Apparatus Of Change

Unnamed - Apparatus Of Change

Available Power : 12

Authority : 7

Bind Insect (1, Command)

Fortify Space (2, Domain)

Distant Vision (2, Perceive)

Collect Plant (3, Shape)

See Commands (5, Perceive)

Bind Crop (4, Command)

-

Nobility : 6

Congeal Glimmer (1, Command)

See Domain (1, Perceive)

Claim Construction (2, Domain)

Stone Pylon (2, Shape)

Drain Health (4, War)

Spawn Golem (5, Command)

Empathy : 5

Shift Water (1, Shape)

Imbue Mending (3, Civic)

Bind Willing Avian (1, Command)

Move Water (4, Shape)

-

Spirituality : 6

Shift Wood (1, Shape)

Small Promise (2, Domain)

Make Low Blade (2, War)

Congeal Mantra (1, Command)

Form Party (3, Civic)

-

Ingenuity : 5

Know Material (1, Perceive)

Form Wall (2, Shape)

Link Spellwork (3, Arcane)

Sever Command (4, War)

Collect Material (1, Shape)

Tenacity : 6

Nudge Material (1, Shape)

Bolster Nourishment (2, Civic)

Drain Endurance (2, War)

Pressure Trigger (2, War)

Blinding Trap (5, War)

-

Animosity : - -

Amalgamate Human (3, Command)

Congeal Burn (2, Command)

Trepidation : -

Follow Prey (2, Perceive)

"Honestly, it's a little bit of a pleasant surprise." Yuea speaks openly as she drains the smooth wooden social cup I had made for her.

It was a custom from the farmer's life to share a drink with the community during the lull. The brief window where the first of storming's suns quieted down, before it was joined by its next sibling. The cup wasn't varnished, just a bulb of shaped wood, but I had made them for everyone out of a blurry nostalgia that had stuck with me after I had last awoken.

They were smaller than the traditional ones, though. Know Material, that early magic of mine, doesn't exactly give me a clean inventory. But it does let me determine how much alcohol is within the fort, and gauge from there just how much we can afford to share here for a communal drink.

The feeling of community is simultaneously as strong as it has ever been between these disparate survivors, and strained to near breaking. The newest additions, the demon and human soldiers, have just learned that they can work together. That there is something more important than their old grudges. And that is… a slow process. But a powerful one all the same. They do not sit together, except where Dipan and Fisher have surreptitiously arranged the benches so that there is no other choice but to mingle. And yet, where they do mingle, they do not fight, or glare, or simmer with anger. Slow progress.

And the gobs and verdlings and my original motley band, they are galvanized by what we have all survived. Even some of the soldiers feel it. The children certainly feel… maybe not community, but they certainly have the web of friendships and rivalries and tiny grudges that build among any group of kids that is pushed to spend time together for any length.

But also, in a group this small, rumors move fast. And every fresh tragedy is news to the population of our holdout.

The deaths from the harvesting team weren't so long ago, after all. And following right up on that, there was a fresh enemy, and then the next sun rising, and the news of other survivors who may be able to reach us soon, and then, to cap it off, news that a massed force of corpses and monsters is not only headed our way, but outnumbers us ten to one.

These people are scared. There could be more politic ways to say it, but it is the bare truth of things. And while many of the adults have tried to at least not overtly speak of the coming disaster to the handful of surviving children, there are a few among the soldiers that have through error or anger shared the portent. And that is enough that even the youngest will be having nightmares.

Everyone tries to cope in their own ways. Kalip and Mela are tense, but don't show outward fear; instead, the younger woman is eager to return to learning how to make herself a more proficient shield for the others. Sharpen and Fisher have shed some of their emotional expressions, throwing themselves into work after the death of their formling. Muelly, Jahn, and Malpa are… well, here in public they simply smile and speak to each other in quiet tones; their real comfort comes in private. Seraha, back on her feet though still not allowed to return to the kitchen, expresses her fear by desperately trying to correct the poor table manners of everyone within her elderly eyesight.

But Yuea…

Yuea lounges. While I am watching the minor celebration of survival through my bees and beetles. As I reinforce my watchtower net of Stone Pylons, exert myself splitting attention to constantly Bolster Nourishment the fort's almost stable food supply, watch the approaching enemy and potential allies both with Distant Vision. At the same time that I am turning moving parts and magical creations over in my crystal mind to design the cheapest and most deadly Spawn Golem traps that I can. Yuea lounges.

Her presence is, abruptly, the locus around which the dining hall orbits. Muttered conversations, a half-felt marching song, the squeal of one small child as she flees laughing from her guardian bee, all of it stills slightly. Not silent, but everyone has an ear cocked her direction.

The interior is a warm refuge from the light breeze and drizzle outside. The wooden tables and benches are in the best condition they'd ever been; I've been focusing my practice here, eliminating splinters, bringing wood as close to polished glass as I can with pure focus. The bees share with me their burgeoning sense of smell at the aroma of seasoned food in the demon style of stew. And at the central table, the one that my own form is currently concealed behind almost in plain sight, Yuea tips back to lean against the wall, her green tinged skin on display through the wrapped binding she wears, having given up her salvaged uniform coat to someone who actually cares about the wind and cold.

She is strong, dangerous, and I believe she is far more than she has told me. When she talks, people listen. Except Kalip. "Commander." He says bluntly, his own small cup of rich beer half finished as he savors it. "That's the stupidest thing you've said all evening, and you started by complimenting the food."

"Hey, I like the yams!" Mela pouts at her mentor.

"You won't in a few tendays." Kalip replies. "But fine, I'll ask. What about this tarball of an extinction war is surprising?" A few people whisper, thinking Kalip has special privilege to insult Yuea. They're not exactly wrong, but I don't want to take the time to explain, so I let Oop manage snooping on crowd voices while Oob gives me a clear listening on Yuea's reply.

The warrior rolls one shoulder in what might be a shrug. "We're only barely outnumbered." She says.

Sitting on the cool stone at the end of the table, Talquin curls her long neck down to daintily meet her shorter limb's grip on her mug. "My mate and I owe you our lives. Everyone here does." She says, and my bees spot solemn nods of agreement. "And yet you are quite mad. It is strange how effective you have been thus far."

"I was thinking that!" Mela chimes in with the kind of glee a young person has when one of their elders says the same thing they wanted to. "She's insane!"

"Magetouched." Dipan mutters, so quietly that I don't think anyone is meant to hear it. Kalip and Yuea do, and both of their mouths set into flat lines for a moment. Dipan is normally tight lipped himself, but he reveals something that isn't exactly private here; a lot of people knew the magetouched were unstable in some way. It seems like the sort of program that nations put together at their apex, with all their impressive imperial resources on display, shortly before the slide begins.

The slide has been interrupted this time. The cycle of collapse hopping forward slightly.

Yuea, I think, senses my contemplation, though not the nature of it, through our bond. "You're all idiots." She states loudly enough that the room really does quiet down. Even the children, eager to spy on the serious adult matters, attempt to listen in. "They outnumber us, sure, but only by that much?"

"Ten to one!" One of the black furred demon soldiers, Rahb I think his name is, yells her direction. "We know humans can count!"

"It's more like fifteen to one." Kalip says in a adjunct's voice pitched exactly right to be heard across the dining hall. "Counting the big bees."

"Right!" Yuea pushes herself against the stone wall until her back pops, and lets out a revabel's sigh of contentment. "Fifteen to one. That's it? That's all? My treacherous blade and I," she motions a hand at Kalip, "think they're using a familiar form of tactic. That army isn't just an army, it has something like our precious little gems with it. Controlling it, probably."

"How is that better, my… how is that better?" Graxa, the highest ranking human left since their failed conspiracy to murder myself and Lutra, stands at his table and addresses Yuea with deference. "We all know there's more of some kind of people staggering their way here, but they're not going to be soldiers. We're low on powder, low on food, low on everything except enough vim to kill everyone in this room a hundred times by accident. Being overwhelmed by the dead doesn't sound like a good thing, commander."

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

And Yuea grins. Not a mad toothy smile, not the kind of smile you see on someone who has lost themselves to the call of battle. Just a normal smug little grin. "Well, we've got some options, we probably won't be overwhelmed." She says. She tries to drink from her Lulling cup again, and finds the bulb of smooth wood empty. Her smile slips to a scowl at the dishware for a moment before she continues. "No, what I'm thinking is something different. Hey Shiny!" She calls to the air. Calls to me.

You know there is no good way for me to address an entire room, Yuea. I write in the wood of the wall over her head, where the stone base gives way to the fort's secured timber angled in old preparation for each year's storming. The words are large enough that those who can read do, while Yuea has to twist her neck to see.

"Two irreverent children." Seraha says from the nearest long table where she is keeping the kids and gobs and Dipan in check. "Perfect for each other."

"Alright you aggravating little heart stone." Yuea growls out. "How many of your glimmerlings do you have?"

Eighty of the small resins, twelve larger forms, fifteen inkrats. Why do you ask? The numbers are hardly secret information. And besides that, while I may not fully trust the soldiers that are here now, I do firmly believe that none of them would try to kill me or sell us out. They are scared and crass and sometimes hostile. They aren't idiots.

"Why not more? Like with your… your stone things." She snaps her fingers, the simple gesture unpracticed in her strengthened body to the point that she snaps one of her own bones. I set to pushing magic down Amalgamate Human to repair it, along with the hint of a disappointed sigh.

Because, Shift Wood writes in the wall after I have smoothed it out, every new body is less glimmer. With less of the reservoir, it recovers slower, and limits my options. This is a big reason that granting glimmer and mantra to the bees is so useful; they can take it in, and grow and strengthen, without draining my own supply of power. Did you know that bees, after their second glimmer, begin to display an altered wing structure that-

"But why not for the stone machinery?" Muelly asks me, still reading about the bees. I split my attention slightly, half of my magical chores complete, and write more about honeybee wing adaptations under her plate for her to see later while I answer the real question to the crowd.

Because those are not bound to me. I say. I am limited only be resources. Which are time to recover, and stone. And there is quite a lot of stone around here, too. I've barely had to quarry at all, with the exposed cliffs in the area.

"Well there you go." Yuea says.

"…Commander, not all of us are used to making strategic blind leaps in logic." Kalip reminds her, while Muelly shifts her plate and studies the diagram of an elytra I'm carefully drawing for her.

Yuea sighs dramatically. "Three hundred armor plated troops made of bones. Two hundred plodding whole corpses. Maybe, what, four or six of the big weird things with the wagons? And that's it." She spreads her hands in front of her, stretching skin that's more durable than she's used to over muscles that move with strength she's still learning to control. "I'll take the first hundred. Kalip and Mela can take the second. That leaves the rest of you with, what, ten to one? Easy. We've got guns and glimmerlings and golems." I knew she knew the word; Yuea feigns ignorance so often as a tactic that she's started doing it for no purpose. She makes a rude noise. "And it's out of resources."

Oh. Oh. I write. Of course. It uses bodies. It uses… corpses. I almost don't say it, seeing the children staring at my words on the wall, small eyes that have already seen too much horror in this world taking in the public strategic analysis. This enemy cannot replenish its army. It will have its tricks, but we are not obliged to sit and wait for it to arrive.

"The rainsun is rising tomorrow, though." Muelly points out. "What are we supposed to do?"

"Lots of hard work." Yuea gives her an almost feral grin that would be more at home on Kalip's modified and fanged face. "You'll hate it, princess." Muelly glares back at her for the comment. Yuea's growing familiarity with everyone has only served to make her more of a needle in their sides sometimes. "But we'll survive." Yuea says firmly, pushing her voice out to the room. "Maybe things will never be the same again, maybe we'll have to change, but this isn't going to be the one that kills us. Fifteen to one? Pathetic. I'm going to bed. Wake me up when a real problem shows up." She rolls off the bench with a maneuver that's more of a flip really, and strolls out of the dining hall with one of the largest lancer bees trailing after her.

And the tension crumbles. It doesn't vanish, or fade entirely, but Yuea gives the doubtful people something that they desperately need. Not just hope, but acknowledgment. The feeling not that the problems will go away, but that we will be enough to face them.

We. Myself as well. I am not immune to her casual dismissal of our latest foe. And I can almost believe it. Just another Fa-I tile lined up to fall, like all the others.

Yuea leaves the dining hall. Another Stone Pylon finishes forming and is imbued with its dangerous payload. Make Low Blade completes a stockpile of quite terrible arrows for Kalip and the other bowmen. My bees and beetles collect murmurs and secrets. Lutra and I work together to replenish one of the cellars with harvested food.

If I were not paying attention, I would think that the twin blazing points of power could have come from anywhere. But I see the soft motes flowing from a singular source. I trace them back through the different forms of eyes I now have, see where the flurry of change originates from and where it dances toward my body to coalesce into my most precious currency.

Yuea. Amalgamate Human specifically. But it stands out as something I had never considered before. That change does not simply mean breaking things, modifying the physical nature of the world. It means change. Changing hearts and minds is just as powerful as changing architecture and terrain.

I cannot sense emotions or scry intent. But many of my old lives were adept at reading a room. It is small, but yes, these newcomers have begun to change. Not all of them, and not fast, but they aren't new anymore. They're part of us. A small part, not firmly attached, but there nonetheless.

Progress. Which is, fundamentally, change. Change doesn't have to be war and death. It can be positive. It can be a step toward the horizon.

One of the wings of bees scouting around the walls alights on the roof of one of the fort's buildings, the member of their ranks with the sharpest eyes looking up for me and letting me borrow their sight.

Auor hangs overhead, still visible through the gathering wispy clouds. The scarred face of our world's moon with its glittering ring of debris around it, a beacon shining up in the sky on this early night. I told Kalip once that we had been there. Lived there. Not myself, but us. Our world. Our people.

I can see a sliver of the galesun's dark form blotting out the stars over the edge of Auor's half lit face. A reminder of what else is up there. But even still. We had cities on the moon. The farmer still remembers after all these years the names of the great sorceress queens who connected whole worlds together.

That's what I want. I want that back. Yuea wants me to grow stronger, and I suspect she welcomes every new enemy to our door because every kill is a mote deposited in my souls. But even the soldier I once was never wanted to kill, not really.

And I am not that old person. I am someone new. And I want to take us back to Auor. To build in the grin, to see the trail of glittering debris from the other side, to create something that will last this time.

Foolish, maybe, as far as dreams go. But mine, also, which is important for any good dream.

I let the bees go, and they return to their patrol, a small sliver of that dream forming within their growing minds. I feel, through Bind Insect, as that dream begins to spread. They use the spell to talk amongst themselves, tiny droplets of my magic, smaller than the smallest bits I can employ myself, used to signal impressions and emotions to each other.

Across the fort and the far fields where their growing brethren roam, hundreds of bees take a moment to look at the moon.

While that small change is still propagating, I steady myself as best I can, and reach out to cast one last spell for Lulling night. Form Party takes hold on a now familiar target, and a moment later, the corded weave between myself and Lutra solidifies into something we can speak across.

"Hello, hello!" Lutra echos to me in three different voices, the words blurring together across the link. "Missed you. We all missed you. It's been so long!"

"We?" I ask, worried. I know that it seems that each apparatus is made up of different souls and lives put together, but my own are somewhat stable. With Lutra, I fear that she might forget that here and now, she is one person. "Are you alright?"

The little apparatus assuages my fears without meaning to. "We! Myself and the long fish. They are good fish, but they are getting bored. I play with them, with the sand, but they want to explore." Her words cut suddenly and I have the sensation of someone snapping their head around to stare at me. "I am doing poorly." She says sharply.

"I sympathize." I express my empathy through the link. "Though I won't pretend to understand."

"There isn't enough that is real. Only the big fish. And sand. Sand is real. I cannot feel it, but it moves, so it is real." Lutra's voice is interwoven with tiny bursts of laughter. Less manic than normal, though.

"That I understand." I tell them. "I… I know I can see more. Oh, that is a small solution. Small Trade with me for some of Distant Vision. Borrow the magic for something like a walk through the Green."

"Walking." Lutra wails. "I have no legs. I feel nothing. Why? What happened to me?"

"If only we knew." I sigh. Well, I make the sound of a sigh; it comes with no catharsis or breath. "Little one, perhaps you should spend your collected power on more eyes. Feel Love might be of great value to you. And at the fifth step of reinforcement, Spirituality would let you gain Observe Civic. I have yet no idea as to what that would allow, but it would show you more of the world, in a more real state. I know that, for myself, every small bit of anchoring matters."

Lutra gives the strong impression of anxious agreement. "I want. I want. Want to see and feel again. But… but we cannot. My mother was a hero. All my family are heroes. And there are people who need that. Not just the long fish, or the fluffy tribe builders. People. Like we used to be. They need me."

She is almost screaming, barely holding on to a kind of coherency. I try, and almost succeed, at pressing a soothing tone across the connection. I'm not quite sure how, but I think I am showing Lutra what Form Party is showing me of her. That she is, if not mentally okay, at least healthy. And at least real. "I understand that too." I whisper to the damaged apparatus. "Because they need me as well. But I need you to be not a hero, but a person. Lutra, you cannot save others if you cannot save yourself. Think now; would Zhoy and Ruuet be happy to know you broke yourself to save them? All the children would miss you."

"They… they would have the eels. Big fish. Everyone loves the big fish." Lutra sounds distant, distracted.

"Of course. But they wouldn't have you." I wish I could give them a hug. Both because I desperately long to feel anything of physical sensation, and because I believe they truly need it. "Spend your power. Exchange with me if you need one or two more. You are not so unimportant. You are not a weapon or a shield, you are a person that can hold both. And that person matters." There is a long, long moment of quiet. With many of my spells still, the only way I have to track time sometimes is the dripping of the void into the liquid supply of my different magics. At night, when the Green stills and even Distant Vision shows very little, that time is harder and harder to track. "Lutra?" I ask quietly.

The small apparatus replies with a breathy exhaustion. "I did it." She tells me. "I have wasted power on myself." But it doesn't sound like she believes that, and the distant sound of her connected voice slowly builds to something steadier over the next words. "I didn't realize how beautiful the world is. When felt this way… Feel Love, is what I selected. I strengthened myself for it. More Move Water. More Bind Fish. But more importantly, I can feel… all of it. Threads and spreading clouds and crystal formations… it is everywhere. But not everywhere at all. There's so much…"

The voice trails off again, and I worry that I've lost them. That either they, or the spell, have faltered entirely. I take a moment to check their lake with a flight of bees, but find nothing amiss. "Do you need help? Mela is still awake, I can send her to you. Or I could take what you cannot bear, if it is overwhelming. I could…"

"And you." Lutra says with an awed tone, two voices, a child and a woman overlapping. "Your love almost hurts you. Why? Why do you glow like that? You are a pylon, anyone with this could see you from the horizon. But maybe that is why… why you… why…" She breaks apart, starting to cry. "You care." Lutra says. "It's real. You're real. Oh no." I don't know how to help. I don't know what to do. I've never accidentally given someone a personal crisis through small advice before. Surprisingly. Six lives, it should have come up. "I need to rest." Lutra says. "Drained too much. But… I will be okay. Do not fear." I can feel the contentment, the happiness, shoved down Form Party in a way that rapidly erodes the spell as a cost for the clarity. "Thank you. I will be better tomorrow. All of me. Thank you."

And Lutra is gone.

But only for now.

I find myself, uncomfortably, feeling deeply ashamed. Because while I am glad that I was able to push her into making a positive choice for herself, I actually really did need to inform Lutra that there is an army of the dead marching toward us. That I will need her strength, along with everyone else's. I needed to tell her that storming is half done, that the rainsun is rising, and that we may have quite the need for her eels and more Bind Fish besides soon enough.

In any other circumstance, I would take this trade. Call this better, by far. But reality is cruel sometimes, and I will not be able to wait for Form Party to recover for a full conversation. When next we speak, I will be lecturing rapidly, and hoping Lutra is stable enough to understand complex plans.

But maybe that just isn't what fate ever has in store for Lulling. Maybe it's something about this special night.

Drink deeply of our shared font, Lutra. And rest well. We'll sort out what we need tomorrow.