48 YEARS AFTER LANDING: SARAH

Sarah was eight years old when she walked out of the structure. A small quiet voice at the back of her mind told her to take Grandmother’s hand and keep walking. She’d never regretted listening to that voice, but she also never heard it again. In the ten years since Sarah rose to tier two. Her sister Ellen reached tier two crafter before she was fifteen, making Sarah’s achievement appear less impressive. Only Sarah was a tier two enchanter, a career path that was virtually unknown ten years ago. Plus Sarah’s skills weren’t limited to just enchanting. That was her primary role, but she could also cast spells and imbue weapons.

She heard that small quiet voice now, a whisper just behind her ear. It said, “Hide.”

She cast cloak heat on the group, followed by camouflage, scent masking, and muffle. Her group responded to her actions and hunkered down on both sides of the hallway to make themselves into smaller targets. They were more than just her group, they were her family. Still that voice whispered. Sarah shifted nervously, she held her bow close, fingering an arrow.

Grandmother cast conceal over them. Conceal was a tier five spell, beyond Sarah’s abilities. It combined the effects of the separate spells she cast, masking heat, image, scent and sound. In addition it damped out the vibrations caused by movements. She yearned for the day she could learn it. The voice went quiet, and they waited.

A figure stepped out of a side hall ahead of them. At first Sarah thought it was human, then she realized with some shock that it was not. It was a little too short, a little too stocky. It had an almost gray color to its skin. Or was it short fur? Two tusks protruded from its mouth. Thick white whiskers dotted its cheeks. The skin of its neck was heavily wrinkled. Its body was covered in orange wizard’s silks, but it carried a heavy double bladed ax in its hands.

It paused to look down the hall at them. The whiskers on its face twitched, as if it was feeling the air. It looked down the hallway at them just a trifle too long. It suspects we are here, Sarah thought to herself.

Suddenly it sang a little song. The high notes of its tune were in direct contrast to its heavy appearance. It moved off to the right, at a much faster speed than it arrived. Its heavy body almost flowed forward, like it was sliding across the floor.

Grandmother did not move. Sarah and the rest of the party followed her lead. No one so much as twitched. Grandmother could be incredibly patient. The party had sat still for hours before on her call. Sarah always thought her a little too cautious. She would treat threats from the past with equal caution today, even though the capabilities of the group had far outgrown those threats.

After one particularly long wait for a bear scouting patrol to return to their den, Sarah asked Grandmother why they just didn’t kill them. Grandmother replied that some actions could not be undone and you couldn’t learn that much from a dead bear. Now as she huddled by the wall in the face of this unknown threat Sarah realized the important lesson she learned from the bear patrol was patience. She wondered if that was the lesson Grandmother was actually teaching that day. As the minutes passed she felt no pressure to move.

The unknown orange wizard returned. It darted out so fast from the corridor it left by that it felt like it just materialized in the intersection. It tilted its head to peer down the corridor. Its small dark eyes were wide set on its head. Even with the spacing between them, they were set to look forward. This was no herbivore.

The wizard snorted. A deep throated rumble came up from its body. The sound was much more suited to the wizard’s appearance than its high pitched song was. It turned back to the side corridor and continued on its way.

Sarah’s party continued to wait. They doubled the time they already waited, then doubled it again. At about twenty five minutes, Grandmother lifted her hand and signaled for them to move forward. Sarah was surprised. If she was in command she would have called a retreat.

The party members rose up to their feet and smoothly moved forward. There was no sign of anyone both to the right or left at the intersection. Grandmother cast conceal on them again, even though the first spell should not have worn off yet. Sarah cast her enhancement spells, making them all more sensitive to sound and scent, motion and heat. The motion and heat spells caused movement and temperature to be highlighted in their vision. She usually only used the temperature spell in darkness. She was spooked enough now to put up with the odd shift it caused in the colors around her.

The hallway they were in turned to the left. There was a staircase off the corner, leading both up and down. Grandmother motioned Sarah’s sister, Ellen to check for traps. Ellen was stationed in front of Grandmother and behind Alex in the lead. She moved smoothly forward. She used both spells and her natural senses to check the stairs. They found some very nasty surprises in the stairways and halls the bears controlled. Grandmother came very close to dying when she tripped one. Only Todd and Alex’s combined healing efforts saved her life. The rest of them lived in terror for the twenty minutes that Grandmother's life hung in the balance.

When Grandmother regained consciousness, still horribly injured, she told them to go back to the last rest, before casting a tier five heal on herself. She passed out from the pain. Ellen and Sarah carried Grandmother back to the rest. Todd and Alex were too spent to lift her. They all took turns forcing liquids down her throat. She finally regained consciousness five days later. The party huddled in the rest the entire time. They were running out of food, although their enchanted water flasks continued to refill. Sarah was proud of that. The flasks were one of the first things she ever enchanted.

Grandmother was extremely upset that her leathers were dissolved. She was forced to wear the hunter’s greens she packed in the bottom of her pack for an emergency. They quickly transformed to a solid violet color as they fell under the influence of her aura. In the days that followed they grew darker and darker, until they were very nearly black. Grandmother was grumpy the entire time until her new leathers were complete.

Only then, when she was feeling herself again, did Grandmother thank them all for saving her life. She especially thanked Todd. Because of the color of his magic, Grandmother was the only person Todd knew whom he could safely heal. Grandmother insisted he learn the skill. She cut her own arm open for him to learn to cast it. Tier one was easy enough. It got harder and harder for Todd as they worked up the tiers. Grandmother's own enhanced healing from her tier tended to heal her faster than Todd could learn. After four or five tries from Todd, she would have to recut herself for him to continue. This continued self mutilation horrified Todd and he wanted to stop. Grandmother insisted. “If I am hurt enough that I need both you and Alex to heal me, I want you to be at your strongest,” she explained. Now looking completely unchanged from the night they fought the bear migration together, Grandmother told Todd, “See I told you it was worth it.”

Ellen declared the stairwell safe. Grandmother indicated they would go up. Ellen went first, switching positions with Alex. She continued to inspect each landing before the rest of the party would pass through. The stairwell went up four stories before stopping. At the top Grandmother chose their direction, they headed into the direction the unknown wizard came from.

They worked their way down the halls. This area was scattered with dead ends and forced turns. Grandmother directed them in a general southwest direction. They came out on a major hallway heading east-west. Grandmother turned them east and pointed out a secure rest ahead on the south side.

Alex entered the rest first with his sword drawn, with Ellen backing him up with her bow. Only after the two of them signaled it was clear, did the rest of them enter the room and close the glass door behind them.

The wall across from the entrance was glass. Sarah expected it to look out over a green. It took her a moment or two to realize what she was actually looking at. The area beyond the glass was flooded. They were looking out at a forest of water plants. Fish cruised through the rising stems.

“Sarah, can you enchant the glass on the water wall so we see out but no one can see us? Or do you need access to the other side?” Grandmother asked.

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“I can do it from here,” Sarah responded. She swung her pack down and dug out her starting vellum and writing stylus. “How long do you want the enchant to last?” How long an enchantment lasted was determined by how many symbols it was composed of. Given the fixed size of the planes of glass and the need to cover their entire surface meant the size of the symbols would directly determine the lifespan.

“Six days,” Grandmother said. “I don’t plan to stay here, but at the same time I want some time to think about it. If you can muffle the sound too, that would be good.”

“Ok,” Sarah said as she sat down to start the work.

“After you finish the water wall, do the hall side,” Grandmother instructed. She turned to the rest of the party. “Let's find the crystal. I want to know if this rest has been claimed or not.” The protection crystal for a secure rest this size would be small, about a inch and a half in length. It could be anywhere. Embedded in the floor, the ceiling or a wall. It could be under the furniture or inside the furniture.

“It’s there,” Alex said, pointing to a point below the ceiling. The crystal was hanging in midair above the central sofa.

“Who’s turn is it?” Grandmother asked.

“Mine,” Todd replied. He stepped up onto the sofa, using the end of his spear to steady himself and reached up to touch the crystal. The crystal turned red at his touch, revealing the color of his magic. “It gave me the discovery bonus,” Todd reported as he stepped back down.

“Ok,” Grandmother responded. She paced across the length of the rest once, eyeing the open expanse of water beyond the glass wall. The seating was arranged to view that water. Grandmother stepped behind the sofa and sat down on the floor. She studied the empty hall beyond the closed door of the rest. Alex, Todd and Ellen stayed on high alert, while trying to stay out of sight of the water, just as Grandmother did.

“Ok,” Grandmother said again. “What do we know?”

“It wasn’t an animal. It cast magic,” Todd replied.

“It was at a much higher octave than what we were working with, but I think it was a spell from the sixth tree,” Alex added. Casting magic with sound was one of their experiments. They tried making the notes with a variety of instruments and the human voice. Alex developed into a talented musician, even though they failed to cast a single spell.

Sarah finished the first panel. The thick bold lines of enchantment thinned and sank into the glass. They lost all their color, until they appeared to be little more than a slight imperfection in the glass. They could still be seen at the right angle, but head on they vanished. She stepped over and started on the next panel.

“That makes sense. It was wearing integrated wizard silks. The color would indicate a tier four or five sixth tree magic user,” Ellen commented.

“Its hands were either heavily webbed or were flippers with a thumb. Maybe a hinged flipper might be a better description. The ‘thumb’ was nearly the same width as the ‘hand’,” Todd commented. “I am unsure if it could imbue a weapon, at least not with our techniques.”

“I think that would depend on the internal bone structure,” Grandmother replied. “A modified flipper explains the use of sound to cast.” Sarah paused a moment in her work and looked out at the water beyond the glass. She considered Grandmother's obvious desire to stay out of sight of the water.

“Do you think it is a swimmer?” Sarah questioned.

“Yes,” Grandmother replied. “Its appearance reminded me of some of the marine mammals of earth. Unless we find a spell that lets us swim like a fish and breathe water like air, I think we better stay out of the water.”

“It was a player,” Ellen said suddenly, stating plainly what should have been obvious from the previous statements. Sarah was grateful to her sister for driving the point home, since that concept hadn’t clicked for her.

“I think so,” Grandmother answered. Sarah realized that was why Grandmother wanted to know if the crystal was claimed or not. If the wizard was a player, it too would be able to enter the rest.

“There was a rumor,” Grandmother said slowly, “about thirty years ago that a group of alien warriors came out of the west and wiped out a square. I was never able to confirm the ‘alien warrior’ part, but the square was empty. The square’s crystal was gone. At the time I thought someone did something to destroy the crystal. After it was gone a migration could have hit the square. Now…” There were several known ways to destroy or shrink a crystal. The biggest ones were murder and war. The shrinkage and destruction of crystals was the only thing that kept the war between red and blue wizards limited.

Grandmother cast conceal again. Sarah could not remember seeing her cast a masking spell inside a rest before. Masking spells continued to drain the caster as long as they were active. The caster would tire like they were engaged in heavy exercise. Eventually the caster would collapse, just as if they ran too far or fought too long. At tier five the drain for conceal would be crippling for Sarah. Even at Grandmother’s impressive tier six, the drain would be substantial.

Sarah was uncertain how many times Grandmother could cast it. She didn’t think it could be more than five. Sarah continued enchanting at her steady careful pace, even though she felt the pressure of time. If she made a mistake due to speed, she would have to start over and that wouldn’t be faster at all.

The cost of enchanting was the time and skill to draw the enchantment. That was partly what made it so powerful. Enchanting also possessed the very useful quality that higher tier wizards didn’t see through it any better than lower tiers. The downside was they were tied to an object. When tied to something immovable like these glass panels, they could not be transported.

“We appear to be through the bears,” Alex said in the silence that followed Grandmother's words. “That has got to be good news.”

“Do you think we have come too far west and this is the ocean?” Todd asked. Grandmother thought about those comments for a moment. Sarah wondered how much of that delay was fatigue. Grandmother settled down behind the sofa in case she ended up passing out.

“We shouldn’t be at the ocean yet,” Grandmother said aloud. “Honestly I expected the structure would end at the water's edge. This development could mean that assumption is incorrect. We do seem to be past the bears. I wonder if they were put in place as a buffer between our two races. So we cannot come against each other in large numbers.”

“Are these players our next trial?” Alex proposed.

“That would be a bit harsh even for Control. The protection crystal in the square was gone. I hope that means that Control did not approve of the conflict. However we can not completely ignore that possibility,” Grandmother observed. “The game could be a contest between species.” Sarah considered Grandmother’s words as she finished the enchantment on the central panel. The ink sunk into the glass, indicating a successful enchant. Sarah moved on to the last panel in the water wall.

“If they are players, then they must be like us,” Todd said suddenly, “able to make their own decisions. How could control be assured that we would naturally fight each other?”

“The bears could be there not as a buffer, but as a way to agitate us. Anyone coming through that hostility is going to attack first and ask questions later,” Alex offered. This was an interesting thought from Alex. Between attempts to find out what was south, past the bears, Alex was the most light hearted of them all. Playing with the children in the square and dancing with the villagers out past the tower. He transformed when they went on the hunt. Almost always leading the way into danger.

“Hmm…” Grandmother said in thought. “Remind me, why did we swing west?”

“We turned to avoid the industrial area,” Sarah’s sister, Ellen, answered. Humans were settled into an area of the structure that was largely staged as shops, residences and offices. On their journey south they found large sections of the structure that were dedicated to industry. Rooms the size of greens were crisscrossed with pipes and filled with huge sudo machines. Most of the machines were just set dressing. Composed of pipes, gears and wires they didn’t actually do anything. Occasionally they came across huge stampers and rollers, that could easily kill the unwary. There was also the danger of chemical leaks. Using caution, force shields and cunning they were able to navigate the rooms, but progress was slow. Especially with the ever present threat of walking bears.

They reached a section that contained a river of molten metal, when Grandmother decided to try going around.

“Perhaps that was a mistake,” Grandmother commented. That molten river whispered of instant death to Grandmother. None of her healing spells could counter that.

Sarah finished the enchantment on the last of the water wall. Grandmother's breath eased and her shoulders straightened. It was a sign that the cost of the conceal spell had lessened. Sarah took a moment to peer out into the water. Something out there was looking in their direction, the active masking of the conceal spell increased its cost.

She moved to start on the glass wall separating the rest from the hallway. Grandmother stood up with the use of her staff. She picked up her pack and stepped around the sofa to sit on it. The sofa was currently a pale tan color with iron feet. One of the effects of Grandmother's high tier was the way furniture transformed when she used it. Sarah was curious what the sofa would do.

“I am going to take a nap,” Grandmother announced. “Keep a watch, and try not to touch the water wall.”

Sarah continued to work on the hallway wall, as the rest of the party fell silent, letting Grandmother rest. Sarah was working on the door itself, when Grandmother spoke again.

“What I keep coming back to,” Grandmother said to her companions, “is that the player wore orange silks. The people in this room represent five of the six magic colors, yet our foreign wizard is the one color we lack.” Grandmother rolled over and appeared to actually fall asleep this time. The rest of the party grew thoughtful as they considered her words.