by Tao Wong
“Chance or fate?” I said, a slight smile on my face.
Alexa snorted but did not correct me. After all, who knew? In either case, I was kind of glad Alexa had chosen to learn some healing arts. It actually made me feel safer to be with her than if she had been a typical knight.
“Time to get back to it,” I said. Within moments, I had extracted the enchanted rods and placed them around the point of power. After that, I began the slow process of linking each rod and activating it. Once the rods were finally linked, the enchantment activated and proceeded to lay out the sealing ward. This was the difficult part since the rods required an external power source—namely me. I grunted as I felt the rods drawing on my gift, pulling mana from me in a steady flow.
An hour later, I finally sighed and relaxed as the rods shut down, the place of power finally sealed. Packing up after that was a simple enough matter, and when I finished, I dusted my hands off and waited for Alexa to fall into step with me. As we exited, I asked, “I have been wondering—what is it with the spear? Why not a gun?”
“A few reasons. Legality to start.” Alexa smiled slightly. “You can’t walk around with a gun everywhere. Here, I can just say we’re part of a medieval renaissance group.”
“But it’s sharp!”
“Is it?” Alexa offered me the spear tip. I frowned and stared at it, then realized there was a light shimmer to the spearhead. I unfocused my eyes and saw it actually looked to be capped and blunted under the glamour. Huh. Smart.
“You said a few reasons?” I asked, more curious now.
“Effectiveness. Bullets don’t hold blessings or enchantments well,” Alexa said. “When you have to fight werewolves, wights, or vampires, you really want your weapons blessed. You can’t even really use silver alloys. The silver content is so low it doesn’t really work.”
“And swords?”
“Initiates are not taught the sword till they are formally accepted as apprentices,” Alexa said. “Well, not much. We’re given the basics, but most of our focus is on the spear till then.”
Now that Alexa was talking, I took the opportunity to question her a little more about her life before we’d met. I soon learned Alexa had grown up in one of the many orphanages supported by the Templars. These orphanages were both acts of compassion as well are recruiting grounds where gifted children were drawn into the fold. Once she started reminiscing about her time in the orphanages, the normally quiet blonde started gushing, content to relive happier memories.
In time, our conversation turned into more of a trade. Alexa was definitely curious about my life as an only child in the outside world.
“After that, pets were banned in our house,” I said, finishing my story of poor Tut, the turtle. I was still sore about it so many years later. We had arrived at our next and last destination for the day. Thus far, I could only complete three a day at best, often less. “So, what’s your guess?”
Alexa frowned as she surveyed the empty parking lot, a single car the only other source of company for us. A short distance away, a twenty-four-hour convenience store was the sole occupant of a strip mall. Once more, Alexa looked around, trying to discern a clue about why a place of power would be located here. However, the empty parking lot gave few clues.
“Must be a ley line thing,” Alexa said eventually.
“Mmm…” was my only answer. I frowned and focused my sight. Over time, I had learned I could actually sharpen my mystical sight, allowing me to “see” more of the supernatural world. Spirits, ghosts, ley lines—all those appeared. Of course, there was a price. Within seconds, a throbbing headache made its presence known, but I was able to verify Alexa’s guess. The ley line was weird, floating just about twelve feet off the ground before dipping to the earth and pooling at the place of power before sweeping upward again, its shimmering illumination a reminder of pictures of the aurora borealis. As I considered the best way to ward this rather large place of power, a shout interrupted my thoughts.
“Hey, you! What are you doing here?”
The speaker was a rather large, rotund gentleman clad in a T-shirt that depicted a bat tearing free from chains and dripping in blood. I was not able to read the stylized name on the front but had no doubt it’d be some heavy metal band. A lanky man, who desperately needed to wash his greasy long hair, flanked his left while on the right, a short, spectacled South Asian walked.
“Uhh…” I said, feeling caught by the abrupt question.
“What’s it to you?” Alexa replied, squaring off with them and jutting out her chin aggressively.
“This is our place,” the initial speaker said as he continued to walk toward us. As he neared, his spectacled compatriot suddenly frowned and tugged on his arm, slowing him to whisper in his ear. A moment later, the leader glared at me.
Weird. I hadn’t done anything to attract his attention. Beside me, Alexa frowned at her arm where a gold bracelet rested. It had been a recent addition to her arsenal, an enchanted bracelet. When I looked at the bracelet, I noted the glow around the enchantment had increased as it activated. On instinct, I focused on the group and allowed my sight to sharpen.
Faint, so faint I had missed it in the beginning, a low glow of power shrouded each of the individuals walking toward us. I knew that glow. It was the same kind I gave off, like a beacon. Training with Caleb had reduced the glow somewhat, but still, my power overflowed my control. These guys did not suffer that same issue; their power a faint trace in the air. Unlike Caleb, I’d have had to say it was a lack of power rather than great control. I wasn’t particularly surprised to see that the glow surrounded all three of them. Those with power, no matter how little, had a tendency to clump together. In a city as large as ours, those with traces of magic had a tendency to find one another, and sometimes, they even managed to form their own baby cults. As Caleb had said, none of them really had enough power to do more than light some candles, but it sure made fooling mundanes easy. Remembering the look Specs had given me, I mentally added “the sight” to their abilities.
“Really? Your parking lot? I hadn’t realized that Lumin Parking had hired teenagers,” Alexa said.
“You—” The leader stopped, looking at the bag I was carrying over my shoulder and then back at Alexa. “You’re the ones sealing off the places, aren’t you?”
“What’s it to you?” I asked.
“Last warning. Get the hell out of here,” Greasy Hair said as the group stopped a bare ten feet from us.
Alexa continued to look bored, though I noted how she let a hand shift to touch the concealed baton in her back pocket.
“Or what?” I asked.
Without speaking further, the pair placed their hands on the rotund boy’s shoulders. Within seconds, their leader had begun chanting and moving his fingers, and in the center of his hands, floating in front of him, a small ball of fire bloomed. I had to admit I was a touch jealous. I didn’t have a Fireball spell. On the other hand, it took the combined strength of all three of them to cast it.
“Seriously?” I muttered and raised my hand. I recalled my Alter Temperature spell, quickly judged the distance to them, and then cast it.
Alter Temperature Cast
Synchronicity 83%
In a sphere that perfectly enveloped their Fireball, my Alter Temperature spell formed, and I began to forcibly lower its temperature. I watched as the trio gritted their teeth, fighting my spell, but as I had already noted, the trio possessed very little actual oomph. Hell, I doubted they individually registered on Lily’s scale of mana control. Within seconds, their Fireball fizzled and died, and the three flinched back together as one as the spell snapped apart. Having failed at spellcasting before, I knew how much it stung.
“Nice party trick. Now, scram!” I said. My fingers flicked and twisted, and a Force Bolt formed in my hand, blue-and-white streaks of power running along its edge. This was a pure affectation of course since a properly cast Force Bolt was actually nearly transpa
rent.
“This isn’t over!” the leader shouted as his friends backed off, staring at me warily.
I stared at the group and then casually tossed the Force Bolt at them, guiding it to impact the ground near their retreating feet. That was incentive enough to send the trio scrambling away, and I sighed, shaking my head. “Idiots.”
“Yes. So, you think they’ve been coming out here to do dastardly deeds?” Alexa asked, a smile dancing on her lips. “Maybe a few black magic rituals to impress the girls?”
“If they knew any, sure,” I said, chuckling. “Keep an eye out? I’ll ward and seal this place, and then we can go home.”
“Of course,” Alexa replied as she settled down to watch.
“Sushi for dinner?”
“Sounds lovely. I’ll make the call.”
Chapter 16
Over the next eight days, we continued to fill the requirements of our quest. Using a simple city map, we worked inward from the outer bounds of the city, tackling the more remote places of power. We’d finished just over twenty locations and spotted our teenage stalkers twice more. Since they only watched us from afar, we never took any action. Of course, after the second time we saw them, I reported their presence to Caleb. Unsurprisingly, the mage dismissed their presence as quickly as we had. It might have been arrogant, but if we concerned ourselves with pests like these, we’d never get done.
It was when we were walking back to our car from the first power point of the day that we realized pests could be extremely annoying. Alexa growled as she stared at the slashed tires of her car, garbage bags of collected litter swinging in her hands. “What the heck?”
I walked to the windshield and plucked the note that had been left under the wipers.
This is your final warning. Leave the dragon nests alone or face the consequences!
“Dragon nests?” I asked as I handed the note to Alexa.
“Another term for places of power. Ley line nodes, places of power, dragon nests, same thing,” Alexa said as she balled up the paper. She moved to toss it away and then changed her mind almost immediately and stuffed it into her pocket instead. The initiate quickly popped open the trunk and deposited the collected garbage before she made the call to have her car towed away. “Next time I see them, I’m so going to teach them a lesson.”
“Agreed,” I said. If those kids thought slashing tires was sufficient a deterrent, they really were imagining things. After all, we were being paid five hundred dollars for every place of power we were sealing. Even if we were stuck taking taxis from location to location, we were still significantly better off.
Later that evening, I was lying in bed, idly listening to the tap-tap of keyboard keys as I viewed my character sheet.
Class: Mage
Level 15 (13% Experience)
Known Spells: Light Sphere, Force Spear, Force Shield, Force Fingers, Alter Temperature, Gong, Gust, Heal, Link, Track, Mend, Ward, Glamour, Illusion
Magical Skillset
Mana Flow: 3/10
Mana to Energy Conversion: 2/10
Spell Container: 3/10
Spatial Location: 3/10
Spatial Movement: 2/10
Energy Manipulation: 2/10
Biological Manipulation: 1/10
Matter Manipulation: 0/10
Duration: 2/10
As promised, Lily had nerfed my leveling for a bit. I was hoping that I could start leveling at a decent rate soon, but it was not like a video game where everything was run off a series of specific charts. Most of my ‘experience’ was a rule-of-thumb grant by Lily, much like most of the system. It was intensely frustrating for the munchkin in me that wanted to game the system. However, the constant channeling to the enchanted rods had given me a significant amount of practice, enough so that I had gained a couple of points in Mana Flow and Duration. Even I could tell my body had begun to adjust to the amount of mana I could wield, the headaches in the evening having reduced significantly. Unfortunately, doing the same thing over and over again wasn’t helping me develop my spellcasting skills, but that was a different matter.
“Hey, Lily, when am I going to get more matter manipulation spells?” I asked, staring at my greatest weakness.
“When you’re ready. You haven’t even cast Mend once in the last week,” Lily replied immediately. “You got to get your basics right first.”
“Oh, come on. I could just get the spell and learn while I cast. Maybe a ‘Create Water’ or maybe a ‘Mud Hole’ spell.”
“Mud Hole?” Lily asked, a laugh in her voice.
“Or whatever you want to call it. A Bog spell, something to slow people down,” I clarified.
“Mmm… maybe.” Lily blew a tendril of hair from her mouth. “I still think you need to practice what you know already rather than get more spells.”
“But—”
“Did you see the quest list recently?” Lily continued, ignoring my protest.
“No. Figured we’d be doing this for the next few weeks, so I’ve not been looking,” I replied. “Alexa will tell me if there’s anything interesting.”
“If she was looking,” Lily answered. The aforementioned initiate having left to report the damage to her car, it left Lily and I alone in the apartment. “Might be something interesting.”
I took the hint and walked over to take a quick look. I paused, sorting through the files for a moment, and looked up, eyebrows drawn downward in concern. “More Devil Rats?”
“Yes.”
“Huh.” I frowned and pondered the information. After a moment, I pulled out the city map we’d been using and spread it out over the dining room table. I quickly plotted the information on the new rat outbreaks, along with the older rat quests, and stared at the results. “Damn. I think I need to talk to Alexa.”
“Talk to me about what?” Alexa asked as she stepped through the doorway.
“Devil Rats.”
“That’s… interesting,” Alexa said after a moment as she stared at the map. Since we only had a single map of the city, we’d previously marked the places of power on it and crossed them out as we went along. Overlaid with the outbreaks of Devil Rats, you could tell that each outbreak was near a place of power. “Not a casual entrance then.”
“No. Someone’s been opening portals,” I said, tapping the map. “What I don’t get is why.”
“To summon a demon of course,” Alexa said.
“Except we never sensed any of that.” I pointed to two of the places of power we had sealed, which were near the latest Devil Rat infestations. “And I’m pretty sure I would have. I sensed that imp well before I entered the restaurant, and he was pretty low-powered. I’m sure summoning something more powerful would have left traces.”
“True,” Alexa said. “Unless they hid it.”
“Point.” I grimaced. “What do we do now? I’m not exactly thrilled with the idea of trying to take on something more powerful than an imp. Even if we are protected…”
“We do nothing,” Alexa said after a moment. She fished her phone out and took a quick photo of the map before furiously texting for a few moments. “Done. I’ve run this up the chain.”
“That easy?” I asked.
“What? You want me to use a courier pigeon?”
“Wasn’t what I meant,” I said. Though, sending information like this over the Internet, weren’t there issues about security? On the other hand, maybe she was using an encrypted app. Were there encrypted apps? “Sorry.”
“It’s what we do, Henry,” Alexa said. “Anyway, with the ring sitting around, we have a few higher-level knights who have need for some serious work in the city.”
“Oh.” I recalled the people Alexa met with, her continued training in the mornings, and nodded. I guessed this made good use of the resources we had. After all, there was little point in someone following after us, what with the wish blocking most attacks. I took one last glance at the map before I turned away to chec
k on Lily’s latest progress in her game, secretly glad it wasn’t my problem.
***
“Thank you, sir!” Alexa said, offering a quick peck on the scrapyard owner’s cheek before she dropped onto her heels. “We won’t be long!”
“No worries, miss. I’m just glad you asked. Not like those other students.” The scrapyard owner sniffed and spat to the side. “Always coming in and taking their photos without permission.”
“Thank you again!” Alexa waved goodbye and jerked her head toward the inside of the scrapyard. I grunted, following after the blonde. Since Caleb had cancelled our morning appointment, this was our fifth place of power today, and even under my sunglasses, the sunlight was stabbing into my eyes.
“So, what did you tell him?” I asked curiously.
“The truth. We’d been given an assignment by your teacher to check out a few locations in the city,” Alexa said.
“And it made that sourpuss let us in?” I asked incredulously, recalling how grumpy the owner had been when we drove up.
“Sometimes, all you have to do is ask. All he wanted was us to acknowledge his rights,” Alexa replied sunnily.
In silence, we got down to the task of locating the center of the place of power. The winding pathways in the sprawling location finally brought us to our target, which had me smiling wryly as I stared at the crusher that was smack-dab in the center. Thankfully, it wasn’t running this second, but I guessed it made some sense. Countless vehicles and other mementos had bene destroyed by that crusher. All the memories, all the raw emotional baggage, destroyed and focused in that crusher again and again. Even if it was a small amount, years of use would have built up.
I narrowed my eyes, watching the slow swirl of power around the place of power as I judged how much effort would be required. After a time, I slowly nodded to myself and walked forward. From the corner of my eye, I noted Alexa had started to browse the stacks, bored.