"What you an?" Tarin glances up at .
"There's Firmant everywhere, and there are different aspects of Firmant. The imbuent stones are labeled with different aspects. Miktik's Firmant sink converts one type of Firmant into two more harmless types. How many aspects are there? What do we know about each aspect?"
Tarin frowns. "We not sense Firmant like you," he points out. "But Firmant in everything. All types, yes? Elents, but also abstract. Thought, shape, color."
That makes sense. It's more or less the sa understanding that I have. Every single one of my skills has a completely unique aspect of Firmant, and even though the imbuent stones I saw seem to co in the more traditional elental variations, I have no doubt there are stranger types out there.
Hueshift can't work directly with Firmant aspects, according to Inspect. I'm not convinced the limitations are quite as strict as the skill is trying to imply. There's so link between aspect and color, even if that link is a little tenuous; if I can make the right changes, and make enough of them...
Well, it's all just theory for now. I'm hoping I can imbue this Lightning stone with so Hueshift Firmant and make it act as the Firmant converter needed in Miktik's Firmant sinks. All I need to do is... program the stone to convert whatever type of Firmant the Whisper uses to punish disobedience into sothing more harmless.
I snort at my own phrasing. All I need to do. I doubt the process is going to be simple.
It'd be nice if Virin was here and I could talk to the crow about imbuent again, but he isn't. I'll have to rember to speak to him in the next loop. For now, I have so ideas I can try.
"Ahkelios," I say. "Do you mind helping out here? I need to test out Hueshift."
"What do you want to do?" he asks, peering at suspiciously.
"I need a strong source of Firmant so I can see what I'm doing."
"...And you want to try fiddling with ?"
"Please don't put it like that," I deadpan.
Ahkelios folds his arms across his chest and glares at before finally relenting. "Fine," he says, hopping up onto my knee. "Do you need to do anything?"
"Just stay still."
Despite Ahkelios's protests, changing his Firmant is relatively safe. I think. As much as Firmant seems to be tied to the mind of an individual, Ahkelios is a different case his mind is stored within whatever part of my Firmant functions as the core for the Temporal Fragnt skill. Or... Temporal Link now, I suppose. The Firmant he's made of is closer to a puppet he uses to animate himself. Pure Temporal Link, zero Ahkelios.
Well, a little bit of Ahkelios. But it's an expression of him, not the core of him. Color, not aspect.
Which is important. Temporal Echo was the first skill I'd ever gained, so it's the type of Firmant I'm most familiar with. And when I reach for Hueshift, it gives one simple requirent: to alter the color of Firmant, I must be familiar with it. I must know how to use it. The easier it is for to manipulate, the easier for to change its color. It isn't impossible for to manipulate Firmant I'm not familiar with, but it will be a lot harder.
I reach for the skill. It feels the sa as Color Drain, for the most part, but there's sothing new added on to it. I can still feel its old ability to drain the 'color' of sothing, but now there's another ntal lever and a little bit more depth and complexity to the Firmant the skill uses; I can feel what it's going to do. Draw in Firmant, draining it from a target. Change its hue by altering it in so fundantal way. Send it back, if I choose to do so.
Like Inspect tells , it doesn't change the fundantal aspect of Firmant I'm working with, just its color. The Mirror Inspiration does sothing quite similar, but it operates on a more fundantal level, changing the aspect itself into sothing more aligned with the emotion I'm using hence the word 'mirror', I suppose. It reflects the skill, changing it in subtle ways. Hueshift doesn't do any of that.
I take a mont to ntally target the Firmant that makes up Ahkelios's body. I know the aspect well by now, and the color of it is expressed through his personality, another point of familiarity. We're close enough that I understand him, at least to a degree. I feel the shape of his Firmant, the hue of it. His personality filters and colors my Firmant, turning it into sothing brighter. A sky-blue hope and joy, speckled with a playful yellow.
Hueshift.
His form flickers and changes in color to the solid-green of envy, ironically making him look far more like a traditional mantis. Ahkelios makes a noise of indignation and squirms around on my knee. "This is uncomfortable," he says.
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"Is it affecting you?" I ask, worried despite myself. It shouldn't have any effect on him.
"No," he confirms, to my relief. "It just feels... not right. Like I'm wearing clothes that are a little too tight."
I consider comnting on the fact that his species doesn't seem to bother much with clothing, and decide not to. It's probably a translation error.
"I'll reverse it," I say. It's easier to shift the Firmant back in the other direction; it settles easily, like it's just being pushed back into its natural shape.
Hm.
This gives a better idea of what using Hueshift is like. It concentrates my Firmant on the part of my body closest to my target in this case, my knee then opens up into what feels like a jaw, clamping down around its target and drawing in its color before spitting out the new one.
So all I need to do is...
I hold the Lightning imbuent stone in my hand and activate Hueshift. I target the Lightning-aspect Firmant held within the rock itself first, keeping my Firmant senses alert as Hueshift travels up to my palm and begins to clamp down around it. With an effort of will, Firmant Control seizes those taphorical jaws, stopping the skill in its tracks.
I can't imagine what trying to do that would have been like if I were still working with Firmant Manipulation instead of its upgraded counterpart.
Then, still preventing the skill from completing, I begin to push it into the imbuent stone. It's like Temporal Fragnt was, in that sense, back when I imbued the stones Mari gave . So skills are easier to imbue than others, and I'm fortunate that Hueshift is one of them.
Unfortunately, the Firmant I push into it almost imdiately begins to leak back out.
Imbuent stones shallow or otherwise, though I don't know what rank the ones Mari gave to experint with were seem much easier to push a skill into, but by the sa token, the stone releases that energy much more easily as well. Mari's stones didn't have that issue, but she did call them precious village artifacts.
Which ans my next step, the one I was hoping to avoid, is anchoring. It's the part of imbuent I suck at the most. I've tried the tying-a-knot thod the crows use, and that's incredibly difficult for to use, nor do I have the years that Mari implied it takes to learn it.
So let's try sothing new. Sothing of my own.
I focus inward on my Firmant sense and block everything else out except for Hueshift and the Lightning stone.
Electricity crackles across the surface of the stone, skipping past shallow pits and racing along the pores. The outermost layer of Firmant is a storm, impossible for the Hueshift Firmant to anchor to without interference; all that innate energy rips across it before it has the chance to settle, acting like a barrier.
I dig the claws of Firmant Control into that surface layer of Lightning. With so effort working on a single layer of Firmant is apparently harder than simply manipulating it as a whole I search for weaknesses in that pattern of Firmant, then tear open a small hole. Then I flood that hole with Hueshift, allowing the stone's inherent Firmant to close back up after it, sealing it within.
In theory, anyway. I hold my breath as I let go of the reins. The stone sits in my hand for two seconds, three, four but there's no sign of Firmant leakage. No sign of the skill dissipating.
I breathe a sigh of relief.
"Did you do it?" Ahkelios asks, his eyes wide.
"I think so," I say. It occurs to , now that I've actually imbued the stone with Hueshift, that I still have no idea how to use it. The stone in theory should be capable of absorbing Firmant and altering its color, but... There's no consciousness linked to that Firmant. No ability to choose what it does. I frown in thought.
When I activated Hueshift, I was trying to change the stone's inherent Firmant from yellow-Lightning to blue-Lightning. There was no particular reason for it at the ti, but if it retains that programming, then this should work.
I pull a thread of Firmant out from within myself and Hueshift it to yellow, then carefully feed it to the Lightning stone. If I'm right...
The thread turns blue. Good. The Hueshift seems to work even if the aspect of Firmant isn't the one I was targeting when I used the skill. That's step one out of the way.
Step two: I need this to work on Whisper's geas skill.
Fortunately, I still have the small piece of Firmant squirreled away from not one but two of her attempts to use that skill on ; one of them is still being chewed on by the Void, and the other is tucked away in a small part of my Firmant. I draw it out now, examining it with a critical ntal eye. It's not strong enough for to visually see a color associated with it, so I tag it with Hueshift, feeling for a ntal color instead of a physical one.
It's a dark black-green, Hueshift tells . The color of grief and guilt, though why Whisper's Firmant would be colored that way is beyond . I can't quite bring myself to care, either; whatever she's feeling, it's no excuse for what she's inflicting on her citizens.
Still, sothing to keep in mind. It's information that might prove useful in the future.
Changing the color of Firmant has proven to alter the efficacy and function of a skill, at least to a degree. There has to be a color that will if not entirely neutralize then at least minimize the effects of disobeying Whisper.
I hesitate for only a mont, and then change the imbuent within the stone, reaching for a version of Hueshift that changes the black-green of her Firmant into a bright and sunny yellow. I thread the small fragnt of her Firmant through the stone, watching as it changes subtly in my Firmant sense, and then...
Well, and then I wrap her geas around myself again, as if she'd just used it on . What was the command she'd used with this piece of Firmant again?
Oh, right.
et in my palace in two hours.
Seeing as it's been long past two hours and I've never t her in her palace in this version of events...
I feel a sharp, stabbing pain as the Firmant fragnt reacts. It's a small fragnt too small to do any significant damage but it still hurts. I grit my teeth.
I better get so Durability for this.
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