In Transit - The Void Plane
The Cadaver Crasher
“WAKE UP FUZZIES! I wanna personally welcome you sorry zeros to hell. My hell. And I’m the devil.” Sgt. Sirsir’s voice bellowed through the mage bay.
Akamori groaned in protest, wanting to tug his pillow over his head, but finding he lacked the strength to do it. The past few days of training blurred together in a smear of magical and physical exhaustion. The Sgt. called them fuzzies, because their uniforms lacked any rank on the fuzzy side of the velcro tape. That effectively meant they were next to nothing. Or as Sirsir liked to equate them; more worthless than zeros. Even Private Sala ranked above them, though the meek primal wasn’t one to point it out. Akamori found he actually liked the quiet guy, even if he was standoffish.
Slowly, Akamori pried himself from bed amidst the soreness of his body. His arms ached and his abdomen felt like a knot. He’d done more pushups, situps and running than he ever thought was possible. He quickly understood why the Sgt. was such a big man. The Sgt. lacked any kind of imagination to do anything else with his time.
Akamori got the distinct feeling this man filled every blank moment of his life with working out if allowed. Which made a certain sense, considering the size of weaponry the man typically hefted around. He’d called it “Big man shit” one time, saying that Akamori wouldn’t know anything about it. He was right.
Akamori stuffed his feet into his boots, lacing them up, and almost tying his finger into one of his boot knots, half asleep. He sighed, retying it, then rose and smoothening out his uniform. The supply issue was so bad they were recycling uniforms from previous soldiers. His fit, barely.
His back and shoulders ached, but he was already noticing a change physically. His endurance was stretching further daily. The discipline was another thing all together. While he took the training, the military bearing clashed completely. But true to his word, the Sgt. did everything to whip him into shape. Reluctantly Akamori fell in line, if grudgingly. He’d play their army games to make getting out of this outfit easier in the end. Assuming he lived that far.
“Yasiin, teach these fuzzies how to put their damn armor on.”
“Yes Sargeant.” Yasiin rose off his bunk and gestured for Akamori and Amara to join him. After getting dressed, the trio made their way to the armory. Yasiin pressed a mind sigil on the armor, and magic burst from the rune, coating the armor in pinkish purple mind magic, making it look like the surface of a soapy bubble.
“The rune technically transports the armor to the mind realm. It partially exists in two planes at once, in a phased state. Then you just step inside, and the spell completes like this.”
Yasiin stepped into his armor, and the spell finished. The magic skin popped like a bubble and solidified around the dark-skinned corporal. “Now you try,” the helmeted corporal said with a nod to them.
Akamori found an unused armor suit and pressed the mind rune on the armor. The armor phased density, going ethereally translucent. He stepped inside it and it phased back solidly, conforming to him snugly. The helmet took getting used to at first. It was a little musty from a previous user. The soft tang of sweat stung at his nostrils. He sensed nothing from it, like he did from his sword. The Sgt. thundered in, wearing his massive assault armor, a heavy machine gun draped across his shoulder. The design echoed his own in many ways, just, well… bigger.
“Alright Fuzzies. Today we’re going to do some range practice. Akamori, you’ve got air magic, and Amara, I understand you’ve got access to air and mind magic. Fetch your rifles and get to the range. It’s time we teach you how to be spell soldiers proper.”
“Rifles? Spell Soldiers?” Akamori asked, confused before adding a hasty “er-Sergeant?” They weren’t in a formal setting, so Sirsir was less stern. Thankfully. He swore he’d find the stick that man had wedged up his ass and kick it loose someday. Maybe the big guy could sit down when it finally happened. Now that he thought about it, he couldn’t actually recall Sgt. Sirsir actually sitting and that didn’t feel like a coincidence.
Sirsir paused, giving him an exhausted look. “You know, I often forget how utterly worthless you two are. It can’t be blamed completely on you since you’re just a couple of country bumpkins from the ass end of the sector, though. Yes. Your spell rifles. Your Spell armor keeps all its items that aren’t physically attached to it stored in its own micro void pocket. A unique enchantment provided care of the fine artificers of Aeryn, trademarked and copyrighted. Think of it like your own private pocket of space, as large as a storage tote. Your own hole in reality to dump whatever tools you need to carry. To access it, just use the armor's tailored teleport spell while selecting the item and it’ll materialize whatever you want. To store it, just perform the inverse. Got it?”
Amara’s spell rifle blinked into her hands with a puff of black smoke and violet motes of aether. She glanced up to the Sgt. with a nod. Akamori still didn’t get it and the big sergeant huffed in annoyance, stomping over to him.
“In your heads up display, do you see the purple and black swirly icon next to your armor’s damage status indicator?”
Akamori blinked dumbly. That was a lot of jargon to digest, even if the bald non comm had tried to dumb it down for him. He went cross-eyed when the big man’s armored finger poked his helmet’s visor. “The icon under my fingertip. Focus on that and the armor will activate your void storage access.”
Akamori did so, and a followup prompt appeared. He selected the rifle from the list. Akamori’s rifle followed a beat later, and he gave the Sgt. an awkward nod as well. The Sgt. hadn’t answered his question about spell soldiers yet, though.
“What are spell soldiers?” Amara asked, giving Akamori an understanding look. That was a new term for them both.
The Sgt. turned and sighed at Amara. “Spell soldiers are basic mages. Y’know those old goofy holo’s the Brotherhood used to make about magic? The mages all using those little pointy sticks called wands? Think of your gear like a wand. It helps you cast. But some mages can cast magic using their hands, and others channel it through their body. There’s more than one way to skin a wyrm when it comes to magic. Mostly just depends on who’s doin’ the castin.”
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“I see…” Amara said.
“Good, now get your fuzzy asses on the firing line,” the Sgt. said.
Sgt. Sirsir gestured to the chipped yellow line on the deck in front of a makeshift firing range behind a set of protective wards. The Sgt. stood at the line and waited for Amara and Akamori to take positions. Once they were on the line, he showed how to hold the rifle and then had them practice. Akamori felt adequately comfortable with it, even though he’d never trained with a weapon like this. His comfort zone was fighting, since he’d come from a long line of warriors.
Amara had grown up a priestess. Theirs wasn’t to fight, but to guide and lead. Weapons and direct combat were areas the priests and priestess received little focus, if any at all. But now she needed help, and it was his turn to help guide her. Akamori set his own rifle down and helped Amara with her grip, sliding the weapons buttstock more snugly into her shoulder so she could rest her cheek along the top. She gave him a thankful smile.
“That should help you aim better,” He said, nodding to her as he backed up to fetch his own weapon again. Amara gave him a thankful look before they both turned back to Sirsir.
“Alright Fuzzies. Now that you’ve had some time to familiarize yourself with your rifles, I want you to take shots at the target now. They build the tech to do its thing, so there’s no trick to it. Just pull the trigger and it’ll do the rest.”
Akamori aimed down the iron sights at the target roughly 10 meters down the bay. He pulled the trigger, and the weapon siphoned a small portion of his aether, converting into a concentrated bolt of compressed air. The act was effortless and remarkably easy now that he thought about it. What Kalenza struggled to teach him, he’d just done without even thinking about it. He glanced up from his mental reverie to see if he’d struck the target. To his dismay, he’d missed by a large margin.
“Not bad for a first shot. But we’ll talk your shot group in. Don’t worry, fuzzies. By the end of this day, I’ll have genuine marksmanship beaten into you yet!”
That day Akamori learned that the Sgt. was a man of his word. They stayed at the range, firing air and dream bolts at the targets well beyond dinner chow. The Sgt. had said that if they wanted to eat, they’d shoot accurately. It took a long time for them to get their shot groups tight enough for the big man’s approval. Once they did, Sirsir cut them loose for the day and Akamori crashed to his rack in an exhausted heap. His body spent from aether depletion.
“You guys look like you just did your live fire training,” Yasiin said from his bunk.
“How can you tell?” Akamori asked.
“The Sgt. usually uses it to teach you about aether management and endurance at the same time. Basically, burning through your aetherpool is like running up a mountain. It takes everything from you, so spell use and pool management is important.”
“Odd. He didn’t mention any of that,” Amara said from her bunk. Her hair spilled free of the knot she’d tied, pulling Akamori’s gaze longer than normal.
“Yeah. The Sgt. is a big fan on self-discovery. Some lessons don’t stick with a lecture. Only through pain.”
Akamori opened his mouth to reply, but paused. “Huh. I guess he’s kinda right.”
He surmised that being a mage must mean capitalizing on a brute force alpha strike that your enemy couldn’t counter. Protracted engagements wouldn’t fare well for a mage with poor magical stamina. So knowing you could win meant tactical planning and being adaptable enough to roll with the changes. A skill he hoped he could cultivate in time to face the Sauridius.
“Hey Yasiin?”
The dark-skinned Nomad glanced up from his spell rifle. It had a longer barrel than the standard rifle. A spell sniper rifle. “Hmm?”
“The Sgt. said something about spell soldiers earlier today and never got around to fully explaining it. What’d he mean by that?”
“Ah. Right. There are a variety of different magic users. The most common ones fall into a few bigger categories. The first are Warriors like us. We cast our magic through a conversion. In our case? Technology. Magitech, to be precise. You still need your own latent magic, but the tech converts that aether into a spell so you don’t have to know one. Makes the act of casting very quick. They usually enchant the Tech with the kinds of conversions it can execute, giving function to them. The spellship, for example, takes our magic and converts it into thrust, wards and shields, and offensive spells. If it helps, think of it like a big flying wand.”
Akamori frowned. “The sergeant made that reference.”
Yasiin chuckled and waved dismissively. “The next is Spell Warriors. Those are mages who cast spells with their bodies and usually rely on weapons.”
“Like my people…” Akamori said absently.
Amara gave him a sympathetic look.
“Right. Then there is also Spell Weavers. These mages cast the magic directly by hand. They usually weave the runes or draw them and create elaborate and complicated spells. This can be extremely powerful magic, but it takes time to compose, and easy to interrupt. Weavers fight in the rear, where no one can interrupt them easily.”
Amara glanced at her own hands and then to Akamori, “I think I might be a weaver. The ritual for soul walking, it required elaborate hand gestures.”
“That checks out. More so if only certain people could make it work,” Yasiin said with a nod. “There’s also Artificers. They create and enchant objects with magic. Everything from Armor to weapons and ships. They handle a lot of the technology that mages use. Even the Brotherhood’s magitech started out with roots to artificers from the Federation.”
“Spell soliders sound like they have an advantage with the hardware.”
Yasiin shrugged. “They can. If they’re fighting inexperienced mages, then yeah. Most of this stuff is like training implements. Gets you used to casting. How it feels when aether is taken and converted into a spell. Once you’re comfortable, you can then be evaluated and trained as a weaver or a warrior.”
“It sounds like there is a balance to it all. Spell soldiers are more capable than novice spell warriors or weavers. But capable weavers and warriors can eclipse what a spell soldier can do. Is that right?”
“Basically,” Yassin said.
Akamori frowned, wondering why his people hadn’t bothered training any spell soldiers. Eventually, he settled on the fact that maybe their tech had fallen into disrepair and it was easier to just keep trying to teach them as spell warriors. Or the occasional weaver. Before sleep threatened to overwhelm him, he glanced over at Yassin with one last question.
“Hey, the Sgt. said he had a special mission for us tomorrow. Any idea what that’s about?”
Pvt. Sala suddenly shrank smaller on his bunk, and Akamori worried at that. Like someone remembering abuse. Yasiin saw this and frowned. “That’s probably a detail you don’t want chosen for. The Sgt. makes up some kind of excuse about needing supplies.”
“Which we never have,” Sala said softly.
“And he’ll choose a new recruit to run through the marines to get it.”
“Blinker fluid,” Sala said.
“Blinker fluid,” Yasiin agreed.
“A. I don’t see why that’s so bad? And B. What is blinker fluid?”
“A. It’s bad because the Marines and the mages are like oil and water. It doesn’t help that Rayshe is an open asshole to them, and they die en masse when we mobilize. And B. blinker fluid doesn’t exist, but it won’t stop the marines from telling you to find it for them.”
“So it’s hazing then,” Akamori said softly.
“Basically.”
He gave Amara a worried look. He couldn’t take the chance she’d get picked. She was just a weaver. She was his friend.
“Tomorrow I want you to wait to head to chow until after me.”
She gave him a solemn nod. “Alright.”
With that, he laid down to finally rest. Worried about what tomorrow would bring.