Wakespire: Chapters 14-15 (Patreon)

Notes after the chapters, this time.

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Chapter 14

For a couple days after the incident, Theo focused on polishing work, never pushing himself to exhaustion just in case they would be attacked. Eventually he accepted that the matter wouldn't turn into a larger problem. Compared to worlds like Deuxan, Noven did a better job of avoiding feuds by escalating everything to higher authorities, who were generally invested in the status quo.

At least, the cultures he'd seen did. Theo tried to set aside his assumptions and just focus on soulcrafting.

The brief conflict with the Dortorus team had left him a little dissatisfied, yet for once he didn't think he needed to change his strategy. If he fixed the problem with the alacrispark, resolved a few minor issues, and ascended, his blueprint would work perfectly. In fact, based on how the Authorities had fought and how Fiyu had even managed to trade a few blows with one, he suspected that he wouldn't need to worry about 10th class Noveni Authorities.

Which meant he was back to the same old problems. Without a lightegg, all he could do was make some more bricks, do a little more polishing, and-

"Give Senka yummies!"

She crawled up over the side of the balcony railing and then flopped to the floor. Theo sighed.

"Seriously, give me some sporping food! I haven't eaten in ages." Senka, suddenly speaking much less playfully, tossed a sack in his direction. He negated its momentum instinctively with an anchoring point and pulled it closer, meanwhile gesturing toward the nearest table.

"There's lots of manna over there. Assuming it tastes fine to you?"

"Everything tastes equally awful." Senka hopped up onto the table and began shoving fistfuls of the pellets into her mouth, so Theo took the time to examine what she had brought him.

Instead of random rubbish, the sack contained several sublime materials. The heaviest slid out first: a number of dark stones that appeared ordinary enough until they caught the light. They seemed to alternate between soaking up the sunlight and expelling it in flashes. Less dramatic but perhaps more powerful was a rough blue material that puzzled him until he abruptly recognized it as fragments of bark. Like the pieces he'd taken off oak trees as a kid, a very long time ago.

"Winterbark and lightstriker stone," Senka said between fistfuls. "Maybe not the strongest materials, but they have some rare qualities."

"Modulating energy," Theo said softly as he turned them over in his hands. The winterbark had seemed ordinary at first, color aside, but now he realized that it was manipulating heat. "Exactly the sort of thing I needed for the alacrispark. You collected these for me?"

"Stole 'em."

Theo sighed and looked up toward Senka, who didn't look even slightly guilty. "Look, I know I don't have much room to talk, but did you steal these from someone who needed them?"

"I stole it from a cruel and ugly man who was, at the moment of the theft, kicking a small child." She stopped eating long enough to stare at him. "In all the chaos over that fight, it was easy to slip into a warehouse. Trust me, it won't be traced back to you."

That hadn't been his concern... but the ethical question fell away as he realized the potency of the materials in his hands. He hadn't been planning on creating the modulating materials on his own, but it was well within his capabilities. What he needed to do was have the heat of the alacrispark absorbed by the winterbark and the light channeled into the lightstriker stone. If he crafted everything right, the result should neutralize all the disruptive cantae and return his spherical flow to perfection.

"Thank you, Senka." He made sure to look away from his work long enough to really smile at her. "Are you doing alright? I haven't seen you much lately."

"Other than this, I've been trying to rest up. I need to conserve my strength." She swung her legs over the edge of the table, one atop the other, and for a moment looked more like the adult she was. "I don't mind supporting you for now, but after you reach Authority... we should be able to help each other."

"Well, thanks to this, that day will come a little sooner."

Senka nodded to him briefly, then flopped onto her side and rolled away. He hesitated when she went over the side of the table, but she just squawked and kept rolling over the floor. Best to leave Senka to her Senkaisms.

There was so much work to do, and so little time before the next round of the Wakespire.

~ ~ ~

When Nauda had been an adolescent, she'd been forced to physically train until her fists were bloody. Somehow, years later and worlds away, she found herself engaging in very similar training. This time she was using a staff, and the object she struck was a stone pillar instead of a wall, but the process was much the same. The aches and pains were like old friends.

This time, the only thing pushing her was herself.

Soulcrafting in their private rooms was well and good, but she couldn't very well practice her physical skills without disrupting Fiyu and Theo. She'd left to find some kind of public park and instead stumbled across what appeared to be a training palace. The outside was as bright as the others, but the interior was mostly practical stone.

That included pillars for soulcrafters to strike. It was mostly just Noveni with physical specialties, of course, but there were more of those than she expected. There were Rulers leaving cracks through the stone despite the fact that they weren't using any cantae. They had all regarded Nauda skeptically, even after she paid the entry fee, and only ignored her after watching her train.

As important as the physical aspect was, her training was primarily dedicated to mastering the techniques she already possessed. Each round she struck the pillar with her binding technique, then switched to her glove to test nullification, then retreated while sweeping a ward across the floor with one foot. It wasn't like fighting a real opponent, but she needed all her skills available in an instant.

While she trained, she considered her newest work in her soulhome. Remembering what Theo had said, she'd been focusing on her staff tower. The second floor had cantae from all three techniques swirling in it and she needed to improve her discipline to be able to use any of them at a moment's notice.

The third floor of her staff was still mostly empty, as it was in her death tower. Nauda had completely accepted that absence and only soulcrafted to improve what she had. If they did well enough to win the round after next, maybe she could get some new materials. For the time being, she needed to put all her effort into helping the others win.

Once she was too tired to train further, Nauda retreated from the pillar to one of the other rooms. She took a drink of water from a large gold fountain, completely numb in both body and spirit. There were other soulcrafters training around her and most gave her polite enough nods.

Looking over them reminded her that she wasn't as far behind as she felt. The Wakespire wasn't just the best local soulcrafters, it was a gathering of elites. Here in a normal training area, most were base soulcrafters and Rulers weren't all that common. She seemed to get more respect than she had expected, though everyone kept asking her about her Ruler class and she didn't know what to answer.

If they respected her, could she get them to spar with her? The truth was that she had the sparring partners she needed in her allies, so what she really needed was living punching bags. Most of her staff techniques relied on directly fighting other cantae, so she could only get so far on her own.

Before she could follow that train of thought, Nauda noticed a young man munching on something. It was roughly the color of the usual manna, but shaped like a disc. Even from a distance, she could smell a sweet scent she didn't associate with Noveni food. It might have been rude, but she automatically walked over to take a look.

"Excuse me, may I ask what that is?"

"This?" He blinked down at his food. "Uh, it's a manna cake. Just the usual held together by a fruit syrup. Really sweet, I know, but I like it for training."

"Huh." It was one of the first times she'd seen much innovation in Noveni cooking and the scent triggered a new idea."

"Um, do you want some?" He started to break off a piece, so she had no social choice but to accept.

"Thank you very much." Nauda popped it into her mouth and... it tasted like sweeter manna. She smiled at him to try to take the edge off anything improper about the whole encounter and moved away thinking about it.

If she ever told others about the revelation that had just come to her, she would need to edit the story or she'd sound silly. Her first thought about the manna cake had been that she should use some sort of honey to improve the flavor. Only after thinking about that did she remember that she had sublime bees in her soulhome producing honey, and only then had it occurred to her that she might be able to produce sublime food with healing properties.

At the moment her soulhome wasn't developed enough to create anything extraordinary and her output volume would always be limited by the sublime bees. But they had been producing more than enough, so perhaps she could use the excess for something. Outside her soulhome the quantity would be small, but if she collected it and mixed it with manna...

Nauda was so fixated on her idea that she barely noticed when someone walked up next to her.

"Is there something I can do to help?" Isorales asked. He looked extremely out of place in the stone training hall and seemed entirely conscious of it.

"With my training?" She smiled wryly as she spoke, because she'd been expecting this conversation ever since they'd gotten back to Ugustial.

"I guess so, in a long term sense." Isorales glanced around the area nervously. "Listen, is there somewhere we can talk more privately? I have a proposition for the Wakespire."

"I was thinking about going back anyway," Nauda said. "If you're serious about making some sort of agreement, you'll need to talk to the others anyway."

Isorales either agreed with that plan or he was bullied into following her. The sleigh was sitting outside the palace where she'd left it, bound in several rings of wards. While she removed them, Isorales examined the sleigh and ran his hands over it appreciatively.

"This is well-made, but very strange... you can't have gotten it from here."

"It's from Deuxan," Nauda explained as she hopped inside, "but we've made some changes since then."

"I think I like it. So many of our ships are flat. But, uh... I guess that's not important..."

He trailed off as they began flying. It was obvious that the conversation needed to move to the real topic, but he didn't seem inclined to get there. Nauda decided to give him time, since it was a ways across Ugustial anyway. Eventually he took a deep breath and began speaking.

"I should tell you right away that I don't have access to the full resources of the Jadadictus lineage." Isorales shifted uncomfortably in the seat behind her. "I'm not exactly the most respected member of the family. But I've been carried by my allies through two rounds, so I do have some sublime materials."

"Speaking of your family, is there any conflict we should know about?" Nauda asked. If his Stronghold grandfather had come to rescue him, he must be reasonably important, but every other detail suggested that he carried baggage with him.

"Oh, that's nothing complex. My grandfather made our lineage one of the most powerful in the city, but his children... well, I shouldn't judge. Our reputation got worse... my parents were the responsible ones, but they're not geniuses like Grandfather. They had pinned all their hopes on me turning things around and... I've been a pretty big disappointment."

Nauda couldn't really relate to any of what he said, but she could see the wounds in his behavior. She continued guiding the sleigh for a time before she realized what question she needed to ask. "What do you want from us?"

"Help in the next round." Isorales spoke too quickly, then swallowed and shrank back. "You saw me fail before, right? If I'm going to reach Authority, there are materials I need. My parents' blueprint requires rare materials and they're hard to find. This sublime legacy might be my only chance for decades."

"And the materials you need are in the next round?"

"That's right. Everything else, they've already bought me, for all the good it did. So I want you to help me win the next round."

She glanced over her shoulder and raised an eyebrow. "I assume you're not asking us to go beat up the Dortorus teams."

"N-no! Nothing like that!" Isorales shook his head slowly. "But there's only one Jadadictus team left after that fight, so I won't have any blessings from the others. And if they decide to target me, I'll be in trouble. You could still get a decent score while helping me win the round."

Since it wasn't solely her decision, Nauda didn't respond right away. Their flight had taken them back to the palace, and instead of going through the main entrance she stopped the sleigh beside the balcony. As she got out, she saw that Fiyu was watching her carefully as if concerned. Theo sat cross-legged, still soulcrafting, but she could feel his cantae building.

"Easy, everyone, I just brought someone here to talk." She turned to wave to Isorales, but he was tripping over his robes trying to get out of the sleigh. "We have a proposal from the Jadadictus family and I think we should at least hear him out."

Guchiro was absent, so it was just the three of them listening while Isorales explained the situation again. He fumbled over his words a lot more, no doubt due to the audience. Fiyu could be absolutely inscrutable with her mask covering her eyes, and Theo's default expression was a glare. Eventually he managed to get out the suggestion, which didn't improve Theo's mood at all.

"If you need to win," Theo said, "that's a tall order. Just naming you in a Room of Blessing is nothing - we already did that last time and it wasn't enough."

"That... that's true." Isorales dropped his eyes to the table. "And I'm grateful for it... that's part of the reason I approached you."

"Then do you really have a plan at all?"

"I want you to run interference in the spiraling room. If we combine the best remaining Jadadictus soulcrafters, we can get there first, I've tested it. You're fast too, so you'll be just behind. If you stay, you can hold back the others. Just for a while, then follow." As he spoke, Isorales seemed to get caught up in his plan and his stammer disappeared. "After the tenth floor they introduce duel rooms, and that's the only part of the spire that's predictable. Fights are determined by arrival time; I've analyzed every fight and I'm sure of it. So if you arrive at the same time and throw the match, we'd have a huge advantage."

Theo folded his arms skeptically. "That might work, but you're asking us to dedicate an entire round to helping you. What do you have to offer that would be equal to that?"

"This." Isorales reached into his soulhome and set a lightegg onto the table.

Nauda was sure it was a lightegg just from the way Theo stiffened and then tried to hide his reaction. After hearing so much about the material, the dull white sphere surprised her. In terms of cantae it was far more impressive, unbelievably dense layers upon layers of sublime power. Fiyu appeared fixated on it and Nauda could only wonder what she was seeing with her special senses.

"This, uh... that's the material you wanted, right?" Isorales must have misinterpreted their silence, because he stumbled on. "The Dortorus prince just wanted to stop you from getting the lighteggs as payback. They weren't the first choice, because they're generally too hard to use. I don't think I can use them at all, actually. I chose these as my reward because I hoped this deal would work out, so..."

Theo sighed and rubbed his forehead. "You might not want to bring your most valuable playing piece directly into someone else's territory."

"You... wouldn't steal it, would you?"

"And you might not want to tell someone you're negotiating with that you don't have another option."

"That is... a good point." Isorales swallowed and sat back. "But you wouldn't tell me that unless you were planning to agree, right? I took the complete set and I think you want to trade for them all."

"The lighteggs are a good start, but it's not enough." Theo leaned forward, gaze piercing Isorales. "I want your grandfather to build sublime statues for us. Not for now, for a later tier."

"I definitely can't do that. He wouldn't listen to me, and he hasn't made anything even for family members in years."

"Surely he can offer something else?" Nauda asked. She glanced toward Theo as if to plead, but judging from his look, he'd just been negotiating hard. Helping him pin Isorales hadn't been her plan, but it was too late, so she might as well play the role.

Since Fiyu didn't object, they began negotiations for what they'd receive in return for their assistance. Theo seemed to view the lighteggs as his payment, so he had been negotiating for the two of them. Fiyu said that she wasn't sure what she wanted and deferred her payment for later. It didn't take Nauda long to realize what she needed: an armament specialist to help her with her nullification glove.

As they finalized their agreement, Nauda flexed her gloved hand repeatedly. She wasn't sure if this alliance would help or hurt them, but she knew exactly what she needed to do.

-

Chapter 15

When Fiyu could no longer work on her own soulcrafting, she would examine her lightegg. It really was a curious artifact. She had encountered stranger sublime materials, but none that seemed so simultaneously powerful and inaccessible. The process the sublime beasts used to create it packed cantae-dense materials so closely that the result seemed impenetrable.

She had examined it with her relative, analyzing how the pieces could be broken apart to enhance a soulhome. The process was a reasonable one with clear benefits, but the lightegg was simply too... light. The dark ground of her soul couldn't absorb such a bright material.

Fiyu was not overly concerned for herself, especially because her relative told her that he had special plans that would assist her. She was certain that Friend Theo would be terribly disappointed that she couldn't use his gift, however.

At the moment she sat in her room, maintaining a shield of darkness while soulcrafting her enhancement chambers. Even if their goal was new capacities, she wanted to be less fragile so that she could keep up with her friends. The fact that they were not aiming for victory changed nothing about her desire to perform as well as possible.

Before she could make much progress, Friend Theo entered the room. Intending to ask more questions about precise soulcrafting on his sensory chamber, no doubt. Betrayer Senka was clinging to his leg, babbling something, and because Friend Theo was ignoring her, Fiyu resolved to do the same.

"I am afraid I cannot use this." She withdrew the lightegg from her home and set it on the floor in front of her. "The substance of it is not appropriate for the theme of my soulhome."

"I was afraid of that." Friend Theo didn't reach down to take it back, instead frowning at the sublime material. "Normally, I'd wonder if we could hire someone who could convert it, but the lighteggs are probably too dense for that."

"Would you be able to use a second?"

"No, I think one egg will be all my foundation can absorb." At that moment Betrayer Senka lunged for the lightegg and Friend Theo snapped it up before she could slobber all over the surface. "Well, we can try to find something appropriate for you."

"Are you here with questions regarding your gravitational sense again? That would be very surprising." Fiyu made her attempt at a sort of lyingwit hesitantly and was relieved when Friend Theo smiled. All the tight muscles in his shoulders and arms relaxed just a little.

"Alright, I guess I'm predictable these days. Is it a problem?"

"Not at all. But I wanted to ask you a question first."

"Go ahead."

"Do you intend to ascend before the next round of the Wakespire?" Fiyu asked. She made sure to remove her smile so that he would know she was serious. "It will make a difference in strategy, including my answers to your soulcrafting questions."

Friend Theo didn't answer for some time. His eyelids were closed, but she could sense his eyes twitching underneath as he considered. "It depends. If I manage an ascension, it would be at the last minute and I wouldn't be able to show anyone my true potential at Authority. I'm not sure if surprise has more value in this contest."

"But you will do what is best for your long term progress, I am sure."

"As always." Friend Theo smiled again as if she had been jesting, but she had been entirely serious. Fiyu gestured for him to join her and set her mind to the newest questions.

~ ~ ~

Nauda had believed she had seen Theo soulcrafting obsessively. She had been wrong.

With only a few days left until the next competition, he worked like a madman. He no longer shaved or combed his hair, and sometimes even failed to bathe. When their gazes met, his eyes were like clear windows with nothing but an endless stream of calculations and sublime materials behind them. While he lived and breathed the details of his soulhome he often forgot to eat and she wouldn't put it past him to forget to breathe if it was possible.

So when he called for her, she knew exactly what it would be about. "Can you use your telescope?" he asked, without looking up from his drawing. "I need an outside eye to check that I'm not missing anything."

"I'll do what I can, but I'm not sure what I can accomplish at this stage." She put a hand on his shoulder and slipped into his soulhome.

It looked much like it had since he'd reached Ruler, but far more elaborate than she'd ever seen it. Carvings covered every available surface with patterns specific to the room. He'd added dozens of minor enhancing materials, soulcrafted into frames and bases and ornaments. They couldn't do more than improve his cantae, efficiency, or abilities by a tiny fraction, but he was increasingly obsessive about the details.

"The sphere is solid," Theo said as he rose into the air through his central shaft, "but there are so many details. I'm afraid that I'll start to ascend and realize a brick is out of place or I left some tool lying out."

"A missing brick could cause trouble, but would a random tool really do any damage?"

"Well, no, but it could distract me at a critical moment."

As he looked over his soulhome, Nauda was more impressed than anything. She knew about three-dimensional designs, but integrating so many different doors and vents into a giant sphere was something she could never have come up with. Instead of keeping her thoughts to herself, she decided that he could probably use the encouragement for once.

"Honestly, I'm just impressed by the unity of everything," she said. "Even my new design doesn't have anything like this."

"It will." Theo finally looked up at her, though she had a feeling he saw nothing but her soulhome. "You aren't at full strength at Ruler, but in one or two tiers, when all your towers start unifying and your statue takes shape, you'll start seeing your full potential."

"Well, I'll hope I make it that far."

"You should. Nauda... sorry about this. It's just that I've already gotten a second chance and I want to make the most of it. I know it's not fair to ask y-"

"Actually, I did notice something." Nauda bent down beside his vestibule and tapped on the plants growing alongside his wall. "All your static materials are perfect, but your foundation is a bit overgrown. Are these vines that root of yours? You'd want to trim them back, just not too far."

"Of course! Idiocy... how could I have overlooked something so obvious?" Theo wandered back into his soulhome, muttering to himself.

It seemed as though he'd entirely forgotten about her. Nauda slipped out of his soulhome with a smile on her face and left him to his work.

~ ~ ~

Could anyone ever truly finish a soulhome? The question would have struck him as a stupid truism not long ago, but now Theo woke up in the middle of the night unable to think of anything else.

Not long ago, he'd had a clear list of tasks that remained. Now they were all complete: he'd modulated the alacrispark, polished every surface, and placed the last brick of his pyramid. Yet he couldn't be ready, not yet. There were still carvings he could improve, or rooms that could use another secondary material, or oversights like the grass. Instead of a simple set of clear tasks, he had a dozen shifting lists of possibilities.

Was it foolish to even consider ascending before he had mastery of his gravitational sense? He had stopped making modifications to the chamber itself, as even Guchiro said that he had finished the soulcrafting. Theo's operating theory was that his brain needed time to rewire neurons to adapt to a brand new sense. If his brain was reflected in his soul, then there might be all manner of improvements that he couldn't yet see.

What about the tornadogems? They were rotating in time with his orbit, which was enough to fuse them into his overall cantae flow, but they were ultimately more wind than gravity. Should he build another modulating apparatus to convert the cantae? Or what if he built a tube through the entire floor and had them flow through it? They could directly parallel the horizontal orbit of his cantae. It would require remodeling, but if he-

"Theo." A voice from outside spoke his name, and not for the first time. Soon after a pillow struck his face and he was forced to emerge to look at Fiyu.

"What is it?" He hadn't intended to snap, but the words shot out. So much to do...

"You have been preparing for your ascension very dutifully."

"It has to be perfect. Do you think the treated windows are good enough? I was thinking that I should grind a gravitational material into sand and produce new glass. It would require hiring a high tier artisan, but-"

"Theo, listen to my words."

Something new in Fiyu's tone interrupted the flow of his soulcrafting. Theo slowly released everything he had been planning to say and kept his mouth shut.

"At times you have criticized me for not ascending," Fiyu said. "You did not say as much, but you believed I was spending too much time polishing my soulhome instead of advancing with you."

"I didn't mean to criticize, Fiyu. I just-"

"Please remember that when I tell you that you are delaying." Fiyu knelt down in front of him and touched the side of his head gently. "Theo, you have worked too hard and you are no longer thinking clearly. You cannot endlessly remodel your soulhome. At some point, you must embrace what you have built in order to advance."

"I..." Theo took a deep breath and let it out very slowly. All his foolish plans dissolved and he rubbed his face roughly. "You're right. I'm just rearranging the furniture at this point."

"Then you will ascend?" Fiyu withdrew her hand and smiled at him. Theo had to take another breath before answering.

"Yes. It's finally time."

-

I guess it's minor spoilers to say that the ascension is going to happen, not get interrupted or strung out further somehow. When Theo didn't ascend in Bloodcrete, I saw several people say that inevitably meant he wouldn't ascend until the very end of the seventh book.

Nope. Theo is going to ascend now and then get to spend the rest of the book developing his new abilities. I've been promising advanced abilities at Authority for a while and you're finally going to see them. Hopefully readers will find this format satisfying.

There's a common narrative pattern: 1) Enemy is too powerful for most of book; 2) Protagonist powers up at end of book; 3) Curbstomp enemy. This is well and good, but I don't want to use it all the time. Hopefully this book will be satisfying on its own while also keeping the series as a whole more fresh.

(Obviously we're still going to see more conventional climaxes, ascensions under pressure, and harsh deadlines. There are good narrative reasons for rising action sequences.)

Anyway, this has been a lot of words to say "hope you like it". You'll get to see the ascension next week, then we launch straight into the next round!