Bound Evil

“Slaves are unsurprisingly cheap in this world” Emily muttered in the silence of her room. She was currently sitting cross-legged on the floor. The warmth of the bricks below her carried the feel of sun-backed stone.

After Alex came to Selia’s room, they left for the market they had passed through the day before. There were many interesting things for sale and as she expected, that even included Slaves.

What she hadn’t expected was that there was a title for it. When she’d asked Alex he’d looked more thoughtful than she expected.

“They most likely changed their active title to Slave when they got the chance. As strange as it sounds, if a high-ranking Slaver gets hold of you, they can lock down your skills almost permanently. Slave is one of the few titles that you can make your active title when the conditions are met. It can’t be deactivated by the Slavers skills and it comes with pain nullification, increased endurance, and a couple of other useful perks.”

Emily was further flabbergasted that some people would willingly seek out Slavers to meet the conditions to get the title. Earn the skills and then swap off it when their next rank-up came.

Emily shook her head free of those thoughts.

She couldn’t afford one now anyway as their upkeep would become her responsibility and honestly, it sounded like a ton of work.

While Emily had just wandered about, taking in the sights, Alex, on the other hand, had been searching for something specific—information.

He wanted to know the movements of their two warring neighbors and though they only had a bit of money the information was on the cheaper end.

Apparently, the relationship between Lorethil and Sam’eth had always been strained. As Lorethil trained some of the foremost Mages of the continent but they didn’t give thanks to the gods who they drew this power from.

Sam’eth had always been resentful of this but had never acted on it until now. However, something must have changed because they suddenly declared war and began marching their soldiers toward Lorethil. The journey would take months to transport the bulk of their armies, but in the meantime, small skirmishes would arise at the midpoint between the two nations.

The information broker had even more knowledge of what started all this but neither of them could afford the more detailed package. Alex truly seemed worried about this whole war thing but as far as Emily could tell they just had to be a bit more careful.

Sighing Emily fell back laying against the warm bricks. She’d been trying to do Ashe's homework assignment but was having a little trouble. Every time she tried to feel the energy coming from her bridge she’d been met with the power in her chest rising almost unconsciously.

She’d used her abilities for so long that it had become second nature to call on them.

So much so that she started to believe that she just didn’t have the same type of energy as the people of this world. But that too didn’t make sense because this was someone else's body, she should be able to do this.

Snorting to herself Emily sat back up and closed her eyes.

She was looking for energy, but not just any energy.

Ashe had described it as a stream coming from outside and joining with her body. Now that was simple enough but it was frustrating when she tried to feel for it and only her natural vitality responded.

Without being able to see where it went, it was really hard to be able to see where it was coming from.

Emily hummed to herself as she took a mental step back.

That thought had some merit.

When she’d gotten the Life conduit skill it hadn’t been hard to feel out the differences because she knew where it was headed. Even now she could feel the smallest streams of life moving towards her from the next room over, and then collecting in her blood.

The difference was she had no idea where this mysterious energy –if she had any– would be hiding.

Emily opened her eyes and brought her hand up to the base of her neck. Her bridge was supposed to draw in power and then distribute it all around her body. But what was the mechanism? Ashe had not gone into depth for this so either it was a test or she didn’t know. As Emily pondered this she continued to massage her bridge. The more she did so, the more she realized it was not just a free-moving bit of skin. It was more like a bone.

Bones?

They were the structures that held the human body together, and they were also where blood was made.

Closing her eyes once more Emily concentrated on finding this small stream of power Ashe had told her about. Reaching towards her bones in an attempt to feel for something more.

Right away it was like Emily’d grabbed hold of a lightning rod as power vibrated through every inch of her body.

The stream was a torrent of grey-colored power languidly moving through her skeleton. She was surprised and a little annoyed that the amount already greatly outclassed the power in her blood.

Tracing it back, Emily rush up along her spine to connect to the bridge that connected her to the outside world.

Now that she knew what she was looking for she could make out the grey source moving through the room and collecting at her bridge behind her.

Her bones were choked full of the stuff.

Excitement exploded in Emily as she found where her power was stored.

The next problem came when she tried to make it move. The grey source didn’t seem to want to respond no matter what she did. There was plenty of it, it just didn’t want to cooperate.

Frowning Emily tried everything.

Force, pleading, kicking, screaming, nothing could get the stoic source to move, it was just there. Leaning back against her bed Emily looked around at all the grey particles moving about her room there was something lonely about them. They just hovered there quietly waiting for a breeze to carry them away. Emily frowned when she glanced over and saw a larger collection of grey source around her bag than anywhere else in the room.

Crawling over she scrounged through her pack until she found the source chalk. It was emanating the very same grey her bridge was collecting. Eyes widening Emily got up and threw open her door, pounding on Alex’s.

They had only gotten back to the inn late so he was probably asleep but Emilt didn’t care.

She knocked on his door until it flew open and one very concerned Alex stood there. When she pushed her way into his room she held the chalk out toward him.

“Draw a smaller version of that flame ward we used in the forest.”

After a pause, Alex’s concern flipped to anger.

“Do you have any idea what time it is, cus I don’t.”

“Alex, come on just help me. I think I figured something out.”

Alex’s shoulders slumped as he searched Emily's eyes. Trying to divine what was going through her head.

With a guttural release of air, he snatched the piece of chalk and moved over to his desk. Drawing directly onto the rough wood. It took him less than a minute before he stepped back and dramatically motioned to the desk for her.

Emily came over as she tried to watch the grey moving towards the thick line Alex had drawn. Emily watched as one part of the rune seemed to eat up all the grey. She wasn’t certain but it was almost like the rune was using the grey as a power source or converting it into something else.

Tilting her head Emily placed her hand on the portion of the rune that seemed to be eating the grey. The moment she did she felt the grey source in her bones move for the first time, rushing towards the pull of the chalked-out rune.

The moment it touched down it forced its way into the tiny lines of chalk.

Briefly, the rune glowed a deep red and a small fiery screen came into view before the chalk completely scattered and the rune burned itself out of existence.

Alex immediately frowned as he stepped around her to see the rune outline now singed into the table.

“Source overload?” Alex muttered.

Emily looked up “I thought that’s what happened to people?”

“It can happen to materials too if the medium is not able to handle the energy. But this stuff is fourth-grade, it shouldn’t suffer from a third-grade rune. What did you do?”

Emily pursed her lips.

“I think I overloaded with too much grey source.”

Now Alex frowned.

“Grey source? There’s colorless energy, but it doesn’t come from an origin. It's just neutral”

Emily very much doubted that, seeing as she had been up close and personal with the guy, but she wasn't about to argue his worldview with him.

“Could draw something else. Something that makes use of a lot of colorless energy?”

Alex frowned as he thought about it and cleared off another section of the desk. Drawing a different smaller rune this time.

It took Emily no time at all to find the point where the grey source gathered and place her hand there. This time though, she tried to slow the source down.

Because of the barrier of blood and flesh in between her bones and the chalk, she found she could easily restrict the flow of source to the rune.

This time the rune formed a small droplet of water that rapidly expanded until it grew too large for the circle and popped. Sloshing down and covering Alex’s desk and floor in water.

“Okay, how are you doing that? Runes cannot be powered by humans unless it expressly uses their color of source. I’m not able to power that ‘water collection rune.”

Emily shrugged.

“Dunno, anyway I’m going to go back to bed. thanks for helping”

Emily actually had a pretty good idea of what was going on here, but if she was right she didn’t need him figuring out her weakness.

As Emily turned to leave Alex grabbed her wrist.

“Hey wait I humored you, now you humor me.”

Emily’s brow rose as she looked at their connected arms and then frowned up at the man. Alex let go and cleared his throat.

“Before you go, just try to draw out that rune on the desk with blood.”

Emily continued to stare up at Alex.

...They’re called blood wards. Blood Mages use them in place of source chalk because blood is a good medium. This could be your first ward lesson; just copy what you see there.”

Alex looked down at her with a determined expression. Emily pursed her lips and glanced at the desk. Walking back to it, she traced her hand over the complex circle of symbols that made up the ward. It still looked like a series of squiggly shapes and lines, but as she stared, she recognized the same symbol in both wards, which absorbed the grey source. That meant each squiggle had a different purpose.

Placing her hand on the charred grooves in the once-unblemished desk, Emily called to her blood, letting the life force uncoil from her chest and move into the rune. Instead of drawing her own version, she let the blood pouring from her fingertips fill every detail until an identical version of Alex’s flame ward came into being.

As it finished, a deep red glow issued forth, and the grey source in her bones rushed toward it. A familiar column of red light took shape in the room, creating a perimeter that no fire could cross, deepening until it almost reached the ceiling.

This time, Emily didn’t feel like she was overpowering the ward, even when the grey source caused it to burn into red smoke. It was not unlike the runes she’d seen in the sweat lodge. And though it required concentration, it took only a small amount of vitality to maintain the ward's shape and repair the constant damage from the power running through it—less than a single blood bolt.

Closing off her power and pulling her hand away, Emily saw that the rune ate away at itself within a few seconds until nothing was left. Unlike the chalk, it was not as long-lasting.

Alex hummed as he looked up at Emily with an unreadable expression.

“We’re leaving tomorrow you might want to go get some sleep. In the meantime, I’ll start drawing out some useful runes for you to practice.”