Weight of Worlds

Ranvir struggled through physical as he faced Esmund down in another game of King Stick—Vigo was way too fond of that game—something he’d yet to win at. There were a few other games he could beat his friend at. Ones that relied more on stamina than speed. Esmund would eventually wear himself down, allowing Ranvir to snatch the victory.

As Ranvir ran between the sticks, hoping the draw the game out to his advantage, he couldn’t help but marvel that he was actually able to jog at this pace at all.

Two weeks ago he would’ve been completely done for, by the end of the morning run. Yet here he was, able to, if not quite run, then at least move at a speed beyond a mere stumble. Still he was slowing down, not as much as Esmund. Not that it mattered much. Just as Ranvir seemed to have gotten more stamina, so had his opponent gained speed.

Esmund might not get the farthest, but the top speed would belong to him. Still, he was almost as good at maintaining his speed, as Ranvir.

It was another defeat in slow motion, as Esmund slowly ran down all the sticks and claimed the token. Though they had value as coins, interchangeable with a silver witness, their most frequent use was the allowance of a break during class. Which Esmund also made judicial use of.

After physical, Ranvir and Esmund parted ways with Sansir and Grev. On the walk to their field, Ranvir spotted a crew of workers next to one of the buildings. He’d noticed them before, when they’d been circling the complex on their warm up.

At that point, they been setting up and not doing a lot of actual work. Now, however, Ranvir could see they had placed a block stone, sitting at the bottom of the building, which corresponded to a gap in the wall, high on the facade.

They had established a lattice on the side of the building. As he watched someone threw rope down to the workers on the ground.

“Crazy, isn’t it?” Esmund asked, he too was watching as the workers put tension on the rope. The stone started rising from the ground, slowly lifting into the air under the groans of wood and worker alike. “They can do that without any abilities, at all.”

Ranvir didn’t reply watching them intently. It was near unbelievable what they could achieve with a bit of rope, some wood and a tiny bit of metal. They were lifting something that weighed multiple times their own weight, maybe more than their combined weight. And they weren’t even straining too hard.

“I would be afraid the rope would break.” Esmund commented. The stone had now reached it peak and was being guided towards the gap in the wall, by a single worker.

The bell’s loud clash of metal on metal blew through the campus, shaking both Esmund and Ranvir out of their stupor.

“We have to hurry!” Esmund cried, rushing towards their field. Ranvir took off after him, though the both quickly devolved into groaning stumbles, before rallying into brisk walks.

They didn’t arrive before Svenar did, which neither of them expected to, so they still go punished. Which for Esmund was an additional twenty-five minutes of examining his tether.

Since there wasn’t a lot that Svenar could do to Ranvir, with it being his last day in their class, he was instead told to spend the time after the bell. He would just have to hurry to reach weapons.

Ranvir took the punishment with a nod, got his pad and sat down next to Esmund. Ranvir thought he sensed the entrance to tether-space, before even touching his chest, but he was unable to make it inside.

Pressing against his chest, the space opened easily and he dove in. The slightly upwards curving tether, slowly spun around itself, three tendrils of power reaching out from seemingly emptiness, into the middle of the room.

As he examined his tether, the familiar sensation of trance-like concentration came over him. With it his mind returned to the workers. Or more precisely, their tools. Not the block of stone, but the rope. Ranvir hadn’t been close enough to see their rope, but he’d it was a common sight at the village.

Strongly woven strands, that allowed humans to do amazing things. His intent ran over the three strands of his tether. When using a rope it was important to know exactly how much load it could bear, before it snapped. He didn’t know if a tether could snap, but the thought sent a shiver down his spine.

Gunnor had been using plenty of rope as a lumberjack. They would tie together multiple logs and put them on wagons, for merchants and caravans. If the rope broke, that could mean ruin for the merchant and the reputation of the entire village’s lumberjacks. If there were no merchants to sell to, then there was no money in the work.

The stress test was an important part of any lumberjack’s work. Ranvir’s eyes intent once more settled on his tether. How much could it handle?

He imagined a pair of hands grabbing both ends. Two massive hands appeared before him, reaching for the suddenly tiny seeming tether. Ranvir startled, white and red alarm ran through him, jolting him out of the space. Blinking rapidly down at his loosely curled hands, a little smile crept onto his face.

Entering the space, he once more fashioned the hands grabbing the tether. Perturbed, he realized the hands were too big. With only one hand pinching the tether, there was barely enough for the other to grab onto.

Considering for a moment, he imagined forth two tweezers to hold the tether on each end. They didn’t appear. They completely ignored his every attempt, intent, and all the force of his imagination. Checking, that he hadn’t gone crazy he made a hand, which appeared fine. He then made a tweezer for the hand to hold. The image was a little harder to maintain, but finally he had his little grabbers.

Imagining the other hand and accompanying tweezer, was relatively easy. Grabbing each end, he squeezed down hard. Despite the flimsy look of the tiny tweezers his mother used for socket settings, they were made of strong iron and were surprisingly durable.

Pulling on the tether, it stretched a little before becoming taut. Pulling harder sent a shiver through the entire space, almost ejecting him from it. But he managed to hold on and the sensation faded.

He tried pulling as hard as he could, but found he ran into a limit. Too hard and the space destabilized, painfully throwing him out. Instead, he tried to stay on that knife’s edge of just enough pressure.

The exercise became a drawn out struggle. Within a very short time, the familiar feeling of the tether-space trying to force him out appeared. Usually, it only appeared after more than ten minutes, currently he was sure he’d barely been there a minute.

Ranvir let out a groan, as the balance tipped and he pulled too hard. Suddenly, he was groaning, trying to remain seated his pad. There was still more than five minutes left, before the fifteen minutes of tether meditation was over. Last time he’d measured it, he’d nearly gone the entire quarter hour. Though he was sure he’d spent longer with it last night, or even yesterday after watching the field. This time he’d barely made it ten minutes. Realistically, it was closer to five since he kept accidentally pulling too hard, or let go which could also be shocking enough to push him out.

Ranvir lets out a quiet groan, as he leaned back on his pad slightly. Looking up towards the sun, it had moved past it’s zenith, but still sat high in the sky doing its best to melt them.

Reaching behind himself, Ranvir caught himself on his hands. Or he tried to. Instead, his arms folded underneath him and fell down on the grass field.

What the… Ranvir blinked at the sun. He pushed himself into a sitting position. It took way too much effort. Looking at his arms, he wondered if he’d broken them. Does using my hands inside tether-space affect them outside of it?

He flexed his fingers experimentally, something definitely didn’t feel right and it wasn’t just his arms. It was going on in his legs too. He remembered a few days earlier, when his legs had been struggling to hold his weight, but this was on a whole different level. He felt like his forearms might fold in half.

“Everything okay?” Ranvir startled at Teacher Svenar’s question, nearly causing him to fall. It was affecting his back too, though to a lesser degree. The older man had curious look on his face.

“I- I’m not sure…”

Svenar cocked his head. “What aren’t you sure about?”

“This sounds… Insane.”

“Okay?”

“I think my bones are tired.”

Teacher Svenar frowned at him. “Your bones are tired…” He repeated slowly. “From examining your tether?”

Ranvir paused, thinking about what he’d done. Maybe he wasn’t supposed to do that? Had he done something wrong? Oh Goddess, he’d played with the gift she’d blessed him with. He’d been committing heresy, right in the middle of class.

“Yes?” He tried to keep his voice calm and normal, but it came out high-pitched and confused.

The master raised a finger to scratch at his chin, letting out a long low sound as he considered. “Interesting. And you’re still feeling like that? Tired bones?”

Ranvir shook his arms. The feeling had abated somewhat, but not entirely. “Yes, sir.”

“Don’t re-enter your tether until you’re completely clear of the feeling.” Svenar clapped him on the shoulder. “It’s likely just a warning sign, like pain in your muscles. It can get a lot worse, before it gets bad for you. It’s just good to be aware of it.”

Ranvir nodded and the Teacher straightened walking through the class. He stopped briefly next to another student, exchanging a few quiet words with him. Ranvir recognized him as the kid who’d failed at cutting the stick.

When Svenar returned to the table and the sheltered candle, it had very nearly burned that allotted time.

Svenar called everyone out of their trances. Progress was fast, even from day-to-day. Ranvir’s first day at warp class, there’d barely been a handful or so tethered maintaining the exercise for all fifteen minutes. Now, there were more than ten, and the rest were getting close.

A large portion too, could manage some sort of expression of their power, even if it wasn’t anything like Dustball that Esmund had displayed. Ranvir glanced at his friend, as students lined up to cut the stick.

He had a clearly dismayed look on his face, as his competition got to the dummies before him. Ranvir felt a little smile cross his face, as the student Svenar had talked to, succeeded in cutting his stick. Svenar shook his hand and sent him over to one of the dummies.

A little while later and Esmund could finally stalk up. He quickly cut a stick in half, taking less than half the time, the other student did to gather the energy. Ranvir noted the glower on his brother’s face, as he stalked to his dummy and started working on his attacks.

These weren’t the small fast strikes he’d shown with Dustball, these were long sweeping slashes. Ranvir could imagine them moving through an army, like an enormous sword, slashing down enemies by the dozen. At least once they got strong enough. Right now, they were only barely scratching the wood.

Shaking his arm, Ranvir felt that he’d reached some kind of normal, and he returned to his tether. He considered not creating the hand-and-tweezer. However, remembering the contemptuous ease with which his friend had done what most in their class couldn’t, Ranvir knew he couldn’t let himself be limited. Not even by potential heresy.

He tired much faster, through the second attempt at manipulating his tether. He knew he was near the five-minute mark when he felt himself swaying his seat, dancing on the knifes-edge of the exercise. Though it felt more like twitching, than dancing, if he was being honest. He’d already failed multiple times, but during this attempt he leaned towards not pulling too hard, since that didn’t eject him as easily from the space.

And it didn’t, but he was getting tired. His grip slipped, but the space didn’t stabilize. It remained raw and unstable, as he tried to re-summon the tweezers. Normally, he was sure he would’ve been shoved out a long time ago, but for some reason he wasn’t this time. Not even by the fifteen minute mark, would the space normally feel like this.

“Are you sleeping?” Svenar’s voice cut through his trance, the sound caused enough of a distraction that he fell away from the tether.

Ranvir struggled to lift his head, to look at Svenar, the effort was monumental.

“I know you’re not just looking. I don’t know what you’re doing. I’ve never heard of anyone meditating on their tether enough to cause Over-Expression.” Svenar spoke quietly, lifting Ranvir’s arm. To his senses, it felt like the arm might melt through his teacher’s fingers. At least, all senses but his eyes. He could very clearly see, that his arm was floppy, but normal levels of floppy. Not the body melting levels, he was feeling. “Take a break. Do not re-enter your tether again today, maybe this evening before you go to bed, but don’t mess with it! In any way!”

Ranvir flinched as his teacher hissed those last words, but nodded. Well… he wiggled his head, but the intent was there.

“You should feel fine in another half hour or so, but don’t let that fool you. You haven’t recovered. You should still be good for weapons, though.” Svenar paused, staring intently at Ranvir for a long moment. “When you’re picking which tether class to continue with, I want you to consider mine.”

Ranvir blinked, but before he could follow up on the question, Svenar had returned to the front of the class. He’d already considered staying at warp, sure there was the rumors and comments, but he couldn’t see a class where that didn’t happen. But, Esmund was here and he liked Teacher Svenar.

Ranvir flopped until he faced the sun. The pure relaxing bliss of not having to hold up his body filled him with thick liquidy yellow-orange joy. It bubbled through him, escaping through his mouth in a smile.