Tala and Rane stood with their unit at the entrance to a cell. The entrance and atrium had been secreted within a little cave at the base of a hill.

Around the unit, the first buds of spring flowers were just starting to show on some of the rolling plains.

The Paragon who had come with them had finished going over the provided information, and she’d asked them to gather so she could speak to the unit of Defenders as a whole to summarize.

“Alright, so this is an odd one. The mage was completely devoted to their own immortality, but rather than taking the route of a healer or standard advancement, they bent their magics in a different direction. Their inscriptions, when activated, would simply generate a new body for them without the injuries or the weaknesses that allowed those injuries to happen. It wasn’t perfect by any means, but there was always improvement.”

That was… actually somewhat clever. Tala raised an eyebrow. “I’m assuming something went wrong?”

“Well, not really? They had inbuilt an infusion of basic skills and abilities. After that was the transference of their memories, and once the body was fully built and primed, other inscriptions would facilitate the transfer of their gate and obliterate their own original body. It was an ingenious set of workings and a truly comprehensive mental framework to bring it about. The issue arose when they became a fount. Only the reconstruction of bodies and implantation of basic instincts remained, and that’s what the fount does.”

There was a collective frown as everyone considered, but it was Rane who asked for clarification. “So… it just makes replicated bodies of this mage?”

“Specifically, it draws in any organic matter and builds a version of the Mage that is better in a way that counters the last things to damage one of his bodies. These improvements are cumulative.”

Master Limmestare shook his head. “That’s not possible. Improvement in one direction often counteracts improvements in the other.”

The Paragon shrugged. “I can only tell you what was conveyed in the report. I didn’t engage this prisoner myself.”

Master Clevnis cleared his throat, clearly hung up on some other part of the explanation. “Wait, one of? How many are there?”

“When this fount was sealed, they’d beat the copies down entirely, and they tried to strip away all living matter, but even without such, the inflow of magic allows the creation of more, if slowly. Expect a lot within.”

Tala spoke up next. “And the fount wasn’t simply destroyed because…?”

“It is entirely centered around self-preservation. They couldn’t get it to pass on, and when they ejected it into the void, it just popped up somewhere else relatively nearby to begin churning out its endless copies.”

“That’s… unfortunate.”

“Indeed.”

Master Girt asked the next question. “So, we’ll be fighting a magicless human, who will be adapting to our skills? How much can he adapt?”

“Great question. Aside from basic biological alterations, the fount seems to be able to impress natural magics upon the copies.”

Master Limmestare gave the Paragon a flat look. “Alright. That’s as sound as rust. How?”

“Again, it comes back to the concept of self preservation. Founts often align more with concepts than the exact magics of the Mage who became them, and this one is a prime example of that. To be fair, though, there was no record of outward manifestations of power. No balls of fire, or lightning strikes or the like. Just strength beyond what would be possible without magic, and other obviously magical effects.”

Terry shifted on Tala’s shoulder, and she reached up to scratch the side of his head. “Any danger of infection or spread of any kind?”

“None. Even if some of the copies escape it wouldn’t be that great of an issue. Though, we would want to hunt them down, because it was found that the copies have a base instinct to try to free the fount. We don’t want effectively immortal humans working toward that end.”

“Immortal?” It was Mistress Vanga’s turn to inquire. “How is that possible?”

“Yes. It’s been in there for millennia. In theory, they would have died most often from aging at least until that was solved.”

“Ahh, so theorized as immortal.” She seemed to relax a bit.

“Yes.”

She nodded, then hesitated. “Could we… bring out some of the bodies? They might be fascinating to study. If they have achieved immortality with a human-like body, without the advancement of Refining… we could learn a lot from them.”

“I’ll ask for clearance, but tentatively yes.”

Tala interjected again then. “Any issue with unbound dimensional storages?”

Hers was bound, but Kit functioned like an unbound storage in that those not soulbound to her could enter and leave with relative ease. The Paragon considered, then shrugged. “We might want to ensure they’re empty of copies when we’re done, but nothing indicates that that should be an issue.”

Alright, so leave Irondale outside, but bring the Sanctum.

-Yeah, that should be fine. I’ll keep an eye out for a breach.-

Tala quirked a smile, having a thought. “You know, I have somewhat of a unique authority within my storage. I could just open it and let them run in, then kill them off.”

The Paragon considered for a moment, then grimaced. “That is a potentially workable idea, and we can have it as a backup if things go sideways. Unfortunately, there is a possibility that resisting such authority might be possible, and if the fount bent future copies that direction…”

Tala’s eyes widened. “Oh, yeah… that would be bad.”

She had to remember that this would be a recurring cell for maintenance going forward. So, the less they help the thing improve, the better.

“Can its active copies change based on the death of one?”

“No, each new one is only changed as they are created. They seem to function with some awareness between them, but it was not recorded as anything close to the level of a hive mind.”

Master Clevnis cleared his throat. “Alright, so we go in and restrain them as much as possible.”

Tala smiled. “I can actually just effectively strip them of their gravity. I can do… up to sixty nearly instantly, and a lot more given time.”

The unit leader considered, then nodded. “Yeah, that would be good. We’ll also put up barriers and fight them only as necessary. Once again, non-lethal means wherever possible.”

They all nodded, understanding.

The Paragon smiled. “Alright. Let’s do this.”

Tala made sure that her sparring sheath was locked in place around Flow to keep her blows nonlethal. “Do you want to come, Terry? Non-lethal isn’t really your speed.”

Terry squawked derisively, shaking himself before he trilled and focused forward.

She smiled. “Oh, everything’s your speed is it?”

He trilled again, more softly this time.

“Alright. Let’s do this.” She looked to Rane. “Will you have my back while I’m working with their gravity?”

He smiled. “Then, and always.”

* * *

Tala was coming to hate the face of the man before her.

He was handsome enough, but his eyes were empty of emotion and his features bereft of expression.

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His black hair was close-cropped to his head, so close that he was effectively bald for any martial applications.

Which is probably why the copies come out like that…

As to who he was? This was one of hundreds of copies of the Mage created by the fount within this cell.

Their plan… was not working that well.

It had started well enough with her Restraining well over a hundred copies, but they’d had two horrifying responses to that.

The first—and more mundane—response was for all of those within reach of one another to grab on and push off so that at least one could continue to move in to attack Tala and her unit.

The second response was enacted by both those out of reach of anyone else, and those who were pushed off and away, sent in the wrong direction.

It seemed that they had ingrained natural magics for self annihilation.

It wasn’t anything extreme. They didn’t explode or turn to acid, or anything like that. They simply died.

Mistress Vanga said that it looked like they gave themselves an aneurysm—all in exactly the same location—as soon as they were in a position that they couldn’t recover from.

At that point, their bodies would almost spaghettify, the material streaming back toward the fount where it was remolded into an updated version.

Tala had no idea how they were doing it, but somehow, each subsequent copy to come from the fount was harder for her to target for her workings and more expensive to affect once she did lock on.

It was like they were becoming more inherently resistant to her specific magics.

As to those that came in for the attack?

Well, it seems that breaking an arm against magical barriers before self-induced death was enough for future models to be better at breaching barriers.

These fount copies had faced a lot of magical barriers in the past, at least evidence suggested so. Each one of their punches sent out ripples of inherent instability, which made resisting the strikes more difficult with each subsequent blow.

If a copy proved ineffective, he died, only to be replaced by a better version.

So, needless to say, going ‘nonlethal’ was a bit… unrealistic.

The only thing that seemed to have affected the rather apocalyptic waves of copies as a whole was when Tala had wrapped one in iron.

Her thinking had been, even if it died, it couldn’t be drawn away back toward the fount for remaking.

Oh, she’d been wrong.

She’d sealed it up nice and tight, but that’s when they’d all learned something that either hadn’t been recorded or hadn’t been known when this cell was created.

Or the copies have developed the ability since? That was only a bit horrifying.

Regardless, every copy had—completely and dissonantly out of sync—screamed in a way that caused Tala’s connection with the iron to tremble, seemingly threatening to shatter the bond outright.

She’d withdrawn her iron, and the screaming had stopped.

It was—somehow—a sort of sonic attack aimed at soulbonds.

It made no sense.

It shouldn’t be possible.

Yet, Tala’s still aching gate removed all doubt that it hadn’t been real.

That also removed one of the other strategies they’d considered employing. They’d thought they could pull back and simply have Tala plug the tunnel with iron.

If any cell would allow that as a solution, this one should, but nope. The copies would probably do their screaming again, or find some other means to overcome the issue.

Thus, the unit was fighting against a tide of this one man, and Tala was beginning to hate the very sight of him.

It was odd, because she felt like the very fact that she had hurt, rebuffed, or killed him over and over again, made her hate him more.

Every time she made the conscious choice to harm or delay him, it was another mark in her own internal justification that her dislike was warranted. The more she acted like she hated him, the more she actually did.

By this point, she had hated sufficiently to enact heinous injury and death upon him uncounted times.

I might hate him even more than Be-thric, and that makes absolutely no sense.

-You only killed Be-thric once. That arcane—at least—had the good graces to stay dead. This guy isn’t even that courteous.-

Tala snorted a laugh at that, even as she punched a copy in the chest hard enough to collapse a mundane ribcage.

The copy was fine, aside from being pushed back a bit. His bones were insanely durable. Everything about him was.

Tala found that she was getting on board with Mistress Vanga’s desire to take some bodies with them.

Plus, then we can desecrate the corpses… She took a mental step back. Was she being influenced by some sort of mental attack?

A moment later, she and Alat concurred. -No, he’s just really vile…-

She knew that she should keep herself detached. This was her job, and it wasn’t like there was a personal grudge between her and these lifeless copies.

Tala didn’t care.

Every strike with her sparring-sheathed Flow brought a smile to her face as she drove the rusting horrid man back.

It had become almost a game as the unit members each worked to keep the waves of bodies back but also to do so in a way that none of the individuals felt inconvenienced enough to just off themselves.

Obviously, throwing them back past the fount was an instant failure, as they’d seemingly rather pop and respawn than run the extra distance.

Similarly, if their legs were broken or in any way severely damaged… pop.

Wound to the head or eyes, or anything that might disorient them? Pop.

Too much internal damage? Pop.

Knocked prone too close to the fount? Pop.

No quick way to assault? Pop.

That last one really didn’t make sense to Tala at first, but then she noticed that this helped keep the assault vectors clear for the vile creatures, allowing them to attack more effectively.

It also resulted in the copies coming out faster and with more powerful jumps. Some were also better climbers, as they tried scaling the cliffs that flanked Tala’s unit.

Thankfully, that seemed to be deemed ‘inefficient’ for some reason, so most that tried that route popped themselves before they became an issue.

Unsurprisingly, Rane was among the best in keeping them back nonlethally, mainly because he could generate waves of kinetic energy. These waves were just less refined and controlled kinetic blades, and when spread out to hit a large sector of the attackers, the universal slow-down made it ineffective for them to pop, while still keeping their progress down to a fast walk.

Master Clevnis had the worst time keeping copies back without causing their deaths either directly or indirectly.

No one was surprised by this as his magic was almost universally aimed toward magical blades. As a result, the copies were getting an odd armored texture to their skin. That let the unit leader do better, as funny as that was to consider.

Terry flickered among the copies implementing marginal delaying tactics while staying within Tala’s aura.

They all felt the weak pull at their bodies to be pulled in and used as fuel by the fount, and while Terry could probably resist, he was wise enough to not risk it.

Regardless, there was a steady stream of opponents for Tala to deflect, block, throw, or strike with Flow, foot, or fist.

It was quite the challenge to ensure that she was precisely controlled with each attack, even if Tala wasn’t really sure how much it mattered.

No matter what they did, they were each pressed exactly as much as every other member of their unit, the copies simply altering their pace slightly to make up the difference one way or another to keep the optimal number of copies engaged with each Refined at a time.

“Can I please just try it?” Tala finally snapped.

Master Clevnis who was even more irritated than her, added on right after, “I’d love that. Cerna?”

The calmer of the unit leaders glanced between them, then sighed. “Yes, but be careful. If it seems to be adapting…”

“I’ll pull back. Understood.” With that, she lashed out with Flow, knocking back five of the copies and allowing her unit to shift to cover her sector of the defense of the tunnel.

Then, she leapt straight up, suspending her own gravity when she was at the top of her trajectory.

She didn’t need it to get a vantage, her threefold sight showed her the fount just fine.

Instead, she did it to get a straighter shot for her iron. With what she was about to do, every little bit would help.

With a gesture and act of will, she sent iron spikes lancing out, driving into the ground around the fount, establishing a beachhead for her aura and authority.

She pressed inward, even as copies continued to appear, seemingly ignoring her iron or unaware of its presence or effect.

Then, as she began to dig in and really get herself established there, her aura drew close enough to the fount that the copies had to be produced in layers, which slowed down production by a noticeable amount, but sadly, it didn’t stop it entirely.

At that point, Tala began to encounter heavy resistance.

It wasn’t like the fount was learning, blessedly. Instead, it was simply the sovereignty of a soul over itself.

Tala didn’t have the power, nor fundamental authority to do something like that.

She simply couldn’t claim it without attempting a soulbond, and she was not willing to do that for myriad reasons.

Tala called down from where she hung, suspended behind the line of her unit’s defense, gritting her teeth even as she ensured her voice reached them by infusing it with power. “That’s all I can do.”

Mistress Cerna looked her way. “Have you seen any evidence of adaptation?”

“Not yet.” Tala shook her head.

“Would you like assistance?”

She didn’t hesitate for even an instant. “Yes, please.”

Ribbons of metal shot out from near the older woman, covering the relatively short distance to the fount with surprising speed before they wove a net around the source of their trouble. It was positioned incredibly carefully to be out of the way of the copies being created.

As the spellform activated, Tala felt as if the burden upon her will was greatly lessened, and she felt the comforting power of Mistress Cerna’s own, powerful will alongside her own.

“Thank you.”

“Of course, dear. We’re a unit. You don’t need to be a one woman army.” The older woman smiled, and Tala smiled in return even if it was behind her faceplate.

Alright, I think we can make this work.

That is, of course, when things started to go truly wrong.