11 – A Tangled Web

That dreary afternoon, in the courtyard of Gloomhallow Keep, Victor had his first 188 citizens of Dark Ember swear fealty to him and collect their first allotment of Energy beads. When he’d paid the last person in line, a woman with a bruised face and fierce eyes, he waited for her to fall into line with the rest. Standing before the assembled group, Victor noticed the quiet. He could hear their breaths, their shuffling fidgets, and the clanking of the cages high on the walls.

A few people had refused to line up, and they lingered along the periphery of the courtyard and up on the ramparts. Victor figured he ought to address them, so he cleared his throat and spoke in a loud rumble. “First, congratulations to everyone who had the courage to stand before me and join my cause. You’ve all taken the first step toward earning your lasting freedom. Now, to those of you who didn’t for one reason or another. I hold you no ill will, but you can’t stay here. My seneschal will distribute a day’s rations to each of you, and then you’ll need to begin the march back to your homes.

“If you don’t have shoes or a cloak to protect you from the chill, we’ll provide those as well. Go, see to your kin, see to yourselves, and later, if you feel like you ought to be helping to rid these lands of the undead, I will welcome you back here. For now, I need to organize the men and women who are ready to serve.”

Victor turned back to the rows of people who’d joined his cause and pointed to Kris again. “Seneschal Kris will organize a list of you all. He’ll organize you into combat and non-combat personnel. We’ll arrange you into a cohort with squads based on your levels and experience. Today, however, you all will share in one task: clean this keep and rid it of the filth left behind by the vampire scum we drove out.” Victor was deliberate in the use of “we.” He wanted these people to start thinking of themselves as victors. He wanted them to start thinking of him as one of them.

“After you’ve reported to Kris, he’ll assign you a specific task to achieve that goal.” Victor turned to Kris and smiled, speaking in a more subdued tone. “Regret speaking up earlier?”

The man didn’t laugh as Victor had hoped, but shook his head vehemently. “No! I won’t let you down, milord. The only thing is—well, I don’t know how to write.”

Victor chuckled, turning back to the crowd of former thralls. “Who knows how to read and write?” Four people raised their hands, and Victor waved them forward. When they stood before him—three men and a woman—Victor said, “Kris will need some aides, and you’re hired for the job.” He looked at Kris, then pointed to the tower. “I’ll be atop that tower. I don’t know when to expect the vampires to attack, but I want to be ready. Even so, I’ll be meditating, so if you need me, or if something happens, you’ll need to send someone up.”

“Understood, milord. If I may, milord, there’s a matter of provisions…” He looked down, hesitating.

“Go on.”

“The Pale Warden kept foodstuffs for us that worked in the keep, but it won’t last more than a day or two, unless you want us to go on prisoner rations.”

“That won’t be necessary. Use what you have. I’ll provide more food in a day or so. Also, don’t forget to give people time off to go into the villages and trade. I want everyone to start learning about the Energy bead currency—Oh! I’ll also need to teach you all how to make Energy beads. It’s a tedious process for low-level individuals, but it’s something everyone ought to understand. Let everyone know that there will be another assembly tomorrow morning.”

“Yes, milord!” Kris bowed deeply, and his “aides” quickly followed suit. Victor moved a few paces to the side so as not to burn anyone, then he summoned his magma wings and leaped into the air, flying to the top of the squat tower. He could have teleported or just jumped, but he wanted people to see the visceral power of his wings and be inspired. He had a lot of programming to undo; the vampires were still awesome in their minds, and he needed everyone to begin to understand and grow comfortable with the fact that there were other kinds of power in the universe.

Looking around the tower top, he took in the moss and mildew, the slowly drying puddles of brackish water, and the bits of crumbled mortar and stone around the ramparts. He wished he knew a spell for cleaning, but since he didn’t, he almost breathed magma all over the stones. He exercised some restraint, though, considering the superheated rock might crack, and he’d certainly leave a mess just as big, if different, behind. Instead, he jumped back down to the courtyard, startling Kris when he landed with a thud beside him.

“Sorry, Kris. I need some cleaning supplies—one of the few things I didn’t think to pack. For now, a bucket of soapy water, a scrub brush, and a broom ought to do it.”

“Milord, I can attend to your needs, or one of the former scullery maids, or—”

“No. I want you all to focus on the keep. I just need my tower-top cleaned, and I don’t mind doing it.” Victor pointed toward the tower in illustration and added, “I’ll be waiting. Just have everything brought up.”

When Kris nodded, Victor turned and jumped, using Titanic Leap to carry him to the top of the forty-foot tower. He’d shown them his wings; he figured a different display of power was in order. When two former maids brought his requested cleaning supplies to the top of the tower, Victor thanked them, then shooed them away as he began scrubbing and sweeping the tower clean. It was easy work for him, but it allowed his mind to wander, and the satisfaction of seeing the stones rid of their corruption was cathartic.

When he felt things were clean enough, he sat down at the center of the tower with the single door leading to the stairwell behind him. Concentrating, he let his mind drift toward his coyotes, checking in on their progress. They’d traveled far already and were on the hunt, having picked up the scent of vampires. “Good hunting, hermanos.”

Victor planned to spend some time in his spirit space, working on his mantle, but to do that, he had to feel confident that he wouldn’t be ambushed on the material plane. Usually, he might just summon his coyotes and have them stand guard. They were busy, so he figured he could use his bear. However, his bear was the kind of totem that was good at guarding a door, not looking out for vampires slinking through the shadows, intent on spying or assassinating.

When Victor had designed his spell, Wild Totem, he’d made it far more complex than necessary just to summon his various totems; he’d incorporated the patterns that would allow him to find new totems, too. He figured maybe it was time to find a new totem, one that might excel at keeping watch over a wide area. With a moment of concentration, he built the pattern for the spell and channeled enough Energy into it to activate the full potential, initiating an immediate Spirit Walk.

When he stood, he was no longer on the tower but on a dark, shadowy plain. Mist clung to the thick, coarse grass, and Victor could see skulking figures moving in the distance. He looked around, surprised to find it so gloomy still, considering his light’s effect on the environment of the material plane. The spirit plane would reflect the material eventually, so he supposed the change hadn’t propagated yet.

It had been a long time since he’d looked for a totem, and he was considerably stronger in many ways than he had been back then. He was more confident in his movements, and using his will to guide his steps, he felt sure he’d find what he sought much more easily than in the past. He started walking, letting his aura loose to flow around him, reminding the shadows that they might be the spirits of dark, twisted things, but he was no easy meal.

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The first couple of times Victor had hunted for a totem, he’d sort of left things open to fate. This time, he focused on what he needed. The totems were reflections of his spirit, or, more accurately, certain aspects of his spirit. That being said, he willed himself to think about and exude the essence of his most watchful self—the part of him that looked out for his loved ones, that contemplated his enemies' movements, and planned for eventual encounters.

He moved over the grasslands briskly, traversing gentle hills and shallow gulleys, and when he came to a forest of stunted, leafless trees, their trunks dried by weather and age, he felt in his gut that he was where he needed to be. He halted his steps, turning slowly, looking around the gray trunks. He stood atop a gulley that grew deeper ahead of him—a cleft between two steepening hills. Down there, in the depths of the mists that obscured his view, he saw glowing blue eyes—more than a dozen.

Victor stood tall and inhaled deeply, pushing his aura toward the lurking spirits. They lingered for a moment, then the pairs of eyes faded away one by one. He felt like it had been close; they’d almost challenged him despite his aura. What sorts of dark spirits were lingering in this undead world? Before he could contemplate the answer, a raven's warbling, croaking call distracted him. Kraw! Caw!

Victor whirled toward the sound, grinning. On a lifeless tree, perched on a broad branch, a beautiful specimen of a blackbird sat watching him. It was huge, with glossy wings and a jet-black beak. Its eyes were like pools of ink reflecting the pale starlight as it clicked and warbled, watching him. “A raven, hmm? You’re no spirit. Well, no simple spirit, hey?”

Victor stepped forward, stretching out a hand, “Come here, brother. I need your help. I need your clever eyes.”

Proving he was right, that this was no ordinary raven-shaped spirit, it croaked, tilted its head, and then hopped off the branch with a brief flutter of huge, black wings to land on Victor’s wrist. The fact that its inch-long talons didn’t pierce his flesh further solidified things; he felt the weight of the bird and the firm grip of those natural daggers, but there was no pain—no scraping or scrabbling. It was a part of him; all it had taken was his acknowledgement to make it real.

His spell, Wild Totem, recognized his success, and the spirit plane began to fade. When Victor opened his physical eyes, he laughed to see the great raven still perched on his wrist, watching him with clever eyes. “Hello, hermano!”

“Kraw!”

Victor laughed. “Okay, listen.” With a grunt, he stood, still holding his arm outstretched. The bird opened its wings, not all the way, but enough to help it maintain its balance while Victor shifted. Concentrating, putting his will behind his words, Victor said, “You need to patrol the lands around this keep. Fly around and let me know when something threatening comes this way.” He concentrated on images of vampires and all the other undead he’d seen from Dark Ember when Hector’s army invaded the Untamed Marches. “Things like that. Keep an eye on the people, and let me know if you see fights of any kind—violence.”

The raven made all sorts of clicking, warbling sounds, almost like it was trying to speak back to him, but when Victor held his arm a little higher and said, “Go on,” it stretched wide its wings and launched into the air. Victor watched it beat those wings until it was high over the keep, then it began to glide in an ever-expanding circle, sailing through the air until it was just a tiny dot in his vision.

Victor closed his eyes and reached out, finding it even easier to get a sense of his raven than his coyotes. Was that because it was just one entity rather than five? Whatever the case, he had a good understanding of what the raven was seeing, and it was a lot. Images of gullies, vales, woods, and streams poured through his mind. He saw animals of all kinds—sheep, deer, cows, and, yes, even wolves and foxes. The raven marked them, and as it circled in the sky, it kept track of them and their movements. It was far better at it than Victor would have been.

Feeling better about his security, Victor sat back down and turned his focus inward, sending his consciousness into his spirit space. He was determined to do something about the deep pool of Energy he’d been collecting since becoming a steel seeker. To use it, he had to start building his mantle, which meant he had to start experimenting. In a way, he hoped the vampires would be cautious and take their time sending a response his way. He figured he’d have at least one counterattack before Lord Fausto got personally involved, and despite his overall confidence, he was a little nervous about facing his first veil walker.

Standing on the plush carpet in his spirit space, he moved over to his tangled, knotted “skein.” There were thousands—maybe tens of thousands—of colorful translucent threads tangled there. Was he meant to incorporate them all into his mantle? Looking to the left where the strange, glass-like frame for his mantle waited, he couldn’t imagine hooking every one of those threads to its notches and barbs. If he did, wouldn’t it be just as big a mess as the current state of his skein?

He knew each thread represented some aspect of himself—memories, feelings, abilities, achievements… even failures. Would the way he wove them into the frame change the quality or type of mantle he built? He had to assume so. He wondered how much the System’s integration, or lack thereof, would affect him. He’d turned down the System’s guidance, but would it still help him to integrate his new mantle? Would it send him messages about what he’d done or failed to do?

“One way to find out.” He sighed, inwardly fearing that such flippancy would spell disaster. What if he did something irreversible? Gritting his teeth, he reached into his skein and began exploring the threads, looking for something he knew he’d want to be a part of his mantle, no matter what that meant.

He passed his fingers over momentous fights, rage-fueled destruction, moments of insight and inspiration, warm memories of camaraderie and bonding, and even some heart-wrenching loneliness and shame. Eventually, he settled on an early memory, one of the first times he concentrated and listened to his coach while wrestling. He’d been losing, the other wrestler wearing him down, working to push Victor slowly but surely onto his back.

His coach had said, “Breathe, Victor! Focus! It’s one move—you know it!” The words were simple—not even a real strategy—but they helped Victor shift, mentally, out of the panic and out of the defensive mindset he’d fallen into. When the words clicked, he realized how hard the other kid was pushing. Victor had adjusted his grip, sliding higher up his opponent’s arm, and rolled with the momentum, completely reversing their positions. He’d pinned him a few seconds later.

Victor wasn’t sure how such a memory would impact his mantle, but he didn’t see how it would hurt, assuming there was no way to remove it later. Carefully, he gripped the thread between his finger and thumb, gently unwinding it, tracing it back, and tugging it out of the tangle of other threads. When he had it loose, he drew it over to his mantle frame and gently wound it around one of the nearly invisible hooks. Nothing happened.

“Hmm.” Victor idly cracked his knuckles as he studied the thread and the spot on the frame where he’d hooked it. Was there something more he was supposed to do? The thread was mostly white with tiny filaments of gold interwoven, and he saw that some of that light populated the nearly transparent structure where it touched the frame. That bit of light made it clear that the frame was more complicated than he’d previously thought. It wasn’t flat; there were angles and secondary layers where additional hooks were situated.

Realizing he hadn’t understood the full extent of the frame, he reached up with both hands and began to trace its shape. Eventually, he began to form a picture in his mind of something complex and vaguely box-shaped, though with many arms, some of which were curved. When he explored the bottom of the frame, his fingers settled on a smaller, smooth, lever-like thing. When he tugged on it, it moved. Realizing the frame was a physical representation of something that, in reality, was an abstract, spiritual thing, he balked at the idea that he should be able to manipulate it.

“But why?” he asked the empty room. “I’m moving the threads around, and they’re just as abstract…” Heartened by that rationalization, he firmly gripped the lever and pulled. System messages flooded his vision:

***Congratulations! You’ve formed a new mantle: The Grounded – Basic. This is a humble mantle, rooted in a moment of clarity and control. However, all great strength begins with a firm foundation.***

***You may reject this mantle by loosening the threadlock before leaving your spirit space. Should you keep the mantle, the accumulated reserves in your Energy-well will be applied to it. Further threads woven into your framework will shape or replace it.***

“Ah!” Victor said, laughing with a sense of relief. He definitely wouldn’t be keeping a basic mantle. He couldn’t imagine that spending all of his reserves on such a simple mantle would move him any closer to piercing the veil. Before he was forced to leave his spirit space for some unforeseen emergency, he hastily reached into the framework and tugged on the “threadlock.”

He felt a loosening in his Core as some tension he hadn’t realized was there faded away. Victor sighed happily and contemplated his skein and its thousands of threads. This would be a puzzle, but at least he could experiment without repercussions. At least he had an idea of how things were supposed to work. “Well,” he said, reaching into the tangle, “let’s see what we can come up with.”