Chapter 13

Early cybernetics required batteries that would need replacing every few weeks, then they were upgraded to every few months, then every few years. The current power designs of cybernetics draw directly from the body’s Mystwell. A stable and constant draw that doesn’t threaten the user’s life, only reduces their natural maximum capacity of their well.

Day 30, Quenchenday

The day following meeting Nennel was the day of rest Quenchenday. I was lounging in the woods encircling the academy grounds within the crater cavern of the mountain. My back propped against a red-leafed elm tree. My body still ached from the beating that I had taken the day before, but this was a pain that I found a level of pride and satisfaction in. While I had done little more with my actions than piss off the batch of thugs with inflated egos, I had stood against the assholes of my own free will and in the defense of someone else. I felt good. Useful. Like I had done something of value by possibly saving a girl’s life. The very girl who sat perched in an oak tree across from me. She swung her legs back and forth in lazy arcs as she methodically plucked and shredded leaves from the branch beneath her. The woods were thick with the scents of fresh soil, wet grass, and damp bark.

 We had spent the whole day together, talking about class, hobbies, and other light topics, both of us pointedly not asking about each other’s past and not bringing up our own. The companionship that I found with her didn’t have the feeling of romantic interest. Rather, I felt more like I had found someone I could be myself around. This was an unfamiliar experience for me. Everyone in my life until that point had held something over me. My father, while loving, was harsh when punishing me for seemingly small missteps. Any children I had ever met had always been aggressive toward me. Thallos had been his own kind of harsh in his teaching style, and even the instructors who didn’t act like they wanted me dead still held the power of authority that could be used to make my life miserable if I misspoke or acted out of line. Around Nennel, it just felt natural to relax around her.

“Say, Nennel, you happen to have any talent for martial combat?” I asked as I plucked at the grass beside me.

“Iver, you can just call me Nel.”

“Oh, uh, sure thing, Nel.” I tentatively spoke, testing the name.

Nel hooked her legs around the branch she perched atop and fell backward. Her arms spread to either side. She hung upside down from the brunch. “But to answer your question,” she let go of the branch, turning over in the air to land on her feet at the base of the tree in a T pose. “Yeah, I guess. I mean, because of my body, I’m quick, with good balance, I’m not bad. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned from class, it’s that it takes more than speed and balance to make a good warrior.” The tone of her words reflected her true thoughts. She thought that what she had just done was nothing so impressive. She honestly believed that she was nothing special. 

“Are you kidding me, Nel?” I said with a confused grin and raised brow even as I pulled myself to my feet in a manner that seemed crude compared to her elegant landing. 

She looked at me with her own cocked brow. “What do you mean?”

“You do realize most people can’t just do what you did?”

“Get out of a tree?” She looked back at the tree as if checking to make sure it was the same one she had just left.

“That was not just ‘getting out of a tree’.” I make sure to put emphasis on the very words she just spoke. “Nel, that was backflipping out of a tree. I can’t even do a standing backflip. With dexterity like that, I don’t know what would make a real warrior if you aren’t one already.”

She looked at her feet and gave a shy smile. “Thanks, but you need to realize I’m only good at avoiding attacks. I have none of the technique, physical strength, or knowledge that would make me a real threat to anyone.”

“Well, I’m not even good at avoiding blows,” I openly gestured to my bruised and battered body. “As my display yesterday provided beyond a doubt.”

“If it hurts so bad, then why don’t you go see a healer?” She prodded. Before I could even respond, I saw her grow a scheming, tiny, knowing smirk. “Is it because you’re trying to impress me?” Her words rang with teasing mirth that didn’t feel like it was meant to hurt.

“What?” I looked at her in sheer confusion. “No, no. I’m not trying to be tough.”

“Good.” she said with a playful jab to my ribs that drew a wince of pain from me. “Because I’d tell you to stop being a damn idiot and get mended.”

“No, it’s just…” It was my turn to look at my feet, afraid to speak the truth out of fear of her mocking me.

“It’s just what?” She pressed. She leaned forward and tipped her head to look into my eyes.

Nennel laid a hand gently on my shoulder. “Iver, what’s wrong? You look scared.” She asked with genuine worry in her words. 

For a long moment, I didn’t look into her eyes, instead stubbornly staring at my feet. It was a challenge meeting her eyes, even for a moment. Her eyes spoke for her. She was truly worried about me. 

Should I tell her? Would she think I’m strange or weak for this fear?

“Do you promise not to make fun of me?” I asked, my words a low murmur filled with years’ worth of caution brought about by experience.

“I promise.” She said with a tiny smile. Was that smile supposed to be kind? Or was she trying to hide it because it would have shown how funny she found my need to ask? Was she looking for a reason to get away from me? 

“You mean it? You promise you won’t even joke about this.”

“I swear on my father’s ashes, I won’t say anything rude or hurtful.” Her words were serious as she straightened and drew an X over where her heart should be.

She lost her father, too? Maybe I can trust her. If she knows what it’s like, what I went through, then maybe I can tell her.

“I-I’m- I don’t want to have healing magic used on me.” My words shifted from a stammering mutter to a rush of words, almost yelled, as I tried to force them out as fast as I could. The moment the last word left my mouth, I clamped my eyes shut, clenching my whole body as I waited for the inevitable mocking. When nothing came, I timidly opened one eye to find her looking at me with worry and confusion.

She put her free hand on my other shoulder. “Let’s sit down and relax.” Her words were gentle as she moved to help me off my feet, my body still aching. As I lay my back against the tree again, Nel took a seat beside me, her knees loosely held to the crook of each arm, her feet crossed. I eyed her for a seemingly endless moment, not sure if I could believe that she really wasn’t about to mock me. Even as I eyed her, she looked up into the canopy above, watching the leaves dance in the breathing of the academy cavern. After a long moment, she spoke. Her tone was like she was commenting on the weather, so uninhibited by doubt or worry. “You know, I’m positively terrified of gremlins.” She laid back and idly kicked her feet in small motions. The motion seemed like a simple desire for movement. Thoughtless fidgeting.

I looked at her for a long moment, waiting for this to be some part of a joke to mock me. “Gremlins? The little Fae critters? The ones that steal or break everything they find?”

She physically shivered before saying, “When I was little, I saw a show where they stole this man’s cybernetic arm, an entire pack of the nasty little things. They broke down his arm piece by piece as fast as lightning, then they were gone, and he was armless. For weeks, I had a nightmare of a swarm of the disgusting little things and of them taking me apart. To this day, any time I see even one, I panic.”

I watched her for a tense few moments, trying to figure out if she was just messing with me or if it was an honest fear of hers. I saw the visible discomfort in her gaze as she stared into a far off place despite her eyes being locked on the ground at her feet.

I let out a sigh of relief and understanding. “Hey, in your case, it’s a valid fear, unlike mine. But if I had a body, that was what, seventy or eighty percent mechanical? Of course, I’d be terrified of the devious little critters. The thought of being taken apart would scare anyone, cyborg or not.”

Nel gave an amused snort. “Yeah, I can see your point.”

It was then I had a thought. A question that had me itching for an answer. It was probably a rude question, but I needed to know. “M-mind, if I ask what fleshy parts you still have left?” I timidly asked.

“What?” she asked in surprise.

“I’m sorry!” I blurted out, recoiling from the blow I thought was coming. But when no strike came, I looked up to find her looking at me in evident confusion. I sat back up, not daring to make eye contact as I explained. “I-I was just won-won-wondering how much of you is still organic. You know, s-squishy bits.”

“Why?” was all she said.

“Well, t-the thought came to mind when I heard you mention gremlins taking you apart. I j-just remember seeing Master Mystagogue Mallock poking around y-your chest cavity. I saw nothing that looked organic in there.” Even as the words left my mouth, I felt like a total fraggen idiot.

She blushed and made to cover her chest with her arms. “Now, that is a very personal thing to ask a girl.”

On immediate reflex, my eyes, which had been locked on a tree across from us, were back looking at the ground between my legs as I muttered a hurried apology.

“Well, I’ll tell you what, Iver, I’ll answer that question IF you answer mine after. It’s only fair, seeing as I already told you my worst fear, why I have it, AND I’ll answer another question.” Her words shifted from embarrassed to intrigued as she bartered for a question of her own. I wasn’t sure, but I felt like I had been played. She wanted to know something, and I was a little nervous about what she was going to ask, but I gave a small nod because this could open a door to asking about her father.

“If you must know that, the only ‘fleshy parts’ I have left are my brain, most of my skull and face, and a bit of spine.” She listed it all off like a grocery list, counting off on her fingers. 

More questions popped into my mind. What all was she made of? How was she so dexterous? How was she so precise? How was everything connected? What was her mystwell depth, and how much was taken up by powering her body?

Before I could ask another question, she turned to face me, legs crossed, as she leaned in. “Okay, my turn.” She gave me an eager look as she narrowed the distance between us. “I want to know what scares you so much about healing magic.”

I squirmed in place. “You promise not to make fun of me?”

“I already promised, didn’t I, moron? I’m not going to make fun of you, Iver. I just want to know why Life Myst is so scary to you.”

I took a deep breath and let it out long and slow before I started. I explained how Mallrimor and his thugs had beaten me pretty badly and how I woke up in the medical center. I continued into Dr.Brooksheen’s explanation of why they won’t use healing magic on anyone unconscious and the need for scans.

“Okay, yeah, I totally understand your fear. Getting a wound healed just to wake up with cancer or something growing where it shouldn’t, now that’s pretty terrifying. Lucky for me, I’m more likely to need a mechanic or a Cy-doc than Life Myst. But what are you going to do when you break a leg or an arm? There is no way the instructors will let you sit out of martial class for months while you heal.”

I winced at the thought. They had warned us that injury was more likely to occur than not in the training courses. “Well, then, I guess I’ll just have to stay awake through every moment of the pain to make sure nothing goes wrong.” We both knew that was total crap I was spewing, but she didn’t push the subject. 

“Earlier...you swore on your dad’s ashes.” I brought up with no small amount of worry that I was about to step over a line.

“Yeah, what of it?”

I draped my arms over my legs and fidgeted with my fingers. “Mine too,” I muttered as I looked at the grass and roots between my legs. “My dad, I mean. He’s dead.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. Losing my dad was hard. But it was harder on my mom.”

I gave a sad little half-grin as I loosed a snort of self-mocking. “I don’t even have a mom.”

“She died too? Was there an accident, or bandits, or something? Did it kill both of them?”

“What? No… No. I never knew my mom. Hells, my father wasn’t even my biological father.”

“What do you mean?” Nel asked. I didn’t have to look at her to know that she wanted the entire story. I wanted to tell her. To tell someone what all I had been through, from an abandoned start to a painful pitiful present. I’d told no one everything that I had been through, not even Thallos. I hadn’t wanted to seem weak, but at that moment, under the tree with whom I would soon realize was my first friend, I wanted to let everything out.

And so I told Nennel everything. My mother’s abandoning me with Fermose, how my father’s form of love had an edge to it, my father’s murder, his dying words about a box, how I was spared by the thieving murderer, how I was homeless for months, stealing what I needed until Thallos found me. I saw her brows rise when I mentioned Thallos as a proclaimed uncle. I explained everything up to when Mallrimor started picking on me.

“What does Mallrimor have against you?” She asked, clearly offended for me. The look on her face told me she was tempted to knock out the prick's teeth.

I gave a grunt of amusement. “Up until you, it was just how everyone treated me. I’m a Darkling. That’s all anyone needs as a reason to treat me like trash. I’ve picked up a lot of nicknames, freak, scum, stain, parasite, hellspawn, demon semen, hell whore, devil dick, goat boy, and lots of comments about my odd skin pattern.”

“I’ve never met a Darkling before, but my mom always said to never judge someone on their species. Instead, judge them based on how they treat others. But I’ve been meaning to ask, why is your skin like that?”

I closed my eyes and took another long breath. My skin had always been a sore subject, mentioned more often than my horns some days when I was getting picked on. I opened my eyes and looked at my hands, turning them back to front. Perpetually tanned-looking skin, laced with webs of ivory white. Some people said it looked like I was covered in cobwebs, but my father always said it looked like my skin was made of marble. ‘Tough skin for a tough boy.’ as he always said.

“I don’t really know. My skin has always been like this, or so my father claimed. But I know that neither the skin nor my eyes are really normal for Darklings, from what I can tell. But I can’t say it with certainty. I-I’ve never met another Darkling.”

“Really? Wasn’t your adopted father at least a Darkling?”

“No. Fermose was a Wild Elf. Besides, if the holo-cast shows are to be believed, all Darklings are terrible people. The cultist, necromancer, assassin, or terrorist kind of terrible people.” I mentioned this last bit with a sulking sneer.

Nel let out a cackling laugh of honest amusement. I shot her a look of confusion and half-hearted offense. “What’s so funny, tin-girl?”

She flashed me a knowing smirk. “If those holo-cast shows were true, then Brightlings would-be heroes, toppling demon kings and turning arch-liches to ash. Could you honestly see that prick Mallrimor doing anything like that?”

I let out an amused huff with a broad grin at the thought of Mallrimor quivering before a massive demon, wetting himself before being turned to ash himself. “Yeah, I can’t see him doing anything good. The sick bastards get too much glee from pushing people around. But why did he pick on you?”

Nel closed her eyes and sat back against the tree. There was a long, silent moment where I thought she wasn’t going to answer. “He saw me in class, working on the internal components of my arm. The lasher knocked my tools from my hand and mocked me for being what I am. He called me a robot girl. He had been making snide remarks for the past two weeks, but last class, he stepped up to being physically aggressive. He thought I was a simple target. But you stood up for me. Think you can help me some more?”

“Of course, Nel.” I said without thinking twice. After the words left my lips, I started thinking about how I was about to get beaten more by those thugs.

“I’m more than happy to help,” I said, “But I feel like I need to ask, how did you end up like… this?” I gestured to her whole body with a sweep of my arms.

I watched as her scarred cheeks heated with a blush, turning an even darker purple.

“My dad crossed some less than pleasant people. They lit our house to ruin him since he worked out of the garage, but I was working inside helping him. I was trapped, stuck in a hole that Dad broke open in the wall. The docs tried to save my body, but I was so badly burned, almost dead. It took three healers to keep me breathing and my blood pumping while they replaced everything critical. And yeah, I was unconscious during the operation. They stopped the bleeding, but most of what was left was so deformed from damage and poor healing that I was left with this.” As she said this last bit, she gestured to her body with both hands.

I gasped, covering my mouth in shock. I could imagine the horror of the scene. But I could never imagine the pain of being burned so terribly. “By the gods, Nel, I’m so sorry. I w-wish I could have done something.” I stammered.

She shrugged. “The damage is done. Now, I need to live with it. I need to have my body parts replaced every few months to keep up with the growth of my organic parts. As much as I would love to blame my dad for crossing the wrong people… I just can’t. He was only trying to do right by me, my mom, and my siblings. He died in the garage when it burned down anyway, so blaming him is pointless.”

I was speechless. I had no idea what I could say to something like that.

“Mom and my older brother spent every scrap of saving on getting me this body, ‘the best parts for my best girl’, she said. But I’m here learning how to fight while my brother is only gods know where, trying to make ends meet to keep the family fed.”

“How’d you get into the academy?” I asked.

“Well, you got creative with the rotting thing in the entry trail. I just snuck around. In my trial, it was a wolf. I skirted around it until it noticed me, then I jumped over it and ran.”

“Does that mean you’re going to be a spy?” I asked.

She only shrugged. “I’ve got no idea where I’m going. All I know is that I need to be the best at whatever they put in front of me, or I go home to a burned shop.”

“I guess we are in the same boat.” I said with a half-smirk as I looked at the grass between my fingers while I shredded them piece by piece. “We have nowhere to go, but we need to pass, no matter what. I need to be a warrior so I can find my father’s killer. But I have no doubt that you are a shoo-in for being a spy with the Sect of the Sightless Eye.”

“Well, it all depends on how I score on the end-term reviews and whether or not I can hide my very noticeable body.”

“Oh, come on, how hard could the test to become a spy be?” I asked, half-mocking. The other half of me was thinking of the worst possible tests that could be pitted against her. Stealing secured documents, charming the noble of a royal court, going undercover as someone easily forgotten.

She shrugged yet again. “I’ll just have to do my best in each of the trials to prove my worth.”

A thought came to mind with those words. “What about myst?” I asked.

“What about it?” She asked in obvious confusion.

“I mean, what’s your Mystwell like? You know, how is your casting ability?”

She seemed to curl in on herself at that question. “I have almost none.”

“What?” I asked.

“You heard me!” she snapped defensively. “My cyberware takes up almost all of my well. I couldn’t cast a spell if I needed to save my life. That’s if I had an open channel, which I don’t. I’m as mundane as they come.”

I sat back against the tree, deep in thought regarding her words. “Then I guess I will have to compensate for that deficit.”

“What?” she asked.

“I mean what I just said. I will have to design tools for you to make up for your lack of magic. You will end up being a spy or warrior, no question about it. Either way, I’m going to build tools to even the playing field.”

“How? Your last gadget got you beaten into pulp.”

“Ah!” I exclaimed, “But it saved you. And I swear by the Nameless Goddess that I will make you tools just as effective as those that I will use to make myself a warrior.”