Chapter Seventy-Two - Frenching

Chapter Seventy-Two - Frenching I was not ready for therapy, nor did I need it. Like, sure, I had a lot of shit going on, but I took breaks sometimes. I wasn't pushing myself too hard. And even if I did need someone to talk to, I could find someone in a loop that I wasn't going to keep to chat with. Plus, I had Mister Couchtop who had, so far, never repeated one of my secrets to anyone else. The company therapist was a middle-aged woman called Misses Peust. She was a serious, bored-faced woman with a clipboard and a small office that smelled like old carpet. Obviously, the company budget wasn't going to her. She asked me questions, and I dodged them as best I could when they came too close to stuff that mattered, and I tried to answer honestly otherwise. I didn't feel any better leaving her office than I did going in, with the exception of the relief that I got from being free. Moving back up to the floor with the rest of Squad B, I arrived in time to see Eldur talking with someone from the other squads... and Louise. I paused by the elevators, moving just to the side so I'd be out of the way, and then I kind of just stared. Eldur was talking to the man that I think was the Squad A leader. They were both frowning, looking over some sort of tablet and gesturing, but my attention kept shifting to the side, to Louise. She was standing with her arms crossed, nose slightly raised, as if the discussion going on was beneath her, and maybe it was. She was one of Luna Corp's C-rankers, one of the very best in the company, an elite. As far as I knew, she was technically part of Squad A, but only on occasions where they needed her. She didn't go into every portal they tackled, and I supposed that made sense. D-ranker battle pay was pretty damned good. C-ranker? They probably paid her the same as I made, but with the decimal point moved over once. Ah, but I was distracting myself with thoughts of money, as if that mattered. Louise radiated power in a way that I hadn't quite been able to feel as an E-ranker. There was a palpable aura around her. Was it stronger than before, or were my senses sharper? Eldur shook his head, gesturing at the tablet. Then he glanced up and happened to catch my eye. He paused, then raised a hand to wave me over. I looked behind me, then sighed and walked across the room. "Yes?" I asked. Eldur gestured to the other two. "I don't know if you've met yet. This is Steven, of Squad A." "Hello," I said, extending a hand to shake. The man took it and shook, then I glanced over at Louise, who stared back. She wasn't being rude, necessarily, but she did seem a little cold. "And hi! You're Louise, right? I've heard good things about you," I said. She had a mole on her inner thigh. I closed my eyes for a second and forced myself to refocus hard. "A pleasure," she replied. "Oh, that accent, are you French?" I asked. "Tu as une très joli accent." Louise blinked. "You speak French?" she asked. "Oui, je suis apprendre depuis quelques années," I said with a smile. She stared. "Let's stick to English. Si tu tiens à torturer le français, autant rester en anglais, non?" It took me a moment to translate that last one. 'If you're set on torturing French, might as well stick to English, right?' I almost Reloaded then and there as I felt my cheeks flush. "I-is anything wrong?" I asked Eldur instead of continuing to humiliate myself. "Nothing too big," Eldur said. "There's a recurring E-rank portal that we have jurisdiction over. But neither Squad A or B is able to schedule it in. It's a long-lasting portal that Squad A cleared out yesterday, but didn't close." "Right," I said. I think I knew the one he was talking about. More, I knew from my last week-long loop that this one had had... casualties. "No one's free to guard it?" "We're on guard duty tomorrow," Eldur said. "And we have out-of-town training," Steven said. "I can't spare anyone." "And we're booked all day," Eldur said. He glanced at me. "But we might not all be. It's a little early for solo work, but this is about as easy as it gets, and you haven't been trained for the kind of body-guarding work we'll be doing tomorrow anyway. What do you say?" "You want me to guard the portal, solo?" I asked. Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. "Is that wise?" Louise asked, speaking up. "She is new, non?" "I'm capable enough," I defended myself. She gave me a cold, judgemental look that made my knees wobble a bit. Fuck me, she was hot. That kind of bitchy attitude would not fly if she wasn't an easy nine-out-of-ten. As it was, she was beautiful enough that the attitude just came off as a warm simmer instead of the full-on Karen-tier bullshit it was. Or maybe that was just me. I had a weakness. "She's been good," Eldur said. "And this isn't exactly difficult work. The portal was cleared out. There shouldn't be anything dangerous within. Just keep an eye out on the E-rankers, try not to look like you're bored even if you are, and respect the Squad E2 leader." Squad E2? I had been under Squad E4 back in the day, but we had worked together a few times. "I can do that," I said. "I have some spells to practice anyway, it would be nice to carve them out in a portal world." Eldur nodded then glanced at Steven. Steven tsked, but nodded as well. "Fine. I'd rather have at least two people though." "And I can't spare more than one," Eldur said. It seemed like that was that. I was dismissed a few moments later, then ran off with my tail between my legs. Fortunately, I found someone to help me distract myself. Sol, who was in the kitchen, looking out of the window while rubbing at his chest. "Hey," I said as I came up behind him. "You good?" "Yeah, yeah fine," he said. He pulled out a little paper-wrapped packet of antacids and popped one into his mouth. "What's up?" "Ah, not much. But hey, you know magic well, right?" He hummed, then nodded. "Well-enough. I studied it in college. Bachelors of magical studies." "Huh. How does that work with the embargo on the whole emotional-aspect of magic?" I asked. "It doesn't apply to everyone," he said. "Honestly, it's kind of an open secret." And one that I didn't know. "Anyway, I asked because I saw something. Or met someone, I guess." "Hm?" "He was a spark mage? Electricity?" Changing Becky to a 'he' last minute seemed wise. "He could do a few spells, but when I asked, he said that it wasn't carved magic. How does that work?" "Oh," Sol said, perking up. I think this subject was his jam. I could ask Terry, but she was a bit flighty, and Dharti, while super knowledgeable, was more fixed in her own type of magic. "So, there's generally three... four ways of casting a spell. The first is through an emotional outburst, and that's generally a terrible way to cast. It's random, it's expensive in terms of magical energy, and it's chaotic. Don't do that." "Got it," I said. "The second is innate magic. That's what spell that's written in the centre of your core. Everyone has one. Almost. Some people's innate magic is a passive spell, most have something between levels one and three. Usually, when you ascend it improves." I blinked. That was new. My innate spell was my Save-and-Reload ability. Would it improve on ascending C? How? Now I was a little worried. What if it side-graded? What if it changed into something worse? Sol couldn't read my mind, so he went on. "Then there's carved magic. You learn the form of a spell, carve the shape from your core over time, perfect the shape, and you can then cast that spell whenever." "Okay," I said. "And finally, there's freeform casting." He looked around, then took a few quick steps to a cupboard where he picked up a cup. He placed it on the counter, then frowned at it. Then water coalesced out of the air and poured into it until it was half full. He let out a breath, as if that had been hard. "Free form means taking magic from our core, expelling it, then twisting it into the shape of a spell." "Is that better?" I asked. "Worse in literally every way from carved casting. It's less efficient, takes more live-practice, is more prone to failure, and can be disrupted by shifts in ambient magic. I guess the only advantage is that with practice, you can shave seconds off of a spell, and in some rare situations, it might be less magically expensive, even if it's less efficient." "How's that?" I asked. "Ah, you can make it so that the spell draws ambient magic to fuel itself, but you still need to feed the right parts of it emotionally-laden magic, so... yeah, it's really not worth it." "Cool, cool," I said. That gave me something to think on. ***