Millennial Mage

Chapter 516: Departure

Tala and Rane’s time with Sunnydale came to an end when the village was scheduled to begin a sweep to the north so that it could start circling back toward the west in the general loop that they maintained.

Apparently, if they’d continued south and east, they would have come into a region that was loosely controlled by one of the very few ‘cities’ out here in the wandering wilds. They wanted to avoid that for obvious reasons.

But beyond that, back north and west they knew the terrain, the local beasts, and the neighbors, even if they never followed exactly the same path on any given pass.

The goodbye was gracious, but Tala got the impression that everyone involved was used to passing relationships, and cyclical friends.

They’d be on wonderful terms if they ever crossed paths again, though. It was a bit funny to Tala, as most of the trades had been between the citizens of Ironhold and those of Sunnydale.

In that vein, there had actually been a few exchanged citizens.

A single family of Irondalians had asked for—and been granted—permission to stay. Apparently, their eldest daughter had found a spouse, and so the family was going to remain in order to stay together.

On the Ironhold side of things, there were a hundred or so applications, mostly individuals, but a few from families, and a total of thirty people were approved to immigrate.

None of the gated had asked to join Tala’s hold, which was good because such were actually considered a bit of community resources, even if not in the same sense as in the arcane cities.

Honestly, that went a long way in helping Tala rectify the oddity of all the seemingly poor people having flying houses of one kind or another.

Apparently, there were enough arcanous creatures that flew out here that their harvests were almost dirt cheap—though, ironically, good dirt was rather expensive. The most costly part of any moving living arrangement seemed to be the cloaking field, and those ranged in price with the more expensive ones being better and more efficient. Regardless, they had ready sources of infinite magic in the gated, ready to sell power for reasonable rates.

Moreover, it seemed to be common practice for the gated to will their gates, their souls, to future generations. The how was… hard to parse. Apparently, the elderly wore a device that would accept a willing soul and allow it to continue to give off power.

That willingness couldn’t be extorted, and the power sources were known to only last while used by those the person had known in life, the soul passing on once the last such person had died, often replacing them as a new source for subsequent generations.

It was a complex setup, often leading to the gated lineages having a lot of wealth and power, comparatively, even without anyone ever having to charge very much for power. The very fact that so many could provide power kept the power low, even while those who had several ancestral sources benefited more from the setup.

I do wonder if we should do something similar in the cycling cities.

-I’m sure it’s been considered, but we can ask if you want. We don’t have a shortage of gates or power. Remember the City Stones? We’re literally creating complex infrastructure in order to use up the overabundance of power we have on hand.-

Right… different problems for different societies.

Tala was intrigued by this society. It didn’t help that they did try to convince her to stay one last time, even if they seemed unsurprised when she declined.

Maybe in another life, or for a stint in a few hundred years… if this is still around then.

-Indeed. Regardless, Lyn has been in touch—through intermediaries—with another town that can take us in the direction we want to go. It will be slower than us just ‘going’ but it will let the Irondalians trade and you and Rane train.-

She and Rane had already discussed it, and they were enjoying the slower pace and different culture. We can take that route for now. I imagine we’re running low on trade goods?

Alat barked a laugh in Tala’s head. -Hardly. Many of them are merchants, Tala. The movement of the goods is the real worth they bring. Rust, there was as much demand for solid information about what was needed as almost anything else.-

She just grunted at that.

Finally, it was time.

Tala and Rane stood at the edge of the platform upon which they had arrived, waved goodbye to Ann, William, and Liam one last time, and dove off.

They held hands as they fell, just soaking in the experience that so few ever got to go through, save the unfortunate souls who had this as their final Zeme-side experience.

It was glorious.

They had to reshape their aura and heavily veil themselves in order to not create a veritable cacophony of magical resonance, but it was worth it or the brief dive.

Even mid-dive, Tala’s mind flicked to Terry. He was headed back their way, and he wasn’t doing so as a disembodied spirit. Both of those things made Tala quite pleased, all things considered.

He didn’t feel quite happy, but he did seem like he was content.

They fell through Sunnydale’s cloaking field, and the village winked out of existence behind them, utterly obscured even to Tala’s threefold sight.

That really is an amazing bit of magic.

-Which we now have designs for.-

Tala sighed. Yes, but it’s based on arcane magics, concepts generally derived from prey animal kin of one kind or another. She shook her head internally. It’s a strange marriage between arcane magic and gated-human power. If it were otherwise, if it were simple, every caravan would have such protection.

-Yeah, the gateless humans who have such on their crafts have to have them maintained and shored up by arcanes on a regular basis, just like they have to have their power refilled by gated.-

And they only get around the ‘one day of power’ storage limit by the extra power in the air. It isn’t enough to sustain things fully, but it does make the drain a multi-week affair. That requires knowledge of magic collectors, though, which are cheap, but not really that easy to create… not that I’ve studied them extensively.

Nothing was ever easy, it seemed.

But she was allowing her mind to wander instead of enjoying the moment, and that was almost criminal.

As they fell, Tala thought she saw motion off toward the west, from the direction that Terry had said he was coming, but she couldn’t get a good view due to the distance and the terrain.

Less than a minute after they jumped, Rane squeezed her hand, and they flipped over, hitting the ground feet first and stopping instantly without any sense of deceleration, nor destruction to the terrain.

The transition was incredibly jarring—even if not impactful—and even as her braid dropped to fall against her back, Tala swayed on her feet, her body taking precious seconds to adjust to the sudden change in relative motion.

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“Oh, that’s awful. How do you stand it?”

Rane shrugged. “You get used to it in time, at least I did. I think it helps that I’m in control of it, too.”

He shrugged again. Tala rolled her eyes and huffed a laugh, finally getting her feet under herself, so to speak. “Fine. Thank you. That was a much more fun way of coming down. I could have done it just as safely, but it would have been slower.”

“Of course. I’m happy to assist.” He leaned over to kiss the top of her head.

They both turned as a large crash resounded to the west, and Terry came into view.

Tala’s eyes widened, and Rane burst out laughing.

Four massive chicken talons bobbed and swayed, bumping and bouncing off of the ground as they hung limply from the single, comically oversized chicken leg that was precariously held, wedged in Terry’s beak as he ran.

Well, I guess we know why he wasn’t flickering to catch up sooner…

Tala and Rane greeted Terry with joy in their hearts and jerky in their hands.

The terror bird, for his part, dropped the massive chicken leg before them then spat out something that gleamed a dull gray in the grass.

-Oh, that’s gross.-

Tala frowned. “What is that?”

-That’s the baba yaga’s teeth. She apparently threw her teeth at him after he ripped off the leg. Then, she vanished in truth, and he couldn’t follow her.- After a moment of silence, during which Tala assumed she was conversing with Terry, Alat continued, -She likely anchored whatever method she used to escape to the teeth, which is why she left them behind.-

A means to keep him from following?

-In one way or another, it seems. Yeah.-

Huh.

Rane blinked a few times, clearly processing either the same words or something similar from one of the alternate interfaces.

Terry gave a bit of a mournful cry, flickered to snatch the jerky from their hands, devoured that treat, then began tearing off great hunks of meat from the chicken leg.

Tala, for her part, bent down and examined the teeth. “It’s a set of dentures… they seem to be metal?”

“Who has metal teeth?”

“Apparently, baba yaga.” Tala frowned, feeling a call to take up and claim the teeth. That was… disturbing if she was being honest. “Is there any magic on those that you can detect, Rane?”

Rane immediately snapped into focus, kneeling down next to the teeth. “No, in fact, they seem magically reflective. If I had to guess, I’d say that they were iron.”

And then the feeling clicked into place. The part of her most closely bound to what had been the dasgannach yearned to claim the iron and make it her own. “Huh… do you think it’s dangerous?”

“Honestly? Probably, yeah.” He frowned. “Though, it has to be through conceptual shenanigans as there’s no magic that I can see in them.”

Tala nodded slowly, examining the teeth carefully with her threefold sight.

They were solid, and she thought that Rane was probably right. They seemed to be pure iron.

As she continued her examination, she glanced up toward the slowly disappearing chicken leg. Are you examining and logging the magics around that?

-Absolutely.-

Perfect. Thank you.

With that confirmed, she returned her focus to the teeth.

They were just a small amount of iron. She could probably pull this much iron from the ground as they traveled in just a couple of hours.

So why was it tugging on her so?

Was it because it was concentrated? Or was something else pulling her focus, stoking her desire.

She checked again, and there were decidedly no magics anchored to the teeth.

Moreover, she could see the reality node, and they were no longer connected to the Baba Yaga at all. …In fact, they weren’t connected to anything.

She frowned. How are they not connected to anything?

They should be at least connected to Terry to a small degree, he just brought them hundreds of miles in his mouth.

But nothing.

They seemed to exist in utter isolation.

Her eyes widened. “Rane. These seem to be under an effect similar to my existence shield.”

He had been watching Terry, but his focus immediately snapped back to her and the teeth once again. “What? But we can see them.”

“I know… that makes no sense. If they are truly isolated on an existence level, they should be undetectable to us even if we were holding them in our hands. The very act of detecting them—of seeing them—should connect them to us, at least briefly.” Tala felt utterly flummoxed.

“But nothing?” Rane arched one eyebrow.

“Nothing that Alat or I can detect, no.”

He grunted, speaking as he considered, “So, it’s like iron for Reality instead of Magic? It blocks Reality like normal iron does Magic. That would mean that it’s not fully isolated, but you might not be able to detect or create a connection? Could such a connection be of a different kind?”

Tala turned to stare at her husband.

He noticed her regard and turned to frown her way. “What?” The silence stretched out for a long moment until Rane was beginning to get obviously uncomfortable. “What? Was that a stupid idea? I—”

She leaned forward and kissed him, only pulling away after a long moment. “That’s genius, Rane. I think you’re exactly right. If it was fully isolated, then we couldn’t see anything, but we are. If I understand correctly, we’re still able to see the Void where it is distinct from its surroundings. It’s also why we can see Magic’s interactions with it, because it is void of magic.”

“I… I’m not sure I understand.”

She waved that off. “That’s fine. I only think I half understand, and that is with me guessing and being the source of the half-baked theory. But if I’m right, this is something like Reality Iron. If the baba yaga has more, it might be exactly how she’s able to make such convincing and confusing illusions. She is hiding the fact of their illusory nature from Reality itself, making them real.”

Rane closed his eyes, scrunching his whole face in confusion before opening his eyes once more and blinking a few times. “What? Tala… What?”

“She is using magic—or power of some kind—to create illusions, then ‘hiding’ the fact that they are illusions from Reality, thus making them real in every detectible sense without actually having to pay the cost for overcoming Reality in truth. Then, she can unmask her own illusions at will, changing what is and isn’t ‘real.’”

Rane groaned. “The words you are saying make sense, but the concepts are a bit beyond me at the moment.”

She patted him on the shoulder. “That’s fine. I think I understand it.”

“Well, that’s good. So? What’s that mean for the teeth?”

Tala grinned widely. “It means that I am going to be learning a lot in the next few days. Then I’m going to claim the iron for my own.”

-I feel like there should be lightning and thunder crashing in the background as the rugged heroine decides to claim an evil creature’s power for her own.-

Tala shrugged internally. If a Sovereign doesn’t stop me, how bad can it be?

-...That is not a good metric… Are we really back to this?- Alat already knew the answer, but she was prompting Tala to force the woman to express it externally.

She nodded and picked up the teeth, carefully not claiming them for the moment, despite her deep desire to do so. “I’m going to confer with some others about my theories before I do anything with these, don’t worry.”

Rane smiled in return. “I trust you, but I am glad to hear that, too. Wisdom is found in the counsel of many.” He chuckled. “It’s not always obvious, but it is usually there. You just have to find it among all the dross.”

Tala huffed a laugh. “Isn’t that the truth.”

They both stood and turned to regard Terry.

“Almost done there?”

Terry looked their way, then trilled before tearing free another massive bit of flesh.

Rane glanced her way. “Let’s stop here for brunch, then? That should let him finish his own little snack.”

“First, I love that you genuinely know that that is a little snack for him. But more to the point, I could just stick him in the sanctum. We haven’t gone very far, yet.”

“True. If that’s what we want, we can continue on. After all, we do have a somewhat tight timeline to meeting the next village.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Tight? We built in three days of buffer.”

“Three days if we go straight to the rendezvous point, but we always get side-tracked.” He grinned in return. “And we’ve been pursuing our own training a lot of late. I miss the time with you.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Then why’d you say our timeline was tight?”

His eyes twinkled. “So that you would prove it was not so.”

She laughed at that, then considered for a moment. “You know? I’d love to grab brunch with you.”

Rane’s smile grew broader in return. “To brunch we go.”

Even with such short notice, Mistress Petra and her assistants put together a stunning spread.

Fresh fruit with whipped cream, there was no need for added sweetness. Sausages and bacon, roast mushrooms, and poached eggs, along with delicious coffee for Tala and steaming tea for Rane were just the beginning of the repast.

The woman had prepared several laminate pastries which filled out the meal around oatcakes with honey, and other mainstays.

Truly, having such decadence at essentially a moment’s notice was the height of luxury, and Tala wouldn’t have traded it for an instant advancement to Reforged.

…Though, a good part of that was out of a desire to do it herself. Even so, the sentiment still stood.

Regardless, she luxuriated in the meal and the time with her husband, giving Terry all the space he needed to devour his latest conquest.