“Yer Highness,” the Mick said roughly to Princess Kristie, “I’d be honored to show ye what I know o’ the blade, and I’d be more honored to be accepted as yer student for this new magic.”
“Cousin, the last thing I am going to do is keep this knowledge to myself. Spreading our refinements of the martial way is what we do!” she smiled back at him, and a layer of tension left his shoulders as he grinned helplessly in return. “Now, you’ll likely hate the fact that the spiritual side of things probably has a great deal in common with the Joji tradition you’ve spoke about...”
“Ahg! The meditation, an’ the crossing legs, an’ the feeling of nature an’ harmony with the world?” He shuddered with only a little exaggeration.
“Eh, the physical positions are more about instilling reflexive mental and physical discipline. If you always Meditate in such a position, then your mind and body enter the state more quickly when you are in it.” She folded up her legs into a proper position, feet atop her thighs, as easily as if she was boneless, hand held vertically in front of her. “This is not a natural position, so there is no confusion. If I am in this position, I am preparing to Meditate, and I can enter the state easily.
“No different than setting into a proper Stance when about to enter a fight.”
A light went on in his dark eyes. “Huh.” He blinked. “That makes good sense. That unnatural sitting is just a Stance...”
“The Power of Ten traditions are very broad and deep, much deeper than the Isparian system. And,” she half-snarled, “they don’t have a cap. There’s some things they do better, and some things they do worse. You’re going to use what is useful from both sides.”
“It’s like it’s a system for living, as opposed to breeding a set of magic-powered gladiators for enjoyment,” I contributed.
“So, ye’re saying, an’ I’m not disbelieving it, as there’s been talk of the gods having fun with us for ages, that something out there were watching us, controlling the magic an’ the system, an’ all these schemes an’ plots by everyone an’ their mothers are just entertainment to them?” the Mick had to ask.
“And if you die, you might indeed just get sucked into what they made here and become part of it, yes,” I stated grimly. “If you think about it, watching a group of freebooters run the same world-saving quest against a dire foe is no different than watching the same play with different actors, right? Only a lot more violence, like a good sporting match or tourney, except nobody is pulling blows.”
He didn’t want to believe it, it was on his face, but he’d lived through it, experienced it all, and the explanation... it just fit.
“The change in magic...?” he asked thoughtfully, after a moment.
“It certainly mucked up something. How many of those quests, locked souls, and the like survived?”
He thought that over for a minute, too, shaking his head after a short time. “None that I be aware of... and there’s been no new ones, of late, which were passing odd, but welcome on the face of it...”
“Almost like all those other world-threatening catastrophes were either contrived or allowed, perhaps encouraged to happen, for the viewing entertainment of those higher on the scale?” Kris murmured knowingly.
The Mick nodded shortly. “Aye, that seems... fair t’ say, as well.”
“Well, you need to keep yourself busy for a few hours while Ryin and I get some work done. Once that’s over, we can start on some other things for you, and prep to head off to where there’s some living humans to really get the ball into motion.”
“I can get him started on the basics of a Matrix. Can you Tat him up a Mark?” I asked her.
“Do not tell me you’ve been gathering up Inks for Mark-Tats.”
I blinked, looked at the Wagon. “Okay, I won’t tell you, and presume that you’ll find something when you look at the second rack in the alchemy cabinet, just by chance.”
“Powered. Such damn busybodies,” she groused, kicking away on her Disk and back to her Investing.
---
The Mick watched her go, a little wide-eyed at our casual repartee. “Not just a Hag, but an Imperial Aluvian Hag,” I sniffed, and that got him grinning. “Come over here and look at what I’ve got drawn here, Master McMikal. This is called an Infusion Pattern. We use it to Burn goldweight, which is a condensed form of saying ‘anything with the appropriate amount of magical energy, as measured by its matching value in gold’, and instill that magical energy into the items of our own design.
“Remember when I told you about time? Well, this is it. There’s a basic time limit to how much and how long you can Invest stuff. Without some powerful magical items helping you out, or working on really big stuff, like monuments or Obelisks, you are totally limited in how much work you can do on the ‘magic’ portion of a magic item per day.
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“You can learn to use less than a goldweight to do a goldweight worth of work. You can learn to use six hours to do eight hours worth of work. You can learn to use slightly less Karma when Infusing. But without outside aid, you can’t do ‘more’... so the speed you can make stuff at is limited, and every day you don’t work on stuff is a day longer before you get the stuff.”
“Understood,” he nodded, his dark eyes keen as the Infusing Pattern glowed and glittered to his eye, and pyreal coins slowly melted away beneath his gaze. “This... is not that fancy. Some o’ the patterns to the Platinum and Incantor Levels of Casting were far more complex!”
“That’s because Infusing can start very early. This is no more complex than an Iron spell.” He studied it, and nodded slowly. “Generally, instead of carving a new Pattern, it’s easier to just make one and carry it around, if you can. However, you can’t make one out of flexible materials, and a fold-up one or ‘some assembly required’ models tend to degrade fast over time as the energies move through them, so you need to store them carefully and have something to put them in.” I tossed a thumb at the Wagon behind us.
“We used to be able to expand the space in our packs to fit in just incredible amounts of stuff,” he admitted, and I flinched automatically. “Eh?” he asked at my reaction. “It were very common magic, like a smaller version of the magic that created dungeons beyond the Portals...”
I cleared my throat. “I want you to utterly remove any thought of getting such a wonderful device that uses dimensional magic back. Completely and utterly. We can sort of do similar things with Masspacks, which shrink items placed inside them down to a fraction of their size and weight. We do NOT mess with standing dimensional pockets that aren’t as strong as the Veil of the world. You got a small taste of why.” I pointed, and he turned his head to gaze over to what I had been told was the local Allegiance Hall, places where the adventurers of this world assembled in a pleasant area to talk and do casual work. They had become much less important once the Mansions for the powerful Allegiances went up.
They were the short buildings with the Grecian/Roulean-style pillars and roofs, upended as the ‘dungeon’ anchored to the Portal on them was thrust into the real world beneath them, and collapsed the ceiling thereof with their weight.
“Classic dimensional storage devices are deathtraps,” I warned him calmly. “Not just for yourself, but potentially for all those around you.
“Consider the Veil, the dimensional barrier that represents the edge of the laws of our reality, warding those who do not belong here from our space. From their perspective, as tendrils of energy, awareness, and influence probe and touch the edge of the Veil, it is a smooth and unbroken surface of nigh-perfect solidity, keeping out horrors unknown and undreamed... which seem to be all the rage for madmen to Summon up for secrets of power.”
He stared at the image of shadowy tentacles, tendrils, and eyes roving over an unbroken silvery expanse with wide eyes, and nodded his understanding.
“Dimensional storage devices make the Veil bulge from our side, as do dimensional pockets.”
And on the silvery expanse, the tentacles paused. I zoomed in, and there was a pimple on the surface of the Veil.
“Those pimples get noticed.”
He swallowed slightly as the tendrils and tentacles played over the bulge in the Veil, and the pimple seemed to wobble.
“They are weak points in the Veil, and depending on the nature of the Veil, eventually they will break. When that happens...”
He watched the pimple pop, and the tentacles reach through. On the other side of the Veil, an adventurer who looked remarkably like the Mick here barely had time to scream before a glowing purple tendril reached out from his comfy backpack, wrapped around his throat, and pulled him on through it.
Then a whole explosion of purple tendrils erupted out of the new hole that was forced open in the Veil, exploding in all directions, grabbing everything... and then pulling back with a vwoooorp as the Veil closed itself, and left a big hole behind where had once been a busy market in the middle of a city, with a broken and torn backpack sitting in pieces down at the middle of it.
Then the screams started, but it was a mite bit late for everything that had been living there.
“That’s the kind of shit that lives on the other side of the Veil, Master McMikal. Please do not invite them in here.”
He just stared. “I was wearing something like that on me back?” he asked dully.
I waved at the air around us. “The ley lines on this island are unbelievably strong. It is likely they shielded everything against such dimensional hijinks by those Outside Creation. But that protection is no longer there, as evidenced by how hard the Veil cracked down on all the dimensional pockets attached to this place.
“Portable storage pockets? Little pimples moving about on the surface of the Veil?” My Holo of the little pimples moving around on the featureless expanse, impossible to miss, only made him grimace harder. “They are literally the only things to watch. They are deathtraps!”
He held up his hands in surrender. “Ye’ve me word, I won’t be trying t’ do something similar!” he promised. “But now I want t’ know what a Masspack is, an’ how it works, an’ if I might make one.”
“Well, a) how good are you at leatherworking, and b) you’ve got to learn some Artificing the hard way first.”
His reaction to that was to rub his hands. “Lady Magos,” he said with exaggerated formality, “if ye can give me back even the simplest magicks I used to use so freely, I’ll be greatly in your debt!”
“You’ll be the test case, then, because we have a lot of teaching to do. You’re going to be the first, so don’t be afraid to ask a lot of questions, as everyone else will be asking them, too, and it’s best to know the answers ahead of time, I’m sure you’ll agree.”
“Aye, that be true,” he nodded. “I’ve taught me share of students over time. Hard to be the wise an’ all-knowing master if ye actually don’t know the answers ahead of time, aye?”
“That is total truth! Alrighty, we’ll start today’s lesson with basic Artificing and the Infusing Pattern. If you’ve mastered Item Magic to Copper or higher, this will prove to be simplicity itself, and you can move smoothly into making your own Pattern with your own understanding for revision and improvement...”
The Mick looked on, the hungry light of an eager student in his eyes. He lived in a world that had cast aside the trappings of Ispar for newer, greater things, and this was just one more new Path he could advance down, continuing the long and profitable journey of his life...