Ar'Kendrithyst

Chapter 115, 1/2

Chapter 115, 1/2

Erick stood before his bed, under the protections of his [Prismatic Ward], while he had strung ample [Alarm Ward]s throughout the space and also outside, while Ophiels provided the bulk of the early-warning system. The Ophiels inside were quiet, but the ones outside brought a bit of birdsong to an otherwise silent land. He gazed down at the bed and hoped he would actually be able to sleep. Though he had taken another bath to calm down, and that had been rather successful, he was still rather high-strung at the moment, what with everything that had happened, and that promised to happen.

Erick breathed deep, and sat on the bed. The covers went up and over, and Erick’s head hit the pillow. Three half-thoughts later, he was asleep and snoring.

He woke to the actions of nothing in particular. He jolted upward. For a moment, he panicked, activating [Greater Lightwalk] on the bottom of his bare feet, under the covers. There was nothing in his room except for him. The dense air was still there, too.

And now that he was not running on fumes and desperation, and everything seemed a mite calmer, his new Perception seemed to help him see the density in the air a lot clearer than before. He was almost tempted to try some meditative techniques to see if he could gain a Mana Sense, like how Teressa had gained while they were at Oceanside.

Erick’s mind started whirring as he fully woke, and old memories came to him like sudden waves of nostalgia. Things he had forgotten from his childhood. Events he had cherished, then abandoned somewhere along the way, for reasons he could not recall. His mother’s smile. His dad’s hugs. Remembering those was like opening a forgotten gift left under the Christmas Tree.

For a long moment, Erick sat in bed, and remembered his parents. He had a small cry, which turned to laughter when he remembered the better times. Like Sunday dinners at grandma's, or when mom used to cook. He remembered watching Saturday cartoons with his father and laughing with him. That thought invariably led to remembering trying to watch Saturday cartoons with his own daughter, but the tradition of Saturday cartoons was gone, off the airwaves, by the time Jane was interested in such things. They did have a small tradition of fantasy movies every Saturday when she was small. That lasted two wonderful years, until Jane had gotten old enough that she wanted to spend her weekends with her friends and not with her father.

He smiled at that. Jane certainly grew up fast. It seemed like one moment he was feeding her formula, and the next she was slaying imaginary bad guys, and then she was fighting real bad guys on Veird, and actually slaying them. Erick had mixed feelings about all that, but he left those to the side. It was daddy’s turn to kill the bad guys now, or at least ensure that they burned to their own evil. It was time to make the world a better place for Jane, like he had always tried to do, but only ever succeeded some of the time.

Erick got up, and turned on [Lodestar]. Keeping his sunform to his back, and ready to deploy at any moment, he went and got ready for the day. Or was it night? Hard to tell. Rainbow auroras hung in the sky outside the windows and there were no clocks in this roo—

There was a clock in the living room.

Erick sent an Ophiel to check on the time. There were two clocks out there. Erick had missed the second one. Apparently, it was 8:10 PM, outside-time, but inside Ar’Kendrithyst’s wonky Feast Time, it was a few hours into the third day. Erick had slept more than ten hours. He must have been more tired than he had thought.

Presentations of Power was supposed to begin today. Each Shade was supposed to prepare something that proved their worth to the Clergy and to Melemizargo. Erick was supposed to present something, too, but these people had been spying on him for a long time. He’d likely be ‘asked’ (forced) to give some sort of presentation on what everyone already knew.

Well fuck that!

For one bright, shining moment, Erick considered blowing off the rest of Shadow’s Feast. Of stepping off into some other part of Ar’Kendrithyst and telling them all to go fuck themselves. But then he discarded that notion. He had well and goodly decided not to kill any more Shades unless the perfect opportunity presented itself, but Tania was going to kill more. If Erick wasn’t here to see that happen, to see the winds of change coming, he would be caught unaware by the coming storm, and that was unacceptable.

Sometime soon, the news of the Clergy’s demise would run through Ar’Kendrithyst and everything would start happening, very, very fast.

So, again, Erick considered running and hiding. But where would he even hide, though?

Oh. Now there’s an idea. If Ar’Kendrithyst was truly sealed… Was it sealed against Shades looking to escape, too? If everything came tumbling down and all the Shades started murdering each other in one great, grand blood bath of magic, would it be contained to Ar’Kendrithyst, for the duration of the Feast?

Erick was glad that he had managed to sleep when he could. He was going to need those ten hours.

And yet, despite all the danger, there was something entertaining about experiencing history first hand, and having a part to play in that history. Erick briefly imagined himself in the fall of Rome; wearing a toga, and drinking wine, while the city burned, civil war raged, and all his enemies fell to the swords of his other enemies… Or however it was that the fall of Rome went down. Erick was never a history buff.

He was certainly remembering all of his studies of physics that he had ever looked upon, though. He was remembering a lot. That thought led to another:

Intelligence was not going to stay like this. None of these new Stats were going to remain. Erick felt too strong. He felt too secure. Even discarding the mental changes, which was enough to get Intelligence nerfed to oblivion, there were the simple numerical changes to mana costs.

Erick began a small test, there in his temporary bedroom. He had to rearrange the [Prismatic Ward], and create an empty space for himself to cast, but that was easy enough for an Ophiel to do. The two spells he chose were [Ward], because it provided solid results in a confined space, and [Hermetic Shredder], for much the same reasons.

Ophiel cast the [Hermetic Shredder] for 1200 mana, stringing the spell into five separated lines, and then another 195 lines pushed to the side. Erick did it this way for Ophiel had no spell cost reductions, and what Ophiel cast was what Ophiel got. According to the blue box, those 200 lines each had 200 points of ‘damage capability’ before they broke.

Erick cast the [Ward], spending only 10 mana for a small defensive [Ward].

He dismissed his own [Personal Ward], and reached out to touch the first molecular wire. It broke against his skin; the [Defensive Ward] taking a major hit to its stability. Erick had no way to check the viability of the remaining [Ward], but it certainly looked thinner. Checking his Health, he saw no change.

He touched the second wire, popping the [Ward], and popping the wire. There was not a single blemish upon his finger. He checked his Health, anyway. He was down 2 points. Those two missing points replenished themselves in a regenerating second.

Ah. He recognized a problem. He recognized several problems. Mainly, though, his Constitution was preventing damage, too.

He could probably still figure out something from all of this, though. He just needed more samples, more casts, and more tests.

Half an hour later, he had come up with some rough estimations of the power of Intelligence, and Constitution. Like he had initially theorized, both were wildly overpowered.

That 10 mana he spent on a small defensive [Ward] produced over 300 points of damage soaking. Erick’s [Ward]s only cost 3% of the original costs, meaning that 1 of those initial ten mana was used to create the [Ward] in the first place, but the remaining 9 of those mana went through a (roughly) 33.3 multiplier.

But that much wasn’t too surprising.

Clarity dropped the initial cost of each [Ward] down to 50% costs, and with Favoring [Ward] that cost dropped another 25% off, but then there was also the Class Ability for a 10% Spell Cost Reduction. Force Savant also dropped the cost of [Ward] another few percentage points, for a final cost, before Intelligence, of 12% of the initial costs. So while 81 Intelligence dropping [Ward] down to 3% of the initial costs seemed rather screwy, and piss-poor of what 81 Intelligence should get you…

Practically all of Erick’s spells were down to 3% or 5% of their initial costs. [Hermetic Shredder] very easily demonstrated the raw power of Intelligence, because Erick could just count the wires and calculate his bonus that way.

Hermetic Shredder, instant, medium range, 1000 mana + Variable

A Variable number of molecular wires stretch through a Variable space, at your command. One wire does a maximum of Variable points of damage before breaking.

Erick spent 100 mana on that spell, and got 1500 wires, each worth that many points of damage, before they broke. With a small mental calculation, Erick worked out that [Hermetic Shredder] was working off of a 4% mana cost multiplier.

So.

Intelligence was way too powerful. This was getting changed, for sure. Erick saw that coming down the line. But that was fine. Shades shouldn’t get nice things. Erick could even forgo this bonus, and quite frankly, he kinda wanted to be rid of it right now. His mind strained with desires to go out there and rewrite the world in his own image, and that was not a nice thought. Still...

Still, he was going to abuse this as much as he possibly could, while he could. He was going to LEARN ALL THE THINGS and MAKE ALL THE MAGIC. Erick practically trembled at the thought of entering a library! A real library. With real magic books!

“OH!” Erick smiled. “The Librarian already gave me a book. Where was it...”

Erick searched for his book. He found it. ‘Defined Barriers’. It was a small, white book, supposedly penned 1200 years ago. He opened it.

Twenty minutes later, it was read. The book was helpful in many ways to understand the nature of the ‘Domain’ class of spells. Cast Domains, divorced from their caster and set out in the world, like Erick’s [Domain of Light], were weaker than those Domains constantly maintained by the caster. Those kinds were effectively dead wills imposed upon the mana. They were called ‘Domains’, and they were; technically. But active Domains, like Erick’s [Lodestar], were the pinnacle of the art. Active, well-honed Domains could be used against other active Domains in a battle of Willpower and Mana reserves. Smaller, harder, and heavily surveilled and secured Domains were better than larger, less-secure Domains.

The book even outlined how to use Domains and Elemental Body spells together to affect a greater working than the two could separately. Erick already knew this from his own experiments with his ‘sunform’, but it was nice to see it all spelled out on paper, and to see a few ideas on that paper that he had yet to discover in his own workings.

After Erick read the whole thing, he suspected that he could tear through any ‘dead Domain’ with his own sunform. ‘Defined Barriers’ was a great, little source of knowledge. The only problems with this knowledge, were that the Librarian had given Erick this book, which meant that she knew what she had given him, which meant she knew all the tricks and tips and magics outlined therein.

Still some useful ideas, though! All the tips outlined also had counters, though. Erick briefly contemplated a scenario where he had to fight the Librarian. He got into a mental chess game of ‘if she does this then I’ll do that but then she’ll do this’, and so on and so on. He didn’t get far in that chess game. He knew all of his own pieces, but whatever the Librarian was fielding would be new to him. Hopefully they wouldn’t need to fight. The possibility was still something to keep in mind, though.

Ah. But! One good thing that was not a trap in this book, Erick tried right now.

Normally, it was impossible to cast tier two magic with an Elemental Body; you could, at most, remake the Basic Tier spells out there, and gain those extra points from those Spell Remake Quests. But with a Domain supplementing your Elemental Body, you can cast pseudo-‘tier two’ spells. You wouldn’t get any blue boxes out of this technique, but you would get the use of those spells, and they would be outside of the global cooldown of the Script.

Erick had already suspected most of that, but it was nice to see it spelled out on paper.

With a flex of his sunform, and a burst of intent, Erick manually cast a [Force Wall] attached to his [Lodestar]. A radiant shield of light burst into the air in front of him, onto the edge of his sunform. Normally, [Force Wall]s were stationary objects. But it was a wall cast in his Domain, and that made all the difference. With a flex of his Domain and his lightform, the shield moved at his command. It bounced around, stable when he wanted it to be, mobile when he wanted it to move.

Erick calculated throwing a 200 point [Blood Bolt] at his side of the shield, which, by his calculations, should cause over 4,000 points of damage. The Bolt wasn’t ethereal, which meant that it would be blocked, but even if it wasn’t, Erick could take the damage.

He had already spent 17,000 Mana on his [Personal Ward], and with all his bonuses, the white sheen that slipped over his skin and clothes was a damage barrier worth over a quarter of a million points, if his calculations were correct.

Erick aimed—

Ah. No. He should be doing this outside, in case he was throwing around too much power and he accidentally broke something. But there was no need to actually go outside, was there? Erick looked to the south, to the window that showed the waterfalls behind the Palace District. With a push of light and the shaping of his auras, Erick remade his shield on the other side of the window. He also had a shooting angle on that shield, from that very same air outside the window.

And since this experimental area was outside…

Erick aimed a 2000 point [Blood Bolt] at the shield, this time. With that much power behind the Bolt, it should translate into something like 40,000 damage, with all the various reductions he had to mana costs.

He let the Bolt fly.

The white Bolt detonated against the shield like a tube of TNT, exploding outward into great, ripping white sparks. But for all that damage, the house was already protected by Erick’s [Prismatic Ward]. The house was fine. The shield was fine. Some of the plants out there were… not exactly fine, but they were okay. Looking over them again, Erick would need to replace some of the ones directly against the house. Those were… Not fine. That area was more crater than wild grasses.

A sigh sounded at the doorway to his room. Erick had seen the man already, but at his sigh, Erick turned to face the music. Quilatalap stood there, on the other side of the doorway, beyond the dense air of the room, frowning at Erick.

Erick smiled at the man, saying, “Hello!”

“At least you did it outside.” Quilatalap looked to the window, adding, “For a certain definition of ‘outside’.”

“Yup!” Erick asked, “Are people giving their presentations yet?”

“You’ve still got a few hours. I was setting mine up when your butler and my people alerted me to an explosion here.”

“Got any places to practice some spells? Or I could just step out of the Brightwater District?” Erick thought for half a second, and decided, “It would be stupid to step too far away, but it could also be smart.”

Quilatalap eyed Erick. “You just gained all that Intelligence, and you’re going to fight, right now? Really?”

“Sometimes fighting is the smart thing to do.”

“You should take some time and learn some things from all the sources on display, today.” Quilatalap said, “Or, I could teach you some necessary skills before you go out and get yourself ambushed.”

“Oh! Sure!” Erick touched the belt around his waist, saying, “Let me remake this— Oh? Do you want one of these rings?” He held up his hand. “Have you unlocked all the Stats, yet?”

“… You would do this for me?”

“So you haven’t unlocked them all? That’s weird. Oh. Is it because you don’t want to accidentally become a shadeling? That has to be it. Or is it the danger of altering your Intelligence?” Erick looked away, saying, “This 81 Int is doing a number on my psyche, for sure.” He added, “Oh! But I didn’t turn shadeling, did I? I just got a question mark on my Status. No Shadeling Curse with unlocking them this way! Well isn’t that interesting.” He looked to Quilatalap, and knew he hit the mark with that last one. “It’s that last one, isn’t it?”

Quilatalap grinned. “Maybe.” He lost most of his grin, saying, “Maybe you shouldn’t remake the belt. This Intelligence is doing odd things to you.”

Erick waved that concern away, saying, “I’m remaking the belt, and then I’ll pick up everything you’re putting down. I’m eager for a lesson, teach!”

Quilatalap gave a small, nervous laugh. “Sure. Let’s talk. Come out when you’re ready.”

Quilatalap walked away from the doorway, while Erick sat down on his bed and took out some supplies from his bag.

Ten minutes later, Erick had crafted a second, 3-sphere, Deep Sky Silver belt, just like the first, but this one was a true All-Stat magical item. He also made a ring for Quilatalap. The orcol would probably have to wear it like an earring, or something, but that would likely still work.

Erick strapped the belt around his waist. The world shifted just a little bit more into focus. It was not the shift that had occurred yesterday, when Erick gained Perception, and he could count the threads on his bedsheets from three feet away, if he wished. It wasn’t like when he gained his Boon of Recovery, and his body shifted younger, and he could count his individual eyelashes in the mirror. It was something lesser, and yet greater at the same time. Like finding a new setting on a television set, or a computer screen, that made the picture just a little bit better.

Diminishing returns, for sure.

Erick felt at home in his body, like he could move however he wished and all would be easy. He felt his mind expand, and all the failed math lessons he had ever had percolated underneath everything else he already knew. He felt safe, as his skin and bones and flesh felt stronger, somehow, in some magical, Constitution way.

And yet, he recognized the diminishing returns of these untested, False Stats, which were surely going to get nerfed sooner or later. But for now, he was going to use them to get what he wanted, and what he wanted was knowledge.

Erick found Quilatalap in the living room, sitting on one of the couches. He enthusiastically said, “Ready! And: here!” He tossed the man a ring.

Quilatalap caught the ring with magic, holding it suspended in the air. “It’s not a smart thing to throw items around when you’re around people of power.”

“Phhhbtt!” Erick said, “You got a recommendation from a source I trust.”

Did Erick truly trust Rozeta? Ehhhh. The jury was still out on that one. But he trusted her enough, and that meant he trusted Quilatalap enough. For now.

Quilatalap startled at Erick’s words, briefly, then he locked that down, his emotions turned to something deeper. His eyebrows scrunched over narrowing eyes, as he spied the ring in his magical grip. With a flick, the ring vanished; gone, somewhere, to some pocket on his person, no doubt. Quilatalap asked, “Where would you like to start? It all starts as one, then flows into ten thousand variations, but in the end, it’s all the same.”

“You say that, but…” Erick took a seat on the other couch in the living room, asking, “I feel like the height of magic is actually soul magic?”

“No, actually.” Quilatalap said, “There are multiple magics that can each take you very, very far. If you wanted to harm others, I would suggest any of the Elemental Magic branches, or even your own Particle Magic. Soul Magic is mostly defensive. There are very few outright harmful soul spells, for most Soul Magic must first pierce the Shroud in order to affect the person. For this reason, most Soul Magic is directed inward, or along non-living angles. These non-living angles include spells such as ancestor summoning, or non-sentient necromancy, or elemental conjuring. Sapient necromancy and sapient elemental conjuring is an order of magnitude more difficult than the lower versions of those spells, simply because it affects a sapient soul.”

Erick scrunched his face. “I expected more offensive uses. Curses and Blessings and such.” He said, “What you said doesn’t make sense, because everyone I know says it’s the most dangerous out there.” He shook his head, adding, “Let’s begin at the beginning. Defensive spells? Or whatever? Sure.”

Quilatalap smiled. “There are harmful soul spells, and they are some of the worst things that can happen to a person, but those workings are compounds of all that comes before. So, yes; let us begin at the beginning.”

Erick nodded, and listened.

Quilatalap said, “Back in the beginning, when magic was not constrained to the Script, it was different, but most magics are still the same at their core.

“Magic is possibility. This much is known, and this much is still true to this day.

“But possibility is not the same from one person to the next. Ideas are not the same. Power is not the same. It is here that the Script has flattened much of the nuance of magic, removing variation and creating a coherent whole, accessible to all.

“But back before the Script, and in a way that remains true against all the more horrible Soul and Mind Magics, but not true in the case of Blood magics, consent is key. You must keep this in mind going forward. Against the worst Soul and Mind magics, consent is needed. But against Blood Magics, consent is not strictly necessary. We are getting a little off track, but some mages will use Blood Magics to fool the biology of a person and guide them into giving consent for the more awful Soul and Mind Magics out there.

“But back to the basics:

“The first technique I can teach you, that will help you against the stronger, terrible magics out there, is to run the constant thread of ‘No’ in your mind, and direct this feeling out toward everything that might touch you. It sounds simple, but it is not. It will make you cranky. It will make you mean. It will cut you off from the rest of the world. But you can eventually get this thought of ‘no’ into your mind, and you might be able to live a normal life from then on, secure in the idea that you will not be fundamentally changed by some stray attacker you never saw coming.

“Back before the Script, this ability to deny the magics of others from affecting you was the most important part of being a mage. Since magic is possibility, the ability to deny possibility is also the ability to automatically [Dispel] all harmful magics. This was the basis for the creation of [Dispel].

“But with the advent of the Script, you can no longer simply ‘disbelieve’ a fireball to the face. You must actively [Dispel] such a thing, using as much force as the original caster put into their belief.

“And now we come to an example: [Teleport], and [Teleport Other]. What I speak of now, is how you went about making those spells in the first place. Not in the spells as they are in the Script; this is a major difference.

“It is here, in creating these spells on your own, that you met one of the greatest examples of where magic starts; the beginning of it all.” Quilatalap asked, “Can you give me a run down of how you made those spells, so I can better teach you? All I know is that you have them.”

Erick obliged, giving Quilatalap a short rundown on how [Teleport] and [Teleport Other] happened. He even spoke of [Teleport Monster], because Quilatalap felt it relevant.

When the explanation was over, Quilatalap said, “With [Teleport], you had to have the consent of yourself, or rather, your Ophiel, in order to [Teleport].

"With [Teleport Other], the Myriad Citrus allowed you to move it, so that doesn't count for this discussion.

“With [Teleport Monster], you needed to find the ‘in’, on those Crystal Mimics. They attacked you, and that gave you your ‘in’. From there, you exploited this break in their armor to then encompass the whole mimic, to then have it [Teleport] itself.” Quilatalap asked, “Correct?”

“Correct.”

Quilatalap nodded, then continued, “The break in the armor that was required to enact this [Teleport Monster] is what we call Breaking the Shroud. The Shroud, as we call it, is the normal area of subjective reality around a soul. Finding the break and then breaking it to affect the actual soul inside, is called Breaking the Shroud.

“As an aside, the stronger the Shroud, the harder it is to break. It is the density of the Shroud that determines the categorization of a thing as either object, a monster, or a person. Objects have no Shroud. Monsters are not in control of themselves, and like all insane beasts out there, their Shroud is already heavily compromised. Consider this type of Shroud to be as air, and easily moved around. The Shrouds of sapients is stable, and varies anywhere from air, to water, to rock. We will speak of personal Shrouds at another time when you can actually see them.

“And to that end, I suggest you work on gaining a second technique: you need a mana sense. This is among the most necessary skills that any great mage would have.” Quilatalap added, “But an easy workaround to this requirement would be to gain [Mana Sight]. One of the easier ways to gain that skill is either from one of Tania’s shadow spiders, or from any number of other monsters that have this skill elsewhere in the world. Mana Slimes are perhaps the easiest ones to find, as they go up for auction in Eidolon every now and then for a few million gold. Elsewise, you would need to find an aberrant monster that has accidentally and miraculously developed [Mana Sight]. You would need to be [Polymorph]ed into those monster forms to use those skills, though. So that is the downside to those possibilities. Elsewise, you could work on your mana sense. It might be easier for you now that you have all those new Stats.” Quilatalap eyed him, saying, “You seem to have understood every single thing I have said, and that is slightly disconcerting. Talk to me. You seem like you might be having strange thoughts.”

Erick sat back in his chair, and was, indeed, having strange thoughts.

Quilatalap watched.

Erick said, “Okay.” He narrowed his eyes at nothing and no one in particular, saying, “Can I do this ‘no’ with a [Personal Ward]—” A flash of inspiration struck. “Oh. Shit. Can I do that with a [Personal Ward] tied to defense? I’ve never tried to make a [Personal Ward] outside of the normal [Personal Ward]. Oh. Shit. Why haven’t I tried that? I should try that. It should be easy enough to make a ‘[Soul Protecting Personal Ward]’, right?”

“No no no.” Quilatalap interrupted Erick’s minor mental flood, saying, “You would do well not to tie this to a [Ward], for that would mean you would need to cast it, first, and that is not always possible in the heat of the moment. And besides that, if you are tied to ‘no’, then you would automatically decline many things that you would wish to accept. Such as healing magics, or telepathic communications. You must learn how to do this ‘no’ outside of the shortcuts of the Script. It must become second nature, like a quiet voice in your head that you must personally turn off when you wish it turned off. A skill that won’t necessitate the use of a Universal Second of the Script.”

“… That’s going to be such a pain in the ass.”

Quilatalap laughed loud, then he said, “Yes. It is, at first. And then it is not. It’s only truly useful against the most harmful Soul and Mind magics. For example, there’s [Soul Splice], which is a Soul Magic that adds another soul to your own, and mutates the body into a combination of the two. This is how Hollowsaur’s cow-people were created. For Mind Magic, we have [True Domination], which is a permanent [Mind Control] effect.” He thought for a second. He said, “I don’t have an example of that you might have seen. The Mind Mages are rather thorough at keeping that stuff to a minimum out there in the world, and Mind Magic sees little use inside Kendrithyst.” He added, “This technique is useless in most cases. All the lesser spells, such as [Soul Burn] and [Mind Spike] are hard-cast to work no matter what, like that fireball-to-the-face example I gave you earlier.”

“I know of [Mind Spike], but what’s [Soul Burn]?”

“Oh!” Quilatalap smiled, saying, “I can teach you this, but…” He paused. He said, “[Soul Burn] is the beginning of all damaging, offensive Soul Magic. This is not a very deep branch of magic, and if you want to kill someone, almost any kind of magic would be better suited for the task. [Soul Burn] is only useful in that it weakens resistance to other Soul Magics.” Quilatalap handed Erick a blue box.

Soul Burn, instant, close range, 50 mana

Disturb the soul of a target, dealing 50 damage. Damage is increased or decreased by the stability of the target’s Shroud. May cause a minor decrease in the stability of the target’s Shroud.

Quilatalap asked, “You can see how [Soul Burn]s can rapidly increase in damage?”

Erick could certainly see that. “It’s a spell that gets more destructive the more a person is struck. That’s impressive.” And then he remembered something. “Oh. My apprentice made a spell that increases firelight damage taken by the target.”

Quilatalap said, “If you had a mana sense, I could show you the actual effects of a [Soul Burn], and you would see that it is not as impressive as it might appear in the Script box. Almost any other spell is stronger if you actually want to hurt someone, and whatever spell you speak of with regard to your apprentice is likely better than [Soul Burn] for the purpose of causing damage. [Soul Burn] only truly works in two scenarios: in long, drawn-out fights, where the target is unaware that they need to say ‘no’, to all outside forces. Or when the target is unaware they are being attacked. In both cases, if they are able to say ‘no’, then [Soul Burn] will do almost nothing. In most fights, most people will instinctively be able to have that ‘no’ going on in the back of their mind, so the second scenario is more likely to work than the first.

“This is why I teach students to first defend against these spells by learning to have that ‘no’ in the back of their minds, always.” Quilatalap said, “That is the most important thing, because without that defense… [Soul Burn] does damage, yes, but it is an easy thing to make a better version of [Soul Burn] that does zero damage and inflicts a much stronger, stacking debuff… Imagine, you’re flying around in Kendrithyst, or you’re at a party, or you’re just inside your house, and you’re being struck from the shadows with this second tier of [Soul Burn] every second. You might barely be able to feel more frightened—

“Ah. That’s another thing. A burned Shroud makes the person feel frightened in a primal, complete sort of way. I forgot to mention that.

“Anyway: Suddenly, your Shroud is gone. It’s all over. You’ve lost, and all you felt was a gradually increasing fear that was as normal as any other fear. But your Shroud is gone, and someone hits you with a [Soul Splice]. You’ll never see your death coming.”

Erick felt a chill.

Quilatalap said, “You understand, now.”

“Yes.” Erick shivered. He asked, “If I gained a mana sense… I could see my own Shroud? Know if I was being attacked in that way?”

“Yes.” Quilatalap said, “This is how you can know if you’re being targeted by Soul Magic.” He added, “I see you worrying, but you should know that the Script has other defenses in place against the more terrible Soul Magics and Mind Magics. Health and [Personal Ward] automatically help resist almost all Soul Magic by automagically keeping your Shroud intact. Health provides less of a defense against Mind Magic, and very, very little against Blood Magic, but against Soul Magic? Health is a great defense. The easiest way to harm someone with Soul Magic is to first grind down their Health and then their Shroud, then strike them with the deadly spells.

“You might be immune to most Soul Magics, just because your heavily inflated Stats gives you a great deal more Health than most mages. Most mages, and Rookies, and most of the population of Veird, have under 600 Health. That much Health is not much of a defense.

“Using a [Soul Burn] against people with that low of Health, will almost always result in the wearing away of the Shroud. It is possible to make a [Soul Burn] work against Juggernauts, too, or other such persons, but you have to get their Health down to low, low numbers first, which is a chore. Those types always have Skills like [Second Wind], to turn their Health Regen per day into per minute, for one minute.” Quilatalap said, “Or they just have a really good healing spell. Or a Healer, on hand.”

While all of that was interesting, and Erick vowed to gain a mana sense as soon as possible, Quilatalap’s mention of ‘Health as a shield’ had Erick frowning. “Really? My [Personal Ward] and Health protect me?”

“Of course they do.” Quilatalap said, “And I see you rethinking that all this talk was useless, if you are able to keep your Health and [Ward] up. Know now, and keep this close, that that sort of thinking will do you a disservice. Those sources of defense are not infallible.” He added, “It is much better to have a ‘no’ defense constantly running. Besides, this ‘no’ defense works after death. Having your soul captured is… It’s not good, Erick.

“Whatever the case, if you develop a mana sense and then only use that to inspect your Shroud every now and then, and you only ever use the ‘no’ defense when you’re around people or when you think you’re in danger, that would be a good enough outcome for some good starter defenses.” Quilatalap said, “Actually, you should only work on one of those, for now. I suggest you attempt to gain a mana sense, and try to see your own Shroud, for it takes more than a mana sense in order to see a Shroud.” Quilatalap asked, “Any questions?”

There were a lot of questions. Erick tried to keep it simple, for now. He remembered all his failed attempts at gaining a mana sense in the past, but, just to be sure he had been taught that correctly, he asked Quilatalap, “How does one gain a mana sense?”

Quilatalap said, “Purposefully using the lower ranks of Meditation allows you to experience the world of your soul. From there, become one with the mana. And then, you need to understand what it is you are seeing. I could go into it in more detail, but that is usually enough for most people, and any more explanation than that usually ends up messing with what comes later.

“This is the only way to gain a mana sense, and it takes time. There are no tricks to it, but… If this Perception turns out to help you achieve this ‘oneness with the mana’, you let me know, okay? That would be nice to know, going forward.” He stood up, asking, “Are you coming to the presentations? They begin in a few hours, and though I will be occupied for a short while giving my own presentation, we can walk around afterward and poke around at all the other presentations?”

Erick smiled. “I’d like that.” Erick stood up, saying, “I wouldn’t want to miss it.”

“You might be called upon to give a presentation yourself.” Quilatalap said, “You can probably just say ‘no’, if you want.”

He almost made a joke about how he needed to learn to say ‘no’ sooner, but that thought fled as another took hold. He asked, “How many times has my soul been attacked, so far?”

“Eight times that I know of and witnessed myself.” Quilatalap said, “Five of those people who tried it were executed yesterday.”

“… Ah. Okay then.” Erick asked, “Was anything… done to me?”

“Nope. None of the attacks were real attacks. They were probing measures that couldn’t get past your [Personal Ward] or your Health. Also, your Domain is rather tough, though you would do well to learn to keep that around your whole soul, and not just around your heart and your back.” Quilatalap said, “When you gain a mana sense, we can work on transforming your mana sense into a [Soul Sight], and then you can see what I mean regarding your Domain’s more nuanced functions. We can also talk about... Eh. There’s a lot to talk about. But not until you get past that first step.”

“Okay… Ah. Wait. What about this ‘no’ you’re talking about. Would that interfere with the ‘becoming one with the mana’ part of mana sensing?”

“No. They’re different. You can do both at the same time. You’ll understand when you get there.”

Erick had one more question, and he was loath to ask it. But he asked anyway, “What about Fallopolis? Has she tried to attack my soul?”

Quilatalap lied, “Nope.”

- - - -

Erick sat on his bed, in his room, and banished all thoughts of Fallopolis.

Then he tried to recall everything he had ever heard about mana sense.

Thoughts came to him like a brush of rain, of talking to Teressa every so often about her [Witness], of what Professor Rue Downs had spoken of back at Oceanside, and of what Ramizi had teased when he revealed that there existed a skill that let him see the world as mana saw the world.

Mana sense allowed the viewer to see the world as the mana saw it, which was from every single angle, from both inside and outside of both people and objects. That was how Ramizi counted the fingers behind Erick’s back without using any tricks except for his mana sense. A mana sense would almost be like his own [Detect Intent Aura], which he was guided to by Rue Downs. But a mana sense was also capable of letting you gaze into the past, and unlock [Witness], like in the case of Teressa’s own mammoth affinity for that skill.

Erick smiled a bit, as he understood, now, why those three people had their mana sense.

Ramizi had it because he was likely delving into forbidden knowledge. He went for an Intelligence fruit as soon as he could, and then kept that Stat, even though he had already agreed with Eduard and Maia to get Intelligence purged from his Status, as soon as the test of that Stat was over. What sort of forbidden knowledge? Erick didn’t rightly know. Ramizi had complained about not being able to reach the deeper Force Magics on his own, and yet Intelligence enabled that to happen. So maybe his whole deal was he thought he needed Intelligence to progress as a mage. And maybe he did.

Rue Downs was an Underworld incani. Her familiarity with mana sense was likely exactly as she needed it to be; an extra sense when sight failed down in the deep dark. She had spoken of Underworld inhabitants gouging out the eyes of their children to help them gain a mana sense, and maybe that’s what had been done to Rue. There were too many other variables around the woman for Erick to make a guess about any other possible motives at gaining such a skill.

Knowing what Erick now knew about mana sense allowing a person to inspect their own soul for damage…

Teressa had wanted mana sense to be able to defend herself from the darker magics out there, so that she would never again be subjected to the horror of having everyone she loved killed and then transformed into abominations to then harry her through illusions, while she was forced to kill each and every one. Even just surviving that terribleness ended with the Witch going after Teressa’s whole tribe, to do the same thing to them that she had done to Teressa.

There was no doubt in Erick’s mind that a properly honed mana sense could negate many illusion magics, or at least such a sense would allow the practitioner to recognize illusions for what they were.

Erick banished his new revelations regarding acquaintances and friends, and focused on the steps to gaining a mana sense. He had read some books and passages in various books on the subject, but all of them had given the same steps to mana sense acquisition that Professor Rue Downs had given.

Step zero: Rid yourself of all magical items and effects, and put yourself in a place where there are no influences upon you, save for the mana all around you.

Erick failed step zero, and there was no way to succeed on this matter; he was not about to abandon all of his defenses, while he was here, in this place. But step zero might not truly matter, for Teressa had gained her mana sense while she was inside Erick’s [Prismatic Ward]. She had compared the feat to lifting heavy weights. Erick could probably lift some very heavy weights right now, so: Moving right along.

Step one: clear the mind of all thought.

… Okay. Step one might be difficult.

Moving right along!

Step two: become one with the mana, and see the world around you. Step three was making sense of the new sightless senses granted by step two. Step four was expanding on the understandings of those new ways of seeing until your skill got large enough that you could see outside of yourself, and both into the past and into the future. Teressa’s [Witness] saw into the past. But people like Krakina Kali, the Weather Witch, and her granddaughter, Ikawa Kali, could attune their mana sense to see slightly into the future.

Too bad Erick was stuck way back on step zero.

Maybe this wouldn’t go as smoothly as he wished.

He still tried, though. He gazed out at the room around him, checking on various corners and outside with various Ophiel, before finally deciding that he had seen enough; he wasn’t in danger at this particular moment. And then he Meditated, using the lowest rank of the Skill, divorcing himself from his body for a brief time. Everything became darkness. Everything became nothing. And there he was, somehow, in the center of it all, with his body beyond him, and only his mind to keep him company.