Outside Influences

“Pay attention, Bel,” Beth scolded.

Bel swatted at one of the snakes that was hanging in front of her face. She received an angry hiss in return. She hissed back – she was fed up with her misbehaving hair.

James laughed and Bel’s blood surged. “Don’t laugh! It’s not funny!”

“It really is,” he insisted.

Beth smacked him in the arm. “Both of you stop messing around.” Beth turned to the discombobulated gorgon, a serious look in her eyes. “Bel, tell us what happened during the ritual.”

“Uh…” Bel scrunched her face as she thought about it. “I’m not sure? I think, maybe, I have to do something or someone’s going to eat my soul?”

Beth buried her face in her hands and shook her head with disappointment.

The smile fled James’ face. “You what?”

Beth restrained him with a hand on his shoulder. “Are you sure, Bel? Even gods shouldn’t be able to force you into agreements like that. Do you remember what you have to do?”

Bel went to scratch her head, but rediscovered her nest of very active snakes instead.

“Ugh. I think… I need to go through the Barrier? And then some other stuff that’s fuzzy. Just the first part is impossible though, so I guess that the rest won’t really matter.”

Beth arched her eyebrow. “That’s it? All the details matter, Bel.”

Bel clenched her teeth. “There’s more, but I can’t remember it. It’s just like a dream that I can’t hold on to – it’s so frustrating!”

Bel rubbed her hands with frustration while her snakes writhed through the air. “I think that there were some people, and I was scared of them, but they weren’t dangerous. Or maybe they were dangerous, but not to me.” She shook her head, further riling up her snakes. “I just can’t remember.”

Beth grabbed her hands and smiled. “It’s okay, Bel. Don’t worry too much about it, talking with gods is tough.”

The older woman tapped Bel in the nose, finally getting the agitated gorgon’s attention. “Did you know that Durak has never once spoken with me directly? So you’ve already done something that I haven’t.”

Bel couldn’t keep a small grin off of her face. “Yeah, as long as my soul doesn’t get eaten then I suppose it was worth it. I’m healed, right? Can I grow stronger like you now?”

Beth smiled widely, revealing her teeth. “I think you’d better start collecting essence. Especially if you want to be able to get through Technis’ Barrier and leave Satrap.”

Bel frowned. “I’m not so confident about that part.”

Beth gave Bel an enthusiastic slap on the back, moving her hand too quickly to be caught by Bel’s snakes. “C’mon, let’s go kill some stuff and make you stronger.”

“What about me?” James complained.

“Free dinner if your sister catches anything good!”

As she stood up straight, Bel stared at her sister. “Beth, are you shorter?”

Beth flicked her in the nose again, eliciting some hisses from Bel’s snakes. “No, silly. You must have grown taller.”

Beth looked her younger sister up and down by the weak light of her candle. “Yeah, you’re taller. And your skin looks better. Less sickly.”

She squeezed the muscles in Bel’s arm. “Maybe you’re stronger and faster now too? How about it, feel any different?”

Bel looked down at her hands. Beth was right – her skin was smooth and unblemished. Also, she could see her hands in the near darkness, something she was sure she would have struggled with before. She hopped up and down experimentally, and was pleased with how fluid and graceful she felt.

The snakes would take some getting used to, but everything else was improved.

“You’re right. I feel better everywhere.”

“Great,” Beth replied. She pulled some canvas helmets from a crate and passed them to Bel and James. “These are delving helmets. They’ve got a place for a candle on the front and a little reflector behind that to make it brighter. With these and some extra candles we should be ready to go.”

Bel tried to lower the helmet onto her head, but her snakes flew into a conniption. “Beth, I don’t know if I can do helmets.”

“Why?” Beth wondered. Then she looked at Bel’s snakes. “Oh. Well, I suppose you can carry a lantern in one hand. Just put it down before we get into any fights, or you’ll break it and burn yourself.”

While Beth dug around for a lantern in the delver’s emergency supplies, James sidled up to Bel.

“So, did you learn anything about you?” he asked.

Bel tilted her head. “I really can’t remember much.”

“Are you sure? What about the people you met?”

Thinking about it made her head hurt, but Bel tried to remember any details. “There was a table, and there were instructions on it. Or maybe a contract?”

Trying to remember the scene made her feel like her head was swelling, but she wanted to know more about herself so she pushed harder. “I think that the table had four sides, so maybe there were three other people. Or maybe all tables have four sides, I don’t know.”

She rubbed at her forehead, hoping to reduce the growing ache.

“Don’t push it,” Beth warned. “Our mortal minds have trouble being in the presence of something divine. Just take it easy for now, and maybe something will come to you later.”

Bel knew that her sister was right, but she was frustrated that she had wasted the opportunity. What if someone had been able to enlighten Bel about her past? “Do you think we could do the ritual again? So that I could ask more questions?”

Beth laughed. “The result would be the same. Maybe once you advance your Path to the twentieth threshold and form a second core, but probably not even then.”

“Advance my what?”

Beth started fiddling with the lock on the lower grate as she explained. “We convert raw energy into an essence that the gods can use, and in return for it they grant us a Path. Your first core isn’t blessed by a deity, but you can trade your essence for a path when you make new cores.”

“How about doing a ritual for me next time? They could fix my body to have a core too, right?” James pestered.

Beth ignored him, sticking out her tongue slightly as she concentrated on the lock.

“Durak’s probably the wrong one to ask since he’s the god of revenge and stuff,” Bel whispered.

“How about Lempo then? She’s the goddess of healing and harvest – maybe you could pick her as your patron when you get your second core?”

Bel shook her head. “She’s not the goddess of that stuff.”

“She isn’t?” James asked.

Bel paused, her confidence evaporating. She had felt so certain that Lempo was a goddess of something else, but now she didn’t know where she’d gotten that idea.

The lock clicked open and Beth snapped her fingers with self-satisfaction. “From what I’ve read – and keep in mind that everything I’ve seen could have been altered by Technis’ priests – the Divine Treaty keeps the gods from interfering too much in our world. Divine meddling isn’t good for anyone, apparently.”

“Why would the gods agree to that? I thought they were all about doing whatever they wanted?” James asked.

“Well, supposedly they almost destroyed the Old World with their bickering.”

James scoffed. “Well, it’s still there.”

“I said ‘almost.’ What I read could have been censored or made up, but the basic gist is that some goddess grew bored with the world and threw a mountain at it. The description in the scroll I read was very over the top.”

Beth raised her arms and waved them around for emphasis while she spoke with a deep, dramatic voice. “A star the size of a mountain was called down from the heavens and struck the Old World, choking the air with fire and shaking the firmament itself. A hail of blood and fire wept from the heavens and the seas rose up in anguish. A vast cloud of thick, angry smoke blotted out and sun, and so on, blah blah blah. It sounded rough, I’m glad we’ve got the treaty.”

James raised his hand. “Hold on. Was it talking about a, ah, this language sucks.” He switched to English and continued. “Was it a meteor impact?”

Beth huffed with exasperation. “You know I don’t speak your language very well. If it sounds like a meaty impact to you, then I guess that’s what it was. I’m sure you’ll tell us all about it while we get a move on.”

She pointed to the open grate, gesturing for them to hurry up.

Light and shadow danced erratically and they moved down the long length of handholds carved into the rock, but physical exertion had never left Bel feeling so good. Her increased height made her feel slightly awkward, and her snakes kept drifting in and out of her line of sight, but otherwise everything felt so easy. Now she just had to do some impossible task for some shady deities or her soul would be eaten. Great.

“Hey Bel,” Beth called out.

Bel turned, almost blinding herself when she looked into Beth’s headlamp.

“What’s up, Beth?”

“All people have a starting ability in their core. It’s useless, but maybe you have something different than normal. It could be a way to go straight through Technis’ Barrier.”

“She’s a gorgon,” James interjected, “so she’ll probably be able to turn people to stone.”

“How can I tell what’s in my core?” Bel asked, ignoring her brother.

Beth fiddled with a bracelet. “You just feel it. I think it should be intuitive.”

“Feel for what though?”

Beth held up one of her hands. “Well, you know how you can move up and down, left and right, forward and backward?”

Beth waited for Bel to nod before continuing. “Well, you should be able to feel your core, but it’ll be moving in another direction.”

Bel shook her head. “No, I don’t get it. What other direction is there?”

“Heavenward,” Beth declared.

James snickered, and Beth cast an irritated glance in his direction. “Here,” she declared, “I have a way to help you feel it.”

Beth stepped forward and punched Bel in the sternum.

“Ow, Lempo’s left tit! That hurt Beth!” She immediately regretted the popular curse, but she wasn’t sure why.

“Hurt where?”

“On my… uh, on my something.” Bel rubbed where Beth had hit her, but it didn’t hurt against her skin. Bel could feel an ache somewhere else, on something that she didn’t know she had. “What is that?”

“That’s your core,” Beth answered. “The ache should pass in a few minutes. Now that you can feel your core, try tensing it like a muscle. You should feel something.”

Beth turned and started walking down the hallway. “But feel it out as you walk. I don’t want to stay down here forever.”

They walked a few steps in silence before James spoke up. “So, a meteor is a giant rock that’s hanging out in space…”

“Hey Beth, I think I’ve figured it out.”

The light bounced along the tunnel walls as Beth turned her head slightly. “Yeah?”

Bel rubbed her hands with excitement. “I think it does have something to do with my eyes.”

“Ah-hah!” James cackled. “Just like I said!”

“Sure James, just like you said.” Bel was feeling bad for her brother since he still didn’t have a working core. She could let him have a few wins.

“I don’t think your sister will be turning anyone to stone with her starting ability.”

James spun around, excited to defend his ideas. “You don’t know that. Maybe Bel’s gorgon powers are, like, super potent. She’s not human, right? That should count for something.”

Beth smacked him on the shoulder. “Watch it with the candle. And there’s nothing wrong with being human, so don’t jump to conclusions,” Beth huffed. “We may never fully understand her ability – certainly no one understand the ability that people are born with, even though practically every person has it. We’ll have to test it out.”

Beth turned back to the young gorgon. “How big does the ability feel?”

Bel felt at her core. It was a strange sensation, like closing her eyes and running her hands over her feet to count her toes only to discover that she had more feet than she expected.

Or maybe a slowly blooming flower with designs etched onto the petals was a better analogy? She certainly didn’t want to think of there being weird extra toes floating around under her sternum.

“Three of something?” Bel replied.

“Great. Tense it,” Beth replied, “like a muscle. Do you need to use it at something?”

“Uh…” Bel got a strange sensation as she concentrated on the invisible extra limb.

“Yeah, I think I need to be looking at someone. And I think that they need to be looking at me.”

Beth walked over to Bel and looked her in the eyes. “Test it out on me, let’s see what it does.”

“What if I turn you into stone?”

Beth laughed. “Honey, I’m not gonna be taken out by a three stroke ability. Just try it on me.”

Bel hesitated, but only for a moment. Beth was always – usually – right about these things. She looked into Beth’s eyes and…

She stared at Beth for an awkwardly long time until something clicked in her head. She felt a stirring somewhere in the direction of her core, followed by a sensation like belching hot air as energy travelled from her core and through her body for the first time. It settled into her eyes and a moment later she felt a strange connection to Beth.

Bel stared, wide-eyed, for at least a solid second before staggering back with a splitting headache.

“Ugh, my head.”

Beth nodded. “Yup. Pretty potent for such a low stroke ability. Not gonna cut through the Barrier though.”

A bout of nausea followed after the headache, forcing Bel to lean against the tunnel wall to wait it out.

Beth patted her sympathetically. “Well, we can play around with it more later. It’ll get easier as your core advances, so we’ll work on that first.” Beth spun a few of her bracelets as she thought. “Also, your technique was wrong. You should actually be pulling the mana from your free strokes and sending them over the ability engraved upon your core rather than pulling the energy from the inscription itself. Now you’ll have to wait for your core to refill before you can use the ability again.”

Bel rubbed her temples, ignoring her sister for the moment. Even her snakes seemed to be affected – they sagged like soggy loaves of bread around her head.

“I don’t have a clue what you’re saying, Beth,” she finally complained.

Beth pulled out one of her daggers. “Here, I’ll demonstrate one of my abilities. I call it cut like hatred.”

Beth raised the dagger and plunged it towards the wall. The shadows seemed to leap onto the blade and it stabbed into the solid surface like the rocks were sea foam. Beth pulled her weapon out with a grin on her face.

“It’s a bit stronger than your ability, but the idea is the same.”

Beth poked the dagger with her finger. “I didn’t actually use the mana from the space on my core where this ability is engraved. Instead, I pulled in mana from a free section and retraced the ability.”

Beth waved her dagger around, stabbing an invisible opponent. “Abilities have passive effects as long as you leave mana in their engraved strokes. If we both used this dagger to cut something, you would find that it’s just a bit more dangerous when I’m using it.”

Beth sheathed the weapon. “When I run more mana through it, the effect simply becomes more pronounced. When you use up all of your mana in the inscription, like you just did, the ability will shut down. So don’t do that.”

“So how long until my headache goes away? And why didn’t you warn me?”

Beth laughed. “You have to learn this stuff first-hand sometimes. The headache is likely from using mana for the first time, not emptying your engraved strokes.”

She gave Bel a consoling pat on the shoulder. “If you pull from the mana from the engraved strokes you won’t be able to activate the ability until your core refills with mana, which takes around an hour. Most people try to leave a good amount of their cores empty so they have excess mana in their unused strokes. Unused mana also makes your abilities stronger passively, and helps you resist some kinds of attacks as well.”

Beth waited a moment for questions, but James was too lost in thought to interrupt and Bel was still squeezing her head. She nodded with satisfaction. “So, our next step is to grow Bel’s core so that she can hold some useful abilities. I’m sure that we’ll pick up something to take care of the Barrier somewhere along the way.”

James frowned with concern. “You’re suddenly pretty confident that we’ll be able to leave Satrap, Beth. Aren’t you worried about the soul eating part of what she heard in her ritual?”

Beth waved off his concerns with a casual sweep of her hand. “I’m sure that the gods wouldn’t have given her a task that she couldn’t complete.”

“What gods did she talk to anyway?” he persisted. “What was your ritual supposed to do?”

Beth shrugged. “How would I know, James? I just did what Durak instructed. The gods may not be allowed to directly intervene, but they’re like the director of a play; they sit off-stage and give us instructions. We’re playing roles in a show where the script is never revealed.”

Beth thumped her fist against her chest and pointed at James. “Me, you, Bel – are we important characters? Will we be talked about for generations? Or are we unimportant bit actors who only show up to hand the main lead a cup of water when they’re thirsty?”

She shrugged, the light from her hat dancing along the barren tunnel walls. “I don’t know. It’s best for us to focus on here and now – and here and now I can hear a skittering along the floor somewhere up ahead.”

Beth took hold of Bel’s shoulder with a vice-like grip and moved her a step down the tunnel. “It’s time for me to help you grow, Bel. Pull out your weapon and let’s get to stabbing. If this is a play, then it is high time for another action scene, right?”