No Need For A Core?

Amrydor found himself very content with how the fight had turned out, despite the amount of pain he was currently in and how he could feel himself slowly dying. It did help that he had a happy Fuyuko curled up against him, and with their link open again, he could feel how satisfied she was.

If not for his encounter with Klastoria, he’d probably have already died when Fuyuko’s claws sank into his torso, if he’d even remained conscious that long into their fight.

The ‘trick’ he’d used to relax Fuyuko’s muscles and to play with Gemeti’s nerves was the same power that had let him control Klastoria’s body when he’d been reaching for her core, and it was even more effective on his own body.

Not that he was controlling his flesh, exactly. It was closer to manipulating the energy of life to manipulate the flesh. This sounded somewhat like what he’d heard of immortals being able to live despite having fatal damage to their body, only Amrydor wasn’t directly using his spiritual power, and he didn’t think he’d be able to handle immediately lethal damage, such as if Fuyuko had taken his heart.

Er, taken his heart literally, that is.

Instead, he was directing and speeding up his body’s healing while making blood vessels close to prevent himself from bleeding too much. However, that final exchange had been too much, and he was losing the battle to keep his bleeding in check until his body could heal, and if he lost consciousness, he’d probably bleed out in seconds.

Fortunately, that wasn’t going to matter much. Nexus inhabitants were doing their best to heal both him and Fuyuko, while Mordecai and Moriko were standing nearby to take care of anything that the practicing healers couldn’t handle.

The delay was causing Kazue and Gemeti to fidget and fret, based on what he could sense of them — he was far too tired to bother opening his eyes right now.

He didn’t mind being used as a practice target for the healers; it made perfect sense to him. The inconvenience of having to wait longer to be healed was minor, and it benefited the nexus to give the inhabitants practice with these sorts of grievous wounds.

As the initial healing took hold, he could relax and stop focusing on preventing blood loss, which was quite a relief along with the soothing of his pain, and he could pay more attention to the people around them. Thankfully, despite how crowded it felt, most of the people who had watched the fight had not actually come down to check on him and Fuyuko, but there were still a fair number of people around.

Including one person whose life pattern was spreading throughout the sands, soaking up as much blood and flesh as she could. If he felt better, he’d laugh at Klastoria’s greedy hunger, but her searching pattern made him realize something was missing.

‘Fuyuko, where’s my arm?’ he asked suspiciously.

‘Grabbed it with my shadow; gonna try cooking it later,’ she replied sleepily.

Figures. Amrydor wasn’t sure if he should object or not and he considered possibly demanding some of her flesh in return, but, well, while he might want to have a taste of her, that sort of taste didn’t work for him.

Then the remains of his left arm started itching, and Amrydor groaned at the sensation of a regeneration spell taking hold. “Oh, that sucks. Is it going to itch like that the whole time?”

“Yes,” Mordecai said, “but that’s not important at the moment. Amrydor, look at me.”

Amrydor’s eyes snapped open at the commanding power in Mordecai’s voice, and he stared up at Mordecai in surprise.

“Amrydor, until I say otherwise, you will not use that far step ability again, barring circumstances where you are willing to trade your life — your method is far too dangerous before you get further training.”

“Oh good,” he said with relief, “I was hoping you’d have an idea of what I did wrong. Something was off in a way I don’t understand; I stepped back by reversing everything, instead of trying to make a new step, and that only made things mostly better.”

“We reflexively normalized the space near you before any of us had a chance to realize what was happening. You distorted space in a way that fought our control over our territory, and it’s clear that was your first attempt or we’d have noticed earlier.”

“Oh,” Satsuki said, entering the conversation. “I thought that I’d felt something strange about the boy’s movement there. I’ve never seen a nexus react like that to a normal distance-shrinking far-step either.”

Mordecai shook his head. “I’m not going to explain it right now; giving Amrydor too much information might get him killed. I need to figure out some training manuals to send with him. At the very least, he needs to learn a new form of math that normally only mages need to worry about.”

Amrydor sighed at that, eliciting a chuckle from Mordecai before the man’s face grew serious again. “Amrydor, despite knowing what you did, I don’t properly understand how you did it. I am certain that it’s related to your mark and how it’s supposed to help you get powers related to the Kuiccihan ally you are training with, but that doesn’t tell me how it enables you to distort space that way. Displacing the edge of your blade is still fine, and anything that doesn’t involve moving yourself or someone else should also be safe enough. When you and Fuyuko get back from your trip, I should have a better handle on how to keep it safe for you.”

“I understand, sir,” Amrydor said. Mordecai’s uncertainty about this power made Amrydor nervous; the man knew a lot, and had clearly mastered several forms of magic, and Amrydor had felt confident that Mordecai would figure out how to train him soon.

While they were having this conversation, Moriko and Kazue had been talking with Fuyuko, though Fuyuko hadn’t said much other than to make vague sleepy sounds.

Now Gemeti joined in by sitting near Amrydor and Fuyuko’s heads. “You two are a mess, but you still look kind of cozy snuggled together like that.”

Huh. He hadn’t even considered how it might look. “Um…” he said as Fuyuko stirred enough to open an eye and look at Gemeti.

“Your worry is cute, but this doesn’t seem like the time to tease you,” Gemeti said. “I meant it. I do want to talk with both of you, just not about that.” She looked up to glance between Fuyuko’s parents. “Um, do you mind if I take care of them from here? You don’t seem to be using any more healing magic, and I was thinking of just asking Krystraeliv to move us to Fuyuko’s room, since she has the largest one.”

“Oh!” Klastoria said as she came closer, drawing the rest of her mass from the sand and shifting from her partial-humanoid form to her fully bipedal one. “Do you mind if I joined? I wanted to meet you anyway, since you smell so much like Amry.”

That felt like his cue to do introductions. “Gemeti, this is Klastoria, a zone boss from the mushroom forest. Klastoria, this is Gemeti, a friend Fuyuko and I made during our trip to Artgoi. She came with the caravan the arrived last week.”

“Ah,” Gemeti said uncertainly. “Hmm, that might be a good idea, especially as I suddenly have more questions. Hello Klastoria, it’s nice to meet you.”

Kazue sighed. “And I get the feeling that we shouldn’t be asking any of you questions right now. Alright, I’ll arrange it then; just, let one of us know if you need anything, alright Fuyuko?”

“Yes, Mama K,” Fuyuko said, though Amrydor thought it sounded like she’d cut herself off from saying something else. Maybe her throat still hurt?

A moment later, Amrydor felt Krystraeliv’s power wrap around them and deposit them in Fuyuko’s room. Then it was silent, as everyone seemed to be waiting for someone else to say or do something. He was too tired to initiate a conversation, and he suspected Fuyuko felt the same.

“Well,” Gemeti said, “I guess we should start by getting you two cleaned up. I had been thinking of helping each to the bath separately, starting with Fuyuko.”

“I can take care of that!” Klastoria said before suddenly flowing over, around, and under him and Fuyuko in a single fluid motion. “See? Easy!”

It did feel like every speck of grim, dirt, and gore was gone from his body and clothing, which was disturbing if he thought about it too much.

Fuyuko started laughing suddenly, and when everyone looked at her gasped out, “Last year, early winter, I had too much hair and sparkles here from Shizo. I should have just asked Klastoria for help. Then I wouldn’t have tried a shadow jump that left the fut and sparkles behind.” She giggled at the memory. “I also got rid of about three pounds of not-me that Papa said people need in their guts.”

Amrydor stared. “You ditched all your inner life?”

“Oh, you would be able to see that, wouldn’t you? But yeah, Papa had to fix me up with a bunch of shots and drinks and pills.”

“What are you two talking about?” Gemeti asked. After Amrydor and Fuyuko each explained what they knew, Gemeti wrinkled her nose in disgust. “It’s kind of gross to think about that much stuff living in and on us all the time.”

“Oops,” Klastoria said. “Um, the surface ones don’t matter immediately, right? I think I ate all of those too when I cleaned Amry and the princess.”

“I think that will be fine,” Amrydor said. “Gemeti can help us out easily enough.”

“I can?”

“Yes; all you have to do is cuddle between us for a while.”

She stared at him with narrowed eyes. “I admit I don’t mind the idea, but how would that help?”

“Yours would migrate onto us,” Fuyuko answered, then made a face. “I know, I know, but Papa made sure I understood how it works. Every time people touch, at least a little bit transfers.”

“Alright, I guess we can talk about that later. But first… I guess Klastoria should start? I don’t know what you wanted to know about me.”

“You two are having sex, right? I just wanted to figure out if that was part of why he turned me down.”

Amrydor considered whether he could command his own heart to stop so that he could escape the rest of this conversation.

“I, we, um, yes, we are,” Gemeti said as she stumbled over the words. “Wait, how would that even work?”

“Please don’t talk about that,” Fuyuko asked with a groan. “I really don’t want to know.”

“Right, sorry. Um, Amry?” Gemeti said as she poked him.

No escape for him then. “She was proposing it alongside asking if she could eat me.”

“Hey, I said I was willing to just play too if you weren’t willing to be eaten. The whole thing seems kind of silly from what I have read, but it might be fun to play pretend.”

“Stop!” Fuyuko said. “Already too much again.”

“Sorry princess. I guess I can ask Amry about it later or something. Well, while I’m here, Gemeti, do you need my help with them?”

“If they’re clean now, I just need to get Fuyuko to her bed, and help Amry to his.”

Fuyuko sighed. “Just help get him into mine. Yes, it’s fine — I don’t mind this level of contact. Mostly. And I think I can get myself there; I’m just not strong enough to lift him right now.”

She rolled away from Amrydor and onto her hands and knees, slowly sat back, and then worked her way to a standing position long enough to collapse into her bed.

Klastoria and Gemeti helped Amrydor sit up so that they could remove all of his outer armor, leaving only his living armor behind, before helping him to his feet. He did his best to not roll on top of Fuyuko when he collapsed next to her. It was a lot harder with only one hand… only he had two hands already.

He stared at liquid crystal slime currently making up the low half of his left arm.

Klastoria laughed. “I was hoping that would work. I fed more of myself to your armor and tried to give it even more. You took control of it when I shaped the excess to look like your arm. I don’t think it’ll interfere with the regeneration spell.”

“This place gets weirder every day,” Gemeti said. “And I think I like it.”

Amrydor just sighed and closed his eyes, and almost immediately passed out after he relaxed.

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