After graduating, we decided to spend two weeks celebrating. We had spent eight years wrestling with tests, projects, and howork. We could spend a few weeks celebrating before we started preparing for university.
The first thing we did was organize an outings with Vance and Iselde. After all, we would be seeing a lot less of each other once we entered university. We decided to organize a picnic. Old Mo packed us so sandwiches, and the five of us walked up a little trail near town that had a nice view of the ocean. We had a tasty lunch, played so board gas, and admired the view of the ocean. It was nice.
Near the end of the outing, Felix and Vance ended up making a few wooden swords and fencing. When I saw Vance and Felix battle, Vance's skill surprised . The three of us who were part of the Market had spent decades working on our swordsmanship. We'd had Sallia teach us and spar with us during that ti, and her skills were no joke. Vance couldn't trade blows evenly with Felix... but he was still able to sneak in one hit against Felix out of twelve matches. Granted, Felix was toning down the overwhelming difference in stats... but it was still impressive. I couldn’t help but wonder how good he might have gotten at actual fighting, if this world treated fencing as a combat technique and not a sport.
Anise and I also ended up dueling Vance a few tis, although he didn't manage to hit either of us. The four of us still had a lot of fun, and Iselde cheered everyone on during the duels. We had a great ti.
We spent the next few weeks arranging similar outings, before going to the university to fill out our paperwork. We spent over a day filling out forms before we left.
After that, Anise and I started prepping for her future.
After all, Anise wasn’t going to be attending university with us. She had decided to prepare for a possible confrontation with the worldstriders. She felt that if she found a weakness of the creatures, she would try to exploit it to drive them back. It would be a great way to earn a keyword ability, and it would also remove the greatest threat to her life. But she needed a way to practice spellcasting, farm achievent, and grow until she found a weakness. After all, she was fifteen now. In this world's standards, she was bordering on being a real adult. It would be odd if she didn't go to university or find a job.
Anise had already floated the idea of opening a repair shop to . Her nd spell could heal prosthetic limbs, and there was plenty of demand for prosthetic repairs.
Of course, there was a problem with that - Anise was known to have a force manipulation ability. She had used force manipulation several tis in public. If she started using her nd spell, people would realize sothing was wrong. While we might reveal the existence of Zelyrian magic, we didn't intend to do so now, at least. So Anise needed a way to openly use her nd spell.
We decided to create a new identity for her. If Anise couldn't use the nd spell openly, we would create a new personal for her that could use a nding 'ability.'
For that, I intended to lean heavily into my illusion magic. Anise, unlike Felix and I, preferred to have very pale skin. I suspected this was because the first world she rembered was the world of the black sun. There, everyone lived underground, so nobody really had a tan. Either way, Anise's skin was very pale, unlike Sallia, Felix, and I.
So I gave her alternate identity a tan as the first big change. Then, I helped her change her hair color to silver. Her pink hair was one of Anise's most distinctive traits, while silver hair was a relatively common color on this continent.
Then, I helped her increased her height a little bit (this ti using stilted shoes and illusions). I used even more illusions to change her facial structure, giving her a slightly larger forehead and bigger eyes. Then, I made so of her limbs look a little longer and more slender.
Finally, we went to Old Mo for help. After all, Old Mo was a forr assassin. He should obviously know how to disguise his identity. And that was where we found a veritable gold mine.
Old Mo had forgotten a lot of the finer aspects of being a spy, since he had retired decades ago. Despite that fact, he was a forr spy and assassin. A lot of the information he gave us proved critical to help Anise differentiate her identities. He taught her how to walk differently. He taught her how to vary the way she spoke, from her voice to her word choice. He taught her how to alter her posture seamlessly.
After a few weeks of training, even I could have been fooled by Anise's disguise.
Of course, that mont was broken when 'Alia,' Anise's alternate identity, gave a big hug and burst into excitent.
"Miria! I did it! Even you felt like I was unrecognizable for a mont, right? Right?" she said.
I laughed and ruffled Anise's hair. "You did amazing, Anise."
"I'm going to go fool Felix!" she said, before she left for Felix's room.
The next day, I found a grumpy Anise glaring at Felix. Felix had mistaken 'Alia' for an intruder and had tried to whack her with a floating blob of tal. Anise had revealed her disguise before Felix managed to hit her... but it was a close call. Felix was embarrassed by the whole thing, and I couldn't stop laughing when the two recounted what happened.
After that little event, we went back to Old Mo for help getting Anise a second background.
Having a person we knew and trusted who understood the full details about the Market made life much easier.
It took a week to get everything set up, and then Anise went to an ability registration center. 'Alia' was now a seventeen year old girl who had fled from the worldstrider invasion of Verne. She possessed the nd ability, and was looking to open a prosthetics repair shop. The ability registration went well.
Then, ‘Alia’ went to Dr. Trish’s clinic, to ask for a checkup. Of course, there was no real issues with her body - we just needed a pretext for ‘Alia’ to beco friends with us.
From there, we presented an illusion of becoming fast friends. Alia got to know Felix, Old Mo, and my mother. For bonus points, I also created an illusory Anise to join in a few of our outings, to make sure that nobody thought Alia and Anise were the sa person. The illusory Anise wasn't a perfect imitation of the original. She didn't talk much, and so of her movents were a little awkward. We kept these outings to areas where people wouldn't have a reason to directly talk to Anise, such as restaurants with private rooms. It wasn't perfect, but it would hopefully keep Anise's two identities separate.
After a few weeks of this, 'Alia' opened up a prosthetics repair shop (using so money that I gave her). 'Alia' hired Anise and I as assistants to help keep the shop running.
It only took a few days for our first few custors to co in. Anise t the patients first, without any of her illusions or masks to disguise herself. She would then ‘adjust’ a few internal parts of people’s prosthetics, to 'set it up for Alia'. Then, she guided the patient to another room, changed into her Alia disguise, and used her nd spell to fix the deteriorating prosthetics. Afterwards, I gave them a final dose of healing magic, to make sure everything was still connected and working with their physical body.
It proved to be a massive success. Anise’s job, and future, was set up, as long as I was nearby to maintain her illusions and body transformations.
Of course, that wasn’t a permanent solution. Once we left for university, Anise wouldn't have on hand to maintain her suite of illusions and body transformations all the ti anymore. Luckily, Felix and I already had a plan to solve that problem.
We spent the next two weeks developing a special bracelet that would let Anise apply her ‘Alia’ illusion as needed. It was surprisingly easy to set up, once Felix and I got the right idea. Felix was already used to ‘affixing’ ideas to shapes… so he had create the image of ‘Alia’ and then he affixed the idea of an ‘Alia illusion’ to a simple bracelet. With a detailed illusion to work with, and Felix’s talent for binding essence manipulation, we finished the project in two weeks. It was the first research project we'd done in this world that hadn't run into a mountain of surprise issues, and I was very happy to have an easy success.
After that, I spent a week hovering near Anise, to make sure nothing went wrong. But nothing did. Our bracelet worked as intended, and Anise could swap to her Alia disguise at will. Anise’s shop, as well as a way to farm Achievent and keyword abilities, was secured.
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