Maikana
patreon
Chapter 26 – Doing things backwards
🕑 Added 2025-02-24 04:00:02 +0000 UTCSlowly stirring from her stupor, her surroundings entering focus as her eyes adjust to the light of the braziers and runes lighting the all
Slowly stirring from her stupor, her surroundings entering focus as her eyes adjust to the light of the braziers and runes lighting the all too familiar space of the Circle’s cavern.
“What… Why am I back here?” Looking around herself and trying to piece together what happened, “Was the door a trap? Did I take the wrong path…” Dismay and disappointment clear in her tone as she contemplates all of her work being for nothing.
Her limbs feel stiff, her mind foggy. Every joint in her little body feels like it’s moving for the first time as she begins to stir.
“What did that door do to me…” She mumbles as she attempts to stretch out the kinks and cricks of her aching limbs. She slowly brings herself into a seated position. Reaching into her satchel for her tome and its map, her hands stop dead as she realizes she’s not alone. Not that she ever was when she was in the middle of the dais, but now they’re not just faceless monstrosities that resemble Kobolds.
There are half a dozen of the shaman sitting slumped on their cushions, as though they had just finished running the length of the training yard several times over. Among them sit the beaming visage of Ortik and the disdainful one of the older Kobold he had referred to as High Shaman Lowy.
“Uhhh… What just happened? Was that the wrong door and I failed?” Slowly her emotions begin to well up, after all that time trapped, she never made it to her destination. A terrible thought occurs to her, “Was it the right door but my time run out just as I had found my way to the Clan?” disappointment and dismay filling her voice as she spirals. Tears gathering in her eyes as she contemplates failing yet again.
“Shh, there is no need for that apprentice. Kori.” Ortik approaching calmly and crouching down next to her. “The door is the end of the path. If you found your way there, you have passed.” Placing his hand on her shoulder in an attempt to comfort her, “Come, let us sit somewhere a little more comfortable and discuss the initiation. I’m sure you have questions, you always do, and I have a few of my own.”
Helping her up and guiding Kori to one of the vacant cushions in the circle. Kori notices Lowy hovering in the background, clearly with her own questions or comments to add to their upcoming discussion. Bare moments after her tail is tucked around her legs on the pillow, Lowy interrupts the attempts to calm the young Kobold with her own abrupt demand. “Before any of that, empty your satchel. If you’re lying and have used the dispelling rune to escape the trial, then your punishment will be swift.”
Not noticing the glare Ortik shot behind her back at the rudeness, Kori does as she’s told. She completes the task mechanically, her mind still not really in the present but focused on the warring emotions still unsure if she’d truly passed their test. She pulls out neatly wrapped packages one by one, the bundle of ground moss, multiple wrapped bundles of fish, and the tea. It’s not until she’s placing the drinking vessel, the one she had left on the path she had been working as a marker of her place, the one that had contained her tea turned ink, that she notices how wrong the objects before her are.
“What… Why? I ate most of this… I left my cup behind to mark my place in the maze…” Grabbing out her tome and flipping to the final pages, the ones she had made her map upon, finding them blank. “My map! I filled pages in the book…” Running her eyes over the still neatly packaged foodstuffs, the blank pages of her tome, and even her own hands that had been stained by the tea she’d been writing with. Finding them all as they were before the initiation even began.
“It wasn’t real… Was it?” Her mind spinning at the realization.
“It was, but it also was not, apprentice.” Ortik tries to calm her, “The initiation is an important introduction to the power of the spirits for all young apprentices to the Circle. When you willingly allowed our magics to be cast upon you, you permitted us to separate your physical and spiritual selves for a time. No more than seven days to be precise. Any longer and it could become dangerous.”
“Is that why I couldn’t interact with anything I didn’t bring with me?” Going over the past week she sees the contradictions to that statement. “Except I could… With some things at least… I slept on one of the cushions, or I tried to, and it was still soft… And I was able to open the curtains into the passages…”
Lowy pipes in from the other side, “Yes, yes, objects steeped in the spirits power but lacking their own can be manipulated. Don’t think yourself so bright for having noticed.” Clearly still impatient, her earlier demand not fully met as of yet. “Now, I asked that you empty your satchel, do so.”
“Oh, yes…” She reaches back into her satchel to retrieve the remaining items, her kettle, bowl, and little pot of ointment. She had intended to use the ointment to soothe her feet should they become sore from all the walking. They never did and now she had a strong suspicion of why, since she wasn’t actually using her physical feet.
“Yes what, apprentice? Seriously Spiritcaller, have you taught her nothing over the past months?” Lowy clearly not impressed with the lack of honorific.
“Apologies… High Shaman?” Not really certain what the woman’s actual name is, given they were never really introduced, she just uses what Ortik had said at one point. Getting an arrogant harumph for her efforts.
She pulls the final items from her satchel, the fire and water runes, and the small hidebound bundle that she had been told not to open. Before she even sets it upon the floor with the rest Lowy snatches it from her hand and begins unraveling it. Within the bundle is a rune like the other two, though much more complex and baring both mana and spiritual power to Kori’s senses.
“Satisfied Lowy? Not a scratch or crack upon it.” His tone clearly needling her prior complaint of Kori not addressing her properly. “Now, if that is all, please allow me to discuss the initiation with my apprentice. You are welcome to remain, as are the rest of you if you so wish. Though I expect you’d all much rather return to your dens and sleep.” Looking over the other four shaman who had been maintaining the spellwork, they had been at it for nearly an entire day since the last group changed over while he had taken several breaks in that time.
He receives nods in response and all but Lowy and himself depart. “I’m not going anywhere. I still think she did something during the initiation and I intend to hear what it was for myself.”
Shaking his head in disappointment, having hoped that Lowy would depart as well. She was his biggest critic within the Circle, believing that he should have stepped down when he became the chieftain rather than lead both the Circle and the Clan at the same time. It only being a coincidence that she would be the next in line to lead the Circle of course.
“Now apprentice, let us discuss your performance. We were able to watch your progress throughout the first few days until you left this chamber.” A proud tone entering his voice, “I was quite pleased when you finally achieved the correct state of mind to attain the [Meditation] Skill, it is the foundation for a great many of the Skills you will need over the course of your life.”
“Uhhh… what do you mean, Spiritcaller Ortik?” Confusion plain on her face.
“When you meditated upon the lesser spirits and were able to focus your spirit to step past the water confluence?” Unsurety as to why she would question it, he had watched her do it after all. “Though it was a bit odd that you grabbed a handful of them, using that to find an easier breach was quite inventive.”
“I… Uhhh… I didn’t get the [Meditation] Skill, Spiritcaller Ortik…” Her confusion plain in her tone and on her face.
“Hah, failing to get the most basic skill, and you think she’s cut out to be one of us?” Lowy reveling in the apparent failure.
“But you entered a meditative trance, you clearly attained the Skill. If not, then how did you pass the confluence?” The entire concept of having completed the trial without the skill nearly Incomprehensible. “Without properly focusing your spirit, it should be impenetrable for one of your level.”
“I did enter a trance of some kind, the little spirits were just so captivating as they flitted and danced about, but the Skill I received wasn’t [Meditation]…” Seeing how he may have mistaken it for such as an observer, but now confused herself as well as to why she didn’t get [Mediation]. Or how she had passed the barrier if the way she did it was wrong. “I received [Spiritual Sense]…”
Again, butting into the conversation, “You expect us to believe that you, a classless apprentice, managed to attain [Spiritual Sense]? And not only that, but did so without being able to even meditate?” Her smugness rivaling that of Ortik’s own during most of their lessons.
“But I did! It’s even up to level 2 already!” Heavily pushing her new sense, she slowly points out the totems on Lowy’s person, even a few hidden in folds of her clothing that she couldn’t physically see. “Your totems are all glowing, there, and there, and there, and…” Her little demonstration pushing her over the edge on the skill, one she had likely been sitting on since her time poking and prodding all of the totems at the edge of the dais.
<<Skill proficiency improved. Spiritual Sense level 2 -> 3 >>
“I even just got a level in it. It’s at level 3 now.” Proud of her accomplishment and gloating a little. Here,” popping up her Status for the pair of them. “See!”
With her little display and Kori’s focus mainly on Oritk, she fails to notice Lowy’s eye twitching and the look of incredulity as she goes over her shared status.
“Level… Seven? You aren’t even four years old yet… How are you already level seven…” Lowy stutters out, still staring at the shared page. “And two skills at cap… You’re putting that title from Korse to heavy use…”
“Your status is indeed impressive apprentice, and you have managed to acquire the Rare skill [Spiritual Sense], as you claimed.” Shooting Lowy another look of superiority as he does. “But I am confused as to how you passed through the water confluence without meditating and focusing your spirit.” It doesn’t seem to matter what it is she’s doing; Kori always does something to shake the elder Kobold’s expectations in some manner or other. “The expected method is to observe the lesser spirits and focus your own to match their actions and pass through.”
“Oh… Yeah… I didn’t do that…” Sheepishly replying to him. “I watched them do their thing, get brighter and all that. Lost myself thinking about the little guys really. And then I got interrupted by everything around me coming into clearer focus and the notification for [Spiritual Sense]. Once that happened, I could see everything. The barrier over the water, swirling and flowing, creating places that were thin and easier to pierce. The little motes flitting about, attracted to all of your totems if their colours were close enough.” Wonder finding its way into her voice at the memories of all the little spirits dancing about the air.
“Then I just kind of followed their example. Grabbed a few of the strong ones to guide my route to the thinnest spot and plunged through… It was not pleasant… I felt like I was being crumpled like a sheet of paper…” Shivering at the memory of her passage.
“You just… Jumped…” Lowy still not speaking in full sentences. Her concepts of the world and how it is supposed to work being challenged by the acts of the youngling before her. “That’s foolish… The confluence should have crushed you like a beetle between your teeth…”
“She is not wrong apprentice… That was an extremely dangerous thing to do. The spiritual harm you could have caused yourself might have crippled you for months.”
“Oh…”
“’Oh’ she says… I cannot determine if this apprentice of yours is a fool or a prodigy Spiritcaller… Though I’m leaning to the former.”
“Ignore her apprentice. Please continue”
