Chapter 27 — Humanity
“That could’ve gone better,” Rína said as Yvette drove the wagon out of Firstfall.
“Yes, though I suppose it was only a matter of time before we had such an encounter,” Yvette said, “That we were able to disengage without trouble, I would consider a bit of good fortune.”
“Yeah, it’s just too bad we had to leave early, with a town that big…” Rína frowned, her voice turning grave, “People are going to die aren’t they?”
Yvette turned to give Rína a pitying gaze, “People are always going to die.”
“I meant in Firstfall,” Rína scowled, “There’s going to be people who die in the next few months that wouldn’t have if we had gotten the chance to treat them.”
Yvette sighed, “You are correct, but the same can be said about those in all the villages that our path barely did not encounter.”
“Yeah but…” Rína trailed off.
“But?”
“But, I don’t know, I guess I hadn’t really thought about that.” Rína managed, guilt leaking into her voice.
“And now you have. So is there anything you would like to change about how we are traveling?” Professor Yvette asked.
Rína huffed, all too familiar with Yvette’s rhetorical breadcrumbs. So instead of blurting out the first thing that came to her mind, Rína gave the issue serious thought, and even when she eventually replied, she was still thinking out loud more than anything.
“We can’t be everywhere,” Rína began, “but we could, I don’t know, serpentine our path a bit? Visit more places? But…” Rína chewed her lip, “That would make run-ins like the one we just had a lot more likely, wouldn’t it?”
“It would.” Yvette nodded.
“Well then, maybe we could just go to the smaller villages—the ones that probably won’t have someone that can fact-check our cover stories?”
“We certainly could, but say we were to pass through a cluster of villages. Currently we would simply pass straight through, only stopping briefly at whatever village happened to be directly in our path, but were we to ensure that we stopped at each and every one…” Yvette trailed off leadingly.
“Then we’d have a lot more patients…” Rína paused to consider, “that were bunched a lot closer together…” realization crossed Rína’s face, “We’d get a reputation, wouldn’t we?”
“I would suspect so,” Yvette confirmed, “And recall what happens when word of a remarkably skilled healer reaches the wrong ears.”
Rína did indeed remember Yvette warning of powerful mages being sent out to hunt and kill ‘scourge’, but it still felt abstract to her, like it was some kind of boogeyman story.
Rína frowned, “Would it really get that bad?”
“Yes. It would.” Yvette asserted, her voice allowing no disagreement.
“Ok, then…” Rína grimaced, crestfallen, “I guess we just do the same old, same old. It's just… I don’t know, it feels like we’re just leaving people to die, you know?”
Yvette frowned as her gaze softened, “I do indeed know what you mean. But there is a lesson that must be learned by everyone walking the path of a healer, Weaver or otherwise. It is that we are not gods and that there will always be those that we cannot save.”
“So, what, you’re just saying that I shouldn’t worry about it?”
“I am saying that you should try to focus on those that you can save, and to not drive yourself to madness over those that you cannot.”
Rína grumbled, “Sounds a lot easier said than done… Like, for you personally, how do you just accept that people will always be dying around you?”
“Whoever said that I accept that?” Yvette said. Rína couldn’t be sure, but she thought she heard anger leaking into Yvette’s voice.
“What?”
“The mortality of humankind, barring undeath, is the current state of affairs, but that needn’t always be the case.”
Rína furrowed her brow, “What are you talking about? I thought you said biomancy couldn’t make other people immortal.”
“Ageless,” Yvette corrected, “And yes, I did, but that is only because no Weaver has discovered a way to surmount the associated challenges—I intend to change that. Recall that beneath my cottage I had chambers dedicated to research. Most of that research was part of a very, very long term project of mine to engineer and distribute a remediation for the shortcomings of the human body.”
“I—Wh—” Rína stammered, “Are you serious?”
“Of course.”
“I thought you said we weren’t gods…” Rína muttered to herself, “So how would you even go about that?”
Yvette sighed, “I don’t know, not for sure. The project is still very much in its early research phase, and is of course on pause until we find somewhere suitable to settle back down so that I can regrow the cottage. But what I do know is that the current state of affairs is… unacceptable.”
“Have a lot of Weavers tried that kind of thing before?”
Yvette nodded, “According to some of the oldest among us, it was the sole purpose for the creation of biomancy in the first place. But as far as modern Weavers are concerned: no, not many have. Most simply see the task as impossible and pursue other endeavors.”
Rína furrowed her brow, “So the early days were just a bunch of mages messy around, trying to make themselves immortal without having to become a lich? And they just did that until they were basically Weavers?”
Yvette bobbled her head, “From what I heard, the inception of the discipline was state sponsored and incredibly expensive—to say nothing of the mortality rate—but I am far from the best person to ask about historical matters.”
“Says the three hundred year old witch.”
“Says the witch that is only three centuries old.” Yvette corrected, “However, on the topic of mages becoming Weavers, I believe you have some thread creation of your own to get to.”
“Hm? Oh yeah,” Rína said, scanning their surroundings.
The main reason she hadn’t practiced making new threads while in Firstfall was because there were just so many people around. Not that thread building, or anything to do with the soul would have been visible, it was just that whenever she took a bite out of the enchantment, a deluge of aura would spill out. And if a non-mage happened to be anywhere nearby when she did that, they’d be lucky just to stay conscious.
Yvette mentioned that she had originally planned on giving Rína the armlet and associated lessons back in Nameless, with them presumably heading off into the woods whenever Rína would do some thread building. But after the solstice and the increased scrutiny placed on them, Yvette had decided to postpone things until they were well away from prying eyes—just as they were now.
Rína looked around at the scenery just to double check that that was the case. They had left the city walls behind, and yet the wheels of the wagon still clacked on the cobblestones of a genuine, paved road. That in itself was a bit of a novelty as most settlements Rína had seen were only connected with what amounted to an oversized game trail worn into the ground, assuming they were connected at all.
Running parallel to the road was the Easruth river that seemed to dominate the valley more and more as an ever increasing number of small streams flowed into it. Beyond its banks, irrigated farms interspersed with patches of dense, untouched forest extended all the way to the small mountains that bounded the river valley.
Most of the fields were empty of both crops and workers as it was still technically winter, at least for another week or so. And as it didn’t look as if anyone else was on the road at the moment, it seemed like Rína could finally give thread making another shot.
Rína took a deep breath, looking to Yvette, “Any quick tips?”
“Hm, for now I would say that you should just try to acclimate yourself to the process before trying to improve on any aspect of it.” Yvette said, “Beyond that, you might try to make smaller but more frequent cuts out of the enchantment. It will be more mentally taxing, but with less aether released at a time, the process should be easier on the whole.”
Rína nodded as she turned her attention to her soul sight, “Alright, let’s try this again.”
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Rína gazed into the murky depths of the forest before her. She already knew of the horrors that awaited her inside, but merely waiting beyond the treeline wasn’t an option. Steeling her nerve, Rína entered, putting herself fully at the mercy of that which lied within.
At first the forest seemed almost reluctant to divulge its true nature, but soon it became all too clear. The deeper Rína delved, the more the trees themselves became twisted, misshapen things. And it was not too long before Rína came upon it: the site of pure desecration. It was a clearing amongst the knotted trees, and on the ground at its center were the remnants of an act so profane as to scar the land itself. It was a harrowing sight, but Rína knew that there was a second one awaiting her even deeper inside this cursed forest.
Not wanting to linger, Rína moved further in and—
“Breakfast is ready,” Yvette called from inside the wagon.
Rína’s focus was immediately pulled away from her soul sight and her budding forest of soul threads. But instead of immediately heading in to eat, Rína remained on the driver’s bench with the reins in hand, keeping up the appearance that she was the driver as the oxen puppets pulled the wagon off to the side of the road.
This little song and dance had dominated their last week of travel. Ever since leaving Firstfall, the number of people on the road had taken a notable increase, and though having to share the road was hardly new, the increased number of travelers meant that Rína and Yvette had to be more careful more often.
As the oxen came to a stop, Rína locked the wagon’s brake lever into place and headed inside. Sweet and spicy sausage, a garden omelet, coconut pancakes and a glass of tamarind juice greeted her as she entered the small space. Rína quickly said her thanks before digging in—not thanks to any deity of course, but to Yvette for cooking the meal, though with how heavenly the food was there wasn’t much practical difference.
“So how did your latest attempt go?” Yvette asked between bites.
“Hm?” Rína looked up, gulping down another bite of perfection, “Oh, well it was kind of annoying having to start and stop every time a cart went by, but I still managed to make a couple more.”
“May I see?”
“Go for it,” Rína nodded as she took another transcendent bite.
Rína soon felt Yvette’s aura wash over her, revealing to her aunt the small grove of soul threads Rína had created in the last week. Having seen no reason not to, Rína had crystallized the subsequent threads in a kind of spiral pattern with her very first one at the center, and now that spiral was forty-three threads strong. True, none of them were actually functional—as they didn’t have spell structures at their tips—but Rína was still proud of the progress she’d made.
Her early threads near the center of the spiral were still certainly rough, but a gradual smoothing out of the lumps could clearly be seen as well as a general thinning and lengthening. Though that is not to say that her progress was perfectly linear.
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Amidst the copse of threads, a pockmark demarcated where, just a few days ago, she had nicked her soul for the second time. And just like the first time, she only had a hazy memory of a single instant of blinding pain before everything went dark. It certainly put a damper on the progress she had been making, and the worst part was that it was all because she had let herself get distracted by some errant thought right as she made the cut.
It had made her a bit uneasy as she made the next couple of threads, a part of her thinking that she was going to nick her soul for a third time, but by giving the task her full attention, and the respect it deserved, she was able to continue on.
“How comfortable do you feel making threads?” Yvette said as her aura receded.
Rína raised an eyebrow at the question, “Decently, I guess? The starter cut is still kind of nerve wracking, but I think I’ve got the rhythm down for actually building the threads up. Why, what’s up?”
Instead of answering, Yvette held an assessing gaze, clearly mulling over something that—
“Ok what’s that look?” Rína asked, a bit of unease in her voice, “Is that a good look, or a bad one?”
Yvette gave a wry smile, “It is a look that means that I have a bone to pick for you.”
Rína furrowed her brow, “Don’t you mean…?”
Yvette simply rose from her meal and approached one of the numerous drawers that dotted the interior of the wagon. Opening it to the sound of small things clacking together, she withdrew an ordinary looking bone.
“What do you make of this?” Yvette said as she returned to her breakfast, placing the bone on the small table between them.
Rína raised an eyebrow, but gave the bit of bone her full attention. Thanks to the anatomy lessons she’d received, she knew it definitely wasn’t human, though it did kind of remind her of a fibula. It was relatively straight and maybe thirty centimeters long, but Rína didn’t see anything remarkable about it in the slightest. She was about to say as much when she remembered the last time Yvette had given her a mundane looking object.
Gingerly, Rína blanketed the bone with her aura. At first she didn’t see anything, but as she brought her aura right down to the physical, something came into focus. Sure enough, the bone had an enchantment tied to it, and not just one, but several.
They were small, perhaps only a centimeter across, and barely even extended into the fourth dimension. That said, there had to be at least a hundred of the little things, all of them rooted in a roughly honeycomb pattern along the surface.
“You enchanted it?” Rína said, slightly confused, “You know the armlet’s enchantment might be a little worse for wear, but I don’t think I’ve even chewed through a tenth of it.”
“Well it is certainly good to hear that you are making the armlet last,” Yvette said, “But no, I did not enchant this, nor did anyone else. In fact those are not even enchantments rooted to the bone, but arcanelles.”
Recognition lit up in Rína’s eyes, “Arcanelles: you said that’s what makes magical creatures magical, right? Like, organic enchantments?” Rína asked, looking at the bone, “Where did you even get this? And what do all these even do?”
“I acquired it from the local butcher, from the town we passed a few days ago,” Yvette said, “And it is just an ordinary deer femur. As for what the arcanelles do, these are kinetic reinforcements. When the bone experiences strain, they expend their aether to apply a certain amount of counteracting force, in essence increasing the strength of the material.”
Rína blinked her eyes hard, “Sorry, are you saying that the deer around here are already magical, and have super strong bones? How is that possible? I mean, with how many waterfalls we’ve passed, I know we’ve been going down in elevation, but last I checked this was still a highland.”
Just to be sure, Rína projected her aura outward, decreasing her internal reserves, thus allowing her soul to draw in ambient aether. She paid close attention to the influx and it certainly was faster than it had been even a week or two ago, but it still wasn’t anywhere what she assumed a lowland would be like.
“The dichotomy between magical and non-magical creatures is a false one,” Yvette began, “Every living thing, with the exception of viruses and most bacteria, has at least some amount of aether crystal rooted to it. All of these crystals are called arcanelles, whether they are so small and weak as to nearly not exist, or are titanically sized and capable of leveling mountains.”
“I’m gonna take a wild guess and say that the femur arcanelles fall closer to the first group,” Rína said.
“Quite right,” Yvette said with a smirk.
“And then regular ole souls would be somewhere in the middle?”
“Correct, though you may hear pedants arguing that souls belong to a category all their own. Regardless, the magical-non-magical dichotomy is instead a continuous spectrum, with a creature’s position on that spectrum largely dependent on the environment in which it evolved. This femur for instance, taken from a deer adapted to this region, only has perhaps twenty or thirty percent more compressive and tensile strength than it would have otherwise.”
“Huh…” Rína murmured, chewing her lip, “But didn’t you say that humans evolved in one of the highlands? So why do deer get tough bones, but humans get nothing?”
“Well this is mostly conjecture, but it seems humankind’s evolutionary strategy involved taking what little aether was available and diverting it to the soul to allow for higher complexity—and thus intelligence—while letting the rest of the arcanelles become essentially vestigial.”
“I guess that makes—Wait, you’re saying all humans still have a bunch of arcanelles, they’re just tiny and useless?”
“More or less,” Yvette shrugged, “The only ones still of note are those rooted to the gonads—they are responsible for growing the gametic arcanelles that are then rooted to the gametes—and perhaps the lumimantic arcanelles rooted to the each eye’s lens—they further focus the light passing through said lens.”
Rína stared at Yvette for a silent moment, “...how have I never noticed them?”
“They are quite small,” Yvette emphasized, “and just as all the cells in your body were once a single zygote, your soul and all your arcanelles were once a single aether crystal. As such they have the same attunement and your aura will pass through them without resistance.”
“Definitely gonna look for them later…” Rína murmured, “But do they ever become noticeable? Like, for people that live in places with really dense aether, do they feel any different?”
“Not appreciably,” Yvette dismissed, “Just like the height of a human body, human arcanelles do not grow infinitely large, even if there is enough ambient aether for them to do so. Furthermore, every arcanelle—and enchantment for that matter—can only output so much aether at a time. So even under ideal conditions, a human might only experience one percent of improvement to the various other bodily functions.”
Rína frowned, “Seems like a shit deal…”
Yvette gave Rína an incredulous look, “Seeing as humans are one of the few species capable of both tool use and genuine spell craft, I would say that we came out ahead.”
“Yeah,” Rína chuckled, “I guess that does sort of make up for it. But what about the inverse? Like, a person—or I guess it would have to be a creature—going someplace with way thinner aether than its built for?”
Yvette shrugged, “The arcanelles would be far less effective, and perhaps even deteriorate if the aether was thin enough.”
“That sounds like it would be really bad for the creature… Like, your bones suddenly losing a lot of their strength? Wouldn’t that be like osteoporosis?”
“It absolutely would.” Yvette agreed, “And skeletal strength is hardly the only critical function arcanelles augment. Most species also have arcanelles that assist with body temperature and blood pressure regulation, and that is to say nothing of the more overtly magical capabilities that a species might rely on. As such, creatures rarely leave the aether environments that they are adapted to—with the obvious exception of migrations or similar.”
“Right…” Rína nodded along, “But then… what about Felix?”
It was brief, but Rína caught Yvette freezing for a moment before taking a steadying breath.
“What about him?” Yvette asked, feigning nonchalance.
“Well, he’s from the lowlands, isn’t he? How’d he survive back at the cottage?”
Yvette took another deliberate breath, “Emerald Wolves evolved in what most would consider a midland, but you are correct, Felix would not normally have fared well. However, that was nothing a bit of engineering couldn’t solve.”
“So…” Rína mulled, “What, you… flesh wove his body to be strong enough to not need arcanelles?”
“I would say that I wove it into a highland-suitable state,” Yvette said, “After all, his body never had anywhere near the performance it originally did.”
Hearing this, Rína tried and failed to imagine Felix being even more, well, Felix. He already was basically untouchable, and a damn terror when he wanted to be. To think of what he’d be like with literal magic on top of everything else, Rína was just at a loss.
Though that did bring into relief one perk of knowing a Flesh Weaver. Beyond just healing, if there was something about your body that was a bit less than ideal you could just ask them to pretty please…
“I’m an idiot.” Rína declared, staring into space.
“I disagree,” Yvette tittered with a smirk.
Rína locked eyes with her aunt, “All this time, I could have just…”
“Hm?”
“Hey, aunty…” Rína began, a hint of desperation in her voice, “Is there any chance you’d be willing to make a few tweaks to my body?”
Yvette raised an eyebrow, “In truth, I considered offering to do so after the solstice…” She continued with a grimace, “But any major changes, like subdermal plating or increased bone or muscle density would be detectable by a number of different mage sights. As such, until you can project a permanent aura around yourself, on both sides of the physical, such augments would only put you in more danger.”
“Well, I was actually…” Rína said before Yvette’s words fully sank in, “Huh…”
Up until then, Rína had come to associate biomancy with healing and living a cushy life in a cottage for a few centuries. The picture of the typical Flesh Weaver she had formed in her head was a kind of passive figure at the mercy of others, someone who could really only avoid conflict, instead of dealing with it head on.
That aspect wasn’t ideal, and Rína certainly imagined that she would chafe against it later in life. But even just the briefest mention that one day Rína might be like her aunt was enough to make her reevaluate.
Now that she was consciously thinking about it, the cognitive dissonance became pretty clear. True, Yvette had said that all Weavers had to keep a low profile, but that wasn’t necessarily because they were all weak, just that they were outnumbered. And certainly, when Yvette cared to show it, she was just about as far from helpless as a person could be.
So why had she thought of other Weavers like that? Hells, the only example of a Weaver she had seen was Yvette—if anything, it’d make more sense for Rína to think that they all were just like her aunt.
Rína fell to silence as she tried to dig deeper into the ‘why’. Maybe… maybe she viewed Yvette that way because she was her aunt. The woman was her mentor and guardian; a titan disguised as a human. Maybe Rína wasn’t giving biomancy the credit it was due. In the end, it wasn’t like Yvette had simply burst into existence fully formed.
Though it was possible that Flesh Weavers were only relatively powerful so long as they were in highlands—after all Yvette said that lacking arcanelles, the body she wove for Felix couldn’t stand up to his original one. But then again, if a Weaver could alter a body to not need arcanelles… Rína couldn’t see why a Weaver couldn’t do the reverse… to take, say, their own improved human body and integrate into it powerful enchantments or arcanelles. Hells, that might even be—
“What’s on your mind?” Yvette asked, breaking Rína out of her train of thought.
“Oh, I…” Rína hesitated. There were about a dozen things she wanted to ask and she subsequently found herself with a bit of decision paralysis. Ultimately, she decided on going with her original question, “Well, uh, if major changes are off the table… What about a minor one? I mean, it’s not minor, not to me. But there’s at least one bloody awful thing that I would really prefer if my body never did again.”
Yvette tittered, catching Rína’s meaning, “Yes, I would imagine so, but I am afraid I must decline your request.”
“But… but why?” Rína said, hope draining from her face.
“A few reasons: firstly being that that which is freely given is rarely fully appreciated—”
“Oh no, believe me,” Rína interjected, “I would appreciate the absolute hells out of it.”
“Secondly,” Yvette continued without missing a step, “it serves as a monthly motivator to adhere to your studies.”
“See, that’s my problem: I’m too motivated. I actually think a little less motivation would do me good.”
“Thirdly, it is tradition for a Weaver student to be the first one to meaningfully alter their body—you can think of it as a kind of rite of passage.”
“Yeah but when was the last time tradition actually helped someone?”
“And finally,” Yvette said, leaning forward and lowering her voice, “My mother didn’t let me out of it either.”
Rína stared at the villainess sitting before her, the wicked woman of pure malice, the sadistic fiend of ill repute, the craven of vile disposition, the… very bad person of bad things.
Rína’s voice turned hollow, “You can be really cruel when you want to be, you know that?”
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Soon enough the two women were back on the road, but with the advent of an inconvenient train of wagons going in the same direction as them, there was little opportunity for Rína and Yvette to speak openly. As such, Rína let her mind wander in the silence.
She tried not to think about the depraved inhumanity that Yvette had just displayed, but it sure as the hells wasn’t easy. Thankfully there were distractions in the form of the excited voices of some of the other travelers. It would seem as if Rína wouldn’t be the only person who would be going to Westreach for the first time.
Proper towns like Firstfall were already a bit of a shock to her. And Westreach, the big city itself, allegedly dwarfed all those she had seen so far, and at their current pace, it would only be another day or two before she saw it for herself.
What the place would be like and what would happen to her and Yvette, Rína had no idea. Ideally, they would go in, ask around, hear about a good place to settle down, and be back out on the road. But from the few times Yvette spoke about the plan, Rína got the feeling that even she didn’t think it would be that simple. Regardless, for now all she could do was wait and see.
Sitting at the driver’s bench beside Yvette, watching the scenery go by, Rína's thoughts drifted to a previous subject of conversation, a subject of the furry and slobbering variety. It had been half a year since she said goodbye to the big guy, and even though she really only knew him for a month, she still found herself missing him on occasion. A return trip was still going to happen, but until then she could only imagine how he was doing—hopefully the people of Leighton weren’t giving him any trouble.
Leighton… She wasn’t itching to return to her hometown—well, home-oversized-village in retrospect—but she couldn’t help but wonder what had changed since she last saw it. The magister had of course been ousted, but he ultimately didn’t have much influence over how most people spent most of their time. Now that she thought about it, it couldn’t have changed too much… right?