Apparatus Of Change

Unnamed - Apparatus Of Change

Available Power : 15

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)

In the singer's life, they learned a very important lesson about the nature of power. Not the same form of power that grows in coherent little pieces inside of me, but the form of power that exists in all societies. Political, influential, thaumaturgical, faithful, philosophical, rhetorical, economical, martial, anatomical, any form of power. They are not interchangeable, they are not all simply different expressions of the same thing, they are not the only thing that gives value to a life. The singer took a long time to learn those lessons, and even then, not until they had left their family and begun to rove.

But the very first thing they learned about power, they learned from their father. Without the cruel man's intent, perhaps, but it was made clear all the same.

Power belongs to those who will use it.

A few days past my renewed manifestation in this beautiful and dangerous world, I learned that I was not alone, not the only one of my kind. I learned this in the most violent way I perhaps could have, and since then, have seen over and over again how much damage and harm an apparatus of change can inflict if they use their magic aggressively.

In a way, I am trying now to understand something. Why are so many of my kind… like this? Broken? The scholar's old and archived thoughts have nothing but scorn for the word; it is something for use by the uneducated to describe health conditions they do not comprehend. The soldier has similar poor thoughts about the term; it is a dismissal of value by people who never had to fight, and never knew what the cost of war was.

In the quiet moments of dawn, I allow my thoughts a moment to wander. But always they loop back to the problem. Why so much violence, so much aggression?

For a while, I had a casual assumption that, as much of my own magical might came from fighting - and either surviving or killing - that it would make sense that the most violent of our kind grew the most powerful. That those who were willing to use power, would find more of it belonged to them.

But not all power is the power to kill. Not all change is destruction. And now I wonder; where are the builders, makers, and dreamers of our kind? I can not, will not be the only apparatus that was a singer, a farmer, a scholar. Even my soldier's life was spent far more on raising forts than felling them. So where are they?

The most stable, most willing to talk, that I have found at all, is Lutra. And Lutra still nearly killed Dipan when we first met them. Still speaks as though they are in a constant state of emotional turmoil. She progresses, and improves, bit by bit, but it has been clear from the beginning that her mindset is that she is her old lives, not that she is made of them.

The others simply do not speak, except with attacks. There are at least two that have sent assaults against us, that I do not even know the nature of. And every other one that I have slain has seemed to be motivated only by the desire to kill, perhaps to grow; as if they are nothing more than beasts. But I acquire snippets of their souls during my bitter triumphs, and I know that none of them have been devoid of a person's history.

My dawn philosophizing is interrupted as I have replenished Congeal Glimmer and Link Spellwork enough to bestow a gift onto another of the bees that has grown enough to bear it. Their form expands, a dusting of puffy black fur shivering as the small creature's view of the world expands suddenly. Why, oh, why I would ask whatever is responsible for this, could all apparatuses not understand what the bees do? When my bound are granted power, they do not attempt to subvert or harm the others around them to gather more. They were of one hive before, and are of one hive now. The only change is their expanded capacity to care.

Is my own ability to care so unnatural to the apparatus species? It can't be. I refuse to accept it. But that would mean there is something else at play that I cannot see.

Not that seeing things is much of a speciality of mine. Bees, delightful communal creatures that they are, do not have exceptional eyesight, and it takes the magic quite a long time to grant it to them when I have promised to never force the issue. Distant Vision is also oddly limited, as all of my spells are really, but also quite a lot of it is pointed at the incoming invasion.

The latest incoming invasion. Perhaps not even the only one. All that I want is to indulge the scholar and the cleric; to enjoy the fruits of a growing scale of magic. To have all the important conversations with the people around me, and then move on to the unimportant ones, then the silly ones. To possess all the time in the world to research the timeless realm and the history of the moon and the nature of the new manifested species that I am. To talk, and think, and dream, unimpeded.

But I cannot have what I want. No matter how simple or small it is. Because there are things like me that are so unlike myself in the only way that matters. That they will not talk, and are interested only in predation.

Power belongs to those who will use it.

I have fifteen points to choose what to do with. With the constant increase in expense, as well as the slowing down of how quickly they form, I am hesitant to use them at all. It is very likely that I will need to be the one to eliminate the incoming enemy, not Lutra. It will be my stitched souls wounded, needing that power to heal. But if I let it sit idle, if I hold back for my own potential future safety, then people I have come to care for might die. Which makes it an unacceptable option.

The only real choice is what to spend it on. What souls and spells will allow me to maximize the damage I can do, once the army reaches the battleground we are preparing for them.

Two general options are clear. I weigh them against each other as Stone Pylon and Pressure Trigger create a potential weapon hidden in the green for our army to make use of.

The first is to reinforce souls. The effect of this is obvious and very important; an escalation of what each spell can do. It is not quite exponential, but each improvement is more than the last. Spells recover faster, have deeper wellsprings, and can perform larger acts. If I were to choose this route, I would almost certainly apply it to Ingenuity and Tenacity; so many of my combative options are contained there. Though simply advancing Nobility twice so that I might take Spawn Golem from a potential weapon to a potential army is tempting. But Spawn Golem requires more dedicated study than any other spell I have, and time has never been a thing that I have owned in abundance.

And the other path, to purchase new spells. Some souls, Authority, Empathy, Spirituality, and Tenacity specifically, are ones I have previously bolstered without filling the spaces in the arcane machinery with new tools. And every option I previously had for each of them is still waiting there, in that place that offers me the trade of my power for its magic. There are many choices. And so many of them feel like they are distinctly mine. By which I mean, they are spells that would be terrible to take to a war. Feel Love may very well be what Lutra needs to ground herself in the loam of the world, but no matter how beautiful, I cannot afford the luxury when Damage Armor would solve seven parts in ten of the approaching foe's defenses.

The only choice I absolutely cannot choose, is no choice at all.

I think it should be more spells. A candle passes as I struggle to come up with my choice, and also while I waste my glimmerling's time in a nearby rocky heath where my experiments with Congeal Burn cannot hurt anyone. I have succeeded in causing them to catch fire. It is the closest thing to a triumph I think I will be feeling this morning, and I do not consider it much of a triumph at all. I was hoping at least for a thunder crack of an explosion, and at most for something like a glimmerling. But instead, there is only fire. An ignited stone that no longer seems tethered to my stolen soul at all.

Part of me now is the woman whose memory was tied to that spell. I know almost nothing about that fragment of my self, except that she was quite properly angry, and that she was prepared to do quite a lot of violence to put things right. I think… I think I would have gotten along with her. Or maybe I only think that now because she is part of me. But I feel deep in my crystalline heart the hot urge to lash out, and disregard the self destruction that comes with doing so.

It pairs with who I was, and still am. Someone who is willing to do what is needed for the people who believe in me.

Spells. It should be spells. More of any one thing will not work. Already, I will be spending the remainder of our time before the enemy arrives with Yuea and Kalip, sowing poisoned seeds of traps and fortifications. Building a battlefield that is ours to command. Arithmetic was always a secret hobby of the scholar, and I know that I will have enough of the spells they need. If strengthening my souls lets me do more, then we would need to change the plan, and take time we do not have to experiment and learn. If the enemy is strong enough to brush aside the defenses, then more would only slow them down and not stop them.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

But every new spell is a new trick. A new vector for self defense to take root from. And if I choose smartly, and we live, then they are new ways to change life afterward as well. Yes. It must be spells. But which ones?

What would you say? I write on the thin pane of wood Muelly has taken to carrying with her everywhere. She has left her shared room, and is in the process of trying to draw water from the fort's well when I lightly surprise her, though she doesn't show it.

Muelly fills the tall wooden carafe I made her, and sits on one of the benches underneath the heavy braced roof that extends around this back courtyard as she reads my message. "Say to what?" She asks, looking around for a bee or beetle. Oob is around, so I still hear her, the little friend sharing the clear speech with me. But I send an inkrat to give her something to speak to directly, and so I can see.

I have a choice of magics. I think you have seen the list in my study, and I would be curious what you would pick from among it, if it were you. I write.

The demoness leans her head back, her uneven curved horns, tapping against the stone as she rests with her eyes closed. "In a way…" she says, before snorting a laugh. "Look, now I'm talking like you. But it is me, isn't it? After all, I can do this…" she raises a hand, thick fingers splitting in a bifurcated pattern as she flicks her wrist up and thumb out, and raises half the water in her vessel into the air. Bringing her other hand up, she starts the water spinning, no longer a ball but now a vortex of moving liquid. "All your magic could be my magic." She whispers.

Warm, dry, and tired from just having awoken, Muelly plays with a streamer of water while a half length away, the drizzle from the rainsun begins to lightly pelt the courtyard. And I watch through my glimmerling, at this young demon who seems to have more focused control of Move Water than I do.

Bit by bit, Muelly splits her water into small eggs that she tosses upward, releases control of, and grabs out of the air with her muzzle. 'Drinking' her material like she wasn't just weaving a spell that would have put the old wanderwitches of one of my old lifetimes to shame.

And yet. I write to her. Despite that masterful display, you do not use all of my magic. I make the small mark that indicates amusement, so she will know I am trying to be playful, even if I don't know if I feel that way myself right now. No, I am… I believe that I will need to be capable of more than I am now, to weather what is to come. But I wish for more than just war. I want something for the future, and I feel I cannot make that choice myself.

"So you're asking me, and not…" Muelly rubs one of her furred shoulders, "…anyone else? I was going to say Yuea, but she'll want you all in on war. She's… she's like that." Muelly sighs.

She is. I don't blame her, I think it is how she was raised.

"Yeah." Muelly's flat teeth flash as she grimaces, but she says nothing else. "Listen. Me? I don't… I don't think about the future. I can't. The last time I thought about the future, I…" her voice hitches, "I tried to get you to kill me, remember?" Muelly's breathing is coming heavier now, as she tries to force herself into a calm she does not feel. "Don't ask me. Ask Jahn or Malpa. They're better at this."

They are asleep. In fact, most people are asleep, except yourself, and some of our new soldiers. And Sharpen, but their advice to me was entirely focused around the creation and maintenance of blades.

Muelly leans herself forward, staring out at the drizzle that is coating the area inside the fort's walls in a layer of mist. "Yeah, I kinda want to know why the gobs all do that." She shakes her head, pressing her eyes closed. "I miss Vestment." The girl says simply.

It is a small length of time before she reads my reply, but I don't force it, just letting her sit and grieve for a moment. There is no rush for her, and she has earned the right to her pain. Gobs at a young age are naturally inclined toward the tool they are born from. And I miss them as well. They were a bright smile.

"Yeah, they were." Muelly tries to smile herself. "Okay. Which sets of magic are you playing with? I'll… I'll try to help. But don't blame me if I get you terrible advice."

Empathy, I know for certain. It will let me keep a small reserve. And then one from either Authority or Spirituality. I could choose Tenacity, but I do not think anything there matches the value of the others for the moment.

Muelly holds the pane of wood at arms length as some of my words accidentally cut powerful gouges into it. "Right. This." She sighs and pushes herself upright, shifting the skirt she's wearing as she grabs her water and offers a hand to the inkrat. "I'm going to your den, I'm not having you rip up my practice plank with your nonsense."

She runs into Seraha on the way there, and after trading away a promise to come help with breakfast on the condition that the old woman sit down and stop exerting herself, makes her way up to where I have already written my available spells in a convenient list. Albeit one in a language that doesn't carry across the years quite properly. The extra time also gives me a moment to make sure it is updated, at least for the three souls I am considering.

Authority : 7

See Rank (1, Perceive)

Shift Dirt (1, Shape)

Drop Trigger (1, War)

Shift Metal (2, Shape)

Make Clothing (3, Shape)

Know Abstract (3, Perceive)

Know Weather (4, Perceive)

Mark Home (4, Domain)

Verdant Pylon (5, Shape)

Shape Metal (5, Shape)

Bind Relationship (6, Command)

Make Meal (6, Shape)

Drain Disease (7, War)

Bestow Rank (7, Civic)

____

Empathy : 5

Feel Fear (1, Perceive)

Alarm Trigger (1, War)

Feel Love (2, Perceive)

Know Armament (2, Perceive)

Bind Fish (2, Command)

Hear Intent (3, Perceive)

Form Doorway (3, Shape)

Passage Trigger (4, War)

Damage Armor (4, War)

Bind Creation (5, Command)

Drain Warmth (5, War)

Form Fortification (5, Shape)

_____

Spirituality : 6

See Worship (1, Perceive)

Confusion Trap (1, War)

Drain Purpose (2, War)

Congeal Sin (3, Command)

Small Trade (3, Domain)

Delay Spellwork (4, Arcane)

Seek Resource (4, Perceive)

Bolster Warmth (4, Civic)

Observe Civic (5, Perceive)

Aggregation Trap (5, War)

Form Caravan (5, Civic)

Create Low Metal (6, Shape)

Distant Trajectory (6, Arcane)

Shape Wood (6, Shape)

"This is so much." Mella sighs as she tries to read it all quickly. While she is doing that, I am trying to convince a Stone Pylon to make glimmerlings, and failing. I know it can be done, I just need to figure out the trick. Soon, Form Wall will be full again, and I will go back to following Yuea's war doctrine, setting up our defenses. Muelly can take her time, even as I see her trying to rush herself. "Why don't you… I mean, some of these are useless, right?" She waves at the long wooden 'pages' that I keep for this exact reason. "Why not cross them out, or at least mark them?"

Because, I write to her slowly, trying to keep my focus split between multiple spells and finding that I might not be as practiced with this fine use of Shift Wood as I would like, I do not know. As to say, I do not know which of them might ever matter. Did you know that Lutra and I share a soul? I ask the question in what might seem to be a sudden fashion, and I almost start it on a new piece of wood, in the way that I have been distractedly opening conversations with multiple people at once lately.

Muelly takes a moment to mull over what I've just said, before accepting my seeming change of topic. "I think so." She says. "It's this one, right? Feeling?"

Just so. Now. Last night, I pushed her to take a spell from it, that may well be for her the defining moment where she has a choice between a real life, and giving in to madness. Can you tell me which one?

The demon takes it as a challenge, narrowing her hourglass pupils and staring at the page with all the mental might she can bring to the act. "Okay…" she whispers to herself. "She must have this one already. And this is… no, we'd notice. Make her live, not keep her alive, so not this…" her fingers trace carved words before she looks up at the coterie of inkrats watching her from the high shelf of a desk. "Love?" She asks with obvious confusion.

Love. I write, not making it the spell name. And it has already helped ground her. Now, tell me, would that spell ever have seemed useful?

"Maybe. Maybe in another life?" Muelly wraps her arms around herself in a cold hug. "Not now." She whispers again. "So, you don't cross them out, because…?"

Because I don't know the future. I barely know the shape of now. That's part of why I ask. I am not trying to deny my own responsibility to choose, but you are close to a real life than I am, and you may see things I do not.

Muelly shakes her head, before speaking with a tight voice. "But why me?" She asks. "I get why you aren't asking the new people, or the kids, or even the gobs. And Yuea. But why not ask Kalip, or Seraha? Ask Mela; isn't she supposed to be special? I'm just… I'm…" Her voice cracks again as she struggles to find the words. "I'm just me." Muelly says eventually, defeated without a battle.

I know. I write back. I'm not asking you to make the choice for me. What I need isn't someone to be correct, what I need is someone like Muelly to tell me what she would pick, so I can learn. I wish I could shrug. I don't think I will ever shake the impulse. Too many old lives and not enough time in this one. What would you want, and, since you have reminded me, what will you actually be able to have? Because that matters. This battle won't be the last day for us, and not all of them will be battles. So what helps now, and works later?

"I think…" Muelly sniffs loudly, wiping her nose on the fur of her arm, "I think that you trust me too much." She takes a deep breath and shakes herself off. "But I'll try."

We talk for another half candle as the sun rises, and the stormsuns linger in the background as Lulling comes to a close and the howl of the wind is joined by the patter of the rain. Muelly has more questions than opinions, but I find them valuable. What she asks makes me answer myself as much as her.

Why not take Shape Wood, if Shift Wood is so much a part of my life? Well, because I can get by without it, even if making complex things takes time and exceptional focus. What is a caravan and why would I want to form one? It's a group on an expedition, often for research purposes, and I imagine the spell would be like Form Party, so, I would not actually want to use it now or in the foreseeable future. But what if we need to run? Okay, then I would want it, yes.

What is the point of so many trigger spells? Ah, those. I can naturally put other magics into them, or connect them to things like the Stone Pylons. Are they useful for anything but traps? Quite possibly they are useful for all manner of daily conveniences, I simply haven't had the time to bring them to life. Why do so many spells overlap? I don't know, Muelly. I really don't. But even where they do, none of them ever reach beyond themselves. Shift Wood might let me forgo Shape Wood, but it will never do what Move Water can. Unless I wrap the water in wood, obviously.

"Okay." Muelly says at last as she reaches for her water and finds it empty. "I know what I would say. But I want to know what you think you're taking first." She feels nervous, I can tell through the inkrats; she thinks she has wasted my time, which is not true at all. I had nothing to do but watch the Green, watch our next fight inch closer, and wait for my magic to recover. She has given me the most valuable thing I can have in this life; a small conversation with a friend, and a useful teaching one at that.

Ah, I suppose that is fair. I write to her in the soft and heavily used wood. I believe I plan to take Damage Armor, and Delay Spellwork. Many of the enemies are wearing plate, and this will help our immediate survival. Beyond that, the ability to stall the enemy apparatus will be useful for every fight past this, and I suspect it will work well for my own magics as well. Now, what would you opt for otherwise?

Muelly scratches her fur roughly, shifting from one leg to the other. "Neither." She admits. "Okay, you can't ever hit someone with water directly, but you can let other people do it, or just drop it on them by letting go, right?" She asks, and I give an affirmative. "So if you want to ruin their armor, you should pick shape metal. It does the thing you think matters, but then you can make things afterward. If it weren't that, I'd tell you to take declare home, because I think our home matters, and I don't know what it would do, but I know that anything from you would be powerful. But you can't have everything. I'd also take distant trajectory, because you have a problem. You can see five days hard travel away, but you can only reach a four hour hike. I think… I think you can solve every problem." She declares it, looking up at the inkrats, meeting my eyes with overt worship, a true belief in me that sinks into my souls and makes me deeply uncomfortable. "With what you have, you can do it. But you need to be able to reach. So that's what I would take. Because they'll help now, and they'll help in the future. And… and you said that matters." Muelly nods, almost shaking as she finishes speaking, before the tension leaves her and she relaxes. "You know," she laughs lightly, "this would be a lot of fun, if it weren't the end of the world. I like this. I just wish I had more to offer. That I wasn't useless to you."

No. The word is sketched into the board on the wall at her eye level. Useless? Never. And more than that, you are correct. Shape Metal and Distant Trajectory it is. And so armed, I will keep you safe.

The spells sink into the canvas of my souls. New turning parts and spiraling designs coming to life inside my mind, the dark place inside me where I think and see my magic from gaining two new bits of interacting light and pools of empty liquid.

On the edge of my awareness, I feel memories creeping in. I will welcome them in a moment, after Muelly leaves. This is the only quiet moment I will have to live them for a while, I think. Done. I write.

"W-what?!" Muelly jolts, twisting her head to stare around the room looking for my true form. "You what? No! No, no! You can't just take my advice!"

Of course I can. I write my speech, forgetting myself in the moment and abandoning simplicity entirely. It is my choice, ultimately. My responsibility. But you are correct, Muelly, and your words matter. Do not be surprised when touching spark to powder fires the gun.

"But… I'm just me…" She whimpers.

And you are my friend and confidant. I tell her, wishing I could offer a reassuring smile. Now, would you like to sit with me, and learn together how to Shape Metal?

"…yes. But I'm going to be panicking and mad at you the whole time."

The price I must pay.

That, and the price in points of power. Thirteen total, leaving me two. A heavy cost, and one that I do not think I will make up before the end of the fight. But we will see.

It does not matter. There is a truth here in my actions that I will never again ignore, in this life or any other.

Power belongs to those who use it.

And I am going to use quite a lot of power indeed.