Chapter: 280 - Mine is Secure (Patreon)

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Tala watched in fascination as Kit seemed to claim every offered magical item in the room, containment crates and all.

If she had to put words to what she was seeing, she would have said that it appeared like limbs of power reached out towards the presented objects. Each limb was an unnatural amalgamation, seeming like fur-covered limbs with far too many joints, but made out of power rather than flesh and fur.

Every limb ended in a sort of hand-like paw, and each reached its crate at the same time, latched on in one motion, and pulled.

With a stretching and distortion of the entire room, every single crate vanished along with their contents. Several other things seemed to have been pulled in at the same time, including the papers and knick-knacks from the top of the half-wall and Master Queue’s right shoe.

What?

-What?-

Why had Kit taken things beyond the crates?

Mistress Elnea was staring, wide-eyed, at what seemed to be readouts on the slate in her hand, seemingly utterly fascinated by what she was seeing.

Master Boma was panting and sweating, red-faced and wide-eyed. His hands were spread, and Tala could sense power on the edge of being released to defend the Archon, but it hadn’t been needed.

Master Queue had his eyes closed tightly, his face drained of color. Even so, he similarly was sheathed in not-quite-released power.

Tala… well, she wasn’t really surprised if she took the time to consider it.

That was a bit more dramatic than I was expecting.

-To be fair, Kit is likely much more powerful than the last time we presented it with something this small.-

That was true enough. Kit had devoured whole holds in a matter of minutes, what was a few crates? “Come on, Kit. That wasn’t very nice. We’re trying to help you, and you took everything, including more than you were actually offered.”

There was a ripple and Master Queue’s shoe was suddenly sitting beside the pouch.

Tala sighed, walking forward to pick up the pouch and the shoe, hanging the first on her belt and moving to give the second back to its owner. As she did so, Tala continued speaking to Kit, “Well, thank you for returning that, at least.”

The pouch did not respond.

Master Queue opened his eyes and hesitantly took his shoe. “Thank”—he swallowed, then licked his lips—“Thank you.”

She smiled in return. “Sure. Thank you as well.” Tala glanced towards the other woman. “Mistress Elnea, was that successful?”

The woman nodded without looking up. “Yes, very much so. More than just the raw number, it seems like the various methods of stability have been drawn in and incorporated. This is fascinating.”

-Tala, we might have a financial issue.-

Oh?

-They had offered the contents of one of those crates as a courtesy to repair Kit after the tour we offered. Those that Mistress Elnea brought were a gift, but Kit still took dozens of times the value of what the two Constructionists received.-

Tala had a bad feeling about that. How much?

-Each crate was apparently worth a couple of hundred gold.-

She cursed internally. Come on, Kit!

She decided to get in front of the issue. “Masters. The value of the crates?”

The two men looked towards her, and they both grimaced. It was Master Queue who spoke first, “Yes, that is… unfortunate. But I believe that there is much from your time away that is of interest to us. Master Boma?”

The other man nodded. “You have a habit of taking a bit more than is offered, but in this case, the fault wasn’t yours. I would be grateful for an equivalent exchange.” The man gave a slight smile. “May we have the crates back?”

It was Mistress Elnea who responded, “They are gone as well, fully absorbed and incorporated. If I had to guess…” Then the woman shook her head. “No, I won’t guess. Mistress Tala?”

“Yes?”

“May I examine your sanctum from the inside?”

“Toward what end?”

The woman smiled with obvious, passionate interest. “To learn, of course. This is fascinating, and unlike any other artifact I’ve ever encountered. I would say that is likely due to the fact that it’s come about from a union of natural artifacts, human magics, and arcane efforts. I don’t know that there are many items of any kind with such a pedigree.”

That made a lot of sense, actually. “Alright, so long as you share everything you learn with me.” Her eyes hardened, and Tala felt a little of her persona as an Eskau slip out. “I do mean everything, Mistress. Please do not test me on this. I want no secrets, and nothing hidden.”

The woman had glanced up for the answer to her query, and her eyes widened slightly, more in surprise than alarm, but it was there.

Tala only noticed because of her enhanced senses and Alat’s ability to easily compare memories to the current moment.

Mistress Elnea nodded slowly, seeming to consider. “I… Yes, of course. It is your sanctum. I will share all findings with you.”

“Then, that sounds quite workable.”

An uncomfortable silence started to fall over the room, and Tala realized that under her through-spike, iron had started to climb over her skin.

No.

She put a stop to that instantly. She didn’t need to make her condition worse with increased resonance, especially not in a situation where she wasn’t even in danger.

“Well.” Master Boma clapped his hands. “All accounted for, that was easier than expected. I imagine we all have much to do, yes?”

They all nodded, an air of uncertainty still heavy in the room.

Master Queue cleared his throat. “You are both welcome to use this room as long as you need. Good day to you, Mistresses.”

Mistress Elnea gave a slight bow. “Good day, Master Queue.”

With reciprocal goodbyes, the men left the women alone in the room, pulling the iron doors mostly closed behind them.

Tala and Mistress Elnea had been left alone in the merging room, and there was a moment of silence as both women turned their thoughts inward.

The iron cladding on walls, ceiling, and floor, along with the heavy iron door made the space as magically isolated as possible. Though, with the door propped open it wasn’t a perfect seal at the moment.

-That’s an interesting thought. We now can push iron into the dimensions of magic. Master Jevin described going around iron as simply bypassing the physical iron via those dimensions. Clearly, we should be able to make a more complete containment, hence why we can’t actually use it fully until your body is refined.-

That’s a good point. I wonder, could we make a better isolation chamber than this room?

Mistress Elnea pulled Tala out of her musings with a simple question, “Shall we begin?”

“Hmm? Oh! Right.” Tala placed Kit on the wall, and it morphed into a door that seemed like it perfectly belonged there. That is such a useful feature. I really don’t notice it very often.

-That is sort of the point.-

The door opened, showing a view of the central courtyard.

“Thank you.” Her words were soft, spoken just for the door—for Kit—to hear, though Mistress Elnea probably had enough enhancement to have heard, regardless.

They were stepping through when Alat grabbed Tala’s attention. -Mistress Holly has requested permission to engage several experts and share the results of your test with them.-

Tala frowned. I thought she already had permission?

-Apparently, there are a few that we’ve not met. When she was asking earlier, we only gave permission for those whom we had met.-

Oh, I do suppose it was a bit silly to assume that I’d already met those best able to help. Yes. She can use her professional discretion to bring in other experts. I want to Refine as soon as possible, and I want it to go properly.

-Alright, I’ve amended the shared informational space without answer.-

Tala followed Mistress Elnea in, and the door swung shut behind them.

-You know, we didn’t have to wait before we went in.-

Tala shrugged, but before she could respond, she felt something.

She looked around, instantly activating her voidsight through the use of Flow’s void-knife-form.

The nodules and fragments of reality became obvious, and she could see them pressed firmly against each other, the distinction much harder to perceive than the day before.

Moreover, she could see threads of power binding them all together in a way that she’d not noticed before.

Trying to focus on that was like trying to see a thin spider-web in poor lighting, but it was there. There seemed to be other powers working to similar effects, but the web-like working was the most visible.

She asked Mistress Elnea about it, and the woman turned to her. “Oh! That’s fascinating.” She lifted her slate up, manipulating it before nodding. “Yes, one of the crates I brought was filled with dimensional spider-silk. Nasty predators, those.”

Tala frowned. “I don’t know that I’ve heard of them.”

“I should hope not. They are a relatively new arcanous creature, less than five-hundred years old, and we did—and still do—our best to wipe them out whenever we come across them or detect them.”

“What makes them so in need of extinction?”

“Well, they manifest as the same size as regular spiders, but they weave their webs into intricate, magic-filled constructs. When you run into one, instead of having a web across your face, in your hair, or on your boot, you are jerked inside.”

“Inside?” Tala had a bad feeling about what the woman meant.

“Yes, within the webs. It is an expanded space of sorts, or more accurately a compressed space—though, there is little save academic difference between those types of altered space. Once inside, you would seem the size of an insect, and the spider is massive in comparison. From examination, we’ve long since discovered that the spiders are actually the size of houses, if not bigger, but dimensionally compress themselves to better hide.”

Like Terry… Interesting. “And they hunt humans?”

Mistress Elnea shrugged. “Not usually. Not specifically, but they do eat those they can. Generally, they’ll spread their net on game-trails, and snag the occasional herd animal for their meals, or whole herds when fate favors them. Before we learned how to detect and hunt them, we suspect that many of our missing persons from that time fell afoul of these arachnids.”

Tala shivered, imagining being a mundane, minding her own business then suddenly finding herself in a massive spider’s lair. “That would be awful.”

“Precisely. We eradicated the founts that allowed them to spawn, but unfortunately, these seem to breed true. They are actually able to pass their magic down to their descendants without a fount. We keep them mostly out of human cities and away from the caravan routes, but they’re still scattered throughout the world.”

“Without getting their power from a fount? I didn’t know that was possible.”

The woman shrugged. “It’s vanishingly rare. Occasionally, a power fits a creature so closely that it seems to fold into their very being, and then it can be passed down to their descendants.”

“Lovely…”

Mistress Elnea seemed to hesitate. “To be clear, even though it’s incredibly rare, many of the most pervasive arcanous species are a result of this quirk. The advantage given to a genetic line with innate magical giftings is simply too strong to be easily overcome by mundane versions of the species. So, even though individual instances are rare, these days those that have happened have resulted in many descendents for whom it is true.”

“That makes good sense, I suppose.” What were we discussing?

-Kit.-

Right! “So, these threads?”

“Yes! Their silk has intrinsic properties of dimensional stability, specifically relating to pocket dimensions or expanded spaces.”

“That’s incredibly useful. I can understand why you thought it was a good candidate for repairing my dimensional storage.”

“It is useful, yes. But what’s truly incredible is that I have detected that magic woven throughout this entirety of this dimensional space.”

Tala blinked. “That must have been massively expensive. This place is huge, compared to most human dimensional storage spaces. Thank you for providing so much of the silk.”

Mistress Elnea shook her head. “No, I only brought a few skeins. It was not a large crate after all. Most of this seems to have been fabricated off that template and incorporated into the natural magics of the space. That is what’s impressive to me.”

“That’s… incredible.” Tala repeated herself but found that she didn’t really mind. Kit can replicate magical structures and methodologies?

-I mean, we haven’t seen Kit do it before now, but it seems like the answer is fairly obvious.-

“You have no idea just how amazing this is.” The older woman gestured vaguely around herself. “This really is a creature. That is exactly what we’d expect from a merging of magical materials with a sentient thing, rather than a construct or artifact. Your sanctum is alive.”

The woman’s words were full of wonder, as if she hadn’t really believed it until that very moment.

“This changes so much. I don’t know how you’ve come to an understanding with this being, but the implications and applications are practically endless. I hope that we can find more of these, and replicate your process, one way or another.”

Tala was open to trying. “So, what next?”

The woman’s eyes practically sparkled. “Before we do anything else, I have so many measurements to take.”

Tala smiled in return, more excited for the result than the process. “Do you need me in here with you?”

“Hmm? No, no. I’ll just move throughout if that’s acceptable to you.”

“Absolutely. Make yourself at home. Do you want me to keep Kit anchored in the Constructionist’s compound?”

She waved her hand at that. “No, no. You’re welcome to go about your day. I’ll reach out to you through the Archive when I wish to leave. I can take the founts from you, then?”

Tala only hesitated for a moment before nodding. “That sounds workable, thank you.”

“No, Mistress Tala. Thank you.” With an almost girlish giggle, the Head of the Bandfast Archon Council set off, pulling more and more magical devices out of her own dimensional storage.

Well, I’ll be interested to learn what she finds out. It should be fascinating.

-So it seems.-

Tala exited Kit and pulled the door from the wall, hanging it on her belt in the form of a pouch.

She’s in there with all my things… That shouldn’t bother Tala. There was no real way for the woman to steal from her—Tala somehow knew that Kit would move things out of reach if anyone tried to take things without her permission—and she shouldn’t have any motivation to do so.

Still, Tala opened Kit and pulled out the bars of white metal one after another.

-Tala, you have a lot of those.-

Even so, Tala wielded the void-aspects of her elk leathers, absorbing the ingots, one after another.

Somewhat to her surprise, the elk leathers took it all with relative ease, she was even able to somewhat sense the reserve of magical metal, much like she could sense her iron. Though, the sense was more distant, like being able to see how heavy a friend’s pack was by how they moved, compared to how easily she could feel her own pack’s weight.

Not that I will likely need to use a pack ever again.

The magical load from her elk leathers had increased with every ingot absorbed, but it was still well within her ability to sustain, even alongside Kit’s newfound power requirement.

She also knew from experience that she could remove the metal from the soulbound item later if she wished. Or I can fabricate more with the machine in the underground room.

Even with the most valuable and easily stolen resource secreted away, she felt an itch and reached for it within Kit.

There was something still within Kit that a large part of her didn’t want to risk losing.

She came out with a handful of iron bits, some stolen from the House of the Rising Sun, and others were bits left over from the construction of the sanctum’s structures.

With an easy pull, she absorbed the iron, letting the carbon and other trace minerals fall to the ground.

That complete, Tala let out a satisfied breath. There, what’s mine is secure.

-Are you sure that you’re okay?-

You know I’m not, but I’m learning.

-To Mistress Holly’s? We promised Rane that we’d meet him there.-

Ahh, right! Yes, let’s go.

As she stepped out past the massive iron doors, she felt something settle upon her.

Whether watching Kit had made her more sensitive—or her paranoia was just at a high point—she felt the sway of the city’s magics settle down upon her. Any fragments of power that left her were subjected to cleansing workings and drawn away to the power matrices of the city.

Oh, that’s… that’s unpleasant. She checked her memory and found that she had memory of this feeling before, but like the clothes on her back, if she didn’t think to focus on the feeling, she didn’t notice it.

Great, now I can feel my clothing…

-Well, that one’s on you.-

Yeah…

Tala passed back out of the Constructionists’ guildhall, bidding Master Srip goodbye on her way by.

The Mage bid her good day, and Tala was back out in the cool of the winter’s day.

Just as before, Tala didn’t rush on her way through the city. She took her time walking to Mistress Holly’s workshop, letting her feet lead her on a roundabout route, simply enjoying the freedom to go where she wished, how she wished.

Even so, it was a relatively short walk to the inscriber’s shop, and Tala stepped into the warmth before she really realized that she’d arrived.

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