He glanced over his shoulders, flashing a wide smile. A wide fake smile. Fake or not, it was all he had to offer. So he plastered in on. If you praise a pig, it might fly.
His eyes darted through the survivors of this, their last campaign on Earth, may they meet again in the hereafter. Doxer, large, hairy and covered in glowing tattoos. Well, mostly glowing, a large angry wound, half-healed, bisected his chest in a nearly 3-inch-wide stripe. Leaving a string of ruined, dull ink behind it. From his upper right shoulder to the left side of his pelvic bone. He’d been lucky to survive it, but no more than half his strength survived with him. It would take a specialist and a great deal of time to fix.
They didn’t have that time, and the only specialist good enough to handle the job, Needles, died defending the 4th ring.
Hadriana, with her aura a half-depleted twisting maelstrom of earth and nature, stood tall beside him. Two sharp-mounded brown constructs, earth elementals perhaps, but the massive vines growing out of them made them more mobile gardening plots than agents of smashing destruction loomed behind her. Rough and ugly against her petite, graceful frame.
There was Hudra beside her, taller than Doxer and probably more muscular. Her black hair had strands of grey threading through its short, ear-length fringes. She lightly spun and tossed a five-foot-long bone hammer with her remaining arm.
His eyes skipped over them, comrades, friends, the occasional lover. They were lean, scarred and mean. The sifted remains of true metal from the gross earth of humanity. The weak and unlucky were burned away in the fires, leaving the rest of them hardened and brutal. A pity, he wondered if those bits of softness were what had made them human. What now was left?
He let the question fall through his mind, uninspected. They were what they were.
And they were still here, still fighting. It was enough. They had nothing else.
This was their core. The metal spine of their armies, now stripped of flesh and fat. Only a scarred skeleton but these old bones would not go quietly into the night.
He looked over them, and for a bit his smile became real. Who would have thought, that they could come this far? Before the world conspired against them, who would have dreamed of the heights they could grow to?
They were comic book superheroes, every single one. Leonidas couldn’t hold a candle. Forged in the fires of adversity and polished by two decades of war. They were a rock on which armies would break.
And soon, even that rock would break.
So he smiled, he exhorted. He pranced and he postured.
What else was left when all hope was gone? Life was not on the table. Not for him, and not for them. The thought was bitter ashes in his mouth, but bitter or no, he ate it and kept smiling. He did not flinch. He did not complain.
If he was the type to do either, they would have died years ago! War had whittled them down, stripping them till what was left was only pure cussed meanness. An abiding stubbornness that refused to just give up and die. That refused to leave this mortal coil without leaving a mark.
They were in Tsung Tsu’s death's ground. They would either die standing or die running. And he was far too tired to run. And as the leader, he'd chosen the same for the rest of them. They would die on their feet. Facing what must be faced. He owed them better than that. These men and women that he loved.
He owed them, but he had nothing left to pay.
Nothing but this. They were all going to die on this field. But he would be damned if they didn’t die well!
He turned towards the enemy, the twisted wreckage of the capital's outer defenses. 13 layers of walls, trenches, traps, sally gates, flood spillways and amplification circles spanning over 5 miles in all directions. 13 incredibly complicated, enchanted and hardened fortifications. The back-breaking results of a decade of treasure and labor. Now 12 of them were crumbled scrap heaps littered with bodies.
They had not fallen cheaply. Hundreds of beasts lay scattered dead for every human body on those ramparts. But alone or with a host sent before them, fall they did. Their deaths were purchased with a tide of blood. No reasoning being should have been able to bear such a cost.
And yet here they were.
The Hungerer was no stupid beast. Such things, even in vast numbers, were never a true threat. It was only when there was a mind behind stupid numbers, a mind to plot, scheme and order, that it became dangerous. Lethally so. And oh, the Hungerer was that. Crafty and cruel, both to himself, his people and to his enemies.
They had both seen the costs this path to the future would require of them. They both saw it coming, but the Hungerer was willing to pay the unpayable. And Donald had not been.
For the Hungerer, even if 9/10ths of his people died, without humans to contest with, his progeny would expand and grow to fill this land. They would fill this perfect valley. A cornucopia designed to raise a race. This cradle of humanity's conception and the Hungerer was bound and determined to grasp that birthright for himself.
Donald cursed himself once again. He too had judged the costs and benefits. All those years ago, before the Hungerer grew beyond the 3rd tier, there were chances available. To strike deep and strangle the threat in its own cradle. But the cost! It was always too high! A possible threat was not worth a quarter of his men.
His men! He had fought with them, bled with them, and grieved over far too many. He could not stand to pay the price.
And now, instead of a quarter, he would pay with all. And the norms hidden below as well. And even paying all they had left, they could not afford victory. Merely the opportunity to make it a pyrrhic one for the bastards across the wall.
He looked out over the fields of carrion, so many that even the scavengers of the jungle could make no more than a small dent in their numbers. The bodies called to him, voices he could still hear, over and over again asking him a simple question. Why? Their empty accusing eyes stared deep into him. Why didn’t you pay then?
Soon. He would join them, and when they asked, he would be forced to speak.
His eyes rose from the detritus of battle to the advancing hordes of the living.
The short reprieve was over. The next assault was coming, and they could not stop it.
He wanted to sigh. He wanted to scream in denial or demand an explanation from the heavens. And yet he remained solid and unyielding on the outside. Smiling and joking while death rode to meet them.
That was the duty of a leader. And in this, at least, he would not fail.
“Be ready!” His voice rose in a practiced tone. Loud and clear enough to be heard and understood for hundreds of yards without being shrill or affected. “The time is now. The end is certain, but the path to it is not. I choose the only immortality left to me.” He paused to look them in the eye, the best of everything humanity stood for, standing before him with courage even in this darkest hour. “If the Hungerer can think, can learn, then he can also remember! And I will etch this day into his mind, and the minds of his progeny! Into any subordinate capable of thought. We will not let them ever forget!“
“Make them pay. For every brick, for every bone, for every drop of human blood. MAKE THEM PAY!” His voice rose, in volume but also with hate. Purpose and defiance etched into his face and soul as much as his voice.
He took a deep breath, and let it out along with his worries and his cares. There was no more time for either. Just the job. “Immortality is there, the only kind left. Take it if you dare!”
He turned back to the front and prepared, nothing else needed to be said, they knew what was coming, and what could be done about it. Still, tradition demanded orders and commands. Who was he to refuse? “Prepare to volley!” he let the words carry for a moment to account for casting time and synchronization. It would take seconds for green troops, but here it was more felt than counted. “Volley!”
The skies shook and cried lighting, fire and acid while the ground cracked open to devour the living. Summoned elementals lunged from the cracked earth, pools of water and from the open sky as the very fabric of reality screamed and warped under spells and the hate that filled them.
The natural world took form with rage and released hell upon the living. Like a scythe through ripe wheat bodies were rent and blood flowed. Running ever onward, rivulets gathering into streams, streams into rivers and rivers fit to fill an ocean. An ocean that would soon drown them all.
Tribes of howler monkeys leaped forward to blast the defenders with ghostly shrill screams that struck at souls as much as ears. Rock toads spat tongues over 40 feet in length to fish people from the ramparts as poison frogs spat out toxic mists that traveled forward like a fog bank. Driven towards the final redoubts on hurricane-like winds drummed up by a herd of evolved greater rhea. Hogs formed their spinning circles. The catapults of the natural world. Combining their strength in a running dance that flung massive chunks of the former walls through the air, and when no such stones were available, they flung themselves.
Old enemies, old tactics. The standard counters went out for each. Powdered quick lime flung out on their own breezes ignited on contact with water, burning away the toxic fog. The howler's screeches were captured with nautilus shells etched with silver mixed with spearmint and hawthorn berries, then released in volleys on the charging beasts. Hog missiles were redirected, minor deflections at the right times took little mana and caused massive damage as the missiles crashed into their own lines. Lines that were beginning to lap at the base of the final walls.
The counters were such for a reason. They worked. And worked beautifully. They should, considering how long they'd been fighting this war. They were the best responses the human race had been able to create, and humans were very good at finding loopholes... But they were too few, and the resources needed were mostly depleted.
The lime gave out and spits of fog slipped through to wash against partially exhausted auras. They held for a time, then exposed skin began to turn green, then black and bubbly.
There weren't enough nautilus shells left either. Between cycles of filling and dumping, mostly aimed to kill the physically immune hogs, there just wasn't enough coverage to prevent blasts from slipping through. Aural defenses protected ears for a time, but the aura itself was a manifestation of the soul, and only willpower could stand against that.
Their willpower was mighty. It was sapped by exhaustion, by a lack of hope in places. Here and there a defender began to drop. Foaming at the mouth or bleeding at the ears and nose. Bodies piled up outside the ramparts, creating ramps for the maddened attackers, lizards, hogs, foxes, rats and so much more. They ran up the corpse ladders, depositing themselves as the next rung. And they were getting ever closer.
When they reached the top, everything would end. Humans were small, physically weak in comparison. They had the advantage when the range stayed open even in their depleted states. Harvesting hundreds to one. But that advantage would disappear when the fight decayed into a chaotic melee.
Still, Donald waited, he cast no spells, even avoided using his aura for defense. Slipping behind his men in a show that might have been taken for cowardice by a less disciplined bunch. Not this time. They knew the plan, knew what was coming. And stood forward to take the blows for him.
It was time!
Finally, the enemy committed another portion of their reserves, and the blood filling up the crevices of the earth was more than sufficient. He began his final spell, tapping into the tides of blood. It filled the innocuous-looking ravines and gullies that spiderwebbed across the plain. Innocuous when standing on or in them, but from the height he stood, the truth was easier to see. It was a massive sigil. Now showing all the brighter in bits and pieces of crimson below a mountain of fresh bodies.
Life force and early death. It pooled up beneath them all. From the outer broken layers where defenders and attackers alike rotted in the blood-soaked earth to even as the final layer added a fresh outpouring.
And he was a blood mage. A fact he’d remind the Hungerer of, one last time.
He’d held back and husband his energy while his men and women opened the floodgates and created an ocean for him to tap. And they? They trusted him to use that ocean. Foolish beasts! Feelers of blood lashed out in 10,000 small spiked arms. Blood from the dead of each species providing a symbolic link to its brethren, sliding through the communal bonds of shared blood, and slipping around and through their every defense.
The spikes plunged into their bodies and drained them in moments, adding power to the spell. Each additional death an extra link to the living, and the power to follow that link. The result of years of study, of hopeless hate.
A Great Spell. A ritual that once started, took on a life of its own. The Hungerer had missed the opportunity, to strangle the spell at birth. Now it was too late for that. With thousands of deaths fed to it already, no one could stop it. Even now a mere handful of seconds after its inception it was far beyond what Donald could control, much less stop. Then again, he had no wish to control it, and no need to.
Blood called to blood, and there was far more beast blood spilled on these fields than human. Like a lamprey the blood jumped in a mass of twisted black spikes from creature to creature, spreading several hundred yards in the first dozen seconds, then miles out in the succeeding minute. Soon it passed beyond Donald's sight. He smiled, in hatred and satisfaction, if not happiness. But also in relief. It was over. The die had been cast. All that could be done was.
What more did he have to fear? What more did he have to stress about? He looked at his men one more time, meeting the eyes of the few dozen still living from the 200 hundred that had started this day with him. Even as the first blood spike jumped up the wall to impale Hudra. She stood straight and defiant as her skin wrinkled and cracked, aging from mid-thirties to 80s in a split second before falling to pieces as additional spikes lept out from her decaying corpse.
Mostly beast blood was not all.
There had been plenty of human blood out on those plains as well, and he had never had a hope of controlling something of such a large scale. The spell had never been intended to win the fight. The Hungerer had other armies, and he himself was possibly powerful enough to resist the spikes.
No. It was a final 'fuck you' to a universe that had decided it could do without them.
And so he smiled one last time, even as the shock and pain struck his own lower back, decades of skill and knowledge letting him stay clear-headed, resisting the spell for a brief moment.
Goodbye my friends.
He woke confused for several long minutes, two lifetimes of knowledge competing inside one head. Pain raged for several moments, before the memories of that final battle began to fade, as all dreams do. Even nightmares. He snapped upright with a shuddering scream! “Fuck!” What the – No, FUCK YOU Timothy!”
The slender, scraggly-haired figure with a short beard sitting a double arm’s length away from his bed carefully triggered a glowing security ward over a massive eagle feather fan, Before walking away toward the door.
He paused at that door to look back at the tall muscular blonde man curled into a fetal knot on the bed.
Then whispered softly and unheard, “I wish...” Then the door closed.
Leaving a room that echoed with guttural sobs.
----------------------------------------
Timothy sat quietly in a large, (and actually comfortable!) chair in a circular chamber in his tower, sipping quietly at some ginger tea. Surrounding the table sat a ring of other Origins. Some of his closest friends and, where the term friend was not completely accurate, talented colleagues.
The three Blood Fathers, (Donald, Mike and Rafe) one chair removed to his left then Spirit Father (Oscar), The Evoker Holla (Ernesto), and The Astrologer (Kevin). Each contributed to the creation of the Dream Fan, and each received the opportunity to try it as part of their pay.
He was grateful for the willing test cases. For the opportunity to expand Selmaru’s horizons. But he wasn’t so sure they thought of it as a reward right now. It had been a… well, painful experience. The question was, were the benefits worth the cost?
“That was bloody rough. I’m not sure I like you very much right now, Runes.” Saying father this and father that got old pretty damn quick. In a room not full of Origns it wasn’t an issue of respect. Outside all of them maintained the standard rigmarole as a necessity. But all here were of a similar status, and there was no need for the game of titles.
Donald was the last one to try it, and for proper first impressions, they had agreed not to discuss it till he recovered enough to join in.
“I don't blame you. If it's any consolation, it was a dream and like all dreams it will fade with time and the pain with it. Never completely gone, but reduced in impact as it shifts from something you experienced to something you watched. Something you heard about. Just give it a bit of time.”
“That’s what she said?” Kevin muttered with a tired, world-weary look in direct contrast to the juvenile shit that came out of his mouth. Not that it surprised anyone here. That was Kevin in a nutshell, age-old wisdom hidden behind surfer bum speech patterns and a filthy mouth.
He was a walking contradiction. A stargazing mystic sharing the same skin with an immature frat bro. Still, the sheer shock of his comment, the ridiculousness of it, sparked a few brief moments of laughter. Perhaps more than such a comment deserved.
They need a laugh.
As the mirth died down Timothy managed to take another drink of the tea, something else he needed after the training montage he’d been running. First for Selmaru herself, then helping her to create this test and run the government pukes, then all six origins through consecutive multi-hour sessions. Too much tragedy took a toll on a person, even if his forebrain was slowly but steadily forgetting it. It was still felt, still experienced and it still hurt!
Then he took the tiller of their conversation again. “It was a dream, Blood Prime.” Ridiculous to be Blood Prime, Secunduc and Tertius, but it worked. Perhaps growing up named after the ninja turtles did something to their naming sense. Then again Timothy was hardly in a good position to complain. “Like all dreams, it will fade with time-”
“Then what was the point!” Donald interrupted, slashing his hand angrily through the air. “Why would you make us suffer through that if we can't keep anything from it?”
“Dreams are fascinating things.” Oscar spoke into the angry silence in his quiet, dignified voice. “They help the conscious mind deal with things it would rather not. Through dreams, we face our fears in a softer, more forgiving arena. This would not be true if when ‘forgetting’ the dream all gains were lost.”
Timothy nodded, picking up where Oscar left off despite some skeptical looks from the peanut gallery. “Thank you Spirits. The exact mechanics fade, what new spells you created or what items you figured out how to make, but the inspiration for them will be there in your mind. If the situation is right they will appear again. Likewise, the lessons you learned about yourself will remain.”
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Holla sighed, indicating with merely a slight change in posture that he would speak. It was a skill Timothy had never managed to acquire, and he was more than a bit jealous. “But why is it like that? It’s useful, no? To come up with new spells in a night's dream that might take years outside?”
“Because it is a dream.” Oscar replied. Much of the basics for the Fan had come from studying Bensen’s Bull Shit (he should trademark that, Tripple B?), but that was the mechanics of how to generate a Dream, and how to induce people into it. Oscar had been the one to really guide the why. A combination of psychology, mysticism and folksy wisdom that turned a cheap trick (expensive as all hell actually!) into something far more spiritual. And far more useful.
“The spells you created there worked because it was, in part, your dream. Anything made there is made to work in the dream and was likely missing more than a few steps. Dreams, like memory, often have a skewed sense of time. Skewed connections. We remember the high points, but rarely the tedium that connects them. They act like memories in many ways. Who remembers every moment of tedious practice? No, you remember the successes and that you did practice. You don’t remember every moment of the process.”
Mike rubbed at his 5 o’clock shadow, then gestured as Oscar finished. “So what about when I-”
“NO!” Timothy quickly raised a hand, to the surprise of the room. It was a bit rude, and after experiencing five years as high-status VIPs rudeness was not something they had to deal with. Nor tolerated. It wasn't just ego either. Tolerating rudeness was a good way to lose authority over those who looked to you to lead in emergencies.
And between the leaders of different holds, such rudeness might lead to war, or at least trade embargoes. “Please do not continue that sentence. For your own sake. Everything that happens in there is private. No one but you, and the young spirit of the fan knows, and she’s made stringent oaths not to reveal anything.”
All eyes were on him, and they were not entirely kind. “You proctored that test, Runes. You were there with me in the Dream.” Kevin observed, no juvenile jokes present in his current manner. No humor at all. “I may not have been aware at the time, but in hindsight, the flavor of your magic is far too distinctive for me to mistake.”
Timothy nodded, taking another sip of tea. A sip that rapidly became a gulp as the eyes of the room remained on him, and if anything became even sharper. He could feel some of his defensive wards flaring under the load of their massed intent. Geeze, tough crowd!
“I helped. It’s true. But not in the way you think. I was in the meld enough for my subconscious mind and projected memories to be used as background. A third point of view of how a given situation should go forward. Kobayashi is young yet, she doesn’t have the experience to fully create the immersive scenarios that we require. I project my intent, let her use me as a sounding board to make up that lack. In time she won’t need me, and all of you have aided her greatly in that regard.”
“But I wasn’t actually in the same dream. I assure you, I have no interest in that. Just the backwash from your emotions was enough to make it a miserable experience. I have neither the desire nor sufficient sanity to fully experience the full immersive feel of it over and over again!”
He let his outer control lapse, projecting his intent and his sincerity as he spoke. A skill he was uniquely skilled at. It was why he could create Truth spells. He understood what it meant to be sincere.
A fact they well understood, and the aggressive focus his wards were enduring dropped to a much more comfortable level. The imagined invasion of privacy bothered them more than he'd realized. A fact that in retrospect was quite obvious and reasonable.
Grudging acceptance flared against his senses, and a tension he hadn't recognized bled out of the room. Huh, so much for having a good read on things. He wondered how close things had been to violence...
Holla again indicated he would speak, waiting for the sighs and chatter to quiet. “Good, there would have been, como se dice, represalia?”
Oscar chimed in softly, “Reprisal.”
“Si, reprisal, trespass on my turf, it’s bad. Trespass in my mind?” he didn’t bother to finish. The edge in his voice and intent said plenty. Timothy didn't much care for the implied threat, he also couldn’t disagree with the sentiment.
The mind was sacred. He might spend a bit of time looking where he wasn’t wanted, including at the people around this table, but there were limits. Getting caught looking would have some consequences, unpleasant ones no doubt, but not a patch on what would happen if he could read minds.
Timothy wondered what would happen if the public ever realized quite how much a sensory-focused Origin could read from leaked intent. Even through shielding.
It might not be mind-reading, but the difference wasn’t so obvious that he ever wanted to see. The conflicts it might lead to…
Timothy shook his head.
“There is indeed a line in the sand. I haven’t crossed it and don’t intend to.” Even if they all played pretty close to it.
“Well damn,” Rafe sniped, “there is something you won’t spy on?”
Laughter with a slight edge to it rang out, and Timothy shrugged sheepishly before replying, “Of course, there are many things a man’s eyes were not meant to see. I’d pay a great deal for an ‘unsee’ button. There are many vast beautiful things in this world my friends. But-” He shrugged, “-there are also a great many ugly ones. And while you all, no doubt, have your own unwelcome memories. Trust me when I say, you do not want to see some of the things that I have.”
Security sweeps were necessary, inside and out. And while he caught the occasional bit of human malfeasance, that wasn’t why he checked. The guard was in charge of police work. Not him. He was watching for attacks and anything that might have slipped through the wards. That didn’t mean his surveillance would be popular if he ever admitted to it. It also didn’t stop him feeling like a voyeur.
And as a voyeur, reluctant or not, he’d been forced to realize it wasn’t all hot coeds going at it like bunnies. Penthouse lied! For every would-be porn star, there were a dozen couples that were some combination of overweight, ugly, awkward or freaky to an extreme that left Timothy deeply uncomfortable.
A religious upbringing and a lovingly protective family left him deeply naive as a young college kid, but he’d thought the following years had fixed that issue.
Apparently not!
He shook off the mental images, returning to the discussion to discover he’d missed a bit.
“-react to perceived lack of care.” Mike was saying. Blood 2, he reminded himself again.
“Ya, I got that one too. Seems pretty unrealistic now that I’m awake. That an entire town could turn on me so quickly for making a reasonable choice.”
Ah, he quickly adjusted himself back into the conversation. There was a situation early on in the dream, something he created rather than the organic feedback that guided most of it.
A small group, norms and a few guardians who should have known better, living outside the hold proper, didn’t respond quickly enough to an alarm. Starting late they would not make it to safety before a beast wave arrived.
It wasn’t a video game with a limited number of possible solutions, but even so, the types of solutions fell into a few categories. They could close the gates in their faces, they could leave them open in hope and let the beasts slip inside. Timothy even sent out a patrol to delay the invading beasts at one point.
It wasn’t a good idea, fighting the numbers involved outside the force multiplier of fixed fortifications cost him priceless warriors and drastically reduced the length of time he’d been able to last in that attempt. But well worth it to stress test things.
“Runes?”
“It’s a half-scripted scenario and some of you probably had similar responses to it,” He mentioned a few of the more action, reaction combinations. His own read on the situation of course. “But even if you did nearly what I did, I very much doubt you had the same response. I won’t ask for details, but I’d be willing to bet on it. And it’s a feature, not a bug.”
“The start may be scripted, but the results are determined on the fly. Partially from the normal causes. How good you are at applying your solution or how much cred you’ve built up. But not all of it. This is a shared dream. Between you and Kobayashi. She directs and ensures it stays immersive, but one of the main ways she does that is by reading your responses. Feeling your intent and adjusting the scenarios to include your expectations. Your subconscious expectations,” and a bit of Timothy’s, though he wasn’t going to emphasize that now. “If the town turned on you, it was probably because you felt deeply guilty about it and subconsciously thought they should. That’s tempered a bit by the expectations of others who’ve gone before you, but it's still true.”
Kevin leaned forward, “So if I had expected the big tittied blond to give me a BJ for saving her she would have? Maaan, why do I only hear this now? My subconscious and I need to have words!”
Timothy forced his rising hand back down before he palmed his face. Kevin's face was a temptation as well. At a considerably higher velocity. How could you pass 50 and still never grow up? He refused to react. The man just took it as encouragement. “There is a vast difference between wishes and expectations.”
Kevin opened his mouth to continue, then thought better of it as he caught Oscar's seemingly soft smile.
“Dreams aren’t always linear, I considered adding a looping mechanism to that part. Letting people retry it again and again. It shouldn’t destabilize the dream too much. Whichever version you stop on, the other options would seem like predictions rather than something you lived through.”
“That’s trippy, dog.” Holla muttered, scratching at the back of his head. “Do it. Thinking through these things, a leader has to do it. Spend a few guard lives to save some fools, then you got fewer guards later to defend the town. Don’t save them and people look at you, they wonder why you didn’t try. You can’t win, but you can lose. If you gonna lead a crew, then you need to think about this shit.”
Donald rapped his knuckles several times on the table in approval and he wasn’t the only one. Timothy made a small note on the stone plaque in front of him. He would work out the change with Kobayashi later.
“What about how you handled ascensions? Looking back they never seemed to occur in range for easy kills. Not like happens outside. Random should occasionally occur in my favor.” Donald chimed in.
Timothy shrugged, it was meant to be adversarial, but if a few adjustments made it seem more realistic, he was willing to make compromises. “So stick with random and just take advantage of appropriately placed options?”
General approval met the query and Timothy made another note. Several other suggestions and questions followed rapidly as they worked through various levels of memory (Donald was very clear while Oscar who had gone first was fairly hazy) to pick out inconsistencies or areas to emphasize. Timothy polished off two full plaques with very good suggestions. This wasn't just a peanut gallery, but legitimate experts all offering feedback.
Holla raised his finger, then into the ensuing moment of silence asked, “So, how long till we try again? What about requests? Custom work? Nah, Kevin,” He shut him down without looking. “-no Playboy.”
Timothy coughed up a bit of tea before giving Holla a glance. The rolling laughter and a completely unrepentant Kevin set a merry mood. But Holla’s follow up killed it.
“I’m talking baby guardians first patrol. One in eight. That’s how many fresh fish don’t come home. Not paying attention, not listening, not thinking. If I could show them how they gonna die, I might save a few.”
Timothy shook his head. “Sorry Holla, but not going to happen. Oh, we could make that scenario easily enough. Be easier and cost less mana to do a short session instead of a new life. But the other costs aren’t small. Opportunity not mana. You only get one a night on passive regen. Might make that three a day if you provide the mana.”
“And only after Kobayashi is up to speed. Right now I’m involved in every session. As a sounding board and reference library if nothing else. I hope in not too long, it will be self-service for Pathfinders in training. I’ll even reserve some weekends, maybe all of them, for Origins in good standing.”
He thought about it, then shook his head. “But I don’t ever see it being available to the general public. The numbers involved, no. I don’t see that happening.”
“What about making a few more than?” Rafe suggested.
“…Dude. Kobayashi is one of the most incredible pieces of magic I have ever created. I spent most of a year planning, preparing and setting it up. Not to mention spending coin and favors like water. You think-”
Rafe raised his hands in surrender, waiting a beat to see if Timothy would go on, before speaking. “It was worth asking, but I can take the no.”
Timothy sighed. “It's not a never. But I doubt it will be any time soon. The materials I used… Well, you just don’t find some of them. Not without a lifetime's worth of luck.”
“Got it. So you are thinking to restrict it to Pathfinders?”
Timothy nodded. “Not because it wouldn’t benefit others, but there just isn’t enough time.”
“What will you charge?” Oscar asked.
“Not sure. Free for now for you lot. Mostly because I need testers and trainers for Kobayashi. After we get through the initial implementation, then I’ll have to reassess. Wouldn’t mind your thoughts on the subject either. How much is it worth? What would a fair price be?”
There was a pulse of general agreement.
“As for a safe time... I don't know. Just as a wild guess I would say not till the trauma fully fades. Till the second lives’ memories fade to a distant story rather than something you lived. But exactly how long that takes, well I only have myself for data so far.”
Oscar nodded. “I volunteer. It hurt, more than I ever expected. It still hurts. But I gained so much… Yes, I will be, not happy perhaps, but willing. Just not yet.”
Timothy nodded, making another note. Oscar started two days before in the morning. It was now hours after sunset.
Holla, who went in after Oscar, followed suit. “Memory's still strong, dog. But it's getting better.”
Timothy made a note for each in turn, not pressing but recording anything they were willing to volunteer. And they all did volunteer. Even Donald, though he looked more than a bit green as he did.
“When Spirits feels up to it, I’ll set that as the minimum. But from what I’m seeing that might be a week or better, not days.”
“As good a guess as any if you don’t have data.” Mike shrugged.
“It’s good that you are willing. I’m not real comfortable testing something new and painful on students. Call me old fashioned, but that doesn’t give me any warm and fuzzy feelings.” A small laugh filtered through the room. Better than a mere courtesy chuckle, but not by too much. Not surprising when they were the lab rats instead. “I hope you will all help me push the limits a bit. I’d like a decent handle on risk and recovery time at the very least. And a bit more direction on what we should test for.”
Donald nodded sharply, to Timothy's considerable surprise. Catching his shocked stare he explained. “It was… painful, stressful and humiliating by turns. It was a wretched experience. But like spirits, I can’t deny the value. I learned so much about myself. Not just weakness, but also a bit of what my current path will lead me to. Not magically, but personally. Isolation and authority.” He wavered, voice and intent then sighted. “It’s all still a mess, but the feeling of living a second life… I’m wiser and better prepared to do it again. Even if I can’t retain it all, I’m still a stronger man than I was a few hours ago. I’d suffer a great deal for that kind of a gain.” He thought about that for a moment then nodded again, sharply. “And did.”
Timothy stared at him, tasting the sincerity paired with stress and pain, then decided. “Thank you.”
“No. Don't thank me. I'm still not happy about it, or you! But this isn’t for your benefit. It’s for mine. And I’m not so shameless as to take an obligation for that.”
Agreement swelled, as the extended strands Timothy’s offer released were rejected, one and all. Good-people!
Timothy nodded, grateful, but unwilling to force the issue. “Then let's do a bit of old-school science with our magic. A control group of a few of you who wait longer or don’t go back in at all. I’ll make it up to you later with access, but I’d like to understand the longer-term effects. Then we can -” He quickly sketched out a possible schedule and methodology. Reworking it several times as a good alternate was offered up or a problem identified.
It took some time, and Timothy was thinking some fairly unkind things about the whole process feeling distinctly bureaucratic, but at last, they had a reasonable approach and some consensus.
Then Rafe struck. “Hey Runes,” he casually slipped in, “if you set the entire thing like a loop, can people try until they win?”
“And you call me masochistic?” Timothy asked, eyes bulging out a bit in disbelief. “You want to do that over and over again? That sounds like it might make an effective torture device. Or at least a mind breaker.”
The conversations stopped cold as the room turned to stare at Rafe in equal parts shock and disbelief. Somewhat sheepishly he shook his head, “No, I just want to win!”
“Didn’t you hear the name Kobayashi?” He stared at Rafe, not seeing any understanding in his eyes he tried to elucidate. “Star Trek? Klingons? Nothing?” Rafe shrugged sheepishly, looking around the room. Only Holla looked equally blank. His brothers were giving him disappointed looks. “Kobayashi Maru. The unwinnable scenario. It’s designed so that you can’t win.”
He quickly waved down Kevin's “But Kirk-”
“Not unless you cheat,” he raised an eyebrow at Kevin, “and you just try to pull that BS on me. How well do you think it will go?” He grinned fiercely until Kevin looked away. He'd have to keep an eye on him. Kevin looked like the kind of Treky who might just do it in homage to Kirk. “Kobayashi will just keep throwing bigger and nastier things at you until you eventually fail. It’s in desperation and under fire that we can really learn about who we are. The point is to gradually push you to the breaking point.”
Donald slid in the next question. “It lasted a very long time for me-” He ignored his younger brother’s muttered “braggart!” and continued speaking, “but I never did rise beyond early tier 3. My spells grew in complexity. They grew in power. But I never really advanced.”
The table descended into silence even as Timothy hid a grimace. He was hoping not to have to get into this. “Well, do you know what that tier will look like yet? It’s your expectations that drive it.”
Donald was having none of it. “And I know what spells that cover multiple square miles look like? Bullshit.”
Glancing around the table he received more than a few gimlet eyes. He wasn’t getting away with shrugging this one off. “Not entirely BS, Blood prime. The spells you imagined were probably extensions of things you do already know. Making something you know larger in scale is a lot easier than coming up with a wholly new development.”
“But I did come up with some entirely new things.” Donald insisted. “Even if I can’t remember the full process, I created some large-scale spells that work on principles I created inside!”
“You created. It’s still a creation of your mind.” Timothy sighed in defeat, “Mostly.”
The sudden rise in attention pinged against his wards again. Painfully focused. “It’s also the result of the memories given to Kobayashi at conception.”
The focus didn’t waver, they were still waiting. Timothy shrugged. “Alright, I also contributed a great deal to the fundamental framework. The way mana works and how it reacts. A bit of something to limit wishes and to allow some growth and inspiration.”
He paused, “But even that is limited. Limited by how I see the world, by my perspective and more by my expectations. And I don’t expect that any of you can continue to progress without making some significant changes.”
The words dropped like bacon into a heating pan. No ripples, no reaction, not yet. But give it a few moments, and grease was going to fly.
“The fuck you say?” “Runes?” What do you mean?” A scrambled mess of calls exploded into the still room. He could only let the questions and invectives pass over his head, waiting for them to calm down enough to actually hear his response. He wasn’t about to yell like a howler monkey.
Oscar cleared his throat loudly, and the chatter evaporated. “Runes, please explain.”
Timothy let out a breath in one heavy jolt. “Come on, it’s not like you haven't noticed. Most of you hit Tier 3 through beast meat and growing the complexity of your persistent constructs. It was a gradual power grind. Fed by significant consumption of resources and leveraging every bit of power that you have. Not a cliff. Not the way beasts do when they ascend.”
“I hear you, Runes and I’ve heard that viewpoint before. But do you have proof or hell, do you have any feel for what we do need? I’m not quite willing to give up on higher Tiered meat as a helper. Not yet. But if it does dead end us, do you have another way?” Blood Secundus tossed in.
Timothy waved a hand absently. “I could be wrong. And it’s not like you can’t make incremental improvements still. You could gain a great deal by improving your control. And all of us can make some serious mileage out of new spells.”
“But incremental is all that is. Improving combat power, but with little improvement to your foundations. We’re pushing the limits of what a subconscious mind can maintain. I mean that as a Union we, by the way. We’re beginning to find human limits to aura expansion, body improvement and even the soul. You’ve all started seeing those soft caps.” It was a statement, not a question.
Timothy had very good senses. He could read the auras, judge the complexity of the mana as much as stability. He could read the history of their clothing their successes and failures. They might have kept some cards back. Hidden tricks and power-ups for a rainy day, but their foundations were not something they could hide.
With the possible exception of Oscar. The soul was much harder to judge. More a case of feeling the power of his. But even he had an aural manifestation. And that Timothy could and did read.
“I haven't spoken about it before now because I don’t know anything. I only suspect.”
“Youngster,” Oscar drawled out, “no one here bets against your guesses, nor your instincts. We might have issues with the tangents those guesses lead you on, but that’s a different story. Quit prevaricating and tell us what you think. Not just what you can prove.”
Timothy grimaced. “Guessing is a bit too close to lying Spirits. When I say something, it's as close to true as I can make it. Not just refraining from being incorrect, but also refraining from ignorance. 'I didn't know any better' or 'I meant well' are inimical to personal power. Not to mention asinine if my guesses are wrong and they result in one of your deaths.”
Timothy raised his hand, forestalling a few interruptions, and let out another deep breath. “It's not just that. My guesses, wrong or right, are not the only paths forward. But if you hear them, then it’s the pink elephant you all make fun of. You can’t not think about a solution. Once you’ve seen a wheel, everything looks like a cart. And where are hovercraft then?”
“It can poison your ability to find your own way. A way that fits you.”
Timothy thought about it, then shrugged. “For that matter, It would be a crying shame to lead us all to the same well and in a dozen years we find out it's poisoned!”
Holla leaned forward, “I’m no leech, Runes. I’ll not leave you hanging. Say what you will, we’ll pay the price.”
“That’s not the point, Holla! I'm not holding out on you for money. I'd like to think I've created a better reputation than that!”
Timothy sighed. “You, and I, need to find a way to qualitatively improve. I can point you in a direction, but you need to find your own solution.”
“As a Union, we need that variety, not just individual strength. Dozens of paths through so it doesn’t become a bottleneck.”
“And to find them, I’d suggest you look at the creatures we do know of that make that jump. And that's about all I feel comfortable saying on the subject.”
He hesitated, then kept his mouth shut. His plans on the subject weren’t fit for discussion. His plans revolved around redesigning himself on a fundamental level. At the very least he needed to create new space for his memory to expand, to speed up his thoughts and a buffer for the will. More RAM so that he could hold larger more powerful spells in his mind all at once.
“And no human has made that change yet?” Oscar said, frowning.
“Only one I’m sure of,” Timothy spoke, reluctantly. “-and I’d really rather you didn’t dig into that. It’s not a method that will work for many, the drawbacks are severe and it is highly limited.”
He tapped on the table a few times, then nodded. “The Green Mother than.”
Timothy swore softly. Damn the old man. He was too sharp by half. There was a reason he didn’t want her named!
She’d sacrificed too much and was too restricted for general use. Time alone would tell if even she, its maker, was fit for it. They’d recognize that fact if they bothered to look, but that was now, what about later when they sat at moving for a long while? Desperation made fools of many a wiser man. Just having her there as an example would bias their thoughts and misdirect their efforts.
“Before you take that guess anywhere-”
Mike snorted. “Guess? After the way you reacted?”
“-then realize that you don’t know what she had to give up to gain her current state. Or what more she might have to. Her secrets are hers to share, but I can already tell you, those are not costs or limits that any one of you will find tolerable.”
Oscar made eye contact, staring at him. Timothy let his control loose, radiating out his sincerity, and the intact nature of his aura. No matter how minor an aura it was. Lies at his level would leave noticeable damage. Though why they occasionally had trouble recognizing sincerity without a truth spell was beyond Timothy.
Oscar nodded at last. “You believe that at least. Not sure I’m willing to just ignore an entire avenue without asking her, but provisionally let’s move on.”
“What about a state change?-“ Donald chimed. Throwing in some old discussions about shifting the density of the mana, qualitatively improving what they held rather than trying to hold more.
The conversation slid back and forth, first with everyone involved, then devolving into smaller groups that split and recombined to no particular pattern.
It was all at a basic level, highly speculative and without enough meat on the bone to cause any information cross-contamination. Yet. They were wise enough to that issue to take precautions. But desperation had a way of overcoming good sense.
Timothy mused on it for a while, letting the conversations pass him by, before deciding that perhaps it wasn't such a bad thing that this topic was brought up. The days ahead weren't all rainbows and bunny rabbits. Kobayashi’s existence might be based in a world of dreams, but she’d been built around a solid core of truth. Humans were not the only ones growing, and if they stalled out, well the end would be in sight.
And it would not be a good one.