NOVEL NEXT 128 - The office-worker’s fantasy part 4/5: blowing up the office
Gemmy, why exactly did that unlock a combo skill? I thought they had to be meaningful combinations and not… results of physics.
Gelias and Rory's power served as a bridge, connecting you. Without it, you would not have realized the nature of her Gem.
It took me a whole night and ages of practice and knowledge of a past life to realize the nature of my Ruby of Energy. How did I realize hers so quickly?
She spent years Attuning that Gem and was intimately familiar with its power. You merely provided perspective.
He supposed he got it. Sometimes, you needed someone else's outside perspective to look at you and tell you how great you were.
Smoke roiled out of the top of the red cordon around the Merchant of the Damned.
"Again," Archmund said. Beatrice nodded. The cordon began refilling with her inky darkness. It wasn't enough to catch on fire yet, but Archmund had an instinctual sense for when it would be enough.
But before the coal fog was dense enough to detonate, the Merchant of the Damned swiped its hands and tore through every remaining layer of Beatrice's red barrier.
Archmund's sense of danger spiked. It was venting out vast amounts o fits internal magical powers, dumping its vital energy and reserves into the world.
"In all endeavors, an upfront investment sometimes is needed to secure a return," the Merchant said.
That was beyond ominous, even if he was the only one who got it.
He sent a pulse towards Mary along their existing connection, the malformed mingling of their souls made by intentionally forcing themselves into the same Gem. Their connection was deeper and more substantial than those he had with Beatrice, Rory, and Gelias, for good or ill.
He felt her tug back on the magic, and she raised her Gemstone Handfan and Gemstone Rapier.
Gemmy. Can you speak to her?
I always could.
This was one situation where words were unneeded.
He knew Mary quite well. Sure, she had some backstory in her past that he hadn't fully learned, and she didn't fully believe him when he said he was reborn from another world, but they knew each other. They had trained alongside each other, done stupid magical experiments with each other, popped in with the perfect advice at just the right moment. Some secrets were natural between friends, and there would always be the insurmountable status differential of master and servant, but even those could be overcome in time.
I will always be at your service.
Mary's words whispered in his mind. His eyes widened with surprise.
Gemmy. Was that?
I transmitted her message for you.
And so he might as well accept it. He'd framed so much of their relationship in what he could do to set her free from him. But she didn't want that, didn't see his companionship as a burden at all, had little worries about being an extension of his will in the world so long as he was willing to listen to her in turn.
(That didn't mean he was happy about their power differential, mind, but he would grant her the fullest rights he could under the law that wasn't outright exile, with the faith that she would support him regardless.)
So for the first time he noticed his subconscious resistance to all that she offered, and relaxed it. He allowed his magic to flow against and within her magical circuits more fully, to feel through her senses, see through her eyes, cast through her Gems.
She gasped. But it wasn't unpleasant for either of them. It was like a warm hug.
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He felt the unique facets of her Gemstone Handfan, the instinct and ghostly memories that induced it to become the wind. He might not know intimately the timeworn channels that drew out their magic, not enough to break through to Awakening — but she did. She was Attuned. He could piggyback upon that experience, draw upon her sense of what was right and natural and instinctual.
Her Rapier felt much like his own. But divorced from his own physical experience, from his triggered instinct, he could see it through new eyes. When he used his own Rapier, his magic flowed through it unbidden, pulled from him without his conscious bidding. But with his power through her hands, it felt as foreign as it was familiar. The facets, the bends, the faces, the folds that directed magic along the instincts of Gem and Gear were weaker from the outside.
So he knew the way his magic flowed, the way it had to warp and twist and refract and pulse through a Gem to manifest, the alterations it should accept and those it should avoid — and he drew upon her knowledge of the feel of her weapons —
And then he cast an Infrared Lance from her Gemstone Rapier straight through the Merchant's head.
Mary stumbled back. "What was that?"
"Second Awakening," Gelias breathed. The whole encounter had taken only seconds.
"The Dungeon will take into account your advancements," the Merchant said. "You are a star performer, and your retention has become even more valuable."
"That's unheard of," Rory said. "Second Awakening, at ten?"
"Well, he's a prodigy," Beatrice said sardonically.
The Merchant weaved a red band out from between its fingers and snapped it at him like a piece of rude cloth. In the seconds as it drifted towards him…
He was connected to all four of them now. He could sense their magic as if it was his own. This brief moment of oneness was only sustained by emergency and magic. He could sense their weapons weapons as if they were his own. Their own uniqueness, the wonder of their backgrounds and their experiences, their glorious destinies that awaited them, as if they were his own.
For the first time in a long time, the world didn't feel so lonely. The children of the Omnio and the Imperial Capital might be brought up in a cutthroat, murderous, backstabbing world — but what good was sitting atop the mountain if there was no one to share the view?
He saw everything so clearly now.
Every single one of his Gems was part of him. His magic flowed through all of them. Their structures might have been different in ways that encouraged different manifestations of magic, but someone with fine control could ignore that.
And he had those instincts.
And — not just for his own Gems.
For theirs.
It had been easiest with Mary's Rapier, because he had one of his own, to see in her weapon the pinch points and conduits that turned raw magic from ineffable Numen to physical reflex. But from that one example, he could just barely see how each facet of a Gem had a purpose, how the flaws imbued by a Monster's spirit all left behind some purpose that turned the weapon from "what if" to "is".
Even the time-worn grooves of Gelias's bow were channels that manifested magic from the spirit to the material.
All of them had a purpose. All of them could play a part. All part of a wondrous, joyous life. All part of a great empire. That individuality could be suppressed as if to make tools in a factory — or it could be harnessed and channeled.
And he fired an Infrared Lance.
From five directions. From five sets of magical weapons.
All at the Merchant of the Damned.
"This will not be enough to dent me."
He knew it wasn't.
"Everyone! Take out everything you've Attuned!"
He threw his Ruby of Energy in the air, his Cube of Bodily Barrier, his Storage Gem, all suffuse with his power. He drew his Gemstone Rapier and his Gemstone Sword. His cufflinks he kept on, for his Influence was the only thing keeping this whole operation going.
"Weapons out in front of you!"
But they did the same, pulling out their Gems to hover in the air, wielding their Gear in their hands. Mary with her Handfan and Rapier. Beatrice with her Wand and Gem of Coal, Rory with his staff. All three of them with their Keycards. And Gelias with his bow.
He fired Infrared Lances from each, all angled up in just a way to scorch the ceiling, to dodge friendly fire. He had a clear shot from each of the weapons, and they could all still channel their power — though, he could tell through Gelias's senses, they ran into a little more resistance from the presence of his foreign magic.
He could cast his magic through their weapons as if they were his own, using their senses and knowledge, based on the connective power of their Combo Skills. But there was loss, and inefficiency, and friction. He could cast the Infrared Lance instinctively, with nary a thought. But for him to do that, and for Gelias to shoot a bow, and Rory to project his inspiration, and Beatrice to cloak herself in "darkness"… that was difficult, for they hadn't Attuned their Skills to the level of instinct.
There had to be a more clever way, one that didn't involve using his friends like mere sleeves for his power.
A warping of space around the Merchant of the Damned. A sphere that allowed things in, but not out. Like a Mobius strip, a Klein bottle, a boundary that once you crossed you could only go back inwards. An artificial black hole that made no gravity.
His Infrared Lances, once they crossed the threshold, would loop infinitely. No waste. No risk of going astray and hitting one of his friends.
Nigh impossible in normal circumstances, outside of a Dungeon with malleable space. Difficult, if you only had a blunt instrument to nudge the form of space like it was a sheet of metal to be hammered. But if you had multiple Gems through which to channel your power…
Gemmy, tell them my plan. With this, we'll finish it once and for all.