Walking for long periods through the woods of Boralis was a rather easy experience. The labor of the mines was far worse and far more arduous, and the soft swaying of the tree branches in the fall wind gave it all a rather peaceful atmosphere. Around me, my comrades chatted with each other and discussed their plans for their future or reminisced on past experiences.
I walked next to Sera on her strig, which was pulling one of the large carts carrying all of our supplies. A large portion of us were also carrying bags, most of which were created from cloth scavenged throughout the camp. Despite what I assumed to be the massive weight on its back, the strig looked rather pleased. I patted the creatures on its neck, rubbing the red fur. It wasn’t as soft as I was hoping it would be, but it was still nice to touch.
“Didn’t take you long to bond with it, did it? Don’t tell me you’re trying to steal this poor cripple’s strig out from under her.” Sera said, noticing my new fascination with the creature. I looked up at her and gave her a wide grin.
“Nah, I’d prefer you keep it. Once I heal that leg of yours though, we’re sharing.”
We both laughed a bit as we continued on our journey, and the strig seemed to be happy as I pet its fur. Time felt way more fluid now that there wasn’t a singular static location, and the only method I had to really ground myself in any specific moment was to look at the timekeeper. I’d debated destroying the device out of spite for Galen, but the fact that it was now attached to Elric in my mind meant that it wasn’t something I could give up on. It had a meaning that went beyond the piece of shit that was Roy Galen, and a lot more usage than it could have if we all stayed in the camp.
Maybe Elm knows how it works. I’m curious how this thing moves so consistently without magore.
As I had begun to zone out into deep thought, I could feel Sera tap me on the shoulder from atop the strig.
“Hey, I think Elm might be a lot more hurt than he wanted to admit. You talk about healing me, but I think he needs some help as well. Whatever Galen did to him…”
I nodded, turning to look at the cart which Sera was pulling. In it lied Galen, resting on his back with his hands behind his head. Although he looked calm and collected, the fact that he was holding back and not walking along with the group told me something was up.
“I don’t think he wants to talk about it. He’d probably get pissed if I asked him.”
At the very least, I was learning my mentor’s patterns.
I turned up to see the sun setting in the distance, and knew that it would soon be time to stop and rest ourselves for the journey to come.
It would be our first night free from the camps.
***
The soft crackling of the fire combined with the sounds of night in the forest gave a serenity that I had lacked for so long. It was true that we would be doing work in the morning, but that labor was of our own choice. There were multiple fires around us, all created for specific groups. The fire that we had set up appeared to be for the individuals that had been decided to be the central leaders. Elm sat next to me with his gaze somewhat distant. Although it was faint, I could still see the soft outline of the burns under his shirt. The torched skin hurt just to look at, so I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have experienced it.
I really did get off lucky.
Other people also got injured during the dash and subsequent fight. There were a few who had entire shots go through parts of their bodies, but most of those who were greatly injured joined Nicole. That was something I could deal with, even though the lack of numbers still stung at me.
I munched down on my ration of food, a piece of jerky that was a lot softer than I was used to. It appeared that the guards kept the best parts to themselves. The people at the fire all looked somewhat contemplative, especially Alex who was mumbling stuff under his breath. Elina was seemingly content with her existence and was thinking about the following attack on the refinery, and Ruby was drawing on one of the pieces of paper she had been given.
Hope she doesn’t run out of those too fast. Can’t have her ransacking the caravan searching for something to write on.
With that horrifying thought permeating through my brain, I could feel another large presence sit down next to me. I turned to see Mell’s big body tower over me as he took a bite out of a piece of bread.
“Everything going good with the strigs?” Mell said, his voice muffled by the food. It reminded me a bit of Sera even though their body types were on complete opposite ends of the possible human spectrum. Whether his bizarre attunement or childhood had caused him to become such a large figure who looked like he could snap me in two was something only the world could know, and I didn’t expect it to tell me any time soon.
“Yeah, they’re great. Sera’s seems to be pretty friendly. Kind of weird to think of a military steed being so nice.” My relationship with the creature before was always from a distance, so I had no idea how they acted towards people. Mell shook his head in response.
“Nah, she ain’t a military strig. You can tell by the horns.” Mell tapped the top of his head. “Military strigs have horns that face forward and are usually sharpened. Just in case you need to ram someone. Normal strigs have their horns pointing towards the sides or to their back, so you can hang stuff from them.” There was a gleeful smile as he explained it to me. He clearly had a deep reverence for the creature.
“Thanks. I didn’t know that.”
“You’re welcome sir.”
I don’t think he’s going to stop calling me sir…
“By the way, are we going to be getting any new recruits at the refinery?” Mell asked, seeming to have completely moved on from the previous topic. I turned to the fire to collect my thoughts and think of a good answer, but Elm spoke up before I could.
“No. The only people there are going to be penal laborers or workers from the local area and Arlin. They go through workers fast as hell since they’re all working with the raw shit. They’ve got more protection than the penal laborers at the camp, but the people there ain’t going to last that long if they end up joining. Plus, it’s better we stay small.” Elm spoke in a calm tone, his eyes glued to the fire.
“What’s better about being small?” I asked in a low voice, hoping that not too many people would hear my question. There were already a few doubts about my leadership abilities and I didn’t need any more weighing on my mind.
Elm sighed, giving me a look that said ‘Sometimes I forget how stupid you are’.
“Think about how we’re going about this. We’re a group that’s trying to fight Arlin, right? In a war, you need supply lines and support in order to keep pushing against an enemy, and we lack those. Doesn’t matter if we’re just liberating camps or destroying refineries, we need supplies. You’re already running with more men than an average platoon, and that puts a strain on your mobility and how long you can fortify a position.” Elm’s explanation felt fitting for his previous military stature and general knowledge, although I could feel a slight bit of condescension. I turned to see Alex nodding his head in agreement with Elm’s statement.
“Back in Nacilia, our groups fighting against the Empire got screwed over by them cutting off our supply lines. Nacilia’s mage battalions like the one that I was in were generally more mobile, but once supply lines got choked off and the empire started to get more aggressive, they smothered us easily. Our one advantage right now is that we’re mostly living off of the land and are attacking landmarks which have supplies. Trust me, you don’t want our numbers growing too much. If we find penal laborers, I’d say to just let them run free into Boralis.” Alex may have been thinking about this already, but Elm had given him the opportunity to speak up.
I wish Elric was here.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Although I wasn’t the biggest fan of being called an idiot, his arguments with me were direct and told me when I was wrong. Running into the unknown without his presence was something that my brain was still struggling to comprehend. It hurt in a way that was hard to express, and the only thing I could think to do was to just keep moving forward.
Elina seemed to notice the discussion of battle and felt obligated to chime in. “So what’s our plan with the refinery?”
Oh yeah. That.
“Well, we have the weapons and the outfits. My idea was an ambush. We have people go in on the cart, get them to lower their guard and then we jump them from the woods and surround them. With our numbers, we should be able to easily overwhelm them since they probably have less guards than the camp.” I said, holding a confident look on my face. This was another thing that had been on my mind during the walk, and I decided that my plan to utilize the guard outfits was completely infallible. Despite this general confidence, I could hear a deep sigh come from Elm.
“Kid, you realize that they’ll recognize that you aren’t the same as the people who passed through their camp last time? Once they spot the different people, they’ll realize something is up. Plus, you have no idea how Arlin military protocol works.”
He wasn’t wrong there. Maybe we can just do step 2?
“I mean, can’t we just surround them anyway? They can’t deal with us from all sides and they’re not prepared for something like that.”
“Do you know that for a fact?”
Uhhh….
“I mean, we’re heavily armed. As long as we all rush them at once, they’ll easily be overwhelmed.”
Elm looked me dead in the eyes.
“And what happens if they decide to run into the armory? How do you plan to get inside that while they’re firing at you while you have zero cover?”
I lifted my head up towards the sky and groaned, realizing the sheer magnitude of the task that I had placed on myself and the 67 other people with me. I had known this wouldn’t be easy no matter what, but now that I was thinking it through, it felt a lot like that initial headache I had the night after declaring I was going to do the revolt.
The crackling of the fire and sound of voices around me was enough to motivate me to keep moving forward, but the fact that I had so little time only made me feel worse about the entire situation. I could feel Mell’s large hand pat me on the shoulder in an attempt to comfort me.
I mean, it’s better than the revolt because we have way more tools on the table.
We had all of our attunements, no oversight from guards to stop us from planning, a lot of burners and I had a lot of new knowledge at my disposal. The igniter that I now wielded proved that I had overcome a monster of a man and walked out the other side with a lot of power in my own hands.
As my thoughts drifted to the igniter, an idea passed through my mind. It was something that Elric would probably yell at me for suggesting, but it was an idea nonetheless.
That might work…
Elm saw the look on my face and immediately began to frown. He knew what was about to happen.
I took a moment to survey everyone surrounding the fire, now with a large smile on my face.
“I think I have a plan.”
***
As the fires started to die out, I saw Karla with her back against a tree while she played with her canteen. It was getting dark out and we were about to switch nightwatch shifts, yet I hadn’t seen her move from the spot since we had stopped for the night. The responses to my plan had been, as expected, mixed. It was better than I had hoped and Alex helped me flesh out the details, but it was clear that I was still learning how to plan for situations like this. However, seeing Karla sit alone so late told me that something was wrong. I looked around and found Sera already asleep.
Guess I can’t rely on her for this.
Other than Sera, I was the only other Corithian who could potentially relate with Karla’s experience. She needed someone to talk to after all the craziness that had happened. I walked over slowly, careful not to rouse anyone awake. I sat down next to her, then let off a soft light from my palm to better see her. She looked away from her canteen towards the light, then up to my face.
“Hey North.”
“Hey. You doing ok? It’s really late.”
Her burned face and mangled ear hurt every time I saw them, and seeing them up close with my own light made it hurt all the worse. The girl must have already gone through hell before she got here.
“Can’t sleep.”
I gave her a soft pat on the shoulder, trying to give her some form of comfort. I could tell this wasn’t my sort of thing, but I at least had to try.
“What’s wrong?”
“I miss home.”
Ouch.
“I know. Once we get to Corith, one of the first things we’re going to do is try and get you back to your parents, ok?” I assured her, scooting slightly closer. “We’ll take care of you until then. Here, let me fill your canteen so you’ll be ready in the morning.”
She turned back to her canteen, continuing to fumble around with it.
“You can’t.” Her face still lacked any visible emotion as she spoke.
“I can’t?”
She nodded before extending it out to me so I could hold it. When I grabbed onto it, it was freezing cold.
I fumbled a bit as my senses struggled to comprehend the unnatural cold that my hands had just grabbed onto. I stared down at it before giving the canteen a shake, realizing that I couldn’t feel or hear the sloshing of water inside. Somehow, the water inside the canteen had been completely frozen solid. I looked up to find Karla waiting for my reaction.
“You did this?”
She nodded, taking back the canteen from me.
“How?” I asked tepidly. She shrugged in response, which caused me to feel a painful tinge of disappointment.
“I just told it to change to ice. I can’t change it back though. Doesn’t feel too cold for me.”
I sat there, pondering how I could connect this information back to myself.
“You didn’t ask it to?”
She shook her head, confused by my statement.
Guess it really is just me. If I meet another light mage, I need to see how much it relates to my attunement.
“Either way, you need to go to sleep, ok? Sera would get mad at me if you didn’t get any sleep.” I said, giving her the best smile I could while continuing to ponder the new information. She gave me another nod in response and moved back to one of the mats that we had set up. I was going to switch with the other slaves on shift for night watch, so I walked back to my own.
Staring at the night sky, partially obscured by the tree branches, I continued to think about the new information. Karla told the water to change forms, and it became ice. In a way, it made sense that you could probably force the form of mana to change and exclude other factors. Cold was just a lack of heat, so my main theory was that she had the water remove the heat from itself. Magic was still a mystery to me that I was desperate to solve whether or not Elm was willing to help me. This was just another piece of the puzzle that I had to place together.
How does this apply to me?
It made sense that I could change the form of the mana by removing or adding factors, but light was so pure that I couldn’t imagine any other forms. Heat was something that enough light could create, but I couldn’t simply ask light to remove the heat. Heat was created by the energy that was inherent to light. If I removed the energy of light mana, it would probably just turn it back into pure mana.
Wait, can I do that?
Something about me allowed me to have a deeper access to mana in a way others couldn’t. I sat up slowly to look at my palm, thinking about all of my lessons with Elm.
Removing the energy aspect of light would just revert it back to pure mana, right? If I can do that, then could I create something similar to a magore reaction?
The basic principle of magore reactions was two things which had high contents of pure mana interacting with each other, so to emulate it, I'd have to hit two things together. The best way I could do that was a clap. I walked further away from the camp into the woods as to not wake anyone grabbing a lantern to accompany me. Holding out both my palms, I began to focus on my flow and focusing it on both my palms.
Hey light mana? Could you remove the energy from yourself?
I felt the flow go through both my hands, only for no light to come out. Instead of being transformed into a natural element, the mana that I was emitting remained completely pure. After calming myself down from the sudden revelation, I clapped my hands together.
As soon as they collided I could feel my two hands try and push back from each other, launched away by the reaction. Where my two palms connected, the signature pale blue light of a magore reaction formed before quickly fizzling away back into the air. I repeated it once more, and the same reaction happened. I couldn't help but laugh like a mad man as I clapped my hands together, watching the same blue light appear before dissipating into the air.
It was a beautiful and simple display that would probably cause a headache for Elm in the morning. Karla had just given me an important revelation that put me one step closer to learning how to heal people. As I watched, I muttered soft words of accomplishment under my breath.
“I can control pure mana.”