***Calvin***

The sun was going down again when Calvin finally caught up with Tzen. Calvin’s mutant palanquin carriers almost got a faceful of sage totems for their troubles until Calvin stuck his head out and de-escalated the situation.

He almost laughed when he got a good look at them. Over the course of the night, it had become apparent that the sages didn’t have the speed nor the endurance to keep up over the course of two days of solid running, and so they had been seated piggyback on a handful of the strongest warriors.

Several of them had fallen asleep, unable to keep their eyes open through the inactivity.

Tzen himself was carrying a snoring old man with a long white beard whose drool stained the front of his shirt.

“Calvin,” He said, dumping the old man onto his ass. “How long do we have until they catch up?”

“Weeks, probably. Those creature’s stomachs don’t run on magic. They have to wait for their supply line to come close enough to us before they can mount a large assault.”

Tzen glanced Calvin’s new outfit up and down. Calvin had his knickknacks create a new one, a simple vest and undershirt, from the remains of his previous clothes.

“It’s new. How far away are we from the nearest standing city?”

“At the speed we’ve been going? Two more days. But these men need to eat and sleep.”

Calvin scanned the exhausted faces of Tzen’s little mercenary army, carefully counting heads.

Ninety-two of them. Averaging six to a palanquin…

“Do you mind if I upstage you a little bit?” Calvin whispered. “I’m going to fix our transportation issue.”

“Let me steal the credit for it real quick.” Tzen whispered back.

“I am trying to make you king,” Calvin said, crossing his arms. “Go for it.”

“Men, now that my servant has returned back from the frontlines,” Tzen said, glancing over his shoulder at Calvin’s palanquin, likely guessing the means by which Calvin would solve the logistics problem.

“I can see that you’ve been on the move for two solid days, and you’ve put more heart, strength, and discipline into protecting this humble prince than any I’ve seen from the Imperial guard! I am proud of each and every one of you.”

A halfhearted ‘yay’ rippled through the exhausted men and women.

“I can also see that you are tired. I, Tzen Chu, understand the bone-aching exhaustion that plagues you, as I have been with you every step of this journey, and so I have beseeched my servant here to carry all of us through the night.”

The halfhearted murmurs rose in volume.

“Calvin, if you would.”

I’d like to be as good as he is at taking center stage someday.

Calvin smirked and raised a hand.

Multi-Splitting

Calvinian summoning

Chimera

Atom Ant

4/54 Bent remaining

Calvin made sixteen copies of his own palanquin spread through the woods, and staffed them with more Kurawe copies.

“Naturally, this will be exhausting for my servant, and he will be unable to maintain this magic for any longer than…”

Tzen glanced at Calvin, who leaned forward to whisper in Tzen’s ear.

“One point four days.”

Tzen’s eyes widened satisfyingly.

“Nine hours.” Tzen said, turning back to the men. “I have graciously afforded you nine hours to eat and sleep, but after that you will have to finish the journey on your own two feet, as my servants power will have been exhausted.”

Some of the men were so relieved they broke down crying while others took the initiative and simply crawled into the palanquins before collapsing. One man didn’t even make it all the way inside the entrance before he fell asleep, forcing his cohorts to haul him by his sword belt further into the cramped litter.

“Wouldn’t a full day and a half of rest be preferable?” Calvin asked. “Faster too. I could spit them out at the front gate.”

“Rest is important, but bonding is important too.” Tzen said. Coddle them too much and they’ll take it for granted, the bonds they’ve formed on this trek will be slightly weaker, and the sense of accomplishment will be marred.”

“And this isn’t gonna mar it?”

“After a certain point people’s brains switch off.” Tzen said, pointing at his head. “Most of these guys have zero short term memory right now.”

“Fair enough. Let’s saddle up,” Calvin said, rubbing his aching stomach. His Warp was dwindling, and neither Ella nor Learner had any left. Most of it had gone into regenerating his wounds from the battle.

I need portable Warp. Something I can store and carry around with me wherever I go. If Calvin could find a way to bottle it and keep it on his person, he’d be less likely to go into rapey rampages.

Sadly there was no way Calvin knew of that Warp could be collected or stored in anything other than a living container.

Wait a second. I can store living things. Hmm…

Calvin slipped an empty enchanted bottle out of his belt, walking out into the midst of the tired soldiers, zeroing on one of the few female warriors, a woman with bone earrings and scarsa cross her hands. She was maybe ten years older than Calvin and bore herself with quiet confidence.

The most important thing was that Calvin could see easily see the delicious Warp swirling around inside her container.

She didn’t show it on the outside, but the glass mannequin that symbolized her mental state was extremely cracked from the stress of the last two days, and would only take a little push to release more of the life-sustaining nourishment.

Maybe if this doesn’t work, I can have a chat with her outside the camp, then I can –

Calvin shook the hunger-induced, predatory thoughts out of his mind. If there was one thing Calvin wasn’t going to do, it was predator on strangers.

Predatoring on his wives and apparently Learner was okay, though.

“Evening,” Calvin said, thumbing the rim of the bottle to consume.

“Good evening my lord,” the woman said, nodding and pausing to face him squarely. “The opportunity to rest is most appreciated.”

“Think nothing of it,” Calvin said, pressing the rim of the bottle to the woman’s stomach.

Her eyes went wide for a moment as her body collapsed into a couple drops of undifferentiated matter and were sucked into the vial.

“By the nine!” the people standing around the woman shouted, flinching backward, some of them raising their weapons.

“Relax, gentlemen, it’s perfectly harmless,” Calvin said, changing the setting on the bottle to eject and flicking it outwards.

The drops of undifferentiated matter landed roughly where the woman had been standing, recreating her from the template in a fraction of a second.

“The whole world just shifted a little,” the woman said once she was completely rebuilt, glancing around “Did anyone else see that?”

Her mental state was perfectly preserved, as was the Warp swirling around inside her like a tiny cyclone. Excellent.

“Excellent,” Calvin said, nodding. “You’ve been a most helpful test subject. Have some Gadveran ham.” Calvin said, pulling out his food vial and dropping out a large ham onto his palm, handing it to the woman before he left, not trusting himself around such easy pickings.

The urge to break the woman’s mind and take the delicious prize at her juicy center was starting to feel like an itch in the back of his mind that he had to scratch. Time to get the fuck out.

“Thanks?” She said, as the other warriors watched Calvin leave, spooked.

“You are terrible with people.” Tzen said, shaking his head as he approached.

“I don’t need you to tell me that,” Calvin muttered, studying Tzen’s mental state. The prince’s mentality looked thoroughly unappetizing, slightly opaque, and difficult to crack.

It was a bit relieving, in a way. Calvin could trust himself more around the Prince because the man’s mental walls were up far higher than your average warrior. At the same time, that meant that he couldn’t get quite as accurate a read on the prince’s thoughts and feelings.

“What was that about? I’ve never seen magic like that before.”

“An adaptation of two synergistic mutations in a couple creatures I’ve studied.” Calvin said with a smile, holding up the general use bottle for the prince to see. Calvin didn’t bother to mention that one of the creatures was himself.

“It’s actually quite Bolesian in that way, isn’t it?” Calvin asked.

“Not exactly. We create our products from monster’s organs. This seems to be nothing but glass and Nem.”

“It’s actually got a bit of the monster’s blood, concentrated, filtered and lined into the Nem layer.”

“I see. Then it is the sort of thing I’d expect to find in our country,” Tzen said. “Although it definitely has the Ulesian glass influence.”

That reminds me, am I going to have to change my recipe for these things? I’m fairly sure my blood isn’t exactly the same anymore.

Calvin still had the ability to store knives inside his body, so it shouldn’t be too hard to filter all the other stuff out again. Something to work on when I get the free time.

Also…

How does Abyssal alchemy pair with me becoming a Maculat? Calvin wondered.

You’re Warped, Too: User’s mutations may be (Correction) more easily distilled from the users own flesh and blood.

In this case, the correction was two hundred and twenty five percent, and it would grow as soon as he got back to his temple of awakening.

I wonder. Does that mean I could make more Maculat? Make an item that corrupts people by itself? Senses emotional instability? Hmm…I’ll have to do some more experiments.

Agh, but I’ve got to install Tzen as a puppet dictator, destroy One, who is currently consuming all life on the planet, and get ready for the arrival of the Harbingers sometime in the next four or five years.

“Calvin?” Tzen asked, raising a brow.

“There’s just never enough time to do all the things you want to do, and making copies of yourself is right out because you are, at your core, an unpredictable force of chaos.” Calvin sighed.

“Is that a common problem for you?” Tzen asked.

“Yeah. I think I need some more bodyguards, and I need to talk to a counterspell specialist I know, but we should focus on the first thing on our plate, and that’s unifying Boles against a common enemy.”

“Fair enough.” Tzen said, nodding as he climbed into his palanquin, giving Calvin a salute. “See you there!”

Calvin nodded and ducked back into his own. A short while later, everyone was loaded up and ready to move, and the train of Palanquins winded their way through the forest, heading west toward the major city of Shunzein, just a few dozen miles further west than the scorched remains of the former capital.

It was one of the strongholds of Hapain, the people rotting Boles from the inside and keeping the civil war going indefinitely while One encroached.

I’m gonna have to smack some sense into people when we get there, Calvin thought idly as the palanquins started moving, crafting his defense in front of the other Royals.

Ella and Learner decided to stretch their legs, running alongside the palanquin for a few hours before Ella jumped back inside, and Learner left to do her own thing for a while.

Once the sun when down completely, Calvin blew out the candle and let Ella sleep, using a relaxation technique, Shadowboxing, and free association to ‘sleep’ while the sun was down.

The very next morning, Calvin pretended like he was drained to the limits of his power, dismissing all the palanquins and forcing everyone to hoof it the rest of the way to their destination.

There was some grumbling from heavy sleepers, but they eventually got everyone up and running. Despite the grumbling, the mercenaries were on average, extremely grateful for the chance to have a meal and a night’s sleep, and a few even offered to carry Calvin through the day.

As tempting as it was to either accept their offer and ride atop their shoulders, or simply summon something for himself to ride, Calvin deliberately copied Tzen by running alongside the warriors as they cruised through the forest.

Learn by copying. Calvin wanted to uncover some of the prince’s leadership techniques, and boiling Tzen into an elixir was impractical at the moment. So instead he simply copied the prince’s behavior.

Which basically amounted to running alongside the minions and talking to them like he cared about their problems.

Calvin tried to do the same, but must have messed up somewhere along the lines, because half the time he was laughed at to his face, and the other half they stared at him warily as he used his ability to read their mental state to precisely pinpoint their mental weaknesses before telling them he cared about those mental weaknesses.

Toward the end of the day, Calvin was once again beginning to come around to pondering about breeding an army of intelligent magical super-wasp creatures who were blindly loyal to himself.

No, Calvin thought shaking his head. That way lies madness and isolation!

And wasps weren’t really known for their ability to carry a conversation, create furniture, or do any of a million other things Calvin would need people for.

One, you absolute monster. Forcing me to interact with people instead of designing new spells.