Chapter: 300 - Expensive Food (Patreon)

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Tala’s magesight confirmed that, while power was still flowing from the body of the syphon, it was dead.

The threat addressed, she finally had a moment to really take a look at Master Pavrimax, using the mirrored perspective from the base of her skull.

The strange Archon—who had inadvertently brought this about—was dripping blood from his myriad small cuts, but even so, his focus was moving towards those he’d saved.

While she did examine the odd Archon more closely, she walked forward, intending to grab the entirety of the syphon’s corpse to feed to Kit. These things are rather great Kit-ty food.

She chuckled at her own joke, and Alat groaned.

Her mirrored perspective had a lot to show her as it seemed that Master Pavrimax was an even more interesting character than she’d realized.

First of all, he already had a book in hand once again, somehow keeping it clean despite the dust, snow, and blood all around. He kept it out, even as he knelt beside the four whom he’d hurt as he pulled them from the syphon.

Can’t really fault him for the results. I don’t know that I could have moved fast enough to save them, even if I had sensed them.

-Yeah, a few broken bones are better than death.-

Tala frowned as she considered. Why didn’t I sense them?

-Well, you did. At least you heard them, and noticed other indications, but nothing stood out among everything else. We have great senses, but that doesn’t mean we automatically, instantly know exactly what we’re sensing.-

I suppose… She turned her attention back to the Archon as she neared the now-empty alleyway.

Master Pavrimax was of average height and very slender. As a Mage, he was obviously not fat, but his frame was barely in the healthy range on the other extreme.

He didn’t look stick-like, instead showing some muscle, but he wasn’t bulky by any stretch of the imagination.

Tala had caught a light brown, almost caramel color to his eyes, and his wavy, dark brown hair indicated that his inscriber used Mistress Holly’s needles.

She hadn’t noted it in the moment, but when she looked back on the short fight, his mace had looked almost like it was carved of emerald.

-Doesn’t look quite right for that.-

The mace now hung at his belt when it hadn’t been visible before the engagement.

-It’s wise of him to keep his weapon ready for further issues, though they are unlikely because, well, this is Bandfast.-

True enough.

Tala took Kit off of her belt and dropped the pouch on the ground just beside the edge of the building. “Eat up, buddy.”

The pouch opened, the yawning blackness expanding under the building, somehow altering dimensionality to get fully under the parts that it maneuvered around.

There were no visible teeth, though Tala felt like they wouldn’t have been out of place.

Instead, there was simply a blackness that led Tala to believe that it was an opening into somewhere deep within Kit, under the ground, in the bedrock of the sanctum.

All the better to digest you with, my dear.

-That’s pretty dark, Tala.-

Exactly, I can’t see anything in there.

-You know what I mean.-

When Kit had opened under around a quarter of the dead beast, it started to collapse into the hole, dragging the rest inside.

Kit contracted around the rest of the remains as they slithered down in, leaving the pouch sitting at her feet once more, in front of an empty alley.

It was closed and utterly still, magically speaking. All that was going on within was in the separate dimensional space.

Tala looked closer at the alley, shaking her head. I forget that the syphons can manipulate dimensionality, too. It seemed much bigger than that alley would have allowed.

-Yeah, it seems like it expanded the space to make a shop facade fit in more naturally.-

“Good job, Kit.” She picked up the pouch and hung it from her belt, giving Kit a comforting pat.

Kit did not respond.

Tala was about to turn back around when something odd happened. The perspective she had watching Master Pavrimax almost seemed to hitch, or at least that’s how it seemed.

One moment, the Archon was kneeling beside those he was helping, alone as he worked, and the next moment, a black cat was sitting in his shadow, licking its paw and staring straight at her bloodstar with too-intelligent, caramel-colored eyes.

Tala spun, locking her own eyes on the cat.

It had a heavy aura, which was obviously connected with Master Pavrimax’s.

The little beast’s magic had deep connections to shadow and dimensionality, making its appearance make a lot of sense.

Does it live in his shadow?

-Could be. It seems to be an actual familiar. Is that right? Those are at least a bit rare. I don’t know that we’ve actually come across any, at least not that we’ve noticed.-

Tala walked over, and Master Pavrimax glanced her way. “Good, you’re done. Do you have any external healing scripts?”

“I do not, but the city defenders should be here soon.”

“We are here.” A voice came from behind her, along with a Refined aura that gently blanketed the area, seemingly calming the mundanes that had scrambled away.

That’s a use of my aura that I’ve never even tried to master.

-Well, to be fair, that aura has defensive, healing, and perceptual magics as fundamental parts of it. I’m sure all of those things feel nice when people are exposed to them.-

Tala sighed. Where I have gravity, selfish-healing, and death?

-I wouldn’t it put it that way, but you aren’t wrong.-

Her mirrored perspective had seen the man arrive just as he spoke, indicating that he’d been able to perceive the area before he arrived. You know, I bet the city’s grid somehow facilitates their movement. It’s probably expensive, though, so they don’t use it unless required.

-They probably have some sort of tiered system, too. They appeared immediately when the arcane stepped out of Kit, but they’ve had slower responses to other threats.-

Yeah, that makes sense. Master Grediv had implied that she should be able to move quickly, once she Refined, and it hadn’t sounded like it was tied to a city’s grid, but she’d have to ask him to learn more. I could ask Mistress Holly, too, but I might just get myself stuck in a wall.

Alat huffed in response to that, not deigning to respond.

Besides the Refined man, there were another half-dozen Archons who were immediately spreading out to the surrounding mundanes, checking for injuries and treating what minor scrapes and sprains there were.

Two went toward the four more damaged rescuees that Master Pavrimax had saved before the syphon collapsed. One of those placed a hand on Master Pavrimax’s shoulder, and the Archon’s cuts and scrapes closed almost too quickly to watch.

The man who had spoken already glanced toward the alley briefly then focused on Tala. “Mistress. I am Gerard. Is there any further threat that you are aware of?”

Tala shook her head. “No, Master Gerard. I believe that the young syphon was the only threat, here.”

“And you have disposed of the remains?”

“I have.”

Master Gerard frowned slightly, waving over Master Pavrimax.

The young man came over—seemingly happy to leave his charges in the care of another—and stood beside Tala, his cat jumping up and landing on his shoulder with ease. The cat continued to stare at Tala without breaking its gaze.

“By our estimation, this Master contributed at least ten percent to the effective response to the situation. He is entitled to compensation. Since you have harvested the results, yourself, that requires you to buy out his portion.”

Tala grunted, grimaced, sighed, and nodded. “Very well.”

Master Pavrimax held up a finger. “Usually in this situation, there would be a lottery between you and I, with you having nine in ten chances to claim the full bounty as I did not contribute sufficiently for a guaranteed dispensation. In all likelihood, you would have received all that you took, regardless.”

She blinked at him a few times. “Is that… supposed to be helpful?”

“I’ve no idea what’s helpful to you, but it is interesting.” He scratched his chin with his free hand, while the other maintained hold on his book. “We could do the lottery now? If you win, nothing is owed. If I do, the full value is paid.”

Tala frowned, turning to the city defender. “Master Gerard, what is the value of a Fused level syphon?”

“One hundred gold.” His answer was immediate, and Tala wasn’t sure how she felt about the regularity implied by such quickly recited knowledge.

One hundred gold was still a lot of money for her as well; her eye twitched. There is absolutely no way I’m paying out one hundred gold.

-Yeah, if something is bad for you, a ten percent chance happens half of the time.-

Tala smiled ruefully. And if it’s good for you, a fifty percent chance might occur one time in ten.

-Precisely.-

She shook her head. “I’ll pay out the percentage.”

Master Pavrimax shrugged. “As you wish.”

“Is an Archival transfer acceptable?”

He tilted his head with interest. “Ahh, Refined, right. So you’ve availed yourself of the standard Archive connection?”

“Something like that…” She shrugged.

“Then that is acceptable.” After a moment’s pause, a grin spread across his face. “Did you know that the Archive is, in fact, not free to operate?”

Tala hesitated. “What?” She shook her head. “I mean, I suppose that’s obvious. It takes magic to empower access, which is, in a sense, a payment.”

“Oh, I mean more than that.”

Alat transferred the money, and a clip on the man’s belt let out a single chime, prompting him to look down at it.

Master Pavrimax touched the item and his eyes unfocused for a moment before he nodded. “Thank you, funds received. But what I meant was: Of the power we send out towards the Archive, only ninety-nine percent actually affects the changes within that cognitive space, even accounting for Mage inefficiency. Moreover, every bit of information stored there has an accessor that most don’t consider.”

-What now?-

Tala turned her full attention to the man. “What now?”

Master Gerard shook his head. “I’ll leave you to your discussion. I’ll see to the fallout, here.”

She glanced his way, smiled, and bowed slightly. “Thank you, Master Gerard. Take care.”

“You as well.”

Master Pavrimax bowed to the departing Refined as well, before turning back to Tala. “Think about it. Everything stored in the Archive can be modified and accessed”—he paused for dramatic effect—“by the Archive itself.”

Her eye twitched again, violently. “That’s…” She rubbed her face with her hands. “That’s like saying a locked box isn’t perfectly secure because the box has access to the contents.”

“Precisely! I knew you’d understand.”

She closed her eyes for a long moment. What the actual rust?

-Well, I suppose the point is that we all assume the Archive is inert, just like a locked box. But what if the locked box is, in fact, a syphon or one of its carnivorous cousins? Then this distinction would be very important.-

So, his point is: What if the Archive is sentient or even sapient?

-Possibly.-

Tala sighed, opening her eyes to find Master Pavrimax grinning at her.

He spoke as soon as they made eye contact, “Fascinating, right? What does it take to develop intelligence? Information processing and time!”

So, we guessed right on his meaning. Still, she shook her head. “I’m pretty sure it takes more than that.”

He nodded, tapping the side of his nose. “So, you subscribe to the soul theory of sapience?”

“What?”

-Nothing without a soul can be sapient. It is the soul which changes a thing from a reactor to an actor within the web of causality that makes up reality.-

“Oh. I guess so?”

“That is a reasonable line of thought, I suppose.” He glanced around. “But this is no place for a true discussion. Shall we away, to find our repast and enlighten each other on the mysteries of the universe?”

“What?”

He gave her a longsuffering look. “Do you want to eat and talk about fun thought experiments?”

Tala hesitated, but honestly, she felt like she needed some sort of change. The fight with the syphon had only highlighted how much she was beginning to feel caged. Worth a try, I suppose. “You know what? Sure. Let’s chat.”

Either way, I get food and learn some odd bits of information.

In the end, the meal was interesting enough.

Master Pavrimax was full of esoteric facts and a willingness to share them.

His mace had seemed to shift to a ruby hue when they had entered the eatery, before he put the weapon away. Tala didn’t want to pry, though, so she didn’t pursue the topic.

Thus, while she learned lots of odd facts about everything from shoe construction and spice availability to utensil evolution and the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow, she didn’t really learn much about the man, himself.

That was fine. They simply shared the meal and parted ways as temporary acquaintances.

They might cross paths again, but only time would tell.

Tala passed by the place where the syphon had been slain barely two hours after the incident, and there was no remaining evidence of the short fight.

They really are good at keeping these things contained.

-Yeah, as safe as they make the cities, there are still some truly horrifying dangers.-

Isn’t that the truth…

It was mid-afternoon by the time she got back to Lyn’s house, which she found blessedly empty.

The short fight had left her with a hunger that food couldn’t satisfy, and the time since had just seen that hunger grow, despite the meal with Master Pavrimax.

She’d gone just more than two months since her last real fight, and that had been with the Leshkin as she had rampaged her way through the forest to get home.

-It was actually precisely two months as of yesterday.-

Huh, really? She thought about it and was instantly able to confirm. That’s a long time…

-To not have killed anything? I suppose so, for you.-

Tala grimaced. That’s not really a charitable way of wording it. I meant that that’s a long time to go without sparring or fighting at all.

-Sure, that too.-

She sighed, pulling out the magic nest in order to occupy her over-hyped mind.

Her body felt like running a thousand miles, but she stretched instead, slowly calming her twitchy muscles.

Soon. We’ll be able to test ourselves again soon.

She was exceptionally glad that no one was around, because she was having much more difficulty than usual with the magic nest.

Rane would be absolutely destroying me right now, if he was here…

She’d been getting better and better with the magic nest as well, unraveling it nearly half-way with a fair degree of consistency.

At the moment, she kept losing focus around the one quarter mark.

Finally, she growled, put the thing away in Kit.

-We could spar?-

Tala huffed a laugh, but smiled. They had been figment sparring a lot of late, and she quite enjoyed it. Even so, Tala didn’t feel up for the mental strain that came afterwards for both herself and Alat. Not right now. Maybe this evening, before we sleep?

-Or when you calm your mind a bit?-

Maybe.

Tala turned her mind entirely to dynamic stretches, moving through increasingly complicated and convoluted motions to expand and strengthen her movements.

Even so, her thoughts were still running rampant despite her best efforts.

While the stretching occupied and calmed her physically, her mind did its part and was still all over the place and in need of extra distraction.

Toward that end, Alat presented Tala with the next book in her queue, and Tala began to read.

In that way, she passed the remainder of the afternoon, until Lyn and Kannis got home from work.

When the two women got home, Tala met them in the entryway. “Out! Let’s go. Dinner’s on me.”

The two had actually looked a bit bedraggled, but they both perked up at Tala’s offer. Lyn was the first to respond. “Oh? What’s the occasion?”

“I killed a syphon today, and I need to get out of this house for a bit.”

“You what?!” Lyn immediately looked towards where the massive, powerful syphon had set up shop more than a year ago.

“No, not one like that. This was practically a baby, just in the Fused range.”

Lyn gave Tala an unamused look.

Right… she’s Fused.

Kannis cleared her throat. “What’s a syphon? I don’t think I’ve heard of such a creature.”

Lyn turned to her mageling with a puzzled frown. “Kannis, we’ve discussed them quite a few times. Tala and I helped deal with one just a few days before you became my mageling.”

“Huh, I don’t remember…” Her eyes took on a far-off look before she shook her head, seemingly clearing her mind. “What were we talking about?”

Lyn had frozen in place, eyes widening in horror.

Tala, with her enhanced perception, could see the edges of Kannis’s mouth fighting to remain neutral. She’s messing with Lyn?

Lyn seemed to notice something, because her eyes suddenly narrowed. “You’re trying to rust my metal, aren’t you.” It wasn’t a question. “Is that how you want to treat your master after the day we’ve had?”

Kannis broke out in a grin. “Oh, but your face!”

She laughed, and Tala felt herself smile along.

“You were like: ‘Oh, no! One of them is right here, keeping her from remembering.’”

“That is not what I was thinking.” Lyn frowned. “I was wondering if you were hit in the head somehow, and I didn’t notice.”

Kannis huffed a laugh. “Sure you were.”

Tala cleared her throat. “So… dinner?”

The two women turned towards her, wry smiles growing on both of their faces.

Lyn shook her head. “Yes. There certainly isn’t anything worth pursuing here.”

Kannis turned on one foot and strode back out through the front door. “To expensive food! Mistress Tala’s treat.”

Lyn froze for just an instant before grinning broadly and following her mageling. “To the best restaurant in the city!”

Tala blinked a few times, fully processing what they were saying. She frowned, following them as quickly as she could while closing and locking the door. “Hey, now! To reasonably priced food in large quantities.”

Lyn glanced back. “We can vote on where we go?”

Kannis grinned happily. “I’d agree to that.”

Tala shook her head. “If I pay, I pick.”

Lyn laughed. “Fine, fine. Let’s get some food.”

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