Wizardness

“Hey, Dar’kid.” Tobias said.
“Did you just call me Dark Kid?” Dar’kid asked.
“Well, it’s more Dar kid, than Dark kid, but it’s derived from that. It’s not like we don’t call other people by similar sort of names -“
“It’s fine. It’s nicer than mine, I call you ‘That fuckin asshole’ or Tafa.” Dar’kid grinned.
“Wow.” Tobias laughed.
“Can you believe what Lee called CuDahL?”
“Cuddle? Who’s cuddle?”
“You call her Raven, I call her Chubby Dark Haired Lady, Cu-Dah-L. Regardless, he called her Ronlique. A woman that looks and acts like her is called Ronlique? One of my people’s Goddesses? No, that’s not ok.”
“Goddess? Plural?”
“What did you think that Lord of the Stars was the only God? No, there are plenty of other pantheons. Wait, did you grow up ONLY learning about The Lord of the Stars was the only God?” Dar’kid whistled.
“My father was very devout and my mother was a non-believer.”
“A non-believer, how?”
Tobias shrugged, “Speaking of not believing, you need to change your mental name for her from CuDaHL, that’s not ok. You know that right?”
“Sure, That Fucking Asshole. Do you want me to change your name too?”
“No, seems accurate.” Tobias gave a weak smile.
“I’m not calling her Ronlique.”
“Fine. Not what I’m asking. Tell me about Ronlique.”
“Fucking ignorant barbarian.” Dar’kid grinned. “My mother was a Ronlique-ian priest and had the spark of her primary aspect, Healing. So I heard a lot about Ronlique. She’s a beautiful large woman. With big tits. But people worship her because she’s a giver, she gives grace to people that have failed and fallen. She’ll heal and help anyone. Another aspect is that she has the ability to spark fertility in anyone that’s lost it. She can even switch the type of fertility in someone.
“My mother saved a lot of people. She was midwife to kings and queens. Until…”
Tobias touched Dar’kid’s shoulder. “Maybe Raven won’t live up to your mother. That’s a tall order. She’s certainly an aspect of Ronlique, though. She’s already saved your life a few times over and mine more than I’d like to remember.
“We’ve all given each other names based on our descriptions of each other. You’re Dar’kid, She’s Raven, Red’s Red, the Giant is Plain, Giggles is laughing man. I’m Tark or That Fucking Asshole. Maybe we gave her that name in an Echo. Because we thought the name suited her, based on the sparks she has.”
Dar’kid searched Tobias’s face. He looked away suddenly. Tobias saw him quickly wipe a tear from his cheek.
“Now,” Tobias said, “I need to talk with you about planning out this new barracks of ours.”
“Why can’t Commander Lee just tell us?”
“He’s pretty messed up right now. I tore his connection with me. Which, might have snuffed out his spark, so…”
“By the Stars.”
“Aside from that, we’re the Good God Damn, right? We probably should learn how to plan things? We’re going to be involved in a real battle at some point. We should be able to plan logistics. If Lee just tells us, we aren’t going to learn.”
“Like that’s something I want to learn,” Dar’kid scoffed.
“To be, That Fucking Asshole about it, I need your input on it.”
The two of them discussed what Dar’kid understood of the logistics of building th barracks. It wasn’t much, but Tobias got a much better understanding of the building material needs for the structure. Dar’kid pointed him towards either TaFuL (That fucking lunatic) or BiStuM (Big Stupid Man) for more ideas on how to build it.
Tobias decided to head over to his normal thinking rock to consider what Dar’kid had told him. He found a journal there. He opened it up and found, in very fine clean writing, “Logistics Plan for Barracks” written on the first page. The first several pages was background on the types of materials they would need by phase. The second section was clear description of phase. The last section was an estimated time line of each phase.
In the pages after that were plans for dealing with “potential eventualities” like finding a boulder the size of the Delta barracks. Which seemed very specific.
“I knew you’d come out here, eventually.” Giggles said behind him.
“You have beautiful writing.” He turned to look at Giggles. “Did you get this from your Echos?”
“Yea. It seemed prudent. Besides,” He laughed, “You told me to learn from them.”
“That’s true. Wait, how are you standing there?”
Giggles burst into his classic high pitched giggle, “It just appeared, right when Commander Lee cracked his head. Pop! My leg was there.” Giggles did a little jig.
“That feels SOOO Good you have no idea.” He collapsed into a fit of giggles again. Then he lurched himself into hug, pulling Tobias close. “Whatever you did. Thank you so much.”
Tobias felt a shift. He suddenly saw his threads with everyone on the island. He didn’t just have a thread with Giggles, it was a wire. They were connected in a completely different way than anyone else. He saw that his threads were weakest with the two women, but with the 3 other men, they were strong.
He noticed thin, weak connections with the halflings but there was a void with Lee.
The vision dropped away for Tobias. He looked up at Giggles, who was blinking rapidly.
“Are you ok?” Tobias asked.
“I just had the strangest feeling. Then it was gone. I, don’t know.” He laughed nervously. “Well, you take that to Commander Lee. I’m going to see if Big Guy wants to go for a quick hike.” He grinned and ran off.
Tobias looked at the jounral and grimaced. He walked back to the barracks. He hesitated briefly at the door.
Pushing the door open, he found Red and Raven talking at the table, while Lee stared into the fire.
“How is he?”
“He’s doing better. I think he was partially in shock.” Raven said.
“That’s good.” Tobias swallowed, “Did I, uh, actually snuff out his spark.”
Raven shook her head, “No, I don’t think so. I think he’ll find it again.”
“Did you feel anything when, you know.”
“No”
“Yes.” Red said.
“What was it?”
“A cut. I felt removed from him.”
Raven looked at her sharply, “What do you mean by that?”
“You know how when Laughing Man lost his leg, we all felt it? Well, he was still doing something to me, I don’t know what. He was commanding me in some way.”
Raven scowled and moved to get up. Red laid a hand on her arm. “It’s ok. I’m glad it’s gone. I think there was a power struggle and Tark won. He won and now we’re his fist, right?”
“Tark, what does Rose mean by that?”
“My spark, it’s a command spark, right? Well, it can command in at least two ways. Domination and Team. At least that’s how I’m thinking of them. Lee dominated. I could have gone down that path.” Tobias sighed, “The two of you set me straight when I was drunk. You made sure I knew that my behavior, my domination, wasn’t acceptable.
“Plain pointed out that I didn’t have to do everything. I saw and sometime still do, see our threads. I saw I could strengthen Fist threads by suggesting or ordering people to sort the barracks out, without me. So, that’s what II did. It tied you all to me too.”
“So are we tied tightly to you? Are you dominating us?” Raven asked.
“No, you’re barely tied to me. The two of you are very tightly connected though.”
Red blushed at that.
“That’s not my concern though. My concern is that you aren’t connected much to the rest of the Fist. I’d like ideas of how to integrate the two of you more. We need to be a team. I’d rather be in a web of a team, than a puppet master.”
“Sure, we’ll think on it, won’t we Iris?”
“I have some ideas already, Rose.”
“Thanks. I have to talk with Commander Lee. Giggles gave me a plan.”
“Good luck” they said in unison.
“Thanks.”
The door opened as the halflings appeared to clean up the table.
“I still have it!” Lee cried suddenly.