Psi Warrior
By 3DD
Chapter 3: Trying to keep secrets
Trill watched in equal horror and satisfaction as the Sram jerked spasmodically as multiple snickers bit him. The excruciating pain from the few bites she had received must be nothing compared to the many bites the Sram had received. The Sram fell to the ground still jerking spasmodically from the ferociously attacking snickers.
“You… you will die too!” the Sram gasped out. He seemed to be blaming her for the attack.
Tril didn’t need the Sram to tell her that! She could already feel the effects of the venom in her body. Her heart was beating erratically, she was perspiring profusely and she was finding it hard to breathe. The severe pain from the multiple bites was a throbbing attack on her ability to think. She strangely didn’t feel very scared, more perplexed by the Ship’s inaction or suggestions on how to survive.
‘I guess having already died once tends to make one a bit less panicky,’ she thought. She looked around to check the snickers near her. They were still not attacking her as ferociously as they had attacked to Sram. Only the occasional snicker darted in to try to bite her.
‘How am I going to stop them biting me any more?’ wondered Tril as she felt the beginnings of despair. Why wasn’t the ship doing anything? Why was the Ship not worried about her?
Tril had an epiphany - the Ship wants me to learn by handling this by myself!
What can I do? My newly enhanced body probably can’t help in this situation. That only leaves my new psi powers!
Probably not a good idea to try to emulate the first Sram’s mind attack. I don’t know how to do a mind attack and I might not have the power. Maybe I can send out calming thoughts, or try being of one mind with them?
Tril decided to do both. She calmed herself, which was extremely difficult considering she was dying, and then tried emitting the feeling of safety and calm. At the same time she sent out her new sense to the nearest snickers, feeling their frenzy and anger. She used her own sense of anger at the Sram for attacking her without reason to merge with their primitive thoughts. Some barrier seemed to be breached as she suddenly felt the sensations of the nearest snickers. Smells, sounds, vibrations in the air showing the location of other snickers, insects and her own body; a kaleidoscope of images flooded her mind, each reflecting the view of individual snickers.
The rush of sensations almost overwhelmed her. She bit her lip and forced her mind back to its original purpose. She sent through the new links, calm thoughts of catching insects and playing with other snickers. It almost immediately worked. The mind-linked snickers stopped being aggressive towards her. She sagged in relief; it worked!
Like the ripples in a pond from a thrown stone, calm spread to the other snickers more distant from her. Peace one again descended onto the flock. Individual snickers started spreading out away from her, once again chasing after insects. Tril realised the snickers communicated via vibrations. Their wings created a never ending buzz of low level sound, keeping the flock together and all the snickers informed of their environment, be it tasty insects to be chased or any perceived threats.
Tril heaved a sigh of relief. That had been so scary! Hang on, why wasn’t she dead? She had been bitten at least five or six times.
<“Your newly enhanced body can cope with the small number of bites you have received. The snickers also didn’t inject as much venom into you as the Sram as you were not perceived as the main threat. It takes a lot of energy to create their poison so they use it sparingly. And well done. You met my expectations on being able to handle the situation. You now have some friends if you need them.”>
Tril only then realised the snickers she had bonded with were still circling her. She held out her hand and the nearest snicker flew over and landed on her palm, wrapping its tail around her fingers. They both examined each other closely, staring into each other’s eyes. The electric-blue jewel-like eyes of the snicker fascinated her. She admired the vivid colour. She felt a reciprocal feeling of admiration from the snicker.
Strong, safe, with beautiful eyes like mine. Came the thoughts of the snicker though their bond. The snicker’s wings buzzed softly, and suddenly the rest of the snickers she had bonded with were landing on her outstretched arm, on her shoulders and head. One even coiled around her neck!
<“Looks like you have been adopted into the flock.”> came the ship’s thought, disturbing her from her fascination and enjoyment of the snickers. <“They could be very useful for you if you ever get attacked again. I would advise bringing them back to your home. They can also act as scouts. Here is the method to make the bond permanent.”> Tril felt the information flow into her mind. Unlike the last time, it didn’t overwhelm her. She quickly used the information to strengthen the bonds until they became self-sustaining.
Feeling very pleased with herself, she admired her new friends. She looked up and examined the motionless form of the Sram. His twisted body indicated the painful death he had suffered.
I wonder why he didn’t use his mind powers to suppress the snickers? Was he surprised by them?
<“He wasn’t as powerful as the first Sram. He probably could have influenced them as you did but he was surprised and then just reacted aggressively as is the Sram’s normal modus operandi.”>
<“I didn’t realise psi powers were of different levels. I should have realised, as magic powers come in different types and levels of power.”>
<“Now that you have started developing your psi abilities you will grow in strength the more you practise and develop types of powers you awaken or learn to use. Having me to constantly practice with and guide you will accelerate your progress.”>
Tril turned back to contemplate the body before her. <“What should we do about him?”> she asked, pondering on the alternatives. Get the ship to remove the body? But that would create a mystery. Better to leave the body in place. Unfortunately that would probably expose the snickers’ poison ability. Oh well, it can’t be helped. They still would be useful, especially if she could separate out the sensory input from a single snicker at a time.
<“Agreed. I will fabricate a mostly eaten body for yourself.”>
Tril felt alarmed! Not this body again!
<“No, of course not. Not even I can bring you back from such a state. This will be created from fish from the lake. I’ll transform the biological matter into an exact copy of your DNA.”>
DNA? No, don’t bother explaining. Tril realised she didn’t need to send thoughts to the ship as she was mind linked permanently.
Why didn’t you tell me? And why can’t I read your mind?
<“It is good for you to discover things for yourself. You won’t become lazy and just rely on me all the time. You also needed the practice of transmitting thoughts to be fluent in mind communication for future interactions with galactic citizens. Also, do you really think you can handle being exposed to my thoughts?”>
Ah, not a chance, she thought. I need to be self reliant, with a little help from my new friends, she gazed at the pretty snickers with affection. They had saved her from a fate worse than death; mind controlled slavery!
Examining the snicker coiled around her fingers with both her eyes and her psi sense, she singled out the sensations being shared over the mind link. Through the mind link she became aware of the lovely warmth of her hand which the snicker could feel. The snicker habitually needed to keep moving to stay warm or find a nice rock warmed by the sun. Her new matriarch would be good to sleep on or to take a warming nap.
It was weird getting the sensations from two minds but far preferable to the kaleidoscope of sensations when not focused on an individual snicker. She sat down in the sun fully recover from the venom’s effects, and to continue drying off while she fine tuned and experimented with her links.
After some time she was able to recognise all the members of her adopted snickers. They were all members of a family group - mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters, all were closely related. They were members of the large flock but unrelated to most of the rest of the flock.
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She experimented with different levels of receiving information from her snickers. She managed to get just a trickle of information on their general emotional state. They would be great scouts and sentries!
At present they were all basking in her and the sun’s warmth. She didn’t mind being a warm bed for them though others would find it strange seeing them draped all over her body. She would need to be careful when around others.
Tril watched with fascination as fish started floating out of the lake and flying over to where she had been laying dead. The fish seemingly melted into an amorphous mass, slowly taking shape into skin, bloody flesh and protruding bones. Tril looked away from the revolting sight of her ravaged body. I didn’t need to see that!
Sending a signal to her flock, as she now thought of them, she ordered them to fly off her body so she could get dressed. Once dressed she sent a thought transmission to the ship to see if the ship was finished mutilating the fish into her body. Receiving an affirmative response she started hiking back down the trail leading to her home. Her snickers happily followed her, chasing after the insects disturbed by her passing.
Today was a magnificent day. She could see to the far horizon where the ocean glinted in the morning sun. She had never visited the ocean as it was four to five days travel from her home. The Magic Academy was located in Port City, so she would see the ocean in a few more months when the new students from all over the kingdom traveled there to be assessed for entry. She was still extremely excited at the thought. The Sram encounter had not dulled her enthusiasm for learning magic.
Life was now very exciting - magic, mind powers, new friends, her ship,,, Tril skipped down the trail, whistling a merry tune.
Scanning her surroundings with her new psi sense, she detected small animals amongst the rocks and hidden in the grass and bushes. Such an abundance of life!
Halfway down the trail she detected a stronger mind. Looking in the direction of the psi sensed mind she saw a tawny mountain cat. A fierce predator for only small prey so not a threat to her.
Further down she faintly sensed the stronger mind of another predator. No feelings of hunger emanated from this mind. It must have fed recently. So many animals she normally would not have known were around her!
She felt very pleased with her new powers. It made her feel safe. No one could sneak up on her now!
<“Unless they have a mind-shield like that Sram.”>
You can’t ruin my good mood that easily. I’m sure there are ways to detect even them.
<“True. I will teach the techniques to you after I teach you how to construct your own mind-shield. That should now be your first priority.”>
Yes, that makes sense. They may come to the village in the future or I might meet them in Port City. It was peculiar thinking to herself as normal and yet have the ship respond to her ‘private’ thoughts.
The trail she was following started flattening out as she came to the first fields which surrounded her village on all sides. The village was located on the banks of a large stream which flowed from the mountains. The water was warmer than the mountain lake where she swam, but it was still cool. The trail she was following ran along beside the stream.
She passed villagers bringing cattle from the pastures to the stream to drink. She could feel the herders’ calm emotions. Hardly any thoughts flowed through the herders’ minds; just the calm acceptance of their animals’ idiosyncrasies. Tril then focused on the cattle. She discovered cattle had personalities as diverse as people. Cranky oldsters with no patience, boisterous calves, wanting to play all the time, with their mothers patiently accepting their antics and watching protectively over them. Tril realised animals were little different to people, just simpler in their thoughts. They still felt a huge range of emotions similar to humans in variety.
Young boys and girls fished from the banks with simple fishing rods. A thin line attached to the tip of the rod and a bone hook baited with insects or worms. These young boys and girls caught a surprising amount of fish which supplemented the protein requirements of the village. Tril had also been skilled at the task as she had used her keen mind to think like a fish - what would a fish like to eat, where to place the food and how to present the food/bait most appealingly?
Continuing on, she arrived at the village. It was all bizarrely normal. No hint of invading aliens. She realised she had only just learnt the word! She was certain she would learn numerous new words and concepts from the ship.
She nodded in passing to the blacksmith who was emptying his forge’s ashes into the bin outside his shop, to be utilised in fertilising the fields. Coming to her home, she skipped in through the open door, yelling out, “I’m home!”
She was keen to see what her family’s minds felt like. Her older brother came out from his bedroom, reaching out to ruffle her hair. She skipped backwards to avoid his hand. Poking him in the ribs in retaliation.
“Ah!” Her brother cried out and bent over in pain.
‘Whoops!’ she thought. I forgot I’m stronger now.
“So sorry! I did not mean to poke you that hard.”
“You are getting so strong! And fast! You would make an excellent warrior.”
“I know, but I want to learn magic first.” She replied. She could feel her brother’s emotions and stronger thoughts. Thankfully he wasn’t upset with her. It was so useful knowing what people felt!
Her mind and body enhancements were amazing!
__________
A few months had passed since her mountains’ encounter with the Sram. Her parents and brother were wary of her new idiosyncrasies, though they tried to support her. Her mother blamed the stress of the upcoming magic academy acceptance trials. Her father suspected something had happened but as she wasn’t sharing and she seemed happy, he left her to carry on how she wished without subjecting her to an inquisition.
Tril was getting tired of constantly guarding against revealing her mind powers and hiding her inhuman strength. After a few months she had finally learnt not to answer unspoken thoughts. It was especially hard when they were about her!
A number of times she had to quickly come up with an explanation of why she answered an unspoken question. She had earned a reputation of being weird.
She had developed a habit of pretending to consider her answers before replying to questions. This new habit had garnered some weird looks when the question was simple in nature. Though the new habit did force her to think more before answering; which was a good thing!
Her brother was proud, on her behalf, of her incredible strength and speed. He had boasted to his friends about her fighting skills. She had, with good nature, accepted his friends’ challenges to spar. It was good practice for her, especially in getting used to her new speed and strength. Fortunately her reaction speed and senses had also dramatically improved else she would be more afraid of hurting her challengers.
Once she had integrated her enhancements with her fighting skills, she had tried to cut down the number of challenges with little success until she started to not hold back as much with her attacks. Getting beaten by her was one thing; getting beaten up was a whole different experience. Other than a couple of die-hard fighting enthusiasts, she had regained her normal way of life; other than not running in the mountains anymore. She was afraid of running into the Sram again if she did so. She was supposed to be dead!
__________
Macron turned from watching the ships sailing in and out of Port City’s harbour. He never tired of watching them setting their sails and moving silently across the wide bay that protected the docks from the ocean waves. Smaller fishing vessels darted between the large trading ships, keen to get their catch to market first so as to get the best price for their catch.
He motioned to the messenger who had disturbed his solitude. The boy bowed low and extended his hands containing a scroll to the archmage. Taking the scroll and breaking the seal, he unrolled the message, quickly scanning past the flowery language of greeting to get to the heart of the missive.
“Damn nobles! Always wanting preferential treatment.” He grumbled to himself, causing the poor boy to flinch.
“It’s okay. I won’t turn you into a frog.” he reassured the boy. The boy blanched in fright and quickly fled down the stairs of the tower.
‘Crap!’ he thought, ‘I keep scaring the servants. I don’t know why. I haven’t turned anyone into a frog in years, and anyway, he deserved it.’
Being the most powerful magic user in the realm had its advantages and disadvantages. The daily plethora of requests was draining on his patience and energies. Especially the requests from nobles!
He sighed and glanced towards the harbour wistfully before making his way down the stairs. Time to do some politicking. The selection trials would start in just over a month. Some allowance had to be given to the nobles else they complain to the king. He would be damned if he would do more than pre-test the nobles’ sprats so they didn’t have to line up with the commoners. Maybe he could exclude the more troublesome applicants? Though he would have to be careful how he did it.
He would have to call in some favours from the members of the assessment panel. The noble born members would not give way to him, but fortunately the majority of the members were common born.
As he made his way down the corridor towards the lodgings of his first target, he wondered if any outstanding applicants would appear amongst this year’s batch? From the last 50 years he had presided over the trials he found the level of applicants varied greatly. Some years there were 3 - 5 outstanding applicants, and other years there were none.
He himself had been one of six outstanding applicants; an unusual year. His affinities were fire and lightning, a rare double ability. Most double affinity mages had one strong affinity and the other much weaker. His were equally strong as each other.
His predecessor was an extremely rare triple-affinity mage, the only one such he had ever met. He had heard that the Empire had four and even some five-affinity mages. This was understandable as the Empire had a much greater population than their small kingdom.
Coming to the dwelling of the first member, he knocked on the door with his staff.
“Go away! Don’t disturb me. I’m in the middle of an important and delicate experiment!” Came the response from inside.
Macron frowned. He had hoped to get the ball rolling with the easiest to sway member first. “I’ll come back later.” He said to the shut door.
“Ah, Archmage! Wait, wait, let me open the door for you.”
Macron smiled. That was more like it. Power was to be used sparingly but effectively. Things looked like they were going his way for this assessment.
__________
Earl Brantley scowled at the messenger boy. What a useless individual! Too scared to wait to get a reply to his request for a selection of noble children to be accepted into the Magic Academy. So what if the archmage had once turned a baron into a frog! The fool baron had tried to threaten the man. There were proper ways to cajole those with power into complying with one’s requests. Everything had balance and one must be subtle with those who had true power, else a noble would soon fall from their position. Only offend the truly weak was his motto; like this quivering wreck of a boy!
“Get the head butler in here then report to the guard captain. You are ordered to clean the soldiers’ latrines for the next five years.” He watched as the boys’ face blanched. That would teach him from not carry out his duties in the future.
He looked down at the next document on his large Ironwood desk. The document was waiting for his decision on its request. The desk’s beauty momentarily distracted him from resuming his review of the documents. He briefly smiled. One must have one’s luxuries. No thought crossed his mind of the inequality of having a desk worth more than the boy would earn in his lifetime.
Once he had more mages of noble descent in positions of power in the Magic Academy, then he could start shaping the kingdom’s factions into his own power base. He already had the merchant’s guild and most of the military under his sway. The king was old and weak with no direct line of ascent. The earl was distantly related but had no real claim to the throne. Little did that matter to him. He had the power and intelligence to rule. Most savvy people knew this already. They were starting to fawn on him as the the most likely successor.
The earl sighed in pleasure at the thought of having ultimate power over everyone in the kingdom. Nothing would stop him in reaching his goal. Not all-powerful mages nor weak messenger boys!
__________
Tril sighed. Nothing to do with mind powers was easy, unless you counted her links forged with her flock of snickers. She smiled as she looked down at Mischief, her favourite snicker. Months ago, Mischief had been the first to fly to her hand. Since then, Mischief had grown closer to her than any of the other snickers.
<“You should know that you can share your memories and intelligence with her. I can also enhance her physically so she doesn’t age and die before you.”> the ship suddenly said. The ship had been very quiet, letting Tril learn most skills largely by herself, only giving the occasional snippets of information when Trill became truely stuck.
<“That would be great! Mischief can then look after managing the flock.”> Tril loved having the flock around her. She would now feel blind if she lost their additional senses providing information on what was happening in her vicinity. Managing them though was a constant drain on her ability to concentrate.
She had just been wondering how she could improve her already amazing extra abilities, both mental and physical which now included her flock.
You are so wonderful My Ship. What do you think about me giving you a name? Ship, sounds so impersonal!
<“Hmm, that would be very nice. My race were the only people who named me.”> came the ship’s contemplative response, <“But nothing like ‘Mischief’!”>
<“What did your race call you?”>
<“Destroyer of ten thousand suns!”> the ship proclaimed rather proudly.
“What the fu…!”