Ethana has, potentially, the hardest type of magic to determine the origin of. Home to what we commonly refer to as pathic magic, Ethana contains all forms of pathics imaginable; people who can feel things that others can’t and, more often than not, manipulate those feelings. Ethana contains empaths, who can feel and manipulate other peoples’ emotions, chronopaths, who can feel the tendencies of time to move towards one solution or another and guide the passage of time to their desired outcome, and animapathy, which allows them to feel and communicate with souls, as well as potentially direct them but that remains unclear. What seems the most likely explanation for the development of this power is that, in order to survive, the people of Ethana listened to the world around them, relying heavily on their instinctual feelings and this eventually evolved into their pathic magic.
Excerpt: A History of Magic – Galen Cletus
As soon as Erin set off towards the wall, Ashe began to move around the camp in the shadows of the forest. Sticking to the shadows, Ashe placed his feet as quietly as he could, even as shouting and the clashing of weapons rose up to cover his movements. Guards ran by Ashe on the wall, and he stilled his sneaking as they ran past, trying to minimise any chance that they would catch him in their peripheral vision. As soon as he was about a quarter of the way around the walls and he was sure that no one would catch sight of him in the chaos, Ashe moved out of the forest and crouch-ran for the wall. While it didn’t make him any less conspicuous in the daylight, it made Ashe feel stealthier and that’s what mattered to him at that moment.
After a short sprint, Ashe was pressed up against the wall and wondering how, exactly, he was meant to get over the wall. Erin was only able to jump over it in one shot with the help of her powers, and Ashe was certainly not as strong as Erin was. Ashe wracked his brains, trying to figure out what he could do, but had absolutely no idea how he could get on top of the wall without exhausting himself. If he used Runes of stickiness over his hands and feet, he’d be exhausted by the time he Enchanted everything, let alone be able to climb to the top of a large wall while maintaining the Ink to each of the Runes. Ashe couldn’t use power Runes over himself because, while they could affect him, they wouldn’t give Ashe enough power to jump over the wall with how little Ink he had. Ashe came up with and tossed aside a number of solutions and was getting desperate when his resident demon spoke up.
‘Make a jumping pad.’
‘A what?’
Cab’s sigh resounded in Ashe’s mind, the demon very clearly projecting his annoyance at having to explain the concept. ‘Use a tangible Rune and a stretch Rune. The tangible Rune will make it so that you can touch reality, and the stretch Rune will make it so that you can bounce on the reality, allowing you to bounce yourself up to the top of wall.’
‘That’s… not actually a bad idea.’
‘Why would it have been a bad idea? Do you just expect my ideas to be poor?’
Ashe ignored Cab, even as he began to Enchant reality. First, Ashe begun to draw the Rune that meant tangible. Stroke after stroke, line after line, Ashe made sure that he was correctly writing the Rune so he wouldn’t be wasting too much Ink. While this was not a Rune he’d practiced a lot and, as such, used a little too much Ink to write, it was still one that he’d been taught in school as it was also used to say something was solid, like saying a table was solid. After a few seconds, Ashe had completed the Rune and tuned back into Cab’s complaining, “I mean I’m a millenia old demon with power that rivals even the strongest people in the world and with experiences that would blow your mind and you naturally assume that my ideas are bad.’
‘No.’ Ashe interrupted Cab, ‘I assume that, since you’re practically immortal, your ideas will probably kill me.’
‘How dare you. I have never done anything to get you killed and, in fact, I have saved you from death a number of times.’ While that was technically true, if only because Cab had never actually done anything with the intention of killing Ashe, both Cab and Ashe knew that the demon had put Ashe in peril many, many times. ‘After all, I care very much about my source of food and I would like to keep it alive.’
Unlike the tangible Rune, however, the stretch Rune required a little bit of help from Cab. With his abilities, Cab projected a mental image for Ashe to copy from and, on his second attempt, Ashe managed to get the Rune correct. Wiping sweat from his brow, quite literally, Ashe pushed down on the small platform of reality and felt springiness in the completely transparent air. Eyes wide and grinning, Ashe took a shaky step onto the platform and knelt on his hands and knees, touching the Runes that bent with his weight but remained intact. “Cool…” Ashe whispered to himself, bouncing up and down on the platform lightly and feeling his Ink consumption rate periodically increase and decrease with the platforms deformation.
Wobbling to his feet, Ashe began to jump up and down on the platform, quickly finding a rhythm that allowed him to bounce higher and higher with each jump. Ashe pushed with his legs at the bottom of each jump, slowly increasing his height relative to the wall. With each jump, though, Ashe’s Ink was being used up faster and faster to maintain the Runes and he found himself panicking as he arced through the air, grabbing onto the ledge of the wall before cancelling the Runes. Immediately, Ashe breathed a sigh of relief even as he dangled from the wall. Thankfully, he hadn’t run out of Ink before making it up to the wall or he would have fainted.
Grunting with the effort, Ashe managed to roll himself over the edge of the wall and he fell onto the walkway on the other side. Tired as he was, Ashe was tempted to take a short break on the wall but knew that, if he did, he might not make it in time to evacuate people from the small huts, where they were doubtlessly being made to stay.
Ashe climbed to his feet, making sure to stay just beneath the lip of the wall, and gripped the inside edge of the wall. Ashe would need to jump down and make a dash for the nearest hut without being seen, not that that was particularly hard with Erin distracting the guards. Ashe quickly clambered over the edge of the wall and lowered himself until he was dangling by his fingertips, his feet a little under two metres above the ground. With a deep breath, Ashe let go of his fingers and landed in a crouch and rolling to the side. With a small breath of relief, Ashe pushed himself to his feet and looked around, finding no one looking at him. Immediately, Ashe set out at a run for the nearest hut.
Bursting into the hut, Ashe startled the four inhabitants of the shack as they lay listlessly on their cots. Looking up immediately, they saw Ashe bursting through the entrance to their hut. “Hurry up. Get to the… get to the baths. The camp’s under attack and they should be safe. Tell anyone along the way.” Immediately, Ashe left the hut, and he heard the four people scrambling to move. No one wanted to get caught up in an attack on the camp. Moving from hut to hut, Ashe burst into each place and warned everyone away, starting a cascading effect as the slaves, in turn, warned others. Eventually, everyone was streaming towards the baths and Ashe peeled off from the group of slaves, looking to find Erin. It wasn’t hard to do, all Ashe had to do was follow the sound of fighting, so it was only a minute or two later when Ashe caught sight of Erin fighting a bunch of guards outside the guard huts.
Ashe watched as she cleaved them apart, disassembling them with practiced ease, before sitting down to clean her blade. When she sat down on the ground, Ashe initially intended to move over to her but stopped when he saw the head of the camp moving over to her, some type of polearm in his hand. From what Ashe could see, it looked like someone had stuck a Shinian sai on the end of a staff, like someone had replaced the head of a spear with a sai, though the side blades on the polearm were more circular. Holding the polearm against his body, the overseer strode forward with confidence.
Erin pushed her greatsword into her hair and then stood up, saying something to the man that Ashe couldn’t hear. After replying, the man immediately rushed towards Erin, the shaft of his polearm lying flat on his arm.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
‘I think you should know it’s called a ranseur.’ Cab’s voice echoed in Ashe’s head as the battle began, Erin pulling a whip from her spatial storage and lashing out at the ranseur as the overseer thrust forwards. Erin’s whip wrapped around the polearm and she tried to pull the overseer off balance, but he’d already placed his feet and braced for the pull. With a quick flick of Erin’s wrist, the whip pulled backward but the overseer stepped forward and thrust at Erin again. Erin dodged to the side, and the overseer slashed to the side, trying to hit her with the crescent blades on the side of the weapon.
Erin jumped back, her arms lifting up as she made sure to avoid the blades, and her wrist flicked the whip towards the overseer’s face. Stepping back, the overseer spun his polearm around and Erin’s weapon never landed, the long end of the whip instead wrapping around the shaft of the ranseur. Erin braced her legs and pulled, yanking the butt of the ranseur down towards herself. Resisting Erin’s pull, the overseer tried to stop Erin’s pull but didn’t have the leverage. Instead, he had to step to the side to stop the blades of the ranseur cutting into his legs and crotch.
Standing beside the ranseur, Erin had put the overseer in a good position to thrust the butt of his weapon towards the younger noblewoman. Immediately, Erin tried to slip to the side but wasn’t quite quick enough to avoid the thrust and it grazed her ribs. Ashe flinched lightly, imagining how badly the blow would have hurt, but Erin seemed completely unfazed. With a quick kick, Erin turned the weapon away from her body but the overseer stepped with the motion and swung his ranseur around in an attempt to decapitate Erin, using the momentum that Erin, herself, had given the weapon. Erin ducked below the blades, which cut through the air with a light swish, and stepped towards the overseer. Inside the range of the ranseur, Erin raised a foot and pushed off the overseer, sending him stumbling back and sending Erin far outside her range. Erin immediately flicked her wrist and arm, the crack of the whip echoing through the air as it struck at the overseer’s cheek.
A red line appeared on the man’s face immediately and he grunted in pain, scrambling to his feet. Erin’s arm immediately reversed direction, cracking the whip back around and lashing at the man’s arm. Even though the whip cracked on the leather armour of the overseer, Ashe saw the man flinch lightly at the pain. Erin’s arm once more came back around, this time making a full circle as she calmly moved back, keeping distance between herself and the overseer. Erin’s arm lashed forward, and the whip wrapped around the overseer’s neck. Immediately moving, the overseer’s blade came up to cut Erin’s whip, but she pulled it back, releasing the whip before it could be cut.
Erin moved her whip in lazy circles on the ground, making sure it never stopped moving, even as she kept her eyes on her opponent. Rising up like a wave as Erin’s hand came up, the whip followed Erin’s movements as she swung her arm around and lashed out at the overseer. This time, he raised the shaft of his polearm and blocked the head of the whip, even as it tried to bite into his flesh. Even as the whip lost momentum, it didn’t matter as Erin immediately brought it back into position and cracked the whip again, her arm raising up this time as she aimed for the overseer’s chin. Not expecting an uppercut, the overseer’s head was rocked back with the force and he was knocked onto his back, hitting his head on the ground. A large, red line had cut itself into the overseer’s chin and blood was trickling out of his throat.
Groaning with the pain, the overseer clambered to his feet and reset his position, the superior constitution of the Viscount Stage allowing the man to take the hits and keep going. Erin stood back, her whip lazily tracing circles on the ground as she kept the weapon moving around, and watched the overseer climb to his feet.
“You don’t know what you’re doing, girl. You don’t know who you’re antagonising here. If you stop this, you can still walk away.”
“It is the second son of Duchess Akantha, is it not?” Ashe scrutinised Erin as she spoke but neither Erin’s voice nor her face betrayed anything of her feelings and the overseer climbed to his feet.
“So, you do know who you’re antagonising. Yet you’re doing it anyway. Either you’re stupid or you’ve got some sort of backing.”
“Your employer should have known better than to try and enslave the Arikaran people. The queen does not take kindly to people who break that law. No one can save him now, even if he kills everyone here. For that matter, you should have known better than to accept this job.”
While Ashe could not hear it, the overseer seemed to scoff as Erin’s words, “You can’t always afford to pick and choose what jobs you take. Sometimes, you just have to take what comes up.”
Erin acknowledged that with a nod, “Perhaps. But it was still a choice. A choice that you’ll pay for now.”
Ashe saw the overseer’s dark smile, grim and accepting, “Maybe. But I’ll be damned if I don’t try to take you with me.”
Suddenly, the overseer rushed forward and Erin lashed out with her whip calmly, her face as stony as the mines. Acting as soon as he saw Erin’s hand move, the overseer positioned his ranseur between himself and the tip of Erin’s whip. Having misjudged the trajectory of the whip slightly as Erin stepped forward, the tip of Erin’s whip lashed around the spear and hit the overseer’s leg, the overseer received a large welt on his flesh even after much of the force had been stopped by the shaft of the polearm. Grunting and stumbling slightly, the overseer continued running for Erin who smoothly stepped backward, her feet constantly finding solid purchase on the ground even as she didn’t look where she was retreating.
Another lash came for the man’s face and he managed to block that with the side of his ranseur’s blades but a third attack, which Erin had repositioned for when the man’s vision was obscured by the ranseur, wrapped around the man’s legs and Erin pulled hard in the middle of the overseer’s stride. Yanked onto his back, the overseer smacked his head on the ground and groaned loudly. Groggily, the man rolled over to push himself to his feet but Erin pulled on the whip again and brought him back to the ground. Grabbing her whip with both hands, Erin knew the tough, magical material would hold up as she began to spin around, dragging the overseer along the ground. Erin began to pick up speed and, when the overseer lifted off the ground, Erin flicked her wrist and the man was sent rolling and bouncing along the ground into the hut Ashe was observing from behind, the overseer’s ranseur clattering along the ground as the impact knocked it out of his hands.
Ashe strode over to the weapon and lifted it up, its weight nearly dragging him down. Ashe placed the butt of the polearm in the ground, supporting its body with as little strength as he could get away with. Erin’s eyes flicked to Ashe and she nodded, “Maybe be careful with that. Put it down if you need to. I would prefer to not be hit by a falling ranseur. ”
Ashe nodded his understanding, supporting the weapon with his arms, and watched as Erin’s whip snapped into the hut and wrapped around the overseer’s leg. Erin dragged the man out of the hut, even as he struggled to unwind the whip from his ankle, and uncurled the whip from around the man’s leg with a flick of her wrist. The overseer tried to push himself to his feet, but Erin’s foot stamped down on his chest and forced him back to the ground, “Do you know why I chose to fight you with a whip, overseer?” Glaring at Erin, he didn’t answer, and she crouched down to look him in the eye, “It’s because I thought it was appropriate. I liked the dark irony of fighting a slavemaster with his own weapon.”
‘See.’ Cab practically radiated smugness, ‘It was dark irony. I told you it was dark irony. Another reason to like her. She’s got style.’ Ashe projected his irritation at Cab, the equivalent of a mental glare, but the demon completely ignored the emotions and refocussed on Erin, ‘I wonder how she’s going to kill him.’
“If you’re going to kill me, just get it over with.” The overseer spat, “If you try keeping me alive just to talk to me, I’ll just finish the job myself.”
Erin straightened up, looking down at the overseer with complete dispassion, “I have no interest in killing you. Instead, you’ll be coming with me to face trial.”
‘Booo.’ Cab jeered, ‘Kill him. He tried to kill a child. He deserves it.’
“But before I do that, do you recognise my companion, here? You sentenced him to burn, and I rescued him from you.”
Recognition dawned in his eyes as he glanced at Ashe, and it seemed that Ashe hadn’t been the only one to see it, “You do recognise him, then. Just so you’re aware, even if you’d managed to light the fire, he wouldn’t have died. In fact, I saved the lives of all your guards by saving him. At least until I came back and killed them all. But that is beside the point. For trying to kill him like that, my guess would be that you’ll be burned at the stake.”
The overseer tried to open his mouth as Erin turned around, but a sharp boot kick to the side of his head knocked him out and Erin pulled a pair of suppression handcuffs from her hair, leaving Ashe to figure that her spatial storage must be somewhere in there; maybe it’s a fake strand of hair or, Ashe’s eyes widened, does she wear a spatial wig?
Cab’s hearty laughter clued Ashe into the fact that he had completely missed the mark and Erin glanced up at Ashe, “Care to share what you were thinking?” Erin asked Ashe and he shook his head emphatically. Ashe did not want to tell Erin that he thought she may be wearing a spatial wig. Erin shrugged as she wrapped the steel manacles around the overseer’s hands, clicking them into place, and hauled him over her shoulder. “We need to go back to Sammath, just in case any guards are outside the camp trying to track us down.”
Ashe nodded his understanding, “Okay. I’m ready to head back to…” Ashe frowned, “Sammath?”