Chapter 10 – Intensity.

The problem with being alone and having to just lie and rest in order to heal up is that it allows far too much time for reflection. Well she wasn’t quite alone, as Light was with her, and being part of her meant that Light was able to sense all of her thoughts and respond accordingly, but it wasn’t the same as having another person there, such as Myne. She really missed her, and just wanted to be snuggled up in her arms, enjoying her warmth, and ignoring the problems of the world. But here, with Light lying beside her as the rains thundered down outside, the city’s streets becoming rivers of their own, that was what she was left to think about. The biggest thought that plagued Velvet was why. Why were they risking their lives against the Demon King? His power and experience were overwhelming, and they really had no clue as to what was really going on. So why were they doing this? Why where they even involved? Wasn’t there things that were more important to her than fighting someone else’s battle, trying to save a kingdom that could well be just throwing itself at its own demise? What reason was there for her to continue on, knowing that when they next fought his forces she could well lose one of her close friends?

Velvet sighed. She already knew the answers to all of those questions though, even if she wasn’t necessarily happy about them. As the saying went, with power comes responsibility. And they had power. Quite a lot of it in fact. It didn’t matter that they hadn’t chosen to have it, the fact remained that they did have it. So the responsibility was theirs too. It would have been so, even if Lyrissa hadn’t commissioned them to stop the Demon King, but her doing so had just made them more aware of what they had to do. She wouldn’t shrink from that responsibility. She’d always put her best effort in, and that wasn’t going to stop now. She was also going to do her damn best to make sure that none of her comrades died either. Of course there was also the not so small fact that the power was the reason that she had met Myne in the first place, and there was no way that she would want to change that, and perhaps to Fate dealing with the Demon King was just a part of the price that she had to pay in order to be able to have that relationship. Well Fate, she’d pay it in full, and them some!

Velvet’s recovery was a lot faster now. The concentration of the Outerlands equivalent of Night Beasts was low in the area, so Merianne had been out with her son over the last few days outside of the city’s boundaries hunting and foraging, and the fresh food and water that she had provided her with had made her feel much better than she had expected. While she was still using healing magic on herself to supplement her recovery, it also allowed her the time and space to focus on experimenting with the weaving of her magic. She was sure that if she had the knowledge that Cammine had she would be fully recovered, but her lack of medical knowledge meant that she wasn’t willing to experiment too much in that area, at the risk of making things worse. So instead she worked on things that would help her not end up in this situation again.

The more she used her magic, the more that she noticed that it worked differently from everyone else’s. Alice and Myne were the most experienced people that she knew, and even theirs worked differently to each others, but then of course Alice was a Caster, while Myne was a Rider turned Feral. When Alice used her basic elemental magic she just willed it into being, which was the same for everyone, though the concentration varied for everyone and some people found it easier to also chant a phrase when doing so to help them with the visualisation. But when Alice wanted to so something much more powerful then she had to draw out the ritualistic circles and runes that would coax it into form, and then activate them with her magic, filling the lines with power and then drawing them into herself for manifestation. While she had said that the basics of the circles were the same for everyone, the particular details that often accounted for well over half of the form were particular to the user and would only work for them, and you couldn’t try and do something outside of your alignments. The same applied to when she enchanted items, though she then had to transfer that power into the item, which was actually quite a draining process, and the item in question had to be properly prepared for transfer to work. The way Alice used magic was common to most Casters, and how they had all been trained.

When Cammine had taught Velvet the basics of healing magic, she had done so by describing the effect that they were looking for and how the magic should feel. Unable to use magic at the time she hadn’t been able to demonstrate, but as Velvet possessed the necessary alignment she had been able to pick up on it and achieve the desired effect. Of course it was the most basic levels of it, but it had helped. The more advanced adaptations of it of course required circles and runes, and while Cammine was able to do a bit at that level, they didn’t really understand much at all of Velvet’s magic to be able to adapt it to her. Again, that was typical usage.

Myne just thought hers into being, irrespective of the scale, and apart from seeing it manifest from its smallest form to the necessary level there was no other indication of how it worked for her. The only requirement was that it fitted in with her alignment, which was the Hellfire, whatever that actually encompassed, and Velvet was sure that the only reason Myne’s effects were so much more powerful was that she wasn’t fully aware of what her magic was capable of. While it did seemed to be geared towards pure destruction, she was still able to do much that she was able to before, such as sensing, which she did via sending out her magic from her like millions of little animals. She used to hum to herself when she did so, but hadn’t done so recently. Then there was the reinforcement magic, which was something that everyone one could do and required the user to fuse their magic in or around themselves, usually by mental visualisation, to boost themselves. Myne’s wings were at odds with the destructive element, though they really did fit her quite well, and might actually be part of her new Feral nature than an actual aspect of her magic, however that worked out. Finally there was her seeking magic, something that was apparently unique to her. Myne could see and remember peoples signatures, a representation of their magic and soul, and she could get her magic to point in the direction of one that she knew. The Guilds and Clans had something similarish, that they used when recruiting, but it was more a blanket sensing that seemed to pick up on alignments and types in general, and it was nowhere near as powerful or as useful as Myne’s. It had also relied on the wards that had been spread across the kingdom early on in its birth years, like quite a few things it seems, but Lyrissa had taken it down when she had awakened Velvet. That Lyrissa’s signal that had shown on it had screamed witch was a feat in itself, as no one around would have had any clue what they were looking at, but that was a testament to the Witch’s power.

Then there was Velvet’s own power. Like Myne, she just needed to will it into being, but often she had to visualize in her minds eye the magic weaving itself into the needed form. That was how Light had first described the process of using magic to her, and it seemed to have stuck. Much of the weaving she did for combat uses she could do now instinctually, in the background of her mind, but in some cases it was just too slow, and meant that she had to have already thought about and practised it. She couldn’t do things on the fly like Myne had started doing, unless she was at the point of absolute desperation, when the magic itself often seemed to take over and do its own thing. However, whenever she used magic, runes would light up and take form on her arms. At first it was just the scars from her encounter with the Witch that would glow, magic appearing to leak out, but that had long since stopped, and now the magic would take the form of actual runes and small ritualistic circles, appearing on her skin and shifting into form as needed. She knew that happened whenever she used magic, even in combat, but it was easier to see when she wasn’t actively fighting. She was also finding that she could understand what the symbols all meant and what they were trying to do, and so it was giving her some ideas about how she could improve both the use of magic and its effects. Like Myne she really didn’t have any idea of what she was capable of, nor even what her alignment actually entailed, though she had a few guesses, so she was going to experiment.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

The first thing that she worked on was her armaments. Her bone armour was instinctual and tied to her understanding of herself, so she wasn’t too worried about it at this stage, though she was going to try and form clothes out if it as well once she got out of bed. Her weapons on the other hand needed some work. She liked the versatility of being able to switch between them, and while she had been using the staples of claw and shield for long enough that she could call and switch between them fast enough for most instances, that wasn’t the case for her newer ideas, and it also meant that she wasn’t able to power them up either as she was wanting to try. So she was going to try and make a semi permanent version of them on herself, by way of weaving the magic for them, seeing what form the patterns on her arms took, and then imprinting a copy of the core parts of that onto her body somewhere. Then when she wanted to use it, she could just pass her magic through the magical tattoo, recalling it. With the weaving having already been done, she figured it would be a lot quicker, and eventually the form and recall should become a part of her combat instinct and the tattoo would no longer be needed. That was the idea at the least. First was her shield. Light had described the barrier that had appeared in front of her when she had poured everything she could into some form of defence in the final moments of the battle against Sorene, something that she had done out of desperate need rather than deliberate intent. Using that information she was going to create something similar, a shield that could protect not just her but those beside her as well. She spent most of a day working on it, a process of trail and error where she would try and create the shield, observe the result and the patterns on her arms (which Light also assisted with), modify what she was doing and try again. It ended up being quite exhausting work, more than she had expected, but she was determined and kept at it. By the end of the day she had something that she was pleased with, and then she went to the final part of the process, forming a magical tattoo of it. This part was purely experimental, as she had never seen the like before, but the idea was there and she was going to make it work. It turned out to be much simpler than she had expected, and she was elated as the tattoo took form on the inside of her lower arm, taking the shape of an intricate shield, the actual ritualistic nature of it hidden within and beneath its design. Just by looking at its shape should could sense the patterns weaved within, and the instant she thought of its use it jumped to life again, the tattoo glowing brightly while the shield was active. She also realized that she now knew exactly how to remove Kyla’s slave brand, and she would do so when she got back, finally being able to fulfil that promise. Turned out that Merianne could also sense the nature of the tattoo when she saw it, besides being in awe of its creation.

She spent the next few days working on other weapons and applications. She had become quite attached to the use of a scythe as a weapon. It seemed to resonate with her, not to mention that she had also managed to both kill a demon and wound Sorene with one. But she wanted something much more ‘her’ than the one she had currently formed, something both beautiful and deadly. She spent quite a lot of time just working on its appearance, and was quite pleased with it once it was done. Its shaft was taller than she was, the blade’s length similar to her own height. While it was formed out her magic, she had managed to infuse some slightly more natural colours into it. The intricately detailed shaft was a golden brown colour, appeared to be formed of scales, and had a thin draconic form curling its way up the length of it. The blade was double edged and similarly intricate, glowing a bright blue and white, with pale mists that seemed to seep out of it. She was looking forward to getting some practice in with it. She also revamped the smaller shield that she had first formed, as well as the claw, and then worked on improving some of her very early creations, in particular the longbow, war hammer, and longsword. While she had initially formed them when she had met Myne, she hadn’t actually used them much, as she hadn’t really liked most of what she had created. Now was a different situation, and they would be a lot better. As she was in the mood she also threw in a shovel as well, a tribute to the battle that started it all, and then left it at that, not wanting to go overboard. The only limit that she could work out was space on her body, but there was no way that she was going to cover herself in tattoos, as she liked the clean look too much, and if needed she could always dismiss any of the ones that she had formed, especially once she no longer needed them.

Once she was capable of getting up and moving around she stared working on reinforcement, though again it was initially exhausting. The body really did take its time in recovering, and placing magical expenditure on top of that probably didn’t help, but she was still using healing magic as well, so she figured it’d all balance out, and she really did need to prepare. Ferals and Riders could use their magic to boost their strength, agility, durability, speed and so forth, though for most what exactly was effected and by how much was dependant on their animal identity. A Bear Feral for example was more likely to boost their strength than speed or agility, or at least have a much more significant boost to the former. Riders were more flexible, which is what made them such good warriors, and unsurprisingly Velvet was intending to boost everything she could, and by as much as she could. She was going to do the same trick as with her weapons, forming magical tattoos for each type of reinforcement so that she could maximise their effect as much as she thought her body would be able to handle. This time she would place them on her chest, running them along the scar there, and then hiding them amongst a tattoo of roses and vines that would also run along its length. She was surprised to discover that there were also other side effects to reinforcement for her, Light pointing out that her body started to glow pale white, while her hair started to float and glowed a bright fiery yellow. She kinda liked that, a bright angelic appearance to complement Myne’s darker one. When she activated the reinforcements, be it one or them all, the entire chest tattoo also glowed as well, which kept the true ones out of sight. She also did a little experimentation of swift movement, but determined that she’d have to leave that till she was back to a hundred percent.

Finally was her clothes, especially as she could do without Clocky walking in on her while she was prancing around naked. She wasn’t quite as successful as she had wanted to be with this, as the bone armour wasn’t really suited to it, but what she did manage to make was serviceable, a dress similar to the little red one that Myne had brought for her, formed by tiny scales of dragon bone. It covered the same area, and when summoned along with the rest of her bone armour it actually looked quite good, Clocky’s jaw dropping when he first saw her fully clothed and armoured. But it didn’t quite feel the same to her. She would much rather have had actual fabrics against her skin, but that was something that she could deal with when she got back. At least now she fully looked the part of Dragon Rider, rather than just a damsel in distress. Even Merianne was impressed.