What did I want to accomplish in 1689? 1690 had a large soccer and lacrosse tournament planned. It was to prepare for the first Olympic games in 1700. I looked at the map of north America. It had the railroad, the cities, lands restricted for parks, indian domains, and military installations. I looked and made some notes where I thought there was gold some Amelia could have some mining settlements set up. I noted three settlements I wanted set up, where old Vancouver was, where Belize was and where Anchorage was. I needed to connect the rails. The buffalo were a problem too but I wasn’t going to eliminate them. instead I planned to breed docile buffalo for food. We had breeding programs for egg chickens, egg ducks, meat chickens, dairy goats, wool sheep, milk cows, meat cows and meat pigs. Once we breed aggression out of the buffalo they would make good farming. Possibly we could even milk them in the future. What should I focus on with my magic. I had a request to extend a rail line to New York from the English, maybe after we reached the west coast. I had my research on magic items…hmmm…I took a few minutes to send out 4 golems to start salvaging again, I wanted that sword. The Olympic village needed tons of work…I will spend some time there this year. I found a note in the pile that mentioned Antonio Stradivari. I had to go to my memory and find the familiar name…the maker of violins. He had requested space in downtown Avalon to make stringed instruments. It was on my desk in hundreds of papers of requests. I had my four secretaries answer them for me for the most part. I called in Arisa and Cyra to find out what happened with him. Three hours later they returned and told me he had a shop in Lancelot. He had come here because our music school was becoming world renowned and he was interested in magic. I told them to grant his request for a shop in Avalon and it should be an excellent location. I looked at the map, found a plot and went there myself to build a 3 story, shop, workshop and house. His fee for the house was two make 2 violins a year for the music school. Any others were his to sell. I also had three other shops in the area built to attract the best instrument manufacturers in the world. On that I went to a concert. I had a special box in all three theaters of the hall. I listened to the music and it was enjoyable, no Mozart of Beethoven. Unfortunately they were unliely to be born in this time line. Maybe I could get my recall spell high enough to bring them to life. Well I needed to advance revitalize spell. Ok five goals.
* Finish the rail line to the Rockies
* Get Revitalize spell to level 10
* Finish the museum expansion
* Get the expedition to the Madagascar islands planned
* Build at least one of the large hotels in the Olympic village
I had 1800 miles of rail to make. A full day of focus and I could make almost 8 miles. We were still a few years from smelting iron and steel so it was up to me. I decided to commit one day a week to the rails…so I should add 400 miles to the rail line by the end of the year. The expedition just required me to make 9 FAVs and the soldiers, coal and supplies would be up to logistics. I would bring my massive transport ship full of coal to supply them for a year. Amelia wouldn’t be happy, 1000 soldiers and 1000 sailors were needed, not to mention the 1000+ colonists. The planning would start now and the expedition would be planned to leave in 1692. The museum needed at least 8 months to dig out the subbasements with the help of the golems. So the revitalize spell…I would plan to use it a lot of the magi and long term residents of Avalon over the year…we had…29,000 citizens, 4,600 students and 2,700 on my estate. I made a not again emphasizing to Amelia to limit the population of Avalon. I found some city layout and expansion plans in my files. I grunted and then wrote a not outlining lands that would come under the oversight of the magi council. It was about 80% of the undeveloped land and fields within 5 miles of Avalon. Amelia would be upset and two days later she came storming in. We talked for a long while and I explained that the capital could always move to Lancelot, Pendragon or Camelot. I wanted to keep Avalons population under control, maybe it would reach half a million when we modernized society but for now I thought 50,000 was the max to maintain quality of life. Amelia and I had it out for a bit and I conceded 700 more acres of land to her for development. She also wanted 50 acres for a small training center for the army which I denied. We already had housing for 2,500 soldiers in Avalon and the knights would eventually number over 1000. That done I spent a few more days casting revitalize and reviewing notes that my secretaries found important. Carina brought a new female mage to dinner every night to try to get me interested. Even though they were all very pretty I ignored them but was polite. On February 4th, 1689 I decided to check out the Olympic village.
They had collected a lot of stone. Piles were everywhere. The athlete village was looking good with grass, bushes and trees. There were 4 nature mages there growing plants. Also an earth mage was working to excavate channels for utility and water drainage. It actually turned out to be beneficial to raise the entire area up 12’. Heavy rain would have flooded the village and caused building problems. I spent two weeks building the basement and first floor of two hotels. Then I spent the next month building all the water lines above ground for all the hotels and connected to the river a mile away. I wrote down a plan to add two more drains to the river as one could easily back up in heavy rains. We also needed to widen the river flow to the ocean eventually as the drains were only 9’ above the river, so if the river rose 17’ the drains would back up. Lots of work. For my final project I added the practice fields for soccer and lacrosse and maintenance buildings for those fields. The grass would have to be planted and maintained but it should allow for games next year if we didn’t have a stadium. This was going to be my only trip here this year. We were making some concrete now but it was all going to construction in cities. Well what will be will be. The first Olympic in 1700 would probably be pretty small. I made sure to cast revitalize on workers in the village who numbered almost 2000 now.
I left for Avalon on March 29th and was happy to see there was a rotation of mages coming out the village. My revitalize spell was at level 9 and 59/100 toward level 10. I was on the train, choosing not to fly. I was in civilian garb and was listening to a conversation between a group of men. They were talking about the university. They must be new students. They were sent by their respective countries to get admitted, learn and then bring the knowledge home. I was already certain this was going on. We offered the top students incentives to stay and teach and do research. Was I worried, a little. I needed to unify the planet for war in 2088 and if technologies led to war…
Collette greeted me on my return. She had news from Europe. Spain had a new queen and she invaded Portugal and conquered it with our rifles. Well they made them themselves and they had developed manufacturing for the guns and ammo. They only had single shot rifles but the accuracy and quick reloading made them unstoppable. Collette thought the rifle tech was stolen from France as we loaned them 500 rifles and they had started making them too last year. This might be a problem. I started thinking. I needed a backup plan if the world turned on mages. Fortunately I left a lot of things off maps. French Polynesia might be a good place. I made some notes for another colony there, no another mage academy. I sent a note to Riona asking for volunteers who failed out of the magi academy to establish a new secret magi school. It would be a lessor school for now but some place they could continue to pursue magic. I went and talked with the knight commander as well. I needed 50 or so knights for the new school. After talking to him it was best to get the young mages who married knights so that is where he would start. Next I needed farmers. I got Riona to get a list of those who had a 66% probability of carrying the magic gene. I needed maybe 40. She thought she could get maybe 20. Good enough.
April 11th 1689 had me advance my revitalize spell. I could stack the reaction boost to 50% but we already were faster than average humans. Unfortunately the change was not genetic. I decided to go with speed +15%. Increasing the contractile speed of the muscles just made the reaction all the more impressive. Now I really wanted to get to level 15 for another upgrade. Over the next month I squeezed in upgrading the magi knights with the speed boost. I only upgraded my children with the speed boost in the magi tower. Riona eventually got the upgrade with her wife Noelle after she asked for it. June had me bouncing back and forth to the museum making the sublevels and making rails to extend the line west. July got us a visit from the new Queen of Spain, Marcella. At least her representative. She had a new offer of peace and invited me to visit her new country. I told Amelia she could do what she wanted to.
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Early August had me getting bored again but I pressed on. In August I turned out 200 miles of rail line. It was the first time I was making it faster than they could lay it. I wasn’t going to focus on rails in September and started trying to level revitalize and work on the museum. I had my group for the new wizard college in French Polynesia. I had 62 mages, all women with cores of 5 or less and most had no more than 8 spell points. Seventeen were married to knights and I had 15 other knights volunteer. I had 68 volunteers to farm in the new settlement. I planned to spend 4 months building the facility so departure was set for January. That got me to focus on completing the museum before I left. By December I had made 550 miles of rails and the museum additions were completed, at least their shells. My revitalize spell was at level 11, 57/100 to level 12 so it was a good year and I enjoyed the celebrations. None of my children made it to the magi academy this year and there were 26 new mages. We had 48 new knights starting in their respective academy. After the festivities of the New Year I checked my base line.
Magic Pool: 238, Magic Regen: 15.4 per hour (+63% from passive meditation)
Spell Design Points: 4
Ugh. Spell points were getting hard to come by. I was having thoughts of trying to relearn the revitalize spell. The physical upgrades were just too good. Maybe the teleport spell.
* Teleport (Space Spell – tier 7) cost 8 spell points, teleport 1 mile
* Fixed Teleport (Space Spell – tier 9) cost 11 spell points, create spacial translocation markers
The second option for the teleport could be very powerful if distance wasn’t a factor. From my understanding, or guesses, I would create a link between two objects and then could teleport between them. But 11 spell points! There were other spells with high cost, Great Illusion, Transfigure and Hellscape to name a few. But the small cost spells like perfect recall and minor illusion had made huge impacts. But I suddenly had thoughts of using the fixed teleport to build bases on other planets and space stations. Things to think about.
The groups were headed to the large transport in Camelot. I was sad I was going to miss the soccer and lacrosse world games. We supposedly had 7 soccer teams and 3 lacrosse teams coming. Our lacrosse team was made up entirely of natives and was very good. Our soccer team however was just the city champion from 11 cities not our top players in the kingdom.
I arrived in Camelot at my apartment warehouse. I checked what the golems had salvaged. A lot of crates of raw emeralds and incan gold artifacts. There was a bin of jewelry too, some of it very nice. A few swords in the warehouse but none that seemed to hold magic. Well the golems could keep searching for now. I went to the upper two levels and noticed the mages had taken over. 46 of the 62 mages were staying here till we left. I didn’t realize I gave them permission. I just got some food and went to my suite on the ship. Finding the captain I learned we had a stop in Excalibur to drop of supplies and load a cargo that was going to Panama. Then onto Panama.
It was two more days before we left. I spent the time in the city casting my revitalize and cure spells for the poor. We finally left and I used my thermal stone spell instead of burning the coal. It was six days to Excalibur, and two days in port. As we left port the leader of the magi women gave me a note from Carina. I read it. It basically said the woman who gave me the note, Noelle, was the mistress of the new magi school. She had info for everyone founding the school. The note also listed 25 names of the 62 female magi who agreed to bear a child for me… Wait what. I reread that part. Naid stepped in to explain. Each candidate was reviewed by Carina and asked if she would be willing to propagate the magic heritage. I had many conversations with Carina and Riona to this point. I had passed on this. But it looked like they were trying to force it on me. Naid was in her mid-20s and very attractive and more persuasive that my wife and Riona. I hadn’t been horny in years but Naid made me…wait this was magic. Naid confessed she had used magic on me. It was magic she had developed that increased a person’s sex drive and fertility. Naid said she developed the spell while studying my sex manual. Naid said she was taken from France as a child by me and she hated me until she started learning magic. Then she did her best to impress me. She finished 6 years at the magic school but then withdrew from entering her 7th year when this opportunity came up. She wanted to repay me for the opportunity and be close to me. She even developed the Fertility Spell because she heard I wasn’t having any more children. I guess my sex life was a big bit of gossip in the tower. Naid had black silky hair that smelled of mint….damn she was doing it again. I had her leave after she got the papers so I could study them.
I pulled out the info sheets of the 25 women first who wanted my child. They were age 14 to 39. Five only completed one year at the Academy. Four completed two years. Two completed three years. Eleven completed four years. Two had five years…and neither failed out. And finally was Naid. I looked at the rest of the magi, 37, total. Thirteen had not been admitted to the academy at all, 14 had completed 1 year, 7 completed 2 years, 2 completed 3 years and one completed 4 years. I looked at the mixture and power of spells. There were 9 earth mages with the most interesting spell being transforming stone to fertile soil. She could only do a a cubic yard at a time but still the spell was invaluable…she could even make soil on barren planets…her name was Jazz…16 years old and on the concubine list as well. Five nature mages but none overly powerful. Four healing mages, of which Naid was one. Three fire mages. One illusion mage, one darkness mage, six water mages, one air mage, two lightning mages… Lets see interesting spells…a bunch of varying light spells…a range of different healing spells…some weak offensive spells…hmm a spell to ferment quickly….a small sand golem animation….a telepathy spell…a wood sculpting spell. They should have a good mix for a successful colony and school. I still wasn’t sure about the concubine thing though.
I thought on the trip Panama and the idea of seeding the new colony with powerful mages grew on me. But I wasn’t sure if Naid was stimulating me with magic. Crap I needed to develop some magic defenses. How did abilities form from core shells. I went and got the book that academy had written on abilities. It was 57 pages on the process of learning sense magic and meditation abilities. They had figured the best way to learn them and each only took up 1 ability point each. How many free ability points did I have? I went through the exercises in the book to assess my abilities and quantify their volume on my magic core. We landed in Panama and I remained in my cabin for the 3 days it took to unload and send the troop to the other coast. I still hadn’t gotten the info so I went to the other coast.
On the west coast I rested a day doing minor work around the town. Then I worked on building a FAV without guns for our trip. We loaded the ship and left when I was done. We only had six sailors on the ship and no captain. But we had two very good navigators. It should take a week at full steam giving me time to focus on magic ability assessment. I ended up brining in Naia after two days because I was frustrated, she helped a lot and she managed to get into my pants. Her magic spell just increased me past restraint. At least 3 days in I had gotten what I needed. I had used 107 of 143 of the space on my magic core and I had 36 open space.
* Ageless, Level 5 (Stone Magic Ability [Cost 30])
* Shapeshift, Level 6 (Nature Magic Ability [Cost 30])
* Stalwart Immunity, Level 7 (Stone Magic [Cost 25])
* Magic Sense, Level 11 (Divination Magic Ability [Cost 1])
* Meditation, Level 13 (Mental Magic Ability [Cost 1])
* Stone Affinity Mastery, Level 15 (Stone Magic Ability [Cost 20])
Ok there were no defense abilities in the book against mind magic. Well mind magic…Naid was casting magic on my body controlling my hormones. My Stone Affinity formed naturally over many years. I read through the book of hypotheses on how to form a magic ability. It was like a spell creation but more of a foundation…larger, more part of yourself, an identity.
Get a vision of the ability, and layer a foundation over and over until it manifests. So I wanted my mind and body to resist foreign magic passively. So I started spending an hour every night visualizing its creation.