Chapter: 462 - Your Bargain (Patreon)

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Tala and Rane sat side by side before Walden, the Reforged-level immortal elk.

Terry perched on her shoulder, though his eyes were open and glancing about in clear fascination and desire to go explore the ancient forest surrounding them. Thankfully, he was containing himself for the moment.

Walden had just finished his basic overview of the difference between Sovereigns and god-beasts, and he was awaiting their questions.

Rane asked something first, but to be fair, it was the most obvious follow-up question given the circumstances. “Where do you think a Transcendent would fit in all this, in your analogy?”

The elk tilted his head. “A gated, supreme being?”

Rane nodded. “Yes.”

“Isn’t that obvious?” Walden sounded genuinely confused.

Rane frowned for only a moment before his eyes widened in realization.

Even so, it was Tala who spoke first, almost whispering, “The sun.”

Walden gave a solemn nod. “A Transcendent could not exist upon this world at all. The sheer level of power that could flow through them would burn away all of existence, as things are.”

Rane cleared his throat. “You are speaking about what is true within the analogy though, right?”

“Yes, within the analogy,” Walden conceded. “We have never been subject to the presence of such a being, so we have only theories. But you have your own throughput as a gauge. Even if that only doubled with every advancement, can you imagine what sixteen times your throughput would do to the face of Zeme?”

Tala could, actually, even if only comparatively. Being nearly halfway to Paragon, her throughput was more than sixteen times what it had been as a newly Fused—though, a large part of that was due to her gate-breaking at the hands of the arcanes—and she knew that her current self could kill an army of Talas from that time.

More than that, though, she could see the amount of damage done to Reality from power differences. Her throughput was close to double Rane’s at the moment, and she had started tears in Reality at the site of old Arconaven where he had not.

What would Master Xeel have caused? A full breach with every step? It was a bit horrifying to contemplate, if she were being honest.

True, that was already a damaged area, but how much more power would it take before she would almost immediately erode even untarnished Reality?

She frowned. “I see…”

She considered for a long moment, then her eyes opened wide. “That’s the answer to the second question too, then?”

Walden gave a slow nod. “That would be my guess, yes. The fact that the group which came into my cell was so well balanced—specialty wise—and powerful? It implies a certain level of available humans of the same power level. When it became evident that you weren’t a group put together specifically to deal with cells—along with a few other points of interest—the implication was clear. Gated humanity is much more powerful than it was when I was initially locked away.”

Tala was slowly nodding. “And with greater power, we are abrading Reality more than usual. Is that your theory?”

“It would be more accurate to say that it is my best guess.”

Tala smiled and shook her head, then. “I think I have to disagree with your assessment, then. We continue to move in the same cyclical pattern, expanding outward to keep the cycle time the same even as we increase the number of cities. We haven’t changed our timing, because we have observed that there is no need to do so. We are very careful to allow Reality to repair as fully as possible before rebuilding on a previous city site. That shouldn’t be an issue.”

An all too human laugh resonated from the surrounding space. It wasn’t derisive, per se. It was like nothing so much as a parent chuckling at the sincere—but incredibly faulty—logic of a toddler. “So, you think inflicting the same level of damage, in a wider area will reduce how much Reality resists you?”

Her smile faded, but it was Rane who responded. “You are acting like Reality has a sentience—if not a sapience—rather than simply existing as cause and effect responses.”

Walden’s tone was marginally dismissive, “I imply no such thing.” Still, he paused for a moment before nodding, as if having decided it was worth explaining himself a bit further. “If you scrape your antlers against a tree, the bark takes time to recover. If you scrape more of the tree, it takes longer to recover. This is true even if you don’t scrape any more deeply in any one location. If you scrape to the same depth across too much of it, you can kill the tree. Once again, this is true, even if no individual scrape is any deeper than you’ve imparted before. But I am not meaning to imply that you are about to kill Reality. I am simply trying to convey that something can be a cause and effect response that you haven’t encountered before that is due to a change in quantity, even without a change in kind.”

Rane frowned, considering Walden’s words.

Tala sighed. “I suppose part of this might be the fact that I don’t actually know the means by which cells are secured, and what about them needs to be maintained.”

“Don’t you?” Walden sounded smug. “If my observations about you are correct, you have all the tools to have seen and understood. Have you simply not made the connections?”

“No. I… don’t…” Her words trailed off, as she considered. What was a cell? It couldn’t just be a sealed, expanded space. Someone like Walden could get out of that with little trouble. It couldn’t be an artifact of Magic alone.

There was obviously some void to it, but that wasn’t the full answer.

For some reason, her inscriptions came to mind, then, and some pieces clicked together within her thoughts.

A cell anchor—along with the atrium of a cell—allowed for the dimensionality which contained the prisoner to be held between Zeme and the Doman-Imithe. Each of those were one side of Reality, at least in theory.

So, where did that leave the cells?

“Cells are each a pocket that is healed into the skin of Reality?” While it should have been an assertion, she wasn’t sure, so it came out like a question. “It is fully enclosed and held in place, but Reality slowly rejects it, and so Reality must be cut open—the void in which the cell is hidden must be exposed—drained of any infection, cleaned, and resealed?”

“That is a somewhat crass, grotesque metaphor, but yes. It sounds apt to me.”

“And with more gated-humans ‘irritating’ the surroundings, Reality’s immune response to the cells is coming to bear faster?”

“Once again, a rather visceral way of looking at it, but it seems right enough to me.”

Tala and Rane exchanged a look. It had been less than a year since they investigated the old city sites, and they had front and center in their minds the great rents in Reality that Tala—and now Terry—could perceive.

She had shown Rane her memories of the sights. So he had as much foundation in it as she did. They’d also discussed it at length, even if they hadn’t really come to any conclusions.

Mistress Ingrit had done brisk business with those memories as well, and Tala was hopeful that someone would be able to give them more information.

She had an active petition in place to be able to try her amplification of connections across the rents, and she’d been told that there were several Archons working through the theoreticals. Things looked like she’d probably get approval within a year or so, if not sooner.

But all of that was beside the current point.

Rane once again voiced his thoughts before Tala had fully organized what she wanted to say. Cognitive tangents had a way of slowing down her arrival at the point. “So, you’re saying that we should expect this increased rate of cell decay going forward?”

“Assuming I’m right? Yes. That eventuality also assumes that nothing is done to assuage this issue.”

Rane glanced knowingly Tala’s way, and she gave a small smile. It might work.

“Regardless, I have answered your two questions and clarified those answers. Are you satisfied that I have upheld my agreement?”

Tala nodded, standing to her feet. “I am, yes. I shall leave you to your forest for the time being.”

“Thank you. I trust you will contact me should you have more to ask, whether for yourself or others?”

“Yes. I will.”

Rane joined her, standing and walking toward the exit.

Terry flickered back to her shoulder, and the three were about to enter the tunnel when Walden spoke, drawing their attention back to him. “Tala. I couldn’t help but notice that the magical density of this place has not increased since it was added to your dimensional space.”

A smile flashed across her features, but she hid the reaction from both her physical face and the illusion overtop of it as quickly as it had come. Once she’d mastered herself, she turned back to face the elk. “But of course, my good Walden. Increased magical density was not a part of our negotiations.”

The immortal elk narrowed his eyes. “You stated that your storage had a certain magical density, and then asked to add my forest to it.”

“Ahh, yes, but you know as well as I that even if I were to spread out my available power through here, the massive nature of your forest would render the density far below that which I mentioned. I have added to the size of your forest, and that has added to your power. Anything more will require an equivalent exchange.”

He let out a large, billowing breath, shaking himself in clear irritation, though not in outright anger. “You have kept to your bargain and not gone an inch farther. I will keep this in mind, human.”

Tala fully faced the towering cervid, raising an eyebrow. “You have kept to the bargain as well, Walden, and I do not see any great overextension on your part. Shall I give a vague threat in return? Or do you require one that is not so vague?”

She was prepared to do so, to let him feel how his authority was not overtop her own. She could fight him for control and do him great harm at the very least. She hoped that it wouldn’t be required, however.

After only a moment’s pause, he shook himself again and stomped a foot, but once again, it didn’t come across as a threatening gesture. Instead, it was simply one of irritation and frustration. “I see. I accept that we are both sticking to the core of that to which we agreed. Very well.”

Tala gave a slight bow. “Until we meet again, Walden.”

He dipped his head in return. “Until then, Tala.”

Without further delay, the trio left the former cell behind.

Once again, they passed through the tunnel at a sedate pace. This time, however, Tala took the time to analyze exactly what was going on around her.

She was walking on the edge of existence within Kit. Her threefold sight said that there was nothing beyond the walls, floor, and ceiling.

This was not the nothing of a void of emptiness stretching on forever. This was the nothing of no space in which anything could be.

It wasn’t even a void.

It was nothing.

Yet, around the tunnel through which they walked, at the very outermost edge of the very surface they trod upon, was the division between that nothing and the something within.

That division was Void.

She had never considered it in that manner.

Kit’s standard expanded space didn’t exist in that manner. Kit divided her expanded internals from the rest of existence, just barely stoneward of the superficial. The caravan wagons that Tala had helped expand didn’t even have that much separation. They were simply expanded space, bound within the superficial.

The forest, and the connection to it, were something entirely new.

Well… the cells looked like this. We just never considered them in this way.

She was walking through a thin tendril of air, held existent by a thin veneer of void.

That realization struck her like a hammer, and she trembled.

Only a concerted act of will kept her feet moving at a steady pace.

She almost moved herself to the safety of her sanctum, but she refused to run in fear.

Within her mind, Alat also trembled. As a being of pure thought, the idea of true nothingness was even more impactful, more terrifying.

When they exited, Tala was leaning on Rane, who braced her without being asked, and she was infinitely grateful for that.

She looked around, allowing her threefold sight to see all the something around her. Behind her, the entrance to the tunnel both was there and wasn’t. It took up no space as it simply opened into the void in which the forest was tucked.

The forest was also easily visible to her, even though it seemed to take up no space where it was sequestered.

She took a few deep breaths before nodding.

“Are you alright?” Rane spoke quietly, but everyone would have been able to hear, regardless.

She nodded slowly. “Yeah… I just… my perception allowed me to understand something that I don’t really feel like I was built to understand.”

Their unit was waiting for them, and Mistress Terra was just withdrawing her magics at their arrival. She had been about to say something, but hesitated, seeming to change before saying, “Existence and non-existence are easy to think of, but hard to see. Do you need another moment?”

Tala waivered, then nodded. “Thank you.”

The Paragon smiled. “Take your time.”

A minute or so—and a large mug of coffee—later, Tala smiled toward Mistress Terra. “I’m ready.”

“Very good. I detected no issues, fluctuations, or problems while you were in the former cell. From what I can tell, for this prisoner, this is as secure as the cell previously was. I now simply need to retrieve the cell anchor from the Doman-Imithe, and we can head back to Alefast. Master Grediv and several Constructionists are awaiting your arrival.”

Tala nodded to the Paragon. “Thank you, Mistress Terra.”

“It is quite literally my job.” But the woman still smiled in return. “But you are most welcome. This is not something I had expected to witness.” She chuckled. “I suppose I could have guessed it was possible, but the idea would not have occurred to me. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of this rather interesting experiment.”

“Of course.” The women shared a smile.

Master Limmestare interjected. “It will be a rather interesting story to tell, and we get paid either way. So, thank you for making it safer and less arduous.”

Tala chuckled at that.

Master Girt looked around before turning back toward Tala. “So… can we get out?”

“Oh! Right.” Tala willed an exit from Kit to appear, and they all left her sanctum, returning to Zeme.

  *

After a detailed examination, Master Grediv and the Constructionists had been just as satisfied as Mistress Terra with the security of the prisoner, and the Constructionists had asked to study the results more closely, even offering the requisite rate to do so.

Tala agreed easily, a hundred and fifty cubic feet wasn’t a lot, but it was something. Additionally, the studying of the dimensionality of the forest’s integration with Kit didn’t involve the elk or his forest directly at all, so Tala didn’t have to share the compensation.

At Master Simon’s suggestion, Tala did offer the man’s services to take readings and perform basic analysis onsite for a reduced rate. That way, Tala got all the data too, and there weren’t other people constantly traipsing through her sanctum.

Her talk with Walden had made her all the more concerned about the integrity of Reality within Kit.

She didn’t think about the nothing that she’d been all but exposed to. It wasn’t time for that. She had other things to do.

She was close to done amplifying the reality node connections within her artificial lung, but not quite—but since she hadn’t been devoting too much time to it, that was to be expected—and she resolved that as soon as that was done, she would unify her entire sanctum into a singular reality node, if she could make it work.

If I’m fast enough, it might add weight to the idea that I should be allowed to try such at an old city site.

But that was a bit over-optimistic, given that she would probably need a lot of time to unify the reality nodes of her sanctum.

Assuming it worked as she hoped—and the results were what she thought they would be—she’d want to do the same thing for Irondale too. But that was putting the cart before the horse.

I do love that my gravity magics are coming back into prominence.

-Yeah, I’ve felt like they were fading into the background. I missed them.-

Yeah, me too.

Her birthday had come and gone, and Rane had ‘randomly’ presented her and Terry with a gift on that day.

Truthfully, it was more of a gift for Terry, but Tala had appreciated it almost as much. Rane had known she would, which made her quite happy at being so understood.

She had shared some of the memories of Terry’s life, which the bonding had granted her, and with that basis, Rane had made a statue of Terry’s mate, of her.

Rane then placed the statue near to the one of Mistress Odera.

It was close enough to clearly be near at hand, but far enough that their overlapping magical projections didn’t interfere. That was important because Rane had also used the shared memories to commission another false aura creator, this one mimicking her aura for Terry.

When Rane had revealed it to the two of them—allowing the false aura to activate—Terry had been utterly shocked.

Tala could feel the avian’s emotions roiling through him as he regarded the statue, as he felt her presence for the first time in centuries.

In order to give Terry a moment, Tala had given Rane a grateful hug and kiss while Terry collected himself. Then, the terror bird had flicked before Rane, of a size to look him eye to eye.

Rane hadn’t flinched back at the sudden appearance. Instead, he had spread his arms wide, and Terry had stepped forward into the embrace, tucking his head behind Rane’s back, tears in evidence within his large, avian eyes.

He had then flickered to Rane’s shoulder and stayed there for the remainder of the day as they went to a play, nice restaurants, and other fun events before their afternoon shift on the walls.

Overall, it had been a wonderful day that just so happened to also be her birthday.

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