by Sarah Lin
"We need a duel to resolve the insults we've suffered," Esaire finally said, "but you're quite right. The Armeau family has been ungracious hosts today, forgetting the weaknesses of foreigners. Let's resolve things with a simple duel... one first tier soulcrafter against yours, to simple surrender."
Though Delarde didn't look happy about that, he retreated when Esaire glanced at him. Nauda remained where she stood, glaring back at them. It looked as though Hauloe wanted to tear her eyes out, but fighting again would reflect poorly on her. Theo had forgotten that detail... dueling occasionally was considered the height of culture, but too many duels rendered one a brute.
So in the end, a young Deuxan woman was chosen to step into the circle. She wasn't a nominal soulcrafter, judging from her reasonably built soulhome. Nauda knelt to pull her pack off her shoulders, shooting a glance at Theo, so he bent down beside her.
"Will a duel really get us out of this?" she whispered. "I... don't think I like this place."
"I think they'll stick to the terms. Just win without seriously injuring her."
Though a hard glint emerged in Nauda's eyes as she rose, Theo thought he could trust her to handle the situation effectively. After seeing Fiyu fight, he didn't doubt that he could trust her in a different way, but he needed to be careful, or she'd be a liability to herself and others.
Nauda walked into the circle carrying her staff in one hand and the broken fork from her old armament in the other. It got a few odd looks, and the other Tatian woman tried to mock it, but the group was too shaken up for laughter. Esaire glanced at Theo, who simply nodded to defer back to him, then he signaled the start of the match.
Immediately the Deuxan woman drew a narrow sword and lunged forward, aiming to finish the battle in a single thrust. Nauda deflected it with one end of her staff, then shoved the other end of her weapon at her opponent's face. It missed... but the other woman froze, bound by Nauda's technique.
Yet Theo instantly knew that things weren't quite right. Nauda could bind people in place powerfully - he'd felt it himself in training - but she must be struggling to use the technique with the new staff, because her opponent was working her way free. The Deuxan woman flooded more cantae through her body and whipped her sword up again.
She should have retreated. Nauda bashed the weapon aside with her staff and then thrust with the broken fork, directly at her opponent's neck. This time, the woman froze in place, and Nauda didn't let up, driving her opponent back to the ground and pinning her with the tines of the fork around her neck.
"Enough of this!" Delarde struck from the side, and though Theo started to raise a hand, he wasn't fast enough to keep up with an Archcrafter.
When Delarde's fist struck Nauda's arm, the loud crack left no doubt that something had broken. But though Nauda grimaced in pain and her staff clattered to the ground, her other hand remained firm, gripping the fork around the fallen woman's neck. She briefly glanced toward Theo, but returned to staring at Delarde, who looked frustrated that she hadn't collapsed.
"Take the bloodprice for your arm." He reached into his cloak and tossed a small sack onto the ground, then snorted and turned away. "This isn't worth my time."
Silence stretched over the group, laughter now long gone. Theo forced a careless grin and glanced over to Esaire. "That makes one victory and one loss for each of us. I'd say that's a good enough day, wouldn't you?"
"Yes, perhaps so." Esaire glanced at Nauda more thoughtfully, but his gaze soon returned to Theo. "It seems that foreign Tatians are formidable, if a bit rough around the edges."
Before he could say any more, Hauloe moved up beside him and pulled him away. "Just a barbarian, Esaire. Come this way and don't give her another thought..."
Esaire resisted her efforts to pull him, still focused on Theo. "What's your name, stranger?"
"Bartolo aina Fithe." Theo gave a sharp bow, though the Fithan military stance was probably wasted on them. "We don't plan to stay in your city long, so forgive us if we take our victory and avoid a rematch." That should have been an olive branch, letting their family salvage plenty of respect, but Esaire shook his head.
"Oh, that's a pity." He gave a theatrical shrug, but its intention was obvious. "You see, the Armeau family is always looking for talented outsiders to assist us in the great hunt. If fate leaves you in Anguedan longer than you expect... perhaps we'll meet again."
With that, he gestured to his group and led them away. Some of them were limping and their good mood was broken, but Theo couldn't feel that it was a victory. He'd exposed himself to attention, Nauda had a broken arm, and Fiyu still huddled unhappily behind them. Even if he'd consciously chosen to make what might have been a minor mistake, it didn't feel good.
"Well, this could be a problem." Nauda gingerly tested her hanging arm and winced. "We can splint it, but I don't know if we can afford a healer."
"That's what the bloodprice is for." Theo walked over and reached down to the sack, testing the weight. It seemed to contain more than the price he'd been given for an arm, no doubt as a token of scorn.
"What is that?" Fiyu finally looked up, and though she was far from happy, he thought that she had recovered from her shock.
"On Deuxan, soulcrafters can duel to the death, but there are monetary penalties for injuring or killing anyone of a lower tier, increasing with the distance between them. An Archcrafter breaking a first tier's arm is a small sum, but it would be far more to break the arm of an ordinary person. Each country and city has slightly different laws and specific bloodprices, but they all have some, otherwise too many people would end up dead."
"I understand now." Fiyu rose to her feet, but remained some distance from them, probably wanting pure isolation. Meanwhile, Nauda walked closer with a grim expression.
"But there's just a price? That means if a family is wealthy enough, they can just... pay to kill someone? Are there no laws?"
"Beyond what's agreed upon in a region, there are only courts and disputes. Technically any peasant can bring a case against the most powerful of families, but you can imagine how effective that actually is in practice. Their best defense is that the world needs them to grow food and maintain everything."
Nauda snorted and shook her hair as if she could shake off the encounter. "Come on, let's find a place to rest. Before we step on someone's beloved cobblestone and begin a feud lasting a thousand generations."
As they carefully made their way to an inn, Theo got the full story from them. He was able to piece together several other details as well, such as that the local Tatian family was trying to acquire legitimacy from the Armeau family. There had been no warmth between Esaire and Hauloe, but that meant nothing; it could just as easily be a courtship or a simple alliance. With a few exceptions like Brigana, Deuxan wasn't a very passionate place.
"What about the name?" Nauda finally asked. "I introduced myself as from Tatian and that was what really made her angry. Was that just an excuse?"
"I'm guessing you said 'Nauda ai Tatian' when you should have said 'Nauda aina Tatian'." He paused for a moment, since the words had automatically come out correctly and he needed to focus to control the soul translation. "The first one means a specific family, and the local Tatians seem to have taken the entire world for their name. If you say 'aina' it just means you're from a location without claiming a family."
"One syllable?" Nauda stared at him, believing and wishing that she didn't. "We got into a fight and people almost died over one syllable?"
"Welcome to Deuxan."
Though Theo said it carelessly, as they continued to their hostel, he found his steps coming heavier and heavier. It felt like so long ago that he had first visited Deuxan and learned all of their complex rules. At the time, it had been a whirlwind of court politics and duels, striking against rivals and eventually earning Brigana as an ally. Throughout his time on Tatian, part of him had been looking forward to reaching a more complicated world.
Now that he was in a Deuxan court, it all se
emed petty and childish. He knew this might not be the end, and they needed to prepare, but all Theo could think about was what this meant for him. One world at a time, the joy seemed to be draining out of his return...
Chapter 14
Theo returned to the inn bearing some food in his arms and many issues in his mind. Though he remained alert for potential retaliation or further feuds, in the morning before the sun rose, the streets of Anguedan were mostly empty. He remembered most Deuxan courts held events late into the night, and rising early was unfashionable, so he thought it was the safest time to do errands.
Unfortunately, he wasn't early enough to avoid Senka, who now trotted at his heels. "Hey. Hey. Hey, what do ya got there? Is it for Senka?"
"No." He pulled up the sack just before she managed to latch onto it, leaving her flailing in the air. "If you want us to feed you, you need to be useless less often."
"Senka can't fight a bunch of big fumpets!"
It was true, but he wasn't in the mood for nuance that morning. Theo growled low in his throat and walked faster, but despite her tiny legs she managed to keep up.
"Hey. Hey, how'd you make all the fumpets float? That was sporping neat!"
"Who are you again?"
"Senka is Senka!"
"Right. I made them float by making them float."
"Hey!" Senka tried to run after him, but as soon as they got off the street he neutralized her gravity and left her flipping awkwardly in the air. The field would wear off before she drifted too far, and by that time he could be inside their room with the door closed. Probably the windows too, and he should check for any cracks she might squeeze into.
Inside, he found Nauda sleeping, her arm positioned very carefully in its sling. Fiyu sat on the other bed with a blanket partially over her, somber but not obviously miserable. He should have known that she would be awake, given that this time of day was most pleasant for her.
"Are you alright?" He barely whispered as he handed her a piece of Deuxan bread. She took it with both hands and nibbled a little before answering.
"I am well, Theo. You do not need to protect me."
Theo carefully sat down on the bed beside her, keeping his eyes on the small sliver of the city they could see through the window. "I wish that I could do more. Perhaps we could improve your window so that sounds aren't so traumatic for you."
"The flaw wasn't in the technique." Fiyu chewed for a while before swallowing and speaking even more quietly. "I wasn't prepared for them to say such things. I would only speak that way to someone I truly hated, or during a war. If they truly use such words every day here..."
"I'm sorry to tell you, but I'm afraid your world is the odd one out. In most places I've visited, people aren't nearly so cautious with their words."
Because Fiyu simply nodded and returned to eating, he stood up and moved to an empty corner of the room to soulcraft. She seemed to be fine, she just needed more time to digest the experience. He hadn't expected it to be so traumatic for her, but he realized that the other Ichili he knew had been at least somewhat familiar with other worlds. Fiyu was being thrown into alien environments with a powerful soulhome and no social preparation whatsoever.
Though he set to work carving the walls of his torsion chamber, Theo's thoughts shifted to his core and overall soulhome design. His gravitational fields were effective, but still extremely limited compared to what he hoped to soulcraft. The problem was that gravity simply wasn't a very powerful force, not at the levels of power he could generate. No matter his skill, first tier soulcrafters couldn't create massive effects in reality.
Over time, he'd feed more sublime materials into his singularity and ascend to more intense cantae, but those weren't effective options in the short term. No, he needed to refine his basic design in a way that would ascend along with him in the future.
As he worked, he slowly came to the realization that he hadn't entirely overcome the ideas of his old soulhome blueprint. Many were relatively simple: one room for a fireball, another room for ice, one room to create a bigger fireball. But if his core concept was gravity, then it might be wrong to focus on specific techniques: he needed to create conceptual components that could be used together for other skills. They might be weaker in the short term, but when he connected those first floor rooms to the second tier, they'd create truly formidable techniques.
Thinking about his technique chambers as components entirely shifted his thinking, so he left the torsion room behind and moved to the new anti-gravity chamber. Anti-gravity... or perhaps the creation of "anti-mass". If he soulcrafted a fourth chamber that created normal mass, the combination of the two might have a stronger effect even at his first tier.
And if he did that, then he should think about his gravitational fields as enhancing or inverting gravity, while his torsion room would be manipulating its direction. Mass, anti-mass, intensity, and direction... between those four, he might actually gain a handle on an elemental force.
He'd only taken a chunk out of the soulcrafting he had to do before Nauda finally woke up. Though she gratefully accepted food from Fiyu, the look in her eyes suggested that she didn't want a leisurely breakfast. Theo finished the ridge he was working on and returned to the real world to face them.
"I know yesterday was difficult," Theo began, "but I still think remaining here is our best option for moving forward. According to my information, there are no other gates within months of travel. Nauda's gate to a hub city is still our best goal, and to get there, we need transportation."
"I don't disagree." Nauda's arm flinched as she sat forward, but she didn't let the pain reach her face. "I just want to plan better so we don't keep running into these problems."
"I can try to tell you more about Deuxan, especially now that I've learned all the local customs. But if we stay here, it's inevitable that we're going to be challenged to duels. The local court has a lot of young soulcrafters and they're eager to test themselves."
"We have 117 Silver Crowns." Fiyu raised a dark sack, having apparently gathered all the money he hadn't taken with him. "But we need over 2000 to purchase a high quality sleigh. How long would it take us to earn that much money?"
"It depends on how much work we can find," Nauda said. "The best jobs are only available to Archcrafters, even though they don't sound overly dangerous for us. If I can ascend, maybe I can take the two of you along with me."
"That would help... but we have expenses. How much is this inn?"
"It's worse than that." Theo gestured at Nauda's arm. "We'll need to pay for a healer so you can be useful, and that probably won't be the last time we need healing. In addition, we'll need sublime materials and other supplies. As I see it, we can sprint to cheap transport as quickly as possible, or build a stronger foundation and set our time schedule far back."
"I do not like this place," Fiyu offered. Nauda looked more thoughtful, then stretched her broken arm with a wince before speaking.
"I don't think there's any point hurrying into danger. No matter where we go, even Tatian, there will be people trying to use their strength against us. So I don't mind building for the long term... but I don't want to get enmeshed in the court politics here, much less end up staying here long term. I'm worried that the more we invest, the deeper we'll dig in here."
That was what Theo had been hoping, so he decided to cut in with his plan. "I propose a calculated risk. It might seem like a bit of a gamble, but by far our greatest chance for profit is the upcoming hunt, which is taking place in four months. For that time, we prepare ourselves for the hunt and future challenges as well as possible, then we acquire the money we need during the event."
Nauda frowned but didn't reject the idea out of hand. "The hunt isn't a noble event that will just get us embroiled in more conflicts?"
"It's a major cultural event, so I skipped the courts entirely and just asked the normal people. Apparently, throughout the year hunting any of the rainhorns is punishable by death, even as their population incr
eases and they eat crops. But eventually, the court announces the Great Rainhorn Hunt, and for a short time, killing them is permissible."
"The rainhorn could see us, but it wasn't strong." Fiyu looked between them, a bit of interest in her eyes. "I think we could hunt them effectively, but would opponents stand in our way?"
"Some, without question. You see, the number and quality of antlers that each house can collect during the hunt is a major part of their prestige in the coming year, and they use the antlers for their young soulcrafters. Technically anyone can take them... but it's far more profitable for independent soulcrafters to sell the antlers to houses. They're just sublime materials to us, but the houses are buying respect. It's actually like a second layer of the competition: which houses have the connections and wealth to purchase the most."
"I'm sure the numbers work out," Nauda said carefully, "but I don't like it politically. We might be able to earn money that way, but what if the houses decide to turn on us and just steal whatever we hunted?"
"It would be a scandal, but it's not impossible. That's why I suggest we do everything we can to prepare." Theo smiled and looked between them. "Remember, everyone will be watching. At times like these, every court family will be looking to insult their rivals, not kill them. If they do make any moves, it will most likely be kidnapping opposing soulcrafters for ransom."
Nauda stared at him for a time, then finally nodded. "The risk might be worth it. But I think you need to start telling us everything we've learned, starting with these bloodprices. If those are the rules they play by, I want to know exactly how much it would cost them to kill me."
Since the system was similar to his last visit, Theo had easily memorized the new bloodprices in a mental table and now recounted them to the others. Along the way, he did his best to explain every intricacy of Deuxan society that seemed to hold true, particularly ways to cause offense and the rules of dueling. He'd thought his first lesson had been sufficient, but he'd clearly been wrong.