09 Of All The Colours In The World

[First we will explain that humans are unique in the way they are able to perceive mana,] the familiar began. [Other species perceive it through different mediums. The Vox had no eyes, and instead perceived it through their numerous aural organs. Another species which called itself Varragus in the closest approximation of your tongue, perceived mana by taste. Know that these are outliers. Most species we have encountered observe mana as shades of colour.]

“Because most species have eyes?” I guessed.

[Yes. Most developed cultures use a method of sorting photons into decipherable information as their primary form of perception. Humans are only unique in the range that they are able to perceive. The limits of your eyes are truly minuscule.]

“Alright, what’s that got to do with me and you being purple?” The lecture was informative, but I wasn’t sure how much I was going to remember. This wasn’t exactly the normal time or place for learning, what with the aliens trying to kill me all around. I was getting antsy, checking over my shoulder for more spider abominations.

[Second is the concept of mana affinities,] the Familiar continued, ignoring my agitation. [Very few creatures do not have an affinity to one or more colours of mana. We are one such creature, and have only ever encountered one other entity with this same peculiarity.]

“What were they called?” I asked. “In case it comes up again later.”

[Your culture calls it the Starbane.]

“That’s… odd,” Diane commented.

I very much agreed. “Yeah, why are you and the starbane similar in that way?”

“That’s a topic that needs an evening and a bottle of whiskey to get through,” Authoritative Authority cut in before the Familiar could answer. “I’m sure Authority will be happy to gift you a vintage when the time comes, but until then the Starbane is just creatures that need to be killed before they kill you. That way you’ll actually make it to the evening and whiskey.”

I took a moment to watch the other Authority’s reaction to that, and she was nodding sagely. The Familiar wasn’t going on, so I just let the matter go. “So affinities,” I prompted.

[Humans possess two affinities as a rule,] it explained without hesitating, like it had been waiting for the cue. [This can change depending on the magician, normally as a result of practice and expertise. You are not there yet, Donna, and can only be considered to possess two affinities.]

“Purple and… gold?” I wasn’t sure about the second one, but most magical girls had two colours in their costumes, and mine was purple and gold.

[The shade is near the colour of gold, yes. Purple is your primary affinity, and yellow-gold is your secondary.]

“And what does that mean?” Diane asked moments before I could.

[Functionally, spells that Donna casts using purple mana will be half again as efficient as they would otherwise be. Similarly, gold mana will induce a near third improvement of efficiency.]

So if my math was right, I was only paying two thirds of the casting cost when using purple mana. I looked at where the handle of Anklebiter would normally rest in my hand. It took twenty mana to cast, and that was nearly my full capacity.

“What are my affinities, if you’re willing to satisfy my curiosity?” Diane asked while I was busy with thinking.

[There is no way to tell, as you are not awakened as a magician.]

“Oh. How sad.” It was difficult to tell if Diane was being genuine or not. She was too good at acting the ice queen.

“The colours,” I said, cutting in again. “What do they mean?”

[Third, we will begin by stating that we have not reached a satisfactory conclusion on the topic. However, we are confident in stating that the meaning behind a mana colour can be ascertained by analysing the specific colour. The first step involves determining which primary colour the mana is closest to, as your culture has assigned importance to those three wavelengths.]

“Purple is half red and half blue,” I pointed out.

[We will return to that point, but your specific shade is slightly more red than blue.]

“Donna doesn’t look very magenta,” Diane said, and I agreed. In fact, I was actually very glad that I wasn’t wearing magenta. The colour I didn’t have anything against, but wearing this much purple was already pushing it.

“I’m more interested in what the colours mean,” I said, repeating my previous statement.

[There are many interpretations of what each shade of mana means,] the Familiar began, its tail starting to go again. [Most agree that reds are passionate, yellows are selfish, and blues are vicarious. The applications these translate to are offence, defence, and support spells respectively.]

“And the affinities of magical girls are decided by their personalities, right?” I checked, and received a dip of the Familiar’s head. “So you just said that me being selfish is my second most prominent trait. That’s patently untrue.”

The familiar’s tail twitched and fell to lie as flat as it could on the bush behind it. [That is why we first mentioned that a satisfactory conclusion has not been reached. What you just learned is the conclusion that most human studies have drawn. We contend that yellow affinities are better associated by a close relationship with inhibitions, either by overcoming them, or asserting them. We have not found a singular word that summarises this in your culture, so it does not fit with the categories your culture applies to everything. Donna, your secondary affinity is yellow-gold because you have a very close relationship with asserted inhibitions.]

I didn’t respond except by crossing my arms, though I really wanted to say something to that. The fact that I had just proved its point didn't click until a second later.

“By that logic, that’s only her second most prominent personality trait,” Diane said slowly, picking up speed when I didn’t interrupt. “Purple is Donna’s primary, not gold. Does that mean she’s passionate in a vicarious way? Or that she’s vicarious in a passionate way? You said it’s a little more red than blue.”

[We have not spent enough time with Donna to properly analyse her personality,] the Familiar answered. [However, the fact that my magician was so willing to head into danger to rescue you, Diane, seems an adequate reason for the affinity.]

“So I like to help people,” I said, the words coming out hot. “Why are we standing around chatting? Give me the Grimoire of Human Tricks, and we’ll go secure a host crystal, then a gym bunker.”

[We are having this discussion because you are about to experience your first mana pulse, and such an event should not occur when surrounded by battle.]

I looked at the Familiar, and its tail twitched. “What?”

[You are about to generate mana. This is a topic we have discussed before.]

“Yeah, but you just dropped that on me like it meant something. What’s a mana pulse? And why is it something to avoid fighting during?”

“Oh, that’s right, baby’s first mana pulse,” the Authority on Diane’s shoulder realised. “You don’t want to be fighting when that happens. It’s something to remember.”

“What are you talking about?” I demanded.

“Well, it’s more than just getting more mana,” the Authority explained. “Mana is life, or a byproduct of it. With how much spellcasting you’ve been doing, you’ll very likely gain a new colour as well.”

“I don’t even know what colours I have right now!” I hissed at her.

[Five shades of purple. Three shades of near gold yellows. Cyan, a light blue similar to Authority’s primary, a dark indigo oddly separate from the rest of your purples, and an orange that is considerably yellow.]

“Thank you, Familiar, but I don’t think that’s going to be very important when I cast Anklebiter on the starbanes.”

[Donna,] it said.

“What?” I asked, the word coming out biting.

[Make sure you are standing steadily.]

I waited for more, but it never came. “This really just feels like a wa…”

It started in my head, and moved through my skull and down into my body like a breath leaving my body. Only it started inside, and stayed inside. I staggered a little as tension and relief flowed through me, one of my knees briefly giving way as a million other indescribable sensations swiftly followed, each one evoking a different familiar fleeting memory. A tear fell from my eye as a weight lifted itself from my chest, and I felt freer than ever before.

In all, only a second or less had passed from start to finish, but it felt longer. So much longer.

“Wha…” I rubbed my eyes clear and glared at the Authorities. At that moment, I was cross with my Familiar, and didn’t want an answer from them. “What the hell was that?”

“Like I said, mana is life,” the more serious Authority said, even though it was the other one that had said that. “You were just put in touch with your own life. The parts worth remembering, that is. Whatever holds meaning to you.”

“Plenty of girls cry when they get their first mana pulse,” Gentler Authority added happily. “So it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Guys get all cagy about it anyway. They say it's emasculating.”

“Right,” I said, feeling subdued. I rubbed my wrist through my gloves. “Anyway, we were supposed to get me a grimoire or something. The Grimoire of Human Tricks.”

“I didn’t see anything happen,” Diane murmured.

“Mana sight was necessary to watch that,” Gentle Authority whispered back. “But basically, she glows now.”

Diane’s eyebrows twitched together and I met her eyes as she gave me a long, hard look, which did flick up to where my crystal crown was allegedly floating. “She was already glowing.”

I took my hand off my wrist and paid my Familiar extra attention, now feeling flustered on top of all that.

[Before we scribe that for you, we want you to consider a grimoire which takes advantage of your yellow-gold mana affinity,] it said. I took its advice, still off balance from the mana pulse.

“I don’t really understand how yellow mana is supposed to be used,” I said after seriously thinking about it. “What are some examples?”

[Fortification spells are the simplest expression of defensive magic,] the Familiar explained. [After that, transmutation spells respond the best to yellow mana. Following them are conditional spells of simple effects. Barriers and alarms are best cast with yellow mana in their simplest expressions, but perform better with other complementary colours when the purpose is not direct defence.]

I remembered the ward the Familiar had cast when we were discussing our contract, and that seemed so long ago now that I thought about it. It had been green, and had supposedly obscured the mana usage in the area.

“Healing magic,” I added, when I remembered how my healing spells were cast with cyan. The Emergency Regenerate spell had even made me glow yellow.

[Yes. Responsive regeneration spells are best cast with yellow or green mana.]

“What happens if that kind of spell was cast with purple mana?” I asked, curious. Maybe the mana pulse had relaxed the hold of those asserted inhibitions the Familiar was talking about.

[It would be more expensive and have unpredictable effects. We do not recommend experimenting until you are in a safe environment.]

“Okay,” I said, and looked up at the black sky above. It was so strange for it to just be black up above my head. “What about something like a sentry? Or a turret that beamed starbanes as they got close?”

[We believe we have an appropriate grimoire. The Grumskn were a race with innate magic and a lithoid biology. They devised a method of separating parts of their body from themselves and empowering the resulting crystals as semi-intelligent guards. The Grumskn Grimoire of Dumb Intelligent Hands is a novice level tome with several spells that achieve what you are describing by replicating that process, and would take eighty mana to scribe.]

The name of the grimoire came so suddenly and was delivered so smoothly that I couldn’t help but start giggling at it. It was definitely because I was still feeling strange after the mana pulse. I checked my mana before granting the Familiar my assent.

B: 30/39

U: 189

“It went up to thirty,” I realised quietly as my giggling subsided.

[You gained access to a new colour of mana, and so now regenerate thirteen mana with each pulse. Another pulse should occur in eleven minutes, now that your body is attuned to your magical potential. Your mana depth also improved, and your capacity has grown as a result.]

“Thirteen is supposed to be an unlucky number.”

[We hope this is untrue. However, cultural superstitions have historically impacted the functionality of a race’s magic.]

I shook myself. The Familiar had been right to prevent me from being in a fight during my mana pulse, but now we were wasting time. The timer at the top of my vision was showing just over two hours and a half hours. “Unless you think there’s a better option for me, scribe the-” I couldn’t help but chuckle at the name again- “Grumskn Grimoire of Dumb Intelligent Hands, and we can get moving again.”

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[Certainly. There are no other grimoires available to you which would be more effective with your mana affinities.]

Grumskn Spells of Dumb Intelligent Hands added to personal Grimoire. Bound mana reduced to 109.

A thought occurred to me while my personal grimoire was performing its light show. The light was yellow, this time. The same shade as the yellow on my new costume.

“What colour was my new mana, by the way?” I asked as I caught the slowly descending grimoire, now decorated with yet another medal. Thankfully the metal disks were flat enough that they didn’t get in the way of holding the Grimoire.

[It is a pale yellow, with a slightly expanded wavelength. We believe allowing yourself to feel hope during our first encounter is what led to this new colour of mana. It was either that or the act of allowing yourself to make a contract with me. If you are interested, we can provide the specific hex code at a later time.]

“Right, that’s fine. I probably won’t remember.” I glanced at Diane, and found she had turned away, looking at the edge of darkness around us. We had lingered long enough that a lookout was more than necessary, so I cracked open and found the new tab.

It was illustrated with three yellow crystal fragments of a roughly similar diamond shape, and each crystal had a different effect surrounding it. The smallest at the bottom had green motes rising beside it, while the middle sized one on the left had red lightning sparking off of it, and the largest on the right had a tall and transparent yellow rectangle in front of it that was completed by an animated sheen.

“Are these crystals of questionable intelligence multi-purpose?” I asked as I went to the tabbed page.

[Your observation is adequate,] my Familiar told me, then leaped from the bush onto the air beside my shoulder. From there it walked onto my shoulder, making me want to shrug my shoulders. [Take note of the Choker Crystal spell. Casting it in a doorway like the one in front of us will create a crystal that attacks all Starbane forms which approach that area. While expensive, it will ensure that no individual lowly form is capable of passing without taking mortal damage.]

“I can see the appeal,” I said as I turned the page to find the relevant spell. It had an illustration like the one on the tab, but the crystal was glowing purple instead of arcing red. Fitting for me, I supposed. “How expensive would one of these be, mana wise?”

[Preparing and casting the spell will require twenty two mana, providing it is cast with your yellow-gold mana. The crystal will be in an empty state upon creation, and therefore inert. An additional amount of mana must be inserted for the crystal to function as intended. The crystal created by the Choker Crystal spell will be able to hold seventy mana at capacity, allowing it to kill several lowly starbane forms before returning to an inert state.]

“So, very expensive,” I summarised as I scanned the page for casting instructions. “How would harvesting mana with these things work?”

[There are ways to store unbound mana, but we would need to physically visit the site to harvest the mana in either case. If we took long enough, a portion of the mana native to the deceased starbane forms would leak and be destroyed by the hostile environment of Earth.]

“Earth is hostile?”

[To starbane forms, specifically. There is a reason they cast veils over locations before sieging them.]

I flipped over to the next page, where the spells listed were Construction Crystal and Convex Crystal. “They really like Cs,” I muttered as I snapped the book shut and tried to shelve it on an invisible shelf. I wasn’t sure if it would work, and felt pretty cool when the book shimmered out of this dimension. Then I held a hand out to sort of point at the ground in front of me and cast, “Choker Crystal.”

A glow spread up my extended hand, all the way to my shoulder underneath my cape. From the golden glow came a dozen or more motes of light, each a different size and joining together as they travelled to the forming magic circle in the air in front of me. In the span of a few seconds, the formless yellow light became distinct, and grew into the long diamond shape I’d seen in the book. The glow faded, but the magic circle remained as the golden coloured crystal slowly rotated in the air above the centre. When I moved my hand, the magic circle followed it, and the crystal followed the circle.

“Okay, I’ve made a tiny turret,” I announced, getting Diane and the Authorities to pay attention to me. “I’ll place this here and we’ll go secure the simulacrum chandelier.”

“I haven’t seen that spell before,” the Authority on Diane’s shoulder said. “What grimoire is it from?”

I couldn’t help but smile as I repeated the name again. “The Grumskn Grimoire of Dumb Intelligent Hands.”

Gentle Authority blinked a few times and pushed up her glasses. “So are they dumb or are they smart?”

“We’ll find out,” I said as I dragged the crystal over to a space in the middle of the double doors. After checking to make sure the doors opened inwards and that my crystal wouldn’t block them, I snapped my fingers to set the position of the crystal. The yellow circle underneath it shattered, returning a single point of mana to my bound pool, and the crystal descended until it was almost touching the ground.

“It’s not doing much,” Diane observed.

“Let me charge it,” I told her patiently as I crouched down to touch the top tip of the crystal, which sprung up another magic circle, this time purple. I put my hand on it and watched my mana count start to tick down. It was possible for me to speed up the process by turning my hand clockwise, but I didn’t want to fully charge this one.

When another thirty points of mana had been charged into the crystal I took my hand away, and the magic circle broke apart to be reabsorbed by the crystal. As for the crystal, it now had a glowing purple outline and began to float higher off the ground, before stopping at about waist height.

The moment it was done, my Familiar leaped onto it from my shoulders, and promptly fell off of it because the top was a very narrow slightly rounded point.

“I think it’s set to only attack starbane forms,” I said, ignoring all that. “So we’ll have to come back later to see how successful it is. In any case, we shouldn’t have any starbanes coming in from this way to attack our backs.”

“That’s good,” Diane said with a slow nod.

“But now that I think about it, haven’t the starbanes been too sparse?” I asked, directing the question at the Authorities. We’ve been talking here for…” I checked the timer. “Four or five minutes. Nothing has attacked us.”

“Starbane forms have difficulty breaching the dimensional barrier in locations where there is life,” Authoritative Authority answered. “You and Diane, but especially you as a magical girl, solidify the barrier in your proximity, so you likely won’t see any starbanes popping into existence around you. But the real answer is that the Starbane has already found their locations of interest, and are focusing on reinforcing those instead of actively patrolling between them.”

“The more time that passes the more difficult breaking those areas becomes,” Gentle Authority picked up. “But being prepared for the enemy is more important than rushing to each spot and getting wounded. Don’t feel bad about taking the time to scribe a new grimoire. That one sounds very useful.”

“And it’s only lowly forms for the time being. There is only so much they can do.”

“Right,” I said, aware how that would change once the countdown ended. “Grimoire of Human Tricks next.”

“That one gets you Jump! It’s very fun.”

I smiled and nodded, but looked at Diane. “Ready?”

She hesitated and shook her head, but stood taller and clutched at the BB gun in her hands.

I nodded in understanding and checked my mana.

B: 0/39

U: 88

More than enough for an anklebiter or two. I took a deep breath, and pushed through the doors into the cafeteria building. Or I tried to. The door didn’t move more than a centimetre when I shoved it.

[It appears that some arachno forms have used sticky silk to seal the door,] my Familiar said from where it was still trying to get on top of my choker crystal.

“Sticky silk,” I repeated. “Right. Anklebiter.” This spell had left a red trail on metal. It would be hot enough to deal with the… the silk.

The spell formed swiftly and I angled it to go through the gap between the double doors. I paused. “Is this going to cause an explosion?”

“It’s very possible,” Authoritative Authority said. Nobody else saw fit to comment, so I squeezed.

There was a moment where I was just channelling the spell, and then the heat took on the “sticky silk” through the door. A red glow came through the gaps around the door with a woosh that pushed the door fully shut again, and I checked my mana.

U: 89

I was willing to bet that was from two arachnos going up in flames. The fire was started, so I cut the channel and a few moments later the red glow died out. Then I heard a ringing and the sound of rain coming from inside.

“So that’s the fire system,” I guessed. “Diane, go by the door. Peek around after I go in.”

“After you,” she said, and I pushed inside the building.

Going by the number of eight legged bodies that watched me open the door, there must have been twenty eyes watching me. They were on the walls and floor, with one on the ceiling. Between them and me was a blackened hallway where a large number of singed balls with many more sword blades discarded around them, revealing the true source of the unbound mana.

“Oh come on,” I had the time to complain before I was subjected to five or ten jets of fast moving sticky silk. It was hard to make a distinction after a point. I did point my beam at the arachno closest to me, but that didn’t do anything about the web already in motion.

The impacts turned out to be less than I was expecting. One mostly got on my chest and didn’t do much. Another got my back foot, pinning me, and most of the rest were between those two spots, but one did hit me square in the face, and another landed on my casting hand. It interrupted my channel, but didn’t stop me from squeezing again in what I thought was the same direction.

I started overbalancing, and was saved by being able to move my front foot back. My mind was running through my recent memories, trying to remember the spell that would burn the web. Then I felt a heat dance across my hand before the shower from the fire system started making the skin wet again.

That gave me just enough time to realise that Anklebiter burnt hot before the web all over me ignited in one brief and small but intense conflagration. I screamed as my face got warmed immensely, and then I could clearly see the arachnos in front of me. Two had jumped up to hang from the ceiling. The fire had burned itself out in less than a second, and even the stuff holding on to my foot was gone.

“No! No!” I shouted as I started Channelling Anklebiter with a vengeance, actually accurately this time. “What about my hair, you freaks!”

They didn’t answer. At least not in English. When I wasn’t shouting or channelling my beam, the hallway was filled with incessant chittering and clicking from the arachnos or the occasional crack of Diane’s enchanted BB gun.

There was a tell that I realised the arachnos gave when they were about to use their shoulder mounted web cannons as they scuttled about on the far end of the hallway. The damnable things could only shoot straight forward or back, and had an arc to the shot as well, so I figured out what was going on when one stilled and began to angle its body while facing in my direction. They didn’t fight me directly either, apparently determined to web me in place before approaching to finish me off.

Maybe they had set up the ambush thinking the sixballs would be taking the slicing role. Without them this just turned into delaying tactics, and a whole lot of web being shot at me to my visceral consternation.

Fortunately for me, I had a web igniter handily available and had used it to great effect. There were no sixballs for slicing, and after a raging conflict where I had to beam too many spider aliens, I found myself halfway down the entrance hall where the initial fire hadn’t burned the floor. The final arachno corpse fell from the ceiling as I panted. Diane had actually shot that one, and was slowly walking inside after me.

I understood her hesitation. It was a bit of a hellscape here.

At least there wasn’t any more web.

“Your hair still looks good,” Diane told me as I was straightening up and wiping my face clear of any nastiness. “I heard you yelling about that.”

I nodded my thanks, and ran a hand through to my braid to feel that it was okay. A sigh left me, then I gathered my resolve.

“Book of Human Tricks,” I said decisively. “Now.”

[Certainly.]

Spells of Human Tricks added to personal grimoire. Unbound Mana reduced to 44.

I pulled the grimoire from the air while it was still in the middle of its light show. White light was shooting out of it this time, and I waited impatiently for it to end before cracking it open and going straight to the relevant tab. Said tab was illustrated with a simple white exclamation point.

“Danger sense,” I said, still terse.

[Three more turns and on the left.]

I flipped to the page and found an incredibly dense explanation for the spell. It was actually the first one I’d found which used more than a single page to describe the spell, which would no doubt be interesting to look through later. For now, I checked the name of the spell and the directions to activate, then proceeded to do so.

“Proximity Alarm,” I cast, temporarily releasing the handle Anklebiter to hold two fingers to my temple. I didn’t see the circle that formed around my fingers, but I knew the colour was a deep and dark indigo from the light that shone onto my nose. My mana dropped further to thirty four, and I felt much safer when the casting circle shattered, returning three mana to my bound pool.

Then I felt far less safe when my vision lit up with indigo shadows over the door to the cafeteria, and too many alert sounds chimed in my ears. It was like fifty notifications all ringing one millisecond after the last.

“Ow!” I hissed, shutting my eyes and covering my ear with my off hand. Then I moved it to my eyes when that wasn’t helpful. The shadows didn’t actually fade from my vision until my hand was in the way. “Why is it going off so much!?”

“If it’s giving you trouble, then it must have detected a large number of starbane forms,” Authoritative Authority said. “Coming here was a good choice. It makes sense, now that I think about it.”

“Oh, that’s right…” the gentler Authority trailed off ominously.

“Are you going to share with the rest of the class?” Diane questioned while I was still dealing with the sudden assault on my senses.

“A miasma generator is being set up beside my host crystal,” Authoritative Authority said, her voice thick with controlled but present disgust and fear. “Elite forms can rip mana out of unprotected enchantments, and I classify as unprotected. They’re trying to set up an easy meal for the first elite that comes through here.”

The headache that had started when I cast Proximity Alarm finally faded to the point where I felt I could open my eyes, and I did. When I did, there were dark indigo shadows on all sides, except for the way we came. They had indistinct outlines, but I could still see through them to the walls or doors they were covering. When I looked around, the only direction where I didn’t see those shadows was directly behind us, where my little sentry crystal was floating.

“They’re all around us,” I said, swallowing. My head was still hurting, so I used my palm to lightly hit my left temple. It sort of helped.

“It’s just going to be ambush after ambush in here, isn’t it?” Diane wondered out loud.

I noticed a shadow against the ceiling above us, and looked up to see many more shadows. Some of them were moving. They looked close as well, but I couldn’t hear anything to indicate they were there. From the outline, they were probably scoutscales.

A horrible feeling struck, and I looked down too.

More shadows. Long, winding shadows.

“What’s the range on this spell?” I asked quietly.

[Five metres and eighteen centimetres,] the Familiar answered. [It is equivalent to seventeen feet, the curious unit of measurement the author of the spell defaulted to.]

“So this one was made by a human.”

[It is from the Grimoire of Human Tricks.]

“Right,” I said, doing my best to ignore the fact that there were some big worm things less than five metres below me. “What’s a burrowing form of starbane that might pop out from under us at any moment?”

“Those will be foundation serpents,” Authoritative Authority answered. “They don’t fight, but you’ll never encounter one where a miasma beacon isn’t being constructed. If you’re low on mana, a foundation serpent is a good target to kill. Of all the lowly forms, they have the highest yield of mana at sixty four.”

“That’s all because they are essential for making a miasma beacon,” Gentle Authority picked up. “When it’s finally completed, the foundation serpents die. Their mana fuels the activation of the miasma beacon.”

“The name is very much descriptive,” the other Authority continued, making Diane and me look at her as she continued this tennis match-like explanation. “They burrow into position to become the foundation, then grow into the pillar that becomes the miasma beacon.”

I glanced at my mana count as Anklebiter took some upkeep. “Thanks, I’ll kill them when I get the chance.” I picked my way over to the least guarded door in the hallway. There was the obvious double door leading further into the cafeteria, and two more aside from the entrance. Those two led into the kitchen and admin area respectively. The one I walked up to was the one which led into the kitchen.

“Use Authentic Energy Channel for the more efficient mana gain on the foundation serpents,” Authoritative Authority advised as she zipped into the corner above the door. “They are resistant to heat and have many redundancies, but remain vulnerable to mana injection.”

“Noted.” I squeezed Anklebiter’s beam through the gap under the door, then leaned against it when I noticed red starting to shine through the gap. Diane leaned against the wall next to me, ready to repeat the approach she took for the last fight.

Up close, I noticed how exhausted she really was. It was well hidden, but the slow moment of hesitation before moving to do something was telling. I was glad she had an Authority fairy on her shoulder. It had probably noticed long ago, and that was why it was really there.

Then the building shuddered as an explosion went off in the room behind me, enough to make me stagger. It wasn’t massive, but I did feel a sudden gust blow through the gap under the door after the shockwave passed. The fire alarm was still going from before, but a not insignificant number of starbanes started hissing and howling as well.

“That would’ve been the cooking oil,” I said out loud, needing to project my voice over the noise. I remembered there being some deep fried options for dinner, all that time ago. The veil had fallen when the kitchen staff would’ve just started packing everything up. The very flammable and sticky silk was, quite fittingly, the icing on the cake that spread the flames.

“Or that was the flour. Staff were supposed to move some bags of it up from the cellar today,” one of the Authorities said. I couldn’t tell which, since I was too busy turning around to see what my proximity alarm told me, plus my ears were ringing a little. “You should probably set a few more of those turret crystals. Either way, that explosion probably caught the attention of the starbane on the gymnasium. They’ll be arriving shortly, along with whatever other starbane forms were still lingering nearby.”

I sighed. “It just had to be the hornet’s nest, didn’t it?”