PSTH: Chapter Fifty-Three

Part of the reason that so many of the early Obsidian Kings were able to transition from the old powers of the world was not just pre-existing wealth. Essence disrupted too much technology for wealth that exists only digitally to be a major power. It was the dozens of cults of personality, combined with centuries of lower classes being downtrodden, and the non-digital architecture that allowed them to thrive…

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Political Science Lecture given by Mrs. Woolworthy at Slate University, 456 Modern-Era

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With my confirmation ready, I spent most of the downtime before the concert just training with my Primals in the Tamer’s Consortium. We didn’t make any immediate breakthroughs in essence development, but there was still a good bit of other progress. It was entirely too easy to overlook skill and training, and only focus on the raw quantity of essence, but that was a fool’s errand. It might not be as easy to quantify those, but if you gave a child the power of a level one hundred magian, they’d probably still lose to a level three who had actually trained for their power.

Well, that might not be true. They’d probably wind up losing to someone who had never awakened their essence at all, simply because they’d seriously hurt themselves with their amateurish attempts at wielding that much power. A more reasonable example was when the tamer Mikaya Johnson’s Antvark had defeated an opponent twenty levels higher than they were. Between the Antvark having an elemental advantage and more skill, the raw amount of essence that having a higher level had offered simply hadn’t been enough to win. 

Regardless, the skill training did still come with a good amount of essence, but I didn’t engage in enough fights with other tamers to manage to squeeze out a level. It was enough to bring both Scales and Hex close, while Zale was about three quarters of the way. But we couldn’t train forever, not if we wanted to actually harvest our gains. And once Rane arrived, we wound up spending a lot of time touring through the town, looking at various artwork displays. 

“This is a really unique opportunity for me,” she said as she shifted into an awkward position in order to get a better picture. “Not a lot of places utilize this many illusions for art. Uni has a couple of radiant magians come in for us to practice with, but it’s nowhere this diverse and interesting.” 

“Why do you need to practice?” I asked curiously. A moment later, I realized how stupid that sounded, and hastened to explain my question better. “I know that there’s trouble focusing cameras on light, of course, so getting art that literally glows is hard, but I don’t get how that can’t be done with like… the sun or moon.” 

“Do you remember what I told you about essence impressions?” Rane asked, standing and dusting her jeans off. “I don’t blame you if you don’t.” 

“I do! Early cameras had trouble focusing on essence, even the ones that were on chemical film, rather than digital technology, as essence fields tend to make things weird and grainy.” 

If I was being honest, I wouldn’t have remembered that if not for the fact that a few days after we’d had that conversation, Vince had strolled into my life with an ancient photograph containing messed up essence impressions. 

“Right,” Rane agreed. “That’s less of an issue now, since we’ve developed a better understanding of how essence interacts with chemistry, and have been able to rebuild digital technology with a mix of the old principles and essence.” 

I lifted my augpad and wiggled it, and Rane snorted. 

“Don’t get smart with me,” she said. “But yeah. Try to take a picture of the light statue.” 

I took a picture, and it came out terribly, which was about what I expected for trying to photograph a statue made out of light.  

“Right. So, when I’m dealing with normal light sources, or essence based lighting that utilizes standardized patterns, that’s one thing, but when I’m dealing with actively used radiant essence, I have to adjust. This helps me learn to adjust on the fly.”

“Why doesn’t that happen in Primal battles?” I asked curiously. 

“Oh, it does,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s just less noticeable, since rather than creating something static and full of detail, most radiant spells are just blasts of light.” 

“Well, there are some more complex illusions, but… Yeah, a lot of them are just variants of invisibility, creating copies, or things like that.” 

“Right, so the consortium uses a lens that makes those sorts of spells less grainy, but significantly more translucent,” Rane explained. “But there are also some really fancy things with auto-adjusting lenses that get used for huge matches.” 

“That… actually explains some things,” I mused, nodding.

Of course, there was also plenty of non-radiant art in the city, and Rane was sure to take pictures of a lot of those pieces as well, since it would be good for improving her portfolio as a photographer. And it wasn’t as if art was the only thing that Galena had to offer, either. We went to a few of their museums, looking at replicas of relics from throughout history, ate a bunch of different dishes that the area specialized in, and went to see some movies with Laurel and River. 

Well, that last one might have technically counted as art too – there were several local filmmakers who had submitted their movies here for screening with audiences. Some of them were shockingly well done, especially for a team of thirty or so people, while others, uh, needed work. Those could actually be some of the most fun, though, as really cheesy, campy, or so-bad-it’s-good movies definitely had their place, at least in my heart.

And Gawain. 

He’d gotten to the city before us, but when I ran into him at the Tamer’s Consortium building a few days before the concert, he frowned at me, crossing his arms over his chest. 

“You didn’t tell me you were in the city,” he said, his tone accusatory. I was tempted to snap back that I didn’t need to tell him everything, but I managed to hold myself back. He didn’t mean it to sound so demanding. Probably. I hoped. 

“I didn’t think you would care,” I admitted. “I confirmed we’d be at the concert, after all. That's what you invited me to, how was I supposed to know that you meant more?” 

“We could have trained together. You and me and Laurel too, if she wanted. She seems to be a reasonably competent tamer, and being listed as Vince’s sponsee comes with certain advantages. It might not directly boost the algorithm, but it can still get people talking.” 

I resisted the urge to hold my head in my hands as he went on about optimizing his career for the hundred billionth time. 

“Do you want to get food?” I asked instead. “I was going to meet up with Rane at a place that makes really good chicken salad salads.”

“Salad salads?” Gawain asked, tilting his head. “What’s a salad salad.” 

“Chicken salad, salad,” I said. “Do you want to come, or not?” 

“Sure,” he said, following as I turned and began to walk away. 

“Have you solved the cube yet?” Gawain asked. “I know you refuse to look up any leaks online to preserve the spirit of things.

In response, I raised my hand and slowly worked on casting Basic Dash. I completed the spellform within a few moments, then burst down the street, getting a few dirty looks from people for the explosive movement outside of an essence-powered lane. Not that I could have used one of those – Basic Dash was a short-range spell, not one meant for transport. 

“I assume that means yes,” Gawain said mildly. I grinned at him and nodded. 

“Yep. Did you get it, or did you have to look up the solution in order to get it.” 

“I didn’t attempt it,” Gawain said blandly. “I just input triangle-nine-eclipse and got my confirmation.” 

“How is that not boring to you?” I asked. “Do you even know what you missed? Seriously.” 

Gawain hesitated for a moment, then shook his head, and I pressed on. 

“I got to go to a butterfly garden and learn about restoration attempts, visit an audio-visual art display that was completely interactive, and then watch an illusionary version of a year’s worth of time. I got to break a two-part cipher. I got to solve a puzzle cube by spinning magic and examining the actual structure of spells that my own Primals might use one day, or that I could cast, even without having a core.” 

“I…” Gawain started to say, before trailing off into silence. I nodded to him. 

“It’s not about getting things done as fast as possible. It’s about enjoying the process.” 

“You know, I always thought that the saying that ‘it’s about the journey, not the destination’ was just a platitude,” Gawain said. “Most of the time when traveling, it is about where you’re going. Looking out the window of a train or on a bike can be interesting, but it isn’t as big as the destination’s unique features. But when you reframe it as enjoying the process, rather than aiming for completion… I can see a certain logic to it.” 

He held up a finger and pressed it to my lips, as if making a shushing gesture. I was so dumbfounded that I didn’t even know how to react for a moment, which bought Gawain the time to keep talking. 

“I don’t think it is always applicable or ideal. Certain tasks are fundamentally unpleasant, and I don’t want to enjoy experiencing the process. I want it to be completed as fast as possible. But when focusing on things that are good, attempting to slow down can be good.” 

He let out a frustrated sigh, and didn’t remove his finger from where it was pressed my mouth. I wasn’t quite as caught off guard this time, though, so I bit the side of his finger. Not hard. I didn’t know how much, if any, pneuma he had left, and I didn’t want to snap it off or cause him to bleed or anything. He was a prick, but that didn’t mean I wanted him in pain. My bite didn’t elicit the response that I had hoped for, though. He just removed the finger, wiped it on his shirt, and continued talking as if nothing had happened. 

“It’s still a stupid saying, though,” he said. “Not only is it still partially platitudinous, but it’s wrapped in a metaphor that’s not exactly easy to parse, and it’s also somewhat incorrect.” 

“Are you done with the lecture, professor Gawain?” I grumbled. He looked at me, his lavender eyes practically boring into my soul with his stare, before he blinked. 

“Yes.” 

“I get what you’re saying,” I admitted. “I think some of it is the education system. People like to use ‘it’s raining cats and dogs’ as the default example of a metaphor, which helps people pick out particularly dissonant metaphors, but not always the ones that could be reasonably applied…” 

To my surprise, Gawain actually seemed interested in that avenue of conversation, and went on to talk about the issues he’d had in the system. As it turned out, he’d struggled enough that his mom had gotten permission to hire him private tutors, under the example that the publicly available ones simply weren’t able to connect with him. Something about that didn’t sit right with me, and it wasn’t just my moral compass talking – not everyone could teach everyone. It was the strangeness of how he extolled the virtues of private tutors, and dismissed the public ones entirely.

I didn’t know what to think of it, and after he joined us for food, the conversation moved on to other things instead. Gawain re-integrated into the group, and before I knew it, it was the day of the concert.