ONE HUNDRED SIXTY-SEVEN: Notion

167

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“My Body Becomes My Assistant?” Stuart asked. He was on the floor with his legs crossed, and though he had sat in polite silence while Alden finished the wordchain, he’d watched the whole casting process intently.

“I want to use it in gym and get the hang of it, but I’ve been thinking I might mix up having it active with having it inactive so that I’m getting better at moving in both ways. Trouble doesn’t always happen in convenient six-hour windows. Do knights use a lot of wordchains?”

“Yes. Chaotic environments can reduce their efficacy, so depending on the situation a large number of casts might be necessary to gain the desired benefit. It’s often worth it, but not always.”

“Peace of Mind worked well on Thegund.”

“That’s not the kind of chaotic environment I mean. And Thegund is populated by Artonans. That makes a difference.”

The cottage had brightened with the arrival of morning, and the suitcase on the floor between them had revealed the full glory of its patch job. Most of the rips and gouges were small, since a certain ryeh-b’t preferred to make sure the whole bag received her attentions rather than committing to the total destruction of any single part, and now they were all repaired with a silver fabric that looked like it had melted into place to fit the holes rather than being stitched.

Stuart had been planning to turn it all blue to match the suitcase, but Alden had stopped him.

His eyes fell on a silver bite mark while he reached for another piece of fruit from the bowl of welcome. He was pretty sure the one that tasted like a mild pear was going to be good while under the effects of the wordchain. “There are so many things I don’t know.”

“Do you want to know more about wordchains in chaos fields?”

“No. I still have a few questions about mind healing. I know I need to go soon, but—”

“You don’t have to go.”

“I probably shouldn’t be late, especially since I don’t know how many sessions I might need with the healer, and those could take me away from school, too. How many do you think it might be to make the Thegund nightmares go away?”

“That’s a question that would be better for the healer, but in my experience…”

 

******

******

 

“You’re laaaate.”

“And he’s not in his uniform.”

“I thought he was going to skip class.”

“He was just scared to face me in battle!” Astrid announced to the other girls who were standing around in the corridor in front of the locker rooms. She sprang toward Alden and punched the air with a vicious expression that was undermined by her cotton candy pink lipstick and eyeshadow.

Actually that might not be makeup. That might be a new morph.

“I’m not late yet!” Alden dodged around her. Easily thanks to the wordchain. His duffel bag full of gym supplies was over his shoulder, and his face felt chapped from his high speed flight here aboard the nonagon. It had been waiting for him at Matadero’s helipad, and a message from Esh-erdi telling him to use it if he wanted had appeared as soon as Alden arrived in the cube’s teleportation area.

“I can dress in three minutes.”

“But you only have two minutes and fifteen seconds,” Vandy told him.

He rushed through the group of girls so fast that he was already a couple of steps inside the locker room by the time he realized Astrid’s teeth had been pointy.

“Nice teeth!” he called as the door shut behind him.

“All the better to beat you with!”

There weren’t that many guys lingering inside, and they were all in their suits already.

“No, I never met him,” Finlay was saying to Kon. “I did hear about him in intake a couple of times, right before I left. But that was all.”

“Alden! Was that Astrid you were yelling with?” Kon asked. He was tousling his hair while he observed himself in one of the mirrors. “What’s she done to her teeth?”

The weird emphasis on some of the words made Alden suspect he was still having trouble with pronunciation.

“They’re sharp now,” Alden answered.

“Where have you been?” Lexi was waiting for Haoyu to finish tying his shoes. He had Writher in his hand, and the end was twitching toward Ignacio. Alden was sure it was innocent enough, but it did make Lexi look like he was planning terrible things for the other Meister, who was staring at his knife collection while he put on his wrist cuffs.

“Hello, Lexi,” said Alden as he dove into a shower. “I missed you, too. Your warm smile, your whip, your tone of suspicion.”

“You got your foot fixed?” Haoyu called.

Alden stripped off his shirt. “I got permission to take the boot off. And a lecture about my diet and my badness as a patient. And the healer sent the school a note saying I could come to class if the gym suit was set to punish me for running and jumping with that leg.”

It had been about two hours since he’d teleported from Rapport I to Matadero. He still wasn’t quite over the shock of transitioning from an informative, calm, and very mature-feeling conversation with Stuart about his options for mind healing and how the appointments could be handled, to Porti-loth. The wizard had been waiting to catch Alden as soon he arrived and check that he’d behaved himself while he was away.

“Punish?” asked Haoyu.

<<You’ll have a movement restriction?>> Ignacio asked in Spanish.

Alden was surprised he was jumping into the conversation.

<<I was going to duel against you differently, but if you can’t run…>>

Alden actually wasn’t sure what Porti-loth had meant. He’d just griped a lot about the fact that Alden was unable to follow the very simple instructions he’d been given to eat foods native to Earth.

“But I ate an Earth-based lunch the day I left,” had not been a good enough excuse. Nor had, “I honestly forgot. So much has been going on.”

“Yeah,” he said, reaching for his gym suit. “A movement restriction is probably the penalty he had in mind.”

By the time he exited the stall, the room was empty. He hurried out and ended up entering the gym a step behind Tuyet, who was looking tired.

“If we duel each other, do you have another bandage for me?” Alden asked. He didn’t know her well enough to think of a joke about anything else.

“Alden,” she said. “Did you know him, too?”

That seemed like a random question. Had he missed something?

“Know who?”

She frowned. “The SAL member who Orpheus Velra sold the Submerger to. The person Maricel left class on Friday to warn SkySea Guard about.”

Alden’s thoughts had to run a whole marathon before those two sentences made sense. By the time they got to the finish line, the [FLOOR ON] warning was flashing on his interface, and he and Tuyet were headed for their classmates and instructors.

It was only Klein, Marion, and Wu today.

“No,” he managed to say in the final second before class officially began. “I didn’t know the guy.”

“All right!” Instructor Klein said. “I hope you all did your homework.”

Alden looked around at all the faces. Everyone had managed to make it to class except for Maricel.

So…she’s the student who’s taking time off. And the guy she asked me to talk to when we were standing outside the mall, the runaway who took a boat that night, crashed the Sinker Sender into Matadero.

He wondered how he ought to feel about that.

Really sorry for Maricel. Nothing personal beyond that, I suppose?

Having a few less degrees of separation from a guilty party than he would have expected was unsettling, but he was already roommates with Lutewing van Nutmeg.

There just aren’t that many human Avowed. Most of us are probably only a friend of a friend away from any insane thing that happens with another one of us.

He’d watch the news later, figure out what he’d missed, and stop by to check on Maricel.

Class first.

One-on-ones were conceptually simple. Everyone was supposed to stand in their assigned dueling block and complete an objective before the timer ran out. The objectives this time would be the two most basic. Both duelists would be told to fight head to head until one was incapacitated, or they’d be assigned to play a simple territory claiming game.

Opponents would be randomized at first, and then the instructors would be adjusting the pairings to make sure that nobody was fighting the exact same class or rank every time.

Mehdi raised his hand. “Are we going to have a duels scoreboard like the other classes? One point per win?”

“Yes!” said Heloísa.

“No,” Klein said. “Not in this course.”

“But—”

“Realism is set to movement restriction only for today and Friday,” Klein went on.

There was a buzz of excitement at that. If nothing hurt at all, then getting thrown across the gym by someone else could be fun. It depended on who the someone else was and how scared you were of their particular method of doing harm.

“Usually we don’t do pain-free duels until the last class of term, as a reward, but this has been a rough week. Don’t use it as an excuse to play around. Instead of pain, you get research. On Monday, you have to turn in a write-up about all of your injuries. Instructions for that are in your inboxes.

“Kon and Søren, you two won’t be dueling this week. You’ve both discovered new features of your powers that you need to figure out in a safe environment.” He paused. “Normally, I would congratulate you on your progress, but in your cases…

“Well, we’re low on faculty, so you’re working on your own today. Søren, you’ll be shaping until you can repeat your accident and understand what caused it. Setting yourself on fire isn’t something that should happen in the future. Kon, we’ve modified some of the tonne weights for you. You’ll be moving them. Without hitting yourself in the face. You’re lucky you didn’t break your own neck on Friday.”

Søren reddened. Kon beamed like he’d been complimented instead of criticized.

Lexi shook his head.

Alden was privately mourning the loss of two opponents he was interested in having matches against.

“We’ll be running five to ten dueling blocks all the time. When you’re not in one, you can all use the practice area over there to figure out what went wrong, what went right, and what you might want to try in your next fight.”Instructor Klein gestured to the far end of the gym, where the floor had already been marked off with lines.

“If you exhaust your body or your main talents during duels, you’ll be out. You can choose to observe from the bleachers or, if you’ve got something that’s still worthy of testing on the floor, you can do that in the practice area. If your temper gets the best of you and you continue attacking another student after the time call, you get to run laps around the track all by yourself until I have time to come and talk to you. Which should be around nine o’clock tonight, after I’ve had my supper.”

Alden looked around, trying to guess if anyone might end up in that unenviable position.

His eyes skimmed past Winston, who was wearing a red sweatband on his head that said, “Need a heeling?”

What does that mean? Is it his latest hero motto? Or is it smack talk just for today?

Marsha’s hand lifted.

When Klein nodded at her, she asked, “Why can’t we do S versus S? And A versus A?”

Haoyu, standing just in front of Alden, turned around and rolled his eyes so dramatically that even Tuyet smiled.

“Because there’s value in learning from all of your classmates,” said Klein. “We’ll mix things up in future sessions. Now, let’s get started.”

Their first assignments popped up, and the whole class burst into chatter.

“VANDY!” shouted Haoyu, waving at her excitedly.

“I’ve got Max,” said Lexi.

“It’s me and Olive.” Tuyet was swiping at her interface. “That’s good. She’s nice.”

Olive looked less than thrilled.

Alden hadn’t been assigned an opponent yet, so he jogged toward the practice area.

“WALK, ALDEN!”

He halted and then waved at Klein in acknowledgment. Marsha passed by him, irritation apparent in her every stride. Her polearm, in glaive mode, was propped on one shoulder, looking as deadly as usual. And Jupiter was trotting beside her, carrying a single, fist-sized cactus in a pot.

Is she going to fight with that? Alden wondered. It was a cactus, but it was so petite compared to her usual choices. Maybe it wouldn’t be bad to fight her since she didn’t bring a whole hedge or a tree with her.

“These were almost free because the store flooded,” Jupiter said to Marsha. “I brought forty of them.”

Never mind. She’s planning to be a cactus pitching machine. But that’s still not as bad as some of her other options. If she only sent a few at a time…

Marsha turned around to glare back at the pairs who were starting their duels. “It’s not fair. Maybe there’s value in fighting some of the A’s. But for most of them? For this kind of dueling? I might as well chop wood.”

Max and I are so invisible to her she’s not even mentioning our rank.

Alden wanted to do a Haoyu-style eye roll at her, but he held back the impulse. He needed to focus on what he’d be doing today.

When he reached the practice area, he claimed a spot for himself where he didn’t think he’d be in anyone else’s way, dropped his duffel bag on the floor, and bent to search through it. He was way less prepared than usual. His internal clock was confused, he smelled like one of the soaps he’d bathed with at the cottage, and his combat plans were currently all the same ideas he’d had before the obstacle course last week.

On top of that, he had no idea who he’d be up against.

I’m allowed to have string or rope, something to weight the ends, the elemental bags if I want them, and my temper spheres.

Too bad he was fighting Avowed instead of Jatontan pests.

With a restriction on running, and if it’s just me versus one of them…what do I want to practice?

Today, the dueling blocks were going to be empty rooms of varying sizes. No obstacles of any kind for him to work with or hide behind.

Alden started examining the other people in the class one by one. I can’t plan something that would be good versus everyone. Maybe I should just guess and plan with one of them in mind? Hope whatever I come up with transfers to the others?

Heloísa.

Jupiter.

Reinhard.

Reinhard?

Okay. Him.

I owe him back for combat assessment anyway. Let’s figure out a way to beat Reinhard. I’ll boldly feed him to victory, instead of going for a tie.

Nothing in Alden’s bag of supplies was really screaming victory, though.

Not dying did seem doable. Partly because of Reinhard’s personality. He probably wouldn’t fire his strongest shot at Alden. Power built up in his bow every time he hit his target and then he sacrificed that magic all in one go for a big one.

But he would be conservative with the big ones because he wanted to shoot the strongest members of the class with them. Not the Rabbit. If he killed Alden that way and then got assigned to duel one of the S’s immediately afterward, he wouldn’t be happy.

He would absolutely take a draw against me and use me to build up steam so that he could try to beat someone he respected more.

Snatching an arrow out of the air with his skill then firing it back at Reinhard would be the coolest option.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

We’re not there yet even with the wordchain. Save that for last ditch efforts.

Ten minutes later, when his turn came, Alden had made a plan.

Can I call it that? It’s not really good enough to be a plan. It’s a theory about how I could attack Reinhard if I had nothing but lots of string for a weapon. No, not even a theory. It’s a notion we’re going to try.

And…oh boy, look who I’m fighting with my notion.

 

[Dueling Block 3]

[Opponent: Jeffy, Aquatic Brute – S]

[Incapacitate your opponent.]

[Kills: Allowed]

 

He only had one minute to get into position, so he thanked Jupiter for being his entruster, picked up his notion, and speed walked toward the block with it.

“Alden,” Instructor Marion said, looking up to take in his weapon of choice as he passed. The Engaging with the Unexpected Teacher had his brown hair pulled back in its usual low ponytail.

“It didn’t take long to make,” said Alden, worried he was about to be told that his creation was too much of a creation. “I could manage it in…not an emergency maybe. But in an urgency, it would be doable.”

“I was just going to tell you to be mindful of your injuries,” Marion said. He was still staring at the archer-defeating basket Alden had made, though.

The quick birdnest shield method—just take all the ribbon, paracord, fishing line, and other lightweight string you’d brought and then scramble it into a pile of the desired size and shape before preserving. No tying, minimal fiddling around. If you had a little extra time, you could make sure there were no large gaps, and if you had a convenient largish object handy—like the mounds of elemental bags in the practice area—you could drape your scramble over it and make an easy basket shape.

Then you could give it a long handle and preserve the whole situation.

The basket was around the size of a pair of small sofas stacked on top of each other. The handle was nylon webbing about six yards long that Alden was currently holding much closer to the “basket” part than the tip, because it was too unwieldy.