Chapter 35: Power Aplenty
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Chapter 35: Power Aplenty
Tala was frowning. Holly cant be that special. I mean, she helped me a lot, but any inscriber would have done the same, right? She knew that her own reticence to have another work on her proved that notion false, but she still didnt relent. How does the inscriber matter that much?
Trent shrugged. Aside from the obvious need for a steady hand? Its the mind behind the inscriptions. It matters less for work on Mages than for item construction because our minds come into play, but it still matters. A good inscriber has to mesh their thinking with the Mage they are working for and harmonize that Mages capabilities, power, and ways of thinking with the inscriptions used. Theres no one better than Holly, who works on Mages. He smiled ruefully. Ive heard that there are a few inscribers that work exclusively with Archons, but youll likely have better knowledge on that before I do.
Huh. I had no idea. She briefly thought of the complex inscription on the back of her neck, ostensibly keeping record of much of what she did, and how. So, Holly had more in mind for this, than simply keeping me from running off or some other such nonsense?
How did you connect with her?
A contact with the Caravan Guild, a friend, introduced me to her.
Your handler?
Tala shrugged. Started that way, yeah.
Glad youre getting along with them. Bad blood, there, can really hurt you. He smiled, again. It sounds like theyre treating you well, too.
Yeah, she really is. Tala looked up, past the caravan and towards the head of the pass. She could see sunlight on a few hills that peaked up high enough to be visible from her vantage. Im still trying to get a grasp on things. She glanced towards Trent. Thank you for your kindness.
He shrugged. Not hard to resist being a rust bucket.
Tala snorted, again. Fair enough.
We already discussed the commission we earn for protecting the caravan, remember?
She cocked her head at the sudden change of topic, frowning slightly. Yeah?
Magical creatures have a higher bounty, mainly because they generally cost so much more in inscriptions to deal with.
Oh?
That one was a Bound, so the payout will be five gold.
Tala almost gasped. For one attack?
Trent sighed. Ill need two of that to replace my inscriptions, even with the discount. If I guess right, Atrexia and Renix will each need between half and a full ounce for the same.
She grunted. Even with how quick the fight was?
He laughed. Half the magics involved were negating each other. I doubt it looked like much.
Tala thought back to what her mage-sight had been showing her through the battle and realized that he was telling the truth. As shed watched, it was as if the four combatants had been clashing with spell-forms rather than the effects that the spell-forms were meant to produce. Only the occasional magic was able to fully manifest its intended purpose. Id not thought of it in those terms before.
Trent shrugged. Its a hard thing to convey, if you havent seen it.
So, the whole bountys spoken for, eh?
He smiled. Money trouble, right?
Flys already in the ointment; no reason to deny it, now.
He laughed. I think a half ounce gold can be spared for your contributions. Ill have to verify with Atrexia, but I doubt shell fight me too hard. It would have cost her a lot, too, if you hadnt intervened.
Half an ounce, eh? That would have been incredibly generous if shed used her own magic correctly. As it was, that wouldnt even cover the cost of the inscriptions she had to replace. Still, it was something. Thank you. That does help.
Wish I could offer more.
She shrugged. Its quite generous. My own bumbling isnt your fault.
He patted her shoulder comfortingly. Want to talk about it?
Not now Maybe on the trip back, in a few days?
Fair enough.
Theyd been slowly outpacing the caravan, moving up the line as it continued forward, and were finally coming up beside the lead wagon.
Ive got to go check in with Atrexia. Take the day to rest. Recover and think about the fight. You did well for your first battle with a magical animal. Dont be too hard on yourself.
Ill try. Thank you.
She pulled herself up onto the top of the wagon as Trent turned and walked back towards the center of the caravan. Atrexia was still up on the central wagon, scanning their surroundings with an ever-sweeping gaze. Tala could sense the womans mage-sight from here.
Shes a bit nervous. Tala couldnt blame her.
With a sigh, Tala sank into a comfortable seated position, looking forward.
Hey! I didnt trip. Thinking back, she could tell that shed been mostly balanced as she moved, but she had fallen a little back towards her previous way of walking. Her aching legs and low back attested to the fact that she was moving in the right direction, but she swore to herself that shed be more attentive, going forward.
Shed check in with Adam after lunch, but she was fairly certain that his next step would be to practice the foundational material hed already given her.
Very well. Ive much to improve, and time waits for no one.
Wait Time is an immaterial thing. She gasped. Are there time Mages?! She thought back through all the inscription theories and couldnt recall a single mention of such, which was a bit strange. Her teachers had gone out of their way to explain the few things that were definitively not possible through magic, the main one that had stood out to her being: the from scratch creation of a free-willed lifeform.
But she was getting off track. Time magic what would it even do? She knew that some incredibly powerful Gravity Mages could alter the flow of time minutely, but anything that would be affected was also destroyed under the astronomically amplified forces.
But can we modify the flow of time, directly?
True to his word, Adam swung by after lunch, and true to her guess, he simply emphasized focusing on the basics. He wanted her to let her body adjust and to strengthen the muscles that spoke to her.
She agreed, and he confirmed that he would be on the caravan trip back. Theyd continue her training, then, assuming shed made good progress, while in Alefast.
He was still on duty, so he left after their brief exchange of words, and Tala returned to her stretching and inner focus.
As she moved, she was careful to monitor the condition of her muscles, both ensuring that she pushed every part of herself, and that she didnt go too far and strain anything else.
She still ached, deep in her hip. Right, massage. I need to schedulehalf a day is probably too long. She sighed. Ill see if anyone is available on short notice.
Every so often, she shook the iron flask containing the paltry few ending-berries she still had. I want this filled.
Trent had promised to point her to a grove of ending trees. If her visit to the blacksmith went well, she should be able to go to the grove and get back tomorrow, an easy harvest in hand.
She was just setting the flask aside once more when her wagon came over top of the long rise of the pass, exiting at the same time.
Before her, a new world spread out, rolling hills basked in the sun, some grassy, others covered in trees.
A city was just more than a half dozen miles distant, and she could already see how different it was from Bandfast, if only because of its nature as a waning city.
Only the innermost wall still stood.
There were no farms, no bustling industry, no rings of towers protecting the outermost reaches.
The Wild had reclaimed everything once held by the city.
Small stands of trees that looked ancient grew right up near the white city walls. Deep shadows were easy to see, despite the hour, and the dark green of the leaves spoke of abundant life.
The air practically vibrated with magical power, and she could almost feel the plants growing around her.
The world is healing the wound of the human city, magic swelling to speed up the process even as our spell-lines and magics fade. This city had less than three decades remaining, before the last walls fell. In that time, it would be the center of the most dangerous, and most profitable, harvesting expeditions.
There was magic to spare in the lands surrounding the city, and people were ready to collect on that, bringing power and utility back to the rest of humanity, for the betterment of all.
The cycle continues.
Aside from the trade caravan, she didnt see any other humans moving outside the city, and her mage-sight couldnt penetrate the defenses around the city.
Make no mistake, the defenses werent blocking her sight so much as filling it with so much information anything from beyond it was unrecognizable.
She blinked rapidly and turned her focus away. She felt slightly nauseous. Bandfasts defenses are nothing compared to these. That made sense. Alefast now had to stand as a bastion against truly magical creatures, not just arcane, and midnight foxes werent close to the most powerful among them.
Even aside from the plants that seemed to be growing so quickly that they almost moved as she watched them, she saw the ripples of magic from countless arcane animals bounding, hunting, and living within the landscape.
It was like finding a jungle after living in the desert.
This was the magical equivalent of verdant fields. She was used to highland, arid farming.
Amazing. Even the Academy hadnt had this high a density of magic.
The arcane beasts kept their distance from the caravan, but she could sense them, even if she couldnt see them.
She could also occasionally still sense flickers of dimensional energy, near the edge of her range. Its still out theregreat. Shed been hoping that it would stay on the other side of the pass.
As they trundled on down through the foothills, Tala caught glimpses of magical animals and beasts watching them.
Surprisingly, nothing made a move on the caravan, and after a bit of contemplation, she realized why. Theres nothing for them to gain. They live off power, and here, there is power aplenty.
She glanced back towards Alefast, and the beacon of magic that it was.
Human cities, in their early years, drained most of the power from the surrounding lands, providing protection by weakening the magic of anything that would come against it. As such, nothing powerful attacked them. The crazy would-be-emperors road had been an exception, because it completely cut off paths and routes, instead of simply being an irritating, prickly obstacle to move around.
As the city aged, the land would compensate, slowly increasing ambient magic in the region to balance it out, until the rate of increase outpaced what the city could draw in. The result was a surge of power that coincided with the citys final years. Thus, allowing the enemies of man-kind easy access to assault the walls.
After humans left the city, and the spell-lines lost the remnants of their functionality, magic in the region would level out, and slowly return to what it once had been.
A surprisingly mellow, cyclical war of attrition.
She returned from her musings, scanning their surroundings. Even though the creatures around them had no instinctive reason to attack, many magical creatures were sapient, and some might choose to attack on a whim, or for some unknown purpose. For whatever reason, the more powerful magical creatures were, the more they seemed to dislike humanity. Yet another thing my teachers couldnt, or wouldnt, explain
Given the potential for such powerful attackers, Trent and Atrexia were obvious in their diligence, allowing their defensive power to color the caravan to any with the mage-sight to see it.
In a land full of fruit, why dig through a thorn bush for berries, dried on the branch?
Maybe my venture wont be as dangerous as Id feared? It was a bit of a fools hope, and she wouldnt allow it to draw her into complacency, but she did allow it to lift her mood.
Two days in and around Alefast, then back on the road. Back home. She smiled. It was still new, but she was, indeed, making a home for herself in Bandfast.
I am still beholden to those I live with. It soured her thoughts, just slightly. She knew that Lyn genuinely liked her, but she had no illusions about the womans first priority, which was to their indentured master. Like virtually everyone. Lyn bent to the whims of her contract even as Tala, herself, did.
Focus on the good. Work to change the bad. She did not think of her fathers kind voice, speaking that truism.
If shed judged the distance correctly, they had less than three hours left before reaching Alefast, and if patterns held, the work-yard would be just inside the gates.
I could run ahead. She snorted a laugh. I could walk ahead and arrive in half the time. Still, she only considered it for a moment. While she was technically within her rights to do so, it would set a bad impression, and the wrong impression with the wrong people could severely hamper her contract opportunities, under her indenture, going forward.
Thus, she settled in to wait. She did, after all, have books to finish.
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Chapter 35: Power Aplenty
Tala was frowning. Holly cant be that special. I mean, she helped me a lot, but any inscriber would have done the same, right? She knew that her own reticence to have another work on her proved that notion false, but she still didnt relent. How does the inscriber matter that much?
Trent shrugged. Aside from the obvious need for a steady hand? Its the mind behind the inscriptions. It matters less for work on Mages than for item construction because our minds come into play, but it still matters. A good inscriber has to mesh their thinking with the Mage they are working for and harmonize that Mages capabilities, power, and ways of thinking with the inscriptions used. Theres no one better than Holly, who works on Mages. He smiled ruefully. Ive heard that there are a few inscribers that work exclusively with Archons, but youll likely have better knowledge on that before I do.
Huh. I had no idea. She briefly thought of the complex inscription on the back of her neck, ostensibly keeping record of much of what she did, and how. So, Holly had more in mind for this, than simply keeping me from running off or some other such nonsense?
How did you connect with her?
A contact with the Caravan Guild, a friend, introduced me to her.
Your handler?
Tala shrugged. Started that way, yeah.
Glad youre getting along with them. Bad blood, there, can really hurt you. He smiled, again. It sounds like theyre treating you well, too.
Yeah, she really is. Tala looked up, past the caravan and towards the head of the pass. She could see sunlight on a few hills that peaked up high enough to be visible from her vantage. Im still trying to get a grasp on things. She glanced towards Trent. Thank you for your kindness.
He shrugged. Not hard to resist being a rust bucket.
Tala snorted, again. Fair enough.
We already discussed the commission we earn for protecting the caravan, remember?
She cocked her head at the sudden change of topic, frowning slightly. Yeah?
Magical creatures have a higher bounty, mainly because they generally cost so much more in inscriptions to deal with.
Oh?
That one was a Bound, so the payout will be five gold.
Tala almost gasped. For one attack?
Trent sighed. Ill need two of that to replace my inscriptions, even with the discount. If I guess right, Atrexia and Renix will each need between half and a full ounce for the same.
She grunted. Even with how quick the fight was?
He laughed. Half the magics involved were negating each other. I doubt it looked like much.
Tala thought back to what her mage-sight had been showing her through the battle and realized that he was telling the truth. As shed watched, it was as if the four combatants had been clashing with spell-forms rather than the effects that the spell-forms were meant to produce. Only the occasional magic was able to fully manifest its intended purpose. Id not thought of it in those terms before.
Trent shrugged. Its a hard thing to convey, if you havent seen it.
So, the whole bountys spoken for, eh?
He smiled. Money trouble, right?
Flys already in the ointment; no reason to deny it, now.
He laughed. I think a half ounce gold can be spared for your contributions. Ill have to verify with Atrexia, but I doubt shell fight me too hard. It would have cost her a lot, too, if you hadnt intervened.
Half an ounce, eh? That would have been incredibly generous if shed used her own magic correctly. As it was, that wouldnt even cover the cost of the inscriptions she had to replace. Still, it was something. Thank you. That does help.
Wish I could offer more.
She shrugged. Its quite generous. My own bumbling isnt your fault.
He patted her shoulder comfortingly. Want to talk about it?
Not now Maybe on the trip back, in a few days?
Fair enough.
Theyd been slowly outpacing the caravan, moving up the line as it continued forward, and were finally coming up beside the lead wagon.
Ive got to go check in with Atrexia. Take the day to rest. Recover and think about the fight. You did well for your first battle with a magical animal. Dont be too hard on yourself.
Ill try. Thank you.
She pulled herself up onto the top of the wagon as Trent turned and walked back towards the center of the caravan. Atrexia was still up on the central wagon, scanning their surroundings with an ever-sweeping gaze. Tala could sense the womans mage-sight from here.
Shes a bit nervous. Tala couldnt blame her.
With a sigh, Tala sank into a comfortable seated position, looking forward.
Hey! I didnt trip. Thinking back, she could tell that shed been mostly balanced as she moved, but she had fallen a little back towards her previous way of walking. Her aching legs and low back attested to the fact that she was moving in the right direction, but she swore to herself that shed be more attentive, going forward.
Shed check in with Adam after lunch, but she was fairly certain that his next step would be to practice the foundational material hed already given her.
Very well. Ive much to improve, and time waits for no one.
Wait Time is an immaterial thing. She gasped. Are there time Mages?! She thought back through all the inscription theories and couldnt recall a single mention of such, which was a bit strange. Her teachers had gone out of their way to explain the few things that were definitively not possible through magic, the main one that had stood out to her being: the from scratch creation of a free-willed lifeform.
But she was getting off track. Time magic what would it even do? She knew that some incredibly powerful Gravity Mages could alter the flow of time minutely, but anything that would be affected was also destroyed under the astronomically amplified forces.
But can we modify the flow of time, directly?
True to his word, Adam swung by after lunch, and true to her guess, he simply emphasized focusing on the basics. He wanted her to let her body adjust and to strengthen the muscles that spoke to her.
She agreed, and he confirmed that he would be on the caravan trip back. Theyd continue her training, then, assuming shed made good progress, while in Alefast.
He was still on duty, so he left after their brief exchange of words, and Tala returned to her stretching and inner focus.
As she moved, she was careful to monitor the condition of her muscles, both ensuring that she pushed every part of herself, and that she didnt go too far and strain anything else.
She still ached, deep in her hip. Right, massage. I need to schedulehalf a day is probably too long. She sighed. Ill see if anyone is available on short notice.
Every so often, she shook the iron flask containing the paltry few ending-berries she still had. I want this filled.
Trent had promised to point her to a grove of ending trees. If her visit to the blacksmith went well, she should be able to go to the grove and get back tomorrow, an easy harvest in hand.
She was just setting the flask aside once more when her wagon came over top of the long rise of the pass, exiting at the same time.
Before her, a new world spread out, rolling hills basked in the sun, some grassy, others covered in trees.
A city was just more than a half dozen miles distant, and she could already see how different it was from Bandfast, if only because of its nature as a waning city.
Only the innermost wall still stood.
There were no farms, no bustling industry, no rings of towers protecting the outermost reaches.
The Wild had reclaimed everything once held by the city.
Small stands of trees that looked ancient grew right up near the white city walls. Deep shadows were easy to see, despite the hour, and the dark green of the leaves spoke of abundant life.
The air practically vibrated with magical power, and she could almost feel the plants growing around her.
The world is healing the wound of the human city, magic swelling to speed up the process even as our spell-lines and magics fade. This city had less than three decades remaining, before the last walls fell. In that time, it would be the center of the most dangerous, and most profitable, harvesting expeditions.
There was magic to spare in the lands surrounding the city, and people were ready to collect on that, bringing power and utility back to the rest of humanity, for the betterment of all.
The cycle continues.
Aside from the trade caravan, she didnt see any other humans moving outside the city, and her mage-sight couldnt penetrate the defenses around the city.
Make no mistake, the defenses werent blocking her sight so much as filling it with so much information anything from beyond it was unrecognizable.
She blinked rapidly and turned her focus away. She felt slightly nauseous. Bandfasts defenses are nothing compared to these. That made sense. Alefast now had to stand as a bastion against truly magical creatures, not just arcane, and midnight foxes werent close to the most powerful among them.
Even aside from the plants that seemed to be growing so quickly that they almost moved as she watched them, she saw the ripples of magic from countless arcane animals bounding, hunting, and living within the landscape.
It was like finding a jungle after living in the desert.
This was the magical equivalent of verdant fields. She was used to highland, arid farming.
Amazing. Even the Academy hadnt had this high a density of magic.
The arcane beasts kept their distance from the caravan, but she could sense them, even if she couldnt see them.
She could also occasionally still sense flickers of dimensional energy, near the edge of her range. Its still out theregreat. Shed been hoping that it would stay on the other side of the pass.
As they trundled on down through the foothills, Tala caught glimpses of magical animals and beasts watching them.
Surprisingly, nothing made a move on the caravan, and after a bit of contemplation, she realized why. Theres nothing for them to gain. They live off power, and here, there is power aplenty.
She glanced back towards Alefast, and the beacon of magic that it was.
Human cities, in their early years, drained most of the power from the surrounding lands, providing protection by weakening the magic of anything that would come against it. As such, nothing powerful attacked them. The crazy would-be-emperors road had been an exception, because it completely cut off paths and routes, instead of simply being an irritating, prickly obstacle to move around.
As the city aged, the land would compensate, slowly increasing ambient magic in the region to balance it out, until the rate of increase outpaced what the city could draw in. The result was a surge of power that coincided with the citys final years. Thus, allowing the enemies of man-kind easy access to assault the walls.
After humans left the city, and the spell-lines lost the remnants of their functionality, magic in the region would level out, and slowly return to what it once had been.
A surprisingly mellow, cyclical war of attrition.
She returned from her musings, scanning their surroundings. Even though the creatures around them had no instinctive reason to attack, many magical creatures were sapient, and some might choose to attack on a whim, or for some unknown purpose. For whatever reason, the more powerful magical creatures were, the more they seemed to dislike humanity. Yet another thing my teachers couldnt, or wouldnt, explain
Given the potential for such powerful attackers, Trent and Atrexia were obvious in their diligence, allowing their defensive power to color the caravan to any with the mage-sight to see it.
In a land full of fruit, why dig through a thorn bush for berries, dried on the branch?
Maybe my venture wont be as dangerous as Id feared? It was a bit of a fools hope, and she wouldnt allow it to draw her into complacency, but she did allow it to lift her mood.
Two days in and around Alefast, then back on the road. Back home. She smiled. It was still new, but she was, indeed, making a home for herself in Bandfast.
I am still beholden to those I live with. It soured her thoughts, just slightly. She knew that Lyn genuinely liked her, but she had no illusions about the womans first priority, which was to their indentured master. Like virtually everyone. Lyn bent to the whims of her contract even as Tala, herself, did.
Focus on the good. Work to change the bad. She did not think of her fathers kind voice, speaking that truism.
If shed judged the distance correctly, they had less than three hours left before reaching Alefast, and if patterns held, the work-yard would be just inside the gates.
I could run ahead. She snorted a laugh. I could walk ahead and arrive in half the time. Still, she only considered it for a moment. While she was technically within her rights to do so, it would set a bad impression, and the wrong impression with the wrong people could severely hamper her contract opportunities, under her indenture, going forward.
Thus, she settled in to wait. She did, after all, have books to finish.
Chapter 35: Power AplentyTala was frowning. Holly cant be that special. I mean, she helped me a lot, but any inscriber would have done the same, right? She knew that her own reticence to have another work on her proved that notion false, but she still didnt relent. How does the inscriber matter that much?Trent shrugged. Aside from the obvious need for a steady hand? Its the mind behind the inscriptions. It matters less for work on Mages than for item construction because our minds come into play, but it still matters. A good inscriber has to mesh their thinking with the Mage they are working for and harmonize that Mages capabilities, power, and ways of thinking with the inscriptions used. Theres no one better than Holly, who works on Mages. He smiled ruefully. Ive heard that there are a few inscribers that work exclusively with Archons, but youll likely have better knowledge on that before I do.Huh. I had no idea. She briefly thought of the complex inscription on the back of her neck, ostensibly keeping record of much of what she did, and how. So, Holly had more in mind for this, than simply keeping me from running off or some other such nonsense?How did you connect with her?A contact with the Caravan Guild, a friend, introduced me to her.Your handler?Tala shrugged. Started that way, yeah.Glad youre getting along with them. Bad blood, there, can really hurt you. He smiled, again. It sounds like theyre treating you well, too.Yeah, she really is. Tala looked up, past the caravan and towards the head of the pass. She could see sunlight on a few hills that peaked up high enough to be visible from her vantage. Im still trying to get a grasp on things. She glanced towards Trent. Thank you for your kindness.He shrugged. Not hard to resist being a rust bucket.Tala snorted, again. Fair enough.We already discussed the commission we earn for protecting the caravan, remember?She cocked her head at the sudden change of topic, frowning slightly. Yeah?Magical creatures have a higher bounty, mainly because they generally cost so much more in inscriptions to deal with.Oh?That one was a Bound, so the payout will be five gold.Tala almost gasped. For one attack?Trent sighed. Ill need two of that to replace my inscriptions, even with the discount. If I guess right, Atrexia and Renix will each need between half and a full ounce for the same.She grunted. Even with how quick the fight was?He laughed. Half the magics involved were negating each other. I doubt it looked like much.Tala thought back to what her mage-sight had been showing her through the battle and realized that he was telling the truth. As shed watched, it was as if the four combatants had been clashing with spell-forms rather than the effects that the spell-forms were meant to produce. Only the occasional magic was able to fully manifest its intended purpose. Id not thought of it in those terms before.Trent shrugged. Its a hard thing to convey, if you havent seen it.So, the whole bountys spoken for, eh?He smiled. Money trouble, right?Flys already in the ointment; no reason to deny it, now.He laughed. I think a half ounce gold can be spared for your contributions. Ill have to verify with Atrexia, but I doubt shell fight me too hard. It would have cost her a lot, too, if you hadnt intervened.Half an ounce, eh? That would have been incredibly generous if shed used her own magic correctly. As it was, that wouldnt even cover the cost of the inscriptions she had to replace. Still, it was something. Thank you. That does help.Wish I could offer more.She shrugged. Its quite generous. My own bumbling isnt your fault.He patted her shoulder comfortingly. Want to talk about it?Not now Maybe on the trip back, in a few days?Fair enough.Theyd been slowly outpacing the caravan, moving up the line as it continued forward, and were finally coming up beside the lead wagon.Ive got to go check in with Atrexia. Take the day to rest. Recover and think about the fight. You did well for your first battle with a magical animal. Dont be too hard on yourself.Ill try. Thank you.She pulled herself up onto the top of the wagon as Trent turned and walked back towards the center of the caravan. Atrexia was still up on the central wagon, scanning their surroundings with an ever-sweeping gaze. Tala could sense the womans mage-sight from here.Shes a bit nervous. Tala couldnt blame her.With a sigh, Tala sank into a comfortable seated position, looking forward.Hey! I didnt trip. Thinking back, she could tell that shed been mostly balanced as she moved, but she had fallen a little back towards her previous way of walking. Her aching legs and low back attested to the fact that she was moving in the right direction, but she swore to herself that shed be more attentive, going forward.Shed check in with Adam after lunch, but she was fairly certain that his next step would be to practice the foundational material hed already given her.Very well. Ive much to improve, and time waits for no one.Wait Time is an immaterial thing. She gasped. Are there time Mages?! She thought back through all the inscription theories and couldnt recall a single mention of such, which was a bit strange. Her teachers had gone out of their way to explain the few things that were definitively not possible through magic, the main one that had stood out to her being: the from scratch creation of a free-willed lifeform.But she was getting off track. Time magic what would it even do? She knew that some incredibly powerful Gravity Mages could alter the flow of time minutely, but anything that would be affected was also destroyed under the astronomically amplified forces.But can we modify the flow of time, directly?True to his word, Adam swung by after lunch, and true to her guess, he simply emphasized focusing on the basics. He wanted her to let her body adjust and to strengthen the muscles that spoke to her.She agreed, and he confirmed that he would be on the caravan trip back. Theyd continue her training, then, assuming shed made good progress, while in Alefast.He was still on duty, so he left after their brief exchange of words, and Tala returned to her stretching and inner focus.As she moved, she was careful to monitor the condition of her muscles, both ensuring that she pushed every part of herself, and that she didnt go too far and strain anything else.She still ached, deep in her hip. Right, massage. I need to schedulehalf a day is probably too long. She sighed. Ill see if anyone is available on short notice.Every so often, she shook the iron flask containing the paltry few ending-berries she still had. I want this filled.Trent had promised to point her to a grove of ending trees. If her visit to the blacksmith went well, she should be able to go to the grove and get back tomorrow, an easy harvest in hand.She was just setting the flask aside once more when her wagon came over top of the long rise of the pass, exiting at the same time.Before her, a new world spread out, rolling hills basked in the sun, some grassy, others covered in trees.A city was just more than a half dozen miles distant, and she could already see how different it was from Bandfast, if only because of its nature as a waning city.Only the innermost wall still stood.There were no farms, no bustling industry, no rings of towers protecting the outermost reaches.The Wild had reclaimed everything once held by the city.Small stands of trees that looked ancient grew right up near the white city walls. Deep shadows were easy to see, despite the hour, and the dark green of the leaves spoke of abundant life.The air practically vibrated with magical power, and she could almost feel the plants growing around her.The world is healing the wound of the human city, magic swelling to speed up the process even as our spell-lines and magics fade. This city had less than three decades remaining, before the last walls fell. In that time, it would be the center of the most dangerous, and most profitable, harvesting expeditions.There was magic to spare in the lands surrounding the city, and people were ready to collect on that, bringing power and utility back to the rest of humanity, for the betterment of all.The cycle continues.Aside from the trade caravan, she didnt see any other humans moving outside the city, and her mage-sight couldnt penetrate the defenses around the city.Make no mistake, the defenses werent blocking her sight so much as filling it with so much information anything from beyond it was unrecognizable.She blinked rapidly and turned her focus away. She felt slightly nauseous. Bandfasts defenses are nothing compared to these. That made sense. Alefast now had to stand as a bastion against truly magical creatures, not just arcane, and midnight foxes werent close to the most powerful among them.Even aside from the plants that seemed to be growing so quickly that they almost moved as she watched them, she saw the ripples of magic from countless arcane animals bounding, hunting, and living within the landscape.It was like finding a jungle after living in the desert.This was the magical equivalent of verdant fields. She was used to highland, arid farming.Amazing. Even the Academy hadnt had this high a density of magic.The arcane beasts kept their distance from the caravan, but she could sense them, even if she couldnt see them.She could also occasionally still sense flickers of dimensional energy, near the edge of her range. Its still out theregreat. Shed been hoping that it would stay on the other side of the pass.As they trundled on down through the foothills, Tala caught glimpses of magical animals and beasts watching them.Surprisingly, nothing made a move on the caravan, and after a bit of contemplation, she realized why. Theres nothing for them to gain. They live off power, and here, there is power aplenty.She glanced back towards Alefast, and the beacon of magic that it was.Human cities, in their early years, drained most of the power from the surrounding lands, providing protection by weakening the magic of anything that would come against it. As such, nothing powerful attacked them. The crazy would-be-emperors road had been an exception, because it completely cut off paths and routes, instead of simply being an irritating, prickly obstacle to move around.As the city aged, the land would compensate, slowly increasing ambient magic in the region to balance it out, until the rate of increase outpaced what the city could draw in. The result was a surge of power that coincided with the citys final years. Thus, allowing the enemies of man-kind easy access to assault the walls.After humans left the city, and the spell-lines lost the remnants of their functionality, magic in the region would level out, and slowly return to what it once had been.A surprisingly mellow, cyclical war of attrition.She returned from her musings, scanning their surroundings. Even though the creatures around them had no instinctive reason to attack, many magical creatures were sapient, and some might choose to attack on a whim, or for some unknown purpose. For whatever reason, the more powerful magical creatures were, the more they seemed to dislike humanity. Yet another thing my teachers couldnt, or wouldnt, explainGiven the potential for such powerful attackers, Trent and Atrexia were obvious in their diligence, allowing their defensive power to color the caravan to any with the mage-sight to see it.In a land full of fruit, why dig through a thorn bush for berries, dried on the branch?Maybe my venture wont be as dangerous as Id feared? It was a bit of a fools hope, and she wouldnt allow it to draw her into complacency, but she did allow it to lift her mood.Two days in and around Alefast, then back on the road. Back home. She smiled. It was still new, but she was, indeed, making a home for herself in Bandfast.I am still beholden to those I live with. It soured her thoughts, just slightly. She knew that Lyn genuinely liked her, but she had no illusions about the womans first priority, which was to their indentured master. Like virtually everyone. Lyn bent to the whims of her contract even as Tala, herself, did.Focus on the good. Work to change the bad. She did not think of her fathers kind voice, speaking that truism.If shed judged the distance correctly, they had less than three hours left before reaching Alefast, and if patterns held, the work-yard would be just inside the gates.I could run ahead. She snorted a laugh. I could walk ahead and arrive in half the time. Still, she only considered it for a moment. While she was technically within her rights to do so, it would set a bad impression, and the wrong impression with the wrong people could severely hamper her contract opportunities, under her indenture, going forward.Thus, she settled in to wait. She did, after all, have books to finish.
