I focused on developing my Companion’s build and spent a lot of time working tirelessly (literally, as I couldn’t get tired). In the initial stages, I had determined that there were three things that I wanted:

  

  
1. The three base traits (level 2, level 3, and level 4).


  
2. A “growth” trait (level 5)[1]


  
3. The “tails,” each representing a skill or lesser skill (eight or nine total).


  

  For the base traits, I wanted to adhere closely to the theme of what a Kitsune was. They were a variant of a fox-type beat kin. Foxes were hunters with excellent senses, particularly their hearing ability. So, I thought something related to that would make a good first trait.

  After that–foxkin were often depicted as agile fighters jumping around and doing acrobatics. So some sort of agility skill made sense for the second trait.

  The third trait I thought about for quite a bit before deciding to try for something that might have been unconventional. If there was truth to most systems, at least those depicted in novels and web serials, it was that [Inspect] was a completely, totally, ridiculously overpowered skill. “What’s that guy’s abilities?--Inspect!” “What’s that artifact do?--Inspect!” Literary speaking, the "Inspect" skill was an author's crutch; a way to provide perfect information in a very easy way (who needs descriptive text when you can just have a box tell you what it is!).

  However, from my own explorations into the system, I knew it wouldn’t work here as it did in those stories. But sigils and sigil arrays were a thing here. That meant they could be read, maybe not fully, but at least to some degree. Really, what I was thinking of doing was transferring a lesser version of my own skill for my companion.

  That gave me the idea to try to have Interface show its own sigil.

  Unfortunately, after spending more than an hour on it, I couldn’t get it to reveal its secrets or those of any other skill that I possessed. For this one, I would have to fly a little more blind than the others, but that was fine!

  That brought me to the fourth trait, the key to it all. This would be the trait for the nine tails. I spend hours and hours trying to figure this one out. I couldn’t just append extra skills onto it like [Sapiophagia] did. Sigilmancy gave me a strong feeling that this was very much verboten. Even trying to match each ability to a specific physical tail didn’t work (it was basically the same thing).

  In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I didn’t like my companion having nine physical tails. That seemed really difficult to manage, possibly even having a negative impact on agility (or even the ability to sit!).

  So I thought about the nine tails existing in more of a metaphysical sense. I thought about literally shaping the tails into the sigil array itself. [Sapiophagia] was kind of a single tail (albeit disgusting) with each consumed skill making it longer and longer. And that led me to the same problem. What was the difference between one skill that had a really long tail with many skills and many tails all with one skill each? At the end of the day, they were both the same–too many skills.

  So next I tried making two separate tails that could be progressed through like a skill tree as my companion leveled up. Unfortunately, Sigilmancy told me it was still functionally the same–I was just adding additional skills.

  Swapping between the tails? No. Adding a cooldown period? Still no.

  I spent more than a day trying to solve the problem of getting extra skills. I relied heavily upon my skill to give me an intuitive sense of what was permissible and what was too risky. But finally, I had a workable idea. Sigilmancy didn’t give so much a sensation of a firm “no” as much as it seemed to give a shrug of “cannot predict now.”

  With a path forward for traits (largely) found, I moved towards the tails themselves.

  Kitsune were known as tricksters and often had abilities related to several schools of magic, namely, illusion, shapeshifting, and fire magic. I was a necromancy-themed dungeon, so necromancy simply had to be thrown into the hat too. Four areas of magic. However, I doubted I could make shapeshifting work, at least to the point where the entire body was shifting to a completely different racial form. Not only was the magic for the physical changes way beyond my current capabilities, but the different sigil array would be a dead giveaway (I knew that illusion could cover most or all of that problem, but then I was using at least two skills for one ability).

  So three types of magic: illusion, fire magic, and necromancy. That meant an even distribution of three tails for each type, too.

  For the next day, I worked my way through possible skills, trying to balance both the schools and the forms each skill could take. I had come up with three types of skills: enhancement, aura, and instant.

  Enhancement skills I thought of as skills that provided a bonus to the person’s body, whether that was active or passive. For example, the dwarf healer had an upgraded skill called [Meditative Stance], which allowed the healer to use meditation to replace some sleep and to regenerate mana faster while meditating.

  For aura skill, well, it may be a bit of a misnomer. The dwarf commander had had what I thought was an aura skill, but when I actually viewed the sigil for it and saw how it worked, it didn’t cover a broad area and impact anyone therein, but created connections between the commander and the other dwarves. In other words, that skill was based on direct or created relationships. Nevertheless, this type of connective skill should prove useful for necromancy. Still, it was possible true aura skills existed, so I kept the name.

  Instant skills were skills that took effect immediately upon activation, whatever form it took, and did a discrete action. [Bone Bash] was a perfect example of it. The skeleton fighter activated it, it did its effect, then went into a cooldown period. [Shine On] also worked like this, as did the dwarven fighter’s [Shield Bulwark] skill.

  Then I thought about the function of skills. Once again, I came up with three categories: offense, defense, and utility. While it would be easy to come up with three utility-type skills for necromancy or three offensive skills for fire, I wanted a balance of the three functions, too. I ended up spending hours more brainstorming, rejecting, adjusting, and finalizing the skills that matched the two sets of both function and manner.

  Once I had a semblance of the ideas I wanted, I worked even more on developing as much understanding as I could. I studied the sigils more, prepared preliminary sigil element ideas, tested them, and worked to improve my testing methodologies. I kept plugging away, completely absorbed in my work.

  Meanwhile, around each day’s dawn and dusk, the CCB would pick up that goblins were talking in or near the lobby–they were checking the entrance on the regular. I simply ignored it as background noise. But when I saw the box going off again, I checked my status and realized to my horror I only had two days left until the dungeon would reopen.

  Because I needed to leave enough time to actually fix the dungeon, I was determined to build my companion with plenty of time to spare. That time was now.

  I cleared my space of everything and cleared my mind, resting and centering myself until I felt completely ready. I then brought up the final versions of my designs and ideas to reference as I went through the building process, doing one final check to make sure there were no critical errors.

  Then I began.

  Using the slow-building method I had developed earlier, I started with a base of my companion’s physical characteristics, conceptually based on the race idea of ‘Kitsune.’ Then I carefully layered each of the three basic traits. First, I turned my attention onto the first trait sigil and willed one for physical enhancement. Once the sigil lines and patterns settled into place and looked good, I moved onto the second trait. For this one, I wanted a trait that would help with mana. Sigilmancy had indicated to me during my experiments that a trait that simply improved mana regeneration was not available, so I made a fire-based variation.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  The third trait was to the one that was for seeing sigils and sigil arrays. Perhaps it was redundant, but I still believed–firmly believed–that “inspect”-type skills were completely overpowered. Anyways, as I was making the trait, I felt some resistance from the system, which I expected. I paused the sigil creation and, while holding it, took some empty status screens I had opened and tore them into pieces, minced them up, and then drizzled them into the sigil. The little bits of Interface mixed quite well into the sigil, making various small patterns inside, and I felt everything click into place.

  It was time for the fourth and final trait, the most critical one: the one for the tails.

  During the course of my tests and experiments, I had come to learn that I was massively undervaluing Demesne Interface. Before, I had been using the skill in two ways: first, as a means to experience and perceive the world, and second, as a means to gather information. But the word ‘interface’ meant more than that. It was a means for me to interact with the world, to interact with the system. In other words, in a way, it was a two-way skill.

  That was nice and I had been doing some interacting, such as with my sigil CAD efforts, but it was Sigilmancy that let me know I could take it to the next level. I didn’t exactly understand the mechanics of it, but part of it was rather metaphysical–Interface could more directly translate and impose my will onto the system because it was a part of me. In addition, Interface’s translation of my will and intent could act as the mortar to the system’s bricks, filling in and perfecting what I wanted.

  It could also be used to bend the system to the breaking point.

  To get bonus skills, I had to get them into the sigil array without corrupting it. As well, I also realized I needed some serious limitations imposed on them so the system would think it was within the rules it was bound to.

  I created more empty status screens, hundreds, thousands of them. I squeezed them and pulled them until they had the shape, length, and elasticity of threads of yarn. Then, like a basketmaker, I weaved the threads into three tightly woven nets. I attached one net to each sigil of the first three traits.

  I moved onto the next step. In a separate area in my mind-space, I created the “tail” skills one-by-one. When I finished making the sigil for one, I took another status screen and wrapped the sigil into it, sealing it as if it was in a spherical ball and shrunk the entire thing down to as small as I could make it. I did this for all nine skills.

  Third step.

  I brought all the pieces of knowledge for sigils and started to weave them into the fourth trait’s sigil, but with a twist. Actually, it was more of a hole. The Dwarven sigil array, with its hole in the middle of the array, was my inspiration. In testing the idea, Sigilmancy had been initially resisted. From my previous experience, I knew that resistance did not mean the same as forbidden. So I had worked on it and developed a decent grasp on how to do it. Sigils and sigil arrays were relationships between all of the various parts, but just like my revelation about Interface, the spaces inbetween could also have meaning. This was more true when the space was integral to the intent of the skill.

  And for what I wanted, it was.

  I carefully coaxed the parts I wanted into the outer part of the sigil, keeping the center empty, then let the skill and my intent fill in the missing parts. I took the nine tail skill balls and put them into the empty space.

  Then something weird happened.

  Something within me gurgled like a stomach realizing it had food poisoning. Black mana poured out of my core. It snaked around as if it sensed prey and was hunting for it, meandering towards where I was building the fourth trait. Then I realized the mana was coming from Tenebrous Portal. The skill was acting up. No!--worse, it had opened its own “portal” for all of this black mana now streaming out of me.

  Oh. Hell. No.

  I tried to push away the stream of mana, and like blowing smoke, it waffed away but only started to immediately come back. Again and again I blew it off, but it persistently kept coming closer and closer each time.

  Fuck this. Time to shut it down.

  I pulled my will and focus back and commanded everything to be wiped. But Tenebrous Portal raged, twisted, and flared. My Kitsune’s sigil array flickered but held its existence. My own skill was fighting my will and keeping it all from closing.

  I pushed inwards against the skill, trying to shut it off. For every squeeze, it twisted more and hardened all the while spewing more black mana out. I was now fighting on two fronts–trying to keep the black mana from infecting the sigil array while fighting with the skill to erase the sigil array.

  I was losing. As the head of the black mana got closer and closer, its movements became sharper, more focused on its target.

  I was running out of time. I needed a hail mary–

  One! Two! Four!

  I grabbed my one remaining Demesne Point and threw it as the sigil array.

  The glowing ball of ultradense magic flew towards the sigil array. Just as it was about to make contact with the construct, it exploded outward. A sphere of golden hue snapped into being around the sigil array. I had used the Demesne Point to create a protective shield against the corruption.

  My fight against Portal was moot so I stopped trying to clamp it down. For the stream of black mana, I had to trust my protection would hold for long enough. I turned all of my attention back to the sigil array. There was no going back–I had to finish everything here and now!

  Merely moments after restarting my work, the black mana slammed into the protective sphere. The sphere shook and flashed golden light, but held. The black mana spread out like viscous oil across the surface of the sphere. The mana pushed and prodded the sphere flashes of light sparkling in spots as the black mana tried to crack its way through.

  How much time I had, I didn’t know. I stressed that I needed to work as fast as possible, but I had learned in my previous life that working fast often meant making mistakes.

  I bore down on the details of the sigil of the final trait and when satisfied moved to the next part. I made new status screen threads (inside the protective bubble, of course), weaving them together to make them stronger. Three of the threads I manipulated so they had hollow insides, essentially becoming tubes.

  I then connected all the pieces together. Tail balls were connected to the main skill sigil and the nets were also attached to the skill. Finally, I added the tubes from the center empty area of the sigil to the nets.

  Meanwhile, the black mana continued to build up and press down on the sphere. I could tell it was shrinking a little bit with each attack. The power of the Demesne Point was diminishing. At the same time, I knew that the construct needed to be solidified; it needed to be paid for. I had to time everything perfectly.

  I took a moment–just a moment–and readied myself.

  Then I shoved my will at the whole thing like a sledgehammer crashing down on a faberge egg.

  The sphere of protection collapsed into the sigil array. A flash of golden light burst forth from the center point as the entire array simply disappeared. A magical fire blossomed without regard for gravity, tendrils of magical fire bursting forth and contracting like little solar flares. Waves of energy flew out of the fire, sweeping the black mana, and wiping it away like dust. Tenebrous Portal, the rebel, stopped and went silent.

  The fiery ball of light sucked back into itself and disappeared.

  Standing in my small core room, only a few feet from my core, was a young woman, a Kitsune, the first of her kind. She had fiery red hair and pinnae instead of ears. She also sported a furry red tail that reached to her ankles.

  But when I looked at her, my mind reeled in shock.

  “Q--Qui--Quinn?!” My internal thoughts roiled.

  Her face. That face! I knew that face. I knew that face. The bright brown eyes, the shape of the face, the nose with a curved bridge. Even if after a thousand suns lived and died, I would know that face. Even in a different universe, I would know that face.

  That was the face of my daughter.

  [1]dunpedia/skills/sigils

  My knowledge base of the skill sigils and how they work in the context of people is still limited. I have three sources to draw from: the sigils of delving races (dark goblin, dwarf); my own monsters; the merged and independent sigils of the “blessings.”

  Although my sample size is still small, all of the sigils in slots one, two, and three (corresponding to levels 2, 3, and 4, respectively) of the dark goblins and dwarves are passive skills. By ‘passive,’ I mean they are always providing their inherent bonus, do not consume the person’s internal mana, and the bonus is static.

  The dwarf fourth skill, [Ferophagia], is not a passive skill, but it isn’t really an active skill either. The condition for it to trigger is the dwarf literally ingesting metal. In other words, the trigger condition is external and not intent-based. The dark goblin fourth skill, [Sapiophagia] has a more restrictive trigger condition, but it is also external. For the sake of simplicity, I will classify them as active skills.

  My dungeon monsters’ skills were a mix of passive and active skills. [Bone Dense] is clearly a passive skill; [Bone Bash] is clearly an active skill. Modified skills or skills from blessings also are mixed–some are active and some are passive.

  For the purposes of categorization (and until I have more information), I have decided the following: “Traits” are passive base abilities, “Skills” are active abilities or non-base passive abilities.