The Fusionist Book 4 -- Chapter 27

Chapter 27

“No, you have to make the Pattern Cohesion you’re using for the formation more permanent than what you use for spell patterns, as it needs to fuse into the material you’re using as a medium,” he told the frustrated Mage for the tenth time. “Otherwise, it’s going to simply fall apart like that every single time; you’re fortunate that it hasn’t permanently harmed you when it has fallen apart, but it’s only a matter of time.”

“Argh! How is it that the others learned so quickly, but this feels impossible to me?!”

Larek sighed, a headache forming that he attempted to massage away but couldn’t physically touch it. He knew that he would have to stop soon or the use of his Dominion magic in his teaching would start to thoroughly drain his energy. Fortunately, he’d gotten across to the Mage Protector that had negotiated this form of “payment” to compensate for the damages his Fusions caused that he had to take frequent breaks and could only teach so long every day. After two weeks of teaching the new Mages of Swiftwater, only on a 1-on-1 basis to reduce the strain of any Dominion magic being used, he was beginning to learn when he was starting to push it.

“Unfortunately, as I’ve explained before, people have different abilities when it comes to their new statuses as Mages.” Gesturing to the young man, he asked, “You said you’re quite adept at casting your new spells?”

“Of course,” the Mage, Jaundry, replied haughtily. “I was able to cast a spell faster than anyone else in Swiftwater, and I’ve already achieved Level 9 from all my Skill increases. Which is why this should be simple, because everything else was so easy.”

The Combat Fusionist had to admit that gaining Level 9 in less than two months since the change happened was impressive, but it also helped to prove his point.

“That’s exactly what I’ve been trying to tell you,” Larek explained. “You’re really proficient at casting spells, which is where your specialty lies. This doesn’t mean that you’re suited to making Fusions, that I’m sure with your abilities that you’ll be able to pick it up at some point in the future with enough practice and time.”

“Or you’re just teaching it wrong,” the man accused, but Larek held up his hand for him to stop before he went any further.

“No, I’m teaching it just like I taught the others, and they picked it up fine.” He pointed to himself. “You know what I’m really proficient in? Fusions, as you no doubt can see. You know what I’m absolutely horrible at? Casting spells. I would bet that you, even after just barely being able to put together a spell pattern, are better at casting a single spell than I will ever be. I’m envious that you’re able to do something that seems so easy for you to accomplish, but for me is impossibly hard. Does that sound familiar?”

Jaundry was silent for a few seconds as he stared at Larek. “You really can’t cast spells?”

“Not well or effectively. For me, they are essentially useless.” Except for blowing up Scissions, I guess. Still, all that I told him was technically true.

“Hmph. Well. I suppose I can’t be the best at everything,” the haughty mage said, most of the frustration having leaked out of his tone. “I’ll keep practicing what you taught me, though, because I feel like I’m close.”

“You should definitely do that,” Larek said as the other Mage rose to leave. “Back in the Kingdom, most Mages could make a few Basic Fusions, but very few are proficient enough to go further than that. The lack of proficiency doesn’t make them any less, because they are much more proficient in other areas – just like those with specific Specializations are better at one thing or another. Being a Fusionist probably isn’t where your path lies, but you can certainly learn to do a few of them if you put in the time to practice. Or, and this might be a better idea, concentrate on your spellcasting, as you don’t seem the kind of person that wants to sit still for hours on end creating Fusions.”

“Ha! You’re right about that,” the other Mage chuckled. “Even sitting here with you for an hour was almost too much for me. Thanks, Larek. See you around.”

With that departing line, Jaundry left the small room where the two of them had been sitting on the floor on some comfortable pillows – just like he remembered back at Copperleaf Academy. It was a smaller room than the one where he learned about Intermediate and Advanced Fusions with Grandmaster Fusionist Shinpai, but it served just as well because it was private and quiet.

A minute or so after the other Mage left, Larek got up and left the room as well, hunger causing his stomach to grumble. Knowing that he had around 2 hours before his next “student” would come for instruction, he went to the Protector barrack’s mess hall, where he picked up lunch and set into it with abandon.

Near the end of his meal, Mage Protector Zinnia sat down across from him. Larek looked up at the older woman, the same one that he had negotiated with to trade his teaching for payment for damages to Swiftwater.

“Larek. How are you?”

He shrugged. “Fine.”

“That’s good to hear.” She sat there looking at him while he finished up, not saying anything else – which was strange in an of itself. While he hadn’t gotten to know the Protectors very well, Zinnia was his primary contact with those located in Swiftwater, just like Ashlynn had been back in Enderflow; as a result, she had spoken to him at least a few times every day, and that wasn’t even including the first day when he taught her how to make Fusions. Like Jaundry, she wasn’t adept at creating the formations necessary to be a very effective Fusionist, though she did eventually catch on after a few days of practice.

Even that was astonishingly fast when compared to the efforts of the Mage students back in the Kingdom, who required months or years of practice and effort to produce their first Fusion, though it usually took less time after that to improve upon their work if they were suited to being a Fusionist. Zinnia would never be a Fusionist, but she wasn’t too concerned about that; she was more of a big-picture kind of person, he quickly discovered, as she expanded his teaching of Fusions not only to herself and other Protectors, but every new Mage in Swiftwater.

Larek, of course, wouldn’t be expected to teach each and every one of them, considering that there were a few hundred of them in the city. Instead, he was expected to teach around 5% to 10% of them so that the knowledge was out there and disseminated to the rest of the population, as well as being distributed to other towns and cities. She didn’t believe in hoarding this type of information like some would, and felt it was better for the Empire if more people knew about it.

He was leaving that to her and the other Mages of the Empire, because as soon as transportation was available to get over the rushing river, he’d be gone with his “payment” already discharged by that point. Larek thought that the idea of spreading the knowledge was a good thing, however, because it could only benefit the people in their fight against the Apertures, so it made him feel proud in having a small hand in making that happen.

What was even more remarkable about the whole thing was that around half of the 20 Mages he had taught Fusions to had picked up the process extremely fast, while the rest – such as those like Mage Protector Zinnia – eventually understood enough to be able to make Basic Fusions like the majority of the Mages back in the Kingdom. But with 9 of the 20 he’d taught picking it up so quickly, to the point where they were able to create a Basic Fusion within an hour, Larek wondered how much of that success was due to natural ability and how much was due to his Dominion magic.

That was because, for the first time, he could feel it at work when he began teaching someone Fusions. It was so subtle that if he hadn’t been looking for it, he wouldn’t have even noticed it; but when there was a noticeable discharge of energy from the area around his head, making him slightly weaker for a brief moment, he immediately knew what it was. Following that, the attention that his students paid to him seemed to intensify, and they picked up his instructions rapidly at that point with very few questions. Those things were the only pieces of evidence that anything was actually going on, but it was enough to let him know that it was working.

Not that he intended for it to work, as he still wanted nothing to do with Dominion magic, but he had no control over it. He couldn’t activate or deactivate it like he would a Fusion; it just seemed to work on its own, though nearing the end of the two weeks, he was beginning to have an inkling of how he might affect it when it did work. It all boiled down to his subconscious desires bleeding into the magic, which dictated how it was applied to his target.

For his Fusion students, the only thing his subconscious was thinking about was the hope that they would pick up the process quickly so that he could move on to someone else – and that was it. He didn’t want anything from them in return, no obedience or anything like that, so it was fairly simple, subtle, and straightforward. It was also what the students desired from him, so it wasn’t noticeable to them and therefore didn’t rebel against it.

Thinking about his interaction with Seandra and the Underworld Society, he realized that he had probably been subconsciously thinking about wanting to know more information on the Society and what they did, to ensure he was indeed safe down there – which was how he got Seandra to spill most of what she knew. It was also certainly not what the Underworld Society leader wanted to reveal to him, so she rebelled against the subtle Dominion magic used against her, which was likely what drove her to do what she tried to do to Larek.

As for his other inadvertent uses of Dominion magic in the past, they all followed similar veins. The Professors he attempted to teach the Focused Division Skill to had the same teaching desire to it, but he thought that there were just too many of them for it to be effective – as well as straining his body when he overused the magic. For Penelope and his other bodyguards assigned to him at Crystalview, Larek must have triggered some sort of need to be protected during the Skirmish, which translated to a desire in them to protect him from everything and everyone.

Then, of course, were his friends: Verne, Norde, and Nedira. He could only assume that his Dominion magic latched onto his desire for friendship and to have at least one person not looking at him like a freak of nature. He believed that his magic could only safely affect what was already there inside of a person, which made him more confident that Nedira and the others really did care for him as a friend – and perhaps more than that, in the case of the beautiful Naturalist. If that inclination hadn’t been there, then they probably would’ve had a reaction such as Seandra did, though perhaps not so explosive.

Overall, while this delay in returning to the Kingdom chafed at him, he couldn’t deny that it was doing him some good. Traveling for a month through the Empire while paranoid about being found by Protectors had worn him down more than he cared to admit, and having the opportunity to rest and relax was beneficial to his mental well-being. More than that, learning about his Dominion magic, while he still hated it on general principle, helped him think about the future and how he might be able to control it better than he did right now – which was essentially no control at all. At the least, he understood it better than ever, even if that understanding was left without any way to stop it from activating in the first place.

As Larek swallowed his last bite of lunch, he looked at Zinnia still sitting across the table, staring at him. “What is it? Can I help you with something? More questions about Fusions?” he finally asked.

The Mage Protector jerked as if he had startled her, even though she had been staring at him. After a few seconds, she seemed to collect herself enough to respond.

“Not… exactly. You’ve done a wonderful job teaching the people already, and I can tell that what you’ve done will be more valuable than any monetary renumeration that you might have provided – as much as the mayor would disagree,” she chuckled for a few seconds, before a more serious look fell over her face.

Uh, oh. Does this mean they heard something from the Protectors in Lakebellow?

He’d surreptitiously asked Zinnia a short time ago about anyone else looking for him, and while she seemed surprised at the question, he could tell that the first time she heard about Larek was when he had been found after the Society’s undergrown hideaway collapsed. He concluded at that point that Seandra had being lying about the Protectors already looking for him, though that didn’t mean that they never would be.

“No, it’s something else.” Here it comes…. “We finally heard from Riverbend – on the opposite side of the Swiftwater – and finally learned what happened over there to the ferries.” Oh… what? Not what I was expecting.

“What happened?” he asked, unsure if he wanted to hear the answer.

“It seems as though an Aperture no one had detected opened close to the route where the ferries were ported upriver from Riverbend to Blackferry, and they were ambushed by the monsters in the area. We had suspected that this was the case, as it would certainly explain why nothing ever came back over, but the problems only got worse from there. When the group didn’t arrive at Blackferry, a few groups of Mages and Martials were sent to investigate, only to find the site of the ambush with everyone dead – and the ferries were found to be heavily damaged but largely intact.

“That was when they, for some inexplicable reason, decided to send all of their Shipbuilders from both Blackferry and Riverbend to see if they could be repaired and reused.” She paused and shook her head. “Any guess as to what happened?”

“Please don’t tell me that every single Shipbuilder was killed.”

“Then I won’t tell you that,” she replied, a sad smile on her face. “Because one of them survived, but he ended up having his left leg and right arm bitten off by whatever monsters ambushed by the others, and was only saved when the rest of his group managed to escape.”

“And I’m assuming that a one-armed and one-legged Shipbuilder isn’t so great at building ships.”

“You would assume correctly.  They apparently have a single apprentice Shipbuilder with them that is whole, but she is comparatively slow and doesn’t know everything. That wouldn’t matter too much if they had been able to recover the damaged ferries, but they were nearly demolished in the fight that killed or wounded the rest of the Shipbuilders.”

Larek was quick to see where she was going with this. “So, what you’re saying is that there likely won’t be any ferries coming in the next few weeks?” Zinnia nodded. “How long do you think it will be, then?”

“From what I’ve learned, we have two Shipbuilders coming here to Swiftwater from Galestrom in the northwest, but they won’t be here for another two months or so. There’s another one coming from the capital to Blackferry, but that will probably be about six weeks. Then they have to build a ferry, which could take another month. Best guess? At least ten more weeks before we see the first ferry able to make the route across, and that’s assuming that the ones coming here can quickly finish the partly constructed one on the dock here.”

I probably could’ve traveled to the north and went around the river by the time a ferry is likely to be back here up and running, he thought morosely.

“If you’re hoping that I’ll stay here longer to teach more Mages about Fusions, we had an agreement that it would only be until the first ferry arrived or a month passed,” he warned her, thinking that he saw where this was going. He had no intention of doing more than he promised, and he thought that if he left as soon as he was able, he might even be able to beat any new ferries arriving by going north and around the Swiftwater. I might even take off early if I feel as though my obligation is satisfied.

She held her hands up placatingly. “No, no, nothing like that. We stand by our agreement, and we have no intention of demanding or even asking you to stay beyond that,” she assured him. “Instead, I have a different question for you.”

Somewhat mollified by her statement but now wary of what she was about to ask, he prompted for her to go on.

She hesitated for a few seconds before blurting out, “Are there any Fusions that you could create that might help us get across the Swiftwater?”

Surprised for the second time in only the last few minutes, Larek was taken aback at the unexpected question. He immediately wanted to respond with a “No,” because if he could create something like that, then he wouldn’t have been stuck there in Swiftwater in the first place. But when he thought about it for more than a few seconds, he decided that he might as well give it a try. If it didn’t work, he could always leave when his time was up.

While he thought about it, Zinnia hurried on with even more. “We wouldn’t have you do it for free or as part of the payment to the city for the previous damages, of course. If you can figure out how to get some sort of trade up and running again, you’ll definitely be paid for it.”

The Mage Protector seemed desperate for some reason. When he asked her about it, she explained, “Things are getting bad out there in the city. Civil unrest is on the rise, what with the lack of trade across the Swiftwater causing hundreds of those working for the Merchants without anything to do, and they are starting to blame the citizens of the city for the problem – who are already suffering from the lack of trade. When we add in the Apertures appearing, monsters roaming around, and the sudden destruction of different areas of the city from below, it’s only a matter of time before something sets the disgruntled people in Swiftwater off in a way we might not be able to easily contain.

“While trade and the management of the docks isn’t really our responsibility as Protectors, the well-being of the city certainly is. I can tell you that if something isn’t done soon, there might not be much of a city left by the time the ferries are completed – if they’re completed at all. With travel precarious between different portions of the Empire right now, who knows if the Shipbuilders will even make it here?

“Your aid isn’t necessarily a last resort, as efforts are already underway to try and find a way across to restart trade, but they will take time and will undoubtedly be less effective without a Shipbuilder nearby. Therefore, I’m asking to see if you know of anything that might be of help – because we’re becoming desperate here.” The pleading in her voice was almost heartbreaking in its sincerity, but that wasn’t what swayed him.

It was the thought of a challenge to his abilities with Fusions – and the thought of getting across much faster than anticipated.