The sun was beginning to make its warmth felt as Vika and Lilith entered the front door to the Magician's Guild. Vika continued striding down the reception area, barely pausing to snap out "If anyone needs anything, I'm at the practice arena!" to Yunis. Lilith hurried after him, although she did manage to squeeze in a small shrug and grin to Yunis, who seemed used to this sort of brusque treatment anyway. Continuing down the main hallway, Vika soon opened the back door of the front building, and he and Lilith stepped out into a covered walkway area. They walked down a set of steps, and Vika turned left at the blank wall facing them. As Lilith followed, she tried to remember what seemed so familiar about the wall.

They came around the corner, and were in the practice arena. Lilith saw immediately what it was- she'd walked by here to stable her horse yesterday and had noticed the sunken arena. Wall about ten to twelve feet high, she noted, with the last four feet above ground, making for a nice ledge for watchers. Not that there were any up there, but a few were standing against the wall they had just circled around.

A sizzling, whooshing sound reminded her that this practice arena was in use. She watched as a rat adept and a fox adept fought. They were just standing there, almost motionless, while they hurled fireballs. She tsk'ed to herself. That might be fine when you were conducting a strength test with a friend, or a demonstration, but just standing there got you hurt or killed in an actual fight- she had the scars to prove it. As she watched the fireballs fly, something else seemed a bit odd, but she couldn't place it. The two adepts were kinking and draining life cords, with opponent fireballs winding up in tangled nets that dissipated them before they could hurt anything.

It continued for a few minutes until the fox unleashed not just one, but four fireballs simultaneously. Not only that, they began looping in from opposite directions instead of following straight lines. The rat adept managed to stop two of them but then had to hit the ground as the other two collided above his head. Four fireballs at once, Lilith mused. Not unknown, but... somehow, a bit odd.

"Match!" shouted an older fox Master as he walked out into the field. "Ok, Rata, pick yourself up, match is over. Stoy, nice work with the fireballs but don't expect to be able to pull something like that somewhere besides a practice field."

The fox nodded as the other adept picked himself up. "But in normal practice, Master Sechan, the other side won't be able to counter one or two fireballs, so I wouldn't need four anyway."

"Don't count on it, adept," was the curt reply. "That might be normally true, but the one exception is what kills you, not the normal routine. Be prepared to use something besides fancy fireballs, and be prepared to run if necessary. Besides, if it gets to the stage of throwing fireballs, you're already in big trouble anyway."

The rat adept, meanwhile, had come over to where the others were standing, and Vika was taking the chance to grill him about why he hadn't charged instead of ducking. Lilith almost winced at some of the biting tones in his voice, and she wasn't even the target. The rat adept, on the other hand, seemed to take it for granted, but was still having a hard time defending himself. Lilith sighed to herself. She didn't really blame the rat- after all, it was a match. In real life, ducking meant you lived to strike the next blow rather than taking chances on turning into a furry torch.

Now that she examined the others around, she noticed that almost everyone had a metal implant somewhere, and most more than one. There were metal feet, shins, and one looked like they had a metal buttock but she couldn't be sure- and decided she really didn't want to know the details on that one. Several had metal facial areas, one had an eye missing, two actually had a totally metal hand like her. She shook her head. This bunch looked like a war refugee camp. She'd often had contempt for "metalheads"- furs who took pleasure in having to use the treatment which turned metal to flesh to replace parts burned or lost in other ways- and the total effect of this group made her get the prickly feeling she was seeing metal worship in action.

Vika had been talking to the other fox Master, and now he turned to Lilith. "Ok, you're up next. Let's see what you can do. Master Sechan is going to get our least-experienced member to test you."

Lilith got the distinct impression that she was supposed to have bridled at his tone, but she refused to take the bait, simply saying calmly, "No problem, I can wait. I've only got all day."

Her dryness earned her a contemptuous mutter under Vika's breath as he turned to look down the passageway out where Sechan had gone. Lilith shook her head. This one was blind, and had taken a dislike to her. Oh well, I guess that makes us even. Lilith ignored the appraising looks from the handful of other adepts, and soon footsteps came back along the passage. Master Sechan stepped out with a young fox Adept who looked to be a couple of years younger than Lilith.

Vika muttered a few words to Sechan, who simply nodded and came over to Lilith, along with the new adept. "Adept Lilith, may I introduce the adept who had been our newest one until you came along. This is Adept Tralis. Tralis, Adept Lilith."

The two adepts nodded to each other and muttered a polite phrase or two. Tralis seemed a bit hesitant about the whole thing, but Lilith wrote that down to this contest not being his idea in the first place. "Adept Lilith," Sechan continued, "how long have you been an adept?"

"About three years, sir."

"Good! Tralis has been an Adept for two, so you should be about evenly matched. Very well, now to explain the rules to you. They are very simple. Each contestant takes their position at opposite walls. Directly manipulating the other person's life cords is forbidden. The loser is the one who is forced to abandon their position first. " Sechan clapped his hands together briskly as Lilith nodded. "Let's get on with it, then. Tralis over to the right. Lilith, you take the left. Face off, and go when I say to."

The contestants quietly took their position, and Lilith sensed the anticipation among the onlookers building. This Tralis might be the newcomer, but any action against the unknown new adept was going to be watched carefully. Oh well, they'll simply see one of the best around in action, Lilith thought.

She and Tralis faced off, and at the shouted command of "go!" she immediately cast a net of life-energies toward her opponent. It was countered, and a similar kinking headed for her. She stopped that cold without too much trouble, and a similar story continued for a couple of minutes as each side fought for a clear advantage that would let them loose something more powerful. There was a bit of stirring and muttering among a few of the onlookers, although most of them were simply absorbed in what was happening. Getting bored, furs? Lilith thought. Well, action should be coming along soon. In fact, about right... now.

Tralis hurled a fireball straight for her, but it went down the avenue she had already planned for it, and it was quickly dissipated before it got very close. As her right hand snared and killed it, her left hand shot a return volley at Tralis' head. As expected, he could counter it, but she had immediately followed with a second ball towards his knees while the first was still in the air. She quickly adjusted to his measure as he fought to dissipate both without abandoning his position. He succeeded and returned a very energetic ball back towards her- again, as expected. It came straight up the middle- no subtlety, all power.

This one didn't get dissipated, though. The prepared net was one that Lilith had seen in her nightmares many times the past few sixes. Every time she knew what was coming and couldn't stop it, but this time she was on the other end, and she had more mercy than the original author of this clever trap. The fireball imploded on itself, the life-energy path that marked its trail suddenly becoming a bright lightning bolt as the energy flooded back through, and a fireball erupted from the other end- right in Tralis' face. He yelped- literally yelped, Lilith noted- flung his arms across his face, and turned around to run, the smell of singed fur in the air.

Lilith was rather concerned. She had carefully made sure the return stroke was relatively mild, but a fireball in your face was no laughing matter, big or small. Tralis recovered, though with tears streaming down his face, and Sechan quickly declared the match over, in Lilith's favor.

Lilith, and a rather hangdog Tralis, walked back towards the group, who gave a smattering of applause. There were plenty of speculative looks given to Lilith, one or two that were thoughtful, and at least a couple that had a definite tinge of approval and admiration. About what she'd expected. One brief encounter wouldn't overawe everyone, but she had certainly begun the foundation of respect among this group.

Begun it, that is, with everyone except Vika. He immediately tore into Tralis. "Of all the stupid apprentice- no skip that, novice- ignorance I've ever seen! A simple twist and you stand there and let it blow up in your face! A whole year you've been here, and you're worse now than when you started. Get going, you're on energy duty for the day- I'm not going to risk this station with having somefur like you bumbling around causing trouble because they don't know what they're doing!" Seemingly as an afterthought, he added, "Oh, and take Adept Lilith with you, you might as well show her what her likely duties are going to be as well."

Lilith stared after him thoughtfully, then she realized that Tralis was standing beside her and that Sechan had already turned to the other adepts. "Come on, " Tralis muttered, "let's go." He led the way out of the arena.

They walked into the back door and turned right down the back hallway, then a left turn when they got to the corner of the building. Lilith noted the wide windows on both sides of the hallway, letting light into the room on their left. From the brief looks she got, she thought it looked like the guild library and study. She was definitely going to need to check that out. They walked towards the front of the building, and Tralis opened a door to turn in to a small room that turned out to be a treatment room. Lilith looked around at the treatment table and the shelves of medical supplies as Tralis headed over to one wall and opened a cabinet there. She saw a large green crystal inside as he reached in, took out a smaller one, and turned to go.

"Come on, we need to get moving," he said as she simply stood there staring at the now-closed cabinet door. Lilith shook herself back to alertness and followed him outside.

Once outside, though, she did not restrain herself from immediately asking, "wasn't that a very large healing crystal I saw in there?" Tralis nodded as he walked.

Lilith persisted. "That thing must have cost well over a hundred gold sovereigns."

"I was told it was worth two hundred," Tralis replied, rather shortly.

Lilith finally came straight to the point. "Then what's it doing in a small station like this?? I've never seen one that large outside of the big cities back east."

Tralis stopped, gritted his teeth and shut his eyes. He took a deep breath, then opened his eyes and said, "ok, ok, I might as well tell you. After all, what we're doing out here is part of the reason it's there. Look." He brought out the crystal he had taken.

Lilith's eyes widened as she got a closer look. "Now that is more like what I would have expected to see back there. Looks like a twenty sovereign crystal."

"Yes, it is. It's used simply as a feeder crystal for what is back there."

Lilith stared. "Ok, I'll bite. Just what do they need that much life energy for?"

"Well, officially it's for medical use only--"

"That's always what they're for, but not that big."

"Will you quit interrupting me??" Tralis' voice rose. "I'm trying to tell you, for Chabat's sake!"

Lilith stepped back, and simply waved her hands placatingly. Something was wrong in a major sort of way, and just thinking about it was making her companion angry- and having to talk about it simply made it worse. She waited while he collected himself.

"The medical reasons," he said bitterly, "consist of all sorts of machine healing. The non-medical reasons include storing energy for fighting bouts and whatever other mischief these hellions can think of."

Lilith's jaw dropped. Suddenly, it clicked. "That's it! That's what was so odd back there in the arena! Too many fireballs, and it was all borrowed energy, wasn't it?"

Tralis nodded miserably. "Most of it, yeah."

Lilith's eyes narrowed as she continued thoughtfully. "With that kind of energy use, you'd have to search far and wide in order to get it, so they put furs on energy duty to go get it." Tralis refused to meet her eyes as she continued. "So, just where and how are they getting all this?"

"I don't really know for sure, " he said almost desperately. Lilith could see though, that the evasion simply meant he did know but didn't want to admit it even to himself. "I've used plants wherever I can find them, but I can't do too much without killing them. I did wind up killing a tree in the town square, but no one knows it's dead yet."

Lilith eyed him with sympathy, even as disgust and revulsion at the whole practice surged through her. "You don't need to tell me where the others get it. I already know." She turned away and thought glumly, Great. Not only do I get trapped with a bunch of metalheads, but now they're vampires, too. This place needs a good cleaning-out.

Tralis had begun to walk west again, and Lilith followed. After a while, she said, "have you tried taking the energy from the stones and bricks?"

Tralis stopped and gave her a baffled look. "How? Sure, they have a little, but it doesn't increase, and besides, you need to have a live pressure to pull it out with."

"Don't give me that, adept. How do you transfer your energy back to the crystal if you can't get it out of stone?"

"But crystals are different, they're specially made to conduct and hold life-energy, just like our rings and amulets and such."

"So? That just means it's harder, not impossible. Believe me, " she continued, raising a hand to forestall protest. "I've done this before. It's not the easiest thing, but it can be done, and it'll be a lot faster than walking to the edge of town and trying to get it out of a clump of grass."

Tralis blinked at that. "Actually, there's a nice little forest west of town- that's where the rich furs live, and they like their trees."

Lilith shrugged. "Whatever. We don't need to go that far. I told you I've done this before. Look..." She spread her right hand out as she thought, so ok, I was scared silly at the time, and maybe delirious to boot when I first did it. That doesn't mean I can't do it again, and my master said he'd done it before, too. The net of life lines stretched from her palm to the paving stones of the- fortunately for them, deserted- street. They caressed the ground, and she mentally began to pull. Nothing happened at first. She strained a bit, then as she looked, she remembered. Oh yeah, thin lines. I'm trying to unravel a knot of string with a hawser this way. She concentrated, and snapped her net of lines to wire thin. They turned pale blue as she made contact with the life energies in the stones and felt their essence. She shivered at the cold feeling that ran up her back, but was not going to waste it now that she had it. She held out her left hand, and Tralis softly put the crystal in it as he continued to stare. Now, a pull... careful, gentle, don't break these. Her lines thickened as she concentrated, and she almost lost contact. No, don't think of them that hard, just a gentle pull that you don't.... really pay... any attention... to. She warmed up the trickle as it came in and sent it to the crystal. She felt safe concentrating on it, and took some pleasure in watching it fill until she suddenly felt a tingling pain in her right hand.

"Ouch!" Lilith said, before she could stop her net. She dropped contact, and grimaced as she fisted her right hand.

"What happened?" Tralis was still staring wide-eyed at the partially filled crystal.

"I exhausted all the energy in the stones and pulled too hard when there was nothing to pull."

"Oh. But still... wow!" Lilith gave a rather exhausted grin as Tralis took the crystal back and gazed at it in awe. He smiled back at her as he continued, "that's great! Another few sessions like this and it'll be full! We won't have to risk killing anything, either!"

"Or anyone," Lilith muttered, her grin gone as her thoughts ran on ahead. Tralis' smile disappeared into a grimace as well, but he didn't say anything. "The energy won't build back up too fast in non-living rocks, though." Lilith continued. "Actually, I don't even know for sure why it builds up in there, period, but it does. Come on, let's get this filled up the rest of the way. Do you want to go next?"

As they began walking Tralis looked eager, but then his good sense won out. "I don't think so, adept. Not yet, at least. I'm going to have to study it a bit more."

Lilith nodded good-naturedly, and as they continued on their rather grisly errand, she began to question Tralis about how things really operated at the guild station. She found out much of what she had expected. Vika ran things with an iron hand and he seemed blind to the emotions of others. Lilith expressed a bit of surprise at that.

"I mean, " she said, "any adept, even inexperienced ones like us, can read emotions from other people's auras without trouble. All it takes is a bit of concentration and then with only a slight effort of thinking involved you can basically know when people are lying, or hiding something, or don't like what they're hearing, or... whatever."

Tralis smiled rather grimly at this. "What is the first thing you are told when you're introduced to touching an aura?"

Lilith thought. "Hmmm... you mean the part about your own aura being the only one you never directly see, but always being the one you look through?"

"Right. So, if you have to look through your own aura, that means you have to know it's there, correct?"

Lilith nodded. "Sure. Otherwise, you'd never be able to get an accurate reading. It's the 'know thyself' rule...." she stopped as what Tralis was driving at struck home. "Are you telling me that Vika doesn't even realize what he's doing?"

Tralis nodded. "That's what I've decided. He is so intent on self-justification that he has deliberately blinded himself to the truth- not only about himself, but about others as well. It's just so much easier to make sure you're always right when you never really look at what is happening."

Lilith shivered. "I know, we learn that's common among normals, but among magicians? That's scary, Tralis. With power like that, and that sort of blindness, what could he do?" Tralis simply looked grave at that possibility. Obviously, he'd thought about it before, too, and had little more liking for the results than Lilith. "That's why he was so angry with you after our bout, wasn't it? He disliked me so much that he can't admit I might be any good, so that means you must be bad if I win."

Tralis winced. "Exactly right. I don't think he likes vixens at all. But really, it wasn't a stupid mistake that I lost-- was it?" He looked relieved when Lilith shook her head. "I didn't think so. I've been here for a year, I've been a magician since I was 13, and I've never seen or heard anything like that- that I remember." he added.

"I'm not surprised. I hadn't seen it either until a q or two ago. I learned about it the hard way from a cat." She waved her metal left hand in the air.

"A cat?? You mean a swamp fur?"

"Right. I was on the south edge of the Heartland guarding an estate, and the cats overran it one night. I shot a large fireball at the magician leading them, and got it back on my left hand just like you did- except it came back bigger, and with interest."

Tralis winced in sympathy. "Ouch. What I got hurt bad, and it was just a small air-burst. No wonder you lost your hand, it must've been burned to a crisp."

Lilith repressed her own shudder. "It was, " she replied in as casual a tone as she could manage. Some of the pain came through, though, as she added, "of course, when I tried to get up and put my weight on it, the snapping sound let me know I didn't have to worry about it at all anymore."

Tralis didn't repress his shudder, and Lilith avoided any more discussion by taking more energy from the paving stones. This time, she remembered to make sure no one was coming first.