277, 1/2, Jane

 

From the desk of Erick Flatt, to whom it may concern:

A single day has passed since that unfortunate interruption of the start of the war, but here we are, back at it again! Many of you might have noticed that I have been all over the place recently, and mostly in the sky. If you looked out there right now you would probably see me in at least 5 places at once.

That is because I am in at least 5 places at once, but I am also here, on Veird.

I’m a fae, now. That means something, I am sure.

What means more, is that Plan Surround and Consume is working. I have been fighting the Primal Lightning out there at every step of the way, and that has probably looked strange to everyone here, with Lightning happening where it ought not to happen and then suddenly not happening at all. In some places, the Red Lightning even flowed backwards.

That’s the nature of a Wizard War.

Nothanganathor’s attempts to disrupt the plan are just that; disruptions. We are winning, and I have spent about 3 weeks doing that sort of winning for us, while less than a day has passed here on Verid.

Soon it will be time for everyone else to step up to the line and take their swing. And it won’t be hopeless! It won’t be a death sentence, as some of you are saying.

We have big plans for those of you that wish to fight. I am writing this letter to tell you that you have the full capability to rise up and fight yourselves… After a little bit of help from the Pantheon and House Benevolence and myself.

We’ve already begun deployments of that power among many people. I am sure many of you receiving this letter have heard of that. We’ll tell you all more in the following week.

As for the current events of the war, all that Lightning you see coming from the Edge of the Scheme of Fenrir are 90% automatic attack magics. Nothanganathor is, of course, actively throwing each bolt and I am directly fighting against him in a contest of wills each time, but the contest of wills is, so far, a routine series of attacks, and I am easily able to counter all of Nothanganathor’s bolts of Primal Lightning.

Is he lulling us into a false sense of security?

Perhaps.

I am not going to take the bait and commit to a larger attack at this moment. Plan Surround and Consume is perhaps a day or five away from completion. It is going slower than it had in the beginning, because the system was getting bigger. A lot bigger. And that necessitates a whole bunch of coordination magics and the complete revamping of the Northern Spellsurge Mountains into a singular focus.

Currently, the planetoids are crashing into sunlights and devouring them, to become sunlights themselves and light up the void for all the people on Fenrir, forming a net of interconnected planetoids that are both generating mana —mostly Benevolence— and actively suppressing Malevolence in the area.

The growth is already spiraling hard. One planet has become two, and those two each made another planet, making 4, which then doubled again, to 8. We slowed down the rampant growth to add more stabilization to the system, to make the planetoids grow into true planets, larger and more solid in their construction.

Soon, they will envelop the whole of Fenrir.

The calculation to that deadline is kinda simple.

The entire outer surface area of Fenrir in square kilometers is calculated by the surface area of a sphere, which is A=4πr^2, at a radius of around 150 million kilometers. Meaning Fenrir is around 3×10^17 million square kilometers. The distance between the surface of Fenrir and the height of the Seeds is mostly negligible, so the space the Seeds have to cover is pretty much 3×10^17 square kilometers.

Each Seed is spaced out from each other Seed at a distance roughly equal to the distance that used to exist between Veird and its moons, meaning each Seed is covering a sphere of the sky over Fenrir that was more easily calculated based on the simple area of a circle, which is A=πr^2. So at a radius of 380,000 kilometers, that means that one Seed, when fully grown, covers about 4.5×10^11 square kilometers.

We don’t want the Seeds to simply be a single layer deep, though, with no ability to bolster each other. And so, we have plotted for triple coverage; making the necessary area to cover three times as large as the original 3×10^17 number. Or 9×10^17.

Figuring out how many moons we need is a simple calculation of:

9/4.5 and 10^(17-11)

or

2×10^6

Or 2,000,000 planetoids.

Which is about 21 doublings.

Not too much, really! We could have done that in a single day, because each Seed is already repaying back the mana used to cast it in under an hour.

Each planet is easily paying for itself and every other planet down the line. If we were deploying this system on our own, without the threat of Nothanganathor out here, then we could have had some rather exponential growth and land creation.

At 15 hours into Plan Surround and Consume, the [Seeds of Atunir] had reached 10 doublings. Over a thousand Seeds. The next doubling came in at 17 hours, making over 2000 Seeds.

I have been out fighting the Red and securing the Seeds for 3 subjective weeks, but only for a single Veird-day. At 24 hours, when this note was written, we were at 15 doublings, or 33,000-ish planets.

The 2,000,000 mark is not very far at all.

Pray for our success, and know that you are contributing to our success.

If you are a True Believer of Atunir, as is natural, then come to the Spellsurge Mountains and pray for our success yourselves. Leave your uteruses behind if you don’t want to get pregnant, though. Check with the clergy of Atunir if you are safe to approach, or not. Or, if you do wish for pregnancy, then come on up here and achieve a dream.

In a week, after Plan Surround and Consume is finished, there will be Very Big News about empowering people to fight for Veird themselves, and it’s not that update to all the Benevolence Spells out there that some of you have already noticed. It’s so much more than that. You will have the power to affect your world, on your own terms. Soon.

Sincerely,

Erick Flatt

– –

“So how about that letter from my father?” Jane asked, as she lay beside Sitnakov, in her rooms beside the Blue Corps headquarters in Ar’Kendrithyst.

Sitnakov, white as snow, breathed deep, his chest expanding far and then falling down as he breathed out, thinking. Jane lay there with him, his arm around her body, both of them not doing much of anything at all. He was warm and solid as metallic flesh. His solidity usually didn’t faze Jane but she was still feeling a little weak from her Personal Script, inundating her body and transforming how she interacted with the world, so there was a soft comforter between some of where they touched.

Her Personal Status had filled up completely and she had even switched over to it a few times, but mostly not. It was still tender. Still made her body freak out in little ways. Rozeta had prescribed rest for at least a day, and so, Jane was doing that.

Sitnakov had come to her to talk about the letter, but then one thing had led to another and now they were here, in bed together.

“Yeah… That letter. He offered me a Personal Script. Didn’t take. He offered it to a lot of people… He said he’d announce it in a week, but it’s already out there. Talk about lighting a signal fire.”

Jane laughed at that. “He really did light a fire, didn’t he.”

“He did.” A pause. “You got the PS, right?”

“I did. Made me a bit weaker, as you can tell, but it’s already better. Be fully better by tomorrow. Maybe 5 hours.”

Sitnakov let out a sigh of relief, his big chest deflating some. “Good. I like you being sturdy.”

Jane smiled at that. Being called ‘sturdy’ wasn’t every girl’s dream, but she liked it a whole lot when Sitnakov said it.

Silence took over the warm room, and it was nice.

Softly, Sitnakov asked, “Want to go see the Northern Mountains?”

“Kinda, but I’m supposed to stay away from great magical influences.” Jane poked Sitnakov’s chest. It was like poking adamantium that was trying so very hard to be flesh. “You can be an exception.”

Sitnakov chuckled. He craned his neck a little to look at her, asking, “We should probably stay away from the Fertility Goddess’s grand ritual, anyway. Wouldn’t want our handholding to end up with you pregnant.”

“Ha! We can’t have…” Jane had been about to say that they couldn’t have kids anyway, but… “I suppose, me being a dragon would bridge half of the gap, but you being a True Wizard could also… Hmm. Is that enough to bridge a gap? Even with you being wrought? We hadn’t really… ever talked… Hmm.”

As Jane talked, Sitnakov gave a soft chuckle. Jane loved that deep, warm sound.

And then Jane realized.

Her heart beat hard.

Oh.

Shit.

Was this a Big Conversation?

Jane realized this might be a Big Conversation.

Sitnakov had asked about visiting the ritual site, and then kids, and now…

Sitnakov said, “We’ve been doing this for a while now. I think I love you. Would you ever want to have kids?”

Jane had an eternal moment, laying there against Sitnakov. Her heart raced. Her head felt heavy and light at the same time. She had to check herself to make sure she wasn’t having some sort of cascading biological reaction that could end up with her dead, or worse. She even brought up her Personal Script to see if there was a problem.

Jane Flatt, [35] [Current Location: Layer 789; Veird, year 1453]

Mana split; Soul, Body, Mind: 59%, 31%, 9% [Full!]

Reson allocation rate: 1%

Darkness Level: Archmage

Fractal Level: Blind

Benevolence Level: Store Manager

Soul: 114; 721,500 per day / 8.3 per second

Body: 60

Mind: 19

Overall Stability: ↑ [+8.2, -0]

Mp: 114,000/114,000, ↑ [+4.9, -0]

Hp: 60,000/60,000, ↑ [+2.5, -0]

Pp: 19,000/19,000, ↑ [+1.5, -0]

Resons: 100/100, [+.1 = +.01, -0]

There was no problem there.

One thing that Jane really liked about this new Status is that it told her when things were wrong, and what kind of danger she faced. One thing she did not like about it was that she was still figuring the whole thing out. It wasn’t very cooperative—

“Jane?” Sitnakov asked, quietly.

“I know I love you,” Jane said, the words coming easily. “My body was just… acting weird.”

Sitnakov breathed deep, gasping a little— and then he heard the rest of Jane’s words. “Sorry. You said to take it easy—”

“No no— You’re fine. Nothing happened… Well. Yeah.” Jane huffed a laugh. “You threw me for a loop. But… Yeah.” Jane looked up at Sitnakov’s face. He looked at her, questioningly. Jane said, “Yeah. I want kids eventually, if that’s actually on the table. I didn’t know that you did, though.”

Sitnakov relaxed and tensed in equal measure as he smiled brightly. “Yeah, I do. And I’d like to have them with you.”

Jane asked, “What would they even be, though? Adamantium wrought? Orcol-sized dragonkin? Human?”

Sitnakov declared, “Adamantium wrought. I think I could swing it. There would be some rituals to get it done. Wrought reproduction is not like fleshy people’s— Well. It is, in some respects. Some.”

Jane snorted a laugh. “It better not exclude all the fun parts.”

“Of course not!”

Sitnakov did not elaborate, though.

“You’re not going to elaborate?”

“Nope. Not until we’re married and praying to Atunir.” Sitnakov waggled his eyebrows. “Unless you want to go visit the northern mountains and give both our dads heart attacks?”

Jane smiled at that. “Come on.” She sat up and got up, saying, “Now you got me wanting to go see it. I’m ditching the uterus though while we’re up there.”

Sitnakov seriously nodded. “That might prevent pregnancy.”

“Ha! ‘Might’?”

“It’s a big fucking ritual, Jane.” Sitnakov stared off at nothing for a moment. “It’s…” He looked to Jane. “I really do want to go see it with you.”

“Big sights get my blood pumping too, big guy.” She added, “And I guess I can just morph into a dude for a whil— mmrph!”

Sitnakov rose from bed and wrapped Jane in a hug, kissing her deeply. Jane did the same for him.

The moment lasted longer than either of them expected it to last, and it was great.

Jane was in love.

Finally, breathlessly, Jane was in love, and the man she loved loved her back. Suddenly she started crying and laughing and Sitnakov asked what was wrong and they ended up back in the bed, talking small words that were so very large.

– – – –

Jane stepped out of a portal alongside a deployment from the Blue Corps and House Benevolence.

Sunny, Kiri’s [Familiar], eyed them all, and then bounced in place. The little girl was shaped like a long dragon these days, Kiri having long abandoned the couatl-disguise that her [Familiar] used to wear all the time, since she herself was a dragon. Sunny shut the big [Gate] that had taken the team here, and then briefly bounced in the air in front of Jane and Sitnakov.

“Thanks for the ride, Kiri. Sunny.”

Sunny twirled and then vanished into a little [Gate] perfectly sized for her, vanishing like an illuminated noodle sucked into a white hole.

Karonditus, the engineer team leader of this excursion, asked them, “So we don’t need to care about having you here, right? You’re not in charge right now?”

“Correct,” Jane said.

The Blue Corps was a conglomeration of various political entities that was less like a real power, and more like an organizational structure, making sure everyone knew what was happening. Karonditus was technically from House Benevolence, and he was here with a bunch of tech to settle some of the overloading problems of this ‘Seed Ritual’ up here at the Spellsurge Mountains.

Such a thing would have taken maybe 5 people, with some cartloads of stuff.

They had 37 people in their entourage. No one had wanted to deny the leave of those who wanted to come up here to see the largest magic on Veird since the creation of Fenrir.

Jane said, “We’re here to see the sight as pilgrims, just like all these extra people in your over-inflated team.”

Karonditus chuckled. “What do you mean, sir— Oh. Uh. Is it ‘ma’am’? Or… What?”

Jane said, “Whatever you want.”

Jane had needed to get rid of her uterus to visit this place safely, so she did that with [Perfect Polymorph], allowing her to assume the guise of a man she referred to as ‘Jake’. Sitnakov was just himself, standing to the side, all white instead of black.

The Northern Spellsurge Mountains loomed a few kilometers ahead, like craggy walls of silvered rock. A pass in the mountains was the road into the various facilities inside, and that’s where thousands of pilgrims walked into the place, under a glittering golden sky.

The ‘natural’ auroras of this northern pole had long since vanished ever since the day of Fenrir, when the Shells of adamantium layered over Veird’s original Surface. They had only been in existence for 10 years before that, though, because they required a magnetosphere and Veird didn’t have one until Jane’s father had drawn up plans for one.

The auroras were back, though, and different. Golden hues filled the world overhead like a dance of sparks and a wash of mist. And down here, the songs of priests echoed in the mountains, like an open-air church.

It was an absolute miracle of an experience.

Jane’s heart was thumping hard at the power in the air, and the people, and the divinity of it all.

Sitnakov was stunned, eyes fixed on the sky.

Almost everyone in the company was similarly stunned, but Jane and Karonditus had needed to keep their heads about them as the ‘leaders’ of this little trip.

“Looks like we have some checkpoints to clear, Karonditus. It’s your show here. Get it moving.”

Karonditus nodded seriously, and then he raised his voice and drew the party’s gaze. “Attention! Everyone with a uterus! If you get closer to the mountains you will likely end up pregnant if you even touch a man. Hand holding counts as touching! All of you women-looking people know what you’re in for, yeah?”

“Yeah yeah!” said Charon. She was a woman from the University of Candlepoint with a Script-given Class of Managineer. She was one of hundreds like that. She started walking forward with one hand on the floating cart she pulled behind her. “I got it clipped before I came here. I’ll get it healed back tomorrow.”

Karonditus hummed, unsure.

Charon rolled her eyes. “The priest I talked to said it was fine!”

A few of the women in the party were already holding hands with men; they were obviously couples seeking blessings.

Jane wished them the best of luck.

And then Jane started walking on the mountain path, up to the mountains, under the golden sky.

Sitnakov stayed with her, looking up as he walked, whispering, “Beautiful.”

Jane smiled as she looked over Sitnakov. The golden glows of the sky were the only light all around. That gold reflected off of the silver-ish mountains, casting everything in brilliance, while Sitnakov stood out like pure gold himself. “You’re beautiful.”

Sitnakov smiled wide and then he picked up Jane and kissed her for a brief moment.

Jane loved that about him. No matter what she appeared as, man or woman of any race or species, he had no problem expressing his love with a simple kiss, or some small, nice words.

They held hands as they walked into the mountain pass, alongside hundreds of other people, most of whom had been dropped outside the mountains through portals just like their team had been dropped.

The songs of singers deepened.

Together, Jane and Sitnakov walked under the monastic song of priests who stood on the sides of the mountain pass and wore woven-wheat hats and robes. The song echoed. The world reverberated. Jane was walking into the world’s largest cathedral—

Something poked out of the ground over there, and Jane recognized it. It was a thread of wheat, too small to be called a stalk, and yet it was growing fast, becoming a stalk of wheat. That was when Jane looked ahead, and saw even more stalks of wheat poking out of the ground.

Ahead, the crowd cleared as the pass ended and space opened up.

They exited the mountain pass into a field of golden wheat, under the bright gold sky, into a vast, vast valley between the mountains that was supposed to be made holey with deployment tubes, but was instead made holy with fields of grain and the song of ten thousand or more singers, gathered here and there, praising Atunir and her bounty. Far, far overhead was the first planetoid that her father had planted in that sky, with the help of the Goddess of Field and Fertility. It was as big as a moon, now, and it shone down brilliant white in a sea of gold.

Jane felt her heart hitch.

The entire party stilled, all of them transfixed in the moment. It was absolutely heavenly.

Some woman broke down crying to the side, thanking Atunir as she held her belly. Jane wasn’t sure, but she thought she heard baby cries among the hymnals. Another couple of Karonditus’s repair mission broke down in shared tears as that woman held her belly. Somehow, some priests came out of the field of wheat and ushered people whatever ways they needed to go.

Somehow, Jane and Sitnakov walked across the golden field.

She found herself holding Sitnakov’s hand, standing in front of an archway that led into the mountain complex itself. Karonditus and his main people were there, 5 of the team pushing floating carts down into the tunnels.

Sitnakov squeezed Jane’s hand a little bit, smiling and gold, as he asked, “A bit of a rush, ain’t it?”

Jane started laughing for joy, and Sitnakov joined her. Their laughter and happiness seemed to be a part of the songs in the air, along with babies crying and the sounds of wheat pushing up through the rocky stone mountains.

– – – –

It took a minute of walking for Jane to regain her composure, though she was still feeling off-kilter —in a fantastic way— by the time they entered the main facilities. Tenebrae’s Rocklings stood in pairs here and there in the wide, wide tunnels, checking everyone out. A few of the older Rocklings were wearing clothes instead of their simple rock bodies, and those ones directed people where they actually needed to go.

Jane walked toward the center.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

All around her, wires from the entire rest of the place journeyed like collections of colored snakes, cordoned off to the sides of walls and out of the main paths. They were doing a lot of sudden reconstruction here, and nothing was getting put away as it should have been put away.

Priests were also putting up altars here and there, with big beeswax candles that dripped white wax and burning sticks of incense that drifted smoke into the air. Paladins in armor prayed with their swords and priests and priestesses prayed with folded hands. Bands of wheat were turned into bracelets and hats and prayer mats everywhere. Choirs of children sang hymns in hallways and old men and women sang songs in grand, newly-carved rooms that echoed.

And then Jane reached the center, and dad was there.

A few big people were here.

Standing right beside the main [Spellsurge Weave] for the entire project was Tenebrae, tall and green. Over there was Archmage Riivo, of Archmage’s Rest, down by Stratagold. He was an iron wrought. And then there was Jane’s father, tall and looking like a kind king, with a crown of black horns to match his black hair. Jane barely saw anything else in the room because now that she saw her father, everything else fell to the sides.

He was a weight upon the world… and yet not at all? Jane couldn’t feel him. Was it just a lightward? Jane and everyone else could usually feel him when he was around, like how you felt when a god was around, but different. Atunir was heavy in the air so maybe that’s why Jane had missed him.

Also, he didn’t show up to Jane’s mana sense at all.

“Dad?” Jane asked.

Dad turned and then, like a light switching from off to on, he smiled wide and he was Present in the moment. Just like that, his usual weight upon the world was back, and then he relaxed and Atunir retook the area. He now showed up to mana senses, though, so that was good.

“Jane! Almost didn’t recognize you. Good show not showing up with a uterus. Everyone who has a uterus is already pregnant, especially if they come this close.”

“Yeah. I heard,” Jane said, as she looked around. “Sitnakov wanted to come, and so did I.”

Sitnakov nodded to Erick. “Sir.”

Archmage Riivo spoke up, “Ah! Sitnakov, my boy! What brings you here?”

“I had to see it in person,” Sitnakov said, and then he went off with the Archmage, to talk of the magic and what was happening and other such stuff. Jane would get back to him later.

Jane asked her father, “How long till full saturation?”

“Politics gummed it up, so it’ll be another full day, at least. Maybe less,” Erick said, as he gestured to the map in front of them.

The [Spellsurge Weave] map of Fenrir and the planetoids hung in the air before them, like a holographic white sphere 5 meters wide with tiny pinpricks of golden dots all around it. It glowed, absolutely beautifully. The entire rest of the room also glowed, but in a different sort of way. The room had been transformed into a temple loaded with monitors and candles and tubes filled with wires and incense burning, smoke wafting and filling the air with the scents of applewood.

A lot of machines were hooked into the Weaver… as much as metal and exterior magic could hook into the Weaver, anyway. What really bridged the gap between the Weaver and tech were the several altars to Atunir, positioned around the map equally. A few different monks and paladins were in attendance around those altars, around the Weaver, heads bowed and lips mumbling in prayer, as they sat upon pillows that were really prayer altars themselves. Litanies of hope and good fortune and desires for good growth spilled from those monks, to flow into the [Spellsurge Weave].

The initial Weave had become a lot more than what it was. It was now an artifact and nexus of power, all on its own, doing tens of thousands of things at once, from negating the prayers of those down on Fenrir that were invariably picked up by the sights of the sun/moons in their sky, to alerting Jane’s father when direct intervention was necessary.

Even now, as Jane stood there, she watched her father watch the map.

The little glowing gold planetoids around the representation of Fenrir would sometimes flicker Red, and then go back to being gold. If Jane didn’t know better, she would have thought it a trick of the light, but there was no trick at all. There had been a problem, and then it had been solved.

Erick was out there, solving those problems right now, even as he was in the command center, watching it all happen.

A few very important numbers floated to the side, giving the overall readout of the machine. One of those numbers was the full coverage readout, saying ‘1.6%’, and ‘Time to next doubling: READY’. So they could double right now? Jane kinda wondered why they weren’t doubling when they could, but her father had already explained ‘politics’, and so it wasn’t her concern anymore. Another readout read ‘Integrity: 94%’ with breakdowns for ‘Spell coherence: 99%’ and ‘Tech resilience: 95%’ and ‘Divine Purpose: 87%’.

That divine purpose was kinda low.

Jane looked further to the sides. [Scry] orbs held in the ceiling, beyond protective glass and spellwork all over the place. They were tiny eyes looking in from all across the world, linking masses and rituals out there on Veird to the Goddess of Field and Fertility and this working right here. Churches all across the entirety of Veird were tuned in, but it wasn’t enough for full integrity.

That’s why Jane hadn’t really felt her father. He wasn’t really here until Jane was here, drawing his full attention. Most of his attention was out there, where he worked.

They needed more true believers here, in this space, but that’s what the massive influx of people outside on the mountain paths were for. The problem was getting solved.