Adamant Blood

Mark, currently having his mind blown yet again, sat across from Elaria Valen, who was rather nonchalant about the whole experience

They were in the middle of the Understanding building. Reeni Thumb had stepped out from behind some cleaner plants a little bit ago, and though she looked this way and her vector was halfway pointed this way, mostly she was nibbling from the large buffet that Rekaro's people were still setting up.

Quark sat on a floating adamantium orb, right beside Mark's shoulder, still inhabiting the adamantium skeleton Mark had made for him.

"Oh yeah," Elaria said, waving a hand. "There are AI assisted rituals with millions of hands and other various spellworks happening all the time in any established city. More than just Sigaldry, too. It's easy these days to protect a city with rituals, and that's not even touching on Castellan. Used to be a lot harder. We used to have grand halls in Crytalis with thousands of singers, signers, and ritualists of all kinds, working ritual magic all the time. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. If they ever stopped we'd all die, so we ran tens of such singing halls all the time, all across every city. And then the Reveal happened and one of the greatest losses of life on Daihoon was not only due the dragons all wanting a piece of the New-World-pie, and thus abandoning most of their posts, but a great many singing halls losing their harmony due to disruption in the ranks."

Mark softly said, "I had no idea. I just… I assumed that if I could do it then other people could do it a lot better, and I was… really right?"

Elaria nodded. "Very correct!"

Mark lost his train of thought as he looked over at Isoko, smiling brightly, standing with Eliot and Sally. She held up a hand and twists of air silvered over her palm, like sparkling flows of nearly-clear water. It was a combination of her Platinum Body and Wind Shaper. She had shown Mark what she could do earlier, when she showed up, but only a little. It wasn't stable, yet. Mark had still been very happy for her. And now Eliot and Sally were here, and she was showing them, too.

Sally was thrilled and jealous, and she said as much, which caused Isoko to beam even more.

Eliot was happy for her, but he wondered at the viability of it. What could it actually do.

Isoko scoffed, grinning even as her voice filled the room, "Flight! At least!" She spoke softer, "You know, eventually."

Elaria brought Mark back to the present, asking, "Will you be trying to do a many-hand form with Quark?"

Elaria had been looking at Quark with a bit of loneliness in her heart, like an old wound had been reopened. Mark recalled that Elaria's familiar was murdered by the Imperialists during the Reveal when they killed all of her family and only kept her alive because her blood powered some old enchantments across the Aluatha Empire. That was 80 years ago, though, and Elaria had been something like 29 years old during that time…

"Maybe I will…" Mark chanced, "But, is that, uh, how your familiar was?"

Elaria softly grinned, and then she said, "I primarily Worship as my main magical language these days, but Sigaldry and Aethercalling are among the easiest languages capable of transforming unbound mana into action, and I was very, very good at them. You have to understand that before you understand my former familiar.

"He was basically a millipede, about 2 meters long, with hundreds of hands and lots of little voice boxes underneath each of those hands. He looked like a scaled worm when his hands were down, and then he'd raise his hands and little arms and under every hand was a voice box, and then he'd cantrip-cast any of a hundred defensive spells. Oh, it was a dreadful thing to teach him, but I was raised with him, and he was… he was important to me. Most of the time we'd just sit in prayer with Gedahowla the Bright, my familiar's hands all joined in prayer… You know? That's one of the things that was the same on both worlds; praying. Two hands together and then bowed like this. My familiar had 500 pairs of hands, and...

"And that was a long time ago.

"It still feels more like talking about a younger brother than a familiar. Never had another one, and I don't need one, and the people who made those kinds of familiars were all executed, to the person, so if anyone is capable of making them anymore then they're probably locked up in Domal'Takela, under the Seal of Empire. Artificial Intelligences can do a much better job of that sort of thing, anyway. United Sapients has been rather competent in that arena, too, so I doubt familiars like mine will ever be made, ever again." She looked to Quark. "But the idea still has merit."

There was a lot there.

Quark as a millipede? Maybe? Hmm.

Maybe a centipede instead? Mark didn't need Quark doing that much magic… did he?

Mark would return to that later, but for now he asked, "Why do you use Worship as your main language?"

"Worship is the fastest way to transfer mana to the one being worshiped. Once they get your mana they can do what they want with that mana, and they can give it back to you how you want it. Usually there's a debt system of some sort. You pay in 10,000 mana per day —though saying mana comes in 'units' is not exactly true, but it's true enough— and you get half that much back later, when you need it, and in the ways you need it." Elaria added, "How that works, exactly, all depends on the person or object you're worshiping, of course. Objects or ideas are easier to worship than people, with much more solid returns on investment, but people can do a whole lot more than objects and ideas. Just look at our current Pantheon, for instance."

Mark had a big, big moment.

Worshiping for spells to be cast on you? For you?

Did people do that? Mark wasn't sure. Paladins of the New Pantheon usually got gifted Powers, not one-off spell casts… But maybe that was sort of how it worked? Did the New Gods take in mana from their 'worshipers'? Mark wasn't sure. Maybe?

Was that a secret to the New Gods that people just didn't talk about?

Probably.

There was a lot out there that Mark was still learning.

Mark said, "Talking with you destroys my worldview in weird ways."

Elaria barked a laugh, which drew a lot of eyes her way, but then she said, only to Mark, "Forbidden knowledge has a way of doing that."

Mark had no idea how to respond to that, and now Reeni Thumb was coming over here to make the whole conversation that much deeper.

"We're talking about forbidden knowledge now, huh?" Reeni asked, holding a tiny fork speared on a tiny sausage. "How forbidden are we getting?"

Elaria easily said, "Mark can finally understand some of it, so we were talking about ritual halls in Crytalis and how Quark could use a body with multiple hands and probably other communicators. You used to be a big part of those song houses, right?"

Elaria had been 29-ish during the Reveal but Reeni was already 300 years old back then, or something like that. Reeni was mostly retired now, and she had been kinda retired back then… too? Mark wasn't sure. He had never asked.

Reeni seemed like an ageless person that only got involved when she wanted to be involved.

Reeni said, "Those halls were wyrm dens, always too focused on getting power over each other instead of doing it right, and then what happened? The Reveal showed the rot at the core of many of them, with only a handful responding correctly to the crisis."

"What was the real failure of those halls, do you think?" Elaria asked, as though she wasn't fully interested in finally getting a long-wanted answer to old, deep questions.

Mark suddenly, quietly, realized that this conversation happening right here was a very big one, and it didn't involve Mark at all.

Reeni frowned at nothing in particular, and then she said, "The halls were good in the beginning, back in my mistress's time. They were built and maintained, and everyone knew they were working for common cause. The boys and girls that grew up in those halls were mostly plucked from the streets and forced to work in those places, given more meals than they ever knew, given families. They were good places. The real downfall of those locations started a century after my mistress vanished, something like 70 years before the Reveal. The families in charge of the halls all became powers unto themselves, and the elders who knew the job all passed away. The rot set in, and then truly took off when Patriarch Xan of Grey Hall was murdered. There was always a human experimentation scandal in those halls, too. Every strong power that came about came from a human experiment, though, so you couldn't deny the results…" She shrugged. "The rot ate away at the bottom, and when the bottom was truly tested in the Reveal, the bottom fell out."

Elaria was deeply unsatisfied with that answer. It was everything she had always heard before, and not what she wanted to hear at all. But she had worked for this moment, to be here, to be near someone who might actually have answers, and to speak of truth.

Elaria directly asked, "Did Aluatha Hall kill Gedahowla the Bright, or did they just benefit from her destruction at the hands of her coven?"

As if knowing that question was finally here, as though a reckoning was coming, Reeni stood there and listened, and then she said, "The rot was always there, Elaria."

"I want a direct answer, please."

Reeni said, "Yes. The Grand High Coven of Aluatha plotted with the Imperial Dragon Coven to overthrow The Bright, and then Aluatha killed the rest of the dragon coven once the main impediment was gone. It was easy for them, and you participated in that killing, if I recall correctly. Or at least the secondary part. They duped you into fighting with them, yes? That's why I don't work with them unless I have to."

Elaria was deeply unsatisfied with that answer, too, and if Mark was reading her correctly, it was because she already knew all of that. She had just confirmed what she already knew, from so long ago. Her vector was half-internal right now, and then she looked away and thought deeply, removing herself from the conversation.

Reeni looked at Quark and asked Mark, "How far have you gone with Quark having hands?"

Mark glanced at Elaria a bit longer, but then he answered Reeni, "Not very far. Apparently cities have AI controllers that do rituals all the time in them, though? Like that ritual we did for the goblins?"

"Not nearly that complex at all," Reeni said, "The AIs mostly do health and well-being rituals. On Earth there's a fair amount of Curtain Protocol rituals, too, ensuring magic doesn't touch young people and mutate them, even if they go outside of the walls temporarily. On Daihoon there are a lot of anti-parasite, anti-demon, anti-disease rituals. Castellan, by itself, does most everything that the old rituals used to do, and Hearthswell responds to needs a lot faster than the AIs do, so the AIs only cover the basic problems. The New Pantheon is very competent, Mark."

Mark suddenly remembered another question he had earlier. He asked, "Did Malaqua Ascend to godhood through doing enough cantrips?"

Reeni's eyes went wide even as she grinned.

Elaria came back to the conversation, instantly saying, "No no no no. Impossible."

Reeni contradicted Elaria, saying, "It was always theorized to be possible to achieve truly great things if you had enough people working together, but I agree. That is impossible. Malaqua was installed on Arakino by Addashield and several others, including me, and that is what made him the First New God."

Yet again, Mark was reminded he was working alongside very powerful people these days.

Elaria gasped a little. "You were there, too?"

"Reluctantly, yes," Reeni said, "And mostly not."

"Oh, well, sure," Elaria said, as though that made any sense to anyone who was not them.

Mark felt like he was in a very, very large room right now. It was a weird feeling.

And then Reeni changed the subject, saying, "Have Quark do a little spell. I want to see how you're doing it, Mark."

Elaria awaited the results, as well.

Mark eyed Quark, and then said, "Uh. Fire gathering."

Quark instantly stood up on his floating ball and started making the sigils for a fire gathering cantrip. A minute and two iterations of the same cantrip later, Reeni nodded; that was enough. Quark pointed at the solid stone ground and released the warmth to pop on the ground. It didn't even make a popping sound.

"How much processing did that require?" Reeni asked Mark.

Mark asked Quark, "How much?"

"Negligible, sir."

Reeni nodded, then she asked Mark, "How much of your own power did that take?"

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"Negligible," Mark answered.

"Unbound mana requirements will go up very fast when you have him doing 20 or 40 cantrips at the same time, but you have Union to restore your mana," Reeni said, "Just keep an eye on that. Maybe start off with several pairs of hands instead of a millipede."

Elaria was uncomfortable.

Mark asked, "I was thinking of a floating ball with some internals to it? Quark seemed to prefer that idea as well…" Mark looked to Quark. "But we haven't talked about that."

Quark said, "I would prefer the ball."

Reeni shrugged. "You'll run into problems with that design, but you should try it anyway, just to see what happens."

Elaria added, "If you're worried about people seeing him and breaking Curtain Protocol or Mage Secrecy then try some camouflage cantrips. Light-based, personal-aura-type. Not anti-sense magic like the ritual that we used against the goblins. You'll run into trouble getting Mind magics to work against high-Mind Power Level enemies, and that stuff still shows up on camera."

Some illusion-based cantrips might be really awesome, actually.

Mark took that suggestion to heart. Sure, manual magic was weak, but Mark was getting the impression that anything done with enough thought, repetition, and understanding would be powerful, eventually. That would happen later.

But for now, it was time for Aethercalling.

Mark could see that the buffet was fully set, and people were already walking in the front door.

Mark said, "Thank you for the lessons."

Reeni hummed. "I'm getting more food. How much time do we have?"

"Maybe 10 minutes," Mark said.

Elaria grinned, saying, "I'm on first slot for Aethercalling. Did you sign up for a slot? All of the professors did!"

Reeni said, "I might go at the end, or not at all. I'll see how I feel."

Elaria moved on toward the buffet with Reeni, saying, "Rekaro has the wards done up double-layered, and with singular voices it shouldn't get too crazy…"

And then Isoko was there, having been holding herself back until the elder witch and the forbidden mage went away.

Isoko practically squealed, "It's stable! Look!" She held one hand up toward the left and the other down to the right and platinum wind rushed up and down her reach, twisting upon her hair and shining across her face as it then ruffled down her dress, shimmering in curls and glints as it trailed off into the air. "I got it settled!"

She was so happy.

Mark was really happy for her, too. But he had to tease her, "Can you fly yet?"

Isoko scoffed and grinned even as she punched his shoulder. "Asshole."

Mark chuckled.

Sally said, "She can get a whole meter off the ground!"

Eliot offered, "I can make her some wings. That'll help. How about some shoulder drone hookups?"

"Buuugh!" Isoko uttered. "Ugly as shit drone shoulderpads? No fucking way!"

Eliot laughed and Sally grinned.

Mark said, "She's a Platinum Princess so she needs fairy wings! Like tassels on her outfits! Something to TT up and sparkle all pretty like."

Isoko's eyes were bright and happy… And then she struggled to be serious for a moment, saying, "Put a pin in that idea. We'll circle back around to it." And then she looked at Quark. "Is he stealing my look, Mark? I'm not sure I like this!"

Mark laughed.

Quark stood on his floating orb and bowed, saying, "Sorry, miss. We are working on a solution to this problem already."

"Oh I'm just fucking with you, Quark," Isoko said, grinning. "But seriously though. You can't have a small silver man walking around on your orbs, Mark. It's weird!"

"How about a little dragon?" Sally asked, knowing it was a terrible idea.

Mark scoffed. Isoko complained. They talked about how that was a bad idea for so many reasons. Sally just grinned.

Eliot said, "You should do the centipede-of-hands-thing. It would look so cool and I can already think of an interface for our eventual floating castle so I can unload a bunch of work onto him."

"Yes! A big curling centipede that wraps like a boa around your neck!" Isoko said. "That's so cool."

Mark made a rough centipede out of his adamantium and it ended up looking like a child's drawing, with wrong legs and big pincers, and with hands that did not work at all. But he excused his sculpting ability, since he had only taken 10 seconds to make it, and it wouldn't work anyway because it was too heavy for Quark. Eliot asked if Quark was capable of Sigaldry with such heavy metal anyway, and Mark explained about how he was supporting all the weight of the adamantium in his astral body, and Quark was moving it around, which precipitated strength tests for Quark—

Rekaro stepped up to a podium and tapped the microphone, starting off the day by saying, "Welcome to Understanding Athercall."

Mark reoriented.

The place had been filling up, it was starting later than it should have started, and it was still filling up. There were about 110 people in attendance right now, scattered throughout the open floors of the main building. About 3 people were still walking through the front doors, but most of the people in here simply turned toward Rekaro. The people out there got hurrying.

It was time to start.

Mark began his Union of Understanding.

Rekaro nodded as he felt attention shift toward him. He began, "Aethercalling is the action of transmitting emotion and feeling into the world, into others, or into mediums, be those mediums made of solid, liquid, gas, or whatever. Aethercalling is best practiced in one of two ways: in the heat of battle, in that furious rage that bubbles up and begs to be released, to shatter and cull, to harm and hurt, or, in today's more structured setting, which is one of communicating, soul to soul. Words can help or hurt your Aethercalling, depending on how they are used. Words are not necessary. Only harmony with the target.

"Singing is one of the softest ways to Aethercall. Rhyming, rapping, even spoken words, delivered solidly enough, is an acceptable form of Aethercalling. A charismatic person speaking a truth is a form of Aethercalling. Pomp, circumstance, all of these things contribute and harm Aethercalling, depending on if they're done well, or not. 'Done well' is a matter for the audience, and has no bearing on the practitioner at all. Prompting an audience, warming them up, makes Aethercalling easier.

"Monsters don't need words, though. Roars, whines, all of these can be Aethercalls.

"One form of Aethercalling is widely known throughout the Two Worlds.

"You know it as the Kaiju Call.

"I will now imitate this call, and start us off. The wards here are strong and I will not actually Call out to anything. Do not worry about that, but please maintain your composure. This Call touches upon a basic fear inside all of us. For most people the Kaiju Call causes an instinctual need to run and hide, or fight and kill. Please don't do that here, though!"

Some polite laughter trickled around the gathering.

Mark was not having a polite moment, though. He went from having playful fun with his friends, to standing on edge, his adamantium turning sharp. Whatever Rekaro was doing, he had already started it long before he actually got past his warnings and requests for composure. It was building behind his words, and now, it was ready to come out.

"Here I go."

And then Rekaro, the wiry, old man with a beard, the Grand Mage of the settlement's arcanaeum and Mage Society, opened his mouth, and out poured a searing hate. A vibrating death. An establishment of territory and a demand for all challengers to try their luck and to meet their ends—

Mark was humming under his breath, and it was a counter-roar, and the room divided between Rekaro and Mark—

Rekaro cut himself off.

Mark realized what he was doing and cut himself off, too. What did he just do? He had no fucking clue...

People glanced at Mark, and at Rekaro and then back to Mark, and Isoko was thrilled in a weird sort of way that she didn't understand at all, while Eliot was frightened and Sally was deeply, fundamentally worried. Elaria, who was up there on the stage behind Rekaro and waiting for her turn, was smiling.

Elaria's joy was plain to see on her face, and in her strong vector.

Rekaro had to take a moment to reorient.

He chose to blow it all off, and thus probably calm the now-worried audience.

"Ah," Rekaro said, his grin strained. He joked, "I suppose this is Mark's territory here, so I will be taking the loss."

He bowed.

Some polite clapping followed.

And then Rekaro grabbed the mic and, like a professional emcee, said, "Next up we have Duchess Elaria Valen who will be singing 'Far Far Away'."

Elaria took the mic and said, "This song is dedicated to the wanderers and the searchers."

And then she began to sing.

The Kaiju Call was forgotten, swept away by a voice so powerful, so true, that nothing else mattered.

Her voice was, and while there was no music, somehow there was music in there, in the background, in the silence all around her central, powerful voice.

Mark felt something almost like a melancholy and a desire for more as he heard words he had never heard before, and which he would never remember.

It was karaoke, basically.

For nearly 3 minutes, Mark was enthralled, listening to a desire that had taken him by storm when he was younger, but which he had failed to remember in the past year. Mark had wanted to explore the world beyond the walls and kill the monsters and save humanity, and yeah, he was doing that, but he was mired in goblin problems, and big things happening with Okuana and demons, and Addavein, and a whole bunch of nuances that had taken up a whole lot of time and mental space.

But there was so much to see out there. So much to do!

Who had time for worries!

And then the song was over, and as tears gathered in Mark's eyes, he sniffled and had a lot of thoughts about pretty much everything. He still kept his Union of Understanding going. He was not the only one having a lot of emotions right now, but a lot of people were having realizations of a different sort. Through Understanding, Mark had that same realization.

Sometimes, Mark had needed to be 'in the mood' to really get into a song. Sometimes, a song he loved just didn't hit right anymore. Like the stuff he used to listen to back in Florida; his parents' music. He liked Dad's country music, sang loud when riding that beat up truck down to the fishery, or in the rare times he turned on the tunes in the boat. He loved Mom's songs played on the computer, either the wordless ones when she was writing or editing, or the ones with energetic words while she was cleaning.

But Mark couldn't listen to them anymore. It hurt too much.

But listening to Elaria sing of Far Far Away was like getting dunked right into the moment.

Right into the feeling.

The quiet joy. The loosey-goosey. Straight-to-the-heart and down through the feet and up through the brain. If you wanted to get crude about it, there was no foreplay. Just straight into the goodness.

Mark had a moment, and he wasn't sure what it was.

A lot of people had a similar moment.

Eliot was having a big moment, too. Into the silence after the song, he whispered, "Holy shit, it's Bardistry. Actual Bard music."

Sally was having a deep, weird moment, too. She saw Elaria up there, singing of pain and distance, and Sally knew she wanted to sing, too.

It was a karaoke party for the next 4 hours.

Some people were very good and some people were not-so-good, but Mark was there with a Union of Understanding. More than one professor, or student, or person invited to be there by Rekaro, started off without a voice, without a true Call, but then they found their groove halfway through their first words and then they sang their hearts out. There was no accompanying music. Just voices raised high or thrumming low, and that was more than enough for people to Aethercall.

Mark did not sing.

Eliot did, though. He sang a working song of laying down rails and bricks, of nailing boards and sweat dripping. A lot of people identified with the song in weird ways, and Mark suddenly understood it was a hymnal of Hearthswell, of Castellan. Mark grinned when he understood that, and Eliot's song belted out even stronger in that moment.

By the end of his song Eliot was joyful and people clapped for him, as they had for everyone.

Mark, Isoko, and Sally clapped more than everyone else.