12 Flashy Rituals From Friendly Stoccoro

“Um,” I began to say when I noticed the newest countdown in my vision had ticked down past one minute. It was moving at what felt like a normal rate, while the timer I’d been using before hadn't ticked once since fifteen minutes ago. The one counting down to my next mana pulse was similarly halted, but that wasn’t what I was asking about. “Is there a spell I have access to that can ease a headache?”

My Familiar, which was walking around in a circle in the air, but down and up instead of around, responded promptly. [That depends on the nature of the headache. Concussions are easily solved by returning the fluid levels inside your skull to their natural equilibrium. Headaches that were not the result of blunt force trauma are more difficult to heal.]

I looked again at my personal grimoire that was flat on the floor in front of me, and the spell open on the pages there. It was another that had two pages to describe it, and the Familiar had made certain paragraphs glow with what might have been a twitch of its tail. It wasn’t the first, second, or third spell I’d looked at this way, and the glowing script was refusing to make sense anymore. My eyes hurt in that heavy way, and rubbing them didn’t really help.

“This study session feels like blunt force trauma to my brain,” I said at length.

[Interesting. Your capacity for study is less than our observations indicated.]

My lidded glare landed on its white, slightly purple, and even more slightly golden form. “If this wasn’t to kill starbanes, I’d say this isn’t the time.”

[Technically, there is no time for another forty three seconds,] the Familiar said as it walked upside down again.

“Not helping.”

[We cannot recommend a specific spell. Spells which alter biology at the neurological level are not available in any novice or apprentice level tomes we have access to.]

That didn’t help either, but it did answer my question. I dropped my eyes to the spell again, but I still wasn’t getting anything.

[Less than thirty conceptual seconds remain of this temporal anomaly,] the Familiar announced. [We recommend preparing for conflict. Do you recall the spells you studied?]

I closed my eyes and mouthed the spells. The third one took a moment, but I did remember it. “Yes.”

[Then we look forward to seeing the results of your hard work.]

I sighed, half with relief. This pause had been my first real opportunity to stop since the veil fell, and I didn’t want it to end. My body agreed, sluggishly protesting against me trying to stand up. So I took my time, and leaned back.

My wrist soon touched a firm obstacle, and I looked back at where Diane was frozen behind me. It had been impossible to focus on reading words when I was facing her. The Familiar had complained that I wasted forty seconds staring at her halfway through the study session.

“Sorry,” I said again. Then I looked at the sixball by the entrance, just getting caught by my choker crystal out there. The sight roused a primal indignation that made it very easy to rise to my feet.

I stepped over Diane’s legs but no further. There was a difficult to perceive barrier between me and the rest of the world, and my Familiar had warned me that attempting to cross it might have temporal consequences. While I waited for that to finally fade, I spent a few moments straightening my clothes and checking my mana levels.

B: 0/39

U: 294

Plenty for me to work out some of my frustrations.

The timer hit zero soon enough, and the sixball I was watching returned to moving at full speed, only to freeze as my choker crystal’s beam took effect.

“Jump rope,” I cast, and two purple circles appeared in front of me in parallel, but perpendicular to the way most other spells I cast aligned themselves. With a quick spreading of my arms, I pointed the circles towards opposite walls of the hallway, where they stayed without activating further.

They’d be helping me later. A purple ring formed on my right pinky to remind me that the spell was active.

While the sixball was being restrained, another hookblow was free to crash through the surviving double door. It barely stopped to roar before rushing towards me. Before, I would have yelled “Anklebiter!” and beamed it in the chest, but my goal was not just survival anymore. What I needed was to diversify, something I’d heard my dad say so many times before.

My Familiar had told me that I wasn’t learning much by relying on Anklebiter. It had taken the time to detail how my proficiency had barely improved since the first time I’d used it in the kayak shed.

And besides, that wouldn’t help me work out my frustrations. Jump Rope would have been satisfying, but I was saving that. The spell I’d just been studying was fresh on my mind, albeit in a fuzzy sort of way, so that was the one that came out of my mouth.

“Friendly Race,” I said with a cold tone, and a purple magical circle appeared above me before moving down like some kind of sci-fi scanner. When it was done, there were new purple lights playing at the edges of my vision, but it wasn’t the time to check how good I looked.

I really wanted to punch that red gorilla thing. This was a spell that was supposed to enable that.

My fist clenched and I took one step forward, then almost overbalanced when I crossed more space than my legs should have taken me. That, I had been expecting, and the next time I took a step I was quick to follow it with another. Then the hookblow was within arms reach, and its smaller arms that it usually kept crossed across its front and out of the way were unwinding themselves.

I punched its chest just below the neck before it could do the same to me. My arm met resistance, but penetrated up to the elbow. More because of the height difference than my attack losing momentum. But even with all that the creature was still alive and preparing to pummel me. It was still roaring as well.

To shut it up I chopped my arm upwards, meeting little resistance and slicing through its mouth full of sharp teeth without getting hurt. It worked effectively, and I noticed the purple ribbons wrapped around and trailing behind my arm for the first time.

While the massive alien was busy falling over dead, I turned around and saw the legs of an arachno coming into the hallway from the cafeteria. There was what might have been a scoutscale on the other side of the far room as well. I angled myself towards the latter and started running.

Friendly Race had been explained to me as a mobility spell, striking spell, and defensive spell all in one. It was horrendously expensive, but clearly worth the price. The accuracy of the name, though, I wasn’t so sure about.

I had been meaning to jump and strike at the arachno as I passed underneath, but my unfamiliarity with the spell meant I missed the timing and had to give up on that. My every step was multiplied thanks to the magic of Friendly Race, and I had been unprepared for the difference between normal steps and running ones. All the same I found myself beside a scoutscale and chopped at its head before it could properly react.

One scoutscale became almost two parts of one scoutscale. My goal was still achieved, since it was clearly dead, so I turned to the rest of the room.

Too many arachnos were on the ceiling, and a couple of hookblows were in the room. More scoutscales were covering the walls, and I saw the legs of a couple of striders through the massive hole in the wall.

It seemed like a great opportunity for the third of the four spells my Familiar had me study. I pointed at the nearest Scoutscale with my non-dominant hand and cast, “Tickle Time.”

The colour of this circle was more magenta than the purple ribbons that were trailing off of me, and far smaller than even Anklebiter. In fact, it was only slightly larger than the magic circle for Wisp of Adjustable Brightness, and followed my finger around as it moved. It lasted longer, but I wasn’t going to use it for long.

That was, unless it turned out to be even more effective than Anklebiter. This spell’s name didn’t quite roll off the tongue like that one did.

To cast, I rotated my hand so that my palm was facing down. The circle activated, shooting a short and thin beam at the scoutscale I was pointing towards, and then another a split second later. Essentially, I gave two tickles to the first scoutscale before starting to drag the spray of deadly beams across the room. The spell was far more responsive than Anklebiter, but that was a blessing as well as a curse. I had no way to aim, and several tickle beams found themselves ticking an unfeeling floor of rubble,

The reaction of the starbanes was quick, but they reacted by rushing towards me. It had the double effect of making it easier for me to aim while also protecting me from the arachno web, because there were arachnos in the room just waiting to web me up with “sticky silk.”

Tickle Time proved to be good at stopping scoutscales from getting close enough to touch. The beams seemed to have actual stopping power, so the ones that tried to tackle me from the wall found themselves falling short and also dead. Two tickles was enough to achieve a kill on them, but was less effective against the larger forms. I sent five into a hookblow, and it just kept coming.

Shattering glass made me jump, inadvertently moving myself away from where another red and leathery gorilla with six arms had just been hurled in through the nearest window. Green arms grabbed at where I had been, bringing the number of large forms in the cafeteria to three hookblows, as well as several strider arms.

I didn’t manage to get away from the newest hookblow fast enough to avoid getting struck, and it hit me on the side. But with me already moving away, as well as the defence of my transformation plus the protection from Friendly Race, I was able to get away with only immense pain. I barely even noticed the impact of the hook that came immediately after the blow, and only saw it because it was glowing hot and mostly melted when I retreated.

There wasn’t much space left for me, even with my still charged choker crystal beaming one of the three hookblows, so I ran. Distance was made instantly, and with Friendly Race lengthening my stride, I found myself back in the hallway with Diane and the others. There was too much purple in there that wasn’t me, and the sixballs were making a dervish of blades against a yellow barrier that had sprung up in a sphere around Diane, my Familiar, and the Authority fairies. Another hookblow had climbed over the corpse of its twin that I had punched through, and was striking the barrier as well..

They weren’t making much progress, however. I noticed one of the flashing murderballs stiffen as the choker crystal inside the barrier switched targets. My attention was then stolen by an arachno on the wall shooting me with more black web before I could start dealing with that. Another too-large freaking spider was on the ceiling away from the throng of starbane, and it shot me too.

Both missiles combusted on impact, courtesy of the armour Friendly Race had given me. The fiery smokescreens were almost worse than being temporarily restrained would have been, so I decided to deal with them first. I let Tickle Time end before moving on to the final spell I’d added to my repertoire.

“Tug Of War,” I cast, and a short purple rod appeared horizontally beside me. I grabbed it with my right hand and the whole thing immediately slacked, but I didn’t pay it too much attention as I whirled it around my head once and flicked it in the direction of the roof spider without letting go. The purple construct, now much closer in form to a rope, extended out and buried its tip in the body of the arachno.

The magic rope pulled itself taught and I pulled, removing the yellow abomination from the ceiling and introducing it to the floor, where it began flailing to try and return to being upright. With it temporarily dealt with, I drummed my fingers on my magic rope to shorten it again and flicked towards the other one right as it shot more web at me.

The thing I hated most about the bright yellow spiders, other than their massive size, was how the holes on their sort-of shoulders opened up before spitting the web out. Inside was a tube with horns that reminded me of a lamprey mouth. Those horns always seemed to vibrate as the muscles around them clenched in the moment that the web was ejected.

Maybe those horns were spinning web. Maybe they were where the web originally came from. In either case, I hated it, and the fact that I had noticed and could no longer ignore it.

But I didn’t have time to focus on it when the black web impacted my friendly racing armour and instantly combusted. It couldn’t shoot again with my Tug Of War rope impaled its leg keeping it off balance, and I pulled the whole thing from the wall allowing myself a cold satisfaction when it landed upside down as well. Then it was finally time to return to the spell I had cast at the beginning.

Without taking the time to reset my rope, I grasped the purple ring on my pinky using my other hand and twisted. At that moment the magic circles from the Jump Rope spell lit up and spat a beam towards the other, forming a single seamless beam between the two circles when they met in the middle.

The starbane forms that had been in the path of that beam began to protest, but not for long. I dispelled Tug Of War so I could focus on Jump Rope, and pushed the hand with the ring to make it move. The original victims were granted relief, but the starbanes behind the first were shortly complaining as the purple hot beam of energy started rolling past their shins.

The sixballs had it the worst, which was fine by me. Just that one pass of Jump Rope took them in the face and killed at least half a dozen of them. The hookblow by my convex crystal survived, but I was quick to correct that by running over and giving him a shoulder tackle.

I realised too late the amount of viscera that was likely to make rain upon me, but thankfully I didn’t penetrate him like I did his twin. The magic injection from contact with the ribbons wrapped around me was enough to finish him off though, which was good.

That actually finished off most of the starbane in the hallway, though there would be more. I walked over to where the arachnos were to stamp on their exposed bellies.

“How am I doing?” I asked in between breaths. There was too much noise from starbane hissing for my words to make it to the Authorities, but they weren’t the ones my words were meant for.

[Your initial placement of Jump Rope proved worthwhile, but you are now wasting mana with the spell,] it critiqued, and I twisted my ring to temporarily deactivate the spell as I was moving to stamp on the second arachno. Friendly Race was causing my stamps to actually penetrate the bodies of the creatures, which didn’t help the discomfort I felt around them. [Tug Of War was also used adequately, but a deeper understanding of the laws of magic will allow the spell to become more worthwhile.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

[You used fifteen mana to cast the spell, but only reclaimed twelve mana. A magician with a complete understanding of the spell would be able to cast the spell with no mana loss,] it continued as more starbane began spilling in from the cafeteria, and some from the kitchen. [We have detected sentry forms approaching this position. Please continue to secure our safety.]

A witty remark died on my lips. I would protect it, the Authorities, and Diane. Right now was still too soon to make light of that.

To that end, I pointed my fist and magically dragged the Jump Rope circles to the cafeteria side of my convex crystal. There were enough starbane forms approaching that I was content to just switch it back on while I made sure my side of the hallway was starbane clear. After a few moments looking around, I jogged over to my outside choker crystal to top it off, arriving clumsily still from the oddly enhanced movement I was barely getting used to. I checked my mana as I tapped the top of the crystal to start charging it.

B: 13/39

U: 322

14s

When I was done my bound mana was emptied and my unbound count was down to 265, but immediately shot up to 276 as something behind me died. I released my hand from the crystal just in time for it to shoot an incredibly wide beam up in a direction I hadn’t been looking. An entirely still strider was there when I looked up, reaching for me with all of its many arms.

“Back inside,” I muttered to myself and quickly went that way, Friendly Race hastening my steps. “Feels like I’ve lost mana since this fight began.”

[You are primarily using highly offensive spells designed to injure or slay elite starbane forms,] my Familiar told me, even though I had mostly been thinking out loud. [During this learning period a mana deficit is expected. It is worth it, if you desire continued survival.]

Then, immediately after. [There is a sentry form revealing me! Kill it! Kill it! Kill it! Kill it!]

It hadn’t even simulated taking a breath.

I arrived at the mess to find the starbanes had surrounded my convex crystal again, save for the part nearest to the beam of Jump Rope. The sentry form wasn’t immediately apparent, so I cast “Tickle Time,” again on my dominant hand and used it to shoot at the out of reach scoutscales that had crawled into the room across the ceiling.

So much of the plaster had fallen away, revealing a space above that I was certain some starbanes were going to use to ambush me. In the middle of this fight I didn’t exactly have the time to look around at whatever indigo shadows were hiding behind any given wall.

The level of chaos did assure me that I’d made the right choice in wishing for Diane’s safety. Gun or no, we were surrounded, and something would have made it close enough to strike her dead if she had tried to help here.

I used my off hand to try batting away the fists of the hookblow from the cafeteria whose hook I’d melted, and ended up tickling his face before jumping up and jabbing its throat when I remembered that tickles would be ineffective. There was another, healthier pair behind it, but they were far enough away that an odd light in the hallway took my attention first.

It was the sentry form my Familiar was still panicking about. I had pushed the repeated insistence for me to kill it to the back of my mind, but it came back as I saw the small quadruped standing there with the casing on its head rotating around where a bright light was shooting out the front. The light seemed to be having a physical effect on the Familiar, pushing it against the wall projected by my convex crystal while the fairies inside the defensive barrier unsuccessfully tried to block line of sight.

I pointed my Tickle Time finger towards the floodlight sentry, but staggered strangely sideways as something hit me in the head. When I looked at where the blow would have come from, I didn’t see anything.

[You just experienced your second mana pulse,] my Familiar informed me. [Congratulations on gaining your first green colour. Unfortunately, your immense guilt has shaded your new mana rather dark. Fortunately, your mana depth has improved as well.] Then, [The sentry form is calling all starbanes in the veil to my location! Destroy it before they arrive or we will surely perish! Crush and shatter it!]

I breathed out as all that washed past me. By the time it was asking me to kill the sentry again, I was already hitting its side with violent purple tickles. Somehow, I managed to remain cognizant of the approaching hookblows, and paused the hail of tickles long enough to twist the Jump Rope beam when they tried jumping over it. I took several enhanced steps back as I hailed the creatures with tickle beams, and ended up ignoring the second when my choker crystal behind the barrier caught it in its choking beam. The first took somewhere between five and eight tickles to finally fall.

There wasn’t much happening then, so I hurried around the growing pile of bodies to check on the sentry form. It was where I’d left it, but tipped over on its side with several ineffective black marks on the side. The searchlight coming out of the front was flickering, so I kicked it with a leg wrapped in Friendly Race ribbons, and that stopped.

My Familiar finally fell silent.

“Finally calmed down?” I asked, entirely aware that my heart was racing and that every breath was almost a desperate pant. With no starbanes immediately there, I twisted Jump Rope off again.

[We are unused to the concept of being in danger,] it told me. [There is a possibility we overreacted.]

Then, [Three more sentry forms are about to reveal me! Kill them before they push me into a solid barrier again! I don’t like physical discomfort!]

They were coming from the carpark area. I moved between them and the Familiar and, after some confusion in moving the Jump Rope circles, managed to send them behind the sentry forms. Another twist of a ring and what could have been a come hither gesture, and the sentries were burned from behind by my moving beam. It seemed to be enough, and my Familiar calmed down.

I twisted it off to give the starbanes approaching from the other side the same treatment. No more hookblows had entered the hallway, which was good because it was reaching the point where I couldn’t see the ruined floor beneath the pile of corpses. My feet were either pushing or piercing bodies to find solid footing, mostly with the help of Friendly Race, that was how bad things were.

“We should move somewhere else,” I said after getting close to the convex crystal. I’d heard one or both of the Authority fairies saying indistinct things through the barrier, so talking through it was possible. The conversation with my Familiar didn’t really count.

[We concur with this assessment, and joyously anticipate existing in a location where the sentry forms will not know my immediate presence.] [There’s more! Coming from behind you!]

I turned and redistributed my jump rope beam, casting Anklebiter to help focus down the odd starbane because it was still the spell I was most familiar with. My time spent killing on each sentry was shortest with this or jump rope, I’d found, and aiming with this one was much simpler.

“Normally a magical girl should hold out in a situation like this, it’s not every veil where so much mana comes to you,” one of the Authority fairies shouted, barely audible over the howling of starbanes. “But with your familiar visible, you should prioritise its safety.”

“Really?” I shouted back.

“It’s the one drawing your magic circles. How will you fight without it?”

Mostly I didn’t want it to get an ego more jumped up than what it already had, but there was a time and place for saying that, and it was not now and not here.

“What about Diane?” I asked, quieter. I gestured with my hand to move Jump Rope behind the newest wave of sixballs and arachnos skittering along the floor, then activated and dragged it back. After that I started working on the arachno forms that had wisely moved to the walls or ceiling.

“Move her,” the Authority said easily.

[The stasis Diane is experiencing will prevent her from being damaged by the hostile shield provided by Friendly Race,] my Familiar added. That was enough to convince me.

“But where to?” I asked, not willing to start running without a destination.

[The dorm facility was relatively empty of starbane forms, and fortifying a single room would be simple with your Grumskn Grimoire of Dumb Intelligent Hands. It would be comparatively effective for its mana cost.]

Good enough for me. “How do I get through the barrier?” I asked.

[It is an intelligent barrier, and will allow you, its caster, free passage.]

“I thought it was dumb.”

[It is incapable of improvisation, and is therefore also dumb. That is how the Grumskn viewed such crystals.]

I shook my left hand to reclaim the mana in Anklebiter and sidestepped through the barrier, half expecting it to rebuff me. But I stepped through easily enough when the entire thing flickered to allow me passage. I considered the fairies, who were fluttering a little further away from me than usual, then moved over to Diane and picked her up. It was both awkward and not, since her stasis meant her body was entirely hard and firm. She didn’t move at all, except as a whole.

“What about you two? Can you leave the barrier?” I asked the Authorities.

“We will leave at the same time you do,” one of them said, sounding afraid. I remembered how easily Surly Authority had met her end at the pointed sword-leg of the first sixball I had encountered, and understood.

[If you bring the convex crystal with you, fortifying your destination will be significantly less expensive,] my Familiar pointed out as it jumped to land on Diane’s lap, where it curled up. It seemed entirely unafraid of my friendly racing armour, which is what I assumed was making the Authority fairies keep their distance.

“Right,” I agreed, seeing the sense there. My hands were occupied, so I used my foot to kick the bottom of the convex crystal. Then the construction crystal as well for good measure. The yellow magic circles appeared without fuss, but they followed the movements of my legs while staying at a relative height above the ground. Good enough. “Let’s go.”

First, I redirected Jump Rope to do a pass of the hallway leading out the door, then reclaimed the mana in the spell as several of the more minor starbane forms fell. Then I ran, jogging at first to let the fairies keep up, then faster when I saw how easily they were keeping pace. We were shortly outside, my convex crystal’s barrier temporarily narrowing to fit through the door.

Our first barrier after that was the corpse of the strider. I managed to make my first jump while using a mobility spell, and sailed over the top without touching it. Second came the still living strider that had taken its position beside the door that almost immediately kicked my barrier, the leg making a massive arc before impacting. My shield flickered out.

“Run!” someone shouted, and I did, not taking much heed of the direction I was going. I left the cafeteria behind quickly, then diverted to the side when I realised I had entirely crossed the carpark and was running on grass again. I slowed to a still enhanced jog, and looked over my shoulder to where the light of my various crystals were illuminating the body of starbanes that had been left behind.

They were moving to chase me, of course. I needed to drop Diane off so I could properly do that, which presented a problem. “Maybe if I just do it really fast,” I muttered, and picked up the pace.

I started moving quickly enough that I could maybe actually accomplish what I was wanting to, and was soon rounding around the dorm building as I rushed towards the exterior stairs.

[Friendly Race will impair your ability to ascend staircases,] my Familiar told me while I was still on approach, so I cut the spell at what I judged to be the last possible second. It didn’t feel like I lost any momentum upon casting the spell, but each step immediately returned to the limits of my physical form. I didn’t stumble, but I also could have left it another second to make up the time.

Each second counted. I could see the silhouettes of striders where they passed by my choker crystal, and was immensely happy that the long dorm building had a staircase on either end. Otherwise I’d have needed to approach that mess again while still holding Diane.

The sky cracked before I could reach the top of the flight of stairs. The whole world seemed to shake.

With the way the camp was laid out, I happened to be facing the direction where the road led back to civilisation. From some point on the horizon that was too dark to see, a pure white fracture appeared and quickly spread tiny cracks of white in the darkened sky. Then the entire fracturing light pulsed and spread even further with another, slightly more intense quake. The widest cracks even began to shine light that wasn’t just white. I saw some dark red colour pulsing near where the fracture met with the horizon.

“What?” I said, lost for words. Was this some new starbane arriving to ruin my day again?

[That is evidence that magicians are present outside the veil and attempting to form a breach,] my Familiar informed me. It didn’t go on, so I felt myself start to smile. Even the starbanes were distracted by the massive fracture in the sky, and the strider that happened to be facing towards my right turned away from me to face the same direction as I was.

“Well that’s great!” I said, even meaning it. “How soon do you think they’ll be here?” Someone else to shoulder this responsibility would be very much appreciated.

[It will take them another hour to open a breach in the veil wide enough to allow singular persons through the barrier.]

Then a haze of horizontal black lines fell over the white fractures in the sky. I watched as they thickened, and the light of hope faded away once again.

[Breaching the second veil will likely take an excess of three hours, and occur after the first elites have begun to appear,] my Familiar continued.

“But…” I stared at the black sky for a few moments more. Then the striders in that direction started to move again and roused me to do the same myself. My movements were slower, though. Of course they were, after seeing what I had seen.

With what the Familiar had told me, I should have expected something like that to happen. Given my luck, that wasn’t the last twist I was set to suffer.

“Friendly Race,” I cast with a flat voice the moment I was at the top of the stairs, and the spell hastened my way to the dorm I had been sleeping in the past few nights. I cut the spell again and released Diane’s legs to operate the door handle, but I didn’t rush in right away. I wasn’t in a particularly rushing mood at the moment.

“Anklebiter,” I cast before moving inside. I’d learned my lesson with the open doors downstairs, and my caution proved wise because there were two scoutscales on the ceiling.

I realised after the fact that Proximity Alarm, which I still had going, would have shown me that, if I’d bothered to look up first before opening the door. Something I needed to keep in mind

Anklebiter was also probably too much of a mana investment there, but it let me kill them before they could drop on me, so I took the win for what it was. A breeze in the room after I closed the door behind me led me to glancing at the smashed window and finding out how they got in. It also treated me to the sight of glass shards lifting off the ground and moving in the direction of the window frame when the cyan light of my construction crystal shone there.

I ignored the freaky new decorations on the ceiling and lifted Diane over to her bed, where I did my best to lay her down. She’d gone into stasis leaned against a wall though, so I ended up pushing her to where the wall acted as a headboard for the bunk. It would be uncomfortable when she got out of the stasis, but for now I didn’t think she minded.

“Okay,” I said, and turned to my two crystals. I was fine with having them be in the centre of the room, so I snapped my fingers and set their positions there. Charging them was up next.

“How did the convex crystal last so long?” I asked while the mana was still moving into the crystals. The first charge had lasted until the very last moment. I was willing to believe it was just that mana efficient, but I knew first hand how much force a hookblow could make.

I was planning on putting two choker crystals in the dorm as well, and had no inclination to save mana for another grimoire until the apprentice level Stoccoro one became available. I didn’t care to check my mana until after that. If need be, I could just reclaim some from the construction crystal.

[We confess to skimming your mana and inserting it directly into the convex crystal post harvest,] my Familiar told me. It had sauntered over to sit in the small gap between mine and Diane’s beds, and was of course sitting on an invisible platform that was hovering there.

“You can do that?” I asked.

[The crystals share your genetic code, and granting mana to them therefore counts as delivering mana to you. Normally we would not shirk the spirit of our contract in this way, but we were in mortal danger.]

I was left nonplussed by the explanation, and cast two choker crystals before continuing the dialogue. My eyes watched the yellow motes drift from the light around my arms and become the crystals. “Are you using my skin cells for that?”

[That would be incredibly inefficient. Mana is crystalised directly beside your body, and transmuted into forms matching that of your remaining stem cells. These cells are then further transmuted to support a lithoid mutation, and then stimulated to divide depending on the objective of the spell. Presently, your volume has been increased by slightly more than 1474 cubic centimetres by casting these spells.]

I absently slowed the charge of the two newest choker crystals at the revelation.

“So I’m fat?”

The damn thing’s tail twitched.

[The difference in weight is negligible, as the crystals are functionally weightless.]

I scoffed and shook my head as I pushed the charges as fast as they would go. This wasn’t the time to think about vain things, though the distraction was overall good for me. I checked my mana when I was done. If I was low then I’d need to wait for a mana pulse or pull mana back from the crystals, and I was relieved to see my mana management hadn’t been all that bad.

B: 0/56

U: 113

512s

With the two hundred and something mana that I had just deposited into the four crystals in the dorm, that was more than I had been expecting.

“Okay, I’m ready to move on,” I said, definitely lying. Diane was as safe as she could be. The only thing was that she would be safer if me and the Familiar were elsewhere, taunting all the starbanes to try chasing us over there and not here.

“That’s good. I’ll take you to that miasma beacon, then.”

I looked up at the Authority, a little confused. It was something Authoritative Authority would say, but was said using Gentle Authority’s speech patterns. Things clarified a little when I realised there was only one Authority in the room with me.

“What happened to…” I hesitated to say my nickname for her out loud.

“The serious me ended herself,” Authority said, sounding sad. “I almost thought she wouldn’t make it, but she reached the nexus crystal. All Authority simulacra have had their memories updated with her’s, so I know where the miasma beacon is. Hopefully one of them tells the real me. We should go soon.”

“Okay,” I said, then swallowed nervously. “Show me the way.”