I stood before the wall while everyone watched me, their expectant looks making me nervous, even more than usual. We were at the place where the path from the city hit the wall, only this time we were on the inside.

The trek through the forest to the wall would have been difficult for the Magikist and we didn't want to draw too much attention, so there was only me, Jane, Sam, and Sigrid, along with Petal and a few elves who looked on from their guard posts in the treetops.

The wall itself looked the same from the inside as it did from outside, a tangled mess of thick, thorny vines rising high over our heads. Jane and I had created several bright globes of light using Affinity Control which illuminated it clearly, and she even used her Glow Worm power to turn herself into a human lantern. The effect was striking; she looked like some kind of divine being.

“Jane,” I said, “why don’t you give it a try.”

“Okay, but what do I do?” she said.

“When I made the flowers, I used Affinity Control with Nature and Life at the same time.”

“You can do that?”

“Yes, and I’m wondering if you can too.”

“I’ll try.”

Jane stepped forward and held her hands out toward the wall. She closed her eyes and I could see the muscles tense under her skin as she concentrated.

Nothing happened.

After a while, she exhaled deeply and lowered her hands.

“It’s no good. I can’t fuse two affinities together like that. How do you do it?”

“Hmmm, it must have something to do with Synthesize after all. I was hoping it didn't.”

“Figures,” Jane sighed. “One more thing you can do that nobody else can. I assume you already tried using Nature by itself.”

"Give it a go."

She raised her hands again and her face scrunched adorably as she concentrated. A few vines wriggled and began to part, making a small cavity in the wall.

"It's working!" she cried. Behind her, Sigrid and Sam whooped with joy while Petal simply stared, jaw dropped in amazement.

"Now stop," I said.

As soon as she lowered her hands the vines snapped back into place.

"Darn it," she said. "You knew that would happen, didn't you?"

"Did the same thing for me, yup."

"At least it's something," Sigrid said.

"What other affinities did you try?" Jane said.

"Um..."

"Idiot."

She took a few steps back and held both hands out in front of herself again. Fire shot from her palms like a flamethrower, hitting the wall and spreading out in a fan. She kept hosing the wall with fire for a bit, then the flames stopped and she lowered her hands. The wall was unchanged, no scorch marks or anything.

"Huh," Jane said. "Lemme try something else."

She started working her way through affinities, blasting the wall with Ice, trying to make it wither with Death, even using Earth to lift the ground under it, but the wall just stretched and remained whole. Then she tried using Earth to dig away at the ground under it, but found that she couldn't even remove a speck of dirt from underneath.

She put her hands on her hips and stared at the wall. "Hey Daniel, what's the oppsite of Nature again?"

"Shadow."

"Right."

Once more Jane's hands went up. When her Shadow force hit the wall, this time it reacted voiently. The vines thickened and the thorns shot from the size of knitting needles to as long as broom handles.

"Nope!" she said and immediately stopped. This time, the changes to the wall didn't go back to normal. "Nuh uh, definitely not doing that again."

Sigrid put her arm around Jane and led her away. “You give it a try now, Daniel.”

I stepped up and used the same combination of Nature and Life affinities I’d used to make the flowers, only this time thinking much bigger. All I got was a much bigger flower. I cast a glance over my shoulder at the onlookers. “Just warming up,” I said.

That was not gonna work.

"What if we all hit it with Nature at the same time?" Sam said.

"Worth a try."

Sam, Jane, and I gave his idea a go, but all we got was a bigger cavity that closed up again as soon as we stopped.

Nope, that wasn’t it either.

"It was a good idea, Sam," Sigrid said.

I tried different combinations of affinities: Nature and Light, Nature and Fire, Life and Earth, all sorts of combos, but the only thing that had any lasting positive effect was using Life and Nature together, so it had to involve those affinities somehow. But how? How was I going to fix this giant wound to the forest?

Hang on, wound?

Could it be?

“I have an idea,” I said.

“You can do it, Daniel,” Sigrid said. “I know you can.”

I was glad Sigrid had enough confidence for the both of us, because I didn’t have diddly-squat. Just a dumb idea. May as well try it.

My new Versatility For The Win power allowed me to copy any power I’ve seen, so I focused on Nina’s A Spoonful Of Sugar healing power.

Daniel Lamont

Team Player

Powers:

A Spoonful Of Sugar (Copied) - Competent

All Shall Be Revealed - Adept

Synthesize - Adept

Versatility For The Win - Competent: Powers copied [1/2]

Right. Nina’s healing power required affinity with Life, but what if I tried using it through the Nature affinity instead?

I held out my hand. I focused on Nature. I used the power.

There were gasps behind me as the vines in front of me moved. But they didn't just wriggle around a bit like with Nature alone, they literally completely withdrew like they were running away from the space affected by the Affinity Control. The wall was several feet thick, but there was now a hole about the size of a hula hoop running straight through it. I sent a glowglobe through and the path through the forest was clearly visible on the other side.

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“Well I’ll be,” I said.

“Oh my God, you did it!” Sam said.

“I knew you could,” Sigrid said with a smugness that made it sound like she was the one who'd made the hole.

“Unbelievable,” Petal said.

“Okay, Mister Show Off. How’d you do it?” Jane said.

“You can thank Nina for that,” I said. “I, er, borrowed her power to heal it, but with Nature.”

“Clever boy,” Jane said.

“Just one problem,” I said. “If each heal only clears away this much of the wall, it will take me forever to get rid of the whole thing.”

“What if you put more mana into it?” Sigrid said.

I shrugged. “Worth a try.”

I did it again, this time focusing on pushing more mana energy into the heal. It made a little difference, but it was negligible in the grand scheme of things.

“There has to be a way to clear more at a time,” Sigird said.

“Like change it from a single target to an area effect,” Sam said.

Spoken like a true gamer.

“Is there maybe another power you could combine with the healing to make it cover more area?” Jane said.

“Jane, you’re a genius,” I said.

“As I keep trying to tell you,” she said with a heavy sigh, but she looked extremely happy.

“Bless You,” I said.

“I didn’t sneeze.”

“No, Nina’s other Life power, Bless You. It targets multiple people within range. Here, let me try.”

I copied the other power into my second slot.

“Can you even use Synthesis on a copied power?” Sigrid said.

“Let’s find out. System, activate Synthesis and share the screen.”

System: Synthesis ready. Select ability to modify

“Select A Spoonful Of Sugar.”

System: Select abilities to combine

“So far so good. Select Bless You.”

System: Add another ability?

I thought for a moment, but decided not to push my luck. “No.”

System: Synthesis of A Spoonful Of Sugar and Bless You will result in a new power; select name for new synthesized power

“Holy shit, it’s working,” Jane said.

“Name? Um, how about Everyone Gets A Heal.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Sigrid said.

System: Synthesizing Everyone Gets A Heal

“Too late now,” I said. There was an agonizing pause, then:

System: Synthesis successful

“Holy shit,” Jane said. “It worked!”

“Not just that,” I said. “Take a closer look at my powers.” I shared my Status, but only the powers section. Who knew what Jane would say if showed the whole thing.

Daniel Lamont

Team Player

Powers:

A Spoonful Of Sugar (Copied) - Competent

Bless You (Copied) - Competent

Everyone Gets A Heal - Novice

Synthesize - Adept

Versatility For The Win - Competent; powers copied [2/2]

“Are you just making us look at this to show off again?” Jane said.

And she said something anyway. Protagonist or not, there’s no winning with that woman.

“What am I looking for?” Sigrid said. “I see the new power.”

“What’s missing from the new power?”

“I don’t...oh I see it. Oh my god, Daniel, it made a permanent new power out of the copied ones.”

Everyone Gets A Heal - Novice: Cure wounds and ailments on all selected targets within range; Affinity with Life required

“I say again, holy shit,” Jane said. “Let me get this straight: you can temporarily copy any powers, then combine them to create a new power you keep forever? Now that is ridiculous.”

“The possibilities!” Sam said.

“Focus, people,” Sigrid said. “This is all very cool, but...” She jerked her head toward Petal, who’d remained silent since I'd started synthesizing, as though the rest of us been talking about a trip we’d all taken together without her and she'd been waiting patiently for the conversation to include her again.

“Right. Priorities,” I said. “Let’s give this baby a test drive.”

I used the new power on the wall, and nothing happened.

“Is something supposed to happen?” I heard Jane mumble from somewhere behind me.

Wait for it. I almost said it out loud but didn't want to give her the satisfaction. Then I augmented Everyone Gets A Heal with Synthesis so I could fuel it by Nature as well as Life, and Jane got her wish. Something happened alright.

A crack spread from the middle of the wall, expanding wider as the edges of the fissure withered up and shrank away at an unreal pace. The entire thickness of the wall spread open creating a wide passage straight through it to the other side.

System: Checking hidden quest requirements

System: Confirming affinity match

System: Nature affinity confirmed

System: Hidden quest requirements met

System: New title granted

System: You have gained a title: Defender Of The Green

System: You know Stop Staring At My Ears

Oh my. This was just like in the Light Dungeon when I became the Great Architect. But we hadn’t solved the Nature Dungeon yet. That meant that earning a title was independent of completing the dungeon. I decided to keep this new development to myself for now, I'd been teased enough today.

“I can see the whole path!” Petal said, rejoining the discussion as though nothing had happened since I made the first hole.

“It worked!” Sigrid said. “That opening’s, what, like, twenty times the size of what you made before.”

“Which means it will only take me one-twentieth of forever to get rid of the entire wall,” I said.

Sigrid frowned. “Why are you such a Debbie Downer?”

Jane came and put an arm around me. “She’s right. You can allow yourself a victory once in a while, you know.”

“You’re both right. This was a success. I’m sorry.”

“And there he goes apologizing again,” Sigrid said, but the frown was gone. “So Canadian.”

“Maybe it would be enough to just open a gap here on the path,” Sam said. “And maybe decorate the rest of it with those flowers so it doesn’t look so dismal and prickly?”

“I like where you’re going,” I said, “and I really don’t want to be a Debbie Downer again, but even if I did manage to clear away the entire wall, that still wouldn’t address the real problem with the elves.”

“And just what would that be?” Petal said, eyes narrowed, body tense.

“The isolationist policy,” I said.

Petal relaxed and nodded. “You have a point. If anything, a change like that in the wall would make them even more afraid of the outside.”

“It’s not good enough for me, an outsider, to remove the wall. That could even be seen as a threat. It has to be done by one of you.”

“It has to be done by the Magikist,” Jane said.

“Exactly,” I said.

“But how? She doesn’t have Daniel’s powers,” Sigrid said.

“And you don’t have any way to give them to her, do you?” Sam said.

“Actually,” I said, “I just might. But I need to borrow some things first.”