Maturation 6

October 1st, 2032.

“So you’re interested in how humans do farming?” I asked with surprise to hear this from a noble clan of all things.

Getting the equivalent of a text message from a clan head was certainly strange and weird. But I had gotten used to the shenanigans of this world more or less.

Vela was a busty strawberry blonde witch, an Elementalist like most of her clan. They were witches focused on the craft of utilizing the Elements through various means. Not just the basic four which map to the Sources of Reality, but all the willful manifestations of the material world.

Spirits of substance and nature, rain, sun, fire, harvest, metal, wood. Vela’s clan was focused on well… exactly that, they cultivated growth and life with their craft.

Plants and harvest was their domain, focusing on different elements as needed. Some witches would shape the elements of soil and rain, or sun and air to optimize their production of food.

“Of course I am, it’s been the duty of our clan to help feed our people for centuries.” The lady witch was serious. “We instituted the Bed and Food laws, with the blessing of the Frazoiyo clan. So that none of us would ever go hungry or cold.”

“Noam the Elder was one of your ancestors then?” He was the reason the knightly order existed at all, because of how many lives he had saved over his long life.

“He was, our taifa was far smaller in those days. Perhaps five thousand against tens of thousands of threaded ones. We will continue to honor him in death as well as in life.” There was a respectful awe in her voice, dark eyes watching me with a bemused expression. “So as an outsider, with new ideas and ways of thinking. I wish to know how your people do things.”

Her arms gestured across the beautiful fields and farmland, likely spanning dozens of square kilometers, feeding thousands of souls.

“I can try and think of what I know… but I can tell you that I don’t recommend like 90% of what humans do for farming. Unless monocultures, indiscriminate pesticides, and soil erosion is your jam.” I answered her honestly, and the witch looked immediately concerned. “We’ve only started practicing polycultures and eating the ‘weeds’ that grow among our crops recently, outside of indigenous communities.”

“Oh.” Vela was staring at me like I had grown a second head. “That seems remarkably reckless and uncaring of your environment.”

“Yep. The main thing I believe you can implement is some levels of mechanization, you guys already do selective breeding don’t you? Reconfiguring biology and flesh.”

“We learned much from the goblins, as they learned how to alter the code of life to survive the Hollows.” Vela explained with stars in her eyes, clearly passionate about her profession. “Mechanization… you speak of machines and tools to multiply the efforts of our labor?”

“We’ve got machines able to harvest fields, farming tools implemented into vehicles. For witches, I would think you’d build your spells around a thoughtform. Enchanted devices that can perform certain spells on demand, with a witch watching over those tools to administer it. Instead of witches doing all the work themselves or with the help of otherkind alone.”

There was a moment of silence from the witch, and I wanted to wiggle out of her sight.

“We witches are very used to using our spells as our tools, aren’t we?” She was shaking her head. “Most item crafting is highly artisan, they’re tools built to augment our abilities, rather than to replace them as a whole. Even airships are like that, tools to liberate us from gravity.”

“Humans don’t have that option so easily,” I admitted. “We have a soul, but no means to bear it outwards. We’re very good toolmakers, it’s in our blood. In our very Nature as a species.” Augmentation versus replacement was a difference more in philosophy I think.

“Which is why I wish to learn more.” Vela said with a genuine curiosity, eyes wide and sparkling. “We’ve always taken wisdom from all places, that’s in our blood I would hope.”

“Wise of you,” I pointed out as I clasped my hands together, watching witches work their craft. “In that case… vertical farming and greenhouses is an option, I know you have the latter in gardens don’t you?”

“We do, it’s used to regulate climatic conditions for… oh I see.” She slammed a first into her palm. “So you grow crops and food within a controlled environment, multiplying your yield.”

“Got it in one. Temperature, levels of light and shade, irrigation, fertilizer and humidity can all be controlled. The limitations there are things like management, closed environments can be difficult to account for.” I pointed out the drawbacks as well as the benefits.

I had to thank my habit of scrolling through thousands of pages worth of internet factoids.

“The Hollows might have experienced workers we can ask for,” Vela sounded excited, her magic pulsing in tune with her heart. “Though doming our fields will be a difficult feat… but not impossible. It could increase our yields by a vast number, freeing up labor for more research and crafts.”

“Be careful with that, our own green evolution costs a lot of people their livelihoods. Putting nine percent of your population out of a job would end badly I think.” I warned her, knowing the costs humanity had paid with technology.

Or at least with the implementation of technology, coming part and parcel with exploitation, political violence, and corruption.

“I understand, which is why I will impart my own warning to you.” Vela’s expression was dire, full of naked concern. “Your victory has spread far and wide, and with all the kingdoms offering tribute and overtures… there will be spies and watchers among them. Keep your eyes open.”

I swallowed. “Thank you for the warning.” I said with a shaky smile.

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“Children of the Titans, of Calafia Herself! Let us celebrate her grace, her mercy and kindness in guiding us towards the end of an ancient war!”

I’m near one of their temples, aren’t I?

I drew back from the crowd of believers, at least a hundred people were gathered around the cleric, who made up a good bulk of the priests in the region. There were around ten thousand or so clerics across Calafia, making up under three percent of the Chantry’s organization.

The military wing of the Chantry made up seven point five percent of the Chantry with the three hundred sixty thousand members being non-military acolytes.

Ironically that was the wing that was the most dangerous to my craft, as they basically acted as a multinational corporate guild. They essentially oversaw the practice of their craft across entire regions, regulating trade for their own benefit.

In many regions it was forbidden by law to run any business of the craft if they were not taught to the standards of the Chantry. They essentially had a multinational monopoly, with only a few regions and kingdoms offering alternatives.

So it was a very effective way of crippling any organization that wasn’t of the Chantry. They also enforced patent laws in many regions, granting them a great deal of control over arcane craft development.

The cleric in question was wearing the standard white robes of the Chantry, with a decidedly more priestly vibe. A white hooded robe with red gloves and a red mask with striations depicting the face of an Other, a Titan.

Many onlookers were giving the preacher attention, and I felt like the odd one out.

I had never been religious, my parents had come from religious households but I had never taken to any particular faith. It just wasn’t in me to be frank. So to watch people get excited about the existence of this cleric was a foreign and strange thing.

For Ultima, her own faith was softer in nature to the more rigid worship of the Titans. She held the world itself as all part of a single whole, a paracausal unity of Light and Dark. Her beliefs were more nebulous rather than codified doctrine, simply about pursuing what drives you as a person, why gives you life and purpose. Nourishing the soul of the world, nourishing the soul within your own body.

It also meant having a certain respect for favors and blessings, for the beings around us. Human, witch, otherkind, Other. The Cyfrinic word was akin to grace… but more gratitude, like thanking a friend.

The Chantry was not that, their form of grace to their gods was about sacrifice of everything you are as the only meaningful demonstration of faith and gratitude to their gods.

I didn’t agree, but that was because I had seen what endless self-sacrifice did to a person.

I decided to step away from the crowd, not wanting any interaction with a direct member of the Chantry. While all priests were overseen by the Chantry, most were trained within lesser circles. Clerics were basically bishops and their many subordinate clergy.

Priests had way more flexibility and far better cultural context, and thus decidedly less likely to execute me as a heathen.

A hand clenched over my shoulder, and I was pulled out of my thoughts. I flinched at the mask I was suddenly staring up into, brown almost black eyes barely visible from within.

It was the cleric, who had finished up his rousing speech and was now setting his sight on myself. They held a warmth to them but it was not a kind one, it was the gaze of someone who would watch a pyre of people burn.

“I see you have decided not to hear the word of the Lord-Titans, of our godly parents. Perhaps you would prefer a more private locale, little one?”

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

I knew the grip on my shoulder was as hard as iron, there was no getting out of this.

Fuck.

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“I…” My words failed me, a state which grew worse when I saw how he wasn’t alone. He was being accompanied by other clerics, which meant he was likely of a higher rank.

The preacher’s smile curved in all the wrong ways, their grip only tightened. “My child, I ask of you, how have the Titans shaped the path of your life? How have the Lords Dark graced you with their eternal glory?”

My mouth went dry. What the hell was I supposed to say? I wasn’t one of their flock or whatever condescending word they had for their people. I didn’t know the rules and tenants of their religion.

The stares of his assistants burned into my body, expecting an answer I didn’t know how to give. They seemed almost nervous about my response and yet they stood there and did nothing.

“I don’t… really see what you mean.” I didn’t like the expectations, I wanted his hand off of my body. The priest sighed, like I was a disappointment, an unruly child.

His gaze was sharp, cutting. “What are they teaching the youth these days? Your very life is their Gift, every good thing is theirs, every triumph, every bit of goodness and miracle is theirs. Can you be so blind not to see the truth of the world?”

I kept my face calm, but the twist of disgust in my gut was growing with his every word.

“Get your hand off of me.” My voice turned sharp, hands tightening into fists, void trailing off of them in ripples.

“Pardon?” He said dangerously, his fellows gazes turning condescending, as if disgusted.

I felt no different about them.

“Let go of me.” I hissed back, flexing my muscles and ripping my way out of his painfully tight grip.

The cleric’s eyes hardened. “Well perhaps there is a reason the Titans have not shown you their grace. If you truly think so little of them. A deplorable little girl raised with no respect for our gods or morals, unforgivable.”

I sneered openly now. “I don’t care.”

His rage was visible now, and he loomed over my person. Eyes narrowed in frustration, glaring at her, a sneer just as open.

“I am certain now, you are unfit to have the ear of the princess. Unfit to be her knight, unfit to hold any sway over our kingdom. I will not have you corrupt them!” An open fanaticism shined in his eyes as he pulled a dagger from his robe, which pulsed with an eerie absence of color.

I tried to cut through space and time to avoid the strike, but I didn’t see what came out of the knife.

An aperture opened like a jaw, aching to reshape, to make me forget, an ontological weapon, horror surging in the split second I had to react.

It was a scalpel, sliding through the edges of my psyche, a spear heading towards the core of my being.

Denial.

I collapsed to the ground, as shackles and whips and ropes and chains sought to pierce my soul, to sink memories into rivers of lethian waters. It was a terrible weapon, a tool with a resonance of thousands upon thousands of crests of blood and horror.

In my eyes it was like a deadly lie coiling around my soul, and I despised its mere existence.

The void in my soul sang, and the coils screamed, pain tearing through my body as I fought the deadly infection. The emptiness chewed at the intruder, dug deeper than I could as a human. It asked the questions the coils could not bear to answer, it learned the things it never wanted to learn. Through the very deepest parts of what the weapon was.

Negation.

There was a tearing in the world as I fell into darkness, a metallic voice tinged with anger and outrage the last thing I heard.

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I woke up to an unfamiliar ceiling, and the faint whiff of flowers and grass. My body was aching, and my head was killing me…

What the fuck happened? Why am I in a… clinic, hospital?

Mom was here.

“Mama?” I called out to her, shifting my head into a more comfortable position. She was sleeping in a chair.

“Don’t get up so quickly dear,” Healer Addams warned quietly, with the faint phantom scent of rot, of rust and unlife seeping through. “Your mental defenses are astounding, but your inexperience makes it draining.”

“Mental defenses?” I spoke aloud, groaning at a wave of my head pulsating.

“The soul has a way of defending itself, of building walls and ditches. It tore apart the forced binding they attempted to set.” There was a touch of shadowy rage in his voice. “To have a priest attempt to bind a youth to a Circle at this age… and that it harmed her to begin with… it’s meant to protect, not harm.”

I coughed. “It was… is a weapon, there was no resonance of protection. It was a weapon of possibility… of memory. Shaped memories, restricted possibilities, imposing a singular outcome. You can’t fight back if you don’t remember how, you can’t grow beyond a set point if you don’t remember how.”

How many millions had the sanctity of their soul violated and warped?

Addams went still, eyes narrowed to reptilian slits. It was to the point I couldn’t tell if he was even breathing.

“You… speak Truth, I can hear it.” There was a growing keen of horror in the healer’s voice. “But that means…”

“Who saved me? I remember a voice?” I changed tracks before I would see my doctor explode into rage.

“Salutations.” A certain rigid stepped into view, standing on four of his limbs.

“Adahn?” I lifted my back off the bed, pushing my legs back so I could wrap my arms around them. “Were you who I heard before I passed out?”

“Correct. I observed the priests harming you and intervened.” His optics shuttered, his body whirring in a show of emotion.

“How?” I asked warily.

“I intervened.” Was his ominous response, and I was very curious and worried.

“He definitely did kid, guy’s got a heart of gold if you ask me.” Ultima said with a completely serious expression.

Adahn glanced down at his chest. “We do not possess a heart, though we do possess vital organs.”

Now I was wondering whether they possessed a brain, or if they had a more distributed form of intelligence.

“Celia.” I jumped at mama suddenly being in my face, having crossed the room in literal moments. “Are you really alright?”

“I am, just a bit of a headache and a sudden urge to punch a priest.” I said with a cocky grin, but winced at another wave of pain. “I really hate that learning the craft has had more politics than I was bargaining for.”

“You and me both.” Ultima agreed.

“Those people who hurt you… can any of you tell me where they are?” Mama asked with a seemingly polite tone, but there was malice and intent in those words.

Like she wanted to bathe in their blood.

“It’ll be more trouble than it’s worth, let the Law decide this one. Caudalann isn’t perfect but this will have people wanting to enact their own justice. Several priests either directly assaulted or were complicit in their assault of a youth who’s considered a hero out of a spirit-tale. There’s a reason, for all the loyalty of this kingdom to the Pale King, that nearly every priest is one of ours and not of theirs.”

“Most?” I asked.

“Xavier Montes has been the Head Cleric of Caudalann for thirty years, and has been a pain in our ass for a long time. He was always insulted by the fact my grandfather was the priest among the council of the Frazoiyo. Despite the fact he was chosen due to getting along with… fuck.” Ultima looked gray with how pale she had become.

“Dinah’s grandmother I presume?” My mother responded softly, like a viper waiting to strike. “A difficult target then.”

I shivered. What the hell? She’s never talked like this before.

“Please don’t discuss attempted murder, it’s bad for the patients.” Addams said with an easy grin, his impish tail flicking violently.

“What’s going to happen?” I asked.

Ultima hissed. “So far that entire lot has gotten arrested and are cooling their heads in a cell. There’s calls to expel the entire cleric chapter out of the taifa, and a few of theirs took the opportunity to ask for asylum with Xavier out of the way. Removing them isn’t much of a problem, we’ve got hundreds of local priests…”

“It could trigger a war,” I said with a sick realization. “I know what the Chantry does to people they consider lawless, wild, wrong. There was an isolated community slaughtered without blinking an eye from Thorsten and he’s powerful.”

“People are angry Celia,” Ultima admitted. “They might be suspicious of witches like us, but you help people a lot more than you think. It took a long time for the Chantry to really spread their roots here. What happened to my sister… it soured some things. They attacked a teenager, and it makes people wonder what they’ve done out of sight if they’re that brazen.”

“Fuck.”

Ultima nodded. “Yup.”

Mama had a dark look in her eyes. “I don’t like this at all.”

“Sorry.” I apologized, fear gripping me.

She shook her head. “Not your fault, it’s more mine.”

“And mine.” Ultima said with guilt. “No one hurts my kids and gets away with it.”

I blushed. “Umm.”

Ultima didn’t meet my eyes, coughing. “Forget I said that.”

“Noo.” Both my mom and I sang with identical grins.

“Shut up. Regardless, we gotta keep you out of sight for a bit while we sort this out. Is that okay?”

“Can it involve a trip to somewhere magical?” I gambled.

“Yes.” Mama accepted while Ultima laughed at me.

“Huh… unexpected. Where can we go?”

“Have you ever seen Indiana Jones?”

…

“Oh hell yeah.”

“Observation: Affirmative.” Oh right Adahn is here too, and Addams was standing back with a devilish smirk.

“Oh you can come too, Adahn.” I invited the magical robot because not doing so would be wrong.

So the operation to take a trip to ancient ruins to ride out a political shitstorm was a go!