Vis- Metal

“Diago? Oh.” He registers I’m talking about the alupi, and smiles. “How droll. Don’t worry about that. Your arm?”

I frown, but see I’m not getting any more from him. Concentrate.

The hundred iron triangles I’ve been keeping as a snug layer of protection beneath my shirt begin to quiver. Slide, flowing upward and into the dangling sleeve on my left. Slowly they coalesce, fitting into place, filling out the cloth. At the end of it, the glimmering iron outline of a hand appears.

I calmly reach into my pocket, pull out a glove, and tug it over the smaller triangles that form the fingers, completely concealing any trace of the metal.

“Gods’ graves.” Relucia stares at me with what I think is a newfound respect.

“Indeed,” murmurs Ostius. A glint in his eye as he examines me. “How much control do you have?”

I raise my gloved metal hand, and slowly unfurl the middle finger in his direction.

“Oh you are fun, my boy. Relative Harmonics, I assume? Differently-sized pieces but all the same form, to most effectively use the link. You just need to know how you want them to fit together.” He paces around me. Squeezes the arm, confirms that it won’t move. “Low weight, mostly Will-locked except the joints. Easy enough to change its form when you need to. Yes. Hm. And you must have forged these, too! More reliable than stone, a little of your own Will already in every piece. Clever. Very clever.”

I restrain a scowl, annoyed that he deduced it all so quickly. Harmonic imbuing is one of the most difficult skills to learn, and mentally locking similar objects to one another comes at a high enough cost that it’s usually eschewed by Sextii. The benefits, generally, aren’t considered worth losing the majority of your Will on a single imbuing.

But there are two major advantages, for my purposes. The first is that after the initial outlay of Will, it’s much easier to add components to a Harmonic arrangement than it is to imbue them normally—it’s the only way I can control enough of these pieces at once to serve my purposes. And the second is that while difficult to initially construct, a Harmonic imbuing is actually quite easy to maintain once it’s established.

“And your mask?” Ostius has finished his inspection, though still looks almost childlike in his apparent delight at my ingenuity.

I separate more triangular pieces from my chest, this time letting them move up and settle over my head. They soon sit warm against my cheeks and scalp, a complete metallic encasing of my face, hair, and neck. The only openings are for my eyes, which will be completely black once I pour the last of my Will into self-imbuing, and a thin slit to breathe through. I know from looking in the mirror that the effect is eerie.

The Strength of the Few Chapter 49