Wakespire: Chapters 10-11

Another pair of chapters! Not the most explosive set, but I hope that the weaving of many details across different books will make The Weirkey Chronicles as a series feel cohesive and lived-in.

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Chapter 10

Another brick, another step closer to Authority.

Theo wiped away spiritual sweat and sat down on the steps he had been building atop his soulhome. There was nothing to really see inside his soul space, but the feeling of belonging made it pleasant all the same. His soulcrafting stamina was weakening, so while he rested he considered the next steps.

If he did nothing but craft bricks, Theo thought that he could ascend in about a week. Maybe even sooner if he rushed it, but he was taking his time. Instead of a smaller structure, he was building a full pyramid that covered the entire roof of his soulhome. The ascension to Authority was too important for anything less and his plan would increase the difficulty further.

Besides, the pyramid was a basically trivial part of the equation. Only deeply mediocre soulcrafters struggled with the actual building toward the next stage.

Before actually using the pyramid, he counted three other objectives. Acquiring a lightegg, which had been the biggest problem and remained a quandary. Finishing his anchoring chamber, which was just a matter of soulcrafting time now thanks to his materials from House Blacksilver. And third, making the final design decisions about the blueprint he would carry with him into Authority.

After so long rushing between objectives, Theo was relieved to focus on theoretical soulcrafting again. He walked to the top of his pyramid and then used gravity to lower himself into his soulhome. He passed through the floors slowly, taking his time to examine both their contents and his cantae flow.

He was happy with his core design and the balance of techniques and enhancements. The question was whether the contents of the rooms were perfect, since he wouldn't want to change anything after his next ascension. Briefly he considered whether his armament chamber, which hadn't been part of his original design, should be replaced. But it had worked well for him so far, hadn't impeded his cantae flow, and would continue growing stronger over time. No, that would stay.

There was nothing wrong with his blueprint, it just needed to be better. Theo walked to retrieve the alacrispark from his vestibule and examined it again. With a little work, he could make it function in his fundamental theme. The problem was that there simply wasn't room for it. All twenty-seven of his chambers had a major material already.

Theo walked through his soulhome, searching for a weak point. Occasionally a material might have been a stretch to include in his gravitational theme, or he could imagine a hypothetical better centerpiece. But every single sublime material was strong enough and fulfilled its role. He couldn't simply replace any of them without weakening himself.

Since his first floor was the most polished, Theo returned to his third. Some of those chambers didn't have secondary work complete, so he could potentially make a swap. Yet none of them were truly weaknesses. Materials like the intertialvoid and tunnelegg were extraordinary finds he couldn't replicate easily. The lostflesh and the distorted pattern from the House of the Lost were so powerful that the only question was managing to integrate them without unbalancing himself. He'd put in so much work, and blood, into making the voidflint a central material that it couldn't possibly be better suited.

No weak materials... and then Theo's mind flipped as surely as if he'd used a gravitational field. The question wasn't which material could be thrown away. He needed to choose the material that could be used on his Authority floor.

As soon as he altered his pattern of thinking, the answer was obvious. The lostflesh, that twisted artifact he'd received from the House of the Lost, had always struck him as obscenely powerful. His struggle with it had been to contain its power within one room, simply strengthening him instead of seizing the overall flow. 

But the alacrispark could take its position in the same enhancement room. Theo pulled the lostflesh free of its pedestal and considered the spark instead. He already had a plinth and some paneling on the walls, but none of that had been made specific to the lostflesh. It would only be a few days of work to modify the chamber to increase how rapidly his techniques could be deployed. Not only would that make his torsion bolts fast enough to deal with the challenge that had tripped him up before, casting any of his techniques should be faster.

Now that he thought about it, that was a better way to enhance himself than another room to strengthen his body. That would leave him with the lostflesh unplaced, but it would be free for use when he developed his next three floors. Considering that he was going to be attempting the various Transcendent Monuments, having a sublime material that was already half-way to a Corporeal Floor on its own would be invaluable.

Immediately Theo set about making the change. He needed to find a way to contain the lostflesh, but he had various minor sublime materials that could serve. Altering the room to suit the alacrispark would be simple, then he would only need to carve the walls for the sake of consistency. That was just a little hard work.

The one obstacle was fully integrating the alacrispark. He'd need some kind of secondary material to contain its brilliance and make it blend with the rest of his cantae. It was already similar to a little sun in his hands, so he just needed to filter the light and gain a sense of gravity. In a city the size of Ugustial, there would surely be markets where he could find something suitable.

That was one of his primary objectives down. As he worked, Theo hummed cheerfully to himself.

Now all he needed to do was finish secondary work on two chambers, acquire a lightegg, and complete his pyramid. Fresh off his design decision, Theo felt like none of those obstacles could stop him. True, he didn't have a good plan to get a lightegg aside from winning the next competition, but he would figure out something.

Only spiritual fatigue forced Theo to stop. Mentally he could force himself onward, but his spirit's hands were beginning to tremble with the exertion. As he increasingly moved to fine detail work, he needed his full skill.

Satisfied with his progress, Theo left his soulhome. Their quarters were surprisingly empty, even of Senka. Well, he should have been happy that the others were using their time productively. Fiyu had been extremely dedicated in her soulcrafting while Nauda had been seeking out new materials to match her soulhome. They'd be much better prepared for their second attempt at the Wakespire.

All that still left him a bit lonely. Theo was irritated at himself, then irritated at his irritation, then he left before he could spiral into self-referential exasperation.

Outside, the city of Ugustial was pleasant if blinding. Two red suns were overhead, rendering everything crimson. He wouldn't have minded Fiyu's mask... but as he walked through the streets, the light bothered him less and less. His acclimatization chamber might not be overwhelmingly powerful, but it could help his body adapt to any realm. After a few ascensions he hoped that it would protect him from any cheap deaths due to the environment.

Everyone ignored him, as the Noveni tended to do. Theo liked that just fine and navigated the city to the palaces of art. So far, his memories of Noven had all been roughly accurate. He'd been alert for any lies he'd swallowed during his first life, but it seemed like his time in Noven had been mostly authentic. Everything was as he remembered it, including the vast halls dedicated to artwork.

The arts were combined with soulcrafting more frequently on Noven than in most places in the Nine Worlds. Authority craftsmen were uncommon in most locations, yet he saw three of them while exploring the artistic quarter. They might well be powerful warriors, since combat was considered another art, but they could equally be specialists who made a living crafting extraordinarily powerful materials for Strongholds and Dominions.

While looking for darkening materials, Theo found himself walking through a hallway filled with sublime paintings. He saw portraits that moved as if alive, landscapes that generated wind, and some static portraits that simply burned with raw cantae. Underneath the portraits were all the shops, selling sublime paints, spiritual brushes, or raw materials that could be used to create art. There were also various inferior paintings for sale, but everyone put their greatest works on display.

Once Theo had been inclined to throw up sublime paintings on every single wall. Doing so had definitely packed his soulhome with cantae, but they had conflicted with his theme and overwhelmed the rooms they hung in. If he was going to use a painting in his new blueprint, he thought it would be best suited for a mostly empty room for contemplation.

Since none of the painting materials seemed appropriate, Theo moved on. The next wing of the mercantile palace was dedicated to sculpture. Unlike the paintings, there were plenty of non-sublime sculptures on display. He saw nobles buying or commissioning statues of themselves, which had been popular a hundred years ago. Eratius had spent so much time boasting about how large his family's statues had been.

While walking through, Theo's attention was suddenly arrested by a small table of sublime sculptures. It was modest compared to all the other work, and the man working sublime clay looked rather normal. Instead of a silver and gold potter's wheel, his was made from simple stone. But his collection of work was exceptional and the clay in his hands was putting off Ruler-tier cantae.

"You can look, but don't touch." The potter didn't even look up from his wheel when Theo approached.

"I just want to appreciate your work." Theo stepped past him to examine the small sculptures on the table.

They appeared to be miniatures, but each was composed of pure sublime materials. Some stone, some clay, even some built from metal. If any of them was taken into a soulhome, they would presumably be life-sized.

Theo was no expert in sculpture, but the soulcrafting on display impressed him. A simple statue of a warrior was made from a sublime clay that glowed with cantae. It could easily be placed in any enhancement chamber or even play a role in certain kinds of Corporeal Floors. There were statue types for other skills, but Theo moved away from the simplest products.

In one special section of the table, there were far more detailed miniatures. Each one was so life-like and unique that he assumed they must have been commissioned by specific patrons. That kind of thing was insanely expensive, but could produce whole-body enhancement, similar to a Nine Worlds Feast. It was something he would definitely consider for his higher floors.

Yet it was the smallest of statues that finally seized his attention, despite the fact that it didn't contain any great power. It was a curling dragon carved from white stone, but the surprising part was that the carving tool had left golden traces. Every single cut had left behind residue that strengthened the overall sculpture, which meant that a single mistake could have ruined the statue. The level of expertise required to create such a thing, both in physical and soulcrafting terms, was astonishing.

"Your work is extraordinary," Theo said. The potter finally looked up and grunted.

"I only wish I'd made that. No, that was a gift from Prince Jorotafes Jadadictus."

"A gift?" Theo remembered that name from the lineage Nauda had supported and one of the judges, but wasn't sure if it was the head of the lineage or another prince.

"I studied sculpture under him and he gave me that at the end." The potter shook his head and returned to his work. "More like I went as far as I could go and disappointed him. The man is a master."

"Clearly. What does he charge for a sublime statue?"

The potter laughed. "You realize the man is a Stronghold? He can't be bought for love or money. His own grandson didn't get a sculpture when he disappointed the old man. No, his work is getting so scarce that I've wondered if I shouldn't keep my own statue in public."

Theo suppressed the urge to whistle. Soulcrafters who focused on producing materials even at Stronghold were vanishingly rare across the Nine Worlds. The younger Jadadictus should have grown up with everything he could ever want, so why had he shown a middling performance in the Wakespire? That was a question for another time, so Theo focused on his current needs.

"I wondered if you might help me find something," Theo said. "I need to integrate a material with a difficult theme. I was thinking that a-"

"If you want hackwork, you can get it anywhere." The potter sat back and looked him over. "Unless your shielding wall is a lot better than I'm thinking, you're a Ruler. If you want masterful work, you're going to want an Authority, and they won't work for anyone below Authority 5th class."

"You'll have to forgive me, I'm not familiar with your rankings. You divide Authorities into classes here?"

"Ten of 'em. It makes sense, right? Most Authorities are never going to make it to Stronghold, so they need some sort of progress to focus on. And you, if you're as skilled as I'm guessing you are, must know that a botched ascension and an Authority with a solid blueprint might as well be different species."

That made sense and no doubt gave eager young soulcrafters something to focus on when their ascensions slowed down. Before, he might have been eager to uncover the system, but now his curiosity was tempered by practicality. It didn't really matter what some city rated him, only his actual strength.

"Are Rulers ranked as well?" he asked.

"They have ten classes of their own, but it's not going to matter." The potter smashed his clay down into a lump and began working anew. "If you want good work, really good work, no artist worth their light is going to give you the time of day. Not until Authority, and a higher class at that."

"What percentage of Authorities make it to 5th Class?"

"You think about things in a curious way, son. Couldn't tell you that. But a 10th class Authority is someone who ruined their soulhome in the process or who has done no building at all. The really good soulcrafters can get a 9th or even 8th class right after ascension if their blueprint is considered good enough. I'm a 6th class Ruler myself. Started at 9th, then got it increased for completing my entire floor, then eventually to 6th class for my work. 3rd class and up? I don't even know what it takes to reach that high."

Theo strongly suspected that Authorities in the highest classes had four fully-soulcrafted floors that included at least one Transcendent Monument. He was curious about what Guchiro might be ranked, but only for a moment before he pushed the issue aside. What mattered was getting to Authority himself.

Just in case the potter was a compulsive liar, Theo asked a few others, but he always got the same answer. All the best sublime artists would only do custom work for Authorities at specific ranks or higher. That should have been a disappointment, yet Theo found himself flying back to the palace in a cheerful mood. This was a comprehensible system, so he could master it given time.

Instead of returning to their rooms, Theo instead found the chamber dedicated to the Wakespire. It contained the full scoreboard of teams, which he examined despite himself.

Wakespire Cumulative Scores

1) Dortorus Gamma - 295

2) Terefilia Underclouders - 275

3) Dortorus Alpha - 230

4) Gatrium Lineage - 215

5) Jadadictus Alpha - 195

5) Belated Foreigners - 195

7) Dortorus Beta - 190

8) Ugustial Beta - 165

9) Jadadictus Beta - 160

10) Foreign Mercenaries - 140

11) Ugustial Alpha - 90

12) Koroinus Lineage - 80

13) Jadadictus Gamma - 70 (eliminated)

14) Jadadictus Delta - 60 (eliminated)

15) Onogonal Alliance - 30 (eliminated)

16) Terefilia Lineage - 30

17) Ugustial Gamma - 20 (dropped out)

All the other teams had accumulated points over two separate rounds, so his team was only in the middle of the rankings. Given how many teams they'd leapt past with their performance, he could understand why the judges were so suspicious and determined to handicap them in the future. Hopefully that would also translate into social capital.

Even the rankings couldn't distract him today. Instead, Theo moved on to the listings of all the teams. He'd seen that they included a variety of information before and been too rushed to really examine the details. Now he went back and looked at all the class notifications with new eyes.

In the Ruler tiers, all of them had apparently been given ratings. Theo was briefly taken aback, then irritated, to see himself listed under his real name. He should have stressed his desire to use pseudonyms with Nauda. Instead of getting too angry at her, however, Theo let the matter pass and just looked at the rankings.

He was ranked as a Ruler 2nd class, Fiyu was 3rd, and Nauda was 5th. Frankly, he thought that they were all being underestimated, but that didn't matter. He was more interested in the Authorities.

The Gatrium fighter with his false mask had been listed as 8th class, then his name had been struck from the page. All of the Dortorus Authorities were ranked at 9th or 10th class. Not so strong after all, which matched what he'd seen of them.

Theo grinned as he stared at the numbers. Just a few more obstacles, then the rankings were going to change.

-

Chapter 11

Finding a way to darken the entire room would have been an entirely reasonable thing to do, given the oppressive level of light on Noven. Fiyu had resolutely avoided spending any time on the task when she had so much other work to do. But her relative, in his wisdom, had come up with a way that she could darken the room while testing both herself and Friend Theo.

Darkness seeped from Fiyu's hand and formed a thin layer over all the windows of their room. It truly did emerge from her; though it fed on her cantae, the darkness flowed from her body. Since creating her Corporeal Floor, a new organ sat beside her stomach, churning with tangible darkness. She only needed to think of it for the shadows to emerge from her body.

Controlling them beyond that point was another matter. Her goal, as given by her relative, was to block out the windows perfectly. The easiest solution would have been to create a thick layer over the walls surrounding the windows, but that was tiring and taught her nothing. Instead, she strove to maintain an even layer of darkness that covered the entire window and only just touched the walls. Her control frequently faltered and the darkness would creep away from the edges. This let in shafts of sunlight, which was punishment enough.

In theory, she would eventually be able to control the darkness as easily as she controlled any of her limbs, just as her relative did. Doing so required both soulcrafting the room that manifested the technique and learning the fundamental skill.

Friend Theo was in exactly the same situation. He sat in the center of the room, wearing a blindfold and attempting to employ his new sense. While maintaining the windows, Fiyu reached for several of the pillows by the side of the room with a tendril of darkness and then threw one at him.

Just before it struck, Friend Theo leaned back. Fiyu lifted one of the pillows to the ceiling while throwing others in his direction. She wasn't particularly dexterous with her shadows, but she didn't need to be, as Friend Theo was only testing his ability to detect small objects. He dodged much too far each time, overcompensating for the imprecision of his sense.

When at last she had thrown all but one pillow, Friend Theo stopped. He'd needed to rise to his feet to dodge, but smiled in her direction. "That was better, wasn't it?

"Yes, you are doing well."

"Objects without much mass are still hard to sense, but it's like I can feel the gravitational connections between everyth-"

In the middle of his sentence, Fiyu dropped the last pillow from the ceiling. It bounced off his head and Friend Theo immediately groaned.

"I guess I deserved that." He pulled up his blindfold to rub his eyes. "It just still requires so much concentration."

"You have intellectually mastered the skill," Fiyu said, "but you have not made it part of yourself. This will become more natural in time."

"Then I'll give it another try." Friend Theo sat down again and returned to his soulcrafting. She would give him some time before throwing any more pillows, both to let him work and to lull him into a sense of complacency.

Her friend was doing remarkably well, for someone who hadn't grown up in the Ichili environment. Yes, his control was often clumsy, but he had never had relatives to guide him and always been able to rely on his sight. Between Relative Guchiro and her own teaching, hopefully he would fully absorb the new skill.

Fiyu herself needed to learn the same lessons, because while they spoke her darkness had pulled away from the windows. It was like a muscle that began relaxing whenever she stopped thinking about it. To use her darkness in combat, her control needed to be powerful and precise.

After fixing the windows to return the room to darkness, Fiyu entered her soulhome. She carefully walked to her third floor room and examined the swirling woodwork along the walls. All of it had been fashioned according to her relative's specifications, but she reached out to remove one piece and began carving it into a slightly different shape.

She couldn't entirely explain why one form was better than another. Perhaps there truly was no difference except in her mind. The former pattern had been a blueprint simply handed to her, while the new shape was something she had chosen for herself. This room needed to be not just a technique, but to be her, so she needed every mental trick available. Mastering the darkness meant alternating between improving her skill in the real world and soulcrafting the chamber based on her observations.

Fiyu doubted that she would have true mastery of the skill in the near future, so her goal was to perfect the chamber enough that it would not stop her from ascending. Not that Authority was a goal within sight. There was still so much to be done on her third floor.

In fact, as she walked in a circuit around her soulhome, she felt as though she had only completed three aspects. Her walls and ceiling were complete, and greatly strengthened by the windows she had developed in Norro Yorthin. The darkburn bonsai in her heart chamber had been enriched by following her through ascensions, so it put off more than enough cantae for the floor. Then there was the subliminalsteel, making all of her strikes more lethal. That chamber still required polishing, but it was functional.

That left five large rooms that needed to be completed. One was her Nine Worlds Feast, still incomplete. She hoped that Friend Nauda would locate sublime foods soon and she could at least add another world to the feast. The other chambers would need to be filled by the materials from Nondol, among others that her relative brought her.

Watching her friends and other competitors made Fiyu feel very fortunate. She had a kind relative who could provide her with so much, while the others struggled for sublime materials. Yet she couldn't feel guilty about it, because the only way she could help her friends and relatives was to gain strength as quickly as possible, however it came to her.

Besides, no amount of gifts could carry her to Authority. If she wanted to be worthy of any of them, she would need to work as hard as she possibly could. So many unfinished rooms, so many new skills to develop...

Before Fiyu could delve deeper into her soulcrafting, she felt Relative Guchiro enter the room. To his credit, Friend Theo noticed as well. He remained quiet, focusing on his own sense, while Relative Guchiro approached her.

"This is almost worthless." He dropped the strange mask they had taken onto the floor. "The trick to fake an Authority's cantae is interesting, but it grants no actual benefit. A petty trick at best. But the materials are rare, so you should keep the armament until they can be repurposed."

"I understand." Fiyu picked up the mask and ran her fingers over the smooth surface. She had not particularly expected it to be valuable. "I will give it to Nauda to keep."

"I have also completed my research into the escape technique used in the Wakespire." Relative Guchiro folded his arms and turned toward Friend Theo. "This will be of interest to you."

"Oh yeah?" Friend Theo started to pull off his blindfold, hesitated, then kept it down. His gravitational senses were woefully inadequate for interpersonal interactions, so everything would be fuzzy to him, but at least he was trying.

"Every contestant is marked by the cantae of the spire when they enter the first portal. It is a thin layer that provides no protection, but it emulates a normal body. When it is struck with a force that would be lethal, the individual is caught by the technique and removed to the exit rooms. The brief time it takes the technique to activate allows for injuries, but it would be difficult to kill someone in that time."

Fiyu had already been alarmed by the risk and this explanation did not help. Most troubling, she hadn't even realized that the portal had left foreign cantae over her. It was fortunate that she hadn't automatically rejected it, or she could have been killed. Meanwhile, Friend Theo reacted in a very different way.

"If you're marked when you enter," he asked, "does that mean that someone who entered the spire a different way could be killed?"

"The officials all enter through the portal," Relative Guchiro said, "but you are correct."

"I do not like this." Fiyu stopped speaking as she realized her darkness was wavering, then managed to continue. "If the technique is disrupted or someone strikes with sufficient speed, innocent contestants could be killed."

"That is not the likely negative outcome. The technique is increasingly sensitive as attacks become more lethal, so even a swift strike to the head or heart would trigger it. But it does not react to minor injuries, including broken limbs. It is entirely possible to cripple other contestants and the social norms against such a thing are insufficient."

"Oh dear. We cannot treat this as an innocent contest."

"But that's good to know," Friend Theo said. "It encourages a different sort of fighting, where non-lethal attacks might be more or less useful depending on your goals."

Before they could speak further, Fiyu sensed that Friend Nauda was walking toward the primary door of their chambers. She disliked walking in to find everything shadowed, so Fiyu released her control. Somewhat tired of training, she rose to her feet and went to greet Friend Nauda.

Her friend had been working hard as well, though she was away from their rooms quite frequently. Fiyu wished that they could work together more closely and was unsure of how to raise the issue. Friend Nauda's muscles showed signs of stiffness as if she had been training physically and she also wore the soft glove that she used only rarely. Then she was improving her capacities for the upcoming challenge, just as they were.

"Oh, Fiyu. I wanted to show you something." Friend Nauda's body relaxed slightly when she saw her, then, inexplicably, her back tightened. "Uh, if you don't mind."

"What is it, Nauda?"

"My telescope has been damaged for a long time, but they have a lot of metalworkers in Ugustial, and even some glass artisans. They managed to fix all the dents and scrapes, and for a reasonable price, too. But... you can't really see it unless you come into my soulhome."

"That will be very useful to us." Fiyu made sure to smile at her friend, then stepped forward to touch her wrist. "And I would not mind seeing the results."

Some parts of Friend Nauda's body relaxed and others tightened. Fiyu could only hope the pattern was a positive sign. Not long after, she floated in her friend's soulhome as a spirit.

It had been a long time since she had entered so clearly and the sensations immediately made her think back to the first time she had seen it back on Tatian. She had been sitting with so many strangers, deeply lonely and yet dismayed to be viewing one another so intimately. At the time, Friend Theo had been her only support and she had not known Friend Nauda well. Back then it would have been hard for her to believe everything that would develop between them.

Because she was a spirit, Fiyu was free to float in the air between her friend's three towers. Great progress had been made on the bondsfungi, which glowed on the outside of the sculptural body and nowhere else. The exteriors appeared to be fully built, though they needed some polishing.

"It's in the tower of life," Friend Nauda said from the ground. "I'll be there shortly."

Fiyu floated through the wall of the indicated tower and marveled at the great tree that filled the space within. A soulhome without clear divisions between floors was a very strange design, yet it felt right for Friend Nauda. All of her physical and life-giving cantae could intermingle, strengthening her as a whole.

The tree itself appeared strong, but there were a great many empty spaces. The most striking was that the ring around the center of the tree, which was clearly intended to hold a Nine Worlds Feast, was sorely lacking. Fiyu had forgotten that her friend had lost all her sublime food when her soulhome had been damaged. Perhaps once Fiyu became an Authority, she could use weirkeys to take Friend Nauda around the Nine Worlds and find her good things to eat.

Her friend climbed up the central tree effortlessly, since the entire soulhome was part of her. She moved past Fiyu's position with a smile and jumped off at the third mezzanine. There Fiyu finally saw it: the telescope gleamed brightly, just as it had the first time. Now all of the damage had been fixed and it flowed with much more powerful cantae.

It looked so picturesque that Fiyu automatically moved behind it, as if she could see through. But it was a sublime object, not a real telescope, so of course she could not. Friend Nauda laughed at herself from the side.

"Yeah, I guess there's nothing to really see. But the next time we get a chance, I'm going to put it to use."

"You expect to need it?" Fiyu asked.

Friend Nauda immediately nodded with tension in her neck. "When I've been out in the city, I've been approached by some of the other teams. They've all been sizing one another up and they're eager to test our mettle. This way, we can get a sense for them as well."

"That is wise." And it was true, but the enjoyment slipped away from Fiyu just as the darkness did. There was no time to be relaxing within their soulhomes: she needed to return to her training to have any chance of success in the trials to come.