Chapter 6: A Runaway Bride?

Estara’s mirror was the all-metal hand variety and was slightly scuffed and imperfect. The servant girl was whispering into it, a bedpost and a wall at an angle behind her. The lighting was sparse, perhaps from candles. “Can you hear me in this, Your Majesty Samantha?”

Sammy brought it directly to the two-way interface, which caused Estara to jump. “Any true mirror works, Estara. I’m glad you were so swift to respond.”

“Of course, Your Majesty. I-I wasn’t sure you’d care about a lowly servant such as myself. I’m sorry the mirror is so small, we don’t have the larger ones in the servant quarters and this one is shared…”

Sammy frowned. “It’s nothing. And don’t speak down on yourself, Estara. In fact, you are very brave for saying yes to my call, are you not? You do understand the danger?”

Estara’s eyes slid off to the side even as she nodded. “Yes, Your Majesty. But… my mother is a servant. My grandmother and grandfather were servants, and theirs before them. ‘Service to society, as prescribed in wisdom.’ Keeping to one’s station, knowing one’s place, that’s just the natural order.”

The servant girl took a deep breath and regarded Sammy through the portal. “Can you provide some way out of it, Your Majesty? E-even if you can’t, I’ll serve in whatever way I can. A” — she looked around then whispered conspiratorially — “spy. Though the Lord of the manor is usually away. For as long as I remain here.”

“So you are unsatisfied with the life you’re… prescribed. You aim to run away already?”

“Yes,” she said immediately, though she also seemed a little embarrassed. “Before I am to be wed to a man I have no liking for, much less love. But he is the majordomo’s nephew, so they get what they want. And my mother says that I am lucky. The wedding is in a month.”

Well, that makes all the pieces click. A runaway bride, after all.

“Estara, I acknowledge and bless your defiance. I will do my all to help you in whatever way I can, in due time. Understand, however, I am hardly omnipotent.”

The girl bowed her head and spoke with emotion, “I understand, Your Majesty! I am grateful! I… to have even one person on my side in this, to have someone I could even seriously tell at all…”

Sammy couldn’t help but feel compassion for the girl. “I am pleased to be that person, Estara. I will be your friend, your patron… your goddess.”

With that same ‘connection’ she utilized to touch the portals, Sammy could feel Estara’s receptive soul, and so she reached out, like a hand’s caress. Simultaneously, she brought her hand up, palm flat, and it was much like she was touching the portal.

Estara’s eyes shot up in shock to stare into the mirror, and it was plain she knew what the sensation meant.

Without having to be told anything about the ritual, Estara reached to touch a shaking hand to the mirror, in mirror to Sammy’s gesture. Then, she whispered solemnly, “I swear my allegiance and pledge my faithful service to the Goddess Samantha, may she reign forever.”

There was a surge of power through the connection as it anchored and cemented between them.

Follower conversion successful. 1 FE gained. 1 FE will be obtained in 24 hours and every 24 hours thereafter. All Follower FE gains will occur at this time.

The quest “Fledgling Deity: The First Believer” is complete. 27 FE gained.

New Quest unlocked: “Fledgling Deity: The Inner Circle” — Reach 3 total Followers.
● Rewards: +100 FE.

Estara’s eyes widened and her pupils dilated — there was a little squeak, then a breathy sigh as her eyes rolled back and she appeared to flop backward onto the bed behind her, the mirror thankfully coming with her though it went dark from being clutched to her chest.

Shit! The religious experience!

“Um, Estara? Estara?”

There was some giggling, the connection greatly muffling the sound due to the mirror’s position. “That’s me!” After more laughter, the mirror was picked up to show a servant girl with an expression only someone on the ‘good drugs’ could make, smiling wide and dreamy.

“What is this?” Estara asked around her huge smile, punctuated with another giggle. “I feel so good! Even my Stressed Out status is gone!”

Sammy pushed the portal into ‘illusion mode’ and kept it as a poised freezeframe of herself, exclusively so that she could facepalm.

“Great. This is just great. I’m a goddess and a drug dealer, apparently.”

Religious experience after conversion can be triggered through worship or prayer, and provided as desired by a deity (with a 1-hour cooldown between uses, per Follower), expressed as a percentage of intensity to the maximum at 100% (assumed of conversion experience).

Note that a total of 30 minutes of worship or prayer in a 24-hour period provides 1 additional FE. Only higher-grade believers (such as Fanatics) can provide more (with additional time committed).

“So I can give a ‘little high’ instead of ‘incapacitating high,’ as a reward for… worship in moderation.”

Correct.

“You’re so pretty,” Estara said, holding the mirror up at arm’s length above her. Then she brought it down to kiss the mirror, giggling. “Her Majesty is the most beautiful of all!”

I should probably tone this down a bit…

“How long does this last?” Sammy asked.

5 minutes at initial intensity, fading by 20% per minute after, until 10 minutes, which is instead 10% intensity (as opposed to 0%) and persisting for 30 minutes. Statuses cleared may remain so or become retriggered, depending on user experience. Any buffs end.

“Buffs? So I can give, what, a berserker rage to Followers as a religious experience?”

Correct. You may customize religious experiences per Follower at any time, detaching it from the conversion experience. Only one discreet buff of this nature can be packaged into a religious experience.

More powerful buffs are available to certain domains.

“Good to know…”

“Your Majestyyyy,” Estara called playfully as she stared into the mirror, at what remained a still image. “Are we having a staring contest? I beat my sisters’ butts every time at that!” She sniggered. “I just said ‘butts’!”

She’s going to be so mortified when she comes out of this and remembers.

Sammy finally returned the portal to a two-way connection, putting on a tolerant smile. “Estara, now you are feeling what it is to be connected to a goddess. I can provide many different inspirations to the faithful. For now, stay here. Lay and be at peace, and remember this is our secret until we discuss otherwise. We’ll talk again.”

“You make me so happy, Your Majesty! I love you!”

Sammy tried not to wince. “I… love you, too. And when you think about this later: it’s alright, Estara. This is simply my power touching you. You’ve done nothing wrong. Now then… farewell for a while.”

Estara grinned big and dumb, wriggling her fingers as she mouthed ‘bye’ in between giggles.

Sammy disconnected them, then sagged on her throne to where she was almost horizontal, feeling a bit weird and stupid for the ‘love you, too’ bit. After all, she had all her faculties when she said it. At least it hadn’t been a guy.

Yeah, that ritual is getting tweaked soon. A ‘slight’ high, maybe?

She decided to draw up her ‘sheet’ as she thought of it and the issue of the most recent FE gains.

____________________________________________________________

Sammy, Virgin Goddess of Mirrors
____________________________________________________________

Goddess Level 1; Fledgling Deity

Domains (1/2): Mirrors

Faith Energy: 30/1000

Brute: 0

Rogue: 0

Wizard: 0

Bard: 0

Special Skills: First Aid, Tarot Reading

Special Traits: Token User, Immortal, Demiplane Domain, Conceptual Body, Fueled By Faith

Powers: Faith Energy Utilization, Mirror Sense (at will), Mirror Communication (at will)

Status: Token User Promotional Bonus (0/30), New Deity Grace Period (0/7)

____________________________________________________________

“30 out of 1000 FE? I thought the quest gave 25, but it gave 27.”

It’s from the Token User Promotional Bonus.

____________________________________________________________

Token User Promotional Bonus

Congratulations on being worthy enough to receive a System promotional token, by which your soul has obtained everlasting life and opportunity through reincarnation! You’ve also been granted a start as the class of your choice (subject to placement review) — hopefully, it fulfills all that your heart desires and is not terminated prematurely.

Rest assured: no matter what happens, you’ll always get another chance to advance!

To see you on your way in this new existence, you have 30 days of +20% experience point gain (rounded down), +10% to any other ‘point’ gains (such as Mana; rounded down), and a 50% Toughness bonus.

Good luck!

____________________________________________________________

“Huh. It’s so cheery. And marketing-like. Not really like you at all, Sys.”

Promotional campaigns by necessity are handled by outside recruiting agencies. The message was approved and edited by the System but not initially designed by it.

“What sort of recruiting agencies?”

The System cannot provide this information.

“Yes you can, you just don’t want to!”

Naturally, Sys ignored the statement, so Sammy sighed and asked instead, “Is Faith Energy just for collecting and making bodies or does it do something else?”

FE is used for a wide assortment of deific tasks, particularly at higher class levels. Within your psychic domain, you can expend them to expand it dramatically, adding structures or landscapes, or simple items, effects, and constructs.

It costs 1 FE to create a discrete item, or 2 FE to create a structure or landscape. Cosmetic alteration and other minor changes can be conducted at will. Any structure can also be dismissed and will return 1 FE. If two items are dismissed at the same time, they will also return 1 FE. No psychic construct can enter the material realm.

“Okay, that’s pretty cool, but hold up — you are a cosmically powerful entity of some kind, right? Yet you have shit about ‘rounding down’ and you’re blatantly avoiding tracking fractions. What the fuck is with that? Wouldn’t that be child’s play?”

The System maintains a simplified framework for the benefit of the end user.

“But you’re the one keeping track of it!”

She was dumb enough to expect an ‘answer’, and when it didn’t come, she grit her teeth. “Anyway… how dare you tempt me with decoration when I have shit to do! We’ll get to that later. I don’t think I have to worry about a few points here and there.”

The matter was set aside, as she wanted to begin searching for the false witness Dax wanted to locate. ‘Gentam Cutter.’ It would be useful to try out and test drive her ability to track subjects via her mirrors.

She confined the search to the same general area as Dax’s shard location, in which she found a quite sizable amount of mirrors in what was clearly a prosperous city. It was also a significant distance from where Estara was located. The way her head was orienting, Estara was ‘south,’ Dax ‘east,’ and the feast was far west, on a presumably significant coastline.

She got many flashes of the populous indoors and at least a little bit of the outside, though it was dark already. It was all much like Dax’s suggested image — late medieval, early Renaissance, with advanced architecture. There was a mirror in a grand library, though it was empty at night. More in other large structures that might’ve been governmental.

What she saw of weapons was of great variety, but swords and daggers were most common, often with elaborate hand guards. Staves were also frequent. She saw no firearms, however.

Focusing on the ‘subject’ would bring her to flashes that ‘might be’ him, but were consistently inconclusive. And time-consuming. She almost felt bleary-eyed after what was at least an hour of it all. She caught one potential sign in a hallway, but there were only a couple of other mirrors in the house and they continuously gave up nothing.

And then in a silvered hand mirror lit by a lantern, a profile appeared of a green-eyed man with a prominent red mark on his cheekbone, scruffy-haired and with an overgrown beard and goatee. He was shaving.

Gotcha.

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