Bloodcrete (The Weirkey Chronicles Book 6), page 4
"What... how?" The sailor stared at the bubble around them in shock, so Theo patted him on the scales reassuringly as his gravitational field lifted them back out.
"I've got you. Just stay still so we can get back to th - agh!" He cried out as a demon lunged from the sands, piercing his bubble and clamping its jaws into his shoulder.
Yet Theo's cry had been more surprise than pain. The demon's jaws exerted painful force, but the crystalline teeth couldn't fully penetrate his coat. He lifted that arm and tore through the demon at point blank range.
After that one was gone, the battle truly seemed to be over. When Theo rose into the air with the injured sailor, he didn't see any more battles or missing allies. As he released the gravitational field, he examined his shoulder and saw that there were a few holes. His coat was already healing itself, but he'd have to see about strengthening his defensive technique.
All of the sailors were staring at him, and Theo saw the Arbaian calculations in their eyes. They had known he was a Ruler, but this had been the first time he'd really shown his power. The attack itself might be a problem, since it was strange to be ambushed by such a large swarm of demons so far from civilization.
If this had been Norro Yorthin, they would likely have blamed him for the trouble. Even if he was claiming to be Deuxan, there was suspicion about anyone unusual thanks to the Order of the Deepest Blue. Their constant propaganda had been part of the reason he'd decided to take such a long trip, actually, but he knew they tried to argue against outsiders in Arbai as well.
But it didn't seem like they'd gotten to the sailors: some cheered and others beat their tails on the deck encouragingly. Theo automatically smiled and waved to them all, though the expression was just a shell of the person he'd been on his first visit. He pretended to care while he checked that Salviyah wasn't too heavily injured and that nothing else had gone wrong.
Meanwhile, his remaining gravitational field had finally lifted the lode out of the sands. It looked like another deposit of the type Balmun wanted. But when Theo gestured toward it, the Mundhin shook his head.
"The sailors need time to recover. Keep it there and we'll gather it later."
Disappointing, but not unexpected. Theo stayed floating over the ship long enough to be sure that there were no more demons lying in wait, then he created a perpendicular gravitational field and dropped sideways to begin exploring the region.
The sand ocean looked virtually identical in all directions, but even his rudimentary gravity sense was sufficient that he could never become lost. An object as massive as the ship stuck out to him, even at great distances. Theo redirected his fall to circle it, probing for anything unusual nearby, then he began exploring further.
Saving the sailor earlier had given Theo a few ideas he found intriguing. Once he got bored of scanning for more rocks, he weakened his gravitational field so that he descended into the ocean of sand. This time he maintained only a single field for his flight and focused all the rest of his power into a point of anti-mass. When moving slowly, it could push away enough sand to create a stable bubble around him.
Even though he couldn't see anything, he stared downward. After he had ascended a few times, he might be powerful enough to create a stronger bubble and go all the way to the bottom. He wanted to fight the rumored sublime beasts, and honestly he just wanted to walk on the ocean floor.
None of that benefited him for now, so he focused on testing his lesser used abilities. Gravitational fields, torsion bolts, and singularities were designed to carry him through the earlier tiers, but parts of his soulhome would only come into their own once he ascended. Most notably his ability to create mass and anti-mass, though they were proving a bit stronger at Ruler than expected. Since his bubble was stable, Theo tested making a point of mass that drew sand to it... in theory. Its spiritual mass wasn't anywhere near enough to overcome other forces, so it was mostly an exercise.
He experimented with using points of mass to draw sand away ahead of him and his bubble expanded slightly. As he traveled at various speeds, Theo tested a few of his other capacities. Rapidly spinning fields could produce disorientation, which was fantastically effective when applied to the inner ear but not much use elsewhere. Cast against the sand, it only added to the vibrations.
Two of his intended techniques barely worked at all. He hadn't even finished his anchoring column, which he intended to use for flight and to enhance other techniques. The last was tunneling: the tunnelegg from Slest was perfect, but he couldn't create a wormhole large enough as a Ruler. At the moment all he could do was teleport a bit of sand from one side of him to the other. At best he could imagine contorted situations where he might be able to drain gas from a room or something.
Combining all of it, he could... sort of swim underneath the sand. Theo searched around for anything within range of his gravity sense, but didn't come up with anything. He decided to take a break and just cruised along at a casual speed. Being surrounded by vibrating sand wasn't exactly relaxing, but he trusted his coat and his speed to get him to the surface in an emergency.
Meanwhile, he reached into his soulhome and pulled out an everpitcher. He'd got them from Aathal through House Blacksilver, in preparation for this trip. They looked a bit like pitcher plants from Earth, but thankfully they didn't digest meat. Instead they filtered various gases and produced drinkable water; the highly cultivated and enhanced versions produced enough to sustain a person. He had two more of them in his soulhome for the others, plus a few spares.
For the moment he just drank from the opening of the pitcher and enjoyed the water. Had he used anything like this on his first visit to the Nine? He couldn't remember - water had always seemed to be available, even when he went to Arbai.
Getting the everpitchers was only one step on his path to self-sufficiency. His blueprint gave him abilities broadly applicable across worlds, and he'd be even more prepared once he'd perfected his gravity senses. Right now he'd collect useful tools, but eventually he might transcend them. He had a clear idea of what he wanted to soulcraft up to Stronghold, but he would need to do research about exactly how Immortality Conduits and some other higher soulcrafting worked.
Distracted by all his plans, Theo almost didn't notice when something tugged on his point of mass. Then he flinched, thinking that he'd been negligent, only to sense no attack. In fact, he sensed nothing... Theo frowned and went still again, trying to focus solely on his gravity.
There was something in the sands. Not a massive object, just something that was interacting with his artificial point of mass. Squashing all mental hopes, Theo floated closer and intensified both techniques. Something seemed to be reacting to both mass and anti-mass far more strongly than the ordinary sand, but he still had no idea what it was.
After searching fruitlessly, Theo began to wonder if his approach was wrong. He couldn't see whatever it is, but it verifiably existed. So he closed his eyes and tried to herd whatever it was closer to him. Very small and slippery, but there was a source of cantae flowing through the sand that reacted to his power.
Eventually he opened his eyes and saw... sand. All he'd drawn into his bubble was a little ball of sand. Yet as Theo examined it, he began to suspect that there was something really there. When he ran the sand through his fingers, he could feel its cantae more clearly. His hands became especially dirty, too...
Suddenly understanding, Theo grabbed a second everpitcher and poured it out over the sand. The water flowed strangely due to all the artificial gravity, but he managed to get the sand drenched. To his delight, an outer layer of dust and other small particles washed away to reveal pitch black sand.
Theo eagerly began seeking out more of it from the depths. On Earth, black sand like this would have been native to a volcanic island, and he hadn't seen any volcanic activity on Arbai. But it was definitely a sublime material, so it might not have anything to do with those processes. It was definitely aligned to gravity, perhaps exactly what he had been looking for to create his windows.
It took him most of a day to gather enough, especially since the dark sand wasn't especially abundant. As far as he could tell, only small pockets of it existed deep beneath the surface of the sand ocean. But he hunted it, a bit at a time, until he had enough for all of his purposes, including experiments and potential false starts. Once it was converted to glass, he would be another step closer to ascension.
When he floated himself back to the deck, Theo dropped down beside Balmun instead of any of the sailors. "I need to go back to port."
"Now?" Balmun's gem sphere swung toward him incredulously. "Our course should take us further into the sea. The hold is barely half full! How do you expect me to turn a profit with such little stamina?"
"Even a straight path back would take us through territory we didn't explore. I'll find as many lodes as possible on the way."
"And can you guarantee there will be sufficient to fill our hold? Of course you can't. If that was mathematically likely, I wouldn't have charted such a long arc. Diverting from that course is simply illogical, you must see that."
"At top speed, I could fly back in a few days," Theo said quietly. "How do you calculate your profits if you don't have my abilities to find lodes for you?"
"That is... a rational argument." Balmun didn't look happy about it, but he shifted back across the deck. Most likely they would have to argue a little more and Theo would get what he wanted in the end. He could probably get enough momentum to return alone as he'd threatened, but it would be much more productive to soulcraft on the ship on his way back.
Vibrations over the deck drew his attention behind him, where Salviyah arched upright. "You're leaving, aren't you?" she asked.
"Once we return to port." Theo turned to face her, yet wasn't sure what to say.
"I had hoped you might continue traveling with us. We could explore beneath the waves together."
"One day we might, but I have obligations to fulfill."
Salviyah examined him a moment longer and then slithered away without another word. Even though it was completely irrational, Theo felt a little guilty for leaving them. In another life, he might have sailed on with them, exploring the extent of the sand ocean as well as its deepest depths. Part of him still wanted to.
But the truth was that he had no time to waste. Vistgil might not be hunting him down, but he had created an array of traps. If rumors were true, war was building across the entire Norron continent, and the Order of the Deepest Blue might have been specifically sent to kill people like him. He needed power as soon as possible.
The fact was that Arbai had nothing else to offer him, so he needed to leave.
Chapter 4
Most of Nauda's time in Slest had been spent hunting for sublime materials, assisting leafpuller beetle construction, and soulcrafting. The days of running from merciless soldier ants were long over, and there wasn't any sign of war in her region. After the brutal training of her arrival on the world, she had been glad to make quieter progress.
Now, however, she led a line of soldier ants into battle.
They marched over a region of uneven soil, a brownish blight marring the usual purple and blue of Slest. The entire area was composed of unusually sandy soil, which meant that it was inappropriate for tunneling. As such, the defenses were weaker, and the local Gray-Blue-Gold colony believed that a new threat might be encroaching. Thus this expedition.
Why Nauda needed to lead the expedition was another matter. She tried to view it as a normal community, simply requiring her to pull her weight, but she doubted she could ever view the vicious hives of Slest as true communities. In any case, the leafpuller beetles told her that the type of sublime honey she needed was native to such regions, so she hoped to finally find some in the process.
At the moment, all she was finding was sand all over her boots. They were moving down an incline into a region like a shallow dish, which gave the uncomfortable impression it was all a trap for an enormous beast. Actually... when Nauda examined the decline more carefully, she saw an unusual shift. Possibly nothing, but possibly...
"Hold." Her voice vibrated in a strange way when she spoke, and most of the bugs responded to the soul vibration instead of the sound.
Nauda crept forward on her own, testing the ground. It seemed like simply a soggy region, but something was setting off warning bells. When the sand suddenly gave way, Nauda vaulted backwards from a pit that opened up in front of her.
She caught a glimpse of jagged metal at the bottom, then pincers lunging for her. An enemy ant had hidden in part of the trap and she'd entirely missed it. Fortunately, as she continued to rebuild her soulhome her reaction time had improved, so the entire experience felt smoothly controlled instead of a desperate rush. Nauda managed to raise her staff in time and the ant impaled itself on the tips.
That alone didn't kill it, leaving the bug writhing on the end. Since the Slescans didn't ever interrogate prisoners as far as she could tell, she struck it against the ground to end its pain. As far as she could tell, the ants were only intelligent animals without much in the way of interior lives, but they didn't need to suffer unnecessarily.
When she looked back, she saw the line of her own ants waiting as if nothing had happened. However, the intelligent bug at the end of the line stepped forward. He didn't have much expression, but his antennae twitched wildly.
"How see trap?" he asked. "Scents perfect. No sign. Scents perfect."
"I guess that's why the queen sent me to lead," Nauda said. The Slescan use of signalscents was powerful, but she thought they relied on it too much. She had learned the word "pheromone" from Theo, though it still sat oddly in her mind.
"Trap old," the scout said as he examined the pit. "Abandoned. Maybe not invasion."
"So our entire pretext for coming here might be invalid?"
The scout only stared at her. That was how most Slescans reacted whenever she brought up anything that was even slightly abstract. Queens and other leaders clearly had the mental capacity to consider higher matters, but generally didn't seem interested aside from how it could benefit them. Another reason she was increasingly fond of the leafpuller beetles.
"How likely are there to be other traps?" Nauda asked. The scout immediately examined the area.
"Normal procedure. But old. Many gone. Unknown."
"Then I suppose we should test carefully." She glanced back to the ants and tried to project. "Follow me and, uh, be careful?"
They began to follow her again, but this time they said [Scout] to one another. Hopefully that was good enough. She didn't always grasp the signalscents very quickly, and even that had taken a lot of effort: days of learning directly from Slescans and multiple trips between worlds to readjust her soul translation. Even now she couldn't emit signalscents directly, only embed them into her speech.
It really irritated her that, even though she'd been living in hives for months, she still couldn't speak the language as well as Theo. Despite the way he claimed to hate everyone, he was surprisingly good at communicating. Come to think of it, he had always jumped to assist communication between her and Fiyu, as well as any other species that crossed their path. No doubt he would grumble something if she brought it up.
His personal issues might not be anything like hers, but maybe one day she'd be able to pay him back for his help.
Her entire group explored the region carefully, the scout able to notice the potential traps after she demonstrated. The ants seemed entirely blind to them and she occasionally had to call halts to keep them from tumbling into pits. Yelling orders and demanding compliance bothered her even more than her lack of facility in the language, but that was how Slest worked and she would only do more harm trying to force Tatian thinking on them.
As they traveled further into the sandy region, they only uncovered a handful of other pits, and only a single other ambusher. The scout increasingly seemed to believe that the region was abandoned, perhaps due to the poor soil. They still needed to finish their explorations.
Towards the bottom, there were a few clusters of blue Slescan trees, and their roots firmed up the ground a little. Unfortunately, the lack of pit traps was balanced by all the new places for enemies to hide. The Slescans were probably better at this than her, so Nauda asked them to slowly encircle and explore the groves.
She found a few abandoned tools and part of a wall, all of them very old. And then, she finally heard it: a buzzing. Nauda held her breath as she stepped around a particularly broad tree and spotted the source: a beehive. It didn't resemble those she knew from Tatian, instead a series of clay pipes... rather large ones.
As she realized that the hive was further from her than she expected, Nauda understood the bees were actually enormous. Each was half the size of her hand, with a wicked stinger on their tails. Aside from the purple and black coloring, they looked like bees from anywhere else, but she wondered how much damage they could do to flesh. Those stingers were likely designed to punch through the chitin of predators.
"What can you tell me about this hive?" Nauda asked the scout. He sat back on his haunches and answered rapidly.
"Royal bees. Not for scouts. Sublime material. Valuable. Not for scouts."
"Okay, but are they dangerous? Can I use the normal procedure for them?"
"Not for scouts. Not for scouts." His face didn't display much emotion, but he was actively edging backward, so Nauda waved him down.
"It's fine, you can stay there. I'll figure it out."
She began walking closer to the hives, keeping her eyes open for potential attacks. As she did so, she reached into her soulhome for some of her sublime flowers. The little bees that the leafpuller beetles kept liked them, so hopefully the royal bees would react in the same way. Nauda was trying to decide whether to use the lavender flowers, the orange, or some combination when she heard a rustling.
