Chapter 125:

Anton gently closed the door to their room on The Snowberry. Verona took a seat on the bed, Kal a chair while she unruffled her ears while Cetina leant against the wall, her arms folded and her black brows furrowed in anger. After leaving the swamp they had barely spoken a word. Even the man Ferula allowed to escape did not weigh much on their mind. They rode past him, red-faced and sweating profusely but otherwise, he was fine.

“Does,” Anton coughed lightly. “Does anyone want something to drink?”

“Yes please.” Verona received nods from the other girls.

Anton produced four small mugs and poured a generous portion of wine. Everyone downed their portion without hesitation. Anton sat next to Verona and stared into the mug.

“That’s probably not the best for anything in our stomachs, but are we being listened to right now?” Verona asked.

“Probably,” Kal mumbled. “She knew a lot about us. Even that we were together.”

Cetina grumbled, barring her teeth lightly.

“I’ll think of a way that we can talk with more secrecy.” Anton held Verona’s shoulder. “But I think we should have a look through what we were given.”

“Can you be sure they aren’t infected with their magic?” Cetina pulled herself off the wall. “She was able to corrupt that man without raising her hand. How do you know we’re fine?”

Anton already checked himself and found nothing. There was no harm in checking twice. He checked Verona, receiving a strange look, then Kal and Cetina. There was no hint of the green haze anywhere in their bodies.

“There’s nothing in any of us. I’ll check the books.”

“Did you really think they were Strega Witches?” Cetina looked him, a mixture of anger and annoyance on her face. “Before we met them?”

Anton sighed. “I did. But, as I said, I wanted what they had to offer. I had no idea what we were about to witness there.”

“Don’t ever make me go back there,” Cetina spoke softly, staring at the floor. “I never want to see that green magic again.”

“I don’t intend to.” Anton patted her shoulder and sat next to Verona. “But we’ve got what we wanted.”

Luna, nesting in a thick bundle of clothes in the corner, squeaked and trotted to Cetina’s side. She pawed at Cetina’s boots until she picked her up and began to pet her. She didn’t care who it was, so long as someone was giving her attention. Cetina softened as she scratched the mewling white blob.

“You are a cute little thing.” Cetina removed her glove and scratched her ears.

Anton quickly checked Luna for any sign of corruption. Satisfied she was free he scratched roughly behind her ears eliciting a mewl.

“We should get more creatures like her.” Anton leant back. “Something other than horses. More Peyton’s, maybe some Griffons or Giant Eagles. Drakes? Something. I don’t know if Dana will appreciate it.”

“Alcanares could have some of those for sale.” Cetina sat on an empty chair next to Kal. “No Drakes or Dragons but a lot of exotic creatures. But I’m not sure now. That was a long time ago.”

Anton looked to the packs filled with magical tomes. “I think it’s about time that we actually started to understand our magic. Mine might be a little too dangerous to practice on The Snowberry. We should head back to Atros.”

“Sounds good.” Verona chuckled. “Won’t they be surprised when they see us? And we can actually have some fresh food, rather than all this preserved stuff.”

Kal shrugged. “It’s not that bad. Once you get over the taste.”

“Taste is important,” Verona stated adamantly. “Otherwise I’d be just eating those hard biscuits. They taste like dirt but Wilford said they don’t rot. It’s no wonder they have it.”

“They can eat it so damn quickly.” Anton sighed, rising from the bed. “It’s like I’m eating rocks half the time. I’ll go check with the others if you three can set up the portal.”

The adjacent room held the inactive portal, the pack containing the stones had a protection prayer cast over it. No sailor had dared come to this level but there was better to be prepared.

Anton climbed the wooden stairs, the sun and wind on his face. The Snowberry had just left the port as sailors, assisted by Dwarves and Dark Elves, hoisted sails and shouted colourful words to one another. At the prow Anton found Wilford speaking with Umikgruid and Ceccitol.

“Anton.” Wilford bowed his head slightly. “Was your small journey a success?”

Anton scratched his head “You could say that. I don’t know if we’ll ever be coming back this way.”

“You did look a little upset,” Ceccitol smiled bitterly. “We tried to talk to you but you weren’t listening.”

“You said something? Sorry, we were a little distracted.”

“But you’re back now.” Umikgruid laughed triumphantly. “With a few extra packs too. Don’t think Dwarven eyes aren’t sharp just because we’re short.”

I honestly have no idea why anyone would think that.

“We did. And that’s kind of why I wanted to speak with you both.”

“Before you go any further,” Wilford interjected. “Do we have our next destination? We can head to open sea but I’d like to not waste daylight.”

“What’s the closest Seocurian port?”

Wilford’s face flattened. He knew their intent to purchase, but not their true purpose. “Sébo. It’ll take some time to reach though. We have all of Graterious to cross first.”

“Make that our destination. As soon as possible.”

“I’ll tell the sailors.” Wilford bowed his head again and left.

Ceccitol waited for Wilford to leave. “So long as it’s on the way to The Shadow Isles I’m not really concerned.”

“Actually, I was wondering if you, or any of your people, wanted to return to Atros for a while. Stretch your legs and get off the boat. Maybe have some hot fresh food.”

“The Dark Elves and I will stay with the ship. Just in case something happens. Even if we do not survive our homes are still under threat.”

“I think Wilford said the only thing you might have to worry about are pirates. But we didn’t meet any on the way south.”

“A stray arrow is still dangerous,” Ceccitol spoke adamantly. “And if they disrupt your portal then we will have come all this way for nothing.”

“Right…Umikgruid?”

“I don’t have a need. But some husbands are missing their wives, if you understanding my meaning. Dwarves tend to group together no matter what so it’s always on their minds. I don’t think it’s a real problem but I’m sure they would appreciate it.”

“Have them meet us outside our rooms right away,” Anton turned to leave. “We’ll be back tonight.”

Barely a minute later and a dozen Dwarves had assembled. Each held an expectant look, they were about to see their loved ones separated by hundreds of miles with but a few steps. Kal donned her mask just in case a sailor walked by. Cetina stopped anyone from taking the first step, taking that honour for herself. She returned a moment later, dizzy and grasping the side of her head but otherwise fine.

Anton emerged back in Atros, surrounded by the familiar sight of the interior of an Atros barn. It was mostly deserted, barring five heavily armed guards waiting against a wall.

“Ugh…" Verona held her head like Cetina. “That portal’s still no good.”

“I tried to fix it.” Anton held Kal. She suffered worse than anyone else, though she recovered quickly with his gentle caress. “But I think it’s on our end. Maybe this is something finally out of Tethra’s reach.”

“You said she can’t bring back the dead,” Cetina said softly.

“Not giving someone a headache shouldn’t be that hard.” Anton patted the pack hanging from his shoulder. “Hopefully this will give some much-needed answers.”

The Dwarves staggered off the portal. The guards moved forward and helped as best they could. Though Anton presumed that the Dwarves could be a stubborn bunch they didn’t begrudge a helping hand. When they were better they looked to Anton for instructions.

“I don’t know where the other Dwarves are…”

“Currently they are in the Stone and Lumber yards.” A guard replied. “At least they were a while ago.”

“That’ll be your best bet.” Anton turned back to the Dwarves. “Now, we’ll be leaving sometime tonight. I think you all know what that means.”

The Dwarves nodded very seriously. Cetina raised her hand to question but she hesitated and it slowly dropped. She understood. The guards allowed the Dwarves to leave and held the door open. Anton stopped as he passed through.

“I’m going to leave the portal open. So don’t be too alarmed if you see some more Dwarves or Dark Elves pass through. If you see humans capture them. They don’t know what’s happening here.”

The guards nodded once. Anton smiled as he gently shut the door and breathed in the smells of Atros. It was still mostly fresh air but already there was an underlay of civilisation; of burning wood, food, water and the general smell of people.

“Where too, husband?” Verona chuckled slyly, turning to face them with Luna held securely in her arms. “Where are we going to finally learn how to use our magic? Our wonderful home or the open grasslands, with only the gentle rustling of the grass against the wind to interrupt our thoughts?”

“You’ve gotten a little playful.” Anton kissed Verona, quickly but deeply. He caught Cetina looking, almost a little jealous of the expression Verona held. “But I don’t think our home is a good idea. Soon we’ll actually be able to have stuff in there. Like your feathers.”

“I’d hate for that to burn.” Verona mused.

“Did you bring that with you?” Kal asked, looking around as she removed her mask.

“I left it on the ship.” Verona chuckled nervously. “I’d die of embarrassment if someone saw me making it.”

Anton frowned. “I don’t see why. It’s impressive and downright beautiful. If you said that a whole bunch of women might get envious then I’d understand.”

“I’m not sure if that’s a compliment but I’m going to take it as one.” Verona laughed. “What about the Principle Magic books, or whatever Ferula called them?”

Kal slapped a large pack hanging off her shoulder.

“Let’s go.” Anton slung his pack higher. He offered to take Kal’s but she refused. “We’ll talk to everyone else once we’re done.”

As they moved through the streets of Atros many villagers, old and new, human and Beast-kin, looked surprised to see them. While they knew there was some way Anton could quickly travel back to Atros it must have still been quite a shock. Atros itself was showing signs of changes. Buildings were continuing to rise, many inside the central ring were double story’s or well on their way. The gates were the most affected. Originally they were little more than large wooden rough constructs reinforced by the exceptionally hard stone from the Earth Towers of the nearby lake. The jagged brown flat stone, haphazardly thrown onto the gate like a jigsaw had been cut into interlocking rectangular shapes and fastened more securely. Anton stopped and tried to pull a panel loose. It didn’t budge. There weren’t even gaps large enough to clamber up, enough for Anton to get the very tips of his fingernails around the edges but that was all. The Dwarves craftsmanship was utterly outstanding. Other parts of Atros had undergone a significant upgrade too. Though Zac tried his hardest everything just seemed more straight and orderly. The once slight meander in the street had disappeared and the buildings too no longer bowed or leant at strange angles, everything was rigid and square. Anton knew it was impossible for ten Dwarves to do this much but Zac was clearly listening to them, a good sign for Atros’s future.

Dwarves buzzed around one another in the Stone and Lumberyard, husband and wife chatted and embraced one another as if they had been separated for years. Anton passed them by, this was their time, and spied Zac near his workshop. Zac appeared only moderately surprised, spared him a wave, and continued his work.

They exited the last ring of Atros to find more work underway. Small marker sticks were laid out across the grass indicating the next phase of expansion. However, these were not going to add another ring to Atros. Rather a giant square.

“The circle was only to save on stones,” Anton mumbled softly. “But I suppose squares are far more efficient in the long run.”

“What’s that?” Verona looked up with a questioning brow.

“The Dwarves are streamlining Atros’s future development. Much easier to organise things in a square than a ring. This way everything’s much simpler.”

“Explain it to us on the way.” Verona smiled. “Mainly for me, probably.”

Several small depressions lay in the wheat fields to the south of Atros, the stalks all grew to the same length irrespective of the ground level. These were all the remained of the Bone Fields, once a dumping ground of all waste of Atros. Far beyond those Anton saw hundreds of small dimples scattering the ground. The Thumper Fields, home to some very large and ferocious rabbits. Thankfully they didn’t leave their nests for seemingly anything and had no intention of attacking unless something intruded upon their territory. Eventually they would need to be dealt with as Atros continued to grow but for now they were but a curiosity.

“I’ll stay on watch.” Cetina drew her sword and planted the tip lightly into the ground. “Since you three will probably be distracted.”

“You make it sound like we’re going to have a tumble right here.” Anton teased.

The tiniest hint of red crept up Cetina’s neck, Kal sighed and shook her head while Verona laughed and gently nudged his shoulder. Cetina recovered herself while they sat down and Anton distributed the books. Kal took Tethra’s book while Anton had to choose between Esperit’s and Stratos’s.

I don’t think it really matters. So…Go with the one of the left?

The dark purple and blue leather bound book lay on his left. Anton shrugged lightly and opened Stratos’s book. While most paper in this world was either animal hide or a very rough imitation of the stark white, smooth paper Anton knew from Earth, this was very close. Though wrinkled and distorted from time and moisture the books and the pages within were of a very high quality. Whoever made this really wanted to show off how.

We didn’t ask Ferula where these came from. Perhaps it was best not to ask. But now that we’ve got them we’re in a much better position than before. Best have someone copy these books for safety. I wonder if that means we’re going to make some sort of monks transcribing literature? I know the printing press is far away for us yet…Perhaps the Dwarves have something like that?

Anton pulled himself back to the present. While he had been staring blankly at the first page Verona and especially Kal were devouring the words in front of them. While Kal’s eyes scanned the pages at a truly incredible pace Verona’s lips moved in accordance with a finger tracing the sentences. The first page was simply a drawing of Stratos’s Glyph, identical to the small symbol on Anton’s hand and Jocelyn’s back. It looked more like Jocelyn’s than his. Recalling that he was the oddity, normally someone could only receive one Glyph at a time, he pressed on. The next several pages detailed who Stratos was a god. Very little could be gleaned from its pages. It lavished on great praise and exuberant words but there was little substance. Near the end, a small list emerged detailing who Stratos liked and disliked. Anton wasn’t that surprised by the list, Gods and Demi-gods that governed the skies and seas were his friends, those of the earth he generally disliked. Everyone else was heaped into the neutral list, such as Esperit and Jira. Anton spotted Nithroel’s name amongst the neutrals alongside Tethra. Those two were arranged oddly, the three lists were arranged alphabetically but theirs were not even though there were two neutral gods that should have been in-between.

Strange…Very Strange.

Anton checked Esperit’s book. It was arranged exactly like Stratos’s, he thanked whoever thought these books should be standardised, and so too were Nithroel and Tethra’s names.

Something once existed between you two, something to warrant this special exception. And now she wants your death. What did you do, Tethra?

Without answers and the unlikelihood of an explanation from Tethra, he continued with his reading. Several pages were given to controlling mana, identical to Esperit’s book. Thankfully Anton had already worked it out, at least to a beginner’s level. The next double page elicited a groan from Anton. The pages had two large pictures detailing a humanoid figure raising a small sphere above his hand, the other a straight line. Beneath that was another diagram, showing the resulting devastation from a lightning bomb and bolt respectively. Strangely the book used Goblins to detail potential damage. These lightning bombs could only take out one, though very effectively given the drawing while the lightning bolt required two. The words at the top gave him no small measure of embarrassment.

“Baseline Glyph magic manipulation. Practical applications.” Anton mumbled aloud. He flicked ahead and groaned even louder. “Next is called Basic Magic…Was I really that bad? Like I’m a baby that can’t even crawl.”

“It’s got us this far.” Kal placed a clawed finger onto the page to hold her position. “And for that, I will always be grateful.”

Anton kissed Kal, focusing on her ear. She gently swatted him away but held a faint smile.

“I would have thought I was a little better than that.” Anton returned to his book. “If an actual Glyph user saw me they’d be laughing, acting like my below basic magic was any good.”

Cetina stepped around and leant down to peer over his shoulder. “Your magic is stronger than that.” She pointed an armoured glove to the pages. “They might laugh at first, but not when they see what you can do.”

“I certainly hope you’re right, Cetina.”

Several scribbles had been notched in the corners of the pages. While several where illegible he could just make out little hints and clues left behind by previous holders of the book. Unfortunately, since he already knew how to use this magic they weren’t very helpful.

“Swimming?” Kal asked softly.

“What’s that?”

Kal tapped her book. “It says here that many prospective Glyph Mages incorporate swimming into their training. I…I don’t understand why.”

“I think that it has a lot to do with how we feel the mana within our bodies.” Anton waved his hand through the air. “It feels like I’m pushing my hand through water that’s not there. A heaviness, yet it does nothing to impede my movement. For a beginner, it would be easier to explain it after a dip in the water.”

Verona hummed. “I kind of does feel like that. Speaking of which, when we’re done we need to talk to the Dwarves about the Bath-house. And a private one for us.”

Anton nodded. He would love a proper bath, one powered by hot-stones where they could all simply slide in and relax with two wet and beautiful women.

Focus. Focus on this now.

The next diagrams detailed another type of magic, one of which he recognised. A small figure held a ring of mana above his head before pushing it over his target horde of Goblins. He dropped his hands and the lightning ring burst into life, sending great rains of lightning bolts down onto his targets.

At least I understand that one. Thanks, Esperit. That was my one and only freebie.

The other drawing formed the mana into a octahedron before being thrown like a lightning bomb. Unlike the weaker lightning bomb, this killed twenty Goblins in a single explosion. Given his own power, this would be extremely dangerous. Beneath that were a mage attempting to form a cube and a triangular based pyramid with large crosses covering the drawing. Below that lay a note, explaining these shapes would reform into a sphere, but no explanation why the octahedron would not.

Anton laid down the book and stepped forward. The girls stopped reading, Kal’s hand slowly reached for her bow resting at her side while Cetina gripped her sword’s pommel.

“I want to test something out.” Anton raised his hands. “It might get a little loud.”

Kal allowed the book to rest in her legs while covering her sensitive Beast-kin ears. Verona looked like she wanted to do it but held herself back. Instead, she called over Luna, eagerly awaiting the chance to be petted, and began to gently stroke her.

Like the book said. Make a octahedron and release it some distance away. Surely it can’t be that hard.

Anton focused on his mana. Since he was only accustomed to creating spheres and the occasional ring it was quite difficult to form the mana into the correct shape. The moment he took his attention away from one side the mana bulged out to try and reform into a sphere. Eventually, he managed a rough shape and brought it into being some distance away. Anton expected it to explode almost instantly but it emerged from the ether as a rough and violently jittering octahedron.

“That’s cool.” Verona chuckled. “But why not just make a ball again?”

“If it’s more advanced than the pre-beginner magic…” Kal scrunched her ears tight in readiness.

Anton pushed the lightning octahedron away. It moved considerably slower than the lightning bomb and took far more effort. It took considerable effort just to maintain its rough shape. The lightning magic constantly pushed against his control to reform itself into a sphere. As it neared the same range as the lightning bombs the arcing bolts of lightning grew more and more violent.

“Everyone cover their ears. This could get quite noisy.”

The girls followed his words. Luna didn’t, obviously, so Verona buried her head into her stomach. Luna didn’t understand as her small white tail flicked about happily.

Anton released the magic. For a moment he thought it would simply transform back a sphere before exploding. Thankfully it retained its shape, but none were prepared for the violence of the explosion. The octahedron was close to the ground before it detonated. Great clods of dirt and grass flew in all directions alongside the deafening explosion and blinding flash of light. Anton’s eyes soon recovered though his ears still rang. He glanced back to see the girls fine but in some amount of pain from the noise. Luna buried her head as deep as physically possible while her tail had curled between her legs.

“Impressive.” Anton smiled at them. “What do you think of that?”

Verona brushed the dirt from her hair and looked at the large crater, much larger than several tethered lightning bombs detonated at once.

“If we had that back in Qaiviel, I don’t know if we even would have made it to Nonbur’n, or whatever it’s called.” Verona laughed. “That would have taken out their army no problem. Though...You wouldn’t have Kal on your left arm if you didn’t.”

“I think I still would have.” Anton smiled. “You pushed for it and Kal is a very beautiful girl.”

Kal sighed. “Focus, you two. I can’t be the only sensible one in all this.”

“Cetina’s sensible,” Verona said offhandedly.

“In all seriousness.” Anton approached the edge of the crater. “This is incredible. And to think this is still beginner magic.” Anton clapped his hands excitedly. “A form of area attack to deal with mobs getting close, though I’m sure they’re not supposed to be this dangerous. I wonder what the other two books have.”

Verona smiled wickedly. “Last time I saw you this happy you were about to bed a new girl.” An eye shot to Cetina, though she still looked at the crater.

Anton sat back down, brushed away the chunks of dirt, and flicked the pages to the next image set. This was a wave of magic, like a whipped sheet of cloth, creating a rolling wave of lightning several meters high capable of shocking everything in its path. It didn’t kill the target but left them immobilised for some time, easy prey for normal soldiers or smaller and less demanding magic. The next drawing was of a twin helix that threw up two strange twirling lines of magic, the notes on the margins noted this wasn’t of much use.

I guess not everything is useful. In the just right circumstances it could be effective. I just have no idea when or how.

The next few pages showed a lance, a large and thick javelin of magic, that could be thrown and would bore its way through multiple targets. The next detailed a small sheath of magics wrapped around the mage's hands that acted as a blade. How it didn’t explode on contact, like most of Anton’s current magic, was still unknown. He didn’t want his fingers blown off just yet. There were many variations, some designed to show off the skill of the mage, but all performed roughly the same action. Another was of a whip but this had dubious use for lightning, as it had a tendency to explode, effectively a more complicated alternative to the lightning bolt. The fire version worked exactly as intended but would obviously burn the target while restricting their movement. Warnings were abound, constantly reiterating the dangers of incorrectly forming magic and how some shapes simply didn’t do anything and reverted back to the closest spherical magic, like creating cubes or pyramids.

A final note mentioned that these were just some of the variations of magic available, telling the reader to seek out other teachers and books. Unfortunately they only had these books and Ferula clearly had connections and knowledge they did not. The libraries of the Graterious Royal Academy might have more of what they seek.

Anton flicked ahead and found what he needed to know the most.

Defensive magic.

He couldn’t always rely on the girls for defence or a first strike to kill the enemy. The Acolyte Strega Witches demonstrated how important such magic was. There were two distinct methods to create a magical shield. One formed the mana in a flat circular disk. The other was like a net surrounding the mage, creating a semi-sphere similar to what the Strega Witches made.

“Let’s give the first one a go,” Anton mumbled.

After carefully placing the book down he moved some meters away and focused his mana once again. His quick practice with the octahedron paid immediate dividends. The disk emerged from the ether as a shimmering wall of lightning. Unlike most of his lightning magic, this was far more stable and calm, the lightning didn’t arc off nor did it jitter and appear to be a few moments away from self-destruction. Moving the shield took considerable effort and concentration. When it was but a meter away it began to quiver and shake violently, already its maximum range had been reached. He withdrew the magic before reforming it again, much larger this time, large enough to cover his body. With only a slight increase in mana consumption, Anton was happy with what he had made.

“Verona? Can you throw a shard at this? See if it works.”

“Okay.” Verona slammed the book close, she hadn’t read that far yet. “But, I’ll need someone’s help.”

Kal offered her hand.

“Thanks.”

Kal smiled as the wound healed before them. Verona flung a shard towards the lightning shield. It exploded upon contact, tiny shards flew in all direction before returning to liquid. The lightning shield remained untouched.

Verona deactivated her power. “I can’t feel the blood anymore. It’s just gone, like when the Ghlyirl touched the blood.”

Verona threw a small rock at the shield. This too crackled and disintegrated, Anton’s shield took a slight burst of mana, probably to recover, but retained its shape and integrity.

“So I can’t just keep it up without draining all my mana. I’ll get Shawn or Jocelyn to try some of their magic later. I don’t want Kal to fire an enchanted arrow at the shield, just in case it explodes in my face. Or if it just slips through.”

Kal chuckled and continued her reading. Verona returned to her original position while Anton tried to create the net magic. Not over himself, just in case, but some distance away. This proved to be extremely difficult. As he made a square of the magical net and moved onto the next section the previous would fall apart. After several minutes he had a small net ready. A near identical copy of the Strega Witches defensive shield, this time light blue instead of green, emerged from the ether. Verona threw a blood shard. The lightning flared bright and destroyed the shards.

“I don’t see what the point is of making the net compared to the shield.” Verona mused. “Is it harder?”

“Much harder. Especially in a battle. Much easier to just throw up the shield. But…Wait a second.”

Anton remembered the poor little Strega girl burned to a crisp. He fired a lightning bolt through the net. It flew through but somewhat diminished. The flat lightning shield completely blocked his attack.

“Now I understand.” Anton returned to his position. “That’ll come really in handy.”

The rest of the book was filled with techniques to maximise mana reserves and restoration through a mixture of herbs, potions and exercise. They were pretty simple. The last quarter of the book detailed something that would be extremely useful. Effigies.

“Ferula was telling the truth about the effigies.” Anton mused. “Some are wood and others metal, but the little notes say that metals are better for Stratos…Conducting electricity. What about Esperit’s? Oh. Wood. Right. And volcanic rocks too.”

“Tethra?” Verona idly asked. “Mine’s bone, by the way. Better than a slab of meat I suppose.”

“Silver,” Kal said. “But it doesn’t change much depending upon the material. Tethra’s could easily be made from wood.”

“All those little percentages add up,” Anton said.

The effigy consisted of a carving of the Glyph of the respective god. Where things really mattered were the small markings surrounding the central glyph. Pages upon pages were dedicated to intricately demonstrate how precise the swirling patterns had to be carved out. The little notes complained about their complexity and the finesse required, others praising a slight change with a noticeable boost in power. But the most important piece lay at the end. Each Effigy had to be crafted by hand. Magic couldn’t be used in their creation, even Tethra couldn’t cut this corner. And this was written back when she had a real presence.

“Kal? Any chance that you can show us some woodworking?”

“Of course.” Kal twirled the ornamental blade in her hand. “I can’t sew but I can do that.”

Time passed slowly as they tried to carve some rough effigies. These were crude and held many incorrect cuts and breaks. When they were finished Anton tested a lightning bomb with and without the effigy. It did indeed use less mana, not that much but noticeable.

I’d say about ten percent. And that’s with this rough attempt. Still, every bit counts.

When Anton had three Effigies he moved onto the last section of the book. Near the end was a slight blurb about the second book, the Intermediate tomes. They mentioned summoning creatures. Anton recalled the small fire imp, and how powerful it was. Before moving on that Anton quickly skimmed over Esperit’s book. It followed Stratos’s to a very high degree, some of the magics were a little different but essentially it followed the same rules. The major difference was the instructions on how to use the magic; Esperit’s was far slower and more devastating over time while Stratos’s was instantaneous in almost all aspects, for better or for worse. Anton held the impression that the books were supplementary material to the work of teachers.

“I’m going to do a little more practice.” Anton closed both books and gently patted their covers. “So it might get a little loud for a bit.”

“When you’re using the lightning could you tell me?” Kal raised an aqua brow.

Anton gave a nod and prepared to practice. The girls continued their duties in silence while Anton tried to form the magic as best he could, both fire and lightning. It took some time to get right but he had felt he had a decent level of control when his mana began to run low.

“This land isn’t going to be used for a little while.” Anton frowned at the smouldering grass and blackened dirt.

Verona laughed. “I don’t think so. But I think we’re going to need someone to fill in the holes.”

She pointed at the craters left behind by the octahedron lightning bombs and deep scorch marks left by the fire counterparts. The waves of magic hadn’t left the same levels of destruction but had been covered a much larger area. Compared to the drawings his damage output was higher, something Anton expected, but he wondered if it would kill something as large as a human rather than gravely wound them.

“I think it’ll be good strength training for the guards.” Cetina continued to scan the horizon.

Verona laughed. “Shovelling dirt would be a good way to punish tardy soldiers.”

“Did we have a Principle Magic tome on Earth Magic?” Anton asked as he returned to his place.

“We do,” Kal rummaged through the pack. “It has a brown cover, but I know it’s there. None of us can use that type of magic.”

“Least of all me,” Cetina grumbled.

“We’ll have a look at them once we’re done here.” Anton sighed as his rear hit the hard ground. “How are you two going?”

“Okay.” Verona had almost reached the middle point. “This is talking about how to control my magic. Seems pretty simple. Nothing much I haven’t managed to work out myself. But,” Verona perked up and thrust the book into his lap. “But one of the later techniques is to push the hardened blood through the ground. And it says, right here, that it’s not something easy to do.” Verona puffed out her generous chest. “And I did it on my first try too!”

Anton ruffled her hair before kissing her forehead. “Well done, Verona. The most skilled Blood Berserker in all of Atros.”

Verona laughed. “I know, I know. But I’m still working on it.” She flipped through the previous pages. “The other stuff is how to move the blood shards and harden it…Or make it a liquid.” Verona tapped on a drawing detailing liquid blood seeping through clothes before hardening. “It says here, at least I think it does, that I can soak my clothes in blood to make it harder. Or to attack someone else that gets too close.” She looked at him with curious eyes. “Do you think that’s even a good idea?”

“It would be pretty powerful. Spikes of blood erupting from your armour without even a flick of your wrist.” Anton saw a drawing in bright red, warning of the dangers of ingesting blood whilst the Blood Berserker power is active. “I’m worried about you drinking some blood in the heat of battle.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Verona scratched her head. “That’s what I thought. And I really don’t want you to use your powers to keep my mouth closed. If it gets in me…”

Anton rubbed her head and pulled her close again. She took advantage of the situation and nuzzled deep into his shoulder.

“But, Verona, all these drawings show only a little bit of blood.” The other two girls crowded closer to the book. “It has a sword coated in blood, but only the edges. And someone with a large Glyph only has three small shards.”

“They don’t have it covering every inch of their body.” Verona flicked open her chest piece to reveal the marks covering half of her white skin. “I guess that makes me as strong as you then?”

Verona chuckled. “The rest of the book has other ways to increase my strength. Like the blood disk, there’s something about that. Just throw it and let it go.”

“Just let it smash through everything until you lose control of it.” Anton nodded. “But you lose that blood unless you get back into range.”

“Yeah. It says that as well. There’s also the hardened spheres that I can use to crush things, in case something can’t be cut. Oh! But there’s nothing about the umbrella thing you made me use. Nothing. So that’s something that just I have.”

Anton squeezed her shoulder and kissed her again. “Is there anything else in there?”

“Not really.” Verona took the book back. “I skimmed ahead, and there’s a lot more writing. I think it’s telling me how to increase my control over the blood. Some training stuff, stuff that I sort of stumbled upon when I was playing with the blood.” Verona sighed and smiled bitterly. “I hate to say it Anton but there’s not a lot for me in this book. Is there anything in your books about tethering, or whatever you called it?”

“Nothing. And I haven’t checked the Intermediate books yet. Perhaps it’s in the Advanced."

“Would it be strange to stumble upon something like that?” Kal asked.

“I have absolutely no idea.” Anton shrugged. “I did get help from Esperit for the ring magic. So maybe one of them nudged me towards that.”

“There’s nothing about that in this book either,” Kal said. “But I’ve learned a lot from mine.”

Anton patted his leg. Kal smiled and placed the book on his lap for everyone to see.

“There’s a lot more writing in Tethra’s book compared to the others.” Kal began. “But it explains that, yes, if you speak the prayer aloud it decreases its mana usage. There’s a note in the margin saying that it also allows you to cast more powerful prayers, though another one underneath it saying that’s only because the mana usage is less, not that the prayer grows in strength.”

“Right.”

“But it says that speaking it in your mind, which is what I think you’ve done most of the time, means that no one knows what you’re doing.” Kal idly scratched the tip of her ear. “So that can be an advantage in combat, heal yourself a bit and no one would really know.”

“And what about strength?” Anton asked. “Physical or magical strength?”

“Nothing.” Kal sighed. “At least in this one. Near the end, it has something about the stones that you made; hot and cold stones, some water stuff and a healing stone. They don’t actually call them stones but artefacts. And it says they are extremely vulnerable to Principle Magic, though it doesn’t say how. There’s a note here complaining about pranks from some sort of Principle Mage school. Sounds pretty serious though. Other than that bit most of this book is about learning how to cast simple prayers, mostly to do with healing, and how to make them the most effective for the mana usage. I think those are going to be in the other books.”

“Shame it took so long to make the Hot and Cold Stones.” Verona sighed. “I would have loved to have hot water to wash myself before Porswea. I didn’t even know what it was like before then.”

Anton smiled. “Just like everyone else.” He turned towards where the Bathhouse lay. “Haven’t heard anything bad about that yet. Or anyone asking for more.”

“Give it time.” Verona chuckled. “It’s kind of hard for people to approach you for something like that.”

“There are some other things.” Kal continued. “The prayer must be spoken aloud to reduce the cost of mana, which you already found out, but it also says that the more sentences spoken reduces the cost again.”

“But delays it. Which would be bad for a fatal wound.”

“Yes. But there’s a limit. It says by ten percent maximum per additional sentence up to a maximum of fifty. Doesn’t say how long the sentence needs to be or what needs to be said, some of the markings say they tried to understand but failed. There’s a large section here about asking the prayer to heal someone over several days. It says that it takes a fraction of the mana to cast as restoring someone instantly.”

“We were usually in a life and death situation.” Anton mused. “A few more people, from the early days, would still be alive if I’d known that.”

“It doesn’t say how much but it appears that’s the way that most people were healed by Tethra’s magic. They’d got to a temple and spend up to ten to twenty days to be fully healed.” Kal frowned at the page. “Someone’s complaining about the high price Tethra’s followers are charging and how it’s immoral.”

“Another reason why people would grow to hate Tethra’s followers.” Anton folded his arms. “Withholding help to make money would certainly piss me off.”

“Yeah…” Kal tapped the page. “But in her book?”

“Someone pure of heart complaining about the state of things.” Anton offered.

Kal glumly nodded. “This one seems interesting. A large stone in a body of water than slowly restores mana.”

“A Mana Bath?” Anton raised a brow. “Now that sounds really useful.”

“The way…” Kal rubbed her brow. “The way they talk about them it sounds like there’s one in every city. But we’ve never seen one before. And it’s not like we weren’t going to the expensive areas.”

“We didn’t exactly look for them either.” Verona offered.

Anton nodded lightly. “True. But this book was probably written during the height of the United Kingdom. And it sounds like everything has regressed considerably since then. Principle Mages probably destroyed them.”

Verona laughed. “After they got rid of the Beast-kin there was no fluffiness to hold it all together.”

“I…Anyway, I think that we should do that as soon as we get a private bath. Not just some puddle that I throw a stone into.”

“I’m sure the Dwarves could do it,” Verona said. “But I still want a garden. That’s something we need to work on too. Actually getting our house in order.”

“We’ll see if we can fit it in.” Anton ruffled her hair again. “Though it might be a bit low on priorities. We’d need to house all the people we’d be displacing and that’s not easy. To do or explain. Anything else in that book, Kal?”

“Just examples of what prayers are useful. There are many to deal with healing specific ailments, sicknesses, and wounds. Healing a small cut is a lot easier than healing the whole body.”

“I think Tethra’s been covering for me. Again.” Anton smiled. “But all this will still help.”

Kal frowned. “There is one bit here, right at the end of the section on artefacts using Earth Mana.”

“Other than it comes from the ground.” Anton tapped his boot. “But that’s really only what Bertram’s told me.”

“Look at this.” Kal moved the book to Anton’s lap. “If more than twenty units worth of Earth Mana are taken from per square furlong of un-noded ground the artefacts will stop working and will attract monsters: Goblins, Ghlotsm, Sorik, Atra and Yitll in ever greater numbers until the imbalance is rectified”

“I have no idea what those last three are.”

No one had an idea.

“I take a way to measure Earth Mana isn’t in that book?”

“No. Neither how much you can take when the land is noded. Or how you node an area.”

“We’ll ask Ferula. See what she has to say.”

“That’s really it for this book. There’s a lot to go over but nothing too shocking.”

“Hopefully the other books have more information. Wherever they are. If Ferula can’t find them I don’t hold out much hope that any still even exist.”

“I don’t think you could get them in Bebbezzar either,” Cetina said. “But they might exist in other countries. I think there are some southern countries, across the sea, which still practice that type of magic. They might have the books you want.”

“Now that’s a really long way off.” Anton shrugged again. “Still, it’s good that we have these. The new mages will like them a lot. Nothing about forging with magic though.”

“That definitely sounds like it’s something above beginner.” Kal chuckled.

“Yeah. I’m going to have a look at the intermediate book now. It talks a lot about summoning creatures. Like that little fire imp we saw. If I can summon a whole bunch of them our battles will get even easier.”

“Poor girl,” Verona said.

Anton didn’t respond as he opened Esperit’s Intermediate book. The first page came with a warning, a very large warning impossible to miss. The next two pages reiterated the same warning.

“Summons are extremely dangerous.” Anton read aloud. “If the summoning is imperfect the magic used on the summon will run rampant within the caster, severely damaging their ability to use magic for some time. Such damage could destroy the ability to use magic entirely.”

“Can Tethra fix that?” Verona looked at Kal. “If they had this warning, and Tethra was a god that was worshipped back then maybe not. Maybe it’s like your tail thing. Once it’s done then that’s it.”

“It gets worse. In rare cases, the summoning can partially fail. Abominations, mutations caused by uncontrolled magic, are formed. Abominations are uncontrollable and much stronger than the intended summon. Great care must always be taken when trying to perform summoning. It is not advisable to summon during stressful moments.”

“Sounds scary.” Verona smiled.

“But it might not all be that bad.” Anton mused. “Creating these Abominations might be useful. In the right circumstances. Letting one lose in the enemy might be very effective, but I don’t know if they’d try and target the summoner first. And do they need the summoner after they’ve killed them? It doesn’t say here but I don’t want to find out firsthand. Anyway, let’s see what it has to say.”

Thankfully the book had helpful diagrams for the first summon. The magic form was a half sphere with a ring on the same plane. On the opposite page lay another drawing of a small imp-like creature, similar to the creature summoned by the Fire Mage in Koumore but slightly smaller and more feral. Like the Principle Mage’s summon the fire imp wielded a single blade, this slightly smaller, and a very sharp set of flaming claws.

“A level one summon.” Anton followed the line with his finger. “Rotate the ring around the half sphere ten times along the same axis without losing form or touching one another. If it does backlash will occur. Or I’ll summon an Abomination.”

“Does that mean you also get injured by the magical backlash if you create the Abomination?” Kal asked. “Do you suffer both or just the one?”

“Um…” Anton flicked through the warnings. “I don’t know. It doesn’t say explicitly so but I’m going to presume it does. It also says I can pour magic into the half sphere to make it easier…But it doesn’t say how. I’ll hold off on that for now. Verona? Do you want to have some blood? Just in case this goes wrong?”

“You’re going to try now?” Verona drew her blade.

“Why not?” Anton rose and took several paces forward. “Gotta’ try sometime, right?”

Verona readied herself, keeping the blood shards over her shoulders. Cetina held her sword tight. Anton presumed that a level one summon wouldn’t be too dangerous and Cetina would probably easily cut it down. If the imp’s blood didn’t melt her sword or the blood burn her again.

At least this time it won’t be infested with Ghlyirl.

Anton forced the mana into the half sphere of fire magic. That alone was difficult enough. The moment he took attention away it tried to bulge back into a sphere. He didn’t want his first experience to be an Abomination. After nearly a minute he could divide his attention while maintaining its shape. Next came the ring. While Anton had often created multiple mana creations at once all had been simple shapes and never had to interact with one another let alone so close. Slowly Anton began to spin the ring. Keeping everything together and in the correct position was disorienting, to say the least. The rings began to shift and required his constant attention to maintain its form. With every rotation, the ring began to accelerate. When he pulled against it the ring began to deform and almost touched the semi-sphere. He poured a little mana into the centre. While the ring slowed considerably the gap between the two shrunk. He couldn’t expand the ring as it began to speed back up.

Once ten rotations had completed the ring snapped into place. A small circle of flame, surrounded by a single ring, emerged in the grass before him. Anton stepped back as a small creature emerged from the flame.

The flaming Imp, identical to the drawing, stood upright at almost two feet. Its red face, eyes glowing like a flickering flame, stared blankly at Anton. A stubby tail gently swayed back and forth.

“Is it yours?” Verona asked.

“I can feel something,” Anton replied. “There’s a connection. Extremely faint. A feeling in the back of my head.”

The fire Imp blinked once.

“Can…Does the book say anything about how to control it?”

Kal held the book aloft. “It says to control it with your thoughts but you’d need to control every action. Speaking aloud gives it some independence but allows an opponent to know what you are doing.”

“Just like with Tethra’s magic.”

Kal raised her hand. “It says the stronger the Summon the more likely it is to a rebel. If it does there is a chance it’ll take over the caster and try to …”

Kal looked at him worryingly, pointing to a warning diagram. This was far more explicit, an actual artist had drawn this. A flaming humanoid creature tried to claw its way from behind thick bars, a fusion of an Imp and a human.

“No wonder Principle Magic is favoured if that can happen.”

“There’s no way to undo it.” Kal’s finger traced the words underneath the ghastly picture. “That’s an inmate in the mental asylum wing of Brautarholt. Was once a student of the United Kingdom Academy of Glyph Magic until, oh, it was a woman, she fused with a level seven fire summon. She was unable to be saved and had to be killed but not after several winters of numerous experiments. Not even Tethra’s power could reverse it.

“So it references her in this book too?” Verona scratched her chin.

“Please don’t do that, Anton.” Kal smiled faintly. “I don’t want our husband to become a fire-creature thing.”

“I’ll definitely be careful then.” Anton chuckled. “Now let’s see what you can do little fella.”

Anton focused on the faint connection connecting him to the little Fire Imp. As he focused he felt a thought transmitted to his brain, not words but a questioning emotion. The Fire Imp tilted its head as he tugged on the tiny thread of thought. Anton wanted the creature to jump and so it did. Another thought to raise its hand and the creature obeyed. There wasn’t any resistance as it returned to its resting position.

“Run a hundred meters south then come back.”

The Imp ran to the south like a rabid dog, keeping the dagger in its hand as it scampered across the grass. Small puffs of smoke rose up as the flaming blade touched the singed grass, trailing into the air behind him. Anton didn’t have any direct control over the creature anymore and allowed it to continue.

When the creature came back Verona hesitantly stepped towards it.

“Does it think for itself now or is it just going to stand there?”

“Nothing right now. It’s like a loyal dog, simply waiting for an order. But that’s it.” Anton rubbed his beard. “I’d like to see how it’d fight."

“I wonder where the nearest Goblin nest is anyway,” Verona mumbled.

“It should be able to take on one at a time pretty easily. Certainly not a swarm, I don’t think it has a flame breath like the Principle version. But I think I can create quite a few more. It doesn’t say there’s a hard limit.”

Anton summoned another Fire Imp. He felt another thought strand linking to his mind. The Imps didn’t acknowledge each other’s presence, keeping their flaming eyes on Anton.

“So what does Stratos’s summon?”

Kal held the book for Anton. The magical construct required lightning magic and the semi-sphere core was a long diamond that slipped underneath the rotating ring. The summon was a small crow, though there wasn’t any colour to the image the wings appeared lighter than the rest of the body. Underneath the drawing, Anton saw a scribbled note.

“Fires small lightning bolts,” Anton said aloud. “Only one at a time but able to kill a Goblin with a single hit. Not bad...”

Verona laughed. “Seems like Goblins are just a unit of measurement back then.”

Kal frowned lightly. “If the United Kingdom was so powerful how come the Goblins still exist? If they could make things like Mana Baths and all this magic why aren’t the Goblins extinct?”

Anton opened his mouth, raised his hand but clenched it tight. He had no answer. Why were they still such a problem? Would they even be able to get rid of them in this land? Or was it possible to only reduce them to a more manageable level?

“Maybe an ancient library would hold the answers,” Anton said. “It’s a troubling thought. Now, let’s see what this crow is about.”

Anton formed the magic construct with the lightning attribute. This time the summoning circle emerged in the air. The Lightning Crow popped out of the blue and purple rippling disk. Once fully emerged it began to flap its wings and hovered two meters off the ground. Its wingtips and eyes glowed with rippling lightning. Otherwise, it looked like a normal crow, albeit somehow devoid of personality. It didn’t twitch or jitter, simply staring blankly at Anton while beating its wings.

“Let’s see what you can do. Fly where the Fire Imp ran to and come back.”

Without a word or squawk, the Lightning Crow sped off to the south. When it returned it stared at Anton with its empty lightning eyes.

“I can guess what the Fire Imps do, but I want you to fire as many lightning bolts into that crater in a minute.”

The Lightning Crow turned, its wing tips grew brighter before a strange field enveloped the creature. The field blinked away as a lightning bolt struck the dirt. It wasn’t as powerful as his but it threw up a respectable amount of dirt. Over the next minute, it fired twelve lightning bolts. When it was done the creature returned to his side. It looked a little depleted, its beak opened slightly. Through the faint connection, Anton felt it draw mana from him for a moment, not much but enough to notice.

“Verona. Kal.” Anton turned to the girls. “If you ever have to do this make sure you keep a reserve of mana. It just took some from me, I let it, but I don’t know what will happen if you’re out. If it’ll start taking your life in return or just fade away and leave you completely helpless.”

“I don’t think I’ll be summoning mine.” Verona tapped on her intermediate book. “These look really scary. People already have enough trouble with my powers, they don’t need to see this tearing through their enemies.”

The drawings were indeed horrific. They weren’t really creatures, rather an amalgamation of blood, flesh and bones jutting out at seemingly random directions. Instead of the mana requirements, it spoke of raw materials; the number of corpses and blood required and any materials that could be substituted.

“That’s horrifying. Especially that one.” Anton pointed to something that required twenty corpses worth of blood and muscle. A shambling forty legged centipede, arms with sharpened bones protruding in all directions. “Seems like Jira’s magic is closely related to necromancy.”

“Don’t say that,” Verona whined. “I already have enough problems with it. I don’t need to think about those zombies and ghouls anytime soon.”

“Yes…”

Anton scanned the southern horizon for any potential target. However, he found nothing, not even with his eye enhancement. He didn’t want to disturb the Thumpers, just in case, they were performing a good service for Atros. Atros was safe, for now at least. But that wouldn’t always be the case.

“Is there anything to bind a summon?” Anton asked. “Like a stone, gem or pillar? A tree would do, but I don’t want to tangle with Nithroel any more than I already have.”

Kal flicked through Stratos’s second book. Anton saw the creatures grow larger until the level six summon. Then it began to become more human until the tenth, a massive five-meter tall bird-man with a golden staff. Apparently, the number of times it had been successfully summoned could be counted on one hand. Every time it completely reversed failing battles and even wars almost by itself. When Anton saw the magical symbols required to summon it he understood why. Each level required an additional ring that needed to spin in the opposite direction, and each ring spun on the axis ninety degrees from the previous. His head spun trying to imagine controlling the magic.

Once Kal flicked past the summons it turned to methods to increase the strength of summons. By adding certain etchings to the rings the power of the summon could be increased significantly. However, they needed to be applied to both sides of the ring along the axis on which it spun.

Kal frowned as she tapped on a page near the end of the book. “It says that it can be done. But it needs a very specific crystal. And it says nothing else will work. And that it’s the same for every summon, regardless of the type of magic it is created from.”

“I’m guessing that Ferula had them hidden inside the pillars.” Anton mused. “The other two might have had theirs hidden in the swamp somewhere. It’s not like someone could just wade through and find it.”

Kal lowered the book. The crystal was the size of a hand, thanks to the crude drawing next to it, and slightly irregular in shape with eleven sides.

“It’s a crystal called Strohierite,” Kal spoke aloud. “Size determines how powerful a summon it can contain. A two inch stone can hold a level one summon, a four inch stone a level two and so on.”

“Any idea where we can get them?” Anton asked. “If not we’ll see if we can just make it ourselves.”

“You and your stones,” Verona mumbled.

Kal murmured something. “It says…nothing.” Kal sighed. “I think they kind of expected you to know someone when you were learning and they would know.”

“Oh.” Verona leant over the page. “What does that say?”

“It says…Oh.” Kal smiled. “The only place where a Strohierite large enough to contain a level ten summon is Eldfjall Trelleborg.” She lowered the book and frowned. “Does anyone know where that is?”

“No idea. But we’ll check the maps when we get back. Sounds like it might be in the Deweth Clans.” Anton shrugged lightly. “It’s got that sort of name. Have you or Cetina ever heard of a stone called that before?”

Kal shook her head. “I might have seen it but I wouldn’t have known what it was. This doesn’t even show what colour it is. It could be anything.”

“Alcanares might have it.” Cetina idly offered.

“Ferula gave us something extra in the pack.” Verona thrust her hand into the base of the bag. “Maybe she gave us some of them as a parting gift.”

Verona pulled out a small sack, it clunked and rattled. Twenty small stones lay inside, small yellow-brown stones barely two inches long.

“This is more than just a gift.” Kal murmured, placing the stone onto the page. “But should we be worried to use these?”

“Let me check.” Anton found nothing inside. They didn’t feel anything different from a normal rock, before more dull, if that was even possible.

“We shouldn’t waste them…” Anton looked at rough Tethra’s effigy lying on the ground next to the pack. “Unless we have the power to create them.”

Anton searched for an appropriate stone.

Verona found one first. After brushing away the dirt Anton took Tethra’s rough wooden effigy. Kal stopped him and pointed to the section on how to reduce the mana required. Anton followed the instructions, throwing praise to Tethra and asking a very specific prayer. However the prayer failed to work, it still took some mana from him but not a lot. While it may be possible it was still beyond him.

Maybe just my mana levels.

While the books had said nothing about working together it was a distinct possibility. How else could someone summon a level ten creature with such complexity? Anton took Kal’s hand and both held the stone with the other. However Anton felt the same slight use of mana as before. Either it was impossible to do this or they simply, still, didn't have enough mana.

"It was worth a try." Kal squeezed his hand. "We still have twenty, and I'm sure Ferula can tell us where to get more."

"Wouldn't it be cheating if we could make gold?" Verona took the stone, holding it close to her face.

“That would be cheating,” Anton said. “And if they could I could see why Tethra’s followers might not have been popular in the long run.”

“Free gold?” Verona raised a brow, Kal and Cetina didn’t understand.

“Imagine if everyone had a house made from gold. Would it be worth anything?”

Kal frowned. “They could make gold worthless.”

“I wouldn’t like to have them in my Kingdom.” Anton chuckled. “Unless they gave me a portion, which I doubt they would.”

Verona held Stratos’s book up for him.

“It says to put the summoning magic over the Strohierite.” Anton murmured aloud. “If the Strohierite is capable of containing the creature it will be absorbed and bound to the stone. If not the creature…Oh, of course. It’ll destroy the stone and become an Abomination. And I don’t exactly have enough mana for another. Enough to keep these things going but that’s it.”

Anton turned to the Lightning Crow, still waiting patiently.

“Fly to Atros and retrieve two Karak fruits from behind the Main Hall.”

The crow soared over the crops and over the city. Several guards ducked and pointed at the small bird flying over their heads. A guard pointed to them before shrugging dismissively when they realised the source.

“What range do those things have?” Anton gently took the book from Cetina’s hands. “Anything in the notes? Nothing…”

Anton heard a happy squawk as the Lightning Crow returned, a large pink fruit in its claws. It floated to Anton and dropped the fruit into his hands. There were a few marks where the claws and ripped into the flesh.

“Thank you.” Anton patted the Lightning Crow, passing the second to Kal. It appeared a little moved by his praise, somehow.

Anton recovered some of his magic. Enough to make another summon if he was careful.

“Another Lightning Crow would be best.” Anton placed the Strohierite on the ground. “At least it won’t set the whole place on fire.”

Cetina looked to Atros. “The wooden buildings will be a problem if Atros suffers another siege. It wouldn’t be too hard to start a firestorm, especially if the enemy has a Fire Mage. Or just lots of archers with fire arrows.”

“Something for the Dwarves,” Anton said. “Not that they don’t have enough on their plate.”

Anton motioned for the girls to back away. He created another lightning summon and directed it over the Strohierite. Something pulled his mana over the Strohierite, similar to the portal stones. Anton spun the ring ten times and the magic shrunk into the Strohierite. A blue-purple hue covered the stone as a new Lightning Crow emerged. Anton couldn’t feel anything from this creature, nor any mana drain.

“Fly to the south as far as you can then come back.”

The new Lightning Crow followed his order without question. After travelling almost a mile it froze in place before darting back.

“So that’s the limit.” Anton watched the Lightning Crow return and land on the Strohierite, while the other continued to hover above the Fire Imps.

“If you add these etchings to the rings you can increase the range.” Kal pointed to a page. “Doesn’t say how far though…Not even the little notes.”

Anton tossed Esperit’s Effigy into the air. “Given how this turned out I might need a bit more practice.”

Verona approached the patiently waiting summoned creatures. “Little Crow. Can you fly back there again?”

The Lightning Crow stared at Verona before glancing at Anton.

“It doesn’t want to play with me.” Verona pouted.

“Listen and follow Verona’s words.”

Verona lightly shrugged and repeated the order. This time the Lightning Crow obeyed.

“There we go.” Verona patted the crows head. It tilted its head and stared at her. “Oh. It tingles when I touch it.”

“We’ll get someone to place this on top of a pillar, something high up,” Anton said. He turned to the crow. “I want you to strike down every Goblin and Ghlotsm that gets within your maximum range.”

The Crow chirped happily and flapped its wings.

“Would Ferula have more of these stones?” Kal asked.

“We’ll see,” Anton said. “Though we’ll need to check them for any Strega magic.”

Cetina snarled.

“Maybe Wilford might know some black market gem dealer.” Anton smiled. “I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to get back into that line of work. If-”

“If he isn’t already doing it behind your back,” Verona added softly. “He might have a lot of connections.”

He turned to the summoned creatures. “So, how do I send you guys back? I don’t exactly have much mana left.”

The three summons said nothing and continued to stare blankly.

“They should really include that near the beginning,” Anton mumbled as looked at the book again. “Let’s see at the front…Ah. Pull on the thread and try to release it beyond your body…That won’t just make them angry or go rogue. Will it?”

“I’m ready.” Verona hovered her blood shards over her head.

The threads were very faint, difficult to get an actual hold of, but he managed with one. When he released it a Fire Imp faded away into tiny embers that floated away. It didn’t appear distressed, neither did the others and simply accepted its fate. Anton proceeded to release the remaining two summons.

“Shame I didn’t get my mana back.” Anton looked to the Lightning Crow resting on the Strohierite. “Does it say how they gather mana? Because he isn’t taking anything from me.”

Kal flicked through the pages again. “It doesn’t say how Strohierite gathers mana. But it’s probably using Earth Mana so we can’t use too many, not that we know how much it’s using. There’s a scribble here saying don’t buy old ones or ones that have already been used. So…”

“No crappy ones. Got it.” Anton nodded. “Give us a couple of days and Atros should be very secure.” A frown crossed his face. “Ferula said that we should be very careful of Principle Mages, that they could undo our magic extremely easily. I remember seeing one of those etchings was to make the magic more resilient, probably to deal with them. How about those books on Principal Magic? I know we can’t use them yet but I want to have a look at least.”

Kal produced a book on Earth Magic. Anton’s mind brought up images of rock pellets hurtling at tremendous speed, walls of stone rising from the ground, giant pits opening and stone and mud golems charging through the enemy. The first several pages held warnings about misusing magic. Nothing about Glyph magic but many different warnings about the importance of controlling the magic correctly lest they be hurt or killed from the unstable magic. After that Anton felt his heart sank. The pages were filled with mathematical symbols and formula, intersecting with a schematic of an Earth Charm, with only a few diagrams to demonstrate what magic could actually be created.

“I can see why Glyph magic is so much easier,” Anton mumbled.

“Why?” Verona peered around his shoulder. “Oh. Yeah, there’s no way I can do anything like that. Do you even understand what’s being said there?”

“No. Well…No.” Anton tapped on the charm diagram. “I have no idea how this works. Is it that you thread magic along these lines through the Charm? I have no idea.”

“We’ll just have to put these somewhere safe until we can get a teacher,” Kal said. “I don’t think a Principle Mage, that knows how to teach, is going to come to Atros. Unless…”

Kal sighed, her eyes flicked to Anton and Verona before she continued restuffing the pack. Verona laughed but refused to elaborate.

“So while we’ll have to wait until we can get someone from Graterious or Bebbezzar.” Anton began. “We should at least find out who can use magic. Did it say in any of those books?”

“No.” Verona flicked through the page. “Doesn’t say a thing.”

Kal rummaged through the books. “There must be a way, but if you’re reading these books you should already know if you have mana.”

“And it would be weird to go over it again.”

Anton searched through the grass and held up a stone.

“Here we go again.” Verona smiled as she folded her arms.

“Kal. Can you do this one?”

Anton tossed the stone to Kal.

“Okay. What should I say?”

“Something like Tethra, Goddess of Prayer, grant this stone the ability to detect mana within a person and glow bright depending upon how much mana they have. Tethra will fill in the holes.”

Kal repeated the prayer before passing the stone back to Anton. He was sure that it worked but the stone remained lifeless and dull in his hands.

“Verona?”

In Verona’s bare hand the stone slowly began to glow until it reached a steady bright white light.

“There we go.” Verona chuckled. “So I’ve got some mana. Don’t know how much this is but…Kal?”

The stone glowed slightly brighter for Kal. Kal and passed it to Cetina. Instantly the stone turned dead.

Cetina sighed. “I was still kind of hoping.”.

“Doesn’t mean you’ll be weak,” Kal said. “You’ve got a very good sword arm.”

“Thanks. Any reason why it didn’t light up when Anton touched it? I thought it would have just exploded. Can Tethra’s magic be overwhelmed?”

“I wonder about that.”

Anton took the stone from Cetina. It lay completely dormant as the seconds passed by. The girls closed in, frowning deeply at the dull stone. Kal touched it, the stone glowed again but dimmed instantly once she broke contact.

“Too much mana?” Verona raised a worried brow.

“Luna?” Anton patted the grass. “Come here.”

Luna, uncharacteristically still and quiet, leapt up. She approached and offered her neck for a good scratch. Anton laid the stone on her back. It glowed, nowhere near as bright as the others, but it still functioned. When he held it again it turned dull.

“I don’t understand.” Cetina frowned.

“Maybe it’s not my magic,” Anton mumbled, raising the slightly dimmed white stone in his hand. “I’ve had a thought, one for quite some time that I shouldn’t be able to do what I can.”

The girls said nothing and waited patiently.

“Everyone we’ve met says you can only use one Glyph. And yet I have three. And far more magic than is reasonable for a single person, even if there were stories about people of a bygone age using magic like mine, which are probably exaggerations anyway. Stories tend to do that. I think this has everything to do with this.”

“Where did it come from?” Cetina asked. “You never explained that.”

“That is a very good question.” Anton held the stone with his other hand. “I don’t know really. And thankfully Ferula didn’t show too much interest, for whatever reason. But…”

Anton touched the gem with the stone. It flashed brighter than lightning, blinding Anton for a moment. When his eyes recovered the stone had cracked and began disintegrating into a powder that leaked through his fingers.

“Okay,” Anton grumbled.

“I hope I’m not the only one that doesn’t know what’s going on,” Verona asked.

Anton sighed. “I, personally, don’t have any mana. It’s all from this.” Anton tapped the crystal. “Without this, I have no power. No magic. Nothing.” Anton felt the tingling sensation in his tail. “Maybe that’s not entirely true anymore…Why didn’t the stone pick that up?”

Verona scratched her head. “Just don’t lose your hand, right?”

“Right.” Anton frowned at the crystal. “But this brought me to that strange world when I touched that stone. With those little children.”

And whatever came through that portal. I suppose we could use some sort of dial to measure magic and Earth Mana, that would probably be the easiest way.

Kal clapped her hands, her face turning bright. “But that,” She pointed at the gem. “Surely doesn’t matter. You can still use magic.”

“Yeah. But I’m just a little worried about it.” Anton replaced the glove. “What if it’s eating away at my life?”

Verona raised a brow. “More than whatever that tail could be doing? Last time I checked it was still glowing.”

“Speaking of I need to get this thing sorted.” Anton ran a hand over his scaled tail. “No one here knows about it yet.”

“Maybe they’ll think you got that from sleeping with a Beast-kin.” Verona offered. At first, she spoke jovially but her brows quickly furrowed. “Unless they take that seriously.”

“Oh…” Kal’s shoulders drooped.

“I have an idea,” Anton said. “Keep it secret for now but after dealing with The Shadow Isles we’ll say that I got it there. I came in contact with a dangerous artefact. It’s not entirely false so it should slip by.”

Anton stood up and quickly unbound his tail. It always felt so good to leave it to flow freely. More than once the girls had to stop him from leaving his room on The Snowberry with it out. Thankfully he kept his boots on most of the time.

After making some room, the bound Lightning Crow cocked its head to follow him, Anton closed his eyes and focused on his tail. The tingling had faded, now all he felt was a dull throb, a constant pressure, at the very tips.

Maybe this is going to be the same as the Glyph magic. I don’t think I want that glow to get any further up this damn tail. Especially with our destination teeming with them.

Anton focused everything on the ends of his tail. While it was very faint but there was something other than just the dull throb. Whatever it was it felt extremely similar to the stone, the Frangitur Ira Ferula called it, which sent him to that strange realm. He gently pulled on the feeling and directed it to his hands. A writhing ball of black and white lightning, gassing off a white dust, hovered above his hand. He tried to push the orb, just like the lightning bomb, but it refused to budge an inch.

“I hope that’s yours.” Verona smiled at the writhing mass. “Has it at least taken away some of that glow on your tail?”

Verona ran a hand along its entire length, lightly tapping her fingers as she did until she reached the split. Unfortunately, the glow had not faded.

“Damn. Maybe if I can actually get rid of this thing then the glow will fade.”

Anton gently shooed Verona back, just in case something happened. She appeared very reluctant to relinquish her hold of his tail.

No matter what he tried he couldn’t move the sphere. He relinquished control and it simply slipped back inside of him, the charge in his tail hadn’t changed, neither when he reformed the sphere again.

I didn’t see any sort of magic in the White Realm, other than those glowing dolls. But that caused all these problems in the first place. Let’s try copying the Awakened.

Nothing Anton tried worked, the sphere remained stationary, even the lightning failed to respond to his thoughts.

“Anything?” Verona asked. They stood some distance away, just in case something happened.

“No. I tried to copy the Awakened Goblins. But no luck…What am I missing? How did he make it fly forward, was it actually thrown?”

Anton tried again but nothing worked. However as he tried dragging the sphere it shifted slightly, deforming and changing shape without reverting back to a sphere. Finally something. He pushed the protrusion back into the sphere, the lightning had faded slightly and lacked the previous energy and violence.

“Like forging metal.” Anton murmured.

Anton began twisting and forming the sphere. Like moulding clay. Unfortunately, he had no real experience in crafting, the rough effigy was simply thrown together after copying Kal. However this wasn’t the same and he could simply create any shape that he desired, within reason. Every second that passed increased the difficulty in shaping. When the lightning faded away Anton held a strange spear in his hand with a large flat and wide head, made from the same white material of the cubes that littered the White Realm.

Anton waved the spear back and forth, completely weightless in his hand. He swung the spear at the ground. The white edge cut through the soil, throwing up a few morsels of dirt and leave while leaving a near perfect cut in the ground. Nothing stained the edge of the blade, the few crumbs simply fell away.

With great hesitation, Anton touched the edge. It felt dull, yet the edges of the dirt were clearly cut by something unbelievably sharp.

“Ha!” Verona skipped towards him. “So you’ve got a proper blade now.”

“Careful. I don’t know how sharp it is.”

Verona frowned at the other approaching girls. “What are you on about? It clearly went through the ground.”

Verona touched the blade, hissed and recoiled her finger. A stream of blood dripped from a deep yet clean cut. “I see what you mean.”

Kal healed her wound.

Cetina took a dagger and tapped the edge of the spear. The iron groaned loudly upon contact. Cetina frowned at the blade and the flat edge where the two had connected.

“It’s hot.” Cetina dabbed the metal around the mark. “Why?”

She looked at him expecting that he would automatically know the answer.

Some sort of vibration? I didn’t feel anything. Magical vibrations? What an odd magic…Though to the inhabitants of the White Realm, this might be perfectly normal, and they’d find our magic weird.

Anton tapped the edge. “Seems fine for me.”

“I’ll trust that it’d cut me too.” Kal smiled faintly. Luna ran behind them, interested in the commotion but Kal quickly scooped her up lest she tocuh the strange spear.

Anton waved a piece of cloth over the edge, it too was cut with a near perfect edge. He tried his own blade against the spear but felt nothing. As he held it the handle slowly grew hotter and hotter until it was impossible to hold. The grass below singed and smoked from the heat covering the edge of the blade.

“I think it’s a mistake to try and explain everything with,” Anton glanced at Cetina. “With my own logic. Can’t go through metal but it can easily go through flesh, cloth and probably leather. What a strange weapon.”

“You still have your blood shards Verona?”

“Sure do.” Verona directed the shards over her head.

“Put them in front. I want to see how it deals with magic.”

“Ah. I got you. I’ll do that tethering thing to half of them, that hardened the blood last time.”

Anton made sure they were well away before swinging his spear. The weaker blood shattered but the tethered blood remained in one piece. Anton held the edge against the side, the crystallised blood warped and began to crack. Verona frowned heavily and moved the shards away.

“Were you doing something with that weapon?” Verona asked. “It felt like my magic was getting hot. I’ve never felt that before.”

“No.” Anton inspected the edge of the blade again. “That wasn’t my doing.”

Anton tossed the blade to his other hand. Upon leaving contact he felt the weapon drain the sensation from his tail. When his fingers touched it the drain stopped but it didn’t refill.

“Thank you that it isn’t too difficult to get rid of that charge.”

“Who are you thanking?” Kal asked.

“Anyone.” Anton smiled. “Anyone that’s listening. We should probably start on the totems of those Old Gods that Ferula mentioned too…Wait a moment. Does anyone know what those three look like?”

The girls shared a glance and shrugged, smiling bitterly.

“Thought not.” Anton raised his white spear. “How do you handle normal magic?

Anton fired a small lightning bolt at the tip of the spear. It blew away a small fragment of the spear, not much but Anton wasn’t trying particularly hard either.

“Strong against weak material but frail against metals and magic. Such a strange line of magic. Well, time to get rid of this thing.”

Anton thrust the spear into the ground and released his hold. Verona, curious as ever, poked the shaft. This time her finger remained completely intact. She tried to pull the spear up but couldn’t, not even with all her strength. To her, it was completely inert and immovable.

“It’s the same material as the cubes in the White Realm,” Anton explained. “Didn’t think I’d see it outside of that vision, or dream or whatever it really was.”

“Has it happened again?” Kal asked. “The dream, not another change.”

“Every night I see that place for a few seconds but that’s it. I’m keeping an eye on it. And if I do fall back into the world I'm relying on you two to wake me up. Probably a poke in the side.”

Verona laughed, cut short by the spear cracking loudly. Out of the uniform white cracks grew along its entire length, tiny wisps of black and white lightning licked at the air as the cracks met up and continued to grow. A tremendous crack rang through the air and the spear broke into thousands of tiny white cubes, further disintegrating into dust and blowing away in the breeze.

Verona and Kal caught some of the fragments before they disappeared completely. The natural decay of the tiny fragments was greatly accelerated by their touch.

“It’s almost like that brown stone on the gates.” Cetina leant closer. “Where did you get that?”

Anton pointed towards the lake and the Earth Towers, giant brown stone obelisks rising out of the water. “Now that you mention it we don’t know how those got there…And we haven’t seen anything like that in our travels.” Anton turned to the south. “Maybe there’s more beyond Surdon.”

“That’ll be a while,” Kal said. “A lot more Beast-kin too.”

Anton directed his tail to his hands. “The glow has disappeared. I was getting worried.”

“What a strange system of magic.” Verona shrugged, brushing the remnants from her gloves. “The first thing you make is a giant spear…Kind of like mine really.” She sniggered and leant close. “Did you design that after little old me?”

“Perhaps.” Anton ruffled her hair. “It was the first thing that came to mind. Guess it is appropriate for an alien magic, but it’s still weak to magic…Just like me. The Shadow Isles are going to be a right pain for me, even with this. I hate to say this but I might not be of much use. Maybe behind the lines and setting up a few of these bound summons.”

A loud squawk caused Kal and Cetina to jump slightly. Anton looked up and followed the Lightning Crow desperately flapping its wings above them. When it almost reached the maximum range the purple light enveloped its body and fired a bolt at the ground. A terrified screech pierced the clear air, the screech of a Goblin dying. Ten withered Green Goblins ran away, chased by the Lightning Crow.

Anton smiled. “So it works. Excellent.”

The Lightning Crow quickly returned to its Strohierite stone, squawking once before turning silent and still. Anton retrieved the stone, the Lightning Crow didn’t mind and remained perched on top.

“Let’s put it on the roof of Main Hall,” Verona said. “Put a little shelter over it and over the next couple of days, we can make a nest of them. Maybe three or four so we don’t go over that limit, whatever that is. The guards will be able to relax a little with these little guys keeping watch.”

“Atros’s automated security.” Anton chuckled. “I like that. And I didn’t feel anything from those kills.” Anton quickly checked the scales for any sign. “Nope. Guess I’ve found my way to fight.”

“So what now?” Verona asked. “Are we going to stay here tonight or head back to The Snowberry?”

“We’ll head back after dinner. Just in case something happens. But, since we’re here, we might as well check up on everyone.”

The steaming hot food of Atros was so much more alluring than the cold and wet they had on The Snowberry. Anton took both packs, after rebinding his tail, as they slowly returned to Atros.