another stretch, ''For all I know this could be completely normal.'' His tattered memories didn''t have any information about baby birds but he vaguely recalled some animals being born blind. ''For now, I''m just gonna hope that''s the case here.'' It took Corvus quite a long time to force the crack large enough that he was able to slide his body out of the egg. As he did he felt something stuck to his stomach scrape off of his chest. He had been primarily jostling himself along with his feet, but as he was doing so he slipped on had fallen from his chest. His foot drove whatever it was that fell into a gap in the nest. Finally completely free of the egg Corvus let his body stretch out, only to become startled as the nest gave a small tremor as a large presence appeared behind him. Unable to see it was only when the presence seemed to remove something from the nest that Corvus calmed down. He reasoned out that this must be one of his parents. Exhausted from the rigors of hatching and feeling some sense of safety knowing his new parent was around Corvus let himself collapse and sleep. Corvus'' wasn''t sure how long he slept. He could somewhat tell it was day, because he felt the sun''s heat on his body but beyond that he couldn''t tell much. He knew he wasn''t alone in the nest as he had been nudged awake. It became clear it was another baby bird when a whiny chirping sound broke the silence. His stomach grumbling, Corvus wondered how to go about eating given him being so weak and blind. ''No way,'' he thought when an idea struck him. Unwillingly Corvus lifted his head, adding his own whiny chirp to the other. During the two days before he hatched Corvus made a list of several things he should try to do this time around. One of these was to learn more about his new species. As he had been a crow both times, it wasn''t too large a leap in logic to assume he would keep coming back as one. He had obviously seen crows before, but whether it was because his memories now had the consistency of swiss cheese or not, he couldn''t help but acknowledge how little he actually new about them. For that reason, he was quite shocked when he felt a rather large beak enter his open mouth, dropping something into his throat. His body responded causing a build up of saliva, which allowed him to easily swallow the small bit a food with a gulp. While not horribly unpleasant Corvus had never eaten as a crow before. Evaluating the experience he eventually decided, ''This is going to take some getting used to.'' Given his current situation it hadn''t been that hard for him to conclude he would have to, as shortly after his first feeding his stomach felt empty again. Ironically, he had grown quite used to being fed, beak to beak, by the end of the first day. After the sheer number of times he had gone through the process that day, it would have been more surprising if he hadn''t adapted to it. The feedings had continued at regular intervals all throughout the day, only stopping when night fell. Corvus ended up taking longer to fall asleep than his siblings. Only a couple dozen seconds really but he was still awake when the two large beings he''d come to think of as his parents huddled around him and the others. The warmth and shelter they provided ushering him to bed.
Time passed quickly as this cycle of feeding and sleeping continued over several days. It was about a week after hatching when Corvus first opened his eyes. Being able to see was such a relief that he didn''t even mind that in his current state he couldn''t even see out of the nest. He was able to see his ''siblings'', of which he had two. By sight alone Corvus couldn''t tell whether they were male or female, but somehow he knew one was male and the other female. None of them had much in the way of covering, just a bit of down here and there. Most of their skin was a dark ebony, but some of it was a pinkish color. ''We look like plucked chickens,'' Corvus chuckled to himself before thinking, ''I suppose that makes sense though.'' He had been quite astonished when he first laid eyes on his parents. It baffled him that all these small things kept on amazing him, but it was a weird experience to look up at a crow and think ''How huge.'' It wasn''t like they were all that large for crows, a fact he reasoned out after he stopped gawking. It was really the male bird missing a feather that made that clear to Corvus. Apparently this was the same the bird that he had dominated in his previous life. ''What does that make now? Ten, no, eleven things I need to make the old man pay for.'' Despite not being able to see much, Corvus was still glad to be able to see. His sedentary lifestyle was beginning to grate on him. Deciding to work on one of the simpler goals he set himself. Whenever he wasn''t eating or sleeping Corvus would be bobbing his head making pecking motions at the edges of the nest. Corvus'' previous experience indicated that crows just didn''t have enough combat capabilities, which meant running into a predator would be deadly. He was hoping that he could improve his pecking strength and increase his penetrative potential. Half a month later Corvus was big enough that he could see over the edge of the nest. It was apparently built on the edge of cliff face on an island or peninsula. It was impossible to be sure. Due to the presence of his father bird, or One Feather as Corvus had taken to thinking of him as, he figured that was reborn quite close to where he died. Of course it probably hadn''t been all that long ago either. ''A couple years, maybe,'' he theorized. After another week and a half later a window appeared in front of Corvus.
Skill Prompt
Skill NamePecking
Skill Description
Continuous practice has made clear your desire to increase your pecking power, however as a crow no matter how much you go through the motions there is a limit to how strong you will become. This skill will provide no increase in the strength of your beaks blows but will help you know where and how to strike more effectively.
Skill RankAmateurRank Progress0%
Register Pecking?
''Ugh, what a disheartening message.'' It was hard not to complain about being told you were never going to be strong enough to protect yourself. ''Knowing where to aim at though,'' Corvus deliberated, ''That could be helpful.'' He registered the skill. By now he and his siblings where actually quite large, now looking quite similar to the two older birds, except the feathers.The three young birds frequently jostled each other in the nest. Annoyed at being pushed, Corvus rotated his head intending to caw at his female siblings only to be distracted by a shimmer on her chest. Curious, but still quite annoyed, he tilted his head aiming his sight directly there. It was faint but right in the middle of her chest was an iridescent dot. Then it vanished. Something about it bugged him but since he could have just been seeing things he put it out of his mind still looking towards his female sibling. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. She had some feathers with white tips because of which Corvus internally called her White Wings. Actually he''d given them all names, the male parent was still One Feather. he''d settled on ''Speckles'' for his male sibling due to some white patches on his chest. He was being somewhat stubborn about the female parent, steadfastly refusing to think about her as mom, mother or ma, but she didn''t really have anything distinctive about her. Eventually he settled on calling her Matty, short for Matriarch. It was a little ungracious of him but it was as close to mother her could force himself to go. Dropping himself down, Corvus tried to rest. In the beginning, Insomniac had been quite mild in it''s effects, but as he grew stronger it had gotten harder and harder to sleep. And as stated he never slept as long as he would have liked. It wasn''t that he was groggy or anything like that, it was more that he had almost too much energy. There in the nest it was particularly painful because it wasn''t like he could move around a bunch to exhaust himself. Just then Matty and One Feather landed on the nest, both holding large bits of food in their beaks. He, White Wings, and Speckles began to crowd around opening their beaks to receive their food, only it never came. Instead their parents remained standing near the edge. White Wings and Speckles clawed their way up the ridge of the nest going up to the older birds to receive the food. Sure enough they had it dropped down their beaks like usual. Corvus had been a bit suspicious about this change but seeing that he decided Matty and One Feather had just wanted to make them move around. Managing to claw his way onto the edge of the nest, Corvus observed as White Wings was almost chased of it''s edge. ''Finally!'' Corvus cheered as he basically raced of the edge of the nest. Rather than flapping his wings, he just kept them spread allowing himself to glide shakily down on to the ground. Excited and hopeful Corvus felt the need to check something, shouting ''Goals'' in his head.
Inheritance Test Goal
Primary ConditionSurvive
Sub Conditions
TaskCompletion
Hatch100%
Feed100%
Fledge033%
Communicate000%
Mature006%
????????????????000%
???????????????000%
????000%
Total Completion030%
Participant NameCorvusGoal StatusFailure
Deep inside Corvus couldn''t help but feel quite relieved. For the most part he had been trying to ignore the various windows. However in order to get back home, or at least he hoped, he needed to complete these tasks. He hadn''t know what it meant to fledge but it occurred to him the first time he tried to leave the nest that it might mean just that. Matty had been around when he tried so he hadn''t even managed to crawl up to the edge before being shoved back in. He had considered trying again when neither she nor One Feather were around, ultimately he gave up on that idea though. ''Parents, no adults,'' he recalled Zahid keeping his younger self outside, ''sometimes know more than they share.'' So when the two older birds seemed to lure his siblings out, Corvus jumped at the chance. He would have congratulated himself for figuring out what fledge meant, but with it sitting at only thirty three percent doing so felt premature. As he heard these cries, Corvus tilted his head looking above him. Gliding down in his direction was Speckles. Taking the hint, Corvus hopped himself out of the way. All three of them now on the ground their parents glided down to a patch of earth some distance away. Hopping further away they looked back breaking the relative silence, "Caw!" Corvus didn''t pay too much attention, instead reviewing his Skills window. He was honestly concerned by what he saw there. His flight skill was still suppressed. He hadn''t really thought about it before trying to get out of the nest that first time. Now that he was out though, he felt incredibly vulnerable to predators knowing he couldn''t fly away. "Caw," he heard again. Turning towards the noise. Corvus saw the other four standing there there peering back. Matty cawed at him again. ''Seems I''m supposed to follow.'' Deciding not to be stubborn Corvus hopped over fluttering his wings every other time to get a bit more distance. The two older birds led them other around the cliff to the north. It took until they moved past the other for their destination to come into view. Off in the distance there was grass. The first grass Corvus had ever seen on Belys. He couldn''t help but be excited, during his previous incarnation the only greenery he had seen had been some seaweed. As Matty and One Feather had been able to constantly feed them, he had put it out of his mind but one of his concerns was how barren this world seemed to be. His parents trotted over to the grass, poking around and coming up with a few seeds. White Wings and Speckles followed them begging to be fed. Uncertain whether he would be able to, Corvus began poking his beak around the grass. Finding seeds rather quickly he tried picking them up only to fumble them. Corvus'' next attempt went better, the seed dropping into his mouth and travelling down his throat with a gulp. At this both Matty and One Feather chirped. It was a sound quite different from their normal cawing. The first time he heard them do it Corvus couldn''t help but be marvelled, quite certain he had never heard crows sing like that before. Thinking that it was because he did something well, Corvus'' let his ego swell a bit. Now that he could eat on his own he continued looking around for seeds, gobbling up any that he found. Full of himself he continued on sometimes watching amusedly as his siblings still let Matty feed them. One Feather who was just standing off to the side observing the surroundings suddenly shrieked, "Caaw!" at Corvus. Focused on gather his meal Corvus ignored it. ""Caaw!"" a more panicked shriek split forth. Chapter Five: Deja Vu Not positive what was going on he twisted his head one way then trying to ascertain the reason. Finding no cause he went back to his search for seeds. "Caaw" came the same cry. This time Corvus also heard a small flicking hiss. Putting the pieces together, he jumped towards the family of birds. Once he was safe, Matty and One Feather came at the snake from both flanks. There was no chance they would actually kill it but that wasn''t really their goal. Driving it away took only a couple of moments. It was a humbler Corvus that went back to browsing for seeds, doing so reluctantly only after One Feather did. Once again they very real threats on this world substantiated themselves to Corvus. While he could feed himself before the others that only mattered if he could find food and did nothing to protect him from harm. ''Being smarter than a bird wasn''t really that much of an accomplishment especially given I was originally human,'' thought reproaching himself. Struggling not to become depressed as all the times he had missed opportunities, been naive, avoided truths, or let others control events flashed through his mind. All the questions he didn''t think to ask, his naivety during his first time as a crow, his most recent behaviour. There were times when nothing he could have done would have changed anything but there were also things he could have done so much better. "Caaw," the call came again yanking Corvus from his reflections. Taking the cue this time he moved himself to the same area as his crow family. The snake slithered into view again. This time though Matty and One Feather were unable to drive it away, and instead lead their children away. The sun moved across the sky as the day passed. At first Corvus had been fine but when the day wore on he became hungry. Unable to resist it any longer he was forced to beg his parents for food. That night it was a struggle to asleep. The Insomniac trait had fully kicked in. Tired but unable to rest, he paced around hoping to exhaust himself. His eyes had finally begun to droop when he saw a flash of movement in the distance. Shaking himself awake he saw a snake slithering towards his family. Frantic he stuttered, "Ca-Caw." This woke the others but they were looking around, as if trying to determine something. Trying again he drawled, "Caaw!" This caused the other birds to huddle themselves over in his direction. When the snake finally got in range it was met by five tired, angry birds. All of them cawing loudly and flapping their wings managed to drive it away. The rest of the night was uneventful and Corvus even succeeded in getting four hours sleep.
Most of the summer and autumn passed in a fairly similar manner. Corvus managed his first shaky flight a week or two after he left the nest. The iridescent rings appeared just as they had last time, but they seemed almost dimmer somehow. Over the entire four month period his parents imparted a bunch of knowledge to their offspring. Most of it was various sources of food, there was a bend in the island where various forms of seaweed would wash up. The small pool of water on the far north of the island had a pool some frogs lived in. They had woken everyone up early once, to watch as a bunch of baby turtles hatched from under the sand. Corvus had been enthralled watching that but amazement turned to horror as Matty and One Feather showed them how to kill and eat the baby turtles. As horrible as that had been to watch, it helped him understand something about the Pecking skill. Perhaps the most astounding thing Corvus learned though was how crows talked to each other. Their language was primitive by his standards, consisting of several simple statements; "Ca-Caw" was used as a general caution, "Caaw" meant snake. Simple as it was, Covus was certain he still had a lot to learn. The meaning of "Caw!" for example still eluded him. Sometimes he thought it meant food, but it seemed almost interchangeable with come or follow. There was a distinct chill in the air and the clouds stretched on as if endless. Only a dingy light made it down, giving the impression it was much later in the day. Corvus ruffled his feathers as he glanced around, watching for any signs of danger. Right now, it was his turn to be sentry. He, White Wings, and Speckles had all started taking turns near the start of fall. All in all, his life had entered something of a rut. ''Hell, even that goals window indicates the same thing.'' ruminated Corvus. Mature had increased, but Fledge hadn''t moved since he began flying. It had jumped up to sixty six after his first successful flight, then for the past almost three months it hadn''t changed. Communicate started going up as he discovered the meanings of the various bird calls. It rose rapidly at first but then it too stagnated. As willing as he was to learn this new language when he wasn''t provided any new patterns it became impossible. ''Day in and day out all we do is scrounge for food and sleep.'' Corvus bitched. It wasn''t actually like that as they were being taught, also White Wings and Speckles eventually took part in various aerial acrobatics and tricks. They were quite playful about it, and would squawk at Corvus trying to get him to join in. Corvus never did join them, it wasn''t anything immature like he didn''t want to play with children that stopped him. Simply put, he was too terrified to even attempt them. A shrill cawing broke out in the sky above him. Descending towards his family were five birds, that Corvus had never encountered before. They landed in a semi-circle around them and two of arrivals attempted to intimidate his group by flapping their wings and cawing. Corvus would have smiled if he could. ''That''s leave,'' he noted to himself happy to have begun expanding his vocabulary again. As he was celebrating this fact, Matty and One Feather blustered about trying to drive the intruders away. This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. Things went back and forth like that for a while, but the new birds were just a smidge larger and healthier so his parents were being driven back. Corvus often referred to the older birds in his mind as his parents, but in comparison he felt much less sense of belonging to this new family than to his deceased mother. Still being driven away from his home by some interlopers bothered him. Joining the squabble himself, he thought about driving the other crow group off and small shimmering dots appeared on the strangers. While he had watched his elders essentially massacre the baby turtles he stumbled across the fact that his Pecking skill used the dots to indicate where to strike, but more than that it also adapted to his intent. So if he wanted to drive something away it would highlight points that would cause pain, it would even change depending on whether or not he minded killing his target. Lashing out Corvus struck the foreign male in the chest driving the crow backwards. Seizing the flow, Corvus rushed in again with stroke of his wings striking close to where his first strike landed. Agitated and losing ground, the larger bird eventually turned tail flying off with his family. On their own again, it didn''t take long for the rest of his group to fall back into their routine. Corvus, on the other hand, had yet to be so excited feeling for the first time as though things were beginning to change. Over the next day this little drama repeated itself multiple times. It reached the point where when the new birds landed Corvus just groaned, ''Again!'' Getting tired of this he decided to just ignore them unless they went after his family. Most of the crows were quite smart, figuring out his rules fast. It was only that original male that kept pestering him. Corvus was annoyed but quite tolerant restraining himself to only driving it off. The sun was disappearing off in the west when it happened. The other family of birds showed up again, this time the father going straight at Corvus. Having been through this enough already he just fell into form not really taking the exchange seriously. ''One Peck, two pecks, and done.'' Corvus stopped going back to his evening meal. """"Danger"""" four voices shouted in unison. Feeling a strike to his wing Corvus found that against his expectations the older male was still coming at him. The two birds fluttered around each other, Corvus striking the other a few more times to no effect. Enraged the elder bird leaped up striking towards one of Corvus'' eyes. Shocked and infuriated at this escalation Corvus lashed out pecking at the others eye, smashing into it. Deep enough to blind but not kill. Shrieking in pain the other bird backed off regrouping with his own flock. A procession of caws that he didn''t recognize the meaning went back and forth between the birds. Three of them flew off, while the other two walked over to him, giving him a long almost pleading, "Caaaaw?" Corvus had a vague idea that they were requesting to join his group but there was no way to be sure. ''Hell, I''m not even sure how to respond.'' he griped feeling his own deficiencies once again, ''I don''t even know how to say yes or no.'' Settling on a choice he was about to parrot their cry back to them when he saw a snake appear behind one. "Snake," he yelled. The warning came just a little too late as the snake sprang forth latching on to one of their wings. It flailed around trying to get loose only to fail. Rushing into the fray, Corvus thought about freeing the trapped bird bringing forth the iridescent circles. One appeared on the back of snakes head right where it joined with the rest of it''s body. Feeling pressured the snake began slithering away, it''s prey still held tight. "Nooo!" Corvus roared refusing to allow the snake to get away as it was dragging the other bird away violently. Flying up, Corvus let gravity add power to his attack as his beak slammed into the same spot as before piercing half way through the snake''s body rendering it immobile. Giving it a flurry of pecks, Corvus watched as the light left the serpents eyes allowing the other bird to shake itself loose. Looking at the rescued crow, Corvus paled. ''I was too slow.'' he regretted. Her wing was punctured and slightly bent, and she had fallen to the ground unable to support herself. Matty, One Feather, White Wings, Speckles and the other new female caught up with them. Looking at the scene they all just cocked their heads sideways trying to determine what had occurred. Having failed Corvus just stood there in a daze, unsure of what to do now. He watched as Matty walked over peering out her one of her eyes at the downed bird. "Caaaaaw," came a mournful sound. Getting an incredibly unpleasant sense of deja vu Corvus jumped between Matty and the younger female. Chapter Six: Dreams of a Healer "Leave." he demanded with his own call driving Matty away. As they left Corvus examined the fallen crow. He latched onto her bent wing giving it a twist. This elicited a pained squawking noise from her. It hadn''t fixed it completely, yet that was the best Corvus could do with his current form. She was still too weak to stand, so Corvus regurgitated some seeds from the food storage pouch he''d discovered he had and feed her beak to beak. With her unable to move Corvus hunkered down for a long night. The night passed more easily than expected because of the Insomniac ability. Rather than being about depriving him of sleep, the Trait allowed him to store hours of sleep. If he stored too many it would have a negative impact on his routine but by limiting it to one or two days stored he could push himself to stay awake if he needed without suffering any ill affects. Early the next morning his family returned, giving Corvus the opportunity to gather more food and let himself take a short rest. His sleep was troubled, filled with dreams of another life.
"Haaa," Corvus panted with sweat dripping down his face. His legs burning he kept moving them, frantically running down the country lane towards the city. His unconscious mother mounted on his back. Goosebumps ran up his arms as the cool morning air brushed past him as he ran. When the city outskirts appeared he redoubled his efforts pushing himself even harder to reach his destination. When he reached the gates he blew past the guards, ignoring their shouts to halt and their pursuit. Following the main street he darted down an alley, finally coming to a halt in front of a small house. Slamming his fist on the door he screamed, "Zahid! Zahid! Help!" ''Oh god, what if he isn''t in,'' Corvus panicked. He hadn''t considered that possibility. Zahid was the only person that might possibly be able to help, if he wasn''t there it wouldn''t matter that he''d made it here. ''Come on, be here.'' He pleaded continuing to beat on the wooden door. *Jangle* *Jangle* *Shiik* Corvus peered over his shoulder to see five well armoured guards. Two were holding swords pointed at him. "Now listen here boy, don''t make this difficult just come along peacefully." the most grizzled of the five ordered. Dropping to his knees everything poured out of him as he let out a guttural roar, "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!" Corvus let his mother gently slip from his back as he used his hands to help break his fall. "That''ll be enough. Stand down, Captain." a voice requested. "You!" the captain retorted. "You know him?" Feeling a gentle touch on his shoulder, he turned his face towards it not daring to let himself hope. His tension evaporated as he took in the visage of Zahid. Being grasped by the man''s large hand he was hauled to his feet as Zahid explained, "Indeed, there on the ground is his mother, one of my patients. Now if you would be so kind could you have your men lower their arms and help me get her inside." Glancing left and right at his men the captain barked, "You heard the man, get to it." Zahid opened the door guiding Corvus into a room with a single well kept bed. Feeling Zahid let go of him, Corvus turned to follow him out of the room thinking he had been led here to rest. He found a chair being deposited into his hands by Zahid who was wearing a knowing smile. Setting the chair in the corner out of the way he sat down to watch. One of the guards slipped his mother onto the bed. Wiping the hair from the woman''s face Zahid places the back of his hand on her forehead, his mouth curling down as he did. He then moved on placing his fingers in the crookk of her neck, gently applying pressure. "Haa," he sighed as he left his patient walking over to cluttered shelf shifting the bottles there around before bringing down a small clear glass vial filled with a dark red liquid. Grasping for any information Corvus blurted, "What''s that?" Looking over as he propped open Corvus'' mother''s mouth Zahid replied, "It''s a panacea of sorts." "Panacea?" Pouring the solution into the unconscious woman''s mouth, forcing her to swallow it Zahid continued explaining, "A true panacea is a cure all, but I have never seen one. The substance I have just used is the closest I have ever seen. It''s made from small red sea grapes that rarely wash up on shore in the far south." Hearing that something so rare was used for his mother''s sake Corvus stammered, "T-Thank you, thank you so much." Finally feeling as though everything was going to be alright. "No," Zahid replied, "she''s an old friend. To do less would be ungracious." So quietly that Corvus didn''t catched he added, "I only pray it''s enough." before raising his voice enticing, "Come, rest in another. What can be done has been done, there is little point exhausting yourself." "But-" Corvus started to interrupt. "No. I insist you rest, I will watch her in your stead, and wake if she comes to before you." demanded Zahid, grasping his should and pulling him out of the room. Corvus glanced backwards at his mother, hope and fear colliding inside of him.
A loud caw rang out, forcing Corvus awake. Standing there was Speckles looking at him and out of the corner of his eye he saw the rest of the flock flying away. Glad not to have been left behind in silence, Corvus cawed trying as hard as he could to express thanks. Speckles got the point but asked, "Follow?" Denying his brother''s request, he went to look at his patient. ''She looks much worse. No that''s not right.'' he corrected, ''She is much worse, but she looks about the same.'' Trying to find the issue, he ruffled her feathers finding the punctures. There was a green tinge on the inner edge, with an angry red ring spreading out from there. ''Poison!'' he spat, ''Dammit. Fuck, shit, is there really nothing I can do?'' Recalling his dream Corvus gave himself a little shake. ''What are the odds?'' Foraging around the downed female, Corvus brought her some grass seeds dropping them into her beak. Looking her over again countered himself, ''Won''t know if I don''t check.'' Having decided his course of action, he let out a few caws attempting to reassure her he would be back, then flew off to the small bend on the east of the island. Landing he began to browse through the boughs of seaweed that the tide had brought in. He didn''t waste a bunch time, worrying that a snake may happen upon the injured crow while he was away. Glancing around quickly he dismissed some strands completely to conserve time. He almost stopped breathing when he saw the moonlight glint off a spherical object buried among some leafy seaweed. Separating the two his heart fell as he got a good view. It looked like a bunch of tiny grapes. Green ones. ''This whole venture is mad, there''s still a chance.'' This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. He dragged the grapes up past the tide line to prevent them being washed back into the ocean. The bushel was too big for him to carry back and he didn''t have the time to drag it there. Snapping a small branch off he held it in his beak as he flew back to where he left the female. Landing near her, he dropped the branch and tore one of the tiny grapes off of it. Holding it in his beak he hopped over, leaning down he squished the grape letting the juices fall onto her wounds. Some tiny bubbles formed at the edges. ''That''s a good sign, right?'' he questioned. ''No, it doesn''t matter, it''s still the only chance.'' Corvus crushed up all the little grapes he had brought over. At first she had been fine, but when the wounds started to foam she let out some pained cries. Knowing sooner was better, Corvus made two more trips to where he left the grapes. He tried to be careful about it flying in low circles around his injured patient to check for danger before he left and coming straight back. By the end of the night Corvus had managed to use the apply the juices to the both sides of the wounds once, and to the more aggravated side twice. ''I hope this works,'' he prayed collapsing from exhaustion as his family showed up with the morning sun. It was mid afternoon when he came to and the other birds were still around. He saw a small pile of seeds on the ground near him, and watched as each member of his family brought something to add to it. It made him feel guilty for struggling to view them as family. They obviously cared about him. Only the new female didn''t add anything to the pile. Corvus dubbed her Heartless. Not because she didn''t help him, but more because she didn''t help her own sibling. He understood why she didn''t, but couldn''t bring himself to forgive her for it. His charge on the other hand seemed a little better as she ate quite happily when he took some of the food over to her. He had considered going for more of the grapes in the end forgoing the option for the moment. There was a chance his family or Heartless would follow him, and despite normally not caring to hoard food, the sea grapes were special. By the third day, the injured female dubbed Bent Wing was able to stand and move around a little on her own. She''d started to feed herself again and Corvus had lead her to sea grapes indicating she should eat them. The puncture had scabbed over and whatever the poison was seemed to be flushed out, but she was still unable to fly. Observing from a distance, Corvus decided it wasn''t that she would never be able to fly just that her wing being bent a little meant she needed to relearn. Then the snow fell. Just a few flakes that melted as soon as they landed. That day Matty, One Feather, White Wings, Speckles, and even Heartless had gone through the process of asking him to leave with them. Rebuffing each attempt Corvus refused to abandoned his patient, more so because she was on the mend. When the next couple days passed without sight or sing of them Corvus became worried about them, and led Bent Wing south with him to search for them. Finding no indications of their presence on the ground Corvus flew up to check the around the cliff. All he found was the nest he had hatched in. Feeling something akin to nostalgia he landed on it''s edge, recalling the events of the past four or five months. After reminiscing, Corvus gave himself a shake, warming up for his descent when he noticed a something bright wedged under a dried out stalk of seaweed at the bottom of the nest. Pulling the seaweed apart, there was a small pair of connected, wing-shaped, white leaves. Peering at it he could see a bulge in the leaves near where they touched. ''Is that a seed?'' Grabbing it in his beak Corvus hopped of the ledge gliding back down to where Bent Wing waited closer to the edge of the isle. Coming to the conclusion that what he found was likely to be a seed, he dug as deep a hole as he could and dropped it down. Not thinking about it Corvus had let Bent Wing see him bury the seed, worried she would just eat the seed he grabbed it back up. Storing it in his beak he covered the ground back up. ''Not worth risking it'' A thin patchy layer of snow coated the ground before Bent Wing was able to fly again. Corvus knew they needed to head south if they wanted to survive the winter but having been left behind, he didn''t know where to go. Sitting on the cliff''s southern tip, all he could see was water. Knowing no matter what he did, he would be risking both his and Bent Wing''s lives he took off.
Author''s Note Lot''s of stuff to say. Writing this chapter was ... an experience. There was much weeping and gnashing of teeth, figuratively at least, on my part as things went up and down like a roller coaster. One of the things I felt whenever I tried giving voice to Corvus'' thoughts in the prologue and first chapter was that he went with the flow way too easily. I kind of tried to touch on that this chapter. Parts of it I think worked, others not so much. It''s the unevenness of the parts that work for me and those that don''t that make this chapter feel like a failure. For example, certain parts I feel like I did a good job of showing, but there are swaths of text where I feel like it is mostly tell. The sheer length of this chapter stretched my vocabulary well beyond it''s limits. I think I''ve said before English is my native language and it is but that doesn''t mean writing comes naturally to me. I love stories and thinking up various worlds and other things, but writing about and sharing them is actually difficult and nerve wracking. Another of the big issues I had with this chapter was I felt it was a little info dump-y. I dropped a lot of information or at least I feel like I did, I tried as much as possible to write it in, in a more story oriented way rather than a straight up info dump. Don''t feel much like I succeeded. I actually did quite a bit of research into crows and other birds to fill in some gaps. I found it quite interesting, and tried to incorporate it into the story. I do admit there are parts that are less than honest to complete fiction. Dealing in facts has it''s time, but it can make for a dull story, which I am sure some of you felt this chapter was. All the sections with Corvus as crow felt like a huge miss to me. The more I wrote the more I felt like I was just writing out a series of actions rather than painting a series of pictures. I might rewrite it at a later date but not this instant. Having the mc be an animal has it''s uses but I feel like the story suffers from the mc being so isolated. During my research I discovered crows actually have different calls for different things so I tried to wrap that up into the story so I could work on developing some supporting characters for the mc. It has yet to bear any real fruit though. Before I leave some last I have a request for suggestion to those who read Heir to the Throne. I am looking for creatures you''d like to see in the world. Humans are a no, as are Elves and Dwarves but I do want creatures that could work as demi-humans. Specifically ones that work with an Ice-Light or a Fire-Neutral elemental type and aren''t birds, serpents, and/or reptiles. Thanks to everyone who rated, followed, favorited, and commented. It might not seem like much to those that only read, but anyone who has given writing a go can tell you how encouraging or discouraging such things can be. Chapter Seven: What the Hell? Warning: Minor amount of objectionable and possibly highly offensive content. Restricted to a single paragraph at the very end after the second table.
[Corvus] [South East of Small Island] Having picked a direction, Corvus flew off towards the south. Bent Wing followed along, the two birds flapping their wings as they went. The ocean water below zipped by becoming less brown and more blue as they glided onwards. As he flew Corvus let his mind drift, considering his circumstances. During his first three months after fledging he had tried various things to speed along his progress with the goals. While fledge and communicate increased depending on what he did, mature on the other hand didn''t seem to be increased by anything but time passing. He had been quite put out when he had discovered that and worked out that at the pace it seemed to be going it would require three and a half to four years to complete. He''d apparently already finished fledge and communicate so there was nothing he could do but wait. Corvus couldn''t help but be worried about this journey. He had no idea whether he was leading them to salvation or death. ''Dammit, I can''t catch a break.'' Corvus groaned seeing a large dark cloud in the direction he was currently headed. A bolt of lightning crash down on the distant waters as they roiled and churned. *Booooom!* "Run!" Bent Wing cried out. Startled Corvus slowed in his flight just enough to catch Bent Wing frantically flapping her wings as she veered further east. Unwilling to separate from her, Corvus turned himself to chase after her. At the edges of his vision the sky behind him flashed. *Crack!**Boooom!* Heavy winds buffeted him knocking him closer and closer towards the storm horizon in the south. Off in the north billowing black clouds began to drift towards the two birds as well. Corvus could only watch as in front of him Bent Wing began to flounder, the flapping of her wings slowing down. Holding her wings out wide she dropped down several feet as she allowed herself to glide. She beat her wings furiously every few minutes thrusting herself higher but then tired out and went back to gliding, slowly losing altitude as the process repeated. Corvus adjusted himself so that he would be close to Bent Wing. He wasn''t sure if there was anything he could do. He doubted it but he would still make an attempt no matter the cost. Sweeping down low, near the ocean Corvus was startled when a large body broke through the surface, ejecting a plume of water into the air. Letting himself fall onto the large marine creature Corvus ordered, "Land!". Obviously flustered by the storm and the whale''s surfacing Bent Wing tried to set herself down gingerly. Looking at her ragged appearance Corvus could tell she was exhausted. They had both stored food before they departed but because of her wing and her reaction to the storm Corvus worried Bent Wing would need more. Wedging the seed he had found into his wing, Corvus regurgitated roughly half of what remained in his crop. "Food," he said stepping back and re-storing the seed. Bent Wing gave of an aura of guilt as she took the seeds. ''For the moment this creature seems content to let us ride on it,'' thought Corvus as he paced in a circle, examining the horizon for signs of land. ''Still it will need to submerge again at some point.'' With a simple, "Wait." he pushed himself back into the sky. Circling higher and higher he scanned for any indication of ground, while keeping an eye on the whale. Finding nothing he began to descend again, feeling a momentary wave of warmth wash over him as he did. Not sure what it was he turned to check if anything was there. Corvus felt it again. A flash of warmth above the cold ocean, this time just a touch longer. Intrigued he flew back and forth a number of times before the distant cries of Bent Wing made him realize that the whale was pulling away from him. Seeing her preparing to take off he shouted out, "Coming." Directing himself towards the two, Corvus was almost slammed with the feeling of warmth again but this time it persisted. The feeling wasn''t only warmth, there was a sense of security and an almost bustling energy too. When he had noticed he was falling behind he had began flapping his wings like mad to catch up but in this weird line he felt faster and stronger than ever before. It took only moments and he has once again right above the whale. Circling as he let himself drop, Corvus alighted on the aquatic creature''s large back. Off in the north west the two storm fronts were colliding. ''No choice,'' those storm clouds made it abundantly clear that there was no going back. The direction they were being taken though had clear skies that were being dyed red by the setting sun. Well and truly committed, with nothing he or Bent Wing could do about it, Corvus prayed, ''God help us.'' As if mocking him, the creature beneath them shudder and water began to close over it''s back as it sunk. Driven to take flight Corvus ascended to where he felt that strange sense of energy. ---Near Sunrise--- Corvus and Bent Wing had been flying throughout the entire night. ''Totally impossible,'' he muttered to himself. This was well beyond unreasonable in Corvus'' mind, ''There was no way we should have been able to fly that long but ...'' ''It''s gotta have something to do with this ... this ...'' he couldn''t help but sigh to himself as the words escaped him. He still wasn''t clear on what it was but there was a mysterious ... vein in the air that seemed to be giving the two of them energy, kept the alert, made them fly faster and easing their journey in general. It defied everything he knew about nature but given the circumstances Corvus was simply thankful. As the sun began cresting the horizon Corvus was now able to see off in the distance. While the vein or energy, or whatever it was, apparently provided them the ability to sustain their flight limitlessly it was restricted to the path that vein followed. The unnaturalness of the vein doing so however was starting to take a mental toll. He didn''t think either of them could keep it up until they could return to the island. Thus it was a great relief when the peak of a mountain appeared at the edge of Corvus'' sight. As the two birds drew near they got a better view of what turned out to be an island. Flying over the mountains on the edge, it seemed to be an oval in shape with mountains on every side but the north. It was a breathtaking landscape, with a river running down the larger snow capped western mountains into the center of the island before splitting into two. One branch of the river went north exiting out the gap there. The other went south passing through a deep gorge in the mountains. Corvus didn''t notice any of this though, his attention stolen by the fact that there was grass all over the island, save for the higher parts of it''s various peaks. This was the most green he had ever seen on this world. Exiting the weird vein Bent Wing landed and immediately began to search for seeds. Following her down, Corvus chuckled to himself thinking that it looked almost like she was kissing the ground. Once he touched down he made a quick decision to plant the seed he had been carrying while she was distracted. He tried to move towards the center of the island only to be forced to stop short. Whatever made up the energy path they had followed to this island seemed to be radiating upward from the ground in the center. It had the same effects but as Corvus pushed himself closer he felt like every part of his body was going to burst apart as it became saturated with energy. Settling on planting it on the outside he deposited the seed into a small hole he dug quickly. Covering it back up, Corvus was astonished as the seed sprouted up into a long stalk with two green bordered white leaves. This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. ''Too quick'' he thought as he let out a screeching caw drawing Bent Wing''s attention. She moved over, standing near Corvus, to look at the tree sprout. Their feathers brushed as she did causing Corvus to react. Putting his concerns out of his mind he trotted off to gather some food. ---Months Later--- ''Weird. This place is weird.'' Those thoughts had become an almost hourly ritual for Corvus over the past three or so months. The entire time on the island had been peaceful, there were no predators, food was plentiful, and it was just them there. In other words it was perfect. An Eden or a Utopia but Corvus couldn''t wait to leave. The whole island seemed to have a similar affect to the energy vein in the sky. Not as pronounced perhaps, anywhere other than the center where the effect was actually much greater, but still ever present. It had been about a week after they had arrived when Corvus realized that he hadn''t been getting hungry. He would eat out of habit but once he noticed he was doing that he stopped for a while. It took him close to a week to feel the first pangs of hunger. He was a disturbed by that, but since it wasn''t anything bad he put it out of his mind and went back to eating by habit. The tree bugged him too. It grew way too fast. By the time he ended his hunger experiment it was already taller than him. On some level this did set off warning bells in Corvus'' head but in every other way this place was essentially perfect. He was considering just staying there, in fact he might have except for what his windows started doing. Checking his progress had shown that mature had sped up drastically and was flickering back and forth between 89% and 90%. Following this he checked his status window only to find.
Status
NameCorvusAge?y ?m ?d
GenderMaleTest StageOne
SpeciesCrowSpecies RankAnimal
Skills3/3
Titles---Empty---
TraitsInsomniac
These two discoveries had been what decided it for him. Originally when mature had begun increasing quickly he had been happy, deluding himself into thinking that the process just got quicker when it got closer to the end. His age changing to ? and mature blinking up and down in value though, ''No way is that natural.'' was all he could think. On top of all the unnatural things going on around the island, Corvus was getting concerned about Bent Wing. Whenever he stopped moving she seemed to be standing beside him. Corvus found it irritating, as when she did their feathers would touch, it felt almost like an ant crawling over his skin. At first it had just been every three of four days but lately it was every couple hours. ''Maybe it''s this place.'' he speculated, doubting his own thoughts. ''It''s possible she just finds this place as creepy as I do.'' Looking over at her he cawed, "Follow!" and took off into the sky. Despite becoming suspicious of the island and the weird energy, Corvus had no choice but to find the sky vein again before he headed back to where he was born. ---Days Later--- Descending downward Corvus took in the familiar sight that he mentally considered Birth Isle. He didn''t really need to name it but he got bored. The other island he ended up calling White Maple Island. Not a lot had changed, the green area of the island had expanded by a few feet and there appeared to be a few sprouting flowers. ''At least here I can''t tell it''s growing.'' he sighed in relief. Bent Wing, who had taken to sticking to him was now moving around, off doing who knows what. Corvus was a little relieved. He opened his Goals window.
Inheritance Test Goal
Primary ConditionSurvive
Sub Conditions
TaskCompletion
Hatch100%
Feed100%
Fledge100%
Communicate100%
Mature099%
Form Family000%
Claim Territory000%
Nest000%
Total Completion062%
Participant NameCorvusGoal StatusFailure
His completion for the mature goal was no longer flashing back and forth, and the final conditions had appeared. ''The first two are easy, but I''m not sure I can do that last one.'' Corvus couldn''t help but qualm. He didn''t have much time to think about it as a beak appeared through the window. Swiping it away he saw Bent Wing standing in front of him. She charged at him spreading her wings. Trying to back off Corvus flapped his taking off slightly. He wasn''t fast enough as their bodies slammed together. He tried to pull away but Bent Wing seemed to follow him, and after a few seconds he felt a strange sensation followed by a wave of exhaustion. Corvus collapsed on the ground, facing Bent Wing, stunned and thought, ''What the hell? Did I just get raped?''
[Author''s Note] I am sorry to anyone who is offended by how I ended this chapter. Not the act itself but more the treatment of the topic, which I feel is too lighthearted. I do think this is a reasonable reaction on the MC''s part though, which is why I did it. Rape is a horrible act and the only reason I touched it at all is because of the distinct lack of human parts. I hope I never touch it again. Feedbak, comments, suggestion for other creatures, yada yada yada, much appreciated. Not much into chatting at the moment, see above. Also there is a new and final poll HERE on the formatting. If you have an opinion other than keep it or lose it post it below. I am going to stay with the current style until I hit 25-30k words. Sorry again to anyone who was offended. Chapter Eight: Fallout After what had happened, Corvus simply laid there shocked trying to gather his wits. *Ding*
New Title
Bent Wing''s Mate
Description
All beings capable of recognizing such a bond between your species will recognize you as the mate of Bent Wing. Members of the opposite gender within your race will reject you as a partner. Members of the same gender within your race will become hostile towards you if you approach un-mated females. This title is permanent and unchangeable.
Reading the window that appeared caused Corvus to groan. ''Permanent?! Unchangeable?!'' his mind screamed. Separating himself from Bent Wing he flew off north across the water. He heard a faint caw from the ground but kept on going. He ran away. "Aaaaaa!" Corvus screamed into the barren northern continent. It had all happened too fast, he was shocked and confused. In his own mind, despite his current form, Corvus still thought of himself as human. He thought like one, he felt like one, so much so that he forgot that he no longer was one, at least physically. When he decided to help Bent Wing he never imagined things would turn out like this. He didn''t regret helping her, his regrets were actually one of the reasons he did. He had been unable to do anything when his mother passed. So when Bent Wing was injured and it looked as though Matty was going to kill her, he just moved thinking, ''Not this time.'' He was happy that he was able to save Bent Wing, but he didn''t do so out of feelings of love or even caring. What he felt was guilt and sympathy. He hadn''t really thought about what the result of his actions would be but looking back the way One Feather and the rest behaved during Bent Wing''s convalescence had hinted at this outcome. Never mind how it happened the fact that it happened at all left him unsure of how to feel. He knew he needed to do that to complete his goal but even then he wasn''t sure he would have been able to go through with it. Should he feel violated? Or should he be relieved that the deed was done. In some ways he did feel violated but in his mind and his heart he had started looking down on all the other crows again. As much as he wanted to he couldn''t bring himself to blame Bent Wing. He could see where she would get the idea that he was interested, his actions could seem as though he cared about her a great deal. On top of that she wasn''t really the reason he was in this position, Telrok was. ''In some ways this could be considered a wake up call.'' Thinking this Corvus rediscovered the northern cliffs he found before and landed on an isolated ledge. ''So many questions.'' Corvus sighed, lamenting his ignorance. ''Too much! There''s too much I don''t know.'' Up until know this world lacked a sense of reality. As though it was created solely to be a testing ground, but what happened with Bent Wing mocked that idea. Corvus could see the logic behind forcing him to pair for reasons other than his own desire being part of the test, his mother read him several stories where that was the case for royalty. This went beyond that, not only did it force the pairing but with it happening the way it did nothing about him was proven. He could still after all remove himself from the situation. ''What is the point of all this?'' The tree woman said that if he followed the direction of the windows he would reach her level? In that respect some of the goals made sense, they were about strengthening himself but some seemed to just be saying live. Live as a crow does. ''Could that really be it? What is the point of doing so?'' ''Wait, wait, wait,'' he repeated to himself. ''That tree soul thing said something else, what was it? Something about this test ...'' ''No ... she said training.'' Corvus squinted his eyes. Thought and memories raced around in his head, crashing and bumping into each other. "- I am a god, or near enough that making a distinction is irrelevant for you," ... "This stage of your training entrusted to me." ... "- it was supposed to be testing, wasn''t it?" ... "It isn''t as though you can never go back though. You just need to reach my level." All the pieces began to coalesce forming a vague image. Corvus realized that however close his grandfather was to being a god he wasn''t one, he couldn''t be anywhere close to being one. A god might need to train his heir, but an omniscient being wouldn''t need to test all 256 heirs he would know the best choice. Even the woman in the void could judge his soul and everything Corvus knew indicated she was below his grandfather''s level. It was clear that there was something they were looking for, something they lacked the ability to find by examining his soul. Closing his eyes Corvus went over every interaction he had had with the two. ... "Hello, young one." He felt something click inside of his mind as the bigger picture became clearer. ''What if it''s not a test or training, but some mix of the two.'' ''They can examine my soul and see what I have done but what if ... that''s all they can do.'' That thought worried Corvus because it was clear if that was the case it put this whole test on a much grander scale than he had ever considered. ''I need more information,'' Corvus couldn''t help complaining, ''but the only way to get it is from her. Should I ... kill myself?'' Shaking his head, Corvus thought to himself, ''No, there is no guarantee they''ll resurrect me again.'' ''That means I need to move forward. Act how they want me to, but how do they want me to?'' For a few moments he just perched there, trying to let his mind go blank. Looking out over the western horizon he watched as the fiery afterglow of the setting the sun retreated from the encroaching night. The dull reflection of the world''s waters being devoured by a black curtain. A void of darkness pierced only by the light of the distant shining stars. After watching this scene, Corvus'' mind was still roiling with thoughts but it was no longer a disordered swirling mess of chaos. He was struck by an epiphany when one final memory shook loose. "- it is strongly recommended you pick Soul Memory as your Trait." ''They wanted us to be who we are. They want me to act as I would normally.'' Having reached this conclusion Corvus'' knew what he had to do. He had to go back. Back to Bent Wing. Even though he didn''t or couldn''t bring himself to feel for her as he would another human, that didn''t mean he should let her life be ruined or messed up because of his and his grandfather''s actions. His mind finally clear Corvus determined, ''Tomorrow,'' as he fell asleep.
Having woken early the next morning, Corvus began his journey back to Birth Isle. His mind was plagued with dread and uncertainty the entire time. Despite how he actually felt about her, he had abandoned Bent Wing and he had no clue how a crow would feel about that. As such he was plagued internally by thoughts of human reactions. These fears were replaced by a new one as he reached his former nest on the isle. ''What if she isn''t here any more?'' Setting down Corvus bellowed, "Hello!" breaking the relative silence. Corvus'' loud caw faded, leaving only the gentle swishing of the waves. Concern welling up inside him, Corvus took back to the air heading to the north. He didn''t see her in the green zone either. ''What if she went to that island?'' Winging his way upwards, he had almost reached that weird vein of energy to head to White Maple Island to look for her when a movement below caught his eye. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Gliding down he found Bent Wing fussing with something on a small ledge on the cliff. When Corvus landed nearby he could see that it was a nest she was building. "Hello," he trilled to her in the private tone used among crows. Bent Wing just shifted the dried seaweed stalks, ignoring him until she bumped into him as she circled the nest. "Move!" she cawed pushing him aside. Corvus bumped the partially built nest causing parts of it to collapse inwards. Not willing to give up so easily he chirped again trying to get her to respond to him in some way. After his fifth attempt and third time messing up the nest, Bent Wing flapped her wings charging at him and yelling, "Leave!" Heeding Bent Wing''s words Corvus circled down to the beach, deciding to do something to help. He browsed through the seaweed that had washed up on the on the southern shore. Looking for ones with sturdy stalks instead of leafy fronds. He found a few but while wet they were far too flexible to use in his opinion. Intending to dry them out he draped them on any rocky surface he could find. All day that is all he did. After sleeping, Corvus woke earlier taking several of the now dried out seaweed stalks to where Bent Wing was building her nest and laid them out nearby. As he waited for he to wake, he took a moment to examine the other window that had behaved weirdly while on White Maple Island. ''Status''
Status
NameCorvusAge4y 10m 25d
GenderMaleTest StageOne
SpeciesCrowSpecies RankAnimal
Skills3/3
TitlesInsomniac
TraitsBent Wing''s Mate
''F-Four years?'' Taking a deep breath Corvus calmed himself while shaking his head. ''This much makes sense. The vein in the sky and that island there had to be some draw back to them, now I know what it is.'' "Caaaw!?" came an irritated cry. It was one of the few Corvus hadn''t settled on an exact meaning for, carrying undertones of challenge while seeming to ask ''What do you want?'' "See." he replied stepping aside to show Bent Wing some of his peace offerings. She turned her head to the side examining the first of the stalks before pushing it off the cliff. Scrutinizing each one Bent Wing pushed all the ones with more than two leaves off the ledge before snapping the leaves off those with fewer then adding them to the nest. Corvus dropped down to the fallen stems and de-branched them before bringing them back. Some Bent Wing accepted but some were apparently too thick or thin as she tossed them over the edge again. Corvus was setting up more seaweed stalks to dry when he heard a faint plaintive call, "Food!" Not having stored any food he rushed to the green area and grabbed a few seeds. Depositing them on the ledge he went back and stocked up on food before going back to making nest materials. For a time this was his life, prepare seaweed to be used to make a nest, bring food to Bent Wing, stock up on food. Right near the completion of their nest the other crows returned. All of them looked bedraggled, and upon counting Corvus realized that instead of eight they numbered only seven. It was hard for him to tell which was missing, but as Matty, One Feather, White Wings, and Speckles were fine, he didn''t care. There was a bit of tension with One Feather and Matty, that Corvus chalked up to nesting in their territory. However despite the fairly rapid expansion of the grass and plants there really wasn''t any other option. When Bent Wing had finished the inner lining of the nest, she started to lay eggs. It had been a number of days since the other crows returned so Corvus had been able to figure some things out. The missing crow seemed to be the one eyed crow''s mate. It was a bit of a struggle but from Corvus'' perspective it appeared that White Wing had paired with Bent Wing''s brother while Speckles had done so with Heartless. Birth isle turned out to be a stopover for One Eye''s group, that now only consisted of him, White Wings and Aver or Average. It wasn''t too long before they headed off to the west. It was a peaceful period. Corvus just let the days slip by. Most of them spent eating or storing food, with the occasional bout with a small snake. Bent Wing had become less icy towards him as he performed whatever duties she expected of him. For Corvus it was easily the most bizarre relationship he had ever had, so while he was dutiful he couldn''t help but wonder how she felt or even what she could feel towards him. If he was being honest Corvus would have had to admit that this whole situation still felt surreal to him. Curious about his progress Corvus called up the Goals window.
Inheritance Test Stage One Goal
Primary ConditionSurvive
Sub Conditions
TaskCompletion
Hatch100%
Feed100%
Fledge100%
Communicate100%
Form/Join Family100%
Claim Territory100%
Mature100%
Nest100%
Total Completion100%
Participant NameCorvusGoal StatsSuccess
*Ding* Another window popped up over the Goals window.
Congratulations
You have successfully cleared the Inheritance Test Stage One Goal.
Author''s Note Just a reminder, the poll on whether or not to keep or remover the current formatting is still going on HERE so if you have an opinion on it please vote. I''m gonna keep this note short because barring blackouts or other uncontrollable things, I will be posting another three chapters at random intervals today. Thank for reading I hope you enjoyed it, feel free to leave feedback and comments. Chapter Nine: New Goals, Places, and Threats
Congratulations
You have successfully cleared the Inheritance Test Stage One Goal.
Swiping the new notification away, Corvus saw the Goals window morph displaying a new set of conditions.
Inheritance Test Stage Two Goal
Primary ConditionEvolve
Sub Conditions
TaskCompletion
Detect Mana033%
Absorb Mana010%
Concentrate Mana000%
?????????000%
???000%
?????000%
Total Completion007%
Participant NameCorvusGoal StatusFailure
''Mana?'' Corvus had never encountered the word before. He had a vague idea that it had some relation to either the weird sky vein or White Maple Island. He suspected it was some sort of energy he could tap into. As such he spent whatever free time he managed to get flying back and forth along the mana vein. Despite his efforts his mana absorbtion remained at ten percent. The days proceeded in this quiet almost plodding manner. The slow life however didn''t last very long, being shattered like an eggshell when the baby crows hatched. Corvus was now on the other side of the frequent feeding he had endured as a nestling. He''d been hesitant to give them food at first but Bent Wing refused to take it from him so he was forced to. She just watched him as he fed their young. An unnatural gleam passing through them as she did. Corvus had intended to give them names as the grew but the three stayed almost identical to each other in both looks and personality no matter how long he observed. Things remained busy even after the young fledged as Corvus needed to watch out for them. Even though only He and Bent Wing and Matty and One Feather had nested it still got crowded on the island with all twelve of them. There were occasionally bouts in the family. Corvus hated it a bit but at the same time wasn''t sure how to deal with it. Using human logic on top of now having three children he also now had two twin siblings and three younger siblings. ''I don''t think I can keep this up,'' Corvus sighed wearily having broken up another conflict. Beyond the altercations between the two groups of crows Corvus also ended up dealing with a lot more snakes this year. He could only assume that the amphibious creatures were also dealing with over-crowding. He had been forced to kill quite a few of the snakes. The turtles and Frogs on the other hand had their populations balanced because of the crows feeding on the young. Corvus still couldn''t make himself do it, but Bent Wing and the triplets did. In the current situation Corvus knew he shouldn''t judge them for it but deep down he did. His human morals and ethics kept colliding with the natural order of things. ''Should I take them there?'' The time was soon approaching when the migration would occur. Corvus couldn''t help pondering whether or not he should take his group to White Maple Island rather than follow the others. ''The only real reason to do so would be to separate the two groups for a time, but the drawbacks ...'' he waffled, ''... they''re too severe. On top of ageing being accelerated three more mature crows would compound the population issue. That''s a trip I need to make on my own.'' Ultimately deciding to follow the others Corvus lead Bent Wing and their offspring off to the west. This confused him at first but as they met up with One Eye''s group he discovered another growing zone. This one was apparently on the same landmass he had arrived on the first time he was tossed down near a lake. After meeting up the whole flock winged their way south passing a river connected to a small lake and skirting a snow capped mountain as they approached the southern tip of the continent. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Passing over the ocean waters, every member of their group began to shows signs of exhaustion long before they were even able to see land. Bent Wing especially, so it was a great relief when One Feather called them to follow veering downwards to land on the backs of several whales that had surfaced. ''Fishy,'' was all that came to mind when Corvus saw this. ''Looking past the inland green patch that makes little sense this is the second time whales have helped us birds out.'' He couldn''t help being suspicious of the unnatural things that happened but answers weren''t forth-coming. Knowing there was no point questioning it at the moment he simply set it aside intending to ask the tree lady if he saw her again. A large portion of the journey was spent riding the whales. Every so often one of them would descend forcing the birds to move to another but they were never left without a mount. When the whale resurfaced all the crows that had made this journey previously rushed over to it. There wasn''t much but there was usually some algae and the occasionally strand of some edible seaweed. Still food was scarce and all the birds remained hungry throughout the journey. The first bit of land they came across was a barren island but the older Crows didn''t stop anxiously rushing towards what appeared to be the mainland. The group was lead to yet another green zone Corvus never knew about. It was situated between a lake and the eastern edge of the continent. ''If this place exists why don''t they just stay here?'' The temperature was nice, even at the start of winter Corvus could tell that it wouldn''t drop low enough to be an issue. He could also see some cliffy mountains to the north-east. By all means this place should be preferable. Having been on the brink of starving Corvus, Bent Wing, and all the rest of the second and third generations began scouring for food. Once he satisfied his hunger, Corvus noticed that Matty, One Feather and One Eye were all keeping a vigilant watch on the surroundings. ''Three?!'' he exclaimed. He had never seen more than one do sentry duty before. Eventually White Wings, Speckles and Aver took over allowing the older birds to get their own food. It wasn''t long before he encountered the reason for this heightened state of alert. It turned out to be because of a small cat, it looked something like a tiger but lacked the tigers imposing nature. It was however still very much a predator. It attacked when Corvus and Bent Wing left sentry duty just as One Feather and One Eye were going on. It happened so fast that all any of them had time to do was notice and scold the emaciated cat with a half caw. In that time, the tiger creature pinned One Feather to the ground with a leap. Closing it''s jaw around One Feather''s head the other crows collective calls ended at the exact moment a sickening sound between a crunch and a pop broke forth. The birds that hadn''t been here before were shocked taking a little longer to react. This gave the vicious predator enough time to catch two more of the yearlings killing them both. Corvus was in a daze but somehow managed to take off. The entire group flew towards the cliffs he saw earlier separating back into their families as they took up what ledges they could find to perch on. The brutality of it all shocked Corvus. More because unlike with the snake he didn''t see how any of them had a chance to even drive off the cat let alone fight against it. He felt like throwing up, but his body didn''t comply. His mind was reeling, he couldn''t help but blame himself. ''If I had just waited. Even a few seconds. I would have been able to warn the others.'' That night he didn''t get any sleep at all.
Author''s Note There''s number two. Three and Four will appear sometime in the next eight hours. I know this one was short but because of the breaking points in the text I wrote one of them was always going to be and I wanted to leave you hang on the new goals for a bit. Comments, corrections and ratings are always appreciated. I read all of them. Hope you enjoyed it. P.S. Made a cover. It''s far from amazing but as I''m not an artist or a painter it''s as good as I can do. Edit: Preventative measure I forgot to install in this note previously: Whales are mammals not fish. Chapter Ten: Mana After that event Corvus treated sentry duty in a dead serious manner. He had even forgone switching, relying on Bent Wing''s kindness to receive some food at the end of each gathering session. During the fourth or fifth session the next day Corvus strained his eyes trying to see everything. As he did his vision became filled with flood of falling and floating grey. It was like a shower of rain on foggy morning. Corvus only saw this for an instant, the sight of it breaking his concentration. He felt himself go somewhat slack. While Corvus was curious about what he had seen, he was very grateful that his vision was unobstructed. He guessed that a high state of focus was necessary for whatever happened so having lost some of his tension was in ways a relief. That night, on the cliff Corvus tried to replicate what he did earlier. Straining his vision, he looked up into the sky. He watched as the sky burst forth with grey. Unlike before he could now see that there was a misty pillar rising from the green zone reaching up into the air before splitting and arcing towards the north-east and south-west in a smaller vein. Streaks of grey shot out from these three veins, some falling to the ground, some passing across the horizon. When they hit the ground some got absorbed but the majority bounced back and began floating in the air. They danced through the air coalescing or repelling each other seemingly at random. Despite the dingy neutral color, Corvus took a sharp breath as he observed this. ''This is Mana.'' there was nothing else it could be. ''Goals'' he thought letting his concentration drop..
Inheritance Test Stage Two Goal
Primary ConditionEvolve
Sub Conditions
TaskCompletion
Detect Mana066%
Absorb Mana010%
Concentrate Mana000%
?????????000%
???000%
?????000%
Total Completion012%
Participant NameCorvusGoal StatusFailure
Noting from the color without reading that he had made progress Corvus flicked his beak up intending to dismiss the window. Before it vanished he half imagined half acted stabbing his beak to stop it. The window remained floating there at a fraction of the size it normally had. Making this discovery Corvus played around with it and the other windows a bit. He saw that his skills had increased. Flight was now at Adept, Pecking and Void Resistance remained at Amateur but Pecking was above ninety percent while Void resistance was at twenty, double it''s previous value. When he was done playing around with the windows Corvus swiped them all away save for goals which he shifted to the bottom left of his field of view. Making a brief check that everyone around him was asleep Corvus looked up, opening his beak in an attempt to swallow one of the falling streaks of mana. He wasn''t that surprised that it failed, just feeling a little silly for having tried. Knowing it wasn''t that much better he also approached one that seemed to be breaking down and dispersing into the air like mist and took a deep breath. It seemed that a few of the droplets were drawn towards him but as soon as he exhaled they drifted further away. Grasping at this straw Corvus tried alternating deep breaths with short exhales. Right when the mana particles were directly in front of him, Crovus'' eyes went dark and he passed out.
"Follow." a cry woke him. Lifting himself up, Corvus saw that the sun had risen and it seemed the other birds were waiting on him to go gathering. Not wanting his vision obscured, he closed the goals window after discovering he made no more progress the previous night. He kept his one bird vigil, refusing to yield the duty to anyone else. Corvus couldn''t help but be thankful as he was once again provided meals by Bent Wing. The group of crows made numerous gathering session that day, without incident. So when night fell again and the others slept Corvus began to experiment with mana again. He made several attempts to inhale the mana being careful to avoid the same mistakes. Every attempt failed. ''Gaaaaah,'' he screamed, looking at one of the falling mana streaks, ''Just get over here.'' Much to his surprise the mana heeded his direction melding with him. The Absorb Mana goal went up, but Corvus was wracked with unfathomable pain as the mana streak he had absorbed slowly drew back out, dropping it down again. Panting, or as close as he could come, Corvus decided to stop for the night and shuffled into a comfortable position before nodding off. Several days passed in this manner with Corvus acting as a sentry during the numerous daily gathering session and experimenting with mana at night. His days ended up being more productive than his nights. He made no progress on the mana front, but he had managed to warn the others whenever he spotted the cat keeping them safe. It was five or six days later when he woke he was too weak to move properly. Even though Bent Wing had been sharing her food with him it apparently wasn''t enough. Drawing his eyes into a squint he wondered, ''How is she fine? She''s been sharing it about fifty-fifty.'' Struggling to right himself, Corvus was greeted by a small cacophony of caws that held the rarely used "Wait!" Both Bent Wing and Speckles were reproaching him so he stopped. But as the two turned to leave he prepared himself again, only to receive the same admonishment. It was only when Heartless added her own voice to the three that Corvus stepped back letting them leave him behind. They forced him to remain behind each time they went out giving him about a third of their yield each time. Corvus had to admit he wasn''t in the greatest shape so he stayed but it was boring. Eventually he turned on his mana vision and just watched how it moved for the first time, He couldn''t see it clearly at night. He watched as the mana streams fell at the edge of a shadow. Just gazing at it for a while he realized that some of the streams reflected going off in random directions, but some sunk into the ground, while others turned into the shade or bent into the sun and began dispersing. As though struck by lightning Corvus exclaimed, ''There are different types of mana!'' As if in response to his breakthrough, the mana streams and particles dyed themselves different colors. Not all of them, but the three that led to his discovery. One was a dark purple, another pure white, with the last taking on an orange-brown color. Watching how these types of mana interacted with the world Corvus decided what each was. The purple was Darkness or Shadow, the white was Light, with the last being earth. After that day Corvus recovered enough to resume going gathering. He easily determined three other types of mana as well. Water was obvious, he determined that the same way was the earth mana, causing it to go a dark blue shade. Then there was the mana that only got absorbed into grass, Corvus thought of this as Nature mana despite Plant mana making more sense. This type of mana turned green. Encountering the third type was a fluke, in the dead of winter during a gathering session Corvus noticed he could see currents of mana floating around on the ground and through the air. He speculated that this was frost mana and was right as it turned a light blue, but decided on calling it ice mana. By this point more of the mana streams were colored than weren''t but the remaining grey mana seemed to just float in the air with no clear indication between them. Given the other types of mana Corvus assumed that what was left was wind mana, but there was no reaction. He could only assume this meant that more than one type of mana was left unidentified. As he guessed there would be a heat or fire mana this made sense, however as it was winter and he was unable to distinguish wind and fire by sight. Corvus discovered the fire mana by accident when he felt a strong up draft while flying. Thinking it was wind mana he checked to see some mana rising instead of falling. It was still grey though so he was certain it wasn''t wind. Fire was his next attempt and sure enough the rising mana took on a red color. It was a strong breeze that allowed Corvus to determine the green colored wind mana. At this point Corvus thought he had finished and called up his goals windows only to discover he wasn''t. Try as he might he could only see the grey mana around the veins but almost as soon as it left the mana would adopt another color. ''Neutral.'' ended up being his judgement on the grey mana. His completion however remained just short of one hundred. As the days passed Corvus tried to absorb the various types of mana. In the end he found that he could only absorb Dark, Wind, and Neutral without the mana being rejected. Corvus only absorbed a small amount, because he was uncertain what effects it would have. Winter faded to spring, and the crows held gathering sessions even more frequently than before in preparation for the trek back. It was during one of these sessions that Corvus discovered the final type of mana. The sky had been darkened by the appearance of large billowing black clouds. As it was close to the migration the bird chose to remain despite the torrential downpour. As Corvus was gathering food he looked up, watching as lightning arced across the sky. On a whim he focused his eyes checking the mana, and saw dense streams of mana flowing along the bolts that tuned yellow almost as soon as he saw them. ''Hahahahaa'' Corvus was in a fit of joy over having completed one more of his goals and began flapping about in the air. His situation hadn''t exactly changed, but for the first time in a year and a half Corvus felt like he had some control over his own life. This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. Lightning flashed again, brightening the surroundings and breaking Corvus'' jubilation. "Cat!" he screamed announcing his discovery. The gathered crows launched themselves into the sky and safety, ending this gathering session. Still rejoicing Corvus flew above the other birds, even attempting a barrel roll. It was a miserable failure, as sheer terror made him panic when he was upside down. Struggling to right himself, Corvus plummeted downwards. "Kra-boom!!" Time seemed to stop for a second as a bolt of blue shot down towards him. All concern that he was falling driven from his mind by the new threat, Corvus grasped the only chance he figured he had. He reached out with his mind willing the mana in the lightning towards him, trying to absorb it. Mana stream after mana stream entered his body merging with what mana was already there. After what seemed like forever to Corvus the flood of lightning mana came to an end. He felt as though sparks were dancing along and off of his entire body but managed to fold one of his wings in momentarily, finishing the barrel roll. Having put forth a frantic effort to slow himself, Corvus managed to escape serious injury when he touched down. His body still crackling with energy, Corvus attempted to will the lightning mana out of his system. A tiny bolt shot out smashing into the ground, but as it exited his body it burnt him. Understanding that forcing the mana out would be suicide he tried to restrain it. ''Another failure ...'' His attempted had only caused some of his feather to begin to sizzle as if burning. Desperately grasping at straws Corvus tried forcing the mana to move around his body like a stream. While this had the desired effect, Corvus had absorbed too much mana. He imagined the mana circulating through every limb but there was so much that the tail end of the stream only started moving when the front end reached it. Whenever he slacked for a moment the two end would collide sending a shock through his entire body. Corvus felt five sharp stings as something hit his chest slamming him to the ground. It was the cat. It lowered it''s slavering maw, encompassing Corvus'' head. ''Noooooo!'' he screamed inside, ''not like this.'' as he felt his body riddled with shocks. Frustrated and unyielding Corvus willed all the lightning mana in his body to concentrate in and on his beak. Still feeling the pain of it he lashed out pecking towards the cat''s descending mouth. A stream of lightning shot forth crashing explosively into the tiger creature''s upper jaw obliterating it. Laying there half pinned being doused in the now dead feline''s blood, Corvus looked at the stormy sky as though it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. *Ding* *Ding* Using the new trick he discovered Corvus position the two windows that appeared side by side so he could examine them at the same time.
Congratulations
Your Species Rank and Species have changed. You species is now Piercer Crow while your Species Rank has upgraded to Monster. As a monster the number of traits and skills you may have has increased.
Notification
As a result of your evolution you have developed the natural skill Lightning Peck. Due to the synchronous nature of the two skills, Pecking has been absorbed into Lightning Peck.
Laughing maniacally in his head Corvus dismissed the two windows bringing up his skill window. He had been trying to avoid it, but this was just too much. He had to read about the new skill.
Skills
Void Resistance
The Void is a place outside of the physical Realms. The nature of the Void is governed by a Void Lord. However, there is one trait that all Voids share, that is the cleansing of one''s most recent identity. Your memories and emotions are slowly wiped away as spend time in the void. Through sheer force of will you have managed to create a bubble of protection that allows you to carry through the reincarnation process the equivalent of a few days worth of memories.
Skill RankAmateurRank Progress20%
Flight
This skills is for those who wish to take to the skies. While it won''t help just any Dive bombing dunce become an aerial ace, for any species that commonly flies. It is the quickest way to become an Adept Avian, even more so if it wasn''t your original form. Requires a winged form. *You have retained this skill from a previous life, however due to your current form''s inability to support it, the skill has been suppressed. It has also been reduced from Skill Rank Novice due to time spent in the Void.
Skill RankAdeptRank Progress35%
Skill Prompt
Skill NameLightning Peck
Skill Description
Due to absorbing an enormous amount of lightning mana your body has acquired a strong internal lightning attribute that will convert any other type of mana absorbed into lightning mana. You will naturally and passively absorb and convert mana from now on. Because you have successfully released this amount of mana through your beak it has adapted to the voltage allowing you safely discharge any lightning mana. Additionally as the skill has fused with Pecking, optimal targeting locations will still be highlighted.
Skill RankAmateurRank Progress10%
''Goals.'' It was the only thing left to check.
Inheritance Test Stage Two Goal
Primary ConditionEvolve
Sub Conditions
TaskCompletion
Detect Mana100%
Absorb Mana100%
Concentrate Mana100%
Procreate000%
???000%
?????000%
Total Completion050%
Participant NameCorvusGoal StatusFailure
Upon seeing this Corvus felt drained. Even though he had cleared three conditions during his stary here he only unlocked one. One condition that, while it required his participation, wasn''t something he could speed along. In a matter of minutes he had gone from feeling like he had the ability to affect his life, to feeling hopelessly caught up in someone else''s designs for it. "Move!" "Move!" Two calls came. Standing nearby and encouraging him, were Bent Wing and Speckles. Corvus smiled to himself, actually feeling encouraged. It was a bit of a struggle to dislodge himself from under the cat''s fallen corpse but he managed to do it. The next day the group of the twelve remaining crows made their journey home.
Author''s Note Number three is now up. I feel like the discovery of the mana types felt forced so I may come back to this one day. For now it stays. Hope you enjoyed the read and as always please feel free to comment, correct me, and rate. Next one in a couple hours. Chapter Eleven: Life Brief note: There will be reader input asked for in the author''s note at the end but it might be quite long.
[Corvus] [Birth Isle] After returning from their first migration to the south, Matty and One Eye seemed to mate with each other. They chose to live on the Continent along with White Wings, Aver, and Matty''s two yearlings that survived. This could be considered a blessing, as Corvus, Bent Wing and their two young could easily share Birth Isle with Speckles and Heartless. Much like the previous year Corvus'' brother and Heartless didn''t nest, while he and Bent Wing did. Things were going well until it was time for the eggs to hatch. There were three again this time, but only two hatched. They were weak, and even though their older sibling helped bring them food they died before they could leave the nest. Bent Wing seemed to take it in stride, but Corvus couldn''t. He didn''t feel like they were his kids, he couldn''t wrap his mind around that, but he did hold a certain affection for them. To watch something that young and helpless die wasn''t pleasant no matter how he felt about them. Beside he hated not being able to do anything but watch as those close to him died. On top of that his goal appeared to require raising the chicks to adulthood as their deaths set his progress back to zero. It was a small sting compared to their loss, but a sting nonetheless. That summer Corvus fell ill. It started with a tingling sensation all over his body and became a sharp shocking sensation that coursed through him. Getting sick like this made him feel really grateful to have a partner in life, even if the situation was weird. During his illness Bent Wing made sure he got food. It was yet another simple thing that just comforted him. As his illness dragged on Corvus became angry with himself and his situation eventually lashing out against nothing with Lightning Peck. The moment he did Corvus made a complete recovery. Just like that he learned that he needed to release the built up lightning mana every once in a while to stay healthy. During the second winter in the south, One Eye got a little belligerent trying to oust the two pairs from Birth Isle. ''Worthless bastard.'' Corvus cursed the older bird. ''The only reason he even tried was because our boys paired off with Matty''s girls.'' As much as he hated it, Corvus knew that the pairing tipped the numbers in One Eye''s Favour. With those pairings One Eyes camp had twelve birds, while his only had four. The conflict was brief and Corvus put One Eye in his place without resorting to Lightning Peck, or just otherwise killing him. The third nesting season between him and Bent Wing actually had poorer results than the second. None of the eggs even hatched. Speckles and Heartless managaed to hatch a brood of six, and keep them alive through fledging. It was depressing. Even Bent Wing seemed to be affected by the disparity. Having nothing to stick around for and wanting a change of scenery Corvus convinced Bent Wing to follow him and the two set off south in early summer. Having experimented a bit with Lightning Peck and absorbing mana it became apparent that whatever prematurely aged him and Bent Wing was related to White Maple Island as opposed to the mana vein. So as they flew south east using the mana vein they bypassed stopping on White Maple Island before running across a large continent. They settled on a cliff face near the bottom of a massive snow-capped mountain that was just east of the green zone. Passing the winter there was by and large peaceful. There was a substantial lizard population but they were comparable to the snakes on Birth Isle. Not much of a threat after Corvus learned Lightning Peck. Still the lizard would attack on occasion forcing him to let loose on them. It worried Corvus a little bit as this continued because he found himself enjoying letting loose like that. He came to realize that Lightning not only coated his beak but could also shot forth as he pecked. The distance it shot forth depended on the amount of mana he invested. Even completely draining his internal mana it never extended past a foot. Corvus was felt frustrated any time he thought about his goal. As such when spring rolled around he refused to return. Bent Wing didn''t seem to notice or care. The two of them spent three years there. Not once in those three years did they mate or nest. Mostly they just explored. Corvus was quite shocked to discover a second green zone on the continent, he had been assuming there was an upper limit of one per landmass. Besides that his and Bent Wing''s days were spent eating, while their nights were spent sleeping. In the end they ran out of continent to explore. Realizing that Corvus felt like it was time to end their vacation and try again. When they return they found Birth Isle to be a very different place. The entire island was covered in grass and there were several bushes, possibly even trees beginning to appear. None much bigger than Corvus, but it was still a considerably fast growth rate. There were enough crows there that Corvus had a hard time counting them, finally waiting until night when they were stationary to do so. Sixteen all together including Speckles and Heartless. Because he and Bent Wing had set out quite late by the time they reached Birth Isle, their siblings newest batch of nestlings had already hatched. Their reunion wasn''t all that touching. Corvus and Bent Wing were recognized and accepted by the other pair but there was a distinct lack of emotion there. Over the last three years Corvus had spent his time almost exclusively with Bent Wing. Maybe he was projecting emotions onto her because of that, yet to him it seemed like she was more ... human. So for him meeting the reception they got felt lacking. Speckles and Heartless just seemed so void of humanity. ''Well, maybe not,'' he chuckled to himself watching Heartless fuss over her young. It was still early enough in the year that he and Bent Wing could nest, so the day after their return they went to work building a new nest. Now that he was more experienced it didn''t take long for the two of them to complete it and Bent Wing immediately started laying eggs. One egg a day, for six days. Every time he would be sent for food Corvus would think to himself, ''Six.'' It was hard for him to restrain himself. He knew it was still early and he shouldn''t get his hopes up, but he just felt positive. More than he had in years. He might have needed to take a step back from trying to complete the goals, but working towards them again felt great. Corvus'' mood plummeted when the first three eggs didn''t hatch. Fighting not to give up he hung on and on the next day he watched as a baby bird hatched. By this point Corvus'' emotions were flip flopping just about every hour. ''Don''t get your hopes up, remember the two that didn''t make it.'' ''She ate it. She looks healthy. She''s going to be fine.'' ''Predators. They''ll still be a threat.'' As he gathered food Corvus kept an eye out for any snakes. If he found one it died. No threats, no trying to drive it away, a single stab with Lightning Peck to the head. This policy didn''t change even as the fifth and sixth eggs hatched. It remained in effect, even as the nestlings grew up healthy and strong. It was only when they fledged that Corvus let up a bit. He didn''t want them to grow up unaware of the danger. When they did fledge, Corvus decided to name them. It was a rather easy thing to do as they were all rather unusual looking. The oldest, a female, was a dingy white color earning her the name Ghost. Her younger brother''s were Hood, and Midnight. Hood, the middle bird, was named so because he had a black head, but a dark grey body. Midnight looked very much like a regular crow if you only saw him, but if you put him near any other crow the difference made itself apparent. He had a definite blue tint in coloring. Corvus'' initial reaction to their unusual coloring had been panic but after a while he calmed down. Once he did he realized that the likely cause of both their coloring and the difficulty with getting the eggs to hatch was the fact he wasn''t a normal crow. It wasn''t every day, but the goal Procreate''s completion rose by a visible amount the longer the three lived. It was a quite but exciting summer that transitioned into fall. Caring for the young birds the days disappeared as fast as they came and soon even fall was ending. Having started nesting late the five of them were not quite ready to travel south when the others left. Corvus and Bent Wing would lead Ghost, Hood, and Midnight south as soon as the could but needed another three or four days. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. It was during this period of time that Corvus encountered something that shook him to his core. A demi-human. A merman to be precise. It caught Corvus'' eye one day when he was looking towards the mainland. A human face poking out of the ocean water. ''There''s no way.'' Corvus thought he was hallucinating when he first saw it. A belief that was strengthened when it crested out of the water showing it''s full form. The upper body of a man, with a cerulean fish tail for a lower body. Unable to accept this as real Corvus dismissed the creature returning to helping his family prepare to migrate. They were almost done requiring only a single day more. The next day though the creature was proven to be real. As they ate Corvus would peer at it every so often and noticed it seemed to take on a dark blue glow. The water below the merman began to spin forming a vortex, then it rose atop the water like a miniature hurricane. It completely hid the merman''s tail as it skimmed across the water. Even this Corvus dismissed as his own mad delusion. What he couldn''t dismiss though were the four birds looking at the spectacle with their head cocked to the side. ''They can see it!'' "Run!" he screamed as the hurricane containing the merman glided off the water and onto the shore. The merman frowned as the five birds took to the sky. Waving his hands in front of him he separated a ball of water from the storm that allowed him to traverse the land. He launched it skyward at Ghost, who managed to dodge by a hair''s breadth. ''Not Good.'' Corvus lamented as he saw the water ball dance unnaturally through the air. "Leave," he ordered the other birds as he dived towards the merman distracting him. His tactic however didn''t work as the water ball continued it''s assualt on Ghost. When Corvus got close trying to use Lighting Peck, the hurricane would release a whip of water at him driving him away. Even after multiple attempts he could never get within three feet of it. In this manner the hostile merman chased them from the landward side of the island to the seaward side. Corvus decided to do something stupid. Ascending into the heart of the mana vein Corvus drew deeply, absorbing mana stream after mana stream. Absorbing so much that lightning danced along his wings just as it had during the lightning strike. ''More. I need more.'' Corvus wasn''t sure he actually did need more but he knew he would only get one chance so he pushed himself to the absolute limit of his pain tolerance. When he felt the quills of his feathers begin to crack he screamed before he began his descent. "Leave." he shouted while plummeting, telling his family to go. To his relief they obeyed flying off towards the continent. His cry drew the attention of the merman, alerting the demi-human of his forth-coming attack. Drawing his eyebrows together the merman began drawing something in the sky leaving a trail of floating water. When Corvus was five feet away he concentrated the mana in his body just as he did the first time. A brilliant blue bolt shot out from the tip of his beak arcing towards the merman. *Bam* The lightning hit an invisible field dispersing over it, leaving the merman undamaged. However, the sheer force behind the bolt caused the merman to be blown out across the water into the ocean. Corvus on the other hand screamed in pain when the bolt hit the shield. A sense of being torn apart invaded his conscious when the two hit. A soul rending agony that lasted only a moment. The next thing Corvus knew he was watching a merman being launched into the sea and the body of a crow crashing into the shore. Looking at it more closely the crow had brilliant blue streaks running down the feathers on its back. It looked almost as if someone had painted painted a flash of lightning in a storm cloud across the bird''s back. This experience lasted only a moment and he soon found himself back in where he belonged, inside his body. It hurt all over. Corvus knew he was going to die slowly from his injuries. ''Hahaha, not huge on the pain part,'' Corvus chuckled to himself, ''the dying I''m oddly okay with though.'' Just as he thought that Corvus felt his body lifted by a hand and saw the merman. He was manhandled as his wings were forced open as far as they could allowing the demi-human to examine him. Seeming pleased with his catch the merman bound Corvus'' wings to his body with a bit of seaweed and dove into the water dragging Corvus into the depths. Right as he was drowning Corvus heard a ding and saw a window pop up.
Notification
The locked goals of the second stage of the inheritance test have now been revealed. They are:
  • Die
  • Repeat
''Pfhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha'' a mad laughter echoes forth.
Author''s Notes There''s the last one for a bit, certainly for the day. So I have a few things I want to say but I''m gonna try to stay on point. Two of the smaller issues first. I have left the tags for this story fairly sparse because I wasn''t sure what the details of the story were going to be. Are there any tags you feel I am missing? Please let me now in the comments below. Next would be the formatting poll. I am now at around 29000 word total including tables and I think I said I would at it at ten chapters or 25-30k words. It''s a bit early but next time I post a chapter I will be closing the poll. So vote HERE if you care. Before I get to the reader interactive bits, I want to let you know what my current plans are. I am intending to write a side story or two. One is not intended to be necessary to read, but it is intended to answer a question that might arise later on in the story. The other is something of an epilogue to this batch of chapters, I may or may not do this one depending on whether or not it seems warranted. After that there will be another chapter or batch of chapters depending on the length, that will finish out this larger portion of the story. After that I will be taking a break to work on character development before entering the next larger arc. Now Reader Interactive stuff. To make sure this is perfectly clear Corvus died in this chapter. That isn''t going to change. However the ''people'' he built relationships between chapters two to eleven are. This is your opportunity to say who you want to see again, who you don''t and what you want their relationship to be. As it''s so broad I felt a poll wouldn''t really work for it so if you want your opinion to count you will need to post. This is not something that will be an immediate effect and may not conform to exactly what you suggest but I will definitely take it into account. Also with Corvus dead again that means he will encounter Belys once again, this means a chance for answers, but as I know them all already I''m having a tough time deciding what questions Corvus should prioritize, so please feel free to suggest some. Finally because of how this chapter ended I feel like some of you will have complaints or question about the story. So long as it won''t spoil anything I will answer otherwise I will RAFO (Read and Find Out) you. Just try to make it clear, either @ me or add question marks. Thanks for reading to this point. I hope you enjoyed it and will come back for more when it''s ready. Please feel free to comment, critique, correct, rate and review.