Tala stood within Mistress Holly’s workroom, nearly fully recovered from having her full set of inscriptions violently ripped out. As such, the Inscriptionist was ready to explain—one last time—the changes to Tala’s new schema, but she was awaiting confirmation to begin.
Tala swallowed, centered her mind, and grunted in assent.
“We’ve been able to implement general improvements to the spellforms across the board, but this is likely the last time we can do that until you’ve Reforged. Your body simply won’t be robust enough to take any more enhancement beyond what will be included here.”
She nodded. As odd as that sounded, there was a certain amount of innate durability that a body needed in order to be enhanced to any given level, and Tala was nearly capped out.
If they went any higher than they were going to be doing with this inscription schema, Tala would become a creature of magic that happened to have some fleshy bits, rather than a creature of flesh with magical augmentation.
The distinction was subtle but endlessly important.
“We’ve added the equivalent of magical markers throughout your entire body so that you can enact gravitational augmentation to pull your body together. That way, your magic should act as a linking force between each piece and the parts around it instead of turning you into a bone and flesh sphere. You’ll have to find the exact limits of this usage, but I’ve put some notes and educated guesses into the Archive for you. The entire marker schema is there as well, as requested. I imagine it will take you quite a while to fully implement this idea. Though I do believe that it is a good one. Do you still intend to augment your personal reality node’s ‘gravity’ to itself as well?”
Tala nodded, beginning to feel much better as her natural magics continued to act. If she understood correctly, augmenting her own reality node’s ‘gravity’ toward itself would give her greater… durability? That was likely as good a word as any, given the fact that the act would harden her existence against interference of any kind, at least a bit. It also cost her nothing but a bit of time, so she saw no reason not to try it.
“Good, good. Continuing on, we’ve repurposed the real estate in your lungs to further enhance your cardiovascular system for increased physical performance, while augmenting those magics in your throat and mouth to better contain and funnel unrealized workings to greater effect. They will strengthen your authority over—and the receptivity to your will of—the magics that pass through there. It isn’t a perfect inscription as it can only add to what is already there, but that shouldn’t be an issue for this case.”
Tala nodded again. As had been explained in detail, she couldn’t use these magics in order to claim something that wasn’t already hers. They simply strengthened the claim she already had on whatever it acted upon. The effect would basically be in line with what Mistress Cerna had suggested, giving her the ability to vary the distance of ‘ignition’ of the magic within her breath… at least somewhat.
“Beyond that? There isn’t anything critical. Your voidsight is now actually going to be incorporated into your magesight, and those scripts are esoteric enough that no other Inscriber should be able to pull anything useful from them. If someone does look closely enough to want something similar, they’ll have to come to me about them, and I’ll deal with it.” She shook her head. “Anyone else foolish enough to try to use them or their derivatives has a good chance of going insane, but you’re inured sufficiently that I expect you to be fine.”
Just as Tala had previously understood, inscribed voidsight would manifest somewhat differently than that form of perception did when she simply imposed void-magics atop the magesight spell lines.
“So, are you ready?” Mistress Holly motioned to the auto-inscriber in the corner.
Tala felt a moment of nostalgia. It had been more than a year since she’d been subjected to that device. Her sanctum held her reinscriber, but that only worked to restore inscriptions after she’d already had them. Thus, she had to go back to the old standby. “Yes. I’m ready.”
She straightened and stretched her arms up for the invention to be slipped over her head before constricting around her every part.
As it began to work, she found herself exceedingly grateful for all the large meals that she’d had of late. She had already been pulling quite heavily on her reserves that day, and she would be doing so yet again when this process was complete.
Maybe I should go kill something and absorb it? It was an intriguing thought, and it caused her to smile even as she was stabbed uncounted times so that her inscriptions could be rebuilt from the inside out.
* * *
Tala felt the last needle pull back, and she let her healing kick in, sealing and setting all the inscriptions in place.
A moment later, she allowed her power to flood through the spellforms, and one by one new variations of magics clicked into place, slotting perfectly into her natural magics just as they were designed to do.
Power.
Tala shuddered as her body seemed to come to life with power.
Vast.
Existence opened before her as her magesight roiled and voidsight joined it, together overlaying her mundane sight, and suddenly, her threefold sight came fully to her eyes with no effort.
Reality nodes were clearer than ever, and with that came an understanding of the distinction between them like never before.
It wasn’t that she saw more. Instead, it was like the knowledge simply came into her mind in a new way. There was nothing new, but it was the difference between reading a book and having an Archive connection place the book in her mind. It was as if every distinct item was outlined in black, without that black line taking up any space. The separateness of the things within the world was emphasized.
-Oh… wow.-
You’re fully back?
-And then some. This is… this is amazing. Your brain is so enhanced.- Tala felt like something was bouncing around within her mind for a moment, and Alat laughed. -So much room for activities!-
Tala grinned, and with an act of will, she rolled her iron over her new inscriptions, boxing them in and keeping even the minimal leakage from escaping her body. The magic was hers, and it would not leave against her will.
She gasped as the enhancements ticked up another notch.
Her threefold sight was aspect-mirrored to her two clouds of bloodstars awaiting star- and stoneward, and everything became clearer.
She took in and processed everything within a hundred feet, seeing every layer all at once and finally understanding what she saw in a way that she never could before. Beyond that, she could see… somewhat, but not nearly as clearly. That was okay. She felt like she was near her limits as it was with regard to information processing, and that was with Alat taking on the greater share of the load.
As Tala examined her surroundings, her focus snapped to Mistress Holly, able to see the physicality of the woman, but the Inscriber’s magic was still obscured by her aura. Yeah, there is absolutely no way that she is just Refined.
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Tala turned her focus back on herself and found that she was able to track the paths of individual inscription lines through her own body, not losing the thread as it shifted between layers that she could see. Her increased processing was beyond all expectations.
-Oh, yeah.- Alat laughed almost maniacally. -We can work with this.-
Beyond that, she had a lot of gravitational augmentation magic to implement in order to fully realize the new changes that she had enacted upon her schema.
With a thought, she focused on her own reality node, and began amplifying its attraction and pull toward itself.
Just like the nodes in her sanctum’s sparring ring, she didn’t expect any physical compression to happen, but as Mistress Holly had implied, it would likely be a useful defense against anything that might otherwise affect her on such a level.
The amplification iterated faster, increasing at a substantially greater rate than before, even if she didn’t know the exact rate.
Back as a Fused, she could amplify gravity at around ten percent per second. Since Refining, she’d been able to do more, faster, and now that was even more true than before.
She stretched, feeling her joints move as if frictionless. Her tendons and connective tissue almost felt like they pinged within her as they shifted and aligned, adjusting both to her increased strength and their own magnified resilience.
Oh, I need to fight something to get a good sense of how I’ve changed…
-Master Cru has responded. We’re scheduled for a sparring session as soon as we get back to Alefast. The tentative time set is in two days.-
A wicked smile grew across Tala’s lips. Perfect.
* * *
Tala stood in a comfortable stance, one foot forward and Flow held down near her back leg in a loose grip.
The sand beneath her feet felt solid, giving her even firmer footing than at times previous due to the improved surface area-expanding scripts on her feet.
There were subtle indications of the large circles around her feet that were pressing down and flattening the sand while keeping her from sinking too far into it.
Terry lay on the sand back near the entrance to this training room, curled up in such a way as to be able to watch the upcoming clash.
Across from Tala—barely two dozen yards away—was Master Cru, a sword in his hand as well. “Are you ready?”
A smile pulled at her lips. “Absolutely.”
The man advanced at a steady—but still mundane—pace.
Tala could have waited for him to approach, and that might have even been the tactically best decision, but she was feeling a bit impatient. With a forward bend, she crouched and launched herself at her opponent, her mind filled with meditations on the Way of Flowing Blood.
She wouldn’t let the origin of the fighting style taint her view of it. Either it was good and it worked, so she should use it, or it was trash, and it should be discarded down to the smallest movement.
It wasn’t trash.
The days since her new inscriptions were laid hadn’t been wasted, and she was fully used to her new capacities.
She moved, bent, and flowed from one strike to another, moving in ways that would almost make her seem boneless to an unskilled observer. Instead, she had simply honed her flexibility—and her strength and control through that range of movement—to an extent usually unheard of, even among Defenders and other Refined.
Even so, the weapons master was not easily overcome. Master Cru met her blade for blade, the weapon he brought to bear more resilient than the ones he’d used against her previously. Even so, he was retreating before her constant advance.
Flow slid easily from hand to hand, changing forms at the speed of thought, always the exact form to snake a bit deeper into Master Cru’s guard. Always at the correct angle to take best advantage of the block he had chosen to employ.
Unfortunately, as he was truly a master of melee combat, best advantage was still not enough to evade the blocks, and deeper into his guard was never sufficient to score a hit.
If Tala had to rate the man’s skill, she would easily rate it as equivalent to Eskau Meallain of the House of Blood, even if that arcane would be physically superior to him in a direct clash.
His every move was precise and covered himself from anything that Tala could do.
But she was pressing him.
He was actually being forced to use his skill.
She’d been running through her forms the last couple of days, but she knew that she was rusty even so.
Her base physical capacities had simply increased to the point that she felt confident saying she was both stronger and faster than the weapons master she faced, but it wasn’t enough to actually damage the man.
Though, truthfully, the fact that she couldn’t draw blood was inconsequential in her eyes. She was just excited to be controlling the flow of the clashes thus far.
Finally, after he had retreated to the middle of the massive sparring room under the Archon Compound of Alefast, he seemed to decide it was time for a change of pace.
A second sword appeared in his off hand as if it had always been there.
His following assault was fierce enough to force her back two steps before a shield appeared on her left-hand side, rising up—out of a portal from Kit that Tala had opened at her ankle height—so quickly that it practically appeared in the way of one of his blows.
The appearance of the shield caused his eyes to widen. “I thought this first fight was to be sword on sword?”
She grinned in return. “So did I. Sword on sword, not swords.”
A mischievous glint entered his eyes. “Well countered.”
Without another word, his assault renewed, fiercer than before.
The Leshkin shield was not up to the task of deflecting Refined level attacks, but the weapons that Master Cru was using weren’t exactly Refined weapons. They were, effectively, robust, sword-shaped training sticks, allowing the tower shield to be an effective tool for the current clash.
She surprised him again when the shield seemed to move in impossible ways, even as she used it to cover herself as expected.
He couldn’t see that she had yet to physically touch the shield. Instead, it was being controlled entirely by the three bloodstars embedded within a mounted triangle on the back of the massive thing.
This was greatly to her advantage because the shield’s movements were normally at least a reasonable clue as to a person’s body position and movements. Instead, the shield now functioned as a massive bluff of sorts, its movements not predicting the placement and angle of Flow’s strikes as they should have.
Even so, that discrepancy only tripped him up for less than a second. That wasn’t enough to let her land a hit, but she still gloried in the victory that was taking him off guard.
From there, they both got creative and the clash continued to build and escalate.
* * *
Tala actually found herself exhausted as she laid, sprawled on the sand, Terry perched on her chest.
Master Cru had departed for his own unit’s duty shift.
We started when I got off my shift at four in the afternoon…
-And it’s almost midnight now.-
Eight hours… We fought for nearly eight hours.
She had endurance, but she’d never really tested it like this. Most Mages didn’t have clashes like this at all. After all, most would have been using magics that would have tipped the scales of the clash one way or the other, rather than simply using enhancements and mundane means to meet in physical combat.
The fact that Master Cru had been fighting specifically to draw out all that she could do didn’t make things any faster either.
As she considered things, she realized that she probably could have kept going, but because she didn’t need to, her body was making its irritation with her known.
Shouldn’t I be beyond such things? I mean, I can heal almost instantly. I shouldn’t get sore… right? I shouldn’t be winded?
-Your body is still acclimating to its new capacities, even with your practice and training. I think that your current exhaustion and heavy breathing is mostly an unconscious reaction based on how you still believe that you should feel.-
That’s… fair.
-Because, obviously, no mortal could do as you have done and not be exhausted. It’s only natural that you are so winded.-
But… I’m not mortal anymore. Tala frowned. Alat knew that, obviously. What was she playing—?
-Really? Then why are you lazing about? Get up and get to it.- Alat projected glee within Tala’s mind, clearly pleased with herself.
Tala huffed a laugh while stroking Terry before sighing and giving him a pat. “Let’s get up.”
Terry trilled softly, but didn’t move.
She gave a half-smile, lifting her head to look at the bird. “Terry. We have so much to do. Come on, let’s go.”
The avian cracked one eye open, looking down on her imperiously. He then let out a light squawk and closed his eye once again, settling in more firmly.
Tala chuckled, laying her head back with a sigh. “Fine, but just five more minutes.”