The Siege of Ultopja 9 - Thunder Strikes Thrice [Catherine]

“It worked.” Catherine laughs as she stares through her own telescope. She sees Helena helping people out of the collapsed tent. “It really worked.” “Third Iteration.” Aclysia reminds her. After the one the immortal brought Catherine they overhauled the design several times. They also confirmed the functionality before, therefore Aclysia is slightly confused at Catherine’s enthusiasm. “Aclysia, there is a difference between testing and real action.”

Aclysia tilts her head, she doesn’t understand that. As there is no socialising to be had with the alchemist Catherine turns to Tang. “So, General, what do you think of this.” “Good.” Awkward silence. “Anything else?” “No. Don’t understand it. Works. High range. Good.” Catherine sighs, “You all are horrible to talk too.” She says and turns to the group of mages and alchemists. “Your task is to construct more of these ‘Railguns’ along the wall and keep them working. The council will soon create a new unit that will operate these, work together with that new unit as well as possible.” “Yes, Lady Catherine!” The magical working crew says in almost perfect unison and salutes as Catherine and the other two walks off.

“That will occupy most of our military mages for a while…How long is the recharge time on these things again?” “Twenty hours.” Aclysia answers. “Mhm, well it has a psychological impact so maybe that is enough for now.” Catherine says optimistically. “After all they will have no idea what just hit them.”

“Why the tent?” Aclysia asks at the bottom at the wall. “Pardon?” Catherine asks. “I wonder too. Why the tent. General stood right there.” Tang intervenes. Catherine suddenly finds herself between to very curious, calculating pairs of eyes. Smiling she just shrugs it off. “The wind just threw of the projectile, don’t worry about it..”

That is good enough for Tang but Aclysia is keeping her eyes on her as Catherine slowly backs away, still smiling. “Look, we have other worries. I will visit you again tomorrow, Aclysia.” The immortal nods, she can calculate the answers from Catherine’s behaviour anyway.

‘I really wish she wasn’t around sometimes.’ Catherine thinks as she walks away from the duo. The way Aclysia always looked at everything like a set of calculations she is currently solving gives her the creeps. It was already hard to keep secrets from Ulal but doing so from Aclysia is near impossible. ‘Just a good thing she can’t use Alteration anymore.’

The thought about the manipulative school of magic turns her a mood down a bit. It is one of the schools of magic Uklag has never taught her beyond the basics and Ulal never really picked up on it either. Unlike the other one, Conjuration, she can’t find many extended texts on the topic either. Estara does a pretty good job at censoring those. The few Alteration ‘experts’ of the cult are self-taught and at the level she had when she clumsily tried to persuade Uklag at their first meeting. In other words: They are all thrash compared to even her current abilities. “If only I could find an Alteration master.” She mumbles as she enters the foyer office.

Recently she has taken to enchanting her furniture with different smells to get the dusty book whiff out of her office. Today it smells like apples. “Good day, Lady Catherine.” Her brunette secretary greets her. “Hello, where is Amelia?” “Waiting inside.” “Good.”

Amelia already stands in the middle of the room and bows down immediately upon her teacher’s entrance. She probably heard Catherine coming through the door. “Good day, Lady Catherine. Was the test successful?” Catherine closes the door behind her before she answers. “Yes. Another weapon in our arsenal.” She says and sits down in her chair. Amelia sits down at another one at the side of the table without being asked to, she knows this ritual already.

“So, what have you learnt today?” Catherine asks as she pulls the first stack of paper towards her. “I visited the class for Soul Theory.” “Ah, tell me then. What are the three pillars of the mage?” Catherine asks. “Ehm…Body, Mind and Soul?” Catherine shakes her head, “Is that what the teacher told you?” Amelia nods, a bit nervous “Entirely correct.” Catherine takes a pen and writes her signature under the paper in front of her. The elegantly swung name Karstenstein now has a slight irony with Arlene signing similar orders on the other side of the wall. It would be even worse if Helena still held the orphanages name.

“Body, Mind and Soul. These three acts in accordance to each other. Can you give me an example?” Amelia jumps at the opportunity to shine, “Yes, stamina and mental fortitude are always the two things needed for magic and come from Body and Mind respectively. Their relevance greatly varies on the school though.” “Correct, but not what I asked.” Catherine giggles. Amelia is confused and ponders over the question. “I am sorry, Lady Catherine, but I don’t know the answer.”

Catherine fills a request document for grain and puts it to the side. “If one of the three suffers, the others are effected in some shape or form. If you bleed out, your concentration wavers and as you die your soul leaves your body. If an Alteration mage destroys your mind, the body goes into a state of shock and your Soul will become blank as memories are lost. Theory has it that, if you reduce a person’s soul, they will also lose access to their memories. We do not know because a reduced soul usually just flees its body, which then withers and turns to dust over a small amount of time. The theory could only be tested if you had some way to regenerate a person’s soul before they die. You got that?” Amelia has begun taking notes as soon as Catherine opened her mouth. Therefore, her answer is a quick, “Yes, Lady Catherine.”

“Good, what else did you…” In the foyer a tumult breaks out. “Wait, you can’t just barge in there without an appointment.” “I am sorry this is urgent.” The door flies open. Gasping for air Glenn holds his chest. “Catherine…rats…” “Rats?” Catherine’s eyes widen, “No, you don’t mean that…?” Glenn presses out a few more words, “Rats…in…the cornchamber…” Catherine jumps up and runs to the door. “I will see to this. Go get him some water!” Catherine commands her secretary.

She doesn’t even check if her command is abided by. As she runs out of the room. Neither does she have the mind to create the bubble of heated air around her that she usually uses instead of a mantle to protect her from the cold once outside. No, she storms through the streets, earning a lot of curious eyes following her.

Finally, she arrives at the corn chamber in the Anjar District. The giant, tower like buildings are part of the outer ring, where the buildings flow into the crater walls. Inside she sees the person she wants to see least right now. However she has to talk to her in order to find out what is going on. “TARZANA!”