June 12th, 3AC
*BOOOM*
Pepper practically levitated out of her bed as the drum beat used her rib cage as an amplifier. A good amplifier. Like at an epic concert, she felt her heart trying to match the beat. Her mind shook as well, enough to knock loose the dregs of sleep. She looked down and she was already half dressed, training coming into play even before thought. The jungle cloth smock, a knee length bag masquerading as a dress, dropped the rest of the way over her head.
It was an ugly, wretchedly uncomfortable green bag, something only the poorest wore and most of them preferred to stick to a loincloth and a breastband! Poorest or young pathfinders with too much modesty, not that she wasn’t tempted.
She only a decent outfit. One. A nice bit of tanned hide that knotted at one hip for a skirt and a beaded halter. Not exactly high fashion, but they looked good on her. Good enough that she wasn't about to get them ruined in a fight. Her hands snagged a belt and the ever-important reagents pouch tied to it on the way out the door.
Then she paused for a second.
*BOOOM* *BOOOM* *Ba-BOOOM*
Front gate then. No surprise, it could only be one of two places, and it almost always was the front. Still had to check. She snagged a staff from the rack outside the door, a walking stick and weapon of last resort rather than a spell focus and started sprinting down the path.
She only wished she could afford a focus. Soon, she promised herself. She'd been saving up for months, and if the defense bounty was good today, she might just be able to afford a staff-sized chunk of 100 year Mahogany and a small jar of Tiered Snake blood.
*BOOOM*
The drum beat pushed those thoughts aside as she darted down the moist dirt paths, her feet snurking and snucking with every step. Her toes digging into the mud and only popping free with effort. She suppressed a giggle when a particular gooey bit slid between them, tickling in passing.
She missed shoes. Phycological comfort maybe, because she wasn’t about to clean the inevitable mud from them. At least inside the walls. Outside boots were armor, and you wore as much as you could afford, mess or not. Between poisoned thorns, biting insects and animals, it wasn’t a choice.
*BOOOM*
The beat pushed the irrelevant thoughts from her head as she rounded the last verdant hill and darted out into the Entrance Square. It's massive squared stones oddly soft, flexing beneath her feet.
Magic was nice like that.
Weird but nice. The square fronted the true hold entrance. A large carved wooden arch that lead to a zigzagging ramp. A twisted tether between the mesa top and jungle floor.
It was also the public square and was surrounded by the sorts of buildings that fact required. The Hunters Guild on the left, the Guard Barracks on the right and already behind her the Mayor's office and Truthseaker’s Hill, with its jail cells high enough to see the jungle over the walls that edged the mesa's edge. A warning she figured, and since there were only 6 cells for the entire Hold, one that worked.
There were more buildings than just that facing the square, but you couldn’t tell it by looking. Dug into hillsides and built down rather than up, the place looked more like some old ruin than a thriving town.
Without slowing she darted the last 2 dozen paces to the mustering ground. Wincing slightly as the polished stone floor punished her feet, soft and flexible were relative terms. It was still stone. She slid into the end of a line of 10 or so of her classmates without letting that slow her down. Finding her place, she braced herself, shoulders back, hands loosly clasped in front of her, one leg sideways and slighty behind the other. It was a dignified pose, and while distinctly different from the Atten-tion the guardsmen around them held, it had some of its purpose.
‘Pathfinders lead!’ She could practically hear Teachers voice say, ‘and that starts with projecting confidence that verges on arrogance with your every move, even when you don’t feel it.’
Confidence and respect. And all the more difficult to display when a grizzled old warrior was staring at you. His arms and legs were graced with elaborately carved bone bracers and greaves. His hair held the twin feathers in a beaten copper clip of a Sergeant of the Guard. A large staff that burned in her inner vision held loosely in his right hand, one end braced on the ground and a boiled Hog Leather cuirass and pleated leather skirt that the old timers called Roman completed the set.
He stared at her for a moment and while his face showed little, she was getting good enough to feel the mess his intent was communicating. She held in a sigh. Teacher didn’t tolerate self-deception, she knew what she looked like and how most of the pre-change adults reacted to it.
She’d seen it a hundred times and likely would a hundred more. At least until she hit a reasonable growth spurt. Apprehension and overprotectiveness. It didn't bother her. Much. If she was honest, which was unpleasant but necessary, she'd gotten a lot of mileage out of it so she really shouldn’t complain.
The issue solved itself though as the confused intent tightened and collapsed into decision. He stepped past her, still blank-faced, and continued to pace up and down the line. Till at last, a few drum beats later, Owl darted over and fell in line. With a precise heal plant and twist he spun to face their line and barked out. “Training Squad 1 assembled, 24 beats.” At five beats per minute, not counting the multi-beat location code, that was under 5 minutes. “Acceptable, if barely. Follow me then and try not to look like a gaggle.” Another holdover from the pre-times. Marching pretty wasn’t going to impress a hog. She still wasn't sure why the guard bothered but wasn't dumb enough to ask now!
What followed was most certainly not marching. He turned took a few jogging steps to give everyone a moment to accelerate, then transitioned to a full sprint as he hit the top of the ramp. Thankfully she knew this dance. It wasn't the first time they'd been set to follow a guard. Though it was the first time it wasn't in training.
And it was downhill. None of her class had the money for much in the way of tiered meat yet so they were all huffing, puffing and had soar feet by the time the still pristine and unhurried Sargent pulled open a thick wooden door and gestured them into the stone bunker behind it.
Knowing better than to lollygag about in the open she darted through the door in lockstep with Count in front of her and Owl behind. Inside she took a hard right and kept moving to clear the doorway. A few steps more she skidded to a stop and finally took a moment to look around.
A large number 1 was carved into the ceiling. Excellent! A prime spot.
With its entrance at the top of the second dogleg but its firing port overlooking the ramps bottom, it was the best location they could hope for. First chance to contribute, but also with the most secure path to retreat. The last Bunker in the first line didn’t get to retreat. It had the heaviest fortifications, but its defenders were mostly stuck inside till the assault ended.
It was an oddly shaped room. Like a stretched-out Z or a Tetris block, about 20 feet wide but only 10 deep, with the first 5 feet elevated a good 4 foot above and connected with a steep ramp to the rest.
The firing step, she reminded herself, names mattered. A series of narrow openings about four feet off the ground and another four feet wide were spaced across the entire length of the room with about 2 feet of wall between them.
She darted up the steep ramp and looked out. The narrow opening widened like a reversed birds beak as it extended through the massive stone walls, giving a surprisingly large field of view.
She turned sharply at a deep thump and in time to watch the Sergent slide the second and third massive wooden bars across the now closed door. Between them and the enchantments that snapped to life when the last one slid home, the door would stop the full charge of a multi-ton hog. Though probably not more than once.
Even enchantments had limits, and it was only wood. Of course, there wasn’t much room to get up to speed behind them either.
“We are now designated Path One.” The Sergeant barked from behind them. “Our drum designation is double long, double short. The threat has been judged to be a standard Tide, hogs. Since you lot are fresh-faced babies at this, I'll spell this out. That does NOT mean that only Hogs will appear. Just that it will be MOSTLY hogs. There are always scavengers showing up to take advantage of a fight so keep your eyes and senses peeled. Snakes and cats have snuck up on better men and women than you before, and will regretfully continue to do so long after I have given up the ghost. Now, any questions?”
“Can't the damn beasts attack at a more civilized hour?” Karen whined. Pepper hid a sigh. You could always count on the bitch for two things. Being there on time ready for work and complaining about it.
“Any good questions?”
“I didn't have breakfast. Any food around here?” Pepper asked, jumping slightly to make sure he could see her and waving her hand in the air for good measure.
He stared at her bouncing frame for a few seconds then sighed. “That… is a good question, despite the lack of...” He visibly searched for the right words, then with a shrug gave it up. “Always know where your next meal is. Your delicate, pathfinder palates will no doubt be pleased that every bunker is kept stocked with survival bars!”
His face transformed in that moment, from blank stone to some kind of vicious predator. A wide snaggle-toothed grin graced that gnarled visage even as the room erupted in groans, Pepper's perhaps the loudest of all. “Check the stone coffers over there-” He gestured to the left wall where a set of nested hexagonal stone shapes protruded from the wall at a 45-degree angle. She'd seen them stepping in, but hadn't put six and six together and gotten boxes. More like an odd art project. Looking closer now she saw a different symbol carved into what was probably a lid. A water droplet, a drumstick and a bandage were pretty self-explanatory. A few others not so much. She wasn't sure what the sunburst referred to. Nor the rod with half circles radiating out from it.
She was halfway over and reaching before she thought better of it. Her hand already faintly itched with the memory of one of Teacher’s lessons. He liked to leave out interesting looking bits and pieces of magic. If you knew what it was, you were welcome to study and or play with it. If you didn't, well that bit of curiosity left her twitching on the ground for half an hour. Not to mention the charlie horses and maddening itch that lasted for several days. She still said Teacher was overreacting with that! She'd just been a bit curious.
Her hands diverted to the drumstick and after a few moments of prying and twisting, she found the clever little slide latch and removed the stone lid. Snaking a hand inside she snagged a leaf-wrapped bar from the top of the pile. Dried fruit, vegetables and pork jerky pounded together into a healthy, energy-dense, bad-tasting whole. She took a big bite and tried not to grimace.
They said hunger was the best sauce, but while her personal beast was scratching at her backbone, it still didn't make the pasty bars taste anything but terrible. She took another large bite and wished again that they were a bit less chewy. It was hard to keep the bits and pieces off her tongue when you had to masticate the damn things for what felt like minuets before they were ready to swallow.
“-and make sure you seal it again behind you. It may not be good food, but it's still food. The next poor bastards might need it as well. Other than that, you have about 10 minutes before the forward elements get here. If you need to use the restroom, you'll find the throne over there-” He pointed to a discrete curtained alcove to the right. “Else wise topping off your mana reserves, prepping casting circles or preparing your spell components are all good ideas. But do something. It makes the waiting easier.”
Pepper took another bite of the nasty bar and looked inward. She'd meditated before falling asleep last night but there was never enough time. Nor enough mana. Not when she had to spend it fast and frequently on all the chores, practice and just everyday life.
About 95 mana she estimated. Three-quarters full. That wasn't bad, all things considered. But it could be better. With a sigh she found a spot on the bench over in a corner, not that she was going to sit all folded up and still. That really wasn’t her thing. But she’d learned the hard way not to let her inevitable fidgets disrupt the others.
With a deep breath and a practiced twist, she dropped her sight past the physical and inside herself. Dragging her still-forming conceptual inner world into focus. A vast field spread out before her, at least in concept it was vast. Only a small portion of the center had anything like details or focus to it. Not yet, but in time she would expand her concept to cover it all. In the meantime, the ground was covered in a mesh of berry bushes, saplings and budding vines. For a moment she focused on the bushes, their branches heavily laden with colored spheres. Mana berries. Her own flavor of storage.
The visualization of her power reserves and also a way of counting. Each individual berry was 1 mana. More or less. She tried, but just didn't have the control to make it that accurate and when she tried too hard it made her head hurt. Her inner concept revolved around growth. Not the nice even rows of a garden, but the brutal ramping cycle of the jungle itself. Overpowered vitality struggling, striving and finding a way to not just survive, but to dominate. It wasn't a concept that took to precise control and limits.
She wasn't quite sure how to reconcile the need for an accurate measure of her mana and her concept’s refusal to play ball. But she really needed to.
The headaches were bad, but Teacher warned her they’d grow worse. Cognitive rejection, where the subconscious rejects the mash of concepts the conscious mind put together. Even with a simple practice spell that led to destabilization and a nasty backlash. In her own cognitive world, she had a bit more time, but it could and would end badly. Possibly explosively so.
Despite that, she wasn't about to rush a fix. She might be on the low end when god gave out patience, but she wasn’t an idiot. Changes to an existing persistent construct were touchy. You were changing your subconscious mind, not just the spell. That took time, dedication and a good pain tolerance.
And if you went to fast or screwed it up, you could collapse the entire thing.
Boom!
She held in a sigh, Bengal and Sheridan had proven that. She wasn't good at sitting still, at going slow and being patient. But she was a fan of living.
So she did what anyone with any sense would. She learned! It didn't come easy for Pepper, she could acknowledge her faults and while she reveled in the never-ending energy she was born with, she could turn it off.
When she really needed to.
With a small pulse, she moved her perspective from the bushes themselves, and towards the border of her little overgrown garden. Towards the hazy, out-of-focus wilderness beyond.
Beyond wasn't quite right, but below didn't really work either. She took full conscious control of her construct and extended her roots into the Field. The constant trickle of mana attracted by the meaning she’d invested in her construct expanded into a creek, a minor flood of nutrients to feed on and reach for the very sky.
Not enough. She let her sense defocus, making that out-of-focus exterior even less clear. Staring outward, but not looking at anything in particular. Just letting the Field flow past her, and ignored the way it babbled at her. It whispered to her of secrets untold. Of knowledge beyond human understanding. And it didn’t lie. If she was fool enough to try, to focus on those whispers and follow them to their end, she'd get that knoledge. For a few moments at least. Then sensory overload would pop her mind like a bubble in a bear trap.
She tuned out the whispers, but not the sound itself. Letting the general din, the chaos that was so much a part of world behind make a general impression on her. The din built up, timelessly until she was ready. She formed an image and forced in on the information. Corralling and limiting it within the bounds of her imagination and the limits her mind could accept.
It became an airport walkway, filled with crowd’s power walking past in constant conversation but in a different language. The content was beyond her and she didn’t try to understand. But she could pick out flavors, the emotions, the energy, the tone. And her mind interpreted a few of those into something useful. That man over there was the river mana. That one the verdant earth below. That the wind and her husband the sun.
With small, delicate motions, she adjusted her roots towards them, the useful people in a walking stream.
Any mana could become any other type if you had the will to force it. That didn't make it worth her time. Her growth concept grew best from water, earth and death, with a significant but lesser impact of light. She sought those out, arranging her roots like fishing nets, towards the concentrations she could find, and more towards the places those concentrations most often appeared. Mana came from matter. If it came once, it likely would again.
The speed of absorption shot upward again. For a time at least. Not listening this way was hard, and she could only maintain it for so long. Less if she wanted to be able to cast afterward.
At least willpower recovered much faster than mana.
She kept listening/not-listening for a bit longer, picking up a few bits of wind for balance even as she avoided the growing human mana types. Fear, anxiety and simple nerves. Not something she wanted to think about right now, but it was hard to avoid when there was so much of it being generated. Bastards!
Emotional mana wasn't something she had much of a connection to. She could hum a few bars from ambition. The desire for progress and acquisition resonated with her growth concept. It wasn't the best connection though. Growth was more primal then that.
In exasperation, she extended herself outward more. Away from their little stone room, away from the Hold full of people behind her and out into the no-man’s-land. A man-made prairie where the jungle was clear-cut back for 100 yards.
She flinched and almost fell out of her inner sight. Not a prairie. Not a no-man's-land. A killing field. Thousands of lives had watered those grasses and low bushes. Blood, flesh and conflict combining into death. It fed the soil till it was bursting with potential life. She could feel it. Almost taste it.
And it made her hungry.
That shook her so much she found herself staring at a stone wall again and with a small pulsing bit of pain in her head.
Hungry? For that. She took a few shuddering breaths and looked down at the remains of the food bar. No thank you!
She took another deep breath, and forced herself to return. Rejecting the emotional labels the blood soaked field evoked. Labels gave meaning, and if it wasn’t deliberate, then it was outside your control. Not a good place to practice in.
It was not evil, she stated. Forcing the image and the idea behind it to be true. It was natural. Nature even. All life ended and became death. Death then became new life. A cycle, not an ending.
It was a struggle at first, habit and society screaming something else in here ear, but she did it. And the mana poured in as she tapped all that potential.
She didn't have much time, but this was too convenient not to take advantage of. She carefully shifted her roots. Doing a bit of hunt and peck when the Field’s alignment with the physical was even more random than usual. Eventually they found the right place.
Good, even when she stopped actively pulling it in, she’d still regen faster with those fields placed.
Not full active amounts, but a significant amount over the day. Rushing a bit, she began to back out, drifting aimlessly for a moment as her senses struggled to reacquire the real world.
Her eyes opened to the same stone wall, though it seemed gentler now. Not that she had time to figure out why. She bounced upright, on the floor somehow after her mind jaunt. No time to worry about that either. A few jumping jacks got her blood flowing again and she was ready to go.
Looking around, to her right Cobb was sitting cross-legged in a freshly chalked circle of runes. Trying to look all calm and wise like usual. Pretentious was the term Pepper preferred.
Monty, Owl, Count and Sadda were spread out across separate openings, some looking out, others working on their own circles. They were missing a few... She glanced right and found most of them. On the benches along the back wall doing exactly what she'd been doing. A small rustle drew her eyes the other way as the bathroom curtain fell shut behind Karen, the usual disdainful look on her scowling face. Pepper wondered if she even realized she was doing it. Was it just the natural resting state of her face or was she perpetually unhappy and looking down on everything and everyone? Honestly, she gave it a coin flip in either direction.
She gave a longing look at the bench, she really would like to harvest a bit more mana, but there just wasn't enough time. With a sigh she moved up to the firing step and pulled out a piece of alchemical chalk for herself.
Beast blood, chalk and several herbs, the stuff wasn’t terribly difficult to make, but the amount they used up made for a significant expense. An expense that would be worth it if today went like they’d planned.
She caught Count's eye first, then lightly tapped Owl’s shoulder, not waiting for his attention. Busy scribbling out equations and tables of numbers, without that tap he’d never come up. With it, he’d come up for air when he was good and ready. Untill then, pocking or prodding would be useless.
She'd tried before.
With a sigh she also gave Karen a nod. She was dependable, despite being a pain in the ass. She suppressed a chuckle. Dependably a pain in the ass.
Still shaking her head she reached into her pouch and pulled out a loose jungle cloth bag filled with seeds the size of her thumb's first joint. Pouring out a half dozen into her hand she carefully piled them on the stone ledge in front, then carefully sketched in a broken circle around them. A large gap to the front and 4 smaller ones behind. One she sketched a drop of blood into, pouring the feeling of Count with it, handsome, tall, pale, always willing with a kind word and a reserved smile to the littles. Always there with broad shoulders against the bullies or the unfair. She forced herself to stop, cheeks reddening. Hopefully no one noticed.
She cursed the unfortunate connectivity that working mana together forced on you. It was impossible not to know what your partners were feeling. Which made her little crush extremely embarrassing! Thankfully, he was pretty kind about it. And brave-
She forced her mind out of that well-trod rut.
The second break she filled with a simple equation. Two zeros added together. Owl eyes and nose she repeated the same old joke. The equal sign she pointed towards him but left the rest blank. A serious, brilliant mind in a small package. Too serious most of the time, too infuriatingly mature and respectful. It was like watching grass grow to get through the honorifics and polite small talk before he’d say anything real. She’d had to jump through 5 respectful greetings and oddly shaped protestations of humility before he’d tell her what they were having for breakfast! She forced herself to let it go. She didn't dislike him, they just had little in common.
Despite that, what was annoying in everyday conversation was about to be extremely useful. He was as unbothered, as unrushed in high-stress situations as in normal day conversation. Stoic in the face of victory or failure. At least on the outside. She’d done enough group casts with him to feel the bubbling passion at his center. It was what the passion was aimed at that made him even weirder.
Math!
The third channel was a chicken's head raised towards a small sun. Dependably calling out the day, but obnoxious as hell when you wanted to sleep. Karen in a nutshell. It amazed Pepper that the girl could feel in every spell what people thought of her, and yet neither flinched nor changed her ways.
With a sigh she moved on, sketching in a small Habanero pepper. Spicy and full of energy, even in a small package. Her personal mark. Then she sketched in connecting lines, over the edge of the lip and down the inner wall, before spreading out in tethers on the floor.
Picking her own line, she deftly turned on one bracing arm, the other fully extended and sketched a nearly perfect circle. Then a second inside of that. With a smooth easy motion she filled the distance between the two with a sine wave. Adding in spring symbols and the short double lines that stood for walls. Protections and damper in one with an affinity for her own mana to get in and out. Enough to prevent her from being distracted by her class mates as much as protected from incoming attacks.
Hopefully at least. They hadn’t been tested outside of a few practice fights.
She carefully sketched in a hog first, as the main offender, but followed around the outer circle sketching in a number of other beasts and mana types as well. Then on the inner circle, she got a bit more specific.
Names had power, but even if they weren't true names, a personal symbol that she stuffed full of them was still potent. She sketched the names of all the classmates in this bunker with her, then filled each of them with what made them them.
Owl's equal sign was crossed through into does not equal and filled with images of him habitually pushing at glasses that no longer existed with his polite not glare. Of him tripping over his own feet when caught up inside his own head. Of his brilliance and firm hand with magic.
Counts blood drop was surrounded with a sponge and filled with distant nobility. Like some shining knight of old who stood up for any one smaller then him, physically or magically, regardless of the cost. Of his tall handsome... she quickly moved on.
Karen's chicken, its neck extended towards the sun and mouth open was filled with a gag. Filled to with the memories of the obnoxious pretty girl asking stupid questions and complaining. The ever-present frown on her face and the slight shrill undertone to her voice. Of endless complaints. Did she mention the complaints? She sighed, then added on her good side. She would work like a dog, long past the end of the day to get the job done. of always showing up on time and ferociously keeping her word, even on the little things. She wasn't all bad. Just all obnoxious.
She continued on down the list, carefully limiting her nixes. Enough to prevent their mana and intent from intruding on her circles, but not to interfere with their spell casting. enough to weaken their purpose. That's why the double circle. Isolation, in both directions with firing ports towards the enemy.
Glancing left and right to where her friends, and Karen, were filling out their own circles, she nodded. Looking good. Their symbols weren't the same, but contained a similar intent. The main differences came in the props they used.
Count had a small stone brazer given pride of place at the front of his circle, with a small fire burning below and ringed in a dozen specialty runes and shapes. Owl had a small wooden writing plaque covered in equations and potent with stored mana. Different people, different tools but the same shit in the end. Mostly.
Behind that mostly though, hid a dirty, dirty truth. Tools and shades of meaning mattered! And they were too poor to afford good ones. She glanced around and sighed. Bits of stone, wood and chalk were all she saw around her. Not that you couldn't do amazing things with just stone and wood, but that took time, mana or understanding. Thing’s school children, despite their exaulted status, were lacking.
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She sighed. Someday. She'd have the time, money or skills to have better things.
But someday wasn't now!
She dropped her head back down and continued tracing out a few more lines, reinforcing the deliberate breaches in her circle, imagining them like arrow slits, a weakness, but a understood and protected one. You couldn’t be so protected that you couldn’t attack out. She traced additional lines around those breaches, amplification and concealment all the way forward to the front wall and her pile of seeds.
She glanced over and froze like a bird in front of a fox. Count was staring. At her! Maybe... she took a deep breath and forced herself to stop. To calm down. Enough to notice him looking from her to the little pile of seeds, pointedly. Repeatedly. Oh. Right. She nodded, and he stepped forward, uncorking a clumsily fired clay jug and carefully pouring out a thick viscous red fluid. Hog blood to key her seeds to their targets. Though like most blood magic, it didn't really pour like blood. Smooth, consistent... Like hot strawberry syrup-
She broke off that line of thought as her stomach both growled hungrily and twisted disturbingly.
She could REALLY use a plate of pancakes right now... but when dripping blood reminded you of them. Bad stomach!
The blood continued to flow, though with more than a touch of weirdness that was magic at play. It reacted not just like hot syrup but also like varnish. The blood didn't pool beneath the pile, but flowed to wrap each seed like the crimson flesh of a raspberry. The blood continued flowing, even after she stopped pouring. Circling in an even, smoothe coat of potential. Then Count barked a word and it solidified into an opaque crimson, potent but waiting. Like a hard candy coating.
She hid a flinch as Owl stepped up from her blind spot and, using his writing chisel and a pair of twigs like chopsticks, picked up each individual seed to sketch an exponential function into the now glossy red surface.
It didn't take him long and then it was Karen's turn. She picked up all but one seed, and carefully cradled them in front of her mouth. She inhaled, taking several seconds, to expand her already massive chest, Pepper was not jealous, honest! Everyone watching, and with the amount of mana bleeding out over here that was everyone, quickly put their fingers into their ears as Karen exhaled like a trumpet and blew the seeds out like little rockets.
Spreading through the air on their short trajectories to plunk down in a half circle almost a hundred feet out. Nicely surrounding the ramp entrance in a loose, well-spread half circle.
Stepping backward, carefully so as not to smudge any of the chalk work, Peper removed her fingers from her ears, though it hadn't actually been that loud. Karen had the control to direct her screams. Pepper put that thought away and took a deep breath, kneeling with her hands touching the edge of her circles. She spent a few extra seconds settling down. Magic was about attitude and state of mind. It wasn’t enough to have plans, you had to be in the right head space to apply them.
She was unbothered. Neither waiting nor rushed. Neither hopeful nor resigned. Simply here, in this moment. Relaxed and Ready.
Or at least trying to be.
Images of blood, beasts and burning homes flashed through her mind in a never-ending circle. She didn't try to force them away. That would be a lie. She was worried, she did fear. Pretending otherwise would get her nowhere. Instead, she forced herself to accept them for what they were. Real mental input that deserved recognition, but not control.
That was the real trick, and not an easy one. Accepting input from your subconscious without being controlled by it. Well, not a trick exactly, but a skill. And once that Teacher insisted that they must learn. She could practically hear his dry voice whispering in her ear. “Your mind can work for you or against you. Either way it will work, and you will pay the fuel in willpower. How much do you have to waste?”
“I'm trying Teacher,” She whispered to herself, “I'm trying!”
She forced herself to step through the drills, carefully isolating each image, facing the fear that spawned it, no matter how idiotic or unlikely, discarding the silly fluff her mind threw at her but accepting the real worries for what they were. Then recognized how pointless the fear itself was. It wouldn't stop those things from happening, and if she gave into it, would make them more likely.
But logic wasn't enough because fears while real, weren't logical to start with. They were emotion and instinct, holdovers from a primitive past. The monkey brain screaming a warning, danger lay this way. But she was not monkey. She was not a rat, to freeze then scurry for a hole. She was not just her animal nature.
She was human, and humans could think. Rise above rather than be ruled by those instincts.
She recited the simple phrase that best worked for her. Not about fear being the mind-killer, though that was a popular one. But part of an old poem that Parkour shared with them.
She was the master of her fate, the captain of her soul.
She just had to make herself realize it...
But three pointless worries cropped up for every weed she pulled. She found herself grateful, absurdly so, when at last, the floor shook. Not by much, a cup of water to her right was rippling when it hadn't been before. It was time, and she was grateful. Anything was better than that!
She took a deep breath and pulsed 15 mana into the chalk around her. Not much really, but the bunker would provide most of the physical defenses. This was more about limiting interference. She'd need most of her mana to attack. The chalk lines jumped as they came to life, an inch high and at the same time didn't move at all. It was in the Field where the most change occurred. Twisting into indescribable colors for the briefest of moments, before settling into a deep emerald green.
But even in the physical it was no longer merely chalk, but a colored stripe on the stone floor, a mineral vein rather than a marking. In the Field it was so much more. A softly pulsing meshed sphere of mana surrounded her, beating in time with her heartbeat and following the shapes of the runes she'd drawn in great twists and swirls.
Good enough. She pushed her will outwards, following the traces of chalk to the single remaining red coated seed. The second law of magic, Contagion. What once was a set, would always be.
The seeds were from the same plant, soaked in the same mana, hers, for days before being soaked in the blood of a single hog. Three times connected, and three times empowered. The links were large and easy for her will to follow, bridging the distance and allowing her will and mana to do the same. Her range was extended, but the remaining runes didn’t merely extend and empower, they also limited the flow. The connections were not equal but of a mother to her daughters.
She took a deep breath, even with the runes to help, it was a fiddly bit of magic. Twisting contagion to be unidirectional wasn't exactly the orthodox way, but it was common enough in nature to qualify. Parents gave their blood down the generations, not up.
That’s where it got the name. Blood flows down from mother to child, but only affection flows back up. Without that, any damage to vines might flow back into her face. Not happening!
She forced the Mental construct to form, and bound it in turn to the seed. Forcing growth, sustenance down her custom-made umbilical cords without changing the ‘Mother’. It was already an 'adult' and would grow no further. Especially not next to a bunch of tasty humans.
The children though, they were just starting out, and it was time to Bloom! The carnivorous seeds drank down the mana she offered. Guided by the symbols of the selfless mother, giving deeply and keeping nothing back, the emptied hourglass, a generation passed, but still connected. The sands of time pour ever onward, never backward. All of it surrounded with a one-way traffic sign.
Accumulate. She whispered to them, without speaking. Store up and wait. Not yet!
She carefully pushed herself out of the mage sight and glanced out. The bushes and trees were visibly shaking and the ground shuddered beneath her feet. They were out there, but she couldn't see anything. Not yet.
There was still a bit of time, and a good thing too! She had things to set up still. Dropping back into the magic field she pictured the mature plant her seeds could become. A massive coiling vine, fully 2 feet in diameter and hundreds of feet long. Coiled about one of the great trees. Circling its trunk and branches like Christmas garlands.
Its long vibrantly green length was dotted with small, but wondrously fragrant flowers. Purple at their base and cycling out to a pale blue at the tips of its many tulip-like petals. A true treasure for both insects, beasts and man. Sweet smelling, packed with life and nutrition. A symbolic nature that favored cleansing and efficient digestion. A miracle of nature.
And bait.
Because its real name was Sanguinaria Vitis, or Vampire Vine for anyone without Latin pretentions. Beautiful, valuable and deadly. The trio of the new world. Her image slowly grew to include the characteristic sub-vines. The sucker vines as most called them. Thin, whip-like extensions barely 20 feet long and such a different, mottled green and brown drab color that it had taken a few years before people twigged to what was actually going on.
They disappeared among the leaves and vines that were everywhere. Right up until something tasty got close enough. Then those seemingly loose coils snapped out like snakes, wrapping around their target and driving the 6-inch hollow thorns that lined their underside into their prey. They could drain a hog in under a minute.
If it were fool enough to stand still for it of course. It wouldn't, but that wouldn't save it either. The suction on those suckers had to be seen to be believed, even in a few moments of shock, the main vine would get a significant drink. Then the beasts would panic and run, ripping the detachable sucker vine away and carrying it with them, still bleeding out, though slower without the suction.
She filled the construct with the images she’d watched in Teacher’s scrying pool. Of beasts that ran hundreds of yards, only to eventually bleed out, and from the corpse, a new vine would grow. The 'seeds' were simply the underside of the hollow thorns.
Her construct grew in both complexity and precision. Feeding off the seeds themselves for the blueprint and spark that made life so unique. Trying to make such a thing had killed many a young wizard, and she wasn't fool enough to try.
With a small pulse of will, she extended her own personal construct. Growing spectral trees and bushes for her equally spectral vines to anchor themselves between. It was a dangerous choice, they were out there where they could be damaged, and that kind of damage was slow and painful to fix.
But it was also an opportunity. As always, risk and reward were a pair. Vampire vines were brutal and vicious but they had their own morals. In Teacher's words, they weren't ungrateful. They fed on the trees they grew on, drinking deeply of the sap, but they weren’t just parasites. They protected the trees in turn by feeding on burrowing beasts and insects. They dropped the remains of their kills to fertilize the roots and in hard times, the vines would feed the trees from their own reserves. You could say they loved their home.
And that was a very powerful concept. Because this was her home, and when her vines spread and fed to their heart's content, they would in turn feed into her Construct. She pushed the concept down and out, unfolding more of her forest even as vines visible to normal sight expanded and grew between invisible mana projections.
A sudden sharp shake threw her back into her body, wincing as pain shot above her left eye. Damn rapid shifts.
The forest edge itself was shaking, waves of motion moving through the 40-plus feet high saplings and 10-foot-plus bushes. The great trees themselves were unmoved, of course. There were very few things that could budge those giants. Physically or magically. The true giants didn't live here, but even their much smaller cousins were too stable for this lot.
Then the first tusked monster shouldered aside one of the baby trees, unbothered as the multi-foot thick trunk was snapped like a twig by a casual brush of its shoulder. It froze, beady red-veined eyes focused forward.
The brief moment more felt than measured before its small brain recognized its targets and rage exploded outward like a tidal wave to strike against the town. Its tusked snout rose and gaped wide, belching out an ear-piercing, dreadful squeal. It struck together with the rage, and somehow much stronger than either of them alone.
Pepper reeled backward before the blow, tears springing from her eyes and a vicious pounding starting up behind her eyes and between her poor ears. She raised a hesitant hand to check them, but it returned dry. It didn't feel like it should have.
Then it got worse. A dozen more forms broke through the edge of the greenery to join it. None quite so large as the first, the alpha, but each a multi-ton monstrosity with thick scarred hides and equally bloodshot eyes.
Bristly hair rose like spikes on their backs. At nine inches long and a quarter inch around they made excellent sewing needles for leather work, if too big for anything delicate. Armor and weapon in one.
The bloody flesh chunks gummed up in those spikes bore testament to that. And to bad hygiene. They fought for place with bits and pieces of branches, leaves and berries. Outside of a wave, the 2-foot-long squirrels, weasels and the occasional hummingbirds were symbiotic animals. Cleaning the hog's hides in exchange for easy food.
They hadn’t read the signs this time and paid for it.
The passel moved out from the forest edge, and raised their own snouts to join their alpha. Their voices and wills joined in and the force of their madness and rage struck against her mind like a threshing flail. The flimsy defenses she'd woven fragmented and shattered under the blows, and she froze, unable to react under the pain, staring forward at an end she couldn't avoid.
Then it stopped! A wave of green and gold rose up from the front of the bunker in a wave, runes and mana wells built into the very structure and fed daily by the defenders lept to life and blocked out all but an echo.
“And that's why, ladies and gentlemen, you don't skimp on defenses.” The Sergeant barked out, his voice easily audible over the squealing now that the green curtain muffled it.
Pain and fear shook her, she'd been so very close to... She forced herself to breath. She was the captain of her fate. She was. Fear was information, not debilitation.
Breath. She took a few more deep breaths, then oddly enough, the fear and worry broke.
Her stomach pulled her out of the circle of fear with a mighty grumble. Those sounds were familiar, she heard them in the slaughter lots while cleaning out the pens. That sound meant pork dinner.
They were monstrous, massive even mountainous. But suddenly all she could think was that they were mountains of meat! Great tasting meat! Her stomach overruled her nerves, huh. Apparently, it was still upset over those ration bars.
Still shaking a bit, but no longer stunned, she grit her teeth and shoved another 25 mana into the defenses around her feet. Not in a second, that would burn them and possibly her, out, but in a steady stream over the next ten or so. With each additional bit, the squeals and the intent born in the sounds drew farther back.
Then a loud whooshing noise and a massive blast of heat overwhelmed all other inputs as a fireball bigger than a truck flashed out of the bunker from her right.
The mass of flames shot forward like a homerun baseball to splash out and over the middle of the now charging wave. Rapidly burning through the hair and hide to ignite the massive layers of pig fat that made them so delicious.
She only thought the sequel was dreadful before. Berserker rage gave way to pain and madness as flaming pigs bolted in every direction. Crashing into their kin and igniting them in turn. It was a catastrophe. A glimpse into the Christian hell. She felt the heat of it on her face, even a hundred and fifty feet away.
*SQUEEEEE* the sound, and pain-filled intent behind it crashed into her reinforced defenses. Less deliberate, less of an attack then rage and madness, but no less forceful. She felt like a sandcastle with the waves coming in. Helpless and scared, then the green curtain flashed again, leaving only a few smaller ripples through to erode her sand walls.
The sound and intent, stripped of its power but not its message, crashed through. It echoed inside the bunker, and more tears began to spring from her eyes as horror graced her face.
They were just overgrown pigs. She repeated that statement to herself a few times in a row. But it was hard to keep it up. The pain and agony she was forced to see, to feel, was monstrous. Even enemies didn't deserve this!?
She took a deep breath and looked down. Her aura was a bit tattered. Damaged from that first scream and her ill-prepared response to it. Damaged and taking more damage as her own overactive empathy forced sympathetic wounds to join the initial mental bruises.
Foolish! Teacher had even warned them about this. A wounded aura made you more susceptible to the emotions of others. Less able to block them out when you need to. And she really needed to.
It was like fingernails on a chalkboard, only if the fingernails had diamond tips and a catty personality. She reached deep and forced a defensive construct to life as she'd been trained to do. With a twist, she changed the imagery.
The sand castle and the shredded chalkboard morphed, if slowly, into a grand tree. Its trunk scared by a passing beast, but those cuts were even now filling with sap. Insulated from the outside, closed and healing.
The squealing died down slowly as the poor beasts died.
She took a ragged breath. That was... she didn't have words. Not now. But it was so much worse than she'd expected. Even after the warnings. She didn't know whether she should thank Sanders for the fire, or box his ears. Haaaaa, at least the morning rains meant there was no danger of a forest fire. Though with all that fat to burn... she said a brief prayer. Please no!
She glanced sideways and forced herself not to show her doubts. They wouldn't help and she wasn't sure he was wrong either. The tall skinny boy, 2 years her elder, was dressed in the same bag-like jungle cloth smock. As all of them were. But somehow it looked worse on him. An impressive feat really. Where it was a bag on her, it was a tent on him. And he was the tent pole. His skinny tall frame draped and seemingly lost in the ugly cloth. More so than usual with him on all fours, gasping for breath.
She shook her head. That had been a hell of a spell, but why did he insist on fire? They didn't live in a volcano. Taking another wet breath, she flapped the coarse cloth of her dress in a vain attempt to cool down. More like a swamp. She gave him a second considering look. No blood under his nose, he might recover enough for another blast... Or three. He'd surprised her with his resilience before. A few times at least.
The moment of escapism helped, but she didn’t have any more time for hiding. She turned back to her own work. He'd bought time, and she'd be a fool not to use it.
A few flaming nightmares were still sprinting around and impeding the following hogs from moving, but it wouldn't last long.
The Hogs were already driven berserk by whatever caused the beast waves, nothing much would interfere with that. Not for long anyway.
She closed her eyes and reached out. Her mind extended, and she had to hold in a flinch. The once idyllic meadow was pocked, cratered and blacked from the flames, and getting worse as her other classmates joined the slaughter. Iridescent bolts of a dozen different mana types shot forward in a steady stream into the disorganized and panicked swirling mess of hogs.
She took one last deep breath.. and dissolved into a coughing fit. Choking on the taste-able stench of burning flesh. It wasn't BBQ, not anymore. Not breakfast. But the smell of the burn ward. Sickly sweat and raw in the back of her throat.
She took short, shallow breaths fighting to get the coughing under control and not lose the contents of her stomach in the process. Not now, not today. She would not embarrass herself!
It helped, not much, but enough. Helplessly she forced herself to extend her mind beyond her body. First into the circle and then through its links to the vines below. She fed them growth, fed them images of their wild cousins and what they could become and most of all, she fed them her mana. Berry by berry it drained into her construct. A minute, or five it was hard to tell, but the shaking of the ground grew in strength and more beasts rushed out into the clear cut.
No massive fireball met them this time, but a large number of smaller spells flicked out to pick them off in ones and two's. Vibrant green bolts, half liquid and half mana, splashed out in fans of acid, melting flesh like a wax candle. Shadows rose up to strangle their owners while pits suddenly appeared in the earth or jagged rocks sprung up from underneath.
Then it was her turn. The first beast stepped onto a vine and like a spring it snapped around the offending limb. For a moment, and blood quickly drained, then the beast, squealing in panic released its stored motion and launched forward, ripping the feeder vine from its parent in a spurt of blood.
A second later a shard of stone launched upwards from the earth to gut it. Their Motion magic was either passive absorption or release, not both and their was a delay after activation before they could start absorbing again, in that gap, they were very vulnerable.
Still, dead or no she wasn't happy. She'd dumped most of her mana pool into the mother vine, and while the dregs of her pool had created several feeders, she needed them to collect blood to make more and the few pints she'd drawn.
This wouldn't work... but... She stared forward for a moment, then smiled viciously. No one said she had to stop the hogs. Bleeding them out slowly on the move would work just as well, if not better. A gauntlet to run was better then a single door to batter down.
Yes, that could work... She let the next rank of boars pass unobstructed. Forcing her vines to wait. To let the first couple rows of bacon past. Then in the middle of the pack she struck, two vines snapped forward this time. One dug its thorns into a fat back haunch and began to feed while the second was more ambitious. Wrapping fully around the beasts great barrel like belly and driving its thorns towards its vitals.
The beast lost its mind in panic, and like its dead brother before it, repeated the one trick these oversized porcine ponies were known for. It dumped its stored motion and launched itself forward... right into the ass in front of it.
Blocked in on all sides, it had nowhere to go. The blur became solid as active and passive fought. A moment passed, the larger hog in front absorbed the charge, if barely. Then a large rock came crashing down on the already topped off creature. Unable to absorb anymore and without time to expel what it already held, it detonated, stored motion exploding outward in all directions as the reservoir overloaded. A cloud of flesh, blood and deadly bone fragments spread in all direction.
The BOOM of it shook her clothes and flung back her hair back.
She felt her body heave and wretch as some of that cloud made its way through the bunkers viewports. She tuned it out, she couldn't afford to deal with it. Not now. Not when she was so close to success. Her victim, drained of its magic and not physically strong enough to escape the vines, was drained like a kid's milkshake. She half imagined that straw in an empty cup sound as she drank deeply of its lifeforce until there was nothing left. Then with a twist of perception, she deftly bridged the gap between real and illusion. Feeding and growing new vines from what she stole, instead of her own nearly empty well.
A small part of her mind saw through her watering eyes the remaining hogs slowly picked off by spell and even the occasional flung spear and falling bolder.
She didn't let it phase her. Good or bad, this was only the second bunch. There would be more. Many, many more.
Taking advantage of the short reprieve she continued to process the stolen reserves. Growing another half dozen feeder vines, greatly reinforcing the mother vine and even bleeding a bit of it off to refill her own reserves.
Then another 3 dozen hogs sprang free of the forest and like a broken record the situation began to repeat. Only this time, with much better shields and a plan. She weathered the dominance battles and the incessant squealing.
Again she forced herself to wait as the darts and spells of the other defenders began the butchery. Letting the blood and chaos hide her work, and striking into the back ranks after the front passed.
This time she snagged three at once. Her own little pigs in a blanket, and sipped ravenously at their essence. Batteries, she didn't rush to finish them, slowing down once they grew too weak to struggle. She had another task here. Small thorns reached out, not to snag or drain, but merely to bleed. Scratches, pinpricks.
Taglocks.
With a practiced twist the idea, not the blood itself but the signature it held, bled back up the links and chalk lines to a simple little stone brazier surrounded by math equations. She had to force herself to calm down as the handoff occurred. They’d practiced this over and over, but there were so many ways it could go wrong...
Not this time, Count was there, waiting and snagged the encapsulated identity without even allowing his magic to contact hers. She wanted to cheer, but just didn’t have much attention to space. A moment later she was back spreading her vines.
Mostly.
She did like to see him work.
Flames rose and the pooled hog's blood, now seeded with signatures began to boil. Crimson fumes rose from the pool and quickly descended to line the equations below in shining mana flecks. She didn't try to read them. Math was never her strong point and Owl's pseudo logic wasn't even that.
But it worked and effectively too. Many are one and in turn one can affect many. The squealing screams rose in terror, madness and agony as fully half the attacking wave collapsed, blood boiling and escaping as steam from any orifice it could find.
She took a reflexive deep breath and broke down coughing. Thrown out of her spells again, this time to taste the bite of acid on her tongue and the stinking remains of her breakfast on the ground in front of her. Shuddering and choking, she desperately reached for a jar of water.
And this would continue for half the day?
Timothy watched as spectral vines pulsed with stolen blood in a small pool of water. Grinning softly at that particularly clever bit of spellwork. It didn't look like the permanent bonuses she's hopped for were going to pan out. It was a transient thing that stolen power. Usable, but not really hers. Not yet at least. That didn't make it any less clever.
It made for a pretty impressive mid-battle mana recharger. And not just for her if they planned it a bit better. Concentrating all that stolen lifeforce in one location made for an effectively homogenized mana pool in the local Field. Any path that was even peripherally connected to blood would have an easy time harvesting from it. And there were many such paths.
She was going to be very popular.
He nodded softly and adjusted the runic boundaries on a small map to his side, letting another 3 dozen hogs out of a mass confusion ward.
His students needed to be blooded, and this was the best place to start. It applied to them the same as the guardians that filled some of the other bunkers.
None of them needed to know that the fight was carefully curated. There was a certain something you could only learn when you felt like your life was on the line. It wasn’t a lesson that needed to be repeated over and over, he wasn’t some battle junky. But that kind of threat had a way of showing you who and what you were really made of.
Knowledge made physical and felt rather than just calculated. The balance of risk and reward given form and immediacy.
And all of that arranged by a man who couldn’t lie. He shook his head at the Irony. Fortunately, that didn't mean he had to tell the whole truth either. Letting people deceive themselves caused him no harm.
Ah the webs we weave. He reached over and tapped a rune beside a different pool. Redirecting the Veteran hunting party on the other end towards a newly evolved Tier 2 before the Hog and its passel could join the assault.
Someone had to keep an eye on things after all.
Pepper gasped for breath within the stinking, vile bunker. She hadn't been the only one to lose her breakfast and the sour smell of bile, fear and pain permeated even the stones. Leaving a phsycic echo that was almost as bad as the physical smell. Almost.
It was bad enough when a few threw up, the chain reaction that caused made it so much worse. That was hours ago, and there wasn’t enough left in her stomach to care.
Exhaustion and emptiness trumped disgust.
Count was still on his feet, unstained by vomit of course and she suddenly hated him, if just a little. No one should look that prim and proper after hours of this. Karen likewise was still on her feet, and while considerably mussed she was too ornery to collapse.
She couldn't say the same for the others. Cobb, Monty and Sadda were splayed out like dropped playing cards on the back benches. Mana and will drained beyond what their bodies could handle. Meditation turned to passing out.
Then there was Sanders. She sighed, looking at the boy crumpled into a heap half way back. He'd been warned. The Sergeant ordered him to step back and sit down. “One more! I can do one more!” he'd claimed and tried to prove it. Then the Sergent gave him a love tap. Right on the tip of his chin. Tough love saved his life.
This time. If he didn’t get a clue, he wasn’t going to survive. None of them were immortal.
“Alright my lovelies.” The man in question sounded off loud enough to levitate Pepper. “Not a great showing. If we were forced to run, those four,” he gestured in turn to the comatose students, “likely wouldn't survive.” He tapped Sanders with his foot. “Not to mention this one. He'd just be dead, no if involved.”
“You need to be better. Better reserves, but more importantly, better self-control and self-knowledge. Know when to stop. Machismo will get you killed.”
“When they wake up, pass the message along.”
“That's then, now though, we have that most exciting of tasks. Looting!”
Pepper perked up a bit, taking a mouthful of water from her now empty jar and spitting it out after a small swish. She was ravenously hungry, but couldn't stand the thought of food. Ah well. Excitement fought with the exhaustion, and she wasn't yet sure which she hoped would win.
The fight was enough to get her standing up and staggering towards the door.
Another guardsman stepped in as they left to watch over the sleepers, and the rest of them tromped down the ramp, joined at each successive bunker by another group of classmates inter-spaced with new guardians.
A bit over a hundred people, with twice as many guardians as pathfinders.
The various Sergents, one for each bunker, carefully chivied them along, passing out full jars of water and the occasional ration bar and insisting they consume them. The field couldn’t be left unharvested. Not for long with the way things rotted, but heat stroke and passing out would delay them even longer.
She forced herself to take one of each, barely choking down a bite of the bar, but even that bit helped. Settling her stomach slightly. Sill walking downward she reluctantly tried a few more bites.
Still tasted like shit.
The previously pristine meadow was a pockmarked wasteland of small flickering fires, pits, sizzling patches of acids and worse.
They picked their way through that mess, first marking the mostly intact hogs for harvesting and transport, then carefully separating them, group levitation spells were preferred, into separate piles. Two out of every ten were hung up on racks at the base of the ramp. The rest piled high on a freshly constructed raised wooden platform.
Already exhausted, Pepper wasn't really interested in helping. At least not at first. The Sergent fixed that.
“All that meat,” he gestured to the ramp, “bones and blood has value. It’s not Tier 2, but there is still a lot of value in it. And since you ain’t up to handeling a Tier 2, its about the best you are going to get.
Usually in the range of 20-50 stone coins per Hog. Price varies with strength and how damaged it is. Of course, if you want to leave that for others...” He trailed off leadingly and suddenly they were all considerably more enthusiastic.
With a stone coin for a four hour shift of hard labor, or 5-10 if you spent your own mana... She stumbled over the math a bit, but one thing was for sure, even split a hundred ways, and with the Hold taking its share, this was going to be a serious windfall.
Of course, she glanced backward towards the ramp, remembering the stretchers bearing still bodies she’d seen going the other direction, there was a reason for that. Even though the Hog's never breached the bunkers, magic wasn't a kind mistress to those who didn’t respect her.
A few moments of inattention, forgetting to check your reserves or perhaps overestimating how far you could push it, that was all it took.
She sighed and focused back on the task at hand. Death was a part of life. The statement was suddenly so much more grip than it had been this morning. Grim and true.
Still, the other half of that lesson was also true. Enjoy life while you had it. And recognize that different wasn’t always better.
Better than nine out of ten guardians would survive their training. Then they'd get to use that training, here on the walls or hunting outside them. Where those numbers would get steadily worse.
Pathfinders were almost the opposite. Few died in combat, not unless an entire hold was overrun, but training accidents were common and deadly. Not just for her fellows, but for the Origins as well. It wasn't safe to push a new path into the unknown.
Suddenly she was grateful for the work. Tired as she was, she had to really concentrate on the spells. She didn't have time to mope over her less-than-optimal survival odds.
Then she froze, a hand on her shoulder and the next hog lifted away from her. She looked up through slightly foggy eyes at the Sergent, his own eyes showing glimmers of compassion she hadn't known he was capable of.
“Enough. You’re done, head in before you hurt yourself. If I have to carry you, I will make you regret it tomorrow!”
With that last gruff warning, he moved the hog himself over to the high-piled wooden stand.
She stood for a moment, wobbling on her unsteady legs. Then numbly turned and began the slow tromp back to the hold. Barely nodding at the greetings that occasionally came her way. An interminable time later she stumbled through a doorway into a bunker and a seat. Not the first bunker, not this time. She hadn't had the energy to walk that far. Just the closest entrance she could make.
Sleep called to her, but she resisted with difficulty. Instead dropping back into her inner world. The bushes were overflowing with berries. The trees practically throbbing with stolen life force and everything in between gloried in the act of uncontrolled expansion. Her vines had performed far better then she'd hoped, constantly refreshing themselves, and her, from the steady supply of victims. Many of her fellows had run low on mana, not her. For the first time in months, she was well and truly topped off!
But wielding that mana was a different story. Her mind felt like putty. Her will drained and slow to recover after hours of repeatedly emptying it, only to take a short break and get back to it.
She was spent, and so she didn't try to channel anything. Didn't try to tidy up the overgrowth or even reinforce the construct itself. She just sat in the middle. Allowing a few moments of peace to relieve her over stressed mind.
Then another hand on her shoulder called her out of it. Still exhausted but a bit more clear-headed than she had been. “It's time.” The uniformed older man said, gesturing her over to the firing slit before moving down the bench to the next girl.
Pepper stumbled forward for a step before untangling her unsteady and benumbed legs. How long had she been sitting there? Walking more confidently, although the pins and needles hadn't entirely gone away yet, she found an empty spot at the window, surrounded by several faces she knew, even if not that closely. Guardians mostly, though she spotted a few classmates packed in here or there.
They waited for a few minutes more, a quiet hum of conversation echoing in the small bunker, though as tired as she was, she didn't attempt to join in.
Then it stopped.
Everything stopped.
Even her knees refused to shake as she froze like a rabbit staring at a snake. The golden-red scaled being that dived down through the clouds to alight in front of the citadel wasn't real. It couldn't be real. Nothing that big should be able to move, much less fly. With a single bite, at least four multi-ton hogs disappeared down its gullet. Its mantling wings blocked out the morning sunlight and the wind from them flung her hair back and stung her eyes.
She couldn't look away. Could barely breath. As the monstrous, massive reptile devoured most of a wave's meat. Even as massive as it was, that had to be more weight of meat than it weighed! It didn't matter. Bite by bite the pile disappeared. Snap frames of shock, timeless and impossible to make sense of.
Then it let out a satisfied belch of flame into the air. Flames that burned on Peppers exposed skin and set smoldering fires in the nearby greenery. Her face felt tense suddenly. Like a mask of clay holding her skin tight. Sunburn. Just from being near it?
Then it flung itself back into the air and with a few massive beats of its wings, throwing leaves and dust out like a mushroom cloud, it disappeared into the clouds once more.
Her legs cut out and she fell backwards with most of the other occupants of the bunker, onto the ground gasping for breath.