The women were a whirlwind of well-practiced organization. They outright shamed Mark and his men into putting their rifles down, had somehow packed up all my crap and gotten it towed to their tent village by Spot who was more than happy to drag shit if a child played fetch with him, and then had me placed at the head of a roughly hewn table filled with wild game dishes next to Lyra as if we were the guests of honor.
Questions like, “What’s your name? How long have you two known each other? Are y’all together?” and, “What’s it like living all alone in the woods?”, “Oh tell me about your magic?l!” were asked by the ladies as Mark and his crew sitting across from me had their own set of questions. “Where are you from? What do you want? What are your intentions?” Each question quickly following the other, not even giving me time to respond.
It was too much. I sat in silence, taking in the barrage of queries, my mental sorcery compiling a list of answers even as my eyes were wide and my gear stayed at full power. “Let him breathe!” The soft voice interrupting the interrogation fiasco shut everyone up. “You’re scaring the man, and I don’t think this is the kind of man we want to scare, is it?” The woman named Lovera stood next to Mark, glaring at everyone to get her point across. It was the look a woman gives her man to shut him up in front of her work friends, or the one a parent gives to a loudmouthed child in front of guests.
Looking at me, she continued, “My apologies for our lack of manners.” Her hand tightening on the back of Mark’s chair as she smacked him with the other. “Curiosity seems to have gotten the better of us. Please, eat, relax. We have plenty.” If I didn’t have a wife I would have drowned in her eyes.
[Dude, nut up. Do something cause you ain’t thinkin’ straight.] Kraken was right. Taking a deep breath, I used flesh sorcery to tamp down on my raging repressed hormones and my consciousness sorcery to focus and act like a normal freaking human being.
The table was full of people, not just Mark and his crew who looked like normal guys who had a rough go of things lately, but further down were two magic users with their staffs arguing over a roasted duck leg and some children at the end eating as if their lives depended on it, their eyes big as they watched the grownups argue.
“My name is Nate,” I said, “And uh, I survived the apocalypse.” Man that was heavy. I haven’t talked to normal humans in months, or a year? It feels like forever ago that I was in suburbia, getting drunk and watching Sharknado movies, the comforts of toilet paper and fast food at my beck and call. Everyone just looked at me, hanging on every word as I decided how to condense months of pure insanity into syllables capable of capturing it. “Sorry, I’m not good at this. God, what am I, stuck in AA?” I fumbled, taking off my helmet and setting it on the table next to my plate. “It’s been a wild ride for some time, a long time, and I still feel like I’m on it.”
Running my hand through my hair, I kept going. “This green imitation of a woman here is a dryad named Lyra, and no, we’re not together. I’m good with magic and live in the forest down the river where Fredericksburg, Virginia used to be. I’ve been fighting for my life and munchkining it like there’s no tomorrow.” My hands clenched and unclenched, bits of memories floating back to me, fighting Rath underwater, first time meeting the Centauri, using magic for the first time while a cat was gnawing on me.
Grasping at my power, I forced my mind and body to calm. [Why?] I thought, grimacing inwardly. [Why, of all times, is this getting to me?] It might be because I hadn’t actually stopped to process any of this, and it also might be a side effect of messing with my hormones with flesh sorcery. Both, that was the answer supplied by my consciousness. The answer was freaking both. “I could use a drink,” I said after taking a moment to breathe.
One of the soldiers looked at me, then askance at his buddies as they gave the barest of nods. Reaching into his Army coat pocket, he pulled out a thin silver flask and handed it to me. “Snuck this right out from under one of them Centauri patrols,” he said gruffly. “It’s good stuff. Glenlivet scotch, probably the last we’ll ever see. I’m Scott by the way.”
I liked Scott immediately. Reminded me of some of my old friends from way back. Taking the top off, I sniffed the thick nutty bite of the liquor and took a small sip, handing the flask back. The burn went down my throat nice and smooth as my muscles relaxed in ways I didn’t know they were tense. It was the shiver of warmth good alcohol hits you with, the stuff that lets you know you’re alive.
“Thanks man,” I said, my voice thick because I knew how precious that flask was to him. Looking him dead in the eye, I kept my voice steady, “That was the best I’d had in a long ass time. I got something for you too.” Since he was the first one here to show me real kindness, I decided to use Scott as the icebreaker.
“Lyra,” I said. “Please have the container brought over.” As she got up to do as I asked, I set Gungnir in knife form on the table, pulling out my own personal rifle, the souped up sweet alien magitech combo. I had actually made two of them, one was to be my spare in keeping with the prepper mindset, two is one and one is none. “Scott, this is for you. I imagine you’re a little low on some good homemade weaponry, so here’s mine. She’ll treat you better than anything made on Earth, pre-apocalypse of course.”
Scott’s eyes almost popped out of his skull as they devoured the sleek black deadliness that was my rifle. Every place that was a hard line or a sharp edge, I had used my earth sorcery to smooth those down so that the rifle had the overall appearance that it had been grown, like some alien metallic plant. “It shoots energized particles, shotgun electro taser bolts, a kinetic blast, and even fires long range crystal magitech rounds. This baby can take out a dragon if you know what you’re doin’.”
I raised my voice a bit louder. “And I have more gifts, tools really, as a show of good faith. Lyra, if you please.” My dryad played the role of showgirl assistant as she pulled out samples of the gear that I had made. “Rifles complete with boxes of ammo made by yours truly, some basic stone and steel blades, grenades, and magitech solar panels for charging all of your mana needs.”
All of my products were laid out nicely in the grass in front of everyone as I pointed to each in turn. “I’ll show you all how to use everything if you want, but for those less inclined to violence, I do have something else.” Pulling out the real prizes of the day, I laid them out on top of the table. “These, these are building wands,” I said, waving my hand at the fifteen slender wands. “The five on the left are for stone and dirt, the middle five are for growing and manipulating plants of all kinds, and the five on the right are for water. They all work the same way in that they’ll pull mana from you and shape the element they’re made for. Anyone can use them, it’ll just take some practice.”
Everyone got real quiet. Mark’s intense gaze hitched up to eleven. “Anyone?” he said hoarsely.
I took a quick peek around on the magical side of things. Yeah, everyone glowed chock full of mana. “Sure,” I answered. “Anyone with mana, all of you have it. Some will probably take to it quicker than others but all of you have it.” I could tell from the various looks on their faces that they didn’t believe me.
“Seriously,” I said with a wry chuckle. “Even kids can use it. I made these so anyone could build themselves a house out of the ground, or grow it out of a tree. These could make the most incredible garden you’ve ever seen, and help you build a dam . . . The only thing they won’t do is be useful for combat. They work slowly.”
“Can I try?” A little girl popped up next to me, her big blue eyes full of wonder. “That one?” She pointed at one of the plant wands. I looked around for her mother or father, seeing if there was someone who would give her the permission she was looking for. Not seeing any objectors, I handed it to her but didn’t let go when her tiny hand grabbed it.
“Sure sweetheart,” I said, pointing at a small sapling not far from the table. “You gotta practice first. See that tree? See if you can make it sprout some leaves, and if you can, we’ll see about getting you some flowers to practice on, ok?”
Nodding with way too much excitement, she sprinted over to the tree as I got up and followed her, crouching behind her as she pointed the wand at a low hanging branch. “Grow!” she ordered imperiously, like any child given authority for the first time. “GROW!” At this point, a decent chunk of women were glaring at me for getting a little girl’s hopes up.
“It’s not working,” she pouted, turning to look at me.
“What’s your name?”
“Sheila.”
“Well Sheila, I need you to close your eyes, no peeking,” I admonished her, pouring a tiny bit of mana into her hand, pushing it through to the wand. “Now, imagine that the wand is glowing. Put some of your mind and soul into it and make the glowing touch the tree. Think of a leaf, of how it grows. It starts with a little bump on a branch, and then after some rain and sun, the little bump cracks open and little teeny leaves grow out.” Putting one finger on the butt of the wand, I pushed it forward until it touched the bark of a thin, low branch. My mana joined with hers, giving it direction. I sped up my mind with mental sorcery giving me the chance to closely watch a child do magic. I’ve always been intimately familiar with my own abilities, but other people work and think differently.
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“I feel it!” She squealed, gripping the wand tighter with both hands, the tip of it embedded in the bark. Her own mana moved in bits and spurts as her faith in herself and me gave her just the right amount of motivation.
“Honey, it’s ok if you can’t do it!” Someone called from behind me.
“Ignore them,” I whispered. “You can do it, you’re almost there.” The nature wands were all set up with growth and directional growth nature-based runes with a small disc emerald in the base and a pointy emerald shard at the point. The moving mana was clear to me as I could see in the magical spectrum even though I doubted any of them could. Just as the little girl was opening her eyes in frustration, a needle of green mana speared into the branch, invisible to everyone else, causing three tiny leaves to poke out. “YOU DID IT!” I sang, pointing at the leaves.
“I DID IT!” She screeched, right in my ear. I turned to show everyone but they were already there, their faces three inches away from the branch.
“Holy shitballs, she really did do it!” One of the ladies I hadn’t met yet smacked the guy in the shoulder.
“Not in front of the kids!”
“But Cassie, look! She hasn’t been able to use magic like any of the other kids, but she touches a wand and all the sudden she’s like you? Somethin’s up.”
Taking a step back, I stood up and looked at the group ooing and ahing over what looked to be a miracle in their eyes. Grabbing an earth wand and water wand, one in each hand, I came back over to Sheila and held them up in front of her. “Which one you wanna try next?”
Pointing at the earth one, I handed it to her and walked over about ten feet away from the tree. Using a bit of earth sorcery, I conjured about a bucket’s worth of sand at my feet. “Same thing Sheila, do it the same way. Picture a little sand castle in your head, focus on the warm glowing feeling, and touch the wand to the sand.”
The presumptuously cute little girl walked over, her blonde curls bouncing with every step. Closing her eyes for a moment, she bent over and stabbed the sand. A two-tiered castle complete with watch towers, a gate, and a little sand princess next to a flagpole popped out of the ground.
“Holy shit,” I said, not expecting that level of detail on her first try with a wand. The lady from before glared at me as well, letting me know that even if I was a powerful sorcerer, cursing was still not allowed around the kids. Establishing my dominance by rolling my eyes, I handed Sheila the water wand as I conjured a block of ice in front of the castle. Giving her the go ahead, Sheila had no problems melting the block of ice and wrapping it around the castle, giving it a moat.
Just before anyone noticed, I reached over and poured a bit of mana back into her. Being so young and new to magic, I was beyond impressed at the amount and variety of tasks she could do with the three simple wands, but she didn’t have the mana capacity to do this all day. The entire set of wands was quickly snagged by various individuals as they all started trying to use them.
“HOLD UP!” I yelled, getting their attention. “To be clear, the wands do not conjure materials like I’ve been doing, they only manipulate it. The substance has to already be present.”
Turning around, I saw some people struggling with it and others making things with precise detail. “I can’t do it,” Mark snarled, looking ready to snap the water wand he was holding.
“Me neither,” Scott said, frowning but with a lot less anger. Looking in the magical spectrum, I told them to take a minute and meditate. As they attempted the second time, I noticed something different with them compared to Sheila. The men had plenty of mana, but it got stopped up at various points like their shoulder joints or wrists. The majority of their mana was concentrated in their torso, their heads, and legs.
“Odd,” I muttered, zooming in as much as I could. “You guys have some kind of blockage there, what the hell is this? Some juncture where your mana doesn’t seem to wanna go past.” Reaching forward, I put one figure on the center part of Scott’s wrist bone and started to push some mana through the blockage.
[STOP!] Kraken screamed from his Spot in Gungnir. [Wait, stop, pull your mana back real carefully now. You don’t wanna do what you were about to do.] Carefully following his instructions, I held up one finger to tell the men to give me a minute.
[What, do you know what this is?] I asked, keeping my vision focused on Scott’s arm, examining the blockage.
[Yeah, I found it in your memories a while ago from the stuffy you pulled from Reeanth’s clone brain. People like these are rare. They can’t use magic in the normal sense, instead they have special runes tattooed on them and are given special gear to use their kind of magic. They’re called the ‘Glyph Blades’.]
I hadn’t had a chance to go through all of Reeanth’s memories yet, but this definitely sounds like one of the things I would have loved to learn on my own. [Keep going,] I sent back.
[It’s pretty simple. It’s rare, but some people can’t use mana normally because their body has a strange connective network with their soul. Those are the ‘blockages’ you see. Glyph blades, if augmented correctly, can become the most terrifying hand-to-hand combatants in the multiverse. Essentially, they put runes on the blockages giving them certain effects, like being able to infuse that part of the body with a specific amount of mana and jump up a skyscraper. There are accounts of Glyph blades having actual ‘blade’ runes on their wrists, allowing them to sprout blades of concentrated mana that can cut through pretty much anything. They’re only tied down by their runic tattoos.]
“Well boys,” I said, sighing as I did so. “I got good news and bad news. Bad news, this child will forever and always be better with a wand than you.” The stank eye came from every direction. “The good news is uh, that you’ll probably be able to fight a giant with one arm tied behind your back.”
Turning his wrist over, I used flesh sorcery to give him a bit of my own magical sight and had him look at himself. Explaining to Scott what I learned from Kraken, I then pointed out the difference between himself and Sheila.
“So I’m all stopped up?”
“Yup. Here . . .”
Taking a set of runes supplied by Kraken, I used flesh sorcery to make a complex rune channel made up of melanin that I darkened. The base, starting about six inches before the wrist, was the control rune to allow Scott to properly will the magic into existence from his source of mana. The next rune, two inches closer to the wrist, was the flesh protection rune to give his arm the durability necessary to wield the magic, and then meshed together on top of the wrist joint were the blockage siphon rune and the rune for fire. Double checking my work, I took his right arm and did the same thing but for kinetic manipulation.
“What did you do?” Lovera said, stepping in and examining Scott’s arms for herself. Scott pulled them back, wriggling as he did.
“Ah! It itches! What the fuck!” he yelled, continuing to shake his arms.
“Calm down crybaby,” I teased, ignoring the people around me tensing and reaching for their weapons, even the ones I gave them. “Give it a minute, I just gave you superpowers! Hahaha, the left arm can shoot fireballs while the second arm basically gives you a falcon punch. If you get really good, which might take a while, you’ll be able to create and manipulate the flame however you want with your left arm while the right arm will have some pretty cool shielding abilities.”
“No fuckin’ way!” he gasped. “My arms are basically guns now!”
“Magic guns,” I corrected. Looking around in the magical spectrum, I confirmed the bit of disbelief that had been bugging me. [Kraken, dude, I thought you said that the kind of body required for Glyph Blades is rare?]
[Yeah, so?]
The rest of the group of humans had joined up to watch the magical spectacle at this point, hanging on my every word. [Then why do I see at least twenty people with the same thing?]
Thirty minutes of explaining later, I had identified everyone who had the capability of being a Glyph Blade and let them know. I was inundated with people wanting me to rune them up as well, to which I had to conjure a freaking stone pillar underneath me to raise me up, giving me just a bit of breathing room. From ten feet up, I started yelling loud enough for everyone to hear me.
“All right, all right, calm down people. I got one last thing here for everyone and I’m going to let everyone know everything about it so it doesn’t get hogged by just a few people. Lyra, bring out the flesh golem!”
Lyra tipped over the heavy stone container causing the meter thick ball of flesh rolled out. “This here is a flesh golem. I already gave you the healing stone but this thing is so much more.” Quickly sending a mental message to Kraken who was still inside of Gungnir, I tossed my weapon so that it landed point down in the flesh golem.
“This particular creation is a multi-variant body healer and enhancer. Stick whatever part of your body you want in it and the flesh golem will heal it or fix it to however you want it. If you lost a finger, it’ll put a new one on with your exact DNA. If you lost an eye, stick your face in it and you’ll have a new one. It can fix obesity, lack of muscle tone, and can even upgrade you in whatever crazy fashion you want. I’ve put dragon, minotaur, dwarven, and wyvern DNA in there, which means you can grow wings, scales, horns, beards . . . the list goes on.”
I took a deep breath. “For what it’s worth, I just put some new programming in there for you people who are the unique body type. You can have that flesh golem put melanin tattoos on you however you want. Experiment, go nuts, because even if you mess up, that thing can put you back together.”
“This is too generous, what do you want?” Stepping into the fading light, Cassandra stood in front of everyone. “Everything has a price.”
My eyes narrowed as I looked at her. I didn’t know where this confrontational attitude was coming from, but I guess it was just general distrust of too much benevolence, which was fair. “Everything does have a price,” I agreed. “This price of the flesh golem is that it must be fed. If it shrinks, kill a deer and give it to it. It’ll absorb it no problem. Everything else, well, I’ve already paid the price for it.”
Yes, my collection of gifts was above and beyond what anyone would normally do, but this was the freaking apocalypse, or it was and still might be. For people not as overpowered or prepared as I was, I could see how it might come across. Honestly, I didn’t care. Something in me just wouldn’t let me go without at least tangentially providing protection to freaking children. Damn, I wanted to have kids with my woman before she went all tree on me, but human instinct is hard to fight against.
I accepted the offer to stay in camp and meet all the people I was helping out. It didn’t take long for the magic users of the group to jump on the solar panels right after I explained what they were and how they worked. All of the men had mobbed the flesh golem and I’m pretty sure I knew exactly what they were ‘fixing’ over there. The children fought over the wands and I did notice that none of them had the Glyph Blade issue. Of the twenty people who qualified for that, eighteen of them were men. Two of those ladies sought me out later for advice and other activities as they pointed me towards their makeshift shelter. A quiet, polite decline at the public table saved me some embarrassment and unwanted questions as I got up to go discuss with the men their tattoo arrangements.
“Telescopic vision combined with fast reflexes is definitely better than melee combat!” Mark argued, waving his new rifle around. “I’m telling you, if you can kill a man and his friends well before they see you, then you won. Screw waving a sword around when you’ve got a baby like this!”
“And how well did that work out for ya when fighting the Aelves, or the Beastman for that matter?” Scott argued back. “Shit man, everybody seems to have some kind of shield against bullets. It’s almost useless! I’m getting me big ass muscles and some awesome tattoo craziness.”
Another man spit off to the side. “Yur both idjits. Magics the answer, flingin’ flangin fire and the lightnin’ of gawd hisself is what’s gunna mess’em up.”
I arrived right at the height of the furiously quiet discussion. “Nah, mobility and endurance is key. Can’t kill whatcha can’t hit or catch.”
They all turned to look at me dumbfounded as I sat there with a grin. “Aw come on boys, I didn’t see combat in the Reserves but I’ve seen plenty since then. Let me tell you about this one time I drowned a dragon . . .”