“Black Magic does not have Light or Lightning Stars.” They all blinked at that. “Dark Magic is unnatural and actually alien to the world. It doesn’t occur naturally. It is drawn from the underworld and using it Damns your soul there as part of the price of using it. It’s a mechanism designed to pull in more mortal souls for the Kings of the Dark Realms.

“The six Dimensional Spheres are characterized by the double Stars of an Element, save for Light, but Light is present in ALL of the spells.”

“Wouldn’t... White Magic have more Spheres, then?” Red asked, confused. “I don’t know what Elements the famous Blessing and Healing Elements are associated with, but that still leaves three others!”

“And there’s only five dimensional Elements, there should be six!” Big John counted off.

“And five Dark Elements!” Burt agreed, frowning.

I was once again amused. “What you call Void Magic is actually Force and Space. The Dark Magicks I know of are Curse, Poison, Shadow, Undead, Blood, Demon, and Blightfire.” They all blinked at me. That was... more than five! “The White Magic Spheres are Plant/Earth, Healing/Water, Blessing/Ice, Silver/Lightning, and Divination/Air.”

“Divination?” Red gawked at the possibility.

“What, no easy Sorcerous Element you can Awaken in those?” I asked archly of no one. “Interesting. It’s like Wizards have some advantages over Sorcerers.” That absolutely silenced them all. “Now, enough spellcraft questions, they have no relevance on what you’re going to be doing tonight.”

“Right, getting all our Stars to Three.” The Mick paused. “Red and I have already done that. Do we start raising our Stars, instead?”

“The Soul Crystals just raise the grade. You still have to fill them properly to their new capacity for them to work,” I reminded him. “Plus, one of you two is probably going to get the Soul Eggs and Soul Gems, although I could be wrong and you might share. Your call, not mine.”

“Oh, yeah,” he mumbled.

“Get that straightened out before we get started.”

“Yes, ma’am!” he agreed quickly.

“Excellent. Now, I’ve no spending money until our loot is sold off, but I straight up have a request that you can help me with right now.”

That perked him up. “What can we help you with, Miss Fae?” he asked quickly.

“I just hit Adept. I mean, literally falling out of the sky back there hitting Adept as I was landing on the ground. So I have a crapton of Stars to temper. This would also normally be when I’d wave at the rest of the family and say I need the Adept spells!...” I trailed off meaningfully.

“Oh!” he grinned in understanding. “You want the Adept Spells for each of our Elements!”

“And what you don’t have, I’d like you to acquire, if you can.”

“Even the Dark Spells?” Driver Sam asked, rather surprised.

“Can’t learn how to take them down best without learning how they are put together,” I sighed, whipping up a hexagon-pattern Holo in front of me. “Okay, Lightning.” The whole thing turned purple. “Core of the spell, Starpath, please!”

“Uh, right. It’s, uh, Lightning, Fire, Air...” The Mick was unfamiliar with that way of listing them out, but rapidly got quicker as I rotated among all the different Starpaths in series, and formed the complete Starmap, albeit in a different form than he was used to.

“Got it! Red, the Fire Starmap, if you please...”

------

We pulled up in front of the Hilton, and the Mick went inside with Lady Fae to pay for her room. Given her somewhat singular appearance, the staff waiting at the desk recognized her promptly, took his Card, and she was given the key to her room and directions to it on the top floor.

Sam had requested a half-dozen sets of Spider-eyes, as it would be more beneficial to swap for some of the things they wanted then sell the eyes and buy the stuff. The Mick had been hugely relieved when she brought out eight sets of perfect eyeballs, distributing them among each of them so as to keep the sets separate and unmixed, given they had no packs or bags to do so.

There were a lot of people leaving as they came in, eager to get back to their homes now that the Spider threat had passed. Some noticed the Disks the Hunters outside were sitting on, the Mick’s uniform, and of course Lady Fae and that waterfall of white hair as she was signing in.

“Hey, there, Hunter,” a florid-faced, somewhat overweight fellow in a white Stetson spoke up in only a slightly condescending accent, “can you tell us anything about what happened up north? They say the Spiders are all dead and it’s safe to go back...”

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The Mick was about to say that the report was correct, when Lady Fae butted in without looking around, “You’re talking to The Mick and his band, who are the ones who warned everyone that the Swarm was coming, and are the ones who finally broke it and sent the things scurrying back into the hills!” She turned and pointed her obviously very expensive Staff at the fat man, swirling with hot and cold Fires. “You will remove that sneer from your voice or I am going to punch you in the face like he did all those Spiders!”

The Mick was taken completely off-guard by that, and was about to say something when she swept up her key and headed for the elevator. “Thanks, Captain Mick! These chuckleheads probably owe you their lives, let’s see if they’re worth saving!”

Heads watched Lady Fae and her shimmery silk PJ’s drifting for the elevator, then turned back on the Mick, their eyes wide.

“You’re the ones who warned us? And you broke the Swarm?” the portly fellow asked, his tone instantly changed to something warmer and more respectful.

The Mick caught Lady Fae’s wink as the doors to the elevator closed, and decided that rolling with it wouldn’t be a bad thing at all.

“Damn right! Me and the boys just came off over ten hours of slaughtering Spiders, saving Colonel Harrison and his boys up at the Fort, and chasing down Tarantulas the size of trucks. Some courtesy would be appreciated.”

He had to fight really hard to keep the grin off his face as the whispers began to start, and people were already punching at their phones, with some taking his picture. He made every effort to look tired but triumphant as he headed back out to the floating Disks there, the guys all looking very curious as a bunch of the locals piled out after him, and he was definitely flexing it up.

“Wave for the cameras, guys!” he told them as he hopped on the empty Disk at the front still tagged to him. Hesitantly, the tired mercenaries raised their arms to wave at the locals, who promptly started applauding and cheering them as the interwoven Wind Trails began to zip them away.

“She just gave us all the credit for the fighting, and the publicity!” the Mick called back over his shoulder. “We’re probably going to get called for some interviews!”

“I’d be more interested in some free beer!” Big John shouted back, to the approval of the others.

“Well, we’ll see if this Texan hospitality has anything to it,” the Mick agreed, rubbing his face. “After a shit, shower, shave, and some sleep!”

“A-fucking-men!” Bjorn agreed for all of them, as they headed for their own hotel.

----------------

I didn’t need much sleep or much to eat, although I ordered a good steak and potatoes on the room service. For some reason, I wasn’t surprised when the hotel told me it was on the house, and wondered if I’d like a wine to go with it.

I hadn’t had any real meat in six months, other than some fish I’d caught. The surf and turf was so welcome, even if it wasn’t the best, and I ate as I soaked in the hot bath I made sure to keep warm and the water circulating.

I had hours of work ahead of me, of course. I had to do the initial all-Element Tempering of the new Stars, fill them, Temper them all to Tier-2, fill them, then Temper them to Tier-3, and then fill them again.

Then I had to start applying Cores, Eggs, Gems, and Jewels.

I also had to meld together enough Crystals for the boys for tonight. That was 392 Tier-4’s from a pile of 1-3’s, and really 784 of them, because they all had two Elements.

Unsurprisingly, there were actually enough Crystals to do the job, and I grimly split my attention between doing that while my second thoughtstream started on all of my own Stars.

Just my initial Tempering took two minutes per Star, so there went an hour and a half off the top. By the time it was done, so was the steak, the wine, my bath, and I was curled up in the thick sheets, enjoying the comfort after basically six months of Meditation Is My Bed, while I continued relentlessly on my Tempering.

The rise to Adept had increased my Meditation speed significantly, drawing in more Mana of all types, so the filling of my Stars, although it did take a while, wasn’t nearly as onerous as I thought it would be. It just required time and patience, half of me zoning out while the other half kept melding mounds of Soul Crystals down...

----

The beeping of the phone popped my eyes open. I stopped meshing Crystals together as I gestured to push the voice button. “Fae here. What is it?” I asked calmly.

“This is Lucille down at the front desk, Miss Fae. Captain Mick is here and wondering if you’re up and around.”

I blinked, looked at my Detect Time, blinked again.

Well, that was a fast ten hours of fugue. Time just flew by when you were swimming in thick soft covers in a quiet room and not out in the wild with supernaturally powerful creatures all around you!

“Tell him to come on up. I’ll be ready to receive him shortly.”

“He said to tell you he’s bringing a change of clothes.”

I smirked despite myself. “Did he now? How thoughtful of him. Definitely send him up. Doubtless he grew tired of seeing me in my silks while we were fighting for our lives.”

With that, I sighed and tossed the covers off. I didn’t have to put on my face like a normal woman did, benefits of magic and all that, and my hair was Sylune’s Grace, it always looked perfect.

Still, no reason to let him know that, right?

He was up here in only a minute or two, knocking and I let him in with a wave at the doorknob. I stuck my head around the edge of the bathroom door. “You come bearing gifts, oh noble hero?” I asked him with a grin.

He grinned right back. “That was a nice trick, Miss Fae. It got our hotel paid for, and our dinners, so far.” He held up the boxes balanced on one hand. “I’ve a sister about your size, so I think these should fit pretty good.”

“And if they do not... there is magic!” I laughed, and the whole assortment of boxes floated off his hand and in through the bathroom door. “I shall be out in a minute, Captain!” About then he caught sight of my silks hanging off a chair, went red, and turned away, thinking whatever he wanted to think of the situation.

True to my word, it only took a minute for me to don the new clothes, as he definitely hadn’t gone for anything fancy.

One-size fits all tactical pants, a loudly-colored “Summers in Austin” tourist t-shirt, a light tactical vest to go over it, webbing belt, and slippers instead of boots because he didn’t know my shoe size.

My silks folded themselves up, inserted themselves into one of the boxes, then into a bag, then into my Pocket. He bowed as he handed over a new phone for me, and I bowed to receive it.

Huh. The thing ran on faint Lightning Mana...