“If we tell people to use runes like that, then we are going to limit their spellcasting ability,” Juan said with a frown when Moira told him her plan. “If they don’t know the rune to manipulate fire into a sphere, then they can’t make a fireball.”
“Well,” Moira crossed her arms, “They shouldn’t be casting fireballs right away anyway. Imagine the chaos, Jesus. We’re starting small, right? Just summoning and manipulating the elements and some basic healing spells.”
Juan hummed, tilting his head to the side.
“Besides,” she pointed out, “who are you to talk about limiting spellcasting ability? The council knows nothing about spellcasting, honestly. You all just have these healing spells that you treat like the law, and then everything else is hand-wavey. If people know runes, they can rearrange them to create their own spells or maybe even improve those ‘ancient’ healing spells.”
He tapped his fingers on the table. Juan had come here because Derek thought he was knowledgeable about magic and could teach others. But maybe it was just that he was one of the only council members who would be willing to teach others. Because she was not particularly impressed with his knowledge.
“Do you guys have any other useful spells besides the healing stuff?” she asked.
“Yes,” Juan said. “Although most of what people practice is personal, there are some other ancient, universal practices. One of them is enchantment, which is my specialty. There are also procedures for fortune-telling and –“
“Wait,” Moira held up a hand, “what do you mean by enchantment.”
“Adding a magical feature to an inanimate object.”
“Hold on, hold on.” She sat forward in her chair, voice jumping with excitement. “You know how to make fabric, like, waterproof or something like that?”
“Yes,” Juan said, “I thought the entire point of me coming up here was because Derek wanted me to enchant a bunch of armor for him or something, not…” he trailed off and waved his hands at the table.
“Can you tell me how?” Moira asked.
“Sure,” he shrugged and grabbed one of the flyers so he could flip it over and write on it. He pulled a pen from the inside pocket of the vest that he wore and scribbled for a minute while Moira nearly vibrated out of her seat. Then he handed her the paper and pointed to it as he explained, just like he had been doing for every person who visited their table.
“This is for waterproofing. These here are what does the enchantment .” He tapped on a series of runes. “And then the rest of the spell that follows is for waterproofing. There are a couple of other enchantments we know that you can swap out, like strengthening clothing against penetration and such.”
“So it's like the healing spells? You only know a couple of certain enchantments?” Moira asked.
“That is correct.” Juan crossed his arms.
Moira frowned at the runes. They were definitely a good starting point. If she could continue to get runes from Jeremy as he figured them out, she could create her own enchantments by switching out the second part of the spell for things other than waterproofing. She squinted at the paper and wondered how exactly you would be able to wash clothes if they were waterproof. Maybe she could make them dirt-proof? She definitely needed to workshop this idea some more.
“This is another place where having a system of runes would be a benefit,” she said, sitting back in her chair again. “If you actually knew what all these runes meant, you could customize and create your own enchantments.”
“That would open up more possibilities,” Juan agreed.
“Anyway, giving out the runes for the basic elements, summoning, and manipulating are essentially all you are telling them about right now anyway.” Moira gestured to the flyers on the table, “Plus, maybe this is a good way to make sure they don’t get too excited and try a spell that is beyond their capabilities, right?”
Juan nodded some more, “Just stick to these specific healing spells and practice with these elemental runes.”
“Then we won’t have idiots shooting fireballs through other people’s tents and whatnot.” Moira slapped her hands on her knees and stood up. “I’m going to go find Derek and tell him we should probably hold off on trying to get any more people to come around until we get the runes from Jeremy and figure out a better system for teaching people.”
Juan nodded, and she walked off, folding the paper with the enchantment rune into her pocket. She avoided the more muddy spots in the highly trafficked walkways between the tents, lean-tos, and cars that people were living out of and the more official-looking emergency response centers where the supplies and medical treatments were available. Off to the side of those larger tents was also a more organized camp where the national guardsmen who were stationed here to patrol for monsters, assist with giving out aid, and make sure that the camp – where tensions ran high – remained peaceful.
Derek, Rose, and Nick were congregated off to the side of the water line when she found them.
“Get bored of hanging out with Juan?” Derek asked, putting an arm out to hug her to his side. She gave his torso a quick squeeze, then stepped away and put her hands on her hips.
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“No, I was talking to Juan about the fact that if we are going to teach people magic, we should systemize it a little better first,” she explained. “Jeremy is using runes to cast his spells, so I asked him to send some of them over so we could give people something concrete to visualize when they want to summon water.”
“That sounds like a really good idea,” Nick said. “People would probably be a lot more open to learning if there were actual spells.”
“Right,” Moira nodded at him. “So, I just wanted to come and tell you guys that maybe we should hold off on teaching people how to summon water until we have the runes from Jeremy. He said he would try to send them to me tonight.”
“I’m fine with that,” Rose stated immediately, her eyes narrowing in the direction of the guy who was still up on his milk crate preaching to the water line. “He’s starting to be a dick about us trying to teach people.”
“Oh yeah?” Moira peered over at him curiously. How that milk crate had not splintered under his weight by now was unfathomable. He held up his homemade sign and prattled on with a red face and veins popping out beneath his skin.
“Yeah, he keeps calling people whores for the devil – selling their souls for cheap magic tricks.”
“Cheap tricks?” Moira snorted, “You mean water so that they don’t fucking die?”
“Yeah,” Derek pressed his lips together and put an arm between Moira and her line of sight toward the guy. “He’s an out-of-touch asshole. But, you're right, we probably should…”
Moira had stopped listening to him because she caught sight of a young girl who joined the line and kept glancing at the shouting man timidly. It was not clear if she was looking at him because she was interested in his message or because she was intimidated by his shouting, but either way, she looked uncomfortable. And the man noticed as well, turning to look directly at her as he shouted. She hunched her shoulders a little and stared at the ground.
It was a pretty pathetic sight. Moira was suddenly very angry that these poor people, who had been kicked out of their homes and did not know what their futures held, had to face such verbal abuse while simply trying to get some water for their dinner tonight. She shoved Derek’s arm away and took a few steps forward.
“Hey, asshole!” She shouted. “Unless you plan on going to personally haul water for all the thousands of people who need it to fucking live each day, how about you shut the hell up about where they are getting it from!”
“Oh, shit.” She heard Nick muttering behind her and one of Derek’s hands landed on her shoulder, but she just shrugged it off and took a couple more steps. All of the people in the line had turned to look at her with curious expressions on their faces. The preachy guy looked at her, too, but his expression remained one of righteous indignation. He was here to beat people into submission with his message and had no interest in listening to her.
“You’ll just encourage him,” Derek told her.
“Come on,” Nick urged, “He’s not going to listen to you anyway.”
“I don’t care,” she spat, “he’s pissing me off.”
He had started shouting at her now, which at least meant his attention was off that poor little girl. His words literally did not change, except now he was going on about how Moira and her friends were companions of the devil who were there to tempt everyone into hell.
“All these people want is some fresh water to drink!” She hollered then because Derek and Nick were right, she turned her attention to the line, “Don’t listen to this asshole. In fact, if you learn to summon water yourselves, then you don’t have to come to this line and subject yourself to his idiocy, right?”
A couple of people raised their eyebrows and glanced back toward the milk crate guy with contemplative expressions. No matter what they thought about the debate, nobody liked to stand there and be yelled at. And they were getting yelled at for a long time because the line was long. In fact, even if they had thick skins, nobody wanted to wait through that damn line.
“And!” She yelled to be heard above the guy while pointing wildly at the supply tents and national guard camp, “The whole world is made up of magic and monsters now! I know none of you want to stay in this camp, but how are you ever going to get out if you don’t know how to defend yourselves?”
“Moira, we are trying to take small steps here.” Derek leaned down to hiss in her ear, putting a hand on her shoulder again. The guy on the milk crate had also raised his voice and started raving about Satan’s army or whatever. She could not tell if he was talking about the monsters or the people using magic, but either way, it was utter nonsense.
Moira shoved Derek off again and announced at the top of her lungs, “You want to see what magic can do?”
Now it was Derek’s turn to mutter, “oh shit.”
She marched into the center of the wide walkway, and by the time she reached away from the line and any of the tents, she had already transformed into a dragon. Surprisingly, nobody screamed. They all looked up with pale, wide-eyed expressions. A few dropped their gallon jugs or tubs that they had brought to be filled with water. Even the milk crate guy was speechless, staring with his jaw hanging open.
The people a little further away, however, did start screaming. They could see her towering above the tops of the tents and from further down the wide walkway between the supply tents and rows of residential areas. The people inside the supply tents stuck their heads out to see what was going on and paled.
Derek had his face in his palm while Nick and Rose stared up with dumbfounded expressions. Moira shook her body, enjoying the way her scales shifted and wings rustled, then stared at the milk crate guy with a gleam in her eye. She stretched her long neck over the line of people waiting for water. They scattered beneath her as she lowered her head so that she was looking directly down at the milk crate guy.
She snorted. The strong puff of wind that blew out of her nostrils unbalanced him from the crate, and he tumbled onto his back in the mud. Then she stood up straight again and transformed back into a human.
The disarray calmed only slightly. Everyone who had scattered away from the water line and those who had come to the openings of the tents to watch still stared at her with shocked expressions but did not seem on the verge of sprinting for safety anymore. She huffed and adjusted her shirt.
“Take back your agency!” She announced, “Don’t let little peons like this ass tell you what to do!”
Then she spun on her heel and marched away. Derek and the others fell into step with her. He had a stormy expression on his face, while Rose and Nick just looked stunned.
“Well,” Nick said, “If they did not think we were companions of the devil before, they probably do now.”
Moira snorted. “Whatever. Just watch. I bet they’ll be lining up at our table tomorrow.”
And she was correct. Maybe they got a visit from the guardsmen, who looked uncomfortable when she pointed out to them that there were no laws against turning into dragons. They issued a warning not to cause any further disturbances to the peace. And maybe some people did now think that she was a demon or something. But the next day there was a line of people curious to know more about magic. Or who just wanted to see the girl who could turn into a dragon. Either way, she had gotten their interest.