I’m not able to follow most of the strategy discussion that follows lunch. At my best I’d be able to treat it like a puzzle and figure out how the elements come together, but they, and in particular Zidanya, have so much context and knowledge about Temples in general and this Temple specifically that I was missing. So I busy myself with smaller things, things like studying the glyphs Zidanya had laid out for me and rifling through the closets looking for more clothes.
I’d never managed to find any sort of Mend or Repair spell, and Amber had cut my old shirt in half getting it off of me after our fight with the … Bargers? Bergers? with Mathilda and Johannes. I’d been wearing it backwards and under a jacket, which suited it fine and made it hardly an inconvenience that it was cut open, but that was hardly a reason not to replace it.
I wander back into the main room eventually, dressed in burgundy instead of turquoise but otherwise still wearing the same familiar clothes Keyhome is kind enough to grant me. They’re still talking, but Amber crooks a finger and points to a chair, and I sit.
“We have,” Amber tells me after they finish gabbling some sort of incomprehensible jargon at each other for a bit longer, “fundamentally three strategies for any particular room.”
“It’s a fan I am of kill them all.” Zidanya grins toothily at me.
“Vetoed as a first resort.” My response comes immediately. “Your reliance on violence as a first resort is functionally proof of the innate psychological harm we cause ourselves by using violence.”
Zidanya practically hisses at me. “It is no such thing. Practicality and nothing more.”
“That was… perhaps a little far, my lord.” Amber’s eyeing me like I said something unbelievably weird.
“And coming from a man who has magics fit to award the Forbidden Titles.”
I feel myself flushing scarlet and hear myself mumble something apologetic as the blood rushes to my head. I don’t think it’s too far, and the fact that I had to use those spells hardly makes me incapable of understanding that the habit of doing them is self-destructive, but I apologize anyway and then apologize again, louder, because they probably couldn’t hear me the first time.
“Overstatement notwithstanding,” Amber says calmly once Zidanya’s at least nodded to acknowledge the apology, “we are not well positioned to take the flood’s path, overtopping all barriers and leaving nothing but desolation in our wake. Without the use of proscribed magics, and we have already begun to see the Temple begin to counteract those, we have no army-killers.”
“Leaving us, this does, with means either social or stealth,” Zidanya says. There’s still a bit of a kind of glint in her eye that makes my skin prickle. “Thence to take that which we learn through those means and apply sufficiently targeted violence as to complete our tasks. We should have no fear of any single foe, nor any small few; should they be so strong as to outmatch Dame Ashborn, I shall mire them for our retreat. An they chase, you’ll assemble a strike that beggars the imagination, as you managed with the Dispel and Disenchant.”
“Ten minutes.” Zidanya tilts her head, raising her hand up to table height, palm up, which I guess means please clarify or go on. “It takes me ten minutes to set that up. Ten minutes starting at full mana and doing nothing with my mana other than popping out Motes.”
“And so we know how long we shall be called upon to hold a foe most manxome.”
I give her a sidelong look. “What does manxome even mean? Omniglot didn’t give me anything for that.”
“Ah.” Zidanya pauses, and I could swear she looks flustered. “I… it is thought to mean fearsome, or perhaps terrible in some other manner.”
“Monstrous, perhaps. An adjective of a foe, regardless!” Amber’s voice is cheerful, but for some reason that just makes Zidanya look even more flustered.
“So. Stealth, I’m not exactly the best at, and Amber’s more of a kick-in-the-door type.” I’m thinking aloud at this point, but I get a slow nod from Amber and a smile from Zidanya. “That leaves our Druid to handle the stealth side of things?”
“Ranger as well. So long as where we find ourselves is near enough the wilds…”
“And if it’s not, or if stealth is contra-indicated for some reason, we do social. The two of you being charmers?”
“You’ve a certain charm of your own. Earnest, unguarded, vulnerable.” Zidanya’s smile makes me blush hotly.
“She’s not wrong.” Amber grins at me. “It’s not a trivial or irrelevant matter. Would you sit to tea with an ogre, and play a game of riddles with it, and banter in rhyme?”
“Is that an option?” I blinked at her. “Because that sounds like a lot more fun than murdering things, or trying to jump through the fire to grab some rings in order to demonstrate my gumption.”
“Didst really,” Zidanya begins, and then sighs as I grin at her. “Truly? Option and gumption?”
“What can I say? I’ll find a way, rise above the fray, and save the day!”
There’s a moment of silence. Amber and Zidanya exchange looks, ones with a heavy freight and a great deal of meaning, while I mug as though for the camera, with an eh? Eh? look plastered to my face. “Your scansion was off,” Amber finally says, unsuccessfully hiding a smile. “Rise above the fray has an extra syllable.”
“You said rhyme, not meter!”
“Unsafe to assume it’s the one and not the other.” Zidanya’s somber look is a lot more successful than Amber’s.
“Fine, fine.” I let my smirk fade into seriousness. “So the idea is we go in, talk our way through as far as we can, sneak into anywhere they’re trying to keep us out, charm and bluff our way likewise, and then kill the smallest number of people we need to kill in order to come away successful?”
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“An apt summary.”
“Okay.” I take a deep breath, then let it out. I’m leaning against the door jamb to the bedroom, and I realize that there’s actually no reason for me to be so far away from the two of them; I walk over to Amber and sit cross-legged on the floor next to her chair, grabbing her hand and maneuvering it over to my scalp. “Mmmm. No objections to the plan as stated. What mix do I bring up when I, mmmm. Distracting. Don’t stop. Cross the threshold?”
“What are the options?” Amber obediently keeps scritching. I’ve read that the urge for this particular type of touch was the need to groom, which isn’t so much an issue for me - my hair doesn’t get dandruff, and it’ll hold a braid for a month before it starts getting greasy, courtesy of the same breeding and possibly genetic engineering that produced the Voidsight in the first place - but it feels ridiculously good regardless.
“Seven or nine into twenty seven. I can do three orbs or four Motes. My regeneration is… well, pretty good, probably, I don’t have a frame of reference. Or access to my Status. Or more than occasional feedback from anything quantified.”
There’s a medium-length pause. My eyes are closed, and I don’t particularly care how long they take, because Amber’s got two hands in my hair now. I’m glad I took the braid out to wash it, because it gives her all the access I could want her to have, and she’s using exactly the right amount of pressure with her fingernails.
“The Temple rarely gives warning to the setup.”
“A mix, then. Dispel, Disenchant, Amplify, Empower. Motes for all four.”
“Really, Zanya? Why not the threes? Dispel, Amplify, Empower, and then a triad for Disenchant, and then two more Empower to double up? Orbs on the actives, Motes on the passives.”
“Please. Intend you to baby the man? If he cannot choose in the heat between the two, think you we’ll rise regardless?”
“I thought I was supposed to be the starstruck one.”
“The comfort.”
There’s a moment of silence before Amber speaks again. “Empower before Amplify. You must have misspoken.”
“Of course. The full commitment?”
“The two, their three each, and two basic?”
“Good for eyes if nothing else.”
I open my eyes and stop making noises that would be embarrassing if I weren’t already lovers with both of them. “What’s a basic?” The rest was pretty straightforward; Dispel and Disenchant with a set of boosts, and I’d have to pick which one of them to boost based on what we were looking at, if we walked right into an ambush crossing a door. Given enough time, I’d have two full sets, and I’m fairly confident that means that whatever we run into isn’t going to have a very nice day if it’s depending on its spells or enchantments.
“The root glyphs. Those fire and earth orbs you’ve been using.”
“Ah.” I think for a second. “I’ll make those orbs, if the idea is to hit weak spots. They’re… seeking, and fast, enough faster and smarter than a Mote that it really makes a difference. No buffs, no Dampen or Suppress?”
“As you say. Should Amber be outmatched, we think it unlikely what you’ve available will suffice; and as for the long-duration anti-magics, better to strike hard at the outset and adapt from there.”
Amber nods at Zidanya’s words, and I think about it for a minute. “Okay. I guess that all makes sense.” It stings, in a bunch of ways, but especially in how limited my ability to meaningfully contribute is going to be. “So what now, more training? We’ve got a little time, right? About… three hours?”
“Closer to four, we think. As to what now? You take a nap.”
My startlement probably shows on my face, staring as I am at Amber. “I take a nap?”
“How long slept you, in the three nights which passed before the last?”
I look at Zidanya and sort of flinch from some of the memories. “Um.” The answer is probably around ten kiloseconds, on average, and I know perfectly well that’s not enough, even for me, bred and probably engineered and certainly trained for the marathons of wormhole travel.
I’d been towards the tail end of my ability to run that marathon when I… made that choice which fetched me here, anyway. “Thank you for the reminder,” I say quietly, instead of arguing.
“Amber, of a kindness?”
“Gladly, always.” She brings me up to my feet with a grasp on my arm just above my wrist, gently supporting me while I unfolded my legs. “Come, my lord. Your bed awaits.” I waggle my eyebrows at her, feeling an exhaustion coming as though summoned by the thought of going to sleep, and she smiles but shakes her head. “To sleep, Adam. You’ll need your rest.
“After all, this will be the last level of the Temple… and it’s not likely it shall be so gracious as to grant us nearly a full day after the next great challenge and its pylon.”