1??????????????Soul Bound
1.1????????????Finding her Feet
1.1.6??????????An Innocent Profaned
1.1.6.10???????Philia and agape
It was a while before she could tear herself away from them, so the rest of the party had time to complete their lunch. She met them in the kitchens.
Columbina: “Alderney, when you presented your churn I merely praised its looks. I now truly appreciate the genius of its design. Are all your group that talented?”
Bungo: “Ha, I’m not. But Tomsk and Wellington? Yes.”
Columbina looked grumpy: “And you, Kafana. When we wrote that contract, little did I suspect how hard it will be for me to try to deliver fair measure in return for what you have given. I am going to have to dedicate half my time over the next three days to perfecting the recipes and producing enough for the scale of launch I think is going to happen, just to match the publicity your presence here this lunchtime has given the Dove. We are now the place to be seen at for this season. Signora will be delighted.”
Kafana grinned. “Harlequin will be too. Send this ‘ruinously expensive’ creation back to him with a single word attached. ‘Yes’. “
Alderney: “Thank you. If you want to produce gelato in advance, I suggest you contact Flavio at CoThEx on Libri, to ask for some containers that will keep cool things cool. Send him a sample of gelato, enough for twenty mages, and promise him more if they supply your needs.”
Kafana got changed, folding her borrowed dress carefully, and they headed off to the orphanage. Bulgaria had sent word ahead they were coming to ensure Nicolo would be there.
Alderney: “I tracked down Gregorio to find out about Carlo. It turns out that they’re brothers. I can’t think how, they look so different. Based upon what he said, I need a costume for my vessel that brings out beauty rather than sexiness. Something that shows the definition of muscles, the tone of the skin, the skeleton underneath. Apparently Carlo doesn’t just draw; he’s a sculptor. So I’m thinking something very simple, like a Doric chiton in a very thin fabric, maybe with a flower motif. No jewelry. Nothing to distract. Mind if I flip out so you can ask my vessel if she’s ok with that?”
Bulgaria: “Sure, go ahead.”
They paused a moment so as not to transition when walking, then said “Hi Alderney!” when a change in body posture made clear the Vessel had arrived. The vessel didn’t have the same energy and restlessness that Spirit-Alderney had. Bulgaria explained Spirit-Alderney’s research and solution, and her eyes lit up at the mention of sculpting. It seems she rather liked the idea of being immortalised in stone. Kafana took the opportunity to thank her, first hand, for doing her hair so nicely that morning, and showed how well it had worked with the stones and diadem. She gave her a hug and then found herself hugging Spirit-Alderney as she flipped back. Mmmm, that was good. Two hugs for one!
Alderney bounced ahead saying she was going to scout out a good place to set up the volleyball net and meet up with Fra Gamal and Columbina, in case the others got unexpectedly delayed at the Orphanage. Kafana smiled to herself, suspecting what Alderney really wanted was a little peace and quiet to get on with creating the costume for her vessel.
Wellington: “I set everything up properly for my Vessel to have a bank account. I also took the time to progress to journeyman with Marco and to submit some items to the auction via him, as I’m too low level to do that myself yet. If they sell well, it should be enough for us to order high social class clothing, and maybe rent a house. It won’t be enough to buy jewelry like that crown, or purchase a house. I also had him help set up a company for the orphanage, properly registered to pay taxes and licensed to sell food and other products.”
Bungo: “I spoke with Gregorio too. He used to be a mercenary, and while he wasn’t usually the tank himself, he knows the tactics and has a lot to show me about blocking and dodging that I never learned on Divine Mountain as a staff user. I’m now his journeyman, though I think it is mainly going to be my vessel taking the lessons. I mentioned volleyball was good practice for dodging, and he might drop by to observe. I also visited my monks, and tried to teach them mage sight and your Learning and Harmony buffs, Kafana, but I wasn’t successful. Do you think you could arrange with your vessel to visit them during off-hours and give them a lesson? They’d love to see you again. I may be their guru, but you are their saviour.”
Bulgaria: “I spent part of the morning talking with Goldoni, one of Comico’s actors and his chief wordsmith. I admit to stealing shamelessly from William Shakespear, Edgar Allan Poe and Ingmar Bergman. The result is that, some time over the next day or two, we should be seeing a play that’s counteracting the bad rumours about Questing Spirits, telling the tale of combating the magic disease sent by a cast of bandits, pirates and a thinly disguised Fra Nerone in the part of Iago.”
Tomsk: “The play''s the thing wherein I''ll catch the conscience of the king.”
Kafana: “Who will rid me of this troublesome Questing Spirit?”
Bungo: “The priestly code is more what you''d call ''guidelines'' than actual rules.”
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Bulgaria, sounding alarmed: “No, Bungo, just no. People, don’t let that philistine within a hundred meters of Comico!”
Wellington: “Bungo, the residents of Torello are as intelligent and sophisticated as any group today, but this is an age of epistles, not short attention blipverts. They’re not ready for postmodernism. You wouldn’t show someone a spoof like Leslie Nielsen in the film Airplane! before they’d seen Zero Hour! or any disaster movie that plays it straight.”
Bungo: “After I explained what to look for, Flavio found a source of naturally venting gas and succeeded in producing liquid helium. He’s built up a whole cosmology, based upon our being from a very cold planet because we know so much about cold stuff, and what our tendency to turn up only once every three days tells him about the rotation and orbit of our planet. Brilliant deductions, incomplete factual basis.”
Wellington: “Exactly.”
Bulgaria: “For all we know, we might be in the same situation when we theorise about the origins of our universe. Did you know there’s a quest you can pick up in the marketplace, offering a reward to anyone who can provide convincing proof to one of the night watch, Dio the Atheist, that Cov exists? According to the forums, no players have yet succeeded in the quest.”
They arrived at the orphanage in good time, mainly because they avoided the mud road, instead cutting through an area of Basso full of Teutons and small workshops that were starting up and couldn’t afford space in Mercato. From the comments they overheard, many were struggling, but the priests had come through earlier making an announcement about the plague and they were holding onto hope that customers might yet return.
Kafana explained to Nicolo that she had not done this before, but she thought she could help him face past memories, reduce nightmares and maybe free his mind a little. She explained that it wasn’t without risk to her, because at the same time Nicolo opened his mind to her, she would have to equally open her mind to him. But she thought Cov would look after them, and advised him to take his time and talk to Vittoria and Antonio, Nicolo’s street-wise elder brother, before making a decision.
It didn’t take long. He asked her, shyly, whether it would help him to learn to sing like she did, and he placed his hand in hers. She took him through to an empty room and asked Antonio to keep others away as Nicolo would appreciate privacy for this if something unexpected from his past turned up.
She started by casting a skills buff just on herself, followed by long duration harmony and luck buffs upon them both, and a calming buff upon Nicolo, explaining what she was doing every step of the way, and giving him the chance to back out or ask questions. Then she asked him to bring out his Cov’s pendant and said they’d try singing together to ask Cov’s blessing upon the process and that after that they’d be in Cov’s hands and she might not be able to give him any further opportunities to stop. He nodded firmly, and asked her to continue.
She started simply, singing a few notes and getting him to echo them back to her, then onto the next bit. He enjoyed the process and did indeed have a beautifully clear treble voice. She made a game of it, making the sequences longer, and taking turns so he led and she copied. She opened up her magic and fed mana into the runes she used for praying to Cov, and together they sang. After a bit she took her purple mind healing stone in her other hand and they clasped it together. In harmony they sang asking for healing and she visualised healing of the body to start with. He had a surprising amount of mana and she could feel him putting it into the spell too.
Next she opened her mage sight and closed her eyes, trying to feel for damage to his mind. She asked him to think back to a mild nightmare, not his worst, and used the change in thought pattern to identify the scars that were distorting the core of his identity. She thought at him “this bit, do you wish to keep it in full, mute it as though many years had passed, or keep just the lessons learned as though you’d read about them in a book?”
She willed herself to silence so the decision would be his, and waited until he came to a conclusion in his own mind. She sang courage to him and wisdom, and he echoed it back to her. They carried on, deeper, darker, back into more painful areas. Always in his memories Antonio was there, a rock steady anchor, protecting him and looking out for him. She felt his doubts, his guilt at being a burden upon Antonio, and she sang of self-forgiveness, understanding and of gimu - the obligation to one who raised you that can never be fully paid back, only paid forwards by helping others.
They reached his core and met his worst enemy, his own self image as a pathetic, selfish, weak, stupid, evil, unlucky, undeserving burden who killed his parents by foolishly going to play where a noble could see and hear him and desire him, and his parents sacrificing themselves while Antonio fled with him. She sang a parent’s love to him, the love that never asks the price, but gives and counts not the cost, the love that doesn’t regret even such a sacrifice, but is glad that he survived, and places its hopes and future in his hands. She sang love and forgiveness and acceptance, and his walls broke; he cried in her arms, cried his loss and his love for them and his regret that he had never been able to beg their forgiveness. She touched the wound, not with the hand of her body, but with the hand of her mind, stoking it, healing it, re-telling the story, fleshing it out from the other side and adding closure, just like knitting up the hole left by the abscess, having released the pus.
She drew upon the ring now, and sang strength to him, healing and strength and hope; she shared from her mind a vision of him standing strong and singing before thousands unafraid, applauded, protected, wanted, appreciated, and the spirits of his parents looking down upon the scene with love. She poured her emotion and her mana into the vision, threw all her willpower into it.
And it was enough.
She had little strength left now, but she used the last of it to withdraw gently, step by step, not leaving him open to reinfection, building up the defences and healing any bruises and holes as she backed away from the unity and they became two separate beings again.
She swallowed a potion and then lay flat on her back meditating, glad she’d managed to avoid going into mana shock. She could hear Nicolo’s delighted carefree laugh as he flew into his brother’s arms and was spun around and around and around.
[Skill “Mage” has reached level 11.]
[Skill “Buff” has reached level 17.]
[Skill “Mind magic” acquired.]
[Skill “Mind magic” has reached level 5.]