PSTH2: Chapter Nine

Creating an artificial Primal. Can it be done? We have the ability to restructure ousia with the spiderweb principle. Generating ousia outside of a person is possible, if difficult, by breaking down essence into its component parts. There are details of existing Primals that are unknown, as each layer of Ousia si ght reveals more complex layers. But could we construct a new weave? A new Primal, born not of the essence heart’s abilities, but of science and logic?! It must be possible!

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Question from a first year essence structure research student, 439 Modern-Era

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The fish tacos, as suggested, were delicious. The warm, wet ground around here was poor for growing some things, but they had an abundance of serrano and tabasco peppers, the latter of which could be roasted until they popped open and spurted juice into the mouth. Paired with the thick sauce of blended tarro, water spinach, and culantro – a cousin to the more popular cilantro plant that could handle the warm, wet weather better – it was the perfect mix of savory, sweet, and spicy. 

At least for me. Gawain and River both couldn’t handle it, and wound up dumping half their roasted peppers onto my plate, so that they could enjoy the meal. Though they were a bit spicy on their own, a bit of mashed skirret that I ordered as a side made for a perfect companion. Laurel was even more extreme, popping the peppers into her mouth whole, without any concern for balancing the spice level. 

I did get some amusement out of watching both River and Laurel go wild on the rice. It was one of the most commonly grown food crops around Silica, since the rice loved the heat, the sun, and the wetness of the soil. My village was up the coast from here, so I’d never had much of a problem getting access to rice for most of my life. They probably hadn’t had too much trouble – rice was shelf stable and easy to transport – but the relatively cheap price to amount here was apparently pretty extreme, at least when compared to the prices from an inland place like Calcite City or Arkose. 

They used the same water to grow some cranberries and plums, as well as some oranges in some of the slightly drier villages a bit east of the city, and I got to enjoy a fruit soda that was produced around there. I thought it was even better than the one I’d had in Tourmaline City, with a sharp, citrusy note that stood out starkly to me. 

We didn’t get much actual planning done during the meal, as we were too involved in the meal, as we were mostly caught up in eating, but as the food was being cleared away, we finally settled on some plans. 

“Okay,” I said. “I still maintain that it’s more fun to not know a Councillor challenge beforehand, but… you said that we’d probably need to go out in the swamps anyways in order to complete it? What did you mean by that? Is it like Arkose, where we’ve gotta take pictures?” 

“Kind of,” Gawain said, making a face. “There are two possible challenges for those of sound body, depending on what your roster of Primals is.” 

“Is that even allowed?” River cut in, frowning. “That seems like it could be used to discriminate against people.” 

“It requires an additional pass from external oversight, and signatures from six other Councillors or Regents as fair, but it can be done,”I said. That got a few looks, and I shrugged. “There was a special about it I watched when I was younger. This reminded me of it.”

“Yes. Well, for those who have at least five Primals, the challenge involves navigating a pseudo-tournament structure.” 

“Why five?” River asked. 

“Tournaments,” Laurel explained. “There’s a baseline of two Primals to register as a tamer, and a maximum of four Primals are selected for each round in official events like Councillor fights or tournament matches. But if you have five, then you’ve got a bunch more possible teams you can use for any given match.”

River nodded his understanding, and Gawain continued his explanation. 

“For those without five or more Primals, the idea is to prove yourself as a tamer, by casting Bond Primal on something relatively nearby, and getting them to accept. It’s not technically required that you enter the swamp. The majority of people simply catch a Pyrefly, a Squarrel, an Aquarb, or some other common Primal they can find in the city, and bond to that. But since I need to enter the swamps for an epic Primal anyhow, it seemed like a good idea to achieve both goals at once.”

“No wonder you want us along,” I chimed in. “If we come along, our combined presence with a level fifty plus tour guide will be fairly intense. It should drive off most essence crocs–” 

“Crocodiles aren’t in the northern swamp,” Gawain interjected, but I just continued. 

“Or opportunistic gators, or other essence beasts. And if we get into trouble, we’ll have more firepower. But that will serve as a lure for any Primals who have the strong desire to grow more powerful. They’ll want to approach and battle us. 

“Save for your crocodile statement, that’s correct.” 

“I don’t know,” Laurel said, drumming her fingers against the table. “On one hand. On the other…” 

“You didn’t actually tell us what’s in your right hand and what’s in your left in this metaphor,” I pointed out. She blinked and nodded. 

“I could probably stand picking up another Primal,” Laurel said. “I’ve got four, which is good. It leads to twenty-four different possible team combinations.”

“Technically less, since scenario ABCD and BACD are the same,” River added. “But ABDC is different from either of those, since you can put them out in a different order. It’s… hm, maybe I’ll learn how to write a solving system for that in a sets and series class?”

“Right, so a bit less than twenty-four possible combinations, but with a fifth, it jumps way up to like a hundred,” Laurel said. “The actual number isn’t all that important. It makes me significantly more flexible. But I also don’t really want to go into the swamp – northern or southern.” 

“If you don’t want to go, then don’t,” Gawain. “Pick up a Squarrel in one of the parks near here.” 

“I don’t especially want to do that either,” Laurel said. “I know that the anima circuit in a storage gem is fairly easy to repair if the Primal severs the bond, but it’s still wasteful.” 

“Then learn to cast it yourself,” I added, and River’s eyes lit up. Laurel’s head snapped to her boyfriend, and an aura rose up around both of them as their anima flared, before it died down. 

“Yessssss!” River cackled, throwing back his head and laughing loud enough that we got a few 

“Noooo,” Laurel groaned, sliding down in her chair and rubbing her hands over her face. 

“What?” I asked, genuinely confused. At least I wasn’t alone – Gawain looked just as unsure about what was going on as I was. 

“I’ve been trying to get her to learn spells for the longest time,” River explained. 

“Learning to cast spells is a waste of time for a Tamer,” Laurel said, pulling herself back up. “Despite what my boyfriend has to say. Bond Primal is in storage gems, and I can just activate the circuit. There are like ten null spells in existence that are even simple enough for me to cast, and there’s no point to learning any of them. Sure, there are advanced ones that repair people and the like use, but those take ages of training to cast.” 

“I’ve found the basic Dash spell to be pretty useful,” I said. “I don’t get a ton of use out of it, sure, but it’s fun.” 

“Right, but if I wanted that, I’d be better off getting a bike with a speed-based module attached. They can be fueled on a combination of anima storage, ambient essence, and my own power,” Laurel argued back. “If I wanted to learn to cast spells, I wouldn’t have gone into the sport where no humans are around casting spells.” 

I did my very best to avoid looking at Gawain and giving away his secret then, though in doing so, I mostly stared at Laurel, deadpan. It must have come across that I was annoyed, because she waved her hand. 

“No, you’re right,” she said, straightening up and grinning at River. “I should stick to my intuition. Tamers shouldn’t be out here casting spells.”

“That’s not what I said–” I started to say, but Laurel plowed on ahead. 

“Maybe there are some freaks of nature, like Aiden, who want to do both and can do both, but I’m not!” she continued. “I’m no spellcaster, and I don’t think I ever will be. I’ll get a storage gem! And I’ll march into the swamp!” 

“I think you’d wind up contracting a disease if you did that,” Gawain pointed out. “Also, I can cast Bond Primal. My mother insisted I learn it, just in case.” 

Laruel grumbled something at him, before taking a long sip of soda.

“I’m not gonna literally march into the swamp. I just meant that I’d join you all and see if I can find a fifth Primal for my team,” she eventually said. “That said, no offense, but you’re hardly a normal tamer either. I’m not surprised you can do it.” 

“Oh,” Gawain said. “Surely the percentage isn’t that low, though?” 

“I bet it is,” River cut in. “One of the guys in my class was a hobbyist tamer for a while, before pivoting to becoming a magian. He didn’t know it.” 

“Anecdoatal,” Gawain dismissed, and I turned my pad back on. 

“Why don’t we check and see?” 

That research hole was surprisingly deep, as there weren’t all that many studies on it, but eventually River was able to track down a university study that suggested that while sixty percent of tamers had ‘thought about’ learning Bond Primal, only eighteen percent had ‘seriously considered’ it, and only four percent actually went through with it. The study was five years old, and only surveyed a collection of fifty tamers, so its veracity was somewhat suspect, but it served to illustrate the point. 

By the time the topic was well and truly beaten into the ground, it was about three-thirty in the afternoon, and so I looked around at my friends. 

“We can nip out and sign up for the Councilor challenge, but it’s getting late. We should probably find a place to stay. Especially if you two are going to stay at a hotel, rather than a hostel. They’ll start filling up quickly.” 

“Oh, we booked ahead of time,” River said. “Where are you staying, Gawain?” 

“My mother put me up in a hotel,” he said. 

“I thought you were staying in hostels and backpacking around?” I commented. “That’s how we met after all.” 

“My mother thought it would be a good idea for me to get in touch with more people, get used to a lack of money, and to project the image of a bottom-up tamer, but she thinks I’ve learned the relevant lessons,” Gawain said. “I don’t know if that’s true or not. Frankly, I can barely tell much of a difference.” 

“What?” I asked, scrunching my eyebrows together. “Really? You can’t tell much of a difference? You, mister ‘can you hear the audio in this track’?” 

“The food is better,” Gawain said after a moment. “The bed is also larger, but I don’t move much during my sleep, so that doesn’t really matter.” 

“Typical,” I grunted. “Of course that’s the only difference you can see.” 

“Aiden, did you want to stay at the hotel with me?” Gawain asked. “Since it seems like you’d notice more of a difference.” 

I immediately choked on my soda.