Daybreak brought its own set of worries. The last Ripple was just two or three days away, and something wasn’t sitting right with me. Each Ripple has been getting weaker as the Dimensional Seal keeping Earth locked away is opening more and more, but my worries kept gnawing at the back of my mind. It didn’t help that while each wave was weaker, they were somehow more violent, more willing to impose widespread changes to the surrounding landscape.
Murphy’s Law is the standard of what rules my life and that bastard definitely carries a grudge. Lying in my bed, I was playing with a rock, using my Earth Sorcery to mold it and shape it like a child would with play-doh. A whim of will could turn solid granite to dust in my hand, and it never ceased to amaze me that magic is real!
My Flesh Sorcery allowed me to pack the necessary amount of REM sleep into just a few hours, and I spent the extra morning time playing around with runes. So far, I had been using runes that I had made up, some arbitrary caveman-ish drawings that actually worked and functioned roughly the way I wanted it to, because Sorcery and enchantment works off of intent.
This did not mean that it was the most efficient way. The first Sorcery, Mana Sorcery, I had gained was related to runes and enchantments, but I hadn’t fully explored the breadth of available options of that power even though I’d been using it more than anything else. I had the distinct feeling after examining Reeanth’s battlesuit, which was covered in countless runes, that my clunky made-up runes were like a musket compared to a modern sniper rifle like the ones that she was packing.
And now, playing with my baseball-sized piece of granite and forming it into different shapes, I noticed that magic flowed differently through it. What made it worse is that I couldn’t be specific in how or why the magic treated shapes differently, but it did. This is one of the areas that my lack of knowledge was really holding me back in. The only thing I had going for me was my overwhelming power, the unending supply of mana I had in the way of the kinetic-current converter in the river hideout and the two big generators in the under-tree hideout and the in-the-tree hideout. And those ones are going to require some serious maintenance soon.
Damn, what I wouldn’t give to go back in time and go to college for something worthwhile, like nuclear physics or mechanical engineering. Shit, or even medical school so that I could fully use my Flesh Sorcery to its utmost potential. My problem is me. I’m too dumb for this. Other than endless mana, my other strengths are diverse powers and pure stubbornness, and I have that last one in spades.
My mind randomly began turning over another subject. What Reeanth said in regards to altered states of mind, that they weren’t picked up. Which is either a really good or really bad outcome, depending on the circumstances. Mine went rather well, other than my fiancée incident, and is still going alright. I mean, I’m still alive and I am more powerful than any human in recorded history, but I guess that the leftovers might not have had such accommodating circumstances, or even made a wish when they had the chance. My skittish mind hopped around again as long term-benefits warred with short term convenience.
[Bumpkins one through four, there might be a way to swing this whole thing in my favor.] I mused, grinding the rock in my hand to dust and reconstituting over and over.
They couldn’t live too far from here, and they probably don’t have much gas left. Also, my guess is that they’re probably good people who would be happy to be a part of a larger community. One possible avenue to entice them to my side of the equation would be to build an inverted version of a skyscraper for them, an underground bunker with a bunch of apartments. Or, I could build into a mountain - or even just make a bunch of Hobbit houses in some small hills. I figure they’d probably want to bring back lone souls who they find out on their exploration trips, and I wouldn’t mind having a safe place to bring them back to. I could also train them, or help them expand their abilities, as well as equipping them.
When I got tired of thinking about it, I put my energy to good use in the early hours. By the time they woke up, I had presents for them.
“Morning sleepyheads,” I greeted them as they stumbled into the main room. “Coffee is on the table, I have sugar but no milk, and as soon as you finish waking up, you’re gonna love what I got for ya.”
Bleary eyes opened only when they heard the word ‘coffee’. Without caring that it was hot, they each poured themselves a cup, threw in some sugar, and nursed it like addicts. As they perked up under the magical effects of the wonder drug, I began placing various items in front of them.
“Let’s start with you, Jimmy. You were the easiest cause you were the biggest. I don’t know how y’all have been defending yourselves up’n till now, but melee weapons don’t run outta bullets.” I said, hefting a three and a half foot bar of steel, with a foot long handle at the base and a point at the tip. “This bad boy right here, can turn into a solid baseball bat, an ax, a sword, or a pick. I’ve attached a diamond crystal in the base so that it can store energy automatically when not in use, and it will shift based offa’ what you imagine. I am gonna need a drop of your blood for it to work.”
“That’s it?” He asked, hunched over his coffee. His dark eyes narrowed. “Just one drop? What’s the skinny? People don’t do shit for free.”
“Honest. This was easy to make but it benefited me by giving me items to practice my own magic on.” I answered. With a shrug, I tossed the weapon from one hand to the other. “And this will hopefully grease the wheels of our friendship. I got a lot of shit going on myself that I gotta worry about, and if y’all can survive with just a little boost from me, then I won’t have to worry about ya.”
Jimmy grunted his assent and stuck out his finger. I pricked it with his new weapon. Taking a second to heal his finger with Flesh Sorcery, I put the weapon down in front of him. “All yours.” I said proudly. “And . . . it can repair itself if you stick it in the earth near a leyline, which the crystal at the base will light up if you’re near one. Gungnir will fill you in more later.”
I turned to Tommy. “So, yours was also easy, I made two of what Jimmy got, but smaller. I used more metals in yours in case a hunch of mine proves true. And Sally,” I said, turning to her. “Yours are pretty much the same thing, but smaller. And, you get more of them. I think your ‘changing’ ability is going to become your main weapon later, but having a bunch of shape-shifting daggers will help you out while you figure that out.”
Her puzzled look told me that she probably didn’t know what the hell I was talking about. “And! Moving on! Billy, you good sir, get something a little bit different. These are actually patterned after my own weapons. These go on your arm, and function as shields.” I demonstrated with Svalinn, flexing my will to make my gauntlets extend out to form a small round shield on each arm.
“And, they aren’t just for defense.” I grinned, forming the blade extensions on Svalinn. “See, beautiful.”
The enormity of what I had done hadn’t sunk in yet. All but Jimmy were still hunched over drinking coffee, their eyes half-lidded from sleep. My grand vision was unrealized by the simple fact that these people were not morning people. Which is totally fine, because up till the point I got Sorcery, neither was I. But, a million gamers are turning over in their graves at the utter lack of reaction from the faces of my guests. My excitement was stifled, but not stopped.
“Annnnnd . . . I have armor all laid near your four-wheelers as well and a whole bunch of goodies to go with them!”
No applause. No happiness. Nothing. Fine. Screw it. Reaching out to each of them with my Flesh Sorcery, I woke them the hell up, removing the lag that sleep had clouded their minds with.
“Holy moly! That’s better than coffee!” Billy exclaimed, wiggling like a dog that had to pee. “But, now it’s hair of the dog time!”
“Damn it Billy,” Sally snapped. “That miracle was so good I’m gunna hafta’ join ya!”
Tommy stood up and shook his giant shoulders, towering over the table. “Enough.” he said, his size granting him early morning authority. “This Sorcerer is kind enough to give us coffee and magical weapons. We should probably hear what he has to say before y’all get shitfaced.” With that, he gestured for me to speak and sat down.
“Thanks man.” I said as the shamefaced alcoholics sat down. “Well, I was thinking of coming to see where y’all lived. Maybe I could build an underground bunker for y’all and add some more people to your group. There ain’t much of humanity left, and I was hoping maybe y’all could find some mo’ just like you found me. And I don’t know where y’all stand with gas, like, how much you got left, but if you’re gonna be out soon, I might make ya some kind of magical four-wheeler or hovercraft.”
[Boss, you’re starting to sound like them too] Gungnir sent me.
[Shut up! My accent comes back when I’m around Southerners.]
Billy looked at me, and then at Reeanth and said, “Sorry y’all, but we don’t really know ya that well. This was real kind of you, but not sure we’re gonna go for that.”
“I don’t know.” Tommy said, looking uneasy at disagreeing. “I feel like this guy’s got some answers we need. He ain’t done nothin’ wrong yet. Fed us, been kind, made weapons and gear, and you see the way he whips around magic?”
“Let’s see how this goes first.” Jimmy said, finishing off his coffee. “He’s got good ideas and we’ll test out the stuff. More people… that’d be good too, though.”
Sally was not to be outdone. “Well, I like him. Nice, kind, well to do. Not like you three got’s a brain between ya. We could use a planner like him.” She looked at me and nodded, clearly letting me know that she’s on my side.
Shrugging my shoulders, I poured myself some coffee. “It’s up to y’all. I also got a few more tidbits for ya, a hunch if you will . . . I think y’all got more magic than you realize. I’ll have to examine you to be sure, but I bet that you guys are more powerful than you think.”
Jimmy looked at me, his expression suddenly hard. “Explain.”
“I mean, I don’t know for sure. But Tommy is easy to figure out. He probably has some kind of Metal Sorcery and mechanical magic. I bet if he got ahold of a book or two, he’d make some awesome stuff in no time, and I bet metal will do more than slightly bend if he puts his mind to it.”
Tommy started dancing a jig. “Woooweee! If he’s right, I can get us some air conditioning going and maybe some kickass rifles!”
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“Hey now, don’t forget the best part!” Billy said. “A fridge! You can make a fridge . . . . COLD BEER!”
Sally swooned. “Oh yeah, I’d do a lot for a cold beer,” She murmured salaciously, looking straight at me.
“And Sally,” I said, cutting her off. “I bet you got some kind of shape-shifting or Flesh Sorcery to be able to change hair color and stuff. If you wanted, with practice you might be able to change anything you want about your body, from healing to getting taller or crazy shit like growing claws.”
She shivered with almost sexual joy. “Look like anyone I want, huh?”
“Now Jimmy and Billy, you’re the two I’d have to sit down and examine,” I said, swirling my coffee. “Your descriptions of what you wished for, and can do, seem to have some kind of logical discontinuity with what my magical senses are telling me.”
“Whatcha mean?” Billy asked. “I didn’t get much. I was thinking of beer when the damn Ripple hit.”
“Right, and how’ve you been getting it? You got a stash or do you keep finding it?” I asked, leaning in a bit.
“Both . . . uh, is that weird?”
“I mean, maybe,” Tommy said, “Did you say you found a box of Coors underneath a log or somethin that one time?”
“Yeah, and that time you found some in that house where giant squirrels were guarding it?” Sally said, her eyes getting wide.
“Yeah, bet you got enhanced senses, and your best one is probably your nose. Human bloodhound is what you are. You can use that schnaz of yours to sniff out danger.”
Turning to Jimmy, I continued. “And you muscles, you wished for muscles, which is what you got, or already have since I don’t know what you looked like before, but I think you might have gotten some kind of flesh magic too, or something along those lines. It depends on what you were focusing on when the Ripple came. You said that you said ‘muscles’, but were you thinking of power and strength as well, or just literally and only ‘muscles’?”
“I don’t remember.” He grunted, flexing one thigh sized bicep, “But every cut I’ve had ain’t there no more, and that squirrel fiasco, whoo, we wuz all bloody after that.”
All four of them shivered. “Nope, not doing that again.” Sally trembled, holding her arms close to her chest.
“Ok, moving on from an obviously bad memory.” I said, trying to divert the conversation. “The point is, y’all probably got more than you asked for and can probably do some cool things with practice.” Conjuring a small ball of water and another of ice, I picked each with my hands and ‘stuck’ them in the air where they hovered above my head. Then conjuring a ball of granite and molding it into a the shape of pistol, I said, “Trust me, magic is fucking cool.” With a clap, I banished my conjurations.
“My lord, you don’t need to justify yourself to them,” Reeanth said with a sniff. Her arms crossed underneath her prodigious chest.
“What bug crawled up her ass?” Sally snorted, looking at me.
I stood up. “Hell no,” I said, shaking my head and pointing at Reeanth to sit in her chair. “We ain’t doing this. Reeanth, sit down and apologize. We treat guests with respect ‘round here.”
Her glare showed her obvious disagreement. “Reeanth. I order you to apologize and remove yourself from this room.”
Facing the four, she put her fist to her heart and bowed slightly. “I apologize for my behavior. It is unbecoming of me to lower myself to insult guests.” She said through barely gritted teeth. Standing straight, she spun on a heel and promptly left.
“Sorry about her, she is from a society very alien to our own,” I explained. “We would be nobles where she’s from due to our magic and she still isn’t ok with the notion that ‘lesser races’ could possess Sorcery. Think of it as a sort of cognitive dissonance problem for her right now. It’s a work in progress.” Using my fingers as quotation marks to emphasize my point, I hoped that my sheepish look would convince the four southerners of my sincerity.
“I think it’s time we head on out.” Tommy said, looking to the other three for confirmation. Damn, I knew the gifts were pushing the boundaries of being a good host, but I had surprises in store, and Reeanth made them suspicious, or at least creeped out.
Fuck.
Each of them picked up their weapons and then headed out, hopped on their four-wheelers and left after a half-hearted goodbye. The four-wheelers failed to tear up the vegetation on the way out. I frowned at their exit, muttering to myself. “You’d think they at least would be happy to see people other than themselves, or happy with the fact that they now knew what the hell was going on.:
As I watched them roar off down the forest trail, Reeanth peered over my shoulder. I heard her breathe in as she was about to speak. Just before she did, I spoke. “Yes, I did all of this on purpose. Yes, I gave them awesome gifts. You almost fucked the whole thing up. And yes, there was a point, I put tracking spells in those weapons.”
“Devious! Very cunning use of magic, my lord!” Reeanth’s smile was almost predatory. I saw her strange hunger out of the corner of my eye as we walked back into the main room of the bolt-hole.
“No no, stop.” I said, trying to guide her in the right direction. “I’m not going to actually track them down. This was kind of a test on several fronts. One, to see if they would attack me with those weapons, two, to test out a proximity based tracking rune I designed, and three, to see if the weapons work long-term.” Pouring myself another cup of coffee, I continued on. “But that last one will take time to see the results.”
“I don’t understand,” Reeanth said, plopping down in the chair across from me, “We’re not tracking them down?”
“No. The rune is loosely designed off that old Egyptian glyph, the Eye of Anubis. I made a new variation of the rune that I’d tried earlier for a different purpose. I don’t know enough to make a tracking rune work, but the ones I put in their weapons will simply let me know if they’re near, kind of like that kid’s game where you yell ‘hot’ or ‘warm’ if you’re getting closer, and cold if you move further away.” Tossing a small stone disk in front of Reeanth, she rubbed at the four rubies on it arranged in the cardinal directions with wooden letters denoting the directions.
Bringing it real close to her face, she examined the insignias I had inscribed into the rubies with my magic. “And these represent the four being tracked?” She asked.
“Yup, the tankard for Billy, the chameleon/lizard for Sally, the flexed arm for Jimmy, and the car for Tommy. By the way, I’m rather proud of myself for making it look so real. Couldn’t draw for shit before the Ripple, and now my magic does it for me. And the disc, the corresponding ruby, will vibrate a little and light up if that person comes near.”
Sliding it back over to me, she pulled out her own weapons and put them down in front of her. “I’d like the same runes on my weapons,” she said.
“For what?”
“You may not care where they are or where they live, but I’m going to go see.” Taking a deep breath, she let it out and continued, “And, if I don’t come back for some unforeseen circumstance, I’d like you to be able to find me, hence, tracking sigil.”
“You’re missing the point. It’s not to go find them, it’s to let us know if they come back. That’s it.”
After taking a minute to finish my coffee, I did pull her weapons closer to me. The first, a long silvery dirk with a few tiny runes carved into its side, and the second, a mana-maul. I was particularly impressed with the latter, as it was beefed up with a gravity fluctuation enchantment to greatly enhance its cutting or smashing power. The enchantment allowed the user to swing it around as if it weighed nothing, but hit a target as if the gravity of the surrounding area concentrated right on the face of the maul - or edge, whichever side my murderously minded Centauri decided to use. Ten minutes of concentrating later, I had her weapons connected to a stone sphere with a sapphire in the middle. All I’d have to do is drop the sphere on the ground and it would roll right on to Reeanth.
“There, happy?”
She took the weapons without saying anything and left. I couldn’t stop myself from watching her fantastic ass sway out the door. I looked up to where the root of the World Tree entered the ceiling.
“Sorry babe, guess I’m still human after all.”
Shaking off the distraction that my biology demanded that I pay attention to was harder than I thought it would be, but nothing clears the mind like hard work, or Flesh Sorcery. With that thought held firmly in my head, I grasped the basic urges of my genetics with my Flesh Sorcery and soothed them away. The ever-present male needs of FEED, FIGHT, FUCK slowly submitted under the inexorable power of my will, bolstered with Sorcery. I ate a can of soup to ease one of those urges, then moved on to my next plan, the workaround to my failing generators.
One of the branches of my Sorcery was related to ley lines, and as far as I understood them, the layman’s explanation is that ley lines are rivers of magic, of pure life that flow like blood under the skin of the earth. And ley lines seem to have some kind of significance beyond just power, but I’m not real clear on that part just yet. But, my Sorcery confirmed for me that working magic while on a ley line is a lot easier because the amount of mana/power in the environment is significantly higher.
Ley lines also have an elemental affinity, a flavor, if you will. Ley lines near rivers will be blue, or water in nature, which means that water-based magic will be much easier to use, and the same goes for fire red ley lines near volcanoes, and I think there might be ley lines way up in the atmosphere, the new equivalent of jet streams. Time will tell on that one though.
Now, I always have a sense of what direction ley lines are and how powerful they are due to my Earth and Mana Sorcery, but they present another problem. I used to be able to carry around a little generator that filled up my internal reserves of mana indefinitely, but the increasing ambient level of mana made them unstable. And I can’t have a mini nuclear reactor around my neck if there’s a solid chance it might turn me into a mock-up of Nagasaki at a random moment’s notice. But the ley lines, those I might be able to work with.
My idea came from our lore, our stories of old, where the fat old wizard carried around a staff. Why did that old man carry around a staff? Probably to tap into ley lines, would be my guess. Now, I like that idea, but modernizing it, that could be fucking cool. The concept I’m running with is the parallel that I can draw between modern maglev trains. The ley lines will be my tracks, and I’ll put runes of siphoning in a staff and on the bottom of my boots, and then they’ll drain mana directly into me, my weapons, and mana storage batteries. And if I’m on the ley line or near it, I’ll just tap it for infinite mana. If I have to get off of it, then I should have stored more than enough to deal with anything in my weight class.
Getting this done fast was a definite priority as Reeanth was off doing her own thing and the last Ripple was coming sooner rather than later. As minutes passed, I could feel my own anxiety level skyrocketing, which is weird for me. I’ve always been a calm dude. Going through Army basic training tends to sand the softer edges off of you for life, but man did I feel the pressure of what was to come.
Taking off all of my armor, I put it on the stone table piece by piece, examining each inch for wear and tear. Some of the runes looked a little worn down, but conjuring the prerequisite precious metal didn’t take much time since it didn’t need much. The entire set as a whole has held up wonderfully, beyond the quality of what I would have expected my untrained expertise to create.
There were runes of silver and lines of gold for the energy absorption runes to disperse enemy magical attacks, and adding a few directional sigils to increase the efficiency didn’t take me very long. Now, the runes would absorb energy from a ground-based direction as well and direct it up the linked armor to the energy storage function in Svalinn and the mental defense diamond in my helmet, which also functions as a mana battery.
The efficiency of the entire concept is what made it deadly and durable. The elements making up the armor fell under the categories of my different sorceries, so fixing it and upgrading it posed no problem, but I felt like I was running out of ideas. If I can’t epically upgrade my physical body due to ignorance just yet, then hulking out my armor seems to be the best route. Man, what I wouldn’t give for one of those Renaissance reenactors right now, especially the blacksmith.
[Just use the dragon!] A tinny voice sounded in my head.
[Damn it Gungnir, what dragon? The hell are you talking about?]
[The dead one!]
[What about him?]
[Bruh, dragon armor! I know you spent most of your free time playing Skyrim! Fat nerd. Besides, everybody loves that dragon armor, and you got a bigass dragon to work with here.]
[Exactly what is the bright idea? I’ve already thought about using dragon scales as armor and Rath was just too damn big. One of his medium scales would cover my entire back plus some, and his small scales are brittle now.]
[True, but use the skin underneath. That stuff has to be the godly version of cow leather and most likely gonna be easy to enchant. Besides, if you don’t want it, you can experiment with it and give it to Reeanth. Bet she’d look lovely in a skintight leather suit.]
[No, and no. I’ve given her enough stuff already, and she’s got some nice weaponry. Besides, she’s got that magical nanotech armor. Some half-hick sorcerer can’t do better than that, not yet anyways.]
[Good point. By the way, I’ll have this dragon fully decoded and organized in about four days.]
“HELL YES!” I shouted audibly, sending my excitement down my mental link as well.
[Bad news though . . . ]
[What?]
[No idea on the Reeanth part. I’m a piece of you, not a full on AI or computer. I’m lost, there’s passwords and encryptions in a language I don’t know. We may be out of our league in this particular piece of gray matter.]
[Fuck it,] I sent back while putting my slightly upgraded and fixed armor back on. [Work on Rath’s brain, that’s the priority, and we’ll hit the next one later. Besides, we should be able to get it out of her eventually, and then I’ll see if I can formally and officially get her out of the magic vow she’s in.]