by Philip Read
And most of those men she has trained in mental resistance and are automatically off her list of considerations, but I don’t say that. Queatica had to pay a rough price for her power, but what power it is.
We start planning seriously, outlying the construction plans, funding, recruiting and recruitment of recruiters. Then it was determining who was trustworthy and how much trusth could be reasonably placed on which shoulders through which process. Manika mostly delt with that responsibility especially on anyone that would bear the title of Enclave, the people that eventually get to say they belong to the Conclave and get to live at Enclave.
A world we have been building with father’s help and some of his friends along the ages, including some that are now planets themselves and contributed again after their Transcendence. The very foundation of Enclave is mostly the remains of Velvet, one of the children of the Ancient that Transcended to Word-builder/World-breaker level of power but died not having fully formed yet.
The planning takes hours but there are 23 of us in all in the room and we each have difference strengths and know when to delegate. A sort of command structure starts to develop as well for were initially just a group of friends with an idea about starting a club.
There end up being 20 heads of the Conclave but one head of the Conclave Council. The head needing to be elected by popular vote and having the finale say in all overall Conclave decisions unless outvoted on an issue by 12 people in the Council or more. The head needing g vacate their post every 7 years and not being eligible for the position until another 7 years has passed.
We put statutes and safeguards with the realisation that one day it may not be us in power here, so we make it very difficult to be accepted as an Enclave with great responsibility over yourself but we also make the benefits worthwhile. A claimed territory on Enclave as a home and a safe haven, teachings and access to information, help in any form if ever its needed, wealth and influence if deserved. And most of all freedom, freedom to do as you pleased when you pleased in whatever way you saw fit, a great responsibility to have over yourself.
We planned out some of the curriculum and the raids we are to make on the underwolders. A truly solid foundation is build for the conclave and a sort of charter is born.
Chapter 52
Sachihiro
I sit in the full lotus with my unsheathed nodachi in my lap trying to find myself within the Rage. The full lotus is a very difficult position to get into especially for the generally more rigid Barbarian people but I have been schooled by the Hito in many arts, flexibility is necessary for some of them so iv been keeping up with my stretching.
I’ve just finished a long meditation session in which I think I may have achieved the elusive quiet mind for the first time since seeking it. I’m not sure because I’m not sure how it should feel nor have I received any skills acknowledgement from Gaia, but maybe that’s not how things are supposed to work.
There are nearly 600 people in the training campus of the Conclave, it’s been acknowledged to everyone there that the place is now called the Conclave Academy. But some still think its a type of school for rich spoilt princes, princesses and second sons of the accomplished or powerful throughout the continent. I’m not sure how but word of the place has spread throughout Pangaea despite the strict secrecy lecture conducted with every arrival and every departure.
But the place is too good to have stayed a secret long because everyone that is eventually allowed to leave comes out 10 times better than what they were when they arrived. Regardless of whether or not they are actually accepted into being part of the Conclave community, the Compound, or are just sent home after their training.
The compounds are sort of huge domed structures that are interconnected and have people living within them like anthills, if anthills were better designed, looked much nicer and had access to sunlight. The communities there include the children, wives, non-combatant husbands of anyone that goes past the training camps and gets accepted into the Conclave of Civitas.
The training camp/academy stage is brutal and can be anything from a year to two years of almost complete and constant training, but not always combat training. The lectures talk about life and philosophy and the importance of compassion and mercy, they teach critical thinking but also to kill when necessary and exactly how.
Killing a person unarmed isn’t an easy thing to do on Gaia, I hear that in some other worlds people aren’t as resilient but generally, a human being can recover from almost anything. Fighting hand to hand you have to aim for pressure points or weak spot that disable or cause pain to your opponent or even slow them down. But usually in unarmed combat, the kill move comes in the form of crushing the trachea or breaking the neck bone.
Even then you have you make sure that your opponent is dead and not paralyzed or you just made an enemy that you might have to fight another day. The lessons are extensive from human, elven, naga and certain beast physiology. All their weaknesses and the many ways to exploit them but it doesn’t just end at physical training.
Everyone at the training camps learns to speak and read Common, everyone. And the campus in diverse and full of many different creatures and peoples. Nagas, dwarves, elves, beastmen, humans, a few Monkeys, undines and even a few fae, orcs and gnomes. The campus can approximately house up to 1500 people according to rumour but of even the people who know of the Academy, few are allowed to find it.
The influx of new students happened a few months ago out of nowhere when they just started showing up in ones and two. Peoples of all types and races and apparently they are all descendants of some guy who is the founder or one of the founders of all this. Getting exposed to so many different peoples, cultures and training programs has been a huge eye-opener for us, Tribesmen, as we give anything that involves combat our all.
For us, the most interesting group of people are the Barbarians from a completely different continent, our long lost kin. The size of them and their lust for violence giving them away some but mainly its the berserker Rage that lurks within them that sings to our own. Blood recognizing blood and all that.
They say they are from a continent they call Rocce e Vento but according to Academy maps, it’s actually named Culla. Their homeland is known as Ondora and they certainly live in a tough part of the world, a place were the Tundra is a paradise in comparison to though to be fair it seems everywhere is shitty in comparison to the Tundra.
They are the same height, bulk and general stature as our people but their skin is more grey than is usual for humans and definitely not as soft. They have rune shaped brands all over their bodies and they don’t circumcise all their boy children at infancy, but use circumcision as a right of passage into manhood instead of being blooded in battle like we do.
One might think that because of that they are probably less blood thirsty, but one would be wrong. Their love for battle and death ranges on necrophilic obsession for their culture exults death as the greatest achievement they could ever accomplish. Why they think that I’m yet to find out but they don’t blood their weapons on each other because their territory, Ondora has plenty of shit that’s been trying to kill them for the past 2000 years without adding tribal feuds into the mix.
They speak of other types of Barbarian people that have a different berserker Rage than us, a people that double in size and quadruple in strength when in the Rage. They also talk about the green orcs that don’t have the normal skin colour of regular people but a deep green that has perpetually given them something close to the speed and strength of the Rage at all times without needing to actually become berserker. But they are also generally more aggressive to everyone and everything around them constantly.
The Mare, our strange cousins call themselves. The Mare people of Ondora and they are a wonder to behold with axes or hammers or spears. They are also a people that have had very few Awakened in their history and never anyone that Awakens to magic but they know that it’s from the curse that gave us all our berserkers.
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Everyone seems to start at the academy but not everyone spends a year there, some spend less and some more. Those that usually spend less are the very component fighters that go there mostly for the lectures and to be evaluated than for training. It’s now our second year at the Conclave and we have graduated from the Academy to the Compound, almost all of us.
90% of the Tundra Barbarians that come down to this continent are invited to the Compound but surprisingly not all pass this unknown test that determines who qualifies. Reaching the Compounds is said to be only the second step in climbing up the hierarchy that is the Conclave pyramid. The Compounds seem a lot like Anastasia, the dwarven city within the Dawn Mountain but with more soil, concrete and plants as opposed to stone, worked stone, molten stone and minerals.
Everything has been happening fast for us since we clumped in with the Volvocine sibling last year. They went to all our lectures and training lessons that first month, the second month we went to theirs. There is very little as funny as watching Dustin and Victor try to learn the kung fu style of unarmed fighting that the Volvacines are trained in but they eventually got the basics.
All six of us that were matched with one of the brothers eventually got the basics Om, Asger, Caden, Dustin, Victor and I. And we all get along surprisingly well with everyone we have been matched with. The greatest boon for the six us has been training with Master Black when he trains his grandchildren.
The man mostly leaves us writen instructions and places some else to supervise our progress while he personally trains Om and Volvox but being in his tutelage has been good for all of us. The kung fu is great and apparently unarmed combat is a discipline that is severely overlooked by our people but we are all learning.
Ava and a few others I haven’t seen in months as they were chosen by a new Master that only takes young women for some reason. Ever since we all qualified to joint the Conclave of Civitas four months ago the training has been more intense and more focused to our different strengths than the mostly general Academy training. And the entire time I’ve been fantasizing about bringing my kids here, but they’ve already made a home in Paradisum.
Taking them away from another home would just be cruel, especially after taking Kuyoki away from the only home, she has ever known. But spirits beyond I miss them, I miss them a lot and the four years I got to spend with them seems like such a short amount of time now. Especially with little Didi who was just getting to know me.
But with the presence of the fae in Paradisum the Tundra is probably still the safest place for them to be and with these nightly incursions by underworld beats and peoples has made the world a much more dangerous place. There has never been more vampires, ghouls, nightmares, shades, tenebra, on I, hellhounds and more depending on which part of the underworld a portion of Gaia is connected to. The nights are no longer safe as dark affinity creatures that are considered bottom feeders down there try to make a niche for themselves up here.
We’ve all been here over a year, at least my friends and I have and already the number things we’ve learnt are astounding. I’ve learnt about soul stones, stones that can gather and store the energy expelled when a soul departs and I’ve learnt that its the same thing my beautiful monster has been doing to replenish herself since the forging. The war was good for our recover and I can even walk around the Compound now whiles leaving my nodachi in my rooms without thinking of killing myself. And I can sense where she is at all times our connection has never been stronger and the more I communicate with her the more substantial our connection.
Om and I have spoken to Master Black about our visualization training and he said its good we’ve started doing image training but we will really be able to use it to its full potential when we unlock skills. Every time the man speaks there is a raging rush of blood to my head that drowns out all other sound. Asger went fully into the berserker rage the first time he heard that voice and Caden just looked sick. It’s interesting to know that Om suddenly seemed bigger and to fill the room more yet he hadn’t actually increased in size at all.
* *
Leaving the Academy doesn’t mean the end of learning for in the Compounds there are lessons conducted as well, just much more specialized and comprehensive training. Master Black has spoken to us about the 15 enclaves that are being established to be the step after achieving acceptance into the Conclave Civitas.
These enclaves will work mostly independently from each other with different heads and be a place for the more elite and specialized people. People that have a reason for the pursuit of power, strength or purpose. People that want to be doing missions for the Conclave, but mainly it looks like the Conclave is going to turn into one huge army.
There different enclaves cater to people that specialised in alchemy and academia, apothecary and healing, gardening, animal husbandry and beast taming, sailing, strategy and espionage, magic, psionics, fighting, smithing, building, spirit, and killing and espionage. These people who chose to specialise in one of those paths are each from the Civitas.
The heads of each conclave report to 5 chosen people that are suppose to know everything within each conclave and have the bigger picture in mind. Those five people must also be replaced every 13 years so corruption doesn’t fester within the ranks. And all 20 people within that structure report to a head of council reelected every 7 years who also acts as a disciplinarian.
The heads of each enclave can stay the same for 40 years but after that someone within the ranks of that particular conclave chosen in however that particular department sees fit. Everyone at the compounds learns about the hierarchical structure of the conclave but no one really know who is in which conclave themselves. There is talk of massive building projects that are taking place on other continents even as the compound itself isn’t yet finished.
On advice of Master Black I have gone into the Conclave of Spiritus, it isn’t exactly what I thought it was but it’s been a great help to my development. Spiritus doesn’t just deal with spiritual energy, the manifestation of it and all its uses but it also deals with actual spirits, which means sorcery.
Sorcery is the manipulation of spirits or energy from the spiritual realm in order to affect the physical realm. From summoning spirits to imbuing tools and objects with spiritual energy, to using it to affect change within the physical. Every person has a little spiritual energy within them for we are all part spirit somehow, but that is a minute amount of spirit that acts more like skin protecting us from the elements. To have an affinity for more spiritual energy or to actively train in increasing spiritual energy is a rare and difficult thing without the help of actual spirits, but apparently, all Barbarians with the berserker curse have much denser spiritual energy than is normal. At least that’s what I’m learning in my new vocation, but I take everything with a grain of salt because these people that have been studying these phenomena for hundreds of years could be wrong. No one is infallible and as they themselves along with Asriel thought me how to think critically and question every known ‘fact’.
*
I move within the sigil in the exact choreographed sequence from one circle to another. Each part of my body just so, elbows just so, hands moving in synchronization with each other even as my fingers flow from one mudra to another. My Image training is implacable and I have within my mind the crystal clear image of what I expect to happen once I finish the ritual. All the while projecting my spiritual energy within and around myself as thickly as I can maintain for this long. My every movement within the sigil in this dance I’m doing precise, sweating profusely and contorting my body in awkward positions in a summoning ritual.
But instead of summoning a spirit like most sorcerers would I’m actually just trying to open a microscopic portal within myself and summon the spiritual energy that is as abundant there as air is here. The only other known source of the energy besides living creatures.
And even as I do the last twist like a dancer praising the world for its beauty, my hair coming out
of its braid cascading over my face, my arms and leg muscles warm from the effort, my core having had a good workout, my spiritual energy almost depleted I finish the ritual. I finish with a flourish prompting some of my fellow disciples to start clapping before being shushed by the masters.
*
I came to this vocation because of advice from the Master with the Sinister voice that causes unprepared Barbarians to go into the Rage if he gives them instructions. I came here amongst sorcerers and would be sorcerers being the only warrior but having the senses natural spiritual pressure the masters have seen outside of shamans, medicine men, witch doctors, spirit guides, witches and seers.
I was taught the basics about spirits and the emergence of the deities. I was taught the importance of listening carefully when dealing with spirits for though a summoned spirit cannot lie to it’s summoner it can mislead or refuse to be helpful altogether. I learnt the basic sigils and magic symbols with my fellow disciples who I found it difficult to relate to because they mostly wore robes and funny hats and have never killed anyone before.
I learnt the mental exercises necessary to be able to partition the mind into two parts in case a spirit ever attempts to possess us and is initially too powerful we have somewhere to retreat to. It also helps if we ever acquire a familial bond and need to translate two sets of senses within our minds. I learnt that celestial ore has such a high affinity for spirit energy because it is thought to be from the spirit realm.
My Kata was used as an example that by imbuing my spiritual energy into the beautiful dwarven made single-handed throwing axe I had actually made it a part of me at the spiritual level. And that such weapons are scalable because they constantly feed off the spiritual energy a person projects at almost the same rate at which it is replenished naturally. And that usually people that have more than one bound scalable weapon take longer to get their weapons to be as powerful as a person that only has one because two or more weapons now have to share a minute amount of spirit energy. But this isn’t the case with Barbarians because we apparently have an unusually dense spirit pressure that increases even further when we go into the Rage.
