No Need For A Core?

The very first people that Fuyuko saw move away from the caravan were her friends, Derek and Galan, who looked like they were in a hurry. The caravan must have picked them up in Riverbridge. Weird to think that one of them was technically her uncle, she mused.

Shortly after that, Gemeti hopped off the wagon she had been traveling on because she'd spotted Amrydor waiting by the side of the road.

Fuyuko grinned as the two met and kissed, and was rather satisfied with the warm happiness she felt from Amrydor.

She knew that this was probably unusual — she liked Amry enough to have been rather happy snuggled up with him while they had slept last night. From what she knew of how most people reacted, that should be enough for her to feel some of that possessiveness or jealousy a lot of other people seem to feel when the person they liked also liked another person, but it didn't seem to work that way for her.

Well, unless that person was someone she didn't like, maybe. She guiltily remembered the broken bedpost and contacted Mama M. 'Erm, I forgot to mention this earlier, could one of you repair my bed? One of the posts got broken earlier.'

There was a moment of hesitation before she got a reply. 'Got broken? Do I want to know how that happened?'

Fuyuko pondered whether to be vague in a way to bolster the illusion of her prank, but decided to tell the more exact truth. 'Amry and I were talking about stuff like Gemeti, and he suggested I imagine someone I didn't like snuggled against him. And, well, that happened.'

'I see. Love, if things get too complicated, you know you can come to me, right?'

That made her smile. "I know. But I think we're figuring it out. Seems anything involving me is going to be complicated. Don't worry about this part though — I can see them right now, and I'm happy."

Warm affection flowed across the link, and Fuyuko enjoyed what felt like a mental hug. This was one thing she liked a lot better about being in the nexus compared to using her earring. More than words could be communicated.

She had not stopped watching the caravan come in while she'd been talking with Mama M, and she was impressed. It was a lot bigger than Gramps' caravan, with entire wagons devoted to plants and animals. And with all those wagons came a lot of people.

Deciding it was time to pay more attention, she put away her practice lock, but she didn't leave herself entirely unoccupied. She could still eat while watching all the people.

While she was eating a fruit that tasted like a lightly spiced cross between a pear and a peach, Fuyuko spotted a particularly interesting looking man. His dark curly hair was shorn on the sides, while the messy top was dyed a bright pinkish-purple, and he wore what looked like a variation of a gi that was mostly black with some white and purple sections.

It was quite an interesting look, and she decided she liked it, but that wasn't what really got her attention. There was a long silk rope wrapped around his shoulders and chest in a harness-like pattern, with one end of the rope slung around his neck to dangle forward over his shoulder, and at the end of it was a small weight. Even better, there were also a bunch of other weights and odd shapes attached to his belt that she was certain could also be switched to attach to the end of that silk line.

The man stepped to the side of the path and paused, looking around a moment before his gaze lifted to look directly at her. Oops, she must have stared too hard. She waved, wolfed down her fruit, and jumped down to the ground before walking toward the man. Who was waiting patiently, but he seemed smaller and harder to focus on? Wait, had her vision changed briefly?

'Papa,' she sent, 'I think my eyes did something weird. I was able to see someone clearly when I was focused on him, but now it's almost like he's further away despite being closer.'

'You've heard the stories about archers who can shoot targets so far away as to be invisible? Well, they aren't invisible to the archers who are that good. You have to be able to see your target to aim. Don't play with the ability too much just yet or you will give yourself a headache.'

Oh. Well, that made sense. She wasn't sure how she felt about being predicted so easily though; she had been about to try making that focus thing happen deliberately.

As Fuyuko got close to the man, he bowed slightly and asked, "May I help you, young lady?" His accent was mild, but he had a fun way of talking. It was sort of casually formal; she couldn't think of a better way to describe it.

"Hi! Um, sorry for staring. I was interested in your harness — is that a meteor hammer? Why do you have it wrapped around you like that? How fast can you swap out the heads? Oh, sorry, I'm Fuyuko; it's nice to meet you."

"It's a pleasure to meet you Fuyuko, I am Kenzai. Yes, this is a meteor hammer; I take it you are familiar with them? As for the harness, it is designed so that I can quickly and easily slip it free for use if needed, though this does not seem the place for a demonstration of either the harness or switching heads."

She nodded. "Alright, um, if you don't mind, I'd really love to see it. How about you tell me where you want to go and I'll show you? Make sure you get things done quickly, and I can get a demonstartion in return."

He inclined his head in response. "That sounds like a fair trade. I take it you are very familiar with Azeria? For the moment, I am seeking to discover where I can make it known that I am available to join a party of delvers and then find a room to rent. Oh, and I am hoping to clarify some information — I understand that proof of martial competence is often required, but it was not clear if that was for everyone, or only for those early in their chosen path."

"Yeah, I know the nexus about as well as anyone can," Fuyuko said with a grin as she gestured for him to follow her while they talked. "I'll show you where the party sign-up boards are; you'll want to check back several times a day to make sure you see if anyone wrote on your post wanting to meet up and talk. Once you have a party, your group can use the delving sign-up boards. I don't think you have to worry about a demonstration; after all, you felt me looking at you from over there..."

Fuyuko had waved toward the tree, but now she paused to stare at it. The branch she'd been on was about thirty feet in the air, and she'd hopped down from it without a thought.

"Is something wrong?" Kenzai asked.

She shook her head and started forward again. "Ah, no, just realized how far up I had been. The last year has been strange. Er, oh yeah, as I was saying, you're strong enough I don't think anyone will be worried about you taking that challenge; though you can if you want. I bet Kuni would love to see you do a demonstration of your skill, and the effort would probably increase the value of your rewards from the nexus."

"Interesting. So, how familiar are you with the meteor hammer?"

"I've only been practicing with it for a few weeks. I got a large set of different weapons during a delve, and I have been trying to learn the basics of all of them. What I'm really good with is a bow, but I'm pretty good with swords and stuff too. I think meteor hammers are really fun, though, and once I'm good enough, Papa and Mama M will let me practice with a rope dart too."

"I see." Kenzai looked like he wanted to ask something but wasn't sure if he should, and Fuyuko took a guess as to what it was.

"I have Papa, Mama M, and Mama K. Um, if you meet them, it'll be obvious, but I'm adopted."

"Thank you. That does make it simpler to know, though I am a little embarrassed that I was that obvious."

"Don't worry about it. Saying 'Mama M' when you only have one mama would be weird, right? And here we are. So, you grab a paper from here, put your name on it, and this is a list of symbols to make it easy to categorize your skills and stuff. Then you also note specific things like your meteor hammer. Then you stick it on one of the pins on that board. People write on your paper if they want to meet you and talk. Or you can look at other people's posts and try to meet up. Once there are two or three people together, they usually just look at other people's posts and take down their original ones."

Kenzai studied the board as he nodded along with her explanation. "I see. Effective enough, I suppose, though it seems rather wasteful of paper."

"Nah, don't worry about it. This is just nexus mana craft. If you tried to take it out, it'd evaporate when you crossed the border. Um, in the future, there might be some odd and probably rough paper there instead. If that happens, it'll be real and made from stuff in the nexus. So you can have a keepsake if you want. But they want to make sure that they can make enough before they do that, so that there aren't some people with it and some people without it."

"Ah. That sounds much like what I have heard about the cores' concern for fairness. Which reminds me — when we left Artgoi, I understood there to be two cores: Lord Mordecai and Lady Kazue. However, when we reached Riverbridge, there were some confusing stories about there being three cores now, the third being Lady Moriko. Is that something you know about?"

Fuyuko shrugged. "Well, I can't explain how it happened, but yeah, there were two cores, but they were in a relationship with Moriko, and somehow, something happened that caused a core to start forming in her head. She had to be rushed back here so her core could join the other two before it grew enough to start forming its own territory." And she absolutely refused to think about the details of what had to have happened there.

That caused him to raise an eyebrow. "Well, that certainly is unusual. I can't say that I have ever heard of that happening before. Not that spiritual nexuses are very common, so there may be much we do not know. Now, if you'll give me a moment, I'll set up my paper, and then you can show me where you think I should stay."

While he was writing his post, Fuyuko mentally asked around for which places had the most rooms available and decided on one nearby. "Alright," she said when he was done, "I think I know a place. Come on."

Everything was going fine with her intention to avoid mentioning her real role as part of Azeria, right up until she brought him to the inn she'd selected, and one of the bunkin working there noticed her showing Kenzai around. "Lady Fuyuko! Is this a special guest of yours? Will his stay be free?" Fuyuko winced. It was clear that the bunkin had meant well, and he was very enthusiastic, but that also messed with her plans.

Kenzai took only a moment to put the pieces together. "Ah. You did say you had three parents, and the initials of your mothers match Lady Moriko and Lady Kazue. I take it you are not interested in advertising your status."

The bunkin's eyes went wide. "Oh, I'm sorry. Um..."

She sighed and said, "Don't worry about it. It's not that big a deal. And yeah, I was trying to avoid the hassle. Er, I feel awkward about it now, but I don't think I'm supposed to be offering free rooms or anything; I was just showing you a place with open rooms."

He smiled and nodded. "I understand. I wouldn't want to put you in a difficult position, and I was expecting to pay anyway. As soon as I arrange my room, I can give you that demonstration."

That took only a few more minutes, and then Fuyuko could finally bring him to where he could demonstrate the harness like body wrap and why he had so many heads for his weapon to swap between. "So, the Kuiccihan soldiers that are stationed here set up some training dummies for themselves near their camp. There aren't as many of the soldiers now, so there's always plenty of dummies available. I figure that's a good place."

"I agree. That sounds ideal."

The demonstration was fantastic. She hadn't expected the meteor hammer's rope to slide past itself so easily. Kenzai could unbind it and snap out his first cast of the weight in about the same time that most trained people could draw a sword or a dagger. This had the advantage of a longer range attack without using magic of any sort, but meteor hammers also weren't great as defensive weapons, even if they did cause people to keep further away from the swing of the rope.

As for the rest of the demonstration, she thought the head swapping was pretty neat. The most common use in battle would be to swap between meteor hammer and rope dart without having to also get a different rope, but he had heads of different weights, including a three-pound head that did a good job of cracking the wooden training dummy. Oops.

"Um, just keep practicing on that one," she said. "I'll make sure it gets repaired for the soldiers later." She was pretty certain that one was a good head to use against metal armor or really hard creatures, but she thought it might also be tiring to use after a while.

Just as Kenzai was getting ready to start another demonstration, Amrydor sent, 'We're coming to you; Gemeti wants to say hello before I show her around.'

Oh. "Wait a moment, it looks like I have a couple of friends joining us. They'd probably like to see your tricks too. Well, Amry will; I am not as sure about Gemeti."

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Early chapters, some excerpts and short stories, and more art!