Millennial Mage

Tala hadn’t dealt with it at the time, but her advancement to Paragon had had three rather important consequences.

First, Tala’s magical power had been altered by her new Paragon-ship at nearly every level.

Her power-density had taken the usual jump from tier advancement, representing the qualitative change that would increase the power of all of her magics as a matter of course. She also experienced an increase in power volume, which simply meant that she could hold more of the denser power than she had been able to of the less potent, Refined variety. The power flowing through her gate—her soul—had also become more attuned to her, making it more efficient for her use. Similarly, the flow-rate through her gate increased markedly, meaning that even with a larger reserve, she would actually refill to full in about the same amount of time… if she ever actually bottomed out, which hadn’t happened in… a very long time.

-It was at the Academy, I believe. Wait, no. You did it when filling out your cargo-slot the first time.-

Oh, yeah. And in the ether-hold. She shuddered. Looking back, I think I didn’t actually reach my limits there. I didn’t hit true empty. I just came as close as I ever had.

-Yeah, that sounds right.-

Each and every aspect of the advancement of her power made her a more potent Mage, better able to clash with the enemies of gated-humanity—all humanity, really—and better able to claim, keep, and nurture what was hers.

That’s why she had claimed the duality of her nature… The two sides of her unified nature.

Second, the enhancement magics that both Tala and Rane bore were amplified to entirely new heights.

Thankfully, Lerra’s teaching was mainly internal, working with their souls—their true selves—rather than with their bodies, inscriptions, or natural magics. Otherwise, they might have had quite a bit of trouble.They did their best over the following days to acclimate themselves to their new level of physical and mental ability, Enar and Alat especially appreciating the latter.

This was accomplished through stretching, calisthenics, controlled kinesthetic movement, and other forms of exercise.

They had to repair some furniture and parts of the sanctum, but even that was only a mild inconvenience in the long run.

Third, Terry and Kit had been uplifted as well. For Terry, that seemed to have simply meant that he had a more… exciting hunting experience with the god-beast, Anatalis. He had been quite vocal with chirps of praise for her progress upon his return, however. As for Kit, the advancement had meant a bit more.

The power density within Kit had immediately ticked up to match Tala’s new maximum, the barrier between Zeme and the next world having thinned for the moment of Tala’s advancement.

The inherent attunement-scrubbing magics integrated within Kit made sure that it was power usable by any, and people did use it, in some cases whether they wanted to or not—though thankfully, no one was forcibly reborn due to Tala’s advancement. That would have been a disaster.

Many of the integrated constructs with Ironhold produced slightly different results as a consequence of the increase in available power. Lyn gave Tala an earful over that, given that they had to rush around, altering a huge number of systems that they’d set up for the convenience of the Ironhold residents.

Those in the recently absorbed holds had been continuing on at arcane-hold-standard levels of power as they hadn’t specifically increased the density around those constructions. After her advancement, however, they all had to be addressed one way or another.

The problem at large caused Tala and Alat to set up locked zones of power density around every such device throughout the Ironhold so any further advancement wouldn’t cause any issue. In the same vein, if the power-density ever dropped, those zones would be maintained at regular function for as long as possible.

The Talons—and other reborn—also experienced the leap in power-density, allowing their natural magics to continue to set more deeply, more quickly. This also forced Tala to increase the number of step-down areas for training magical retention, in order to allow the same gradation between steps.

Rane helped too, though his secondary bond to Kit—through her—made him less effective at solving some of the issues. There were so many that that slightly lower efficiency was greatly offset by the simple need of any help, which he gladly gave.

All told, it was a chore to realign everything within Kit to her new advancement.

She tackled each aspect with relish and joy.

They were Paragons!

That aside, though, Tala and Rane spent most of the next couple of weeks with Lerra—except when they took time to themselves, which the wolf encouraged as ‘processing time’ at least every day or so. They had chosen to return to the sanctum to help fix and re-tune the magical constructs therein, having aided Master Simon and his assistants. After that, though, they only returned to the Sanctum for those short stints of processing time.

Vidarra—or the Lunar Hunt, whichever she was acting as at the time—also occasionally put up authoritative obstacles that forced her to work with Rane in new ways, slowly molding their instincts toward innately upholding each other’s authority outside of strictly magical workings even without focus being required. Their soulbond gave all the input that was needed.

Tala found the times of simply laying in Rane’s arms in their bed incredibly relaxing, and many of her breakthroughs in what Lerra was teaching them came during those times of peaceful, placid togetherness. That reinforced their growing respect for the wolf teacher, as she had obviously expected that easier comprehension upon reflection to be the case, hence her encouragement.

It was quite interesting in one sense, because their presence in the Lunar Hunt instead of Zeme had actually pulled the entirety of Kit stoneward, increasing the amount of time experienced for the given rotation of Zeme for even those who remained in Ironhold or the sanctum, allowing them to experience ‘extra’ time essentially to the same extent as those who ventured out into the Lunar Hunt.

Funnily enough, aside from Lyn—who did much of her work with the Archive—only one resident of the Ironhold noticed the alteration to the flow of time, and it was only because he seemed to have regular contact with others outside the hold through the selling of visual and auditory records—similar to Tala trading away access to her memories, if at lower quality—to interested Archons.

Lyn had approached Tala and Rane, asking if she should curb the man’s… enthusiastic sharing, but Lerra—who had been with them at the time—had assured them all that her mother would not allow the man near anything that they were not willing to share with humanity as a whole.

As to what Tala and Rane had learned?

Alat and Enar could both now utilize their souls as memory storage, which—to Alat’s delight—actually meant that Alat moved from being based in the Archive to being based within their soul.

Enar was still a bit away from achieving such an outcome, but he was progressing quickly with both Alat’s and Lerra’s aid.

Tala, for her part, had been able to look around and remember what she’d seen while her brain had been placed into a state of unconsciousness.

It had felt like an incredibly hazy dream to her in recollection, but she had remembered it.

Rane, for his part, had actually been able to make a choice while in a similar state, processing input and responding when ‘thinking’ as a soul.

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Lerra had only allowed these initial practice sessions with heavy magical involvement, and she promised to have artifacts created for their use before they left. Apparently, such ‘soul-walking’ could expose a person to the Doman-Imithe if they weren’t careful. Dreams were, in fact, often a lesser version of this, where the mind and soul worked together to process all that it had experienced, even if it hadn’t realized it was seeing or experiencing the Doman-Imithe side of things while awake.

As to Rane’s faster progression than Tala at this early stage, Lerra had been… confused? That was likely not the right emotion, but she had been at least surprised that Tala’s alternate interface did better than Rane’s while Rane surpassed Tala.

The wolf had been mollified when she’d remembered Tala’s recent out-of-body experience. She then reiterated that such could be the source, even though that seemed like it would have caused the opposite. Lerra explained that Tala’s soul—in that experience—had been aided by her magics operating as a mental structure. In the lessons, however, that was not allowed. Her soul had been given a crutch and, in that short time, learned to depend on it. In the actual use of the skills that Lerra was trying to teach, that crutch was absent.

That was fine with Tala. She would get it eventually.

Her favorite part, still, was the awareness that she and Rane had gained of each others’ souls through their bond. They’d been able to get a general sense of each other before, but now they could feel one another, in a very similar way to physical touch.

Thus, when she curled up against him, or when he wrapped around her, cradling her in an embrace from behind as they drifted off to sleep, she could feel his soul embracing hers as well—his true self holding her in a way that two bodies never could—and she reveled in the sensation every time.

They hadn’t taken the time to test out working magic through the other’s authority just yet—they just didn’t have the time with all the sitting and meditating, and other seeming nothing, that Lerra had them doing—but they’d agreed to take time to focus on it once they left the Lunar Hunt behind.

Terry spent the time hunting with various members of the pack.

Apparently, Anatalis had introduced him to hunting the four-dimensional prey animals like those that Tala had seen around human cities—and more so around the abandoned sites—helping to repair the rents.

Seemingly, there were other varieties that tasted excellent if eaten raw. That was an incredible boon, as cooking a four-dimensional chunk of meat was understandably problematic.

Terry was only allowed a single bite each day while in the Lunar Hunt, as the nature of the meat was one that could overwhelm his three-dimensional biology even as advanced as he was. In fact, he’d only been allowed even that much because he and Tala had advanced to Paragon, reinforcing Terry’s self and bolstering his spiritual integrity.

Regardless, he hadn’t been hunting with Anatalis himself after that first time, but he did go on hunts with other Paragon-level—and more advanced—Pack members.

The only thing that had truly broken up the pattern on Tala’s side had been when she met up with Lisa a few days after they’d arrived in the Lunar Hunt.

For that visit, she willed herself into Irondale, appearing directly in front of his twisted doorway, the two vertical posts showing depictions of Lisa’s forms—one per post—and the top showing a minute depiction of foxes playing and crafting on an undefined background.

The doorway itself seemed to be entirely empty even though she could see that there was far, far more than nothing beyond it through her threefold sight.

It was invisible to mundane vision because none of it was aligned with the superficial within Ironhold, but it was there all the same.

Yet all that’s there is only three-dimensional.

It was still so fascinating to her.

She understood the theory, that one could fit an infinite number of three-dimensional layers within a four-dimensional space—just as one could fit an infinite number of two-dimensional layers in a three-dimensional space—but it still boggled her mind to actually see dozens, maybe hundreds, of rooms all within the same three-dimensions, just offset infinitesimally within greater existence.

Well, some were actually a lot bigger, overlapping the space of the surrounding houses, but offset so as to not cause any conflict.

-You’re delaying, Tala.-

Right, right. She shook her head. Lisa has always been kind, but he’s… alien in a way. How he thinks, how he works, it’s just different than I’m used to.

-And you haven’t really spoken with him since he became your tenant?-

Well, yeah, and only a handful of times before that. She sighed, raised her hand, and knocked on the post, careful to do so below the depiction of Lisa in human form.

Instantly, the view through the doorway shifted, as one of the layers came into alignment with the superficial within Ironhold, and Tala was looking in on a warmly appointed sitting room.

There were two comfortable looking arm chairs, one sized for Tala, and the other already occupied by Lisa in fox form. Between the two chairs was a low table with tea service already laid out and ready for her arrival.

There was a dark, highly detailed wallpaper giving the space an almost cave-like aesthetic to the mundane eye. Her enhanced vision picked out the various patterns and subtleties in the decoration.

To her surprise, there were three great windows in the walls that she could easily see, and her threefold sight told her there was another on the wall she was entering through.

She stepped inside without hesitation, the doorway vanishing behind her. She somehow knew that she could leave at will, just like she could move around anywhere within Kit, but she felt like it would be rude to do so.

As she took a moment to actually look through each of the four windows, she did not see the expected surroundings in Irondale.

Instead, through one she saw a forest that was undoubtedly in Zeme proper. The swaying of the trees in the wind was slow as if they were moving through molasses. Another showed a view into the Lunar Hunt. The one in the wall she entered through did indeed show the street in Irondale that Tala had just stepped off of, but the last…

Tala turned away from that view… at least with her mundane eyes. The Doman-Imithe was never comfortable to regard.

“Greetings, Mistress Tala. If any of the views are displeasing, I am happy to alter them.” He gestured to the chair across from him. “This is my most comfortable room of viewing. Others offer wider vistas and more attenuated information, but this one is the best for a chat with a friend.” He smiled, carefully keeping his teeth behind his lips.

Tala took the offered seat and allowed him to pour her tea. She might have felt uncomfortable in this clearly foreign domain, except that she was intrinsically aware that she was still within Kit, and her own authority thrummed through the underpinnings of everything around her.

To her threefold sight, she could see that all of the views were—somehow—one way. Nothing out there could see, or even perceive, them in Lisa’s sitting room. In fact, the sense she got of it was that such obscurement was partially due to Kit, herself, keeping all that was within her hidden and protected, but Lisa had layered magics on top of and beyond those native ones to protect, obscure, and isolate each of the layers of his home.

Taking a deep breath, she looked back toward the view out on the Doman-Imithe, trying to see it as purely a spectacle, rather than a promise of what was around her, which was the case when she had actually been there.

The twisted geometry hurt to look at but without the backdrop of fear—and with the context of four physical dimensions to existence—it suddenly clicked with her. The Doman-Imithe somehow removed the veil that usually kept up the facade of three-dimensions.

The roiling, twisting, nonsensical shapes suddenly at least sort of made sense in that light… at least a little.

Some things were still beyond her comprehension, though.

The twenty-one eyed bone-tree that was simultaneously creating new eyes out of the innards of a screaming spider while eating its own existing eyes… Or the mountain that was stalwartly flowing through the eye of a needle that was autonomously using the material to sew up the split ends of a hair on the end of a mouse’s tail…

Tala grimaced. Yeah… There were still things in the Doman-Imithe that made no sense.

Lisa didn’t comment further, simply awaiting her answer.

“I… I think that I would appreciate not having the Doman-Imithe as a backdrop, yes.” She was very aware that that window had been behind Lisa. So she would have been staring at it for their entire conversation, even if just with her threefold sight and the edges of her vision… that would probably have been worse than staring at it directly.

“Of course.” In the blink of an eye, the view shifted to one of the Lunar Hunt, looking out of the cliff beside the Irondale entrance that Tala had maintained. “Is that more pleasant?”

There was a surprising amount of traffic, even if much of it was composed of people coming out to look around before scampering back into Kit. “It is, thank you.”

“But of course. You are my guest, I aim to make you more comfortable.”

There was a momentary silence in which Tala tested the promise made by the scent of the tea, filling the cozy room.

It was utterly fantastic, of course, and with that sip, Tala settled in for what already promised to be an incredibly eventful visit.