22 - Chapter 21 - Day 1811

Parth had been watching Adya work for the past 2 hours or so. Her movements were precise and controlled. He watched as the other three went through the process, and announced identical results. He watched Philip and Dexter try different things and how Adya seemed to have no issue with any of it. How she asked if they wanted to progress, rather than command. Everything seemed to work exactly as Adya had said at the beginning. He had seen enough evidence by now to confirm that they were telling the truth about all of it.

What had him hesitating was the fact he couldn't explain the how. The what was in front of him, the why had been explained, with further explanations promised. The how, caused him to be hung up about the whole process. A five year old girl, who should not have had access to any knowledge about formations, should not be able to create something that he had not even heard about.

If this was possible and it was as easy as Adya was showing it to be, then the army would have used it all the time. It would stop infiltration and betrayal. It would solve so many problems, yet he had never heard of anything like it. It was system backed for god’s sake. How was that even possible! Now they were waiting for his answer. No one was pressuring him, they just sat patiently waiting for his response. He saw no judgement on either Adya or Gauri’s face. What did he have to lose? It could apparently be easily removed. He took a deep breath, and then nodded his accent.

Adya gestured for him to come and sit next to him, and he complied, presenting his arm.

“So we would like to conduct an additional test with you,” said Adya, “If you are happy for me to?”

“What would you like to test?” asked Parth.

“I want to see if you can have two soul marks at the same time, and how the system deals with it.” replied Adya. “As you are my mother's retainer and my trainer, if possible I would like you to carry both marks. It is, as always, your choice.”

Parth agreed to proceed. “Since we are doing this, I will start with the one between you and mother,” said Adya. She started to draw the first formation on his arm. “I am leaving space to draw both formations at the same time, to make it faster to run the experiments.”

Adya had already worked out how to replace the person holding the soul mark in the formation. She used her own link with her mother to identify her as the mark holder. This would allow her to test multiple possibilities.

Once the design was complete, Parth was offered the soul mark. Yet there were several differences. He read out the prompt.

You are being marked by a loyalty protection formation by Gauri Gurg. As this is a soul mark, acceptance is required to proceed.

The effects of acceptance are as follows. Those carrying the mark may identify each other. The mark may not be removed without mutual agreement by both Parth retainer to house Gurg and Gauri Gurg. Parth may not breach the confidence of Gauri Gurg, willingly, under coercion, fooled by an illusion or by accident. Parth will be protected from soul intrusion and mind intrusion by any abilities below the defined level (Rarity Rank 4 - Master).

Accept soul mark: Yes / No

The mark offer had come from her mother, yet the protection was a lot lower at the only rank 4. Adya was very sure that it was based on the rarity of the class of the person offering the soul mark. They asked Parth to accept. That’s where the first change occurred. Instead of the prompt disappearing, a new prompt appeared for Parth. He read it out.

Gauri Gurg is the subject of a soul mark from Adya Gurg. Please select one of the following options to proceed.

1, Reject the soul mark

2, Accept the soul mark as stated

3, Accept the soul mark as a tiered subordinate of Adya Gurg. The terms will change as follows.

The effects of acceptance are as follows. Those carrying the mark may identify each other. The mark may not be removed without mutual agreement by both Parth retainer to house Gurg and Gauri Gurg/Adya Gurg. Parth may not breach the confidence of Gauri Gurg or Adya Gurg, willingly, under coercion, fooled by an illusion or by accident. Parth will be protected from soul intrusion and mind intrusion by any abilities below the defined level (Rarity Rank 8 - Guru).

“Interesting,” mused Adya, “That opens up a lot of possibilities. Please accept option 2 to start with Parth.”

Parth accepted option 2 and received the appropriate status update. Adya had him remove the soul mark, then go through the process again and accept option 3. Parth followed the instructions. This time when he tried to remove the soul mark, both Gauri and Adya received a pop up. They spent a few minutes testing to learn it really was a tiered mark. If Adya accepted the request to remove the mark, it would be removed automatically. If Gauri accepted the request, then it would wait for Adya to approve the request too, but the message would update to show that Gauri had already accepted the request. There seemed to be no option to allow Gauri to approve the removal of the soul mark without approval in the tiered option.

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As they contained testing, they learned that the identify feature worked in the tiered feature. It only worked for Dexter, Phillipa and Sally when Parth had picked the tiered option. It provided additional information. It showed ‘Soul Marked - Gauri Gurg | Adya Gurg’. Clearly showing the hierarchy. That opened up so many options.

Adya asked Parth if he was happy to carry on testing. The next test they wanted was to try with 2 separate soul marks. Adya drew the second formation on Parth’s arm. He removed his existing soul marks and they started from scratch.

When he accepted Adya’s soul mark, the process was straightforward and didn’t offer any other options. Then when tried to accept Gauri’s mark after he already had Adya’s mark he received another set of options.

Gauri Gurg is the subject of a soul mark from Adya Gurg. Please select one of the following options to proceed.

1, Reject the soul mark

2, Accept the soul mark as a tiered subordinate of Adya Gurg. The terms will change as follows.

The effects of acceptance are as follows. Those carrying the mark may identify each other. The mark may not be removed without mutual agreement by both Parth retainer to house Gurg and Gauri Gurg/Adya Gurg. Parth may not breach the confidence of Gauri Gurg or Adya Gurg, willingly, under coercion, fooled by an illusion or by accident. Parth will be protected from soul intrusion and mind intrusion by any abilities below the defined level (Rarity Rank 8 - Guru).

3, Accept the soul mark as an equal of Adya Gurg. The terms will change as follows.

The effects of acceptance are as follows. Those carrying the mark may identify each other. The mark may not be removed without mutual agreement by both Parth retainer to house Gurg and Gauri Gurg/Adya Gurg. Parth may not breach the confidence of Gauri Gurg or Adya Gurg, willingly, under coercion, fooled by an illusion or by accident. Parth will be protected from soul intrusion and mind intrusion by any abilities below the defined level (Rarity Rank 8 - Guru).

Rejecting the soul mark left Parth with Adya’s soul mark unchanged. Accepting option 2 led to the same situation as when Parth had accepted Gauri’s mark in tiered mode. Testing showed it was exactly the same.

The third option, while worded the same, operated very differently. In the merged state, if Parth asked for it to be removed, whoever accepted the request, their mark would be removed, and the description would revert back to that of the single mark. So if Gauri accepted the removal, then Parth would be left with Adya’s single soul mark. If Adya accepted the removal, then Parth would be left with Gauri’s single soul mark, with the reduced level protection. The tiered option was not offered. As far as Adya could tell, option 3 was effectively the same as having two separate marks.

The final set of tests they tried was for Gauri to remove Adya’s soul mark from her, then try the options with Parth. When they tried that choice, no reference was made to any tiered options. It let either have a single mark, on adding the other, it offered the equal option or reject option.

One thing was clear, there was no way to hold divided loyalties. A person could not hold separate soul marks. They would always merge if you have more than one, either on an equal basis, or a tiered basis. That gave Adya a lot more assurance. She wondered if she could tweak the formation to only provide the tiered option. Something else she would have to look at.

Parth was left astounded by what he was learning. He wanted to implement the tiered version across all the retainers as a way of enforcing loyalty, but Adya stopped him.

“We can’t do it.” said Adya, “Apart from making our people feel like we don’t trust them, we would have to reveal the fact we can do this. What would you do if someone says no, then walks out with that knowledge. No, it would be far too dangerous. The only reason I asked you four to do this, was because it would offer you protection. I can see you have realised how useful this ability is. What would kingdoms do to get their hands on this power?”

“This is why we told you knowing Adya’s secrets are a danger to you,” said Gauri. “With her soul mark, you get an insanely high level of protection.”

They spent some more time in discussion and Parth decided to go with both soul marks in the equal configuration for now. Gauri also asked to have her soul mark restored, it would offer her protection too.

It took another half an hour before everything was completed to everyone’s satisfaction.

“So now can you tell us why you started to look into this in the first place.” asked Parth. “I am guessing this is what you have been working on for the past two months?”

“Yes, I started to look into this after the attack by the bandits in the woods.” replied Adya. “What we didn’t tell you was that they got to see some of my abilities, and so we couldn't just release them, nor did I want to kill them, if we have options. I did promise they could live if they surrendered.”

“So what is the plan?” asked Parth.

“Well there was one thing we left out of the report of the attack.” replied Adya. “The bandits were there as a distraction.”

“You are telling me that more than 2 dozen armed men were just a distraction!” said an exasperated Parth.

“Yes, the shadowed hand sent their elite team to capture me.” replied Adya calmly. “We killed them all, but they had a formation to enforce compliance tattooed on their bodies. That was where I got the idea from. I want to give the bandits the enforced version of the soul mark, the one that can’t be removed.”

“The missing shadowed hand team that everyone has been talking about.” said Parth. “You are telling me that you killed them all with no injuries and no evidence left behind and you took your time to examine them too, before disposing of them?”

“What else were we supposed to do,” asked Adya. “Let them kidnap me? So what do you think of my plan?”

“Why were the shadowed hand after you in the first place?” asked Parth, ignoring her question.

“Well, that might have been because of the several hundred mana stones that I was spending in the city.” answered Adya cheekily.