Millennial Mage

Tala slowly sipped her tea as she watched emotions play over Master Jevin’s face. Eventually, she lightly cleared her throat. “If I may, how old are you?”

The sadness returned to the forefront as the dominant emotion evident in his features. “Old, Mistress. I was not lying when I said that humanity is all I have.”

She glanced away, noticing the obvious deflection for what it was. Alright, don’t press, there. “So, the tree.”

“The tree.” He nodded. “I am soul-bound to the entire city-tree.”

“Can…you leave?”

He barked a laugh. “Oh, yes. It is…uncomfortable to be too far. That is one reason I remain on the front line against the Leshkin during the years in which humanity moves north, working against these ancient evils until my fellow man returns. I do go to the northern cities, but I return to the northern edge of the forest as quickly, and for as long, as I can.”

She cocked her head in interest. “Not here?” She nibbled at her scone while he answered.

“Oh, no. This tree will be sealed up tight, and the spell-workings powered down. We have to do that so that the ambient magic can equalize once more.” After a long moment, he shook his head. “So, do you have any questions?”

“Way, way too many, but none really seem…important.”

Tala considered for a long moment. She really did feel like he was genuine in his openness, and it caused her to realize something: She didn’t really feel afraid any longer; she felt…heavy. Like she’d increased her own gravity to be near her limit. But there is none of the energy I feel from such a challenge…

It was a weight that seemed to settle into her spirit. How many years has this man suffered, denied the one thing he cherishes above all: Humanity?

As she stared at her hands, a small plate moved into her vision. She looked up quickly, but Master Jevin was still in his seat. The plate, loaded with scones, sat in the air as solid as if resting on an invisible table before her.

“Scones help.”

He’s comforting…me? She glanced down at the scones and felt a smile break through her melancholy. She huffed a laugh and shook her head, but the solemnity of the conversation was broken. “Thank you.”

He nodded, returning a slight smile.

“So… are the workers who’ve replaced parts of themselves bound to you?”

He shook his head. “Oh, no. The tree is still separate from me, though it is bound to my soul. They are simply gaining a weaker version of the bond I have.” After a moment’s pause, he amended. “Much, much weaker.”

She sat back, considering.

Master Jevin tapped the armrest of his chair. “One last thing on this topic.”

She refocused on him, waiting.

“I would ask that you not spread this information around. It could cause all sorts of issues.”

She grimaced. More secrets.

“You can talk to Master Rane about it; I think avoiding that, now, would be a bigger problem than just telling him, and he’s a clever boy. He’ll understand the need to keep it to himself.”

“But why would it be so bad for people to know?”

Master Jevin gave her a long look.

Tala shifted in her chair under his scrutiny.

“Can you really not think of anything that might go wrong?”

She opened her mouth, then closed it, thinking. After a moment, she found herself nodding. “Well, it might bring back that old trend, Mages seeking power and all that. Many would just see that it worked, not the costs.”

Master Jevin nodded and waited.

“The mundanes would likely want to leave, in vast numbers.” She hesitated, then sighed. He seems to want honesty. “It is a bit creepy that you watch everything, all the time.”

He raised a finger. “I actually don’t. I have triggers in place to notify me of key things, like your conversation with Master Rane on this topic, but for the most part I see no more than anyone would.”

“But people might not believe that.”

“They might not.”

“Shouldn’t that be their choice? I mean: shouldn’t they have the choice on whether or not to believe you and whether or not to stay?”

He cocked an eyebrow at her. “If you focus, could you construct what someone looks like under their clothing with your mage-sight?” He clearly already thought he knew the answer.

Can I? She considered. Yeah, I suppose I could. “I guess so, yeah.”

“So, do you tell everyone around you: ‘By the way! I could see you naked, if I wanted, I just choose not to. If that bugs you, you should probably not be around me.’ ”

“I obviously don’t.”

“Why not? Shouldn’t that be their choice?”

Tala grimaced again. “I see your point.” She groaned. “I still kind of hate it.”

“Maturity requires doing things we don’t like, because it is right.”

She gave him a deeply skeptical look. “Did you just state that being mature means telling unpleasant lies?”

He coughed, scratching his neck. “Let’s not think too deeply on that one.”

Tala snorted, shaking her head, but didn’t comment further.

“But! We aren’t here for me, not really. Let’s discuss your questions and requests.”

Tala nodded and smiled. “I’d appreciate that. Thank you.” She poured herself another cup of tea as Master Jevin finished off his last scone.

“So, Mistress. You asked for throwing darts?”

“Ah, yes!”

He smiled. “Can I have the anchor?”

She unclipped it from her belt and tossed it to him.

He caught it with a nod. “You know, you could keep it in your dimensional storage. That might keep it safer.”

“That… is a good idea.”

“Though, now that you have these darts that probably isn’t as good an idea as it would have been before.”

She gave him an unamused look which he ignored.

He pulled a small rack of throwing darts from a dimensional ripple in the air beside him. While holding the rack and the anchor, Master Jevin closed his eyes and exhaled.

Tala watched the man’s aura grab inscriptions on each magical item.

He, somehow, pushed them together at a deeper-than-physical level.

He magically linked them, obviously. She sighed. She still wasn’t used to instantly interpreting what her mage-sight showed her. There was something to his friendly jab. I really need to get more used to integrating and interpreting what my mage-sight shows me.

“There you go.” The anchor and rack moved back to her, so she could take them from the air.

She clipped the anchor back to her belt and put the darts into Kit. Then, she reached in and pulled out one of the throwing weapons. “What’s this metal?”

“Titanium.”

She nodded, examining the gray metal. The exterior was heavily inscribed so that it could indicate a target. It actually looked a bit like a worm-riddled stick, that had been stripped of bark, and had the worm-lines filled with precious metal. “I assume I can’t target the world with this?”

Master Jevin laughed. “No, you can’t target anything larger than your anchor space, so nothing larger than twenty feet across or so. And something that big will drain power like mad.”

Tala frowned. “That is much less useful.”

“Well, if you like the results, we could make a few layers of this, creating layers of entrapment.”

She found herself nodding. “I think I like that, but I should test out the idea a bit, first.”

“I thought as much, too.”

“If this works, we could create one anchor for me, to help lock me in place, then another for the various layers of ensnared opponents.”

Master Jevin shrugged. “I mean, if we want, we could make your anchor variable distance. Let you mentally alter how close it keeps you, though things like that would be both more efficient and more easily controlled if you were to soul bond them.”

“Could we then make the opponent snares variable? That way we wouldn’t need to make it have multiple layers?”

He leaned back, nodding and taking a large bite of scone.

Where did that one come from?

Now that she thought about it, they’d eaten way more than had been on the tray when she arrived.

Huh, I suppose he has a stash of scones in his dimensional storage. Oddly, more than his kindly attitude, more than his ready answers for all of his questions, the fact that he had a selection of snacks in his storage humanized him to her, despite his insane levels of power. Yes, Tala, he likes baked goods, he must not be evil. She kept outward expressions of her mirth to a small smile.

Master Jevin swallowed. “Yeah, that actually makes a lot of sense, again if you like the effect. The trick, I think, would be to have the distance set by the targeting item, either your bracers or the darts. Then, the bracers being on you would allow for active adjustment, without returning to the anchor. For the darts, you could set each before you threw it.”

She leaned forward. “Oh! I like that.” She was nodding. “After I test these.” She lifted the dart in her hand.

“Yes, testing is a good idea.” He grinned. “I look forward to seeing how they work for you.” A small chuckle escaped his lips. “Most Mages want to keep opponents away, and any that are close enough to put a dart in are far, far too close.”

“I can see that.” Another sip of tea spaced out her next topic. “So… I was able to target the wooden ball, within the final iron sphere.”

“Hey! That’s wonderful.” He grinned her way, and she felt a wave of genuine warmth well up within her chest.

“Thank you. I am quite proud of it, actually.”

“You should be. While it’s a common series of exercises, not many have the capacity to enact upon the last ball.” He gave a half smile. “Do you want the next set?”

Tala’s smile froze. “The next…set?”

“Of course! Did you think you were done?”

“Well…maybe?”

He laughed. “The next set are all fully enclosed in iron with varying targets, inside. The first is the same wood, but in a cube, instead of a sphere. Since you’ve never targeted a cube of the stuff, that’s harder. The second is a different wood, formed into a ball. Third, another wood still, in another shape, which you won’t be told, and so on.”

She considered for a moment. “What’s the final test?”

He smiled. “An unknown material, in an unknown shape, fully encased in iron, with no space around it.”

“So, a solid sphere of iron with a bit of material at the core?”

Lines crinkled beside his eyes. “Bold of you to assume that the target would be in the center.”

Tala groaned in anticipated frustration, but her mind was already sparking with the implications of such trials. “Yeah…that sounds like something worth working up to.”

He held out his hand, and she returned the six spheres that she’d overcome. He then handed over the six new ones, each with a number, seven through twelve, stamped on the side and paired with a small notecard of information on the challenge.

“Thank you.”

“I aim to assist.”

She smiled. “So, I wanted to ask,” she gestured to the iron balls, even as he tucked them into a dimensional rift, “does this methodology make my iron salve useless?”

“Your passive defense?”

“Yeah.”

“Not at all. To bypass it and target you, your opponent first has to have a spell-working that can directly target something, regardless of intervening space, which isn’t actually that common. Then, even if they have the proper magic or inscription, they have to know how to use it in that way and be practiced in such a use. The last two are even more rare, proportionally, than the first. Even then, they’d have to overcome your will to affect you, and you always have advantage in a fight of authority over your own body.” He leaned back once more. “That contest of wills is actually one of the primary reasons such direct targeting is rare. It is much simpler to impart heat in the direction of a target, than to target the specific thing you want to burn. You chose an…unusual path.”

“So my teachers were fond of telling me.”

He shrugged. “You have the magical weight to make it work when fighting at your level, or below. You will struggle to work directly on those above you, but that is a fairly universal issue, regardless.”

She nodded. “Thank you for the breakdown. So, the iron salve is far from useless, but also nothing close to a universal defense.”

“Well said.”

She smiled contentedly at the praise.

“Now, your Archon stars.” He once again held out his hand.

She tossed him the iron vial containing her last star, still much weaker than Grediv had said was minimally required to become Bound. Not that I need that, again.

He caught it dexterously, removing the cap and looking inside. “Fascinating. For some reason, I assumed that the outside would have scabbed over, once it was exposed to air for long enough, but it truly is a liquid medium.”

“So it seems.”

He smiled but didn’t look up at her. “To confirm, you are alright with me performing tests on this?”

She almost responded with an off-handed “sure” but something about his question gave her pause. “Is there danger?”

“Not particularly.”

She gave him a flat look. “That means yes, but they’re minimal.”

“Accurate.”

“So?”

He shrugged. “If I were to be malicious, I could overpower your will, and forcibly bind you to something. This is too weak for a bond to a sapient creature, but I could think of a few things that would be detrimental to be bound to.”

And the uncomfortable feeling’s back.

“Oh, don’t worry. I don’t plan to do any of that.” He laughed. “And if I did, you really couldn’t stop me.”

“Yeah… but you didn’t have to mention…” She frowned, glanced at his eyes and saw poorly hidden mirth. “Fine, it can be better to not tell someone all the ways you could harm them or invade their privacy. You’ve made your point.”

He gave a slight bow. “The tests I will perform are perfectly safe.”

She waved an assenting hand, drinking more tea in stubborn silence.

He rose and went to one of his work benches, pulling out myriad tools.

As the star moved around, Tala continued to be able to tell exactly where it was.

Flashes and flickers of different magics radiated from the workbench, and Tala felt odd sensations coming from the Archon star.

“What are you doing?”

“At the moment?” He glanced over his shoulder, a small smile evident, tugging at his lips.

Tala sighed. He really likes destroying his own mystique. “Yes, at the moment.”

“Seeing if I can engender enough curiosity in you to draw you away from your tea.” He gave her a full, mischievous grin.

She huffed a laugh and stood, resolutely refilling her teacup and bringing it with her.

He laughed, seeing her cup. “Good enough.” He gestured to a hammered bronze sheet with silver-filled inscriptions worked across the surface.

“Why bronze? Why not wood?”

He smiled. “Well, the foremost expert on the human soul, in the last few hundred years at least, was a Bronze Archon, and she perfected the diagnostic inscriptions in that medium far beyond what I have time to develop in any other medium.”

“Could you just use your aura?”

“Of course, but that would require much more power, and still wouldn’t be as precise in the information it could pull.”

“Huh…good to know.”

He gave her a sideways look. “Tallying up my weaknesses, eh?”

She decided to run with it, giving him a winning smile. “Anything you care to add to the list?”

“Caramel Liqueur. It is most potent against me when contained in a smooth dark-chocolate.” He closed his eyes, clearly enjoying a memory. “And pair it with a full-bodied whiskey?” He shook his head. “MMM, mmm.”

Tala huffed a laugh. “Alright, alright. What have you learned?”

“This is, indeed, an Archon star, and can be used for a soul-bond to a non-sapient item.”

She waited for a long count of ten. When nothing else was forthcoming, she turned back to regard him. “And?”

“I ran one test, Mistress Tala.” He was grinning again.

“I thought you were busy today.”

“When you get to be my age, you have to make your own fun.”

“You sound like a librarian I ran into.”

He snorted. “I don’t doubt it; most Archon Librarians are of an age that they’d agree with me.”

“Fair, I suppose.”

Power moved through the bronze plate and the inscriptions engraved into it.

Tala watched power twisting around her archon star, now free of its vial and held, suspended, over the empowered item.

“Interesting.”

“What is it?”

“I’m not sure. I need to run a companion test on you.” He motioned with his hand, and a bronze plate moved from a nearby cabinet and settled onto the floor. “If you would?”

Tala shrugged and stepped onto the inscribed surface. As she did so, she felt Master Jevin empower the spell-forms, and magic swept through her.

“Fascinating.”

“Yes?”

“Your soul does have a tendril just free-floating, in addition to the connection to this star and your weapon.”

“What does that mean?”

“Hmmm? No idea. I don’t know of any specific use for a stretching of your soul.”

“Does it weaken it? Strengthen it? Allow me to temporarily claim things?”

“No?” He shrugged. “These spell-forms are registering your soul as quite strong, for a human, but I’d expect nothing else from an Archon, moving towards Fused. Though, this would indicate that you have a bit more strength than that would imply. Soul exercises?”

“Every day.”

“Seems to be helping.”

“So, ignorant question, why is a strong soul good?”

He nodded. “Ahh, yes. There are too many words for the same thing. The strength of your soul is roughly equivalent to the strength of your will. They are intertwined and interconnected, to the point that they have never been proven to be different aspects of a person.”

“But they’ve never been proven to be the same?”

He hesitated a moment. “Are your fingers and the bones of your hand the same? Are they distinct?”

“I think I understand. Which is the soul, and which is the will, in this analogy?”

“That’s just it, we don’t really know.”

“That is massively unsatisfying.”

He shrugged. “We don’t know everything. Are you willing to create a star, while being monitored?”

She thought about it for a moment. “Just a little one?”

“That should do, yeah.”

Finally, she nodded. “I think the information we can get from it is worth the effort.”

“Alright, then! Let’s get to it.”

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