The Agoniser

** Name: Piper Eversly
** Title: Noble Daughter
** Strength: 5
** Dexterity: 6
** Vitality: 5
** Intelligence: 11
** Willpower: 7
** Psi Capability: 29 (Zeta)

Skills: Reading (31), Cooking (22), Hiding (16), Housework (15), Dissembling (13), Observation (12), Sword Mastery (8), Acting (6), Sewing (6), Embroidery (6), Memorisation (6), Marksmanship – Ballistic (5), Horse Riding (5), Teaching (5), Language: High Gothic (5), Etiquette (4), Athletics (3), Archery (3), Lying (2), Jury-rigging (1), Warp Resistance (1), Telekinesis (1)

As I approached the Church in the morning, I reflected on the mistake I had made a couple of weeks ago when I approached Sister Lucia. I didn’t know if it was because the scary woman was bored or if she saw something in me, but she took a personal interest in me. I discovered quickly that this was bad. I had spent several hours a day these past two weeks just running around the Church, over and over and over again.

I told my father as much about my mistake, complained really, and he laughed and said that I was pretty stupid for a smart girl and that I wasn’t allowed to try to get my mom to get me out of it unless I was sure I was going to die. I wasn’t sure what percentage “sure” meant, but I thought the chances I would die were less than ten per cent. Seeing my stat and skill numbers and skill descriptions, which often referenced percentages, got me thinking about them in many ways.

“Some people don’t think it, but it is definitely possible to teach both Willpower and Self-Discipline. But why would you care, little flower?” asked the armoured woman.

I definitely didn’t tell her that it was because I thought it might help me hide the fact that I was a witch. Instead, I said something plausible, “Because I don’t want my life to consist of just marrying someone my parents pick for me and having children, and I read in the library that Willpower and Self-Discipline are necessary for success, in whatever situation someone finds themselves in!”

She nodded, “You will meet me here at zero-five hundred every morning. If you don’t show up or miss a day, then forget it. You will be wearing something suitable for running. Without knowing your own limits, you’ll never know if you can push through. So, at first, your quest for discipline within will be enforced by discipline from without.”

I had gained quite a few levels in Athletics, as well as five levels in a new skill called Running, these past couple of weeks, though, so that was nice. Athletics was an interesting skill in that it assisted everything that I did that could be considered an activity that required physical stamina, so the combination of Athletics and Running was more than adding two things together; it was a synergy that was more than the sum of its own parts.

** ATHLETICS (LV8): Your physical stamina is increased by LV*(LV*0.15)%. [9.6%]

** RUNNING (LV5): Your base running speed and endurance is increased by LV*4%. [20%].

If I understood that, then it was little wonder I hadn’t noticed that big a difference, as it wasn’t until I reached level seven in Athletics that the second part of the formula was greater than one. At level three, it was only increasing my “physical stamina” by a little over one per cent! And even at level seven, the functional multiple of my level was still under one.

I used some of my precious paper to plot each level on an x and y axis; like this, it was an algebra problem. It was a clear non-linear function, just like we had recently been taught in the Church Schola, and I discovered that it curved up quite a bit the higher the level was. At my current level of level eight, it was only a 1.2 multiple of my level, but at level fifty, it became a 7.5 multiple or a staggering 375% increase!

Plus, running also gave me an increase in my “endurance” while running, which I felt was exactly the same thing as “physical stamina.” I frowned, not entirely sure how to add two percentages together. I would think it would compound, though; if so, I would probably eventually be able to run a very long time, indeed!

Already, Sister Lucia had commented on it, saying that I had a good aptitude for physical training and suggesting I seek a career in the Imperial Guard. I asked her if I could become a Sword Sister like her, and she smiled and shook her head. Apparently, her “Order Militant” only took girls who were enrolled at special Scholas. Only orphans whose parents died in the service of the Emperor attended these hallowed places.

She told me a little bit about her time there, and I was a little relieved I was not there. It sounded like every single child was inspected and monitored every single moment of the day there for numerous factors. I would have already outed myself with just the minute amount of witchery I had done a couple of weeks ago. Also, it would have become hard to hide my non-linear growth, even just running around the Church every day for too much longer. Oh, and I definitely didn’t want my dad to have died to let me get admitted, neither.

I was a little bit disappointed that I could never be a Sword Sister like her, but if I had to be honest, I didn’t feel as though that path would have entirely suited me either. When I asked her how her Power Sword worked, she frowned and just showed me the mechanism to turn it on and off, as well as a prayer she said when she needed to use it. Although the prayer was a little bit interesting, that wasn’t what I meant.

The Sister’s voice called me out of my reverie, “Girl! You’ve done fairly well these past couple of weeks. I was worried you wouldn’t be able to handle the actual training, but you’ve been doing better and better. I think it’s time. Sit, listen.”

I was excited and sat in front of her as she paced. We weren’t the only people here, as some of her subordinates also used this space, and occasionally, she would glance at or correct one. They only swung swords here, as apparently there was a different area for shooting. She said, lecturing, “There are many ways to increase your self-discipline, but fundamentally, they all progress from a single principle. Can you guess what it is?”

I frowned in thought and remembered back to my last couple of weeks, “Doing things you hate to do?”

She opened her mouth to correct me, her hands held behind her just like my dad did when he lectured his soldiers. She closed her mouth, paused, and then shook her head and said, “No… but that is a pretty good guess. It’s delayed gratification. Perseverance.”

Huh? “Let me give you some examples of activities that will increase your willpower over time. Never eat to satiety. Never sleep long enough that you feel completely rested when you wake up. Prolonged physical exercise. Eat blander foods. Don’t touch yourself sensually or have congress with males,” she added the last as an afterthought, which caused me to blush bright red, and I sort of understood what she was saying now. If it felt nice, don’t do it, I guessed.

I really, really liked sleeping. It was one of my favourite activities. My expression must have shown on my face because she chuckled, “If you hadn’t noticed, these are all things that require a bit of self-discipline to accomplish themselves, which makes training them hard. That’s why people rarely make good progress when trying to do this on their own. That’s why we’re here today. I can’t follow you around all day, but there is a proven way to jumpstart this process. I have to warn you that it is both painful and unpleasant. Are you willing?”

I blinked, considered that and finally nodded, asking, “Yes, I think so!”

“Well, we shall see,” she said cryptically before saying, “Stand up!”

I did so, and she pulled out a device that looked like a small circle. I tried to Observe it but couldn’t lock onto it with my eyes before she hid it in the palm of one of her hands. She then made an upward motion with her hands, “Alright, then. Take your shirt off.”

I blushed and glanced around. This was public, basically! What was she asking? She rolled her eyes and said, “None but my Sisters use these gardens until at least two hours after Sunrise, and I assure you that you don’t have anything they haven’t already seen. In fact, I’d say you have nothing, full stop. Now off, girl. Now.” Ouch, that last line hurt my budding self-esteem, but it wasn’t inaccurate.

Sighing, I lifted my shirt, and as soon as I had the shirt mostly over my head, blocking my head, I felt something cold on the centre of my chest, under my mostly non-existent breasts. Immediately, I could feel something wrapping around my chest, something like a cord around my middle and two cords around each of my shoulders.

She then stopped me before I had my shirt all the way off and pulled it back down to cover myself. Frowning, I lifted my collar and peered down at my chest. The little black circle was stuck to my chest. It sprouted cords or wires and wrapped around my body, holding it in place. I finally used my Observe skill on it.

[Agonizer, programmed and deployed, agonisers have a myriad of uses in the Imperium of Man, but functionally they all deliver a certain amount of pain to the wearer if certain conditions are met.]

Oh, poop. I asked, trying to sound curious and not afraid, “What is this? Is this something you and your Sisters use for your training?”

She snorted, “My Sisters? No. They’re pretty commonly used in the Schola Progenium, though, yes, but I haven’t used one of these since I was eight years old. We definitely didn’t have any with our equipment. I had to borrow this from the Arbites office; then I had to track one of the Tech-Priests around to assist me in reprogramming it; these devices are mostly used in peacekeeping. We’ll have to return it in a few months.”

** [QUEST] New quest, Brutal Training Montage! Difficulty: D. Successfully complete the training as planned by Sister Superior Lucia until she is forced to return the Agonizer to the planetary peacekeepers at year’s end.

** [QUEST] Rewards: Three stat points, one level in Willpower and two levels in Self-Discipline skill.

** [QUEST] On Failure: Sister Superior Lucia will likely no longer assist you.

The new year was over three months away! I briefly read the quest, getting an idea of the difficulty ratings it chose. I didn’t know that I agreed. Instead of yelling about months, I asked, “How is this useful in peacekeeping? What does it do?” Also, I wanted to ask what a Tech-Priest was. I had heard the term before in a couple of books in the Church, but the details were very sparse.

“Ah, I was waiting for you to ask. You are a very predictably curious little girl. That might kill you some day. Let me demonstrate,” she said, in a tone that I could only describe as evil. Immediately after that, my body was wracked with pain, almost causing me to fall to my knees. As quickly as it happened, it stopped. I didn’t quite have tears in my eyes, but that hurt quite a lot. I tried my best to glare at her.

“I like those eyes, girl, but you’re a hundred years too early to glare me to death,” she said with a smirk, although her eyes seemed softer than usual, “To answer your question… it causes pain, and safely. It can do this safely because it knows a lot about the body of the wearer, and it has an internal cogitator. The most common use is against lawbreakers—you can set any number of ways for it to be set off. For example, the most common is being too close to a specific person. Perhaps a man beat his wife unlawfully. This man is a productive member of society, though; a planetary Arbites might put this on him and program it to go off if he approaches too close to his wife again for a period of time. This keeps the lawbreaker a productive member of society, instead of worse punishments which might tend to render his value to the Imperium minimal.”

She shrugged, “But that is only the barest minimum of how it can be used. Your planetary peacekeepers weren’t too much help, Emperor save their incompetent skin, so I had to find one of the few cogboys in the city to help me. Remember all those things I told you not to do? Well, you can’t do them, now,” she paused and then said, “Well, except taste. This thing doesn’t know what food you eat tastes like, so continue eating as you like, but it can tell if you feel full. Don’t.”

Is it too late to back out of this? “Most of the functions won’t kick in until tomorrow. It needs a baseline on your body, for example, how much sleep you actually need. After that, it will wake you up when you have received a healthy, not comfortable, amount of sleep. I don’t think it will take you long to wake up on your own after that. However, one thing we can do today.” She pointed like she had most days, “Run!”

I sighed internally; although this sounded more and more awful, I saw the logic behind it, but it was only because I had my secret numbers. If I didn’t have any way to gauge my progress, I think I would see this as nothing but torture. I yelped when she gave my butt a slap and started running. As soon as I started running, I felt the device vibrate on my chest and wondered what the heck that meant.

I didn’t have to wonder long as Sister Lucia was running apace with me. She wasn’t wearing her armour this morning, and it looked like she barely considered this exercise, “If it worked correctly, you should have felt a vibration, yes?”

I nodded and decided speaking was an unnecessary use of oxygen.

She said, “Okay, now you’re in ‘exercise mode.’ It won’t let you stop running until it feels that you’re actually exhausted. Don’t worry; it won’t let you hurt yourself. I know you’ve run until you’ve felt exhausted before, but I guarantee you had more promethium in the tank, and you just didn’t know it. You’re about to find out now, though! You’ll have to do this at least once a day!”

This was going to be awful; I just knew it.

---

It had been two weeks since then, and I was right. It had been awful. If I didn’t run fast, I got shocked, so it forced me to run at close to my current maximum speed for almost an hour. When the circle vibrated again, I made the assumption that it was letting me stop because I couldn’t really run anymore, anyway. I had been correct, and I just lay on the ground panting for some time.

I immediately went home and spoke with my dad, saying I didn’t think I was strong enough to continue any of this. He sat me down and told me that both the Sisters at the Schola, as well as Sister Lucia, had been incredibly impressed with me and if I persevered that I might end up being much more important than even he was, but if I was sure I couldn’t do it, he would talk to them.

I told him I would try it as long as I could. Not only not to disappoint him, but I thought the Sisters in the Schola hated me as they kept piling on more work I had to do.

The first week was the most difficult, and I very nearly gave in a few days into it. It was only chance that stopped me. When I went to tell my dad that I wanted to quit, he was out of the house. By the time he got back, I had changed my mind. I had gotten a number of levels in both Running and Athletics, as well as gotten eight levels in a new skill called Pain Tolerance and seven levels in a skill called Fatigue Resistance.

** PAIN TOLERANCE (LV8): Reduces the sensation of pain by (LV*2)+LV*(LV*0.06)% [19.84]. After level thirty, you gain an additional sense, intellectually delivering the information about pain and if it is resulting in actual damage to your body.

** FATIGUE RESISTANCE (LV7): Reduces the amount you need to sleep to be fully rested by (LV*5) [35] minutes.

I had already noticed the difference that both of these skills were giving me. The pain tolerance was a little confusing, but after doing the math, I figured out that level thirty reduced pain by over a hundred per cent. That was a lot, and I guessed the “additional sense” was supposed to be a replacement for pain. Eventually, when the skill got high enough that I could barely feel any pain, the skill itself might become a hazard, as it might be easy to hurt myself. Suppose I couldn’t feel pain at all; who knows what would happen if I accidentally put my hand on the stove? Would I only notice when I heard the sizzling sound of my flesh cooking?

The fatigue resistance was already paying dividends, actually, but I noticed that the little circle on my chest wasn’t recalibrating my “optimum amount of sleep”, so I was sleeping, in effect, longer each night. That was good if I wanted to cheat the agoniser, but if I could get this skill to about level one hundred, then would I not need to sleep at all? Although I loved sleep, that sounded amazing. I wanted to find out, so I set my alarm clock to thirty-five minutes minus the time I would get shocked, which was about four hours and forty-five minutes; then, every time I gained a level, I would subtract five minutes again.

Taking almost half of my sleep time away from me did give me enough time that I had finally been able to disassemble my flashlight. I used Observe to look at each individual part until I identified the corrosion. I didn’t really know what I was doing, but I just carefully cleaned everything, being extremely careful and working very slowly. It took about two hours, and when I was looking at the parts that appeared clean, I got another skill.

[Skill Electronics Repair gained at LV1.]

** ELECTRONICS REPAIR (LV1): Increases the speed and efficiency of repairing electronics by (LV*10)+(LV*0.1) [10.1%]. Every five levels, you will receive general electronics knowledge transmitted to your brain.

That was very, very interesting. It was almost exactly the same wording as my “Cleaning” and “Cooking” skills, and I realised I did know a lot more about tricks about cleaning. I hadn’t really noticed it, but I suppose that information had been added to my brain when I was unconscious. I had gained enough levels of Cooking on the several week-long trips here that I did notice when strange information about cooking was added to my mind, especially when they were about ingredients I had never tasted and techniques I had never seen used.

In fact, my mom had made me teach her a couple of the recipes that came to my head, especially the simple omelettes that we could make over a fire and in quantity.

I wondered why some of my skills, like Warp Resistance, were more ambiguous about the benefits they were giving me, whereas Running and Reading, for example, were very explicit. For example, I could read LV*25 words more a minute, although it did say that it would be reduced if I wasn’t fluent.

Maybe I would need to reach a certain level in those skills before it gave me precise numbers. I was beginning to really like precise numbers, I thought, as I reassembled my flashlight. Given my previous Observe of the item, I pointed it well away from my face before turning it on. I still almost blinded myself with just the reflection of light off my bedroom wall, quickly turning it off before finding the correct knob and adjusting it to be very low.

For the other knob, I had to press a button, and then the knob popped out and rotating it changed the colour of the beam, which I thought was very interesting. The light disappeared both when I turned it all the way to the right as well as all the way to the left, but holding my hand up to the end of the light; I felt warmth when the knob was in the latter position. Hmm, it was something to think about.

For now, it was time to go to bed.