Why is it that when you go to edit 1 small mistake you end up finding 2? Then, if I come back to it later, I find 2 more! I am almost willing to call this an edit war =.=
wolfmen = wolfpeople from this chapter on
Also: I have not got around to elaborating on it yet, but the Elvish trauma will be coming out in full force soon enough, so please be aware that the people of this world were defined by the Enslavement period.
Chapter 20: Gathering Energies
Damnation, tricked! We groaned together as Bella and I bounced idea off each other for recovering the situation.
We were taking the test like normal until Rapier decided to test us in a different way.
Rapier, knowing that we had magic was I the process of formally testing if we had a specialty. Simply put, a specialty means that your mana pathways allow for the manipulation of one type of spell more easily than another. Leo had already informed me of that particular change, but Rapier confirmed that non bodily-manipulation based spells would be harder for us to use. Which would basically ensure that Bella would not be ‘encouraged’ by the royal magician to become a combat mage.
We might greatly benefit from the complex training involved in raising a combat mage, but it would take years and most important lessons would be redundant for someone with memories from decades of war.
Up until that point, everything had been going great, but then Rapier had Bella try and copy some of her most basic stun spells. One of the variants had been identical to the one I used on the wolfpeople so Bella began on that spell and was getting how to cast it too quickly.
I was trying to stay away from the test to keep Bella from cheating too much and drawing more attention than necessary when Rapier hit us with a wave of killing intent.
Unlike bloodlust, killing intent was just a show of force and will, not a maniacal desire for blood. Any mage could give off killing intent with a pulse of mana, even in public, as all it signified was one’s preparation to kill. It was also one of, if not the, most common of methods that mages used to disperse non-mages.
Between mages it could be accidental, if someone was angry enough, challenging, or even a weapon to interrupt someone’s mental focus. Rapier used it for the latter, but also drew my interference because of this tradition where someone dies whenever they use it around me.
I doubt that we could have stopped Rapier if she had actually decided to try and kill us here, but I still stepped in. In doing so, I did not let Bella freeze in place or react naturally to Rapier like I should have, but instead I hit her with twice as much killing intent as she had used.
Also, as killing intent was based off of willpower more than mana, I hit her much more precisely than she had done. Where several people around her were staring at her in fear and confusion, I only hit her and it showed… The fact that I followed that arrow of killing intent with a half dozen ‘snip’ spells within a fraction of a second had also not endeared myself to our tester. Despite the fact that she effortlessly blocked my attacks with
Needless to say, the test ended almost on the spot. We only waited long enough to officially show her that we could use the stun spell. After that, Rapier declared that we were in control of our magic enough to not mandate schooling and she disappeared into the administration building.
I was currently staying in a hastily set up shack that was disgusting enough that I ended up using my newly created disinfection spell twice to keep it at my standards of livable. The shack was one of a handful for ‘more private individuals’ instead of the ‘conveniently located’ inn just outside the military’s location.
The conveniently located part was doing a steady business simply because it was within walking distance of the base and no one bothered making sure the troops were bedded down the whole night – as long as they were back by morning.
The shacks were for officers, visitors, homosexuals, or anyone with else who was not interested in sleeping in a place where you were watched and charged based on who you took to your bed.
Although I had two things that were keeping my mind occupied. First: what Rapier would think of my little counter attack? She had not accused me of attacking a royal emissary, which would have been treason, but I was still concerned. The best idea I had so far was to write a formal, if very generally worded, letter of apology to try and dodge another face to face meeting.
The second thing was the shack itself, although it did involve the tester. For the last few cycles, I had been able to ward my room without worrying about people discovering how gifted I was with magic. This prevented people like Luna from waking me up in the morning without my foreknowledge as well as let me sleep much easier, knowing that no one was likely to kill me in the middle of the night… paranoia is a virtue of the hunted and I only had so long before god backed hunters came for me, so I made sure to start redeveloping my safety precautions.
Unfortunately, I could not be sure that the tester was not going to come back and check on me while I slept so I had to keep to an extremely simplistic set of wards that would just make noises if activated. They were enough for a novice, but I wanted my usual spider’s web of stun and death spells for anyone who tried to force them.
Deciding to take a walk and check in on the wolfpeople’s conditions I slipped out of the shack and took a walk into the woods. It was a sign of cultural differences that the soldiers in the military base hated the woods. The villagers had grown used to it, but most the soldiers, used to cities, seemed scared that elves were going to jump out and attack them if they went into the woods.
Even the shacks, set aside for privacy, were still a good 50 meters away from the trees at the closest point. They had been closer, but keeping over 100 bodies warm was a challenge and the closest trees had been gleefully removed for firewood.
I asked them how they kept warm in the city, but apparently there were ‘tree farms’ well outside the city that were systematically harvested for their wood. There were also magical warming devices, but they were apparently too expensive for many to own.
As I moved deeper into the woods my traveling cloak tried to catch on the increasing number of bushes, but I had already woven a series of runes into it to try and ignore such annoyances. I took the time to let my unnaturally sharp eyesight help me pick out a path in the darkness.
After years of experimenting, our body had become a terrifying weapon, even in my own, very experienced, view. Our eyes were sharp enough to pick out a path in anything except the darkest of cloudy nights. Our steps had also become so deathly silent that I had to remind myself to make noise at times. Our muscles were layered and strengthened to the point where we had to relearn how careful to be with everyday objects, least we break them. Our bones were also hard enough to prevent fracturing in all, but the most dangerous of environments.
We were one of the most dangerous 12 cyclers in the world, yet, for all of our experimenting, all of our progress meant nothing if a combat mage decided to attack us. Non-mages tended to underestimate the power of mages, but there was a reason that the most powerful mages ruled. I could decimate that little military presence myself with their two, second rate, mages by myself, but a combat mage could kill an unprepared me three times over.
Of course, the best magical combat mages would be expected to join the royal magicians’ corps in any kingdom where the king held total power, which made Rapier a very dangerous enemy indeed. Hopefully I would not have to deal with her as an actual enemy, but if she did manage to follow me into these woods I would at least have a chance at killing her.
After all, there were said to only be three ways to win a mage battle, power, tricks, and equipment. Even if I was stronger in this body than I was in my old one (magically speaking) I did not know how to use that power, meaning I would only be able to rely on tricks and iron.
Taking that thought into account, I made sure that I was not being followed. Janeen would be able to track me during the day, but almost no one would be able to see me by the night stars. The other runes I had sown into my cloak would help with this kind of thing into the future as well. The runes of stealth were combined with runes to make the eyes of others slide off of me and runes to help others forget my passing.
I was not a rune-master, but my cloak was an example of why they were so feared, runes could directly interact with and interfere with your mind. The runes for lust, fear, and obedience were usually forbidden, but they were other examples of how easy it was to manipulate people. One of the only defenses was a rune of clarity, which I had engraved directly into my sternum with my mana.
After moving around in the shadows of the woods enough that I knew no one was following me I went ahead and set up some perimeter wards before accessing my improved monitor device. As the fourth iteration of the device, it was vastly improved and let me keep an eye on the isolated population of modified humans/wolfpeople with minimal mana.
I spent a good while using the device to methodically check all of the modified humans, checking them for any signs of mutation. The ability to access that information at a distance had been an incredible boon and I found myself rushing back across the fear rune barrier dozens, if not hundreds, of times in the last few cycles as I sometimes barely made it to prevent mutations from killing them.
I was not sure how long it took – much less how many lives it cost – for the Elves (or whoever) to modify them so completely, but changing them back to regular humans had been dangerous. It was easier to change them back to more regular humans then changing humans into the modified humans would be, but there were still rampant mutations and accidents waiting to happen while I was messing with their genetic code.
In the end I had given up on completely returning them to their original body structure and concentrated on making them look as human as possible. Once I managed to take care of their ridiculous hair growth and modified their melanocytes to change their skin color a little they were at least presentable to other humans as humans. Abnormally tall humans who were still learning how to build standing houses, but they were at least recognizable and less likely to be killed.
I also regulated some of their iron filtering, decreasing their magic resistance, but increasing their energy as – before I arrived – bloodletting was a common practice and necessity to prevent the iron from building up too much in their blood.
Incidentally, the soldiers was nervous enough about being this close to the ‘wild’ and they were almost paralyzed by the fear runes. Standing offers of rewards for exploring the area beyond the runes kept increasing, but no one had successfully claimed the reward. (Not to say that a few did not try, but either I or someone else was usually able to pointed out the obvious flaws… after I finished fighting off the urge to laugh at their usually absurd stories)
In the end, I closed the monitor device and decided that the modified humans were stable enough to be left alone. If I did any more experiments on them in the future, it would be much more specific and targeted genetics work to aid in my magical device keep hidden in my lower half.
My genetic manipulation magical device that was ensuring our sterility would need at least another 4 more cycles of work to work flawlessly, but I had used the modified humans as a basis for a prototype. It would work to a lesser extent than the final version would, but I would still need to test the prototype out on someone. After all, the final version was also my back-up plan to turn myself male again without days upon days of self surgery in an effort to attach an artificially created phallus… Not that it would not work that last way, but the thought of manually performing a sex change option on myself, with only a minimal amount of pain-killing spells to keep my head clear was… distressing.
As I wandered back to the shack, I tried to think of possible candidates for experimenting with my prototype, but my mind kept coming back to the one person I had no doubt Leo pushed in my direction. After all, if there was a genetic code that granted magicians powers, might there be a genetic combination that would allow people to become stronger mages. In that sense, turning a ‘burn-out’ into a mage would certainly be an interesting- oh look who it is.
Said burn-out was conveniently in my returning path, talking with Janeen for some reason.
Either Leo or one of the other Nalks really liked Dras, the problem was that I could not tell if they were trying to give me an opportunity to experiment, or trying to get me to turn him into a better game piece. Either way, I was tempted to use him as a testing material after I threw him to the other side of the fear runes.
Until then, I decided to try and see what was going on with these two. I would normally eavesdrop and figure out what they were talking about, but I had been so lost in my thoughts that I had already come close enough for Janeen to notice something was off.
I really needed to reacquire my old habits for survival. Too many years of little to no enemies was not good for my instincts… not that being a little girl helped in that matter.
After standing still for a moment to see if Janeen could actually see me, I noticed her eyes trying to concentrate on the area I was standing. It spoke more to her skill than the lack of effectiveness of my rune covered cloak, but I was still disappointed in myself.
Stepping forward the final few steps I uncovered my head and let my cloak stop impeding Janeen’s mind.
“Bella! I was looking for you earlier. Why are you out here?” Janeen seemed worried about something.
“I wanted to go for a walk. Why are you 2 in the woods at this time of night? The shacks are designed for fairly discrete meetings you know.” I dismissed her question and decided to try teasing them a bit. Janeen did not bite, but she did snort while Dras outright blushed and started practicing different sword stances.
“This one was practicing and I was looking for you.” Janeen stated simply, before her expression grew more serious. “Bella what did you do when you were taking that test?”
I blinked in surprise, but my voice was deliberately more curious than surprised. “Would you care to elaborate on that question Janeen?”
She shifted uncomfortably and I out of the corner of my eye I saw Dras’ sword nearly drop out of his hand before Janeen started speaking. “I heard Lady Rapier speaking as she was talking to one of the camp mages. She was talking about sponsoring you for combat medic training.”
My jaw actually dropped at that point. There were 3 basic types of mages who specialized in fighting. Siege mages, who were all power and helped create massive shields or attack spells to try and break the enemy’s shield. Combat mages, who were more individual fighters and assault experts.
Combat medics, were the last group and the smallest one. Their job was to followed assault squads and assist the wounded wherever they were on the battlefield. They were also regarded as some of the bravest fighters in the world because of the fact that they were expected to patch up others in the middle of a battle where hundreds of death spells could be hurled at them in an instant – while they would be concentrating more on healing than protecting themselves.
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
I was honestly honored, I took calculated risks fairly frequently in my previous life, but being recommended to become a combat healer was a separate honor entirely.
“I reacted.” I told Janeen honestly, “Although I am surprised that she offered to sponsor me, even if I did impress her.” She would know how rich the – relatively small – mithril deposit had made my father, so she knew that there was no reason to accept the sponsorship.
‘Sponsoring’ someone was a unique idea to me when I heard about it from Nathan. It was like barrowing money, but you agreed to pay it back with favors instead of the money. To me it sounded like bribery, just years in advance, but the people here seemed to consider it common place among those common-born mages who could not normally afford to go to one of the few mage training centers.
I saw Dras flexing his hand again as he nearly dropped his sword again. It was odd. “Thank you for telling me Janeen, however, I feel like you might be lying about why you are out here.” I made a show of looking at her ever present satchel. “Unless you already had a chance to use that potion I sold you before I went off to train?” I raised an eyebrow.
“Why do I get the feeling you just want to be alone with Dras?” Janeen shot back, before she started retreating of her own accord, only taking the time to give me some parting lip. “Oh well, that is your business I suppose, have a nice evening and try not to cultivate more mana around him will you Bella?”
Dras jerked his head at that and stared at Janeen’s retreating figure. Not wanting to be overheard, I also enjoyed Janeen’s figure for a few moments before turning my attentions to Dras. “What is wrong with your hand?” I demanded quietly.
Dras visibly flinched before muttering that it was annoying him, nothing more. I heard him, but only with my enhanced hearing. I sighed, “Feel free to stop whispering and let me take a look.”
Dras flinched again and visibly hesitated. I was about to ask him why when I remembered that, being a burn-out, he had not experienced what most people called a ‘tingling sensation,’ but had instead felt pain.
I decided on a slightly softer approach and added: “Dras, I have gotten better, I do not think this will hurt and besides, you will need to know if there is extensive damage.”
He relented after a moment, his worry about his sword arm clearly outweighing his fear of pain. I touched his hand gently and held back my talent for a moment so he could relax a bit. Trying to distract him while I worked, I started talking to him as my talent, slowly began searching his body for the problem.
He grimaced slightly at the start, but concentrated on my questions. He was the only son of the captain of the Entrials’ guard who picked up the sword to become something better than his drunk father. His ethic for hard work, honesty, and loyalty had both endeared him to John and earned him the jealousy of other students who mostly just wanted to standout and impress some girl in the town. John had wanted to be serious, but no one had intended to seriously try and teach him until the military presence was established. After that, he had become a regular visitor, trying to practice with the soldiers whenever he could get away with it.
While he was talking I confirmed that his muscles would not be getting any better. He had some genetic disease, one that Anton had told me the name of, but its name did not matter at the moment. The point was this: Dras had both the bad luck of getting the recessive trait from both his parents and the good luck of finding me right as I was thinking about testing out a device that could cure that very thing.
He was so obvious that I actually found myself wondering if the Nalks were really manipulating him. It just seemed too obvious.
“Why do you want to practice the sword anyway? To join the army?” I asked, pondering what to do with him.
“I just want to help others. If that means that I join the army, then that is fine, but if being an adventurer or mercenary would let me help more people, then I will become of those instead.” He stared straight into my eyes as he responded, seeming to mean every word.
Bella joked to me that her heart almost jumped, but I just rolled my eyes. It was an annoying, cliché, response from someone who thought a sword would let him right the wrongs of the world. That said, it was his reason so I was not about to cut him down for it. Stones, my sword had certainly ended many people who both helped and hurt others on a regular basis, in my previous, ever more distant, life.
I looked at his hand and quietly weighed my options, worrying about the possible consequences of my helping Dras before deciding that I should just try and then make sure to record the results.
Although, curing Dras of his ‘burn out’ would likely be too much effort when I would still need to refrain from giving Lady Rapier a new reason to stay, as well as declining her offer.
Fortunately, that had been one of the few areas were Nathan had pleasantly surprised me over the years, he actually knew that I had no interest in dealing with nobles or possible marriages. As far as he was concerned, I wanted to help the church of Hoh and become one of the goddess of water’s Healers.
As Lord of these lands, Nathan could politely ask her to leave now that her assignment was done and she would oblige, a fact that I planned to take advantage of.
“Okay Dras, I can help, but it will be the same deal as last time, agreed?” I asked, looking him in the eyes to make sure he understood.
He hesitated for a moment before nodding, resolutely.
I smiled and walked past him. Telling him to find me after Lady Rapier was gone and I finally achieved breakthrough.
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A few days later, the Lady Rapier was gone and I used my newly constructed prototype magical device on Dras with no exciting results at first. It took over the entire First Earth phase to start making a difference, proving to me that I needed to put more active magic into my magical devices.
So far I had been taking it very slowly and methodically building up the series of spells to safely change someone over time. The process was slow, painless, and I could precisely undo any and all changes. For both Dras and the modified humans beyond the fear runes, this was a very good thing as it let me track and modify any and all mistakes I made.
Now, however, I was feeling fairly secure in making the final model more active. A faster adaptive system might be more dangerous and require more nutrients from the host, but it would give me faster results not that I felt like I knew what I was doing. Though as I might not be able to catch any harmful changes or unintended mutations before they did lasting harm.
It would also help if I stopped using the step-by-step method of spell creation, but this was someone DNA and I needed to know exactly what went wrong to fix it. I was also hesitant to actually go ahead with more dangerous or widespread experiments in such an underdeveloped place like the area around Entrials. Leo and I testing a new potion was one thing, but I needed a more serious motivator before people would accept me messing with their blood.
As for what motivation I was thinking of… Capital crimes were too rare and the population too small for me to try and bribe people for more test subjects, so I came to the only logical conclusion. If I wanted to continue (much less expand) my experiments, Bella and I would need to relocate.
I decided at that point that it was time for me make good on my plans to leave Entrials. Bella’s family had already gotten used to the idea that Bella would leave them before she ‘grew up,’ so I was not too worried. However, Elizabeth and Carlatus were of some concern as they seemed to have some idea about me coming back to visit.
Bella herself was nervous too, both about leaving and about our future experiments, but she agreed with me on the basis that distance would lessen the likelihood of Nalk interference with her family. Together, we tried to make them understand that we had a ‘calling’ that we were going to answer. Granted, for that ‘calling’ might involve a gender change and becoming a secluded magician who experimented on humans who were not exactly volunteers, but it was a ‘calling’ of sorts.
Elba’s training would actually be useful here as the old woman had eventually hammered into our combined heads how ‘young ladies’ were supposed to act. I had resisted it until Bella pointed out that it was just another acting method for the theater of drama and lies that I tended to use as weapons. Now I would be able to act out that part of a ‘young lady’ for whatever purpose I needed.
Granted, a ‘young lady’ with 12 circles worth of magic was a very dangerous person even without my memories or our enhanced body to aid her, but sometimes a peaceful solution was dependent on not seeming like a danger.
We had been preparing this for over a year and even the wolfpeople were aware of our intended departure, so it was easy enough to use Lady Rapier’s recommendation as an excuse to start preparing. Elizabeth and Carlatus were as annoying as expected, but we were prepared to leave at the beginning of the metal phase (AN: late July, about 50-60 days before her 13th birthday) when, as I was making final checks on both Dras and the modified humans for mutations or side effects, I was called to do my work as a mender.
I would like to blame what happened next on the Nalks, but the truth always shown through with the Guilt. I had a choice. Everyone did. If someone held a knife to your throat and ordered you to do something, you always had the choice of letting that someone cut your throat. If you were too poor to buy food in the city you had the choice to steal, to starve, to beg, or to find another choice, but you always had a choice.
I chose to end the lives of 3 men before I left the Entrials area. No one said a word about it when I left, but it was a sparely populated area and everyone knew the truth.
Did they hold it against me? I doubt it… “Justice” is a useful shield to hide behind.
* * *
Leo’s personal study:
Leonardo sighed to himself. The former Bandit King had so much potential that memories and calculations constantly distracted the Nalk as he tried to predict DeMorte’s possible futures.
Ironically, despite his impressive logic and mental capacity, DeMorte’s own personality was his greatest impediment. Leo had run mental calculations and Bella was actually a much greater danger to the rest of the Game’s players then DeMorte.
DeMorte could – and likely would – rise rapidly again as he killed anyone who made him angry enough. However, he was in a much more lawful world than his previous one. He would find it nearly impossible to carve out a serious claim unless he either played by the rules or actually gained control of an already existing nation… or…
While Leo realized that there was another path for DeMorte to gain power, his guest had arrived.
Leo opened the door with a thought and greeted the Nalk with a pulse of energy that was his full name. Nominally called ‘Duke’ since he had taken the lead in informing DeMorte of his fate, the Nalk was already angry enough that his opposition was using the nickname, so Leo had decided to be more formal.
“Leo, has your brain been scattered by a singularity?” Duke barked, not bothering to sit down or move his lips. It was a minor rule that Leo could dictate that they talk in human form, but Duke was too angry to extend Leo any curtsies like actually using that body correctly. Instead, Duke was using it as a mask and only bothering to make up for not using Leo’s full name.
I wonder if he even remembers it Leo thought grimly. “My wife has tried a few times, she swears that it makes me mate better, why?” Leo asked dryly.
“Your little mortal is becoming a large possible interruption Leo. He was meant to be a minor annoyance, but I have looked into his possibilities and they are not within acceptable bounds.”
“I always calculate the best possible paths and even at his most impressive, DeMorte will never beat out all of our talented players.” Leo leaned back into his chair and looked beyond the fleshy puppet to Duke’s real body before speaking again. “He is just one man and his is out of his element, the odds of him recruiting another bandit army are barely worth mentioning and the fact is that the nobles are not likely to follow him without a puppet or public face – something that would be completely at odds with DeMorte’s character.”
The flesh mask of Duke’s sneered. “Not given the fact that you gave him enough basic tools to recreate those precious ‘nids’ monstrosities that got you banned from playing the Game in the first place”
Leo stared at Duke’s real body, unwilling to let either his real or human body give away how disturbing that idea was. Shit. DeMorte might actually be able to do it too. “I thought about that, but in a different direction. The odds that either Bella or DeMorte will want to create something like the nid species is actually incalculable in how exceedingly unlikely it is. The route that leaves them with the most impressive forces would involve Bella’s absorption of DeMorte and her subsequent modification of her own children or clones in artificial wombs to create armies.”
Leo then made sure to punctuate his next statement with an air of finality, even adding a bit of his energy to the words so that they carried through into spirit speak. “The odds of Bella absorbing DeMorte however are laughable as best I can tell. So now that I have heard your complaint and explained it, I trust we are done here.”
Duke’s body shivered and evaporated. Before he sent a pulse of energy that signified a cold rage and left. Duke had overstepped in his anger, but he was supposed to be one of the best of the Nalks at the Game and he was worried.
Leo tried to blame it on youthful exuberance, but Duke had a point. DeMorte was almost maximizing his time before the Game started and it was effecting the Game predictions. Even as far away as he was from Jagged Claws, DeMorte was a significant danger. In fact, that distance was part of the reason he was a danger, as the Steel Claws would only lose their initial power after they made landfall for the first time. There was just no way for them to keep it as they raided across three continents.
That was assuming, of course, that no one makes a play that stops them, Leo thought to himself. There were 4 cycles and a few phases before ‘Game Start’ hit and Leo was caught between looking forward to it and wishing he had more time.