Chapter 476 – The Betterment of the Clan

“I wouldn’t know,” Sophia answered disingenuously. “We don’t have one. If we did, I’m sure his duty would be to the Clan, not any individual member.” 

That was true of the Elders, as far as she could tell. Oh, they’d help individuals when it fell within their duties to the clan, but beyond that it was usually left to the Elder or Clan representative it belonged to … unless the Elder had a specific reason to care, at least. Most Et’Tarts had a stronger connection to one Elder than the others; Sophia’s was to World Shaman Senkovar, of course.

“If you truly do want to help, well, I’m not entirely certain how you can. We are seeking a way home, so unless you know someone who would be better to make a new Gateway than Archon of Stone Issvako, I don’t know of any way you can help us.” Sophia would look at any help he gave carefully, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t accept it if it would truly help. She simply didn’t know if he’d come up with anything useful.

“I can’t help you with that, but are you certain you need to hurry? I can certainly make you comfortable while you are here. You can live in comfort while you work for the betterment of the Clan.” The tone made it sound like he was placating a child’s overreaction. Naturally, it set Sophia’s teeth on edge, but she didn’t feel any mental influence from him this time.

“No. No you don’t.” Taika hopped into view on top of Sophia. His movement was a surprise to her; she’d expected him to stay put and protect them, not get out where he could be seen. “Stop doing that. It’s annoying and itchy in my head.”

“He can’t avoid it.” Inspector Ivorha didn’t seem to have any doubts about what Taika meant, even on that little information, as he leapt to the defense of his Clan chief. “Chief Porven Et’Tart is a Lifeweb coordinator; he allows us all to coordinate our actions more closely to work for the betterment of the Clan and allows us to know when things would be useful even before we make an effort to reach out and ask. Sometimes it leads to things we wouldn’t even have thought about.”

Sophia’s eyes narrowed. Ivorha’s response made it look like this was normal, and she didn’t like that at all. She liked it even less that it sounded like a preprepared response. “And you think it’s okay to push someone into doing something they wouldn’t otherwise consider without even asking?”

Mental magic of any sort was a very touchy subject on Earth, for a very good reason. The laws on its use varied significantly from country to country, and Sophia knew that there were always people who wanted to use it to gain advantages, but it was something that had ruined more than one politician’s career. There were reasons the Adventurer’s Guild sold medallions that could detect the use of mental magic; they weren’t perfect, partly because there were a number of things mental magic could be used for that weren’t problematic like Dav’s mental link or the Lifeweb itself, but simply the knowledge that mental magic was present could help. Sometimes.

Sadly, they were usually more helpful in dungeons than in real life, because most dungeon monsters didn’t have mental communication links running all the time and some people did. On top of that, it was true that some people had mental Talents they couldn’t turn off … though they could manage to suppress them when they didn’t want to use them, which made Sophia less than impressed with the idea that a chief couldn’t. You shouldn’t hold that level of office without control of your mental powers.

“I don’t,” Chief Proven protested. “I never force anyone to do anything.”

Sophia frowned. While that might be technically true, she was fairly confident it wasn’t true in the deeper sense. Repeating something over and over again could be convincing even if it was obviously false, and doing it on a level where people didn’t even realize they were being influenced didn’t make it better. “Sure you do. Then you won’t mind if Taika keeps your influence away from all of us while you present your position.”

Silently, she added to Taika, “Can you tell if he is currently influencing the Inspector?”

“He is,” Taika answered immediately. “There are a number of threads, mostly inactive but still present. I think they are reminders of past influence which will become active again any time either of them thinks about them. I can’t easily break them, but I can suppress them as long as I’m this close. So far, everything is going over the Lifeweb, which makes sense. I cannot … wait. I can completely blur Proven’s Lifeweb connection. That should help, though it won’t erase whatever he’s done in the past.”

“Go for it,” Sophia told their Psychic Bulwark. 

“Sure you don’t,” She said out loud. “Why should you when you can slowly push them to do what you want without force? Regardless, you will not use your Ability on me. I do not accept it and you may keep your mind to yourself. Use your words if you want to convince me.”

The Chief glanced at Ivorha as if he expected the Inspector to support him, but Ivorha stayed silent. After an awkward pause, Chief Proven nodded gracefully. “Of course. I would never push in where I’m not wanted. In any case, I can offer you assistance with repairing your Sphere, as the good Inspector said that you need, and assistance with whatever your … brother? Needs.”

Sophia wondered just how many poisoned gifts would be present in that aid if she accepted it. Maybe she was overreacting, but she really didn’t like Chief Proven. She shook her head. “We’ll be fine. We’ll rest here a little bit longer, then head back to our inn. Inspector, is there anything else you need from us?”

Ivorha shook his head.

Chief Proven nodded slowly and held out a hand towards the Sophia, Leo, and Kestiben. “Come on, Kestiben, let’s go. We need to get back to-”

“No!” the young winged badger interrupted his chief. “I don’t like your training. Everybody else tells me what I need to do then watches me do it. You make me do it time and time again and it hurts and I hate it!”

It almost sounded like a child who didn’t want to do something the adults said was good for him, but with the knowledge that Chief Proven could mentally influence others, the description sounded far worse.

“You have to learn to control your sensitivity or it will overwhelm you,” Chief Proven said reasonably. “Reach out when you want to reach out, but the rest of the time you should not have to listen. Don’t you want to be able to close your eyes? It will help you sleep. That’s why your mother reached out to me in the first place, to help you sleep.”

“He pulls on threads,” Taika reported. “I have blocked them. They do not bind Kestiben, only the four-winged bird and Ekkiba.”

Sophia frowned again. Wasn’t Kestiben’s sensitivity the reason he found her in the first place? He noticed something “different” in the Lifeweb and followed it. That was potentially very useful, but all Chief Proven was talking about was quieting it so that Kestiben could sleep. “Are you going to teach him to use his sensitivity? It seems like that would be more effective if it’s taught before completely shutting it down.”

Chief Proven shook his head. “Kestiben shows the talent that may lead him to be our next Lifeweb controller. Why would I waste that on simply sensing things better? No, it’s far more important to teach him control than sensitivity. You must be able to separate yourself from the Lifeweb before you can influence it at all.”

Sophia snorted. “That is not how magic works. All magic works on connections; often they are symbolic, but that’s enough. Cutting yourself off entirely is useful sometimes but it’s not usually helpful and certainly not required unless you’re trying to completely change who you are and what you can do, and I really can’t recommend that. It usually doesn’t work and trying can be worse than figuring out how to slowly change.”

Sophia’s father was an excellent example of that, really. He had once tried to cut himself off from his strongest magic, only to find himself going back to it whenever it was important enough. He now used it as the tool it was instead of turning to first, but from the stories he told sometimes it wasn’t an easy process at all to figure out what the right balance point was. The important thing was that he didn’t even start on the process until he accepted that he needed to figure it out.

“If that’s how you were taught … I guess it explains some things. You really can’t not use your Abilities without completely cutting them off? Well, that’s what you’re trying to teach Kestiben. It’s far better to learn to control them rather than simply cutting them off completely.” That made entirely too much sense as an explanation of why Proven was continually influencing everyone around himself. It didn’t make her feel any better about it, but it did explain it. 

“What, do you think you can teach him better than I can? What do you even know about the Lifeweb? You didn’t grow up with it!” Chief Proven snorted performatively. “Come on, Ekkiba, Kestiben. We need to get back to your lessons.”

“I probably can,” Sophia said coldly. “I doubt I’ll be here long enough to teach him everything he needs to know - sorry, Kestiben, that would take years I don’t have - but I can at least set him up with a foundation to work from. That should take a few months; after that, he should be able to progress mostly on his own. As for what I know about the Lifeweb … I had to learn to work with it as an adult and I can cast a wide range of Abilities across it. I’m told that is an Et’Unii specialty; isn’t that why you want me to stay here? I may be able to set Kestiben up for that kind of Sphere or I may not, but it seems worth the try.”

Chief Proven huffed, then turned to Ekkiba. “I trust you to do what’s best for your child. Sure, give her a few days, but when he can’t sleep, you can always come back to me so that he can learn properly.”

He whirled and hurried out of the room, seemingly desperate not to give anyone else the chance to remark on his statement.

Inspector Ivorha sighed. “I must apologize; that is not how meeting the Clan Chief is supposed to happen. Chief Proven is …” 

He trailed off and seemed to search for the right word.

“A self-absorbed man who can’t admit that he’s wrong?” Ekkiba supplied. “I know he’s our Chief now, but you know I’ve never liked him, at least not until he started showing interest in Kestiben. If Sophia says he’s influencing people all the time … I wonder how much of that is because I was never important enough to pay attention to?”

Ivorha opened his beak, then tipped his head slightly to the side and closed it again. After a long silent moment, he answered, “I don’t remember thinking of him much at all as a child; I don’t think I noticed him at all until he was third upgrade in his Professional Sphere and apprenticing with Chief Joka. He seemed so bright and helpful then … so he was the natural choice despite his youth when Joka suddenly stepped down.”

“You were already an Inspector in the Watch by then, weren’t you?” Ekkiba asked.

Inspector Ivorha shook his head. “No, not yet, but I was the Et’Tart liaison to the Watch. That’s how I met him. I … I don’t know if Sophia’s right. I will say it’s interesting how no one worth anything has put themselves forward for Chief in the past twenty years, though. And … I hadn’t even noticed. That’s interesting too.”