Tala hoped to the rusting stars that Mistress Noelle was going to get good use out of this data. Anything for this to be worth it…

The Archon had asked them to sit still, stretch, chat randomly, argue about a topic of her choice, and a few other odd things. In the end, she seemed satisfied with her data

“And that does it. Thank you!”

Tala and Rane both slumped a bit, stepping away from the spell-forms and moving to stools near where they’d been standing.

It was dark outside, easily seen through the opening in the ceiling above. Despite that, there was still plenty of light to see by.

As it turned out, the walls were covered in a bioluminescent fungus that produced enough light to allow even a mundane to read with ease.

Oddly, the luminescence was almost lilac in coloration, which gave the workshop a bit of an otherworldly feel, but Tala didn’t find it objectionable.

“Now.” Mistress Noelle sat down at the table with them. “What can I do for you two? You’ll be departing in the morning, and your caravan is safe for the night. So, you’ll already get a good night's sleep.”

“Dinner?”

Mistress Noelle smiled. “Your chuckwagon will have some food for you, when we’re done here.”

Tala almost stood up right then, heading towards the exit, but Rane caught her gaze, raising an eyebrow questioningly. Right! “So, I have a question about Archon stars.”

“Oh?” Noelle perked up. “What do you want to know? They aren’t my expertise, per se, but I’ll answer if I can.”

“What does the inverse of an Archon star do?”

“The…inverse.”

“Yes.”

“You want to know what happens when a custom spell-form, unique to the caster and medium, is inverted perfectly?”

“Yes?”

“How, under the heavens, would I be able to answer such a specific, theoretical question?” She had a playful glint to her eye.

If Tala had to guess, she’d have said the other woman was hunting for a compliment. Instead of playing into her desires, Tala decided to subvert them. “Not theoretical.”

“What?”

Tala held out the iron vial with her inverted star held within. “It’s not theoretical.”

Noelle took the iron vial and removed the cap. “Tala; that’s an Archon star.” She looked in again. “I’ll want to ask you about the medium later, but let’s stay on track.”

Tala held up a finger. “That’s the thing. This is how I make Archon stars.” She opened a different iron vial and pulled, causing one of the stars she’d been using for orbital practice to come out, hovering before Noelle.

Noelle shrugged. “They’re both Archon stars, but for different people.”

Tala opened her mouth to object, but Noelle cut her off.

“I know you made both. Well, you flipped this one, right?”

“That’s right.”

“It also resonates with your soul. I imagine you can manipulate it as you can your originals?”

“Yes.”

“Good, right. So, first thing. This isn’t inverted, it’s inside out.”

Tala frowned. “What?”

“Inverted, the spell-form goes left when it should go right, etc. This is inside out. It’s like you grabbed the spell-knot and twisted until it rolled around and came to rest with what used to be inside, out.”

“But… it looks almost identical to being inverted.”

“Ahh, but it isn’t.”

“How do you know?”

Noelle gave her a bit of an irritated look. “Fine. I know, because an inverted Archon star must be made intentionally that way, not manipulated after the fact.” She shook her head. “One, willingly made, willingly taken, binds your gate to your body. Closing your gate and returning you to the natural state of humanity.”

Tala’s eyes widened, and she opened her mouth to ask the obvious question, but Noelle cut her off, again.

“Yes, your Forbidden friend knows. I’ve never heard of a Mage taking that path. It is willingly giving up on human magic. That’s no life.” She shook her head. “Not to mention that humans without a gate only have a life-span of a half a dozen decades, a few more, if they take good care of themselves. The luckiest might reach a hundred and twenty years of age, even with Magical healing and maintenance.”

That’s a lot shorter than I would have guessed. She frowned. Poor Adrill, and Brandon! Tala shook her head in frustration. “Is there anything that can be done for them?”

“Stop them from creating or ingesting an inverted Archon star.”

Tala hitched at that. Wait… “How do we not have half our Archons accidently creating the inverse form?”

“As I said, it has to be intentionally formed. The first Archon star that they make is their regular star, regardless of how they make it. That’s one of the many reasons why there isn’t a set spell-form that works for every Mage or Archon, even in a given medium.”

Tala grunted but didn’t know of anything that would counter the woman’s point. It lines up with what I know, too. “What if they were born without a gate?”

Mistress Noelle gave her an odd look. “So, that’s an entirely different train of thought. Do you not want your answers?” She lifted the iron vial slightly.

Tala shook her head. “Right, right. So, how does an inverted Archon star do that?”

Mistress Noelle gave a half smile. “That is also not what we were discussing, but the answer is quick enough. As an Archon star binds the physical body to the gate, an inverted Archon star binds the gate to the body.” She hesitated. “Well, no. That’s wrong, but close enough for what we’re discussing. In essence, it pulls the gate back from the next world, and binds your spirit to your gate, returning them to a single whole.”

“I don’t really understand.” She frowned. “And isn’t that just what it would do if I swallowed it? What if I tried to use an inverted star to bond with something else?”

Mistress Noelle shrugged. “It’s not exactly clear, especially since it’s simply not done, so there aren’t many subjects to study.” The Archon gave Tala a hard look. “Do not experiment with such things. My guess would be that it would rip your gate, your soul, from your body and implant you into what you were trying to bond. That would kill your physical body. Best case, you would be a fount inside of whatever you placed that star within, your mind gone, and your spirit in bliss, either in this world or the next.”

Tala tried to process that. “And the worst?”

“I won’t pretend to know the worst, but a worse outcome would be that your cognizant spirit would be trapped inside the intended bound thing, with your gate closed, and an eternity ahead of you, hoping that your prison will one day be destroyed by the inevitable expansion of our local star.”

Tala swallowed and cleared her throat. “Well…yeah. I won’t try that.”

Mistress Noelle snorted. “Good.”

“So… what about my inside-out star?”

“Oh, yes. This would create a bond to your soul, just like a regular one, but this would bind to your subconscious mind, primarily, with your conscious mind having to work to get any sort of control, or ability to use the item or link.”

Tala blinked at the woman a few times. “What?”

Mistress Noelle sighed. “Right now, anything that you’ve bound to you is consciously connected to you. You could act on it subconsciously with enough training, but it isn’t natural. This would make that the natural point of connection. If you ever wanted to consciously decide how you were going to utilize that link, you’d have to train towards that end.”

Tala frowned. “Your spores?”

Mistress Noelle waved that off. “Oh, no. That’s something else entirely, but good memory.”

You only said it a couple of hours ago…

“Now, this is an odd case, because you’d already bound the blood to yourself with a standard star-form, so this inside-out form is simply being housed inside an over-bound vessel.”

Rane interjected then, “Wait. Wouldn’t a subconscious bond be so much more useful?”

Mistress Noelle gave Rane a long, long look.

He didn’t react.

Finally, she shook her head. “Are you in perfect control of your subconscious?”

“Well, of course not.”

She nodded, giving him a moment.

“Oh…Well, I mean…. That…” He frowned. “So, it’s subject to the whole of your subconscious. But for a normal bond, properly trained, it does what you want subconsciously.”

“Precisely.”

“You could have just said that.” He hunched a bit, glowering her way.

She shrugged. “You got there, eventually.” After a moment’s pause, during which she seemed to be verifying that Rane had no further questions, Noelle turned to Tala. “Now. Tala.”

Tala gave her a wary look. “Yes?”

“Blood? What on Zeme possessed you to use blood as a medium?”

Tala sighed. She briefly walked Noelle through her process, how she’d discovered the spell-form, and how it just seemed right.

There was a long silence. “Wow…you’re lucky I wasn’t on your elevation examination council.”

Tala frowned. “Why?”

“Because I’d have killed you on the spot.”

Flow was in Tala’s hand before she had time to fully process that.

Mistress Noelle was holding up her hands. “Hold, hold, Tala. I’m not going to harm you.”

Rane had Force in hand, but Tala hadn’t seen him draw the weapon. Neither of them set their blades aside, but they allowed the woman to continue.

“That story is suspect as rust. If Xeel hadn’t already warned me about your potential stalker, I’d assume you were a puppet for some arcane.” She hesitated. “Well, being Bound makes that unlikely, and since you’re moving towards Fused, it’s basically impossible. That said, as a Mage? I’d have to assume that your star would trigger your transformation into an abomination that would take out at least a few Archons before we could put you down.” She shrugged.

“That’s…kind of horrible.”

Mistress Noelle sighed “I’d have been wrong, but in some cases it’s better to lose one potential Archon, than multiple that are already of that stage of advancement. Humanity needs all its Archons, and more.” She shrugged again. “It’s harsh, but there it is.”

Tala and Rane both grimaced.

“But I wasn’t there, you advanced just fine, and you are clearly an asset to humanity, not a lurking danger.” Mistress Noelle smiled at Tala, and Tala felt the implied threat in her bones.

She swallowed involuntarily again and nodded.

“Good. Now, anything else I can do for the two of you?”

As much as they both wanted food, they didn’t want to miss this opportunity. As such, they talked through some of their abilities, and how they were utilizing them. Mistress Noelle, while obviously powerful, wasn’t a front-line fighter like either of them, so only had general pointers and critiques to offer.

She was able to expand on quite a few of the exercises contained within Soul Work, and once Tala had fully described it, Mistress Noelle was in agreement with Master Jevin about her constellation of protection, should she ever be able to reach that level.

Mistress Noelle did, however, have one laughably obvious suggestion, which left Tala a bit dumbstruck as to why she hadn’t thought of it earlier: Place the bloodstars within a non-magical item.

A non-magical item couldn’t be bound, so the Archon star wouldn’t be used, and having the drops fully, tightly enclosed would mean that her manipulation of the bloodstar would move the item it was embedded within.

Tala eagerly pulled out two tungsten balls, the gravity of which she’d reduced until they were neutrally buoyant, or at least close enough.

After all, with the inertia I’m mirroring into them, the added weight will be pretty negligible.

“Tungsten?”

Tala nodded to the other woman’s question.

“Perfect. Let me see…” Mistress Noelle when digging through her workshop cabinets. After a few minutes of searching, she exclaimed in triumph, and pulled out a strangely shaped, black and orange mushroom.

There were inscriptions set into the fungi’s surface, and looked as if they might be interwoven within it as well.

Tala was utterly unfamiliar with the medium, so she didn’t have a good guess at what it would do.

“This is a tungsten manipulation inscription.”

Rane frowned. “That’s oddly specific.”

Mistress Noelle shrugged. “I try to have basic manipulation items aimed at common materials. With Makinaven so close, tungsten is more common than you might think.”

That did make a certain amount of sense.

With a small pulse of power through the copper inscriptions, Mistress Noelle tapped the first of the tungsten balls. The texture changed, seeming almost like putty, and it began to shift.

Working together, Mistress Noelle lengthened the ball into a rod an inch across and a foot long. Together, she and Tala placed two of Tala’s bloodstars central to the rod’s circumference, at the dividing points that would demarcate the tungsten stick into thirds.

Mistress Noelle then tapped the rod, again, and it looked as it had before in texture.

“What did you do?”

“Made it more malleable, and more able to have its bonds and structures rearranged.”

“How?”

The woman gave Tala a puzzled look. “Do you really want a lesson in material magic, now?”

“Ahh, right. No. Thank you.”

Mistress Noelle shrugged and smiled, turning back to face the other ball.

They then embedded the remaining, non-inside-out bloodstar in a second, neutrally buoyant sphere, leaving that ball in the round shape.

Neither the stick nor the ball were an ideal application of Mistress Noelle’s suggestion, but they were ready to hand, easy to implement, and they would allow for the sort of testing that Tala would need to understand the capabilities and limitations of embedding her bloodstars in non-magic items and take the idea further.

These current items would, if nothing else, give her larger surfaces to block with.

Even if Force won’t be stopped quite so easily.

Still, if it worked as she hoped, she could utilize something similar in a thousand different ways.

She imagined a shield with three stars embedded in a triangular shape. In theory, she could control it perfectly, and have a shield protecting her blind spots, autonomously.

Well, at least without my hands being required.

Besides, if the idea didn’t work, she could always retrieve the drops later.

Her eyes widened. No! Not a shield, just a triangle of metal that I can then affix to an empowered shield. A thousand new ideas flickered through her mind, and a grin spread across her face.

“Noelle.”

“Yes, Tala?”

“You are amazing. Thank you.”

“Of course. I am happy to assist.”

* * *

The whole caravan slept soundly that night, safely beside the mushroom town.

Amnin had come through for Rane and Tala, the night before and they hadn’t gone to sleep hungry.

The morning was no different, and Tala enjoyed a hearty feast after her morning stretches, exercises, and magical drills.

Mistress Noelle didn’t see them off, but her assistant thanked them on her behalf, both for the supplies they’d delivered, and for their time in letting her gather data for her research.

All in all, it was a fairly uneventful morning.

As they trundled away, Tala turned to Mistress Odera. “Was the delay just so that we could bring those supplies here?

Mistress Odera frowned her way. “What?”

“We delayed our departure for nearly a month, was it just so that we could resupply this place?”

“Oh! Stars no. This was just a side stop on our way back to Bandfast. The shipment will be passed on from there.”

“Any idea what it is?”

The older woman shrugged. “Not particularly.”

“Aren’t you curious?”

“No. If someone tried to tell me, I wouldn’t stop them, but I’m not particularly interested in what sort of bulk goods needed transportation out of the forest.”

“That’s… fair.” She grinned. “Do you have anything specific for me today?”

Mistress Odera cracked an eye, looking at Tala. “What do you plan on doing if I say ‘no?’ ”

Tala pulled out the tungsten ball and rod. “I need to practice manipulating these.”

The Mage frowned. “Show me.”

Tala shrugged. “Sure.”

She extended her aura out a foot from her physical form, then pulled one of the bloodstars in the rod up to a point above her head.

It acted exactly like Tala had expected. The rod had no stability at all, acting like a pendulum and top in one. The bloodstar had no axis stability, and if it had, it was a drop of liquid in a small spherical cavity, within the metal.

Tala then focused on the other bloodstar and pulled. She jerked the rod into a fixed, horizontal position. The motion caused it to start spinning even faster.

Even so, it was where she’d wanted it to be. With practiced effort, she began to move it around herself.

It felt awkward to be seated, so Tala stood, and moved through a staff form.

From the outside, Tala would have guessed it looked ridiculous.

First of all, she kept her hands tight in front of her chest, while she used her aura and soul-pull to manipulate the item.

Second, it was very small as a staff.

It was the right diameter, but a fifth the length it should be.

Mistress Odera watched with her physical eyes, as well as her extended mage-sight. In the end, she nodded. “I don’t think you’ll want to use that as a primary weapon, but if you train to have that sweep your blind spots and the openings created in your own defense when you wield Flow, it could be incredibly effective.” She shrugged then, closing her eyes. “But what do I know? I’m not a melee fighter. Keep an eye out and intervene if you feel you could lessen an injury, or save a life. Otherwise, you’re free to practice as you like.”

“Thank you, Mistress.”

Tala then set about training.

Apparently the mushroom-filled section of forest ran more north than south, so they were barely leaving the domain of fungi by the end of the day. By that time, she had the tungsten ball, a bloodstar at its heart, orbiting her just as the naked star had.

The tungsten rod had been much more difficult. She found that with precise tugs on one of the bloodstars, while the other was well controlled, she could spin the rod in defensive twirls that should knock away most weapons and lighter attacks. It wouldn’t do much against Force, but that was to be expected.

This was a proof of concept, more than anything.

I should ask Rane to spar with me, with a practice weapon. That would let her test out this defense.

Rane should be available after dinner.

The ball, she hadn’t found much use for, but she knew that was a temporary thing.

If nothing else, she could pull it to an outer portion of her aura with a flickering powerful pull, then release the action before the ball reached the point of origin. That caused the tungsten to shoot out away from her. It wasn’t fast, not really, especially when compared to how fast she could throw the ball, but it didn’t take her arm.

Towards that end, she could hold the ball in place with her aura and a soul-pull and crank its gravitational attraction towards a target up before releasing it.

It was unideal, because as its pull increased, so did the strain on her soul, but it did work. I’ll have to try some variations.

All in all, as they set up camp for the night, Tala felt that it had been a very productive day.