Kanin Fyre: Chapter 1 - Sparring Match

We crouch low behind the wall, sending a flicker of our void out to peer around the corner. Only one of Lusio’s two moons is glowing overhead, painting deep shadows between the buildings, but our vision isn’t hampered by darkness. The square is empty. A night dove coos once, and then all is quiet.

As silently as we can manage, we activate a Chromatic Limb, Chaining dozens of segments of glass together and coating them in void. The resulting prehensile limb—or tentacle, as Noli would call it, but we hate thinking of it as a tentacle—is stronger than the sum of its parts. At the same time, we send dozens of shards of glass scattering across the square, each flying in different directions, each with Sight turned on inside them. We look countless different ways at once—an experience that should be dizzying. Instead, it feels as natural as breathing.

Well. Back when we could breathe.

A shadow flickers in the alley behind us. Hah. Of course he’d be sneaking up on us.

We spin around and leap for the alley, hoping to surprise him before he rounds the corner. All our glass is rushing back to our body, both to provide comprehensive visibility of our surroundings and more ammunition.

A handful of glass flies around the corner first, giving us a split second to take in his position and aim. We launch ourself from the ground, spearing our Limb forward.

Zyneth deflects it with a crack of blade on glass. We grab his knife and yank it back. Our glass would have slipped right off, but the void surrounding it is able to get a tight grip.

Zyneth lets loose a burst of lightning which illuminates his red skin and reflects off his yellow horns and gold freckles. The attack peels the void away from our Limb, allowing his knife to slip free. We hiss at the pain of electricity stabbing through our void, but our glass is immune. We slam the glass limb forward into his gut, and he grunts.

Concern briefly stabs through us. Did we hurt him? What if—

Zyneth grabs the glass with his free hand, fire flaring beneath his fingers. He jerks our limb back, sending us lurching toward him—and his knife, which is now glowing white-hot. That’s not good.

We use the extra momentum to extend our claws as we race forward, one reaching to block his blade while the other stabs toward his gut. That knife will be capable of melting our glass. And it will hurt like hell.

Zyneth lets go of our limb and twists to the side. We latch onto his knife, but our other claw skims past his torso. He grabs our wrist, lets go of his knife, and then pivots, yanking us past him. He kicks our back for good measure, sending us tumbling away.

Fury erupts through us. Kick us? How dare he! He should know his place. We growl, our void erupting into ten limbs as we round on him. We stab each of them forward.

Wait! We don’t want to kill him—

An arrow cuts through three of our limbs, stabbing into the ground nearby with a flash of green. Zyneth cuts four of the other limbs away with efficient slices of his knives—both of which are suddenly in hand. We manage to grab hold of him with our last three, wrapping around an arm and both legs. He cuts through the one on his arm, but not before we can yank back, pulling his legs out from under him.

We sniff, offended. We weren’t going to kill him. We have more control than that.

No maiming either.

Not even just a little?

Zyneth rolls to his feet, and we skip back as another arrow strikes the street before us. We still can’t make out where Noli is hiding. But from the angle of the shots—

A bright light crackles in Zyneth’s hand. He doesn’t immediately unleash the attack. Instead it grows brighter, denser. We recall a time he’d similarly used a move like this on us in Emrox. It had stripped most of the void from our body.

No, not us… the other us. The one before.

We decide not to stick around and experience it again.

Zyneth looses the concentrated blast of lighting as we dive around a corner and into a different alley. The second we’re out of sight, we access our Inventory, removing a giant jumble of Chained glass. Without stopping, we continue to flee, and launch the Chained glass a different way, sending a handful of void with it. We rapidly start rearranging the glass ball into something more humanoid. It’s this second shape that Zyneth catches sight of before it disappears around a corner. He goes chasing after it.

Good. The decoy worked—now we can focus on finding Noli.

We send pieces of glass up into the air to scout the rooftops. They zip around chimneys and drain pipes, pausing intermittently so we can look through them.

One of the glass pieces shatters with a small sting of pain. It had been moving, so we hadn’t been able to see anything sensible through it, but that must be where Noli is hiding. We grab the nearest roof with a Chromatic Limb and hoist ourself up, then dash across the rooftops in the direction of where our shard had broken.

Leaping over the alleyways, we land void-first to cushion and mute our landing. Not that Noli would hear, but Zyneth certainly would—along with anyone staying in these houses. It’s a rundown, partially abandoned area of the city, but it doesn’t hurt to be careful.

We pause behind the chimney where we felt the glass break, careful not to stay out in the open too long. Our void circles around the base, keeping to the shadows. But there’s no one on the other side. Where—

Three arrows in rapid succession hammer into our shoulder. Pain zings through our arm as something cracks, but the glass doesn’t shatter. Those durability spells are paying off.

Noli drew us here intentionally, but now we know where she’s hiding. We pivot and throw ourself in the direction the arrows had come from, zeroing in on a dark balcony. We unfurl several more limbs of void, reaching for it…

We notice something through our decoy glass—it’s no longer being chased.

Dammit. We wrap void around our body, activating Displace right as a bolt of lightning stabs up from the alley beneath us. Electricity hisses at our essence as the Displace spell pulls us away, and we drop from a similar film of void a few streets away that we’d kept with the decoy.

We’re irritated. We only narrowly dodged that trap. And we’re doubly irritated when Echo crackles in our head, informing us how much magic we used. Displacing just our vial only takes a handful of mana, but the same for our entire body eats up a big chunk of what we’ve got. A nice Get Out of Jail Free card, but we won’t be able to use it again. We need to end this.

We break apart the glass from the decoy and add it back into our main body, strengthening our form and giving us more limbs to fight with. We circle around the building, reorienting ourself, then quickly and silently rush back toward the alley where Zyneth had executed his sneak attack. He can’t have gone far. And Noli must still be up on the balcony—I’d have heard if she jumped down.

I catch a flicker of movement as Zyneth dashes away. In the dark, his faintly glowing yellow eyes betray his presence—not the best trait for someone who relies on stealth. Now our roles have reversed, and we’re the one tracking him. We split our void in two, sending half of it around the other side of the building, hoping to pin him between us. Sure enough, he skids to a halt when he sees our void rear up in front of him. He glances back right as we make the turn, prowling down the alley behind him.

Zyneth lights another ball of lightning in his hand, casting the alley in jittery streaks of white. “This won’t keep me here for long, you know.”

We weren’t planning to take our time.

We lunge forward, and run straight into a wire mesh that’s been dropped down to meet us. We thrash at the net, but it’s strong enough that our void can’t immediately cut through it. With a growl, we add our body to our Inventory, catching our core with our void and sinking to the ground. With luck, he’ll think we Displaced our body to the opposite end of the alley. Meanwhile, we bring our body back out, outside the net, and—

Noli drops to the ground, nearly on top of me, and points an arrow into our void. She doesn’t loose it, however. We take advantage of her hesitation, snaking a loop of void around her ankle.

“It’s over,” Zyneth says, and we pause. “If this were a real fight, she would have shattered your core already.”

Zyneth waves Noli off, and the elf steps back, slinging her bow over a shoulder and adding the arrow back into her quiver.

“That was fun,” she signs, beaming at us. In the dark, her white teeth and braids seem to glow against the darker tone of her skin. “Want to go again?”

We grumble in response, seeping our void around the net, and start to put ourself back together. Which also involves prying our minds back apart.

Ink is very unsatisfied with the conclusion of this sparring session. We should have won! We could have. But I kept making it hesitate.

Sorry for not wanting to accidentally kill my friends, I think.

Ink bristles. It wouldn’t! They are part of our pack. Why would it want to kill them?

Not a pack, I think for about the hundredth time.

“You were holding back,” Zyneth says.

“Ugh.” I look over my body to make sure it’s mostly humanoid again. “Not you, too.”

“It won’t be good practice if you don’t put your all into it,” Zyneth says.

If I really let Ink go all out, I worry someone would end up dead, no matter how much it insists otherwise. The only body it’s experienced is my glass one: it doesn’t understand vital organs or the risk of bleeding out. It’s barely just started to not attack anything that it deems faintly threatening.

“You alright?” Noli asks. Zyneth hasn’t been signing—he only knows some basics anyway—so Noli missed his chastising.

“Fine,” I sign, my translator speaking aloud for Zyneth’s benefit as well. “Zyneth’s upset I didn’t stab him.”

“That’s not what I said!” Zyneth objects. He smooths an annoyed look out of his features. “And I’m not upset.”

“Very upset,” I sign, keeping the translator silent.

Noli laughs as Zyneth narrows his eyes at my hands. He knows just enough to deduce I’m mocking him.

“He can continue to be upset at you once we’re back in a nice warm inn with a mug of hot cider,” Noli signs. “I need to go collect my arrows.”

Right, it’s probably a bit chilly out here for them. It’s well into autumn now, and their heavy breaths puff in the cold. Not that I can really feel it.

I translate the last part of Noli’s comment for Zyneth. “I also need to go look for any glass that might have fallen out of my range.”

“I’ll accompany you,” Zyneth offers. “How much glass are you missing?”

I Check my Stats.

[Name: Kanin]

[Class: Arcane Attendant]

[Level: 28]

[HP: 10/10]

[Temp HP: 472]

[Mana: 127/575]

[Role: Homunculus]

“Not much,” I reply. “Shouldn’t take long.”

My Temp HP, which represents how much Attuned glass I have at my disposal, is usually a hair above 500 when I have all my glass removed from my Inventory. Since it’s at 472 now, it indicates I did indeed lose a handful of shards somewhere in the midst of the fight.

“Meet at the Dainty Drake, then?” Noli suggests.

“See you there,” I agree. As we venture back into the alleyways in search of our respective weapons, I surreptitiously give Zyneth—and Noli, before she’s out of sight–a couple quick Checks.

[Zyneth: Level 36 Cambion Rogue Artificer]

[Noli: Level 32 Elf Woodland Ranger]

Noli’s pretty much out of mana, which makes me feel a bit better about fighting off the both of them at once. Zyneth is also in the lower half of his mana reserves, and he’s missing a few points of HP, probably from where I managed to land a hit to his gut.

Not enough, Ink thinks, still displeased from losing. We need to get faster. Stronger.

For once, I’m inclined to agree. Knowing a significant portion of the pantheon is looking for me is excellent motivation to grind my levels up, which is exactly what I have been doing with Zyneth and Noli for the last few weeks since encountering Blair, god of wards.

Interestingly, both Zyneth and Noli have gone up a level in that time. In fact, they’ve gone up a couple levels since I first met them, which hasn’t even been a year yet. It’s interesting. If they were both roughly level thirty before I met them, then they were averaging about one level increase every year or so. But in the last nine months, Noli has gained three and Zyneth has gained five. And I’ve gained, you know, twenty-seven. Is it just because they’ve been doing more magic and fighting and general running-around-like-a-chicken-with-its-head-cut-off since they met me? I’d be inclined to think that was the case for Noli, but Zyneth had hardly been idle before meeting me, what with all the dangerous missions he was sent on. The rate of growth seems weird. Or am I overthinking it?

I wonder if Blair would have any answers. Or any she’d actually be willing to answer. She’d been forthright with me on some points, and dodgy on others. At the thought, I glance at my interface, and specifically the new Contacts option that hadn’t been there before Blair tweaked my System permissions. When I mentally select the option, it brings up a blank screen, and attempts to add Zyneth or anyone else to my “Contacts” results in nothing happening. I have no idea what Blair was thinking when she gave me this.

“Copper for your thoughts,” Zyneth says.

I realize I’ve been quiet since we split from Noli. Mentally, I begin searching for any of my Attuned glass that falls back inside my range and have it come floating back. “Sorry. I was just thinking about our levels. I’m advancing fast, but not as fast as I’d like.” There’s still an ocean of difference between a level 30 mage and a level 100 god, after all.

“I still don’t entirely understand how these levels of yours work,” Zyneth says, “but there’s more to combat than raw power. Strategy and versatility are equally important—perhaps more important.”

Tell that to Echo. “Displace would be a great spell for that if it didn’t take up so much of my mana.”

“It’s a great spell even with that limitation,” Zyneth remarks. “Since you can operate your glass separately, you don’t need to Displace your entire body somewhere—just your core would work, or perhaps a portion of your glass.”

“Which would leave my core vulnerable,” I point out. “That’s exactly how Noli got the better of me.” A few more pieces of glass come zipping back to us, and I add them to the Chained ball of glass that I’m accumulating.

“It was a good ruse,” Zyneth says. “Attempting to trick me into thinking you were using a Displace when you had actually added your body to your Inventory was exceptionally clever. If it weren’t for Noli’s eagle-eyes, I would have fallen for it.”

Well that’s something, at any rate. “Now you’re just trying to make me feel better.”

His grin catches the moonlight.

I sigh. Well, not literally, but I get the translator to approximate a sort of disgruntled sound. “Any more constructive criticism you’d like to share?”

“You sure you want to hear it?”

I find a few more pieces of glass that have fallen back into my range. That makes 503 Bonus HP. I might be missing a couple slivers here and there, but I’ve recovered most of it. “Just out with it already.”

“I can tell where you are by watching how your glass shards spread out,” Zyneth says. “They always radiate away from wherever you are when you send them scouting.”

Damn. I should have thought of that.

“And try varying your attacks up a little bit,” he adds as we start looping around toward our inn.

“I’m not about to fire off my Lightbeam in the middle of a city—or middle of the night,” I object.

“What about that spinning top move you did with the pirates?”

“The alleys are too narrow.”

“You could try fighting in a different form.”

I hesitate. “That might take some time to put together.”

He glances at me out of the corner of his eyes. “Now you’re just making excuses.”

Maybe I am. There’s a reason I tried to make this body as human-like as I can get it. It helps me feel a little less monstrous.

But Ink agrees with Zyneth—of course it does. It thinks we should try different shapes. Split into more forms, not just with decoys, but as multiple fully functioning bodies. We have the potential to be much stronger than we currently are; as soon as I stopped holding it back.

It’s probably right. There’s no reason for me to try to remain bipedal-ish and limit the number of limbs (not tentacles) I let Ink form. And in a life and death situation—if I ever end up needing to face a god—I’ll have to use everything at my disposal, no matter how unsavory it might seem.

I have to get stronger. I’m just afraid of what I might lose along the way.