Millennial Mage

Tala lay, sprawled out atop the heaving back of a massive bear as its breathing slowed and finally stopped.

Last one.

She jerked Flow out of the carcass. letting it shift from its glaive form back to that of a knife.

Tala tried to ignore the wet slurping sounds as Terry flickered around the clearing, devouring the mangled, blood-marinated bodies of the fallen.

She groaned and started stretching on the tangled hair of the great beast below her.

As the bodies disappeared one by one, the thrashed, soaking ground was revealed more and more.

The noon-time sun shone down on the canopy above, filling the space with clear green light, interspersed with shafts of untinted sunlight.

In the green light, the ground looked mostly black, and only the smell indicated what it really was. The interspersed patches of white light highlighted the crimson color of what lay below, making the terrain resemble blood-stars in a dark sky.

Some fur and detritus still smoldered, though Terry seemed to have prioritized those beasts. Apparently, he liked a smoky flavor. That tracks with his love of jerky, I suppose.

The smell of cooked meat was almost as strong as that of blood and gore. A surprising number of beasts had been able to augment themselves with, or breathe out, fire. How a forest survives with so much fire magic within it, I’ve no idea.

Additionally, her every cut with Flow had left cooked meat in its wake.

“You know, Terry. I was planning on harvesting some of those.”

Terry looked her way, the tail of a massive lizard hanging from his mouth. He threw his head back and let the remainder of the creature slide down his gullet, before returning his gaze to her. He trilled questioningly.

“I know you helped. I’m not asking you to starve. I just want to collect some things first.” She looked around. “Well, at least from the few that are left.”

Terry looked around at the few bodies remaining, then squawked and settled down to wait.

“Thank you.”

Tala looked down on the carnivore below her. The bear had stood three times her height and breathed fire. Probably called a Blaze Bear, or something silly like that.

If she were being honest, this bear had killed the majority of opponents there at the end. The arrival of it, and one other like it, had heralded the final phase of the skirmish.

Tala had only slain this one by coming at it from behind as it roasted a wolf-pack, which had tried to challenge it for some food.

“How am I going to move this?” She looked at her bracers and anchor. “You know, if I could get you registered as the target, then simply walk away with the anchor…” She bit her lip in thought. “What if I asked Master Jevin to make some target darts, or something. I could then use those to tie enemies to the same anchor I’m linked to. That would be useful in all sorts of ways…” She nodded. It was worth asking. “Include the inner defenses for those? Keep them from grabbing the anchor and running?” She clicked her tongue.

While promising, the idea wasn’t particularly helpful to her current situation.

She gave the bear a weary sigh. “I don’t really want to skin you in a blood-puddle.” She glanced to Terry. “Are you willing to help me move these bodies?”

Terry let out a descending series of short trills, suddenly growing to twice the size of the bear.

With quick motions, he flickered to each body, picked it up in his beak and walked to a nearby rise before setting it down. Last of all, he came for the massive bear, and Tala had to hop off.

Her feet squelched in the thickening muck, the paste-like substance working its way between her toes. What happens when blood dries and hardens when mixed with dirt?

She scrapped her tongue across her teeth, unconsciously trying to get an imagined taste off of it. “That’s gross…”

She took high, long steps, trying to get out of the muck as quickly as possible. By the time she got to the rise, all the animals were laid out and ready for her ministrations.

Now, Mistress Ingrit gave me a list of the best harvests in this area. Let’s see how many I can find. There were other things that would be of use to her, and even more that her mage-sight could guide her too. All told, there would be plenty for her to gather up.

She looked to Flow, in its knife form. Shouldn’t cook anything in this form.

That decided, she went to work, directed by Mistress Ingrit’s list and her own mage-sight and desires.

* * *

It was midafternoon by the time that Tala had finished harvesting, and Terry had eaten the last of the remains.

The bird didn’t really seem to care what he ate, as he ate the gut piles as readily as the other organs and the meat.

Tala didn’t really want to eat meat from carnivores, so she’d left that to Terry, but she had gotten two massive bear-hides. One from her final kill, and one that was barely smaller. The beast had been gutted, probably by Terry.

The hides were so heavy that she had a hard time moving them around, even with her enhanced strength. Not only did they have a heavy coat of thick fur that was far from clean, but the hide, itself, was nearly 4 inches thick.

They had been a pain to stuff into Kit. Though, she assumed that Kit would debride them for her, so that made it worth the effort.

This might cost more than I’m willing to pay to tan… She’d had that thought before, but she’d figured that she could probably pay a tanner one of the hides to tan the other for her.

In addition, she’d gotten a large number of bones and claws, which had drawn her attention due to the magic within them. She’d coated them in iron-salve and stored them within Kit. Some of those had been on Ingrit’s lists, some hadn’t.

Her list had contained other oddities, including the left eye of one of the creatures. Tala had looked closely and, indeed, the two eyes did have subtle differences to her magic sight. The more you know.

She’d collected everything she could and was quite satisfied with the haul. It would have been better if Terry and I had talked first. That was on her, though. She didn’t feel any ill will towards Terry.

“Well, Terry?”

He flickered to her shoulder and head-butted her cheek.

“I’m glad you had fun.” She almost turned to go, but her eyes passed over a tree with a large crater in it. “Oh…right.” She wasn’t used to having weaponry that needed to be retrieved after a battle. She’d not been one of those helping to get the guard’s bolts back, on the caravan trip, and so, she wasn’t even used to retrieving others’ weaponry.

Tala sighed. “Let’s see how many we can find.”

It took another two hours to gather up her tungsten balls and metal arches. Blessedly, she’d been able to find all of her weaponry. That was probably only because each had their gravity altered. Because of that alteration, they practically blazed to that portion of her sight. Thus, while it wasn’t quick, nor easy, to scrape through the muck, as soon as the smallest portion was within her line of sight, she noticed the item instantly. She could even often catch a glimpse of the altered gravity through intervening barriers. I should practice that portion of my sight as well.

None of the gravity-altered items had been anywhere near clean, but Tala trusted Kit to deal with the filth, and just dropped the items in as she found them. Well, none had been clean except those from Terry.

Terry had helped by hacking up three of the balls that had apparently been embedded in parts of his feast. Good to know, he can bring things back out… She tried not to think about that.

Those three balls had come back to her practically scoured clean.

She didn’t think she wanted to know what Terry had in his gut that worked so quickly. No chance of getting harvest back, now…

Tala turned her focus elsewhere, once again trudging free of the slowly hardening slurry.

She was starving.

While Tala hadn’t taken any large hits, the cumulative damage that she’d had to heal had taken more from her reserves that morning than she’d used during the entire trip from Bandfast to Makinaven, even taking into account the regrowing of her arm.

Yeah…this was not the wisest choice. I’ll need to figure out a safer way of doing this for next time. Even if I get a lot of gold from this, it’s going to take a lot of food to replenish, and I’ll be vulnerable until then.

One of her most obvious mistakes was that she’d only drunk a small amount of ending-berry juice, thinking that she’d be doing small fights and could top off as needed in the lulls. There hadn’t been any lulls, and the ending-berry power she’d had was quickly spent.

“I need some food…” And juice… She drank a cup of the powerful juice to be safe. My reserves are low. I do not want to get caught out without proper defenses.

Terry cocked his head and trilled.

“Yeah, I do have some…” That was a good point. She should probably try some of her solo-venturing food. “Let’s get away from that, though.” She tilted her head to the pungent dell. “I’m sure something will come by, eventually, and I’ve had enough fighting for the day.”

Terry squawked his agreement and flickered to stand beside her, sized for riding.

She mounted up, clipping her anchor to his collar again, and they were off in search of a more secluded spot, far from the murder dell they’d created.

We could go back to the city, get this stuff sold, then eat? No, she should eat sooner than that.

Less than ten minutes later, Terry trilled and flickered away, dropping her on the top of a hill with good sightlines. A splattering of dried blood and muck fell free as well. “Thank you, Terry.”

She was about to start making her food, when she caught a good look at her hands. Oh, I’m the one who put all that on Terry…

Her hands were quite literally blood-stained, caked with muck, and filthy beyond belief. “Bath first.”

It took her over an hour to get truly clean. She really hadn’t realized how pervasive the filth had been, as she’d had to scrub blood out of all sorts of places. She’d scrubbed, soaked, scraped, and scoured, and that was just for her skin. Her hair was a different story.

She had not been willing to risk her comb, as it was not designed to deal with such clinging filth.

In the end, all her efforts on that front were for naught, and she’d had to use Flow to shave her scalp, allowing her scripts to regrow her hair once more.

A quarter hour later, she was dressed and sitting on the little hill, feeling refreshed and untainted at last. She grimaced briefly at the memory of what she’d removed but didn’t let it overshadow her much improved mood.

Now, food.

She pulled out the cauldron, setting it on a relatively flat patch of earth and wiggling it to settle the heavy cookpot into a stable position. She then took out her hot air incorporator and removed Flow from her belt. She set both into the cauldron, making sure they were in contact with each other, and used her bond to the knife to connect a large void-channel to the incorporator, causing fairly hot air to blast around the cookpot’s interior.

There, preheating the cauldron should help it cook the food faster and more efficiently.

While she waited for the cauldron to heat, Tala looked through the little booklet that Atrela had given her to decide what she wanted to eat. Absently, she made herself some tea: Mint this time. The process had become rote, almost meditative, for her over the past weeks. So, it didn’t distract from her perusal of menu options.

She took her time, pulling out the dried or otherwise preserved ingredients and following the directions in the little book. If you’re going to do it, do it right. She could modify the recipes later, once she knew how they would turn out when following the instructions.

In no time at all, she was ready to combine what she’d prepared.

She pulled Flow and the hot air incorporator from the cauldron, placing the latter into Kit.

The starter ingredients went into the now pleasantly warm pot, and she filled a good portion with near-boiling water from her hot-water incorporator.

She stirred those initial ingredients, realizing that she didn’t really have a way to add more heat. Oh… that’s a bit foolish of me. The hot air incorporator just wasn’t hot enough, and she didn’t want to constantly add water.

Maybe if I had a larger pot, that this one fit inside? I could have more water around it… No, that was just adding complication. So, I need a hot air incorporator that’s closer to a baking temperature. I seem to remember that people have tried baking with them before. So, there should be schemata for those higher temp ranges.

She sighed. Another expense.

Still, the meal was coming along nicely.

It wasn’t stew; stew would take hours to properly cook.

No, this was a thick, noodle soup with a selection of vegetables and a spice packet added.

The spice-pack was a simple, sealed waxed-paper envelope that Tala had torn open and dumped into the water.

Less than five minutes after adding the hot water, it was done, and she had nearly a gallon of tasty soup.

It wasn’t as hot as she’d have liked, or as the ingredients really needed. So, the noodles and veggies were a bit chewier than ideal, but it tasted so good.

Hunger really was an amazing spice, and Tala had that in gold.

There was some bread in her stores as well, and she used that to complement the soup, just as the little book had suggested.

In the end, she used the last of the bread to clean the final bits of soup from the cauldron.

A healthy application of incorporated hot water helped clean out the cookpot, and she placed everything back into Kit.

Her meal finally complete, she tossed another bit of jerky for Terry, and laid back, staring up at the canopy overhead.

“That was a good idea, Terry. Thank you.”

The avian head-butted the top of her head.

“Yes, the battle was fun, too, but I think we might have jumped into the deep end with that one.”

Terry trilled.

“Yes, you were amazing. You’d have been fine.”

He let out a bit of a warbling note.

“Oh? That was more than you’ve tried before?”

He bobbed a nod.

“You know, I feel like I’m understanding you more and more.”

He bobbed again.

“Good.” She grinned. “You are a scary, terrifying creature, but you’re my terrifying creature, my partner.”

He trilled and head-butted her again before curling up beside her head and closing his eyes.

Tala lay there for long minutes, on the edge of wakefulness.

What should I focus on, when I get back to Makinaven? She needed to sell her harvests, get the hides to a tanner, and meet back up with Rane. And eat more. So much more.

That reminded her that she needed to get an oven-hot air incorporator.

She thought back on the melee. Her excellent memory let her move through the battle again, in slow motion, and she critiqued herself, giving silent praise for wise or skillful maneuvers and sighing at points where she’d made mistakes.

Whenever she came to one of the mistakes, she would pause her recollection, analyzing what had led to the action or choice. Usually, the correct choice presented itself, and she was able to work through her thinking and reactions that could lead to a better choice in the future, adding that to her mental training regimen.

In some cases, she was forced to admit that, mistake though it was, it had been the best she could have done in the moment. That led her to go back through the moments leading up to the incidents, searching for where she’d gone wrong, among her good choices.

Turns out you can back yourself into a corner with purely good reactions. She’d known that, obviously, but it had never been as apparent as it was now, looking at the ordered chaos of brutal conflict.

She passed an unknown amount of time in that meditative state or purposeful recollection and critique.

A screech resonated through the woods, coming from the direction of their murder dell.

Tala’s eyes snapped open, and she was on her feet before she registered moving.

A second screech resounded between the trees, and Tala was sure she knew what made the sound.

She’d been sure with the first, but she’d hoped she was wrong.

Leshkin had found the murder dell.