Millennial Mage

Tala quickly checked with everyone, and after verifying that they were ready to go, she used a moderate act of will to move everyone to a spread of food already made ready for them.

Moving Mistress Vanga among the others was interesting.

Tala felt that the woman could have resisted.

Tala also felt that she would have won the struggle, but it wouldn’t have been as effortless as moving other things.

I haven’t felt that when moving anyone else. She must have greater density than I realized.

-Could be.- Alat was focused on going over the transportation, which she’d observed from all directions.

She had been observing all such movements, trying to build out a model of how they happened.

Both of them still had absolutely no idea how it was accomplished.

Now that we’re bound with Kit, it is clearer. I feel like we are on the edge of understanding. But, regardless, there’s still time.

-Yeah, we have an eternity to figure it out.-

…Let’s hope it doesn’t take that long. Worse case, we can try to get Kit to tell us. She definitely didn’t experience the qualitative mental enhancement that we’re expecting from Terry, but she also didn’t effectively disappear like the dasgannach did.

It was also possible that Kit hadn’t been advanced enough to have had any sort of ‘awakening’ due to the bond.

Either that, or whatever type of creature Kit was didn’t react in the same way as those traditionally used as familiars.

-Agreed. It almost feels like Kit became a portion of our involuntary functions, actually acting based on our will without needing conscious action.-

Tala considered that for what felt like minutes to her enhanced mind—running as it was on an extra pull of power—but was in fact less than a couple of seconds in real time.

She felt Alat was also considering something, but she couldn’t see that, yet.

You know, I think you’re right. Kit’s addition to our whole very much is like an extra sub-mind of sorts. She definitely still is herself, but she is also bound to us more closely than a familiar would be.

-A sort of half-state.-

Tala huffed a laugh internally. It’s like she filled in the void around our mind.

There was a noticeable pause then, emphasized somehow by both of the persons within their mind.

Well, rust. That’s exactly what happened, isn’t it.

-Kit is a being of the void, and we are not.-

Were not… We’re bound to her now, and just like she became more like us, we became more like her.

-That’s true. Hmmm…-

It’s worth investigating, but not now.

-Yeah, not now.- Alat seemed to be considering something else, too. Likely what she’d been considering earlier. -Back on movement within the sanctum: Do you mind if I use a bit of our will and focus to hop stuff around and see what I can learn?-

Absolutely. That’s a great idea. I trust you to be wise about the use of our resources.-

-Thank you. I’ll get right on that.-

Focusing back on the meal spread out on the largest table in the sanctum, Tala had to smile.

It looked spectacularly delicious.

The food had, of course, been prepared by Mistress Petra, and she had joined them along with Master Simon and Adrill.

Apparently, Segis and Metti were in Alefast with a tutor for the day.

Tala had not known that the two children had a tutor, but she supposed it made sense.

They were learning from their parents, but having a third adult to teach them and keep them on track during specific times likely made everything much easier.

As soon as the others noticed where they were, they had begun moving toward the table.

Anna somehow seemed to skip even as she walked over to her mother to give the older woman a big hug. “Oh, mama, this looks so good!”

“Thank you, dear.”—she bowed toward Tala, then Mistress Vanga—”Mistress Tala, Mistress Vanga, I hope that the fare is to your liking.”

Mistress Vanga gave a small bow in return, “It looks excellent, Mistress Petra. Thank you.”

Tala nodded in gratitude, “It really does look excellent.”

Mistress Petra smiled and nodded toward Rane and then Brandon, “Master Rane, welcome. Brandon, it is good to see you again.”

Rane gave a deferential bow her way. “Thank you for preparing such amazing food for us, yet again.”

Brandon stepped forward and gave the woman a hug. “I’m glad you’ll be here, too.”

The Zuccat and Feshua families were becoming quite close. From what Tala observed, they’d been eating many of their meals all together.

She suspected that Artia would be here, too, if she didn’t have the shop to mind.

Hmmm…

-Oh, that’s an idea. Not useful now, but…-

Yeah, at the end of the waning, it could be a wise investment.

-We can talk with Artia about it at some point, but probably not until after she’s learned what she needs to keep up with her husband.-

Agreed.

Master Simon gave his wife a chaste kiss on the cheek as they sat down all together.

They chatted about a lot of little things.

On one extreme, they discussed what Master Simon and Adrill were working on.

The white steel fabricator was an ongoing side project that was forefront in their thoughts, and they actually thought they were getting close to getting it to work.

Though, to be fair, when Tala asked for a tentative timeline, Master Simon had said that three to six months would be an optimistic window. Apparently, it was in process of losing the magic-bond it had picked up with Tala by dint of being within the sanctum for so long.

Now, the pure power that was flowing through its inactive magics were slowly clearing it out.

Master Simon didn’t want to actually fire it up until the process was complete as otherwise it might give odd or inconsistent results.

Tala agreed with the delay.

Blessedly, there was still a lot to learn about the device even while it was undergoing the shift.

Aside from the white steel fabrication, Master Simon, Adrill, and Brandon—when he worked with them—were investigating all the oddities of the sanctum, attempting to backwards-engineer the arcane methods to achieve the same—or at least similar—results.

Tala had approved that project as well, and they were even collectively receiving a stipend from the Constructionist Guild to be kept in the loop on what they learned. More was paid out when they had breakthroughs, or found especially interesting or useful information.

And we still need to take a bit to reshape and reimagine how Kit will work, going forward.

On the other end of the conversation, the group had a detailed discussion of what Tala and Kedva had been up to.

There was some teasing, which Kedva took with grace.

There was some ribbing, which Tala endeavored to return in kind.

About halfway through what was effectively a feast, Terry flickered to Tala’s shoulder and settled down.

Tala scratched his head, and gave him some of the food that he preferred.

All in all, it was an exceedingly enjoyable meal.

* * *

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The next two days passed quickly, with little really unexpected or overly interesting occuring.

Tala and Rane both did their best to fit in training with Kedva here and there, teaching her how to defend herself and generally how to operate with her new abilities.

Kedva was in a different position than Tala had been, largely because while Tala had enhancements through her entire body, making some parts of her proportionally more enhanced than others—based on what she and Mistress Holly deemed the most important—Kedva had been universally uplifted.

Her every system, every function, every aspect was improved as a whole.

Thus, the girl wasn’t struggling with imbalances in her expected actions. Everything moved as she thought it should, that speed was just faster than it used to be.

All told, that meant that she was starting from a place of greater competence than Tala had. It made the lessons more productive right from the get-go.

When she was on her own, Kedva began working alongside Mistress Petra—and occasionally Artia—learning the techniques for preserving magics within consumable harvests.

The girl also did other tasks around the sanctum as needed, using her free time to study the next steps in the arcane advancement manual.

To her credit, she had started her own practice, attempting to grab at least a small amount of control over the power now coursing through her.

Brandon and Adrill were doing something similar, but it looked very different for the men, given their very different magics.

Tala took her shifts as a defender with her unit, trained, and tried to spend at least a little time with Master Girt.

He seemed to have recovered from their conversation, though his aura was once again closed to her. So, she couldn’t verify the state of his gate. Even so, he still seemed to appreciate her company when she was able to give it.

One thing of note that did happen had to do with Rane.

He had been absent since the previous evening.

When he did return after having been out of touch a bit more than a full day, he came to the sanctum with a pleased smile on his face.

When his hand touched Kit’s door for the first knock, Tala pulled him inside, causing him to appear beside her, where she was finishing the last movements of one of the more advanced combat forms from the Way of Flowing Blood.

“That’s… new?”

She grinned, not breaking her flow even as she responded. “Yeah. I didn’t know I could do it to others. Thank you for helping me test.”

He gave her a half smile even as he chuckled. “Happy to help, I suppose.”

“What can I do for you?” Thinking about how she was trying to be a better friend, she amended, “I haven’t seen as much of you the last day or so. Is everything alright?”

He nodded, his smile fading. “I had something that I’ve been working on, and I realized that it would be better for you to have it. So I finished it up and brought it here. I was actually able to do more than I thought… but I’m getting ahead of myself.”

That got her interest, so even as she completed the flowing series of strikes at the end of the form, she let Flow fall back into the shape of a knife and sheathed it at her belt. “Oh?”

“Maybe I should just show you, then we can decide where to put her… assuming you want her.”

“Her?”

Rane nodded to himself. “Let me just show you.”

He pulled open the loop of leather that was his dimensional storage, much wider than he usually did.

He sat it on the ground upside down, reaching up inside it to fumble for a moment before grunting and laying it flat. “That should do it.”

He lifted the loop up, revealing… a statue.

Oh.

-What?- Alat had been focused on some of their tests in another part of the sanctum, but Tala’s reaction had drawn her attention in full. -Oh.-

It was Mistress Odera.

The stone was nearly her exact skin-tone, though obviously the texture and minute variations didn’t match.

She was seated in the pose in which she’d often sat atop the caravan wagons.

Her eyes were closed in meditation, and her features were peaceful.

Tala would have thought she was about to open her eyes, if not for the clothing being of the same material as her skin.

It was a small thing to spoil the otherwise incredibly lifelike appearance.

She knew that if she focused closely, bringing her full enhanced perception to bear it wouldn’t stand up to scrutiny, but to mundane eyes?

It was perfect.

“Rane… That’s Mistress Odera.”

He huffed a soft laugh, “Well, yes. That was the idea. If you don’t want it, I can take her away, but what really took the last day was something else.”

He reached back into his loop of leather, his arm disappearing up to his shoulder as he rummaged around.

“You see, her inscriptions are in the Archive, just like everyone’s, and now that she’s… gone, they are public information; she ensured that would be the case.”

He pulled out a blue stone, and placed it in a divot in the statue created by the woman sitting cross legged.

Even as he moved to place it, it began to drink in power from the air around them.

As he moved his hand away, the magics within the stone reached their activation threshold, and a weak shield of water sprang up around the statue.

The slight tinting of the hexagons of water hid the oddity of skin and clothing matching color.

But that isn’t what made Tala’s eyes widen. “That’s… that’s her magic.”

“A much weaker version, and without her mind behind it, but yes. I basically matched the ‘scent’ of her magic. It isn’t effective or anything, but—”

Tala held up her hand, forestalling him. “I understand. Thank you.”

He smiled, closing his mouth to let her simply take a moment.

Grateful for that moment, she closed her eyes, pulling her perception away from this part of the sanctum, and only reaching out with her comparatively bumbling aura to sense the magic.

She felt herself begin to weep.

It felt like her.

It wasn’t exactly right, but it was close enough to evoke memories of long days atop caravan wagon roofs, conversations on ethics and magical methodology, and the soft, powerful voice of her mentor.

Tala felt him moving toward her, so she only briefly stiffened as Rane wrapped his arms around her.

She returned the hug, fiercely.

She felt his magics start to activate to move him away, but whether he suppressed them, or they realized there was no escape, they failed to activate.

Even so, he patted her back, “Too hard!”

She was already letting up, but she didn’t let go entirely.

“So… do you think she has a place here? This is the only place the echo-stone would work properly, but it isn’t required.”

Tala nodded against his chest. “She absolutely does. Thank you, Rane.”

He squeezed her in return. “Of course.”

“Let’s find a good spot for her, shall we?”

He pulled back to look down at her. “Let’s.”

Thus, the time passed until the appointed time for the meeting with Master Nadro.

* * *

Tala returned from her morning shift fulfilling her duties as a defender, arriving where she’d left Kit—on the wall of Artia’s shop—only to find Master Nadro already inside.

The bloodstar that Tala had left in the cavern with Io’s body had ended up serving many purposes. Now that she was soulbound to Kit, it was trivial to move the bloodstar and hold it stoneward just enough to give a passable view of her sanctum even when she wasn’t there.

As usual, Alat handled that aspect-mirrored perspective so that Tala could focus on what she needed to.

Regardless, Alat was able to give Tala notice that Master Nadro had arrived a full half-hour before the slated time.

He’d knocked, and Master Simon had let him in.

That was another change that had come about with Kit’s binding to Tala.

Kit now would obey some instructions given by others, at least she would if Tala would have generally agreed with them.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t like Tala was given the ability to make the choice herself.

Not that I would actually see that as an improvement.

-Yeah… we need to offload some of our mental load, not add to it.-

Agreed.

In either case, Kit had responded to Master Simon’s promptings to let Master Nadro inside.

That was fine; Tala had no issue with Master Nadro being in her sanctum, even if she did, she suspected that he could see as much of it as she could even while remaining outside.

He could probably breach the sanctum if he wanted.

-It might end… oddly, though.-

Yeah, who knows what would actually happen if he breached a soulbound dimensional storage.

-...hmmm… we never really have had to defend it from such an attack.-

We’ve never had to defend it at all.

-Might be worth asking if that’s actually something that we need to be concerned about?-

I think it was pretty well covered that it’s not, but I don’t think we actually know why… yeah, we can ask.

-I’ll add it to the list.-

Truthfully, she was grateful that Master Nadro had been willing to give them any time at all. The fact that he’d come early was a good sign.

Though, given his particular nature as a gateless human of incredible power, she had assumed that he had a bit of a vested interest in Adrill, Brandon, and Kedva.

Regardless, he was here, and now so was she.

She almost swung open the door into Kit, directing it to open beside them, but then decided to use her newer method of entry. It was something that she’d been trying out and had even used on Rane the day before.

As soon as her hand touched the door, she simply willed herself to be where she wished, as if she were already inside.

As expected, it worked flawlessly, only taking a bit more willpower and focus that moving around Kit normally did.

Ha! I love that I don’t have to call doors anymore.

-It is a bit faster, I suppose.-

I would say that you don’t get it, but you see my every thought. You’re just being obstinate.

-True enough. It is pretty interesting…- Alat trailed off implicatively.

Yes, you can add it to your tests.

-Thank you!-

In any case, Adrill, Brandon, and Kedva were sitting with Master Nadro in a circle with a spot set aside for Tala.

They were in a lovely little glade beside the infinite river.

How long is the river anyways?

Alat made an ‘I’m thinking’ sound within their head for a moment before responding, -Hmmm… Well, we’ve never actually measured it, but it looks to be at least two miles in circumference. Though, it’s obviously not a perfect circle.-

Huh, that makes sense.

Master Nadro stood at her arrival, rising from a chair that he’d obviously brought himself. It held an ancient serenity to it, like a cherished possession that had been cared for and meticulously maintained for generations.

-Or, given his age, just by him.-

Good point.

“Mistress Tala, it is good to see you again.”

Acting on a whim, Tala stepped forward offering him a hug.

He accepted without comment, returning the companionable hug even though he knew that she wasn’t much for such things.

To her surprise, it reminded her of hugs before she was a Mage.

Not only was there something comforting about him that took her back to a simpler time, but his strength, and his flesh, interacted with hers as if they were both mundanes, rather than Tala being reinforced and toughened until she felt like steel to most people.

And even that didn’t take into account that she actually did have iron encasing her at the moment.

It didn’t seem to have mattered.

How strong is he?

-How reinforced?-

Her threefold sight was still utterly unable to detect anything specific about the man, as even his aura was shrouded.

But, she was being rude, so she addressed the man, “Master Nadro, thank you for coming.”—she stepped backward and bowed—”I know your time is valuable.”

She called a chair into place even as she sat down into it.

“What did I miss?”