Argus
patreon
Apparatus Of Change - Chapter 37
🕑 Added 2022-09-19 22:18:42 +0000 UTCAN : I'm going to try to aim for Monday and Thursday as weekly releases of this story, going forward.
_____
Unnamed - Apparatus Of Change
Available Power : 18
Authority : 4
Bind Insect (1, Command)
Fortify Space (2, Domain)
Distant Vision (2, Perceive)
Collect Plant (3, Shape)
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 : 4
Shift Wood (1, Shape)
Small Promise (2, Domain)
Make Low Blade (2, War)
Congeal Mantra (1, Command)
Ingenuity : 3
Know Material (1, Perceive)
Form Wall (2, Shape)
Link Spellwork (3, Arcane)
Tenacity : 3
Nudge Material (1, Shape)
Bolster Nourishment (2, Civic)
Drain Endurance (2, War)
By the time evening has arrived, I have managed another two points of power. Exercise of many of the spells I have has helped, but it is Claim Construction and Small Promise that continue to be sources of the ethereal potential for me.
That, and my ongoing workings with Bind Insect. I am up to almost forty bees now, my expanding authority making it easy to maintain that many, as well as a pair of companion beetles for Oob, while still keeping half of the spell’s stamina open to use for observation and command.
Not that I am giving many commands. Communication, and asking, costs almost nothing. And my bees, my beautiful tiny motes of cooperation and creation, are oh so willing to listen to me.
Oob is not. Oob, stop eavesdropping. I sent to the beetle earlier. And received back only a simple, calm, and enthusiastic “No.”
“So, things with you and Muelly going well?” The young spearfisher, Mela, gets a grunt from Malpa as she elbows him, the two of them taking a midday break together on the wall, too near the beetle that keeps spying on everyone.
“Stop it.” Malpa grumbles back, the rough man itching at his burn scar. “She’s a friend.”
“A friend who liiiiikes you.” Mela drawls out.
“Not the time, kid.” Malpa says. “She lost everything.”
“Yeah, you’ve got that in common!” Mala’s voice tries to be humorous, but even through my developing beetle, I can hear the pain in it. “We all did! What, you worried about waking up with fur in your mou-mmmmmph!”
I try to ignore it, it seems rude to intrude on personal conversations. But also, the singer’s old recollections of comedic timing tell me, that is objectively funny. And also on top of that, all this time spent in silent darkness with only these small portals to the outside world available makes it quite hard to cover my nonexistent ears. I have no other sources of sound to focus on, except the somewhat muted sense of vibrations my bees have.
Oob isn’t interested in leaving, either. But I do try to find things to keep myself busy that aren’t prying into people’s personal lives.
One of those things is accepting the community vote to let me experiment with Congeal Glimmer as I see fit, for the day. Happiness fills me as I reach out through Bind Insect and contact my bees, asking for volunteers and getting eager responses from those who have been tethered to me the longest. The magic they are drawing from me, while it does seem to make them somewhat larger and tougher, mostly seems to have made them more emotive, more clever.
I start to see a bigger picture, or a piece of it. If the burning ant-things that the camp has twice repulsed started out as normal ants, taken with Bind Insect, and channeled into endlessly with only regard for size and flammability, then I can see how another apparatus could produce these weapons. The scholar was well versed in natural philosophy, and the fact that intelligence takes far more bodily energies than strength in a species is well documented.
Was well documented, anyway. If those books and scrolls survive, it is far from here, and separated by unknown seasons.
My bees. Of course. They answer the call happily, eager to change and grow. I pick randomly from those who accept, and their companions stay nearby. Even the rest of the hive seems to pause as they watch the changes.
Congeal Mantra goes into four of them, their bodies becoming larger, more angular. Wings strengthening, and coming to light with the soft glow of black and yellow runes. In the tethers between them and Bind Insect, the mantra are still unwritten, words that do not mean anything, apparently waiting to be scribed. I hope that they will not need to write of stinging and fighting, as the first ones changed this way did. I hope they can find better words. More peaceful words, for a more peaceful world.
Congeal Glimmer changes the next four in a different way. They also grow, about to the same size as their counterparts even. But their bodies become thicker, their fur lusher. While their wings elongate as the magic sets in, there is no marking there. Instead, it is their eyes that glitter; a green and gold and blue shimmer that leaves an afterimage as they move and dance with their new forms, lines of light tracking where their heads move. In the tether, a simple faceted gemstone orbits their connections, occasionally pulsing with a little bit of the magic it contains.
The bees preened at the attention of the other members of their hive. But not for too long. There was still a lot of collection to be done with what was left of the day, and being multiple times their previous size didn’t excuse someone from pitching in.
Voices come to me again, and I repress the urge to chastise Oob again.
“They took us in, when they didn’t have to.” Jahn is saying. Oob doesn’t really focus upward when he snoops, so I don’t see who the demon is talking to, but I can make a guess.
That guess proves correct when Seraha answers back. “But they wouldn’t have.” She says, grim in tone. “If it weren’t for Yuea…”
“But it was for Yuea.” Jahn picks up as she trails off. “Though she and Kalip are outsiders to the others as much as we are. At least they have the same fur.”
Seraha gently tuts at the younger demon. “Humans call it hair.” She says. “And don’t roll your eyes at me youngling! I was your schoolmiss before I was your translator!”
“Yes, that.” Jahn’s voice becomes serious. “What have we fallen into, here?”
There is a long pause, and I wonder if Oob has finally decided to stop listening in on people’s private conversations.
Seraha speaks again, and I let some exasperation flow through my thoughts. “I don’t know.” She says. “But it can’t be worse than what we left. Maybe they won’t turn on us, this time.”
“We’ll see.” Jahn says. “The new man, the one who won’t leave his hut, he hates us. I think he blames us.” They sigh, and then say, “And I wonder if maybe I hate him too. If we shouldn’t have saved him at all.”
Well that was grimly depressing. Though the old wounds of the cleric and the farmer make it clear that this level of mistrust and bitter division isn’t anything new. I, though, am new, and even if I am becoming more and more then minds of who I used to be, I am still caught off guard by how much deep anger there is here in the world.
Even as monsters drive them from their homes and slaughter the people around them, they still have time to worry if their worst enemies are each other. Foolish. All of it, from start to finish, foolish.
I return to my attempts to use my magic, experimenting with Link Spellwork to try to push Bolster Nourishment and Make Low Blade together to form a fruit knife that will do in small part what the spell would do itself. I am not sure if it works, to be honest. I can tell something has changed, about the sharpened stone and woven grass grip that I have made. The tether to it is certainly trying to tell me something new. But I am not sure if this will work the way I think it will.
In fact, I think I may have simply made a knife that would be quite helpful to the digestion if eaten. But it finishes the formation of another point of power, so I will not complain overly much.
The hard part about Link Spellwork is that nothing ever tells me what is being accomplished. Sometimes it is clear enough, such as giving my bees the ability to move water or wood around. But other times… well, Bolster Nourishment barely lets me know it is working itself. And this only makes it worse.
“It’s about time, is everyone ready?” The voice cuts into my attention. “Is this the right beetle, this time?” It is Yuea, and the line makes me sing inside with the joy of a private joke that one is in on.
Yes, this is Oob. I write on the bark table. Just below the map, and to the side of where I have spent the afternoon writing something else as well.
“Okay.” Dipan’s word is simple. “Is this it?” He points to the part of the table I’ve been working on. I have a few bees around to let me watch this meeting, though I don’t want to keep them too long.
“Yes,” Saraha says, the demoness moving over to a different log seat to trace her fingers over the carvings. “It’s a list, of sorts. Some of these are old words, though. Ones not even I know, though I can tell the language.”
It is a list, and I’m quite proud of it. Though I didn’t realize that I was writing in a different language. In fact, I thought for sure I was using the same text I’d used with them so far. I know Seraha at least should be able to read all those simple words. It is worrying that I have, somehow, written in text that she doesn’t recognize. I bring a bee down, and tap into the old lessons of the scholar and merchant. And sure enough, what I have marked here does not line up with what they remember reading and writing in life.
Odd. But not an insurmountable barrier. Yet.
The list of all of my available spells will simply have to work as it is, for now.
Yuea, Malpa, Jahn, and Seraha, along with the oldest boy among the children who wanted to be part of the adult meeting - his name is Sivs, I learn - are seated together around the table. The others are still keeping watch, or foraging, or watching the children. But these people here will make for a fine small council.
Because I have nineteen points of power within me, and a need to know what is needed before I spend them.
The explanation of how my magic works, that my souls can be fed power to grow, and that it empowers all their associated spells, what it costs me, what my limits are, those words are all proper, and I have shared them before. Now, it is just a reminder, as the pink furred demoness reads off the list to them for expedience, and they begin to discuss what seems best.
“Authority and… you said Durability?” Malpa speaks first, words blunt and to the point. “Look. The things it’s given us, more than anything else are advance warning, and food. You think it’s coincidence we haven’t been as hungry? It’s been doing it. We can last spans like this. Maybe through autumn, if it chooses Durability.”
Wait, why don’t they need to pronounce my souls like that? Also, it’s Tenacity, not durability. Ah, the mistranslation. The challenge of writing down something that maybe isn’t fully compatible with the waking world. I’ve known since waking that my souls and their arrangement were something special. This is only confirming it.
Also, Malpa raises good points, and I agree. Bolster Nourishment is my biggest way to contribute to them all. But he is not the only one to speak.
“I don’t agree with authority.” Yuea says. “We talked, earlier. Last time it raised that, it lost sight of things closer in. We aren’t some growing city, we’re less than a dozen people. I would actually argue to hold off on authority for as long as it can. Durability, though? I agree. Sapping the strength from the beasts made them easy prey, and we’ll need more of that if anything more than a tiny scout group finds us.”
I’m sorry, what was that Yuea? A what? A tiny scout group? There were four of them! The first time as well! The other apparatus sends out its people-catchers in batches of five or eight! Those are not tiny groups!
When I got their story, or the demon’s story at least, from Seraha, I think perhaps I did not fully grasp that it would take more than a handful of these monsters to overwhelm whole villages. I think, perhaps, that my walls are not going to be strong or tall enough. And I also realize even more why they are reluctant to fight back, to strike out at a target.
“I am less interested in the force than the options.” Jahn says, and the humans stop their ongoing argument that has continued while I thought. “Yes, it would be good to stall the starving. But I see nothing they list that would benefit either them or us.” I suddenly realize that Jahn is the only one who says ‘they’ and not ‘it’ when talking about me. “But here.” They lean past Yuea, who does not move out of the way and just lets Jahn brush into her as they tap on the table. “The noble soul. It would have more hopestone, which keeps our defenders alive. And also look at the options it has. To make tools, and move rock? We could extend the walls ourselves, cultivate the land, even if we don’t plan to stay here forever we could last out this cataclysm for years with that behind us.”
“What about you, Ser-aha?” Yuea says the name like she’s stumbling over it.
“Mmh. I agree with the authoritarian soul, though for Jahn’s reasoning. Look. Clothing, crops. The things a village needs. The things we need.”
“What if we need to move?” The boy says suddenly, and the adults pause in their conversation to give him looks. “Do we need to move again?” The words are almost pleading. ‘I do not want to do this again’. They say. Like he is begging them to reassure him.
Saraha, though, doesn’t believe in easy lies. “We may need to run.” She tells the child, sliding off her chair and onto furred knees to settle in at eye level with the little human. “There is nothing we can do about that. Except prepare to do so with all of us alive.”
“What about the bees?” The boy asks, and I want to laugh. One of the bees, the larger, newly glimmer-enhanced ones, alights on his head as if to second the question.
What about the bees, actually? Would they want to come? We could find a way to move their hive, perhaps. Save their honey for winter. I must find a way to ask them properly. Or maybe I cut my bond with them. Leave some particularly strong and clever bees to own this part of this one forest. Yuea laughingly reassures the boy, reassures Sivs, that the bees will be fine with or without them, which wasn’t the point of the question. The question was because the children would not be fine without the bees, and while children can be cruel, they are also good at being open about what they need and want.
The conversation continues, and I try to add clarifications where I can, as small drops of Shift Wood come back to me to use. I share my ideas for taking Collect Material to use with Form Wall, taking on construction all myself to free the people here for less backbreaking labor. I try to infect them with my curiosity about things like Form Party or Congeal Memory, or of finding ways to use the thing I had taken from the monsters with Drain Endurance. And I think in some ways it works, especially on Malpa, to my surprise. But Yuea is a soldier, and she wants me to be a weapon. And Jahn and Seraha are civilians, and they want me to be a home. And I do not even know what the young boy expects from me. Maybe nothing more than that I share wonders with him.
Eventually, after a round of debates over evening food, and a few of them rotating out for night watch duty and some input from Kalip and Mela, I find that Bind Insect is almost out of its own empty liquid. I write one last message, and let it lapse, retreating to my inner self to sort through my thoughts.
Nobility, Spirituality, and Tenacity lead in the rough count of hands for what I should begin with. And those hands include my own theoretical ones; I am asking their advice after all, not for them to take control of my very souls. I do not think they believe me when I say the word ‘soul’. Or else it is another mistranslation.
There are so many things I would wish to do. So many choices to make. But for now, I think, I will start with these. Improve myself. There is a security to holding onto my power to react to each new threat, but I think there is far more value in spending it now, so that it might seed the world and flourish into a new crop, and more choices, and more magic.
But not quite yet. The vast majority of my magics stand empty, and the time to bring them back will be a quiet night here with the people who are learning to get along, with themselves, and with me. And I think, right now, that I want to sleep peacefully.
When I awake, I will begin to stretch myself and my limits. But for now, I watch the motes from everything I have touched flow toward me, and I let the world spin into that empty nothing space of dreams.
Comments
Christopher Walls
Thanks for the chapter! While I very much like the community conversation regarding the utility of the various abilities and domains, I was hoping someone would help come up with more creative uses of what is available. The Glimmer Bees sound lovely. I wonder what they will become. I also wonder if the energies being channeled into the bees will affect their lifespan. Individual bees live about a month or two, depending on the species. I wonder if the altered bees will live longer or not, and what would happen if the hive queen was bonded and altered through either mantra or glimmer, and how those changes would impact the larvae that were born from such a queen.
