Jeremy approached the slime carnage as well. Hazel had stooped down to pick up the spear he lent Zanie. When he held it up, Jeremy could see that the blade had melted completely away except for a small portion still clinging to the shaft. And radiating up from where the deformed collar of metal was still attached rose a network of blackened patterns that looked like roots or lightning.
They cut through the runes that had been carved into the wood, snaking toward the end of the shaft, but stopping about two thirds of the way to where Zanie’s hands would have been wrapped around the wood. Given the amperage she slammed into the slime, it was surprising that there was not more backlash. Jeremy supposed she must have successfully willed all of the electricity to flow into the slime instead of back towards her hands.
Hazel sighed as he trailed his fingers over the ruined staff. Jeremy hoped it was not something very precious to him. He had known what Zanie was going to use it for when he offered it, or at least Jeremy assumed he had.
The eld still could not communicate with them effectively. When Caleb went up to him with the slime core in his palm and showed it to him, Hazel smiled and nodded, but did not say anything. He probably needed to recover a little while just like Zanie. Jeremy considered the fact that, after this, it might be best for them to head back to the hotel they had just come from.
The cop who had taken Zanie up to his vehicle – the same one who had also come to greet them when they first approached the scene – was headed back toward Jeremy. He, like the other two cops, who were up by their vehicles, wore a pair of reflective sunglasses. As he drew closer, Jeremy peered at his nametag to learn his name and saw that it said M. Hart.
Matt stood up from where he had been crouched to inspect the metal strewn all over the grass and scratched the side of his head. “So, what exactly are you guys doing? Just going around and hunting down monsters?”
Jeremy shrugged. “We’re like anybody else right now, I guess. We don’t really know what we are doing. But I’ve got this idea that it would be useful if there was a spell for people to cast that would give them some information about the creatures or even themselves. How powerful they are and that kind of thing.”
Officer Hart joined them, thumbs tucked into his vest. He was obviously interested in Jeremy’s response, but as he listened, he cast an assessing glance around the scene, taking in Hazel and Caleb who were trying to communicate despite the sudden language barrier. Jeremy figured Hazel should just get some rest so he could recast his spell, but he kept poking around in the slime carnage just like Matt had been.
“Makes sense,” Matt crossed his arms, tucking his hands underneath them and frowning at the mess around his feet. “All people really want at this point is to know what the hell is going on and how to start living their lives again. I know I’m tired of being fed the ‘sit around and wait’ line.”
Jeremy nodded. “Yeah, so we’ve just been trying to learn about magic, and stuff like the dungeons and creatures in order to be able to spread some useful information.”
“Like how we’re going to be able to deal with these metal…slimes better now that we know running enough amperage through them works,” he kicked one of the shattered cores and the shards splintered further beneath his boot and flattened into the melted metal.
“Or flame throwers.” Jeremy suggested. “Looks like, if you melt them, you manage to get one of the cores out intact.”
He glanced over to where Caleb was holding the core up and trying to get the lighting correct to peer through to the center of it. Hazel had found a shady spot beneath a tree and sat with the ruined spear across his lap. Most of the cops had returned to their vans, calling in an update about the incident, Jeremy assumed. And several of the power company workers had gone back to their trucks to sit in the a/c.
“You could also practice fire magic,” Jeremy suggested, “Since I have no idea where you would be able to get flame throwers.”
“Or we could just melt them with heat, the way that the girl did,” Matt said.
Jeremy shook his head, “Heat magic is too advanced. The only reason Zanie can use it is because she has an affinity for it.”
“Oh,” Matt’s shoulders slumped, and he gave Jeremy a once-over. “How do you know what you have an affinity for?”
Jeremy chewed on his lip as he considered whether or not to reveal what his Unique Personality Trait was. In the end, he decided it wouldn’t do much harm, especially since he was well on his way to creating a spell that would allow anyone to see what he saw. Which meant it was far less unique.
“I’m able to see mana,” he admitted. “So, I can see what level you are and some of your attributes, such as your Unique Personality Trait, which in Zanie’s case is an affinity for heat magic.”
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“Oh, damn.” Matt gave him another once-over. “So you are, like, the perfect person to be learning about this stuff since the rest of us can’t tell what the hell is going on.”
Jeremy shrugged, “That’s why I want to create a spell that will let everyone see what is going on.”
“Is that what you were casting before you attacked the slimes?” Officer Hart asked.
Jeremy nodded.
“So, if we were to cast that, we would be able to tell what our skill is?” Matt asked.
Jeremy winced and made a wishy-washy movement with his hand, “Yes, but the spell is unfinished as of now. All you would see is the runes for it and so you would need to know how to translate the runes.”
Matt opened his mouth as if he were going to ask something else. Jeremy was excited that he seemed interested in the spell, but he really did want to workshop it some more before giving it out to people. He had not even thought about the fact that it might be useful to translate the runes into English – or whatever language the user spoke – until this moment. And that would be yet another modification that would make it more difficult to cast by hand. So, it was really becoming more necessary for them to find some mana crystals to enchant. Instead of letting Matt get off another question, he spoke again.
“Right now, the spell is too difficult for a beginner to cast,” Jeremy said, “But I’m working on some modifications to make it accessible to everyone.”
“Is there any way that I could give you my contact information for when you do have a workable spell?” Officer Hart asked. “We’re floundering at the precinct because people are calling in all sorts of things that we have no idea how to deal with. A spell like this would be very useful.”
“Of course.” Jeremy told him, then watched as he pulled a palm-sized notebook out of the breast pocket of his vest.
“The EMTs are starting to get a handle on healing magic,” he said as he scribbled down his information, “But when it comes to situations like this,” he waved toward the slime carnage at their feet, “we’re still completely in the dark.”
Jeremy glanced at Officer Hart’s side arm. “Bullets do still work in a lot of cases. But I think it’s going to be necessary for people in your position to learn both defensive and offensive magic. We are still quite new to all of this as well, but I can also put together a small guide for getting started with magic in general. Elemental stuff and how to manipulate it, which really leads into some of the more useful and complicated spells, like the barriers and attack spells.”
He could just send out the pdf of the book of spells, but he had a feeling that would only cause more confusion than provide any useful information. Better for Jeremy, who had already gotten a little further than most in understanding the runes, to put something together with a little less overwhelming information. Kind of like what he had sent to Moira, except that had just literally been a list of runes and their definitions. She was going to use them to put together educational guides, though, so maybe he could reach out to her and she could send him whatever she was using on her end of things.
“This is both my work cell and e-mail and my personal cell.” Officer Hart held out the paper. Jeremy took it and looked down at the neat, angular writing.
“Can I give you my information, too?” Matt asked.
“Of course,” Jeremy was about to hand the piece of paper to him, then pulled his hand back and glanced around. It would probably be a good idea just to get a list of emails from all the people who were interested in using the scan spell or learning about magic. Zanie would probably be able to put together an email chain for him. Or Caleb would be willing to, although he would roll his eyes and call Jeremy an old man the whole time.
“Let me grab my tablet so I can make a list of everyone’s e-mails who is interested,” Jeremy said. Matt nodded and he turned to walk back to where their bags lay in a heap next to the vehicles.
Jeremy realized that despite having been here for what was probably the better part of an hour by now, there had been no actual traffic to turn away. It seemed like either word had gotten around about the road closure, or there really still were not many people driving around even on roads that were not closed off by the military.
He reached the bags and sorted through until he found the tablet, then hunched into the shadow of one of the vehicles to avoid a sun glare on the screen.
“I get that we can’t do the spell on ourselves, probably,” Matt said, as he propped himself against the tailgate of one of the work trucks and set his hard hat beside him, “But can you tell me what my attribute is?”
“What your Unique Personality Trait is?” Jeremy corrected. “I can’t actually see all the attributes that the spell picks up on.”
He still needed to ask Hazel about those.
“Yeah, whatever it’s called.” Matt agreed. Now that they had come up here, where the rest of the crowd was, aside from Caleb and Hazel, there were many more curious eyes and ears on their conversation. Jeremy did not mind, especially if it piqued people’s interest in the spell.
He glanced at Matt, “You’re…I’m still no expert, remember. I’m just going based off what I’ve observed so far. But you have a rune for earth magic.” He turned his attention back to the tablet where he was pulling up a spreadsheet. “Like, I said, I don’t really know, but an affinity for some type of magic seems to be the most common.”
“What about me?” Officer Hart asked.
Jeremy glanced up at him, then lifted an eyebrow. “Hang on,” he said as he pulled up the pdf of the spell book just to check the runes of the enchantment on its inside cover. He compared them to the runes in Officer Hart’s overlay, then said, “It looks to me like you have an affinity for enchanting.”
Officer Hart obviously wanted more of an explanation than that, but everyone else was now interested in what Jeremy would see in their overlay. As he told each person what his best educated guess was – some of them he had to be honest, he had not a clue – he took down their names and emails. And by the end, he had the contact information of eight people who were interested in his scan spell and magic in general, as well as all the people they seemed excited to tell about this, as well as a whole precinct of police officers and whatever other first responders they might get interested.
Jeremy could envision it already – a bunch of firefighters conjuring water or simply snuffing out flames with magic alone.