(Sunday, 25/10/1058)
(3rd person PoV)
After returning Kob to his not-jail room, Henryk went to Loki to talk about something that was weighing on his mind.
"Gotcha!" Henryk tangled the goddess of mischief in a tight chokehold. That was not at all before chasing her across the manor.
"Mmm! Mm! Mmmm!" Out of breath and unable to set herself free, Loki tapped out. She surrendered.
"You really should consider being gentle" Loki said while holding her neck, gasping for breath.
"We need to talk, and it's about the fundamentals of the falna" Henryk observed as her features sharpened almost instantly, her previous childish antics forgotten, much like the negligible pain in her neck.
"Let's go" Loki said as she walked in the direction of her personal office. "This talk should remain between us" She said in a serious tone unbefitting of her general image as a person.
Henryk appreciated the initiative. He also wanted to have this talk in private. He followed her to the office. Once they entered the office, Henryk sat opposite Loki with a small table between them. Loki got some paper, with one being a status update paper.
"Let's start" Loki said, her eyes threatening Henryk to bore a hole through his head. "Have you told anyone of what we'll discuss?" The tension in the air was so thick one could almost feel it physically.
'I may have dug myself a grave' Henryk panicked somewhat.
"No, I have not" Henryk said, now speaking with a more official form of the language. "I'd rather be right alone than be wrong with everyone else"
"Good" Loki's features became neutral, retaining some tension in them. "What is it you deduced?" She leaned forward and rested her chin on her interlocking fingers.
"I think I discovered two truths about the falna, both due to my magic" Henryk said, leaving a small silence for Loki to interfere if she wanted to. She gestured for him to go.
"While experimenting with my magic, I came to think that the physical form of the falna may be a simple written form while its true essence is engraved on one's soul. I assume this is common knowledge, as it is beyond reason that nobody thought of it before. Is that right?" Henryk said.
"That isn't common knowledge, and in fact wasn't even known to many throughout the last millennia" Loki denied it. While some did think of something similar, it was either dismissed for the absurdity of the theory or for the lack of evidence. It was later lost to time, such a theory.
"Is it true, though?" Henryk raised an eyebrow.
"It is, to some extent. We agreed not to share the details with mortals who have no way of verifying it" Loki said. She then wanted to know what else Henryk had to say. This was the most serious part. She hoped that he thought of a certain thing about the falna.
"Now then, what about the way the falna works?" Henryk said in a belittling tone while talking about the falna. "Parameters make no sense. Strength and endurance are supposed to be both related to muscles, but then endurance also affects defense, which is almost completely separate from muscles, which remain soft and easy to cut through or tenderise no matter how much of their fibers there was. Then we have agility. Speed and agility are two different things. How is speed governed by agility? Also also, shouldn't strength, endurance, dexterity and speed be governed by the same stat? Strength and speed are produced by white muscle fibers while endurance and dexterity are produced by red muscle fibers. Shouldn't all four properties be under a parameter called something like muscle efficiency? Then there is defense, which is currently part of endurance. Why didn't it get its own parameter when the sources of stamina and defense are not the same within the body?..." Henryk went on to list a few points too many afterwards. It took so long before Loki stopped him, pale from the amount of analysis that went into this.
'This child... He needs to calm the fuck down!' She thought. She pulled up a status update sheet and slapped it on the table between them.
"Congratulations!" Loki said while performing a very ridiculous pose. "You are the first to openly question the gods' design of the falna so much!"
"Let me guess, Carillon took how the falna works for granted and almost never questioned it" Henryk said with a knowing smile. The way Norman took things for granted in games and anime more than likely carried over to his current self.
"He did" Loki confirmed while waiving the update sheet in front of his face, urging him to take the update. 'Even with the ability to detect lies, I found it hard to understand why a child as young as Carillon had a friend who he claimed to know so well at such a young age. Seeing him point out some of his earliest personality traits, they seem to have spent more time together than I initially thought'
"Alright, Loki. I'll take the update" Henryk lifted his shirt and turned his back to her.
(Line Break)
(AN: For this part, I will repeat the parameter section to give a slightly clearer image)
Name: Henryk Williams
Familia: Loki
Level: 1
STR: E478 → D500 → B700
END: E410 → E446 → C646
DEX: E488 → D534 → B734
AGI: E413 → E436 → C636
MAG: D591 → C615 → A815
→
STR: B700 → (!) STR: C679
END: C646 → Null
(!) STA: C646 → Null (You will understand this duplicate in a bit)
(!) STA: C646
(!) DEF: C646
DEX: B734 → Null
AGI: E413 → E436 → C636
(!) SPE: C636 → Null
MAG: D591 → C615 → A815
(AN: The Null parameters are the ones that have been merged with others)
Magic:
Incrementum Imperium
Skills:
Kefalés Tou Tyfóna
Yfirgangr (Old Norse nuancing the breach of proper limits or acceptable behavior):
Defiance-born status.
Parameters are rearranged to better fit individual understanding of the world.
(Line Break)
"There" Loki said as she handed him his new status. "This skill won't appear for the next 100 years or so now that it did. You're the first to have it"
"What is this new parameter?" Henryk tried to expand the acronym to words that may be the ones used here. "Def is for Defense, I know that. But what is STA for? Stamina should already be part of STR, no? And why is there a duplicate that stayed behind?" He did not like that the parameter for stamina still showed up alone instead of merging with STR.
"That duplicate's the parameter for stamina efficiency!" Loki said cheerfully. "The stamina parameter had two effects, only one of which is influenced by muscles! The other was logic-defying and remained by itself as a result!" It piqued Henryk's interest.
"What's to celebrate about this?" He asked. He believed that he deserved to know, seeing as his status was the cause. If it was something that only affected him, then it is him that should celebrate. 'Maybe she made some bet with the other gods...'
"That's because of a game between us deities" She was giddy. "Whoever gets a familia member smart, inquisitive and daring enough to manifest this skill gets to flaunt it for a century, not to mention that you'll get an alias at level 1 instead of after ranking up!" She was especially interested in that last part, which gave Henryk a sense of dread.
'She isn't gonna allow my alias to be a cringey chuunibyou title, is she?' Henryk went pale. He was not at all ready to get such an 8th-grade-syndrom alias like the other adventurers.
"The most important benefit though, I must say, is that the skill boosts your parameters' values by 200 whole points each!" Loki was dancing and jumping around like a sugar-oversaturated child. At some point, she somehow ran on the underside of the ceiling from end to end without falling.
'Yup! The physics of this world are definitely broken! Absolutely!' Henryk's lips curled inwards as his soul ached. The blatant breaking of the laws of physics was not something he was willing to accept easily, even if it was done by the divine.
"Haah" Henryk sighed as he happened to hold Loki by the shoulder and put her down on the sofa.
"Party Pooper Bear!" Loki said before trying to run far away from him. She did not get to go far out of the door before slamming into a wall of fur that pinned her to the ground. She started to sweat. She looked up.
"Uhm... Henryk? Can we play a little nicer?" Loki tried getting out of her current predicament by wiggling. That did not work so well when she noticed the three other walls of fur. She gulped.
"No trickery, Loki. Is the last page inside your clothes somewhere?" As soon as she opened her mouth, Henryk talked over her. "Like I said, no trickery. I already informed Shira of what I'll do, having thought ahead just in case you tried threatening me with my relationship with Shira becoming worse" His manic smile unsettled her.
"Using force against a defenseless goddess is unfair!" She threw her arms above her head childishly in protest. "Release me!"
"You leave me no choice, Loki. We'll have to strip you of your clothing" Loki's blood ran dry at Henryk's words.
'Is he...' Her thoughts almost went blank. While the gods aren't as reserved about their sexuality as most mortals are, they choose to be that way and are not forced to it. Loki's arms went to cover her flat chest with a disproving frown on her face.
"I didn't expect the great Loki to be an innocent maiden when it came to this. I meant that Shira was the one who will do it, not me" He gave her a knuckle up her head. It stung.
"UNFAIR!!" She yelled her heart out. This wasn't trickery, which she could have enjoyed. This was outright abuse of someone else's innocence. She continued to try breaking free and escape but to no avail. Shira dragged her back to the office.
The last paper was indeed found in Loki's clothing. She was playing dirty.
(Lime Break)
"I ain't touching that thing. Tell me its contents so that I can copy it onto another page" Henryk said before they went to bed that day. That made Shira elated. She felt good knowing that he was not even interested in touching something that came so intimately close to another woman's body.
(Henryk's Diary)
Sunday, 25/10/1058:
I discovered a few things about Kob's past and current situation.
After asking Kob about his previous memories, he told me that his memory is foggy and is mostly dominated by a red mist or haze and a voice forcing his thoughts to constant aggression and bloodlust.
I also discovered that what I was told by Norman about the memories the creatures known as xenos keep was also true for normal monsters. They remember some glimpses of a sunrise and the desire to see said sunrise again. Kob also vaguely remembers his unwillingness to kill in one of his previous lives as another monster.
I decided on a name more befitting of his peace-loving nature than the initial reserve name. Hopefully Freyr and Freyja don't decide that the name is offensive to them, especially Freyja. Norman's words about this world's Freyja, or Freya, aren't reassuring at all.
Another entirely different thing I discovered is that Loki is either testing me or is oblivious, or simply practicing the liar part of her nature. The stamina efficiency stat is only partially unscientific. While it might defy all logic at higher levels, early on it might just simply imitate an increase in mitochondrial count and size, and later the shift to more fat usage, before finally breaking the multi-layered wall of limitations.
The most important note to my future self: YOU BLIND?! How did you not notice that Shira wants more physical forms of attention? Kisses, hugs and the like are things you should focus on from now on!
Last thing for today's diary, a list of my desired bodily modifications possible on the short term and without lady Rivera's help:
1- Nictitating membrane restoration
2- Jacobson organ restoration
3- Completion of a more robust immune system
4- Reapplying non-physical enhancements from scratch
5- Addition of multiple sets of DNA to switch form by switching which is expressed.