Hesitant, Emiliana opened her eyes. The first thing she noticed was that the vision in her left eye was dimmer. Cloudier and darker, and the eye itself just felt stiffer, like it took more effort to move.
And then she saw her hands. Specifically, the tips of her fingers. They’d all become dark as coal and hard like rocks. And more than that, some of them had grown outward, gnarled and pointed like misshapen claws. Two on her right hand, three on her left.
She remembered her face next, how it had burned as well. Wide-eyed, she searched around for a mirror but didn’t see one. But she could see the changes just barely in the corners of her vision. Small protrusions from her flesh. Stubby horns, they felt like. Dark and hideous.
She was about ready to lose her mind. ‘What the hell happened to me?!’
‘Your ability has manifested,’ said Chergoa. ‘You’re a mutation type.’
Chapter Eighty-One: ‘What it means to serve...’
Click to display entire chapter at once -- (mobile link)
Emiliana moved toward the glass wall, just wanting to get away from the other people before they noticed they were standing next to some kind of freak. She stared at her hands in horror. ‘I’m going to be like this for the rest of my life?’
‘Yes and no,’ said Chergoa, still trying to sound gentle. ‘You can’t exactly undo what’s happened, but you can make further changes to yourself and potentially counteract any negative effects they’ve caused.’
Emiliana touched her face another time. Her rocky fingertips had lost all sensation, but with her palm, she could feel four little horns on her head--one on each cheek and then two on her forehead. Her reflection in the window was faint, but she could see enough to know that she already hated what she’d become.
‘Mutation is the least understood type,’ said Chergoa. ‘I know that might not inspire much confidence, but luckily for you, I’ve studied it quite a bit, so I know more about it than most reapers probably do.’
Emiliana wanted to scream at her. It was disgusting. How could her parents let her become a servant if they knew something like this could happen?
A dark serial novel. Set in a modern fantasy world called Eleg. Mature language. Updates every night at midnight PST by ~400 words.
Finally a mutation type character. I have been waiting for one to turn up.
ReplyDeleteI'm so excited
ReplyDeleteYay!
ReplyDeleteAgreed. I feel sorry for Emiliana though. I had expected that her parents had told her about the different abilities.
ReplyDeleteThey probably didn't expect a mutation ability. Didn't Garovel say it was rare?
ReplyDeleteis anyone else having toxic avenger flash backs? :p
ReplyDeleteDid a little search about that. Source is this page: http://thezombieknight.blogspot.com/2013/10/page-317.html (and the following pages)
ReplyDelete"[M]utation is by far the rarest type. [...] The
mutation type has a reputation for being weaker than the others--which
isn’t actually true, by the way. But a lot of reapers don’t like it,
because it’s much more of a double-edged sword than any other type. See,
mutation abilities allow the user to make PERMANENT changes to their
body. Unlike transfiguration, which changes one’s body chemistry
temporarily, mutation will cause the servant’s regeneration power to
maintain its changes. This means that even just learning to control the
ability is dangerous, because the servant could end up accidentally
disfiguring or disabling themself. [...]
And
even if it’s a problem that normally could be fixed with surgery, the
servant will still just regenerate to its mutated state. The only
potential solution is to induce a second change which counters the
detrimental effects of the first change--and that can easily end up
making the problem worse. [...]
Sometimes,
mutation users screw their bodies up so badly that there’s no hope of
fixing it anymore. Which can be quite horrific. And at that point,
releasing their soul is a mercy. I also know that the general stigma
around the mutation type makes it so a lot of reapers won’t even bother
with a servant who has it. Because like I said, they see it as weaker
than all others and not worth the trouble. [...]
Mutation is the one I know the least about. The rarity makes it difficult to study. [...] Hell,
a thousand years ago, we thought the mutation type was some kind of
awful disease. Some reapers might even still believe that. [...]
We
shouldn’t try to measure the worth of our servants by the abilities
they possess. I despise reapers who discard their servants because they
think the ability isn’t good enough."
I'm reading into this that mutation isn't necessarily rarer than the other types, but between reapers releasing servants who turn out to have the mutation ability, and servants disabling themselves and have to be released, there just aren't that many mutation users who survive.
Which was slightly off-topic, sorry for that. I think it would be a lot easier on the Elroy children if their parents had told them a lot more about what to expect.
:)
ReplyDeleteHorrible horrible
ReplyDeleteBut what a plot though
I must have forgotten how long it's been since she became a servant during my time away (waiting for the story to get ahead). I thought she was too fresh to manifest an ability.
ReplyDeleteForget that. She's made her first change out of sheer instinct while terrified and new. I hope she hasn't already done for herself.
ReplyDeleteOne thing is for sure. That new boyfriend? Trial by fire before the first kiss. Huh boy.
And her first romantic relationship undergoes the trial by fire before she can even get her first kiss from him. Huh boy.
ReplyDeleteOf course, lord knows how long into the story it will take for them to meet up again.
You know, it's strange a mutation type can't reverse the changes, honestly. It's just another mutation - that happens to be what they were before they mutated the first time. Mutation aught to practically be a transformation ability. Or so it seems from here. But if I've learned anything reading this work of yours, it's that you've always thought the abilities through. So I'm assuming a perfect explanation hiding somewhere.
ReplyDeleteThat's an important point. Will be addressed eventually.
ReplyDeleteuhhh how can her ability manifest so quickly and so prominently... it took hector way longer for it to manifest and he had training/meditation/actual fights. and even after all that plus emergence, it was only a few iron specks. i honestly doubt she just underwent emergence since she wasnt even fighting, just running. unless mutation is an exception (i highly doubt it as that wouldnt make any sense), her ability should have manifested at least after a few weeks or even months (i think that was what garovel originally said yet hector took a shortcut with emergence, but i could be wrong). she definitely should not have her power so prominently or at all within a couple days of getting a reaper
ReplyDeleteIncorrect. Hector was first resurrected in the evening, and his ability manifested the following night. So, in a little over a day, essentially. Quite a lot happened in that day, however, which is probably the reason for your confusion.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Hector had not done any meditating or training prior to the manifestation of his ability. And given what we know about emergence, we can conclude that the Hector's manifestation was not a case of emergence (recall that he did not feel the specks on his hands until after the immediate conflict was over and he saw what Colt had done). Garovel briefly mentioned that there was a subtle difference between the initial manifestation of an ability and the further "emergence" of it.
Anyhow, Emiliana's manifestation did happen rather early, but Hector's happened even earlier.
This is pretty cool. Wonder what's going to happen to her
ReplyDeleteA reverse Beauty and the Beast plot. I'm liking where this is going lol
ReplyDeleteWow I was completely wrong... Is this not faster than Hector own manifestation?
ReplyDeleteI dunno...I don't think that is where this is going. I think it's heading more towards heartbreak. We've been shown her older brother is a lot nicer than we'd been initially led to believe. I suspect that his prediction about being ill suited is meant to be born out by events to come.
ReplyDeleteAh I was just joking. I don't think this development will end well either
ReplyDelete