I sat down and chewed my way through the pasty mush. Even with my enhanced senses, the gruel was difficult to tolerate. While Tási was certainly not the worst cook among us, this was by far her most uninspired creation. Knowing that she was struggling with her internal doubts, I said nothing and continued to choke down the oats as I examined the fortifications.
The wall that had been eight feet tall now rose well over ten feet into the air. Ridge had even begun constructing the arch that would eventually form the wall’s gateway. The elemental was nothing if not efficient, and his progress was simply phenomenal. As I admired Ridge’s work, Bane fluttered down and perched on my shoulder.
I left you alone last night, but I have watched her moping around all morning, Sintári. Are things not well between you?
I placed a hand on his little body, holding him in place as I rose from my stone chair.
“Tási. I’m going to go have a closer look at Ridge’s progress.”
She nodded weakly, barely glancing in my direction as I left her behind. Once I was far enough away for her not to overhear me, I finally replied to Bane’s question.
“I need your advice, Bane. She is having a true crisis, and I’m not sure how to help her.”
I relayed an abbreviated version of our conversation to him, hoping he might have some insights. The Rhastoren had been the one to reveal her secret, and I wanted to believe that he might be able to help her with it as well.
Like you, Sintári, Tási has a dual nature. She is both exactly as she appears, and yet something more as well. If you are the one who is stirring that nature within her, then only you can truly bring it out.
“But how? How do I help her find out who she is?”
You cannot help her do that. You must pull the truth out of her yourself. Her nature is hidden within her heart—her true heart. You must send yourself inside her and tear it from its hiding place.
“I don’t like the way that sounds, Bane.”
It sounds much worse than it is, Sintári. In fact, it is much like the bonding I performed on you when we met. Although the process requires you to use force, it is a beneficial one. I am not saying that there will not be some unpleasantness, especially if she resists you. But when it is over, there will be no lasting ill effects.
“How do I do this?”
You must feel her heartbeat and then tune yourself to its rhythm. Once you have done this, the way forward should be clear to you. That is all I can tell you, Sintári. The process is different for all who attempt it. Only that first part is the same for all.
Ding!
What was that?
“You heard that sound?” I asked him incredulously.
Yes, there was a chime. I heard it in my mind, but I sense that it came from you.
“It was an alert. Something that is a part of my Deathless side. I guess you were able to hear it because we were in the middle of a conversation when it went off.”
You are probably correct, but I also think it is a sign that you are getting closer to being able to speak to me directly, Sintári.
“I hope so,” I smiled at him. “Just think of the conversations we could have with nobody listening in.”
You truly know what makes me happy, Sintári.
He smiled back at me mischievously as he settled back down on my shoulder. While he wound his sinewy tail around my arm, I stopped for a moment at the base of the wall and pulled up the new notification.
Sintári Quest, Control, Advancing – It will require a great deal of discipline to uncover your friend’s true nature. Should you succeed, the rewards will be equal to the challenge you face.
I was positively overjoyed by the message—I knew that there was absolutely no way my quest would lead me to do something hazardous to myself, making me certain that whatever Tási had tucked away inside her was both important and beneficial. And it certainly meant that it presented no threat to me as she so desperately feared. I almost rushed back to tell her the good news but decided to finish surveying the fortifications first since I was already there.
Save for the truly amazing increase in height, the barrier appeared mostly the same. Ridge was busily adding still more blocks to the top of the wall, making the already impressive bulwark even more imposing. Although I wanted him to help clear out some of the scrub and trees that had not only let the orcs approach us so closely before we could even begin to fend them off, but also allowed them to escape so easily, I thought it better to let him raise the wall high enough to bridge the gap over the gateway first.
“Excellent work, Ridge!” I complemented him as I got closer to where he was working. Even though he seemed unfazed by my praise, I still liked to commend him for his diligent efforts.
“Thank you, Mistress,” he replied in his grating voice.
“How long will it take you to link the two sections of the wall?”
“I should have them connected sometime tomorrow, though it will take a little longer to finish the work completely,” he informed me.
“That’s good news,” I answered. “But we will need to see our enemies as they approach us. Once you have the two ends joined, can you clear away some of the brush and trees that block our view?”
“I can do that, Mistress,” Ridge answered. “What would you have me do with the timbers?”
That was an excellent question, one I hadn’t thought to consider. If we simply left them outside, our attackers might not only use the fallen logs for cover, but as readily available resources to construct ladders or siege machines against us. Even though I had no way to mill the wood, it would be far better to hold the timbers behind our fortifications for now.
“Bring them inside, Ridge. We will figure out what to do with them later.”
“I will begin the task as soon as I am finished here.”
With my oversight of the construction complete, at least for the time being, I rushed back to the campsite to find Tási. She would be relieved to hear the good news, and I had already delayed informing her for too long. I hoped to cheer her up before we began training in earnest. Trying to advance her talents while she was so depressed would only make things more difficult.
Tási was still sitting where I left her, appearing hopelessly lost and out of sorts. The rock she sat upon was a little too small for the both of us, but I nudged her aside and sat down next to her anyway.
“Do you want the good news or the better news first?” I teased her.
“Whatever,” she replied, clearly not welcoming the attempt to brighten her mood.
“Well, little miss sunshine, the good news is that Ridge is almost finished joining the two sections of the wall. Once he’s done with that, he’s moving on to clear the fields in front of the canyon.”
“That’s helpful,” she offered unenthusiastically.
Bane responded to her miserable attitude by crawling off my shoulder and wrapping himself around her. He gazed into her eyes as he spoke in my mind.
I feel her pain and it hurts me, Sintári. Tell her what you have discovered.
I sensed the empathy in his voice as it echoed in my head. He had never expressed such feelings for her before, and I quickly blurted out what we had found.
“Bane has helped me figure out how to find out exactly what your mother left behind for you,” I told her. “And when he did, I received a quest that promised to reward me when I succeeded in doing so. Not just a normal quest, but a Sintári Quest.”
She stared at me questioningly, not yet comprehending the meaning of what I had said.
“My quests would never reward me for doing something harmful to myself,” I enlightened her. “Especially not one of my Sintári Quests—they only point me in directions that are helpful.”
“Are you sure?” Her voice quivered as a hopeful tear streaked down her cheek.
“I’m positive, Tási. Absolutely positive.”
She reached out to hug me, and we lost our precarious balance atop the too small stone block. We both giggled
hysterically as we lay on the ground, too happy over the revelation to even care about our tiny tumble to the dirt. Finally, as our laughter faded, Tási asked me a question.
“When can we do it?”
My response was not going to be what she was looking for and I took a deep breath before answering her.
“I think we may need to wait until everyone else gets back first,” I told her reluctantly. “The process Bane described to me sounds like it could be very intense. We may need their support afterwards, and it’s probably not safe to even attempt it as long as the threat of the orcs returning is hanging over us.”
“I’d rather find out sooner, but you’re right,” she sighed. “We should focus on our preparations for now.”
“Good,” I replied as we picked ourselves up off the ground. “I have a new Skill I want to try out.”
I sent Bane off to scout again while we walked back through the canyon and into the valley beyond. I had no idea what my newest Ability would really do, so I aimed my shot at the nearest stand of trees and let my first Shockwave arrow fly. The effect was quite impressive, to say the least.
The arrow slammed into the trees with the incredible force imparted by the Bow of Impact. The shaft burst apart violently, and a forceful wave of energy radiated out in all directions from its point of impact. The surrounding trees and foliage shook violently from the powerful effects as leaves and even small branches were shorn away in the maelstrom. The whole thing was over in an instant, but when the dust finally cleared, everything with ten feet of where the arrow had hit was in shambles.
“Wow,” Tási whispered in awe as we stared at the devastation. “That’s pretty amazing.”
“It won’t really hurt anyone, but it will definitely take them out of a fight for a little while,” I replied. “Unfortunately, it requires great deal of Aura, I can probably use it only two or three times in battle.”
We stayed in that same area for the rest of the morning. Tási practiced her spells, while I focused on gaining proficiency with the several talents I now had that were still under 20% proficiency. My progress was slow, since both Penetrator and Shockwave had exorbitant Aura costs, forcing me to spend a great deal of time waiting for my points to regenerate.
I used most of that time to study the Defiler’s herbalism tome. Her early writings were profoundly unremarkable, consisting of several recipes for helpful potions and remedies, but then her words turned in a darker direction. Her barely coherent scribbling degenerated into a series of diatribes detailing the wrongs that had been done to her and her plans to avenge them. The concoctions that were scrawled onto those pages followed a similar trend.
Where the early recipes had been for healing, the later ones were universally designed to cause harm. Poison and corruption had become her only theme. Eventually, I grew disgusted with the vile subject matter and tossed the book back into my pack.
In the afternoon, we returned to our camp by the fortifications for quick lunch. Repeatedly burning through my Aura had proven to be far more taxing than I had imagined, and by the time we took our break, I was almost completely spent. So, while I rested for a while, Tási scrounged together our lunch.
“You don’t look so good,” Tási remarked as she watched me slumping over.
“I’m really tired and I have a bit of a headache,” I told her. “I think I overdid it casting Shockwave so many times.”
“Aura fatigue,” she explained as we munched on our trail rations. “It can happen if you use too much Aura in a short amount of time. You need to be more careful.”
“Now that I know about that, I’ll try to pace myself a little better.”
The meal brought back some of my energy and after a short rest we left to tour the wall. When we arrived, Ridge was putting the final blocks in place above the gateway, completing the archway over the entrance and joining together the two sections of our defensive wall.
“This is great, Ridge!” I said as I looked over his work. “But I thought you said you wouldn’t have this finished until tomorrow?”
“Yes, Mistress,” he replied. “That is true. If I had built the entire wall to the height of the arch, it would have taken me that long. I hope you do not object to the shortcut I employed. If this is satisfactory, I can begin clearing away the obstructions outside shortly.”
“No, I definitely don’t object. I appreciate your ingenuity and initiative.”
“Very well, Mistress,” he answered. “I shall complete my work here and then begin my tasks beyond the wall.”
“Thank you, Ridge,” I offered him sincerely.
Ridge merely responded by inclining his head slightly before returning to his work.
Since I had obviously overdone my training that morning, I decided to take things a little more slowly for the afternoon. Instead of working on my talents, I brainstormed possible defensive measures we might add to fend off the next orc attack.
Unfortunately, I had no experience in battles like this—defensive warfare was simply outside of my experience. Even delving into the memories of the dead man offered little of value. While he was aware of a multitude of siege weapons and devices, I lacked the ability to either construct or man any such intricate machinery. The only practical idea I could come up with was to have Ridge place more stone spikes in the fields he was clearing. At the very least, that would slow down the orcs’ advance.
My only other option was to seal the entrance completely, removing the earthen span that served as our bridge across the spike filled trench, possibly even having Ridge wall off the opening entirely. While that would force the orcs to traverse the dangerous trench, it would also cut us off from the outside. That might not have been a big issue at the moment, but it would present some difficulties when my companions eventually returned. My dilemma was resolved when Ridge returned and began stacking the first logs he had cleared from the forest outside.
“Ridge,” I asked as he finished stacking the heavy timber. “I’m thinking about getting rid of the bridge and having the trench run the entire length of the wall. If we do that, could you fashion something from these logs that we might use to span the trench when we need to cross it?”
“There are a great number of vines in the area, Mistress,” he replied. “I could use them to lash several logs together.”
“Yes, please do that, Ridge. Unfortunately, I’m afraid were going to need the added protection.”
Ridge responded with his usual dip of his head before resuming his work once more. I left him to his tasks, confident that he would handle them with his typical efficiency.
I was reluctant to return to my practice after experiencing the Aura fatigue earlier. I needed to do something productive that did not involve drawing on my Aura pool. Unfortunately, that ruled out almost all of my training. What it didn’t rule out was working on my control.
I found a quiet section of the canyon away from our campsite and sat down on the hard ground. I had made orbs of pure emotion on two occasions before. Once, to send my affection through both Tási and Venna, and a second time to kill a filthy bandit with an overpowering sphere of pure hate. Closing my eyes, I looked deep inside myself, and began to form a tiny ball of emotion.
My thoughts turned to Tási and the coming trial we would face in uncovering her hidden secret. Although I felt concern over what was to come, the little ball of light filled with love and affection instead as my true feelings for her took over. I added to the growing orb, summoning not only my emotional bond to Tási, but for Venna and the rest of my companions as well. The orb pulsed with its familiar yet indescribable light as it grew even larger, and I had to stop feeding into it as it threatened to become too much for me to control.
Once the orb stabilized, I slowly began to peel off its outer layers. The powerful raw emotions yielded to a softer center that was much smaller, but still retained almost the full power of the distilled emotions I had gathered together. I held the pulsing ball of light together for a just few moments befo
re releasing my hold over it. The light slowly faded as the orb disintegrated within me, sending subtle waves of its energy coursing gently through me as it slowly dissolved into nothingness.
Once the energy had completely dissipated, I opened my eyes and let out a deep breath. I hadn’t thoroughly thought through the process when I had begun forming the orb. Letting it release its energy inside me had been a gamble. Not much of one, granted, as I had done something similar with the orb I had shared with Tási and Venna, but an unknown nonetheless. Fortunately, my decision hadn’t caused me any harm, but I doubted that would be the case with what I was about to try next.
The ball of hate that I had used to kill the bandit was no soft and gentle thing. It was a vicious manifestation, fashioned from pure hate and rage, and I had used its power to take his life in the most heinous way I could imagine. There was simply no way that I was going to release the power of one of those dark orbs within myself.
I decided that I would pass my foul creation into a small patch of scrub that was barely clinging to life along the rocky side of the canyon. And unlike before with the bandit, I would not be trying to maintain the hate-fueled energy once it passed from my body. The effort of doing so had been the cause of my collapse and long lapse into unconsciousness after the bandit’s demise. I would not make that same mistake again.
I repositioned myself within reach of the pathetic brush and began to channel my darkest emotions. The ball of hate formed within me quickly, and I added to its ominous form, feeding my outrage at this world’s stark cruelty into the growing orb of blackness. My memories of the ambushed caravan and the pitiful body of the woman that the bandit leader had so cruelly tortured fed into the powerful sphere. I was quickly forced to cut off the raging torrent of anger within me before the orb could grow beyond my ability to handle. Holding the completed orb still, I looked over my creation.
The sphere radiated with an inky black aura, threatening to unleash its foul power at any moment. Hate-filled spikes protruded from the orb, ready to rend the flesh of whatever unfortunate creature I unleashed its power into. When I had sent the ball of rage into the bandit’s body, I’d left all of its harsh exterior in place, completely willing to let the filthy rapist experience the orb’s power in all of its brutality. But curiosity overcame me now, and I began stripping off the black orb’s outer layers. The sphere yielded to me surprisingly easily, and I soon reduced the orb to only its inner core.
Second Skin: Unified: A litRPG Adventure (Second Skin Book 3) Page 8
