Sala smiles and slowly rises, golden veins of light igniting in her eyes and rushing across her skin as three sets of beautiful burning wings unfurl from her spine. She steps towards the fire, gesturing for Emily to do the same as everyone else drops back down into a low bow.

  Emily obliges, reestablishing her lightning connection and rising on a wave of charge that forms into two distorted wings at her back. The charged limb extending from her right shoulder blade looks like the wing of a bird, covered in fine feathers of tamed plasma, but the limb connected to the left holds the same shape while appearing like crackling flames firing from a combustion engine.

  The Salsori clan head raises her hands over the bonfire between them, placing one of her fingers, which twists and extends unnaturally into a sharp claw, against her right wrist. Emily mirrors her by ejecting a blade from her left palm and undoing the Claw covering her right wrist with a flex of machina, placing the cold blade to the flesh in its place.

  “I, Sala Salsori, First Wing of The Great One, swear in their name on behalf of their council to uphold the agreement of faith made today with the Technomancer, Emily Coldstone,” the Lebard mage says before drawing her finger back and letting a thin stream of blood pour into the sizzling fire.

  “I, Emily Coldstone, Technomancer and free mercenary, swear by The Great One’s name to uphold the agreement of faith made today with their council and First Wing, Sala Salsori.” Emily mirrors her pledge, slitting her wrist and letting her blood join the oath.

  The fire spits, and they both step back, watching the flames slip into a deep crimson hue as the presence of The Great One looms over them once again. The blood-red tongues of fire twist into distorted fractals that burn themselves into the back of Emily’s mind, but when she blinks, she finds the fire has returned to normal and the otherworldly presence has vanished, taking the recently sworn brand of truth with it but leaving a lingering sense that she shouldn’t breach their agreement.

  “The gods have accepted our exchange!” Sala declares, drawing an enthused cheer from the rest of the Council. “Let us begin the feast to welcome our new friends!”

  The moment her voice fills the tent, several flaps around the edge are opened, and lower members of the councillors’ clans begin filing in, carrying platters of food and casks of ale. The Talons of clan Lisori all set their palms against the floor and release their mana, raising chunks of earth to form tables traced with avian engravings for the food to be set upon.

  Everyone rises to partake, and a couple of councillors approach Emily.

  “Technomancer,” Via, The First Mouth, says as she collects a skewer of spiced beef from a nearby table. “For how long have you been following the alchemical path?”

  “Please, just call me Emily,” she replies, taking a serving of a mixed vegetable dish coated in a rich, peppery sauce. “I’ve been a practitioner since a little after my awakening a few years ago.”

  “A few years?”

  “She had a very swift rise,” another councillor, the Salsori man who was beside Sala, interjects. “She nearly broke The First Follower’s record.”

  “The First Follower?” Emily questions.

  “She was the first to connect with one of our gods, The Great One,” the man explains eagerly, his golden eyes burning with excitement, only half a shade darker than Sala’s. “She presented them with our faith and impressed them enough to forge the deal that brought us the gift of magic. She was both awakened and raised by The Great One as their original wing, climbing by one circle each year after first contact.”

  “Only a year from third to fourth circle?” Emily blinks in surprise. “No wonder I couldn’t come close.”

  “Please,” Via scoffs, taking a mug of ale offered to her by a platter-carrying clanmate. “Of course you couldn’t! How many years did it take you?”

  “Well, it took me three years to take that final step.”

  “That would mean you reached third circle in…” the Salsori mage starts, pausing for a moment and scrunching his brow as he takes a sip from his own ale. “One and a half years?”

  “Fifteen months,” she corrects him, accepting a mug of alcohol and taking a sip, tasting mana-infused hops on her tongue. “And I reached second in three.”

  “By the gods,” the man mutters, shaking his head in disbelief. “Sorry, it appears I got a little excited to meet you: I’m yet to introduce myself. I’m Riji of clan Salsori, Second Wing of The Great One.”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Riji.”

  “Please, the pleasure is all mine. I happen to be one of my clan’s best war weavers, and I just couldn’t help myself seeking your attention. Your arm is simply beautiful. I assume you made it yourself?”

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “That I did.” Emily nods, holding the limb out to give him a better view, sending a stream of machina down her forearm that shifts several panels, opening a glimpse into the shifting servos, neatly routed wires, and the runes hidden within. “It’s some of my finer work, though I’m planning on reworking it into its next iteration soon. I’ve had a few ideas to improve the depth of connection with my flesh and the range of motion of the joints.”

  “What are the space crystals for?” Via asks.

  “I’m more interested in the runework,” Riji says before Emily can answer, leaning closer and squinting into the internal cavity. “I can’t understand how the runes on the surface are linked to those within.”

  “They aren’t, well, not entirely,” Emily says while retracting her arm and reaching up to unravel the scarf wrapped around her neck.

  She wraps it around her chest instead, before pulling her Second Skin into her belt and unveiling the scintillating patterns dancing across her torso in a storm of blue and silver, with a faint undertone of violet flickering in and out of existence. Riji and Via both gasp with awe, and heads turn as several sets of eyes converge on Emily’s exposed skin.

  “The engravings on the surface of the arm are part of the array covering my body, and those inside are the ones designated to the functions of the arm. The crystals are being used to spatially expand the cavity inside the forearm and create several spatial pockets inside the fingers, to hold attachments for the modular weapon system.”

  In a burst of purple, a dense mechanism clicks into place in the centre of the arm, and the same blade she used to seal their earlier deal pops out of her palm again, this time extending to its full length.

  “Incredible!” Riji beams, reaching out to run his fingers along the edge of the blade while inspecting the visible glimpses of its extension mechanism. “To create something so compact yet so complex. Do you utilise magical methods to achieve this precision, or is there a technological way?”

  “Both. I can introduce you to some of my tools if you want,” Emily offers. “From what I saw of your ships and their weapons on the way here, you appear to have plenty of interesting ideas to compact. Those Ship Destroyers are mighty impressive. I didn’t happen to get a close look at any, though. What do you use to make cables that can withstand that kind of tension?”

  “It’s a blended mixture of honse hair and bulgoa tree weave.”

  “Bulgoa tree weave? I haven’t heard of that.”

  “It’s one of my discoveries, actually,” Riji says proudly, pushing his chest forward as Via and several nearby mages listening in nod along with his statement. “If you heat the sap of a bulgoa tree and mix it with powdered earth crystals, you can draw it out into long strands as it's cooling, and they’ll harden into an incredibly resilient material: weave.”

  Hearing him explain the process sparks recognition in Emily’s mind.

  Boiling tree sap and adding earth crystals? Is he polymerising it? I didn’t realise polymers would be that robust.

  “Have you tested that with the sap of other trees?” she asks, mentally moving material science up in her list of interests to expand on later.

  “Yes, but to differing levels of success.”

  Maybe earth crystals aren’t a universal catalyst…

  “So, Emily, you mentioned an ongoing mental affliction,” Via says after a lull in the conversation. “Is that private, or would you be willing to tell us more? The mind may not be my speciality, but I’m no stranger to their oddities, and you’ll be hard pressed to find many more intimately familiar with salvianross than me.”

  “It isn’t something I want to share too widely. I’m sure you understand, given its sensitive nature, but I’d be a fool to turn down the offer,” Emily replies, glancing over her shoulder to check on her children, as she feels Mensacus’ mana spike, and seeing them eagerly sampling the food, with Silica munching away on a platter of meat while her big brother stands over her, grinning at a fleeing second circle attendant. “I’ve developed a small issue with emotional processing thanks to some unprocessed trauma. From what I understand of Rimaro’s explanation, you use certain cultivars of salvianross to treat patients with many issues stemming from lasting wounds of the mind.”

  “We do. I’ve bred several plants with different focuses that we select from based on the manifestation of each patient’s symptoms.”

  “You differentiate based on symptoms, not causes?”

  “We consider a lot of factors, but symptoms are one of the main deciders. If a patient isn’t suffering from something debilitating, it’s best not to expose them to a strain likely to take them from themselves,” Via explains. “If you’re just struggling a little with emotional processing, you probably fall into that category as well.”

  “What would your treatment be in that case then?” Emily asks, intrigued.

  “Well, if you’re certain it's linked to past trauma, I have a particularly gentle breed that makes a wonderful tea. If you drink that for a few weeks, it should aid in soothing the mind and separating you from your past issues, allowing you to move forward.”

  “Oh, I don’t think separation is the problem. You see, mechanics need an organ to gather and convert energy into machina, much like mages do mana, and it just so happens to be the mind. If anything, my emotions are nearly completely severed already. That’s the issue.”

  “Ah, in that case, you probably want the opposite,” Via muses, finishing her drink and reaching for another. “Instead of slowly bending the mind towards a more favourable form, you want to shock it into facing the issue head-on. If you take a highly concentrated strain of salvianross and mix it with goblin’s blood, choker venom, ground burnroot seeds, and powdered ellelite bones, before vaporising and inhaling it, you should be able to induce an enlightening episode that draws on your dwelling demons.”

  “Does vaporising it have a specific purpose?”

  “It internalises the experience. If salvianross is drunk, it opens the mind, but if inhaled, it traps you within.”

  “Fascinating. Do you dedicate a lot of your focus to the study of plants?”

  “Yes,” Via nods, silently waving goodbye to Riji before he turns away and heads over to join Pod and Rimaro’s ongoing demonstration of the young mechanic’s trusty revolvers. “I’ve spent a great deal of my life working in, and now managing, my clan’s fields and greenhouses. I do so love working with the earth, despite what my affinity may say.”

  “I won’t lie, I’m more focused on mineral-based alchemy myself, but I would love to see your greenhouses,” Emily says, nodding politely to the two mages who take Riji’s place, drawn in by the topic of conversation. “I’m yet to delve too deeply into cultivating plants, and I’d love to see how it’s done properly.”

  “I’d be honoured to be your source of inspiration; it is in the spirit of our agreement after all. So, tell us about mineral alchemy. I wasn’t aware of the practice as any more than a branch of potion making…”

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