The evening sun spilled red and orange, fading to dark purple in the East, as if a life fading to a slow end. The partial clouds hung low, dark, like heavy bruises. A fine dusting of white fell, sticking on hair and clothes yet melting on the ground.
The grass was mossy, however, the chill had stolen any softness that would’ve remained within the usually pliant green plants. A slow breeze swept across them, occasionally sweeping a flurry of flakes along before melting on the ground.
The temperatures had been going up lately, yet today had seen a steady decline. Elusria could resist the inevitable pull of winter no longer, it would seem. Heavy clothes had already been bought and distributed among the hotter acclimated students. The Korfiyans hadn’t felt a chill to freeze water, let alone snow.
Though, Morphos’ veteran experience again availed him of foreign knowledge. It didn’t surprise Ranvir that the weather could get messed up whenever armies spilled forth mana against each other. Thankfully, engagements rarely affected the weather long term.
Grevor paced the grasses, head down, head bobbing to an unheard song. Concentration was writ on every line of his face. Wearing a sleek black outfit accented in yellow around the hem and collar. A stone had been embroidered on his breast in silk thread, a black — even deeper than the rest of his clothes — form, emanating a gold thread glow from cracks and outline.
His eyes flicked to the others in the clearing. Ayvir, who sat on a stump treating Redpaw, his monkey, and himself to dried fruit snacks. Seeming completely relaxed, his dark red eyes occasionally flicked to Grevor’s pacing form before returning to the monkey.
Ayvir had been up to something while Ranvir was gone as well, yet he’d made no attempt to tell Ranvir. Which didn’t stop him from gazing the lines, sensing the path Ayvir had traveled. To the front lines, then beyond. A deep unrest within the front lines had been billowing in waves. The disturbances to vague and difficult to read, Ranvir wouldn’t have thought of them, if not for Ayvir’s trip.
Yet, they posed perhaps a more interesting question than Ayvir’s behavior. What was happening at the front lines and beyond? Ranvir could only guess, but he’d spent a couple hours on the lines examining what he could sense. And… it was very little.
Sensing even just a little beyond the front lines, detail blurred. Ranvir couldn’t imagine how many of them there had to be, but the disturbance was wide. From north to south, it covered the entire range. A wall beyond the front lines is both physical and spiritual.
They created a diminishing pressure, one that might be worth exploiting if he could. Even if Saleema was a fourth-stage, dropping her in the middle of the flesh-torn would severely hinder her abilities. They might outright disable her, though he doubted it. It seemed unlikely that no one had tried that before.
Still a worthy attempt, if he could manage it without getting caught himself. And that was the rub. They were just as much his allies as they were Saleema’s. The Ralith wouldn’t care if they bled one tethered or two.
Grevor’s eyes fell on Ranvir then. He couldn’t help but feel a little startled at the sight. Having undergone his own spiritual alignment not too long ago, Grev’s eyes had changed as well. Where Ayvir’s eyes went red when he drew power, Grev’s now turned fully white.
The effect was uncanny when matched against his pale skin. His eyes, always perceptive and always penetrating, now had an almost impaling effect on people. Wholly unrelated to any of his abilities as a tether and solely caused by his training and personality.
When Ranvir had gone to pick him up, he’d seen Grevor turned an over-confident guardsman into a bumbling fool in moments. No words, no posturing. He only drew power to light his eyes. Even without power, they were paler than previous, just as Ayvir’s had a reddish tint and Ranvir’s a purplish.
That wasn’t what he was here for today, though. He’d been training incessantly, following all the known guidelines and even most of the theoretical ones. Grev had been pushing hard for a long time, including using Ranvir’s exercises to grow his strength, and he’d been inching closer to his next advancement faster than anyone else.
Before his rigid discipline and turgid sense of duty, even Es’ incredible potential failed to keep up. Though Ranvir wouldn’t discount the ability to dedicate large portions of his day to exercise, but Grev was nonetheless impressive for his speed.
No one, not even the Ankirians, knew the trick to the third-stage. Though they knew a few requirements that Elusria hadn’t. As expected, your Discipline — all of them if you had multiple — needed to have reached their full growth. As a Body, that meant Grev should be able to insert deeply enough to meaningfully change his physical composition.
The ability to fully retrieve your Discipline, pulling it entirely within your soul. This was also a given, since these requirements were also part of the second-stage advancement.
Ankiria claimed you needed a certain level of experience before achieving the third-advancement. This usually resulted in continued training after their military dedication. Specifically, they ‘knew’ you needed to have wielded your mana under duress for an extended amount of time. They were likely strengthening their spirits without realizing it. It seemed to Ranvir’s eyes.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Elusria believed you had to show the Triplet Goddess that you were serious and earn her blessing. To some, this came easier. Most never managed that much. Ankiria thought differently, though in a similar vein. You had to achieve an effect the Three Sisters couldn’t overlook.
What that meant to them was a certain level of control over your mana, not just your Discipline. Elusria’s description, though more clouded in mystery, led to the same watering hole.
What Ranvir thought interesting was the insistence on the Goddess’ approval from both sides. Ankiria held firm to weekly attempts at advancement once you’d reached the quantifiable goals.
However, part of that repetition was experimentation. Dedicating an hour each week, at minimum, to something inane and boring led anyone down strange roads. Likely another requirement they were unaware of.
One Ranvir thought Kirs might’ve accidentally cracked. She’d been experimenting with her rituals when she’d discovered the source of mana. When a tethered was first created, most described the touch of something greater — the Triplet Goddess. The source and the Goddess were likely the same thing or closely related.
So he did some experimenting with Amanaris and its functions. One thing that gave Amanaris such a large frame on the wall of puzzles was the need for repeated small developments. It made each advancement easier, at the cost of rigidity. What if the tether off-loaded that response, the advancement trigger, to something attached to the plane itself?
Grevor had been sheathing his Discipline for over two years, and achieved full growth for nearly a year as well. Ranvir’s rudimentary spirit training had put him a step ahead. When they went to the academy and Kasos’ exercises had only sped Grev further. Ayvir had been working incessantly on his skill, having trained under Ankirians himself.
Only one thing remained, the one requirement no one understood. If they’d cracked it, the landscape of Vednar would change forever. For good or ill.
“I’m ready,” Grevor said, his white irises glowing halos in the dusk.
Ranvir nodded. “I’ll follow you as best I can.”
Standing in front of each other, Ranvir reached out and pressed a hand against Grev’s chest, pushing his tether-sense through it. Resistance before Grev deliberately let his guard down. Suddenly, Ranvir floated within an almost familiar looking tether-space.
The same curving spiral Ranvir had, though Grev’s — as a second-stage — was much larger. It burned a fierce white that hurt the eyes. The dry heat emanating from the rope felt as if it would bake his skin.
Before him floated the indistinct presence of Grevor. A ghost, nearly solid white light, slowly heading toward the tether.
“Focus inward,” Ranvir said, following behind. “I cannot come with you beyond the tether’s entrance. Bring but a spark back with you.”
The white light hesitated before seeming to nod. It touched the tether.
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Grevor fought through the pressure from his tether. A solid pressure against his hazy form, thick enough that it felt like crawling through clay. Burning hot clay.
“Bring but a spark back with you.”
Grev could barely hear the words through the grit sensation of his struggle. He glance to Ranvir, hesitating as he saw him. He didn’t know if Ranvir understood what he looked like within his spirit, but it was at once awe-inspiring and frightening.
A dark figure of nearly perfectly human proportion, eyes a purple glow to rival the sun. His arms were exaggerations of his bird arm. Angular, more heavily taloned, with a spike at the elbow as well. Behind him hovered a storm of sand and rain, churning strongly enough to flay the very space within which he remained and toyed with his shoulder-length hair. The wings, not two but four, one pair large, the other smaller, framed him.
On top of it all, he not only seemed unbothered by the pressure coming from Grev’s tether, he seemed not to notice it at all. Grev shivered and pushed forward. White heat encapsulated and crushed him, yet he fought on.
He’d fought his tether many times before and understood that it could hurt him, but it could not control him. Not if he didn’t let it. Pushing past, he soon found himself at the entry point. Where the tether touched his spirit.
Immediately, he sensed the regularity. So odd, after hours upon hours of searching for the flaw, to now discover it gone. Endless minutes toiling away, and now it was fixed and his tether the stronger for it.
Yet now he must move past it. But there was nothing beyond it. He held no connection to whatever Ranvir thought lay beyond the tether. There was nothing more beyond his spirit than emptiness. His senses picked up nothing.
Retreating, he leapt away to tell Ranvir. At least until he thought of something. He was picking up nothing with his tether-sense, yet pushed into a place that didn’t exist or was inaccessible, he hit a wall.
All those years ago, when Saleema had trapped him in that cramped pocket-space, his tether hadn’t felt the space beyond. There’d been a solid barrier through which he couldn’t penetrate. What if…
He stretched forth his tether-sense, soul-sight, as the Korfiyans called it. The more he stretched, the more friction he felt. Resistance. The struggle built with each moment, increasing as he pushed further into the emptiness. Then, as if he’d suddenly built enough static for a shock. The pressure released and a little ball of lightning, a flare of the sun, a fragment from the core of the plane, jumped into his tether-sense.
Grev retreated, panicked, falling back, yet he could not stop it. The closer it got to his tether-space, the bigger and stronger he realized it was. Then it touched. His tether swelled, slamming his presence into and then through his space. Involuntarily, he embraced the pressure, seizing every bit of light he could.
White encapsulated him, solid and overwhelming. His spirit shifted and changed, tether-space cracking and growing. Impossible to contain it all, Grev screamed and released it through any avenue he could.
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Ranvir staggered back, sensing the weight of the Goddess’ touch on Grevor.
“It’s like pressure,” he said. “Every time you brush against that space, it builds a bit of tension. Do it often enough over a short enough time period.” His mimed explosion was cut off by Grev erupting into perfect white light.
A burnt smell permeated as Ranvir staggered back, squinting against the light. Perception dulled his sight, though it couldn’t stop him from being blinded fully. His clothes smoked and Grev’s were invariably gone entirely.
Ayvir had stepped closer. With an errant wave of his hand, directed the light upward. Enough light mana to set fire to the grassy plains, instead burnt a hole in the dark clouds above.
For long minutes, the light intensified until flakes of it fell off and drifted among the snow. These touched the ground with a smoky sizzle, rather than wet melt.
Darkness reined. Abruptly, the light disappeared and Grevor fell naked to the ground. Ayvir, ready with a blanket, went to him and wrapped it around his shoulders.
“Welcome to the third-stage, Master Grevor Starstone.”