Fanwork## 1893 words
What annoyed me the most when writing this was using "they" with the genderless Maison. Come on, English! Why don't you have a proper gender-neutral way of saying "he" or "she"?!
EDIT: Nevermind, it looks like "they" is a proper way to go in this case! Maybe I should've checked on that before starting to rant about it...
*****
Awakened Mind
Sesus Ulyssian was, as usual, trying to grasp more power into his hands. Though the reason for it this time around was a bit urgent, as it wasn't something he could just cut to ribbons with his sword.
The situation with Void Scar and Sesus Maison was a problematic one, which unfortunately required his personal attention. They currently were sleeping in their new quarters, located near to his office where he was currently sorting out piled up paperwork. There, they fell under the net of his supernatural hearing, but it was only a temporary measure. One word from either of them could bring tumbling down all that he and Zao had built so far. And while it might have made sense to just accept the risk otherwise, he saw in this an opportunity to focus his efforts to attaining something that would help him in other problems, in addition of this one in particular.
Sorcery.
The way to true power, that even the mortals could walk on, if they had the talent and the will. But Solars had been the undisputed masters of it in the First Age, though he had personally never broken through the final boundary that only the Lawgivers could cross. Brigid had always teased him about that, wondering if the title "Peerless Beyond Sorcery" that had been given to him by the other Sorcerers in the very early Solar Delibrate so that they wouldn't accidentally rouse the wrath of Odyssial by being better than him at something that didn't include social activity.
Pitiful unnecessary sniveling. He had merely been optimizing his efforts to other areas (as far as he could remember and extrapolate). If he put his mind on the matter, he could soon reach even past his old self's level of mastery. Which could actually be quite useful, as the number of people who could correctly identify his past life was looking to be quite higher than he first expected (with seemingly the exception of Anys Syn, thankfully). Being powerful in a method he wasn't known in his legends could give him the additional edge he might need in some scenarios.
Now, with his next action decided, how would he reach his goal? He could always use Ambition to awaken his mind, like he had used his mind to awaken it. But it would tie up even more of his power to his blade, as he would be dimished also in Sorcery if he wanted to lend the blade away to someone else. Seeking Initiation from a demon, a god or any other being was out of the question. He wouldn't let his approach to power to be twisted by the agenda's of others. Creating a new artifact that could work as the wellspring of his power might work, but he currently didn't feel quite confident enough in his skill to make a one. Also, unlike Ambition, such lesser artifacts were substantially more vulnerable to being stolen or destroyed.
But one method seemed somewhat to superior to him in his current situation. Sorcery was mostly just about finding the hidden levers of the world, or creating those levers and seeing the cracks in reality where they could be put to use to twist the world to your liking. The different methods that different Sorcerers used were just ways that allowed your mind and essence to interact with fundamental laws of the Creation through the manipulation of external essence. Which meant he could just use pure reason to support his observations on empirical data to find those mental levers which allowed the willwork to be done.
And his mind was more than prepared and familiar with this kind of approach already. Hadn't he done the same when he had roused Ambition from its slumber? But this time around, he had to do it for his own mind.
Hmm. Maybe he should focus his efforts to first mastering a different spell than was currently required. The spells that Sorcerers learned first from that particular Circle had profound impact on them afterall.
With that, he started. The first concept was essence manipulation outside ones own soul. It was a delicate art, which did not come naturally even to Exalts. It was something alien, something that the Primordials had not intended their toys to possess, and neither did the gods and Autochon make easier for anyone outside certain Castes of Exalts to optimize their performance in their given roles.
But even this would yield to the calculations of a Solar Exalt. Ulyssian could feel his mind expanding, intuitive geometrical understanding reaching to more than three dimensions to take into account the dizzying complexity needed for shaping reality to one's own will. Countless facts about elemental balance, base essence flows inside the bodies of different beings, dragonlines hidden deep underground, interactions between spiritual bodies and much more spread out before him like a puzzle with its pieces shuffeled, more than half of them missing and observed through a broken kaleidoscope. It was effectively impossible even to him to solve completely.
Luckily, he only needed to approximate close enough on a small part for now. The basest of base. And so, after hours of meditation, the necessary information suddenly clicked clearly in the place. He tied the necessary calculations to the mental state of a meditative trance and moved on to the next part.
Communication. It was the exact opposite concept of what he was going to impose on Maison and Scar, but the mirror of that spell could be later used to help derive the other. Infallible Messenger was a spell that saw much use in the Realm, even more than demon-summoning. Its basic idea was easy enough. A tiny spirit bought to life only to do one task: "Carry my words and my voice to the recipient I annoint." Shape of a six-winged little sprite whose exact shape was hidden under its white glow.
Inside that simplistic surface lay a mechanism that while still relatively "simple" given the subject, was something that was almost alive. Not an ounce of anything that could even dream about its own free will, but the potential to do so with only a little bit of added complexity. The ability to record the echoes a voice made to the essence in the air and then reverse the process. The way to track an individual in the Loom of Fate only based on his or her name. Or alternatively just by knowing the face of that individual. Leaving the spirit as invisible to others while still letting it resonate with the recipient, thus letting it to be seen and more importantly heard. And a thousand other miniscule but necessary details.
But he could do even more. He had heard about Sorcerers being able to extend their senses, even when strengthened by essence through these constructs. That could prove extremely useful by both allowing two-way communciations with the recipient and also making spying against non-warded enemies suddenly much more feasible.
More hours were spent on this, perfecting his first spell. After it had finally been finished, he again tied the calculations to a mental state, this time an image of the sprite he would conjure out of the essence of the world.
Now, to test his work.
Inner mathematical mantras were recited, and a ball glowing with white light and six insect-like wings appeared out of gathering motes of essence on his open palm. He felt it through his connection, standing ready to recieve his words with mindless unhesitating obedience. Good. Next, he would have to send a message to someone to see if it truly worked. "Bring this message to Lung Feng Zao", he said to the little sprite. He then rattled the next one-time code he and Zao had agreed upon, followed by a message about having learned Sorcery to expand the method available to him. He didn't include any sensitive information yet, as this was just a test-run. Having recieved its message, the spirit zipped away through the walls to fulfill its purpose.
It would take a few hours at least for it to arrive at the Seacrown. He would likely have more than enough time to master the spell which had caused him to turn his efforts to Sorcery in the first place. Maybe he could reach also the Celestial Circle if he kept up his pace...
***
"I have mastered the spell you were talking about earlier, Scar."
Both Void Scar and Sesus Maison blinked their eyes. Their Satrap, who was a hidden Solar Exalt/Anathema, had called them to his office.
"Ah, excuse me, what spell sir?" said Void Scar, a little bit of confusion and wariness creeping to their voice.
Sesus Ulyssian frowned slightly before answering. "The spell that lets one enforce the rule of forbidding the target of the spell from speaking about a single subject. Having an other person than me cast it would require divulging my secret further, which means I had to learn it myself."
Maison raised an eyebrow on that. "Well, the monks weren't joking when they said that allowing an Anathema the time to survive any longer than it is feasible to prevent is the worst one can do on a Wyld Hunt. Though I didn't know you were a Sorcerer too, sir."
The slight lack of respect in the othe Sesus voice was somewhat worrying, but at least it wasn't immediately hostile anymore. Scar had talked with his friend quite a lot after their return, unaware that their Satrap heard their every word. He had managed to convince Maison to not to openly antagonize the one who held their fates in his hand, even if there was still some lingering resentment and fear caused by the Immaculate dogma.
Anyway, maybe a little more fear would crush any seeds of thoughts about rebellion.
"I wasn't a Sorcerer the day we went against the Necromancer."
With those words hanging in the air, he could see Maison's face freeze to a wooden mask, first from the shock and then to hide any further reactions. The silence continued for a while, before Void Scar broke it with a cough.
"Hopefully this means that we get some of our freedom back?", they asked. Ulyssian nodded. "Yes. Unfortunately, the spell itself will be somewhat... Unpleasant to you. It was not designed with the comfort of the target in mind."
Maison seemed to ponder for a moment, then stepped forward resignedly. "Well, we are probably already damned in the eyes of the Immaculate Order and the Realm, so what is a little more damnation and unpleasantness on top of that? I can go first."
Ulyssian nodded to his subordinate. "Very well. Now," he said as he opened a drawer of his desk and drew from there a bottle of what the Dragon-Blooded regonized as a brand of very strong alchohol. "I don't drink myself, but I came to a conclusion that both of you might need this afterwards." He pinned Maison whose courage was starting to slightly crack with his gaze. "Open your mouth as wide as you can, relax your throat and don't try to resist." With that, a seething mass of green essence erupted from his hands, with vague forms of chittering insects swimming in it, which then shoved itself down Maison's throat even as they tried to scream.
