Chương 113: Putting in Work

After Eoin had collected himself, he turned back to the matter at hand.

"Forget all this Ascendant stuff," he said.

"You need to work on the basics."

"What? All I've done is work on the basics!" Miriam complained.

"I know how to weave my fórsa denser - do I just keep doing that?"

"Obviously yes, do that all the time! Every minute!" Eoin said urgently.

"But it's not enough. Why do you think all these people who live in the Second Ring don't just weave their fórsa denser and pop! Off to the Third Ring they go?"

"Fine," Miriam admitted.

"There's something else to it. So what is it?"

"Work," Eoin and Ultán said at the same time.

"Are you involved in this?" Miriam asked haughtily.

"I'm just bored. But no, please go ahead. This is… riveting entertainment," the old bounty hunter said.

"Well, he's right. Would it surprise you to learn that it's not just warriors who jump Rings? Training in anything, refining skills to a master level, all while weaving your fórsa - these are the things that increase your density." Eoin sighed.

"Onóra, who you had the misfortune to meet earlier, started out as a Third. She didn't touch a weapon until she hit Fifth. Her mastery was all about the science of gemcraft."

"I would be interested to learn more about her," Miriam said.

"But I want to stay on topic. How does that work? How does becoming a master shoemaker improve my fórsa density?" Eoin considered for a moment.

"I won't ask you to parrot it back this time, but you remember what I always ask you. The mind and the body are both fórsa. They each sort of check and support each other. There is something about building expertise, particularly in things that require both body and mind, that refines the fórsa you weave. The action makes it denser, allowing you to weave more and more, until boom! You're a Third."

"That sounds easy enough!" Miriam said.

"Easy," Ultán scoffed. They looked at him and he rolled his eyes.

"Oh, sure, take advice from the one geezer in this room that never has jumped a level, but ignore old Ultán, who went from Second to Fifth!"

"We're not ignoring you because you don't know what you're talking about," Miriam said.

"We're ignoring you because you're our enemy, currently inhabiting our friend's body and, were you ever to get loose, would likely try to kill us."

"Eh, still, he's right again," Eoin said.

"It's not easy. Getting to be pretty good at something isn't hard. But mastery… that's tough."

"It can be anything?" Miriam asked.

"And I'll have to do this again for the Fourth Ring?"

"Anything that requires both mind and body. I have yet to meet someone who did it with purely mental exercises or puzzles," Eoin said.

"I'm pretty sure I know what you'll choose, but the choice is yours."

"As much as it's tempting to advance to the next Ring as a master basketweaver, I think I should improve my combat skills if we're going to be walking into a war," Miriam said drily. Eoin laughed.

"That was my guess. Ok. You've done fine with your spears so far, but I want you instead to focus on mastering the sword."

"What? Why? I've gotten to be ok with the spear lately - seems like it would be easier to get to mastery from there than to start all over with a new weapon."

"Because I don't know how to use a spear!" Eoin snapped.

"I do know how to use swords! So if you're relying on my instruction to get to mastery, I suggest you adopt the only weapon I am actually a master in!"

"Ok! Ok!" Miriam said, raising her hands in defeat.

"It doesn't really matter, I suppose. I wasn't really that good with the spear."

"Sorry," Eoin said.

"Sorry. Guess I'm still on edge. Anyway. Create a sword - one like you made me back in Teilgcheárta should do fine." The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Miriam summoned a sword made of vines. This time the sword barely looked vine-like at all, the plant matter it was woven from so thin she would have to peer closely at it to see it wasn't metal. She regarded it with some pride - her Growth Adept class had given her some benefits after all.

"Well done," Eoin said, summoning his own blade out of water. Oddly, it wasn't ice - it was just solid water. If a vine could be a hammer, Miriam reasoned, she supposed water could be a sword.

"But, one other thing. This will work best if you are constantly expending your fórsa. Is there something you can do that will burn it fast?" Miriam shrugged, and the sword erupted in black flame. In moments she held a thrumming, crackling weapon so powerful it was almost difficult to hold. Reborn Sword.

"This takes a lot of power to maintain," she explained.

"Ok," Eoin said, a little apprehensive.

"But when we get to sparring, we'll just use regular swords, ok? I want to keep my limbs for the moment." Eoin began to demonstrate practice movements using the sword. At first, as Miriam followed along, it seemed no more complicated than simply swinging an axe had been in her days at the lumberyard. But then as she spent more time watching how he moved, she could see the differences. He moved his blade like an extension of his arm. The tip never dipped down with the momentum of the swing as hers tended to.

The handle of the blade never rotated above the meat of his thumb. When he turned the blade, it was a smooth, controlled movement, always at the same precise angle. When he chopped, it was a movement that started in his back foot and carried through to the edge of the blade. Miriam watched her own clumsy swings with the vibrating blade, it constantly draining her fórsa, and sighed. Mastery was a long way away. Interlude 14 Life back on the Isabella was very different this time around.

Foremost, she was no longer a deckhand, but a paying passenger. The tiny stateroom in which she found herself was the size of a closet in the suite she'd enjoyed at the Hallonel manor, but compared to sleeping back-to-back among the throng of sweaty sailors below deck it was practically a palace unto itself. It seemed cruel to subject Namiah to hard labor, wounded as he was, but he bore it well, and the captain seemed inclined to let him off with light duty.

He wheeled a fresh water bucket across the deck to the working sailors and offered them each a ladle whenever they seemed most in need. He shouldered this work with impressive stoicism for a man who had never worked a manual job a day in his life, but in the evenings after his shift and before Miriam had dinner with the Captain and the officers, as befitting a respected passenger, they often met to discuss. Then his eyes looked hollow and weary. It was pride alone that kept him on his feet.

Their journey was not one that Namiah or Miriam had planned - it was merely the first ship out of Marybel. Still, it was on a path that Namiah approved of. It would visit the far southern colonies that had built up between the coast of the Andol Sea's southernmost reaches and the unyielding brutality of the Harada Desert. The Hallonels controlled two of these colonies, and he was certain of finding a warm welcome there.

Once safe and recovered he could begin his plan to re-establish his House's dominance in the High Council and his triumphant return to Marybel. Then he would get his vengeance. None of that mattered now, though. They had but to survive the journey, another month and a half through dangerous waters. Colonies were not nations because they were not so firmly established, and faced threats from every direction.

A prime example of this came one evening as Miriam was sitting down next to the Captain for a perfectly serviceable dinner of crab and roasted beets. A loud thud sounded from elsewhere on the ship, followed by shouts and a distant report of an explosive.

"We're under attack!" The Captain growled, abandoning the table to surge up on deck. Miriam had no role she was assigned in the event of such an event, but she followed him anyway. He pointed his finger against the red sun as it spilled across the ocean's edge. There was the silhouette of a ship there, one which had snuck up on them by keeping the setting sun to their backs.

"From Marybel?" she asked urgently, and he kind of jumped, as if he had forgotten she was there.

"No," he said, looking through a spyglass.

"They're flying a black flag. Pirates."

"Pirates?" Miriam looked down at herself, in a nice dressing gown the captain had somehow found among the ship's sundries so that she might be presentable for dinner. Screw this. She raced down to her cabin and ripped the dress off, struggling to get back into her traveling clothes.

"Miriam!" Namiah met her as she burst out of her cabin.

"Are you all right? What's happening?"

"Pirates," she said.

"Doesn't seem to be related to us." Namiah breathed a sigh of relief.

"Good. Well, we should just hole up in your cabin. These are good, strong sailors. They know their business and with luck they will deal with the threat in no time." Miriam stared at him incredulously.

"You're welcome to hide out if you please, Sir Hallonel," she said.

"I don't intend to throw myself on the mercy of destiny anymore. If the men on this ship are to fight, I will lend my aid, as much help as it may be."

"What will you do?" he asked, bewildered. She narrowed her eyes at him, trying to decide if he was a coward, or just used to other people fighting his battles for him. The results were inconclusive.

"I doubt the Captain will refuse the aid of a steady shot. I'm going to get my hands on a rifle."