The Fusionist Book 2 -- Chapter 16

Chapter 16

Their travel south took an unexpected turn when additional passengers joined the carriage while Larek and his friends were asleep. Unfortunately, the small group of 5 SIC members suddenly appeared in the cargo hold of the carriage that morning as it had the least amount of supplies that still needed to be delivered; he only discovered it when he had woken up and found that Rheina and Crester weren’t the only people besides his friends that were now inside the hold.

“Students, huh? Where you headed?”

Larek and the others were in their accustomed places on top of some sacks and crates, staring at the newcomers with an uncomfortable silence, only for it be broken by an older man who was wearing worn leather armor with chainmail, and a massive steel warhammer strapped to his back. The Fusionist estimated that he was probably in his early 30s, age-wise, though from the patched and reinforced appearance of his armor, he had quite a bit of experience in fighting. His companions, two Mages and another pair of Martials, looked equally as “experienced”, with a general rough appearance in their clothing and even their postures.

Rheina and Crester sat along the side, not quite with Larek and his friends but also not apart of the new group. They looked uncomfortable for some reason, as if they weren’t worthy to be talking to these individuals. He could only assume that they were quite a high Level and that the recent graduates were a bit intimidated by them.

“Yep! We’re headed to Copperleaf Academy down south!” Verne answered, his normal bubbly enthusiasm eliciting a few small smiles from the new arrivals.

“Copperleaf? Wouldn’t Crystalview be closer?”

Larek and his friends froze for a moment at the mention of Crystalview, but fortunately Verne was able to recover quickly enough to answer. “Oh, you didn’t hear?”

The man, who hadn’t introduced himself, looked suspiciously at Verne before turning his attention on everyone else. He, along with the rest of the newcomers, were from the Kingdom, but fortunately they hadn’t appeared to have an issue with Larek. It could be that the Fusionist had been sitting down the entire time, but he also thought it was because these people had seen enough in their lives not to care about the relative heights of people like him all that much. At least, that was the impression he got from them, a certain vibe they gave off that Larek was beginning to recognize in people; he wasn’t an expert by any means, but his experience dealing with people since he left home had expanded his awareness of such things exponentially.

“Heard what, boy?”

Verne took the lead in explaining what had happened at Crystalview Academy, including the appearance of so many Scissions inside the city. He only mentioned that the building had been seriously damaged during the attack rather than give any details on exactly howit came about, for which Larek was thankful.

The warhammer-wielding SIC member looked at his companions with a silent message passing between them, their ability to communicate without words obvious even to an unexperienced outsider like Larek. They must’ve been working together a long time.

“We hadn’t heard that,” the man responded, his voice becoming harsher the more he spoke, as if his voice were rusty from lack of use. As Verne had been talking, he had stared at Larek and the others not part of his group as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing; when no one appeared to gainsay what the boy was saying, he seemed to understand that Verne wasn’t just making up stories. “We’ve been away for a while, looking into something else, so we’ve been a little out of the loop,” he said in way of explanation.

Away for a while? What does that mean?

Unfortunately, it didn’t seem as though any of them were going to expand upon that, as everyone stopped talking after that and the uncomfortable silence descended upon the cargo hold again. Larek briefly contemplated experimenting with cloth or leather Fusions, but ultimately decided that would be a poor decision with the newcomers so close by. Based on his talk with Nedira earlier, he knew that keeping his abilities – even his existence as a Fusionist – a secret for as long as possible was the best way to ensure he didn’t end up locked away somewhere or simply dead.

He nearly asked Nedira if she would cast some spells that she knew so that he could learn their spell patterns, but held off when he remembered learning in his Spellcasting class that simply seeing a spell pattern without it being infused with Mana wouldn’t necessarily teach him the spell. One needed to see the entire process being completed before an understanding could be made from it, which was why Professor Gilbo had constantly cast his spells into the training hoop in the room instead of simply holding the pattern for a long time so everyone could see it.

Needless to say, he didn’t want her casting random spells in the back of the carriage, as who knew what they would do.

Thankfully, he was saved from trying to find another use of his time when one of the newcomer Mages, a woman wearing a dark blue robe, suddenly turned to another woman from her group, who was wearing a full set of steel plate armor and had a short sword attached to her waist via a belt and scabbard. From what Larek could tell, this woman was the protector of their little group, similar to what Crester would be once he arrived at his eventual destination.

“Maryanne, let me refresh your Fusion while we’re on the move.” The Mage said it quietly, but Larek heard it even over the rattle and rumbling of the carriage as it moved over the road below. He immediately turned his attention to the two women as the one in full plate pulled out her steel sword and handed it over to the Mage.

Is she a Fusionist, too?

For the first time, Larek used his senses to look closer at each of the SIC members in the cargo hold, searching for the tell-tale sign of Fusions. It didn’t take him long to find a number of them among the group, and even sitting a dozen feet or more away from them, their pattern formations were clear. He saw stat boosts on the Mages’ staves, only at Magnitude 2, as well as Strengthen Fusions at the same Magnitude on the head and haft of the warhammer he noticed earlier, another on the wood bow of the archer-based Martial that was part of the group, and on the steel shield of the one in plate armor, Maryanne. There were none on any other armor pieces for some reason, though he thought he saw evidence of an area of ambience originating under the Martials’ clothing, likely some sort of necklace or pendant with a stat boost on them.

Nothing he saw was at Magnitude 3 or higher, but the Fusion he did see were well-constructed and their formations were clean, better than most that he’d seen – not that he’d seen a whole lot in his time as a Mage and Fusionist. They were better made than the ones strengthening the undercarriage of the vehicle they were riding in, for instance.

Even so, based on a visual inspection of what he could see of their patterns, none of them appeared as if they would last more than a month or two, as they were degrading already. That wasn’t something surprising for him to see, because that seemed to be the norm for all Fusions – except his own.

There was a Magnitude 2 Sharpen Steel Edge Fusion on the sword Maryanne gave the Mage, but Larek could tell that it only had about a week or two before it faded completely. As the woman in the dark-blue robe settled it into her lap and got comfortable on a sack of what appeared to be wheat grain, he realized that this was the first time he’d ever watched someone else create a Fusion. His Fusions class had simply been theory and other information pertinent to the creation of Fusions, but there hadn’t been any practical applications of what they had learned. Granted, Larek had created hundreds of Fusions by this point, but he thought it might be good to have a visual reference to how other Mages and Fusionists actually created Fusions.

It took nearly 10 minutes for the woman to fully form the formation for the Sharpen Steel Edge +2 Fusion, as she appeared to keep losing her focus with every bump in the road. Even when it was fully formed, it was wispy and relatively insubstantial, unlike his own Fusions which were practically solid. He began to see why everyone who saw him working on his creations – at least those who could observe the Pattern Cohesion and Mana involved – were shocked at the difference. If this is how most Mages create Fusions, then its no wonder why they don’t last very long.

After the formation was formed and held in place over the blade of the sword, the Mage in the dark-blue robe began to slowly feed her Mana into it, which was practically a trickle compared to Larek’s usual torrent. Still, he watched, fascinated by the process after never seeing it from the outside before; it was very slow, but he could see the control and focus that the woman had as she filled the pattern as her Mana filtered through the Mana Cost section of the formation.

A sudden, bumpier section of the road made the woman lose focus for a moment and Larek saw the entire formation begin to waver, like it was made of delicate smoke and someone breathed on it. Fortunately for her, the Mage was able to recover and stabilize the Fusion, though he saw that some of the Mana that had been fed into it leaked out and drifted out into the air before dispersing. He estimated that it was only a few points of Mana by that point because the woman was feeding it into the Fusion at an extremely slow rate, so it didn’t harm anything. If it had been nearly full of Mana, the rapid expulsion of the energy from the Formation might have caused an explosion. At Magnitude 2, it probably would’ve been a relatively small explosion, but it still would’ve done some damage to both the woman and even the sword itself.

The entire process took a little over an hour from start to finish, which was frankly astonishing. Not that it had taken her so little time, but because it took her so long; Larek was fairly certain he could’ve done it all in 5 minutes or less – and that was only because of the need to ensure it was precise while in the somewhat bumpy carriage. If he had peace and quiet, he thought he could get it all done in less than 2 minutes, if that.

After the woman was done, she practically collapsed backward in exhaustion, after a portion of her Pattern Cohesion had been used in the creation of the Fusion and the need for focusing for such a long period of time. He admired that she had been able to concentrate for that long, as he knew it could be tough; though he’d made a few Fusions that required even longer periods of time to create, it had all been where he was comfortable and didn’t have to worry about external stimuli messing up his focus.

“Thanks, Dreana. I appreciate it,” Maryanne said, as she carefully picked up the sword from the Mage’s lap and slid it back into the scabbard at her waist.

Larek was wondering if the woman would do any other Fusions, but she seemed wiped out from just that single creation. Disappointed, as he found the demonstration informative, he looked away to see if there was something else he could do, but in his own focus on the Fusion process, he failed to recognize that almost everyone else was just as interested in watching as he was.

Unfortunately, Rheina opened her mouth and Larek restrained an unconscious need to flinch at her words.

“Was that a powerful Fusion?” the Martial graduate asked in what he suspected was genuine curiosity. “I have to admit, I’ve only seen it done a few times, but that one seemed to take a lot longer than the ones I saw.”

Dreana, the Mage who had created the Fusion, had recovered enough to sit up and answer, her strength already seeming to come back. “It wasn’t too powerful at only +2, but the added difficulty of creating it within this bumpy carriage certainly added some extra time,” she admitted. “Plus, I’m sure the ones you saw created before were only +1, which is the weakest they can be, and they take much less time to complete.”

“Ah, thank you; that is fascinating,” Rheina replied. Larek was thankful that she didn’t even twitch an eye in his direction, but she had also gained the Mage’s attention – which wasn’t the smartest idea.

“Wait, I think I detect some Fusions on your own gear. What kinds do you have?” the woman asked, getting a little unsteadily to her feet.

“Dreana, you shouldn’t be standing up so soon after—”

“I’m fine, Wolfram,” the Mage insisted, cutting off the man with the warhammer, whom Larek was beginning to assume was the leader of their little group based on his interaction with the others.  It took her a few seconds to fully catch her balance, but she eventually picked her way over to where the leather-clad Rheina was sitting off to the side, Crester inconspicuously behind her staying out of the field of attention. “C’mon, let me see what you have—” she said as soon as she sat down, but cut her own self off this time as she got a clearer look at Rheina’s bracer. It was the one with the Agility Boost +7 on it, which was probably not the best thing for her to look at if they wanted to avoid calling attention to Larek.

“Where—?” she began to ask, before swallowing and starting again. “Where did you get this?”

“I… can’t say.”

He was happy to see that Rheina still didn’t let her vision even flicker toward him, though a glance at Crester found the armored graduate subtly straining against looking at Larek. He’s going to break if he’s pressed, he deduced from the young man’s actions. Rheina, on the other hand, had absolutely no problems whatsoever.

Dreana stared at the bracer for another few seconds before she briefly stared at the man with the warhammer and then the other Mage, who was wearing a deep-red robe and held his staff across his lap. After some sort of silent communication with them again, she turned back to Rheina and nodded. “Fair enough. I apologize for disturbing you.”

Without another word, Dreana got up and sat back over with her companions, who wouldn’t meet the gazes of anyone else in the hold and had stopped talking entirely. Larek glanced at his friends and he saw the same question reflected in their faces.

What just happened there?

Book 2 Chapter 17: https://www.patreon.com/posts/fusionist-book-2-82001476