Vignette - Job Interview

“Hello Molly, please come in and sit down.” Timothy smiled widely. Not too widely he hoped. It was something he was working on. Still, in reverse of how he had always assumed these talks went, he really didn’t want to let this fish getaway. Even though it made him feel like shit at the same time. He held his overly large smile, refusing to let a grimace overtake it.

“Thank you Runefather.” Stepping through the door to his lower workroom the pale-skinned stocky brunette walked with the overly careful steps to the simple work table he’d cleared for the purpose and took a seat. Her freckled face held a smile that looked as forced as his felt and the deliberate stillness she affected was perhaps more obvious than fidgeting.

From all he’d read or watched on daytime television her being obviously nervous should have made him feel more assured. It didn’t work out that way. She was nervous and he was fighting with guilt. Two different things. Her nervousness did not invalidate her guilt. What was best for the Hold and what was best for him was not what was best for her. At least not how he saw it and the fact that it was also what she professed to want might just make her young and short-sighted.

Then again. That might be his ego acting up again. Who was he to tell her what she should want out of life? What to him was a tragic waste of potential might be an honorable response to the call of duty.

He could debate it over and over, could and had in the privacy of his tower, but it had come down to brass tacks. He could no longer delay.

“Well, let's get this started. You indicated in your letter that you wanted to apprentice under me in rune magic?”

“Yes, Runefather.” The hope fighting with her nerves was making his stomach turn.

He sighed. A pulse of his will brought the familiar green outline of a truth spell to surround them both. “You recognize the spell I trust?” He didn’t wait for her nod to continue. “You don’t have to speak under it. Not yet at least. But I want you to be absolutely certain that what I am telling you in the next few minutes is both true and accurate to the best of my abilities. I desperately want the help having you as an apprentice would offer. Even if you only take over a portion of my maintenance duties and none of the enchanting requests you would still save me countless precious hours. Hours I could better spend on researching new spells or creating new weapons.”

He looked away for a moment, then forced himself to snap his head back and make eye contact. “I say all this to make sure that you know that the position is yours if you still want it. But as much as I could use your help, I also don’t want you to want it. Does that make any sense?”

She blurted out a quick “No.” Then panic set in as she almost visibly snapped her mouth shut.

Timothy burst into laughter. Not a small chuckle either but loud table-pounding guffaws. It helped somehow. How was it supposed to make sense to her in a couple of sentences when the guilt and competing needs had been tying him up in knots for the last week.

“I worry because accepting your help in this way will diminish your potential. You were a good student Molly, you know what this will cost you.”

She nodded, apparently not trusting herself to speak.

“A nod’s not good enough. I need you to explain it to me. Explain what you are giving up and please, make me believe that it’s worth the sacrifice. I very much want to believe it is, but the guilt that is twisting my insides right now is going to be a hard judge.”

He watched for a few moments while she struggled. Perhaps to arrange her words or perhaps just to get over her almost crippling shyness. He just waited. Being a pathfinder required a certain amount of strength of will. He wasn’t willing to write the definitive treatise on the subject by any stretch of the imagination so he couldn’t say if willpower was required to breakthrough or just to persevere long enough for a breakthrough to happen.

He internally snorted. Not that it mattered much. Molly might be shy, but there was a core of metal inside her. There was just a fair bit of baby fat surrounding it still.

“You told us in class-” She began haltingly, and he quickly interrupted. He hated to do it when she had just found her voice, but it had to be done.

“Don’t tell me what I told you. Tell me what you think, and what you know.”

She nodded, determined to continue. “It’s your path. Not mine. No matter how much I study there will always be a distance between it and me. Some cotton in my ears that will always make things sound a bit off. Since it’s not my path, not a path perfectly fitted to me, it will never fit me correctly.”

She dropped her head, staring at the floor but the green outline didn’t even flicker. She both knew and believed it. Still- “Continue please.”

“I’ll probably stall out in the mid to high tier 2 range of power. I know that.” She paused, looking up through her bangs. But the benefits also need to be said. Some of my classmates already died when they cut a path off a metaphysical cliff. Something like one in ten of you originals has also died this way. And that's with seven years of safe guided training. My generation's death rate will be higher. I may stall me out at mid tier 2, but unless a cruel accident occurs I will get to stall out there. And stalled or not, I will be able to contribute massively. To my home hold, to Runehold and the Union in general. It’s not just power and killing beasts that we need. A small sacrifice of power will let me live a luxurious safe life that will still keep humans alive and safe. Stopping diseases by building and maintaining sewage systems or providing clean water. That doesn’t even mention the defensive amplification towers and illusions you are famous for.” She stared fiercely at him.

“I know what I’m giving up, Runefather. I respect your opinion. But as you have said over and over again in your lessons. What path I take is my choice and I’ve chosen. Don’t take that from me.”

He sighed again. A danger of teaching the best and brightest of the youngsters to think for themselves is that they would take him up on it. And she was right. It was her choice.

“Welcome aboard. I promise to work you so hard that you will quickly regret it.”

“I’m looking forward to it!”

Chapter 23

“Good Evening Gentlemen. Thank you for attending.”

Timothy subtly took a deep breath. This was going to be difficult, he just knew it. Four of the five filled glass cylinders now had images floating inside them. Four powerful pathfinders in the regalia of their positions. Oh, nothing fancy just for the sake of being fancy. But when life was a risk, then even casual clothing was often armored.

On the far left was Holla (born Ramone), Padre la Evokador. Most often just called the Evoker. Decked out in dinosaur hide with palm-sized scales still naturally attached he looked the most obviously warlike of the lot. It looked like he was wearing scale mail from a period piece instead of leather. His sharp Latin features were unlined despite rulership of a powerful but drama-laden hold. Timothy had spent a week as a guest a year or so back. He saw more fights over girlfriends and mistresses in the first two days than he’d noticed in Runehold in months. And that despite the fact that Runehold held well over 5,000 normals protected in its depths. Then again, maybe he was just insulated from that nonsense in his own home.

Na.

Holla himself was no exception to the rules of drama. Seemingly caught between 3 or 4 women in a constant fight that while mostly verbal had descended into blows at least once. He’d doubted at first that they had the cohesion required to fight. Then the ghost of a crow called an alarm and all the drama stopped. Women who had slapped each other in his presence a day earlier fought to defend each other with passion and skill from waves of scavengers. Drama was just their way and while it most certainly wasn’t nothing, it also wasn’t fully real either. Although that might be the wrong term. It was a game they all seemed to play and, apparently, very much enjoyed. It exhausted Timothy just watching. A difference of cultures that went both ways. Halla had somewhat apologetically told him the ladies of the hold had found him incredibly boring in return. He couldn't even blame it on the old world. Every hold might be based there, but isolation had a way of making everyone unique.

Ah well, to each their own.

Next was Darold, the Father of Binding more often called simply Binder. He was a large heavily muscled man who always seemed to have a mug of beer in his hands. He sat lightly in a chair that must have been specially built for him. He was a big man to start with but being decked out in full armor exaggerated that an extreme. And what armor it was, it had started life as some heavy-duty boarhide, but it had come a long way since then. The stiff pieces of articulated leather were carved, beaded and colored to a rather incredible degree. Simply sitting there he was wearing several pieces of high-quality art. It clashed a bit with his simple warrior drinking pose and Timothy would have loved to tease him about being a clothes horse. That wasn’t it at all.

Enchanting a simple plain rock was possible. But if you made the rock look more impressive the enchantment would work better as well. He couldn’t explain it but knew it worked. That was with normal enchantments, Darold had rigged up something a damn sight different from normal. Each piece of his gear, including the massive sword leaning against his chair, wasn’t merely enhanced. They had an aura of their own.

He was the Binder. Oh, only the sword was truly bound to his soul, multiple full soul bindings were apparently dangerous and destructive. But that hadn’t stopped Darold. The armor had small spirits bound to its components instead. Proto spirits he should say, as none of them were at a level of intelligence that was capable of anything more than instinct. It seemed a bit scary to Timothy to have that many potentially intelligences sitting around. Especially in pieces whose sole job would require them to die before their wearer. If any of them did make the jump before a stray spell, claw, tooth or tusk destroyed them then he wanted to be there to hear Darold explain himself.

Then again they might feel indebted to their maker. He’d been surprised by that sort of thing before. In the meantime, the man fought in an inherently dangerous way. At melee range with beasts that were all larger and stronger than he was. He had to create ways to make that more survivable. And binding things together was his skill set. When all you had was a hammer…

Next was Kevin, the father of Astrology. Gangly tall and weedy with a still full head of long blond surfer hair well mixed with gray. His hold-over-hippy looks and slightly dumb-looking expression did a fine job of hiding the impressive mind that lurked beneath.

Of course, as much as his looks and expressions hid his intellect, his mouth did an even better job of it. He couldn’t seem to go three sentences without something juvenile and puerile coming out. For all that his prognostications were useful enough that few people complained about his mouth. At least not publicly.

Of course one of the few who did was the Binder so this could become an interesting conversation. In the Chinese sense.

Last but certainly not least was the three brothers' blood. Mike, Rafe and Donald. Oh, they were also called Bloodfather one through three but that got a bit confusing to keep track of. All three showed through as clear as day in the last cylinder. Nice of them, but he’d only asked for at least one to show up. They were an oddity in the union. Three brothers who all shared the same magic. As far as Timothy could tell it was the same path too. Not merely similar. That was the key bit.

There were a number of DnDers out there for the counterexample. All of them were inspired by the same old game but that didn’t mean their magic worked the same way. Or even that they worked well together. With five years together they’d worked out a common path for their guardians to follow, but even that had some issues and required some retraining. Morgan's spells were inscribed in her aura and could be called upon by saying her name. But Rogans were in tall stone spires that required a linking stone to cast from.

But the blood brothers? They worked rituals together to raise power from the same pools of blood, they could empower the same spells and seemed interchangeable as far as Timothy could tell. It was a constant itch to find the bottom of the mystery, but with none of the three willing to say anything, it was an itch that remained unscratched.

“Evening Runes,” Mike chimed in, “Holla, K-man, Binder” He nodded at each of them. And they responded in kind. Delaying things for a few minutes while various greetings and various good-natured questions about ‘how is so-and-so doing’ were resolved. It briefly surprised Timothy, although it shouldn’t have. While he could reach out and talk to these people at will, it wasn’t like they could do the same. At least Kevin and the Bloodbrothers saw each other during game night, Holla and Binder didn’t even have that connection. Not that he’d had game night for a few weeks. Damn emergencies getting in the way of important things. Without magical communications, it was a multi-day trip on the river to visit. That just wasn’t time that any of these people could spare on a regular basis. They were left writing letters for the trade boats to deliver.

And the stink eye he was getting here and there showed that he wasn’t the only one following the same train of thought.

As the hubbub of greetings dyed down Binder piped up with a question. “When are you going to drop this isolationist silliness and set up phone centers Runes?”

Timothy sighed, “Never Binder. It’s not about being isolationist either. It’s letting the various magic systems develop as independently as possible.” It wasn’t a new argument and he quickly raised a hand to stop Binder from rehashing the same old crap. “No, such communication would harm you. I won’t do it. If you want it then make it yourself.” The barriers he’d made to mess with Bensen remained up so that would be difficult to manage. Difficult but not impossible. He wouldn’t help them do it. And he certainly wasn’t going to take down his scrying wards to make it easier, but he also wouldn’t go out of his way to sabotage such a project.

“But-” Binder began, only for Rafe to interrupt him.

“Please drop it, Binder. You’re not going to change Rune’s mind. I don’t even disagree with you but you’re arguing with a rock. His responses won’t change and the results won't either. Let's just save ourselves the headache, hmm?”

Like a rock was he? Timothy wasn’t sure if he should feel insulted or complimented. But he wasn’t about to thank him for the song that was now running through his head. As strong as he could be… Dammit!

Binder gave an overly exaggerated sigh, “Alright, then what did you bring us together for Runes? I do have a decent amount of work that needs doing today.”

“Regi conned me into creating a contribution tracking system.” He ignored Mikey’s knowing glance. “But conned or no, it’s worth doing for its own sake. You have all gotten reports about the current incursion, yes?” He made eye contact and made sure he got a series of nods or yes’s. “As you all know,” at least should know, “these sorts of emergencies aren’t going to go away. They can, and probably will, hit anywhere and everywhere up and down our borders sooner or later. If we want to stop them then we will need multiple holds working together. Or rather, we need the inhabitants of multiple holds working together. We don’t exactly have tight control over what the residents of our holds choose to do when they are outside.”

He ignored Holla’s muttered, “speak for yourself.” High planes had one of the most threatened positions in the Union. Only the coastal cities struggling against the otter tribes could claim as tenuous a position. The result was considerably more control of his holds, although Timothy was tempted to call it his tribes, hunters.

“This contribution system will provide the framework to provide incentives. We need those volunteers. Even you, Holla, if you are sending help to surrounding holds. It’s easy to sell protecting your family. It’s much harder to sell traveling away from your family to protect someone else's. With enforced contribution records, you don’t have to sell it. You just let them see how they can acquire such high-tier meats and materials and get out of the way.”

“Is that really enough to risk your life over?” Kevin asked. “You all need to make some more love and less war.” He was certainly not the most ambitious of pathfinders.

“It’s not war, Astro. It’s survival. And Yes. Yes, it is enough to drive men to risk their lives.” Binder gave him a sidelong look as he spoke. “Getting stronger means being able to protect your family better. Or at all frankly. These suppressed high-tier beasts are the best means of increasing your strength anyone has found. Tier 3 meat usually requires a top-flight team and taking some severe risks. But people still do it. Do it gladly for a chance at the meat. For its own sake or for the vast amount of coin it’s worth. Then you have this suppression field. The rewards are most of a tier higher than the effective strength of the beasts? Hell Yes! Sign me up. It's a treasure ship begging to be taken. All people need is a guarantee that if they help, they’ll get a fair share of the prize.”

Timothy tensed a bit. Waiting for Kevin to return fire. The two men were like fire and water. Where one agreed, the other was bound to argue. He wondered if he shouldn’t have asked for separate meetings. But the same reason he hadn’t done so applied. Whoever he didn’t invite would have been insulted when they found out. And they would find out.

Thankfully, and bafflingly, Kevin just nodded thoughtfully.

“Ok, so we all agree it's a good idea, provisionally at least.” Donald added the second bit in response to Kevin’s fidgeting. “Why did you hit us up for this? I understood that you were responsible for making it work.” His smile was more than a bit sly. Regi must have talked to him already. Dammit.

Defending in this situation would only give them extra opportunities to soak Timothy though, so onward and upward. Snagging a spell card from his box of supplies he set it on the table directly in front of him. Aligning it with several markers and engravings on the table itself. Nearly every microinch of the stone card was covered in small, neat engravings. Like Binder's armor, this bit of stone needed to hold a massive amount of intent, even if it wouldn’t be holding much mana, and making it look deserving of that burden helped it to hold. That and just carving the runes for a room-wide ritual onto a piece of stone wasn’t the easiest thing in the world. He activated it with a pulse of will.

A large-scale illusion took form above the table and above the table in each of the holds connected to the table. Heavy on symbolism and very light on actual runes it displayed his skeletal outline for the enchantment. The center was a mind superimposed on a pair of scales. On one side the scales held an abacus and on the other a laurel wreath. Symbols of memory and judgment holding up an accounting of glory. From there the spell rapidly branched out, quite literally considering his choice to use a tree for the base.

One branch led to a large leaf where a sitting figure with an extended outline was chained to a drop of blood. The leaves' veins held the suggestion of a pair of eyes on them. Blood binding the aura to a leaf that would observe.

Another branch led to a series of sitting figures on one side of another scale. Each with a different portion of their aura outline filled in. They were being weighed against a pile of paper-wrapped meat topped by the skull, bones and hide of an unidentified beast.

Measuring contributions between teammates who all contributed.

A third showed a field of stars on one side of a set of scales with a mouth made of leaves on the other. The leafy mouth was taking a small bite out of a ghostly aura leaping off a dead hog with distinctive rage on its ghostly face. The hog wasn’t alone either. It was surrounded by an even dozen of the more common beasts. Wolves, dinosaurs, snakes, hover crocs, toads, large cats and several bird species. Each dead and with their own disconnected ghostly outline hovering above with colors ranging from iron to gold.

Evocation to capture the aura of resentment that came from a kill. Then Divination to determine what beast it was and what level it was at.

It continued in that vein. Each branch was a task that needed to be done for the contribution system to work. From capturing the aura and measuring it to splitting the rewards amongst teammates to sharing the information between trees. It was all laid out pictorially.

Of course, pictorial was only half the story. More important was the intent. That was why illusion was piped into each hold and not just the image of it. Pathfinders at the skill level of the people at this table could reach out and feel not just what he was attempting to do, but a bit of what he was feeling when he made it. This was why true magic couldn’t be planned out on paper. When magic was based on intent you couldn’t plan it without molding your intent to the task at hand. And that meant that merely planning was already doing magic. And if he wasn’t very careful, the ‘plans’ could go off half-cocked into a spell he never intended to cast.

Glancing up he chuckled quietly. They were already gone. Concentrating on his spell to the exclusion of all else. Like fat kids on a cupcake. Mostly when people shared spells or requests for spells they were heavily redacted. The letters would be there, but much of the intent would be excised. Letting them see the full process like this was a reward in of itself.

He did try to keep a hold on his ego, but that didn’t mean ignoring the truth. This was what he did. And he did it better than anyone else. His conscience made him add ‘so far’ to that. But the statement stood. Large-scale enchantments and rituals were exceedingly difficult. With our without Murphey's involvement. And failing them could fry the participant's brains. Half of the reason he was so much better than others at this was that he’d created buffers and safety features to let him try these sorts of things more often. Practice mattered.

The other half was skill.

With a sigh, he wrote a quick note. He had more work to do on containing his ego.

He stood up and walked over to grab some food from the sideboard. The water pitcher was already on the table from earlier but some squash slices to crunch on would help him think. That and they would help to pass the time. Making those plans had taken him weeks of work. It was unreasonable to assume that reading them wouldn’t take a good long while as well. Although hopefully more like a half-hour to an hour, not days. The mana stored up in the table was only good for another three hours. He checked it out of habit and winced. Maybe an hour and a half.

Projecting concentrated intent was stressing the enchantment and making it gobble down mana.

Another sigh leaked out as he looked down at his notes. There was a lot to do but he didn’t really want to move his concentration away from this meeting. That ruled out most forms of research. He sighed again pulling out a list of requested simple enchantments.

It was more like 45 minutes, and 4 new piranha head fetishes, before the other attendees started looking up. Even then they weren’t ready to talk, merely leaning back to consider what he’d mapped out.

Finally, Holla scrubbed at the stubble of what looked like several days, but was likely just from that mourning (Timothy contained his jealousy with effort, rubbing at the half-assed attempt at a beard he was sporting) and spoke. “Well, that’s something dog. That's something else.”

Binder took a deep drink of his ale and half choked. Looking like he wanted to spit it out but refrained. A quick gesture returned the no doubt warm and half flat contents of the mug to drinkability. Something that he clearly needed as his eyes were partially squinted and lined with creases that Timothy recognized. He would have done better with some Ginger tea than beer to deal with it. “I’ve wondered before if we were different species, Runes. Then you pull something like this out of your ass and I stop wondering and know. How the hell do you even think that way?”

Timothy stared blankly at him. It was a fairly simple method, even if the execution was rarely simple. Logically lay out what you want, then marry it to the art inherent to magic. Logic was logic. It should, although even in the old world it often didn’t, apply the same for everyone. If you pick something up, it will eventually have to be put down. Doesn't matter if you were tall or short.

Applying logic to magic wasn't quite the same. You had to filter the logic through personal beliefs, experiences and relevant symbolism. First causes, quantities of pomp and circumstance to accent portions of it. Links between objects or types to stabilize the spells and symmetry between intent and expense to balance everything together.

He opened his mouth to explain, then shut it with a shrug. It was his path after all. Not the Binders. Explaining how the spell worked was already pushing the limits. It might affect how they worked out spells of their own in the future. He regretted that but couldn’t avoid it. If people were going to trust the system he made, then he would need to let them see it sooner or later.

Mike didn’t wait for Timothy to explain before he spoke. “It is indeed something. I take it these vacuums-” he gestured to the blood drop, stars, leaf mouth and several other symbols, “-are what you need for us to fill-in? Black boxes to do specific discrete tasks that will then be communicated through the network, or rootwork from what this feels like, and recorded at the trunk? Did I understand that correctly?”

Back on more stable ground, Timothy was happy to change subjects. “Exactly! I have most of the rest worked out as you can see. But Frankly, I don’t mess with souls much. Holla’s an expert.”

“I don’t like calling it souls, Runes. It might be true. It might not. Their remnants. Bits and pieces of an aura that might just be memories of the past. Not some immortal spiritual body.”

Timothy could hardly argue, he had those same doubts himself. Spiritual center? Sure. but was that the soul from his mother's faith? He had doubts.

“Call it aura trapping then. You are still an expert.”

Still almost lost in his thoughts Holla nodded.

“The same with binding things together. I could work on it, but why when the Binder is sitting right there. “

“Sitting right here but lost. Why am I binding a leaf to blood and aura? It doesn’t make sense.”

Kevin broke in slightly incredulous, “You’ve never read one of those old Wuxia stories?”

Binder blinked. “I think I heard of them at once point. Didn’t read them though.”

Kevin wasn’t the only one staring at him incredulously. Donald spoke. “I assumed,” He glanced around briefly. “We assumed that you’d cribbed your sword fetish from them.”

Binder shook his head. “No! I was in SCA and medieval reenactment. Not really a fantasy fan. I just needed some way to make our weapons work. There're stories of weapons like Excalibur or Thor’s hammer. They aren't for everyone to use. They are only for the chosen one. Binding the weapons to a person is like giving them a piece of that special relationship. Like pulling a sword from a stone.” he hesitated then deflated slightly. “And some video games required the best weapons, the ones you had to go through long involved quests for, to be locked to the person who completed the quests.”

It was a bit garbled but Timothy nodded along. The narrative behind those two situations was powerful, even if the Thor one was mostly a marvel creation from what he remembered. The ancient Thor's hammer was just too damn heavy for most to pick it up. The long quests from a video game fit the same thread. Even if it was slightly less grandiose. More than slightly really.

Donald spoke again. “Alright, that makes sense. Even if it’s not what I expected. Back on topic though, there is a continual thread through a lot of stories that you can use blood to bind an object to yourself. Drop some blood on a sword and suddenly it's bound to you. I’m assuming that Runes doesn’t want you to personally have to bind every single person to their chit.”

“A leaf, not a chit. But the same effect. I was hoping that between you two you could figure out a way to let each leaf be bindable with a drop of aura-infused blood.”

Binder leaned back for a second. “I could-”

Timothy stopped him quickly. “No, no. Please. No need for you all to do it right here. Just think about it. I’ll call you all back tomorrow-”

“Make it two days, please. I need to think about this.” Halla broke in.

“-day after tomorrow and we can go over what you think. We have some time. I’m still trying to find a tree that will work for this. My sister has committed to prepping the tree for enchantment but we still need to find a good base. If you have some cool tree types you think would work by all means send them my way. I’ll pay a bounty.”

That was a mistake. He knew it as soon as he spoke.

“Speaking of pay-” Mikey broke in with a smile.

Timothy smiled back, “What was that? Sorry, the table is running low on mana.” A couple of gestures beneath the table threw some old obvious style static across the tubes. Mikey just laughed, joined a few moments later by the rest of the attendees.

And Timothy as well. “Fine, I know I’ll be paying out for your help. But let's wait till we meet again for that. When you know how difficult that help will be. And remember please, that all of you will benefit from this, so please don’t screw me over on price!”

He let the lights and images fade after a round of goodbyes. That wasn’t too bad of a start.

He would have to see how far it would go.