CHAPTER 1Settling Off
“So. I just want to be very clear about this.” Edwin suspiciously eyed his companion. “You’re sure that this won’t hurt, won’t permanently fuse us together into some kind of abomination, won’t create an utterly unbreakable bond between us, won’t corrupt me into something else, won’t turn me into your eternal servant—”
“Yes! Blight, Edwin, why are you so worried? You’re usually so much more willing to go along with this sort of thing,” Inion cut him off with a cocky grin, her dark green hair drifting around her head as though she were floating underwater.
Edwin rolled his eyes. “Well, usually I’m not about to allow a literal fey—who, I will remind you, are infamous for trying to trick foolish mortals into silly contracts—to perform a binding ritual to attach herself to my physical body. I’m still skeptical about that deal we made about letting you watch me in exchange for general help, and this is way more . . . intimate.”
“Oh come on, Edwin. It’s not a binding ritual, it’s a magical ritual meant to transfer my binding point from the spring to the fey-primed Skill that manifests in and across your body.”
“That explanation literally included both the words ritual and binding in it.”
“Did it? Hmm. Well, that’s on your language for not having adequate vocabulary, then.”
“We don’t . . .” He sighed. “Never mind.”
It may not have made Edwin feel any better, but he was already sitting half reclined in Inion’s pond, Fey’s Caress at full
bore turning his skin and hair to water, while the fey was flitting around, arranging floating plants in an approximate circle around him. “And you’re absolutely certain this won’t have any negative consequences for me in the long run?”
No matter how many times he’d done it, Edwin wasn’t sure if he’d ever get used to being able to see his muscles exposed through his “skin.” His Anatomy Skill loved it, naturally—in the week it had taken to get him prepared for this, it had already passed level 20, higher than even Flying had reached and he used that almost constantly. Because of course he would.
“Yes! Now, calm down or something might actually go wrong.”
“You’re not doing a very good job of reassuring me, you know.”
“Oh, you’ll be fine. It’s only for a few hours anyway.”
The idea was “simple,” apparently. While Inion was bound to her spring and thus sharply limited in power anywhere else, she could change the exact target for her binding relatively easily if it wasn’t a “major” change—namely, something of the same type of material and in close proximity. With a newly acquired Skill that allowed him to change the composition of his skin in a very feylike manner, Edwin could sit in her pond and be about as “minor” of a change as possible. Theoretically. Assuming nothing went wrong.
Of course, even a complete success still meant that he’d have a real-life fey literally bound to him, physically as well as contractually, which Edwin still wasn’t sure how to process. Still, once they left the Verdant, and the magic-disrupting barrier that surrounded it, Inion planned to bind to a river, possibly even the Rhothos itself, and leave Edwin once again to his own skin.
He’d even required an oath as binding as he could sufficiently wrangle that Inion would not harm him in any way during the transfer, and that she would leave him as soon as she could, making all reasonable effort to ensure that “as soon as she could” came around quickly. Edwin was almost positive he’d messed up somehow, though. Maybe-sorta friend or not, Inion was not human and it was a constant struggle to remind himself of that, despite how critical it was that he did.
Even so, he was nervous. Inion may have been his only, or at least the closest, thing to a friend he had in this new world and even seemed to genuinely care about his well-being, and she was magically obligated to not harm him, but none of those precluded accidents.
He screwed his eyes shut as Inion sang a melodious song with neither lyric nor rhyme, keeping them closed as tightly as possible until the itching in his watery skin and the sound around him faded away. He peeked out with a single eye. “. . . Did it work?” he hazarded.
“Ya! You’re good!” Inion cheerfully exclaimed, pulling him from the water.
Edwin breathed a sigh of relief as Fey’s Caress faded away upon his exit from the pond, returning his skin to its normal, solid and opaque state. He could feel . . . power coursing through him, magical strength flowing through his limbs and torso in a new way that was both disquieting and reassuring at the same time.
Congratulations! For willingly serving as a Bind for an ancient fey, you have unlocked the Fey Supplicant Path!
Congratulations! For fusing yourself with an ancient fey, you have unlocked the Feykind Path!
Level Up!
Fey’s Caress Level 16→28
He mentioned how he felt to Inion as he dressed, and she nodded thoughtfully. “That . . . that sounds about right? I know there are some fey—we call them fairies—who choose to bind themselves closely to mortals. Those they tie themselves to tend to get some interesting abilities. I’ve heard of eternal youth, the ability to fly, some transformations, that sort of thing. I doubt you’ll really get too much that way, ’cause you’re not a true Bind and it won’t last for very long, but it’s not impossible, either. Just part of the magic involved—I become more like you, you become more like me.”
Edwin nodded. Sounded rather fun, all told, and trying to call up his mana was significantly easier than it had been previously. At the mention of flight, he took to the air, reveling in the comparative river of mana he was able to call upon, letting him rise some two meters into the air, a good four times higher than his normal limit. “Pity!” he called back down. “I could get used to this.”
“Oh? You want me to keep you as a Bind?”
“Uh . . .”
“Kidding!”
Edwin breathed a faint sigh of relief as he returned to the ground and gathered his travel possessions together. He also swept through Obairlann one last time, just to ensure he hadn’t left anything behind. It wouldn’t be the last time he ever came to the little home he’d made for himself deep within the magical Verdant, but it would be the last time for quite a while. He was in a contemplative mood, he mused, running his hand along the living wood frame of the place he’d lived in and trained at for the past year.
It had been a bit of a chore to fully pack up everything he could use, including harvesting what crops were ready from his garden, but he’d eventually managed it. He had tried to stack Improbable
Arsenal containers endlessly, to see if he could fit everything he had into his pocket, but it unfortunately didn’t work.
Whenever he put one container affected by Improbable Arsenal inside of another, only the one farthest inside actually benefited from the Skill. The outer container’s increased volume shrank by the exact amount of additional space within the subcontainer. Also, he found that for whatever reason, using Improbable Arsenal on his Apparatus containers, while still functional, was less effective than on more “real” objects, not that it mattered all that much in the end, thanks to the stacking issues.
However, instead of being able to load up on everything he could want, Edwin had to be somewhat pickier with what he’d take with him. Fortunately, he still managed to get most of what was actually important packed away, though the result was a bag nearly as big as he was between both the basic backpack and all the stuff and improvised bags strapped onto it.
He was having to leave pretty much all his pottery behind, but with his new Sapper’s Apparatus Skill, that wasn’t too great a loss. After all, he didn’t really have a use for most of his simple clay labware and only really needed to bring materials and potions with him.
Speaking of materials, Edwin had two notable absences from his basic supply for being an Alchemist-Errant. Namely, actual explosives and smoke bombs. Sure, the former he could mimic through careful use of Firestarting, only made easier with Basic Thermokinesis, but it was still far from reliable. All he really had in the direct offense sense was his alchemist’s fire, the not-really-a Molotov cocktail he’d devised from firevine. Anything more than that had no assurance it would actually work, as his explosive grenades required him to Infuse them while mid-flight, a tactic he had firmly abandoned after many frustrated months of getting it to work even twice in a row, let alone a majority of the time.
No, he needed genuine bombs, preferably ones he could detonate with his Skills but that didn’t require them to work. If he couldn’t get it to reliably work in practice, no way was he ever going to try to do so in actual life-or-death combat. And without grenades, he really didn’t have much in the way of true force projection. Hmm. Perhaps he should have taken an explosives-related Path, though he wasn’t sure what he would have been willing to give away for it.
He almost wished he was back at Clan Blackstone, ironically. Sure, they had enslaved him for a month trying to get him to make cement, insulted and threatened him regularly, and held him a prisoner underground against his will, but they had provided him with the materials he needed to make explosives. His homemade kiln, even post-rebuild— especially post-rebuild, he just hadn’t put the same amount of work into it as its
predecessor—simply couldn’t get hot enough to turn limestone into lime, which was what he used for all his gear back then. The few times he had tried, the bricks had crumbled and given out, breaking under the extreme temperatures well before the limestone he’d collected could react properly.
Thinking back on his escape, it was honestly a miracle he hadn’t blown himself up while trying to escape. Though, with the benefit of hindsight, Packing likely helped reduce the chance of his “will explode if shaken too hard” arsenal going up in flames. He’d probably gotten much closer to death with that whole escapade than even he had realized at the time, and far closer than he wanted to be in the future.
But that tied back into his other desire of making smoke bombs. What better way to help ensure his safety than to obscure everything that was going on? If he could make it an aerosol dispenser, he might have a decent way to disperse sleeping gas, but more pertinent to the concept itself, he would lose pretty much any straight-up fight he found himself in against a competent foe. His “fight” with the bugbear assassin sent after him by the Blackstones was proof enough of that.
So, the obvious solution was to just never put himself in a straight-up fight. He’d need to obscure what was going on, blanket the battlefield with explosives, and run away. Not necessarily in that order, either, but misdirection would have to be a major tool of his going forward.
Even though his bag felt as light as a feather, compared to the sorts of weights he lifted when training his Skills, it still was about as big as he was, once he had everything factored in. Well, nobody could deny that he didn’t look like an alchemist if nothing else. Not with the glowing potions tied like Christmas lights ringing his pack. It was kind of nice, in a way.
All of his actually valuable things were in the very bottom of his bag, inside a sealed Apparatus box, and his coin pouch was locked in a similar construction that utilized the way Improbable Arsenal worked— namely, that it didn’t expand the opening—to be outright impossible to remove while the Apparatus was active. Dismissing his own conjurations was merely the work of tapping it while activating the Skill again, but breaking them was significantly harder and certainly not subtle.
Edwin had no doubt that there were pickpocketing Skills that could bypass all his precautions, but he had no way to prevent them totally, just make it harder for them. Hopefully they’d be rare, anyway, what with the way the Empire had their Skill Management system set up. It mostly raised the question of how the Phantom Pickpocket Tara apprehended in his first visit to Vinstead got his Class, but perhaps he was just an Outlaw. There had to be a few within the city itself, especially if they were
predecessor—simply couldn’t get hot enough to turn limestone into lime, which was what he used for all his gear back then. The few times he had tried, the bricks had crumbled and given out, breaking under the extreme temperatures well before the limestone he’d collected could react properly.
Thinking back on his escape, it was honestly a miracle he hadn’t blown himself up while trying to escape. Though, with the benefit of hindsight, Packing likely helped reduce the chance of his “will explode if shaken too hard” arsenal going up in flames. He’d probably gotten much closer to death with that whole escapade than even he had realized at the time, and far closer than he wanted to be in the future.
But that tied back into his other desire of making smoke bombs. What better way to help ensure his safety than to obscure everything that was going on? If he could make it an aerosol dispenser, he might have a decent way to disperse sleeping gas, but more pertinent to the concept itself, he would lose pretty much any straight-up fight he found himself in against a competent foe. His “fight” with the bugbear assassin sent after him by the Blackstones was proof enough of that.
So, the obvious solution was to just never put himself in a straight-up fight. He’d need to obscure what was going on, blanket the battlefield with explosives, and run away. Not necessarily in that order, either, but misdirection would have to be a major tool of his going forward.
Even though his bag felt as light as a feather, compared to the sorts of weights he lifted when training his Skills, it still was about as big as he was, once he had everything factored in. Well, nobody could deny that he didn’t look like an alchemist if nothing else. Not with the glowing potions tied like Christmas lights ringing his pack. It was kind of nice, in a way.
All of his actually valuable things were in the very bottom of his bag, inside a sealed Apparatus box, and his coin pouch was locked in a similar construction that utilized the way Improbable Arsenal worked— namely, that it didn’t expand the opening—to be outright impossible to remove while the Apparatus was active. Dismissing his own conjurations was merely the work of tapping it while activating the Skill again, but breaking them was significantly harder and certainly not subtle.
Edwin had no doubt that there were pickpocketing Skills that could bypass all his precautions, but he had no way to prevent them totally, just make it harder for them. Hopefully they’d be rare, anyway, what with the way the Empire had their Skill Management system set up. It mostly raised the question of how the Phantom Pickpocket Tara apprehended in his first visit to Vinstead got his Class, but perhaps he was just an Outlaw. There had to be a few within the city itself, especially if they were
“Why? Last time you didn’t even notice it,” Inion countered as she toed the line demarcating the forest from the rest of Rhothos.
“Sure . . . but last time I wasn’t half fey.”
“You’re not half fey. You’re . . . fey-adjacent.”
“Still not sure how much of an impact that has, though.”
Edwin vaguely mumbled some kind of agreement and brought his hand up toward where the barrier apparently was . . . and felt no resistance.
“Huh. Guess it still doesn’t affect me,” he noted, uneventfully stepping out of the forest. “You having trouble there?” he asked Inion, who was slowly struggling against the fierce “wind” keeping her penned inside.
“I . . . can . . . got it!” She stumbled forward as she pushed through the resistance, recovering her balance before she fell in the dirt, fortunately without needing Edwin’s help; if he had tried, who knew how his backpack would react, and he did not want to have to repack it all. “It was easier that time,” she remarked, brushing imaginary dirt from her arms.
“Glad you have it so easy,” Edwin wryly replied. “I’d hate to see you have to work.”
Inion stuck her tongue out at him as they floated to the road, and Edwin drew his tone into a more serious one, checking in on his friend, “But you’re feeling all right? No water deprivation or sensation of slowly dying?”
She shook her head. “Nope. It feels more like I’m in Obairlann, other than the lower magic out here.”
Edwin frowned, trying to sense the mana in their surroundings. It did feel rather anemic and was only made more obvious by directing his Perception toward the task. Using Ritual Intuition, too, there was little of the feel of nature he had come to associate with his surroundings. Instead, it felt more like a faint breeze tapping at the edge of his senses. There was still a hint of life and nature, but it felt like sprawling grasslands rather than the greenhouse-like sensation within the Verdant. “Huh. I think I can feel what you mean.”
As they reached the road, Edwin sank back to the ground, taking the strain off Flight.
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