Chapter: 616 – Abrasion

Tala and Lea each took careful sips from their tea as Lisa clearly took a moment to order his thoughts.

The low ceiling in the cozy sitting room gave a feeling of closeness and comfort rather than one of crampedness, and the chairs were perfectly suited to their occupants.

Lisa didn’t have any horns or antlers in view—even to Tala’s threefold sight—and he seemed more contemplative even than usual.

Tala took the moment to thoroughly look about the space. The small paintings on the walls beside the windows were each done in four dimensions, leaving Tala to believe that small changes to her stoneward-starward alignment would change what she was seeing with her eyes. Though, she didn’t have the ability to tell exactly how it would change with her bloodstar cloud.

Similarly, the rugs seemed to be woven spanning more than just the superficial layers, leading to them seeming both locked in place more effectively than any other method that Tala could conceive of and sound-absorbent in a way that simply superficial floor coverings could never be.

The dyes and weavings hinted at complex patterns that Tala’s mind simply wasn’t equipped to actually comprehend.

Aside from the window out into the Doman-Imithe, the other three walls showed a variety of scenes, the door having vanished after they came through, rolling marginally starward.

One was a simple view out at the area surrounding Lisa’s redstone archway. It would have been disorienting to see a full spherical view through a two dimensional perspective, but Tala’s mind was equipped to understand three-dimensionality, so she was able to parse the input with relative ease.

Another window looked out on an ancient forest. Is that Walden’s sub-hold?

-Yes. The Immortal Elk gave Lisa permission to view portions of his woods at will.-

Interesting… The final perspective was a top-down view of a common dining area with nearly a dozen fox-kin moving about.

Tala assumed this last view had been chosen to demonstrate to her that Lisa was taking his job as primary fox-kin and overseer of his kind within Ironhold seriously.

The perspective of the Doman-Imithe had already been explained as something magically selected as being pertinent to their conversation.

The window out onto the front entry could be meant as a test of her spatial conception abilities, or to allow Lisa to ensure no one approached while they talked—though he could see such things whether it was housed in a window or not—or it could have been selected for any number of other reasons.

She wasn’t sure why the forest view had been selected, but it might just be because such was lovely.

Finally, Lisa nodded, drawing his guests’ attention. “Alright. Thank you for that moment to gather my thoughts.”

Tala gave a slight dip of her head. “Of course.”

Lea shrugged. “It wasn’t very long.”

“Indeed.” Lisa gave a small smile. “I’m afraid that the short time was due to how few thoughts I have to offer about your predicament.”

Tala grimaced momentarily but held her tongue, waiting to at least hear what he had to say.

“Simply put, I believe that your Existence was damaged. I would be curious as to what exactly was able to do this, and the circumstances that led to it.” His eyes flicked to the view out into the Doman-Imithe. “That is a place where oddities and exceptions abound.”

Tala sighed and nodded. She gave a quick overview of what had happened, starting when the shadow hyenas had attacked.

Lisa lifted one eyebrow. “A habitat crossing, Doman-Imithe predator? And a pack based one as well. That is…” He shook his head. “…concerning. Such predators are generally deep in the Doman-Imithe, crossing to upper layers rather than into Zeme. Something must have driven them to this either directly or indirectly. I imagine that once they were closer to Zeme, our magic drew them closer, and your… generous caravan likely pulled them the last bit of distance.”

It was Tala’s turn to frown. “Should we expect more such threats?”

“On one side, no, but then you shouldn’t have had reason to expect this. My actual answer would be: Always, but that’s just safer. Do I think it likely that you’ll encounter more? Probably not.” He hesitated. “We are near our final destination, correct?”

Tala nodded.

“Good, then I am comfortable with my response. If we were going to be in such a large, moving group of gates for much longer, I would say to expect ever growing oddities, even if we never again encountered something exactly like this.”

She nodded again. “Understood, but we are getting side-tracked.”

“Indeed.”

“So… damage to my Existence?”

“That is what I am seeing.”

“How does that even work?”

“Well, given the nature of… smilers—assuming that’s what did this to you—I would bet the reality-void tore at you like a great wind across the plains, or a grazer and the tallest grass.”

Lea was frowning, but she didn’t interrupt.

Tala understood the comparisons, or at least she thought she did. Honestly, she was likely barely less confused than her daughter. “Can you expound?”

“Certainly, but please understand that I am simply attempting to explain the results, not actually the method through which those results were achieved.”

“Understood.”

“When your Existence was strained, that which was most ancillary to your existence was broken away, like the rough spots on rocks tumbled together. You stated that you were not exerting your aura and authority around yourself, did I understand that correctly?”

“Yes, but I was keeping myself under my own authority. I have Refined.” She didn’t need to explain more. Her body was as closely tied to her as any’s who weren’t Reforged.

“As I said, I won’t attempt to explain the ‘how’ simply the result.”

“Right, right.” Tala waved distractedly, considering. “So, my left hand?”

“Was the part of you least intrinsic to your existence. If I had to guess, it is the thing that will affect you least, now that it is gone. This is one reason such injuries are so little understood. Many people who do get so harmed have little reason to seek help, because, generally, their lives change little or not at all.”

“So, a conceptual attack? Really?” Tala grimaced, then. She deeply disliked conceptual magic. Give her a heat-based fireball or gravity shot any day over ‘you don’t know where I am’ or ‘corrosion.’

“In a sense, yes.”

“Just in a sense?”

“As I said, I can’t really describe the ‘how.’ The damage was applied via conceptual parameters, at least that would be my guess, but that doesn’t mean the attack was conceptual nor that the resulting injury is conceptual in nature.”

Tala opened her mouth to ask further, but then she shook her head and sighed. “Regardless, how do I heal it? My normal magics don’t work, and if I force it, the result is unresponsive and just feels… wrong.”

Lisa nodded. “In this, your advancement is both a blessing and a curse.”

She arched an eyebrow and waited.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

“It is a blessing because the surest way to be healed would be to Reforge, ensuring your chosen, remade form has the missing part.”

Tala gave him a flat look. “That’s the good part?”

He nodded. “Yes. The curse comes from the fact that you are so established in who and what you are. As a Paragon, your understanding of your non-physical self is rock solid. That means the underlying structure of who you are is all but unshakable. If you—or anyone—tries to add to your body in a way that doesn’t align with that, it will fail.”

Tala held up her hand… Well, she held up her lack of a hand. “This doesn’t seem like it failed.”

“Ahh, but that is a hostile alteration, done in violence—a removal not an addition—something taken, not something imposed upon you.” He hesitated. “I am struggling to find the right words.” He gave a smile at that. “As out of character as I am sure that seems.”

Lea grinned, taking another drink of her tea even as Tala huffed a laugh. “So, it’s a scar upon my Existence, and simply slapping a new hand on won’t help.”

“No, it won’t.” He grimaced. “It is easier to destroy than to create.”

“I took similar seeming damage before, but that was more a block on healing, a brief setting of existence against my real form than a true altering of that form at the level of existence.”

“I would say that seems accurate, based on what I know. Yes.”

“So, I hear the words that you have been saying, but what has actually been damaged? What do I need to work to fix?”

Lisa sighed before taking another sip from his own cup. “What you are was fundamentally abraded. The world now doesn’t expect you to have a left hand, and that iterates down to every level of existence. You can’t fix it any more than you could give yourself wings or horns or a second head.”

Tala found herself slowly nodding. “Because the absence of a second head isn’t something to fix. I shouldn’t have a second head, trying to add one would be a deviation from how things should be rather than a return to ‘rightness’.”

“Exactly.”

“…So, who can alter what I am?”