Valor and Violence

Jasmine awoke with the rising sun, which was surprising, as it meant she had slept for at least a couple of hours unbroken. Savouring the sun’s early rays, she stretched, disentangled herself from her bedroll, and followed her nose to the marine’s field kitchen.

She had been pleasantly surprised by the quality of the food, plenty of potatoes and starchy vegetables grilled on hot plates accompanied by a variety of cured meats they called ‘sausages’. She had asked what kind of meat specifically, but Ban had replied that some questions were best left unanswered. The only thing that mattered afloat was taste.

She had initially balked at the response, but once she finally caved beneath his mocking and tried a piece, she had found it to be quite palatable. As she rounded the corner into the part of the Keep they had repurposed into a mess hall, she spotted Ban waiting in the food line. Waving with one hand and rubbing the sleep from her eyes with the other, she went and stood with him, ignoring the groans and glares from the marines behind her in the line.

“Just because you’re a mage doesn’t mean you get to jump the queue, woman,” one of them called. Jasmine turned, putting on her best scowl to intimidate him. If she was convincing enough, she reasoned, then hopefully the fool would back down, and she wouldn’t need to Flash Bomb him into submission.

He was fairly average for a Calandorian, average height, average stocky build. All around unremarkable but for a strong, slightly crooked, aquiline nose that suggested noble blood. Why he was here as a rank-and-file soldier was anyone’s guess, but Jasmine bet there was a story behind it. She let him wither under her glare for a few seconds before turning back towards the front of the line.

“Hey, I’m talking to you!”

Jasmine growled. Her good mood was already evaporating, though it was just a few minutes into the day. And it was his fault. Maybe she should give him a bit of a blast? He definitely deserved it with the way he was carrying on. She started to turn, Talent threading down her arms and into her fingers as she prepared a little ‘display’, but Ban touched her arm and gave her a sympathetic look before turning around in her stead.

“Piss off, Gaelon.”

Gaelon opened his mouth to reply, but saw something in Ban’s face and reconsidered, opting instead to mutter obscenities under his breath. Jasmine wasn’t sure what was more pathetic, the fact he was a grown man openly sulking, or that he had backed down before Ban so easily.

Although, the look on Ban’s face was quite intimidating. He had heavy bags under his eyes, and a glassy, unfocussed gaze that came from a severe lack of sleep. Despite the overt signs of fatigue, his jaw was hard-set and there was a deliberateness to his movements that betrayed a barely contained rage. She said a silent prayer to the gods, praying for soothed emotions for Ban, or mercy for anyone that angered him.

“How are you fairing?” Jasmine asked, placing a hand on his shoulder.

“Better than Cal,” he mumbled darkly before sighing and turning to her with a forced smile. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be such a killjoy this early in the morning. There’s just no living with me until I’ve had a coffee!” he said with a half-hearted and unconvincing chuckle.

“I’m sure. Wait, you have coffee?” Jasmine asked, her mouth falling open in shock. Coffee was widespread in her homeland, but she did not realise its consumption had spread north of the Rift.

“Yeah, you drink it?”

“I prefer tea, if I am being honest, but I am surprised you receive coffee as part of your voyage rations. Calandorian marines are much better resourced than I expected.”

Asim arrived as they spoke and stood beside them, prompting another frustrated cry from Gaelon. It was cut short once again, though this time by a silent glare from the towering guardsman.

“That one conducts himself like a spoilt child,” Asim said as he turned to Ban and Jasmine, acknowledging the apprentice with a slight bow, and the marine with a nod. “Did I hear someone mention coffee?”

“Aye. You enjoy a cup, Asim?”

“I have one every day before my morning exercises,” he said. Jasmine raised her eyebrows at him, and a faint, amused smile appeared on his lips. “Why are you looking at me like that, Miss?” he asked, as Jasmine arched an eyebrow at him.

“I just didn’t think you were the type, Asim.”

“The type to enjoy coffee?”

“Worldly pleasures in general. You know, I think I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen you genuinely smile.”

“On the contrary, I smile all the time. Wouldn’t you agree, Ban?”

“Aye. He’s one of the smileyest people I’ve ever met. Maybe it’s got something to do with you, Jaz?”

“That seems like a likely hypothesis,” Asim nodded, placing his thumb and forefinger on his chin and furrowing his eyebrows in a comically exaggerated expression. Ban chuckled while Jasmine rolled her eyes and sighed.

Honestly, Ban and Calris were bad enough, but lately they had infected Asim with their uncouth analogy to humour. Though she had to admit it was good to see Asim like this. He had always been good company, and Jasmine was sure he considered her a friend, but he seemed more animated in the company of these marines. He smiled, laughed, and joked in a way she had never seen before. She snapped from her pondering as she realised Ban was staring expectantly at her.

“Um… sorry, Ban, what did you say?” she asked, feeling her cheeks flush.

“Gods, is she always this rude?” he asked Asim, who just shrugged. “I was saying we actually aren’t resourced very well. Our voyage rations are strips of flavourless beef jerky, salted fish you wish was flavourless, and some cookies that crack your teeth if you aren’t careful. The cook has a small purse for buying fruit and veggies, but it doesn’t go far.”

“Then where has all the sausage and coffee come from?”

Ban smiled. “We all throw in some coin before we go out, so the cook can get us some actual decent grub. The sausages come from an old Aderathian butcher who lives in town. He emigrated as a kid, though, so we don’t hold it against him. The ice gets flown down from the mountains by some Griffon Riders that Sarge Dubbo knows from way back, and the veggies come from the local market. It all goes in these fancy boxes a mage built for the captain. I don’t know how they work exactly, but no matter how hot it gets outside, the inside stays cold. Word is, it cost him a fortune.”

“Captain Erwell seems to care greatly for his men,” Asim observed. “Are all Calandorian officers like this?”

“Na, most of them are tossers. If you’re male and noble, it’s expected you do a stint in the military. The Army doesn’t see much action outside burning out bandit camps, so the ones who want to make a name for themselves join the Navy or the Marines, and they generally value fame over the lives of their men. The one saving grace is that they do actually train at an officer academy, so they know a thing or two. It beats working for some jumped up Aderathian noble who thinks overcompensating with a giant helmet plume makes you a good commander.”

“So why is Captain Erwell different?”

“I dunno, to be honest. No one knows much about his past and no one pries. He cares about us, he cares about the king, and he cares about his country. That’s all we need to know.”

Asim grunted in approval as they finally reached the front of the queue, the duty cook loading tin trays with healthy servings of aromatic meat and vegetables, before handing them off with a grin that exposed very few remaining teeth.

With their trays in hand, Ban led them to a nearby bench with a large urn and a multitude of earthenware mugs. He lifted the urn’s lid and inhaled deep, a look of pure joy on his face. Jasmine noticed that Asim, too, seemed uncharacteristically eager as Ban scooped out a mug of coffee for each of them.

With their meals now complete, the three wandered off to find a quiet corner. Jasmine had eaten with the other marines on the first morning but was nearly caught in a brawl that arose when one marine stole another’s last slice of sausage. That she could have dealt with, but three other brawls had broken out afterwards with the exact same cause, and every one invariably involved at least an entire squad of marines before a sergeant wandered over to break it up.

Asim didn’t seem to mind, and Ban was used to it. In fact, he had jumped in for at least one of them, but they had offered to keep her company at meals all the same. As they sat, Asim placed his tray down and eagerly picked up his mug, bringing it to his lips and taking a small sip of the piping hot liquid. His face immediately screwed up in disgust.

“What is this swill?” he cried. “This tastes awful. How did you prepare it?”

Ban shrugged as he took a swig from his own mug.

“I don’t really know. We just get the roasted beans, grind them up and dump the powder in the pot. After a while, you have coffee.”

“Such barbarism!” Asim replied as Ban pulled a face.

“Come on now, mate, don’t you call me names too! Trust me, after a few weeks at sea, it’ll taste just as good as the real thing.”

“I doubt that very much,” Asim replied, glaring daggers at the marine. Jasmine noted that, despite his protests, he continued to sip his drink, being sure to grimace after each mouthful.

“So, food aside, how is everything going on your end?” Ban asked Jasmine, putting his empty coffee mug down and selecting a piece of grilled potato after a moment of deliberation.

“My end?”

“Yeah, with all the Key and the magic and whatnot,” he replied, waving a skewered piece of sausage around as he chewed.

“Oh, right. Yes. I don’t know?” she replied, trying to look everywhere but at the mushy mess that was exposed every time he spoke.

“What do you mean you don’t know? You’re a mage, right?” he asked, shoving the sausage into his mouth while half the potato remained.

“An Apprentice,” she corrected, settling on staring at a patch of glass wall above and behind Ban’s shoulder. It was as close to making eye contact as she could manage while he ate. “And we don’t know how much magic the Key will take to activate. Ferez will resume channelling the local energies after breakfast, though the amount he has put into it already is positively unbelievable. He has hopes we will achieve saturation today.”

“Alright… still no idea what happens then?”

“Unfortunately, no.”

“Well, surprises are always exciting at least,” he replied, his smile wide but his tone falling short of the positivity he was trying so hard to aim for. Calris had one foot in the grave, and hearing about the lack of progress on the magical front must have been disheartening. Jasmine hoped Ban’s friend wasn’t about to die for nothing.

They made pleasant small talk until they finished eating, at which point Ban excused himself. Jasmine called out to him, asking where he was going.

“Just gonna double check my armour and run a whetstone over my axes.”

Jasmine smiled, though she could tell it looked strained.

“I doubt they will help much if we blow the place up,” she said, trying a suitably tasteless joke to lighten the mood, something she had learned from the marines themselves.

“As a wise man once told me, Jaz, it’s better to have it all on, and not need it, than need it, and not have it on,” he replied, prompting a chuckle from Asim, who muttered something about a ‘different kind of armour’ under his breath.

“Well, for all our sakes, I hope it’s not needed.”

With Ban gone, Jasmine and Asim continued to sit and slowly finish their coffees. Jasmine had to admit, the taste was growing on her. It was far milder than the coffee from The Six Cities, or the rest of Emrinth for that matter, though Asim still made a point of pulling a face after every sip.

“If you hate it that much, why are you still drinking it?” she finally asked, exasperated. Asim smiled ruefully as he stared at the black liquid.

“As awful as it is, I find myself compelled to finish it.”

“Really? Why?”

“Because I can’t help myself.” He stared a few seconds longer before making a disgusted noise and dumping the remnants onto the glass floor. “Ban raises a good point about being prepared. I should conduct some maintenance on my halberd, which may actually come in handy if things go poorly.”

He stood to leave, collecting Jasmine and Ban’s trays and taking them to the dixie bashers for clean-up as he went. He was considerate like that.

With the men gone, Jasmine decided to take a leaf out of their books and find Ferez to see if he needed help preparing for the day. She made her way deeper into the Keep, towards the focal point of the structure. As she walked through the tight tunnels, she reached her hand out and ran it along the smooth glass. The marines had been impressed with the scale of the structure, and its bizarre, savage beauty, but to truly appreciate it, one needed a mage’s senses.

Though her fingers left no trace on the physical glass, to her it felt as though she were drawing her fingers through the surface of a pond, the residual magic swirling between and tugging at her fingers. She savoured the sensation. Now that she was no longer fighting for her life, she could enjoy toying with the dense Pyrian power that permeated the place. The feeling was reminiscent of floating on the surface of the sea, with the immense mass of the ocean beneath her… If that ocean was one she could coax to reign the fires of heaven down on her enemies.

Or… I could coax it to get those cursed metals to fuse!

She fought off a fit of giddy giggles when she realised this could be exactly what she needed. She would ask Ferez about funding an expedition back here after the mystery of the Key was solved, and the world went back to normal.

She smiled at the thought. Normal meant relaxing in comfort back home. It meant forgetting about the battle, and the death. It meant refocussing on what was important: her studies.

As she thought all this, though, she noticed a slight tickle on the edges of her sense. Frowning, she cast her senses deeper into the residue, finding something else below the Pyrian residue. Each of the different schools of magic left their own unique mark, and beneath the unmistakable afterglow of powerful Pyris magic she found… Aquis.

Pyris and Aquis, two dichotomously opposed schools of magic, here unleashed in such force that, even after untold millennia, its afterimage provided enough raw magical power to activate a Resonance Artifact beyond the abilities of even a High Mage. Whoever had been the target of the combined magical onslaught must have been completely erased from the universe. Pit, were it even to destroy an army of thousands, this would have been excessive.

By the gods, who did this? she wondered as she arrived at the area she had taken to calling the ‘Courtyard’, the open space at the entrance to the central tower. In form, it resembled a bubble that had frozen part way through bursting, with irregular, razor sharp walls all around.

The tower itself sent chills running through her when she looked at it. Roughly conical but with irregular, bulging walls, it looked like a gargantuan, bloated leech draining sustenance from the very earth. The entrance didn’t help the unsettling image, the sinister aperture resembling some sort of eldritch maw, or the exit of a puncture wound. Though the rest of the Keep remained relatively well lit during the day due to the thin glass walls, the inside of the tower remained pitch black. This, coupled with its appearance, created a singularly unsettling image, and she fancied it was actively reaching out to snatch and drag her in to the inky blackness within.

It was incredibly unfortunate that the greatest concentration of magical residue lay within. Ferez had taken to sleeping in there, insisting that resting in the ambient energies enhanced his recovery and enabled him to maintain his efforts in siphoning power into the Key. He had tried, briefly, to convince Jasmine to do the same, though he dropped the matter quickly in the face of her violent protests.

With a grimace, she entered the Tower, calling out for her master and summoning a small flame to illuminate the darkness. As the light flared into life, she saw Ferez seated cross-legged on the ground facing her, his eyes closed and the Key on the ground in front of him. He looked haggard.

So much for the mystical healing power of creepy caves.

Though the magical power he was imbuing into the artefact was not his own, the sheer volume of energy being coaxed into the device was enough to drain him, though a quick inspection of the magical currents showed he was not actively siphoning at the moment. In fact, if she wasn’t mistaken, he had actually fallen asleep.

“Sleeping on the job, Old Man?” she asked, taking a seat next to him on the cold glass floor. He mumbled something she couldn’t quite make out.

“I’m sorry, what was that?”

“I said I was having the most wonderful dream,” he said, cracking a single eye and glaring at his apprentice.

“Oh really? What was it about? Reliving the lost glory days of your youth?”

“Something like that. Reliving memories of a delightful Caelis mage I first met as an Adept. Ah, but I fear we are star-crossed lovers, doomed to burn brightly and oh so briefly. I tell you, though, she is a talented mage, and she had some extremely novel ideas for the application of her particular type of magic in the bedroom.”

“Gods, I don’t want to know!” Jasmine cried, recoiling as her mentor chuckled.

“Don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answer to,” he replied, straightening his legs and standing with a protracted groan. He walked a few circuits of the room, pausing every few steps to stretch as he worked the life back into his legs.

“How is everything out in the rest of the world?” he asked.

“It turns out the marines have coffee. I don’t suppose you had any delivered with your breakfast?”

“No, I detest the bitterness. I’m much more of a sweets man,” he said with a sly grin. “Like my sweet Ingrid.”

“Please! Enough!”

“Oh fine,” he said, muttering ‘prude,’ under his breath. “And what of the marine company?”

“They were making their way to the entrance when I left them. They should be clear of any negative effects from the activation by now.”

By Val’Pyria, I hope it’s an unnecessary precaution.

“I doubt very much that will be necessary, indeed I’m doubting that we may even activate it at all,” he said with a frown. He walked over to the Key and picked it up, turning it over in his hands as he continued. “It seems to lose power even as I charge it. Not a drastic amount, just a steady trickle. I have no idea why,” he said, turning to Jasmine and handing her the device. “What do you think?”

Jasmine took the Key and reached out with her senses. Though the presence of magic could be detected, there were no words or senses common to man or woman that could accurately describe it, but she thought of it as almost akin to a sound. Maybe the thrum of flowing magma and fractured rocks deep beneath the earth’s mantle, or the sound of the ocean breaking against the face of a cliff in a winter storm.

Powerful, rhythmic.

As she focussed, she understood her master’s words. It was almost imperceptible at first, but she gradually noticed a lessening in the steady beat of the Key’s imbued magic. Drawing her focus outwards, she looked for signs of a leak but, to her surprise, she could find none. It simply seemed to… vanish.

“That is highly irregular,” she said. “I can find no trace of the missing power. If the artefact were leaking due to design, damage or age, there should be evidence in the currents of magic.”

“Indeed. So, where do we suppose it is going?”

Jasmine thought hard but her extensive memories of lectures, essays and experiments provided no easy answers.

Unless…

“Ferez, does a Resonance Artifact always need to become saturated before it can discharge its enchantment?”

The old man’s face went slack, then broke into an enthusiastic grin.

“Ordinarily yes, though in theory, I suppose one could design a device to discharge prior to saturation without conscious activation. Why one would is a mystery though, it would suggest the device was created specifically so it could be used by any mage that came into possession of it.”

“If that is the case, we are acting in accordance with someone else’s wishes,” Jasmine said, a pit forming in her stomach. Ferez seemed troubled as well, his face darkening and the grin giving way to a scowl.

“Hopefully they have our interests in heart.”

“What are the chances of that being the case?”

“Probably not great,” he admitted as a shadow darkened the entrance to the Tower. Jasmine glanced over as Asim and Ban entered, both fully attired in their combat ensemble, with a third man in tow. He looked familiar to Jasmine, and after a moment, she placed him as the marine who had heckled her at breakfast.

“Hello there, gentlemen. And… Gaelon, was it?”

Ban snickered as Gaelon turned his nose up.

“Charming,” he muttered as he moved over to lean against a wall, standing apart from the others.

“Aren’t the marines all heading out?” Jasmine asked. “You know, in case the Key blows up or something equally catastrophic?”

“He’s here for a good reason, Jaz, you can cut him some slack,” Ban cut in. “Some of his squadmates are casualties, along with Cal, and the medics can’t move them. He’s here for them in case something goes wrong.”

“If something goes wrong, I doubt he will be in much of a position to help them,” Jasmine replied.

“Probably, but all the same, I would rather run that risk than leave them exposed,” Gaelon said curtly.

“Whatever. Is everyone else at a safe distance?”

“Yes, the High Mage may begin when he sees fit.”

With a smile, Ferez cracked his knuckles and flexed his fingers. “Well then, let us begin!”