Having tested all of the safe options I could think of for Teleportation and apparently at least one that wasn’t safe, it had gotten an upgrade. And I was still annoyed that it hadn’t fused with Gate.
Was it because Midnight was the one who got the upgrade? Familiar Bond actually gave us a fairly good transfer of understanding between us- though our individual practice could be different. The difference was fairly easy to demonstrate. As long as Familiar Bond was good enough, Midnight could use any spell I knew at its maximum efficiency. But he wouldn’t have the muscle memory and practice to necessarily do anything beyond manipulating the quantity of mana involved.
So maybe together we had enough understanding to get an upgrade, but neither of us had enough to fuse the skills? Or maybe I needed to reach that level of understanding myself, as the one who actually had the class. It wouldn’t even be weird if Midnight had a better grasp on Teleportation than myself because he’d used it for his whole life. Just not a magical version. Surely, he could pick things up through feeling them.
But we agreed that I shouldn’t use Teleport myself until we got me checked out by Doctor Martinez, who was used to my magical strangeness and might pick up something the Celmothian’s didn’t. After a few days nothing hurt, but there were worse things than pain. Like mana crystal saturation, which also happened to hurt. Nobody should cough up black gunk for any reason. Unless maybe it was a power.
Having accomplished our goals on Celmoth, it was time to move on. The transfer part counted as work, and some time was required to make sure people settled in, but not the remaining days we spent as tourists. So all of us had to get back to work. Jerome also had to get back to school, because he’d only worked a week or so ahead of his schedule. It was a shame a smart kid like him didn’t have a chance to make use of those brains until recently. But hey, he was magic now and his quality of life had visibly improved. His mother would still be worried until we got back though, because that was how they were. Apparently.
Apparently, Angelica wasn’t coming back with us. She would be functional here because the Celmothians had translation tech- magic was just more convenient for our group because not all of them carried it all the time. But she’d be assigned someone to help her do… whatever it was she did. Schedule people for things? That’s what she did for Ceira. Except it was really more negotiating terms and vetting clients.
-----
The Power Brigade liked to know that their employees were mentally stable, and apparently killing people in a war was the sort of thing that required extra attention.
“Am I supposed to feel bad about it?” I asked Doctor Patenaude.
Obviously, he didn’t answer that the way I wanted. “I am not here to tell you how you are supposed to feel.” He took notes, of course. He always did, and he liked the scratch of pencil on paper. “How would you feel about killing civilians here?”
“I killed Handface,” I said. “Does he count? He needed to die.” I paused for a second. “Do I feel something I don’t recognize?” Patenaude was an empath. He could probably sense that. “Midnight doesn’t like the thought of killing people. He tried to avoid using any of the big spells. Though that’s his normal style. Should I feel that?”
“What do you think you feel? That’s the important thing, awareness of the self,” Doctor Patenaude explained. Again. And I was better at feeling things, but the only thing I felt about this was worry that I was a bad person. No, that other people would think I was a bad person. Which maybe made me a worse person but they wouldn’t know about that. “You mentioned Uvithar again. What do you think of him?”
What did I think of him? “I wish he would have told me more things. I feel like he could have. Him disappearing without warning feels like I was abandoned… even though I was the one who went to another world.” Oh. Had that bothered him? He should have known I would run away through a portal given an opportunity. He hadn’t sent anything but practical advice with my book, though. I liked practical advice.
“I see,” Doctor Patenaude said.
Oh great. Did that mean I was missing something? He was silent which meant he was either coming up with the next question or waiting for me to figure something out. How long would I wait? Maybe I could figure this out. Maybe I could-
“I wouldn’t recommend using magic to help with any of this. Especially without prior knowledge of how it will work.”
I squinted at him. “I didn’t even start gathering mana, did I?”
“I know your feelings about magic. You very much enjoy it. That is good. But you shouldn’t use it to solve emotional issues, or you may become reliant on it.”
I tensed my jaw. I didn’t even know what the problem was. “What if I was being affected by outside influence?”
“You aren’t. But I certainly suggest you use your mental protections in such a case,” Doctor Patenaude said. “Functioning at the baseline of your emotional awareness is necessary. Are there any other features of your trip you want to speak about?”
I took a few moments to think. “I don’t want to make Midnight worry. But sometimes I do things that cause that to happen anyway, because I don’t think it matters.”
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“And why is that?”
“Because pain doesn’t matter,” I said. “Physical pain goes away. It doesn’t bother me. Do you think that’s an orc thing?”
“Does it matter? It’s a Turlough thing. At least your interpretation of your response appears accurate. You aren’t bothered as long as you don’t perceive there will be lasting consequences. Why do you think that is?”
“... Because it doesn’t matter? Exercise hurts and Midnight doesn’t get worried about that. It’s not like I choose to get injured beyond what I expect to heal. Plus, we have people who can help. Even if I lose an arm then Ce- my friend can grow it back.”
“Is this friend from before you came here?” Doctor Patenaude asked.
“No. From Earth,” I said. “Relatively recently. I already felt like this before, and I don’t want to bother her often so I still try to keep myself safe. Just to less tolerance than other people think is fine.”
“That does sound correct. However, you should consider the emotional pain of others around you before you act more often.”
“... I didn’t know the Teleport would end up off track.”
“But you did know it could. And that there was some danger.”
“Not that much.”
“Mmm. That, I will have to trust you on.”
“And Doctor Martinez. He said I was healing just fine and there were no lingering issues, physical or magical.”
“I won’t comment on the dangers of magic I don’t understand. Anything else?”
He thought there was something I had missed. But I sure didn’t know what it was. Something with Uvithar? Was my answer not good enough? “I can’t think of anything, really.”
-----
There was never enough mana for everything I wanted to do. I couldn’t contact Sir Kalman and Lady Eglantine every day and practice expensive spells and try to Scry mysteries in my old world. Though I was a little bit closer to achieving all of that since I now recovered mana a bit faster. At least when I was doing it actively.
It probably had something to do with things fusing into Mana Manipulation. I’d been getting better at mediation and active recovery, but none of that was part of any skill. Those had all been about training my maximums. Relatedly, Midnight seemed to have fairly quickly grown into the new mana he was supposed to have, through his Mana Starvation training. I still continued to use my own method, though there wasn’t really much growth to be had at this point. I’d need more levels for a higher natural base and improvements before it was valuable to shove more mana into myself. There were only fractional improvements to be had otherwise.
I tried Mana Starvation just to be better able to help Jerome and such. I was certainly better than I had been before, and without practice, but it didn’t really change anything. But if I was going to be low on mana anyway, I might as well get right to the edge. Improving a combined skill from the different things combined into it might be more efficient. Though that was pure speculation.
For the first time, I used Teleport on Earth. It was so boring, because I only went to Extra’s HQ. I couldn’t teleport into the Brigade, because they had general protections against that. Though I was approved to teleport out of it.
The skills didn’t fuse. Then again, it was easy. I probably hadn’t learned anything. I had asked Calculator if I could try Teleporting into the Brigade.
“No. Absolutely not.”
“But what if there are holes in the defenses?”
He shook his head. “Now that we’re warded to include magic, it’s quite secure. And it would be dangerous.”
“Why? Does it knock people away?”
“It’s better for you to not have the details. Never try it.”
“... Can I Teleport out front?”
He sighed. “Do you want the public to be aware of that ability?”
“Not really. And I doubt that would make me better.”
I wanted to get good enough that it was reasonable to teleport to and from the apartment with Midnight. However, the cost was quite high. Of course, we couldn’t go directly to either. The Lower Hills Suites weren’t special on their own, but special care was taken for Midnight and I since we’d had problems with Darkstargirl’s fanatics at the other apartment. And since we might be targeted by Doctor Doomsday if he decided we were worth his notice again, and because Flasher was still around somewhere, teleportation was one thing our apartments were protected against. And that included the hallway, though not knowing who might be there it wouldn’t exactly be subtle to randomly pop in.
-----
Sir Kalman said the war had died down, at least for the moment. Obviously it was too soon to determine if it was just a lull or if the underground elves were done causing problems for the next couple decades. Destroying one portal and a significant part of their tech weapon supply had certainly helped. Though since they probably had another portal that presumably went to Earth, it wasn’t really ever going to be done. Unless someone took out Doctor Doomsday, but even if they crashed a new secret lab every week it would probably never be enough.
He was always able to escape, if he couldn’t force the attackers to retreat first. And every time people actually tried to take down one of his bases- at least a notable one- they had to be prepared for significant trouble. It seemed the place he’d dragged Ceira hadn’t been that important, though I still had to consider he might continue to hold a grudge. I didn’t try to Scry him anymore, though.
It wasn’t that I was afraid. I just understood he could probably kill me and I didn’t want people to be sad about it. Even the levels I might get from surviving weren’t temptation enough at the moment.
And there wasn’t anyone like Handface trying to kill me. I didn’t like that at all.
I needed to get a new rival. How did people do that, anyway? Spot didn’t like me, but he was probably Midnight’s rival at best. Or Great Girl’s, since he came with Darkstargirl. Gloom was hers too.
Maybe Rodentia? She was nice. But she was just a general chaos-causer without a personal connection. We were more like enemy-acquaintances than proper rivals.
Flasher was a pain. Iron Shell and the Mod Squad caused too much destruction.
Doctor Doomsday was probably still bringing in a lot of orcs, but while I’d fight them if they showed up I didn’t really want to poke my nose into that at the moment.
Maybe I could find one on Halloween. At the very least, it should be a decent night to gain some experience. Sparring with the same people just wasn’t keeping up the pace I wanted.