PreCursive

  As corrosive murk started to thread its way through the ey of my being, I began to feel something else. Something much more immediate, and much more distressing in the moment.

  My body began to ge rapidly.

  Inside of me, I felt it as my bones began to shift, crag aending and fusing and growing. Even though I was hunched over, I khat I was growing taller and wider. Through hazy, distressed eyes, I watched as my very flesh began to bubble and shift. To my panic, scales began to form from the hardening mass of my formerly smooth skin, shifting in color to a deep, dark bck as they did so. Startlingly, my Primorium arm was shifting in the same manner as my flesh was, ging in shape with the rest of me. But instead of bck scales, they were the same pure-white and rainbow of the Spirit-shaped metal. The tips of both my hands a sprouted talons, long enough that they ripped straight through my already strained boots. Scales began to grow up from my o cover my cheeks, and then the rest of my face. I frantically tried to scratch them off with my alons, but all I aplished was carving bloody furrows that closed almost as soon as I inflicted them on myself. I felt it as my ears began to grow much rger and longer, morphing even further as they were covered in those same scales. My eyesight very briefly went out, only heightening my panic before it returned. When it did, I only half-noticed that it was much sharper than it used to be, allowio see the individual grains of wood in the wall easily.

  But whatever was happening to me wasn’t over.

  I arced my bad screamed through ging vocal cords as I felt two protrusio from behind me in a shower of gore. I…could trol them as if they were extensions of my being no different from my arms and legs. Disbelievingly, unwilling to prehend what my c was telling me, I maneuvered them in front of me.

  Wings.

  I had grown twe, bat-like wings.

  I gazed at them in horror, because I reized these wings. I…reized all of the features that I had just spontaneously maed. Unwilling to believe it, I looked around wildly before catg sight of a nearby vanity mirror on the wall, only barely aware of how wary Honoka had grown at my transformation. I rushed at it faster than I had ever moved before, creating a small gust of wind from my eleportation. Gazing into the mirror, a profound sense of despair welled up inside of me as I clutched the edges of the vanity, crag it.

  Looking back at me from a shattered surface was a face akin to Rhazal's. I could only barely make out tray owures, uhe scales and monstrous protrusions I'd grown.

  The Godbound’s st curse on me…was to bee him.

  I staggered back from the mirror, clutg at my head and digging my alons into my own skull as tears of anguish welled up in my eyes.

  I slumped to my knees and screamed.

  What emerged from my throat wasn’t the voice of a man.

  It was that of a monster, warbling and screeg into the fines of the room. No doubt the entire manor could hear my howls.

  The ge to something as fual to me as my voily added to my despair. I hunched over, burying my beastly visage into my scaled hands, and began to sob.

  I don’t know how long I khere, insoble in my own sorrow. But gradually, I felt small, nearly imperceptible footsteps begin to approach me. Panicked, I whipped my head up, expeg to see the drawn bde of Honoka, ready to end the life of the newborn demon before her.

  Instead, I found her outstretched hand h just over my shoulder, inches from toug my scales. Through watery eyes, I didn’t find hatred or judgment on the older woman’s face.

  Rather, there was only and passion to be found on her aged features.

  Her hand fis journey, ing to a rest on my scaled shoulder. Even through my new natural-born armor, I still felt the warmth of it.

  “Hart…” I heard her say, through hearing that was far more keen than it used to be. “Is that still…you?”

  I reached up and clutched at her offered hand, grasping desperately for any lifelihat I could. “I…I…I t-think so?” I stuttered out, in a voily slightly remi of my previous ohere were uoo it, now, both physical and spiritual. The physical was what I expected from monstrous vocal cords, simultaneously the screech of the bat and the growl of the reptile. But there was something more to it now, something familiar.

  Although it wasn’t as strong, there was a of soul speey voiow. I could feel it as something about my words reached across the Aetherial distaween Honoka and I, and veyed my exact meaning to her.

  No doubt filled with all of my panic, fear, and desperation.

  Honoka winced above me. Though, I don’t know if it was from my new voice or the feeling of my scales under her hand. Still, that didn’t stop her. “Hart,” She said firmly, reag up to grab my with her other hand. She deliberately turned my head upwards to look her in the eye. “I need you to focus, now. This has to be a Skill of some kind. The System doesn’t permit racial ges, and I doubt it would start now. Not for a Precursor, and sure as hell not at the whims of a Camity. You o examine your Status closely, and we go from there. This might be reversible.”

  I tched onto the lifeline Honoka had thrown me, an indescribable feeling of relief welling up inside of me. I nodded vigorously as I frantically called up Hidden Amidst the Spheres once more, hope held close to my heart.

  God, please…please. Please don’t let me be stuck as a monster.

  I don’t know if I could take it.

  My Status appeared once more in my minds eye, suspended in pce from where I had abruptly aba in my despair.

  You have gained 31 levels!You are now level 100 (122)!You have gaihe title, Camity Syer. Camity Syer grants +50 in all Virtues. You have 90 (310) u Virtue points. Level 100 Css Ability ied. You have gaihe Skill, Vis Maledicta Exactoris. Would you like to review your Status?Y/NI frantically sed the dialogue box in my mind's eye, before settling o line before the review prompt.

  Vis Maledicta Exactoris.

  That had to be it. That had to be the Skill that had transformed me in this way.

  Desperate, I shut my eyes and tried to search within myself for it. Sometimes it was easy to mentally reach for Skills, and sometimes it wasn’t. I almost had to familiarize myself with the mental triggers of newer ones before they became easy to use. I prayed that I could find the one for this ransformative ability.

  There!

  That was it. I was absolutely certain of it.

  Floating in the recesses of my soul was a new Skill. It felt nearly…malicious, to my senses. In my mind's eye, the representation of it looked distressingly simir to one of the Revenants that Rhazal had loosed upoy. It was leashed to the greater part of my soul-tree by a thick of familiar-looking murk, so simir to that which the now deceased Godbound had yered over the sky. But it wasn’t snarling hting the .

  Instead, the monster was almost eerily looking directly at me. Even though I wasn’t actually there in this er of my being, its attention was fixed in a dire like it was fag my attention. The beast’s wide, crimson eyes were unblinking as it stared at me, sitting eerily still.

  Cautiously, I extended a mental hand to the bestial hound. It didn’t snap ht me. It just closed its eyes and leaned into the touch.

  e.

  I had the Skill in my grasp now. With hope in my heart, I tur off.

  In the real world, my body was immediately shrouded in corrosive murk, causing Honoka to leap backward from me. But I wasn’t paying attention to her.

  I was fog on my ges.

  Thankfully, they weren’t as painful as the initial ge had been. None of my bones were rearranging themselves inside of me, and none of my features painfully adjusted position at the cessation of the Skill. I instead immediately shrank in my over-stretched clothes, returning to my previous height. The added muscuture that my transformation had granted me disappeared as well, while more drastic ges to my form happened in an instant. My wings vanished, while my scales had thankfully faded away to reveal my pale skin once again.

  But…it didn’t feel like everything was gone. My ears on the side of my head felt…heavier than before, while something much more obvious had stuck around on my hands. While I didn’t quite have talons anymore, my nails on my hands a were still hardened from their previously normal state. They weren't quite talons, but they weren't human nails any long. I left scratches on the hardwood floor as I clumsily pushed myself bay feet.

  Honoka hissed from betweeeeth from across the room from me, drawing my attention. “You’d…better take another look at yourself, Hart,” She said ominously.

  My breath catg in my throat, I approached the vanity mirror I had halfway shattered earlier. Looking into it, I could see what had caught Honoka’s attention, and it caused my heart to drop in my chest.

  I looked different.

  I was still reizably Nathan Hart, but with a bit…more. As I’d noticed, my ears hadn’t gone pletely back to their normal rounded shape. Instead, they were long and tapered now. They stood out from the side of my head at an angle, with ae edge on top that tapered out to a point. Thankfully, they weren’t quite as wide as an Orc’s ear, which would have looked ical on a human.

  Instead, they just looked simir to an elven ear. Only…the long ft edge had a tapering of monstrous bck scales along the top edge of it. The bck of them glimmered in the low firelight.

  And that wasn’t the only ge from my previous appearance.

  My eyes had not only ged shape, but they were glowing. The pupil was slit now, almost as if I possessed the eyes of a Gnoll. My emerald green irises glimmered in the light cast from the firepce, visibly glowing. As I watched, the slit pupil of my new eyes flexed bad forth to aodate the lighting ditions.

  I shuddered at the sight of it before anlimmer caught my eye. I raised a hand to my cheek to trace what had caught my attention disbelievingly.

  I…think my scars were being overin with those same bck scales as well. The jagged scar that had long stood out on my face from my first fight with a monster all those months ago had grown them as well. The mark that the Bde-Rack Hart had left on me was now overid with tiny obsidian scales. Hurriedly, I opened my ratty shirt to look down at my chest, ung about Honoka’s presence. Sure enough, I had more of those scale marks visible on my body from every other scar I had ever accumuted. From the smallest act mark to the rgest battle scar, they crisscrossed my body in scaly, obsidian marks.

  I just stood there for a moment, feeli.

  Was…I even human anymore? Had Rhazal stolehat from me, with this st curse of his?

  I let out a shuddering breath.

  “Could be worse,” I heard from behind me. I turned my head to look at Honoka in plete disbelief. I found the older woman looking at me with a sidering look on her face, cupping her in one hand.

  “What?” I said, growing almost irrationally angry. “What the fuck do you mean, it could be worse?! I barely look human anymore!”

  “Yes, and that’s a bit of a problem,” Honoka replied, unfling in the fay fury. “You’ll probably be mistaken for an elf, now. But as far as perma Skill-based physical ges go, I’m telling you. I’ve seen worse.”

  “Then…this is something that happen to other people?”

  Honoka shrugged and wavered a hand in front of her. “It’s pretty damn unon,” She said, dashing my hopes of not being a freak. “But it’s not like it’s never happened. It’s just…most people who’ve been ged so extensively by their Status are much, much higher level than you. You’re only at the cusp of the first breakpoint, after all. But…I think in this.”

  I sighed and walked over to the chair that had been discarded at the start of my transformation. “How so?”

  Honoka joined me, sitting in the chair to my right. “Not many people have ever killed a Camity, Hart,” She said, doing her best to be f. Holy, it just sounded awkward ing from the normally fiery old woman. “People don’t know what you get from the System for doing it. I’m not sure even Grey knows.”

  “You get a title called Camity Syer that gives you fifty in each Virtue,” I cut in tiredly.

  Honoka raised an eyebrow, but tinued anyway. “Sure, and that’s pretty good. But we say it was something else. Like, say…a curse of some kind, from the dying monster. Bam!” She smmed a fist into her open palm. “And that expins your new looks.”

  A curse...

  I looked at her almost disbelievingly. “And the activated version of the Skill?” I asked her. “Because I tell that I turn bato that…thing. The Skill is still there, waiting for me. Will people believe that came from the System?”

  “If we tell them it did, yes,” Honoka nodded, surprising me. She just smirked. “You uimate the pull that Grey and I have. If we say something like that, people will believe us. And Grey will go along with that. I’ll just have to get to him first, ahis off before it bees a problem. He and the rest of the Army are only about four days away. I fly there, fill him in on all that’s happened, and then be back by sundown. Then, he do something to help Sylvia.” She finished, nodding hopefully at the still atose form of the Sculpted woman.

  I looked at Sylvia as well, a differeion than hope in my heart. I felt dread, instead.

  Would Sylvia even care for me anymore, after I had been cursed like this?

  We were interrupted by the sound of banging on the door of the room. Startled, I looked over with Honoka towards it as a muffled voice came from the other side.

  “Lady Honoka?!” I heard a mahrough the wood. “Are you okay?! We heard what sounded like a monster from in here!”

  Thankfully, even though they were rattling the door hahey couldn’t get in. Honoka had melted it in her fury, after all.

  Said woman looked at me and leaned close. “You’ve got to go,” She said hurriedly. “I don’t have a cloak io hide your new features, and I don’t know how these guards and soldiers will react, so soon after the massacre. Skill cealment might just provoke these ftfoots, from how jumpy they are. Lay as low as you befrey and I e and find you. We’ll get this sorted out with an annou when we .” She finished, shooing me in the dire of the window.

  I stood up slowly as the pounding on the door increased. It sounded like the guards were trying to break the door down. Honoka approached it. “Calm down!” She yelled through it, projeg irritation that was believable for her. “I just had a disagreement with someohat’s all. I’ll fix the damn door,” She said, still motioning for me to leave.

  I took the hint and activated Thorn Cloak, slipping the hood of the maed Skill over my head. Turning away from both Honoka and Sylvia, I only remembered at the st moment to grab my aff from its resting pear the bed. When I had a firm grip oaff that had once beloo Honoka’s deceased husband, I opehe window and slipped out unseen.

  Like a proper monster.