Apparatus Of Change - Chapter 101 (Patreon)

Unnamed - Apparatus Of Change

Available Power : 8

Authority : 7

Bind Insect (1, Command)

Fortify Space (2, Domain)

Distant Vision (2, Perceive)

Collect Plant (3, Shape)

See Commands (5, Perceive)

Bind Crop (4, Command)

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Nobility : 6

Congeal Glimmer (1, Command)

See Domain (1, Perceive)

Claim Construction (2, Domain)

Stone Pylon (2, Shape)

Drain Health (4, War)

Spawn Golem (5, Command)

Empathy : 5 ><

Shift Water (1, Shape)

Imbue Mending (3, Civic)

Bind Willing Avian (1, Command)

Move Water (4, Shape)

-

Spirituality : 6 ><

Shift Wood (1, Shape)

Small Promise (2, Domain)

Make Low Blade (2, War)

Congeal Mantra (1, Command)

Form Party (3, Civic)

-

Ingenuity : 5

Know Material (1, Perceive)

Form Wall (2, Shape)

Link Spellwork (3, Arcane)

Sever Command (4, War)

Collect Material (1, Shape)

Tenacity : 6 ><

Nudge Material (1, Shape)

Bolster Nourishment (2, Civic)

Drain Endurance (2, War)

Pressure Trigger (2, War)

Blinding Trap (5, War)

-

Animosity : - - ><

Amalgamate Human (3, Command)

Congeal Burn (2, Command)

Trepidation : -

Follow Prey (2, Perceive)

“Is it,” Muelly says with the kind of slow assurance of someone who already knows the answer to their question, “possible that the new people are, maybe, a problem?”

“Yes.”  Jahn says flatly, hourglass pupils staring at her without amusement.  Malpa nods next to the demon, though he looks like he wants to say something to pacify Muelly in the event that she takes offense to Jahn’s blunt answer.

He needn't worry.  Muelly is far too emotionally drained to care, I think.  She gives unconscious shudder of her shoulders as she leans on the side of the fort’s main entrance near the two men.  They watch the kids play out around the farm plot fences while my bees find spots in the shade.  “It makes sense.”  She mutters.  “We were never going to find nice people, were we?”

Malpa clears his throat.  “Well, really, none of us would have been nice to each other before this.”  He offers.  “We can give them some time.”

“Time, and firm kicks to the head.”  Jahn adds.  He has that long bladed axe on his belt, a weapon that it never occurred to me to ask the baker the origin of.  It’s unsettling to see him so armed at home.  “The gobbos, at least, are-“

“Sorry, what?”  Muelly snorts a breath at him as she runs an idle hand over a horn.  “The what?”

Jahn sighs.  “I have been listening to Yuea too much.”  He grumbles softly.  “The gobs are fine.  Four new ones, and they’re… well, Sharpen and Vestment are taking care of them.”  He looks guilty, and I understand.  From what I’ve heard from my beetle spy network, the new gobs keep trying to get up and help, which they really need to stop doing.  They need long term rest, time to heal.  I understand their instincts, but instincts are often decidedly wrong, and it’s good that we have other gobs with us to help them with that.

This is all made harder by the fact that Yuea, Kalip, Fisher, and Mela are down for at least a day or two.  Overuse of Vim was needed to get them home, but that doesn’t make the aftereffects any more pleasant.  Especially for Yuea, who still has broken limbs I cannot heal through my shattered soul.  This leaves taking care of everyone to the others.  Dipan and Malpa are, as ever, quietly eager to have work to do that distracts them from everything.  Seraha is trying her best.  The gobs are, of course, eager to aid.  But they are five people.  Even with all the kids helping out to supply barracks rooms with stored linens and learning from Seraha how to chop vegetables, there is suddenly far more work than hands.

I need my own metaphorical hands back.

I slip another point of power into trying to seal a crack while the conversation continues.  I am getting proficient at it, which is worrying.  Like being told you’re excellent at splinting your own broken bones.  Good, yes, but is that really what you want to have practice in?

“The humans are all terrible.”  Malpa says with a sigh.  “Though half of them are soldiers, so…” He shrugs, as if to say ‘it is what it is’.

“Yuea’s a soldier.”  Muelly points out.

Before I can even think an unheard sarcastic retort, Jahn gives another huff of breath.   “Yuea is… almost certainly hiding several things about herself.  She doesn’t count.”

“Kalip?”  Malpa asks.

“Kalip is with Yuea.  He doesn’t count either.”  Jahn’s model of who does and doesn’t count as a soldier somewhat confuses me.  The soldier in me seems to understand though, as do the memories of the singer.  There are soldiers, and there are soldiers, and there are ‘soldiers’.  And of the three, Yuea is the more confusing branch.  “The demons aren’t much better.”  Jahn continues.  “I shouldn’t be so upset.”  He states flatly, turning his head to look off toward the treeline.

Malpa and Muelly wait to see if he has more to say, the two of them sharing a worried look that my bees barely catch and Jahn certainly does not.  “Why… not?”  Muelly asks.  “Maybe it wasn’t perfect, but we were starting to do okay out here.  And now there’s a bunch of people telling us we’re wrong.  While we try to feed them.  Why shouldn’t you be upset?”  She idly taps a finger on my crystal body at her side, and I see a small grimace on her face as she remembers I’m with her.  “Sorry.”  She mutters, pulling her hand back.  “I hope that doesn’t hurt.”

I ask one of the bees to give a shake that I hope properly comes across as a negative.  I miss writing.  I keep trying to heal Spirituality, as that one soul contains both of my main methods of communication.

“It would be better if they had kids with them.”  Malpa muses, and Muelly gives him a sudden glare.  “Not…!  No, I mean, not…” he lowers his voice.  “Not kids who were tortured.  Tar and dust, no.  But…” He looks past Muelly, and she and Jahn follow his gaze to where a batch of the youngest children, freed from their chores for the day, are climbing on the garden fence like it’s a custom made training course for them.  “We got over ourselves really fast when we had people worth protecting.”  He says quietly.

“That’s the most you’ve said in a tenday.”  Muelly’s words almost sound mocking, but she has a soft smile on her face as she says it, poking at Malpa’s ribs with a furred elbow.  “But you’re right.  If we’re lucky, the new folks will see it, and adapt.”

“And if not?”  Jahn asks.

“Then… we hope Yuea and Kalip wake up soon.”  Muelly catches an unsettled look from the two men.  “What?  They’re the problem.  I’m not gonna let some random strangers ruin my life a fourth time.”  She folds her arms.  “They can learn what we did, or they can get out and probably die.”

“Harsh.”  Malpa shrugs.

Jahn nods.  “And yet, all too fair.”  He says.  “At least the green ones are reasonable.”

“The what?”  Muelly asks, confused.

“I’m sure our little dream will have a name for them,” Jahn waves a hand my direction, and he is not incorrect, they are called verdlings, “but there were two of them.  Skin like yours, but green.”  He reaches out and sets a hand on Malpa’s arm, running fingers down the other man’s skin.  “Well, less fuzzy.  You’re halfway to being a proper demon at this point.”

“I haven’t seen them.  Are they nice?”  Muelly asks hopefully.

Jahn relaxes against the fort’s wall, black fur blending into the shadows as Malpa laughingly swats his hand away.  “Better than the others.  They act like saints, or kings, or something in that ilk.  But at least they aren’t mad at us for having the wrong fur, or too few legs.”

“That’s something at… least… legs?”  Malpa asks.

I wish I could draw in the wood of the wall.  I could give him a diagram of verdling anatomy that would be far nicer than what Jahn is failing to describe.  Also Jahn has failed to mention that the two are separate because they need to be in a cooler temperature to heal at all, and the cellar is the only place for that.

As for the claim of nobility, he’s half right.  The two they rescued are Mothers, which makes them something between a queen and a god to their people, unless verdling culture has changed quite a lot since I knew it.  Everyone seems soundly confused about their existence, which makes me wonder what they were doing here; it seems to be at least tens of thousands of lengths from anything approaching their territory.

But then, these are strange days.  Anything is possible, I suppose.

The three of them keep talking, but I let my thoughts move through my available magic as they do so.  It is a special kind of frustration to hear a conversation that I cannot participate in, especially when I am right there.  My bees are let loose to find some fruit or flowers; the people on the ground will know to signal me if they need me, though what they might need I can’t imagine.

The crops are growing well, but I encourage them along as much as I can.  Bind Crop is more powerful than ever, but that power mostly comes in scope, not focus.  There is only so much I can do for a single yam, though I could do it to a thousand of them without worry at this point.  We will need to expand the farm plots if we want any chance of having the food to get everyone through the storms.

I make more Stone Pylons.  This occupies a fair bit of focus, as the chain of work to properly separate chunks of rock with Nudge Material that I can then Collect Material that I can then form into Stone Pylons is tedious and difficult.  Nudge Material doesn’t want to be used to separate things, it wants to move the whole rock at once, and when I am working with a cliff face to try to peel part away that I can snap up, this is a very dull and frustrating challenge.  But the end result is more defensive Stone Pylons, and the proper expenditure of my resources.  Letting any spell sit idle while its supply of nothingness is full is unacceptable at this point.

I listen in on my beetles.  Or rather, I give my beetles blanket permission to signal me through Bind Insect when they have useful gossip to share.  I don’t call it gossip, but they know.

One of them, who calls itself Ool, establishes to me that my insects have a naming convention, and also that a few of the human survivors are trying to figure out how to raid the armory and escape.  I don’t know… what they think they are escaping from, exactly.  But I will try to interfere with that before they are healthy enough to walk again.  Either that, or simply let them.  They cannot carry enough weaponry to make a dent in the supply we have.  This fort has more weapons than food, and if that is what they want, they are welcome to it.  I should make the offer to anyone that they can leave if they want, as soon as my souls are healed.

I pour another point of power into my healing.  The wound closes ever so slowly.  It doesn’t hurt, exactly.  Not when I’m not trying to use my magic.  It is simply an emotional itch; actually quite similar to being unable to speak when I had grown used to it.  I want to be whole again.  Perhaps this was the benefit to being unconscious the last time I killed an enemy apparatus.  Days of natural healing passing while my mind was in the dark.  No frustration to speak of.

At least this way I can help in small ways.  Though not nearly the array of small ways I had built up.

Half my magic is denied to me, and it takes quite a lot of willpower and double checking to keep myself from reflexively reaching for spells and arcana that I had grown used to.  I could fix a dozen issues if I could simply Move Water alone.  But I cannot even put the broken magics into a Stone Pylon without a screaming burn along my cracks.

At least the Stone Pylons that were already set continue to work as they were told.  Congeal Mantra especially, now that I have seen the use it has for the gobs in particular.  And Bolster Nourishment, too, though I only have one of those and it is going to be overtaxed rapidly.

I just want to help.  That’s all I ever wanted, really.   Even for the newcomers, who are hostile and afraid, I just want to help.  I think it’s okay that they are as they are, honestly.  They will have plenty of time to learn who I am, and how our miniature village works, now that death does not hound their heels.

This is how I pass the rest of my day.  Optimistic, though endlessly frustrated by my own lack of ability.  Trying to spend all the power I accumulated through the last fight to simply undo the damage I inflicted on myself by accident.

I check in on everyone when I can.  Kalip and Yuea are still out flat.  Mela is awake, but can barely move, and looks bored out of her mind; I ask a bee to stay with her just so she has someone to talk to.  Seraha is a flurry of activity in the kitchen, and has half the young children and all of my bees that are large enough constantly fetching her water or supplies from the cellars.  It’s quite enjoyable to watch really.

My beetles give me snippets of conversations from the newcomers.  Confused comments about the place, pained words about their losses, angry snaps when they think no one is listening.

Oob signals me at one point and tells me he has found something I will want to see.  I’m not sure how the beetle judges this, but when I send a bee, and find that what he has found is that Muelly, Malpa, and Jahn have snuck around to the back of the fort to share a quiet and rather passionate embrace, I start to suspect that I might have accidentally made my first beetle into some form of voyeur.

I don’t chastise him.  But I do leave the three to their privacy, and tell Oob that there’s a secret meeting of the newly rescued demons somewhere in one of the hallways.  He flits away at high speed, eager to pry secrets from the air.

We’re on the edge of the map.  Past the edge of the map.  And past the end of the world, too.  I think they deserve a moment of happiness.