The Cooperative States of Vollis, like Arikar, viewed other people as the source of strength and as their salvation from the increasing number of magical dangers in the world. Instead of focussing on their family, however, the States believed in strength of numbers. Together, they were strong, so now their magic enhances the people around them.

Excerpt: A History of Magic – Galen Cletus

Sammath groaned as the sun woke him up. Pounding echoed in his head, each throb of his heart sending a spike of pain through his head. Trying to open his eyes, Sammath was immediately forced to close them again as the early morning light was too much for them to bear, and another lance of pain was sent shooting through his head.

Over the course of a few minutes, Sammath opened his eyes slowly, trying to adjust to the light of the world outside without feeling like an archer had decided to use his head for target practice. When he eventually managed to pry his eyes open, he was greeted with the sight of Erin leaning against a tree. Coldly, she looked over him.

“Don’t tell me.” Sammath groaned, “You told me so?”

“No. What I was going to say is we’re going to have to attack the camp later today.”

That woke Sammath up. While Sammath was still distracted by the pain, Erin’s proclamation that they’d attack the camp that very day was something that Sammath couldn’t ignore, “What?! I didn’t sleep for that long, did I?”

“No. You’ve only been out for a night.”

“But, then… why do we have to-”

“Because your little stunt attracted the attention of the guards. They’ve likely already caught onto our trail and, unless we act today, we’re going to have to go on the run again.” Erin’s consternation was very clear, but Sammath felt it wasn’t exactly fair. Erin had been the one to give him the information, after all.

Frowning in anger, Sammath spoke up, “You’re not innocent in this, either. You’re the one that gave me the information and told me that you’d give it to me in the first place.”

“Yes,” Erin acknowledged, “but if you’d like to remember, I distinctly told you not to make me tell you the information right before we attacked the camp. A new and unfamiliar power is just as likely to hurt as help.” Sammath opened his mouth to retort, but Erin wasn’t finished, “It’s also not just you that’s stuck with the consequences. Your selfishness has now affected not just us, but potentially also the slaves in that camp. Because of you, none of the camp has left for the morning because they’re worried about the people nearby. Because of you, some of the people in the camp are going to die, people that would have lived if you hadn’t been stupid and reckless, and because of the way you’ve crippled yourself, I’m not going to let you fight. You’d just get more people killed.” Erin’s chiding hit Sammath deep, and he felt like every word someone was gripping and twisting his heart.

Sammath looked down at the ground, “I’m sorry.” He mumbled, “But I’m still going to go. I have to help.”

“I’m not the one you should be apologising to, Sammath. And you’re not coming.”

Sammath pushed himself to his feet, “I’m coming, Erin. I screwed this up. I need to help. I need to fix this.” Nausea wracked Sammath, and his stomach felt like it was curling in on itself. Dizziness made Sammath sway as he used his arm to steady himself against a tree and his world spun, but he locked his gaze on Erin’s eyes.

Erin’s gaze was steely as she returned Sammath’s gaze in kind, “No.” Sammath settled into a ready stance, bringing his hands up and leaving his fists unclenched. Erin did the same but spoke up, “Don’t make me make you stay here, Sammath.”

“I have to go, Erin.”

Erin sighed, “If you can make it past me, Sammath, even without fighting, I’ll let you go.”

Rather than speaking, Sammath immediately rushed Erin, stepping to the right before spinning to go left. Sammath felt Erin’s hands on his back as they sent him stumbling, Erin’s push more than strong enough to send Sammath back to where he’d been standing initially. Bent over, Sammath stumbled back on the dirty ground, facing away from Erin and the camp. Sammath turned back around to lock eyes with Erin, who hadn’t even moved from her position.

Near immediately, Sammath rushed back in towards Erin. Throwing a punch and a kick, which Erin deftly dodged, Sammath felt his hand get gripped by Erin and she twirled him around like they were dancing partners, sending him stumbling with a kick to the rear.

Sammath, rather than turning around, tried to tap into his Motion Sense but immediately felt a huge jolt of pain through his head, as though someone had fired a ballista bolt through his skull. Sammath screamed out in pain and grasped at his head, quickly shutting off his Motion Sense. In time with the surge of pain through his head, Sammath’s stomach seemed to start bubbling as his nausea and dizziness immediately grew worse. Instead of relying on his powers, Sammath would have to rely on his combat abilities for this… against Erin… who regularly destroyed him, even when he had powers. Sammath would have shaken his head at the futility of it, if he didn’t think that the gesture would have just made his pain and nausea worse.

Stumbling, Sammath turned around to face Erin, who swayed in his vision like seaweed under the water’s surface. Sammath retched, but his experiences on a boat helped him to keep his lunch as the ground moved beneath his feet. “Sammath. You’re not in any condition to fight me right now. Stop before you get hurt any more.”

Sammath ignored Erin, instead rushing towards her and jumping to the right. Sammath threw a punch with his left hand that Erin slipped, grabbing his arm and wrenching his behind his back. Erin spun around, pushing Sammath by his locked arm and sending him sprawling onto the ground with an easy push. Sammath managed to shield his head with his hands, but his clothes were covered in dirt and leaves as he slowly pushed himself off the ground.

Sammath clenched his eyes shut as he stood up, his stomach and head revolting against his will. Erin watched impassively, even as Sammath moved one of his feet underneath his body and pushed upwards, teetering even as he managed to straighten up.

Sammath took in a deep breath and turned around, rushing at Erin. Even as he did so, his foot slipped in his dizziness and he sprawled down at Erin’s feet. Her nose scrunched up, Erin looked down at him. Erin grabbed Sammath by his arm and began dragging him along the ground towards a tree. Weakly, Sammath hit Erin’s arm but found that his struggles were doing nothing as Erin marched on unrelentingly. Erin easily hauled Sammath forward, setting him against a tree. Grabbing a rope from spatial storage; where exactly, Sammath was too caught up in his own sensations to notice; Erin walked around the tree and gently pushed the struggling Sammath back into the tree trunk.

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Immediately, Erin tightly knotted the ropes around Sammath to secure him against the trunk of the tree. Weakly, Sammath strained against the tight ropes but wasn’t able to do anything against Erin’s knot. “I admire your desire to help, Sammath, but in this case, you’ll be a hindrance more than a help.”

“Please, Erin.” Sammath injected his desperation to do something into his voice, but Erin’s face remained as unperturbed as ever as she checked the ropes that were holding Sammath against the tree.

“Apologies, Sammath, but if you want to help, you’re better off here.”

Sammath’s head sagged down and he breathed in deeply, his chest pressing against the ropes and his arms rubbed lightly against the coarse fibres of the ropes. Eyes down, Sammath only saw Erin’s feet as she walked away.

“Is it time?” Ashe’s voice reached Sammath’s ears as Erin walked away.

“It’s time.”

As Sammath stared at the ground, ignoring the dizziness and nausea that roiled within him, his guilt climbed up from within him. Sharp, icy claws gripped at the inside of Sammath’s chest and ripped into it, digging a huge, gaping pit into which Sammath fell. How many people are going to die now, because of me. I just… I just wanted to help. I… I thought that, if I was stronger, I’d be able to help more. Erin… Sammath sighed, no, all three of the others were right. And now, I’ve got to face the consequences. Sammath let his head hang down and his chin touch his chest, I suppose I just have to wait here, then, until Erin and Ashe come and get me. If they come and get me.

Sammath leant his head back against the tree, and the dizziness and nausea he was experiencing slowly abated, even as the guilt remained. Sammath looked up, at the sky, and took in a deep breath. If he was going to sit here for hours, he might as well try and see what he’d managed to glean from his insight. Slowly, Sammath reached for his Concept. Sitting in the back of his mind, it was a constant presence that he felt and knew that, whenever he wanted, he could reach for. More specifically, that presence was the presence of Sammath’s Motion Sight and Motion Sense, which allowed him to feel and see Motion. Theoretically, Sammath could interact with Motion without using his Motion Sight and Sense, but that generally required him to physically feel or see Motion, such as seeing waves or feeling the wind on his skin and clothes.

As Sammath touched it briefly, a small jolt of pain rushed through his head, but, as he maintained the contact, the pain started to slowly lessen. Slowly but surely, Sammath began to deepen his connection with his Motion Sight and Motion Sense until, eventually, he was able to maintain a consistent connection deep enough for him to feel everything in his range. As the connection deepened, though, Sammath began to understand exactly what he’d gained from his revelation before. Initially, Sammath could see nothing different but, as he went further, things began to change.

Previously, the only thing that Sammath had grasped when it came to projecting where things were going had been based on their Motion at the time he was viewing them. Things could affect their Motion without Sammath being able to predict it, so long as he couldn’t see the Motion of that changing force. Now, though, it was different. The further Sammath deepened his connection, the more potential futures he could see for everything. Images of varying degrees of opacity were layered over each other. As Sammath’s gaze remained on the treetops, translucent images of each branches Motion waved together, synchronised and yet different. To put it mildly, the combination of everything simultaneously moving together yet separately was… nauseating, and Sammath promptly found himself throwing up at the base on the ground as he lost control of his Motion Sense and Sight. Seeing so many possible futures, all layered over each other, was something that Sammath’s mind couldn’t stand… yet.

So, Sammath found himself deciding to do something that he’d only ever done for practice before; isolating one of the aspects of his Concept, so that he didn’t have to use it. In order to do that, he would need to first immerse himself in that aspect of his Concept to understand exactly what it gave him, and what to ‘turn off’, as such.

Sammath closed his eyes, unwilling to do this with them open for reasons that his stomach immediately made clear to him as he touched on his Sense and Sight. Immediately, pain ran through Sammath’s head but he ignored it. Sammath dove deep into his Motion Sense, immersing himself in the feelings that he was experiencing and focussing on the numerous fractal images that, simultaneously, merged into one conclusive present and generated even more futures based on that new present state. Slowly, Sammath began to glean insight into the nature of the power and understood that the more opaque an image was, the more likely it was for that future to realise and, as time passed, one future would always become more likely while all the others slowly faded away into nothing. Some outcomes, which were equally likely, were a complete guess, leaving Sammath with absolutely no idea whether a branch would blow at one angle or another very similar, but very slightly different angle.

The more Sammath immersed himself in his Concept, the more he began to understand the nature of the powers that he’d gained. The closest thing that Sammath could relate the Motion of time to was the Motion of a river. Like a river, time flowed forwards constantly, without stopping. Sammath could see that he was able to slow down or redirect the flow, and maybe even stop it when he was stronger, but he wasn’t able to change its direction. Additionally, it seemed like almost like a ton of riverbeds overlapping, but only one had any ‘water’ inside of it. As the ‘water’ flowed, all the riverbeds merged into one, resolving into one singular present and past, but the ‘water’ could change riverbeds at any time, changing the direction of the future. Some of these paths immediately led back into the future that the time was currently following, or at least one branch of those paths did, but some diverged complete and Sammath found his mind straining to even vaguely perceive the sheer breadth of the infinite possible futures ahead of him, with the least likely futures being the ones that diverged the most and the ones that would be the faintest if he could see them.

Sammath began to study the flow of the current main branch of time, looking ahead to where it would take them and trying to follow where it led. As he did so, he accidentally brushed the line mentally and an image flashed in his mind. It was the camp, people running around and dozens of guards lying around on the ground. The slaves were milling about uncertainly, gathering by the entrance to the camp, and clearly not clear about what to do. Erin and Ashe were talking about something, and someone suddenly landed in the middle of the camp. Carrying a simple sword, the man glared at Erin and Ashe.

Suddenly, the image ripped apart in Sammath’s mind and coalesced into something else. The man was wreathed in billowing clouds, dashing towards Erin and Sammath, and lightning crackled around inside the clouds. Flashing in Sammath’s mind, the image once again broke into pieces and reformed, this time with the man standing above Ashe and Erin. They were lying on the floor, the man’s sword pointed down at them. There wasn’t even a scratch on the man or a cut in his clothing, and he was dispassionately looking down his sword at Sammath’s two companions.

Sammath snapped back to his body, and he leant over, gasping. Blood trickled out from Sammath’s nose, eyes, and ears but he ignored the sticky, wet substance. Sammath strained at the ropes holding him, “I’ve got to warn them.”

Sammath wriggled downwards, gripping with his feet and trying to pull himself through the bottom of the rope. Erin was too good at tying ropes to leave a loophole like that. Instead, Sammath knew that he’d have to resort to using his Concept to escape the rope, even if it was going to hurt. I’m gonna hate myself tomorrow. Sammath immediately closed his eyes, focussing on the sensation of the rope that tied him around the tree. Immediately, Sammath grasped the Motion of the rope, which was very little beyond the heat inside the rope itself, and Sammath pushed at it. Immediately, the rope began to squeeze itself around the tree and Sammath could feel the pressure on his arms. Blood immediately began to run harder from Sammath’s orifices and he could feel himself growing slightly light-headed. Ignoring it for the moment, Sammath wiggled himself downwards and tried to fit himself underneath the rope, only just managing to escape. With a sigh of relief, Sammath let go of the rope’s Motion and collapsed onto the ground, his chest heaving from the exertion. Sammath could feel the dirt coating his bald scalp and the congealing blood by his ears, eyes, and nose.

While the compulsion to wash it off was strong, the desire to warn Erin and Ashe of their impending danger was even greater. Catching his breath, Sammath pushed himself to his feet with more than a little strength of will, and fixed his eyes on the camp. After a deep breath, Sammath began stumbling along the forest floor towards the camp, hoping to whatever gods existed that he’d make it in time.