PSTH: Chapter Forty

Storage gems. Common, but interesting, magical items. They rely on the fact that Primals have no biological tissue whatsoever in order to operate, bending essence in such a way that the Primal is able to recover faster and remain in a semi-conscious state, like the liminal state between sleeping and wakefulness. It’s quite pleasant. Now, the main way this is accomplished is through growing plastic crystals out of materials left over from the Pre-Arrival era. We are currently looking into other suitable materials for once we’ve repurposed a significant amount of the world’s plastic supply, but estimates hold that we have centuries more to go through…

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Lecture by L. Baeke Slate University, 399 Modern-Era

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“You look like you’re good to go,” the doctor said, gently slapping me on the back as he helped me up to my feet. I stretched and thanked him one more time before exiting the stone tent. 

As it had turned out, Gabby’s healing had been near flawless. That wasn’t shocking, as injuries were generally fairly easy to treat with magic, at least when compared to underlying conditions. There had been some minor issues that I didn’t fully claim to understand, but three spells and one day later, I was free to go. I pulled out my augpad and began tracking down the live location of River and Laurel. The service was a bit spotty this far out, but by occasionally boosting the signal, I was able to find their camp. They’d set up about a twenty minute walk away from the clearing where the medical area was, amongst a flatter part of the landscape that had been mostly cleared. It was a natural clearing, so there were still several bushes, piles of leaves, and tons of pinestraw, but it was open enough for them to have found a spot to set up their tent. 

As I approached, I could see that their tent flap was partially open. The outer layer was open, to let them look in and out, but the mosquito netting remained, letting me see into the tent. They’d hung a heater in a leather loop on the tent roof, the small waves of warmth pulsing out of it. Scales shivered, having always preferred cooler weather, but Hex leapt forward and bounded into the tent, crashing into the mosquito netting and letting out a hiss. Before she could claw through the material, Laurel moved to start unzipping the netting. 

“Well hello there!” I heard River say in surprise, before he and Laurel both looked up and waved to me. I waved back and slipped into their tent, while Scales rolled around in a pile of leaves outside. 

“How are you all?” I asked as I took a seat across from the pair. “Found anything interesting yet?” 

As I settled down and got a good sense for the pair, I glanced at River. I still wasn’t quite perfect at figuring out magian levels, not when compared to Primals, but he’d definitely gotten stronger by a noticeable amount.

“And congratulations on your level?” 

“Levels,” River said with a cheeky grin. “Two of them. The first came from ordinary cultivation of the ambient essence here, and the second came from a breakthrough with a spell I’d been struggling with. The training on it rewarded me with a huge surge of essence, enough to let me break the level twenty barrier.” 

He held up two fingers, and royal blue anima began to spin from them, swirling into the patterns of a spell. It snapped into place, and… nothing seemed to happen. The magic hung there, and I raised an eyebrow. 

“It looks fancy,” I said, which was true. River sighed and rolled his eyes, muttering something about meatheaded tamers before explaining properly. 

“It’s Runic Conduit, one of the main spells that’s used in the construction of magitech devices for the transfer of power. It’s–” 

“Oh!” I said excitedly, having finally recognized the spell. It was a weird one, and I was pretty sure it hadn’t been discovered from a Primal, but built from the ground up. “It’s the magical wire spell. No wonder you’re so excited.” 

Laurel barked out a laugh, and I could swear that I could actually see River grit his teeth as I described the spell as ‘magical wires’. In my defense, that’s basically what a runic conduit was – it transferred power from one rune to another through a carved line. It wasn’t a literal wire, but it was basically a magical wire, like when moving power from the anima battery of an augpad to the speakers.

“I said the same thing,” Laurel explained. “Because that’s all it is, sorry babe. V equals I times R and all that.” 

“Voltage, current, and resistance do have their relative analogues within anima spell construction, but it’s not the same,” River protested. “This spell has to deal with those, but there’s also ethoplasticity and o– ah, what am I even doing?”

He sighed and shook his head, and I looked at Laurel questioningly. She picked up on the look and responded. 

“I’ve been good. I’ve got a new Primal that I think you’ll be a bit surprised by the next time we battle. That’s assuming she sticks around – I had to make a deal to return her here if she finds she doesn’t take to travel well.” 

She tapped one of the storage gems on her belt, and I noticed that there were now three of them colored with the rich sage green color of her anima, as opposed to the one she’d had before. 

“Did you get a legendary?” 

“Nope.” 

“Epic?”

“It’s a rare, butttt it’s a good one that will work well with my team,” Laurel said, her eyes sparkling with mirth. “And that’s all I’m telling you! Unless I see what you get, in which case, fair’s fair, I’ll tell you.” 

I made a humming sound and nodded in agreement. We made a little bit more small talk, before I left to join Scales outside and set up my tent. Hex, the traitor that she was, remained snuggled inside the tent with the heater. After I got the tent set up, however, River and Laurel emerged from their tent, with a very reluctant looking Hex. 

“We’ll fan out, and if a Primal is interested in attacking any of us, we can battle it,” Laurel said, taking charge of the situation. “Keep within eyesight of one another, though. I know that’s not far with all these trees, but we don’t want Aiden dying.” 

“Hey!” I protested. “Why me?” 

“Do you not care if I die?” River pouted in the same moment, which got an eyeroll from Laurel. She pointed at me. 

“You, because you’re accident prone. You fell down the essence heart’s shaft in the abandoned castle of the Obsidian King. You fell off a cliff with Gawain. I don’t want you falling and dying,” she said, before swinging her finger to River. “And you, shut up. You know that I don’t want you dead. But you’re just not as accident prone as Aiden.” 

I was tempted to retort that I’d only gotten in those accidents with other people, and that whenever I’d explored alone, I’d been fine. I also considered pointing out that she’d fallen down the shaft as well, and bore half of the accident-proneness. But I restrained myself – saying either one would make me look childish. 

We fanned out, with River and Laurel heading out to either side as we walked around. A handful of common Primals who were interested in advancing attacked us as we moved around, mostly low levels who were working to increase their power up to the standards of the area, but none of them stood out to me. One day turned into another, and the only real standout came on the fourth day of our search, when a level twenty-two Kirow swept down to attack Laurel. She let out a battle cry and tapped one of her storage gems. A moment later, Ella the Procella appeared on the field, crackling with lightning as she forged her pneuma around her into her battle form. 

The Kirow dove as Ella fired a weak bolt of lightning at her, pulling up and concentrating anima around its beak, some sort of pecking attack that felt like a basic null element attack. The beak struck, and the power tore into the cloud and lightning that made up the shell.

It was a mistake. Ella burst with a blast of short ranged wind that battered at the wings of the Kirow’s battle form. That alone didn’t do much to actually damage the pneuma shell, but it tangled up the Kirow long enough for Ella to release a blast of lightning point blank. The Kirow released a burst of mist in an attempt to throw off the aim, but I doubted it would be enough. I sucked in a breath and tried to figure out if it would be enough as I waited for the mist to dissipate. 

Kirows were only null elements, so the spell was only normally effective, and the Kirow had a six level advantage. On the other hand, Ella was a rare, and it seemed unlikely that a wild Kirow would have restructured its ousia to match the power of a rare, not when it would be easier to just focus on leveling. 

The mist faded, revealing a battered Kirow, with cracks running through its shell, but a claw absolutely brimming with power. The claw strike lashed out at Ella, who shot back, clearly using a flight spell to empower her motions. The Kirow raced forward, claws extended for more slashes, while Ella dodged back and forth, and I realized I was holding my breath again. If the Kirow could land a blow with its empowered talon, then Ella would lose. 

Ella reversed her course suddenly, rushing in at the Kirow, and lightning exploded from her. With no human to help anticipate and react to such tactics, the Kirow was caught off guard by the switch, and lightning coursed through its pneuma. The shell shattered, and the Kirow returned to its normal form. I sucked in a breath, considering trying to cast Bond Primal. The Kirow had a lot of spunk and fighting spirit. It would mean that I was rocking a team with considerably lower rarities than both Laurel and Gawain, but that wouldn’t be the end of the world. 

If the Kirow did want to work with me, then I’d probably detour from training for a while to help both it and Hex work on the spiderweb principle. Restructuring their ousia to match a rare would take some time, but it would be worth it in the long run. It might not be generally worth it to take it past rare, at least not until leveling started to really slow down, but uncommon and rare were the most common Primals in most tournaments. I was confident bringing them to rare would be worth it. 

My fingers started to twitch as I prepared to cast the spell. Before I could, the Kirow hopped onto Laurel’s head, pecking at her earlobe. It was a small peck, not aggressive, more akin to a human poking someone than an attack. 

“I think it likes you,” I said, gesturing to her. “You can cast Bond Primal, if you’d like.” 

“Are you sure? That would max me out for most matches. You’re only at two.” 

“I’m sure,” I said. “The Primal seems to have picked you.” 

So Laurel raised the empty storage gem from her belt and began to pour anima through it. I started, having forgotten that she couldn’t actually cast the spell herself. It felt weird for me, knowing that she couldn’t do something so simple. Given Vince’s interest in the fact that I’d actually learned to cast it, I wondered if there was more to that. 

As the Kirow dissolved into a stream of raw ousia and merged with the sphere of strange material, we continued to search, fanning out to cover more territory. Luck must have been smiling on us, because only an hour later I spotted a familiar looking crest some ways off in the distance. I felt my heartrate pick up. Maybe it was just an odd leaf formation, but it looked like an Apaturegius, the dragon-caterpillar Primal that I’d seen a depiction of in the visitor center.