Chapter 55: A Bridge Too Far

  TASTKA POV

  The rain started shortly after dawn.

  This wasn’t a surprise. Our travel gear had hoods and wide cloths to cover our packs and bodies, as we’d already heard from some of the Sylen that passed through the region that it rained a lot more here. We’d been lucky to have gone several days without more than a light drizzle, so an actual downpour was overdue.

  The mud was cool under my toes, but not all that mucky. The ground here wasn’t all that soft, so the rain didn’t make it a mush, just more gentle. It gave me something to focus on while I thought about the dream I’d had. The dream that prompted me to work on my mana control as we walked.

  Specifically, my other self had spoken to me directly, and told me to work on my Lumen control.

  It had been startling when I’d awakened, remembering the dream. Inside the dream I couldn’t act, which was normal. Or rather it was like… I was the one speaking. Which made sense, if that was really another me as she claimed. I wasn’t sure what to think of it, now that I could put a real voice to my constant companion of the night.

  “TASTKA!”

  I jerked my head up and to my right, where Eyssa had loudly shouted my name. Belatedly, I realized that she’d been trying to get my attention for a while now, and I’d tuned it out with my own thoughts. “Sorry, what?”

  My sister flicked an ear in annoyance, though I could barely see it beneath her hood. “We’re talking about turning around. The gorge just keeps getting deeper, and I don’t think that’s going to change soon. We could find a place to climb down and try to ride the river down, or climb up the other side…”

  That earned a shake of my head. “Do what you feel is best, you’re the one with the explorer class.” Eyssa’s ears fell, until I added further, “But I think we should keep going. We’re still headed sort of in the right direction, right?”

  “Sort of,” Eyssa agreed, reluctantly. “We’re drifting off course but getting closer than we are farther. If we can cross the river, we can correct, but I don’t see that happening in the next day or three.”

  She was staring at me, and my ears twitched at the attention. Fisk, also, looked my way, though the heavy rain caused a mist that made it hard to read his expression. They were… waiting on me?

  I flicked my tail in a nervous gesture. “Do what you two think is best, but if you want my opinion, we should continue on for another day or two. I have a feeling that will be more useful than backtracking.”

  I was fibbing a little. I had more than a feeling this time. I thought back to when I’d awakened this morning in the chill of the oncoming rain, and tugged the cloth closer around me. I’d come to with memories… mostly clear, this time.

  “You’re going in a good direction, but don’t try to guide them too much. You’re unique. You need to give them guidance when you can, but don’t let them rely on you. The greatest thing you can give them is their own choice.”

  I didn’t fully understand that, but the ‘me’ that I saw had tried to be reassuring. I had no idea how to explain what I’d seen to the others, but that me had told the real me to try to talk to my friends more. I’d been too focused on my strange class to be a proper member of the team.

  “Would it be a problem to keep on for two more days?” Fisk asked, looking to Eyssa now.

  My half-sister shook her head. “No, there’s plenty of food to hunt in the forest if we’re careful, and water is easy to get. It’ll be more of a delay if we do have to turn around, but it won’t be any safer on the other side. We could end up wasting eight days instead of four, that’s all.”

  I could see Fisk hesitate. We didn’t have a time we needed to be back, but that didn’t mean we could take forever. When the bitter cold came, we didn’t want to be in the middle of unknown lands.

  “One day,” he finally said. “Then we turn around if we haven’t found anything.”

  The others all resumed walking, picking their way through the steady drum of rain. The walk was quiet, every one of us straining to hear anything through the hissing tumble of the downpour we were in. Scents in the rain didn’t carry well, leaving one of the keenest senses we had useless, but none of us were a stranger to making do with sight and hearing.

  Dashe lifted his spear and threaded some Lumen mana into the tip, as usual. I almost did the same, but I hesitated. Instead, I let my new sense watch the process. If I left it on too long it still gave me a headache, but my increased Endurance had helped to clear the mind-fog much sooner than Dashe had thought. I could use it for this without trouble.

  It was interesting, to be sure. The Lumen mana would infuse the crystal, which had a complex Cruxis lattice. We used these crystals because unlike stone, the crystal naturally bled off mana when it was filled, in a controlled manner. Now, I could see the way the Lumen escaped the crystal, tiny pinpricks slipping out to little effect… and the actual light.

  Some of the mana when it escaped would be sent into a tight spiral. This kept its shape longer, reached farther, and was ‘heavier’ – for lack of a better term. When it finally unwound, it released light, decaying into a scattering of Pure mana before the environment absorbed it. In this case, it would sink into the raindrops, creating a bit of Aqua mana that sunk into the ground when the raindrop hit.

  Interesting.

  My increased affinity would help here, I surmised. While we trudged along in the rain, I experimented. I focused Lumen and tried to tighten it, causing a brief sputtering flash of light that brought a glance from Solen, beside me.

  “What are you doing?” The question was honest curiosity, and beneath her cloak I could see her tail lifting, swaying back and forth. She was interested, despite her lack of a caster class. I remembered how she’d taken care of me, and only now realized that Solen seemed to like me.

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  I’d been caught in my own thoughts so much, I hadn’t even realized my traveling companions had been trying to engage me – to be a friend to me as they saw I was. This made my ears burn in shame, as I’d done little to deserve it. Maybe Solen was just grateful I’d saved her life.

  “I’m trying to figure out what I did to that thing we fought,” I answered truthfully. “I’m just doing it with a much safer spell. I’m trying to recreate our spear lights. Like a light spell without words.”

  Duvad, on the other side of me, looked over curiously as well. He lacked the keen interest of Solen, but what I said caught his attention anyway. He didn’t ask anything, but I could feel his eyes on me as I made another small glimmering sputter above my outstretched hand.

  “I can’t sense mana very well, so I’m not sure what you’re doing,” Solen admitted. She had moved closer now, green eyes focused on the hand with one of her ears twitching. “I never had much talent for casting.”

  “You have plenty,” I replied without thinking. “You just chose to put it into your [Hunter] class and your other classes. They use mana too, you just don’t have to think about it. That’s why you’re so much faster and stronger than me even though you’re not that much bigger.”

  It was a bit of a lie. My own attributes were unnaturally high, but Solen truly could have beaten me in a fight, I was sure. I didn’t know her own attributes but I was almost certain she was a lot stronger than I was – and had more skill with her weapons.

  I tried replicating the crystal’s Cruxis pattern, but it was ‘leaky’ somehow. The Lumen slipped right through it and vanished with barely a flicker of light on the way out. I’d screwed it up, somehow. My ears tilt downward in a frown.

  “Having trouble?” Solen asked. By this time, Fisk had slowed to look over his shoulder at what I was doing, his own tail flicking. I couldn’t tell his mood from this angle, but he gave the impression of thinking. I wasn’t sure what that meant, even though he had been one of my closest friends growing up. He’d gotten so serious lately.

  “A little,” I replied, thinking through the problem more. The crystal also had something physical to it, but did that matter? I wasn’t sure. Maybe I just needed to make the pattern tighter…

  My next attempt was round, but the inner walls were almost solid, with tiny holes that were twisted just a little. I knew from playing with reeds in the water that this would make it come out in a curl, so maybe this would work. I sealed off all the holes with more Cruxis, then shoved a large amount of Lumen in through the one hole I had left, before sealing that off.

  This time, I opened up several of the outgoing holes… and received a dim but steady light, appearing as a shining spark held in my hand. Solen perked up, and I felt the others looking my way as well. I opened up a few more holes, making the light brighter, but after trying to brighten it further the entire pattern collapsed in on itself and the light sputtered out.

  “Are you casting a spell without words?” Dashe asked, now glancing back at me with the others.

  I flicked my tail in irritation. Not at him, but at myself. “I’m trying to. It’s really wasteful and doesn’t work the way I want.” My ears dipped again, before I reconsidered. I had a light spell, and it didn’t use much Cruxis at all. Was there more than one way to do this?

  I muttered the spell and watched it take form. Another complex pattern formed in my hand, but this time the Lumen was surrounded by a web of Flux, constantly fed as it disintegrated, with the Flux guiding the Lumen into the spirals that made it emit light. My Pattern Sense ability made it easy to see, but even Mana Sense could get a rough feel of things, and this ‘felt’ familiar.

  I dismissed the spell and tried to reshape something similar, but this time I used my new Ability. Touch the Pure let me manipulate Pure mana directly with much less effort, so remembering what I did against the monster, I fed the Flux into a pattern of Pure, and then the Lumen at the center. Now the ball of light was bright and steady, flaring to life and lighting up the rain-drenched dimness.

  “Did you do it?” Fisk asked first. Everyone but Eyssa and Vedas – who were keeping an eye out for trouble – watched me now, and had seen the new light ‘spell’ form.

  “I think so,” I affirmed. “It’s… taking a lot more concentration and mana than the spell, but maybe that’s because I’m so new at this.” Indeed, it was taking some of my attention just to hold the shape, something that was almost second nature with the spell.

  Duvad chuffed, “Not much use for it, then?” I snapped to look at him, but he didn’t look angry or grumpy. His ears were drooping but not with any great angle. He was… disappointed? Were they all this invested in my project?

  I sighed, then reconsidered. “I don’t know. Let me try a few things.”

  I fed the pattern with more mana, and experimented with moving it around. As a [Flux Speaker] this was pretty easy for me, but getting it to do the effect I wanted was harder. This was just a simple spell, too. Doing something more complex would take much, much more time I realized. And I’d even had the advantage of two light effects to study it.

  Yet this was more flexible. I adjusted brightness and color easily enough, and then slowly worked on forcing it outward, and changing the shape. It gave everyone something to look at while we trudged through the miserable weather, especially when I figured out how to make the light extend two hands or so of tail-lengths in front of us in a narrow tunnel.

  I swept the light over the trees and across the edge of the gorge, startling a few small animals now and then. I heard a snicker from nearby, but I didn’t care. It had been a while since I had fun with my skills like this, so playing around with this new light spell was something to do. Nobody else seemed to mind, either. It gave us a way to spot danger sooner, too.

  More importantly, as I swept it over the edge of the gorge, we lucked out. The light dimmed and vanished early, in an abrupt fizzling. I swept it to the side and it resumed… then dimmed when I pointed it again.

  “Stop,” I said suddenly. “Look at this…”

  Fisk signaled a halt, confused… but even he knew enough about mana to see something was going on. I kept moving the beam back and forth, moving closer, but as I moved near the gorge was illuminated again. The tunnel of light didn’t go as far when swept over that spot, but light did work…

  It’s the Lumen mana, I realized. “Something is absorbing the mana before it can emit the light,” I explained aloud. “Which means…”

  “An Umbral veil,” Dashe finished, tail lifting excitedly. Fisk whistled for Eyssa and Vedas to come back, while I was trying to use my Pattern Sense on the area.

  Sensing Umbral mana wasn’t impossible at all, but it was usually used to hide things. If I couldn’t detect it, I couldn’t sense the mana, I’d discovered. But here, with my light, I could watch how it countered the Lumen mana. I knew if I brought enough to bear on it, the veil would collapse… but I was already feeling a faint ache in the back of my neck. Pushing a lot of mana out would exhaust me now.

  “Can you break it?” Fisk asked, looking at me expectantly.

  Don’t let them get dependent upon you.

  I considered. “Dashe could, but I’m a little tired. Maybe I can do it without a normal breaker… let me try something.”

  If Dashe could do it, they didn’t need me, but I wanted to try this. My light had scattered over the veil, but managed to reveal hints of the structure, of the pattern that held the Umbral mana in place. I couldn’t directly sense the Umbral mana, but the hints of Cruxis, Pure, and Flux… that was a different matter.

  A few well-placed pokes with Flux at the joints, and the veil crumbled. Without a caster actively shoring it up, these tended to be fragile, so it wasn’t hard at all now that I knew it was there.

  The gorge before us shimmered, but even through the downpour of the rain we could make out what was revealed. Two sturdy wooden poles sunk into the side of the gorge, with thick woven rope – far heavier than what we could carry with us on our trip – run between them and the other side, where presumably more poles lay. Between the two lengths of rope stretching across the gap, a third rope hung suspended, spanning the chasm. A thick rope to walk upon while using the other two for support.

  Eyssa and Vedas were just returning, and it was she who stopped, stared, and said what we were all thinking.

  “Who could have built a bridge like this?”

  Outsiders

  Discord!