Douglas Miller
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MiP B2 Chapter 28: Matters of Nobility
🕑 Added 2025-01-22 21:59:21 +0000 UTC<< First | < Previous | Next >
Kindar paced back and forth impatiently, as if his number of steps would end his wait sooner. He scowled at the older man who was simply watching him calmly. "You're certain this is where Mayor Stelras said to wait?"
Gevin, his flawlessly-formal advisor and escort - Kindar refused to think of him as a babysitter - just nodded and answered. "This is the Dramos teleport beacon house, as the mayor specified. Perhaps you should ask about incorporating a memory aid of some kind into your noble soul plan, if you need 6 confirmations of the same thing in as many minutes."
Kindar rolled his eyes and continued pacing. An eternal two minutes later, the ritual circle inlaid in the floor finally - finally! - flared with light, and someone appeared in the center of it. "Finally! Took you long enou-" He froze as he belatedly noticed the uniform the newcomer was wearing. A black robe with orichalcum-orange embroidery; the color scheme of the Crown's service. He hastily snapped his mouth shut and bowed deeply. "My apology, sir. I had not been informed that I would be meeting a mage of the Crown."
The black-robed mage smirked and raised an eyebrow. "Oh? And who were you expecting, that you thought such a reaction would be acceptable?"
Kindar stared blankly, and the mage chuckled at him. "If you had reacted like that to a mage serving House Carlos, I would not be surprised if Lord Carlos responded by sending you home and telling your father that the deal is off. I'll do you the favor of pretending it didn't happen this time, but I advise you to hold your tongue in the future. House Carlos has very little tolerance for disrespect from you. Now, if you're ready to go, step into the circle beside me."
Kindar opened his mouth, then reconsidered and closed it again without speaking. He nodded sharply and stepped into the ritual circle, flanked by Gevin. The mage cast a spell, white light momentarily obscured everything, and then they were somewhere else.
The first thing he noticed was the oppressive pressure of high-level ambient mana bearing down on him. It was uncomfortable, but not quite enough to hurt. Is that what took them so long? Getting to an area I'm ready for? Gevin gave him a sharp look, and he kept his mouth shut.
"Stay inside the marked circle if you want to live. Outside the circle, the aether will start eroding your soul."
Kindar belatedly started paying attention to his physical surroundings. It took him a moment to recognize the person who'd just warned him as the strange man he'd loaned a sword to in that dungeon just over a month ago. Amber sitting several feet behind him - Lady Amber, now - was of course a much more familiar figure. He quickly dropped to one knee and bowed. "High Lord Carlos, I thank you for entertaining my request."
Footsteps slowly approached, and a hand grasped his chin to raise his head up to face forward. Lord Carlos examined his face for a moment, while Kindar averted his gaze and looked at the ground. Lord Carlos sighed and stood up. "As gratifying as this display of humility is to see, it's not what you're here for. Stand up and face me."
Kindar obeyed, hesitantly meeting the high lord's gaze for a moment before lowering his eyes a little to look at Lord Carlos's chest instead.
"Just to make sure, do you understand the warning? That you must stay inside this circle to avoid soul erosion?"
Kindar looked to the side and noticed a line dug in the ground about 10 feet away, forming a circle 20 feet across with him at the center. Several tents, a campfire, and some tables and chairs were set up farther outside the circle. He nodded. "I understand, Lord Carlos. Though, if I may ask, what is 'aether'?"
"It is the proper term for what is more commonly called ambient mana." Lord Carlos clapped his hands together. "Now then, to business. Before we get into what new soul structures you should make, I have some questions about your current ones."
"I…" Kindar looked around. Besides the two nobles of House Carlos and the crown mage, there were about half a dozen assorted other people nearby. "I'm sorry, my lord, but I must ask: Do you insist on sharing those secrets with everyone present?"
"Everyone here is a sworn loyal servant of either the Crown or of House Carlos, and we consulted with them already about what areas of improvement are the most important for you. When we get to the point of using secrets of nobility, then we will discuss more privately."
Kindar hesitated again, but ultimately nodded. "Very well. I will answer freely."
Carlos nodded and let his hands fall to his sides. "Your first 3 soul structures, for strength, speed, and precision, are each specific to your arms and hands. Why?"
"Because the arms and hands are what wield the sword, of course, and focusing on them makes the effects more potent."
"Mhm." Carlos pressed his lips together and tilted his head. "Is that… standard advice that you got from somewhere?"
Kindar shrugged. "Those who described that partial soul plan to me didn't mention it specifically, I suppose, but it's obvious."
A tremendous thud sounded from the right, and Kindar turned to see a stout and heavily muscled woman leaning on the enormous hammer that she'd just slammed into the ground. "Then you're stupid, and you're lucky Carlos is here to save you from crippling yourself." She waved her hand at him. "Noralt, veteran adventurer. And I've fought things where if you try blocking a hit with only your arms strong, your legs would snap like twigs. Arm strength means nothing without the rest of your body to support it."
Kindar looked at her, then glanced at Gevin and at Carlos. He frowned, but didn't object. "Lord Carlos, your other questions?"
"Let's see, going down the list… Swordsmanship skill seems a good choice, no question about that. Spotting your foes' vulnerabilities: why only vulnerabilities, and not dangers to you?"
Kindar blinked. "I, er…"
Carlos chuckled. "Hadn't even considered defense? I suppose that and your grandiose self-esteem explain the last 2, draining strength from your foes and intimidating them. You envisioned yourself as an awe-inspiring figure who strikes down all in your path, untouchable by your cowering opponents as their strength fails them against you. Did I get that right?"
Kindar flushed, but held himself in check. He's a high lord, far above me. He has the right to mock me if he chooses. He took a deep breath and nodded curtly.
Carlos shook his head, smirking. "You focused on the wrong things. Opponents who are strong enough to truly matter will resist artificial intimidation and draining their strength, and while being able to kill anything is fearsome, it is not the most fearsome capability."
Kindar eyed him skeptically. "What could possibly be more fearsome than that?"
"Invincibility, of course. Supreme defense." Carlos laughed at Kindar's raised eyebrow. "Against someone who can kill anything in one attack, their opponents can swarm them, attack from longer range, or just keep trying until they get lucky. Against someone who can tank any attack without fail, such tactics are futile and hopeless. Nothing is more demoralizing than seeing your strongest attack hit… and do nothing."
Carlos continued, blithely ignoring Kindar's nonplussed expression. "I don't expect just words to convince you, of course. We prepared a more practical demonstration. It will serve as good practice with using monsters for our friendly dungeon, too. When you're done with that, then we can talk about the soul structure you're going to make with what little is left of your inherited soul shell. Now get ready to fight, and remember: stay inside the circle!"
___
High Lord Recindril Tostral grimaced at the signal that yet another noble lord wanted to talk with him. I barely finished talking with Lord Plara a minute ago. How many times am I going to have to repeat this conversation? It almost feels like I should call for a conclave to announce it all.
He sighed, composed himself, and activated the mirror's paired scrying enchantment. His reflection was replaced with a view of a mature woman with short brown hair, a long nose, and a fierce scowl. Recindril reacted first. "Ah, Lady Lindoron. Before you ask, yes, I am aware of the recent arrests of various scions in connection with the rotation agreement. I believe every noble in the entire kingdom knows of those by now."
"I'm sure they do," Lady Lindoron replied acerbically. "And what do you have to say about House Golarn's report? You must admit, the timing of the incident in Dramos relative to the arrests is suspicious."
Recindril snorted. "There will always be events with suspicious timing. If Jamar is how the Crown discovered the rotation agreement, then she would have been the first to be arrested. Yet she is here at home, free."
"I'm not so sure of that." Lindoron glared at him accusingly. "There is too much still unknown about that incident, and especially about the involvement of as-yet-unidentified parties. Your scion could have bargained for amnesty in exchange for information, or the Crown could be waiting for other matters to play out before dealing with you."
Recindril shook his head. "You know I cannot conclusively answer such suspicions. Regardless, we must decide how to respond to the matter at hand. The Crown cracking down on the rotation agreement threatens to deprive us of the means to rapidly advance our scions to the level necessary to use our wellsprings. That is an unacceptable prospect, for all nobles, and if we can no longer conceal it from the Crown, then we must convince the Crown to permit it."
Lindoron's expression darkened further. "And if King Elston refuses to listen, as his ancestors did?"
Recindril locked eyes with Lindoron and smiled grimly. "Then we will have to make him listen. Let us hope that it does not come to that."
Lady Lindoron met his gaze firmly for several seconds, then slowly nodded. "Let us hope." She cut the connection, and her image was replaced with Recindril's reflection once more.
Recindril slumped and sighed. He muttered under his breath, "Jamar, what am I going to have to do with you? And what happened after you respawned?"
He picked up the report from the Black Blades, which had finally arrived days late, and read it again. Not that he needed to actually read it again. It was uncharacteristically short and uninformative, and he could quote the whole thing from memory.
Mission failed. Keep your final payment, we will not try again. Do not inquire.
___
Kindar sat in his tent and grumbled. "You could have skipped the pit trap. I remember the first one more than well enough."
Lord Carlos coughed, then cleared his throat. "You still fell for it, and that means you haven't learned to handle it well enough yet. At least this one didn't kill you. Now, imagine how much more intimidating you would be if you didn't fall when a pit suddenly opens under your feet."
"Yes, you've made your point." Kindar sighed and shook his head. "My apology, Lord Carlos. I am frustrated by my own inadequacies, but that is not good cause to disrespect you."
Lord Carlos stayed silent for a few moments, then finally nodded. "Apology accepted, and it's time to start working on fixing them. First up, the reason your soul plan is even salvageable at all without drastic measures is that nobles with high-tier soul plans get to make a lot more soul structures, so you'll be able to fix the various oversights in your soul plan by adding more structures to address each of them. However, you'll run out of soul shell essence to use for that after just 1 or 2 more structures, and making the rest the normal way by absorbing aether would take ages. Especially since you don't have a mana manipulator."
Kindar looked up and narrowed his eyes. "You're not going to tell me to make a mana manipulator, are you? I'm no mage."
Lord Carlos smiled. "No, not at all. You'll make a, hmm, let's call it an 'essence siphoner.' It will siphon essence - the solidified mana that soul structures are made of - from your existing soul structures, in order to make new ones in hours rather than days. Sure, it will stop being useful when you finish all your soul structures, but if you manage to finish all your synergies properly, you'll end up with around 40 or 50 soul structures total. How much does 1 no-longer-useful structure really matter in the end, out of that many?"
Kindar stared for several seconds, then closed his mouth with a snap.
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Comments
Elaborate
For the rest, I'm thinking: 4. Merchant/social abilities - 7 structures * Value Diviner - sense what target wants, what they value * Emotion Detector - sense what target is currently feeling * Ward Piercer - increase penetration of Kindar's Soul Structures vs shielding abilities. * Expectation Diviner - sense what target expects Kindar to do * Lie Detector - sense untruths and feints * Model Fitter - use memory & sensory impressions to model target * Modeller - model a context/environment, predict outcomes of hypothetical situation. If he's going to be near Carlos, he'll need to be fairly smart: 5. Intelligence stage - 6 structures * Prognosticator - project future (combo with modeller) * Emotion moderator - motivation, willpower * Wisdom - meta-cognition, second opinion, conscience * Memory * Calculator * Conceptualizer - hold multiple steps in mind Metal manifestation/manipulation would make for a good power-up; unnaturally sharp weapons and unnaturally tough armour. 6. Offense/Defense Enhancer - 5 structures * Metal Manifester - manifest sword/shield/armour/throwing weapon * Mass increase/decrease * Toughener - lock things into shape and make them durable * Metal manipulation - repair/sharpen weapons/armour * Metal phaser - make metal pass through other metal For health, 4 structures is enough to do the most important stuff: 7. Health - 4 structures * Damage Assessment - find and pinpoint problems * Healing - quickly regrow damaged tissue to a functioning state * Cleansing - remove poison, disease, cancer, parasites, scar tissue * Body optimizer - continually work to make body perform better For one of his last structures, I propose an Ultimate Move: a structure that converts its own Essence to fuel an extremely powerful attack. (Then, it would naturally get refilled by the Essence Redistributor, reloading it in hours instead of weeks.) Consuming Essence is wasteful, but having an OP attack like that would be crucial against other Nobles. * Metabolism Enhancer - regain energy quicker by eating lots * Adaptive Specialization - make temporary changes to make Kindar better at fighting his current enemy * Ultimate Move - powerful attack that consumes soul structure level
Elaborate
OK, let's design some fan Soul Structures for Kindar. Currently the plan is: 1. Meta: Essence Redistributor - siphon highest structure, give to lowest. 2. Arm Strength 3. Arm Speed 4. Arm Precision 5. Swordsmanship 6. Vulnerability spotting 7. Draining Strength 8. Intimidation To this I would add: 9. Phantom Arms Kindar has four soul structures focused on just his arms (including Swordsmanship). The obvious thing to do here to maximize their utility is to just give the guy *more arms*. Six ought to be enough. Maybe make the arm parts intangible so they don't bump into each-other. Possible options: * naga-style, normal arms and hands, * Doctor-Octopus-style, long tentacles that can be used to brace against the ground, or * Queen-of-Blades-style, long arms with built-in swords. The Phantom Arms would have synergy with practically everything. They intimidate people, drain strength, lunge for weaknesses, etc. In the first place, the synergy with Swordsmanship is what makes the thing work, because it helps coordinate the arms effectively. The next stage ought to be about making him more robust and giving him artificial leverage to use his arms. Note that you can only give him eight Soul Structures, because if you give him nine, his kid will simply move the Essence redistributor over to the robustness soul complex and use that as their first stage, becoming a high noble. Similarly, you can't give him a second meta-structure - in any stage - for the same reason. 1. Body Strength Enhancer (Everything except arms) 2. Body Durability Enhancer 3. Ablative Armour (Hitpoints) 4. Magic Resistance 5. Stress Sensor 6. Force Distributor - distributes forces through the body 7. Spatial Lock - anchors target in space 8. Force Producer (might be stronger if it needs something to push off of) The third stage would be situation awareness and party mechanics, stuff to make him a good party leader. 1. Targeter - connect to people/objects, make them easier to affect/inspect. 2. External Enhancer - allows Kindar to provide lesser versions of his own buffs to others 3. Appraisal - judges danger level of foes, status of allies, durability of equipment. 4. 360-degree Sensor - detects mass in radius 5. Danger Sense - detects danger 6. Reflex Enhancer - helps Kindar react to new developments. 7. Mental Speed Enhancer - helps Kindar make speedy decisions. 8. Proprioceptualizer - helps Kindar incorporate all the information he gets. I'd suggest they let him go at this point, with a letter to his father that if Kindar goes into their service, they will require him to add these stages: * Merchant/social abilities - 7 structures (his Dad may make suggestions) * Intelligence enhancers - 6 structures * Combat Damage enhancers - 5 structures * General health & healing - 4 structures Then his father will probably convince Kindar on their behalf, because Kindar having social and intelligence enhancers sets up a far brighter future for their House than generic killing structures.
John Vistica
I wonder if Jamar's respawn was somehow affected by the negative spell Carlos used to take her out. Hmmm...
Jouni Osmala
Carlos was explicit about it being unusable afterwards, and it's described name hinted a really narrow function. Oh. And the general purpose version of that structure that Carlos has couldn't be used on itself, that was clearly shown when he attempted repairing as solution to increase rate of absorption. If structure is damaged in anyway it will be significantly less effective. I was first thinking it as a way to keep a big secret from Kindal, but the big secret is that soul structures can be changed afterwards which this structure shows as incorrect assumption.
Melissa Harden
Hey many the restructuring/recycling sole structure can be used last on itself for something somewhat practical afterwards. Maybe something that redistribution of mometom or other physical energy to match the recycling theme.
Drew Monney
Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity/ignorance. You’d think that the master enchanters know what’s going on, but based on the attitudes in book one, I can totally see them farming out work to apprentices because that’s easier for them. The apprentices don’t have the knowledge base and therefore don’t catch the bug they’ve just accidentally inscribed. Also, even if the enchanters thought the spellwork was perfect, I somehow doubt that all possible actions of the armor were tested in all combinations. They still find bugs in decades old programs after all. Who’s to say that the enchanter didn’t miss a bug where if you cast shield, then speed, then shield, while above ambient mana 6 but below 9, etc… causes a glitch. You don’t notice, but it calls a spell that doesn’t autoclear after activation. So now that’s in local memory and activating the communicator leads to an infinite loop due to callbacks and recursion. Basically causing an accidental infinite loop until overflow would brick the enchantment.
Sid_Cypher
Douglas did finish it! Gratz. At the end, Carlos sure doesn't hide the advanced compression info the way it was hidden from him.
Jambles
I like the idea of them letting him mostly pick the direction of his soul plan, but offering advice, checking synergies, and holding veto power in case he's about to make a mistake that will limit his use as a vassal. Seems like he wants to be a frontliner, and there's always a spot for a powerful, tanky slice-machine. Especially if they can make his existing traits more useful and harder to block.
Monkinto
I don't think the nobles know about the sabotage of the guards armor because neither house Tostral or the Black Blades knew who their target was. That means that there are only two ways the mystery supplier could garuentee that the items they supplied would work: 1. They somehow had access to information about the targets and knew they were crown guards specifcally not just any guard. 2. The sabotage isn't just built into the royal guards armor but all armor provided by the enchanters guild. For reason #1 I can't imagine that the mystery supplier thinks getting rid of two "nobodies" is worth exposing the sabotage to the Crown. They would have to know that if their items worked the guards would eventually try and call for backup and then the sabotage would be exposed. I would expect the supplier to want to only play that trump card against the crown under circumstances where they stand to gain something significant. Reason #2 seems significantly more likely to me and that implies that all the nobles guard's armor is also sabotaged which would indicate that they probably aren't aware of it.
Timo Geerties
The nobles might be in the know about the tampered royal guards' armor and believe to be able to bank on that. Since the Crown won't be interrupting their enemies making mistakes, they haven't given them any leads that the sabotaged armors have been exposed and that their enchanted communications have been likely substituted already. As to who tampered with it and supplied the mercs, that's an entirely different matter
Timo Geerties
He'll learn soon enough how deep the hole he dug himself into truly is. After all, an enobled Kindar no longer answers to his father who has had his back before, but to Carlos as his first vassal. If he messes up, Carlos has to answer to the Crown and Carlos is not having it. Gonna be a rude awakening with many painful and/or humiliating lessons daddy Darmelkon can do very little about
Jouni Osmala
There's a need to have synergy with a structure next to one another, so 8th structure needs to have synergy with first and last structure of the circle. Anyway, If Kindar isn't stupid he will ask would Mana manipulator be capable of doing same thing and would it be a better choice in the long run. Then I think there would be some need to have synergy with the structures. The princesses reaction to at what level their structures merged seems to hint at synergy being the main factor of when structures will merge.
Ben Bass
TYFTC! Ah Carlos is trying to actually change Kindar. I do hope Kindar actually can change. However even if he doesn’t Carlos will know his every weakness and that will keep Kindar from going against him for a while after he has grown his soul structures. Now let’s see if all of this work actually does help Kindar grow up, he seems to be intelligent, yet shallow, which can change if he tries as he matures.
Heiko
So Carlos is trying and for now succeeding in being nice. Kindar knows his place and how to behave, but only out of social fear, he didn't really CHANGE yet - of course he had no time and is still the usual old Kindar. Amber is keeping away, maybe out of instinctive fear of falling back into the old submissive behaviour with him. Felton is studying Kindar, like an ugly but a bit interesting insect which has attracted the attention of your children. The adventurers inside probably are dying of laughter.
Monkinto
Technically it only needs to be a single structure with synergy with everything to qualify as a lower noble with 9 soul structures. Also the "essence siphoner" should qualify as having synergy with everything so he should be able to qualify as a noble once he builds the soul structure after that.
Jouni Osmala
7 soul structures and need to find two soul structures that can synergize enough to be stable enough to be ratified as nobility. If it would be easy then everyone would be nobility. Getting to that without giving Kindar power to become high-noble like power in the future with secrets Carlos would like to keep more of a house secret would be a balancing act. Anyway, the main goal of the first stage probably would have to become noble. It looks like Kindar is a potential liability and there might be need for soul structures to actually fix some of the risks that come from his mere stupidity and inability to control his tongue or just impatience. Maybe possibly a stage dedicated to make him a better socially so that he could operate as a noble and a merchant effectively.
Jouni Osmala
Such a nice guy. Reducing Kindal's potential by giving him a special purpose soul structure instead of General purpose one because he asked for it.
Monkinto
A couple of thoughts: - I wonder if Felton didn't decide to ignore Kindar's rudeness specifically because he wants to see just how many more rabbits Carlos/Amber can pull out of their hats. - Carlos is apparently 100% correct about the Crown's complacency given the nobles apparently asked for permission to take mana from the wilds to empower their future generations and the crown didn't even consider that they might try it anyway after they said no. - Apparently the nobles think they have the power to rival the crown if they band together, I'm certainly interested in finding out what the reality of that situation is. - House Tostral is totally screwed. - Kindar is impressively dumb and I'm looking forward to more chapters from his perspective as he realizes just how big the gap is between him and Carlos/amber.
Test Patron Plz Ignore
Lab work required that someone else get the FIRST
Maurice Brown
Carlos is a far nicer person than I would be…
