by Jay Boyce
“Magical augmentation is exactly what it sounds like. It buffs the power of all mages in the area of influence. It multiplies a person’s magical energy reserve, and depending on how powerful the aura is, the same magic power will come out stronger when cast within the aura. For instance, with experimentation, we’ve found that my magical aura causes magic to be about twice as effective.”
“That’s quite helpful,” Jade murmured, considering the possibilities. She could add an eighth illusion mirror if it doubled her theoretical mana pool. That was really the only thing that had drained her all at once. She frowned before asking, “Wait, why weren’t there any life mages to help at the spatial gates then?”
Ashanna laughed softly. “Those gates were the crowning creation of many different mages working together. The gates themselves have been heavily enchanted with life magic.”
Jade nodded slowly, thinking of her elemental gun. Instead of using wind walls to amplify the blasts, it sounded like she could use life magic. If she coated the tube in it, reinforcing it completely, then she could probably use it with stuff that would be hindered by the wind walls. She had been trying to figure out how to use other elements like water anyway. This might be the solution.
Smiling, Ashanna went on with her lesson, “There are a great many auras that can be created, including those that deal with emotion. For instance, you can create an aura of courage to combat fear, an aura of happiness, or an aura of serenity to put down anger or anxiety.” She had cycled through them as she spoke so Jade could feel each.
“Wait, does that mean you can create an aura of fear, anger, or sadness as well?” Jade interjected her question before Ashanna could go on.
Ashanna shook her head no, then yes. “Life magic cannot create those auras, for they belong to death magic. So the answer is, I cannot create those auras, but it’s likely you will be able to.”
“Oh, okay. Thanks.” Jade was a little surprised by that answer, but she supposed it made sense. If life was buffs, then she supposed death magic dealt more in debuffs. It was a balance. “So, are there any more auras you know of?”
Nodding, she went on. “Two more, though I’m sure there’s more to be discovered. The aura of protection acts as a shield, repelling magic and physical attacks while you can support it. When used as a personal buff, it makes a person more resistant to magic and the skin more resilient to attacks. The aura of purification does what it sounds like. It purifies poison, disease, confusion, petrification, and other ailments like that.” She had cycled through those so Jade could feel them again as she finished. “Those are the ones that I know.”
“Thank you for telling me about and demonstrating all of those. Now that I know what I’m going for, I can practice.” She glanced at the glass ball on the table, which strangely enough, all ten of her babies were surrounding. Frowning slightly, she asked them absently, “What’s wrong?” Now that she was paying attention, she could feel their sorrow through her bond.
“She’s trapped here,” the tiny voice came into her mind, and Jade moved closer to inspect her babies.
“Who’s trapped? The spirit?” she questioned them, only half aware that Ashanna was looking at her in curiosity.
“Old queen. Not moved on.” Ramoth’s voice was filled with despair, her anguish for the old queen apparent.
“Oh, no…” She finally understood and looked back at Ashanna with sad eyes, unable to stop herself from mimicking the strong emotions of her babies. “The spirit in this is a queen fellacai?”
Ashanna finally seemed to understand, nodding a little grimly herself as she sighed. “I didn’t think about the fact that it might upset your familiars. I’m sorry.”
Jade shook her head. “It’s alright. You’ve probably had it for a while, but perhaps you’d better take it with you. I think mine won’t let it go until I free her otherwise.” She carefully reached between her babies, picking up the orb and handing it back to Ashanna, who quickly put it into a bag that, now that she was looking at it, was probably a holding bag. With the spirit literally in a different dimension, her babies slowly took off, beginning to fly around the room again, still morose.
Ashanna pulled out a new orb. “This is the spirit of a tarbh. I think they should be fine with it.”
Jade stared at her, raising a brow. “What’s a tarbh?”
Laughing softly, Ashanna shook her head. “I doubt you’ve seen one, even if I’m sure you’ve eaten it. It’s one of the animals we use primarily for red meat. A large, lumbering creature that we also get milk from.” Jade nodded, mentally assigning the word tarbh to some variation of a cow.
Ashanna dusted off her hands. “Well, I had best be on my way. I’ve got a few other things to take care of.”
Jade nodded, smiling and standing with the queen before escorting her to the door. “Thank you for coming. I appreciate you taking the time to meet with me.”
Taking her hand, Ashanna said softly, “Of course I’d come. You represent hope to my people, and to me. If there’s anything you need, you just let me know.” Jade nodded her thanks, letting the older woman kiss her on the cheeks before she left, several guards discreetly coming out to follow her once she left the room. Jade watched them before closing the door and moving back into the room.
Her babies came winging over to her, an edge of sorrow still coming through their connection. Focusing, Jade called her magic up, projecting the feeling of an aura Ashanna had just showed her. It took her several tries before she felt the buff, and she slowly pushed it out, determined to make it leave her skin. Ever so slowly, she got it to expand a few inches. Her babies felt the warmth of happiness and serenity. She was doing her best to combine the two, to unknown results.
Still, they calmed down, finally seeming to let go of their agitation before fluttering off and through the garden once more. Jade let her aura drop, feeling the drain of it, even though she’d only been able to get it to expand a few inches.
Walking over to her work table, she checked her pocket watch. Ashanna had only been there for half an hour, so it was 10:30 and she wasn’t truly expected anywhere until one.
Absently picking up one of her crystals, she decided that it was time to test a few things.
Chapter Fifty-Two – Ring
It was noon before Jade stopped working on her projects, sitting back to survey what she’d accomplished in the last hour and a half. The table in front of her had several papers upon which she’d scrawled the corresponding names for each crystal she’d placed above it. The crystals themselves had been sliced and diced until they were perfect little square slides, similar to a slide that went under a microscope or into an old time projector.
She straightened the tiny stacks, satisfied with her progress. She’d rigged each slide with an image that would come forward after inserting a tiny amount of magic energy into it to fuel the projection. On top of the image, her voice would play as well, explaining and describing the intricacies of what was shown. She had a rather large stack of crystals just for clothing styles, another for bags, backpacks, and purses, and one that held everything metal, including refrigerators, pens, zippers, a printing press, bicycles, wagons, elevators, and cooking implements. There was also a rather large stack of various foods she’d watched the top chefs make on Nurse Jenna’s favorite cooking shows. She also had a large stack of jewelry designs and even a smaller stack that detailed the different obstacle courses she could remember and her plan for the new course at Dracona.
The last stack, however, was her favorite. She had started outputting all the music, youtube videos, and movies that she could remember. It was pure entertainment, but quite possibly her favorite thing. The stack also included static images of pictures showing places from around the world—her world. They were photos she’d stared at for ages, wishing she’d one day get to visit them. She’d also created a photo of her family that she kept to the side.
Pangs of homesickness had hit her, and she’d had to forcefully suppress them. She w
as living here, and there was no point in reminiscing. All of the good things from back home were far outweighed by the simple validity of being able to move and live here. Despite the problems of this world, she was happier here than she’d ever been before.
She turned away from the crystals, satisfied with them. To her surprise, she’d been able to put them into the crystal without going over each moment in her head. She was basically just putting memories into crystals. It was a bit weird, especially for the music and movies, but she found she was able to do it and figured it was a side effect of her mental stats going up. She equated it to upping her RAM. The capacity for computations in her brain was just…more.
Apart from the crystals, she’d only worked on two other items: her holding bag and her signet ring. The bag was now home to a cube with twenty-five foot sides of displaced space. She’d kept shoving her energy into it and recharging from the sunlight until she was satisfied. Also, true to their word, it had gotten a whole lot easier after she hit intermediate in spatial magic. Plus, there was the fact that she’d been using a personal magic buff on herself to double her mana pool. She had no idea how that worked or what the real logic was behind it, but she wasn’t going to complain.
Her crowning achievement, however, was her signet ring. She’d finished finely crafting it to reflect her chosen symbol so that she could stamp things in wax if she wanted to, and let’s face it, she wanted to. That was nice and all, but the real accomplishment was the fact that she’d made her ring into a bag of holding! She had figured that if the opening to the bag was malleable, why wouldn’t it be able to expand and contract at her own whims? She’d even managed to figure out how to add illusion magic to it in order to create a screen that could act as her ‘inventory sheet.’
The current space inside of it was only a ten-foot cube due to her focusing more on the bag, but that was plenty of room for her! She’d immediately put all her weapons into it for easy access, as well as basic materials that she could work with, extra clothes, and food. It had taken her a few tries to get the speed down so that whatever she wanted would come out where she wanted it, but she finally got the process down so that she could almost instantly materialize things either in her hand or in front of her. Unlike the bag which you could just open and reach in, the process required a mana toll, but she figured the trade-off was worth it. Before she got sidetracked, she swept the crystals into her ring for later use and because she didn’t want to leave them lying around.
She took out her five mirrors, laying them out side by side as she pondered how to accomplish what she wanted. She didn’t know which mirror led to which person, which she realized was a problem. Glancing around, she saw her crystals and grinned. Pulling over seven different crystals, she separated tiny chips off of them, embedding them in the top of the mirror like a button. She tweaked the magic so that each of the connected mirrors would light up one of the gems.
Satisfied that once she figured out which one led to which gem, she’d be able to connect more efficiently in the future, she just spread her magic across all five mirrors, an image of Marcelle in her mind. A moment later she felt a resonance from one of the mirrors, so she let her power drop from the other four and concentrated on that one as she picked it up.
A few moments later, she saw an image replace her face in the mirror, and Marcelle was looking at her. “Jade! I wasn’t expecting you to call. What can I do for you?”
Jade smiled down at her mirror. “Hello, Marcelle. I just wanted to touch base with you and see where things were at. I’ve also created a decently sized holding bag that I thought you might want to use for our supplies.”
Marcelle’s attention was obviously piqued by this statement. “How large is it, exactly?”
Smiling, Jade shrugged. “Twenty five feet across, wide, and tall.”
Staring into the mirror in obvious shock, she finally shook her head and said, “Yes, that would be quite helpful for transporting supplies. Where are you keeping it?”
“Oh, it’s just here in my workshop at Dracona. If you have someone stop by at either one, three, or five, I’ll be around to give it to them. I suppose I’ll most likely be here after six as well, working on different things…” Her voice trailed off as she visualized her schedule. Today was the only day she didn’t have her late evening class, which meant it was time for her to continue her experiments and testing, and…wait, nevermind. “Actually, forget that. I’ve got plans after dinner that I just remembered.” She was healing Kevin. Not something she should forget.
Marcelle just laughed softly, “That’s fine. I’ll send one of my guards before then. The rest of the preparations are going smoothly. The queen has been in contact and told me that Brady will be joining us, and I’ve got most of the rest who will come with us chosen.”
Jade nodded, then blurted out as a thought crossed her mind, “Hey, this is just a thought, but have you checked their mental fortitude skill?”
Marcelle raised a brow. “Why are you asking about that skill?”
“Because unless it’s at least intermediate, I don’t want them going.” Her words were probably more blunt than Marcelle was anticipating because she raised a brow in surprise. Jade quickly went on, trying to cover her blunder. “It’s just, they use hypnotism. Even with intermediate mental fortitude, it still took me a bit to shake myself out of the stupor. I’d rather have people who can fight back against them instead of having a liability in battle. Does that make sense?”
Marcelle nodded slowly, a small smile playing on her lips. “It does, which is why that was one of my requirements. I was just curious about what conclusions you’d drawn.”
Sighing in relief, Jade smiled back at her. “That’s good, then. Sorry. I realize you’ve had a lot more experience with this than I have, and I guess I’m just…”
“Trying to do everything by yourself?” Marcelle’s voice was kind, but Jade felt like it hit her like a ton of bricks as she nodded mutely. “Jade, you aren’t in this alone. You may be the key to finding the nest, but we’ve been hunting them for decades as best we can. We’ve had varying success. For a time, what we do will work, but then they change their tactics. They’re smart creatures, and strong. The most frustrating thing is they seem to have intimate knowledge of how the city works.” Marcelle was almost talking to herself at this point, venting her frustration.
Jade felt cold. Her worst fears had been confirmed; they were adapting to the environment. Shaking off the feeling of impending doom, she smiled wanly at Marcelle and remarked, “Then I guess we’d better make this work before they adapt.”
Marcelle nodded, and Jade could hear another voice calling for her attention as she looked away from the mirror. She nodded to the person, then turned back to Jade. “Is that everything? I have something else I need to attend to.”
“I think that’s it. Thanks for your time.” Jade smiled at her, preparing to cut the connection.
“It was good talking to you. Until later, and I’ll have that guard contact you.” She seemed distracted as they nodded, both cutting off the connection. Jade stared into the mirror once more, noticing the tiny bags beneath her eyes. Frowning, she injecting some healing, watching as the skin regained its previous tautness. She needed to get some real sleep, something more than the blacked out hours as her body writhed in pain and the few hours of bliss after it had finished.
Shrugging, she put the mirrors into her ring and called for her babies to join her as she made to leave her workshop. Absently, she transferred everything that was in her wallet to her ring as well, given that it was just so much more convenient for her. She considered her new spatial wallet, then shrugged. She’d just give it to Camille; she’d probably have a blast with it.
With her crown of fellacai, she locked up her workshop behind her, making her way towards the cafeteria. Due to her call with Marcelle, she was running a little later than normal, and there was a decent line leading to Estelle. It took her a minute to catch Estelle’s eye, but she wa
ved cheerfully and the woman nodded back before turning to the person in front of her again.
Eyes scanning the room, Jade spotted her favorite royal family sitting with Eric and Stephen. She made her way over, gracefully sinking into the open seat next to Victor as she called out enthusiastically, “Hey guys!”
“Hey Jade! How was your lesson with Mom?” Will was the first one to greet and start peppering her with questions.
“It was…okay. We focused more on life magic. The other wasn’t really working out for me.” Her voice was low, but she was smiling.
“Wait, there’s something you can’t do?” Victor’s voice was filled with good-natured teasing.
Jade stuck out her tongue at him. “Obviously. It was bound to happen sooner or later.” Reaching into her dress, she pulled out the wallet, handing it over to a confused Camille as the guys averted their faces when she reached towards her chest.
“What’s this?” Camille was obviously curious. Jade just gestured for her to open it, which Camille did, a small gasp escaping her mouth as the guys turned to see what the big deal was.
As Stephen was sitting next to her, he was the first to realize what was going on of the rest of them. “You finally figured out how to use spatial magic?”
Jade grinned, nodding. “Yeah, I went and visited Dukes Liam and Donnelly at the portals this morning, and they showed me how to do it.” She gestured to the one in Camille’s hand. “I don’t need that anymore, so you can keep it.”
Camille’s eyes widened. “Oh no, I couldn’t! This is your first spatial bag!”
Laughing, Jade shook her head. “No, it’s not. Duke Donnelly made that one for me to demonstrate how to do it. My first bag is going to Marcelle to hold supplies for the trip, but don’t worry about it. I made something for me too, so you’re not putting me out.”
They were obviously studying her, and it was Victor who pointed out, “You don’t have any other bags on you that I can see.”
Jade held her right hand out. The next moment a dagger appeared, which she played with for a moment before it disappeared again, everyone just staring at her. “I may have made some improvements based on ideas from my old world. My ring is my storage, but unlike the bags, it requires magic energy to use.”
