Discordant Note | TBATE

Chapter 50: Checking Up

Toren Daen

All things considered, it was quite easy to snap the spell embedded in the weapons. With the guidance of an asura and severe focus, I could locate the effect of mana contained within the steel, then carefully sever and squash it with my own focused power.

If I didn't have an asura slowly prodding at my mana control and funneling me toward what I wanted to discover, I doubted I would have found the spell any time soon. It was layered deep, and entrenched with obfuscation methods that boggled the mind. But once I did latch onto it, there was no contest removing it.

It had to do with how willpower was leveraged over mana. I probably would not have been able to break the artificer's connection over a spell they were actively controlling so easily, but that was not the case here. The embedded spell was latent and passive, meant to send a signal out intermittently in small pulses that the other end could track.

After fixing that problem, I insisted on looking at each of the Rat's gifts, using the excuse that I was interested in them as a cover for scanning them for similar spells. I avoided the skaunter, however. Though I outright told Karsien what I'd found, I didn't want to spread a panic through the Rats unduly.

It turned out my 'gift' was the only one with active spells imbued into the structure, which brought up more questions. Karsien was onto something when he implied I was under special attention from this Renea Shorn.

But the real question was if there was anything I could do about it.

I had my new weapons secured tightly on either side of my waist, their glimmering silver handles and dark leather grips a comforting place to rest my hand.

I was standing on a rooftop just outside the Cistern's entrance, surveying all I could see. Snow was still on the ground, and a depressing number of people were shivering on the streets, covered in ratty blankets or simply turning blue.

Part of me wanted to stop what I was doing, go down, and light fires for each of them. I had the power to do it, mana reacting to my will. I could make these people warm.

But all the hours of the day weren't enough for me to reach each and every person here. There were thousands in the streets across the city. My mana core would dry out far before I helped everybody who needed me.

I sighed as I dismissed those thoughts, turning west. I willed my mana shroud around me, the light white sheen of energy coating me like a barrier. Then, remembering how my emblem reacted to my natural barrier before, I tried to grab hold of myself with my telekinetic control.

The spellform on my lower back grew warm, then I felt the rune activate. The white mana of my telekinesis meshed with my mana shroud, mixing and condensing in a strange new barrier.

I raised my arm in front of my hand, inspecting the interplay of energy. My telekinesis rune operated on pure mana structured with gravity and sound attributes to create truly unique effects. But when it blended with my mana shroud, there was an unexpected synergy.

It didn't look any different from my normal barrier, but I remembered the differences starkly from my fight against Lawrent and Dornar Joan. Raising a fist, I swung it at a nearby metal pole. When my knuckles impacted the steel, ripples of white crystalline lattices spread out from my fist at the epicenter over my shroud, before gradually fading away.

I inspected the effects of my attack. The steel had been solidly dented with minimal force, something that wouldn't have been possible before. It seemed my telekinetic shroud layered extra strength over my blows, amplifying my attacks somehow.

Suddenly remembering another effect of this shroud, I reached out with my emblem, pressing heavily against the ground. Instead of being lifted up slightly as I would've expected from the pushback, the force broke against my telekinetic shroud, dispersing with a bit of crystal shine.