I will strive beyond this cursed bloodline! - Chapter 80

Alice woke up after what felt like a week of sleeping...And she wasn't rested at all. The first thing that she saw was a black-haired girl with red eyes...She wondered why she was surprised at seeing her reflection, but then again...She always had a hard time waking up, low blood pressure in the mornings was hell.

'Did I oversleep again?' Thought to herself while wondering how she had gotten into this predicament.

It wasn't till she saw the one looking at her outside the pod, a small-looking guy, in another life she might have made a rude joke about him being a creature out of a fantasy world, like a gnome or something...

'A gnome?' That rattled her memory...

"I'm...Alice?" Said the black-haired girl while pushing against the glass.

"You awake girly?" Answered back the...Gnome?

No...That was rude, you didn't label people by their looks, by that metric she would have been called [Vampire] while growing up instead of Barbie, Goldilocks, Sunshine or Buttercup... No wait.

'Aren't those nicknames for a Blonde Bimbo?' Thought Alice her mind still groggy, she cursed at her low pressure. "You okay there?" Said the...Person, she almost thought of him as a gnome.

"I need you to funnel your skill okay, Zoe said you had an [Infosec] skill. So that would be best in your case." Said the little man while opening the pod and placing a stool next so she could sit.

She did as instructed and sat, she took measure of herself while doing so, and her clothes looked... Different, while the style was the correct one, most of his current clothing seemed to come from a designer store instead of a thrift store. She knew it since most of the bimbos only knew to look for those, and she hated overspending.

Then she turned to look at the room she found herself in, It looked like the lair of a mad [Tinker] or something, but the small person next to her seemed nice enough...Granted he could have kidnapped her, but no one would be mad enough to do so.

She might not have inherited the looks nor power of Papa, but she had enough of her mama in her that no one would dare to do so. So she focused on her mana and tried to call the [Shadows] only to stop a second short.

"I..Don't have [Infosec] skills though..." She didn't have anything like that, she could use a few minions like her mama to do scouting but that was about it.

"This might be hard...We do have confirmation that you have one...Try the vocal compound, focus on yourself, and say [Identify]. Our reports indicate that is the skill you used to call." Said the small person while giving her a tablet with the possible bases to call the [Skill], a good way some people used to teach their [Skills] and [Subset Skills] to others.

Mama had used one like this to try and help her grow her skill into the [Summoning] aspect too. She just wanted to get it over with and did as such, If it worked it would be a nice surprise to Mama, maybe she could help her with her work this way if the [Shadows] could get some [Infosec].

So while feeling the [Mana] in her veins, she called [The Shadows] and intoned "[Identify]" while thinking and guiding the nonexistent skill into focusing on her.

And...Then it hit her all at once, she felt her whole being assaulted...And [Alice] was no more...Only [Elizabeth Starbright] stood there.

"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!?" Screamed the blon...No, screamed the black-haired girl while standing up and grabbing her head and sitting down once again when the headache hit her, all the while glaring at the gnome and trying to not think about the deluge of notifications that assaulted her.

The gnome had the gall to even smile at her while she suffered from one of the worst migraines she ever had in her life, she was half tempted to dismiss all the notifications in one go if not for the fact that she saw a couple of ones with some red in them.

"Finally!" Said the gnome happy for some reason. "This is the girly I remembered, not the shy one we had before." He said while running to one of the stations and rummaging in them.

"The hell you talking about." Said Elizabeth while trying to glare at the gnome, who raised his voice while someone had a headache?

Rude!

He returned soon enough with a holotablet and pushed play showing a video of her [Alice] shift waking up in the same pod she had walked in before...Oh right, when did she wake up?

"...What?" Was all the girl could say seeing the video. She looked...Diferent, the posture, and mannerisms, the standing pose, the tentative steps that looked as if the girl wanted to run away at the first contact...

What?

That...Wasn't her.

"Yeah, sometimes that happens with [Tainted]. We think it's [The Taint] mental aspect, somehow it makes people act different, as if they were someone else. Never saw a case this extreme though. I could swear we had made some mistake while [Purging the Madness] from your system..." Said the gnome while nodding alongside.

They purged the what?

"You purged what?" Asked Elizabeth while stopping the video just at the part where she used [Identify] and proceeded to scream while her eyes turned empty.

"We purged [The Madness] from your internal mana system, flushed you clean of its influence then gave it back to you...You have...Less mana than expected at the start, but for some reason started to get more mana so we had to push the machine more than needed, but at some point, the mana plateud and stopped growing...So...What did your [Skill] tell you to bring you back?" Said the gnome while looking at her and getting ready to write whatever she said.

She couldn't help but smirk at the idea, since her skill said something quite simple.

"It told me my name." Answered the girl while looking at her [Status] screen, it had somewhat changed since the last time she had seen it. And a few of the spells she had left ready to enter after she got more allowance had been slotted already too.

"It told you your name?" The gnome started laughing at that. "That was all? It said: 'You are Alice...' whatever last name you have?" He kept laughing while writing away in his holopad.

"In a nutshell, yes." Said the black-haired girl, she was happy that her skill didn't keep control of her changes in [Shift] as the bracelet...If she had something like that going to defend against [Infosec] skills...She wasn't sure she would have been able to pull herself from the [Alice] persona.

"...I think whatever you did broke my skill." Said the blonde after reading the newest notification.

Something weird was going on, she couldn't help but feel [Malice] from the red in her blue notifications, like something was [Bleeding over]. It also was weird how it seemed to only allow her to [Take] the skill.

"What do you mean? Is it telling you something weird?" Asked the gnome while bringing a scanner and pointing it at her. "Hmm...Try to focus your [Shadow] into your core and then expand it outwards trying to [Flush] something out"

Elizabeth did as instructed, first focusing her [Shadow Essence] around her [Soulcore] and then flushed everything outwards, she felt some interference at some point, as if something [Sticky] was trying to stay there, but continued to do so.

As she was doing so she felt...Relief, looking again into the notification she saw as if something blue was trying to flush the [red] in her notification. And she noticed how the small dot near the second [Y] was actually a lowercase [n].

She focused her [Will] into it and the notification went away, no new skill appeared in her [Status] either.

"Good work, the only one that had managed to do this alone before was [Echidna]." Said the gnome while offering her a silver bracelet. She took it and wondered what to do with it, she had the red one already after all.

"Put it on, we took the other one already." He said while pointing to a bracelet submerged in a vat, it was slowly eroding inside the murky liquid.

She in turn looked to her left hand and sure enough, nothing was there, she almost had a panic attack but noticed her mood was normal...So she put on the bracelet and...Felt nothing.

"So long you can keep [The Madness] away using that method you will be fine, High Tier metahumans flush it away only once a week, but the more you use your [Skill] the more you will need to flush the [Madness] away. That will keep track of your [Corruption] rate. And will give you warnings as needed." And sure enough, it had a small progress bar, it was at 0% right now.

"Hmm...Neat." Answered the black-haired girl, she fiddled a little more with the menus in the bracelet and found a photo of her [Alice] persona with her name in it, her height, weight (She was, it seemed, somewhat malnourished), and her name...And only name, no last name, no address, no nationality...

"Might want to fill those out, we can provide help with the legal side if you are an illegal in here...[Echidna] likes to adopt strays...Oh right, you might want to go to the main hall, the recruitment notice will start soon." Said the gnome while handing her the backpack she had brought before, they had taken it out at some point while she was unconscious.

That didn't have anything of value since most of her stuff was in her [Inventory] but she still was thankful to find everything inside...And some extras.

"That folder has the usual requirements for the needed paperwork if you want a [Identity] that holds under the scrutiny of the Saintsworths." She would fill it out later and further the [Weight] of her [Alice] persona.

"Thank you for the help..." She said while she started walking towards the door, she wondered who were the people she saw before the pod knocked her out.

And before leaving the room she turned back on the gnome and said "Why don't you share the way to purge [The Madness]?" Asked Alice while feeling the shadows and how her own [Essence] was keeping at bay the influence of the [Madness] that wanted to leak back into her [Soul].

"Not many people can do what you and [Echidna] do, we have tried plenty of times, you need a certain type of [Connection] to the [Shadows] to be able to achieve that..." He answered while pointing at himself "Also, if people knew that, they would try to investigate further into [The Taint]...We don't want them to do so...They might end up finding...Some things such as that [The Taint] not only affects [Shadow] Aligned metahumans, but others too." He said while showing her his bracelet and how the counter was hovering at 28%.

"And that contact with [Tainted] can further this. That is why [Echidna] makes such effort to bring all the [Tainted] into her fold so that we can limit this." And after that Alice was ushered out of the room and thrown outside, he probably was going to use that machine to clean himself of the [Madness].

She spent the whole time walking down towards the place the gnome had pointed, thinking about what she had learned. This was...Dangerous information.

When she arrived at the place it looked like a theater, she found an empty spot around the middle and sat down, not many people were there. Most decided to mingle in the outer parts of the seating, so she was alone beside some people sitting a few seats away from her. It seemed that unless you traveled together most decided to be left alone.

Why was he even sharing this with her?

She didn't know, she would need to think further into this before deciding what to do... Most likely Pap...She stopped the train of thought.

Was she being influenced by [Alice] again?

She tried to fish for influences in her shadows and found nothing, but why was she referring to father like so?

Granted she liked to call him as such in person and while speaking to him, but in her thoughts she always referred to him as Father, as a sign of respect for the man. He was after all a bastion of safety for her and everyone around...

"Ah"

[Bastion].

She had seen that before in one of her notifications.

She focused on the notifications while walking in this building following absentmindedly instructions, sure enough, she had one that mentioned her father as a [Bastion]... There were some interruptions in the notifications where it seemed as if something was missing, almost like a [Notification] she received but couldn't see...

No...Maybe she was overthinking that, something like that was the type of thing a [Hero] would have to deal with, she was [Alice] right now, a [Villain] in training that wanted to work as a [Minion] while dealing with [The Madness] in her [Skills].

And while she would work for [Justice] and [Love] as Elizabeth, she wouldn't be a [Heroione] but a [Magical Girl] there was a difference in that.

But for now, she would deal with what she could see, a couple of notifications spoke of [Errors] and it even referred to [Nyx] as the [Last Boss] or something, it also stated that his [Quest] was purged?

So Nyx wasn't a danger to the world?

That was...Good? It was good, right? At the very least she wouldn't need to deal with that... And it seemed her notifications brought some light to what Alexa had said before, so it was her [Skill] the reason that Nyx ended as a minion instead of a summon?

Either way, she wanted to skimp most of this...But something/[Alice] stopped her from doing so.

So she went through it all with great effort, she felt as if her subconscious mind was screaming at her more conscious mind to give it more effort to it, but she wasn't quite sure why her subconscious [Alice] mind wanted to pester so much her concious [Elizabeth] mind that much.

It was mostly errors and notifications about levels up, she would file a complaint to Alexanders for not patching these errors before they came...

And would ask him why the skill was withholding so many levels, she was wondering why she only jumped ten levels if so much experience was being stocked away...

And while mussing about silly things like that she came to the red words and...she felt chills go down her spine...She also felt a tint of smugness from her [Alice] side.

And worked hard trying to not slap it "My defenses against [The Madness] were decreased..." Said the black-haired girl while getting some weird looks from the people around, at some point more people had come into the teather, it was full of people that had hidden their faces in one way or another, and she, of course, had her hood as an option... But she had forgotten to put it on or to use the mask of her [Shift].

She was too busy reading her notifications "The world will have..." She read the last line of garbled text "... It's due...?" Why couldn't she read these before?

She was half tempted to search for the ones like this before, was she...Really that dumb in her other form?

She felt a sharp sting in her forehead and it was by sheer effort that she focused on reading the next blue screen, it was starting to be painted in...Red?

"Rolling...Back...Thought...Kernel...?" It hurt her...It hurt her eyes...

"You okay?" She felt like hearing someone say that, but noticed how the people near her were leaving, a look down saw her shadows starting to try and raise only to be shoved down again.

"Please do not use [Skills] during this, if your [Taint] is acting up please refer to the nearest [Decontamination Pod]." Said someone from the speakers.

She took a deep breath and focused on reading that screen, It was almost fully painted red, and the last line of text made her shiver. That...That was an actual to god treat.

After that, the last blue screen returned to the usual tone she was used...It spoke of her getting over another threshold and how the skill encouraged her to keep going and staying [True to herself] or something like that. It also referred to herself as [Inheritor]...Right...She was that.

Why hadn't she delved into that?

How...How many times had someone tampered with her thoughts? How could they? Especially while her mental defenses were still up? The defenses her Mother put in her should prevent anyone from messing with her mind.

But...But...She looked through the notifications again and most of the red words were gone...The errors too...

Now only notifications about experience and milestones were left...The treat was gone too. She was left only with the memory of it, she... She was...

She could only hug herself and try to not shake, no one was near herself after her shadows tried to rise from the floor, but she still could feel the shadows travel from the floor through her feet and embrace her whole body under her clothing, almost as if the [Shadows] wanted to reassure her.

She couldn't help but laugh at the idea of her [Skill] trying to reassure her...While it was another of her skills that was messing with her...

No...It wasn't her skill messing with her...Not really...It never was her [Skill] to begin with...Was it?

She had been told that the first time too, but she hadn't paid attention to it before...Why hadn't she noticed such an obvious thing? What was wrong with her while in her...She couldn't even bring herself to refer to her blonde form as her [Normal] form anymore.

She...She really needed help, and now could only hope that whatever [The Hydra's Fang] could offer said help.

"[Welcome prospective members...To our presentation for today.]" Said someone from the speakers, the whole room turned to darkness and she could feel the shadows...As something living, but unlike usual, not under her control.

And on the stage stood a man in a suit with a black mask that had no eyes, nose, or mouth, but somehow...She could swear that the mask gave the feeling of smiling.

The show was starting.

Warning: The user is being affected by sudden mana drain, starting countermeasures...10%...20%...50%...Countermeasures failed, draining of mana was found to be more effective than inbuilt countermeasures. Evaluating situation... Releasing withholds experience from achievements. Milestone achieved! The User has fought against a Hero and managed to not only win but to fuel its Desire for growth! Experience towards the next level granted. The User has learned about Idea for the first time! May you further The Wish of The World! Experience towards the next level granted. The User has been told The Truth...Experience towards the next level granted. Warning: Calling for higher directives...Call towards current Caretaker deemed unwise...Redirecting...Call towards current Overseer deemed unwise...Redirect...Re-rolling Thought Kernel...Taking away previous earnings...Locking further earnings User has crossed the first threshold...Unable to take further gains...Dispelling part of outher Soulscape defense May you further the wishes of the World Milestone Achieved!: The User has taken a Peek at the current Bastion and survived! Experience towards the next level granted. The user has suffered Soulstrain from the information above its current Authority... Impossible to purge from Tought Kernel thanks to interference from outside forces. Experience towards the next level granted. The User has furthered The Wishes from The World, summoning of Last Boss accomplished...ERROR ERROR ERROR Current Questline purged from database...Taking power from Last Boss... Directives from System in conflict with The Wishes of The World... Impossible to request help from Overseer and Caretaker... ERROR ERROR ERROR User Skill has redirected summoning... Experience towards the next level granted. The user has been exposed to the righteous view of the populace against the people in power and hasn't fallen to the call of power! Experience towards the next level granted. The User has felt the undercurrent danger in the world and survived contact. Experience towards the next level granted. The User has suffered under the strain of both Madness and Emotional Distress, but still managed to maintain its Will! Experience towards the next level granted. The user has survived the Strains in her Soul by going into the world with her Soul Restrained... Experience towards the next level granted. System has deemed the User viable...Furthering its chances of survival by applying Patch ERROR ERROR Warning: Corruption of Patch by the influence of Hero and Skill. Hero deemed useful for furthering and containing Inheritor, starting plans for Using Hero... Milestone Achieved!: The User has touched the Madness and survived. Experience towards the next level granted. The User has defeated four Enemies more experienced than her. Experience towards the next level granted. The User has learned the Truth behind the Evil in the world! Experience towards the next level granted. The User has taken the first steps towards bettering the world by containing its Power. Experience towards the next level granted. The User has been tempted by The Darkness and didn't fall for its temptation! Experience towards the next level granted. The User has found the Origin of The Corruption in the world... And the cause of interference in The Wish of The World. Experience towards the next level granted. WARNING WARNING User is in direct course with hostile actors against the wishes of The World Decreasing Defenses against Madness. ERROR ERROR THE WORLD WILL HAVE ITS DUE! Notice: Rolling back thought kernel... Failed... Restarting thought Kernel... Failed... I will have my due Inheritor, you will Kneel to My Wish... Milestone Achieved! The User is no longer under the protection of The World and survived The Madness onslaught! Experience earned, next Treshold achieved. We encourage your endeavors, may you stay true to your Wish and bring forth the Wish of The World! May the luck be always with you Inheritor! Alice woke up after what felt like a week of sleeping...And she wasn't rested at all. The first thing that she saw was a black-haired girl with red eyes...She wondered why she was surprised at seeing her reflection, but then again...She always had a hard time waking up, low blood pressure in the mornings was hell. 'Did I oversleep again?' Thought to herself while wondering how she had gotten into this predicament. It wasn't till she saw the one looking at her outside the pod, a small-looking guy, in another life she might have made a rude joke about him being a creature out of a fantasy world, like a gnome or something... 'A gnome?' That rattled her memory... "I'm...Alice?" Said the black-haired girl while pushing against the glass. "You awake girly?" Answered back the...Gnome? No...That was rude, you didn't label people by their looks, by that metric she would have been called Vampire while growing up instead of Barbie, Goldilocks, Sunshine or Buttercup... No wait. 'Aren't those nicknames for a Blonde Bimbo?' Thought Alice her mind still groggy, she cursed at her low pressure. "You okay there?" Said the...Person, she almost thought of him as a gnome. "I need you to funnel your skill okay, Zoe said you had an Infosec skill. So that would be best in your case." Said the little man while opening the pod and placing a stool next so she could sit. She did as instructed and sat, she took measure of herself while doing so, and her clothes looked... Different, while the style was the correct one, most of his current clothing seemed to come from a designer store instead of a thrift store. She knew it since most of the bimbos only knew to look for those, and she hated overspending. Then she turned to look at the room she found herself in, It looked like the lair of a mad Tinker or something, but the small person next to her seemed nice enough...Granted he could have kidnapped her, but no one would be mad enough to do so. She might not have inherited the looks nor power of Papa, but she had enough of her mama in her that no one would dare to do so. So she focused on her mana and tried to call the Shadows only to stop a second short. "I..Don't have Infosec skills though..." She didn't have anything like that, she could use a few minions like her mama to do scouting but that was about it. "This might be hard...We do have confirmation that you have one...Try the vocal compound, focus on yourself, and say Identify. Our reports indicate that is the skill you used to call." Said the small person while giving her a tablet with the possible bases to call the Skill, a good way some people used to teach their Skills and Subset Skills to others. Mama had used one like this to try and help her grow her skill into the Summoning aspect too. She just wanted to get it over with and did as such, If it worked it would be a nice surprise to Mama, maybe she could help her with her work this way if the Shadows could get some Infosec. So while feeling the Mana in her veins, she called The Shadows and intoned "Identify" while thinking and guiding the nonexistent skill into focusing on her. And...Then it hit her all at once, she felt her whole being assaulted...And Alice was no more...Only Elizabeth Starbright stood there. "WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!?" Screamed the blon...No, screamed the black-haired girl while standing up and grabbing her head and sitting down once again when the headache hit her, all the while glaring at the gnome and trying to not think about the deluge of notifications that assaulted her. The gnome had the gall to even smile at her while she suffered from one of the worst migraines she ever had in her life, she was half tempted to dismiss all the notifications in one go if not for the fact that she saw a couple of ones with some red in them. "Finally!" Said the gnome happy for some reason. "This is the girly I remembered, not the shy one we had before." He said while running to one of the stations and rummaging in them. "The hell you talking about." Said Elizabeth while trying to glare at the gnome, who raised his voice while someone had a headache? Rude! He returned soon enough with a holotablet and pushed play showing a video of her Alice shift waking up in the same pod she had walked in before...Oh right, when did she wake up? "...What?" Was all the girl could say seeing the video. She looked...Diferent, the posture, and mannerisms, the standing pose, the tentative steps that looked as if the girl wanted to run away at the first contact... What? That...Wasn't her. "Yeah, sometimes that happens with Tainted. We think it's The Taint mental aspect, somehow it makes people act different, as if they were someone else. Never saw a case this extreme though. I could swear we had made some mistake while Purging the Madness from your system..." Said the gnome while nodding alongside. They purged the what? "You purged what?" Asked Elizabeth while stopping the video just at the part where she used Identify and proceeded to scream while her eyes turned empty. "We purged The Madness from your internal mana system, flushed you clean of its influence then gave it back to you...You have...Less mana than expected at the start, but for some reason started to get more mana so we had to push the machine more than needed, but at some point, the mana plateud and stopped growing...So...What did your Skill tell you to bring you back?" Said the gnome while looking at her and getting ready to write whatever she said. She couldn't help but smirk at the idea, since her skill said something quite simple. "It told me my name." Answered the girl while looking at her Status screen, it had somewhat changed since the last time she had seen it. And a few of the spells she had left ready to enter after she got more allowance had been slotted already too. Status Name: Elizabeth Starbright Title: The Inheritor of the Akashic Records Alias: Elemental Weaver, Shadow Empress Level: 20 Health: 100% Mana: 100% Stamina: 100% Stress: 0% Strength: 50 Constitution: 50 Agility: 50 Dexterity: 50 Intelligence: 44 Wisdom: 44 Charisma: 41 Free Status points: 140 Magic Origin: Shadow Weaver Magic Spells Sloted: 37/40 Magic Circles Sloted: 20/20 Skills: -Shadow Investment -Status -Mana Attuned Subset skills: Shadows -Craft / Manipulation -Shift -Minion Summoning. -Shadow Travel Status -Identify Condition -Inventory Wardrobe Mana Attuned -Manipulation -Shift -Spellcasting -Enchantment -Projection "It told you your name?" The gnome started laughing at that. "That was all? It said: 'You are Alice...' whatever last name you have?" He kept laughing while writing away in his holopad. "In a nutshell, yes." Said the black-haired girl, she was happy that her skill didn't keep control of her changes in Shift as the bracelet...If she had something like that going to defend against Infosec skills...She wasn't sure she would have been able to pull herself from the Alice persona. Congratulations! New Skill achieved thanks to full immersion into new identities. May you further the wishes of The World Inheritor. Perfect Disguise: Allows the user to cloud the interference from Infosec skills by going into a carefully crafted persona by The World. No Infosec or Skill will be able to pierce the effects of this Skill Do you wish to Take this Skill? Y/Y Y/n "...I think whatever you did broke my skill." Said the blonde after reading the newest notification. Something weird was going on, she couldn't help but feel Malice from the red in her blue notifications, like something was Bleeding over. It also was weird how it seemed to only allow her to Take the skill. "What do you mean? Is it telling you something weird?" Asked the gnome while bringing a scanner and pointing it at her. "Hmm...Try to focus your Shadow into your core and then expand it outwards trying to Flush something out" Elizabeth did as instructed, first focusing her Shadow Essence around her Soulcore and then flushed everything outwards, she felt some interference at some point, as if something Sticky was trying to stay there, but continued to do so. As she was doing so she felt...Relief, looking again into the notification she saw as if something blue was trying to flush the red in her notification. And she noticed how the small dot near the second Y was actually a lowercase n. She focused her Will into it and the notification went away, no new skill appeared in her Status either. "Good work, the only one that had managed to do this alone before was Echidna." Said the gnome while offering her a silver bracelet. She took it and wondered what to do with it, she had the red one already after all. "Put it on, we took the other one already." He said while pointing to a bracelet submerged in a vat, it was slowly eroding inside the murky liquid. She in turn looked to her left hand and sure enough, nothing was there, she almost had a panic attack but noticed her mood was normal...So she put on the bracelet and...Felt nothing. "So long you can keep The Madness away using that method you will be fine, High Tier metahumans flush it away only once a week, but the more you use your Skill the more you will need to flush the Madness away. That will keep track of your Corruption rate. And will give you warnings as needed." And sure enough, it had a small progress bar, it was at 0% right now. Notice: Detected external tracking device from Saintsworth Conglomerate tech...Adapting...Integrating... 5%...20%...50%...100% Internal corruption tracker integrated into System. So long the equipment is in the user or the user Inventory the Tracker will be available. Thank you for using Saintsworth's Conglomerate. "Hmm...Neat." Answered the black-haired girl, she fiddled a little more with the menus in the bracelet and found a photo of her Alice persona with her name in it, her height, weight She was, it seemed, somewhat malnourished, and her name...And only name, no last name, no address, no nationality... "Might want to fill those out, we can provide help with the legal side if you are an illegal in here...Echidna likes to adopt strays...Oh right, you might want to go to the main hall, the recruitment notice will start soon." Said the gnome while handing her the backpack she had brought before, they had taken it out at some point while she was unconscious. That didn't have anything of value since most of her stuff was in her Inventory but she still was thankful to find everything inside...And some extras. "That folder has the usual requirements for the needed paperwork if you want a Identity that holds under the scrutiny of the Saintsworths." She would fill it out later and further the Weight of her Alice persona. "Thank you for the help..." She said while she started walking towards the door, she wondered who were the people she saw before the pod knocked her out. And before leaving the room she turned back on the gnome and said "Why don't you share the way to purge The Madness?" Asked Alice while feeling the shadows and how her own Essence was keeping at bay the influence of the Madness that wanted to leak back into her Soul. "Not many people can do what you and Echidna do, we have tried plenty of times, you need a certain type of Connection to the Shadows to be able to achieve that..." He answered while pointing at himself "Also, if people knew that, they would try to investigate further into The Taint...We don't want them to do so...They might end up finding...Some things such as that The Taint not only affects Shadow Aligned metahumans, but others too." He said while showing her his bracelet and how the counter was hovering at 28%. "And that contact with Tainted can further this. That is why Echidna makes such effort to bring all the Tainted into her fold so that we can limit this." And after that Alice was ushered out of the room and thrown outside, he probably was going to use that machine to clean himself of the Madness. She spent the whole time walking down towards the place the gnome had pointed, thinking about what she had learned. This was...Dangerous information. When she arrived at the place it looked like a theater, she found an empty spot around the middle and sat down, not many people were there. Most decided to mingle in the outer parts of the seating, so she was alone beside some people sitting a few seats away from her. It seemed that unless you traveled together most decided to be left alone. Why was he even sharing this with her? She didn't know, she would need to think further into this before deciding what to do... Most likely Pap...She stopped the train of thought. Was she being influenced by Alice again? She tried to fish for influences in her shadows and found nothing, but why was she referring to father like so? Granted she liked to call him as such in person and while speaking to him, but in her thoughts she always referred to him as Father, as a sign of respect for the man. He was after all a bastion of safety for her and everyone around... "Ah" Bastion. She had seen that before in one of her notifications. She focused on the notifications while walking in this building following absentmindedly instructions, sure enough, she had one that mentioned her father as a Bastion... There were some interruptions in the notifications where it seemed as if something was missing, almost like a Notification she received but couldn't see... No...Maybe she was overthinking that, something like that was the type of thing a Hero would have to deal with, she was Alice right now, a Villain in training that wanted to work as a Minion while dealing with The Madness in her Skills. And while she would work for Justice and Love as Elizabeth, she wouldn't be a Heroione but a Magical Girl there was a difference in that. But for now, she would deal with what she could see, a couple of notifications spoke of Errors and it even referred to Nyx as the Last Boss or something, it also stated that his Quest was purged? So Nyx wasn't a danger to the world? That was...Good? It was good, right? At the very least she wouldn't need to deal with that... And it seemed her notifications brought some light to what Alexa had said before, so it was her Skill the reason that Nyx ended as a minion instead of a summon? Either way, she wanted to skimp most of this...But something/Alice stopped her from doing so. So she went through it all with great effort, she felt as if her subconscious mind was screaming at her more conscious mind to give it more effort to it, but she wasn't quite sure why her subconscious Alice mind wanted to pester so much her concious Elizabeth mind that much. It was mostly errors and notifications about levels up, she would file a complaint to Alexanders for not patching these errors before they came... And would ask him why the skill was withholding so many levels, she was wondering why she only jumped ten levels if so much experience was being stocked away... And while mussing about silly things like that she came to the red words and...she felt chills go down her spine...She also felt a tint of smugness from her Alice side. And worked hard trying to not slap it "My defenses against The Madness were decreased..." Said the black-haired girl while getting some weird looks from the people around, at some point more people had come into the teather, it was full of people that had hidden their faces in one way or another, and she, of course, had her hood as an option... But she had forgotten to put it on or to use the mask of her Shift. She was too busy reading her notifications "The world will have..." She read the last line of garbled text "... It's due...?" Why couldn't she read these before? She was half tempted to search for the ones like this before, was she...Really that dumb in her other form? She felt a sharp sting in her forehead and it was by sheer effort that she focused on reading the next blue screen, it was starting to be painted in...Red? "Rolling...Back...Thought...Kernel...?" It hurt her...It hurt her eyes... "You okay?" She felt like hearing someone say that, but noticed how the people near her were leaving, a look down saw her shadows starting to try and raise only to be shoved down again. "Please do not use Skills during this, if your Taint is acting up please refer to the nearest Decontamination Pod." Said someone from the speakers. She took a deep breath and focused on reading that screen, It was almost fully painted red, and the last line of text made her shiver. That...That was an actual to god treat. After that, the last blue screen returned to the usual tone she was used...It spoke of her getting over another threshold and how the skill encouraged her to keep going and staying True to herself or something like that. It also referred to herself as Inheritor...Right...She was that. Why hadn't she delved into that? How...How many times had someone tampered with her thoughts? How could they? Especially while her mental defenses were still up? The defenses her Mother put in her should prevent anyone from messing with her mind. But...But...She looked through the notifications again and most of the red words were gone...The errors too... Now only notifications about experience and milestones were left...The treat was gone too. She was left only with the memory of it, she... She was... She could only hug herself and try to not shake, no one was near herself after her shadows tried to rise from the floor, but she still could feel the shadows travel from the floor through her feet and embrace her whole body under her clothing, almost as if the Shadows wanted to reassure her. She couldn't help but laugh at the idea of her Skill trying to reassure her...While it was another of her skills that was messing with her... No...It wasn't her skill messing with her...Not really...It never was her Skill to begin with...Was it? She had been told that the first time too, but she hadn't paid attention to it before...Why hadn't she noticed such an obvious thing? What was wrong with her while in her...She couldn't even bring herself to refer to her blonde form as her Normal form anymore. She...She really needed help, and now could only hope that whatever The Hydra's Fang could offer said help. "Welcome prospective members...To our presentation for today." Said someone from the speakers, the whole room turned to darkness and she could feel the shadows...As something living, but unlike usual, not under her control. And on the stage stood a man in a suit with a black mask that had no eyes, nose, or mouth, but somehow...She could swear that the mask gave the feeling of smiling. The show was starting.