Farmer Brah'm gave Caen a vase of nutrient-rich soil—he’d retrieved this out of nowhere—and explained that Caen would need to diversify his fragment’s ‘diet’ routinely and not casually. Broadening what exactly his fragment could feed on was very important, the man said, as this would determine how strong his fragment would become.

  He encouraged Caen to feed it not just plant matter but carcasses, planar materials—whenever he found them—and whatever else. Brah'm also mentioned offhandedly that all fragments could grow Parthran fruits, though that wasn't really something non-dryads could do.

  Caen had left his backpack in Guinevere's room; otherwise, he'd have brought out his notebook to take notes.

  Farmer Brah'm didn't have a fragment that could feed as Caen's could, to say nothing of growing, for that matter. But it wasn't all that surprising that he knew as much as he did about fragments of all sorts. Archmages were terrifying.

  “You'll want to be careful about relying on this little guy for protection from harm,” Brah'm said while feeding Caen's fragment a large fruit. “Parthran dryads can sense when their fragment is on the verge of uh destruction. Non-dryads aren't so lucky, so it'd be best to exercise caution.”

  Caen could already communicate with his fragment when Mimicking its spirit receptor, and to a lesser extent, through their connection. Still, this was a good reminder to check in regularly with the fragment.

  “Oh, and once it has done a lot of growing, you'll really enjoy eating attacks.” Brah'm laughed. “Magical, physical, good lord. It's a real kicker. Though that won't be for a long, long while. You'll need to get really good at manipulating your fragment fast enough. Still! It's something to look forward to, isn't it?”

  Caen nodded politely, brows creased in interest. He wasn't even pretending. He knew from his talks with Frerit-ya-tess—the dryad from Parthra who had explained how to use his fragment to him—that his fragment could resist damage and also eat physical substances. But Brah’m had just confirmed Caen's suspicions. His fragment could absorb magical damage, too.

  “Have you named it yet?” the archmage asked, pulling Caen out of his thoughts.

  “No,” Caen admitted. He hadn't seen any dryads naming their fragments, so he'd assumed it might be disrespectful to do so.

  “Then, how about we name it…hmm. Let's see.” Brah'm stroked his beard. “‘Menty’. From fragment.”

  Caen did his very best to make sure his face revealed nothing about what he thought of the name ‘Menty’. “That’s certainly a… unique name,” he said carefully.

  “Dad, that's a terrible name,” Guinevere said from where she and Zeris were petting the horses. She turned back towards the house. “Mom!”

  “ABRAHAM HUGHES-RICHARDSON, WHY ARE YOU MARKING THAT CHILD'S ITEM ON THE WEAVE!” Joan's voice called all the way from the house. It wasn't uncomfortably loud whenever she did this. Just very noticeable and… hard to ignore, but in an unobtrusive way.

  “MIND YOUR DAMNED BUSINESS, WOMAN,” he replied with a very happy smile on his face. He let out a pleased sigh. “Now, where were we? Ah yes. A name.”

  “HOW ABOUT… ‘CHASMA’?” Joan offered.

  Actually, that’s not a bad name, Caen thought.

  “I like it,” he said before Brah'm could come with something else.

  And as soon as he’d spoken the words, he felt an inexplicable but muted shudder pass through his… existence. If it were unfurled right now, he would have been able to inspect his soul structure for clues on what was going on.

  “Chasma,” Brah’m said, as if testing out the name.

  Caen felt a much weaker shudder this time.

  Brah'm nodded. “Seems just right.”

  Still not quite sure what was going on, Caen itched to ask, but was far too worried about making himself seem more interesting than he presently was.

  Brah'm levitated the fragment into Caen's arms, which held the vase.

  “Thank you for the soil and all the advice, Farmer Brah'm.” He raised his voice, turning slightly to the house behind. “And thank you, Ma’am, for the name.”

  “MY PLEASURE.”

  Brah'm laughed. “Don't mention it, lad. Now scram. Oh, and you should head over to the Aperture right now and grab yourself some more soil. Useful, that.”

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  “What?”

  “Guin-guin! Hey! Trouble-child of mine. Why don't you take your friends to the Plane?”

  “Okay,” Guinvere said, rolling her eyes. She and Zeris had been petting one of Evestia’s wings. She started walking away. “Come on, guys, let's check out the Plane.”

  “What is happening right now?” Caen asked Zeris as he caught up with them.

  “I'm just as confused as you are. Guinevere, what did he mean by ‘the Aperture’?”

  “We have an Aperture here.”

  “And I'm just learning about this now?”

  Guinevere laughed. “Chill out. It slipped my mind. Also, it's pretty boring. Cute bunnies and nice-smelling plants, but not much else.”

  The Planar Aperture didn't have an archway, as Caen knew them. There were two fat pillars to either side of the Aperture instead. Zeris asked all sorts of questions, many of which Guinevere didn't know the answers to.

  The Plane turned out to be every bit as unremarkable as Guinevere had promised. Lots of three-eyed rabbits and shrubs that smelled so pleasant. Caen plucked a few of these and dug up some soil, all of which he had added to the vase.

  “Is this the end of the tour?” Caen asked as they stepped out of the Plane.

  “Yeah. I saved the practice room for last.”

  This was one of the reasons Caen had come here today, in fact. He needed to carry out a few tests with his fragment, Chasma, and Guinevere had offered to do this at her place. He was eager to try having the fragment eat an attack, and to try doing the same himself while Mimicking it.

  They returned to the house, and Guinevere led them through the corridors once more. The practice room was a rectangular space split into two squares by a glass divider. The walls and floor appeared to be padded with a material that was unfamiliar to Caen.

  The section they now stood in was bare and unassuming with its beige surfaces. The area behind the glass divider, however, was packed with all sorts of contraptions. Several of them, Caen recognized as high-end workout equipment.

  “This is the sparring area,” Guinevere said. “Self-explanatory. Heavily warded against elemental and kinetic magics.” She pointed to the divider. “Workout area. Also, self-explanatory. Besides the obvious, it functions as a safe place for onlookers to observe from.”

  “Great,” Caen said. “I'll just need a moment.”

  “Sure.”

  He shaped Chasma, his fragment, into a short, thick gauntlet that—through mind-boggling Parthran shenanigans—didn't hinder his finger dexterity. He was currently Mimicking Chasma’s Flora affinity, and while that meant he'd take longer shaping it, this forced him to continue improving how well he could communicate with his fragment through their connection alone.

  “Chasma, if this feels like too much, please, tell me, and I'll stop immediately,” he said under his breath while communicating his intent through his and the fragment’s connection.

  He felt the faintest sense of ‘regard’ from the fragment.

  “So, are you sure about this?” Zeris asked. A ball of Impassioned fire hovered over her palm.

  Caen gave her a flat look. “We agreed to start small. Passion fire is not small, Zeris.”

  Beside her, Guinevere quietly dismissed parts of her own spell, which had been a large ball of twisting lightning. Caen turned to glare at her as well.

  “You didn't specify,” Guinevere claimed.

  These were supposed to be his friends. Unbelievable.

  With a huff, Zeris dismissed her Impassioned fireball and conjured a much smaller regular one.

  Once he was done shaping his fragment. Caen Mimicked Zeris's Fire affinity. The passive resistance to fire that a high affinity granted would be very useful in this regard. More so because people possessed more of a resistance to their own elemental attacks than those of others.

  Caen held his gauntleted palm out to her.

  From across the room, she flung the trajection spell at him, and it slammed into his palm with concussive force, shoving it to the side. The fire dispersed against the fragment.

  Caen made an appreciable sound as he inspected Chasma, both physically and through their connection. “I didn't feel any of the heat,’’ Caen said. “Maybe we can ramp it up next time. Bigger fireball without Impassioning. Without, Zeris.”

  She clacked her tongue.

  He held out his palm again as he Mimicked Guinevere's lightning affinity. “Gwen?”

  She hurled an arc of lightning at him. He felt the slightest jolt of electricity run through his arm, but his fragment seemed to have dispersed most of it. Then again, this was a very weak attack, and he was currently sharing in her passive augmentation.

  I need to expand my sample size.

  But he would have to do it in such a way as not to raise Guinevere’s suspicion.

  Caen disconnected from her and forcefully reverted his Lightning affinity to abjection.

  Bracing himself, he held out his other palm, which was bare and unprotected, to Guinevere. “Again, please. Same intensity. Don't worry, it's fine.”

  She looked at Zeris, uncertainly, who nodded emphatically at her. She conjured another arc of lightning and hurled it at Caen.

  His mind blanked out for a fraction of a second. It felt as though his heart thumped four times in the same instant. Caen dropped to the floor, twitching.

  Zeris cackled while Guinevere rushed over.

  “Ohmygodohmygod. Did I kill you?”

  “No, no,” Caen rasped, sitting up. His tongue felt heavy in his mouth, and his arm still spasmed a little. “I'm… I'm fine. Wow. That was informative.”

  “Do you want to try a fire attack without the fragment next?” Zeris asked, futilely trying to hold back her laughter.

  Caen made a rude gesture at her.