Chapter 43: Chapter 43 Meditation on the move

Nathan thanked Khachi for the answers, then spoke about the help he wanted to develop his skill. “Like Sarah, I think I need to practice getting stuff thrown at me. But it’s not dodging practice, and I want the things thrown my way to not require a lot of effort to dodge. Except for the spells, those can just hit me.” Nathan raised his hands to indicate how little he cared about the idea of getting hit with magic.

Stella pouted a bit at the thought that her spells weren’t even threatening enough to require dodging.

Nathan grinned at her, rubbing it in a little bit. “It’s more about the distraction than anything else, I need to be able to deal with a lot of distraction while I use a skill. I think that’s where the development lies.”

Next, it was Khachi’s turn. He sighed. “No class-up for me, though I have a few developments related to my shield and armor that I will work on with Mother. As I mentioned before, I need to practice offensive and defensive use of Faith. This will require contemplation, prayer… and a willing target.

Once again everybody looked at Nathan.

“You know, I would like to think I serve another purpose in this outfit than a target dummy, but the longer I stick around the less sure of that I am.”

There was a general round of chuckles, and Stella commented. “You’re just such a large, durable target. You make it so easy to hit you.”

With that, they set to training. Nathan and Aarl started helping Sarah work on her jumping, mostly by tossing blunted training weapons she gave them. After that didn’t help, she had them each take a foot and try to throw her as far as possible, pushing off their hands to achieve some truly impressive air. She landed easily each time, rolling smoothly in the sand from a fifteen-foot leap.

She frowned back at them. “That was close… but not enough.” She wrinkled her nose adorably, frustrated by the lack of progress.

Aarl had an idea, and pointed to Stella. “Maybe she can throw you with a platform of conjured earth?”

The red-haired mage was desultorily practicing with some conjured earth. She had a few foot-long jagged blades of rock floating around her and was swinging them with flicks of her hands. It looked pretty cool, but Stella just looked sad.

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When she heard the suggestion, she snorted. “Oh, so I can graduate from throwing fireballs at my foes to throwing teammates at them?” After a moment she sighed. “Sorry, I’m just… upset. Air and stone aren’t flashy. I want explosions, magic that blinds the eye and deafens the ear.”

Aarl wasn’t entirely sympathetic. “They’ll be plenty useful. I’d rather have somebody that can fly than throw yet another type of destructive magic around. Or better yet, fly me around. Now, about that idea to throw Sarah…”

Stella waved her hand at him, then dug in her pockets. She pulled out a thin book, paging through it before studying a page. Still looking at the page, she started waving her hand. After a few moments a small stone platform appeared before her. It wobbled.

“Go ahead, hop on.”

Sarah jumped on, but was struggling to keep her balance as the platform wobbled.

Stella furrowed her brow as she frowned at the page. “And up.” The platform jerked up diagonally sending Sarah pinwheeling as it flew out from under her. It soared over the wall surrounding the training ground and smashed against the roof of a nearby building. Stella frowned even harder. “Hold on. What?” She gestured again, and another platform formed. This one was a little bigger.

Nathan stepped forward. “May I?”

Stella looked at him, waving uncaringly at the spell. “Sure. Break it.”

Nathan held his hand out and gently stroked the stone platform. It started dissolving away as his hand got close, but Nathan felt the earth mana that made up the spell. It was more complicated than the conjured stones Nathan had interacted with previously, because it was supposed to be guided, not just hurled or conjured in place. He focused on the strands of mana as Stella empowered one, causing the disintegrating platform to lurch upwards before the conjuration finished disintegrating from Nathan’s touch.

There were more strands in there than were necessary for conjuration or movement - some of them definitely looped back from the corners of the platform to the movement construct. A feedback loop to automatically stabilize it?

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