The rest of their bath was held in blissful silence.
Eventually Ulric felt like he'd soaked the last remaining bits of hangover out and was, for the first time in ages, truly clean. As he dressed, it occurred to him that he really needed to obtain something more casual than a lorica and the heavy leather and fur number in which he had defaulted to travel the wood. Not that he had any complaints about the protective value of the armor. It was just a little bit of overkill for casual day wear when nothing was going to hop out of the flower pots to consume him. Probably.
Upon reaching their apartment, which Geyrt entered first, a pattern Ulric supposed he was going to have to get used to, they found their small in table loaded with a tray of food, covered by a set of nested wooden bowls. It seems that supper had been served. A roasted fowl of some sort, various steamed vegetables, and bread loaf. Ulric soaked his loaf in the pooled juices of the roasted bird thing and, once again, gave thanks to the comforts of civilization. The meal was taken in silence, as was customary. It was wonderful. The entire evening had been fantastic.
He got to learn a little about the Iriels and establish a solidly positive foundation for their interaction towards the future, he’d discovered the wonder that was the baths, and he’d been able to reach some sort of rapport with his brand new odd person. As uncomfortable as the notion was, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad? Optimism without reason had never been his schtick so he tempered that by remembering clearly the woman’s hard edged defensiveness and the relatively low regard in which she seemed to hold Otherkin. Yeah, okay, that fixed his optimism pretty easily. No easy roads for Ulric on this one, he’d have to continue to make efforts to convince his elf shaped manacles not to strangle him while he wasn’t looking.
There was something peaceful about the Iriel’en convention of a silent meal, he was able to appreciate the odd spices, the gamey, rich bird meat, and the fluffy but savory bread. Whatever the grain used was it was packed with flavor, maybe some kind of rye or nut-based flour.
After consolidating the meal in his stomach, he sat looking at an empty plate and the sudden realization hit him that he had no goddamn clue what to do with it. There were no sinks. No running water of which he was aware. What the hell did he do with these dishes? What about the bathroom? He didn’t need to go very often at all but it occurred to him that this meal would prompt a change in that situation. Free of the incredible pressure he’d been under to Not Fuck This Up, and concentrating on staying alive amongst the potentially dangerous natives, his mind was suddenly able to turn to the more mundane, the myriad small facets of life around him and he realized he had no goddamn clue about any of it.
Anxiety, a facet of his old existence that had dwindled to near nothing here came back with a vengeance. He was a tourist in a foreign land. No, worse, he was as a child. Half of what he knew about how to live was predicated on electricity. In the glade it didn’t matter, he had what he needed, with too much to do to worry about much else, and no worry about adhering to the rules of a society of one. Even when Brighteyes had come along, it was fine, there was just the two of them and the kid was perceptive enough to be able to keep himself out of the way, to adjust to Ulric’s rhythm, not the other way around.
Just like that the buoyant mood he'd had dissipated. He suddenly very much wished he were back in the glade.
He hated this feeling, of being a moron who didn't have a single clue what was going on around him. In the glade, yes, he'd been living the life of a virtual savage. But the rules were clear, he knew exactly what was expected of him, and he had no worry about how to handle basically any situation that had been before him. It had been harsh, and, he had to admit, lonely. Even for him. But it had been simple and without ambiguity, bizarrely peaceful. Now he had all the capability of a child. Less. Children probably knew where to put their damned dishes after a meal.
Ever since he'd come to Iriel he'd been thrown into one situation after another that made his decisions not just life or death, they had the potential to dictate aspects of the rest of his life. If he'd fucked up with the initial meeting with Bald'rt he could well have found himself unwelcome amongst the Elves, if not outright dead. If he'd been slower on the uptake he might have been pushed into agreements he didn't want to make or obligations he didn't have the faculty to meet. He was trying to establish a trade agreement for shit's sake. Cultural norms out the wahzoo. Social cues that were way over his head. And the worst part was that the majority of the people he met were far, far more experienced.
It had taken him some thirty years to feel like he had his act together and here he was surrounded by people just casually a century, or three, old. Hell, the child he'd come to know was, in many respects, as capable as many adults in his previous life, while he had, so far as he could see, regressed to the status of a talented neanderthal himself. Barely speaking the language. Ignorant. In the deep part of the pool, just struggling to tread water. He didn't dislike this place. He didn't dislike the company. He had, in fact, rather come to like the Elves as a people. It's just that he was now being forced to try to do a dance whose steps he didn't know to a tune he had never heard. He was clumsy, slow, and everybody knew it. Sucks to suck. And then there was that other thing.
Ulric ran a hand over his face while his thoughts whirled. Maybe he was just over thinking things. Maybe this was just a stress response to suddenly being, well, safe. But no, being a fool was one thing, he didn't like it but he'd accept it as the cost of admittance to the integration process of meeting new civilizations. What still, really, bothered him, as an added bonus to the rest, was that he still didn't know why he was getting these intensely aggressive impulses towards people he perceived as, in damn near any way, threatening. Any time he was stressed there was this drive in his mind. A pressure. What he was starting to think of as the Call. A Call to violence.
The first time was the [Forest Lord]. He had charged the damned thing. Never mind it was the correct thing to do, it was insane is what it was. Then there had been the Marauders or Poachers or whatever. He'd gone from excited to see people to almost casually murdering them in less than the time to drink a cup of coffee. The monkeys? That had damn near been fun. And lastly there was this woman next to him. He'd been just a whisker away from trying to burn her to death. He'd taken great joy in electrocuting her into near unconsciousness, and, only up until the last day or so not at least vaguely considered how he was going to kill her if he needed to. It was some scary shit is what it was.
Ulric was normally pretty good at stuffing things he didn't have any way of approaching into a little box in his head and kicking it into a dark place to never be seen again. That wasn't working as well these days. Too much he just wanted to drag the problem into the light and strangle it if it wouldn't behave. It had all been a little much these last couple of days.
"Fuck it." he whispered.
Time to recenter. What he was capable of doing, he was doing. He had not, in fact, fucked up his talks with the Iriel'en and their leaders. He had, for the most part, done the opposite and seemingly left a good impression. He had not been forced to kill anybody. Nobody who didn’t deserve it, anyway. Things were, not just fine, they were great. As well as could be expected anyway. And the godsdamned plate could sit there until the heat death of the universe for all he cared. No. He had a better idea for it. You know what? He was going to go blow something up.
Standing, Ulric grabbed the plate and made for the balcony.
Opening the window, he felt the gusting howls of wind blowing into the room, cold air surging around him. Its bitterness made him feel good. Feel alive.
Mana thrummed inside him as he willed his core to purpose. Tuning to Ceraun he forced the mana to split into two halves each turning towards the other in a cycle unending. He felt the power of the working gathering. The image of what he wanted to do meshed with his intent for how to do it driven by his will to see this thing done.
Static discharges leapt out randomly, and he frowned, taking hold of the magic more firmly until they stopped. Last time, he’d gone in with only a rough plan. This time though, he had a system. He’d learned a lesson from his previous failure, had properly considered the consequences of building a breakdown and of guiding it towards a destination. He focused mana into the carved wood, keying it, making it a part of the spiraling charges, stripping the yin from its nature to guide the yang to his target. It was ready. He could feel it. The air was rippling with its potential.
Ulric threw the plate like a vertical discus and raise his hand, his core forming the bridge between his held power and the wooden disk, the flow of energy clear in his mind. He released his hold on the mana and blue white ribbons of Ceraun crackled around a jagged bolt that streaked towards the plate, evaporating it. Thunder boomed washing over his body. Ecstasy.
*PING*
[Lightning Strike]**Override**[Lightning Javelin]
It worked. He had a way to target lightning, on the fly, exactly where he wanted. And the plate was no more. He was not ashamed to admit that he was in a far better mood.
"What have you done?" Geyrt whispered in his ear.
He jumped. He had not heard her approach and, somehow, she had managed to be almost on top of him without him noticing.
"Watcher's tits lady, you trying to scare me into falling off this balcony?!" He yelled.
"Do not yell at me, I was concerned! You were the one muttering to yourself and making fidgity hands! Then you suddenly open the window as Winter's Herald approaches and call a Skylance to the room! You are worms in head!" She yelled back, stepping back, glaring.
She was right. It was not, strictly speaking, the clearest headed decision he'd ever made. But it needed to be done. And he'd only yelled because she was a ninja. Even so.
"Alright, alright, I am sorry. I didn't mean to yell at you. But you shouldn't sneak up on me like that, I've got, uh, issues." Ulric said, hands raised in surrender.
Another gust of wind sent the cover of the trays to the floor and prompted Ulric to shove the balcony doors back closed.
"…Accepted. I should not have startled you, I did not think you would scare that easily. That does not answer my question, what did you do?" She said, her glare lightening by millimeters.
He didn't answer immediately, thinking instead about how to explain. And he made a point to ignore her near insult, she probably hadn't meant it as such and that was, in its own way, worse. When she opened her mouth to complain though he shut her down.
"Can you shut your gob for, like, five seconds lady? I'm thinking over here." He bit out.
You'd think somebody who still had seven or eight hundred years in the tank wouldn't be so friggin hasty. At least she settled back to wait for him to answer. Didn't do anything about that look though. He ignored her and picked up the tray cover, returning it to its place.
"Ok. Do you want the long version or the short version?" He asked, ready to try to have a thoughtful conversation.
"The short one, how did you touch a Skylance? You should not be able to do that." She said angrily.
Why the hell was she so touchy? He wondered. But instead of dwelling on her tone he just gave her what she wanted.
"I just focused Ceraun to gather electric potentials by separating the inflections of charge within my own body. I figured it out a, was it really only a week ago we set out? So…a couple of weeks ago now. The first version was a little rough though. The breakdown potential of air changes due to many factors, but most important was distance to the contact point. The spell was so hard to control at that point I nearly lost it and had to send it to a stone by carving a path of least resistance with a separet streamer of Ceraun to give it a definite location before it discharged on me. That did not go how I wanted it to. So, I thought out a modification that would let me build the path while I charged the spell linking the latent discharge with an object I could throw. The object would act as the target and I can just throw it at whatever I want to hit with the lightning, as if it were tuned to a specific spark gap. Easy peasey."
Geyrt had gone from irascible to completely baffled in only a few moments. By the end, she had that same look the kids in his lecture room had when he was presenting research during grad school to the visiting freshmen. Totally glazed over. The more things change the more they stay the same.
"And why shouldn't I be able to do it? That's, like, the easiest thing you can do with electricity. Just build a charge and release it. It's not like I made a spell to do electromagnetic ore sampling. Or radar. Or…hell…about a million things really. Wait…I can make a railgun! Ulric realized, suppressing a fist pump.
The more he thought about it, the more obvious it seemed. He’d have to work out the spell constraints, the exact pattern of electromagnetic oscillation to create a magnetic accelerator, maybe even find someone to craft coils until he could master a purely mana based field , but it was doable
“Hahaha! I AM a weapon to surpass metal gear!" Ulric cackled.
"What? What are you saying? Are you playing games with me again? Just tell me how you managed to use a Skylance, and from your hand instead of the…sky." The dark beauty asked, clearly lost, and getting mad about it.
This was the rub then. Ulric knew a ton of things that he shouldn't, compared to the run of the mill peoples roaming the land. What he lacked in what might be referred to as "common sense" he made up for in spades in esoteric knowledge of the nature of matter and the energies that drove it. Aside from that pesky little wrinkle where a core'd creature could manifest magic that turned most of that shit on its head, if not ignoring it completely. Cores could generate matter from mana. He knew, he'd done it. It took a lot, and he meant A LOT, of mana to do it, but you could. That should have been impossible but he had not pulled the water for his water jet from the air, he had manifested it from pure mana. He very deliberately did not think any more about that than he had to.
"Ok, calm down Ms. Fussypants, there's no need to get upset. Tell you what, let's just sit down, have a cup of juice, and I'll give you the long version. That might help you follow along. I'll start from the beginning and you can ask me when you have questions, that sound alright?" He asked, purely reasonably.
"My pants are fine, there is nothing fussy about them, whatever this fussy is. And I am not upset." She said voice rising.
Ulric had to stomp down hard on his instinct to just absolutely string this poor girl along. He was getting some real strong "Who's on First?" vibes. But no, resist the urge. You are Trying to Get Along. What it came down to was, they were incompatible people. She was irritable, serious to a fault, arrogant, and, so far as he could tell, without humor. He was distant, sarcastic, impatient, and enjoyed getting a rise out of people, especially at their expense. It would take serious effort on his part to avoid ruffling this hawk's feathers.
Instead of making things worse, he went over to the table and filled two wooden mugs with juice from a likewise wooden pitcher. As much as he loved their commitment to the aesthetic, he was going to have to introduce these lovely folk to ceramics. The cups full he sat at the table and gestured to the empty chair across.
He would have bet a small fortune the first time she opened her mouth was to insist she would rather stand. Whatever thoughts were rolling around behind those lovely veridian orbs he was sure he'd never know but they eventually led her to stalk over and take the indicated seat at the table. Gods she even drinks angrily, he thought.
"Now then. Before I start, let me get some idea of why you think I should not be able to do what I have very definitely done. Please explain to me Geyrt, why is this lightning bolt, this Skylance, a problem?" Ulric requested in his most calm, low, even tone.
She shook her head slightly, braided midnight hair swinging. He heard the wooden ring at its end tap the table. Meeting his eyes with hers she said, with no obvious maliciousness,
"Because you are too weak. You are too young to do this thing. Ceraun is one of the most difficult magics to control and those who do it well always say the same thing: never join the flow. The spell must not be in contact with you or it will move through you, the mana scouring your body with its flow. Even if you were strong enough to call a Skylance you should not have been able to hold it, it must be summoned from the air."
Ulric didn't take offense at that. Compared to these people he was barely more than a boy after all. This Elven woman before him, despite the flush of youth in her features, was triple his age. And, he had to admit, compared to their mages he probably was weak. But Bald'rt had said something about his core having, what was it again? Right. He'd said Ulric's core had tier III features. It was likely that he was a freak. A creature designed, purposefully, to be more potent than he should have been. That Watcher hadn't just done this out of some sense of…fairness, pity, whatever. Ulric was far too much the cynic to buy that. There was another reason. It might not even have been a complex one. Maybe the only reason he'd been reforged was so the Impossible could enjoy the show. He wouldn't object to that, if it gave him this second chance. In fact, he hoped to provide a great deal of entertainment for a long, long time.
Turning his thoughts to her description of how magic was controlled he found himself finding the first tangible evidence of their lack of sophistication. It was clear that magic was sort of boosting civilization. Lifting it above what it would be otherwise, since they could achieve through magic what could have only been possible through technology. Technology that would have mandated understanding of certain facets of physical theory. Such as this fallacy that you cannot join the flow of electricity. There was nothing wrong with being part of the flow, you just couldn't be the sink. He knew this first hand, had had it burned into his body. Always you gave the current a ground. So long as that was true, many mistakes were forgiven. You risked burning the circuit if you pushed the voltage too high but that's what overvoltage "crowbars" were good for, you just collect the runoff energy and open the line to failsafe. Matter of fact…maybe there were mana analogues to this. He was definitely creating some sort of circuit, there was a definitive flow to what he was doing. Not now, though, bookmark that thought.
Ruminations paused Ulric decided how he was going to reply.
"Your spellcasters don't know what they're doing." Ulric said bluntly.
Well, he'd never claimed to be subtle. Or nice.
"It is likely that they are extremely well practiced within the framework of their knowledge, they are masters of their art. I would bet that they know exactly what they want to do, and they have the strength to do it, but they don't know why or how it works from a certain perspective. That's why some things are so much harder than they should be and why they have limits that don't really exist." He finished.
Geyrt looked like he'd slapped her. Her eyes widened and her lips thinned. Apparently, she took the failings of her kin personally. What else was new?
"I knew you were worms in head but I did not know you were also a complete fool. How can you say such a thing? You are barely even matured and you know better than masters of the manacraft?" She scolded.
Instead of replying to her he folded his hands together, as if in prayer, reaching for his core.
[Voltaic Grip]
Arcs surged between his hands as he spread them apart, cupping the dancing, winding, rising, and forking Ceraun. Even farther he spread them apart, until his arms were extended fully, a ribbon of lightning arcing like a rainbow over his head, crackling, between his palms. He was applying the same concepts he'd used to create his lightning strike, and, was deliberately altering the flow to be centered within his body, not pulling on the charges from the air. His hands were as capacitor plates and he could vary the flow to keep the arc jumping.
Internalizing the current this way was much more efficient, there was far less resistance as his magic used his own mana channels to carry the energy. Ulric knew that he could gather charge from the air, instead of generating it, and that could let him build a discharge between two external points but that was far more power intensive, it took much more mana to reach out like that, like he’d have to create two webs of magic to keep the two charge generating spells separate, or else have to create a truly massive one at one end and hope he could direct the resulting discharge. That way was sloppy, was hard to control, was gross overkill. His internal magic, he felt like he could hold this for half an hour and release it as needed. And, as the buzzing power rolled through his mana channels, he could see Geyrt's dark skin pale.
Never contact the flow? Laughable. He wasn't just touching it, like he had before, he was part of it. And he wasn't afraid because it wasn't some force he merely created and released; it was of himself. He could sooner choke on his own breath.
Ulric rode the wave, letting his instincts carry him along. He closed his hands into fists and pulled the arcing energy completely into his body to circulate through his mana channels. It felt painful, there are limits to containing that much energy, until he willed a layer of mana through them, like insulation, or, no, more like a laminar flow. Now he held it completely. He let his arms fall and leaned forward to cup his chin with one hand, elbows resting on the table and looked into Geyrt's eyes. If that last thing spooked her she was purely going to shit. The other hand reached up to hover a half meter above the table and Ulric smiled before he loosed the energy, giving it the outlet it craved. A thumb thick violet arc leapt to the table top and danced, carving blackened char along its path.
*PING*
*PING*
[Voltaic Grip] override [Voltaic Pulse] override [Voltaic Riot]
He cut off the spell, felt his core stop heaving at the charge in the room. Interesting. It would appear that greater understanding led to greater power. And the spell…it evolved? Twice. That was something. His examination was cut off by Geyrt standing suddenly from the table. She looked like she'd swallowed salt water.
"What are you? No lies." She asked nervously.
Now that was hurtful. She should know better than anyone. She'd seen his status, if Brighteyes was correct about her [Scanning] her targets. It didn't help that she was asking the same question that had been echoing in the back of his head for weeks now. Human only in name Bald'rt had said. What am I? He suspected that he was going to spend the rest of his life answering that question.
"I am Ulric Einar, a once materials engineer now Twice Born, I’m the Forest Lord Bane, and, somehow, [Lord of the Ancient Glade]. And I am hopelessly lost so far as anything else is concerned, like a raft in the ocean." He said earnestly.
"And I would very much appreciate it if you would stop calling me crazy. There's a part of me that thinks I'll someday wake up back in my old world finding this whole thing was a fever dream. But I don't think so. You'll have to accept that I am not a thing of this world, not entirely, and that gives me perspectives that you do not have. That doesn't mean I'm crazy. There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Ulric quoted at her, humor in his voice.
His core was close to empty. He'd pushed his system hard, trying to follow the inspiration of the moment to its conclusion, especially when he'd pulled the Ceraun to run through his mana channels directly. But he felt like he'd grown more in tune with how his body integrated with his core. He felt good.
As an additional bonus, some of the…pressure…the gnawing unease on his mind was gone. Taking a little more control of something, even if only his own mana, was enough to get his psyche back on track. There was a weakness in an overactive mind in that it could eat itself if not looked after. Varda wasn’t exactly all roses out there and he had worries aplenty to set the wheels spinning, if he didn’t stay on top of himself. A new body, a young man’s burgeoning impulses and drives, a core with its own novel manifestations within him, these were all going to take longer than the mere few months of desperate living he’d had to adjust to them.
The rest of their bath was held in blissful silence.
Eventually Ulric felt like he'd soaked the last remaining bits of hangover out and was, for the first time in ages, truly clean. As he dressed, it occurred to him that he really needed to obtain something more casual than a lorica and the heavy leather and fur number in which he had defaulted to travel the wood. Not that he had any complaints about the protective value of the armor. It was just a little bit of overkill for casual day wear when nothing was going to hop out of the flower pots to consume him. Probably.
Upon reaching their apartment, which Geyrt entered first, a pattern Ulric supposed he was going to have to get used to, they found their small in table loaded with a tray of food, covered by a set of nested wooden bowls. It seems that supper had been served. A roasted fowl of some sort, various steamed vegetables, and bread loaf. Ulric soaked his loaf in the pooled juices of the roasted bird thing and, once again, gave thanks to the comforts of civilization. The meal was taken in silence, as was customary. It was wonderful. The entire evening had been fantastic.
He got to learn a little about the Iriels and establish a solidly positive foundation for their interaction towards the future, he’d discovered the wonder that was the baths, and he’d been able to reach some sort of rapport with his brand new odd person. As uncomfortable as the notion was, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad? Optimism without reason had never been his schtick so he tempered that by remembering clearly the woman’s hard edged defensiveness and the relatively low regard in which she seemed to hold Otherkin. Yeah, okay, that fixed his optimism pretty easily. No easy roads for Ulric on this one, he’d have to continue to make efforts to convince his elf shaped manacles not to strangle him while he wasn’t looking.
There was something peaceful about the Iriel’en convention of a silent meal, he was able to appreciate the odd spices, the gamey, rich bird meat, and the fluffy but savory bread. Whatever the grain used was it was packed with flavor, maybe some kind of rye or nut-based flour.
After consolidating the meal in his stomach, he sat looking at an empty plate and the sudden realization hit him that he had no goddamn clue what to do with it. There were no sinks. No running water of which he was aware. What the hell did he do with these dishes? What about the bathroom? He didn’t need to go very often at all but it occurred to him that this meal would prompt a change in that situation. Free of the incredible pressure he’d been under to Not Fuck This Up, and concentrating on staying alive amongst the potentially dangerous natives, his mind was suddenly able to turn to the more mundane, the myriad small facets of life around him and he realized he had no goddamn clue about any of it.
Anxiety, a facet of his old existence that had dwindled to near nothing here came back with a vengeance. He was a tourist in a foreign land. No, worse, he was as a child. Half of what he knew about how to live was predicated on electricity. In the glade it didn’t matter, he had what he needed, with too much to do to worry about much else, and no worry about adhering to the rules of a society of one. Even when Brighteyes had come along, it was fine, there was just the two of them and the kid was perceptive enough to be able to keep himself out of the way, to adjust to Ulric’s rhythm, not the other way around.
Just like that the buoyant mood he'd had dissipated. He suddenly very much wished he were back in the glade.
He hated this feeling, of being a moron who didn't have a single clue what was going on around him. In the glade, yes, he'd been living the life of a virtual savage. But the rules were clear, he knew exactly what was expected of him, and he had no worry about how to handle basically any situation that had been before him. It had been harsh, and, he had to admit, lonely. Even for him. But it had been simple and without ambiguity, bizarrely peaceful. Now he had all the capability of a child. Less. Children probably knew where to put their damned dishes after a meal.
Ever since he'd come to Iriel he'd been thrown into one situation after another that made his decisions not just life or death, they had the potential to dictate aspects of the rest of his life. If he'd fucked up with the initial meeting with Bald'rt he could well have found himself unwelcome amongst the Elves, if not outright dead. If he'd been slower on the uptake he might have been pushed into agreements he didn't want to make or obligations he didn't have the faculty to meet. He was trying to establish a trade agreement for shit's sake. Cultural norms out the wahzoo. Social cues that were way over his head. And the worst part was that the majority of the people he met were far, far more experienced.
It had taken him some thirty years to feel like he had his act together and here he was surrounded by people just casually a century, or three, old. Hell, the child he'd come to know was, in many respects, as capable as many adults in his previous life, while he had, so far as he could see, regressed to the status of a talented neanderthal himself. Barely speaking the language. Ignorant. In the deep part of the pool, just struggling to tread water. He didn't dislike this place. He didn't dislike the company. He had, in fact, rather come to like the Elves as a people. It's just that he was now being forced to try to do a dance whose steps he didn't know to a tune he had never heard. He was clumsy, slow, and everybody knew it. Sucks to suck. And then there was that other thing.
Ulric ran a hand over his face while his thoughts whirled. Maybe he was just over thinking things. Maybe this was just a stress response to suddenly being, well, safe. But no, being a fool was one thing, he didn't like it but he'd accept it as the cost of admittance to the integration process of meeting new civilizations. What still, really, bothered him, as an added bonus to the rest, was that he still didn't know why he was getting these intensely aggressive impulses towards people he perceived as, in damn near any way, threatening. Any time he was stressed there was this drive in his mind. A pressure. What he was starting to think of as the Call. A Call to violence.
The first time was the [Forest Lord]. He had charged the damned thing. Never mind it was the correct thing to do, it was insane is what it was. Then there had been the Marauders or Poachers or whatever. He'd gone from excited to see people to almost casually murdering them in less than the time to drink a cup of coffee. The monkeys? That had damn near been fun. And lastly there was this woman next to him. He'd been just a whisker away from trying to burn her to death. He'd taken great joy in electrocuting her into near unconsciousness, and, only up until the last day or so not at least vaguely considered how he was going to kill her if he needed to. It was some scary shit is what it was.
Ulric was normally pretty good at stuffing things he didn't have any way of approaching into a little box in his head and kicking it into a dark place to never be seen again. That wasn't working as well these days. Too much he just wanted to drag the problem into the light and strangle it if it wouldn't behave. It had all been a little much these last couple of days.
"Fuck it." he whispered.
Time to recenter. What he was capable of doing, he was doing. He had not, in fact, fucked up his talks with the Iriel'en and their leaders. He had, for the most part, done the opposite and seemingly left a good impression. He had not been forced to kill anybody. Nobody who didn’t deserve it, anyway. Things were, not just fine, they were great. As well as could be expected anyway. And the godsdamned plate could sit there until the heat death of the universe for all he cared. No. He had a better idea for it. You know what? He was going to go blow something up.
Standing, Ulric grabbed the plate and made for the balcony.
Opening the window, he felt the gusting howls of wind blowing into the room, cold air surging around him. Its bitterness made him feel good. Feel alive.
Mana thrummed inside him as he willed his core to purpose. Tuning to Ceraun he forced the mana to split into two halves each turning towards the other in a cycle unending. He felt the power of the working gathering. The image of what he wanted to do meshed with his intent for how to do it driven by his will to see this thing done.
Static discharges leapt out randomly, and he frowned, taking hold of the magic more firmly until they stopped. Last time, he’d gone in with only a rough plan. This time though, he had a system. He’d learned a lesson from his previous failure, had properly considered the consequences of building a breakdown and of guiding it towards a destination. He focused mana into the carved wood, keying it, making it a part of the spiraling charges, stripping the yin from its nature to guide the yang to his target. It was ready. He could feel it. The air was rippling with its potential.
Ulric threw the plate like a vertical discus and raise his hand, his core forming the bridge between his held power and the wooden disk, the flow of energy clear in his mind. He released his hold on the mana and blue white ribbons of Ceraun crackled around a jagged bolt that streaked towards the plate, evaporating it. Thunder boomed washing over his body. Ecstasy.
*PING*
[Lightning Strike]**Override**[Lightning Javelin]
It worked. He had a way to target lightning, on the fly, exactly where he wanted. And the plate was no more. He was not ashamed to admit that he was in a far better mood.
"What have you done?" Geyrt whispered in his ear.
He jumped. He had not heard her approach and, somehow, she had managed to be almost on top of him without him noticing.
"Watcher's tits lady, you trying to scare me into falling off this balcony?!" He yelled.
"Do not yell at me, I was concerned! You were the one muttering to yourself and making fidgity hands! Then you suddenly open the window as Winter's Herald approaches and call a Skylance to the room! You are worms in head!" She yelled back, stepping back, glaring.
She was right. It was not, strictly speaking, the clearest headed decision he'd ever made. But it needed to be done. And he'd only yelled because she was a ninja. Even so.
"Alright, alright, I am sorry. I didn't mean to yell at you. But you shouldn't sneak up on me like that, I've got, uh, issues." Ulric said, hands raised in surrender.
Another gust of wind sent the cover of the trays to the floor and prompted Ulric to shove the balcony doors back closed.
"…Accepted. I should not have startled you, I did not think you would scare that easily. That does not answer my question, what did you do?" She said, her glare lightening by millimeters.
He didn't answer immediately, thinking instead about how to explain. And he made a point to ignore her near insult, she probably hadn't meant it as such and that was, in its own way, worse. When she opened her mouth to complain though he shut her down.
"Can you shut your gob for, like, five seconds lady? I'm thinking over here." He bit out.
You'd think somebody who still had seven or eight hundred years in the tank wouldn't be so friggin hasty. At least she settled back to wait for him to answer. Didn't do anything about that look though. He ignored her and picked up the tray cover, returning it to its place.
"Ok. Do you want the long version or the short version?" He asked, ready to try to have a thoughtful conversation.
"The short one, how did you touch a Skylance? You should not be able to do that." She said angrily.
Why the hell was she so touchy? He wondered. But instead of dwelling on her tone he just gave her what she wanted.
"I just focused Ceraun to gather electric potentials by separating the inflections of charge within my own body. I figured it out a, was it really only a week ago we set out? So…a couple of weeks ago now. The first version was a little rough though. The breakdown potential of air changes due to many factors, but most important was distance to the contact point. The spell was so hard to control at that point I nearly lost it and had to send it to a stone by carving a path of least resistance with a separet streamer of Ceraun to give it a definite location before it discharged on me. That did not go how I wanted it to. So, I thought out a modification that would let me build the path while I charged the spell linking the latent discharge with an object I could throw. The object would act as the target and I can just throw it at whatever I want to hit with the lightning, as if it were tuned to a specific spark gap. Easy peasey."
Geyrt had gone from irascible to completely baffled in only a few moments. By the end, she had that same look the kids in his lecture room had when he was presenting research during grad school to the visiting freshmen. Totally glazed over. The more things change the more they stay the same.
"And why shouldn't I be able to do it? That's, like, the easiest thing you can do with electricity. Just build a charge and release it. It's not like I made a spell to do electromagnetic ore sampling. Or radar. Or…hell…about a million things really. Wait…I can make a railgun! Ulric realized, suppressing a fist pump.
The more he thought about it, the more obvious it seemed. He’d have to work out the spell constraints, the exact pattern of electromagnetic oscillation to create a magnetic accelerator, maybe even find someone to craft coils until he could master a purely mana based field , but it was doable
“Hahaha! I AM a weapon to surpass metal gear!" Ulric cackled.
"What? What are you saying? Are you playing games with me again? Just tell me how you managed to use a Skylance, and from your hand instead of the…sky." The dark beauty asked, clearly lost, and getting mad about it.
This was the rub then. Ulric knew a ton of things that he shouldn't, compared to the run of the mill peoples roaming the land. What he lacked in what might be referred to as "common sense" he made up for in spades in esoteric knowledge of the nature of matter and the energies that drove it. Aside from that pesky little wrinkle where a core'd creature could manifest magic that turned most of that shit on its head, if not ignoring it completely. Cores could generate matter from mana. He knew, he'd done it. It took a lot, and he meant A LOT, of mana to do it, but you could. That should have been impossible but he had not pulled the water for his water jet from the air, he had manifested it from pure mana. He very deliberately did not think any more about that than he had to.
"Ok, calm down Ms. Fussypants, there's no need to get upset. Tell you what, let's just sit down, have a cup of juice, and I'll give you the long version. That might help you follow along. I'll start from the beginning and you can ask me when you have questions, that sound alright?" He asked, purely reasonably.
"My pants are fine, there is nothing fussy about them, whatever this fussy is. And I am not upset." She said voice rising.
Ulric had to stomp down hard on his instinct to just absolutely string this poor girl along. He was getting some real strong "Who's on First?" vibes. But no, resist the urge. You are Trying to Get Along. What it came down to was, they were incompatible people. She was irritable, serious to a fault, arrogant, and, so far as he could tell, without humor. He was distant, sarcastic, impatient, and enjoyed getting a rise out of people, especially at their expense. It would take serious effort on his part to avoid ruffling this hawk's feathers.
Instead of making things worse, he went over to the table and filled two wooden mugs with juice from a likewise wooden pitcher. As much as he loved their commitment to the aesthetic, he was going to have to introduce these lovely folk to ceramics. The cups full he sat at the table and gestured to the empty chair across.
He would have bet a small fortune the first time she opened her mouth was to insist she would rather stand. Whatever thoughts were rolling around behind those lovely veridian orbs he was sure he'd never know but they eventually led her to stalk over and take the indicated seat at the table. Gods she even drinks angrily, he thought.
"Now then. Before I start, let me get some idea of why you think I should not be able to do what I have very definitely done. Please explain to me Geyrt, why is this lightning bolt, this Skylance, a problem?" Ulric requested in his most calm, low, even tone.
She shook her head slightly, braided midnight hair swinging. He heard the wooden ring at its end tap the table. Meeting his eyes with hers she said, with no obvious maliciousness,
"Because you are too weak. You are too young to do this thing. Ceraun is one of the most difficult magics to control and those who do it well always say the same thing: never join the flow. The spell must not be in contact with you or it will move through you, the mana scouring your body with its flow. Even if you were strong enough to call a Skylance you should not have been able to hold it, it must be summoned from the air."
Ulric didn't take offense at that. Compared to these people he was barely more than a boy after all. This Elven woman before him, despite the flush of youth in her features, was triple his age. And, he had to admit, compared to their mages he probably was weak. But Bald'rt had said something about his core having, what was it again? Right. He'd said Ulric's core had tier III features. It was likely that he was a freak. A creature designed, purposefully, to be more potent than he should have been. That Watcher hadn't just done this out of some sense of…fairness, pity, whatever. Ulric was far too much the cynic to buy that. There was another reason. It might not even have been a complex one. Maybe the only reason he'd been reforged was so the Impossible could enjoy the show. He wouldn't object to that, if it gave him this second chance. In fact, he hoped to provide a great deal of entertainment for a long, long time.
Turning his thoughts to her description of how magic was controlled he found himself finding the first tangible evidence of their lack of sophistication. It was clear that magic was sort of boosting civilization. Lifting it above what it would be otherwise, since they could achieve through magic what could have only been possible through technology. Technology that would have mandated understanding of certain facets of physical theory. Such as this fallacy that you cannot join the flow of electricity. There was nothing wrong with being part of the flow, you just couldn't be the sink. He knew this first hand, had had it burned into his body. Always you gave the current a ground. So long as that was true, many mistakes were forgiven. You risked burning the circuit if you pushed the voltage too high but that's what overvoltage "crowbars" were good for, you just collect the runoff energy and open the line to failsafe. Matter of fact…maybe there were mana analogues to this. He was definitely creating some sort of circuit, there was a definitive flow to what he was doing. Not now, though, bookmark that thought.
Ruminations paused Ulric decided how he was going to reply.
"Your spellcasters don't know what they're doing." Ulric said bluntly.
Well, he'd never claimed to be subtle. Or nice.
"It is likely that they are extremely well practiced within the framework of their knowledge, they are masters of their art. I would bet that they know exactly what they want to do, and they have the strength to do it, but they don't know why or how it works from a certain perspective. That's why some things are so much harder than they should be and why they have limits that don't really exist." He finished.
Geyrt looked like he'd slapped her. Her eyes widened and her lips thinned. Apparently, she took the failings of her kin personally. What else was new?
"I knew you were worms in head but I did not know you were also a complete fool. How can you say such a thing? You are barely even matured and you know better than masters of the manacraft?" She scolded.
Instead of replying to her he folded his hands together, as if in prayer, reaching for his core.
[Voltaic Grip]
Arcs surged between his hands as he spread them apart, cupping the dancing, winding, rising, and forking Ceraun. Even farther he spread them apart, until his arms were extended fully, a ribbon of lightning arcing like a rainbow over his head, crackling, between his palms. He was applying the same concepts he'd used to create his lightning strike, and, was deliberately altering the flow to be centered within his body, not pulling on the charges from the air. His hands were as capacitor plates and he could vary the flow to keep the arc jumping.
Internalizing the current this way was much more efficient, there was far less resistance as his magic used his own mana channels to carry the energy. Ulric knew that he could gather charge from the air, instead of generating it, and that could let him build a discharge between two external points but that was far more power intensive, it took much more mana to reach out like that, like he’d have to create two webs of magic to keep the two charge generating spells separate, or else have to create a truly massive one at one end and hope he could direct the resulting discharge. That way was sloppy, was hard to control, was gross overkill. His internal magic, he felt like he could hold this for half an hour and release it as needed. And, as the buzzing power rolled through his mana channels, he could see Geyrt's dark skin pale.
Never contact the flow? Laughable. He wasn't just touching it, like he had before, he was part of it. And he wasn't afraid because it wasn't some force he merely created and released; it was of himself. He could sooner choke on his own breath.
Ulric rode the wave, letting his instincts carry him along. He closed his hands into fists and pulled the arcing energy completely into his body to circulate through his mana channels. It felt painful, there are limits to containing that much energy, until he willed a layer of mana through them, like insulation, or, no, more like a laminar flow. Now he held it completely. He let his arms fall and leaned forward to cup his chin with one hand, elbows resting on the table and looked into Geyrt's eyes. If that last thing spooked her she was purely going to shit. The other hand reached up to hover a half meter above the table and Ulric smiled before he loosed the energy, giving it the outlet it craved. A thumb thick violet arc leapt to the table top and danced, carving blackened char along its path.
*PING*
*PING*
[Voltaic Grip] override [Voltaic Pulse] override [Voltaic Riot]
He cut off the spell, felt his core stop heaving at the charge in the room. Interesting. It would appear that greater understanding led to greater power. And the spell…it evolved? Twice. That was something. His examination was cut off by Geyrt standing suddenly from the table. She looked like she'd swallowed salt water.
"What are you? No lies." She asked nervously.
Now that was hurtful. She should know better than anyone. She'd seen his status, if Brighteyes was correct about her [Scanning] her targets. It didn't help that she was asking the same question that had been echoing in the back of his head for weeks now. Human only in name Bald'rt had said. What am I? He suspected that he was going to spend the rest of his life answering that question.
"I am Ulric Einar, a once materials engineer now Twice Born, I’m the Forest Lord Bane, and, somehow, [Lord of the Ancient Glade]. And I am hopelessly lost so far as anything else is concerned, like a raft in the ocean." He said earnestly.
"And I would very much appreciate it if you would stop calling me crazy. There's a part of me that thinks I'll someday wake up back in my old world finding this whole thing was a fever dream. But I don't think so. You'll have to accept that I am not a thing of this world, not entirely, and that gives me perspectives that you do not have. That doesn't mean I'm crazy. There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Ulric quoted at her, humor in his voice.
His core was close to empty. He'd pushed his system hard, trying to follow the inspiration of the moment to its conclusion, especially when he'd pulled the Ceraun to run through his mana channels directly. But he felt like he'd grown more in tune with how his body integrated with his core. He felt good.
As an additional bonus, some of the…pressure…the gnawing unease on his mind was gone. Taking a little more control of something, even if only his own mana, was enough to get his psyche back on track. There was a weakness in an overactive mind in that it could eat itself if not looked after. Varda wasn’t exactly all roses out there and he had worries aplenty to set the wheels spinning, if he didn’t stay on top of himself. A new body, a young man’s burgeoning impulses and drives, a core with its own novel manifestations within him, these were all going to take longer than the mere few months of desperate living he’d had to adjust to them.
