Apparatus Of Change - Chapter 138 (Patreon)

Shine - Apparatus Of Change

Soul of Unity

Available Power : 13

You have your cloak?  And the fresh meals Dipan has prepared you?  Remember to go through those first before relying on the preserved rations.  You should be able to make good time but remember our signals for calling for my aid.  And when you reach the river we found Lutra at, take care that the wild form of the eels she loves don’t swarm you.  And remember your lancer bees will need regular affection this far from their hives, and…

Oob, perched on the side of the fort’s wall like a manorminder missing its torch, draws my focus very pointedly to Yuea’s words as the woman speaks.  “Does he think I’m reading that?”  She grumbles to herself as she gives a flat stare to the mostly smooth wooden pane that I have installed in the mustering yard so that I can ‘speak’ to the expedition that is assembling.

My words, carved into the wood with the hard touch that I look forward to having a lifetime to master, pause.  If I could glower at Yuea, I would.  I try to get Oob to glower at her, but the beetle’s own burgeoning personality seems to think she’s funny, and I am loathe to rudely interrupt a child while they are learning about themself.

Even if they are learning very annoying things.  Like appreciating Yuea’s humor.

This front courtyard of the fort, though, I am finding a new experience in.  Not just new for this life, but new for all of them.  For the first time, I have the majority of my bees and glimmerlings and multiple perceiving spells all focused here.  The level of clarity, sadly, does not feel the same as having my own eyes with which to see, or my own feeling body to sense the sun and breeze.  But where I lack in sensation, I compensate in variety.

Hundreds of eyes, many of them quite small and showing only quick impressions of color and form that I must piece together, some of them wholly artificial and operating only by the magic spun out of their commanding glimmer, watch the interior of the walls and the flurry of activity.  The listener beetles, more than just Oob and Oop now but with those two certainly taking the lead, help me filter through gossip and conversation and small reports.  Overlapping spheres of Know Material give me a picture of exactly where different stockpiles of supplies are as they move, and See Domain in a similar pattern provides a guide to when some of those who I consider my new family move through doorways and staircases.

This unnamed fort sitting in the middle of the Green, permissibly defiant of the odd aggressive biome, is something I see now as a mosaic.  A thousand angles and perspectives.  A shared work of art, a performance that I never want to forget.

Unfortunately, moments are impermanent, and I lack any magic to seal time itself.  Though I suppose that I could begin learning to Shift Wood in a way that replicated drawing.  I always wanted to learn to draw; the one thought that unites six disparate lives.  Seven, even, I think the fugitive felt the same.  The soldier once had a charcoal stick and small notebook, but she was terrified of ever making a wrong mark.  As for the rest…

All those old mes were always too busy.  I suppose I can relate to that, too.

As for that courtyard I am watching, it is abuzz, and with more than just bees.

Despite the season being fall, the heat of the sunlight is already rising like it were midsummer.  With the stormsuns no longer occluding the sky, the day is already in the process of baking the muddy sludge of mud into hardened earth that will need to be chewed through by plants seeking the face of the sky over the coming year.  The sounds of wildlife reemerging fill the air, from the endless hum of an equally endless number of fallflies, to the calls of a hundred varieties of bird, to the distant bellows of larger land animals.  And, perhaps selfishly, I steal a small measure of sensation from Yuea and Kalip and many of my bees to smell the texture of the air; the smell of water being stolen by the sun, the smell of snapped vegetation leaking life, the smell of a new year.

I watch as, at the protest of everyone who will need to help with cleanup later, the older children begin a mud ball fight.  I watch with an increasing sensation of amusement as that mud ball fight escalates to include several of the gobs, and then to some of the adults as well, mostly the recently arrived soldiers.  The soldiers impress me with their discipline; I’m certain they could have ended this small war in a moment if they wanted, but it is the playing itself that is more important, and their engaging with the handful of children that have survived this long is clearly important to the morale of both groups.

At one point, one of the human boys tries to involve Kalip in their battle.  Which does not work.  But it is very funny to watch the amalgamated man with his slightly furred form twist and shift position to dodge mud balls that are flung his way, without ever once turning to look.  Even I don’t know how he’s doing that.

The rest of the fort’s population, the collection of people not presently involved in making a muddy mess that I will need to spend an amount of Move Water on flooding away later, have a different reason for being out today.

I wish dearly that they simply wanted to enjoy the sunshine.  But, despite our survival of storming against unfavorable odds, despite the incredible progress we’ve made, despite the growth of both myself and Lutra, despite the culling of threats on all sides…

We aren’t safe.

Not yet.

I might be safe.  At present, my spellworking would allow me to ensconce myself deep underground, hidden and shielded, while my spells and bound interfere with the world just enough to feed me an endless supply of soft motes to condense into points of power.  I could do it, if I really wanted.  Sink away and survive everything short of the world itself cracking in half.  With enough Fortify Space I might even be protected from the ruinsun next year.

But I would be alone.  And I have already set my course in that regard.  I think I am happy with my path, too.  But that path means that the work is not done.

May never be done, in fact.  I lack the farmer’s hands or scholar’s pens, but I still find I have the feeling that I will have something to do from now until the last dawn I see on this world.

And yet, like those two old lives, that brings me more comfort than dread.  Retirement is for people who cannot reshape the land with a spell.

So it is that the others out before the fort’s sturdy buildings have gathered to send off our first expedition.

Fourteen people, if you count the four hound-sized bees as people - and I do - are the ones who will be leaving us.  With Mela at their head, backed by the experience of more seasoned soldiers and the magic Lutra brings with her, their target is simple.  The city of Wavewatch has wards, and has survivors.  A whole city worth of them, perhaps.  A city that might have supplies, information, and possibly, a permanent refuge.  Or a city that might contain a clawful of new threats and challenges.  But a city we cannot afford to ignore, regardless.

The expedition is, much like Yuea, busy ignoring my attempts to write at them.  Yuea, still annoyed she isn’t going, stands with her arms folded, muttering profanity as she watches things unfold with a commander’s eye.  Half her complaints are about inefficiencies, but even those are halfhearted.  She’s used to her own soldiers, and I have the distinct impression they were a cut above most militia, but even here there isn’t much to truly complain about.

Part of that is because my bees, guided by my own old soldier’s memories, are helping to guide things into place.  But I won’t be telling Yuea that.

Through the yard, supplies are gathered and accounted for.  Rations are stocked, replacements for weapons or clothes that may not survive the trip are packed, personal reserves of vim are tucked into pockets, and trade goods are amassed.  The golems that I have been painstakingly putting together, devoting days of focus and multiple spells into, are tested and checked over by those that will be handling them like carriage drivers.  Their saddlebags and platform crates are loaded with replacement golem parts, and the supplies and goods that no one wants to carry themselves on a march.

Those trade goods are critical, too.  They are two things; valuable, yes, but also, they are a signal to the city and its people that there is at least one apparatus that will not rip at their homes.  That out here, things may be stranger, but can also be better than what I have seen of the frontier so far.

Glimmer, mostly.  Some mantra and burn that I have made as well, but primarily I have been stockpiling glimmer.  Congeal Glimmer is a spell that fits quite neatly into Stone Pylon, and while I am almost certain that the collection of those spires I have raised has lost a significant amount of it’s “crop” to the winds of the galesun, there are more than enough of the small brown, green, and gold-streaked gems to share.  My own need of them to make glimmerlings, and to empower my bees, is surprisingly small.  My armies are not expendable hordes, and so each glimmer is more personal than simply a mass-forged gun pressed into a conscript’s hands.

Now, Lutra going along could also do a lot to convince them.  But the plan is for the expedition to encamp outside the walls, and not take Lutra in with them.  The smaller apparatus will, I think, do well to have their own adventure.  But exposing them to that risk without first establishing peace would be foolish.

The golems move like I’d hoped they would.  I had tested them myself, but there is a difference between getting a soggy and irate bee to depress controls while the rainsun makes things difficult, and watching demon, gob, and human handlers manage the same thing while not under duress.  Fisher, the lone gob that will be travelling with them, has already positioned their golem by the gate that Jahn is trying to open in his own defiance of the muddy ground.

They have picked the early design, the only hexaped golem, shorter and bulkier than the ones that came after, but which moves through the mud like it’s nothing.  Behind Fisher, Karral and Matan guide their own golems into a line, the two arguing over seemingly everything, clashes in species, in caste, in rank, in grooming habits, in taste in soup, all of it on the table as the two argue.  I cannot wait to see the expedition return and learn that they are either lovers, or have killed each other.  And the last golem, the one that I rebuilt rapidly with pieces of the tree that crushed its predecessor, with Lust at its controls,; the human woman one of the few to join us from the large rescue that wasn’t a soldier, but who seems to fit in perfectly with the two idiots ahead of her in line that are currently debating which form of fishing bait the other best resembles.

Into the fortified crate on the back on one of those golems, Lutra is being loaded.  Mela oh so gently lowering the apparatus’ crystal body into the container.  Through a series of Small Trades, Lutra and I have managed to pass a sizable supply of several useful magics to her for this trip, but like the other supplies for the bone and blood members, they will be limited.  Our conversation through Form Party before the fort roused, though, has reassured me that she will be okay.

My fellow crystal is doing better and better mentally, no longer trapped in the dark.  And by the end of this, I think she will have even more windows out into the world to explore through.

The fact that at least one of Lutra’s old lives was a child still comes through sometimes, though.  Like when I can clearly see her using Form Sphere to join in the mud ball fight, despite technically already being cargo of the expedition.

As I watch and mull things over and slowly turn in my own place inside the fort in amusement, Muelly picks her way through the muddy ground to add another wooden box to one of the golems.  As she does, she pauses at my sign, and a small smile crosses her face.

The young demoness looks up at the beetle giving her a steady stare for me from the top of the sign.  “I never got to have one of those families that fussed over me like this.”  She says as her mouth curves into a little smile.

I smooth out some of my reminders.  A checklist that they’re already aware of regardless making way for a conversation that I find much more important.  I haven’t wanted to pry on anyone’s pasts.  I write out, defiant of Oob’s insistence that prying is the most important emotion.  But I understood you were from a well connected family?

”It never felt like your fussing.  The most I got was a betrothal I didn’t want.  Well connected doesn’t mean much, I guess.”  Muelly says with a huff, shifting so she doesn’t sink into the mud as she stands and watches Mela run past carrying Zhoy in her arms, the young girl bleating out a high pitched laugh.  This probably means that at least Mela’s golem is fully loaded with its cargo now.  “I’ll miss this.”  Muelly whispers.

Perhaps you can find your contour in Wavewatch and break off your tether officially.  I have several memories of that being a cathartic experience.

”Okay I changed my mind, I had an aunt like you.”  Muelly says with a flat toothed grin.  “I’ll still miss…”

The fort?  I prompt as she trails off.  I compulsively look for something to manage while she thinks, but find that my focus is unneeded.  The bees are performing their own kind of goodbye, the golems are set, everything is okay.  There isn’t even anything violent around to cause another tragedy.  So I savor the moment of focused conversation, with even the small pause being a bit of indulgence.

Muelly brushes at her horns, adjusting the repurposed clothing she wears that was salvaged from the fort.  “No, not the place, exactly.”  She sighs.  “It’s a wall and a barracks.  There’s not much to miss.”

I shall endeavor to fix that before your return.

She ignores that save for a smirk.  “I’ll miss the freedom.”  The young demon settles on with a small voice that Oob still delivers to me clearly.  “I didn’t really realize, until I thought about going back to a real city, and I felt… sick.  Trapped.  It’s not real, but it feels real.  What will the people there say if I tell them who I’m friends with?  Who I sleep with?  I… I’ve seen people beaten for less.”

Don’t go then.  I had realized that tensions between the human and demon nations was high, but perhaps I didn’t fully understand just how bad the animosity was.  I should have; there’s been too many small signs.  But Muelly is right; out here the highest authority is me, and I have a vested interest in aggressively suppressing that kind of behavior.  The very thing that led more than one of our rescues to conspire against me is what Muelly sees as freedom.  Stay.  Mela will be okay.  Your own-

She slaps a scraped and muddy hand over the wood, ‘muffling’ my attempt to write.  I realize with some amusement that she has actually ‘shushed’ me in an incredibly effective way; the greatest student of my shared magic tugging on Shift Wood herself and flattening the board back to a blank - if indented - state.  “If I’m not there then we won’t make it out of the Green without Mela picking a fight with a… bosy?”

Bosu.  My desire to correct her knowledge of wildlife overpowers Muelly’s thin control of Shift Wood.  There is a fascinating distinction in the local population that I have observed and the ones I am more familiar with, actually.  The thicker legs and shorter profile indicate that they may be more adapted to a-

“This is what I’ll miss.”  Muelly whispers as I keep writing under her fingertips.  “Thank you.”  She adds.

For?  I inquire.

”For not killing me when I asked.”  Muelly says with a peaceful voice that is still loud enough to draw the attention of a few of the people who are now standing around the courtyard.  “Don’t let Malpa and Jahn mess up our room while I’m gone.”  She says suddenly, before turning away and walking toward where the population of the fort is slowly surrounding the people who are about to leave us.

By the time she reaches Mela’s side by the open gates, Muelly has had to push through a cluster of people that even includes one of the verdlings.   Talquin’s white-spotted form towering over the demons and humans around her, but no less interested in the day’s event.

I suppose I can understand.  I have lived enough lives that at some point existed in quiet villages or boring winters, who all would have thrown themselves through upstairs windows if it meant getting to see anything happening.  Our fort might be safer than the world around us, but safer doesn’t always mean exciting, especially for people who have been stuck inside as Storming has rallied against the walls for the last several tendays.

“You wanna say something?”  Yuea asks me through a glimmerling as she starts walking toward the cluster of people.  “Give them a good send off?”

”I leave that to your experienced hands.”  I tell her through Amalgamate Human.

”Fuck that.  Make Kalip do it.  He still thinks I’m his commander, tell him I said he has to.”

I am starting to wonder if Yuea’s promotion by her nation to the status of magetouched was not specifically to curb her crass nature.  And I only wish that I was thinking it in full jest.  “Kalip.”  I speak with cathartic exasperation to the other human.  “Yuea would like you to be the one to send off our friends.”  I am careful as always to not make it an order.

There is a pause as I see Kalip’s field of view from atop the wall shift slightly.   Through his perspective and narrowing eyes, I have a good view of Yuea from above, and I cannot help but wonder if the archer is considering that she is within bow range.  “Is this important?”  He asks me instead.  Kalip is starting to master his own side of Amalgamate Human faster than Yuea is; I can see his throat moving, but he makes no sound except to me as he ‘speaks’.

“To them.” I say, giving Kalip a small chuckle and enjoying my own freedom to speak, at least to someone.  “And also it may aid Form Caravan in working.”

”Stop that.”  Kalip swats at the air around his head, and I wince to myself at the reminder that spell names are… a challenge to hear spoken.  Then he rapidly breathes in and out, and adds, “Fine”, before springing up in a standing jump to alight atop the edge of the outer wall, and then dropping over the edge to the marsh that has formed outside where water that failed to drain into the undersea has formed puddles against the wall’s base.

Some of the group make startled sounds as Kalip lands almost silently in the mud, the archer immediately straightening his back and walking toward the open gates with the demeanor of a formation sergeant that has been crossbred with some ancient predatory beast.  Which, I suppose, he is.  But Kalip has changed in so many ways even since I needed to rebuild his body and erase the magetouched degradation that it is a challenge sometime to remember what he was.

He comes to a stop in front of the expedition, and even the demons among them straighten up as he looks over their group.  Kalip’s gaze shifts down the row of multilegged golems and living survivors, with only Fisher seeming to maintain a delighted energy in the face of the examination.  New gobs are never very intimidated by scrutiny, in any of my experiences.

Whatever Kalip sees, he makes no outward sign of objection.  Instead, he just steps forward, and offers an open hand to Mela.  His student’s small moment of surprise gives way to a wide smile of her own as she meets him, her own balance on the mud not quite as sturdy, and clasps her hand around Kalip’s wrist, the modified human returning the gesture.  “We’re counting on you.”  Kalip says out loud.  “Get going.  We’ll be here when you get back.”

Short.  Simple.  And yet, it is exactly what they all need to hear.  Mela turns her face upward to look at the bees perched on the wall that Kalip just dropped off of, as if I cannot still see perfectly well through the ones riding the golems behind her.  “Don’t worry!”  The nascent hero yells up at me.  “We’ll be back soon!”

And then she steps away from Kalip, and makes a sweeping motion with her own hand.  One that echoes and draws the eye for no reason aside from because it means something.  And then, in uneven paces and with a little bit of slipping against the mud, the fourteen person expedition makes its way through the open fort gates, and begins their return from the Green.

I know they’ll be back.  I believe in them.  But that is no reason to not tip the scales.

Form Caravan wraps around the group.  All of the group.  Humans, demons, bees, gob, apparatus.  The golems.  The cargo.  My Spirituality is at the seventh rank, and yet the spell still drains every drop of the empty liquid that fuels it in a moment.  But when it is done… the expedition is there.  In the space inside my mind, one of those little windows into the world is now focused on them.  I can see where they are, their roster, the full count of their supplies and goods.  Their mandate - to scout the outlying villages, to recover survivors, and to contact Wavewatch - has become a flexible variable, and I know for a fact that I can in a limited way communicate with them from much farther than I had hoped possible.

The spell is as complex as I have come to understand any spell of that value is.  But I - we - will have time, as they travel to forage out all the valuable tools it offers.

Until then, I simply watch, waving using my glimmerlings along with the fuzzy legs of the bees and the more flexible arms of the rest of the fort’s population, as we see our friends off.

Yuea crosses her arms and nods.  “Great.”  She says, before the moment has even ended, much less had time to sit.  “I’m going back to being useful.  Update your maps, I’m commandeering your office.”

I don’t bother to protest.  But I am going to share the moment with the growing members of the hive, who are all sending me small impulses of excitement for when it is their turn for an adventure.

I think I understand Yuea a little bit.  She is a bee that never had anyone tell her she was allowed to look forward to her own expedition.  I think… maybe it would be best to not make that mistake myself.  Either with the little ones that are bonded to me, or even with Yuea herself.

Perhaps I can find her a hobby.  And maybe when I call it a tactical exercise, she might even believe me.