Ends of Magic

Nathan was sweating as he rolled under yet another swing from Aarl’s unenchanted greatsword. He should be sore from all of this practice, but continued to be immune to that particular malady. Along with the bruising that should accompany all of this rolling over rough ground.

Aarl was teaching him a trick from Stanel about dodging skills. They enhanced your ability to dodge blows to superhuman levels. But they had limits, and those limits were hard to learn.

So, Nathan was repeatedly rolling under the same horizontal swing in the same way. But every time Aarl swung the greatsword it was a little closer to the ground. Now Nathan was practically flattening himself to the ground to get under the blade, trusting his skills to allow him to pop back to his feet after it passed.

They’d started with vertical and diagonal strikes that Nathan dodged away from, helping teach Nathan what the limits of his dodging skills were. He’d started incorporating more moves from the [Tumbling] skill, seeing how high of an arc he could roll over, or what moves allowed Aarl to readjust his trajectory to hit Nathan anyway.

Nathan rolled again and the sword skimmed his back and clipped his butt as he tried to roll though. The motion failed, and he ate a facefull of the leafy loam. He just lay there for a second.

I guess that’s the limit. Can’t roll under swings only two feet off the ground. For now.

Mid-tier Tumbling 3 achieved!

Mid-tier Dodging Footwork 6 achieved!

Nathan took a hand up from a grinning Aarl, who had a questioning eyebrow raised. Nathan nodded in return. “Yup. Two ranks. Thanks for the small Insight. Minisight?”

Aarl shrugged. “More a helpful training technique than a true Insight. We might continue at a later point, though I doubt it will grant further ranks. All of the training tools are like that.”

“Still useful beyond the ranks it grants. Though you’d need to repeat regularly in order to keep up with advancing skill ranks and Developments.”

Aarl grunted in acknowledgement, spreading his hands to cede the point. They turned to watch Stella competing with Sarah on target practice. Khachi was using his divine mana to send pieces of wood flying erratically through the air, like a devious skeet shot. Stella was alternating using lightning and her newly discovered light magic to blast the wood from the air, while Sarah was using her revolvers.

Nathan didn’t know how much ammunition Sarah had, but it was a lot. Stanel had gone back to Poppy and Beatred to have them manufacture more before the Heirs had left town. The [Ranged Specialist] was still sparing with it in practice, but had decided this exercise was worth the expenditure. Her aim was also much better than Stella’s, and she hadn’t missed a shot yet.

Meanwhile, Stella was making up what she lacked in accuracy with power and rate of fire. She was blasting out narrow streamers of lightning with wild abandon, and Nathan was pretty sure her light beams were fired even more profligately.

Those beams were more like the lasers Nathan was familiar with from light microscopy than the beams of light he’d see Kullal use. For one thing, they were mostly invisible unless you saw the target point. He’d taught Stella a bit about collimation, and she’d taken the lessons to heart.

I’m actually kind of terrified of what she could do with a beam of collimated gamma in the future. She’ll need to learn how to aim though. Probably will need to build more spellwork around it, and I don’t know how to help with that. But she’ll figure it out.

Sarah called a halt, and they regrouped before splitting up in new training exercises. Sarah went with Nathan, teaching him some of the eyesight tricks that were involved in seeing things accurately at longer distances.

Mid-tier Notice 9 achieved!

–

It didn’t take long for Stella to learn how to cast [Message] with Nathan’s descriptions of radio waves. Stella was having trouble generating shorter wavelengths of light, and had held off experimenting with them too much given the demonstrated danger of even long-wave ultraviolet.

However, she was able to generate longer wavelengths of light fairly easily by just lowering the energy. Combining her own lessons on [Message] with Nathan’s instructions of modulating the intensity of a signal of set frequency, she’d quickly learned the spell and started communicating with Gemore.

Her first [Message] had been to her parents, and she’d winced at the response received in reply. Apparently they could tell she wasn’t using air mana to cast the spell, and Dalo was not particularly pleased with this outcome. Nathan was pretty sure Stella’s parents viewed him as a bit of a pandora’s box at this point, which was honestly pretty fair.

Her second message had been to one of the mages who conveyed messages at the Guild, to report in and link them to the Adventurer’s Guild communication network.

And that had been the start of the end of their little vacation in Bridgeguard. Another team was being sent out to replace them, and the Heirs had been directed to another mission not too far away that aligned with their goals.

Some kind of magical anomaly was plaguing the terrain around the village of Farfield, limiting the extent to which the farmers could tend their crops. They didn’t have a lot of details given that the report was delivered by villagers who’d been running away from scintillating patterns of color that gave off terrifying sounds, levitated random objects and left troughs gouged from the terrain.

A few villagers had been caught in the events, and there’d been no trace of them afterwards. Some of them had been hunters used to dealing with the monsters of the forest, but the only thing left behind were rough furrows in vaguely arcane patterns.

It sounded a lot like another weird magical occurrence like the book - some kind of ancient magical construct gone weird, or a strange monster variant that caused trouble but wasn’t actively attacking the town for some reason. It seemed perfectly suited to Nathan’s specific Talent.

The Heirs had one last dinner of roasted fish seasoned with forest herbs before bidding goodbye to the people they’d come to know in Bridgeguard. Nathan found himself missing the sleepy little place already.

The next morning they departed, heading back East towards Gemore. They’d break off from that route to head to Riverbank, then head farther north to Farfield.

The route was familiar, the reverse of the one they’d taken to get to Bridgeguard. Not far out, they met the team that was coming to replace them in guarding the bridge.

They were called the Blades of Steel, a generally older team of seasoned warriors who’d lasted through a decade of solid adventuring. Four of them were competent with both blade and bow, viewed as a stolid presence who would stand firm in the face of any reasonable foe.

The one exception to their age and experience was a recent graduate from the Tower of Trickery, a foxfolk girl named Sunae who couldn’t have been older than eighteen. She’d been part of the Trainee program, but hadn’t had a team. Instead she’d joined an existing team to provide magical support and [Message] capability.

Sunae looked cowed by her towering teammates, but Nathan got the impression that the seasoned and scarred veterans were extremely protective of the small mage in their midst. It was pretty cute, like seeing a kitten guarded by giant wolfhounds.

The leader, a grizzled man named Armin, greeted the Heirs politely. He asked after any details of Bridgeguard and the Agmon Legionnaires that hadn’t made it into messages. Khachi gave a quick but detailed summary of the significant events, describing the size and composition of the Agmon force, and adding that they were pretty sure those troops had retreated at this point.

Armin thanked them for the information and bid the Heirs a quiet goodbye before both teams passed on to their respective destinations. Nathan waited until the Blades of Steel were several hundred feet away, then asked, “Did they seem impressed by us?”

Aarl gave him a crooked grin. “Our deeds fly ahead of us.”

Sarah’s smile mirrored her brother’s. “Time to add to the ledgers, no matter what awaits at Farfield.”

They bypassed the village of Tenby, planning to stay the night in Firewatch. It was a long hike, but all of the Heirs were more than capable of it. They weren’t even carrying a lot of weight, though Nathan knew the other members of the Heirs had the contents of an armory, a grocery and a tailor stashed in assorted dimensional storage.

The trip passed quickly, and they talked about class builds and further plans. While the Heirs hadn’t really kept secrets from each other, there was a new air of openness about the conversation, as if they’d all loosened their grips on the secrets they held. Nathan ended up describing airplanes a bit, though he admitted he didn’t have many special Insights into how they worked beyond some obvious ones about pressure differentials between the top and bottom of a wing.

Stella was still fascinated, and was clearly making mental notes for when she eventually attempted the [Flight] spell. Sarah was spellbound by Nathan’s description of fighter planes.

The other thing Stella was doing was practicing spells. She had a lot of new mana types to play with, and was testing out some small combinations of light, lightning and fire, occasionally asking Nathan lots of questions about the natural world. He described angles of refraction and how they were caused by differences in refractive index.

The trip passed quickly after that, with the Heirs speculating on the nature of the threat they faced in Farfield. It seemed like another ambiguous magical phenomenon best solved by the genius plan of “throw Nathan at it and back him up if he needs it.” The bigger problem was how to find the magical anomaly, since it had been cropping up on a semi-regular schedule in seemingly random places in the fields outside of town. Their best plan might just be to remain ready to react to a sighting and able to spring into action.

–

Firewatch was a bigger town than Bridgeguard, and was dug surprisingly deeply into the cinder cone it was situated on. There were clearly tunnels and caves that lead deeper down into the crumbly black rock. They didn’t look dug by human hands, but like something an ant would dig.

Is this a cinder cone or an old ant hill?

Nathan shivered a little bit. He didn’t want to meet those ants anytime soon.

The Adventurer quarters were also larger than at Bridgeguard, though the Heirs were the only ones here. Unlike their time in Bridgeguard, nobody really paid them much attention beyond giving them some food.

Now that Stella had [Message], they talked about how they were likely to spend a lot more time in the field, bouncing from village to village and solving problems. There was a good chance they’d be sent to deal with weird magic more and more, if it's where they demonstrated proficiency. Nobody was particularly sad that they probably wouldn’t be doing too many more patrols in the future.

Nathan meditated quietly before bed, calming himself of the anxiety that surrounded their changing circumstances. Everything was happening so quickly, and tomorrow they might be fighting a mysterious new enemy. Just in case, Nathan reviewed his packaged Insight on [Regeneration]. It seemed ready to go - but just in case, Nathan went over the high-level details of the information again.

It started at the central dogma, with protein expression. Every cell in the body could express any protein in the genome, but most didn’t. But if Nathan was poisoned, he wanted to make every cell express detoxification enzymes that normally only existed in the liver. And that was only the start. He wanted general control of subcellular behavior. Filament formation, metabolism, organelle turnover. With control of those levers and the knowledge he had, Nathan would be able to do a lot of things, ranging from improving oxygen transfer to improving muscle power to… well.

Man, writing that review paper for the causes of aging sucked, but I'm glad I did it now!

–

The next morning the Heirs woke early and hastened northwards to the town of Riverbank. It wasn’t too far away, and they made good time. Riverbank didn’t sit on the edge of the Drakefish river like Bridgeguard, but instead on the smaller tributary that flowed through Gemore.

It was a small town that was built on a moderate sized island a little ways into the river. The island had steep stone banks on all sides, and looked a bit like a fort surrounded by a wide and quickly flowing moat. The town was made of the same brown stone as the island’s banks, but didn’t occupy the whole footprint of the island. Almost two-thirds of it seemed to be active fields, growing vegetables and some crops.

A worked stone bridge of four arches connected the town to the southern shore, where the Heirs stood. The bridge was clearly recent, reminding Nathan of the newer stonework he’d seen in Gemore, as well as the wall that surrounded Bridgeguard. There was a gatehouse in the middle, and two sections of the bridge were joined only by a lowered drawbridge.

But the Heirs weren’t here to sightsee, they were here to cross the river. A fisherman was only too happy to row them across the river to the far bank, regaling them with tales of the terrifying river monsters he’d personally defeated with his trusty oar. It looked like Stella was having difficulty holding in sarcastic commentary, but Khachi merely thanked the man and said they’d ask for his knowledge if they needed to defeat a ‘Fanged Watermaw.’

The Heirs stood on the far shore for a moment longer, watching the man row back to Riverbank. Nathan asked the question. “That’s not a real monster, right?”

Aarl snorted, and Stella answered. “Hear me, but I’ve never heard of it.”

Khachi shrugged. “There is more to Davrar than the Adventurer’s Guild knows. That we can be certain of.” He looked around at their skeptical faces and threw up his hands. “And the man was kind enough to row us across the river. It’s not as dangerous as the Drakefish, but would you rather swim?”

And with that, they were off towards Farfield. They had to move quickly to make it by nightfall, and even then it would be close. There was a bare path leading in approximately the right direction, and the Heirs followed it. Nathan set a brutal pace, encouraging the Heirs to keep up with his [Earnestness].

Stella kept up her questions, asking Nathan about different forms of energy. He was surprised the short mage was able to hold this kind of conversation at such a pace, but he supposed she was using force magic to travel more easily.

After a few hours, they were jogging through fields of various crops. Nathan pointed out a disturbed area off to the side, where some kind of crop was scarred by jagged gashes in the earth. He kind of wanted to investigate, but they decided it was more important to reach the town itself and ensure nothing had happened.

When Farfield finally came into view, Nathan was almost disappointed. Of all of the towns he’d seen, it seemed the least defended. There was a strangely shaped wooden palisade with multiple guard towers and a single sturdy gate. But that was it. No cliffs, no sturdy stone walls, and no natural moat.

As they got closer, Nathan had to revise his opinion. The palisade was alive, with branches twining the wall together into a sturdy whole, and roots stretching into the earth to form a solid foundation. The wood was slick and sturdy, though there didn’t seem to be a lot of leaves supporting the whole edifice.

I wonder what’s involved in keeping that alive. Magic!

They’d been spotted coming down the path, and the single gate was being unbarred as they approached. A pair of youths, a boy and a girl, hauled open the heavy pane of living wood, admitting the Heirs to Farfield.

The two were about the same age as the other Heirs, but their relieved faces made them seem much younger. They seemed entirely ready to pass all of their responsibilities off to the new arrivals.

Nathan took in the town around him. Continuing the theme, all of the buildings were made of living wood. It wasn’t like somebody had carved a house out of a tree, but more like a series of eight or twelve trees had been grown into houses, with broad flat trunks forming the walls and interwoven branches forming floors and roofs. There were people around, mainly doing chores or killing time. A small crowd was starting to form.

Their hosts were looking at the Heirs with expectation, waiting for them to do something. The Heirs looked back, not quite sure what to say. After a moment, Khachi rumbled a question. “Might there be a person we should speak to? The village head, mayhap?”

The girl in front of them shook herself, and spoke with a strong accent. “Aya, getcha Qinven.” She turned and dashed past the people starting to group up, turning a corner and disappearing from sight.

Status of Nathan Lark:

Permanent Talent 1: Magic Absorption 7

Permanent Talent 2: High-tier Regeneration 9

Talent 3: High-tier Slow Fall 4

Class: Spellbreaker Juggernaut level 67

Stamina: 754/770

Juggernaut's Wrath

Antimagic Momentum

Raging Thrill

Juggernaut's Inertia

Unarmored Resilience

Utility skills:

High-tier Focused Mind 9

High-tier Earnestness 4

Mid-tier Sprinting 6

High-tier Spellsense 4

Mid-tier Notice 9

Mid-tier Identify 7

Mid-tier Dodging Footwork 6

High-tier Enhanced Memory 5

Mid-tier Lecturing 5

Mid-tier Tumbling 3

Text of all Talents/skills.

Status of Nathan Lark:

Permanent Talent 1: Magic Absorption 7

You have Developed High-Tier magic Resistance Talent into a permanent pillar of your being. You are heavily resistant to all forms of magic, and can directly absorb the mana of spells cast on you into Stamina. You are forever unable to cast spells or access magic. Magical items cannot affect you and you will begin degrading them at a touch.

Permanent Talent 2: High-tier Regeneration 9

This Talent will automatically spend stamina to very rapidly heal wounds. Larger wounds and replacing greater amounts of missing flesh will take longer and cost more stamina. Regeneration will not prevent you from dying of grievous wounds, and will not protect against poison.

Talent 3: High-tier Slow Fall 4

You have survived falling an extraordinarily long distance by using stamina to control your plummet. This Talent will allow you to use stamina to efficiently direct your fall. This is especially effective for controlling the rate of your fall.

Class: Spellbreaker Juggernaut level 67

Stamina: 754/770

Stamina will accumulate during periods of rest, and can be spent to improve the speed and strength of your movements, or used for other skills or talents that utilize stamina.

Juggernaut's Wrath

You will be unflinching in the face of pain and injury, and serious wounds will enhance the intensity of your Rage. This skill will trigger your Rage without your consent if you are badly injured.

Antimagic Momentum

Motion enhances your inherent antimagic, allowing you to break magical effects with your movements and blows. The greater the momentum behind the motion, the greater the enhancement. Effect is further enhanced while Raging.

Raging Thrill

You can voluntarily enter and exit a Rage state, where you will be immersed in the thrill of combat. This will rapidly consume stamina, but will increase your strength, speed and resilience to damage.

Juggernaut's Inertia

Your motions carry greater momentum, and it will be harder to stop or slow you, especially with magical effects.

Unarmored Resilience

When not wearing armor your body becomes more resilient to damage from all sources.

Utility skills:

High-tier Focused Mind 9

This skill will help you attain a focused and undistracted state under most conditions. Cannot be maintained under stress.

High-tier Earnestness 4

This skill will help you portray your intense conviction and honesty when you interact with people. This skill will encourage people to follow your example in words and actions. Cannot fool truth spells or skills.

Mid-tier Sprinting 6

This skill will help you run very quickly in the future. Will not allow you to run in circumstances where you couldn’t otherwise.

High-tier Spellsense 4

This skill will help you identify mana types and the detailed construction of spells more easily. Helps you understand the overall purpose of spells and how individual elements contribute to that purpose. Does not grant understanding of how to weave mana together for specific spells.

Mid-tier Notice 9

This skill will help you notice details in the future. Especially useful for detecting concealed magical effects and triggers.

Mid-tier Identify 7

This skill will help you interpret complex cues to understand strange objects and effects, as well as give you clues on how to manipulate them. Will not reveal curses without obvious clues, and will not help you identify types of mana or spellcraft.

Mid-tier Dodging Footwork 6

This skill will help you with quick movements to keep your balance and dodge attacks.

High-tier Enhanced Memory 5

You have a detailed mental construct to aid with memory, and a mental process to help you encode information into it. This skill will help you store and recall memories quickly. This process operates quickly and cannot be interfered with by outside sources. With time and effort you can recall older memories and store them in the mental construct.

Mid-tier Lecturing 5

This skill will help you explain concepts in the future, smoothing over gaps and aiding greatly in explanation and understanding. Will not help you convey details you do not know, and will not help you suppress people’s doubts about what you are teaching.

Mid-tier Tumbling 3

This skill will help you use unorthodox movements involving rolls and handsprings to take advantage of your momentum to avoid danger.