Soul Bound

1        Soul Bound

1.3      Making a Splash

1.3.1    An Obligated Noble

1.3.1.19 Vitruvian Man

What did Bulgaria think about the way Lord Landi had used his power, manipulating Pantalone? Had his views changed over the years, or just because this time the person with the power was an ally rather than an opponent? She’d have to…

She became aware the talking in the room had finished and, after blearily peering around, discovered that everyone was looking at her.

Kafana: “Sorry, just resting my eyes a moment. What was the question again?”

Bulgaria winced and said, with a little asperity: “I was just commenting upon your rare ability to pay full attention while snoring.”

She blushed furiously.

Lady Pia said, in a gentle tone of voice: “Do not worry yourself, Suor Kafana. You have a very dignified snore. We were just discussing whether to wake you. A maid has arrived, bearing word that High Mage Camillo awaits your presence in the gardens.”

From her flustered expression and very plain uniform, Kafana guessed she worked as a chambermaid, more used to interacting with linens and scrubbing brushes than with guests. She tried talking with her, but didn’t manage to get back a word beyond a mumble that might have been “This way, m’lady” as the maid escorted Kafana to a hedged part of the garden.

Wellington and Camillo were standing by a wide bed of soil that still had neat rows of round impressions from the base of plant pots recently removed. The scent of rosemary and oregano hung in the air like a protective kitchen spirit and Kafana felt immediately at home, in a way she hadn’t among the gilded walls of the house itself.

Would the maid feel the same, she wondered, if she could put on a magic amulet that let her take over a topsy in arlife? Would she feel more at home in Kafana’s fields and kitchens, than in neon lit streets of Nanshan?

Camillo: “Normally an apprentice will spend a year or two working with rearranging items on a flat surface and, only when they become journeymen, once they have demonstrated proficiency at imposing their will upon reality and the control needed to sort items by type, will they start learning trying to create simple temporary structures made of soil, such as walls and ditches. Wellington has argued that you are already experienced in setting up gestalts, and that shortcuts may be possible. We shall see.”

He nodded when she asked permission to set up buffs, and went over to a nearby bench to carry out his own preparations while she set up a gestalt performance with Wellington, cast a learning buff and shared their senses. When he returned, he handed them a weathered wooden tray containing a mix of small dark thyme seeds and larger lighter coriander seeds. Standing side by side, they reached for it in unison - Wellington taking one handle in his left hand and Kafana taking the other in her right, as if both bodies were being operated by a single merged mind.

Camillo: “Watch carefully while I do it, then have a go yourself. Don’t worry if nothing happens the first time. Reality Mages have a different way of perceiving things, that takes years to develop, and which can eventually extend beyond two dimensional and three dimensional patterns, to awareness of neighbouring disjoint planes and enclosures.”

She let the words flow over her, letting the part of them that was Wellington supply the meaning behind the terms, and focused her sight upon Camillo’s mana and the delicate links between objects that, since receiving tuition from Dro, she’d come to associate with the manifestation of a gestalt - a group identity forged into something more than just imagination by an act of a mage’s will and magic.

Camillo took one seed of each sort, and set them carefully next to each other. Then, using his finger to circle the tray twice, he set up a gestalt between the dark seeds and then another between the light seeds. Finally he circled it a third time, and poured a carefully controlled stream of mana into it while using two hands to firmly push his chosen two seeds apart, jiggling the tray a bit to solve any direct collisions. In less than a minute all the dark thyme seeds were on Wellington’s side of the tray, while the light coriander seeds were on Kafana’s.

Wellington: “I noticed it took less mana near the end of the movement than it did near the start. Why was that?”

Camillo: “The physical effort of pushing the seeds came from the muscles of my arm. Once the gestalts had been set up, the magical effort was in persuading you, the seeds, and the rest of reality that my arm pushing against one seed would have the effect of being spread among all the seeds of that colour. Once you too saw them as being part of the same object, sharing the same identity, you needed less convincing.”

Kafana: “When Master Chef Goedzak demonstrated reality magic to us by rearranging lemon wedges into the same pattern as was drawn on a cloth napkin, he waved a spoon around three times. But I didn’t see him pushing against one of the wedges. How did he do it?”

Camillo: “Some mages can convert their mana into small amounts of physical force, if they have the correct affinities, but it is very inefficient here on Covob. With something slippery like ice cubes, or something small like the internal structure of a steak, it might be possible but it is more likely the push came from movement in the environment like a breeze or from movement inside him like the beating of his heart. Was your chef a self-taught amateur, by any chance?”

Kafana: “I think so.”

Camillo nodded.

Camillo: “It isn’t a healthy approach, nor one that works well for larger construction. When the great Mage of Lavarre, High Master Vallés, saved Savada from the same waters that laid waste to Sassari, it cost him his life. Not just mana shock. His very body disintegrated.”

“Now, with that thought in mind, it is your turn to try. An audience can be the greatest help or greatest hindrance to a reality mage. Your main challenge will be in overcoming my skepticism, based upon the previous first attempts I’ve seen by journeymen, so think carefully about your approach before starting - how the first few seconds match the audience’s expectations are key.”

Kafana: {Hmm, we could put on a show, but I don’t think he’ll respond to flimflam.}

Wellington: {We could try reasoned arguments, but I’ve already presented them, and his reasoning based upon past experience is well founded.}

Kafana: {Then let’s combine the approaches.}

She produced from her stash a diadem with a yellow citrine at its centre, and placed it upon her head. She’d been loaned it to wear at a feast at Villa Landi when she’d first arrived on Covob, and later been given it as a gift which was lucky, as the deities had later turned it into an artifact, as a quest reward.

Diadem of Truth (HOLY)(ARTIFACT)(UNIQUE)

+50% attunement to the element of order

Truth: True sight - you see through all illusions and deceits

Truth: Malicious intentional falsehoods cause the gem to glow red

This trillion-cut citrine diadem was gifted to Kafana by Cov

Durability: 100000/100000

Kafana: “Look upon this with your mage sight and know it for what it is - a holy artifact, granted directly to me by Cov himself, the very deity of the elemental order that powers reality magic. Know that, for as long as it does not glow an angry red, every word spoken in my presence is one of truth.”

The diadem, and the divine aura surrounding her, both shone brightly enough to banish the shadows left by hedges, leaving Camillo (whose Mage Sight was fully open) looking a little stunned.

Wellington handed the tray to Camillo, then produced from his stash a belt that he’d claimed from the loot confiscated from The Immortals by Judge Tartaglia Trinci, and put it firmly around his waist as though he were arming for combat.

Wellington: “Know that we are no average journeymen, but Questing Spirits sent by Cov to help this world in a fast approaching time of great need. Know that our combined DRO-COV affinity numbers 255 on the scale the mage tower uses for measuring such things.”

The stubborn look upon Camillo’s face, whose own unboosted affinity was a respectable 183, started to crumble, as Wellington took a single dark seed from the newly mixed up pile and drew upon Kafana’s skill to set up gestalt strings thickly woven with precise runic patterns, his visualisation crystal clear in his mind, based upon pedantic mathematical definitions of all the spaces and parameters involved.

Kafana: “Know that, as a priestess, not only do I speak to the deities, they also answer me; Dro gifted me with her personal tuition in magic. They do not have time to wait for us to learn at the pace of normal journeymen. We shall succeed on our first try. This I know.”

Dro, the element deity of living earth and all that grows upon it, had intervened when Kafana had tried casting magic while standing upon the fertile soil of an ancient grove of olive trees that lay beyond the urban confines of the city. It had helped her understand gestalts in a way that the dry abstract lectures of the Teutonic mathematician, Grand Master Johannes, had not. Strictly it wasn’t the deities who’d told that that success was likely, but the System itself, however that was even better, right? Before she could start questioning herself, she picked up a light coloured seed and drew upon Wellington’s skills as she carefully set up her half of the gestalt visualisations, reinforced by a multi-coloured thread of mana that streamed out from the hand she gestured with.

Wellington stared at the tray, while Kafana stared directly into Camillo’s eyes, visualising her will as a tidal wave, pouring down with irresistible force upon his preconceptions. She pulled upon the mana stored in her ring, feeding half of it to Wellington, as they jointly said one word:

“Believe.”

Then she sang a note, a single pure unwavering note, with all the intensity she could muster, as their hands, each holding one seed, drew apart.

And the seeds on the tray moved.

[Skill “enhanced willpower” has reached level 9.]

[Skill “Reality Magic” acquired.]

[Skill “Reality Magic” has reached level 10.]

[Skill “Truesight” has reached level 19.]

[Skill “Group Performance” has reached level 23.]

*ding* [Your party’s reputation with Camillo has increased by 100.]

*ding* [Your reputation with Camillo has increased by an additional 400. Your status with Camillo has changed from ‘Neutral’ to ‘Acquaintance’.]

He gave them a rare grin of approval, his narrow jaw making it seem somewhat fox-like, and then moved on as though he’d expect nothing less from one of his students.

Camillo: “The next exercise is intended to demonstrate the Vitruvian method.”

He put the tray away and led them over to a glass model of a simple building that was resting on a bench by the bed of bare earth. Different parts of the model were tinted blue, brown or amber, but all of them were sufficiently transparent that Kafana could see the details on the inside.

Camillo: “Legend tells us that Vitruvius was an architect and a glass-smith, back in the days of the Hellenic empire, when they still knew the secret of making glass that was tougher than steel. Not an easy man to get along with, by all accounts, but a fine artist and creative crafter of machines, who worked on improving the aqueducts of Megapolis, the imperial capital, and on stubborn feuding with its terrible bureaucracy over standardising pipe sizes.”

“Anyway, when Transylvania invaded he escaped south to the city of Pireaus just before Megapolis was besieged, and there he set about using a technique he developed for pipes to help set up defences. Piraeus was a peaceful coastal city surrounded by the flat fertile lands of the Morea peninsula. It didn’t have walls, and none could be set up in time by conventional means. So what he did was create one perfect template, drawn from the best example barrier he could find, modified by his imagination and carefully sketched architectural plans, and then instantiated in duraglass at an exact 20 : 1 scale. He then included a pair of dividers in his gestalt, so that the resulting sections of wall would all turn out identical and fit together correctly.”

Kafana: “Did he succeed?”

Camillo: “According to the legend, he drafted every man, woman and horse not already involved in evacuating civilians to other lands, and used them without mercy. There’s a woodcut drawing showing them gathering piles of sand from the beach, burning down houses to supply the heat to melt the sand to glass and applying physical power while harnessed together like plough horses. But yes, he succeeded in doing what he’s set out to do - saving the population. Or nearly.”

Wellington: “How nearly?”

Camillo: “He kept the wall repaired faster than the undead could damage it, but when he stopped in order to run for the final evacuation ship, they broke through. He’d drained so many mana potions his stomach nearly burst, and he couldn’t run as fast as he needed to. He called to the ship for help, but rather than sortie out to save him, the Piraens set sail without him. A wight lord captured him alive, tied him to the wheel of a cart full of sand, and then tortured him in full sight of the departing fleet, Vitruvius’ death curse ringing in their ears.”

Kafana: “What was the curse?”

Camillo: “The version of the legend taught in the Mage Tower didn’t say. He’s honoured as an incarnation of Wayland the Smith, though that’s never been proven. I suspect the curse wasn’t particularly nice or heroic, and didn’t fit neatly into their narrative.”

[Quest available: “Where have all the Piraens gone, long long ago?” - Difficulty level E.]

Kafana: {Sys, that sounds like a side-quest to me, and I’m trying to cut down.}

System: {Surely one additional a day wouldn’t hurt? Go on, it’s only a little one.}

There was a teasing lilt in System’s voice, and Kafana felt a burst of amusement.

Kafana: {What are you? A quest-dealer, who hangs around on shady street corners trying to tempt young adventurers with your wares? No!}

System: {*humpf* Well, suit yourself. If you change your mind, you know where to find me.}

[Quest declined. For now.]