2:102 on the 21th day of Winter

With the pain building I didn't waste any time, quickly setting up camp in the cavern before stripping down and jumping in the lake. I still had to keep Schrodinger safe so I couldn't just throw around death magic. I swam to the middle of the lake with a small light crystal in my hand. I dove down a few meters and then I let go. The magic flowed through my fingertips slowly at first. I tried to direct it in a rough cone downward but the light of Cherenkov radiation spread out in all directions regardless.

I kept it up for as long as I could hold my breath. Then I paused only long enough to surface for air before diving back to resume. By the third dive, the intensity of the magic was starting to wane. It became a bit easier to shape the direction of the radiation. It was more like making shadow puppets by blocking the light rather than focusing a beam. The light in the cone didn't get much stronger by narrowing its effect.

Eventually the magic started to weaken. The pain lingered but with less urgency to it. The abatement was accompanied by a new feeling of weakness in my chest. Not like actual weakness but more of a feeling that I should be weak. I lost track of how many times I dove down into the dark waters. Then I swam to the shore and just lay on the rocky bank breathing deeply.

I was tempted to just call the whole thing off at this point. Maybe I wouldn't bring back irradiated material. Maybe it was totally safe to just come here and discharge my magic every tenday or so. But "maybe" wasn't the kind of safety margin I wanted when getting it wrong could lead to catastrophe.

I was reminded of the story Father told me of the city of Tor. Perhaps a death mage there found this trick. Every tenday they would track just a bit more dust with them back to the city. It could have taken years or even decades to build up. A little dust here, a wet towel there. But year over year both the dust and the level of radiation builds up. At first the dust they tracked back is only putting out twenty times background levels like my clothing but after a few months it would be putting out two hundred times. After a few years, two thousand times. By the time the first person gets sick, half the city could have inhaled or ingested trace amounts of irradiated dust.

I shuddered at the thought and from the chill of the water. No, I would not bring that fate on Cinder or my family. Schrodinger would get a bit of it but if I couldn't find a safe way to discharge my magic within a couple of seasons then I would have to leave the city or kill myself and he would be safe regardless. I got up and dried myself off. I walked over to the out of the way notch where I put my bedroll while keeping an eye to the corners of the cave. I kept my new short sword with me at all times now. I was never very good with a blade but I was good enough for cave rats. At least if they don't get the jump on me.

Schrodinger was curled up in a ball on the bed roll. He didn't budge, even after I slipped my feet up next to him in my blankets. I was dead tired but I knew that sleep would not come quickly. I turned out my light, held my sword close, and curled into myself. The silence and black of the cave enveloped me.

***

Morning on the 22nd day of Winter

I woke to complete darkness. The night had been blessedly absent of nightmares but I had still woken many times thinking I had heard some scuffling or clicking. I fumbled around a bit before finding one of my light crystals. Schrodinger was absent but it didn't worry me as he would want to explore. Sure enough as soon as I got breakfast out he showed up for a piece of jerky.

"So, we should make a plan." I said to Schrodinger. "We need to know if there is a safe way to use death magic."

I got up and dug through my supplies for a stick of charcoal and my notebook. Once in hand I sat back down and continued.

"I need to understand how it does what it does." I said. "From there we can see if there are specific spells that do not cause induced radiation."

Schrodinger had finished his jerky and was now happily grooming himself.

"So let's go over what effects death magic is known to have." I said. "Effect 1 Emission of high energy charged particle radiation."

Probably electrons based on the Cherenkov glow, but technically could be protons too. The glow actually came from charged particles moving through a medium like water faster than light. But, you say, nothing can move faster than light! While that's true in a vacuum, moving within a clear material slows light down. Technically the light induces clear material to emit more light that, when added to the original light, propagates more slowly through space. So, in water, electrons can actually go faster than light goes in water.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"Effect 2: emission of neutrons." I said.

Without this the death magic poison would not exist or at least would be much less severe. Basically, to form radioactive isotopes of common materials you need to either add or remove protons or neutrons from the nucleus. Take carbon for example. Carbon is number six on the periodic table meaning the nucleus has six protons. Most carbon is carbon-12, meaning it has six protons and six neutrons for twelve total. This kind of carbon is totally stable with no radiation. But say you add a couple of neutrons to make carbon-14. This kind of carbon is radioactive and is what they use in radiocarbon dating back on Earth. You can also get carbon-14 by removing two protons from a nitrogen atom. This kind of addition and subtraction sounds simple but can only really be accomplished by hitting a nucleus with a neutron like a wrecking ball. So, induced radiation probably means neutron radiation.

"Is there anything else?" I asked Schrodinger.

He was purring softly now.

"Well sure. Father did mention the death crafts. But his description was pretty vague." I said. "For completeness we can include them. How should I describe the effect?"

Father had described them as objects made of strange metals that were heavy like gold. I think he even said that he saw a sword that had a red hot blade without a source of magic like a monster core. Lead is heavy like gold but it's pretty common so people wouldn't call it strange. After another minute of thought I really couldn't think of anything so I would have to be vague.

"Effect 3: some sort of material creation or modification effect." I said. "Now we have to come up with theories that could explain these effects."

I drew a line across the page. And wrote Hypothesis 1: neutron gun.

"Technically, charged particles can get thrown off when a nucleus is impacted by a neutron." I said. "So perhaps all a death mage is doing is shooting neutrons. I don't think it would produce so much glow in the water but perhaps that is an indirect effect."

I wrote down the idea and then moved down the page. Hypothesis 2: cold fission.

"I don't know how it would, but if death magic is somehow splitting apart nuclei then that would throw protons and neutrons off at high speed." I said. "That would explain effects 1 and 2 but I can't see how that could lead to effect three."

I shrugged. Honestly, I didn't have a lot of data to work with and was mostly just speculating.

"Let's leave it here for now and try to collect as much data as we can today." I said.

***

Evening on the 22nd day of Winter.

Today was long and productive. I quickly realized that the electron microscope vision was going to be my best tool for examining the effects of death magic. It's so well purposed that I began to wonder if that's how it worked for other mages too. Perhaps fire mages got improved smell and light mages got improved vision because those are the senses that let them perceive what their magic is doing more closely. But that posed a bit of a problem for my current process. Diving down below the surface of the lake was not at all conducive to entering the mental space required for the microscope.

So today I alternated between practicing engaging the microscope, both in and out of the water, and fixing the radiation detector. I also had to clean up the old rat carcass that had just started to smell. I took about a ten measure walk down one of the tunnels and just left it there. I briefly considered trying to butcher it for its meat but I knew that I had left it for too long and it wouldn't be safe to eat.

After I got the detector working again I repeated my measurements from before and wasn't able to detect a rise in the radiation level of the lake. That was as expected because awakening is supposed to put out many times more magic that a newly awakened mage can actually produce. I would try to keep track of it though as it could steadily rise during my time here. I'm not sure how long the battery will last so I will only retest every few days.

At the end of the day I finally managed to engage the microscope in the water. Of course that's when I discovered that trying to use magic kicked me right out of the space. This is going to take some practice.

I laid down for my second night in the cavern feeling hopeful. I had a plan and a method to pursue it. I still didn't know if there was a way to use death magic safely or not but if there was I could probably find it with the tools and time at hand.

Just as I was drifting off to sleep I felt Schrodinger's claws dig into my leg. He was standing now and I could feel his agitation. I sat up and drew my short sword. Schrodinger was hissing and spitting at whatever he could sense in the darkness. It took me entirely too long to locate my light but after I found it I turned it on full blast. There, in the mouth of the notch, was another cave rat. It recoiled at my light and I didn't waste a moment to lunge at it. My blade scored only a shallow cut along its side before it turned and ran. I pursued but I was clearly not going to be fast enough to catch it.

Just as the monster was about to dart down a tunnel and out of sight Schrodinger pounced on it. The rat was easily four times his size but he bit and clawed at it ferociously. The rat tumbled to try and get Schrodinger off its back but that gave me enough time to catch up. With a clear line of sight and a running charge I plunged my sword into its side. I twisted the blade before withdrawing to stab it again. By the third stab the rat went from thrashing to limp. A fourth stab produced no response.

I shined my light around to make sure there weren't any monsters waiting in ambush. I found Schrodinger licking his paws in satisfaction.

"Well, aren't you the proud hunter?" I said. "Thanks friend. I think you just saved our lives."

His only reply was to jump on the rat's body.

"Oh it's yours now?" I asked. "Well I helped so we can share."