Apparatus Of Change

Unnamed - Apparatus Of Change

Available Power : 2

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)

Shape Metal (5, Shape)

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)

Distant Trajectory (6, Arcane)

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)

It started small. The old shovel had a crack. It was the kind of damage that could have gone for years without attention, but my father didn't just teach me how to work the land; he taught me how to care about the work too. So the shovel needed fixing, because taking care of your tools was how you showed a farm that you loved it. What came from that was a long and amusing chain of discoveries, mostly focused around the closest maker having an affair with her wife's mother, and which ended with the simple fact that if I wanted it done in the next season I'd be doing it myself. Which led to finding some old books, talking to a step-traveler in the tavern, and spending more money than was wise on the cold worker in my hands now. All to find out that, in the end, with the right tools and knowledge, putting a shovel back together isn't that hard at all. Which is good. Because the next farm over has been complaining about their plow, and by the end of the night, I think I can shut them up and earn a favor in the process.

"Got it. Like this." Muelly twists more than just her fingers, her whole body seeming to move under her cloth skirt as she tries to pair magical instinct to living muscle and mostly ends up looking like she's twitching uncontrollably. My own reservoir of quiet nothingness depletes slightly as she reaches into Shape Metal and temporarily makes it her own.

On the chipped and battered table that we've been using, the small triangle of bronze flows as if it has temporarily decided to be a liquid, before reasserting itself in a form more like a melted pyramid. Nothing complex, but then, we have been exploring this for all of a candle. And yet despite the simplicity, Muelly's efforts bring a beaming smile to her face as she pants with exertion and looks down at the change she has inflicted on the world.

My own experience is different. Far less exhausting, my use of the new spell is invigorating. Buoyed by the sharpness and sense of myself that comes from the memory now fully a part of my soul, and guided by the years of expertise that came afterward and academically known to me through the farmer's life, I set to work in the armory to stretch myself.

Make Low Blade has been with me for a long time, and I have found increasingly complex uses for the spellworking, but as I set to work on the remaining stockpile of arms and armor, I find it almost obsolete. For this one thing, at least. If I ever needed to make a blade quickly, then using it to shape one before using Shape Metal to hone and perfect it would be an exceptional combination. But now, when all that is needed is better blades and finer armor, the new magic is almost like having hands again.

More than that. The soldier's memories of layered scales give me a starting point for turning rough chain armor into smooth and sturdy battle coats. The singer's knowledge of the blade points my craft in the right direction to reinforce and sharpen, saving material in shavings that I gradually pool up without losing effectiveness.

That's not the only source I have, either. My reach is not small anymore, and a shaped cast of Know Material across the area around us allows me to find deposits that are near the surface. Nudge Material is difficult to target without eyes, and I would never ask the bees to go out as the wind of the galesun begins to roar to life once again, but through overlapping Know Material zones, I gradually manage to narrow down targets and sweep aside the plants, soil, and some of the stone concealing my buried treasures. Unrefined ore and metal are not the same, mind you, but this fort held units of soldiers for many, many years. And there are a myriad of small treasures out there in the form of lost buttons and nails, dropped knives hidden deep under the trees, expended bullets waiting to be reclaimed, and even some bits in the long buried corpses of the monsters that the last apparatus to hold this territory made.

This mixes with the metal I can scrounge from the fort. Shift Wood replaces nails with their wooden counterparts, the magic and my own crafter's skill allowing me to reshape furniture into sturdier forms even as I pilfer parts from it. Some items, like the stoves or lanterns, I cannot do much for. But window latches and hinges, and the bits and sparks from the piles of wreckage that we took ownership of when we moved in, all of it adds up.

I know, through multiple lives, that 'metal' is not a single thing. There are many kinds of the stuff with many uses and many approaches to metallurgy. And I am by no means an expert. But I know enough to separate by kind, to work to specification, and to create tools that will work at their full potential for those they are meant for.

I wish those tools were plows and sickles, not blades and bullets. But Muelly was correct about one thing; there will be time for all of those small satisfactions and useful futures once the weapons have been put to use to secure it.

"This is a lot harder than water." Muelly comments in my study as she moves her working material into the form of a ring, then a pointed arrow, the hide of her brow furled in concentration as her hands move back and forth in her own way of shaping the magic.

It's a different category of spell. I remind her in written word. Shape, not move. Try thinking of it as moving but only inside itself.

"I can do that." The demoness nods as she glares at the small bit of metal on the desk, shutting out the howls of wind and patter of rain outside the windows. Rather quickly, she begins to form it into a more complex shape. I move an inkrat down to get a closer view as she coils it into something like a spring. "I wonder if…" Muelly mutters between heavy breaths as she moves the resistant metal spring around, creating a kind of tube that she caps off, before compressing it with a pinch of her fingers in the air, the object practically vibrating on the wooden surface as she lets the magic go. "…I thought that would do something el-"

Muelly is cut off as the end of her small contraption erupts with a loud metal ringing, and abruptly, I lose track of the inkrat that I had investigating it. The other inkrats around my study report in to me of Muelly's scream of terror and pain as she jerks her hand back, a shard of metal sticking out of it and leaking blood. The remnant of the unlucky inkrat on the desk is little more than a smear of dark matter with a single small glimmer stuck in it now, all cohesion lost.

Stay calm. I tell her, already guiding Yuea up the stairs from where the woman has bolted upright from where she was sleeping and begun sprinting at the first sound of trouble. Hold your hand out.

Muelly does so at my request, still bleating in pain, as Yuea kicks the door to my study in and rushes over. Combat instincts fade to controlled reactions as she grabs Muelly's wrist, and in one sharp motion, plucks the shard of metal out. I quickly pour from my supply of Drain Health into Muelly, watching as the wound in her furred hand scabs and seals over without so much as a scar.

"What fucking mess are you causing in here?" Yuea demands as a few others trailing in her wake mill outside the door. Her words are unimpressed, probably because we just interrupted the last sleep she planned to get before we went to war.

As my partner in experimentation is in no shape to answer, I banish Muelly to be fussed over by Malpa and Jahn, while I talk to Yuea. I believe she found a way to create force with my newest magic. Impressive, though I don't know how practical it will be to deploy as a weapon.

Yuea nods appreciatively. "Smart kid." She says, plucking the sticky glimmer off the table and holding it up. "What new magic?" Her voice demands with an edge not unlike the metal I have been learning to move for the last candle mark.

After consideration, I have taken two new spells, one of which is Shape Metal. I begin to write.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

I don't get any further before Yuea starts shouting. "You idiot." She barks at me. Or at least, at the cadre of inkrats I keep in my study; my actual form isn't here at all. "You raving fucking idiot! We talked about this, Shiny! You cannot waste yourself like that!"

We're going to need something more than what I have. I tell the commander, keeping Shift Wood going at a steady and sedate pace, not letting any of the hot emotion that bubbles under my crystal shell loose. It is easy I find, when writing like this, to keep myself calm. The option was to make the choice now, or make it later under duress.

"You're going to die!" Yuea screams. "If you… when you kill that thing, it's going to kill you too, without your stockpile to heal you! And you know it! We're going to war tomorrow, maybe today! Why would you ever be so stupid as to listen to some random backwater noble's kid about something this important?!"

Do you mean Muelly? I find myself beginning to write the question almost on reflex, before I realize that even when I have the choice to actually speak, I still move to my earliest communication tool. I also did not know Muelly's family history, and I suspect that Yuea doesn't either.

"Oh, I'm sorry." Yuea is still barking at me in her anger. "Are there other suicidal idiots talking you into bad choices that I should know about?"

"Yuea." I speak directly into her head through Amalgamate Human, finding my voice and my rhetorical footing all at once. "Stop." It is not a command, but her mouth snaps shut all the same.

Not that she stops speaking, she simply moves it to this side of my magic. "You've killed us all. And you don't seem to care." She bitterly fires the language across our bond.

"I have not." I tell her bluntly. "Because I don't plan on dying. And you will not blame Muelly for this. I asked her for an opinion, that is the sum of it; my own conviction to use my power was already in place."

"Then I'll be pissed at you." Yuea snarls. "You know we just won't survive without you. The only reason we can count on not starving is you and Lutra pulling your little trick. If you're even hurt for a month, that could end us all. What were you thinking?!"

I don't answer immediately, instead taking a moment to push back the fuzzy blanket of an old memory that wants my attention, and checking on my other experiments in progress. "Yuea." I speak to her as softly as I can. "How many casualties?"

"One, once I figure out where your rocky ass is hiding." She says through the magic as her body moves to start checking under desks.

This was not what I was asking. "How many of us, of the people living here, did you calculate would die in the upcoming battle? In your plans, on that killing field that I have been shaping to your specifications, what do you expect to be the cost to us?"

If I had meant the question to stun Yuea I would be disappointed in her reaction. "Fifteen to twenty five." She says. "Less the more glimmerlings you have for us, but there's a limit, isn't there?" The bond doesn't limit emotion. I can hear exactly how coldly calculated the comment is as she flicks her eyes around my study, watching the inkrats and the war map.

"Commander. I heard shouting." Kalip lets himself in. "There's concern."

"Everything's fine. How's the kid?" Yuea speaks without turning to face him.

Kalip shuts the door after giving reassurances to those outside. In the fort's halls, people go back to their chores or rest or, for many of the children, their day off from lessons as they chase their bees through the angular buildings. "Muelly will be fine. How's the new magic?" He asks. And I realize that he is asking me, the words not aimed at Yuea at all.

I stretch at Amalgamate Human and include him in the discussion while I have the stamina for it. "Both spells are working quite well." I say. "Did you find what I have been working on?"

"I did." Kalip holds up an arrow, the construction drawing on two spells and knowledge from three lives to make a weapon that is mostly just for him. The arrowhead is frilled with exceptionally sharp spikes, connected much lighter than one might expect; the perfect piece of ordinance for Kalip's ability to turn his shots into detonations. "Good work." He doesn't use the spell, instead speaking out loud and letting me hear through my rats.

"This stupid rock is committing elaborate suicide." Yuea accuses me in front of Kalip.

The man looks unimpressed, running a finger down the line of wolv fur that grows out of his altered bare arm now. "She's new to war." He says, affecting the stoic flat faced look that I remember him wearing constantly when he was still magetouched.

I promise you I am not. I write on the map they are pretending to study, saving Amalgamate Human some stress. That is why I have made this choice. Acceptable losses, to me, are not. I score the word so hard into the wood that I punch through to the table below. I switch to speaking as they lean heavily over the map. "There are solutions, if I am injured. I know that Lutra can help me recover. And there are problems, if we simply form one plan and stick to it. I know that those like myself can adapt. Which is why, in preparation for the battle, I am going to expose the enemy's magics, and force them to spend their own power on options that will not save them."

"…How, exactly, do you plan to do that?" Kalip asks. In reply, Nudge Material moves the series of wooden scales that I have been tracking my notes on into the map with a clatter. Kalip and Yuea each pick one up, the commander and her adjunct reading in rapid flicks of their eyes. "These are your other Timeless connections." Kalip says flatly. "Paired with…"

With my other new spell, Distant Trajectory, yes. I write, sacrificing another wooden sheet to write the spell name. And not only mine, but Lutra's as well.

Yuea's scowl is still in place, but now it's one of deliberate and sharpened intent as she reads over our combined tests, the work that part of my mind has been sharing with the newly focused Lutra being devoured by her tactical mind. "You turned yourself into an overgun." She says. "One of the capitol ones. Shiny…" For the first time in the conversation, she doesn't have a response.

Correct. I write to her, feeling a tired exhaustion in my core. All of this anger, all of this irritation, could have been avoided if she had simply talked to me instead of yelling about how she believes she knows better than I do what my own species is capable of. Which is not to say that I know myself, but at least I would admit that without condescension. I have been practicing some of our options while Muelly and I worked on the metalwork. This time, I avoid a spell name. I can only repair my writing surfaces so many times before it loses its charm. And with this, I wish to being to fight before their army arrives.

"Understood." Kalip says, snapping to attention. "Commander. We'll need her to be out of the fort and moving, to confuse the response. I'll be taking Mela."

"You've been calling me commander for the last eight years, and for the last season, you haven't listened to a single order I've given." Yuea gripes, though there's no heat left in her voice. She doesn't meet Kalip's eyes, instead pressing her own shut and leaning forward to place her hands on either side of our map. "Is there anyone in this tarfucking fort that's going to listen to me?"

The silence stretches, and something about the feeling in the room pushes me to back away. There is something here I am not part of, and that I refuse to interrupt. "…Com-" Kalip stops himself. "Yuea." Her name sounds strange out of his mouth. "At the start, when you were given our unit, I made a promise to you. I won't insult you by asking if you remember. But I am going to ask now; do you want me to break it?"

Yuea takes a deep breath, and I can feel her pulling magic through Amalgamate Human like she's drinking from my reservoir. Eyes still closed, she answers slowly. "The fucking moon could slam into the Green before I would want that." She says. "One more fight, one more war, isn't going to change anything. Not now."

"Then I'm taking Mela and our crystal here out on a sortie." Kalip says with a flat voice that's too forced for it to be emotionless. "Unless my commander has something else for me to do."

Instead of countermanding him, Yuea taps the map. "Take the second ridgeline, this one for elevation. If they retaliate with cavalry or skirmishes, you'll be able to make a clean exit."

"Understood, commander." Kalip says, before opening the cupboard that my form is stored in without having to ask, somehow. "Are you ready?"

Once again, I wish I had a body capable of language, because I feel now would be the time for a quiet nod and not for needing to use words. "I am. I will be unconscious briefly as we leave, but I will be ready by the time we are in position. And we will need to gather Lutra for this as well." Kalip does nod, making me slightly envious. He seems to like that part less, but the participation of the other apparatus is important to our planned assault; Small Trade will let her share Distant Trajectory in a way that will let us mix our known spells to what I hope will be maximum effect.

This is, importantly, not meant to win the battle before it starts. Instead, what I have in mind, what Kalip and Yuea have seen and agreed to, is simple. Attrition, and aggravation. Soften the enemy forces that they won't be able to replenish without a supply of corpses, and force the apparatus with them to reveal what tricks and spells it has at hand. Because no apparatus of change that has lived this long into the chaos of this world will be simple.

But hopefully, this one will need to waste resources and effort on dealing with my newest trick.

Distant Trajectory does exactly what I'd hoped, almost exactly what Muelly had assumed it did even if she had read my written translation slightly wrong. It wraps itself around another spell, creating a small pouch for me to cast into with my usual form of intent, but lacking a target. And this shell then follows its own path, launched like a siege sphere, following an arc of my own aim until it splashes to the loam of the forest floor or bursts in midair, and the spellwork is suddenly present and clattering away at its purpose.

For many of my magics, this is… unhelpful. Much as Link Spellwork doesn't always produce useful results, or sometimes replicates things that I have already learned how to do, Distant Trajectory fails to impress when paired with much of my magic.

Perception spells, it simply adds range to. Distant Vision is actually the most useful, as I can lob it directly upward and allow it to impact the fort itself, and I can, for the first time, see for myself this place that I live in and all its colorful people. Shaping spells are difficult, as they need instructions before being launched, and so detail work with them is rather impossible. Congealing mantra, glimmer, or burn all has no particular advantage, although because of how rapidly the magic blooms, if it is within my spell's normal range it does allow me easy access to something that I can detonate into deadly shrapnel.

And for some things, it is going to be a nightmare for anyone trying to harm my people. Blinding Trap, Sever Command, Drain Endurance and Drain Health both, Shape Metal cast with the crude intent of ripping apart any large mass, Move Water and Shift Wood applied to collect the rain into a heavy projectile and slam it into whatever is in the way, or to rip branches from the ground and fling them with haphazard violence.

Spawn Golem, a design of whirling stone spikes assembled and the shadow of it stockpiled in my mind to be repeated over and over at my behest, something with no intention or need for survival, to be dropped amid the walking corpses and let loose to mangle every limb it can reach before being stopped.

And from Lutra, perhaps the least elegant and most deadly option. For she can make a Small Trade to me, giving some amount of support in exchange for her own portion of Distant Trajectory, and also, a large quantity of the buried stone that I have harvested and keep in that nowhere space of Collect Material.

When her spell projectile of Form Sphere erupts in the sky, it in no way prevents the resulting creation, made from collected stone newly returned to the world, from falling. As all objects should.

And Lutra's magic, with her soul of Vibrancy recently reinforced, allows for quite a large Form Sphere. Large enough to put a siege weapon to shame. Large enough to shatter any corpse soldier it happens to strike.

All of this, and I am under no illusions that this is going to be enough. Which is why Yuea is still preparing the other soldiers, and those who are not soldiers but plan to fight for their new home anyway. It is why I have not stopped working to block some easy passages, to Form Walls and Stone Pylons, to funnel the foe toward where they will make their stand against us, and us against them.

But when that happens, I will have their measure. And they will have fewer bodies.

Kalip and Mela vault the fort's wall, my form in a sling against her back, as I let the memory take me in the short time before they reach Lutra's lake. This plan requires trust, coordination, and for myself to be awake. And one part of that, I can secure now, by letting go to the pressure of the new writing on my soul.

My tail hurts, my claws are cold, I believe I ran into some form of angry shrubbery that has stolen half of my purse a talon of time ago, and my husband, the one person I least want to suffer for, insists that dragging me out into the wilds away from the protection of our caravan will be abstractly worth it. I cannot even muster anger, nor do I have the energy to pick apart what this foray is costing us in currency. Finally, he stops at the summit of a hill. He tells me this is somewhere I might want to see, so I slither up and perch there next to him, staring out to where Auor peeks over the horizon, the moon steadily sinking as the sky lights up with the oncoming dawn. And then, my husband does something I never expected. He apologizes to me. He tells me that he knows I feel trapped, that he knows I will never love him, and that he wants me to be happy. He tells me that he would like us to be friends, and successful, but not at the cost we are made to pay. He tells me without looking at me, simply staring toward the oncoming sun. And I… I find that I do not hate him, suddenly. That my resentment was for a different man, that clearly is not the one perched with me. On the horizon, a sliver of the fallen sun rises behind Auor, and the shimmering refracted light explodes across the land. And for the first time, the horizon does not look to me like a prison. And the slide back down the hill isn't too bad either.