Triple Strength

291. Grain of Sand: Tabitha.

Modrica is pissed at me. I got into two good fights, and she wasn’t there. On top of that, I put on a show that she missed. She loves the puppets, even if she has already seen them many times. I have to put on a show soon because Umreti hasn’t even seen them once, and she thinks that is a crime.

We spent four days in Kohekohe, and Wiremu did remove the class from the three slaves. He is pleased with how it went, even though one of them was close and she would need a lengthy recovery period. The Wiremu hero worship is reaching new heights.

We left in the night and rode hard to catch up to the wagons. Two days and nights of hard riding, but it is good to be together again. Ruku is setting up the morning sparring sessions again. All I heard was that Modrica would be beating me up every morning because she was pissed.

I pulled out the grain of sand to examine. This is Wiremu’s new fucking Skill. It is actually Puia’s Skill Phantasm (Mineral). We are trying to use it to hide or misdirect attention, but the first hurdle to overcome is that it is a rock and indiscriminate in its effect. For it to not affect us, we need to build our Mental Resistance and our mind shields. He also needs to level the skill, so hence, we are carrying around grains of sand that attack our minds. That sounds so weird to say.

It looks just like a grain of sand, but it does affect my thinking. I am distracted and uncomfortable. My Mental resistance has gone up a level already, and I can block it out with my Shadow Mind. It is getting easier to use Shadow Mind without having to concentrate on it. Pushing Shadow Mind to the Apprentice level would make a big difference there. I do have one advantage, and that is if I put the sand in my Spatial pocket, the effect is masked. That makes it a good surprise weapon.

Travel is boring, so this is a great time to practice these things. We still have about a month of travel through the wilderness of no man's land before we hit the Imperial borders properly, and then there are about two months to get to Yelets. Wiremu wants to divert to find a bond for Umreti, so that will add another couple of weeks. The quarry where Wiremu spent three years is also somewhere between here and Yelets. Wiremu is very keen to pay a visit there, too.

I am settling in for the trip now we are at a slower pace. Wiremu is off hunting and bringing back live animals for trade. Sometimes, he will take Ruku or Umreti. Ruku sometimes goes off fishing. Modrica and I usually stay by the wagons. We are city girls, and the men are the rugged outdoors type. It is too stereotypical for me, but it is what it is.

Captain Lee is an inquisitive bitch. I hope she becomes helpful as she is gaining huge benefits from this. She now has Mental Resistance and has developed a Mind Shield. Her fighting Skills are weak, but she is a spy more than a fighter. Which is probably where the inquisitiveness comes from.

The Famous Five look after the wagons and beasts mostly. Moja, Mbili and Tatu drive wagons, and Nne and Tano scout but come in for our training sessions. Tatu is happy with his Spider bond, and Nne recently bonded with a baby Free-tailed bat. She is happy. The bat is a fast flyer, and she does most of the night shift. Tatu was not happy as spiders are one of the food sources for bats.

We are one big semi-happy family.

Wiremu is watching our back. We wouldn’t put it past Rodion to follow us. He knows our destination, so he might be heading direct. A wolfkin will stand out in the Empire, though. A big majority of humans in the empire.

My main issue is I have fifteen attribute points accrued from Class levels. What do I do with them? Wiremu is going to put most of his toward increasing his spirituality, but I can be more flexible. I have had a lot of skill levels, especially in the last fight. Stealth and shadows are still my go-to abilities.

One thing that has been bugging me is that Foxkin who could beat my Spatial Awareness with her stealth. How did she do that? How can I do that, and how can I counter that? I am not used to being snuck up on, and it is not pleasant. She beat Wiremu’s Master level Hearing Aid as well as my Spatial Awareness. She also beat his Thermal Sensing, Tāoke’s nose and my Master level Darksight and Nyx’s Spiritual Senses. How? I honestly thought that couldn’t happen with my Spatial Awareness. Would Ruku’s Sonar have picked her up? Or his Ocean Sense? I will never know.

I need something new. Something different. Ruku’s Ocean Sense is a different skill. It is almost like an environmental awareness Skill picking up minute disturbances and anomalies in the surrounding area. It is quite a vague skill. Ruku says he got it from spending days on his own fishing and becoming aware of what is around him. My Engulfing Shadows lets me sense my surroundings, and using that in the extreme enabled me to learn Spatial Awareness.

I am a city girl. I don’t spend forever in one place. Cities have their own flow and movement, but I am not going to learn a city equivalent skill travelling through the wilderness for months. I need to be in a city, and the next city we will come to is Yelets.

Yelets brings my thoughts back to Longstrider. Adrian Longstrider, my old master thief, who taught me my basic class. I was scared of him back then. Would I be now? What do I actually know about him? He is a Master Thief and Burglar. He had an extended information network and a Trainer Class. He was the master crimelord of Yelets. Everybody paid tribute to him. Only one gang stood up to him during my time, and he ruthlessly crushed them. Adrian Longstrider was the only name I knew him by, but it sounds so false now. It is hard to know what I will need to stand up to him, possibly work with him or take over from him. He will have used his trainer Class to give himself many skills, and he is old. If there is one thing I have learned recently, it is that older people have many high-level skills.

That is a worry, and I don’t know how to prepare for it. With his information network, he might know about my Shadow Affinity. I know he was trying to keep track of me shortly after I got to Jern. Laid a claim on me, in fact. My biggest advantages are Nyx and Modrica and, to a lesser extent, Wiremu. He probably knows something about Wiremu.

What do I need to tip the scales in my favour? I am strong in the shadows, but if he knows that, he will try to negate it. It is super energy-intensive to operate in the middle of the day or in brightly lit rooms. How do I do that?

Option 1: block or disable the light source. It's good for things other than the sun, but Wiremu’s Clouds are an idea I could work on. Clouds that are created from a source that is not me.

Option 2: Get out. That would mean going against or through Spiritual metals and enchanted materials. I have a greater idea of how enchantments work now, so that is good. This option means I need tools. What tools do I need?

Option 3: ??? Not sure. Perhaps use the light somehow? Shadows are an absence of light. What am I doing when creating shadows in a lit area? Do I absorb the light or change it in some way? I know I don’t reflect the light, which brings to mind that mirrors could be useful.

I cast Engulfing Shadows and looked at what it did. My Sense Spiritual and Spiritual Perception were much higher now than they ever used to be. I wasn’t sensing enough. I could tell from the Engulfing Shadows that the light was being absorbed, but I could not sense it to affect it. I decided to put a point into Spiritual Perception and see if I could tell the difference. Yes, there was some. I bumped it up to 55. That was better.

The light was absorbed by my shadows, which makes sense. The stronger the light, the more energy it takes. Shadow Manipulation and Binding Shadows etc. gave the shadow a physical form. Instead of absorbing the light, could I do something else with it that is less energy-intensive? Bend it or even reflect it?

Engulfing Shadows is my go-to Skill, and it has been sitting on the cusp of Master level for ages. Can I push it over with this? I recast Engulfing Shadows in a small area and looked at where the light entered the skill. Instead of absorbing, could I bend it? I concentrated on the area with Spiritual Strength and tried hardening the surface. This was sort of what I did with my Shadow Shield. Shadow Shield is weak, but here, I am only trying to move or deflect light. The surface hardened. I knew how to do that. However, the light hitting a black surface was still absorbed.

Instead of Spiritual Strength, I tried Spiritual Agility. Unfortunately, It was my lowest Attribute. Could I use the agility to bend the light to create my shadows rather than absorbing it? I spent the next few hours trying all sorts of things. The light was not easy to grab and move. It is easier to bounce off a surface, like a mirror.

I hardened the surface of my Engulfing Shadows again. Can I change it to a colour other than black? It is the shadows under the surface that are important to me, not the surface itself. If I am operating in a low light area, then I don’t need any of this, but if I am operating in a strong light area, like the desert in the day, I do need this to reduce my energy costs.

What I am getting now, though, is frustrated. I don’t have the patience of Wiremu to sit by a pond for hours doing nothing. I need results and action. Progress. Time for a break.

I took out the grain of sand again and flexed my Shadow Mind against its influence. Shadow Mind finally went to the Apprentice Level. See Progress!

I looked at the grain of sand. It was grey and formed a shadow on my hand. I focussed my Spiritual Perception on this shadow and the grain of sand. I could sense the shadow. I manipulated it, and the grain rolled on my palm, moving the shadow.

Think, girl, think!

I cast a tiny Engulfing shadow next to the grain of sand. They sat side by side, one grey and one black. It has to do with the surface of the object. I can see that and how some light bounces from the grey surface. The light just disappears into the Engulfing Shadows. I moved the Engulfing shadow over the grain of sand. This was not easy as it was a spiritual material., but I did it and matched the surfaces together. Can I make the light bounce from the surface of the Engulfing Shadow be the same as the light hitting the grain of sand? This was better as I had a direct comparison here, and Spiritual Agility was definitely the way to go.

I upped the attributes in Spiritual Agility to make it 45, and that helped, but I was down to seven spare points. That helped, but I was not there yet. Do I put more points in? I do feel I am onto something. Fuck it! Of course, I do. I am not going to stop when I am making progress.

46, 47, 48, 49, 50. Fifty helps me move the light, and the surface colour changes slightly. Yes! More! I put more effort in, and the colour slowly starts to match the grain of sand as I match the light waves.

Yes, and I have a notification of a new skill. What the fuck is this? I was changing Engulfing Shadows, and I have a whole different Skill instead.

Reflecting Surfaces allows me to change the light on the surface of something. That is not what I was going for. Changing a grey rock to look red is not very useful.

Wait. I was using it on Engulfing Shadows. I cast a fist-sized Engulfing Shadows and then cast Reflecting Surface on it. Yes! Some of the light is reflected instead of absorbed, and it therefore reduces the cost. But it also costs to cast Reflecting Surface, and overall, it is more expensive.

Does the Reflecting Surface cost reduce as it levels? Yes, but… but it is more complicated than that. The size of the surface I am covering affects the cost as well. The bigger the surface, the less light I can reflect for the same cost. A dark grey reflects very little light compared to a bright yellow or white.

I switch to my Embracing Shadows and cast Reflecting Surface over a me size object and experiment with cost vs energy saving to get a feel for the Skill. I am sitting on a wooden bench, driving a wagon. I cast Reflecting Surface on my leg and tried to match the colour of the bench. No shadows are involved in this, and I manage it for a small section. It is like my leg disappeared for a short section. That is amazing.

What is even more amazing is this is not a shadow skill. I learned it from my shadows, and it synergises to reduce the shadows' cost in intense light, but I can use it on anything. I looked at my disappearing leg and noticed small things like the grain of the wood stopped and restarted. I am going to have to work on the details, but this could make me invisible without shadows. Or I could make an object invisible near me. My Spatial Awareness will help a lot with this.

I used it on my hand and turned it orc green. I then did the same to Dusk’s head. Her mane was a problem, and it cost energy. I had to be in the Spatial Awareness range. Could I create a mirror? In other words, can I reflect all the light? No. at least not until Journeyman Level, depending on the size.

This is something I can work on.