Unnamed - Apparatus Of Change

Available Power : 2

Authority : 7

Bind Insect (1, Command)

Fortify Space (2, Domain)

Distant Vision (2, Perceive)

Collect Plant (3, Shape)

See Commands (5, Perceive)

Bind Crop (4, Command)

-

Nobility : 6

Congeal Glimmer (1, Command)

See Domain (1, Perceive)

Claim Construction (2, Domain)

Stone Pylon (2, Shape)

Drain Health (4, War)

Spawn Golem (5, Command)

Empathy : 5 ><

Shift Water (1, Shape)

Imbue Mending (3, Civic)

Bind Willing Avian (1, Command)

Move Water (4, Shape)

-

Spirituality : 6 ><

Shift Wood (1, Shape)

Small Promise (2, Domain)

Make Low Blade (2, War)

Congeal Mantra (1, Command)

Form Party (3, Civic)

-

Ingenuity : 5

Know Material (1, Perceive)

Form Wall (2, Shape)

Link Spellwork (3, Arcane)

Sever Command (4, War)

Collect Material (1, Shape)

Tenacity : 6 ><

Nudge Material (1, Shape)

Bolster Nourishment (2, Civic)

Drain Endurance (2, War)

Pressure Trigger (2, War)

Blinding Trap (5, War)

-

Animosity : - - ><

Amalgamate Human (3, Command)

Congeal Burn (2, Command)

Trepidation : -

Follow Prey (2, Perceive)

Using Bind Fish hurts. Even just to pull thoughts from the eel that is ‘mine’ now, it hurts. I can’t even understand how much it hurts because I can’t describe it properly. It’s a little bit like when you pick up an old book and a chunk of it falls off because it’s crumbling and cracked, and if you’d just let it sit it would have been fine but you didn’t. I’m both the book, and the reader. I could have sat idle and pretended to be stable, but I didn’t, I picked at it, and now I’m crumbling.

I hope not literally. But the pseudo-sound of cracking and a sensation like having skin I don’t possess pulled apart with hot nails makes me almost wish I were dying.

But it’s not as bad as it was. I’ve done a little work, at least, to heal this open wound. And while I don’t think I will be using Shift Wood anytime soon unless it is an absolute emergency, I can at least push through the pain and retrieve the message left for me.

It’s a confused jumble. While the lancer bee that I sent as my envoy is smart enough to be able to react and respond to questions, this eel is… an eel. I want to investigate it so badly, but every second is a growing agony. My hope that the pain would become a familiar ache is futile. I must be quick.

So, putting aside the fact that the eel is a bizarre jumble of different things, like an overwhelming loyalty to Lutra mixed with a mind that can’t process loyalty as an abstract, I ask it for its message.

The message is a rush of words. Self-contained within the eel’s memory, locked in place so it can’t forget. I loosen that bond as gently as I can as I take in the flood of information; gently for both of us, both so Empathy doesn’t hurt even more, and so I don’t harm the eel at all. And then, I listen.

“Thought you were dead/left us/me alone and there are things in the trees/outside/away and I still don’t know where I am you said you would help/save me/let me out what is happening please I don’t want to die again.”

Sorting through the rush of information isn’t technically difficult. It’s emotionally painful, though. Every part of the phrase is imbued with Lutra’s panic, fear of the unknown, and sense of betrayal. Which is understandable, I probably should have told them I would be leaving before I went and got myself hurt. They’re reaching out for a connection that I can’t directly provide anymore.

Trying to replicate what they did, I weave a message to put into the eel’s mind that it will be able to pass back. Again, it hurts, and I hope that pain doesn’t get passed on through Bind Fish to the loyal creature, or to Lutra themself.

I’m just in time, adding one last note that I would like to rotate trading bees if possible, to avoid the pain. And then the eel is gone from my senses. I didn’t even get a glimpse under the lake’s surface. I hope when this, when I am fixed, I can explore down in the water with this magic.

The bee’s return message to me is much less painful, and more delivered as a junior scholar I used to know might pass along a word to her superior. With a kind of paraphrasing and rewording, smoothing out the jumbled language they were given and trying to make it easy for me to understand. I appreciate it, but the bee is a novice to the art of translating madness into mindfulness.

Still, the gist is easy enough to grasp, for both of us. Lutra is panicking still, though in a very low velocity kind of way. According to the bee, they are having a hard time focusing, and having a hard time communicating to begin with. The bee shares a short memory with me of the way it manipulated Bind Insect to swat away Lutra’s attempt to simply drill the information into the bee’s mind. I’m impressed; beyond impressed, I’m stunned. I didn’t know that my bound could do that; but then, I’d never tried to force anything on them, and I’ve been spending most of my efforts with them in guiding, teaching, and strengthening them on their own terms. Perhaps this is only natural.

I feel a twinge of fear. What if the bees do decide to turn against me? If any of them can do this, in my weakened state, could I even meaningfully resist?

The sensation of fear, and my runaway thoughts, leave me feeling disgusted with myself. And yet again in this life, I reaffirm my desire to choose to trust, rather than fear. More than that, I reach out to the bees that are with me, and share this fear with them. I don’t know what I’m seeking, if anything.

Their reply isn’t in words, but sensations. Feelings and impressions. But together, we rotate around the dire fear that has been seeded in us, until we arrive at a conclusion.

All of us could hurt each other, at any time. So, to assuage that fear… we should not do that.

It’s a very simple thought from one of the bees. But it’s so earnest, and full of compassion, that it breaks me out of my cycle of worry. Of course. It’s so simple. What if we just… didn’t hurt each other? Wouldn’t that be better?

I agree that it would. And with that resolved, we set to preparing one of them to be a return courier.

I impose on Kalip to help with the timing of the trades, yelling out across the lake’s surface to instruct Lutra when to swap our bound. And I suffer through another round of pain with an eel before we can begin swapping bee for bee, and speaking in a way that I am more comfortable with.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

And soon enough, after fumbling first steps, we are talking. Awkwardly, stiltedly, but talking.

“You left me all alone.” Lutra accuses. There is no voice, no tone, just impressions from bees. But I imagine they sound exceptionally betrayed and indignant.

“I did.” I send back. “I didn’t think. I wasn’t trying to hurt you, but I didn’t consider what could have happened.”

“They’re trying to kill me. Everything. Why. Why are you mad?”

“I promise that I am not.” Something occurs to me as I am composing my bee-carried reply. “Also you know not everything is trying to kill you, Lutra. You let the children come play in the lake.”

The bee that comes back with an answer informs me that there is a strange tone to it. They don’t know what it is exactly, but they would if they had been one of the bees that spent more time with our own children. It is sulking. “My friends won’t eat them.” Lutra says. Apparently petulantly.

I tell the bee to give a sensation of kind laughter when they return, and spend some time answering a few questions about humor and compassion. “You don’t want to hurt them. And that is okay. It lets me know you are a good person, and means it is good that no one is mad at you.” I tell the other apparatus.

“You left me alone.” They say again.

“I know. And I am sorry.” I tell Lutra bluntly. “I cannot take it back now. But I was wrong, and I should have been better to you. I would make it a Small Promise if I could, but I am hurt now.”

“Hurt. Everything hurts. I hurt. You hurt too?”

“I do. I was hurt when I was away. It is why we can’t speak directly.”

“I don’t want to hurt.” The bee that relays that message is rapidly snatched back, and then returned with another addendum. “I don’t want you to hurt either.”

The words fill me with a reassuring flush of emotion. I knew Lutra was less bloodthirsty than every other apparatus we’ve run into. But it’s nice to hear them express it. Even if it is through a somewhat stilted medium. Apisine-exchange communication I don’t think will be catching on in the future. “I don’t want either of us to be hurt. But I think we can fix it. Kalip has an idea that might work, but it needs us to work together.”

“Kalip.” The return message comes with an image of a prowling wolv near a riverbank. The river where we found Lutra, I think. I start to reply by sharing a more contemporary image of Kalip, before doing the mental version of shaking my head and considering head butting a doorframe, and instructing the next traded bee to pointedly look at Kalip, who is standing right there by the shore. “Kalip.” Lutra replies, sharing back an image taken from one of their eels looking at the creature collapsed on the far shore. Again, I reinforce that this is Kalip.

Then I realize that what they are doing is associating the word with something dangerous. Which is technically correct. But also deeply unhelpful. “No, Kalip is a name.” I remind them. “It’s this person. Just like that’s Muelly, and you’re Lutra.”

“Oh.” Comes the reply that I infer is somewhat put out by being corrected. “You?”

“I still don’t have a name.” I send. “Maybe you can help me come up with one once we’re healed.”

“Will it stop being dark?” Lutra asks.

I don’t know how to answer that. I didn’t expect to be emotionally devastated by trying to set up a simple tactical plan. “I… don’t know.” I say. “I have many thoughts on the matter, and I believe we could help you find your way out of the dark. But I don’t want to promise if I don’t know.” The next bee is returned to me with no words, just a sense of confusion and anxiety. So I try to reassure them in the simplest way I can, and realize something halfway through trying to explain to the bee what to send back. “If we can’t find you your own eyes, you can borrow mine. In fact, you’ll need to learn how, for the plan.”

“Plan?”

“Plan.” My bee gives the impression of a nod, which to it is a bobbing dance, which I don’t… know if it translates well. A lot of Lutra’s mannerisms are that of a scared child, and even though I know every apparatus is several old lives pushed into one mixed and stitched soul, I still see them as such. “But first, you don’t make power, do you?”

“Can’t. Doesn’t work anymore. Hurt.” The bee is shaking when it comes back to me, a sensation of pain that is familiar to me by now, but was never meant for an organic life.

My reply starts with chastisement. “Please do not share that with the bees. They cannot handle it, and you are hurting them. I know you don’t mean to, so we are not mad, but do not do it again.” Lutra sends me a bee that carries a string of frantic apologies, which I accept, but do not focus on as I am working to compose my next missive. “I cannot form power either. And that is the problem. We both need it to heal. And I know what I have left isn’t enough to fix myself. So, we need to get more.”

“How?” Lutra asks, their apologies still somewhat running on in the background as they send their reply. But they have stopped passing on the sensation of pain to the bees. “Where?”

They are listening, the bee tells me on the side. Their thoughts are still roiling and in need of filtering, but they are focused, and Lutra is paying attention. Even though I can almost hear the tension in the words as they struggle to do so. “It is not simple. You will need to trade me for use of two magics, if you can. Distant Vision, and Link Spellwork. With them, you can follow an expedition out into the Green, and when we find another hostile apparatus, Small Trade to exchange something to them for their own power. Which we can then use to heal ourselves. I can give you, through trade, spells that you can offer in exchange for that power that I will… not miss.” That is a lie. I will miss all of my magics. But what must be done must be done. If possible, perhaps we can simply trade a stockpile of glimmer. But that is a detail to hash out later.

“Others?” Lutra’s response is confused. “Like us? Like me? Trapped in the dark. Help them.”

“Others that aren’t trapped.” I say. “The things that tried to kill you, those come from the others. They grow stronger by killing. Especially killing us.” And so do I, I don’t say. And so do you, I especially don’t say. “It will be risky. And difficult. But… I believe you can do it. Together, we can do it.”

There is a long pause between this and the next trade. I spend the time watching Kalip weaving a rough ring out of grass as Muelly tries to instruct him on how to move his fingers. Kalip acclimated to his body far faster than Yuea did, but while he doesn’t break his own bones overextending, he seems lacking in fine control, and this might be what he is working on.

Either that or they’re both just bored, sitting around and not able to listen in on the conversation as Lutra and I swap bees filled with words they don’t quite fully understand back and forth.

Not everything is about utility, I have to remind myself. Sometimes people are just enjoying the summer sun by a beautiful lakeshore. Albeit one surrounded by strange pressed rock spheres.

“I can do it.” Lutra replies eventually. “I will do it. I don’t know. What if I hurt us. What if I am trapped forever. I don’t want to be in the dark anymore.”

I ask the next bee to be traded to impress as much reassuring compassion as they can on the poor other apparatus. The bee agrees; they don’t know much of the higher level discussion occuring, but they understand that Lutra is hurting and scared. “Then let us get started. And hopefully we will not need too much power to heal ourselves to the point that we can make our own.”

“One or two.” Lutra replies.

“What?”

“I need. One, two, no more. Thought I had enough. Ran out. Became trapped.” The bee tells me their words are a sobbing flood. A pained memory of failure, perhaps the thing that triggered their mind beginning to crack.

One, or two. No more. That’s all they need. That’s almost nothing. I don’t know how much my wounds will take, but I know that for Empathy alone it would be more than that. Five at least. But two is so small. It makes me worry that I won’t be able to start producing power again until I am fully healed. And even then… perhaps not at all.

But also, it makes me call up the knowledge of my souls.

Unnamed - Apparatus Of Change

Available Power : 2

One or two. That’s all.

Well.

What am I doing with it that’s more important than bringing someone fully back to health?

My next bee carries with it a very important message, and a potential new plan. “I have enough.” I tell Lutra. “Just for you. I have two power, waiting to be used. I don’t know how Small Trade works for you, but I suspect that you must be trading things close to equal in value. I don’t know if what I have to say helps, but I want to say it anyway. You have my permission to take that power, and fix yourself. Right now, it is worth very little to me, because I cannot use it. But what is worth something to me is one of those rocks that you’ve set up around your lake. My curiosity is very strong, and I want to know what they are. So, I propose a Small Trade…”

The words take on a life of their own, and a strange sensation floods me. Strange, and incredibly painful, as it draws on the soul of Spirituality. It feels almost like casting a spell, but… distant. Like I am pushing the edge of a machine to make it spin, rather than guiding the whole device.

Is this what it is like when someone else calls on my magic? When they make their own Small Promises or Move Water with their own hands? I had, for some reason, assumed that an apparatus was… exempt from that. Above it, perhaps, or immune to the effect. But it would seem not; our ability to simply share is a part of the world around us.

And then my soul stops hurting as the Small Trade concludes, and I am the proud owner of a sphere of rock. Sort of. It isn’t as solidly implanted in a domain like something I used Claim Construction on would be. Instead it is only a thin outline of ‘mine’. But inside of it, a few thin lines of connection that I have to force down into suppression, leading to a mantra. Several mantra, really. I wish I could look at them clearly, without pain, but it’s too much.

There are so many different thoughts and feelings. It worked, for one thing. For another, I have a new mystery magic to explore now and try to understand, as I get the impression that the sphere of lakebed stones isn’t an inert object. But more importantly…

My last two points of power are gone.

Perhaps this is foolish. A sentence that I say quite frequently, in this life.

But perhaps a little act of faith in my fellow apparatus isn’t so foolish after all.

The bee currently with Lutra is suddenly traded back to me, in exchange for the eel that’s been sitting in my own magic for some time now. It brings a message of impulses and impressions, of confused fear that Lutra overstepped somehow, of weeping relief as they almost reflexively began using the power to put themself back together, of gratitude that the bee didn’t fully understand the scope of but still tried to share with me in a jumbled form.

And then there is a collision. Something that occurs in the middle of the lake, that I can feel through my natural apparatus senses, and not through any particular magic. Through the bees, I see Muelly and Kalip snap their heads up; they can feel it too.

Something has changed. Something important.

“What did you do.” Kalip says flatly.

“Probably something dumb, that’s going to work anyway.” Muelly says with a resigned grin on her demonic face. “It’s about time to head back, right? Seraha is gonna need help with dinner.”

Kalip glares at her. “You’re taking this way too easily.” He accuses.

Muelly shrugs. “We should have been dead a lot by now. I’m taking it on faith.” She answers as the two of them collect the bees, and the pouch with my body in it, and begin heading back. I say one last goodbye to Lutra through our trades, and reassure them that I’ll be back. And then I leave them to heal.

And hopefully, to have an answer for us that doesn’t rely on hunting down another enemy in their own territory. Though I won’t hold out too much hope for that, it’s nice to have hope at all.

For the first time in several days, I allow myself to begin to relax.