She marched through the winding halls of aged basalt stone. Her typically brisk pace had sent a drum beat warding off anyone that might cross her path.
“Stop staring at me,” Tiera said.
“You can’t fight every battle,” Suzia reminded the grizzled veteran, her voice as warm as ever.
As abrupt as she was brisk, Tiera stayed her marched. Locking eyes with the healer anger and frustration threatened to boil over.
“We don’t have a choice.”
Undaunted, Suzia held her stare. Suzia knew the pressure the Knights of The Veil were under, she knew how much pressure everyone was under. She also knew that this anger, from Tiera, held no threat. Despite the building momentum of Tiera’s aura, her blade keening softly as it felt her will for battle rise, she knew the Knight would never attack her.
Tears had fought their way to the brim of Tiera’s eyes. As she held her war-torn stare, Suzia took in the subtle features of war. Small pocks and gouges from enchanted equipment, imbued with too much magic to heal. Small, curls of burnt hairs trying to grow back. The bloodshot veins of fatigue that burrowed in throughout the whites of her eyes.
“You can’t save anyone if you lose yourself,” Suzia reminded.
Inwardly she cringed at her own fortune cookie-type idiom but that didn't make it any less true. Watching the young warrior-mage rail against her emotions, Suzia’s own eyes slowly bloomed with a dull-blue light. Emanating from Suzia’s iris, having subtly shifted from their usual pale green, the oceanic hue grew brighter. Wordlessly, as the blossoming aura within her iris grew so too did Tiera’s, previous, composure. The slight wilt to her shoulders steadied and righted. The creases in her brow eased.
“You need to get some rest. You can’t save the world if you’re asleep at the wheel, bozo,” Suzia quipped.
“Thanks… It just feels so wrong leaving him when we lost so many, trying to save him. He’s the first one that looks like he’ll survive the week. I didn’t mean to bite your head off.”
Tiera clasped Suzia by her forearm, in the traditional sign of respect for a Knight. In recent years, she’d become more formal than she used to be. She tried to be stoic, but that just wasn’t her. Although she hated to admit it, she was emotional, close to being an empath even. The fighting had gone on too long. This rare showing of frustration was all she could stand, lest she risk becoming overwhelmed entirely.
Watching Tiera walk away, Suzia wiped the tears from her face, the light slowly fading from her eyes.
Silhouetted, Tiera’s figure appeared menacing. Her sword arm scythed through the air, matching the pace of her march. Bindings and edges to the thick leather armour gave her figure a powerful edge. Tiera was a soldier through and through but not to Suzia. To Suzia, the figure in front of her was a tragedy of circumstance. She saw the happy little girl she had cared for. She remembered the rosy cheeks, the giggle that ran through the halls heralding her presence, she remembered the way Tiera had clutched at her skirts with both hands.
Suzia shook her head. To her, what got left behind made war awful, not the lives that were lost.
Reeling in a haggard breath, she followed Tiera, silently.
Continuing through the veritable labyrinth that existed within The Veil, they finally made it to the cluttered smithy. The department was small, far smaller than it probably should have been. The Veil had never been particularly proficient in the ways of forging in the traditional sense of the word. As their creator intended, they focused on the arcane. After the attack, however, The Veil had lost its most prestigious smiths after the combat in the previous catastrophe had caused a collapse over the refinery. Knowledge and leadership had been lost under literal tons of brick and liquid steel. The department had been at a loss of what to do ever since.
As the duo approached the smithy, they heard voices; raised voices. Unlike the typical eerie silence, there were voices echoing from the chambers. Even on their approach, it was easy to tell they were excited.
“An automaton doesn’t usually get this sort of reaction,” Tiera said, her surprise evident. It was rare to get one in such good condition but she had personally hauled over several similar automatons in the last six months.
Continuing on their approach, they peered into the blackened armoury and it became abundantly clear that it was the wreckage of the automaton that had riled them up.
Gathered about the mangled automaton the bronze heft of the colossal construction was scarcely visible. The throng of bodies must have had every blacksmith they had. Each one of them, regardless of their lower levels, had a heft to their physique. Giant hands, giant forearms, the physicality of their craft had forged them. They could wield a hammer as if it were a paintbrush but it still looked wrong to see such lumbering figures so animated.
Within the room, every surface has a scorched black tinge to it. It hadn’t been cleaned since the collapse, that had killed the high-level members of the smithing guild. Piles of scrap metal, weaponry, and armaments littered various disused corners. Tiera and Suzia camped out by one such pile, observing the chaos curiously. Eventually, it was one of the youngest members of the guild that approached them, the first to notice their presence.
“Sorry for the commotion, I guess,” the boy scratched his head.
“First time I’ve seen it so lively down here in a while,” said Tiera “Something good for morale hopefully.”
“Did the mage survive this time?” the smithy boy asked, struggling to contain his eagerness.
“Just about…” before Tiera had said anything more the boy hopped up.
“No way! Haha, no freakin’ way,” the boy was suddenly amped up. “Hey, Jed, they lived.”
The message seemed to spread like wildfire, each member of the smithing guild just as excited as the last. Even the eldest surviving members of the guild were unable to subdue their savage smiles. It appeared Otis would have a home here yet. Every single smithy appeared ready and willing to share their insights and offer guidance. He would be brought on to every project he could. He would have support like he’d never known.
Tiera had patrolled the room now. She had seen the automaton. She had seen what they had all seen and that single glance told her that this would not do.
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Having skimmed through the dense chapters of lore and cartographic drawings, Otis felt his thoughts begin to slip. It wasn't magic as he knew it, it was mana. The word came from a long since forgotten tongue but across the ages not much more was understood. It was ambient in the air but could be found in clusters of greater density in randomly occurring locations or through those with the skills to curate the substance. It wasn't magic but it was a force that only some people could access that gave them unprecedented power. To Otis, it sounded a whole lot like magic.
Intrigued by the new world around him, Otis was too overloaded to continue absorbing the monolithic history of The Veil. He was too distracted by the promise of a world of people who bent the fabric of reality to their whims. Unlike his usual studies of ancient civilisations, he could go out and see this new world, touch it.
Otis strode forth, brimming with excitement before stopping immediately.
‘The fuck am I?’
Although he attempted to consult the thick book of maps and lore, relying on the delicate art of luck Otis picked a direction that felt right and set off. A mixture of excitement and fear pounded in his chest.
He turned, rotated, and double-backed but eventually, nothing gave way to something. A vast open room of some things. Standing in a circular room, with a ceiling so high it hid somewhere behind a thick mist, there were semi-transparent walls of blue light guarding rooms inset into the walls. Thin staircases crisscrossed the walls that led to yet more rooms. Each separate and arranged in a staggered formation, the dim light made it look like a room of stars.
Transfixed by the display, the room reminded Otis of the layered mass of pods in ‘The Matrix’. Approaching the nearest wall of blue light, he prayed there wasn’t a mass of goop and suspended human prisoners.
Approaching the blue wall, a tingling sensation ran through the newly awakened mage. It was a light effervescent sensation; oddly comforting. The closer he moved to the wall, the more intense this feeling was.
Inside, a girl was standing, poised and sweating. She was young, maybe around ten. The girl was pulling against an unseen force, sparks erupting from between her hands. These sparks were coagulating into a shape, though it was too blurry to make out. It was slow but Otis wasn’t in a hurry.
The image sharpened and it appeared to be a traditional blade, short but classic. Inch by inch sparks bloomed into existence, before getting sucked into the materialising sword. Only when nothing more appeared to be added to the weapon did the girl grasp its handle. It was a blade of golden light, that resembled the golden spears he’d seen from Tiera. It didn’t radiate the same aura but it was certainly a precursor to the feat. The girl then let the sword disintegrate like falling sand before beginning again.
‘They must be some kind of training chamber,’ Otis thought, glancing about the room.
It, quickly, became apparent that this theory was likely true. Passing from chamber to chamber, more rapidly appraising the activities of the resident than the first, Otis saw numerous magical activities being performed. All of the chambers on this level seemed to be occupied with younger children, many of whom weren’t yet teenagers. Thinking over the children conjuring swords, levitating objects, and transmuting small sections of their physiology.
A sense of embarrassment crept up on Otis, these were children almost a decade his junior and they far outclassed him. He had known that Tiera was a monster but he’d presumed that she was some kind of talent. It appeared that even if she was talented, her abilities far outclassed what he had seen too far.
Feeling progressively more inept Otis decided to move on. If his guess was correct he’d only find more capable persons in the rooms above. Although he wanted to see just how outclass he truly was, he didn’t trust his balance on the precarious steps and whilst someone else might be able to levitate he was sure he’d impact the ground at quite some speed. Otis had seen enough superhero films to know that attempting to conjure abilities through do-or-die actions usually ended up with more bruises than it was worth.
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After another hour, Otis was frustrated and more than a little hungry. He had found the oracles, who had been mysterious but unhelpful. He had found fighters, that reminded him all too much of the sporty twats in the student union of the university; all brawn and egotism. He had found healers and elementalists and mana-wielding maniacs. No one seemed to want anything to do with him nor was he any closer to figuring out what his skill did. For a moment, he thought it was manipulation of the mind or of the elements, both attempts had seen a humiliating snigger rise from the surrounding mages.
In a last-ditch effort, after developing a rough ability to decipher the maps of The Veil, Otis found himself in the smithy. He could have guessed from blackened surfaces and weapons strewn about the room but the shoddy sign also told him where he was. The sign was identical to the one on the wall of the bunks. Whoever made the signs may well have originated from here.
Again, no one greeted him. No one so much as looked up as he poked and prodded at this and that. Running his hands over sheets of metal Otis felt an attraction to the craft. He had seen restoration videos of rusted metal goods but that had been more a therapeutic watch than it had a calling.
Whilst he may have experienced a couple of rough grunts in the process, Otis managed to snag a metal sheet, a broken wrench, and a couple of nails. It wasn’t much and given the reaction, it was clear that everything belonged to someone. A scavenger skill would have been pretty welcome right about now.
Finding a small nook, Otis sat with his stash. Thinking back to how he had forged his path with the palm trick, he felt the same call. Whatever he was doing, it felt right.
Breathing deeply, he quelled the growing excitement and tried to find the same sensations he had when he’d created the rift in his hand. First holding the nails, Otis felt it in his hands first, this time. He felt subtle vibrations in his fingertips, that grew less subtle with each passing second. With a firm pinch of the nail, he felt this force cascade into the flat metal end.
Watching with the same fascination as he had observed the girl conjuring the golden sword, Otis was fixated. It was as though he could feel the individual cells within the metal flexing under his vision… and then it did. Building in momentum, the flat head to the nail bent in on itself. It oozed like a thick mud down the shaft of the nail, before binding to it faultlessly. However it moved, Otis felt that as long as he was slow and methodical whatever he manipulated would keep its structural integrity.
This has to be what it meant to manipulate. He was a metallurgist. His path had felt mechanical, constructed. Under his guidance, it appeared that the metal would follow his command. He would need to see if other materials could be worked by the skill.
As he let his mind wander, basking in the sensation of it all, the new mage felt sweat begin to coat his brow. He could see what he wanted to craft in his mind’s eye. The thought of stopping never once occurred to him. Grabbing a second nail he continued to explore his newfound craft. He had already seen the things children could do but he had an adult mind and a buff to his endurance and will. Without having acknowledged it for the boon it was, he was fundamentally altered. This wasn’t what drove him though, it wasn’t competition. He was destroying the reality he had grown accustomed. He was disrupting atoms and bending matter to his will. It may have only been a couple of scrap nails but it would have been impossible less than twelve hours prior.
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