Crystal Cage 17

Once Rithus opened the door, the group was immediately beset by the most formidable, nearly impossible assault to counter. A generously curved Draconos woman in her late twenties, with black cherry colored hair and dark chocolate eyes started chewing them out for not signing in at the rental office. Rithus gave an attempt to quell the woman's wrath by explaining that one of their group was in strong need of shelter and warmth as soon as possible.

"Honestly, sometimes the sheer idiocy of some five capital people still manages to amaze me. Did you think this place was called Snow Cap because we like powdered sugar? Whichever one of you is Orison, get your pimpled a** to the rental office and sign the book. Bring a hundred gold deposit with you as well. You can have that back as long as no one breaks anything or leaves too big of a mess for my staff to clean up." Wound down, the woman shut the door with measured force.

Ivan sighed wistfully, "It's a shame she's married. A successful chase after a woman with a little fire in her would do me a lot of good right now."

Rithus said, "She's a widow. Her husband's scent is almost gone on her."

Orison furrowed his eyebrows at Rithus' direction. "You and Duran haven't had a chance to sell your extra gear yet, right? Do you think you can cobble together something presentable for Ivan before he tries to beat me in a race to the rental office?"

As Duran and Rithus started combing through their inventory, Orison made his way to the door.

Before the young mage was even halfway through it, Ivan said, "Don't try to steal a march on me."

Feeling his blood pressure rise a bit, Orison addressed the Nunos man before closing the door in much the same manner as the woman before him had. "I don't have a habit of going around trying to find iron plates to kick. Give me a few minutes to finish my official business with the lady before you come trying to start some of your own."

On his way to the rental office, Orison muttered irritably to himself about having the bad luck of possibly having found Venito's twin. Internally, he knew that Ivan was just trying to distract himself and likely wasn't that serious. The young mage would hate to cut the poor guy loose with no support but if Ivan managed to find more trouble trying to avoid dealing with the ones the Nunos man already had, Orison wasn't willing to play babysitter to a time bomb.

Orison wordlessly walked into the office and signed the book that was shoved across the counter at him. As he offered the back of his wrist to the woman, she scowled at him. Sighing, he removed 300 gold and set it neatly on the counter before the woman claimed it.

After she gave him the breakdown for service and the location of the town canteen if they were interested in having someone else prepare and deliver meals to their cabin, Orison said, "If anyone shows up asking after me or Ivan, that's the green haired guy, send me a message before escorting them over. There's the possibility of unpleasant dealings and I figure it would be better to be upfront about it than being taken by surprise. If you won't do it as courtesy, then do it in concern to your property."

Raising a well shaped eyebrow at him, she said, "I appreciate the candidness. You're paid up for ten days. Since you were honest with me, I'll not raise a fuss but I'd be grateful if you moved along as soon as any trouble does come. We can consider whatever unused days as my hazard pay. That's a long-term and repeatable offer as long as you're in good standing and pay by the week minimum."

On his way out the door, Orison decided to do some preemptive damage control. "I don't know how serious he was being but Ivan showed some interest in trying his hand at earning your favor. Try not to cripple him. He's actually just been through some seriously hurtful stuff and I think he's just trying to keep his mind off it."

She offered Orison a razor blade smile that gave him a slight chill. "I won't pull the knuckle dusters out as long as he keeps his hands to himself."

Inspired, Orison closed the door and turned back towards her. "Are you a close combat specialist?"

Warily, the woman said, "What would a Chosen care about what one of The Children train themselves in?"

Orison chuckled. "This one, and a great deal if it's unarmed combat. I have some traditional training but no one in my party is a good sparring partner. Rithus, that's the Draconos, has some of the same training but it's not a passion for him. That training has saved my life more than once and since I'm a double magic, it's my last line of defense."

Looking at him dubiously, the woman said, "I'm not interested in being someone's sand bag or giving another man free license to get handsy with me."

The young mage rubbed his forehead and said, "Admittedly, you are a beautiful woman but I'm in the wrong head space and you're obviously not interested in romance. What I want is a sparring partner who's better than me at close quarter fighting so I can improve. Ten gold an hour paid in advance and either of us can call it quits when it suits them, advance pay forfeited. Any necessary healing will be covered by me. If you knock me out, Duran can cast a basic heal as well. That's the kid with short, brown hair and a surly disposition."

She thought it over and said, "Twenty an hour, five hours advanced and only striking for the first hour. We can move on to grapples after I've assured myself you're not trying to pull some kind of stupid game on me. I can spare two hours after the office closes tonight at eight."

Without thinking about it, Orison offered the back of his wrist again but before he lowered it, the woman tapped the back of hers against it and said, "It would be petty about tapping wrists when my fist will be kissing your face later."

As he transferred the hundred gold, Orison laughed nervously. "That's the spirit, I guess. It'd probably be a good idea to have a name to call you. A safe word might not be out of the question either."

"People around here call me Ruby... A safe word, you say?" The Draconos lady laughed heartily for a moment before she sobered and said in a lightly sad nostalgia, "Anything but buttercup. I can't imagine a situation where a standard three time tap out won't due, though."

Orsion said, "I only used it once a long time ago but 'red light' for stop, 'green light' for good to go and 'yellow' for a courtesy check'.

Looking at him oddly, Ruby asked, "What's a courtesy check for?"

The young mage had a flashback to a small karate dojo from another life. "During sparring, someone might have a piece of equipment that needs adjustment or might even be showing the world something they'd rather not. It's just a way of calling the other person's attention to the need for a quick adjustment without a possibly embarrassing explanation."

The woman smiled and nodded in approval. "That's surprisingly considerate. It must have been mixed training. Men are rarely that nice to each other."

Orison shook his head. "The instructor's daughter was the only girl there and she rarely sparred. More often than not, it would be for the safety equipment. It wasn't that serious of a class. Practically cheap evening babysitting for the neighborhood and a parent would come unglued if a kid came home with a black eye or busted lip. I didn't learn much from it but I made some good friends and we had a lot of fun. Back then, that's all that really mattered."

Not really conscious of doing so, Ruby sneered and said, "What kind of soft place was that?"

Orison smiled wryly and replied, "Another world, another life. The kind of safe and happy place that seems more like a fairy tale than something real to me, now."

While the young mage made his way back to the cabin, he couldn't help but feel a little sad that the idea of a carefree childhood was so against the grain here that it would be openly despised. In an odd mood, Orison changed into his exercise clothes after the rest of the group went to go check out the town and grab some supplies. Stepping outside into the windless but biting cold, the young mage pulled out and dusted off his memories of those early days of martial arts training to see what he could make of it.

It was an absolute mess, at first. The more he went through the basic form he knew, the more coherent it became but other than giving a little inspiration, it wasn't that compatible with Morrel's teachings. Even a little inspiration was still helpful and recognizing this, Orison started combing through his hole filled 'Al' memories.

Constructing and reenacting some of the flashier moves commonly seen from the more major martial arts were fun and did add some potential for surprise variation but not much else. From the small amount of Aikido some guy he thought may have been a boyfriend of Al's sister, had demonstrated, it was just enough to realize that it would have been compatible. The real surprise was when, more for fun than anything else, Orison ran through a round of Tai Chi Al had dabbled with for a couple of months along with some elderly people at a park before he had snagged the job that had crushed his free time and pretty much ruined his life.

The combination of movement and visualization began stimulating something that his sub-mind aided him in analyzing. What it revealed was a clue to a potential 'key' that didn't fit into his own path but the knowledge of it, he tucked away. Not willing to leave such a pleasant discovery to simple theory for another's potential benefit in the future, he tried to integrate similar visualization into the oddly ritualistic 'Red River' exercise portion of the Emerald Heart training.

When combined with magic, the blood circulation and limbering portions filled him with greater stamina and could support a short but significant boost of speed until the bodily stored magic ran out. When trying any portion of the exercise with spiritual essence, his aura immediately drew down and condensed against his skin. Continuing to experiment with spirit, he discovered that the blood circulation and limbering portions would draw the essence into his marrow and nurture the blue motes of light in his marrow. During the muscle conditioning portions, the essence would penetrate deeply into the tissue with the lactic acid buildup and drive out minute amount of toxins while conditioning the body in ways that were too small to observe, much less understand.

While Orison had been lost in self observation, the group had returned. Gan was long numb to seeing Orison's training and Duran similarly held little interest. Ivan, however, was fascinated and when the young mage had finished a set and looked up, the green haired man wasn't the only one watching. The ex-Marshlander also had been watching with rapt attention.

Rithus said, "I need to tell you something but I'm not supposed to say it for others to hear."

Both of them could tell that Ivan was filled with questions but the Nunos man had enough tact not to ask after realizing that he had witnessed something that pertained to personal secrets. To display the minor of amount of irritation he had, the green haired man loudly proclaimed his intent to flirt with the proprietress and then go get a drink with or without her. Considering it was only a little after midday, Orison told the Ivan that Ruby would be working until eight. Without looking back, Ivan stiffly changed trajectory and headed back towards the canteen.

"He had money?" Orison asked.

Rithus shook his head and said, "He borrowed some from Duran."

As the young mage lead them away from the cabins towards a hill where a person couldn't easily overhear without being spotted first, he shrugged his shoulders and said, "It's the boy's gold. Let him do what he wants with it."

Once they reached their destination, Rithus said in a low voice, "Morrel couldn't tell you this part due to an old oath but I was told if you could discover the part you just did on your own, I was allowed to tell you the rest."

For the next half hour Rithus led Orison through the mantra and visualizations. They were a rather simple thing but if a practitioner didn't know about them, chances of discovery were quite low. In reality, it was a good thing that the young mage had figured it out by himself first because after comparing what he had done and what the mantra's instructions held, he could easily double the efficiency due to having followed the pathways in a more natural manner first.

Not only that but there was a part of the visualizations that held more clues to the other 'key'. That part wasn't a good thing for Orison to be using, at least not at the moment. The particles of strong and orderly essence that was similar to what he'd sensed in Venito clashed heavily with his space and the spiritual bloodline that he'd managed to awaken. Locking on to those particles, he guided them out of his body and watched them flow over to Rithus who was going through the mantra beside him.

"No wonder the path that our 'keys' unlock are incompatible even though they didn't seem like they'd be. Rithus is following some kind of inner cultivation path that just has the flavor of magic... I wonder what the big difference is?" Orison thought as he finished up.

Rithus opened his eyes and looked at Orison with a serene smile on his face. "It feels great doesn't it? I like that the cold hardly affects me anymore."

Orison looked around and noticed that he did feel a great deal more comfortable after stuffing bits of magic and spirit into the nooks and crannies of his body. "Yeah, nice side benefits. I half expected steam to be rolling off us but our aura isn't the only thing that gets drawn in. Heat and moisture are even more efficiently utilized... So, the more we practice this, the less food and water we need?"

Rithus tilted his head to the side. "When you're not doing much. Morrel said that when drawing hard on the stored potential, advanced emerald heart warriors can become starved and dehydrated in prolonged fights. I'd never say this in front of him but I wonder if that's why they developed cannibal practices.

"Getting really hungry and thirsty in the middle of fighting and there's this person in front of you that you hate and want to kill anyway. What's the harm in taking a bite out of him or drink some of his blood? They get a little relief for their needs, get some strength to keep fighting and intimidate their enemies... Sorry, that's probably a bit too much. I have a lot of stray thoughts like this. I enjoy trying to understand why people do what they do. I hope that makes sense."

Orison chuckled. "Makes perfect sense to me. All the same, I think I'll just make sure to carry a few more strips of jerky and an extra canteen with me."

Rithus' eyes got wide and he waved his hands in front of him defensively. "I... I'm not saying I would do that. I just feel like I can understand where the-"

Orison laughed. "I get it. I get it. It's a good thing to try understanding why people do what they do. You never know what little thing might make it easier to help a friend or defeat an enemy. If I'd warn about anything, I'd suggest not getting too nosy about things or offering advice when it's not wanted. Showing a little understanding will help to make someone feel closer to you but too much and they might feel threatened or angry instead. I feel a little silly saying that to you, though. The 'shadow in your bones' is probably far more qualified than I am in emotional matters."

Rithus shook his head. "Not really. People are too contrary. Half the time, I'm afraid of saying things because people lie to themselves and hate that they like things or like that they hate things. It's so foolish."

Orison hesitated for a moment and then said. "I don't feel comfortable talking about this but you've probably already figured out that I'm like two different people that got rolled up together?"

Rithus nodded.

"That's because I am. One half of me is a barely teenage boy and the other half is a fully grown man. If I'm brutally honest, that other half wasn't really that mature either but at the very least, he lived quite a bit longer... I won't go into a big story about it but because of that, I have some pretty decent insight into why people can be so contrary.

"In smaller ways, everybody is two people. There's is the person that you were born to be and there's the person that experience makes you. To boil it down as simple as possible, it's nature versus nurture. The conflict between the two produces those contradictions."

Rithus looked like he'd been hit by lightning, a violent explosion of epiphany illuminating muddled part of his understanding.

Being a person who'd experienced that sensation a few times, Orison said, "Mull that over and if you want to talk about it some more another time, we can. As for me, I'm going to go warm up my lunch and take it easy for a bit. I've got a sparring session lined up with our proprietress this evening."