Void System: Every Heroine Makes Me Stronger

Severin’s next step carried him below the rise.

The dry strip curved between dark water and a wall of reeds before widening onto a low hummock. Brown canvas sagged across the center of the camp. A corner already lay folded over a bundled pole. A shallow board rested on 2 crates beneath it, with 2 ledgers and a slate stacked beside a tied cloth bag.

4 people were stripping the shelter.

The person nearest a pile of iron and bronze parts gave short orders while pulling rope from a stake. Another kept the ledgers pressed against the chest instead of helping with the canvas. A guard at the south edge reacted before the others, bow already in hand. The last of them lifted a quiver and a wrapped bundle before moving toward the reeds on Severin’s left.

2 ways out.

"Alicia. Left path. Keep the runner alive."

"Yes, Master."

She slipped away before the south guard finished raising the bow. Silver hair vanished between the reeds. Her tail passed around a stem without touching it.

"Saelith. Water side."

Saelith stepped onto a thick willow root above the dark water. "The mat beyond me is hollow. Anyone carrying weight across it will go through."

The foreman near the tools looked up.

"Records first," the foreman said. "West path. Move."

The guard at the south edge drew.

Severin crossed the remaining ground.

The guard loosed as Severin caught the bow above the grip and wrenched it upward. The arrow tore through loose canvas instead of flesh.

He closed his other hand around the guard’s upper arm and chest. The guard struck him with full weight. Severin let the force pass across his stance, turned the weapon arm behind the guard without breaking it, and drove the guard’s knees into the dry earth.

The bow came free and fell beside the torn canvas.

Black mist rose around them.

The guard twisted toward the last open gap. Severin kept the shoulder locked and the ribs free to breathe while the mist swallowed the guard from boots to head. Something deeper pulled against the Void with the same need to escape.

The gap closed.

[Void Devour successful.]

[Target: Tovan Rell]

Store.

[Target: Tovan Rell]

[Stored in Void Vault.]

The weight vanished from his hands.

The clerk had already turned toward the water with the ledgers and slate held tight. Saelith stood on the only root that would carry another person without sinking. The open-looking reeds beside her bowed over black water.

"Do not step there," Saelith said.

The clerk looked down. The woven mat flexed beneath a boot before the full weight settled. Water rose through the gaps.

That pause was enough.

The foreman drew a broad knife from beside the tool pile and moved between Severin and the clerk.

"Run," the foreman said.

The knife came low, aimed for Severin’s stomach. He caught the wrist, turned the edge away from the ledgers, and pushed only hard enough to take the foreman’s balance. The foreman hit a knee. Severin released the wrist before bone could crack, hooked an arm across the chest, and pulled the foreman back against him.

The clerk tried to throw the slate past Saelith into the water.

Saelith caught the clerk’s forearm in her hands and redirected it toward the root. The slate struck bark and fell on dry ground. She stepped aside before the clerk could drag her onto the weak mat.

Severin closed black mist over the foreman.

The knife hand fought until the fingers disappeared. The foreman strained inside the mist. The deeper pull held until Severin’s next breath, then lost every path out.

[Void Devour successful.]

[Target: Halen Dorr]

Store.

[Target: Halen Dorr]

[Stored in Void Vault.]

Severin moved before the foreman’s knife finished falling.

The clerk reached for the ledger nearest the water. He caught the bundle at the tied spine and pulled it clear, then turned the clerk away from Saelith and the dark channel. The clerk kicked backward and clawed at his forearm. Severin controlled the clerk’s elbows against the ribs without squeezing the chest.

"You will keep the records," he said.

Blackness climbed over the clerk’s boots.

The clerk fought harder when the ledgers left reach. Severin held the clerk’s elbows still until the mist closed over the last hand. The clerk’s body and soul remained inside the same tightening dark until neither could tear free.

[Void Devour successful.]

[Target: Meris Kade]

Store.

[Target: Meris Kade]

[Stored in Void Vault.]

A bow struck wood somewhere inside the reeds.

"I have the guard, Master," Alicia called.

Severin took the reed-side path.

Roots crossed the ground at ankle height beneath tall stems. He found Alicia 3 bends in, a knee braced against a broad root. She had turned the runner’s bow arm behind the back and pinned the wrist against the bark. Her other forearm held the guard’s shoulders down without pressing across the throat. The wrapped bundle lay in the mud beside them.

The guard tried to roll toward the open reeds. Alicia shifted her hips, followed the turn, and returned the guard to the root before the movement gained distance.

"Still alive, Master."

"Good."

Severin knelt beside them. Alicia eased her weight when his hand replaced hers, but she kept the bow arm controlled until he had the shoulder and waist. Severin pulled the bow from the guard’s hand and set it beyond the mist.

Black mist spread across the roots.

The guard kicked against the ground. Mud tore loose. Severin reduced the movement without driving the guard into the wood. Alicia stepped clear as the mist covered the runner and the last resistance pulled tight beneath his hands.

The last pull stopped.

[Void Devour successful.]

[Target: Oris Vane]

Store.

[Target: Oris Vane]

[Stored in Void Vault.]

The reeds stood empty around the disturbed root.

Alicia tilted her head. Her ears turned beyond the bend, then toward the camp.

"I hear water, cloth moving in the wind, and Saelith on the root, Master. I don’t hear anyone running."

"That is enough."

Severin brushed 2 fingers between her ears. Alicia’s eyes brightened, and her tail curled around the back of his boot before falling free.

They returned to the hummock.

Saelith had placed the ledgers and slate on the low board. She had not moved the fixed reed platforms or stepped onto the mat above the water. The fallen knife lay beside the tool pile. The arrow remained through the loose canvas, its shaft rocking when the wind reached beneath the shelter.

"The water-side path has only the clerk’s new mark," Saelith said. "Nothing crossed beyond it."

Severin looked over what the 4 people had left.

The camp looked smaller without people moving through it. 4 bows and 4 knives lay among the quivers. 2 bedrolls remained tied while 2 had already been opened. Dried food sat in waxed cloth beside a wooden medicine box. Rope, short poles, loose canvas, stakes, a mallet, and several tools carried old water stains and grit.

A blackened cooking stone held a dented pot with a finger of cold broth at the bottom. A wooden cup had tipped into the ash. The broth smelled of salt and old onions.

The woven platforms remained fixed over the damp ground. Pulling them apart would erase where people had stood and worked while giving him almost nothing he could not replace.

"Leave the platforms," he said.

Saelith nodded. "And the pressed ground beneath the tool pile."

Alicia crouched beside the fallen bundle from the reed path. "Coin, Master."

The cloth held Stellar Gold and Gold coins. Severin counted them into his palm: 8 Stellar Gold and 4 Gold.

Until now, Severin had carried no money in the Material World. The coins told him less than the ledgers, but they would remain useful after every mark on the ground washed away.

He Stored the bows, knives, quivers, medicine, food, bedrolls, loose canvas, poles, rope, stakes, and portable tools. Black mist took each group without touching the board, the fixed platforms, or the mud beneath them.

Weight was not the slow part. Alicia opened each bundle before he took it. Saelith checked the mud beneath every crate and bedroll, and Severin left anything whose removal would erase a mark. They worked from the canvas edge toward the tool pile while the short reed shadows lengthened.

Near the foreman’s work position lay a bronze wheel-head fitted around an iron bore. 3 teeth had broken away. A crack ran from the bore toward the outer rim, dark with old grit. The part was too heavy for an ordinary hand tool and too small to stand alone.

Severin lifted it.

The weight pulled unevenly. The left side of the bore had been worn smooth while the other remained rough. Shallow scars crossed the mounting face where iron bolts had held it to something larger.

A visible crack was not enough. He needed to know what kind of work had made it.

How did the load travel through this part before it failed?

He used Fault Appraisal.

The bronze and iron did not change.

Pressure paths and weaknesses opened inside his perception. The bore had carried repeated strain beyond its balanced pull. Grit entered from the left side and widened the wear. The teeth had not broken together. The initial tooth failed, shifting the load into the next, then the next, until the rim began to split.

The deepest stress ran backward.

The part had been forced against the direction its teeth normally carried weight. The mounting scars showed a larger fixed frame around it, with an axle heavy enough to keep turning after the initial tooth failed. 1 more loaded use would have split the rim or torn the mount free.

The Skill gave him no place and no person who had used the part. It showed only a larger machine worked hard in reverse.

A brief hollow opened in his Core. The Void Reserve filled it before he lowered the part.

Saelith looked at the crack. "Can it still be used?"

"It might take 1 more load. It would probably break during the attempt."

"What was it turning?"

"The part cannot tell me."

He Stored the winch head.

The 1st ledger held food, lamp oil, rope, and coin entries in cramped columns. Several lines ended with marks rather than names. The 2nd recorded bundles moving between local landmarks: the split willow, the pale ridge, the north stones, and places Severin had not seen. The slate carried the same marks in abbreviated form, but 1/2 the route had been rubbed away during packing.

The marks did not form a complete road beyond the reeds.

Saelith stood beside the board while Severin compared the entries. Alicia remained at his left, ears shifting whenever the reeds knocked together.

1 line appeared 3 times across separate pages. The words changed slightly, but the order did not.

Hold the upper release until the 1st hard rain.

A later entry tied the final movement of tools to the same rain. Payment followed after the water passed the lower marks.

"Hard rain would cover a great deal of noise," Severin said.

"And add weight to every branch already carrying too much," Saelith replied. She touched a finger to the page without covering the words. "If they open something upstream while the ground is full, the initial surge will look like the storm did it."

"When?" Alicia asked. "Do you know, Saelith?"

"No. Not from these reeds and this sky." Saelith looked through the open side of the canvas. "I would need to watch the clouds and wind as they begin to turn."

The records told Severin what they were waiting for, but not when the rain would come. No payer’s full name stood beside the payment marks, and nothing identified the place holding the upper release. The captives might know more. They would remain inside the Vault until he had a better place to question them.

He closed the ledgers.

"Everything portable leaves with us," he said. "The ground stays as it is."

"Yes, Master." Alicia lifted the route slate.

Saelith gathered the loose pages that had fallen beneath the board and checked the water-side root before leaving.

Evening light had begun to thin between the reeds by the time the last rope and folded sheet of canvas entered the Void. The low platforms remained above the damp earth. 4 empty places marked where the camp had been taken apart too late.

Severin Stored the ledgers and slate last.

The instruction remained clear in his mind.

Hold the upper release until the 1st hard rain.