Apparatus Of Change - Chapter 17 (Patreon)

Unnamed - Apparatus Of Change

Available Power : 2

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)

I wake up, and for the first time since I have entered my new life, I begin my day with a plan, and work that I can sink my spells into.

The easy tasks come first, the things that take effort, yes, but do not require me to exercise my wit an ingenuity to be exactly what I need them to be.  Bolster Nourishment has been a challenge to understand and measure in any way that I can understand, but I know that when I use it on the oat and fruit mix slowly heating over the fire, that it will stretch a little farther, fill stomachs for a little longer, than it would otherwise.  Fortify Space also is easy to paint the world with.  I can cast it four times now, with my expanded Authority, and I do so with careful consideration for what See Domain tells me I have already touched.  More area of the camp’s clearing fills with my security, and if the memories of proper mathematics that I am drawing on have not led me astray, then I will be able to finish the whole space within a score of sunrises.

Then, the things that need a touch more attention from me.  When I wake, I do not experience grogginess or disorientation, and I truly do relish the feeling of clarity that I never seem to lose, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t feel like a pleasant flow of thought to work up to the more challenging tasks.

Shift Wood is still nothing compared to the true tools of a craftsman, but the ability to blend wood into itself does offer an option I would never otherwise have, and I put it to work on the roof of sticks that rises like a skeleton of wood over the small building I erected last night.  The creation cannot be too rigid, or it will break in the wind rather than simply bob, but it needs enough connections to hold together.  I toughen up the places where the sticks settle against the fresh brick, leaving perfect notches that can settle over time, and reinforce where they are tied together with rough plant fiber, binding them a little more securely.  It’s not much, it’s not a home, but it will provide a framework for a thatch roof later, and it will shade the supplies stored or people resting in the small hut.  And it will last for longer than it would otherwise.

Shift Water I turn to another use.  Now that my range is slightly farther, I have watched through Bind Insect and the eyes of my bees as one of the humans, a young woman who seems to be heavily scarred on her face, has tried to catch them another fish.  Their food supply is not stable; I can see through Know Material that they only have enough to eat, even on thin rations and with my magic helping, for twenty days at most.  Everything they bring in, every fruit and fish, is more valuable than steel.  But she is having trouble; they have no rod and line, and so she tries to make do with a simple wooden spear.  I know the humans have brought in at least two fish from the stream before, but the woman seems to be struggling.  What is left of Shift Wood sharpens and balances the spear in her hands, and I see through my bees as she starts in surprise.  But she has her eye on a fish, and a determined scowl, and I have a way to help here too.  She strikes, splashing into the stream in a way that is sure to startle her prey away.  But Shift Water takes hold, and is far easier to use and sustain when I am not moving globes of liquid through the air, and the fish suddenly finds itself with nowhere to dodge that is not unmoving.  It is a small catch, but it will be dinner.  I settle in as the woman gives a triumphant grin, to help with the next one or two, before my spell is exhausted.

I settle back, watching through the growing number of links to the world that I have within myself, and simply taking a moment to observe things in motion.  Bind Insect still lets me watch and even feel through my bees when I do not have direct command of them, and the warm sun and bright flowers they are exploring are a welcome and refreshing mental reprieve.  Know Material tells me that more clay is being brought into the camp, and I look forward to working with that later in the evening.  See Domain meanwhile gives me a picture of the clearing itself, the terrain and the people who are connected to me through Small Promise.  I had not noticed, but the bees are now also within my domain, and the tiny dots of their presence form a blanket as the hive seeks out new sources for their honey.  I cannot find the woman who is the camp’s most dangerous guard within my domain, but my range of the spell is just as tethered to my body as all the others I have, and I trust that she is simply somewhere I cannot see and will return in time.

There is another sense I have, though.  One that is not from my spells, but from my own new body and the structure of my joined souls.  It is small, and happens across the span of hours, but if I feel closely, I can make out the tiny motes of something vibrant and kinetic moving from the world where my spells have touched it back into my core.  They refill the empty liquid of the spells I have used, drop by drop, but also, they slowly congeal to form what I know will be a point of power in the near future.

I am not ashamed to say that I coven those points dearly.  Each one of them, a step on the path of my life here.  Progress toward expanding my souls, progress toward new spells.  It is exciting.  And every spell, I continue to find new uses for.  Every day is a new challenge, even if that challenge is simply doing chores.

My old lives had many parents, or figures of their like, of many different dispositions. But all save the very worst of them would be very pleased to see the spiritual descendent of their children eager to perform the morning chores.

Now.  Already after my rest, I have garnered another two points.  And it is worth planning slightly what I wish to do with them, while I take my small break and compose myself for what I wish to try next.  But planning is, in a frustrating truth, a challenge.  It has not escaped me that every time one of my souls is advanced, it brings with it a wealth of new options.  Yes, it also opens up for me a new space to fit a spell.  But when I must choose from so many strange and unexplained magics, and not only that but choose only one at a time, there is a sense of falling behind, that I cannot shake.  There is, much as when I first woke up and did not know if Nudge Material and Know Material would be my entire world for the remainder of my life, until I went truly insane within my own mind, a feeling that perhaps I am behind led down a path toward a dead end.

The singer remembers plenty of alleyways that capped off in unexpected fences and walls.  And I empathize with those old memories; there is a claustrophobia to being trapped by fate and life that is a constant low growl to me.  Which is strange, when I consider that I feel no claustrophobia at all for being buried alive, unmoving in my small clearing.

Of course, I am buried alive, which is important.  And I like my clearing.  It has my bees, and my humans, and while the humans could still stand to learn much from the bees, I still have much to learn from both of them.  I am optimistic that we can teach each other.

The singer’s memories, it is important to say, also contain more than a few daring escapes from dead ends.  Because truly, nothing is inescapable.  There is always a rooftop to climb, or a door to slip out.  Even if your pursuer is chance and circumstance itself.

An hour has passed since I started wandering my own mind and memories, and I am no closer to having actually forged an outline of a plan for myself.  But that is alright.  I think I have already roughly settled upon Nobility as my next step forward.  Stronger and more Congeal Glimmer would improve what is, arguably, the reason the humans have stayed so far anyway.  And the chance to learn Know Resource intrigues me.  Of course, something new always has the chance to tempt me away, but I wish to see what the magic makes of the difference between a material and a resource.

Even better is that, now that I know I can speak with them, in my limited way, I could share what I learn.  Eventually, after some effort.  But still, that sharing, that connection, that is what I long for more than anything else.

For now, though, I end my reprieve, and set myself back to a task that has left me curious since I learned that I had this option last night.

Make Low Blade asks for materials.  But it asks for something else, as well.  And now I have at least part of the secret of what it needs to be something more than it was before.  I decide to make something more durable, and I also decide to make not a weapon, but a tool.  The kind of knife that an old soldier used not to skewer foes, but to slice her bread and cook her hunt over a roaring campfire.  A good, solid knife, with a flat blade and a small point, a handle for gripping and chopping, not stabbing or slashing.  And in place of bone, this time, I find some loose rock and a few scraps of discarded leather around the clearing with my bees and offer that to the spell.  And then, into the working as it spins and begins to transform my materials to my vision, I feed Congeal Glimmer.  The working slows, both spells waiting on each other now as they progress bit by bit.  Time falls away from me as I focus, but progress still occurs regardless.  A blade forms, then a handle, then a clean wrap that repurposes useless scrap leather into a tight grip.  And in the pommel of the knife, a grey and tan gemstone forms.

In my mind, lines stretch out from the two spells.  Congeal Glimmer and Make Low Blade both offer me something that many of my magics do not, and that is a light touch of knowledge about what they make.  And now, both of them have linked together to offer me a small collection of something as it related to the knife I have just made, and left in the roots of the tree, under my friendly beehive.  I do not know what it is telling me, exactly, but I know that it is connected to me.

And I hope the humans find it useful.

I spend the remainder of the day’s light casting myself away with Distant Vision, less scouting and more simply taking in the sights of the forest I am deep within.  Though I do make sure to keep mental notes on how many lengths I travel, so when I do have enough to begin to draw a map, I will have a good foundation.  For now, though, this is mostly my own enjoyment of an afternoon stroll, even if my legs have been replaced by a burst of vision in all directions.

That night, as the humans begin to settle into their camp with the light fading, Form Wall converts the clay they have brought to another small hut.  This one devoid of a glimmer, but still easily shaped into hardened and sturdy brick under my spell’s touch.

And then, in the light around the fire, with a small flock of my bees to help me see, I finally make use of the Nudge Material spell’s reserve that I have saved all day long.  Into the dirt, in lines I have practiced over and over in my mind, as precise as I can make it, I write the alphabet that lifetimes of learning have taught me to perfection.

The humans, especially the children, watch with curiosity and trepidation, as I add a pictogram that I believe shows what I would ask of them.  That they write it back, on their own.

Our first language lesson starts, as these things always should, with foundations.  And soon I will make scholars of us all.

It has been a good day, I think, as I finally find my spells drained and my mind bound for sleep along with many of the humans.