15 Just Open Your Third Eye, It’s In Your Forehead

There was a small blue fairy waiting for us when we returned back to the convex crystal I’d left to block off the cave. She was darting around nervously inside the yellow orb that had formed around it since we’d left. There were also a number of starbanes trying to destroy the barrier, but none of them were the heavy hitting hookblows so the barrier was still strong.

I didn’t slow until I was inside the barrier of the convex crystal. The chances of it entirely flickering and letting a sixball in as I did so worried me, but only the barrier on my side faded as I passed through.

“Air good?” I asked, still not daring to breathe in.

[The arachno toxin has been reduced to negligible levels at this location,] I was informed.

I breathed in, long and deep, and the green band hanging high on my waist flickered out. It was like taking off a bra that was half a size too small after wearing it all day.

The air had a slightly burned smell, but I had been lighting up the forest and everything I touched, so that made sense. I still had my hot armour on as well, which probably contributed. Honestly, I wanted to take it off. Right here was relatively safe, and I hadn’t really stopped since leaving Diane in the dorm.

That being said, the active starbanes in arm’s reach worried me. “How much mana is left in the crystal?”

[Fifty of the sixty seven mana remains.]

The sixballs there were really doing their best to turn the energy wall into ribbons. I considered them for a moment, then held out a hand. “Choker Crystal.” I should have taken one from the end of the cave, but I didn’t want to go back there now. For now, I put fifty points of mana into the crystal and let it start killing the attackers through the barrier. Then I glanced at where the Authority fairy was purposefully keeping her distance and decided to address my friendly racing armour.

To start, I pulled on the ribbon trailing from my left shoulder. There was a little resistance which shortly faded. I didn’t see what it got caught on, but it was magic, so I assumed it was a built-in function of the spell to check if I was truly intending to dispel the effect. The ribbon, which was only about as long as my hand when I grabbed it, revealed itself to be far longer as I had to keep pulling on it. When my arm was as far out as it could go, the whole thing began to dissolve, leaving my left arm unprotected.

I held that arm up to Authority, like I might if I was beckoning a bird to roost on my finger. “How were things up here?” I asked.

“Things were as good as could’ve been expected,” she said, taking the silent offer and letting her feathered wings droop behind her. I was careful to keep that hand away from my body, where I was still protected by deadly armour. “But I saw you got the foundation serpents! How many did you get?”

“All of them,” I said, then smiled confidently when she gave me a calculating look. “Really.”

“Well that’s fantastic!” Authority celebrated, suddenly energetic enough to fly around once again. I lowered my hand and used it to pull the armour off of my other arm. “How did you manage that on your second try!? Wait, this is a bad time. I’ll get that explanation later. But five hundred and twelve mana! You’ll be able to have some real fun with that!”

“The aim is for me to study,” I told her, an eye on my mana. When I counted a second of the bound value being stable at eleven, I pulled the ribbons off of my left leg. “We’re trying to have me pass the flashy ritual exam.”

The fairy stopped wizzing around the small yellow sphere we were in, and half crossed her stubby arms. One tapped against her fairy chin as she considered something. “That’s a good goal. Not one I would have recommended, considering how far away reinforcements are.”

I freed my other leg from the magical ribbons. “Out of curiosity, what would your recommendation be?”

“Hmm…” Authority didn’t answer right away. I mimed unlatching something on my neck, and the magic stuff protecting my head went away. “I’d say you should invest in a transmutation grimoire and use Earth Mold or something similar to set up a one girl fortress. The mana from all eight foundation serpents would be enough to set up something good. You could use the outdoor lounge as a base. I would give you the authority to make modifications there if you wanted.”

“Hm.” I considered the idea as I crossed my arms in an X against my chest, finally dispelling the protection from Friendly Race. “How much mana did I lose?” I asked my familiar.

[Three point eight four units,] it told me, sitting by the edge of the barrier on the starbane side and looking out at the screaming sixballs. My choker crystal was working hard, freezing one after the other, but enough starbanes were coming that it was an uphill battle. Fortunately, that meant my unbound mana was going up as well. I was already back to a round five hundred after investing in the choker crystal. [We still consider this wasteful, but admit it to be an improvement over the ten points you were previously losing when dismissing that spell.]

I checked my bound mana.

B: 36/80

Wow. I hadn’t really checked before, but that was half again what I used to cast Anklebiter.

I looked back towards Authority and began to sit down, pulling my personal grimoire out along the way. “I’ll admit the idea is appealing, but I want to specialise in this case.” A thought occurred, making me go ‘hm.’ “I say that but it feels like I’m diversifying. The way I’m killing these things, that is. Is there a spell in here that can put up a sound barrier? The screaming is making it hard to think.”

My convex crystal was making things quieter, but it wasn’t a complete muffling of what were essentially screams. The sixballs that weren’t getting choked were doing that with abandon.

“Ooh! Privacy in the Book of Human Tricks,” Authority supplied, fluttering over and plopping down on something above my head. I didn’t feel it, per se, but I was aware that she was applying a tiny amount of weight there.

So there was a fairy in my floating crystal crown. Huh.

I put that out of my mind and repeated the name to have the book flip to that page. After a few seconds poring over the page, I lifted one hand palm up and cast the spell. A cyan magic circle drew itself within the border of our safety orb, and the sound of screaming faded.

“Much better,” I decided. It had only taken five mana from me as well. I closed the book for the time being. “So, apart from continuing to study the Stoccoro Grimoire, and getting Diane to the gymnasium once she’s out of stasis, that’s everything we’ve really made a plan to do. But… I’m not comfortable resting on these laurels. They feel inadequate, when I think about what I know the starbanes to have done.”

[Then it is good that you have chosen to take some time for rest at this location,] my Familiar told me, still staring at the sixballs as they died. [We will not be able to actively assist you towards a given objective unless such an objective has been made your goal. Fortunately, we have suggestions.]

“Such as?” I prompted.

[We will wait our turn,] it said. [Listen to your other surviving advisor first.]

Odd. I looked around for the fairy until I remembered she was clinging to a crystal that moved with my head to stay out of my line of sight. “Authority, do you have a suggestion?”

“I still think you should fortify the outdoor lounge,” she said from outside my field of view. “But if you’re focusing on one grimoire, don’t waste time learning to transmute. You’d get twenty five percent off the cost of the spells, thanks to your affinity, but it would be a distraction. All the same you’re going to need somewhere to retreat to when elite forms begin to appear, and it can’t be somewhere that innocents might get hurt.”

“So no retreating to the gymnasium,” I concluded.

“Not if you plan on continuing to fight,” Authority confirmed, her tone odd.

“Do you think I should consider that?” I asked after a moment.

Authority’s response was similarly hesitant. “Operating alone under a veil is something I would be very hesitant to do, and I say that with the experiences and power that my real self possesses. One mistake, and that could be it. Even lowly forms could take me by surprise if I let my guard down. Having someone to rely on bolsters your confidence and makes you more capable than you might believe, and all you have is me. Maybe Diane in a bit if she wants to keep fighting…”

“I won’t let her,” I said.

“I didn’t hear your wish, but depending on the wording, you might not be able to stop her.”

That brought me up short. I watched a few starbane sixballs perish against my convex barrier, then reached out to top up the choker crystal when I noticed it stop beaming the murderballs. It put me under five hundred, but I felt the investment was worth it since the last one had put me above five hundred in the first place.

“The Familiars make sure that wishes are kept private when they are being made,” Authority explained after a while spent in silence. “You’re free to reveal the wording after the fact, but most people don’t. It helps defend against people who want your wishes for themselves.”

“Has that ever become a problem?” I asked, my mind not really focusing on the question.

“Roaming Polaris used to have the record for most wishes granted,” Authority said, sounding strangely solemn. “She still would, if her last wishes hadn’t involved invalidating all of her previous ones. We try to police that sort of thing now.”

I recognised the name, of course. Roaming Polaris was well known as the best magical girl, so just about everyone did. But at the same time, it wasn’t like I’d really kept track of the celebrity superheroes all that closely, and hadn’t heard much of her in the past few years. “Is she dead?” I asked.

“No, but she isn’t interested in coming back down to the surface. She’s our guiding light now, a shooting star in the night sky. It’s… complicated. You might meet her someday.”

“Looking forward to it, I guess.” I watched another starbane fall over, this one a sentry form whose head attempted to light up, but only managed to flicker before the transparent beam from the choker crystal snapped in its direction. Enough had died that they were piled up against the barrier like sandbags, even with some scoutscales discretely grasping corpses and dragging them away. One had gotten caught by my auto-defence crystal, that’s how I could tell. “Familiar?”

[Establishing a defensible location will be a wise course of action as the arrival of elite starbane forms draws closer,] it told me, still looking out at the dying sixballs. [We believe that further delaying the arrival of said elite forms would be wiser still.]

“So… seek out more miasma beacons and destroy them before they can activate?” I checked, and the Familiar’s tail twitched. “You said there would be three, and we’ve found two. I don’t have any idea where the last could be.” I looked up towards Authority, but didn’t see her for obvious reasons. All I got was an ‘eep!’ as she reacted to the sudden movement. “Authority, is there a radar or something installed here that I could use?”

“Um, no,” she answered, which was just about what I expected. “Normally we use scrying spells to locate miasma beacons. Simple magic sight is enough to figure out where they are once they’re active. They’re like smoke signals with all the miasma they pump out.”

I considered what she had said. “What scrying spells do you use?”

“You don’t have the grimoire that contains the spell. It’s called the Aveanarias Grimoire of Foresight, and the spells are expensive. Even with my blue mana affinity.”

I looked at my Familiar, just as it turned to look at me. “Bet you’ve got some suggestions.”

[That depends on the sensory experience you consider yourself best able to comprehend.]

“You should be very cautious about the scrying spell you use,” Authority cautioned, talking over my Familiar at the end. “Many spells involve the caster experiencing something entirely new and alien the first time they are cast. Words don’t really describe it, but a caster losing consciousness for a long time is really common. Don’t bite off more than you can chew.”

I nodded slowly, then returned my attention to my Familiar. “Hit me.”

It walked over and batted my knee with its paw.

“Not what I meant and you know it.”

[We apologise,] it said, entirely unremorseful. [Your culture promotes individuality, and determining how frequently a particular character speaks literally is an ongoing process. We are confident we will eventually have you and your culture deciphered.]

My eyes twitched narrower. “Good luck. What scrying grimoires do you have?”

[Our recommendation will depend on your answer to a multichoice question: Which word would best describe your imagination? Colourful, fluid, rigid, vague, or fleeting?]

I crossed my arms, thinking. This was a question that should have been easy to answer, but an instant answer failed to make itself known.

“Oh, I think I got asked this question too,” Authority commented after a few seconds.

I looked up, but didn’t see the fairy, obviously. “What was your answer?”

“I said colourful. If I was asked again I’d say fleeting. Time does that to you.”

That was interesting, but told me next to nothing. I huffed and tried to think of anything different for a moment. No interesting topics came to mind. Strangely, that gave me my answer.

“Rigid,” I said.

[In that case, we believe an exaggerated sensory experience would render you helpless and counsel restraint until you are able to practise more in depth scrying in a safe environment under the supervision of another legitimate magician. As for the relevant grimoire, we believe another Grumskn grimoire would best suit your purposes. It is the Grumskn Grimoire of Avoidance, another misleading title.]

I felt like I was going to get a condescending answer, but couldn’t help asking the obvious question. “Why would rock people need to avoid things? They’re rocks.”

Powerful rocks, too. I was using two such rocks of theirs to have this conversation while my unbound mana count reached five hundred and fifty.

[The Grumskn often had cause to avoid other rocks. As previously stated, a portion of that culture’s life cycle involved leaving the planet’s atmosphere, where they lacked protection from meteorites. Avoidance was preferred, and thus advanced warning was enjoyed.]

I tried to imagine that. A human, but made of stone, flying like a satellite but running on nothing and dodging things left and right. It was an odd image in my head. For some reason, it looked like my dad.

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“How much?” I asked, opening my eyes.

[Fifty two mana.]

Cheaper than I expected. “I’ll take it.”

Grumskn Spells of Avoidance added to personal grimoire. Unbound Mana reduced to 507.

My personal grimoire lifted itself off of the ground as it once again began the familiar light show, this time using a pale blue I hadn’t seen used in any of my magic circles yet. I took a moment to check the tab before flipping to it with an amused smirk. This time the illustration was of a single animated crystal the same blue as before, which dashed left and right to avoid purple lines that came down from the top of the small tab. I didn’t spend too long looking at it, so I wasn’t sure if the tab was made to look like an eye or not, but the carvings I’d noticed had certainly left that impression.

Rather than immediately asking for the best spell, I took some time to page through the spells, glancing at each of the names. They escalated quickly, starting with Life Detection, and then reaching Preemptive Projectile Pathing after turning the pages three times. After that it ended, showing me a page titled “Favourite Spells” with a beautiful artistic love heart drawn in purple around the words. Other than that, it was empty.

I flipped back, taking some time to look for some kind of danger sense spell. The closest I got was the second spell in the grimoire, Threat Sensor, which I spent some time reading. Its summary paragraph told me it was almost what I was looking for, but made no mention of indicating where the threats had been detected. I’d be sticking with Proximity Alarm for the time being.

“Which spell is best for finding miasma beacons?” I finally asked, flipping forward.

[Life Detection is the spell that best suits your purposes in this situation.]

Having already seen that one, I flipped back to it. “Important bits, please.” The whole page containing the spell lit up. “Seriously?”

[Scrying spells involve forming new connections to your brain,] my Familiar explained. [It is possible for you to use the proof of contract in your occipital lobe as an information transformer, but a significant understanding of the spell is required to ease the process. Otherwise your consciousness will be compromised until your fleshy brain is able to restart itself.]

“Well excuse me for being flesh and bone.”

[Consider transmuting your physical form into something more durable. We will name the grimoires which will facilitate this upon request.]

It was still close, so I reached out and touched its side, like I might when petting my cat. But I shoved it lightly instead. Just enough to make it need to step if it wanted to stay upright, but you would’ve thought I gave it a godlike slap from how it flew into the side of the bubble shield.

[Your indignation at your biological inferiority has been noted,] it told me, its splayed limbs twitching slightly. [We will broach the subject more tactfully in the future.]

Somehow, I didn’t think it would.

I looked down from that and focused on reading the spell instructions. The summary was fine, it just said that the spell would provide a new perspective which ignored things that weren’t alive in favour of things that were, just using more words. I ran into a problem immediately after that when it started using words I didn’t know.

“Authority,” I said, defaulting to the one that I wasn’t immediately cross with. “What is a heterochromatic gate, and why do I need to have it before the capacitor switch? And what is that while we’re at it?”

“Oh, that’s going to take some explaining. It’s good you’ve got a safe space for us to use for now,” Authority said, then I felt a tiny force above my head and saw her flutter down to land on my book. She turned and used a stubby arm to adjust her glasses from the side. “Most of the words are purely conceptual, since magic isn’t normally physical. But we’ll use physical examples, since they’re easier to understand.

“A heterochromatic gate is like a hoop that gets inserted into a stream of mana, and the mana that goes through comes out a different colour. It’s useful for spells that need more than one colour of mana, but the process is horrendously expensive. The capacitor switch gathers up the mana that goes through the gate in this case, then activates when it’s full, letting everything through.”

Instantly, I had a budding headache. We weren’t even a quarter of the way through.

“So… the spell needs a different colour than the one I give it?” Or the one my Familiar picked for me, that was.

“Yes. In this case it wants white mana. Life at its best. But only for some small things, except this is a scrying spell, so it’s going to want a lot. Comparatively.”

“Okay…” I said slowly. The thing went on to say that the switch needed to have something called an estinta ticker attached. “What’s an estinta ticker?”

“That’s going to involve a little discussion about parallel dimensions and the flow of time,” Authority said, entirely serious.

I wanted to groan. This was going to take so long. I reached up to top up the convex crystal before starting that “little” discussion.

__________

After too long spent talking about crazy concepts I definitely didn’t properly understand, I checked how much time was left until elite forms started to appear.

One hour and twenty two minutes left. The number ticked down to twenty one as I was looking at it.

“Okay, do you think this is going to be enough to cast the spell?” I asked out loud. We’d gone over everything three times. The first to get the names of everything right, which had taken the longest. Then again to make sure I understood how everything related to each other, which had nearly taken as long.

The last time I’d gone over it had just been for myself. It had made my eyes want to roll up inside my head, and I had genuinely wanted to hit my head against my barrier, but I had read through it once again from start to finish.

Honestly, most of it still didn’t make sense. This was the most intensive study I had ever done, but the results didn't feel very promising.

“Hopefully,” Authority answered. “This is certainly a test you don’t want to fail.”

“Right,” I said, unimpressed. This whole camp was supposed to be the one last rest before the student body went into final exams mode. It had sucked, but I had forgotten about the stress from the finals. In any case, I should cast it while it was still… fresh… on my mind.

Before that, I looked at my Familiar.

[We are confident in your ability,] it said.

That just made me more stressed. At least he hadn’t told me to live up to expectations, like my father would’ve.

And now I was stalling.

I closed my eyes. Breathed in. “Life Detection.”

A blue light lit up in front of me. I could see it through my eyelids. That was just preparing the spell though. To cast it, I needed to “open my eye.” Simple. Except, not at all.

“Try and recall a dream where you opened your eyes,” Authority suggested. “It should evoke a similar feeling.”

“This is a much nicer exam than what I’ll have to deal with in two months,” I said, keeping my eyes shut. “I can get advice in the middle of it.”

“You can have your Familiar project answers onto your eyeballs if you want,” Authority told me, almost making me open my real eyes to see how serious she was. “But for now, open your eye.”

My nostrils flared as I exhaled, and then I tried to open my eye.

“Ahgh!”

I tipped back as my hands came up to press on my temples in an attempt to relieve the intense pain that had just stabbed into my skull. It was cold and electric, and I could swear my ears were twitching like I’d just been tased. More than that, I could see with my eyes closed. There were stars in front of me.

It was all I could do to keep my scream of pain short. Then, slowly, the pain receded, and my body relaxed.

“That sucked,” I said afterwards, lying there and looking up at the stars. My real eyes were still closed.

“You did really well,” Authority told me. “The spell my familiar recommended sent me into a twelve hour coma and I didn’t remember any of it. She told me I was being overambitious, like she wasn’t the one to suggest it.”

I breathed in and out a few times. “Familiar?” I asked. “Thoughts?”

[Your performance is above average for a human magician casting their first scrying spell.]

“No need to roll out the red carpet,” I told it tiredly, then breathed again before opening my eyes for real. There wasn’t anything special about what I saw through that. I could still see the stars though, but the magic made itself evident then.

For one, I was under a starbane veil. The stars were blacked out by the barriers isolating me from the rest of the world. The other thing was how I could still see the black sky with those white points of light as well as the cave ceiling with my convex crystal in the way. The two perspectives were entirely separate, like I was looking at two different monitors but they were in the same spot.

It was… magical. In a seriously mundane sort of way.

I looked down to where Authority and my Familiar were, and both perspectives moved with me. I saw no rocks from the cave we were in, or dirt of any sort. What I did see was a number of silhouettes, each of a different shade of grey against a pale blue backdrop. My Familiar was the purest white, but was also far from the bright shade it had been when I first met it, which was strange to see because I could still see that same shade of white where it hadn’t recoloured itself when I focused on my actual eyes.

Authority, on the other hand, was barely there. There were trees and roots a brighter grey than her visible through the scarcely there silhouette my spell was showing me, and those trees were very nearly black themselves. But there was a total black that I could see, and noticed as I started to look around and adjust to this odd new experience.

They were starbanes. Only visible because everything that wasn’t life was an indistinct colour which should have been black, but wasn’t, and therefore they left an impression. It reminded me of the void I saw when I made the contract.

Quite possibly, they were the same thing.

Experimentally, I covered my right eye with a hand and observed my vision get blocked. Then I moved to my left and found the expected result. My second sort of vision wasn’t impeded though, not until I raised that hand to cover my forehead, where my sight was suddenly blocked by a bright white a similar shade to my Familiar.

A third eye. I hoped it didn’t look too strange. There was something physical on my head that I could touch and push, but I couldn’t feel through it.

I lowered my hand and looked through the pile of starbane corpses that had stacked up during the study session. Life Detection ignored them and showed my several striders waiting beyond the cave entrance. The crowd below them was too layered for me to make out any details, but it seemed there would be nearly every form I had encountered so far in there.

“No depth perception,” I noted, sounding groggy. Not just because of the scrying experience.

“You did it!” Authority cheered, and began zipping around my head. It was disorienting to try and focus on her, so I just didn’t.

[We request permission to access the visual feed of Life Detection,] my Familiar requested. [The information we gain may allow us to triangulate the locations of growing miasma beacons beyond what you are able to locate.]

“Knock yourself out,” I told it, still getting used to what the spell was showing me. A tiny sound inside the privacy spell made me glance at the familiar, where it had just flopped onto its side with the purple and gold tips of each leg splayed out and had its head resting at an uncomfortable angle. It had taken me literally again, but was assumedly doing the work, so I allowed a slight smirk.

If it hadn’t been distracting me with little things like that all night, I’d have quite possibly become a gibbering wreck. I would never say that out loud, however.

To help out, I looked to my left and slowly rotated my head as far right as I could go.

Authority landed on my crown again. “So are you going to get busy with harvesting more foundation serpents right away? Or are you going to study more?”

“The former,” I responded easily. “This scrying stuff has left me with a spinning head. I need to do something else before I sit down and try to focus again. Flush the headache and all that.”

“I always found that killing starbanes gave me a headache,” Authority said with a thoughtful tone. “But then again, I do split my perception in about eighteen different ways to start with. Or, Authority does...” She trailed off, an odd tone to her normally upbeat timbre. “I’m losing the divide… It’s a lot to sort through, and I had trouble keeping up to start with! Now I think I’ve just learned that the headache is a part of it, so it always develops.”

I twisted my body to complete a full scan of my surrounding for my Familiar before sitting and looking down thoughtfully. There was a small dot in the direction I ended up facing, which reminded me of the sun. The colour was off though, and was the purest white I could imagine. If that colour was hitting my normal eyes I would have needed to look away, that was how white it was.

“Is that the sun?” I questioned out loud.

[It is.]

“Huh.” It was actually quite pretty like this. I could see the surface that was silhouetted fluctuate ever so slightly. “Authority, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask, about simulacrums.”

“Well, I’m just the second most experienced with the concept,” Authority said with false humility. “Ask away.”

“It’s just…” I fumbled, looking away from the sun as I tried to find the words. “I want to send Diane into the gymnasium once her stasis is done, but if I just did that right now everyone would know I’m a magical girl. I… It’s silly.”

“Don’t say that, it’s really, really not,” Authority told me gently. “I understand where you’re coming from. There have been girls who compromised their own identity and ended up using a wish to separate their two identities in the eyes of the public. That sort of attention can ruin your life, and it’s smart to avoid it if you think it will be too much for you. Taking precautions is smart, not silly.”

“Well, I really have two questions then,” I said carefully, looking up but not seeing her. She giggled a little at my consternation. “How should I go about taking those precautions? Is the first one.”

“That’s easy. False Self is an expensive but basic simulacrum that you already have. It’s in the Book of Human Tricks.”

“Basic but expensive?” I asked, picking up on the oddity there.

“It’s mostly because the simulacrum tells everyone that you and it are in two different places, so you can’t possibly be the same person. Magically, of course. It’s good enough that it works through cameras as well. Your costume actually has a similar enchantment protecting your identity right now, so pictures of you now shouldn’t be connected with you from other times.”

“It does?” I asked, turning to glance at my supposedly knocked out familiar.

[Our espionage targeting you concluded you would find comfort in a secure identity,] the little rascal told me with a twitch of its tail. Otherwise, it remained knocked out. [Thus we included the enchantment in your defensive suite. Most creatures are ensorcelled by this effect by default.]

“Most?”

[We exempted Diane when you changed clothes in front of her.]

My cheeks heated slightly. “Oh.”

[Others who are unaffected include the Enemy, who does not have a social presence in your culture, and other magicians with safeguards, who are your allies.]

I shook my head to clear the circling thoughts all that brought up, and the fairy riding my crown squawked in protest. The sound reminded me of what I actually wanted to talk about. “My other question is about morality. Do we kill simulacrums? Because I don’t want to think about killing someone that looks like me. It feels macabre.”

“Hehe, I really like that word,” Authority commented, making me smile with uncertainty. “I don’t look at it that way. When I cast a simulacrum and it ends, I reclaim my mana and the memories it made. Or, Authority does. So eventually I’m going to go back to the real Authority, and she will gain my memories. I have all of hers up until the moment I was cast, so we’re very much the same person, depending on your outlook. It’s just that we’re capable of different things, and for me that’s… really not a whole lot right now.”

“You’re helping me,” I told her.

“I am,” she agreed, seeming to place more value than I thought she would on that sentiment. “It’s difficult to restrain myself. My instincts are to jump in, but I’m a fragmented simulacrum. But that isn’t what you asked. I suppose the best answer would be that no, you don’t. Ideally, you will find your simulacrum and yourself in a private place where you will embrace her as part of yourself. And then you’ll put on your normal clothes and continue with your life using the memories you would’ve made if you didn’t have to do the magical girl things.”

“Okay…” I said slowly. What she said made sense, but I was having trouble envisioning it in my mind. “Thanks, Authority. I think we’ve spent long enough here.”

[Correct,] my Familiar chimed in, suddenly dropping sideways to the still standing wall of my convex crystal. [We have found an alarming number of potential miasma beacons through the use of Life Detection, and request permission to update your present countdown with a list of countdowns.]

I sat up properly as I considered the request. “Put them on the right, if you please. And put a twenty four hour clock in the place of the old one.” I hadn’t considered the possibility of a hands free watch until just now, and the idea actually made me giddy. Now I could check the time without having to push up a sleeve, not that this set of clothes had a watch to start with. My slim digital one had vanished into wherever the rest of my clothes went.

[We do please,] the Familiar said, and the changes were made. My eyebrow quirked when I looked at the time.

It wasn’t even eleven o’clock yet. Well, what I was looking at said 22:36 41, but that’s just what I was used to.

On the right was likely the stuff my Familiar had found. At least eight counters had started, with the lowest being just under an hour away. The one after that had an extra forty minutes. They were slim and out of the way, up high enough that there was no way it was going to cover someone’s face, not unless they were extremely tall and in my personal space.

“Is this my doom countdown?” I asked, watching each of the numbers tick down. The seconds were slightly out of sync, so I assumed that these countdowns were accurate to the millisecond. It seemed like something the Familiar would do.

[That is not an inaccurate observation. We will title the counters.] True to form, DOOM COUNTDOWN was written across the top of the list in purple lettering. [Additionally, we can direct you to the beacons which are closest to completion, and offer advice when moving to a geographically closer target is a more intelligent tactical move.]

“I’ll listen,” I assured it.

[Then we recommend you move now. Moving Diane will take time, and you can ill afford to waste much now that you can reliably delay the arrival of elite starbane forms.]

It was right. I had been stalling, now that I thought about it. The Familiar had probably been ready to show me all this three minutes ago. “Authority, you’ll want to get off from there,” I said, and waited until I could see her fluttering away from me before casting Friendly Race. I looked again at the blob of black that was moving outside the cave entrance. “Actually, is there a new spell I could try out on the starbanes out there?”

My Familiar’s tail twitched. [We recommend Hopscotch.]

“Hopscotch?” I echoed.

[Yes,] it told me.

Curious about how that word could lead to bloodsport, I repeated the word while looking at my personal grimoire, and caught it when it was done floating and flipping through the pages. It landed in the Stoccoro section, of course. Skimming through the page describing the spell brought a smirk to my face, and I snapped the book shut seconds later.

“Hopscotch it is, then.”