Arin?

"what's his name," one of the smaller children to the side asked, as he squeezed past the others.

"uhm, well, this is.. Arin."

his taste in naming could be better but I guess this works. He skillfully made his way through the children and into a room on the side. As we entered I saw two cribs, side by side.

"Wait her little Arin, I'll get you something to eat, this kid to your side is my daughter, I don't care if your a baby, better remember this, Don't get any ideas, or the first thing I'll teach you is how bad ideas lead to bad injuries."

That menacing face he made may not have affected a real baby, but I'll be sure to make a note not to become a pedophile anytime soon.

"Try saying stats, I think you should consider how you want to spend those points, don't forget, this place doesn't take to well to those who are weak, and right now, almost all of your stats are that of a way below average person. That's not because of you being a baby right now either, its an affect of you class."

"oh, ok lets do this then, stats!"

name: Arin

Strength: 0

Agility: 0

Intelligence: 50

-Mysticisim: SSS œ9æ9€ëç9+

Charm: 0

AP (available points) : 400

"Huh? this is strange, it's not popping up. Try saying it again, but with intent to do so."

She can't see my stats? I'm not sure if this is a good thing or not, but I guess you can never be to catious.

"It's the Lost page again, I can see it, must be passively hiding my information, so I'll just tell you what I have. It's zero for all my stats execpt one, which is about 50."

"Oh you mean Intelligence right? that's pretty good, just about aligns with expectations. You should have about another 150 to 200 AP, this will allow you to specialise to about what a genious could be considered, in this world. You can gain more AP by completing tasks, training, and fighting things. You inherent class specializes in trickery so you should try to find a class here that suites it. That will prove difficult within this starting area, but there is always some unsavory characters hiding in the dark, you'll just have to go searching."

"Intelligence huh? Alright, does the stats always use a numerical value? Or can it be like in those novels where the stats are classified by a letter grade instead?"

"Typically it will be in numbers, but there are some cases where some classes will have have a unique grading system, usually that's for classes where instead of using points to increases a skill, they would instead have to train it, where the letter grade is the limiter for that trained skill, anyways yours might involve this, due to the need to use tricks and magic, it can take some getting use to for the new sensation of energy flowing through your body and so on."

"Thanks, is there anything I can do now?"

"You can attemp to use the newfound internal energy and try to affect your surroundings, this will help you control that energy, refine it, and get you familiar with using illusions. That will be my last piece of guidance, you will now be entering a 15 year preparation period, at the end of which, you will begin to recieve your tasks. chià"

"Gone...just like that?"

...Nothing, guess she really did disappear. And with that my 'hellish' days of 'training' began. It had started small, whenever I wasn't being fed or watched by the scary uncle, I would move the energy from my body to my surroundings. I didn't have much control at first, and consequently, my energy would just dissipate into the surrroundings, but after a full month of trial and error, I could hold a steady domain of energy. This however had caught the attention of the older kids.

"Haha, did you see the look on his face when we took his little teddy bear away, that rat went and told on us, I should teach him a lesson myself."

He wasn't wrong, unsavory characters really are everywhere, that kid looks to be about 4 or 5, they sure do learn to be evil young now adays-"

"Whoa, do you see that? I think that babys got something coming from him." One of the henchmen-...friends of the first kid seems to have seen my domain, I got distracted and left it out.

"I learned about this today, that weird wavey stuff should be magic, us warriors should always know 'magic is for little sissies that don't dare face us in combat' looks like this baby is defective, we should show him that warriors are stronger than all."

"Yeah!"

Wait a second guys, don't get near me, I'm a baby for crying out loud, don't you dare take another step, so you dared, you may not be able to here me but I'll make you regret whatever your planing to do with such mischievous grins. No get you hands off my crib. NO, stop shaking it like that.

"Hey, what are you little snots doing to that baby, you trying to kill him?"

"He's not a warrior though, he's a little sissy, so we were teaching him a lesson."

"Who are you calling little sissy, thats a baby, of course it's no warrior yet, he's got to grow, get back to your room."

"Fine" The group of kids finally stopped there attempted murder.

"It's ok Arin, you'll grow up soon, for now, take this bottle, and get lots of energy to grow faster. And you, little silvy, already finish the third bottle, an appetite of a true warrior. HAAHAHA."

A week after that I could move the domain away from me, and with a few days of practice I could form shapes. Circles, squares, ovals, and finally eyes and a complimentary mouth. My plan was to 'train' in illusory arts until I could finally pay bac- no, no, 'play' along with those little bastards. With a dash of yellow to the eyes, a bit of finishing touches to the mouth, to make it, oh so big, and its grin, oh so mischievous. After my usual power nap I awoke at around the time the those kids usually prepared for bed, it was time to inact my plan. As the moon light swept into the window and that uncle said his usual goodnights, I formed my domain, shaping it into a 'person' with elongated limbs, unproporsional to the rest of it's body, it's hands big, arms long. The face was a true masterpiece of mine though, with its impossibly wide grin, paired with large teeth. It's eyes could shine in the dark, luminous but just dark enough to be missed if one didn't look closely. As my domain I had it crawl to the doorway of there room. It would be a shame if some of the other kids got dragged into this, as they all share a room, but this needed to be done, a strange feeling drove me to continue. My domain no longer felt foreign, I now felt like I was the monster, a mere meter away, with a step I was before the door, I reached for the handle, and as my hand landed upon it, I could feel the cold wooden handle, but I did not have the energy to move it, and I didn't need to. I first leand my head through the door, my eyes, then my mouth, I saw my targets hudled together, talking about something or another, but it didn't matter, I stepped through the door, bringing the rest of my impossibly shaped body through, I could feel the faint energy each person gave off, my senses were becoming more vivid, the closer I got to completing my objective. One step, then another, so quite, it was as if no steps taken at all, and i suppose it was an illusion, but I could feel the gentle chill upon my grey skin, so vivid, it may as well have bein real, I was not the only one contemplating if this was real. I could smell the fear that had entered the air, feel the gaze of someone. Looks like that little group finally noticed me, my hand extending to land on the shoulder of the boy who hadn't. The ringleader, the warrior, now just the small, pale boy before a creature, my stomach had begun to growl, a nice touch I hadn't even realized I could add, with the adition of a new smell. Make that two, one being the heavy smell of rot now spewing out with each breath, the other the smell of urine, wafting from the entire group, with the addition of more fear. It appeared another child, just having come back from what I assume to have been a quite bathroom trip, had spotted me. I turned my head in his direction, and simply bring one finger over my mouth. A new sound now emenating from me 'ssshhh'. And with that I began to dissapate into energy, that further dissolved, leaving no trace a monster had been here besides the smell of urine and a screeming group of boys. But the boy that both saw my sign, and heard my sounds, did not scream, mearly fainting on the spot. As I returned to my senses, I realized that, my plan had been mearly to look into the room, call there names, make eye contact, and dissipate, but I had gone far beyond that, I had become a real monster, and I know where that would have gone had I not been spotted. I would have opened my mouth wide enough to cover that boy I grabbed, futher more I would have released the sent of blood, forcing them to the brink of there mental capacity, before strarting an awful nightmare of a large maze, and a game of cat and mouse. I had become a demon that feasted on fear, and I had nearly broken there minds. I need to be more careful in the future, these illusions are a bit more vivid then I had anticipated.

*skill aquired: The mare

- An ancient demon, that feeds off of nightmares, you however have turned it into a living nightmare itself; illusory art has been indexed for future reference.

What? Indexed, the mare? is this some kinda mission completion award, interesting. I do however feel strangely full. Had I actually become that thing? Am I still Arin? Stop, these illusions are SSS tiered for a reason, the boken text at the end is probably going to be my sanity if I'm not careful.