Tala looked down at the inhuman body on the floor that still leaked the occasional drop of purple, glowing fluid.

She stood within the sealed off vault, deep within Kit. The ground beneath her bare feet was the edge of reality of the pocket space.

The look, texture, and sense of it was a bit nostalgic, reminding her of when she’d first gotten Kit. We’ve come a long way, haven’t we, Kit?

Tala knelt down and smiled, patting the ground. “Thank you, Kit.”

The pouch did not respond.-Feeling nostalgic?-

A bit, yeah. I miss home… She felt a tightness in her chest at the thought. Soon. We have a plan. We’re moving towards that goal.

Alat spoke in her head, clearly trying to distract Tala by drawing her attention back to the automaton’s body, before her, -It looks… warped.-

“Yeah, I noticed that. It almost looks like it hadn’t filled out yet, maybe?” She shrugged. “I’ve no idea how this most advanced one was made. Maybe, part of the process is growing, and it wasn’t ready yet?”

They had found a large vat of the purple liquid, which seemed like Io could have come from it. That was in addition to the larger holding tanks of the same power-saturated liquid.

Tala had considered the idea that Io had been grown, and it would make sense. Io had a far more organic look than the other units, and the automata as a group had acted to delay her at several points. If their goal was to let this final unit be as complete as possible before she reached it, that would track.

Especially if the beginning of that growth marked the guild’s loss of control over their creations. Even while unfinished, Io held mastery over the lesser units, even while growing within the tank.

It had been meant to be a general and hadn’t liked those it was meant to serve. I feel like that might be a common issue…

-Maybe? It’s not like we’ve looked into the historical records of the various forms of government.-

If you think about it: humanity is, generally, led by the strongest Archons, who are also those with the greatest fighting clout against the arcanes, and where the strongest don’t lead, I believe that the strongest chose the leaders. Do we come from a military dictatorship?

-Eh, a benevolent military dictatorship, if anything. Well, it is also more than one, so a benevolent military oligarchy?-

That tracks for the most part. She did wish the secrecy wasn’t required for so much, though. She understood it, but that didn’t make it any more fun.

But that was beside the point.

Io’s body lay, broken on the ground before Tala, the separated head beside it.

“The orb was much larger than Rob is.”

-It probably had another layer added around the consciousness? Or Io was just a more complicated construct?-

“The books will probably tell us.”

At the thought, a bookcase appeared beside her, and she glanced at the titles.

One stood out to her immediately, as it had before she took the books from the guild hold’s library to begin with.

‘Automata’

The book itself began as an almost insultingly simple primer on the creations. Though, as the text progressed, it built upon that simple foundation, growing in complexity.

Tala sat down, a chair appearing under her as she did so. Kit is so convenient. “Thank you, Kit.”

The sanctum did not respond.

She had hours before her next duties, so she read on.

After reaching the midpoint, Tala began to frown. This is enough to build up to creating the basic units. Those I fought first.

-Indeed.-

As she continued, she came to the parts that would allow for the other variants, and finally the creation of Io, though obviously that name wasn’t used.

Tala even thought she found the point in the book at which the guild had likely created Rob a bit before that, a ‘simple artificial consciousness, integrated inextricably with the fount.’

That pretty much settles it. You know, we’ve never asked Rob where he came from…

-Do you really want to talk to it? All Rob ever does is ask to be destroyed.-

No… not at all… She did feel a bit bad. On one hand, she felt like she should honor the orb’s request, but on the other, Rob wasn’t the fount, so it was the equivalent of killing two people because one wanted to die. Though, is Rob even a real person? If that isn’t his soul?

-I have no idea, Tala. What makes a person a person. Regardless, we probably should talk to him at some point.-

Yeah… but not now.

She was only three-quarters of the way through the book.

Obviously, Tala couldn’t build these things, not yet, but the book was set up almost as a series of crafting projects, each of which would lead naturally into the next, growing the craftsman’s competence enough to tackle those that followed.

There was enough vagueness that no two people following the book would have the same results, but the core concepts were there, the structure for building fundamental competencies was unmistakable.

This doesn’t look too hard. I bet I can do this on my own. I just need to find times to sneak down here and get to work.

-Tala.-

I have most of their tools and materials, I could begin on the first project now. The raid on the hold isn’t for another few days. With their notes and tools, I’ll have a jump on them, too.

-Tala!-

But do I really have to start at the beginning?

-It’s a trap!-

Tala jerked, looking up from the book. “What?”

-Around that book… There are mental magics of some kind.-

Her eyes widened as she focused, anchoring her will and really looking.

Sure enough, something about the book seemed to put off an aura of conceptual magic, so subtly woven throughout that she hadn’t noticed even a hint of it.

-I only noticed because we’ve never really had an interest in creating complex things on our own. It was entirely out of character.-

Yeah… It made sense that the guild hadn’t seen the issue.

“So, this book is a trap?”

­-Or a means of having external agents built.-

Tala frowned. “And where there’s one…”

-There will be more, yeah.-

So, Tala had evidence that something akin to the Black Legion, if not those automata themselves, were trying to seed knowledge of these dangerous creations in the world at large.

“That’s not concerning at all.”

-Yeah… not in the least…-

Tala looked back toward Io’s body, and then checked the book. “Well, at least we confirmed one thing. Io was definitely grown, and definitely not complete.”

-And if we put it back in the vat, it will begin to grow again.-

“Without the orb, it won’t be able to function…”

-Yeah, so it shouldn’t be a threat. It could be utterly invaluable to be able to study one that was complete.-

Tala hesitated, narrowing her eyes as she examined the magical dimensions around the book. “Are we being influenced, again?”

-I don’t think so… there was nothing that obscured the truth, just something akin to reckless curiosity.-

Yeah, I suppose I’m pretty familiar with that tendency. She formed Flow into a void-knife, and regarded the book before her with her void-sight.

There was nothing obvious.

Well, that wasn’t true. There was an incredibly obvious, pulsing aura of ‘increasing curiosity’ around the book, but she didn’t see anything that would cause foolishness, or anything that would bend the truth.

Not that we really understand conceptual magic.

-You don’t really have to understand what fire is to tell if something is burning.-

So, something could be smoldering beneath the surface?

-Fine… that wasn’t the best analogy.-

Tala grunted, shaking her head. “It doesn’t matter. This is too valuable an opportunity to squander, and the risks seem minimal”

She chuckled. “If it gets out of hand, I can just ask Kit to eat it.”

Tala made her desire clear, and the vat appeared just as the bookshelf had.

With casual ease, Tala picked up what had been Io’s body and dumped it in the tank. She then grabbed the head and tossed it…She missed.

-Really?-

Tala just grinned, picking the head up and tossing it again, making it into the vat this time.

She watched as power flowed through the scripts, clearly pulled from the purple liquid.

Nothing happened immediately, at least not at a physical level.

To Tala’s mage-sight, tendrils of power began snaking their way between the head and torso, while also seeming to slowly seep into every particle of the creation.

Well, I’ll just need to keep an eye on things, check in every so often, I suppose.

She willed herself back up to her training area.

As she did so, she purposely pictured herself without the saorsa-collar once again.

It came along with her anyways.

Like Terry’s collar, it’s tied to me. She wasn’t foolish enough to try to will it away directly. She had absolutely zero doubt that it would fail and trigger the thing to boot.

“Now, you said there were some things you wanted me to test?”

-You got what I asked you to get, so yeah. We’ll start with that ball.-

Tala shrugged, sitting cross-legged and calling the leather ball. It was tightly stitched and sealed with some sort of sealing oil. “What now?”

-Enact a gravitational amplification on just the air within the ball, and cause it to pull in on itself.-

Alright. So, Tala began the process. It was trivially easy, but she knew that Alat had something planned.

Nearly immediately, the ball seemed to deflate just slightly, and within a few minutes, it had contracted inward substantially as the air compacted.

That’s really nicely flexible leather.

Alat seemed to ignore the superfluous thought. -Good. Now, do the same thing with a sphere of open air, the same size as the ball.-

Tala shrugged, and did so, the air compacting inward substantially after a short period.

The air’s compression was distinguishable to her normal sight due to the distortion that was created by the thicker air, and Tala watched it sink to the ground, resting there.

Compressed air is obviously denser than normal air.

“What now?”

-How did you define the first target for the working?-

“All the air within the ball.”

-Good, good. How did you define the second?-

“The air that is within a sphere of this size, centered at this location.”

-That makes sense. Now, change that target in your mind.-

“To what?”

-The air found within a sphere of this size, centered at this location.-

Tala frowned. “Alright.”

For ease, she broke the other two workings, even though they were technically disconnected from her, and not requiring any additional input.

The ball reinflated with a fwoomf, and the air dispersed with a pulse of wind.

So, a foot in diameter, centered there.

She poured power into the working.

Just as with the previous working, the air began to contract, getting more and more compact, and distorting light that passed through it more and more.

There was a difference this time, however. As the affected air contracted inward, more air was pulled into the target zone, thus coming under the parameters of the working.

This immediately had the effect of creating a slight breeze that grew in strength as Tala continued to increase power to the working.

-Stop, but don’t break the effect.-

Tala did so, and the wind continued.

-What is happening, from your perspective?-

“As more air enters, it moves towards the center, which is the greatest concentration of the air to which it is attracted.”

-Have you then made an area of affect?-

Tala huffed a laugh. “Of course not.”

She moved her hand through the space, feeling the thickness as she passed her hand through, but felt no crushing gravity.

It was a bit warm, but not overly so.

The movement of her hand disrupted it slightly, making fun patterns in the distortion that slowly settled after her hand had moved through.

“Like passing my hand through warm water, or near enough.”

-No gravity?-

“No, of course not.”

-Why not?-

“Because the working only acts on the air, not everything entering the area. Alat, you know this. I can’t do area of affect magic. What is the point?”

Alat sent an incredibly happy feeling. -After analyzing holds and dimensional spaces, along with what we learned from the dimensional anchor, this was the last piece I needed to verify. Now, I think I have some things for us to practice, and fun uses of our power to build towards.-

“You’re being very cryptic.”

-By design, my dear Tala. That is by design. We’re done with that one, too.-

Tala dismissed the working, which was still compressing more and more air into it. With a loud concussion, wind blasted outward, carrying with it a pleasant chill.

After enjoying the cool air, Tala sighed. “Well, we have a few more days before the raid. I’ll follow your plan at least until then.”

-How magnanimous.-

“You can have more time if you tell me what this is about.”

­-In due time. Shall we begin? I want you to enact it on air that is a set distance from yourself, now.-

“That should work, but if I move too quickly…” Tala cocked her head to the side. “It will cause an explosion of air, which would move me even faster, if just a bit. Is that the point?”

Alat didn’t give up the game.

“Fine, fine. You said you have a lofty goal; the first steps are not the end of the journey. Let’s see what we can do.”

And so, Tala spent what little free time she had over the next days, practicing increasingly odd uses of her gravity magics.

One interesting result, at least from Tala’s perspective, was that she could implement the compression to all but liquefy most of the air at a set distance from herself, meaning that the effect would move with her. It wasn’t fast to set up, but it was relatively easy, and would slow incoming attacks quite a bit.

The problem Tala had foreseen came to pass, in that if she moved very quickly, the compressed air would move outside the effect and disperse. That speed was quite great, depending on the size of the working, but it was a factor to consider.

There was also the problem that if it was even close to all-encompassing around her, it quickly deprived her of breathable air.

That wasn’t the end of the world, but it wasn’t ideal.

She could use the static variant to create hazards across a battlefield if she had time to prepare a space for a fight, but they were rather obviously visible, so she doubted she would use them much. Plus, I’m much more often the aggressor than the defender.

She wasn’t really sure how to feel about that realization, but it seemed to be true by her remembrance.

The most interesting result, from Tala’s perspective, came after Alat had her enact the working on all air within an inch of her arm, directed at the tip of her index finger.

Once the amplification grew great enough, a strong wind began constantly flowing towards her, then down her arm to blast at wherever she pointed. The air would move through the point it was directed at and away from her arm, thus no longer falling under the mental image used as a target. In that way, this method didn’t actually create the partially liquified air.

Once that proved workable, Tala immediately jumped into a pond and began enacting the same working on the water for both her arms.

She held onto a rock at one end of the long holding pond, while the water churned around her.

Do you think this is sufficient?

-I think you’re a bit crazy, but sure. This seems like plenty.-

Tala let go, turning to face down the length of the pond and pointing behind herself.

She immediately moved backwards, the water rushing past her arm pushing her along in the same direction.

What?

It dragged her underwater, and she quickly broke the working, floating to the surface.

What the rust? Oh… The water moving past didn’t push off of her to move, it simply rushed by.

Well, that was silly. Of course it drags me along. She grimaced. What was the point of that, Alat?

-Me? This was your idea.-

Tala sighed, then cocked her head to the side. Wait a minute…

This time, she targeted the water at her feet, and pointed up at the back of her head.

Even as she began building the amplification, she felt the pressure on the bottoms of her feet, the inscriptions for increased surface area working incredibly well.

Tala began giggling.

This is so odd, but it makes complete sense. The water is moving from behind me, so of course I’ll move with it.

She made sure to orient the flow so it went mostly across her back, thus, that would help to pull her upward. At least if I’m remembering how lift works…

-It should work that way, yes.-

When she had built up enough amplification, she let go of the stone, pointing her body down the length of the pond.

Immediately, she took off through the water, moving faster than any fish.

“THIS IS AMAZING!” Or, at least that’s what she tried to shout, but opening her mouth and the slight shift of her body threw off her alignment somehow, and she was suddenly dunked fully underwater, shooting for the bottom.

Tala moved her legs and feet frantically, trying to redirect her movement back to the surface, but she was quickly disoriented.

Even so, Alat helped point her in the right direction, and a moment later, she shot upward, out of the water entirely.

With no water to act on below her feet, the working dispersed, even as Tala arced through the air.

“Rust.” She slammed down on the shore, her breath driven from her chest. “Ow…”

-Yeah, that looked painful.-

But worth it.

-Oh?- Alat’s tone conveyed her knowledge of what Tala meant, along with a desire for Tala to say it anyways.

If I can perfect that in water, there shouldn’t be any reason I can’t use it in the air.

Flight. This could, in theory, allow her to fly!

There were two unfortunate things, however. First, though the working functioned like any other of Tala’s gravity magics, something about it, and her own fundamental understandings, caused a constant drain on her power, and she could feel a similar strain on her inscriptions, though that was fairly sustainable.

Not like the crush or restrain mental constructs.

Even so, she couldn’t set up an energy-free pump, or anything like that.

Alas.

The second sad thing was that, in the end, it wasn’t combat effective for the moment. Thus, it wouldn’t factor into the raid.

The remainder of the time passed in a blur. She filled her time with the performance of her regular duties as Eskau and training, both at Alat’s direction and with Thron.

The day of the raid arrived, and she went to meet up with those who would accompany her.