Chapter 384: Natural Magics
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Chapter 384: Natural Magics
Tala headed back toward Kit, her mind already returning to the task at hand.
She was going to be initiating Kedva into the arcane path of magic.
-Giving her a rebirth, as it were?-
You know that Im not a fan of that description.
-But its accurate, and the people who have undergone it prefer that description.-
Tala decided to ignore Alat.
As she did so, Tala saw Kedva run over to her parents, giving them each a large hug and talking quickly with them and Brandon.
Even so, the girl was back at the entrance with Artia by the time Tala returned to her starting location and turned to face Kits door from the inside. She hadnt even delayed her turn at seeing Rane give her an affirming signal along with a smile. Alright, come on in.
Kedva glanced in the direction that Brandon and her parents were, hesitating.
I wont let it start without Brandon.
Artia squeezed the girls hand, even as she wove her arm through Kedvas, Come. Ill be with you, dear.
The two women stepped in, Kedva clearly braced against calamity.
-Yeah thats not good.-
No. No, it is not. Tala stepped forward, Kedva. You have to trust me or this will fail. If you dont trust me, there is no point.
I trust you. Her voice was soft, hardly sounding like the same girl Tala had met previously, I do.
No. No, you dont. Not in this moment.
Kedvas eyes were looking in every direction as she clung to Artia.
If you cant trust that I will keep it from starting, how will you trust me to actually help it succeed? Youll die, twitching and flooded with power that your body cant handle.
Kedva stiffened, seeming to rein herself in. How can I master this?
Tala nodded. That is an excellent question. Let me ask you one in return: Do you know, in your mind, that I want to help you, and I mean you no harm.
Yes, but that doesnt help the seeds of fear.
Tala shook her head. I know. You need to have faith in your knowledge.
Kedva frowned. I just said that fear is worming its way into my mind. That even though I know that you are going to help me, that its safe right now, my emotions are getting the best of me. How can I use one emotion to conquer another, internally?
Yes and no, Kedva. Yes, fear is your emotion. It is seizing onto your imagination and becoming overblown. Emotions and imagination are the enemy of faith and knowledge.
Her frown deepened. I dont understand.
Tala sighed. When you walk down a dark hallway, is it your knowledge or your imagination that tells you that something is trying to get you.
Kedva frowned. I assume you mean when I was younger? That was my imagination.
Good. Now, were your emotions inclined to line up with your imagination? Or with your knowledge?
She nodded at that, seeming to begin to understand. With my imagination.
Exactly, and if you fight down the fear, what are you acting on?
My knowledge.
Exactly. You are relying on your faith in that knowledge. Putting your faith in something without evidencewithout knowledgeis foolishness. You didnt lack knowledge, just like you dont lack it now, so knowledge isnt the antidote to fear, not knowledge alone. Faith is what you need to bolster.
The girl frowned again, but she wasnt frantically looking around anymore.
Progress.
-Yeah. Whered you get this?-
A combination of Master Nadro, Master Grediv, some of my teachers at the Academy and my father. Tala sighed internally. But you knew that and just wanted me to overtly acknowledge it.
-I aim to assist.-
thank you.
-Youre welcome. Now focus.-
Kedva straightened a bit. I do know what is coming. My Brandon and Adrill have worked hard with me to ensure that I know all that I can know about this whole process.
And you trust them. You have faith in them.
I do. She was fully straightened now, a small smile pulling at her lips and a loose grip all that connected her to Artia.
Brandon came in behind her, then. I have them settled. They will wait in a little restaurant around the corner.
Artia frowned. Arnolds?
Thats right.
She nodded. They do have great food, at least.
Kits door swung shut on its own, closing silently and vanishing similarly without a trace.
Brandon stayed next to his betrothed, on the other side from his mother.
Tala smiled. Alright, then. Lets get started.
An involuntary tremble moved through Kedvas body, but she nodded resolutely.
Lay down.
Where The words died on Kedvas lips as she turned to look around and saw that not only was the door gone, but a bed was now behind her. Oh
My domain, remember? Tala grinned. I rule, here.
That had the intended effect, and Kedva seemed to relax a bit, even as she sat down on the edge of the bed.
Reinforce her knowledge that I have this well in hand.
-Yeah, shes heard stories of Mages all her life, seen them as beyond her capability. Wield that for her good.-
Precisely.
Artia walked around to the far side as the girl lay down, that way Kedva could hold each of their hands still.
Brandon kissed Kedva on the forehead, Youll do just fine. Mistress Tala knows what shes doing.
Yeah, build up her confidence. If there's no trust, she dies.
-And re-emphasizing that again would be counterproductive.-
Agreed.
Over the next few minutes, the six of them talked, Master Simon answering some questions, the others comforting Kedva, and Tala filling in where she needed to.
Rane stayed off to one side, smiling Talas way whenever she glanced his.
Finally, Tala motioned to the two holding Kedvas hands.
It was time, and they couldnt be in contact with her when it happened.
Artia gave a squeeze and let go.
Brandon leaned in and kissed her forehead once again, making Tala wish they were a little less overt with their affection.
-It literally doesnt matter how covert they were. You see everything in here, and in the vicinity. You see it, even if the me part of you keeps certain things from the you part of you for the sake of propriety and your mental state.-
I did not want to know that you have those things Archived.
All the while, Kedvas cells drank in the ambient power, so much so that they would have burst while still drinking in more if Tala hadnt forcibly directed the excess away.
There had been a lot of discussion on what spellform to give Kedva, so that she could easily bleed off the excess power as her body acclimated.
Unlike Brandon and Adrill, Kedva didnt have the basis in magical theory for magesight.
Tala didnt have a basis in arcane social structures that was sufficient to understand what the standard scripts given to infants of their various species were intended to do, let alone how they were meant to function.
There really was only one choice in the end.
It helped that Tala had a template ready at hand.
As discussed, Tala called a handful of fruit to her hand.
Now I literally have them at hand.
-Bad pun, Tala. Focus.-
Right.
The fruit was already cut in half, the deadly pits removed.
She gently placed them in Kedvas mouth, using her aura to pull enough power away so that the girl could chew and swallow.
Theyd discussed having her eat them beforehand, but from what they could determine, having such active magics within her would have utterly blocked the process from taking place, which is not what they wanted at the moment.
Regardless, Kedva finished eating the offering, and Tala allowed the full magic density to return with a swirl in the zeme.
An almost achingly familiar power spread throughout Kedva from core to extremities, and Tala continued her work.
Soon, Kedva would have the natural magics that had saved Talas life more times than she cared to remember.
The magic of ancient heroes.
The magic of endingberries.
* * *
Tala was in a maze of power, every wisp of it dancing to her tune.
The very zeme moved in patterns at her direction, creating patterns akin to weather patterns that would last until the day that Kedva died.
Tala was creating a cycle of magic within the girl that was beyond anything that she had fully planned beforehand.
Forging the magics for the menAdrill and Brandonhad been an act of desperation, but shed done the best that she could.
Kedvas magicsthose that Tala was forging within her at that very momentwere planned and premeditated.
There was no magic that Tala knew better than that of the endingberry.
Even before shed wielded gravity, shed longed to replicate the feats of the heroes of old. Shed studied the legends about their magic and the theories on its potential sources.
Her first defensive scripts had been temporary, modeled after the endingberries cyclical natureeven if she didnt know that at the time.
Strength unyielding gained in exchange for a short duration.
Tala had built upon those magics, incorporating them as constant rather than temporary, always burning her gate-derived power, resonating with that gateher soul.
As for the endingberries themselves? Once shed discovered them, shed eaten uncounted thousands of the little fruits.
Shed drunk gallons of their juice, especially recently since it had become a staple drink with most of her meals.
Every ounce consumed had been turned into power, purified, and applied to her own defense.
Truly, there was no magic that she knew better, and few who knew any one particular bit of magic as well as she knew this one.
As such, she felt the call to push the possible.
That is why she went beyond what had been planned, if only just.
The power echoed off of the endingberry magics that were blazing from within Kedva, using their pervasive spread as the basis to resonate toward her goal.
Talas own magics, resonating and manifesting in existence added to the feedback of power.
Rather than a single spellform, which would have acted across Kedvas being at once, Tala forged the interlinking mesh in a mirror of her ownmimicking the actual effect of ending berries, rather than just copying their magics.
But Talas magic had a flaw.
A flaw rooted in her nature as a gated.
Her magic had a single source, even if that source spread out to feed her magics all at once.
The nature of arcane magic was that the body was a vessel for power, thus the body became the source, not the conduit.
True, it was a source like a bucket rather than a spring, but the idea still stood.
Thus, Tala didnt connect Kedvas magic into a central network.
Instead, she forged each minute spellform to draw power from the overflow given off of Kedvas very cells, directly.
The difference between Kedvas magic and that which Tala had given to Adrill and Bradon was effectively the difference between using a bucket with holes in it to carry water to a waterwheel when compared to installing waterwheels on every hole in the bucket.
The very act of failing to hold onto power would be what caused the power to be used as desired.
-That was a horrible metaphor.-
Yeah, well, Im sort of focused on other things right now.
-Sure, sure. Its interesting that youre effectively making her default state the use of magic, rather than requiring activation.-
Do you disapprove?
-No, no. It was clever when you thought of it, and it still is. Kedva learning to control her power will be her learning to turn it off, rather than just letting it run out.-
And learning to be able to amplify its use at need.
-That too. You know that your defensive scripts arent clean, right? They arent just endingberry power.-
You can see that I know that, Alat. Youre just distracting me.
-Right, right, but enhancement its not easy to adjust to.-
Im not giving her my enhancement scripts. That would kill her.
-But you are giving her the variation of endingberry power that makes every cell more capable of doing what it does.-
Brandon, Adrill, Kedva, and I agreed that Id give her my endingberry derived scripts. They know that this is a part of it.
-Oh, agreed, but I still think theyre going to be surprised.-
Tala grunted internally at that.
Alat was probably right. Most people didnt actually understand what secondary effects various magics had. Even though power rarely ever only did one thing, they would still act shocked by the side effects.
Adrill and Brandons own scripts were examples of this.
The spellforms that shed given them for magesightand that theyd have reinforced with inscriptions sooner rather than laterincluded the necessary alterations to allow their minds to handle the increased information.
You know I bet that the reinscriber would work on them. It does model its inscribings based on the persons natural magics
-That would be working backwards from the normal process, but it should work We would one hundred percent need a healer on hand.-
Oh, definitely. Wed also have to figure out what, exactly would be done about their focal point. It isnt like they have gates.
-It could actually be really enlightening to study what came of it, now that I think about it.-
But she was allowing herself to be distracted.
Kedva needed her full attention.
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Chapter 384: Natural Magics
Tala headed back toward Kit, her mind already returning to the task at hand.
She was going to be initiating Kedva into the arcane path of magic.
-Giving her a rebirth, as it were?-
You know that Im not a fan of that description.
-But its accurate, and the people who have undergone it prefer that description.-
Tala decided to ignore Alat.
As she did so, Tala saw Kedva run over to her parents, giving them each a large hug and talking quickly with them and Brandon.
Even so, the girl was back at the entrance with Artia by the time Tala returned to her starting location and turned to face Kits door from the inside. She hadnt even delayed her turn at seeing Rane give her an affirming signal along with a smile. Alright, come on in.
Kedva glanced in the direction that Brandon and her parents were, hesitating.
I wont let it start without Brandon.
Artia squeezed the girls hand, even as she wove her arm through Kedvas, Come. Ill be with you, dear.
The two women stepped in, Kedva clearly braced against calamity.
-Yeah thats not good.-
No. No, it is not. Tala stepped forward, Kedva. You have to trust me or this will fail. If you dont trust me, there is no point.
I trust you. Her voice was soft, hardly sounding like the same girl Tala had met previously, I do.
No. No, you dont. Not in this moment.
Kedvas eyes were looking in every direction as she clung to Artia.
If you cant trust that I will keep it from starting, how will you trust me to actually help it succeed? Youll die, twitching and flooded with power that your body cant handle.
Kedva stiffened, seeming to rein herself in. How can I master this?
Tala nodded. That is an excellent question. Let me ask you one in return: Do you know, in your mind, that I want to help you, and I mean you no harm.
Yes, but that doesnt help the seeds of fear.
Tala shook her head. I know. You need to have faith in your knowledge.
Kedva frowned. I just said that fear is worming its way into my mind. That even though I know that you are going to help me, that its safe right now, my emotions are getting the best of me. How can I use one emotion to conquer another, internally?
Yes and no, Kedva. Yes, fear is your emotion. It is seizing onto your imagination and becoming overblown. Emotions and imagination are the enemy of faith and knowledge.
Her frown deepened. I dont understand.
Tala sighed. When you walk down a dark hallway, is it your knowledge or your imagination that tells you that something is trying to get you.
Kedva frowned. I assume you mean when I was younger? That was my imagination.
Good. Now, were your emotions inclined to line up with your imagination? Or with your knowledge?
She nodded at that, seeming to begin to understand. With my imagination.
Exactly, and if you fight down the fear, what are you acting on?
My knowledge.
Exactly. You are relying on your faith in that knowledge. Putting your faith in something without evidencewithout knowledgeis foolishness. You didnt lack knowledge, just like you dont lack it now, so knowledge isnt the antidote to fear, not knowledge alone. Faith is what you need to bolster.
The girl frowned again, but she wasnt frantically looking around anymore.
Progress.
-Yeah. Whered you get this?-
A combination of Master Nadro, Master Grediv, some of my teachers at the Academy and my father. Tala sighed internally. But you knew that and just wanted me to overtly acknowledge it.
-I aim to assist.-
thank you.
-Youre welcome. Now focus.-
Kedva straightened a bit. I do know what is coming. My Brandon and Adrill have worked hard with me to ensure that I know all that I can know about this whole process.
And you trust them. You have faith in them.
I do. She was fully straightened now, a small smile pulling at her lips and a loose grip all that connected her to Artia.
Brandon came in behind her, then. I have them settled. They will wait in a little restaurant around the corner.
Artia frowned. Arnolds?
Thats right.
She nodded. They do have great food, at least.
Kits door swung shut on its own, closing silently and vanishing similarly without a trace.
Brandon stayed next to his betrothed, on the other side from his mother.
Tala smiled. Alright, then. Lets get started.
An involuntary tremble moved through Kedvas body, but she nodded resolutely.
Lay down.
Where The words died on Kedvas lips as she turned to look around and saw that not only was the door gone, but a bed was now behind her. Oh
My domain, remember? Tala grinned. I rule, here.
That had the intended effect, and Kedva seemed to relax a bit, even as she sat down on the edge of the bed.
Reinforce her knowledge that I have this well in hand.
-Yeah, shes heard stories of Mages all her life, seen them as beyond her capability. Wield that for her good.-
Precisely.
Artia walked around to the far side as the girl lay down, that way Kedva could hold each of their hands still.
Brandon kissed Kedva on the forehead, Youll do just fine. Mistress Tala knows what shes doing.
Yeah, build up her confidence. If there's no trust, she dies.
-And re-emphasizing that again would be counterproductive.-
Agreed.
Over the next few minutes, the six of them talked, Master Simon answering some questions, the others comforting Kedva, and Tala filling in where she needed to.
Rane stayed off to one side, smiling Talas way whenever she glanced his.
Finally, Tala motioned to the two holding Kedvas hands.
It was time, and they couldnt be in contact with her when it happened.
Artia gave a squeeze and let go.
Brandon leaned in and kissed her forehead once again, making Tala wish they were a little less overt with their affection.
-It literally doesnt matter how covert they were. You see everything in here, and in the vicinity. You see it, even if the me part of you keeps certain things from the you part of you for the sake of propriety and your mental state.-
I did not want to know that you have those things Archived.
All the while, Kedvas cells drank in the ambient power, so much so that they would have burst while still drinking in more if Tala hadnt forcibly directed the excess away.
There had been a lot of discussion on what spellform to give Kedva, so that she could easily bleed off the excess power as her body acclimated.
Unlike Brandon and Adrill, Kedva didnt have the basis in magical theory for magesight.
Tala didnt have a basis in arcane social structures that was sufficient to understand what the standard scripts given to infants of their various species were intended to do, let alone how they were meant to function.
There really was only one choice in the end.
It helped that Tala had a template ready at hand.
As discussed, Tala called a handful of fruit to her hand.
Now I literally have them at hand.
-Bad pun, Tala. Focus.-
Right.
The fruit was already cut in half, the deadly pits removed.
She gently placed them in Kedvas mouth, using her aura to pull enough power away so that the girl could chew and swallow.
Theyd discussed having her eat them beforehand, but from what they could determine, having such active magics within her would have utterly blocked the process from taking place, which is not what they wanted at the moment.
Regardless, Kedva finished eating the offering, and Tala allowed the full magic density to return with a swirl in the zeme.
An almost achingly familiar power spread throughout Kedva from core to extremities, and Tala continued her work.
Soon, Kedva would have the natural magics that had saved Talas life more times than she cared to remember.
The magic of ancient heroes.
The magic of endingberries.
* * *
Tala was in a maze of power, every wisp of it dancing to her tune.
The very zeme moved in patterns at her direction, creating patterns akin to weather patterns that would last until the day that Kedva died.
Tala was creating a cycle of magic within the girl that was beyond anything that she had fully planned beforehand.
Forging the magics for the menAdrill and Brandonhad been an act of desperation, but shed done the best that she could.
Kedvas magicsthose that Tala was forging within her at that very momentwere planned and premeditated.
There was no magic that Tala knew better than that of the endingberry.
Even before shed wielded gravity, shed longed to replicate the feats of the heroes of old. Shed studied the legends about their magic and the theories on its potential sources.
Her first defensive scripts had been temporary, modeled after the endingberries cyclical natureeven if she didnt know that at the time.
Strength unyielding gained in exchange for a short duration.
Tala had built upon those magics, incorporating them as constant rather than temporary, always burning her gate-derived power, resonating with that gateher soul.
As for the endingberries themselves? Once shed discovered them, shed eaten uncounted thousands of the little fruits.
Shed drunk gallons of their juice, especially recently since it had become a staple drink with most of her meals.
Every ounce consumed had been turned into power, purified, and applied to her own defense.
Truly, there was no magic that she knew better, and few who knew any one particular bit of magic as well as she knew this one.
As such, she felt the call to push the possible.
That is why she went beyond what had been planned, if only just.
The power echoed off of the endingberry magics that were blazing from within Kedva, using their pervasive spread as the basis to resonate toward her goal.
Talas own magics, resonating and manifesting in existence added to the feedback of power.
Rather than a single spellform, which would have acted across Kedvas being at once, Tala forged the interlinking mesh in a mirror of her ownmimicking the actual effect of ending berries, rather than just copying their magics.
But Talas magic had a flaw.
A flaw rooted in her nature as a gated.
Her magic had a single source, even if that source spread out to feed her magics all at once.
The nature of arcane magic was that the body was a vessel for power, thus the body became the source, not the conduit.
True, it was a source like a bucket rather than a spring, but the idea still stood.
Thus, Tala didnt connect Kedvas magic into a central network.
Instead, she forged each minute spellform to draw power from the overflow given off of Kedvas very cells, directly.
The difference between Kedvas magic and that which Tala had given to Adrill and Bradon was effectively the difference between using a bucket with holes in it to carry water to a waterwheel when compared to installing waterwheels on every hole in the bucket.
The very act of failing to hold onto power would be what caused the power to be used as desired.
-That was a horrible metaphor.-
Yeah, well, Im sort of focused on other things right now.
-Sure, sure. Its interesting that youre effectively making her default state the use of magic, rather than requiring activation.-
Do you disapprove?
-No, no. It was clever when you thought of it, and it still is. Kedva learning to control her power will be her learning to turn it off, rather than just letting it run out.-
And learning to be able to amplify its use at need.
-That too. You know that your defensive scripts arent clean, right? They arent just endingberry power.-
You can see that I know that, Alat. Youre just distracting me.
-Right, right, but enhancement its not easy to adjust to.-
Im not giving her my enhancement scripts. That would kill her.
-But you are giving her the variation of endingberry power that makes every cell more capable of doing what it does.-
Brandon, Adrill, Kedva, and I agreed that Id give her my endingberry derived scripts. They know that this is a part of it.
-Oh, agreed, but I still think theyre going to be surprised.-
Tala grunted internally at that.
Alat was probably right. Most people didnt actually understand what secondary effects various magics had. Even though power rarely ever only did one thing, they would still act shocked by the side effects.
Adrill and Brandons own scripts were examples of this.
The spellforms that shed given them for magesightand that theyd have reinforced with inscriptions sooner rather than laterincluded the necessary alterations to allow their minds to handle the increased information.
You know I bet that the reinscriber would work on them. It does model its inscribings based on the persons natural magics
-That would be working backwards from the normal process, but it should work We would one hundred percent need a healer on hand.-
Oh, definitely. Wed also have to figure out what, exactly would be done about their focal point. It isnt like they have gates.
-It could actually be really enlightening to study what came of it, now that I think about it.-
But she was allowing herself to be distracted.
Kedva needed her full attention.
Chapter 384: Natural MagicsTala headed back toward Kit, her mind already returning to the task at hand.She was going to be initiating Kedva into the arcane path of magic.-Giving her a rebirth, as it were?-You know that Im not a fan of that description.-But its accurate, and the people who have undergone it prefer that description.-Tala decided to ignore Alat.As she did so, Tala saw Kedva run over to her parents, giving them each a large hug and talking quickly with them and Brandon.Even so, the girl was back at the entrance with Artia by the time Tala returned to her starting location and turned to face Kits door from the inside. She hadnt even delayed her turn at seeing Rane give her an affirming signal along with a smile. Alright, come on in.Kedva glanced in the direction that Brandon and her parents were, hesitating.I wont let it start without Brandon.Artia squeezed the girls hand, even as she wove her arm through Kedvas, Come. Ill be with you, dear.The two women stepped in, Kedva clearly braced against calamity.-Yeah thats not good.-No. No, it is not. Tala stepped forward, Kedva. You have to trust me or this will fail. If you dont trust me, there is no point.I trust you. Her voice was soft, hardly sounding like the same girl Tala had met previously, I do.No. No, you dont. Not in this moment.Kedvas eyes were looking in every direction as she clung to Artia.If you cant trust that I will keep it from starting, how will you trust me to actually help it succeed? Youll die, twitching and flooded with power that your body cant handle.Kedva stiffened, seeming to rein herself in. How can I master this?Tala nodded. That is an excellent question. Let me ask you one in return: Do you know, in your mind, that I want to help you, and I mean you no harm.Yes, but that doesnt help the seeds of fear.Tala shook her head. I know. You need to have faith in your knowledge.Kedva frowned. I just said that fear is worming its way into my mind. That even though I know that you are going to help me, that its safe right now, my emotions are getting the best of me. How can I use one emotion to conquer another, internally?Yes and no, Kedva. Yes, fear is your emotion. It is seizing onto your imagination and becoming overblown. Emotions and imagination are the enemy of faith and knowledge.Her frown deepened. I dont understand.Tala sighed. When you walk down a dark hallway, is it your knowledge or your imagination that tells you that something is trying to get you.Kedva frowned. I assume you mean when I was younger? That was my imagination.Good. Now, were your emotions inclined to line up with your imagination? Or with your knowledge?She nodded at that, seeming to begin to understand. With my imagination.Exactly, and if you fight down the fear, what are you acting on?My knowledge.Exactly. You are relying on your faith in that knowledge. Putting your faith in something without evidencewithout knowledgeis foolishness. You didnt lack knowledge, just like you dont lack it now, so knowledge isnt the antidote to fear, not knowledge alone. Faith is what you need to bolster.The girl frowned again, but she wasnt frantically looking around anymore.Progress.-Yeah. Whered you get this?-A combination of Master Nadro, Master Grediv, some of my teachers at the Academy and my father. Tala sighed internally. But you knew that and just wanted me to overtly acknowledge it.-I aim to assist.-thank you.-Youre welcome. Now focus.-Kedva straightened a bit. I do know what is coming. My Brandon and Adrill have worked hard with me to ensure that I know all that I can know about this whole process.And you trust them. You have faith in them.I do. She was fully straightened now, a small smile pulling at her lips and a loose grip all that connected her to Artia.Brandon came in behind her, then. I have them settled. They will wait in a little restaurant around the corner.Artia frowned. Arnolds?Thats right.She nodded. They do have great food, at least.Kits door swung shut on its own, closing silently and vanishing similarly without a trace.Brandon stayed next to his betrothed, on the other side from his mother.Tala smiled. Alright, then. Lets get started.An involuntary tremble moved through Kedvas body, but she nodded resolutely.Lay down.Where The words died on Kedvas lips as she turned to look around and saw that not only was the door gone, but a bed was now behind her. OhMy domain, remember? Tala grinned. I rule, here.That had the intended effect, and Kedva seemed to relax a bit, even as she sat down on the edge of the bed.Reinforce her knowledge that I have this well in hand.-Yeah, shes heard stories of Mages all her life, seen them as beyond her capability. Wield that for her good.-Precisely.Artia walked around to the far side as the girl lay down, that way Kedva could hold each of their hands still.Brandon kissed Kedva on the forehead, Youll do just fine. Mistress Tala knows what shes doing.Yeah, build up her confidence. If there's no trust, she dies.-And re-emphasizing that again would be counterproductive.-Agreed.Over the next few minutes, the six of them talked, Master Simon answering some questions, the others comforting Kedva, and Tala filling in where she needed to.Rane stayed off to one side, smiling Talas way whenever she glanced his.Finally, Tala motioned to the two holding Kedvas hands.It was time, and they couldnt be in contact with her when it happened.Artia gave a squeeze and let go.Brandon leaned in and kissed her forehead once again, making Tala wish they were a little less overt with their affection.-It literally doesnt matter how covert they were. You see everything in here, and in the vicinity. You see it, even if the me part of you keeps certain things from the you part of you for the sake of propriety and your mental state.-I did not want to know that you have those things Archived.All the while, Kedvas cells drank in the ambient power, so much so that they would have burst while still drinking in more if Tala hadnt forcibly directed the excess away.There had been a lot of discussion on what spellform to give Kedva, so that she could easily bleed off the excess power as her body acclimated.Unlike Brandon and Adrill, Kedva didnt have the basis in magical theory for magesight.Tala didnt have a basis in arcane social structures that was sufficient to understand what the standard scripts given to infants of their various species were intended to do, let alone how they were meant to function.There really was only one choice in the end.It helped that Tala had a template ready at hand.As discussed, Tala called a handful of fruit to her hand.Now I literally have them at hand.-Bad pun, Tala. Focus.-Right.The fruit was already cut in half, the deadly pits removed.She gently placed them in Kedvas mouth, using her aura to pull enough power away so that the girl could chew and swallow.Theyd discussed having her eat them beforehand, but from what they could determine, having such active magics within her would have utterly blocked the process from taking place, which is not what they wanted at the moment.Regardless, Kedva finished eating the offering, and Tala allowed the full magic density to return with a swirl in the zeme.An almost achingly familiar power spread throughout Kedva from core to extremities, and Tala continued her work.Soon, Kedva would have the natural magics that had saved Talas life more times than she cared to remember.The magic of ancient heroes.The magic of endingberries.* * *Tala was in a maze of power, every wisp of it dancing to her tune.The very zeme moved in patterns at her direction, creating patterns akin to weather patterns that would last until the day that Kedva died.Tala was creating a cycle of magic within the girl that was beyond anything that she had fully planned beforehand.Forging the magics for the menAdrill and Brandonhad been an act of desperation, but shed done the best that she could.Kedvas magicsthose that Tala was forging within her at that very momentwere planned and premeditated.There was no magic that Tala knew better than that of the endingberry.Even before shed wielded gravity, shed longed to replicate the feats of the heroes of old. Shed studied the legends about their magic and the theories on its potential sources.Her first defensive scripts had been temporary, modeled after the endingberries cyclical natureeven if she didnt know that at the time.Strength unyielding gained in exchange for a short duration.Tala had built upon those magics, incorporating them as constant rather than temporary, always burning her gate-derived power, resonating with that gateher soul.As for the endingberries themselves? Once shed discovered them, shed eaten uncounted thousands of the little fruits.Shed drunk gallons of their juice, especially recently since it had become a staple drink with most of her meals.Every ounce consumed had been turned into power, purified, and applied to her own defense.Truly, there was no magic that she knew better, and few who knew any one particular bit of magic as well as she knew this one.As such, she felt the call to push the possible.That is why she went beyond what had been planned, if only just.The power echoed off of the endingberry magics that were blazing from within Kedva, using their pervasive spread as the basis to resonate toward her goal.Talas own magics, resonating and manifesting in existence added to the feedback of power.Rather than a single spellform, which would have acted across Kedvas being at once, Tala forged the interlinking mesh in a mirror of her ownmimicking the actual effect of ending berries, rather than just copying their magics.But Talas magic had a flaw.A flaw rooted in her nature as a gated.Her magic had a single source, even if that source spread out to feed her magics all at once.The nature of arcane magic was that the body was a vessel for power, thus the body became the source, not the conduit.True, it was a source like a bucket rather than a spring, but the idea still stood.Thus, Tala didnt connect Kedvas magic into a central network.Instead, she forged each minute spellform to draw power from the overflow given off of Kedvas very cells, directly.The difference between Kedvas magic and that which Tala had given to Adrill and Bradon was effectively the difference between using a bucket with holes in it to carry water to a waterwheel when compared to installing waterwheels on every hole in the bucket.The very act of failing to hold onto power would be what caused the power to be used as desired.-That was a horrible metaphor.-Yeah, well, Im sort of focused on other things right now.-Sure, sure. Its interesting that youre effectively making her default state the use of magic, rather than requiring activation.-Do you disapprove?-No, no. It was clever when you thought of it, and it still is. Kedva learning to control her power will be her learning to turn it off, rather than just letting it run out.-And learning to be able to amplify its use at need.-That too. You know that your defensive scripts arent clean, right? They arent just endingberry power.-You can see that I know that, Alat. Youre just distracting me.-Right, right, but enhancement its not easy to adjust to.-Im not giving her my enhancement scripts. That would kill her.-But you are giving her the variation of endingberry power that makes every cell more capable of doing what it does.-Brandon, Adrill, Kedva, and I agreed that Id give her my endingberry derived scripts. They know that this is a part of it.-Oh, agreed, but I still think theyre going to be surprised.-Tala grunted internally at that.Alat was probably right. Most people didnt actually understand what secondary effects various magics had. Even though power rarely ever only did one thing, they would still act shocked by the side effects.Adrill and Brandons own scripts were examples of this.The spellforms that shed given them for magesightand that theyd have reinforced with inscriptions sooner rather than laterincluded the necessary alterations to allow their minds to handle the increased information.You know I bet that the reinscriber would work on them. It does model its inscribings based on the persons natural magics-That would be working backwards from the normal process, but it should work We would one hundred percent need a healer on hand.-Oh, definitely. Wed also have to figure out what, exactly would be done about their focal point. It isnt like they have gates.-It could actually be really enlightening to study what came of it, now that I think about it.-But she was allowing herself to be distracted.Kedva needed her full attention.
