Tala felt rather happy as she walked through the early morning streets of Alefast.

Her training was going well; her new job was well and truly underway; and she was making new friends and acquaintances across the city.

I still need to drop in on Adrill and Artia…

But there would be time for that. Right now, she was on the way to the Gredial estate to act on some well-acquired information.

-By me.-

Of course by you, Alat. Thank you.

-You are most welcome.-

In truth, the information hadn’t been hidden, it just hadn’t been prominently displayed.

-Don’t diminish my accomplishment. It’s not like there’s a central repository I can query for things like this…-

Today was Rane’s birthday.

Tala, herself, didn’t like big to dos for such events, and she didn’t think Rane did either.

In fact, she believed that he’d likely prefer not to have it known or mentioned at all.

Therefore, she wasn’t going to celebrate his birthday.

No, she was simply going to spend a day with a friend, and if he happened to secretly enjoy and appreciate it more because the day in question was his birthday, who was she to judge?

Her smile grew just a bit at the thought.

She came to the gates of the Gredial compound and almost knocked on the great doors.

After a moment, she shook her head. It was still early, and she didn’t need to disturb the guards. They’d be awake, of course, but they’d be cozy in the guardhouse off to the side, likely enjoying some coffee or an early morning card game, or both.

She walked to the side of the small gatehouse and easily leapt up onto the ten foot wall.

She was becoming quite adept at dropping her gravity to near zero as she pushed off, to allow for easy leaps without needing to damage what she lept from from overly powerful push-offs.

True, it was a slower leap than if she powered through, but in cases where speed wasn’t the primary concern, it was quite the acceptable tradeoff.

She landed lightly, glanced side to side and hopped off the wall, removing her gravity again after falling for only a couple of feet.

This allowed her to drift down and land softly once more.

Nicely done. Training pays off.

-Indeed.-

Tala knew that she had been added as an exception to the defensive magics around this compound, otherwise she’d have created much more of a commotion by going around the gate than simply by knocking.

As it stood, no one would be disturbed by her roundabout path.

Thus, it was with some surprise that she found Rane waiting for her at the front door.

“Tala? What are you doing here so early?”

She tilted her head to the side. “Why are you at the front door? Were you expecting someone or something?”

“I get a magical ping when you enter the compound.”

She felt her eye twitch. “And yet, you still let me be brought to you, when I come to visit?”

He shrugged. “I generally use the time to make sure I’m ready for whatever shenanigans you have in mind, even if that’s usually just tafl.”

She hesitated. “I suppose that’s fair. So, are you ready to go, then?”

He looked over his shoulder. “Well, I was just about to go to the kitchens to ask for breakfast.”

“So, you haven’t had breakfast yet, and nothing is being made for you?”

“No… I suppose not?” He gave her an odd look.

“Good.” She grinned.

With a deft movement, she flowed around behind him and struck at his back with an upward angle.

As expected, his defensive magics reacted, launching him up and away from the hit.

Tala laughed at Rane’s sharp intake of breath, though he refrained from crying out in surprise.

With an expansion of her surface area expansion scripts, she launched herself after him, hooking the door with the barest tendril of thread from her elk leathers so it would close behind them.

With all her newly refined and unified techniques, she easily cleared twenty feet, triggering Rane’s defenses again on the way up.

She had to maintain most of her gravity to keep in line with his trajectory, but that was fine. She had just intended to take him well outside his family compound, not all the way to the city wall.

They came down on a still mostly empty thoroughfare, garnering a few startled glances, but not much more.

Rane had landed softly, his magics absorbing the kinetic energy before he could slam into the ground.

Tala landed softly a few moments later, having to keep her speed slow for the same soft landing.

He turned to her. “What was that? Some sort of kidnapping?”

She shrugged. “You can go back, if you want, but I thought we should eat breakfast on the city wall, watching the sunrise over the forest.”

He frowned. “Isn’t that not for another hour or so?”

“Fine, watch the sky lighten behind the forest.”

He shook his head. “I’m not sure what’s up with you, today,” he gave her a half smile, “but sure. Why not?”

It was a short walk to the wall where they easily gained access, and climbed to one of the tower tops.

This one was clear of guards for the moment, so the two of them set up a table and a couple of chairs. Rane gave Tala a critical look. “Are you on duty right now? Is that why we’re on the wall?”

She laughed. “No, nothing like that. I did get permission to be up here, though.”

He grunted and didn’t comment further.

Tala began pulling out dishes, setting certain ones before her, and others in front of Rane.

All those for her were on yellow plates, and Rane’s were on orange.

He gave her an incredulous look, then chuckled, shaking his head again.

A moment later, he glanced up at her in confusion. “Tala, these dishes are magical. I can’t eat your food.”

“Right on both counts.” She grinned.

“So… care to explain? I trust that you didn’t have them separately plated to have variety in your eating.”

“Look at the magics.”

He did as she asked, then shook his head. “I don’t have any knowledge in interpreting natural magics in this medium.”

She opened her mouth, then closed it, grimacing. Finally, she opened it again, “Well, that ruins the surprise a bit. I didn’t consider that. They’re your magics, as close as I could get.”

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

He blinked at her in confusion. “What?”

“Master Grediv told me about a few of the creatures you modeled your magics on, and I was able to track them down, or at least the founts.”

He blinked at her. “You did what?”

“The last time my unit went out to deal with a cell, we stopped by some of the kinetic founts in the region. While I never found a ‘stop-dive’ swallow, I threw enough chickens through the fount that we ended up with a few that matched your magics.”

His eye twitched. “What happened to the other chickens?”

She glanced away. “Well, most died passing through the fount, but some came out with other abilities.”

“And you just let them run off?”

“What?” She looked back to him. “No! I’m not insane. Terry ate them. It was rather entertaining to see him hunt them down. One rooster was actually able to out maneuver him for a good five minutes before Terry got a lot smaller, and I think the chicken lost sight of him at the wrong moment. Things ended quickly after that.”

Rane was staring at her in confused awe. “You… really hunted down creatures that bore my particular magics?”

“Those that we could find, yeah.”

“And you made others?”

“It wasn’t very efficient, but yeah.”

“How did you even get the chickens out there? Just within Kit? How did you wrangle them?”

She glanced away. “We won’t be discussing that.”

He looked back at the food. “Mistress Petra prepared this?”

“Absolutely. She’s really gotten the hang of locking magic into the food in a way that’s still accessible after you eat it.”

He lifted his gaze back to her. “Why?”

“Well, I mean, she makes food for me all of the time. She was bound to become good at it, even if she had no experience beforehand.”

“No, Tala. Why did you go to all of this trouble?”

She was at a loss for a moment. Finally, she shrugged. “You always see me eating my magical food. I thought it might be nice for you to have some of your own. It’s not like it can be an everyday thing; I didn’t find or make that much.”

He took a careful bite, and Tala gave him some guidance as to how to move the power in the food through his body to where it needed to go.

In the end, the meal took around two hours, as Rane slowly got the hang of it, and Tala ate her own sizable portions.

And true to her initial offer, they were able to watch the sunrise over the forest to the east.

Once they were done with breakfast, Tala took them underground to an arena that she’d reserved for them.

Rane looked around. “I haven’t been in one of these very often. Why are we here?”

“I thought we’d spar.”

“We do that pretty often.”

“Ahh!” She held up a finger as Mistress Vanga walked in. “But we never go no-holds-barred. This is Mistress Vanga."

“The healer from your unit?”

“Yup.”

Rane gave the healer an appropriate bow. “A pleasure to finally meet you, Mistress Vanga.”

“And you, Master Rane.”

“Thank you for being willing to sit in on our match.”

“It is my pleasure.” She pulled out an Archive slate and proceeded to tuck herself off to one side.

Tala cracked her neck, pulling out her white steel, scale hauberk and slipping it on before coating herself under the armor with iron followed by white steel.

Rane grinned at her, though she only saw it through her mirrored perspectives. “Going all out, are we?”

She opened a crack over her mouth, moving the metal with her lips to allow her to respond. “I won’t be going for any one-shots, but otherwise, yes. You call the start.”

His grin widened as he took a deep breath, and his clothing writhed.

She’d long ago gotten used to his silk clothes making him look like he was always ready to attend a high society function, and they’d long since faded into the background as something that she never really thought about.

Now, she watched as his clothing morphed into what could only be classified as armor, with overlapping plates of what appeared to be bone, bound with the same silk that had previously made up his clothing. There also appeared to be a thick padded garment below the plates, also of silk.

“When did your outfit become morphic?”

He shrugged. “I’ve been doing some hunting and research of late. I was lacking in the ‘defense from an unavoidable hit’ department. The hard material is from a bone-golem that gained power and existence in a previously undiscovered bone-yard deep in the mountains to the north. That was a beast to put down.”

She grinned. “Likely literally.”

He laughed, his armor now fully formed with a smooth helmet growing up over his head. The faceplate grew down, leaving only thin, perfectly placed slits for his eyes.

He walked a goodly distance away before turning to face her once more.

Force came into his hand, its greatsword length seeming right in the big man’s grip.

Tala pulled with her will and felt Flow snick into her grip even as she resealed her armor. She knew there was a new band of metal around Flow’s handle, right below the crossguard, but it was so minute that it wouldn’t have been irritating even to her bare flesh, let alone through layers of protection.

Rane nodded once. “Begin.”

A hundred iron spikes shot from Tala, all angled downward to pierce into the ground even as she launched herself forward.

Her aura blanketed the whole near-region of the sparring arena, radiating from herself and the iron spikes, causing Rane to take a step backward in obvious, short-lived surprise.

The second wave of spikes followed the first, then a third, and finally a fourth.

She was able to guide each successive wave precisely with her aura, originating from the already in place iron.

Rane pushed outward with his own aura, but even when they had been at the same level of advancement, she greatly magically outweighed him.

Now? It was all he could do to keep her aura from pushing past his armor.

She closed the distance in a breath, holding Flow up for an obvious downward chop, which Rane readied to block.

At the last moment, Tala let go of Flow, keeping it in place for a brief moment with her aura, and swept her hands down, out, and around, claws of white steel growing on her fingertips as she struck for his gut and chest.

Then, Flow struck downward, guided by her aura-enforced will, applied to Flow itself and the three bloodstars embedded equidistantly spaced inside the new metal band.

The attack wouldn’t have her muscular power or her physical weight behind it, but it did have literal barrels of iron worth of mass behind it. So, Tala was willing to accept the bit of lost power.

Force slammed up into Flow, throwing the sword back a hair before Tala’s claws found his armor, even as the counter-force from blocking Flow’s attack drove Rane’s feet into the soft flooring.

Her raking attacks triggered Rane’s passive defenses, and he was blasted backward, jerking his feet from the ground and his body out of the way of her swipes.

Even so, she planted her foot for the next step and launched herself forward again, even faster now. Flow flew at her side in the form of a glaive, keeping pace with ease as she pulled it along with a simple act of will.

In this way, she chased him around the arena, sending out waves of iron spikes to claim the area she passed through and keep his aura ruthlessly suppressed.

Force and Flow clashed uncounted times, and Rane, to his credit, struck back at her more than she’d expected, not being kept fully on the defensive, but he simply couldn’t seize the momentum of the match back.

She wouldn’t allow it.

Regardless, Rane was a ridiculously frustrating opponent to pin down.

Finally, she decided to use a trump card.

She opened Kit and two tower shields were pulled out, triangles of metal affixed to their backs, three bloodstars in each to allow her three-axis control.

She snapped them around and forward, using her aura superiority to move them into place, hemming Rane in on two sides from the back, even as she breathed out a breath attack near his feet.

Flow struck from above, and Tala drove her right fist forward.

Her shields snapped toward her at the last moment, performing a blunt-force strike that activated Rane’s defenses, sending him directly into her other, slightly delayed attacks.

His magics tried to react, but her shields were still coming from behind.

His magics couldn’t move him up because Flow was pressuring Force from that direction.

They couldn’t move him down because a cloud of near-burning dissolution magic awaited there.

His passive defenses couldn’t get him out of the situation.

Her clawed hand slammed into his armored abdomen and was slowed.

With all her strength, all her momentum, her claws barely penetrated the bone plates far enough to draw blood.

She immediately tightened her grip, clinging to the armor as she drove her other hand forward.

“Yield!” Rane called, hands opening in surrender, obvious strain in his voice. In that strain, Tala detected the hints of rage.

Tala halted all attacks instantly and pulled back her tools, stepping aside as well.

Mistress Vanga was beside them a moment later, even as Rane’s armor faded back into more normal clothes, blood flowing from under the cloth on his stomach.

Tala winced. “Are you alright?”

A wash of magic moved over him as he allowed Mistress Vanga to heal him, uncontested.

The healer clucked her tongue. “No serious damage, the injury is now repaired with no lasting effects or need to coddle the area.”

Without another word Mistress Vanga withdrew.

“Rane?”

Rane nodded, panting. “That was…”

Tala waited, uncertain.

“… amazing!” He laughed out loud. “You are incredible! I had no idea that you’d grown that much.”

She smiled in return, tentatively at first, but quickly growing to a full grin. “I’ve been training a lot with some very competent teachers. I feel like I’m really starting to come into my own.”

“I’ll say! That really was incredible.”

She laughed softly. “You said that.”

He shrugged. “True is true.” He took a deep breath, clearly trying to calm his heart, and exhaled. “Can we go again?”

Tala nodded. “We don’t have anything else scheduled until after lunch.”

He hesitated, frowning, “What’s after lunch?”

“There are a couple of plays. There aren’t many, as this is a waning, but I managed to find a couple that seemed interesting.”

He gave her a long look, his smile returning. “Well, then. It seems like we have a busy day ahead of us.”

“Indeed we do.”