Chapter 406: Happy to Be Alive
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Chapter 406: Happy to Be Alive
Tala and Rane had his recovery down to a routine by this point.
True, none of the three sessions has been exactly like any of the others, but they still had commonalities, and theyd been able to figure out what worked to bolster up the various aspects of Rane.
His physical recovery after this third session was miraculous, especially considering there was essentially no external magic involved. His mind, however, his mindset, and his thinking were less than good.
Tala and Rane took to running every day, and Master Nadro spoke to Rane as much as he could, which was less than anyone involved would prefer.
Unfortunately, the Hallowed man was in high demand.
He did help Rane as he could, but Rane was hardly the only person in need of counsel and a listening ear.
Therefore, Tala ended up trying to fill the role, trying to be a listening ear to Rane, and a calm presence for him to lean on.Visit no(v)eLb(i)n.com for the best novel reading experience
In retrospect, that might have been part of Master Nadros intention, but if so, he never gave any indication.
-If he is the only healer, most will fall. If he can help those who care for those who are hurting to step forward and help, though? Then, we have a chance.-
There was some wisdom in that, and Tala decided it was as likely true as it was not.
Even so, they ended up doing things to distract Rane more often than talking.
Rane did seem to do best when moving, when doing something. It almost seemed like basically anything would be enough to keep his mind occupied, to let his soul continue to settle.
And his soul needed time to settle and recover.
While his gate was not cracked to Talas threefold sight, it was distorted somehow.
She couldnt explain it or describe it in any useful fashion.
Physically, it was still perfectly fineif something so esoteric as a gate between existence and the afterlife could be discussed in physical termsbut there was a twisting, a warping to it that was hard to put into words.
It felt strained to her perception, like it was on the edge of simply ceasing to be.
She didnt have to be a genius to realize that whatever form that took, it would mean Ranes death.
So, Tala did her best to keep Ranes mind occupied at every turn, but that didnt seem to make things better.
Finally, when she confessed her frustrations to her unit-mates, it was Master Girtsomewhat obviouslywho provided her with the needed insight.
Rane needed to go through what had happened in order to get past it.
Tala needed to let Rane dig deeper. She had to let him think on what had occurred while he had support with him.
The distractions could be good for the momentthey might even be required at timesbut there needed to be times of deep reflection as well.
Tala had to change her approach if Rane was to recover, let alone ever fully Refine.
These were the thoughts dominating her mind as she and Rane came back from their latest loop outside of Alefast.
As fate would have it, there was another caravan about to enter into the city.
Tala sighed, slowing beside Rane. Lets wait for them to get inside.
She didnt want to be unkind again, and it wouldnt hurt her to wait.
Besides, she needed to talk with Rane. Hey, Rane?
Rane had bent over, briefly gripping his knees and breathing heavily, but even as she addressed him, he was straightening, putting his hands on the back of his head and allowing his chest and lungs to expand more fully. As he was doing this, he glanced her way, his breath already slowing. Yeah?
-Um Tala?-
Tala sighed internally. Cant you see Im busy?
Are you doing okay? She spoke neutrally, not letting on how closely she would be paying attention to his answer.
-Tala, this is important.-
What is it, Alat? She almost growled at Alat internally but held herself back.
-Theres no caravan scheduled for arrival at this time.-
Talas focus immediately snapped to the caravan.
Her threefold sight initially saw absolutely nothing wrong.
She could see inside the wagons, and they looked right.
There werent any expanded spaces that she could see, but they werent required for a caravan, just standard to the point that she hadnt ever heard of a caravan without one before.
The people looked rightthey looked humandown to the level of their skeletons and organs. Though, it was hard for Tala to truly examine them from this distance.
Clearly the city guards thought so too, because the portcullises were actively being lifted to allow the caravan to come inside.
Then, she realized something. The caravan workers dont have gates.
Rane hadnt responded to her, yet, but he had opened his mouth to do so. When she mentioned the lack of gates, a frown crossed his face, and he seemed to change what hed been going to say, Tala, I didnt think thats something youd fixate on. Who cares if one or more of the guards dont have a gate?
She shook her head. No, Rane. None of them have gates, not even the Mages that I can see.
That got his attention, and he straightened, hand drifting to Forces hilt hanging at his belt in what was clearly an unconscious motion.
Tala was more focused on the caravan however. What is going on?
She felt a subtle magical aura pulsing outward from something, tap tap, tapping against her will, mind, and magic.
She forced her perspective to focus stone- and starward, and only then did she see the distortion of illusory magic wrapped around something that underpinned the entire caravan, hanging stoneward of superficial.
Tala took a step forward. What are you?
Her iron expanded stoneward until it reached the layer upon which whatever that thing was had hidden itself.
She then forced her aura forward along that strata, bringing iron spikes along within it.
The whole caravan seemed to stutter, the oxen and guards freezing in place, midstep.
Then, her aura slammed against resistance.
It was anothers area of control, and it didnt budge in the slightest as she tried to force her authority forward.
The nearest caravan guard spun toward her, eyes locking on her.
He cocked back his arm and threw his knife.
It was a ludicrous motion.
Rane and Tala were nearly two hundred yards away from the man, but something told Tala not to laugh.
On instinct, she leapt forward, between the man and Rane.
An instant later, the knife cut through her aura, carrying with it the same power that had resisted her attempts to investigate.
Alat! Signal an attack!
Thats all that Tala had time to state, even at the insane speeds that she and Alat could usually communicate.
The knifes blade struck her directly in the sternum, and despite an immense amount of force and magics that were specifically designed for piercing and cutting, it failed to penetrate her defenses.
If she had been a more normally defended Archon the weapon would likely have easily blown straight through her.
Without thought, she allowed all her iron to anchor herself in place, increasing her inertia to the point that even a siege engines payload would have had a hard time knocking her back.
A knife simply didnt have the mass to transfer sufficient energy to move her, but this knife was just a superficial extension of something far, far more massive.
When it failed to pierce her, the knife morphed into an odd sort of tangling tendril, and the beast now had an anchor on her.
Then, thrusting herself forward with the tendril of woven iron and white steel, she shot up the overextended limb, Flow carving a channel of total devastation through the syphon.
She pushed until the iron behind her seemed to almost stop in place. At that moment, Flow transformed into a glaive just as Tala slammed it into the great beasts main body.
Back on the superficial, Rane was still nearly a hundred feet from the closest guard, but he was picking up speed, and he had Force out and ready to strike.
She had almost no time.
Fool of a man. But she felt her small smile grow. Dont die on me.
She transformed the metal across the bottoms of her feet into long, thin spikes that immediately sunk into the syphons flesh.
She then bent the metal outward, creating anchors. She relished the symmetry of doing something so similar to the beasts opening move.
But where it had failed, she succeeded with malice.
Her chest was fully healed from the minor bruise the impact had caused of course, but there was still a ghost of an injury, pulling at her mind. A memory of pain removed unnaturally quickly.
The syphon trying to work every angle to weaken her.
It failed.
She shoved that away, focusing on the battle.
With her new purchase, she dragged her iron toward her once again.
At the same time she slashed glaive-Flow across the massive, bulbous, magical creature in huge, sweeping arcs.
At the superficial, everyone in the caravan was screaming, the wagons beginning to melt.
Things were going quite well.
Seven tentacles struck at Tala in a chaotic sequence.
She cut the first in half, ducked beneath the second, deflected the third with a sweep of her left arm, and tilted her torso backward to help dissipate the force from the forth.
Her armor took the blow as designed, cracking in a thousand places to disperse the incoming force. Her aspect mirroring caused the entirety of her protection to heat dozens of degrees, even while the thin layers of active armor were still cracking and breaking all across and throughout the many levels of the defense.
Then, things didnt work quite as well.
The fifth tentacle slammed into her side with insane force.
The iron of her armor blazed with heat to the extent that the sixth tentacle sizzled as it struck her, leaving chunks of syphon-flesh behind as it pulled back.
Talas will was bentto an almost frantic degreetoward reforming her armor.
The seventh tentacle simply became a sacrificial anchor on Tala, and with a sickening squelch she was torn free of the creatures side, her bones creaking under the pressure of entrapping loops of cooking muscle.
Her miniplates of active armor did not work very well against all encompassing, crushing force.
Ill need to find a fix for that. But it was hardly the time for that at the moment.
An eighth long appendage struck out, wrapping around her torso and legs in a direction counter to the seventh.
The syphons malleable nature came into play, then, as the two tentacles seemed to transform into looping chains of bladed links.
Tala didnt even have time to comprehend what was coming before the syphon pulled, hard, dragging those magically sharp blades across Talas armor, tearing away great chunks as each link passed across her.
Because they were pulling in perfect opposition, they kept her from moving with the pulls, or being thrown around.
Instead, it was just tearing into her with vicious abandon.
The syphons flesh around her was already torn to bits by her great cutting arcs with Flow, and syphon blood was pouring from the creature, draining down into the abyss below them in this layer of existence.
But it hadnt been enough, and her armor was failing against another type of attack that it wasnt designed to handle.
Enough of this.
Her iron blob broke apart, becoming a field of leg-sized, barbed, tri-bladed spikes, which spiraled from tip to base.
Tala hardened her aura around each and drove them forward.
Like laying down a rug across the top of the beast, a wave of impacts radiated from Tala across the surface of the syphon, each accompanied with a fountain of blood as the spikes drilled deeper, crafted almost entirely of magic-disrupting iron carrying Talas own aura.
There was a momentary struggle for supremacy, but Tala held on like never before.
Three things changed the circumstances in relation to her earlier attempts to overcome the beast.
First, Tala had pieces of herself within the beast now, giving her a solid platform from which to strike.
Her iron was her.
Second, Talas gate was still dumping power into her, keeping her fully topped off and as magically weighty as ever.
Third, the syphon had been spending power like mad to transform and maneuver to attack her and defend against her.
At their very core, gated humans were endurance fighters, and Tala could outlast almost anything.
Victory. Tala spoke into the nothingness, power in her words making them resonate through the space regardless.
Each of the hundreds of spikes tore itself apart, blasting outward as hundreds of smaller barbs.
The entire top half of the syphon was turned into a bloody, iron-filled pulp.
On the superficial, the caravan fell apart, even as the main body of the syphon seemed to fall starward, dragging Tala along with it.
A moment later, the corpse of the massive creature slapped wetly to the ground before the gate into Alefast.
Behind her, Rane had just finished dispatching his third syphon-controlled caravan guard.
It was now obvious that tendrils of the creature led to each of the bisected bodies.
Rane was panting even heavier than after their run, but he seemed uninjured.
Bless the stars for that.
Then, she noticed what her threefold sight was showing her and cursed.
Orange? Really?! This was only a Mature syphon?
She fell backward, catching herself in a chair made of iron and white steel.
The metal creaked as she slumped back into the seat.
Her armor was flowing back into shape, and her body was healing from the few wounds that the beast had managed to inflict upon her, but she was still irate.
This thing had been less advanced than she was, and it had still given her a bit of trouble.
Then, her mind went back to the first syphon shed encountered.
It had been blue to her magesight.
She swallowed involuntarily at her new understanding.
I think I might have been underestimating the effectiveness of city defenses
Then, Rane began to laugh, an almost childlike grin dominating his features.
Tala felt a smile pull at her lips once more, even as she called a chair into place behind the man.
He sat gratefully, continuing to laugh.
A moment later, Tala found herself laughing too.
Together, they sat there, beside a massive corpse, reveling in the joy of their victory, happy to be together, happy to be alive.
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Chapter 406: Happy to Be Alive
Tala and Rane had his recovery down to a routine by this point.
True, none of the three sessions has been exactly like any of the others, but they still had commonalities, and theyd been able to figure out what worked to bolster up the various aspects of Rane.
His physical recovery after this third session was miraculous, especially considering there was essentially no external magic involved. His mind, however, his mindset, and his thinking were less than good.
Tala and Rane took to running every day, and Master Nadro spoke to Rane as much as he could, which was less than anyone involved would prefer.
Unfortunately, the Hallowed man was in high demand.
He did help Rane as he could, but Rane was hardly the only person in need of counsel and a listening ear.
Therefore, Tala ended up trying to fill the role, trying to be a listening ear to Rane, and a calm presence for him to lean on.Visit no(v)eLb(i)n.com for the best novel reading experience
In retrospect, that might have been part of Master Nadros intention, but if so, he never gave any indication.
-If he is the only healer, most will fall. If he can help those who care for those who are hurting to step forward and help, though? Then, we have a chance.-
There was some wisdom in that, and Tala decided it was as likely true as it was not.
Even so, they ended up doing things to distract Rane more often than talking.
Rane did seem to do best when moving, when doing something. It almost seemed like basically anything would be enough to keep his mind occupied, to let his soul continue to settle.
And his soul needed time to settle and recover.
While his gate was not cracked to Talas threefold sight, it was distorted somehow.
She couldnt explain it or describe it in any useful fashion.
Physically, it was still perfectly fineif something so esoteric as a gate between existence and the afterlife could be discussed in physical termsbut there was a twisting, a warping to it that was hard to put into words.
It felt strained to her perception, like it was on the edge of simply ceasing to be.
She didnt have to be a genius to realize that whatever form that took, it would mean Ranes death.
So, Tala did her best to keep Ranes mind occupied at every turn, but that didnt seem to make things better.
Finally, when she confessed her frustrations to her unit-mates, it was Master Girtsomewhat obviouslywho provided her with the needed insight.
Rane needed to go through what had happened in order to get past it.
Tala needed to let Rane dig deeper. She had to let him think on what had occurred while he had support with him.
The distractions could be good for the momentthey might even be required at timesbut there needed to be times of deep reflection as well.
Tala had to change her approach if Rane was to recover, let alone ever fully Refine.
These were the thoughts dominating her mind as she and Rane came back from their latest loop outside of Alefast.
As fate would have it, there was another caravan about to enter into the city.
Tala sighed, slowing beside Rane. Lets wait for them to get inside.
She didnt want to be unkind again, and it wouldnt hurt her to wait.
Besides, she needed to talk with Rane. Hey, Rane?
Rane had bent over, briefly gripping his knees and breathing heavily, but even as she addressed him, he was straightening, putting his hands on the back of his head and allowing his chest and lungs to expand more fully. As he was doing this, he glanced her way, his breath already slowing. Yeah?
-Um Tala?-
Tala sighed internally. Cant you see Im busy?
Are you doing okay? She spoke neutrally, not letting on how closely she would be paying attention to his answer.
-Tala, this is important.-
What is it, Alat? She almost growled at Alat internally but held herself back.
-Theres no caravan scheduled for arrival at this time.-
Talas focus immediately snapped to the caravan.
Her threefold sight initially saw absolutely nothing wrong.
She could see inside the wagons, and they looked right.
There werent any expanded spaces that she could see, but they werent required for a caravan, just standard to the point that she hadnt ever heard of a caravan without one before.
The people looked rightthey looked humandown to the level of their skeletons and organs. Though, it was hard for Tala to truly examine them from this distance.
Clearly the city guards thought so too, because the portcullises were actively being lifted to allow the caravan to come inside.
Then, she realized something. The caravan workers dont have gates.
Rane hadnt responded to her, yet, but he had opened his mouth to do so. When she mentioned the lack of gates, a frown crossed his face, and he seemed to change what hed been going to say, Tala, I didnt think thats something youd fixate on. Who cares if one or more of the guards dont have a gate?
She shook her head. No, Rane. None of them have gates, not even the Mages that I can see.
That got his attention, and he straightened, hand drifting to Forces hilt hanging at his belt in what was clearly an unconscious motion.
Tala was more focused on the caravan however. What is going on?
She felt a subtle magical aura pulsing outward from something, tap tap, tapping against her will, mind, and magic.
She forced her perspective to focus stone- and starward, and only then did she see the distortion of illusory magic wrapped around something that underpinned the entire caravan, hanging stoneward of superficial.
Tala took a step forward. What are you?
Her iron expanded stoneward until it reached the layer upon which whatever that thing was had hidden itself.
She then forced her aura forward along that strata, bringing iron spikes along within it.
The whole caravan seemed to stutter, the oxen and guards freezing in place, midstep.
Then, her aura slammed against resistance.
It was anothers area of control, and it didnt budge in the slightest as she tried to force her authority forward.
The nearest caravan guard spun toward her, eyes locking on her.
He cocked back his arm and threw his knife.
It was a ludicrous motion.
Rane and Tala were nearly two hundred yards away from the man, but something told Tala not to laugh.
On instinct, she leapt forward, between the man and Rane.
An instant later, the knife cut through her aura, carrying with it the same power that had resisted her attempts to investigate.
Alat! Signal an attack!
Thats all that Tala had time to state, even at the insane speeds that she and Alat could usually communicate.
The knifes blade struck her directly in the sternum, and despite an immense amount of force and magics that were specifically designed for piercing and cutting, it failed to penetrate her defenses.
If she had been a more normally defended Archon the weapon would likely have easily blown straight through her.
Without thought, she allowed all her iron to anchor herself in place, increasing her inertia to the point that even a siege engines payload would have had a hard time knocking her back.
A knife simply didnt have the mass to transfer sufficient energy to move her, but this knife was just a superficial extension of something far, far more massive.
When it failed to pierce her, the knife morphed into an odd sort of tangling tendril, and the beast now had an anchor on her.
Then, thrusting herself forward with the tendril of woven iron and white steel, she shot up the overextended limb, Flow carving a channel of total devastation through the syphon.
She pushed until the iron behind her seemed to almost stop in place. At that moment, Flow transformed into a glaive just as Tala slammed it into the great beasts main body.
Back on the superficial, Rane was still nearly a hundred feet from the closest guard, but he was picking up speed, and he had Force out and ready to strike.
She had almost no time.
Fool of a man. But she felt her small smile grow. Dont die on me.
She transformed the metal across the bottoms of her feet into long, thin spikes that immediately sunk into the syphons flesh.
She then bent the metal outward, creating anchors. She relished the symmetry of doing something so similar to the beasts opening move.
But where it had failed, she succeeded with malice.
Her chest was fully healed from the minor bruise the impact had caused of course, but there was still a ghost of an injury, pulling at her mind. A memory of pain removed unnaturally quickly.
The syphon trying to work every angle to weaken her.
It failed.
She shoved that away, focusing on the battle.
With her new purchase, she dragged her iron toward her once again.
At the same time she slashed glaive-Flow across the massive, bulbous, magical creature in huge, sweeping arcs.
At the superficial, everyone in the caravan was screaming, the wagons beginning to melt.
Things were going quite well.
Seven tentacles struck at Tala in a chaotic sequence.
She cut the first in half, ducked beneath the second, deflected the third with a sweep of her left arm, and tilted her torso backward to help dissipate the force from the forth.
Her armor took the blow as designed, cracking in a thousand places to disperse the incoming force. Her aspect mirroring caused the entirety of her protection to heat dozens of degrees, even while the thin layers of active armor were still cracking and breaking all across and throughout the many levels of the defense.
Then, things didnt work quite as well.
The fifth tentacle slammed into her side with insane force.
The iron of her armor blazed with heat to the extent that the sixth tentacle sizzled as it struck her, leaving chunks of syphon-flesh behind as it pulled back.
Talas will was bentto an almost frantic degreetoward reforming her armor.
The seventh tentacle simply became a sacrificial anchor on Tala, and with a sickening squelch she was torn free of the creatures side, her bones creaking under the pressure of entrapping loops of cooking muscle.
Her miniplates of active armor did not work very well against all encompassing, crushing force.
Ill need to find a fix for that. But it was hardly the time for that at the moment.
An eighth long appendage struck out, wrapping around her torso and legs in a direction counter to the seventh.
The syphons malleable nature came into play, then, as the two tentacles seemed to transform into looping chains of bladed links.
Tala didnt even have time to comprehend what was coming before the syphon pulled, hard, dragging those magically sharp blades across Talas armor, tearing away great chunks as each link passed across her.
Because they were pulling in perfect opposition, they kept her from moving with the pulls, or being thrown around.
Instead, it was just tearing into her with vicious abandon.
The syphons flesh around her was already torn to bits by her great cutting arcs with Flow, and syphon blood was pouring from the creature, draining down into the abyss below them in this layer of existence.
But it hadnt been enough, and her armor was failing against another type of attack that it wasnt designed to handle.
Enough of this.
Her iron blob broke apart, becoming a field of leg-sized, barbed, tri-bladed spikes, which spiraled from tip to base.
Tala hardened her aura around each and drove them forward.
Like laying down a rug across the top of the beast, a wave of impacts radiated from Tala across the surface of the syphon, each accompanied with a fountain of blood as the spikes drilled deeper, crafted almost entirely of magic-disrupting iron carrying Talas own aura.
There was a momentary struggle for supremacy, but Tala held on like never before.
Three things changed the circumstances in relation to her earlier attempts to overcome the beast.
First, Tala had pieces of herself within the beast now, giving her a solid platform from which to strike.
Her iron was her.
Second, Talas gate was still dumping power into her, keeping her fully topped off and as magically weighty as ever.
Third, the syphon had been spending power like mad to transform and maneuver to attack her and defend against her.
At their very core, gated humans were endurance fighters, and Tala could outlast almost anything.
Victory. Tala spoke into the nothingness, power in her words making them resonate through the space regardless.
Each of the hundreds of spikes tore itself apart, blasting outward as hundreds of smaller barbs.
The entire top half of the syphon was turned into a bloody, iron-filled pulp.
On the superficial, the caravan fell apart, even as the main body of the syphon seemed to fall starward, dragging Tala along with it.
A moment later, the corpse of the massive creature slapped wetly to the ground before the gate into Alefast.
Behind her, Rane had just finished dispatching his third syphon-controlled caravan guard.
It was now obvious that tendrils of the creature led to each of the bisected bodies.
Rane was panting even heavier than after their run, but he seemed uninjured.
Bless the stars for that.
Then, she noticed what her threefold sight was showing her and cursed.
Orange? Really?! This was only a Mature syphon?
She fell backward, catching herself in a chair made of iron and white steel.
The metal creaked as she slumped back into the seat.
Her armor was flowing back into shape, and her body was healing from the few wounds that the beast had managed to inflict upon her, but she was still irate.
This thing had been less advanced than she was, and it had still given her a bit of trouble.
Then, her mind went back to the first syphon shed encountered.
It had been blue to her magesight.
She swallowed involuntarily at her new understanding.
I think I might have been underestimating the effectiveness of city defenses
Then, Rane began to laugh, an almost childlike grin dominating his features.
Tala felt a smile pull at her lips once more, even as she called a chair into place behind the man.
He sat gratefully, continuing to laugh.
A moment later, Tala found herself laughing too.
Together, they sat there, beside a massive corpse, reveling in the joy of their victory, happy to be together, happy to be alive.
Chapter 406: Happy to Be AliveTala and Rane had his recovery down to a routine by this point.True, none of the three sessions has been exactly like any of the others, but they still had commonalities, and theyd been able to figure out what worked to bolster up the various aspects of Rane.His physical recovery after this third session was miraculous, especially considering there was essentially no external magic involved. His mind, however, his mindset, and his thinking were less than good.Tala and Rane took to running every day, and Master Nadro spoke to Rane as much as he could, which was less than anyone involved would prefer.Unfortunately, the Hallowed man was in high demand.He did help Rane as he could, but Rane was hardly the only person in need of counsel and a listening ear.Therefore, Tala ended up trying to fill the role, trying to be a listening ear to Rane, and a calm presence for him to lean on.Visit noveLbin.com for the best novel reading experienceIn retrospect, that might have been part of Master Nadros intention, but if so, he never gave any indication.-If he is the only healer, most will fall. If he can help those who care for those who are hurting to step forward and help, though? Then, we have a chance.-There was some wisdom in that, and Tala decided it was as likely true as it was not.Even so, they ended up doing things to distract Rane more often than talking.Rane did seem to do best when moving, when doing something. It almost seemed like basically anything would be enough to keep his mind occupied, to let his soul continue to settle.And his soul needed time to settle and recover.While his gate was not cracked to Talas threefold sight, it was distorted somehow.She couldnt explain it or describe it in any useful fashion.Physically, it was still perfectly fineif something so esoteric as a gate between existence and the afterlife could be discussed in physical termsbut there was a twisting, a warping to it that was hard to put into words.It felt strained to her perception, like it was on the edge of simply ceasing to be.She didnt have to be a genius to realize that whatever form that took, it would mean Ranes death.So, Tala did her best to keep Ranes mind occupied at every turn, but that didnt seem to make things better.Finally, when she confessed her frustrations to her unit-mates, it was Master Girtsomewhat obviouslywho provided her with the needed insight.Rane needed to go through what had happened in order to get past it.Tala needed to let Rane dig deeper. She had to let him think on what had occurred while he had support with him.The distractions could be good for the momentthey might even be required at timesbut there needed to be times of deep reflection as well.Tala had to change her approach if Rane was to recover, let alone ever fully Refine.These were the thoughts dominating her mind as she and Rane came back from their latest loop outside of Alefast.As fate would have it, there was another caravan about to enter into the city.Tala sighed, slowing beside Rane. Lets wait for them to get inside.She didnt want to be unkind again, and it wouldnt hurt her to wait.Besides, she needed to talk with Rane. Hey, Rane?Rane had bent over, briefly gripping his knees and breathing heavily, but even as she addressed him, he was straightening, putting his hands on the back of his head and allowing his chest and lungs to expand more fully. As he was doing this, he glanced her way, his breath already slowing. Yeah?-Um Tala?-Tala sighed internally. Cant you see Im busy?Are you doing okay? She spoke neutrally, not letting on how closely she would be paying attention to his answer.-Tala, this is important.-What is it, Alat? She almost growled at Alat internally but held herself back.-Theres no caravan scheduled for arrival at this time.-Talas focus immediately snapped to the caravan.Her threefold sight initially saw absolutely nothing wrong.She could see inside the wagons, and they looked right.There werent any expanded spaces that she could see, but they werent required for a caravan, just standard to the point that she hadnt ever heard of a caravan without one before.The people looked rightthey looked humandown to the level of their skeletons and organs. Though, it was hard for Tala to truly examine them from this distance.Clearly the city guards thought so too, because the portcullises were actively being lifted to allow the caravan to come inside.Then, she realized something. The caravan workers dont have gates.Rane hadnt responded to her, yet, but he had opened his mouth to do so. When she mentioned the lack of gates, a frown crossed his face, and he seemed to change what hed been going to say, Tala, I didnt think thats something youd fixate on. Who cares if one or more of the guards dont have a gate?She shook her head. No, Rane. None of them have gates, not even the Mages that I can see.That got his attention, and he straightened, hand drifting to Forces hilt hanging at his belt in what was clearly an unconscious motion.Tala was more focused on the caravan however. What is going on?She felt a subtle magical aura pulsing outward from something, tap tap, tapping against her will, mind, and magic.She forced her perspective to focus stone- and starward, and only then did she see the distortion of illusory magic wrapped around something that underpinned the entire caravan, hanging stoneward of superficial.Tala took a step forward. What are you?Her iron expanded stoneward until it reached the layer upon which whatever that thing was had hidden itself.She then forced her aura forward along that strata, bringing iron spikes along within it.The whole caravan seemed to stutter, the oxen and guards freezing in place, midstep.Then, her aura slammed against resistance.It was anothers area of control, and it didnt budge in the slightest as she tried to force her authority forward.The nearest caravan guard spun toward her, eyes locking on her.He cocked back his arm and threw his knife.It was a ludicrous motion.Rane and Tala were nearly two hundred yards away from the man, but something told Tala not to laugh.On instinct, she leapt forward, between the man and Rane.An instant later, the knife cut through her aura, carrying with it the same power that had resisted her attempts to investigate.Alat! Signal an attack!Thats all that Tala had time to state, even at the insane speeds that she and Alat could usually communicate.The knifes blade struck her directly in the sternum, and despite an immense amount of force and magics that were specifically designed for piercing and cutting, it failed to penetrate her defenses.If she had been a more normally defended Archon the weapon would likely have easily blown straight through her.Without thought, she allowed all her iron to anchor herself in place, increasing her inertia to the point that even a siege engines payload would have had a hard time knocking her back.A knife simply didnt have the mass to transfer sufficient energy to move her, but this knife was just a superficial extension of something far, far more massive.When it failed to pierce her, the knife morphed into an odd sort of tangling tendril, and the beast now had an anchor on her.Then, thrusting herself forward with the tendril of woven iron and white steel, she shot up the overextended limb, Flow carving a channel of total devastation through the syphon.She pushed until the iron behind her seemed to almost stop in place. At that moment, Flow transformed into a glaive just as Tala slammed it into the great beasts main body.Back on the superficial, Rane was still nearly a hundred feet from the closest guard, but he was picking up speed, and he had Force out and ready to strike.She had almost no time.Fool of a man. But she felt her small smile grow. Dont die on me.She transformed the metal across the bottoms of her feet into long, thin spikes that immediately sunk into the syphons flesh.She then bent the metal outward, creating anchors. She relished the symmetry of doing something so similar to the beasts opening move.But where it had failed, she succeeded with malice.Her chest was fully healed from the minor bruise the impact had caused of course, but there was still a ghost of an injury, pulling at her mind. A memory of pain removed unnaturally quickly.The syphon trying to work every angle to weaken her.It failed.She shoved that away, focusing on the battle.With her new purchase, she dragged her iron toward her once again.At the same time she slashed glaive-Flow across the massive, bulbous, magical creature in huge, sweeping arcs.At the superficial, everyone in the caravan was screaming, the wagons beginning to melt.Things were going quite well.Seven tentacles struck at Tala in a chaotic sequence.She cut the first in half, ducked beneath the second, deflected the third with a sweep of her left arm, and tilted her torso backward to help dissipate the force from the forth. Her armor took the blow as designed, cracking in a thousand places to disperse the incoming force. Her aspect mirroring caused the entirety of her protection to heat dozens of degrees, even while the thin layers of active armor were still cracking and breaking all across and throughout the many levels of the defense.Then, things didnt work quite as well.The fifth tentacle slammed into her side with insane force.The iron of her armor blazed with heat to the extent that the sixth tentacle sizzled as it struck her, leaving chunks of syphon-flesh behind as it pulled back.Talas will was bentto an almost frantic degreetoward reforming her armor.The seventh tentacle simply became a sacrificial anchor on Tala, and with a sickening squelch she was torn free of the creatures side, her bones creaking under the pressure of entrapping loops of cooking muscle.Her miniplates of active armor did not work very well against all encompassing, crushing force.Ill need to find a fix for that. But it was hardly the time for that at the moment.An eighth long appendage struck out, wrapping around her torso and legs in a direction counter to the seventh.The syphons malleable nature came into play, then, as the two tentacles seemed to transform into looping chains of bladed links.Tala didnt even have time to comprehend what was coming before the syphon pulled, hard, dragging those magically sharp blades across Talas armor, tearing away great chunks as each link passed across her.Because they were pulling in perfect opposition, they kept her from moving with the pulls, or being thrown around.Instead, it was just tearing into her with vicious abandon.The syphons flesh around her was already torn to bits by her great cutting arcs with Flow, and syphon blood was pouring from the creature, draining down into the abyss below them in this layer of existence.But it hadnt been enough, and her armor was failing against another type of attack that it wasnt designed to handle.Enough of this.Her iron blob broke apart, becoming a field of leg-sized, barbed, tri-bladed spikes, which spiraled from tip to base.Tala hardened her aura around each and drove them forward.Like laying down a rug across the top of the beast, a wave of impacts radiated from Tala across the surface of the syphon, each accompanied with a fountain of blood as the spikes drilled deeper, crafted almost entirely of magic-disrupting iron carrying Talas own aura.There was a momentary struggle for supremacy, but Tala held on like never before.Three things changed the circumstances in relation to her earlier attempts to overcome the beast.First, Tala had pieces of herself within the beast now, giving her a solid platform from which to strike.Her iron was her.Second, Talas gate was still dumping power into her, keeping her fully topped off and as magically weighty as ever.Third, the syphon had been spending power like mad to transform and maneuver to attack her and defend against her.At their very core, gated humans were endurance fighters, and Tala could outlast almost anything.Victory. Tala spoke into the nothingness, power in her words making them resonate through the space regardless.Each of the hundreds of spikes tore itself apart, blasting outward as hundreds of smaller barbs.The entire top half of the syphon was turned into a bloody, iron-filled pulp.On the superficial, the caravan fell apart, even as the main body of the syphon seemed to fall starward, dragging Tala along with it.A moment later, the corpse of the massive creature slapped wetly to the ground before the gate into Alefast.Behind her, Rane had just finished dispatching his third syphon-controlled caravan guard.It was now obvious that tendrils of the creature led to each of the bisected bodies.Rane was panting even heavier than after their run, but he seemed uninjured.Bless the stars for that.Then, she noticed what her threefold sight was showing her and cursed.Orange? Really?! This was only a Mature syphon?She fell backward, catching herself in a chair made of iron and white steel.The metal creaked as she slumped back into the seat.Her armor was flowing back into shape, and her body was healing from the few wounds that the beast had managed to inflict upon her, but she was still irate.This thing had been less advanced than she was, and it had still given her a bit of trouble.Then, her mind went back to the first syphon shed encountered.It had been blue to her magesight.She swallowed involuntarily at her new understanding.I think I might have been underestimating the effectiveness of city defensesThen, Rane began to laugh, an almost childlike grin dominating his features.Tala felt a smile pull at her lips once more, even as she called a chair into place behind the man.He sat gratefully, continuing to laugh.A moment later, Tala found herself laughing too.Together, they sat there, beside a massive corpse, reveling in the joy of their victory, happy to be together, happy to be alive.
