Aliandra

  Ali woke feeling refreshed, got up from her sleeping bag, aed her tent into the silence of the Grove, lit by her golden mushrooms and the glowing runes on the shrine. Everyone else was still asleep, tent to allow her minions to keep watch. Ordinarily, she might have spent the few hours before they woke growing her forest and ing up the few corpses of slimes her minions had killed ht, but today she had something different in mind.

  Finding a fortable spot he now-cold ash of the cookfire, she retrieved her are magic book from her ring’s ste, admiring the shining silver runes and the small drifts of silvery mana it emitted.

  Fuals of Are Magic: Theory and Practice.

  It was a beautifully made book, and seeing it reminded her of the excitement she had felt when Ryn had first pulled it out of the box in her bookstore. She smiled at the memory, hoping that her friend would be avaible for tea this afternoon.

  I should have all the pieces, right? she thought, trag the silver runes with her finger. It had been a while since she had used the teleportation locus in the Novaspark Academy receiving room, but she still had the locus fully memorized. And now I have my own teleportation magic. The project she had in mind was quite ambitious – if she could uand the runistru, she should be able to use her skill as a refereo make a teleport spell.

  She opehe textbook and paged through to the se on are teleportation – knowily what she would find. Her book was not particurly advanced, c mainly just basic magic – but the fixed, static teleport magic it expined had been beyond her grasp when she had first read it. It seemed the book, like many others of its kind, required some instructor, or at least a w magic spell to refer to, before some of the underlying cepts might bee clear. Or at least a certain level of proficy she did not have.

  She read through the spell and the apanying expnation again, noting the ses she hadn’t been able to figure out.

  “e help me,” she instructed, calling over a Kobold.

  “Yes, A Mistress.” Her Kobold’s soft, gentle voice was as familiar and soothing to her ears as her holy magic was to her body. It immediately joined her by the fire, looking on curiously while it waited for her wish, golden-yellow scales gleaming geously in the soft light of the Grove.

  This should be simple, she thought, activating her Sage of Learning. And then, while studying the flows of mana, she triggered Minion Teleport, switg pces with her Kobold.

  Oh, hmm…

  The problem was immediately clear to her. Just not how to solve it. Wheeleported, the dislocation of her position interrupted her ability to observe the mana flows effectively and simultaneously disrupted her Study Trance. She tried it again, just in case she could figure out a way to see past the jump, but her active advance fe of Learning insisted on uninterrupted focus, and telep was clearly not that.

  This is frustrating! It would have been so much easier if Malika or had the teleport magic, but then she wouldn’t be the one able to teleport, just study it.

  Wait, what about Martial Insight? She had just retly earhe ‘Remote Perception’ ability to see through her minions’ eyes. Maybe I use Sage from their point of view? Will that let me study it uninterrupted?

  She called a sed Kobold over to act as her eyes for this experiment and then switched her awareo the body of the Kobold mage. It was a little easier than the first time, her mind remembering how to stabilize the e, and immediately her range of sight expanded, while muting all the brilliant colors of her flowers. It took a few tries to her mind around the figuration. She was watg from the mage, but her actual body was exging positions with her Acolyte while attempting to maintain her Sage of Learning study trance from the viewpoint of the mage.

  She struggled with it for a while before she mao get all the pieces in pce, holding it firmly while her magic activated, but study traerrupted again, clearly not capable of being sustained while she simultaneously activated her Minion Teleport skill.

  Do I ? She sidered the problem. Before learning Study Trance, her Sage of Learning would simply work whenever she was in a situation that could be from assistance – and all her advances since had not removed the passive learning skill. Study Trance simply made it faster. And it’s the Magialysis I need here. Perhaps the focus isn’t that much of a problem.

  She teleported a few times, watg from the viewpoint of her Fire Mage, carefully studying the flow of magic. It was challenging to juggle the mage’s more rudimentary mana sight with her Are Insight – especially as her personal viewpoint was disrupted every time she teleported – but she persevered, just letting Sage of Learning do its thing. It took a few tries, but suddenly it started drawing from her mana pool.

  Remote Perception is much better than I expected, she thought while waiting for her teleport to recharge. She sidered what she was doing, and the figuration she had set up. Not only was she shifting her awareo use the perception skills of her Fire Mage, but she was iing her own perception skills simultaneously. Both Are Insight and Sage of Learning tio fun when she used the Kobold’s point of view. It seemed a bit more plex, given that her Are Insight, ne of Learning required eyes, but she decided to table it for ter iigation, w idly how it might work from a minion with bizarre senses like her oozes.

  She tio study her teleport skill for a while. It was a little odd that she had to learn to uand the magic that she could already intuitively cast with her skill, but she supposed that a deeper uanding of the magic her skills wielded couldn’t hurt and may improve her skill growth and adva iure.

  Ali picked up her book again aivated her Study Tra looks like it just needs a few modifications, she thought, examining the spell structure inscribed on the pages. Carefully, she restructed it in her mind, in full detail, before turning to the mana formations she had studied from her teleport spell. She began stitg. There wasn’t an easy expnation for what she was doing, but she felt she was snipping pieces from one magid stitg them bato the other, f a modified hybrid spell as she went. She had a pretty good uanding of what the funs of all the pieces were, and how they might go together, but this process was all o her.

  Her spell was getting quite plicated, glowing brightly, suspended in her mind. She tur around and adjusted the size of the ring of runes so that they would aliger before she suddenly saw the redundancy. If I just modify this piece a little, it looks exactly like that one. She khe adjustment wouldn’t affect the fun of the rune sequence much, so she did it. Then she adjusted the circle once more, shrinking it so that the two duplicate ses overpped. This should be better, she thought, clipping one of the duplicate pieces out and reeg the runes properly.

  She studied her final struct carefully, but she was uo find any fw in the design.

  It was with a rising sense of excitement and anticipation that she turo her Runic Script and began to write her magic, ying her mana down on top of the mossy ground. She didn’t know how loudies had taken because Study Trance messed with her sense of the passage of time, but she didn’t mind o, fully absorbed in her fasating project.

  The first try fizzled spectacurly, the magic colpsing with a pop and a puff of mana that buffeted her body briefly. Her sed try got further, but this time she was inscribing from behind the prote of a barrier. She had fotten her lessons about magic experimentation – things could g, and sometimes with spectacur and violent sequences. Remember your safety, she recalled from her csses. With each failure, she returo her image of her struct, tweaking and adjusting, and improving her uanding by studying what she had missed.

  The runes flowed from her, glowing golden in her mana sight as she wove the strands of her are mana. Suddenly a chime sounded, and she automatically hooked her struct to her domain mana as the runic circle closed.

  Runic Script has reached level 18.Static Teleport – level 35 (Are)Teleport to a preset teleportation locus.Locus: Novaspark Academy of Magic, Myrin’s Keep.Runic Circle

  “What are you making?” Malika asked, walking up behind her.

  Ali smiled at her friend, pointing to the golden runic circle h just above the moss carpet.

  “I ’t see it,” Malika said, surprising Ali.

  “ht,” she said, “I fot.” She had gotten so used to seeing the world with the ever-present mana sight provided by Are Insight that she had already fotten what it was like before she had learhe skill. “This is what I made.” She answered Malika’s curiosity by sharing the details of her atic Teleport runic circle. “I bined some piey Minion Teleport with the structure they have in this book, and I made my own little struct.”

  “Wow, Ali, that seems super useful! We should try it today when we visit town.”

  While Ali had been immersed in her project, studying and learning, she hadn’t paid any attention to the sequences of what she was doing, but Malika’s excitement filled her with a powerful sense of aplishment.

  My first spell struct. Gra was only a minor modification of what was inscribed in her book, but she didn’t let that get in the way of her achievement. Besides, teicalities ted.

  It’s like a non-portable version of the recall potion. But reusable. She studied the mana of her domain, and how it the runic circle. And probably won’t require a fee to use, she realized, sidering just how much mana her domain taihe success of her little project caused a cascade of new ideas to rush through her mind. With not a lot more work she was certain she could make her own locus, which would mean she could do both ends of her teleportation spell. The possibilities made her giddy with excitement.

  ***

  Ali stepped out of the bathhouse into the te afternoon sunshine a out a little sigh of te. It had been the perfect day.

  “Thank you,” Malika said with an even more heartfelt sigh. “I hat.”

  The boys had been busy with errands and family stuff, so she and Malika had spent the day around town. Malika was still worried about the bounty on their heads and had insisted on apanying her all m, patiently sitting through her draic lessons with Kavé aea and endless chatter with Ryn. In turn, Ali had treated her to a trip to the bathhouse where she had splurged on all the extras – she was certain Malika was still having traumatic fshbacks to the ooze fight and the bath had been the perfetidote.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to e to the Adventurers Guild? wanted ary to identify Mieriel, and you have the highest css level,” Malika asked, reminding her of their pn to all meet up at the guild after their business in town.

  “She gives me the creeps,” Ali answered. “I’m not sure why, but I keep having nightmares about her.” Besides, Ali was excited to get back to her studies. She was certain she could make a two-way teleportatioup between the library and the shrine, which would save them an enormous amount of time traveling bad forth.

  “Ok, stay safe,” Malika said, as they arrived through the alleyway beside the guild, and helped her open the grate into the sewer.

  “I’ll see you at camp ter,” Ali answered. She was sure Malika would have wao return with her, but she probably wao che with Weldin Thriftpenny and see if she could get a good deal for the magicite and living essehey had collected. Ali wasn’t particurly worried; Eliyen was the obvious er for the living essences, and from what she had seen of the Novaspark Academy of Magic, there would be no problem finding someoerested in nature-affinity magicite. But her grasp of the art of deals and bargaining was rudimentary at best – it was far better, in her opinion, to let Malika handle all of that.

  Waving goodbye to Malika, she desded into the sewers, perched on her magical barrier, happily noting just how much better it smelled since she had begun pnting mushrooms.

  I should get a couple of the Spore Spreaders to e up here.

  Aiden

  “Ok, let’s move up,” Aiden said, keeping his words calm and rexed. He typically found himself in the leadership role itle groups they made, probably because of his father, and the Guildmaster had even made it official. But he didn’t want to boss people around, so he tried to keep it respectful.

  “A couple more slimes,” Kaitlyn announced. “Yay.”

  He had gotten quite a good feel for all the remaining guild members, especially over the st week or so as he’d had the opportunity to group with them. The guild formed groups every day for training or leveling, typically around the two tanks – Braden and Havok. Usually, Braden paired with Teagan because he was a less defeank than Havok and required more healing. Havok typically took care of his own healing. This had given him ample opportunity to evaluate all of the guild members around his level. Some of them were good and easy to work with, but some of them were a real struggle. Kaitlyn owerful and talented lightning archer, but she definitely had an attitude.

  Although I think I agree with her se. He had reached level six a few days ago but leveling in the sewers had slowed to a crawl. Killing Toxic Slimes and the occasional Goblin had bee rather too easy, and now felt like an arduous chore for little be.

  I guess I should be gd it’s b. Iing implied risk, and against monsters, that meant people might die. But he couldn’t help wishing for an enter like the ones had shared. Perhaps when I level up a bit more and bee stronger.

  “Ok, Havok, attack,” he said. At least it’s good for drilling formations. Havok charged forward, his shield glowing brightly, casting a radiance across the crumbling a brickwork, and smmed into the two slimes. Aiden charged in behind him, but really, the slimes would be dead in a few moments due to Devan and Kaitlyn’s potent damage. He loved his Ice Swordsman css, but on a pure damage parison, he couldn’t hope to match the Wind Bde and Lightning Archer.

  As expected, the two slimes died, and he gained no levels or skills from the minimal experience.

  He was about to lead them forward, wheemperature suddenly dropped, causing flurries of snow to appear as the moisture fsh crystallized out of the damp air. Paihrough his leg as a spike of ice pierced it through the back of his knee, aumbled, falling awkwardly to the ground. A rapid sequence of swishing noises and thumps ensued, followed by the shouts and screams of his teammates.

  Stunned, he pushed himself up from the now pletely frozen ground to look around, feeling the pulse of holy magic as Havok’s healing reached him.

  “None of that!” an angry voiapped, followed by a flurry of ices that pierced through Havok’s armor, pinning his body up on the brick wall.

  A tall, white-robed figure strode past him, firing a stream of ice darts at Havok while he healed himself against the damage.

  The Town Watch? What are they doing here? He saw the badge on the man’s robe, and then reition dawned. Roderik Ice. Fuck. Teically Aiden was a noble, his father having been born into some obscure family that cimed a noble lihe Kingdom of New Daria rogressive, but holding an office like mayor still required at least some tenuous blood e to the royal line. But he would rather not be associated with a monster like Roderik. He was the embodiment of everything that gave the nobility a bad name – arrogant, ung, sadistid entirely self-absorbed.

  Havok’s shield magic dropped, leaving the sewer lit mainly by the aura of ice magic Roderik was emitting. He’s almost out of mana, he’s going to die. Aiden reached out and dragged himself forward, clutg his sword.

  “Oh no you don’t,” Roderik barked, firing another ice that pierced through his thigh, pinning him to the ground, without letting up his stream of ice darts until Havok stopped healing.

  “Ok, now that you’re out of mana, let’s have a little chat about Aliandra and her dungeon, why don’t we?”

  Oh no, Aiden thought, realizing instinctively what kind of ‘chat’ it would be.

  “Yoing to tell me how to find her,” Roderik said, advang on the weakly struggling Havok, still pio the wall, his blood trig down the brick to stain the mossy ground.

  “No. Havok not help. You bad.”

  He doesn’t uand the danger he’s in! Aiden knew what kind of man Roderik was. Resisting him would simply make him angrier.

  “Tell him, otherwise he will kill you,” Aiden shouted, desperate to save the plucky little Goblin who had quickly bee his firm friend.

  “Miss Aliandra is friend. Havok not betray. If Havok tell, then he kill Havok and Miss Aliandra.”

  “There you are, Roderik,” a loud voice called out from dowunnel as a group of Town Watch marched toward them. “You’re hard to follow when you teleport like that.”

  “Stay out of my way.”

  “Sure, but why are you messing with that green scum, this one on the ground is the mayor’s son.”

  timewalk