NOVEL NEXT Chapter Thirty-Three: Work With The Earth
You see, slow movements which build up speed are far more effective and efficient than trying to start with a fast movement, Kalanthia tells me as she carves the last of the large basin.
“Yes, I see,” I say thoughtfully as I use my magic sight to observe her control. It’s amazing to see the differences between her deft and practised actions and my own ham-handed fumbling. I’d thought that I’d been starting to get to grips with Earth-Shaping, but Kalanthia’s expertise shows me just how far I have to go.
She uses a fraction of mana for a far faster and more finished result. She seems to work with the earth in a way that demonstrates her sheer understanding of the material – and the deep relationship she has built with it.
When I want to shape the earth, I have to first feed it with my own earth-aligned mana until I feel that it is moldable. I then have to continue feeding it with mana to actually effectuate the change, and the faster or greater the change, the more mana it requires.
Kalanthia seems to be able to skip that first step entirely. I suspect it’s something to do with her domain or simply her familiarity with the earth, but when she reaches out with her focus, the earth immediately responds, almost eager to act according to her desires. It’s not the same as fire but there are similarities.
Fire leaps in eagerness to act because it constantly desires to grow and consume, but attempts to quell it are met with significant reluctance. The earth doesn’t wish to consume or to grow, but it moves to meet Kalanthia’s intentions with the willingness of a precariously poised boulder hearing the call of gravity when given a strong nudge.
And like that same boulder, the movement of one leads to the movement of many – which is the core of the lesson she’s just been teaching me. While the earth does move significantly more easily for Kalanthia, it’s clear that there are foundational rules which remain the same no matter the Skill level. One of these is that getting the earth to move fast requires either a lot of mana, or a lot of preparation.
It’s been amazing to be able to watch a master at work, though. I’ve already got up to Initiate four in Earth-Shaping, ranking up partway through the morning of the day after enabling the alliance between Kalanthia and Raven.
The rank up didn’t offer me anything new, instead just indicating that my relationship with the earth has improved and shaping it is therefore easier. My work with pulling out the metal ores and gems from the raptorcats’ cave seems to have influenced my rank up too as the message indicated that my ability to identify and isolate components of the earth has improved too.
My increasing skill in Earth-Shaping has meant that we’ve been able to move faster than I anticipated, but it’s Kalanthia’s help which has really cut down the time we’ve needed to turn this rough cavern into a proper home. Or ‘den’ as seems the most suitable appellation considering everything.
Instead of the week I was estimating that it would take, it’s been a little less than two days of actual work, though it’s taken place on three days in total. The fact that we didn’t really do much actual earth-shaping on the day we arrived before needing to sleep meant that we’ve had a third sunrise, but we’re pretty much done now. Just one thing left to do.
“You’re sure that we can pull that underground spring to the surface?” I worry again, earning a light cuff from a padded paw. Kalanthia pulls the blow, but it’s still strong enough to make me stagger.
Yes, she tells me with a strong sense of exasperation. To be fair, this is probably the fifth time I’ve asked her something similar. Today. It’s just that she hasn’t properly explained exactly how we – or rather she – would be doing it, and I know that trying to make water run uphill is complicated. Watch and learn, she tells me, so I do.
The large nunda extends her influence into the earth. I can’t see her domain, but I’m sure that’s the cause – I can see that she’s not putting any mana into the earth itself but it’s rippling in response to her presence nonetheless. Like wind – it’s possible to feel the wind, and to see the effects of it, but not to see the wind itself.
I follow the ripples of earth magic as it reacts to Kalanthia’s focus, further and further into the earth. The action, when it does take place, is really at the edges of my magic sight – a point where I can more sense than see what’s going on, and barely at that.
There is something in the earth. It’s different from anything else I’ve seen in this area. It’s not any type of stone, or even one of the crystalline structures which I’ve occasionally found – this section isn’t as full of them as the area around the copper vein was, but there were a couple here or there. It’s not the bones which I’ve found from long dead creatures, or the odd flecks of metal which we’ve come across. It’s not even the extra Energy Hearts we’ve found from where the Pure Energy forced its way into cracks in the rock and then crystalised in place – those have invariably been Earth-focussed Energy Hearts.
No, this is water. And as Kalanthia starts making her changes, impressing me with just how delicately she can work even at such a range, I see why she had no need to worry about whether we’d be able to bring the water to where we are.
Although the slopes in this area are not as steep as in many other places around us, we are still on a mountain here. The water is found somewhere uphill from where we are, meaning that getting it here is a simple matter of providing it with a route down to us.
Well, simple for Kalanthia, that is. I doubt I’d have even been able to find the groundwater, let alone create the required channels so deep in the earth. My original plan had been to divert a bit of river through our area and then return it downstream, but that would have required a huge amount of work due to the distances involved.
I watch with awe as Kalanthia brings the water down to us in underground stone channels – rudimentary pipes, really. As she gets into the slope just above the remoulded entrance to the underground caverns, she skillfully splits the stream into two different channels. The upper one moves into the massive basin we have formed just downhill of the entrance to the cavern where it starts to fill what will eventually be a pond for drinking.
The overflow of that mini-lake will go into a smaller basin which I will use for dirtier jobs. There is a channel from that dip which directs the water towards where we’re likely going to need it for irrigation purposes in the ash fields down below. I’ll need to do more work on it later when we actually know what kind of irrigation channels we’ll need, but I wanted to take advantage of the deal I cut with Kalanthia – that in exchange for her being able to stay in the area and benefit from the Energy in the environment, she would help actually create the den area. The best deal I ever made, in my opinion.
The other channel goes further underground, into a bathroom of its own. There, it goes into another basin, this one about the size of a jacuzzi. My new bath – and I have to say that I’m rather looking forward to not having to watch out for crocodiles when I do my ablutions.
The overflow of that runs through an open channel and then back underground. This one goes into the ash fields too, but not as a complete channel. Instead, it rises near the surface and then separates into multiple channels which then end in a sort of sandy earth pit only about half a metre from the surface in the middle of the vine-strangler copse. Since I’m planning on using that open channel as my low-tech toilet, I hope that the trees will enjoy the new source of fertiliser.
When Kalanthia finishes, she looks rather exhausted.
“Are you OK?” I ask with concern. I’ve seen her enact massive structural changes without looking more than briefly puffed, so it’s a little surprising to see how fatigued she looks now.
Merely a little tired, she answers, sounding it. Working at range and with such finesse is mentally demanding, even if it does not require much mana. I will be well after a short pause.
“Alright,” I tell her and sit next to her for a while, watching the biggest basin start to fill. The water that trickles in is crystal clear and I can’t wait until it fills the basin enough for me to reach it. Due to our building methods being magic, there’s no dust or dirt left in the basin after all the work, meaning that the water goes in clear and stays that way.
Movement exiting the encircling vine-stranglers catches my eye and I see Bastet returning with her little hunting party. Since the death of three of her party members in the fight with the alcaoris, she’s had to replace her numbers. Thorn and Honey have both stayed with her, but they’ve been joined by Artemis the wolf-like deri and Lathani.
“Good hunt?” I ask them as they come closer. Lathani bounds over to me to rub her head against my hip and then goes on to rub against her mother.
Good enough, Bastet answers in satisfaction, licking her lips demonstratively and then coming over to greet me like Lathani. The rest of the group send greetings to me along the Bonds but don’t come over to physically rub against me. We met up with Pride, Catch, and Hades – they are bringing all the kills back.
I make a mental note to work out a way that my less dextrous Bound can bring their kills back more easily. Or maybe a collaboration with Tier one samurans from the village to essentially become beasts of burden. Hmm.
“Good to hear,” I respond.
Mother says you’re finished making the den, Lathani pipes up. I was aware of them talking but didn’t make any effort to listen in. Can we see now?
Perhaps it is stupid, but I didn’t want anyone to see our new home until it was done. Maybe it’s a sense of pride, or of nervousness, but the result is that only Kalanthia and I know where everything is.
“Alright,” I say, butterflies flapping around in my stomach – what if they don’t like it? “Let’s wait for the others to come back and I’ll give you the tour.”