Ar'Kendrithyst

Chapter 22

Erick was not dreaming, because Rozeta, Goddess of the Script, the Ever Moving, the Golden Sky and Gentle Star, had said multiple times now that he was not dreaming. And yet…

“So… I’m… Not? Dreaming?”

Erick was having some trouble. There was just something about standing in the clouds, talking with a four mile long white-gold serpentine dragon, the average thickness of a school bus, that did not lend itself to believability. She was constantly moving, too. Was she right in front of him? Was she twenty miles away? Were her scales the exact color of the clouds? The answer to that last one was ‘sometimes’, and only when the light did not catch on her scales and split into rainbows, or when she glittered gold. Which led to the next question: Were the clouds her? Or what?

She also had the annoying habit of stopping to speak, and moving while she listened. When she stopped to reply, it was often from a direction you weren’t looking. Erick had almost tripped over himself trying to remain face-to-face with her house-sized, catfish-whiskered white visage.

Rozeta sighed and the clouds moved. She spoke, and exasperation tainted her voice, “Please. Can we move on?”

“Sure,” he said, magnanimously. To illustrate this, he reclined on a cloud. It was bit stiff of a cloud, so he reached around and fluffed it up. “That’s better.” He turned to Rozeta, snuggling into the air as he spoke, “What’s this about a dream?”

She eyed him, her giant eyes like miniature suns. “[Call Lightning] is too strong. I’ve gotten complaints from a dozen different relevant entities. Most particularly, a Goddess of Storms from Nergal —that’s the continent across the ocean south of you— has threatened divine action if your spell is allowed to enter the Script. Personally, I think she’s an airhead, but she’s happy and non-disruptive as long as her faithful are the only ones allowed to have actual storm magic. As you can probably guess, your use of the physical laws of the world crossed a deep theological line with her and her people. But. You did use the natural physical laws of this universe, so the magic is going to stay. About the same number of relevant entities want your spell in the Script, but stronger. Or some other variation. The rain-thing makes a lot of people happy so that’s going to stay as well, but the will not. Do you have a solution? If you do not, then I will have to implement my own solution, and you will not be happy.”

Erick thought for a moment. “It won’t work through a weather [Ward], will it? I kinda thought that was a glaring flaw, but I didn’t really know.”

Rozeta blinked, and the world dimmed for half a second. She slowed along her ever-moving journey. She stopped. “It would have, until now. Enough relevant entities are happy with this solution that I am comfortable pushing this change into the Script. +1 points to Erick Flatt, how about that!” She moved, then spoke from the other half of the sky, “Any questions before I go?”

Erick thought for half a moment. He said, “I want to try making a blacklight orb, but I’m worried about causing radiation. Is radiation a concern, with magic? How are the cancer rates on Veird? Is there a [Cure Cancer], or other cure spells for other long lasting physical ailments? Are there long lasting physical ailments on Veird? Am I in danger of a heart attack like my doctor on Earth was concerned? Speaking of cancer, what about curing aging? Like— telomeres are repetitive chains of nucleotides at the ends of chromosomes that prevent deterioration of DNA caused by cell division, but they fall apart as cells copy and divide. This is one of the main reasons for cancer and aging. Is there a way to restore telomeres using magic?”

Rozeta slowed as Erick spoke, eventually pausing altogether as he asked his last question.

She spoke, “Probably not.”

The dream ended.

Erick awoke on the living room couch. It was barely morning; the sun had yet to crest the walls of Spur. For all of three seconds Erick was not angry. Then he yelled at the ceiling, “That’s a shitty answer!”

“Dad!” Jane yell-groaned from inside her room. “Keep it down. Shit. Fucking hangovers even with fucking healing magic. Fuck.”

Erick checked his recent notifications.

+1 points to Erick Flatt, how about that!

Erick Flatt

Human, age 48

Level 19, Class: None

Exp: 273912/676500

Class: -/-

Points: 22

90/90

150 per day

600/600

600 per day

Strength

[9]

Vitality

[15]

Willpower

[20]

Focus

[20]

Favored Spell waiting!

Back up to 22 points.

22 was way too many extra points. He needed to buy something. Some base stats, for sure. Maybe he should talk to Al, first. Maybe Al was awake? Erick sat up—

Ohh… He should not have sat up so fast. He laid back down and horizontality was almost as bad as near verticality; his head was swimming. He groaned. He slowly sat all the way up this time, it was easier if he went slow, then looked around.

It had been a pretty good party, but if someone would have told him this place held one of the largest parties Spur had seen in several years, he would not have believed them. The place was clean. [Cleanse] probably had much to do with that. It dissolved unwanted trash like cow bones just as well as it rid the world of vomit and other bodily expulsions. [Cleanse] really was one of the best things about Veird. [Mend], too. And HP, now that he thought about it. And magic.

Veird was pretty great. Erick hadn’t felt this fulfilled in…

Well. Helping people on Earth get money from the government and have better homes, helping kids out of gangs and into college. Food drives and Habitat For Humanity whenever he could. All of that was nice. It was fulfilling. He liked his previous life.

But Erick made it fucking RAIN yesterday. How cool was that!

Well. Hmm.

Helping people pay for cancer treatments was one thing. It was one, very, very nice thing, that he had managed to do more than once. Helping people always made him feel better about the world, and it was fulfilling. He liked his life on Earth. But if he could straight up cure cancer on Veird? Wow.

Hmm.

He still didn’t know if cancer existed on Veird. Aging certainly did.

He shook his head.

One thing at a time, Erick. Let’s get out of bed and get ready for the day. Besides, you’re no scientist. All you know is what you’ve read. How about we throw some ideas into the world and see if there’s smarter people out there than us?

Disseminating information was a better idea than experimenting all on his own.

He stood up—

And promptly crashed back on his ass.

He laid down on the living room couch. More sleep was a good idea.

- - - -

A second sleep was a good idea. Erick awoke refreshed and relaxed, sunlight falling across his legs. But he didn’t awaken naturally; he had heard a noise in the kitchen. He leaned up and saw Jane was there, making herself a sandwich out of left over pulled beef. It wasn’t actually beef, though. The animal was close enough that Erick and Jane both didn’t bother with trying to mentally call it anything else. The animal was a cavert, in Ecks, but translated to English, it might as well have been ‘cow’.

Jane saw Erick sit up. “Morning. Want me to make you a sandwich?”

“I would love one. Please. What time is it?”

“Early afternoon.” Jane sliced off more meat from the leftover ‘cow’, saying, “You got a lot of mail, and not all of it on paper. Guildmaster Zago ‘requests your presence’; that came by envelope. Silverite sent Hera over here to ‘say hello’; Silverite seems to be taking a less direct approach to courting your favor. That pinkscale girl we saw when we first arrived came by to deliver messages from the farmer’s council. You remember her? Her father is on the council. You met him last night. I think you met most of them last night.”

Erick recalled last night through a haze of alcohol. “Valok? And… Apogough?”

“Valok. Yeah. Father to Delia. Pinkscale. What’s your plan? Where’re you going first?”

“… I need to talk to you, first. I got some insider information yesterday about the reasons for the shadowcats in Spur.”

“Oh?” Jane had two sandwiches ready to go into a heat [Ward], but she paused, a spark of concern tainted her voice. “What did you hear?”

“You remember Bulgan, right? Well, Guildmaster Zago said...”

By the end of that conversation, Jane promised not to go into Ar’Kendrithyst, for any reason.

Erick’s news helped to put several things into perspective for her, too. Most notably, Savral and his team had been discussing offering her an invite for their next journey into Ar’Kendrithyst, but then, at the party, that invite was rescinded as ‘premature’. That rescission had been followed by phrases like ‘sorry, maybe next time’ and ‘we go in there all the time, missing out on a few trips is not a big deal’.

She was disappointed about her invite vanishing, but now she knew why they couldn’t take her. Jane explained that the Shades had their own society inside Ar’Kendrithyst, like some dark mockery of life. They were the hurricanes of the Dead City; you didn’t fight them, you got the hell out of the way. But Jane and Erick were actual targets to a Shade. Not just fun toys to torment, like what usually happened to adventurers unlucky enough to draw the attention of those monsters.

Maybe Jane would never get to explore Ar’Kendrithyst. That’s what usually happened to people who drew the ire of a Shade, and managed to survive. And whoa! If you killed one? You were on every Shade’s shitlist. Silverite didn’t exile you when that happened, but only because she didn’t have to; everyone else forced you out of town.

- - - -

Erick entered the Mage’s Guildhouse without much fanfare. A few people on his walk to the guild had given him weird looks. They were friendly looks. They were almost like the ones he used to get back home from gang kids, or teachers, or students that knew and approved of him. But it was still odd to see strangers look at him like that. Not to mention that they were either draconic, orcol, wrought, or incani. He still wasn’t used to all the different peoples.

And then, just when he thought he could have a normal day of guildwork, Anhelia, all grey-black iron and smiles, rose from her seat at the receptionist’s desk. She called out, and her voice was amplified to fill the guildhouse, “Welcome, Mage Erick Flatt! Planar Mage of Spur! Caller of Lightning and Bringer of Rain!” As guildmember after guildmember turned to witness Erick at the entrance hall, Anhelia’s voice returned to normal “Though dominion over the sky isn’t that rare.” She smiled wide and happy.

The people in those front rooms of the guildhouse were like iron to Erick’s magnet; the first person to get close was the bronzescale Erick had seen at both Zago’s side and as a receptionist. She spoke quick, “I need to see it,” she said. “Please. Just take the spell out right now.”

Erick did so. Bronzescale read the spell then passed it to another, who passed it to another, then another and another. But by that time, Erick had lost track of who was talking around him.

“How did you come up with the idea?”

“What is lightning to you?”

“There wasn’t rain in the battle, so how did that happen?”

“Was the rain a side effect?”

“How did— Guildmaster Zago!” The speaker, and the rest of the crowd backed away from Erick.

Guildmaster Zago looked through the crowd. She quickly pointed at several people, saying, “You, you, you, you, you. With me.” She turned to Erick. “We’re having a little talk, now. If you please?”

Erick said, “Of course.”

Erick followed Zago up the staircase of the big tower part of the guildhouse. The people she told to follow, followed behind Erick. One of them was Sizzi; he didn’t know the other 4, but Bronzescale was there, as well as the white-wrought. After them came a Crimsonscale man and a rather short orcol woman, maybe only 6 feet tall, with long black hair and seagreen skin.

Zago led them into a small lecture hall with chalkboards and student desks. She pointed toward the middle chalkboard, saying, “Take some moments if you need to, Mage Flatt, but I will understand how you managed to create a basic lightning and storm spell from a simple rhyme done in Ecks. It’s bad enough that you didn’t do your incantation in Ancient Script, but… That’s a problem for the theologians. Not for us, and not for today. Explain to us your understanding of Lightning.” She took a seat at the front of the lecture room. “At your leisure.”

The rest of the designated mages took their seats near the front of the room.

Erick… Did as requested, he supposed. He walked up to the chalkboard, picked up the chalk, and started with electrical charges. This immediately led to Sizzi asking a question, but Zago silenced her, and urged Erick to continue as if nothing had happened.

Erick soon realized he might have to go a bit more basic than ‘what is electrical charge’.

“So… This is an atom...”

- - - -

“… And that’s how you get lightning. The phenomenon of electrical charges is demonstrable on a much smaller scale with, like, if you’re wearing socks and you rub your feet on the carpet, and then you touch something metal, you get a shock. Usually.” Erick had drawn some sock-covered feet on the chalkboard next to some cloudy messes with a bunch of pluses and minuses. He was trying to explain it all and not doing a great job. “That was my first experience with electrical charges as a kid.”

Zago’s purple lips were held in a thin line. She looked to Bronzescale.

Bronzescale said, “Sorry, Mage Flatt… Are you sure about… All of that?”

“Do you have a carpet and some natural fiber clothes? I think I can actually demonstrate this right now.”

“No, no— That’s not it. I’m aware of that phenomenon. But…” She turned to the young orcol. “Krigea?”

Krigea took a nod from Zago as permission to speak. “Uh. Hi. I’m not from around here, so it’s very nice of you to allow me this opportunity. I’m Krigea Gadaroth, a graduate student for natural studies, from Oceanside Arcanaeum overseen by Headmaster Kirginatharp. I’m headed into professorship. To get to the topic: It’s kinda hard to not see the creation of a new basic spell and realize that we’ve had something fundamentally wrong for a very long time.” She pointed at the chalkboard. “I’m sure Guildmaster Zago has some ‘Small Shock’ experimental supplies somewhere—”

“I can go get them,” Bronzescale offered.

“— But I don’t think we need them, since we all seem to have the same experience there.” Krigea shook her head. “Back to the point: There is a disconnect in current lightning magic theory between the Small Shock experiment, [Lightning], and [Nature’s Fury]. You’d think we would have something truly Basic in the electricity vein before now. Like the Small Shock, but bigger. So I can only conclude that everyone must have misunderstood the phenomena, for all these years. I’m sure that part of this disconnect is that those two higher spells are derived from Mana Shaping 7 to Lightning. There has been no base lightning magic before you created [Call Lightning] that was not granted to followers of gods or certain demons, and… I can appreciate those deific forces in my life, but they’re not the most scholarly, and Rozeta never tells anyone how anything works.”

Zago must have seen Erick flinch. She asked, “Something wrong, Mage Flatt?”

“I had a conversation with Rozeta about my [Call Lightning], just this morning.”

The room got very intense. Krigea sat down, looking stunned.

Erick barreled on, trying not to lose focus. “Rozeta said ‘enough relevant entities don’t like your spell’ so it has to be changed. She mentioned a goddess of storms from Nergal who was ‘particularly unhappy’. She also said that ‘a lot of relevant entities like the rain part, so that’ll stay’… Or something to that effect. But the outcome was that [Call Lightning] doesn’t work against a weather [Ward] now.”

Krigea said, “Huh. But weather [Ward]s don’t stop mage lightning.”

“We’d have heard pretty fucking fast if something like that changed!” said Crimsonscale.

White Wrought said, “We must test this, right now.”

“Theory today, Rilas.” Zago said, “Weather [Ward]s have always stopped natural lightning, but with even the smallest amounts of a mage’s mana directing that lightning, a weather [Ward] is turned useless.” A smile spread upon her face. “This seems like a good basic spell, now. It was wildly too powerful before. Now, anyone can defend against it, just like how absorption wards are good against basic spell damage.”

Krigea said, “This spell will still be widely used, just not as much as before.”

“It’ll make more kids take [Ward].” Crimsonscale said, “More kids need to take [Ward]. I don’t know why they all don’t.”

“Because if they’re not a mage they can’t support the 500 point absorption wards everyone expects mages to have," Zago said. “Armies were already routinely using weather [Ward]s anyway, so this makes [Call Lightning] rather weak, but I’m sure that if you were to cast it with a Mana Alteration for Lightning, you could get around this restriction for a few hundred mana more.”

Crimsonscale said, “A 700 mana spell? That’s balanced against [Nature’s Fury], not counting the prerequisites.”

“Quite.” Zago said, “Moving right along~ How about that rain, Mage Flatt?”

Erick admitted, “I have no idea where that came from. I just wanted to make some lightning and the clouds and water are needed to create that lightning. I’m as pleasantly surprised as everyone that the rain is usable all on its own.”

That cause some pause among the group.

Krigea said, “500 mana, long duration, multiple uses… [Call Lightning] is not a basic spell, but it’s the one he was going for, and it is, technically, a basic spell. Something is not right.”

Another silence spread.

Zago said, “I disagree. The natural process described here is purportedly something so normal that everyone, thinking that lightning was something so grand, just couldn’t envision how simple the whole process truly is. The mana cost is a side effect of the necessary space needed to cause this natural process to begin. The duration is the same as for [Stoneshape] and other shaping skills, but there are not unlimited lightning bolts in a single [Call Lightning]. Every bolt called drops the… The ‘electrical charge’ present in the cloud. I think the true nature of this spell is that it creates the cloud and makes it rub up against itself, in some grand game of carpet and sock, with minimal mana spent to actually link the spell with the designated target. The rain is likely a result of throwing your mana into the air to create a watery cloud, and then notusing that cloud. That mana in the cloud then decays and the natural result is rain.”

Her words hung in the air.

“Guildmaster Zago, I think you are wrong about that last part.” Krigea said, “There are no known cases of mana decaying into water.”

Zago hummed, then said, “The rain didn’t start until nearly the end of the first spell. The second spell was cast almost immediately, which might have captured some of the previous cloud that had yet to dissipate. This is when the rain really started, but even so, it was not a strong storm. I might not have all the facts yet, Krigea, but the logic is there.”

Krigea looked mollified as she nodded.

Crimsonscale said, “I think Krigea is correct about something being not right, though. Looking at all the other basic spells, [Call Lightning] does not fit. I think there is another gap, here, one that we could exploit to create a whole new set of lightning spells, as long as we think small and personal. Like how there are many different Force spells.”

Erick said, “I wouldn’t do that… I think you’d kill yourself if you tried to personally cast lightning.”

Crimsonscale asked, “And why is that?”

Zago gasped, excited.

Zago said, “Because the exchange of electrical charge is what causes damage! If you cast real lightning from your fingertips, you would also be subject to all the damage you have done.” She announced, “I think we have solved a real mystery here today, gentlemages! The reason why no one has invented real lightning magic without using the Mana Alteration for lightning is because they have, for one reason or another, not accounted for the damage done to themselves by the lightning they seek to control!” She laughed. “The Script knocks you unconscious with error messages if you try improper magic, but it also knocks you out if you try to harm yourself with your own magic. There are thousands of ways to cause error messages, and there’s no way to tell which Script protocol you tripped!” She laughed again, but only her daughter chuckled with her.

Krigea said, “I would accept that explanation. Preliminarily.”

Bronzescale said, “This is all well and good. But I’m going to require Erick to explain everything he said, all over again. Preferably with more detail.”

“Of course!” Zago smiled, saying, “Please, Mage Flatt. Start from the beginning again. We may have questions this time.”

Erick smiled. “Sure. So, this is an atom—“

“Right. That.” Zago cleared her throat, and said, “I got distracted, because you did create a spell and Rozeta has approved it, and all of that wonderful discussion. But infinitesimal magic is forbidden by the Script, so… Did Rozeta mention anything about that? It seems to me that you’re skirting a line. You should have gotten a warning from Irogh, at the very least. Rozeta would have said something about this, if it was a problem. So. Why is this... atomstuff, not a problem?”

Crimsonscale added, “Adding to this: we’ve known for a long time that fire consumes material to create itself, but we cannot make a fire spell by directly exploiting this property. We have to use Mana Altering 5 for Fire, in each and every case of fire spell creation. Can you explain this discrepancy? Why is ‘electricity’ allowed but fire is not?”

“A good addition,” Zago said. “Mage Flatt? Do you have an answer?”

The other people in the room stared at Erick, all of them waiting for an answer.

Erick thought for a moment, about what ‘infinitesimal magic’ could possibly mean—

Atomic magic. She’s talking about atomic magic. So is Crimsonscale.

“Ah! That? Rozeta did not mention anything about this being that sort of problem, but this isn’t really infinitesimal magic, if that is what I think you’re talking about. Electrical charge is the top-most layer of all atoms, and that layer is as changeable as clothes on a person. Electrical charge runs all living bodies and all brains, too, so electrical magic should not be interacting with the infinitesimal layer. Fire breaks down molecules, releasing energy from other molecules to make more fire and so on and so on, in a process that runs until all relevant materials are consumed, but electricity is not fire. They might look the same in some ways, but there is a fundamental difference.”

There was another pause.

Krigea said, “That would explain why lightning damage paralyzes the target.”

Crimsonscale said, “And why fire magic needs to go through Mana Altering 5. Fire seems in direct violation of the Sundering ban on both infinitesimal magic, and self-propagating magic.”

Zago chuckled, “More mysteries solved! Just like that!”

There were a few reluctant nods around the room.

“Okay! So!” Erick went back to the chalkboard, erasing old drawings and making new ones, explaining as he drew, “This is the modern visual representation of an atom. You got the proton and neutrons in the middle, and the electrons in a cloud on the outside. Atoms try to balance themselves with their surroundings to achieve the lowest possible energy state, usually with a net 0 electrical charge. This is a normal hydrogen atom. It always has 1 proton in the middle, 1 electron on the outside, and almost always 0 neutrons. This is an oxygen atom. It always has 8 protons in the middle and usually the same amount of neutrons or a little more, with some electrons on the outside. Hard to know the exact number of electrons there, because electrons are friendly, you see. They move around.

“Electrons are the glue that holds much larger friends together. I know these larger friend groups as molecules. Water is a molecule, one of the most interesting, and it’s composed of 2 hydrogen and 1 oxygen, with each hydrogen sharing its single electron with the oxygen. I’m focusing on water, because water is naturally electrically unbalanced. See the bend I have drawn here? This bend exists because of the nature of electrons. This makes the molecule have a positive charge on the hydrogen side, and a negative charge on the oxygen side, and because of this bend, this natural electrical propensity, a lot of things dissolve in water. Don’t ask me why, I kinda forgot why.

“It’s because of this ability to dissolve things that water is capable of carrying electrical currents, for only with some free electrons from some dissolved solids, can an electrical current move through water without turning that water back into hydrogen… and… Hmm. That part might be too complicated for now. Let’s erase that and talk about that later. For now, let’s focus on the free electrons, floating through space, and how that relates to electrical charge...”

The resulting lecture and conversation took the rest of the day. By the time the sun dipped down to the walls of Spur, everyone was ready to stop. For the day. They’d resume tomorrow in the morning, because that’s what Zago decided, and that was fine with Erick. She didn’t ask if that was okay, but it was. On the walk home, Erick was very glad that he remembered almost all of Jane’s high school and college-level physics homework.

… He probably got some of it wrong.

Shit.

… Oh well!

Ah! Fuck. He told the farmers he would go to the farms today.

Dammit.

Oh well.

Erick arrived at the Sewerhouse just in time for a massive dinner cooked by Savral, in which all of his team attended. They had invited Jane out for a test run in the Crystal Desert tomorrow, and she was eager to go. All of them kept calling it the Crystal Forest, though, for some bizarre reason. Erick still didn’t understand that, and all of Savral’s team didn’t understand why Erick didn’t understand. That was okay, though. Jane was on his side.

Al was on Erick’s side, too, because he didn’t understand the local custom either. He wasn’t originally from Spur. He was originally from ‘all over’. When Erick called him on that nonsense answer, Al just laughed.

- - - -

As Erick closed his eyes on yet another day on Veird, he wondered how magic actually worked.

Where did [Call Lightning]'s rain come from?

What happened to the thick air from a [Cleanse]?

What was mana, exactly?

How was it all connected?

Ahh. That was a good one. Good, mystical thoughts.

Erick didn’t need answers, but it was good to imagine them!

This is what magic should be.

… Sure, Erick was answering questions at the guild about scientific stuff, but that was just science. Science was great. Everyone should know more facts about how the physical world worked. Science lifted man to the moon and killed smallpox and made the internet.

But it wasn’t magic.