CC2

1.0 - Copperlings and Object Transfers

The town I lived in was mainly populated by curse users. It was located directly next to the main wall that divided our continent into two halves. We were basically at the very heart of the wall, our town in a semi-circular shape.

It was very dark and gloomy as one got closer to the centre of our town, to which our dark clothes and cloaks didn't help much in creating a warmer atmosphere. Only on the outskirts would have residents of other classes and abilities. They preferred to stay away from us, as curse users were infamous for being evil and untrust worthy. Our abilities are similar to regular magic, but where we plant the spell on someone, not activating it immediately. They can only be truly activated by a certain condition being met. While having a curse on you, if you weren't also a curse user, you'd have no idea it was there until it was too late.

Even though I was just a small, girl, I would still receive uncomfortable looks of fear and distrust. For some reason, Mediums gave me the worst of them, as if the dead themselves were spreading rumours of me being a kind of grotesque monster... Even the curse users in my town didn't interact with me much, if ever, but when it came to anyone else, they would avoid us like the plague.

There was a lot of truth to the stereotype of our kind, sadly. I was yet to find a decent person amongst them, like they only cared about destruction and deceit, causing harm on those around them. For most of them, maybe their hearts really were as black as their clothes, like they simply embraced it and became one with the creepiness around them.

At least they had something to occupy their time, though, as otherwise they'd likely go around messing with the rest of the town. The wall next to us was very important to this town, specifically. It erected a powerful natural field that basically removed the resource costs that one would usually have when casting curses. The wall also happened to have strange gaps and holes that lead to the other side, to which another curse town happened to be located. The two towns had nothing better to do than fight with each other, spending all their time and energy on creating and casting more powerful curses, while also locating and dispelling the curses the other side tried to place on them. Their little curse wars seemed unending, and was never something I particularly cared about.

I was an alien in both of their worlds.

As someone specialising in the curse user class, at least I had a lot of knowledge and resources available, so I could improve my skill tree relatively quick. The others wanted me to focus on curse identification and nullification, since they wanted to try and learn the most powerful curse spells possible, but I was fine with that, not having the same outwardly destructive desires as them. Awareness seemed like a more useful skill than using them, really, or at least from a pacifist's perspective.

In my research of our class's abilities and potential skill tree directions, I noticed a branch that was rarely ever explored, referred to "object transfer". From what the other curse users told me, it was related to curse spells that once triggered would give the "cursed" target the item stored within it. They said that even though it sounds useful in theory, it was actually very underwhelming. Any items designed to have negative effects on others would be treated as regular items in storage, not afflicting them with anything. It wasn't even good for transportation, being unable to handle items too large, heavy or valuable. They were all so sure that it had no practical uses, so none of them ever bothered learning it

I decided to enter that branch, regardless, as I had an idea for something potentially interesting that one could do with it. In the end, my motivation wasn't on practical usage but from loneliness. I would spend most of my days alone, quietly studying or practicing curse magic while the rest of the town ignored me. Occasionally, I would do errands and be around for when they were fighting in the curse wars, but I would often go weeks without saying a single word.