Ends of Magic

On the trip back Nathan and Byns kept their heads on a swivel. Everybody was exhausted, tired from traveling all night while on high alert. Not to mention the big fight. Farist and Zanwin were especially out of it, given their wounds. Magical healing left a person fatigued, and they’d both sustained life-threatening wounds.

Of course, so did I. But apparently that’s another benefit of [Regeneration] over normal healing. I really need to firm up Insight for that Talent Development now that I’m getting close. It’ll be nice to have another unique Talent.

Sustained by a few more brief jolts from a yawning Stella and another bag of his favorite jerky, Nathan was doing fine. He could feel a sort of scratchy tiredness at the back of his eyes, and felt prone to hyperfocusing on irrelevant details. But nothing attacked them, and soon enough the sun was shining down through the broad branches overhanging the road.

It took them some hours more and a few carefully metered rests to reach Bridgeguard. When they got through the gates and into the town, Farist called over a guard. He gave some quick instructions to watch the far bank and wake them in a hurry if the legionaries showed up. Then they all trooped into the barracks and crashed.

—

They woke in staggered succession, with Nathan waking early to the sounds of Khachi attempting to sneakily store his armor in a bag of holding.

Nathan got up, waving away Khachi’s apologetic shrug. He went to relieve himself in the weird trough-bathroom that seemed ever present on Davrar, before returning to find Khachi sitting on a stool outside the barracks.

The big wolfman was pulling armor out of his bag, scrubbing and polishing it in the sunlight. After he finished each piece he held it up to the afternoon light to ensure it reflected the light well before storing it back in his bag. Nathan had seen him do this before, and knew that it was important that the armor was appropriately shiny for Khachi’s magic.

Nathan would have offered to help, but he knew Khachi’s armor was enchanted and he didn’t want to wreck it. So instead he sat down across from the cleric, waiting in companionable silence. He had various topics bubbling in his mind, but wasn’t sure how to raise any of them.

Before Nathan could settle on a topic, Khachi spoke. “I propose we remain in Bridgeguard to allow the Forest Rangers to return to Gemore. Zanwin will be better off with more rapid healing, before he grows used to the absence of his arm. They have been out here some time. And we could do with a break from the politics of Gemore.”

It didn’t take a lot of consideration for Nathan to agree. “That all sounds reasonable to me. Won't it be a problem that Stella can’t cast [Message], to communicate with the Guild?”

Khachi nodded. “Yes. But I believe that it will help motivate her to learn, or prompt our quick replacement by the Guild. I think the Heirs are capable of standing off most threats when backed by the town guard. And we would be well served by setting our own pace.”

“Do we need a break?” Nathan looked out over a town that was winding down for the evening. Dinners were being made and people were sitting outside and laughing in the cool afternoon air, living peacefully. He thought about staying here for a while. Protecting the town, instead of practicing at the Guild or going on missions. It would be nice to stay in a place and know that he had saved it from violence. Satisfying.

The answer from Khachi was thoughtful. “We will survive if we do not rest. But yesterday we faced two difficult foes in the span of a day. We are going from fight to fight. We level quickly, but without the chance to reflect on our performance, practice our new abilities and plan our future advancement. Our strength will grow brittle if we continue. We will make a mistake, and somebody may die.”

He sighed, putting down a mirror-shining pauldron. “Adventurers die. But it should be because they were unlucky, not because they took too little time to prepare.”

Nathan nodded back. “Yeah. That makes sense. Let’s stay here for a bit. Use the time to train, and plan a bit.” They sat in silence for a minute longer before Nathan formulated another question that had been bubbling in his mind. “I asked some questions about [Message] the other day. I think there’s a chance I can help Stella learn it, with the Insight that we never completed. The one that should give her light mana.”

“The one where we had to almost carry her home after she nearly killed herself?” Khachi was looking down at the next piece of armor he was polishing, and while his tone was direct it wasn't accusatory.

Nathan shrugged. “Yup, that one. I think I have a better way to explain it now. But her parents told her not to try it again for a while. And that they’d be the ones to help with it. I’m not sure their Insights are compatible with mine, though.”

Khachi nodded, once again taking some time to formulate his words before he spoke. “We all wish to grow beyond what our parents have given us. Kia has told me that there will come a time when my path must diverge from hers, when I must stop relying on her Insights. To avoid being a lesser copy of her I will need to carve my own path with Insights I shape to my own purpose.

“I always thought I would focus on defense and healing in contrast to her unstoppable holy sword. But I found myself swearing an Oath to attack the Endings, instead of merely defending Gemore. So, I do not know.” He shook his head as if clearing a thought. “But Stella… I think she may have a more difficult path to breaking free of her parent’s influence. You have met them. They will hold onto their daughter and attempt to guide her beyond where they should. This is a reason to train here, away from the Guardian's influence.”

Nathan looked up, surprised at Khachi’s words. “You think I should go ahead with it? Even if Dalo and Kullal would disagree?”

Khachi nodded. “Yes. They have tried to give Stella a clear path to magical power. She has learned most of what Gemore knows of magic, following the path they paved. But you offer a path they had not considered and did not plan for. She should make her own decisions. Offer your path, and see if she decides to follow her parents footsteps a bit farther, or if she decides it is time to begin carving her own path. To become a [Mage of Science] or some such class.”

Nathan nodded, a decision having been made. “Ok. I’ll ask. [Mage of Science] would be pretty cool, if a class like that exists.” There were a few minutes of silence before they were joined by Sarah. She had started whittling a pair of small legionary figures from some branches she’d picked up in the forest.

Nathan looked over to her. “How you doin’?”

She shrugged and rolled her head around, keeping her eyes on the figurines. “Alright. Learned the name of a man I killed, imagined his future, his dreams. Not filled with sadness. Just going to need a bit of time to stare into darkness and grow accustomed to the feeling of being a destroyer of life, of family.”

The rest of the Adventurers woke up over the next hour, drawn by their noses when a villager approached with a tray loaded with fish that had been stuffed with sliced fruit and roasted. The fish were fresh and the fruit juicy, so it was a good… breakfast? Dinner? They were going to need to fix their sleep schedules. Zanwin and Farist had to be woken up to eat, but they fell on the meal with relish.

Over the meal, Khachi proposed the plan, first asking if the other Heirs thought it was reasonable. Nathan backed him up, and Sarah, Stella and Aarl quickly agreed. Then he suggested the Forest Rangers make haste back to Gemore and they were more than happy to agree, already planning to leave the next morning.

Farist spoke, “You Heirs hold the primary deterrent to Agmon, though I still don’t understand what weapon is used,” he gestured to Sarah. “As long as you can handle River Cutters, Siegeboars and some Striped Wolves, then you can safeguard Bridgeguard as well as we can. Let me introduce you to the Village head.”

—

The village head was a woman named Jadya Fuller. Nathan had been expecting an old leathery crone who looked like she chewed iron and spat nails, but Jadya was a middle-aged matronly woman who had flour in her nails and dusted across the backs of her hands. Farist introduced her and let her know that the Forest Rangers would be heading out in the morning while the Heirs stayed.

Jadya took the news with some concern, wishing the Forest Ranger well. She then turned to the Heirs and greeted them warmly, shaking each of their hands in a strong grip. She learned their names, pinched Aarl’s cheek and gave each of them a cold roll stuffed with a vegetable-and-meat paste filling.

Then she got down to business, laying out their responsibilities in a moderate accent. “The truth is such that Bridgeguard is the only way ta get across the Drakefish. It’s our lot to control who gets across, and get taxes on anybody carryin’ goods. That’s your real aim here, back us up when some merchant wants to skip the tax. And deal with it when any Agmon soldiers or Treeborn get blood in their eyes.” She gestured across the river. “You already done that part well enough.

“We got our own guard, but they’re mostly fishers or hunters that have some Davrar-granted skill with a bow or spear and can stand on the wall and yell loud when somebody comes. We can deal with most things in the forest and river unless it’s especially nasty. Might call on ya’ for an angry Siegeboar, some Stalkers or if a big pack of Striped Wolves comes too close. We see a Castlebear, might just sit in town and wait for it to go away. You folks won’t know much about the river, and we should be able to handle it ourselves.”

She shrugged. “Unless somethin’ weird floats downriver, but ya handled the last one well enough.” Jadya paused for a moment, thinking if there was anything else to say. “That’s said it all. It’s a pretty calm town. Except for when it isn’t.” She flashed a slightly sardonic smile. “Just stay around town, we need to be able to fetch ya if the lookouts see aught. Oh, and Miss Caxol, you wouldn’t happen to be able to cast [Message], would you?”

Stella shook her head, looking peeved. Annoyed at the question or annoyed at herself for having to answer in the negative, Nathan wasn’t sure.

Regardless, the Heirs went back to the Adventurer barracks to keep resting after their long day. The barracks here were more comfortable than those in Stonefall, because there were always going to be Adventurers here. It was a nice place to spend some time, away from Gemore. Training. Relaxing as much as they could. Something told Nathan that this might be the last break for a while.

—

It was almost a vacation - they familiarized themselves with the town over the next few days, learning that there really wasn’t danger under every stone. The Striped Wolves knew they’d get hunted down if they ventured within a dozen miles of the town, and the fishermen knew their business.

The Heirs kept up their morning runs, running around the town and across the bridge, then through the trees on the far side. They thought about swimming back across the river, but heeded the warnings about carnivorous fish. Nathan didn’t want to become a self-replenishing snack for anything swimming in something called the Drakefish river if he could avoid it. So they ran back across the bridge instead.

The villagers of Bridgeguard were also wonderful - friendly, appreciative and interested in the Heirs and their opinions. They weren’t up to date on Adventurer’s Guild politics, and didn’t seem to care much so long as there were teams around to protect them from whatever Davrar could throw their way.

They did learn about village politics. It was a bit like small town politics. Each village had all of its own petty squabbles which were mostly forgotten when dealing with another village. And then all of the villages stood together when dealing with Gemore. The villagers cast a lot of aspersions at the Traders Guild and Adventurer’s Guild for lack of transport or protection.

But, those were more issues of schedule and coordination. The villagers seemed to generally appreciate individual adventuring teams, who were just out there trying to do their best. The Heirs had already earned substantial goodwill - vanquishing two significant threats within a day of coming to the town will do that.

Nathan enjoyed meditating in town. The sounds of the village and the gurgle of the river gave him more points of focus, while the break from politics and conflict allowed him to truly dismiss tension and worry.

He also spent a good deal of time considering his knowledge of biochemistry - in preparation for his eventual Development of [Regeneration]. He wanted to incorporate everything he knew about cellular biochemistry into the Talent when it Developed. His goals were poison immunity, anti-aging and preferably the ability to make more fundamental changes to how his cells worked. He was assembling the Insight piece-by-piece from his extensive knowledge of human biochemistry and cell biology, then storing it in his memory for quick recall later.

High-tier Enhanced Memory 4 achieved!

–

“Stella, can we chat about magic?”

They were headed out of the village in the early afternoon for some practice. They’d been asked to help protect a gathering party going farther afield in the morning. After returning they’d finished a hearty lunch, and decided to spend some time practicing outside town.

Aarl looked over. “I wonder if we should stop this conversation, else we must deal with the destructive consequences.” A slight smile made it clear that he was being sarcastic.

Nathan smirked back. “If only you knew some of the conversations we could be having, you’d be right to be worried.”

I could, for example, be teaching her nuclear physics with an eye towards fission or fusion. I don’t know how you’d help somebody survive inventing a mana type for that. But it’d be one way to destroy a city starting with a ‘G’.

Sarah narrowed her eyes at Nathan. “I know my brother is joking. I can’t tell if you’re joking, and that is concerning, with what we know of your background.” She was clearly thinking of Earth, and what Nathan had mentioned of its technology and wars.

Stella just rolled her eyes. “I’m not bothered. I’ll take any Insights I can get, but need some time to digest the meal I’ve got already. Six mana types and I am only studying the surface of three of them.”

“Which ones?” Sarah and Aarl asked simultaneously, looking curious.

She counted on her fingers as she answered. “Air. Doesn’t come naturally to me. Hard to make into substantial spells with a lot of control. Gusts are easy, but combining control and power is hard. I keep meaning to work on it, but there’s always other things to practice.”

She ticked off the next finger. “Earth. Can throw spikes and move around platforms. Not able to conjure or raise walls, dig tunnels or any of the other things that make Earth mana so useful. But that’s partly because I don’t want to get sent to help build houses or walls in the villages.

The final finger dropped. “Magnetism. Great for controlling lightning, but I need to invent every application of it. No spellbooks on it. No experts, apart from Nathan, and he’s not an ideal conversationalist for building new spellforms.”

She turned to Nathan, looking up at him expectantly. “So. Which of the magics do you want to talk about?”

Nathan struggled to hold a straight face as he looked back. “I want to finally teach you about light mana.”

Khachi gave a low chuckle while Sarah rolled her eyes.

Stella didn’t look so convinced. “My parents asked me not to pursue that for a little while. Until they taught me about light. I tried to explain what you said and they didn’t like what they heard.”

She kicked at the ground a bit. “They hinted it would be a chunk of time before we got there.”

Nathan held his hands out to the side. “No pressure. Just offering the option. I think I might have an insight into [Message] that would work with light mana. Since air seems so difficult.”

They kept walking for a moment, to get as far away from town as they could while remaining within sight. Stella didn’t answer for a little while.

“I’ll think about it. My parents - well. Hear me, but they’ve taught me most of the magic I know. And they’ve got so much left to teach me.”

Nathan nodded back. “Yup. And my Insights are different from theirs. It’s up to you to decide what path to follow, or if you want to learn both. But if we keep leveling up like we have been, then we’ll need all the Insights we can get. And I’ve thought of a different way to explain it.”

The conversation ended there, and they proceeded to practice hard enough to test the limits of their leveling. Aarl’s blows hit harder - but Nathan was stronger and faster in return. All of his class skills carried more oomph now that he was higher level. His assorted rank-ups and Developments meant that the combat-oriented utility skills were also more impactful.

Nathan had already been practicing incorporating gymnastic-like movements into his fighting. It would have been ridiculous on Earth. But when you had skills that made you faster and made your tricks work every time? It suddenly wasn’t as risky to grab a tree branch and pull yourself into a flip, then speed up your fall and plant your feet on your foe’s chest.

Because it turned out that [Slow Fall] was great with [Juggernaut's Inertia], [Sprinting], [Dodging footwork] and [Tumbling]. The ability to control the speed of his fall and nudge the direction was a game-changer. Nathan could launch himself into the air without worrying he was providing an easy target. He could spend stamina to pull himself to the ground or remain airborne longer than he should, throwing off any predictions of his movement.

In particular, Nathan was starting to notice something about his build that he hadn’t been great at taking advantage of. His [Juggernaut’s Inertia] was an integral part of his class - it amplified the power of Nathan’s blows, and synergized with [Antimagic Momentum] to allow him to shatter incredibly powerful magic by simply having enough speed. But it didn’t have that large of an effect when Nathan was standing in place.

The class skill really became significant when Nathan himself was moving quickly, with the momentum of his whole body. It made his charges unstoppable. He now had two skills to help him gain speed quickly - [Sprinting] and [Slow Fall] both enabled him to dramatically increase his speed. It was a little weird that he could use [Slow Fall] to fall faster, but it was High-Tier.

He had two skills to help him change directions quickly - [Dodging Footwork] and [Tumbling]. And they were both more effective when Nathan had speed to work with.

Remembering back to the last fight, a single legionary had given Nathan trouble when he’d stood and fought, and Nathan hadn't even beaten him - he'd just run away. But the moment he picked up speed and stopped fighting normally, he’d done much better, escaping an encirclement and nearly disarming two legionaries on his way out.

Even when he’d gone in to rescue Zanwin - he’d been able to dodge around one legionary and bowl over another almost entirely because he’d had a run-up and hadn’t ever abandoned the momentum.

In discussion with the other Heirs, Nathan confirmed his conclusions. He wanted to be able to stand and fight, but he needed to keep in mind that his primary fighting style was more suited to staying mobile and using his momentum to set up unstoppable attacks.

He was a [Spellbreaker Juggernaut], after all. The second part of that class was more than just window-dressing.

Status of Nathan Lark:

Permanent Talent 1: Magic Absorption 7

Permanent Talent 2: High-tier Regeneration 9

Talent 3: High-tier Slow Fall 4

Class: Spellbreaker Juggernaut level 65

Stamina: 523/750

Juggernaut's Wrath

Antimagic Momentum

Raging Thrill

Juggernaut's Inertia

Unarmored Resilience

Utility skills:

High-tier Focused Mind 9

High-tier Earnestness 3

Mid-tier Sprinting 6

High-tier Spellsense 4

Mid-tier Notice 9

Mid-tier Identify 7

Mid-tier Dodging Footwork 5

High-tier Enhanced Memory 4

Mid-tier Lecturing 2

Mid-tier Tumbling 2

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