Millennial Mage

Chapter 448: A Brutal Way

Tala, Terry, and Rane walked slowly across the previous location for the city of Arconaven, Tala’s entire focus on her threefold sight, watching the scars in Reality rippling in the zeme that still buffeted and swirled through the region, even more than three decades after this city’s waning.

The view was so odd in part because Tala could see the scars rending across reality nodes. In a way, the damage was oddly unifying to them in a way that wasn’t usual to her perception.

Like bricks in a wall that was hit with a bladed attack. The strike goes across the individual bricks in a neat line, and doesn’t go away, even if you take down the wall and look at the bricks one by one.

-That’s… yeah. I can see that actually.- Alat then let out a sound like a sharp intake of breath. -Stop!-

Tala held up her hand, and Terry and Rane stopped instantly. What is it?

-Look behind us.-

Tala focused her perception on the area behind them and paled.

There was a very minute laceration across the surface of the reality nodes behind them, leading from near the edge of the city depression up to where they were standing.

No… not where we’re standing, where I’m standing.

Tala grimaced. “I can’t go further. Reality is too weak here. My gate—for whatever reason—is marring things as I walk forward.”

Rane nodded slowly, then gave her a long-suffering smile. “Your gate is much more open than mine. I would say that is the reason.”

She shrugged. “Yeah, well. I didn’t really want to just say that.”

He laughed. “Never fear. I know you’re more advanced in some ways, Tala. What do you want us to do?”

Her grimace grew. “I really want to investigate more…”

He shrugged. “Can you attach your bloodstar clouds to me? I’m not causing any damage, right?”

She blinked at him a few times. “Well, I don’t have to attach them to anyone or anything, but it would be useful to keep them centered on you, yeah. That’s an excellent idea. Thank you.”

She considered for a long moment before nodding, having decided how she wanted to proceed.

“I can have another on your shoulder and talk with you through that.” She could probably resonate the air with her aura just using those that were star- and stoneward, but it wouldn’t be as easy.

Something to work on, I suppose.

With an act of will, Tala moved the basis for her threefold sight to center on Rane rather than herself. As each was a mini-Archon Star binding the blood to herself, it contained and projected a bit her of aura, allowing it to maintain itself and extend her aura, so long as it didn’t get too far away from her…

Tala frowned. She’d been working with Mistress Katie and Master Akra to have her aura exist as separate instances… but she hadn’t succeeded yet. “I’m going to have to leave a trail of iron spikes between us for this to work.”

Rane shrugged. “Whatever you need to do. Are you going to wait here, or go back toward the edge?”

She looked around. “I think I should retreat from the area. Reality’s weak enough here, just standing in place is harming things just due to the small movements in the ambient zeme.”

He nodded. “Alright. I’ll wait here until you’re established, then advance at a pace you choose.” He looked toward Terry. “Do you want to come with me, or stay with Tala?”

The avian looked back and forth for a moment, then flickered to Rane’s shoulder opposite Tala’s bloodstar.

The big man chuckled. “Thank you. You’re right, if either of us needs help, it will probably be me.”

Terry trilled triumphantly at the sky, clearly happy that Rane had intuited the reason for his choice.

Tala chuckled, even as she manifested an iron spike and drove it into the ground right beside Rane and Terry. Without another word, she turned and walked back the way they’d come, driving another iron spike into the ground every ten feet or so, just to be safe, stretching out her aura in a long line.

She initially was able to see herself with ease from the bloodstar-cloud, but the further she got away the less well that worked.

Finally, she mirrored her perspective onto a bloodstar on the forehead of her armor to allow her to perceive the world without dropping her faceplate.

Given she was surrounded by damaged existence, she wanted as much protection as possible, whether or not it ended up being effective.

She considered trying to increase the connection of the reality nodes on either side of the damage she’d caused, but she honestly didn’t know the nature of the damage, and if it was something that actually weakened the integrity of reality nodes, increasing the pressure on them might cause failure in one way or another.

It didn’t take her long to get back beyond the weakest portion of Reality, back past where her passing had caused any damage. Even so, she went a bit further, just to be safe.

She still had plenty of iron so that shouldn’t be a problem in the least. She’d left most of it around her bloodstars near Rane, as he would be covering a greater distance than she’d had to, and she hadn’t wanted to run out.

That would have been embarrassing.

Tala dropped into a cross legged position, placing a final iron spike centered in the open ground surrounded by her legs. She then stopped mirroring her perspective to the bloodstar on her own armor, focusing on her mirrored perspectives around Rane.

She was suddenly seeing Rane as she generally saw herself, from every side all at once, every layer down to his bones and beyond.

She enacted magics through her aura—around his shoulder where the bloodstar she’d left for the purpose rested—to vibrate the air and speak, “I’m ready.”

He nodded and smiled. “Let’s go.”

He walked forward, careful to not move too quickly. Moreover, he seemed to be keeping much of his focus on her aura, making sure to not come too near the edge of it before she placed her next spike and extended it. “Thank you, Rane.”

“Of course.” His easy smile made it obvious just how true that was. He hadn’t even considered acting in any other way toward her and her needs.

Each time that he’d moved about ten feet, Tala manifested some of her iron and drove the next spike into the dirt, anchoring her aura.

As such, they proceeded, creating a gleaming, dotted line through the fading light of the spring sunset.

Aside from creating and maintaining the spike-and-aura trail, Tala kept her focus on the scars—no, the rents—in reality.

It was odd, seeing it so much clearer in four-dimensional space than ever before.

She could actually perceive the creatures that she’d seen in Bandfast swimming or flying about, around the injuries left by gated-humanity.

The more she analyzed them, the more she could see that they were somehow a mix of Reality, Magic, and Void, which is what seemed to be causing the four-dimensional creatures to be swarming around them.

Those aren’t regions of Existence… are they? That didn’t really make sense, and Alat provided the needed secondary perspective a moment later.

-No, we can simply see all the constituent pieces.-

Right. It’s more like they are places where Existence is unraveling. As she considered, that actually made sense.

The squid-nightmare creatures consumed magic.

Her eyes widened. What if the scars, or rents, or whatever they were, were like the grain in a wooden surface? Magic acting as water.

Sure, even untreated wood could have water move across it briefly without issue, but subject it to a deluge for any length of time and the grain would begin to rise, ruining the smoothness of the surface.

True, some people used this property of wood specifically to get that result, but that was stretching the analogy a bit far.

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Regardless, magic flooding the surface of Reality for more than three centuries could be leaving quite the resulting marks, and with the removal of the city’s stabilizing magics, centered around the City Stone, it was no wonder things were this bad.

It wasn’t a perfect analogy, but it did seem to explain at least a facet of what she was seeing.

The creatures were swarming, gobbling up the excess magic and seemingly trying to help the damage to Reality to settle down.

How is the void coming into play?

-I think things are just insanely out of whack, and we’re just seeing all the—-

Tala’s mental eyes widened in shock as she saw what had given Alat pause. Something swept through the area, gobbling up a long line of the swarming four-dimensional creatures, with voracious ease.

She swallowed hard, comforting herself with the fact that, because it was interacting with those feeders, it was likely unable to affect her, Terry, or Rane directly, just as the feeders weren’t.

… Tala was still unhappy with their presence though.

Regardless, she continued to have Alat store everything they were perceiving in the Archive. If they were somehow gobbled up by a four-dimensional abomination, Mistress Ingrit would at least learn of what happened eventually.

Deep breaths, Tala. She was coated in iron… which they could interact with… should she shed her iron?

-Tala, breathe deeply. That method of calming down isn’t available to me…-

She would not shed her armor. She needed the protection while her mind was focused elsewhere. It was very likely that at least one magical creature was aware of their presence and it would be silly to die to an unexpected strike because she’d taken off her own armor in this field.

With that decided, she needed to turn her mind to something else for a moment, while Rane continued to approach the center of the former city.

That in mind, her thoughts moved toward what Mistress Slannir had revealed to her. It wasn’t like the woman had told her anything she hadn’t known already, but whatever magics the former prisoner had used had cut through the cloud that had surrounded that fear within Tala.

She didn’t want to be a monster, but she had the capacity to be one.

As she considered that, she remembered something that Master Nadro had told her. Only those with the capacity to be dangerous can truly be gentle.

If she didn’t have the capacity to cause harm, then she was simply impotent and at the mercy of those around her.

Whether they were benevolent or not, being in such a position was not appealing.

This, however, was adjacent to that idea. She knew she was powerful and could hurt others. She’d accepted that. That wasn’t the issue. More than that, she didn’t want to hurt others.

Not most of the time.

Even so, she knew of many circumstances in which she had hurt others, and she felt fully justified in doing so. More than that, she could imagine uncounted other situations in which she would be willing to do so again for her own gain or the safety of those she was protecting.

The real question that Mistress Slannir had exposed was this: Was there a line she wouldn’t cross, no matter what was hanging in the balance?

She frowned.

Years ago, she’d have said that the preservation of an immortal soul was worth any price, but now she knew better. An immortal soul was inviolable, unless the soul itself chose otherwise.

Because of that, protecting a soul was actually a worthless goal, because it was utterly unnecessary… in a way. No, Tala, don’t get side-tracked.

Would she torture a child to save two from torture? Ten?

She considered that for longer than it really warranted before shaking her head, an understanding clicking into place.

No. The question was a false choice.

That’s it… This is all a false choice.

She felt something shifting within her.

If I’m put in a position where I have to do something evil or something evil happens, I am not in control of the evil that is to happen. I am only in control of myself and my actions.

There was a heaviness there. In a way, to come to this conclusion, she would have to accept that others would take evil actions. That acceptance placed those actions fully upon those actors, though, and there was freedom in doing so.

I don’t have to play their games. Evil should be destroyed, not bargained with.

And there it was. She blinked a few times, her mundane eyes opening within her armor for a moment to do so—even if all she saw was blackness.

That was the issue.

Tala laughed out loud, the sound echoing around her helmet. The issue is that I’m dealing in theoreticals.

-I see what you’re thinking, but explain so that you can finish building the thought.-

If someone comes to me and says ‘torture a kid’ or they’ll torture ten. I’ll just kill them. If they’re just telling me about someone else who will torture kids? I’ll hunt that person down.

-What’s with the kid torture?-

…it was the example that came to mind. It was likely because of Mistress Slannir’s known experiments upon children. Regardless, I don’t have to do evil to stop evil.

-Well, that depends on your definition of evil. Some people would say that killing anything for any reason is evil.-

Well, some people are idiots.

-But Tala, if you kill a killer, there are the same number of killers in the world.-

Tala snorted a laugh. Then I’ll make sure to kill at least two.

Alat chuckled in return, filling Tala’s mind with the pleasant sound. -That’s actually pretty funny, even though I knew you were going to say it.-

Yeah, I’m an artist with words sometimes.

-So? What does this mean?-

It means that I was thinking about the whole dilemma wrong. She shifted, feeling a useless metaphorical weight that she’d placed upon herself fall away.

-Well then. Let’s put it to the real test. If you could experiment on ten children to improve the lives of every following child, would you?-

Is the experiment harmful?

-For the sake of argument, let’s say yes.-

Then, no, not without extenuating circumstances, or the children’s direct consent, which can’t really be given, because—children.

-What extenuating circumstance?- Alat’s voice sounded interested, even though they were both aware that Alat already had the answer out of Tala’s own mind.

If they were soulless husks, who just hadn’t died yet, then that should be fine.

-Ahh, because a soulless husk doesn’t have the same intrinsic value?-

Well, yeah. That’s one of the massive benefits we have by being able to see the human soul. We know if someone is in a hampered state—with potential to recover—or if their soul has already passed on. Tala smiled. But back to the question. The issue lies in ‘improve the lives’ of everyone else. Improve in what way? By how much? Would it give every child an extra second of life? That is an improvement. But that really is beside the point, because no. I wouldn’t torture a child, no matter the gain.

-I said experiment, not torture.-

Harmful experiments on a sapient being are torture, saying anything else is just word games.

-Now, what about killing? I know you were concerned about that?-

I will kill any who threaten me or mine. Those who are willing to use violence to achieve their aims can only be stopped with violence—or the credible threat of violence—be they sapient or beast.

-Alright, we know where you stand on that. What of innocents? People who are just in the wrong place?-

What do you mean?

-Well, you could do your utmost to utterly obliterate an arcane city after it declared war on humanity. That would safeguard humanity, but most of those who die wouldn’t have been a part of the fight. Many wouldn’t have even been a part of the infrastructure aiding in the fight.-

I…huh… Honestly, I would probably deliver a warning, because if I understand correctly, a City Lord with an empty city wouldn’t be much of a threat. Anyone who stays after my warning would be tacitly supporting our enemy.

-I can see that. It isn’t perfect, but I suppose perfection isn’t attainable.-

So, all this has still been rather theoretical, despite my attempt to ground it.

-Then, let’s ground it. What are you willing to do when you or yours are threatened?-

Tala felt a clawing at her insides, even as anger passed through her in a wave at the very idea. Obliterate the threat.

No… that was only partially right. It actually felt dissonant to her purpose, to her soul.

She frowned.

In her mind, she saw the cells that she had consumed through Kit. Then a memory surfaced, one of claiming the sireling’s corpse, drawing it into herself to give her greater strength for the next fight, whatever it might have been.

No, I won’t obliterate the threat. I will dismantle it and devour anything of use. That which tries to harm me or mine will only make me stronger, make me better able to face the next threat.

That was close, so tantalizingly close. Yet… it wasn’t quite right.

She and hers belonged to her, it was a trivial fact, but it felt like it was building to something.

Criminals who chose to do wrong often lost their lives, possessions, or freedom. By societal law and civilized agreement, criminals lose their rights to at least some of what they had considered their own before committing the crime.

Then, it hit her, and she felt her whole being resonate with the revelation, and she moved further and further on her path toward Paragon even as the words resonated through her thoughts, That which seeks to harm what is mine, is forfeit and subject to my authority.

That was it.

Upon that revelation, all of her choices made sense. Someone who attacked her was then subject to her authority to kill, imprison, or send on their way.

It was a brutal way of looking at the world, but it was hers. Nothing else fit her worldview.

She was about to generate her voice next to Rane to let him know about her new understanding—and the fact that she was now more advanced than he was—when she heard a voice carrying from outside even through her helmet.

“Well. Isn’t this an unexpected surprise?”

Tala instantly mirrored her perspective to the bloodstar on the forehead of her armor, looking at the woman who stood barely fifty feet from where Tala sat.

It only took Tala a moment to recognize her. Mistress?