Calian and Melody were dismantling the greenhouse, labelling plastic panes, wires and screws before putting whatever they had taken in a large chest in the trunk of Melody’s car.
“Do we really have to load the spatially expanded chest while it’s in the trunk of the car ? It’s a pain, it’d be so much simpler if it was next to the greenhouse,” Melody winced while hauling a large plastic sheet.
“I know it’s not the most practical, but with no magical regeneration available since we dismantled the greenhouse I have to keep as much mana as possible to kickstart it once we’re done assembling it again,” explained Calian. “That means no flashy spells and a lot more work. And remember the third rule ?”
“Uh, spatially expanded objects are still affecting common space around them because they’re not sealed spaces ? What of it ?” asked Melody.
Calian gave her a sad smile before explaining, “That means the chest will be as heavy as the whole greenhouse. So of course we have to load it in your car, because no spells and heavy objects means that there’s no way to move it once loaded.”
“Ohh that’s what the third rule means, yeah it affect space because the gravity still applies to object in the modified space !” exclaimed Melody. Her brows furrowed and her lips pinched as a multiple thoughts seemed to flash through her mind. “Hey, do you know what a black hole is Cal’ ?”
“Before I came here no, but from the little reading of your science magazines I’ve done it’s an object so heavy even light itself can’t escape its attraction right ?”
“Okay good, do you know what gravity is ?”
“Oh please I’m a grown mage specialized in dimensionalism, it’s like asking a potion maker if he know what a pestle is !” shot back Calian, falsely outraged.
“Okay good, has it ever occurred to you that a small enough object, like yesterday’s cube, expanded enough could alter the local gravity well, like you’d get a miniature star that attracts anything in a certain radius around it ? And push it enough and you could maybe get a black hole in a spatially expanded object !” said excitedly Melody.
“I think I see what you mean. While slightly altering the local gravity field isn’t that crazy, it wouldn’t be possible to create a black hole. If what I read serves me correctly the masses involved in making a black hole are crazy, and there’d be no way that any mage could fit enough space in a small enough volume. But even if that was possible, the expanded object has to resist the forces applied to it. And there’s no way any material can handle a whole mountain pressing on it…” he trailed off, visibly thinking about something. “But if you’re that interested in altering gravity there are much simpler spells that can do it for you. Still nothing strong enough to make a black hole, but you can easily have five times the normal gravity or on the opposite have a zero-gravity space,” he shrugged.
///
“Finally done ! I swear Cal’, you better give me anything I wish for when you’re settled because my back is killing me and I could fall asleep right now !” Melody complained, falsely angry at Calian.
“I know Mel’, my back is killing me too and I hate doing manual labor when a good show of magic would normally be enough,” he grumbled back.
“Yeah, I couldn’t even train my magic since there was no greenhouse…”
“Look at the bright side of things though, I just need to kickstart the greenhouse again, and I’m no longer living at your place making a mess !” he grinned.
“Yeah, it wasn’t that bad honestly, I’ve had worse guests you know. Anyway you can come whenever you want, we’ll grab dinner or something” she said, almost looking sad.
Calian nodded at that and headed in the greenhouse, intent on having a mana generator up again as soon as possible. He almost jumped when he heard the door open behind him, he’d already forgotten that he’d allowed Melody to watch him start the greenhouse. She’d pestered him so much while they were packing it inside the car that he’d eventually agreed to let her watch simply to have some peace of mind.
Just as he’d done the first time, Calian checked that the plants he needed were positioned correctly, and when everything looked right he started. Calian let his mana overflow, he opened wide his mana pool to fill the whole greenhouse. At first nothing much happened except for a rising mana concentration. This time however, the plants needed much less mana before starting to generate some on their own, Calian attributed this change to the plants keeping some mana inside them. The plants having some leftover mana also meant that the mana flow snapped into place much faster, which caused mana pulses more often than before, and also stronger than the first time.
Melody felt waves after waves of mana crashing against her. It was strange, like the first time, but also a bit different. She still felt that touch all over her, coming from everywhere, the pricks on her skin and the goosebumps, but there was something more. She could feel something in her chest resonating. Almost by instinct she called the little light that Calian had her conjure to train her magic. She’d managed to make it almost an instinct to manipulate that light lately. She could change the color, and make it move around slowly. But this time it was different.
As she willed the light to appear it conjured much faster, much brighter and it overall reacted far better to her will. But amidst the surprise of the spell conjuring with ease, she felt something else. She could almost see a stream flowing into the light, feeding it. When Melody concentrated she saw more details, there was something moving all around her, and it was slightly drawn to her spell. Curious, she played with her orb of light, pushing it to the extreme, making it as bright as possible. The brighter the light the more she could see the pull of the spell increasing, the stream growing stronger to feed the now bright light.
As she pushed even further, her light became brighter and brighter until suddenly a force pushed Melody back, sending her to the ground. It was the same sensation, the pricks on her skin and the goosebumps, but much heavier. When she sat on the ground she noticed a dull pain in her chest. When she looked around, her light had disappeared, probably dissipated by her losing focus. Calian was kneeling next to her, inspecting her from head to toe and looking intently at her chest.
Melody reflexively crossed her arms and furrowed her brows, “And what do you think you’re doing ? Checking me out when I just fell ?”
Calian looked at her as if she’d said the stupidest thing he’d ever heard, before his expression suddenly melted in a mix of horror and realization. “No ! It’s not like that ! I was using mana vision to check if your mana core had been damaged by the last mana pulse ! I wasn’t checking you out, it’s just located in the chest area.” Calian looked ready to cry, his goodwill had brought him trouble this time.
Melody, closed her eyes and sighed, “I’ll let that slide this time, I have to admit that the last pulse was something.”
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Calian, visibly relieved that she didn’t take it to heart, explained, “The last mana pulse was stronger than last time, the plants were eager to go back to producing mana. The pulse sent your mana core into disarray for a minute but nothing too bad. You’re not injured, just shaken up a bit. I forgot that despite your impressive capability for magic your mana core is still equivalent to those of children at best.”
Melody shrugged, “At least I got something out of all this, I managed to see the mana being consumed by my spell. And maybe the mana around me too but I’m not sure about that.”
Calian looked overjoyed at that, “That’s great, I saw you play with the light but I didn’t think you’d get this much out of it !”
Calian helped melody get back on her feet before continuing, “Give me a few minutes, I’ll fill back up, and then we’ll go to the house and I’ll cook something.”
Melody, still a bit shaken nodded and went to rest while Calian filled up his depleted mana.
///
“Uh, Cal’ ? I think we have unexpected guests,” said Melody hesitantly.
Calian opened his eyes and got up, looking at the spot Melody was indicating. A herd of boars were rummaging at the edge of the Clearing and were slowly making their way towards the greenhouse.
Seeing that Calian burrowed his face in his hands, “The mana pulse must’ve startled the boars and they are probably curious of what is happening over here. Of course animals have much sharper senses than humans, they’re probably smelling or sensing the mana and it led them here.”
“Yeah, Cal’, I don’t care how or why they’re here. These things can mess you up if they’re in a bad mood, we better do something about them !” started panicking Melody.
If Calian was worried it didn’t show, he just looked annoyed at the sudden issue. “You rush to the house and stay in there, I’ll try to drive them off the Clearing,” he ordered, while rushing out of the greenhouse.
As Calian approached the herd he felt the adrenalin start to pump through his body, the academy training was coming back to him almost unconsciously. The reflexes ingrained in his body were starting to work. As the boars came closer Calian readied his standard attack spell, a good old fireball, not too mana intensive, as easy as it gets to cast and with a decent damage output and a high psychological impact. When he was about 30 meters (100feet) from the boars he stopped advancing and studied the intruders.
The herd was comprised of about 15 individuals of various size. The smaller ones were probably younger, while three of them were extremely large and had long defenses. “Probably the elders,” thought Calian. Both sides came to a standstill, the herd had seen Calian come closer and had assumed some sort of battle formation.
Calian had several ideas going through his mind. He could try to scare the boars with a flare, the bright colors and loud sound would definitely scare away the younger individuals. But would the older, more wizened animals flee the flare or react with violence ? Calian didn’t want to butcher the innocent animals when he was probably the one responsible for attracting them in the first place.
He could also try to levitate them and make them float away whether they wanted it or not, but Calian wasn’t sure they wouldn’t come back angrier later. Facing this dilemma Calian winced, he really needed more weapons to rely on in this strange world. If he had any illusion spell he could simply scare them away with a huge lighshow and some well timed sounds, or if he had more knowledge about runes he could’ve simply warded the area against intruders.
But he didn’t, he only had knowledge of his academy majors and not much combat ability. Every time he’d tried more serious combat training he’d ended up sick to his stomach because of bad memories coming back. He could only rely on his knowledge of the plants and of dimensionalism. Crap, there weren’t many plants he knew about on this foreign planet, and he would love to teleport the boars somewhere else but as with levitating them, they’d only come back later…
The boars were drawing closer, there wasn’t much time left for Calian, he had to do something ! Feeling despair start to creep up on him, he knew he had to act. A quick mumble and two flicks of the wrist and two large magical fireworks were shooting from his palm. The flares raced towards the boars. Once each flare was on one side of the boar formation, they detonated a short distance away from the front animals, producing as expected, an extremely bright red light and a screeching sound that made the tree’s leaf flutter.
As Calian expected, the pincer flare attack scared the youngest boars, but the oldest members weren’t so easily pushed back and started charging. The mage, still reluctant to physically harm the boars decided to wrap the charging boars in a little cloud that made them float a short distance away from the floor. A quick breeze did the trick to get rid of them, sending them flying far away from the Clearing. Without their leaders and scared once already, the younger members hesitated. A final flare from Calian did the trick, sending them running after their still floating leaders in fear.
Once everything had calmed Calian went back towards the house, happy to have driven the herd off, but anxious about their potential return. He’d need to start that ritual sooner than he expected…
Melody rushed out of the house and inspected him while he came back, some sweat on her forehead showing how stressed about the situation she was. “Are you alright ? you’re unhurt ?” she almost screamed.
“Yes Mel’, I’m fine, I scared them away before they could get close,” he answered gloomily, his hands slightly trembling from the receding adrenalin rush.
“Shouldn’t you be happy then ? You scare the boars, we’re safe now !” she exclaimed.
“You wish, I didn’t want to harm them, so I flew their leaders away and scared the juniors with a lightshow. They’ll probably rest for a bit and come back angry. I only delayed the problem.”
“Ouch, want to call someone for the boars ? I think I heard they’re an ecological issue anyway so neutralizing them isn’t that big an issue.”
“Call someone to clean my illegal Clearing from boars, and then what ? Get reported to authorities and have a lot more trouble than boars ? No thanks. I’ll just have to put them out, even if I hate that idea.”
///
A jolt ran through Calian’s spine, like a cold bucket of water, rushing down his back. The alarm rune wasn’t supposed to give such a strong feeling but it was probably just him being anxious. It was time, the alarm rune had been activated, the boars were back. Calian stood up silently, ignoring Melody gazing at him, and exited the house.
He was standing in the middle of the Clearing, standing straight. His clothes were fluttering in the wind, his gaze was calm and sharp. The only thing betraying his mental state was the slight twitch of his index finger.
The boars and him stood some distance apart, both judging each other. Enventually Calian broke the silent stare off, he looked at his hands for a second and gave a silent prayer to a god he didn’t believe in. May they rest in peace. When he looked at the boars again he had steeled his gaze.
“I’m sorry, you never did anything to deserve that, but I have no choice. It’s you or me.”
Without a sound the mage extended his hand and sent an arc of electricity coursing through the animals. Had he started with a fireball the boars could have dodged the projectile. But the electric current would paralyze the wild pigs while he sent a flurry of fireball on them.
When a fireball hit the leader, a pungent smell of burnt hair and roasted pig wafted through the area, and a thick smoke settled on the battlefield. Everything had gone so fast, it was so calm now. Calian closed his eyes and took a deep breath, only to smell the horrid smell coming from his enemies. He coughed and teared up at the acid smoke and only calmed down later.
When he came back to his senses the smoke had cleared, revealing the charred corpses of his enemies. The boars were all laying on the ground, some on their side, some on their back. Some were dead, others weren’t yet but had grievous wound that would prevent any recovery.
When Calian saw the scene he nearly puked, his memories overlapping with the scene. The boars standing together against an enemy, the people of his village grouped together in the town center. The mangled body of the boars, the mangled body of the people who had resisted the army.
He repressed the images by sheer force of will and ordered his stomach to stay calm before getting back to his feet. He’d collapsed on his knees at some point during the battle. He marched towards the boars still clinging to their lives and finished them off one by one with a quick wind blade to the neck. Once he’d made sure all the boars had been finished off, he gathered the bodies in a pile. He pulled them all together, by hand, while repressing the tears that were threatening to spill. Finally, when he was done, he ignited the bodies and watched as they transformed into smoke.
His eyes still had that firm resolve from earlier, but underneath the resolve one could see an abyss of pain. Resisting no more, the young mage fell to his knees and puked. His body arched, trying to throw the painful memories away along with his latest meal. When everything calmed Calian was left sitting next to a pool of tears and bile, feeling empty.