RavensDagger

  Chapter Five - An Essence

  50th Day of Spring - Year 1758 of the Goldehe Sapphire O

  The green puppet shifted slightly. She'd seen lots of people, humans that was, gathering in one pce before, but so many of them focused on her and the other puppets felt a little off putting. A flick of her eyes to the side revealed Blue was standing at attention, but was otherwise impassive, and a click to the other side showed Red fidgeting slightly.

  She couldn't truly unicate with the others, but that didn't mean she didn't get a sense for their personalities.

  The blue puppet was often aloof and quiet. She'd step bad sit down more often, and of the three, seemed the most easily accepting of long stretches of silence.

  Red was very much the opposite in many ways. She moved stantly. When they were pced in that cupboard for the night, she spent it walking in circles and occasionally threw out a quick punch or twreen tried to i with Blue, but without being able to talk... it was plicated. Red was easier to eain. At some point they'd found some cord and the tyed the world's clumsiest game of cat's cradle for a few hours, at least until the cot tangled in one of Red's finger joints and it had to be cut out.

  "So, how are these three faring so far?" one of the strange new people asked.

  He was a shorter man, perhaps ten or twenty years Magus Maldrak's senior. He didn't have that straight-backed imposing aura that the Magus had, but something told her that he was still a powerful individual. His hair was a tangled mess of white, and like the ic-users she'd seen, he had a sort of shield over his right armpit. His had a pair of small green dragons coiled around a tree made of gears and pistons.

  The same symbol was on the shield of the young mao him. He had some familial resembo the e, the same sharp browhe same jawline, and the same unruly hair, though the younger's were all bck still.

  "They're living up to expectation, Magus Woodbone," Maldrak replied.

  "Pft, I doubt that," the man, Magus Woodbone, said. "These bodies are trash. No offence, Brian my boy."

  "aken," the younger man said. "They're what I had on hand. The pattern they're based on is older than I am by several decades, even. It's funal, at least."

  "Hmph," Magus Woodbone said. He gestured at the three puppets. "Up, up. Stand up tall, the three of you. You might not look it, in those casks and twigs that my son spped together, but the three of you are something special. Made your cores myself, and I'll have you know that I'm something special too."

  "Your fiden oneself has always inspired awe, Artificer Magus Woodbone," Maldrak said.

  The entleman s that. "At my age, it's less fidend more certainty. Not that I'll be the best forever. Some youth will catch up, cheating on all the knowledge I spilled in my wake, and then they'll surpass me. Same as I did in my day. Now, I imagihese fish are here for a reason?"

  Green had to admit she was curious about that as well. She didn't have a o smell with, but she imagihat the three rather rge, very much still alive fish, must have smelled iing.

  "I was hoping that you could assist the puppets here in disc how the system you created funs," Magus Maldrak said.

  "I created? More like I stole," Woodbone said. "ibalized, if we're being crass about it. I have to protest having such artwork shoved in such crude frames."

  "It's part of my process," Maldrak replied. "You know how I like to do things by now."

  "A I still question it," the man shot back.

  Maldrak gave him a tiny bow, little more than a dip of his shoulders and back. "And your prodigious skill and expertise allows you to get away with it."

  "Hah! At least you're not pretending to be anything more than drinking panions," Woodbone said. He licked his lips and looked to the three puppets in turn. "Now, we'll see if you three have the intellect to deserve the tools you've been given. Along with trol over your limbs, there should be a trol to open your chests. It's a trol in two parts. Like unhinging a jaw in the middle of your torso that was here before. Open the first part now."

  Green wished she could blink. The instru was basically nonsensical. A jaw in her chest?

  There was a k to her side, and she turned slightly to see that Blue's chest had opened slightly. A piece of the wood at the front had slid down about a finger's width.

  Looking down at her ow, she focused on the feeling. If Blue could do it...

  It took her all of a minute of increasingly frustrating searg, but eventually she felt the right... twi was like moving a limb she had never been aware of.

  A sb of the wood at the front of her chest shifted down with a click, and she was able to see into her chest. Not very far. There was a device there, a sort of ter. iny wheels, with zeroes across the majority. The st few had numbers on them. Currently they sat at Nine and Four.

  94. She wondered what it meant. And why so many zeroes before?

  The artificer checked on Blue, then on her. He wasn't very geh his touch, grabbing her barrel chest and moving it down to peer at the ter.

  "Hmm, e on, you, figure it out," he said to Red before turning to Maldrak. "Tell me you've hem. And not something foolish like A, B and C."

  "Not yet," Maldrak replied. "I think a soul like this ought to self. Though I'll admit to some level of disappoi if they piames that are too crass or simple."

  "Hmph," Woodbone said. "Fair enough. Ah, there you go." Red's chest had finally clicked down. "The ter you see within is a measurement of the vitality of your core. Not its physical health, mind. To know that you'd o give it a look. Rather, it's the potency of the essence you've ed. Magus Maldrak here, the sly devil, has created means by which to turn esseth. How that strength grows will be up to you. It will mold itself to you, permeate your core and bodies, grow yical might, and make you... more. In the same way that dragon's essence has done for the people of Draya Calyrex feions."

  He stepped back, then g Sir Jorvin and his son.

  "Lay out those fish in a row, would you? And give them a good whack. It doesn't matter if they die, but living ones will give more."

  The men did as he asked without question, though the younger man's face twisted in distaste at handling the fish. They were strahings, with several growths along their bodies and the start of what seemed almost like wings on some of their backs. Their scales were te as well, jutting out of their flesh at incorregles and seeming to leave rough scars behind.

  "Now, you three, yet uhe muscle that opens your chest is twofold. The is like flexing an elbow. This part should be easier now that you've mastered the first."

  Red's chest exploded open with a heavy k, and Green stepped back from it.

  Where the front panel had slid down, it had now twisted to the side, revealing a rge opening. A device had slung itself out of that opening. A long needle, a piece of thick gssware, and several small copper pipes.

  The needle's tip was rge enough to fit a pihin, and the entire device seemed desigo pierto flesh and suething out.

  Greeated, but she found the muscle iion and flexed it. Her chest opened, a strange and unfortable feeling, and the needle-tipped device came out.

  "That," Woodbone expined. "Is a soul siphon. A device that is quite illegal in these parts, though what ws remain to stop us? Hm? Its purpose is twofold. To extract the living essence from the dead or near-dead, and to purify it of its draic taint. The tter it is not fully effit at, but we have ways of remedying any... foreseeable issues. Kill the fish."

  The order came so suddenly that it took her a moment to process it. Not so for Red.

  Red surged forward, her limbs moving with an almost frantic urgency as she got on all fours. The foot-long needle of her siphon plunged into the side of the fish, and Green could hear the squelch of flesh and the faint hiss of air esg. The fish twitched violently, its gills fring and its grotesque, oversized scales catg the dim light. Red's siphon hissed as it drew something in, and the ter on her chest ticked upward: 95, 96, 97... eventually it stopped a 112.

  Greeated, her gaze flig to Blue. Blue had stepped closer to her fish but hadn't moved to act. Gree an odd flicker of shame, though whether it was for her hesitation or Blue's calm, she couldn't tell.

  "Don't dawdle," Woodbone snapped. "Essence waits for no one, not even the hesitant. If you take too long, you'll lose the full potency."

  Green forced herself to act. Her siphoended fully, the needle gleaming irange light. She k by the fish her and pressed the needle against its side. The fish spasmed, its life ebbing away as her siphon hissed to life. Her ter ticked up. 94. Then 95. Finally, 110.

  There was no blood, no viscera, just the slow draining of something unsee undeniably vital. Whehdrew her siphon, the fish y still, its oversized scales dull and lifeless.

  Blue finally moved, stepping gracefully to the st fish. There was ation in her as, just deliberate precision. Her siphoended and pierced the fish's side as if she'd do a huimes before. Her ter ticked upward, settling at 98.

  "Well," Woodbone said, his voice carrying a note of satisfa. "That wasn't so hard, was it? You've all taken your first step into being more than the crude frames you wear."

  Green stepped back, retrag her siphon and closing her chest. The feeling was strange, like folding a part of herself away.

  "Good," Maldrak said, breaking the moment. "They've proven capable. Now, let's move on to the step. This is something you will find yourselves uo do on your own, not without the help of an experienced Magus or a talented Artificer. Though I suppose you could learher skills yourselves. Step forward you. Yes, you seemed the most eager." He had gestured to Red.

  Red stepped forwards. Her siphon was still extended. She seemed careful, almost worried.

  The artificer didn't waste time. With a flick of his wrist, he gestured for Brian, who handed him a small, drical device. It pulsed faintly, glowing with engraved runes. Woodbour in his hands ohen pressed it firmly against Red's siphon.

  The device hissed, and with a quick, meical sound, it extracted a small vial of glowing liquid from the vial on her siphon. The liquid swirled, iridest and alive, as Woodbone held it up to the light.

  "Essence, raw and unrefined," he said, his toter-of-fact. "It's the lifeblood of this process. Now watch."

  Brian handed him a sed, small traption—pact yet intricate, covered in softly glowing runes and faigs ons. With practiced ease, he slotted the vial into the mae. A low hum filled the air as the essehin the vial began to swirl faster, its glow intensifying. Within seds, the hum faded, and Woodborieved the vial. The liquid now shimmered brighter, its ore vibrant.

  "Purified essence," Woodbone said, holding the vial aloft for all to see. "Refined for maximum potency."

  Without hesitatiouro Red and with a few deft motions inside her chest, opehe entire front of her body up.

  Green stared for a moment. Their chests were little more than barrels but within... was a plex array of small metal devices, liogether by small pipes and tubes. There were several small vials as well, but the core was what drew her attention.

  It was a small thing, no bigger than a closed fist, made of gold with several interwoven bands of silver around it. It glowed, faintly, from the inside.

  The artificer ected the purified vial to a small nozzle clearly designed for the task, and the glowing liquid was quickly emptied away into the work of pipes.

  The clowed brighter for a moment, then faded.

  Red's frame trembled briefly for just a moment, but it settled soon enough.

  Woodbone closed her up, moving with the casual ease of someone who'd dohis a thousand times. "Let's see what you do," he said simply.

  "Get into the first form," Jorvin snapped, and Red was quick to stumble over to their practice sword and move into formation.

  They sparred. Green watched. She... wasn't sure if Red was better. Perhaps a tiny bit smoother, a little faster? She went doidly enough when Sir Jorvin decided it.

  "What say you?" Maldrak asked.

  "I say that there might be some improvement, but maybe a fish's worth of that purified essence of yours doesn't seem to add up to much," the mage-knight said.

  "Bah. That tiny morsel was nothing. Give them the essence of an army and you'll see something truly incredible," Woodbone said.

  Maldrak nodded, his eyes sharp as he turo Green and Blue. "Your turn," he said.

  ***