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Apparatus Of Change - Chapter 29
🕑 Added 2022-08-22 21:00:00 +0000 UTCUnnamed - Apparatus Of Change
Available Power : 8
Authority : 4
Bind Insect (1, Command)
Fortify Space (2, Domain)
Distant Vision (2, Perceive)
-
Nobility : 3
Congeal Glimmer (1, Command)
See Domain (1, Perceive)
Claim Construction (2, Domain)
Empathy : 3
Shift Water (1, Shape)
Imbue Mending (3, Civic)
-
Spirituality : 3
Shift Wood (1, Shape)
Small Promise (2, Domain)
Make Low Blade (2, War)
Ingenuity : 3
Know Material (1, Perceive)
Form Wall (2, Shape)
Link Spellwork (3, Arcane)
Tenacity : 2
Nudge Material (1, Shape)
Bolster Nourishment (2, Civic)
Somewhere in the camp, near my body, the people I have been trying to help are talking about me.
They are afraid. Of me, because of what I am. I am afraid, too. Of myself, because of what I am.
I did not think, a half moon ago when I woke up to a new lien on a fresh life, that it would come to this. I thought I would investigate the world of my bees, become familiar with the space around me, and learn to work magics small and marvelous.
As if waiting for me to take some time in my own inner world, my old memories pop up uninvited in my mind.
The singer’s old life reminds me of all the times it would have been better to just keep their head down and keep walking, to not help. Helping caused attachment, attachment invited betrayal. Even if they kept doing it, it didn’t mean anything except that they were an idiot.
The merchant’s life was full of times where it was better to cut a contract than let an unprofitable venture fester. Too often, though, she had lost more than money on clinging to hope.
The soldier knew the value of holding to a lost cause. Because there were no causes that were truly lost.
The farmer’s world had been simple. There had never been a good reason to turn away someone in need. Even when they’d doubted, they’d still done their duty to their fellows. Even when times were hard, they’d been there. And his life had never suffered more than he could take.
I need to stop dividing myself from who I was, I remind myself. The thought is insidious, once thought. I have no way to distract or push it away, not like this. But I know it to be true, and it requires addressing. They aren’t alive anymore, not really. Their feelings are not my feelings, their old burdens are not my burdens. I am a fresh person, and a fresh life, just one that has the advantage of starting with an impossibly advantageous foundation of experience.
But they are not gone. They don’t speak to me, but I was them once. They don’t comfort me, but I compose myself through the lens of how they lived.
I am one person, who has lived a lot of lives. And I am never truly alone. Even if the living humans and demons who have been camping here with me decide I am not to be trusted, and move on, I will not be alone.
Though I still hope they will stay.
And I am back to worrying, aren’t I? All I seem to be able to think about is how much it hurts to feel this way. To feel like an outside, because I am something different. To be feared, because of nothing more complicated than that things like me have caused fear before. I hate it. I sunk down here to the workings of my mind to escape this, and to give the refugees time, and all I am doing is recreating the problem anew in my own thoughts.
In my old lives, not a single one of me got through childhood without wishing I could be a sorcerer of some kind. Whether or not life bore out that dream isn’t especially important, because I have my magic now. And every time I need to forget the world around me, throwing myself into thinking of my options and building myself ever more clever solutions will always be here for me.
I need a distraction dearly now, and so, I toy with the deeper power of the world.
Authority and Empathy both have slots open. I decide now I will not be using those. If things go well, then I will take Bind Crop and, hopefully, eventually, Bind Willing Avian. If things don’t go well… then I will figure something out then.
Which brings me to my question. What soul do I strengthen? Where to infuse my will now? I have spent so long focused on the world around that I have largely forgotten what is available to me, and so I touch the markings and machinery in my mind to ask for a reminder.
Nobility : 3
Congeal Glimmer (1, Command)
See Domain (1, Perceive)
Claim Construction (2, Domain)
Available :
Shift Stone (1, Shape)
Lock Portal (1, War)
Know Resource (2, Perceive)
Stone Pylon (2, Shape)
Know Stone (3, Perceive)
Make Low Tool (3, Shape)
Mark Threshold (3, Domain)
_____
Spirituality : 3
Shift Wood (1, Shape)
Small Promise (2, Domain)
Make Low Blade (2, War)
Available :
See Worship (1, Perceive)
Congeal Mantra (1, Command)
Confusion Trap (1, War)
Drain Purpose (2, War)
Form Party (3, Civic)
Congeal Sin (3, Command)
Small Trade (3, Domain)
_____
Ingenuity : 3
Know Material (1, Perceive)
Form Wall (2, Shape)
Link Spellwork (3, Arcane)
Available :
Collect Material (1, Shape)
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)
_____
Tenacity : 2
Nudge Material (1, Shape)
Bolster Nourishment (2, Civic)
Available :
Domain Map (1, Perceive)
Subvert Low Summon (1, Command)
Drain Endurance (1, War)
Separate Material (2, Shape)
Pressure Trigger (2, War)
I have settled on, I think, a valid system for how I wish to proceed in the future. First, I will see if there is a singular spell that I need more of. If there is, I will raise that soul, and then work out the rest after. Otherwise, I will decide what I want first. There are so, so many spells available to me, their forms teasingly out of my reach, that I have no need to gamble on the unknown anymore. If raising a soul happens to open a path that I prefer, so be it. But otherwise, I will plan as if I know what I am doing. This may have the side effect of leaving one soul behind the others, but somehow, a part of me knows that I will be unable to resist attempting to balance myself eventually.
For now, I begin the satisfying and enjoyable work of exploring these simple combinations of words, and making a choice about how I will shape the world.
Mantra and sin both show up as things I can congeal, much like Congeal Glimmer. I wonder what that does, compared to my spell that makes some form of infused gemstone. Part of me pulls memories from the cleric, connecting mantras to religious intonations and sin to ritual indulgences, but somehow I do not think that what I would make would be so closely related. After all, Congeal Glimmer does not make a sparkle, it makes a piece of magic I can share, or place in the things I create. And Congeal Glimmer has been critical to swaying and assisting the refugees. Another spell, another pool of stamina to draw from, that does something similar? That would be powerful indeed, assuming they decide they will be staying.
There is that phrase again. Assuming they stay. I hate it. There are so many spells that seem as though they were made just for me to work with people. Make Low Tool, Collect Focus, Form Party, Small Trade, all of these are spells that assume the presence of people who are at least passive, and at most allies or friends. I cannot truly focus on them as options for this stockpile of power that I have, when I am unsure of if there will ever be call to use them.
Instead of dwelling, I look to poor neglected Tenacity. The lack of investment there has left Nudge Material as a spell that I use constantly, and never have enough of, and that on its own could be enough to justify it as an option. The spell choices also offer… ways to defend myself.
I don’t feel good about this. It is a strange, sinking, kind of anxiety. Not the visceral feeling from having a body, not the chill up the spine or the needles down the tail, when I felt like I was about to step into the worst choices of my lives. No, this new form does not feel with the same beating heart as my old lives. And so, the slow unpleasant disgust with the idea of harming others seeps in much more pervasively; not something that will go away as I calm my body.
But then I think of the monsters I have seen. The slayers of mortals, the things that have set all these people to flee into the wilds in the first place. And I think that perhaps a way to strike back would not make me such a monster myself.
I don’t know what a summon is, much less a low one, so Subvert Low Summon is not a high priority. But Drain Endurance is, and Pressure Trigger would, at least, be something worth experimenting with while I have this moment of consideration.
Before I lean too hard in that direction, I scan over my other potential choices. Know Ingredient seems redundant, given my breadth of knowledge from my past lives, but anything that lets me see more of the world interests me at this point in my new life. Drain Purpose is another potential defensive measure that sounds less lethal when damage is not what is required. And Collect Material, a spell that would hopefully let me actually get the hard labor of putting logs where I need them, looks ever so tempting.
It’s very easy to look at the spells that have been on offer for longer, and think that they are lesser somehow. But I must make constant checks on my thinking to ensure I do not do this, because so far, the earlier spells have been critical. And just because I have seen something over and over and not used it does not mean that I should dismiss it.
And then, there is one last thing that I have seen, but in a different way.
Stone Pylon. I believe I chose See Domain over it, a choice that has so far proved to be adequate enough, and I don’t regret much. It waits under the list of Nobility spells for its proper time, offering just as little information as anything else.
Except I have a small amount of information this time. Because I am absolutely certain that I have seen pylons, of a sort, before. Perhaps not stone ones, but pylons all the same.
The other thing like me. The other… apparatus. The word has been there every time I have examined myself, and I do not know that I like the taste of it in my thoughts. But regardless of my opinions, the other apparatus, the one whose monsters we have been killing, had pylons around its territory. Why?
The question is important, because it was not using them to construct anything useful to a mortal life. They simply stood there in the ground, achieving nothing. Maybe the other apparatus is mad, and their actions mean nothing, but I cannot believe that so simply. There were two of them, at least, that I remember.
I wish that I could go back to before their fortified space spread too far. I could Link Spellwork and attempt to Claim Construction out from under them. Perhaps it would feed me some measure of information, though I doubt it. Mostly, I think it would hurt them, and I find my pacifism meets its limit when it comes to this enemy.
I need to know. But also, I need a defensive measure. So I settle my thoughts, and choose. Tenacity first, then Drain Endurance should no better choices present themselves. That will leave me the three points to advance Nobility, and I will take Stone Pylon as soon as the opportunity presents. Again, assuming that nothing better catches my eye.
It certainly does seem that I assume quite a lot, for someone who is a rock hiding from the people I thought to help under a thin layer of dirt. Ah, and there is another thing that ties me to my old lives. All of who I was were rather quite proud of their wit. And I think, too, that this mild and coy sarcasm will serve me well.
There will be time to quip to myself later, though. For now, I make my investiture into my soul.
Tenacity : 3
Nudge Material (1, Shape)
Bolster Nourishment (2, Civic)
-
Available :
Domain Map (1, Perceive)
Subvert Low Summon (1, Command)
Drain Endurance (1, War)
Separate Material (2, Shape)
Pressure Trigger (2, War)
Learn Stability (3, Perceive)
Congeal Memory (3, Command)
Drain Trust (3, War)
No, I have changed my mind. The time for quips is now.
You know, I rather think that draining trust is somewhat to the exact opposition of what I hope to accomplish by the end of the day. I finish my process, and add Drain Endurance to the machinery of my arcana.
And a memory wells up. I greet it with willingness and acceptance. True acceptance, that this is not only a record, but a part of me.
I am thirteen cycles old, and I do not wish to be a bondblade. I have known this since my mother was taken from me, that I wish to follow her path. Not to her death, but the path of her craft; I want to be someone who shapes feelings, changes hearts, and carries truths. My father disagrees. And so, I am standing in a dusty and lifeless training field, being forced to pick up a dropped glaive again, lest I be beaten once more. My muscles ache, my heart aches as well. I have nothing to hold onto except the memory of my mother’s elegy, and my utter, ceaseless, pointed hatred of my father. My fingers barely respond, my arms will not lift when I tell them, my every breath is torturous. And I do not doubt the training will work to make me stronger. But I do not wish to be stronger. I wish to be something else. I would run, were I not so exhausted. But I am always exhausted. I cannot remember being fresh, and alive. All I can remember is how it feels, to be here, now, wishing that it were my father falling to the dirt, and not myself.
The memory fades. I am left unsure of many things. But I hope this life will be a less tired one for the singer. I hope that we can make something, finally.
Three points of power left, and I spend them shed scales. Spirituality is next, and nothing has changed from my plan.
Spirituality : 4
Shift Wood (1, Shape)
Small Promise (2, Domain)
Make Low Blade (2, War)
-
Available :
See Worship (1, Perceive)
Congeal Mantra (1, Command)
Confusion Trap (1, War)
Drain Purpose (2, War)
Form Party (3, Civic)
Congeal Sin (3, Command)
Small Trade (3, Domain)
Delay Spellwork (4, Arcane)
Seek Resource (4, Perceive)
Bolster Warmth (4, Civic)
Except that I make of myself a liar. Spirituality? That was not what I was planning at all. I pulled myself from the wash of sensation of my memory, and immediately made a fumbling choice, without steadying myself. And whatever plan I had, I have thrown away with my casual toss of the power within me.
Fortunately, consideration of new choices was part of my plan to begin with. There will be a chance later to right my error. For now, I make the best of the options I have made for myself, and think.
Delay Spellwork catches my attention right away. My other arcane spell, Link Spellwork, has so far been of minimal real use, but promises to be a key point in how I approach many of my problems for the rest of my life. Would this one be even half as useful? I do not know. I don’t truly know why I would ever want to delay a spell. If I could not be everywhere that I can reach, then that would be one thing, but there is no difference to me if I am throwing a Distant Vision from the camp, or from a point a thousand lengths far away. Could it work while I am asleep? That may be of value, it is true.
And beyond those, Congeal Mantra and Congeal Sin strike at my curiosity. That original thought, of doubling up on the value of the magic I can produce in the form of glimmer, reasserts itself now that I have mistaken one soul for the other.
Seek Resource is interesting; the first use of the word I have seen so far. Not know or see, but seek. To search out, when it is unknown. How far would this reach? A question layered on another that I have asked previously and never found time to answer, which is, why is a resource different from a material? I doubt this would let me be an oracle for my people, and once again, that sentence rears itself back. “Assuming they stay.”
Well. I have given them some time. Enough? I do not know how long I have been looking over the echos in my mind and making my choices. A candle? Two? Is it still daylight? I could peer through my bees and find out easily enough, but perhaps I will wait a while longer. Take some time to turn over the spells I already have.
I do not want to pressure them. Or perhaps I am simply afraid that I already know their answer.
Either way, I have other magics to distract me, and other experiments to spend my day on. They will have my attention when they need it, but until then… time, and distance. And we will see how they decide when it is done.
Comments
Anthony P.
I’d think congeal memory would act as a sort of skill point. A memory of the farmer carving an owl from wood might make you a bit better at carving for example.
Rip Woodham
Yeah, I don't get why it's so interested in Congeal Sin but has so much aversion to something like Create Fire... fire is not bad, and would be rather good in directly aiding others or defending itself... something I'd think it would realize and appreciate. If seemingly there are these other beings like him but evil, that are close, and that he is fighting against... why wouldn't it occur to him that they might recognize and seek him, and that just burrowing underground might not be enough. Anyway, what wholesome being would want to give sin form, I just don't get it. Congeal Memory though, yeah. It might not be what we think, but the mc's memories are everything that differentiates it and its greatest asset in the longrun. Maybe I'm a little frustrated at how much time the mc spends thinking of things for naught, and taking too long to realize implications. But I love the setting and where the story seems to be ultimately going, and the characters... perhaps aside from the mc... so I just hope the mc gets better for me.
Christopher Walls
Thank you for the chapter! I wonder if Congeal Sin wouldn't create abominations/monsters, as they could be considered sins against nature. I'd also like to see if, appropriately powered, Congeal Memory wouldn't be able to give form to one of our core's past selves.
