050

When Erick asked about dyes on the way to the farms, Poi directed him to a cloth weaver’s business along the way. A helpful young bluescale man was glad to sell Erick some dyes, but warned him, in a legal sort of way, that death is the punishment for selling inferior enchantments in Spur.

Dyeing gems was quite normal, if one was just learning the trade, but the sale of such an item was quite frowned upon. While Erick was still digesting that information, Bluescale directed Erick to their pre-made dye kits containing 8 perfect color-matched Main and Secondary Stat dyes, formulated for the aspiring enchanter. The kits were 255 gold. Erick bought one, but knew it would likely go unused.

Dyes were damn expensive.

 

– – – –

 

With the sky raining platinum and a 300 gallon water basin already filled and inside the temple, Erick dumped two diamond fragments into the huge basin, and cast [Crystallize Diamond]. On a bit of inspiration, he turned on [Cleanse Aura] while the gems bubbled in the basin. [Cleanse Aura] was a major drain, 5 mana every second; he couldn’t keep both [Cleanse Aura] and [Exalted Storm Aura] active for more than 5 minutes. But he didn’t need to.

The platinum in the water shimmered bright as it sucked into the growing gems. Thick air bubbled up from the basin. After four minutes, all the platinum had soaked into the gems; the water was clear. The thick air coming up from it now was much less than before. Erick didn’t know what kind of toxins he was creating out of the platinum rain, but thankfully, [Cleanse] was here to solve that issue before it became a problem.

Erick cut his [Cleanse Aura], and turned on his Handy Aura. This was a much easier drain; his mana began to tick back up. He Handy Aura’d the gems into the air; they were each three inches across, with a silver interior, and a layer of clear diamond over that. Erick [Stoneshape]d a fragment of the clear exterior of one diamond and put those fragments into the water. With another [Cleanse] and another two [Crystallize Diamond]s, the water resumed bubbling. Erick put the partially silver gems to the side; he would not be using those.

He renewed [Crystallize Diamond] on the new seed crystals as needed, and [Cleanse]d the water every now and again, but mostly, he left the basin and the two growing gems to their own devices, while he practiced color masking with [Ward].

Over the last few days, a great deal more memories of time spent helping Jane in school came rushing back. On the subject of color: Light was additive, but pigment was subtractive. And [Special Wards], well…

[Special Ward] was special.

Erick worked on the left side of the temple while his diamonds bubbled on the right.

[Special Ward].

A red-mask [Ward] popped up, five foot across, in the air. Erick nodded. This was good. Looking through the otherwise-invisible [Ward] was like looking through a red lens.

[Special Ward].

A blue-mask [Ward] popped up, five foot across, in the air, similar to the red mask in every way but color. Erick nodded. This was good.

But the intersection of the two [Special Ward]s was a pure black void; the two [Ward]s, each attuned to a different frequency of light, were each blocking the only light that the other one let through. Erick frowned. Just to make sure he was casting the spell correctly —selecting the color to come through based on wavelength, and not something else— Erick popped out seven smaller [Special Ward]s in the air, one right after the other, each slightly touching their neighbors.

Violet. Indigo. Blue. Green. Yellow. Orange. Red.

Very good. Erick was able to choose the light based on wavelength. He wasn’t exactly sure how he did all that, but it involved a lot of visualization and applying his own measurements to reality. Violet was 1, with the shortest visible wavelength, while Red was 100. Erick had completely forgotten the correct scale, but it was supposed to be in nanometers. How the heck was he supposed to remember that? There were bigger problems, here.

Like how, sandwiched between each of Erick’s otherwise-invisible [Wards], was a bit of black, where the combined denial of all wavelengths created a void.

Erick tried a different experiment: Instead of a mask, he produced orbs that gave off light. This time, the lightorbs combined where they touched, producing teal and seafoam, amber and umber. That made sense. They were a source of light, and not a mask. They were also terrible for enchanting. Lightorbs did not block interfering wavelengths of enchantment; they just hid what was actually there.

On a lark, Erick produced three overlapping lightorbs: Red, Blue, and Green. And yup, they worked like light. Between red and blue was magenta, blue and green made cyan, green and red made yellow. At the intersection of all of them was white light. So that was obviously working correctly.

The obvious solution to a two-part enchant was a mask that let through two wavelengths of light.

[Special Ward].

A mask attuned to red and blue appeared, like an otherwise-invisible magenta blot on the world. Erick put his hand inside, and yup, his hand was now magenta. Erick dismissed all of the [Special Ward]s, and cast an [Absorption Ward] across the whole of the temple—

Poi interrupted, “Sir. Do you really want to experiment with exploding diamonds… inside the temple?”

Erick paused. He looked over at the possibly-delicate statue of Atunir at the back of the temple. He could [Mend] the statue; that wouldn’t be a problem. But then he looked out over the farms. He said, “Shrapnel could fly pretty far, couldn’t it?”

Poi, relieved, said, “Yes, sir.”

Erick nodded, walking over to the basin. The spell was still going; bubbles broke the surface, while diamonds tumbled underwater. They had gotten big. The real winner here, though, was that the water was completely purified. Not a trace of platinum. Erick went and grabbed the stone bowls he had made yesterday and stored beside the statue of Atunir. With a bit of Handy Aura and the opening of dyes, Erick soon had four bowls filled with very specific shades of red and blue, in perfectly clear water.

With a bit of [Stoneshape], Erick had four seed diamonds plucked from the new clear diamonds. He dropped one each into the Strength-Crimson, Vitality-Cinnabar, Willpower-Ultramarine, and Focus-Cyan water. He started with the Strength-Crimson bowl.

[Crystallize Diamond].

Erick watched the diamond spurt around in the red water, but nothing changed. The red did not get sucked into the diamond like the platinum had. Erick let the gem bubble and stew, and went on to the other three bowls, setting each of the gems underwater to bubbling, smiling a bit to himself, thinking back to coloring Easter eggs with Jane when she was ten.

And then he frowned and laughed, as he remembered Jane pummeling the neighborhood boys with hardboiled eggs.

He went to his enchanting books to pick up where he left off. He renewed [Crystallize Diamond] as he let his mana recover to full. He did not [Cleanse]; that would probably destroy the dye.

Half an hour later, Erick checked on the diamonds. None of the color had been sucked into any of the gems, in any of the pools, but something did happen in each case. The Strength-Crimson diamond was vaguely pink; the color too dim to matter. He would have to leave that in the bowl overnight, like the dye suggested, if he wanted it to turn red. But Erick wasn’t going to do that. He put the barely-pink diamond aside then [Cleansed] that water and dumped it out. Vitality-Cinnabar was brown. Not a bad looking brown, but not the color needed for enchanting; this one was a failure. Erick pulled that gem from the bowl. Then he [Cleanse]d the water, destroying the color and any leftover toxins before he dumped the water out. Willpower-Ultramarine was brown, too. That bucket of water met the same fate as the rest.

Focus-Cyan dye and [Crystallize Diamond] created a yellow diamond.

It was a pretty yellow diamond; almost the color of sunshine. But it wasn’t what Erick wanted. Physical dyes in conjunction with [Crystallize Diamond] probably did something with the elements composing the dye, instead of just sucking the dye into the diamond. Erick either needed a magical dye, like how [Exalted Storm Aura] made platinum rain, or he needed the color mask [Ward]s to work.

And since the color masks already seemed to work, Erick decided to go forward with the masks.

But first! Another attempt at [Familiar]!

Erick had taken Sizzi’s advice to heart; if his [Familiar] didn’t have absolutely everything it needed, then it wasn’t good enough to stick around. So with that in mind, Erick chained together four hard needs, one desire, and three spells.

[Telepathy].

[Scry].

[Conjure Force Elemental].

 

 

A two foot tall jumble of ice appeared in front of Erick, in the rain just outside of the temple. It didn’t do anything but sit there; if Erick hadn’t just summoned it he would have thought someone had lost their ice. But. Ah. Now that he was looking closer… Not ice. Those were octahedral diamonds. All of the Rocky’s body was made of force, but it looked like diamond. Erick chalked that up to his own muddled thoughts.

Erick poked the creature with [Telepathy], but the pile of rocks did nothing. He tried using the mental commands of [Conjure Force Elemental], but this was not [Conjure Force Elemental]; there was no innate mental link. Not only was the creature mindless, but it seemed to be missing even the barest bit of [Conjure Force Elemental]’s telepathic control system.

Erick called out, “Hey, Rocky!”

The jumble of rocks responded. Its ‘head’ lifted from its ‘body’. Five or six disconnected ‘arms’ held the little guy off of the ground. It ‘walked’ toward Erick, its tumbling, spinning body parts propelling it forward, the not-diamonds of its body glittering in the gentle platinum rain.

Erick winced. He dismissed the summon and ripped apart the spell. The Rocky brought a limb to the ground and cracked in half. The creature fell, disintegrating, scattering white ash across the ground, vanishing into a white mist that disappeared under tinkling platinum rain.

Erick frowned, then proceeded to clean up his dye experiment. Water was [Cleanse]d and dumped, dyes were put away. Erick set those four bowls into the rain, then got six more to fill with platinum water. He chipped ten platinum diamond seeds from the first diamonds of the day, making sure that the gem chips he got were completely platinum.

With a look to the sky, and a push of intent, rain soon fell harder into the bowls, which he had to adjust with [Stoneshape] to better catch the downpour. Erick threw the platinum seeds inside the bowls, cast [Crystallize Diamond], over all of them, then went back into the temple to read his enchanting textbooks.

For the next hour, he cast [Crystallize Diamond] as needed, and [Cleanse] every 10 seconds.

And he read.

When the day’s scheduled farm was over, Erick had 10 perfectly platinum octahedral, messy diamonds, each 7 inches across. Now… if they were good for enchanting? Erick didn’t know. They certainly glittered in the sun nicely, though.

 

– – – –

 

It occurred to Erick, as he and Poi walked through the streets of Spur with about 22, 6-inch-plus diamonds in multiple burlap sacks, that he knew someone who probably knew how to shape a gem.

Al, the Stone Mage.

 

– – – –

 

The Sewerhouse was as gold and covered in holographic pipes as Erick remembered, with two animated bouncing and jiggling gold slimes flanking the entrance. It was still three stories tall, too. Erick walked between the slimes, into the front show room. Savral was there, just inside the entrance like usual, all black scales and black full plate armor, while purplescale Bacci stood behind the rad sales counter. She smiled as Erick walked into the store.

Erick smiled back. “Hello, you two.”

“Hey!” Savral said, “How’s it going, stranger?”

“It’s going great.” Erick asked, “Is your dad in?”

Savral didn’t get a chance to answer before heavy footfalls sounded up from the back of the room.

“I thought I heard you!” Al appeared up the stairs with a smile on his face and a bounce in his step. He looked quizzically at Erick’s bags, but asked, “Did you come to invite me to lunch?”

“I suppose I did!” Erick rolled with it, but held up a bag, saying, “But first I have some things I’d like you to take a look at.” Erick held out a burlap sack he had organized for Al, before he had walked through the door to the Sewerhouse. “Here.”

“Ooh?” Al took the bag, then looked inside. He froze. “Oh.”

Al just stared.

Erick smiled, at first, but Al was acting a lot stranger than Erick expected. Al was just staring into the bag. Savral frowned next to Erick, peering over into a bag in Erick’s hands. Erick handed Savral bag #2 of four. Savral took out a diamond and promptly frowned.

And then his face lit up.

“Holy gods!” Savral clutched the diamond in one hand, looking into the bag, saying, “How many of these do you have!?” Savral instantly looked to Erick, accusing, “And you’re walking around Spur with these!?”

Bacci abandoned her post, quick-stepping to Savral, saying, “Oh wow. They’re diamonds, right?”

“My claws won’t scratch, so I’d say they were.” Savral handed Bacci the bag, saying, “But I don’t know what the platinum ones are.”

“They’re all diamonds.” Erick said, bereft of bags. “I invented a diamond spell to serve my enchanting needs.”

Al blurted out a laugh, finally moving, then laughed louder, fuller. He picked out the yellow diamond from the bag Erick had given him, pulling it out into the light. In a flash, a spell ripped across the octahedron, sending shards and dust into the air, revealing a black sphere.

Al froze, again.

Al quickly thawed, saying, “You dyed it! Blasphemy!” Al unceremoniously tossed the offensive black gem to the ground; it rolled across the room to some forgotten corner as he picked up a different diamond from the bag. One of the clear ones, this time. Another spell ripped across the diamond, revealing a clear, perfect sphere. Al yelled, “Good!” as he ripped another spell across the gem.

Al sighed, satisfied and smiling, as he held a 5 inch, diamond sphere, with what had to be about a thousand individual perfect cuts across the whole newly-prismatic surface. The gem glimmered in the light, catching and revealing an inner fire.

Erick smiled, saying, “You can have that whole bag, by the way.”

“Can you do rubies and sapphires?” Al asked, obviously hopeful. “Or emeralds?”

“Nope!”

Al cursed, then laughed, holding his cut gem, saying, “Just as well. This is magnificent. I don’t know what you’d do with them but to look at them, but they are very good for looking at.”

Erick pointed at the gem in Al’s hands. “That’s sort of what I came to talk to you about. How’d you rip that into a sphere?”

Al smiled. He picked up a messy, raw silver diamond. In another flash of light, the gem became a perfect, silver sphere. Al had looked like he was going to say something else, but then he asked, “It didn’t blacken?”

“Made with platinum rainwater.” Erick said, “I’m not sure how it worked, though.”

Al nodded, holding the spherical platinum diamond. He held it up, saying, “I was never good at enchanting, but I can cut a sphere quite well.” He looked down at the bag. “I can keep these?”

“Yes.” Erick said, “Spend ‘em now, because the spell to make them is coming to the Script in a year.”

“Spend them!” Al said, “Preposterous! I’m keeping them, and they’re going to be beautiful. My skill with gem shaping is much better than this! This was just a test,” he said, hefting the cut clear diamond. “You should learn the cut yourself. Get a wheel and the tools; learn through a thousand hours of grinding and polishing. Feel the stone, capture light inside your heart and inside the stone.” He stared at the platinum gem in one hand, then the clear gem in the other. “Though I have no idea if you can even enchant something this big.”

“I haven’t tried the silver ones yet.” Erick asked, “You want to give it a go?”

Al shook his head, saying, “They always explode.”

Erick smiled. “Then let’s go to lunch.”

Al nodded. In moments, Erick had left all of the diamonds with Bacci, who was all too happy to play with them; she also had some skill cutting gems. Erick bade her good fortune, and to have at it.

 

– – – –

 

“There’s really no way to do what you did without the practice? Physical practice?” Erick asked, over a plate of fried chicken and fries.

Al spoke over his own fried meat and vegetable platter. “Nope. Repetition is the key! You must build that mental callus with your physical hands, grinding and grinding, so that you know what you want from the spell.” He added, “You could buy the tier 2 [Gemshape] spell if you want, but it will never be as good as properly executed [Stoneshape].”

Poi ate his own lunch at another table, watching over Erick.

And Al spoke of gemcutting like it was an old lover he had spent many nights wooing, but never quite catching.

 

– – – –

 

When they got back to the Sewerhouse, Bacci showed off one diamond she had cut into dozens of smaller, beautifully radiant, clear jewels. They weren’t good for enchanting, but they looked magnificent.

Erick happily left her with her own bag of gems, then he remembered how her solid [Ward] activated the trap in the Sewerhouse, saving them all from the attackers over a month ago.

“Oh yeah.” Erick asked, “What’s that solid [Ward] you used, called? To ramp the water?”

Bacci said, “[Water Ward], but it’s only useful against water. [Solid Ward]s are tough to make and you can only have one; one in your Status and one active at a time. Al’s is better than mine.”

Al said, “[Stoneshape], [Ward], and [Airshape], all at the same time. Took me a decade to make.”

Erick frowned. “Something else to work on in my spare time, I guess.”

On the way home, Erick stopped at a wrought marketplace to pick up some quality iron.

 

– – – –

 

Back in his mage tower, Erick stored away his unworked gems and placed dozens of spherical diamonds onto the counter. Al had been kind enough to cut Erick various perfect-spheres of both the silver and clear variety.

Al had recommended that Erick [Stoneshape] some walls across everything that he didn’t want shrapnel to destroy, which was a good suggestions, so Erick went and did just that. There wasn’t enough raw material in his house to be moving the floors around all willy-nilly, though. So Erick went outside and fed logs of stone through the side of the house, into cleared spaces in his tower.

Back inside, he Aurify’d [Stoneshape] to roll the logs of stone up across his bookshelves and cabinets, fitting everything that could collect shattered gems with a layer of stone, like raising shutters. He didn’t have anything valuable that could break, but putting up these shutters was a good step to take for the future.

When everything was fitted and cleanup looked like it would be a breeze, Erick threw an 850 mana[Absorption Ward] across the whole space and down the hallway, so that anyone standing outside of the open archway to his tower wouldn’t get clipped by stray exploding diamonds.

A 3400 mana [Ward] would have to do, for now.

Erick took his ring off and put it to the side.

[Special Ward].

Willpower-Ultramarine filled the room, turning everything brilliant blue. Erick placed a one centimeter, spherical, platinum diamond gem on a stone pedestal holder he had made earlier. The books had said that channeling onto your palm was easier, but also more dangerous; using a pedestal was an acceptable degree of separation.

Extending a finger, Erick channeled mana through his Willpower, feeling the resonance within, watching it erupt into Reality as a bright, Ultramarine glow; all other hues denied. He held the flow open, refining the flare of mana into a radiant, steady fire, like that of a propane torch.

He steadied his nerves, then touched the platinum diamond.

Ultramarine flared off of the gem like a light from a mirror.

Erick kept the infusion up for two minutes, yet nothing seemed to penetrate the surface of the gem. He pulled his mana back, the flare from his finger fading. A quick check with [Metalshape] and a bracer to hold the platinum gem, proved that nothing had gotten through the mirror surface—

Erick had an idea.

He rushed to the kitchen to fill a bowl with clear water drawn from the fountain. As it filled, Erick dropped a sliver of clear diamond into the bowl, casting [Crystallize Diamond] as it fell. The water bubbled away under the surface, Erick [Cleanse]ing it every few seconds. When the bowl was full of clean water, Erick rushed outside, Teressa slowly but certainly following.

Outside, Erick threw an Ultramarine [Ward] into the air, then placed the bowl down into the [Ward]. He started channeling Willpower into the water, while it was bubbling; while the gem was growing.

The gem soaked up Erick’s resonance through the water, but imperfectly, slipping outside of the jagged triangles all over the gem’s surface as tiny flashes of light that blinked through the water and were gone. He went slowly, trying not to overwhelm the bubbling gem.

When the gem stopped bubbling, Erick stopped channeling. He pulled out a blank metal bracer and placed the octahedral gem into the setting. For a brief moment, it was enchanted for 7 extra Willpower, but then it was 5, then 2, then 1, then gone.

After removing the gem from its holder, Erick threw out a 400 point [Absorption Ward] at his feet, then began [Stoneshape]ing the imperfect gem into a sphere. Erick had proven that he could enchant through water, into the gem. This was good. Now, he needed to test if he could trap the enchantment into the interior using platinum rain.

When Erick had regenerated enough mana and carved the gem into enough of a sphere, Erick tossed the gem into the water. Inside an Ultramarine part of the world, Erick gently channeled Willpower into the water, and into the gem. Resonance flowed inside, bouncing around inside the sphere; little of that light escaping now that the gem was spherical. Erick opened his [Exalted Storm Aura]; a pillar of silver clouds stretched directly upward. Platinum rain fell like a sudden summer downpour, straight down, instantly soaking through all of Erick’s clothes, and soaking into the water.

[Crystallize Diamond].

Erick’s blue flare started to flash through the reflective platinum water as bubbles appeared; Erick pumped up the flow of mana through his Willpower, increasing what might be getting through to the diamond. The gem crusted over, a thin layer of platinum covering the sphere, growing into triangular plates, fully covering the clear center.

Or at least that’s what Erick thought was happening. He couldn’t see through the water as soon as platinum mixed with the clear. Erick continued to channel Willpower into the experiment, though. He even cast [Cleanse] near the end, having forgotten about that detail this whole time. Thick air spilled into the storm.

Erick let the storm rain until the diamond stopped bubbling.

When he pulled out the gem, under a clearing sky, Erick realized he did not need to go so far with the rain, or the mirror shell. No color had soaked into the 3 inch diameter silver octahedron.

Erick put the unwieldy gem into the metal bracelet, then put that bracelet on.

Yup. No enchant.

Or…

Wait.

Erick began carving away the outside of the gem, practicing his spherical carving, scattering platinum diamond dust onto the ground. He stepped out of the Ultramarine [Ward] to better see what he was doing, though that didn’t really help. After a minute, Erick might have carved deep enough, down to the original clear sphere inside. He locked the gem back into its bracer, and got a surprise.

It was a plus eleven Willpower bracer.

And then Erick remembered that, except for rings, Willpower and Focus items needed to be placed around the head for them to work best; Strength and Vitality could be placed anywhere. Erick [Metalshape]d the gem back out, then turned the bracer into a diadem. He placed the gem into the diadem, then put it on his head.

It was a plus thirty-one Willpower diadem.

Erick felt a little heady as his Willpower jumped to 61; this was nothing like the power he felt having a higher Strength, but there was still some kinda expansive feeling to the experience. And then he laughed; this was perfect! He held the diadem to his head, hopping up and down while the white clouds of his [Exalted Storm Aura] flowed away with the winds above Spur.

The diadem crumbled around his head like so much fragmented force, ash to dust.

 

 

 

Erick scrunched his face in a small display of anger, laughing at his goal completing but mad that his item was gone. He sighed. He felt calmly expansive. As his mana slowly started ticking up, Erick realized he had a lot of extra points to spend. He dumped 10 of them into Willpower.

 

 

“Now that’s some healthy mana!” Erick said, a renewed feeling of stretching taking hold in his body. “Hmm.” He frowned. He was feeling quite stretched, actually. “Hmmm.”

Teressa asked, “Are you okay, sir?”

Erick looked to her, as his feelings of expansion turning to queasiness. “Ah?”

“You’re tilting, sir.”

Erick blinked, trying to understand. Oh. Yes. Everything was slightly leaning left, wasn’t it; or rather, Erick was leaning right. He stood up straighter. He blinked again. Queasiness dialed down to expansion, then began to settle into the background. Erick felt his space, steadying himself, looking all around. Equilibrium slowly returned. Breathe in; breathe out. He hopped on one foot; he stretched his hands up to the sky, then he touched his toes. He still felt a little stretched, but the feeling was almost gone, now.

“Okay. It’s fading.” Erick asked, “Is that normal? For a big Willpower and Mana boost?”

“Yes, sir.” Teressa said, looking out across the Human District. “Would you like to do the rest inside? Perhaps with a downspout leading into your tower? After a change into dry clothes?”

“Oh!” Erick was soaking wet, wasn’t he. He laughed. “Yes. I think I will, Teressa. All excellent ideas.”

 

– – – –

 

Clean water wasn’t a part of what [Cleanse] could disperse, so Erick changed into another set of clothes. When he was dry again, and after making some afternoon coffee, he set to work changing how his tower handled rain, and water.

With the ease of his Handy Aura and [Stoneshape], Erick refitted the top of his mage tower into a series of gutters that led to a space on the right of the tower, at about knee height. Inside the tower, Erick built a trough. At one end of the trough was the intake; at the other, an exit. With another application of [Stoneshape], Erick opened the hole in the tower and connected the trough to the gutters outside.

Erick started up the rain. Platinum water fell across Erick’s house in a torrential downpour, racing down the gutters to splash everywhere inside of the tower.

With a few frantic adjustments, Erick eventually had a constantly refilling and emptying trough of platinum water, seven feet across, three wide, and three deep. He wouldn’t actually grow the diamonds in here; the growth process gave off toxins of some sort and he wasn’t about to become a Pollution Mage, if such a thing even existed. He would use this trough to refill stone bowls as needed.

… He certainly was using a lot of water in his magic, wasn’t he?

Erick bought [Watershape].

 

 

… The temptation to level a new useful skill was great, but Erick had needs, and he needed 50 Focus in some enchanted gear.

So he got right on that.

He had several properly sized. clear-spherical diamonds already, thanks to Al, so he skipped the growing process, since infusing a growing gem with a Stat didn’t seem to do anything besides produce a minor light show.

With three, 2-centimeter spherical gems in a bowl of platinum water and a Focus-Cyan maskward in the air, Erick channeled mana through his Focus, producing a cyan glow. He put his hand entirely into the water, making sure he touched each gem under the reflective platinum surface, to infuse them directly. He pulled his hand back, but still fed the experiment with Cyan resonance, hopefully still charging the gems out of his sight. A quick activation of [Crystallize Diamond] locked in the glow, as platinum soaked into the gems. Erick turned on [Cleanse Aura] and thick air escaped into the tower. Erick cut [Crystallize Diamond] early, with a push of his own mana to disrupt the ongoing spell, only 20 seconds into the experiment.

At the bottom of murky water, rested three octahedral, platinum diamonds.

The outsides of the gems didn’t matter when they were this thin, so Erick picked up one gem and placed it into an iron crown. The crown gave him 21 Focus. Erick quickly [Metalshape]d the other two gems into the crown. He felt as the gems connected to each other; as the enchantment in all three began to resonate, and then calm.

It did not explode.

Erick breathed a sigh of relief. And then he put the crown on his head.

 

 

Erick saw the blue box as he felt the crown disintegrate around his head. There was no opportunity to inspect his Status before the crown vanished, because he fell backward, onto the stone floor of his tower. And then he sat up. He blinked a bit. There was a shadow looking down at him.

With her blond hair flowing over grey armor, Teressa grunted, “Hm.”

Erick said, “I’m good.”