098, 1/2

What Erick called ‘burgers’ and what everyone else called ‘patties’, sizzled on the flat top stove, next to a nice pile of caramelized onions. Those two items alone were enough to fill the kitchen and the rest of the first floor of the house with savory smells. Kiri scattered bright red and black spices on the browning meat, further flavoring the air with dried peppers and crushed peppercorns.

“You know? You’re the only one who doesn’t cook with bluebell,” Erick said, as he washed the lettuce for the salad.

Kiri tossed the grilling onions, saying, “I don’t see the appeal. It’s too… soft? Not exactly flowery, even though it is a flower, but… it’s like? Eh. It’s too subtle. That’s the word.” She added more ground peppercorns, saying, “I want to taste the spice.”

Erick said, “There’s this spice on Earth that’s a lot worse than bluebell. It’s called parsley, and I never understood why anyone cooked with it. It’s basically lettuce, but sized for sprinkling—”

The door to the house opened. Someone walked inside.

Erick glanced over, through the light, his eyes acting as though he was there in person, in the foyer. He spoke through the light, to the arrival, saying, “Welcome home, Teressa!”

Teressa looked around. “What’s going on?”

Erick, still in the kitchen, but with senses in the foyer, said, “I’m playing around with [Lightwalk]. Dinner will be ready in ten minutes.” He withdrew back to himself, and called out, “I tapped the keg already!”

Teressa walked into the kitchen, saying, “You call it [Lightwalk], but that is not [Lightwalk].”

With a gentle grip of white glows, and while he was chopping onions three meters away, Erick filled a mug of beer for Teressa. He floated it toward her, saying, “A guy has to have some secrets, right?”

Teressa took the mug and a sip, then said, “I’m not complaining. Just sayin’.”

Kiri watched as Erick floated a jar of salad dressing out of the cold box, using nothing but a wrap of white glows. She said, “I think I need to get [Lightwalk]. Is that option for the light dungeon still available?”

“Yes.” Erick said, “As far as I know. Just gotta talk to Merith, the River Mage who oversees the whole thing. You remember her?”

“I remember her.”

“They might have some people currently harvesting it all, so you probably have to put in a request.” Erick said, “But whenever you want to go is fine with me. We can handle you being gone for a week.”

Kiri smiled as she poked at the onions, saying, “Thank you.”

“It’s an option for everyone.” Erick said, “Far as I know, that’s what I asked for and what the Headmaster agreed to.”

“I don’t want it,” Teressa said, walking over to the grill. “No bluebell?”

Kiri smirked, saying, “You can make dinner tomorrow with all the bluebell you want. I’m going to look into getting [Lightwalk]. Maybe they’ll be able to take me tomorrow and I can avoid your bluebell travesties.”

“Have you tried aura work, Kiri?” Erick asked, setting the finished salad aside. “I couldn’t manage any, but you should theoretically be able to remake every spell using that, too.”

Kiri flipped the cooked burgers, then added cheese. As slices of yellow melted into the meat, she said, “Aura work was considered purely esoteric back at the Tower, so I never got the opportunity, and I never had the desire. We mostly just fought with each other and learned how to work the spells necessary to hold the line, to be proper soldiers.” She added, “I mean. Obviously, soldiers are needed, and I learned a lot. But being out in the world had been better for me, I think. The point is: I never heard of anyone remaking any spells with any aura work, either. The only things they taught were how to feel out your aura, so you could avoid hitting your allies with any aura spells.”

“I still have to try that [Fireball Aura].” Erick said, “I wonder if it would hurt.”

Teressa laughed, then said, “I’ll get the rod of [Treat Wounds] ready.”

Kiri said, “The first time I used my [Fireball Aura] was the last time I ever used that awful thing. I needed a rush to the doctor— That reminds me. I once saw Jane use a [Force Shrapnel] fire aura, and a [Cleanse Aura] at the same time. It was interesting. They worked well together, for reasons I never really considered until recently.”

“Oxygen makes fire burn better.” Erick nodded, saying, “[Cleanse] would restore the oxygen in the air. Seems like an interesting spell?”

Kiri smiled, then added, “I made my first really good spell in a long while, this morning.”

“Oh?!” Erick asked, “Good job, Kiri! What’d you make?”

Kiri popped out a blue box, saying, “It’s… A minor goal that worked itself out, after I watched your [Comet Swarm] last night.”

 

 

Erick said, “That looks nifty.”

“It’s tier 2, too.” Kiri said, “Mana Altering for Fire and Light, with a focus on damage over time, and then [Conjure Force Elemental]. The second half of the spell is [Force Bolt], and then you have [Force Crash] for the duration and multiple Bolts.” She added, “Joining the parts together, all at once, went a lot easier than I thought it would go. I just harmonized them all, and cast.”

Erick’s smile was that of a happy teacher. While a pleasant warmth spread in his chest, he said, “That’s really good, Kiri.”

Kiri withdrew into herself a little, saying, “It’s no [Firelight Comet Swarm], but it’s great for smaller targets.”

Erick happily said, “You did well! Good job.” He added, “That’s under projected costs, too, isn’t it?”

Kiri smiled to herself, then turned to Erick, saying, “A great deal less than what I thought it would cost. Those effects should have bloomed it to a thousand mana, or more.”

Poi walked into the room. “Dinner ready?”

Kiri said, “Yup!”

Dinner was good.

Erick read about [Teleport Other] till bedtime.

The next morning, he saw Kiri off, in the foyer of the house. She had contacted Merith, the woman overseeing the Light Slime dungeon, and had gotten clearance to come on down, and spend a week gaining [Lightwalk]. Kiri would be staying in Windy Manor, with Jane, and maybe they would come back together, when both of them were ready for the trip. Or maybe not? However it happened was fine with Erick. Kiri needed [Lightwalk], and now she was going to go get it.

Erick said, “Good luck! Don’t let anyone take advantage of you.”

“Thank you, Erick. If you need me back for anything, let me know. I shouldn’t take more than a week.”

Sunny floated in the air around Kiri, her serpentine form holding in a swerving, repeating pattern, as her tiny, feathered wings undulated in time with the rest of her. She flickered green, eager to go. Ophiel, for his part, chirped in the air a short ways from Sunny, eyeing the couatl-shaped [Familiar].

Erick said, “Have fun.”

“I hope so!”

Kiri blipped away in a green flash, followed closely by Sunny. Ophiel just stared at the fading green lights, his chirps turning a bit more sad-flute, than intrigued-harp.

Erick patted his own shoulder, saying, “Come on, Ophiel.” Ophiel quickly took his perch, as Erick said, “Let’s go read about [Teleport Other].”

 

– – – –

 

[Teleport Other] was not like [Teleport Object], in that the former dealt with living, consenting or denying persons, and the latter dealt with inert matter. Back on Earth, the difference between the two was largely philosophical, for how could anyone point to a part of the body, and say ‘Lo! This is what makes something alive!’, when there was no single part of the body that was truly any different than any other?

… Or maybe the instruments of Earth were just not good enough to recognize a living thing?

But whatever the case, on Veird, the difference between Object and Other was solid, irrefutable, and perfectly demonstrable, in the presence, or absence, or degree, of the existence of the aura that all living things possessed. Even plants had auras, but unless they were magical plants, or established plants, or older plants, then those auras were usually overshadowed by the presence of whatever other higher-order lifeform was nearby.

This was how a person could [Teleport] with fresh produce, and not have all their produce get left behind, or accidentally drop their gut flora whenever they blipped away, leaving messes behind wherever they went. If it wasn’t for this simple, ‘automatic overwriting’ of the various tiny things that were near a person, [Teleport] would simply never work, because it would kill a person in process; either right away, as some of their body mass left them, or slowly, as their insides failed due to massive disruption of the body’s biome.

(Reading this got Erick instantly excited, as his thoughts turned to the [Teleport Lock] of the Shades. Were there Force constructs, or perhaps bacteria, or something, that populated the air around the Shades, on command, for kilometers in every direction, that took hold of the gut biome, or some other smaller biome, and said ‘no’, to [Teleport]s, thus violating the ‘safety’ of [Teleport], and making it not work? Erick considered a construct as the best option. Some sort of higher-order aura, perhaps?)

(But as he flipped through the black Wayfarer book, and read about [Teleport]’s safeties, he started to severely doubt that he had somehow stumbled upon some great secret regarding [Teleport Lock] that no one else had been able to see in all the years of [Teleport]ing on Veird. If the problem was as small, and as large, as corrupting the aura of everyone nearby, then surely someone would have tried that before? Right?)

[Teleport] had a lot of safeties. Violating any of them would cause the spell to not work as intended, and thus cause the spell to not activate as desired. The ability to overwrite smaller auras was only part of these safeties.

One of the spell’s safeties was regarding destination. [Teleport] did not work if the target location was occupied; the spell would shunt you to the nearest unoccupied space, with preference given to a space that was along the direction that you blipped from, or close by the ‘line’ drawn from point A and point B. (Oddly, the problem of having air or water in the new location was not considered, since [Teleport] did not technically move you, because what blipping did, was put you in the new location as though you got there normally.) Another safety was regarding momentum; blips always bled off momentum, and stabilized the target to their new location. Orientation was another; you always blipped to the new location in roughly the same up-down configuration in which you started.

But regarding [Teleport Other], there were still safeties to keep in mind with the spell, that if they were not honored, then the spell would not work, or it would, and you would end up with [Partial Teleport Other]. [Partial Teleport Other] was a failure, though. The goal was [Gate], not ‘kill someone by blipping half their body away’, and from what Erick was reading right now, it seemed that people who opted for the killing spell never made it very far with any further [Teleport] magics.

The Wayfarers method of [Teleport Other] was almost ‘tricking the system’, so to speak. Just how like Archmage Opal worked her [Ward Destruction], the Wayfarers had broken down [Teleport Other] into a simple, complicated process. First, a mage had to overwrite the aura of another, or match their aura to the other’s, or find some compromise and force it on the other, and then make them [Teleport]. The problem, then, fully laid out, was thus:

Not only were you reinventing [Teleport], but you were also making someone else make the spell.

Another problem to this process was that other people were not discrete bits of ‘self’, they were sort of like spells, themselves; they were composed of many parts, all working under the power umbrella of an individual’s soul. But Wayfarers were not soulmages, and [Teleport Other] was not mind magic, either.

All [Teleport] spells were actually a form of elemental magic.

(It was here, that Erick learned more about Everlin Etherspray, the air Elementassi responsible for the creation of all [Teleport] magics on Veird and the founder of the Wayfarer’s Guild. It was here, that Erick learned of the real importance of the Elemental Bodies.)

(Back before the Sundering, Everlin was born to a slaver elven mother, and fathered by a summoned air elemental. Because of these well established birthing methods, and Everlin’s status as an Elementassi, Everlin should have been born with an innate control of her aura, and control of magic, and thus gotten a large step up on everyone else not born to an Elemental Body. It wasn’t till later in life that she was actually able to harness this innate ability, but that was a side note in the greater story. The point was this: While normal people struggled with aura control in order to work their magic, Everlin could turn her entire body into an ‘aura’ of air, and take direct control of the mana around her.)

(These children, gifted and burdened with Elemental Bodies, were the purpose behind the elven, and others’, habit of summoning elementals for procreation. But in elven society, these children were not to be prodigies. They were to be slaves to their parents.)

But with regard to what Erick was here for:

Remaking [Teleport Object] was closer to remaking [Blink], since the range was so much shorter. There was also no other auras involved except the caster’s, since rocks and otherwise had no ability to say ‘no’. Because of this, Erick had a relatively easy time remaking [Teleport Object].

But to make [Teleport Other], one had to bring another into one’s own Elemental Body, and then move them. Here lay another problem: even if someone was riding along in your Elemental Body, they could still say ‘no’ whenever they wanted. You, in your Elemental Body, were like an amoeba, surrounding and dragging another along for the ride.

This then was the big secret behind [Teleport Other]:

[Teleport] required active, purposeful consent, in order to join in the [Teleport] of another.

[Teleport Other] was slightly different, and very different, all at the same time. [Teleport Other] always had in it some innate assent in order to start the process. This assent, either unintended or accidental or ‘harmless’, was the wound in the natural ‘no’ that most people had, that stopped all undesired [Teleport]s. Exploiting this ingress, expanding it into a full-fledged ‘yes’, was yet another hard part of the spellwork that was made somewhat easier by the amoeba-like nature of all Elemental Bodies.

So to [Teleport Other], one had to fully invade another, and control their probability from the inside.

The good thing, though, if it could be thought of as ‘good’, was that the initial ingress could be as vague as an intruder crossing a threshold, into a place the intruder should not be, or as certain as someone agreeing to something entirely unrelated to the situation. Or a handshake, or raising their hand in class, or accepting an invitation, or anything at all where one person connected to another.

Erick instantly thought back to Apogee offering him a drink, and him saying ‘okay’. He laughed, then said, in a friendly sort of way, “That asshole!”

He set down the Wayfarers book and thought, while Ophiel twittered on his perch. Erick looked to his feathered, many eyed [Familiar].

Ophiel did not have the problems of gut biomes or aura control. Ophiel was a single function of mana. Erick could channel mana through [Summon Ophiel], and create a symphony of deep, resonant sound, like that of a portal to a mysticism far older than any location had any right to be; but he didn’t, because Poi was home and that sort of sound made the sapphire scaled man very uncomfortable.

Instead, Erick channeled pure, untainted mana through his hand. The white flare sticking up from his palm vibrated with the sound of his own soul, filling the room like a memory of a life made manifest. It was a complicated sound that he had heard before, but each moment the sound shifted. It was the same song sung in different voices, or rather the same voice, but with focuses held in different directions, sometimes focusing on difficult times, but then changing to see that same time in a different light, full of moments of growth and change and joy at all existence could be. Hearing himself was emotionally hard to bear, and difficult to understand. Erick cut the channel.

Whatever this white glow was, it was not something as simple as channeling through a Stat, and producing a light. Stat enchanting produced resonances, for sure, but they were more the resonances of light wavelengths. This, right here, was like channeling through a very complicated spell, or rather, through a person’s soul.

Erick wasn’t sure how Kiri had done it, but channeling her soul had made Charisma Stat jewelry. How odd was that?

Erick looked up to Ophiel.

Channeling through [Summon Ophiel] was much less complicated than channeling unaligned mana.

But Ophiel would already be on the same wavelength as Ophiel…

Erick hummed, then shrugged, saying, “Might as well try for the low hanging fruit, first.”

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

 

– – – –

 

Two Ophiel hung out in the air, far north of Spur. With the sun shining down from a clear blue sky, one Ophiel turned into light, and the other one got tossed around. There was much whining, and a veritable cacophony of flute sounds, as Ophiel voiced his displeasure to Ophiel.

But a spell was made.

In another experiment, a temporary being called Jewels, looking like a crystal and telekinetically carrying around a hundred stone knives, got tossed around, turned to light, and flung back and forth. He broke a few times, but Erick just made another.

He made his second spell of the day, too.

In another bit of fun, Erick, as Ophiel, and with Ophiel as a being of light, hovered near a mimic. Ophiel poked the mimic with a pseudopod of light, half the size of the ten meter tall not-agave. The mimic poked back, lifting a pointed, crystalline stabber into the air, jabbing around at the density that disturbed its camouflage. Stab stab! went the crystalline not-leaf, semi-curious and semi-furious at the same time.

That was sort of like consent, right?

Ophiel wrapped the mimic in light, and pulled it inward. The mimic was only briefly confused, as it stumbled, entering the luminous air, but it continued onward, into the brightness, fully into Ophiel’s clutches, mingling itself with its captor, like a fly not aware that it was only tangling itself deeper in the spider’s web.

The mimic ended up scattered across the sand, broken into pieces and parts. Ophiel tried again, on another mimic. This one, too, went flying into pieces.

Again, again, again.

Eventually, Erick managed to make it work. Back home, in Spur, a blue box appeared.

 

– – – –

 

Erick frowned at his three new, and mostly useless, spells.

[Teleport Familiar], which was basically what it said on the tin. [Teleport Summon] was also exactly as advertised. And finally, [Teleport Monster], which might be the only good one of the bunch. Each of them were basic spells, too. Just like [Teleport], or [Teleport Object], or [Blink].