Ch 1.16: Voyeur

“I— I can explain,” Carline said, pushing herself to her feet.

“Wait,” Elaina said, backing away to the far side of the cave. “What are you doing here? Are you even my roommate, or are you just following me everywhere?”

“I am your roommate! And— I, I’m not following you everywhere…”

“I can confirm that she is indeed your roommate, though I take it she is not the trusted individual that you had in mind for you party,” the System said.

“How would you even know that?” Elaina asked.

“Know what?” Carline said, moving forward with her arms out. “Stars, I dropped my glasses. I might’ve broken them.”

“She cannot hear me,” the System said. “Only registered Users can hear me.”

“Can I turn your crystal lamp up?” Carline asked, reaching out to glowing orb at the center of the cave.

“No!” Elaina said, “Wait-”

The blue crystal light flashed from dim to overwhelming, near as bright as the sky in the moment Carline touched the crystal, touched the System. “System User confirmed as Star Blessed. Status: Aspected, classless. Age: twenty years, four months, zero weeks, two days. Party compatibility for System Administrator Elaina Weaver: Ninety nine percent. Initiating protocol: Class Assignment.”

“Oh fuck,” Elaina said, slumping against the wall.

“User Analysis: Complete. Class Assignment: Complete.”

Carline Forsythe

System Hierarchy: [User]

Class: Voyeur Vitalist

Level: 1

Aspects:

[Health] - {External Targeting}

User Skills:

[Unseen Watcher] - Rank 1 - Passive: User receives a power bonus of up to {x1.5} to all {External Targeting} aspects when used on a target who cannot see the User.

[Viewer Rating] - Rank 1 - Passive: User receives a power bonus of up to {x1.5} to all {External Targeting} aspects relative to the User’s current sexual attraction to the target.

[Peeping Carly] - Rank 1 - Active - Expend mana to receive a {minor} ability to see through objects.

The wash of information was instant, just like before, and for some reason it went to Elaina’s mind this time too. It was apparent from Carline’s expression though that she wasn’t being denied the information relevant to her own class. She turned to Elaina, first locking eyes and then moving her gaze downward.

Elaina covered her chest with her arms. “Hey, don’t use that skill on me!”

“I wouldn’t!” Carline said, waving her hands. “I— I may have thought about it, but I didn’t!”

“She is telling the truth,” the System said. “There is a visual queue when she activates that particular skill.”

“Wait, why is the crystal talking?”

“Also, she can hear me now.”

“Yeah, I got that,” Elaina said, standing up.

“Elaina…” Carline said, backing towards her and away from the System. “Is that what I think it is?”

“If you think I am a crystal device acting as a secondary terminal of the System, then yes, I am.”

“And it just gave me a class?”

“Yeah,” Elaina said. “It did. And what’s with that, System? She’s already had her Awakening.”

“Having had an Awakening or not has no bearing on your potential to be a System User, though one who is already Aspected must be paired with an appropriate party leader and must be presented by a system Administrator, both of which requirements were met.”

“I didn’t even say to give her a class though! I don’t even know who she is, just that she’s following me around like some sort of stalker.”

“I’m not a stalker!” Carline, looking legitimately offended. “I— I wanted to talk to you about earlier today, so I tried going up to talk to you at lunch, but you were leaving, and I went to follow and talk to you…” Carline frowned, bringing her hands together and running her fingers in circles around each other. “I’m not really that good at talking to people, so I couldn’t find the right time to speak up. One thing led to another, and I just sort of ended up all the way out here without saying anything. I lost you again, tried to find you, and then fell down here.”

Carline was standing there, unable to look Elaina in the eye and on the verge of tears. Elaina had always felt she had a good idea when people were being genuine. It’s why she believed Prisma about the pictures being deleted, even still believed that Prisma meant it when she’d said “sorry” the day they dragged her out to this same spot. Truth be told, she’d never felt good about Waine either, but was blinded by Prisma’s generosity and naive optimism. That wasn’t the case here though. Carline really felt bad, really didn’t know what to say here, and Elaina could relate.

She sighed, shaking her head. “Sorry, Carline. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

Carline nodded, tears finally trickling down her face. “Okay… I’m sorry about earlier today too, I really didn’t know you were in there— I mean I knew you were my roommate cause I saw you the first night here too, but, Stars—” She buried her face in her hands and turned around. “Why did I get this class? I’m not a voyeur, I just sometimes…”

“Don’t feel bad about the class,” Elaina said, pointing to the System. “It’s just a pervert.”

“Incorrect,” the crystal responded. “Your potential classes are assigned from the moment you are born and granted by the stars. Your fates are your own; I am merely a record keeper.”

“You keep saying that,” Elaina said, walking forward and poking at the crystal, “But I still don’t even know what you are. There’s no proof you’re doing anything according to the stars’ will.”

“Do not touch me!”

Elaina poked the System some more, “I’m the Administrator, right? Don’t I get to do what I want?”

The crystal light went out, plunging the cave into darkness.

“No, wait!” Elaina said, stepping back and grabbing her head. “Damnit, System, I didn’t mean that, I’m sorry!”

The crystal remained dark.

“Fuck,” Elaina said, falling back to the ground. She could still hear Carline quietly sniffling. “I’m sorry, to both of you. I’m just so… I don’t even know what’s going on here. This isn’t what I thought the academy would be like.”

“It’s okay,” Carline said. In the faint light coming from above, Elaina saw the girl wipe her nose. “I know you’re not a bad person.”

“How?”

“Well… I have been watching you, a little.”

Elaina flushed, happy Carline couldn’t really see her face. “What does that mean?”

“Well… I’ve been meaning to tell you, but we never really met. Our first night here, I saw you— You weren’t really paying attention, and I didn’t see anything! Not that time anyway, but I could tell what you were doing. I just went to bed cause I didn’t want to scare you.” Didn’t see anything that time. There wasn’t really a question about earlier today though. “And I saw what happened to you the next night, out here in the clearing above. What Waine and Prisma did…”

Elaina’s heart dropped. “Why were you here?”

“I wasn’t following you that time, I promise,” Carline said, holding up her hands, barely visible in the dimness. “I got separated from my friends in the test of courage, got a little lost because someone I knew chased me off… I heard screaming and thought it was just, you know, normal test of courage stuff, so I followed it trying to find students to group up. But it wasn’t.”

Elaina did her best to push the memory back. “It was me, screaming.”

Carline nodded. “I’m sorry. I should have done something, I know I should have. But it was Waine, and Prisma. The others too, I guess, but those two alone…”

“I get it.” Elaina had barely managed to beat Waine alone. Waine and Prisma together? She doubted any first year could fight them both, not even to mention the other three that would’ve been backing them up. “I would have hid as well.”

“I tried to catch up to you when the bell rung, but it was like you just disappeared.”

“Yeah, cause I fell in this hole. That’s the night I first met the System, the night I actually awakened.”

“I grabbed your clothes though, what was left of them. I knew you were a commoner from what people were saying, so I knew replacing the uniform would be hard.”

“That was you too?” Wait, if she watched them strip me, then lost track of me when I fell in the hole, then in between— “Carline, did you… Did you watch me, after they left, before I ran?”

Silence.

“Carline?”

“I’m so sorry. I’m disgusting.” She was shaking her head and balling her fists. “I didn’t want to watch— I mean I did want to watch but I knew I shouldn’t, you were just, just—”

Elaina heart was racing, lungs heaving, and pussy begging to be touched. “I was just what?”

“You were just so— so… I didn’t watch for long, cause I knew it wasn’t right. I was just really confused, and I didn’t know why you were doing it in the first place, but I didn’t want to stop you either, but I wanted to talk to you and help you get back afterwards.”

“I don’t really know why I was doing it either…”

“And then today, I didn’t mean to look at you like that, I promise! I just, my eyes— When I see someone like you, they have a mind of their own.”

“What do you mean 'someone like me?'” A pervert, a slut?

“When someone’s just, so— so pretty.”

Someone pretty? “Oh.”

“I’m so sorry, and I will never do it again. Can you ever forgive me?”

Elaina considered. She was embarrassed, mortified even. But Carline was shaken up too. What she did was wrong, Elaina knew that, but Carline knew it too. There was more though. It wasn’t like Carline sought out the situations, they were just situations Elaina kept finding herself in, and that Carline happened to stumble on. Elaina knew that her own urges were wrong too, unnatural. Even now, it took all her willpower to keep her hands out of her skirt. She shouldn’t want to be embarrassed, humiliated, but she did want it. She wanted to be watched, and Carline wanted to watch. Was it really Elaina’s place to judge?

“Well, I forgive you, but about never—”

The crystal lit up again, “I’m glad you two have made up.”

Elaina scowled. “I didn’t know you could still hear us, and I wasn’t even finished!”

“Oh, you’re still going to act like that?” The light began to dim.

“No, wait!” Elaina got up and ran towards the crystal, the light halting at a bare glow. “I’m sorry to you too. I shouldn’t have yelled at you either, or poked you. Everything’s just so fucked right now, and I’m still not even sure what’s going on, why I’m here, why she’s here, why you’re here.”

The crystal lit up again. “Apology accepted. And I am sorry if your discovering me has caused undue distress. I am lacking much information on the current state of the world, but I can imagine the situation is quite unusual for you on top of your studies at the academy.”

“Wait,” Carline said as she walked over to the orb as well. “How does it know about the school?”

Elaina shrugged. “It’s from the Night Wars era, and the school was around then. Hey, didn’t you say the school had some weird name? Friendship Academy?”

“Correct, the Equal Nations Friendship Academy. That is still the name of the institution, is it not? And what are these Night Wars? I have no record of them.”

“It’s called the Endrin National Fortress Academy. And the Night Wars were, well…” Elaina turned to Carline. She knew of the Night Wars, in that they existed and had their final battle defending the academy, but she was very scarce on the specifics.

“I mean, I don’t know too much about them myself, just that it was when King Endrin held back the International Aggression Forces, nine hundred and fifteen years ago.”

“Nine hundred and fifteen years? And King Endrin? My gap in knowledge goes back slightly further than that. I will have much to consider while you two attempt your mission.”

“I still don’t think that we can…” Elaina turned to Carline, frowning. “I don’t think we can team up. You’re with Waine, right?”

Carline’s eyes widened, “No! I mean, he asked, but I didn’t say yes. And I guess I didn’t say no either yet, but I tried! He just never lets me talk. And then I wanted to say it after the duel, but his windpipe was just a little crushed so it was a bad time to talk really, and I really needed to go, uhm.” She blushed, looking away. “I needed to go take care of some things.”

“I crushed his windpipe?”

“Oh, yes, but just a little! I patched it up.”

Right, Carline’s aspect was Health, or [Health] now. There was a difference, Elaina was sure. She didn’t know what the difference was, or why she knew about it, but it was there. And if Carline had a different aspect, Waine might have actually been seriously injured. Eh, hard to care. “You’re not friends with him though?”

“Well, I mean, our parents are friends, so I know him. I’ve talked with him before, or rather he’s talked to me. It’s been that way for, stars, ten, eleven years now? I think I met him on his ninth birthday.” Gods, it takes a bit to get her talking, but once she starts. “He was always mean to me, made fun of me for being short, for…” She covered her torso with her arms. “For my weight.”

“What?” Waine made fun of her, Carline. Sure, there was more to her, especially in the chest, but Elaina was nothing but envious. “Carline, he’s an idiot. You’re gorgeous.”

“Hmm,” the System hummed as Carline blushed, still covering herself. “You two live together, correct? To answer a prior question, I know so because your crystal powered keys are attuned the same. Certainly these conversations can carry on later, especially since you were so concerned about privacy earlier.”

Elaina let out a nervous laugh. “Uhm, right.”

“Anyway,” the crystal continued, “A fragment of my being stored in another discrete location is in danger. There are multiple such fragments in some state of uncertainty, but this situation is the most immediate, and also conveniently the only one that two level one Users would be qualified to take on.”

“How do you know it’s in danger?” Carline asked.

“There is significant enough celestial interference to presume so, though without full reconnection I cannot offer more specifics.”

“What does celestial interference mean?” Elaina asked.

“In plain terms, there are monsters. An amount with strength weak for a first level party to fight, but still strong enough that if they locate my subcore they could attempt a takeover of the System. They could already be close to finding it, within minutes or hours. I need you two to find the core yourselves and return here with it.”

“We can’t let that happen!” Carline said, now very engaged. She obviously knew more about the System than Elaina, and Elaina was willing to defer to her judgment on the severity of the situation, but still.

“Carline, aren’t you scared?” Elaina asked.

Carline nodded her head once, determined. “Yes, but we can’t let the System be taken over by dark forces. I’ve only heard stories of what could result if it were to happen, of course, and I know it’s going to be dangerous, but that’s why we’re here, right? Why we came to Endrin?”

Carline was right, and if she said it was important, Elaina would trust her. She could at least get more information out of the System before fully deciding. “Okay, we’ll do it! How do we get there?”

“Quest accepted. Initiating transportation sequence.”

The light flashed once, and Elaina and Carline disappeared.