– Era of the Wastes, Cycle 219, Season of the Setting Sun, Day 33 –

"You know what?" Elena stood up and patted the dirt from her pants. "Screw this. I'm skipping this round of sparring."

"Why?" Tiana was watching the ongoing spar of their mutual friends. "Not like you to back away from a challenge."

"That…" Elena pointed at Terry's ridiculous display. "Is not a challenge. That's beating my head against a wall." She cracked her knuckles. "At least until I figure out how to get past it."

"Think the body inscriptions will work?" Lori looked equal part proud of her brother and defiant in her challenge to overcome his newest trick.

"Damn straight, they will." Elena rolled her shoulders. "Immovable objects won't stop me when I can liquify parts of my body. I'll just have to make sure I learn something else before your brother learns how to rip body inscriptions to shreds as well."

"Be careful or people will confuse you for a vampire if you turn your body into blood," warned Jorg, who was fiddling around with a few magic contraptions in front of him. "It does sound cool though."

Elena watched the madness a bit longer before turning around. "I'll go spar a round with Patricia and then I'll practice spellwork."

"Let me know when you're done with Patricia," requested Jorg. "I planned to join for spellwork today." He glanced up from his contraption. "Miguel seems to enjoy the spar."

"Of course he does. Miguel can shoot curving arrows," grumbled Elena while walking away. "Can't ask for better target practice." Before she had gone far, she turned back one more time and addressed Tiana and Lori: "Good luck, you two."

"I don't want luck," said Tiana with lightning sizzling in her eyes. "I have ideas."

"Can you guide the lightning path?" asked Lori curiously.

"Not well enough to get past that," admitted Tiana.

"Rely on speed instead?" guessed Lori. "Will be tough."

"Yeah, he notices my aiming too quickly to brute-force it," agreed Tiana. "But I just need one of me to hit and win."

Lori and Jorg both raised an eyebrow at the way Tiana talked about her lightning clones.

"He has left gaps," said Jorg pensively while looking at his brother's new skill display. "If you aim from multiple locations and time it right, the hit will have to get through."

"A lot of moving parts, even if they move together." Lori pointed out. "I've tried memorizing how everything is moving, but I'll always lose track of some." She shook her head.

"What's your plan?" asked Jorg.

"A new combination," said Lori pensively. "Propel Rock, Move Rock…"

Jorg furrowed his brow. That combination sounded neither new nor enough to get past Terry's revolving shield.

But Lori wasn't done. "Liquify Earth, Shape Earth, Harden Earth, Move Rock."

"Interesting," praised Tiana. "Changing the number of targets, or even shape around the objects, then using the inherent momentum from the shape and speeding up again."

"Tricky…" muttered Jorg. "Sounds like a pain to aim and time."

"That's what makes it a challenge." Tiana caught Lori's gaze and didn't miss the glint in the dwarven woman's eyes when she nodded. The two shared similarly combative personalities, after all.

Under the eyes of many, Terry was continuing his defensive spar against Miguel and he was having a blast using his newest discovery in battle.

Terry felt Miguel step out of the shadows and take aim from a supposed blind angle. Blind for anyone but him, perhaps. He circled mana into his tattoos and a part of the mass of items transfixed around him rotated just slightly. Enough to block the—

Terry caught his mistake at the last second and adjusted the third plane of his revolving fortress. A fraction of the many transfixed items – throwing needles, slabs, metal balls, pebbles – moved and rotated.

In contrast to his defensive battle when escaping Whetstone City, his immovable fortress wasn't as immovable anymore, at least not always.

Miguel's arrow had curved around the first layer of objects and then collided with an object in the second layer. Terry's mistake had been to believe the collision wasn't planned, because Miguel had intentionally chosen his impact to have the arrow deflected without losing much momentum.

If Miguel had learned those tricks from Wallace, then the elven dungeon scavenger must be a lot more skilled than he let on. At least with a bow…

"What a headache," mumbled Terry. Despite his words, he grinned just as wide as Miguel. "Let's see…"

According to their current rules for the spar, Terry was not allowed to move away from his current spot, nor to use his divine hammer inscription or Immovable Object spell to target projectiles. He could only rely on his drifting planes containing pseudo-immovable objects – immovable regarding their own plane.

If Terry's opponent penetrated his porous fortress to land a hit on him, they would win the spar.

He didn't have to worry about flexible casting centers since he could still use his disruption variants, but physical attacks were a different topic – and excellent drift practice.

While Miguel was trying to find an exploitable gap in his interlocking fortress of planes, Terry kept adding or exchanging items he was aspecting during the spar. Most times, he was getting the aspect ratio right to add an item to the plane he wanted, but he still sometimes misjudged, which naturally left him unsatisfied.

Even so.

Even Terry's habitual desire to do better did not steal away the grin he was wearing while fluidly moving many unbreakable items at once and returning them to their immovable state in the blink of an eye.

Sure, if he messed up his body inscription timing, the impacts of Miguel's arrows were causing his mana pool to drop.

Sure, the mana cost was still daunting.

Sure.

But still.

Terry couldn't help but grin.

This might scale!

A long time ago, Terry had dashed with a tertium slab into a tunnel of bandits. He had transfixed arrows to pull the bandits into. He had used coil springs to create anchored throwing needles that could be triggered with a disruption discharge. Back then, he had to use blinding flashes of light to hide his transfixed items.

Now?

Now Terry could move walls of slabs all at once.

Now he could move perfectly positioned items where he needed them to be.

Now he could create a crossfire of drifting planes of pointy objects all by himself.

Screw the mana cost. If his mana pool and regeneration weren't up to the task yet, then Terry would make sure they would be as soon as possible. The timing of his body inscription would be as impeccable as the timing of his spell.

Terry grasped two of his throwing needles to control the connected planes directly. He wanted to get a better feel for the mana sweet spot between relying on direct drifting and physical force applied on the drifting plane.

His single throwing needles acted like handles for a large clump of other disconnected items sharing the same plane.

This might be the weirdest 'weapon' anyone has ever wielded… Terry exhaled slowly and mumbled to himself. "But wield it, I will."

***

Terry was moving through the dual spear routines he had learned as a young teenager, which was also the last time he had moved this slowly while practicing.

Terry wasn't wielding spears, however. His hands both grasped two throwing needles that were each linked with two additional ones. A plane of three throwing needles had replaced the short spear from his childhood.

Terry glanced up towards where some of his friends were sitting. "I would say it's a good thing."

"How so?" grumbled Siling.

"Well, they've figured out what's binding her," said Terry.

"Yes, but even if we know the ritual, we don't know the lynchpin's location." Siling sighed.

"One step at a time," muttered Terry with his eyes back on his practice. He paused his drift, deactivated the Immovable Object spell in the middle needle on one of his 'spears'. He hurriedly moved his two-needle plane to catch and balance the middle needle before it could fall.

Stolen novel; please report.

The mana cost for fast movements is really a nightmare…

"If I understood Ser right, then they should be able to predict the active location with time and calculations." Jorg put aside his crafting tools and stretched. "My eyes are getting tired. I think I'll switch to some physical exercise."

"I could join you." Tiana volunteered.

Jorg winced slightly. "Anyone else?"

"Oy!" Tiana narrowed her eyes at Jorg.

"Nevermind," said Jorg. He looked over to another corner of the training grounds. "Do I have to face you alone, or can I drag Rafael down with me?"

Tiana rolled her eyes. "Up to you."

"Dragging it is," said Jorg before jogging over to ask the felan martialist to join his side in the spar.

"They should ask Apex to join them," said Terry. "For the calculations, I mean."

"Really?" Siling raised an eyebrow. "The Martial Tower Master appeared more like the type to punch and burn a math book rather than open it."

You'd be surprised. Terry chortled, but didn't elaborate. He'd just tell Matteo to get Apex involved somehow. Let his cousin deal with her this time.

Terry flicked his two-needle spear to let the loose needle fly. He quickly finished a remote aspecting and spell activation…

Terry knew he had succeeded when the needle started to fluidly join his other plane spear. Now equipped with a two-needle 'spear' in one hand and a four-needle version in the other hand, he continued his spear routines.

"If they know the ritual, then they can also research ways to get around it." Terry pointed out.

"Yeah…" Siling frowned with unsatisfied eyes.

"Come on." Tiana put a palm on Siling's shoulders. "That's nothing to scoff at. They might find a way to suppress the binding."

"Or to hijack it." Cyan flames flickered in the eye sockets of Logan, who had arrived together with his daughter.

"Ying is already researching that," added Romana.

Siling grumbled. "He's supposed to teach the Spirit Tower about—"

"Cut him some slack, will you?" Romana glared at Siling.

Terry immediately stopped his practice and walked over to intervene. He knew Siling wasn't in a good mood and the two Syn citizens were quite protective of their mayor. Both moods combined were a recipe for disaster, which fortunately didn't happen often.

"What brought you over?" asked Terry, and subtly interjected himself between Siling and the two new arrivals. "Weren't you working with the hunters?"

"Yes, but something came up," said Logan. "And since we wanted to catch up with Ying anyway, we volunteered to play messenger." His cyan flames focused on Terry. "A friend of yours has arrived in the Freedom Cooperative. Elven man, force-aspected, …"

"Calam!" Terry grinned.

"Hmph, so you really know him. He came with an army in tow." Logan grumbled. "An army dressed like Tiv's. I don't trust them, which is why I wanted to speak with you first."

"I mean…" Terry furrowed his brow. "I trust Calam, but I can't vouch for any army. I can head over and check."

"One of the soldiers claimed to know you as well," said Romana. "A commander by the name of Yujin."

Terry crossed his arms. "That name I don't recall."

"She said she was there when you battled for the Valkyrie," said Romana.

Terry shrugged. "Could be. Things were chaotic. Too chaotic for proper introductions."

"I don't trust them," stressed Logan. "They were Tiv's dogs. I don't care if they now follow another master. They're still the kind of people that enforced magic restrictions and abandoned wasters to their own fates."

"We're facing off against the Lich Kingdoms," stressed Tiana. "I don't think we can be picky about—"

"You didn't grow up under them," snapped Romana. "You don't know them!"

"Uhh…" Jorg, who had returned from his chat with Rafael, abruptly halted. "Am I interrupting something?"

"We don't know them," spat Siling icily. "But neither do you. Just because they're wearing a uniform doesn't mean they're as bad as the worst of them."

"Empathizing with Tiv's dogs," jeered Romana. "And yet you keep deriding your own father."

"My father wiped my memory when I was a child," spat Siling. She clenched her fists. "And I still work with him!" She glared challengingly at the aspect archer from Syn.

"Good point," said Terry, who subtly moved to stand between the two opposing parties again. "No one is asking you to be friends with the soldiers from Tiv. Mana knows I'm not friends with all the people we're working with in the Freedom Cooperative."

Terry puffed his cheeks. "I struggle to keep myself from strangling every second martialist." He shrugged. "I also destroyed the headquarters of the hunters and bailed from the city guards at some point."

"Really?" Logan's eyes flickered with surprise. "I would not have pegged you as a troublemaker."

"I never said I was the one who started the trouble," protested Terry. He cleared his throat and continued in a diplomatic tone. "If Calam has brought an army to support us, then that's great. If anyone turns out to be trouble, then we deal with it when the time comes."

The others all nodded, albeit for different parts of Terry's statement.

"Your force-aspected friend said he'll come to the Lands later," said Logan. "For now, he's busy settling everyone in and aligning with Chadwick and Edmund."

"Thanks for informing us," said Terry. He had to admit he was relieved when his two acquaintances from Syn City left again. He liked them well enough, but they were hard company when Siling was around.

"Come on." Tiana put her hand on Siling's shoulder again. "Join us in the spar. I'm sure you could use a proper distraction."

Good idea.

Terry nodded.

"Uhh…" Jorg didn't seem as happy with the suggestion. "Wait a second…" He looked at his brother, who was already shaking his head.

"Sorry, Jorg, I still wanted to continue my routines." Terry snickered.

"Hey!" protested Jorg. "You're obligated to help me when I'm in danger, remember? I'd do the same for you!"

"It's just a spar." Terry rolled his eyes. "Don't be so dramatic." He pointed a plane spear towards another corner of the training grounds. "Why don't you ask Elena or Vess?"

***

"Calam!" Terry waved his friend over.

Calam didn't rush over and instead swayed over proudly with his head held high. He held out his hand. "Greetings, Terry."

Terry raised an eyebrow. His friend sounded oddly formal.

Is Calam pissed at me, too?

Or is it just the time apart? I guess it has been two-and-a-half cycles already…

Terry shook Calam's hand when his brow rose further.

Why is he pressing so hard? Is he really pissed at me?

"You're the one they called Guardian?" An elven man with a feathered hat and a blue cape appraised Terry skeptically.

"I'm Terry, but I don't know your name," said Terry.

"Yorgos is a dimensional mage," declared Calam proudly. "He's helping me and my army get around. He's actually from Arcana. Can you believe it?"

Terry furrowed his head. He would have guessed that the caped man specialized in the space aspect, but he hadn't expected a dimensional mage from Arcana.

Last I heard about dimensional mages from Arcana was after the barrier broke and they went wild for revenge…

"I'm just here to make sure the Valkyrie's Disciple doesn't get himself killed," grumbled Yorgos. "Since the boy insisted, my uncle insisted in turn."

"I'm not a boy, Yorgos," protested Calam.

"As you say, Disciple," said Yorgos unconvinced.

Calam frowned but let it go. He turned to Terry. "Sorry it took me so long, but there was so much going on. You wouldn't believe the battles I've fought." He grinned. "Right next to the Valkyrie!"

He really seems like a boy. A boy whose dreams have come true. A boy that became the disciple of his idol.

Terry was happy for his friend, but he couldn't help but feel something was missing in Calam's demeanor.

"And now we're going to kick the Lich Kings in their knickers!" Calam looked towards the location of the dimensional gate to the Freedom Cooperative as if he couldn't wait.

That's what it is.

He's so confident that he's even looking forward to it.

Terry remembered his own first major battles. Not only had he felt anything but confident, he had also felt extremely ambivalent after the ordeals. The battle over Syn City had felt like such a waste of life, and the battle at the Libra Outpost had felt no better.

Terry took a deep breath. Everyone's experiences differed.

Did he only battle monsters?

Did he never have to fear for anyone?

I guess the battles are different when you're accompanied by a living legend.

Terry's aunt Sigille had been strong and respected, too, but the Valkyrie was at another level.

Sigille had chosen to become a Guardian instead of a soldier. The dwarven woman had never waged wars on a national scale. His aunt had always focused on improving the lives of the people around her with her own efforts. Sigille had never been the type to build alliances.

"Tell me all about it," said Terry, and smiled.

"I'm sure you've heard some of it already." Calam grinned.

"Uhm…" Terry puffed his cheeks. "No?"

"I mean about what's going on in the Tiv Empire— I mean in the new special district of Arcana, the Hope District," said Calam.

Terry realized that even though he had bothered to look into the laws of the Lands of the Four Towers, he had once again neglected to stay up to date in current politics.

"Seriously?" Calam was flabbergasted. "Didn't the others tell you what's going on with Tiv and Arcana? What the Valkyrie and I were doing?"

"In their defense, I didn't ask about politics." Terry raised a hand. "And in my defense, I was far from Tiv."

And busy.

Busy with bullshit.

Lich Kingdom bullshit, Thanatos bullshit, martialist bullshit, cooperative bullshit…

"Well…" Calam looked as if he could still not believe it. "Arcana has accepted Tiv as a special district, but things were complicated. The Council drew a map with the territory they could commit defending and offered support for evacuating people from the areas beyond and getting them settled."

Calam moved his fingers subconsciously over the scales in his shiny silver armor. "There were a few scum nobles from Tiv who tried to stage a rebellion against the Assembly's decision to dissolve itself and submit to Arcana. We had to quash them and protect the citizens. Then we had to evacuate the wasters and…"

Calam scowled. "The Wasted Zone of the Tiv Empire had been lawless for way too long, so we had to clean that up, too. We met more than one group of supposed scavengers, who were truly nothing more than bandits ravaging the villages."

Calam shook his head. "We've got most things sorted out, but surprisingly, not every place wanted to be evacuated." He glanced at Terry. "The Chara Settlement you told us about was among those. The Libra Outpost as well, because Dhruv refuses to go, and Cadence…" He frowned. "Well, there's still the problem with the channelers." He shrugged. "And vampires, I guess."

Terry wasn't surprised that the Chara Settlement had refused to evacuate. With Devon, the Captain, and the Deathguard around, the place was probably safer than anywhere else in the Wasted Zone and the people there weren't exactly the most trusting towards authority after their experiences.

Dhruv's decision was very much expected as well. Terry had the feeling that the dwarven druid would never leave the place.

"What is the problem with the channelers?" Terry narrowed his eyes. He hoped there wasn't a divine rebellion brewing.

"You know Arcana," said Calam. "Cults are pretty much non-existent there, but with so many channelers in the former Tiv Empire, the Council had to declare specific laws on the worship of otherrealm beings."

Calam moved his hands through his hair. "Channelers have to register with the government. They can't hold any positions of power. They can't preach in public and any attempt to place more channeling anchors will be prosecuted. They have to regularly submit for mental inspections and they are absolutely forbidden from crossing certain thresholds for opening their minds."

He shrugged. "Last I heard, the channelers unhappy with these rules are heading towards the Libra Outpost or into the Wastes beyond."

"And the vampires?" prompted Terry. He knew Arcana had very restrictive rules for anything relating to mana curses and the ancient vampirism curse was no exception.

"No legal framework yet," said Calam with a shrug. "But they're working on it and everyone expects at least a registration and perhaps assigned supervision."

***

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