by Daniel Ruth
“You know what these are?” She asked as she dragged me over to the alley.
“Sure, they are minor energy imbalances. They happen all the time and energy moves along the ley lines to rebalance things. Totally harmless.”
“Hundreds of people have been disintegrated and the energy discharges have destroyed at least a building every time it happens.”
“Totally harmless to me, I meant,” trying to smooth over my gaffe. She glared at me again. What the hell is she looking at me like that for? I didn't cause them. “Back where I was born we got them all the time. They just sting a bit if you’re a supernatural. The humans had the magics users put up something like lightning rods to sink the energy safely.”
Around us, static energy was gathering and I could hear explosions going off as the energy normalized along the ley line. “So you can set something up for the city.”
I growled in frustration. If I kept getting volunteered for all this scut work I would never get back to more important research. “Fine. I think I can come up with something. But it's going to be deployed by someone else. I have better things to do.” Usually, the mages guild used to set something up, but wards actually worked very well to automate energy regulation. Circles may work better, but I think I could set up some portable wards on placards that a minor psychic could place and activate. For a circle, I would have to personally be there.
We continued to huddle in the alley as explosions were heard getting closer. There were a few moments of excitement as discharges looking remarkably similar to lighting trailed through the street in front of our hiding place like a primitive Van de Graaff generator, except larger... and more explosions. Soon after they passed, the sirens faded and the city returned to its peaceful post-apocalyptic state.
Upon opening the door to my house I was assaulted by a tiny blond whirlwind of activity that threw itself at me and clamped around my waist. I looked blankly at the little blond girl hugging me and then around the room at Jeremy and Matt that had come to greet me. My social skills were a little lacking in knowing what the standard responses were. Hesitantly, I patted Beth on the head. “Um, good girl. Would you like a cookie?”
Mei coughed behind me, apparently amused by my situation. Jeremy was getting an annoyed expression. Beth seemed happy to see me and seeing all my humans together calmed a part of me I hadn’t even known was tense.
“You don’t have any cookies,” Beth’s muffled voice said.
“Do we have a ham left? Because tyrannosaurus is like Chinese food, you’re hungry an hour later...”
“I am glad you have your priorities straight, Derek,” Jeremy growled. He seemed fixated on my hand patting Beth’s head. Was I doing it wrong? I could have sworn I saw people patting their dogs like that. “The city is arranging the distribution of rations. Don’t expect your usual deliveries.” Well, that is going to stink. With all the energy floating around, I didn’t really need to eat but I had really gotten used to it. Maybe I could sneak over to dino land and snag a bite to eat or even bring something back.
“Derek, please stop petting my sister. It’s disturbing,” Jeremy stated flatly, prompting more coughing from Mei. I stopped. It had been rather pleasant. I wondered if I could get Mei to change into a tiger for a scratch behind the ears.
“Okay, aside from our empty larder, how are things going?”
“It’s quieted down mostly,” Matt chimed in. His pallor had improved and the slight slackness in his expression had faded away. I assumed his ghost was getting better at possessing his body. I was still hoping that at some point it would stop being possession and merge permanently. At the moment he had some similarities with a zombie. Without the corpsiness. “We have a backup generator running, that’s powering up the neighborhood and we have invited some of the people that got hit the hardest to stay in the vacant houses.”
I twitched at that. There were strangers staying in my houses. Touching my stuff. Moving things out of their preordained locations. Making a mess. “Derek! Seriously, stop petting my sister.” Ah, I hadn’t realized I was doing that again.
“How long are they staying,” I asked with trepidation.
“Well, apparently our city fared very well in comparison to most of the other large cities. The preparations we made really made a difference. Also, the army of demons never came so...”
“Your welcome,” I said absently as I stopped myself from patting Beth. Disentangling myself from her I staggered over to my favorite chair and listened to Jeremy with half an ear, as I tried to convince myself I was okay with random people pawing through my stuff.
“The army is taking advantage of most of the infrastructure being intact to set up in the city. On the one hand, they are very helpful with the search and rescue. On the other hand, the city is under martial law.”
“They didn’t interfere with us,” I said.
“We were on a rickshaw, Derek,” Mei interjected. “While they are running search and rescue they aren’t going to care much about surface traffic unless it somehow matters. Also, Conrad gave me one of these,” she said holding up a bracer that looked very much like the military wrist terminal I used to have before I was blown through the portal. I had thought the ward I had inscribed would have made it indestructible but you live and learn. “Conrad set it to act as a military transponder so I could help coordinate the shifters of the city.”
“I thought the packs wouldn’t organize without Conrad breathing over their shoulder?”
“Well, apparently the end of the world can get them all moving in the same direction. I don’t think it will last but they are allowing me to give directions without a constant threat of violence.”
“What about the vampires?” I asked absently. Maybe I could convince my new tenants to wear gloves and shoe covers.
“I haven’t heard from Sebastian since before we fought Vatapi,” Mei spat. “Or anyone from Tower Plaza.”
“Who is Vatapi?” asked Beth.
“He was the demon lord we fought.” I looked from Mei to Beth to Jeremy. Jeremy shrugged, apparently they haven’t shared the details with his sister. “We thought we were just fighting a crazy wizard bent on world domination. We found out it was actually a demon lord bent on multi-dimensional domination. Totally different. If we had known, we could have dressed for the occasion.” I quipped.
“Tuxedoes optional,” Jeremy joined in.
“Okay. Finally, where’s Stella.”
“She went to the Blight to check on the ‘roots of Yggdrasil’,” Jeremy said with a tiny bit of skepticism.
“You mean Purgatory?”
“Purgatory? Where’s that?” Jeremy asked with a puzzled frown. I looked at Mei and saw a look of concentration before her eyes lit up in recognition.
“Oh, I had forgotten about that place. That’s where um, Sul...Sulayman was?” Mei asked tentatively.
“Good grief. His damn wards.” I sighed and massaged my forehead as the others stared at me in confusion. “He had wards all over the place to keep the peace and to keep the authorities away. Similar to my ghetto invisibility,” I addressed to Beth as she sat curled up on my side. She nodded in understanding. While I had only walked her through a few psionic techniques I had talked about the more interesting ones. “With the energy flooding the ley lines, I am guessing that the wards got supercharged. We’re going to have to visit there eventually to get Sulayman to tone them down a bit.”
“So, who is Sulayman,” Jeremy asked with a blank look. I stared back silently. There was really no point in explaining it when he would just forget about it again.
“It’s the guy you told me about in Purgatory,” Beth started to explain. At least her nascent training was enabling her to resist the effects. It also likely helped that she hadn’t actually been there or been directly exposed to the wards.
“What’s Purgatory?”
Chapter 2
The next few days were spent mostly in my basement fiddling with my wards. Ideally, I would have like
d to work a little bit more with my healing circle. Getting a true resurrection circle was still a priority. I had lucked out with my haphazard solution to ‘reincarnating’ Matt but frankly, having his ghost possess his ghost was really sloppy. Technically, he was still dead.
Instead, I was futzing around with a variation of my anti-magic wards. This was something I had perfected adequately on a small scale. Enough that I could keep my electronics from exploding around my aura. A situation that was only going to get worse since my body was sucking in the elevated ambient energy like a child drinks down a milkshake.
I think I had gotten it to the point that it could cancel the energy strikes from the minor surges long the key line. I could make it feed on the energy pulses to enlarge its magic suppression field. A poor man’s lightning rod. One wouldn’t do it, though. It would take one attached to the top of the building every half mile or so. The part I couldn’t figure out was how to get someone else to trigger it. To test it out with a minor psychic, I had a little helper.
“Try it once more,” I coaxed Jeremy’s sister again. I had affixed the hand sized placard to the bench in the corner. The power was dialed down to the minimum since I actually needed the mana level to be normal down in the basement if I was going to use it for my experiments.
“It's not doing anything. I can sorta feel the magic energy but it's just not reacting to anything I do with my mind,” the girl pouted. In exchange for helping her with her psionic practice, I was using her to see if a psychic could activate the ward. So far it wasn’t a success.
“Darn, I was afraid of that,” I muttered. I had woefully underestimated how easy this would be. As a dragon, I could instinctively activate and use most magic devices, wards and circles that were already set up for use. I could do this even before I trained myself in the field with my stolen books. Beth didn’t have my reservoir of mana, my instinct or training. “Maybe the vamps can do it.” I had my doubts, though.
“Sorry,” Beth said dejectedly.
After checking her brother wasn’t around, I patted her head. “It's not your fault. You are turning out to be very talented in mind magic. It's simply a matter of it being a different specialty. Just because I was hoping for something different doesn’t make it your fault that it's not working out.”
“Does this mean that your devices can’t keep our city from being blasted apart every few hours?” another voice interrupted. Conrad was standing at the head of the stairs with his typical frown.
“I see your legs are almost done,” I noted, seeing he was no longer wearing the hover belt and was wearing a lighter version of his armor.
“Yes, thanks for your concern,” he nodded gruffly. “Now about our exploding city?”
“Well, the wards can do it,” I nodded to another corner of the room where several stacks of ceramic plates leaned precariously against one another.
“Are you sure they should be leaning that way?” Conrad nervously questioned, no doubt picturing his hopes for a non-exploding city inches away from being dashed.
“It's that new ceramic you guys like to use. It should be able to be shot from a cannon and not chip,” I assured him. “Once it's activated, it should be able to take a shot from that great big orbital cannon in the sky and shrug it off.”
“So why aren’t we deploying them?” the were captain asked, a hint of annoyance creeping into his voice.”
“Because if Derek had to place all of them himself he couldn’t do other important things that might save lives,” chimed in Beth from her position standing over the ward. I smiled to myself as she recited the reason I had told her. It was mostly true, although there was a goodly dose of selfishness in the equation.
“Mei asked me to do something about the roaming dinosaurs and I still have to go to Purgatory and fix that mess.”
“Where?” a confused were bear asked.
“Yeah, exactly,” I sighed tiredly.
“I may be able to help,” another voice drifted in from behind Conrad’s large frame.
“Stella, you are back,” I exclaimed happily. Oh, sure she started out as a bubbleheaded blond but after you got to know her you... got used to it. That and she was the only spell caster I knew of in the world even if she came across as an old world hippie.
“Yeah, I stopped by the Blight...”
“Purgatory,” I corrected her.
“What’s Purgatory,” muttered a dazed Conrad. His efforts to overcome Sulayman’s wards were almost literally making his eyes cross.
“Whatever you want to call it, it's cut off from Yggdrasil,” she sadly shook her head. “I’ve never heard of it happening before.”
“Does this mean you can’t go back?”
“Well, it was the only real way I had to travel the planes,” she paused for a moment. “I suppose I could have gotten a ride from George but he’s stuck here too.”
“Who is George,” I asked, now joining Conrad looking lost.
“He’s the elemental she summoned,” Beth offered helpfully. “Didn’t she introduce you?”
“I wasn’t around long after she summoned him,” I explained to the girl. “He’s trapped too? He’s not staying in the spare room, is he? There is no way I am letting an elemental track dirt into the house...” I paused as the elves eyes narrowed at me and I belatedly remembered the Norse elves feeling on hospitality. “Unless I can renovate the area so it feels more at home...” I trailed off gritting my teeth. Good Lord, can you even get the maid service after the world ends? Switching gears, I asked, “So you named him George?”
“No one here can speak the elemental tongue, except perhaps you. I wanted something exotic.”
“So you named him George?”
“I wanted to call him Bob but Jeremy kept laughing at me for some reason. I thought George would work. It speaks of mysterious places.” She was no longer glaring at me, so I suppose she could call it anything she wanted. “As kind as it is to offer hospitality, he was not comfortable in your tiny abode.” Pardon me for not needing a palace or decent cavern since I’ve been stuck in this scrawny body for over a year. “He is living underneath the Primary.”
“The where?” Crap, now Conrad has me doing it.
“It’s what everyone is calling the first portal where we fought the Demon Lord,” Conrad groggily splurged as he slowly pulled himself out of his fugue.
“I guess that works,” I muttered.
“He isn’t happy about being trapped here, but at least he won’t starve. Anyway, I am here to help.”
“Um, thanks...” I offered weakly. “Help with what?”
“With the wards,” she prompted. “I can help place and activate them.”
“You... can use wards,” I collapsed on a nearby stool, staring at her.
“Of course, focusing and routing energy is a basic skill I learned before I was even a century old,” she said in her evil bubbly voice. “I had no need of the advanced skills but most elementalists and other schools know that.”
“So when I was training myself in the mastery of wards and circles it didn’t occur to you that I could use a little help?” A small growl may have entered my voice. Beth must have seen something in my expression because she slowly inched out from between the two of us.
“I had mentioned my skill in wards when we first met. I had assumed that you wanted to accomplish this on your own or you would have asked.” I remembered tuning her out after five seconds of her rhapsodizing of the wonders of nature. I groaned and rubbed my forehead.
“Do you have anything to offer now? Now that I am asking?” I prompted her.
“Well, I can activate any wards you wish me to,” she said hesitantly. “I think you have surpassed my knowledge of advanced wards and circles. The priests were the ones to study those things along with runes.”
“So we have a solution to the lightning storms,” Conrad prompted, seemingly fully focused.
“We have a mitigation,” I corrected him absently, still distracted by the thought of
all the time I had wasted.
“The wards will help damp down the minor fluctuations the city is experiencing,” Stella interjected helpfully using her newly exposed knowledge of wards and magical environmental engineering. My fingertips lightly gouged into the surface of the table as she continued her explanation. I am sure it was totally subtle and no one noticed. “However, a real storm will still rip through the city pretty badly. Although enough of these wards may reduce the effects to just above what you're experiencing now.”
Conrad looked at me in concern for confirmation. I took a deep breath and released it, trying to let go of my remaining tension and frustration. I nodded. “Yeah, pretty much what she said. There are mages that specialize in routing and balancing energies to prevent the ley lines from damaging things. It’s really unfortunate that you built a city on such a mass of closely placed nodes. There is a reason Vatapi chose this place as the Primary.”
“He’s the demon lord Derek fought,” Beth explained helpfully. Conrad grunted in thanks.
“And without these wards, a ‘real’ storm will do how much damage?” the officer asked with obvious trepidation.
“I am not completely sure how strong your structures are but even your force fields would offer little protection.”
“It would be pretty bad. They are fairly rare but when they do happen most unprotected cities don’t survive. The building materials you use are mighty strong but I wouldn’t risk it.”
“The other cities in the world haven’t had as much damage as we have,” he looked at us for confirmation. “I assume that’s because we have so many ley lines.”
“It can happen to them too but we are at a higher risk. Also, there’s something about this city that makes it very uncomfortable for human psychics and mages. I am sure that other cities have active magic users helping to smooth things over...” I trailed off. This world's magic users last effort to ‘help’ the world involved a massive spell that wiped the knowledge of magic, the supernatural and the ability to recognize it from all mundane authorities. The supernatural community called this the ‘Announcement’ and it, in turn, came in reaction to a visit from an extraplanar deity that had ended in a city being nuked out of existence. This also had its own name. The “Moscow Event”. Yeah, the magic community probably wasn’t going to do anything useful.
