Chapter: 267 – Entrance

Tala continued her loping run, feeling quite thoroughly worn out. It hadn’t been that long since she slept, but it seemed like the increased power flowing through her had worn at her body more than she’d really realized, and then excising it from herself had left her with only the downsides.

-All messages delivered and a few replies and exchanges enacted, per what we discussed.-

Great. Will we have help?

-Master Grediv will meet us at the nearest gate, when we arrive at Alefast.-

Oh, that’s fantastic. I’m so glad he was in town. I was not looking forward to trying to convince a random Archon that we meant no harm…

She was almost back.

She was almost home.

The level of magic in the air had been steadily rising for the last few hours, and the zeme was really starting to show some turbulence.

It was odd seeing this region again in a new light.

Not only was she coming from nearly the exact opposite direction, but she was also far more powerful and capable with her magesight.

Oh! Terry. She had been in such a fog since the forest that she hadn’t really considered the terror bird.

She opened Kit, and before she could call out, Terry flickered into being beside her.

His screech of annoyance would have deafened a mundane human, even if only temporarily.

Tala stumbled to the side, flinching.

“Gah! Terry, that hurt!”

He screeched again, fluffing his feathers in visible irritation.

“I’m sorry! The forest was more taxing than I expected, and I’ve just been trying to get this trip done with.”

He lowered his head and stalked forward, covering the distance that she’d stumbled away. It was only then that Tala noticed his size. Even hunched low, he still easily matched her height.

She stepped back a bit more, the large terror following her. “I apologize! I didn’t mean to leave you in there, unknowing how I fared.”

Terry slowed, squinting at her.

“I should have called you out as soon as I was free of the woods.”

He chirped in aggressive affirmation.

“Will you forgive me?”

Straightening, he let out a long series of random trills that to Tala sounded like nothing so much as her mother ranting about one of the littlest siblings. It was an oddly nostalgic feeling, for all it was more than a decade old.

Because I’m so near to home? That was likely. “I know you were worried about me. I said I was sorry.”

Terry cut off his trilling and glared.

“I know that doesn’t make it better, and I know this is the second time that you’d have preferred to be out sooner on this trip. Will you forgive me?”

His demeanor shifted, and he shook himself before chirping once in affirmation.

“Thank you.”

Terry didn’t reply further, instead shrinking down until his head barely came up to her waist.

“You want to run with me the rest of the way?”

The bird’s look conveyed exactly how stupid he felt that question was.

“Fine. Let’s go.” She quickly inspected his neck, and was able to just see the collar hiding beneath his feathers, and only then because it was her magic that was mirrored into it.

As they ran, Tala very carefully placed a white-armored finger on the collar and refilled it with her power. That would have been… less than great.

Thus, Tala arrived at the southeastern gate into Alefast, Waning, sometime in the midmorning, Terry at her side.

The wall stood tall to either side of the gate, and Tala felt nervous energy building within her as she approached.

This was it.

She was here.

She was on the threshold of a real, human city.

If fate was the rusting bit of slag it seemed to be of late, something was about to happen to keep her from entering.

There were no guards visible from outside the city, so she approached cautiously.

But nothing unexpected jumped out and stopped her.

Instead, Master Grediv stepped out of the open archway and smiled. “Mistress Tala. I can see your travels have left their mark, and your avian friend has grown.” There was a sparkle of mischief in the Paragon’s eyes. “Shall we…”

Tala felt his penetrating scan of her entire self, the iron on her skin definitively gaining some heat at the power behind the inspection.

She saw his face fall into a perfectly blank mask.

She watched as the glint left his eyes.

“Why do you have a concept threaded through your entire body? Speak now, Archon.”

“I am infected with a dasgannach. That is one of most pressing issues that I need assistance to address.”

That seemed to take Master Grediv completely off guard. First, that was likely because she answered quickly, readily, and completely. Second, he could likely tell the truth of her words, if Tala was right in her guess, and that surely was shocking.

“It is contained at the moment, but I would greatly prefer your assistance as soon as possible.”

“I see.” He was frowning. “Do you have any specific ideas on what assistance you require?”

A test? Or just gathering more information. “I think a teleport would be prudent.”

He huffed a laugh. “You want me to teleport you to some other city, while filled with a clearly hostile concept?”

“No, I assumed that wouldn’t be possible. I would like you to teleport me to the tower in this very city. That should strip the dasgannach from me.”

Master Grediv frowned again but began nodding. “I can see that working, depending on the flavor of creature. For most, we could simply entice it out and heal whatever issues that caused. What is its material?”

“Iron.”

Once again, the ancient man seemed caught off guard. “Well, that explains the issue, then.” A long, increasingly uncomfortable silence stretched between them as Tala stood outside the gates.

I knew it. This was too easy. Fate is going to sucker-punch me again right when I—

“Very well. Follow closely without making contact. We need to get this sorted, immediately.”

Oh.

Alat barked a laugh within Tala’s head. –Well, that worked better than we’d hoped.-

For now. He could still wipe us off the face of Zeme.

-True, but he’s more likely to help us. That’s why we asked him to meet us, right? Because we were pretty sure he’d take the time to find the truth, rather than ‘killing it to be sure.’-

True enough.

Master Grediv turned and strode into Alefast, Waning, and Tala hesitated for only a moment before following, Terry heeling perfectly at her side.

The guards stood back, not interfering or questioning them as they passed.

“So, Mistress Tala. Tell me what I need to know about the dasgannach. Given that you’re you, I imagine there are surrounding, pertinent details?”

Tala felt power thread through the air in an incredibly intricate lattice locking out any chance of them being overheard, and she had a realization. How do such workings move with us? If they locked to a specific volume of air, the working would have to drag it along with us, but it’s not doing that.

“Mistress?” Master Grediv had turned to regard her. “Lost in thought so quickly?” A mirthful smile tugged at his lips. “I’d thought you’d simply ask rather than bottling yourself up.”

“I’ve been in a position where I had to be more careful with my questions, at least a bit.”

“That’s a pity. I always appreciated your curiosity.”

Taking that for the invitation that it was, she asked. “How does your working move with us?”

He turned and they started walking once more. “Your magesight has certainly improved if you can see that.”

She was to his side but still out of arm’s reach. “I think it’s more a matter of magical weight than an actual improvement to the script.”

“That is actually what I meant. The sharpest blade cannot slice stone without weight behind it.” He hesitated. “Well, that’s not actually true, but it gets the idea across.”

“So?”

“Yes, yes. How familiar are you with the fabric of reality?”

She hesitated. Well, in for a copper. “Do you mean the Doman-Imithe and its backing of Zeme?”

Master Grediv barked a laugh. “Oh, you are going to be a joy for the next good while, aren’t you?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. “That touches on a truly mindboggling number of things. Though, few have enough anchoring in Zeme to safely study the Doman-Imithe.”

Well, that’s a difference, but I’ll wait until my question is answered at the very least.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

“So, I assume you know of the bits of reality that make up Zeme?”

“Yes.”

“Good. The best analogy is sandstone. Each bit of reality is pressed against the others until they make a coherent whole. The analogy breaks down, because of the fluid nature of some parts of reality.”

Tala frowned. “What? We don’t have land moving around randomly.”

“Well, we actually do, but that’s rare and not what I’m talking about.”

She cocked her head and didn’t interject.

“Us. People, animals, material moving around. All of it is a part of reality but isn’t locked in place.”

“That… I hadn’t considered it that way.” In the Doman-Imithe, all the nodules had been tied to each other with threads of reality, and so had she and Thron. We were just manifesting more fully within the Doman-Imithe, and the nodules I was searching were oriented towards Zeme.

That caused a lot of things to click into place.

-Oh, rust! We just needed to flip our orientation, and we’d have popped back into Zeme.-

Yeah, that sounds nice, but what does it mean? How could we have actually accomplished that?

-I have no idea.-

Tala grinned internally. And where would we have appeared?

-Not a clue.-

Master Grediv continued speaking, drawing her thoughts back, “I anchor the spellworking to myself, the fragment of reality that is ‘me,’ with distance parameters oriented on that anchor. Most spellforms actually work in this way, but Mages, by and large, don’t have the understanding to comprehend them in that way. They believe and enact their workings based on the manifestation of reality, rather than reality itself. It’s a weakness and an inefficiency that is usually corrected when an Archon Fuses, or thereabout. We always have this discussion before the Archon Refines. To do otherwise would be to kill the Mage.”

Her eyes widened. “Because Refining is purifying the substance of reality, which is you.”

Tala could hear the smile in his voice as he responded, “Precisely true, at the deepest levels. That is the foundation, though much else is done on top of that footing as well.”

I feel like this has some insane implications and applications. “How far around myself is included in the fragment?”

“That is a…”—he frowned—“that is an incredibly insightful question.”

Tala let the silence hang as they walked through the streets. Wait… Why is he giving us this information now?

-Well, doesn’t it remind you of your interactions with him in the past?-