Chương 152: 150. Subterfuge

I practice sword and shield drills in the barracks yard, frustrated with how my body wars against two sets of competing instincts. Melik knows how this body is supposed to work, but his movements and instincts are struggling to hold their head above water as I fall back into my own habits, designed for a body stronger, tougher, smaller, and thinner than this one. I expect less weight, more force, more speed to everything I do.

My perceptions haven't slowed down in the transfer between bodies, but my body itself has. I feel like I'm fighting in a mudpit, and the only way to break these bad habits before they start to matter is practice. So here I am, huffing and sweating away, trying to figure out if my new body actually smells way worse than my last one or if that's just my sense of smell no longer being crowded out as much by soul sensations. Agh, any way I move just feels wrong to some part of me!

I'm getting too frustrated, it's time to switch gears. I sheathe my sword, taking a deep breath as I open the vial of my newly-requisitioned metal dust (which Jelisaveta quietly gave me orders not to eat). I flex my hidden tendrils, shaping the mana needed for my freshly-completed faux talent spell. The metal dust flies up at my command, stolen instincts trying to move it with methods that no longer work like an amputee trying to move a missing arm.

I do my best to take that instinct and shift the spell to accommodate its intent, completing the metal sigil and forming a metamancy glyph on the ground in front of me. Nice! So it all works, I just need to get fast enough and practiced enough to use in combat. It's funny; since I don't actually have Melik's talent, this whole metal-dust thing is somewhat pointless.

I could create stronger metamancy glyphs more quickly by simply casting a spell to make a metamancy glyph rather than casting a spell to move the metal to form another spell that forms a metamancy glyph. It's a bit silly, sure, but it made sense when Melik was doing it so I have to keep it up in order to continue pretending to be him. I carefully assemble a few other metal formations, wary since I know a misstep in the formation could literally blow up in my face.

Melik's memories have all sorts of tricks to bypass the issue though, key areas of the spell that can be kept free of metal until the very end, letting me double-check the formation before activating it all at once. I set a few new, custom glyphs on my armor, taking a running jump to test them a couple times before finally stepping on the glyph I put in the ground and getting launched high up into the air. I enjoy being in the air.

Jumping high into the trees was one of the first things I did when my soul started assisting my muscles on the inside, and since then I've made verticality a key part of my fighting style, especially in the forest. Leaving the ground, feeling that brief period of weightlessness before the fall… it's a special kind of joy that I only feel more clearly now that I'm in a fresh new body. Of course, there's one major downside to jumping really, really high as Melik: I'll absolutely, definitely die.

Unless I make a spell to protect me, of course. Melik already made a spell that can hold people in the air in order to try and trap Lark, and I've expanded on it a little so that it works as a cushion against all momentum: the spell basically just slows down whatever's in the range of the glyph once activated. Handy for surviving long falls, and probably lots of other stuff! Sure enough, I feel myself brake rather than break as the ground rapidly approaches.

I stumble into an awkward but otherwise safe landing, letting myself grin from ear to ear at the triumph. Dang, magic is kind of really cool.

"Getting some good training in?" Lark asks, approaching me with a friendly nod.

"Yeah," I confirm.

"I still feel stiff and sluggish, but I'm at least getting to test new spell ideas. I think mobility is a big weakness for me right now, so I'm trying to come up with glyphs that will help me out with that."

"You do know that jumping thirty feet in the air is just going to make you an easier target, right?" Lark asks me.

"Well, yeah. That one's just for fun," I admit. That gets a smile out of her, making Melik's heart flutter a bit. Ugh, gross. Lark is wearing her usual 'casual' gear: one of her self-woven shirts and Templar leg armor, minus the boots. It leaves all her inhuman features free to move around while still being enough of a uniform to remind people that she belongs here. The part of me I'm trying firmly to ignore also thinks the ensemble looks quite good on her, particularly the snug T-shirt.

Come on, body, I used to have tits. I promise they're not that exciting.

"Well, I also came out here to stretch a bit, so do you wanna spar at all?" Lark asks. Let's see… I do kind of want a rematch. Even Melik wants to kick her ass in a fight, and while I doubt I can actually win as-is, it should be good practice.

"Sure," I agree.

"Sword and board, or do you want to fight me like that?"

"Hmm," Lark considers.

"Yeah, let me go grab my armor. I'm not looking for a real fight so much as something to take my mind off things for a while." I shrug and return to drilling as she runs off, quickly dons her gear, and returns. Then we trade out our blades for blunted ones and face off. I take a defensive stance, hunkering behind my shield as I encourage her to take the first move.

I know my body can't keep up with her in any area, and while Melik would try to even those odds with clever spellwork, I'm not yet used to the faux talent enough to be confident I can weave a metamancy glyph together mid-combat. I'll have to bait her into a bad position another way. She strikes towards my left, but I ignore it because it's a feint, trying to get a quick cut in while she adjusts.

I startle her, but not enough to prevent her from dodging, so I settle back into a defensive stance rather than push my advantage. I'll lose a prolonged exchange of blows every time, so what I need to do is focus on counters. It's frustrating, oh so frustrating. Melik's eyes couldn't keep up with her back when the two of them sparred, but I have more than physical eyes to work with. I can read her intent directly, move my body to defend the moment she starts any given movement.

The more she thinks about what she's doing, the better I can defend against it, counter it, and win small victories. But even with the training I've inherited from Melik, I'm simply not a skilled enough swordsman to make the movements necessary to catch her. I'm just a bit too slow, a bit too imprecise, a bit too inexperienced to react well enough to land a hit. I know what I should be doing, but I can't pull it off. My body simply can't keep up with my mind.

Still, I keep her stalemated for quite some time before exhaustion starts to hit me, my ragged breaths and burning muscles slowing my already sluggish form enough that the duel falls further and further out of my favor until Lark finally disarms me, pointing her sword to my throat.

"Fuck," I hiss feelingly, dropping to my knees as I suck in ragged breaths.

"Shit, you kicked my ass."

"Are you kidding me?" Lark answers disbelievingly.

"That was incredible. I felt like I was fighting our instructor for most of that. You were one step ahead the whole time."

"Too bad you can take three steps every time I lift a foot," I counter bitterly. Ugh, I expected to lose but it still stings like a bitch. I'm definitely used to having the raw power and toughness to just not give a shit about fights, and not having it now is a pungent stain on my pride. …Heh. Pride. Since when have I been well-off enough to afford pride? I shake my head to clear the thoughts, reaching an arm up to accept Lark's offer to help me stand the moment she supplies it.

"Good spar," I tell her honestly.

"Definitely," she agrees.

"You doing okay? You don't normally collapse after we fight."

"Well, I don't normally fight that hard," I counter.

"True," she concedes.

"But that's weird in its own way. You seem a bit different ever since the battle." I successfully hold back a wince, cocking my head in mock confusion instead.

"Good different or bad different?" I probe.

"I don't know if it's either good or bad," Lark answers, shrugging.

"You're not as broody as you used to be, if nothing else." Ha! Melik got possessed by an undead necromancer and became less broody! That totally figures.

"I'll choose to interpret that as a good thing, then?" I hedge, shrugging.

"I don't know what to tell you. Fighting a massive battle and nearly dying just put a bunch of things in perspective, I guess." Lark hums, a distracting tumult of strangely sharp emotions passing over her soul before she returns her attention to me. I can't figure out what that means, but it certainly happens to her a lot. Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

"I suppose you're right about that," she says quietly.

"That was… not a pleasant experience. Both being prevented from fighting until Vita got to us and actually fighting her were distinctly unpleasant. It's hard to imagine things going worse than they did."

"We could be dead," I supply.

"True," she agrees softly.

"It would be bad if you all were dead." I can't help it. I reach up and put my hand on Lark's head, ruffling her hair between her ears. She goes still, her temptation and terror warring with the subtle warmth of finally getting some desperately-needed human contact. This, more than anything, I can empathize with.

Our source of fear and mistrust is different—I don't trust others, while she doesn't trust herself—but we're both fundamentally people that close ourselves off from contact with anyone and end up starved for it without ever knowing. Being able to hug Lyn and, eventually, Penelope was one of those things I never knew how desperately I needed, but acquiring a circle of people I could make contact with and feel safe about it is a key part of what changed my life for the better.

And while I doubt Lark would want me to ever get near her again, I can feel that she trusts Melik. My touch is awkward, since I know little about comforting people and less about petting cats, but she doesn't seem to want it to stop.

"I think the whole squad agrees it would be bad if you died, too," I tell her.

"Don't think we don't notice your word choice when you say things like that."

"... Of all times for humans to start paying careful attention to their own language," she grumbles softly. I snort with amusement.

"Well, if you repeat something often enough, they do get it eventually." She looks up at me suddenly, oddly confused. I blink with surprise.

"It was a joke," I clarify.

"You're always complaining about people repeating themselves?"

"Right, yeah," she agrees, vigorously shaking her head as I take my hand away.

"Sorry, just had a weird thought."

"No worries," I shrug.

"Thanks for the spar. I think I'm a bit too tuckered out for another, though."

"Yeah, of course," she agrees, and I retrieve my sword before heading out. I've got somewhere important to be, after all. The question is, do I go in uniform or not? Being in uniform has the advantage of turning me into a faceless Templar, which lets me blend into a crowd better in some ways but worse in others. Ultimately, I decide that I'd rather not be bothered by people needing a Templar and asking for help (since even though I'm off duty, if I wear the armor I'm expected to help).

Besides, if anyone is tracking Melik specifically, they're probably already doing it. Actually, quick check: Braum's soul looks like it's reflecting a totally different part of the city. Perfect. I remove my armor, store it in my room, and leave the barracks, heading somewhere bittersweet and familiar. I take a roundabout route to my old hunter guildhouse, scraping the edge of the city where, all those years ago, my family lived in the alleyways in a wooden shack.

Nowadays, almost everything here is wood, most of the stone structures having collapsed from the perception event and forcibly dug away. The wooden structures that now line the streets are far nicer than my rotting old shack, of course, a testament to my girlfriend's work at improving cheap building materials so the poor might be able to afford workable homes. Damn, I hope Penelope's okay. But that's why I'm out here. If I'm lucky, I'll know soon enough.

I walk into the Hunter's Guild and am immediately hit with a pulse of nostalgia. The building didn't suffer the fate of many others and was spared from major damage, so even after two years it feels like coming back to a second home. I can smell the stew from here. Unfortunately, I can't partake; I'm no longer a hunter, after all. I'm just here to meet one, since I heard he gets back from his mission today. And sure enough, while his soul is far stronger than I remember it, he's here. Orville.

It's doubly a shame that I can't have any of the stew, since he seems to be sitting in the mess hall with what I assume is his team. I recognize two of them before I even enter the room: Seong is here, which might make things awkward since they knew Melik for quite some time back in Litia Village. Fulvia is also on Orville's team, which I have to say is a remarkable coincidence. But the fourth and final member of the group is, to my surprise, also known to me.

Or, more accurately, she's known to Melik's memories, but now I get to put a soul to the face for the first time.

"Gina?" I ask, raising an eyebrow as I walk over to them.

"Melik!" my former-fellow trainee says looking pleasantly surprised as I walk over.

"Hey! I heard you're a big fancy Templar now, eh?"

"So they tell me," I answer agreeably.

"Weren't you like, in jail?"

"She was," Orville speaks up.

"But I bought her out."

"Uugh, yeah, I'm like, technically a slave now, I guess," Gina groans.

"Not like Orville wasn't already a slave driver of a team leader."

"Oh yeah?" I say.

"Dang Orville, I'm not sure if you can be a slave buddy if you're a slave owner." I give Seong a hug, since they stood up to do just that. The poisoner gives me a proud punch on the shoulder which I respond to with a grin. All the while, Orville is frozen solid by my words.

'Slave buddies' is what I called Orville back when he was legally owned by the woman who raised him and I was legally owned by Penelope. It's the sort of inside joke absolutely no one both living and outside our squad could have known, which is why it makes a nice code phrase to announce that something me-related is going on. After all, Orville still meets with Netta in secret, since despite being my Revenant and his former owner, their relationship is far more family than property.

As such, he has a massive incentive to not rat me out, what with already being my accomplice. This makes him the ideal person to send a message to my little forest-town, since I can use him to send the message via Netta. I figure if Penelope is on the run, the village is the first place she'd go. Well, okay, the first place she'd go would be her secret hideout, but I don't have any way of reaching her secret hideout other than the teleportation circle at my village anyway.

It hits both of those possibilities at once. And if she's at neither place, and no one at my village knows where she went, well… I have to assume that means she's in trouble. … Or dead. Hopefully it won't come to that, because I have no idea where to search next.

"Isn't he on the squad with… y'know?" Fulvia whispers into Gina's ear, though not quietly enough to prevent anyone from hearing.

"Ah, yeah, but he's cool," Gina reassures the other woman, patting her hand.

"Melik here's the one that got his ass kicked with me!" I'm less surprised that Fulvia is out of prison, considering that all she did was beat the shit out of someone who never even bribed a guard, and the normal punishment for that doesn't usually last more than a tenday. Gina, meanwhile, disobeyed Templar command and gave away confidential secrets, which is… well, I have no idea how harsh a punishment that gets you since I've never met anyone else guilty of such a thing, but I imagine it's hefty.

Not that Jelisa seems to give a shit. I made such a good decision when I spared her life.

"So," Orville says flatly, cutting past the handful of other conversations his team was about to start with me.

"What brings you here?"

"Well, you were on a hunter team with Bently, right?" I ask, even though I know the answer. Hee hee! Subterfuge! This must be how Penelope feels all the time.

"Yes," Orville confirms, nodding suspiciously.

"Well, he's currently stuck in bed after some nasty injuries," I explain.

"They think he'll make a full recovery, something about his talent helping out. But I figure he's probably bored, and would love to see an old friend. I was hoping to catch you when you got back and surprise him." Orville is surprised and wary, but he only lets the former show on his face.

"I see," he says.

"I'd love to go see him. Do the rest of you mind if I head out?"

"Nah at all," Seong grunts.

"It was good ta see ya again, Melik."

"Likewise," I tell them. Then I stare firmly at Gina until I've successfully quashed her urge to invite herself. Which is fortunate, because while I know she wants to see Bently and that Bently would be happy to see her, it would ruin my plans to get Orville alone if she tags along. The pair of us depart, our walk down the street silent at first as I carefully check the souls in my range to ensure none of them are paying any attention to us. Even Braum's soul reflects somewhere completely different. Perfect.

"So…" Orville starts awkwardly.

"So," I answer, weaving a silence spell around us.

"Vita would like you to send a message to your mom."

"How did she get to you?" Orville asks bluntly.

"Best I can tell, you're still alive."

"Are you sure you want to know?" I ask him. He regards me silently for a moment, then sighs.

"No," he admits.

"Not really." Ah, Orville. He was always the member of the team with the most common sense.

"Tell Netta to head to the village and get news, particularly on Penelope's whereabouts," I instruct him.

"She'll know which village. Then have her tell you the news, then you tell me. The sooner, the better."

"That's it?" he asks.

"That's it," I answer firmly.

"You're a friend, Orville. Vita isn't going to extort you."

"That's unexpectedly pleasant news, I suppose," he responds sardonically.

"But it's a simple enough request. I'll do it."

"Thank you," I reply, and the rest of the day is devoid of further plots and schemes. Orville and Bently hang out, chatting and laughing and generally making Bently's day, which I'm glad for. It's the least I can do for him after spilling his intestines all over the forest floor. Bently's recovery seems to be going far faster than any of the biomancers expected, his body taking to healing like a bird to the skies.

His stamina talent apparently means he can accept a lot more regenerative biomancy in his body than the average person, continuing to benefit far after the point where a normal person would start cannibalizing themselves until they had a few meals to digest. In another couple days, both of his legs will likely have finished regrowing, which is both good and bad. Good because it of course means Bently will be back on his feet, but bad because there's no doubt our break will end soon afterwards.

Once our squad is back to fighting fit, we're going to be fighting. The only question is what. The answer comes sooner than I would have liked. Before Bently even finishes regrowing his toes, we're called to an emergency meeting by our captain.

"New Talsi has fallen," Jelisa announces, looking us dead in the eyes.

"Alongside a number of smaller towns and villages around it. Reports say they've been razed to the last man."

"What!?" Xavier yelps, earning her an immediate glare from Jelisa. This is the time for professionalism.

"What caused it?" I prompt instead, though I can't think of many things that would perform that kind of indiscriminate slaughter. Jelisa glances to Lark, confirming my suspicions. Shit. I suppose it was only a matter of time before one got big and bold enough to raze a city.

"We believe… it was vrothizo." Yep. How nostalgic. Me and my squad, all dispatching to fight a soul-eating monster. Though if it annihilated an entire countryside, well… something tells me this one is going to be a bit bigger than the last one. Another one of those hard-to-control smiles parts my lips. I look forward to it.