Chương 11: Reel

It was years after Solas graduated from the Academy. He had finished his studies in the top 25% of his class - admirable, but not particularly distinguished. Still, the school was prestigious enough that he saw his peers - and even his inferiors - snapped up by companies and governments and research institutions even weeks before graduation day. For Solas, no offers of employment. No grants, no patronage for study.

Being the first Wisp to graduate the Academy didn't change the fact that no one wanted one on their payroll. What client would trust them? So he returned to his cousin's farm which had lain fallow for the last four years and began to plow the dirt again. It was as if the Academy had never happened. The only evidence for his efforts he could see was the hole in the village where Aisling should have been and the Mind fórsa that was literally bursting out of his body with no real use to put it towards.

Of course, a mind like his couldn't stay dormant. It took almost no time for him to discard all these Ethics of Mind fórsa lectures he'd been forced to attend and begin bending the village to his will. It started small. In the city he'd never get away with something like this - most people had a slightly higher level of fórsa closer to the inner edge of the ring. They'd feel his power and cry out. His village however was full of impotent bumpkins. He nudged the mind of a grain seller to lower the price.

He readjusted a lass's attitude to be more amenable to dinner. He planted a thought in the sheriff's head to arrest a rival farmer and raised his price nearly double for lack of competition. A man like Solas could never be satisfied with such mundane ambitions. He took more. The boys who bullied him in grammar school, found drowned in the murk. Farms his neighbors had owned for generations - sold for copper shavings. He was elected mayor, though the village had never had any such post before.

His power over his people seemed to have no limits, but he soon found self-enrichment boring. Instead he crushed the minds of his fellow villagers for entertainment. He built feuds overnight the participants would have sworn were generational rivalries. Solas pulled cruel pranks, like making a wife of twenty years forget her husband's name, or forcing a young girl to flirt constantly with her fiance's most hated enemy.

He delighted in turning up the tension in the town and watching how the pot simmered to the point of boiling over. Instead, the pot erupted into a roiling flame. Under cover of night and with only a knapsack filled with coins fleeced from the villagers, Solas fled his home while shouts and flames filled the air as a decades-long feud that had only just begun reached its apex. The country never appreciated him anyway. The city was where Solas belonged.

It was in a tavern not half a mile from the Academy where Solas had wasted so much of his time that he met a dashing stranger with a large white hat. Solas had grunted his way to a solo table in the corner, which no one seemed to mind. He was downing ale entire flagons at a time and contemplating his next move when the chair opposite him creaked loudly and the dandy with the hat landed limply in the seat.

In a tavern of two-bit scholars and besotted merchant's sons, you might just be the only interesting person here! The man said. Solas tried to shoo him away, but the man was persistent, all smiles and humorous tales, as if he and Solas were good friends reuniting after a long parting. The Wisp had even resorted to trying to bend the man's Mind to get him to leave - who cared if he noticed as long as he was gone afterwards?

However, Solas was stunned to slam up against a dense wall of fórsa - like slamming into a still lake from a tall height. This was a man from the inner rings. Solas licked his lips. Suddenly the man, who introduced himself as Eoin Daithi, could not be more welcome at Solas's table. They drank the tavern closed and continued to sing songs through the street as they sought another watering hole which would stay open when the sun was peeking over the parapets and gargoyles of the city. Fast friends indeed.

Eoin Daithi had come to the tavern to drink away his sorrows as the research project he'd been planning for years had fizzled at the last minute. The headmaster at the Academy, an ancient wretch in dusty petticoats, had suddenly refused to part with the materials and expertise he so desperately needed for his experiments. Ten years wasted! He sang out. Ten years! Solas couldn't stand to see his friend upset of course. What are men like us to do when faced with such strident opposition?

We don't take no for an answer! Eoin raised his thin eyebrows at his dearest new companion. And what could enterprising men like us do? We can just rob the old hag! Solas wasn't dazzled by Eoin's origin or how dense his fórsa was. In Eoin he saw an opportunity for a goal he dared not dream of before - becoming strong enough to walk confidently into the next ring. Perhaps he would be the only Wisp to ever have done so!

No one who could go to an inner ring ever stayed in the outermost one, so he'd never met anyone with the capability. All he had to do was trick this effete fop into being his guide. That would take very careful manipulation of the Mind. The weeks after their meeting were a whirlwind of activity. Solas had never met someone like Eoin before.

Even standing near him Solas could feel the hum of his dense fórsa - he could easily have fought his way into the headmaster's manor and taken whatever he wanted instead of sending Solas to scurry in under cover of darkness to purloin it. When questioned why not Eoin had thought this a silly remark - he didn't just want to have the Shen Amethyst the headmaster hoarded, he wanted to get away with having it. Solas considered himself a sneaky fellow - what Wisp didn't?

Yet Eoin's way of moving about the world was a breathtaking display of manipulation. Where Solas's approach was that of a rat attacking from a close corner - all bullying and spite - Eoin's was a dance of false weakness and hidden strength. He didn't even have Mind fórsa - it would have been a waste. He simply didn't need it.

People were instantly his friend, eager to impress an unbelievably strong inner ring High Sidhe slumming it up in the outer ring, or bamboozled into thinking themselves the winners of a losing deal. Through it all he kept Solas as his right hand man. He was with the High Sidhe when bartering for materials. He was the man in the shadows when Eoin needed a purse lifted. Most importantly each night they huddled together over their masterpiece: the Amethyst Reel.

Eoin showed Solas how to weave his fórsa more densely and layer Mind fórsa into the actual physical object, something no one at the Academy had even thought of doing. It was long assumed that Mind was not a fórsa that could enchant an external effect - it required an ongoing living creature to drive the desires which formed the basis of intellect. All this Eoin waved away. You can do it. It just requires a larger amount of fórsa than you can get in the Outer Ring and the right materials.

It's no wonder they never taught it here. In each step Eoin teased Solas's ultimate reward. If this works, Eoin said greedily, your journey won't stop at the next ring, my friend. Or the one after that. Oh, there are big things in store for the most brilliant Wisp in the Tír! You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Solas could have written him off as just another conman, albeit a powerful one, had it not been for that one night in the last month of Winter when the jagged collection of connected stones that would one day become the Amethyst Reel flared a rich purple. Solas had been layering on the Mind fórsa in the method Eoin prescribed when a connection inside the gem broke. Suddenly power lurched in reverse - where Solas had been feeding the Reel, now it fed him.

His whole body seized up, but that didn't matter - what mattered was the Mind. Inside of his he was buffeted around by the force. He was so used to his fórsa being the steady, placid stream of a learned practitioner, he didn't know how to handle the flood that threatened to burn the veins out of his body. Weave it! Eoin had called from what seemed like a mile away. Like when you were a child just learning.

Solas had done just that, sowing the seeds of power in his mind in the Farmer's Pattern that the Academy taught all Mind users. At first it seemed impossible, like trying to fill a bottle of water from a river in an attempt to dry it out. But slowly the flow lessened and he was able to release a tightly held breath and open his eyes to see Eoin grinning at him. Imagine if you could do that all the time, he said.

Solas, weary and in pain, was about to snarl about why anyone would want to do that again when he felt his own fórsa. Thick and rich in a way it had never been. It'll fade over time, Eoin said. At least at the moment - when we're done you'll be able to keep it. But right now… you could make it to, what? The Third Ring? Fourth maybe? It was then that Solas was hooked. Fantasies of power - true power, not lording over farmers and dirty villagers. Why settle for being the most powerful Wisp in the outer ring?

He could be the most powerful being in one of the inner Rings! Their efforts came to a head one evening when Eoin burst into the apartment they had been sharing near the Academy. We have to move. Fast. The steelworkers wouldn't part with the materials I needed, so I attempted to take them when they weren't looking. They were sharper than I thought and I was spotted. How long do we have? Eoin's face was grim. Until someone finds the bodies. It was a rare mistake from Eoin, but Solas reveled in it.

Now they were headed back to his home turf - the village near the Vent. And, it was satisfying to see perfect, powerful Eoin Daithi stumble once or twice. The months that followed were of quiet, steady work. Solas found the village burned to the ground with no sign of any survivors but he couldn't care less. He was beyond these fools now.

They took up residence in one of the only surviving structures, a cabin that had been built too close to the ocean and was regularly swallowed by the Night Shoals - it had been underwater the night of the riots. Day and night were the same as they toiled away at the Amethyst Reel. Soon Solas began finding opportunities to make use of the Reel when Eoin was sleeping. Solas needed sleep as much as anyone, but he needed power more.

He would row a canoe from the top of the cabin out to the vent, a ruddy little network of caves he'd explored many times in his youth. He would watch the Reel slowly absorb power straight from the well, impatient for more. Before returning to the cabin he would reverse the flow and flood his being with fórsa. As painful as it was it was also intoxicating - if only it didn't fade by the time he returned home. He thought Eoin must have known what he was up to, but the High Sidhe didn't say anything.

His nighttime excursions stopped once Eoin affixed the Reel to the top of the cabin, like a squat lighthouse. He insisted the proximity of the ocean fórsa would help draw in power from the Realms Above, priming the pump, rather than plonk the device next to the vent, as Solas had been doing. Then they activated the Reel in its final configuration for the first time. The theory was simple. Fórsa collected in the center ring - there was no stopping that. It was a law of nature itself.

However, fórsa could be intercepted on the journey! The existence of fórsa in the other rings at all was proof of that - mountains and trees and strange pockets of energy were all examples of the many things that could stop the flow of fórsa, causing it to pool in specific areas. Eoin's revelation - what if they could create a device that did the same thing, but straight from the source?

Fórsa was a living essence, and the power of Solas's Mind manifestation which had been worked so deeply into the Reel should be enough to coax it along a different path, even if only briefly. Then the core of Shen Amethyst could store and process the raw stuff of life, allowing it to be accessed by anyone at any time! It could add decades, no - centuries to a Sidhe's life.

It could allow people in outer rings to make their fórsa dense enough to travel inward, revolutionizing the flow of trade in a way that had never been seen before! Not to mention how much more powerful the already skilled citizens of the inner rings could become. It's an arms race, Eoin said gleefully. Think of what all the fancy Lords and Ladies of the Celestial Court would pay to keep being on top! The Reel was working, that was clear. They could see the fórsa churning as it drew power from the ocean.

With the right lenses they could see a line of fórsa shooting off into the spot in the Swamp where the cave mouth opened into the vent. But after hours, the Reel remained empty of the raw fórsa Eoin had been expecting. Dejected, Eoin poured hours into examining every facet of the construct, his mood growing darker and darker with each day. Get away from it! He would often screech to Solas. You don't know anything, how could you? Then the day came that Solas made his own discovery.

He decided to trundle out to the vent in person - a task Eoin was loathe to do. It's not the vent, I don't need to go wading through gods-know-what infested swamp to see what I already know! Solas looked into the pool where the beam of fórsa terminated, curious if there might be some sort of obstruction the great and mighty Eoin overlooked. He looked into the water and there saw a face. A young face, curious and round, pigtailed and messy - not the face of any Sidhe that ever lived. A human face.

Solas had split his whole head in two with the grin he made. I have it Eoin! Solas had shaken the High Sidhe awake. He dragged the foppish man up to the roof where the Amethyst Reel sat, now flush with new power. Eoin had cried out in disbelief, running his hands over the gem. How? By my analysis, I had all but given up! I thought my theories disproven! Eoin was elated. He picked up the Wisp bodily and spun him around with joy. It was a conversion problem! Solas declared proudly. This is what we have missed!

Fórsa is not absorbed more greatly in the center rings because of some eldritch gravity - it's because it's the only place where it has been filtered by the land itself! By the trees and the animals, the water - converted from energy to the stuff of life by life itself! But… how did you solve this problem? Solas grinned wide again. The fórsa calls out from the vent, straight into the Realms Above! It gives us the means to lure in many little fish - aptly named, our Reel! Eoin paused. You…

called something in from the Realms Above? Indeed! Just a sweet little thing. Barely enough to light up the gem at all, really… but I'm sure we can make up for strength with volume! Eoin had looked at the Wisp, then at the gem, putting two and two together. Solas could feel the cabin getting heavier as the High Sidhe from an inner ring let his fórsa control slip. For a moment Solas felt what it must be like to enter a ring you were not ready for - a crushing weight of power and arrogance.

You lured in a human child and… used my Reel to harvest its fórsa? Solas strained to say upright, never losing an ounce of his hubris to shout back in equal fury. Our Reel! Oh, now you're a moral man, Eoin Daithi? Thief, liar, murderer! But this, this is too far for you? What is a human but a thing from which to milk fórsa? A useless life against the purpose we can put that power to! We will tour the Inner Rings with this, Eoin! A Wisp will stand one day in the Celestial City!

Eoin sank down to the floor, laughing softly to himself. I knew you were a fool, but I thought you at least a useful one. You have done nothing. Even now, look at the gem. The power fades by the minute. Human life fórsa is potent, but it's no better than the jolt you got that day in the city. It will overload you, then fade as your body rejects it - so too does the Reel! You've stuffed a bottle with milk and called it a cow. The Sidhe stood then, looking down on Solas. It would never have worked for you.

Your body can't handle more than the meager power you already parade around your pathetic, empty little farmsteads. So arrogant, so loathsome, and you're already at the end of your path. I knew it from the day I met you that I would leave you here in the fetid bogs of this wretched swamp, chasing after me like a mewling infant, just begging for the fórsa you are not good enough to wield.

Screaming in fury, Solas had lashed out with his Mind, but Eoin batted his efforts away easily, laying him low with an insulting kick to the gut - the sort of kick one might give a dog. Keep the garbage we wasted so much time on, Eoin sneered. Lure as many unsuspecting humans as you like to spill out of your cup. It makes no difference to me. I will make my way back to the fourth ring, satisfied that by doing so, I will never see your disgusting face ever again.

With that Eoin was gone, leaving Solas to fume as he writhed in pain on the floor of his shack. To writhe… but already to plan. The Reel's flaw could be fixed, he knew it. The power he sought would still be his.