Chapter 71, 1/2

Chapter 71, 1/2

The air in the hospital smelled of cold stone. Erick didn’t like it. At first, the smell was normal, not really even there. But as Poi and Kiri slept in their beds and the afternoon came, as he channeled mana through several Ophiel to the farms of Spur so far away, the clean, stone smell of the hospital, became pervasive. Oppressive. Unkind, even though it obviously was. This was a hospital, after all.

Ophiel trilled on Erick’s lap. He was quiet about it, but it was still audible. He looked up at Erick with a few tiny eyes; he must have sensed Erick’s growing unease. The truth was, was that Erick didn’t much care for hospitals. Years ago, his mother died of breast cancer and his father died of bone cancer, and by the time he was old enough to recognize them as his grandparents, his two grandmothers also died of cancer. With all of his medical history pointing toward an early death, it was hard for Erick to be happy about hospitals.

He expected to die in a few years, laying in some hospital somewhere, dying of some unrelenting disease. But that just didn’t happen on Veird. Erick was safe from death, at least in that specific way. Heck, he even talked to Death occasionally, asking the god of the End about magic.

And so, as Erick looked to Poi and Kiri, both still sleeping under thin white blankets in their individual hospital beds, worry ate at him. The two dragonkin should have woken up a while ago. The doctor had administered [Greater Treat Wounds]. They were healed, according to the doctor, but they had to wake in their own time. Those were the doctor’s words. Erick could do nothing but trust she was correct.

Erick looked away from Poi and Kiri to see beyond the windows above their beds. He couldn’t see much except the sky. The sun slanted in at a hard angle, spilling yellow light across the center of the stone room. Outside of the room, beyond an open door, footsteps tapped on the stone as people walked back and forth in stone hallways, going wherever they needed to go. This hospital was busy, all the time, but it was mostly quiet. Rats had left a while ago; he was needed elsewhere. Teressa stayed. She sat in another chair on the other side of the room. Sunlight fell across her calm face, and closed eyes. She was meditating, trying to get in touch with the mana, trying to develop her Mana Sense. Erick watched the manasphere swirl around her, flowing in and out of her grey clothes and green skin. She smiled slightly.

Her smile failed.

She opened her eyes, blinking hard as she turned toward the door. She stood, then moved to the side of the room, preparing for something to come through the door as she glanced at Erick, sending, ‘The Headmaster is coming.’

Erick nodded to Teressa as he stood. Ophiel flapped up to his shoulder, shrinking to parakeet-sized. Erick continued to channel mana though his [Familiar], across the ocean, as he listened to the sounds of the hospital echoing from the open door. The usual bustle of the hospital turned quieter or stopped altogether, as a person, light on their feet and wearing padded shoes, walked through the hallway. Erick heard a few small gasps out there. He adjusted his own clothes, making sure they were straight and tidy. Ophiel quickly preened himself by flickering his wings and eyes into better, more symmetrical positions, trying to mimic Erick’s preparations.

The Headmaster stepped into the doorway of the room. He was an ancient human-looking man, but also regal, wearing immaculately clean and pressed yellow and white robes. He gazed into the room with amber eyes, and a soft expression. He saw Kiri and Poi, and with a slight frown, whispered, “I hope I am not disturbing.”

Erick spoke normally, saying, “Come on in, Headmaster.” He looked to Kiri and Poi, then said, “They should have been awake a while ago. Maybe I just need to start talking around them and they’ll wake.”

The Headmaster nodded as he stepped into the room. He nodded towards Teressa, saying, “Teressa. I hear you’re doing well in Esoteric Magic.”

Teressa stood a bit straighter. Even though she towered over the Headmaster by a good three feet and a few hundred kilograms, she still seemed like a precocious young girl, as she said, “Thank you, sir. I am trying.”

The Headmaster smiled. He turned to Erick. “You haven’t made a single new spell since you came here, and now you make three?”

Erick felt his stomach turn. He must have flinched, because the Headmaster noticed.

The Headmaster added, “I’m not chastising you. I just find it odd. I expected you to be leading the charge into this new kind of magic. Not to sit back and let others forage ahead.” He looked to Kiri and Poi, saying, “Have you grown scared of pain?”

Erick looked at his apprentice, and his head guard, sleeping under white sheets, because of an experiment he had failed to fully prepare for. He felt the air go out of him as he said, “Yes.”

The Headmaster said, “Existence is suffering.”

The way he said it was so foreign but yet so familiar, in a different language and an infinity far from everything that Erick had known before, that a smile came unbidden to Erick, along with a bubble of laughter.

The Headmaster looked at him with eyes askance.

Erick immediately said, “Sorry. It just— That’s a saying back where I come from. From a religion, actually.”

Now it was the Headmaster’s turn to be surprised. “... it is?”

“There’s a religion known as Buddhism. I was never very religious, but their first tenet is ‘Existence is Suffering’. The second is... suffering happens because of want and desire. The third is...” Erick thought for a second. He said, “I think it’s... ‘to deny these desires is to stop the suffering’. The last tenet is a guide on how to achieve this goal which I completely forget but it involves a lot of ‘living correctly’.”

The Headmaster looked away from Erick, back to Kiri and Poi, saying, “A wise people, then, these buddhismists.”

Erick smiled again.

The Headmaster asked, “Do you consider yourself religious these days?”

Erick paused. He thought. He said, “The words are the same, but the way I think of religion and how it is here seems to be fundamentally different from everything I knew. If you would have asked me this question back on Earth, I would have said no, because the only thing I ever felt we had on Earth was each other. But here, on Veird? There’s gods that you can talk to, and help from a Script to make life better.” He added, “Am I religious? No. Am I religious? Maybe.”

The Headmaster stood in silence for a long moment, as the quiet sounds of a hospital in motion played out in the hallways beyond the room. He said, “Your classes with me begin tomorrow, if you so choose.”

Erick said, “I would like that.”

The Headmaster nodded, then turned, and walked out of the room.

Small footsteps on stone echoed in the sounds of an empty hospital. After a minute, the quiet multitudes of people walking back and forth resumed. Everyone had places to be, after all.

Erick sat back down in his chair. Ophiel resumed his position on Erick’s lap, quietly harping and singing of violins. A pluck here, a vibration there.

After another minute passed, and the Headmaster seemed to truly be gone, Teressa sent, ‘I feel like I just missed a wyrm’s charge.’

Erick sent back, ‘Me too.’

Teressa eventually went back to training her Mana Sense, while Erick continued to rain on Spur’s farms. Gentle silence filled the air.

An hour later, Kiri woke up first with a grumble and a groan.

Teressa smiled wide, as she said, “Welcome back, Kiri.”

Erick rushed to her side, saying, “I’m so sorry, Kiri! I should have put up a stone bunker. I should have [Teleport]ed us all far away. There was no need to do the experiment so—”

Kiri grumbled out, “Not so loud.”

Erick went silent.

Kiri sighed out into the air, saying, “Headache’s still there.”

“The doctor said you should be fine,” Erick half pleaded, half stated. He calmed, adding, “Soon enough.”

Kiri blinked hard. She asked, “Did you manage to make a spell out of that?”

Erick sighed. He centered himself. He said, “Not yet. I haven’t leveled the pieces, and I’m not sure if it’s going to work, anyway. The Headmaster came in here—”

“What!” Kiri’s scaled green face flushed a darker green as she said, “While I was laid out like this?” She mumbled toward the ceiling, “So fucking embarrassing.”

Erick smiled. Kiri was going to be okay. But just to make sure, Erick went out into the hallway to find the doctor. Kiri was already out of her bed, back into normal clothes and hungry, by the time Erick returned with the doctor. After a quick checkup and another casting of [Greater Treat Wounds], the doctor gave Kiri the ‘all clear’. Kiri and Teressa went down to the cafeteria to get something while the doctor went back to her duties and Erick waited in the room, beside Poi. Soon enough, Kiri and Teressa returned with food, and Rats.

As the scents of meats and sauces filled the room, Poi opened his eyes.

“Smells good,” he said.

Rats held a fork full of meat, saying, “Heeey! Look who’s awake.”

“Oh thank the gods,” Erick whispered into his rice bowl, thankful that Poi was awake. He set his dinner aside.

Poi grumbled, “It was a mistake to not believe you, sir.”

Erick burst into laughter, and if a few tears fell, then no one said anything.

“Not so loud, please,” Poi instantly said.

Erick went quiet. He whispered, “I’m the one who’s sorry. I really should have moved us all much further from the experiment. This was entirely my fault. I’m sorry, Poi.”

Poi sighed out, blinking long. Tendrils of thought flowed from him into the world, once again. He said, “What did I miss?”

Rats said, “Nothing major.”

Kiri packed up her dinner into a conjured box, saying, “Let’s go back to the Manor. We can eat there?”

Poi’s stomach grumbled. He said, “Sounds good to me.”

Teressa said, “I’ll go get something from the cafeteria for you, Poi. Any requests?”

“Fish.” Poi said, “And rice.”

Teressa nodded as she walked out of the room.

Rats packed away his own dinner, saying, “I’ll call the doctor back. You need a once-over before we check you out, Poi.”

Poi sighed out, “Fine.”

Erick smiled. They were going to be okay.

- - - -

Kiri and Poi were going to be okay, but Erick still didn’t know about Jane.

Privately, and admitted to no one but himself, Erick entertained the idea that maybe he shouldn’t knock the system that has thus far kept the civilizations of Veird out of the maws of monsters.

But then he went ahead and said what he was thinking, “But your system works well for keeping the monsters outside of the city walls.”

Erick went quiet after that, as they walked through ever shifting colored light, and more than a little bit of other, more esoteric electromagnetic waves. Ultraviolet, for sure, but also infrared; special [Ward]s didn’t go much beyond that. Erick had already tried for higher energy lightwards, like gamma, and gotten nothing, while longer wavelength rays, like radio, similarly didn’t happen.

Soon, the Headmaster and Erick both stood in the center of the room, near the main pool, while light slimes bumbled here and there in the water. There was more of them today than yesterday. Erick silently counted ten slimes, as he watched the Headmaster look around the room. The Headmaster also said nothing. Erick waited.

The Headmaster eventually said. “There might be some truth to this [Renew] being inside [Ward], though that would be an odd way to look at our common understanding of the spell. The common thinking is that [Ward] is similar to [Mend], and where [Mend] repairs something to what it was before, [Ward] similarly stamps itself on Reality, and repairs back to what it was at the time of casting.” He said, “This bears investigating.” He continued, “But for now, what I mainly see, is that you have managed to discover the secret of the Gemslicer’s darklights. By incorporating them into this dungeon, along with some similarly odd [Heat Ward]s, you have managed to create a light slime spawning zone.”

Erick said, “Well. Uh...”

“Oh?” The Headmaster glanced at Erick, saying, “You did not discover a secret, did you. You knew how to do this without them.”

Erick said nothing.

The Headmaster smirked. He continued, “Also, this ‘Scientific Method’...” The Headmaster smiled slightly. Then he frowned. He sighed, then said all at once, “We teach out of books because, as you say, it works. For the occasional few who wish to reach beyond the power taught in school, there is usually only failure and years of waiting for another chance to combine their magic again. Or relegation to the smaller tiers, where tests and experiments can be carried out once a day, or every ten, for decades.” He added, “I have known so many mages who if they only had a few more tries, they might have made something great. But the Script is set like it is to stop the abuses of magic.” He went silent.

Erick listened to the burbling water as he watched bobbling slimes play in the pond at his feet.

The Headmaster said, “There are a few gods that think you are a wizard.”

“I heard as much from several of them already.”

The Headmaster chuckled. He said, “The more I see, the more I realize that you are not a wizard. You’re barely an archmage.”

Erick joked, “That second title opens a lot of doors for me. I could do without the first one, though.”

The Headmaster smiled. He said, “To be a wizard, you would have to have the ability to bring into existence things which have no basis in reality.” He glanced to Ophiel, saying, “Even your [Familiar] follows a known method of creation.” He added, “Indeed, the only thing that sets you apart from others is that you are using the true physical properties of this universe in order to create new magic, and because of this, the Mana loves you.”

The Headmaster said, “Empathy used to be supremely important for any prospective mage. It was how you felt out Mana, it was how Mana came to understand you in return. Now? Now... Things are different, but not really that different at all.”

He folded his hands behind himself as he looked up into the light, then across the room. “I was three hundred when the Sundering took everything away and landed us in this place. We didn’t have Classes or the Script before then. We had to do it all by hand. Shaping the mana, imbuing it with idea and meaning, taking bits of ourselves and leaving them in all of our workings. But this did not mean that we were throwing around thoughtforms and emotionfeelings without regard to the world around us. Magic only worked when you knew what you were doing, because most people were not Wizards. Those that came before studied Reality extensively in order to become better mages. They practiced thoughtforms under specific schools of thought. They carved emotions out of the sky and measured the angle of reflection and refraction. They knew what they were doing, because imagination was only a small part of the mage process. It was a very large part, but it was still only a small part, if you can understand that. If you didn’t know what you were doing, you’d kill yourself sooner than you’d ever light a torch.

“My previous universe had been plumbed and divined. The pieces of it had been parted out into known quantities. Stone, Fire, Water, Air, Light and Dark; the constituent fragments of Reality. Those that could work these facts were called mages. Those that worked these facts well were called archmages. Those who sang their own mutated truths out of the mana were called Wizards. And then it all ended, and we ended up here.

“But despite the vast differences in fragments from the Old Cosmology to this New Cosmology, it all looks the same, really. We would not have survived if we had not gotten lucky enough to find this new, nearly-the-same universe. But it is not truly the same. Not at all.” He looked off into the distance for a moment. He came back to himself, saying, “You are no wizard. You just know a few parts of this reality and you have the Script to help you along. The rest of us are using ancient shovels, in an ancient land, while you have [Stoneshape].” He went quiet again, as he gazed upon the scattered, colorful lights of the dungeon. He seemed to be thinking of something. His head tilted just a little, then tilted back.

Erick waited.

The Headmaster said, “Try for [Prismatic Ward] again. Here and now. It should protect you a fair bit more than those [Crystalline Air]s of yours. You have been working on this spell, yes?”

Erick stuttered out, “Yea— Yeah! Sure. Okay. The last time I tried was actually a few days ago.” He summoned another four tiny Ophiels into the air beside him. As the tiny winged guys popped out of a vibrating manasphere and the Ophiel on his shoulder flitted into the air to join himself, Erick said, “Just need to summon a few more.”

“Do whatever you feel the need to do.” The Headmaster added, “I can take more time for this than I thought I could. No rush.”

Erick summoned two more tiny Ophiel. Soon, seven Ophiel floated through the room.

He directed his attention to the pool of water in front of him, and the light slimes rolling through the water. With a bit of [Stoneshape], the slimes rolled out of the way, to the side. Erick reworked the plumbing with precise control. He set aside the pool’s outflow to another protected part of the water system of the dungeon, leaving him with a perfectly circular pond, just a few inches deep, filled with crystal clear water. With no slimes playing in the pond or streams pouring into the space, the water soon calmed. The only thing that disturbed the perfect surface was the stream of mana and air from above. This inflow set ripples expanding from the center of the pond.

Erick’s mana had recovered enough to continue with the rest of the setup. He set his seven tiny Ophiel evenly around the pool, as he glanced at the Headmaster. The Headmaster did not need to be asked; he stepped backward, away from the water.

With a gentle command, separated into seven pieces, Erick commanded Ophiel to expand. Each tiny [Familiar] unfolded with wing and feathers and eyes, one meter tall, then two. Each of them turned symmetrical; jumbles of wings and eyes became artistic grace. This was not their full size, but it was slightly bigger than Erick, and that was the perfect size. He set each winged Ophiel on a different task. He started with the one on his left.

Seven motes of stone floated up from the dungeon floor, into the air around the first Ophiel, shaped into spheres. The second Ophiel grabbed seven globes of water pulled from the pond. [Prestidigitation] gave rise to orbs of fire, held in place with [Fireshape] around the third Ophiel, while balls of flowing air came from the inlet above the pool and took position around the fourth Ophiel. Radiance circled the next Ophiel, seven perfect spheres of light plucked from the room, while seven orbs of utter darkness held around the sixth Ophiel. The seventh held strong with seven floating balls of diamond, roughly plucked from a nearby statue and quickly shaped into perfect spheres by Erick’s concentrated effort. He scattered the resulting diamond dust into the pool, setting the water to sparkling even more, as hand-sized, smooth and spherical orbs began to float around the last Ophiel.

Erick cast seven [Wards] across the pool. They were filled with intent, but not much more than that.

Though he didn’t get all the math in Hocnihai’s books, the ritual and the process called to Erick in some deep way. He hadn’t planned on doing this today, or here, but now was as good a time as any to try and go for the big spell.

With another gentle nudge, he set all seven Ophiel to singing their parts. Erick joined them,

“Here we lay a solid claim to land roughhewn and gentle made

“by this act of river tamed, by this need of monsters slain.

“Start a pyre, burn the night! Keep us safe and not afraid.

“Feel the breeze and scent the wind, banish all your thoughts of pain

“for all is seen and all is known, for these lights will never wane.

“If monsters crawl we are prepared, for there are ever hidden swords

“here in this hard land, I say! Here in this [Prismatic Ward]!”

Erick flowed meaning and power into his words as Ophiel joined him, surrounding the rippling pool and its layered, basic warding with vibrations and meaning and magic. Each line passed broke one of the [Ward]s over the water, quickly leaving the air empty, but full of resonance.

The air broke over the pond.

One second, there was nothing but the changing kaleidoscopic dungeon all around Erick. Even through his sunglasses the room was bright. And then it wasn’t. It was like he had walked indoors from the sun. A gentle, homey feeling overtook him. He smiled as he took off his glasses. The seven summoned Ophiel each put their spheres of matter back where they got them, or dismissed them back into the world. The one with the diamonds just stacked the seven balls in a heap on the floor, as all of them flashed down to parakeet-size and hovered over to Erick.

Erick stood on the edge of a calm pool of water, as a gentle breeze flowed from above, and a dense feeling hung all around him. He moved his hand through the air. It didn’t shatter the air like how [Crystalline Air] broke at his touch. He just existed, and everything felt normal.

All around Erick and the five meter wide pond, and another good seven meters outside of that pond in every direction, pressed against the ceiling and against the wavy ground, laid a density. A gravity, almost, but not quite. Outside of that density laid the dungeon, still kaleidoscopic bright and supremely radiant. Of the bright [Ward]s caught inside the effect, they were still bright, but they didn’t burn Erick’s eyes.

The Headmaster stood outside of that density, too, along with the light slimes. Those little balls of light were bouncing along, like before, though some of them bounced at the density, like hitting an invisible thing in the air, before they bounced right back to continue their play somewhere else. Streams of water flowed from outside the space, into the space, while air and mana swirled above, unimpeded.

The Headmaster’s eyes were a bit wider than normal, but he said nothing. Instead, he looked to the air, like he was reading something.

Erick looked around, too. Where were his notifications? They didn’t usually take this long.

The Headmaster frowned a little as he said, “Ah. That’s my fault. I was looking at the skill. Here—”

Prismatic Ward, instant, short range, permanent, Solid Ward, 100 MP + Variable

Create a solid, large space, that absorbs six times Variable damage before breaking.

Prismatic Ward regenerates integrity based on your Rested mana regeneration rate.

You and those you permit are able to operate within Prismatic Ward without restriction. You may grant or revoke this permission at will.

All beings permitted inside Prismatic Ward are at Rest while inside.

You may only have one Solid Ward active at a time.

Choose which Solid Ward to keep:

Prismatic Ward

OR

Crystalline Air

Erick was a little sad to lose the ‘You may increase or decrease the size of your Solid Ward for an increase or decrease in Variable cost’ of [Crystalline Air], but he readily chose [Prismatic Ward]. The ability to deny [Teleport]s of all kinds, not just the [Teleport] spell, was too good to pass up; you couldn’t blip into a space already occupied by an object, after all. He gave a sad smile and a deep, deep ‘thank you’ to [Crystalline Air] as he felt it break apart inside of his soul, or his link to the mana through the Script, or wherever was that odd space inside of him where the spells actually resided.

The Headmaster said, “That is a remarkably good version of the spell. Do you mind if I give that rhyme and method to others who I hold in confidence?”

“I didn’t even know anyone could intercept notifications.”

“Ah.” The Headmaster said, “I usually do not, but this one came through the Script like a charging wyrm.” He added, “I’m technically a Registrar but only because I am Second to Rozeta.” He suddenly looked to the side. He looked back to Erick, saying, “This was a treat to witness, but I must go.” He said, “I will send Krigea to you later. I am very interested in procuring an actual light slime dungeon. If you are interested in a further bargain of trade for such a thing, I am willing to discuss terms. Whatever the case, I do think you should get both [Lightwalk] and [Shadowalk]. Separately, they are not that great for killing or escaping from Shades, but together they are wonderful. Like two halves of a coin. Of course, the other Four Elements taken together are similarly useful—” He looked to the air again. He said, “I must go.”

The Headmaster vanished in a blip of gold light.

Erick sighed out into the air. He watched as seven Ophiel played together, moving in and out of the [Prismatic Ward] without disturbing the space at all. After a few moments of just resting, feeling his mana refill, he set to putting his dungeon back to rights. [Stoneshape] remade floors and plumbing rather quickly. When the pool was back to the endpoint of the water stream curling around the room, and the pipes were back to their proper positions, Erick looked down at the nearest light slime, bumbling against the edge of his [Prismatic Ward].

Did he need a [Lightwalk]? Jane seemed to think he did, and so did the Headmaster. According to both of them, he needed [Shadowalk], too. But these slimes were just too cute.

...It wasn’t a decision he had to make today, anyway. For now, it was time to go home! Erick dismissed six of his seven Ophiel, then blipped back to Windy Manor.

He mostly ignored the nagging feeling eating at his gut that the Headmaster had done something to his [Prismatic Ward].