by Dakota Krout
“Huzzah! I had hoped that you would take me under thine tutelage, but had thought the dream was only that. I am ready to begin my training forthwith, Master.” Tom stood from his seat, and bowed at Hans.
“No. Sit.” Hans barked at the man towering above him. Tom complied, making Hans laugh, “See? He takes well to training.” This prompted a round of chuckles from the group and a blush from Tom.
The meal ended, and Dale made his way to the Elven embassy. He arrived in front of the highly Runed building and asked to see Princess Brianna. After a short wait, he was ushered inside to find her lounging at her desk with a box in front of her.
“Finally remembered these, I assume?” Brianna laughed at Dale's reddening face. “We had a bet going to see when you would. I had said tomorrow, dang it. I’m down ten silver! All is well though, ready to learn some of the most highly kept secrets of earthen Essence?”
Dale nodded again, not trusting himself to speak without his excitement breaking his voice. Brianna pointed out the stone that contained the Royal cultivation technique, and he reached for that first. A better technique would allow him to gain ranks much faster. He touched the stone, and the cloth wrapping on his hand suddenly parted, grabbing the stone and binding it tight.
“Hey!” Dale yelled at his offending armor, “Give me that!” Obviously, the gauntlet didn’t respond. The cloth wrapped bulge remained perfectly still.
Brianna looked at his gauntlet seriously for the first time, “What in the world? Dale, can I see that gauntlet?”
“Sure.” He held up his hand for her to look at his new… weapon? Armor? She arched her brow at him and asked him to take it off and hand it to her. He tried to do so, but as soon as he started unwrapping the layers they tightened enough to stop the flow of blood in his arm.
“Ow!” He retracted his hand and the wraps loosened to their normal tightness. “That hasn’t happened before…” He muttered worriedly.
“You were able to take it off before?”
“Yes, I had tried it on my left hand but it didn’t fit. Then I took it off when I was wearing the robe…”
“When did you activate it? Before or after you took it off?”
With dawning horror, Dale realized what she meant. “I took it off before I activated it…”
Brianna nodded slowly, face far more pale than usual. “Dale, you are wearing a piece of cursed armor. I’ll send a report to the Spotters, but you should be careful with that. While very powerful, they tend to damage the person using them.”
“Of course they do.” Dale sighed, waving away her concerns. “So, I am down one stone already. Any way to take this off?”
Brianna reluctantly nodded, “A strong enough flesh Mage could remove it by… well. They basically need to skin your arm. They take the top layer of skin, and draw the whole construction off you. Very painful, and very expensive. Also, with those wraps… I am uncertain that would work, they may just wrap higher up your arm.”
“Destroying it maybe…?” Dale tried to sound hopeful, yet was very unconvincing.
“That carries a high risk of taking the arm, but is possible. You could also cut it off.” Brianna reassured him.
“…Yay. Let’s just do the other stones?” Dale reached for a memory stone, very intentionally using his left hand and pulled out one that had an earthy look to it.
He placed the stone against his head and was mesmerized as the memories of a powerful earth Essence user flowed into his mind. He watched as the Elf discovered how to use his own Essence, and how he pushed it out and looped it, forming the needed pattern in the earth and reabsorbing the Essence used, forming a continuous loop until the process was finished.
Dale knew with certainty that if he forgot to loop the Essence back to himself it would be gone forever, and he would need to re-cultivate it. This particular memory was only meant to teach him how to use a movement technique, but it did so much more since Dale had never used his earth Essence for anything but activating a weapon before. The memory taught him about affinity channels, the pathways that were open to allow a specific type of Essence to move along them. The Elf had the earthen affinity channel open fully, and fire open only partway.
Dale came out of the momentary trance he had fallen into, and did what anyone else would have. He tried to use the technique, looping out his Essence and allowing the earth itself to propel him along. Instead, his Essence rebounded against his aura, lashing back into his body and making his muscles spasm before — vindictively? — pushing the muscle aside and flowing into his meridians. Dale fell flat on his face while emitting a rather rude stream of expletives.
“Dale!” Brianna tried to admonish him while also trying very hard not to laugh. “Just because you know how to do it doesn’t mean you can. You need to practice that slowly! The Elf this came from was a master of earthen Essence, and had mastered this technique over years of experience.”
Dale groaned miserably, “I thought the whole point of memory stones was to be able to bypass that whole process…”
“No, they allow you to bypass the years of trial and error that go into creating the technique. You still need to practice it! There will be many failed attempts before you are able to use it at even a fraction of its strength.” Brianna looked at Dale's nonplussed face.
“Look, if you picked up a sword, it would take years to create a sword form, build muscle to wield it, and practice enough to use it casually; not to mention using it in combat. If you got a sword art memory stone you could bypass learning the forms and stances, but you would still need to build your own way of using it, muscle, and muscle memory. Get it?”
“I do, you are saying that this was not a pointless deal and I should be grateful that I don’t need to spend years twisting my Essence in the dirt to see if something happens.” Dale chuckled. “Fair enough, but… dang. I really wanted to try moving that fast.”
Brianna raised her eyebrow with a grin, “You know, if you had actually succeeded in using that technique, it likely would have broken the bones of whatever limb you had touching the ground. You weren’t properly braced and your legs would have flown forward while the rest of you stayed still for a moment. If you think about it, you got off rather lucky.”
“…I see.” Dale stammered as he tried to think of something to say. “How about I just use the next one? I think we are planning on going into the dungeon soon.” He reached for the third stone, laying it carefully against his forehead. Memories of decade-long research flashed by. Dale saw - was - the Elf, who created this stone. He remembered practicing by moving stones one at a time, moving on to making earth crumble at a touch, till finally learning and using the technique mastered in his old age... as he smashed Dwarven defenses from a distance, collapsing a mountain during a war.
Dale looked up finally, tears shining in his eyes. “Brianna,” he gasped, “there has never been emotion in a memory stone before this! Why? The Elf felt nothing but horror for the technique he had made! Why would you give me this without warning?! Why would you ever use this technique again?”
Brianna patted him on the arm, “Most people that make memory stones work hard to send along only the dry information. The Elf who mastered this technique was one of the greatest stone Mages in our history, and he thought that there should never be knowledge of how to destroy. At least, not without a deep insight into the horror that came with it.”
“Is there a reason I was given this stone?” Dale demanded, trying to shake off the feeling of killing a city, not an easy feat. They were now his memories, he may as well have actually been there doing the deed himself.
Brianna gave a weak grin, “Well… It is well known that this Elf makes stones that pass along his emotional state, so…”
“No one else wanted it, did they?” Dale cut her off.
“Pretty much. It is very powerful though, and should have given you techniques to use to build up strength until you can use the mastered version.” Brianna informed him.
“
It did, but I can see why no one wanted to use it. Very sneaky of you. Look, I need to get going but we will talk later?” Dale started marching out of the room.
“Hold a moment? You have no armor and a new weapon that you have not trained with. Are you sure jumping into the dungeon is a great idea?” Brianna questioned him.
“Nah, it is a terrible idea. I’m doing it anyway. I’ll see you later.”
~Twelve~
Dani groaned as the mad woman covered in mushrooms threw herself at yet another Basher. It seemed that the lady was filled with an unhealthy rage; anytime she saw movement she ran at it screaming, attacking with her bare hands or anything else that she could find. After she killed whatever she attacked, she seemed to get her mind back, at least partly. She would alternate weeping and searching through small treasure chests. Already she had found a sharp dagger and armor for her legs, which is all she needed to fight successfully against the waves of Bashers.
“It just doesn’t make sense! She is, what, F-rank five? There is no way she should be fighting all of those herself and surviving!” Dani despairingly groaned again.
“The Distortion Cat?” She spoke after a few moments. “You think those are parasites like the tentacles were?”
I assured her.
Dani tried to focus on other things, but I could hear her muttering every few minutes. Finally, something changed. “Look! A group is coming closer to her! Okay… they see her, she is just crying right now. They look concerned… oh, dear.” They had gotten close to the near-nude woman and touched her bare shoulder. The woman gave a bestial snarl, turning and plunging her dagger into the neck of the man beside her. Howling, she ran at the other shocked members and was able to stab one to death before the others stopped seeing her as a human and began to see her as a monster. She was cut down in moments, and I waited to examine her pattern.
“What do you mean, ‘nothing’? Obviously something happened there.” Dani responded angrily.
I was very confused.
“Smart. How about…”
“O-o-of course we will.” Dani muttered. “I rescind my ‘smart’ comment.”
“You gave me a cursed weapon! No, I am not doing alright!” Dale thought at me furiously.
“My point is that it is apparently killing me slowly, and stealing my stuff!”
He definitely seemed a bit out of sorts.
Dale paused in his rampage, the massacre of small furry animals slowing for a moment. “Wait, you actually gave me something helpful? Did you intend for it to steal from me?”
I had no idea what he was talking about, so I looked closer at his arm. There was indeed a bulge in the armor that hadn’t been there before.
“Oh, gee, thanks.” Dale thought at me wryly, but now his face wasn’t a mask of fury. Instead he seemed contemplative.
I wanted to know what his armor had hidden, so when he gave a particularly wild swing I gave a mental command to the wrap to release. To my surprise, it did! A shining Core flew across the room, shattering against a stony crenellation. I felt as a small burst of Essence was released, though it felt… different. It reached me, and my mind expanded.
I watched in silent awe — through eyes that were not my own — as hundreds of Elves sat in an ancient dungeon, meditating. I saw them all change the way they drew in Essence. Hundreds of patterns of fractals changed from one moment to the next as every feasible possibility was attempted. The memory sped up, and a time period of decades passed in mere moments. I felt the frustration of the stones creator as he worked day after day with no noticeable effect.
In disgust, the Elf pushed away his fractal, and to his amazement Essence suddenly flooded him. Another decade passed as he toyed with this new concept, altering the flow one tiny bit at a time. The final pattern, the fractal he found to be the very best, stayed in his mind as he ran off to explain his new cultivation technique. Slowly, the memory faded away.
“What is it Cal?” Dani tore her thoughts away from another group gathering herbs in the garden room.
“You have what?! You thieving bast-”
I focused inward, taking the fractal within my Core and slowing it. As the flow of Essence lessened, I pushed with my willpower. The fractal rolled and split into damaged Chi threads. I grasped each of the threads and pushed, over and over. Soon, instead of a flat fractal that spanned my Core, I had an intricate sphere of fractals. The detail of it was mind-boggling; the quantity of fractals as numerous as the grains of sand in my walls.
When I was certain that I could hold the pattern without too much effort, it was nighttime and most of the population had retired for sleep or other assorted activities. The third floor was absolutely stuffed full of loose Essence; I had not used any nor cultivated for nearly half a day.
“Hmm? Yeah, welcome back. Everything working out for you?” Dani sleepily murmured at me.
“What. The. Abyss.” Dani gasped. “If I notice a difference?! What the heck was that? It sounded like the mountain was collapsing!”
r level’ cultivation technique. It looks like it took about a century to create and a decade or so to refine into its current form.> I told her cheerfully.
“You set it up in only a few hours? How?” Dani demanded in excitement.
She stared for nearly ten minutes- almost giving up — when she had a breakthrough. “Cal! Is that… the same…? That is the same pattern as a Wisp!” She gasped in fear and amazement.
Dani seemed dazed, the information a huge shock. The history of Wisps and how they came to be was one of their races greatest sought after secrets. This information was a huge leap forward to her knowledge, and she felt like she could be the first of her kind to learn why they existed and how they came to be. “Cal… this is huge. You have no idea.”
“Uh… well I suppose. Usually, moving into D-six requires you to learn how to store your Essence in your aura — further strengthening your body and such — but this will work just as well. You will certainly need to know by the time you break into the C-rankings, but I think that you can probably break through your barriers to advancement right now. Cultivate away!”