48 A.L.: SARAH

She woke up with a start. Her body told her she’d overslept and missed her turn at watch. Sarah pulled herself up into a sitting position and scanned the room. The lights were just beginning the dawn cycle. Grandmother raised a hand to Sarah from where she sat braced against a side wall of the rest. Seeing that someone was awake and on watch, Sarah felt the stress drain from her muscles. She thought about rolling over and catching a few more minutes of sleep.

Grandmother was sitting next to the water wall, not the hallway. Her walking staff rested on the floor beside her. She was looking out into the water. Curious Sarah quietly rose to her feet and sat next to Grandmother against the side wall.

“What are you looking at?” Sarah asked the older woman quietly.

“Our neighbors are early risers,” Grandmother responded in an equally soft tone. She pointed down into the water to the east below their perch. Sarah looked out into the water's darkness, but could make nothing out. She was about to cast her sight enhancement spells on herself when Grandmother touched her arm and cast a different vision enhancement spell.

Suddenly the dark water was as bright as day. Swimmers were streaming out of the wall below them. Some of them were alone but most were in groups of three and four. Sarah thought they were wearing wizard silks, but in the water they clung to their streamlined bodies. They looked like they were wearing color.

“What spell is this?” Sarah asked.

“Night vision,” Grandmother answered. “It is a tier four light spell. I haven’t found it very useful. If I turned a light on right now, you would be blinded. It is interesting that it works so well in the water.” Grandmother knew an incredible number of spells. It was one of Sarah’s off season duties to record them all. She was certain this one was not yet on the list. She would have to remember to write it down in her spell diary.

Sarah joined Grandmother in watching the players stream out of their settlement below. They flowed through the water with a graceful ease. Once free of the crowd, they would pause a moment then dart off into the underwater kelp forest. Some wore yellow and green, but the majority wore orange. Almost all were in the manufactured shades. Tier three magic users didn’t have any effect on the integrated cloth they wore. Everyone tended to wear the color of their magic from pride alone. At tier four, a user’s color began to stain the fabric. The effect was a bolder version of the color if it matched their own, and a discolored version if it didn’t. The effect was weak at tier four and easily missed, it took hours to become noticeable. At tier five it was quick and noticeable.

“That color distribution might explain last night’s worry,” Sarah commented.

“Yes, it does ease my concern a bit. I can understand how the tier zero spells for hot and cold might not have the same usefulness in water that they have in air,” Grandmother observed. “While pure water is an insulator, salt water makes an excellent conductor. That could make the electricity spells extremely dangerous, both to the target and the caster, or completely useless.”

“Which leaves sound, force and our unknown sixth tree,” Sarah said. “Even if they do only have essentially two fingers, they would be able to imbue both sound and force.”

“Yes,” Grandmother agreed. “One of our theories for the sixth tree is mass based spells. Do you see how they all dart off? That could be a swift spell of some kind.”

“Like how our wizard darted off yesterday,” Sarah pointed out. Grandmother nodded. The exodus from the settlement below was almost over. The light level in the rest rose up another notch. With the night vision spell it seemed almost painfully bright. Sarah heard someone shifting around in their sleep. The party would be up soon.

“I would love to see their settlement,” Grandmother commented. “The player yesterday was an air breather.” Grandmother pointed up to the water surface they could see above. “There is an air gap above. Which makes me think they can’t breathe water. This water is deep. The pressure at the bottom might be enough to hurt humans, although I am no expert on deep water. It makes me curious on how they get in and out. Is it some kind of airlock system?”

Sarah was amused. Grandmother never forgot her roots as an engineer. Faced by the seemingly impossible she would break it down to an engineering problem. The transition from water to air probably was an airlock system. But if they went down there the nanobots in their eyes would make it look like a magical portal.

Grandmother carried a sealed camera with her. It functioned for two or three months before the structure’s nanobots would corrode it past the point of functionality. The memory that held the recordings would last another three or four months before the nanobots would get them too. Between each trip Grandmother would re-engineer the enclosure, trying to increase the functional lifespan.

She was fingering the chain holding the camera around her neck. Sarah realized she must be calculating how much time she was left on the recording for this trip. The camera recordings would not include the nanobot augmentation of reality they all saw. Instead if it was an airlock into the settlement, the recordings would show an airlock. By Sarah’s count they were just starting their third month in the structure. It may or may not have gotten a recording of the player.

Grandmother seemed to come to a similar conclusion. She dropped her hand. It was then that Sarah noticed that the camera was hanging free on the end of the chain. Normally Grandmother tucked the camera into a specially designed pocket on the front of her leathers. The pocket was made with a hole for the lens. The chain was a recent addition, added after Grandmother lost the camera when her leathers were dissolved in the stairwell trap.

The older woman wasn’t wearing her leathers. Instead she wore a set of integrated hunter’s greens. The green was almost completely leached out to be replaced by a dusty violet. Grandmother held a deep dislike for the purple color, Sarah did not know what caused it. It was extremely rare to find the older woman wearing integrated clothing.

“Where are your leathers?” Sarah said suddenly. Her words were a little loud. Her surprise made her forget for a moment her sleeping party members. Grandmother ran her hand across the fabric of the outfit with obvious distaste.

“I was thinking of the player,” Grandmother replied. “If a bear doubled back like that I would have called the attack. It was the wizard silks that held me back. I am not certain how long I can make myself wear them,” Grandmother admitted. “I hope that if we run into a group of players the integrated clothing might cause them to think twice too.”

Sarah heard rustling from her party members. She turned to see who was awake. She squinted against the light. The light levels were continuing to increase as the two women were talking. Grandmother saw Sarah’s reaction and canceled the night vision spell on both of them. For a second Sarah was plunged into darkness as her eyes adapted to the lower light levels. When her eyes adjusted, she could see that Todd was awake. He acknowledged Sarah’s glance, but made no move to get up.

“Are we staying in the area for a while then?” Sarah asked Grandmother.

“No,” Grandmother replied. “I don’t think it is worth the risk. I checked my map. The section that was drawn by that old inscription is to the east of us. I should have checked it earlier.” They all knew how unreliable the interface map was. Control would often change the map, without actually changing the structure. It was Control’s quick solution to trying to alter people’s routes. Unfortunately the opposite was also true, the structure would change, but your map would remain the same. Following the map blindly could lead you directly into a trap.

Alex was the only one of them who still used the map regularly. He was working on how to use the updates or lack of them to try to figure out what Control was trying to get them to do. He was certain if he could figure it out, they could use the knowledge to their advantage. It was sort of how Grandmother knew they needed to enchant the glass because the drain for the conceal spell was high. That meant the spell was actively masking their presence and if it was dropped someone would detect them. When the drain dropped at the enchantment's completion, she knew the danger was past.

Years before Grandmother joined up with the rest of them, she found a treasure or quest inscription. When decoded it provided a map pointing to the south. Grandmother almost died trying to follow that map by herself. Map inscriptions not only showed the map on the inscription wall, but it added that data to the reader's personal map. None of the rest of them saw the inscription. The result was that none of the rest of them had the details on their maps.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“Do you trust that?” Sarah asked. She knew Grandmother didn’t trust the map, so she wondered what Grandmother’s reasoning was.

“Of course not,” Grandmother responded. “I am reading it as Control wanting us to go east. I admit it falls in with my own desire to not cause a war with these people, but in this case we are playing the game. Control’s wants should be in line with our own.” Grandmother shifted and pointed up at the sofa she fell asleep on the night before. “And there is that,” she said.

The couch was transformed. Sarah expected that. Grandmother’s tier six rank included a strange effect on integrated furniture. It seemed to revitalize it. Ellen’s theory was that it was Control’s way of warning people that a power was near. Last night Sarah detected a faint outline of rising kelp and brightly colored fishes on the worn and faded fabric. Any trace of that image was gone. In its place were soaring mountain peaks and small black and white birds flying through a storm clouded sky. The mountain peaks and clouds faded into one another detailed in black, white and gray.

In fact, Sarah realized, there was no sign of color anywhere. Studying it she could find no spell hints. There were no individual feathers on the birds to count, nor stones on the peaks or lobes on the clouds. Sarah wasn’t certain she ever saw an image in the structure that didn’t incorporate a spell coding somewhere in it.

The main purpose of Grandmother’s camera was to record the images and inscriptions they found in the structure to be decoded and deciphered at leisure back on the Speedwell. When Grandmother first entered the structure when she was young she wore a camera and carried the images back to her mentor, Agatha, on the Speedwell. After Agatha passed away, Grandmother got out of the habit. When Sarah took up enchanting Grandmother helped her use those old images to puzzle out how it was done. It was only then that Grandmother started wearing the camera again.

Sarah also carried with her a notebook where she recorded all spell hints they came across, since they never knew exactly when the camera would stop recording.

“Is that?” Sarah asked, she raised her finger up to point to the far right of the image. There the white spear of a building rose up towards the sky. Sarah realized almost all the birds were flying toward it.

“I don’t know,” Grandmother responded, “but I very much fear it is the wizard’s tower in the east.”

“What?” Alex said, rolling to his feet to get a look. Sarah realized he was faking sleep and eavesdropping on them the whole time. Todd stood up to get a look as well. At least he admitted he was awake. All this commotion woke Ellen, who was the only one of them who was actually sleeping. Ellen yawned and stretched and demanded they tell her what was going on.

“It is not really the Speedwell,” Ellen commented when she saw it.

“No,” Grandmother responded. “I don’t think Control can see it. The landing site is outside the structure's area of influence. This is the impression that Control has gotten from us.”

“It is close to what I visualized before I saw the real thing,” Alex observed.

“The black and white could indicate a place without magic,” Todd said thoughtfully.

“That would also explain the lack of spell coding,” Sarah commented.

“I am taking it as a warning that this area is not for us. That we should go back. If you're right, Todd, about the lack of color indicating a place without magic, that does take some of the threat out of it,” Grandmother told them. She stood up and walked over to the sofa, giving the image one last look. “We go east, under full cloaking. I will cast conceal at the first sign of danger. If we are lucky we won’t run into anything on the way. If we do, even if it is just bears, try hard not to fight. I don’t want the sound of battle to catch anyone’s attention. Let's load up.”

Grandmother reached out and ran her hand across the image. At her touch the eyes of the birds changed color. The lead bird gained violet eyes, then red, green, blue and yellow. The last bird was smaller than the others and farther back. Its body was just turning, either to the tower or away. It was impossible to tell which. Its eyes turned orange.

“Hmm...” Grandmother murmured. She said no more. She gathered up her bulging pack and walking staff. She pointedly moved away from the sofa and stood to wait for the rest of them near the door.

They walked four hours before stopping. They traveled at a slow cautious pace, crossing less distance than they usually did in two hours. They ran into bears after only an hour. The beasts walked on four legs and weren’t much threat to a group that honed their teeth on bears that walked upright. Each time they ran into one, Grandmother would call a halt. They would wait for it to move out of their path, or they would backtrack and go around.

Grandmother called the halt when they found a sanitary facility. After clearing the room, Sarah, Ellen and Grandmother stood watch at the wedged open door, as Alex and Todd made use of it.

“I can change the base color to violet for you,” Ellen said to Grandmother. “That should clear the odd off color you have.”

“Oh yeah,” Grandmother said sarcastically, “cause I will look so much better in the right shade of purple.” Sarah barely managed to stop herself from laughing.

“I don’t know about that,” Ellen countered, “but that off color screams deception to me. I think it would to any crafter.”

“Hmm,” Grandmother murmured. “You may have a point.” Sarah looked down at her own outfit. She was wearing an identical hunter’s outfit in green. The bright green was the same color as Ellen’s. Unlike Ellen, Sarah’s own magic color was yellow. At tier two it didn’t matter, but if Sarah lived long enough and reached a high enough tier it would. Sarah had a sudden vision of herself garbed in yellow. Grandmother’s disgust didn’t seem nearly as funny.

Todd and Alex finished up and took over the watch. Grandmother stripped out of the integrated cloth and put her leathers back on. She handed the outfit over to Ellen along with three gathering bags.

“You might as well do these as well,” Grandmother said. The bags were green, red and blue. A smear of discolor was spreading across them from Grandmother's grip.

“Sure thing,” Ellen said, taking them from the older woman. Grandmother relaxed in her leathers as Ellen set to work. She dipped the articles into a variety of pools that littered the floor of the sanitary facility. She drummed out crafting or utility spells on the edges of the pools.

“I don’t think I have ever seen anyone dye something violet,” Sarah observed to her sister as she helped her shift the articles from pool to pool.

“I don’t think I have either,” Ellen responded.

“How do you know how to do it?” Sarah asked.

“I know how to dye red, blue and green,” Ellen replied. “By looking at the pattern of those three, which are two, three and five I can see how to change it to produce four. A lot of the success or failure of this spell has to do with the seed magic used. As a green wizard I can always dye something green. To do blue or red I have to throw in a starter cloth of that color.” Ellen held up the purple top of Grandmother’s outfit. “This is enough purple trace to do the clothing for an entire square,” Ellen explained. “Three gathering bags and one hunter’s outfit is not going to be a problem.”

“Are you saying you can’t actually dye my outfit yellow until I reach tier four and start staining it?” Sarah asked.

“Yes,” Ellen responded. “But if you want a yellow version I can teach you how to do it, long before that. I could dye cloth green at tier one.”

“That is interesting,” Grandmother said suddenly. She was standing behind them watching them work. “It is not really hunter’s green is it?” She observed. “It is crafter’s green.”

“I suppose so,” Ellen responded. “I never really thought about it. One of the early weavers or tailors must have been a green wizard.”

“A weaver,” Grandmother said. “On my first visit to Londontown there was green fabric freely available. The hunter outfits were made from it.” Grandmother rarely talked about her early days in the structure. Sarah got the impression that events then deeply scarred the woman. “I have been thinking about the integrated clothing,” Grandmother commented, “since I saw how the wizard silks slicked out on the swimmers. I can see how our own biases have skewed our thinking about them, hunter’s greens, warrior’s leathers, wizard’s silks. Where does that brigandine your father crafted fall into that pattern? All this time I have been thinking of it as a heavier hunter’s outfit just because it is green, but it is not.”

Grandmother was quiet for a few moments. She turned to look at Todd and Alex standing in the doorway. Alex was wearing warrior’s leathers with blue highlights, while Todd was wearing the aforementioned green brigandine.

“You might want to make an offer to dye Todd’s brigandine red,” Grandmother commented. “It is starting to discolor too.” Todd, who was facing out the door to watch the hall, looked down at the fabric on his arm, showing he was keeping track of the conversation at the same time. Sarah rose and walked over to stand beside him. She held out her own sleeve next to Todd’s. His was just a slightly different color.

“Congratulations,” Sarah said to the man she considered her older brother.

“I haven’t reached tier four yet,” Todd replied.

“Only a matter of time now,” Grandmother responded. “Today or tomorrow would be my best guess.” Suddenly Ellen was scrambling. She dragged the three gathering bags out of the pool they were soaking in. All three of them came out a beautiful clear violet.

“Damn it!” Ellen exclaimed. “I don’t think I have anything red on me and that little stain isn’t enough.”

“That is too bad,” Todd said with a straight face.

“You will have to catch him next time,” Grandmother commented. “We have been here long enough.”