Chapter: 617 – New City Site

Tala and Lea left Lisa and headed home a bit after midnight, the girl going straight to her bed within the sanctum.

Tala went to her husband, where he sat in the midst of the caravan’s nightly camp, eyes closed, and focus thrown wide.

Terry was curled up in the man’s lap, seemingly actually asleep, rather than just resting.

With her arrival, she and Alat took some of the burden of overwatch from him and Enar, their skills aligning with the duty more fully.

Rane opened his eyes and smiled her way. “Thank you, my love.”

She kissed his cheek before sitting beside him and shrugging. “We are stronger together.”

“Indeed.”

Terry shifted slightly but didn’t otherwise react to her presence.

They sat in the comforting silence for a long moment, just drinking in each other’s presence. Finally, Tala looked back toward him. “So? How were you able to slay one?”

Rane gave a small smile. “It was rather simple. Well, it was once I realized that the shadows weren’t the main body of whatever they had been.”

“Oh?” Tala leaned against him even as she inquired.

He nodded. “Indeed. I simply sent a load of energy through the shadow in a kinetic chain, resulting in a detonation of the true body. Given that the creature was only equivalent to a Fused in power, it was relatively trivial in the end.”

Tala frowned. “Kinetic chain? Isn’t that when your body is aligned well to transfer force from a punch or block?”

“More or less.” His tone didn’t seem concerned.

She was rather confused. “How does that apply in this case?”

“If I pull on your arm, doesn’t your whole body become influenced?” She could hear his smile in his voice.

“Yes, even if I resist, that is still a change.”

He nodded once, clearly seeing the matter as settled. “Exactly. I simply relied on that principle.”

Tala… didn’t understand, but it was clear that Rane conceived of it differently than she did, and that was fine. She wasn’t about to argue him out of such obviously useful magic. “So, you can now send attacks through magical connections?”

He gave a slow shake of his head. “I don’t think it would work as well through attacks. In this case, they were actively projecting and controlling a false body. That was a solid, stable connection.”

She pulled back, turning toward him, and quirking a smile. “You know, if we work with you to improve your view of and interactions with reality threads…”

His eyes widened, followed by a truly massive grin. “Oh… oh, I like that. If it is possible, it will only be because of touches of reality and void now woven through my soul.”

She leaned against his shoulder. “I’m glad to be of help.”

He turned and bent slightly to kiss the top of her head. “You are an ever-present blessing in my life, my love. Please protect my blessing with armor whenever reasonable?”

She snuggled a bit closer. “I’m glad you feel that way… and fine.”

He gave her a searching look, but when she didn’t continue, he didn’t press.

“You know, you are a blessing to me, too.”

He turned back and kissed the top of her head, smiling into her hair. “I’m glad.”

Another long stint of silence passed comfortably between them before Tala remembered something. “Thank you for saving the Talons.”

Rane shifted slightly and grunted. “Of course. They were stalwart till the end, and I even had to actually willfully overcome their resistance to pull them out.”

He chuckled at that, shaking his head.

“The rusting bits of slag nearly got me hurt because of how much focus I had to devote in order to extract them.” The words were harsh, but his small smile and jovial tone told Tala that he was more impressed than upset. “We’ve got a good group in the Talons.”

“Yeah. We really do.” So much was progressing well with Ironhold. Even the unaccompanied children that had been allowed in—the only gateless in their families, sent to have a chance at a better life—those that Tala had been so hesitant to accept, had been well and truly integrated. Many had been adopted, gateless families taking in the otherwise unattached kids and growing their families with ease, and others had been old enough that they simply needed some training before they could start life on their own.

Lyn had kept a good eye on them—the latter as much as the former, if not more so—and Alat was aware of everything that went on within Kit, making the potential for abuse all but nonexistent.

The important thing, though, was that they were growing and thriving, learning and picking up useful skills. They would have better lives than they could have on the outside. Tala would make sure of it.

Moreover, with more and more of the citizenry reborn into at least a portion of the power available to them, they would have far longer, healthier lives as well.

-We’re doing good.-

And we’re doing well at it.

Alat chuckled in their head. -That we are.-

Tala let out a long, contented breath, returning the majority of her focus outward.

They passed the remainder of the night in peaceful silence.

* * *

The next day, as the caravan was getting ready to set out, Tala brought some more of her knowledge and experience to bear. Knowing that there were creatures in the Doman-Imithe that might be a threat, she imposed her will upon that which was under her authority in a new and different way.

She did her best to compress the reality nodes more tightly together than they usually rested.

She didn’t amplify their connections to one another like she had when helping speed up the healing and repair at the former city sites. Instead, she pressed them together, like binding a sheaf of wheat or reeds. In this case, she extended that compression across the whole caravan.

It wasn’t exactly easy, but it wasn’t something she struggled to do either. To her irritation, she was able to see that it made the superficial abrasion of gates across reality worse where she had compressed the nodes of Zeme itself closely together. So she let those parts fall away, simply keeping the mobile parts within her aura and authority tightly compacted on a reality node level.

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That seemed to minimize the leaking of traces of power through the void-gaps, which existed between all things. It also seemed to help optimize their power-gathering workings, reducing the number of threats they had to deal with overall, even if only by a bit.

On the odd side, though, as she observed the caravan over the next days, she noticed a growing familiarity between the various workers and Mages who spent a lot of time on the superficial. Even a few of the oxen that had been on the ornery side seemed to be settling in and obeying more easily.

In any single case, Tala would have dismissed it as the comradery of long days on the road together, and barriers being finally broken down after such a long trip, but the fact that it seemed to all happen so quickly and all in sync across the whole caravan?