014 – Canyon River Step

014 – Canyon River Step

[sunny_side_up]: okay so what’s actually the bar for getting into [kava]. like what are you actually testing for
[Hadrian’s_Fyre]: whether u can believe something u don’t believe
[sunny_side_up]: …elaborate please.
[Hadrian’s_Fyre]: anyone can join a guild and learn a hermetic tradition. but u gotta be a bit coocoo loco weewoo in the brain to run multiple trads hard enough the game belives ur bs, be a “big brain wizard” like [Stormold] says
[Hadrian’s_Fyre]: for example u gotta be able to be a blood mage even if ur not a blood mage, look at the trad from the inside and mean it, even if u think blood magic is a stupid deadend tradition for vampire RPers, because it absolutely is
[Hadrian’s_Fyre]: …sunny? u there?
[sunny_side_up]: i vant to suck your blood!
[sunny_side_up]: ㇏(•̀ᵥᵥ•́)ノ
[Hadrian’s_Fyre]: NO.

—Private chat between Players [Hadrian’s_Fyre] and [sunny_side_up], April 6, 2120

From her vantage point atop the heaving back of Balala the Orgawyr, Sari watched the Gihn revolutionaries flow over the battlefield like water. The blood and noise of the battlefield seemed to melt away, if only for a split second.

What a beautiful spell.

She watched a Gihn karra slide down a sheer rock face, his feet finding purchase on sandstone that should have offered none. He didn’t push off of the rocky surface but rather glided over it, as if he really did embody the [River] as it flowed through the [Canyon].

That was the [Canyon River Step]. It was, in a word, poetry.

Magic was taught in Varran Academies as a series of rigid axioms, deriving from the in-born Varran right to preside over all that fell under the Sun. Natural forces, living things, and even matters of society, law, and faith. All were subject to the same universal precept of Varran supremacy.

The Varran mind, cultured in the high halls of the Republic, demanded order in all things, even magic. It demanded that the universe submit to a hierarchy where the caster stood at the top, dictating terms to reality, and allowing them to come to pass under the weight of their Semblance.

This spell had none of that.

Sari’s mind, trained to dissect the base concepts and symbols that underpinned all magic, began to unspool the ideas woven into the Gihn man’s movement. [Canyon River Step] was an entire tapestry of the cultural heritage of the Gihn people, elegantly pressed into a single, fluid action.

[Gihn-River]-[Canyon-Stone]-[Walk-Step].

The spell began with a declaration of identity as its first tenet. To cast the spell, one had to believe, truly believe, that they were inseparable from the land of Gihn. They had to have internalized the memory of a people who had lived in these winding cracks in the earth for centuries, possibly even millennia.

[I-Gihn] am/are the [River] of the [Canyon].

This was a narrative of persistence and of belonging, of life within the canyons that made up the region of Avna—no, of Gihn. Generations of the Gihn people had traversed these lands, walking through the canyons, observing, worshiping, becoming the rivers that carved paths through red stone.

The [Stone] yields to the [River]. Therefore, the [Stone] yields to the [Walking-Stepping] of [I-Gihn].

To be Gihn is to be the water that remembers the stone, Sari thought, a strange sense of vertigo washing over her. For an instant, she thought of home. Of Beyal, deep in the Northern Acquisition.

A low, vibrating rumble beneath her thighs snapped Sari back to the present.

Balala let out an impatient rumble. The massive Orgawyr shifted her weight, her taloned feet gouging deep furrows into the hard-packed earth of the fortress courtyard. Smoke curled from the corners of Balala’s mouth, smelling of sulfur, burning flesh, and the coppery tang of impending violence. Her blood was up. The target-rich environment in front of them threatened to drive the predator into a frenzy.

“Easy, girl,” Sari whispered, leaning forward to stroke the pebbled scales of the Orgawyr’s neck. “Hold. Not yet.”

Balala snapped her jaws angrily, her eyes fixed on a group of Gihn fighters attempting to flank the main melee. She wanted to charge. She wanted to bite, to tear, to bathe the world in the liquid fire churning in her gullet.

It took every spare ounce of Sari’s focus to keep the Orgawyr in check. Her legs squeezed against the theropod’s flanks, maintaining maximum physical contact to allow Balala’s control jewel to function at its best, while Sari tried her hardest to project [Calmness] and [Patience] to her.

Sari looked out over the courtyard.

The battle had devolved into a brawl. The initial shock of the Avnans’ [United-Charge] had broken the Gihn’s formation, but the defenders were tenacious fighters defending their home.

Lieutenant Baior, at least, was in his element. The burly Avnan officer had dismounted his Domga and was fighting on foot, his curved sword a blur of motion as he rallied his soldiers against the mundane Gihn fighters.

“Push them back!” Baior roared, his voice cracking with exertion. “For the Republic! For Captain Iorec!”

But near the center of the courtyard, the tide was turning.

Master Benessel was alone. He had been forced to drop the [United-Charge] to engage a cell of six Gihn mages who had leapt from the ramparts in a coordinated strike. Now, he was surrounded.

Sari watched, her heart hammering against her ribs, as her master engaged in battle.

He was magnificent, of course. Even exhausted, Karravar Benessel was a force of nature. He deflected a swinging blade with a wave of his hand, turned a kinetic strike into a glancing blow with a shift of his shoulder, and retaliated with a whip-crack of [Force] that sent one attacker sprawling.

But he was slow.

Sari knew his rhythm better than anyone. She knew the precise cadence of his breathing, the incredible speeds at which he could normally weave spell after spell.

Right now, he was lagging.

A Gihn mage, wielding a scimitar wreathed in [Cutting-Vibration], slashed at Benessel’s flank. Benessel parried with a barrier of [Force-Barrier], but the impact staggered him. He stumbled, his face gray and sheened with sweat.

He shouldn’t have stumbled. A strike like that, from a mage of that caliber, shouldn’t have even moved him.

The Ve’un, Sari realized, a sinking feeling in her stomach. Beseeching Nor every night was killing him.

For the last week, Master Benessel had cast a fresh Ve’un every single evening to protect the caravan from Veh. A spell that normally required at least two mages and a prepared wardstone, he had done alone, fueling it with his own stamina and will rather than the material components and ritualistic worship that were considered necessary to cast the wards.

He was running on fumes—a shell of himself, held together by duty and pride.

Another Gihn mage lunged, his blade seeking the opening in Benessel’s guard. Benessel parried successfully, but his counter-strike was weak, easily dodged.

Her master was going to die.

Sari looked at the gate behind her. Her orders were clear. Hold the rear. Let none pass. She and Balala were the anvil to Benessel’s hammer. But Master Benessel needed her help. What use was an anvil without its hammer?

Sari made her choice in the space of a heartbeat.

“Balala,” she hissed, releasing her mental restraints from the wyrm. “Kill.”

The Orgawyr didn’t need to be told twice. With a roar that shook the very earth beneath them, Balala erupted forward in a whirlwind of absolute violence. The massive wyrm covered the distance to Benessel in ten thunderous steps, a blur of orange and black scales and terrifying display feathers.

“Master! Down!” Sari screamed.

Benessel threw himself to the ground just as Balala arrived.

She slammed into the Gihn mages about to set themselves upon Benessel like a living wrecking ball of muscle, fangs, and bloodlust.

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Her tail, thick as a tree trunk, swept out in a vicious arc, catching two mages mid-cast and sending them flying into the stone walls with a sickening crunch. Her jaws snapped shut around the torso of a third, lifting him into the air and shaking him like a ragdoll before tossing him aside.

His scimitar went flying, but Sari managed to catch it as it whizzed by her head.

The remaining three scrambled back, terrified beyond their wits.

Balala stood over Benessel, her massive head swiveling, her throat aglow with fire. She hissed menacingly, a rumbling sound that struck all who heard it with a sense of primal fear.

Sari didn’t waste the opening.

She slid from the saddle to stand atop Balala’s back, balancing on the beast’s shoulders.

“Get up, Master!” she shouted, raising her new scimitar.

She didn’t have the finesse or breadth of experience to match Master Benessel, nor the rule-breaking flexibility and seemingly astronomical Semblance of Miss Ayle. But she had been watching them both like a hunter, diligently noting everything, anything that could help her own growth as an aspiring Karravar.

The unnamed spell Miss Ayle had improvised to subdue Balala back during the bandit attack. [Force]-[Repetition]-[Trinity]. A story told in three beats.

Magic is a story, she had said. Tell the right story for the situation.

Sari looked at the three remaining mages. They were regrouping far outside her reach, preparing to cast. But she couldn’t move from her position. She swung her scimitar through empty air.

[Force]-[Extension]-[Blade-Reach].

Thwack.

Ten meters away, a Gihn mage’s head snapped forward as if he’d been struck. He crumpled, a bloody gash on the back of his head.

Sari swung the scimitar again, this time on her backswing.

Thwack.

Another mage spun out, clutching his shoulder.

It wasn’t elegant. It lacked the efficient, economic beauty of Miss Ayle’s magic. In the absence of the symbolic payment that a formal spell would have demanded of her, Sari instead felt the magic drain her stamina. Her breath hitched sharply.

But it worked.

“Sarila!” Benessel shouted, scrambling to his feet, his left arm hanging limp at his side. “On me!”

“Yes, Master,” Sari yelled back, swinging her sword again to keep the last mage at bay. She projected a mental image of a clutch of eggs that were to be defended at all costs through Balala’s control jewel. “Balala, guard!”

The Orgawyr rumbled, stepping sideways to interpose her bulk between Benessel and a fresh wave of mundane fighters charging from the barracks.

For a moment, they held. Then, Sari saw him.

A single Gihn revolutionary, small and wiry, broke from the pack. He dropped into a slide, passing under the chaos of the melee, moving like some sort of insect skimming the water’s surface. He was aiming for the gap between Balala’s tail and the canyon wall—a direct line to Benessel’s exposed back.