Deathseed: Chapters 31-32 (Patreon)

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Anyway, as for the chapters this week... this is one of those sequences that I am reasonably confident will work well in the book form, but I feel like week to week you have to wait. I think people will be happy with some of the developments next week!

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Chapter 31

As he sat atop one of the termite towers, Theo chewed through his meal without tasting it. He'd fallen into a routine in which food was nothing but fuel to keep him searching and soulcrafting for longer. Sometimes he ate leafpuller goo simply because it was easier than trying to put together a meal. The Arbaian crystals flickered weaker now, almost as if he'd pulled some energy from them, but it wasn't enough to sustain him.

Half of Theo hoped that the termite city would extend forever, because so long as it wasn't fully explored, he might find some amazing new material. The other half wanted to finish the work and be done with it.

The search process would have been an ideal opportunity to do some intensive soulcrafting, if only he'd discovered any appropriate sublime materials to fill his new chambers. Instead he made sure he didn't waste his soulcrafting time by focusing on other objectives. He'd finally made coverings for his ceiling vents out of Arbaian stone, for instance.

After that short term project, he'd switched directly to the extreme long term. Theo picked up another one of the metal bars that he'd won from the Wakespire. Aside from their high stability, the bars were sharply divided between white gold and black sides. If he worked them with a spiritual hammer and a little heat, he could slowly reshape them without losing that characteristic. That made them a perfect match for his soulhome as a whole, with its white exterior and supernova-blackened interior.

As he shaped another plate into a curving half-pipe, Theo glanced at the others he'd already finished. The plan was to create a great ring with a diameter slightly larger than his soulhome. He'd fuse it through the walls of his soulhome, arcing both inside and outside, in order to tie everything together. Hopefully, with an ascension of reinforcement, the result would be sufficient to sustain an Immortality Conduit.

At the moment he didn't have a potent enough method of fusing the metal plates together without leaving flaws, so he was just creating the pieces. Each one required a considerable amount of work, so it was good to get a head start, plus they would all be reinforced by future ascensions. Hopefully once he figured out the remaining details of Immortality Conduits, not to mention whether or not he could possibly fit one into his second set of rooms, he would have materials thoroughly saturated in his own cantae.

The problem was that none of this helped him survive in the near future. Theo might need immortality and eternal youth to eventually confront Vistgil, but he needed immediately practical power if he wanted to beat Esaire.

Creating the Conduit plates was extremely focus-intensive, requiring scrutinization for the slightest flaw, yet his mind still managed to wander. The unfortunate truth was that their thorough looting of the termite city hadn't been as engaging as he expected.

In some ways, that was a good thing. He gained nothing by risking his life in minor conflicts with traps or buried monsters. Both he and Fiyu were cautious and methodical by nature, plus their new power meant that little could truly harm them. The result was that they had marched through the termite city, crushing every challenge in their path through careful preparation and coordination.

Maybe watching someone win every single time was fun for an observer, but it was boring to live through.

What had they even discovered for all their effort? Enough surviving anti-weirkey stone for a city, for all the good it did them. A large collection of weaker materials and even ancient craftgems. Some interesting materials that Navim or another ally might be able to soulcraft into something... too late for the battle.

For a while he'd been excited about their most powerful find: some long-dead termite soulcrafter had fashioned bones into an abstract sculpture. The bones had been sublime materials on their own and the final result generated enormous amounts of cantae. Just holding it sustained him, as if he could fight for days or go months without sleep.

The problems came when he tried to integrate it with his soulhome. In the vast majority of cases, a soulcrafter with experience could intuitively tell whether or not a material would be compatible with them. This time he'd been wrong. When he attempted to link it to the growing fleshnexus, the lines of muscle recoiled. When he tried to put it on the other side, it only unbalanced his cantae flow further.

Just when Theo was about to go over all his old thoughts again, he heard a whistled call for help.

In an instant he burst out of their base in the termite tower and plunged toward the source. Because the vast majority of the region was unmoving, it was easy for him to keep track of Fiyu's mass. She had been exploring one of the deepest tunnels, one filled with traps. Now she was rapidly moving upward... and there was another mass following her.

Theo slowed as he entered the tunnel and prepared one of each of his techniques, just in case. Fiyu had noted his presence and whistled ahead. Low threat... unstoppable... he wasn't sure how to interpret those whistles and just braced himself.

She flew out of the darkness and flashed past him. An ant raced after her, like most of the soldier ants except this one was pitch black and moved almost as fast as an Authority.

"It resists..." In the time it took Fiyu to pant out the words, Theo had already launched a torsion bolt. "...cantae..."

His bolt splattered off the ant's chitin and it didn't even slow. Theo recognized that it was one of the sub-sapient species and he wasn't about to run before he'd done at least a few more experiments. While the ant was still in the tunnel, he struck it with a disorientation field. It slowed only briefly before resisting, just like a demon might.

Now that the ant was closer, he saw that its mandibles had been reinforced as well with sublime metal. Rather than find out if those could harm him, Theo retreated with Fiyu out of the hole.

Just when the ant started to crawl out, Theo struck with multiple techniques at once. He created a point of mass in front of the ant to halt it, then cast the strongest gravitational field he could. That finally stopped the ant's mad charge and a moment later Fiyu created bands of darkness to pin it in place.

"That won't defeat it." Fiyu hovered beside him, concerned but not afraid. "I am not sure what to try next."

"I think there's some kind of sublime material that's resisting our techniques." Theo closed his eyes and tried to ignore the ant struggling free while he sensed the modifying materials. "We should try to see if it has absorption limits we can overcome."

She understood immediately and unleashed a stream of light bolts. They pummeled the ant and devastated all the ground around the hole, but failed to penetrate the chitin armor. Theo added a few torsion bolts with no more effect. Even if the sublime materials weren't invulnerable, they were incredibly durable.

What options did they have? Theo was confident that the ant wouldn't survive his singularity, but he wanted to get at the materials used to construct it. The more he saw, the more he was certain this thing was more sublime machine than sublime beast. Given the termites' level of soulcrafting, it wasn't improbable that they could have tried to heavily modify ant colonies for war.

Abruptly the ant heaved, breaking free of all his techniques. It managed to leap off the shattering cantae, hurtling toward them.

Theo automatically cast a portal to intercept, intending to dump the ant back into the hole. To his shock, he didn't feel the ant go through. It had struck the portal and stayed, clinging to the side. Its resisting effect was even capable of treating his cantae as solid instead of going through the wormhole. The ant wasn't even aware of this, it just crawled around the side of the portal to get at them, mandibles clicking in mindless violence.

When it leapt off the portal, Fiyu met it with her cantae blade flashing. 

Even her sharpest blade was barely enough to crack the armor and knock the ant aside. Theo sensed weakness and immediately pinned it between two gravitational fields. While it struggled to resist the effects, he flew close and cast a pure torsion technique into the weakened chitin.

As soon as its defensive power was overwhelmed, the war ant ripped apart. Both pieces continued to flail in the air, but they could no longer resist his techniques and the life was flowing out of its body. The two of them breathed a sigh of relief.

"I really want to get my hands on that material." Theo was tempted to try for it but decided not to get close to the flailing giant death ant just yet. "Was there anything else?"

"I fear there was not." Fiyu smiled slightly. "Well, I am glad there were not more such creatures. But the facility where I believe it was created was mostly empty and looted. I found only a few materials that might have been used to transform this creature before encountering the final result. There were some other insect corpses, but none equal to this."

"That doesn't surprise me, because implanting this many sublime materials is expensive. Probably one of the termites' secret weapons they never got to use."

"With that branch complete, I believe we have explored the entire city. Unless there is some region that I am not considering."

"No, we might actually be done." As soon as Theo spoke the words, he realized it was true. After frustrating weeks finding inappropriate materials, at least they ended their search with something valuable.

Fiyu returned to their camp and began collecting various items into her soulhome. While she worked, Theo took the ant apart. The black chitin was Ruler-tier and reasonably valuable, plus there were a few enhancement materials linking its body to whatever tiny soul it had. But the real treasure was a throbbing black core that seethed where the war ant should have had a heart.

As he'd suspected, it was formed from demonic material. Theo had to admit that he honestly didn't know what arts could convert demon bodies from merely usable material to a powerful sublime material. This one was highly adapted to Slescan bodies, especially chitin. It did such a good job of defending, he was sorry he couldn't incorporate it into his own soulhome.

With Krikree, however... her body was probably similar enough that she could soulcraft the necessary pieces. Or maybe draw the demon core into her soulhome and instead place another link in her body. Either way, at least one person would get something out of all their work.

"We return now?" Fiyu flew up beside him with the entire camp in her soulhome. "Should we fly until we catch the others' attention?"

"It's a big area and they might not even be there anymore." Theo grasped both Noveni and Slescan weirkeys. "Let's go back to the city first. We can get information there before searching."

As it happened, there was no need. Nauda and Krikree had already returned from their hunting and were waiting for them. Both looked a bit anxious, so instead of a long reunion with food or drinks, Theo just asked them all to assemble in the hive room they were using as their base. So far they'd mostly used the beds, but now they settled around the large table made from a giant blue leaf.

"A lot of what we found we couldn't even bring," Theo said. "There's a city's worth of anti-weirkey stone there, which we obviously couldn't teleport back. If we can't send beetles that far, we'll have to send someone in the sleigh to go pick it all up."

"That will be good for the city." Nauda smiled, but she looked a little apprehensive as she began placing materials on the table. "I'm afraid we have some disappointments too. These sublime materials are good for Immortality Conduits, but they're not particularly strong, are they? Secondary materials at best."

"Let's distribute those equally. If we do find a use for them later, they might as well be well-anchored to our soulhomes."

"Beyond that... honestly, our trip was a disappointment." Nauda continued placing materials, not making eye contact. "Fiyu, I really tried to find stealth materials for you, but look at this stuff. The compatible ones are weak, and the strong ones are incompatible. Or we found this mental gem too late to be useful. I did some good soulcrafting, but otherwise I feel like I wasted this time. I'm sorry, I just..."

Fiyu gasped and reached out to pick up one of the items. That reaction did more for Nauda than any words could have: as Fiyu examined the new material eagerly, Nauda's anxiety faded into satisfaction.

As for the material itself, it appeared to be an insectoid heart. When it throbbed with green cantae, it began to slip through Fiyu's fingers as if it turned to gas. She frowned and took several tries to catch it, then got a firm grip.

"Nauda, this will be immensely useful. My body had already adapted for an incorporeality technique, but I required further chambers to fully use it." Fiyu looked up and smiled at her. "This is so perfect that I will change my soulcrafting plans to begin working with it."

While they shared their moment, Theo unloaded everything notable they'd gathered. Krikree wasn't present, so the demonic core was unclaimed, and Senka was asleep on one of the beds. It looked like his results were going to be more disappointing, but when he pulled out the bone statue, Nauda's head swung over.

"Wait, what is that?"

"I only know what you see here." Theo turned it the way he hoped was upright and slid it across the table. "Strong, but murder to try to incorporate into a blueprint."

"Was that a joke? It's perfect for my death tower." Nauda grabbed the bones and began twisting them as if the right combination could grant her control over it.

Normally Theo preserved sour moods against all odds, but the enthusiasm of the others infected him. He looked over the table again, thinking about the actual utility instead of worrying about what he was going to say. And once he did so, something leapt out at him.

The stone Nauda had described as some kind of "mental gem" was more than that. It represented the fusion of mind and body, he thought, and greatly strengthened the former. If he'd had something like this in his soulhome, the insane beings from the House of the Lost might not have caused him any pain. With the gem stabilizing his mind, his acclimatization chamber would be able to make him impervious to most exotic conditions in the Nine Worlds and beyond.

His only question now was where to fit it into his soulhome. It should be compatible with the fleshnexus, but how closely? Placing it in one of the chambers directly beside the nexus would feel wrong. Further out, his design was still unclear as he made his overall decisions.

"You look happy about that." Nauda had noticed and was smiling.

"I guess I never told you I needed a mental component to my Corporeal section," Theo said, "but I've been thinking I might. Usually I rely on my natural intellect-"

"And your ego."

"And my extraordinary ego to handle everything. But Dominions are thinking and fighting faster than humans, so I needed to enhance my brain eventually. See, your hunt turned up valuable materials after all."

"Oh, and a shadowmind!" Fiyu perked up the second the idea occurred to you. "I still have more, Theo, and you only integrated one. Couldn't another be useful as a secondary material?"

"You might be right." Theo had disregarded use of shadowminds for mental enhancement because it felt too ephemeral for his blueprint, but combined with the gem... "We have more materials than we think. For example, I don't think I'm ever going to use that ifritbraid from the Wakespire... Fiyu, why don't you experiment with it?"

Nauda brought her hand down on the table with a pleased slap. "I can't believe I missed the obvious: we can help Nanjuma! Even if he wants to use only Tatian materials, we have that gemwing we found while hunting eryos... wait, has anyone offered him eryo tusks?"

The three of them eagerly discussed the possibilities as they outlined their coming soulcrafting. Everything had changed due to the underlying realities, yes, but Theo felt as though his friends could have turned around his irritation regardless. They wouldn't have picked up useless materials, after all, and between them they had the knowledge and ingenuity to find value in any situation.

After their discussion concluded, they were all eager to get to work, so they split up. Suddenly alone, Theo decided that a soft bed was definitely the best place to begin soulcrafting, after days in the termite city. When he sat down, he saw that Senka was sitting up and yawning.

"You all done hugging it out?"

"We might have been unlucky alone, but pooling our chances worked out." Theo paused and glanced over at her. "You once said that it gets harder to soulcraft alone the higher you go. Is this what you meant?"

"Nope, not at all." Senka pushed herself further up and scratched at her head. "Eventually you'll have to soulcraft for one another, not just find materials. But... I have to admit that this alliance of yours will probably work for that too."

"You mean soulcraft materials to enhance them? Like Navim has been doing, or the artisans on Noven."

"Those are the very earliest forms of it. Mere precursors."

"Then why isn't that more widely known?"

Senka grinned unpleasantly. "Because you have to survive a while to get to that point, and most don't."

Even her cynicism couldn't bring down his enthusiasm. He had a path forward and he was eager to take the next step.

-

Chapter 32

Esaire's stomach turned when he stepped between worlds. He hated to leave Deuxan and walk under the Tatian sun, of course, but the transition itself always disturbed him. It would have been easier if he could remain in a single world, a proper court - there was more than enough for a lifetime there. And yet it seemed there was no choice but to travel the Nine Worlds if he wanted to make something of himself, because friends and enemies alike gathered power from countless places.

Of course, he'd gathered power of his own.

As he walked through what had once been a Deuxan market - now permanently closed - Esaire kept his hand on the hilt of his new sword. It had been a gift from his sister's allies, along with the perfect matching interior materials. Now that those had been fully soulcrafted, he felt connected to the weapon in a way that made all his past work look like fumbling.

And that was just the start: the finest sublime materials from the Anguedan Court, shards from the Infinite Falls, centerpieces from their benefactors, stone from the Palladium Flats. Esaire had completed the most intensive period of soulcrafting in his life, just to be ready for his rival.

Peanen had motivated him so much, Esaire would almost be sad when he died. Almost.

"Oh, that's lovely!"

The words took him entirely off guard, and Esaire swiveled and started to draw his sword before his mind caught up and recognized his sister's voice. Amaeli floated an inch off the ground beside him, silent as a silver falcon. His senses had been substantially enhanced, but he thought she took pleasure in slipping around them to startle him.

"You will show me, won't you?" Amaeli leaned forward to peer at the weapon at his side. "I've heard they have access to fascinating armaments, but I haven't really seen them, given my own abilities."

"I went for functionality and power over anything elaborate." Esaire drew the blade and showed it to her as they walked into the city.

"And you've soulcrafted a few technique chambers flowing from it, like we discussed?"

"The first we discussed, yes, but the second is a new twist. There's no way he'll be prepared for this."

"Yes, maybe it will be enough."

Esaire blinked in surprise and stared at his sister. He'd expected her to mock him about his vendetta, as she had been doing relentlessly since they'd reunited. Yet even when he searched for a hidden layer of irony, he only saw a sincere response. She saw him staring and smirked.

"The situation has changed a little while you were off training," Amaeli said with a wave around her.

"The towers!" Esaire had been focused on his sister and now stared at the three pillars, marveling at the cantae packed into the materials. "They were finally completed, without any arguing? How did Ariano and Isantis possibly come to an agreement?"

"We lost the deathseed in Myufuru."

"What?" Esaire grabbed his sister's shoulders. "How? Tell me everything!"

She laughed and spun away before telling him of the battle. Esaire soaked up every detail and asked all the questions he could, but it sounded as though Peanen was still on the same path. Losing the second deathseed was a blow to both their plans and the alliance, but it would motivate them all to defend the original.

"And so I forgive you for getting obsessed." Amaeli pretended to walk alongside him, but she was actually skipping in the air, her feet never quite touching the street. "This foreign soulcrafter... he's quite good. I once fought an Arbaian who used similar powers, but not so lethally."

"So there's no question that they're coming here, right? No more bickering or pretending they'll just run away?"

"Isantis is still sulking while he recovers from his injury, but Ariano has been scared into cooperating. Grandfather has actually pushed him into some very interesting concessions. He wanted to grab even more, but after the fight, I agreed we should reinforce the city as much as possible."

"Should we have done even more than that?" Esaire set his hand on the hilt of his sword again - it had seemed so powerful before, but now he wondered if he needed more. "We could have asked the S-"

"No." Amaeli's amusement vanished and she shook her head. "Any court exacts a cost for its services, but these inter-world courts always demand more than you realize. We've called in our favors and marshaled our resources... this is the Armeau family at its best."

"Let me make sure they haven't made any mistakes."

Esaire joined his sister in the air and they soared high over the city. From above, Nlukoko was a tangle of islands, bright baubles, arcing lines of water... and his three towers looming over the city. A grim triangle set exactly as he had insisted, especially given what he saw of the weapons atop them.

"A battle between Authorities is determined by tactics," Esaire started to say, but his sister rolled her eyes and cut him off.

"Don't lecture me on tactics, Essy. We'll have a substantial advantage in the first place, and if the towers strike as hard as you hope, we should be able to shape the flow of the battle."

"It isn't just shaping, it's control of territory." He stared out over the city, imagining the ranges and lines of fire as if all three towers were raining death around them. "They can all reinforce one another, so they won't be easily disabled. If Peanen has allies - and he's sure to have scrounged up some - they'll have to fight their way through the outer perimeter of the city."

"And given our advantage in numbers, we should be able to cut them apart. You're not the only tactician in the family, Essy." Amaeli ruffled his hair with a grin and, despite everything, Esaire smiled back at her. Once he'd just hoped to see her again, but now they were actually fighting as equals.

"I suppose I just need to talk to someone, but I won't bother you with it." Esaire set a hand on his sister's shoulder. "What about all the peasants? Has Ariano caused any trouble there?"

"Oh no, everyone's quite happy with that. It's all going according to your plan." Amaeli shifted back, regarding him with the gaze he imagined she used in court. "And so when Peanen shows up to attack, you'll be ready for him. Is that enough to make you happy?"

"I'll be ready for his tricks." Esaire stared down at the city, looking for anything he might have missed. "I know he'll try to cheat, but this time I'll force him to fight fairly. One on one, I know I can defeat him, and you should be a match for anyone he finds. If we can stop all his gimmicks, he's nothing."

It sounded convincing, and Esaire couldn't see any flaws in everything his family had built across Nlukoko. But he couldn't help but recall that his enemy had once beaten him as an Archcrafter and they were now both Authorities.