A homecoming
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Winning votes:
[] Remnants you can take home with you
[] A codephrase you lack context for
In the aftermath of that day, you are busy. You have to cycle with Beti, drawing in enough life aura to refill Beti's stores. You're pushing for advancement while she does that. Of course, cycling is more than a little mindless, so with Etaja mentally poking you if your cycling goes offtrack, you work through math problems that Thantiriiz sent. The gulf between Lowgold and Highgold is vast. It's easy to see why this is as far as most people ever go, though there's also a lot of difference between the best Lowgolds and a more average one.
Beyond that, you return to the Bronze Serpent compound several times. Beti doesn't loan you any more madra, but you don't actually need it. You just... help. There's still plenty of people who will benefit from a healer seeing to their bones and flesh, and the Bronze Serpents are both willing to teach you more about how to use healing techniques and actually obligated to do so under their promises to the King.
You end up seeing a good portion of the people you'd helped in that first, horrible rush of triage, as they return for less-urgent treatment. Of special note is that, with Bronze Serpent oversight and less pressure, you actually do manage to un-mangle that first finger that you'd thought was a loss.
Somewhere along the way, a sturdy-looking woman named Shelcy decides that you are due some compensation, and takes an absent comment by you as the basis for organizing a larger effort. A couple dozen families, which makes up a good portion of the people you'd helped, pool resources to get something for you.
You protest, at first, but it doesn't last long. Because it's spread over so many people, it's not a big imposition for them, and the reward you mentioned wasn't for you. You really had been thinking about your friends back home. They've all hit Jade, now, since Naia has also advanced in the last few months. Unless they get lucky with Remnants, this would be the end of their advancement for a long time, normally.
This turns into a series of trips down to the Remnant Market with Shelcy, trying to find the ideal matches for each of your friends' paths. You don't want them to have to either wait or take a less-suitable Remnant, and all of them do need to advance to Gold at some point. Naia and Argen need to be Gold to take over for their parents once they're adults, and Olerac needs to be at least Lowgold for the Temple of Rising Earth to care about him.
It takes several tries to find the right Remnants, and Shelcy seems pretty shrewd about it, refusing to overpay or to accept anything substandard.
The weird thing happens the day that the two of you go with Risshon, because Risshon's stocking up on some shadow-aspected Remnants for his own refining projects. That's the day that a young adult with a blue-glowing Remnant eye comes up to you. "Stars below! I've heard about you. You're the miracle tree kid who helped all those people the day of the accident, aren't ya? Put 'er there!" He holds out a hand for you to shake, so you do so. "You almost ruined my business, you know. Three generations my family's provided Remnant prosthetics, and here you ruin our biggest break in a decade by saving people's legs before we can replace them! Ah, don't give me that look, I'm kiddin'. You did good. We need more people who care, by the stars below."
"Don't bother the kid," Risshon tells the man. "They're just a normal caring soul." You detect a faint pause as he works out his next sentence. "They're just willing to try to help anyone they find, from a noble beggar to an evil king."
The Remnant eye shifts from you to Risshon. "Zat so? Well, still! I'm always glad to meet anyone dedicated to justice and hope."
"Kids are the ones who lead us to a bright future, I always think." Risshon pauses. "Why don't you and Shelcy go ahead for a minute? I think I might go back for some of those Remnants I dismissed before."
<Let me know what those two say to each other once we're out of earshot, please,> you ask Etaja.
{Wasn't much,} Etaja reports. {Eye-glow said "so the kid's not" and then Risshon interrupted and said "no, just genuinely likes to help, now go away, last thing we need is to have anyone wonder why we're chatting when we don't know each other." Eye-glow shrugged and said "how else do you get to know someone" and Risshon glared at him and said "that's not the point" and stalked off. You got something on your mind, yeah?}
<My spiritual sense chimed very softly at part of what they were saying to each other,> you tell the Vroshir. <'Stars below', 'evil king', 'justice and hope', and 'bright future'. It meant something to them, something more than just the words. Any idea what?>
Etaja considers the question briefly. {That sounds to me like code phrases, so people in different parts of a secretive, wide-spread effort can identify each other. Code phrases that they try to work into innocent conversation.}
You frown. <So Eye-glow was trying to see if I knew the right counter-phrases for something, but got surprised when I didn't know it, and was surprised that Risshon knew it instead?>
{Maybe. Kid?} Etaja's voice is very low. {I think I know where your mind is, and I'll remind you that you don't know anything, and there's plenty of innocent explanations for things. Don't do anything that will get you hurt, okay?}
You sigh. <I'm trying not to, but something is weird and I can't ignore that. But I don't... I just need to know something that will settle my mind, if not here then something else will do. Can you find someone with madra of death and destruction? If there was someone who did something to hurt those people, and you find them, maybe we can... I don't know.>
Etaja gives you a mental shrug. {There's hundreds of thousands of people in the city, they're all moving around all the time, it might have been a one-use construct instead of something that's still around, and even if there is a specific instigator, they might have skipped town. If I see something, I'll tell you, but I don't expect I can do what you're asking. I'd have to get stupid lucky.}
There's not really anything you can do except accept that, so you look to Shelcy, instead. "Have you ever heard that expression before, 'stars below'?"
Shelcy shrugs. "Can't say I have. Now, listen closely. See that stall ahead? That fiery Remnant came from a swordsman. I want you to look interested in the pure sword Remnant next to it, then look disappointed when we get the details, and I can get a good deal on the one we actually want, if it's good enough."
And so careful shopping continues.
Soon enough, you've left the now-familiar sprawl of Great Crevasse. Lord Cheng loaned you a big Thousand-Mile Cloud, one large enough to comfortably seat Beti. As you've noticed before, she has absolutely no fear of heights, apparently not even quite having the imagination to picture herself plunging off. It's good that she's not scared, but that actually makes you a little worried. You keep part of your spiritual sense on her while you fly, but she's pretty happy just staying locked in place and watching as the world flies past.
Regardless of what thoughts or concerns you have, your sister is getting married. That will only happen once, or probably will only happen once, after all. Along with you and Beti, the rest of the cloud is given over to the gifts you're bringing home. It's going to be so good to see everyone again.
When you're not flying, you review the dream tablets that Prachi gave you. Only one is from him, but the other five are in the same general vein: Lowgold soldiers achieving some bloody victory. It's not always killing, but it isn't ever a nice time.
That, you suppose, is part of his lesson, and part of why he made the points he did with you. Hopefully you won't ever need to fight like this, but if you are, he wants you to be totally aware that you're fighting to try to deny your foe the ability to hurt you, by any means necessary.
You watch soldiers strike from ambush, champions fighting duels, you watch a dozen types of madra formed into three times as many techniques. You see subtle shifts of weight and muscle that make a difference in a sword duel. You see overwhelming power used to smash defenses. You see warriors take injuries as a gamble to get an opening, and you see the gamble pay off or not. You can't help but notice, though, that life and blood madra are a little more common here than any other types, which can't be coincidence. Death is extremely rare, but blood is socially often the same. The blood-using warriors one and all have the repulsive and glaring feeling of their kills about them. None of these examples, at least, have anyone fighting with blood madra who isn't a slaughter artist.
Prachi chose these for a reason, you think. He's not just showing you one way to fight. He's showing all the terrible things that can happen and how you can be more sure that they'll hit your enemy than hit you. There's different approaches and different strategies in play, like he'd talked about. There's no perfect strategy, or if there is it's far beyond the comprehension of any Gold. There's just what your math books call a local maxima, where moving in any direction means a worse outcome at least if you only move a short distance. That's something that will take more studying and thought from you. You're hoping that you'll have a good answer for Prachi when you return to Great Crevasse. For now, though, you just turn the thoughts over when you stop for food or sleep.
Neither man nor beast is foolish enough to try to mess with you en route. Beti's Truegold strength is higher than all but the top fraction of a percent in Great Crevasse, and Truegolds only get rarer as population density and aura density drop as you travel west, so thankfully there's no one foolish enough for you to have to pass Underlord Cheng's threat to.
That continues for a few days, until, eventually, you're there. For the second time in your life, you approach Hinterville from the back of a flying cloud, though the first time was only a couple of minutes' flight.
Your mom and dad are in the town square as you get close, with Mom doubtless being how they knew precisely when to wait. She's waiting patiently, though, while Dad waves for you with a huge smile on his big, bearded face. You barely even touch down before you jump off the Thousand-Mile Cloud to run to Dad. He sweeps you up in a powerful hug for a few seconds before letting you down. "Welcome home, Keras! Your mom and your letters said it, but—wow! Gold before you turned eleven years old." He's bursting with pride as he watches your Goldsigns run their fingers through your hair. "You've grown so much!"
You think he might be misremembering, given how much bigger than you he still is, but you still match his grin. "I've missed you, and everyone else. But it's been good. I've been learning so much, and I have Beti to keep me company, anyway." You glance over your shoulder, to find that Beti has stepped off the cloud, and then tried to pretend that she's a normal tree that's always been planted in the town square even though everyone in town is staring at her so the illusion is really pretty bad. "Let me just put away the Cloud and I can... oh, yeah, I brought things for everyone. Oh, is it okay if Beti's standing there?" You consider that last question. "I think it's probably okay," you decide, sensing that Beti doesn't want to move just now. If she doesn't want to move, there is no force in all the Silent Hinterlands that could move her. There's only two Highgolds, and no other Truegolds.
"Before that," Dad interrupts, and you look over your shoulder to see a sparkle in his eye and feel the touch of his comparatively-inexpert spiritual sense on you. "I've heard that you almost won the Jade combat rounds in Great Crevasse, and have been doing well in those monthly Lowgold fights. But I haven't had a chance to feel it for myself. Want to show your old man how strong you are now?" He holds out a hand for you to punch.
The Cloud will be okay for a moment. You grin back at Dad, and drop into a stance. If he wants to feel how hard you can hit, he will. You draw back your fist and call Field's Strength to you. You shift your feet slightly, getting a good foothold to push off of.
Although he's still faster than you by sheer dint of being Highgold, you still sense his surprise when you spring forward, putting all your speed, weight and madra behind a single straight punch directly at his outstretched hand.
The Mighty Heart of Oak continues its work.
Strength C- to C
Toughness D+ to C-
When your tiny fist hits his huge palm with a meaty slap, his elbow flexes, absorbing the hit—or that's what he planned. There's too much power behind the blow, and his eyes widen. You sense Field's Strength flare briefly and he takes half a step back.
His bellowing laughter startles a few other people, but you don't need spiritual senses to pick up on the pride he and Beti both feel as you demonstrate the might you've built up as you've made the most of your advancements in the big city. "Now that's my Keras!" He picks you up and puts you on his shoulder to carry you home.
He doesn't really listen much to your complaints of "Dad! Dad! I need to put away the Cloud!"
The truth is that Beti was carrying most of your things, so once you got free of Dad and were able to put everything away, you encourage her to come into your yard in particular and take down your sister's wedding present and your luggage and the scripted containers holding your friend's Goldsigns-to-be.
Argen is the first to appear as you're still taking things out of Beti's branches. "Keras," you hear behind you, and turn to see him. "Welcome back." He doesn't look all that different, really, although he's starting to get the first wispy hints of a mustache on his upper lip. He's older, certainly, by a couple years, but he's the same wiry young man he always was, though somehow he's a little cockier in his stance, now. "I didn't expect you to get to Gold so quickly."
"I got a bit lucky," you tell him. "There just was an interesting matching Remnant that I got the right of first refusal on. But it's good to see you!" You give him a smile. "And I got something for you."
You select one of the three scripted birdcages, the one holding the Remnant you and Shelcy had selected for him. "I didn't just want to get to Gold on my own."
Argen's eyes widen. You hadn't sent word about what you were bringing, so this is the first he knows of it, the moment you hand him something containing a viper-like Remnant of sword and fire. "It's not quite the same as your path," you begin, and find that he's already taken it out of your hands. You let him. "Anyway, it's not the same as your path, but it should be compatible. He called it something like the path of the Blazing Sword, so it's fire and sword together, not sword with flame added in. It should help you with everything except the halfsilver part of your path, and apparently he even used a rapier for some fights while alive. I hope it suits."
In your spiritual sense, it feels as if a dragon constructed of silver flame is crouching atop its hoard. "It's beautiful," he murmurs, and then he straightens up. "I'm going to advance, and then I'm going to beat you."
You blink. "What?"
"I told you that I would be stronger by the time you get back," he says, which you had completely forgotten about. "Watch me!"
Before he can make his escape, your other local friends are there, too, coming up the street and joining you and just accidentally blocking Argen's escape. Olerac looks about the same as ever, too, even if you can see that he's starting to broaden in the shoulders.
It's Naia who looks the most different. She's tall. You find yourself looking up at her. She's head and shoulders taller than you, now. You suppose girls do tend to start their growth spurt earlier than boys, and all three of your friends are more than half a year older than you, but... it's still kind of shocking. If it weren't for her long hair, you might have almost mistaken her for her older sister. To no surprise of yours, your spiritual sense finds her like a fish content in a well-tended pond. "Welcome," she says, and hands you something in a bit of waxed paper. You take it and have to smile, but she explains herself just to be safe. "The thigh cut from a One-Legged Catfish. I remember you liking this. I caught it just an hour ago, so it's very fresh."
"I do! Thank you. I have something for you, as well." You wave at Beti until she figures out what branch you want her to lower, and you unhook the Remnant you found for Naia. This one 'swims' in the air in its cage. Naia seems surprised when she takes it. "It's from an Ever-Darting Trout that had advanced unusually far before some fisher caught it. They're some of the fastest swimmers in the rivers outside Great Crevasse, so I think it will suit your family path well."
"Thank you," Naia says, seeming far more stunned than Argen was. "That's very—I'll ask my parents. But I feel like my gift is lacking."
You have to turn that over in your head for a few seconds. You're not used to thinking that doing something nice might embarrass someone or otherwise be a bad thing. "Don't worry," you say, once you've tried to think of a good excuse. "Think of this as me paying you all back for this knife." You briefly unhook it from where you keep it at the back of your belt to show them. "It's going to be very useful for what I need to learn the next year or two."
Naia nods, seemingly not fully mollified. "Still... thank you. I'll have to check with my family if it's okay for me to advance already or if I should cycle as a Jade for longer." It's not unheard-of for someone to find it hard to advance to Gold if their Jade foundation isn't completely solid, so that makes sense.
"Take your time," you tell her. "It'll still be there if you need to spend some months being ready."
Having heard all that, Olerac looks even more embarrassed that he doesn't even have any gift at all for you. It's actually a fairly impressive blush. Luckily, you have his Remnant here, because it was the first you happened to take down from Beti's branches. "Here, Olerac." You hand him it and he has no option but to take it off your hands. "This is a Remnant that... uh, well, I think it will suit you?" you finish lamely as you realize that you're starting to touch on something that should be secret.
Naia gives you a flat look that leaves no doubt that she's seen through you and doesn't fully approve. What she says, though, is "Thank you for your generosity, Keras, both here and with everything else you've sent back to help us. I appreciate it immensely. And I'll take my leave now, but I would love to spend more time with you while you're back, of course, but you must be tired right now." Her phrasing is still a little awkward, but you get the sentiment. "And I'm sure Argen is anxious to advance."
"I sure am!" Argen has barely noticed anything the last couple minutes, so greedily is he staring at the Remnant he's holding.
But once he and Naia are gone, then you can share the details with Olerac. "It's from a Stone Wolf," you say. "It must've gotten separated from the pack when it fell from a cliff or something. The poor creature got very hurt. Its body was already undergoing a lot of necrosis before it died, and so the Earth aspect was very stained by Death when the Remnant arose. It made it very cheap, because the seller didn't think most people would want it, but it should suit you well."
"Thank you," Olerac says, in a whisper. "It's been... it's still hard. I miss having you here. Naia judges me because I'm still using any sort of death madra, and Argen just likes to brag about himself. And there's still no other kids our age here."
Beti leans in a bit, and Olerac's eyes get wide. "Don't worry," you tell him. "Beti only looks scary. She's not really, though, and she's shading you because she likes you." Her mouth with teeth of solidified wood opens briefly to make her usual creaking noise, which doesn't seem to calm his nerves. You step closer to her trunk to pet the bark, and Olerac only hesitantly follows your lead. "I have more friends in the city, like Beti here, but I still understand missing people. I wasn't trying to leave you behind."
"I know." He shrugs. "You would have been a fool to pass up the opportunities you wrote about. And it's not like I'm not planning to leave, too. I still want to go to my Master's people and see if the Temple of Rising Earth will take me in. I wouldn't have a chance if I were only Jade or was weak or slow to get to Lowgold. I'm grateful. But there's something I haven't been able to tell you about, not in letters."
"What's that?"
Olerac steadies himself with a slow breath and undoes his veil, the veil that was so tight that even your Jade sense wasn't giving you anything about him. He cycles openly, and you feel the steadiness of earthen bulwarks and the pall of death beyond it. The death madra you feel here is different than your own, turning your stomach a little, but you can't understand what you're feeling at first...
"I killed a cliff bear when it trapped me, and I cycled the death aura that it gave off." Olerace explains it right as you figure it out. "It's not a deep mark, not yet, but it kind of marks me as a slaughter artist if someone scans me too deeply. It was just the one, and just because I didn't have any other options... but it's not easy to get this feeling out of my cycling." He gives you a small smile. "I've tried."
The veil falls back into place, and he continues. "Thantiriiz knows. I think Naia figured it all out. I also told my mom. No one else does, except you, now. You're the one who not only also uses death madra, but you've traveled more, now, than anyone else here except Thantiriiz. I wanted to ask your opinion. What do you think I should do about this? What gets me the best chance of being accepted by the Temple of Rising Earth when I go there?"
You have to consider the question carefully. There's several answers you can give to him, all of which are true. That means you do have to share all of them, so he can get as much information as possible. The question is just which argument you find most compelling. No matter how even-handed you try to be, that's the one you both will likely end the conversation believing.
[] "If you're strong enough, people will accept you anyway."
All across Cradle, strength is king. If you're more advanced or more powerful, you get to set terms. If you're weak, your opportunities are lacking. For Olerac, he can't risk being too weak for the Temple to accept. For you, you're mainly glad you don't need to be a slaughter artist.
[] "Slaughter artists are mainly accepted if they're useful."
You've heard of rare butchers and warriors who find a place despite being slaughter artists. They may not be the best-liked people, but they have some opportunities. For Olerac, he has to be ready to accept narrow options. For you, this is just a fact about the world you don't think is especially unfair.
[] "It's hard to be well-liked if you feel like a slaughter artist."
While strength is king, some things are just hard to stomach, and people can be afraid if they don't know their defenders or rulers well enough to trust. For Olerac, he will try harder to scrub this mark out of his spirit, even if it costs him. For you, you can't really imagine becoming a slaughter artist.
[] Remnants you can take home with you
[] A codephrase you lack context for
In the aftermath of that day, you are busy. You have to cycle with Beti, drawing in enough life aura to refill Beti's stores. You're pushing for advancement while she does that. Of course, cycling is more than a little mindless, so with Etaja mentally poking you if your cycling goes offtrack, you work through math problems that Thantiriiz sent. The gulf between Lowgold and Highgold is vast. It's easy to see why this is as far as most people ever go, though there's also a lot of difference between the best Lowgolds and a more average one.
Beyond that, you return to the Bronze Serpent compound several times. Beti doesn't loan you any more madra, but you don't actually need it. You just... help. There's still plenty of people who will benefit from a healer seeing to their bones and flesh, and the Bronze Serpents are both willing to teach you more about how to use healing techniques and actually obligated to do so under their promises to the King.
You end up seeing a good portion of the people you'd helped in that first, horrible rush of triage, as they return for less-urgent treatment. Of special note is that, with Bronze Serpent oversight and less pressure, you actually do manage to un-mangle that first finger that you'd thought was a loss.
Somewhere along the way, a sturdy-looking woman named Shelcy decides that you are due some compensation, and takes an absent comment by you as the basis for organizing a larger effort. A couple dozen families, which makes up a good portion of the people you'd helped, pool resources to get something for you.
You protest, at first, but it doesn't last long. Because it's spread over so many people, it's not a big imposition for them, and the reward you mentioned wasn't for you. You really had been thinking about your friends back home. They've all hit Jade, now, since Naia has also advanced in the last few months. Unless they get lucky with Remnants, this would be the end of their advancement for a long time, normally.
This turns into a series of trips down to the Remnant Market with Shelcy, trying to find the ideal matches for each of your friends' paths. You don't want them to have to either wait or take a less-suitable Remnant, and all of them do need to advance to Gold at some point. Naia and Argen need to be Gold to take over for their parents once they're adults, and Olerac needs to be at least Lowgold for the Temple of Rising Earth to care about him.
It takes several tries to find the right Remnants, and Shelcy seems pretty shrewd about it, refusing to overpay or to accept anything substandard.
The weird thing happens the day that the two of you go with Risshon, because Risshon's stocking up on some shadow-aspected Remnants for his own refining projects. That's the day that a young adult with a blue-glowing Remnant eye comes up to you. "Stars below! I've heard about you. You're the miracle tree kid who helped all those people the day of the accident, aren't ya? Put 'er there!" He holds out a hand for you to shake, so you do so. "You almost ruined my business, you know. Three generations my family's provided Remnant prosthetics, and here you ruin our biggest break in a decade by saving people's legs before we can replace them! Ah, don't give me that look, I'm kiddin'. You did good. We need more people who care, by the stars below."
"Don't bother the kid," Risshon tells the man. "They're just a normal caring soul." You detect a faint pause as he works out his next sentence. "They're just willing to try to help anyone they find, from a noble beggar to an evil king."
The Remnant eye shifts from you to Risshon. "Zat so? Well, still! I'm always glad to meet anyone dedicated to justice and hope."
"Kids are the ones who lead us to a bright future, I always think." Risshon pauses. "Why don't you and Shelcy go ahead for a minute? I think I might go back for some of those Remnants I dismissed before."
<Let me know what those two say to each other once we're out of earshot, please,> you ask Etaja.
{Wasn't much,} Etaja reports. {Eye-glow said "so the kid's not" and then Risshon interrupted and said "no, just genuinely likes to help, now go away, last thing we need is to have anyone wonder why we're chatting when we don't know each other." Eye-glow shrugged and said "how else do you get to know someone" and Risshon glared at him and said "that's not the point" and stalked off. You got something on your mind, yeah?}
<My spiritual sense chimed very softly at part of what they were saying to each other,> you tell the Vroshir. <'Stars below', 'evil king', 'justice and hope', and 'bright future'. It meant something to them, something more than just the words. Any idea what?>
Etaja considers the question briefly. {That sounds to me like code phrases, so people in different parts of a secretive, wide-spread effort can identify each other. Code phrases that they try to work into innocent conversation.}
You frown. <So Eye-glow was trying to see if I knew the right counter-phrases for something, but got surprised when I didn't know it, and was surprised that Risshon knew it instead?>
{Maybe. Kid?} Etaja's voice is very low. {I think I know where your mind is, and I'll remind you that you don't know anything, and there's plenty of innocent explanations for things. Don't do anything that will get you hurt, okay?}
You sigh. <I'm trying not to, but something is weird and I can't ignore that. But I don't... I just need to know something that will settle my mind, if not here then something else will do. Can you find someone with madra of death and destruction? If there was someone who did something to hurt those people, and you find them, maybe we can... I don't know.>
Etaja gives you a mental shrug. {There's hundreds of thousands of people in the city, they're all moving around all the time, it might have been a one-use construct instead of something that's still around, and even if there is a specific instigator, they might have skipped town. If I see something, I'll tell you, but I don't expect I can do what you're asking. I'd have to get stupid lucky.}
There's not really anything you can do except accept that, so you look to Shelcy, instead. "Have you ever heard that expression before, 'stars below'?"
Shelcy shrugs. "Can't say I have. Now, listen closely. See that stall ahead? That fiery Remnant came from a swordsman. I want you to look interested in the pure sword Remnant next to it, then look disappointed when we get the details, and I can get a good deal on the one we actually want, if it's good enough."
And so careful shopping continues.
Soon enough, you've left the now-familiar sprawl of Great Crevasse. Lord Cheng loaned you a big Thousand-Mile Cloud, one large enough to comfortably seat Beti. As you've noticed before, she has absolutely no fear of heights, apparently not even quite having the imagination to picture herself plunging off. It's good that she's not scared, but that actually makes you a little worried. You keep part of your spiritual sense on her while you fly, but she's pretty happy just staying locked in place and watching as the world flies past.
Regardless of what thoughts or concerns you have, your sister is getting married. That will only happen once, or probably will only happen once, after all. Along with you and Beti, the rest of the cloud is given over to the gifts you're bringing home. It's going to be so good to see everyone again.
When you're not flying, you review the dream tablets that Prachi gave you. Only one is from him, but the other five are in the same general vein: Lowgold soldiers achieving some bloody victory. It's not always killing, but it isn't ever a nice time.
That, you suppose, is part of his lesson, and part of why he made the points he did with you. Hopefully you won't ever need to fight like this, but if you are, he wants you to be totally aware that you're fighting to try to deny your foe the ability to hurt you, by any means necessary.
You watch soldiers strike from ambush, champions fighting duels, you watch a dozen types of madra formed into three times as many techniques. You see subtle shifts of weight and muscle that make a difference in a sword duel. You see overwhelming power used to smash defenses. You see warriors take injuries as a gamble to get an opening, and you see the gamble pay off or not. You can't help but notice, though, that life and blood madra are a little more common here than any other types, which can't be coincidence. Death is extremely rare, but blood is socially often the same. The blood-using warriors one and all have the repulsive and glaring feeling of their kills about them. None of these examples, at least, have anyone fighting with blood madra who isn't a slaughter artist.
Prachi chose these for a reason, you think. He's not just showing you one way to fight. He's showing all the terrible things that can happen and how you can be more sure that they'll hit your enemy than hit you. There's different approaches and different strategies in play, like he'd talked about. There's no perfect strategy, or if there is it's far beyond the comprehension of any Gold. There's just what your math books call a local maxima, where moving in any direction means a worse outcome at least if you only move a short distance. That's something that will take more studying and thought from you. You're hoping that you'll have a good answer for Prachi when you return to Great Crevasse. For now, though, you just turn the thoughts over when you stop for food or sleep.
Neither man nor beast is foolish enough to try to mess with you en route. Beti's Truegold strength is higher than all but the top fraction of a percent in Great Crevasse, and Truegolds only get rarer as population density and aura density drop as you travel west, so thankfully there's no one foolish enough for you to have to pass Underlord Cheng's threat to.
That continues for a few days, until, eventually, you're there. For the second time in your life, you approach Hinterville from the back of a flying cloud, though the first time was only a couple of minutes' flight.
Your mom and dad are in the town square as you get close, with Mom doubtless being how they knew precisely when to wait. She's waiting patiently, though, while Dad waves for you with a huge smile on his big, bearded face. You barely even touch down before you jump off the Thousand-Mile Cloud to run to Dad. He sweeps you up in a powerful hug for a few seconds before letting you down. "Welcome home, Keras! Your mom and your letters said it, but—wow! Gold before you turned eleven years old." He's bursting with pride as he watches your Goldsigns run their fingers through your hair. "You've grown so much!"
You think he might be misremembering, given how much bigger than you he still is, but you still match his grin. "I've missed you, and everyone else. But it's been good. I've been learning so much, and I have Beti to keep me company, anyway." You glance over your shoulder, to find that Beti has stepped off the cloud, and then tried to pretend that she's a normal tree that's always been planted in the town square even though everyone in town is staring at her so the illusion is really pretty bad. "Let me just put away the Cloud and I can... oh, yeah, I brought things for everyone. Oh, is it okay if Beti's standing there?" You consider that last question. "I think it's probably okay," you decide, sensing that Beti doesn't want to move just now. If she doesn't want to move, there is no force in all the Silent Hinterlands that could move her. There's only two Highgolds, and no other Truegolds.
"Before that," Dad interrupts, and you look over your shoulder to see a sparkle in his eye and feel the touch of his comparatively-inexpert spiritual sense on you. "I've heard that you almost won the Jade combat rounds in Great Crevasse, and have been doing well in those monthly Lowgold fights. But I haven't had a chance to feel it for myself. Want to show your old man how strong you are now?" He holds out a hand for you to punch.
The Cloud will be okay for a moment. You grin back at Dad, and drop into a stance. If he wants to feel how hard you can hit, he will. You draw back your fist and call Field's Strength to you. You shift your feet slightly, getting a good foothold to push off of.
Although he's still faster than you by sheer dint of being Highgold, you still sense his surprise when you spring forward, putting all your speed, weight and madra behind a single straight punch directly at his outstretched hand.
The Mighty Heart of Oak continues its work.
Strength C- to C
Toughness D+ to C-
When your tiny fist hits his huge palm with a meaty slap, his elbow flexes, absorbing the hit—or that's what he planned. There's too much power behind the blow, and his eyes widen. You sense Field's Strength flare briefly and he takes half a step back.
His bellowing laughter startles a few other people, but you don't need spiritual senses to pick up on the pride he and Beti both feel as you demonstrate the might you've built up as you've made the most of your advancements in the big city. "Now that's my Keras!" He picks you up and puts you on his shoulder to carry you home.
He doesn't really listen much to your complaints of "Dad! Dad! I need to put away the Cloud!"
The truth is that Beti was carrying most of your things, so once you got free of Dad and were able to put everything away, you encourage her to come into your yard in particular and take down your sister's wedding present and your luggage and the scripted containers holding your friend's Goldsigns-to-be.
Argen is the first to appear as you're still taking things out of Beti's branches. "Keras," you hear behind you, and turn to see him. "Welcome back." He doesn't look all that different, really, although he's starting to get the first wispy hints of a mustache on his upper lip. He's older, certainly, by a couple years, but he's the same wiry young man he always was, though somehow he's a little cockier in his stance, now. "I didn't expect you to get to Gold so quickly."
"I got a bit lucky," you tell him. "There just was an interesting matching Remnant that I got the right of first refusal on. But it's good to see you!" You give him a smile. "And I got something for you."
You select one of the three scripted birdcages, the one holding the Remnant you and Shelcy had selected for him. "I didn't just want to get to Gold on my own."
Argen's eyes widen. You hadn't sent word about what you were bringing, so this is the first he knows of it, the moment you hand him something containing a viper-like Remnant of sword and fire. "It's not quite the same as your path," you begin, and find that he's already taken it out of your hands. You let him. "Anyway, it's not the same as your path, but it should be compatible. He called it something like the path of the Blazing Sword, so it's fire and sword together, not sword with flame added in. It should help you with everything except the halfsilver part of your path, and apparently he even used a rapier for some fights while alive. I hope it suits."
In your spiritual sense, it feels as if a dragon constructed of silver flame is crouching atop its hoard. "It's beautiful," he murmurs, and then he straightens up. "I'm going to advance, and then I'm going to beat you."
You blink. "What?"
"I told you that I would be stronger by the time you get back," he says, which you had completely forgotten about. "Watch me!"
Before he can make his escape, your other local friends are there, too, coming up the street and joining you and just accidentally blocking Argen's escape. Olerac looks about the same as ever, too, even if you can see that he's starting to broaden in the shoulders.
It's Naia who looks the most different. She's tall. You find yourself looking up at her. She's head and shoulders taller than you, now. You suppose girls do tend to start their growth spurt earlier than boys, and all three of your friends are more than half a year older than you, but... it's still kind of shocking. If it weren't for her long hair, you might have almost mistaken her for her older sister. To no surprise of yours, your spiritual sense finds her like a fish content in a well-tended pond. "Welcome," she says, and hands you something in a bit of waxed paper. You take it and have to smile, but she explains herself just to be safe. "The thigh cut from a One-Legged Catfish. I remember you liking this. I caught it just an hour ago, so it's very fresh."
"I do! Thank you. I have something for you, as well." You wave at Beti until she figures out what branch you want her to lower, and you unhook the Remnant you found for Naia. This one 'swims' in the air in its cage. Naia seems surprised when she takes it. "It's from an Ever-Darting Trout that had advanced unusually far before some fisher caught it. They're some of the fastest swimmers in the rivers outside Great Crevasse, so I think it will suit your family path well."
"Thank you," Naia says, seeming far more stunned than Argen was. "That's very—I'll ask my parents. But I feel like my gift is lacking."
You have to turn that over in your head for a few seconds. You're not used to thinking that doing something nice might embarrass someone or otherwise be a bad thing. "Don't worry," you say, once you've tried to think of a good excuse. "Think of this as me paying you all back for this knife." You briefly unhook it from where you keep it at the back of your belt to show them. "It's going to be very useful for what I need to learn the next year or two."
Naia nods, seemingly not fully mollified. "Still... thank you. I'll have to check with my family if it's okay for me to advance already or if I should cycle as a Jade for longer." It's not unheard-of for someone to find it hard to advance to Gold if their Jade foundation isn't completely solid, so that makes sense.
"Take your time," you tell her. "It'll still be there if you need to spend some months being ready."
Having heard all that, Olerac looks even more embarrassed that he doesn't even have any gift at all for you. It's actually a fairly impressive blush. Luckily, you have his Remnant here, because it was the first you happened to take down from Beti's branches. "Here, Olerac." You hand him it and he has no option but to take it off your hands. "This is a Remnant that... uh, well, I think it will suit you?" you finish lamely as you realize that you're starting to touch on something that should be secret.
Naia gives you a flat look that leaves no doubt that she's seen through you and doesn't fully approve. What she says, though, is "Thank you for your generosity, Keras, both here and with everything else you've sent back to help us. I appreciate it immensely. And I'll take my leave now, but I would love to spend more time with you while you're back, of course, but you must be tired right now." Her phrasing is still a little awkward, but you get the sentiment. "And I'm sure Argen is anxious to advance."
"I sure am!" Argen has barely noticed anything the last couple minutes, so greedily is he staring at the Remnant he's holding.
But once he and Naia are gone, then you can share the details with Olerac. "It's from a Stone Wolf," you say. "It must've gotten separated from the pack when it fell from a cliff or something. The poor creature got very hurt. Its body was already undergoing a lot of necrosis before it died, and so the Earth aspect was very stained by Death when the Remnant arose. It made it very cheap, because the seller didn't think most people would want it, but it should suit you well."
"Thank you," Olerac says, in a whisper. "It's been... it's still hard. I miss having you here. Naia judges me because I'm still using any sort of death madra, and Argen just likes to brag about himself. And there's still no other kids our age here."
Beti leans in a bit, and Olerac's eyes get wide. "Don't worry," you tell him. "Beti only looks scary. She's not really, though, and she's shading you because she likes you." Her mouth with teeth of solidified wood opens briefly to make her usual creaking noise, which doesn't seem to calm his nerves. You step closer to her trunk to pet the bark, and Olerac only hesitantly follows your lead. "I have more friends in the city, like Beti here, but I still understand missing people. I wasn't trying to leave you behind."
"I know." He shrugs. "You would have been a fool to pass up the opportunities you wrote about. And it's not like I'm not planning to leave, too. I still want to go to my Master's people and see if the Temple of Rising Earth will take me in. I wouldn't have a chance if I were only Jade or was weak or slow to get to Lowgold. I'm grateful. But there's something I haven't been able to tell you about, not in letters."
"What's that?"
Olerac steadies himself with a slow breath and undoes his veil, the veil that was so tight that even your Jade sense wasn't giving you anything about him. He cycles openly, and you feel the steadiness of earthen bulwarks and the pall of death beyond it. The death madra you feel here is different than your own, turning your stomach a little, but you can't understand what you're feeling at first...
"I killed a cliff bear when it trapped me, and I cycled the death aura that it gave off." Olerace explains it right as you figure it out. "It's not a deep mark, not yet, but it kind of marks me as a slaughter artist if someone scans me too deeply. It was just the one, and just because I didn't have any other options... but it's not easy to get this feeling out of my cycling." He gives you a small smile. "I've tried."
The veil falls back into place, and he continues. "Thantiriiz knows. I think Naia figured it all out. I also told my mom. No one else does, except you, now. You're the one who not only also uses death madra, but you've traveled more, now, than anyone else here except Thantiriiz. I wanted to ask your opinion. What do you think I should do about this? What gets me the best chance of being accepted by the Temple of Rising Earth when I go there?"
You have to consider the question carefully. There's several answers you can give to him, all of which are true. That means you do have to share all of them, so he can get as much information as possible. The question is just which argument you find most compelling. No matter how even-handed you try to be, that's the one you both will likely end the conversation believing.
[] "If you're strong enough, people will accept you anyway."
All across Cradle, strength is king. If you're more advanced or more powerful, you get to set terms. If you're weak, your opportunities are lacking. For Olerac, he can't risk being too weak for the Temple to accept. For you, you're mainly glad you don't need to be a slaughter artist.
[] "Slaughter artists are mainly accepted if they're useful."
You've heard of rare butchers and warriors who find a place despite being slaughter artists. They may not be the best-liked people, but they have some opportunities. For Olerac, he has to be ready to accept narrow options. For you, this is just a fact about the world you don't think is especially unfair.
[] "It's hard to be well-liked if you feel like a slaughter artist."
While strength is king, some things are just hard to stomach, and people can be afraid if they don't know their defenders or rulers well enough to trust. For Olerac, he will try harder to scrub this mark out of his spirit, even if it costs him. For you, you can't really imagine becoming a slaughter artist.
