Tala moved her lord-piece one space closer to a corner, sheltered by her last remaining defender.

Rane grinned as he considered the board. “So, you’re enjoying being a defender?”

“It’s… interesting. It feels a bit like guarding a caravan, in that I’m not really doing much for a lot of the time, but I need to be vigilant, and ready at a moment’s notice. I definitely think that I’m starting to understand what Mistress Cerna meant when she said she was ‘feeling’ the tension, even when just on standby.”

He nodded, taking a sip of tea before he slid an attacker between her lord-piece and the closest victory square.

Tala grimaced. “Playing on a hex grid is weird.”

“It got really popular in Alefast for a time, so these boards are more available.”

She gave him a flat look. “We both have square boards in our storages.”

“Well, I thought it would be a fun variation.”

She only glared for an instant, then she shook her head and smiled. “It’s definitely a different way of thinking. I do think I like it, but you’ve the advantage, having been playing this way for more than a month.”

He shrugged. “You’ll catch the difference soon enough.”

“I already understand the difference, Rane.”

He huffed a laugh. “That’s not what I meant. I mean, your mind will adjust—strategically—soon enough. You’re right; it’s obvious that you’ve grasped the rules difference.”

She made her move and sighed. “The oddest part of being a defender is having a few people I don’t know clearly recognize me and wave, over the last couple of days.”

“I can imagine. Though your fight was rather eye-catching, so I’m not surprised.”

“Yeah, Terry loves the attention, too. When he’s with me, he’s recognized more often than I am.”

“His was a bit of a terrifying spectacle, and I’ve seen him fight before. Seeing it on such a broader scale really put things into perspective; you know?”

They both glanced to the terror bird who was laid out in one corner, catching the bit of sun that streamed through the massive window this late in the day.

His eye flickered open, closing as soon as he saw them looking his way.

“Faker,” Tala said, with care in her voice and a grin across her face.

She’d been in the city for a couple of days, and was finally settling in with her unit, so she’d hunted down Rane in his family’s compound while she was on standby until midafternoon.

Tala thought she could get used to the rolling schedule, especially since being on duty mainly meant concentrated training, and standby was simply doing whatever she wished to be doing.

Once she’d navigated through the Gredial compound, a servant leading her to ‘master Rane,’ it hadn’t been hard to convince him to play a game of tafl. At which point he’d pulled out the hex-grid version, and proceeded to explain that this was how it was played in Alefast.

It’s fine. I can get used to this format of play…

“So, what have you been doing, aside from the one fight?”

She shrugged. “Training mostly. They rightly pointed out that my abilities, tools, and skills are a bit disjointed at the moment.”

He grunted, still examining the board. “Yeah, just a bit.”

She gave him a fake glare. “Anyway. We’ve been brainstorming, and I have a lot to work on to tighten things up.”

“Oh? Like what?”

“Well, the first thing was a mindset and mental model to remove all gravity from myself effectively instantly.”

Rane glanced up at that. “Oh, yeah, that would be incredibly useful.”

It was her turn to grunt. “Additionally, I never really fully realized my plans with the Leshkin shields.”

He snapped his fingers and pointed at her. “That’s right! You paid me out so you could take those two massive, juggernaut tower-shields.”

“I also had a ring made ages ago, that can hold three bloodstars and lock into place around Flow’s hilt, to give me precise control over Flow’s orientation and movement, especially when within my aura, but even outside it, I’ll have control to a much greater extent.”

Rane whistled, nodding. “Yeah. What ever happened with that?”

She shrugged. “Other stuff came up, and I never made the bloodstars for it.” She quirked a smile. “I have now.”

“It sounds like you’re going to be a terror.”

She chuckled. “That’s the idea.”

“But, are the Leshkin shields even still… useful? I mean, you claimed them as harvests when you were Bound.”

“Never managed to mar them then, but you’re right. Even so, apparently they are an odd manifestation of magic. For one, they sat within Kit for more than a year, and simply absorbed the magic free-floating within Kit.”

“So, they’re already magic bound to you, then?”

“Deeply so, it seems. Apparently, all Leshkin items are in a class of artifact that is highly adaptive to their wielder. Seemingly, Leshkin soldier swords are identical, magically, to juggernaut swords. The added power is simply due to their wielder.”

Rane frowned. “Wait, but we were paid less for lower grade armaments.”

She shrugged. “There is lingering power within those claimed from higher ranks. The base items aren’t very valuable, even though they are useful, because humanity has so, so so many of them due to all the Leshkin wars. The real payment is for the remnants of Leshkin power within.”

He grunted, turning a good portion of his attention back to the board. “So, we could have sold the higher-level weaponry and armor and bought basic stuff to the same effect?”

She shook her head. “No, we used much of what we kept for mergings. We leaned on the exact power that causes the increased value to give our soulbound items a boost.”

“Ahh, yeah, that tracks. It also explains why no one tried to warn us off.”

“So, all that to say: so long as I actively use and dump power into the shields, they should grow with me, though not as much or as quickly as they would if soulbound.”

“So, they want you to go weightless and add a bunch of extra tools? Each, individually sounds useful, but overall that doesn’t seem like cleaning up your fighting at all. In fact, that just seems like it’s mucking it up.”

She shrugged. “You’re not wrong. There’re more mindsets being added for quicker activation and use of power, too.”

“No new scripts though.”

“NO. No, no. Not at all. That would be really foolish, without a good reason. Honestly, though, there were some… rather horrifying ideas?”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, Mistress Cerna suggested I throw out my iron as caltrops across any battlefield. The iron should disrupt large-area workings, and in the unlikely event that they did penetrate my opponent’s skin, they’d disrupt internal magics, too.”

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

Rane shuddered. “Mage Hunters have some devious tactics.”

“Indeed. That wouldn’t work for me, unless I had aura-superiority across the whole field, and in that case, the fight would be mostly over.” She sighed. “At least that’s what I thought. Apparently, there are a large slew of magical beings and creatures that basically cannot extend their aura outside of their bodies, and in some, their aura even retreats away from anything that cuts or pierces into them. There aren’t many that are that extreme, but there are some.”

“But those wouldn’t have wide area magics to disrupt in the first place.”

“That’s what I said.” She grimaced. “But I was still advised to practice, as my aura resonates through the iron as well, letting my aura be much stronger across a wider area than should be possible. Master Akra has already given me a few exercises to focus on my aura control, strength, and actualization.”

Rane chuckled. “That sounds like Master Jevin, but I suppose that makes sense. With your aura spread out, you do have some advantage in leverage, but it also comes with the obvious disadvantage of, if you lose an aura-struggle, your iron is consumed by the void.”

She shrugged. “If I lose an aura-struggle on my body, I lose, so… obviously different stakes, but I’m used to solidifying my aura when it matters. They also want to test exactly what it takes for the iron to be ‘voided.’”

He laughed out loud. “‘Voided?’ Really? That’s what you’re going with?”

She grimaced again. “It wasn’t my idea or my choice… Master Girt was rather insistent, and it caught on before we really noticed.”

He laughed again. “That is amazingly horrible.”

“But the main thing to train for, aside from the new mental models, is to split my conscious control further. Mistress Kaeti has already started to help with that. We were going to work on something else, too, but she’s asked for more time to process that aspect of her power before we delve into it together.”

“Mistress Kaeti? Why does that sound familiar?”

“She uses motive and positioning activations for her magic, slew a minor horde a few days ago.”

“Oh! Yeah, the dancer. That was pretty cool to watch.”

Tala moved her defender. “So, what’s up with you?”

Rane laughed. “Well, Furgal stormed through a couple days ago, before taking a caravan off to Bandfast then who-knows-where.”

She blinked back at him. “He did?”

“Yeah. Said he was ‘following his elder’s advice,’ but Master Grediv seems to have no interest in commenting on it. So, there’s a lot of the family who think that one of the uncles went rogue and convinced Furgal to withdraw as the potential successor to the family and depart.”

Tala frowned, not really understanding. “He did what?”

“He withdrew from consideration as the successor.” Rane shook his head. “It’s a rather worthless position. Basically, each generation selects who will guide the family if Master Grediv is no longer in a position to do so.”

Tala frowned at that. “There have to be tons of Refined or Paragons in your family who could take over in his absence.”

He laughed. “Not one is interested, and trust me, Master Grediv has tried to pawn it off on each and every one of them. So, every generation, the mundanes, Mages, and less advanced Archons do this little dance so the family has a ‘successor in case of disaster.’”

“So, will you do it?”

“Oh, stars no.” He shook his head. “They asked, too, bless them. Let that idiocy fall on one of my cousins. I eventually want my own children and to go from there. I’ve no interest in babysitting generations of mundanes who only barely contribute enough to be worth the resources they take. Even if I somehow never make it to Refined, I’d still be on the hook for a long time…”

She found herself nodding at that. She loved her siblings, but she couldn’t imagine trying to look after their kids, and their kids’ kids, and so on.

“Your move.”

“Hmm?” She looked up, pulled from her thoughts.

“It’s your move.”

“Oh! Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.”

He smiled. “Clearly. We can stop if you want, then restart the game if you want to consider this a trial run.”

She gave him a fake glare. “I’m not conceding that easily.”

“I’m about to win.”

“Sure, but you have to earn that victory.”

“We don’t have to count this game at all. We don’t generally count any of the games we play.” He was grinning back at her.

“Bah. We fight to the end!” She held up a finger in mock solemnity.

He huffed a laugh. “Very well, but it’s still your move.”

“Fine, fine. Don’t rush me.”

* * *

The next several days passed in a blur.

Tala trained and stood watch, got to know her unit, and began to unify her magics and capabilities.

She found a good time to have a meal with Master Simon, Mistress Petra, and the younger Zuccats too, and they all agreed to work in a meal every week or so, so that they could stay on the same page.

Master Simon was able to determine that her unit should be able to sleep within the sanctum for four to six hours a night without causing any lasting damage. Any longer than that, and there would begin to be noticeable degradation.

That in mind, with their mission to a newly degrading cell only just a couple of days away, Tala was ready to show her sanctum to her new unit.

Tala stepped through the door into Kit, coming out just before her dais and moving to the side to let the others in.

Master Clevnis followed first, having been inside before. Mistress Cerna was right behind him, seemingly trusting his judgment explicitly.

-She also might be trusting her own soul, given that if anything happened to her husband it would be obvious.-

I mean, that too? That’s basically the same thing… sort of?

-Ahh, soulbonds.-

Mistress Vanga came in tentatively, but without noticeable hesitation, her eyes immediately took in their surroundings, widening slightly. “There’s a whole little compound in here?” She shook her head. “Of course there is, you said as much, I guess I just didn’t think it would be so… standard. Buildings, open space, a sky overhead.”

She tilted her head to the side in contemplation, even as she stepped aside so that Master Limmestare could follow.

He paused in the doorway, craning his neck to look nearly straight up, taking in the sky, sun and faux clouds.

“You’re right, Mistress Vanga. And it’s a truly masterfully crafted false sky.”

Tala nodded. “For all their flaws—and there are many—the arcanes do good work. They have much more use for dimensionally expanded spaces than we do. Or at least they put them to more use.”

The slender man smiled and bowed slightly in acknowledgement, his clothing giving off the tell-tale glimmer that Tala had begun to associate with him and his battle wear.

Glass-fibers woven through his clothing… I definitely wouldn’t have considered that possibility.

-The stuff seems to be quite effective armor when you can control and enhance it.-

Definitely. In their practice, she’d come to realize that despite the seeming frailty both of his chosen material and the man himself, Master Limmestare was a terrifying front-line fighter, and he could take a hit almost as well as she could.

-Better, because he’s not thrown away.-

The times she’d seen him practice, he’d woven dozens of layers of glass-fibers almost instantly to take a given hit, each layer shattering to absorb and dissipate a portion of the hit.

The number was apparently perfectly calibrated each time based on Master Limmestare’s assessment of the incoming hit, and thus the last layers buckled, leaving his opponent fully extended and vulnerable for counterattack. No wasted effort or energy.

Observing him, even in practice, had been enlightening.

Reactive armor. The Refined had immediately begun working with Tala to make similarly layered, thin iron plates, designed to distort and break to dissipate offensive energy rather than simply absorbing the hits ‘like a big, dumb rock.’

Master Girt had playfully glared at the glass wielder when he gave that jab but hadn’t commented.

The reactive armor was exhausting work.

Speaking of Master Girt, the Refined cleared his throat. “Step in already, Limmestare. I want to see, too.”

The lithe man sighed, muttering under his breath that he didn’t consent to any bond—among other things.

Interestingly, it was something that they had recommended Tala begin doing before crossing any threshold, either magical or mundane.

‘While I accept the invitation to enter, I do not accept nor offer bonds nor fidelity of any kind.’

-Wordy.-

Thorough. The others in her unit had gone to great lengths to begin her education on some of the higher dangers associated with more advanced magical beings.

Master Limmestare finally stepped inside, tension obvious throughout his frame.

Tala felt it then, a slight tremor through her magic where she was feeding Kit.

It was like a tickle in the back of her throat that might grow enough to make her cough.

She frowned. I had way more people in here when I was showing off Kit upon my return from the arcane lands.

-How many were Refined? And how much did Master Xeel work to offset the impact?-

He should have made it worse, not better.

-Even with how he was folding existence around himself to hide? I doubt it. Even so it’s something else to ask him next time we see him.-

He has been very unresponsive to Archival missives…

Master Girt came in last, stopping in place as soon as he was fully within her sanctum and staring fixedly. He had one eyebrow cocked and an incredulous look painted across his features.

Tala followed his gaze toward her dais, frowning.

The Refined closed his eyes and shook his head. “Mistress Tala. Don’t you think a literal throne is a bit on the nose?”