Apparatus Of Change - Chapter 111 (Patreon)

Unnamed - Apparatus Of Change

Available Power : 0

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)

-

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)

The next morning is strange.  People both friends and newcomers filter into the meal hall in ones and twos.  Seraha is insisting on keeping classes for the children going, to preserve normality, so it’s Sharpen and Vestment who are preparing the morning meal in the kitchen, and the two gobs are doing a very enthusiastic job of setting out simple fare for everyone.

The soldiers arrive earliest, and I include Yuea and Kalip in that measure.  It’s almost like an organized event, the way all of them show up at close to the same time.  Rising with the dawn, forcing themselves to move even when they really shouldn’t be exerting too much.  And I say that about some of the rescues as much as I do about Yuea; they’re all still healing.  Though Yuea especially.  I don’t know if I did something wrong with Amalgamate Human, or if she’s simply not capable of being careful, but she still overdoes movements and hurts herself, even though it only took Kalip a couple days to acclimate.

Even though the human and demon fighters are up with the sun, they aren’t the first people into the hall.  And I don’t just mean the gobs in the kitchen, or my bees who have claimed small pieces of bedding and hidden them under tables in the corners so they can have first strike at the sliced fruit.

Mela and her new friend are sitting together at the end of one of the tables.  Slowly munching on freshly fried marshwheat crackers, still damp from Daurthy being introduced to some eels, the two of them aren’t so much up early as they simply never slept.  They draw looks from the others as they come in.

I track which ones give the most surprised looks.  The ones that have it painted on their faces that they knew some of the others were going to try to kill me.  And for all that they didn’t participate, they said nothing and let it happen.  I don’t know how to feel about that, if I’m being truthful with myself.  It hurts, but it’s understandable.

The soldier’s memories I hold have a strange strain of ethics in them.  An unwillingness, constantly demonstrated, to not go against comrades even when she knew they were doing something wrong.  It’s not an abdication of responsibility, or a refusal to see evil in the world, but it is certainly a knowing prioritization of specific people even when those people aren’t exactly being kind.  And it would seem that however many years separate that life and this one, soldiers haven’t changed much.

As the morning passes, and the absence of three specific people is more clear, some of those knowing looks gain an edge of sadness to them.  But not anger, interestingly.  They know what must have happened, but they aren’t mad at me.  Just sad that it turned out this way.

I can respect that.  Even if I won’t trust them for some time.

Some of the early risers filter out, heading to the walls for private moments or courtyard for a routine of morning exercise that no amount of near death experiences can knock out of them.  Some others filter in.  The new gobs joining Fisher as their elder shows them how to properly scoop out the insides of one of the redplums, one of the verdlings settling in on the floor after a pair of the new human soldiers help her move a bench out of the way, Malpa and Jahn half asleep and taking a spot between some of the newcomers with half lidded eyes while muttering about… I don’t even know.  Oob is still asleep, and the bee’s ears aren’t so sharp.

Something has changed, slightly.  There’s less tension.  Less anger and fear.  I don’t want to think that violence is the solution to every problem, because that way lies madness, but last night was the end of the loudest and most dangerous of the new survivors.  Whether they left, listened, or burned, the pressure they were exerting is eased back now.  And there’s a little space for everyone else to think, and let themselves come more easily to see that I don’t want them dead, and that this can be a home to them.

The extended time when everyone is waking up and eating and tiredly talking in small voices feels strange.  But it doesn’t feel bad.  It moves on without anything in particular happening.  Muelly eventually stumbles in with a yawn and instead of sitting normally drapes herself over Malpla’s lap, which gets some scandalized looks from the new people.  Mela falls asleep on the table she’s sharing, and gets through about three snores before Kalip stands, languidly stretches, and goes over to flip the bench out from under her and start running her through another day of exhaustive training.  The other verdling joins the room, sitting next to their partner, the two of them wrapping long necks around each other in an affectionate display as Vestment scurries past to bring out another plate of food for the larger person.

I watch the fort come to life, slowly.

My bees follow people around, the smaller cat sized ones staying with their favored children, but others helping me by keeping watch on groups or simply being there to pet for anyone who needs a moment of comfort.  The larger bees help in other ways, though three of them are with the children, and are actually attending Seraha’s classes instead of simply being present.

Small stings indicate when the products of Congeal Mantra are used and try to feed back into me.  I don’t shut the feeling out entirely, instead simply using it to know when Seraha is making use of her enchanted classroom, or something is changing about the bedrooms or cellars or kitchens.

There’s little else for me to do with my magic.  It recovers at the pace of an overstuffed revabel, and I am trying to keep an emergency reserve of everything I can cast.  Because emergency reserves have always been useful, and I do not feel that burning that tradition now of all times would be to my advantage.  So I watch, and compose a mental record of all the things I desire to say to everyone once I am again able.

Jahn and Malpa put out a call for help with the farms, and a surprising number of the new people answer.  It takes a few of them some getting used to, to be working with the other species.  Especially the gobs, and their sometimes jarring approach to daily life.  But some of the rescued were farmers themselves, and the expanded knowledge base is very useful now that I cannot pass on information as easily.  Malpa explains the process of where they want to expand, while Jahn tries to teach them the foundation for using my own magic.  Bind Crop has been exercised quite thoroughly lately, and while it is recovering very slowly compared to where it once was, it costs so much less for others to make use of it than myself.

Other groups head into the Green around us to forage for more food, or anything useful really. The summer is drawing to a close, and with more mouths to feed, having a surplus before we need it is going to be of the highest import.  Some of them seem surprised when Yuea makes sure they’re armed before heading out, and the military scouts are especially taken aback when she drags them into the space I use as my office and laboratory to show them the unfinished map.  Fisher goes with one of the groups, the gob wearing a pair of pistols in a harness that only fits them backward, and laden with what seems like half the mantra the fort has in it.

The day presses on.  The summer sun pushes down like a physical force, the world getting so hot that I can start to feel it through my resin glimmerlings.  It is the sensation of being fired clay, and I don’t know how better to say it than that.  A breeze begins to pick up, moving hot air around and bringing minimal relief to those less composed of stone.

The children are unleashed from their lessons.  Human and demon alike, young enough to not care about the distinction, not with the distance they have from the ingrained hostility their families and communities taught them.  It is painful to watch them sometimes and remember that every one of them is an orphan; no one has made it this far with their social connections entirely intact.  But they laugh and sing together anyway, and when they cry at night, they don’t do it alone.

One of them, Zhoy, the small black furred demon girl, suggests in her squeak of a voice that they go to the lake and visit the eels.  The other kids pick up the idea quickly, and before too long the pack of them, dragging along the bees and gobs that were in the lessons with them, have set out to find an adult that will escort them.

They find it in Dipan and Muelly, the duo eagerly abandoning the process of sorting through the last of the personal effects that were left behind by the last people to hold this fort before they died.  And before too long, a third group is sent out from the fort, past the growing farms that I have claimed with Bind Crop and fenced off with Form Wall.  Those who are using the handful of tools that were previously meant for sappers to dig out rows for plants watch the group with a jealous longing.  An attitude that fades when Jahn resignedly says that they can go to the lake as well, once they finish the eighth plot, and another round of rapid harvesting.

I let Lutra know that there will be more people coming.  Or rather, through our exchange of companion creatures with Small Trade, I ask Lutra if they would be accepting of it, and the other apparatus takes their time before sending me back one of my bees with a complex thought to deliver.  They are willing to try, because they want to meet more people.  In return, I try to explain the difficult-to-purge long term animosity that the human and demon groups have.  Lutra, though, latches on to the fact that I mentioned a verdling at some point, and demands to know what that is and if they can meet one.

In the middle of my conversation, I send a bee to interrupt Kalip teaching Mela how to swordfighting while she is dead on her feet, and try to relay the question.  Mela gratefully dozes off while the bee communicates with points and gestures, and eventually Kalip figures out what I want and goes to ask.  Well.  He goes to ask at a jog, with Mela leading.  The poor girl didn’t really know what she was asking when she requested that he train her.

But Kalip is already starting to realize that she’s learning too fast today, and that operating on less than a candle of sleep isn’t holding her back nearly as much as it should.  I look forward to him coming to the full understanding of what she is now.

As the day winds down, a surprising number of people find themselves on the shores of a lake ringed with crushed rock spheres, being watched by oversized eels.  And it is hard to be afraid of anything, no matter how large it is or how many teeth it possesses, when it is dragging a child screaming with laughter behind it at high speed through the water.

The wind picks up further, trees beginning to sway heavily at their crowns.

It is almost a surprise when some of the newcomers tentatively try the waters, and find that the lake is - or so I am told - the most perfectly refreshing way to get away from the heat of the day.  Bit by bit, over the day, trepidation fades and is replaced by something else.  Or maybe nothing else.  Maybe they need a little more time to figure out what they do feel, even though they can know a little more what they don’t.

A candle or two later, as the greater group dries off in the sun and prepares to head back to the fort, the kids saying their goodbyes to the eels and Lutra themself, I am still in Small Trade conversation with the other apparatus.  I don’t know how to kindly explain to them what we are or how the way we are experiencing the world isn’t going to easily change, so I simply make it a blunt statement.  And while they don’t like it, I do offer my own reassurance that there are spells that will let them see and feel more.  Distant Vision has been a constant companion for me, personally, even if I can’t use it to watch those I am closest to.

Lutra opens up with curiosity at the comment, and asks if they can try the spell.  I don’t have more than a fifth of it left, but at the strength of my Authority, that does represent quite a lot of time peering into the far parts of the Green.  So I say yes, and in return, they say that they have something they wanted to surprise me with.

The Small Trade takes away a claw of my spell’s capacity, and I instinctively know it will be gone for a tenday.  And in its place, I find myself looking at something I haven’t seen for some time.

Available Power : 1

Lutra cannot keep making trades all day, however, and our conversation ends with one last happy note.  What I gave them in trade was enough to heal them, and when it did, they began building power once again.  Not as fast as before, but some.  Last night, they finished creating a complete point, and together the two of us share in the revelation that changing minds is a form of change we can make use of.

A few bees stay behind at the lake.  Well within my range, and keeping watch in case my friend needs help with anything.  Though we might need to figure out a more permanent solution to where they are going to stay, or how to keep them safe.

As evening falls, and the sun sets painting the sky in a riot of reds and pinks, the wind gets stronger.  And one of the larger bees looking at the horizon sees what I have been dreading.

We had one day of productively bringing in the food these people will need.  If we had a month, it would have been plenty.  If it was a tenday, we could perhaps have gotten by.  But a single day… will not be enough, unless we can think of something new.

Poking over the horizon, just a sliver of it visible from the bee’s vantage point atop the fort’s tallest roof, is the edge of a clear and distant ring.  The outline of it is a black circle, wrapped around something like distorted glass.  It is small compared to the sun itself, and if one didn’t have a lifetime as a scholar with access to astronomical records they might not know if it were smaller or simply farther away.  I know that it is the latter; the object is sun-sized, simply very distant, and not always real.  It rises from somewhere in the distant space of our cosmic realm, and sets back into it when its time here is done.

It is not the only one, either. But it is the first, and we are already feeling its effects.

The wind picks up.  The galesun rises.

The season of summer will officially end when it is joined by its siblings, and the season of storms begins.  And I think, from what my bees and beetles are hearing from everyone, that they all know it is too soon.  That our home is going to be in trouble.

Times are going to get rough.  But at least we had one last good day together.

I focus my will, and push the point of power I have been gifted into my soul of Spirituality.  As I feel one of my cracks slowly, painfully, and deliberately begin to seal itself closed, I hope that I will be enough to tip the balance.  Because while I am willing to fight the seasons themselves to protect everyone, I think it might be beyond me for now.

We’ll simply have to find out by doing.