“Cleopatra Tiberian Ignis, please come up to the dais,” said the old woman in white. She held her withered hand high and a young girl in blue silk robes came forward. “Despite the nature of your birth, you have risen above the others of your age, and are declared one of the Golden Children of the Book of Chaos. Congratulations, you will be leaving to enter Babel in two days”. Cleo straightened her back and held her head up high.. With this she would no longer be considered an outcast in her clan and as a ‘branch’ child that should not exist. Through her own hard work she could walk with pride and shout to the world she was the best of her age.
She did not. As usual, Cleo took the parchment declaring herself the golden child and walked off, tripping over her long ceremonial robes as she left. Grace might come to her in time but it was not one of her inherent gifts. She moved the parchment into her storage bracelet, a lot of people would not like the fact that she was the first child of the new generation to complete the reading, so her putting it into a storage dimension made sure the document was safe at least. Life in the Ignis clan had not been easy for Cleo, but then how could it be if you had been told from a very young age that you should have never been born.
Her father had long since left, and her mother she never knew. She was alone in a clan of her family and that made it so much worse. Her peers called her names and picked on her for being the fourth child, her grandparents barely noticed her, even though she had soared above the other children in mastery of fire and wind. These things angered her, yet she could do nothing about it. She was just a child, now an important child to the clan, but a child nonetheless. Still, she would be able to meet people who had no idea about her past and her family in the tower. She thought with glee about making some real friends.
While thinking about the chance of friends a group of other children walked by. One stuck his leg out and tripped her over, making Cleo fall in the dirt. She fell on her face as she came out of her wishful stupor and the other children ran off laughing. The older children had always bullied her, even now there was no exception. All she could do was brush off her dress and continue on with her task, while her bottom lip dripped blood the same colour as her hair.
“Princess! What happened to your face?” Cleo was greeted by a warm voice as she walked through the door to the clan’s Treasure Pavilion. The only person who treated her with any real sort of care was her third brother, Iain, who was trusted to watch over the Pavilion. The clan were strict about a lot of things, but at least in public they believed the sins of the father were not the sins of the son. He frowned, “Do you know who did this? Because I will make them pay for it if you want me to”.
“No brother, it’s fine. I’ve learned that you trying to help can just make things worse for me in the long run. I’m here to pick up gear for climbing up the tower anyway, so what can you give me?”
Iain pushed his chestnut fringe back and thought for a few seconds before saying “I have a few things I can let you get, namely a weapon, a shielding talisman and a regeneration bead. The quality is up to you to pick, just remember that each item in here has a history, and some even have personalities”.
“I’ll remember”. Immediately, Cleo began perusing the items that she could choose. Most things in the pavilion were separated into three categories; Offensive, Defensive and Support Artefacts. The most significant choice for Cleo was the first, because she was not limited by anything other than her own rank with the weapon. A true challenger was strong with a weapon that could cope with their strength, but having a stronger weapon than your tier did not make you stronger. It simply meant you could not pull out everything from your weapon.
The young girl walked through the hall of weapons, looking at each of them, from the strange Immortal tier weapons to the simple Earth tier ones. She saw the legendary spear Mercury, which made you look like you were melting when using it. She found a Baleful Blade, which made people forget about the person who cut them. She even saw the whip Dominance which gave the user pleasure whenever it caused harm.
Finally she came across what she was looking for. A simple top quality Saint dagger with the ability to return to its owner, called Spite. It had one previous owner and was new compared to the rest of the weapons in the pavilion. She quickly bound it by infusing it with mana and then putting a drop of her blood on it and moved on to her defence and support. The talisman would protect her from most injuries and those it couldn’t would either kill her or be healed by her bead. These two were simple to pick, she just grabbed the highest quality items from each of her choices and went back to see her brother.
“You got everything you need, Princess?” He said.
“Yeah. Spite and top tier talisman with a top tier bead. I’ll be leaving soon, will you come and see me off?” Cleo was nervous, Iain was the only person who she actually cared about in her family, so without him being at her departure she had no idea if she would be able to go through with the entire journey.
“Interesting choice sis. Of course I’ll be there. I won’t be able to stay for long, but I will be at the gate to see you off”.
She smiled and nodded at her brother, before walking out of the pavilion. Clenching her small fists she looked out at the buildings around her for the last time, she would not come back. Without Iain, there was nothing for her here.
