Millennial Mage

Tala leaned on the balcony, beside their training room, the midnight-sky stunningly beautiful overhead.

Her stomach was pleasantly full after the feast she and Rane had shared.

Her cheeks had echoes of soreness, despite her scripts. She couldn’t remember having ever laughed so much at anything. It had been a magnificent farce.

Rane had dropped her off at the training room and headed up to his rooms in the upper reaches of Makinaven, leaving her alone with her thoughts.

Terry hadn’t paid much attention to the play except to give her odd looks whenever she laughed, though he’d remained on her shoulder throughout the entirety.

At the moment, he was curled up in the corner sleeping once again.

As Tala thought back, a contentment settled into her being. She’d only been in Makinaven for eight days, but she was already falling into a pattern. Even the change of training venue wouldn’t disrupt that. But staying up much later than usual will. She almost laughed at that. She was up later than she liked, but that seemed to be happening almost as often as not, these days.

If I’m going to be here for another three weeks or so, I should take a venture out of the city with Terry. The more she considered that, the more she liked it. Terry could get us out past the defenses quite quickly, it could be a great day-trip. I’ve been training in too sterile an environment, and some actual combat would help settle all that I’m working on.

She grinned to herself. Hunt some arcanous beasts, do some more active training. It would be perfect. Another week? She nodded. Another week of training.

* * *

Three days of intense training interspersed with plays, meals, and walks through the upper reaches of Makinaven passed without great incident.

Tala was practicing her throwing when Rane let out a triumphant laugh. “It’s open to me!”

She didn’t complain about her spoiled shot. After all, she needed to practice while distracted. Even so, she shot Rane an irritated glance. Her irritation was spoiled when she saw him holding a book. “Wait…is that?”

“Yes! ‘Soul Work’ is finally open to me.”

Tala frantically pulled Kit open and retrieved her own copy. Almost shaking, she opened it and placed her palm on the first page, giving the book a look at her magic.

To Tala’s mage-sight, an almost invisible, interwoven network of spell-lines began to unravel, pulling back and leaving the book utterly exposed, at her mercy.

A manic grin split her face, and she immediately sat, reading ravenously, her throwing practice forgotten for the moment.

From the other side of the room Rane groaned. “Great… I need to make another star. It’s time for me to bond with Force.”

Tala shot him a self-satisfied smile. She’d been recommending he do that for days, but he’d wanted to wait. He’s right often enough that this won’t hurt him too much.

He groaned. “Most of this is work with a soul-bond.”

Tala did not gloat. She was too busy reading. She had kept up her own soul exercises, pulling Flow to her from varying, decreasing distances, in regimented sets, specifically designed to strengthen that aspect of herself.

The first chapter of ‘Soul Work’ was a detailed breakdown of doing just that, with a few additional, surrounding details.

Huh, I’ve been pulling on the link between us, but Flow can pull, too. Obviously, it wouldn’t move her, but it would greatly extend her potential range, if the knife was adding to the pull. Like a kite reeling itself in, while I’m winding the line.

The question was how to do it.

Start small.

She set Flow as far as she could easily reach without getting up. She then focused on the bond, pushing her will through it.

Once she had a good hold over the connection, she did not pull on it, to draw Flow to her. No, she tried to will the knife to pull itself to her hand on its own.

She focused as Rane put on more socially polite clothing and departed, presumably heading to the market for another sapphire for his new Archon star.

She searched with her will; she dug deep with her consciousness; she probed the extent of her bond, with her internally directed mage-sight; and she referenced the book more times than she could count, parsing through every sentence of the advice and descriptions associated with the modified technique.

Finally, an indeterminate time later, Flow snicked into her palm, the weapon having pulled itself to her hand, at her command.

Tala jumped, spinning in a circle and laughing maniacally. When no one commented, she took in her surroundings for the first time in what had clearly been hours.

The transparent wall looked out on a nighttime forest; Terry was sleepily gnawing on a large, leather ball that Rane had picked up for the avian a couple of days earlier; and Rane was deep in meditation, a small sapphire held in his hand and power pouring from him into the gem.

Oh…That took me quite a while. She glanced down at Flow in her hand, and the open ‘Soul Work’ on the floor beside her. Well, then, that’s a good start.

She sat back down to repeat the process and brainstorm on how to integrate it into her training.

* * *

Tala looked nervously across the training hall at Rane.

He held Force in a ready position, awaiting her attack. He hadn’t bonded the weapon, yet, though he had created the star the evening before. He said he wanted to have Jevin inspect the weapon and the star before he merged them, just in case. Tala hadn’t fought him on it. It was his bond, his soul, after all.

Tala took a deep breath, steadying her nerves. She wasn’t nervous to fight him; they’d been doing that, uncounted times each day.

No, what had her nervous was the anchor, sitting on the floor between them. She’d experimented with the paired devices. She’d even been using them to allow her to run in the mornings without having to find a route. Yet, she’d not fought with the anchor active, not yet.

Tala charged forward, past the anchor, and engaged Rane sword to sword.

She was getting better, both in her ability with Flow and in her understanding of her increased physical attributes. Rane still overshadowed her with talent, training, and experience, but she was narrowing the gap, if slowly.

Her minor errors finally built up to the point that Rane was able to hit her with a horizontal slash, her block just out of position.

She shot sideways; eyes locked on her opponent.

She stopped moving away from him, though the air still rushed by her for another instant. Dimensional energy warped around her, expanding the space before her and keeping her from getting farther from her anchor.

As she came to the ground, tumbling slightly before rolling to her feet, she found herself still close to Rane. Still within striking distance.

He didn’t let that go to waste.

Force struck her again, throwing her backwards and up this time.

Rane took off after her in a dead sprint.

When she reached the back edge of her tether’s range, it looked like she jerked to a stop midair, though she still felt air rushing past her, even as she began to drop.

Rane was there before her feet touched the ground, but Tala got Flow up to block this time.

The concussion of Force against Flow radiated out, even as her feet returned to the springy wood of their training room. Rane was grinning wildly. “Oh, this is going to be amazing.”

A range of twenty feet was hardly an expansive battlefield, and Tala would need to figure out how to move her anchor tactically, but it had worked.

She grinned in return. Not perfect, but it is a wonderful improvement.

Rane usually launched her into the walls, ceiling, or floor with ease, causing extra damage and often dazing her, even if just momentarily. Now, his only option was the floor, and she was becoming more proficient at blocking overhead strikes from his massive sword. After all, she deeply disliked being slammed against the ground.

They spent most of the remainder of the day, and the two following, sparring with her tether active, only taking breaks to recover their strength and mentally process the previous bouts.

* * *

Dawn broke early, though marginally later than the day before, and Tala shot out of bed with special alacrity. Today is Terry adventure day!

Rane was going to go visit the Constructionists and finally bond Force, and Tala and Terry were going to take a daytrip into the surrounding forests to hunt and shake off the building feeling of claustrophobia.

“Good morning, Terry!”

Terry flickered to her side, even as she climbed out of Kit.

She tossed him a bit of jerky, before picking up the pouch and hanging it on her belt. She gave him a bit more as she moved through her morning routine.

Terry was patient enough, snatching up the occasional bit of jerky she tossed out in a random direction.

Soon enough, she was done, and they headed out of the training facility.

She’d arranged with Mistress Odera to miss their breakfast that morning, so the Mage wouldn’t have to wonder where Tala had gotten to.

“Let’s go!”

They walked out to the city spiral, exiting the training complex, and Terry immediately grew to a rideable size.

Tala thought for a moment, then clipped her anchor to his collar. She then climbed up, holding the collar and tucking her feet under his wings. One of her hands on Terry’s collar also held the anchor. If he flickers away, he’ll leave it behind, but this way, I’ll keep a hold of it.

As soon as she was situated, Terry took off down the inside of the tree.

They’d discussed it in the previous days and decided to leave through the southern gate.

Well, that wasn’t quite accurate. Tala had proposed various things, and Terry had squawked and trilled until she’d said things that he was okay with.

That was fine. A large part of this was to let the terror bird have some unrestrained time, so his input held a lot of weight.

They shot out of the tree’s southern gate. Entering the power heavy air there at ground-level felt like running into a wet blanket, at least to her spiritual self.

Something about beginning the fusing process seemed to have sharpened her magical senses, at least slightly, and she could now tell that all this power, this ocean of magical might, was already bound to and controlled by someone.

The sense of their influence felt…familiar, but she couldn’t place it. I’ll figure it out eventually, or I won’t.

She grinned. Today wasn’t for contemplation; it was for adventure. It was for battle.

Terry hadn’t slowed, and they were out from under Makinaven’s tree with surprising speed.

In less than an hour, they were past the reach of its magical drain, into the wild forest in truth.

Terry gave a soft trill of warning before flickering away.

Tala dropped to her feet, clipping her anchor to her belt as she dropped.

Terry regarded her from around ten yards away.

“Go, hunt, have fun. I’ll call you by name if I need help.”

He waited a moment longer, then trilled happily and vanished.

Tala pulled out one of the large jars of pig’s blood that she’d purchased from a butcher. One silver per gallon. Not cheap, but effectively much less expensive than bleeding a gallon from herself.

She uncapped the jar and poured it out on various rocks around the center of the clearing in which she stood.

The clearing was just over a two hundred feet across, surrounded by trees in a rough ring.

She then let out a call of challenge, careful to keep any fear from the sound. She didn’t want another human hearing it and coming to assist her.

Her powerful lungs, and reinforced vocal cords, allowed for a very loud challenge.

Wind moving through the forests rustled the canopy overhead, carrying the scent of blood through the woods.

Less than a minute later, she heard the first answering challenge.

The basso roar caused the ground to tremble and her bones to shake.

It’s ok, Tala. You got this.

A creature, twice her height, came into view. It looked quite a lot like Terry, but with armored plates instead of feathers, and teeth instead of a beak, and instead of vestigial wings, it had front arms, baring vicious looking claws. So, not much like Terry at all.

It let out the too-low roar once again, its throat vibrating visibly as it generated the challenge.

Tala pulled out one of the tungsten balls, which had its gravity already reduced to near nothing, and pitched it at the massive, bipedal lizard with all her strength.

A five-foot crater blossomed at the impact site. Shrapnel shot out in all directions from the tree just beside and behind her target.

The beast jumped to the side, letting out a sound that evoked irritation and startlement in equal measures.

Tala grimaced at the hole in the middle of the crater in the tree. Well, rust. That’s going to be a pain to dig out.

She called Flow to her hand, pushing power to form it into a glaive, even as she moved through the motions to throw the weapon.

This attack flew true…at least mostly.

Flow ripped past her opponent, taking off one of its front arms and gouging a sizzling chunk from its side as it passed.

Tala called Flow back before it could go too far, and was about to charge in, when three smaller creatures leapt out onto her first opponent, tearing it apart and taking it to the ground in moments.

The fallen lizard let out a confused final cry before the three smaller attackers ended its struggles.

The scent of blood had only grown, and now the smell of cooked meat had been added.

Tala could hear sounds from various distances all around her as predators, large and small, moved to investigate.

Huh… This might not have been the most well thought out plan.

* * *

Tala rolled across blood-soaked carcasses, which coated the ground, striking out at any opponent that came close.

The little valley had devolved into a melee long ago, but the predators just kept coming.

At some point, Terry had returned, following the tide of incoming targets, and he was exuberantly flickering through the churning, primal gore-fest, trumpeting in glee.

To Tala’s best guess, the sound of fighting, combined with the smell of blood, and the already powerful draw of a human presence was driving the creatures into mad battle-lust. Most still retained enough cognizance to not attack those of their own kind, but that was it.

On the negative side, Tala had suffered numerous injuries, all healed now of course, but they had pulled from her reserves, and that would pull from her budget. She had void-channels to her elk-leathers and Kit, along with those to Flow, keeping them in top form and preventing the mounting damage from being too much.

If she’d had a goal to reach, or anyone else to protect, she’d have failed utterly. The only reason that she was still living at all, aside from Terry’s occasional intervention, was that her presence seemed only to increase the creature’s ferocity, not cause them to target her, specifically.

Stars be praised.

On the positive side, she was practicing every skill and ability she had which had even a mild combat application.

She was throwing with a fair degree of accuracy.

She’d been able to pull out gravity enhanced balls and arches, dropping them at opportune moments. The first few had done little, but she was working out the kinks.

She’d used her gravity manipulation on a full four creatures at the same time, increasing two and reducing the other two. That had come after many failures, but even still, she felt like it was a tremendous accomplishment.

Her sword and glaive work had taken on new shape and meaning to her as she battled for her life. The sharp, crisp movements of the weapons' techniques had morphed into brutally efficient strikes, blocks, and deflections. Flow seemed to be thrumming with power alongside her, its shape shifting between the three forms as easily as water filled a cup.

And, she felt alive.

Every movement was precise. Every mistake was punished, and every intuition tested.

It was glorious.

The ground couldn’t absorb anymore blood, though that quagmire was covered with no small number of bodies. The depression between trees was beginning to resemble little more than a shallow pool of dark red liquid filled with islands of the dead.

Still, arcanous beasts came.

Still, Tala, Flow, and Terry reaped a crimson harvest.

Still, the sun moved up the sky, ever closer to noon.

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