Tutorial's End

The New Arrival's Guide to Common Things

by Jorbon Delivas

Moving on from zealotry, let's address the most generic and also most prominent type of organization: Factions.

Factions are, as their name suggests, factional. Unlike guilds, orders, or religions, a faction's goals aren't linked to a greater concept or a charter. Rather, a faction follows an ever-changing agenda voted on quarterly by the faction's board. The agenda must be a true update, with steps taken to achieve the previous agenda and their results thereof. Furthermore, the UICI itself records the agenda directly and a faction will lose their "official" status if they fail to log more than a single agenda update in a ten year period.

Like other organizations, factions generally have a single 'leader'. However, the leader is not an absolute authority. Rather, they are generally someone universally thought of as trustworthy enough to hoist the responsibilities of leadership upon and also restrained enough to avoid abusing those responsibilities.

Also unlike other organizations, a faction's leader can be replaced with a majority vote of the board. This isn't often done, as whoever creates a faction generally also serves as its leader. The creator leaving a faction always significantly weakens the group's political power. Often, the creator leaving a faction is the symbol to rival organizations that the time is right to strike.

Willow

???

"Twenty enemies ahead, larger than the assids we've fought before…" System's metal voice spoke through the party channel he'd established before they set off this morning.

Phoenix acknowledged with a, "heard."

"Any mutations as Madrick noted they might have?" Prism asked.

"Yeah, their weird sternum-holes all have different colors this time, instead of just that nasty green color we're so used to and fond of." System ended dryly.

Piper piped up, "Want me to scout them out?!" She asked eagerly.

Phoenix had noticed her pixie was acting a bit weird today. She'd been asleep when Phoenix exited her pod, snoring softly on the rim of the construct. While it'd been adorable, it was also a source of mild concern. So far, Phoenix hadn't ever noticed her guide sleeping or even drowsy. Further, she'd seemed embarrassed when woken, and she'd been eager to be helpful all day rather than contenting herself with hanging around the party or using her new spell to disappear into whatever sub-spacial place she went and coming back when called. Madrick had explained it in a weird and very technical way that had been difficult to follow.

With a glance toward Phoenix's pink passenger, System sent, "No need. I can see enough to be sure we won't be snuck up on."

Humphing softly, Piper fell back on Phoenix's shoulder seeming ill content. I'll talk to her later to see what's up… Maybe she's going through the magical goop equivalent of puberty?

Quiz, who was walking on the left flank of the group, opposite system while Phoenix lead and Prism took rear guard, spoke through the link, "Could Piper cause a distraction with her teleportation just before we strike?"

"Yeah!" Piper cheered, hopping back to her feet eagerly.

"Shhh" Four mind-voices reminded the over-eager fairy of the need for silence. She wilted slightly, then sent through the channel instead, "Yeah… Totally!"

An odd turning sensation twisted at Phoenix's guts at the possibility of her guide putting herself in danger, but she squashed it. As far as she knew, the goop Piper was made of was indestructible. If anyone was going to take a risk, it should probably be her. Worst case, she and Quiz had hypothesized that healing her should be the same as imbuing her with new capabilities just more directed toward recovery.

She kept her mouth shut as Quiz followed up on the suggestion, "Jon… Er, System, if you could describe an optimal place for Piper to pop in to cause a distraction, we should assume the trick will only work once."

"Good idea. There are twenty of them, as I mentioned. The largest actual group is about ten strong. They're surrounding a weird little pile of stones, or something. I'm not entirely sure what it is. If you appear directly on top of the stones, you'll definitely get their attention. Most of them are staring at the rocks as if waiting for something to happen."

"Got it!" Piper remembered to send through the mental channel this time. "I'll go get ready!"

Taking a couple steps which were hardly heavy enough to even notice, she vanished. Realizing they hadn't previously tested System's claim that once the party was established they should pretty much be able to communicate anywhere, Phoenix asked, "Can you still hear us, Piper?"

"Loud and clear!"

"Interesting. That indicates there is a 'path' to wherever Piper goes. That likely means her position isn't as unassailable as we may have thought before. You should get in the habit of checking the area each time you appear, Piper. If there's a link between us and you, that means there's at least one open route for an enemy to come after you. With all the weird magic out there, we should assume someone or something can find and abuse that connection."

"Okay! I'll make sure to check!"

"How close?" Quiz asked.

"Almost there kids, we'll be there when we're there!" Phoenix joked.

Followed by System's more serious, "We should slow down now, that bend up ahead is the last thing between our lines of sight."

So noting, Phoenix forced her mind into a more serious state. She would still enjoy the fight, but wouldn't let herself get distracted. The bend System mentioned looked just like every other in this warren of tunnels. A sharp angle which was barely describable at a distance of two dozen meters, the earthy gray and brown dappled patterns blending together in the low visibility subterranean passage.

There were differences every so often, pockets of ores and sometimes even a gem or two! The party had marked a few such points on their map to return to later, once they had some way to mine the materials.

As they drew closer to the tunnel's twist, Phoenix's nose crinkled. A disgusting scent reminiscent of a mismanaged land-fill she'd once visited in Texas as a kid assaulted her. A soft gagging noise behind her let Phoenix know she wasn't the only one affected. Naomi was apparently even more susceptible to disgusting odors. Glancing toward System, she saw his sharp and slightly bearded jaw clenched hard.

Quiz sent back to them, "Smells like some of the alchemical refinement plants I've visited. Quite unpleasant."

"Understatement, much, Quiz?"

"Hmm… You know, I definitely prefer hearing you say my real name. What's the point of these monikers? You said I needed one while we're on 'missions', but I don't think you ever told me why."

Letting her mind stutter entirely over the first part of that reply, Phoenix answered, "To be cool, like us, of course!"

"Why don't I get one, then?!" Piper asked, sounding a bit hurt.

"Uhhh…" Shoot. I didn't even think of giving one for Piper! It could be pixie? Or fairy? We call her those all the time anyway… Or…

Prism answered, her dry mental voice oddly tinged with disgust, presumably due to the feted stench they were now standing at the edge of, "Piper, you're now designated as 'Iris'. Iris was a greek goddess of the rainbow and one of the gods' favorite messengers as well as being a goddess of sea and sky."

"Hell yeah! I'm a goddess!" Piper, Iris, I guess, sang in a lilting melody.

"To answer you, Quiz, the names are an attempt to create a partitioned mentality for combat and other necessary but undesirable situations. While working in an operation, our minds should remain more on task and sober. More importantly, while not on a mission we can hopefully separate, to some extent, what we've seen and done from our civilian lives. It's something I read about a long time ago, I don't know if it works - but it can hardly hurt to try and distance ourselves from our more violent sides."

Whoa, such a long explanation from the queen of brevity! Phoenix shot Prism a quick thumbs-up appreciating the thorough explanation. Then she grabbed her nose and made an exaggerated gagging motion.

Taking her meaning, Prism nodded and continued before anyone could ask further questions, "System, how far away are our first targets once we take this turn?"

"Maybe another dozen meters."

"Exactly eleven point six four meters!" Iris noted, her tone snooty and proud.

Motioning to stop System from replying, Prism concluded, "Good. Then our plan is simple. Iris, you'll pop in and cause a ruckus. System will signal us at an optimal time for us to charge in. Phoenix and Quiz are front-line, System and I will act as support casters."

This only being the third or maybe fourth time that all four of them had fought together as a group, rather than being split into pairs or trios, the clear direction of what was expected of everyone was something Phoenix appreciated. She nodded at Quiz as he moved to stand before her, nearer the tunnel's edge than the others.

Noting with a quick glance around that everyone was serious and ready, Prism nodded and said, "Iris, begin."

Madrick

Esquien Nest/Layer Descent Point, Upper-crust Tunnels, Chimera's Moon-63

Watching from a Shroud of War, Madrick nodded in appreciation as his apprentice's team stopped to silently plan before rushing their unknown enemy. He had been forced to provide a bit of intelligence to the group when he assigned them the task of descending to the next layer of Chimera's sixty third moon earlier this morning.

Perhaps he could have refused to answer the questions when he gave them their rough heading, but the boy attendant had made a good point. It would be difficult for them to find the descent point without knowing what to look for. Uncharacteristically, Madrick had decided to shed the slightest light on their task for them. Mostly because they were behind his intended schedule and hoped the foreknowledge would speed them up.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Given it'd taken the party just under three hours to find the entry point, he was satisfied that compromising a bit of the learning experience had been worthwhile. If he'd demanded they 'search for anything odd', he suspected they would have been stuck in a large cavern a kilometer or so back where they had stumbled on a vein of imunite. That may have been enough for them to assume they were in the right area, since it was 'odd' compared to the uniformity of the earthen road they'd trod thus far.

Even knowing enough about their actual target to realize the cavern wasn't related, it could have caused a significant delay. The material was valuable, and had the baby alchemist of their group recognized the unrefined ore he likely would have asked to stop and gather it rather than marking it for a return trip.

Feeling his shroud trying to slip, the lack of a present warzone making the spell rebel, Madrick fed it from his war mana, silencing its descent. His internal war was more than enough to fuel such simple environment-dependent spells.

Radiant green eyes watching through the soft one-way curtain of his veil, Madrick observed as his apprentice's party struck.

Without fanfare, the pink construct suddenly stood atop the esquien spawning den.

"Hi uglies!" Her voice was clear and flute-like, lacking any hint of fear being among opponents much stronger and more vicious than herself. Willow's madness, in this area, had clearly bled into her construct. Madrick was pleased. The fearless attitude was one of his favorite things about his apprentice. Her inability to consider herself inferior to anyone, was the other.

In the next moment, a blur of motion flashed down the ten meter tunnel which opened up into the larger cavern which contained the layer descent. The girl had drastically improved her control over what she called her 'focus' in the last three days.

Previously, when she half-empowered her ability, it had certainly made her quicker and stronger, but only a bit. During her training with her blank-faced attendant, she'd realized that side of her ability had greater potential than she'd been leveraging. It had been the key to fully resisting the black mana which her training partner infused into her body, stealing energy, emotion, even thoughts.

Once she'd learned to detect the presence of foreign mana, Willow had found she could simply activate her ability with intent infused into her mana, a feat few at her experience had the willpower to achieve. The fact that she had clearly realized the broader applications of such an enhancement of the ability was only to be expected of his apprentice.

The blur didn't stop until it reached the center of the room, taking full advantage of the distraction her fairy familiar had caused.

Leaping into one of the esquien, Madrick felt a small, compact flare of mana on Willow's right fist as it made its way inevitably downward toward the back of her chosen target's head. The esquien were interesting creatures which were highly resistant to all direct effects. Few things could impact them directly, including Willow's signature ability and the spell she had developed. Finding most of her arsenal disarmed had been frustrating to the girl, but she hadn't balked at fighting with a paper sword.

She'd simply adapted, using the environment and the esquien's inability to pick its targets carefully in battle against them. When she punched, it was to get their attention and force them to reposition for whatever trick she'd come up with to end them. That had been her strategy. Now, it seemed, she'd come up with a better method.

Willow's fist went through the esquien's skull as if it was brittle clay, rather than bone with a density and flexibility both comparable to steel. Madrick nodded in appreciation, pondering how she'd achieved such a result.

The next moment the newest member of Willow's entourage arrived. Slyth's sword was already bared and he moved with a subtle grace that spoke of tens of years of careful dedication to learning the dance of blades. The boy's talent had been wasted acting as an alchemist's psuedo-apprentice back on Shee. It was a mystery as to why he'd chosen that path, rather than work as a sell sword. Better, he should have gone to a planet not owned by the honor-obsessed orcs and fight in arenas. He'd have gained potential and currency with a tenth of the work he'd put into learning an entirely new craft. At least it was an art that Willow could make use of if the Ozkri chose to continue to pursue it in the future.

The esquien finally seemed to realize they were under attack. The remaining eight all shrieked their fury. The two nearest Willow and Slyth turned and slashed toward them with their long, powerful, arms in a perfect mirror.

Breaking the illusion of mirrored action, Willow stepped forward, into her opponent's guard, and punched her hand directly through its face. Her black-blood covered hand was clearly visible on exit for a moment, before she yanked it back and shoved the body to the side and took another step toward her next challenger. Ever onward, never retreating. That was the girl's favored fighting style.

Meanwhile Slyth fought more defensively, his blade redirecting each heavy swing of his opponent as he patiently waited for an opening. A wide swing gave him just such an opportunity, which the boy didn't waste. As he swayed to avoid a particularly heavy downward flail of both arms at once, his sword flicked forward and up. The blade slipped up through the creature's wide-open maw, sharp teeth barely short of grazing silver skin as Slyth's sword plunged up into its brain.

Pulling the weapon from its impromptu flesh-sheath sharply, the Ozkri flicked his blade to remove any remaining gore. Two more opponents had managed to make their way to the swordsman and moved to flank him. Unconcerned, Slyth simply took a couple steps backward. He used the spawning den as an anchor for his spatial awareness, moving along its edge to keep the object between himself and his enemies. Given their apparent unwillingness to harm, or even touch, the thing, it made an excellent barrier.

A moment later, Slyth's shoulder bumped into Willow's gently. Neither of them reacted, so they'd either been communicating using the man-attendant's telepathy link, or both were aware enough of their surroundings to be unsurprised by the contact. Either way, it was an excellent display of mid-battle coordination for two beings who had hardly fought together at all.

Beyond the two engaged in the melee, the attendants played their role of support rather well. The male's spells somehow worked on the ever-resistant esquien just fine. He used one of them repeatedly, badly confusing the creatures which lead to them attacking each other and the environment. He's already managed to kill four of the dumb brutes by the time Willow finished her third with a roundhouse kick that somehow bisected the study monster variant she was up against.

Madrick almost found himself clapping in joy at the display. His apprentice had just kicked through a esquien earthen variant which was entirely specialized in defense. Slyth's blade wouldn't have scratched the thing, even if he managed to get it in it's mouth as he had with his first opponent.

Last, there was the empirically pale woman servant. She walked into the center of the room as if she had invited all of the battle's participants as guests. Standing there, she trusted Willow and Slyth to hold the majority of the creature's attention, while the boy behind her distracted and ignited infighting amongst any who dared approach the coldly regal visage of the blank faced lady.

The fight appeared to be going quite well. Until the esquien realized they were being beaten back, sending them into a fury. Each of them began charging their unique payloads within their disturbing over-belly spitting holes. Madrick counted at least ten separate colors, indicating ten different mana types could be safely assumed.

Which, of course, was when the fight turned from well coordinated and quite impressive considering the lack of experience for those involved - to downright odd.

Willow and Slyth slid back, disengaging rapidly while the man-support rushed toward the figure of his fellow attendant. Convening in a group, Madrick clicked in disappointment. Scattering would have surely been the appropriate move, yet they'd done the opposite. The various fluids and elemental discharges form the esquien would reduce their 'turtled' position to liquid. The respawns would be annoying. Since it was a full wipe, at least he didn't have to worry about finding a good excuse to separate the weakest to avoid slowing down the strong.

The cavern went gray. Madrick felt himself slow dramatically, his 'I bow to no one' insight allowing him to resist Willow's ability - though not fully. He channeled some of the mana most conceptually linked to that particular insight through his body: his tyrant's hand mana. The affect lessened, but didn't abate entirely. Somehow, Willow had increased her ability's potency yet again.

The woman in question was standing, drenched in the blood of her enemies, her teeth bared in wicked mirth. The pressure from her ability slowly grew, becoming stronger each moment. Tsking, Madrick slowly increased the amount of mana cycling through him to counteract Willow's own increase.

Seeing the esquien slow was surprising, but not shocking. Her having increased the ability enough to suppress him, even this much, it would have been impossible for the esquien to remain unaffected. What was surprising was seeing her party still moving. Slyth lowered his blade, looking around curiously. The male support relaxed, looking like he was anticipating something. Finally, Willow's she-serf asked aloud, "Ready?"

"Ready!" Willow agreed brightly. She counted down with a tone of giddy anticipation, "Three, two, one…" As she ended her count, her large ice-blue eyes seemed alight with excitement. Her next word seemed to shake reality. "Break." The word was spoken not as a petulant command, or a plea, but as if uttered by a god. Madrick would know, he'd made such declarations himself.

Everything besides the party in the room broke. Madrick felt his mana suddenly plummet, dropping at a shocking rate. Standing straight, he firmed his will and traced his conceptual links. His web of carefully curated insights, concepts, and abilities would not be defeated as collateral of his apprentice and her servant's working.

Stabilizing his mana-flow, Madrick sighed softly, releasing the tension that had sneaked into his heart. Then he realized his Shroud of War had shattered. Along with everything else in the room.

Besides Willow's party, and himself, nothing was left unmarred. The esquien had arguably fared the worst, their bodies splattered, unrecognizable, masses of flesh spread throughout the cavern. The spawning den had cracked down the middle and the soft hum of mana which Madrick had noted when he first found the descent room was absent. The walls and floors were likewise covered in spiderweb cracks, with many stalactites and stalagmites reduced to splinters.

Noticing Madrick standing in the corner, Willow's manic eyes suddenly took on a cheeky cast. Narrowing and sparkling, "Looks like we caught the sneaky spy in action! I KNEW you had an invisibility spell! HAH! And we totally destroyed it!"

Stepping forward, Madrick made his way toward the team. He felt no shame in his simple spell breaking, given the massive area of effect spell Willow had apparently pulled off. He'd heard her command things to break, bend, shatter, and so on plenty of times as she practiced her imperative command spell. This had been far beyond what she'd ever even hinted at being capable of, though.

"How?" He asked as he stopped in front of Willow, looking down at her. His face was carved of rock, giving nothing of his thoughts away.

Snickering, Willow asked, "If I don't tell you, will you explode from curiosity?"

"No. I'll simply stop giving my cheeky apprentice lessons until she starts acting appropriately as my student." His rough voice always sounded harsh, something he actively cultivated. It removed any question as to whether he was joking when making such a pronouncement.

"Mhm… Well, you might have some notes on how we can improve it anyway." Willow answered, unconcerned by his threat. "Naomi wasn't able to get anywhere resisting my ability so we spent a long time talking about how the my ability and her mana work. That's when we realized how well they should synergize! So instead of me just freezing her with my ability over and over, I started working on controlling it better. Infusing intent to not affect my party into my discipline mana is enough to exclude them. Then, I also started infusing the intent to allow Naomi's mana to interact with it. Once she could sense it, we started playing around a bit and…"

Willow grinned brightly, "We figured we could use her mana to remove resistances beings have against my ability! Then, we thought it could go further… She can remove all their resistance to my commands, too. But then the problem was how slowly Naomi's mana moves. It takes whole seconds to move her cloud of mana a good distance from herself, after all, and my ability has a decent area of effect - especially when I push it hard."

Taking a breath as she waved around to indicate the 'decent area of effect', Willow continued, "So we worked on not just allowing our mana to interact, but to actually merge!"

Looking exceedingly proud, she said, "So what we just did was merged my ability and her mana into an entirely new thing that we both have partial control over. When I cast my imperitive command, I targeted the ability itself. Then Naomi used her mana's ability to take and redirect things to re-target everything affected by the ability rather than the ability itself."

Staring at his apprentice and her attendant, Madrick was torn. He was quite impressed that they'd worked out how to create a rite - a multi part spell requiring multiple beings to perform. He was also floored by just how much they over complicated it.

"How much mana did that take from both of you?" He began, continuing to maintain his poker face.

Glancing at each other, Willow said, "About half of mine."

"A little less than half of mine, as well." The black haired girl agreed.

"How much would it have cost if you performed each step separately?"

"Huh?" Willow articulated smartly.

"Separately? We couldn't have…" The woman trailed off, then seemed to realize.

"Willow… Could you have just cast your command at everything affected by your ability instead of at the ability itself?"

"I can only target one thing with my command so far."

"Everything touched by your domain could be considered one thing." The smart woman pressed, her ego not getting in the way of realizing the obvious explanation.

"Maybe…"

"And spreading my mana… We didn't have to combine the mana and ability to do that, did we? Instead of your intent letting my mana interact with yours, what if you made your area distribute my mana? Move it?"

Blinking a few times, the world around them suddenly went gray again. Then a hardly noticeable flicker in Naomi's soul told him the girl had released some of her mana. She nodded at Willow, "It worked perfectly. My mana motes are distributed around the area in an absolutely even and orderly manner… I definitely would have been able to weaken all the resistances this way, and then I wouldn't have lost the mana when you spoke your command…"

Looking downtrodden, Willow sighed, "Oh. We didn't need to do all that…"

Patting his cute little apprentice on her head, Madrick cheered her up, "Nope. You over complicated the entire thing. But, in so doing you also discovered a new kind of magic. Rites can be useful, but their use is niche. They're only useful if the effect you want isn't something that can be accomplished for cheaper without merging mana. Merged mana will take on new properties, so there are absolutely times when it's the best way to go about things. Just not normally."

Rustling Willow's hair, she was so dumbstruck that she didn't even fight the familial action. He grinned as Piper appeared on the crown of her creator's head and began providing her own gentle pats and soft 'there-there's.

"Good job defeating your enemies though. The outcome is impressive, regardless of unnecessary overhead."

He decided not to note that, if they hadn't use a rite, the effect may have been powerful enough to actually harm him. No need to encourage her too much.