The Fusionist Book 2 -- Chapter 9

Chapter 9

“Those two are going to gather all the other students, which should leave you four free to talk for a moment.”

Gharina’s tone was such that Larek doubted they’d be able to refuse, so they just followed the woman as she slowly walked toward the northern wall of the town.

“Well, sure, but aren’t you still quite busy from yesterday?” Nedira asked, walking next to the woman. Larek along with Verne and Norde were walking behind the two Tyren, the race of people Nedira had mentioned the night before who hailed from the land of Tyrendel.

“Yes, but the work will get done whether I’m overseeing it or not. Thanks to some of the students with you, we’ve made enormous progress with the cleanup, and even now you can see the results of it,” the older woman answered, waving toward the walls – or more specifically, the plume of greyish smoke billowing into the air. Larek figured that they had a Pyromancer or two that was part of the SIC defending the town, so they were able to light the bodies of so many Bog Goblins in a huge pyre. The thought of so many roasting bodies made him nauseous for a moment, but he pushed it down.

At least I can’t smell it from here.

“Fair enough. What did you want to talk about?”

Larek thought that the fact that neither of them were speaking in their different language meant that they wanted the others to understand what they were talking about.

“Well, for one, I want to talk about that staff of yours.”

Larek missed a step and nearly tripped right into Nedira in front of him, but he managed to catch himself before he did so. Gharina looked back at him with amusement before turning back to Nedira, who continued to be the spokesperson for the group.

“Oh? What do you mean?”

“Don’t play with me, girl,” the leader of the local SIC defenders said with a sterner tone than she had been using thus far. “I may not be a Fusionist, but even I can tell that the Fusions on your staff aren’t something a fourth or even a fifth-year would be able to create. What I want to know is who you took that from, and whether I need to be on the lookout for pursuers from Peratin looking for you.”

Not what I was expecting.

With only the slightest hesitation, Nedira shook her head as she answered. “No, I didn’t take it from anyone. No one is going to come looking for this staff—”

“Don’t lie to me,” Gharina said, interrupting the fourth-year Mage student. “While I don’t condone the theft, I’m sure it has been useful for your trip thus far. In fact, it’s probably more useful in your hands than it is in whomever it belonged to, but that doesn’t mean they won’t come looking for it.” The older woman stopped walking as she turned to Nedira, which meant that everyone else stopped, as well. “Let me see it. If I can see the mark left behind by the particular Fusionist who created it, I might be able to determine who could’ve afforded such work.”

“What’s a mark?” Larek unthinkingly asked, having never heard of it before, and everyone’s attention turned to him, which made him shrink back a little when Gharina’s heavy gaze settled on his face.

“Well, young Larek,” she began, which made him wonder how she knew his name, “a mark is left on every Fusion that a graduated Fusionist creates once they leave the Academy. It acts as a sort of signature that is impossible to fake. It serves as both a means to prove that a powerful Fusion came from a certain Fusionist and to pinpoint who made it if the Fusion is, let’s say, subpar. There have been instances in the past where a Fusion was poorly made, either through ignorance or from the Fusionist not performing the process correctly due to fatigue or malice; accidents happen, of course, but deliberate malfeasance is punished severely. As a result, even for those that don’t leave a mark, most of the time the particular Pattern Cohesion can be traced to whoever created it.

“Unfortunately, only another Fusionist can do that kind of investigation, but I have at least seen the marks for the majority of the most famous Fusionists in the Kingdom.” She pointed toward Nedira’s staff again, turning away from Larek. “I can feel the strength of the Fusions on your staff from this distance, and only those with deep pockets could commission something like that.”

“Hold on, do members of the SIC get paid?” Larek asked, thoroughly confused at this point.

“Of course they do!” Gharina responded, shock in her tone. “Where did you get this one, anyway?” she asked, looking back at Nedira.

“But—”  He stopped himself from saying any more, not wanting to display the entire depths of his ignorance. From everything he had been told, at least as far as he understood, he was being forced into joining the SIC against his wishes and he would then have to spend who knew how long defending towns and cities against the monsters that emerged from Scissions. Larek thought that it was something that people of the Kingdom did out of a sense of duty, not for material gain – but it appeared as though he was wrong.

“As you’re obviously ignorant of such things,” she said to Larek, not giving the fourth-year Mage student a chance to respond, “all members of the SIC are paid for their work, though the starting payments are only 5 silver a month for new graduates. Half of this is typically sent back to their families, as the SIC is essentially taking their services away from the family, though the pay increases the higher Level they are.

“All payments are handled by the Noble in charge, which means that those with deeper pockets tend to have higher-Level SIC members as part of their defensive force – because they can afford to pay them more. There’s been countless instances of one Noble sniping a powerful and high-Level Mage or Martial member from a neighboring barony or earldom by offering to pay them more – which wreaks havoc on the defensive structure, I can tell you.”

This was all new information to Larek, but the fact that some of his earnings in the future would go back to his family was a welcome tidbit of knowledge. They might even learn that I’m alive when they receive the first payment.

That all made sense, now that it was all laid out for him, but—

“I can see the question in your eyes, so let me just answer it,” Gharina abruptly continued, staring at Larek’s face. “Fusionists are a little different, because some are typically hired straight to a Noble’s service to assist with various Fusions that are important to them. They are usually paid a little bit more than an equivalent Mage or Martial graduate, but they are also required to be making Fusions during most of their waking hours, and I’ve heard it is a dreadful life for those stuck in it. These types of Fusionists are normally the ones that became a Fusionist because they have no heart for defending against monsters or are just very poor Mages in the first place.

“Others with a little more talent are hired to support the defensive operations of a town or city, providing Fusions for the defenders there, but are also able to be called to the walls in cases of emergency.

“But the ones with greater expertise with Fusions are sent to Fusionist headquarters in Sidleton, where they take commissions from Nobles, high-Level SIC members, and even some merchants depending on the workload. They are required to produce a certain quota for the Kingdom every month to aid in the defense of the land, but once that is taken care of, they have the opportunity to create custom or powerful Fusions for whoever can pay for it. Some of them are quite wealthy, or so I’ve heard, though they spend so much time creating Fusions that they don’t really have a chance to spend it.

“Before you go thinking that this might be a way to make a lot of money, 95% of Fusionists that graduate from an Academy end up either doing repetitive work for a Noble or are assigned to a town or city to help with the defense. As a result, out of a nearly 2,000 new graduates throughout all of the Mage Academies every year, perhaps 20 become Fusionists, and only 1 might have what it takes to join the ranks of the elite Fusionists. That’s on a good year, too, as there are rarely more than 50 in the latter category at one time in the entire Kingdom, and I’m fairly certain that I’ve seen most of their marks.

“So, as I said, girl,” Gharina turned back to Nedira, “hand me your staff so I can see who made it.” Holding out her hand, she beckoned for the wooden pole that the fourth-year Mage student was holding. With only a slight hesitation, Nedira handed it to her—

—only for Gharina to gasp and stumble to the side as soon as she grasped it. She quickly recovered and stared at the staff in her hands. “Good Goddess, girl, what is this? Magnitude 5? I don’t think I’ve ever held something like this before. And all three stats?”

She was talking to self as she stared at the Fusions, and Larek suddenly realized why she was acting the way she was. While he didn’t know how high of a Level she was, if she was in charge of the defense of the town, she must’ve been reasonably high; as a result, she likely had much larger Intellect, Acuity, and even Pneuma stats than a student like Nedira, so suddenly having a 50% increase in them was probably a little overwhelming. Good thing she didn’t try holding one of my armlets with the 90% increase. Hmm… I wonder if such a thing would be harmful to someone at a high Level. He would have to investigate that later, because the older woman was still talking to herself.

“I don’t see any marks on this, but the structure of the Fusion is unbelievable. I’ve never seen anything so solid before, meaning that these Fusions will last longer than usual. Not sure how long they’ll stick around, but I’d say at least six months… how in the world did the Fusionist do this? Is this something new that’s been discovered and I just haven’t heard about it yet? And then what are these ones on the end? This one looks like… a light? A powerful one, at least.  This other one, though, I have no idea.” She suddenly looked up at Nedira, her head whipping up to stare at the student. “What is this one?”

Thankfully, Gharina seemed wary enough of unknown Fusions not to try and activate it, which was something Larek had heard before; if one didn’t know what a particular activatable Fusion would do on something, it was always better to ask about it in case it was something that could be dangerous just by holding the object.

“Uh, that’s a Healing Surge Fusion; it’s why we didn’t need any healing help from your people after the attack on our camp,” Nedira said, keeping her eyes looking straight back at the older woman without glancing at Larek, for which he was grateful. He’d rather her take care of the explanation, as he didn’t want to call attention to himself at this point since she was handling it much better than he would’ve in her place. “Unfortunately, it can have detrimental effects if used for too long, and life-threatening injuries can send a Mage into a temporary coma after the healing. Works perfectly for small wounds or for Martials, as it taps into something called, uh, Body Regeneration? At least, that’s what I was told.”

As soon as Nedira was done explaining, Gharina suddenly whipped out a knife from her belt and used it to slice into the back of her hand, leaving a line that immediately started bleeding. Even as Nedira gasped in surprise, the older woman activated the healing Fusion, and everyone watched the wound close up and disappear over the next few seconds until only the blood that was already outside her body was left.

“Amazing. They’ve got some new Fusions I need to learn about now, and see if any of our Mages can handle it. I’m not so good at them myself, but I’m sure at least one of our number can handle it. It’s only a 2 by 2 grid, so it can’t be too complicated.” Thankfully, she had deactivated the Fusion shortly after it her wound closed up, so she wouldn’t suffer any major side effects.

Still holding the staff, she looked up from the drying blood on the back of her hand and stared straight at Nedira. “Now, like I was asking before…

“Where did you get this staff? And don’t lie and say it’s yours, because I have severe doubts you could create something like this.”

Nedira appeared as if she was going to protest yet again, but Larek was beginning to see that the older woman wasn’t going to take that for an answer. At best, she would simply call Nedira a liar and confiscate the staff and possibly not allow them to leave on the Network carriages; at worst, she might actually contact Crystalview Academy and the Dean there to try and unravel where the staff came from, and especially the Healing Surge Fusion, which would be very bad for them all if Professor Wilburt found out some of the coma-inducing Fusions had made it away from the Academy. At that point, it would only be a matter of time before the Fusions were traced back to Larek.

Taking a risk, Larek spoke up.

“It was me. I made them.”

Book 2 Chapter 10: https://www.patreon.com/posts/fusionist-book-2-81662308