《A deal worth making》
Chapter 1 - A slight malfunction
Marental the Atlantean ramped the flow of corrective mana up to the maximum. The imbalance stopped increasing, yet did not grow smaller. At the same time the storage drained quickly.
?Why, why, why¡° he muttered. An imbalance in a hexagonal ritual requires at least two major mana leaks. One leak would stall the ritual but not imbalance it. Frustration and fear were barely under control in his assistant''s voice as she reported that no leaks were to be found. This was worse than he feared, they did not have multple leaks, but an oversupply at one point. He needed to locate it as soon as possible. He couldn''t just run. The connections to his soul were already made. He really did not want to risk an uncontrolled severing of those. He put his probe on the input check points. One of the sacrifices yielded too much. The flaw was not with the ritual, but with the sacrifices. That soothed his pride, but not his fears. An issue with the sacrifices themselves was very hard to fix without shutting down the ritual itself and replacing the connectors. However, one cannot shut down an imbalanced ritual after the channel to the void has already opened without triggering the catastrophic failure one hopes to avoid by shutting down the ritual. ?Twins!¡° he shouted having read the label on the cable conducting the mana. ?Why did I not check for that?¡°.
His assistant cast him a questioning look. ?Abandon the site. We cannot correct the imbalance.¡°, he ordered. She went, almost running, around the circle and tossed chalices arranged around a diagramm into a bag, respectfully keeping her distance from the ritual diagramm.
Marental carefully disabled and unlocked connections on the platinum band he was wearing around his head. His assistent notified him that the conducts to the corrective depots are degrading. Obviously they were. They had not been designed for continously running at maximum. Nevertheless he acknowledged the report with approval. One does not live more lives than worth counting without being detected by laxness with proper procedures. He had demonstrated that to her by slowly disintegrating her predecessor, who had hesitated to redo a checklist with a smudged unplacable check mark a second time, before her very eyes.
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The aperture at the center of the diagramm widened and the glowing outline of a male human body dropped to the ground below. ?Premature opening¡° his assistent shouted dutifully. ?Bail out!¡° he shouted back. An alien aura reminiscent to his senses of a scrying spell poured out of the aperture. He hurriedly brought his shroud to the maximum. Electric arcs terminating in his assistant and the pair of guards at the entrance burst from the aperture. Her wards gave his apprentice time to shriek. The guards were instantly incinerated.
Marental then and there decided to leave with extreme and undignified alacrity, disconnected the last connection, used a flash step to the entrance and hit the button for the emergency barrier.
I float through a space full of psychodelic lights in colors I have never seen. In fact in colors that should not exist. An insistent voice calls out to me ?FIRE¡°. I think of fire as ordered. Heat, flames, light, a chemical reaction, in fact a concept that can be extended to any exothermic reaction, redox reactions and more esoteric associations of passions, animation and at its core the contradiction of beneficial warmth to destructive powers ...
?SPACETIME¡° the voice interrupts me. That is rude, but also interesting and quite an abrupt change. Space, time, gravity, time dilation and ¡ the multiverse? I am mentally a bit overwhelmed.
?AIR¡° nice of the voice. Gases, flight, weather, the gentle breeze of an afternoon on the beach, the cool mist of an autumn fog, a dragonfly zipping over a lake, the flight of a bat at dusk, the power of lightning in a tropical thunderstorm ¡
?PERCEPTION¡°. I see a pattern. Images of images, viewing distant areas, exotic radiations, generation of pictures, blocking views ¡
?LIFE¡° This is getting a bit easier. Biochemistry, biology, enzymes, ecology, health, growth. Why do I know about biochemistry? In fact, what is biochemistry?
?DECAY¡° I should not ask questions. Simple at the outset, yet branching into the endless variation of thermodynamics and entropy, age and even the structure of atomic nuclei.
?SPELL¡°. Now that is interesting. Manipulation of the laws of nature bound into algorithms, operation of auras, attachment of spells to objects and spells, the properties of mana ...
I drop onto a hard floor and faint.
Chapter 2 - Needing to sing
Zewrepa is composing a dual song. The occasion calls for combing her death chant with a declaration of defiant retaliation. She would like to sing a song of pure vendetta, but her life force is dropping steadily, draining to the entity in the shining shell, joining her mana already there. That has cost her the usage of her powers, which she would need to crack that shell. She can only hope to wreak an empty vengeance on the abandoned product of her foe¡¯s endeavour and that only if she lives longer than she expects to.
Nevertheless she jerks on the chain restricting her right upper arm in the rhythm of her song, feeling the screws starting to give.
I see a face. It fills me with joy. I do not know the reason for that. An old man¡¯s face is not intrinsically a source of joy. The face is slowly fading. I expect to feel frustration at the loss of a source of joy. Instead I feel an expectation confirmed. I have no expectations. In fact I do not even expect the absence of disembodied faces. Why?
I remember words being spoken. Not the words themselves, merely that words were spoken at all. That seems more important than their content. I would follow words this face spoke without deliberation. I do not know the reason for that. I know very few things. In fact, how do I know that I know few things?
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I also feel calm and tired. The die is cast. Again, I don¡¯t know why that is so. I just know that I did what I had to do.
The fastening has partially detached from the stele she is chained to. Now what? The other sacrifices are still in the immobile state the ritual has induced. Humans and dryads are weak. Should she eat them to delay her perishing, confined by the barrier she has no hope of bringing down while her powers are blocked? Are people suffering the same sacrifice allies? A question nobody not having completed a single quest should need to answer. The best option is likely to not answer the question, as it is rendered hypothetical by the constant drain on her life force.
What else is there to do? There will be no rescue. She has not completed even one quest. Nobody will pay ransom for her. In fact her mother may already have laid a new clutch of eggs, if she got word of the loss of the caravan quickly. She could wreck the equipment inside the barrier, yet this seems petty. She could try to find an imperfection to squeeze through in the barrier. Chances of that are low. Her best option seems indeed to be just to wait. She keeps jerking.
I see a yellow light. It is unpleasantly bright. I would like to close my eyes. I have no eyes. I understand that I need a body to close my eyes, yet I do not understand how I know this. I find it hilarious that I would need eyes to not see. Do I want to have eyes? Would the joy of this irony go away?
Her upper right hand is free. She is hammering the mannacle against the bolts of the fastenings holding her left upper arm.
Chapter 3 - Music was her last love
Melo has decided to keep producing oxygen at elevated rates, even though the barrier isolates her from the leash of command. She does not want to move. The pain is too great. It does not matter that her avatar is fine. The affliction carries over from her true self. Revenge, even if it is by keeping alive whom her tormentor decided to suffocate, is better than merely waiting for the parasite to kill her. The other sacrifices probably don¡¯t even understand the danger they are in. Demons and humans are stupid.
Though the demoness has finally stopped her frantic attempts to break out of her chains. Does she want to conserve oxygen or is she merely too tired from the curse to carry on? She might ask, were there any chance they have a language in common. Escape? There is no obvious way. It would take planning. Planning is hard for a healthy dryad, let alone one closer to death than life. Letting her final days be filled with keeping some people breathing is enough.
The song the demon has just begun is beautiful. She¡¯d like to thank her, yet interrupting would be rude. She won¡¯t destroy beauty.
Zewrepa understands that those who never join the choir do not get to shape the chorus. She never expected herself to be among those. Yes, the numbers say that more than three quarters do not make it through the first three quests. It wouldn¡¯t be her or her sister, who grasped at the quarrel stuck in her throat in her last moments.
She has gotten too tired to go on. The drain has dwindled to a trickle, yet the curse prevents healing. It is time to lean back and start her last song.
She even thinks of her brothers, foolish creatures as they are, though technically sapient. Now drawn to songs like her mother might be singing right now, if news have been tardy. Songs she will never get to sing. Even if she escaped, she¡¯d be without clan or nest.
Enough of that; her last song will be of pride and defiance, not self-pity.
I hear music. Just one voice, high and clear, interrupted from time to time by something like bird song and something that might be a very mutated bagpipe. Why do I know about musical instruments? Or birds, for that matter?
The music is filtered. I want to hear it unblemished. There is a barrier I want to go away. I smash it.
I feel myself on a floor. I have a sense of touch. Is that the same floor I felt slamming into for a moment? I truly do not know. A refreshing feeling. The air is dusty. Have I caused that by my impact? Again, delightfully, I don¡¯t know. Novelty is refreshing.
I have a body. I can now close my eyes. But I don¡¯t want to. The yellow light is gone. I don¡¯t miss the joy of the irony. That is good. I can enjoy the music while looking at its source.
I am looking at a pokemon, for all I can tell. What is a pokemon? My state of mind has not changed. I keep knowing things I don¡¯t know why I know them. She ¨C and she is obviously a she, for she is nacked ¨C has the classical four arms, the bony ridges on the head, though her color is off, a pure blue, and her face is very human and her torso is not so exaggerated.
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A human has emerged. Does she want to kill him from stealth or challenge him to a duell to the death? And it is obviously a him, as he is naked and missing the vestigal fur humans have. A male without wings. He couldn¡¯t fly. Ridiculous. How is he to spread his genes? Are they inbred? Though he is ridiculously tall for a male, the crown of his head reaching her shoulder, if they both had been in an upright position.
He is listening. A show of respect. Honor requires a challenge. First the song must be finished.
She keeps singing. I only stand mesmerized. Finally the song ends. Would she understand clapping? Probably not. I bow. In fact, why not try to build communication? I sit down.
He submits. Why does death have to be complicated? She should be honest to herself. He is not technically an enemy, just an abandoned unwilling servant of an enemy. The situation is inherently complicated.
Her legs are not chained to the ground, but fastened by hoops of metal directly bolted to the ground. He is touching one of them and incidentally her foot.
I look around myself. I am sitting in a room, lit by a few sources of light afixed to the walls. It feels like a cave. It is filled with a whole lot of gadgets, some obscure lines scorched into the ground and people, well women, for they are nacked, chained to stone steles rising from the ground and the ground itself. In fact one is a pregnant woman and next to another women a metal cage holding a baby only a few weeks old is bolted to the ground. What happened here?
I am not going to keep newborn babies in cages, if I can help it. But I will start here and examine the restraints.
The warmth of a healing spell is filling her. It does not do anything, slamming against the curse, but conceptually it changes everything. He has become an ally.
I feel more than I should feel. Though again I have no idea how I know that. There is damage and something oppressive lurking behind it. I want to smash the damage. This makes no sense, you cannot smash damage. Some strong force floods through my hand ready to smash damage only to run into a wall the oppressive force has errected. It wants to push back into me and subdue me. Unacceptable. I smash in another way. It does not yield. I smash harder with my full might. It shatters.
Suddenly I feel so tired. Have you ever dreamed of sleeping in the lap of a pokemon?
The curse is broken! She is still very, very wounded but the healing can now begin. She may actually live. The human is sleeping with his hairless head on her lap. This feels very very odd. His breath is tickling her. Minutes earlier she would have killed him. But one does not kill an exhausted ally, except under very, very limited circumstances. In fact, emulating him looks like her best option to maximize healing.
Melo feels the curse go away. Now the situation requires no planning, merely action.
She turns into a wooden sword and drops to the floor free of her restraints.
Chapter 4 - True sight
Hildegard von Rabenstein is using her training to avoid panic. Her father insisted that she learn the basic defense techniques against charms. Calmly breathing in and out while one is surrounded by demons and magical creatures is not easy. To her surprise the effect is suddenly broken. Her muscles obey her again.
What is to be done with this limited freedom? Her arms have been bound with a sturdy rope to a stone slab she is leaning against. Can she reach anything with her feet? A knife ideally, realistically a sharp piece of shattered pottery? She hesitates. This will put certain parts of her not intended for the public onto full display. It cannot be helped. She is a knights¡¯s daughter; better shame than defeat.
Something gets caught on her toes. It takes some contorsions, but finally she can inspect her finding. It is a copper penny, a bit singed, of the Principality of Ithaka. The Nornes surely have a grim sense of humour. Well, Penelope was also about to be forced into a political marriage. But, seriously this indicates that she is in the vincinity of the Mediterranean sea, a long way from home. That and the ritual strongly suggest that there will be no demands for ransom. She is on her own and in the hands of a wizard. Well, at least she was in the hands of a wizard. The two wizards had been speaking a language she does not know nor recognise, before things got destructive. That tells her exactly nothing. Wizards love to be mysterious.
In hindsight a wizard, probably the same wizard had attacked their group, when her brother called out in warning and a bright purple light hit her, ending all her recollections mere seconds after the ambush had been sprung. Her being here alone does not bide well for them. She hopes that her status made her valuable for the ritual and that her brother is all right.
This is a bit too much. She is trapped in a cave. Next to her, to her left in the flattened hexagon pattern they are situated, a pretty and foreign looking hugely pregnant woman is bound to a stone slab like herself, while to her right she is next to a demon sleeping with a hairless man teleported into the cave on her lap. They are both slightly snoring. She needs to either scream or giggle. She chooses to giggle.
Helena is keeping mum and trying not to move a muscle. She has seen the woman with the striped skin and the green and white strands of hair turn into a sword. She is not just among wizards. She is among unholy creatures. First the brigands, now this. She was hiding in the basement behind the storage rack for the potatoes to no avail. Worse, her little Julia is in a cage. And she can do nothing about it. All that is left to her is not attracting anymore attention on themselves.
This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.Julia starts squirming and then screaming. No, no, No!
I am dreaming. Our griffon cavalry is in battle against a thunderbird. It is using snakes of animated lightning. This dream is strangely vivid. I am among them. I am throwing lightning bolts and balls that turn the feathers of our foe to dust.
Something is calling out to me. War drums? Horn signals? No ¨C a baby¡¯s cries.
I feel tired. Yet, I probably should be grateful to be woken up and to wake first. My face has been in a position one should have gone on a few dates for to find one¡¯s faces in. I get up. My sight is blurry. I stumble a little as I rub my eyes. My vision cleared I find myself flashing my hairless goods to four women. I stop.
In my defense, so are they. Well, they have hair. Loss of hair has been an inevitable side effect. Wait, how do I know that? And why am I so far up? I fall to my knees. Damn, that hurts.
The mother squeaks. Empathy? No, it seem like she fears me and that I would take out stumbling over my own feet on her. What has happened here? People chained or roped to stone slabs in somebody¡¯s basement are rarely voluntary participants. Does she think I am allied to the people who abducted her?
Well, from a certain perspective I was. This insight shakes me but again does not surprise me.
Musings on my memories or lack thereof will certainly not help that poor child, so I get up, noting again in a manner lacking surprise that my stomach is quite flat. I get up again, again almost stumbling over my own feet. My legs are too long. It does not matter. I kneel beside a baby in a cage. I lack tools. Do I need to smash something again? I am willing to try it. I put my hand on the cage and call for a smashing, but only the cage, not the content. It rusts and falls apart in seconds before my eyes. I want to see this again.
Wishes are dangerous here. I start really seeing. I am clad in an aura of multiple impossible colors. People are moving in trajectories through the room, except that they are not moving. They extent in an additional direction. Through the floor a strange ball of light becomes visible to me. And I see souls, hundreds of them in that new direction, dissolving into fuel. I yell, cover my eyes and curl up on the floor.
Chapter 5 - room service
Anjali has been observing the new wizard. She knows wizards. She does not know how to do magic, which started the chain of events that has gotten her into a cave as a human sacrifice, though she has learned a bit about the theory. They pay higher tips if you listen and answer intelligently. Not that she got the tips, but the hotel had a points system that got you perks based on them. Most of all she does know how it affects its practitioners. Well, its male practitioners. The hotel served a preponderance of male customers and she was rarely assigned to female guests.
This one is a sorcerer. He operated without rituals or equipment. That makes him a member of a minority. In fact he carries no equipment and shows no signs of distress about that. That strikes her as highly unusual. In fact she still thinks back to the one whose power came from a pact with a slug demon who, glued to his back with its own slime, watched over his shoulder the whole time with a row of eye stalks.
He is also heterosexual. She already suspected that from the ritual which employs only female sacrifices to use sexual attraction for a summoning. Truth be told, she owes that knowledge to her grandfather. He wouldn¡¯t risk having a late bloomer with poor academic fundamentals. He employed solid tutors before her inability caused him to sell her to let potential rivals have their own wicks trick them into burdening their bloodline with a dud nut, as he put it.
The way his eyes wander confirms it.
The rest of his behavior does not match, though. She has had one who was celebrating a gain of sorcerous powers. He was a lot more like a man celebrating his escape from a pack of lions. He wasn¡¯t awkward, as if he were a teenager dealing with a growth spurt. She has seen that, too, but not the combination. She¡¯ll keep observing. She thinks that she has time, provided they survive, which is out of her hands. The other women, though visibly selected for physical beauty, are too scared of wizards to grasp their chance.
While she is tied to a rock, which is at least smoothed on its sides, so that it does not scratch her back or arms, she can at least use what she has. She arches her back decoratively.
Branislava badly needs to pee. What do you expect from a woman pregnant between six and seven months, who has been abducted while visiting her relatives? Relatives, who, for no fault of their own, are about to get them all killed. Again. ?Come to us¡°, they wrote. ?It is much healthier than the crowded city you live in.¡°. Sure, if bandits cutting your throat, abducting you and making you walk through the snow of the earliest onset of winter in decades and selling you to a wizard for a human sacrifice are healthier, then it is.
How long have I been curled up like this? At the time I ask I become aware that it has been 3 minutes and 2.4 seconds. Also, my head hurts. Well, I have been under unusual stress lately. First things first. I have no idea who I am. I know things. But I don¡¯t know why I know them. Incidentally I am also nacked. Am I a nudist? The strange feeling of knowing without knowing does not appear. Apparently not. I am also tired, very tired. Well, a lot of stress.
While I cannot make an informed assessment of the situation, I can still use logic.
Immediate tasks must come first. I approach the woman I am tentatively assuming to be the little girl¡¯s mother based on the tautness of her breasts, which are hard to overlook from this angle and this distance, and a little residual belly on her quite toned body. Again, distance and angle.
She is freezing up, barely even daring to breathe. I touch the ropes binding her and repeat a process becoming quickly familiar. Of them, not even rust remains. I turn away. There is no point in trying to communicate with a woman whimpering in fear. Not ideal. Better than derision or defiance, though, as long as they don¡¯t try to slit my throat while I am sleeping or something similar. Oderint dum metuant. I stop. What did that quote come from? Do I speak that language? Do I speak multiple languages? A fascinating concept. The familiar feeling of confirmation is here again. I do. An unwelcome thought strikes me. Is it fear? I want a mirror right now.
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Wishes, at least my wishes, have power. The air in front of my face turns reflective. Ugh. No eyebrows, nor eyelashes. Is this permanent? I touch my face. No, the first roughness of a beard has appeared. The feeling of confirmation is a lot less strong. Well, no eyebrows. I doubt people would pay a lot of money to watch my face, but it is not something they¡¯d run away screaming from, either. And the baby now in her mother¡¯s arms has stopped screaming. I am getting stuff done. Very good.
Logically I should now ask why nobody is interested in me, after getting so many sapient creatures for a sacrifice. My brief glimpse into an expanded reality seems to be confirmed by two large patches of charcoal next to the doorway and some bundles of charcoal still wearing the remains of a backpack right at the place I saw the lightning hit her. It does not tell me why the one I saw fleeing hasn¡¯t returned with reinforcements, but I don¡¯t care right now. In fact I am quite tired. What is going on? Some sense I did no know about informs me that the partial pressure of oxygen is heading below 16 kPA. Shit, that guy has closed an airtight door. I need to get to it and open it, the hard way if need be, that is if he has locked it, as I must assume. I start out, but, wait, would I set traps under those circumstances? Yes, I would. The feeling of confirmation is back.
Blindly running up the stairs I suspect beyond the doorway is not a good idea, particularly with a mind deprived of oxygen. Can I wish me oxygen? That feels good. I definitely can. The headache goes away. The tiredness does not. That is a temporary solution only. I will need to sleep soon. I am not looking forward to smashing the whole room¡¯s air. Passing out once a day is enough, bordering on too often already. I need to watch more. I try to do the process slowly and get a feel for what is happening. I sense some kind of reservoir within myself. Depleting it too quickly or too much is not good. This does not come from those mysterious confirmations, but a deeper instinct tells me. Well, I apparently can do it slowly. Can I replete the reservoir? I could simply wait. I can sense it refilling from sources I cannot identify. Can I use other energies? I try warmth. That is a bad idea. It works, but when I exhaled my breath showed. I am wearing no clothes.
This is not a feasible route. If I started a fire I might be able to use its energy, but if you want to increase the oxygen level of the air in an enclosed room, starting a fire is counterproductive. First things first. I make a round of the room and dissolve some ropes.
They do not meet my eyes, except for an Indian looking girl who risked a quick glance. Understandable in an involuntary nudist colony. I hear a sound behind my back. The pregnant lady has grabbed some kind of large pitcher standing in a corner and is, well, letting it flow. I see a plethora of practical problems awaiting us. Should I take the chance and try the putative door? Nope. I love my skin intact.
Some more fresh air and a bit of thinking. Can I use heat remotely, that is radiation? This feels like scraping an empty plate. Technically doable, but not enough radiation in here. What was that fireball I saw when doing the extended vision thing? Can I have only that part back? Wishes are powerful. What time is it. An hour before midnight. The mysterious sense also tells me the time of day. What is this? It is below me, shining through much of the Earth. Could it be? I think I am seeing solar neutrinos.
Let¡¯s try this. It feels a bit harder, like balancing two effects, but I can refresh the air at the rate I absorb solar neutrinos to turn them into energy. I am still very tired. The ground looks attractive.
Chapter 6 - no mini bar
Branislava worries about her cousin. She seems more than a bit unstable. The bandits enforced silence among the captives and so did the wizard who had bought them, so she has not spoken with her since before the assault on their ancestral village. Granted, these are not the best circumstances. Yet her father was a retired soldier. She should know even better than normal people that she was lucky that the bandits have not just discarded her daughter as a nuisance or raped her and then slit her throat because a mother just weeks after giving birth is not as fast as other women and would not sell for as much money.
In fact, this ritual has told her why she herself is still alive. All those musing apply doubly to herself. That wizard wanted a pregnant woman. Her husband¡¯s dark tales from distant lands contain a kernel of truth after all.
Just going to sleep like the new wizard was tempting, but her legs have gone numb for lack of circulation. She needs to walk a little to loosen up. Yes, there are chests and closets to look at in the room, but touching a wizard¡¯s stuff does not look like a good idea to her. That tall northern girl keeps looking at them. Letting her make the first attempt is not the worst idea she has had lately.
Helena has stopped nursing and is heading for the doorway. She feels her cousin¡¯s hand on her shoulder, gripping her roughly. ?What do you think you are doing?¡° her cousin hisses harshly. ?Isn¡¯t that obvious? None of them is watching. We need to get out. Our clothing is probably still in that antechamber. We can flee.¡° she replies.
Branislava shakes her head. ?Did it not occur to you that they also know this? Didn¡¯t you notice that he took a few steps towards the doorway but then stopped?¡°. She points at a piece of leather that looks as if detached from the boot of one of the guards. ?Pick that up. I can¡¯t bend down so deep anymore.¡°
Her cousin obeys and hands it to her. She flicks it at the doorway. There is a flash of lightning. The two other women in the room say something incomprehensible. They don¡¯t sound happy. She makes a calming gesture with her free hand and leads her cousin back to the stele she was bound to.
?Don¡¯t trigger the system unnecessarily. He may have arranged for escalating responses.¡° Anjali scolds them. She is not ready to let some peasants kill her after she has survived her own sacrifice. Yes, eventually they will have to get out of this chamber, but throwing random objects into the barrier is not going to help. This is an emergency containment system, designed to keep dangerous stuff locked in. Even if they exhausted the energy storage behind it, the system would not just benignly shut down. She needs to do something about communication. But what? From the look of the people, they are in Europe. She has had a few geography lessons about that, nothing more.
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?Don¡¯t wake them up!¡° Hildegard hisses. Making people who can turn objects to dust just by touch angry by waking them up when they really need their sleep is not a viable tactic. Especially not if you have a room to search for useful stuff while they are out of action.
Sometimes you have to take a risk. The room holds three closets on the wall that also features the exit, one of them padlocked and two chests each arranged on the other sides with a huge, empty blackboard covering the wall opposite the exit. She opens the first closet. A selection of brooms. Wooden sticks with straw bound to them. A bucket and some very dirty rags on the floor.
The young Indian woman joins her in heading for the second closet on the other side of the doorway. In fact, by the looks of it, she herself is the youngest in the room. The two other women are easy to understand in terms of status. Both look like commoners. She, however, looks sophisticated but without insistance on status usually found in nobility.
The second closet turns out to be unusuable though it is far more interesting. Bottles filled with mysterious liquids are useless if the labels are written in script you do not know. Glass beakers though unusual and presumably valuable are useless if you have nothing to drink. Metallic stands and three-sided pyramids made from stone are also unusable. A whole bucket made from glass is spectacular, but also useless.
The first chest just holds mats commonly used as paddings for chairs and chests. The second however, while not strictly necessary, is highly welcome. It holds plain linen sheets. Again Hildegard wonders about that woman. While the three of them have furnished something like primitive dresses or robes out of the sheets, the Indian has made something like a loincloth with a hoop around her breasts. It leaves her legs scandalously free. For fighting, however, this looks like a superior solution.
Then she surprises Hildegard. She folds a sheet, takes another sheet and puts the folded sheet under the wizard¡¯s head and puts the other sheet onto him as a blanket. After a short hesitation she also puts a sheet onto the demoness.
Chapter 7 - at least the heating works
Melo does not feel like transforming back. But according to her estimates of oxygen consumption they must have used up a third of their supply. You can¡¯t sigh without lungs, hence she doesn¡¯t, and transforms back.
She returns to some sort of costume party. The human sacrifices are wearing robes of grey linen. At least they are not chanting and calling for the help of the gods. More importantly, the air is actually quite good. Has the barrier collapsed? Ignoring the pain in her joints she rushes to the gateway and is disappointed. She should have known better, as the leash hadn¡¯t reestablished itself. And why does she bother? She has caused a commotion. One of them even offers her a blanket. Simply taking it is the easiest option. She still wants revenge. How do you hurt a wizard? You reveal his secrets to a rival.
Somebody is shaking me. ?Go away¡° I mumble. The shaking persists. Very well, I open my eyes. It might be an urgent and important matter. I find myself facing an attractive, but inhuman face. She is very striking with her striped skin.Although her eyes look sad and there is an undertone of pain around her eyes. I cannot help myself. I put my fingers on her cheekbone. She could outcheek Angelina Jolie. Who is Angelina Jolie?
Anyway, is this a pain I can do something about? This time I slowly let the power flow out of me. The power is perplexed. Once part of it reports pain, but the other reports no reason for pain. I probe deeper. That turns out to be a mistake. I get a lot of incomprehensible data. She smiles and puts her hand on mine, as if to gently remove my fingers from her face. Before I let her, I can at least remove the pain in the manner of an analgesic.
That makes me remember. I hope it is not too late.
A pain block and yet he runs away. Humans are odd. No, he is healing the demon. Nice. The pain gone is nice, maybe they could do a bit ¡
No, first things first. She has to tell him about the bomb.
The pregnant lady has followed me and offers me a blanket. I take it, mumbling an apology she cannot possibly understand. I do not regret my nude dash, for a life was potentially at stake. So I now also look like a member of the KKK. What is the KKK? Maybe I should meditate and go on some journey of discovery in my inner spheres. Trouble is, as tired as I am, I¡¯d fall asleep.
The magical lady is either lucky or knows this place. She has opened one of the chests to retrieve pieces of chalk in multiple colours. They have been put to extensive use. The blackboard is almost a piece of art now. I see a room very closely resembling our room, a conflagration and a kind of diagramm marking a position with a kind of arrow target.
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Zewrepa is luxuriating in her health. It allows her to get up soundlessly. Her allies are looking at maps. A true warrior¡¯s eyes are sharp. There is no practical need to get closer. But it feels so good to stalk something. This will take a song of redemption, but for now just life.
Anjali finds her experience validated again. Few men can resist a dryad. A nacked demon did not figure in her design, nor in her experience for that matter, unless you count succubi. Yet the dryad knew where she was heading when she opened that chest. She knows this place. That warrants consideration.
My patient is back on her feet. Can you be proud of a simple application of an inherent power? I don¡¯t care. If I understand these drawings correctly, I am standing on a bomb, worse potentially a time bomb. I like barbecue, but only in some manners of participation and I want to be invited rather than abducted to it. That is not exactly an honest complaint. My inner voice has a remark to make.
Hildegard is watching the Indian woman. It looks to her like she is watching the new wizard with a lot of interest and calculation. She heads for the backpack nobody has wanted to touch.
I am standing on a bomb. My new life may have drastically improved my life expectancy, but I would like to keep that advantage. What?
Anyway, I wish for a pickaxe. Nothing happens. That is disappointing. Am I really disappointed because I cannot manipulate reality at will? This is hubris. I can just as well go on my knees and do to the floor what I did to ropes and chains. This feels like punching into cold mud. Disgusting. The floor is secured against my power.
Zewrepa pulls the wizard back onto his legs. This is a job for a woman. Her mana isn¡¯t full, but there is plenty. She energizes her fist and rams it down. Her allies have been propelled into the air. She might have warned them. The wizard is actually hovering a few centimeters above the ground, as is proper for a male. She thought that humans can¡¯t do that. Anyway, first things first. She extends her swordclaws and rips open the ground.
Anjali is shocked. The wizard can fly, spontaneously, without preparation or equipment. Air sorcery? She deemed him to have some kind of time based powers. Time for reassessment.
Helena is ashamed. Her cousin is right. She needs to get a grip. An intent she can now realize literally. Keeping a pregnant woman from a bad fall is good, even if she twists her own ankle.
Holy cow, the lady is packing a punch. I am deeply impressed. So impressed that I rather stay in the air. That is also impressive. I need to get out of this cave. But first I need to avoid being roasted.
Zewrepa carefully exposes a crystal with her hands. Just smashing it could set it off.
Chapter 8 - cut the red wire
Hildegard dares not interrupt a demon, even less so after such a demonstration. But a wizard may not kill her outright and she does not want to burn to death, especially not after escaping being sacrificed. Her Latin isn¡¯t very good, but sometimes you need to take a courageous step. ?Master wizard, what is done?¡°. His eyes home in on her. ?What? Say again!¡° he answers after a pause. ?Master wizard, what is done?¡° A smile spreads over his face. ?I am pleased, because you understood me. Now I can talk and ask.¡° She is alarmed. He wants to ask questions. She better preempt that right now. ?What will you perform?¡°. His face lights up.
Zewrepa is impressed. The wizard shows no sign of fear as he floats down to her. He also shows no fear of a device that is designed to immolate him. He does show proper caution, though. Gingerly he removes sand with his fingers. He unearths a silver cable coming out of the crystal bomb. He says something she doesn¡¯t understand. She needs to be understood. Drawing certain attentions is not good, not even the hive would be safe, but she needs to say something. So be it. She uses the Atlantean language. ?Do you understand the setup?¡°
Anjali perks up. Finally something to say, even if the medium is cursed. ?I am afraid only I can understand you. Only our primary captor was an Atlantean. Though i would not expect anybody to make so fine a distinction if we were discovered.¡°. The demon looks at her and tilts her head with a nod. Apparently what she said was true but needs no reply. That is fine. You do not needlessly use the accursed tongue aloud, as useful it may be for reading ancient tomes.
The tall one and the wizard share a language. For now that is useful. In the long run it is annoying. It is for now still more important to watch the dryad. Wizards know about traps. As tempting as it would be to get some very direct control of the situation, it would be a mistake.
Melo is drained. She is drifting towards sleep. People are talking in the accursed tongue. The master is back and talking to his bedwarmer. Who cares? He can¡¯t do worse than kill her. If they get themselves found out this way, so be it. She only wished that she¡¯d live long enough to see them suffer the consequences. This sheet makes a nice pillow. She will not block the sun from her body, even if it is the wrong body and just lamps. There will be shade soon enough.
Messages go through the silver wire. I sense them. I cannot understand them. To each query there is a response and each subsequent query is different and yields a different response. The crystal itself shows a detection spell. It would detect any external object or spell damaging the crystal or an intrusion through the shell. It does not take a genius to understand what will happen if the detection is triggered.
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I could attack the barrier itself. The result would be the same, if the designer of this facility was rational. This is not good news. I fly out of the hole and stretch out a hand to the demoness to help her get out. She is in this with us and I feel a bit safer if nobody is too close to the wire.
He is stretching his hand out to her. Is that a request to mate? He is male and he has flown. She would need to rebuff him. She has not sung. There are no clan elders to make a recording of their act. And he has defeated no competitors. To some a male holding an uncontested mating ground was as good as a male having defeated the competitors. She does not think so. As if it mattered, for he can¡¯t fertilize her eggs, which are not even ripened. No, this needs to end here and now. She just jumps out.
In the long run, it looks like the only option left to them is ambushing the Atlantean, when and if he comes back.
Apparently she does not need anybody¡¯s help. I am a bit dejected. I guess I owe the tall blonde girl an explanation ?Words through the connection go out of the rock and into the rock. I hear them, but I don¡¯t understand them. I cannot tell it that it not be a guardian. If it wounded, rock would know.¡° She takes the news with a display of courage, but I don¡¯t believe her. It has to hit hard.
She hands me a military style field bottle. That surprises me. ?Whence?¡° I ask. She points to the backpack no longer attached to the thoroughly carbonized remains of a woman. ?To the pregnant one.¡° I reply. I think I see a mixture of surprise, rejection and respect on her face. I smile, hoping to take the sting out of my one-worded reply. If I am to meet my ancestors soon I want to be able to point at least at some chivalry.
I need to think. Burying the bomb and setting it off is suicide. It was buried in the first place. Apparently I cannot enclose it in battleship armor by wishing it to be so. And now I am getting thirsty. Why did she have to offer a beverage? So I cannot just create a soft drink and, while I am at it, a banquet with a simple wish. The Indian girl approaches and sits down at a respectful distance, also leaning against a wall. I must say thirst and a funeral pyre predating death are no longer the only considerations on my mind.
I have an idea. Is there a glas vessel in this cave? My power answers. I get up, not noticing the satisfaction my hurried departure causes, and grab the glass bucket. I can make things cold, very cold. Within limits I can even make the effect power itself.
The first beads of condensation form on the bucket. That water is coming out of the air. I have not created it, just forced it to become liquid. But didn¡¯t I create air? Well did I, or did I just transform existing air? Nuclear transsubstitution would be impressive enough. But the carbon dioxide would have killed us long before we ran out of oxygen. Where is the carbon dioxide going?
That takes ten minutes and I need to swich on my sight. Little cylinders mounted between the ceiling and the walls above the blackboard take it out of the air. That means I did create oxygen. Let¡¯s try something. I wish for fog. Fog pours out of my hand and the bucket fills quickly. I allow myself a drink. Ice cold and refreshing.
The wizard definitely is an air sorcerer. But he does not know his own powers. Anyway I make him nervous. The odder ones of them are extraordinarily productive in that state and not happy if you interrupt them. I just need to wait.
I conjure hail coming from the ceiling in a corner of the room. It works. The mother and the pregnant lady get up to collect the hail, clean it with sheets and put it in another bucket they take out of a second closet with brooms. I notice that the mother is limping. Again she freezes as I touch her ankle. Wizards must have a terrible reputation in this land.
Do we spit fire? Well, do we? Yes, we do. The water in the bucket is now liquid and I need to extinguish the bucket. Wait a minute. It will register a weapon or a spell penetrating ¡
I ring the crystal with fire. My special sight tells me that it is red hot, but the spell does not trigger as long as the flame does not touch the crystal. I must be careful not to melt the silver. There, this should be enough. I cancel the flame and throw the content of the bucket onto the crystal. Crack, a flash and some minor flames, but the crystal crumbles. It is done.
Chapter 9 - all inclusive booking
Is this a lucid dream?
?Am I having a stroke?¡° I address the pillars of light congregating at the end of my hospital bed. ?Not yet¡° comes the reply. ?It will occur in six plus or minus four minutes. We have stopped time to negotiate with you.¡° Indeed the raindrops outside the window of my hospital room are frozen in the air. ?What about and why me?¡° I respond. The situation is so bizarre that I don¡¯t show an emotional response. ?Our search patterns have shown that you have a robust attitude towards self preservation and the kind of scientific knowledge our task will require.¡° Is that something my brain would come up with? Probably yes, for the very reason they stated. ?How do I know you are real?¡°. ?You do not. Your question is valid, but in last consequence never answerable. We would suggest that you take into account that negotiation with us if we are not real costs you nothing, while it will likely cost you everything, if you refuse to negotiate although we are real.¡° ¨C ?Why?¡°, I demand. ?We estimate that your chance of surviving that stroke is 9%. Your chances of surviving it without grave impairment are so small that we cannot tell them.¡°, these things have very good arguments. ?Very well. You mentioned a task ¡ ?
I bolt upright. By general unspoken consensus we had decided that night has begun. The environment in the cave we are still locked in hasn¡¯t changed in response to time so far. Maybe we should have agreed on putting up watches, but how do you do that if you are all traumatized and share no language?
Anyway, after this, well dream, vision or memory, I will not go back to sleep any time soon. So no harm has been done. The dream was interesting, but it is not relevant right now. I am certainly not doing any likely task while trapped here. Am I about to suffer a stroke, though? I do the equivalent of healing I have done surprisingly often, considering the time we have been here, on myself, just in case.
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I want to concentrate on actually making stuff. Making stuff is the mysterious part. I can make oxygen. Can I make something else? I could try other gases, but we are in an enclosed environment. I don¡¯t want to suffocate myself or create an explosive mixture. Hence I don¡¯t start with hydrogen as the simplest. I try plain air. That works like a charme. Something that will go up. Helium is very hard. I can make small amounts. Neon. This feels, well, ¡ serious constipation is the best comparison. It feels like it should work in principle, but there is an obstacle. I will cease this line of investigation.
I get one of the beakers out from the storage. Can I fill it with water. Nope. Can I make it rain? Yes. I can make a cloud around my hand and drops of water come out of it. Great. We won¡¯t die from thirst, though I will have to do something about the pitcher in the corner soon.
The baby is starting to make noises. I pick her up. She is hungry. I can heal. Does that create living tissue? It seems to. Can I create the product of tissue? I have a drop of white liquid on the tip of my index finger. I am very much unsure how I feel about that. It does taste like milk. Do I really want to start doing human experimentation on a baby? No, I try to gently wake the mother.
She is stiff with fright, as soon as she is fully awake. Yet she does not scream. I hand her the baby.
But now I can do something that has been bothering me. My eyebrows are back. Am I limited to human tissue and its products? I cannot just generate a piece of meat. But I can generate a pear, which I¡¯m reluctant to just bite into. It smells like a pear, though.
Something stirs in my mind. I listen to my inner voice. It speaks about arthropods. Why not? A bolt of sticky silk spurts out of my wrist and hits the ceiling. This is well and good, but what do I do with that? Am I to become a tailor?
Anjali is watching the wizard. She has never seen that power in human wizards. Nature spirits can do such things, but usually only a subset of them. She has seen healing powers in nature wizards. Some had fire or air powers. Just the combination was unusual. Yet, if an Atlantean goes to such lengths to capture a slave, that slave is bound to be unusual.
Chapter 10 - checkout delayed
Anjali tries to hide her discomfort. Merely turning 23 had gotten her sold off. She is getting a third chance in life. Few get that far out of an Atlantean trap. Granted, few get into one; the numbers guarantee that. She is not going to be bitchy now. That could ruin everything. Besides, nobody likes an ungrateful bitch.
In fact it is time to take one for the team. She munches on the pear. It is delicious. Perfectly ripe. Refreshing. It clears up her head. A clear head, however, notices inconsistencies. She has never heard of a nature mage who can make metal decay.
Hildegard is unhappy. Her training tells her to treat this situation as a siege. Her nose and her stomach tell her that the situation is not good. Sickness must be avoided during a siege. And obviously, you need to make your supplies last, which is difficult if you have no food.
The demon is standing in front of the doorway in a contemplative pose. The dryad is asleep. The wizard is asleep. The two peasant are huddled together is far away from the wizard as possible. She decides to check on the dryad first.
The dream is back. In fact it has gotten even fuller.
I hear a voice from the other end of my hospital bed. ?Make a deal, my boy. I¡¯ll help you get around it. They want to trick you, but you need the deal.¡° I wish I could rember whose voice I am hearing. It seems infinitely important to learn that. ?No, don¡¯t turn around. They cannot see me. Don¡¯t show them I am here.¡°. That makes sense. I don¡¯t respond.
And indeed my earlier visitors continue ?Somebody has violated an agreement and recruited somebody from this world. Your task is to be to either identify the violator or, failing that, to at least eliminate the recruitee. For that purpose we intend you to make a similar journey, which will grant you powers of the same magnitude.¡°. Their plan has an obvious weakness, which I need to mention if I want to stay credible. ?How am I supposed to find a single person on a whole planet?¡°. ?That is indeed a problem, which will require us to influence your choice of powers. You will also need to overcome our target. For that purpose we intend to let you pick a part of the powers.¡°
I wake up abruptly again and scare a young woman who happens to approach me right at that time. I embrace her and call for my grandfather. Now that is odd. I wish I remembered my grandfather, but I am willing to assume that she does not resemble him.
You should not surprise and scare somebody with combat training. I would have known that. Yet these dreams, if indeed they are dreams, shake me deeply for reasons I don¡¯t understand. Anyway, she does an excellent headbut. My nose is a witness for the crown.
Hildegard deems her life finished. If he does to her what he did to the crystal she¡¯ll be low-quality charcoal. A member of the Rabenstein clan does not panic or grovel. She stands straight up and looks into the distance. She never expected to go to Valhalla, but this might qualify.
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Ouch. Yes, I am sorry, but she woke me up from a nightmare. Could somebody help me? Well, I get it, as far as they know, if I need medical help, the case is hopeless. I can heal myself after all. Let¡¯s do that then.
?With the head you have spoken clearly to the nose. I prefer that you ask the ear with words.¡°, I got a remark as witty as I could got. She looks at me a bit oddly and remains silent. I break the silence, ?In a dream I was harmed. Can I help with something?¡°
Apparently we need more water. I am happy to provide it. In fact this time I attach both spells to the buckets. I need to look into doing this permanently.
Zewrepa follows the wizard to the doorway. Almost any idea for getting out of here is better than waiting for a return that may or may not happen, and if it happened would lead to a battle their enemy would have had as much time to prepare for as he likes. Indeed he breathes fire into the barrier. She attacks with her claws elsewhere trying to overburden the battery. They try he alternating between fire and disspells. He even tries a lightning bolt. Other than a boom that scares the other people they are trapped with half to death, the result is unchanged.
They try going through the wall. It produces a sizable amount of rubble he finally needs to make disappear. All their attacks work, but the energy reservoir behind the barrier is just too large to exhaust and the barrier too strong to overwhelm with power. Does he understand it? Going by the way his shoulders hang, yes he does. At least he is not stupid, even if he was defeated this morning by the female he tried to establish dominance over. It seemed even a little kinky at that time to see males and females fighting, but in an environment with no other males to show dominance over she could almost understand it.
Branislava¡¯s relief at her cousin finally starting to speak is replaced with horror. ?¡ He kept shaking for most of the day. He looked at me. He couldn¡¯t speak. Blood was flowing out of his mouth. They had several of those spikes. They told us that they had to charge them all. We hoped that the victims would keep suffering because then we would live.¡° she narrates very calmly as if talking about how to bake bread.
?I had no idea. They isolated all visibly pregnant women in one hut. We almost hoped that they¡¯d just leaves us there because we are slow and not just set the hut on fire to get rid of witnesses.¡°
I am making pears. I understand that some people would go out of their way to make all sorts of different food stuffs. I, however, will feed this stuff to people, including myself, who have nobody but me to go for medical help. Aside from the obvious issue of disabling myself I have no idea what problems I can and cannot handle. We need to eat, so this risk is unavoidable and I understand risk versus reward, but a varied fruit selection for dinner is not a sufficient reward.
Still I make a few grapes and tomatos. I tried coconuts. They did not work.
Chapter 11 - credit card denied
I am tossing and turning. I fear sleep. I don¡¯t want more visions. Instead I check on the dryad. She was developing brown pustules. I cured them, but it hasn¡¯t improved her overall condition. I heal the first few new ones again. My special sense gives her a few days left.
I renew the air again, just to keep myself awake. Why did the coconut fail? Is my power racist against monocots? Let¡¯s experiment. Indeed, I cannot make wheat or barley. Rice also fails. But I can make silk. Silk comes from a plethora of insects, though, and also spiders. Very briefly my mind settles on skunks, but no, no, no, no, not going there. I am not going to test animal products until we get out of here.
Monocots are really important in food production. But that applies mainly to grains. I need to get creative. Yes ¡ let¡¯s do something fancy. A snakeskin fruit works. So does a date. I carefully bite open the date. I have no idea whether I can replace a tooth. There is no seed in it. I make a grape. Same result. I try a carrot. Failure to appear. No potato either. A banana is no problem.
I can make fruit, but not seeds. This is testable. A strawberry without seeds does look like another kind of fruit, but it does work. Now I need to recharge. Eating neutrinos still feels weird.
Hildegard is watching the wizard. His reactions are alien. Her father does not have a court wizard. His liege lord¡¯s wizard would not have taken a beating from some young woman without family protection. And he could just throw a few fireballs, though he was presumably vital in warding the castle against other wizards.
Yet he also doesn¡¯t act like a servant. Like a priest maybe, though priests are not shy about telling you that they are priests. But the way he hesitates while making the fruit makes her think that he is trying out which fruit he can make. And that does not make sense. As far as she knows if you are born with the spark, some wizard may discover you and take you in as an apprentice to teach you spells. Though that is rare because often the spark runs in a family. Well, if he can¡¯t sleep this may not be the best way to connect to him, as talking would wake everybody, but it is a way and she will need help to come home again. Indeed she may need help to survive, full stop. It¡¯s already October and she doubts that a wizard doing human sacrifices will put his lair into a hospitable area. She needs to show that she¡¯s sorry.
She almost made me jump. I should have noticed earlier. She moves like someone trained in certain arts. The Indian girl moves more gracefully, but for her it is an art form. This woman moves like the demoness, if they want to. They both know how to fight.
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She is smiling. I smile back. She points at the doorway and tilts her head in question. I will not lie to her. I shrug and go for an uncertain facial expression. She points to the fruit I have arranged on the chest I usually sleep next to. I make an inviting gesture. She is intrigued by the snakeskin fruit, which she starts peeling. I make a few cherries for a reason I don¡¯t fully understand. She is delighted.
She points at my face. I am alarmed and turn the air into a mirror again. She is intrigued and proceeds to watch herself in the mirror, only to become unsatisfied with the state of her hair. I belatedly understand that she wonders why I had no eyebrows.
Though that makes me wonder why whether I can create pictures other than a mirror. I create a small statue of her in chainmail with a spear, floating in the air. Her hand goes up to her mouth to silence herself. She shakes her head.
Does he think I am a soldier or, much worse, a camp follower? I have to correct this. I try to shape with my hands a castle. After a few minutes he gets the idea. He creates a pentagonal wall with towers on each corner and a gate with a gatehouse. This is fun. But the gatehouse is horrible. I get him to at least recess the gate a bit.
Apparently I am bad at castle design, but I get that a gate is a weak point. It hits me like a hammer. I activate flight and fly down into the hole the crystal occupied. I grab the wire. Yes, I feel something. I send a disspell through the conductive enchantment on the wire. I get a hostile response from outside the barrier. An evil grin spreads over my face. You will not like this. I start drinking neutrinos and build the biggest disspell I can. This may burn out the wire. I need to make it count. I hear something. It seems I am waking our people up. I don¡¯t care.
I let it rip. The barrier over the doorway fails in a shower of sparks. A strong gust whistles through our cave. My ears hurt and sounds are getting quieter. A baby cries. Two female shrieks cut through the chaos.
I look up to see the dryad with a sharpened wooden stake and my Indian companion on her back clawing for her eyes running towards me.
Anjali can only deflect the spear. It pierces only his shoulder instead of going right through his heart. The blonde girl withdraws a cudgel from the blanket serving her as a robe and knocks the dryad out with a blow to the temple that would have killed a man.
The demonness comes down covering the distance in one leap. With the dryad going to the ground the spear also vanishes.
The demon is applying pressure to the wound. I scream. Blood is flowing. Where has the spear gone? I need to fix blood vessels. I wish for them to close right now and unleash my full power. As my vision fades, I don¡¯t know whether it is enough.
Chapter 12 - not an engagement ring
Ouch. That is my head bumping on a door frame. But it has woken me up. The demon is carrying me in her arms, well, lower arms. The upper arms are pressing an improvised bandage on my shoulder wound. This is reopening stuff I have already fixed. I keep up a permanent healing just focused on blood vessels. Why are they moving me at all? My head is swimming. Of course, they cannot know whether the strike I landed has caused permanent damage. In fact, I cannot be sure myself. It felt that way, but that¡¯s what our enemy would want me to assume.
My head is touching something that smells good. I am reminded of something I don¡¯t remember. It makes no difference. I am so tired and cold.
Anjali is looking out into the dark night. Snowflakes are driven through the vision slit in the gate. The gate has no provisions for a magical barrier she can see and the path to it is clear. They are no longer trapped except by the elements. They have made it. It feels unreal. Atlanteans are figures of legend you do not expect to meet, let alone beat. So the bar stashed right next to the gate goes right into the tines mounted on the door and the wall, however unlikely anybody is to travel through such a storm in the night without breaking his neck. She has almost finished sweeping the facility and will be able to do the rest on her way back to report. The demoness has taken over command by force of her confidence. It does not matter to her.
?There is a locked door leading to one of the side corridors. We have found quarters for guards, a common room for off duty hours, storage rooms with provisions for about 400 mandays, bath facilities including showers, and a kitchen. I have put the peasants into the kitchen and I hope they have understood that I want them to cook a meal.¡° she reports. ?And I have found this.¡° She extends her hand displaying a ring resting on her palm. The demon demonstrates her knowledge ?A translation ring. You haven¡¯t tried it out?¡°. ?I didn¡¯t want to seem to lay a claim on it¡° she replies. ?Considerate, but unnecessary. You may not have noticed, but parts of the machinery in the ritual room are made out of platinum. Even if we have to melt them down, we are rich.¡° and the demon hesitates. Anjali is smart enough to not interrupt. ?However, this may not matter all that much. I may just as well tell you, as I am no longer part of the nest. Are you familiar with the local pantheons?¡° she continues. ?In broad strokes¡° Anjali answers. ?Good. The clan elders were suspecting that this is Ragnar?k.¡°
Hildegard is enjoying being clean and having brushed her teeth. This is better than the facilities at home, where the warm water is limited by what the solar heaters on the roof can provide or where in winter you need to build a fire to get warm water. She has found the traveling clothes she was captured in in a sack, but they are not fit to be worn in polite company, so they are soaking in preparation for being washed.
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She should brush her hair but she is standing in a shower stall her hands braced against the wall. She may have killed someone today. It was in the line of duty and honor, so she should feel pride if anything. Still it bothers her. She is nineteen, a little old to get married, she had been riding out to meet her bethroated to wed on the feast of the harvest moon, just a few days from the day she was captured. She might have been called on to hold a castle in a siege, tend to the wounded and eventually bear a child. But right now she wishes for her parents. What is wrong with her? She did not show weakness in the ritual circle. She faced a mighty magus. She faced a demon. She felled a magic creature with a swing that would have made her instructor proud. But a shower forces her to fight down tears. This is no good. She gets dressed in a fresh linen sheet and heads for the kitchen to do something productive.
The kitchen confirms one of her fears. They are soaking salted fish. There is an awful lot of salted fish in the storage room next to the kitchen, but no meat. It is possible that that wizard is really into fish, but this being emergency rations it is likelier that fish is just cheap here. It is no hering. In fact she has no idea what kind of fish these are. They¡¯ve carried her all the way to the Mediterranean while she was unconcious. Getting home will be difficult. In fact she has to face it. They caught a lot of her father¡¯s forces outside the castle. Have they followed through and attacked her home?
I am still tired. My eyes are hard to open. But at least I am no longer cold. Or to be precise I am no longer only cold. I am running a fever. This is bad. I am aiming my power at bacteria. A hand is running a wet cloth across my face. Water! Another hand gently lifts my head, while the first hand has exchanged the cloth for a beaker gently pressed against my lips. I drink eagerly. It is a kind of sour liquid not pure water. Very refreshing. I mutter ?Thank you¡°
?The ring works! The third language is your tongue. It is me, Anjali. Is your mind clear? Do you remember what happened?¡° a female voices says in my mother tongue without an accent. ?Yes, I owe you my life. Thank you. I am so tired.¡° I reply. ?All will be well. Sleep.¡°
Zewrepa is composing a funeral song, just in case. She rechecks the wizard¡¯s pulse. Slow. Too slow. The skin is cold and sweaty. They need to wake him up. This will need a spell to cure. Having the healer fall ill is a conundrum she¡¯d be readier to appreciate in the abstract than suffering it. Her allies reluctantly nod. She flicks his nose.
I wake up. Why is my bed rotating? Of course the planet is round and rotating. Wait this makes no sense. Why is the light so bright? Why does my nose hurt again? An annoying voice sounds demanding. I ignore it. I should do something amusing. I can make pictures. I make a picture of a shrimp hunting a smurf. That is amusing.
?His mind is not clear¡° Anjali says. ?Can you make him want to fight the infection?¡°
?How?¡° Zewrepa answers. Anjali takes that as a literal question. How about ¡ ?Sing him a song of wrath and retaliation!¡° she bursts out
A heavenly host is declaring holy war on my smurf. It announces its intent with trumpets and flutes. I need to fight. The smurfs need me. This makes no sense. What is wrong with me? That triggers my special sense. It tells me that I am infected. But I fought the bacteria. My special sense answers. A fungal infection. That is disgusting. But now I have aiming information. The power believes in biological defense by mounting an offensive.
Chapter 13 - nursing included
I awaken to pain and the smell of cooked fish. I love fish. The sensation of knowing something without knowing the reason for knowing it is becoming annoying. That said, the possible reasons for it are alarming and I am unsure whether I want to investigate.
I find the pregnant woman sitting on a chair next to the bed I am in. Where has she gotten the furniture from? ?Please say something¡° she says slowly in my mother tongue. ?It was no dream. You can suddenly speak my language.¡° I reply. ?It is a miracle. I am wearing this ring and it is a miracle.¡° she practically beams. I try to sit up and immediately abandon the attempt. It hurts. It hurts a lot. She notices my quite obvious expression of pain and says ?I would have sewed it shut, but the foreign lady insisted that it was unnecessary and that using improvised thread for that would do more harm than good.¡° ?I see. She was right. Give me a few minutes.¡° I say.
Can I just remove the pain? Yes, I can. Closing the skin is trivial and removes the chance of further infection. I follow up with a killing round for bacteria, just in case. And then I levitate myself into a sitting position. The woman generates a frightened sound. ?Is something wrong?¡° I ask. ?I am not used to magic.¡° she answers and continues. ?You have been very niece, but you are so mighty it frightens me and my cousin.¡° I can say nothing to that. I could use a thunderbolt to strike her dead. She is objectively right. I wouldn¡¯t do that, but there is no way she can be sure of that. Voicing these thoughts, however, seems unwise to me. And it seems to me like I need to say something, lest she takes silence as affront and I scare her even more. ?We are in this together. We are certainy mates and may even be friends. My name is ¡¡° I stop. This hurts emotionally. She quickly says ?There is no need to tell me your name, Lord Wizard. Just call me Helena¡°. I shake my head and say ?No. No, you misunderstand. I have forgotten my name. That wizard has done something serious to me. Not knowing my own name is a bother.¡° Her eyes widen. She decides to change the subject. ?We have cooked fish and potatoes. They are getting cold.¡° I smile and extend my arms, which I immediately regret.
Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!I end up being fed like a baby.
Hildegard is doing laundry. That, however, occupies only her hands and back, not her mind. Her mind needs to come to terms with a winter storm stopping her after beating an Atlantean. She can¡¯t neither read nor speak their language, but she does recognize the script. It was bizarre to see the ancient glyphs on a simple box containing soap. She supects that the short word written on the box even said soap. Has that made it more real or less real? The part of herself trained to run a large household is getting angry at the part of herself that wants to answer that question with both.
She was cooped up long enough in that cave. She wants to go out. Even more though, she wants to keep her fingers and toes. Her travel clothes and boots are made for her lowland home in autumn, not mountains in winter. She lacks a mount, sleeping bag, even a backpack. And that disregards that she has no idea where she is and lacks even a basic map.
There are some travel rations among the stores and they¡¯ve found two spears and large kite shields, which presumably belong to the incerated guards, but she doubts she can simply claim them. She can¡¯t wait for better weather and then leave on her own, even if it weren¡¯t inadvisable to travel alone, let alone through unfamiliar terrain.
That means relying on the wizard. She needs to inform her father that she¡¯s escaped. Wizards have a means of sending messages superior to anything else.
My shoulder hurts a lot. I have reknit the muscles and connective tissue. What is still injured? I look inward. The answer is simple but terrifying. My shoulder blade is broken. A dieing dryad had the strength to hurl a sharpened wooden stick with a force to pierce my body from front to back and still break a bone. Can I heal this? The healing works badly on bone. Is that because bone is partially inorganic matter and hence less alive? Possibly, but at least it heals. Am I doing this wrong? I am trying to imitate what the healing process would do in a manner of speaking. Can I smash a breakage like I initially approached issues? Initially I fail, but get the feeling that I am close. On the fourth attempt I get it right. I can undo change.
That reminds me. I need to try. She might know things. I cannot just let her die. I need to heal the dryad, so that we can question her.
Chapter 14 - Euklid weeps
Anjali tries and fails to meditate. She knows the techniques. The hotel very much approved of mentally stable staff, especially among those who have close contact with customers. Yet, this challenge she is not ready for. On the surface she is free. She could step out of the door, if she wanted to freeze to death. Gramted, she could wait for optimal weather and she might get the others to agree to give her a part of the loot. And then she would wander through unknown territory, into an unknown city and need to sell stuff without knowing the local language. Realistically that would likelier end with her in a flat grave next to a country road or in a ravine with her corpse left to vultures than founding her own household. Still, it would leave her free, one way or the other.
Ragnor?k changes all that. She remembers her geography. Europe is too far north. They won¡¯t have harvests. She¡¯d need to get a ship out of this continent. This lair even has clocks on the walls in a few important rooms. Leaving it will be a shame, but she sees no alternative. Her time with the ring is coming up. It is time to act.
Zewrepa stands in the falling snow. They cannot stay here for long. Looking around her convinces her that the Atlatean chose this place because its inhospitability makes uninvited visitors unlikely. For the wizard there may be a temptation in form of all the Atlantean gadgetry, as he could make food. They would run out of soap, cloth, leather and metal. Ice would form at this height soon. They need a costal town that allows for fishery and trade, for there won¡¯t be a harvest in the forseeable future in most of Europe. Maybe they should even leave the continent.
Her companions were no cowards. She has witnessed that. But they were no trained fighters with one exception. She needs to convince humans. Just ordering them to pack up wouldn¡¯t work. They are following her orders largely because they see it as safer, both to not anger her and because it makes sense to let a fighter have command. That won¡¯t last if they think she¡¯s leading them into danger for no reason. She cannot leave people who fought at her side behind without at least trying. This will be a hard task. She¡¯d begin with the women. She needs logic.
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Anjali has to coerce the locals into brewing tea. They¡¯d safe it for an occasion they can¡¯t specify. Yes, they don¡¯t have an abundance of tea. But it¡¯d last a week even if they brewed a large pot every day. She needs them to relax and recognize her as someone who gets her will to get them to tell her about him.
?How is he? I hope he is recovering. We owe him a lot.¡° Anjali is starting the conversation. ?That we do. But he frightens me. He is so odd.¡° answers Branislava. Anjali just lifts her eyebrows in a questioning manner. ?He is meek, yet he throws around awesome powers.¡° she continues her explanation, ?he must be hiding something. Or, worse, he doesn¡¯t know it himself.¡° Branislava leans forward and softens her voice ?He said that he does not remember his own name. And he seemed so sincere. And he was sorry. He really cared about me.¡°
Anjali has no more need to intentionally raise her eyebrows.
I got dual company. I have no objection to that. Who does not like nice company? And they fought her. They have a right to be here. ?It rues me that I need to aid somebody who is an enemy ¨CI can revert itIf I want to kill somebody, I myself will kill him.She must live so that she be questioned ¨C
Chapter 15 - Gardeners included
Hildegard sweeps a hand through the space the wizard occupied until a few moments ago. She feels a hand clamp on her wrist. Anjali is slowly shaking her head and pulls her back.
Anjali is scared. The wizard has teleported away. As impressive as that is, what happened immediately before that is a more pressing issue right now. His face showed real anguish before he left by teleportation, presumably to escape a trap. She does not want to experience a weapon that blasts without warning through the wards a wizard of his calibre must have. They have to leave. Investigating by hand the place it hit him is a bad idea. She wishes they could backtrack their footsteps exactly, but that is not an option. She slowly emulates the headshaking motion these Westerners use for negation and makes a gesture she hopes indicates leaving the room.
Hildegard is puzzled for a moment, but then she understands that her companion thinks that the wizard stepped on a trap and was abducted. Neither of them is ready to deal with a magical trap that may be recharging right now. The demoness might be. Retreating, reporting and coming back with reinforcement is the correct response. She lets herself be led out of the room.
My face hits grass. My urge to vomit keeps me from appreciating the implausibility and softness of that grass. I hate vomiting. I know some people see it as a welcome relief. I don¡¯t. I just lie in the grass fighting down something nasty and drawing deep breaths. I am even too preoccupied to switch off my full eldritch sight. In fact I welcome it. It is highly distracting. I don¡¯t think I am under attack, as far as I do any thinking at all, because I should see it. The human digestive tract has two ends. Controlling both proves beyond my capabilities.
I pant and rest. I have gotten it out of my system, literally and figuratively. I hope whoever did this to me stood right behind me. Sadly there is no evidence for that. There is evidence for warm, viscous liquids following the pull of gravity and pooling. I get up, get away and get naked again. The sheet I was wearing has been redecorated and is a total loss.
My anger at the dryad has vanished. She probably just expected a reward from my captors. Disappointing, but business. The recent attack has been personal. Were I in the mood to think about body fluids, I¡¯d declare blood feud. At least I am still hairless everywhere but on my scalp and face. There¡¯s nothing to mat down.
I don¡¯t really feel up to getting up. This attack has messed up my nervous system. I can tell. What happened up there? I doubt that the attack happening at the time I had decided that the dryad should die was random chance. Somebody is reading my mind. That is a problem. How do you fight somebody who knows all your plans? Spontaneously would be the logical but not helpful answer. I look at the blue sky and the incongrously plain rock walls. The eldritch sight reveals the sky and the sun in it as illusions, which provide a subset of natural sunlight limited to the frequencies humans can see. The illusion makes no effort to hide itself from anybody with the least bit of magical perception. Still, the illusion is warm and the grass is soft. I fall asleep.
Zewrepa is listening to a report she has trouble believing. She takes on of the two crossbows they have found in the meantime and accompanies her company to the room the dryad has been put in. Even her relatively weak senses see the receeding scar in the ambient mana. ?Somebody has smashed through spacetime.¡° she announces and concludes ?This means that he has fled. A trap would have been more elegant. And I see no teleportation or other trap.¡° She lets the meaning of her words sink in. It means that there is nothing they can do. Nobody of them can teleport. They cannot follow a teleporter.
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Perversely this makes her task much easier. The execution is still awkward because there is no way she could speak in a way everybody understands. But the situation was clear. They were in a cave in the moutains. Snow was already falling. Their food supply would last only a fraction of the season. When she calls for making clothing and at least foot coverings from the available materials, building a few sleds for pulling stuff and all food that needed to be cooked to be eaten to be cooked everybody understands. When she also orders that they¡¯d wait for optimal weather they agree. Nobody is eager for the trip.
I am back to lucent visions. Only that this time I am in an endless beige expanse facing our captor. He begins without an introduction ?I have decided to confront you. Don¡¯t be alarmed. Our difference in power means that you¡¯ll profit most.¡° I answer in kind ?You can surmise that I consider you my enemy and want to eliminate you. Tell me why I want to talk to you.¡° He actually grins and replies ?I ultimately share your desire for you to eliminate me. My incomplete existance has turned out to be an indignity. You cannot kill me. I am a part of your mind. I can just cease to exist as a distinct fragment of personality.¡° I notice that he has left out a part of the explanation and tilt my head in question. He gives a short nod and continues ?Yes, what do you get out of it. The usage of a part of my impersonal knowledge, language, geography, that sort of thing. And before you ask, I get out of it that your desire to exact revenge on my original will lessen, both for practical reasons, as I, or rather he, become less of a threat, and by my mental influence.¡° I am not satisfied and need to clarify ?And why do you deem yourself an indignity? And how can I trust you?¡°. For a moment he cannot meet my eyes ?I intervened for sentimental reasons. I am not in full command of my facilities. I made you spare her against my own interests. I rather not be at all than be not the master of my own mind. As for trust, this is ultimate our mind. Try stating nonsense or a lie.¡° I do try. I cannot. O well, I am sure that club was not on the ground a moment ago.
Hildegard has claimed the second crossbow. She is well trained in ranged weapons. She doesn¡¯t know carpentry or the craft of the cobbler, but she can sew. Making a shirt for somebody with four arms is a task everybody of them is unfamiliar with, so they let the worst seamstress among them do it.
I am back on the grass. This time I am fit enough to take a good look around. This cavern houses a tree, specifically a cherry tree. A sick cherry tree. Cankers abound on the branches, many of which have lost their leaves. It does not take a genius to make the connection.
More remarkable and mysterious are the golden bands binding the branches, connected to a pillar of blue crystal. I can feel Marental even without eldritch sight. I switch it on anyway. Bonds of subjugation. That is what he meant. He felt something for a slave. I react with more spontanity than I would like to see in myself. My thunderbolt annihilates the pillar.
Melo¡¯s unconcious form twitches. A smile is slowly spreading on her face.
What do I do now? I put my hand on the trunk. I feel that I can use my healing power on anything alive. Was she commanded to kill me? If so, that does not tell me that she won¡¯t do it on her own again. But in the end I don¡¯t want another attack. I heal her.
There is a wash basin on the wall. I use it for reasons better not mentioned. I fly up to the entrance spurning the stairs. I end up in a corridor, new memories inform me leads on one end to the locked door and on the other end to Marental¡¯s quarters. Something draws me to the latter. I am surprised that I share his physical dimensions almost perfectly match mine. Clad in his house robes and wielding his keychain I open the locked door.
Chapter 16 - tour bookings
I am doing an exploratory flight. The weather has improved unexpectedly. We cannot waste that, as much as I think that we need to make plans about our long time path. Seconds into the flight I have started regretting this endeavor. This winter is cold so far into the mountains. Marental¡¯s garments, his platemail suit and his magic sword, which I have only very basic ideas on how to use and none on how to use the magic on it, are not up to the challenge. His boots, which was I shocked to find perfectly fitting me, are, though. I need something to cover my head and hands. Yes, I can heat the air around myself. However, flying means movement. Movement means wind. The wind keeps blowing away my shell of warm air. Yes, I can keep a grasp on the air. That, however, means that I need to adjust the flight spell itself. My mana budget is horrible. This flight will end in minutes if I don¡¯t do anything. I start drinking neutrinos. Better. But much more than leisurely flying in a line would take more concentration than I have, though I have about half an hour before I have to head home.
I spot a trail as the wind has blown away the snow. I feel a certain satisfaction for the choice of the site for that. At least I know the reason for the wierd feeling this time. This calls for a close inspection. I land. At this rate I am even recharging. Is this really the trail? Yes, it is. It leads down into a crevice and vanishes. Again I know that this site is suitable for a spell, but not which spell and for what reason. What now? I still have a period of good weather left. These mountains undergo precipitation. I am not at the bottom of lake. The water has to go somewhere. I need to find a river. I am going straight up. That is a drain on the budget, but I feel snow on the clouds coming in. I enter a slow circle.
Unfortunately, if there is a creek, it is frozen and under snow. I see nothing. I need to activate my full vision powers. That works. I take a nice wide turn, as I see a flash in an eldritch hue followed by something trailing smoke. It hurts my eyes. Fear! I need to evade that. I lose control. I start tumbling through the air, the cold wind hitting me like a fist.
The curse goes wide, being aimed at the point I would be had I continued my turn. There is another curse coming. I am out of control. I need to stop tumbling. I project an air brake. I almost brake my neck. Again the curse is aimed to intercept me. I am being hunted like an animal without cover. Sooner or later I will fail to dodge a shot. I need to do something drastic. I accelerate straight down. The next curse is being fired. He will get me when I need to slow down or I''ll ram myself into the ground. I correct my vector going to the side. I go over the side of a cliff. Pure luck saves my ass. His curses travel in straight lines. I get outside his field of fire. I brake and save myself to a small ledge of rock. My face hurts from the cold. I flood it with healing. Can he get into a position to hit me again? Should I jump? I probably should. But flinging myself into the abyss is one step too far. I hesitate.
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I lighten myself radically and rapidly scale upwards. Can I return fire? Just sticking my head up is not going to work. How far do my thunderbolts carry? Alternatively, can I defend myself? These musings turn moot, as a ball of lightning appears over me and veers towards me. I create an image of myself and send it straight out away from me. The lightning ball goes for the decoy. Its structure is clear. I need to do something. I radically simplify its design and couple it with a disspell. I pump it full of mana. My decoy is eliminated. It is coming straight for me. Not good if it hits, but it simplifies my aiming. I hit.
I need to capitalize on that. I send a decoy straight up. Counting to ten I piss myself before I follow it. The decoy dies on the second curse hitting it. I reach the snow at the edge of the cliff. I get a lucky break. He has not seen me. Neither will he, for now, I think. I am in the snow. My special sight goes through the snow, not perfectly, he is a blob coming closer. How good are his senses?
He stops. I burst out of the snow accelerating upwards and forwards in equal measure and send a decoy accelerating almost straight towards him. He goes for the decoy. I release the thunder.
My enemy separates in two. It turns out that he has been a huge grey, naked humanoid about three meters tall carrying a small green wrinkled man with sparse hair. I wish I could make sure they are no longer a danger, but I am almost out of mana. I have an idea. The snow cushions my hard landing, still my ankle will hurt until I can find mana for the healing. I create a mirror. The humanoid, which I tentatively identify as a troll, charges his new foe and propels himself into the abyss.
I walk towards the small green man, which I am suddenly sure is a goblin. My ankle is sprained. I still am covered with the blood I released because I bit my lip while breaking savagely. The boots are fine, though. My toes are perfectly warm. The wet patch in the front of my pants is getting cold. He is still alive. He looks stunned. My memories tell me that I cannot let him perish. I feel my bowels loosen.
No, not again! I draw my, well Marental¡¯s, sword, reverse the grip and plunge it down. I can almost hear my grandfather say that you cannot let enemy scouts return. A warm feeling rises through my arms as a a denser form of mana is extracted from the goblin. It turns out that I don¡¯t need to know how to use the magic of the weapon, at least for this functionality.
I fly down over the cliff and burn the troll¡¯s body.
Chapter 17 - restocking the mini bar
Zewrepa is guarding the gate. Closing it while an ally she insisted on sending out for recon isn¡¯t accounted for is out of the question. The weather is worsening. Different from the days before this time the snow is not driven by biting winds. It is coming down in big, lazy flakes. They will have to clear away snow in front of the gate soon, but it will allow for the operation of sleds.
Finally he appears, flying a low path as if not to get lost. He is carrying his sword unsheathed, the tip still bloody with what she recognizes as goblin blood. He lands and walks up to her with a gait wider and slower than usual. His gaze does not meet hers. ?Do you think the snow will soon cover our traces?¡° he asks in her language he mysteriously learned after he had teleported away. She agrees. He continues ?They may be coming. He was most likely only a scout. Please organize a watch on the gate. It does not look like it will stop a troll for long.¡° His voice, which, being human, lacks the variations in pitch her mother tongue is usually spoken with anyway, is way flatter than usual.
She bars the gate and voices the song of the homecoming warrior. He closes his eyes and leans against a wall. Slowly tension leaves him, almost making him drop the sword. She takes it from his hand, saying ?I will clean it and inspect the edge for damage. Anything we need to know immediately?¡°. He answers ?A goblin throwing curses on a troll mount. I reckon they were scouts. I burned them both thoroughly. They¡¯ll probably not find the spot they died.¡°. She is surprised. That does not sound like an opponent that explains the blood on his clothing. But then a small troop of dwarves should not have caused her caravan to be massacred.
?We have prepared the Atlantean¡¯s chamber for you. Right of discovery.¡° Zawerepa remarks. He laughs and replys ?Shower first. This is fitting for a reason I¡¯ll need to explain. For now the only important thing is that we cannot go out.¡°. She accepts his words and helps him out of his armor.
Melo wakes up right next to her tree. The location makes sense. The cavern housing her tree has a sealable door. If you want to hold her securely with minimum effort, you just put her here, provided you have Marental¡¯s keys. She didn¡¯t expect to wake up ever again, nor to find the fungus gone from her tree. She¡¯d still need to prune branches too damaged to recover, but that could wait. She finally yields into the trunk of her tree.
Anjali finds the wizard in the kitchen sitting in front of an inordinately large selection of fruit and eggs. ?Good evening Anjali, up late?¡° he says with a voice definitely too cheerful for the hour. She replies ?Coming off watch. Good evening to you, too, uh ¡¡° ?Call me peregrinus¡° he interrupts and continues ?It means wanderer in a dead language of Europe apparently still in use for communication between people of different ethnicities in this world. Do you want some fruit? I am particularly proud of my mangosteen. The plain blueberries are also good. If you insist, I¡¯ll make you a mango, though I can¡¯t stand them. By the way, I also found out that I can make eggs. In case you think that size matters, here it is.¡°. With a gesture he presents her a humongous egg. ?It is an ostrich egg¡° he claims and adds ?No little ostriches themselves though. I am pretty sure that I can make them only unfertilized, though I would not want them any other way. Caviar?¡°. He holds up a bowl and very softly hums a melody.
?A mangosteen would be nice¡° she confesses momentarily at a loss for anything but a plain truth as a response. He gets up and quickly produces two cut up mangosteen on a board decorated with a multipronged leaf. She notices that he used another leaf for cutting the fruit open. Her eyebrows go up. Interpreting her expression he explains ?I found out that I can put a vanishing effect on objects. If I limit it to the edges of a thin object, it¡¯ll cut extremely well.¡°
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.Her command of Atlantean is really not up to certain topics and the need to spoon delicious slices into her mouth overrides any other desire. Mangosteen are a piece of childhood. He takes advantage of her silence for another monologue. ?I do understand that I am reacting badly to almost losing a fight. But I thought that if I wouldn¡¯t be able to sleep anyway, I could just as well try and understand things by experimentation. Plus, most of this stuff is edible. I think I even understood what biological stuff I can make. Stuff that is made to be used up for a productive purpose by an organism is available to me, but not the organism itself. Hence I can make eggs, because birds make eggs just in case, not just when they are fertilized, as do fish, but not actual seeds. I can even make body parts to be sacrificed or used only temporarily, hence all those leaves. And it is not even limited to plants. In case you insist on eating meat ¡¡°. He takes a leaf off a board revealing a few lizard tails.
If you even have seen a few types of demon eat, lizard tails are not a problem to you and Anjali has seen a lot. She is surprised that a powerful wizard opens up to so personal a level. He is revealing deep weaknesses. She needs to answer something meaningful ?I do not understand. I thought you¡¯ve lost only personal memories. Surely you learned what your sorceries can do during your apprenticeship or in wizarding school?¡°
He frowns and answers ?You are obviously right. The obvious options are that I never had wizarding school or an apprenticeship or that I did not have my powers when I had them. But that are only the obvious answers. Perhaps I hid my powers to become my family¡¯s secret assassin and was abducted before they trained me. Or I had a hostile relationship with my master. Anyway, does it matter now?¡°
She purses her lips in thought, decides to go for a risk and states ?I don¡¯t know. From a vista of pure logic I suppose it might if, for example, your powers changed regularly. But I have never heard of a wizard like that. That said, you seem to be exploring one particular power in minute detail, while almost neglecting the other powers. Can you tell me what concrete issues you were facing in your fight?¡°
He fidgets and his answer comes haltingly. ?I think ¡ I have to admit ¡ that I do not want to go out anymore. It is not viable. We need somebody who can defeat goblin spellcasters, if we want to survive the trip and we need a scouted route. Yet we have very little supplies, not enough to last till spring. I think I am hoping that I can make enough to allow us to stay here till spring.¡°
Anjali notices that he has evaded the question after his actual weaknesses, but he is not angry, in fact he seems cautious, even a bit afraid. She needs to do something, lest he draw the obvious conclusion that by lowering the number of mouths to feed, supplies could be stretched, so she quickly answers ?I can see how your memories being blocked makes you weary of your foe, but you need to remember that you beat an Atlantean and escaped his traps. Very few can boast of that. You also beat your last enemy even without all the things still blocked from you. We will prevail. You just need to calmly analyze your difficulties.¡° She dares giving his arm a reassuring squeeze. He smiles at that and responds ?Yes, he just outranged me. And in hindsight, he made tactical errors. If he had waited to get behind me, I might not have noticed his curse in time.¡° She is not sure how to deal with a discouraged wizard. Most of them are either boisterous or calculating and would not have done a flight without equipment under any circumstances. Well, flight was rare in any case. She decides to give him more encouragement ?I like eggs and fruit. At least it is a plan. I suppose you should also use the time to rebuild your equipment. The stuff plugged into the circle in the ritual room has enough precious metals for at least basic equipment. With Ragnar?k coming even the cities in Europe may not be safe, so you¡¯ll need it.¡° He has only a monosyllabic answer to that ?Ragnar?k?¡°
Chapter 18 - no book on the night stand
That has shaken me and I blurt out ?Ragnar?k, as with Fenrir breaking loose and Nagelfar ferrying the army of the dead to battle? Time of storms, time of the wolf, brothers fighting brothers?¡°. She seems a bit surprised by my surprise and replies ?That is the prophecy and only the gods and by extension maybe their priests know for sure, until the Gjallarhorn sounds, except maybe Atlanteans, but Loki has cast aside his bonds and this is the earliest winter since times immemorial. Why do you think an Atlantean took such a risk and goblins are attacking humans?¡°
I need to get up and pace. Even so I almost knock over my tea beaker. I¡¯ve arrived during the end of the world, well the beginning of the end of the world. In particular there will be no spring. We¡¯ll end up under a glacier here. And the attack on my wasn¡¯t just bad luck.
So what do we do, run and risk it? I see no alternative. ?Do we have any alternative? Some ally we can call upon? The dryad?¡° I ask.
Anjali is alarmed. This is backfiring. First go for a calmer atmosphere ?Let me think. Do you have some tea left?¡°. He looks embarrassed and answers ?Sure. I am sorry, let me get you a beaker. ¡ Here you are. Milk? We have no sugar unfortunately. ¡°
This man is sincere. He doesn¡¯t deem himself above her. He is no conquering hero either. That is most of all unusual and unusual people are harder to predict. So asking more is better ?Milk?¡°. He hesitates just a bit before his speech becomes a bit quicker ?I had to test diverse mammals. I have cow, goat, sheep, human, horse, elephant, ibex, ¡¡° He falls silent, as she raises an eyebrow and firmly proceeds to say ?I¡¯ll try human.¡°. He is like other wizards though. He cannot remain silent about aspects of his art. He prepares her a beaker of tea with a generous helping of milk. Many other wizards would have just pointed to the correct vessel. He even apologizes ?No spices or honey either.¡°
I am now sure she thinks that I am a complete pervert. But it was necessary. It turns out that in terms of amount of mana per milk produced human is best with cow being a relatively close second. If we needed to survive on the stuff I can make this would be vital to know. I hardly trust my ears as I hear her say ?We need to make the most out of the mana we have and stretching the time available is valuable for preparation. You just need to concentrate more on destructive aspects. What was wrong with throwing lightning?¡° To go back to a topic not involving human milk is a relief ?He outranged me. The lightning incapacitated him with a single hit, but that is of no use if he can hit me multiple times with his curses before I can get in close enough.¡°
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Anjali is delighted at being taken seriously for her ability to combine wizardry and tactics. Being able to use her lessons for the benefit of a wizard her grandfather would not approve of makes it even better. So she is happy to cover for blocked memories. ?Generally if an opponent uses a variation tactics to prevent adaption of your wards it depends on whether you have the speed and power advantage, if you do, you better not go for an exchange of courses, but you overcharge your generic wards and accept the hits only to press in for short range attacks, maybe even into melee range. I think your concrete deficiency was not having replaced your staff so you had no reserves to draw from. Of course that was a low probability event. Bad luck.¡° His reply leaves her stunned. ?Wards? Staff?¡°
His mien makes it clear that hers is not under control. Maybe this is salvgeable. She should not treat him like she treated her customers, but like a wounded warrior of her clan. Back then when she still had a clan. He isn¡¯t stupid. Nor is his mind damaged. Just his memories are damaged extremely unevenly, yet to an extent they grossly underestimated. Had the Atlantean selectively broken memories he would have needed to fight back? She has to keep telling herself that. Nothing else makes sense.
I have done it. Again. She thinks I am an idiot. And now her face is switching to pity. What can I do? She speaks a bit slower ?I think your memories are more damaged than you realize. It looks to me like the Atlantean took more of the knowledge you could have fought him with away.¡° My knowledge denies that. Would it know, though?
She says something. ?What?¡° I reply ?I am sorry, I am a bit distracted.¡°. She smiles and repeats herself ?I could show you the diagrams, but you do not know our notation. I don¡¯t know a quick answer for that.¡° I nod. She continues ?But it seems you have a good mage sight. You could have a look at Zewrepa.¡°. This woman is clever. ?in the meantime ¡¡° she shakes her empty beaker and points at the empty container that once held human milk. She is also mercyless.
Chapter 19 - additional rooms
Helena and Branislava are at a loss. ?Who would make one cherry and one olive? I can understand one cantaloupe, but that?¡° asks Branislava. ?Someoneone who wants to prove that he can make them¡° answers Helena. Branislava shakes her head ?That guy can fly and throw lightning bolts, but he wants to impress a young woman with a cherry? Crazy.¡° Helena snorts ?You were always the crazy one of the family moving to the big city seeking adventure. Has it escaped your attention that we are in a hole with limited supplies hiding from trolls? A sensible woman knows that she has to eat. But why did he make so many kinds of milk? I get that you want milk, although we have no way to make cheese or butter, but once you make it, you¡¯ve also made your point.¡° They look at each other, shrug and peel lizard tails.
Zewrepa is combining the silly requests with training in combat moves. Her kind is never really unarmed, so teaching the art to an outsider is pointless, but showing them what to expect in combat is important. Likewise she finally wants a full account of the recon flight.
Hildegard is excited to hear an account of magical combat, though it needing to be repeated in two languages it is a bit ponderous, but she is a bit underwhelmed by the performance she hears.
She voices her opinion that the wizard is just not ready to use flight in a hostile environment.
Zewrepa agreeing makes him hang his head. It looks like he likes to fly.
I summarize what we have agreed to ?Zewrepa will search the ritual chamber and Marental¡¯s quarters again, now that we have his keys; Hildegard will question the dryad; I will concentrate on getting my wards in working order, now that I have seen working examples.
Strategically we will delay our departure until we find a way to do recon for a safe path, while we hope to find some alternative¡°. Then I repeat the same in Latin. ?Any questions?¡° I conclude. Hildegard asks why I don¡¯t teleport for recon.
?I would realy like to do so, but something is different. I tried, but it doesn¡¯t work¡° I am forced to concede.
Zewrepa has enlisted Branislava and Helena to aid in searching the Atlantean¡¯s stuff.
?I¡¯ll go through the drawers under the bed, you go through the wardrobe¡° Zewrepa orders. They give a nodded acknowledgement without meeting her eyes.
She unlocks the drawer. Books. That doesn¡¯t do anything for her. She can speak Atlantean. She cannot read it. In fact, except for maps she doesn¡¯t read and write much. But that looks promising. Blank ingots. If they are cooped up longer the wizard might do a few useful enchantments. And what is this? It looks like some bound elemental on a rod to her magic sight.
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Helena is going through Marental¡¯s underwear. ?Who needs such tiny pants? You¡¯d run around with naked legs anyway. I understand that you do not want your family jewels hanging out as a man, but why not wear a longer tunic?¡°. Branislava chuckles ?They are wearing them under their pants, those fancy rich people in the cities¡°. She is happy that her cousin does not dwell on sad stuff she cannot change. She goes on ?Do you want to snatch them? Wearing a wizard¡¯s clothing? Kinky.¡° Helena turns bright red. ?I¡¯d display almost my whole legs. And his shirts would be way too big.¡°. She keeps looking around for a distraction ?Doesn¡¯t this wardrobe look much deeper from the outside in that particular section where the tiny pants are stored?¡°. Branislava sorts again ?Don¡¯t try to avoid the question. See, nothing ¡ oh¡°. Her hand intended to hit the back of the wardrobe to demonstrate how silly her cousin is has released a clasp and a section of the wardrobe swings out.
Zewrepa jumps towards them with her magic claws and spurs fully extended and shouts ?GET AWAY FROM THAT! INTRUDER ALERT!¡°, assuming a combat stance.
Hildegard is sitting in front of a tree and feels silly and apprehensive at the same time. She has been waiting for half an hour, as a trembling hand emerges from the trunk. She opts for patience rather than pulling on the hand.
A naked, panting dryad bent over with her hands on her knees is standing before Hildegard. ?Are you able to talk?¡° Hildegard asks. ?Give me a few moments. Emergence costs a noticeable amount of mana. You have quite a strong arm, if I may congratulate you.¡° Melo responds. Hildegard allows herself a wry smile ?Thank you. Reminding me of that, however, will not work. You deserved that strike. We were in this together. You were betraying us.¡°. Melo shrugged ?Yes, I was. I did not do so voluntarily, but I did so.¡°. She sits down with her back to her own tree. ?You want me to compensate. I am willing to do so. I was a slave. I do not love Marental.¡°. Hildegard frowns ?I do not think that I can trust you.¡° A subtle tinge of anger enters Melo¡¯s voice ?He left me to die. Well, decided to sacrifice me to get maximum use out of me. I still need to saw off my own branches.¡°. ?I am for now ready to accept that. Yet you seem bitter about Peregrinus not healing you fully.¡° says Hildegard. ?He is calling himself Peregrinus now? It doesn¡¯t matter. He has Life sorcery, not Nature sorcery. He cannot fix wood. Wood is actually a dead substance trees produce for structural purposes. But he killed the rot. I owe him my life. What do you want to know? Where Marental went?¡° Melo responds. Hildegard shakes her head ?No, as long as he does not come back, we do not care about him. We need to know how he left. We need a way out of here.¡°
Melo¡¯s explanations about Earth magic take some time, but she manages to satisfy Hildegard. Though she has one last queston ?Why could Peregrinus teleport here?¡° Melo smiles ?You cannot cut the link between my tree and my avatar. A good teleporter can follow it even through anti-teleportation wards.¡°
Chapter 20 - booking a conference room
?We are roughly in the mountains between Dyrrhachium and Acruvium close to the coast of the Adriatic Sea. Unfortunately Marental used earth magic to get here. Melo, that is the dryad¡¯s name, does not know a conventional way away from here. Marental was convinced that this is Ragnar?k. The purpose of this endeavour was to trick me into accepting his aid, upon which he would imprint his soul upon me, instead of being naturally being reborn as Atlanteans are.¡° Rereading Hildegard¡¯s report, this time aloud to the others doesn¡¯t make it better.
Helena is looking at her baby daughter and steels herself ?Couldn¡¯t you fly to the coast and get supplies for us?¡°. I am surprised that she speaks up and I need to encourage that. We need everybody. ?Yes, but if the goblins see me I¡¯d lead them and the trolls right here and if I leave at night I¡¯d never find my way back. If we find no other way I¡¯ll do it. But I don¡¯t like it.¡°
On her face her relief that I am not abandoning them and her fear of trolls finding us clash.
Anjali, who is acting like something of a moderator for reasons unclear to us, is beckoning for Zewrepa to speak.
?We found one highly alarming item and multiple potentially useful items.¡° She presents us with a metal flask of an oriental design and continues ?This contains a summoned creature, that is hungry. I admit that at first, as the warded compartment was opened, I thought that we had an intruder, but this flask is a trap.¡° ?Is it a weapon?¡° Anjali asks. ?Unlikely, as the location it was stored at indicates that it wouldn¡¯t be accessed in a surprising emergency. That and the other stuff it was stored together with rather tell us that it is a prized posession even to be hidden from his assistant. Mind you, that does not make it harmless. I do not want to pull the stopper out of the flask without extensive precautions.¡° Branislava, who has really started to show her pregnancy during the last few days, states the obvious ?The Atlantean traded slaves. Nevertheless, as things are, opening that flask means more drain on our supplies. The flask sustains its inmate, doesn¡¯t it?¡° Anjali and Zewrepa nod in synchronicity, while I whisper rough translations.
Branislava continues ?Though Lord Wizard, I have a question. I understand that you would not find your way back, if you flew away during the night. But I wonder whether you could fly to the next mountain top before the sun rises, land there and then, when it gives you light, continue to the coast.¡°
This is the moment I groan and hide the shame on my face behind my hands.
?I deem it necessary to test your defensive capabilities before you execute a flight to the coast¡° declares Hildegard. She has roled up a linen sheet and now folds it up, gripping both ends of the role. I prepare myself and nod. Then she makes sure that I decide not to ask how serfs are disciplined in the household she comes from. The effect is odd. The improvised whip is sort of slowed down while it colides in slow motion with my back and the sound the impact makes is largely muted. Then she takes her cudgel and gives my shinbone unwanted attention. Again it hurts, but far less than it should. ?That suffices. I am protecting myself. I can go to the ocean.¡° I say to stop a woman who is a bit happier to beat me than I am happy to see a woman to be happy about that. She nods and instantly regains composure. Aristocrats.
?Has she said why she hasn¡¯t recovered?¡° I ask to change the topic. ?That wood is dead, she said. Something that a tree makes that it serve a purpose.¡° answers Hildegard. These words stop me. Can I do that? Trying it out is the best way to test it. ?Now you have made a staff, which you denied wanting.¡° she remarks. She is right. So I make a spear. She makes an approving sound. I proceed to make a kind of low hut with a semicircular layout on skids and crawl in. This makes me think. Can I put a layer of hay on the floor? Yes, grasses are intended to lose their parts above ground in the steppes. I can use that. And I even can make it vanish it with a touch of my hand. ?A house you carry within yourself¡° she approves. Men are weak. I languish under the approval of an aristocratic girl a third of my age.
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?Do you think they will abandon us?¡° asks Helena over a cup of tea. ?I hope so¡° replies Branislava. ?What?!?¡° a shaken Helena replies. ?I don¡¯t know whether you have noticed, but I am pushing quite a belly. Do you think I¡¯ll fare well climbing over rocks?¡° she says in a grimly amused voice. ?I just. It feels safer if we are not alone.¡° says Helena. ?Sure, but feeling does not replace thinking.¡° states Branislava.
I am flying close over the surface this time, just high enough to not stir up the soft snow, lest I leave a cloud visible even at night behind me. I land on a flatter space next to a ridge at the second closest summit. I make sure the pegs my hut is set up on are securely pushing into crevices before I climb in and seal the opening behind me. I take the time to put a fairly elaborate spell with a heat exchanger condensing water to drip into a waxed reservoir on the pipes for ventilation and close my eyes.
The wind makes the hut vibrate a little. It doesn¡¯t shake. The pegs are rock solid, being set into rock. I think that I should be thinking of home. Without memories obviously I can¡¯t. I am bedded soft and warm. The hay even smells like genuine hay. Again raising the question why I know how hay smells. You get used to everything.
Instead I am thinking about the future. At first I tentatively planned to settle in a nice costal city where I could set up a profitable existance curing people, preferably some of them rich, from the effects of a life without vaccines but with alcohol and loose women available to the rich. Instead my future will be one of war. This makes the answer to one of the questions trivial. I will return. You do not abandon allies in a war. It makes another question acute, however. Who will sell a stranger food, at the beginning of Fimbulwinter? Now, I do not need to tell them about it, but they may already know it from another source. I am carrying Marental¡¯s backpack, which is bigger on the inside, and a bit of spare change and two of the silver blanks Zewrepa has found, but I doubt they will yield what they ought to. Shall I just ¡ steal food?
Zewrepa is munching on fried lizard tails. Nobody else likes them. The little bones in them make them wonderfully crunchy. To be fair, her teeth would regrow if she lost one of them.
Anjali is spooning out one of the dark fruits with the white interior she loves. ?Do you think he will return?¡° Zewrepa asks. ?Yes. He is cautious. We are all he knows and this place is all he knows.¡° Anjali answers with confidence. ?What do we do if you are wrong?¡° ¨C ?Open the flask, look for more options and then decide.¡° Anjali responds. ?You are very quick to answer¡° comes the obvious retort. Anjali sighs ?Yes, I have considered it. He is unusual. I have known more wizards than I want to remember. Most of them fall into distinct types.¡° Zewrepa is unsure how to continue ?I do not understand human males. He has so much reason that I have treated him like a female, even though he can fly.¡° Anjali laughs out loud. ?Your kind must be odd. But don¡¯t worry. He is male. I did not ask for these fruits. He made them spontaneously.¡° Zewrepa is confused ?Do your males have a special affinity for fruit?¡°
Chapter 21 - cleaning out the basement
They are cleaning out the ritual chamber. That is everybody except for Hildegard, who is standing watch at the entrance, and hugely pregnant Branislava, who is sitting on a chair next to the control table Marental used to activate the magical barrier, just in case. ?These cables are unusually light¡° remarks Zewrepa. ?Some dwarven stuff especially good for soul stuff¡° Anjali explains. ?We should store them separately. This stuff burns like hell. My grandfather once lost a piece that way. He was really angry for weeks after that. Given the cost I understand him now.¡°. ?Mithril?¡° asks Zewrepa in clarification. ?No. Mithril is good for structural reinforcement and motion stuff. And it does not burn like that. Mithril chain mail would be no good if it did. Not good for soul stuff. If you couldn¡¯t get the specialized stuff, you¡¯d probably use silver. It¡¯s much cheaper and would work better.¡° Anjali responds. ?Then why platinum for the head band?¡° continues Zewrepa. ?Probably because you need to add a sophisticated piece of intent control. But that is speculation. I had only the basic lessons in enchantment theory.¡° answers Anjali in a clear attempt to push the conversation onto another topic.
Helena is left with the task of wiping away oddly shaped splotches of charcoal. She is fine with that. Or rather she understands that somebody has got to do it. Taking apart magical machinery with incredibly valuable parts is not her favorite task. It involves too great a chance of breaking important stuff. It means that she is faster to finish. She proceeds to clean out the closets and chests. ?Please leave the unusual liquids alone where they are. The position may have a hidden meaning. I am going to get Marental¡¯s key ring for the locked closet.¡° Zewrepa says to her.
I am wiggling to get back into my mail and plate armor. Usually this is not much of a problem, if you put the front of the armor towards your front and not the other way round. Gravity does the job for you. You just close a few hooks at your throat and lash the leg, well upper leg, pieces, which don¡¯t cover the insides of your legs together. My shelter is not big enough to stand up. Of course I could remove it, but then I would stand more or less naked on a snowy, windy mountain top during Fimbulwinter. I trust my warmth spell, but that does not sound good, especially as I would have to secure my stuffed outer garment, lest it be blown away. I feel like a seal in a narrow cage. I want my gravity back. I stop. My flight power reduces gravity. Can I redirect it?
Shall I try? Something is nagging at the back of my brain. The water! Well, I can also make genuine drinking straws. If I can do this, it would be great. Somehow this feels more fundamental. Anyway. I fall sideways and am showered with hay.
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Anjali sees Helena unlock the closet, while packing away the last component of the machine they were connected to. At first she does not notice the woman freezing up and staring into the open closet. Her cousin raises her voice to call out to her. She has to repeat the call. Anjali closes in and asks ?What is frightening you?¡° She has to wait for an answer. It comes in a whisper ?The spikes. They hammered them in. With their little wooden hammers. They shook. For hours.¡° She dashes away.
I dare not just climb to get the ocean into view. Hence I follow the valleys. The first sign is nevertheless in the sky. I see smoke.
It is a relatively large complex of houses. One of them, the largest, is still smouldering. Outside the common wall, which serves as lower part of an outer wall for each of the buildings, somebody has put the bodies of four dead goblins on display. A few dead cows add a surrealistic rural tinge to the carnage. I am in a shelter, just the other way round and am using my mage sight to replace binoculars. I see nobody. Yet I doubt goblins would display their fallen like that. This points to the presumably human occupants of the outpost having fought off the goblins. That need not mean that they are still present though. They might have since left with the surviving cattle, not knowing whether the goblins would come back with reinforcements. I don¡¯t see tracks, but that is meaningless. It snowed last night. I think this is a cheese making outpost surprised by the early onset of winter.
If it is deserted, I will loot it. But what if it is not deserted? They may have surplus cheese they might sell. Or they might not. If I landed there among them, they would certainly tell a tale of a wizard buying food. Do I want that? I don¡¯t know. I have no idea whom they would report to. There is the worst case scenario that they would report to Marental and he¡¯d not be amused that people he wanted to starve to death or die from thirst in his cave have gotten out. I arm myself. I make a spear with a piercing warhead made from antler and put the destruction spell on its edges. Then I approach from the side that looks to feature the least windows.
Zewrepa is talking to Anjali ?Have you found out why she has secluded herself?¡° Anjali sighs and makes a complex gesture involving her hands and her head ?Not from herself, but from her cousin. Apparently Marental sacrificed most of their village to charge these spikes with mana.¡° Zewrepa uses her fists to stroke both her ears in an alien gesture ?I will sing of their slaughter. But we need to think of a way to use these spikes. They are too valuable.¡° Anjali nods.
Chapter 22 - luggage service
I land on a roof. It is made from stone, presumably the local stone by its look. That is heavy. It will support my comparatively small added weight. I see nobody outside. That makes sense. Two of the buildings have two stories. They¡¯ll make better watchposts than the wall. Those corpses do not look like the crows have been on them. That is, if crows eat goblins. I don¡¯t know about that. Anyway I still think this post was attacked recently.
I wait 10 minutes. Then I use an idea I just have had. I use my mirror spell to look through a window whose shutters are broken. Nobody inside. The windows have no glass. I fly into a work room. The floor is wooden, so I keep my weight reduced lest it creak. This room seems to have been used for repairing tools. I wait a few minutes to find out whether my entry has been noticed and then advance. The ground floor is full of vats and features a stairway into a cellar. I think I am in the building used for making cheese. That suggests that the I am standing on lots of cheesy goodness.
Do I really want to do this? I think of the people depending on me. They defended me. I will do this. But if I go down there I am committed. There is no second exit. I could not fly away. If somebody enters I will have to fight my way out. I make myself a spear, just in case. Somebody may be in the cellar. I hear nobody, but that means nothing.
I decide to go for a dramatic entry and fly down the stairs, spear extended in front of me. I almost ram myself into a board full of juicy round cheese wheels. Let¡¯s see how many I can fit into this spatially extended backpack. Most of their weight is negated, as is their mass. It feels like the negation of mass is less complete, though. Turning a corner with this thing is a problem.
Holding up my right hand to shade my face after the semidarkness of the cellar I run into a young man bounding down the stairs. There is some kind of tool in his right hand which he brings up while he yells something I don¡¯t understand. The spear in my left hand comes up while his hand comes down. I can get my head out of the way, but his improvised weapon strikes my left shoulder. In the first few seconds it doesn¡¯t even hurt while I hear a snapping sound. My spear finds his belly, his hands clutch the shaft and he topples alongside me down into the cellar.
I stop feeling. In fact I lose control of my body. I do feel the warmth of a healing spell and the numbness of a pain block. My body draws Marental¡¯s sword. My left arm is rigid. My body tries slipping off the backpack, but stops when I hear a sound a human body should not produce. A bearded man with a wood chopping axe is running towards me through the snow. My body falls into a stance with slightly bent knees, right foot back and angled outwards, while the sword goes into a guard position I identify as plow. I feel myself casting a spell, which causes a feeling of painful, icy rigidity in my left shoulder. My left hand goes to the pommel of the sword. I feel mana going into the sword.
The frantic attacker swings his axe. I step to the right, my left hand rotates the sword by 90 degrees. His axe misses me narrowly. My left hand flips the blade, as it hits his wrist, then slightly angles forward and flips back, hitting him in the throat. The draw of mana increases and the blade tears out his throat up to the spine. I am sprayed by dual jets of blood, while the attacker collapses. Nevertheless my body goes into ox guard, while my left hand goes back to my side and the spell fades.
My wards generate an interesting effect. The blood does not stick to me. It slowly trickles down from my body. I keep standing. I should feel extremely spooked. Instead I am kind of calm. Until a wave of pain from my shoulder hits me. The pain block cannot protect me from magical abuse I inflict myself. Tears cloud my vision.
I want to protect myself. I should feel horror at killing two people in less than five minutes. No, let¡¯s be honest. I murdered them to steal their food. I just feel nothing. I construct a shelter, just upright and much larger. It takes most of the rest of my reserves. I start drinking neutrinos. Strength pushes out numbness. I conjure a shelf behind me and sit down. That allows me to add a raised floor keeping the snow out. Carefully I extract myself from the backpack. I extent the shelf and lie down. I fall asleep.
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Branislava is walking to the gate to take the evening watch. Her companions have removed her from the schedule of night watches, but as short on people as they are, they can¡¯t spare her the day watches.
She arrives at an empty chamber, whose gate is slowly swaying in the wind, a bit a snow having been blown into the chamber. That rules out her cousin changing the baby or having gone to relieve herself. She pokes her head out of the gate. Nobody. She retreats and sounds an alarm.
I am back in my featureless dreamland.
I am not all that surprised to see a version of myself in a combat stance staring into infinity.
He does not react, as I approach him. ?Hello Myself¡° I address him ?I am intrigued to meet you.¡°. He turns towards me. ?I was supposed to do a job.¡°. ?You certainly did a decisive job¡° I answer. ?I was not made to do that. Incidentally you created the need to do this job by your foolishness. You had made a necessary decision, but tactically you should have carried that backpack in your hand and operationally you should have dealt with these people before you cut off your own route of retreat.¡°. I hang my head. I know he is right. ?You are another aspect of my mind.¡° I state after a delay. He nods. ?I am the assassin. An incomplete assassin. You called me up by deciding to initiate a hostile action. I am useless now.¡° he explains. ?We are one. How about you release our body¡° I ask. ?The useless shall not be sustained¡° he replies in a monotonous voice.
I look into his eyes. As if he were not there. I hesitate. For minutes. Then I embrace him. ?Why?¡° he howls and dissolves into clouds I inhale.
Zewrepa sounds like a bagpipe trampled by a rhinoceros. ?These spikes were made by sacrificing all the people in her village, including her husband and most our relatives.¡° Helena explains. Zewrepa adds something like a flute melody. Then she shakes herself. ?We need to go out to look for her. The snow has probably covered her tracks, but we can hope. For that reason I will go out alone first. If I see nothing I will signal for you two to also come out. We will swarm out downhill. We¡¯ll have to risk calling out her name if we become separated. She has no chance of surviving the night outside given the weather. Let¡¯s go. We are wasting the last daylight.¡° Zewrepa orders.
I pick up the sword now aware of the cleaning function included in its enchantment which I promptly use. It seems to me that my healing spell does not directly work on bone, because its inorganic matter is strictly speaking not alife, though the bone as a whole of course contains living cells, which allow me to affect bone indirectly, hence slowly.
I need to approach this in a scientific manner. I fixed bone already, but I did not really use any elegance. If it were wood I could in a sense slowly shape it, though just recreating an unbroken version would be far easier. Can I restore it, on a purely temporal basis? Yes, that works. It does not feel warm like healing does. It is rather an electric, tickling feeling that does not remove the pain.
I create myself a new, though shorter spear and a separate table to let my backpack rest upon when I dissolve the shelter.
I am standing in the shadow. The valley floor is already dark, but the summits around me are still lit. Should I just fly away? I consider it. There may be more resources here and nobody has moved the corpse I have made. I decide to search the premise.
There is a man shivering on straw in a wooden bed. The fire in the hearth will soon run out of fuel. I can feel it. The man is not lucent. The room which looks like a combined kitchen, bedroom and living room, the only heated room among the cottages, holds dried vegetables and mushrooms strung up under the roof.
I am even pacing a little. I could heal him. And then? Try to lie to him about what happened claiming that I just arrived? And what if he finds out. I exhale. I put a hand on his head and errect a pain block, leaving the sepsis, that, as my senses inform me, will kill him in a few hours, untreated.
With difficulty I slip back into the backpack and fly away slowly. Visibility is poor.
Chapter 23 - food delivery
Hildegard is alternately looking down into the shadow of a crevice and signalling the other two. Zewrepa arrives first. She does not hesitate and extends her magical claws, ramming them into the rock to hold her on her way down. A third of the way down her foot causes a cascade of splintering rock to tumble into the abyss. Anjali¡¯s voice calls down ?Wait, don¡¯t move. I am going for cloth to use as a rope.¡°
I am sort of flying on a wave trajectory. An imbalance of mass and weight needs training to allow clean flying. I can learn a lesson if it results in enough pain in my shoulder. I decide to walk the rest of the way to the outcropping facing our rock with the backpack carried in my hand. Although that raises the question why Marental designed the damn thing as a back pack in the first place, even as you cannot fight well while wearing it. I am missing something, though it may be that somebody as important as Marental considers himself had somebody to carry his backpack for him.
For the same reason I am also alert and watching my surroundings. Hence I quickly notice the frantic movement across the chasm, though at first it is too unusual to understand. Zewrepa, being unmistakable due to having six limbs is clinging to some rocky outcrops. Two people are standing on top of the outcrop trying to get a stripe of cloth to go down to Zewrepa. They aren¡¯t equipped to counter the wind blowing against the face of the chasm resulting in their improvised rope dancing like an electrocuted weasel.
Zewrepa is running low on mana. She has limited the use of her claws to the times she¡¯s about to slip. She is considering a jump to the ledge. The cloth might hold her weight, but if she jerks too hard on it, her companions would go over the edge.
I drop the backpack and burst into an unencumbered flight. I even manage to catch the rope while landing on the rock wall. This is the first time I shift gravity outside an experimental setting. ?Wrap the cloth under my lower arms and tie a knot. Then grab me around the waist and pull¡°, orders Zewrepa, who is unshockable with displays of new magic.
I fall on my ass, as she crests the lip of the chasm, but we make it. With one exception, as I look along or down, depending on view point, the side of the chasm. ?She has moved nothing since I have found her.¡° Hildegard informs me. ?I will touch her, so that I know with certainty.¡° I reply.
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I hear a small whimper from in front respectively below me. How do I transition to the ledge in the crevice? I opt to not do anything experimental in this setting, take to the air and normalize gravity.
A very small face with a lot of scrapes stares at me. She looks like she has lost the strength to scream and feels cold, much too cold to my touch. I freeze. My powers act almost without my concious decision. I feel my powers of heat and restauration activate next to my healing power.
?If she is dead, throw her down. We cannot leave her here to draw even more attention to this place and pulling her up is much too dangerous.¡° urges Zewrepa from above.
I bow down. My sight declares her a hopeless case. I have to kick her to move her, my hands being occupied.
My sight fades.
?What were you thinking !?!¡°
?That she was doing something stupid. The bridge was not safe.¡° ¨C ?You admit it!¡°.
A much younger version of me screams back ?So what was I to do? Force her? Bend her arm and march her back home? She is sixteen. Old enough to know that you don¡¯t scale a closed bridge for a photo.¡°
?She was sixteen. And you were responsible.¡° the other voice screamed back. ?Then tell me how you like it when I force you¡° and I hit the screaming man into the solarplexus and push him across the room. The next morning he is gone.
?Peregrinus, do you hear me?¡° Hildegard yells from above attempting to keep her voice down nevertheless. I wave up to her. I hesitate. I did not kill three men for that food only to abandon it now. I put the baby under my cloak and retrieve the backpack.
Branislava is quietly sobbing in the kitchen. We dare not leave her alone and yet I need to brief the others about my mission, as the already asked why I returned so quickly. Saying everything twice does not make it easier.
?I found an outpost of cheesemakers closely by in a valley, which had been attacked by goblins. I stole food from them. There is some left. I would like to return quickly, lest somebody else steal it. I also need ¡ to remove traces, so that nobody find us that way.¡°
In the end we decide that I shall leave right away, so that the wind has more time to remove traces over night and that I better spend the night on the adjacent summit.
Chapter 24 - In the event of a sudden loss of pressure
I am embracing motherhood or a special kind of stepfatherhood, depending on how you look at it. Using your left pinkie finger as a teat has to be pretty unique in the history of mankind. At least per universe. Though I am not in the mood to seriously think through the implications of a multiverse. Getting a baby back to normal body temperatures turned out to be quite easy. The child seems to have no concept of the loss she has suffered. Something I cannot quite remember makes the concept of abandoning a child unthinkable. Am I nice? I don¡¯t think so. I am ready to kill for cheese. Though I would like to know. If the choice I made was between magical powers and a fully functional memory I must assume that I chose well, though by the presumption I can only assume that. What am I actually feeding this child? I suck my right pinkie. It tastes surprisingly good. Though in this case I cannot blame my lack of a recollection on external factors.
I need to explore this more. Well, I am deeply fascinated with this ability. I try to make honey. Nothing. Honey is not a plant product. Not directly at least. I switch to extrafloral nectar. Sweet. I am sugar bombed. A stench enters my nostrils. She is a baby. The inevitable has happened.
Thoughtlessly I make fresh air. It turns out that if you add gas to a fixed volume, you raise pressure. In hindsight I have to be happy that this does not generate heat. The door is designed so that if you put pressure on it, it will be sealed tighter. Hence the carefully designed exhaust stack blows out and the room is full of hay sucked into the air as the pressure equalizes. I yelp with the pain in my ears. At least I don¡¯t drop the baby, who, feeling the same effect in her ears, starts screaming.
It turns out that healing her injuries is not a way to stifle her complaints. The room is smelling very nicely of hay now, though. The hay I make isn¡¯t dusty, so the usual issue with playing in a hay stack does not arise.
I slide down the wall while healing my own ears, already starting to get cold. We are in deep shit and I caused it. I need to do something. First I close the ventilation hole leaving only a small opening with a wooden grate, lest we suffocate.
I have covered the area with hay, which does not naturally occur in this environment. As far as avoiding attention goes I have made matters worse. Should I return to base at first light? Or even now and risk a flight at night, disregarding the cold wind? I have a child that needs to be cleaned and even though I have some water, which I could certainly heat, I have no fabric to dry her. In fact we wrapped her in cloth before I took flight and I could reapply that, but it wasn¡¯t intended to be good enough for an arctic mountain night with high winds.
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I sigh. Yes, for now I am keeping the air warm. I can keep this up for a few hours. While I am awake. I could just put in a new exhaust stack and defer the cleanup to the morning, to just burn the hay I could at least see. The stuff blown away by the wind is already irrecoverable. I drift off for a moment.
Her eyes are sad and lonely, not angry. I hug her. For a small moment she stays stiff. I know it is not my fault. I still know I have been the cause. I am a burden and a barrier to happiness.
Jerking awake while your head is rested against a wooden wall is not a pleasant experience. Healing injuries like that is becoming disturbingly common.
I need to do something about the fecal affair. I unwrap her. Only the innermost layer is soiled and that only partially. That is good news. Sacrificing my water I can get her clean with the unsoiled part of the inner layer. The outer layer lets me dry her. I crank the heat up a bit as I now have a nacked baby in the hay in front of me. It will dry the wet cloth. But what about the shitty wrapper? I enclose it in a wooden box. Will that explode when the bacteria inside generate gases during decomposition? I could vanish it with its content, but how much cloth do I have? Do I have another choice? I decide to try something. My healing of bone works on a slightly altered principle compared to normal healing. I partially restore an earlier state. I try that on the offensive objects. It works with ease. I can just return it to an earlier state without regard for the body it is embedded in. I giggle. I make milk and am a walking laundromat. Now if I could only remember what a cartoon and a feminist are.
It does not matter. I repair the exhaust stack.
He slaps me in the face while pressing me to a wall. ?Defend yourself, weakling!¡° he yells. ?What from? Nothing you said is wrong. I am taking those pills and I forged the prescription for them. I am bad for your cousin. If I hit you because you said that, I will be a liar and lose the one thing I have left.¡° I reply. The look on his face is changing from hatred to disgust. He mumbles in their native language.
Again I jerk awake from a nightmare and promptly startle the baby beside me to a sympathetic fit of crying. This is not my night.
Chapter 25 - express delivery
I have been woken up again. I considered just resetting, as I call it now, her improvised diapers, but I am not sure about the effect of constantly wearing these rags on a baby¡¯s skin or leaving residual dirt on her. So I take them off whenever she, well, uses the bathroom and clean her conventionally. Now, for some reason I love children, but I wish feeding bottles existed on this world. If I have understood her mother¡¯s cousin correctly, the common answer to a dead mother is a wet nurse, extended families usually having pacts to arrange for them in those cases, or in a last ditch effort a goat. Nobody objected to me taking the baby though not universally with facial expressions easy to interpret.
My powers come with an eerily accurate clock. I can tell to the tenth part of a second when the rim of the sun will crest the horizon. For this purpose 47 minutes is accurate enough. Not enough time to sensibly go to sleep again. Cradling a baby on my knees ¨C the new iteration of my shelter is high enough to sit - is oddly soothing. It induces contemplation. I might ponder why I like babies. I am pretty sure that that is not a universal trait for men of my age. Of course I might just have exceptional preferences. Or something significant happened in my past. I want to know. But I do not believe that simply sitting here and chewing the cud, metaphorically speaking, will do any good.
What am I doing here? In general I mean. I could just leave. I plainly don¡¯t want to. If this is Ragnar?k, as I must assume it is, I will have to fight for my life whereever I go. I am definitely not prepared for that. There are important things I need to learn. My powers obviously and putting stuff into things. I need to learn how Marental¡¯s sword was made. I get hints from my ability, but they do not form coherent pictures.
Anjali was right. I do spend more time on my biological ability than on any other capability. I need stuff that is good for combat.
I can already use lightning bolts against an enemy. For single combat that should be enough. I will not try arcane stuff like conjuring antimatter. If it worked, I¡¯d be in deep trouble. Being turned into hot plasma for instance. Better flight? Yes, but that is not a fundamental issue. Have I done something truly outrageous or incogruent? There was the episode with me disappearing and reappearing at the dryad¡¯s tree. Hildegard mentioned that even wards cannot prevent me from following that specific connection. Now in hindsight this is less clear than I figured. Do I have the specific ability to follow such connections or ¡ ?
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I am imaging the cheese station. How it looked, how it felt, even how it sounded as the wind blew around corners. And once again I have to heal myself, as I have hit the back of my head hard on a wall when the support I was resting my posterior on was left behind. This has really become disturbingly common. Worse, I have been helpless for about half a minute. Hastily I go to full magesight. Nobody. And nothing. I am not very happy to take a baby into a combat zone. Though we all share the risk. If I left her behind and died, she¡¯d be doomed, too. I am heading for the cabin I left the sick man in.
His corpse has already gone cold. My magesight indeed does show such things. For a few minutes I just stand there. I had already been wearing my armor and the backpack out of habitual caution. I like to be ready to fight or flee when it costs me little and I am outside. Once being almost shot is enough. Time to pack the cheesy loot. Something is irritating me. Am I in danger? I make a spear just in case. No, something does not fit logically.
Of course! I am an idiot. What did they want to do with the cheese? Well, eat it, obviously. But where? There is no good road only something that barely qualifies as a mountain path leading here. Driving a herd of cows here and back is one thing, pulling a wagon over that is another. I looking around with full magesight. Indeed it is no backpack, but an oddly tall and deep lidded wooden chest with chains from all four corners leading to a pole you could carry it between two men. It looks like my empty backpack to my magesight and the box is just long and wide enough to allow the insertion of a wheel of cheese. I have found a specialized cheese carrier of holding. I am not going to use it. For once it is probably designed to be carried between two men because it is worse than my backpack at nullifying weight. I am not even going to try to fly with that. And I will fly back to base. I have no idea what would happen if I teleported with a filled bag of holding. But I am also not going to leave a boon like that behind. I will consider the implications while I pack the cheese.
I am flying away from a conflagration. I¡¯ve decided to solve the hay issue and the cheese station problem simultaneously. I have filled a few buildings with hay, blown some hay into the wind and set fire to the rest. With any luck whoever finds hay will consider it residue from somebody putting the cheese station to the torch.
Chapter 26 - selective transportation
I need a shower. Packing in all that cheese has been strenous work. Can I clean myself? Possibly. I don¡¯t dare doing so anyway. If I mess my skin up, I highly doubt that I¡¯d have the presence of mind to heal myself, before I go into shock and perish. Provided, obviously, that an injury by magical manipulation of time is curable with my powers at all. Now, I could start with a small part of my body. No, I am sorry, but there is a difference between boldness and foolishness. I do understand that you sometimes need to take a risk for a fitting reward. The key is a fitting reward. Feeling better for a few hours by not needing a shower is not a fitting reward.
I have made a triangular shelter big enough for me to stand in on the tall edge, even though there still is not much room above my head. I am waiting for nightfall. Casting something to color it dark is more important than making it small enough to be easy to heat, especially as a dark color absorbs the sun¡¯s heat. It still is nothing to write home about, lacking windows and interior features.
It seems like I am getting more efficient by training, so that I can keep the expenditure of mana low enough. I have used a baby as an involuntary test subject to show that I can transport people during a teleport. I could set up a chain of huts to bring us to the coast. Do we want that? Do I want that?
These are distinct questions. Nor are they the only questions. Do we want to wait for spring? In fact, will there be spring? I feel like I keep asking questions without coming to decisions. Unfortunately I have no idea whether I am bad in general at making decisions or whether I am lacking the necessary prerequisites for making such decisions. Well, obviously I cannot know whether there will be a spring next year. However, if there will be a spring proximity to the ocean and being as far south as possible look like good options. And then there is Marental. Did he summon me here without a specific reason? I really doubt it.
The little girl¡¯s breath on my cheek is so soothing and the hay smells so nicely.
Branislava hangs her head in shame while she is preparing tea. Her belly is getting heavy, following her mood. But she can still cook tea. She dares not become useless. Her noble mates are prone to consume the costly foreign leaves with abandon. Though they have a point. They are not going to sell the stuff, as that would mean toting it to a market. Hence they may just as well consume it. Consumption is on her mind. A man caring for a baby is outlandish. Him producing milk is bordering on ludicrous. He must have an ulterior motive.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.She can¡¯t help it. He will emulate the other wizards. Sure, he has all those spikes. It seems human sacrifice is like soup. Sometimes it is better to have fresh ingredients. She can¡¯t even afford to stop him. Only he can make food with magic. She needs that. She hoped that she might make it to the coast on foot. But her body thinks otherwise. If it needs to be done, then better her cousin¡¯s child than hers.
I am dreaming.
This court finds the defendant not guilty. It considers an established fact that a prescription for a scheduled substance was forged and said substance illicitly obtained using that prescription.
However, the prosecution has not established the identity of the defendant as the person perpetrating both acts beyond a reasonable doubt.
The allegation that the defendant manipulated the computers of the pharmacy the acts were commited in rests on physical evidence just as well and even better explained by the defendant working in said pharmacy under the aegis of the programme for social inclusion of persons overcoming mental challenges or illnesses.
Only one of the two witnesses present when the substance was retrieved positively identified the defendant. Moreover that person admitted to an antipathy towards the defendant for telling inappropriate jokes to her minor daughter while implementing a remedy on the pharmacy¡¯s server, which the defendant described as ?adding a swap file you simply need on repurposed hardware that old¡°.
Finally a dream that does not turn into a nightmare.
Zewrepa is worried. Placentalian reproduction is revolting. This human is no longer able to walk straight. That is an indispensable prerequisite for reaching the coast. They lack the resource to carry somebody, even if the terrain permitted it.
She does not like the idea of depending on an untested sorcerer with whom something unknown is wrong. Yet every day makes traveling harder as the snow piles up and temperatures fall. This suggests sending a subset of their number for supplies. However, sending only the sorcerer by himself carries the same objection with it. Yet she herself would quite likely trigger a violent reaction from humans. So whom to send?
Chapter 27 - dial zero for an operator
Hildegard is writing a letter. That requires her to confront a sad truth. She is not needed at home. Not with Ragnar?k having arrived. The Fimbulwinter amounts to a siege. She¡¯d be another mouth to feed. That does not mean that she has no important tales to tell. There are things her father needs to know and a few things her mother deserves to know, most of all to prevent them from acting foolishly out of ignorance and deeming themselves threatened. House Rabenstein must stand firm and calm to endure.
Beloved parents, this is your loving daughter Hildegard writing to you after having escaped captivity.
I was abducted and fell into a wizard¡¯s hands to be used in a human sacrifice. I have escaped unharmed, but am stuck far from home.
It is my sad first duty to inform you, in case you were cut off from news, that I have credible confirmation that Atlanteans deem Ragnar?k to have begun. The obvious inclement weather is indeed Fimbulwinter. Secondly I regret to inform you that I have no knowledge about the fate of our troop including how my beloved brother has fared beyond a surprise attack being sprung on us. Our foes had access to at least one battle mage. I cannot with any confidence state who was the core goal of our enemy¡¯s action or whether we were a target of oppurtunity or victims of a planned attack.
I am currently residing in a captured mountain stronghold near the Adriatic Sea.
She hesitates. The message better be transmitted as a mage sending, lest it take months to be literally shipped. Nobody will cross the mountains during a normal winter, let alone Fimbulwinter, for mail or much of anything else really. How much would he let her write without repercussions? Nothing that would jeopardize his keeping this base or the loot in it. Obviously also nothing about her intent towards him and everybody else should be in the message. It will also go through the hands of the family¡¯s overlord and his court wizard. If they were behind the attack on her troop, this message will not get through. So she will only worry about her wizard. She better use a vague turn of phrase hidden among formal aristocratic words.
We, the intended victims of the hostile wizard¡¯s scheme, have banded together. It is our hope to be able to stretch supplies so long that it allows us to overwinter without being forced to relocate as Loki uses Fimbulwinter to lay siege to the peoples of man. I am confident to turn into no further burden on our venerable house and hope that I am even able to use my unblemished reputation to draw strength so much in need in these dire times.
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Your faithful daughter
Hildegard von Rabenstein
Anjali is perplexed. Many options are open to her. Yet she does not know how to pick among them. She is honest and reflective enough to admit that this is far less vexing than facing eventually inevitable doom without a way out. She does not know what she wants.
Sipping tea from a cup while standing watch gives you time to think and makes it even easier to maintain a facial expression impossible to read. She does know what she wants to avoid or at least postpone for as long as possible. Yet it leaves her ill prepared to choose positive goals. Owing that degree of strategic clarity to the teachers her grandfather provided does show up in the shape of her mouth and the way her jaw tightens. She puts the beaker down onto a ledge apparently designed for that exact purpose. It even features little depression that the beakers fit into. This is speaking of a level of preparation she can only fear. That triggers even more fear. Why did Marental feel a need to do something risky? Was it greed or fear? She wipes her hands on a towel, which, again, a hook to hang it onto is planned in. Then she straightens her clothing. Her hands avoid the part of the band of cloth she uses as a belt on her newly tailored pants looped into a nice bow. Their northern compatriot had at first complained a little at wearing pants indoors.
She keeps mulling this. On her own she won¡¯t survive here nor be able to escape. The basic conundrum remains. You cannot learn from a man what he has forgotten himself. The best questions won¡¯t help.
Zewrepa is checking the sleds. They do not fall apart upon moderate shaking. Preparations for an evacuation have been completed. There is the beginnings of a plan, provided they find a way off this peak without losing one more. Of course the Atlantean chose it for inaccessability by conventional means, but she is not ready to just accept that. She makes a movement that might in a human have resulted in knuckles producing sounds. She proceeds to take the small bag her clothing is stored in to the shelf next to the bed she has claimed. The silly humans wanted here to wear them needlessly. She is not going to risk wear and tear of stuff she may depend on for warmth in an emergency.
Melo winces each time she breaks off a rotten twig. Yes, technically wood is dead. But it is still part of her. Removing them herself is deeply distressing. The door to her chamber is opened.
Chapter 28 - narrated by a distinguished, elderly British gentleman
The little one has fallen asleep. I need to ask for her name. I hope it is nothing unpronouncable. I am looking back at the last few days. My task is to stay here avoiding being seen until the sun sets. It is an easy task for a man who has an internal clock.
I could spend the time making fruit. However, I am doing that a lot of the time. Some people might now reflect on their past deeds and performance. It is possible that I have a general aversion against that. However, a man who has traded away his memories, which are slowly coming back, lacks things to mentally ruminate on. Hence I would do two things. Either make plans for the future or explore my powers. As the former depends, to my mind, on what the latter yields, I choose the latter. I need to run a broader inventory of what I can do. In fact, while I am at it, can I burn writing into the wall? I can. So here we go:
1. Make certain biological objects (but not all of them)
2. Heal (within limitations)
3. Restore things to older states
4. Make things disappear
5. Destroy spells
6. Manipulate the air (quite broadly)
7. Cast lightning
8. Burn stuff or make it hot
9. Create images
10. Create reflections
11. Fly
12. Teleport
There are also quirks of seeing stuff and knowing stuff like the internal clock, but I wouldn¡¯t call that doing stuff. I need to set some limits here. Yet I am adding a point here as I think about those limits.
13. Attach spells to things
And I forget things. Possibly because blood oozing down your body slowly without really touching you is not a nice thought to dwell on
14. Create wards
That is an impressively long list. Unfortunately I have nobody to impress with it available right now. Nor could they read it. I am kind of reliefed that my native language has a written form. At least I do not come from a tribe of illiterate barbarians.
It is also an impractically long list. And it is an inconsistent list. It features a whole plethora of obviously related abilities listed as one point and single abilities, most impressively among them teleportation. I can already tell that the limitations on some stuff are complex. Being able to make a lizard¡¯s detached tail, but no other body part shows that ridiculously well. So I should start with looking at expanding abilities and closing the gaps in between them. I am tempted to start with making gases not typically part of the air. After all, every element is a gas, if you are liberal with the thermostat. Yet I hesitate. I already had a blowout. Most elements if hot enough to be a gas and finely distributed, will enthusiastically react with the oxygen in the air. No, I am not going to go there without further preparation.
I look at the hair on my left arm. No. Too risky. I take a stalk of hay. Then I try to restore it to a green stalk. Ouch. This is a new sensation. If I try to do things I cannot do, such as making a coconut, simply nothing happens. This time it feels bad, like I scraped some metaphysically organ over a rough surface at a high speed. And a lot of mana is gone. With a sigh I extend my list.
15. Absorb neutrinos to make mana
The mana deficit is thus repaired. I pluck one of my hairs out. I make half of it vanish. I restore it to its old length. Perfectly doable, but I note that the expenditure of mana is quite surprising if I compare it with things like restoring a broken bone. Is this because it is biological or I am restoring it to an incomplete state? That thought makes me decide to stop using body products for this kind of experiments. I don¡¯t want to duplicate myself by accident. I go outside to get a few pebbles and rocks. I can drill holes into them and restore their old state just fine, but the expenditure of mana stays high. I smash a soft piece of limestone. Returning that into its former shape is cheaper.
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My experiments are interrupted by a demand for milk. This may not be good for science, but it is good for me. My healing sense informs me that her bladder is about to reach critical filling. Cleaning her is just annoying. You should not need to wipe metabolic end products off people. I don¡¯t mind doing it, but I don¡¯t care for it either. Can I trigger the reflex? And yes, into a bowl she goes.
I keep learning stuff. I probably can replace a severed limb, but it will take weeks. I am not going to rival Wolverine. Who is Wolverine? The sensation grows in annoyance. My initial goal was to determine whether my ability to vanish stuff and restore it are fruits of the same effect applied in a reversed manner. I have not solved that question. I could use other abilities to answer that question, but the opposites of flying or teleporting are not not flying or teleporting, which everybody can do. Maybe I can prevent a teleportation. Marental certainly has been able to do that in our base and I can understand the man. Allowing teleportation renders closing the door moot, if you have or create a certain caliber of enemies. But I am the only teleporter I know. What am I to do?
Cold. It should have been obvious. I take a fresh experimental pebble. The outflow of mana feels normal and dew forms on the pebble, then frost and soon it is covered in a white, cold shell. OK, that is an answer. If I were a really dull man, I¡¯d now make a series of experiments to determine in which way the mana expenditure depends on mass and volume of the object to be cooled. Too boring.
Could I do the opposite of healing? The thought is not nice. I will get a few rats to experiment on. The question is too important to leave unanswered, but obviously there is no safe way to try answer it now. I burn a new list into the wall and restore the piece of wall which held the old list.
1. Make certain biological objects (but not all of them)
2. Heal (within limitations)
3. Restore some things to some prior substates
4. Make things disappear
5. Destroy spells
6. Manipulate the air (quite broadly)
7. Cast lightning
8. Control temperature and heat
9. Create images
10. Create reflections
11. Fly
12. Teleport
13. Attach spells to things
14. Create wards
15. Absorb neutrinos to make mana
Obviously you could split up control of temperature into two abilities. I still need a second reversable ablity to draw at least a tentative conclusion.
I take an experimental piece of limestone. I try to kind of unrestore it. It dissolves into dozens of flimsy layers, which promptly crumble under my grip. I say something rude, because this is quite a mess and put my last test limestone into a wooden box. I can dissolve it into layers and undo the effect.
Well, so my restoration effect does come with a disassembly effect. But is vanishing just the most extreme form of disassembly or an effect of its own. I can undo a vanishing, but is that just a return to an earlier state? I see no obvious way to answer that. I cannot create arbitrary objects. I already know that. I still have time left to do some more science. Let¡¯s do optics.
I make a mirror image of my face. It is a perfect mirror image. I get my last experimental rock, which seems to be some sort of silicate rather than limestone, and create a mirror image of it. I put a cherry on top of it. Perfectly reflected performance art. But am I truly mirroring the image of the stone or am I creating an illusion that merely looks like the stone? For that matter, am I really making light or is this in my brain? I tilt the image. This should not be possible with a standard mirror, but somebody who can teleport shouldn¡¯t complain about light not following normal paths. I increase the image in size. That works. I am a microscope. And that is the problem. You can magnify stuff with lenses and mirrors. The experiment is inconclusive.
It is time to return to base.
Chapter 29 - lone voice
The song has no words.
?I feel determination and curiosity from that song¡° Melo greets her visitor.
?There is also relief from having made a decision.¡° Zewrepa answers. ?I currently don¡¯t understand that notion¡° the dryad concedes. Zewrepa nods ?I am bringing that to the table. Though you do understand that this is not exactly an offer.¡°
The dryad smiles ?The wounded are obvious prey. I do understand that much. I might ask a few question and propose that you ask some question of your own in return. What I ask and you hear may impact your decision.¡°. Zewrepa nods wordlessly. Melo continues ?Why you, not the wizard? This coupling is unusual.¡° Zewrepa changes to a very different song omitting the parts of her songs that usually sound like bird song. It is uncharacteristically ragged. She chuckles ?This is a male song. I apologize for the execution. We call it the song of acceptance. It is sung if only one male answers to a song of calling and is hence the candidate without a fight. Sometimes one wins by acting when everybody else hesitates.¡°
Melo grins ?I suspect being the subject of that song is not flattering.¡°. They both burst out laughing. ?What are your plans?¡° asks Melo. ?I seek to uphold the reputation of my lost clan. I have become a lone voice. The last stanza is already playing. I only get to push it to end on the right cord. So you need not fear becoming an object handed down through generations.¡° Melo does not understand. ?Why does it end with you? Are you sterile?¡° Zewrepa produces a whistling, hollow note and responds ?No, as far as I know I could lay eggs. Attracting males without a proper tower would be an issue. But even if I got some inferior substitute for a tower, there will be no choir to impart our wisdom to my children. They would grow into near mindless savages.¡° She continues with a question ?Why did he give you up?¡°. ?As far as I understood his plan was easier to implement while his soul was unencumbered. He gave up all his familiars. I was about to die anyway.¡°
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Melo spreads her arms. ?Very well. This will be interesting. Very different from Marental. This necessarily has to have a sexual component. Males of your race fight before mating?¡°
Zewrepa just assumes a a slightly crouched stance. Melo goes in swinging. Zewrepa blocks her swing. Two other arms grasp Melo¡¯s arm. A hip seems to come out of nowhere. Melo¡¯s feet leave the ground. Within seconds she is on her stomach on the ground, her arms pinned behind her back.
?Marental took longer to finish¡° Melo remarks.
Chapter 30 - a presentation without slides
Returning as the sun sets I also arrive at the change to the evening watch. So I meet Branislava and Hildegard. ?I am glad that I see you again.¡° Hildegard greets me. ?I am glad that I come home again.¡° I answer. She asks ?Would it be pleasing to you if we talked among ourselves about a thing of my parents, the edible stuff having been extracted?¡°. I certainly agree to that.
As I announce that I have dried vegetable and some fresh supplies in addition to cheese in my backpack, Branislava abruptly leaves telling me that she¡¯ll be in the kitchen. Well, by telling her that I revealed that the cheese makers didn¡¯t just peacefully leave. In theory I may not have admitted that I murdered them, as somebody else may have done the murdering and then left, but that is ridiculously unlikely. ?That we get edible things I have killed them. I say this publically.¡° I tell Hildegard. She nods. ?I doubt that she does not know that the end of the gods is a time of the wolves. Why she left abruptly I do not know.¡°. Promising her again that I¡¯ll return after depositing the food I leave for the kitchen.
I can hear three ladies in the kitchen. I feel like something is wrong with me. I am heading to the showers first. The warm water is clearing my head. What was so odd about today? That I used the scientific method? It strikes me like lightning. I should have already know that I can make things cold! That means that I cannot trust my memory.
I lean against the wall ignoring the needlessly running water. What am I to do with this revelation? I cannot trust myself anymore. I need to put leadership of this group into somebody else¡¯s hands or establish some kind of council system, where we can vote on decisions., at least temporarily.
I will start by listening to Hildegard. Clearing out the backpack is unnecessary in terms preserving the food. It just means that we cannot use it as well for something else.
Hildegard is alarmed at Peregrinus¡¯ facial expression. ?What have you done?¡° she asks. ?Now I know that some memories have left my mind after I had come here. Today something which I did a few days ago was new to me. I believe that it is necessary for us all to talk about my mind.¡° he confesses.
She contemplates this. He has no reason to say this without meaning it, as alarming as it is. A mad wizard is a horrible possibility. But they have very little they can do about it. So she agrees.
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We walk into an assembly. ?You are already here. That¡¯s good. I need to talk to you anyway.¡° I kind of rush out. Zewrepa makes a complicated four-armed gesture and flutes out a calming melody. She points to a chair and pours me a cup of tea at the same time. She is also wearing a piece of wooden body armor. Where has that come from?
She starts out ?First I should tell you that I¡¯ve taken Melo as my familiar¡°. She pauses as if expecting an objection. I shrug. She continues ?I am happy to see that this is no point of contention. Frankly, Peregrinus, I saw a need to take some actions. And I want to say that this was a decision I took especially because we are bonded by a common fate. You have been wounded spiritually and I have no confidence that these wounds will heal on their own.¡° I force down my first reaction which would have involved snorting and pointing out that rushing into things one does not understand is a bad idea.
Anjali speaks up ?We do understand that you are cautious by nature. We will need that given the times we are living in. It is precisely because we support and value you that we need to have as much information available as possible.¡° ?You could have asked¡° I retort.
Zewrepa takes over ?I admit that a dryad familiar was tempting. And, tell me the truth, would you have taken a familiar in your mental condition, not knowing how the bond would affect the natural recovery you are still hoping for?¡°. Temper makes me want to protest ?What is so important about making Melo a familiar that it could not wait?¡°. Zewrepa has been waiting for just that question judging by her instant answer ?A dryad without a bond is limited in her mental faculties. In particular she does not understand many abstract concepts, number and human planning, especially the young ones. We need her to understand what she knows about Marental¡¯s plans and secrets.¡° After a slight pause Anjali takes over ?What did you want to talk with us about¡°.
I hang my head. That question takes the wind out of my sails. ?I¡¯ve noticed certain failings in my recollection. Not just for stuff that happened before Marental summoned me, but for what happened after that. I can no longer trust myself. I wanted to ask Zewrepa to take charge for a few days while I write journals of what I remember and compare them.¡° Anjali covers her mouth with a hand. I go on ?I suppose you have a concrete proposal. Let¡¯s hear it.¡°
Zewrepa takes up the conversation ?I have learned from Melo that the vessel we found searching Marental¡¯s stuff holds his mistress. We propose that we face her and either force her to divulge his secrets or make a deal with her leading to the same results.¡° I didn¡¯t expect that. The surprise must show on my face. Anjali remarks ?You probybly want to think it through¡°. She puts a hand on one of Zewrepa¡¯s elbows. Zewrepa remains silent.
Chapter 31 - fee for a second occupant
I am sitting in the little alcove above the gate room looking onto the snowy landscape illuminated by a full moon shining through a gap in the clouds. Branislava is watching Julia. I¡¯ve finally asked for her name. Am I really mooning over people doing what I want them to do?
I can throw lightning and teleport. I am providing health care in a place cut off from all external help with a hugely pregnant woman under conditions that imply very cold temperatures and war. I make the food. If I show signs of mental issues, there is ample cause for alarm. Yet they don¡¯t trust me. Of course not. I don¡¯t know myself whether I am worth trusting. Have I told them that I¡¯ve figured out how to teleport?
---
Anjali is showering extra thoroughly. She¡¯d consider shaving some delicate parts, but what with? The spell the hotel put on most of its entertainment staff to block the growth of hair on ordinary body parts is still holding. Presumably the other spell blocking some functions is also still active.
She would like to put on her bracers. She decorated a pair herself. Engraving is a talent to be encouraged in a mage. The look of true delight on her mother¡¯s face still warms her heart.
---
Hildegard is coming to the entrance. He is there, like he promised. ? Under the light of the moon on the snow tranquility is brought to me. What do you seek from life?¡° he uses a question as greeting. She refuses to be shocked ?The war of the gods changes everything. The Rabenstein clan stands above me. It serves the clan if its blood is in two places.¡°. ?Does clan Rabenstein hold the castle whose name you hold? Does it protect your mother and father?¡° he asks with genuine interest. She shakes her head ?We are the clan from the rock of the raven. We are the junior line to whom a castle with a village of fishermen was given, when the Franks took the Saxon lands. At the old castle the clan at and of the rock of the raven lives. The grandfather of my grandfather is common to us.¡°
A cadet branch is the oldest story in the world. I guess they¡¯ve done better than most comparable clans. She is not really a princess whose father can mobilize thousands of soldiers. A dozen maybe. In any case the Saxons do not live on the Adriatic I suppose.
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?Our castle is located on on a big rock of chalk on the shore of Lake Bothnia¡° she continues. ?Lake Bothnia?¡° I ask. After a bit of discussion it becomes clear that this world has not Baltic Sea, but a string of lakes, the largest of which is Lake Bothnia. Now it is time to ask her concrete desire for tonight. She turns a bit red. It can¡¯t be that can it? ?Everybody of our clan carries a sigil drawn with ink visible to mages only, which if a mage pours his energy in, sends a message to the holder of the clan¡¯s gem.¡° she explains and lifts her shirt. With my mage sight I indeed see an impressive work of magic craftsmanship on her quite pretty belly. This is remarkable. This is a way to put a spell into, well, something. I am pretty confident it would work at least with some objects and some spells. Links lead from the spell to her major internal organs, her voicebox and even, well, very initimate parts of her anatomy. This thing would send a message she speaks together with a report on her health and other states. She has taken a piece of paper out of her bag and is ready to read it aloud. ?It is necessary to put a hand on your body¡°. Now she gets really red. I am enjoying this.
---
There are not many corridors to walk in this base, if one wanted to emulate the perambulating philosophers. So I am heading to bed. I have resigned myself to their plans. Losing old memories is one thing. Even so, I still hope the condition to be temporary. But losing new memories, that is a whole other story. If that is the case, I need help. There is no avoiding that.
Somebody¡¯s waiting before my door. ?Anjali, that is a nice, but unexpected visitor. I hope you haven¡¯t been waiting for long.¡°. She smiles with a hint of laughter ?This base is hardly a gigantic city you could get lost in. No, I have been waiting for as long as was good.¡°. She tilts her head in the direction of the door. I am surprised, open the door and make a vaguely inviting hand gesture. ?I helped storing the vegetable chains.¡° she says with a voice slightly higher than usual and goes on after a small pause ?You killed for us.¡°. I stop and respond ?We must assume that Fimbulwinter will last a long time and the next harvest ¡¡°. She puts a finger over my lips. ?I appreciate that. I approve of it.¡° Her voices goes a bit deeper and adds a rough quality ?I enjoy it. All my life I was used. Sold. Even sacrificed. I like a man to kill for me.¡° She demonstrates that the way she is wearing her blanket includes a quick release feature.
Chapter 32 - double booking
I chuckle. ?Hey, I didn¡¯t tell any jokes.¡° protests Anjali. ?It just came to my mind, that you cannot ask any probing questions about my past. I find that funny.¡°. ?Well, then neither may you.¡° she retorts. ?I didn¡¯t intend to. I¡¯d probably lack the context to understand the answers. Nor do we know what is happening in the rest of the world. You are here. I am here. We have warm, soft beds. We now have food.¡° I reply. ?You are not as simple minded as you try to pretend now.¡° There is a bit of sharpness in her voice. ?I am not saying that I am simple minded. I am saying that we have entered a time that requires asking simple questions and to strive for simple answers. It would do nobody any good if I confessed a desire for a library or seeing a play in a theater meaning I neglected the necessities and we all died.¡° I say to deflect her indirect criticism. I pause and stroke her back. ?Do you fear men using simplicity as an excuse to commit to a plan for the future?¡° I ask her. She rolls onto her back, draws a deep breath and answers ?No, you are a sorcerer. You can, to a much greater extent than ordinary men, do as you will. You need no excuses. Even if what you will is acting as a wet nurse.¡° she continues with a tone of incredulity in her voice. ?The only thing you must avoid is indecision.¡° she says with almost pleading in her voice. I trace her flank. She shivers a bit. I look at her and say ?I have decided that the people that were bought to bring me here are mine to care for. I have decided on the slow and steady approach. Caution is not indecision. It has weaknesses, as every approach has.¡° I cup a tender part of hers. ?I appreciate you. Also in what you did to cover my weaknesses.¡° She squeezes against me ?That is nice to hear.¡°
Zewrepa is leaning against her familar¡¯s tree. ?I am starting to understand generic music again.¡° Melo jubilates, ?I do understand that this does not help us now, but we¡¯ll live beyond now. At least that is the plan.¡° she continues. ?Do you still believe that there is a secret room with magic equipment?¡° Zewrepa asks. ?Where do you think the mana for the wards, hot water, heating and light comes from?¡° Melo answer in a slightly tired manner.
I find myself alone in my, well Marental¡¯s, bed, which is easily broad enough to hold two people, with a small wax tablet these people use for small notes. It just says my turn for preparing breakfast. Well, I like fish and egg for breakfast. A pisciphobe would have had a hard time. In fact the northern oceans are usually rich in fish and other marine life, even if the land is barren from the cold, so that even if this version of Europe gets too cold for agriculture, people may survive on the coast by fishing and trading. We might even feed chickens with the offal from processing fish. Something from my memories triggers.
My mind is flooded with the curves for the solubility of oxygen in water versus temperature. Concepts of free energy, enthalpy and entropy flood my mind. I even understand the role temperature plays in this. Even useless ancilliary information plays briefly in my head. I have no idea who Gibbs or Boltzmann were, though I get the picture that they are safely dead.
The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.My fist hits the bedding in frustration. This has got to either stop or run its course. This seriously violates my sense of self. Who am I? The man who is thinking about this now? Or the people I keep meeting in my head space, from whom these memories are presumably coming? Some of them are clearly not me. I am not Marental. I am no assassin. Though both are now to a small extent a part of me. That, however, is how I see things. Somebody killed Marental¡¯s assistent and I have to assume that the same people did not share my view of me not being an assassin. Worse, they may do something to make their view prevail or to make their displeasure know if it does not. Anyway the assassin wanted me to do morning katas and it is time to check on Julia.
Apparently I have made a major breakthrough and a hungry child will suck on the porous rubber nipple I have created over a beaker of milk. I love magical engineering, but I need a way to make actual magical stuff.
Anjali is taking a thorough shower before joining Branisava for breakfast. Some wizards react very badly to making any sort of claim on their person. She supposes that applies to men in general, but wizards have the power to do drastic things if they get angry.
On reflection it was not a night to compose an opera in celebration of, but also none that would require one to purchase one of those alchemical concoctions that mess with recent memories. At least she has given him more of a reason to not just leave. He currently does not want to, but he is a man with an unstable personality. Nothing else would matter if she froze to death marching through an alpine wilderness to escape a slow death by starvation
Branislava understands that she does not understand. The wizard is making a genuine effort to not just keep Julia alive, but comfortable. The way he played with her, when he checked on her, speaks of genuine affection. Men in her experience are proud of their children, but they take no joy out of caring for an infant. Or at least none of them would ever admit enjoying that. Is this a case of a wizard just not needing to bother about anybody¡¯s opinion?
I am having a vision in the shower. At least I hope it is a vision. Ghosts are not an option I want to entertain. ?Grandpa¡° I address ?the vision.¡° It smiles and replies ?I am no really here in the full sense of the word. You were always the troubled one. It has allowed forces usually not found in our world to act. Unfortunately this is the last time I can talk to you. It is more times than most get. You need to know that I arranged for somebody to spoil the deal between you and the dwellers in the void. You being here means that you took the offer. You need to understand what you picked and you must not meet your target by accident, lest you trigger a remnant of the agreement. One last thing, you need to accept some changes. You were broken. You need fixing and fixing means change. I hope you used your fascination with natural science to pick something good. Fare well, grandson.¡°
Anjali is prepared for many courses of action but not that look on the wizard¡¯s face. ?I just saw a ghost.¡° he announces.
Chapter 33 - extended bookings
Melo, who has joined us for breakfast, raises her eyebrows and says ?We need to check the wards. Did you dispatch him or her?¡° I am a bit shocked and horrified at her attitude, as it means that ghosts are real for sure, and answer ?It was my grandfather.¡°. She takes that with relief ?If you invite the ghost, even subconciously or inadvertedly, the wards as they are constructed here are useless. A standard design Atlanteans also use. I trust that your grandfather won¡¯t work against you?¡°. I reply ?Why is it a standard design? And no, I at least don¡¯t think so. He basically told me that he made the deal with Marental and at the same time doublecrossed him.¡°. She shrugs ?Atlanteans are not above using familiar spirits.¡°
Zewrepa interjects ?I take that to mean that his return does not mean that Marental is taking an interest in this site again?¡°. I shake my head ?Grandpa indicated that he was working on my behalf without my knowledge, as kind of a free agent. He also said that this was his last visit.¡°.
Anjali¡¯s head is drooping as she says ?It must be nice to have a grandfather who cares for you. In that case I am sorry for your loss. A free spirit will last a few days only.¡°. Sensing her mood, everybody stays silent. The awkward moment is finally broken as Julia makes baby sounds.
Branislava does not like the talk of grandfathers returning as ghosts. The dead should stay dead and the living should live and they shall not mix. She has suspicions about the brown woman. Well, she is using her assets. However, that does not mean that she would let her have what these assets might secure her without a fight. She has babies to think of. So she asks ?So can we just stay over winter and keep our heads down?¡° The wizard actually smiles at her and answers ?I would like to do that. I really would. But if I consider everything, I don¡¯t think it is a good idea. Somebody eliminated Marental¡¯s aide. Even if Marental does not want to come back here, whoever did that, might. We need to know. Simply leaving preemptively is not a good solution either. They may track me. Though I realize that that applies only to me. Do you have any relatives in surviving villages you want me to bring you to?¡°
She is stunned. He means it. The truth makes an answer easy. ?My husband is at sea. That is precisely why I rented out our house outside the city and moved to my relatives in the village. Everybody is dead. The seafarer¡¯s guild would care for me, in case ¡ in case something bad happened. But during Ragnar?k a lot of bad things will happen to a lot of people. And the price of food in cities will go up a lot, as the early snow means that even if they got the harvest in, they will have difficulties getting it to the cities. And given Ragnar?k they might not want to, as soon as they learn the truth.¡°. The wizard¡¯s eyes narrow, he leans back and yet thanks her again.
This woman is not stupid. I and probably some of my allies need more information. So I ask Hildegard ?When your father will have read about the extreme winter, will he take all grain? Will all nobles learn of the winter of the gods soon?¡°. She considers a moment before she responds ?So it will be. To allies he will give grain and fish, but to nobody who wants to buy it. Silver is not edible. I wanted him to learn of the winter as soon possible, but for sure the priests will soon tell the nobility. I reckon he already knows.¡° ?The cities will send armed men to seize the grain. If we go to a city or a noble we will have to fight. If we arrive later they may not accept us, because we will not have fought for them.¡° I speculate. There is vigorous nodding from everybody, including Anjali and Branislava into whose ears Melo is whispering a translation.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.?Why is that bad? People welcome soldiers they need.¡° Zewrepa interjects. There is that. It is an ugly thought and I am personally not ready for battle, but that can be changed. She may be right.
Hildegard is shacking her head ?In this winter troops cannot camp for long without shelter. The forces of the cities will be limited to the rural settlements they can take quickly.¡° Zewrepa retorts ?Bigger cities have battle mages.¡° Hildegard smiles ?Yes, they do. How many? And how do they get to a battle? They ride or take a ship. How many granaries can they take? And will they fight for their city? Those born to it will fight, but a hired mage may decide that a castle will eat a lot longer than a city on equally much grain.¡°. I am a bit disturbed. People who know this world are making logical arguments for mutually exclusive outcomes. This sucks. We and, let¡¯s face it ¨C the one of us who can fly and teleport specifically, will have to wander into an unknown situation full of desperate powerful people.
This has been going on for a while as Anjali makes a suggestion ?An island then. We really want something with access to fishing and trade, some agriculture, where the farmers are so close to the towns that they cannot hide the granaries, and a body of water nearby to or around the location should lessen the impact of Fimbulwinter.¡°.
Melo having made the translation, Zewrepa has to answer ?What you said about villages and cities also applies to cities against islands as well as cities against smaller cities on the coast or the same river. Taking grain from a location on the coast is even easier, because ships carry more grain than carts. And troops can shelter from the winter on the attacking ships.¡°
Anjali is pursing her lips and seems to be in deep thought. Melo is gesturing for quiet.
?The Caspian Sea!¡° she almost shouts. ?There is no incentive to build big trading fleets, but fishing is still possible and the climatic advantage still applies.¡°
The discussion kind of fades out after that. It seems like my companions do understand that if they do not know enough they can either decide based on incomplete information or get more information, but to keep talking endlessly would be of no use.
?You convinced me to go through with this and yet now you want me to delay till tomorrow?¡° I cannot keep a little frustration out of my voice. Melo is not impressed by that. ?That was before you decided to perform a little feat of necromancy. Now I need to strengthen the wards of containment. Or do you want to also deal with whatever ghosts you may have invited and know nothing about anymore in addition to Marental¡¯s servant we are about to free?¡° This woman can be quite persuasive.
Chapter 34 - assistance requested
I am staring at a dead blade of grass. At least it used to be a blade of grass. It has sort of gone mushy and lost its shape. I suppose its cells have burst their cell walls. I cannot get it back to life. It seems that some changes are qualitatively different from other changes. I don¡¯t particularly like this power, but I am master of life and death, whether I like it or not. Is it thereby beyond my magical powers? I need to test this. No, it burns just fine.
Now that I have the rest of the day full of unplanned leisure, there is time for more research. Technically it is a bit silly of me to be uncomfortable with this. Fire heats your house and can burn down a house. A knife can do surgery or cut a throat.
And again, having immolated the plant matter, it is gone. I cannot restore it. Should I now leave Melo¡¯s chamber, go to the kitchen and uncook an egg? Before I waste any more time, I probably should at least try, though I suspect it wouldn¡¯t work, as cooking somebody is definitely lethal. Maybe I could try a less drastic biochemical change, like undo caramelization of sugar. Or maybe something even more basic. The railings on the stairs leading up to the entrance to the chamber are made from iron and slightly rusty. Yes, I can undo that. The metal within a few meters is back to a pristine condition. Have I removed the rust or reduced it to metal, chemically speaking? This needs checking. I scrape off a bit of rust and do the magic.
This turns out to be a mistake. As soon as I am done, whatever was the result of the experiment bursts into flame. I have to heal my left palm. This hurts my pride as well as my body. It looks like I was foolish enough to create metallic dust. If you distribute metal finely enough, it may react with the oxygen in the air. To a man who can set things on fire with a thought one more way to perform arson is useless. But it is an important safety tip. I kick the little stone I had in mind as the next object of experimentation away, just in case. It looks like limestone to me, calcium carbonate chemically speaking. Several grams of finely distributed calcium metal are not a good idea.
Let¡¯s do something more basic. I remove the band I tie my hair back with. I straighten it on the ground before me. I fold it. Then I do the magic. Yes, it unfolds. This is fun. I can undo the undoing. A very limited form of telekinesis. This is way cool.
I need to do more fun things. Let¡¯s head for the kitchen. Lunch time approaching everybody but Zewrepa and Melo is in the kitchen area. I get strange looks as I pour a bit of vinegar into a cup. Damn. This is definitely alcohol now. But is that conclusive? The feeling about the powers that was once so clear has started to become mixed. Can I be sure I reduced acetic acid to ethanol or did I merely restore an earlier state? How do I tell the difference? Anyway, lunch first.
I am getting odd looks as I do the dishes with magic. They had been clean before they were used. I restore that state. ?I saw a priest heal our stud bull. That your powers are not coming from the gods I know. But this feels like blasphemy.¡° Hildegard says while leaning back on the bench. Maybe she wants to evade a thunderbolt from heaven, never mind that it would collapse the rock above us to hit me.
?Do priests get power from the gods?¡° I reply. I get a look as if I asked whether water is wet. Still Hildegard seems to have been trained to answer direct questions, so she replies ?They are given to them.¡°. Which sounds a lot more court and surprised in Latin than you may think.
I shrug and ignore her and Anjali, who have not understood the exchange. I briefly wonder who has the translation ring. I¡¯ll ignore that for now. I also ignore Hildegard getting up and putting the dishes back onto the shelves. I close my eyes in deep concern. Why are the gods unleashing the Fimbulwinter? This is also an attack on mankind. In fact they are making us fight each other. Well, they make the mighty without food murder the weak with food. I shall not delude myself. Do they intend that or is it a side effect? More importantly, if I go, defend and feed a small island or costal city, will I make myself a target of religious militants? Maybe even with direct divine support?
Anjali is alarmed and annoyed. Whatever the naive girl said has hit him hard. That may be a weakness of the wizard, but they don¡¯t have a spare. She puts her hand on his arm. ?What is wrong?¡° she asks. I sigh ?It never ends. I feel so stupid. I did not know that priests have magic. I didn¡¯t consider what the gods want with this winter. When I murdered that kid for the food in their cellar I did exactly what the gods want from me. We are killing each other. I killed men for cheese. I am supposed to protect you. We have a little baby here. More on the way. I have the power but I don¡¯t know what I am doing.¡° She is not used to dealing with men in that state. It scares her. Men don¡¯t like to know that they were observed in their moments of weakness. There is no use in pretending that it didn¡¯t happen. And she really cannot afford him to let helplessness develop into anger. Even if it weren¡¯t aimed at them, it still would be true that angry men do stupid things. She embraces him. He leans into her. His stout body does not fit his behavior. What to say?
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?You are protecting us. You are doing what needs to be done even while you are impaired. You are inventing new stuff for a motherless child. We have been eating what you have gotten us.¡° she follows her inspiration. He lifts his head and asks ?You think so?¡° ?Yes, you are our hero.¡° Anjali confirms.
Branislava finally gets what is going on. She approves of it. A man who doesn¡¯t have to sleep alone is a happier man. She wants the man who can call on fire and lightning and feeds her to be happy. Specifically she wants him to be also happy with her. She is a married woman and hugely pregnant. Her approach will have to be through his stomach.
She notices the blond northern girl leaving the room in a hurry. That could mean trouble ahead.
I am happy to have company. She seems to have experience with assisting in magical research. In fact she is taking notes. That includes even drawing the setup. She is talented at drawing. ?How do you measure how much air weighs? Do normal scales show nothing because there¡¯s air on both dishes?¡° she contemplates and complains ?But then you¡¯d see something if you exchanged one dish with a smaller one of the same weight!¡°. I smile, this feels like ¡ an institution I rember liking, but not rember itself. I will not let that spoil the moment. I explain ?No, it is because of buoyancy. Objects can float in air like in water, it is just more difficult. In particular air floats in air, so it weighs nothing. Even scales based on a spring would show nothing. We can¡¯t measure the true weight of air. We can measure the weight of different kinds of air compared to normal air.¡°
She is taking notes. In a script I cannot read. Presumably her native language¡¯s script. That may turn out to be a problem. ?Why aren¡¯t you noting down our experiment in the Atlantean script?¡° I ask.
Anjali is concerned. Everything went well, after she decided that the wizard, no the man, may just need some company. The things he does are even familiar. She just needs to surpress the associations. But this question. She needs to respond. Better be spontaneous than perfect. ?I don¡¯t dare write the accursed tongue. I am not a powerful wizard. I cannot afford to be associated with Atlanteans.¡°. He looks surprised ?Afford? I can see you hating them. In fact I should expect you to. Sorry for being rude.¡° He looks away. Can he really be that oblivious? She remembers that he has lost his memories. ?Yes, afford. Some hate Atlanteans so much that they are doing something about the hatred. They tend to hex first and then ask questions. If they bother to ask questions at all.¡° she explains.
He sighs and says ?Just another thing to be aware of I didn¡¯t know enough to even ask about.¡° Anjali finds him a bit annoying in that mood. ?Why don¡¯t you concentrate on what you can do instead of what you don¡¯t know? You already know a lot, even western natural philosophy. Everybody is foreign almost everywhere, though few ever are put in a situation this has consequences. But this winter is going to change that.¡° The outburst scares her a bit after the fact but he replies immediately ?Knowledge is power. You will defeat an enemy if you know more about him than he knows about himself.¡°. Then he immediately stops. She does not want him to think about their situation and has to keep the conversation going. ?This sounds like a quote. Are you a military officer?¡°. He shakes his head ?Not I myself. Many in the family ¡¡°. He smiles. ?A memory¡° he exclaims happily. He looks embarrassed and asks ?I am sorry. With you and the others being forcibly removed from your family I should not talk about family. Do you miss your family?¡°
He is trying to be nice. She has to repeat it to herself. Yet she cannot lie. There are spells that can detect direct lies. And a few wizards can read your aura. She is in the bad situation descending from people with the spark that her aura is bit stronger than average, making it easier to read, but she has no way of controlling it.
?My family sold me. I did not meet expectations.¡° she keeps her reply short. He looks as if he doesn¡¯t know what to say. As he should, for he says nothing. Anjali has to salvage the conversation ?You were talking about different kinds of air. Like how the air we exhale is different from normal air?¡°
It turns out that I can make different gases. In fact the energy requirement corresponds to their concentration in the air and their purity. I could probably fill a room with pure oxygen. I am prone to arson.
The setup is a pair of glases set with their mouths down into a film of oil as a sealant on different sides of a scale. I had to abort the attempt of filling a glass with helium halfway through for mana reasons, but I filled them with oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide and now, for the next experiment, with argon. That surprised Anjali, who thought that air has three major components, apparently oxygen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide.
The test object is a broken piece of ceramic. I am proud of that. This rules out the experimental uncertainties. If I work on the whole object, we¡¯ll get a restored ceramic object. That may smash the glass, but nothing else should happen. If I work on the substance and restore it, we¡¯ll get clay, which is about as harmless a substance as I can think of. If I chemically reduce it, we¡¯ll get, I guess, a mixture of silicon and aluminium. Where does the oxygen go? I don¡¯t know.
First I make clay. I am very happy to know that Anjali knows the concept of a control experiment.
In a second run I proceed to chemical reduction. I can feel two points of resistance. I choose one.
The result is a lump of silvery metal with some quartz attached.
Anjali is getting a strange look in her eyes. She barely waits for me to acknowledge that she can now get the result out. With an awed voice she whispers ?Mithril¡°.
Chapter 35 - means of payment
Anjali is beyond caring. By conventional logic she is dead. A wizard discovering the secret of mithril cannot leave witnesses alive. Yet, there is only so much fear you can feel. She lifts the glas off the lump. There is a small popping sound and a few more sparks. It is beautiful. A sphere of shiny metal on a dusting of clear crystals and some dust. She smells a sharp tang in the air. It looks just like the beads in the family vault her grandfather let her see on her twelfth birthday, when they were still expecting her to show powers any day. She lifts it. It is as light as she remembers. Some of the hotel¡¯s guests liked to show off stuff made from mithril or small bars, especially when they ordered additional, less traditional, entertainment. She can¡¯t take it any more. There is only so much deliberate control you can find in yourself. She starts shivering.
I am a bit concerned. Odd stuff is happening. Usually Anjali is not prone to emotional reactions to small stuff. Has this triggered anything? Do they pay for slaves with metal in beads where she comes from? Aluminium can be mistaken for silver, I suppose. We already have had a suicide. We almost died many times the last few days. She was comforting me earlier today. I have to admit to that. There simply was no time to really care.
She is lifting the bead in her hand, not really caring that it may be hot - or cold, for that matter. I have no idea what the thermodynamics are, here. The scales showed this side getting lighter. I made matter vanish. In fact something else may be starting to go wrong. She is shivering. Some kind of toxicity? Shock?
What to do? Taking the bead out of her hand is exactly what I shouldn¡¯t do if it is causing a harmful reaction. I put a hand on her shoulder to check her health. She shakes a little. I can sense a jump in blood pressure, a spike in activity of the sympathic nervous system, too much adrenaline in the blood and an uncomfortable tension in her neck muscles leading up to a head ache. Also a slight deficiency in vitamin D. I am also detecting incipient cavity of a lower left premolar. There is also an oddity of a nonbiological nature in her. Did the sacrificial ritual do damage?
Has my perception of biological issues been improving? My reaction is almost automatic.
There are unshed tears in her eyes. ?You are not toying with me, with us?¡° she whispers. Without the tears, I would be angry. We have fought together. I am feeding them. I have killed for them, well us. I like cheese, too. What else does she want? A declaration of loyalty and sincerity in alliterative verse?
Still I answer quickly without giving it the proper thought and considering her motivation. ?I¡¯ve killed a young man who just defended his family and home. If that does not show that I am serious, what will?¡° She shivers. Maybe I should have said something else. I take her hands. ?We are in this together. You called me to this world. You are all I have. Literally. I don¡¯t even have memories to dwell on.¡° Her hands don¡¯t relax ?You are very scary and strange.¡° she says in a voice that that tries to, but fails to be entirely firm. She forces herself to carry on ?I fear, we all fear, that you will react to a supply shortage. So we do not want you angry. Yet we also don¡¯t want you in a cold ontemplative mood.¡° My muscles become a bit rigid. Was that why she ¡ ?
Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.She looks me in the eye. The tear is no longer unshed. Her voice is becoming breathy ?My own grandfather sold me to a hotel in a dwarven city. He wanted a guest to buy me. He saw me as a way to weaken rivalling clans. Either by them getting weakened heirs through me because I have no magic or by sowing discord when the wiser elders removed me from their besotted scions. I can tell you that the tales of evil wizards are not just tales, if arriving during a human sacrifice involving a baby girl won¡¯t do the job. Marental is no exception.¡°
I am pretty sure that I was neither an activist for social justice nor a puritan. Still I am disappointed. I am also feeling a need to protect her, which is weird, because that would mean protecting her from myself, as from an angle of pure rationality this is what I should do if we ran out of supplies. Perhaps I should take this less literally. I embrace her.
Hildegard sees them together and turns back as silently as she can, which for a woman that has hunted the shiest of prey in the woods and heaths of her home county is very quiet. She should be content with this development. She has a wedding still pending, presumably postponed indefinitely, but not called off and a family at home.
Anjali steels herself. Why is she getting so emotional? The damage is done. She can sense that he feels decieved. She has to keep it from turning into feeling betrayed, even if it is dangerous. There is no safe path anymore. She asks ?Do you know the material you have made? And could you perhaps squeeze a little less? You are strong.¡° He lets go and answers ?I am pretty sure, it is one of the lighter elements. If we find copper ore, I will be able to make a very strong alloy. However, I have no idea how to make tubes, though I am pretty sure I can weld metal under a protective atmosphere. So we might need to keep the wooden sleds for now.¡° He does not get it. She has to outright say it ?Do you know what this stuff is worth?¡°. It hits me. If these people do not know electrolysis, the stuff would be pretty expensive. She sees it in my eyes. I have to respond ?Any of you is precious. I am going to convert the whole box of broken ceramics and equally share the result.¡° ?But by the looks of it they never bothered to empty it out. It may be almost two kilograms. I suspect that some of them were too lazy to carry empty wine amphorae back home.¡° she responds rapidly. I nod ?Perhaps I should return to the farmstead. They had some ceramics.¡° She looks at me with wide eyes and asks ?You can do that with any ceramics? You did not specifically select that piece?¡° I make an equivocal gesture ?I would usually use clay. Some other minerals would also work, but not limestone. Should I perhaps make a few dozen kilograms, if we could find clay?¡° Her mouth opens and moves, but no sound is coming out of it.
Thorgrimr the wizard again bemoans the lack of an apprentice as he has to transform the sending himself. ?The Rabenstein girl has survived!¡° he says aloud, continuing ?And knows nothing about the mess she left behind.¡°.
Baron Ingmar is listening to the message his court wizard is repeating. His fingers are drumming a pattern on the arm rest of his seat. ?Who knows about this message?¡° ?Only you and I, my lord¡° answers the wizard. The baron rises and starts pacing, muttering more to himself than the wizard ?Whoever did this went for her and Sigmundr. Why? Lots of people have a reason to prevent their marriage but taking out one of them would do the job. Who wants to kill both of them?¡° and louder directly to the wizard ?Keep it that way. We will have to tell her father, but we¡¯ll send a sealed message via a demon bird.¡°. The wizard bows and replies ?Certainly my lord. I will start preparing to summon a messenger bird at once. But, if I may, I could not help to overhear you concerns, but you are assuming that her abduction and her brother¡¯s terrible fate are results of a failed attempt to kill them. Doesn¡¯t her survival indicate that only the strike at your cousin was intended to be lethal?¡°
Chapter 36 - early lunch
My grandpa¡¯s voice is speaking behind me: ?Don¡¯t worry about what they are picking for you. They wouldn¡¯t hire a man about to have a stroke if the job were a good offer. Either the process is dangerous or the destination is dangerous. The latter you can do something about.¡° I want to signal that I have understood. I ask the apparitions aloud ?What kind of world am I to go into?¡° The fivefold response comes immediately ?A more primitive and colder version of this world. Our time is limited. We cannot give a detailed description of a whole world in it. We need your decision soon.¡° I sigh ?Very well. This is no use. I will begin. Under these circumstances my first pick is fire.¡° The response again is immediate. ?A rational choice. Our pick is spacetime. Be advised that the transfer will begin immediately after your last choice, provided we accept it. It is imperative that you follow orders during the process.¡° They seem to be in a hurry. I decide to gamble a bit on the last pick. But first I need to cover my basic needs. Combat, mobility and logistics. I cannot depend on their choices. ?Air¡° I make my next choice. I just want to fly. The temptation is too great. They respond ?Perception¡°. I answer ?Life¡°. I think the answer is even faster following up on that ?Decay.¡°. I draw a deep breath ?Spell¡°. The world explodes into color. Polychrome stuff is invading my soul.
I jerk awake. The extra cushion I placed on the headboard saves my head from yet another hard banging up. My inner sense informs me that it is exactly 5:30:00. Too early to be comfortable, yet too late to go back to sleep after that dream.
I have to assume that it is a real memory. I have learned that I cannot trust my retention. A pen and paper are ready to make an immediate record.
I am enjoying a long hot shower. It also clears up residual sleepiness. I have a lot to think through. I am a hitman. I cannot complain. I murdered for cheese. I would kill somebody for magical powers. That doesn¡¯t mean that I like it. It is just a deal worth making. Especially if the alternative is a crippling and likely deadly stroke.
Is it also a deal worth keeping? I don¡¯t think so. In fact so they thought. Going by meeting altered parts of my personality they didn¡¯t depend on my free choice to follow through on the deal, nor did they intend for me to live happily ever after after the deed. Does it matter? Have I even arrived in the universe they intended me for? I don¡¯t know. I see no good way to find out. I don¡¯t feel a need to find out. I am certainly not going to go anywhere I have even a small chance of meeting them.
Does this end the matter? I am afraid it might not. My target may know that I was sent and have no reason to trust my claims of disavowing the deal. I wouldn¡¯t. It¡¯s the oldest trick in the book.
Do their picks mean something? Something to travel, something to find the target and to eliminate it or him or her. Did they just execute their original plan or did they adjust it according to my choices? If so, then that guy is seriously hardcore. If immolation and electrocution will not do the job, what kind of monster did they want hunted down? Or did they not know and just believe in overkill?
If they did know, why did they give me teleport powers? Is he at a place I cannot fly to? An undersea base? Did he get water based powers? If he or she knew that they were heading for Ragnar?k what would they pick? What would I pick? Fire, to be sure. Something you can heal with. Other than that? Hard to say. Why do I care? There is a plan forming in the back of my head. I need to warn him or her without getting close. Not for some altruistic reason, but because that is the only way I can demonstrate that I have no intention of fulfilling the agreement. Besides, there may be backup assassins. Unless, of course, I am a backup. They are less likely to go for a secondary target, meaning me, while the primary target is still alive.
Enough hot water. Julia is hungry.
Anjali is looking at the lumps of metal she has been asked to turn into wearable and decorative forms. Though giving equal shares to babies still in the womb seems a bit excessive to her. Not that it makes a practical difference. This is incredible wealth, though she has no idea how to use it. Everybody whom she might try to sell it to would have no incentive to let her survive the sale.
Melo interprets the wizard¡¯s look. ?As long as I stay outside my tree in human form, I need to eat, just like you do.¡°. He answers back ?Does that mean that you stay in human form inside your tree or that you have inhuman forms outside your tree or do you lose the human form when you return to your tree?¡°. ?The former two.¡° Melo explains and continues ?The wooden armor Zewrepa wears is literally me, not something I produce.¡°. Zewrepa is combining a soft hoot with a whistled tremolo.
I get a feeling of protectiveness and a soft rebuke. ?No worries. Everybody eats. If we need to find more food, we¡¯ll do whatever it takes. I am just interested in how it works.¡° I hasten to assure her. She produces a sound like a wind chime and speaks up ?It works differently for demons. The vessels are not ours. We don¡¯t keep our form in them. In fact our state of conciousness is altered. We are aware but not really concious, if that makes sense. And while the vessel in theory sustains us forever, we get hungry while staying inside them.¡° Anjali asks with a flat voice ?Did they force you into one?¡°. Zewrepa makes a soft glissando ?For a day and for training purposes. Our clan ¡ my ex-clan has a set in the case of a siege. And no, there is no equivalent for humans. At least not a simple vessel. Just in case you were considering that.¡°
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.I nod and say ?Thank you. I wouldn¡¯t fancy spending the winter in an oil lamp like a djinn. And no, I don¡¯t need to know the details of how they are a bit different. On to a different topic, have you finished the ritual and when are we starting?¡° Melo answers ?At noon. The ritual is designed to be used during the day, so noon is the optimum.¡°
?Can you explain to me why we are making lunch so early and why I need to be around when we liberate a demon from its vessel? I am not exactly a mighty warrior or wizard.¡° Branislava asks in a confused voice. Anjali responds ?That are two questions although they are related. We are not going to release just any demon, but Marental¡¯s personal succubus concubine, most likely. They operate by temptation and that is worsened by any unfulfilled desire. So we make sure nobody is hungry.¡° Branslava chuckles. ?A succubus is supposed to tempt me? They are demon female seductresses, aren¡¯t they?¡°. Anjali just raises an eyebrow and smiles knowingly.
Branislava turns red. ?OK, but then why get me into temptation at all?¡°. Anjali answers ?The wizard needs support. That we were used in the ritual means that we are a counter to temptation, because he finds us sexually atractive.¡° That causes Branislava to choke and point at her huge pregnant belly. Anjali laughs ?Men are simple. They always want the one thing, usually with as many women as possible. But that does not mean that they don¡¯t want other things in addition.¡° Branislava turns redder. Mercilessly Anjali continues ?Maybe I should tell you some stories. This one time there was this wizard who was missing his teacher, who ¡¡°
?Please stop!¡° Branislava says a bit louder than usually. ?How do you know that many wizards so ¡ closely?¡°. Anjali¡¯s smile stays genuine as she answers ?The hotel whose slave I became used me to entertain its guests.¡° Branislava¡¯s face turns into a question ?But then why are you here? I mean I have eyes. You look very well suited for ¡ that task. Was Marental a guest in that hotel?¡° Anjali¡¯s smile vanishes and she answers ?They sold me precisely because I look good. They sell us before we show signs of age, so our resale value does not drop. They know that they will have to replace us some day, so they do it when we still sell well. As a standard when you turn 23.¡°. Branislava puts a hand in front of her mouth for a moment and then says. ?We are almost the same age then. I am 24 years old.¡°. Anjali responds ?Yes, we are. Though, doesn¡¯t it bother you that he finds you, a married woman, attractive?¡° Branislava shakes her head ?In our city the guild would protect me. I am not so naive that I think that the mighty would care about that and it is better than if he found me ugly and not a great loss, if we ran low on supplies. Besides, I have seen him look at you.¡°
It is 10:24:28. This time I am insisting on doing a full briefing before we go into an operation. I think Zewrepa and Hildegard find the procedure odd, but approve. I am doing the introduction, because this way we can check that our strongest user of magic has understood all issues.
Our operation intends to free a demon positively identified as a succubus, whom we assume to be Marental¡¯s concubine, in order to gain access to information Marental shared with her. We intended to secure her cooperation by making her an offer of mana and a part of the valuables to be found in this base, as well as offering protection against Marental getting his slave back and a safe place and victuals to spend this winter. For this reason the containment field will allow her to escape this realm altogether, but will protect us against her aura and direct attacks, but will allow communication and let her glamour pass, because we cannot make a containment that allows her and us to verify a magical promise and will allow her to sense our auras but would block her glamour. Anjali has instructed me to specifically lift my shroud and let power bleed into my aura, which should make me look quite powerful and attractive to a succubus. Zewrepa has confirmed that my aura is filled with strange energies when I do so.
Depending on her reactions either Zewrepa, Melo or I will lead the negotiations. Zewrepa will have the last word on who is to negotiate. Melo will brief us on her powers and what we know about her.
Melo takes my place.
Marental kept his concubines and his dryads strictly separate, so I only know that they exist. For those who don¡¯t know, a succubus can use her aura to force people in range to feel certain emotions, in the most basic case horniness. Her glamour only works by manipulation, not direct influence. It works in part by changing how they look. Hence it is tailored for one special victim. The most vulnerable among us is Peregrinus, because he is male. Therefore Zewrepa will have the last word.
It bothers me a bit that nobody has questions, but these people value firm decision making.
Chapter 37 - tools of negotiation
We have thoroughly demolished the devices that produced the barriers once trapping us. So we have assembled in the ritual chamber. I find it ridiculous that we are pulling off the lid of a vessel with a rope going over a pulley mounted on the ceiling. Just in case it comes to combat I start drinking neutrinos.
Melo asks ?Has everybody been to the toilet? I am sorry, but everything would be a weakness. If you feel an itch, scratch it now.¡°. I scratch my head visibly, hoping to hide the less polite scratch.
I can see the containment. It is like a bubble made from interwoven lines shimmering in a color that does not exist. It should be a pleasant thing to see. Like a psychodelic painting, kind of abstract art. Objectively it is pretty. As an effect the details of the pattern do make sense like a word in a language you don¡¯t know. You can clearly hear the sounds and would be able to repeat the word. But my instincts tell me that I ought to understand, yet I don¡¯t. That is thoroughly unpleasant. It gives me an impression almost like turning deaf.
Melo picks up the cord. I need to distract myself. I ask a question: ?Do all dryads have the ability to draw such circles leading to containments?¡°. She answers ?In a latent manner. Everybody with magic can do it. But we have to learn the correct geometries, though that is one of the few cases being a dryad enhances your ability to learn them. We don¡¯t forget them once shown.¡°
Zewrepa looks at me like she finds something not quite right. What may that be? The lid pops open. A humanoid figure follows suit immediately. For a loose definition of humanoid. Humans don¡¯t have bat wings on an extra set of limbs or cute little horns at their temples or a tail ending in a classic heart shape. Nor are they red. The words Zewrepa was about to speak wilt on her tongue.
Either I am much more kinky than I thought, or she is not using her glamour.
She, her sex being obvious, for she is naked and hairless below her neck, steps closer but not too close to the barrier and speaks ?Melo I presume. I was told about you. Sharing fundamentally the same status I am glad to find you alive.
The rest of you I don¡¯t know but know of and I am also glad to find you alive and in your case, worldwalker, to find your soul alone inside the body you are inhabitating. Also thank you for not trapping me. My name is Leuma.¡°
That was ominous and disconcerting. The body you are inhabitating. What does she imply? But it is Zewrepa¡¯s task to negotiate.
Zewrepa starts into her personal tune to introduce herself, treating the succubus as a member of another clan. Her knowledge about succubi comes from the chorus. Hence it¡¯s a bit slower than personal experience, but much broader and just as sure. When dealing with humans she should use her glamour to assume human form, even if the group contains few or no members of the opposite sex. Something is off.
?Conditional on you swearing the same oath, for the duration of this negotiation what I say will be the truth and I will remove any misunderstanding about my words. My name is Zewrepa.¡° she begins.
The succubus licks her lips with her very pink tongue. Zewrepa notices that it has small grooves perpendicular to the way it extends, unlike her own tongue, which is smooth, and the dimply human tongues. This causes an odd sensation akin to restlessness. She responds.
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?Very well and conventional. In this case I want the oath from all of you with enough of the spark to make a proper oath.¡° She slightly tilts her hips and removes a strand of her midnight-black hair from her forehead.
Zewrepa looks at her companions and nods.
This is very, very interesting. I saw the words of the oath turning ino a mesh like pattern and embed themselves into Zewrepa¡¯s aura. Despite the distraction I get the clue and Melo, Anjali and I repeat the words of the oath.
Leuma says the words. Which leads me to a question. Which language is she speaking. For some reason I cannot recall the sound of her words. Anyway she is continuing without much of a pause ?From the setup I conclude that you want information, but not just information. So I suggest that we use a method of alternating questions. For freeing me you have the first question.¡° Zewrepa is not ready for that ?We need to be sure that the Atlantean shared with you more than his bed, before we reveal what we want to know.¡°. The laughter serving as a reaction manages to be clear like a bell and to be full of promise at the same time. I am feeling a certain stiffness. She concedes the point by saying ?You, save for the wizard, were intended for the fourfold sacrifice of attraction with enhancements. The Atlantean, whose name is Marental, as you know, took over the process by making a deal with a guardian spirit. Apparently the ritual completed earlier than expected, so you are all still here and alive. Now ask away.¡°
I cannot help myself ?What do you mean by the body I am inhabitating?¡° She looks directly at me for a few seconds before she answers ?The ritual is intended to to summon somebody. The Atlantean version, which uses additional inputs¡° - she gestures towards Zewrepa and Melo ¨C ?is different in that it can be applied to an incorporeal entity and forms it a body to inhabit. The patterns are a mixture of what the summoned entity supplies and the patterns the ritualist supplies. Your body shape is very close to the body Marental designed himself. He considered the ideal masculine shape to be broad and strong. He did not care what others think. Quite attractive an attitude.¡°
I feel very much of a physical attraction to her.
She continues ?In terms of blood and ancestry you are living inside a body between your brother and your nephew. Your face is still yours, if that helps. It needs to be to attract the summoned entity.¡°. I am stunned into silence. After a small pause Leuma asks her question ?What do you want me to do here?¡°. Zewrepa answers ?We need a way to optimally use Marental¡¯s stuff in order to survive the first winter of Fimbulwinter and prepare for the altered world.¡°
She continues ?How much of this base and the approaches to it do you know and understand?¡°
Leuma smiles ?He has kept the secrets of the Atlantean mana generation from me. Other than that I know the full facility and its environment.¡° She responds with an obvious question ?What do you have to offer?¡°
Zewrepa gives the obvious answer ?A share of everything we find here. A share of everything we produce. A lasting alliance after we will have left. And yes, we can supply you. We have the results of Marental sacrificing a whole village.¡°
Leuma looks at her and then everybody of us. ?You could have left my bottle in a chest and I would have never been found. You left me an exit to the plane of demons, should I prefer to seek out my own fate. Your offer is tempting, as you know. Marental risked his life for it. The problem is that Marental resealed the aperture to the void with even more of a barrier than originally existed. He had to virtually drain me to do so. I apologize for what I am about to do.¡°
Chapter 38 - exotic entertainment
My mouth goes dry. My special sight sees a kind of fog that spreads too fast for me to be sure of its origin. My robe is now very tight and it feels like it is cutting off my air. A sound escapes from Branislava¡¯s throat that makes me stop caring about the rest of the world.
Melo keeps pumping mana into the barricade, which grows in strength, albeit inefficiently. It has no effect. The aura of lust is rapidly filling the room. ?What is happening?¡°. The succubus looks at her with a mixture of expectation and regret. ?You really did think that Marental did not have a secondary way of controling you in case he needed to. His seal came with your food. He shared access with me. You personally have no reason to worry. In fact you will enjoy this. If you weren¡¯t a familiar, you would already be enjoying this. Give it a few more seconds.¡° She turns out to be right.
Anjali is on her knees, while she inflicts pain on herself with one hand, while the other is sneaking below her clothing, to distract herself and keep some self control. Her curse is engaging fully. Beyond fully. It feels like it is choking her.
After ten seconds the succubs turns to her. She engages her in talk. Anything to distract. The conflicting spells are driving her into a frantic state. Leuma speaks up. ?It won¡¯t block an influence coming from within yourself for long. Your desires will soon reign unimpeded.¡° Anjali almost spits out an answer ?I want my mind to rule and impede them.¡°
The demon averts her eyes ?I must. I am so hungry. Don¡¯t worry. This indirectly I cannot take enough to hurt you. But I must have lust. Your curse will in fact invert.¡° That stops Anjali¡¯s left hand. ?No, not in the middle of a war of the gods and a divine winter!¡°. Leuma smiles ?Don¡¯t worry. You will change your mind and going by whom your wizard is going for first he will protect you with his life.¡°. Anjali whimpers ?I know. But it should have been a concious decision.¡°. Leuma tilts her head ?I need the lust. I am so hungry that I could not even return to my plane without dooming myself. You won¡¯t bother afterwards. I sense a compulsion against resenment. That will invert, too. I would cooperate with you. I want to hurt my former owner¡¯s interests.¡°. Anjali lowers her head. ?I know all that. That makes it worse.¡°. She is beyond resisting.
I finish and drop to the ground besides Hildegard. Quite some parts of my body are sticky. Except that is my body only to a certain extent and my dried body fluid only to a certain extent. Best not to go there. There is also some blood on valuable parts of my body. At least they are valuable to me. I start healing. No wounds to heal. The blood isn¡¯t mine. This is going to be awkward, but that can wait.
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I am hearing a hungry baby¡¯s cries. I guess that has brought me out of my rut. I am impressed that I did all that I remember. Probably I should feel some kind of resentment. Well, I don¡¯t. First things first, though. Julia has been neglected.
The succubus is still here. She is in human form now. She could be Anjali¡¯s older and taller sister. I address her ?That is a surprise. Do you think we will cooperate with you after this?¡°. She looks me right in the eye ?Maybe. Don¡¯t tell me you didn¡¯t enjoy it. That would be dangerous. The oath is still active. I did what I had to do. It was literally vital to me. I also enjoyed it, but I had to do it.¡°. I frown ?Why didn¡¯t you ¡ I get it. It would have meant putting your life into our hands.¡° She nods. I continue ?That is not the way this ¡¡°. My magic cuts off my next words. The oath is active. She is unfortunately right. I am forced to say ?Now you are demonstrating again that we need you by using my own oath to admit to myself and to you that we may need you and that your ability to make us do an impromptu orgy already demonstrated that we need you.¡° I can stop myself from openly stating that she is clever, but I am sure she knows what I am thinking.
I am looking at Zewrepa for advice. She is engaged and produces a rumbling drone coupled with a hum exactly one octave higher and pulsed in a lively beat. I am not ready to rely on her mental faculties in that state. Well, if the leader is disabled, the second in command will have to take over her tasks. Unfortunately that is me whose experience in negotiation is presumably zero and whose logic drives him to accept an affront as a useful demonstration of their own inaptitude.
In fact some of my memories indicate they I used pills in a way they are not intended to be used. ObviouslyI am not stupid, but that does not make me competent in dealing with people, let alone a member of another species. My gaze wanders. Anjali is actually asleep, curled up in a fetal pose. Hildegard is leaning against a wall, her left hand splayed out and pressed against her stomach, her right hand kind of clenched next to her mouth. She meets my gaze and says ?Do what you have to do. Holding the castle is more important than our pride. Use any resource you can trust.¡° She is right, though there is an important question, so I ask ?What language are you speaking?¡° The succubus interupts us with ?My native language. You will retain it and in a few hours learn to use it intentionally.¡°
I frown and then raise an eyebrow ?You manipulated us. You manipulated Zewrepa into making you swear the oath right away. You turned truth into a weapon. And into a shield. You are testing me on whether I am driven by pride or cool calculation while I am unable to deceive you. Did you plan for me to make those deductions to prove your worth?¡° Her response is short ?Yes.¡°
I cannot help myself and laugh a short bitter laugh. ?Am I showing my qualities if I tell you to wait while we talk about this in private?¡°. She nods.
Chapter 39 - the old NDA still applies
Needing something to drink, I heat the water for the tea with my abilities without delay. Nobody is eager to speak. Branislava busies herself reheating leftovers. Anjali is sitting at the table, her elbows on the table and her face planted in them. Hildegard is periodically forming fists and biting her lower lip, as if wanting to speak, but lacking the courage.
Should I encourage her to speak? In terms of group cohesion and mental health I am pretty sure that I should. Unfortunately we have problems that are even more pressing. Apparently we were running around with magical back doors installed. I have to act on that.
?Now that we are here I just want to say that ¡¡°. I cannot go on. ?Are you allright?¡° Hildegard asks with some alarm. Anjali answers instead of me ?The promise is still working. You cannot say something that you consider a lie. Were you trying to say that you regret what happened?¡°
I inhale deeply and nod. She continues ?In your mind the negotiation is not over. That means you are considering taking up her offer. That is quite inconsiderate. And it means that the promise is kicking in for me as well.¡°
I try to calm myself and imagine myself saying what I intend to say. Yes, I can speak again. ?What happened shows to me that we don¡¯t know things that we need to know. Apparently Marental could have or even can still do things to us and ¨C much worse ¨C can give that ability to others in a way we cannot protect ourselves against. In fact, why are we still alive?¡°
Melo unfolds her arms and steps forward. ?In hindsight I should have suspected something. I literally must admit that. You do not live for thousands of years if you operate without failsafes. Still, Peregrine, he could not have killed you. You are the one of us who does not carry the seal. Incidentally I can feel that mine has been overloaded. It will fail into unusability within a few hours and then dissolve. He did not kill us who carry his seal because he feared you. He wanted to suffocate you. Killing the people who were using up your air supply would have made no sense.¡°
Branislava turns around ?The things she made us do ¡¡° She cannot meet our eyes. ?I am a married woman. This must not become known and must not repeat itself.¡° Zewrepa steps up to her familiar and answers ?We could never be sure that that seal was his last trap. It is a relief to know that Peregrinus recognizes our strategic shortfallings. I was quite certain that I would be unable to convince humans.¡°
Anjali¡¯s voice trembles ?You are not pregnant. At least probably. I doubt that the fertility magic will go that far.¡° Stunned silence follows her announcement. Zewrepa recovers first ?What do you mean? Why would a succubus use fertility magic?¡° Anjali lowers her eyes ?She did not directly use it. She triggered it by breaking my curse by brute force. Overwhelming a curse that way causes a backlash. In case of a combined and standardized curse the backlash applies to all effects and is broadcast.¡° Hildegard¡¯s eyes widen beyond what I would usually consider plausible given human physiology. Anjali makes an abortive step towards her, but then steps back. She almost pleads ?You might see me as having caused your problem. I cannot deny that in a certain sense I am. But I did not curse myself.¡°
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I am a shocked. Them being pregnant is obviously monumentally important. Unfortunately it makes my concerns over our safety even more pressing. And it means that if we are to move away from here, we¡¯ll need to do it, before they experience much impediment. I also need to get, well at least this discussion back under control. The general situation has slipped out of my grip. ?I think we need clarity on this curse. What was it, who applied it and why?¡°
Melo puts her hand on Hildegard¡¯s shoulder to keep her quiet.
Anjali presses her palms onto the table. ?I keep forgetting how much you don¡¯t know and I should ask some questions now. But anyway, no wizard or sorcerer can allow other mages access to his children inside a woman with even the slightest trace of the spark. There is too much of a magical connection, even leaving out the emotional aspect or blackmail. Hence we ¨C that is those who serve wizards in that capacity - are subject to a form of contraception that is technically a curse, as it contains a physical component, namely infertility, not just a compulsion to not allow anybody to mess with the spell, mention it, if it has happened anyway, and to not want to get pregnant, so that the compulsion does not wear off due to resistance.¡°
Hildegard raises her voice a bit ?What does that have to do with a lust effect?¡° Anjali looks her directly in the eyes and answers in a controlled voice ?Many men enjoy power, although quite a number also likes to pretend to be helpless. That includes the power to determine when the women they are with will feel lust or desire, to either deny it or impose it. Succubi are a popular extra to be booked. The effect they have on us, well, entertainers is specifically bound to permission. She had to overcome that for her aura to work. We, the women here, shared the same seal. You affect all or none of us by the rules of sympathetic magic. And again, I was compelled to accept that state of affairs, so I could not mention it. And, for reasons of cost, the spell is applied in a combined manner and also in a standardized manner so that customers can trivially verify it. Almost all wizards are quite suspicious.¡°
Hildegard shrinks away and in a broken voice she says ?This is so fucked up. I know this is insane. Yet I want to protect my baby by all means. This is wrong.¡° She wraps her arms around herself and cries soundlessly. Branislava pushes a cup of tea into her hands. Having done so, her head peaks up and she asks ?Why can I understand her?¡°
Anjali again answers ?A side effect of the bond. We have all learned each other¡¯s languages, at least the mother tongues. Usually it is temporary, but if the bond has been applied for hours it becomes permanent.¡°
Zewrepa sounds a harmonic polyphone hoot followed by a sound like a bell ringing. ?I am not a placental. I cannot claim to understand what pregnancy means to you. But we have a demon whose expertise we need waiting in the basement for our decision. I must tell you that we just cannot afford to let her go. As all the loot we have gotten is useless if we die, I propose that I go down to her and make a temporary agreement with her. Does anybody object?¡°
I do not like that she is railroading us, but I must admit it. She is right. She leaves for the basement.
Hildegard¡¯s head pops up. ?So you have decided. Having councils is well and good, but in the end somebody has to decide. But I need to know. And screw the consequences. So while you must tell the truth: What will you do with us and the children?¡°
She got me by surprise and I ignore everybody else in the room drawing in a sharp breath. She is also right. It feels almost as if somebody else is saying the words with me ?I will do whatever it takes to protect both of you and the children. If I have to depopulate a town, I will do so.¡°
Chapter 40 - not yet ready for signing
I am taking a shower. I have given in to convinience rather than curiosity and dared use the cleaning spell on myself. That did instill the confidence to try more on me in me. Hence I am now featuring a full shock of hair again. Yet magical cleaning does not make me feel fully clean. Nor does it induce the mental effects of being inundated with warm water.
There are traditional reactions to getting a woman pregnant. I am even confident that either of the women in question would have agreed to a delayed wedding feast given the reality of Ragnar?k. Would they agree to the wedding itself? Do they have a choice? I am pretty confident that by answering the last question in the negative and not caring about it I am finding out interesting things about myself. Again I know that at home admitting that would have been a major social breach, but I don¡¯t know why. It must have been a nice place. Ill people got a bed in a hospital. Indeed it must be a much juster place. I should have noticed earlier that none of my companion said anything about the legal consequences of any of the bad stuff that has been happening here. It looks like I am pretty much above the law, as long as I don¡¯t anger another wizard or too many powerful people.
But I am not dealing with either of them. I am dealing with both of them. The traditional reaction assumes that you have gotten one woman pregnant.
Neither do they assume that you find it necessary to ally with a succubus. Nor is just paying alimony, however generous ¨C I can make a precious metal - an option. Not during Ragnar?k. You cannot eat aluminium by whatever name they call it, though technically you can heat your home with it. An attempt to sell it would turn them into targets of outright robbery or attempted extortion. They¡¯d need powers or an armed escort. Armed men, however, need to eat. If I make even more ?mithril¡°, they¡¯ll attract the attention of even more powerful people. Catch-22. And, again obviously, who¡¯d watch the watchmen? Depopulating a town may become a reality as opposed to a term of rhethoric hyperbole. I suppose that was the reason I could say it. No, if they want to live they¡¯ll have to stay with me and in these lands death is real enough that people will not put freedom over survival. They don¡¯t have to like it, though, and that is a real problem if I want to have a comfortable life.
Could I kick the succubus out after a short term? The problem with kicking out people who know a lot about you is also obvious. There is also an obvious traditional solution to that issue, but she must know that and is still here. The familar feeling of almost remembering comes back. What is a TV series?
This line of thought has killed my shower mood. I no longer need a towel to dry myself. I snort at the thought that I do still put my clothes on conventionally. Maybe I could restore the older state of me wearing them. But my posture would not be the same. I dare not try this out.
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I need to find out what deal Zewrepa has gotten out of the succubus whom I better start thinking of as a person with a name.
Anjali is meditating. Maintaing resentment at being unable to resent something is not, strictly speaking, a contradiction, hence the curse won¡¯t outright prevent it. But it makes it hard. Nor is resentfulness helpful in meditation. She knows, but does not admit to herself, that she will ultimately fail. That does not stop her. If such considerations could stop her she should kill herself right now because she does not have enoug magic to achieve immortality.
Her eyes open. If she cannot maintain resentment, she¡¯ll have to make the most of the time she can keep it for.
It turns out that Zewrepa has been looking for me. ?Good news?¡° I ask. She produces a melody of two tones exactly an octave apart. Then she replies ?If I personally were making a deal, I¡¯d have made it. However, the condition demands something from you. I need to speak to you about it.¡°. That does not sound good. Something drives me to make a joke ?Does she want my soul?¡°. Zewrepa answers ?Not your soul. She wants you and me to help her slaughter a nearby village for their souls.¡°
Fate has a sense of humor I would very much approve of if I weren¡¯t the object of its jokes. I thank Zewrepa ?Thank you for coming to me. I think we better talk to her together. Should we limit this to only the two of us?¡° Zewrepa produces a tone like metal pipes hitting a stone floor ?We are the fighters. Our lives and our honor are at stake. You are wise to seek council to widen your knowledge. But your claws are attached to your arm.¡°. ?Yet you told me that you¡¯d take the deal.¡° I respond. A low tone as from a wooden flute diminishing in volume ?And mine are attached to my arm. I am a warrior for hire. I am more eager to take a deal which pays with my life instead of a deal for fame and silver. I took deals for fame and silver.¡° I agree with her ?That makes sense. But don¡¯t the others have honor, too?¡°. Zewrepa stops in order to reply ?Not in that matter. Matters of claw and armor are for those who have wielded them for the clan. You are in command. I am second. One voice must speak in this matter. I must indeed state my opinion on matters like this to you very clearly. Using them is a matter for the lead singeress, so that the choir sings at the same tempo.¡°
That matter seems very important and her reasoning makes a lot of sense. Even if I am referred to as a singeress. Does her language even have a male equivalent? So I respond ?I understand. If we really have no choice, I am inclined to take her offer. I will try to offer her a larger share of the sacrificial spikes first, though. And I am worried about the reaction of the others. We are living together.¡°
Zewrepa is content and surprised of her tolerance. She has gone and said it. A man is lead singer. A strange word form to even make, even though the rules of grammar are clear. He has even independent thoughts. She cannot comment on their validity. They are not her kind.
She judges it better to let him find out about the spikes by himself. He is still just a man.
Chapter 41 - negotiating the rates
Hildegard is erasing yet another draft. How do you tell your parents in a letter your father¡¯s overlord, who was to be your father-in-law, and his court wizard are going to relay and read that you participated in an orgy including demons, are thus no longer a virgin and are now with child? She has been trained in polite courtly conversation and in the art of writing concise and clear reports. She is beginning to suspect that her tutor, who insisted that with enough training anything can be said politely, suffered from a lack of imagination and experience. Of course an experienced tutor, at least with that kind of experience would not have been hired in any noble family, even if her family could afford a tutor with any kind of experience.
She gets up and starts pacing. The deed is done. She does not know how the integrity spell works, yet while a bride¡¯s failure to be a virgin may be overlooked, demonic influence or a previous pregnancy would not be, let alone a child.
Most parents among the nobility, in fact usually mothers, do not hesitate to explain these facts to their daughters and invariably the more rebellious girls ¨C in her case a cousin on her mother¡¯s side ¨C offer money or other incentives to some wizard¡¯s assistant to circumvent the spell only to learn that while conception can be prevented and virginity can be restored with specialised magic, which might fool a later testing spell, tempering with an active spell invariably leaves evidence. The kind of involvement of the assistant in that case in fact leaves no doubt in her mind that he was extremely motivated to circumvent the spell. While a failure to be a virgin just lowered the bride price, the assistant had had the presence of mind to quickly relocate, correctly concluding that the overlooking would not extend to him.
She sure did a lot more than her cousin. Enjoying it. Enjoying things that were supposed to be enjoyable. That¡¯s why they are forbidden. You don¡¯t need to forbid something nobody would ever do. But also enjoying things that are not natural.
And she sure did enjoy them.
She puts the stylus and the tablet down with more force than strictly necessary. She is angry. Angry to be reduced to a state akin to a victim. A Rabenstein may be defeated, but they are not victims. To somebody who is acted upon and merely reacts to events beyond any control. Whom should she be angry at? The succubus? She is, but she remembers telling Peregrino to do whatever it takes to hold the castle. She squeezes her eyes shut. The memories stay.
Including the memory of her father telling her of the marriage proposal. In theory she could have refused. In theory. Had she ever been in control of her own life? Sigmundr will eventually inherit when the gods will finally have mercy on the breathing vegetable that is the duke¡¯s son. That answers her unvoiced question.
Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!Her fist slams into the desk. She sits still. A single shake runs through her body.
Leuma has abandoned human form. I guess that means that the negotiation will now be purely business. She does not wait for me to say something and asks a question herself ?Do you understand the principle behind the ritual that summoned you?¡° ?Only in the most basic way. Sexual attraction is used to entice a summoned entity and the sacrifice powers the ritual.¡° I answer. She smiles. Even in the form that could be Beelzebub¡¯s hot sister that is enticing. I start wondering whether I need therapy. She adds ?And the four stages of womanhood present allow life to restart. Usually you use that for rejuvenation or healing. But you are correct. Tell me what you overlooked!¡°. Her order works. I grimace ?Yes, why Zewrepa and Melo. He could have substituted all those spikes. So a stored human sacrifice is not equivalent to a fresh sacrifice.¡°. How can the movement of a tail have an arousing effect on a human being? We don¡¯t have tails. Gaining some time to consider implications I slowly rub my chin with my hand.
I continue ?Now you will tell me how I can stay in control given the level of superiority you just demonstrated.¡° ?No¡° her retort is simple. I just make a questioning gesture with my right hand. She smiles and replies ?You are wise and old enough to know that you don¡¯t know enough to be in control, even if your body is young. You can be in command. I will swear to respect that. But you will have to learn. I will also swear to not lie to you. Yet I will inevitably be the power behind the throne for a time.¡°
I hesitate for several long moments and ask ?How well do you know me and how did you learn that?¡° Her laughter is like sunshine filtering through a palm tree¡¯s crown and black lace. ?You are a man. I am a succubus. You are also similar to Marental in a way. You have to be, or his soul could not overwrite yours. You wish to be appreciated in private but you do not care for fame.¡°. She makes a meaningful pause ?And, if it really counts, you will do whatever it may take, even if that is not a feat of heroism but making a deal.¡°. I raise an eyebrow.
She goes on ?Yes, I know that you also have limits. As I said, you are a man. I appreciate men. Can you guess?¡°. I respond ?I do not want to guess.¡° Her smile broadens and she says ?Very good. Only the men. We spare the women and children.¡°
The tip of her tongue protrudes between her lips. Is she that good an actress or is she really nervous? It does not matter. I nod.
She turns into human form and asks Zewrepa ?Will Melo and you join us?¡°
Hildegard is a Rabenstein. Truth. Loyalty. Courage. That is thus her motto. She has told her liege lord something that is not true. She has to correct it. In theory she could have refused the offer. She will now make the option real. She chuckles as she drafts a formal letter of dissolution claiming a lack of virginity of the bride as the cause for breaking off the betrothal.
Chapter 42 - external requests
I am confirming that Zewrepa is not a member of the monotremata by visual and lingual inspection. She is, however, a member of a rock band. She is the lead guitarist. And the guitar. And the amplifier. And the loudspeakers.
Though there are interesting differences. She has retractable dermal scutes over sensitive areas.
Hildegard is not ready for that sight. She is a member of a warrior caste, which lives according to a ruthless practicality. They know that in a world where men have easy acces to mistresses, which might not even have to be human, you cannot wholy depend on the hope that young people will figure it out on their own. The books used to inform on those topics did certainly not depict a man entertaining two female demons, one of whom in turn pleasured another lady, though they did mention that some men find it interesting to have more than one woman present.
Truth be told, she has wondered what the racket that seemed to be a harsher and faster verion of the music a bard might play at a midsummer dance after the older, more dignified people have retired signifies. Now she knows. Still the rhythm is strong enough to make her tap her right foot. She is turning red, but still she watches for long seconds, before she turns and rushes out quite fast. Nobody reacts in a visible manner to her and she does not notice, let alone is able to interpret the tip of the tail and the side lobes of the grasping appendage at the end of the tail of a succubus moving in opposite directions.
The animated messenger spell can wait.
R¨¹diger von Rabenstein is an aristocrat. That precludes showing hope, surprise and relief together, for it would imply worry. A count does not worry, he identifies dangers and acts accordingly. Thus he shows no emotion at all and bids the runner having alarmed him to the demon¡¯s arrival to go for his wife.
Whatever the summoned creature is delivering is worth interrupting his wife for. He takes his token off his key ring. The creature looks like an exceptionally hairy bat and a lizard have known one another in an unnatural way. The count cannot read the foreign script covering the the token. The demon¡¯s head is swaying on its long neck. He grips it with his other hand holding it still on its short chain. The demon becomes still. After half a minute the demon drops the pouch strapped to its belly, hisses and flies off. R¨¹diger shivers. It must be due to the cold wind on the tower whose roof is marked with an arcane symbol.
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I find myseld nicely flanked by two pretty demonesses. They are playing with my just recently regenerated chest hair, which is blond again. Zewrepa is producing a sweet melody that sounds like a guitar or a ukulele. I chuckle. ?This is not the way I have been instructed to conduct negotiations.¡°. Leuma¡¯s hand goes up to bop my nose and she says ?Get used to it. Prepare for more. I am a succubus. You ought to have made deductions about my magic techniques.¡°. That leads me to a question ?Not that I regret founding two families in a manner you are involved, but are we interfertile?¡°. She laughs ?Technically I am a sex demon, not a demon of lust and that includes all functions of sex, we three are all demons and hence we are not a fertile coupling with a human. Strictly speaking you are not fully human anymore, but this part Marental hasn¡¯t changed.¡°. I cannot help but tense hearing that. She picks up on that and her voice becomes soothing ?You are still adjusting and most of your modifications are purely biological, there is a bit of dragon in your muscles, bones and senses. You¡¯ll adjust to it. Marental did not tell me details. I know about the dragon parts only because he complained about the cost of preserved dragon blood from a willing donor. Being a tiny bit like a dragon isn¡¯t bad, is it?¡°
Uta von Rabenstein is enjoying the privacy he husband inadvertedly created. Hearing from her eldest child outweighs her initial disappointment at not getting the specialized medical potions they have been waiting for. She rereads the message. ?Can we respond?¡° Her husband takes the question as a desire for confirmation although she knows the schedule as well as he does ?The next delivery of fish will depart the day after tomorrow. We can include a reply.¡° Her husband hesitates, then continues ?We owe her the truth, even if the news is depressing. She is no longer a child.¡°
Chapter 43 - communication established
It looks like a snowflake would look if it were turned into a 3D object by rotating it and turning the resulting surface into a puddle with a thin film of oil on its surface. I catch myself moving my hand a little bit to touch it, before my usual dilligence kicks in. Touching strange magical lights, especially those trapped in a recess of the cave wall lined with active runes is a bad idea. Marental put that in for a reason. Not necessarily a reason friendly to me, but it is even more of a reason not to stick my hand in there.
Still it is almost whispering to me. ?What is that? It is incredibly beautiful.¡° I speak with a subdued voice. Hildegard responds ?I see only a yellow light. Like a standard magical message.¡°. Melo speaks up ?It is addressed to him personally. It triggers his magical senses, which are apparently better than mine, even if he does not intentionally activate his sight. If he does not know the spell, I can convert it to the message. So can Zewrepa or Leuma.¡° ?No. Especially not Leuma¡° I interject. Hildegard is tilting her head towards me. Leuma keeps her voice remarkably neutral ?Don¡¯t you trust me?¡° I shake my head ?This is not a matter of trust. Though this message is most likely intended for Hildegard. Marental is a crafty wizard. You surely have a safety feature you don¡¯t know about. I certainly do not want you to cast spells on anything trapped by runes Marental has made. In fact I would prefer you not cast any spells on anything inside this cave.¡°. She smiles. Yet another test. This woman manages to annoy me and make me admire her by the same act. Melo offers to do a dry casting of the conversion spell.
Your Dilligence, my dearest Hildegard, your message came as a joyous surprise. Obviously I have passed it on to your family. The land is full of goblins, trolls and worse spawn of Loki and Fenrir, so waiting for a response has not been feasible. Hence it is my sad duty to inform you that your fiance has found an honorable death on the field of battle with his sword in his hand. May he make his name resound in Valhalla. Unfortunately your brother has been griveously wounded in the same battle. We are awaiting the delivery of specialised potions so that he may walk again. Your father¡¯s standard flies above his castle and is busy salvaging as much of the harvest as possible. We are both preparing for a siege, so I cannot promise a secure line of communication. Nevertheless if you discover new information about the attack, let us know. I regret to inform you that neither I nor you father as far as I know have any allies with guest rights to call upon in the area you have found yourself. Esteemed adept, I thank you for defending my ally¡¯s daughter. Unfortunately I see no way for us to effectively stand together beyond sharing our experience during this hard time. Signed: Ingmar of South Bothnia
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The message concluded with a complicated diagramm which we are making paper copies of after reading the message out aloud to Hildegard. She esponds with a strained laughter. ?It seems I am no longer engaged. I was about to formuate a formal letter of renounciation on grounds of a lack of virginity of the bride. I am sorry. Excuse me for now.¡°. She turns around and rushes out.
Uta von Rabenstein enters her son¡¯s chamber finding him playing chess with her younger daughter Gerda. ?Your sister has survived. She has found an ally and escaped the wizard who had abducted her.¡° Her daughter almost spills the chess board on the floor, as jumps out of her chair ?What has happened? How do you know.¡° Her brother¡¯s voice is warm, taking the sting out of his words ?Self control, little sister. Mother will surely explain. This is fantastic news and the details while interesting don¡¯t matter as much.¡°
I am feeding Julia. Does this message matter? I am afraid not. I might ask Hildegard¡¯s parents for advice. But the guy whose nephew¡¯s bride to be I have impregnated is listening in. It is possible that he is happy to have her out of his hair, lest he have to support a useless widow, but I am not ready to depend on that. I know nothing about those people. I don¡¯t know him.
It is time for sword training.
Chapter 44 - collecting deliveries
I have been woken up at midnight. It turns out that I can take an adult with me when I teleport. It just took a succubus to confirm that to me that that is what most teleporters can do and to volunteer for the first ?jaunt¡°. I am tempted to let that distract me from what we are about to do by wondering what else I am missing due to caution. But no, if you do mass murder, you should concentrate on it, just for practical considerations.
The village has a wooden pallisade and a gatehouse made from stone. They even have two people on watch. They are rotating every few minutes. Given the temperature I can understand why they are doing so. They are even doing patrols of the palisade at irregular intervals. But they have a fire place in the gatehouse. Again, totally understandable, given the temperature. Nevertheless, the one just stepping outside has ruined his night vision.
Are they wearing armor? They do have helmets. It wouldn¡¯t protect them from a lightning bolt or a fireball, but that would mean giving up any chance of a stealthy entry. And that is true only if we leave magic aside. I can see the magic on Marental¡¯s armor and sword I am wearing at a distance greater than this. I am not ready to take this as a definitive answer. I will go for the neck.
Zewrepa nods. I jaunt and strike. I have severed his spine from behind. He went down without uttering a sound, dead before he hit the ground. Yet his helmet still makes a sound as it hits the ground. I stand still, as still as I can. I am listening for movement. I hear my heartbeat and the blood rushing through my ears. At least nobody calls for the dead man or yells out an alarm. I check him for armor. I can even hear the little drips as I use the sword¡¯s magic cleaning before I sheath it. My heart is beating very fast. I put the loop on the end of the rope over a merlon and throw it over the edge. Compared to a helmet it is silent and I am too hyped to be slow. Besides I want a weapon to be ready as soon as possible.
I don¡¯t wait for my accomplices to get up here, but take a few steps onto the wooden part of the wall to meet the guard on patrol a bit away from the gate house, while I take the crossbow from my back and put a quarrel onto it. I don¡¯t have to wait long. The second guard isn¡¯t wearing armor either. He grunts as he goes down. Again I strain to listen.
Zewrepa puts an upper hand on my shoulder and repeats the plan ?You stay up here and watch for movement, while we two go down and open the gate. Don¡¯t forget to look both ways. We go from house to house. You just watch until you here a commotion or see people gathering. If that happens you set a few houses on fire and give fire support. Stay in the air unless you have to land.¡°
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I am taking a shower. I don¡¯t feel dirty in a figurative sense. I have been sweaty and my hair smelled of smoke. That should worry me. Instead I felt powerful. I would like to feel a grim, manly determination to do whatever it take to protect me and mine. I felt that on the way to that village. On the way back, which took some time in the darkness because the wards prevent me from teleporting close to the cave, I felt emptiness. But during the slaughter I enjoyed the power.
There is a sound behind me. I whirl around. Hildegard smiles with approval and says ?Do you want to talk about it?¡° My hands move down a bit to cover certain parts, before I stop myself half way. She nods and comments ?A bit late for that. I appreciate the concern. Yet we cannot pretend that nothing happened between us.¡°. I shut the shower off and dry myself, reaching a blanket serving me as a house robe. I fumble putting it on. In a soft voice she says ?Take your time. It does affect you. It affected my brother.¡°. I manage a questioning gruntlike noise. ?He was sent out to defend our fishing rights. They executed a fishing crew in retaliation. He kept looking around for weeks after that.¡° she says. ?I expected disgust. Instead I got a feeling of power. I am not saying that I enjoyed it. But I liked the feeling that I could do that with impunity.¡° I reply. Maybe my diction was a bit faster than normal. She nods ?Formally you are not nobility, but there is no point in denying that you are a High Adept in capability, even if not formally so. You are superior. In a lot of people finding satisfaction in demonstrating it this way would worry me. Not in you.¡°. I look at her questioning. She goes on ?The infant. It was odd. It is odd. Not bad, but odd.¡°. In an uneven voice I reply ?I think there has been an incident with a child in my past. But I absolutely will continue to care for her. Tactically speaking I think it is even an advantage. I¡¯d rather be underestimated.¡°
She quotes ?It is good for you to know more about your enemy than he knows about himself. It is even better for you if he thinks that the inverse is true.¡° ?That sounds like a quote.¡° I say. ?It is. I am prepared for warfare, mostly indirectly. That includes taking care of the mind and mood of .. of my future husband.¡° she explains. Quickly her head turns to me and she continues ?I know that it is not that simple. I do not wish to presume.¡° Her hand covers her lower belly for a moment. Her look at me turns into a stare and her jaw tightens a bit ?But we, all three of us, will have to talk about this. I understand that during Ragnar?k formalitities have to be abandoned.¡°. She shakes her head and goes on ?By all rights I should be in formal mourning. This is no longer just our problem in the most fundamental way possible.¡° I laugh. She makes a sound of indignation. I lexplain ?I never thought that I would begin a new live in another universe and start it by becoming an archmage, a warlord and opening a nursery.¡°. She looks at me with indignation but a twinkle in her eyes wins. ?Yes, that is ridiculous. However, we need to work on your decorum. And your swordsmanship.¡°
Chapter 45 - checking the methods of delivery
I am tired, but I cannot find rest. That is probably good. I don¡¯t want to mess up my sleep pattern too much. I guess some people would now advice me to seek inner peace by self reflection, possibly aided by artistic expression. I am not going to do interpretative dance or creative pottery. For some reason I harbour a deep aversion against that.
Yes, some Greek wise man told us that introspection is of supreme importance, so that we know ourselves, while another great philosopher told us that small men talk about people, average men about facts and great men about ideas. I may be a wizard, but I am still people. Now what is it? That is not profound; it is just contradictory. I have magic to explore, that is special. I am pretty sure that I count as special in this world, but that is so precisely because I wield sorceries. I better go explore them.
If I understand my memories correctly, I have seven basic sorceries. Can I combine them? My growing inability to tell my sorceries apart with my magical sense very much suggests so. Knowing my combinatorics that would give me twenty one dual sorceries. Systematically investigating that in depth could take years. Eventually I should do so. Right now that is a bad idea. The world is ending. How would you even combine sorceries like fire and life? I will not spend weeks just to find out how to conjure a self-frying egg. Now if I could summon a tame dragon, well that would change the situation. But as far as I know I cannot conjure a live animal.
I have noticed that the sorceries I picked are more concrete. Air is a substance; perception is a process. The exception is the sorcery of spellcraft. Hence I pick that and the fundamentals of spells to investigate today. I am currently using it as far as I can tell. My wards are based on it. I also used it to undo Marental¡¯s spells. That ability saved our lives. I should keep developing it. Yet it is also fairly specialized. If your enemies come at you swinging axes with an intent to seperate your head from the rest of your body breaking spells won¡¯t help you. Breaking enemies would do the job. I have no problem in the lethality department though. If you come close enough to me I have an impressive number of ways of hurting you: electrocution, immolation, poison, sabotaging your metabolism, outright telling your body to die or making you vanish. I suppose I could learn to make images so hideous that my enemies kill themselves rather than look at them, but that would be a waste of time.
I need range, rate of fire and sustained fire.
I create a small tiny fireball over the palm of my hand. By the feel of it I can keep this thing going for days. A regular sized fireball is not as pleasant, but I could still keep it running for many minutes. I am supplying it with mana, though. Let¡¯s cut that supply. Yes, it goes out within a few seconds. But it does go on for a time. Can I simply pump in more energy? My first attempts make hotter or larger fireballs. Having a ball of plasma shining brightly blue a few decimeters over my palm overstrains my new wards. This hurts. Eventually I find a way. But it doesn¡¯t do much good. The relationship between mana supplied and the life time of a fireball is highly non linear. This is frustrating. I have hit a dead end.
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Well, if I cannot get more time, than I have to make more out of the time I get. I need to make the fireballs faster. This needs experimentation. At least I have learned how to make smaller and cooler fireballs for safe experimentation. I can make the fireballs faster, but I run into a similar issue. The mana requirements rise in a superlinear fashion. And even worse, there is a hard upper limit.
My time sense informs me that it is not yet dinner time, though I am hungry, having skipped lunch.
I start pacing around. Some people think better sitting still. I am not among them.
What is fire? A mixture of hot gases and plasma with a peculiar chemistry. Free radicals and stuff.
I can shroud my hand in a spell that heats up stuff around it and I can wreath it in flame. The results looks different visually as well as to my mana sight. Can I form a ball out of the heating spell? Yes I can. Can I throw it? No. It winks out immediately. I cut its power. It runs out of mana at once. In fact I am not sure it survives on its own at all. I redo the effort to put more energy into it without more effects. That turns out to be easier. Is that because I know what I am doing? Impossible to tell.
Can I throw this one? No. The result is bizarre. It just stops within a few decimeters, as I cut the connection to my hand, just as I do when I throw a fireball. My spells have almost no inertia but they are affected by friction. But then why can I throw a fireball? Is it using the inertia of something else? Or can I actually conjure inertia? Does that even make sense? There is time for a few more experiments before dinner time. Can I modify my heat spell to follow the air? Yes, but it rips itself apart. Hot air rises in a turbulent way. It is time to revisit my decision. I can control air. Yep, that works and it makes a throwable heat ball, which is slowed down rapidly by the ambient air. Ok, that makes sense. Air just does not have a lot of mass to provide inertia.
That just means that I am impractical. If I can control air, why do I need inertia? I can just tell the air what to do. That also works, but as it reaches a certain distance it unravels. I need to check this out. Yes, it is the same distance my lightning bolts can cover. I am sure this has profound implications. Now if I just understood them. Dinner time. I head back inside.
Chapter 46 - planning meetings
I find Hildegard teaching Zewrepa how to season fish stew she is stirring. Branislava is sitting on the bench with a cushion behind her lower back, making her lean back. Melo is sitting next to her looking her over. I lay a hand on her forehead. She flinches a little, but she does no longer tense up. ?You are healthy, just exhausted. You were inadequately fed as a child. Twins put quite a strain on a pregnant woman¡¯s body, which in your case is a bit weak. You just need more rest.¡° I inform her, while I ponder the consequences. We cannot leave this place if that means having to walk within the next four months or so. I need to investigate my teleportation and figure out a way to boost my range. And I need to talk to Leuma about our security. Even if Marental would not return, could he sell the location of this base? I ask my companions about her.
Zewrepa answers ?She is digesting her catch. That is necessary for her kind after such a feast. And before you ask, Anjali showed up, claim some fruit and then returned to her room.¡° Gesturing with a lower hand to Branislava she goes on ?I am glad not to be a placental. Your own reproduction disables you for a long time. That is ludicrous.¡° Branislava looks at her with a silent question. It is answered ?We lay eggs. And yes, that egg takes the same amount of resources as one of your hatchlings for the same size. But it takes only five days to assemble. After that it is well protected in its nest and we are ready to fight and hunt again.¡°
I give her a smile intended to reassure her. It seems like her fear of me is gone. That is nice but those who know most about magic are not here. I am quite hungry. I suppose a sensitive man would find it impossible to eat after slaughtering half a village. No. The gods of this world have triggered Fimbulwinter. Though while I savor the potatoes I cannot escape the inevitable conclusion. I would have done it anyway. I will do what it takes.
Hildegard smiles and mentions ?Enjoy the potatoes. We¡¯ll soon run out of them.¡° That raises a point. Potatoes come from South America. We are in Europe. I know next to nothing about the history of this world. You learn stuff by asking; so I take my own advice ?By the way, when were potatoes introduced to Europe?¡°. Branislava looks at me oddly. Hildegard answers ?About a thousand years ago, when the Saxons still held the lands between the Franks and the Varmlanders, who sailed across the Western Ocean and traded for them. It took a few hundred years for them to become popular. So after the Hungarians invaded but before the Great Glorious War.¡°. My confusion must be painted on my face. She continues ?I am sorry, but this will take some explanations.¡° I hastily waive her off ?That would be interesting, but history will have to wait until I get answers to questions about magic. I fear that if I have to find answers to my general questions by myself, it will be too late.¡° Melo looks at me and asks ?Are you making observations on magic?¡°. I reply ?More experiments rather than observations. For example today I tried to make better fire balls, but I hit a range limit.¡° Melo makes a flittering gesture with her left hand ?I have little training in the foundations of wizardry, but that is probably an elementary issue. You tried to do magic beyond your aura without an anchor.¡° I am afraid the perplexed facial expression will become permanent. Melo tries to save my face from my ignorance. ?Mages have an aura. As you are human as opposed to a dryad or a demon, you have no inherent way of expanding or controlling yours. So if you want to do magic to objects outside your aura range, you¡¯ll have to create an anchor or use an existing anchor.¡°. I reply ?So you do not have that issue?¡°. She imitates the gesture Zewrepa sometimes makes with her shoulders when she answers in the negative ?In principle I do. Everybody does. But in the right environments - those that I can claim or that are good for my alignment - I can extend my aura a lot. So it does not matter nearly as much.¡° ?You can claim environments?¡° I respond with little understanding. She replies ?So can you. Again, everybody can, though for you, being human, it is harder and much less useful. I am afraid I cannot tell you much more. Marental would not teach his servants how he overcomes limitations, lest they gain a means to resist or interfere with those methods.¡°
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That was wise of him. Quite inconvinient for me, but his reasoning looks sound to me. One of the things I like about my companions is that they know when I prefer to be left to my thoughts. I can create material objects. I have conjured the cucumbers in the soup we are just eating. Do I need to do that at all? Should I just throw a stone or a snow ball at my enemies? Then it hits me. We have crossbows. Though one thing pricks my mind. ?Why then did he tell you about anchors?¡°
Zewrepa¡¯s sigh sounds like the discordant noise you get when you just punch the keyboard of a piano. ?Even I know that. It is so basic. Suppose you are retreating inside a buiding. You use a locking spell on a door behind you. The point is retreating. Letting the spell unravel when you leave would make it useless. So you anchor it to the lock. This is so basic that many mages do it instictively or develop the method on their own as novices.¡°
Anjali bids me enter after I¡¯ve knocked. She sits on the floor in a meditative pose. I am ready to apeace her with exotic fruit. Her face is neither angry nor happy as I enter and put the fruit on the table she indicates. ?Are you well?¡° I ask. Her voice is carefully neutral. ?Yes, I am. As is the child.¡° ?The child. That is a cool way to refer to our daughter.¡° ?You can tell that? I want to stay emotionally detached.¡° she reads my face like a book and continues ?I am not angry at her or you. I am angry because I have lost my voice.¡° She unfolds herself with admirable limberness, proceeding to stand up not using her arms.
I use the opportunity to get a hard remark in. No use sugarcoating anything with her ?Nobody has a voice among us. At best we choose through which swamp we trudge forward. Usually we just react.¡°. I leave out the worst case as it would mean our death.
She tilts her head. ?I have to agree. We owe our lives to unborn twins. You kept us alive after that.¡°. She pauses. ?I was a slave. A whore.¡° Again she reads my face. ?Yes, I did come to you out of calculation. Don¡¯t be sad. I didn¡¯t have to overcome a deep reluctance. I came to you by choice. That is the difference. Even if I would never have taken the alternate options. I felt like I had escaped. I was no longer property.¡° I cannot let that stand ?You are hardly property now.¡°. She raises an eyebrow ?Then what am I? A mother and a concubine? Don¡¯t answer that.¡° Her outstretched hand keeps me silent. She continues ?I understand that my position is partially born out of unwarranted hopes. But they were my hopes. I cannot just let that slide.¡°
What do you respond to that? I try ?What are we to do now?¡° Her gaze goes down to the floor ?I don¡¯t know¡°.
I don¡¯t need light to see after a fashion. So I track through the gloom of sunset to get out of the teleport wards so that I return to the cheese place for weapons testing, a crossbow slung across my back.
Chapter 47 - tea time
I think I¡¯ll get used to teleporting very quickly once I¡¯ll have moved to a domicile that allows it at home. I set down slightly outside the walls. I do maintain that I did what I had to do. But I have no desire to permanently watch the results. I am here for science in the service of violence.
First things first. My basic idea is to find a way to deliver magic harm at greater range in an unusual way, as my enemies are likelier to be able to counter the usual ways. For that to work I cannot degrade myself in the key areas of lethality and rate of fire. I can make do with less sustained fire, as I hope to use my new tools to be created to advance or flee.
I use the lever to draw the string back. This is easier than I thought. That worries me a bit. I take a good hard look at this state with my perception abilities. Then I pull the trigger and the string is released without a projectile to propel forward. I study this state a bit less hard. Then I go for restauration. It works. The string moves back and locks itself in place, ready to fire, if I provide ammunition.
I retrieve a bale of hay from the semidestroyed shed to use it as a target. Then I go to the second stage of my weapons test. I anchor two components of my flight spell on a quarrel, the weight reduction spell and the spell for reducing wind drag. I send the quarrel towards the bale. That reveals a major flaw with my plan. I suck at shooting magic crossbows. I miss the bale completely.
I say something anatomically implausible about the crossbow¡¯s parents and launch into the air to fly a search pattern.
Anjali resigns herself to not finding the peace necessary for meditation, as the second visitor knocks. ?Enter¡° she calls out. She has not expected Hildegard. She also hasn¡¯t expected her to bear a pot of tea and two beakers.
This niceness needs to be rewarded. They cannot afford to fight among each other, unless they want to turn this cave figuratively uninhabitable. That succubus is bad enough. This girl is not her enemy.?That is nice of you. A warm cup of tea is a reminder of good things.¡°. Hildegard does not know how to take the answer, so she tries a neutral path ?At home we drank tea on feast days and when visitors came. That is, the kind of visitors that required restraint. The others got beer. Does tea remind you of home?¡°. Anjali takes this as a nice try to speak about things that warm the heart. Hence she responds ?Thankfully it does not, perhaps because I never was in a place where tea is a rare treat. I do not want to be reminded of home. They cast me out. I would be curious about beer, though. I never had it.¡° Hildegard¡¯s eyes get wide ?You never had beer!?! We will get you beer when we return home ¡ if we return home.¡° Anjali takes the opportunity ?Do you still think of home? Obviously I thought that I was dead. When we lived against expectations I took that as fate wanting us to start a new life.¡°.
Hildegard bursts out laughing. Anjali is quite surprised. Hildegard manages to get words out ?We are fulfilling the wishes of fate to their full extent.¡°. Anjali cannot help a snort and concedes ?Quite. I was thinking of a house in a seaside town and becoming a jeweller in the best case, but you are right.¡° Hildegard takes her up on that ?Were you apprenticed to a jewellery maker? I am afraid I am not accustomed to the way things are done in your homeland.¡° Anjali smiles ?How could you? I was trained. Not with an independent jeweller, but with one of the people already working for the family doing the engravings on the stuff to be enchanted. It was seen as a useful ability to be encouraged in a future witch. I think one of my elder cousins actually enchanted the protective arm ring I had engraved. Did you do any arts?¡° Hildegard shakes her head in the way the Westerners do ?No. Only singing and sewing or embroidery would have been appropriate. I am no good at either. I am the oldest child. My path was always clear. Training to run a castle during peace or war, marriage, bearing children.¡° She stops abruptly, having returned to the sensitive topic. Anjali tries to make her voice as commiserative as she can ?Will they take you in back home while you are with child?¡° Hildegard folds her hands around her beaker ?Usually they would be disappointed. But there is a question that may change the situation a lot and I need to ask. Are sorceries hereditary?¡° As Anjali draws a sharp breath, Hildegard is distressed and goes on ?I am sorry; I did not want to reopen old wounds.¡° Anjali closes her eyes and draws a deep breath to steady herself, before she answers ?It isn¡¯t your fault. My grandfather is to blame. I will never forgive him. There are exceptions to that rule. Rare exceptions. I am one of them.¡°
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Hildegard empties her beaker in one gulp. There is a silence. Anjali follows her example. Hildegard breaks the silence ?I think I interrupted you for long enough. I¡¯ll take over breakfast from Branislava tomorrow. Maybe we¡¯ll see each other?¡° Anjali replies with a short ?Yes¡°.
As Hildegard has just reached the door, Anjali speaks up. ?Wait. There is one other thing I better tell you right away. You were exposed to a dose of fertility magic large enough to break a curse. It is quite likely that you are bearing twins or even more.¡°
Hildegards eyes are almost bulging, as she wordlessly nods and leaves.
I am using the full mage sight to find my lost ammunition, disregarding the discomfort. That gives me ample warning. Something big is under the snow. In fact it seems to be under the ground as well. It is moving. I drop behind a bush and check my ward. After a moment of consideration I also cock the crossbow and put a quarrel in. It is time to test a nastier part of my designs. I anchor a spell that should do nothing to the flight characteristics of the missile. Then I wait.
It does not take long. A paw with long and broad claws breaks through the snow. Should I shoot it while it does not see me? I hesitate. There is no evidence that the newcomer is hostile. Even if it is hostile it may have allies who know where it was to go to. The best outcome is for me to not be seen. Unfortunately I suspect a teleportation to be quite visible to anybody with magical senses. I cannot lead this thing to the cave. It moves through the ground. That also means that if it turns out to be hostile I need to kill it and be sure that it is dead. If I fly away now it¡¯ll probably see me. The night has not completely fallen and again it may have magical senses. I must let it come completely to the surface and preferably let it get away from the hole in the ground it¡¯ll leave behind.
It needs only seconds to emerge. I count six legs, all with claws fine for digging or disemboweling me. It has no head. On its shoulders sits a trunk it sways from side to side in seeking motions. All of it is covered with white fur. It starts vibrating with an unbelievable frequency, removing dirt and snow from its fur. The trunk keep swaying while the monster turns in a small circle. Then its trunk points in one direction. It starts heading for the building housing the entrance to the cellar the cheese was kept in. I cannot find a fault with its preferences.
The cheese also betrays me. I cannot help it. I fart. The trunk races into the air. For two seconds neither of us moves. Then it jumps, whirls around turning exactly towards me and screeches. I pull the trigger and watch the quarrel bury itself into the trunk near where it meets the body. Four tentacles emerge from its fur. I teleport behind it a few meters up in the air. A salvo of organic needles pop up from the tentacles and are shot towards the bush I was hiding behind.
The monster is now in range. I start flinging thunderbolts. Two more tentacles presumably associated with the hind legs pop up and start twisting. I accelerate sidewards. The next salvo races towards the place I had been. My evasive action and the wards prevent serious damage. Two needles hit my left calf and penetrate a centimeter or so. I change course upwards and keeping the thunderbolts coming. It sprays pink blood out of its trunk and collapses. I check my leg. No venom.
The same cannot be said for my shot. My magic senses tell me that it is still producing the venoms of five different kinds of snake in large quantities. The beast''s magic goes away. It is dead. My poisons were chosen so that the prey would still be edible, but this thing is too alien to try eating it. I retrieve my weapon, abandon the quarrel I was looking for, make sure I have seen the beast from all angles so that I can make an illusion of it and teleport home.
Chapter 48 - limited breakfast options
Hildegard has learned to make scrambled eggs. It took most of them some effort to get used to potatoes and some vegetables being rare, but eggs, some fruit and milk being steadily supplied. Anjali enters the combined kitchen and dining area, greeting her with an annoyingly fresh ?Good Morning!¡°. Hildegard returns the greeting and asks ?Do we wait?¡°. Anjali answers ?Yes, we should. But we can have tea for the time being.¡°. Hildegard watches her pour the red-brown liquid into a beaker half full of milk and asks ?What did you have for breakfast when you were young? Unless you don¡¯t want to talk about it.¡° Anjali smiles broadly ?When I was very little, rice and vegetables, a lot of semolina. My favorite was roasted noodles, though. Later in the hotel, whatever the customers took, when we were on the job, otherwise dwarven stuff. Grilled mushrooms or baked malt pies.¡° ?Mushrooms?¡° ?Yes, they have spells that make them grow on bare rock, more or less. Living under ground they don¡¯t have regular fields to grow crops on. They put some sort of paste on gravel with a specialised brush. It looks like a comb mounted on a shepherd¡¯s crooked stick.¡° She adds more milk to her tea and continues ?Thank you for asking.¡°
Hildegard lowers her voice ?I want to make plans, but I don¡¯t dare to. We are alive. We are regularly eating eggs for breakfast. We are having babies while others are slaughtered. I dare not tempt fate.¡° In an amused voice Anjali answers ?I can understand that. However, fate can hear you, even if you whisper. And we are not exactly in a position to implement plans. Now even less than a few days ago.¡° Hildegard frowns ?Haven¡¯t we become more valuable in a way? I do not wish to say that this has been a deal that should have been imposed on us, but now that it has, we ought to use it.¡° Anjali responds with a slight strain in her voice ?No. We have become more valuable, but less powerful. He will protect us, but that does not mean that he has to listen to us. Frankly, one of our means of persuasion is gone. I want to see that bitch gone. A succubus needs sex. Literally. She will die after a few months without it.¡°
Hildegard rivals a tomato.
This time I know I am dreaming. Or at least experiencing an altered state of conciousness based on memories, to be extremely precise.
I am having tea with the man who could have been my grandfather-in-law. He is looking at me with a sad smile. ?You have made me angry and impressed me. What you have done to my granddaughter ¡ Yet you are perfectly willing to marry her. You understand that your personal problems make that impossible.¡°
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.To that I can only feebly reply ?Thank you. I want to provide for our child at least.¡°
He clears his throat. ?Explain again why you won¡¯t be traced. We need to be sure.¡°
That at least I can do. ?Very well. They have a warning for excessive delivery orders of controlled substances. The check is done every time they process a batch of orders. That means that a customer can correct or update his delivery until the last batch delivery for the day is run. Now an update must be cleared by the central depot control, because the stores may be insufficient. Obviously a reduction would always be possible, but for simplification all updates are checked by the center. What I have found is an error that allows for an update to be sent to controller, but the acknowledgement be lost on the branch site.¡°
The old man displays a sharp mind and self-control just asking ?But the inventory would be wrong. Isn¡¯t that checked?¡° That is my time to genuinely smile and let pride creep into my voice ?Indeed. They check the inventory every day at midnight. But then the computer must also handle drugs that expire. They also want to save money. That means that if you specify on the order that the delivery is for immediate use, the customer gets a discount and the oldest stuff they have is sent. Now all you need to know is on which date a batch will expire.¡°
I dutifully note that down. Should I be proud of this? I cannot help myself. I am. This makes it worth being woken up a few hours after midnight.
Baron Ingmar of Bothnia is using a well heated side hall to recieve the Rabenstein messenger, who appreciates the warm spicy diluted mead in the mug put before him. The man is shaking his head vigorously stating ?No, Your Highness, the captives both died during the same night without coming back to their senses. We have run out of healing potions. The medicine chest is empty. We have been unable to get anything out of them.¡°. Mirthlessly chuckling the Baron replies ?Not just your medicine chests. A few cities on the ocean coast with magic guilds still have potions. The Lithuanians might still have some; they are not saying. They certainly won¡¯t part with them. The roads are already largely impassable or will be within a few days.¡°
?What are we to do, Your Highness?¡° ?Fish as much as you can. We have to get out of the lake what we can before it freezes over. As for the young master, he will have to hang on. The elves have indicated that they would demand payment in mithril.¡° The messenger casts his eyes down and empties his mug in one gulp. The baron continues ?Not everything is lost. I have a heating stone and some eternal lights for you, so at least those accursed green midgets cannot get you through denying you firewood.¡°
The messenger understands the dismissal and withdraws with a bow. He didn¡¯t expect anything else. The world is ending.
Chapter 49 - gathering external resources
I have overslept. Nightly visions and mass murder tend to mess up your sleep pattern. I should be having nightmares. Even disregarding headless monsters that want to turn me into a reverse porcupine.
I consider going back to sleep. Turning onto the other side and dozing for another 10 minutes would be so good. I turn on the other side. I feel too broad, as if my head should be much closer to the cushion. That is obviously nonsense. My shoulders haven¡¯t grown dramatically over night.
I don¡¯t want to be alone. I almost jump out of the bed, which makes me think of what Merental did to his concubine on that bed, get out of my night clothing and cast a full cleaning spell on myself.
The scrambled egg is delicious. That a wizard who routinely casts a general purpose healing spell on himself once a day doesn¡¯t have to fear arterial plaques also helps. That raises a question. Can I get a vitamin deficiency? I am not going to get a set of rats for experimenting with scurvy. I file the question as academic.
The monster I got into a fight with last evening is not academic. Zewrepa identifies it as a mammutus, an animal living near the north coast of Asia as she puts it. Though apparently there are a number of related species and she is no biologists. She just kills them, should the need arise.
?Do they live in herds?¡° I ask. ?Some of their species. Others live usually alone but form bands for migrating with pathfinders and defenders for the calves.¡° replies Zewrepa. ?Are you seriously telling me that they can dig from Siberia, sorry, North Asia, all the way to the Adriatic Ocean?¡° I cannot keep the scepticism out of my voice. ?No. They can cover the distance with relative ease, but they use magic of the Earth, not the soil and rock of the actual Earth for long distance movement. They are not quite as good as the dwarves at that, but for animals they are still impressive. They beat a lot of other earth mages in that regard.¡° she explains. ?Are you saying that there may be magical tunnels that may lead to our cave without us knowing about them? Or worse, somebody could build them?¡° I ask horrified. She produces a sequence of cords sounding as if played with a flute. ?Not into this cave. The wards prevent that reliably. To this mountain, maybe.¡°. Melo adds ?Certainly to this mountain. That is how Marental had the slave traders deliver sacrifices. He probably has resealed them.¡° ?Probably? We need to check that.¡° I say with a voice a bit higher than usual.
Zewrepa is considering their command structure. Their commander is a worrier. Does she resent him for that? For now, no, she does not, as she is unsure how much of a worrier a commander needs to be. Given the end of her last mission her unconsidered response is not cautious enough.
She resolves to talk with Melo about the issue.
?This is one of the migratory species¡° she tells him. ?Did I get the pathfinder soon enough?¡° Peregrinus asks quite reasonably. Unfortunately she has to reply ?No. Or to be precise, it does not matter. This species uses multiple pathfinders. You got one of them in time. The others are gone.¡° He starts walking in a pattern that returns him to his point of origin after walking only a few meters. Is he triangulating something? He goes on ?Even if I arm you, well maybe except for you personally, Zewrepa, you¡¯d still die in combat against these monsters. Maybe you¡¯d take one with you, but that is unacceptable.¡°. To that she can reply only with more information ?How did you kill it?¡°. He stops his movement to reply ?With a combination of poison and lightning. I think the poison alone would have killed it eventually, but I have no evidence of that. I could not wait. Not knowing what it is, I could not let it escape to report.¡°. To that she only has a pragmatic reply ?You will have to test this on further specimens if they decide to come here. If not, the issue is moot.¡° His response is affirmative ?Right. In the mean time I can improve my weapons anyway. You cannot have weapons that work too well. Is there anything more you can learn from the corpse?¡°. That is a statement she absolutely agrees with. She resolves to discuss with him the weapons to be built after she will have talked with Melo about his character, as weapons to be built may depend on the outcome of the discussion. For now, however, there is more to do, so she says ?I cannot learn more from the corpse, but we can gain nourishment from it. I want to butcher it. Stored in those buildings the meat won¡¯t spoil.¡° She points at the partially destroyed cheese manufacture. He shudders ?The blood it shed did not create the impresion that the creature is edible.¡°. She responds with a hooted tremolo ?Indeed not for you. Leuma and I can eat it. That will stretch our supplies.¡°
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I watch Zewrepa¡¯s magical blades slicing a monster to pieces. To them it does not matter whether they are operating on a life or dead body. It would still amount to a waste. We are wasting quite a lot. Not just here. Vegetables are peeled. And we leave bodily wastes. Mammal wastes still have quite some nutrition left in them. Otherwise beetles gathering them would not have evolved. Europe has them, though they are not active in this weather. Fimbulwinter may exterinate them. The ecological damage the gods are doing with this war is not my most pressing concern. We won¡¯t drown in frozen shit and if the winter ends at least fungi will still be ready to deal with wastes.
That gives me an idea. I tell Zewrepa that I¡¯ll enter the manufacture to look for overlooked resources. The chime I get in return signals approval and assent.
I am standing in front of a pile of manure. It is frozen at least on the outside, so the stink isn¡¯t that bad. I thought about using Marental¡¯s sword to cut pieces off, but it is my sword now. You don¡¯t mistreat a weapon that keeps you alive, with or without cleaning magic. I have taken a pickaxe and a shovel from the work room of this site.
I have loosened enough pieces for an experiment. But frankly, I don¡¯t want to use the bare shit. I could conjure a wooden box. That would work fine for transport and also for doing what I want with the manure. But it would be no good for the harvest. I want something porous to let air and the product through but keep dirt back.
My final design is a wooden box with a layer of straw on the bottom and on the sides. The manure is placed in the middle and the whole assembly is covered in a thin sheet of fluffy silk. For me silk, if it just the substance, not woven into a cloth, is cheap to make.
Zewrepa is quietly watching me. I let my magic flow through the shit. Yes, it holds the correct kind of spores. I use a heat effect to thaw the stuff, kill the other spores and pump the right kind full of life energy. The beginning of a fungal mycellium is spread through the manure.
?What are you doing that for?¡° she asks. I grin. Using life magic is for some reason fun. I let her know. ?If everything goes right, we¡¯ll be harvesting delicious mushrooms in a few days. Help me carry this into a cellar that is warm enough to prevent freezing. I¡¯ll establish a heat field there that will keep it warm for good fungal growth at least for a good part of the day.¡°
Chapter 50 - female persuasion
The visions keep coming.
I am sitting before my regular social worker, a woman approaching sixty years. Her tired demeanor was broken by a green streak in her hair. ?You are good with computers.¡° she states. I can only grunt in agreement. She takes that as an encouragement to continue ?We need somebody with an apitude that allows them to prosper in an academic environment. The neurologically disadvantaged need to be normalized in the non-humanist sciences.¡°
As I cannot, for reasons related to the penal code, let her suspect that I don¡¯t strictly need her, I need to put up a credible level of mock resistance. ?As you know I have made some experiences ¡¡°. She smiles in a way designed to be empathic. And to give her credit, she means it. ?Isn¡¯t that exactly why it needs to be normalized? And are you not interested in technology?¡°
Nobody is surprised when a man with a history of abusing psychopharmaka and a psychiatric diagnosis quickly folds.
Well, that settles it. I am a slimy arsehole. However, I am an effective arsehole. Nevertheless I need to write this down. Do I need to show it to people? That is a different question. But I tend to answer it in the positive. I must figure out what is happening to me. Do I need to explain it to them? Now that is the truly important question.
The data point imortant to me is that I could explain it. I don¡¯t remember sitting in lectures. But I now understand why I know who Boltzmann was. Something stirs in me. This man has a relation to my sorcery of Decay. I understand entropy. A name is coming up in my mind in relation another sorcery: Schwarzschild
It is still very early. I am going down to the ritual chamber. I am again treated to a spectacle. It is even more impressive under mage sight. But not any easier to understand. I could most likely reproduce a static pattern, even if I had no idea what it is doing. What she produces is anything but static. And it involves things that are not spells. In fact they seem not to be made from mana.
I regret that because they are involved in a pretty cool effect. She is floating about a meter above ground in a meditative pose. Her long black hair is being tossed around as if in a storm that is not physically present.
She is in human form now. I just look at her for a quarter of an hour. If not for my mage sight I would for sure touch her. Her supple flanks over nicely rounded hips ¡
But I am not going to walk into that mesh of spells. Its intensity has not changed. She just told us to wait when she hurried down as we returned. I suspect that she herself didn¡¯t know how long it would take. At least I hope she does not routinely slaughter in such numbers, however large they may be. I have not watched the details.
Ocean currents have been changing. Weather patterns have been shifting. Cold and warm masses of air collide. The unseasonal storm in the Indian Ocean has already surprised several ships. The Columba Ragusae has suffered a broken mast. The crew has given up on chopping it loose, as the wind is too intense. The captain has ordered all men to the pumps out of desperation. The crow¡¯s nests in the other masts have long been abandoned. The rock off the coast of Suqutra is seen only seconds before the crash. The end is swift, violent and, above all, thorough.
I am leaving the delivery of the monster news to Zewrepa. After all she does understand the biology of the species. It also allows me to keep my thoughts to myself.
Branislava comes to the core of the matter directly ?Are you sure they cannot get in here?¡°. Melo does answer that ?They cannot tunnel in here or to this mountain.¡°. Then Branislava gives the obvious response ?Then why do we care? If were are lucky, they¡¯ll eat the goblins. Or do you want to hunt them for meat?¡°
Having a military education does some good. Hildegard talks like this is an academic seminar ?First it limits our ability to operate outside. You can see goblins. You cannot see something that can grab you from below. Second we need to make sure the wards keep working. That adds a vulnerability.¡° I need to add something to that ?I might add that we don¡¯t know how the wards are powered.¡°
As if on clue, a voice from behind says ?That is a concern I can lay to rest to the extent you can be at rest while trusting Atlantean technology.¡°
Leuma is leading us back down to the ritual chamber. She can almost read my mind ?Atlanteans do not see their secrets as extremely valuable. At least not more valuable than their lives. So the most vital parts of a fortress are as deep as possible.¡° That I must answer to ?But that puts them closer to summoned entities.¡° ?Your view of the ritual room is clouded by the fact that you were summoned. That is a small minority of the uses of a ritual room. Even more so in a secondary base that was only used because it is a lesser loss if something were to go wrong.¡° she explains. Hildegard remarks ?That looks like he cared little for his holdings.¡°. Leuma chuckles ?No contemporary holding can hold its own in comparison to the Atlantean age. To a discrete Atlantean like Marental there is just one thing of extreme importance: their survival.¡°
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We are arriving in front of the blackboard. Checking it out more closely I realize that it has a dormant enchamtment, that has a similarity to my cleaning spell. That reminds me that I need to learn how to enchant. So I have to voice my thoughts ?That enchantment allows a change between alternate states. As decadent as it may seem, Marental has enchanted his blackboard to be able to clear itself and probably store different versions of the writing on it.¡° Leuma smiles ?Indeed. And it can make copies on paper. How do you hide something? You put it in front of everybody¡¯s eyes.¡°. She puts her hand on the frame, supplies mana and does something that reminds me of how I use the spells on Marental¡¯s sword. It is triggered by the user¡¯s will. The blackboard swings towards the ceiling revealing a roughly hewn tunnel whose walls are made of a glassy substance.
Leuma is showing us around ?The pipes on that side are for waste water, which is processed on the lowest level of the basement, as if there is a leak you don¡¯t want stuff to flow onto anything else. Above that is the equipment for fresh water and heating supplying water through the pipes on this side. Here we have the core of the installation: the ward stones and the power source.¡°
Visually it is not impressive. It is capped by a quartz crystal connecting it to power lines of silver mounted on the ceiling. That is quite obviously to mage sight just a distribution component and a buffer battery. The generator itself is another story. Magically speaking it is incomprehensibly complex. Visually it is a cylinder made from copper, about half a meter high. My sorcery informs me that it is almost pure but contains traces of one other metal.
I am mesmerized. This thing is fully based on mana and nothing is being conjured. I toyed with the idea of conjuring mana the same way I routinely conjure biological stuff. This is not how this thing works.
I dimly see Anjali stepping closer to admire it. Should I warn her not to touch it? She has undergone theoretical mage training in contrast to me. Many women have the oddity that they are still offended if you state something true, yet they consider it obvious.
She touches the source and at the same time extends her other arm as if to balance herself, thereby touching Leuma on the hand. Leuma freezes up, tips over and lands on the floor like somebody dropped a painted woman-shaped log. Anjali whirls around and pulls a dagger with two orthogonal blades centered on each other from the depths of her robe. She straddles the helpless demon and whispers ?I hope you can hear me. How do you like that? Now I am in control.¡°
Something is happening to the enchantments. There was a spike in transfer of mana. Now some of the enchantments are reconfiguring while others are fading. I need to understand this. I am dimly aware of some commotion.
Zewrepa recovers her wits first, produces a progression of chords in aeolian mode and states ?You have correctly guessed that she, too, has been carrying a controlling seal. That has been clever. I recognize your right of vendetta.¡°.
Hildegard is shocked. That weapon looks like dark magic turned into metal. Drawing the weapon has also undone Anjali¡¯s clothing. The demon¡¯s glamor has briefly flared up. Hildegard has developed an annoying tendency to think thoughts she should not think about women. Their second in command explicitely announces her intent of doing nothing, while Peregrinus is staring at this metal rod with a serene expression on his face. Branislava has stayed with Julia in the kitchen. Zewrepa is wearing Melo.
That leaves only herself. ?Anjali, you are indeed in control now. Do you want to make her suffer?¡°. Anjali answers ?That is hardly a difficult thing to arrange for. I am wielding a sacrificial dagger. Your soul will not cleanly go to the afterlife if you are killed with this. Even a serious wound will do the job, only slower, which may be even better.¡° She closes her eyes and tilts her head backwards. Then she continues ?That thought is made even more pleasant by her defenses. A delicious irony.¡° Hildegard needs to stall ?Where did you get that weapon?¡°. Anjali grunts before responding ?I knew many men like Marental. Most of them keep a weapon ready even in their bed. Finding the hidden compartment took work. But Peregrinus was rightfully exhausted.¡°. Hildegard draws a deep breath ?Was that why you ¡ ?¡° Anjali opens her slitted eyes fully. ?In part. There are many ways to be tough. You can fight. I respect that. It should not blind you to the possibility of turning desires into weapons, though. Yes, it won¡¯t help you fight a monster. But monsters are not the most dangerous enemy.¡°
?Your desire is control. You have inherited that¡° says Hildegard. ?Inherited?¡° after that heated response Hildegard continues ?Your grandfather was rich. Rich enough to train you in magic theory and practical arts. Your training was wasted. He could have kept you as an engraver. That would have been the economic decision. Neither were you a blemish on his house¡¯s reputation. Then he would just have killed you or locked you up like a princess in a tower. No. You offended his pride merely by existing. You showed that he is ultimately not in control of his bloodline.¡°. Hildegard has said her piece and stays silent.
?You ¡ You are learning quickly.¡°. She carefully puts the sacrificial knife aside. They are both watching Peregrinus whose expression has shifted into a scrunched look of utter concentration.
?What will he do?¡° Hildegard asks. Anjali chuckles. ?Look he is already losing rigidity. I am going to strategically rearrange my robe and position my left hand. Have you not seen how he is around children? I am in no danger.¡°
Hildegard¡¯s face rivals most cherries.
She takes Zewrepa by one of her upper hands and suggests that they leave together.
Zewrepa hoots sharply and says ?A female fought a female and wishes to initiate mating behavior, although she has already been fertilized. I need to observe this to better understand your kind.¡°
Hildegard¡¯s face rivals a blast furnace.
I regain awareness. ?Anjali, do you understand ¡¡°
I notice what her left hand is doing. The power source can wait.
Chapter 51 - predators dilemma
Anjali and I are lieing on the ground. At some point I have conjured a ground cover of soft hay. ?You are trouble, I must say. Very enticing trouble. One of those women my relatives warned me of.¡°. I hear a soft glissando and Zewrepa asks ?May I ask some questions?¡°. I respond ?Later. Anjali will be happy to answer all of your questions in great detail.¡°. The condemned woman only grunts.
?Didn¡¯t you yield awfully fast?¡° I ask. Anjali sighs. ?I was barely holding on. She is a bright and persuasive girl, but she alone wouldn¡¯t have turned me. I was also working against a curse, I lost against then and there.¡°
Zewrepa leaves. Anjali comments ?That was strange.¡° ?Why?¡° I ask and go on ?Didn¡¯t you also service couples?¡°. She hesitates a bit before she answers ?Yes, but they were couples. That made it different.¡° ?Don¡¯t worry, I think her main interest was curiosity. And I think she is going to compose a rhapsodic piece called The Perilous Mating of Anjali and Peregrinus.¡° I only get her to hide her face with her hands and produce an unintellegible sound.
She turns to me and says ?This isn¡¯t natural, I think. Though I am afraid I don¡¯t know what is natural. A wizardess would be mistress of her own affairs. But I am not a wizardess. When my grandfather sold me, I had never been unsupervised with somebody not a member of the household.¡°
?Does anything about this setup suggest to you that there is even the slightest hint of things being natural around? We did it next to the paralyzed demon concubine of an Atlantean wizard several millenia old being watched by another demon in a hidden basement of an underground base full of exotic magic. I am a magically created man, whose soul has been summoned from another universe. Naturalness left us long ago. We¡¯ll do what we want to do, if we are lucky, and we¡¯ll do what we have to do to survive, if we are less lucky.¡°
?You are just evading my question by turning this into an absurd comedy.¡°. I shake my head ?Our situation is absurd. I merely have to tell it like it is. Sure I could outright tell you that your questions have no answers. Would that help?¡° Her answer is more forceful than I expected ?Yes, it definitely would. What are you going to do now?¡° I shrug ?I¡¯ll offer Leuma a greater share of the loot and look at what has changed. Then we¡¯ll have another of those meeting you love so much.¡° She tenses ?Are you aware that she can hear us?¡°. I grin ?Absolutely. I can monitor her physiology. In fact ¡¡°. I check the curse on her. It is outrageously simple. It worked only because it was placed already inside her barriers. I use a disspell. She stirs.
I think it is time for utter honesty. ?A succubus is ultimately a parasite. They have to have people around. Some people would rather perish while in full control of the situation, instead of winning by giving up control. A succubus cannot afford that attitude.¡°
Leuma speaks up ?You are right. And neither are you. That makes cooperation with you so attractive.¡°
Real anger is creeping into Anjali¡¯s voice ?But you deem yourself a carnivorous predator? Mighty, but depending on the luck of the hunt, ready to take somebody else¡¯s kill if the opportunity arises?¡°
I prop myself up ?No. I am a herbivore. Or maybe an omnivore. Consider this: A predator needs to leave some prey alive if he wants to eat next year. I am under no such constraint.¡°
The look in her eyes may be genuine horror.
?He felt like a real wizard in that moment.¡° Anjali confesses. Branislava adds ?I was sort of relieved when you attacked that village. At least I knew he wouldn¡¯t pick us as as the objects of his darker needs. The more I see of him the more his deepest trait seems to be caution. I think before I got pregnant he would have driven me mad if we were married. Nothing would have just been done quickly or spontaneously. Now, of course, I¡¯ve had enough excitement for ten lives.¡° In an amused voice Melo says ?That sounds like Marental. He, however, just executed people who were not ready to totally abide by his concept of acceptable risks. In exceptions he was ready to act quick and decisively, though.¡° Leuma affirms that ?Whatever you think about Marental, you cannot say that he was slow in the head in any way. He understood that sometimes you need to act with determination. In fact, Peregrinus was one of these occasions. I confess that I don¡¯t know the details. Did Ragnar?k force him to act rashly? Possible, but I cannot confirm it. Deep down he was lonely, but I could not fill the gap. He often talked about rather technical stuff, but I never learnt some fundamental secrets.¡° Anjali asks ?How long were you his concubine?¡° ?74 years. And before you ask, he knew alchemical means to really slow down ageing. Caution was very much a core value to him. He poured that into his divinations almost to the last hour. Overshadowing a soul is hard. He needed to go the path of least resistance. That is why we found one of his major divination aids.¡°
?That is interesting¡° I say, having overheard her last remarks, and go on ?Some of it is just a function of age. If nothing of great duration happened to me in between the last memory in my world and arriving here, I am 88 years old. Anjali, that is also part of the reason you find me taking so much into the absurd. At my age, you really learn how much of an influence pure luck has on our lives.¡° Anjali recovers quickly ?You do remember?¡°. I clarify ?In part. Personal memories come back least or slowest. Is that because Marental had to be most thorough blocking them to overwrite me?¡°
This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work.Leuma confirms that ?Yes. In some cases they may never come back. Or rather you may not want them back. Marental mentioned that to keep his personality stable he would have to reject memories antithetical to his personality. He couldn¡¯t remember stuff he couldn¡¯t imagine or understand himself ever doing. Literally.¡°
I shrug ?I will have to think about that very deeply and calmly and then I may have a lot of questions. In the mean time you are probably wondering why I am not down in the basement staring at the power source and filling the blackboard with observations on how he built it and changed the enchantments on it.¡° They all immediately nod. I sigh ?You are probably right. I have interrupted my work because I¡¯ve found out what he has done and that makes how he has done it, moot, even though I do not fully understand why he has done it. In short his curse has erased the internal mana supply from the power source itself to the governing mechanism of the power supply. It is now operating on internal reserves and will shut down after too many regulatory interventions. I do not understand why he didn¡¯t just shut down the power source without damaging it.¡° Hildegard answers without any delay ?Internal security. He couldn¡¯t let his enemies use a traitor to shut down his defenses while they were searching for him or even attacking. The failure has to be delayed, but must render the power source worthless to an attacker.¡° That is what I call a sharp military mind. Anjali winces ?I did what I had to do. I did not want this, but I am not sorry.¡°. The others look at her with disapproval with exception of Leuma, especially Branislava, who would suffer most during an evacuation.
Leuma asks ?Do you want me to explain why I rejected your offer of a greater share of the loot?¡°. Before I can answer, Zewrepa interrupts ?Practical stuff first. How long do we have, what can we do to extend that time, and can you repair or replace the power source?¡° ?I will need to make measurements, but from a gut feeling, weeks, not months. We have to limit the number of power changes. Once we are done discussing stuff, I want you to switch on all lights you can practically switch on, put the hearth and the oven on and let the showers run continously with warm water. As far as replacing the power source, I will look at replacing power to Melo¡¯s tree¡¯s chamber with power from the spikes we¡¯ve found. Now, that Hildegard has mentioned it ¨C a big thank you, Hildegard ¨C even trying to repair the power source would be a bad idea. There are most likely traps in it. It would probably just explode if I tried that without knowing exactly what I am doing.¡°
Zewrepa produces a sound like a piano dropped from the second floor. She continues vocally ?I am tired of fighting and almost losing against just the relicts of an enemy. Though I must confess it is kind of exciting in the same way Anjali simulating sexual intercourse on top of paralyzed Leuma was. Women fighting women for unnecessary sexual stimulation is a delightful perversion.¡°. I cannot help myself. I say ?Perhaps Anjali will give you lessons.¡°. Perhaps these words have not been wise in a universe where the possibility that looks can kill actually exists. I make it worse by bursting out laughing.
After many seconds of only me laughing, Anjali shrugs and says ?I probably deserved that. Zewrepa, no I will not give you lessons, but I will answer your questions. Somebody has to. It better be me than Leuma. And while we are at it, why did you refuse the offer?¡°
Leuma unfolds her arms and looks Anjali directly into the eyes before she answers ?Something extraordinary is happening. Perhaps it is just Ragnar?k. Perhaps it is more. Part of it is happening here. We can create something extraordinary. Any by we I mean just not Peregrinus and we hang on. We all can, and if we wish to survive, have to contribute. If we survive, we can expect extraordinary rewards. If we don¡¯t survive, the afterlives won¡¯t be what they used to be. We have to do our utmost to enable optimal cooperation.¡° I cannot see anything in Anjali¡¯s face. Leuma does not suffer from my limitations. She adds ?He has already done something economically extraordinary.¡°. In a grumpy voice Anjali answers ?He has made mithril from trash.¡° I think the surprise Leuma shows is real. She responds ?We will have to discuss this. Tomorrow. You have been treating Peregrinus as the wizard, whose powers you fear even if you profit from them. You have been leaving him alone with them. Yes, some of you also treated him as a man. That was better. Some of you treated him as a fighter and commander. That was also good. The youngest one treated him as one whom she let love her. That was important. Yet he will have to be Peregrinus the combat warlock, if we are to come out of this alive. Tomorrow we will listen to his findings so far. And we will try very hard to understand him and find out how we can support him.¡°
She stands up and adds ?But first we will notice that he is exhausted. This man needs a warm shower. And then he needs me to have dinner out of him.¡° The words ?Out of him?¡° slip out of Hildegard. Leuma¡¯s smile broadens into a grin.
Chapter 52 - council of war - part one
It turns out that not just dinner but also breakfast has to come out of me. With a second helping in the latter case. I cannot help myself. I have to ask. ?You seem to be very good at reading people. And very eager to get me.¡° She asks back ?So soon after I took half a village you mean. It is better if I establish a certain claim on you right away. And you are able to understand such considerations.¡° She bops my nose before she continues ?But there are some things you do not understand. I am not purely a demon of lust, like some nymph, who think themselves something better because in theory they have a smattering of a divine nature. Sure, they can make you mad with lust to the point you forget your own name. So can I if I am ready to spend that much mana. But we go deeper. We are more sophisticated or insidious, depending on your view point. A man is not just a walking sex organ. You do have deeper feelings. In addition to pretty shallow feelings, but you do have them. In particular you want to be understood and appreciated. Hence we are good at understanding. We do not prey upon men by breaking their mind. We get them to care so much for us that they are willing to sacrifice for us.¡° She makes a pause in her explanation. ?And you personally find that fascinating.¡°
I think it is wise from me to stop asking question in that area after such a reply. But I can still ask related questions ?So you understand me better than I understand myself?¡°. She is clearly amused ?Yes, but in the case you are thinking about, you understand yourself very well; you just don¡¯t want to admit it. The unease you are feeling results from being driven by events to do things that seem necessary right now, foregoing a systematic approach. You feel you wouldn¡¯t get the support from your companions you think you should get. Well, you are wrong. You do not need additional incentives to take a systematic approach. You are just asking me that because you see that we need to make fundamental decisions now, which absolutely need to be approached in a systematic manner.¡°
I draw a very deep breath ?Well, you did warn me.¡° She chuckles ?Make your case to them.¡°
We are a bit late for my breakfast, but not outrageously so. Branislava informs us that she has cooked the last potatoes. Well, it was bound to eventually happen. I request that she use even more of the stored supplies in cooking, because I may need to do more other magic in the upcoming days and it is in doubt whether we¡¯ll be able to take the supplies with us. She does not look happy, but she does understand the issue.
Zewrepa remarks ?You want to do a council of war.¡° I reply ?Essentially yes. We¡¯ll have a specially structured council of war. I need to make an announcement.¡°
Everybody who has a proposal how we proceed please write them down on a tablet, or if longer a piece of paper and give them to Branislava. And if your proposal has parts that can be done independently of each other, please write them down separately from each other. I have to give you an important piece of information. The strange rod among Marental¡¯s stuff Leuma has identified as a Dark Elf calling rod. We can use it to tell a clan of Dark Elves Marental had business with that we want to have a trade meeting.
We have gathered in the ritual chamber, whose magical blackboard I consider extremely useful for a council of this kind. I need to make another announcement.
Branislava will write proposals and what we say about them on the blackboard. But she will not tell us who made a proposal, so that we judge only the proposal, not who made it. Branislavo, please begin.
She does not like it, but her first proposal is sensibly the first proposal.
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1. We stay here and switch the whole mana supply to sacrificial spikes
Zewrepa makes a cord progression in a classic minor key and says ?By the same logic that means that you should not try to fix the source, converting the mana supply to another source should also be guarded against in the other components.¡°
I can see several among us wanting to make an objection, but after thinking it through keeping their mouthes closed. Hildegard asks the obvious question ?What is the worst that could happen?¡°. Anjali replies ?The wards could have very nasty effects if sabotaged. And even if Peregrinus learns in time how to replace them, I have to tell you that his replacements would be hastily made and inferior. Thus they would announce to everybody who knows of this place, that an Atlantean¡¯s wealth and secrets are no longer guarded by an Atlantean. And that includes Dark Elves.¡° Apparently they have a certain reputation, as I can sense that the idea is dead after that. So can Branislava. She makes the next proposal.
2. We take over a small village close by, maybe even the one whose men we slaughtered
That one surprises me. It would not have occured to me.
Anjali says the obvious ?We would have to install wards, even if those mammuti don¡¯t come here. There may be a next herd. We would also call attention to us.¡° To that Melo replies ?All true, but it has the advantage that it is a simple option that we can be sure we could undertake on our own with the means we have currently available, albeit perhaps badly.¡° They look at me. This is not supposed to be decided by authority at this time. I ask ?Branislava, may I ask why you put it in that order?¡° She replies ?Those two proposals have had something in common, which the next proposals reject, namely that we stay more or less here. In fact, I would like to split up the next proposals into two parts, because nobody has made a proposal that shifts the man-shaped people of us and Melo¡¯s tree.¡°. Anjali asks ?Do they include destinations or only methods?¡°. ?They can be seperated by some methods would work only for certain goals, that is for the man-shaped people.¡° replies Branislava. Perhaps setting an agenda by authority also has advantages. I use them ?Then we will hear the options for Melo¡¯s tree first, then the methods for moving the man shaped people, in order of those best suited to the closest destination first and finally the destinations as one list.
Branislava nods and says ?You will recognise the original proposal Peregrinus made¡°
3. We switch only the mana supply of the room Melo¡¯s tree stands in to spikes and leave the tree here.
Zewrepa states the obvious ?Her tree would stand alone, unguarded.¡° Hildegard asks ?Once the mana supply shuts down, the wards against teleportation will go away and you can teleport into her room, Peregrine, can¡¯t you?¡°. ?Yes, but so can everybody else. Well, if they can teleport. And if they cannot teleport, they can walk in. That gate is not going to stop anybody with a bit of determination.¡° I answer her. ?Yes, but how would they know where to look for? If you can teleport to her, we don¡¯t need the tunnel leading to her room. Collapse it and hide the entrance.¡° she proposes.
A moment of stunned silence follows. That is genius. Zewrepa does a sequence of monotonous beeps. I think that is her version of being speechless.
Hildegard graciously continues ?We should hear the alternate proposal.¡° Branislava writes it on the blackboard.
4. We buy a spell or service to move Melo¡¯s tree from the Dark Elves
Melo almost jumps of the chest she is sitting on and states forcefully ?Marental knows that spell. We would have to explain why I am no longer Marental¡¯s familiar. And why he would not just have his assistant perform the spell.¡°
Branislava notes drily ?I guess that is not an option then.¡°
I take the opportunity to again sabotage my own concept. ?I would then preliminarily propose that Zewrepa, Melo and Leuma form of a group to look into how to seal off Melo¡¯s room and alter her mana supply. I am going to cook tea now and we can have a break.¡°
While I am leaving I can hear a discussion beginning.
Melo tells Zewrepa ?Perhaps his methods do have their strengths.¡° Zewrepa agrees ?He is more like a mother councilor back in the nest than a field mistress. You have to have them both.¡°
Chapter 53 - council of war - part two
I am taking the time to make a bit of fruit. First, just to give my people time to discuss things. Second to show Anjali that all is well, by making her mangosteen.
I return to a room looking at me. ?Yes?¡° I ask nobody in particular. ?We talked about this a bit more.¡° Anjali says. ?Yes?¡° I repeat myself. She answers ?Well, we asked ourselves whether Marental would really have been ready to lose a familiar whose tree for some reason stood here, if a source¡¯s security system were triggered, while he was elsewhere. We have come to the conclusion that he wouldn¡¯t. A backup should exist.¡°. I answer ?Good. Then we know what the team looking for switching the mana source should do first. We should drink some tea and look at the rest of the tasks before us.¡°
Branislava heads back to the blackboard. She hesitates but then writes down
5. We walk / use sleds / short range teleportations to get to the coast.
?Thank you for writing this down, although we all know who is most likely to die in that case. I say outright that we should return to this option only if we run out of options. Please proceed to the next option.¡° I say in my most authorative voice. So much for the principle of free discussion. Branislava¡¯s smile however is very bright as she returns to the blackboard.
6. We buy a means of transport / passage from the Dark Elves
That causes a stir. I stand up again. That is the problem if you surpress discussion once, such things bite you in the ass. ?Am I right in assuming that your problem is with trading with Dark Elves, not the basics of the proposal?¡° I ask.
Hildegard also stands up and says ?No. I am sorry, but no. The problem would exist in any case when the people we trade with know our intent. The Dark Elves are sort of unavoidable, if we want to sell the stuff in here. That may be a problem, as Marental may have notified them over other channels and they may not show up or make no deal in order to not anger him, but it won¡¯t be dangerous.¡° ?Why wouldn¡¯t it be dangerous?¡° asks Branislava. ?Would you attack the people who took an Atlantean¡¯s base away from him while they are still in that base with unknown strength and weapons?¡° responds Hildegard. Branislava¡¯s eyes widen ?But if we are under their control ¡¡°. Hildegard nods. ?Does anybody know a way around that basic issue?¡° I ask. ?We could steal a vessel or force them to give us passage.¡° suggests Zewrepa. ?Do we have any control over what they are doing once they start using this earth magic for travel?¡° I ask. Melo responds ?No, but we don¡¯t need to. They have magic. We can torture them into giving us a binding promise not to betray us.¡°. That is escalating quickly. Leuma responds in an amused voice ?Yes, we could do that. But it may be simpler to just pay them to give us such a promise. Especially as that takes away the reason to send a message with a warning of us to others or to come after us for revenge.¡° Zewrepa is sounding a sequence of power chords before she says ?Yes, that was a bit overeager. Maybe we should hear the other proposals? If one is clearly better, this question becomes moot.¡°. ?There is only one other proposal.¡° says Branislava.
7. We power a long distance mass teleportation with spikes
I hiss and remark ?How would you test that? Even if we assume that the process does not suddenly turn dangerous if some limit is not respected, we don¡¯t have an unlimited number of spikes for systematic testing. And what if half of us end up in an unknown hostile place after a jaunt that does not work quite right?¡°
?You are looking for a strategy without risk. You won¡¯t find it.¡° says Anjali. ?There is a difference between a calculated risk and starting with three pregnant women and an infant as your test subjects.¡° I retort.
Zewrepa intones a longer piece on a pentatonic scale. She finishes and speaks up ?I urge calm. Do you see any way to reduce the risk inherent in using this approach?¡° Anjali is honest enough to not seek any circumlocutions. ?No. We could do a small number of tests with less mass and a few tests with a significantly too large mass of cargo and animals. But, indeed, the short time frame would not allow proper testing with pregnant animals.¡°
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Leuma remarks ?Very well, can we convince Dark Elves, that either they should transport us even if Marental has told them not to or to think that Marental would not have a problem with them transporting us at the rates appropriate during Ragnar?k?¡°. Hildegard is staring into a vista only she can see, but then simply says ?We could offer them the mana source.¡°
That triggered almost half a minute of silence. She then defends herself ?Peregrinus has a few days to study it. In terms of actual usage it is worthless, isn¡¯t it?¡° Anjali retorts ?Yes, it is and that is the reason we would part with it. If we do not admit that the mana source is broken, why do we all leave? At the rates they will charge during Ragnar?k? Marental did transport his people himself.¡° Melo asks ?So it would need to be a transport that Marental wouldn¡¯t handle himself but would also justify selling off the stuff in this base?¡°. To that I answer ?In the medium term this base will need to be given up in any case. The snow that will fall during the winters won¡¯t have time to melt in the summers. These mountains will be covered in ice. At least there is a decent chance of that. And polar monsters will walk these mountains sooner or later.¡°. Melo shakes her head. ?That is a reason to dissolve the base, but it could wait. He¡¯d still do it himself. You¡¯d need an urgent reason to hire somebody.¡° Zewrepa turns in ?The people in the village.¡° Melo¡¯s voice sounds confused ?But he never would evacuate them.¡° Zewrepa uses a diminished cord and says ?Exactly. He¡¯d sell them. But not himself. Not during Ragnar?k. Being forced to abandon an untenable village that is a salvage sale and without people for experiments the base makes no sense. Winding down a base that is now a liability is exactly what he would send his familiars to execute.¡°
Leuma shakes her head ?But there is still no need for paying the current rates. Why would he need to evacuate this base now? He could let the villagers die and evacuate this base next year and it would be cheaper. Selling the villagers into slavery makes sense, but only if he needs to evacuate the base immediately.¡° Melo suggests ?The stuff in the base?¡°. Anjali quickly says ?But then we could not sell the stuff. We¡¯d have to pretend that he needs it. And then we are back to step one. If he needs it, why doesn¡¯t he come and get it? I still think that teleporting away has merit.¡°
I signal Branislava. She steps to the blackboard and speaks up a bit louder than usually: It looks like we are not making progress. So it looks like we better include the destinations. That has people go quiet.
She starts writing
1. The closest town on the coast
2. A major town on the coast (Ragusa / Naples / Venice / Constantinople)
3. An island
4. Far abroad (North Africa / Persia / Mauretania / India)
5. The Caspian Sea
6. Another realm
Is this just me or is this essentially a list of increasing distance? It seems that if you try office politics by scripting meetings, you better be good at it.
Zewrepa states it, though she does not do derision ?The main difference about this list is the distance from us, aside from specifically the Caspian Sea. I think we can agree that if we move conventionally we¡¯d be limited to a very close location.¡°
Leuma adds to that ?We need to be more specific. The Exterminatus would not look kindly on any of us, except Branislava. We need to avoid at least Egypt and its allies.¡°. I am alarmed ?What is the Exterminatus? I have a strong feeling that they are something I need to be concerned about.¡° Leuma looks me directly into the eye and nods courtly ?Yes, you do. The material I have is outdated by a century or so. We can do this now or delay it until after this meeting.¡° I consider and ask around ?Does anybody think that we¡¯ll come to a good conclusion today or that we are in that much of a hurry that we need to go on?¡°
Chapter 54 - conviction by cash
The conviction that deities are out trying to get you is quite common. But you rarely are assigned a death squad and torture camp of your own. I must say that I¡¯ve been happier.
?So some pantheons are especially hostile to Atlanteans, chief among them the Egyptians and the other gods are at best an unfriendly neutral?¡° I ask Leuma, who answers ?That is an accurate summary. In particular very few would make any effort to block a hit job.¡°
I finish my cup of tea before I start pacing. I am not going to waste tea. ?I am being hunted for an unknown reason and didn¡¯t even know about it. I suppose the gods don¡¯t write press releases about their reasons, them being a guide to their weaknesses. I suppose I could now begin lamentations about my inability to chart a course without knowing what I am doing. You¡¯d be amused and tell me that the things I know from my universe of origin are valuable.¡°. The smile on her lips is serene rather then derisive. I feel encouraged ?I need to look at this from another angle. Am I the problem? Should I send you away?¡°. She folds her hands in front of herself on the desk ?I must admit that I¡¯ve blocked that option. Well, you could send Branislava, Zewrepa, Melo and me away, but not Anjali or Hildegard. You know, the connection of the blood. They are a vulnerability.¡°. That makes me stop. I say ?Thank you for your honesty. But please note that you are treading on dangerous territory. I won¡¯t just stand there if you declare my children a liability. I know that I neither need nor can impress you with decisive or bold actions, but there is a limit.¡° She smiles even more broadly ?I love people who know their own limits. You can impress me with cold logic, though, and I needed to be impressed. Your presence is, after all, not without risks.¡°. That opens a question ?Is it my immediate presence? Could I send you, while you are under Zewrepa¡¯s command, and follow you by teleportation?¡°. She considers the question ?I don¡¯t know. A full investigation would show you as a worldwalker. I don¡¯t know whether that would show over the bond.¡°. I need to answer that in a way I doubt she¡¯ll like ?We need to have Anjali and, lest she get jealous, Hildegard included in that discussion.¡° Leuma hesitates a tiny bit before she assents. I need to clarify that ?That was the worst, wasn¡¯t it? You are a bright, well, demoness and Marental not recognising that and just using you for sex.¡° She looks directly at me ?Not exactly. He recognized my mind. He just did not care. He thought himself so powerful that he could simply ignore me. My attempts to get him talking amused him.¡°. Her voice almost dies down. ?And he was right.¡° she admits.
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Anjali is giving me the look women reserve for giving their partners when they are doing something obviously dumb. ?I don¡¯t know the literal answer to that question. Yet our babies are most likely to have sorceries. What do you think elves would conclude if two women whose children are related and show exotic sorceries book a passage with them? Tell me, can you tell?¡° She is making me blush. I go full mage sight. Yes, I can. She nods at my unspoken question, my hand reaching for her lower abdomen. ?You are right, it is visible. With direct contact I can even tell specifics. Fire and something exotic.¡° I admit. She exhales a ragged breath.
Well, we are not married, but under the circumstances I think I deserved the look. Leuma has the decency to look embarrassed.
Anjali says ?That is a relief. And yes that creates the issue that it would make obvious sense to take Hildegard or me hostage. Hence the need for a binding promise. Obviously they will not agree to a promise to keep that secret from their supervisors in their clan. But why do you care? After all our problem is you being identified as an Atlantean, not as a worldwalker and sorcerer. Atlanteans are of this world.¡°
Hildegard makes a little sound. I go full mage sight again ?Yes, even easier to see. Oh.¡°. That is not an occasion you should make surprised sounds. Hildegard makes a strangled sound, forms her hands into fists and moves a step towards me. I hastily continue. ?On you it is easier to see. There is a residue creating health. And you are bearing twins.¡° Her breath sounds remarkably similar to what Anjali made.
?That is genius¡° I remark. I get a repeat of that look. ?No, it is. We made the error that we must aim for actually making a convincing deception. That is, if we pretended to work for Marental, we¡¯d need to create a believable pretense. But that is not true. We need to find a way where we have a reason to pretend, but the Dark Elves have a reason to honestly transport us, even if they do not believe the pretense.¡° I explain. Or at least try to explain. That look is adorable coupled with confusion. ?But what reason do we have to dare rob an Atlantean and why would the Dark Elves overlook that?¡° asks Anjali the frustration showing in her voice. ?Money¡° says Hildegard. ?Anjali, you are looking at things either from a view point of a wizardess or somebody in a desperate situation ready to do whatever it takes as only survival matters. You do not have the experience in between. That is a hard lesson you need to heed when working with mercenaries. If the financial stakes are high enough, they will switch sides. How much mithril can you make, Peregrine?¡°
Chapter 55 - conquest
I am introducing meetings to this world. So my legacy is one of unspeakable, merciless revenge. Yet, a need for a legacy presumes a condition I am ready to go to extremes to avoid. Melo states ?How many councils of war can you have per day?¡°. Branislava just answers ?How long can you stay awake?¡°
Should I get one of those little bells? Anyway I start with an introduction:
I think we have found a way to decieve Dark Elves by failing a deception. I had made the logical error of thinking that we need to make a claim to them that they believe. I now think that that was wrong. We just make a claim that they¡¯ll think we have a reason to falsely make.
The most obvious reason would be money. Hence I suggest that we play the role of thieves having stolen Marental¡¯s mithril, who are pretending to ship out his power source.
Zewrepa speaks out first ?What exactly does pretending to ship out the power source get us?¡°. Anjali grins ?We will demand that the transfer be done in two batches and that the elves keep some important people in this cave until they come back for the second group.¡°. Zewrepa asks back ?But we will ship Mithril instead of the source and hope for the elves to find out. But why would we demand two transfers?¡°. I also grin ?Also for money. We can be two groups; one of traitors to Marental and the second the external thieves cooperating with the traitors. After pulling off the heist both groups have no reason to trust each other. In particular the traitors would be weaker in combat, so they want to be gone when the robbers arrive, lest they decide to take all the mithril.¡° Zewrepa is still not satisfied ?But why now at the start of Ragnar?k?¡°. My grin gets even broader ?Because they had to strike now. The preparations for such a heist take time. Hence they began before the start of Ragnar?k, but as Ragnar?k began, it was clear that Marental would soon come for his reserves. So they had to strike quickly or write off all the preparations just as life was really becoming dangerous. That will also make the errors we will make believable. We acted in haste.¡°
That actually makes Branislava speak up ?Who is the traitors and who is the robber?¡°. That is something I need to answer ?I am the robber and you all are the traitors. That means that I, you and Julia will stay here for the second transfer. I am sorry, but they must not meet me and you and Julia are too hard to justify.¡°. She hangs her head. I continue ?I am pretty sure I can manage a teleport to the coast with two passengers on my own reserves, if the need arises.¡°
I considered working on weapons research with my crossbow. I¡¯ve decided against it. I fear that my motivation is at the end of the day petty and emotional. I don¡¯t want to fight. The side of me that is a sword fighter is an artificial addition to me. Fighting and killing my enemies feels good. Even addictive. And that is something I cannot take lightly. Learning about my true nature has not been good for my peace of mind.
This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.But there are also fundamentally rational reasons. One man can only be at one place. A lot of men that one man¡¯s spells keep alive can man city walls and the ships bringing in supplies and trade. To keep something resembling civilization running it needs people. And that thought burns on my mind. I am a healer of sorts. But am I also a magical midwife?
We¡¯ll also need metal workers, plumbers, cobbler and, let¡¯s face it, servants. I am not going to let the mothers of my children do household chores and I am not going to do much of it myself.
I am recharging my mushroom experiment. I think we will harvest in two days. Thus I decide to devote the rest of the daylight to processing cow shit. I intend to give this technique to the public at the place we flee to. Under the current circumstances bringing such a technique with me looks like a good way to convince people we are worth taking in.
We are standing in front of the village¡¯s gate house as the sun rises. That is, I am floating half a meter or so over the ground and conjuring a bit of fog just to make us look like the messengers of doomsday. It turns out that I can make black and red dyes, so the sheets we are wearing look accordingly. This time we want to be seen and feared.
Some smoke is rising from chumneys; less than the number of houses suggests. They are ringing a bell. We hear it, but don¡¯t see it, the gate still closed for the night. I don¡¯t want to burn down the gate house. This village is still plan B or C. The problem with being scary is that it gives the people you are scaring little incentive to let you in. This will take some violence. I hesitate. It is no use. These people are likely to die anyway and sure to die if we leave them here. Besides, I have a family to defend. Still it costs us nothing to give them a chance. I ask Zewrepa, who is happy to oblige.
OPEN THE GATE AND BOW TO US !
It sounds like an army of demons from hell riding godzillas is demanding entry. In this world that is a real, albeit unlikely possibility I am afraid. The bell is possibly getting a bit more frantic, but the gate is staying close. After a performance like that you either go on or give up your credibility. I teleport onto the gate house and let the lightning loose. I am glad that the remains are so charred that they become unidentifiable. Nobody else is outside. I suppose opening the gate by hand is less demonic and impressive than just blasting it to bits, but we may need it in the future.
We proceed to the village square with the communal facilities. Zewrepa repeats the command to surrender to us. No reaction. An arrow from an upper floor window streaks towards us. Zewrepa shatters it in the air with an energy claw. I return fire fire with literally, faintly impressing myself by actually hitting the window the arrow came from.
That does it. People are coming out of that house with their arms stretched out to the sides. After a short time people from the other houses join them. Apparently they are assuming that we would burn them alive if they don¡¯t give up. A minority of them is sobbing. An even smaller number, mostly boys on the threshold to their teenage years and a few surviving grown men stare at us with hate in their eyes. Most are just looking at the ground. Or us with wide eyes. As we have planned, I am leaving the talking to Leuma.
Chapter 56 - The evil you know is preferrable
I am sitting with Branislava in the kitchen. I think I am intimidating her, yet she is grateful for a full dose of healing and me feeding Julia.
?How can I help you?¡° she asks. I notice that she avoids using my name. Is that because she would have to omit a honorific or is it like naming the wolf in the forest makes it come. ?That is very hard to explain for me. I don¡¯t even remember my own name, though a lot of other is stuff is coming back, even if I am not aware of it coming back. The thing is that I am not sure that I want to remember my name. I had certain traits that should be forgotten, as I don¡¯t want them back. I was an addict. And I sort of recall what that meant to me. Yet the man I was was a better man in some sense. I wasn¡¯t a very good man, but I would not, I think, have gone to that village to do what I did.¡° I explain, only to make her cast her gaze down. So I go on ?You can look at me. I am not going to be angry due to an answer I do not want to hear. If I wanted an answer I like to hear, I¡¯d talk with Leuma or Anjali. If I talk to Hildegard, I¡¯ll get an answer out of the teachings for young aristocratic ladies. That leaves you or Zewrepa. Zewrepa won¡¯t understand. So I am asking you. There is no good answer here. I have to either eliminate important parts of my old life or undo a part of the man I have been becoming.¡°. She quickly looks up before answering ?I cannot tell. Were you a drunkard? Maybe you should not be a drinker while doing magic.¡°. I snort ?There is that. That is good advice. Now that I think about it, it is the same as my grandfather gave.¡°. She looks reliefed.
She is about to get up. I put a hand on her shoulder. There is a slight tension in her. I ask ?Is it the ¡ ?¡°. Her eyes get wider and answers ?No, you are scary. Actually ¡¡°. Her voice becomes inaudible. There is nothing I can really answer. I don¡¯t want to lie. Somebody who can turn you into charcoal on a whim is scary. ?I¡¯ve done nothing to soothe your fears, have I?¡° I ask. She looks up ?No, you¡¯ve made clear that there¡¯s nothing you¡¯d stop at to protect yours. That is actually flattering.¡° She hesitates ?And it is at least normal to see a wizard being merciless.¡°. That leaves me unsure. I try anyway ?I am not merciless, as I see it. I think that I am showing as much mercy as I can afford, but I can afford very little. Or, to be honest, I don¡¯t know how much I can afford.¡°
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.Branislava cradles her belly as she replies ?I cannot say anything to that. You ¡ you are strange. Of course you are a stranger.¡° That leaves me none the wiser and with a need to reassure her in a way she won¡¯t misunderstand.
I tell her ?Don¡¯t worry. We¡¯ll soon depart to a big city. We¡¯ll see that we can hire a few servants and a doctor will be ready in tie for the birth¡°. She looks at me with a question in her eyes and responds ?A doctor? I hoped for a good midwife.¡°
Zewrepa snaps the young man¡¯s neck if you can call him a man at his age. Her kind is not only good at making sounds. Their hearing is on par. Sneaking up on her is not going to work. Making these people pack their stuff has turned out to be trouble, even though they have been told that they are allowed to keep almost everything. She puts out a pentatonic melody in staccato fluting notes.
Peregrinus is appearing out of a complex ball of magic. He looks at her and his hand flicks to his sword catching a glimpse of the corpse. ?Was he alone?¡° he asks. She acknowledges that. ?I am going to make the corpse disappear.¡° he responds. She lets out a questioning hoot. He answers ?Yes, they can conclude that he¡¯s dead, but seeing the corpse make it more immediate. At least I think so. And yes, I am regretting this shit. But ¨C before you ask ¨C we cannot just set the village on fire, at least now. We could not give a logical reason for doing so.¡°. He shrugs and asks ?Do you think I am any better than you at scaring them into obedience?¡°. Again a short tremolo suffices as an answer.
She is considering his words. Is he completely honest? He is certainly right that an Atantean like Marental would not have burned the village. There simply would be no reason. But he did not say that they could just have sacrificed everybody in the village. Would it be dishonorable? No. The village was Marental¡¯s, who has fled from them in terror. Or has he? It does not matter. He has abandoned them. Does he just lack the will to take the simple and brutal solution? That is certainly possible, even likely. But is it unwise?
Anyway, that is not an immediately pressing question. He does not act as if an emergency has forced him to come hither. But he is early. ?The situation is stable for now. What brings you here so early?¡° she enquires.
?I think we have overlooked something that requires us to make haste.¡°
Chapter 57 - the biology of the common dung beetle
?I understand that we¡¯d endanger our credibility as fearsome warriors, were we to buy slave soldiers, but we could buy at least servitor animals¡° Hildegard remarks. Is she tactful enough to not mention buying demons, Leuma being present or has she just not considered the possibility?
?Yes¡° I agree and continue ?But we have a bigger issue. I have healing abilities. But they are limited. In particular I am not a midwife.¡° They look like they are biting their cheeks to keep from laughing at the thought. Then the thought dawns on Anjali¡¯s face. ?Well, yes, we have no reason to be sure that we can stay in the city we want to go to. We may end up in a remote castle or an island.¡°. That gets Hildegard¡¯s attention ?Castles usually have access to the services of a midwife. However, we are not living under usual conditions. Do you want to buy a midwife?¡°
These people really have no problem with slavery. To be absolutely truthful, that is not much of a surprise. I was reading a lot in my old life. Locking people up long term is costly. Yet, executing people even for small issues has its limits. Mutilation has its own drawbacks. They have few alternatives.
Anjali shakes her head and says ?As much as I am forced to like the idea, it would reveal a weakness. An unusual weakness. I doubt hiding it among other purchases would work. Not against Dark Elves.¡°. Leuma is staying silent. I reckon that¡¯s wise. ?So you¡¯d prefer we secure access to a midwife at our destination?¡° I answer. Anjali responds ?I would prefer the services of a priestess of a godess of fertility. But that may not be wise. We need to get out of here somehow.¡°. Melo speaks up ?How about a personal physician?¡°. ?We already have a healer¡° retorts Anjali. ?Well then you can ask for a servant of Hestia. Even an apprentice will cost more than a small bit of mithril, though.¡°
For some reason pretending to be a drunkard feels disgusting. I want to leave such things behind me. Nevertheless I cannot risk them coming to the conclusion that I am after the ceramic amphorae, not the wine. I try to keep the thought that just exterminating this village would have been easier out of my mind.If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
My companions were suitably impressed at the sight of almost eight kilograms of aluminium, sorry, mithril. Anjali is currently working on a mold that will allow me to make ingots with a stamp that looks like a they are coming from a dwarven clan in northern India. The forgery need not be perfect. It just would look odd if an Atlantean would not have made a token attempt.
Zewrepa asks Leuma ?Just to recapitulate, I simply pump mana into this rod. That will turn it into a sending recording its point of origin and the Dark Elves will come?¡° Leuma nods ?Yes, but they will first reply with a sending of their own, which will announce the date they¡¯ll arrive at. Their customers tend to put a lot of emphasis on security. They will not just drop their barriers for an undetermined amount of time.¡° Zewrepa responds ?I understand. Have you decided on a mount?¡° Leuma answers ?No. Are you certain about your choice of servitors?¡° Zewrepa hoots ?Yes. Hellcats are ideal. They can live on charcoal and fire. They are nice to humans once they are trained.¡° Leuma answers ?I see. How many?¡° Zewrepa produces a dissonant chord ?As many as I can get. I reckon that the prices have gone gone up, so the limiting factor will be our supply of precious metal.¡° ?Are you sure you want nothing draconic?¡° Leuma responds. Zewrepa¡¯s hoot ends on a glissando ?Unfortunately so. They are too large and need to much food. I would also like war golems, but we could never trust their enchantments. Even if they don¡¯t fail us when we need them most, we could never speak freely in their presence. Yet we need body guards.¡°
I feel stupid. How do you hide a secret? You put an article about it on the front page. I am just taking their dung pile and converting it in mushroom beds before their very eyes and let them infer that I am taking their garbage piles for the same reason. In fact as I am half done, shards sorted out and put into my bag of holding in the privacy of a barn I had claimed for working magic and storing the boxes in I tell the widow of their head man ?Guard these boxes. I¡¯ll return tomorrow to make more. They will sprout edible mushrooms. Those will keep you alive while you are useful to me.¡°. I am leaving out a remark about not disappointing me. A true wizard of this world would find that too obvious to say aloud.
The look on my companions faces is undescribable. Hildegard asks ?How much is that?¡° I answer ?I don¡¯t know. I am too lazy to weigh that much stuff.¡°
Chapter 58 - a pointy, purple hat
You get used to altered states of consciousness.
?Mixing ideal gases does not change the enthalpy of the system. Hence this mixing always occurs spontaneously, driven by an increase in entropy, as the second term is negative. Of course we already knew that ideal gases will mix. This quantified expression is nevertheless useful, as it allows us to give a lower limit on the energy required to separate the components.¡°
Students are allowed to ask questions. ?What constitutes mixing?¡° That makes the professor smile serenely ?Indeed we are closing in on an almost philosophical question. Entropy can be seen as the number of states that can be told apart. Actually, even mixing isotopes of the same material increases entropy.¡°
I have been a nerd. Here this is much less of a stigma than at home. People would call it an arcane aspect of witchcraft and fear you for knowing about it. I, however, feel a bit stupid as I note down the formula for free energy according to Gibbs, lest my memory fail me again.
And here it raises more questions. They speak Latin. They use the Latin alphabet. But not Arabic numbers as I am used to, though I think they can still be derived from the same Indian original. I am keeping my native mathematical notation.
I close my eyes and sigh. I will need to organize some schooling. My children will grow up with an education, if I can help it. Do I need to buy scholars, too? A library, while we are at it? At this rate I will need a big house to just house the domestic help. They will also need to be fed and clothed. Such a facility would need to be guarded and fortified. Fortifications need to be maintained in turn. Add to that that wood is not the best material to build a fortress out of. In addition, given this environment, they will need to be trained for combat. Do I really want my children to be raised and educated by slaves? I see a real chance of this train of thought getting out of control.
Am I reacting to the fact that I have arranged for myself to get some overdue schooling?
?So the inscription forms the spell?¡° ¨C ?No, the inscription reinforces the spell in its primary function and secondarily refocuses each layer, so that they join. You still need to cast it for each layer, though the inscription has to be compatible to the spell.¡° Anjali corrects me. This is turning into a slog, even though I am lucky. It turns out that my sorcery can do the translation from the free form of a spell to a version that can be embedded into an object and the adjustment to the various materials without me learning and applying transformation rules.
We are doing the magical version of ?Hello, world!¡°. It takes twenty iterations. This is ridiculous. There must be a better method. This base is equipped too well to have been built with such methods. But I cannot expect a woman who learned enchanting purely as a theory many years ago to be as good at teaching it as an Atlantean is at using it.
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.She hasn¡¯t been holding out on me. That is a stupid idea. Yes, I do not fully trust her any longer. No, I do not blame her for doing what she did. I am in no position to do so. Questions of sincerity aside, I am her next-to-last and best line of defense. Weakening me would be suicidal. She is homicidal, not suicidal. That is kind of hot actually.
She may exploit me, yet I am in no position to complain about that either. Nor can I do anything about it. I am not ready to put myself in a position, where I would need to explain to my daughter why I kicked her mother out into the war ending the world.
She looks at me with her head tilted. She knows that I am considering something, maybe even her status. She knows me too well for my taste. In fact she knows wizards too well. Holding that against her isn¡¯t right. Certainly not by the standards of home. But also not by my personal standards. Whereever she learned, she has learned very well. Yet I do feel betrayed.
She smiles and says ?You don¡¯t need to say anything. When the Dark Mother picked our fates she had had too many cups of the good stuff.¡°. A wise man would say nothing. Hence I obviously say something. ?Thank you for the lesson. I never thought I would get private lessons in wizardry. Even if I had dreamed of them, I wouldn¡¯t have dared to imagine somebody like you to be my teacher.¡°. She arches an eyebrow ?You think I look unqualified as a teacher?¡° I nod ?Far too attractive. A teacher of wizardry is supposed to be a wheezing crone or an old man in a pointy, purple hat.¡°
She moves a little bit, but then stops. I think she considered playfully hitting me on the head. No longer. She looks down at the floor ?Our teacher ¨C I was in a class with a few half-sisters ¨C was indeed an old woman.¡°. I pat her on the shoulder ?Nobody is perfect. I will get you a pointy, purple hat, though.¡° That makes her head jerk up. ?You could not be serious if your life depended on it, could you?¡°
I can sense a tension. She wants to say something challenging. But it is in the air. You do not attack a wizard, if you value your life. That worries me. I need people who tell me, if ¨C no, when ¨C I am about to do something stupid. Besides, if she respects my power, not me as a person, we are heading for a cliff. Her gaze has fire in it, but she maintains silence.
The silence is getting uncomfortable, but I need to come up with a good reply. ?When I was serious ¡ did it work well?¡°. She remains silent. And stays silent.
That is too much for me. I break the silence ?Would you engrave protective amulets for everybody? We have some spare ingots. Not that I want to shirk the engraving. It is just more efficient if I cast spells.¡°. She makes an odd gesture with her head ?No. That is not a good idea. People who can defeat an Atlantean own sophisticated protective gear. I am a solid engraver. But I am a beginner. What I can make will damage our credibility.¡°. I agree ?Yes. You are right. Thank you. Something that we would make quickly in the field. Protection against the cold? Let¡¯s assume that the fimbulwinter surprised us here?¡°. She agrees.
Hildegard has taken her wax tablet into the shower room. Running the showers contionously has turned the room into a second rate steam bath. It is uncomfortable, but without candles it is the easiest way to soften the wax, again. She has to tell her parents. It is a matter of duty. They might use her to make promises for the time after Ragnar?k. They need to be aware of the changed circumstances.
This version does not work either. Yet there is duty. Wax is patient.
Chapter 59 - juggling oiled up fish
Though you get used to altered states of consciousness you don¡¯t get to like them.
?For your condition we usually recommend pharmaceutical intervention combined with therapy sessions.¡° the psychiatrist states. I respond with ?As long as it helps. I don¡¯t want to spend my days doom scrolling or ¨C (apparently streaming services had not yet won) ¨C watching TV.¡°. The doctor continued ?There may be side effects ¡¡°
This time the extra cushion doesn¡¯t save my head from a big impact. I am not going to write that down. I don¡¯t want to be reminded.
I am drinking warm milk. We are almost out of tea. I want to find a quicker way to make enchanted gadgets. Hence two quarrels are in front of me on table. I¡¯ve carved runes that¡¯ll reduce drag and decrease the the amount of drop induced by gravity a shot will undergo into the shaft of one of them. Should I test them? I decide against it. I am trying to find a better way to make enchantments, not to make better enchantments. Unless my method were specific to the enchantment, it wouldn¡¯t actually matter if the enchantment weren¡¯t functional. Nevertheless they have to be enchantable. So I need to do a few rounds of spellcasting for verification.
What can I do? It occured to me that the runes are not necessary in the finished product. You use them to strengthen the spell, but in principle you do not need them. To get the same durability you may have to spend more mana, but it is possible. So I create pictures of them with perception magic. These work. They work only the first time, though. What is wrong?
Twenty minutes, which - in hindsight - will always remain embarrassing, later I get the answer. It is purely mechanical. The next picture does not exactly match its predecessor. The spell sessions don¡¯t synchronize.
Can I simply leave the spell making the pictures on? That gets me through four cycles. Casting the actual payload induces a creep in the runes. I can see it with my magical sense, although to the nacked eye there¡¯s no change. Can I keep reinforcing the projected runes and cast the payload? That is like juggling oiled up fish. If I had a year to train this, probably. Now? No way. Well, if it were easy the people of this world would likely adopted it as a standard mode even a beginner witch would know.
My companions have been quite considerate and left me in peace while tinkering with magical stuff. Me getting up in frustration, however, signals to them that the kitchen is free for cooking lunch. I am happy to have people to talk to.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.?You have been trying to do something with enchanting this morning.¡° Melo says. ?Yes I have. Did you ever observe Marental enchanting? I reply. ?No. Nor did he do all enchanting by himself. His sword, which you are now bearing, for example, is a custom-made dwarven weapon. Why do you ask?¡°. I answer ?The number of enchanted objects in this base, which is only a secondary base. If
you count the number of enchanted objects and take the time it would take me to enchant stuff, you end up with implausible numbers.¡° Melo shrugs ?This is too much mathematics for me to grasp.¡°
Anjali looks unhappy. ?You are not happy with what I teach. But you are right. Atlanteans obviously know a better way. They are telling nobody, though. You will get better and faster by practice to an extent, if that helps.¡° I shake my head ?No that¡¯s not it, knowing how to enchant at all is a glorious thing. But we are living during Ragnar?k. Only a minority is going to survive, let alone prosper. That means that we don¡¯t just have to be as good as everybody else, we have to be better. Enchanting is a key component of our abilities, because it allows all of us to use parts of everybody¡¯s capabilities and to so easily at a distance. I wanted to enchant quarrels for crossbows.¡° Zewrepa says ?That is usually limited to special ammunition, like mage killer bolts. Nobody is good enough to do this routinely, except for some standard enchantments on dwarven missiles.¡°
Sure. They have weapons specialized for killing my ilk. This world has stopped surprising me in a bad way, but not for lack of trying. You just get used to it. To be fair, I would also produce such weapons if I had thought of it. ?Let me guess, of course nobody but Marental was allowed to have ammunition like that in his presence. And we will be expected to have it and if I try to make a few pieces now they would look too prmitive.¡° I say. Zewrepa sounds like a happy bagpipe. I think she is making fun of me. ?Stop worrying. Maybe we used it up. Maybe we are hiding it. There are numerous reasons for us not to openly display such weapons when the traders come.¡° she adds in speech after going through a bagpipe solo.
?Fair enough. Do you know how the dwarves make these standard weapons?¡° I concede. Zewrepa answers ?It is said that they have magical tools and a sorcery that allows them to impart enchantments with them. If anybody can confirm or refute that, they are likewise staying silent.¡°. Anjali just shrugs as we look at her. Right, I wouldn¡¯t let anybody I planned to sell see my arms manufacture either.
Before I do anything else, I finish my reference missile and give it to Hildegard for testing. Though this shows that this is untenable. At this speed I could maybe do two quarrels a day, if I did nothing but encantment. That is not feasible, though. I need to do something better.
I am not finished with my gadget, though I have made some progress, as Zewrepa enters the kitchen and annoinces, that the Dark Elves have answered and will be here in two days.
Chapter 60 - He was a skater boy
Hildegard is ratcheting up her crossbow. Given the cold she doesn¡¯t mind the labor, which is keeping her warm. Getting her missile out of the target disk was annoying, but it reminded her of training sessions in the courtyard of her family¡¯s castle. More specifically it was reminding her of her earlier training sessions. Her aim has been better than this for years.
Not hitting the first few times with a weapon you don¡¯t know is normal. The first few times. She suggests something to the last bolt she is freeing from the target that would have gotten her a challenge to a holmgang if made to any man. She closes her eyes for the duration of half a dozen breaths, pockets the quarrel with slow, deliberate movements and heads for the facilities.
Her father¡¯s sergeant would have scolded her. Only a rested soldier is a soldier at his best. You can command courage. You cannot command rest or luck, though there is magic for luck, if you can afford a wizard.
She rechecks the crossbow. All seems well. She aims and pulls the trigger. The missile goes high and veers off to a side tumbling through the air. A sharp crack does not bide well for the shaft of the quarrel.
Hildegard says something that woud have made even her father blush. She takes a calming breath and quotes the family moto. And then quotes it again. She hunches her shoulders against the snowy wind and heads for the rocky outcrop closest to the target disk. Yes, the missile is no longer usable. The shaft has snapped. The head is a bit blunted. There is no point in delaying the inevitable. She goes looking for Peregrinus.
She finds him right away still in the kitchen. He is not acting very wizardly. Unless wizards are prone to standing one-legged on an oblong piece of wood floating above the floor. His hands are stretched out to the sides, while his left leg is still and sligtly bent. His right leg is stretched out and gently pushing against the floor.
He sees her, fights to keep his balance and falls off the board. The board shoots off to the other side, giving of a noise oddly similar to a fart, followed by a bump as it hits the wall. She cannot help it. She bursts out laughing. She has seen that facial expression on her brother¡¯s face. He had slid down a barrister on a slick piece of leather, failed to stop at the end, hurled through the air and smashed into their great-uncle¡¯s suit of armor. They both knew their mother would be furious. Though neither understood it. It was armor. If a boy smashing into it would break it, what use was it on a battlefield? The idea that mothers may be identical across the boundaries of universes hits her. It doesn¡¯t bide well for her future.
She hears him say something short that is not in his native tongue. And then he utters the classic words ?I can explain.¡°. That is too much. She bursts out laughing again. He looks defeated and says ?Yes. In hindsight ¡¡°. He stands up and heads for his beaker standing on the table.
He points to two wooden disks linked with a thick strand of silk on the table. ?I was working on those, when I hit an obstacle and got tired of them. Then I thought about the stuff we need to carry out of my bedroom and the sleds you made. So I thought I could improve them and I ended up with that board.¡°. Hildegard needs to respond to that ?But why did you not just tie a cord to it and drag it around with a cargo on it?¡° He hesitates, but eventually answers ?There is a ¡ recreational device in my home world. I used to own one when I was much younger. But they run on wheels. That means they do not go left or right as easily as my contraption. It runs on a layer of air. Hence it just slips away.¡°. She cannot help herself. Barely surpressing a full giggle, she says ?You made a toy.¡°. He hangs his head ?Yes¡°. That look is too much. Hildegard laughs until she runs out of air.Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.
She has put the broken missile on the table. He is fixing it mechanically. Hildegard takes a pity on him and asks ?Do you first want to hear how my testing worked out or do you want to explain how your toy works?¡°. He jumps at his chance. She manages to control herself, as he starts to explain ?It draws in air through tiny holes and hinders it from moving sideways for a few centimeters under the board. While the board senses the floor too close to the board, it draws in more air. The board sort of rests on a cushion of air.¡° That demands an answer. In a perplexed voice she asks ?What¡¯s wrong with wheels?¡°. He seems to enjoy the challenge ?If you are on a good, cleared road, wheels are fine. I would not have the control issues I am seeing with wheels and brakes would be easy to make. But they need that road. If they run on a rough or soft surface, they work badly. You could make them wider and softer, but then they get heavier and roll worse. A cushion of air distributes the weight it bears on the whole ground it is resting on. If you can get there with snow shoes, my board will work.¡°. She responds ?That is useful. When will you replace the sleds with them?¡° He sighs ?When I¡¯ll have found out, how to stand on it without falling off it all the time.¡° Sometimes she does not understand wizards. ?So sit down, take a pole and punt it.¡°. The way his mouth is opening and closing without saying a word makes her laugh again.
?The aim kept shifting on me. With a new type of ammunition this is normal at first. But once you find out how to adjust your aim, you are good. It just kept shifting.¡° she complains. ?So the breaking was a side effect. Your aim was spoiled so much that you happened to hit a rock.¡° he responds. She nods.
He stares at the thing. It is odd to her to consider that somebody sees things that are not visible. That being odd also strikes her as odd. You get used to somebody doing laundry by magic but him staring into unknowable distances is disturbing. ?The spell was not affected¡° he murmurs. He looks up and his eyes focus again ?I need to see this in action¡° he states.
They have gone outside. She fires. He groans ?Of course. It operates on ambient mana. That is not a problem because as it moves it cannot exhaust one place. But it induces a flow in the mana and the quality of the enchantment¡¯s effect depends on local conditions. I¡¯ll have to add a battery and a regulator.¡°. She asks ?Will you fix it?¡°. He sighs ?Eventually. A working version will be more complex. That has consequences if I want to make a usable number of quarrels. I won¡¯t get that done before the elves arrive and we need to move stuff before that.¡°. She knows him by now. Hence she asks ?You seem sad. You have found an error. You are making progess. You are getting your memories back. It could be much worse.¡°. He shakes his head hard and says in a defiant voice ?The question is whether it is good enough. Whether I am good enough. I like to operate in a systematic manner. I want to first make plans and then execute them. Instead I keep reacting to events. Yet I don¡¯t know what I am doing wrong.¡°. He looks down. She has no good answer. Hence her answer has to be a bland quote ?Sometimes you do what you have to do. You need to be prepared for a total collapse of plans.¡°