Once we finished with all that disaster business, we could return to a sort of vacation mode. Which meant doing whatever we wanted. And what I wanted was to finally use Teleport.
“Even if we end up in the wrong city, we won’t be far from a teleportation station, right?” I asked Midnight. “It’s not like ending up in a random country on Earth without a passport or something.”
“Well, actually, we probably shouldn’t be able to teleport at all,” Midnight replied. “Aside from our planetary teleportation network, there isn’t supposed to be any teleportation. Otherwise the Bunvorixians could probably just drop in wherever they pleased.”
“Oh. So we can’t?” I frowned.
“More like we should make this an official thing. Since it’s probably important to know how our security works.”
I stroked my chin. “Where does it dump unauthorized users? A volcano?” Volcano was a good bet. Or some sort of spike pit? Or a giant garbage disposal.
“What?” Midnight shook his head. “We don’t dump people anywhere. It just doesn’t work if it fails.”
“But you could get rid of so many problems if everyone who tried to teleport in was taken into a deathtrap!” I protested.
“Or accidentally kill our own citizens if we missed something,” Midnight pointed out. “Also, remember Zeb?”
“What about- oh. Yeah. They’d probably send all the nice Bunvorixians through to test things.”
“Or the potentially nice ones, anyway,” Midnight agreed.
“How about holding cells?”
“Kind of risky, depending on what tech they came in with.”
“Then… separate objects into an isolated location in case they immediately explode.”
“That’s not even-” Midnight began to protest. “That’s so much more difficult.”
“More difficult than making a planet-wide teleportation network?” I asked.
“Well, maybe not. But it might be an unnecessarily large additional expense. But either way, we need to get people on board for these tests.”
I crossed my arms and sighed. “This is going to be less fun than just doing it.”
“You like experiments,” Midnight said. “Since when has being restricted made you not enjoy them?”
“I mean, I still enjoy them,” I admitted. “But it would be more fun if I could try whatever I wanted.”
Midnight rolled his eyes. “We’d probably be dead.”
“Eh. We might not be.”
-----
For some reason, none of our friends wanted to come with us. And Midnight wasn’t going to be going with me, at least not for the first tests. Considering he had some bad experiences with teleportation previously, I was surprised he had become so willing. Maybe going through like a hundred portals had helped with that. I wasn’t sure if it had actually been that many, but we’d sure gone back and forth a lot.
So here I was, alone in a room, lamenting the restrictions placed upon me. They wanted me to land atop a big x. Seriously, why? Teleporting within a room? Within visual range? How… boring. I could just walk.
Though I kind of got why they wanted to begin with this.
Once everything was ready, I began to gather mana from within myself. Teleport was the second most expensive spell I had, behind Gate. At 15 mana, it was still in the upper tier of costs for an individual spell.
After I had the mana, I attempted to cast the spell… but felt resistance. I was used to things like that with the Scrying anchors, but when I tried to push past it just didn’t work. And by that I meant… literally anything.
“Ugh. Your protections seem to work for that, at least.”
Not Gate yet, but the Bunvorixians didn’t have tech for that and we could hope that Spot wasn’t high enough level to do it.
That said, I had the feeling that I could learn to bypass their restrictions. It was just different than Scrying. Obviously. Teleportation was an entirely different field, so I had to learn how to bypass the sorts of restrictions on it separately.
I wasn’t sure if I should mention bypassing it in front of random scientists and stuff, so I decided to just tell Midnight later. Though he probably already assumed it was possible.
-----
The next test was the ‘easy’ mode- though it seemed to me that many of those watching thought it to be equally impossible. Jet watched with clear interest, however.
The test? I would be going from one teleportation chamber to another. In short, attempting to make unauthorized use of the network. Or at least, that was how they described it. Personally, I was thinking of it more like traveling through some pre-built tunnels. Though it seemed these chambers were excellent at rejecting outside traffic.
15 mana. I wanted to go from here to there… by the easiest route. Honestly, if I had to calculate a route for Teleport I don’t think I could. That was the point of the magic, it just figured things out.
There was a bit of resistance, but it was like a sheet of paper. Maybe because I wasn’t going far, or because I was in an authorized location, or… whatever. It wasn’t my job to figure out why. It was easier. Then a moment of disorientation as my sight adjusted to seeing an area from a suddenly different perspective.
“There was a little resistance,” I said.
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Of course, I was pestered with a million questions, but I didn’t have answers for most of them. Ultimately, they asked for me to test again- this time at a further distance and beyond line of sight.
With a visual reference, it was easy enough. “Maybe slightly more difficult?” I tilted my head. I wasn’t really sure about that.
Then they finally gave me an interesting task. Starting in a teleportation chamber, I was to try to teleport to a certain area- without knowing where the destination chambers was- or even if one existed.
That sounded fine. What could even happen if I messed it up? I’d probably just go nowhere.
I still wanted to succeed, of course, so I took it seriously. My starting position was here, my destination was… over there. Mana coursed through me. I didn’t have to create any sort of enduring portal for Teleportation, so everything was over instantly. Well, apparently there was actually a slight delay but it was the sort of thing that needed sensitive instruments to determine.
The image in front of my eyes flickered, going from nothing to static- that was new- to nothing. Because I passed out.
-----
“Uuuuugh.” I recognized mana fatigue easily. I’d overdone spells many times in the past, going beyond my limits in general and in single spells. Good thing I had head padding, so I probably avoided a concussion from my fall. And it also helped when I hit my head when I sat up.
Who the heck made ceilings so low?
Oh right. Celmothians. But this was extra low, even for them. I was splayed out, my upper body previously mostly within a tiny teleport capsule. Still plenty big for a Celmothian, but I couldn’t even pretend to stand up in this one.
It was dark. Which wasn’t a problem for me, but it was weird. The room I was in… was empty except for the teleport chamber built into the wall. It was eerie. And like, three feet high. Which was probably still plenty tall for Celmothians, but not roomy even for them.
So, headache. Mana fatigue. General body pain. Worried Midnight.
I tried to project my general feeling of continued existence and current consciousness to Midnight, but he wasn’t really much calmer. It was fine, I just ended up in some sort of… deprecated teleportation chamber. Probably underground, since my communicator wasn’t working. But that wasn’t a big deal.
Continuing with my assessment. Huge mana fatigue. The time was… I hadn’t actually checked what time I was going to teleport. Couldn’t have been passed out for more than a handful of minutes, but mana fatigue was usually transitory- in the seconds.
Like this, though, I wasn’t sure. I think I hit the limits of my full mana pool and what I could use in a single spell, somehow. Since we’d taken time to travel between locations, I’d had more than the spare 15 mana necessary to cast the spell. I should have had more than 20, in fact. I… was pretty sure it was impossible to spend that much mana on a single spell. Somehow, I’d spend one and a half times as much, or more.
Had I cast the spell twice somehow? That could be.
Crawling around the area- I wasn’t Reduced, so I couldn’t do much else- I determined that the previous exits seemed to have been sealed up. How inconvenient. But there was mana here so I should be out in… minimum an hour and a half, potentially two or three depending on how well meditation worked. Or way longer than that because I was not feeling great in that department. Then again, I wasn’t coughing up black blood so it wasn’t the same as that issue.
I meditated for a few minutes, just to test the rate I was taking in mana. Yeah, that was just fine. I might even be able to hit higher than 2 mana per 10 minutes I was aiming for. But… I’d probably want some extra mana to be safe.
But hey, I probably didn’t even need to worry. Midnight was… almost directly above me now. That had changed from him being quite far away, so clearly they’d found a proper place to Teleport.
I assumed they had a plan, so I just waited while meditating. When I started hearing rumbling above that distracted me, my headache was a bit better. The general pain throughout the rest of my body was still there, but it was pretty minor.
What else could I do here. Reading was out, as that would require two uses of mana- one to pull out a book, another to cast Light. Or I could re-read the texts stored in my phone, but I didn’t want to use up the rest of the battery.
Oh right! Skill review! It had been a bit. Fortunately, the skill window was readable in literally any condition- even with my eyes closed, if I wanted to. And I was… pretty sure it didn’t take mana. And I was right- or at least not enough to stop me or make me feel worse.
Turlough (No surname)
Level: 40
Experience: 4158/4305
Storage +9 (6|3)
Firebolt +7 (5|2)
Shocking Grasp +7 (4|3)
Grease +4 (2|2)
Force Armor +11 (7|4)
Mage's Reach +6 (3|3)
Translation +6 (1|5)
Alter Time Flow +10 (6|4)
Disguise +1 (0|1)
Familiar Bond +11 (5|6)
Size Shift +6 (2|4)
Energy Ward +9 (5|4)
Sonic Lance +5 (3|2)
Advanced Divination Magic +7 (3|4)
Shield +3 (1|2)
Stoneskin +7 (4|3)
Mana Manipulation +9 (2|7)
Water Breathing
Variable Freedom +4 (2|2)
Basic Light Magic +4 (1|3)
Alter Portal +4 (0|4)
Gate +5 (2|3)
Sending +3 (0|3)
Chain Lightning +5 (3|2)
Clean +1 (0|1)
Shelter +1 (0|1)
Assistive Familiar Casting +5 (0|5)
Multicasting +5 (0|5)
Enhance +2 (1|1)
Nondetection +3 (0|3)
Water Blast +1 (5|1)
Blizzard +1 (0|1)
Fly +1 (0|1)
Dimensional Anchor
Knock
Teleport
Dispel
Remaining Points: 53
Oh, nice. Force Armor finally got a natural improvement. A couple other things as well, including Familiar Bond. And Size Shift, since we’d been using that a lot on this trip. Both Assistive Familiar Casting and Multicasting had reached 5 natural upgrades- though the Multicasting one had been more interesting.
Ugh, seriously? All that and no upgrade to Teleport? Maybe because I screwed up.
I’d also independently learned Dispel. I wondered if training with it would improve my staff’s effectiveness… or if the staff would count. Though in the second case, wouldn’t I have learned it naturally?
Wait, something was missing. Where did Mana Starvation go? I mentally scrolled back up the list and stumbled upon something I hadn’t quite clocked. Mana Manipulation… that was where Mana Crystal Deposition used to be, right? Had those abilities fused? Midnight was making use of Mana Starvation to improve his own mana stores, would that help him? I presumed so. And our bond was high enough to get all of the upgrades too.
I felt the ground trembling. The drilling and shaking sounds above me slowed. Hmm… I should probably move. Midnight was getting really close. I wiggled away from all that sound for a bit, and soon something tore through the ceiling- though nothing fell. Instead, all the bits were pulled away. Cool, more telekinetic tools.
Light spilled into the area in a cone. Great Girl stuck her head down first.
“Hello!” I called out. “Good to see you.”
“... Yeah that seems like you,” Great Girl said. “Can you… get over here?”
“Sure thing,” I crawled forward. “I kind of assumed Midnight would poke his head down first.”
“I wouldn’t die if it all collapsed on me,” Great Girl explained. “But he’s right up here.”
“I know,” I said. “Hey buddy,” I said, standing wiping off some dust. “Well that was an adventure, huh?”