Abyssal Road Trip

Opting to turn on the power Soul Sight first, she learnt one very significant thing almost immediately.

I can no longer throw up; maybe it's a demonic thing.

Seen physically, the Tepes themed landscape in front of her had been horrific enough. The vista perceived in Soul Sight was so far beyond that. Julia not only clearly perceived them, but the Power's use made known more than just the present. Things that Julia really had absolutely no desire to learn. The sight saturated her mind with an awareness of every Soul laid out within her focus. The Power's range stretching outwards as far as she could see. A sense of their past and their current state the instant the Power brushed over them. The limit only seemed to be her mind's ability to handle the information, unfortunately, her capacity had exploded with the attribute points she’d spent.

The bodies were shells without life, prisons of remembered flesh. Each formed from the Abyss by an echo of the Soul’s past life. The impaled souls didn't just scream their torment, rather each thrashed and writhed with movement far more frantic than the shell would allow. Each flailed and twisted about, battering itself both against the shell that held it captive and the spike, laced with torments from their memories.

Each spike wasn’t smooth, as she had believed, but rather formed from hooks and barbs of the Soul's own making. To Soul Sight, each shone through the shell’s fabric and Soul alike, to let her see far too many details within. Every twitching motion twisted their own handiwork deeper into the Soul. Every cruel deed or vile act from their prior existence, slowly shredding them inside.

Thus the torment slowly shattered the Souls, using their past acts as the tools of their destruction. Their own pain fueled helpless fury, to the point it burned inside them like lava. Despair blackened the fragments that were ripped free into the oozing memory of blood. All those negative emotions, and more besides, saturated the fragments that trickled down from their prisons. The slow drip of their torment fed to the blighted landscape as the Souls were slowly and steadily shredded to pieces.

The puss-filled sacks darkened to her new perspective, like wounds rotting black with gangrene. The power of the plane enclosed these fragments of the Soul, empowering it to grow like cancerous fruit. The clouds overhead shone with ironic halos of newly dammed souls falling to their last resting place.

[Soul Sight (1 -> 2)

Abyssal Lore Unlocked (1)

Succubus species bonus points added on skill unlock.

Abyssal Lore raised (1 -> 5)

Demonic Lore Unlocked (1)

Demonic Lore raised (1 -> 5)

Succubus species bonus points added on skill unlock.

Demonic Lore raised (5 -> 9)]

She slammed the Power off with a desperate thought as the notifications finally nudged her awareness of self to the surface of this offal pit. Taking a reflexive deep breath didn't help a thing, and vomit's acidic aftertaste would have left a better taste in her mouth. The air sliding into her lungs felt violating after what she had experienced from each Soul's state. Worst of all, she knew that each deserved what they were receiving and more. Yet here she was, her Soul within sight of theirs. Would she have ended up among them if whoever cursed her had differed in their intent or wording?

Focus J, if you break now you will lose it.

Deep breaths. Wait! Don't do that!

All her meditation practices had started by paying attention to her breathing, the same habits she had developed now twisted against her.

Focus on the now. Leave your eyes alone and keep that power off.

She could sense her own indecision, even if she was oblivious to her other emotions. Well, the way her fingers dug hard into her thighs was a clear sign of nerves. With a snort, she moved her arms, shoving her elbows back as if preparing to punch. Her hands clenched into fists until her knuckles ached and the pressure of her claws threatened to cut through flesh. She slowly relaxed them at a five-second count, letting her fingers unfurl out till she couldn't push them further.

[Meditation unlocked.

Meditation (1).

Mental Resilience Unlocked.

Mental Resilience (1).]

Repeating the motions over and over, she focused on every physical sensation she could. Anchoring in the mundane and ignoring the further notifications that came through. Julia focused her mind on the repetition of the motions; the way her muscles and tendons felt as they flexed, the sensation of bone and knuckles. Whenever other thoughts came up, she didn't fight them off, but simply returned her attention to the pattern and allowed them to drift away.

She mentally checked the last of the unread notifications waiting for her, acknowledging the unlock and increasing the skills.

[Mental Resilience raised (6 -> 7)

Meditation raised (8 -> 9)]

The notifications helped me with Soul Sight, but they made focusing on meditation that much harder. At least I know I can unlock skills purely by applying what I remember doing.

Bracing herself for a moment, she turned on Mana Sense, ready to turn it off in an instant. The power didn't give her anything close to the same problem. Instead, she could sense pulses of energy about her. But their occurrence didn’t seem to provide any insight into why each occurred. Trying to focus on various pulses of energy caused a ping of information about a level up. Yet trying it out made clear it wasn’t a perception that was useful for navigating.

[Mana Sense (1 -> 2)]

Julia turned her focus back to the Shapeshift power and considered the situation and the skills list for a moment longer before restoring sight. However, instead of their previous appearance, she formed them to appear as obsidian orbs set into the chitin. Julia visualised even the white of her eyes as jet black along with the iris and pupil. She hoped the consistent black colouration would prevent anything from telling the direction of her gaze, let alone the pupil's reaction.

Julia rose to her feet, utilised Shapeshift with a new image to remove her wings, and looked up the cliff. It was impossible to tell the cliff's height from the current ledge, even if her current target was the actual top. Like the plains below, the distance seemed to undulate between a few dozen feet and kilometres. There were dozens of ledges between her and the top of the cliff, the sheer number promising at least several hundred feet, if not more, of climbing to be required.

While the distance tempted Julia to take a chance and try using the Flight power to speed her way upwards, however, that felt like diving from the nest and hoping everything worked out. Focusing back on Shapeshift for a moment, Julia tried to lock the second quick slot with her new wingless form. This time the acknowledgement from the 'system' recognised the desired name, instead of a 'system' allocated one.

[Shapeshift Quick Slot 2 Set: Wingless]

Julia had learnt the basics of climbing at an indoor wall that Mal had dragged her to a few times when she was younger. However, free climbing was something she had never done, so Julia settled on trying the power out in case of an emergency.

A quick test for safety’s sake, turn it on, go up slightly, then turn it off. That will drop me to the ledge, so be careful. If I can do that, at least I have an emergency stop button. Maybe.

Putting her hands against the wall to balance, a momentary focus activated Flight and imagined lifting upwards. Even with the wings removed, the Power provided lift, and she wobbled upwards before quickly deactivating the power.

No increase notification resulted, but then flicking the switch on and off didn’t feel like a proper use to Julia. Hopefully, a hurried activation of it would be enough to arrest any fall. The only other transport option Julia had gained didn’t seem sensible to risk in a small space. Blink had provided no knowledge whether it would let her teleport specified distances or just randomly move her about. A short-distance targeted hop would be a significant advantage, but a random location shift would be a downer.

Mentally preparing herself, Julia picked an initial ledge as a target to head towards. Knowing it wouldn't get any easier, and determined to start, Julia reached out for the first handhold, then stretched a foot out, pressing toes as deep as possible into a foothold, and started climbing. Keeping her ankles at 90 degrees she advanced, holding herself as tight against the rock as possible. The surface of the rock felt hot, sticky and alive, even against the chitin. Her every motion gave herself something to keep her mind off the feel, as she worked to keep her centre of balance low, the journey away from her 'spawn' site began. Once entirely away from the hollow, her focus shifted upwards, and the true climb began; the pockmarked rock providing plenty of options.

As Julia climbed, her focus moved between her current position and the next, shifting one hold at a time. Not knowing what lay at the top of the cliff, Julia worked to keep her focus on the next step, the next hold, moving. Arms kept as straight as possible Julia moved upwards, pushing with legs, reminding herself of distantly remembered basics she could only hope she had right. The ledges might not provide any accurate reckoning of distance, but at least each showed possible resting places for the journey.