Germination 19

September 13th, 2032.

“Curious, the beast rune appears to be a derivative from earth and fire while the plant rune is derived from earth and water.” I muttered aloud as I drew the symbol in the air, shaping the Green into a particular knot. “Both fall under the remit of the Green. Which I believe is best associated with magic which manipulates the pattern of life and matter, while the Blue touches the realms of spirit and mind. Both reach opposing conclusions on entropy though.”

A beast glyph was a variant of Erset, allowing me to instantly focus the Green towards the manipulation of animated life. Adding runes for simple, control and radiate, let me recreate a more effective insect manipulation spell.

I imagined the shape in my mind as I began the spell. It unfolded into a bundle of knots, spreading outwards in a singular sphere of Green. For a moment I was hit by sensory overload, from the buzzing crystallization of millions upon millions of insects. The command I gave to my targets was simple.

Gather.

Thousands of alchemist termites were flooding out from cracks in the wall of an evacuated house. They were strange creatures, able to understand, decompose and reconstruct matter to form their mounds. Horrifying little guys, they could break down entire buildings and even settlements with their combined power.

“So, where do you want me to put these things?” I asked the stunned witch. “Umm… I don’t know your name?”

“Emma.” She said with a tilt of a heart-shaped face. “Thank you for the help, I’m not very adept at shaping the Green, and my husband was away.”

“Makes sense, it’s not in your skillset.” I said.

I held my grip tight on those termites. I could literally taste their hunger, their urge to grow and spread their patterns.

It was curious to see the limitations of witches. Most could only draw from one source, shaping their path as a witch, as a being of magic. Some could draw on two or three sources for strength, but there were very few who could draw on all six. Even Ultima only had a strong, potent connection to the Black and the Red.

But with glyphs I could form a connection with any of the sources of magic. Though the one closest to my Nature was the spaces between spaces of the void. Though figuring out all the aspects of the Gray was going to take… probably years to work and experimentation.

“As for dealing with these little buggers. I can take care of it now that they’re all gathered in one place.”

Energy bled off of her head like steam, the woman shaping the energy into a complex vortice. It was a bud of her… mind given direction and purpose, floating downwards onto the gathered swarm.

Dehydration.

The entire swarm turned into crumpled corpses, dying in droves until they were all gone. The spell carefully unraveled itself, folding back into its originator in the strangest of fashions. Huh, interesting.

Ultima really had given me a far better picture of the sources, even if it had taken me a moment to figure out why the Blue was Perception while the Green was Thought. The answer was simple, the Green was the actual physical pattern, the contents of a person. The Blue was the metaphysical pattern, the mental perception of the contents of a person.

“Sorry for keeping your husband away with my nonsense,” I said to distract from my thoughts. “I didn’t think the Machinery’s Handbook would be so popular it’d turn half the smiths in town into recluses.”

Emma laughed. “You’re a very odd one aren’t you? You gave them access to fourteen hundred pages worth of accumulated knowledge and wisdom. What did you expect?”

“I keep forgetting that witches still haven’t developed certain… techniques, methods of thought?” I defended myself. “So many of you can warp space and time and bend the laws of physics over your knees. Humans as a whole generally can’t do that.”

“Is that so?” She raised an eyebrow, and I blushed in response.

“I… found a way around that, and from what I can tell most humans don’t have the means.” I said contritely, fiddling with my fingers. “I’ve got a lot of work to do when it comes down to figuring them out anyways.”

“It’s still a very impressive feat then, and I’m sure my husband will pester you later for glyphs that can help with his work.” Emma said with a bemused expression as she gestured for me to go. “Now go and have a good birthday, dear.”

I gave her a thumbs up, and stepped away with a skip in my step at another good job. I liked to help every now and then, when I was in a good enough mood to do so.

Wait…

“How the hell does she know it’s my birthday?”

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The rest of the day turned out just as strange as I wandered throughout town to buy supplies for Ultima, and for my own work. I had been consistently given well wishes by the locals, their souls seeming to shine brighter under the feel.

My talent when it came to sensing magic has grown in leaps and bounds, allowing me to peer through the spiritual gauze of the world. At times it was like I was walking through silk, layers upon layers of stacked existences. Althea’s senses were honed towards one layer, the realm which housed the soul of all things.

I could brush along the other layers, other aspects of the spiritual that had shifted away to become their own distinct worlds. A sea of dimensions sitting within the quantum vacuum, frozen into place. The Hollows formed by the Titans was one such place, a material space warped by spiritual energies, becoming a place far larger than spatially possible.

Universes like my own and this one then are just far larger, countless worldlines branching off from another, separated by veils of Nothing. Just like how lesser realms branch off from the Prime Spirit. Like the spiritual equivalent of continental drift.

I could open portals to those places, forcing space and time to bend under my fingers. I wouldn’t because playing with portals was a good way to die. Especially when many spiritual realms were dangerous or lethal of their own accord.

I have been working on teleportation though, the ancient glyph gateway had given me ideas. The portals worked by linking two distinct points in Reality, then negating the space between them. Ultima and Mads didn’t use the void directly, instead using the darkness to move between worlds.

Ultima seemed to merge two points between worlds to form her portals, Mads merged two points within a world. Fusing, no confirming possibilities using power.

When I opened portals, I negated the gap between worlds instead. It was an approach towards the Light end of the spectrum, expanding the possibilities for such a thing to happen. It had taken some time to figure out the right understanding of traveling through the void. But I had gotten it down, eventually.

I held my hands vertically, pressing my fingers together into a sharp point. With a smile I began to reel in the un-ripples of the void. My bangles radiated a cold emptiness, absent of everything and yet also was everything. I shaped the weave of void with the glyph of sifra and lismu. The glyph of Paths, of far places and travel.

A composite of air and void, Lismu shaped the weave of magic towards the purpose of movement. Intent then played into the next factor, so I began to tug at the strings of space and time.

Thank god I’ve got a good eye for distance… from this angle, maybe four hundred meters?

Two points in space were captured within the weave of my spell, so I flared the void to negate their distance. In a blink I had crossed almost half a kilometer, ripping through the vacuum.

My nose twitched with the faint scene of ozone. I tugged my collar nervously as I glanced up at the door to Ultima’s domain.

“That marks the sixth successful attempt of Blink.” So many failed attempts had been needed to succeed in my goal of teleportation.

The door opened on its own, with the rattle of stone and the echo of splintering wood.

“Thank you Casita.” I sang as I stepped through the boundary, then stuttered when I found the living room crowded.

The house had half a dozen more people than I expected, all of them scattered across the room.

My mother was standing close to Ultima, whispering into her ear. Hakim was on the couch, batting Ajani’s ears with a giggle. Mads was lazily splayed out at the other end, freely melting into a puddle of shadow. Althea and Dinah were both at the door, sharing glances that seemed almost… predatory.

I could see a number of balloons floating in the air and streamers growing out of the walls. There was also a sign that said happy birthday, and I smiled at the odd design. It looked like it was made out of silk, duck tape and leather.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

"I'm guessing Dinah was responsible for people knowing it’s my birthday?” I said with a bemused chuckle.

Dinah flushed. “I… may have told my cousin.”

“Heh. So what have you all got for me?”

The witches, one human and little beast shared a grin.

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I drank soda with a giggle as I watched the stare down between Ajani and Arali, the goblin and child’s gazes both filled with determination. Both were growling, the latter like chiming dark crystal, the former like a mix of bat, frog and human.

Adorable.

It was also a lovely distraction at the fact I was sitting in Althea’s very comfortable lap. Apparently as the quote on quote birthday girl, I was to be rewarded with warm lupine affection.

I hadn’t been able to say no.

The party was a quiet enough affair, with music playing from a boombox of all things. Things being as they were, I had a feeling Ultima had acquired many such artifacts in her time on Earth.

“So, how have things been? Haven’t heard from you for a couple of days.” I learned back into her torso, resting my head on her chest.

Man they’re soft…

“I’ve been going out into the Wilds with Crocotta, diving into learning the Gifts of the spirits. To understand my inner wolf.”

“Inner wolf?”

“We’re beastfolk, it’s in our very Nature. All of us are descendants of the Shifters, the Alshera. Half flesh and half spirit, creatures of the Green. We’re supposed to be deeply connected with nature and life. Werewolves are one of the few shifter-kin who can still shift, to have access to the other forms.

“You have more than one?” I stuttered.

“Yes. Five in all including this one, the other beastfolk have only a single shape. Forms between beast and witch, in different gradients.” Althea explained, flexing her muscles with a shrug. “I have to master myself before I master all my forms, my war-form most of all. The power it contains is… vast.”

“I saw you tumble a monster the size of a building, and you can effortlessly lift thirty six tons.” I pointed out with a grin.

“I could probably lift ten times that with reinforcement… and your teacher is still stronger.” Althea sounded dazed at that revelation.

I started to wonder how much Ultima was holding back when we trained because that was enough force to launch a van with her strikes.

“I’ve only barely worked out reinforcement personally, though at least I’m tough as nails next to other humans.”

My internal energy couldn’t be used to cast magic, but it was enough to push me one step above the mundane. My skin was as tough as structural steel, tendons better than spider silk, and my bones outmatched most metals. I certainly wasn’t bulletproof, but pellet guns didn’t do much anymore.

Then I recalled that Ultima told grisly stories about getting ambushed with pistols and shotguns and only getting welts and bruises. Though it wasn’t painless either, just less than lethal.

Kind of badass actually.

A tail curled around my arm, jostling me out of my musings. Dinah’s smoldering gaze was hard to look away from, dark gold staring into my soul.

“I see the birthday girl is enjoying her lovely seat,” I flushed harder than warranted. “A bit unfair to be honest, but it is your day of birth.”

“Huh?” I said dumbly.

Althea growled, her freckled cheeks darkening. “I do what I want, princess.”

“She is comfy I’ll admit,” I said with a smile. “Very huggable with all that muscle, though for you I imagine you’re like a warm rock. Which is also nice.”

Dinah chirped and I laughed in response.

“Do you even know what you’re saying?” Althea said with a shake of her head.

“Nope.” I uttered without hesitation. “I’ve slept like five hours, and this party is very soothing.”

“Don’t pass out until after midnight then, Celia! I didn’t come here for nothing!” Ajani shouted from his side of the room.

“Huh?” I asked.

“It’s a surprise.” Dinah patted my cheek.

“That’s going to bug me now.” I said flatly, eyebrows twitching.

“Then how about you show us how to play human games? These… video games?” Hakim offered from where he was bugging the bell out of Ajani.

Heh.

I slid off of Althea with a cackle, bouncing from step to step.

“That’ll be exciting then.”

Today was proving to be a good birthday.

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The party had gone on all the way to midnight, which was when my ‘surprise’ gift was to be unveiled. I had been brought down into an extension of the house clearly made from expanded space, and the door was opened.

Oh.

On the ground there was a simple structure, chalk drawn in the shape of an ellipse and anointed with a drop of my blood. Which explained yesterday…

What was more shocking was that chalk was rich in the energies of the void and the light.

All of it gathered by both Ultima and my mother of all things, who were both standing aside as witnesses. I wanted to ask why and how but it didn’t seem to be my place.

“Is this for what I think it is?” I asked carefully, clutching my amulet.

“If it’s a magic ritual to uncover the secrets in that amulet of yours, then yes.” Ultima said with a gleeful flourish. “It hasn’t been a priority at all, and I thought why not wrap it up as a gift for your birthday?”

“So you thought a complex and dangerous magic ritual would make a good present?” I said while laughing, shaking my head in mirth.

“Was I wrong?” Ultima said with a giggle.

“Nope.” I sang with bubbling amusement, turning to the friends who had joined in the madness.

My party members of course included Althea, Dinah, Hakim, Ajani, and Mads, adding up to a total of six people to strengthen and shape the circle.

“So it’s a pretty basic clairvoyance ritual, drawing on your connection to your necklace through your blood. For power it draws on six witches, and void and light energies infused into the circle. Quartz is used to augment the clairvoyance of kyanite, iolite, and labradorite. Final step is someone using the void to dive into the secrets you need to find.” Ultima explained with a flourish of her arms, proud of herself.

“Anything else?”

“Handholding.” Was the flat response from my mother.

“Why?” I asked with a wide-eyed stare.

“Completes the circle, like a giant magic circuit.” Ultima said with a pleased tone.

“Fair enough. So do we just stand in the circle?” I asked, wanting to be clarified.

“Yes, it’s a very personalized spell. Built to focus and hone your strength to create the outcome you want.” Ultima answered with a shrug of her shoulders. “There’s some words to add to the ritual but it’s again personal.”

It felt very surreal that my second gift was a layered circle of raw magic, to mediate side-stepping the laws of causation. But I was all for it, I was too curious for my own good.

I stepped into the circle, as friends and I formed a six-pointed star within the circle. Dinah was to my left while Althea was to my right. I was at the south point while they formed the southwest and southeast points. I was directly opposing Ajani, with Hakim at the northwest and Mads at the northeastern point.

Skin prickled at the back of my neck, a feeling of anticipation surging down into my stomach. Both the girls at my sides nudged me, and with a nervous giggle I took their hands.

Althea’s hand was covered in calluses, faint bumps and hardened skin from a lifetime of being a farmgirl. There was a sensation of brushing against hair, little bristles and tiny tufts of honey-gold fur. Her claws were blunt daggers, tugging at skin with a careful strength.

Dinah’s hand was pebbled, interlocking scales tough as iron embedded into pliable skin, like velvet. She was uncomfortably warm, and I absently recalled that wapuk hover at around fifty to sixty degrees celsius. Heat seemed to pour out of her hand in waves, black curved claws wrapping around my wrist.

A moment later it was like I was a keystone in an arch, a sense like I was listening to a symphony. Althea was the siren call of ocean waves lapping against earth, chaos meeting order. Dinah was the roaring of the divine flame, the balance of creation and destruction.

Ajani opposed me directly, a symphony of Light, the song of matter, the source of all life. Mads was the subsonic drone of Dark, the song of consciousness, the source of all spirit.

Hakim was the last, the orchestra of forge and volcano, dynamism and order colliding like iron poisoning the heart of stars, creation in action.

My next breath was cold and metallic, smelling of void and darkness. The words were falling into place, surging from the depths of my soul. Hands cradled by the Spark, by Order and Chaos.

“We reach out to all the colors of the light, and all the shades of the dark. Complexity and simplicity, abstract patterns within the void, the heart of all things that are and are not. To seek the secrets buried within argentum and aurelian, through ties of blood and spirit and mind.” I paused, taking time to change my cadence to a hopeful one.

There was a sense of curiosity and interest in the very world around us, isolated within the deep patterns set into the Circle.

“Help me remember what has been forgotten, buried in the Deep, hidden in the Sky. Allow us to fulfill the promise I made, to right the wrongs of the past, to survive in the present, and make a better future. Please, help us find the answers.”

I let it stop there as I filled the ritual with the power of Void and Darkness, as six energies in all melted into one another. The attention of what felt like the very soul of a world was intoxicating, and I rode the sensation.

It took me longer to notice the distinct feeling of someone astrally projecting. Of a presence within those thousand world eyes.

The other presence spoke, calm, measured and patient. And unmistakably the voice of the Thread Queen.

“You shall have it.”

Violet light erupted from the very air, spreading across the circle like flowing gas and air. The amulet shuddered, rippled as a layer of it peeled off like exploding plasma. The void and the darkness stabbed into the depths, and I barely held my grip.

For a moment I wasn’t in the material, forced into an odd superposition of worlds. Violet breeze and storm swept into the depths of my mind, unraveling spiritual bans and banes.

A figure of stars and light, a twinkling little star, all alone in that good night.

The presence of the queen faded, with images of a strange impossible sky, and mountains of black stone and golden spires. A dozen and more forgotten dreams became clear as day as the circle collapsed like a house of cards.

Oh… fuck. Hija de puta!

“Huh, I guess I have an Other for a dream pen pal now?” I said with a high pitched squeak. “Who I promised to help?”

Four pairs of heads all snapped towards me at my words.

…

So it wasn’t just me that was freaked out, good, good.

The uproar began soon after.