Chapter: 226 - The One to Seize (Patreon)

<Contains content which may be considered grimdark>
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Tala and Thron sparred for nearly an hour, Tala refusing to give up.

In truth, ‘sparred’ is a bit generous.

Thron patiently stood in the center of the training circle, giving pointers and occasionally politely suggesting that they try other means of practice.

Tala listened to his advice, attempted to implement it, then threw her aura against his, and tried to hit him.

She had enough control of her own body that she never lost more than a hand to each attempted blow.

Of course, that still hurt.

After the first couple of times, Thron had suggested that they look for another way to train, but Tala had refused. Apparently, he’d wanted her to experience the ‘real consequences’ of aura control in combat, but he hadn’t really expected her to use this as a method of practice.

-Why not try meditation? We can focus on control and then try again later.-

I want to succeed, Alat. I’m tired of being in my own head, only pulled out when I have to do something. I want to do something that helps me and only me.

-Study, internal practice, and meditation is doing something for you. It’s not physical, but every step you take to improve is a step forward.-

Tala growled as her aura slipped slightly and her entire left fist was burned away before she pulled her punch back.

Thron tilted his head. “Tali? What was that?”

As her fist regrew, she came back into a fighting stance. “Nothing.”

He held up his hands. “Wait a moment. What’s going on? While I wouldn’t choose your methods, you are making excellent progress. Whatever that was, though? That was sloppy. What’s going on?”

Tala hesitated, then let her fists fall to her sides. “I feel like…”

The dwarf waited, not pressing the human and allowing her to pull her thoughts together.

“I feel like I’m just treading water. I’m not moving towards my goal?”

Thron nodded, sitting down on the flat, textured stone. “And what is that goal?”

She threw her hands up. She was frustrated, but she was present enough in the moment to pull the reasoning from Tali, and how she would respond. “I want to improve, and I’m at a bottleneck until we get the method from the wild humans to the north.”

He nodded in response but didn’t say anything.

“I know that every protian weapon we capture for Pillar Be-thric gets us closer to that goal, but it just feels like I’m along for the ride. I want to DO something.”

“I can understand that.”

She huffed a short laugh. “Oh?”

“No one of quality wants their fate in others' hands, and you feel like you’re not steering your own destiny right now. You’re learning the ropes as an Eskau, you're out of your element in wider society, there are no others of your kind who are peers to your station. You are alone, flung into the unknown, and while you see great things coming your way, you want to be the one to seize those rewards, yourself.”

“Exactly!” She threw up her hands and started pacing.

“Okay.”

She stopped mid-step. “What?”

“Okay.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I’ve been handling the scheduling of your duties, specifically delaying them to allow you to settle in. I apologize for… delaying overmuch. My intention was to let you have the space you needed to practice and just… be.” He shrugged. “Let’s change that. Starting tomorrow, I can bring you the options for the day, and we can pick your schedule together.”

He hesitated for a moment.

“Well, the big things we should discuss the evening before. Would that work for you?”

Tala was a bit taken aback. “Really?”

“Of course. If I weren’t here, this would be up to you, regardless. Though, I don’t know of any Eskau who doesn’t get an adjunct fairly quickly to help with scheduling of duties.”

She felt a smile pull at her face. “That sounds excellent. I think I could really use a bit more hand in choosing my tasks.”

“Then, it shall be.” He pushed himself back to his feet. “Now, will we continue this training? Or are you willing to consider a less painful method.”

She considered for a moment. “How is my progress compared to what you’d expect?”

He grimaced. “Aside from that last… attempt. You are moving much faster than I’d expect.”

“How likely is it that that’s just because of me?”

He sighed. “Unlikely. Visceral feedback almost always leads to quicker improvement, so long as it isn’t overwhelming, or painful to the point that it causes you to shy away.”

She smiled. “Alright then. Let’s do this.”

Tala focused on her aura once more. Per Thron’s advice, she didn’t try to claim the territory around him, directly.

Instead, she hardened her own authority around herself, bending her will and her magical weight to reinforcing her sovereignty over herself.

Then, she punched at him.

Tala managed to suppress all parts of her reaction to the pain, even as Thron nodded. “Good, that was much better. Are you willing to modify the training, while keeping your… feedback?”

She looked down as the skin on her knuckles regrew. “I’m open to the idea.”

“Simply extend your hand towards me and watch the interactions of our auras. Push forward slowly, and see what happens.”

Yeah, that actually makes sense. Go slow to see what’s happening.

-Instead of continuing to punch a stone wall, and wonder why our knuckles are bloody?-

Wisdom, thy name is Alat.

Alat snorted a laugh within Tala’s head.

Now out of her fighting stance, Tala lifted her hand, palm towards Thron, and reached for him.

Her mage-sight was focused on their conflicting auras.

To her surprise, she saw that his didn’t harden, it didn’t push outward. It just was.

Hers corroded as it came in contact with his.

I don’t know what I expected. That’s what I was feeling.

-Yeah but we associated the corrosion with our flesh more than with our magics.-

She stopped her hand’s movement, and just flexed her aura, hardening it, softening it, moving it around, and just playing with it in general.

In the end, she’d progressed quite a bit.

At the start, her flesh had vanished a good six inches from the dwarf. When they had to stop, it was closer to two inches. That was quite a bit more progress than it seemed. It became exponentially harder to maintain control of the area around her hand, when near a hostile aura, the closer Tala got to her opponent.

She knew that both from the current bout of training as well as her earlier training with the group of Archons in Bandfast. Though, in Bandfast she had moved her own aura, rather than fixing it to herself, and using her own movements to breach the hostile authority.

And, they never had this solid of a lock on the space around themselves.

-They also weren’t Fused, or Mature as the arcanes call the level.-

That’s true enough. Thron was solidly orange to her mage-sight. He’d explained that he would require her permission, as well as Be-thric’s, to advance. She was inclined to allow it, once she was able to breach his defenses, as having an increasingly difficult challenge would only help with her own improvement.

Terry had spent the entire time floating around on the surface of the surrounding water, moving with the subtle currents to slowly circle them without any effort.

But Tala’s training came to an end when she felt the door within her entrance bunker open. She suppressed the defenses within, to prevent any unfortunate accident.

“He’s here.”

Thron immediately nodded and turned towards the bridge. “We should welcome him.”

While Thron took the closest bridge over the water around the training circle, Tala dove into it. She quickly retracted her clothing as she moved through the water, mirroring her elk-leather’s self-cleaning to allow the water to clean herself quickly. The clothing grew back across her just before she vaulted out onto the stone at the outside edge. With a marginal effort of will, she’d maintained the mirror, causing the water to cascade off of her, even as she hopped in place a couple of times.

-That’s effective, I suppose. Couldn’t you have just mirrored the self-cleaning without the dip in the pond?-

Of course, but then I’d have been shed a bunch of grime onto the training circle.

-Wouldn’t Kit have just taken it away?-

Right. Well, the water was nice. Also, she’d probably have had to strip, and she’d not have enjoyed doing that even behind Thron’s back.

-That’s true. Arcanes don’t really seem to have a nudity taboo, but it still might have been… odd. The water did feel nice, too.-

As the water splashed onto the ground around Tala, Terry lifted his head from where he was drifting past. He briefly glared Tala’s way before laying back into his watery repose.

Tala smiled at the terror bird and left him to his relaxation.

She and Thron walked into the central courtyard just as the artificer came out of the building.

The hue-folk male was light-brown skinned, the color enough off of ‘flesh’ colored that he was unlikely to be mistaken as human. His hair was the same color, which likely helped prevent confusion. His power placed him solidly in the Honored rank, the power within and around him green to Tala’s mage-sight.

It was all Tala could do not to gape. How many people of the upper-middle ranks are there in arcane cities?

-Based on what Master Jevin and Master Xeel said, a lot.-

Yeah, I’m starting to realize exactly what that means. It seems like basically everyone of consequence is more powerful than most of humanity. An instant later, she amended. More powerful than most human Archons, honestly.

She was pulled from her contemplations when the hue-folk male’s eyes turned to her.

“Oh! There you are.” He bowed. “Eskau Tali, I presume?”

She nodded in return. “I am, yes. And this is my adjunct, Thorn.”

The artificer bowed to Thron as well, if slightly less deeply.

He’s bowing to the title, and the association with the House of Blood. There is no way he’d defer to us if we weren’t associated with the House of Blood.

-Just another benefit of working with a major House. Tali was certainly ecstatic.-

He doesn’t seem to care about my race in the slightest. Do you think it is the same reason?

-Likely. What he cares about is performing a service for our House. I’m sure there are those who wouldn’t work with a human, there have to be at least some, but most likely won’t care-

I feel like we should be able to use that…

Alat laughed within Tala’s head. -What? Establish the House of Humanity? Force them to recognize the power of the human race?-

It’s not the worst idea I’ve ever had, but probably something above our rank to deal with.

The internal exchange had taken barely a few seconds, and as the artificer stood straight once more, he introduced himself, “Well met. I am Cerdai. Eskau Pallaun of the House of Blood sought me out and requested that I come to consult on a void item. Am I in the correct location?”

“Indeed.”

The dais was empty of items as the loot from the ether hold had been stored away for the time being.

Cerdai’s wasn’t looking that way at the moment, so Tala made her desires clear to Kit through their magical connection, and the box containing the void box came into being atop the stone without sound, magical fluctuation, or other indication.

Tala gestured to the previously empty dais.

Cerdai turned to look, taking in the box with apparent surprise. “Oh! Good, you have it properly contained.” He was nodding to himself. “May I?”

“Of course.”

As Cerdai stepped forward, power swirled around him, quickly forming an infinite loop of intricately intermeshed power in a shell closely hugging his skin.

Tala felt something from it, just like she’d begun to feel corrosion from Thron.

The stability of change?

It made no sense to her at all.

-Really? Gravity is a constant acceleration, if we don’t alter it. That is a change that is stable.-

Tala blinked at that. Oh, wow. Yeah, that makes total sense.

Cerdai’s power hadn’t felt connected with gravity, but now that Alat had made the connection, Tala could feel how gravity was… related? Yeah, that was the right word.

Concepts are so broken…

When Cerdai opened the box, his magics twisted to create a second area of containment sealed off from the one in which he was, but still created by the same twisting spell-form.

There were flickers of power within the mesh of magic as the artificer was apparently doing a preliminary investigation. “Ahh, I see. It is still fresh. That is good.” He looked their way. “I require some time to examine it properly. Would you like me to take it with me and return, or do my work, here?”

She glanced towards Thron, but he gave no reaction. I’d probably prefer it stay here. “I think here is just fine.”

“As you wish.”

“Do you require a separate space to work?”

“No, this will be just fine.”

Tala caught movement at Cerdai’s feet, and he looked down.

A cat wove its way between his legs. “Oh, hello, kitty.”

He smiled and the cat looked up, purring.

“Those are very pretty eyes you have.”

It’s back. She looked closely at it with her mage-sight, but she didn’t see anything unusual about it. No unexplained magics, no unusual densities. It just looked like a cat.

A cat that was utterly ignoring her in favor of the most power dense thing in the sanctum.

-Well, that’s disappointing.-

It could be disguised in some way we’ve no way to penetrate?

-That’s always possible of anything, everything, and everyone.-

Fair, fair. That didn’t really make her feel better, but it did make sense. She couldn’t waste time on things she couldn’t possibly know for sure.

Thron was also regarding the cat, but he looked more curious than suspicious.

Though, it’s a bit hard to distinguish emotions on his inhuman face. While talking with the dwarf, she often forgot his inhuman nature. He seemed to have a very similar culture to Tala, herself, it seemed, with a bit of Tali’s perspective if she were being honest. Thron was raised as a slave and had risen to be more.

Just like humanity as a whole, now that I consider it.

Suddenly, the cat perked up, then turned and ran away, around the dais.

A moment later, Terry flickered into being on Tala’s shoulder, looking around with a gaze that reminded Tala of a predator searching for prey… or competition?

-The cat doesn’t seem to like Terry.-

And it seems to have some way of knowing he’s coming. But that was a mystery for another time. “Cerdai?”

“Hmm?” He’d watched the cat leave, and now was already refocused on the item in his hands.

“How long do you need?”

“I’d say about an hour.”

“Is there anything that you want or need from us?”

“No, no. I’ve got what I need.” As he was speaking, he flicked his wrist and a tool appeared within it. He used the silvery pick to prod the void sword.

“Alright. Let us know if anything comes to mind.”

“Yes, yes.” He said it with a smile, but it was clearly a dismissal. He hadn’t seemed to notice Terry’s arrival at all. If he had, he didn’t seem to mind one way or other.

With a shrug, Tala turned and walked into the common area of her sanctum, motioning for Thron to follow.

As they entered through the large archway, she spoke. “I’m going to work on my aura control and the magic nest. I want you to observe and give commentary.”

“As my Eskau commands.”

She thought for a moment, then shook her head. “But first, please arrange for some food. I pulled quite a bit from my reserves, regrowing my hands so many times.”

He grinned broadly, showing off broad, flat teeth.

I never noticed before. He doesn’t have canines, or cutting teeth at the front. He’s not a herbivore… right? No, she’d seen him eat meat.

“I did tell you your way wasn’t the best.”

She shrugged. “I can only really eat if my reserves are low, and they were pretty close to full. Thus, this is actually better.”

He shrugged. “I will go get food. Can you move the entrance in here?”

She waved a hand, a completely unnecessary gesture, but it was fun. The exit appeared in one of the dining room walls.

With another bow, Thron departed.

It was effortless for Tala to maintain the entrance and exit’s new location as she sat in one of the comfier chairs off to one side, looking out over her sanctum.

She reached out and took the magic nest from the air as Kit brought it to her hand.

“Thank you, Kit.”

The sanctum did not respond.

“Well, then. Let’s get this done.”

Terry looked at the item, a smug glint in his eye.

“Yes, yes, you are very wonderful, and I have a long way to go to catch up.”

He trilled happily before nuzzling into her cheek.

“Thank you, Terry.”

Without further delay, she set to work.

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