2473 for Inherited Memory Girl

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Denka had known his oldest daughter was unusual. Ever since being touched by the System at a year old, and somehow surviving, he had kept that incident at the back of his mind. His wife believed that Alice hadn't been touched by the System since none had survived that before but Denka had seen the System window himself. Still, Alice had been well-behaved and apparently normal so he put it out of his mind.
But as Alice grew up, she displayed more patience than some of his fellow villagers, greater insight than the fool next door and adapted to the language blessing in record time. Alice displayed her childish side only rarely, demanding hugs to calm her mother down rather than asking to be comforted.
Still, she was his daughter and he would give thanks to the System that she was growing up well despite the scare when she was a baby. Perhaps she might be beautiful and intelligent enough to attract the eye of some Earth clan Consecrationist and move to a better life. Denka wished only the best for her.
And then came the second Consecration of their village when Alice was five. In the midst of discovering Rishiamaher had inherited more than just looks from that oaf of an Earth Finger, suddenly Alice confessed that she too had a secret.
"I have the memories of a woman named Petra," she said, looking at him. His daughter's eyes had more seriousness now that she had ever displayed. "She lived more than three hundred years ago and left the majority of her work on the System to me. "
Silence at the table was all that greeted her.
"Please don't say this now," Alicia snapped at her, a frown on her face. Denka could already see his wife deciding that she was just trying to attract attention after the revelations of Rishiamaher's father. "We don't need you to distract us while we are discussing a family matter. "
Denka blinked, he didn't know his wife was aware of how Alice tried to manage her mother's anger. Perhaps she just allowed herself to be manipulated, seeing how Alice behaved maturely.
"Your father and I have already discussed this back when I discovered I was carrying your sister," Alicia continued, sighing as she recalled the month after the last Consecration. Denka rubbed her shoulders, hoping she would relax. "Ri, your father is one of the Fingers of Earth and you have inherited his ability. "
Denka watched Alice closely as she hugged Rishiamaher. Ri just stared at her mother, stunned.
"I know. You don't have to worry, we will treat her just like one of our family, no matter who her father is. Right?" Alice said, looking at her two brothers in turn. They were seven and nine years old and they displayed far less calm than a five year old Alice. Denka would not be surprised to find out that Alice had already figured out that something was strange with her half-sister.
Den and Erias were looking at Ri askance but Alice just glared them down. "You will treat our sister just like normal, right?" Alice pressed them. She smiled triumphantly when they just nodded mutely. "Then there's no problem! We're still a family!"
"I told you they would be fine," Denka whispered to his wife, who was watching their children with tears in her eyes, "they can accept it. You know Alice, even her brothers listen to her. "
He watched his wife's face darken as she watched Alice in turn. Their daughter was simultaneously comforting Rishiamaher, who still looked shocked at the revelation, while encouraging her brothers into turn it into a group hug. They only responded gingerly, the universal reaction of young boys trying to look proud and manly and reluctant to display affection.
Sitting there managing her siblings, Alice looked liked a child playing at being an adult, but Denka could see that her efforts were working. Rishiamaher responded to her whispered reassurances and her brothers took her behaviour as a role model. It was only a few minutes, but the rift that he and his wife so feared would tear apart their children was already being repaired.
His wife did not like it however. He could tell she recalled what Alice just said and the incident when she was one that his wife had put out of her mind.
"Let's hear what she has to say first," Denka whispered to Alicia. She frowned but eventually nodded her acceptance. "Alice," he interrupted the children, "I would like you to explain what you said earlier. "
She looked up at him from the middle of her siblings. "I meant exactly what I said. I have the memories of a woman who lived three hundred years ago. Her name was Petra. "
"Does- What about Alice? What did you do to her?" his wife asked and immediately Denka could tell it was the wrong question. His daughter eyes concealed her distress to her brothers and sister but Denka could see his wife had hurt her with the questions.
"I'm not Petra," his daughter said softly. "It's complicated. I'm Alice with a hundred years of memories and some of her maturity. I was one year old when I woke up, almost all of my experiences were Petra's. So I'm not Alice either. But I don't feel like my name should be Petra and I still think you're... mama, please. Please don't cry. I've just grown up a little faster. "
Denka squeezed his wife into a tighter hug as she sobbed. He hadn't expected that his daughter would have suddenly grown up by having a hundred year old woman from before the Collapse give her... her soul? That one night when she was a year old, she had been touched by the System and been granted something very close to a true Blessing of the System.
To have the memories of the legendary Alchemical Kingdom, pre-Collapse with all it's mythical wonders, the storied golden age of mankind. How could it be anything but a blessing? But along with the revelation of Rishiamaher's father being revealed and now this, it felt like the world had conspired to curse their daughters.
This time, for once, Alice didn't try to comfort her mother and instead sat miserably on her stool. Her siblings didn't seem to understand everything but her brothers were already in the position of comforting their youngest sister and now it was Alice's turn to get hugged.
"You're still papa and mama," Alice said, suddenly looking like all five years of her age with the loss of her usual mature confidence and her speech reverting to words she hadn't used since she was three. "And Den and Erias and Ri. I kept secrets, but everyone is still my family. " The fat teardrops rolling down her cheeks mirrored that of his wife.
"I haven't been lying, I am Alice and I am your daughter," Alice continued, "just because I chose to tell you now doesn't mean I've changed. "
As Alice gradually recovered her maturity, no, her mask of sophistication, Denka could see that his wife's lack of response was hurting her worse than anything Alice had ever shown. In a flash of understanding, Denka saw that Alice had seen how they treated Rishiamaher, that her sister was also the subject of a secret and still accepted as part of their family. And so she had decided that her own secret could be shared too.
If they didn't reassure her now, there wouldn't be an Alice to fix a rift that could tear their family apart for she was the target this time. And her siblings were only normal children, not inheritors of a century old soul.
"It's all right," Denka said, drawing attention to himself, "I believe you. I believe that our last four years are not a lie. And... no matter how old your memories might be, you are and will always be my daughter. "
His sons and Rishiamaher only caught his solemn tone but Alice understood what he was saying and nodded gladly. Denka glanced at his wife and saw that she was also starting to believe. Good, perhaps his family wasn't going to fall apart like he had feared at the start of the day.

The rest of the dinner was quiet, but not solemn like when they started. The airing of the secrets still cast a shadow over the rest of the evening but it was in the open and receding.
"So, what was Petra like?" Erias asked. Denka looked at his second son in surprise but realized he shouldn't have been. The boy was the most adventurous of the family and would certainly have been curious. Now that he asked the question however, everyone was paying attention to Alice.
Alice frowned, "driven. She worked for decades, as part of a... team of people. They built on the work done by Database and the System in order to eventually create Skill Share. The last I remember is that it wasn't complete, but she left me a note written after where the memories stop saying that she and her team created Skill Analysis. "
That... what was he supposed to say about that? Alice had started by searching for concepts they could understand but gave up. Most of the middle Denka could see none of his family understood, but Skill Analysis was something universal. It was part of what made Status work, the blessing that recorded what you had learned and what you could do.
It was a cornerstone of society, showing someone your Status panel instantly let them know if your claim that you could do skilled work was true. What was more, Skill Analysis also told you how good you were and whether you recently learnt anything new, and how much you knew compared to the rest of the world. Children grew up aspiring to push the bounds of their favourite skill, to be the one that Skill Analysis would visit with the acclaimed message <New Skill Component Found>. To increment the sum total of human ability.
That Petra was directly responsible for Skill Analysis?
Denka could feel himself wondering again if Alice had just made something up.
She definitely noticed her brothers' skepticism first and huffed, "well, if you don't believe me, I could abuse the System Administrator privileges she left me to turn off your Skill Analysis updates. "
Then she turned her head, blinked a few times in the air and a System panel appeared out of nothing. With not a single voice command. And it wasn't a panel Denka recognized. The reverse text from the opposite side of a System panel was unreadable but the grey blobs next to each line was not something he had ever seen on a System panel before.
"There, I've made my System details visible. I think that's something that's been lost. " Alice said, not knowing she had also done another impossible thing.
"How do you talk to the System without talking?" Erias asked. He was practically bouncing on his stool.
"The voice control is for lazy people," Alice laughed, "it takes some getting used to, but if you visualize talking without actually moving your mouth, the System will still recognize commands. What's more, the System presents hooks so you can control it directly without even needing to think words. It's like having extra fingers. "
Erias of course had to immediately try it, and Denka could see Den and Rishiamaher also attempting to follow Alice's instructions discreetly. But no panels appeared.
Still, that confirmed that Alice knew things she couldn't possibly have known, and could do things with the System that no one else could do. If all that was true, then her story about Petra and Skill Analysis...
"Quiet down a moment," Denka shushed the other children, "Alice, did you mean to say you have memories of Petra, who lived before the First Collapse?!"
Alice tilted her head in confusion, "I don't know what you mean by the First Collapse. "
Denka blinked but then remembered that Alice hadn't heard the legends before. The last travelling storyteller who re-told the Story of the Two Collapses was three years ago and Alice was too young to have heard it at the tavern.
"Let me try to remember," Denka said and paused to gather his thoughts. "Before the First Collapse, the gods built the world. They raised the mountains out of the sea and built cities full of wonders. They created the System to govern the lives of men. But the God of Knowledge was jealous of the works of his fellows and whispered to the Betrayer, an angel who worked for the God of Skills, 'if you could take the work of the God of Skill, with my help, you could become a god too. ' And so the Betrayer fought with the God of Skills just before he was to expand the System and stole his power.
But the angel was not a god and could not control it, the System was corrupted and the cities of men descended into chaos and death. With the last of his strength, the God of Skills sealed away the God of Knowledge and his corruption of the System, and disappeared. The Gods and men were scattered and destroyed. And that was the First Collapse. "
Den had heard the tale before from the storyteller but Erias and Ri hadn't. Their round eyes were not like Alice's however. They were fascinated, while Alice was just confused.
"I... it's not even wrong. " Alice said eventually. What did that even mean? But Alice wasn't done. "There were no gods. Only men and women. And what even is an angel? Your story doesn't tell me anything about what the First Collapse was. "
"An angel is the helper of a god!" Erias piped up helpfully.
Denka added, "if- if Petra lived before the Collapse, then she would remember the great cities of the Golden Age. They were said to be filled with gleaming towers, where people never went hungry or cold, never got sick and never grew old. "
At that, Alice nodded, "yeah, I guess if you didn't know what a skyscraper was, they could be described as shiny towers. And yeah, Petra was never hungry. Ever. She never had a single memory in more than a hundred years where she was hungry. "
She paused for a moment then switched topics, "oh, but that reminds me, I wanted to "