“Have you before?”
“What? Been to bed with someone? That’s a personal question, innit?”
“We’re on the subject, ain’t we?”
She pondered a second. “Fair. Yeah, I have. Thrice.”
“Three times?”
“Three people, you goober. I’m guessing you have once, didn’t like it? Oh, was it with Cherry?”
“Nah, I— What? Oh gods, no.”
“No, no. If you did with her, you woulda liked it.”
“No, I— Hey, how do you know that?”
“Cause she’s amazing in bed.” He rose an eyebrow at her. “Not that I know from personal experience. Well, I mean, sorta, ‘cause I’ve seen a lot of the boys she’s taken to bed. Seen a few whilst in bed. Heard a lot of ‘em. They all sound very satisfied, and they all come back.”
“Fair. No, I never have, with her or otherwise.”
“Ah. Cool. How do you know you don’t want to, though, if you never tried it?”
“I just don’t want to.”
“I don’t really crave it either, but I enjoy it.”
“Oh, I might enjoy it, but the thought seems… unsavory to me. It bothers me.”
“That’s fine. You consider if you’re gay?”
“I have, but I’ve never felt emotional attraction to a man. I have to numerous women.”
“Totally fair.” She smiled, sipping her tea between bites.
“Also, going back to your previous offer, it’s a bit presumptuous of you to think that I’m enamored enough with you to want to bed you.”
She stared at him for a few seconds. “I’m raising my eyebrow at you. You probably can’t tell. And please, I know you adore me. Everyone does. If I wasn’t impressing you, you probably wouldn’t have told me.”
“Oh really?”
“Yeah. Next date we’re on, I’m getting something bloody, though. It just tastes wrong cooked.”
“You know the raw meat you get doesn’t ac-”
“Yes, I know that it’s not actually blood. It’s just what you say. Come on. No reaction? I just gave you a second date.”
He looked at her, not quite confusedly, not quite knowingly, with more expectancy than hubris. “I had a feeling you would.”
“Oh yeah?”
“You’re enjoying yourself. After all, you know I adore you.”
“Oh, I called it, huh?”
“Did you?”
They stared into each other’s eyes for at least a full minute before she smirked and stood. “Come on, we’ll miss the play.”
“We’re going to a play?”
“Yeah, a troupe is in town. They’re doing the ‘Ballad of Darcy Hawf: Necromancer.’ Come on, man!” She grabbed his hand and dragged him out of his seat. He allowed this to happen, levitating himself ever so slightly to make the dragging easier.
Turn 1554 of the third age
Mid-Winter, 5 Turns Later
Chapter 22: The Constructs
The City of Kandra, Octavian Prefecture
"So wait, Professor. Why’s Obla Grada the capitol of both the Constructs and the Atroks? That seems like a weird pairing.”
“Well actually, the Atroks invented the Constructs. An engineer by the name of Chima was known for his arcane prowess, specifically in telekinetic enchanting. He designed a regular enchantment for essentially a custom highly-articulated piece of armor to act as a prosthetic limb. His is best known because it worked most efficiently with the least effort. His enchantment is still used due to its resilience to decay, the lack of any sort of lag, and how utterly natural it feels.
“Anyone around here use telekinesis to pick up a ball and fling it around?” A chorus of barely attentive students responded in completely incomprehensible syllables. “Then you’d know how tasking it is on the brain. Rather than the effort of moving your hand from your pocket to your head to scratch an itch, it’s more like the effort of drawing a tightly wound bow and aiming it about. It’s awkward and grates on the muscles.
“Chima’s enchantment was the first to truly make a piece of armor feel like a limb. He would attach his highly articulate metal plates onto a man who had lost an arm or leg, fill the plate limb with wood for rigidity and weight and straw for flexibility and a form of texture, as well as a dull form of sensory feedback. When he enchanted it, it would effectively act as their previous limb did, offering dulled feedback and some weight and drag that took getting used to. Ultimately, he did it better than anyone.
“However, he took it a step further. He took a whole suit, set the whole thing up as a practical prosthetic man and tried to bring it to life. Ultimately, he never finished the project. His protégé, Kilikar of Clan Dreadmist, compiled his notes and successfully brought a Construct to life from a donated soul-in-a-jar.”
A hand shot out of the crowd eagerly, and when called upon, she was surprised to find a Construct to be the owner of the hand, modeled after Northman biology, an uncommon feature. The artificial being was forged in the image of a woman, featuring a slenderer facial design, an obvious protruding chest, and the general dimorphic traits of a female Northman.
She was forged in silver metal outlined with black, forming a truly artistic skin for the constructed lady. The thinnest of copper wires poured down from her head, emulating hair but keeping with the metal motif.
“I’ve actually always been curious about the construction of my kind.” The woman of metal spoke with a radiant voice that echoed through the room and into the ears of everyone around. It was pleasant and ethereal, almost unreal; undoubtedly directional, obviously coming from her, but spoken effortlessly as though from the mouth of a born public speaker. “Please, if you don’t mind, could you... go into more detail?”
Tab smiled, trying to hold back an emotional response beyond a casual smirk. Never before had she seen a Construct in one of her classes, and to see one here, in an establishment dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge, warmed her heart. Beyond even that, this was one in this class, learning more about the world, and to see her stand up proud and ask for insight into her own creation, knowledge she was never given...
Aw, fuck it. I have Atrok material to cover, but for her? Special occasion.
“Well, Miss...” She raised an eyebrow expectantly.
“Anneal.”
“Miss Anneal, as I said, the majority of Constructs are born through a ritual utilizing a soul-in-a-jar, typically donated from an arcane academy or any gathering place of sorcerers. These are pure life-force taken from a living host, usually a convict sentenced to death, or a willing person close to death. The energy inside these jars consists of pure life magic pulled from someone alive at the time, a process through which they die.
“It’s called a ‘Soul in a Jar’ because it’s common belief that the life energy taken is the person’s ‘soul,’ since they die in the end, and it can be used to inspire birth, literally in the way of Constructs, intellectually by way of familiars. This fact is disputed by many, some claiming that the simple fact that so much life energy is gained in this process that the ‘awakening’ of familiars or Constructs occurs due to sheer magnitude of arcane energy. Which is true? We’re not sure, though I tend to err on the side of souls due to sheer lack of research and evidence to the contrary.”
“So we can only be born from the ‘soul,’” she emphasized the word and marked it with air quotes, “of an existing biological being? While the natural species can procreate, Constructs can only be born through the death of another?”
“It sounds horribly dour when you phrase it that way, but yes, essentially. That’s why many towns turn away your kin, calling them ‘abominations.’ There’s still to this dess much controversy, some going as far as to call the awakening of a Construct a form of necromancy, likening it to bringing a man back t
o life as a zombie.”
“That’s not possible, right?” A random Milaric to her side spouted.
“Correct. A dead man is dead, and if he’s brought back, it’s within a matter of minutes and he’s as he was. The undead are figments of myth and fantasy.”
“So, what, the stories of The Necromancer Darcy Hawf are just…” a timid student from near the center said.
“Stories, yes. It’s a popular myth that gained popularity when a large acting troupe started doing it in play form. Besides, looking at the era it took place, it was thousands of turns before magic ever came to the world.”
“I got questions on that, though.” A Nojerna woman spoke up in the front row. “According to their sources, which come from some repute and writings from the area, the time that she would have lived is actually the same timeframe that Chima’s design was perfected and Constructs were first made, which is a distinctly magical process.”
“Actually,” Tabitha broke in, “that’s roughly the same period that constructs were first concieved. Notes were written with ideas for artificial beings, called ‘Golems’ back then, but they weren’t perfected until Kilikar made the first, which was less than two thousand turns ago.” The student’s face scrunched up in frustration and started to interject.
“That,” she blurted, cutting off the student, “however, is a subject for another time. Ultimately, it’s entirely up in the air how the whole construct birthing process works. The leading analytical sorcerers are studying the birth of Constructs, the ritual to create souls in jars, the souls in jars themselves, and how the entire process works. Like many old technologies, we have found how to put it to use, but the logistics are still beyond us. Chima and Kilikar put together an incredibly complex ritual spell, and scholars are still picking it apart.
“All we know is Constructs are the only manmade species, and the only sentient species unable to procreate naturally, and the only kind to be born through sacrifice. Personally, I find the Construct species to be fascinating, as we’re learning more about them every moment. And Miss Anneal, I’m so glad to see you here. We don’t find many Constructs this far north, and I’ve never had the pleasure of seeing one in my classes.
“Now everyone, it’s getting to be the end of class, and I want all of you to walk out of here with at least one thing in your mind. I only bring this up because I’ve seen way too many nasty things slung about in the world, in this academy, and even in my own classrooms. We study many sentient species in this class, some more familiar than others, some stranger. None of these people we study are anything less than people. Whether Rilarians, Sheduvians, Constructs, or anything else, we are all people, all intelligent, and all of equal footing. Just because we don’t know their customs, their biology, or even sometimes their aesthetics or way of life does not make them anything less than we are.
“The Constructs are manmade, but everyone is a living person capable of intelligence, happiness, fear, anger, and depression. If I ever see any of you treat one of your fellow men any less by the species they belong to, so help me I will do something about it. I don’t stand for it. Dismissed.”
Chapter 23: Pushing the Boundaries
Greater Voorhaven Township, Fellblade Prefecture
There was only one test left. One fix, and it would finally be over. Tremendous progress had been made over the last few dozen turns, and now her nightmare was almost over. She slammed back a full vial of a black, viscous fluid, waited a few minutes, then called her sister into the room.
Ani popped her head in the door in usual fashion. “What’s up, sis?”
“Need your eyes. Get back here.”
Ani quizzically obeyed as Lea whirled around in her chair and looked her dead in the eyes. “So, what am I doing?”
“Giving me sight. Literally.”
“Wait, what?”
“Can’t look behind my own back. Need your vantage point.”
Lea realized her speech pattern still held, all her words were still short and concise despite her vocal chords being almost completely repaired. Her voice has long since ceased to strain or hurt whatsoever. Still, her vocabulary was well trained by the pain, and her natural voice seemed to still have a gravelly texture, something she figured would never really go away.
“Oh— Okay.” Lea reached up and put her hands on her sister’s head as a bright pink light shot out of her hands and into Ani’s head, which eventually pulsed into a deep blood red. She then spun back around as Ani stared at her sister who was now removing her shirt.
Thanks to this careful enchantment she’d spent so much time devising, with a bit of a blend of telekinesis and divination, she’d found a way to see through another’s eyes. Only from her eyes did Lea notice that she was looking a noticeably better as of late. There was obvious muscle in her arms, she wasn’t painfully skinny anymore, and practically all of the lesions that plagued her were gone. The only thing left was her posture... Well, that and a nice tan, but one thing at a time, she thought.
“Stay there, stare at my back. Intently.” She put her hands together and began to cast. A dull grey light pulsed between them as she formed a ball with her hands. Dull threads of arcane energy danced out of the runes as her veins began to glow. When she had a nice swirling ball going, she wrenched her hands apart and reached behind her over her head. The treads formed an ovular spheroid before she took control of them individually. She sent all of them in at the base of her neck, just under her hairline, then curved them to follow her spine all the way down.
When her tendrils were in place, she had each one latch on tight and shove her spine straight, fixing her posture in one swift shift of grip. An agonizing scream ripped out of her throat for what felt like an eternity. Focus, Lea. Focus. Fix. Fix it. Fix it now.
She dissipated the tendrils and formed new deep green ones that immediately began swirling around her spine, repairing damaged nerve endings, stemming internal bleeding, molding the vertebrae to fit together better, then fixing misplaced bones, organs, and other internal workings to account for this new change.
Half a cent passed as the whisps repaired and her sister occasionally injected potions, at one point requiring a spinal tap, making her thankful her sister had steady hands. Once those fifty minutes had passed, the tendrils finally dissipated into the air. She tilted her neck back and forth as a series of loud pops shot out, then more followed as she twisted her back in her chair, which promptly spun around as she stared at her sister. “I did it.”
“Is... Is it done?”
In response, Lea brought her hands together, one glowing a pale white, the other the same dull grey as before. As she flipped her palms up, she floated into the air, over her desk, and out the door. Ani ran after her.
The front door swung open as Lea floated outside into the unusually warm winter night, though with the adrenaline pumping through her system, it could have been negative twenty and she wouldn’t have noticed. She swung herself around in a circle before dropping into a pile of snow, spreading her arms out wide and attempting to stretch what she had left of her legs. Sitting up, she smiled at Ani. A real, genuine, gleeful smile. “I’m cured, Ani. It’s fucking gone.”
Ani fell over backwards as Lea launched herself out of the snow, arcanely-controlled air carrying her into a tackle-hug. “It’s gone, Ani. It’s gone! The sickness! I’m healthy! I can breathe, talk, work out, cast with force, run around, join yo- Oh yeah.” She looked dejectedly at her legs. “It got one fucking trophy. One thing I can’t just grow back.”
“We’ll work something out. All else failing, girl, just do your magicy thing.”
“Yeah, try walking around holding a twenty kilo barbell in front of you, and walk into town and back. That’s what that’s like.”
“Oh. You can... sit a lot?”
“Shut up so I can enjoy this.” She grinned and hugge
d her sister tight. “Look at all this I’ve done. I’ve conquered the disease as a whole, I’ve repaired muscle, restored sight, rebuilt a spinal structure, fixed deaf ears, healed failing lungs and a ragged larynx, look at that all! I could be the best damn cleric in the world, Ani! The first real doctor who doesn’t sap power from the gods!”
“I thought you didn’t believe in holy magic.”
“I don’t, but the masses do! Imagine if I could fix people with broken limbs in a heartbeat, completely repair limbs that haven’t been usable for dozens of turns, heal whatever ailed them, and all without calling upon the gods for help. What an image! What a sight! People would see that mortals are powerful enough to fend for ourselves!”
“Are you still mortal, Lea?”
She looked deep into her sister’s eyes and pondered the question for a good minute before responding. “I... don’t know. I can repair any physical ailment, fix failing eyes or ears, degenerative muscles and limbs, I can sure as hell fix sagging skin. I’m... I’m not sure if I have to age anymore. Anixemeter, you’re brilliant! And not just me, I can keep everyone young! I can teach people my ways. I could be the mother of immortality!”
“Lea. Calm down. You sound like a mad scientist.”
“Mad? Ani, I’m fucking elated. My eyes are opened for the first time in my life. I can meet my goals in life, I can do good, I can accomplish everything I’ve ever dreamed!”
“Not quite everything.”
“Try me!”
“You can’t turn Amber into a wyvern.” Ani smiled at her as she raced circles in the air, only to have her stop and face her earnestly.
“Like hell I can’t.”
The rabbit, sitting on the porch by the ajar door, looked at her as her mind was filled with dejectedness, offendedness, and shock.
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