“Clean your workspace, and I imagine you will find them more easily next time,” Williams told the jailer dismissively. “I trust you did not lose his property?”
“Begging your pardon, sir, but he did not turn over any,” the jailor answered quickly. “He stored his equipment in his spatial storage before he was cuffed.”
“Small blessings, then,” the officer declared.
The entire exchange held a certain catharsis for Alarion. Three days earlier, he’d had a rather nasty back and forth with the disgruntled jailor over his refusal to turn over any ‘dangerous items’ he had stored. Alarion knew full well that anything he gave to the jailer would likely end up on the open market before dawn, and he’d told the man as much.
For the first day, that had been his running theory on why his cell was so cold.
The Auxillia was rife with that sort of theft. It was a Vitrian military organization, but most of its staff were not. Some were inductees like Alarion, others were volunteers who had contracted back in after their term was complete. Soldiers from other provinces made up the bulk of the non-commissioned officer corps, ostensibly to promote a mixture of knowledge and perspective, though the understood reason was that the Ashadi were not yet trusted.
Those same foreigners held every position of authority that was not worth being held by a Vitrian. They were the foremen, jailors, and quartermasters. So long as they were surreptitious with their grift and did not damage readiness, such men were left to their own devices.
It wasn’t that the Vitrians wanted that behavior. At least Alarion did not think so. It was a simple matter of numbers and logistics. Ashad was not an especially wealthy or developed province. Outside of the capital and a few trade cities, most considered it a backwater. Few Vitrians were interested in the posting, and even fewer were interested in positions that dealt with the Auxilia. They had enough pure blood and adopted Vitrians to fill the officer corps, and a solid regiment in Ashad-Vitri as well, but nowhere near enough to fill every mid-level post.
If they hanged every thieving quartermaster in the Auxillia, the occupation would collapse overnight.
“Your left arm,” the jailer grumbled and gestured with one hand. He looked impatient and uncomfortable, as if it hurt to stand at attention.
Though tempted to make the man suffer the indignity a few seconds longer, Alarion was more eager to be rid of his cuff. He offered his left arm and murmured a sigh of relief as the jailor unlocked it with a key.
You are no longer suffering from Skill Lock.
Alarion rolled his shoulders and drew a deep breath. It hadn’t been his longest stint wearing a skill cuff, but he was still delighted to be rid of it.
There were several ways to suppress the power of an Awakened. The most powerful were ritual magics that could suppress or even remove skills, classes, and the like. Slightly less rare were true suppression collars that could force an artificial rank or level cap on anyone wearing them. Those were expensive, used only for the truly dangerous or by the very wealthy.
For someone like him, a rank-and-file soldier in need of better discipline, the solution needed to be cheap. Which meant a skill cuff.
As the name implied, the cuff did nothing to weaken the wearer in terms of class levels or attributes. Instead, it blocked all access to class skills of its rank and below. Combined with physical restraints, such as a jail cell, skill cuffs were a cost-effective solution to the problem of a disobedient but not especially dangerous Awakened.
Their cheap magic was also notorious for knock-on effects. Aches and pains, nausea, and blurred vision were all common. For Alarion, it was a distant ringing in the ear. Nothing painful, just… annoying.
“Kotone, my equipment, all except the bracelet and my mace. Please.”
Pop
The small creature burst into existence above his right shoulder, fluttering on glossy, moth-like wings. The sight of it startled the jailor, who flinched back from the odd mixture of bug and reptile, prompting Alarion to grin sweetly.
The familiar held one of Alarion’s primary weapons, the [Shifting Imperial Greatsword] he had chosen to call Echo, and Alarion reached out to pluck it from her grip. More items followed as the legless creature popped in and out of reality, with each rotation chewing away a bit of MP as Alarion rearmed himself.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
His equipment pool had been even more stagnant than his progression since he’d left the Trinity Isles. With no meaningful challenges before him, [Self-Motivated] had provided pitiful results for completed quests. Usually little more than basic consumables. Echo remained incomplete, and he’d added only a single new magic item, a throwing dagger, to his arsenal.
Even so, it felt nice to be armed.
“That will be all, Kotone,” Alarion told her as he wrapped the crimson scarf he’d taken from the duke around his neck.
“Yes, Miss! Yes, Miss!”
Williams cast Alarion an odd, sidelong look.
“It is a long story,” Alarion said.
In truth, he wasn’t sure how it had happened.
Summon Familiar [Exceptional]
Description: The most trusted ally of any spellcaster, a summoned familiar is an expression of the caster’s will given form. Created through dedicated meditation or a pact with an existing Thoughtborn, these creatures come in a thousand variations, from bodyguards to assistants to spies, each uniquely suited to their master.
Requirements: Level 10 Unraveller. INT 100
Type: Active/Passive
Cost: 25 MP per use. Ongoing cost of 10 MP/Minute while summoned.
Effects: This skill provides knowledge on binding and later summoning a Thoughtborn familiar.
Growths: INT + 4. WIL + 4.
Note: This skill does not provide the skills necessary to form a Thoughtborn, nor does it provide access to a willing Thoughtborn. The costs associated with the binding ritual will vary depending on the bound familiar. The costs associated with summoning and maintaining a familiar will vary with the chosen familiar. The master/familiar bond cannot be severed through the use of this skill.
He’d taken [Summon Familiar] at ZEKE’s direction when he’d reached level 10 in Unraveller. He’d intended to use his [Kel-Taran Meditation] skill to craft a Thoughtborn that would serve as a combat familiar. One that could grow alongside him while his peers fell by the wayside.
Instead, he got Kotone.
General Information
Name – Kotone
Species – Thoughtborn (Familiar)
Sex – Female
Age – Three Years
HP – 835/835 [+0.029/sec]
MP – 641/641 [+0.09/sec]
Stamina 1161/1161 [+1.93/sec]
Aptitude –N/A
UCL – 17
Attributes
STR – 201
AGI – 166
VIT – 234
INT – 155
PER – 178
WIL – 153
LUK – 616
Classes Known
Familiar – Level 17 – Progress – N/A
General Skills Known
Thrown Weapon Mastery – Level 3 – Progress – N/A
Familiar Skills Known
Spatial Storage – Level 3 – Progress – N/A
Familiar Reconstitution – Level 3 – Progress – N/A
Traits and Feats of Strength
Favor of Lal Viren – Moderate
Flaws
Simple-Minded – Moderate
Neither ZEKE nor Kotone had been able to explain how it had happened, though that was not surprising; Kotone’s vocabulary was about as limited as ZEKE’s knowledge of Thoughtborn. ZEKE’s best guess was that Alarion’s powerful emotions regarding Sierra had formed an equally strong sympathetic bond between them. When Sierra passed, that bond tangled with the now masterless Kotone, possibly influenced by Alarion’s flaws.
Whatever the reason, he was stuck with her. Not that he was complaining.
True, she was next to useless in combat, but that was an issue of temperament, not attributes. She shared a third of his inflated attributes and her own class growths as a familiar. This alone made her stronger than most non-combat familiars who typically shared a quarter or a fifth of their master’s attributes. In practice, this made her extremely powerful for her UCL, but as her main combat tactic was to ‘throw’ weapons by dropping them from above or to try and pierce them with an awkward stinger, the practical implementation of her strength left something to be desired.
Fortunately, she made up for that in utility.
Her [Spatial Storage] allowed her to store anything she could carry inside a pocket dimension. With ten cubic feet per skill level, she already had access to more space than he knew what to do with. Meanwhile, her [Familiar Reconstitution] skill meant she could only be truly destroyed by severing her connection to Alarion. This meant either killing him or damaging the underlying thought form by attacking his memory or conception of her.
Kotone could still be physically disrupted, but she’d reconstitute within twenty-four hours. Less, if he devoted mana and meditation to her reconstruction. In theory, it made her an ideal scout. Reusable.
At least, that was ZEKE’s suggestion. To Alarion, the idea felt… disrespectful; to Kotone, and somehow, to Sierra’s memory. He saw the logic, but did his best to keep the strange little creature out of harm’s way all the same, treating it more like a pet than a resource—much to ZEKE’s irritation.
“Do you have anything else with your old unit?” Williams asked as Alarion finished adjusting the last of his gear.
The boy shook his head. Even if he had, putting himself anywhere near Lieutenant Pierce was a recipe for disaster. “Nothing I can not replace.”
“Splendid. Your new assignment is with the 68th. We are headed in the same direction. Walk with me.”
really important note (so important that I'm putting it in two places) I've added a bit of a coda to the end of book one. I originally planned to include this in book two, but book one ended on such a grim note that I felt like it would help to end with something hopeful.