In the case of the pure strength family of rune enhancements, they were powerful but didn’t really support many other types of upgrades. If Trav had taken that route and had ever acquired hundreds of bars of power, he would have become incredibly strong, but have almost no dexterity—control would have been lacking. He would have also been left with bars upon bars of power he couldn’t use.
Well, that’s not true. Trav quickly amended his thought process. I can always create enchanted gear to fill in for places that my other abilities are weak...if I have the power. From his perspective, enchanted gear was inferior to enchanting himself, though. A crown or ring, or whatever he enhanced would need to be worn. These sorts of things could be stolen, and could even be used against him.
That’s what had happened to the dwarves, after all.
Wait, what? Where did that come from? The random, alien memory had surfaced in a natural way. Not for the first time, Trav felt a niggling worry about how he was changing under Odin’s influence, and if he’d even notice if he were to stop being himself.
But that was a pointless thing to dwell on. For now, it was time to draw upgrade paths.
After poking around in the dirt for a while, Trav narrowed down his most promising upgrade possibilities. His first permanent rune that had basically strengthened him to Kin-level physiology had been a wise decision. At this point, no other enhancements were really off the table.
One path he could take would eventually lead to shapeshifting. Odin had been able to change forms and disguise himself before he’d been killed. Trav actually theorized that the new mark of his authority that he’d created tapped into, or resonated with, his divine mantle. This would explain why all of his Valkyries could change form—unless Odin’s had too in the past. Actually, maybe they all could, but Trav wasn’t sure.
The problem with the shapeshifting upgrade path was that it was expensive, requiring lots of power. Most of the supporting rune workings to build toward shapeshifting were not all that helpful in the short term, at least not for surviving Asgard. For the first time, Trav felt a bit of jealousy that Odin had attained these types of abilities naturally. On the flip side, Trav would have more control over the evolution of his power, his progression. This was a positive side to being able to choose where he’d invest his power...if he survived.
Shapeshifting was only one of several more utility-focused paths that Trav could take. Some were very interesting, like camouflage abilities, or even invisibility at high levels.
He’d actually been thinking about investing in toughness or fighting-related abilities after the skirmish with Narnaste’s old buddies. Two things had changed since then. First, Trav had just survived his experience with the dark, mysterious veil gate and the warlock. Second, he had new magic power available now.
The mystical knowledge of Odin’s that he could access was so vast, he was able to quickly incorporate the new rune, sigil, and a couple glyphs into all the other rune equations he knew, and even create new ones. Then he was able to develop new permanent rune workings.
Most of the upgrade enchantments that had been available before had focused more on lowering magical costs for rune magic, or decreasing recovery time, or even allowing runes to be drawn faster. None of this had been all that compelling because Trav had his shiv, and he’d been more concerned with everyday survival.
But now his upgrade tree had grown. He had more options for temporary buffs now, even magic that temporarily increased one of his attributes, or even gave him new abilities for a time.
In the past, Odin had focused on stealth and deception-based abilities, or powerful magic that could take time to craft. Trav’s personality was a little different, and he wasn’t comfortable with relying on his Valkyries as much as Odin had.
The warrior-based upgrade paths were interesting, but probably not the best way to survive Asgard for the time being, and Trav was working from a disadvantage. He was just a human, not a god—at least he had been. Trav needed an edge, and just being stronger or faster was not enough—he could definitely see that now.
And unique magic was definitely a possible advantage.
Trav ignored the purely physical upgrade paths, instead exploring mystical options. He began carefully charting out the upgrade trees and possibilities available if he were to focus on his magical abilities.
This felt like the right direction to go for a few reasons. He still didn’t know everything about the veils, or other worlds, but he knew that plenty of them had their own magic. He also knew that Odin had known multiple magic systems. Not all of them worked on Asgard, and Trav couldn’t remember much now, but that might change in the future.
In fact, if he wasn’t mistaken, he could access more of Odin’s memories now since he’d attained more power. This was interesting, since the longer Trav was free, the more he felt a vague but powerful need to know and to grow. His original goal of revenge seemed small now. There were entire worlds out there, and more importantly, he believed that whoever or whatever had killed Odin was still alive and might come for him.
Trav wanted to live, and as he grew closer to accepting he was truly free again, he wanted to retaliate. Not just at the Kin, but at Asgard itself. He had power, real power now. Humans were treated like shit on this world and the depths that so many had fallen to offended him. Maybe Asgard needed a change in leadership. In fact, wouldn’t that make his original revenge plan easier? Perhaps finding the village of the Faithful that Narnaste was leading him to could be his true rebirth, and where the beginning of an empire could start.
Maybe he could even save the other humans on Asgard.
But these were all just thoughts now, and wishes didn’t get anything done. He’d definitely need to think about all of this later. On the other hand, now was a time for action.
He kept drawing in the dirt, fleshing out the magical upgrade paths he could give himself. Eventually, he decided he might have discovered the best compromise he could find. It had taken a while because the knowledge he’d gotten from Ysintrill seemed to affect runecrafting itself most strongly.
Two new abilities strongly interested him. One would allow him to draw runes at a distance. Another would allow him to draw them in the air. This would revolutionize the way Trav could fight, and also allow him to enchant himself, or buff himself on the fly.
The abilities were cheap and not super powerful to start with. For instance, the distance magic, what he thought of as ventrilomagic, would only let him cast magic about forty feet away if he started on that path, but he could grow his power and extend that reach. The ability to write in the air would not allow him to use large rune equations that way right away, just glyphs and such. Still, these powers would all be building blocks toward more strength. They were also abilities that Trav would much rather enhance his body itself with than enchant on a pair of gloves that could be lost or destroyed.
Taking this path, he’d still be able to pick up some combat and physical-related abilities in the future. Yes, this was probably the best compromise. He could almost hear his cousin Ash telling him that he was a “noob,” but that he’d lucked into a good build.
Trav shook his head, wondering why he kept thinking of his family lately. It’d been years. Maybe he was just putting off the pain of upgrading. Last time he’d done this, it’d made him black out.
With an effort of will, he called his shiv into his hand. This was not going to be fun. After another last look at the ground, he reviewed what he’d chosen. He had eight bars of power to work with. One bar was going toward ventrilomagic, one bar for air scribing, and one more bar on a weak magic shield, which also gave him a bit of magic and physical recovery speed. It had seemed like a really good way to turn a single bar of power into a variety of abilities.
Last, he was going to spend two bars on magic recovery and focus. Based on what he understood, this would allow him to regenerate his magic quicker, and draw runes faster. The magic recovery also would give him an even more accelerated he
aling rate, which would be handy because he still had some nasty cuts from his fight with the cultists. The wounds weren’t really slowing him down, but under his bandages, they itched like crazy. In the future, he might not be so lucky, either.
All of his chosen upgrades came out to five bars of magic, power he’d need to tie up into permanent enchantments, leaving him only three bars of magic free.
This seemed like a good tradeoff. Maybe in the future, he could keep adding an extra bar to his available magic pool every upgrade, meaning he’d slowly, steadily have more power to call on.
Trav looked at his scribbled notes on the ground one last time, trying to find any hole in his logic. There were other good upgrade paths, including flight, or turning extremely hard to kill. Most of those effects could be mimicked with temporary magic, though. If his experience with the flesh golem had proven one thing, he needed to be better in a fight, and keep a certain amount of flexibility.
“Okay, time to stop putting this off.” Trav lifted his shirt and began drawing a series of complex rune equations on his body. This time, he knew to probably expect a lot of pain, so he mentally dragged his feet a little bit, crafting each line a bit more slowly than really required.
The first time he’d enchanted himself, the marks that had shown up on his body had faded over time, becoming barely visible. He hoped that this time, the same thing would happen. Otherwise, his upper torso was going to look like he’d been through a meat grinder.
When he was finally finished drawing the red, angry rune lines stretching across his chest, Trav connected the last circle and pushed power into the rune workings.
Everything hurt. The world was pain. He didn’t even register when he’d passed out from mountains of pure agony assaulting his senses.
***
Trav awoke in a protective circle feeling great, wide awake. The three Kin women standing in a rough circle around him, facing outwards, made him feel guilty. They’d watched over him while he’d been unconscious, but he hadn’t thought about them before putting himself out of commission. Who’d been protecting them while they slept?
Oh yeah. He realized he’d more than likely screamed, and they’d probably woken up. No harm, no foul.
With a shaking hand, he rubbed his head. “Master!” cried Narnaste. She knelt next to him, touching his brow and shoulders. “Are you alright? What happened?”
“Don’t worry, I’m fine,” Trav muttered. He mentally explored his magic reserves, checking to see if the enchantments had worked. It seemed they had. “I’m fine,” he repeated.
With another glance around, Trav noticed that it was the middle of the night. He’d switched over to his emberstone eye to see without even thinking about it. That was interesting. The eye seemed to be integrating better with his body as he attained more power and kept upgrading himself.
To the side, Yaakova growled. “Without you, we will weaken, at least I think so. You are not allowed to take unnecessary risks, New One.”
“Are you sure about that?” Trav asked.
“I don’t know, but I don’t want to risk it,” gruffed the harpy. “I can finally fly. Don’t go dying for no reason.”
“Okay, okay.” He rubbed a hand over his face. Then he checked his body, and sure enough, the rune equations he’d enchanted himself with had sunk deep into the skin.
The third woman, Ysintrill, shyly held her hands and watched him with wide eyes. He wondered if she could transform, and what she could transform into. Hadn’t she said she’d been a warrior or adventurer in the past? There were so many things he didn’t know right now and still needed to investigate.
But when Narnaste bent down and kissed him fiercely on the lips, muttering, “Don’t scare me like that again,” before she kissed him again, his focus wavered. Too late, he noticed the Kin women’s dilated eyes and jerky movements. They were all probably still high on emberstone.
Okay, this makes no sense. Touching it hurts them, and getting cut with it can kill, but magic that disperses the emberstone is like Kin catnip? Even as the strange thought crossed Trav’s mind and he shelved it for the future, Narnaste hauled him up and kissed him deeply again, leading him back to camp.
They guarded me even when they were high on emberstone? If they hadn’t been Kin, Trav might have been touched. The fact that they cared about his safety so much would have been sweet. Instead, he knew they were probably running on instinct. Trav was not a normal man, and these three were magically tied to him, his Valkyries.
Part of Trav wanted to stop, take a second to examine the fact that he still barely knew Ysintrill, and that he was surrounded by inebriated Kin women, all of them dangerous. But then one thing led to another, and he had to focus entirely on the present.
His last coherent thought was that despite keeping strange hours for the last day, traveling at night was not an option, so maybe it was best to go to sleep anyway, just wait for morning. As it turned out, it was a while before he was allowed to actually fall asleep.
Chapter 25
“So you were trying to find some sort of new power or weapon to help your family fight, what, another family?” Trav swayed with the movement of Narnaste’s easy lope. Ysintrill rode the huge red wolf behind him, and Yaakova sat perched on his knee, in her raven form as she seemed to prefer during the day.
“Yes. I also didn’t want to complicate the succession if my family were to win the guiding tree.” Like Narnaste, Yaakova’s voice was different while she was in her animal form, but Trav could still recognize that it was her. Having a giant, talking raven around had only been strange for what seemed like a few minutes. This was Asgard, after all.
“So, what would you have done if you had found something, enabling you to go back and help them, then they’d won your tribe’s leadership? Actually, is the tribe the same as your family?”
“No.” The raven shook her head. “You call my people plains harpies, but we call ourselves Bernacians, after Bernacia, the first queen. We have three tribes in our territory, our land Demona, the Demona country. My family is the current ruling family of the East Tribe.”
Trav blinked. “And leadership changes every ten years?”
“Well, it can. There is a contest for the guiding tree. Then after that, there is a contest for the royal tree between the Guides and their teams.”
“So your entire leadership can change every ten years, like I said, right?”
Yaakova fluttered her wings. “It can but rarely does. Most families are in positions of power that have lasted generations. My family used to be the strongest in the East Tribe, but we have fallen on hard times. This year, we might actually lose our guiding tree. The North Tribe usually takes the royal tree.”
Trav tried wrapping his mind around the strange system of government. “What would happen if your family won the—guidance tree—then won the throne, the royal tree? Who would lead your tribe?”
“It’s ‘guiding tree,’ and the family that took second place during the games would advance to lead the tribe. This way, the top two families of each tribe will always work together to try winning the royal tree. At least, they’re supposed to.”
“And the royal tree harpy—”
“The Royal,” Yaakova corrected.
“—and the Royal has lots of power?” Trav asked.
“She is in charge of diplomatic relationships, the overall Bernacian government, and holds two votes for all council voting. The guides have one vote each.”
“And the council is all the guides and the royal?”
“Yes, although there can be special situations where others are given votes. It is rare, though.”
Trav mulled that over for a while before asking, “All harpies are female, right?”
“Yes.”
“So where do baby harpies come from?”
“Harpies get pregnant, obviously.”
“How?” Trav met the raven’s eyes.
“Most humanoids can be a father, but we keep human slaves.”
>
“Ah. Thought so.” Trav wasn’t sure how to think about that. On the one hand, being a human slave in harpy land might be better than other places on Asgard, maybe not. Either way, a slave was still a slave.
At this point, he had a pretty good idea of how harpy society worked, at least among the plains harpies. He knew a fair amount about the Demona too, a race of Kin that looked or acted demonic, even by Kin standards. Apparently, they’d cobbled up their own country. Most of Trav’s knowledge of Kin species came from Odin’s memories, and he knew that during the god’s time, Demona had all basically been leaderless savages regardless of what veil they were encountered in—
Veils. Every time Trav ran up against the subject of other worlds in Odin’s memories, the flow of information would stop. This was beginning to get really frustrating, especially as Trav learned more and had been putting together how things had changed since Odin’s time.
The last couple days of travel with his new Valkyries had been awkward at first. He suspected that they’d all been at least a bit embarrassed about their emberstone high-fueled hijinks. Trav had hardly been the type of man in his life to indulge in...sexual escapades like that, but he’d surprised himself by accepting the situation rather quickly.
Meanwhile, Narnaste had barely said a word for an entire day. Yaakova had seemed jumpy, and Ysintrill had been visibly out of sorts. Trav began to gather that she was also socially out of practice, and might not have been big on people skills even before she’d been killed in the distant past.
If he’d been honest with himself, he hadn’t been feeling entirely normal either, not that he even knew what normal was anymore. While being intimate with three Kin women at once was just a drop in the bucket with Odin issues, Valkyries, and Asgard in general, he was reaching his saturation point for weird shit—he could feel it.
At least eating hadn’t been a problem. Between Trav’s magic and the three Kin women, finding food in the forest hadn’t been terribly difficult.
Asgard Awakening Page 19
