“So, do you recognize any of the runes in the core?” I asked.
“I don’t recognize any of this stuff,” she said. “It looks like some sort of writing rather than runes. I’ll do a search on it and see if it is some sort of old language. Google image search has helped me out more than once.”
“I didn’t mean the writing, I meant the actual runes on the inside.”
She stared at it for a long time, then put it down frustrated. “I can see there is something in there, but just don’t have the ability to see it. It’s all fuzzy, like I need glasses.”
“How are you going to get to the runes then?”
“I’ll have John break it down for me later. He can probably take it apart without destroying much of it. Then I’ll take pictures of the different parts and reconstruct it as best I can.”
I’d planned on giving the orb to Sandy to keep it safe, but I didn’t really want her breaking it apart. If this was such a great find I didn’t want even a part of it ruined.
“I can see all the details inside it, so how about we figure out a way to duplicate them? That way you have something to study and the orb doesn’t get torn apart?”
“That could work.” Sandy sounded much happier about this option too. “I have an idea. Let’s try modeling clay and see if that will work.”
She fetched a block of clay from her workshop along with some modeling tools and I got to work. I picked what I thought was one of the easier runes but I quickly discovered I was not a sculptor, not even close. The lumpy misshapen thing on the table looked nothing like the beautiful graceful rune I saw in the orb.
After ten minutes I gave up, at least on the sculpting. I could tell Sandy was disappointed so we kept talking about materials we could use. I was pretty sure I was going to have to use my little magical characters to do this, so to conserve magic we needed to keep the result as small as possible. Sandy didn’t like the idea of using my personal magic for this but she really wanted to study the results. Apparently, finding new runes and triggers was like finding gold. Maybe even more valuable than that.
We talked materials and finally settled on wax. I needed something that could be molded fairly easily but would keep its shape and all the details. At least until Sandy could take a picture of it. I’d suggested just using one of my little guys to morph into the shape of the interior but Sandy vetoed that right away. That would put my magic in the shape of all those runes. Who knows what would happen then? It needed to be something detailed and non-magical, so wax it was.
Sandy laid out some wax paper on the counter, put away the modeling clay and tools, and then brought out a block of wax. I wasn’t sure how much energy it would take to shape wax so I decided to just do a small part of the orb. I examined it for a bit and noticed that part of the core was broken down in layers of runes and lines. I picked one layer that seemed to have a good variety as our test subject.
Sandy got her phone ready to take a video and we were good to go. For some reason I was nervous. I took a deep breath, let it out, and began.
First, I made my master sculptor. The runes themselves were tiny, only about an eighth of an inch so I made him double that height. I gave him a white beard since he was a wise and skilled old man. Next, I added jeans, a plaid shirt, a leather apron to keep him clean, and nice work boots. I started to add a work belt and tools but ended up taking that back. I needed him to work quickly and he needed to see into the orb, so I went with more of a cyborg feel. I replaced his right eye with a scanner that looked right out of terminator. It would be able to see inside the orb, scan it, and then outline it in 3D in the wax. I gave him his first two metal arms, both of which had Edward Scissorhands blades on the end. Then I gave him two more arms that had glowing, hot hands for fine details and shaping. Finally, I added a cold cannon on his shoulder for cooling the wax down. I didn’t add a duplicator ring or anything like that. The wax wasn’t magical and all the power had already been sucked out of the core, so there wasn’t anything to absorb to power the duplication. If I needed another master sculptor, I’d made a new one, maybe with a few more modifications depending on how this one did. I did add a belt of levitation so he could precisely maneuver around the wax, as well as a necklace of communication. He didn’t have any normal hands so using a walkie talkie just felt wrong.
I looked over my little master artist. Was I missing anything? I realized I needed him to act quickly, so I modified his boots so they had little wings on them. Now he was as fast as Hermes. He seemed good to go, so I filled him up with magic and turned him loose.
He was a serious cyborg artist, so there wasn’t any Wheeeing this time. Instead he flexed all his arms and tested his tools. Then his cyborg eye scanned the layer of the orb I indicated and he got to work. As he started drilling into the wax it quickly became clear he needed another helper. The loose wax was getting in the way and I hadn’t given him anything to clear out what he’d already chipped off.
Keeping with the cyborg theme, I made a little motorized wheelbarrow with lots of mechanical arms. It could pick up anything from a large chunk to the finest spec of wax and dump it into its bin. I thought about adding thrusters for movement, but the final sculpture was going to be pretty fragile. I didn’t want the cyborg wheelbarrow’s turbulence to cause any problems. Instead, I added antigravity wheels, because in my world, anti gravity works. I love my magic. The final touch was a communicator in the handle. It seemed good so I filled it with magic and turned it loose.
The cyborg wheelbarrow was perfect. It cleared up the loose wax in a precise and careful way. It wasn’t that fast, though, so I made four more of them. That seemed to be enough to keep up with the cyborg sculptor. Sandy was videoing the whole thing and my part was done so I got to sit back and watch.
This was so much better than my attempts with the modeling clay. The runes were tiny, but perfectly formed. They looked almost as elegant in the wax as they did in the golem core. Even the tiny lines connecting them together were represented. They were so fragile that bumping the counter or any shaking at all would probably shatter them.
“This is amazing! Just amazing!” Sandy was saying over and over. She was like a kid in a candy shop. One thing that surprised her right away was the runes had protrusions. They were in 3D. All the runes she had seen had been from drawings so they were in 2D. This was rocking her world.
Everything ran smoothly for about five minutes. The level was about a quarter finished when the master sculptor stopped, turned to me and bowed as he faded out. I was shocked. That had never happened before.
I made another one and he started working again. This time I kept a close eye on him and noticed that four minutes later he was starting to slow down. He also didn’t look as solid. I pushed more magic into him and he picked up the pace again. Just to be safe, I pushed magic into the cyborg wheelbarrows too. I’d never had a creation of mine just fade away before. Of course, I couldn’t remember using it for such a detailed and time-consuming task either. If I couldn’t use the duplicator rings then there was definitely a limit on how much magic I could use.
I was a bit worried about how much magic this project was taking up. Before becoming a supernatural, I used to only be able to make one little guy. Now I’d just made 5 of them and was refilling them with magic. I didn’t want to get into low magic problems again. That had majorly sucked. I was really glad I’d decided to just do a small part of the core. I certainly didn’t have enough to do all of it.
After about twenty minutes, the project was done. I was feeling a bit light headed from the power loss, but the layer of runes was carved into the top of the wax block in fine detail. It was a work of art and Sandy had the whole thing on video. She switched out her for phone for a real camera, one of those ones with the removable lenses. Then she took lots and lots of pictures from every angle she could find. In the meantime, I had the cyborgs merge with Penny. She wasn’t talking to me or communicating in any way and it was starting to really worry me.
/> Inevitably, Sandy’s cats showed up to see what all the fuss was about. Sandy grabbed a charm and sent a wave of power toward the wax block. It encased the block and froze it somehow. It looked murky so further pictures were out of the question for now. Sandy assured me it would keep the wax structure safe until she unfroze it again. Kitten was too small to get up on the counter so he sat at my feet and chirped at me until I picked him up. Then he snuggled in my arms and purred.
We went over the pictures on her camera. She had plenty of pictures from lots of angles to recreate these runes. I think she wanted to run off to her workshop right now and get started but I needed her help with Penny.
I finished up my tale of the night. How Penny absorbed the league of Flying Miners and the Ass Blaster 2000s and then went quiet, how I met my kitten and how Tyler had completely taken out one remnant.
Sandy decided that deserved a celebration, so we poured some wine and toasted, one down and three to go. We also talked about the kitten for a bit. I couldn’t see any sort of magical power around him and Sandy tested and couldn’t find any either. If he could hurt a remnant, though, there was something special about him.
I didn’t have a name for him either. Sandy suggested several, but nothing seemed to really click. For now, he was just Kitten. I’d never had a pet before but Sandy said it was easy. Just take care of food, water, number 1 and number 2. Other than that, the cat adopts you and they will let you know what you can do for them.
The kitten sensed we were talking about him and he looked up at me adoringly. I’d stopped loving on him while we were talking so I started up again. Sandy said he was training me already. We laughed about it but secretly I started to wonder if it wasn’t true.
Finally, I got to talk about Penny. It wasn’t until she stopped communicating that I realized how much I missed her presence. She mostly made little happy sounds about what was going on and I could feel her presence on my finger. Now she just felt like a regular metal ring and it felt weird. It was like leaving the apartment without my phone. I’d only had her for a little while but it felt wrong.
“I have an idea of what is amiss, but first let me ask you a question,” Sandy said. “Have you added more of your magic to the charm after you created her?”
“No.” I replied. “It never even occurred to me to do that. I knew I didn’t want to take too much magic out of her in case she went back to just being a regular charm. Come to think of it, no one specifically said not to do that but it just felt like a mistake to pull too much.”
“I don’t have a fully aware charm myself,” Sandy said. “Sometime soon we will have to talk about your experience and I’ll have to make one for me. In the meantime, I do have an idea of what might be going on.” She thought for a moment. “I have the perfect idea for an analogy for all this. Hang on.”
She disappeared into her workshop again and returned with a large glass vase. I was curious to see her workshop. It seemed to have just about everything in there. She then went to the kitchen cabinet and took out a clear shot glass. Out of a drawer came some food coloring.
“You don’t have to go to all this trouble,” I said. “You can just tell me what you’re thinking. I’m sure I can figure it out.”
“Oh this is no trouble at all,” she said. “I love a good analogy and it’s rare that one this perfect comes along. Now listen, learn, and let’s have some fun.”
I felt like we were putting together a science experiment for school. It was kinda fun.
“In many ways magic acts like water. Not always, but it in this case it will be just fine.” She set the shot glass in front of me. “Let’s say this shot glass is you and the water is your magic.” She filled up the shot glass with water.
“What color did you say your magic was again?” she asked.
“It’s emerald green with a sapphire blue running through it,” I replied. “It’s mostly green, though.”
“Let’s just stick with one color for now. Green it is,” she said. She added several drops of food color to the shot glass until the water was a nice dark green.
“Let’s say the vase is Penny. You only need a little bit of magic to infuse a charm.” She poured a tiny bit of green water from the shot glass into the vase. “However, you kept going until the charm was aware.” She dumped most of the water into the vase. It didn’t fill it up very much. I didn’t know if Sandy had planned on this being to scale. If so, she thought Penny had a lot of capacity to store magic.
“You survived the evening and your magic reserves gradually filled back up again.” She filled up the shot glass with water and then added more food coloring until it was back to a dark green.
“Everything was good until a thousand or more of your little creations merged back with Penny. The very best possible news is that it was only pure magic that merged with her.” Sandy put the vase in the sink and filled it most of the way with tap water. Then she put it back on the counter in front of me.
“Analogies are great because they can give us insight into what the problem is and how to fix it. So now it’s your turn. What do you think the problem with Penny is?” Sandy was in full-on teacher mode.
I looked at the vase and it was pretty clear to see. The water in the vase only had a hint of green in it. Sandy had added so much clear water the green was diluted down and barely visible.
“Penny doesn’t have a concentration of my magic anymore,” I said. “She’s mostly pure magic which doesn’t have any personality or connection to me.”
“You got it in one,” Sandy congratulated. “Now, how are you going to fix it?”
Hmmmm. How was I going to fix this? My first thought was to find a way to get rid of the extra magic in Penny. Then she would be back to the normal concentration of magic as before. If I suggested that, though, Sandy would just pour some of the water down the drain. The remaining water would still just be a light green. If this analogy holds true, then the energy had already mixed in Penny and there wasn’t any way to get the pure energy back out again. Plus, it seemed a waste to get rid of pure magic.
I picked up my shot glass with rich dark water and poured it into the vase. Immediately the water in the vase got darker.
“That’s a great first step.,” Sandy encouraged. “It certainly helps the problem but it doesn’t completely fix it. Now what?” She looked at me intently. Obviously I was being judged here. I felt like I had messed up the other night so this was my chance to make a better impression.
The good news is I liked problems like this. Figuring out the best solution was why I was good at Sudoku, and the cutthroat world of poker. Kitten was done with the whole analogy thing, he wanted to play so I put him on the floor.
Obviously, I needed to get more green into the vase. The only source of the green was the shot glass which was now empty. I could fill up the shot glass with water, add food coloring, and then dump it into the vase. That would be like giving Penny everything I had, waiting until I felt better, and then doing it again. I remembered how gray and cold the world had seemed without magic. I didn’t want to go through that again. Actually, the vase was a lot larger than the shot glass. I’d be doing it again and again and again. Not fun.
There was another option, though.
I picked up the vase and poured some of the water back into the shot glass. Then I added green food coloring until it was all dark and pretty, then poured some of that back into the vase. I kept that up and soon the water in the vase was much darker. It still wasn’t the same dark green but it was a lot better.
“Excellent solution!” Sandy beamed at me. “I know this is an analogy but the solution is pretty close to the real thing. Let’s give it a try. First, pull in some magic from your charm. Don’t pull too much on your first go.”
I concentrated on Penny. I couldn’t really feel that she was awake, but I could access the magic inside her. I gave a gentle pull and absorbed some of the magic.
“How does the magic feel?” Sandy asked.
�
��It feels… bright,” I replied. “I can feel it is new magic and doesn’t match mine. Keeping with the water analogies, it feels cooler, like it’s not at body temperature.”
“That sounds right,” Sandy said. “Keep in mind this is new territory to me too. I have the theory of magic but I haven’t pulled in magic this way before myself so let me know if feel anything is off.”
“Sure thing,” I agreed. Sandy might not have personal experience with this but what she was saying made sense.
“Ok, now push some magic back into Penny. Keep the transfer small until we make sure there aren’t any problems.”
I nodded and pushed some magic back into Penny. I didn’t get any response from her but we had just started. If the color of the water in the vase was any indication, I had a long way to go before she was back to normal.
“Now how do you feel? Can you still feel the magic you pulled?”
Feeling magic like this was new to me. I didn’t think of it as something separate from me. It just was.
“I feel good,” I said. “Magic seems normal. I don’t feel dizzy or weird or anything like that. I can’t feel the magic I pulled any more. It all just feels like my normal magic.”
“Ok good,” Sandy said. “Let’s try it again but this time pull a slightly bigger amount of magic.”
We did the routine of pulling and pushing magic several more times. Each time with a greater amount of magic. I quickly got to the point where I could feel the new magic sticking around a lot longer. When I pushed magic back into Penny some of that new magic was going back into her again, which wasn’t the point of the whole thing.
Sandy then asked me to pull the new magic through me and all the way to my left hand. That didn’t work so well. The new magic kept breaking up and getting lost in transition. I tried a couple different ideas, but nothing really worked until Sandy suggested spinning the new magic into a ball, then moving it. That did the trick.
That still wasn’t great, though, because it then left me with a knot of cold, white magic in my other hand. Going into lecture mode, Sandy then decided to teach me an advanced magic technique.
Misfit Mage Page 14