Chapter: 622 – Ignition

Tala and her family passed the next weeks—waiting for the ignition of the city’s magics—in intensive training and preparation for the future.

Lea studied momentum at a deeply theoretical level as well as increasing her understanding of the world in general and magic in particular. She also sparred with anyone and everyone she could convince to meet her in a clash. Though, she only pulled from those in the sanctum or Ironhold.

She lost essentially every bout given her lack of overt magic and very shallow well of experience, even given her body’s inborn instincts, which she tried to hone as well.

The girl also dug more deeply into her own make-up. Because her inscriptions would be tying into her existing magics, overlaying—and in some very select cases replacing—what was in her automaton body, she had to know them almost as intimately as Tala had known her biological form before getting her regenerative inscriptions.

To her credit, Lea fully devoted herself to the venture, only taking breaks when she’d pushed herself to the ragged edge of mental exhaustion.

That whole concept of Lea’s ‘mental’ exhaustion was odd to Tala. In the girl’s case, there wasn’t actually a separate mind to be exhausted. Instead, it was the girl’s soul that simply couldn’t handle any more input or strenuous processing. Since that manifested as essentially the same thing, that’s how they conceived of it and addressed it. The only real difference was that it was Lea’s soul that was being trained and strengthened, rather than her mind.

Tala, Rane, and their alternate interfaces were all quite interested in the long term results of that. They were especially interested because at least Alat and Enar were effectively doing something quite similar, if to lesser extents because most of their actual cognitive processing was still being done via inscriptions rather than within the soul itself.

In this, they were quite beyond the realm of any expert they’d been able to find. Lea seemed to have a true existence soul, with aspects of reality, magic, and void all intermixed and giving it as of yet unknown abilities. Some that were known were clearly a direct result of the circumstances of her conception. Her soul was aberrant in so many ways, due to its far more direct integration into her physical form.

No one knew the long-term implications of that, but in the near term, it meant that she had to sleep basically as much as a child in order to let her soul rest.

The closest thing Tala had experienced to that was gatebreaking, but that had been an entirely different type of soul stress. Still, the comparison was… worrying. It was possible that Lea’s soul simply wouldn’t be able to remain viably attached to her body long-term, but only time would tell. One year was far too short a span to watch for changes.

At least she’ll be safe and hale for the near term.

-Agreed.-

Regardless, their daughter was striving for excellence, and her parents could hardly do otherwise.

Rane was delveng deeply into philosophy of sorts, and the sparring matches he did participate in with the Talons, he strove to end in a single strike.

He would often duck and dodge for long moments before lashing out with fist, foot, or Force to end the bout. He even took blows that he might have otherwise blocked or dodged—or even avoided entirely with his defensive magics—as he tested out various concepts and mindsets. His berserker ‘boon’ was more under control than ever, and he was working to impart his growth and control to their daughter as part of his overall work.

He fought more normally with Tala and Lea so as to not affect their own work. Though, his lessons with Lea leaned more toward quick exchanges of violence, followed by long stints of discussion.

She still hadn’t used her eyes to shoot fire as Io had done when fighting Tala with the same body. The only explanation that the girl had been able to give was that her mindset didn’t mesh well with those magics. So, even though they were connected, they didn’t really work.

That would hopefully be corrected during her upcoming inscribing.

Rane’s bouts with Terry were… unusual to say the least.

From the outside, the two would simply stand, staring at one another for long minutes before one of them would blur, landing a match-ending blow while the other seemed almost to just take it.

To Tala and Alat’s all-seeing perspective within Kit, the two were an absolute storm of magics, reaching out and countering faster than Archon-thought. In the end, when one moved, it was because the other was entirely mired within the other’s power and authority.

Tala felt a little ashamed at her own surprise, when she realized that the two were neck and neck in win-count. She knew her husband was capable, but Terry had always been a beast with few equals.

Come on, Tala. Have more faith in your husband. He’s not flashy, but his methods work.

-Well… color me surprised. I didn’t have to say it this time.-

Tala sent a glare toward her alternate interface. I love him, but my feelings have never been based on his combat prowess.

-I would bet that he cares more than you think about your view of him, especially in this regard.-

She hesitated for a long moment, then nodded. When next they were near one another, Tala went up on her tip-toes and kissed his cheek. “Hey, you.”

He looked at her with narrow-eyed suspicion. “Yeah?”

She smiled. “I just liked watching you fight. It’s really impressive.”

He seemed to hesitate. “Really?”

She nodded, giving him a quick kiss on the lips. “Absolutely.”

He swallowed, then smiled. “Are you sure? I feel like I have a long way to go.”

She nodded again. “Yes, I’m sure. We have different strengths, but you are really excelling at in-fighting, and I think even your medium-range combat is reaching new heights.”

He pulled her in for an embrace. “Well… thank you for saying so.” He gave her a squeeze. “That really means a lot.”

Terry—aside from sparring with the various Sappherrouses and occasionally hunting in Walden’s sub-hold—spent his time around New Makinaven. Given the magics weren’t active, his ‘human illusion’ remained inactive, but he managed to keep out of trouble… for the most part.

The city authorities only had to contact Tala three times, and each time it was simply to inform her that there had been an incident, but it was resolved. No one died, and the few injuries were easily healed.

For her own sanity, Tala left it at that, not digging deeper, nor doing more than ensuring Terry knew she was glad that he hadn’t hurt anyone seriously.

The avian didn’t seem to feel the need to test himself in any specific way. His advancement was entirely tied to Tala’s, and from everything that she could tell, he was more than fine with that.

As to Tala’s advancement, she had a lot going on.

She spent a large portion of every day deepening her understanding of the merging magics and fundamental principles. After that, she studied the inscription set that Mistress Holly had built for her, delveng into every portion of the spellforms in all their masterwork glory.

And they were that: A true masterwork.

They were perfectly tuned for her eventual reality iron body, with the iron and even the inscriptions themselves created to be a true part of her biology from the magic’s perspective. That coupled with her work on the body itself would make the inscriptions self repair via her consumption of precious metals. Those magics drew heavily on the reinscriber embedded within her sanctum’s central dais as well as Mistress Holly’s various advanced methods for inscribing.

Moreover—in the efficiency department—with the iron fully encapsulating every bit of her inscriptions so perfectly—in all four dimensions—even the metal that was ‘spent’ was largely captured, drawn toward collection points in her digestive system.

It wasn’t perfectly efficient by a long stretch, but it was a massive improvement on what most Mages had to deal with.

In studying, researching and learning everything she could, she built a new reality iron body for herself, from scratch, every day.

Though, to call it a ‘reality iron’ body was woefully underrepresenting the true majesty of what she was doing. There was white steel and her own blood woven throughout, making the result much like her armor, at least it would appear that way up until she Reforged and the reality illusion was enforced in a way that magic, by itself, never could. It was hard to describe, but that was part of the issue.

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She wasn’t doing it perfectly. She still struggled, but that was most likely due to the fact that she wasn’t actually Reforging, not yet. When she did, the reality illusion should effectively sweep through the new body and make it hers at every level, unifying it as biological and metallic in one.

She longed for how that might bring her closer to her daughter as well, but that was secondary to her core long-term goal of Reforging. In that regard, she expected it to take at least another five years for her to fully and completely grasp all parts of what she’d been given. At that point, she’d have to forge ahead at remaking it into her own solution, her own map of her own future self.

In the short-term, she had to deal with her hand… well, the lack of it.

It was simple to just make a hand-shaped block of white steel, but it had no feedback, and required direct, conscious control to get it to do anything. She tried making it out of reality iron, but she could feel how her very being resisted having an ‘extra’ limb grafted on. Even when she tried to frame it as a small addition to an existing limb, her self balked.

She didn’t have this issue with tendrils from her armor, because she never really tried to make them limbs. They simply were. She observed them intricately and controlled them utterly at all times that they existed. She didn’t want that for her replacement hand.

It felt like something that she could push through, but it also felt like doing so would be building barriers between herself and Reforging.

In the end, she settled for the white steel hand. With Alat’s help, she was able to use it reasonably for the few things that had been irritating to do with only one hand. With her throughspike, it was also impossible for mundanes—or even less advanced Archons—to notice her injury.