Dear Diary,

Yesterday was a lot to take in. As if finding out my Patron is basically on life support wasn't bad enough, I'm still kind of reeling from him casually announcing me to Sigyn as his Champion and High Priestess.

I mean, shit, what do those even mean?

Champion means that you are the one chosen to dispense my wrath upon my enemies. Also, when you smite someone, you do so with my full authority. Your full title, 'High Priestess set above all others', means that any and all other High Priestesses must defer to you or feel the full force of my wrath.

So I guess if some other High Priestess mouths off to me, I can straight up cut a bitch. Good to know.

You are correct, however I would prefer you not kill my followers. They are in short enough supply.

Now I wonder how many High Priestesses and Champions Loki has.

Few gods ever appoint more than one Champion. I am no exception. As for High Priestesses? One.

Well. Nice to know my Patron has my back enough to give me a badge or two. Really fucking with me being a High Priestess and, y'know, an atheist at the same time. Fuck it, it's not like I asked for the job. Wish I knew whether he gave it to me because no one else wanted it, or if he really trusts me with that much of his Public Image.

Yes.

Well, there goes my assumption that he's not an idiot, but I'm not gonna turn down free power 'cause it gets my panties in a bunch. Thanks boss.

No response. Anyway, last night's nightmares included one each of 'replaying my death' and 'locked in a box'. Weird thing? In both of them my arm hurt. Like, the whole daily 'burning away from acidic lightning' thing I live with during the day? Now featuring in my nightmares too.

Anyhow, got up when Marie knocked on my door, asked her to launder my good uniform, and got myself more or less dressed in time for breakfast. Spicy Egg Rations again, although the bread and spread kept coming until the Maids were ready to kick us out. I meandered over to Remedial Mana, where Doc had a bunch of stuff set up for me. Okay, 'a bunch of stuff' meaning a few dozen rods, a mix of glass, copper, and wood.

"Now, I find it enormously amusing that I'm teaching this in a Remedial Mana Shaping class. It's normally for students who have completed both Basic and Advanced Mana shaping, although I've taught it to some particularly talented second years as independent study. I suppose Saffron will want me to teach her too; likely while we're working on the Filtration Ward this afternoon."

"If you'd rather do more Mana Blade testing, or even just have me do more practice on the Spells I know, I'm good with that."

They shook their head, "No, it's quite all right. After all, you're supposed to be doing the work on the repairs. While I suspect we would be far quicker and our end results better if you simply fed me Mana, I feel you simply must do at least one of the Enchanting runes yourself. Now, pick up one of these dowels."

I looked at the batch, then asked, "What kind?"

They shook their head again, but smiling this time, "Pick whichever calls to you. Glass is the hardest to work with, but retains enchantments longest. Wood is somewhat easier, and additionally can house small organisms which can power very minor spells. Copper is the easiest to work with, best for transferring Mana, but can easily be destroyed, and is hard to enchant permanently."

I thought about it for a bit, then decided I didn't want to go the self-flagellation route today and grabbed one of the copper rods.

"Excellent. Next, you'll want to decide what Shape you wish to embed in the material. My recommendation is to start simple, with either a Status or an Inspect. Now, observe what I do."

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

They picked up one of the copper rods, and held it in the palm of their hand, then turned it and extended it so most of it ran behind their finger. With that in place, they moved their finger slowly through the pattern for a Status Spell. As usual, I couldn't see the Mana, but I did notice a set of lines burning themselves into the copper as they Shaped.

"Did you see that?"

"The mana? Not really. How you just carved some patterns into that rod? Kinda?"

They nodded, "At some point we need to figure out a way for you to see Mana flows directly. I'm not sure how you'll be able to connect the roof conduit to the Ley Lines if you can't see them."

I blinked a little, remembering last Friday on the roof. "Ley lines? I can see those, I think."

They stammered a little, apparently fending off another bout of 'what the fuck are you'. To their credit, they even managed to avoid 'what the fuck, Diaz', rallying to finally squeak out, "Well, that will make things easier this afternoon."

I then spent the rest of the morning trying to carve my 'internal Mana flow' into the rods. The Copper just melted. The Wood burst into flame, but the char marks looked vaguely like the lines on Doc's rod. The one glass one I tried wound up with an almost picture perfect copy of Doc's rod. Then it exploded.

I still had glass dust sifting off me when I went to lunch. Saffron said she liked me sparkly. Apparently faerie cosplayers, kindergarten teachers, and strippers weren't all wrong about the attractive qualities of glitter.

When we got to work after lunch, Doc showed us how to inscribe the Filtration Ward by placing the Runes on the first floor. Floors two through six I tried to place them, which wound up with Saffron 'fixing' them; basically erasing what I'd done and recreating them from scratch. When we got to the roof, Doc looked at me and said, "You can see the Ley Lines, you say?"

I shrugged, and pointed to where the glare I assumed was the Southeast to Northwest line faded in the distance to the Southeast, then swiped my arm across to the Northwest, indicating the path of the glare. I did the same for the other line, then returned my finger to point at the disruption directly above our copper. "I see a kind of dull glare along both of those lines, and right where I'm pointing now is kind of turbulent. Like somebody pulled a chunk off of it and messed up the edges."

As I finished, Saffron started laughing. I shot her a 'what the fuck, Saffron?' look, and she immediately tried to explain through her laughter. "Damn, Diaz, didn't anyone ever tell you not to stare at the Sun?"

I shrugged, more than a little annoyed, and pointed to the Sun. "The Sun is there, I'm not looking at the Sun. I'm looking at two faded streaky things, one of which has some obvious damage."

She got thoughtful at that, and Doc cut in with, "Well then. What you'll need to do is connect your Mana to the Ley Line, then gently pull a portion of it down until it intersects with the top of the pole. I know the distance is hard to judge from here, but you only need pull it down a few inches. Observe."

With that they reached one hand up like some kind of superhero telekinetic, pointing it at the Ley Line. After a minute or so the slightest bulge formed under the Ley Line, extending like a pseudopod to reach for the copper rod. I stepped up, put my hand in the same position, and said, "Okay, I see, let me try."

"Of course. I'm letting go now." At the word 'now', the Mana pseudopod snapped directly back into the Ley Line. I tried another half dozen times, with little to no success, before I looked at Doc and said, "If the Ley Line contacts the copper, what do I do then?"

"Oh, you won't need to do much at all, just hold it there a second until the rune at the top of the conduit kicks in."

"Cool." I took off like a shot, jumping onto the copper rod and climbing it like a monkey. Not something I'd have tried three months ago, and my left arm signaled it had been struck by lightning and would hitherto be the limb formerly known as my arm, but I made it to the top. I clung to the pole with my right hand, forced my Mana to flow more or less normally through my left arm, then reached up further into the glare. I mean, my head already had pretty much breached the surface, and other than the glare getting really weird with me inside it, and a constant rushing noise around me, I'd experienced no negative effects so far.

The moment my arm hit the glare, the constant random pain got way less random. The entire thing above me felt a little like a several yard wide bundle of string constantly flowing past me. Where it flowed around my arm, friction and heat burned it to a crisp moment by moment. I wrapped my elbow around an armload of the strings, then let myself slide down the pole until the glare intersected with the top of the pole.

I held it there until, a few minutes later, the top of the pole kind of lit up, and the glare kind of wrapped itself around it. I unfolded my arm, careful not to disturb the flow, and slid down the pole.

Saffron caught me as my left arm gave out right before I hit the roof, then proceeded to poke and prod at my arm, leaving spikes of pain driven through it as she did so. "By all rights, you should be short an arm right now."

"Eh. Tried that. Didn't take."

She smacked at my shoulder. My left shoulder. "Goof. I like you in one piece. Try not to get yourself killed before I die, okay?"

I put my arms around her, stealing a quick hug. "I like you in one piece too, but no promises. You know I'll forget all about it whenever death is on the line."