The Aftermath - Part 8

Training continued for the whole family for several more days. Octavia wanted to go on with the pilgrimage, to learn more about the race that she had become, but it's not like she had any sort of deadline on that.

And besides, with a child now with them, it was even more prudent for them to become competent fighters to help keep her safe during the journey.

Octavia and Sylvia's training continued with Althea generally thrashing them in spars. But after a while, the thrashing became less frequent. She also taught them more advanced techniques, helping them to hone the skills they already had, attacking them with a variety of weapons so they could get used to blocking and dodging them. The list went on, and it was a gruelling time.

But, but the end of it, both of them agreed that it was well worth the effort.

Althea complimented them on how far they had come, and while they could not take her down in a fight, she had started to struggle against them, showing just how much they had improved.

They should be able to easily take on bandits and monsters on the road. They would still need to be careful about it, overconfidence can be a killer in its own right, but they now have the skills to take on such threats.

...

For Imeril, her training was much more tame compared to theirs. Now knowing how she was able to camouflage herself, Eris was able to tailor the training to her ability. It took some time to get it right, her ability being very new for Eris, but they managed to come up with a regime.

It generally came down to learning to control it better and finding ways to augment it.

Imeril needed to control her ability even better. Not that she couldn't already, but with a better understanding of it, and governance of how she uses it, she could improve it further.

The training boiled down to meditation to center herself, which for a hyperactive and enthusiastic child such as herself, was quite the challenge for her to do.

The other side of that was practice.

And while practice does make perfect, it was a little more than that.

The practice of her ability also involved a lot of experimentation. There was introducing various stimuli while she was using her ability, as well as wearing and using different magical objects when the illusion was in place.

Eris had all manner of magical fail-safes in place to protect her and anyone around her in case something happened, but thankfully, nothing did.

The stimuli that were introduced included things such as various potions, magical spells and even a few creatures and different people being active around her. Potions such as health and mana ones to name a few, were poured on different areas of whatever object she had become, to see if it affected anything. The potions ran down the solid illusion and just dripped off. That is until Imeril removed the illusion causing them to fall on her causing her to giggle at the mess it caused.

The idea was, that if it did mess with the illusion or cause her to drop it, then she would need to resist the feeling or sensation that occurred to maintain the form she looked like.

The same thing happened with spells, the creatures and having multiple strangers around her, making it so that she could keep her form up even if there was a battle happening nearby.

For the magical objects that were used in conjunction with her ability, this was looking to improve its hiding ability. As they had seen before, there were limitations with it, such as if she made a noise, it could be heard. If there was a monster that had a good sense of smell, they could probably find her too, and the illusion itself wasn't very strong.

Another limitation that was noticed was that Imeril wound up getting very tired after repeatedly using her ability. It was a full-body change, compared to Octavia and her eyes, so it probably took more out of you. But there was also the fact that she was still a child.

Whatever the cause, Eris brought along various magical amulets, necklaces, rings, and bracelets that had different abilities, to see how they interacted with her and the illusion.

Some had no real effect, not changing anything when she brought on the illusion. Others seemed to get in the way of it, disrupting whatever was inside Imeril that allowed her to use her ability.

But some proved beneficial.

One ring that Eris had, was one that alters one's eyesight. There wasn't much more to the description, and Eris wasn't even too sure whether it would help either, as the ring only ever improved your eyesight in a single way. And it did so differently for everyone.

When Octavia put it on, it made her vision go blurry. For Sylvia, everything had an orange hue, and for Eris, it makes everything look further away than it is. When trying it on again, it did the same thing for each of them, and apparently would never change.

It was an odd ring, and Eris couldn't even recall how it ended up in her possession. Many others had tried it, and they all got different results. Some were useless changes, others made things worse, but some did actually get improvements. Things became clearer, for others it magnified their vision.

For one individual it seemed to make everything grey but then highlighted everything made of wood. It was a useless change, but it did mean it was possible that someone out there would be able to see everything that had gold in it.

The possibilities seem to be endless…just incredibly random.

So, Imeril gave it a try and saw…well, no change.

"Huh. It looks the same." Was Imeril's reply, as she waved her hand in front of her face to see if anything was different.

They were about to give up on that one, when Imeril used her ability, and saw something interesting.

"Oh, mummy. I can see you."

As it turns out, for Imeril, she was able to use it to see through illusions.

…

Other jewellery was used, and they eventually came across two more that worked well with her ability.

One was a bracelet that 'grants strength'. Another vague one that is generally used by fighters to improve how hard they hit. If anything, it could very easily be used by Octavia or Sylvia to help them when it comes to fighting.

But, when Imeril tried it on and used her ability, however it seemed to strengthen a person, for whatever reason it seemed to strengthen her ability as well. More pressure was needed to push through the illusion, to which they had learnt Imeril could feel, allowing them all to know when to stop if it was going to break.

The last was one that would help with the issue of accidentally making a noise…but well, the story behind it was rather…distasteful.

It was a necklace, that as it turns out, was one of the very early versions of a slave collar.

When slave collars were being developed, people tried all manner of enchantments to make them more effective. This included altering one's mental state, making the wearer feel weaker and another enchantment that was used, was one to mute the person wearing it.

Thankfully, the leaders of the kingdoms in this world were able to clamp down on slave collars and control their creation. This led to them only being created by them and only being used by guards when dealing with criminals. Octavia was sure however there were criminals out there making their own though.

The official ones were altered so that they only do the bare essentials, such as showing who the slave belongs to, and an enchantment so that they can only fight or harm someone if they are being attacked, ensuring they can't just kill the slave owner or anyone else.

It still feels horrible to Octavia to know that these are in the world, even with the reduction in what they can do, but it is something she will have to get used to.

The necklace in question was from someone testing out the enchantment to mute a person. It works in that sense, but it's not permanent. The wearer can 'unmute' themselves just by thinking about it. And it is only a necklace, so it's easy to remove.

It worked with Imeril's ability flawlessly, allowing her to hold back any noise she may make accidentally.

But even then, both Sylvia and Octavia felt a little weird about using it. The only saving grace was that the necklace itself looked rather beautiful, and Imeril liked it. So, they agreed with its use for now.

With that, they had three items of jewellery that would help Imeril with her ability, all of which Eris proceeded to just give them.

"No, we can't just take these from you. They must be expensive." Octavia responded to the Knight Commander.

"Probably, but like I said, I've had some of these for ages and they just don't get used. Better you have them than me. Think of it as an apology for how I acted before. And besides, you can also see it as part of the reward as well."

"Okay. Well when you say it like that, thank you. You are too…wait, reward?"

"Yes. Your reward. For taking down the slavers."

"Err…"

"You didn't think you would just get nothing for that, did you? I mean you managed to find evidence against them. Took down several of them yourselves, and saved dozens of people that were going to be sold as slaves to who knows where. You're obviously going to get a reward for that."

"…"

"…"