Chapter: 199 - A Wonderfully Peaceful Time (Patreon)

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Tala felt that her time in Marliweather was an unmitigated success.

True, things might have gone better if she’d been able to write her own destiny, but in the realm of reality, she couldn’t imagine a better turn out. After all, I came out of it with two more siblings than I went in with.

-That’s a funny way of looking at it.-

But it is true.

-Oh, decidedly, and it seems like relationships are possible with all of them, at least in time.-

Lunch on the first day found the three Mage Protectors sitting atop the cargo-wagon for the meal, keeping their eyes moving over the surrounding wilds.

“I can’t believe you’re fully Fused.” Rane was shaking his head in resignation, even while a genuine smile pulled at his lips. “I just can’t. I can see your aura, but it seems impossible. Congratulations.”

“Rane?”

“Yeah, Tala?”

“That’s about the thousandth time you’ve said that.”

He colored, cleared his throat, and took another bit of his lunch.

Mistress Odera drank some water to clear her mouth, then regarded Tala. “It is an impressive thing, Mistress Tala. His saying so isn’t a bad thing.”

“Oh, I know. I’m still somewhat shocked, myself.”

“Indeed.”

Rane waved a hunk of bread. “It is unusual, but not unique. Still impressive, though.”

Tala laughed. “I feel like I hear that about a lot of what I do.” After a pause, she added. “The first part, I mean.”

Rane grinned back her way but didn’t comment further.

“You do seem to have found a fortuitous path. Time will tell if others follow you on it, and whether the outcome is a net positive for humanity.”

Tala didn’t really like to think of that, so she turned to Rane. “How are you progressing?”

He grimaced at that. “Same issue as before. I lack the mana-density to brute-force the connection, though I am making progress.” He straightened slightly. “The job I took yesterday was to protect a group while they examined some cave paintings.”

Mistress Odera paused at that. “The Cave of the Triune?”

“Precisely.”

Tala frowned. “Why does that sound familiar?”

Rane shrugged. “Well, Master Grediv mentioned it a lot. Three founts, each less than a dozen yards apart, all with pure, non-elemental magic flowing from them.”

She gave him a level look. “I didn’t know what founts were until recently.”

“Oh, right.”

Mistress Odera cut in. “The Triune, Mistress Tala. Three Immaterial Guides who focused on the manipulation of magic, directly. Triplets, bent towards the betterment of humanity. They sacrificed themselves in an attempt to give humanity another path to power.”

Tala found herself nodding. “Right, but it failed. Their theoretical pathway of ascending was a failure.”

Rane interjected around another mouthful. “Which is a shame, because our path of ascension is amazing.”

Mistress Odera and Tala both turned to regard Rane with confusion.

After swallowing, he clarified. “Meaning the steps that humanity can take through the ranks. Look at us. We are so much more than what we could ever have been without magic, without our gates, and this path. It’s tried and true. Why try to build a second one?”

Mistress Odera’s tone was hard. “Because it still fails many of us.”

Rane colored, hunching down. “Right. I…apologies, Mistress.”

She waved him off. “No matter. You were saying, Master Rane?”

“Hmm?”

“You went to the cave.”

“Oh! So, I meditated between the founts, removing all barriers to power flowing in and out of me. It was,” he grimaced, “like having a pumice-stone scraped through my entire body, but after half a day, my magic capacity and density have both increased by nearly ten percent.”

Tala sat up. “That’s remarkable! Can I…?” She trailed off as she saw Mistress Odera shaking her head.

“You already have a higher density than that cave, so it wouldn’t lead to an improvement for you. It is a miserable process as well, from what I hear. It also only works for Bound, if it works at all. Mages can’t survive such an onslaught, even those with incredibly high density, because the quality of the power, the purity, overwhelms them. Fused are too potent, as a rule, to gain anything from the cave, and Bound don’t need it. Though, it does help some.” She nodded towards Rane.

“Huh, so in a way they succeeded?”

“I suppose, in a way.” Mistress Odera sounded skeptical. “But one can hardly call it a success when instead of forging a new road, they now marginally help a small fraction as they progress down the old one.”

Tala grunted. “Fair enough.” The conversation shifted, then, to other things as their meal drew to a close.

Most of the journey back to Bandfast was uneventful, aside from the usual training and occasional arcanous beast.

She spent her meals and evenings talking with Rane and Mistress Odera and sparring with Terry and Rane.

On the second day of travel, Terry made real progress on changing his own fighting methods. He began to toss a knife back and forth with himself, flickering between each side of the wagon as they rumbled across the wintery plain, throwing it with increasing speed.

Seems like he’s gotten over his aversion. He didn’t add the knife tossing into their sparring, when she faced off against him that night. Not that he needed to, as he could still handily defeat her, seemingly at will.

The next morning, he added a second knife, and by the time they arrived in Bandfast, he was creating a storm of crisscrossing weaponry, all flying through a single space.

That’s not at all terrifying. He still hadn’t used the new weaponry in combat, but Tala knew that he would, soon enough.

Tala made sure to congratulate Terry on his new accomplishment.

He was suitably pleased both with her praise and the extra helpings of meat and jerky she gave along with it.

-Yes, keep the terrifying murder bird appeased, please.-

I’m doing my best.

The second thing of consequence came from Alat.

When they were right about halfway between the two cities, Alat began to cackle madly, which was quite a disturbing thing to have happen in Tala’s head.

What is going on?

-I have full access to pull information from the Archive. The Fused power behind your soul-bound items has increased the reach of the Archive connection. Unfortunately, I still can’t write to anywhere but our own private space.-

So, that means we can’t send messages?

-That’s correct. Even if I try to change access to any information, it won’t allow it, and I can’t write to the notation we share with Jenna, or anyone else. So communication is out, but I can still keep your mind-map up to date in real time, now!-

That was actually pretty great news. Any idea on the range?

-Well, if my perception of the link is correct, we could probably have this level of access out to nearly a thousand miles from the closest human city, though the last hundred or so might be iffy.-

Tala was utterly shocked at that. I dearly hope I’ll never be anywhere near that far from a city. At least not anytime soon.

-True, but it’s good to know your limits. I could probably also pierce out of an enclosed pocket dimension, or through quite a bit of iron, but either of those would limit the total range.-

Like Kit? I thought you did that already.

-No, no. Kit is an open pocket dimension, merely an expanded space really. You know this. I’m talking about one that is fully cut-off from the physical world.- Alat hesitated. -Well, this physical world at least.-

That was good to know. She hesitated. Wait, if the pocket dimension is fully cut off from this physical world, then where would you be measuring from for the distance back to a human city?

-That… is an excellent point. I might actually have an easier time reaching the Archive from a fully disconnected space, then.- She made a contemplative sound.

Well, in any case, I’m glad you won’t be fully cut off from the Archive any time soon.

-Ever. I’m never going to be cut off ever again, now.- There was a firmness that bordered on fear, there, but Tala didn’t think it was a good time to address it.

I decidedly hope that that is true.

All told, it was a fruitful, but uneventful, return trip.

After Tala received her pay, she immediately went to the Caravanner’s Guild, found Lynꟷ and Kannisꟷ, and asked for help for signing up for as many trips back and forth to Marliweather as possible, as quickly as possible.

She’d contemplated just taking a longer time in Marliweather, but she felt like the short stints with her family, spaced out, would be better for easing back into each others’ lives. Additionally, she wanted to get a large chunk of ventures out of the way, towards fulfilling her contract with the Caravanner’s Guild.

Thankfully, the trip to Marliweather didn’t have anything truly special about it, so it wasn’t in high demand. It wasn’t either especially dangerous, nor uniquely safe. The city wasn’t in its Waning phase yet, so there weren't extra benefits on the far end.

While Marliweather was well situated, nearly in the center of the human territory for the moment, that didn’t seem to matter much for the more lucrative routes, at least through the winter.

Thus, Tala was able to secure six additional trips back and forth to Bandfast before spring would truly set in. Beyond that, the Caravanner’s Guild wasn’t willing to let her reserve slots.

Still, twelve of my trips. That will bring me to a total of eighteen of my required ventures.

She’d discussed it with Rane and Mistress Odera on the trip back. Rane said he’d join her through the winter, to get a good foundation under himself monetarily and to take another few visits to the Cave of the Triune. It seemed that a Mage could overdo it by visiting too often, so the trips were near-ideal for him as well. That said, he wanted to do a larger loop of the human cities in the spring, whatever she decided.

As Tala considered it, she thought she just might join him, but she didn’t know yet. At least for the non-forest cities. No more leshkin for me for a while.

Mistress Odera had no issue with the plan. Apparently, some of her family was finalizing a move from Surehaven to Marliweather in the next weeks, so she’d get to spend some time with them. Thus, for her, there were no downsides.

Once all of that had been arranged, it was well and truly the end of the day, so the trio had gone out to dinner to chat and catch up.

They were midway through the meal, when Kannis spoke up.

Now, to be fair, Lyn and Kannis had finished their food, but Tala was still eating hers, and she’d used that fact to focus the conversation on them for most of the time. Unfortunately, it seemed like that had finally come to an end.

“Mistress Tala?”

“Hmm? Yeah, Kannis?”

The girl’s face flickered towards a grimace, and she looked down.

Tala hadn’t meant it as a slight, but the girl didn’t qualify for the “Mistress” title, yet. Ah, socializing. How I love it…

Kannis seemed to get over her momentary irritation. “I don’t understand what I see when I look at you with my mage-sight.”

Tala had noticed the girl pulsing power through those scripts off and on both at the Caravanner’s Guild and at the restaurant. Feeling the awkwardness of the situation, Tala tried to respond as one of her teachers or mentors might have. “I’m glad that you’re keeping your eyes open, so to speak. Now, what don’t you understand?”

“Well, there isn’t any variation to the sense of magic around you. It’s almost a uniform color, and that color is a yellow-ish orange.”

Lyn’s eyes widened, and she turned towards Tala. “What’s this now?”

Tala couldn’t help but smile. “Seems like you should take your own advice and use mage-sight more often?”

Lyn glared. “I’m working on other portions of my advancement at the moment.” Then, she sighed. “But you are probably right.” She looked towards Kannis. “I did err in this. I should have been participating alongside you in your exercises and growth.” Power flowed through Lyn’s own mage-sight scripts and the woman’s eye twitched. “Fused and Refining… You did have an interesting trip.”

Kannis cleared her throat. “While I am curious about that, if I am even allowed to know the details, I am more curious how you have such a perfectly smooth manifestation.”

“It is a projection, meant to keep me from triggering alarms, due to my other practices. Remember what’s under the visual illusion?” Tala motioned to herself.

Kannis shuddered slightly. “Hard to forget that, so yes.”

“So, that would make me appear as an absence of magic, or someone who was really clumsily trying to keep from being detected.”

The mageling was nodding along. “Which would trigger all sorts of alarms and defenses.”

“Precisely.”

Kannis bit her lip, considering. “I think I can understand that. It’s like hanging a sheet over a hole in the wall. Obviously, it’s not going to be very textured.”

“Reasonable analogy, yeah.” Tala smiled, then continued to eat.

Kannis turned to Lyn. “What can I know about advancement?”

Lyn sighed. “Not much, I’m afraid. You just aren’t ready for it.”

Kannis grimaced slightly again, then nodded. “I understand. There are reasons for delays and hidden knowledge. I will be patient until you decide that I am ready.”

Huh, that’s quite mature of her.

-Maybe, we could learn a thing or two.-

Tala sighed. We’re already probably going to be waiting for a while before we progress on.

-Speaking of that, we should talk with Holly.-

Yeah, but tomorrow.

-Tomorrow sounds great.-

All in all, it was a nice evening, and when it ended, Tala found that, somehow, it was nice to affix Kit to Lyn’s wall once more.

She knew that, intellectually, it shouldn’t matter where the door exited out, but for some reason she preferred it, there, in Lyn’s hallway.

Something about the place, and the people nearby, made her feel like this was home.

*      *      *

The next day, Tala and Rane joined Aproa at the Guardsmen’s guild for martial practice.

More notably, Terry joined them all.

It was decided that, as the most resilient of those present, Tala should fight Terry, first.

Thus it was that Tala and Terry faced off across the sand of the training space.

A selection of training weapons were randomly scattered around the sand.

“Begin!” Adam’s clear, strong voice echoed through the yard, and Tala charged.

The weapons seemed to move on their own accord as they immediately began shooting towards her.

Terry’s teleportations were so quick that Tala barely even saw flickers of movement as he arrived at each weapon, grabbed it, threw it, and moved on.

She blocked all she could, which wasn’t many, but that’s when the chaos began.

Each one that no longer seemed to have a chance of striking her would suddenly change direction, gaining a new burst of speed as Terry flickered to them and threw them again.

Even though they were training weapons, they hit hard. As soon as they struck and bounced away, they would be caught and flung back.

After less than twenty seconds, Adam called a stop.

The last weapons flew, bouncing off of, or being deflected by, Tala.

Terry flickered to the far side of the space once more, polishing his talons against his beak.

Silence fell over those watching, only broken when one of the soldiers exclaimed, simply, “Rust. I’m not fighting him.”

That caused a ripple of laughter through the group and got everyone moving once more.

After that single bout, it was promptly decided that Terry didn’t need more practice, at least not any that they could give, and that it would be too dangerous for him to do so anyways against anyone but Tala, even with practice weapons.

Not that it was great being his target even with blunted weapons…

As for mounted practice, they were able to do some training with Tala riding on Terry’s back, while others assaulted them.

In comparison to the near fluid, deadly beauty Terry had demonstrated earlier, it was…ugly.

Terry hated not teleporting away and defaulted to that with regularity.

Even when they set it up as an obstacle course for Terry to carry Tala through to an end goal, it proved counter to Terry’s nature.

I knew he was fighting his baser instincts when we were fleeing the leshkin. I just didn’t know how much.

But that was good, if Tala was being honest. There were a lot of pointers and tips that they could both learn from, and countless ways for them to improve in their coordination. So, it was agreed that this part would be incorporated into their regular training.

Tala was able to give her schedule to Adam, and he happily agreed to incorporate it into his ongoing class. He was actually grateful to have some hard dates that she would, and would not, be in Bandfast.

She had lunch with Rane and Aproa, focused mainly on catching up with the latter, since she’d be leaving with Rane again in a couple of days.

Aproa had been taking ruin investigation contracts. More specifically, she’d been providing protection to minor expeditions to some of the closest ruins. Unfortunately, it was pretty boring on her side of things. She had to stay above ground to keep watch, but at least it paid well.

Once lunch was over, they all went to their regular group training with the other Archons.

When Aproa conveyed Tala and Terry’s mounted combat training, the whole group latched onto the idea.

It would have been a disaster, but Cazor was the voice of reason. Afterall, horses, even trained ones, do not like being in enclosed spaces with lots of loud or visually dazzling magic.

With that idea nixed before it could even be tried, the group simply agreed to have some work with Tala and Terry functioning in concert, whenever it was reasonable.

When they broke for the afternoon, Tala and Terry headed to Holly’s workshop for the inevitable confrontation.

As soon as she stepped through the door, Holly called from the back. “You did it, girl!” She laughed maniacally, hurrying out from her workshop. “Very, very nicely done. I knew you had it in you.”

Tala was taken aback, as was the receptionist, if the look on his face was any indication.

“Come in, come in. No need to dawdle.”

Tala followed Holly back into her shop.

“Now, we need to test you, see how well stabilized you are, and how far along you’ve gotten since you had the preparatory scripts beforehand.”

“Yeah, about that-”

Holly waved her off. “You can thank me later.”

Tala sighed. “You weren’t allowed to tell me what you were doing?”

“Of course not, dear.” She gave her a long look. “Most people would want such scripts too early if it was widely known. Inscriptionists would be pestered, constantly, to do something that wouldn’t be good or effective for most Mages.” Holly waved Tala off again. “But that’s an oversimplification.”

Tala grunted. “I guess.”

“So, let’s do some tests.”

Tala looked down at her own hands, seeing the yellowing aura. It had ticked away from true orange and towards yellow at a steady rate since she’d Fused, and if it continued at this pace, she’d hit the half-way point in a couple more months.

She conveyed this to Holly.

“Yes, that’s wonderful, dear, I can see that. My scripts on this building can see that. Any idiot with mage-sight and a basic understanding of when you Fused could see that. That is not what I’m going to test.”

Tala frowned. “Then what are you going to test?”

“I am going to determine what tools we’ll need in order to initiate the Refining process. Everyone’s a little different in the extent to which they need to be Refined.” She pulled out what looked like a wooden tongue depressor but radiating magic. “Open up.”

What followed reminded Tala very much of a mundane medical exam, but conducted with tools that were clearly magical in their aura, even if not in their appearance. I wonder how much of this is just for show, or some sort of elaborate joke.

Tala couldn’t quite determine what they did, exactly. Yes, look at this clearly magical item! Ooooo. No one can tell what it does. Tala had to keep herself from laughing. That would actually be kind of funny. Making a bunch of things that looked really magical to mage-sight, but did nothing. I should fine a way to do that to one of the bricks in the city streets, and see how long it takes for someone to panic

She hesitated at that. Hmmm… Maybe magic does make people a bit mischievous…

Alat didn’t comment, but Tala thought she could hear muffled chuckling.

Throughout the exam, Holly’s face slowly lost its joy and a frown began to build. That, more than anything, pulled Tala out of her contemplations.

Finally, Tala couldn’t take it anymore. “What’s wrong?”

Holly let out a long breath. “Well, there is good and bad news, I’m afraid.”

“Isn’t there always?” Tala tried to lighten the mood.

“Don’t interrupt.”

Okay, not a light matter then. “Sorry.”

“The prep work is coming along nicely, and we should be able to move you to the final set of script modifications in a couple of months, if not sooner.”

“That’s the good news.”

Holly gave her a long, level look.

“Sorry. I’ll be quiet.”

“As I was saying, you’re coming along nicely in that regard. Unfortunately, your scripts for intaking consumable materials didn’t have quite as much effectiveness as I’d hoped, given your magical density. Do you know what Refining actually does?”

Tala was not surprised by the seeming change of topic. She was getting used to Holly by this point.

-Bite your tongue. No one can ever get used to…that.-

She waited for a moment, considering pointing out that Holly had told her to be quiet, then decided not to be difficult. “To remove impurities?”

“Very good. Yes. The goal is to refine the person, physically, all the way down to their blueprints, that which governs the structure and function of their bodies.”

“So, we should have a jump on that, right?”

“In most ways, we do. The human body has to be built up, strength and resilience wise, before the impurities can be purged. We’re doing that. Unfortunately, the bulk of the work in Refining is the painful removal of those impurities, by the Mage themselves, using magical tools.”

“That sounds…quite unpleasant.”

“Oh, incredibly so, yes. Unfortunately, because we’ve been forcing the use of all that you consume, this seems to have increased the impurities in your body, at least on the macroscale.”

“So, I will have more, agonizingly painful work to do.”

“Precisely.”

Tala frowned. “Wait, why did we do that, if this was a possibility?”

“Because the scripts should have purified all the material, making it useful within you. And they mostly succeeded, but the result is that you have more…gunk in your body than the average person does.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well, if you were a mundane? Without immediate treatment? An early grave, likely very early. But because your systems are enhanced, it shouldn’t cause any issue before we can get you purged. You will naturally purge the impurities with time, but I doubt you want to spend a decade or five doing that.”

“Lovely…and no. No, I do not.”

Holly seemed to hesitate for a long moment. Finally, she sighed. “I do apologize. This was a miscalculation on my part. It seems like even with as magically dense as you were, the quality of power coming through your gate wasn’t sufficient to do what we were trying to. I couldn’t find any mention of a Bound with enough magical density to even use the scripts before you, and the requirements only stated a magic density level, which you exceeded.” Holly sighed. “I’ll have to update the information on these scripts so that no one else makes my mistake.”

Tala knew the scripts that Holly was referring to. “They should have been fine. I understand them, I’m enacting them as we speak.”

“I agree, but the data doesn’t lie. You’re going to have a rough Refining, once you’re settled.”

Tala grimaced. “Fair, I suppose. On that note: How am I on that front?”

“I do think that a year or two to fully settle will be advisable. Though, if you want risks, you can attempt in closer to six months.”

Tala opened her mouth to reply, then paused to consider. Why do I need to rush? Advancing is important, but such a delay would get me through my contract with the Caravanners, and I could then assess where I’m at, and move forward into the next stage of…whatever I want to be doing. It might be nice to have a change of pace, and maybe truly get to know my siblings again. “Yeah, I think that’s wise.”

Holly gave her a long look, then shook her head and muttered to herself. “I guess everyone grows up eventually.”

Tala decided not to comment.

-Yeah, because we’re mature, now.-

Hush you.

Holly apparently had a lot of work still to do, so she shooed Tala away, but not before securing a promise from Tala to drop in whenever she could to be scanned by Holly’s workshop scripts.

And so, that’s how Tala spent the winter.

She went back and forth to Marliweather as often as she could. While she was there, she spent her time with her siblings. While she was in Bandfast, she spent her time training and with her friends.

The only break from the pleasant monotony was when Nalac and Illie departed for the Academy just before the two months mark after Tala had reentered their lives.

It was a simple affair, with the whole family gathering to watch them step onto the teleportation pad one after another.

By happenstance, coincidence, or a funny twist of fate, they ended up using the same teleportation room that Tala had departed from. The two events couldn’t have been more different.

Where Tala had been alone, hiding tears, and just wanting to get away, Nalac and Illie were surrounded by family and a few friends who were wishing them farewell.

Their mother tried to push things on the twins, and Tala and the teleportation Mages had to continually return them to the woman, insisting that it wasn’t possible to take items to the Academy.

As confrontational as it was, it felt…nice to have a somewhat normal interaction with her mother. Almost like I’m her eldest once again.

She didn’t interact with her father at all, though he was there. She simply didn’t trust herself to be civil.

Funnily enough, since they held off to allow Tala to be there, they left the day before her own birthday. She didn’t stick around after the twin’s departure, choosing to celebrate turning twenty on the road back towards Bandfast.

To be fair, Tala didn’t tell either of them, but Mistress Odera still seemed to know. She didn’t make mention of it, but the cooks inexplicably prepared a cake for dessert that night, and gave her an extra helping, even beyond what they normally would have.

After that, things went back to how they’d been for the remainder of the season.

Holly reinscribed Tala twice during that time, updating the scripts as appropriate. They were blessedly able to confirm that Tala’s impurities weren’t getting more numerous, and were even marginally decreasing, but nothing short of the Refining process was going to remove the contaminants with any sort of efficiency.

Tala made four minimum payments on her debts, as well as an additional seventy gold towards paying it off. She was able to expand Kit four times, for a total of one-hundred-and-twenty gold, bringing the dimensional storage’s capacity up to a total of more than six-thousand cubic feet.

Even after all of that, including her meals while in each city, she still had a nice, tidy sum in case of emergency totaling more than forty gold.

All told, it was a wonderfully peaceful time.

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