"Of course..." Kir down the rest of his wine, no longer feeling buzzed. "I should drop off my things with my people then..."
"Your team has been issued a tent on the west side. That was one of the things I took care of, since the beastkin requested a place to sleep."
"But it’s still day-" Kir looked toward the entrance of the tent and saw that evening was well into sunset. How had he let the ti get away from him?
Sreev chuckled again. "Go check in with your people. I will need so ti to prepare anyway. But so you know, it would be best to accomplish the changes tonight, that way your body, mind, and soul can incorporate them while you sleep. You could, of course, accomplish such without sleep, but it is not the best practice."
"I’ll see you in an hour then," Kir replied.
He left the tent, and Letty was there waiting to escort him to the space that the Black Sheep had been given.
On the way there, he asked Letty to detour to the infirmary, where he found Sam laying down. They turned away from him as soon as he entered, and remained silent as he tried to greet them.
Still, he sat down and told them a bit about what he had planned and where to find their tent if they felt like it.
They did not respond.
Getting up, he reached out to provide a comforting touch but decided against it. Whatever feelings they had, it was their choice on how they would work it out. And once the soulstone skull was sold, they never had to see him again if they didn’t want to.
After that, Kir took the long way to the tent to see if Amarena was at the sparring area. She was, and by the look of it, whatever duels she was fighting had destroyed the place with both magic and muscle.
Kir saw her sword leaning up against a post that had once been part of a fence, now just a stick with two holes in it. He watched for a mont as she latched onto a demon three tis her size and proceeded to headbutt him into submission while the crowd cheered and bets were made.
More concerning to Kir was the look of sheer determination on her face, which told Kir that she wasn’t enjoying what she was doing. To an extent, he understood her need for distraction. He just hoped she would stick around since despite her very aggressive streak - which she only seed to apply to him - she’d been good for his developnt.
He also didn’t want his warform to resemble his father, and her help would be invaluable to that end.
Finally, arriving at the tent, Kir saw that it was a large tent only slightly smaller than the General’s. Cots had been laid out for everyone, and Noir was sitting on one, dextrously sewing a set of pants he could have fit into one leg of, bodily.
"Kir! There you are," Noir smiled as Litty remained outside to give them privacy.
"I need to leave so things here. The General offered to adjust my storage tattoos, so I need to empty mine out," he claid the cot right next to Noir and started emptying. "Shouldn’t take too much ti. What’s with the pants?" he asked as he lay Kangetsu on the cot.
"Big fellow at the infirmary asked what I do, and when I told him I’m a tailor he asked if I could fix these for him. I said ’yes,’ so he took to the quartermaster and here I am! It feels good to have a full kit again," he patted a small leather satchel that was laid open, revealing different threads and needles, as well as sticks for crochet and knitting.
"The threads are apparently from so sort of woolly hell dog. I can tell they’re fire-resistant, and it’s been interesting working with new material. I didn’t even have to trade for it."
He gestured at the black spool of thread, about the size of a small hand, that was being sewn with.
Kir had just finished laying down the spoils from the dungeon, and was very carefully extracting the shards of his three seals.
"Here," Noir tossed him a small sack. "It was for the thread, but you can use it."
"Thanks," Kir smiled at him, then carefully emptied the shards into the bag.
Lastly, he drew his two bone knives. Bri and Dar were in great condition, mostly because he hadn’t had enough access to his magic to use them. He felt a pang of guilt at not having kept in touch with his mothers. They might even have sent him letters by now, which would be waiting at the Academy.
"Got a lot on your mind?" Noir asked as he finished one tear and moved to another.
"Yeah," Kir admitted. "It’s kindof a long story though."
"Well, I’m not going anywhere. It might be just the two of us. Sam’s in a strange place and didn’t want to move. I couldn’t even get a word in with Amarena, and I can’t find Stella."
"She’s, ah, playing at the sex tent," Kir said.
"She likes stars?" Noir asked.
"No, a tent for sex... Cubi tent, I think Litty said."
"I was making a joke," Noir poked him with one of his hooves. "But good on you for knowing what a sextant is."
"Puns aren’t jokes," Kir said.
"Why not?"
"Jokes are creative. Puns are just... rhyming."
"With excellent timing," Noir waggled his eyebrows. "They don’t have to be a joke, as long as they’re funny."
Kir laughed. "Alright, alright. Puns are funny."
They passed the rest of the hour in companionable conversation, sticking to unimportant topics, and then it was ti for Kir to go.
As soon as Kir entered the General’s tent, he noticed the preparations.
A circle had been made on the ground with what looked like salt, albeit with an iridescent sheen; filling out a square of level stone that hadn’t been there before.
He felt slightly disappointed there wasn’t a pentagram.
"Ah, young master, right on ti." He gestured at the circle. "This will be our workspace. Under the manastone powder are inscriptions that will ensure a relatively smooth... I suppose you could say ’folding’ of the magic we will be dealing with."
"Both the storage magic and the sensory magic?" Kir asked.
"Correct. Please pardon for asking, but it would be easier if you were to kneel in the circle."
Alright," Kir said, stepping lightly into the space while trying to avoid disturbing any of the powder. Being on level ground filled him with a strange sense of rightness for the mont he got to stand in it, and then a strange sense that the whole world was crooked. The feeling passed when he rembered that true-level didn’t exist.
Sreev stepped in front of Kir and gestured for him to lay his wrists in the demon’s overlarge hands. "Before we begin, do you have any heart conditions?"
"Aside from my insides being reified into what’s probably manastone? No," Kir said.
"Fair point. Shifting magics can play poorly with organs they pass near, but I doubt that will be the case here unless your condition is overly consumptive... Which I did not detect. So you should be fine."
Kir didn’t feel reassured, but he waited patiently as Sreev tapped one of his magic circles. Unlike the mory-playback one, the light from the one he touched extended around his hands, creating so very dextrous tools at his fingers, and crawled up his neck to surround his eyes with small lines.
"Now, hold very still." He let go of Kir’s wrists, rotating his hands above the tattoos, and the tools on his fingers seed to pluck.
Kir half-shivered as he suppressed the reflex. It felt like his tattoos had imdiately beco hot-wax, which was being dragged beneath his skin across his arms and then through his chest en-route to the tattoo on his back. But instead of rging them right away, Kir felt as the tattoos were ’deposited’ to the one on his back.
The sa process was repeated again and again, until there was a cluster of tattoos overlapping the others on his back.
"I’m going to start the rger," Sreev said, and a mont later Kir felt as though little crab-claws has simultaneously pinched every point of skin on his back at once.
For the first ti since getting the dinsional storage for his wings, Kir felt a strong sense of space behind him, like a bubble absorbing smaller bubbles, accompanied by so uncomfortable ntal ’clicks’ that each made him want to shudder, which he suppressed, until finally it was done.
"There we are! I’m now going to put the extras back where they were. I only need one for your sense enhancents."
"Can’t you do that afterward?" Kir asked.
"I can, but there will be a period of extre sensitivity. The pain would be vastly multiplied."
Kir sighed and gave his assent, going through the sa burning-wax feeling to move the tattoos back into place. Bereft of their magics, the spell lines and runes had disappeared, leaving rings that blended sowhat with the rest of the ripple-patterns on his arms and body.
"Now, this will sting a little, but it is imperative you not move. A wrong connection could have you slling colors or tasting touch or so other strangeness."
"You’re the expert," Kir said.
"I am," Sreev said from behind him, with a smile in the words.
Then the pain began anew.
"Don’t move..." Sreev reminded him gently, even as Kir felt like he was having a thousand needles jamd into the space behind his neck, all the way to where his brain t his spinal cord. It wouldn’t have been so bad if it didn’t also feel like the needles were moving and twisting while feeling strangely too hot and too cold at the sa ti.
Kir closed his eyes, ground his teeth together, and endured; unable to even make a sound as he focused all of his willpower on holding his head and neck as still as possible.
Until at last, with a satisfied and triumphant voice, the General declared, "And we’re done!"
Kir fell forward onto his palms, gasping. He noticed that all of the manastone on the platform had disappeared.
"How was my ti?" Sreev asked Litty as Kir got shakily to his feet.
"An hour-forty," she supplied, checking a ti-telling magic tool.
"Oh. Much longer than expected... hmm. Well, it was a double-procedure. Thank you, Litty." He dismissed her.
He smiled to Kir. "Thank you for your trust, young master. How is your sight?"
Kir was still getting oriented. Everything looked normal, but with a sort of sheen that he vaguely sensed he wasn’t seeing with his eyes. It was like his manasight but toned down. Kir also noticed that Litty had an aura, a pink one, while the General oddly seed to have just a bit of a whitish haze.
Kir explained it and the General replied, "That’s normal. This is essentially creating a new set of senses from your soul, so it will lack the concentration of a manasight spell. In ti, you’ll be able to increase the sensitivity. The, ah, haze you see is an effect of my cloaking. I have reigned in my aura so as not to be easily spotted by the enemy. You should notice similar auras on less magically-inclined individuals."
"Let guess, the darker the aura, the stronger soone is?" Kir asked.
"They will tend toward solidity for the trained, growing less opaque with each advancent up the spectrum until they’ve had ti to grow and strengthen towards the next color. Most people will stop at yellow."
Kir looked down at himself. Sure enough, there was a yellow aura about him. "Why yellow?" he asked.
"Because to get beyond that, one must begin reification. In this, mavens actually have an advantage, because they reify naturally between body and mind. Theirs is a steady path of growth until they have enough of a sense of self to incorporate and grow their souls. Their powers are still limited, but do not underestimate them."
Kir didn’t need to be reminded of that. The remaining seal in his ear was a painful reminder, and he’d intentionally avoided the topic of it with Sreev. Who knew what Maledict or his enemies would do if the fact that Kir was sealed got out. He vaguely regretted publically revealing his relationship to his father, but the damage was done, and it had gotten them closer to the city.
"Demonic mages must have, at the very least, their magiform before they can begin... and beyond that..." He shrugged. "If I were to reveal my aura to you, it would be a middling green color."
Kir nodded. He felt a strange dissonance within, like he was both tired and not tired at the sa ti. The air against his skin kept making him want to shiver, even though it wasn’t that cold.
"I think I need to lie down," Kir said.
"Please do, young master. I thank you for your patience with . Litty will escort you, as before."
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