Hugh had offered me up several little nuggets of respect over the time we''d known each other, but there was always the feeling that he mostly thought I was a child still, and in over my head. That - to be fair - had mostly been true so far. But now? The time had come to decisively kick Hugh''s ass. I wasn''t going to be satisfied with getting one cheap shot in, I needed to humiliate him. I wanted to make sure he would never forget it, and never again look at me like I was just some kid - no, he needed to feel at least a little fear when he saw me coming.


    Well... maybe fear was too much to ask. But caution, at least.


    It had started as ''I wish Hugh would back off just a little on the training'' but after five weeks of being thrown around like a rag doll for most of the day my thoughts had gone feral. The challenges in my memory palace had been a nice break, but the damage was done and I wasn''t going to be able to go back to just wanting to win. I was out for blood.


    We''d been spending a little time climbing buildings in Theramas, with Hugh trying to catch up and pull me off. He wasn''t using his Force powers to just blast me off the building, but he was using Velocity to speed himself up. That was good, because it was something he didn''t do a lot when we were sparring - the room wasn''t really big enough for him to need it. He''d make his attacks faster, sure, but the way he used it when he wasn''t taking a swing was different, slightly. And I needed to feel as many variations on his power as possible.


    "You are being sloppy, Calliope!" he yelled as he grabbed my heel.


    I was, in fact, being sloppy - but I wasn''t about to tell him I was multitasking. I hurtled towards the ground, and slammed down into a pile of blankets. I''d tried to just make the ground soft, but for some reason it hadn''t worked very well. I was almost certain that my mind wouldn''t die from a simple fall within its own domain, but ''almost certain'' wasn''t good enough for me when the risk was so high. I was thinking a lot about how all that worked, and what would or wouldn''t actually damage things in my memory palace. I didn''t want to fuck up and destroy Hugh''s mind or anything.


    Even setting my current project aside, I''d want to know what to expect if I ever started traveling to other planes or screwing around with spirits; the next ability on my list would hopefully let me tether some spirits if I didn''t fuck it up. Going off of some bits I''d read in the books Harmid had gathered as well as some stuff Cyne and Sige had talked about, I''d put together a basic understanding. Everything seemed to be based on one of two things: how physically ''real'' something was, and how much oomph it was packing.


    The ''oomph'' factor was - at least in part - what the Substance gift acted on, though the uses I''d seen of it were more about altering something''s density. Segozertze, the bat-bear things that I''d been nearly killed by right after meeting Hugh, manipulated it to effectively alter their weight. Same with that one Halenvar asshole with the giant morning star, he was almost certainly making it more or less buoyant to float around.


    Aestrid had used it too, if I understood right, combining it with Force to make herself extra invulnerable and immovable. Spirits with extra mana to spare used it more like that, becoming more substantive even without actual substance. It made them a little harder to kill, and maybe let them physically attack things they''d otherwise pass through - like those amoeba things I''d seen that one guy controlling. My mind couldn''t do that much, though I could maybe learn to do it, but within my memory palace it would naturally have an extra pseudo-realness that should mean it was hard to damage. Human Callie had stuck a knife in it, though. That hadn''t been great.


    Thankfully the knife had also been made from ephemeral matter and didn''t have any extra ''oomph'', plus a great thing about my mind not being physical was that while it kinda had organs it wasn''t actually using them for anything in particular. It had them because it was matching my body, not because it needed a liver or lungs or anything. Spirits in places like Nusos that were almost physical - and could even pass as physical in the prime plane for a while before they started to degrade - I think had more need for actual biology. Or... maybe it was a tradeoff between having to use mana to sustain yourself, and needing less mana but having to have guts and all the issues that come with them - like caring more if they had a knife shoved through them.


    Either way, here in my memory palace the worst thing that was likely to happen to Hugh or I would be that we take some dramatic injury that forces the mind to flee back to the body for safety. I''d fully suppressed that reflex a while ago, and while almost all our regular sparring where I might get a hit on Hugh happened in our actual bodies because Hugh worried I might not be able to play fair when I was - not necessarily on a conscious level - controlling little things about the memory palace like it was my dream, he had still gotten "injured" enough times to figure it out.


    In a pinch, I was pretty sure I could hold someone in my memory palace once they were there, so long as they didn''t struggle - but I would want to be careful about that since at some level of damage a mind could, actually, be destroyed. So long as no actual magical attacks were incoming and nobody had smuggled in a weapon made of more substantive material it was unlikely, though.


    I headed back up the wall, with Hugh waiting until I got to a certain point we''d marked before he came after me. The wall wasn''t a perfect recreation of anything in Theramas, I''d tweaked it and made it more interesting. I was getting better at that, although I still found it almost impossible to make something from scratch. I had to start with a wall from a memory and then mess with it, for some reason. I''d made a few little things, but even then it was hit and miss. I was pretty sure it was just going to be a matter of practice, that I wouldn''t need to unlock anything with my Dumines.


    Practice was fine, so long as it felt like I was getting somewhere. I''d hit a wall when it came to the knitting, probably because I didn''t have anyone to learn from. I couldn''t use the templating thing to just give myself skills, at least not yet, but maybe I could give them to the spirits in my head and then have them teach me? After all, those things were already pulling memories from me to be part of my dreams, right? It should be easy for them. Hmm.


    I pretended to slip and dangled for a moment, and then as Hugh reached for me I dropped onto his head and took him down with me. It wasn''t how the game was supposed to work, but it was funny.


    "Gah! Calliope, you too eagerly sacrifice yourself to defeat an opponent. It may have worked on me when you stabbed yourself, but in any other situation it would have been pointless, yes?"


    "That was one time. And this time, I guess, but that doesn''t count."


    "And when you used yourself as bait to defeat the bounty hunters?"


    "I had that under control. That wasn''t a sacrifice thing."


    "And when you lit the building you were in on fire?"


    "Also not a sacrifice, I had no intention of sticking around and burning to death. That was just arson. Benevolent arson. Anyway, you wouldn''t want me to not use the tools available to me, right? This is a place where we can''t really die, so making us both fall is a valid tactic."


    Hugh arched an eyebrow. "The goal was to touch the flag at the top of the wall, Calliope."


    "A valid tactic," I repeated, "but setting that aside and just agreeing that I''m right, since we''re talking about us getting hurt and this place being fake I have a question for you. I was just thinking about how most injuries here aren''t a big deal because our organs are just for show, but really they''re for some sort of mind-body link that makes healing better by telling the magic what your healthy body should look like, right?"


    He nodded, so I continued. "And I know magical changes to physical appearance would typically revert unless you either got multiple treatments or had your mind molded to match - they said that wouldn''t be a problem with little beneficial stuff like fixing my allergies, but like... if you paid an enhancer to turn your skin blue or something. And then presumably for the same reason, with the mind not updating right away, any longer-term injury you for some reason didn''t get fixed might be fine at first but after a while it would get mapped to your mind, and at that point it would be hard to heal since it doesn''t match. right?"


    This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    "I am no expert on these things, but I believe that is all correct." He narrowed his eyes at me suspiciously. "What are you getting at?"


    "I have more control over my mind every day. Could I skip going to an enhancer and just change how I look via my mind? Like, I know it wouldn''t happen right away but as I got healed and stuff it would try to match this version of me, right? Could I make myself super healthy, or taller, or give myself horns and fangs and stuff?"


    Hugh sighed. "I knew a young soldier who had just gotten a dud in the Duminere, and felt that he needed to be able to better contribute. That he was not special enough if he did not have magic at his fingertips. He went to a new and... very affordable... enhancer, and had changes made. They did not have the correct gifts to alter the mind''s image of the body, but he asked someone else to do that part afterwards to make it permanent.


    "One or both made a mistake. He had intended to have retractable claws - among other enhancements - but after being healed during training he attempted to show them off and his own fingers simply... exploded. Ah, that may be too strong a word, yes? But it was a terrible sight. They healed him again, and he found himself still in terrible pain. Something wrong with the tendons or muscles that controlled the new claws, I believe. It took a great deal of time to arrange a visit with a healer that could override the changes he had made, though I had my suspicions that they were not in any rush. They wanted to be sure he learned the lesson.


    "In the end, they had to copy someone else''s fingers - a difficult procedure. There was no record of what, precisely, his own had once looked like. A small concern, but I know I would be bothered somewhat by losing even that tiny part of myself unintentionally. So, could you do it? Possibly. Even that stupid young man had the help of an enhancer, but it may be possible to make changes just with alterations to the mind. The body would be trying to re-imprint itself on the mind, somewhat, until it matched one way or another. And most healing would not notice the changes, healing only those parts that were truly injured. It would be possible to have the changes show up in little bits and pieces, so they would at best look bad and at worst cause physical injury. I would suggest against it."


    I leaned back against the wall to take all that in. "Well, shit. Okay, so no fucking around with that I guess. For sure not anything important. Man, how do beginner enhancers even learn stuff without fucking up and ruining someone''s body? I guess just start with really simple stuff and find someone to train under?" I''d gotten my hair cut for free by people training to become barbers or stylists, and I kept finding myself thinking about that in this context. Would people volunteer for body modifications from enhancers in training? Were there poor people out there that would just volunteer as practice dummies?


    Hugh wanted to shift gears back to sparring in the real world, probably because he didn''t want me trying to tamper with my self-image. Cosmetic stuff, though... I could try to go all the way back and scry on myself as an infant, see what I looked like. What my parents looked like. I wouldn''t want to go full Sargher, but maybe shift things a little towards my original appearance? Or if I was going to take the Runelighter name, I could borrow a little from Katrin and Errod - enough to make myself look like a cousin or something, anyway. Then again... better to pay a professional, probably. I had the money.


    Anyway, that was a thought for another time. Right now I needed to kick Hugh''s ass. "Okay, okay. We''ll go back to our stupid meat bodies and smack them around."


    Just like that we were back in the training room, standing up from the bench we''d chosen to sit on while we played around in my memory palace. Hugh paced around a moment, stretching, and then stopped suddenly. His eyes scanned the room, as if for some hidden threat. Uh-oh. Well, better distract him. I threw a knife, and Hugh flicked it out of the air before dismissively gesturing and launching me at the wall. I landed perfectly and launched back off, throwing another knife as I did.


    Rather than flicking this one away, Hugh sent it back at me - but it was off-target, and I ignored it. I rolled back to my feet as I landed and sprinted at him, knowing that he rarely passed up an opportunity for melee combat if I pushed for it. Sure enough, he let me get in close before trying to punch my kidney into paste. He missed as I contorted myself, and a look of surprise crossed his face - followed quickly by my fist. I hit him like a freight train, and he staggered a little before trying to force-push me away.


    The look of surprise shifted to concentration as he realized I''d hooked my leg around his to keep him from launching me, and I buried my other knee in his groin before he could react. He flipped both of us over to slam into the ground, but he had no way of realizing I''d put a knife between us - the landing did far more harm to him than me. We rolled apart, and now he was looking wary. He felt the bloody wound in his side, and tilted his head to look at me like I was some strange puzzle. Shit. He had to know. Nothing to do but attack, and hope he wasn''t really sure.


    I ran to the rack of practice weapons and grabbed another stack of throwing knives to make sure he didn''t worry about where they were coming from. He would assume the others I''d thrown had been stashed around my person, like I tended to do. It was part of the game, actually, with him trying to find them all when it was time to leave the training room. These ones would be easy to locate since I was planning on sticking them into his lungs. I threw one I knew would miss just to keep him on his toes, and then charged directly towards him, dropping and sliding at the last second and stabbing his leg as I reached it.


    Hugh let out an annoyed grunt, probably very frustrated by my unexpected speed and strength. He swung downwards, planning on making me into a pancake before I could get back on my feet, but again I was just barely to the side of where he expected and the blast of force did nothing. I grabbed his arm and pulled myself up by it, planting a knife into his left lung. Hah. I felt a strain, and Hugh got a solid hit in while I was distracted by it - I had to keep it together, just a moment longer. I hit the wall and bounced off, and I felt the strain subside. Yeah, that made sense. As soon as he''s winning he thinks everything is okay.


    Another knife went flying and was deflected, and then we were clashing together again with his force-assisted knee rocketing towards my face. I punched it out of the way enough to slide by and stick a knife in his other lung, and that strain reappeared. I fought it, grinning at Hugh''s shocked expression, and then... fuck. Fuck! I felt the Granch stirring. It sensed prey, squirming in my memory palace. Held in place. Helpless.


    "Whoops, sorry. Talk to you in a second!" I violently booted Hugh from the divination-perfect replica of the practice room I''d been maintaining, and let out a deep breath. That had gone pretty well, all things considered. He''d known something was wrong, but clearly he wasn''t certain what. All my practice with him, using the same skills as the templating to let him feed my memory palace more and more information on how his powers should feel and replicating their effects. Draining his mana wasn''t possible, and if the fight had gone on any longer that would have given me away for sure, but with him under attack and not having experienced active divination here much it would have felt real enough. If only the Granch hadn''t woken up, I could have held him a little longer.


    Speaking of... it was still stalking around, somewhere. Or one of them was - in theory I had a whole colony. I''d read what little Harmid had dug up about it, but it wasn''t a lot more than he''d already told me. It was almost certainly from Brinkmar, and almost certainly an engineered spirit rather than natural. Halenvar, as the last nation to have access to the cursed and blighted Brinkmar, had obtained some and used them as a very fucked up form of mental security. This, combined with the fact that I had access to Brinkmar, had made me wonder if somehow my parents had made some deal when I was little. I wasn''t sure what the point of that would be, and it didn''t really fit with the timeline since the memories I was sure had been tampered with didn''t happen until I was sixteen.


    I''d poked at those a little, but it hadn''t been my main priority. I just didn''t have time for everything, and I figured it was better to try and learn how to get the most out of all my abilities right away since it seemed likely I was either going to be in constant danger or locked up somewhere I wanted to get out of. Not that being locked up had been bothering me too much, as long as I took some time each day to meditate with that old key ring.


    Finally I felt the Granch settle down and go dormant, and I popped back to my body. Hugh was already up and staring at me.


    "That... was almost convincing. Almost."


    "Oh come on, I had you. Yes, I know, I saw you looking around at first. I''m not saying you didn''t feel like something was off. But if you''d known, if you''d been at all sure, that fight would have gone way differently."


    "I was certain, by the end." He sounded like he was lying.


    "Bullshit. I saw the look on your face."


    Hugh grimaced, and sat next to me again. "That was more about the way you prevented me from leaving, yes? A terrifying ability."


    "Yeah, well, it''s one I can''t use again. It uh... woke up the Granch. And anyway, I''m more interested in learning to pull people in there against their will - you were in there willingly, that won''t help in a bad situation. I kinda did it once, but the guy was already halfway in - I''d rather do it in a normal fight, take someone by surprise."


    "If it were that easy, I suspect it would be a common tactic. The opposite is easier, forcing your way into the mind of another - but your tricks would be limited, in their domain."


    "Well, it''s on my big list of things to work on just below ''kick Hugh''s ass so hard I see true fear in his eyes''. I guess I can check that one off."


    He looked like he was about to argue, and then sighed. "I would be a hypocrite of the worst sort if I accused you of cheating, yes? Fine. We will call this a success, and you may have more control over the training schedule as promised."


    Finally.