NOVEL NEXT 76 - The Moral of the Arc Gets Stated Outright and is Ignored
The last snows were melting, and the first buds began to sprout upon the trees, and water cascaded into the pit of Granavale Dungeon.
Weaponsmaster Garth Alavant parried Archmund Granavale's Gemstone Rapier, the two Gemstone blades flashing with light as they met. This was the nature of Gemstone melee combat — the personal magic channeled through Gemstone magic violently repulsed itself whenever warriors met on the field of battle. Magic tended to repel magic unless it was enough alike.
And Garth and Archmund had met each other in friendly training battles many times — but always as foes.
Archmund's blade danced, as dainty as a needle, while Garth's blade swung methodically, stalwart — every movement perfectly countering Archmund's attacks.
The entrance to Granavale Dungeon laid at the bottom of a pit, like a volcanic crater created when the restless dead had burst out of it. There had been a camp at the bottom, but it had been wrecked when strong Monsters had burst out of the Dungeon. Princess Angelina Grace Marca Prima Omnio, in disguise, had personally rebuilt the camp. So now it remained a suitable sparring ground where they could go all out.
All about them, the melting snows cascaded down the spiraled slope towards Granavale Dungeon, redirected into large rainwater reservoirs. Archmund had wondered if it was sanitary, but he wouldn't be the one drinking it anyways. The excess drained into the Dungeon, that gaping pit in the ground that swallowed matter as easily as it swallowed lives.
"You've gotten faster, lad," Garth said.
"Have I?"
"Few ever notice their own strength until it's tested," Garth said.
Archmund glanced to the side and saw his peons (they weren't close enough to be friends) watching him closely, taking a break from their own battles. Today, it was just Rory Redmont and Beatrice Blackstone. Rory was a student of the martial arts himself, while Beatrice just tagged along.
"And them?" he said.
"They're not incompetent," Garth said.
"Is that your blunt assessment or your charitable assessment?"
"You could take them through the Middle Tier," Garth said. "But you shouldn't expect to get to the bottom as they are now. Turn back the instant anyone gets injured."
He'd wanted an assessment of all of his combat pals, and Garth had understood that. Gelias Greenroot and Mary were both holed up in the manor's library, doing their own thing, staying away from the fight.
Archmund raised his blade again. "Shall we?"
"Hmmm," Garth said. "Why not use that other blade, lad?"
Archmund pursed his lips. "I'm not sure I trust that sword."
"You don't trust the sword," Garth said, stroking his beard.
"You saw what it does to me," Archmund said. "Uncontrollable, and for what? Not even able to scratch you."
He'd used that sword to cut down his mother. Or her ghost. Or a demon taking her form. It wasn't entirely clear to him, but his Gemstone Tablet had called it a Matricide, and if you couldn't distinguish it from the actual thing, did it matter?
The sword had filled him with killing instinct then. And after that, every time, it hadn't gotten any better. Was it the memory? The instinct? The thought?
"Why take that risk, when I've got this blade that works without any of those side effects?" he said, brandishing the rapier.
Strictly speaking that wasn't true. The Gemstone Rapier filled him with a noble's mindset: Caring about pedigree, looking down on peasants, embracing arrogance and violence. But that was easier to deal with than a killing rage that could be turned against any of his allies at any given time. Not that he would ever do that, mind you. Nor was he easily controlled by outside influences. Sometimes, though, people just got on his nerves.
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It was a bad habit.
Garth looked troubled. "You take to the habits of the blade awfully fast, lad. That's… well, it makes you strong. But it's not normal."
That was true. It wasn't.
"You're too young to be making such important decisions about which piece of Gemgear you'll wield for the rest of your life," Garth said. "Keep your options open. Stay flexible."
That was the other issue of Gemstone Gear.
It granted you powers easily, gave you magical Skills far easier and faster than training with Gems, but it changed your mentality, shaped the nature of your soul, constrained you to a Class. Use a sword, and slowly but sure you'd find your soul shaped until one day you were a Swordsman. A bow, and you'd be an Archer. Sure, you could slowly train with other magic, and you'd iterate and deepen your magic and become a more complex class — but it was tricky. It was hard. Only the rich and the desperate could afford to do such things.
Though he was rich.
He'd heard advice like this before. Or rather, criticism along these lines.
In his past life, there was an institution of higher learning called "College". It wasn't quite like the Imperial University of Mages, because at the University of Mages you actually learned rare and valuable things like magic and the nature of the universe.
On earth, you could go to college to study anything. Almost literally anything. The arts. Science. Technology. Dance. Crafts. Creative Writing. Public Speaking. Sociology. Business.
You could even borrow vast amounts of money to study any of this, to follow whatever passions an 18 year old might have. At that tender age, you could borrow a vast amount of money to set the course of your life.
But you'd have to pay it back.
And if you hadn't studied something profitable, something marketable, you might be in a lot of debt for very many years. Even if you wanted to change. To become something else.
It was a disproportionately important decision to put on the shoulders of an 18-year-old.
And he was even younger than that.
And playing with something arguably more permanent than money:
Debt died after one lifetime. He knew firsthand the soul continued on.
"Maybe I should practice with my Gems instead then," he said.
Magic Gems were another more generic way to channel one's personal magic. They were just rocks instead of weapons or armor. Users would Attune to them as well and also become locked-in with the Skills and powers granted, but they didn't grant Classes, which left their users ever-so-slightly more flexible, giving up mainly opportunity cost.
"I gave the troops the morning off when you said you were coming," Garth said. "The archery range is yours."
"You had them set up disposable targets?"
"Aye."
Archmund nodded and took his place at the Archery Range, while Garth went off to supervise Rory and Beatrice.
He pulled out two of his Gems. Both were infused with his magic, and they floated in the air before him without much prompting.
Both were glittering rubies. One was a tetrahedron the size of his thumb; the other, an octahedron the size of his fist.
But a thought; and an invisible blast of infrared energy from his Ruby Tetrahedron caught the leftmost target on fire — his Infrared Lance. He was well practiced, well trained with that power.
But his Ruby Octahedron was a newer, less used instrument. (Though if he thought about it, he'd won the Ruby Octahedron from the Dungeon less than a day after he'd unlocked the true potential of the Ruby Tetrahedron.)
It allowed him to cast a much more traditional fireball spell.
He allowed his magic to well up from his soul, flowing into the Gem;
A spark manifested before the Gem;
Filling its eight facets, reflecting and refracting about each;
It grew;
Bouncing about in perfect harmonious cacophony;
And grew;
Squaring the circle; sphering the octahedron.
And grew.
The fireball was the size of his fist. It flew and set one of the targets on fire.
Truthfully, he wasn't sure he saw the use case, at least not in its current form. Especially since he needed to dedicate so much conscious thought to it, and it took a few seconds to charge, when his Infrared Lance was free.
Which…
He started charging another fireball, the magic crackling its way out of his soul as if he was a campfire.
And even as he fed his magic into his fireball, he fired his Infrared Lances down the row of targets, before he released.
In the time he shot one Fireball, he'd shot four Infrared Lances, all with greater accuracy.
He heard a slow clap.
"Not bad at all," Garth said. "You've got a handle on both of those Gems."
"Not good enough. I haven't made any real progress all winter with either. I might be spreading myself too thin."
Garth walked up to him and clapped him on the shoulder. "Genuinely, lad? So what?"
So what?
What did he even mean by asking that?
Of course Archmund was going to dedicate himself to being excellent in everything he could do.
"Your pals over there? They can hold their own. If it's ever truly dangerous, you'll make it out alive. They're more than strong enough to handle themselves. You've put yourself a good party."
But he didn't want anyone to die for his sake—
"The blood in their veins is every bit as noble as the blood in yours," Garth said. "They've sworn themselves, just as you have, to die for the Empire and her peoples."
But they didn't know what they were getting into, not really. They hadn't been faced with a specter of their dead parents so deep beneath the earth.
Garth sighed. "I can tell from the look on your face that you're not listening to a thing I'm saying, lad. That much is self-evident. Fact is, when I look at you all I see potential. Not just you alone, your comrades, too. You don't have to carry everything on your own shoulders, lad—"
Garth looked over the camp, the shacks of balsa wood and nailed-down canvas tarps.
"An army's got one general, but that general relies on all of his troops."