Germination 10

August 8th, 2032.

My eyes fluttered open to an expanse of endless sea. Deep rolling waves of blue stretched out across the horizon, while the dark night sky was scattered with purples, pinks, and dazzling whites. I surveyed it all, mesmerized by the constellations, off by the slightest of margins. An uncanny sky with an uncanny

moon.

I was hanging in the sky, held in the embrace of the void, free from the clatter of ordinary matter. Gravity and Inertia gently slid me down a tunnel of contracted space until I touched a solid surface.

Wherever I had landed it was enormous, a complex landscape. Valleys and hills and steep mountains, rivers and ponds and forests and grassy plains. Great rents and scars littered the surface.

Then it shifted.

The horizon seemed to rise as the ground began to tremble and shake. The sky changed again, fading to a rich black with scattered white starlight. I paused as I saw the horizon expand from the beach turned cliff as the water stayed below.

I could see… the entirety of North America, citylights radiating into space. A place with hundreds of millions of people living their lives.

What a beautiful world.

A voice broke through the silence, with a whisper in the Deep.

“Is it?” I asked with a sardonic snort, bitterness rippling down my tongue.

If you saw through my eyes you would say the same.

I looked up, and I was paralyzed.

The source of the voice was vast, standing as high as a continent. A walking landmass of fractals and dark dust drawn into a vast body, the blackest of blacks with cracks and veins of bright. It was a protean body, manifesting bone, sinew and muscle. While limbs and fingers and maws moved about in impossible patterns and sequences.

The only commonality was the averaging out of their shifting form, a serpentine frame standing on pillar-legs the length of countries. With a patterned mask of a serpent-skull, and hair like a curling rose, red and pink stars nestled between locks and twisting horns.

Our flesh was older than the stars, dark dust dancing with deconfined plasma.

That body of black pitch spread diaphanous wings made of magnetic fluxes and shaped space. Flaws in space and time, collecting filaments of dark matter upon their membranes. Eyes like naked singularities were filled with a warmth and compassion that took my breath away.

“Why did you come here?” I asked the entity.

You were dreaming.

That wasn’t a real answer, not after so many strange dreams. Of pouring my thoughts into a dream journal, trying to figure out what, who I was forgetting. What secrets had been shared to me through the medium of the space between the stars?

There was a chuckle from the being, a singing refrain extending into bursts of microwave radiation and mass ripples.

We have not spoken in some time, but I have watched you grow.

“Why?”

The god winked a golden eye surrounded by infinite dark.

I am what I am. Mother. Father. Progenitor. My flesh is the flesh of all witchkind and otherkind, my soul and spirit their soul and spirit.

“I am not your kid.” I said in confusion.

You are born of stardust, you are of my kin. More than that, you have chosen to become kith and kin with my Children, to bear the might and madness of my Gifts. Love and hate, joy and suffering.

“Suffering huh?” I shook my head.

The tone that followed was as flat as a macroscopic manifold of space and time.

It is a line which connects those who suffer together. A line which transcends pain, time and even death. You have borne the suffering of my Children, but have not shied away. You are what we need.

I looked down at the Earth, and flinched at the flashes of light across the East, a hundred and more burst across the surface.

“Why can’t you help me more directly?” I asked, curious about the answer.

The great avatar of darkness sighed, a deep groan rumbling my bones.

Dreams and blessings and gifts are all I have left now.

“So you have to work through people to help.” I… understood, it seemed a sad existence. “Is that why… you sent me to that place? With her?”

Yes. Our greatest failure. We were never meant to be alone. But she was, and I did not see it. Now there is not but one other like her in this world, the seeds of a tree long since extinct. How I wished I did not have to place the burden on your shoulders.

The rumbling thousand kilometer titanic entity turned their gaze to the corpses hanging in the sky. A deep melancholic air to the world.

“What do you want me to do about it then?” I asked instead.

A smile revealed the maw of a singularity, lined with fractals of perfect crystal.

You hear the word of the void, baked into your own blood and bones. I fed that Gift, to seek out the why of things. Master your Gift, your soul’s own understanding of What Is. Teach others of their Gifts, of that which has been Forgotten. You will not be alone in the calamity that is to come, I will not allow it.

With that the world began to crumble apart, as seething dynamic vacuum energies lashed out in a cycle of violence. And the godling shattered into loose dark dust and golden ichor.

I plunged into the Dark Below.

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“So I can go?” I asked with a nervous bounce to my legs. Ultima had been rather cross with me after the stunt I had pulled a few days ago.

It hurt to have her be disappointed in me, more than I thought it would. I had gotten close to my teacher, she was kind and understanding even with her own sharp edges.

“Just a quick chat, since you were with your mom for the past few days.” Ultima took a deep breath. “If that’s alright?

“It’s fine, I know I’ve been a bit of a headache for you.” I laughed and she shook her head.

“You’re not a burden, I’m just worried. I know I’m a bit of an advocate for being wild… but… no. Let’s clear the air first. That's okay?”

It was. “Yeah.”

Ultima gestured for me to sit down on the couch, and flicked her claws in the direction of my hair.

I nodded, and was rewarded with claws and fingers gliding through my hair. They carefully pulled apart knots, and pulled away dust and grime with soothing fluid magic. Sticks and leaves too for some reason. The gentle pressure and scratches on my scalp were soothing.

“Celia… could you tell me what you were thinking, when you rushed in after the threaded ones?”

“I wasn’t.” Was what I said with some shame. “I wasn’t thinking. I got tunnel vision… and I almost got my friends hurt.” Self loathing rose up into my gut like acid.

The scritches continued, kneading my scalp with the little beans at the tip of her fingers.

“I’ve noticed that,” Ultima gently offered a soothing growl when I tensed. “You can hyperfocus with the best of them. My sister was a lot like that.”

I leaned back into her, to peer into her waiting eyes. “What was she like?”

Ultima’s eyes were distant. “She was so smart. She could pick apart theory and researched deeply into the nature of magic. I always worked the craft more through instinct and rule of thumb. A lot of the stuff I have involving human technology is because of her. Applied science versus basic if you will.”

“She sounds cool.” I said honestly.

Ultima beamed. “Hun, she would have loved you. A girl after her own heart. Which is… probably why I got a bit angry.” She sounded odd, twitchy even. “But that’s not what you need is it? You understand that you made a mistake.”

I had. “I do. I wasn’t thinking. Didn’t respect the danger.”

“Good. When you truly hunt something, you need to have the same respect for it as you do magic. The threaded ones have killed thousands of witches over the years. Entire clans have gone extinct, like your werewolf girl’s ancestor.”

“She’s… not mine.” That was an odd way to put it.

Ultima snorted. “She is yours, remember what I told you before about strong souls?”

I nodded hesitantly. “You weren’t kidding about that?”

“No. Bonds are a powerful thing Celia, those friends of yours will always have your back. Teachings, Family, Contracts and Loyalty. Of those things which bind us all, which haven’t you touched upon?

Teachings… I had shown them a lot hadn’t I? Just because of the way I was? I liked teaching people about new things, it was enjoyable to see people grow.

Family. I… did love my friends didn’t I? They were my friends, they had chosen to be my friends. There was no reason not to treat them like family, they were people I didn’t want to let go of. They were family I had chosen, family I would protect and help.

Contracts. It was nothing so explicit aside from my deals with Hakim on sharing our skills. But I had a deal with all of them. Althea… our deal was I’d help her with shamanism, give her a space to be herself. Dinah, we had a mutual aid agreement, we would share resources to combat the machinations of her grandmother and the Chantry. Mads, she wanted to destroy the Chantry so I we had agreed to assist one another in that goal.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

Deals, all laid out and neat.

“Loyalty huh?” That was where my imagination stopped, why would anyone be loyal to me?

Ultima let out a bemused chuckle. “Loyalty is like love, it isn’t logical. You can keep people distant, choose who you want to associate with. See who’s worthy of a closer look. You can decide which Fire you’ll be pulled towards. But sometimes you find a person who embodies every virtue you hold dear to your heart as sacred and honored. And you know.”

I was definitely turning red at the idea. “Oh.”

Ultima patted my head. “I just want you to think a bit more before doing? Though I guess that whole thing with that Other would leave an odd impression wouldn’t it?”

“True.” I said with a thought on that.

“I’ve met that Other before, they’re dangerous but… well crippled and bound. I thought with the princess you’d be safe enough.”

“I was.” I smiled at the thought of the dragoness.

“Maybe, but I’m not the best at assessing danger… and you are human. It took you almost getting crushed to knock that into my stubborn skull.”

“That’s not going to stop me.” I mumbled as I leaned into her touch.

“I’m not going to. But I’ll teach you how to survive, because that’s my duty and my honor.” Her eyes gleamed with pride.

I nodded as globs of magic pulled at my hair.

Thank you.

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I fidgeted as I drew in my Glyph journals, adding my entry on my two newest glyphs. The Glyph of the Chain, and the Darkness Glyph. Jibil and Nin respectively.

Jibil was a grade of colored grays, with a design that had a touch of both earth and void. It had the same southern fence-pattern as the earth glyph, but with the dividing two lines of the void. The upper line of the fence was straightened into a west-east line cutting through the center. The central dash line of the fence is straight, a north-south dividing line.

I had learned a lot from that Glyph, while its design was a mix of earth and void. The energies it invoked were more complex, a mix of the Gray and the other sources. It was a pattern of binding, prison, limitations, but it was also their opposite. To break binding and prisons, to break through limitations.

The glyphs were more conceptual, and this was proof of that. Earth and Void were used to touch the concept of binding itself… but all the sources had their binds.

I could use the Chain to bind fire with fire, or with its hostile opposite in water. Faeries and their vulnerability to wrought iron, the vampires and their… mild weakness to sunlight, or werewolves and silver. Something to do with the spirits of such things, housed within vessels of iron, light and silver.

More neutral binding was circles of salt or chalk, in terms of rules… one invoked the general, the other invoked the specific. Invoking the specific trumped the general in terms of controlling that specific.

Same rule applies to battles between shamans. You invoke control over Beasts, and an opposing shaman can usurp your control over the greatest of those beasts.

Deals were a form of binding, just voluntary for the most part. And of course I can kick the shit out of someone and tie them up. That counts too.

Nin was a direct connection to the Black, to the deep darkness in all things. The unknown, hidden truths and mystery, the occult and the subconscious. The glyph was modeled after the void. The central circle shaded in and the dividing lines shortened to end at the border of the glyph.

Nin-Kaba, darkness and light, yin and yang. It had an interesting effect when combined with other glyphs. Darkness worked in opposition to Light, flipping the effects of the Sources.

The Red deals most directly with animated forces, drawing from the Deep… I could draw out the heat of other things, drawing them into myself. Reversing the entropy of things. The other three sources are strengthened by the pattern of things, touched by darkness… made it easier to rip those patterns apart.

I was finding plenty of interesting runes too, there were seemingly dozens if not hundreds of simple components to shape the sources. A runic component could represent many things. Like runes that meant switch, direction, block or beast.

Glyphs were classifiers, runes were modifiers. The new glyph in turn could act as a classifier in a recursive loop. The door opened and I closed my book, which was sealed with a cyfrinic lock.

“Took you all long enough.” I stated aloud with a smirk at the local assembly of people.

Dinah came in with her cousin, both towering over everyone else in the room. The dragoness offered a sharp grin, while her cousin laughed. It was a booming heavy sound. Althea was here too, her curls bouncing with her footsteps. And… well then.

“You again?” I raised an eyebrow at the presence of Ajani among our recruits. You would think more clan members would have volunteered.

“Yes, me.” Was his gruff reply, ears twitching violently. “I’m a Warder, a protection-circle witch.”

“So you deal with wards, setting up totems and barriers, reinforcing boundaries. Maintaining metaphysical walls to protect people. Interesting.” I rubbed my chin and he looked surprised. “What? I’m a human in a world of magic, of course I’m going to look into every Profession which still exists.”

There were many, the overarching craft circles had simply been a way to categorize the professions. Like how engineering has hundreds of subcategories. The circles were like the six branches of engineering. The Circles with a capital C were like if you tried to blend every kind of chemical engineer into one.

And failing at it, killing off entire fields of magic as they were kicked off the curriculum. I put away my book into one of my belt pouches, which all had expansion spells weaved into them. They weren’t huge spaces, enough to hold a weapon, potions, or a large set of glyph cards

Which was now the official name for glyphs and glyph arrays written on paper.

I gestured to the pre-set table, the fellow members of… our hunting party finding their place with ease.

“Hakim is busy at the forge working on equipment for us,” Althea revealed. “We need better weapons and defenses against the threaded ones, is what he said more or less.”

“Good, fighting them back home was a mess. But it’s given us some clues, if they can traverse worlds then taking them down will be difficult.” But if we could travel through the void, there was a chance. “A friend of mine says they’re likely using conduits in the spirit world to step from one world to the next. It’s easier when the world is cracking apart.”

“It’s what?” Ajani sounded distinctly horrified. I didn’t disagree.

“My world’s Spirit is dying, so other worlds are starting to bleed into it,” I explained with a nervous click of my tongue. “So there’s a good chance the threaded ones might have set up shop somewhere in the spirit world. Either in yours or in mine. If it’s the latter… that’s trouble.”

“How so?” Farrow rumbled.

“The Spirit of Earth, of the realm of humans is a place plagued by famine. The Outer Sphere is stable enough but the High Spirit is lethal both due to the range of traps and unstable areas of reality and… the Maelstroms. Gigantic storms of corrupt Spirit that shred through all layers of existence.”

All four witches stare at me with looks of faint terror.

“And humans just don’t… notice?” Dinah asked carefully, like she didn’t want to insult me.

“We don’t have magic, how would we even be able to tell? And we have other matters to worry about, the material world isn’t doing so well either. We wrecked our world pretty heavily.”

“We’re getting off topic,” Ajani interjected. “We can talk about your home being a trash pile later.”

“True.” I didn’t disagree, lifting my shoulders. “So that’s from my end, what have you found from your end?” I squared my shoulders, folding one leg over the other.

Farrow rumbled a reply. “Been patrolling, found lots of signs of where they’ve butchered prey to feed their colony. At least six locations across the Boiling Sea.”

Dinah flicked her nose up. “I’ve managed to correlate numerous deaths to another three unique locations where they’re lingering. Anagen has been helpful, patrolling with their fleet.”

I turned to Ajani.

The goblin shook his head. “Nothing new. Like I said I’m here for my skills as a Warder, and other skills. These things need wards if you want to contain them.”

Althea spoke easily, with a low growl to her voice. “The spirits have been helpful, they can feel where the worlds are bleeding, and don’t like the threaded ones messing with them. I can find these weak spots, just need to find the right spirit.”

I clasped my hands together. “Good. We need to set things up well, if we want to handle these monsters.”

The conversation shifted rapidly as we exchanged what we knew. Preparedness to be made, missions and quests to be handled.

It went better than I expected.

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“We probably need to set up transportation if we want to travel up and down the taifa.” I mused aloud as I patted down the saddle Ultima had gotten for me to ride Reyna. Althea was clinging to me while our newest buddy Ajani was being carried by Farrow. “Unless Ajani likes being carried by a big buff dragon.”

Ajani hissed at me and I laughed.

Two hours of planning, with later input from Hakim had led to us setting out to one of the locations Farrow had spotted. It was empty now, but there was much more to uncover regardless.

We weren’t moving slowly at all, wapuk could fly as fast as they ran. With a ground speed of one hundred fifty miles per hour…

So it was very good that our three flyers could control air either through direct manipulation of air, or through manipulating heat to form pockets of rising and falling air. I didn’t like the idea of bugs hitting me in the face.

“We’re approaching the Riplet Islands!” Farrow bellowed with a snort as he glided on the wind. “I have done many battles upon these rocks, as many flying and semiaquatic predators rest here before preparing for attacks!”

Animal attacks were way more common here, otherkind beings were orders of magnitude tougher and more ferocious. The line between herbivore and carnivore was also razor thin when plants bled blood while some animals bled sap and shed leaves. I had seen a herd of animals that I’m pretty sure were mega-horned buffalo with fur made of vegetation across broad backs.

They were fifteen meters at the shoulder and over thirty meters in length… those monsters could weigh seven hundred tons. With large individuals reaching fifteen hundred tons. A town was little trouble then when you outmassed every person in it. All the five thousand people in Cruorpool added up to four hundred tons. A herd of a few hundred would outweigh every person in San Diego county.

A benefit of island life was a reduction in the size of the fauna.

I brushed the feathers of Reyna as she shaped the wind with wings and magic. She looked to be searching the horizon, and I wondered what she was searching for. We were moving at a solid cruising speed of one hundred miles per hour.

Fast enough to cross the Boiling Sea in about forty two minutes—

Reyna bounded up excitedly, letting out a deep booming call. “Woah girl what’s going on?!”

“I think she heard something?” Althea said with a growing frown.

I felt the sensation of pressure, a low rumbling call booming from Reyna’s throat. Althea looked twitchy, lips curling into an uncomfortable grimace.

Both the jaws of Dinah and Farror shivered in a deep growl. “We hear it too.” Dinah added.

Infrasound.

It was a deep thrum, which seemed to attract Reyna like a moth to a flame. We arrived at our destination, and Reyna began to dip towards a hillside. Which… looked less like a hillside and more like the corpse of an enormous being. Hundreds of meters in length, plates of stone-like armor scattered among dense soil and flora.

Was that a skull?

I swallowed my nerves as we headed towards a massive field of twisted trees. With some trepidation I pulled in energy from my bracelets, which itself pulled in ambient khi. Magical energy raced up my arms, twisted around my neck and cheeks and settled in my eyes.

My eyesight… sharpened by an order of magnitude, I could see the scratch marks. Trees had been bent or cut down sharply. Formed into nests and odd spikes along the rim of a great skull the length of a football field and just as wide.

Reyna sent out another boom-call, and there was a reply. We passed through an unseen air, and light twisted around the air, refractions upon refractions dancing in my vision.

We landed promptly, half-blinded by the shift in the path of light. We landed on damp fleshy stone, water trickling down from the trees in a melody.

I rubbed my eyes, and when I opened them, I heard a chorus of infrasonic harmony.

We were surrounded by scores of griffins of various breeds, sizes, ages and colors. Some half the size of Reyna, others twice her length and height. Another seemed to emerge like a mirage and I held back a squeak.

In front of us emerged an enormous griffin, with a build more befitting a serpent or a feathered dragon.

“Spirits…” Dinah said aloud, her eyes widening in both fear and awe.

A massive curved head ending in a sharp beak rose over twenty meters into the air, a white elongated body extending for seventy meters.

Dear god…

The gigantic griffin offered an almost smug tilt of its head, eyes the color of vermillion flickering with light. Flanked by a dozen more griffins.

Without thinking, I lifted a hand in greeting.