"Dubs," Emrys asked one morning, while the giant was finishing tightening the bandage around his ankle, "you said you could shape stone and metal. What exactly is that? A spell? Like the mages of Belialuin?"
Dubs paused, his thick fingers hovering for a moment over the knot he was tying.
"No. Not a spell," he answered. "It's a racial trait. All giants are born with it, more or less pronounced depending on the individual, but we all have it one way or another. We're tied to the earth and to minerals. We can shape them at will, and with enough training, we can even turn our own bodies into metal."
"Wait," Emrys cut in, "you mean that's different from a magical power? Like Unlimited Blade Works, my own power?"
"Completely different, yeah." Dubs tightened the last knot of the bandage before sitting down on his usual rock, that same sound of metal against stone Emrys now recognized without effort. "Your power, the one that lets you make weapons appear using your own magical energy, that belongs to you, and no one else. Every being capable of using magic, whatever their race, has a power like that. Unique. All their own. Two people will never have exactly the same one." He paused briefly. "That said, in very rare cases, apparently some people manage to learn someone else's power. But that's exceptional. Most people who use magic go their whole lives without ever running into a single case like that."
"But then, that thing with the stone..."
"That's something else. A racial trait, I'm telling you. All giants are born with the same affinity for earth and metal, it's part of what we are, like skin color or ear shape for humans. It's not unique to me. Any giant can do what I do, more or less skillfully depending on the case."
Emrys stayed quiet for a moment, trying to piece the information together into something that made sense.
"So, basically... I've got my own power, Unlimited Blade Works, which I'm apparently the only one to have. And you, on top of probably having your own power too, also have this earth-and-metal thing that all giants share?"
"There you go. You got it," Dubs confirmed, a faint spark of interest showing timidly in his voice, as it always did whenever the conversation brushed against the subject of abilities and weapons. "And it's the same for the other races. Demons, goddesses, fairies, they all have their own trait, on top of their personal power."
"The other races have something like yours too?"
"Yeah. Fairies, for instance. All of them capable of telekinesis, levitation, shapeshifting, and telepathy, to varying degrees." Dubs picked back up a chunk of ore he'd set aside, turning it over between his fingers without really paying attention to it, as if he simply needed to keep his hands busy to keep talking normally. "Now, same as with us giants, not everyone's equally gifted in every area. I've heard of a fairy who was unstoppable at levitation and shapeshifting, but completely hopeless at telepathy. It stays a racial trait, everyone's got some version of it, but it takes work like everything else."
"And demons? Goddesses?"
A silence settled in, longer than the previous ones. Emrys felt that same familiar tension that always came with this particular subject.
"Demons control a black substance," Dubs finally answered. "Darkness, they call it. Extremely resistant, hard to pierce, even harder to destroy completely. They use it to fight, but also to heal. A demon can use darkness to reattach a torn-off limb, close up a wound that would kill anyone else. And on top of that, most of them master something called hellfire. A black flame, capable of burning just about anything, and nearly impossible to put out once lit."
Emrys felt a shiver run down his spine.
"That sounds... terrifying."
"It is," Dubs confirmed bluntly. "And goddesses aren't exactly better, just in a different way. They have a power called the Ark. A sphere they form around an enemy, mostly used against demons from what I hear, and anything trapped inside ends up reduced to dust, purely and simply disintegrated. On top of that, they also have a healing gift, which they can use on themselves or on others."
"So goddesses can kill in one shot, and heal on top of it," Emrys summed up, his throat dry. "And demons can literally repair themselves mid-fight. No wonder their war's lasted this long without either side gaining the upper hand."
"You got it, kid."
"Is everyone in each race equally skilled at these things?"
"Nope, that's exactly it. That's where it gets interesting," Dubs answered, his voice regaining some of its usual animation whenever it came to explaining a mechanism rather than telling a story. "I've run into fairies who were terrifying at levitation, telekinesis, and shapeshifting, but completely lost when it came to telepathy. It stays a racial trait, everyone's got some version of it, but the level varies enormously from one individual to the next. Kind of like how two blacksmiths can both know how to swing a hammer without producing the same work."
A silence followed, lighter this time, during which Emrys heard Dubs set down the chunk of ore he'd been fiddling with since the start of the conversation.
"And humans, then?" Emrys finally asked. "What's their racial trait?"
"None," Dubs answered, without the slightest hesitation. "Humans have their personal power, like everyone else, but no racial trait to go with it. That's probably part of why they're the type to always want to learn more, fight harder, develop spells and techniques the other races never needed to invent."
"Spells," Emrys repeated, remembering Galileo's petrifying ray, Copernicus, D'Aquin, all those mages who'd nearly killed him. "Like the mages of Belialuin."
"Exactly. A spell is different from a power or a racial trait. Anyone can learn one, as long as they've got the talent and the patience to train. It mostly relies on ambient magical energy, but it still consumes your own internal energy too, since that's what lets you manipulate it in the first place. So a spell costs you both at once, unlike a personal power or a racial trait, which only draw from your inner reserve." Dubs paused, clearing his throat. "Technically, a giant could very well learn spells on top of their racial trait. So could a demon. So could a fairy. But in practice, it's mostly humans who go for it, because they need it to make up for what they don't have by default."
"Why don't the other races do it more often, then? If it's available to everyone?"
Dubs let out a small snort, almost amused.
"Because most people are lazy, kid. Why learn a complicated spell that takes years of practice, when you've already got a racial trait that does more or less the same thing effortlessly? A giant who can already turn his body into metal doesn't really need to learn a protection spell. A demon who can heal himself with darkness isn't necessarily going to bother learning goddess healing magic. It's a matter of logic, not inability."
"What about humans, then? They learn a lot of spells, I take it?"
"More than anyone else, yeah. It's kind of their specialty, for lack of anything better," Dubs answered. "Some end up mastering dozens over a lifetime. Others focus on just one, polishing it to a level no one else can match. Depends on the person, same as everything else."
Emrys nodded slowly, even though he knew Dubs couldn't see him do it.
"What about you? Did you learn any spells, on top of your racial trait?"
A different kind of silence followed that question, longer, almost hesitant.
"A little," Dubs finally admitted. "Nothing too impressive. Useful stuff for the forge, mostly. Reinforcing the heat resistance of my hands, that kind of thing. Nothing worth going on about."
Emrys sensed that he had, once again, brushed against a subject the giant preferred to keep to himself, and chose once more not to press.
"What about your own power, then? The personal, unique one, like Unlimited Blade Works is for me?" he finally asked, curious to see just how far his host's patience would stretch.
A much longer silence followed this time, long enough that Emrys thought for a moment Dubs simply wasn't going to answer.
"That," Dubs finally said, his voice back to perfectly neutral, like a wall that had just closed shut, "is a story for another day, kid."
Emrys didn't push further, sensing he'd just hit a limit Dubs wouldn't cross today. He settled for staying quiet, letting the sound of the hammer take its place again in the silence of the forge.
But a thought kept turning over in his mind, refusing to leave him alone.
A unique power for every being capable of using magic. Racial traits passed down through blood, present in everyone except humans. And spells, available to anyone with the patience and talent to learn them, regardless of race.
Three layers of power, stacked on top of one another.
And here I am, not even fully mastering the first one yet.
He thought of Unlimited Blade Works, of Drainda, of Gae Dearg, of all that potential he'd only just begun to scratch the surface of. Then he thought of the spells of the Belialuin mages, of that petrifying ray he'd had to cut through in the heat of the moment, of that cage of light Galileo had summoned through his power Radiance rather than through a simple spell. He thought back, too, to the way the five mages had taken turns during the fight, never more than one spell at a time, as if they'd been following some rule he still didn't fully understand. Maybe a spell demanded that kind of exclusive concentration, precisely because it meant drawing on ambient energy while still burning through your own internal energy to control it.
Or maybe he was just trying to make fun of me. Which is just as possible, to be honest.
If ordinary humans could develop that kind of mastery through training alone, without even having a racial trait to help them...
Then what could I accomplish, if I learned to do the same thing, on top of my own power?
A new determination, different from the one that had carried him through his blind crossing of the meadow, began to take root somewhere deep inside him. It was no longer just a matter of survival, or of making up for the gap he'd felt so cruelly against the five mages. It was a direction. A path he could choose to follow, once he was back on his feet.
Learn spells. On top of my power. So I never feel this powerless again.
"Dubs," he finally said, breaking the silence that had settled in for a while.
"Mm?"
"Once I'm healed... you think you could teach me a thing or two? About the forge, I mean. Not about your power, if you'd rather keep that to yourself. Just... how to work metal, understand weapons from the inside."
A silence followed, but different from all the previous ones. Lighter. Almost interested.
"We'll see," Dubs answered, his voice regaining that spark of interest Emrys was starting to recognize. "You'll need to manage more than five steps in a row first, kid."
Despite everything, despite the darkness that never left him, Emrys felt a smile stretch across his face.
"It'll come," he answered simply. "It'll come."