They climbed back up the stairs, Pellen humming happily to herself.
Do you want to talk about what just happened? Cass asked.
No. Salos’s answer was swift but retracted just as quickly. But we probably should.
Cass waited a moment for him to begin. She climbed a step. And then another.
Okay, Cass said with a sigh. Well, how about we start with how you seem to know one of the gods? Personally?
Yes. That seems to be the case. His words were lazy, but a flame raged at his core.
And she splintered your soul? Cass prompted.
Salos sighed. I don’t know what else I can tell you. She is my old master. She was my summoner. I served her since she was a child. I was her shadow. She was my world.
She betrayed me. The fire leaked into his voice for those three words.
And she’s a god now, Cass observed, tiptoeing around the real question.
Yes.
I assume she wasn’t when you knew her?
She was not.
Cass sighed and asked the question. How did that happen?
I don’t know! he shouted back, his fur bristling. He shook again, forcibly settling himself. Don’t… Please don’t ask me that. Please.
Cass’s lips drew into a thin line. She could feel there was more there. A lot more. She wanted to press further. He might not know, but he had guesses. Guesses related to the state of his soul?
She forced herself to leave it alone for now. How Alacrity became a god wasn’t important.
Interesting? Definitely.
Dangerous? Probably.
But useful to her and her goals? Not at this time.
Instead, she asked, Is this going to be a problem for us?
Yes.
The bit about letting us live as a favor to Perception?
More than that, Salos sighed. Not that that isn’t particularly worrying. But if she knows about our adventures in the Deep, she’s been watching us for a while. The gods don’t waste their attention on things that don’t concern them.
Perception implied they were bored, Cass said.
The gods have better things to do than be bored.
How do you know? Cass asked.
He shot her a glare. Fine. Let’s pretend they’re bored. Does a collection of bored gods staring at you sound more or less appealing than ones with unknowable goals shifting unseen around you?
Fair point. Those were both bad.
***
Back on the seventh floor, the golems lay in rubble where Fioreya had left them. There was no sign of the living lightning. Whether Fioreya had found some method of destroying them or they’d dissipated with the destruction of the last golem, Cass couldn’t begin to guess.
They stopped to rummage through them to look for concept gems for Pellen. It seemed that Fioreya had been in too much of a hurry to stop to loot the bodies, because all three still had their gems.
Concept Gem (Lightning)
[Class: System
A crystallized Concept distilled through the death of a significant foe. This particular gem holds the concept of Lightning, as brilliant as the noonday sun, if only for a fleeting moment.]
Concept Gem (Obsidian)
[Class: System
… This particular gem holds the concept of Obsidian, as mysterious as the darkest night.]
Concept Gem (Ritual)
[Class: System
… This particular gem holds the concept of Ritual, steeped in traditions unknowable.]
“Which of these has the best chance at the Concept you are looking for?” Alyx asked.
“I can pick first?” Pellen asked, all her eyes going wide, filling her face.
“I mean, technically, this is stolen loot,” Alyx said. “And this is part of the compensation I agreed to. So which one?”
Pellen picked the gold orb from Alyx’s hand. It shimmered, reflecting light that did not exist. “Ritual. Thank you. This has the absolute highest chance. Arcane, Ceremony, and Profane are the three most common options. Nearly everyone who’s used a Ritual Gem is offered at least two of those three. This has to work.”
She was muttering more to herself than the group, her endless eyes fixed on the orb to the exclusion of all else.
She bit her lip, her hands trembling. Slowly, she clenched her hand around the orb, and it disintegrated into a haze of gold. Pellen’s eyes flicked up, reading something only she could see.
Cass shifted back and forth. What had she gotten? Would she say afterward? She wanted to know.
Pellen’s shoulders sagged. She shook her head. “No. It’s no good.”
“You really didn’t get it?” Alyx asked.
Pellen waved her hand, and her status window appeared for everyone else to see.
Absorbing Concept Gem.
[Open Concept slot available.
If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
Decomposing Gem into compatible Aspects.
Select Aspect to fill slot:
- Ceremony
- Service
- Rune]
“None of them are any good?” Cass asked.
Pellen shook her head. “I need Arcane if I want to be offered a professorship.”
Salos bristled. “What’s this about needing specific Concepts?”
Pellen looked up over her system window. “Yes? All professors of the Academy have the Arcane Concept. It is the objectively best choice. There are multiple studies proving as much.”
“That’s not how Concepts work,” Salos said.
“Here we go again,” Alyx muttered, rolling her eyes.
“That isn’t how they work!” he repeated. “Concepts are personal. No two Concepts are the same. How can they be the same? They are a manifestation of your beliefs.”
“No,” Pellen said, her head tilting to one side in confusion. “They are ideas crystallized from the cultural collective.”
“The cultural collective?” Salos scoffed. “Who is claiming that in this day and age? Even the Concepts from Concept Gems don’t display the same characteristics from person to person.”
“They do, too!” Pellen said. “Halbrin and Eberval’s paper ‘Concepts and Culture: The Ways in Which Culture Defines the Manifestation of Concepts’ proved that for a given cultural group, the manifestation of a Concept had a negligible degree of variance. Since ‘The Individual: A Look at the Intersection of Individual and Concept,’ it has been accepted that this variance is more accurately explained and predicted by individual physique, stat allocation, and skill application than fundamental differences in understanding of Concept.”
“That’s!” Salos’s words sputtered into nothing as he reeled against Pellen’s listed studies. “Ridiculous!” he settled on after a minute. “I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous in my life!”
“I’m not hearing any counterargument,” Alyx taunted him.
He shot her a glare. “Because it should be understood that Concepts are highly individualized. True power from a Concept only reveals itself when understood and in tune with the individual. Even if they start as a ‘crystallized cultural collective,’ as you claim, they inherently must change and adapt to better fit the user. How else do you expect to evolve them into more natural forms?”
Pellen blinked. “Evolve them?”
“Evolve them!” Salos repeated.
“As in mutation?” Pellen asked.
“Is that what you call it?” Salos huffed.
“Why would you purposefully mutate a Concept?”
“To reach a more natural state!” Salos repeated. “It is easier to use. Easier to pull more power from. Properly cultivated, it can increase one’s abilities a hundredfold.”
“You must be exaggerating,” Pellen said.
Salos scowled. “Only a little. The point is, one starts with a prescriptive path; one does not stay on it. Not if one wants to be a power in their own right.”
Pellen shook her head. “I don’t know about being my own power. I just want to be recognized as a professor.”
Salos looked between Cass and Alyx. “Surely you two understand?”
Cass shrugged. She knew nothing about cultural collectives. She didn’t know if she could tap into those for her Concepts even if she wanted to. All she knew was, “I have an easier time with the Concepts I developed on my own than the one I got from a gem.”
Alyx had a contemplative look, but she shook her head all the same. “A good military force has a uniform Concept spread. This helps synchronize troops and organize large-scale assaults. Could you imagine the logistics if every soldier was wildly different?”
He snorted. “This is the difference in mentality between masters and grunts.”
He curled around Cass’s neck and shut up.
“Are you going to pick any of those?” Cass asked, gesturing at Pellen’s status window.
Pellen read them over again before she shook her head. “None of these will get me closer to where I need to be.”
The window closed and was replaced with another.
No Concept Selected. Fragment of Ritual added to collection.
What does that mean? Cass asked Salos.
As one discards Concepts to make room for new ones or rejects new Concepts that do not meet one’s needs, one accumulates fragments of Concepts that may be forged into a new Concept.
How many do you need to make a Concept from fragments? Cass asked.
That’s not the right question. As few as two could be enough if they are the right two.
“Would you like to try a second one?” Alyx asked.
Pellen’s eyes widened. “Are you sure?”
“I promised I would get you the gem you needed as payment for standing beside me in front of my cousin.”
Pellen’s face paled at the mention of Fioreya.
“If I can get you what you need without having to buy a bunch of orbs, all the better,” Alyx said.
“But what if I’m not compatible?” Pellen asked quietly.
“I seriously doubt a mage of your apparent skills is incompatible.”
Pellen shook her head.
“Go ahead. I don’t want to owe you if I don’t have to,” Alyx said.
Pellen reached out and took the black orb. It reflected the purple torches, ominous and grim. “Th-this one.”
It exploded in Pellen’s hand, her wide eyes widening further before focusing on the new System Window. She nibbled at her bottom lip.
She crumpled, her knees giving out below her. She shook her head. “It’s no good. I’m sorry. I-I don’t think I’m compatible with Arcane. I… You shouldn’t waste any more time on me. I’m just not meant to be a professor. I—“
“No,” Alyx said, cutting off Pellen’s melting tirade. “I refuse to believe anyone is incompatible with a Concept.”
Salos snorted. “Most people are incompatible with most Concepts.”
Alyx shot him a death glare, and he shut up again. She continued. “We will find you another Concept Gem and see you get the Concept you need. I promise.”
Pellen shook her head. “I can’t let you do that. That’s not…”
“You stood up to Fioreya, 32nd Fang of Vaisom, in armed combat for me. I promised you this. I will make it happen.”
Pellen nodded mutely.
As Alyx helped Pellen back to her feet, the door to the floor above opened.
Kohen and his team walked through.
Kohen looked down on Alyx, his eyes flicking between his sister and Pellen, who was supposed to have been his mage, and he scowled.
“Not content with your mage, you felt the need to steal mine?” he asked. He held his wand with his arms crossed over his chest. The gems on his dueling gloves glimmered in the low light and pulsed with power to Cass’s Mana Sense.
“Not my fault you lost your mage,” Alyx taunted back. “If you don’t want your people poached, don’t let them fall to their deaths.”
His scowl deepened. His swordsmen tensed at his side, putting their hands on their weapons.
“We can duel again later,” Alyx said, waving him off. “I have what I want, and I don’t think you want to fight me now. Or do you want to fight four on three?”
“How are you so sure that’s how the sticks will fall?” His attention fell on Pellen. “I hired you through the Academy guild. It would look bad for you if I reported you as having willfully broken your contract.”
Pellen’s eyes exploded into softball-sized orbs. Her mouth opened to plead, but Marco was faster to the plate.
“’Scuse the interruption, my lord,” he said. “But I would not take this to the guild if I were you. Unless you wrote up a special contract, the contract usually requires you to make sure no danger befalls your mage. Last I checked, let’n ‘em fall into a pit and wander the bottom four floors of the Catacombs for days at a time is pretty clearly ‘danger.’”
Kohen’s glare redoubled on the old guard. If it bothered Marco at all, he didn’t show it.
“Even if you have Pellen,” Alyx said, “Do you want to fight the winner of the Major Blessing and the team that stopped Fioreya?”
“You have the Major Blessing?” Kohen exclaimed. He squinted at Alyx and threw his hands in the air. “No. That must be a trick. Do you really think I will believe you beat Fioreya? Should I believe there is a bottom to the Abyss, too?”
Alyx shrugged. “Who can say? Fioreya, probably, if you’re brave enough to ask her. That I’m even willing to brag about this, maybe? The mage you hired, perhaps?”
All eyes fell on Pellen.
She shrank under their gaze, but she nodded. “We fought her. We aren’t dead. I-I can only call that a win.”
“So, what’ll it be?” Alyx asked. “Fight us now and find out exactly how outclassed you are before you have a blessing, or wait until the tournament, where I can beat you publicly in front of the dragons?”
“Alyx,” Cass hissed at a volume she hoped Kohen couldn’t hear, “What are you doing?”
Alyx waved her back as if to say she knew what she was doing. Cass didn’t think so but didn’t know how to diffuse the situation.
“You really think things will go that easily for you during the tournament?” he asked.
“Well, I beat you before I had the Major Blessing, and that wasn’t even that hard. Now that I’ve passed the Gate and have all these buffs from the blessing, I can’t imagine taking you here and now would be all that difficult.”
Kohen’s fists clenched. “You’re that strong now, huh? You want to go then?”
“Not really,” Alyx said, a bored air floating in her tone. “I don’t want you using your lack of Blessing as your excuse as to why I beat you. Go get your minor blessing, and we’ll fight again during the tournament.”
Kohen opened his mouth, but Tiador stepped in front of him with a fake smile plastered over his lips. “How magnanimous of you, Lady Alyx. I think we will take you up on that. Thank you. Will you be keeping our mage on your way out, or will you be returning her to us?”
Alyx glanced at Pellen, who looked every bit like she was trying not to be seen.
“I’ll honor my promise to see you out if you’d like to leave now,” Alyx said, “And either way, I will make sure you are compensated for holding Fioreya as long as you did.”
Pellen looked between Alyx and her brother, her head swiveling back and forth. “I-I should complete the contract Lord Kohen petitioned the Academy guild for. Thank you for your help.” She bowed and scurried away into the shadow of Daidyn.
“Until the tournament, then,” Alyx said, leading their group past him.
“Until the tournament,” Kohen replied, his words gravelly, but he did not level his wand at any of them as they passed.