Infodumping And Next Steps

She smiles back, her eyes sparkling, before she launches into an explanation. “In a barrier that we control, if a Fateweaver is powerful enough, they’re basically a god. We’re not actually of course, but it feels like it sometimes. Fateweavers have the ability to manifest things inside barriers we own and control. It’s a lot harder to do it inside an already established barrier rather than one we’ve just created but with enough power and skill, it’s possible.”

“We can also change the flow of time inside our barriers. I’ve heard of Fateweavers who can slow down time to as much as a month of experienced time in a single real day, a 30 to 1 ratio. Some can speed time up as well, although that’s much harder. It only works under specific conditions, but it’s really cool.”

“And yes, we can keep people from dying sometimes. But only under specific conditions. That’s actually where we get our name from. Our skills revolve around barriers, and all things to do with them, their landscape, their type, the flow of time within them, everything like that. We developed a way to read slightly ahead in the flow of time in our barriers.”

“It’s nothing big, we can’t predict the future or anything like that, and if we tried to understand anything about it, we would probably go crazy. But, we can put a type of trigger in somebody that reacts when something is about to happen, like a person dying. We most often use that in tournaments to teleport fighters away from battle just before they’re killed, because people want to fight to the ****, but not actually die.”

“Do you use it in active combat situations? Like wars? It sounds like that would be massive in a proper fight.” I ask, baffled. It feels strange to use the word ‘war’ in relation to the abyss, but I guess it does happen. The past few days have taught me that the abyss is far bigger than I really know, and I have a feeling that I haven’t seen anything yet compared to what’s out there.

Elsa shakes her head. “You’re right, it does sound like it would be huge in a real fight. The problem is that this magic is extremely fragile and **** to tampering. This kind of magic can’t be used to harm somebody, but it’s very easy for a friendly Fateweaver to put that trigger in place, and for an enemy Fateweaver to just turn it off.”

“Most people can’t feel the magic, whether it’s working properly or not.” She continues. I nod in understanding. “Ahh okay, so that means that you might get people running around thinking they’re invincible when they actually aren’t.” She nods, smiling. She seems happy that I’ve understood. “Exactly! And there are other problems too.”

“Fateweavers need to be in the barrier for the magic to work. If we get knocked out, killed, or we leave the barrier, the magic won’t work. We also usually can’t use it for anything other than teleporting somebody to a different part of the same barrier. The exception is stablelink barriers. If you open a barrier inside one of those, we can anchor the magic to the stablelink barrier.”

She looks at the ceiling as she continues to remember information about her passion for us. “And also, it’s very dangerous for us to be in an active warzone. Because of the magic we use, we usually aren’t very good fighters and can’t really defend ourselves. We can use tricks to escape, but that’s about it.”

“And besides all of that, Fateweavers are neutral anyway. We don’t choose sides in wars, and you’ll never see somebody who works for the Fateweaver guild, in a war. Some Fateweavers join other guilds and leave our organisation, but especially around here, most of us choose not to. It’s a lot safer for us this way.” She finishes, taking a sip of water.

“You really love this stuff.” Ivy points out, smiling at her. Elsa blushes slightly. “I’m sorry for rambling. I really do love this stuff.” She says, in the same, enchantingly gentle voice as always. Ivy looks her in the eyes. “Don’t ever apologise for rambling. It’s really nice how passionate you are about it. You’re adorable.” Ivy emphasises sincerely.

Elsa’s blush deepens and she smiles at Ivy happily. “What other things are you passionate about?” Mia asks, trying to move the conversation to more personal topics. “I love painting, nature in general, and helping people.” Elsa replies, opening up more to us. “That’s really cool! What kinds of things do you paint?” Mia asks.

The conversation continues through the rest of lunch, with Elsa slowly getting more comfortable talking to us on a personal level. It’s mostly Mia and Ivy leading the conversation with her. I’m sitting back digesting most of the information that Elsa said about barriers and Fateweaving. I know Mia well enough to know that she’s just as interested in Elsa as I am, and I can feel Ivy’s interest in her through our mental bond.

Having a Fateweaver in our guild sounds like it would be hugely advantageous, especially if she can slow down time for us. That would mean we could train a huge amount in a short period of time, and get stronger much more quickly than otherwise. And of course, Elsa becoming one of our partners sounds amazing too.

We obviously don’t know her very well, but looking around the table, I can tell that all four of us get a really good vibe from her. We’ll have to see if we can get to know her more past this, and if she has any interest in joining our guild, our relationship, or both.

True to form, Skylar barely says anything through the whole conversation. Despite opening up to us, that doesn’t mean that she’s open to everybody, and she still doesn’t trust easily. I get the feeling that she’s waiting to see what happens, and using how Elsa interacts with Mia and Ivy to gauge whether or not to trust her. Cautious, but I can’t blame her.

Eventually we finish lunch and Ivy starts to collect our plates and clean up. Elsa offers to help but Ivy declines, saying that she’s a guest and guests don’t help. Our conversation continues, with Elsa clearly being comfortable talking to us, until she looks at the time and realises that she should probably get back to her job.

We bid her farewell, but not before Mia asks Elsa for her number, so in her words, we can hang out more together. Elsa smiles and exchanges numbers with all four of us, before walking outside to admire the landscape one last time and exiting the barrier.

It takes all of about two seconds for Mia to start.

“Elsa is SO CUTE! She gives me cute aggression, I really wanna just squish her little face and tickle her just so I can hear her giggle.” She exclaims and we laugh. “I agree, she’s adorable.” Ivy says. “I like her.” Skylar puts in. “We’re all in agreement then that we’ll try to get closer with her?” I ask. I receive nods all round.

“Did you observe her?” Mia asks. I shake my head, facepalming. “No, I was too busy listening to her talk and wishing that I could squish cuddle her.” I chuckle. “Do it next time, we gotta see how powerful she is. Even if she isn’t interested in us romantically, getting her to join our guild could be really good for us.” Mia says, and I nod in agreement.

“Actually speaking of, I reckon we should talk about what’s next for us.” I say, and all three of them perk up slightly. I lay out my thoughts on the matter. “So, we have a new home. Thanks to Elsa, we know for certain that we’re safe here. I think having our exit point be the Fateweaver outpost is a good idea, because we know nobody is going to attack us there.”

I pause to see their reaction and my girlfriends nod in agreement. “The two basic things that we need right now in order to overthrow Mathias are more power and more people. I don’t know if that guy we met at the Opera House was Mathias, but we need to use him as a baseline. The achievement said that he was over three times my level, putting him at a minimum of level 138.”

Mia whistles at that and I nod. “Yeah it’s bad. We’re heavily outmatched. We can all probably train to get that powerful, but it’s going to take a long time. It’ll be a lot better if we have more people to help us. That means we need to recruit more members for our guild. Elsa is an obvious choice, if we can.”

More nods in response. “But besides her, the first person that comes to mind for me is Paige. How are things going with her?” I direct the question to Mia, who thinks for a moment. “Honestly, she would probably join our guild now if we gave her the opportunity. The main thing is that she’s shy, but she definitely wants the same thing we do, if you follow.”

“Making Sydney better?” I confirm and Mia nods. “Would you be able to text her and see if she’s up for meeting the rest of us?” I ask. “Sure, we’ll see what she says.” “Apart from that, the other two people who come to mind are Olivia and Belle.” I say. “Belle is terrifying.” Skylar puts in and I laugh. “She is. She’s also terrifyingly hot, but that’s besides the point.”

”She’s clearly powerful and knows what she’s doing, probably better than any of us do. I’m not sure if she would join our guild, but to be able to fight alongside her would be a massive advantage.” I can feel Ivy searching gently through my mind to figure out who Olivia is, and a moment later, a wave of understanding and satisfaction.

“Are you sure Olivia would join us?” Mia asks. “I’m pretty sure. She said she’d at least consider it the last time I talked to her, so I don’t think there’s any harm in at least asking.” I reply. A beep sounds from Mia’s phone and she looks at it, giggling happily. “Wow she responded quickly. She said that she’d love to meet you all and that she’s free this afternoon.”

“Sweet, any objections to hanging out with Paige this afternoon?” I ask Skylar and Ivy. “Don’t forget you promised that we’d buy kittens today!” Ivy pouts and I giggle. “I did promise that, yes. We’ll see what time Paige gets here and work around that, is that okay?” “As long as we get them today.” Ivy nods, satisfied.