Staring at the rock so helpfully provided, I gripped the handle with both hands. Dorian said the Energy should just flow from me to it. If that’s the case, I should just be able to swing it, but just how solid were these picks? Better question: how expensive?

  I took a deep breath and pulled the Aether in through my lungs, not my Mark. Of course, it was bad practice risking toxicity, but only this once I would start with some baseline Energy. I pushed the energy, and unlike when I held my finger from the stone, it poured down the shaft without a hint of resistance…until it hit the eye of the pickaxe’s blade. At the eye, I met a wall, but it was nothing compared to trying to jump a gap when projecting.

  With a nudge, it surged past. I let out a breath of surprise as the pickaxe glowed a crimson red. It wasn’t the vivid hue of Dorian’s or, for that matter, any of the ?ttir, but it still glowed. I had done it. I infused it with my Energy.

  Now brighter?

  I pushed more Energy into it. The red deepened in color to match the vividness I had come to associate with a tool infused with Energy. Then the pick dropped, its crimson point heading for my boot. I stumbled backward in as much shock as fear. My hands lost their grip on the pickaxe’s handle, but the pickaxe still had enough momentum to dig into the hard earth.

  Not the best first attempt. However, the fault didn’t lie with the pickaxe. My arms had just given out. I just turned my palms upward, moving my fingers to make sure they still worked. That transient weakness had disappeared without a trace.

  Myoclonus — a brief and sudden, involuntary jerk of a muscle or group of muscles.

  Negative myoclonus — a brief and sudden, involuntary interruption of a muscle’s or group of muscles’ activity.

  In a flash of insight, the definitions came to me from one of the many textbooks I had read. Negative myoclonus certainly fitted the bill. I had seen it many times. Just take a person in liver failure and a tinge of hepatic encephalopathy and have him hold up their hands like he is stopping traffic. Then, have him close his eyes. If the liver failure is bad enough, the hands will flap down before popping back up. As one of my crasser colleagues joked, “he is waving bye-bye to his liver.”

  I had never experienced myoclonus, but that had to be it. Complete loss of tone. No pain. No burning. My arms just stopped resisting gravity as if they had been drained of all their energy…or Energy?

  “Had been” was the key phrase there. I flexed my right arm, and it responded without a problem. I leaned over to grab the handle—the handle that was sticking up in the air and not lying on the ground. I squatted in front of the pick and gave it a slight push. The pickaxe didn’t fall over. The tip had cut deep enough into the stone to hold the pick in place. What were the odds that it fell into a hole?

  Too low. Way too low.

  I had punched a hole into solid stone. I swallowed. What happened to the force of my swing doing most of the work? Also, what if that had been my foot?

  I scowled. Dorian didn’t have to say it. Go to a [Healer]. If not that, just use a potion.

  I needed to get one. Job safety was not a priority, and why would it? Everyone could be much more cavalier when punching a hole through a limb wasn't a life-threatening event.

  I pulled out the pickaxe. It slipped out with little extra force. I hefted it with both hands. Less Energy this time, but how much? I needed to figure this out, if only to have some other career options. I pulsed enough Energy to leave only the faintest of pale red glows.

  After a few tries, it became clear that I could vary the Energy flows by their velocity and volume. The faster or the more that coursed down the pick, the more resistance and greater the drain. Give this to an engineer or a scientist, and they could probably derive a formula to explain it. I would be fine with a rule of thumb.

  After a few more pulses, I became comfortable enough to line up in front of the rock. Dorian had already disappeared into the hole that he had created. The man—Oresian—was a machine.

  I hefted the pickaxe and swung. Energy flowed down the shaft into the tip. With a satisfying thunk, the red tip sunk into the stone. I swung again, almost striking the stone without the tip coated with Energy.

  I frowned, holding the pickaxe in front of me. I pushed another pulse. It flowed, but it slowed down at the eye. Damn, broken junction.

  I took another swing, compensating before rechecking the Energy. I shook my head. Off again. Each blow disrupted the connection.

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  I swung again and again and again and again. The rock cracked and then crumbled. It wasn’t pretty, but it worked. Dorian took breaks shoveling the rock out of the tunnel, but he never asked for help. By the time I was done with one rock, he had another ready to be broken down.

  It became a game of trying to get the perfect swing. The blows jarring the connection at the eye just added to the challenge. As time wore on, my muscles tired, but it was nothing a bit of Energy couldn’t fix.

  “Daniel!”

  I left the pickaxe buried in the boulder and turned to find Dorian with an exasperated look. “Dorian, were you trying to get my attention?”

  “Yeah. Any longer, and I would be checking you for Aether toxicity.”

  I rubbed the back of my head. “Sorry, I was in the zone.”

  He cocked his head. “Zone?” He waved it off. “Doesn’t matter. You have been at it long enough. Time for some lunch.”

  He knelt in front of a sack and pulled out a dark, rectangular hunk.

  “Jerky?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did I graduate into meat?” My mouth salivated. The strip looked tough and stringy, but the aroma…

  “You almost didn’t when you didn’t respond—”

  I took a bite, and my world collapsed into the singular explosion of flavor in my mouth. It was so good and yet so frustrating. My teeth barely seemed to dent the dried meat.

  “—This is a good intro for you. The toughness makes it hard to absorb too much Aether too quickly.”

  “Yeah, I noticed.” I forced myself to slow down and chew, a maddening endeavor. It was like chewing on leather—I had to expend Energy just to ease my aching jaw—that tasted like chocolate spiked with cayenne. Bittersweet richness with a bite.

  “By the way, I am impressed by how well you were using that pickaxe.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. That connection is shoddy, but looking at you, no one would ever know.”

  “It took a bit, but I finally realized I could retract some of the Energy not expended in the strike. When I cycled it, I could follow how the connection between the handle and head shifted with blow.”

  “Wait. You weren’t just plowing extra energy through there?”

  “No…” He stared at me like I was crazy. “When I tried to do that, I almost put a hole in my foot.” I had a very low upper limit before the negative myoclonus occurred.

  “By the Gods, how much training did you have as a child…. Or are your Perception and Processing just that good?’ I didn’t reply, and he muttered a curse. “At least your physical Potentials are more normal.”

  I kept chewing the jerky, savoring every bite. “Is it the Aether concentrations that make this so good?”

  “Yeah. It is especially good when the food’s Tier is higher than your own, or you have depleted your reserves. It will actually provide you with a bit more reserves as you digest it. So enjoy while it lasts.”

  “I don’t think I am going to level.”

  “Not surprised, but what you are learning will help with everything. You had to be infusing your muscles to keep up that pace.”

  “I was. I was more cautious this time.” At some point in my practice, I had moved to infuse both my body and pickaxe. The pickaxe alone didn’t provide enough power. Of course, I had to avoid drawing any Aether through my lungs. Everything came from my Mark, though it barely was enough to keep up with my pace by the end. As with pushing energy into the handle, after a certain point, my muscles started to resist.

  “How do they do it?” I nodded towards the ?ttir sitting on the other side of the cavern. “They aren’t [Miners].”

  “No. They aren’t, but they are some derivatives of a [Warrior], most likely a low-mid Tier III one. They might not have the skills, but they have the raw strength and endurance. It isn’t a total waste of their time, either. While mining does nothing for their levels, the monsters they unearth and slaughter do—if they aren’t capped.”

  Capped? One more thing I needed to understand but couldn’t readily ask.

  “You think many are?’

  “Hard to tell. If it was another group, I would definitely say yes. With ?ttir, Tier III warriors are their grunts, though recently they haven’t lived up to their reputation noted in our histories.”

  “Epic warriors?”

  “Yes, or they were. Don’t get me wrong. They have powerful warriors. The Verndari has clearly broken into Tier IV, but their numbers at those levels dwindle. They are being pushed back by the Volki and, of all things, Humans. No offense.”

  “We can’t be that weak?” It was a sobering thought that my “own” kind was the punching bag of this world.

  “Not in your,” he paused as if unsure that was the correct noun, “homeland, but outside? Typically, their opponent’s raw power overwhelms whatever weaponry a group brings to bear. At least, it did. Can’t complain too much. Humans are better for trade. It has been good for my clan. If they could do something about the Volki…”

  We lapsed into silence, chewing the jerky. One of the ?ttir had a wrap around his arm. A bandage? It was white, but that could mean anything here. I had not seen a single bandage. I could look, except they probably didn’t want my help. And did I want to provide it?

  I nudged Dorian with my elbow. “If I went over there to chat with them?”

  He snorted. “Not your funeral, but you may find it hard to walk for a day or two without a trip to the [Healer].”

  “Is it all ?ttir?”

  “This lot is far worse than most. They had to flee a battle with Humans, and they were absorbed into this warband. The leader of this warband is actually quite cordial with Humans, but he can’t negate all the animosity over the land being ceded to Human settlements.”

  “Just my luck. I can’t tell if the Quartermaster is trying to help or kill me.”

  “I ask myself that too.”

  “Not funny, Dorian.”

  “You think I was joking?”

  He stood up and grabbed his pickaxe, leaving me chewing on my jerky. I forced the rest of it down, the meat having lost all its flavor.