Apparatus Of Change - Chapter 16 (Patreon)

Unnamed - Apparatus Of Change

Available Power : 0

Authority : 3

Bind Insect (1, Command)

Fortify Space (2, Domain)

Distant Vision (2, Perceive)

Nobility : 2

Congeal Glimmer (1, Command)

See Domain (1, Perceive)

Empathy : 2

Shift Water (1, Shape)

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Spirituality : 3

Shift Wood (1, Shape)

Small Promise (2, Domain)

Make Low Blade (2, War)

Ingenuity : 2

Know Material (1, Perceive)

Form Wall (2, Shape)

Tenacity : 2

Nudge Material (1, Shape)

Bolster Nourishment (2, Civic)

When I was a boy, my father told me that I would be gifted something from the village for my tenth harvest rite.  He told me I could ask for whatever I wanted, but that I would need to make sure it was what I truly wanted.  I already knew what I wanted, and I told him, and he just raised a bushy old eyebrow and asked if I was sure.  I thought I was.  But when the time came, all I remember is the pang of regret, that I asked for too much and too little and something that wasn’t what I meant.  When I grew older, and wiser, I had a son.  And on his tenth harvest rite, I told him he would get a gift from the village.  And I wanted to tell him that he’d regret his choice, but I remembered my own father letting me learn the way I did, and how it changed me.  So I just raised an eyebrow, and asked if he was sure.

An echo softens in my soul.  Not the whole of me, all my small souls together, but one in particular.  A soft whisper of an old memory, no longer a far away and clinical event to analyze, but something that I remember.  Something I lived.

I am still me.  I am still someone new and growing.  But now, I am slightly more an old farmer.  More than just having that old life waiting within me to be pursued at my leisure, or drawn on for the useful parts; there is a small touch of it like paint on a canvas.  A splash of living color drawn within the space of my thoughts.

I feel slightly strange.  But I do not feel overly different.  And while it is certainly something I will need to spend a great deal of time working to understand, to know that the lives that make me up might not be so distant after all, the potential terror of it is pushed back as the spell I have built and cast takes hold.

There was an itch I could not scratch.  A pressure slowly building.  And I could have resisted the call of it, perhaps for my whole life, however long that will be.  But I chose not to.  Distant Vision is what I thought was to be the answer to my woes.  To give me eyes to see.  And in its way, it does.

I did not aim the spell, really.  Simply pointing it in a direction and making the assumption that, as with all of my magics, I would need to adjust and tinker to make it flow as I truly wished.  So it is not much of a surprise that what it shows me is not somewhere I recognize.  But I can see.  The spell shows me everything around where it has landed, as if I am looking outward, but in every direction at once.  Were I still in any of my bodies with real eyes, it would have made my head spin and my heart pound.  But now, I take it all in like I was born to it.

Trees.  Trees!  Not like my little clearing with its one decent tree and the forest lurking around the edges.  No, this is deep within the woodland.  Trunks so wide that a human would have to really reach to give one a hug.  Some old branches litter the ground where they have broken and fallen, but most of these trees have branches that sprout from their trunks well above the ground.  Green leaves in a dozen shades, from pale almost-yellow to deep veridian, color the air around me in the fading light of twilight.  The ground is covered in dead leaves and ground cover plants and a patch of bright red mushrooms.

I cannot see the tops of the trees.  I cannot see farther than five lengths in any direction, actually.  Not that my sight becomes blurry and unfocused, like eyes in old age, or that there is something blocking me, like a wall of bark and vegetation.  No, I simply cannot glimpse past that line.  There is not even darkness, really.  It is merely where my vision ends, and that is that.

But I can see.  With clarity that far surpasses my little lovely honeybees.  Surpasses anyone I was in a past life, really.  Every detail within those five lengths is open to me, all at once and all perfectly understood.  I can trace patterns in the thick bark, count aphids on the leaves, see the caps and stems of the mushrooms in their spongey majesty, even track the rustling of every dead leaf from the passing of a small burrowing creature.  There is no limit to how much or how fine I can see.

It’s beautiful.  The world is beautiful.  I wish I could see the sky, see the stars and the river of seeds.  But even as I sit and bask in feeling like I am once again connected to the world of light, that I am no longer completely confined entirely to the spellwork and thoughts of my own mind, lacking even darkness to watch, I realize that I am burning through my spell.

How long I have been entranced, I do not know.  But it is long enough that I have spent half my supply of cold and empty liquid.

Regretfully, I pull back, letting the spell fade away until I am once again left with only the small dark windows of my honeybees, and the ever helpful dry ledgers of Know Material and See Domain.

But I am not done.  While my other spells are all mostly expended from a hard day, I still have more Distant Vision to play with, and I intend to enjoy it.  I take command of a small honeybee, rousing it from where it was nestled in their hive for the night, and I move it just enough that I can see the campfire in the middle of the clearing.  Through this noble bee’s eyes, I point my new spell, and cast.

And nothing happens.  I feel the machinery of arcana move, but I do not understand why it has not worked.  I see nothing more than I did before, and the bee’s night vision is far, far less powerful than my own magically imbued sight.  So, I try again.  But again, it merely splashes a drop of nothingness out of the vial of the spell, and accomplishes nothing.

I would frown if I still had that option.  I do not, though, so I begin trying new things.  No sense letting myself become frustrated yet; though I do leave the option open.  Frustration has not been something I have really felt in the same way I have experienced anxiety, elation, and optimistic glee.  But I look forward to the new life experience.

Distant Vision is a spell that has a very nuanced request when I activate it.  And as I cast it again, I throw nuance to the wind, and simply point it in the opposite direction from my first use.

I am centered just below the point where two trees meet.  One of them standing tall and proud, the other caught and braced against its still sturdy brother, as it has been uprooted and toppled.  Worms and ants ply their trade in the soil caught in its roots, still fresh enough to be filled with life.  What feels like a game trail, a thin and trampled line through the tall grass that fills the areas between the taller trees, cuts nearby.  I try to avoid getting distracted examining and counting the plump purple berries on the nearby bramble patch that seeks to consume every square length of this wood, and remember why I am here.

There will be more sights, and more forest to explore.  For now, I must see how far I can see.  I do not know how far the spell has taken me, but I know how to aim through my own spellwork, and I do so now, pointing back in the opposite direction, back toward the camp, and attempting to cast again.

Nothing happens, yet again.  Interesting.  I am starting to suspect that I may be limited in how many eyes I can have at once.  Or, perhaps, I cannot push beyond the boundaries of the vision itself.  I am at the very edge, within my sight, but still toward where I began, and cast.  And still nothing.

A growing sense of irony is beginning to roil within me.  Memories from a cleric who once encountered a very literal believer float to the surface.  I refuse to let this frustrate me, but if this truly is what I am starting to suspect, then I am going to be very, very exasperated with the nature of my soul for hosting something so delightfully silly.

I rotate where I am focused.  Still seeing the whole of the game trail and the brambles, but aiming myself to the other side; away from the camp.  Away from what I am trying, truly, to see with my own eyes.  And, so pointed, at the edge of my vision, I cast once more.

A limitation that is instantly apparent is that I really can only have one of these eyes open at once.  But my vision shifts instantly as the spell takes hold.  Now, I am focused over the middle of a bramble patch.  Around me, thorns and summer berries are rendered in my mind in the dark night with sharp detail, so clear and perfect I feel I could prick myself on them, if they would be strong enough to scratch my shell.  At the edge of my sight, the trees I was just under wait patiently, half of them visible within my magical circle.

There is not much left of Distant Vision’s supply of empty liquid.  But I make a couple more quick casts of it, and confirm what my old life’s sense of irony had suspected.

Distant.  A vision that is distant.  It is, after all, in the name.  Distant Vision.  I do not know, truly, how far it takes me, but I know a few more things now than I did when I made my choice.  For one, it cannot get close enough for me to see the camp, or anything I recognize from within the range of sight of my bees.  Which means it is taking me at least forty lengths away, though I believe firmly it is more than that, for reasons I cannot fully understand.  And two, I can get farther, especially if I point the spell through the edges of itself.

The third thing is that I am either in the middle of a forest.  No matter which way I point, I find myself amid the trees.  Leafy trees, brambles and vines, some grass and flowers.  The woods surround me.

But I cannot see the area close around myself.  There is a minimum of how far I must send my ghostly eye away, and it is far enough that I have not seen any trace of my humans, even the trail they took to get here some days past.  Though I have yet to explore every direction, and as the spell finds its supply of liquid nothing running low, I pull back to my own quiet and sightless world.

I have started a whole new life, only to find myself back where I was, being gifted exactly what I asked for and realizing I asked for the wrong thing.

And yet, I can see once more.  Perhaps not truly useful yet, but I have no doubt I will find purpose within the magic.  Ability provides its own demand, as it were.  And I’m sure my humans will be able to make something of my potential as a scout.

Perhaps tomorrow, when I wake again, I will begin to draw a map.  An honor to the legacy of the scholar I once was.

For now, though, I let the last of my spells pull themselves down to empty as I enjoy the quiet of my mind.  Yes, it is perhaps not what I had meant to ask for.  But today, I got to see the world myself, and that leaves me feeling the warmth of happiness all the same.

As I fall toward sleep, I watch the tiny motes make their way to my body, from out in the nothingness that I cannot perceive.  My small bursts of exploration having shaken them loose from where they were hiding, and the distance no concern for these tiny spots of power and life.

Tomorrow promises to be a fine day.