Oakhaven was… aggressively generic. It was the kind of starting village you'd find in any fantasy RPG: quaint cottages with thatched roofs, a cheerfully bubbling creek, a blacksmith hammering away rhythmically, and villagers who all smiled with a vacant, pleasant energy. It was so perfectly idyllic it gave me the heebie-jeebies. Everything felt scripted, like the NPCs were stuck on the most basic "Welcome to Town" loop imaginable. I spent a day just observing, my traveler's cloak keeping me anonymous while my streamer-brain screamed that this entire place was a trap.
That night, in the rented room of a suspiciously clean inn, I finally had a moment to debrief with my gear.
"Okay, so that whole 'Starfall' thing was pretty poggers," I said to my bundled Moonglaive. "But I felt like I was just button-mashing my ultimate. What else is in my kit?"
"Your connection to the lunar magic has deepened significantly since you fully expended and then absorbed the power of the Celestial Manastone," Selene's voice resonated from the blade. "New combat arts are available to you now."
"Excellent. Lay 'em on me. And please tell me they don't all sound like they were named by a twelve-year-old girl."
A list of potential abilities seemed to bloom in my consciousness. Starlight Pirouette. Crescent Moon's Caress. Dance of the Silver Ray.
I recoiled. "Absolutely not. Are you kidding me? 'Crescent Moon's Caress'? It sounds like I'm trying to moisturize the enemy to death. I need less 'magical girl transformation' and more 'tactical delete button.' Got anything that just sounds like 'Glaive F#%ks Shit Up'?"
"The names are tied to their function and tradition," Selene replied, sounding mildly offended. "But the forms can be… reinterpreted."
"We'll workshop the branding later," Astrid interjected from my circlet. "To properly unlock any of these, you must establish a formal, stable connection with your matron, Ennaria."
"Didn't I already do that?" I asked. "The meteors felt pretty formal to me."
"You brute-forced a connection with a high-tier consumable," Nyx explained from my cloak. "It was like kicking down the server room door instead of logging in. The fact that you were already half-prepared from Akselondt's training is the only reason it didn't fry your soul. Now you need to knock politely and be invited in."
The logic was sound. I needed a place with the best possible signal to the moon. A quick scan of the local geography gave me an obvious answer: the tallest mountain peak overlooking the valley. It was a classic JRPG objective.
The next evening, I stood atop the windswept peak. The moon was a brilliant silver disc in the sky, and the air was thin and cold. Following the mental instructions from my egos, I sat and meditated, channeling the moonlight not into my body, but outward, like a ping to a distant server. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, I felt a response—an ancient, impossibly vast consciousness brushing against my own. It wasn't a conversation, just a feeling of acknowledgment. Ennaria. The connection was made. No new powers immediately flooded my system, but I could feel the potential humming there, waiting to be accessed. The login was successful.
I returned to Oakhaven just after dawn, feeling more centered and powerful. But as I walked down the main path, the idyllic town no longer felt just scripted. It felt wrong.
The blacksmith hammered his anvil, but the iron bar he was striking never changed shape. The woman sweeping her porch moved her broom across the same patch of dirt over and over. The cheerful greetings from the villagers sounded identical, down to the exact pitch and cadence, every time I passed them. There was no life here. Just a perfect, horrifying loop.