Dawn, Prime Shard, 2565 A.D.
Archos Alpha Site, Northeastern Continent
The dorm rooms were, unfortunately, shared spaces - perhaps due to the facility on Dawn usually manned by a smaller team of workers, and the dorms only prepared for emergencies. There was a sterility in the stagnant air that Alessia wasn't fond of, a mix of soap and tin, that made the space seem inhospitable despite the surprisingly cozy-looking pillows and throw blankets. She wondered how Kai was faring in his group - he hadn't responded to her several texts asking if he was ok, but that was like him. He'd forget to text back for days, while she was the one that got nervous. And there certainly would be plenty here to distract him.
"At least we get a room to ourselves," Barb seemed to take Alessia's silent pondering as disappointment. She fluffed her pink hair and tossed her stuff on one of the two beds in the small chamber. "The boys had to share as a trio."
"The shower isn't near as nice," Alessia sighed, looking at the small, encased vertical tube. The only thing in it was a small seat. "I don't like the low-water sonic ones. They tickle."
"Better than nothing." Barb grinned and unpacked her bright red pajamas. "Should we make it a sleepover? First girls' night out on another planet?"
"I suppose we could try." She wasn't particularly in the mood for pillow fights or the like, but Barb did seem to be trying to lift the mood. "Should we see what they have hiding in the mini-fridge?"
"Excellent idea," Barb scouted. "Unfortunately, it's just ration packs and biojuice. Obviously, this place was stocked for emergencies, not comfort. Do you want to hit the cafeteria and see if they have real food?"
"No, it's fine," Alessia took one of the ration bars and sat on the other bed. The mattress was thin, but not uncomfortable. "I was actually wondering if you felt anything - odd - since we got here."
"Odd, like, bad lunch? Or odd, like, 'I feel the energy of the universe coursing through my veins, and I want to become an all-powerful dark lord."
"More like the latter," Alessia laughed, "minus the dark lord part."
"Well, I do feel energetic." Barb tapped her foot. "But that might just be because they had us standing around for ages."
"Have you tried doing, well, anything? With healing magic?"
"What do you mean?" Barb leaned forward. "Even if there was an injury to heal, it's not something they've implemented yet, right?"
Alessia looked at one of the ration bars sitting on the small coffee table between them. Twisting her hand, she sent it kinetically over to Barb. Fortunately, the other girl had decent reflexes and caught it.
"Whaaat, really??" Barba looked at the ration bar skeptically. "You aren't pulling my leg?"
"Magery seems to work here. I'm not sure how many spells, or how far, or if they all work - but they must have encoded at least some of it."
"I don't suppose you'll let me break your arm so I can fix it." Barb kidded.
"Um, nooo." Alessia shook her head. "But I do want to test it - and there is something else."
"More?"
"Maybe. It's just a feeling, something like a bond or thread, a connection - I can't really explain it. Something underlying the magic here."
"Oh," Barb pondered. "Maybe it's your aura?"
"Aura?"
"It was in the healing manual. Most of my spells connect the aura of the healer and healed. The healer using her stable aura to calm the panic of the injured, for example. Or manifesting one's aura into a mist to slowly refresh the target and speed healing. I thought it was mostly flavor text, actually, since the computer just acted like my avatar had whatever it was."
"You didn't have to use verbal spells or gestures?"
"Some," Barb explained. "Vitalize and set were definitely triggered by verbal commands, though the spell functioned by pulling aura from there. It's why my avatar couldn't cast two healing spells at once."
"I should have compared notes with you, sooner," Alessia tapped her pad, thoughtfully. "It sort of makes its own kind of sense. The universe can't read minds, right? But if something, some element can understand the input of speech, or the input of hand gestures - then it's not really a stretch to think it could interpret some sort of immaterial aspect of ours, if we could learn to manifest it in a way that was detectable."
"I think I can help, there!" Barb started, pulling out her pad. "It was something buried in the healing documentation I saw, a comment on aura - here:
"Every human is born with a certain amount of aura. This may grow over time through life experience, but as of yet no way is known to artificially enhance it. The aura of a human greatly affects the precision of their magecraft, as well as the level of spells they can cast. Due to the differing levels of aura between humans, any medical facility using magery should sort the staff by aura and skill to triage incoming patients. Smaller issues may be addressed by common healers of low or average aura, while life-threatening injuries and emergency cases are passed on to the fewer skilled healers of high aura."
"That makes sense," Alessia nodded, "though it's a bit unfortunate not everyone has the same amount. Is there a way to measure it?"
"I guess we could look." Barb and Alessia spent a few minutes with the search function on the pad. "Oooh," Barb voiced after a minute. "Measure Aura is one of the novice healing spells. They have me working on the Journeyman spells, so I didn't pay much attention to those. Should I try it?"
"It seems like it would be safe enough," Alessia commented after reading the spell description:
Novice Healer Core Spell Target Range/Limitation Use Requirements Measure Aura Cast - Target Person; Self 3m; Instant; 1 person; Lower than 30u Aura The approximate aura level of the target is temporarily revealed by glowing numbers above their head Voice; Intentional Sight; Hand Gesture; or Aura manifestation
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"You have more casting options than my spells did," Alessia noted. "What's intentional sight?"
"Where you look at the target and intend the spell you want, I guess? That one never worked well with my testing avatar, so I just did voice commands most of the time." Barb shrugged, "should I try it? I'll do you, then me. Or at least I'll try." Alessia nodded, and Barb closed her eyes for a moment. Then she opened them, focused on Alessia, and commanded, "Measure Aura!"
"That tickles!" Alessia protested, but merrily, as she felt a bit of a buzz.
"I did magic!" Barb clapped, "Oh, and it's 15 if you were wondering."
"Of course, I was wondering." Alessia laughed, "though I have no idea what it means."
"Now I'll do me." Barb wiggled her shoulders and waggled her brows and fingers. "This is way too fun. Measure aura!" She paused. "Oh, it's only 8..."
"We still don't know what the levels mean, though." Alessia reassured her. "And you just performed two novice spells, twice in a row."
"True that," Barb grinned. "I wonder what else we can do..."
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It had been a long night. Alessia yawned, not wanting to go into work at all. Who would want to work on computer similations, when they could practice the real thing? Barb and her had cast at least thirty spells - albeit the latter half were quite messy, and now she was exhausted. There didn't seem to be a hard limit on casting multiple spells in a row, but there certainly was a limit to her stamina.
"Morning, mage," Barb called over to her blearily from beneath her blankets. "Let's get grub in the cafe this time, I'm so starving."
"Good idea," Alessia groaned. "My head is pulsing - I could go for a gallon of water."
The two dressed, finding there were no spare jumpsuits in the closet, but a plain uniform with a patch they hadn't seen before - an "A" superimposed onto a sunrise. But it was the only thing to wear besides staying in pajamas, as they'd already put their jumpsuits from the day before into the cleaning bin.
"I still think it's a bit unfair you can do the journeyman spells," Barb pouted.
"That might be for the best," Alessia pointed out, "My arm still stings from nicking it so many times for you to use "Cleanse" and "Clot" on. I don't think I want to try injuring myself further, even for the sake of science. Or magic. Or science-magic."
"Still," Barb sighed, "it's a bit disappointing."
"Hmm," Alessia wasn't sure how to respond. Usually Barb was the optimist trying to see the bright side. "It did say life experience can increase aura - and we are both still in college. And now we are on an entirely different planet, in another universe, challenging the fronteirs of what is possible. That's got to be getting you some good experience."
"That's right!" Barb sprung back, "I'll just work ten times harder." She winced, "after some breakfast takes care of this headache."
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Work was, surprisingly or not surprisingly, mostly like the day before. No one talked about the incident, no one even acted like anything had changed or that they were on a different world. Other than everyone wearing plain navy uniforms with the Dawn insignia, and the restrictions on where they could go or who they could contact, there was no hint it was any unordinary day.
Peter kept the group on task, retreating to professionalism in the face of the unknown. Farash and Barb tackled their tasks with ferocity, as if trying to soak up everything they could - perhaps Farash had figured out magery was real on Dawn, as well? Enz was Enz, taking a more playful approach and taking pride in his 'high score' of the most tests ending in the death or maiming of the avatar.
Alessia took the time to test out all the "unsafe" things safely. More interested in practical application than she had been on her first day, she put different avatars in various environments and tried different spells to get them out. She slipped in a few spells off the novice list as well - not enough to get Peter after her for shirking the main testing, but enough that she could get a feel for them in combination with the Journeyman spells. A couple of her favorites were eavesdrop, which allowed the caster to pick up on conversations or speech within 20m, and blink - a much shorter version of Phase that allowed one to 'blink out' of reality into some sort of subspace for a couple of seconds. She wasn't quite sure she wanted to test Blink or Phase in person, yet, as the threat of rematerializing with an arm in a wall seemed real.
Lunch was brought in from outside on a cart, just sandwiches, water, and biojuice. It was enough to keep going, but it made it clear that the "employees" were just a step above prisoners at this point. How long could Archos continue by keeping them on Dawn? Would those back on Earth just ignore that thousands of employees had suddenly dropped contact?
It wasn't until dinner, when they were allowed into an actual cafeteria, that Alessia overheard those same questions whispered nervously among the employees.
"Listen! We are next! It's the devouring!"
Alessia started, looking to find the source of the shouting. It was one of the testers, not from their group but another assigned to the same dorms, and he was standing on a table screaming. His teammates tried to calm him down, but security was already headed over.
"Jeffrey, it took Jeffery. A hungry mirror from the sky! And Melinda, sweet Melinda - " Two security men reached him and injected the man with a sedative while pulling him off the table. He didn't fall unconscious, though, just slurred his words as they dragged him out.
"Eavesdrop," Alessia whispered, and his quiet ranting reached her as if he was standing near.
"Why, why Melinda, never did anything; should've never messed with the Mirrorverse; taking us, devouring us, why won't you listen -"
Then he was out of range. Alessia sipped thoughtfully on her bottle of strawberry bio-juice. Had the transport to Dawn drove him crazy? Or had something happened to spook him? Melinda. That name was familiar. Hadn't she met - oh, yes. The mental image of the receptionist swallowing a monarch butterfly flashed in her mind. And the name embroidered just above the pocket of her uniform - Melinda Bates.