Chapter 5

The laboratory wasn’t much. Lots of windows, three in each wall, for lots of light and ventilation, a desk with lots of shelves, and a sturdy table in the middle of the room.

He set the spidersilk bag on the table and looked at it.

It was beautiful. He’d asked for it to be blue and he remembered Dara telling him it had been dyed with indigo. Ned wasn’t really up on his colors but he remembered indigo being darker. It must be that the material diluted the color or something. It really did look, the more he looked at it, like a rectangular section of sky.

He wasn’t as ready for it as he’d liked. He wanted to get started right away but didn’t dare. He wasn’t sure he was ready or knew all he needed to know.

Before he looked at his experiments he’d better review and update his skills. He tried to do this every day and he tried to do it before trying anything tremendously important. That way he could maximize his efforts and potential for success. Usually, he only looked at parts of it but, tedious as it might be, he didn’t want to miss anything. You never know what you’re going to need, right? He pulled up his whole sheet.

Ned Cartwright Class:

Title: Teacher, Enchanter, Warrior, Worldbreaker, Squirrel, Schoolmaster, and Ladies’ Man.

Physical Statistics Mental Statistics Magical Statistics:

Str: 11 Int: 18 Will: 20

Dex: 16 Wis: 16

Con: 12 Edu: 30

Siz: 12

Hit Points

Physical: 12 Social: 17 Mental: 18

Physical Skills

Climb 51

Conceal 16

Cooking 54

Farming 31

Fire Building 39

First Aid 62

Flint Knapping 41

Hide 56

Jump 43

Listen 61

Mechanical Repair 62

Ride 17

Skinning 35

Sneak 41

Sewing 35

Swim 35

Throw

Called Shot 74

Grappling 65

Large Blades 14

Large Blunts 14

Large Piercers 14

Medium Blades 14

Medium Blunts 14

Medium Piercers 14

Small Blades 45

Small Blunts 14

Small Piercers 14

Track 25

Weaving 55

Woodworking

Bowyer 26

Carpentry 67

Door Hanging 37

Fletcher 25

Flooring 47

Framing 51

Joining 31

Roofing 33

Combat Skills

Archery 51

Dodge

Grapple 27

x Multiple Enemies 75

Reposition Enemy 31

Riposte 57

x Seize Initiative 81

Grapple

Catch Arm 61

Catch and Lift 21

Catch and Redirect 22

x Catch Leg 31

Catch Weapon 66

Headlock 27

Reverse Hold 71

Head Butt 21

Improvised Weapons 32

Kick

Block 19

Called Shot 63

Knock Prone 25

x Reposition 62

Stagger 77

Stun 21

Punch

Block 65

x Called Shot 77

Knock Prone 23

Reposition 24

Stagger 24

Stun 73

Quarterstaff 46

Warhammer

x Block 72

Called Shot 59

x Hook and Grapple 72

Knock Prone 25

Stagger 20

Stun 22

Mental Skills

Accounting

Auditing 17

Institutional 67

Financial 57

Goods 25

Stores 57

Anatomy 57

Bargain 17

Botany 39

Credit

Financial Trust 63

Honest Trust 72

Legal Trust 35

Romantic Trust 32

Trust in Word 93

Fast Talk 17

Geology 43

History 45

Language, Beast: Squirrel 52

Language, English

Reading 55

Speaking 60

Writing, Exposition 45

Writing, Persuasive 70

Writing, Creative 70

Library Technician 59

Literature

Drama 74

Fiction 64

Nonfiction 44

Poetry 44

Medicine 35

Meditation 30

Navigate 17

Persuade

Con 64

Ethos 44

Lie 23

Logos 70

Pathos 56

Psychoanalysis

Analyze Mental Process, Self 57

Analyze Mental Process, Other 37

Calm 47

Detect Lie 67

Diagnose Mental Illness 17

Probe Emotional State 25

Psychology 42

Search

Detect Movement 37

Documents 57

Listen 37

Person 17

Spot Hidden 67

Magical Skills

x Enchantment: Extra-dimensional Containment and Expansion 66

x Enchantment: Organizational Itemization and Identification 56

Enchantment: Portal Permeability and Security 32

x Enchantment: Summon Owned Item to Hand 62

x Evocation: Fire Dart (1d6, 20% to catch fire) 35

Telekinesis 40

Unique Skills

Learning 40*

Teaching 36*

He’d been very pleased a month ago to see that his strength had increased by a full point. Hughie told him it was the result of all his work and exercise and that he might expect similar increases in constitution and maybe in dexterity at the rate he was going. It wasn’t definite and there were no set rules, according to Hughie. It was supposed to reflect life.

“I mean,” said the UI, “How many squats do you have to do exactly before you’re one point healthier or stronger? See? It doesn’t make any sense.”

Then he told him that if he gained another point of strength, all stats where strength was the primary determining factor for a skill’s base score would increase by a point, Ned got really excited. Any way to bring up more than one score at a time was amazing.

He’d been on patrol all day so his checked skills were mainly physical and combat-related.

Grapple, Catch Leg went up by ten for forty-one percent, which was awesome, but all the other combat rolls fell short, which sucked.

He hoped he’d do better with his magic.

He managed to get his Enchantment: Organizational Itemization and Identification up to sixty-five percent.

Enchantment: Summon Owned Item to Hand was now seventy percent.

And Evocation: Fire Dart went up to forty-two.

Not bad for a day’s work, though the day was far from over.

He retrieved three bags from the big one he wore disguised as a cloak. From each, he pulled a square wrapped in oilcloth. One of the squares was a bit larger than the others. He set them on the far left side of the table.

From a chest under a window, he pulled another two packages, and from a drawer in his desk he brought out another, this last one being the same size as the largest from the first batch. These he placed on the right side of the table.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

He went to the stack on the right first. The first two, the smaller ones, he unwrapped to reveal two moldy ham sandwiches. He studied them closely. The mold had enveloped them more or less to the same extent. The sandwiches from under the window and the desk drawer were indistinguishable. The third package contained a box. It had been waterproofed and caulked much like Dara’s new shipping container. The sandwich from inside was also moldy but to a much lesser extent than the others.

Ned frowned.

The sandwiches from the bags of holding, even the one in the other waterproof box, were pristine. In fact, they were indistinguishable from the state they were in when he first put them away a week ago.

“Dammit.”

He’d hoped the watertight box would serve as a kind of capsule within the bag — a small enclosure of normal space where time and energy and whatnot would flow normally within the larger space of the extra-dimensional, um, space. He'd hoped the sandwich inside would be moldy too.

Time did not exist within the bags. Energy did not flow. Stasis. And Ned was trying to find a way around that.

He had a feeling it had something to do with time. It didn’t seem to him that energy could change from one form into another without time, but that time by itself was under no such constraints. It didn’t need or have anything to do with energy.

Unless of course, time was simply perception of the flow of energy.

Hmmm.

Ned read a lot. He’d read that the fourth dimension was time. He’d read that it wasn’t. He’d read that it was much more complicated than all that. It was interesting to think about. Like, if time could be perceived all at once, what would that look like? If you took a red rubber ball and bounced it within a doorway and could accelerate it fast enough, wouldn’t the ball eventually inhabit the total space within the doorway? Wouldn’t it look like a red rubber wall? Like how, if you stuck a finger in a fan, one of the blades would have to hit it, right? But, if the blades moved faster than your finger could find the gap you'd have what, for all intents and purposes, was a solid seeming disk made of spinning fan blades.

If all the times Ned had spent in this room could be condensed into all the times happening at once, wouldn’t Ned suddenly occupy all the spaces where he’d walked here? It'd look mostly blue because that was the color of Ned's robes. A solid blue blob of Ned.

Extrapolate from that.

Not just Ned in the lab but Ned everywhere all at once. A Nedworm flowing from his birth to his death and everywhere he’d ever been and everywhere he was going to go, laying, interwoven among the Magridworms and Cadminworms and….

There was something there. An idea.

When he chucked Red Betty into a bag, driving her instantly and murderously insane, maybe the Red Bettyworm was cut. She's been amputated, without so much as a howdy-do let alone anesthesia, into some other dimension where time and energy remained a constant. Traumatic. Especially if Hughie was right in that her mind continued experiencing time even as her body and circumstances didn't.

He needed a way to tuck the wormlife into an extra-dimensional space without cutting it.

There was something he sensed when he opened or closed a bag. Something like a severing. Or maybe it was more like the bag was an airlock rather than the front door of your house. He needed the door to shut but the barrier to be permeable. He needed a screen door! Something like....

You have learned… Enchantment: Portal Permeability and Security. Roll now to determine your ability.

7

Your skill in Enchantment: Portal Permeability and Security is now 32%.

“Holy shit!” Ned said. “Did I just figure a spell out on my own? Hughie!”

There was a flutter and Hughie appeared on the windowsill. “Yes, Ned?”

“Did I just figure out a spell on my own?”

“Yes, Ned. Congratulations! That doesn’t happen a lot.”

“It doesn’t?”

“Nope.” The bird blurred a second and then there was a short blue man sitting in the window in black feathered robes grinning at him. “You’ve done really well.”

“Does this spell do what I think it does?”

“If you think it regulates how much time affects the interior of one of your extra-dimensional spaces, then yes, it does.”

Ned pumped a fist in the air. “This means I can make the nur—. Wait a second. What just happened?”

“What do you mean?”

“Okay, all I did was apply what I understood about the magic I could already do with some ideas I had about the nature of time and how it’s perceived. I got a new spell from that? Connecting ideas?”

“That’s the way it works, Ned. It’s how mages operate and create new spells.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Then Ned held up a hand. “Never mind. I didn’t ask, I get it. I wish you could tell me all the questions I haven’t asked and should.” He looked at Hughie.

Hughie shrugged.

“Fire dart,” said Ned.

“Hmm?”

“Heat and light energy,” Ned mumbled to himself. “Permeability….”

You have learned… Enchantment: Temperature Manipulation and Energy Transfer. Roll now to determine your ability.

2

“Fuck.”

Your skill in Enchantment: Temperature Manipulation and Energy Transfer is now 27%.

Ned blinked. “Why not just heat?”

“Cold is the absence of heat energy.”

“Aha. Dude, does this mean I can make a fire sword now?”

Hughie shrugged. “Maybe. But why would you want one? Seems really impractical. Most things don’t ignite right away so you wouldn’t be setting bad guys on fire a lot, if at all, and when you cut them you’d cauterize the wound, right? Which is good for them. Well, better than bleeding out. Plus, the sword would probably stick, right?”

“A frost sword?”

“That sticks even worse, doesn't it? How would you ever get it back out of somebody?”

“Well, there’s the psychological effect?”

“True, but — ”

There was a very sturdy knock at the door.

Ned knew that knock.

“Um, what time is it?” he asked Hughie.

“It’s about ten minutes after eight.”

Dinner had been at six thirty. How long had he been up here? “Oh, shit.”

He went to the door.

Magrid was on the other side of it. She was looking very patient.

“I’m sorry,” said Ned. “We were working….” He gestured to the window. Which was empty. The damn bird had flown. “I lost track of time.”

Magrid looked down at him. She was four inches taller than he was and knew how to use it. “I did not bring your food here.”

“Oh.”

“It is downstairs,” she said.

Ned looked over at the sky-blue bag.

“You will eat now, Ned. It is important.”

He patted her belly. “Not as important as it is for you.”

Magrid was not amused. She was seven months pregnant and looked it. Ned thought she looked good.

Very good.

“It is downstairs,” she said. “In the bedroom.”

But Ned looked at the bag again. There were so many things he wanted to try. Maybe if --

So, Magrid picked him up and set him over her shoulder.

“Oh!” said Ned. "You said it was in the bedroom? Okay.”

“You are slow, Ned Cartwright.”

“Slow and steady wins the race.”

She started down the stairs. “We will see.”