Soul Merger

Fili looked over the instructions for the practice chip she'd made. It was madness to waste good mithril on an experimental chip, so smart mages did a copper test chip first. They burnt out after a couple of uses, but that was enough to tell if the spell would work.

Through an absolute miracle her new limiter worked after the third try, but one of the spells she'd just created had failed miserably. Somewhere in the spell lines she'd screwed up and the earth and fire manipulations were getting the wrong amount of energy.

"Fuck!"

Fili nearly jumped out of her skin. The next table over Akari's tail was bristling as well. She looked over to see Alissa stab her new sword straight through a wooden training dummy before taking a deep breath and putting it away. The succubus merge then strode off the field towards the sitting area.

It was probably a bad idea to tell the woman she looked even sexier when she was angry, so instead Fili settled for "Harder to use True Techniques than you'd guessed? Or is something else wrong?"

"I can't even use my normal techniques," Alissa snapped. "Something's wrong with how my magic is flowing, it's-!" She shook her head and sighed. "Sorry, I think I need to take a break to think about things."

The woman smiled and sent Fili's heart into a flip flop. "Mind distracting me with some magical technobabble or should I bother Akari?"

"Um, well I can try to distract you." Fili put the spell she'd been crafting flat on the table so the other woman could see it. "I've got something wrong with this spell here, which is kinda embarrassing because it's one of the first ones I made."

Alissa nodded. "Well I have no idea about how magic works, so you'd have to explain things from the top."

Fili noticed Akari shift over to look over her shoulder, so she decided it was okay to geek out a bit. "So, first up at the top is the spell to pull instructions from the limiter and core functions. That's basic stuff, so it's kinda ingrained into spells these days. But if you don't include it, nothing will work right."

"Hm? But what about child manifestation?" Alissa asked. "I know kids don't have that equipment."

"I'm curious how people like Rosalina can throw around lightning as well," Akari added.

"Merges can skip steps because the energy path is innate to their being," Fili explained. "As for child manifestation; there's a reason it's dangerous. Very small spells can be controlled by pure will. But anything bigger than a candle flame should be done properly.

"Anyway after that I clarify the energy put in to prevent overdraw," Fili continued, pointing at each line. "Then the targeting, using my will. I have it at the start before the rest of the spell because I'm not planning on moving it around."

Alissa looked at the line curiously. "I thought you said targeting was super difficult? Seems like you've got it there in one line."

Fili shook her head. "It's one line here. It's like three hundred in the core. And it's complicated enough to make my head hurt. On top of that this is the easy version. I hear before we developed intent based spells they had to map the entire world in order to target something with a spell."

The other women's shocked expressions were great. It was always fun to drop those facts on newbies to magic. "They needed to map the whole world just to hit a single person with a fireball?" Alissa asked.

"They could map the entire world accurately? Most of our current maps are using information that's decades old," Akari said.

"Yes to both. The world of the Fall was very different," Fili said. She turned back to her own spell. "Anyway after that is the body of the spell. Basically it keeps the spell running until I stop it or run out of energy." She tapped the two lines within then the rituals that corresponded to those commands. "This top one liquifies the ground in the area, then the one below boils the liquid."

Alissa blinked then nodded. "Oh this is the spell you used on that slime? I suppose it was very effective."

"Yeah." Alissa had remembered that? Fili's heart did a little flip flop again so she pushed it down and forced her eyes back to the spell. "I've improved it obviously, but something went wrong with my edits."

"Um," Akari chewed her lip. "I don't know mage spellwork, but where do you add additional energy into the spell? I know that's required for longer lasting magic."

Fili blinked "Eh, it's right up..." She looked at the spell again. The energy accumulation was outside her main loop. "Oh."

"Found the problem?" Alissa asked.

Fili gave a big sigh. It was always something stupid like this. "Yeah... Well at least that's handled. Time to stamp another temp and try again."

Alissa gave her a pat on the shoulder which took a fair amount of the sting out. "Well hopefully that's that." The woman gave her own sigh and Fili had to look away again. "Now to solve my own problem I guess."

"Would now be a good time to tell you Ibaraki has some suggestions?" Akari asked quietly.

Well, wasn't that interesting. The distinctions between the thought constructs of gods and oni were fairly convoluted, but maybe Fili could get some info out of this. She slid back and grabbed some note paper as Alissa replied "Yeah, might as well. Now that I'm not seething."

As Akari shifted to her other persona Fili started writing. Oh she'd lucked out in a lot of ways today.

Alissa forced herself to relax as Akari's body language shifted. Ibaraki was sure to try to piss her off, so if she wanted to get anything out of the conversation she'd need to keep her calm.

Ibaraki took a drink while placing a foot on a nearby chair. "Right, that fancy sword is supposed to let you use your merge to actually throw out real hits instead of that pathetic human poking right?"

"Well that is one way of putting it," Alissa said. The worst way of putting it, but close enough to maybe work with.

"So what do you expect to happen if you aren't using your merge?" Ibaraki said. "You're a succubus merge, but your attacks ain't sexy, sadistic, or even showy. It's all form over function shit. Precise mechanical attacks. How do you expect to draw on a succubus' power without some T and A?"

Alissa felt her teeth grinding and forced herself to unclench her jaw. "What are you on about? I'm 'not showing enough of my body' is your answer? I'm pretty sure my clothing isn't the problem." She pushed forwards her assets to demonstrate the point, ignoring poor Fili's choking to the side.

The oni rolled her eyes. "It ain't the clothes, it's the attitude. You're trying to be a sexless emotionless succubus. Ain't gonna fly. You gotta show off your tits like you did just there, maybe toy with your opponent. Hell, at the very least look at them with disgust as you shank them."

Her hands as well as her jaw were tightening up now. Alissa forced herself to breathe. In and out. In and out. Loosen the jaw and unclench the hands. "I'm not going to act like that monster," she managed to say.

"Don't need to. But you gotta act like a monster. Or at least a little bit like one. Try the evil look maybe." Ibaraki smiled, "Use the one you're giving me right now. Bet all kinds of masochists would love you to step on them with that glare.."

Breathe in, breathe out. Alissa took a few moments to recover then forced herself to think clearly about what Ibaraki was saying. It made some sense. There had to be other ways to unlock her merge powers, like finding the right energy types. But this was something she could do right now, and being angry at the training dummy and the annoying oni heckling her was something she could do without feeling bad.

"Fine." She turned and walked back to the training dummy. Time to try again. Precise Stab and she'd make sure the target knew they were dead.

Alissa fell into her stance and picked the dummy's 'neck' as a target. Carotid artery would be to the side. Prepare, pick the target, and....

She stepped forwards, thrusting. Power flowed through her arm into the blade. She felt the sword as it rushed forwards and slammed into the wooden neck, burying deep.

But it wasn't right. It wasn't a Precise Stab. She hit the target, but it wouldn't be perfect like the strike should be. Too slow and not precise enough. What was she missing?

Alissa pulled her blade free and stepped back. It felt like she'd made progress. She was on the right path. But something was still wrong. What was the next step?

She considered what she was doing. Her attack had improved when she'd followed Ibaraki's advice. But the only details that had really been altered was her mindset and emotional state. The attack was the same, and the effects would be the same. Precise Stab was one of the basics. A perfect thrust that could instantly end an opponent.

An idea hit her. That was the problem wasn't it? It was, well, precise. Cold clinical death.

Even if nothing else actually changed she couldn't be using a Precise Stab. Her attack couldn't be about precision. It had to lean into her merge. This wasn't a precision strike to hit a special point. It was a stab to get rid of the worthless trash in front of her. That it was perfectly aimed was just a side effect.

She fell back into the stance and looked over the training dummy again. Time to target the other side. Left carotid. She'd kill the target and leave it to rot.

She stepped forwards, thrusting. Her arm and the blade tingled with power as the symbols glowed red, and the universe helped her forwards.

The blade sank into the wood with barely any resistance at all. It was almost pathetic. Alissa pulled the sword out with a casual flick and looked at the dummy. The blow would have left any humanoid enemy desperately trying to keep their blood in, assuming they didn't just keel over from shock.

That would do nicely.

"Well!" Rosalina's voice range out over the training area. Alissa looked up to see the priestess and Clara wandering over. "It seems you figured out your technique. Guess that means we're all ready to do a real test run?"

"I figured out how to use a single technique," Alissa corrected. "And it's not the best method either. It needs work."

Fili raised her hand a little. "I still have a few spells to test too."

"Hm, but you think you'll be ready soon? There's only so much you can learn from stabbing a wooden dummy" Rosalina said. "There's a lot of jobs out there, and it'd be a shame to miss out."

That got Alissa's attention. "So the rumors that the labyrinths have been more active are true?"

Clara nodded. "Heard that there's been two more Lizardman hordes trying to form up since we killed that last one. Other labyrinths have seen more activity as well."

That was interesting, and a little worrying. Not much she could do about the bigger problem though. "What labyrinth were you thinking about hitting? We might be safe with a second layer run or even a third one depending."

"The Hedge Rows," Rosalina replied. "Fire weakness, and none of us have dryad pollen allergies." A serious look flickered over her face. "Also there won't be many people cleaning out the third layer. First and second are popular but all the good stuff can be found up closer to the top with less danger."

And with problems in the other labyrinths, the organized hunting groups the churches and guilds used to keep labyrinths in check wouldn't be wandering outside their usual hunting grounds, Alissa mentally added. It wasn't charity work but it seemed Rosalina had some altruistic goals behind her desire to go hunting.

The question then was, were they up for fighting dryads?. Alissa's techniques weren't going to be that good without a lot more experimentation. But she could fight the physical attacks of the wood creatures with half assed techniques. "So long as Fili and Akari are up for it, I suppose we could do a run at the Hedge Rows. I'll mostly be there for trap duty."

Fili nodded. "If I get the rest of my spells done today, sure."

"Ibaraki will be happy to go," Akari said. Which dodged the question a little but Alissa guessed it was fine.

"Guess I'll get a chance to test out some fire arrows," Clara said. "Gotta bring a big pack to make up the cost though."

Rosalina laughed. "We'll get at least some treant materials so that should be fine. Then we're set. At least if Fili's spells keep working as well as they have. Hopefully we'll have a nice walk in the woods tomorrow."

Alissa snorted. The Hedge Rows were a mess of thorns and angry plant monsters, not a picnic area. But it would be a good real test of their skills.

For now she turned back to the dummy. Maybe she could get a bit more insight into True Techniques.