“I suppose it will be a break from Aquatics,” I muttered, and Sama only grinned wider. “Where do we need to go?”

“Guatemala. Some of the abandoned Mayan temples have connections to Shadow, and Night Weavers love to set up in them.”

I blinked. “Didn’t you take a trip down there about six months ago for a couple days?”

She looked a little abashed, and coughed into her hand. “Yeah, they call Briggs and me up to kill the things off. Night Weavers terrify the shit out of normal Hunters. They’re considered one of the most dangerous Arachnids in the whole world.”

“I can’t imagine why an intelligent Shadow-melding, Blinking, air-walking, invisible-web-spinning, nigh-invulnerable venomous Spider the size of a bull that alternates between hunter and web-spinner as it sees fit would seem threatening to anyone.”

“People are all so worried about the dumbest things, I know. Like the skull sign on its carapace means anything.” Sama threw her hands up in the air, clearly not at all dismayed at the thought of killing more Night Weavers. “Granted, we normally only clear out the little ones that come slinking out of the jungle, the ones without lairs and so no webs. We want a bunch of websilk, we’re gonna have to go into the jungle after some of the mommies. Been a while since I did that, but she was sending out her spawn to cause trouble, and she had to go.

“Yeah, I shoulda saved some of the silk, but I wasn’t keen on attracting too much attention sticking around that place at the time.” Sama shrugged helplessly.

“Just to clarify, you’ve only spot-killed one of them, you actually haven’t fought one?” I asked tiredly.

She just grinned again. “I’ve fought a few of the juniors. They aren’t too bright, figuring a carapace harder than steel and flitting about means they’ll win, especially against a Monkey not using active magic.

“And then a +VI Brilliant Sword went tsk, tsk, and whoops, can’t Blink or TK on air to get away, too bad, so sad.”

“Hee hee hee!” Tremble tittered, spinning around as her Blade went bright as the sun. Brilliant: Your Weapon partially ignores natural armor and deals Light damage. It does no harm to Light Beasts, Constructs, or unliving substances.

The dragon-slaying Enchantment!

“Well, that’s good, because you obviously didn’t check the magic immunities of the thing too closely.”

Sama’s smile became a frown. “Well, don’t try Poison, Shadow, or Void Magic on it, sure?”

“Uh-uh. Down in the description of its shell. The thing I’m sure they were happy to buy off you once it was dead.”

“Oh, right, a Reflective... Carapace.” She finally got it, and winced for me. “Ouch, yeah, that thing went for a lot. Really, really nice for Mage Armor!”

It’d bounce my Shards and Rays like pebbles. I didn’t have Brilliant innate to Noble, either, although I could Infuse it... not that it did a thing for my spells.

“Might just be a real reason why ranged attackers don’t like messing with something that bounces ranged touch attacks and is really good at getting out of AoE’s,” I said to the ceiling.

Now it was her turn to roll her eyes in disbelief. “Don’t tell me you can’t AoE or don’t have an alternate source of attack.”

“Most alternate methods are based on some kind of TK.” I kept looking at the ceiling. Naturally nothing like that would work in her Stillflight Field. “Huh, can’t Summon something in, either, unless it’s way ahead of time and, like, vulnerable to being sensed by the Spider. AoE’s should be fun, trying to hit a scampering Spider no doubt having Evasion from eight eyes and legs and non-Elemental affinities that make it very resistant to mere Elemental magic.”

“So, what you’re saying is you have to use alternate spells instead of the tried-and-true, and break out combos I only ever see you use in rep count practice.” Pow pow pow, knowing how to hit all the buttons!

I rolled my eyes her way. “Yeah, pretty much. I just hate shit with bullshit Saves. The default resistance of Magic Beasts means they get save bonuses against lower-Tier spells. Against your Spiders, that will be any spell I don’t spend a full 49 Mana on. Any Beast smaller than Huge is probably fast enough to have Evasion by default, and anything bigger probably has Mettle and that unreal Nat-Armor defense of theirs.

“I have enough Spell Penetration to affect Commanders without a problem, but the defenses with AoE’s are just stupid effective without tossing out a full spell to remove that save bonus.”

“How high do you figure?” Sama asked, interested in what that meant. It wasn’t a problem ever quantified by the native mages, after all.

“Statistically? I’m guessing at least +10, with the internal doubling adding another four inside the tier. So, +28 for a Commander saving against a Valence I or Novice spell.”

Sama grimaced despite herself. “Wow, I knew that sucked, but that’s pretty bad. No wonder Novices do shit against Warriors and up. But hey,” she smirked at me. “You have a fucking MASSIVE Mana Pool. I know it, everyone knows it. Granted, some of the boys are working on finishing out a whole Element at 6, but you’ve got it, and aren’t your Adept Stars all at 7? That means you’ve literally got twice the Mana and more of a normal Mage. You can blow 49 points for a really long time, can’t you?”

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“14,596 Mana, plus Valences. I can throw out almost three hundred Mage-tier spells, yes. Which is totally asinine to actually do, as I go through over a thousand spells a shift in the Boonies. And yes, I do a lot of empirical testing of spells and Saves and things there, building up statistics for everything. It’s a happy coincidence they send lots of targets of the same power level for me to test things on.”

“For some reason, reading statistics of successful Saves of spell types cross-indexed with Creatures and Tiers and Elemental Resistances and Natural Armor and such has not been a big priority for the non-Caster,” Sama admitted cheerfully. “So, what did you find?”

“Power of Ten Valence magic is considered untiered. It doesn’t matter how strong it is, it’s still untiered and has to adapt to and drill through the resistance of the natives, instead of vice versa. So basically, unless you spend Mana with your spell, they always make the save.”

Sama’s heavens-blue eyes popped open. “Wow, that’s brutal!” she admitted.

“It’s like the native magic system favors itself, or something.” Sama just smirked at that. “You Raise the spell with native Mana, and you’re good to go. With proper Theurgy, you can Cast the spell with just the native Mana, at a cost of two Mana per Valence, but you get a fixed-effect spell if you do that, exactly equal to a native spell, one which doesn’t respond to Caster Level, only the raw amount of Mana or its quality. If you want Caster Level bonuses AND a chance to land a Save, you have to blow the Valences and the Mana.”

“Which gives you a fairly powerful spell that exceeds all the normal limits of Magery. So, it’s working inside the system, instead of cheating it. Sounds fair to me!”

“Of course, if you’re not worried about Saves, then it’s not so bad. Spell Penetration Mastery will take care of an entire Tier leap, and the improved progression of a Wizard will take care of an inner-Tier gap, too. Use your Mana to re-energize your Valences, and you’re good to go.”

“You can affect a Ruler with your Shards, if all you are doing is damage, you just have to get through its default reduction in magical damage. I’ve seen you pop Commanders without too much effort...” Sama pointed out.

“Hah!” I rolled my eyes. “Shows what you know. I generally need a full fivefold array of Repeated Magic and my Shards coming out of V to do that with Improved Raise. That’s effectively another +14 Spell Penetration to overcome the Tiering of its defense.

“My first Shard against a Commander would do maybe an eighth damage until I get opening Repeated Magic reps in and worm through its resistance.”

Sama just shook her head. “Feel the pain!” she told me cheerfully. “You know how near impossible it is for Briggs and I to face down a big Great Commander in the open field?”

“What, you don’t like being punted for half a mile by an idle swat?” I sniffed back at her. “And you wonder why mages use ranged attacks!”

“You are a totally unsympathetic bitch!” Sama snarled with a wink.

“You are a manipulative hag!” I replied in equal measure.

“I am!” she agreed with a cutting cackle of glee, completely unperturbed. “When do you want to do this?”

“I don’t know any coastal roads through there, so Driver Sam will have to take me overland on Disks. I’m not doing this without a Lived-Line connection. I trust you already have one, so it won’t be an issue for you.”

“Yeah, me and Fuzzy walked the coasts there after our time at the Baja Littoral Zone. Helped a lot of the smaller towns there which are often ignored by the central government. Lots of bandits and stuff like to take advantage of the smaller communities as soon as they get ahold of a little bit of power.”

“Warning noted,” I said, largely unruffled. Unless there was a renegade Archmage around, we should be fine. “I’ll look for ways to help out in passing.” I considered that. “Test locations for a few braziers, maybe?”

Her eyes flashed. “A good idea, as long as it doesn’t draw hostile attention to them.”

“Which it will, if we intend to sell them later. Maybe underground...”

“Is the Mana-cleansing effect dependent on exposure?” Sama asked archly.

“Nope. It creates a vacuum effect right in the Manafield. It’s not very strong, of course, but Mana is no more inhibited by natural walls than anything else. It does move more freely in atmosphere, but it disperses through the ground, too.”

“So... you could literally lay an underground highway of them while strolling down the coastway?” she conjectured.

“Our progress won’t be very fast if I do that.” I warned her. “I can make a line of them sixty feet apart, Chain the spell across them, up to twenty-six at a time. But I have to make an open connection between them to do so.” I flicked up a Holo of small chambers only a couple feet cubed, with a brazier formed of stone burning with a Vivic Eternal Light in them. They were connected by long, narrow pipes for the Chained Spell to spread through.

“You have a crazy amount of space you can manipulate with those Dawnstopped Shape Stones of yours,” Sama waved it away. “Driver might have to stop every fifteen hundred feet for you to get off the Chain every twelve seconds or something?”

I smirked despite myself. “Split thoughtstreams, remember? I can have a thoughtstream Shaping away while I keep Casting. He actually shouldn’t have to stop if I’m good.”

“Says the woman with what Concentration modifier?” she grinned, pointing at my Holo. “That whole pattern is totally within the capacity of your Shape Stone, isn’t it?”

Eight cubic feet plus one cubic foot per Caster Level. Efficient Spell with Widen Spell, x8 area. Sudden Widen, x8 area again. Effective Caster Level base Twenty, +3 Earth, +5 Cold, +10 Good/Sublime Chord, +1 Master Theurgy, +6 Star Mage, +12 Cleric/Druid Theurgy for a shared spell, +6 Winter Season Domain Theurgy was a Caster Level of 63. 71 cubic feet x 64 for the squared Widen III was 4,544 cubic feet.

Most Archmages couldn’t fine control that much rock at one time, even if they could brute force huge masses of earth. I’d been helping put up a lot of infrastructure with it. Practical Metamagic would let me tack on Reach Spell II for nothing, giving me the power to put it thirty feet below ground.

I’d only need fifty-some cubic feet for the little chambers, which left 4,300 cubic feet to devote to six-inch ‘pipes’, which only had to stay open for a few seconds.

Yeah, the only issue would be reading the ground and timing the Chained Spell’s initial Casting. If there was no issue with either, we could be traveling a hundred miles an hour and I’d be able to do this.

“We’ll go collect the silk when my Lived-Line reaches the location you give Driver Sam,” I told her. “Isn’t that in the territory of the Mystic Eye University? Shouldn’t they be shutting those things down?”