136, 2/2

Erick walked along the beach, barefoot and happy, sporting shorts and sunglasses. It was a good day, and feeling the hot sand between his toes was a good feeling. He would have liked to have actual beachwear, but they only sold stuff like that in certain markets, like for the pearl divers of Portal, or for other underwater professions. Beachwear for leisure didn’t really exist on Veird. ‘Shorts’ didn’t really exist, either, but getting a pair of those only required the sacrifice of some pants and an application of [Fabricate].

Jane wore a bikini made from an extra pair of her own clothes. She kicked the surf as she walked beside Erick. It was just the two of them, right now. Poi and Teressa were back in the shelter, sleeping inside a [Prismatic Ward], while a few Ophiel played in the dunes atop the shelter and kept a lookout. Other Ophiel flew high in the sky, or played in the surf beside Jane. One sat on Erick’s shoulder, twittering in contented violin sounds, while a pair watched over the Imaging, vigilant for the appearance of new blue dots. They watched for monsters and people, switching the map back and forth whenever they felt the need, which was every 5 minutes or so, apparently.

The map was only there as a normal precaution, but this place was rather empty of everything. Monsters or people, neither were here. It was nice. Even Yggdrasil’s eye had managed to find Erick again, though it had taken him a while to do so. Erick was glad that he hadn’t accidentally gotten out of range of the big guy, and had Yggdrasil pop like the Ophiel had, though he suspected that ‘getting too far from Yggdrasil’ was a feat that might be literally impossible.

Erick and Jane had walked a good kilometer down the beach, talking about nothing in particular; just enjoying each other’s company. Erick’s soul was slightly damaged, but nothing too bad. It was mostly healed, too, which was good. He wasn’t done making magic today.

And because of that thought, he turned the conversation toward magic, asking, “How’s your [Shadow Replication] working out?”

“A few problems to fix, yet. Failed to make it exactly how I wanted, but I can make it again tomorrow.” Jane said, “But since we’re talking about magic and it’s just you and me, Poi said that one of your spells made you float.” Jane walked closer, then matched his stride. “Said you looked like you were supporting yourself on a [Thunder Wave Aura]. When that spell dropped, he said he had to pull you out of the water and you almost drowned.”

“… Yeah. I probably shouldn’t have done that so close to the beach.” Erick asked, “Are you mad at me?”

“Yes,” Jane said, without anger. “You need to pick up the Quests for [Greater Treat Wounds] and [Regeneration]. That way, Ophiel can heal you the next time you almost kill yourself. By the way, you counted for 1 person out of the 5000 that I need to ‘rescue from death’ in order to get [Regeneration].”

She had said the words casually, but she was just hiding her hurt.

“Sorry,” Erick said.

“I love you, dad, but just like how I have my own life and that hurts you, I know you have your own life and that hurts me, too.” Jane looked away, saying, “I’m not… I’m not actually mad at you. It’s just a part of life to watch the people you love get hurt. I’m more mad at that fact, but you are the one hurting yourself, so there’s some obvious overlap.”

They walked together, down the beach, atop the wet part of the white sand. There was no separating line of broken shells between the dry part and the wet part, as there would have been back on Earth. Erick distinctly recalled from his time in Florida that there should have been a line of jumbled shells up on this beach, but this world was too young, and not many seashell-type animals had been made. That realization did not hit him as hard as realizing that he was hurting his daughter just by exploring this world, and that her plan would have visited that same hurt upon him.

And that there was no way to avoid that.

Jane matched her stride to Erick, and Erick did the same for her. She grabbed his hand, and he squeezed hers. Both of them smiled for a little while, ignoring the truth of reality. They walked hand in hand in the sun, across the sand. And then Jane broke away.

The wind blew warmth across the beach.

Soon enough, Erick broke the silence, asking, “What’s the difference between [Greater Treat Wounds] and [Regeneration]?”

Jane handed Erick a blue box.

Like speaking from a book she had read, Jane said, “While [Greater Treat Wounds] will repair broken bones and has the ability to restore minor losses of flesh when used right away, [Regeneration] is focused on the secondary effect of [Greater Treat Wounds] and can be used well past the window where [Greater Treat Wounds] shines. For actual medical treatment, and when discussing healing outside of battle, a healer is not a healer if they do not have [Regeneration].” On a more personal note, she added, “[Polymorph] sort of makes both of them obsolete if you use it right, but not many people have [Polymorph], and injured, unconscious people can’t [Polymorph], anyway.”

“You’re going to be a healer?” Erick asked, “I heard about [Restoration] helping to restore vibrancy to the body and making all other healing magic easier. Have you considered that one, too?”

“I’m not going to be a healer, but yes, I am. Can’t have two healing quests at the same time, though, so [Restoration] is going to have to wait.” Jane said, “I’ve been working on that Charm magic, too. Charms won’t be as good as actual rods of [Greater Treat Wounds], but we’re out of those, now, and I won’t ever let myself be out of the battle because of an injury.”

Erick smiled. “I’ll have to get those Quests, too.”

Jane nodded, happily saying, “Good! Start with [Greater Treat Wounds]. That should be the most practical for you.” She asked, “But what are you going to do with your new spells?”

Erick looked out across the world, and said, “I need to play around with them, first.”

“I know you leveled them already. No ideas yet?”

“Ohh!” Erick smiled. “I’ve got ideas.”

“Good!” Jane smiled, then she hopped back the way they came, saying, “What form won’t be affected, you think?”

Erick shaped a [Stillness] over his daughter, along with a [Prismatic Ward] from an Ophiel, saying, “[Lightwalk]. You should be able to see through the light of [Stillness] with that one.”

Jane glowed with an inner brightness, turning partially transparent and mostly dark blue inside the dome of protective magic. She called out, “Let ‘er rip!” but it came out as simple spoken words and a flash of white brightness.

Erick smiled, then he turned his attention to the ocean. He had a grand plan for his four new spells, but like all grand plans, it started with a few steps.

[Normalize]. Aurify.

The world around Erick turned safer, it seemed. Not much happened except for a slow drain on his mana. A good distance away in every way, there was a great lot of nothing. This was the expected result. These spells were not meant to be used individually, after all.

A blue box appeared.

Erick cut the aura, then moved onto the next spell.

[Harmonize]. Aurify.

Waves began to crash upon the shore with purpose, and in sync. The wind moved like a solid object. Sand moved in that wind, becoming fractal swirls. Grass swayed in harmony. A blue box appeared.

Erick cut that aura. The effect lingered, briefly. Then chaos came back into the world.

Moving right along.

[Amplify]. Aurify.

Erick was the center of a still pond, and then, he was the disturbance. He moved a hand, and ripples raced away, like itty-bitty shock waves, guided by the surface of his body. Those waves crashed outward, going a lot further than Erick would have expected before they dissipated.

A blue box appeared.

Erick wasn’t done with this one.

[Amplify Aura] was the damaging part of what would come. He needed to understand it more than the other parts.

He snapped his fingers and his aura rang like a gong, like dropping a boulder into Reality at his fingertips, creating shockwaves that radiated from the entirety of his body, and that continued to radiate, like a gong smacked hard. Sand blasted away from under his bare feet, quickly leaving him standing above the ground. He floated on his own shockwaves as those shockwaves rushed across the beach and into the sky, pulsing away dunes and turning the tops of cresting waves into mist. He took a step—

A problem appeared.

He couldn’t walk on the air, like this, like he could with [Greater Lightwalk]. He stepped forward and only managed to flail his feet. His flailing only managed to increase the shockwaves coming from his whole body, which in turn forced him further into the air, away from the land, in a way that was likely ‘away from the closest solid object’, which was Veird itself. Erick wasn’t quite sure what was happening there. All he knew was that he began to rise into the air as shockwaves continued to blast away from him. It wasn’t unpleasant. It was just odd. He smiled, and enjoyed the lift. It wasn’t nearly as loud as he had expected, either, but that was likely because it was his aura, after all.

He heard the gong noises, sure, but they did not hurt him.

Ophiel’s experience of this aura was completely different.

Shockwaves crashed over Ophiel, and Ophiel fluttered backward, away from Erick, taking minor bits of damage with each pulse. He complained in flute sounds that were more telepathic than aural, since Erick couldn’t really hear anything except for his own gonging. This was a much better result than what he had expected. He had expected the noise to be worse. He had expected his eardrums to rupture and for blood to splatter from every part of him.

He also expected to shut down the spell well before it got that far. So this was good! All good results, so far. Better than expected.

He glanced to Jane. The entire bubble he had put around her was bright white; the result of [Stillness] turning sound to light. Ophiel was there with her, in his white sunform, protecting her while Jane used her own lightform, looking rather blue.

Erick noticed the waters ahead of him. Some fish under the waves had turned to mulched sushi. A lot of fish, actually. The water was pink and frothy and the mist off the waves was also pink in some places.

Ah.

Erick pulled his aura inward, trying to mitigate the damage—

He immediately turned his aura off, as his own [Personal Ward] began to flicker bright white, taking damage, and the gong sounds ramped up to 11, and then well past 12. Without the shockwaves to support him Erick plummeted into the new hole in the beach. The ocean rushed in to congratulate him on his magical success with a bit of impromptu drowning.

After an embarrassing rescue from Jane, Erick was once again on dry land.

He joked, “I didn’t swallow any water this time!”

“Yup!” Jane said, as she poked him with a dark glow. “You’re bleeding from the ears, though, and now you’re not.” She glanced to the air. “No Quest credit, that time.”

“See! I was perfectly fine!” Erick threw a [Cleanse] over himself and turned saltwater into normal water and stray blood into thick air.

“Don’t sound too much like Tenebrae, dad,” Jane said, as she moved back to her protective bubble.

Erick cast his next aura.

The waves ahead of him crashed down and turned into indistinct ripples that moved in every possible direction, including away from the land. Schools of fish that had come to eat the sushi results of the previous aura, began to move in uncoordinated ways.

… Sand, disturbed from a dune, began to roll uphill.

A blue box appeared.

Jane left her protected space, looking at everything. And then she looked at the footprints she was leaving. Holes in the sand resettled like water coming back together; like a tiny splash. That splash continued upward, to form footprints that extended above the sand, inverted.

She walked closer to Erick, but eyed the upward footprints, saying, “That’s fucking weird.”

Except the words came out as static; just barely above silence. Erick could only understand her because he noticed her lips moving. He instinctively read them when no sound came out.

Jane waved the air in front of her and sent, ‘Sound wave canceling aura?’

‘And a few more unintended effects.’ Erick sent, ‘The sand is acting weird. And so is the water. But… It’s actually quite relaxing.’

‘Yup.’ Jane said, ‘Now turn it off.’

Erick did so, then said, “The combination aura will be all of those effects, as I choose.”

“No [Stillness]?” Jane said, “Make people think you’re shooting light when you blow shit up. Make it easier to move around with [Greater Lightwalk]. I noticed you had trouble walking, there.”

“Eh… Maybe. But, no. I want this completely separate from lightform.” Erick said, “It’ll be a [Particle Domain Aura], or whatever it ends up being called.”

“Light is a particle,” Jane teased.

“… A valid point.” Erick said, “But, no. I want to be able to see through this magic; Not blind myself. And I don’t want there to be any elemental conversion shenanigans that other people can exploit. Adding [Stillness] would create way too much light.”

“Fair enough. It was just an idea, anyway.” Jane poked him with another finger full of dark blue magic. “Whatever the case, if you don’t like what you make, you can always remake it in ten days.” She went back toward her protective space, saying, “Good luck!” just before ducking back into safety.

Erick smiled at his daughter, then he turned back toward the water. He breathed. He held up a hand and began channeling mana through his new spells, to check to see if his new auras made any unintended sounds different from his Particle Spells. He expected static, just like all of his other Particle spells.

His eyes went wide, as his ears, and his soul, heard sounds that were not static.

There was an underlying calmness to [Normalize Aura]. A unifying density to [Harmonize Aura]. A rising tension, in [Amplify Aura]. And finally, some jazz-like oddity to the ordered chaos that was [Discord Aura]. Erick laughed a little. What a happy accident! He wasn’t particularly fond of Jazz, but he liked the sound of [Discord Aura].

With a thought, Erick had four Ophiel flutter down to stand with him on the beach. Each one took a part of the new magic, and each one helped to bring them all together. With a ringing joy in his heart, Erick cast.

A vibrancy filled Erick’s aura, spreading out like a symphony, touching the world, and turning it all more solid. He snapped his fingers, and a controlled gong broke the beach under his feet, splashing away water and flinging dirt in every direction as shockwaves crashed from his whole body. The crater was only a five-meter-wide crater, but Erick was standing on air again.

He flexed. The crater expanded.

He pulled back, turning on Discord. Sand flowed like water, into the space it had been before. Erick pulled back his whole aura, like a breath withheld. The world turned normal as his feet met the sand, again. He walked, like normal—

And he fell over, falling into the sand like it was made of air, all the way up to his chest. He cut his aura, instantly.

… And now, he was stuck in the sand. One arm was completely submerged, the other free to flail around. His mouth was barely above the surface and the beach pressed in from all sides like a tight blanket. Erick couldn’t help but laugh, and so he did.

Jane stepped out of her safe space, saying, “Don’t fall too far down! You don’t have [Stone Body]!”

Jane didn’t get a chance to get close enough to help. Erick just turned to light and stepped out of the dirt.

He spread his arms, indicating that everything was fine, saying, “There’s a learning curve.” He looked around. “Now where’s that box. It’s taking its sweet time—”

A blue box appeared.

Erick hummed, then handed the box to Jane, saying, “Something tells me that there are hidden depths to that tiny description.” He glanced at his other, really good Domain, and then at his third Domain, which read differently than how it used to read.

[Domain of the Withering Slime] did not have that ‘Slightly empower all physical damage dealt when in use.’ until recently, until Particle Magic was integrated into the Open Script and all those alpha-spell carets in all of Erick’s spells got removed, and the spells were adjusted to be closer to what they actually were. He hadn’t experimented too much with his Withering Domain since then, but he suspected that the ‘revealed attribute’ had actually always been there, it was just unnoticeable. A lot of magic had effects that weren’t listed in their little blue boxes, like the Restful space of [Prismatic Ward] making [Duplicate]d metals automatically be ‘wrought quality’, and ready for enchanting. Particle magic had more ‘hidden effects’ than most. [Condense Hydrogen], [Condense Oxygen], and [Condense Carbon], was just one such trio of spells with untold secrets.

Erick handed over the other two Domains to Jane, saying, “[Physical Domain] obviously has hidden depths.”

Jane read the three boxes, then dismissed them saying, “Maybe [Physical Domain] needs [Stillness]. And then you should add [Domain of Light].”

“I had considered [Stillness] and all of that—” Erick said, “The idea is to have separate powers, though. Why combine everything?”

Jane shrugged. “I’m combining everything these days and it feels nice to switch through Elements as fast as I can make them. [Illusionshape]. [Gloomshape]. [Plasmashape]. I made them all. Just the other day, I started practicing with [Prismatic Body] and using Shape spells to pull those aspects out of me, and then cast them away like minor [Fireball] like effects. You just wrap them up tight and then throw them at a target. It’s all exceedingly clunky and none of it works that well. Most Elements are about as useful as bonking monsters with an active [Stoneshape].” She said, “But some are great.”

Erick happily said, “I want to see! I didn’t know you were doing this.”

Jane blushed a little, looking embarrassed, then she said, “Okay. Here. Watch.”

Jane turned to a rainbow watercolor, then stepped to the side, and pointed down the beach. A dark fragment of her radiance flung away like a spreading blot of— Ah! It was Elemental Gloom. A mix of Shadow and Air. Gloom spread like, well, gloom, quickly expanding into a large blot of wispy shadows that drifted away on the wind like so much smoke.

And then Erick frowned. “Ah. I just realized. I know what it feels like to [Lightshape] my own lightform, even if those feelings have been secondary and mostly experienced through Ophiel.” Ophiel chirped in flutes, agreeing with him; it was painful! Erick asked, “Doesn’t that hurt, Jane? Like, a lot?”

Jane returned to her body, and said, “Not really. It’s a small pinch from the whole. I tried this with [Greater Shadowalk] and yes, that is painful if you do it wrong, but if you do it right, then you can make all sorts of strange effects, like shadow spears and whatnot.” She gestured to the spreading gloom, saying “And now I have shadowed air to move around in, but I didn’t have to make the spell first. I can do the same with plasma for an explosion-like effect, or fires to start a fire, or sand to throw in a monster’s face. [Lightningshape] is a bit… uncontrollable at the moment. But I’ll get that one right, soon enough. [Prismatic Body] is every Element, and those Elements come back fast enough.”

“Is this useful, though?” Erick said, “I remember seeing you in your [Greater Shadowalk] and spearing wyrms with a bit of [Shadowshape] to start off the process. Why not work on getting [Greater Prismatic Body], and all of this… self-injuring Shaping would be a lot more effective. And not so injurious.” He added, “And besides. The Shaping spells make those elements weightless and non-injuring until you let them go, which just screams of danger, to me.”

Jane said, “It’s not that useful right now, and a [Stoneshape] released above a monster still does a lot of damage, but I’ve only been trying for a few days. And I can only sustain [Prismatic Body] for ten minutes. It’s been difficult to understand how to upgrade it to ‘Greater’.”

Erick asked, “Did you upgrade to [Greater Lightwalk], yet?”

Jane instantly turned reluctant. She frowned. “… Not yet.”

Erick pressed on, saying, “I probably can’t help you with [Prismatic Body], but I know I can help you with [Greater Lightwalk]. I helped Kiri with some advice, but I can do a lot more than advice.”

Jane glanced down and away, frowning. Then she looked up, right at Erick, and said, “Okay. I’d take some help with that.”

Erick smiled wide. “Great!” He cast a bit of [Stoneshape] to create two stone seats on the beach, facing each other. He sat down, saying, “Come! Come, sit.”

Erick began to glow with light, and the world seemed to glow with him, humming alongside him as he sat across from the seat which would eventually hold his daughter, if she would hurry it up! He was happy that she was letting him help her, and happy that she had helped him with her healing spells while he was… injuring himself. But none of those temporary, fleeting joys compared to the bliss of just being here, in the moment, with the person he loved most in the universe.

Jane… sat down across from her father, and turned on her own lightform.

Where Erick’s form was almost an exact copy of himself, but brighter, Jane’s was herself, but darker, lighter blue.

Erick began at the beginning.

He said, “Feel the world around you, and the light of it all.”

“This is so weird, dad,” Jane mumbled.

“Come on now! Give in to the New Age thinking!” Erick teased, “Or maybe, pretend I’m a massive dragon and you’re a little spider.”

Jane laughed. “Careful, dad. He might hear you.”

“Bah.” Erick said, “Of course he can. He’s listening right now, I am sure! But whatever. Now, do as I say.”

Jane smirked, briefly, then wiped that emotion from her lightform and raised her head and soaked in the sun, glowing just a bit brighter, but not much. She had a blockage of some sort, for sure.

Erick channeled [Greater Lightwalk] into the world, and shifted his sight outside of himself, for while Jane was a body of light locked into her imagined form, Erick was a being of brilliance much larger than the small lightform sitting on the stone seat below. He regarded the lightform of his daughter, and then he shifted his own lightform a little, matching hers, but not completely.

Erick’s white core tinged with blue. Jane’s dark core of herself responded, glowing white, glowing brighter.

This too, was a resonance. Exactly the kind of resonance that Erick had worked with all this time, in matching various pieces of spells to other pieces of other spells, and driving the resulting spell to higher heights.

Pulses of radiance echoed from father to daughter, granting her a semblance of a secret that he had understood, but she had not.

Erick saw the exact moment that something clicked inside Jane’s soul. Changes radiated throughout her whole lightform. The dark blue light of her lightform shifted, becoming brighter, becoming bluer, but not changing too much at all, as instead, Jane expanded.

– – – –

Jane felt her soul shift.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

She was the light, and the light was so much more than what it had been.

Jane opened her eyes.

In a way that normally only happened when she was her shadowform, Jane was under the ocean, swimming alongside fishes. She played in the grass, watching as the sun soaked into the green. She was in the sky, flying with Ophiel. And she was also sitting across from her father, who was currently beaming with pride and a lot of white light, and a bit of blue.

She smiled, and came back to herself, to her too-small physical self.

A blue box appeared.

Jane laughed loud, and then her father was there with his arm draped over her shoulder, singing her praises. She shoved him off, playfully, speaking of how it wasn’t a big deal.

And yet, it was.

– – – –

Erick stood on the beach, watching his daughter play with shadows and light about thirty meters away. She had gotten [Greater Lightwalk]. All it took was some resonant harmony between his own glowing lightform, and hers. It was magical. It was easy.

Well. It was not easy. Helping Kiri had been ‘easy’. All Kiri needed was a few hints. Helping Jane had been… A good workout. Erick would not delude himself into thinking his experiences were the experiences of everyone in the world. What he had just done had taken a lot of magical knowledge, strung together through a myriad of experiences, and a great deal of control, in order to—

She called out, “You can start experimenting, too! I’m watching!”

Erick smiled, then started his own experimenting.

[Physical Domain].

Nothing happened, and then, tiny ripples flowed from his skin, into the world. Resonance built, because Erick let it, quickly becoming gongs that heralded the start of the shockwaves.

Erick adjusted his aura, letting the shockwaves happen well outside of his body, while keeping his body safe. It was an almost instinctual reaction that he had yet to understand, but he would. The gonging sounds lessened, as he fiddled with his new power. Soon, he could hear the world outside of him like he wasn’t the center of a constant producer of pressure waves.

He lifted his foot from the sand, and he stepped forwar—

His foot sunk. He caught himself.

But his shockwaves suddenly grew even larger, pulsing across dunes and disturbing sand, and racing across the waves, kicking cresting waves into mist. [Physical Domain] continued out much further than was comfortable at the moment.

This aura was massive. Controlling this aura was not like controlling his lightform, with tendrils of intent and fine control. This aura was more like [Domain of the Withering Slime]. It was about designating parts of the world to be affected. In [Physical Domain]’s case, Erick understood he was choosing which of the four individual facets of the spell that he wanted to enact upon the world; choosing location, along with quantity, and quality. At a decision of control, and with a flick of intent, the land, sea, and air around him was now ‘normalized’, instead of ‘amplified’.

The shockwaves instantly stopped.

Erick lifted his foot out of the sand, and the sand poured off of his foot exactly as it should have. The displacement of his foot left a small hole in the beach.

The ocean waved onto the land exactly as it should. The wind moved as it wanted to, and nothing seemed out of order. This was the Normalize part of his new aura, and it read: <Empower normal physical functionality throughout the physical world, creating a myriad of individual effects. Directly weaken some forms of magic.> But what did that mean, exactly? A myriad of effects? Weakening certain magics?

He’d figure it out, eventually.

The next test was Harmonize and Amplify at the same time.