149

Erick woke in his bed at Devouring Nightmare’s third clan mountain in Holorulo.

Last night had been nice. The funerals and the wake had been what they needed to be, but talking to Xue had been nice. Drinking with a new friend had been great.

Well. Were they friends? Likely not after one night, but whatever. It was the start of something, probably.

Once the day got going, Erick got even more good news from a messenger from Devouring Nightmare, in the form of a question: Since he was going to stay for a while, and his current location was simply not up to his needs since there was not a proper kitchen, what did he want in his new temporary rooms?

Erick happily answered, “About double the space I have now, with a nice kitchen where I can cook myself, but also with the option to get food prepared for me, too. A workspace open to the sky would be good, as there will be some of that, as well as a nice space for enchanting.”

Ten minutes later, Erick and his people were moving to the next clan mountain over, to Devouring Nightmare’s first clan mountain. A three story pagoda had his name on it, with the top floor open to the sky and the bottom two having everything Erick could ever want in a living space. Oh, sure, it was rather devoid of everything that made a house a home, but Erick wasn’t going to make it his home, either. It rather reminded Erick of his Windy Manor, over at Oceanside; nice, but just a vacation home.

The golden pagoda sat upon the northwest edge of the white plateau where it overlooked the vast land north of Holorulo. The rooms came packed with opulent furniture and nice seats and fluffy couches, but also with empty shelves and bare cabinets. The work spaces on the second floor were top notch, with plenty of room for whatever Erick wanted or needed, and of course, there was running hot and cold water all over the place. Nothing looked untoward, anywhere, as Erick and Teressa both scoped out the place and found nothing worrying at all. And! In a few hours more! At least one national treasure was headed his way, for him to study and dissect. The four alchemists Erick had given Intelligence to might be showing up, as well, or maybe not. That was still up in the air.

All of Erick’s needs were seen to by the majordomo of First Clan Mountain, Elder Varo. The short introductions Erick had with that man left Erick feeling like he was welcomed, but also that he wouldn’t be truly welcomed until he assisted Young Master Warzi with his wandering soul problem.

Which Erick was going to get to, as soon as he could!

And that was how Erick found out that Warzi lived here, on First Devouring Nightmare Mountain, as it was sometimes called. So, in front of all the other magical issues Erick could be exploring, Erick was going to solve that kid’s mana sense issues, first.

To that end, and likely many other magical purposes before the day was done, Erick now stood in one of the larger empty rooms on the second floor of his new place. The flooring was that nice white marble-like ‘clan mountain material’, whatever that was, while the walls were three times as thick as normal and the windows could be covered with panels —which they were— in order to prevent easy spying and also to protect from unexpected blowouts, from unexpected explosions. Protective spellworks had already gone up all around the house. A few protective spells had gone up around this room, too, but nothing held inside, for making magic inside of other magics was bad practice.

And now for the magic.

Erick had read the books and understood the many different theories out there when it came to mana sensing. He had listened to the advice of others. He had listened to the sounds of the mana, and he had listened to the sounds of [Sealed Privacy Ward]. And now, in this otherwise normal room he knew that solving Warzi’s issue was as simple as layering Destruction upon the edge of a [Ward].

Well.

It was not ‘simple’.

Many mages acquired a mana sense blocking spell by virtue of piling on enough obfuscation and denial into their privacy spells that denying mana sense naturally followed; it was an emergent outcome. The problem with this approach was manifold. First of all, this technique blocked sight and sound, which was why Warzi didn’t already have a mana sense blocker. No one wanted to live in a world of silent darkness; Warzi already spent eight hours in such a spell every night, so that he could actually fall asleep, but otherwise, no one wanted to live like that. Another problem was that many mages didn’t even have a proper mana sense, so this ‘emergence’ of mana sense was due to people throwing enough resources at the problem in order to solve an edge-case that barely anyone could negate in the first place. But Erick had a rather great mana sense, and he knew the true nature of sight and sound. Those three factors should make this a rather easy spell.

[Conjure Force Elemental] came first even though that spellwork wasn’t necessary for Charm Magic. Erick preferred having [Conjure Force Elemental] as part of the working, though, in order to make the end result more user-friendly. [Ward] came next, as was necessary for Charm Magic, and so that he could work in much Permanency as possible, as he had done with both his [Prismatic Ward] and [Kaleidoscopic Radiance], and to provide the edge of the spellwork. Mana Altering for Destruction came in at that point, targeting the edge of the sphere created by [Ward].

The Permanency might be taking this spellwork too far, as Destruction seemed anathema to Permanency magic, but allowing for natural mana to come in and reinforce what had been lost to degradation should help the spell maintain its integrity. If nothing else, working Permanency aspects into the magic was Erick’s own personal ‘best practices’.

He started channeling mana.

He listened to the sounds of clarity and purpose and the stripping of memory, as Ophiels on perches echoed his music.

And then he cast.

A medium-sized white sphere appeared before him, clipping into the floor and the ceiling, before it rapidly pulled inward like cotton candy draining, coalescing into a tiny sphere. In a single second, the larger orb had become something the size of a fingernail; a glittering white pearl. The charm hovered for the briefest of moments, then plinked out of the air to fall to the ground, tinking off of the stone flooring like some mundane object.

And then the blue box appeared.

Erick went and picked up the charm. The white pearl was solid, but to his mana sense, it was a blank spot. He placed the charm against his wrist, and watched as gossamer threads extended from the pearl to wrap around his forearm. Suddenly, his mana sense collapsed inward. He could barely see more than three meters from himself. He smiled, then went to pluck the charm off, only to see it release itself as soon as he touched it and desired it removed. The threads went back into the pearl and Erick’s mana sense bloomed back to full.

He smiled.

Good.

One spell down.

He sent to Elder Varo, ‘I have that charm I promised for Warzi. It may be picked up at any time.’

Elder Varo’s response was full of surprise, though his words betrayed none of that. ‘I will inform the young master at once.’

‘I await the arrival of that City Shield, so both that and Warzi can arrive at the same time, if you please.’

‘Understood, Archmage Flatt. Devouring Nightmare thanks you for your service.’

Erick cut the connection, dismissed his new charm, and got to work on other spellwork.

Time to work on [Renew], to understand some more of his latest notion before he got hold of a City Shield. It wasn’t really an idea, yet, but it was the beginnings of one, for he had noticed something interesting about one of his latest spells and he wanted to expand on his understanding of that spell.

Erick cast a [Draining Void] into the corner of the room, keeping it small. The shadowy space took hold as a small sphere, maybe a meter across.

From Erick’s understanding, City Shields required people to funnel mana into them in order for that mana to then support a spell similar to a Solid Ward around an entire city; or rather, across a diameter measured in kilometers. Maybe donated mana was the proper way to work [Renew]; have some people funnel mana into a magic. But that seemed like a hassle.

[Draining Void] allowed for another method of gathering mana; forcibly.

Even though Erick had a few bare ideas of where to start to pump mana into an already existing spell, he could certainly see the benefit of draining mana from a population in order to support spellworks already active in that framework. For one, it allowed for a lot more mana to pump into the active spellworks; you wouldn’t need to be near the artifact which created a City Shield if that shield automatically drained from everyone in the area of effect.

Obviously, there were issues with that idea, though.

For one, people needed their mana to do magic with. Can’t go draining magic from everyone in a city when there was a war on. Obviously, this was the downside to implementing [Draining Void]s like the spell currently was. This problem was solved if he could make a [Draining Void] that only took the top 5% of any individual’s mana, so that they could regenerate that mana as they wanted to, so that they would always have some of their own mana to do with as they needed.

But there was a bigger problem than that.

Erick put his hand in the [Draining Void]—

Bees. That’s what it felt like. A hundred bee stings, digging in deep, yanking out milky white Mana and Health from Erick like he had stuck his hand in a vacuum chamber. Like all of his vital energy would rather be outside of his body than inside. In less than three seconds, Erick had felt almost a hundred Mana and Health leave through his skin, to drift into the Void and vanish upon the shadows like stars winking out.

Erick retracted his hand.

Good news: it looked like Constitution worked against both parts of the drain. This boded well for if Erick ever found himself subjected to such a Draining effect. This also helped to answer why some of the assassins and elites he had captured and Blessed had been resistant to [Draining Void]; they probably had [Defend] or similar Class Abilities active at the time.

Bad news: It hurt like fucking hell to be inside a [Draining Void]. It was a ‘fake’ sort of pain, but it still hurt. He didn’t know how to solve this problem, himself.

Good news: He knew where to go to find the answer. Doctors held the answer. Doctors, and maybe other Classed Healers, could cast [Draining Ward]s in order to strip a person of their Health in order to operate without Health getting in the way of scalpels and such.

So [Draining Void] wasn’t going to work for a [Draining Renew] spell.

… There was also the problem of somehow using the Mana drained by the spell. Erick had no idea how to do that.

So he stuck his pointer finger back in the [Draining Void] and watched his Mana and Health flow away into the Void. It hurt like a mother fu—

Ah. He didn’t have to do it this way.

Erick retracted his finger, turned to the left a bit, and cast a normal [Mana Drain Ward], using the normal spellwork for [Ward] contained inside [Ward]’s big blue box. The spell took hold in the air like a disturbance in the light. It wasn’t quite a shadow, but there was some sort of hue change in the space. To his mana sense, the drain spell looked like a pale overlap upon the mana.

Erick stuck his finger into the spell…

It was… Less pain, for sure. Still uncomfortable, though. It was like having a kitten gnawing on his hand; the kitten was just having fun, and did not know that its teeth and claws were sharp. This was manageable, though.

Erick watched with his mana sense and a few different Sight spells. He watched as his Mana pulled from… He wasn’t quite sure. Micro-scratches upon his skin, that were not there at all? Now what was all that— Oh?

Ah. Now this was getting somewhere.

Erick watched as the draining space pulled at his soul. Or rather, as maybe some sort of negative space held within the draining space, while his own personal positive space was filled with mana, and some sort of magic was taking place at the crossing, where his soul touched the drain. Because of this differential, his mana naturally flowed away into… into the draining space?

To be clear about what he was seeing, Erick pulled his finger out of the spell, and cast another [Draining Ward]. He looked at the two of them, together, with all of his Sights and senses. They were both practically invisible to normal senses, but to [Mana Sight] and mana sense, they were like white spaces upon the world. But there was a difference between the first Drain and the second Drain. The first was much brighter than the second… For Erick had already drained his mana into the first!

The first Drain was brighter than the second Drain because the first had mana in it.

Yes. Well. This was obvious in retrospect. [Mana Drain]s and [Health Drain]s all had amounts of mana that they could drain, but it wasn’t till now that Erick understood what those limits actually were. He had never really experimented with this before.

He stuck his whole hand into the second space, watching what happened to his soul, and to the mana therein. Immediately, he knew he was correct about the soul connection.

There was definitely some soul interaction there. Mana held all around the deepening white [Draining Ward], but only the mana inside Erick’s soul was drained away into the [Draining Ward], and… Oh. Yup!

Erick watched as the draining space began to fill with his own base mana, reaching the same density as the other Drain. Soon, it reached the same density as the atmospheric mana, and then, with equilibrium approaching, the drain on his mana was lessened. Erick theorized that [Draining Ward]s naturally ended when the drain was filled, because there was nowhere else for the mana to go.

And… Yup!

The [Draining Ward] popped when it saturated; the spell ending because there was nowhere else for Erick’s Mana to occupy. With the spell burst, the stolen mana just vanished, off into the air like so much spent spellpower.

Erick threw a [Cleanse] at his own, free floating mana. That white mist instantly turned to thick air and vanished into the manasphere. Huh.

Odd.

So there were a few things going on here.

Looking back on [Draining Void]:

 

That spell had Void in it, which allowed it to Void the Mana and Health inside, keeping drain highly active so that the spell would literally never reach equilibrium, which was the main killer for normal [Draining Ward]s.

[Draining Void] was using those resources in order to stabilize itself, for Erick had put in some of his Permanency-thoughts into that spell when he was making it, even if he didn’t realize he was doing that at the time. It was just best practices to include that particular spellwork into all his [Ward] stuff, after all.

So.

Erick had already made a Drain spell that supported itself, but he had made it in the heat of battle, so it was likely inferior to a properly made Drain. A properly made Drain seemed ripe for applying a true Permanency-type framework to the Drain.

So what was needed here were a few new spells. Maybe only two.

A Drain, but not with Void, that would collect mana, and also stabilize itself to Permanency, while also filling up a reservoir with mana that could then be used by other spells. Primary concern here would be ensuring that the Drain kept itself active above the needs of whatever spell came afterward. Two reservoirs, then? One for the Drain, another for everything else? Yeah, sure. Sounds fine.

And then there would be a whole new line of spells that used the mana gathered by the drain in order to support themselves to Permanency, along with all their personal spell effects.

The important parts here were getting the Drain physically (mana-cally?) right, which seemed easy enough. There probably needed to be some sort of [Cleanse] in there, to turn the gathered mana into balanced mana…

Oh yeah. That’s a good—

Or maybe not. Erick’s white mana from the popped [Draining Ward] had vanished into the manasphere when he did that.

But whatever the case about [Cleanse], there was still the problem of getting subsequent spellwork to use the drained mana.

Erick had never heard of anyone ever using ‘atmospheric mana’ to do anything. Everyone either used the mana that was in themselves, or in magical items…

Ah. But!

Elementals used atmospheric mana to come into existence! There was something there…

… But what was it…

Something… mmm…

Like.

It couldn’t be as simple as having a [Conjure Force Elemental] that supports itself off of the gathered mana, could it? A [Conjure Force Elemental] that casts the spell that it is charged with casting, using the mana that has been drained for it to use?

… Could that be it?

A [Draining Elemental]? Or something?

… Could he just make [Draining Elemental]s that were permanent living spells? [Draining Elemental, Anti-Teleport]? [Draining Elemental, Domain of Light]? [Draining Elemental, Call Lightning]? [Draining Elemental, Gate]?

[Draining Elemental Withering Slime].

Erick had a tiny gasp.

Like lightning crashing across the sky, or a wind howling in the distance, Erick felt he suddenly stood upon a distant shore, watching a storm on the horizon, only minutes away from crashing over him and turning his world to rain and turmoil.

He was onto something. He knew it.

He had to sit down and think, and so he did. He rapidly arrived at some questions he needed answered.

The zeroth question was did these spells violate the Propagation Ban? Maybe? Maybe not.

Moving away from that roadblock thought—

The first question was: How did the Class Abilities of Doctors allow them to make [Draining Ward]s painless, or unnoticeable? Maybe he only needed to see a Doctor’s [Draining Ward] in order to see what was happening there. Solving that issue was likely the work of a single telepathic message and a trip to whatever Doctor felt like humoring him.

The second question was: Is there a way to use atmospheric or gathered mana to cast spells? This City Shield had to use mana given to it by a person, didn’t it? Such a thing was not the same thing as the mana collected by a [Drain Ward] at all… Or was it? Answering this question would likely necessitate… Probably a single telepathic message to Elder Varo to point him in the direction of Eralis’ finest mages, or whatever expert they had in the field.

These City Shields were likely made by someone, or maybe even a group of someones, right? They weren’t just old artifacts they still used from a thousand years ago, or some shit like that, were they?

Oh! And here’s an odd thought: Could he just make a physical mana conduit system, like the manacyclers Tenebrae had shown them, to cast the spells he wanted cast?

… But that wasn’t the same thing as [Renew] at all; it was making enchanted objects again. But… After thinking on it for a minute, Erick decided that he probably could go this route, but then he’d have to figure out how to make the mana of other people flow through a space.

Probably doable?

If it was doable, someone else likely already did it.

But. Hmm.

Could it be as easy as having the [Draining Ward] flow the mana through the manacycler?

Would that work? It probably would.

But! That wouldn’t be [Renew]. It would be cobbling together a bunch of different systems to get the effect he wanted out of just one spell.

… Erick shoved a lot of those stray thoughts into ‘Plan B’.

And then he went back to literally poking his [Draining Ward], to see if his hypothesis as to what was happening continued to reflect what he was seeing.

Forty-nine [Draining Ward]s of various make later, Poi interrupted, saying, “Patriarch Hangzi and Young Master Warzi are arriving in a minute.”

Erick smiled wide—

And then he winced. Ah. Dammit. He had no treats for guests! Well… He had just moved in, right? They shouldn’t expect him to have anything like that, would they? And besides! Hangzi should be bringing him a welcome gift.

… Which he was, actually.

– – – –

Erick opened the door and saw Hangzi standing there in brilliant white robes with black trim, with a gold half-cape over his right shoulder. Warzi was a miniature version of his older brother, but without the gold addition. Behind them were three guards in white and black, surrounding a hovering [Force Platform] that held what could only be the City Shield. The item was currently in a wooden crate about a meter square, with the item inside filling much of the box.

The only oddity in the small gathering was the third man, who wore white and black robes, but with the addition of a curling dragon and parting clouds upon his back, done in iridescent white embroidery; it was Rozeta. He had to be a mage of some sort, and though he was the picture of perfect professional restraint, Erick saw in the thrum of his heartbeat and in the casual wideness of his eyes as he looked up at Erick that this man was excited to be here.

This would have been a fine start to the meeting, but Erick suddenly felt under dressed again. He had no excuse, except that he didn’t like wearing his expensive stuff when he was making magic. Sure, [Mend] was a spell that existed, but Erick had an ingrained need to set aside his nice things when he knew he was going to make a mess.

Erick ignored that tiny train of thought and pulled back from the open door, saying, “Greetings. The foyer and the front rooms have no [Prismatic Ward] so you may move freely in these spaces. Come on in.”

Hangzi replied with a nod, and walked in, following Erick to a front room, where Teressa had already set out tea under a [Heat Ward], waiting for everyone to arrive and sit down. Warzi and the unknown mage followed, the crate floating behind the mage. Two of the guards stayed outside to stand to the left and right of the entrance, while the third followed into the room and took a stance in the corner, mirroring Poi’s own stance in the opposite corner.

Warzi had walked silently, but strongly, his head down but his mana sense obviously wide open; he twitched. Whatever he was reacting to was happening far outside of Erick’s own mana sense.

“Please sit,” Erick said, gesturing to the tea and the seats around the table, before sitting down hims—

“We cannot,” Hangzi said, “For Devouring Nightmare is on a tight schedule at the moment. Thank you for your hospitality but we will have to forgo your offering and accept it some other time.”

Erick did not fully sit down, so it was easy to straighten back up. “Perfectly understandable. Then—” Erick turned to the boy, and said, “I have a present for you, Warzi. First, you can read what it does.” He handed over the blue box for [Delirium Charm]; both to Warzi, and Hangzi. The mage at Hangzi’s side probably had a mana sense, too, for as he read the spell’s box without being anywhere near it, his pulse beat fast.

Warzi’s and Hangzi’s hearts beat hard as they read the spell.

Without waiting for permission, Erick cast the spell, coalescing a drop of white light into his hand, saying, “I wasn’t able to make it Permanent, but I was able to make it last ten days. With any luck, another one of my great spellwork goals will solve this Permanency problem, but I fear I am a ways away from that goal.”

At this, the unknown mage could not contain himself anymore. “Perma—!” He asked, “What sp—” He cut himself off twice in quick succession, his lips pulling between his teeth to keep his mouth shut, fully aware that he was out of line.

Hangzi didn’t even flinch at the guy’s outburst; he must know the man well. Like, obviously he knew the man well, or else he wouldn’t have brought him here. But this guy was able to get away with breaches of protocol without anyone batting an eye, and that meant something.

Erick smirked at the new guy, then held out the charm to Warzi, bending down a little to get closer to the kid’s level. Warzi looked upon the orb in Erick’s hand like it was the most delicious candy that he ever wanted. He almost took it, but he stopped himself at the last moment.

Hangzi watched, silent, but when his brother didn’t take the offered charm, he asked, “What’s stopping you, Warzi?”

Warzi suddenly got over his hesitation and grabbed the bauble, holding it in his hand like he never wanted to let go. And then he flinched at some outside force, and held the charm tighter. He frowned.

Before he could start crying, Erick said, “Try holding it against your wrist.”

Erick summoned another one, and showed him. The charm wrapped gossamer threads around his wrist, and expanded out its mana sense blocking sphere. Suddenly, everything past three meters was invisible.

Warzi breathed out in sudden, blinding relief—

And then Erick removed the charm from his wrist, canceling the spell at the same time. As the charm turned to glittering mana that vanished back into the atmosphere, the mana sense blockage vanished.

Warzi’s eyes went wide again, distraught, and that was enough of an impetus to get him to activate the charm properly. Once set against his own wrist, the pearl sent out threads and wrapped solidly around the little boy’s wrist. The mana sense blockage came back, and Warzi smiled, relaxing.

Erick let the moment linger for a little while longer, before saying, “If you need the size of the sphere adjusted, I could do that with some minor Shaping at the next casting. Let me know how this works out for you, okay?”

Warzi looked up at Erick, and nodded, silently. A few small tears of happiness escaped from his eyes, but he quickly brushed them away and stepped back to stand by his brother. He was such a proper little kid. At his age, he should be running around and playing, or at least speaking up when spoken to. Maybe he could open up now that his world had been closed off a little.

Hangzi smiled a little to see his brother so happy. Then he turned to Erick, and discarded that obvious emotion. “Devouring Nightmare thanks you for your service. Let it be known that there are approximately thirty other young children in Songli also afflicted with a wandering soul. Seeing this success here, Devouring Nightmare wants to know if you would be amenable to helping those children, as well.”

Erick happily said, “Of course I can do that! Just tell me where, and I can show up and hand out some charms.”

Hangzi said, “Then I will have Elder Varo contact you about these arrangements. For now, let us move on.” He turned to his mage accompaniment, and said, “This is Mage Ishibo. He is one of our crafters of City Shields. He is here to answer all of your questions about this City Shield, and to show you how this one works. It would be easy to get you unenchanted City Shields if you wish to see one before they’re enchanted, but please do not break this fully enchanted one and expect us to hand you another. Mage Ishibo can likely repair this one if you don’t break it too badly, so please keep that in mind.”

So introduced, Ishibo bowed past parallel to the ground, saying, “Sir!” Then he rose, and waited.

Erick had a surreal moment of being an important person. Then he discarded that, and said, “Mage Ishibo and I will talk for a while, then.”

Hangzi nodded, saying, “Then the day’s business is concluded. Please be prepared to cast more of these [Delirium Charm]s as needed. We approve of the ten day duration, but we will need to contract you for further casting of this spell, perhaps every nine days. I expect this to be an acceptable timetable, considering Ophiel can fly anywhere you wish.”

Ophiel twittered in violin sounds to hear his name.

“I’d be happy to do that.” With sudden curiosity getting the better of him, and because he felt that the question might be applicable, Erick asked any of them, “Do you know of any ways to extend the duration of an active spell? Or have anyone that knows more? Also I need to talk to someone about how a Doctor is able to make their [Draining Ward] painless.”

Ishibo’s eyes lit up as he almost spoke, for sure almost giving a litany of answers, but he slammed his mouth shut again.

Hangzi was caught unprepared for a moment, a blank look betraying his lack of an answer, but then he calmly said, “I will have Elder Varo get back to you on that.” He glanced to Ishibo, “Or maybe Mage Ishibo has an answer?”

Given the go-ahead, Ishibo rapidly said, “Extending the duration of a spell is near impossible. The problem lies in that active magic is not the same as simple mana. Imagine a meadow and a stream through all the seasons; winter, when it’s frozen, summer when it’s lush and green, and all the rest. This is mana. Magic, however, is a lightpainting of a specific scene within that entire year, taken from a certain angle known only to the caster. This is the problem with restoring active magic, to extend duration, and thus it is near impossible. But it is only near impossible! There are Class Abilities that allow for the extension of spell duration, and this is the easiest way to make one’s own magic last longer. As for making someone else’s magic last longer; this is a matter of precisely restoring the spellwork that went into the magic, so this part is mostly impossible for ten different reasons. Simply injecting mana into an active spell is more likely to disturb the ‘moment in time’ that is an active spell than it is to restore that spell to vibrancy.” He added, “I have no idea how Doctors make their [Drain Ward] painless, but I can find out!”

Erick smiled. “Okay. Sounds like you know some stuff, then. This should be acceptable.”

Hangzi said, “Then Devouring Nightmare will leave you to do your magics. Please don’t blow up anything too important, and direct your larger spellwork toward the open air outside of your house, or do it elsewhere entirely. Thank you.” Hangzi gestured toward the guards, who lowered the crate containing the City Shield to the ground; Ishibo hadn’t been carrying it, the guard had. Then Hangzi said, “Good day to you, Archmage Flatt.” He said to Warzi, “Come along now,” as he walked toward the door.

Warzi didn’t immediately follow. Instead, he looked up at Erick, and whispered, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Erick said, smiling.

Warzi hopped to it, following Hangzi out of Erick’s residence. The soldier followed.

Soon, it was just Ishibo, Erick, and Poi in the room with the box. At this point, Erick took his seat, and Ishibo took his, fighting to keep his smile from his face the entire time. Poi came over and poured the tea for Erick and Ishibo, as Erick decided where he wanted to start with this guy. He looked like a rather normal looking human, maybe 35, of pale skin and brown hair and eyes. Not a demi? Probably not.

Erick asked, “Tell me a little bit about yourself.”

Ishibo instantly said, “Accredited by Holorulo Cabal when I was twenty, attached to Devouring Nightmare when I was 25 after they noticed I was rather proficient with large-scale magics, and with large-scale enchanting. Three years later, I gained the right to call myself a Mage of Devouring Nightmare, and was raised to a minor noble title because of that. I’ve been making City Shields at a rate of about one a month since then. My highest tier of well-made magic is tier 7. I’m not an archmage yet, but I hope to be in the next few years, once I work out the crimps in a particular spell I’ve been working on that will add anti-Spatial Magic effects to my City Shields.” He added, “It’s practically the only thing that prevents them from being used for normal operation, outside of monster surges.”

Well that was a bit surprising. Anyway! Erick discovered why this guy was here. He was practically an archmage himself.

“Congratulations on being so close.” Erick asked, “Did you participate in the recent war?”

“Yes!” Ishibo said, “I did. Of course I did. Mostly in and around my own buildings. We were hit hard and often, as Devouring Nightmare’s enchanting houses are a big target. Most of my magic is defensive in nature— Oh yeah. I’m a Warder.” He continued, “So I protected that which I could protect. I wasn’t out there like you. I don’t even have a proper [Familiar] yet.”

Ishibo seemed like a good guy as well as truly honest and enthusiastic. Erick was convinced this would be fine.

The guy was obviously digging for whatever nuggets of information Erick felt like dispensing, but that was to be expected. Erick was getting a lot of information out of this exchange, too; theoretically. He hadn’t heard anything groundbreaking yet, but he was sure it was simply a matter of time.

Erick said, “Sounds good. So what makes a City Shield work? Do you have the original Tears of Aloeth somewhere in Songli, too?”

Ishibo chuckled, saying, “I wish we had a Tear! No; all we have are diagrams and codes and the principles behind the Tears. Oh! If we had a Tear, then we could make these Shields work so much better!” He added, “Did you hear about one of those artifact Staffs of Cooperative Casting that they had given out at Candlepoint? I mean! Of course you did. I theorize that having one of those staves would make these City Shields work much better, too, since the entire idea and spellwork behind these things is designed upon principles of cooperative casting.” He said, “But we never got one of them, no matter how much I tried to get the acquisition approved.”

Erick said, “Sorry to disappoint, but I have no idea where any of those items ended up. None of those items were directly inside Candlepoint, anyway. Each item was shipped individually from Ar’Kendrithyst to Candlepoint whenever someone handed in enough dark chips, but with the fall of the Dead City, everything scattered to the winds, including all the artifacts.”

Ishibo looked like he had bitten into a lemon. He backpedaled, saying, “I didn’t mean to presume that you had one, just—” He stopped himself, then said, “So? City Shields! I’ve been making them for a while. They’re not simple enchantments. They’re practically machines.” He gestured toward the crate. “Want to open her up?”

Erick made a quick gesture of white light toward the box. With deft flicks of strength, the nails holding the crate came out of the wood, and the box began to fall open. Erick helped the crating fall to the side, placing the five sheets of wood against the wall. Ishibo smiled as his work was exposed.

The City Shield was half of a cube on the bottom, with a silver sphere nestled inside that cube that was about the same size as the cube. The sphere rotated gently in its housing, for it floated inside its base, while the four corners of the lower base each had indentations upon them that resembled hand prints. Now that Erick had observed the item for a little while, as he and Ishibo talked, he knew much of what he wanted to ask about the whole thing. The cooperative casting was the largest question.

Erick asked, “So tell me about your machine. What do you tell a layman when they come to operate it?”

Ishibo lightly shook his head, saying, “We don’t allow laymen to operate a Shield. They’d just break it. But! Ah. It only takes a month of training to learn how to cooperative cast. Most mage soldiers are required to learn how to do this, anyway, or they don’t get their accreditation.”

“… So tell me how you cooperative cast.”

Ishibo startled. “You’ve never… Ah! Well… You have [Force Wall]? That’s the spell the Shield is based upon. All you have to do is match your own casting of [Force Wall] to the spell already imbued in the Shield; like how the Singers harmonize their own magic together in order to increase the effects of their Songs.” Ishibo said, “That’s all there is to it, but it’s easy to break the Shield if too many people imbue it incorrectly, so we have everyone learn to cast [Force Wall] a specific way and then the machine unifies those pieces into a whole. The specific casting is either hexagonal [Force Wall]s for a full-scale deployment, or curved rectangles for normal deployment.”

Erick scrunched his face as he looked upon the machine, inspecting it with both his lightform and his mana sense, and all his other Sights. Broadly, it seemed to be a machine of two parts. The base was a reservoir of some sort with the walls of the tank having a layer of core dust inside the silver metal. The handprints led to runework and crystal rods, which led to the tank, but the tank was empty at the moment.

The silver sphere was a lot more complicated. It reminded Erick of the [Force Wall] gridwork that he had seen Tenebrae turn into a manacycler that produced a curved, round shield, but on a much larger scale.

Erick said, “Correct me if I’m wrong, but it looks like the tank somehow collects mana, and then it purposefully injects that mana into a massive manacycler, empowering some sort of [Force Wall], but on a massive scale.”

“Ah!” Ishibo smiled, proud, as he said, “The sphere is more complicated than a manacycler, but some of the principles are the same. The main thing here is in how the Shield collects magic, not mana. It’s like that question you posed about extending the duration of a spell. It’s nearly impossible to work with other people’s mana that they’ve already injected into their magic, but it is very possible to work with the magic that people start off in harmony, in order to make that harmony rise to a level far above the original magic. You can achieve the same thing with a City Shield that you can with a hundred casters all cooperatively casting at the same time, but that is another near impossibility. So we’ve circumvented the issue by having a machine that takes in magic, keeps it in potentiality instead of active, and then harmonizes it all into one framework, which then outputs the magic that you would have had if you had a concert of a hundred casters going all at once.”

Erick smiled a little.

Keeping magic as ‘potentiality’ instead of as active? Brilliant sidestep to the issue of gathered mana! Also, maybe he needed to ask Kaffi about cooperative casting lessons.

And!

Could he cooperative cast with Ophiel? Everyone had said ‘no’, but why not? He hadn’t even tried. Now seemed like a good time to try.

But that led to another question:

Why did Ophiel have his own mana?

Since the mana Erick had was a part of the hole in his soul… did Ophiel have a hole in his soul, too? Erick glanced over at his [Familiar]. According to [Soul Sight], there was a whiteness inside of the little guy that was barely denser than it was last week, and about a thousand times thinner than a normal person’s soul.

Well… A person’s mana pool was inside of them, but it wasn’t really inside of them; it was a part of their soul, and there were probably a lot of implications, there, when it came to why Ophiel had his own mana pool.

Eh.

That line of thinking was not profitable right now. Erick set aside his questions about Ophiel’s ability to have mana of his own.

Erick looked to Ishibo. “It seems like you could use any specifically attuned mana to make this City Shield work.” He asked, “Could you use atmospheric mana to power the Shield?”

Ishibo said, “I don’t know how to make atmospheric mana do anything. That stuff is practically useless.”

“… Why not? Because it’s already clouded with too much intent?”

“Exactly.”

“So why not [Cleanse] it first?”

“Well…” Ishibo backtracked, “You want the intent. But just a specific kind; the kind you’re using. The random amalgamation of atmospheric mana is too random to get anything done. [Cleanse] will reset atmospheric mana to balance and make all resulting spellwork in such a space act normally.” He added, “And even that is such a minor balancing that it’s not really necessary, unless you’re dealing with a really dirty space, in which case the balancing will have more than a minor effect.”

“How about running atmospheric mana through a tube of antirhine, first? And then you run that empty mana through some sort of filter to add in the necessary intent. It seems like the usual ‘filter’ for this sort of addition is people, and their souls, but what if you just had [Force Wall] spellwork act as the filter instead.” Erick chanced, “Or! How about you ignore all of that, and use atmospheric mana, but with a [Drain Ward] that sucks up only the [Force Wall]-aligned mana in the air?”

For the first time, Ishibo did not answer immediately. He paused in thought, then he said, “Filtering through a curtain of Extreme Light would be less dangerous to the workings of the item. More room for error, anyway.”

“… Okay. That’s a good idea, too.”

Ishibo smirked and chuckled, happy for the praise, then he said, “But you can’t trap mana inside a cage of Extreme Light.”

Maybe he was unwilling to speak on the second half of Erick’s postulation? About draining specific mana from people? Or whoever?

Ah.

Erick was talking about human experimentation, wasn’t he. Hmm.

Okay. He let that thread of the conversation go.

“You’ve solved the trapping problem in your City Shield, though.” Erick asked, “What is that? Crushed core dust in the walls of the lower half?”

“Not just any core dust!” Ishibo said, “It’s core dust from Force Weasels. They’re some of the only monsters out there that are completely force-aligned. Easy to raise, too. We have a few ranches of them out in the drylands. So not only is the interior of the City Shield primed for holding Force-aligned mana, donated by the people who are cleared to donate, but it also prevents the egress of any other type of mana into the structure.” He said, “One of the primary advancements my workshop is credited with adding to the standard model of City Shield is this new style of containment. The old ones used random cores that Singers harmonized into Force, but with these naturally occurring weasel cores, we’ve improved on previous designs, allowing the layer of dusted cores to last for years instead of a single year. That’s with proper maintenance, of course.”

Erick’s eyes went a little wide. “Oh? You can do that? Harmonize a core? And then use it as a better ingredient to enchant aligned magical items?”

“Oh, yes!” Ishibo said, “It’s always much better to use a core from a monster that is already aligned with the end-goal item. So many enchanters use whatever cores they want to use, and sure, that works most of the time. But the high quality enchantments are always done with cores aligning with the enchantment.”

Ah. And here was the gold mine for Erick to plunder, while Ishibo tried to plunder from him in turn.

There were just so many ways in which all of magic was connected to every other bit. Erick felt like he was on that beach again, watching the storm roll in, or more appropriately, that time when he made his [Physical Domain]. His [Harmonize] seemed like it would be useful, here. He could make monster cores align to whatever spellwork he wanted, couldn’t he?

… If he could force the mana to harmonize in the way he wanted, as the Singers had done…

With one of those record players he made back in Treehome.

And some gridwork from Tenebrae.

The Tricking Magic Erick learned about from Opal, months and months ago, was probably applicable here, too. Especially that spell [Intent Understanding], which was the basis for all of the rest of that Breaker magic, and his [Grand Dispel]. One had to understand the active spellwork before one could interact with it, after all!

And with what Ishibo was telling him right now…

It was all coming together. He’d likely still need to talk to the dragons, wherever they might be, but he could do that some other time. [Gate] was getting closer. [Renew] and [Draining Elemental], too.

For now…

Erick stood up, gesturing to the City Shield. “Show me how it works.”

Ishibo merrily stood up and walked over to the Shield, saying, “It all starts with cooperative casting; with a person harmonizing their link to the magic already inside the machine…”

They spoke for a while, with Erick asking about every little part of the machine, and how it related to every other part. It wasn’t long till Ishibo started casting lightward images to illustrate the principles behind the inner workings, so that they could pull those apart, without pulling apart the City Shield itself.

In broad strokes, the machine worked by collecting the spell casts of people who cast into the Shield, and then it distributed those spell casts over a super large area.

Somewhere in the middle of all that, Erick asked, “So what if I just cast the same spell myself, over and over and over and over into the machine? Could I power this myself? From what you’re telling me it seems like that would work.”

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“Oh yeah! Sure that would work. But you’d have to pour in a lot of [Force Wall]s.” Ishibo said, “And I mean a lot! This thing is capable of covering about 80 square kilometers in single-layer Force, about 2.5 kilometers radius, but since half of that is underground and unnecessary, along with most of the area above ten meters also unnecessary for monster surges, those 80 square kilometers are layered against the ground all around a central location. In regular, circular deployment, the shield stretches for 15.5 kilometers around the central location, which, at normal operation of a ten meter high wall, translates into a shield of 500 layers. A quarter million points of defense that the monsters have to tear through before they can attack the people inside. Monsters are fully capable of doing that, too, if not for the defenders inside the space. But anyway! Powering one of these is a lot of casts. You don’t fill one of these up yourself.”

Erick verbally did some math, “Sounds like 80,000,000 square meters covered, at 10 square meters per cast, means eight million casts, means 200,000,000 mana worth of [Force Shield]s? Counting Clarity on everyone, of course.” Something struck him about those numbers. Filling one of these City Shields, all on his own, with his Intelligence, would still be 40,000,000 mana. He said, “That seems inefficient.” He admitted, “Even though it does produce enough of a defense to stop most all monsters… And I suppose it is cast from a central location without needing to go out into the monster surge. Okay. Actually. I changed my mind. It is rather efficient.”

Ishibo seemed to be happier when Erick was dragging his work through the mud, and proved as much when he said, “I agree with your first assessment. City Shields are very inefficient. It takes a border clan about a month of casts from every single capable donor, to get a Shield in working order. A lot of people complain about that routine, and then about the topping-off that needs to happen all the time because the reservoir is not perfect. These things are almost never used, but when they are, they’re lifesavers. But you have to understand that the spell inside of the City Shield is tier 7, and every individual person is only contributing a basic tier spell, thus there is some inefficiency.” He produced a blue box, saying, “This is the spell they’re based on, that allowed me to get this position as a mage in Devouring Nightmare.”

 

Erick read, then revised his previous backtrack, saying, “So… This City Shield seems inefficient.”

Ishibo smiled. “It is! But enchanting an actual [Grand Force Shield] doesn’t allow the end user to layer the shield however it needs to be layered in order to provide the most protection possible. The cost of producing a [Grand Force Shield] item is actually a little bit more expensive than producing a City Shield, too. So in the end, a City Shield is a much better option, even if it does require so much magic to power the darn thing.” He asked, “If you know of a way to make it work off of ambient mana instead, I’d love to hear it! That’s actually been the goal of many enchanters over the centuries, but I’ve never come close and gave up years ago.”

Erick decided then and there to tell Ishibo his own desires.

“I’m trying to make a spell that would allow anyone to [Renew] the duration of any other active spell; even the spellwork of other mages, or archmages, or whoever. Every so often I come across something that points me in that direction, and you have done a good job of giving me a lot of new hints. Not everything here is applicable to my needs, but some of it is, for sure.” Erick asked, “[Renew] should be able to recognize the mana in the active spellwork, and then harmonize to that active spellwork, but I haven’t gotten much further than that. Further applications of this [Renew] spell will be to make these [Renew]s permanent area effects, themselves be powered by painless [Drain Ward]s that can be cast on streets, or wherever, so that the general population can then empower spellwork such as your [Grand Force Shield]. Or maybe the [Drain Ward]s can collect ambient mana to power the [Renew]s, which power the [Grand Force Shield]s? It’s all still unknown to me how it would work in the end, but I’m getting there.”

Ishibo’s eyes went wide, and then he said, “I would have no idea how to make a spell to do all of that, but I’m eager to try! Taking it from the beginning, I think you’d need… Maybe you’d want to start… I’m not sure what paths to walk here. I must say, though, that I am very interested in learning how to make Permanent magic at all! That’s the marking of a finely crafted spell, no doubt! How do you do that?”

Erick knew that Devouring Nightmare would be learning from him just as much as he would be learning from them, so this much was fine. Ishibo was rather enthusiastic about the whole thing, too, which seemed to bode well for future interactions.

Erick upheld the unsaid deal, saying, “Permanent spells, as far as I’ve understood them, are a matter of working in simplicity and repetition. Take a look at the only Permanent effect that exists in the Open Script: Lightwards. All I did was extrapolate from there, with a lot of personal experimentation on various lightwards. One thing I noticed right away is that balanced spells uphold a Permanency better than others. This [Prismatic Ward] is permanent, as you no doubt have noticed as a Warder.”

Ishibo could barely contain his excitement at the mention of [Prismatic Ward], but he did.

Erick continued, “I have a few other balanced, simple Permanent spells like these. The simpler they are, and the deeper the understanding of those spells, the longer they last. There’s also a fair bit of spellwork that is meant to ensure that the spellwork repairs itself over time.

“I’m sure if there’s some way to make a [Renew] spell work for any magic out there, it probably won’t work on the complicated spellwork where there’s a lot of moving parts; it’ll be relegated to the simple, well made spells that are easy to understand. Or spells that are specifically made with [Renew] in mind.” He added, “That [Delirium Charm] I made for Warzi was well made, but even that will break down after a while, and likely because of the Elemental Destruction used to create the effect. Destruction seems anathema to Permanency.”

Ishibo blurted out, “Have you looked at grand cores? I mean, really studied them? They’re the only sort of core that won’t break down, and will draw in ambient mana to stabilize itself and other magics around itself when those other magics are laid down properly. Well— I say ‘magic’, but I mean enchantments made with core dust or otherwise. But that’s a whole thing! Grand cores can exist on their own, but small cores cannot; they’ll eventually disintegrate if left in the open air for a while. The timetable there is in months, but the fact remains.” He said, “I had thought that Permanency magic was all about being at a state of perpetual renewal by taking mana from the atmosphere, as the grand cores do, but I have never had much luck with that. Would you—” He breathed, and relaxed a little, as he professionally asked, “Would you mind showing me the box for your [Prismatic Ward]?” He rapidly added, “Not the spellwork! Just the box?”

Erick had already thought about it, and so he readily said, “Sure.”

He handed over the box for [Prismatic Ward].

Ishibo’s mouth dropped open as he read, and then he turned puzzled. He narrowed his eyes, and then dismissed the box. He asked, “Uh. You have more than one [Prismatic Ward] active, though.”

Erick laughed. “Yeah! Don’t ask me how that works. Ophiel is special.”

Ophiel twittered upon hearing his name.

Erick gestured back to the City Shield, asking, “If grand cores pull in and stabilize other cores, why don’t you have a grand core in this one?”

Ishibo briefly resembled a man derailed, and then he got back on track, and said, “The core dust is sealed in Deep Sky Silver, which is an excellent sealant, while the configuration acts like a pseudo grand-core.” He said, “If I had some way to turn force weasel cores into a grand core, I could probably make one of these City Shield much cheaper, but the problem is finding a fully force-aligned grand core monster. Once they get to the grand core size, they’re no longer simple force monsters. Even rivergrieves have Water and Etherealness in their mostly Force grand cores, so that’s a non-starter.”

Erick nodded, then asked some more questions.

They continued to talk for a while, with Erick receiving personal training on how to imbue the Shield with a [Force Wall] spell, and then he did so, following Ishibo’s lead. Somewhat. His first imbue was a failure, but then Erick watched Ishibo imbue again, and then he tried again. The second time, he got it right, and the reservoir inside seemed to be fractionally denser with ambient Force Magic.

It was an odd thing to see. Normally, mana had no aspects except in rare occasions. The Script ensured that mana remained balanced, after all. If the world got unbalanced in any great way, then apparently great [Cleanse]s would descend from the Edge of the Script, billowing down from the sky, turning problems into thick air. But that sort of event hadn’t been seen since the dawn of the Script, 1450 years ago.

When Erick brought up the problem of people casting [Cleanse] near the City Shield, Ishibo instantly told him how bad of an idea that was, as a [Cleanse] on a fully powered City Shield could blow it up! Never use [Cleanse] around a Shield!

They continued to talk for a while, but soon they were retreading ground, and Erick called it quits. He saw Ishibo out the front door, thanking him for his time and expertise, saying that they both had some more experimenting to do, to which Ishibo readily agreed. Ishibo invited Erick to see his workshops, but Erick wasn’t sure if he had the time right now. Maybe in several days.

Erick shut the door and went to the City Shield, alone.

He imbued it again, and the interior got a bit more ‘[Force Wall]-like’, a bit more white.

He was lucky that his mana color was already white, for mana altering to white was one of the first parts of being able to operate a City Shield, and also to be a part of the army. All those Songli soldiers in the recent war were wearing white armor, after all.

Erick floated the City Shield further into the house, into the dense air of the [Prismatic Ward], and marveled a bit at the machine as it sat there in the sun. It was so unlike any other magical item he had ever come across, for it could take the mana from donors and use it to empower the contained spell. That spell that Ishibo had shown him, [Grand Force Shield], was different, too, in that it had an hour cast time. Apparently, that increased cast time allowed the spell to be shaped to the desired needs, which was just such an odd way of doing magic that Erick had trouble reconciling that hour cast time with almost all the other spellwork that he had ever seen. The only other spell that had a large cast time was [Fabricate], at a minute.

… So thinking about [Grand Force Shield] as a way of fabricating [Force Wall]s into the correct position… Okay. He saw it now. Yeah, that made sense. Erick would not have made his own [Grand Force Shield] with [Fabricate], but it was probably necessary to do it that way in order for the variable shaping to work after the spell had been put into this City Shield.