Apparatus Of Change - Chapter 60 (Patreon)

I realize I took two breaks pretty close together, so, sorry bout that.  I'm back now, and good news, taking breaks has abjectly failed to energize me in any way.  But that hasn't stopped me before!

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Unnamed - Apparatus Of Change

Available Power : 7

Authority : 6

Bind Insect (1, Command)

Fortify Space (2, Domain)

Distant Vision (2, Perceive)

Collect Plant (3, Shape)

See Commands (5, Perceive)

Bind Crop (4, Command)

Nobility : 4

Congeal Glimmer (1, Command)

See Domain (1, Perceive)

Claim Construction (2, Domain)

-

Empathy : 4

Shift Water (1, Shape)

Imbue Mending (3, Civic)

Bind Willing Avian (1, Command)

Move Water (4, Shape)

Spirituality : 5

Shift Wood (1, Shape)

Small Promise (2, Domain)

Make Low Blade (2, War)

Congeal Mantra (1, Command)

Form Party (3, Civic)

Ingenuity : 4

Know Material (1, Perceive)

Form Wall (2, Shape)

Link Spellwork (3, Arcane)

Sever Command (4, War)

Tenacity : 4

Nudge Material (1, Shape)

Bolster Nourishment (2, Civic)

Drain Endurance (2, War)

-

Animosity : -

Amalgamate Human (3, Command)

Dinner is cooked vegetables with a demon style frybread that seems to have survived however long it has been since I was last alive.  There’s a side of fruit for my bees, and this time, I focus carefully as they eat, letting myself disengage from the low murmur of conversation.  I think, though I cannot be sure, that what the bees slowly nibble on with bodies that were not originally shape to eat this way, is not just food for them, but also slowly broken down into those soft motes for me.

I think what my bound feed upon returns to me as power.

I should not be surprised, really.  Every action I take that shakes the world returns to me bits of the soft and drifting substance that my souls compress down into magical truths.  But there is something oddly terrifying and intimate about taking it from what is eaten.  Literal consumption made metaphorical, and turned into yet another part of the continuous flow of my growth.

I remember Kakoa, the man who died to my magic from my negligence, and I remember how he told me to eat what I could of his soul as he died.  The feeling of that violation, even the memory of it, is briefly overwhelming.

Reacting without thinking, I close off my sight through my bound, pull back my senses from my spells.  I let myself observe those spells from a mental distance, looking at the information they give me without living there, mostly so I can continue to use Distant Vision to keep an eye on Kalip without focusing.  Aside from that, I drift in the quiet dark of my mind.

Well.  It should be quiet.  It isn’t.  The arcane machinery of more and more spells turns within my thoughts, each of them… a part of something.  Something bigger, that I cannot quite make out.  The merchant remembers hearing a symphony once, but from a distance within the city; single notes of drums and horns rising above the background sounds, giving the knowledge that music was happening but never the music itself.  The singer, too, has a similar memory.  Of pilfered letters and whispered secrets, always knowing that politics was happening, but forever unable to see the shape of the scheme.

I would not call the spells that I hold either notes or whispers.  They don’t make noise, exactly.  Nor do they speak.  But they give off something that I can only approach explaining through metaphor.  A sense none of my old lives ever would have considered the existence of, and which I personally feel I have not developed yet.  Just the hint of it.

Something shakes me from my quiet examination of my self, my distraction from the dangerous and frightening thoughts that I don’t know how to handle.  It’s something that draws attention from one of my spells.  A piece of information from See Commands that I haven’t really seen before.

See Commands is a spell I haven’t really done much with on its own.  I am constantly using it through other spells, through my bees or Form Party or Distant Vision.  On its own, though, it still functions.  It’s just that, much like Know Material or See Domain, it is rather indistinct.  Just a mental ledger of information that is an effort to sort through, especially as I cannot take notes.

I recognize the source of the order that has just been given; it’s a small impulse of thought from the spell that I recognize as Yuea.  I’ve seen her before in other spells.  What strikes me as strange is what she is giving an order to.  It’s something strangely complex, like multiple different people folded in on themselves.  I would say that it’s a unit of some kind, a phalanx of soldiers could look this way in battle, perhaps.  But that makes little sense, as I’ve seen her give orders to the group of survivors in formation during our assault on this fort, and also, we are currently having dinner.

There is a conclusion, though, when I look at what the order actually is.  Hey, wake up!  The command sits there, waiting to be observed.  Something Yuea has yelled at me as I sit here in contemplation.  I am looking at what I look like to my magic.  Like a strange overlapping mess.

Not like a person at all, really.

Still.  It’s a group dinner, and Yuea’s not wrong.  It’s somewhat rude to allow my attention to wander.  I’m not asleep.  I write to her as I open my attention back up to what my bees and Oop are sharing with me about the surroundings.  I was going to place the words in the middle of the table, but as I look around, I see that the survivors are still in the middle of eating.  Across the table, Dipan nods sagely as two of the children regale him with a tale of trying to catch a hawk that was nesting nearby, while Muelly and Malpa share a quiet whispered conversation between themselves.  Yuea seems to have muttered her command to me directly, and at seeing the words, allows herself a small smirk.

“You’re always quiet when we’re eating.”  She mutters to me as I ask Oop to scuttle across the long wooden table to her seat.  “You don’t have to wait, you know?”  The woman still talks like she’s wounded, voice tight like she’s struggling against something, and I don’t think she even notices it.

I don’t want to frighten anyone.  I write in small letters near her plate.  But what I mean is, of course, that I don’t want to startle the children.

Yuea’s snort of derision does not go unnoticed, and she motions to my form when Seraha gives her a strange look.  She also ducks her head and sullenly adds another stalk of klinegrass to her mouth when Seraha glares at Yuea’s mostly untouched plate.  I appreciate this, because I spend a lot of magic making sure the food around here is nourishing, and even the children are better at eating their vegetables than Yuea is.

“You don’t frighten anyone!”  Mela says, the girl ducking her head over sideways to read what I’ve written and then tilting back to address Oop.  I consider, as this happens, that I should be better about smoothing out the wood after Shift Wood writes a message and it is read.  My conversations lack a certain privacy of the past, if I’m not careful.  And at this point, with Spirituality as it is, I am able to use Shift Wood endlessly with how quickly it recovers, so it would not be a burden on my magic.

“Weeeeellll…” Yuea looks almost embarrassed, a rather amusing look for the woman who is usually anathema to the concept of tact.

I frighten many people.  I remind Mela.  Dipan is still nervous around me.  Muelly has nightmares that I might kill you all.  The children are… I do not want to scare the children.  One good part of my speech being written is that I can erase and rewrite what I did not intend.  A strange form of self-editing, but one that I am becoming accustomed to.

Mela flushes red, glancing up to look at my body before looking over to the line of children that Dipan is trying to show how to eat the traditional demon dish.  He’s doing badly at it himself, and the demon kids know it, and it brings the feeling of a smile to me.  “The kids love you.”  She whispers to me.

They love the bees, not me.  I remind her.  And that is alright.  I don’t need them to understand in order to keep them safe.  Also the bees love them too.  They’re honorary hive members.

“Is that a real thing?”  Yuea asks.

No.  I’m already writing the word as she asks it.  Honeybees do not have a concept of a hive as a discrete unit of civilization.  While they will work together for the collective good, they don’t understand it that way.  Though their affection for each other is very real, and is shared even among bees that are not actually from a given hive.  The concept of outsiders does not exist for them, in the same way that the concept of a hive doesn’t.  If they are in the same place, they are a community.  This lack of understanding fades with my own bees, as they become smarter when they are enhanced or growing, but I believe they are learning many of their habits and opinions directly from me through an unintentional sharing of belief and information.  As such, they have a much more conscious understanding of what it means to be a community, and to work for the communal good, but they still lack many of the limiters that you might have to accepting someone new, or toward personal sacrifice for the good of their companions.  If you were to imagine yourself, dropped into a demon village; do you think that you would be instantly accepted as a member?  Do you think you yourself could feel accepted, even if the behaviors were correct?  Honeybees do not have this problem.  They are delightful.

I stop writing.  I have, perhaps, covered a little too much of the table.  My explanation of bees stretches past Yuea and Mela, and currently Muelly is holding her plate in the air and trying to figure out why I have cut through her dinner to explain honeybee social dynamics.

“I… forgot about this particular thing.”  Mela says.  “Also I don’t understand half these words.”

“I did not forget about this.”  Seraha says with a knowing smile on her elderly face.  “Our friend here has a particular fascination with their bees.”

Bees are interesting.  I sheepishly write onto the edge of the table at Seraha’s elbow.

“Yeah, I’m sure the kids would be absolutely terrified of the thing that loves bees this much.”  Mela’s words are sarcastic, and yet, bring me a kind of revelatory comfort.  “Sivs keeps asking when we can go get the rest of the hive, you know?  You’ve got common ground.”

There’s a burst of laughter from the other side of the table.  Yuea and Mela start talking about making a short hike tomorrow to fetch the beehive that I claimed but that we had to leave some distance away.  Dinner passes, people eat.  But this time, I don’t recede.  I sit and watch and listen, and I let the warmth of feeling close to people seep into me.

I clean off the table.  I work small magics while I allow myself to relax, and truly let myself know that these are my people.  People who aren’t afraid of me, people who I have been right to trust.

I need to tell you something.  I mark into the table as Yuea finishes mopping up the sauce of her vegetables with her last piece of bread.

“Mmmphhp?”  The woman mutters, showing her own soul’s title of Elegance.  She swallows he dinner, and glances around at the others.  “Everyone, or just me?”

I would like to tell you, and let you decide.  She nods, and I see her eyes flicker over to me through one of the bees I have perched nearby.  When we took this fort, when we… when Seraha killed the enemy apparatus.  Something happened.

“Wish I could have been there for that.”  Yuea snorts as she speaks softly, her words only for the sharp hearing of Oop.  “Did it work like killing anything else around you?  Make you stronger?”

Yes.  I hesitate.  And then reaffirm my decision of honesty.  And not only that.  There was a part of it left over.  A sliver of one of its souls.  And I took it.  I don’t think I had a choice.  I remember that part of that old life, and I have a new spell to accompany it.

Yuea’s face stays mostly immobile as she reads my message, save for the quirking of her eyebrows.  “Anything good?  I’m guessing it wasn’t useful if you didn’t tell us right away, so, what-“

Amalgamate Human.  I write, the language of my soul’s magic making me twitch as I carve deeper lines into the table.  My apologies, table.  I will fix you later.

If the term has any effect on Yuea, it doesn’t seem to phase her.  “Huh.”  She says instead.  “Have you tried it yet?  What’s it do?”

I assume it amalgamates a human.  Somehow, even though my writing requires quite a bit of conscious focus, the barb slips out of me.  I have not tried it, because I am almost certain it is what the apparatus used to make monsters out of the soldiers stationed here.  When I decided to be open about this, I wasn’t sure what I expected.  Fear, distrust, any number of unpleasant things.  Perhaps I should know Yuea better by now.  I feel a deep irony as my words take on a different tone, and I wonder if I am perhaps arguing against my best interests.  It tells me it is a command spell, the same as Bind Insect or Bind Willing Avian.  There is no qualifier for willingness here, though.  And I dare not test it on anyone here.

Yuea mouths along with the words as she reads, and eventually just gives up and calls Seraha over to translate.  The older demoness rapidly makes her way through my writing, her eyes going wide with concern.  “This deeper word, here, I think is what he means when he says ‘willingness’.”  She says as she touches the writing that indicates one of my spells.  “I… understand, why this should be kept secret…” Her hourglass pupils flit back toward my form.

Don’t keep it secret.  I write hurriedly.  Not if you think it matters.  I didn’t know how to tell you all.  I don’t know what I’m doing, and I don’t want to hurt anyone.  But I didn’t want to keep it secret.

Her eyes soften as she reads, and translates quickly for Yuea.  The dining hall has started to empty out, Dipan shooting them a concerned glance that Yuea waves off as he herds the kids off to burn off their energy before bed, Mela and Malpa already gone to stand on watch and take over for the bees that have no night vision.  But it still makes me nervous to hear the words said out loud.

“Well I think” Yuea says with a grim grin, “that you should test it right away.”

No.  I’m becoming adept at writing that word quickly to her.

“I agree!”  Seraha snaps.  “Why would you say that?!”

“Because,” Yuea’s voice takes on a hard quality, “I’m tired.  I’m tired of being useless.  I can barely climb the fucking stairs, and I’m willing to be a test subject if you’ll make me whole again.  It’s not like I’m not used to mages tampering with my body.”  She snarls. The last sentence coming out like a drip of hidden venom.

“Absolutely not!”  The older woman chastises the crippled solider.  “You don’t even know what it would do to you!  What if it makes you into one of… one of those things?  And you’d be-“

When Kalip comes back, we’ll talk.  I write, the noise of wood being rearranged cutting of Seraha’s shout.

“W-what?”  The demon takes a step back, stumbling into a seated position on a bench.

“Wait, really?”  Yuea asks curiously.

Do you think I don’t understand how it feels to be helpless?  I ask them.  And you ask me for this, even knowing that it would open you to being forced to take my orders?  I don’t know how to feel, about how much trust you seem to have in me.  It’s too much, it’s too powerful.  But… it is the kind of trust I want to live up to.  So when Kalip comes back, and we have a little more safety, we will speak again.

I’m not sure if it’s the right call.  But even as Seraha flinches back from what I’ve written, a broad grin takes over Yuea’s face.

I can still hear the two of them arguing as they work together with a pair of my bees to clear the table and rinse the wooden dishes in the water I’ve brought them.  Yuea’s point that Amalgamate Human shouldn’t pose a threat to any of the demons is, perhaps, a little bit misguided.  But she seems to be in good spirits, and nothing Seraha has to tell her about the sanctity of her body finds any purchase.

I’m sure that word of this will reach the others sooner rather than later.  And that’s alright.  I expected many things, but not this.  Not eagerness.  Not for Yuea to see it not only as not a threat, but as a potential path to power.

I suppose I should stop being surprised by her at this point.

As the night falls and the darkness makes my bees less adept at seeing for me, I settle in to simply work small magics and keep an eye on distant things.  Kalip is taking a nap near to the other camp, and he should easily reach them tomorrow if nothing goes wrong.  Perhaps we will have new friends soon.  The garden is growing quickly, and there’s talk of setting up a real farm plot around the fort if we can find the time for it.  Everything is simply alright.  Progress and comfort in equal measure.

I wait with sharp nerves for the gunshots to resound in response to the thought.  But they don’t come, and the night passes in peaceful quiet, only the noise of the Green around us breaking it up.