“Normally, we wouldn’t start here. None of my children knew this space until they’d reached adolescence. But, you’re not QUITE the same, so I think we can start here.”
Unlike the dead space, the result of purifying the taint of the Vitiate, this was a more traditional grassy plane, a cleared space amongst the Ravensky forests. There were some distant bird calls, but they swiftly stopped when Christopher did…something, and the sword slid out of the black shadowy mass that he’d summoned at his hand.
“This is a simple task. Attack me.
“Now, you don’t have to act like you’re fighting for your lives. But otherwise…I want you to take this as seriously as possible. I won’t TRY to hurt you, but I also will be taking this seriously. I’m sure based on what you’ve seen and heard, that a lot of pain could come your way if you don’t put your nose to the grindstone.
“This fight will end when either you, or I, are sufficiently restrained or worn out. As said, don’t just accept the first setback in that regard. But this is more than just raw power. It’s about the thought process of using the power. Leverage, in all aspects. Now, normally I’d use the Redemption for something like this. It can’t cause wounds to the good and innocent. But I need a little more leverage of my own, so, I’m afraid…”
Christopher pulled the sheath off the very long, very thin sword. Fittingly, a longsword, but it seemed to be extra long at the expense of ‘sword’: longswords tended to be around three feet in length blade wise, this one looked to be at least five, with the blade a touch thinner than such a sword would be.
Of course, it wasn’t actually made of metal. THAT, the dragon girls could tell immediately, even if they ignored the fact that when Christopher removed the sheath, the sword remained floating in the air, the sheath dissolving into smoke.
“You get Cull.”
Swords, being made of metal, tended to be gray and silver. Cull’s blade was also ‘gray and silver’...but not the ‘right’ kind. It was the gray of worn teeth, of shifting clouds before a storm, its hilt and handle a slightly darker, more natural gray (charcoal gray, it was called in color assessments).
“Are we understood?” The sword moved by itself, snapping up and over Christopher’s shoulder, as he popped out his long claws on his mechanical hand.
“Yes sir, Understood.” Venny replied, tensing up into hard angles while her tail pointed behind her in a line. Her Radiance activated in the space of a second, she not leaving the ground but instead gathering to do the best she could. Vimmy’s wingblades likewise spread, the sharp edges pointed outward while her drones floated up in flanking positions beside her.
“Understood!” She chipped in, taking a page out of Venny’s book. They looked at each other, gesturing with their eyes and minute movements of their hands to align on an attack pattern within a second or two of debate. They knew Christopher was aware their default was to pincer and come at a target from both sides at the same time, so instead of relying on that they’d have to try something else at first. Venny kept her eyes on Cull and the claws of his hand, while Vimmy traced his body to try and keep abreast of what he’d likely do in the initial first moments.
They knew they couldn’t overwhelm him on their best day, but in terms of leverage there were two of them and one of him, so as long as they stuck to their own strengths… Vimmy let out a small breath while her drones lined up projections and lines over her vision to trace movements and initialize different paths for her; Venny clenched her fists and ground her teeth together.
“Begin.”
When they moved they didn’t have to coordinate further, too used to each other to need to check; Vimmy went forward immediately while Venny banked to the left, feet skimming the grass in a hard arc. Vimmy didn’t hesitate, throwing out two punches and then a kick that she braced with a foot instead of rising with the motion while Venny changed direction on a dime to come at Christopher’s side, in the span of her attack Vimmy backing off a step to likewise take an angle at his right. Her drones kept their distance while she did, knowing they wouldn’t survive a real blow from him.
Christopher, in turn, held his ground. Ridiculously so: he barely moved at all as the two dragon girls did their best impression of a swarm of bees all around him. With no need to actually HOLD the sword, he could use both hands for combat, though all his blows were blocks and re-directed strikes that the girls, having practiced with Celeste, responded well to. The sword mostly weaved around, occasionally jabbing and poking at the girls, but it acted primarily as a distraction and a misdirection. Time slowed down, the earth around the trio beginning to tear up from all the force being thrown and blunted/countered.
It ‘went wrong’ when Christopher finally had a half second’s opening…and punched the air.
Which shattered like glass. The action set off a wave of kinetic energy that shoved the girls backwards. To their credit, they immediately regrouped and closed to attack again.
Perhaps a bit TOO quickly. It hadn’t just been a ‘push away’ attack. They knew what Cull was. It was the ‘core’ to an ‘attack apparatus’; it had multiple modes, and the ‘shattered glass’ had flown in and attached to the blade, turning into a cross between a chainsaw and a porcupine’s quills, the swing causing pieces of the ‘glass’ to briefly break off and fly around, poking at the girls and jabbing at their drones.
They knew the name of this form. Exquisite Corpse. Well, at least that wouldn’t be their fate.
Might end up with some painful gratitudes over that fact.
---
-Another time-
“There’s an oversight I have noticed in a LOT of good and bad sorts. They get in a lot of trouble if they get into a grapple. Now, you’re a little harder to choke out than normal, but you still have vulnerable spots. Like say…”
Julia mimed getting into a clinch with Vimmy, and then placed her thumbs over the woman’s eyes.
“Push in and ARRRRGGGHHHH. It’s bad. The good news is, not many sorts will think to do that. Tactically. They might do it in desperation. One of the greatest tricks you can learn is instinctual protection if you’re real up close, your limbs aren’t in a good position, your powers aren’t available, etc etc…but still. First, I’m gonna grab you. From different angles. I want you to dislodge me. However you can. Just try not to melt my face off. Otherwise, anything’s on the table. Bang me up a bit if needed. We need to see what you’re prone to doing.”
The girls normally wouldn’t fear things like choking hands and knives. But when Julia put on an acting face and did her best to simulate a mad attacker trying to choke them to death or drive a knife into their face and chest, well…circumstances and attitude made a lot of difference. Even with Celeste watching from a distance.
Up close was where Vimmy and Venny had wanted to be, but they had grasped the point. Even if overpowering them was off the table for the most part, it was still a possibility… and things happened in any fight that nobody expected. Venny had a much easier time of it; Her teeth were metal and she was able to alter gravity even on an individual level, so while she thrashed and struck just as much, she was able to ward off even close up attacks or effectively (mostly) take Julia back without resorting to desperate flight. Even so, she was touched and tagged enough to have to admit she’d needed the lesson.
Vimmy wasn’t defenseless in a clinch, but she had to rely on her own quickness and turns, frequently using her tail to counterbalance herself so she could twist hard and shirk Julia’s attentions. When she had to she’d move in short bursts over the ground to add to the force of throws or slipping out of her clutches, but after the way she’d been reigned in the first time she took to it all quickly. She only had to bring her horns to bear a few times, but she still counted those as failed attempts in her mind since they wouldn’t help that much, narrowing her eyes and then getting back to it. Weaker than Venny and therefore more prone to the actuality of getting stabbed or choked, she did her best to make up for the differences between them.
“Okay. Pretty good…ow.” Julia felt at her jaw after the latest 'break'. “Venny, might you consider an option where you could remove one of your teeth and spit it with velocity? A mouth surprise attack is often VERY effective.”
“...Huh. No, not before.” Venny scratched the back of her head. “It’s helped in just this sort of situation, but the main reason I got metal teeth was to scare people. It’s pretty frightening to see for the first time when I’m locked up against someone. Our whole, breathing fire and lasers thing is pretty obvious and easy to spot coming… That’s not a bad idea.” She allowed.
“I wouldn’t use it in a normal fight, but if you’re in a bad situation, well…mother, how many failsafes did you have on you?”
“When I was your age? Generally topped out at nine. At least six, every time.”
“...and I thought my four was pushing it. Nine, mother?”
“Blades in both upper and lower wrist, thumb AND pointer finger, under the nails. Blade in the kneepad. Blades in my boots. Two false teeth with gas to exhale, one blinding, one burning. And I’d wear earbuds that could be removed and would explode if I did so. Four second fuse, long enough to say, shove them up someone’s nose. You’re a different breed than I am, Vimmy, Venny, but the more tools you have, the better.”
“Fox and the cat.” Julia said.
“Yes, dear. I told you that story.”
“Fable. A fox and a cat talk. The fox brags that he has a hundred ways to escape the hunting hounds. The cat says he has one, run up a tree. The hounds come. Cat runs up a tree. The fox tries to decide which one of his hundred ways he wants to use, locks up, and the hounds kill him while the cat watches. In the end, in the worst situations, you’re better off with a cat. But otherwise? A fox. You properly link the two via instinct? Then you’re in a good spo-THINK FAST!”
Celeste was the one who acted, throwing one of her knives at Venny.
It slammed into the ground four inches from impact, Venny having gravity bombed it.
“...VERY good, sweetie.” Celeste said, her pride evident. “You would have had a lot of potential even if you hadn’t had such extensive changes to your body, I think.” Celeste recalled the blade to her hand, both girls knew that if Venny had been too slow, the mental control would have let her stop it literally when the point made impact, turning the strike into a painful sharp poke. Such was the specific trick of Ramification. She couldn’t do it with her twin blade, Ruination, but she didn’t throw that at anything unless she truly wanted it to go away.
Despite her heart suddenly racing, Venny still grinned happily. She wasn’t going to brag, but she was elated anyway. “Woo! I’ve been paying attention. I don’t think I could’ve done that a few months ago even with all my fancy targeting systems and what have you.” She admitted. Vimmy shimmied next to her in agreement. Grateful for the peanut brittle she broke out, she split it with her sister anyway as a matter of course. Especially since they knew that in Weav, that product was essentially non-existent. Which meant they had to get it from Dawn, and she wasn't exactly a phone call away.
“...I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am a little. All my tech, and it’s still only as good as the person using it.” She said before crunching through a piece.
“Never forget that, and you’ll be ahead of most of the sorts who could challenge you.” Celeste said.
“Speaking of, how goes that mission, Julia?”
“Kingfisher’s found, but GETTING to him properly is taking a while. But it will get done.”
“On your own.”
“This is the sort of mission where even two people instead of one can screw it up. I can handle it.”
---
-Another early afternoon-
“I did have some secondary reasons for taking you to Chalice. Namely, working out your physiology enough so I could make these.”
What ‘these’ were appeared to be thin, cloth like shoulder pads.
“One for each of you. I thought I would start you on learning the one inch technique. You may have seen Julia practicing it.”
That, they had. The woman had placed her fingers so the tips were against a length of firm wood, or stone, or ice, and then curled them into a fist even as she stuck her hand forward. She’d only shown it off a little, and just broken through the wood, but it was an impressive trick.
“Now, if I was just going to teach you how to do that in and of itself, it wouldn’t take long. With your altered bodies, you don’t feel pain or get damaged the way we do, and you’re much stronger than a normal person, even one who’s trained. As you’ve seen, we prefer to start our training with crisis situations, and work backwards from there. Had these custom made from Chalice’s notes from some of the teachers at Hope’s school. Whatever arm you put them on will simulate if you have a normal arm again. Flesh and bone, all the more normal feeling. For today, I thought we’d just let you put them on and get used to the feeling again. Maybe lift a few weights, catch some balls, stuff like that. Unless for some reason you’d rather not train this way. Now now, don’t feel compelled to do whatever I say to please me or my wife or your siblings. My learnings aren’t universal. Patricia shows that pretty well.”
Examining the pads, Vimmy and Venny had looked up at the same time.
“Oh, yeah, Julia showed us that. I thought it was something pretty neat.” Venny allowed while Vimmy slotted hers onto her shoulder and then opened and closed a fist, blinking at the feeling. She poked her forearm and then tilted her head at the limb.
“We, uh… That sounds totally fine, right?” Venny asked her, Vimmy glancing back up and nodding enthusiastically. “We know we can, I guess say no to things, but we haven’t found anything we object to learning at all. We want to learn! Besides, I can’t really- I know it wouldn’t be rude, or we’d make sure it wasn’t, but we don’t want to just stand around on the side and watch you all. That’d be a hell of a way to repay any of you for taking an interest. I know it isn’t a matter of repaying anything, but, well- I guess I’m trying to say, I know we can say no, but it’s not going to happen anyway.”
“Right! We’re committed to doing things the right way, and that means doing those things. We’re just happy to be shown anything you want to show us.” Vimmy hurriedly reassured. She’d have spoke up anyway, but Venny seemed to need the help.
“Good to know. This isn’t a one time chance, either. If things change, speak up. For now, throw these for the wolves.” He’d produced some leathery balls from somewhere. “And feel free to mix it up with tosses from your other, normal arm. Some of these fellows really like to sprint after the balls and catch them before they hit the ground while dodging trees. They say it’s good practice for trouble, but I KNOW that it’s more than that.”
The several Leowolves around Christopher began headbutting him.
“See? They prove my accusation.”
Fetch with Leowolves ended up being a lot more play than practice. And it also came with an unexpected minor danger. The adults brought the balls back, but the puppies did it by often bounding right into Vimmy and Venny in their eagerness to get the ball thrown again. A hundred plus pounds of fast moving dog, even a friendly happy one, could hit with considerable force, and the two ended up on their backs once or twice, a cold nose nudging at their hand to take the ball and throw it again.
-Later-
“I wish the rest could be as fun, but, well…that’s just not life.”
Christopher had placed two lengths of wood next to each other, each in a separate brace.
“Now...one trick when dealing with wood. It’s much easier to break if you go WITH the grain than against it. If you’ve ever seen combat people break wood to demonstrate their strength and skill, odds are they’re doing that to make it easier. So, we’ll start with that. The rest is fairly simple.”
Christopher put his left arm, the organic one, out, fingers against one of the boards.
“Just curl in and strike.”
He did it in slow motion.
“And then repeat. Again, and again, and again. If you were ‘normal’, this would be as much to toughen your hand and strengthen your arm. Since you’re not, we have to do some runarounds…but the basic process should still apply. With me keeping an eye on you at first to make sure you don’t break something besides the wood. That’s the difficult part. Like forging metal, do it wrong and it becomes brittle. Now, once we start this…it’s not going to be as scattershot as the rest of what we’re teaching you. Once we start, we’re going to work at this for at least 30 minutes a day, every day. And we’ll want to keep the pads on, so you can’t just make all the discomfort go away with a gesture. We’ll provide other methods to relax and help your hand, which SHOULD work…and basically, in the end, once you’ve gotten this down with you two being as ‘normal’ as you can, we’ll do some reverse training to help you do it as you normally are. Once again, just like this.”
Fingers out, fold and snap.
“Try it. A few times to get the motion, then actually put force behind the blow. Actually TRY to break through the wood. If it hurts, suck it up and keep going. Your arm burns and aches? Keep going. I’ll stop you if you’re getting too close to the line. Begin.”
“Understood.” They’d replied, Vimmy copying her sister in response as they went to it.
The mechanics weren’t hard to get down; It didn’t take either one too many initial tries to get the movements good. Fingers touching, curl in, and strike… But despite that, it wasn’t as simple as all that, and they grasped it immediately. It was one thing to heft cars over their heads or punch through metal, but with their arms brought back to baseline human levels the actual feeling of punching was subtly different than what they’d grown used to over the years. It wasn’t so much an ache or pain from hitting the wood as it was the feeling of doing it and being brought short instead of splintering it immediately, and they both paid attention to doing it the right way instead of letting time or discomfort turn the motion sloppy.
Venny was the first between them to really notice the feeling in her arm, since she’d been altered for a longer time than Vimmy had, and it was like something she’d forgotten returning. While she still felt things even with her cybernetics playing interference, it was different than normal. It wasn’t going to slow her down or stop her, but as her knuckles kept making contact she narrowed her eyes and kept at it despite the twinge and feeling of impact. She suspected this was what progress felt like, distilled down to one motion, and she was taking to it. Even trying to break through the wood and holding back only enough to keep her fist on target, she was finding her own rhythm.
Vimmy occasionally made a small sound,a grunt of effort every couple of punches, but she likewise was doing her best. Used to hitting hard enough that she could knock anything down, she found that it would’ve been difficult even at her full strength just from the lack of range of motion, but knew that was a big part of the point. It wasn’t about haymakers or jabbing, it was the distilled essence of a punch at the base level… Her wrist hurt, but she powered through it anyway.
The other, unspoken part of their dynamic was evident as they kept to it, occasionally delivering a bad blow but fixing the next one or slowing for a second before refocusing, but together they weren’t going to let each other down or let the other one take precedence. Both to not let their found family or themselves down, neither was going to quit or cry off until the job was done, and as the duo they’d always been even though there was some pain they continued delivering the punches into the pieces of wood. Although they could have talked, they didn’t, both to not waste air and because whatever they needed to communicate they did with minute expressions and body language to each other.
Sometimes in tandem and sometimes one right after the other, they delivered punch after punch, both curious to see if either would break through the wood… and if one of them did, which one would be first. That spurred them on even further, Vimmy and Venny doing their best to no sell whatever aches or pains they felt in their arms to keep going as long as they could...
“Okay. That’s enough for your first day.”
The sun was starting to set. Time had just slipped away.
“Now, I’m afraid, for the other not fun part of the training. The follow up trials as your arm lets you know just how much it HATES what you did with it.”
And while the bracer couldn’t fully simulate organic muscles and nerves, both girls found out their ‘foster father’ was right. An hour after the training ended, neither could move the practiced arm, the artificial muscles feeling like they were made of lead. Their fingers refused to pick up anything, even something light like a utensil. The extra weight of the near-useless limb threw off their balance, and they nearly tripped and fell down at least once as they moved around.
Celeste broke out what were clearly well-practiced treatments. Ice for the knuckles. Some sort of fizzing (albeit bad smelling) powder placed in warm water for their arm to soak in. The latter didn't do much, it seemed; tt was uncertain if their artificial nature interfered with the treatment or if their limb was so wrung out that that was why the care barely did anything.
Unfortunately, it was after the pair went to sleep that the REAL trouble started, as Venny was awoken by her sister awake and groaning. Her ‘shackled’ arm felt like it was on fire.
Celeste was in through the door literal seconds after Vimmy woke up in deep pain. After fifteen seconds of feeling around, she reached up and removed the shoulder pad. Vimmy yelped as the pain abruptly turned off and her arm surged back to its full strength, feeling almost like someone had painlessly popped her arm out and replaced it with a new one.
“That's not supposed to happen, even with normal flesh arms. Needs some further refining. Venny, take yours off too.”
---
-Another Day, Another
“All right. We’ll start with a classic.”
The crystals moved around to form an image. Two doors.
“You stand before two doors. The doors are magical. One leads ahead, the other leads to doom. The doors can speak, but one always lies, and one always tells the truth. You can ask the doors ONE question. Which door do you take?”
Vimmy glanced between both the doors, seated and looking for any obvious signs to differentiate them while Venny put her hand to her head. “Ah! Ah, I know this. I think….”
“You do?” Vimmy asked. She wasn’t sure where to even start.
“Well… Kind of, it’s been awhile. ‘Cause it’s- Let me try and… So, one lies, and one tells the truth, so you can’t just ask outright because you won’t be any closer to the answer. There’s only one question, so it’s that single shot… It’s not just asking which one of them is the liar, it’s-” She started to mutter, pointing between them.
“So, one always tells the truth, and the other always lies, so if you ask which door to take- Wait, no, if you ask which door not to take-” Vimmy chipped in, Venny waving at her. “No, yeah, because then you’re in the same boat, one will tell you the right one and the other will tell you the wrong- You ask, either door, what the other door will say, and then pick the opposite.”
“Wait, why? Oh! The one who tells the truth will tell you the death door-”
“-And the one that lies will lie about what the one who tells the truth will say, so either way, the door either one tells you is the wrong one.” Venny said triumphantly, it clear to her after they’d talked it out.
“Good. This is a pretty old one though. Here’s a harder one. Let’s go to the land of…Paradoxia. So many strange animals.” Illusions of fish on land, birds swimming, and a matching set of two boat docks. “But unfortunately, Paradoxia has an evil troll.”
The paradox creatures were all grabbed up and put in a net, The troll was maybe the most stereotypical troll ever seen. The animals cried out in fear and alarm.
“Unfortunately, this troll has a magic charm that prevents all injury to him. So you cannot force him to let the animals go. However, the troll taunts you. He says, ‘If you love paradoxes so much, then I’ll make you an offer. If you say something true, I will release the animals. But before you can say something like “You are a troll…””
The hand reached out and ‘grabbed’ Vimmy. Since it was just an illusion, it just passed through her.
“Vimmy, play along, could you kindly?
“Anyway, the troll says, if you say something true, I’ll free the animals…and I’ll eat your sister. But if you say something false, I will free your sister, and eat the animals. Your statement can only be a single sentence. And as you can see, I HATE PARADOXES. MORE THAN ANYTHING. So if you try to cheat and say something paradoxical, like, “This sentence is false”, I’ll eat BOTH your sister and the animals.
“So, Venny. What true/false statement can you say that will free your sister and the creatures? Now, I’ll be nice here, stuff like this won’t come with a chart.” A chart appeared next to Venny.
1) If Venny says something true, the troll will release the creatures, but ‘eat’ Vimmy.
2) If Venny says something false, the troll will release Vimmy, but eat the creatures.
3) You can only say a single short sentence.
4) You cannot ask questions, fight, or get out of this predicament by any other means.
5) The troll HATES paradoxes, and will do anything to avoid or punish them, so if you say a statement that is neither true or false, like “This statement is false.” or “Everything I say is a lie.”, the troll will eat both.
“And go.”
Vimmy had obediently flailed before giving the troll an awfully put-out look, Venny flinching and then narrowing her eyes. “Alright… okay, so… Hmm.”
She looked from the chart and back to the troll before turning again, reading through the lines to see if there was a catch she could readily exploit or a trap into them, but the rules were solid enough that she didn’t think there was one. It was an awfully well crafted puzzle, but she knew there had to be a solution, it was just on her to figure it out. Occasionally muttering to herself or starting to say something before putting her hand back to her chin, Venny kept going along the paths of reasoning but kept ending up at one of the first two options.
Time ticked on as she continued to figure out a statement that would secure real victory over the troll, at first wondering if there was something she could say that was a long enough sentence to meet the entire criteria before realizing that would fit neatly into a paradox and lose her the whole pot. She glanced over at Vimmy, who shrugged at her. No help there…
She kept circling back to the simple binary of it, either a true or a false statement carrying a catch, but even though she’d come up close to an answer every now and then after thinking through it further she’d see it wasn’t quite a solution. Not willing to give up in front of Celeste until she was well and truly stumped, Venny continued to try and plot out the logic in her head, occasionally making small gestures with her hands or fingers to connect things.
But eventually, even after pondering and grinding it through her head, she sat back and frowned. “This is a lot harder, I have to admit. I keep coming right up halfway to a statement but then realizing it doesn’t quite work, like a square peg in a round hole.”
“Well, tell him something! Don’t let him eat me!”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, you. Let’s see, no paradoxes, no funny business, just a one and done. So what if-” And she was back to it, steepling her fingers in front of her while she debated internally. Doubling down on her train of thought, it occurred to her that she needed to step back and look at the whole of the problem instead of just it’s minute details. There WAS a solution, it was just as a bigger picture instead of through some kind of riddle… Venny continued to ponder, but eventually she sighed and shook her head. “I admit it- I’m pure stumped. I know the answer’s going to be one of those things, obvious in hindsight, but it’s been about an hour and I’m just going in circles. What’s the key?”
“It is quite difficult. You need to use something called coercive logic. Say a statement whose truth or falseness depends on what you want the troll to do. What would happen if you said “You are going to free the creatures and my sister”, when it’s clear the troll doesn’t want to do that?”
“...I don’t know.”
“No real answer there, though considering he didn’t WANT to free both, he wouldn’t likely say ‘That’s true’, so he’d probably say ‘That’s false’ and free the animals, but then Vimmy is in deep trouble. Likewise, if you said ‘You will free the animals’, he could say ‘That’s true’ and free the animals…but again, Vimmy is done like dinner. But what would happen, based on the rules, if you said ‘You will free my sister.’?”
Having already explored a bit of the logical walls of the problem, Venny narrowed her eyes again and ran through the possibilities. The troll hated paradoxes, so it wouldn’t create one on its own. Saying a statement she wanted to be true depending on the troll’s actions meant that it wouldn’t be able to force it into falseness, but it would still be true, and- “Oooooooh!” She lightened up a little. While not quite frustrated, she had been just about at the end of her rope.
“Dang, okay. I get it now! That’s… Now that’s a puzzle. Coercive logic, huh? No kidding… Maybe I’d have gotten it after another couple of hours, but I don’t really think so. That’s pretty good!” She admitted to Celeste, easily since she had really tried. Taking a deep breath, she turned back to face the troll and put her hands on her hips. “You will free my sister.”
“..............NOOOOOOOO-!” The troll ‘put Vimmy down’ and ‘released the animals’, before all the illusions vanished.
“While I doubt you’ll ever get a game-esque riddle or two like this in ‘the wild’, it’s more the thinking process. Do you understand yourself, Vimmy?” Christopher said.
“Well, uh…the animals, and…”
“As said. COERCIVE logic. You need to utilize your opponent’s choices, weaknesses, etc against them. This troll hates paradoxes. It said it would free you if your sister said a FALSE statement. If ‘you will free my sister’ is false, it has to free you by its rules…but that makes the statement true. It hates paradoxes, so it would never make one itself. Ergo, by its own rules, ‘you will free my sister’ is true. So he has to do it. And since he said he’d free the animals if Venny said something true, he has to free the animals. I didn’t get it easy the first time either.” Christopher said.
“Someone else taught you this stuff?”
“...you could say that.” The mood had suddenly altered. Unfortunately, Vimmy’s speech got ahead of her realization.
“Who?”
“...Don’t wish to talk about it. Let’s just say this sort of thing seems to come so easy to me and mine because I had much, much worse consequences if I didn’t learn to have answers, fast, under pressure. I will never subject ANYONE to what I had to do to learn it. Even my first tries to filter it…well, I’ve told you. Julia’s troubles, and my son. Nothing is worth what I was forced to do to be so innately ‘instinctive’. If it comes to training you ‘improperly’ if it means you never come within a mile of my experiences or mistakes, well…train you improperly, I will.”
“For a given value of ‘improperly’.” Celeste said, ruffling Venny’s hair. The mood had been pulled from its brief darkness. “Come on. We’ll do thirty minutes of sighting exercises and then retire for the day. Maybe bake something if the supplies have come in. Christopher, you are not to come near the kitchen.”
“I didn’t waste THAT much flour.”
“Your assessment is irrelevant.”
“She may never mention it due to her overwhelming ego, Vimmy, Venny, but I was the one who taught her how to cook.”
“You taught me to boil vegetables in a pot and put salt on meat. I learned all the rest out of books and left you well behind years ago, darling.”
“...I cannot say that statement is false.”
