Shine - Apparatus Of Change

  Soul of Unity

  Available Power : 36

  Authority : 7

  Bind Insect (1, Command)

  Fortify Space (2, Domain)

  Distant Vision (2, Perceive)

  Collect Plant (3, Shape)

  See Commands (5, Perceive)

  Bind Crop (4, Command)

  Shape Metal (5, Shape)

  Nobility : 6

  Congeal Glimmer (1, Command)

  See Domain (1, Perceive)

  Claim Construction (2, Domain)

  Stone Pylon (2, Shape)

  Drain Health (4, War)

  Spawn Golem (5, Command)

  Empathy : 5

  Shift Water (1, Shape)

  Imbue Mending (3, Civic)

  Bind Willing Avian (1, Command)

  Move Water (4, Shape)

  -

  Spirituality : 6

  Shift Wood (1, Shape)

  Small Promise (2, Domain)

  Make Low Blade (2, War)

  Congeal Mantra (1, Command)

  Form Party (3, Civic)

  Distant Trajectory (6, Arcane)

  Ingenuity : 5

  Know Material (1, Perceive)

  Form Wall (2, Shape)

  Link Spellwork (3, Arcane)

  Sever Command (4, War)

  Collect Material (1, Shape)

  Tenacity : 6

  Nudge Material (1, Shape)

  Bolster Nourishment (2, Civic)

  Drain Endurance (1, War)

  Pressure Trigger (2, War)

  Blinding Trap (5, War)

  -

  Animosity : 0 - -

  Amalgamate Human (3, Command)

  Congeal Burn (2, Command)

  Trepidation : 0 -

  Follow Prey (2, Perceive)

  Avarice : -

  Consume Ecology (3, War)

  One of the notable downsides of being the unenthusiastic owner of a body with none of the central natural senses, is that I do not know where my body is.

  Most living beings, from demons to verdlings, humans to elves, can all confidently say that their body mainly exists slightly below where their line of sight starts. It’s in the middle of where they feel warmth and cold, and above where they feel pressure from the world’s pull.

  There’s an old cobbled saying that goes “I’d forget my own head if it weren’t attached.” I haven’t seen a single trace of one of their people since I’ve come alive here, but I have heard Seraha say those words, so maybe something of them survives. And in truth, I have seen only a fragment of the world, so busy running and surviving that I barely know anything that is more than a hundred lengths from the sharp edge of the Green. Maybe they’re all still out there, all the pieces of the world - worlds even - that my old lives once knew.

  It’s something to muse about while I verify that my body is where I want it to be. Sitting in a battered and mostly dry warroom. The private secretary chamber of the previous commander of this fort, turned now into my own space for meeting with my confidants and planning for the future.

  “Well, we aren’t dead.” Muelly’s words resonate off the wooden furniture, heard by my inkrats as they move to arrange things for my friends and guests. The young demoness is the first one to join me, and while I can see her still favoring her hand, she was not injured yesterday and has enough vigor to joke. Though the joke does pull a wince across her features, golden eyes turning downward. “I mean. Most of us.” She mutters.

  I barely knew them. I write sadly. But they fell for us. Even if they would not think of it that way. We will bury them all tomorrow, once I replenish my stockpile of stone and can dig them proper tombs.

  ”You know we can just give Dipan a shovel. He’s good at getting stuff done.” Muelly’s smile is a fleeting thing. “You don’t need to do everything for us.”

  This is for me. I wish to be part of this in a way. I cannot stand in ceremony as you can, and it lets me say goodbye. The six dead are an irreplaceable loss, as every death always is. The two demons were twins, each the last family the Samith brothers had left. The humans, Ivre and Pind, were so different from each other according to their remaining comrades that they may as well have been anti-twins. The gob was named Cloak, and they hadn’t said a single word to anyone since arriving, but I knew they were cultivating a curious and hopeful mind. And the bee, unnamed as my bound hive tends to be; dead not even from a noble sacrifice or valiant stand but simply from a lucky blow and a wound that bled too long.

  Pointless death. Useless death. The other apparatus could have joined Lutra and me, we could have built something wonderful together, but now they are dead and I find that I wish I could kill them again.

  ”What about you?” Muelly asks me quietly. “Are you going to be…?” I don’t know what word she is meaning as she lets her words lapse. Alright? Healthy? Sane? It doesn’t matter, I suppose.

  I will live. I write in the standing wood pane that stands next to the similarly suspended carved map, as my inkrats scamper across the flat wooden table that I have been preparing for this meeting, moving badly shaped orbs of quartz and wood to the edges. It will never not pain me, I think. But that is good. If I grew callous I would be worse for it, even if this way requires my suffering.

  She sighs as she moves to the panel I am writing upon. “Are you ever going to stop writing like a two hundred year old poet?” She asks, and I decline to answer aside from having all my inkrats turn their tiny snouts up in a unified scoff. “You’re out of space already. Hang on.” She moves to turn the panel around for my convenience.

  And finds, on the reverse, one side of an old conversation that I once held with Yuea. The one where we spoke of our onrushing doom.

  The inkrat sitting balanced atop the panel curls its long clawed paws inward at my direction, a signal of embarrassment at this being seen, as it is far too late to erase it and hope she hasn’t noticed.

  I start to write something, but Muelly just sighs and turns it back over. “You’ll probably want to swipe that flat at some point.” She says, a dull exhaustion in her voice before she shakes her head and drags a nail across one of her horns. “Is that why?”

  Using Shift Wood to thin the wood and flatten the part I have already written upon, I clear space to continue using the spell as an improvised stylus. Why I cannot rest? Or why we are having this conversation today? Either way, yes. There is only one way forward, and it involves me at my best.

  ”Part of that conversation was about food. But you’re keeping us fed.” She says, moving toward the shuttered and secured window as if she plans to idly open it and look out to observe the chaos the galesun is providing today. Muelly pauses with a thick skinned hand on the edge of the frame, then sighs and turns back to where we are speaking. “Things changed a lot, fast.” She says with a bitter laugh.

  That is what my title implies. I try to joke. Also Form Sphere seems to allow me to make balls of yam, though that presents many new obstacles for the kitchens.

  ”But not peeling?” Her eyes glint in the light of the lamps as she perks up. “Oh, you do know how to reassure a girl, don’t you?” She decides apparently to assume the best of my magic. I enjoy the small moment, especially because she is correct, and the yams that I feed into the working of Form Sphere do seem to come out as a… mush. Of sorts.

  It is not a perfect solution. But my arrangement with Lutra gives me ample time to practice to be better.

  ”Less peeling?” Sharpen’s squeak of speech comes through the door as one of the oldest of the gobs enters the room, pebbled skin sliding with shadows as they enter the lamplight. “I like peeling.”

  ”You know you don’t have to only like using blades, kid.” Muelly tells them, leaning her furred back against the wall by my writing panel and folding her arms.

  Sharpen gives her a tilt of their long head. ”I know.” They say. “But I do.”

  I get one of my inkrats to give a chittering laugh on my behalf, the sound coming out wrong from the creature composed of liquid and glimmer magic but still getting the point across. New gobs are often just like that, and it is a great comfort to see that while the world has turned, this remains true.

  Yuea’s presence joins us next, the woman striding into the room wearing salvaged pants and about a whole length of bandage in place of a shirt, wincing at every pull of her wounds. The magic of Amalgamate Human is working to heal her, but infection and scarring are still things to watch for, and her habits from her magetouched training are apparently not so easy to break that she made it through the battle unscathed. “Already here, huh? Not convincing Shiny to make more bad choices?”

  In Mella’s defense, I write quickly before the demoness can give an indignant retort, her advice to me was the only reason that our defense went as smoothly as it did.

  It is true, too. Distant Trajectory allowed for me to siege the enemy army before it made it to us. It allowed my lucky kill on the enemy apparatus, and the sudden loss of direct control over the dead soldiers meant that the lines that hit the fort’s walls were staggered, chaotic, and feral. Not easily defeated, no, but an opponent one step below our hastily assembled and half starved militia, not one towering above them.

  ”I give great advice.” Muelly sulks. The turning of her head draws a cheerful laugh from Yuea, and reminds me suddenly that Muelly is just a young woman. I would find it funny, the shift between her seriousness and her still-childlike defensiveness, if not for the truth that being young would have done nothing to save her life from the horrors of those like me.

  I am not feeling especially optimistic about the state of our world today, perhaps.

  “Sure you do. Where the fuck is Kalip?”

  ”He is busy with the children.” Talquin’s vibrant voice sounds almost as if she is underwater to my inkrats as the verdling ducks her tall head to squeeze her frame into the room, quickly settling down by the door. “He said to tell you that he said he would defer his votes to Muelly, and that I should speak to you obscenely on his behalf.”

  ”Tarfucker.” Yuea mutters as she looks out the door, as if considering stalking after Kalip herself. “He’s supposed to give me his votes.”

  Will Malpa and Jahn be joining us? I ask Talquin, ignoring Muelly’s attempt to ‘console’ Yuea.

  The verdling twists her long neck in the motion of denial. “They are salvaging what can be taken from the farms before the rainsun returns its attention. Others still work on the disposal of the enemy, or are in convalescence.” The sacred mother exhales deeply with a small puff of pollen. “There is much to do.” She says with tired resignation.

  ”I can help when we’re done.” Sharpen says seemingly automatically.

  ”When’s the last time you slept?” Muelly asks the gob with narrowing eyes.

  They meet Muelly’s stare with wide eyed innocence. “I am very bad at numbers. You know.” Sharpen says, in what I am certain is a deflection.

  There is a warmth growing in the long room that I tend to my small projects and maps in. Not one of heat, but of people who have had very little time to get to know each other, and yet, are already quite close and familiar. I find this comforting. More so because I think that I can trust all of them to provide me with much needed perspectives that will help us shape our overlapping lives for the remainder of storming. And hopefully beyond.

  ”Alright, cut the bickering.” Yuea slices a hand through the air a little too fast, pulling at one of her injuries as she twists her arm around to drum fingertips across the edge of the table. “This is all of it?” The commander asks.

  Everything I have available. I write quickly as the others gather around.

  And it is. Every spell I have access to, every soul written out in neat script. Though I know my own use of language and the reflexive deeper indentations of the words will not translate perfectly to peoples who are removed in time from my lives, it is still as comprehensive as I can make it. I’ve even taken the time to leave small notes about my suspicions for the functions of the more cryptically labeled workings of my craft.

  Two sides of the table are similarly etched with the known costs for elevating souls and acquiring new spells to them. A number of power equal to the soul’s current rank, and the count of spells already possessed adding one, respectively. The small baubles I have put together from the supply of Collect Material and Form Sphere sit waiting to be used as reminders and cast votes for my friends and companions.

  It is, even to me, slightly overwhelming. But within these words lie potential solutions and salvations. And so I review my options alongside the others as they begin their own study.

  Authority : 7

  Available :

  See Rank (1, Perceive)

  Shift Dirt (1, Shape)

  Drop Trigger (1, War)

  Shift Metal (2, Shape)

  Make Clothing (3, Shape)

  Know Abstract (3, Perceive)

  Know Weather (4, Perceive)

  Mark Home (4, Domain)

  Verdant Pylon (5, Shape)

  Bind Relationship (6, Command)

  Make Meal (6, Shape)

  Drain Disease (7, War)

  Bestow Rank (7, Civic)

  _____

  Nobility : 6

  Available :

  Shift Stone (1, Shape)

  Lock Portal (1, War)

  Know Resource (2, Perceive)

  Know Stone (3, Perceive)

  Make Low Tool (3, Shape)

  Mark Threshold (3, Domain)

  Improve Tool (4, Shape)

  Imbue Motion (4, Civic)

  Shape Stone (5, Shape)

  Draw Text (5, Shape)

  Marking Trap (6, War)

  Instill Low Disease (6, War)

  _____

  Empathy : 5

  Available :

  Feel Fear (1, Perceive)

  Alarm Trigger (1, War)

  Feel Love (2, Perceive)

  Know Armament (2, Perceive)

  Bind Fish (2, Command)

  Hear Intent (3, Perceive)

  Form Doorway (3, Shape)

  Passage Trigger (4, War)

  Damage Armor (4, War)

  Bind Creation (5, Command)

  Drain Warmth (5, War)

  Form Fortification (5, Shape)

  _____

  Spirituality : 6

  Available :

  See Worship (1, Perceive)

  Confusion Trap (1, War)

  Drain Purpose (2, War)

  Congeal Sin (3, Command)

  Small Trade (3, Domain)

  Delay Spellwork (4, Arcane)

  Seek Resource (4, Perceive)

  Bolster Warmth (4, Civic)

  Observe Civic (5, Perceive)

  Aggregation Trap (5, War)

  Form Caravan (5, Civic)

  Create Low Metal (6, Shape)

  Shape Wood (6, Shape)

  _____

  Ingenuity : 5

  Available :

  Invite Low Mammal (1, Command)

  Make Spike (1, War)

  Collect Focus (2, Civic)

  See Lineage (2, Perceive)

  Know Ingredient (3, Perceive)

  Create Fire (3, War)

  Bind Low Mammal (4, Command)

  Refine Material (4, Shape)

  Place Echo Bond (5, Arcane)

  Invite Mammal (5, Command)

  Subvert Worship (5, Domain)

  _____

  Tenacity : 6

  Available :

  Domain Map (1, Perceive)

  Subvert Low Summon (1, Command)

  Separate Material (2, Shape)

  Learn Stability (3, Perceive)

  Congeal Memory (3, Command)

  Drain Trust (3, War)

  Hear Plots (4, Perceive)

  Subvert Low Glimmer (4, Command)

  Share Abstract (4, Civic)

  Spawn Viscera (5, Command)

  Follow Paths (5, Perceive)

  Make Brew (6, Shape)

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Song Trap (6, War)

  Below the daunting lists, I include as well notes for Animosity, Trepidation, and Avarice. Two of the three stolen souls have changed since last I spoke to anyone of them. Marked now upon the mental scrolls with clean numbers and not merely the hashmarks that had previously shown me how many kills of that kin I had made. But even for my ability to split my attention and manage multiple tasks at a time, I have been busy and have not yet prodded at those particular thorny choices.

  Yuea, naturally, seizes upon them instantly. “I’m not a coinmonger,” she starts with, as though lack of fiscal acumen is a point of pride, “but I know two things. About you, Shiny, your earliest spells don’t get weaker. They keep up. And about life? You want to pay the least and get the most.”

  ”The commander’s words are agreeable.” Talquin adds gently. “It costs you very little to make the attempt. Your small selves, the new ones, there is so much to be learned there. So many choices hidden yet.”

  Sharpen traces a neatly trimmed nail along the edge of the table as they look at the list, taking a pause from slowly working through words with the lessons Seraha has been giving. “How do they change you?” The orange-tinged gob asks.

  In what way? I write back, using clear letters close to them, as they are the one who it is most important sees my reply.

  ”It’s not tools.” They center their reply around the thing that most young gobs tend to. “These pieces. They are more than blades to you. They are you, yes yes?” A pair of inkrats that I have on the table for help nod at them. “So what changes, if you become meaner? Hungrier?”

  ”That one isn’t one of the special ones.” Muelly corrects as if she is speaking of what to have for supper, and not one of the more concerning questions that I have been asked.

  Yuea makes a rude noise in her throat. “Don’t distract the rock.” She orders the younger woman, focusing a dangerous stare toward where my actual body is resting on a shelf. “You’ve been good to us so far, and I trust you.” The blunt admission gets both Sharpen and Muelly turning slowly to stare at her like Yuea has just admitted that she once ate a boat on her day off. “I want to say do it, and you’ll be the same, but how am I supposed to know that? My experience with the timeless realm is being lightly drowned in it, and it did make me different.” Yuea’s voice has gone dead to the ears of my inkrats. The often crass emotion she puts into her speech entirely absent in a very sudden way, though I can tell through Amalgamate Human that she is making a powerful effort to force herself to feel nothing. “I opened my mouth because I saw an easy advantage, but don’t fucking listen to me if Sharp’s even a little right.” She orders me, pointing two fingers toward the gob.

  There is a quiet moment in the room, and I try to reach a sympathetic touch across Amalgamate Human’s bond, which Yuea mentally swats away. It is very easy, with everything that has been happening, to forget that the former magetouched is rather far removed from the person I met a season ago.

  Muelly breaks the terse silence. “Whaaaaat about,” she says with a light bleat, “trepidation? She’s already trepidatious. That’s a word, right? In your ancient old person language?”

  Yes, that is a word, thank you Muelly. I write back. If either of my options would be less damaging, than that one would be the choice. I shall make the attempt now, I believe that I understand myself strongly enough that it will not be an issue.

  The group signals understanding with nods and gestures and sighs, and I, in the realm of my mind, apply the power to the newly changed soul. On a technical level, it should cost nothing. The price has ever been one point each for the current numeration. And so for a soul marked zero, I should offer nothing. But as soon as I begin the attempt, I find the pull upon my collected bright lights to be intense. Before I can stop, I am five whole power poorer, and I have one disappointing thing to show for the effort.

  Trepidation : 1 -

  -

  -Follow Prey (2, Perceive)-

  Available :

  Make Edge (1, Shape)

  Shift Self (1, Shape)

  Measure Time (1, Perceive)

  See Hate (1, Perceive)

  Well. I add on the larger plane of rapidly thinning wood for all to see. I do not feel different, except slightly more foolish for not expecting yet another obstacle. Thirty one power remaining. The cost is not everything, but it feels monumental.

  ”Am I correct in reading your notation, that you may now select one of these new dream-makings?” Talquin asks me with her loud-yet-gentle voice. One of the inkrats signals the affirmative to her, and she rustles her arms against her body. “Yet even though your dream is intact and well, it is ill advised to continue this path in our close-in futures.”

  Muelly runs her thick hand across her mouth, one hoof tapping on the wood floor. ”Unlike Yuea, I do know my numbers. It’s a reach, but if we assume the cost is five times what it should be… you’re looking at another five just to get a single spell? Ten if you want to see more options, because aside from moving yourself around, I don’t…” She shakes her head. “That’s if going from zero to one is special.”

  ”Adjust.” Sharpen says, jolting my own thoughts toward one of the newest options I have written for them. “Not move. The words, often different. But they mean things. Adjust is how you write. Adjust is how you carve. Adjust could be how you fix. Fix yourself, if you are ever hurt again.”

  Shift Self as a way to seal cracks in my body? I consider the choice as Yuea’s own hum of appreciation for battlefield medicine fills the room. The choice might be higher on my list of priorities if I did not suspect that Yuea would want to hit me, however softly, to test it before it came to a true injury. It entices me if only so I could exchange it with Lutra, and allow her to heal herself. But as soon as I think that thought, I wonder if an apparatus has an anatomy? It cannot be so simple, can it? I would not trust myself to restructure my own wounds, much less Lutra.

  ”Also!” Muelly is quick to add. “We… those of us that are yours, anyway… we can use your magic. I don’t know if I’d like it if the kids started messing with that.”

  I can say no, you know. I tell her, getting the demoness to scoff at me. But I am thinking now. Of the new options, I have no need to tell time now that I can see the sky with my bound, I have very little need to See Hate in general, and whatever differs an edge from a blade, I do not believe is worth the price. So I redirect their attention to the more important question. I may take Shift Self in the future. But for now, and with the cost of the newer souls presumably so high, I would ask your thoughts on all the rest.

  “These two have open spaces.” Sharpen points to Tenacity and Empathy. “Less cost, and some of the options are good. We should start there.”

  ”I am in agreement.” Talquin’s long neck dips low. “But we should ask, before everything else, what do we need?”

  Muelly’s hoof taps speed up. “I don’t think we should ask that.” She says, ignoring the annoyed glower from Yuea better than even I could manage. “It’s… we’re her friends.” She looks down at my inkrats, and I gaze back through their eyes at her dark furred face. “She’s not a tool for us to make use of. We’re here to give advice to her, not to ourselves, right?”

  Muelly… I write with a patient flourish. I appreciate that you can, in the face of the end of civilization, show compassion. And yes, I will not be anyone’s tool. But I have an objective, chosen by my own will, and I will see it through. So please, tell me what we need, and what I can do to help.

  Sharpen surprises me a little by speaking up, the gob sharing more in this small gathering than I’ve heard them so far. ”You have been other people before?” They barely wait before continuing. “You have been like me before.” The gob concludes confidently.

  ”Alright, alright, enough ash in the eye.” Yuea slashes a hand through the air, finally making the motion smoothly enough to not injure herself. “Water, food, fortifications, spears, powder, dry socks, entertainment, and an escape route.” To the last one, she explains in more detail. “Either for when the Green turns on us, or to bring more survivors in. Also there’s still survivors close out there in the trees. It’s only been a couple days, but we lost track of them. Maybe they’re on their way now, it’d be nice to know.”

  ”We need more people like you and Kalip. Home grown magetouched. Rock touched.” Muelly says with badly hidden smile. I’m sure she has an idea for a volunteer too. “And now you can. Can’t you?”

  I check within myself at her words, realizing I have forgotten one of the many aspects of my magics. To my disappointment, though also slight relief, I find that Follow Prey has not expanded in the same fashion that other spells do when their souls grow. No. I cannot. I relay my findings to them. Growing Animosity would do nothing to add to Amalgamate Human. A spell which may only work on a portion of our population besides. I can see it is at the third rank, which would be… I perform some rapid mental arithmetic. Thirty five bits of power, assuming the formula is as guessed. That is not tenable, I am sorry Muelly.

  “May I ask?” Talquin stretches a slender arm past the space separating them. “Why is entertainment on Yuea’s list of needs? And why is a cosmetic before clothing?”

  ”She means the powder we make bullets out of.” Muelly says. “One more thing the Empire stole.”

  ”What? No!” Yuea looks indignant. “My- the Empress is a lot of problems in a small package, but developing the modern powder is kind of her claim to the throne! You stole it from us!”

  Sharpen looks between the two of them with confusion. “Neither of you were involved. Why are you bragging that you made a weapon?” They ask.

  ”I… don’t know.” Yuea’s shoulders sag. “I don’t know anything anymore, huh?” She bitterly says before turning back to Talquin. “Entertainment is on there because we’ve still got forty bored soldiers here, and only so many jobs we can give them. Soft time is critical, but boredom causes more problems.”

  Talquin nods slowly. ”Does this equation include yourself?”

  ”Have you met me?” Yuea says. “Of course it does. If I get bored I’ll go mad.”

  ”Ah.”

  ”So I’ve got suggestions.” Yuea says with exactly the same cadence she swears with, the commander treating ‘suggestions’ as a dirty word when she’s so used to being obeyed by her troops. “Improve tool, make metal, make fire, make meal, make drink, mark home, and caravan.” As she speaks, she steps up to the table and grabs a handful of the baubles I’ve left there, deftly rolling them between her fingers and setting one by each of her choices. “A tar pit of an expense. But that’s what I’d say.”

  ”Why mark home?” Muelly asks.

  I can answer that, and so I do. Yuea believes that my own growth should not be neglected. If Mark Home hews similarly to other domain-classified workings, then using it upon this place, and having it function as a home, will bring me a steady supply of power.

  ”A powerful truth.” Talquin opines slowly. “My people know well that a home brings strength.”

  “It conflicts with prediction the weather.” Muelly says, moving one of her own small stones to a different spell. “I’m not going to argue that any of your choices are wrong Yuea, but… we need to make it that far.” She doesn’t meet the human’s stare. “Worst storming in my entire life. Probably your entire life too, and that’s, what, twice as long?” She really does not meet Yuea’s eyes, though I see smiles pulling at both of their mouths through the blurred vision the inkrats give me. “But you can stop it.” She tells me. “As long as you’re in place before it starts.”

  That is, quite possibly, the most powerful argument for Know Weather that could possibly be given.

  “The lower numbered spells, they, you, can use them longer, yes?” Sharpen clarifies, and I signal that they are correct. “Something small then is what I say. Domain map, or subvert low summon.” I find it interesting that Sharpen is the only one to correctly read the majority of my words, even after needing time to puzzle through literacy. “You have a spell waiting for tenacity, and you can use them regularly. They will let you harvest more growth, and they will be useful too. Especially if there are more summons used on us.”

  ”You think the dead were ‘summoned’?” Muelly asks curiously.

  ”I think we do not know what the magic means with the words it uses.” Sharpen replies evenly.

  Talquin leans her neck forward to read the list once more, and I do not blame her for needing to; even I have trouble keeping them all in mind. “This alarm trap would also be of use for that reason. Especially with how many notable incursions I would have liked to have been alarmed to.”

  If I’m paying attention, I can give early warning, but I may not always be paying attention. Also Alarm Trigger has the same wording as another of my spells, and I may be able to use it to draw more flexibility from Stone Pylon beyond simply making a hostile barrier. I write.

  ”There is one other thing we need.” Talquin adds another complication. “Muelly is correct that we must survive the now. But we must also survive what comes next. This place is unfamiliar to my companion and myself, our old knowledge is of little use here. But someone has lifetimes of understanding and even study, which would be valuable if shared. I would vote for congeal memory, to press that option.”

  Ah. I do not know if it works as you think. I write to her. Congeal Mantra doesn’t draw out my own mantras, if I ever had any. Congeal Memory would probably just make something like a glimmer or a burn, and we still don’t even know what those do.

  ”Quick thing, I forgot about congeal burn.” Yuea says, flicking one of her rocks off the table. “I take back wanting you to make fire. Just make more of the rocks.”

  ”If we want her to share what she knows, can’t she do that now?” Muelly asks, looking down at one of my inkrats. “You’ve been telling us about edible plants and old languages and remedies and things like that this whole time. That’s probably why we’re alive. Maybe if you took the writing spell, it’d be easier?”

  It likely would be. And then I could use Shift Wood to… To what? What would I do with the spell that I have specialized into a stylus so effectively that even now, with the constant use I am putting it through today, it has not dipped into its reserve at all? As much as the convenience of Draw Text entices me, and it does entice me, I find myself writing a denial. I do not believe I need it. Perhaps in a future where I resume my career as a librarian.

  ”You were a librarian?” Muelly asks with quiet reverence. “I still miss books. There’s nothing here but some bad love stories, and Seraha stole those anyway.”

  ”The kid actually brings up a good argument for caravan then.” Yuea says with a quirk of her mouth. “If we plan to live here… ash and tar, we might live here… then we don’t have what we need. We’re no colony. We’ll have to go back to the border region at least, maybe deeper. Pick up supplies, tools, things like books and clothes that we can’t easily make out here yet. And we have the people to do it now, but if we could have a layer of protection…”

  We don’t know what Form Caravan would do, though if it offers similar aid to Form Party, I understand the appeal. I begin to run down the list of needs that Yuea has outlined. Form Fortification could help with securing the area, and perhaps building outward if the Green allows it, though I agree we would need an escape plan should that go wrong. Form Caravan for rescuing others and acquiring what we need, as well as scouting farther from where I can see, would be of value. Food and water are largely secure, if simple for the moment, so Make Meal and-

  “Water isn’t secure.” Yuea bluntly cuts me off.

  ”Wait, what?” Muelly’s eyes snap to the commander. “It’s not?”

  Yuea glares at the table. “The wells are limited, and the water isn’t going to stay clean when the rainsun picks up. We’ve got the time to boil it now, but there’s a lot of people here. Not like we can drink the rainsun’s stuff anyway. It was enough for ten of us, not for fifty. It’s about how much we can make, and how fast.”

  In that case, Make Brew suddenly becomes a higher priority. I muse. I suspect that I could make it clean out water, though it would also be of use to aid in preparing meals. Sadly it is of the make-line of workings, not the form-line, and I do not believe I could draw from my inner storage for it.

  ”Just do the ball trick, and use that.” Sharpen says. “Like with the poor yams.”

  ”The yams don’t get hurt by the…” Muelly stops, as if for the first time considering if yams have feelings.

  “Bind for the golems?” Sharpen ignores her consternation. “Or is it enough that you can make them usable by us?”

  I think if a spell can be made to work well enough, then I would rather have a new capability than a supplemental one. I tell them all. It is why I am not considering Share Abstract. It calls to me as an easy answer to the bottleneck of Drain Health, but instead I could simply choose Make Brew and solve a real problem right now.

  Yuea sighs. “If we’re going that far, then you should try to get congeal burn working for actual fire, like the last idiot rock that we got in a fight with did. That way we could have a constant easy boil going, to handle water.” She looks away momentarially, staring at the door as footsteps clatter past on the fort’s wooden second floor. “There’s another bottleneck. And it’s your power, shiny. Thirty one is a lot, but it’s not enough for everything. Leave tenacity and empathy for now, even if they are cheaper. Commit to predict weather, and make metal.”

  I consider what she actually means, and find that I largely agree. In order to access those spells, I will need to elevate those souls, which could change the choices to make. But either way, I would feel no sorrow at whatever is uncovered. Form Caravan is also on my short list now with the two Yuea has listed. And then, should something arise that requires support or creates flexibility, something like Form Fortification will always be waiting for me.

  ”Don’t make metal.” Sharpen cuts in again. “You can dig. And you can search now, you have a trick.” They say it with such pride that I almost feel myself glow from the words. “Find metal under the Green, and take that. Now that you can form, you can access it, and shape it to what you want.”

  ”Good point. Opens up caravan then? Or something else?” Yuea asks, looking at where the others have arranged their own shining stones, along with my own placements from the inkrats.

  It’s not true voting, not really. We’re confiding, consolidating thoughts. Coming to a concensus on what is wise, because wisdom is the only thing that will keep us alive long term.

  The cleric had been in two different governing bodies, and neither of them operated like this. I find the experience refreshing.

  I am going to advance both Authority and Spirituality, then decide. I declare, pausing only to get their agreement before I do so.

  The power flows through me. And this time, paying close attention and not under siege, I think I can almost feel something from it, as my souls are reinforced, and my options expand yet further.

  Authority : 8

  Available :

  Shift Weather (8, Shape)

  Field Map (8, Perceive)

  Collect Lightning (8, Shape)

  Spirituality : 7

  Available :

  See Economy (7, Perceive)

  Politic Map (7, Perceive)

  “You know, sometimes, you tell us what the timeless realm hands out to you, and I think you’re so unfairly stuck over anyone made out of meat and bone that it’s a joke.” Yuea says as she reads my additions.

  Muelly clears her throat. “The rest of the time, do you think the joke is being played on her?” She asks.

  ”I was thinking that exact thing!” The laugh from Yuea is so earnest, so happy, that it eases the frustration I have with being told that I can now understand market forces, a thing that, as near as I can determine, do not exist within several thousand lengths of us. “How do you feel, rocky?”

  Quite good, actually. I tell them. As always, everything has strengthened that those spells hold sway over. If this were the only thing I had to offer, it would be of value. But for now, I have eighteen points remaining. I should like to keep a few in reserve, as is my habit, but that is more than enough to purchase Form Caravan. I am… divided on Know Weather however.

  Sharpen nods frantically, long head whipping through the office’s presumably stuffy air. “Why know when you could move?” They ask. “I change my mind!”

  ”But would it yet work?” Talquin questions. “We do not speak often, but I have heard from Kalip that you once attempted to forestall the galesun. What happened when you did so?”

  Well, the time that it worked, it worked. But it relied on the galesun’s point more or less walking into my rapidly prepared defense. The time that it did not work, which is what I believe she is asking…

  It ripped every drop of Fortify Space from me, and felt as if I had plunged limbs I do not have into an icy and angry ocean. I admit. And while I wish to argue that perhaps this time it would be different…

  ”Why would anything ever be easy?” Yuea asks in her own kind of blunt sympathy.

  ”Because it would be nice?” Sharpen asks.

  ”Because someone already did the hard work?” Muelly adds her own hypothetical.

  ”Due to the benevolence of our friend?” Talquin contributes.

  Yuea takes a long breath, and turns to stare at me directly. “Pick your spells before I strangle all of them.” She tells me.

  Know Weather and Form Caravan it is. For now. I tell the group. That leaves me with three… no, four points of power. How strange. I did not think this simple meeting was worth a point on its own, and yet it seems to have happened without my notice. Empathy is ready to add Form Fortification if and when we have need of an expansion, and while I do not believe I am prepared to Consume Ecology lest we anger the Green further, it has shown a tolerance for our structure, and even my repairs and mild additions to it, that I think it would be worth the risk rather than holding back. Especially as Form Caravan will now help as an escape path as well. Though of course, I will need time to understand the true depths of the working. Tenacity is also waiting another spell, and there are so many choices there that all serve as emergency options, as all of you have shown me.

  ”You really need to learn how to talk so you don’t have to make people read a whole book when you want to say something.” Yuea says as she stops halfway down my note. “Shiny, you can talk to me. Come on.”

  I am using all of Amalgamate Human to heal you and refresh Kalip, and the effort needed is slow to replenish, so no. I tell her, adding to the novel I am carving into the wooden standing panel. Now. I find myself with an abundance of problems that I have solutions to. Yuea, please begin finding volunteers - real volunteers - for an expedition out of the Green. Sharpen, if you could help me move the product of Congeal Burn around, we can begin work on that now. Muelly…

  ”Oh don’t do that, I can help with something.” She sounds upset that I do not have a job for her.

  It is especially strange that I can think of nothing for her to do given that she is the one most able to pull magics from me and make use of them. Which, itself, changes my thoughts rapidly. Muelly, if you would be willing to sit quietly and focus on something ephemeral, I would find it greatly helpful to have another person who can use either Know Weather or Fortify Space. Together, we would be able to secure our home against any of the suns.

  Well. Either of the ones that tend toward the open air, at least.

  Muelly snaps to attention. “Yes!” She bleats out. “I can do that! I’ll go find Mela, and make her work on it with me.” She’s already out of the room, her torn and tattered dress swishing behind her as she runs.

  ”And everything else?” Yuea asks.

  Everything else, I will begin work on now. I write.

  Almost everything I have come to rely on has been expanded. Mantra and bees, crops and wood, the lynchpin spells that have let me fight back both living enemies and simple conditions alike.

  Bit by bit, as I change the world, the world changes me back, into something that can more readily change the world. And I am powerfully grateful to the magic that I have that it allows me to do so my way. With shielding kindness, instead of reading devastation that so many of the others have shown.

  Even better, I have a reserve should Lutra need help, or should I need to quickly select another emergency option. A way of life that has served me well so far.

  As the others leave to rejoin their loved ones, to find food, or simply to start bullying our newest rescues into action in Yuea’s case, I allow myself a moment of prideful rest.

  I have so much to try, and so much to do. But right now, in this moment, everything feels like it is going to be alright.

  Together, we can handle whatever is coming.

  Shine - Apparatus Of Change

  Soul of Unity

  Available Power : 4

  Authority : 8

  Bind Insect (1, Command)

  Fortify Space (2, Domain)

  Distant Vision (2, Perceive)

  Collect Plant (3, Shape)

  See Commands (5, Perceive)

  Bind Crop (4, Command)

  Shape Metal (5, Shape)

  Know Weather (4, Perceive)

  Nobility : 6

  Congeal Glimmer (1, Command)

  See Domain (1, Perceive)

  Claim Construction (2, Domain)

  Stone Pylon (2, Shape)

  Drain Health (4, War)

  Spawn Golem (5, Command)

  Empathy : 5

  Shift Water (1, Shape)

  Imbue Mending (3, Civic)

  Bind Willing Avian (1, Command)

  Move Water (4, Shape)

  -

  Spirituality : 7

  Shift Wood (1, Shape)

  Small Promise (2, Domain)

  Make Low Blade (2, War)

  Congeal Mantra (1, Command)

  Form Party (3, Civic)

  Distant Trajectory (6, Arcane)

  Form Caravan (5, Civic)

  Ingenuity : 5

  Know Material (1, Perceive)

  Form Wall (2, Shape)

  Link Spellwork (3, Arcane)

  Sever Command (4, War)

  Collect Material (1, Shape)

  Tenacity : 6

  Nudge Material (1, Shape)

  Bolster Nourishment (2, Civic)

  Drain Endurance (1, War)

  Pressure Trigger (2, War)

  Blinding Trap (5, War)

  -

  Animosity : 0 - -

  Amalgamate Human (3, Command)

  Congeal Burn (2, Command)

  Trepidation : 1 -

  -Follow Prey (2, Perceive)-

  -

  Avarice : -

  Consume Ecology (3, War)

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