Change list:
-Added in an explanation about wards via Anton, with it being: “Any spell linked to a specific area. They are typically anchored into stone or wood to keep the spells from fading away, with stone holding spells better than wood. The stone walls that protect large cities are the most powerful examples of wards, specifically because the wards only have to be recharged with mana after they are first constructed.”
-I had a nobility ranking list in one of my chapters, but I believe that I removed it. Just remember that it is alphabetical in importance, starting with ‘Altrueman’ and ending with ‘king’ (hint: that applies to more than just nobility titles)
Chapter 16: Mage’s Eyes
By Gorith’s chalcula that was disgusting.
Yet you watched it till the end.
Sometimes the most disgusting things are also the most fascinating.
I know, but if I could not see the magic too, I would be extremely creeped out right about now.
As the newly minted wolfman finally stopped screaming from having his body violently reshaped, I reflected on what Bella had said.
A fair point, I admitted to myself, watching magic being worked was a unique perk of having magic. Each pulsing command of a magician working with mana to enforce his will on the world was an almost hypnotizing affair. This was partly because of the mage’s ability to see magic as a complicated series of interweaving lights, with each new command forming a new light to interact with the existing form, creating something like a sculpture of light that only other mages could see.
The zugoran wrought magic was different, but no less hypnotizing. The patterns, like most advanced magic, were hard to follow and incredibly complex, meaning that duplicating it would take a lot of time and effort. To make it even more difficult, however, there were two other problems, color and distance.
All mages naturally colored their mana commands when creating spells and could only change them with a great deal of concentration. This was also a common method to confirm a known confidant’s identity, as deliberately changing your spell color was both pointless and labor intensive unless you were a spy of some sort.
My own color was a series of naturally dark, earth based, colors, making it naturally harder to understand or duplicate my spells as the lights/commands blended together. Of course, I had little experience with anything more complicated than a stun spell, but my natural color made observing other spells easier by comparison.
The spells coming from the wolfman leader’s zugoran were even darker than my own, with multiple different spell layering on top of each other, sometimes in light beams of pure darkness, making it even harder to study the spell properly.
A common misunderstanding among non-mages about spells is that they give off light. Spells are just mana being commanded into various patterns that mages can ‘see’ with their magical ability. As a result, we can ‘see’ multiple layers of a spell, even if those layers are made of a black colored light. Sometimes called the mage’s third eye, this magical talent actually manifested on my old world as the proof of a mage gaining their first circle of magic, or becoming magically sensitive, as it was called.
The third eye let mages see magic being worked, even if the person is blind. That said, while a mage’s normal eyes might dilate because of the light of a spell, it would not illuminate the surrounding area, even in the total darkness of a cave. In fact, the third eye would work even when a mage had closed his eyes and went to sleep. The third eye was limited in several ways though, partly by the spell type used, but the primary when it came to distance.
The most basic spells, the ones that beginners learned, were systematic spells. They were easy enough to follow and let young mages learn more about both their own third eyes and about magic beyond shoving mana in a general direction and hoping something happened. Free-form spells were similarly easy enough to follow as they were just systematic spells that were built on the spot, but splash spells were the problem. Of course, fate would never let zugoran use anything else except splash spells, making it even harder to study than it would otherwise be at the edge of my sensitivity.
Sensitivity was what I learned to call someone’s mental eye strength. The more sensitive someone was to magic, the farther their third eye could see and the more easily it could distinguish spell patterns. This sensitivity was a natural talent and had nothing to do with a mage being near or far sighted. There were no known spells to increase the third eye’s ability, unlike someone’s normal eyes. Also, it could only be trained so much, especially as it was usually inversely related to the amount of mana circles a mage could naturally use.
An average 3 circle mage from my previous world would be able to ‘see’ around 1000 meters without too much difficulty, while a 13 circle mage would be considered average if they could see 13 meters. Of course they would be able to see magic spells headed towards them before that and recognize them as magic, but they would only be able to guess at what the spell would be designed to do. Mages could still feel the power behind a spell and figure out the spell at longer distances, if they were familiar enough with the spell in question, but the third eye was usually viewed as more of a limiter than a boon.
Of course, various exceptions to this occurred, with both Bella and myself being able to easily ‘see’ around 1200 meters at the moment, despite currently having 7 circles worth of mana. At our current distance of some 1500 meters or so, seeing the spells of the zugoran was difficult to say the least. It had not helped that the third eye could not see spells that were created and cast within someone’s body.
That was one of the oh-so-many reasons for mage battles being very quick events. If someone cast a spell to protect their mouth from fire and then cast a spell to create and shoot a fireball out of their mouth, they might be totally unnoticed until they started breathing fire.
Though it should be noted that sensitivity to bloodlust and killing intent were different from the magical sensitivity of the third eye as even non magical individuals could feel extremes of either. Sensitivity also did not refer to the general awareness of mana that all mages had to one extent or another. When we felt the large wave of mana before finding the wolfmen, it was not because of our third eye(s), but because of our generalized awareness of mana itself.
Your mind is wandering DeMorte.
I grunted a mental affirmative and refocused my attention on the newly created wolfman, who was being carried away gingerly, to the sounds of celebration. He was carried into the large stone building though so, even with my magically enhanced vision, I could not see where exactly he was being taken.
This will be annoying, I thought grimly, the celebrations below would likely continue into the night and I had not considered it before, but the only individual that I knew could understand me, might now be too tired or traumatized to help me find a translator.
I could write out a message and leave it in the open, but they might just try and turn me into one of them… Not that I could not handle it, now that I knew there were no Soul Mages, I was much less worried about what these things would be able to do.
I took the opportunity to back away from the camp and left a magic trail that would lead me back to this spot in the dark. Of course, I could only do this because of third eye’s limitation of spotting spells before they were activated, or ‘executed’ in the formal terminology. While another mage might recognize that I had cast a spell, they would not know what spell it was because it had already been cast.
Any mage could spot a spell traveling through the air, but since the third eye could not identify a spell that had already been executed, it was rather like a suit of iron armor, or the wolfmen’s skin. Spells like the stun spell, which did not execute until contact, were different from a fireball, because the mana in a fireball had already been turned into fire. Iron would stop a stun spell and melt before a large enough fireball, cooking whoever was wearing it.
Although I would have to test the limits of adamantine at a later date, I assumed that it had much of the same issue, but with a more solid base metal than iron. I really needed some iron to augment my bone defenses though, that zugoran would kill me, if I was not careful.
Deliberately going past the area I wanted to sleep in, I left my tracking trail at the edge of a particularly large tree and tested my trail. This particular spell happened to be something like a trail of paint, except that it would light up for me if I used the correct spell. Following it back to a small clearing, I set up some very subtle wards and cast an illusion spell that seemed to turn me into a moss covered bolder.
It was already dark enough that I was not too worried about being found, but I had several hours to burn while whatever celebrations the wolfmen had planned calmed down.. A good four hours of sleep and I can start trying to find a peaceful way to make them my experiments, I thought to myself.
De-DeMorte?
I know why you are scared child, but it would happen sooner or later and I need to keep my options open.
Even so, there are hundreds of people down there!
Yes, which is why we will need to be careful and hope that it does not come to that.
Then why are you already making plans to kill them all!? We might not even have to fight!
The first rule of winning a fight is to know the objectives, the second rule is to know how far both sides are willing to go. I am willing and able to kill them all if it becomes necessary.
but, but-
Mages have the power, which is why we rule the world. I will not let these wolfmen continue to transform other humans until others finally find this place and burn it to ashes. I have the power, the opportunity, and the means to both protect others and obtain a large amount of experimental subjects. Even it is just their corpses, I will learn something.
…If I stop you now, you will just return later, when I cannot stop you. I can see it in your head, but what I cannot see is what is more important to you. Are you doing this to actually protect others, or do you just want more experiment subjects?
Why do you think it has to be one or the other Bella? The only reason you cannot see that I want both is your own bias that those goals cannot be in alinement.
After a moment of no response I put an end to our little mental chat with a sleep spell that would wake me up in 4 hours, after I was fully rested and ready to do some late night snooping.
-----------------------------------------
When I woke up, Bella was silent in the back of my head. I could feel her worry, but she knew that I would avoid killing if at all possible.
I also noticed a few possums, raccoons, and even an owl quickly run away as I stood up and broke the boulder illusion. I made a mental note to set up animal wards in the future, though, with the frequency that these wolfmen had been able to see my magic, it would not be near them.
Maybe the creatures had their own third eye… in fact, that was a likely explanation, but I did not have any proof and I could not experiment without a test subject.
I mentally shook my head and took out one of my last avotatos and concentrated on following my now flowing trail back to the wolfmen’s encampment as I chewed at the raw piece of substance.
The sky was cloudy, making my trail a fairly bright path through the dark woods. It was times like these that I could appreciate the cultural fear of the woods though, the brief glow that my trail gave off in response to my spell only served to deepen the shadows around me.
Even with my new body’s magical strength, I felt myself getting more on edge as I watched the shadows. I had spent a lifetime being one of the weaker forces in the world, I was not going to let myself get overconfident just because I had a little magical power now.
At least it is cool, I thought to both myself and Bella, it could defiantly be a worse night for sneaking around. Neither the trees, nor Bella answered my quiet musings though, so I walked on.
When I got there, the smell actually elevated my hopes for a peaceful agreement as it was horrible. Alcohol, I smiled, the odor was offensive to my new body’s sensitive nose, but it also told me that their society still had that particular human element. I had gotten slightly worried again after last night’s little conversion process, but I might be able to add ‘trade’ to my list of possible peace deals.
Though I did wonder where they got it from… maybe they brewed their own, or they stole it… or someone already struck some sort of deal with them, although I doubted it.
I did not pay as much attention to it the last time I was here, but there were rough homes built out of a variety of materials, clay being the most common from what I could see. Another reason that I did not notice them however, was the fact that they blended in with the landscape fairly well, with some seeming to grow out of the ground.
They did not copy the village design that they should have already been exposed too? Does that mean there is some sort of cultural reason? Distancing themselves from their ancestors or something? Or was it related to some predator in the area?
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
More questions, I thought to myself, before casting every concealment spell I knew of, including one to hide my smell. After that was done, I left the hiding spot I had used before and descended on the sleeping group.
Stepping from shadow to shadow where possible I moved along an obtuse path that took me around the edge of the drunken mass of altered humanity. My steps had gone from silent to non-existent with the help of my magic, but I still moved fairly quickly. I did not see anything dangerous, but I did take note of several groups that had gone to sleep together in a way that stirred very old, very debased, memories.
There were also some baskets and rope scattered about randomly that proved some level of crafting ability, despite a distinct lack of clothing. No obvious weapons, despite the left over bones near a few large pots.
No zugoran either, which meant that the one I saw earlier was definitely some sort of a leader, maybe a priest of some sort. Though I did not really need to confirm that part, all I needed was someone to negotiate with and see how things were going to progress from there.
If the worst came to pass, I would use my internal energy to make a dash for the fear runes. After that I could come back in a few months, after I had developed a poison gas or figured out how to cause the radiation poisoning Anton taught me about.
Arriving in front of the stone building, I realized that it was much larger than I had originally realized, not height wise, but in depth, as the entrance led almost directly to stairs that descended into the earth.
The grand design and age of the inside of the building, which had been kept immaculate for some reason, reminded me of tales of the supposed entrance into Gorith’s realm. Minus, the three headed, feathered serpent, that was the alleged gatekeeper
Come to think of it, there were no guards, sentries, or pickets to challenge me up to this point. I was not sure if that was a good thing or not. It was never a good idea to count on the enemy’s negligence, but I still started down the stairs.
They are the ‘enemy’ now?
So she speaks! I meant that as a general statement, but then again, you already knew that.
You were thinking about gassing them earlier. What was I supposed to say to that?
Anything you want, you might see something that I miss.
You mean like those runes?
I stopped and let Bella direct our head towards a wall that had something that looked like a fear rune inscribed on it. Of course, close does not count when it comes to runes, so there was no obvious fear or magic that I could notice. Not that the third eye could see runes or their effects anyway.
Unlike the upper area, the stairs where the runes were had not been cleaned very well, resulting in dust covering and further obscuring an already ignorable symbol in my mind.
That is exactly like what I meant Bella, good job.
…
I continued down the stairs so silently that I could not even hear my own breathing and arrived at the bottom of the stairs, about ten meters or so below ground.
Here, the architecture changed drastically and became what looked like a giant tree that had been hollowed out. The walls were obviously a bark of some sort of tree, but despite its symmetry, it did not seemed to be processed in any way and had rough looking swirls to prove it. There were no planks or nails, just a very large, rounded, tunnel like structure through wood. It was also around 3 meters in both height and width and curved gently
Pausing for a moment, I went over and touched the wooden wall, confirming that it was indeed alive, although I had no idea how such a thing could be a part of any living tree.
Just as I was marveling at it though, I barely heard a distant scream. I began trotting through the winding wooden passage, making no sounds as I quickly drew out some bone surplus that I had and shaped it into a sharp short sword. I had practiced enough with it over the last few years to make a dense, extremely sharp weapon that, while a better thrusting sword, could chop as well.
Normally I would have used an iron knife and shield, but I had originally planned on capturing large apes of legend, not trying to figure out the ‘why and how’ behind a group of magically resistance, modified humans.
If that scream was the sound of someone being tortured, the Guilt would not be far behind. It never liked me ignoring people I could have helped.
Rounding a gentle corner, I saw two guards, both armed with what looked like iron spears and very rusty iron chest plates.
I almost stopped in shock, but they were busy playing some game with their fingers so I decided to act while they were distracted instead.
Since bone was magically conductive, unlike their skin, I quickly lunged at one of the guards, who noticed me out of the corner of his eye. He twisted just enough in surprise to receive a minor scratch, but that was enough for me to push a stun spell into him through the blade.
His friend only had enough time to give a surprised yelp and try to swing his spear at me. Not thrust, the idiot actually swung his spear like a staff. I ducked and gave his leg a long scratch as I repeated my new stunning method.
As the second guard fell, I continued on like before, but with a feeling of anxiety clawing at the back of my head.
I took 3 of these wolf-Lets call them people DeMorte, not experiments, or test subjects, or wolfmen, just different people.
Fine, whatever you want to call them is fine Bella, the point is that I arguably kidnapped three of them and stunned 2 more of what may be their religious guards for all I know. The point is that a peaceful solution is-
I stopped and stared at what was happening in front of me.
There was a fairly large group in a very large spherical earthen room. The tree passage that I had been traveling in up until now ended opening up into the room like the path had been bitten by a large creature to make a doorway. The passage itself twisted off to the side of the room, tapering rapidly, to the point where only a small animal would fit through before it curved again out of my view. The room itself was several hundred meters wide and had buildings that were literally one with the landscape as they bulged out of the ground.
In the room, there were nearly 40 creatures that were reverently bowing on their knees and touching their heads to the ground as the leader who had turned the human into a – I felt a glare inside my head – modified human.
Said modified human was also present, being slightly smaller and with less hair than the rest he was easier to spot. Of course, it helped that he was on a large stone alter near the leader figure that had changed him. The leader was currently shaking, giving off a massive wave of mana that would normally have me very worried.
Both fortunately and unfortunately, this wave of mana was caused by his zugoran jewelry. On one hand, this meant that I had nothing to fear concerning mages, their own skin would still block any spells, unless they had learned to spit fireballs (which personal experience said was highly impractical). On the other hand, zugoran was also very powerful and fairly mysterious from my point of view. It was said to provide amazing benefits if it was found to be helpful after being refined, but what those benefits were tended to be a mystery until they were used.
It was at this time that I noticed a group of a dozen or so females that had been waiting near-by the leader. Out of arm’s length, but closer than the other below were. Then one of the females stepped forward and pointed at me, crying something in a language I did not understand. For a brief moment, everything seemed to slow down as I felt like I heard that particular voice before and the whole room turned their entire attention to me.
At that point, the same female who pointed me out grabbed at the leader’s belt. With my enhanced eyes, I could easily see the shock on the leader’s face as the female took a black dagger and suddenly became a blur, even to me, and stabbed him in the chest.
Did I arrive just in time to witness a coup?
* * *
Royal Court of Zootrofí:
(Flashback) A few weeks after the Histones had presented a copy of their report to the court…
Adviser Woolsey had a unique battle to be fought today. He had been the most competent, able bodied, administrator of the realm in 3 generations at the least, but today was special.
Today, he needed to lose.
There were a variety of justifications and explanations that he could give to others to explain why he needed to lose, but there were two main reasons that made it more dangerous to win this fight.
First, he had too many offices shorn up under his command. Normally, filling important positions with people who owed you favors was considered good politics as it would allow you to deliberately starve the political opposition and secure your powerbase. Now however, Woolsey had a unique problem where his position was so strong as to start obligating his opposition to take drastic measures.
Measures like attacking his distant cousin in Entrials. The place was so new and distant as to be practically built with nothing except the local timber! Yet they had grown despite enough to try and attack even there… No, he needed to appear just weak enough, just human enough, to keep his opponents trying to fight him in the legal arena. After all, noble houses had centuries of back alley deals to call upon, meaning that they were far too advantaged when it came to playing that game.
The second reason though, would make a cynical man question Woolsey’s aversion to illegal activities. No one here knew all of the facts that Woolsey had at his disposal and he was going to manipulate them to his complete advantage.
Drums and horns blasted, annoying Woolsey as they called the room to attention. As always, King Miles – or Gink Slime as he was known on the streets – strolled into the room in a way that both proved his reputation of self-importance was deserved and justified the ‘slime’ nickname with the disgusting way he seemed to ooze across the floor.
Despite their universal disgust however, everyone paid proper attention. The King was a 14th ranked mage with the very walls around them filled with layer upon layer of his ancestor’s ingenious wards, all prepared to answer his call.
It was enough to make the 7th ranked adviser glad that no one called him ‘administrator’ in the King’s presence. Especially since, in this place, no one person, with only the possible exception of a Soul Mage, could fight the King with any chance of winning. Someone as weak as Woolsey would be torn apart instantly if the King got mad enough.
Now they had to wait for him to make his way through his minor reports before they could hear his will on the matter that he must have decided on a few nights ago, concerning the minor mithril mine found outside of Entrials.
It was already known that a small detachment of solders would be sent there as a result of the recent banditry activity, but the law dictated that a noble must be declared the owner of such a mine. Since his cousin had been the lord and mayor for so long he had been obligated to offer his support of elevating his cousin to noble rank.
Naturally his opponents had countered by trying to push for anyone except him, leading to his strategically requested favor.
“Now, then.” The King’s deep voice echoed through the hall, summoning a deathly silence. “It has been decided who shall attend to the mithril mins that were discovered in our northern lands.” He paused, clearly drinking in the power that let his nobles hang on his every word. “Despite adviser Woolsey’s arguments for the elevation of the area’s current lord, it will not be so.” A collective fury of whispers flew through the chamber for a moment before the King continued. “That said, his arguments that there should be an elevation to peerage to take over the mine have great merit. Therefore, according to the old tradition, the one who discovered the mine shall be the one elevated in this place on the ‘day of the gods’ following the final Earth Phase of the cycle.”
The whispers started and Woolsey nearly passed out from relief as he felt the judgmental and fickle eyes fall upon him. The second reason he needed to ‘lose’ today was to help weed out some of his less steadfast followers. After a few political defections, he would reveal his true plan and proceed to destroy those who doubted him.
As all of the others would be trying to investigate this powerful healing talent, this Bella girl that the Histones had mentioned in passing, Woolsey would confirm his cousin’s son’s marriage plans while he convinced the King to send a recruitment offer to Bella. Even if she said no, the bare presence of an offer would send the others scrambling.
The best part though, was that no one would suspect that some of the political defectors that would soon begin distancing themselves from Woolsey, were actually his trusted spies. Fools, Woolsey thought vindictively, as he fought to keep his real emotions hidden, knowledge is power too and power rules absolutely.