162, 1/2

Erick woke up, had lunch, and let Poi sleep in as he went to speak to the petitioners. Teressa was his backup today. The large woman stood behind Erick, towering over the proceedings, wearing large grey armor that only helped to make her look even more imposing than before.

The actual process of helping people went about as smoothly as it did with Poi. Erick got through 78 requests; a full 7 more than yesterday. He felt he had acclimated to the process, and he probably had. It helped that all the liars were rather obvious, and that Teressa was just a bit better at truth-detecting than Erick.

Her skill with her mana sense allowed her to see all the same facial tics and spikes in heart rate that Erick saw, though she was better at interpreting that data, if only a little bit. But mostly, unlike Poi, Teressa could give her opinion on what she was seeing. It wasn’t far into the meetings that Erick and Teressa found out that they could communicate with each other outside of [Telepathy], by subvocalizing the words they wished to say to each other. Once the two of them established that communication channel, Erick sometimes asked Teressa what she was seeing, to know if she saw the sweat, and the increased heart rate, and all the other tiny signs of a liar. She did, every time, and Erick appreciated the backup.

Erick was, of course, also conducting his own investigations while he listened to the petitioners, but having a second opinion on hand helped to ease his own conscience when he told the lying petitioners that they weren’t getting what they wanted. Thankfully, there were only three groups that necessitated that sort of decision, and none of them took Erick’s refusal too badly.

As the sun set, Erick and Teressa went back to the yurt. Teressa’s hermetically-sealed armor vanished into grey motes of light as she hopped up onto the deck of the vehicle. Inside, Jane and Nirzir were making gridlights and humming magic to themselves, respectively, and on opposite sides of the yurt.

Three dinners were on the table, under [Cold Ward]s.

Poi was still asleep in his bed, completely zonked out.

Erick looked at the sleeping man. “I wore him out. I should stop doing that.”

Nirzir stopped humming and opened her eyes, blinking a few times to reorient herself in the moment.

Jane didn’t look up from her gridwork, as she said, “He hasn’t even gotten up to go to the bathroom.”

A wide grin spread on Teressa’s face as she looked at Poi. With a quick step, she moved to his bed and lightly kicked the furniture, sending a heavy jolt through the eternal stonewood frame. “Wake up!”

Poi launched awake, briefly flopped around, shouting, “Oh gods!” And then he calmed, and groaned out, “Ah. Shit.” He glanced at Erick, then at the twilight beyond the window, then he turned his head up to stare at Teressa. “I can understand that none of them woke me up, but you should have woken me hours ago.”

“I was having fun playing ‘Mind Mage’.” Teressa shrugged. “I think I did okay.”

“Sorry, Poi.” Erick said, “I shouldn’t have run you ragged like that. And yes; Teressa was good. Very suitably threatening in her giant grey armor and she helped me confirm when other people were lying. We had no false positives either, so I think we did fine.”

Teressa said, “I can add some shoulder pad spikes with skulls on them to make it more scary, if you like.”

“Not having any eye holes in your armor is terrifying enough,” Erick said.

Poi sighed, decided that he was not needed for anything too important, and laid back down. He fished around for the covers that had fallen off of the bed, and then promptly threw them back over himself.

Teressa went to the dinner table, and Erick joined her with a smile. He removed the [Cold Ward]s, and cast some [Heat Ward]s across the stews. They’d take a little while to warm up—

Poi sighed, tossed the covers off of himself, reluctantly got up, then moved toward the bathroom in the back of the yurt.

Eventually, Poi joined Erick and Teressa for dinner.

That night, Nirzir tried her hand at telling a story with the accompaniment of illusions. Hers was the apocryphal tale of the founding of the Songli Highlands; a romance between a princess and a newly appointed general for the other side, and the many Polite Wars between three ancient grass traveler tribes. It was a good story, put together rather well, and Nirzir told it well, too. Nirzir had notes, and her illusions looked practiced. It was also clear that Nirzir’s tale was a small part of something much larger.

A silly little grin had been plastered on Jane’s face almost the whole time; she liked romances, too, but she didn’t like other people to know that she liked them. Whenever Erick glanced her way, she lost her grin.

When it was over, Erick said, “That was a wonderful story, Nirzir!”

“It was,” Jane agreed.

Nirzir blushed as she smiled. “Thank you.”

“How simplified was that from actual history?” Teressa asked.

“A lot.” Nirzir rapidly explained, “The historically accurate version is only available in books, and those take weeks to read. The plays are a bit better for time, but those come in nine hour and twelve hour versions. All the shorter versions are simple stories that don’t do history any justice.”

“Twelve hours!” Jane exclaimed. With a soft smile, she said, “I remember 12 hour movie marathons.”

Teressa sat a bit straighter, as she said, “I tried out a play group once. Acting in one of them. It was okay, but not for me. I absolutely did not have time for the 9 hour plays, though. That’s what killed it for me.”

“They are difficult to watch sometimes, too.” Nirzir said, “I used to have time for them, before Matriculation. I think the 12 hour version of the Warring Clans story is better. The 9 hour one is rushed, in my opinion, but some people prefer that one. This half-hour version cut out 90% of the characters and it focuses on—” Nirzir blushed a little, then she forced herself to professionalism, and said, “This version is the romance version. Other people prefer the other versions, but I’ve always liked this one the best.”

Jane said, “I like the romance version.”

Erick was surprised to hear Jane admit that.

Nirzir happily said, “We should take in a professional show, sometime! You know… Later? Whenever we’re done here.”

Jane smiled. “I’ll have to take you up on that.”

Erick said, “Thanks for the story, Nirzir. Now who’s on first watch?”

Poi and Jane spoke up.

The night wore on, with people sleeping, waking, and watching, all on schedule; normal stuff, really.

– – – –

In the morning Erick had a quick breakfast, and then he hopped off the side of his yurt and went to his workbenches. As he stood before his various electrical parts, and with a day delay on getting to it, Erick had a new project and new short-term goal. Erick was going to make an electric motor.

By noon, he might even have a prototype!

There were some problems to solve, first.

One of the most major ones was that [Battery] was lightning-in-a-bottle. The difference in electrical potential, the voltage, between the positive and negative terminal of whatever iron bar Erick chose to cast [Battery] on, would be way, way too high for [Battery] to be used in any conventional application.

In [Battery], Erick had actually made more of a [Power Plant], than a [9 Volt]. Erick wasn’t sure how high the voltage of [Battery] actually was, but he had an estimate based on half-remembered knowledge about the voltage of a real lightning bolt; it was anywhere between 200,000 volts, to a billion volts.

As for amps, lightning was anywhere from 20,000 to 100,000 amps.

This meant that an average lightning bolt was about 500,000 volts, and 50,000 amps, which translated into 25,000,000,000 watts, since the formula for all of that interaction was VxA=W. This meant, over the course of an hour, and for 3000 base mana, that one [Battery] provided 25 million kilowatt hours of power.

The average house used about 11,000 kilowatt hours of power per year.

One [Battery] was enough to power the devices in 2250 American homes, for a full year.

To put it another way, the energy usage of the entire United States was about 4,000 billion killowatt hours. With a bit of math, Erick worked out that 960 casts of [Battery] was all it would take to solve the entire United State’s energy needs, by himself. With a bit more math, and with Erick’s own modifiers, he would expect to spend around 25,000 mana to cast that many [Battery]s.

Or maybe less, since Erick’s lightning was likely above average in power.

He regenerated that much mana in half an hour.

Huh.

Anyway.

At least Erick didn’t have to worry about the lightning inside [Battery] being of varying positive or negative types, like it was in nature. He was pretty sure the lightning inside that spell was negative, and it would be negative every time he cast the spell.

The problem of [Battery] could be (and would have to be) solved with transformers. Very large and very resilient transformers. Transformers that were likely far, far beyond Erick’s ability to create today, or even this year.

Which led to the next problem in using [Battery]: Erick had to invent power plant-level transformers.

Which led to a related problem of insulation. Insulation was needed so that stray voltage didn’t accidentally kill someone, or melt any metal parts. Erick needed massive, industrial-level insulation, but also smaller scale insulation, on the level of tiny wires and tiny electrical parts. He’d never be able to get a motor running, with all its precise little parts, if he only had lightning to throw at the problem.

Ah! And come to think of it, he needed paper magic, too, for paper was a great, primitive insulator, and there were Paper Mages all throughout Songli. Those people made their livings on their Paper Magic, producing many of the paper products that fed the bureaucracy of the Highlands, and many of its fine arts.

Erick also needed mineral oil. That’s what they used in transformers to both insulate them, and to control their temperatures. [Cool Ward]s would be useful there, too, but Erick wanted to invent a (mostly) non-magical electric motor.

He stood at his workbench, and paused.

He would probably not have a working electrical motor prototype by the end of the day.

Unless…

Maybe someone else had created a spell that was smaller than [Battery]?

Erick checked the Open Script, querying a bunch of different possible names—

Hmm. It might work.

Erick dismissed the box, though. He could get this spell much more easily than spending a point for it. Well… Maybe not ‘easier’. It was simplicity itself to spend the damned point and buy the spell. He could also speak the spell into existence, as he had with [Call Lightning]. But Erick had this Class Ability that allowed him to automatically learn the Particle Spells he saw in action, and he barely ever used it, so…

It was time to go thieving.

… Or! Erick could just ask Xue, from Star Song. The new Elder of Enforcement dealt with a lot of upstart Particle Magic, didn’t he?

… Xue was ‘Plan B’. Better not to let people know what he was searching for just yet.

Plan C was to create [Small Spark] himself.

– – – –

How best to search for [Small Spark]?

If Erick had the spell, himself, then he could search for the spell, but that wasn’t going to happen for obvious reasons. So Erick put up maps all across Songli, and across much of the rest of the land, searching for [Battery], instead. If there were any Lightning Mages, or whatever, out there experimenting, they would likely be experimenting with [Battery] because it was in the Open Scri—

[Battery] was an English word.

Literally no one on Veird would have that spell besides him, spies, or Kiri.

Erick moved on.

… And then he paused, again. He didn’t want to steal. While it seemed like a fun prospect in a small moment, Erick was not about that. He would come by his magic honestly. With a small smile to himself, and no one else, Erick blamed the Archmage Rain Mage Shendeng for planting the idea of thieving archmages in his head, and then he had an Ophiel go find Xue.

The Elder of Enforcement was at his desk, in his office, talking to other people. He certainly noticed Ophiel, floating outside of his window, though. He excused the two subordinates and Ophiel formed Erick’s avatar, but without the obscuring feathers. Erick’s form stepped down into Xue’s office.

“Hello, Xue.” Erick said, “Apologies for dropping in unannounced.”

“Not a problem.” Xue asked, “What can I help you with?”

“I’m looking for possible Electricity Mages or Particle Mages that are experimenting with electri— With small applications of lightning. Not Elemental Lightning, but Particle lightning. In its controlled form, I would call it electricity.”

In a way that spoke of formality, and not of actual worry, Xue asked, “Is this something I should be worried about?”

“Probably not. I’m experimenting with the stuff and I wanted to look over what some other people have done, if any.” Erick said, “I told you about how everything was powered by electricity back on Earth, didn’t I? My own electricity attempts are too strong for actual use, and I’m looking for the smaller scale spells some other people have made, so that I can acquire them for myself.”

“Ah.” Xue reached to the side and a tendril of intent opened a filing cabinet. He selected a file and pulled it out, then he held it to Erick. “These are the known and vetted Particle Magic users in Eralis. This folder is a copy, and now it is yours.”

Erick had Ophiel lightstep through the window, and take the file. “Thank you. That’s just what I needed.” Ophiel stepped back out of the office, taking the folder with him. “I’ll leave you to your work.”

Xue nodded. “Farewell, Erick. Stop by anytime.”

– – – –

Of the 740 people in Xue’s packet, Erick narrowed down the possibilities to a hundred, based upon known Particle Magic listed in the files. Almost all of the targets were Class Alchemists, but many of the people Erick picked were listed as interested in metallurgy in order to discover what things were made of. Only a few of the targets were Lightning Mages.

Ophiel rapidly investigated those hundred people and their properties.

As Erick guessed before he started his search, the various alchemy labs here and there were filled with more plants than metals; the Lightning Mages were the only ones he actually needed to speak with, but it was always good to be diligent. Perhaps Erick’s perfect target was obscuring their work behind various [Ward]s and whatnot, but Erick didn’t need the perfect target; he just needed any target at all.

Erick rapidly found two people with workshops filled with iron and copper and all sorts of conducting metals. One of the Lightning Mages was not home, so Erick went with the other.

In a wide open back yard, a conglomeration of five-meter tall steel rods arced electricity from tip to tip, while a female mage stood between them all, under a cage made of thick wires and wearing thick, dark glasses. Her off-white tunic and pants were singed, while her black hair was cut as short as a crew cut, and her exposed skin was as little exposed as it could be. Flickers of lightning occasionally burst from the surrounding poles to strike at the cage, but the mage seemed unworried. She was trying to do something with the lightning, and though Erick saw something unnatural shift in the arcing bolts, he had no idea what the woman was actually doing. Or trying to do.

However, the goal of ‘Zolique Diligent Scribe, age 46, Lightning Mage’, as listed in her one page information sheet, was to make metal armor obsolete through the application of perfected Lightning Magic. So she was probably doing something related to that. Something to make lightning target metal better than it already could.

Ophiel floated down into the side of the arena, near the house, equipped with an [Animadversion] to keep the electricity away, though he was already nowhere near the danger zone.

Zolique didn’t notice. But her helper, a young man who barely seemed old enough to Matriculate, did notice. Ophiel had descended to float only a few meters away from the boy, after all, so he darned well better notice. Experimenting mages had watchers for reasons, after all; to look over them while they were in the throes of magic-making. The boy even had a rod of [Treat Wounds] in one hand, and another rod of [Dispel]. The second rod was rated for 100 mana [Dispel]s according to the words on the side; an expensive one, for sure, but likely not too useful. Perhaps it was all they could afford? The house/workshop behind the boy was filled with scattered metal experiments, but very little in the way of comforts.

The young man started yelling, “Ma! Ma!.”

Son and mother, then.

Zolique yelled without turning to look, “I’m busy!”

“MOTHER! LOOK! NOW!”

Zolique whipped around, saying, “Wha— OH.” With a wave of her arm, the lightning stopped. She raised her dark glasses and shoved open the metal cage, rapidly taking off her gloves and letting them fall to the ground as she said, “Oh my Bright Gods. It’s you! Well. Your [Familiar] but. Hello, Archmage Flatt. What brings you to my humble home?” She brightened, her eyes glittering with bright blue-white light. “It’s my breakthroughs, isn’t it!”

Her son calmed immensely and became almost a background figure, now that his mother was in the moment.

“Hello, Zolique Diligent Scribe.” Erick said, “I’m not too sure about your specific breakthroughs, but I have heard that you have managed to do some work with Particle Magic, and lightning, in particular. I’d like to know about a few of your spells, if you’re amenable.”

Zolique’s smile brightened. “Yes I am! I would love to talk about that!” She gestured to her house, saying, “Would you like to come here in person? I can make some tea.”

“Perhaps another day. I’m in the middle of one of my own experiments, and I’m sure you wish to get back to yours, too—”

“Oh yes! Of course of course.” Zolique went with the flow. “Which spells are you interested in?”

“I have a sheet of paper here that says you have [Small Spark], [Insulate], and [Superconductor].” Erick said, “I’d like to see you perform those three spells, as well as any smaller ones you have that are at the power level of [Small Spark].”

“Sure!” Zolique said, “All I require is the answering of a few questions and three grand cores, so that I may fund more of my own research.”

Surprisingly direct.

Erick approved.

“I have the grand cores; that cost will not be an issue. The questions might be problematic.” Erick said, “Ask three questions.”

“How do I make [Call Lightning]?”

“Be a Particle Mage; It’s Particle Mage only.”

Zolique’s joy died in that moment; a sudden death, for sure.

“… Fuck!” Zolique scowled as she stomped her foot— She pushed her hands down and out, slowly exhaling, calming with every passing moment. When she was done with that, she paused. She thought. She said, “Okay. Question two of three: Your world ran on lightning. How?”

“I’m working on replicating some of that right now, which is what prompted this visit in the first place. All my spellwork is too strong to be useful, and truthfully, I’m thinking that even [Small Spark] might be too strong, but I won’t know until I actually have the spell myself.” Erick said, “The short, inadequate answer is ‘copper and other types of wires carrying electricity to various tools that work on electricity’. The longer answer would be a full university education, of which I know only the basics. Someone besides me would have to put that together for you, so check back in a hundred years after this stuff gets around enough. Or figure it out yourself, and found that school.”

Zolique stood straight, hanging on every one of Erick’s words. She didn’t speak for a while after he finished, her eyes trailing off into the distance as she thought. And then she looked to Ophiel, and said, “I wish to save my third question. I will show you the three spells I have— I didn’t actually make them myself— I mean. I did. But what I tried to make was not what came out. What came out was the standardized spells of the Script.” She rushed, saying, “I have no other Particle Spells that I am comfortable showing.”

“Understandable.”

Zolique gestured to her iron pole yard, then walked that way, saying, “I can cast all the pieces here.”

Ophiel followed.

Zolique went to the side of the yard, to a bin that was [Ward]ed with some sort of magic. Most of the space around here was [Ward]ed, and Erick guessed that it was [Insulation Ward], since the lightning in the large rods hadn’t jumped at much, besides each other and Zolique’s metal cage. Zolique opened the bin and pulled out a small block of shiny red-orange copper—

She stopped.

She retrieved the gloves she had dropped onto the ground and slipped them back on her hands. She held the block of copper, and said, “[Small Spark].”

This narrative has been purloined without the author’s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

A single, tiny flicker of blue-white electricity sparked from the metal block and flowed into the air, but went nowhere. The sparks did not touch her gloves, for the gloves must have been insulated, perhaps even [Insulate]d. Well [Small Spark] was a rather simple spell, wasn’t it. Erick saw how it worked, too.

Erick checked himself, and, yup! There was the blue box for [Small Spark]. He spoke through Ophiel, “Okay. Thanks. I see how that one works. Next?”

“[Insulate] is easy.” She walked over to a metal pole sticking out of the ground and cast a spell upon it, then moved the charged copper block close to the pole. Small sparks jumped away from the bar, but didn’t touch the pole; it was insulated. “There we go. The pole is protected from Particle Lightning. No singeing.” She held up the gloves, saying, “I enchanted these with [Insulate] a while ago, so that’s the only reason they’re not singed, either. Do you see?”

“I do.” Just like that, another blue box was added to his Status.

“[Superconductor] seems to make all Lightning Magic ineffective against a metal target, but in a way I’m still trying to understand. It does other odd stuff, as well.” Zolique cast the spell in question on the metal rod, then held the sparking copper next to it. Sparks arced from the copper to the metal rod, like someone had opened the tap on a water faucet, and then the sparks died, for the copper was out of power. She tapped the metal rod where the sparks had touched. “No lightning damage in this case, either. Usually there’s some when you’re using Lightning Magic, but not here. And yet, when you cast [Superconductor] on the copper bar—” She did so. “And then you cast [Small Spark]—” She did so. The copper bar sparked with twice as much intensity as before. “I think it heightens the [Small Spark]’s transferal of electrons. Is that what is happening—” She shut her mouth. She said, “That is not my third question.”

Erick smiled as he checked for his new blue box, and yup, there it was. [Superconductor]. With a thought, and a bit of action, Erick laid five grand cores from his recent kills onto the ground next to Zolique’s house. Zolique’s son noticed the new wealth much faster than his mother. The kid’s mouth dropped open as he stared at the wealth in front of him. He almost dropped the rod of [Treat Wounds] but he caught himself before the life-saving item slipped too far out of his grip.

“Thank you, Zolique. That was most instructive.” Erick gestured to the house, to the pile of grand cores. “I’ve included 2 extra grand cores because I felt like it.”

Zolique whipped around. She saw. “Oh! Oh my gods! Yes!” She wanted to rush over there and put her hands on the darkly glittering cores, each of which was the size of her own head. Her son was already poking them with a finger like he had never seen so much money. Zolique reluctantly turned back to Erick’s avatar, though half of her words were thrown in the direction of her new wealth, “Thank you, Archmage! My grand core was lost in the fires, but this is! This is great! I can sell two and fund everything! Thank you!”

Erick said, “Thank you for your bit of assistance in gaining these basic tier spells. And because this has gone so well: here’s some hints about electricity. Have you tried using [Superconductor] metal around magnets? Do you have the Basic Tier spell: [Magnetize]? Do you know how to make a magnet? You should learn. Have you tried running [Small Spark] through wires? Through coiled wires? The wires have to be insulated against themselves, of course. You might need a mundane solution to see the effect, though. Anyway. Lightning is very dangerous. I’m glad to see you’re taking the danger seriously.”

Zolique was speechless. Her joy over the grand cores was completely overshadowed by her drive to experiment with electricity. And then she snapped her fingers at her son. “Paper! Pen!” She asked Erick, “Could you? Uh. Repeat all that?”