08 To The Beat Of The Battering Ram

I noticed a sound coming from the monster covered gymnasium when I was trying to think up what to do next, and unfortunately, it wasn’t the sound of teenagers cheering for a hockey game. That would have been a fairly good way for everyone safe inside the bunker gym to pass the time now that I thought about it, but the sound I heard was different, and was only there for a moment. I only caught the tail end of it too, so it was even harder to make out.

All the same I strained my ears, just in case the sound happened again.

“Donna?”

I held a finger up in Diane’s direction. “I think I heard something.”

There! It happened again as soon as I finished talking. It was something between a thud and a scratch, and had that bass like quality like the sound was blowing past my head, as though it were an explosion. I couldn’t really guess what was causing it, but I wasn’t the expert here. I was just the capable one.

“What was that sound?” I asked, turning to the Authority fairies. Hopefully they had answers.

“That is a test of Authority’s magical prowess,” the authoritative one said. “She promised to make a gymnasium that could withstand a sustained assault from the Starbane’s lowly forms, and so far has delivered.”

“The only issue being the length of that sustained assault,” the gentler one added. “If it’s just one hour, then certainly, we’ve already passed that point. After that it’s difficult to predict how the assault might change. They might target weak points-”

“And those starbane are striking the windows, which are.”

“-or they might use dedicated sieging forms.”

“Which they haven’t revealed so far,” Authoritative Authority said. “But I saw some sixballs on the windows. Those horrible tiny things are effective at breaking those. As are hookblows, and I saw four shapes that could have been that form just now.”

“The sound you heard was all of those starbanes on the gymnasium striking it at the same time. Groups of them tend to get into shared patterns like that,” the Gentler Authority continued to explain. Coincidentally, I heard the sound again as she took a breath. “And until they are stopped, they will continue to strike at the barriers. Or they will succeed in breaking through, which would be horrible for the people inside.”

“And that’s a problem because I’m the only one that can stop them,” I concluded, feeling that weight of responsibility again.

“Yes, but not yet,” the Authoritative Authority said. “The enchantments on the building are still holding strong. These are just lowly forms. They can only do so much. Going to destroy a miasma beacon or two would be a better time investment, and you would return before they even started to crack the first window.”

She really wanted me to go after that miasma beacon. Glancing up at the countdown at the top of my vision revealed that we were almost at two hours and forty minutes left. Already?

“But what about the people inside?” I asked, bringing my eyes back down. “They can’t be ignoring this. Some of them were already panicking when I left.” Mostly that was Stephanie being concerned for Diane, but explaining that detail would have taken away from the point I was trying to make.

“Authority isn’t the first magical girl to enchant something into a bunker,” Gentle Authority told me. “She collaborated with others who have, and some luxury features were added. Sound insulation from outside was one of them, as elite forms can have attacks that use sound and sight as a medium.”

“So they don’t even know?”

“Not quite. The windows aren’t set to black out until four hours after the veil was first detected,” the other fairy said. “There are blinds, but I’ll bet someone got curious enough.”

This talk, while informative, was also wasting time, I realised. What I needed to be focusing on was a way to get Diane into the gymnasium safely. After that… I wasn’t sure. Authority Fairy the Authoritative would probably hound me to go take care of the miasma beacon, and I probably would. But getting Diane to safety came first.

I turned away from the odd group and muttered under my breath, “Familiar, a private question.”

I wasn’t facing the glowing creature, but it responded in the way it always did. [The answer will be spoken only to you.]

“Could I wish Diane into the gymnasium?”

[Yes. It would be a very low cost wish. We would simply teleport Diane to a safe location inside the gymnasium, taking care to not disturb the enchantments that Authority set up.]

“Should I do that?” I was going to clear the starbanes from the gymnasium either way. Or at least try to.

An answer didn’t come right away, which worried me. [We will counsel that we come from a culture vastly different to yours, and have held values you might consider strange for longer than you have been alive,] it told me. [More importantly, I am your familiar, and our opinion is manufactured to support you in all things providing the contract is observed. This is an immutable truth for our relationship.]

“So what, you’re my yes man?” The shifting use of royal and personal pronouns worried me, but it wasn’t the first time they had changed in a sentence like that. I did have an idea about why it kept doing that though, and I didn’t want to get distracted again.

[When answering a question regarding whether or not you should perform an action or learn a spell, we will consider what objectives that action or spell will help you achieve, and what may be lost in the process. If what is gained outweighs what is lost, we will be your “yes man.” If that is not the case, then we will counsel alternatives. In this case, Diane is not defenceless, you have lookouts which possess the experiences of a veteran magician, and we will not let you take massive risks while uninformed. A wish is a powerful thing, and we do not recommend its use when hard work can achieve the outcome your wish would deliver.]

“Makes sense,” I agreed. I turned back to the group and saw Diane looking at me with controlled curiosity. The two fairies were watching with curiosity of the more naked sort. “One moment.” I turned back away. “If things go wrong, how should I phrase my wish to make sure Diane is safe?”

[Phrased correctly, you could wish for a near everlasting protection from bad luck and hostile intent. In the short term this would secure her safety, potentially transporting her outside of the veil, while also protecting her from harm in the long term. “I wish for Diane to be safe from now on,” would accomplish this.]

“And you would do that if I made that wish?” I checked, keeping my voice as low as I could.

[If you made that wish, or a similarly phrased wish, and spoke with truthful intent, we would grant the wish,] my Familiar told me. [And Donna, we are impressed that you are considering a selfless use of your first wish.]

The praise made my ears heat up, and I thought we’d had enough of that with the whole hugging thing.

“Alright, stop buttering me up,” I said loud enough for the others to hear and turned around. “I’ve had a spectacular idea that has nothing to do with that private conversation. Authority, did you have a look at the other camp buildings yet?” They had seen the state of the gymnasium before my wisp lit it up, so I was assuming they had some magic that let them see in the dark of the veil.

The two Authorities looked at each other, and after a few moments of silent communication between them, the gentler one spoke. “The dorm building is on the other side of the cafeteria, so I didn’t get a look at that. It did seem mostly untouched, which makes sense because there isn’t anything the Starbane wants over there. The cafeteria building has had a wall caved in. Our enemy has likely surrounded my host crystal, but I still exist so it hasn’t been compromised. A large number of the sentry forms have gathered on the lounge courtyard.”

“Okay, we’re going to visit that crystal,” I said. “We’ll have to go around the gymnasium, but we need to get inside somewhere.”

“Why inside?” Diane asked.

“Because going inside is what saved us last time. My plan has three simple steps. First, we get inside. Then, we fortify that inside. Finally, we poke the hive up there and kill them as they come to us.” I finished with a gesture towards the smothered gymnasium. “Authority, what do you think?”

“Its simplicity is good,” Authoritative Authority said. “But there will be Starbane forms that will not be lured unless directly damaged.”

“However, you will be far safer in traversing the open after culling a large number of them,” the other one said. “I agree, it’s good.”

“Have you two ever disagreed on anything?” I asked, helplessly curious.

“Authority needs to take better care of her teeth,” Authoritative said instantly. “And she needs to stop breaking her glasses. Fixing them is a waste of mana.”

“Could use less of a stick up the ass,” Gentle Authority quickly followed up. “But the one-lens-broken look she gets after receiving a good smack is really cool.”

“Wow.” I hadn’t expected them to even answer, let alone do so that fast. “Uh, that’s cool. Can one of you lead the way around to the cafeteria?”

“The dorm is technically closer to the forest,” Authoritative said before either of them flew off. “Wouldn’t that building work better for your plan?”

I did think about it, but ultimately shook my head. “I’m certain that there’s some form of starbane just waiting in ambush inside one or each of the rooms. Besides, I want space to move around, or retreat to if need be. The dorms are all one entrance rooms.”

“Understood.” Authoritative bobbed and nodded at the same time, then flew off to the side.

Gentler Authority zipped between Diane and me. “Can I set down on one of your shoulders?” she asked. “I’ve been flying since the veil started to fall, and it’s kind of tiring.”

“Do simulacrum even get tired?” I asked, remembering the Familiar’s comment about them just being deceived mana.

“It’s a mental thing.”

“You may use my right shoulder,” Diane told the Authority, who happily settled there. Diane’s shoulders then dropped a fraction. “I was looking forward to sitting down. Maybe sleeping.”

“Believe you me, I understand,” I told her. The specific feeling had passed an indeterminate time ago, but I was fairly certain an emergency regeneration had something to do with that. “At the same time, there’s no way we can take that hive from here.”

“Being able to take a starbane is something I’m still realising I can do. Even if it’s just because of your spell.” Her shoulder hunched. “Most people would have died getting that close to a… hookblow.” She shook her head at the name. I kind of felt the same.

“But you didn’t, and you won’t,” I told her.

“You two should move now,” the Authority still with us said. “The other me would have told us if she found any starbanes waiting in ambush here. It’s as safe as can be under a veil right now.”

That was kind of hard to believe, but we’d been having this talk within throwing distance of the starbane covered gymnasium and none of them had come our way. The task of breaking into the gymnasium must have been too important for them.

Of course, the moment I thought that the Authority pointed off to the side. “Sixball, sixball!”

“Ank- Authentic Energy Channel!” I incanted. I was going to cast the more effective Anklebiter until I remembered how expensive that spell was. If there were several starbanes, then Anklebiter was my go to spell, but for single murderballs, I’d try sticking to the cheaper option.

It had only failed me when it came to killing hookblows fast enough. The shape I saw skittering through the forest was a single murderball. The light of my readied spell illuminated the forest enough for me to aim at it, and I pushed as soon as I had it lined up. It would have been harder if it was leaping from tree to tree, but the hissing thing wasn’t using tactics like that, choosing to just rush us instead.

I took pleasure in watching it faceplant the moment my energy channel touched it. After two more seconds of pushing I relented, and it didn’t move.

“Any more coming?” I asked out loud.

“Found a scoutscale!” Authority called from in front of us. Immediately, there was movement between the trees up ahead, and I hurried in that direction. Soon enough, I saw a tiny blue form flying my way, with an oversized lizard in hot pursuit.

Three seconds of channelling there stopped it in its tracks, where it wouldn’t move for another four or so hours.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

I stopped and waited for movement. Diane came to a stop beside me, panting.

“You okay?” I asked as I maintained a vigil.

“Just… keeping up,” she panted.

That gave me pause. I’d left her behind there, hadn’t I? “I’ll keep it slow then. You don’t run much?”

“Not recently.”

“Why not?” I turned and frowned at her until I realised the obvious explanation was right in front of me. “Ah, right. Well, uh… moving on.” I looked around, then twitched my hand to reclaim the magic circle.

B: 7/24

U: 65

The mana gain from encounters like that was like pinching at crumbs, but I’d take ten of those over fights like the one at the kayak shed. Though, that one had made me realise there was something I could possibly do about our visibility problem. I reached out and tugged my personal grimoire from the air, realising that I’d left it on the floor of the shed last time.

It was very easy to leave this thing behind, now that I thought about it.

“I want a light that follows me around, and I’ll bet the Bright Light Enthusiasts grimoire has one.”

[You are correct,] the Familiar said. It was following us on the ground, but the angle was slightly off. For it, it was as though gravity also went five degrees to the left. [The Hands-Free Torch spell is on the second double page of spells.]

I quickly tabbed over to the relevant spot, taking a moment to appreciate the tab for the Stoccoro Grimoire for Flashy Rituals. It was two crossed red blades, but the blades were clearly magical, with inconsistent red forms. The tab was actually animated to make the magic inconsistencies of the blades more obvious.

The page for the Hands-Free Torch spell turned out to be the most densely packed spell I’d taken a good look at so far. I had to all but bury my nose in the page to make out the directions for use, and the paragraph was maybe a single line long.

“Hands-Free Torch,” I cast when I was done with that, and a yellow magic circle spun itself into existence in front of me, before promptly unmaking itself and leaving a glowing yellow orb behind. The orb drifted up and behind me, then to my right ever so slightly when I pointed a finger that way. This one’s brightness wasn’t adjustable. The only other way I could interact with the orb would be to reach up and smother it in my hand. So far, it had taken five of my bound mana.

“Could I have one of those?” Diane asked.

I shrugged helplessly. “Maybe. I don’t have the time to see if it’s possible to make it follow you though. This isn’t a good time for study.”

She nodded slowly. “That’s fine then.”

The sound of starbane beating on glass sounded again.

“Stay close,” I said, then gestured at the flying Authority to go on ahead again. I actually interrupted her giving the gentler Authority a fairy glare, presumably because the latter fairy was being lazy at the moment. We travelled in relative quiet again, and soon reached the edge of the forest closest to our destination.

Being rectangles of different sizes, the cafeteria building and the dorm buildings were offset, and it was the latter one that was closest to us. All we had to do was run for fifteen or twenty seconds and we’d be on the concrete path that connected all of the boy’s dorms. I reached up and grasped my hands-free torch to minimise its shine as we crouched behind the bushes that lined the forest here. The light was actually quite cold.

“How many starbanes?” I asked quietly, wondering which of my spells was going to be more appropriate.

“Two striders, one on the left and right,” Authoritative Authority told me, so Anklebiter. “More of those sentries as well.”

“Well, let’s get ready to run,” I said with a sigh.

“It would be better to approach one strider first,” the Authority quickly advised when she saw me starting to tense. “And if you kept it to a brisk walk, you’d be better prepared to respond to any threats.”

“I’ve been responding by running somewhere safer,” I said. “A certain kayak shed comes to mind.”

“You didn’t have Anklebiter then. Now you are safest when you are able to turn and fire that beam at a moment’s notice. A wall behind you just means it’ll take the starbane coming from that direction longer to arrive, and you’ll notice it when they do.”

My lips thinned. I didn’t like this Authority, but it was a good point. Diane wasn’t as athletic as me either, so I needed to match her pace.

“Okay, we’ll go for a brisk walk,” I allowed.

“Good. I love walks,” Diane said. She smirked at something I didn’t see when I glanced at her.

I tried to return the smile, then released my hands-free torch and looked for the strider in the dark. It actually went under my notice until I remembered that it was a tall creature. When I looked up I saw it right away, a freaky silhouette in the night sky that was already turning to face my way.

“Anklebiter.” Maybe it was because things were less urgent this time, but the magic circle took a few moments to properly draw itself. Since I had the attention to spare at that moment, I glanced at my mana levels to see how much poorer casting the spell had made me, and winced.

B: 0/24

U: 45

But I couldn’t keep my attention there when I realised the strider had noticed me, so I grasped the handle of my spell, lined it up, and squeezed. I didn’t start walking until the convulsing of the strider came to a stop and it started to tip to our left, following the gentle decline of the ground we were on. This time when my beam paused, I could still see, and was able to notice Diane shoot one of the sentry forms that had been under the strider in the head. The whole orb shattered, and the rest of it fell to the ground, quite dead.

I adjusted my course around the bodies and turned to where the other strider had been, and saw it was already too close for comfort. Anklebiter didn’t quite stop it in its tracks, but it did lose all momentum as its legs started to jitter and shudder. Watching it convulse and eventually die, then fall over with enough force to make the ground vibrate left me with an oddly sickened feeling. The only silver lining I could find about that was how they tended to shut up when my beam was focused on them. Otherwise they’d be screeching a cacophony of sound from a wide variety of mouths.

At least the sentries didn’t have mouths, so they didn’t do much screeching.

“Sixballs coming from the near side of the gym,” the serious Authority told me.

“What about the Arachnos?” I asked, turning to look without slowing my walk. Diane was busy aiming at the handful of Sentries that were starting to enter our little circle of light.

“Those nightmares aren’t spiders, but they use many of the same tactics. They’ll wait for their web to come under attack before venturing out.”

“So they’re spiders.” I beamed a sixball that got close enough for me to aim at it. Meanwhile, two more came streaking at me from slightly different angles. “That means I’ll need a spell to burn that web, won’t I?”

[We are ready to recommend such a spell when you are not in imminent danger,] the Familiar told me. It was sauntering after us at that slightly off angle, somehow keeping close despite not walking all that quickly.

“Right.” I finished beaming the third sixball close enough that it rolled close to my feet. Three more had emerged from the darkness behind them, but Diane had finished with the sentries behind us and managed to fend one of them with repeated whistling shots and a hail of metal pellets. I took care of the last one, which brought down its metal leg the same moment my beam met its face. The blade sunk into the ground while the rest of it kept going, and the two separated.

It was creepy enough that I tried to focus my beam on the ball part and roll it away, but the damn thing didn’t move. My beam had no push to it.

I couldn’t tell if that was better or worse than what happened with the one Diane killed, which started to deflate as liquid began spurting out of it in three small geysers.

“Why do they react that way when my beam hits them?” I asked as we arrived on the concrete path in front of the dorm, trying to keep my mind off of what the corpses were doing. Each of the doors was open, and I pointed my readied spell inside each door as we passed. Nothing jumped out of the first.

[What you call a beam is a medium that transports mana from the circle to the target,] the Familiar explained. It was winding itself between my legs as we walked, and occasionally I’d kick its head by accident. I felt a little guilty, but it never complained, and was weightless and flexible enough that my walk wasn’t interrupted. It kept doing it, too. [There are side effects, such as excess mana is expelled as heat, but the primary function or your spells insert hostile mana into the bodies of your targets. Against creatures with a low mana depth, even a single point of mana being added can have devastating effects.]

“Didn’t you say I had a depth of two?” I asked as I pointed my hand into the second door. Diane was pointing the BB gun away from the dorm building, and the Authorities were looking in the other directions.

[Correct. This will not remain true for long, however. Most lowly forms of the Starbane have a mana depth of one. If they had more, then breaching dimensions would be far more costly, to the point of being wasteful. Others, such as the hookblows, have a mana depth of seventeen, but in one colour. That additional depth is what gives them resistance to the effects of mana injection, while the other forms succumb.]

“So what, it’s system shock?”

[Those words describe the effect accurately. There are also physical side effects depending on the specific mana colour injected.]

I stopped by the next door. There was a fine thread blowing out lazily into the air in front of me.

“Is there an arachno inside?” I asked.

“Definitely,” Gentle Authority said.

I squeezed the handle of Anklebiter as soon as I stepped in front of the doorframe. The resulting beam didn’t hit anything that wasn’t a wall, but it did illuminate what looked like a second bed beside a bottom bunk. Then I realised it was actually a massive spider and dragged the beam down in a disturbed panic.

The arachno, having been waiting in ambush, did trigger its attack. I didn’t realise the things could shoot web in the direction they were facing, but that’s what this one did. And while the projectile mostly missed as a consequence of beam induced conniptions in the creature, some part of the web strands got caught on my hair and I got whiplash as a tiny part of my skull suddenly became bald.

“Ow!” I yelled with displeasure. The strike had actually made me stop squeezing my spell handle, but when I looked back I saw that Diane was by the door shooting into the room. A glance down at my unbound mana level saw it jump from one hundred and twelve to one hundred and twenty seven. Sixballs were worth six, if I was recalling correctly, so these things were comparatively good for hunting mana.

But as I peeked back into the room with the arachno corpse, I knew that I wasn’t going to go out and purposefully hunt these things.

The arachno corpse was splayed out in a ragdolled fashion that was entirely unlike the curled up death pose that spiders normally took. It had four eyes arranged like points of a flat X on its face, and wide teeth behind the mandibles under that. It was furred and bright yellow, strangely enough, and had two ridges along its back starting from beside the head, where it stuck up like an overly shrugged shoulder. It didn’t have the large butt thing that spiders normally had, making the body seem oddly small to my sensibilities despite its size.

As a little bow to add on top of those horrifying details, it looked like it weighed nearly as much as I did. Hadn’t someone said it was about half the mass of a man?

“This thing is a god damn spider,” I said after taking it all in.

[It is not an arachnid,] the Familiar told me.

“It may look like one, but it isn’t,” the gentler Authority said as well. “What this is, is an alien from another dimension.”

“Yeah, the spider dimension,” I said, deadpan.

“Arachnids actually use blood to move around hydraulically,” Diane said, and I found myself looking at her with disbelief. “They squeeze parts of their body to make their blood go to a leg and extend it. I looked it up after reading about the Eight-Eyed-Abyss, it was really interesting. But that character and this thing use tendons and ligaments like we do.”

“It shot web at me,” I stressed. “Web. It actually caught some of my hair. I felt it tear off. Is it obvious?”

[The now bald spot is only obvious if one is constantly scouring their surroundings for small details like we constantly do,] my Familiar answered, and I kicked it onto the corpse of the arachno. It took the kick, sat down, and let its tail twitch around and onto its front paws. The little bastard didn’t even look my way.

“Presentation is important, but yours was not compromised,” Authoritative Authority told me.

“You look ruffled, but still good,” Diane told me.

“Thank you, you two,” I told them, then pointed at my Familiar. “Not you.”

The way its tail twitched in response seemed to be dismissive. Somehow.

I rubbed my eyes. “Okay, we’re checking every dorm we pass for more of… these nightmare abominations. They try and web you first, right?”

“They do,” Authoritative Authority said.

“Then I’ll go first. Do I have a spell to burn off the web if I get caught?”

[Heat of Bulb is a spell near the front of the Grimoire of Bright Light Enthusiasts which will accomplish what you need. It does require touch, however.]

I brought out my personal grimoire, a little embarrassed that I had dropped it somewhere again, and flipped through in search of the named spell. The description for the spell, as well as the script describing its magical processes, was rather short. I was able to quickly scan for the information I needed, then raised an eyebrow at the Familiar.

“This literally only applies the heat of a light bulb,” I said.

[The spell was used to test the heat resistance of products that were designed to be in close proximity to bright light fixtures. If the web of an arachno was subjected to such a test, it would fail such a test swiftly as it combusted.]

“Watch out if you do burn any web on you,” Gentle Authority told me. “The fire will spread fast, but burn out just as quickly.”

“Thank you,” I said, even meaning it. “Now my Anklebiter just took some mana for upkeep, so let’s keep moving.” For some forsaken reason, I glanced at the arachno again and immediately regretted it.

“Why does it need pincers?” I complained as I stormed away from the door. There were dozens of tiny pincers on the ends of each of its legs.

“For climbing, I imagine,” Diane supposed as she followed after me. “It does need a way to hold on to the web it can shoot from its front or its back.”

I didn’t dignify her with a response as I checked around the next dorm room and found another arachno waiting for me. I just lit the place up with purple and moved on. This time my hair wasn’t subjected to any sudden uprootings. Soon we were at the double door leading into the cafeteria building and I was four more arachno’s worth of mana richer, minus the casting costs and upkeep.

That meant that just over half of the boy’s dorms had a massive creepy definitely-a-spider-corpse inside. I couldn’t bring myself to feel much sympathy for them, being the one that had to kill the things. The general creepiness of the arachnos had me wanting to move and get this over with. However, the form of my Familiar suddenly falling sideways past me brought me to a stop.

“You okay?” I asked. It was splayed out on a small bush that had been planted beside the path, and looked for all the world like it was suddenly roadkill, but sideways and against a bush.

[We are okay, as you understand it,] the roadkill looking Familiar told me without moving. Aside from its twitchy tail, of course. [However, we want to take a small number of minutes to discuss your next grimoire, you have a number of options available to you.]

I dismissed Anklebiter and glanced at my mana. It had really jumped up without me noticing.

B: 17/24

U: 189

“The Grimoire of Human Tricks?” I checked. That was the one with an alarm spell, which was something I very much wanted with arachnos skulking about. We were actually close to the carpark at that moment. While there may not be any aliens visible in that direction, the darkness that way made me incredibly nervous.

[That would be a valuable investment,] my Familiar told me, which meant there was a “but” coming. [It would grant you access to a number of valuable spells other magicians have called “essential quality of life improvements.”] I waited, it was coming. [In addition, it would grant you access to a relatively cheap danger sensing enchantment, which you have vocalised a desire for.]

[However-]

“There it is,” I said.

[Alternative options are available and should be explored,] my Familiar continued as if I hadn’t spoken, jittering in place to no longer be roadkill on the side of a bush and instead sitting on top of the bush. [More than that, you should be exploring them with the knowledge required to make better use of your time spent searching for spells. We thus believe this to be a good time to explain mana affinities to you.]

I nodded slowly as I took that in. “Do you mean that you’re finally going to explain why I’m dressed in purple, you’ve got purple rings on your legs, and most of my spells are purple?”

The Familiar’s tail swished with satisfaction. [You have restrained your curiosity on this matter long enough. We are making the time to explain now. It may influence what grimoire you decide to scribe next.]

“I’ve actually not been that curious, since colours usually don’t give much in the way of surviving fights,” I said. “But by all means, do go on.”