***DREAM***

Tom walked back toward the hollowed-out mobile home where Reese and Jacob had died. Her neighbors hid in their own hovels, peering furtively out at Tom, presumably unable to call the cops on account of the self-replicating NDA curse that prevented anyone from mentioning the company of armed knights who’d stormed through about twelve hours ago.

Tom assumed it eventually wore off, but there wasn’t going to be any official response tonight. Hadn’t been last time.

Tom kicked the summoning circle upright and dialed up Luz, setting the Crypt Vocabulary, and Material Spell Synthesis book off to the side.

Tom had some questions.

“Good evening, Tom Graves,” Luz said. “How can I help you?”

“Yeah, can a crypt make water?” Tom asked.

“Let me check…yes, there were crypts built for the express purpose of creating water.”

“Really, can I see one?” tom was hoping to circle the runes in the book then memorize them.

“Sadly, no, as we do not have any in stock.”

“Why not?”

“Their author realized that killing someone in order to facilitate the creation of water was wasteful, and discontinued the set. There are several dozen crypts of a utilitarian bent that were similarly discontinued. They’re collectables now, actually.”

“Shows what he knows, I would totally kill someone for a couple gallons of water right now.”

Luz raised an eyebrow.

“Any crypts that fix objects? Like, Mending from D&D?” Tom asked.

“Similar to the water Crypt, they waned in popularity rapidly. Killing to fix things was not generally a welcome solution. If you want a wand that can repair, we have several platinum wand options available if you’re looking for something long-term, or a pre-packaged scroll if you’re in need of something cheaper.”

“What’s a wand?” Tom knew what a wand was, but he wanted to be absolutely clear.

“Basically a Crypt without a soul engine attached to it. You power them yourself.”

She looked him up and down. “If you can do that.”

“Probably. Whats the difference between a wand and a scroll?”

“A scroll is made on cheap mass-produced paper with an ink that may not necessarily contribute to the synergy of the spell phrase. With one use, the soul pulses corrode through the paper, leaving it useless. A wand has a similar spell phrase inscribed in a more durable substance, such as wood, iron, gold, or platinum. The best wands have their inscriptions filled with a synergistic material that supercharges the effectiveness of the spell phrase, along with a backchannel around it that channels corrosion back into the sturdy frame of the wand. You’ll only get those in platinum and gold.”

Tom frowned as a thought occurred to him.

“What’s the market price of Crypt Vocabulary, and Material Spell Synthesis?” Tom asked.

“Four thousand soul-pulses,” Luz said immediately.

“Could you reserve a shopping list with everything…nevermind.” Tom smacked his forehead. He wasn’t actually talking to the real Luz. Damnit.

“Hypothetically, if I conjured you in the desert, what kind of help could you get to me for the price of…let’s say a dozen soul pulses?”

Luz leaned forward and scanned the Illinois trailer park, which was decidedly not desert.

“I could arrange for a Guide, a spirit that has served in the area before. They often spend many years being summoned by locals until they could be considered one themselves. Foreigners like you usually hire them to translate or advise on customs, but it could also provide advice on how to survive, surely.”

“What if It’s advice is, ‘you’re screwed?’ Tom asked.

“That is a distinct possibility. Deserts are harsh. Do you know which one you’re scrying from?”

She’d already guessed. Tom didn’t bother with protesting.

“I don’t know, I drove through a portal and now I don’t know where I am.”

She quizzed him for a moment on the local weather, sun, flora, and fauna. Tom had an incomplete picture, but with enough prying, she seemed to at least know which planet and desert he was on.

“You’re most likely on Orsoth. The portal was destabilized, but the planetary coordinates are the last to degrade before it winks out of existence. There are several deserts on Orsoth, but you’re most likely on the Vith desert, seeing as it’s the largest. All the other deserts are smaller, more mountainous, and have the occasional river. None of which you saw.”

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Right.”

“I hate to tell you this, but depending on where you landed, you could be a thousand miles from any form of civilization.”

“I was afraid of that,” Tom said, crossing his arms. “Which direction should I go?”

“Well, if you’re in the Vith desert, go south until you either hit the ocean or the Dinamor Stretch. There’s more water and more ‘civilization’ in that direction.

“Which direction is south on Orsoth?” Tom asked.

“Rising sun on your left.”

“Oh cool, same as Earth.”

“No, the planet’s rotating the other way, it’s just upside down too.”

“…Was that a joke?” Tom asked.

“Was what a joke?” She said, so perfectly innocent that Tom couldn’t pursue the topic.

Tom paused to think.

“Can I use other kinds of ink to contact you?” he asked.

“Bird fat and ash from a hardwood are the best, but any fat and ash will do in a pinch.”

“If I just draw it in the sand or something?”

“The signal will be unlikely to reach.”

Yeah, I thought so.

Tom glanced at the book again, right next to the caulk gun full of summoning ink. It was worth four thousand soul pulses. More than enough to clear his debt, even if he sold it for less than its sticker value.

The question, is am I duping items when I grab them or am I summoning them from the past?

If he were duplicating items, then he could make another book, or another crypt, for that matter, then sell them at a tremendous profit ad infinitum. Since Outsiders would basically do anything for money, he could probably afford a way off the planet in just a few weeks.

If I manage to make the ink I need.

“How many soul pulses do you think it would cost to solve my missing baby problem and my ‘stranded in the desert’ problem?”

“between two and fifty thousand soul pulses, depending on how frugal you want to be.” Luz responded.

“And how many crypts would I have to sell to manage that?”

“Depending on the crypt, between one and two hundred.”

“So what if I found a way to sell an infinite amount of Crypts to you?”

She raised an eyebrow.

“I would say that you would devalue the crypts on the market, and more importantly, you would attract the attention of a different kind of collector.”

“Explain.”

“Well, if you are suggesting that your En’hol scrying magic can be used as a way to duplicate items, then I am suggesting there are many beings out there with powerful, unique objects who are more than happy to enslave mortals in order to replicate them.

“Such as?”

She shrugged.

“Arch soulmongers and their Jenzethu, a demon lord and their name, a king with only one Heirloom and three beloved children, Kutheza and Goblets, Brikthanu and his Spears of Ending, Jorkuntha’s scales, Gintama’ Spheres of –“

“That’s plenty,” Tom said, holding up his hand. “You’re saying it would attract attention.”

“It would at that. I sincerely suggest never selling more than a single copy of anything back to me, unless you wish to invite more attention than you can handle, at your current state.”

Yeah, I guess I was thinking of the world as a game.

In a game, if you found a dupe glitch, you could sell it to the same merchant over and over forever, and they would pay you the same price, giving you that same glassy-eyed stare.

In the real world, people asked questions.

Well, damn, no infinite money for me. Still, that did mean if he truly was copying objects, he could sell the originals back to Luz without drawing any attention. And that was probably enough to pay his debts and purchase a bit more help.

Not a bad idea. We’ll call it plan addendum D: for dupe.

In the meantime, he had to focus on water, food, and making his way to the south. A truck would help with that last one.

“Alright, back to it, what kind of wands can repair machinery?” Tom asked.

“There are three spell phrases that can repair machinery.” She said.

“Lay it on me.”

“The first is dubbed the ‘lucky plumber’, It essentially harnesses reverse-entropy to allow a machine to gradually repair itself over time. It’s mostly good for managing wear and tear, and not large damage. The second is Assisted Repair. It uses the user’s knowledge of how the machine should look and behave, and uses that to enact changes. The third is Reset, which simply rolls back time on the object until it’s no longer damaged.”

“Reset sounds good, can you show me it’s spell phrase?” Tom asked.

A glowing wall of text appeared in front of Luz, who leaned past it to see him. “Needless to say, Reset is a devourer of soul pulses. It’s every inefficient, but extremely simple to use.”

Tom scratched his head. There was no way he was going to copy Reset. The Lucky Plumber sounded good unless there were some huge problem with the engine. Tom didn’t know if there was a huge problem with the engine. The Assisted repair was probably the best, except Tom knew nothing about how the engine was supposed to look…

That’s a fixable problem.

“Can you show me the lucky plumber and the Assisted Repair spell phrases?” Tom asked.

They worked out a system where Luz ‘sold’ him cheap scrolls, which he then sold back after he’d copied their phrases.

Assisted repair was much simpler than either of the other two that harnessed Time and Entropy. It was more like a find and replace function using the spell wielder’s memory.

Tom scribbled down the Assisted Repair runes into the book, then sold the scroll back. Luz didn’t really care that she wasn’t making a profit, because she’d already guessed they were in Tom’s ‘what if’ dream.

Tom checked his watch once he was done quizzing Luz on everything he’d thought of.

Still got several hours. Let’s see. I’ve got a lot of desert survival tips rattling around, a bunch of ideas on how to save my ass, memorized the ‘create water’ spell phrase, and have my book ready to get pulled into the waking world…should that be possible.

Tom tucked the spell phrase encyclopedia under his arm and went to go borrow someone’s phone at gunpoint.

He needed to watch some Youtube videos on car repair.

Tom didn’t know how to fix a truck, but he knew exactly what model of truck Jacob’s was, since he’d been digging around in the glove box and the engine for anything he could use to survive. He’d found the owner’s manual.

Tom spent the rest of the night alternating between watching people repair that specific truck on Youtube, and writing the ‘Create Water’ runes on a sheet of paper over and over again.

When the time was growing late, Tom held the book securely between both hands and clenched his jaw.

He was as prepared as he could have possibly made himself in the short amount of time he had with the world’s information at his fingertips.

God I hope I can pull this off.

Tom began to pull on the book, trying to recreate the tearing sensation he’d experienced with Jacob’s shirt.

He tried to pull it in a direction with no name, his arms buckling as an intense heat built up inside his chest. He could feel the soul-pulses flooding out of his body, injecting themselves into the book, as reality began to tear around it.

“You’re coming with me!” Tom shouted at the book as it stubbornly held its place.

I really hope I’m not having an aneurism, Tom thought, as reality gave a final tearing sensation before he passed out.