Chapter 9

Mya picked up the enchanted plate, her own ideas had been compounded, upon with Desari’s knowledge, then broken down and further added to with Valter’s.

The product was, well, the applications and thoughts it had stirred were rather interesting. There was a flow to rituals, the ability of them to make something more. An elegant weave. It reminded her of the clothes she made, of the nets she created and fixed.

She’d tested out the effects with the paper prototype, it had burned apart, but the effects had all been there. Valter had mocked up and created the enchantment quickly enough, a little bit of blood to bind it to her and some ritual medium—much less than what she’d need for the full ritual—and they were away.

Think of how much we could save doing rituals this way. Wouldn’t need to keep redrawing the damn things too!

They had been carving into ships for years to increase the power of their rituals. Enchantments were this cold exact thing. Definitive without any leeway. Though Valter had made something she could work within.

“Where there’s a will there is a way,” She stored the plate away. “Alright, so, we doing this thing?”

Petor extricated himself from his chair to join Desari who was stretching already.

Mya stored her remaining materials and table.

Valter shifted in his armor, checking it was secure, he donned his helmet, the eyes and runes glowing as they locked into place.

He pulled out his shield to secure it into place, same as Petor.

Mya touched her empty bandoliers. “Really going to need to do something about powder and fire,” Mya muttered.

“There are probably other mediums that would create the force that you require to fire your shot,” Desari said.

“Add some enchantments to speed up the process too.” Valter drew out his cold hammer, Petor was checking his spear and grimacing.

“Well there were some plans that I had about a new kind of rifle.” It had been one of her biggest secrets. Though if she could have their help and knowledge…

Valter and Desari’s heads moved a little too fast.

“That could be fu-interesting,” Desari corrected herself, sounding a touch of suppressed eagerness.

Mya’s smile spread, she pushed on her falchion, it clicked out of its sheathe and she pressed it back down with a solid and satisfying click .

It would probably have to wait till they were done with Ilus.

“Everyone clear on the plan?” Mya asked. The others nodded.

Petor tapped his spear’s butt on the ground. “Shall we?”

Desari stepped forward first, the others followed after her towards the opening. The guards kept out of the way. Yalida stood up from where she had been dealing with reports as they passed.

The tunnel greeted them, they reached where Petor and Valter put up their defense, their boots cracking the spalled stone and crushed rock.

Everyone sunk down into fighting positions, the wind started to gather, condense. The temperature becoming unstable.

Mya drew her Falchion, each of their weapons and enchanted gear glowed slightly with their mana flowing through them.

“Ready?” Valter asked Desari.

“Ready,” Her voice held the timber of one connected to their mana deeply, her eyes glowing purple in the darkness.

Valter’s thermal burst appeared over what had been the entrance into the teardrop room, now covered in rough supercooled stone.

It was a directed blast like it had been earlier. With a whoump, dialled up to a level that matched a cannon volley, the wall turned back into an opening, tearing through the room beyond, covering it in debris. Wind shot through the opening, spinning into a vortex.

“Smash!” Hammers started to form as Desari’s winds threw them around and into one another, destroying each other. It was a blur of shades.

“Go!” Desari said.

Valter ran through first, he destroyed one hammer as he entered, and planted his feet, standing rock still, shield and hammer at the ready.

Petor ran after him and towards the exposed hammer. Mya followed with Desari walking right behind, slow and steady to not lose concentration on her spells.

Petor stabbed his spear into the hammer.

Mya felt the rush of mana hit her core, breathing in sharply as she took out the enchanted plate and put it ontop of the hammer and activated it.

The enchantment resonated with her blood, a direct link. She fed it mana. The enchantment glowed with a murky white, like cold breath on winter wastes, it wrapped around the hammer and tightened .

Mya saw through the world to its heart to its souls. This thing was barely that, a ragged part of a trapped soul, blended up with fusions of concepts.

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“If you stop attacking us then we can help you,” Petor said.

“SMASH!” The voice growled, anger, frustration and a myriad of emotions, there was little thought, that was all coordinated by the concepts.

Mya’s mana weaved through the enchanted plate, the holding enchantment drew the soul out of the hammer and towards the plate.

Souls at their heart was emotion, the brain dealt with the hard thinking things. A soul learned from them, a brain might go hot equals ouch. A soul knew that hot equals pain. Emotions were like mana nodes, love, pain, happiness, they were core concepts, but there were infinite shades of them, a mixing and conjoining of them all. An intricate web, no less complex than that within one’s mind.

Mya reached out to the soul, hammers shot towards her own soul, she swatted them away with soul shredders, emotional constructs that blended up the emotions that created the hammers.

She couldn’t see any other kind of defense. A soul was a person’s center. Even without training in it, people would create a labyrinth of emotions. Each a construct to defend the central personality within—once one controlled that, they controlled the soul completely.

Some came in the shape of fortresses, ships, mountains, mazes. A concept of safety, filled with defenders.

The wavy landscape was barren except for a chasm leading deep within. The ground was rough rising and dipping randomly. Mya pushed back. It’s the surface of the hammer, it replicated itself.

Several apparitions of herself split in every direction, feeding information back to her in parallel. The one that reached the chasm drew on more mana and emotion, forming a spinning needle of compromise and boredom, around a core of frustration and released it down the opening.

The sides of the opening turned into hammers trying to hit the needle. Not all that complicated. Compromise shifted around them, boredom acted as a shield, deflecting the attacks.

Anger and loss raged at the needle as it hit the bottom of the chasm frustration slammed forward through the needle, spinning and driving the compromise and boredom, turning them to stubbornness and irritation.

They cut through the soul barriers and reached the core of the hammer and slammed into it.

Its defenses collapsed, the soul-world shifted and crumbled.

Mya activated the consumption part of the enchantment and withdrew. The soul was torn out of the hammer, burned up and creating more power that she added her own too.

The vapors died down and ceased, its runes flickered and stopped glowing. There was a loss of something as essence was released, striking Mya’s core, adding more green flecks.

The wind carving up the surrounding walls slowed and came to a stop, no longer howling loud.

“Well, that was something,” Petor removed his spear from the hammer.

Mya pulled away the formation, charged with power and stored it. “Was barely a soul in there.”

“Being prepared and having a plan makes everything easier.” Valter stepped up with them and swung his hammer at the pedestal.

The stone crumbled. Three more hits and he’d freed the hammer head. There was no longer a handle, just a rune covered hammer head, it was simple in construction, Four elongated sides and two smaller ones. The edges had been tapered.

Valter stored his hammer and picked up the hammer head, knocking it against his shield a few times to clear the last of stone from it.

“Different,” He took out his metal book and kneeled, putting it on the floor, he infused it with mana and touched the hammer head to the book. Drawings appeared, the surface of the hammer peeled open across the page. Valter flicked it and listened, carving down notes into the book. He did it a few more times.

“Desari, is the reason that elementals are much easier to contract because they don’t have an innate soul yet? Their concepts and mana their basis, with their soul developing last?” Mya asked.

“I’m not sure? I haven’t really gone into souls much. The younger ones are easier to sign a contract with if they’re unwilling. The older they are, the harder it is to get them to submit. What you have on souls looks similar to what one learns about with contracting an elemental,” Desari said.

“Concepts given emotion.” Who would have thought?

“Everything good?” Petor asked Valter.

“Yes, with what I can learn from this and the armor from the elemental it’s given me a really good idea of where and how to start making Dimantium gear,” Valter said, finishing of his latest notes before he stored the book and pencil before standing. “Mya?” He held out the hammer head.

“Thank you,” She took it, her arm sinking with the weight. “Damn that’s not light.”

“When attuned to the user and with mana running through it, it becomes lighter. It is a rather complex material.” His excitement was starting to come to the fore, his eyes still focused on the hammer.

“Well, lets see what the Nether forge is willing to pay for the hammer that made their home,” Mya threw it up and caught it. Damn that is heavy. If not for her greatly enhanced strength it would have been much harder to throw around. She took out her monocole and studied the object.

Hammer head - Cost: 52,000 GP

Description: An ancient Epic grade hammer head, its handle long since lost. It once held a soul but is now just a weapon head. It has been damaged, weakening its enchantments to control thermal energy and for mirror copies of itself.

“Oh I’m looking forward to the negotiation on this one!”

“Now we can head off to Ilus.” Desari said.