“Alright!” Tanya exclaimed, slamming her hands against the table as she decided on her plan. The hand bounced at the force and backed away from her. “Sorry.”
She had a bowl of leftover spaghetti and meatballs from a few days ago that she slid across the table and slurped through between statements. The hand backed away further at the sound of the bowl skidding across the wood. It stamped a finger down, complaining about being jostled.
“Oops,” Tanya said, swallowing her latest mouthful, “Maybe I’m more tired than I thought.”
She pulled up her Attributes. Her Vitality was still only 3/10, and she stumbled a little bit. The bowl clattered to the table and the hand pointed at the chair ahead of her.
“Alright, point taken,” Tanya said, sliding back into the seat. It’s an absolute misery not to pace. After all of the anxiety of the last couple of days and her desperate attempts to work out how this new world worked, it finally felt like she had gotten somewhere. What could beat a sentient hand that would work and fight for her?
“I wanna see what you can do.” Tanya leant forward so she was eye level with the hand and stared forward at it. It didn’t move.
How do I get it to fight?
“Could you like…jab? Or block? Wait, can you even float?”
The hand didn’t move again. She couldn’t tell if it was refusing to or didn’t know what to do. It clicked in Tanya’s brain.
“You have my memories, right?”
The hand tapped once, not seeming to want to go up on its wrist for the sock puppet nod this time.
“One tap for yeah?” Tanya asked.
The hand tapped once again.
“Great. I want you to check my memories for…uh—yeah—when I tried that boxin’ class as a kid.” Tanya grinned, feeling like she’d found some sort of cheat code. She didn’t even need to train it because it could work off her memories but with a higher Dexterity. It had only been a couple of years of classes, but that would be a gold mine with perfect recall.
The hand tapped twice.
“Twice for no…” Tanya asked. Her brow furrowed, and she scratched her neck. That’s not what she expected. “You can’t do that?”
The hand tapped once, then pulled up its own interface above its head again. Tanya still found it so strange, seeing this video game-esque box being controlled by a three-dimensional tattoo. The hand pointed at a specific section,n and it got bigger.
* * *
Mind Meld
Can access your interface, memories and thoughts to varying levels including all of the information and experience you have tattooing.
* * *
Huh?
Tanya spotted it: Varying levels. She didn’t let it dull her excitement. All she needed to do was work out how the memory access worked and how good the hand could do it—surely there’d be something in there, even if it was just some kung fu movie—then Dexterity could do the rest.
She spent a couple of minutes digging around in the interface menu, working out how she could get the memory skill into some sort of percentage.
Cor, too many subheadings. Has it got any visual stuff I could filter out?
The entire menu went haywire—all sorts of headings appeared with graphs and charts in the title. It was the first time Tanya had seen one appear, and despite the link between what she thought was possible and what happened already being something she spotted, seeing it was something else. She skimmed through it, only seeing extra visual ways of displaying information.
A version of what she wanted was deep in that section, a chart with the aspects of Mind Meld and percentages. She hadn’t needed the interface and thoughts section for this, but she didn’t see the harm in having it, and she didn’t want to dig around for a different version when this had already taken longer than she wanted.
The new section appeared underneath the ability.
* * *
Interface: 60%
Memories: 0%
Thoughts: 30%
* * *
Tanya stared at the percentage. Surely that couldn’t be right. She looked up at the hand exploring the kitchen. Right as her eyes laid on it she saw it take a running leap from the dining table to the kitchen counter and nearly miss, grasping onto the lip of the marble and scrambling up.
Holy crap, that gap was a few feet. It’s going to be fine. The memory element is definitely in there so we can just work out how to level that later.
Tanya held her fists up to her face like her old fighting stance and stood up. She adjusted her feet around, trying to work out what position her feet were supposed to be in to defend. The hand spun round to face her, insistently pointing back at the chair again.
“You serious?” Tanya said. Her hands dropped to her sides.
The hand pulled up Tanya’s Attributes, and before Tanya’s eyes, the Vitality section went bold and then got bigger and bigger, like increasing the size on word bit by bit until it forced the other words off of Tanya’s vision.
Vitality: 8/16
“Okay, okay, I get it.” Tanya sat back down again.
Well, I suppose the hand doesn’t have feet anyway.
Tanya held her fists up again and she could feel her new assistant’s watchful eye on her. It only turned around again to inspect the hanging pots and pans when it was sure that Tanya wouldn’t stand up again. She couldn’t tell if it was worried for her or just freaked out in case she made a loud noise again.
Tanya slid around the chair, miming punches until she fell into the groove of it again. She doubted she was doing much of it correctly, but she remembered not to put her thumb inside her fist and to rotate her hips to punch rather than just using her arm. It would be good enough for now.
Tanya looked over to see the hand inspecting itself in the metal pot on her kitchen top. She’d assumed from the corner of her eye that it was interested in the ladle and wooden spoons but she could now clearly see the hand was flexing and posing in its warped, polished metal.
“You can read my mind, yeah?” Tanya said.
The hand jumped in the air, landing with its fingers splayed.
“Oops, sorry,” Tanya chuckled. She double-checked its concentration.
We can work on that first when we’re training, so it don’t get the jitters so much.
“Mind reading?” Tanya asked again.
The hand tapped a finger.
“Can you copy me?” Tanya held her fists up to her face like before in a defensive pose with one hand further forward and the other slightly behind. She double-checked which hand the assistant was first—a thought process she never thought she’d need to have. The hand was a lefty.
The hand hovered just above the tabletop. It wobbled slightly, she assumed balancing like that took some concentration. But Tanya saw the vision—with the hand readied in a fist like her own, she was getting there.
“Blimey, look at you go. This is gonna work.”
The hand landed again. It was doubtful. Again, she wondered how she knew things like that, complex emotions that the hand couldn’t express with just fingers. It was like an aura, perhaps, she could just tell how it was feeling, kind of like reading the dog she’d had growing up but more intense.
“No, no, you were right. Try again.”
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
The hand raised again. Tanya threw a sharp jab, expecting the floating hand to snap forward like an extension of her own body. Instead, it sort of flailed.
She watched the tension in its fist as it moved slightly back ready to spring, then it flew forward. It was a perfect punch, the kind you’d see in a slow motion shot, until it wasn’t. Midway through it lost its balance and spun in the air like a drunk bird, landing on its back with a nasty slap.
“It’s alright, you’ll get it next time.”
The hand stamped twice and then bent its knuckles like a hissing cat.
“We can take it slower so you don’t fall,” Tanya added.
The hand stamped twice again, even louder.
Now what?
“Pretty please?” She offered.
The hand turned around.
What the hell am I doin’, talking to a hand.
For the first time that day, Tanya truly acknowledged that she wished she’d not said emotive last.
Tanya sighed. “All right, what do you want?”
The hand spun round.
“You liked the pot right, how about your own mirror,” she offered.
The hand thought for a second and then did a maybe motion, wiggling its flat palm from side to side. Tanya noticed its black nails and she dug through the pile of papers for the one she had in mind. It had slid off onto the floor.
God, I hope this sketch made it in.
She picked it up and showed it to the hand. It was the sketch of the hand holding out its nails, each a different colour thanks to the highlighters she’d noticed on the side.
The hand didn’t even tap this time, it did the full sock puppet nod.
“I’ll paint your nails—but—only if you finish training with me first.” Tanya analysed for any loopholes. “And you do everything I say to…and try your best.”
The nod was a bit half-hearted, but it still nodded.
Tanya’s breath caught in her throat as a familiar sensation tingled down her chest and through her spine.
Another Ability?
* * *
Congratulations!
You have unlocked a new Ability.
* * *
An Inkling of Control
Level 1
Your magical connection allows you influence over your Sentient Summons. Commands usually require either Attribute contesting or a barter depending on the Summon.
* * *
Tanya grinned. So this was working. She held her hands up. “Let’s try again?” The hand copied.
After a few more painful-sounding crashes and an incredibly angry hand, Tanya had finally given in to the thought that had been niggling at the back of her mind for the last few minutes.
This hand may have been created by Tanya, and it seemed to have some understanding of the things she’d learnt, but it didn’t have her muscle memory. She watched it move its thumb from the inside of the fist to the outside with curiosity before she’d even been able to prompt it, and the way that the punches had adjusted felt thoughtful, but nothing could beat practice.
It dawned on her.
Oh no.
Tanya raced over to the table, ushering over the hand. She picked up her tattoo gun and scrambled to peel one of the slightly mushy tangerines in her fruit bowl. She laid it down in front of the hand and passed the tattoo gun to it. The hand keeled over, them both falling to one side. Before Tanya could pick it up, the hand pushed it back up.
She couldn’t deny how bad the technique was. Rather than grasping it more like a large pen, the hand was propping it against itself more like someone would carry a cupboard. It used a pointer finger to steady it and slowly marched the pen in a wobbly line.
Tanya could feel the frustration emanating off the hand. With each adjustment, Tanya could imagine the information it was using to make the change, and because of the weigh,t it just couldn’t manage it.
It was during one of these tests that Tanya opened its interface.
* * *
Name: Assistant
Wielder: Tanya Angelo
Type: Sentient
Level: 1
Attributes
Strength: 4/6
Dexterity: 12/15
Vitality: 4/10
Concentration 3/6
Will: 3/17
Abilities
Mind Meld
Can access your interface, memories and thoughts to varying levels including all of the information and experience you have tattooing.
Interface: 60%
Memories: 30%
Thoughts: 30%
* * *
Crap, so the percentage section don’t tell me how much it can access, just how much it is.
She removed it from the Interface. Hunting around for something to replace it with, she came across a section titled Skills. Rather than having a list of options, it just had a search box. She tried combat and it appeared before her. Before she could click on it, she noticed that beside it, it said:
Combat (Not Recommended)
After a few more searches, she thought she’d gotten it; broad categories weren’t recommended. She settled on adding hand-to-hand combat and tattooing to this new skills section.
* * *
Skills:
Hand to hand combat: 12%
Tattooing: 8%
* * *
Tanya was surprised to see it used percentages. She fiddled some more with the interface section, changing each time. Then she paused, eyes locked on the current iteration.
* * *
Skills:
Hand-to-hand combat: 12% (1.8)
Tattooing: 8% (1.2)
* * *
She grabbed a piece of paper and scribbled some numbers down. The humming of the tattoo gun paused then started up again, Tanya didn’t look up. She mumbled the calculations under her breath as she scrawled across the page.
It worked- the numbers work- Skills are a percentage of the Attribute they use!
Tanya opened her interface. Her tattooing was 100%. She reasoned that wasn’t due to her being perfect at it, just that her Dexterity was the cap rather than her lack of tattooing knowledge and muscle memory. Her hand-to-hand combat was higher too, at 62%. She considered adding some skills to her own Interface but reasoned against it. She could check on them whenever she needed and she wasn’t really sure what specific combat style or multipurpose skills she would get the most use out of anyway.
Tanya forced her attention back to the hand, mustering a compliment about the still very shaky line on the orange peel.
After a few more tries, all as wobbly as the last, and Tanya, long having run out of supportive comments, the hand finally dropped the pen and held up two fingers like I’m done.
“You said you’d finish the training,” Tanya tried.
The hand flipped her off.
“Well fuck you too then.”
Tanya dug some nail varnish out of a drawer, tipping them side to side to see if they still worked or if they’d solidified since she last used them. She had an endless supply of blacks: matte blacks, gloss black, glitter black. After she had introduced more colour to her wardrobe, she’d given up on the coloured nail polish; she didn’t have enough hours in the day to match them with her outfits, and when they didn’t go, it bugged her. Unfortunately, the hand wasn’t taking it.
“I have loads of different kinds of black,” Tanya offered.
The finger made a fist and slammed against the table.
“Chill out, I’m still havin’ a butcher’s.”
Why the fuck am I finding nail polish for my tattoo.
Tanya seriously considered giving up then and there. She was sure there would be some way to unsummon the tattoo, and maybe with high enough will,l she could try to control it better.
Who am I kiddin’ eh?
Tanya severely doubted she could go through with that. She didn’t know how much sentience a sentient tattoo got, but it still didn’t sit right with her the idea of controlling something that might be alive. She sighed. They didn't have to like each other but they were going to have to work together.
Tanya grabbed an array of the remaining colours and dumped them on the table in front of the hand. The hand was still studying the paper and she caught it running a finger down the sheet wistfully before it noticed her and snatched it back in.
“These are the colours I’ve got, ain’t goin’ out for no more. Take it or leave it.” Tanya stated.
The hand paused for a second then did a gentle tap for yes.
Tanya perched on the end of the table and did each nail one by one. It almost felt like they were bonding until the hand kicked up a fuss about her going outside of the lines until she gave in and got nail polish remover.
Whilst she was doing the second coat she pulled up the hands interface. She’d half been thinking about levelling and half zoning out. Today had been far too long and she was exhausted.
At the top of the hand’s interface, there was a notification.
* * *
Alert!
Through your efforts, you have increased the following Attributes:
Concentration +1
Will +1
* * *
Alert!
Through your efforts, you have increased:
Skill: Hand-to-Hand Combat from 9% to 12%
Skill: Tattooing from 7 to 11%
* * *
Tanya half grinned half grimaced. This wasn’t the tattoo she’d had in mind, but they were going to get there…eventually.
BONUS CHAPTERS
Followers (500):
Ratings (30):
