Millennial Mage

Tala stood, before releasing Jevin’s hand and stepping away to gain a bit of room. She then gave Jevin a half bow in thanks for his help standing up.

Carefully, she took Flow into a proper grip and reached out to her soul-bound weapon with her will.

Exactly as she’d expected, there was now another path for power within the magical matrix of the item.

Tala forged a void-channel as large as she could manage and connected to the new path.

Flow shifted in her grip, consuming power like a desert drank in water. In less than ten seconds, she held a glaive, perfectly sized for herself.

Unfortunately, the weapon’s shape was wavering; its magic was barely stable.

Tala connected another void-channel, then a third, before it stabilized. Each of these was near double those that she’d been in the habit of making. Thus, this form seemed to take nearly double the power to manifest and maintain as Flow’s sword form.

Never enough power.

Tala spun the weapon experimentally.

She had little experience with such massive weapons, but her improved physicality and perception ensured that she wouldn’t drop it, at least not in such an undistracted moment.

On a whim, she turned and hurled it towards the doors.

Tala had never thrown a spear, and it showed.

Flow struck the door cleanly, perfectly flat and parallel to the wall.

The hit created a long, straight dent in the metal, and Jevin gave her an incredulous look.

Tala flushed, allowing Flow to snap back into knife shape as she called it back.

Jevin suppressed a smile, but Rane was openly grinning.

Terry was asleep.

She sheathed the knife at her belt and scratched her left shoulder. “Well, that wasn’t the most climactic end, but thank you.”

Jevin gave a slight bow. “I am happy to have helped.” He waved towards the door. “That’ll be trivial to repair, but please don’t make a habit of it.”

Tala nodded sheepishly. “Yeah…I apologize for that.”

Rane spoke up, then, likely trying to help by changing the subject. “The new form will be quite useful, though you’ll need time to learn how to use such a weapon properly.”

Tala just nodded.

Jevin was pulling things seemingly out of nowhere, but Tala didn’t focus on the items themselves.

“Okay. You’re the second Archon I’ve seen doing something like that.”

He stopped, glancing her way. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

“I don’t see your storage device. You’re just pulling things out of thin air.”

“Ahh.” He smiled at her. “Watch closely.” He reached out, and something opened before his hand, he immediately withdrew a small sphere, the opening closing behind. “Did you see?”

“Some sort of storage space? What is it connected to?”

“To me. To my body and soul. Whenever I need it, it is there.”

Realization struck. “Soul-bound.”

“Precisely.”

“So… does every storage allow that, when soul-bound?”

“Oh, absolutely not, but it isn’t a hard thing to arrange, if you work at it beforehand.”

Tala glanced down to her pouch. “So…?” She looked back up.

“Oh, yes. It will be very easy to get…Kit? Yes, that’s what you called it. It will be quite easy to prepare Kit so that it has this functionality once you soul-bond it. It will actually be easier than usual.”

“Then, what are we waiting for! Let’s do that, I have a star. Let’s bind and make this happen.”

Jevin blinked at her a few times. “Aside from the questionable wisdom of having a star premade and ready-to-hand, I must caution you in three regards.”

Tala gave him an expectant look.

“First, once the final merging of materials and magic takes place, you must soul-bind the artifact immediately, or it will be lost, forever.”

“Easy enough.”

He gave her a flat look. “You are effectively creating a storage space, untethered from physical reality.”

Then how…Flow. Flow comes to me at need. Why would a soul-bound storage be any different? “I see.”

“So, while easy, it is expensive to pin the construct down even for the short time required to soul-bond it.”

“Why not untether it after…” she trailed off, “Because there’d be just as much danger of me losing physical connection.” She frowned. “I just wouldn’t choose that option.”

Jevin gave her a wry look. “It is reasonable to assume that would work, and maybe it could. But we have never had a recorded case of untethering a soul-bound item, without the Archon vanishing as well, never to return.”

Tala thought for a moment. “What could be offered that was so tempting that no one would refuse?”

“Maybe transport to another, better existence?” He shrugged. “I’ve no idea, as it isn’t my area of study.”

“Alright, so that’s the first issue. I have to have a star ready and-”

He spoke over her, briefly. “A fully charged star. It cannot be anything less than at maximum power.”

“As you say. What else?”

“Once this is done, the capacity of the storage can never be altered in any way, magically speaking. Meaning it can never be increased in size…” He hesitated. “Let me correct that. You cannot increase it artificially. It will grow as you do, regardless, but that growth is proportional to its starting size. Its growth will forever be anchored.”

“That makes sense, I suppose.”

“Additional to the linear growth of the capacity being locked, you will not be able to add any other features.”

“Other features?”

“There are some who have added magically simulated day-night cycles or weather systems within dimensional storages of sufficient size. Some add both.”

Rane was nodding as he joined the conversation. “One of my great…” he hesitated, seeming to think, “great, great, great uncles has an orchard in his soul-bound storage.” Rane grinned. “He always had fruit aplenty, ready to hand.”

Tala’s eyes widened at the possibilities. “So, I can’t untether, after soul-binding, and I can’t increase Kit’s magics after untethering. So, effectively, I can’t alter Kit after the soul-bond.”

“If you wish this functionality. You’ll also have to learn to do more than just pull with your soul, but that becomes easier once you reach Fused, and easier still at Paragon. That, though, you don’t have to wait on. Work on the capabilities of your soul and its bonds. That will help you across the board. It will help you get the greatest utility from the items bound to you.”

Tala grimaced. Time, eh? And likely money, but how much? “How expensive will all this be?”

“Assuming you don’t find the items or magics you need? Very. I wouldn’t recommend binding with a dimensional storage smaller than a modest house, and that’s the minimum.”

“That seems like it would require a lot of gold…”

Rane laughed. “Oh, yes. There is no quick, cheap fix in this area.”

Jevin shrugged and nodded. “Master Rane is correct. In general, combining any two dimensional-storage items is additive, not multiplicative. By the spell-forms I can see, Kit looks to have just around two-hundred-twenty cubic feet of space; is that correct?”

Tala considered for a moment. “That sounds right.”

“Alright. A modest house for one person would hold around eight-thousand cubic feet. So…thirty-six?” He shrugged. “Close enough. Thirty-six times your current size.”

She paled. Kit is worth about thirty gold… That meant that she’d need dimensional storage items with a total worth of more than a thousand ounces gold to merge into Kit. That doesn’t even cover merging costs, let alone the costs for any other features or whatever magics are needed to untether it. “Do…do I really need to make it that big?”

“Need? No, especially not right now, but it would be pretty foolish not to. You are building something to permanently integrate with your soul. Why would you want to skimp?”

“That’s true.” Tala sighed. So, storage was going to continue to be a resource drain, and she wouldn’t be able to soul-bind Kit anytime soon. What about defense? Tala frowned, a thought occurring to her. “Wait… could I commission a magically reinforced wall, with the ability to self-repair, then untether it, bind it, and summon it as a defense?”

Jevin gave her a funny look. “That’s quite the change in subject and an oddly specific idea.” He lifted a hand, and Tala saw dimensional energy swirl, a portal flashing through the space in front of the Paragon.

Once the energy had passed, a solid wall of indeterminant material stood beside them, radiating power.

Tala’s mouth moved, but she couldn’t find the words. It was exactly as she’d described, a heavily magically-reinforced defense that would repair itself over time, if given enough power.

“So… you have that already?”

Jevin stepped around the wall. “No, of course not. If it were untethered, it wouldn’t have any physicality with which to be a defense. This is just a wall, albeit a magically reinforced and empowered wall. I have several hundred housed in my dimensional storage. I can bring them forth almost as quickly as what you describe, and, as I said, they actually work to protect me. Additionally, they don’t require individual soul-bonds, nor threaten the integrity of my soul, whenever they are damaged.” He quirked a smile.

Oh… yeah, that would be a downside that I hadn’t considered.

“Wait…hundreds?” Rane was walking around the wall. “With hundreds you could build fortifications, almost at will.”

Jevin grinned. “Precisely. The Leshkin war of this cycle is approaching, and I often function as a mobile fortress during those decades.” He frowned. “Centuries?” He shrugged. “Both are probably true. Obviously, I also help with other threats, but that is the largest scale enemy we’ve dealt with in quite some time.”

Rane ran his hand down one side of the wall. “This is prepared to fuse with any additional walls that touch it. There are power sharing workings and…” He seemed a bit overwhelmed. “This is a ridiculous feat of magical engineering.”

“Where do you think all our wealth and knowledge go, lad? We are millennia into a never-ending war. We do not steal from the average members of humanity, but we do all we can with a clean conscience to build up our power, utility, and survivability.”

Tala touched the wall or tried to. Her hand was lightly repulsed. The harder she pushed, the more the wall deflected her. She thought that a quick, full-powered punch might let her brush the surface. She glanced to Rane, his hand easily touching the surface.

Power was swirling around the hand, his scripts clearly working to negate that portion of the wall’s defense.

“Do I even want to know what one of these would cost?”

Jevin smiled. “Probably not, no.”

Tala sighed. So… money will continue to be an issue for centuries to come. She shrugged. “Very well.”

“Now,” Jevin smiled, “I have a few answers for your other issues.” He waved a hand and the portal for his dimensional storage whipped over the wall, leaving the space empty.

Tala perked up. “Oh?”

Jevin tossed the sphere that he’d most recently pulled from his dimensional storage.

Tala caught it, her eyebrows rising at the weight. It was nearly ten pounds, while being barely bigger than her closed fist. “This is weighty.”

“Solid tungsten. That’s about twelve silver worth.”

It was a comfortable size in her hand, it wouldn’t be hard to throw. “So, what would I use it for?”

“Well, since you can lower effective gravity for items, you can lower that to virtually nothing. Then when you throw it, you’ll get a lot greater distance. You’re strong, so it will hit like a charging bull. With practice, you could get up to a hundred miles per hour, if not faster.” He shrugged. “I don’t know, exactly, how much stronger you are than average. Of course, that is just one possible use. I’m sure you can come up with many, many more. After you suss those out, we might want to make you different shapes, but a sphere should have the greatest universal utility, at least for now.”

That was an interesting idea. Not novel, but interesting. I could also increase the effective gravity and drop it… That would do even more, but I’d have to be above my target. She considered.

If she had a couple with their gravity ramped up until she could barely hold them, they’d be great at pinning people down too.

As if reading her mind, Jevin lifted a couple light grey metal arches. The internal dimensions were just over five inches wide and little more than two inches tall. As Tala looked closer, she could see that the inside curve was a flat band of metal, with a perpendicular fin fused down the center of the span, clearly meant to reinforce the structure from the back, making the cross-section a “T.”

“What is…” Tala began to nod. “Increase the effective gravity, and I can use that to pin a person or something else down.” Her eyes widened. “I can tuck my feet under two of those.”

Jevin laughed. “I suppose you could use them to help hold you in place, supposing the material you’re standing on can take it. But I had thought their utility lay in other areas.”

Now that she thought about it, she could wear sturdy, gravity amplified shoes. That wouldn’t help with the inertia problem, though. And no one likes heavy shoes… I don’t particularly like shoes of any kind.

“So, I considered your question about the dimensional anchor, and I think that you’ll have to decide what tradeoffs you want.”

Tala refocused on Jevin. She dearly wanted to stop being snatched, hit, or punted off the wagon-top. It would be nice to not be sent flying by Rane’s strikes, too.

The three of them fell into a prolonged discussion of the various possibilities. As they talked, Jevin led them out of the merging room and into a comfortable lounge, off a side corridor.

Terry came along, perched on Tala’s shoulder as usual.

An assistant got them afternoon tea. They were a bit late for it, but there were leftovers aplenty.

They discussed dozens, if not hundreds of ideas.

Finally, Rane started pacing. “Let’s walk, while we talk. I’m starting to feel like a prisoner in here.”

As the words left the Bound’s mouth, Jevin jerked. “That’s it!”

Tala and Rane turned to fully face the man, and Tala prompted. “What did you think of?”

“Prison!”

Tala frowned, but Rane’s face shifted to one of consideration.

“Can someone explain? Is there something about prisons I’m not aware of?”

“Powerful, dangerous, or magically potent prisoners are all handled in virtually the same way, and it might be just what you need.”

“I assume you don’t mean execution…right?”

Jevin laughed. “No, no. Not execution.”

Tala leaned forward, paying close attention.

“Most could break through any confinement, given enough time. So, a dimensional prison is used.”

“Explain.”

“It’s an item in two parts, usually linked to the city’s power matrix. One part is on the prisoner, to identify the target. It’s affixed in some manner to prevent its removal, but that’s not relevant, now. The other part is the anchor. Effectively, the item creates a donut of space, ten feet in diameter, which contains the prisoner. It doesn’t create any visual effect, but if the prisoner walks further than ten feet from the anchor, space is expanded. That way, no matter how they run, walk, or move, when they stop, they are still no further than ten feet from the anchor.”

Tala leaned back. That’s a little terrifying, actually… It sounded a lot like the cargo-slots’ working, if more active and dynamic.

“Similarly, if they try to approach within arm’s length of the anchor, or draw it to them, space is expanded to keep them out of reach.”

“So, it’s immovable by the one it affects.”

“When built as a prison, yes. That also allows a jailer to pick up the anchor and move the prisoner without being in danger. Even so, we don’t need to include that inner working. You could pick up the anchor and affix it to anything you want.”

“Wait, couldn’t Mage prisoners just use their magic on those around them? Or the anchor?”

“The key locks onto the target: body, soul, and magic.” An apologetic look stole over his face. “It was actually originally adopted from necromantic traps.”

Tala gave him a flat look. “So, I’d be trapping my own soul.” She frowned. “What would that do to my soul-bound items?”

“Anything with a physical presence would be, likewise, contained. This is a benefit when used for imprisonment.”

“Could we leave out the soul aspect?”

Jevin considered. “I believe so. Like removing the inner working, that should increase the efficiency. I’ll look into it.”

“Ideally, I wouldn’t want my magic contained, either. It shouldn’t be an issue, because I just need to be able to perceive that which I target, and so my magic doesn’t cross the intervening space…” She hesitated. “Would it affect things that I throw?”

“Depends on the sensitivity, but I think I can build it, so that it’s restricted to your body, not things that you are touching or have touched recently.”

Tala hesitated. “Wait…what about my defenses?”

“What about them?”

“If I am immune to magic-” she cut herself off, “No, it doesn’t act on me, it expands the dimensionality around me. Otherwise, it would become a contest of wills with the prisoner and have uncertain results.”

“Correct. So long as the key is outside your defense it should work just fine.”

“Yeah, that should work.” Her eyes narrowed. “How much?”

Jevin considered. “As an inscribed item?” He nodded. “Yeah, I’d insist on that. We don’t want to attempt making an artifact style item with an untested structure.” He scratched his chin. “I think I can develop and create a first version for ten gold.”

Tala’s eyes widened, about to protest, but she hesitated, giving herself a moment to think. The cost is for him to develop a unique variation on my behalf and create it. Even so, what really matters is how long I can use it. “How long would it last?”

“Depends on use. You should be able to charge it yourself, assuming you haven’t just been pretending to understand me. I’d say two months of moderate use, including as a sparring aid to get used to it and improve its utility to you, or a couple of years of emergency only use.”

Tala sighed. So, I’ll be lucky if it lasts a few weeks…. “What will it cost after that?”

“A few gold to reinscribe, assuming we don’t want to make a new version.”

“Alright… So, four gold for the merging, already settled,” she patted Flow, at her waist, “one gold, twenty silver for ten of the tungsten balls, and forty silver for ten sets of the metal arches, right?” She wanted to play around with the items, to see what she could do with them.

“That sounds right.” Jevin pulled out a slate, building out an invoice. “So, that’s a total of eleven gold, and sixty silver ounces owed.”

“How soon can you complete the…I really don’t want to call it a dimensional prison…”

Jevin laughed. “How about dimensional tether? I believe I can have a working version in a couple of days.”

“That’s feasible.” When Jevin held out the slate to her, Tala confirmed the transaction. My money is not going as far as I would like… And there were so, so many expenses looming ahead of her. She sighed. “Thank you, Master Jevin.”

Rane bowed towards both of them. “Thank you for allowing me to observe the merging and participate in the discussion.”

They both smiled towards Rane, responding overtop of one another.

“Of course, Master Rane.”

“I wasn’t going to kick you out, was I?”

Tala and Rane bid farewell to Jevin and departed. As they began walking back down the spiral, Tala glanced towards Rane.

“So… I need to test some things, and I need to learn what I’m doing, then practice, with a glaive.” Her eyes flicked to Terry before returning to Rane. “I’m not to the point with this guy,” she tilted her head towards the bird, “where it matters what weapons I use. So, that’s no help. Willing to work with me?”

Rane grinned in return. “Absolutely. The training complex has a deal with some local restaurants; so, we can get food delivered.”

“That sounds like a wonderful way to spend the evening.”

Thus, they headed straight back to the training grounds; Tala had a lot of new things to test out.