In the Order, it has always been believed – and now proven true – that power was all around us. Power floated in the air, it lay in the trees, in the ground, and in every living thing. There was some sort of power and energy inside us all. The cultivators thought that the Fants and Cored harnessed that energy to drive their own advancement and, as they are wont to do, likely became fanatically focussed on the idea that, should they be able to absorb the energy, too, they could become powerful. This ideal gave them the ability to cultivate and absorb Qi from the world around them.
Excerpt: A History of Magic – Galen Cletus
‘You should have expected this’. Cab’s voice was gruffer than usual and he seemed almost… grouchy.
‘Yeah. I know. You told me that I shouldn’t trust them and I trusted them anyway.’
‘I didn’t tell you not to trust them. I told you that your trust in them was foolish.’
‘And what’s the difference?’ Ashe was getting mad or, at the very least, his anger was beginning to come forth after he’d been pushing it down. His voice was bitter, and he was directing all of his anger towards the one target he had: Cab.
‘Curb your tone when speaking to me, Ashe. I did nothing to deserve your anger.’
‘You did nothing to deserve my anger?’ Ashe practically snorted at the absurdity of Cab’s claim, ‘Please; after ruining my life, forcing me to flee from my home country, and making me afraid to grow close to anyone, you’ve done absolutely nothing.’
‘Do you blame a lightning bolt for striking or a storm for overturning a boat? I may be a demon who consumes the lives of mortals, Ashe, but I did not ruin your life. I did not choose to possess you. Do not forget that it was your parents who summoned me from the celestial plane and trapped me in your body. I could have consumed your life and taken over your body, freeing me from many of my troubles, but instead I chose to let you retain control of your body. I did not force you to flee from your home country, you did. I have not been the easiest for you to work with, but I have never forced you to do anything. You could have chosen to stay far from civilisation, letting me feast on bandits and thugs whom no-one would miss and letting us avoid troubles, but it was you who chose to live in the city and you who chose to make me swear not to consume the lives of moral people, forcing me to choose immoral targets from the city-dwellers. It is not my fault that many of them were nobles. As for your fear of attachment, that is ridiculous. I have never killed anyone so close to you that you should fear for their lives. You, yourself, wouldn’t grow close to anyone immoral so if your fear stems from my presence, you’re more stupid than I thought.’
Ashe was too angry to rationalise the points that Cab was making, ‘Stop talking, Cab. You’re right. You’re a demon. You can only act in your nature. You may not lie, but your deception and manipulation are your nature. Half-truths and misleading statements come as naturally to you as breathing. You don’t mention my youth and lack of knowledge or experience about how to survive by myself in the wild. You don’t mention that I am used to being around people, and wouldn’t have coped well by myself. Humans aren’t like other animals; our children don’t survive well without being cared for by parents and, much as I’m loathe to admit it, I’m still effectively a child now. Just shut up, stop trying to manipulate me, and leave me alone.’
‘Fine. But just know that I’ll remember that, when I tried to help you, you spurned me and, when you need my help next, you may not get it.’
‘Fine.’ Ashe lay back on the bed, stewing in his emotions. He felt like soup, boiling in a pot, as he thought about all the things he had to say to Sammath and Erin. Ashe began to formulate and recite a speech for the two of them, but he soon realised that what he wanted to say was just going to hurt them and, much as he really wanted to hurt them right then, he knew that he was going to regret it if he went out and ranted at the two of them. Ashe buried his face in his hands as frustration welled up in him. Ashe rolled over and buried his face into the pillow, screaming his frustrations into it. He was just so pissed at Erin and Sammath but didn’t have any way to vent his emotions other than sitting there and trying to process them.
Rolling off the bed, Ashe spent another half an hour pacing back and forth in the room before he couldn’t take it anymore. Ashe opened the door and Sammath, who was sitting on a couch in the lounge area of the room, looked up. A plush, red, velvety couch was being defiled by Sammath’s boots, which rested on the arm of the furniture, and Sammath’s bald head lolled back on the other armrest. Clearly seeing the look on Ashe’s face, Sammath wisely chose not to speak as Ashe slammed the door to the room behind him. “I’ll be back by dinnertime.” Sammath just accepted it and Ashe walked out of the room, making sure not to slam the room’s door behind him; he didn’t want to let the entire Inn know that their group was having issues.
At the front desk, Ashe approached the concierge, “Where can I find the nearest place to exercise?”
“We have a range of facilities, including a gym, right here, sir.”
“Can you point me to it, then?”
“Certainly, sir.” The concierge pointed to the door on the right side, when you come in, of the lobby and hooked his hand around to point towards the back of the building, “If you take that room there, then turn left and keep going, you’ll find a large room marked ‘Gym’ in Arikaran and Shinian.”
“Thank you.” Ashe was sorely tempted to make a snide remark to the concierge but resisted, knowing that the concierge would probably find every way to make Ashe’s time at the Blue Sail Inn worse if he held the man’s actions against him. Ashe didn’t like it, but it was the way of the world. Following the man’s directions, Ashe managed to find the gym easily enough. That didn’t help at all, though, when he found that he didn’t know what any of the equipment did. Large steel racks with heavy plates sat to one side of the room, some short shelves with smaller… weights, based on the measurements denoted on their surface, resting on them. As one read from left to right, the weights got so heavy that Ashe didn’t know how the shelves were still standing, let alone how someone was meant to use them.
Moving across the room, simple mechanisms were supported by standalone frames, but Ashe had no idea what to do with any of them. Some had pulleys in their top, with ropes that ran from weights, over the pulleys, and to handles. Others were more akin to seats or benches and seemed to rest on bars ranging from horizontal to vertical. Finally, the third section was split in two. First, there was a small, open area that seemed like it was for sparring and stretching, with punching bags resting on rails in the ceiling; rails that Ashe would have bet were enchanted; that people could move out of the way if they needed, and sparring equipment like simple hand wraps and well-maintained wooden weapons on racks. The other half of the section contained a series of lines in the floor where the gym’s wooden flooring switched with a darker material, which Ashe couldn’t see well enough to identify.
One other person occupied the gym; a man who was… walking… on one of the floor’s dark patches. Curious, Ashe moved closer to the man. As he did so, Ashe saw that a small pedestal stood to the man’s right, within easy reach of his arm.
The man himself was… odd. While he was dressed in lighter clothing, which Ashe could see the practicality of for exercising, his clothes were gaudily coloured and he was wearing a comically large hat. With his shirt dyed a bright blue and trousers dyed a dark red, the man’s hat matched the colour of his shirt and had a gold line that wrapped around the outside of the tall hat’s base. Despite his odd fashion sense, the man was handsome, with well-defined cheeks, an impeccable jawline, and what seemed to be curly black hair. His skin was on the darker side, about the same as some of the people from Shinia or the Order, but more brown than olive. Ashe would say it was similar to the colour of dead leaves, the ones that crunched crisply underfoot, but slightly richer. More akin to some acorns that he’d seen. Ashe guessed that he originated from the deserts of Atra Oblor. Ashe couldn’t see any skin other than on the man’s hands and face, so he couldn’t see how the man was built, but his soft hands indicated that he wasn’t very familiar with hard labour.
“Salutations, young traveller.” The man greeted Ashe in Shinian, spreading his arms out wide, “What brings you here?”
“I’m sorry,” Ashe immediately said, “what do you mean by ‘brings me here’?”
“Perhaps I should be more clear, what brings you to this house of exercise? What muscles do you wish to tire today? Or is it something else that brings you here?”
“Uhhh-” Ashe didn’t really know how to respond, “I suppose I just wanted to clear my head.” The man’s manner and clothing were distracting, and the fact that he was walking on the stationary floor didn’t help. Ashe paused, “I’m sorry, but who are you?”
The man’s mouth opened wide and he put both hands on his cheeks, “Oh! I’m sorry, how rude of me. I am the great merchant, Sallimor.” Sallimor gave a flourishing bow, which looked comical as his legs continued to walk even as he bowed towards Ashe, and his hat somehow managed to remain atop his head, “At your service.”
“So, what’s that thing you’re using?” Ashe was curious about the piece of equipment that Sallimor was using, having never seen anything like it. To be fair, he also hadn’t been living in a house for years.
Sallimor gasped, “You don’t know what stillwalks are? Have you been living under a rock, dear boy? They’re the new social craze, here in Arikar. I, personally, imported the ones in this fine establishment and if I imported them, you know they’re popular, high-quality merchandise.”
Ashe looked down at the stillwalk that Sallimor was using, seeing that the moving floor seemed to be made of a supple leather, “Something like that. I haven’t been caught up with many… crazes in quite some time.”
“Well, then. Let me rectify your horrifying lack of knowledge. To begin, this is based on the Druz invention of the treadwheel, which is a type of wheel, similar to a mill pulled by horses, that they forced prisoners to walk on to grind up flour and other things like that. Some Shinian saw it and thought that having a stationary piece of equipment to walk on was a great idea for exercise, especially for nobles who don’t have enough room to exercise in their grounds but don’t want to go for a run where someone might see them dishevelled, and I happen to personally agree.
“So, they built this; the stillwalk. It uses an enchantment to rotate two gears, one on either end of the walkway, that the leather spins around. By adjusting this dial here,” Sallimor gestured to the pedestal, where a small dial was mounted, “you can change the amount of magic powering the stillwalk and increase or decrease its speed. Simple, but quite ingenious if you ask me.”
“But… how does the enchantment read how much power to give? Aren’t enchantments just either on or off?”
“Ahhhh. I was hoping you’d ask that, my boy. Well, I don’t know exactly how it works but I do have to get a basic idea of how my products work, so I’ll give an explanation my best go. To begin with, most enchantments that are lain down remain constantly active by passively absorbing just enough energy from the world to remain active, but never enough to actually power their function unless they’re actively powered by a Shinian or they have some sort of energy gathering enchantment. When an enchantment doesn’t have Ink, it is inactive, and when an active enchantment has sufficient energy to power its effect, it will be ‘on’ as you said. Most of the time, you’d be right as most enchantments tend to be powered by the Enchanter that made them. Recently, as Shinians have begun to truly dive into the depths and intricacies of Enchanting, though, it has become apparent that powering an enchantment yourself is not always practical.
“About one millennium ago, Shinians used to have giant enchantment batteries in their cities, constantly soaking up the energy of the world. They still do, in fact, but these energy storages were to power shield enchantments. Now, because of the prodigious energy consumption of the shields, the enchantments for city shields had to be kept inactive until a siege happened, when a group of Enchanters would pour their Ink into the Enchantments to activate the shields, which would then begin to drain the batteries. A simple carpenter, who made small, Enchanted music boxes for the wealthy changed the way the shields would work forever.
“In order to build these music boxes, the carpenter had to ensure that there was a small battery enchantment, enough to power the music enchantment for a few repetitions of the song, and that the music enchantment was constantly active but unpowered until the box was opened. So, he designed a small but positively ingenious method to do so. This carpenter created a small button-latch. When the button was pressed, it would release the latch on the box’s lid and allow the listener to open up the music box. When the box was open and the listener released the button, a small, extended spring embedded in the latch and the outside of the box would pull the latch towards the edge of the box. In front of the spring was a magically conductive material, often some form of wood to maintain the box’s aesthetics, that would connect the output of the battery enchantment with the power input of the music enchantment, allowing both enchantments to remain active at once without interacting.
“These buttons were then discovered by some important enchanters, who worked with the enchanter and managed to design buttons that would activate the city defences. Stemming from the realisation that they’d been focussing too much on the magical side of their power, Shinians began to make advancements into the conditional side of their – your – powers, creating enchantments for buttons and linking them to other enchantments. They then began to create stuff like pressure and weight activated enchantments, which were very similar to buttons but had an array of uses when something above a certain weight or pressure activated them, from activating traps in hallways to closing water reservoirs when water levels got too low. After that, the move to levers was next, allowing enchanters to run multiple enchantments side by side and choose which enchantment to activate, which drastically improved the space efficiency for enchantments like heating and cooling houses, at least the ones that the rich used, and also gave people like blacksmiths the ability to set tool configurations that could be activated by lever positions – up, down, or neutral.
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“With the advent of levers, however, Shinians also realised that the same enchantments could run on different levels of power, to increase or decrease their effects by creating multiple outputs on a battery enchantment, that would each output different amounts of energy. This led to a complete redesign of enchantments so that they could take multiple, discrete levels of power. When someone created a slide lever, however, that had a rod of magically conductive material that could slide into an enchantment and only let through the amount of energy that could fit through the piece of material exposed to the battery output, it was possible to create a completely variable power output and enchantment design had to go through another extremely complicated, complete overhaul. By the time this finished, it was only a few decades ago and, recently, all people have been doing is finding new uses for this.
“From what I know, all craftsman have jumped at the chance to control flame heat, house and oven heat are completely configurable with newer models – though you still have to choose a temperature by how it feels, voice amplification enchantments can now control volume, dock cranes can now be controlled by one person with enchantments, rather than a team of people pulling it manually, and so many more applications. This stillwalk uses a similar principle with this dial, which changes the amount of power supplied to the enchantment to speed up or slow down the mat of the stillwalk. I’ve even heard talk of people creating a carriage that doesn’t need animals to pull them and boats without sails. Of course, these things are in early development but once they’re out of the initial stages, I plan to swoop them up, export them around the world, and make millions!”
“If they’ve invented enchantment buttons, what about the other stuff? Levers and the like?” Despite his annoyance, Ashe had to admit he was curious, and not just about what the man was talking about. This man, who claimed to not know much, had known far more about the physical side enchanting than Cab. Perhaps Erin would know more, but this information was still interesting, if ultimately useless with Ashe’s enchanting. While Sallimor said that it was because he had to understand his products, Ashe could feel a mental itch that there was… something more behind the man’s reasoning, but he ignored it. Either it would come to him, or it wouldn’t.
“Well, I think they’ve recently finished with both pressure plates and standard levers, but I don’t know much else. They are secret projects until they’re released, after all. Perhaps I should go find out, though. Might give me an edge over my brothers. Hey, thanks for the idea, kid.”
“Uhh. You’re welcome.” Ashe tried to pretend like he hadn’t just heard this merchant admit that he might try and steal the state secrets of the Shinian kingdom. Instead, Ashe decided to try out the stillwalk and cautiously placed his foot on one of the leather mats. Cranking the speed up slightly, Ashe nearly fell over as the mat began to move, but he managed to keep his footing. Feeling like running and tuning out the world, Ashe began to turn up the dial until his feet were pounding on the leather. Immediately, Ashe began to tune out the world and focus on his thoughts, his eyes unfocusing as he lost himself in his mind.
Thoughts about what to say to Erin and Sammath ran through Ashe’s head, keeping his emotions fresh and raw, even as he began to rationalise everything that they’d done and tried to see it from their perspective. Ashe knew that Erin wasn’t really to blame for hurting him. She’d been honest with him the entire time, and hadn’t ever actually said anything about sticking around. If anything, she’d been entirely focused on her mission the entire time Ashe had known her. Sammath, however, had deliberately kept something from Ashe and was also the one whom Ashe knew best, so the betrayal hurt more. Despite understanding Sammath’s reasons for keeping Erin’s intentions from him, Ashe found that he was growing angrier as he let down the walls he’d slammed up to temporarily keep his emotions in check.
By the time Ashe was finished with running, he was panting, sweating like he’d just got out of a shower, his muscles were quivering, and he collapsed to the ground. Despite that, the fire that was burning inside of him felt even stronger than it had earlier in the day and Ashe still felt like he needed to punch something.
To the right of Ashe, Sallimor was sitting on a bench, swinging his legs and leaning back on his hands, “Feeling any better?” The merchant called out.
“No.” Bubbled out of Ashe, before he could even stop the word. Ashe frowned, he normally had better self-control than that.
“Feeling like punching something?”
“Yes.” Ashe’s brows drew together tighter, as though they had just been stitched together. Before he could say anything more, however, Sallimor was walking up to him. Ashe pushed himself up, eyeing the merchant, but Sallimor just raised his hands.
“I have a healing power. If I wanted to hurt you, I would’ve done it while you were unaware.” Ashe gestured for Sallimor to go on, and the man crouched down beside Ashe. A warmth washed out from his hands as they glowed slightly, and the relaxing heat diffused through Ashe’s body. Ashe could feel as his muscles relaxed and the damage that he’d done to the muscles while running for… Ashe didn’t actually know how long he’d run, but he guessed it’d been at least an hour… however long he’d been running was reversed.
Ashe groaned in involuntary relief, not having realised the discomfort he was feeling through his muscles. “Thanks. That felt good.”
“No worries, kid.” Sallimor straightened back up, offering a hand to Ashe “So, still thinking about punching stuff?”
Ashe nodded his head, “Most definitely.” Sallimor strode over to the small, open area and grabbed a large pad made of leather. “What’s that?” Ashe moved a little slower, testing out his legs and arms as he moved and finding that he couldn’t feel any pain or discomfort from them at all. “Wow, that power’s really something.”
“Yes, it is. Saved my life more than once. As to this, it’s a pad filled with straw. Quite simple, but it’s good to hit and it doesn’t hurt like punching a wall would. Alright,” Sallimor stepped into the middle of the floor, “Come at me and I’ll block everything you throw at me. It doesn’t matter what the attack is, I’ll be able to block it. I’m a few stages above you, after all.”
Sallimor settled into an easy stance and Ashe threw a punch. Immediately, the centre of the pad appeared where Ashe was aiming and a burst of wind buffeted Ashe’s hair and clothing. Not having believed Sallimor, Ashe was surprised when his fist slapped half-heartedly into the leather of the pad. “Come on, I thought you said you wanted to get something out.”
Ashe closed his eyes, breathing deeply and stoking the flames inside. Ashe pushed a tongue of fire into his foot as it smashed into the leather pad, a small hiss of air escaping from the impact. Immediately, Ashe began to wail away on the pad. Ashe threw punch after punch, kick after kick, and Sallimor stood steadfast in front of him. With each impact, the small hiss of the pad seemed to dispel a tiny piece of the fire inside of Ashe, eventually leaving a small campfire in place of the raging flames that had been inside Ashe before. Sweaty and with quivering muscles once again, Ashe sat down on the floor and looked at his hands. Bloody knuckles met Ashe’s eyes and he hissed as the pain suddenly kicked in, the flames of his anger having obscured the pain until he’d seen the wounds. Small bruises, when Ashe had kicked into the hard body of Sallimor even through the pad, had formed along Ashe’s shins and they all clamoured for his attention like a gaggle of kids trying to whack his legs with sticks.
“Let me get that for you,” Sallimor spoke before gently resting his fingers on the back of Ashe’s hand. A small wave of light and heat washed out of Sallimor and Ashe exhaled in relief as the pain from his raw knuckles went away. The ginger bruises that had formed along the bones of Ashe’s shin seemed to fade away completely and Ashe’s muscles relaxed completely.
“I could get used to that.” Ashe remarked, offhandedly.
Sallimor chuckled, “But of course, my boy. Before getting my healing power, even I, the Great Merchant, found injuries to be troublesome sometimes.” Sallimor’s head snapped up, looking at the wall of the gym in the direction of the lobby, “Unfortunately, my boy. It looks like that’s my cue to leave.” Sallimor winked at Ashe, who peered at the wall in the same direction Sallimor had been looking, “I’ll be seeing you soon, Ashe.”
Ashe frowned but was immediately distracted as Cab’s voice began to rumble through Ashe’s head, ‘That motherfucking, two-bit slimy HACK! Why, when I get myself a body, I’m going to wrap my fingers around his throat and-’
‘Cab.’ Ashe’s mental voice interrupted the demon’s tirade, ‘Who were you cursing and why?’
‘I don’t know. You walked into the room and I just immediately lost contact with you.’
Before Ashe could reply, Erin walked into the room, “Oh. There you are. By the way, you’ve been gone for nearly half the day, now.”
“Really? It’s been that long?” Ashe was incredulous. He knew he’d been away for at least an hour and a half, but he didn’t think that he’d spent nearly that long away. It seemed like he’d really been stewing in his head.
“Yes. Sammath was getting worried.”
Immediately, Ashe scowled, reminded of what Sammath had done. Much of his anger had been spent, but he was still annoyed. Erin clearly noticed as she apologised. “So, what did you do in here? I doubt that you actually know how to use much of this equipment, and you’re too young to use it without a corporeal-based power to correct any damage you might do to yourself.”
“Corporeal?”
“Related to the body.”
“Ahhh,” Ashe hummed in understanding, “I met someone that taught me how to use the stillwalks. He also told me how they work. Quite an interesting topic, but not one that’ll be very useful to me.”
“I disagree, actually. Just because most of the components of the stillwalk are physical, that doesn’t mean that the same effects can’t be applied with enchantments. With enough research and development, you could incorporate something like that effect into your own enchantments.”
“But won’t that research take years?”
Erin scratched her head, “Yes and no. If you do it yourself, it won’t take years to do the research, but it might take years to reach the Stage when you can do the research. Enchantments like that aren’t extremely complicated, but generally the first iterations take a third or fourth stage Enchanter to use them, before they can be scaled down in stage requirement, either by reducing the complexity of the Enchantment or by decreasing the size or Ink requirements. Shinia’s main issue is that it doesn’t have many mid-stage enchanters who want to devote time to research for the country. Almost all of their time is taken up by working on their own research, Enchanting their own weapons, Enchanting things to fund their own research, or stress testing their research by adventuring and fighting. Now, some of the people who make it to the third stage aren’t interested in getting stronger, which requires fighting, but that’s very rare. Anyone higher than those stages, if they’re willing to help out the country with research or Enchanting, has more important things to do than figure out how to make a button Enchantment, when physical buttons work.
“As such, only a handful of researchers are working on projects like that at any given time, and it can take years, sometimes decades, to scale down an Enchantment to a Stage where its requirements mean it is utilisable by the general populace. Also, keep in mind that these people have other things that they’re researching.”
“So… what you’re saying is that it’s not something I should worry about now.”
Erin shrugged, “I suppose so. Anyway, who was it that you met? Much to my chagrin, most nobles aren’t particularly friendly.”
“They actually weren’t a noble,” Ashe said, and Erin’s eyebrows raised, “They were a merchant.”
“That makes sense. Merchants are generally wealthy enough to stay here, as well. A Shinian merchant is unusual, but not completely unheard of.”
“They, uhhh… they weren’t Shinian. They were from Atra Oblor.”
“But they gave you an explanation about some of the physical aspects of Enchanting?”
“Yes. He said that he needed to understand his products in order to sell them better.”
Erin stroked her chin, her eyebrows drawn together and lips pursed, “I… suppose that’s possible. Did they give you a name? I might have heard of them.”
“Yeah. He said his name was Sallimor.”
Erin’s eyes widened and she looked around the room, “The Great Merchant Sallimor?”
“Yeah. You’ve know him, then?”
Cab’s voice echoed in Ashe’s head before Erin responded, ‘Sallimor?! Oh, I should have known it was him. When I return to my true form, I’ll hunt him down and force him into glorious battle.’
“I know of him. He has something of a… reputation.”
Ashe looked at Erin, who was looking around as if trying to find Sallimor, “Will that… be an issue?”
“No…” Erin seemed to hesitate, “I don’t think so, at least. Sallimor is just… well, he’s very unusual and he does what he wants. No-one knows what he’s going to do, so it’s best to just try and lay low out of his attention.”
Ashe scratched his head, “Well, he said that he was going to see me soon, so I suppose it’s a little too late for that.”
Erin sighed, “It doesn’t matter now. None of us can change what he does, so we’ll just have to work around him if he decides to interfere. Plus, with how your powers work, it was bound to happen sooner or later. It’s said that he has a power that attracts him to unique and interesting things, and you certainly are an oddity. Was there anything else that he said?”
Ashe shook his head, “No, but I thought he had a healing power. He used one on me, at least. I thought it was impossible to have more than one power.”
“It’s not impossible to have more than one power. I’ve heard of Atra Oblorans with two powers, but it’s extremely rare. Sallimor is a special case, though. He’s only half Atra Obloran. Want to take a guess at the other half of his heritage?”
“Uhh… sure. I don’t really know, though. Maybe he’s from the School or Volkar if he’s got a healing power.”
“Nope. He’s from Arikar, and he has a unique Bloodline.”
Ashe felt understanding dawn in the back of his mind and his mouth dropped open, “But that’s… that’s just unfair. Why can’t I have powers like that?”
Erin just shrugged, “Life isn’t fair. Why is it that you got powers that let you Enchant reality? Many Enchanters would kill for powers like that. It was just the luck of the draw.”
“But having a Bloodline that lets you absorb your Gifts of the Gods, which allows you to get more Gifts. Frankly, that’s just completely… it’s just… it breaks reality. No one should have power like that.”
“Your Enchanting powers literally break reality, as well. I don’t think that his powers are any more unfair than yours.”
“But my powers aren’t that good, and I had to be possessed by a demon in order to get them.”
Erin shook her head, “Look, Ashe. I’m not going to be able to convince you otherwise, right now, but I think that you need to really look at your powers objectively. Do you know how strong you have to be to even send a ripple through the fabric of reality, let alone interact with it? The fabric of reality is the strongest and most stable thing in the world that isn’t bolstered by any form of magic. No one at your level will ever be able to even affect your Enchantments, let alone break them, unless you run out of power.”
“I mean, sure, but it’s not nearly as strong as having an entire library of powers at your fingertips.”
Erin gave Ashe a flat look, “What do you think Enchanting is? You design your own weapons and powers, so if you can prepare, you are the best suited person in any situation. Your power, as long as you use it properly, completely cuts out the preparation aspect.”
“But it’s not nearly that strong-”
“Ashe. Just trust me when I say that you will be an absolute nightmare in the future. For now, though, go up to the room and practice some Enchantments if you can. Now that you’re in the Dusk stage, you should be able to use more Runes that ever, and it will do you some good to practice with what’s coming soon.”
“Alright. I can do that.”
Ashe left Erin to the gym and went upstairs to their room, a small fire burning in the pit of his stomach. When Sammath opened the door up, Ashe just nodded to him and brushed past the older boy, heading to the room that he’d claimed earlier.
“Ashe, wait.” Sammath called out.
“I’m fine. I told you not to worry.” Ashe tried to cut whatever Sammath was going to say off at the knees, but Sammath wasn’t going to be content without saying anything it seemed.
“Don’t go to your room-”
Ashe whirled around, “Why not, Sammath? You’re not my parent. You don’t tell me what to do.”
Sammath’s typical grin was conspicuously absent as he held a towel out to Ashe, “I was going to say you should clean yourself up. I could smell you before I even opened the door.”
“Oh,” Ashe felt as his shoulders deflated, “Yeah. Sure.” Immediately, Ashe took the proffered towel and grabbed a spare set of clothes from his room. Thankfully, Erin’s shopping earlier in the day had produced some useful things, even if it had been mind-numbingly boring. Looking for the bathroom, Ashe peeked into the room next to his, only to find another bedroom.
“It’s the last room on the left.” Sammath called out, from where he’d flopped back over the plush couch.
“I can find it myself, thank you.”
Ashe immediately beelined for the bathroom but, before he could make it into the door, Sammath called out again, “Let me know if you want any help.”
“I’m not a child. I can bathe myself.” Ashe immediately retorted, before slamming the door to the bathroom. As he turned around, though, he realised what Sammath had meant. Instead of the hot bucket of water that he’d been expecting, or perhaps a basin or bath based on how expensive this room was, Ashe was staring at a room with a bath, some sort of stall, and a small basin, and instead of water, all there were was a bunch of pipes.
“Sammath.” Ashe sheepishly poked his head out of the bathroom, “I might need some help after all.”