Somewhere Over The Plumes (ZnT SI)

[7734]

"Lef'! Lef'! Lef' Righ' Lef'!"


You know those really good ideas you can get, where you agree to do something selfless and noble and all that shit?


"Comp'ny… HALT!"


Yeah. Don't get those good ideas at the bar six rounds in, especially when you're a student at the Alsenhavre School of Applied Thaumaturgy. After hearing my good buddy's draft number came up, he was begging and pleading for someone, anyone, to voulenteer into his place. To be fair, this wasn't a bad deal if you were down on your luck and needed three square meals a day for three to five years.


The fact I was actually quite comfortable sliding my way through Thaumaturgy School on decent-ish grades and my Marks on literally every zero-tier piece of magery in the book never really crossed my mind until I woke up on a parade field with a splitting hangover and a set of bars on my shoulder that marked me as an Armor Commander, responsible for commanding a Type 24 Mark Three "Linebreaker" tank.


As I had made sure to learn very quickly, an Armor Commander, especially an Ensign Armor Commander, was not all too different from the enlisted men in the tank he commanded. For starters, we were all trapped in that metallic monolith together, and it showed during maneuvers. Four gunners, two loaders, driver, radioman, two engineers, and I were the crew of one of these finicky titans, and it showed as we bickered and grumbled. Still, it was a warm sort of adoptive family as I learned the ins and outs of commanding twenty tons of Blackrock Iron and Steel. Between our four-inch howitzer, two autocannons, one-inch quick firing gun, and Mobile Shield, we represented a staggering amount of fire support and destruction for our full formation, the Eighth Division. No matter what the Dukes Feraxii developed, we would still be relevant with our unique ability to mount the truly massive Mobile Shield to protect our segment of the line against bombardment by the enemies' Grand Artillery batteries.


So now resigned and acclimated to my new life in the Army, the next shock in my life was rather unpleasant. After all, the last one was my own damn fault!


---


With the exposition aside, when you see a green flash of light coming from a Linebreaker you normally want to kiss the ground and fast. I'd seen what happened when our Mobile Shield started coming under dummy bombardment, and green flashes meant the bronze componens were under a lot of stress and we would have to drop the shield long enough to pop the kinematic disks out, swap the bearings and couplers, reinsert the disks, and drop the engine out long enough to restart the shield. The alternative was having the whole thing blow up on us and a sound chewing out by the quartermasters and mechanics because unlatching the half-inch armor plate over the ass end of a Linebreaker was an absolute bitch.


So, having become fairly used to my Linebreaker's ability to throw a stunning conniption fit, I disregarded the fact I had nearly sixty pounds of ruck on my back and dived for the ground.


Right where the green flashes were coming from.


I now suddenly understood why the old farts who taught Officer School for Barely Officers used the description of outside context problems they did: most armies hit an Outside Context Problem with an abrupt stop, much like a sentence meeting with a period.


---


Coming to was never a fun experience in my humble opinion. It didn't matter if you were three sheets to the wind last night, just got slammed in the noggin by your Armored because it ate a Practice Round during a practice bombardment, or your loaders were playing catch with a four-inch training shell and your head intersected with the parabola of twenty-four pound chunk of metal and inert filling.


So, when I woke up after my imporomptu naptime, the first thing I did was a basic environment check. Green grass, air-tasting air, pink-headed girl tapping her foot angrily, slight breeze, buncha students in robes…


Waitaminute. Green grass.


GREEN GRASS.


"Oh, fuck." I muttered. Grass wasn't supposed to be green! Grass was supposed to be black, or blue, or in a really high Ruina area maybe an alluring shade of violet. Green grass meant only one thing- I was outside the Hinterlands.


Now, quick geography lesson. There was the Kingdom of Blackrock. Awesome place, very free, constitutional monarchy, nice cities, blah blah blah. Then there were the Hinterlands, everything where Ruina held sway and not Vis, the two fundamental types of magic as derived from the Breaking of Materia. Technically Blackrock was a kingdom of the Hinterlands, but that's not important. Then there was everything outside the Hinterlands, categorized by being really fucking weird because Vis was the dominant force which lead to weird shit like blue skies, green grass, and people without the Marks.


The problem was, the Kingdom of Blackrock was kinda-sorta technically almost always at war with just about everyone in the not-Hinterlands because they were giant douchebags and I may have slept through history class. Religion probably had something to do with it, economics had to do with another one because we outbid them in some godforsaken swamp, and the third big place had a hateboner for Ruina and were bugfuck nuts.


So I'm smack dab in the middle of enemy territory, sans Armored, with most of my kit which isn't very much, my good uniform and a few crappy ones, my lucky set of apartment keys, and eighty rounds for my duty pistol that works better as a hammer for when the turret gear jams.


Well. This fucking sucks. Time to improvise.


---


Louise was having a very bad day. Not that there were too many good days outside academic and theory classes, but still. One failure, two failure, and on try number three?


*BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM*


Counting the echoes, Louise sighed. Eight echoes, which meant that once again she'd destroyed an untowardly huge chunk of yard. Hoo boy, this one was gonna take a few days to fill. Wonder if the Earth proffessors would press-gang the students into helping them move the dirt over the walls again?


"Ah, fach." She heard come of the smoke. Odd, none of her explosions ever made noise before.


As the smoke cleared, though, she got a good look at the results. For one, no crater. For two, there was… was that even a person? Louise had to think about it for a moment, before deciding that the massive thing on it's back was a bag. That was a man. Okay? It wasn't a crater at least. Admittedly, it would probably be a good idea to do something before the shock wore off her classmates.


---


Standing up, I dropped my ruck and gulped. Yeah, that was a girl walking towards me. That was a girl walking towards me with a wand. I knew about wands- they were a focus for Ruina, usually for the more delicate, twitchy jobs I handled by making the magical working bigger then slamming Reductors into so that it didn't blow up the whole doohickey it was making.


My proffessor of Magical Thaumaturgy hated my technique most of the time, but did state I probably had a good future career in tool building. Considering the fact I got a B on every project he handed out, I called it good.


"Louise, finir le travail!" a voice called out. Couldn't understand it for beans, but it did prompt the girl to move closer to me. She was obviously nervous, and so was I. Spurred on by the older gentleman's words, though, she came up to me and- holy shit she was short. I was about six-six, and this chick barely came up to my breastbone! Not even the fluffy pink hair got near my third button on my coat!


Looking me in the eye, the little one glared and tapped her foot again, before grabbing the lapel of my coat and pulling down. Still off bonus because, y'know, got knocked out, I came down fairly gracelessly.


Then she kissed me, and everything started hurting. My last coherent thoughts were a very conscience the fuck? before I passed out.

 

[7734]

Spoiler

I was dreaming, I thought, of those happy days back when I was in the local school doing my first thaumaturgy lessons.


"Now, class." Teacher Roswell said, smiling as she lit the little fire under the demonstration crucible. "What happens when we heat a properly made Cruicible to the boiling point of saltwater solution, and then add a drop of blood?"


Little dream me raised his hand, grinning. "You gets an... ah… exodynamic reaction to begin a thaumagugical imbalance to begin Materia separation?"


Holding my head in my hands, I sighed. Little Me still had a bad habit of dropping the second "t" in Thaumaturgy, and would right up until he learned of Somatic Equations and he blew his eyebrows off by accident. That little oops moment had convinced many a Blackrock student to clean their speech up right quick!


"Yes, Maximillian, you are correct, although it's technically a exothermic reaction."


And that aggravating last-name-first thing Roswell always did… yep. I was dreaming.


"Now, once we have the crucible prepared, we can begin the Materia separation by slowly dropping the…" Roswell said, before my dream faded away in a whitewash. Great. I liked this dream too- nothing beats the old local school prank of sprinkling blue salt in a cruicible to make someone panic like I did to that asshole Mendez!


---


"Gerwuah?" I muttered, looking up at a stone ceiling. "Don' tell me Fulcrum made the coffee again…"


"Eep!" came a squeak from next to me. Groaning, I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and rolled over to look at that pink-haired girl from earlier.


"Oh." I muttered again. "I don't suppose you speak Hinter, do you?"


After squeeking and backing up, she stood up and started yelling. I didn't really pay attention, though- I knew false bravado when I heard it. Sitting up, I started to unbutton my overcoat and shuffle out of it, revealing my pistol. Taking the gun belt off and setting it down nicely on my coat, I stood up and streached. Oh yeaaaah, that felt niiiice. I loved my coat to death, but it was more than just a coat- it was also loaded with ballistic plate inserts to protect me from shrapnel when some asshole with a Solomon's Light shot the tank and shit started spalling.


Which reminded me- I could probably take off the armored vest too. They didn't coat an Armored commander in all this crap for nothing- I'd caught a sheered bolt off when the turret got hit with a bad practice shell, and it went straight through my coat and cracked the plate in the armor vest. The main loader in another Armored hadn't been so lucky- he'd died when the shield generator slipped a bearing and sent it spitting across the compartment fast enough to go in under his armpit and out through his shoulder.


Oh, and the pinkette was staring at me and my poor ironsilk shirt. What? Never seen a man who's had to sweat a little? Aparently not, because that's a lot of yelling. If I was a cat, I'd have sighed and started cleaning my ears by now- as it was, I was perfectly willing to raise my arms over my head and stretch.


"You know, if you'd stop yelling at me I'd tell you my name." I griped. "Might help me understand what you're saying- 'chien' doesn't exactly sound polite.


That's about when she pulled out the wand, tried a few words, and KABOOM.


Now, I was an Armored commander, and I'd heard a lot of booms before. There were howitzer booms, Grand Artillery booms, shell booms, engine booms, oh shit you drove into a tread-catching trench booms, and even the terrifying fuel detonation boom that meant we'd all need to get out the decon gear and start spraying down a tank with bad wine and soap. This boom was about a two for noise, three for reverb, and one for strength as my hair ruffled.


"You know," I said, glibly. "Mine's louder."


"What?" the girl asked. "Did you say something?"


"I said," speaking as clearly as I could. "If you want to compare explosions, mine's louder."


"Do you know who you're speaking to, Familiar?" the girl cried out. "I am Louise Francois le Blanc de la Valliere!"


"And I am Anton Maximillian Reisch-aff-Mansred." I snorted quietly. "Piece of advice? The full name thing, it only works when people know what it means. I don't."


Looking at the pillar of Mad that had a vaguely pink hairdo, I briefly considered my options. The correct answer was not many.


"You are my Familiar!" she yelled, stamping her foot, wand in hand. I was suddenly regretting a lot of decisions- for example, taking off my gun belt. "You were sent to me by the Founder as my most perfect companion, a creature to compliment and serve my will!"


"Well, looks like he got the first part right, seeing as neither of us are fond of uninformed idiots." I grumbled, keeping one eye on that wand.


"Are you calling me an idiot!?" Louise shrieked. "You damn dog!"


At this point, my hand had a conversation with my face. "No, no I'm not. What I'm saying is that neither of us knows anything about the other, so I'm being an idiot about this whole thing. So please put the wand down so we can talk like normal people. Ok?"


"hmph." Lousie grumbled. "I don't know why I'd deign to have a conversation with a glorified dog."


"Owlbear." I corrected.


"What?" she asked, confused.


"Owlbear. Armored have nicknames, and my Armored Company was Owlbear Company. Dog Company were a bunch of kissass wimps who couldn't throw shells to save their lives."


"Grrrrrrrrrrrr." Was the response. "Well, seeing as you understand me now, you still haven't made me want to talk to you."


I nodded, amnicable. "Well, for starters unless you've got explosions loaded up in that wand to the gunnels, it'll be easier for us not to fight. Fighting is hard, after all."


The young woman blushed. "Quite."


"So, a better introduction. You would be Louise le Blanc dela Valiere. I am Anton Maximillian Reisch-aff-Mansred. Seeing as that's a lot of name for the both of us, I'll explain mine, then you explain yours. Okay?"


Looking at the shortstack, I kept up a warm smile until she relented. "Fine. Louise is my given name, where de la Valiere is my family name. le Blanc refers to my position in the family- the White child is always the last one the family plans to have. They're supposed to be the best. The cumulation of the family's work."


Nodding, I smiled. "Anton is my given name, for my grandfather's sake; while Maximillian is the name of the King of Blackrock he served and was honored by. Reisch was the clan name of my father, while Mansred was my mother's. As I've not been formally taken by either group, I have to use the dualized name unless I start a family name of my own."


Louise raised an eyebrow. "Your family served the King of where you're from?"


"Not exactly," I said. "It was in the Battle of Five Roses, where the left flank was drawn onto sapped ground and the right was pounded by Grand Artillery and we hadn't the shields to stop it. The center, where Grandfather's regiment was, had been locked in melee for two hours, with the then-King in the middle of it. The fighting was desperate, and eventually the King was unhorsed and presumed lost. In reality, he'd caught a musket ball to his plate, and he fell off right into the ground behind my grandfather's regiment. Grandpapa, having been already injured, found the King and got him to the medics to treat his broken ribs. In gratitude, he was given the Second Syllable and three acres of land inside Blackrock."


Louise blinked. "So you were named for the great patriarch of your family. Oh!"


"Yeah, well," I grumped. "Woulda been nice to get gramps a good tutor of thaumaturgy. That's where all the money's at these days."


"What?" Louise said.


"Thaumaturgy, the science and art of magic." I snorted. "You damn well should know what it is, considering how I can smell it all over this school."


"And… and you sound like you can do it."


Oh, fuck. That was a lot of angry coming back into her face. "Not a lot, not a lot!" I hastily clarified. "I can only empower things, build ruinic systems, and my Marks are all zeroeth-mark party tricks!"


"THAT'S TOO MUCH!" she roared. "How can I get a Familiar that can cast more magic than I can?" she wailed. "Damn, damn, damn you! Damn you to hell!"


Ohshit. Ohshit to the power of fuck. Okay, Anton, breath in. Wailing girl. Wailing girl. What can I do about this? Answer: Jack and shit because I'm the oldest of three brothers who firmly believed in conflict resolution via applied thaumatically-induced kinematics.


"Easy, easy!" I said. "I can teach you to do most of it!" I said, trying to pacify her. It looked like it worked, right up until she visiably and manually seemed to get her temper under control.


"How do I know a foreign magery will work with me?" she asked, haughty.


"Because it works on all the foreigners who come specifically to learn it?" I asked, droll.


"oh."


"Yeah." I snorted. "In the meantime, if I'm living here, I'm gonna want to get my laundry done now. I've only got… two? Two clean shirts left. Trust me, you do not want to smell stale grease mixed with sweat that's been left to ferment."


"Oh. Yes." Louise stated, grabbing a hamper. "Here."


Nodding, I took it, and dug around for the heavy package of less-than-clean clothes I had. They weren't very dirty except for my mechanic's vest, but then again the purpose here wasn't laundry.


It was scouting.

 

[7734]

Spoiler

A lot of people had preconceived notions about Armored commanders. We were loud, we were smelly, we reaked of oil, we played catch with live ammo (technically true) and we were subtle as a rutting boar. On one hand, this world didn't have that stereotype floating around to try and ream me with every time I spoke above a polite whisper at a mandatory formal event. On the other hand, though, I now needed to work at being sneaky.


There were a lot of oddities about sneaking most laymen just didn't get. It wasn't about not getting seen, it was about not getting noticed. Thus the laundry. I had always been amazed when I was younger at the ability of young boys with messenger bags and raked caps to get wherever they wanted by dint of having a message, and aped them when I needed to duck through town. After nearly getting strung up by more of the aggressive members, though, I left off- a disguise was only as good as its questionability. The minute someone questioned you, you were quite potentially dead meat.


So, time to just mosey through the halls then. One step at a time, get from point A to point B. Rather, I should say one stair at a time, as the building was rife with them. Stairs up, stairs down, stairs spinning round and round and round.


Good thing I had strong legs from having to pop up and down in the cupola of my Armored and getting down from the turret to the driving station when we needed to get rolling. When I finally got to the ground between dodging the local nobility and this one fukkin kid who seemed to be with a girl in every crosswise room in the damn tower I needed to get through.


I may have been slightly lost, but so? No way in hell I went through the same room eight times!


Anyway, once I hit the ground, I promptly got to work looking for a washhouse. Louise's stuff I had no clue how to wash, so that was going to Someone Else, while I got to work getting the worst of the grease and metal out of my work clothes.


"Oh!"


Turning around, I blinked a few times in surprise. Behind me, a fairly good-looking made stood, her deep black hair catching the moonlight. "Excuse me!" she said, exclaiming.


"Oh, hello." I replied affiably. "I was just looking for a place to drop off my Mistress' laundry."


"Mistress?" the maid asked, cocking her head to one side, before putting a hand up to her mouth in shock. "That- that means you were the strange commoner The Zero summoned today!"


I nodded. Never a bad idea to make friends with the help, and besides- girl. Very pretty girl. Very young man with bars on his shoulders who learned very early about the pleasures of running wild on leave and knowing basic cleanliness and health spells. The look on Chaucer's face when he came down with the clap and I didn't even though he had the young woman's pleasure first… dohohohohoho…


Well. Officer School, even third string Officer School taught you things. For example, how to beat Espatier Armored silly because they only used two-man light Armored and were Espatiers and obviously needed to learn that if it didn't go on their back it could get the fuck off their gear list.


"The Zero?" I did have to ask. "Some sort of title?"


"All mages have mage names. Colbert the Flame Snake is a good example, or Osmond the Old." The maid explained. "Louise is The Zero, because… well…"


"Explosions for days." I finished. The girl just nodded, and a small part of my self-control decided the rest of me could fight the good fight on the topic of seduction and why that was a bad idea less than twenty-four hours into life in a Brave New World.


"Yeah." The girl said. After that, she perked up. "Do you want me to help?"


I shrugged, and made sure my stuff was well separate of Louise's. "Sure. I'm washing my stuff separate, though. Grease stains."


"That… that looks more like pitch stains." The maid said.


"It's synthesized from swamp tar." I explained. "Heat it up to frack off the lighter materials, and this comes from the middle of the heavy stuff. Makes a passible lubricant, great sealant, and adds that certain horrible flavor to canned rations."


"Oh."


"Yeah, I had to work with it a lot." At this point, the hindbrain was going full throttle forward, damn the torpedoes. "So, ah, what's your name?"


Anton Maximillian, folks. Suave as a steel bristle-


"Siesta." The maid replied, forcing me to mentally reboot. "Yours?"


"Anton." I replied, trying to get my brain to kick over. The one downside to "payday dating" was that it really drained your list of options for conversation other than shitty pickup lines to express interest.


"Oh?" she said, doing an odd half-smile. "I didn't expect such a stranger to have a plain name like that."


I shrugged. "It works. I mean, it's not exactly the best name, but it's mine."


"It's just fine." Siesta said, that half-grin still planted on her face. "Let me take this all in, and it'll be ready in the morning. Okay?"


I grinned quietly, and sketched a lower salute. "Thank you, Siesta. And now, to try and find my way back to my Mistress. Somehow."


---


It was about halfway through the tower when I finally got to that damn room with a dandy and his perfered lady in it, snuggled up next to a fountain. Shaking my head, I just plodded through without speaking, just hoping I could get to bed soon.



"You!" the dandy called out, and I slowly spun on one heel.


"Yes?"


"You're that commoner that Louise summoned, correct?"


"Yes."


The laughter I heard was mildly annoying, but I ignored it. "She really summoned a commoner?" he said again. "Really! Really! A commoner! Brimir have mercy, she really is the Zero!"


At this my eye twitched slightly. "You know," I mentioned offhandedly, "there's something you're forgetting about commoners."


"What?" he asked.


"Where does the food come from?" I asked, smiling. "Your buildings, your clothes, your reagents? The common folk."


The smirk he wore sealed it. I remembered talking to Fulcrum when he was in his cups and started telling stories from back when he lived in Pommern before it became Hinterpommern due to Ruina floodage.


"You are so special because you have magic." I said, smiling thinly. "So what would happen if everyone had magic?"


At this, I walked away.


---


Unfortunatly for me, Louise's room had an east-facing window, which meant I was treated to a bright and early waking up waaaaay too soon.


"Sod off, Sol." I grumbled, rolling over in my straw mattress. From the bed, a slightly grumpy yawn came out. "Familiar, what time is it?"


"Too fucking early." I grumped. "What time's breakfast in this joint?"


"Seven to eight thirty." Lousie replied, yawning again. "Bring me my clothes."


I groaned, and got up. "So… I haven't lived with a girl before. What clothes are we talking about, exactly?"


"Oh, I'll just have to show you where… they're… stored…" Louise said, sticking her head out, and ogling at me.


"What?" I asked, grumbling. I knew I put my bag around here somewhere… ah!


"Familiar…" Louise asked, face turning red. "Why in Brimir's Name are you naked!?"


"Because I sleep that way." I responded, finally finding a pair of clean underwear- nope. Not clean, not clean!


"Why-why-" Louise stuttered for a minute, prompting me to turn and face her. "Yes?"


"PEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERVEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRT!" she yelled, coming at me with a riding crop in one hand. Oh, this was not going to be fun.

 

[7734]

Spoiler

Smiling, I rolled my shoulders and looked up at the sky.


"Y'know, even if the sky is blue here, it's pretty nice." I said to the rather large fire lizard-thing that seemed to think I was his best buddy. "I mean, it's peaceful, there's no screaming pinkette running around, the women are good-looking, and I even found an empty classroom yesterday while I was lost."


As a mole bumped into my leg, I sighed. This really was the good life. There was even a tree in exactly the right spot to make a lovely little patch of shade in the afternoons. Now, if only I could figure out why this dragon had decided to throw itself all over my legs…


"FAMILIAR!" I heard a certain soprano yell from across the yard.


"HOW 'BOUT NO!" I called back.


"DAMNIT GET OVER HERE YOU DOG I BROUGHT YOU SOME BREAKFAST!"


My ears perked up at this, and I grinned. "LEMME JUST MOVE A DRAGON!"


After calmly scooching the dragon off me via using the time-honored technique of the Indy Switch (so called because it was developed to handle Indisian weight-locks) via cramming the fire lizard in where my legs were, I started jogging over to where Louise was standing with Siesta and a servant whom I had to assume was responsible of basic familiar feeding.


"-so remember, plain gruel, no meat, no wine, and bread every other day." I heard Louise pronounce proudly. I chuckled, and leaned across the Familiar Pen's fence.


"Only if you give Little Miss Magus here some good succotash and collard greens." I stage-whispered at the man and Siesta. "She needs some good heavy food to learn about the whole growing thing."


That almost got a smile out of the help, but just put a titantic scowl on Louise's face.


"Anyway." I said, chuckling. "So I can come out and eat?"


"Yes." Louise said through gritted teeth. "You can."


Hopping over the fence, I chuckled and artfully grabbed the gruel on the plate and shoved the chunk of bread by in in my coat pocket. "Thank you kindly- been a long while since I've had food that didn't have grease in it."


The man chuckled, and smiled. I had the distinct feeling I'd be welcome in the kitchens later. Scarfing the poor food down, I tried to remember when, exactly, I last actually had anything that didn't taste like engine oil, gear grease, or taintsoap in it.


…


Mary, Mother of Jesus, that was longer than I wanted to think about. Eurg. Mama, forgive me for growing so slack in my eating- from now on, I was washing my hands a hell of a lot more!


"Hmph. Well, at least he likes food." Louise sniffed, turning up her nose. I just snorted.


"Don' you be gettin dissmisive of hearty fud, Missie." I grumbled past a spoonful of gruel. "Dis beat travel rats all hallow. Wan' some?"


As Louise recoiled slowly, I finished the bowl and sighed. "My compliments to the cook." Which earned a good solid chuckle from the man there.


"Ahem." My nominal Mistress said, huffing. Looking down at her, I had to be quietly impressed with the number of mannerisms she used to seem larger than she was. "Today, class is waived to learn from our Familiars."


I chuckled, and grinned. "So, then. Got anything you want to learn?"


Louise looked at me, and grabbed my collar. "That magic you said you could do- you said you could teach me. Prove it!"


I chuckled, and straightened up. To Louise's credit, she kept holding on even though I had lifted her off the ground.


"Well then- looks like we get to do some fun stuff. Let me get my bags."


---


Ten minutes later, I had three small leather cases in front of me, all securely latched. My respirator was next to me, with a purple-marked canister in it. Louise was tapping her foot, looking over the array of tools in front of me. Breathing in, I began.


"In my world, everything is made out of Materia, the basic building block for the world. We learned to split Materia down into two forces, Vis and Ruina. Vis is the connective force, which locks everything together. The Eternal Empire is categorized by it, the Vorsan Kingdom uses it to build their structures, and the Grand Dutchy Cambridge uses it to keep an eternal guard of their kings."


Pulling out two sticks and a very, very expensive pile of Vis, I carefully damped the sticks and squeezed them together. Setting them down, I waited a minute and asked Louise to pull them apart. She couldn't, of course- as far as the world was concerned, that was now one stick.


"Ruina, though, is the other half of the equation. Where Vis unifies, Ruina tears apart. It explodes, it flames, it mutates and sickens and destroys. For six hundred years, it was the principle waste product, piped into the Hinterlands to rot them to the bone."


Foucsing quietly and drawing up a bead of Taintfire in my left hand, I chuckled as Louise looked into the purple flames.


"What nobody knew was that it was also the causation of life. Humans can adapt to it, and when they do they can manipulate it through Marks on the skin, a spell writ in their flesh; or they can create tools to channel it and make effects with and for it."


Throwing the ball of Taintfire up, I watched it burn out as it exhausted it's Ruina in a trickle. Opening the first case, I pulled out a pair of basic control rods- devices inscripted with a single spell for repetitive tasks and beginers.


"Here, there's no great imbalance, so I need to be sparing with the Ruina. As the Ruina dissipates, so does the magic. Now," I said, holding up my respirator "you need to put this on.


---


Louise looked at the black face mask, white stripe down the front. It scared her a little, but she gulped and pulled her hair back. She had asked for a familiar, a servant and aid to all her endeavors of this world. If one who could grant her magic in the face of her natural resistance existed, then what would she be to refuse?


"Alright, easy there." Her Familiar said, making sure the seals were tight. "Now, I'm gonna open the valve, and you're gonna feel a tingle."


Louise nodded, eyes fierce. She'd seen him launch that sickly spark into the air- and more importantly, she also saw it make the mage-lights on the wall spasm. To hell with it- she'd make a deal with this devil if she had to! He was no elf, no demon, no monster- just a foreign mage.


As the valve opened, she repeated that to herself. Just a foreign mage. Just a foreign mage. Just a-


Oh god.



Oh god why!


Scrabbling at her mask, Louise gasped and huffed, lungs burning and eyes watering. It was like a serpent clutching her chest, a fire in her lungs and throat and nose and chest and why! How, the pain, the agony, the clawing feeling that she was getting destroyed!


"Hmm." Anton said, kneeling down to seal the tank connected to the devilish mask get it off!


"Definitly too high an initial dose. Eh, at least she'll get her first Mark." He muttered, pressing a rod into her hand, standing her up easily. "Steady now, little miss. Breath." He commanded, keeping her arm steady.


"Repeat after me: Lleh No Htrea!" he said, practically whispering in her ear.


"Lleh… No… Htrea!" Louise gasped, purple motes flowing out of her mouth as she spoke. On the last word, a bolt of malelvolent energy whipped out of the end of the rod, making a bare five feet before it fizzled into fog.


"Good job, Louise. Good job." Anton said, letting her hold on to the rod as he packed up. "Lunch might be soon, and a little food might help."


Louise kept sputtering, and he just looped an arm under hers to keep her up as he walked them to somewhere else. She had casted her first piece of Ruina- it was an exhausting affair, and it was time for her to sleep some and let the rest of the magic he had done work its way in.


---


This time, when the sun started peeking through the window, I was smarter than last week- I was actually wearing pants. Not nice pants, but y'know wearing too much to sleep in was a bad idea unless you were taking a nap in the Armored.


"Fuck off, Sun." I moaned, rolling over. "God, this is why I lived in Hinterlands. Nice, soft light. Not this yellow bullshit…"


"garbrglr…" Louise moaned, before sticking out a hand. "Clothes?"


"Eh." I replied, heading over to the little suite's bathroom. "Ina minute."


About halfway through my business, I heard an aborted scream. Finishing up, I stuck my head out the door and saw Louise pointing to her throat, next to the mirror.


"Oh!" I exclaimed, coming over to look. "You got your first Mark! Awesome!"


"AAAAAAHHHHHH" was the quite elegant remark.


"Oh, relax you big baby." I scoffed. "It'll flare down once you eat something."


"AAaaaahhhhh?"


"Pfft. It's a Mark- a way for your body to eliminate somatic and vocal spell components. Think of it as never having to do more than think the spell ever again."


"Oh." She said. "Wait- I can cast it at any time?"


"Almost any, yeah." I grinned. "They also hold Ruina for you to use. Now, get moving- this takes a lot out of you!" I said, smiling. The sooner she went to get breakfast, the sooner I could go get breakfast- and more importantly, the sooner I could get to talking with Siesta. I needed a workshop here, and more importantly, I needed more than one proto-Cabalier for the plan I was kicking around. Ruina had never really been all that well-suited to organized religion, and more importantly organized religions seemed to flourish in Otreterra areas like this one.


My memory might have been foggy, but I did remember that more than one "Holy Crusade" had been leveled against Blackrock over the years, and those were the worst of the wars. I was a person, not a nation, which meant instead I would probably be subject to auto-de-fe or somesuch bullshit. No, thank you, I had a grander plan in mind, and the keystone to it was five months of pay in the third case I had displayed.


I couldn't let all my secrets out of the bag yet, though. Not until I learned what sort of star I'd been lashed to in this crazy new world. Ah well- at least it beat training exercises and my eventual transition into being a tooling specialist. I always did have a taste for adventure; now I was in it up to my neck!

 

[7734]

Spoiler

After getting up and taking the first crack on the bathroom and getting dressed, I started making my way down to the kitchen. Oil-free gruel was nice and all, but I wanted to see what meat tasted like when it didn't have that faint aftertaste of eight months in a tin or enough salt to sterilize a wound.


Okay, I might have a low bar to clear in terms of good food. Hey, I was working on fixing that, though! Getting down the stairs and past the student dining hall, I sniffed my way out to the kitchen and staff dining room. Oh, the smell! Fresh bread, warm meat, and… fruit. Fresh fruit.


NOMNOMNOMNOMNOM!


Okay, fresh fruit sans an apple. Tilting it on its side, I finished eating the flesh of it and got to work on mowing through the core.


"Oh my," I heard Siesta say behind me. "And here I thought you were hungry yesterday!"


Turning around with a bare quarter of the apple left, I proffered some to her. "It's been a while since I had fresh fruit, okay?"


Siesta chuckled again, going into the Absolute Territory of the kitchen I dared not enter lest I disturb the Makers of Food. Moments later, she came out with two heavy bowls of porridge, some bread, and a pear. Setting one in front of me, I thanked her and got to eating. Breakfast continued in silence, right up until I leaned back.


"Thank you, Siesta." I said, sighing. "Means a lot to me to get good food."


"You're welcome!" she said, smiling. "Do you need anything else?"


I chuckled, and put my arms behind my head. "An abandoned classroom or shack nobody cares about so I can teach Louise how to not explode shit?"


"There's a shack about a quarter-mile west of the castle." Siesta said, chuckling. "It used to be used for, ah, recreational procreation, back when they were remodeling the servant's quarters."


I nodded. Someplace set aside, preferably out of sight and earshot. Sounded about perfect, save one issue.


"It's out of commission, I hope?" I asked, rubbing my stubbly chin. Definitely needed to shave later.


"For two years running." Siesta said, face dimpled. "The roof might have some loose shingles, but if you need to teach Miss de la Valiere any magic, nobody will notice."


I smiled. "Thank you."


---


Unfortunately for me, Familiars were mandated to stick to the Master like glue for the first couple of days after summoning. Thus, me sitting through two classes on basic elemental theory before lunch, and the practical class after. Teacher came up, blah blah blah, my element is best mage stronk, blah blah-


"Louise, would you like to do a demonstration?"


Cursing my luck, I looked at the teacher's desk. I looked at my spot. I checked where the students most likely to be injured by shrapnel were, heard them jeering, and immediately kicked them to the ass end of the First Aid list. Pulling on my goggles and buttoning up my coat, I dug around for my leather skullcap that served as emergency light shrapnel resistance. Duking behind the recently-vacated desk, I looked across the isle at a girl who was sitting up straight, blue hair calm-


BOOOOM!


-and completely unfazed by the explosion courtesy of a mage shield. Clever Girl. Pulling out my flask of Taintwine after taking off my coat, I chugged down a solid hit to get my reserves up, and waited. Biting remarks about parentage, dismissing title, Mage Name insult- here Louise gave as good as she got, credit where it's due- and finally…


"Hah! Everything she touches fails! She couldn't even summon a Familiar- instead, she just got a commoner!"

Spoiler

Showtime.


"HOW DO YOU DARE!" I roared, flaring my Marks theatrically. Under my thin shirt, the purple tattoo-like art started to dance and flicker, each spell written out like a history of my casting. "HOW DARE YOU MOCK ME, LITTLE MAN?"


"Oh, pipe down and shut up!" the student replied, his brown hair quiviling. "You're just a Familiar!"


"I CAME OF MY OWN WILL TO THIS WORLD!" I cried, pulling forth two tight lances of Taintfire in my hands. "I CAME WHEN SHE CALLED! LEFT THE DOMINION, I DID TO BEND KNEE TO ANOTHER ONE WORTHY! FEEL ME WITH YOUR FEATHERS OF MAGIC, SEE THE TRUTH OF THIS!"


All bullshit, of course. Keeping up the roar was tricky enough, but the Taintfire was a drain on my reserves that was dangerously high. If I had been in the Hinterlands, then it would have been dead easy- hell, in some places it would bring my Ruina levels up. But here? It was like trying to fill a tub with a cup that had holes drilled in it.


The student, angry, pulled out his wand. The next thing I knew, a fireball was flying towards me. Okay, Rules of Engamgent set. As it fizzled away in the cloud of Ruina around me, the magic corralling reality into its whims just fizzed away, a wash of salts splashing into the ground around me. In return, I chucked both palms of Taintfire at him. Neither made it to their target, sputtering out three-quarters of the way, but the atmospheric Ruina was enough to start turning his stomach. Seeing the gorge rise in his throat, I began to laugh.


"Familiar!" Louise howled. "Stop this this instant!"


Turning, I looked her in the eye. On one hand, I had a message to drive home with a nine-inch nail. On the other, my reserves were starting to hit overextension really fast, and burning out in the middle of a fight was not in my best interests.


"Are you sure?" I asked, letting the yell out of my voice and trying for seducing evil. "It would be so easy to take your fill now. Revenge does make the heart grow fonder…"


"I mean it!" she yelled, grabbing my lapel again. "Heel!"


I nodded, and faded my marks before almost stumbling. Great Mother of Sky, I forgot what Ruina drain was like, and as my eyes swam I locked on to the head of pink hair that was leading me into the Familiar enclousure. After a half-assed pan-n-scan, I flopped to the ground and started fishing around for my flask.


"God…" I muttered, nursing a few more sips out of the flask. "Remind me never to- OOF!"


That was a very small foot hitting the side plate of my coat very fast, and subsequently Louise jumping up and down holding her foot. "Ow! Ow! Ow!"


After draining the flask, I looked at her. "Upset?"


"You made a mockery out of me!" she yelled. "Grandstanding and shouting and fucking magic! They'll never respect me now!"


I laughed for a second, and smiled. "No, they'll fear you. Something foreign, something devastating, that willing bent itself to your will? You'll be the talk of the castle!"


"That's not a good thing!" she exclaimed. Just then, I felt a presence unlike any other. It was noble, pure, good- and absolutely caked with condescending.


"You, there!" a familiar blonde fop called out. "You insolent devil of a familiar!"


Feeling about my legs, I grumbled. I wouldn't have fun with stairs for a while, but other than that I was in good enough condition. "What?" I yelled back.


"I challenge you, you rat! You'll not terrify the dames nor the weak of our class!"


Really? Great Sky Mother, Great Earth Father, Daughter of Sea and Daughter of Cloud, fucking really?


"Name the terms!" I yelled back.


"In two hours, I will meet you on the field of battle!" he called. "This field is where I will teach you your place!"


"You're on, fuckstick!" I yelled, before breaking out into a cough. "In two hours I'll whip your ass!"


"Then we'll next meet then!" he called, departing. Coughing again, I looked at Louise and grinned.


"C'mon, then. We've got to get to your room- I have a reputation to uphold."


"Whose?" Louise asked, frowning. "Yours?"


"No." I said, feeling my week steps. Yeah, those stairs were going to be a bitch. "Yours. What does it say about a mage with a dragon familiar?"


"That they're great and powerful, or will be." Louise answered.


"Now, what does it say when a mage gets killed by a dragon?"


"That they're underprepared and over their head."


"Good." I hissed, making for Louise's room. "Now, add the Transitive property."


"What?"


"Take out the middleman. Mage one tames Dragon which eats Mage two."


"Then Mage One can beat Mage Two."


I smiled, wincing as I collapsed into the chair in Louise's room. God, my legs hurt. Reaching in for a bottle of Taintwine, I sighed as I started drinking. Ruina neutralized most alcohols most of the way in absorption and digestion, which meant it was amazingly hard to get drunk off of taitnwine. Pulling open Box #2, I grinned at the contents. "Very good, Louise. Now imagine me as a dragon."


It was a moment later before she went "oh." Finally, she spoke up. "But, what do you get?"


I chuckled, darkly, laying out the tools in the leather case. "Power, wealth, and knowing that if I ever see a portal home I have a Locating Device in my backpack. Chuck half of it through, and give the Cadresmen a month to figure out how to rig an airship for extraplaner travel I win a fuckload of money and a barony back home and a duchy in whatever world I end up in."


"oh."


I grinned. "Yeah, we've been trying to figure out extraplaner travel for a long time now. Besides, what's better than an adventure that has the potential to bring a little bit of home through to you?"


I laughed, and got back to working. "Not much, I'll say."

 

[7734]

Shaking some life out of my legs, I looked over my arsenal for this duel. First, my backup weapon- a single-shot Type 9 pistol, and a cartridge of twenty rounds on my gun belt. I didn't want to kill the poor fool, but between me and him the answer for who lived would always be me. Not many mages knew how to deflect regular bullets, let alone the older, "dirty" rounds fired out of a Type 9. Next up came my sword-bayonet, a twelve-inch hunk of metal that made an excellent hammer and improvised prybar. I had an actual prybar too, but the bayonet was for when I needed to be armed with something to scare off gangsters and chulos in the burgs around base camp. Next to it was a widget I'd built on a lark, a Ruina Crystal Construtor in the shape of a sheath. If I hadn't fucked up the math back in the day, when I charged and activated it my sword-bayonet would get changed over to a full sword of fairly fragile but wickedly sharp Ruina Crystals. I wasn't much of a swordfighter, but going from twelve inches to thirty two inches of blade couldn't hurt if things got physical.


Next to me was my armor; both my heavyweight vest and the coat. The vest itself was just a series of long plates in sleeves, with a heavy gambeson backing; he coat was the same. I had two sets of spare plates for the coat, and one set for the vest in case of one of them broke during the fight. My helmet with the full face mask sat on the coat, respirator attached. I did not want to sling around any major voodoo in this schoolyard brawl, but the option needed to be there in case I had to. Ideally, I'd just need my blade, but, y'know, preparedness, backup plans, all that scat.


Alright, time to get suited up.


---


Louise was not happy as she looked at her familiar. One step after another, he layered on the armor he came in, looking less and less like a man and more like some beast of a soldier, draped in leather and cords.


"Familiar!" she barked, stamping her foot. He was just about to lock on that abominable helmet, the black and gray paint on it blurring the outline of it.


"Yes?"


"I do not approve!" she said, before smacking his arm with an open hand. "But! Guiche might not be mean, but he is an ass! If you're going to fight, then win!"


Anton laughed, a rich bass sound. "Good plan, little one! Good plan!"


As he slotted home the helmet and his respirator, Louise shivered a little. His face was almost entirely obscured, and she could barely see his gray-flecked blue eyes. Then the mask came down, chainmail covering the respirator and his gorget too.


"Time to stand and deliver…" he murmured, clearly legible through the mask. "This might get ugly, and if I start throwing Ruina around, it might flare your Mark. Okay?"


Louise nodded, fluffing up the collar of her cloak. "Okay. Now, win!"


"Quite!" Anton laughed, before fiddling with his respirator. A purple fog filled his mask, and his eyes disappeared in a violet glow. "Quite!"


---


For all my boasting, I was nervous. The Old Guard nobility of Blackrock were tough as nails via the simple process of natural selection; anyone who wasn't a complete badass got killed in the rocky highlands where most of the Core Counties sat, and the formation of a strong duchy meant knowing how to deal with the lowlands and the riverbed people. Of course, my odds of running into a scion of such a distinguished family were low- there just weren't that many of them to go around.


Next most likely weight class for my opponent was the Nobilis Novo, or New Nobility. People who bought a Title of Colonization, they went out into the Hinterlands and set up shop, creating a castle town and slowly chunking out a settlement in the middle of nowhere fit this title. Again, the Law of Conservation of Badass applied, and if a settlement could make three generations born and recorded, then they were officially ensconced into the Noble Register of Blackrock. Considering the risks of monsters, raiders, war, plague, famine, Taintstorm, other monsters, other members of the Noblis Novo, war, bandits... well, there's a reason that after three generations of dragging one of those places out of the status of "hellhole" they could appeal to raise a full Regiment of house troops from the militia.

If I was ungodly lucky, and I doubted it would happen, Guiche de Grammont would be a Purser's Son, or the low merchant nobility. Generally the result of someone with money merging houses with someone with land, the Purser's Sons were normally milksops with only a head for numbers and markets. At best, he'd be a mediocre magician if that was his heritage, or an indifferent swordsmen. I didn't expect to get that lucky, though- he challenged me, something that usually happened once for a Purser's Son.


Now, as I looked him over and took his measure, I frowned under my respirator. Time to get this party started.


"de Grammont!" I called, looking the boy over. To his credit, he already had a light sword on his waist, along with a plain, serviceable wand. He already had the rose-thing drawn, though. "I'll take your opinion on weapons before I choose!"


The boy laughed, and my opinion of him went up provisionally. Either he was very good, or about to get very beat.


"My Valkaries will carry spears, of course!" he said, chuckling. "Unfortunatly, there are rules against students dueling, but not constructs!"


I snorted. "Fine. Yield at first blood, then."


At that, he started building his golemns and I drew my bayonet. Flipping it against my forearm, I breathed in and out before I drew the Constructor Scabbard and stuck the overlong knife in. Pulling in Ruina from my respirator, I pulsed it down to my left hand, and felt the crystal lattice grow and form. When it finished, I turned side-on and breathed in. Okay, three Valkaries. Come at me, bro.


Moving in one by one, I smirked quietly as I saw the traditional follow-the-leader group attack scheme. It was a pretty good trick against new fighters, but I wasn't a new fighter. Breathe in, breath out, and wait for a swing- there!


Ducking low, I rolled under a horizontal swipe by the lead Valkarie, and popped up with a high slash to its face. My sword sunk through the bronze fairly well, and I withdrew it after doing a decent amount of damage. Pulsing my Ruina into my free hand, I slapped its chest and imbued a pulse of Taintfire to it.


As I knew all too well from other experiments conducted at home, Ruina and magic didn't play well. Magic enforced particular order on things, Ruina told it to take a hike. It wouldn't destroy the golem, but it would send the control mechanism- aha!


"Ahh!" de Grammont yelled, holding his temple. "What was that?!"


"Feedback." I growled, flicking my sword dramatically as I parried the next Valakrie's thrust into the ground and closed to grab its wrist. The burning mark it made got Guiche to gasp as he saw and felt it, and I had to resist the urge to grin. "You know, sometimes you play with the dolls, sometimes the dolls play with you."


"GRAH!" he replied, waving his wand four times to produce a second wave. My response was simple- yank the current Valkarie's spear out of the way, stab it, and-


-oh shit.


Hissing, I winced as my sword broke on the withdrawl, and the Constructor Scabbard with it. Frantically kicking the pieces aside to fix later, I growled and drew my pistol. Shit had got real. Cocking the gun, I lined up a shot on the rightmost creature, and pulled the trigger.


---


Hearing her Familiar's strange pistol boom, Louise had to clap her hands over her ears as she watched in horror. Her familiar was putting up a hell of a fight, taking out three of Guiche's Valkaries, but his blade had been broken in a stab.


Still, as the foul smoke cleared, she saw the remains of the Valkarie he had shot and had to hiss. It was a ruin, smoking faintly and missing most of its right shoulder. White dust coated the blast zone, some foreign magery of his transmuting Guiche's golems after being shot.


"You know," Anton began, ejecting his pistol's spent brass "you're pretty good at this."


"That's saying something, coming from some fancy outlander battle-mage." Guiche replied, shaking his head. "Why'd they make you learn a Mage Sword though?"


"Never hurts to have a backup plan. 'Sides, never said I learned magework to fight. You never know when you need a razor-sharp edge at the drop of a hat, eh?"


"Touche" Guiche said, chuckling. "But we're not done yet.


BAM!


As the smoke finished rolling away from Anton's pistol a second time, he smiled. "No, I believe we are aren't!"


----


The old conversation to sneak in a reload trick was as old as time and cornier than scorching filthy words into someone else's paint, but as another golem went down I decided that if it was new here I was going to abuse the hell out of it. Running in with knife and flame up, I did a baseball slide under one Valkarie to tag it and get closer to de Grammont. Trying to handle the many waves of minions wouldn't work- this guy was too good at drawing them up like ninepins. Instead, I had to gimp the squishy and knock out the controller.


As a plan of action in my head, it was awesome. As I got slammed in the stomach by Valkarie Number Two's spear, I realized that it may have some parts to be desired. Humphing as I lost all my air, I frantically rolled right to get out of the way of the next swipe. Wincing, I felt the broken plates through my vest, and my vest would have buckled if it wasn't solid-cast. That fucking golem died now.


Throwing out a lance of Taintfire, I caught it low in the gut, toppling it towards me. A quick empowerment to my bayonet made sure when it fell forward and I stabbed it in the back of the neck, it stayed down. At that point, I got to my feet and glared at de Grammont.


"Bravo, good hit, etc." I spat, racking a short cough. "Pity I wear armor built to handle worse."


At this point, I started running and he drew his rapier. I'll give him credit for knowing he didn't have a chance to pull up more minions; but his stance was awful. One bat of my heavily-gloved hand got his rapier out of the way, and one good bayonet slice caught him lightly across the torso.


To his credit, de Grammont didn't fall down, although he did cry out.



"First blood." I said, sheathing my bayonet and holding out a hand. "Do you yield?"


de Grammont hissed through clenched teeth, and nodded. "I yield. You're good."


I laughed, and popped my mask off and into its pocket, followed by my respirator hanging on its straps and my helmet to a similar fate. "Average, at best. Anton Maximilian."


"Guiche de Grammont." He replied, shaking my hand. "I can presume we're on a first-name basis now?"


"As long as you believe me when I say I'm here because Louise summoned me."


Guiche laughed, and nodded. "Considering you fight like a dragon, I'll believe that! Now, let's get to the medical ward, before Monmon finds out we were fighting-"


At this, I felt the air chill palpably. As me and Guiche looked over our shoulders, we both saw a blonde girl standing next to Louise.


"Guiche, do tell me, is this 'Monmon' blonde, romantically interested in you, and very angry right now?"


"I do believe so, Anton."


"Well, I'm just gonna try and- BLURG!"


Hacking and spitting as the blonde doused us both with water, I looked at her again, as she advanced while yelling up a storm. Oh, this was not going to be fun…