yes it was said. ONCE in a singular tag that I didn't notice.
Brockton Bay's Marvelous Mage
- Thread starter MetaBettaOmega
- Start date
there could very well be physical permanent enhancement he just could not be thinking of it. admittedly he was taken without a choice and is self reported to not focus much on body and durability. he also seems to find the most immediate solution and stick with it. if he needs more durability than the spell provides he might spec into that
Like I said earlier, it feels like the magic system is weirdly arbitrary. To use an example from the thread, Voodoo rituals would be too specific, except all rituals are basically specific. Greek rituals are Greek rituals, Norse, Wiccan, Chinese, those are all specific rituals, can he use those? Rituals by definition are specific. Can he design a ritual that basically does the same thing as you might do with a Vodoo ritual, just not themed exactly the same? If he can, why make the point, if he can't, we are back to weirdly arbitrary.
On another subject. The story has already been progressing pretty slow. This chapter the MC made magic chalk and located a stick. I'm starting to worry that the MC deciding to go with ritual design is going to turn story progress glacially slow. If we now have to have chapters designing a ritual, then chapters preparing the ritual, then chapters casting the ritual, it's going to take forever to get anywhere.
On another subject. The story has already been progressing pretty slow. This chapter the MC made magic chalk and located a stick. I'm starting to worry that the MC deciding to go with ritual design is going to turn story progress glacially slow. If we now have to have chapters designing a ritual, then chapters preparing the ritual, then chapters casting the ritual, it's going to take forever to get anywhere.
Shadow Archon
Protoss Preserver
- Location
- Louisiana
If the original magic system takes place in a fantasy setting, then it may not have Voodoo, Greek, Norse, Wiccan, and Chinese rituals, as those are all from Earth.
Chapter Twenty Two
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I was just about to step out of the woods and back onto the trails when I realized I now had a problem. While I knew the area around the trail center was empty, thanks to Alya, I was now carrying a just under six-foot-long wooden staff. It was incredibly eye-catching, meaning that people would be able to identify it almost immediately on sight, which made walking around with it in my civilian identity impossible. Not only that, but it would lead people directly back to my temporary home if that was where I carried it, too.
Thankfully, the stick was still only twenty minutes old, and I already had plans to keep it alive as long as I could. With a whispered spell, I slowly curled the staff up and around itself like a snail shell, compacting a six-foot staff into a foot-and-a-half wide disk with a bulge at the end for the crystal. It just barely fit into the side satchel I used to carry my costume and civilian clothes.
"Well… keeping the staff alive just became even more important," I commented, pulling off my black overcoat next.
"How long can you do that for?"
"Uh…twenty, maybe thirty years?" I said, filing through my druidcraft knowledge. "There's a ritual to preserve splicing branches that I could probably modify, and with a couple of the fertilizing and maintenance spells… I'll have to keep one end in a bucket so it can get some water…."
"And the ritual to enhance its connection to electricity won't be affected?"
"That's the good thing about rituals. Their effects are anchored to an object, not to magic symbols or jewels," I explained. "As long as the staff is whole, the ritual will stay intact. It's almost like a conceptual thing. Even carving off pieces wouldn't do it. The ritual effect won't stop until it was truly, at its base essence, broken."
Once I was back in civilian clothes, I headed back into the city, making a beeline for the library. I had a whole list of things I needed to buy, which meant I needed to do some research. Until I had my own internet hook-up, the library would have to do.
After an hour or so of searching the internet, I found a few locations around the city that I wanted to check out. It was mainly stores that sold knick-knacks, home decoration places, and a few other stores I was hoping would carry crystals and other things I needed. I remember one of my aunts having two amethyst chunks as bookends when I was younger, but I had no idea how common that kind of thing was. I was sort of hoping that the city would have some sort of wiccan or witch store, but there was nothing that I could find with the research I had done.
It seemed that with capes and Endbringers running around, Wicca and other things like it never really gained an avid following. Or maybe I was just looking in the wrong places. I was far from an expert.
Still, this was a city, and despite its harsh conditions, people were still living their lives, trying to make the best of it. Not to mention that the city did have a portion that was more well-off, which meant stores to cater to them.
It took two stores before I finally found a place that had a chunk of rose quartz big enough for my staff. Once I got that, I brought it directly back to the shop since it was a bit big to be lugging around. Once that was set and I had a quick snack break, I immediately headed out again.
When it came to ritual material sacrifices, the level of specificity varied depending on the ritual's design. I was confident I could get my hands on a few specific things, so I designed my rituals around them being definitely included, while leaving more vague slots open for ideas and concepts rather than specific objects.
For example, I needed a vessel of some kind, preferably one made from something natural. While that requirement could very easily be filled by a carved wooden bowl, a chiseled stone bowl would work just as well. In a similar vein, I needed something that was considered empty or unfilled, but was still a solid object and didn't actually have room inside it to store anything. A drained battery would work, as would an empty hard drive, though both of those would throw off the ritual a lot because of how complicated and artificial they were. I planned on getting an empty book of some kind to fill that particle need.
. By the time I finished shopping, I was really starting to feel it in my wallet. Alya had done such an amazing job finding things to sell and just randomly "Lost" money that cash really hadn't been a problem yet. Now, however, after spending so much money, I was really looking forward to starting to heal at the hospitals.
Thankfully, I had enough to buy what I needed, so I quickly headed back to the shop, eager to get started.
The first thing I did was tear up more of the linoleum tiles off of the floor. While the chalk ritual had been small enough to fit on a single foot-wide tile, rituals ranged from that size all the way to a dozen meters and beyond. Very few people would actually try and do a ritual that large as it would be ludicrously complicated and very likely to fail, but it was still technically possible.
Once I had a nice big patch cleared, I used another spell from the ritual crafting part of my most recent purchases to smooth and level the surface. It was already pretty much level, but the concrete was rough enough that I spent an hour sanding it down to a much smoother space. Once that was done, I got to work copying the first ritual from my notes. After I was finally finished, using up a full stick of purified chalk in the process, only two more steps remained. The first was laying out the sacrificial materials in their appropriate locations, and the last was to activate the ritual.
There were four sacrificial circles in the staff ritual, as well as the focusing circle. I uncurled the unfinished staff and carefully laid it in the focusing circle, which was the center of the ritual. After that, I placed a bundle of coiled copper wire, a natural chunk of hematite, a stack of batteries, and a small electric motor into the four sacrifice circles. Technically, modern, factory-made things weren't the best to use in rituals, especially when mixing with something organic like the Yew staff. That said, electricity is hard to attune anything for, especially on a budget, so I needed to accept a few cut corners.
Besides, I had seen this coming when I designed the ritual, so I had done everything I could to at least partially compensate for the modern things.
Once everything was set, I knelt beside the ritual, putting both my hands inside separate energy gatherers. After taking a deep breath, I finally began.
I slowly poured magic into the ritual, the chalk lines gradually beginning to glow a pale blue. That was the influence of the lightning or electric element I was attempting to fuse to the staff, as a neutral ritual would just glow white. Unlike the ritual to create the refined chalk or the process of geomancy, this ritual was going to take some time. Altering materials like wood required a gentle hand. Otherwise, you risked damaging the focus or a lesser result.
So, I knelt there, slowly but surely feeding magic to the ritual, keeping it under control. The ritual circle I had designed did have some basic buffers to absorb spikes in energy, but nothing that could handle a complete wash. Thankfully, I had Alya to talk to, or I would have had a lot harder time controlling my patience.
After about an hour of constantly feeding the ritual magic, each of the sacrificial circles pulsed brightly. I watched as the object inside started to disintegrate, glowing cracks beginning to form as each of the material's essences were fed to the ritual. The process took another five minutes before the ritual was finally concluded. I cut the flow of magic, and the glowing chalk lines faded, revealing that chalk itself had long since burned away, the lines of magic self-sustaining as long as I fed them.
I stood up slowly, using a bit of healing magic to fix my bruised knees, before picking up the staff and turning it over in my hands. I traced my fingers along the smooth wood, following shiny copper veins that were now visible, gleaming under the shop lights. It looked almost natural, like the copper had grown with the tree. The handle was now black and shiny like the polished hematite. Thankfully, it still felt like rough wood, making it easier to grip than the rest of the staff.
Even with the inorganic elements that showed through the ritualized wood, it still registered as a fully alive plant, responding to my magic as I curled it up and straightened it back out. I tested this a dozen times before I was satisfied that the ritual hadn't screwed anything up. Once I had confirmed that, it was time to check if the ritual had actually worked. I held up the staff, aiming it across the room.
"Fulgur parvum fragmentum," I said, casting one of my most basic lightning spells, focusing it through my staff.
Rather than a disk of energy forming around my fingers as I jabbed out with it, it instead formed around the tip of the staff. Three arcane symbols spun around it, before a single blast of electricity slapped out against the far wall. It slammed into a metal panel, noticeably denting it and leaving a fist-sized spot of glowing red, near molten metal.
"Holy fuck…" I said, my eyes wide.
Right off the bat, I could feel that it hadn't been a gigantic power boost. But, then again, I hadn't expected it to be. It was, however, much more of a boost than I had anticipated. The verbalized version of that spell was potent before, enough to knock off Heap's trash limbs when I was fighting him, but it was still around the edge of nonlethal. Unless, of course, I fired it directly into someone's heart. With my staff, though? That had absolutely just been lethal.
I fired off the spell a few more times, this time not doing the chant or even summoning the sigils, wordlessly casting the basic spell. Usually, this was enough to blast the paint off of a surface or incapacitate for a few seconds, depending on where I hit them. With the staff, it was leaving little cherry red spots in the metal plating every time I cast it.
"Well… There's my boost in combat magic," I said, lowering the staff, the butt hitting the concrete floor. "Damn, that was more than I was expecting… Maybe the Yew really was magically charged…"
"Your target is still smoking," Alya warned.
I looked up at the target, and sure enough, smoke was beginning to pour from behind it. I quickly ran over, snagging my water container as I did. Luckily, it was still only smoldering, meaning once I pulled the panel away and splashed some water on it, the smoke died down.
"Yeah… note to self, no more lightning inside…" I said, a hot, humid breeze rolling over my shoulders as Alya made her displeasure known. "Alright, alright, sorry. I'll be more careful."
"Good," She said, the warm breeze dying out. "Now, are you prepared to finish your creation?"
After giving one last check to make sure we weren't about to burn the shop down, I started copying down the next ritual. This one was slightly more complicated than the last, primarily because of how many more sacrificial circles I had included, though there were more arcane symbols and lines in it as well.
In the end, the quartz crystal sat in the focusing circle, while an empty hand-crafted wooden box, a dried, empty gourd, an empty leather-bound book, several small uncracked geodes and a large bowl carved from a burl were oriented around it in their sacrificial circles. It had been a pain in the ass to get all of these things back to the shop, but with Alya's help I had just barely managed.
When the ritual was finally set up, drawn out, and filled with the appropriate materials, I knelt back down beside it. This ritual did not have the same need to go slow as the staff ritual did, but I still couldn't go full blast without risking the materials. That mean that it was done in just under a fourth of the time, saving my knees some suffering as I poured my magic into the appropriate spots.
Around fifteen minutes later, the ritual was complete. All of the sacrificial materials cracked and turned to dust, which faded away into nothingness as the ritual infused the crystal with what I wanted. When the dust settled and the glowing stopped, I stepped into the faded and used-up ritual circle, picking up what had once been a hunk of rose quartz. The chunk of crystal had lost its pinkness, replaced by a blue core with light blue crystals. The actual shape was the same.
As I was studying the crystal chunk, Alya picked up my staff and carried it to me, passing the ritualized branch of Yew. Carefully, I slid the blue quartz into the staff bulb before using druidcraft to seal the crystal inside. I played around with it for a few minutes, trying to get it to both look good and be stable enough to fight with. Eventually, I settled on a grasping vine look that gripped around the base tightly, stopping about halfway up the crystal and leaving the rest of it fully exposed.
Once it was set and secure, I quickly tested the crystal out, infusing a healing spell into it. It was an interesting sensation, to feel a spell click as it completed, only for it to immediately vanish, but I couldn't argue with the results. With a quick jab of the staff and a shout of "Cast!" the healing spell inside the crystal would fly back out. I tried it with a few more spells, including another lighting spell, and found that the spell release happened with pretty consistent accuracy. Of course, this was useless for any spell that had to be cast at a touch, unless I was going to start poking people to heal them.
But it was perfect for a high-end, powerful lighting spell, one typically too long to cast in combat. Even better, I could cast it through the staff and then into the crystal, meaning not only was it powerful on demand, but it was supercharged.
I offered it to Alya with a proud smile.
"Well? What do you think?" I asked. "My first real ritual creation, and not too shabby either!"
"It is well done, William. Congratulations," She said, taking the staff from me in her corporeal form so she could inspect it. "What are you going to do now?"
"Now, I'm going to do a bit more shopping," I confessed, getting a raised eyebrow from my elemental partner. "I know, but this won't be more than twenty or thirty bucks. Then we will go visit some of our less fortunate friends. I want to try out more druidcraft."
If you are interested in those benefits or just want to support my attempt to become a full-time writer, stop by and show your support. Every dollar helps!
I was just about to step out of the woods and back onto the trails when I realized I now had a problem. While I knew the area around the trail center was empty, thanks to Alya, I was now carrying a just under six-foot-long wooden staff. It was incredibly eye-catching, meaning that people would be able to identify it almost immediately on sight, which made walking around with it in my civilian identity impossible. Not only that, but it would lead people directly back to my temporary home if that was where I carried it, too.
Thankfully, the stick was still only twenty minutes old, and I already had plans to keep it alive as long as I could. With a whispered spell, I slowly curled the staff up and around itself like a snail shell, compacting a six-foot staff into a foot-and-a-half wide disk with a bulge at the end for the crystal. It just barely fit into the side satchel I used to carry my costume and civilian clothes.
"Well… keeping the staff alive just became even more important," I commented, pulling off my black overcoat next.
"How long can you do that for?"
"Uh…twenty, maybe thirty years?" I said, filing through my druidcraft knowledge. "There's a ritual to preserve splicing branches that I could probably modify, and with a couple of the fertilizing and maintenance spells… I'll have to keep one end in a bucket so it can get some water…."
"And the ritual to enhance its connection to electricity won't be affected?"
"That's the good thing about rituals. Their effects are anchored to an object, not to magic symbols or jewels," I explained. "As long as the staff is whole, the ritual will stay intact. It's almost like a conceptual thing. Even carving off pieces wouldn't do it. The ritual effect won't stop until it was truly, at its base essence, broken."
Once I was back in civilian clothes, I headed back into the city, making a beeline for the library. I had a whole list of things I needed to buy, which meant I needed to do some research. Until I had my own internet hook-up, the library would have to do.
After an hour or so of searching the internet, I found a few locations around the city that I wanted to check out. It was mainly stores that sold knick-knacks, home decoration places, and a few other stores I was hoping would carry crystals and other things I needed. I remember one of my aunts having two amethyst chunks as bookends when I was younger, but I had no idea how common that kind of thing was. I was sort of hoping that the city would have some sort of wiccan or witch store, but there was nothing that I could find with the research I had done.
It seemed that with capes and Endbringers running around, Wicca and other things like it never really gained an avid following. Or maybe I was just looking in the wrong places. I was far from an expert.
Still, this was a city, and despite its harsh conditions, people were still living their lives, trying to make the best of it. Not to mention that the city did have a portion that was more well-off, which meant stores to cater to them.
It took two stores before I finally found a place that had a chunk of rose quartz big enough for my staff. Once I got that, I brought it directly back to the shop since it was a bit big to be lugging around. Once that was set and I had a quick snack break, I immediately headed out again.
When it came to ritual material sacrifices, the level of specificity varied depending on the ritual's design. I was confident I could get my hands on a few specific things, so I designed my rituals around them being definitely included, while leaving more vague slots open for ideas and concepts rather than specific objects.
For example, I needed a vessel of some kind, preferably one made from something natural. While that requirement could very easily be filled by a carved wooden bowl, a chiseled stone bowl would work just as well. In a similar vein, I needed something that was considered empty or unfilled, but was still a solid object and didn't actually have room inside it to store anything. A drained battery would work, as would an empty hard drive, though both of those would throw off the ritual a lot because of how complicated and artificial they were. I planned on getting an empty book of some kind to fill that particle need.
. By the time I finished shopping, I was really starting to feel it in my wallet. Alya had done such an amazing job finding things to sell and just randomly "Lost" money that cash really hadn't been a problem yet. Now, however, after spending so much money, I was really looking forward to starting to heal at the hospitals.
Thankfully, I had enough to buy what I needed, so I quickly headed back to the shop, eager to get started.
The first thing I did was tear up more of the linoleum tiles off of the floor. While the chalk ritual had been small enough to fit on a single foot-wide tile, rituals ranged from that size all the way to a dozen meters and beyond. Very few people would actually try and do a ritual that large as it would be ludicrously complicated and very likely to fail, but it was still technically possible.
Once I had a nice big patch cleared, I used another spell from the ritual crafting part of my most recent purchases to smooth and level the surface. It was already pretty much level, but the concrete was rough enough that I spent an hour sanding it down to a much smoother space. Once that was done, I got to work copying the first ritual from my notes. After I was finally finished, using up a full stick of purified chalk in the process, only two more steps remained. The first was laying out the sacrificial materials in their appropriate locations, and the last was to activate the ritual.
There were four sacrificial circles in the staff ritual, as well as the focusing circle. I uncurled the unfinished staff and carefully laid it in the focusing circle, which was the center of the ritual. After that, I placed a bundle of coiled copper wire, a natural chunk of hematite, a stack of batteries, and a small electric motor into the four sacrifice circles. Technically, modern, factory-made things weren't the best to use in rituals, especially when mixing with something organic like the Yew staff. That said, electricity is hard to attune anything for, especially on a budget, so I needed to accept a few cut corners.
Besides, I had seen this coming when I designed the ritual, so I had done everything I could to at least partially compensate for the modern things.
Once everything was set, I knelt beside the ritual, putting both my hands inside separate energy gatherers. After taking a deep breath, I finally began.
I slowly poured magic into the ritual, the chalk lines gradually beginning to glow a pale blue. That was the influence of the lightning or electric element I was attempting to fuse to the staff, as a neutral ritual would just glow white. Unlike the ritual to create the refined chalk or the process of geomancy, this ritual was going to take some time. Altering materials like wood required a gentle hand. Otherwise, you risked damaging the focus or a lesser result.
So, I knelt there, slowly but surely feeding magic to the ritual, keeping it under control. The ritual circle I had designed did have some basic buffers to absorb spikes in energy, but nothing that could handle a complete wash. Thankfully, I had Alya to talk to, or I would have had a lot harder time controlling my patience.
After about an hour of constantly feeding the ritual magic, each of the sacrificial circles pulsed brightly. I watched as the object inside started to disintegrate, glowing cracks beginning to form as each of the material's essences were fed to the ritual. The process took another five minutes before the ritual was finally concluded. I cut the flow of magic, and the glowing chalk lines faded, revealing that chalk itself had long since burned away, the lines of magic self-sustaining as long as I fed them.
I stood up slowly, using a bit of healing magic to fix my bruised knees, before picking up the staff and turning it over in my hands. I traced my fingers along the smooth wood, following shiny copper veins that were now visible, gleaming under the shop lights. It looked almost natural, like the copper had grown with the tree. The handle was now black and shiny like the polished hematite. Thankfully, it still felt like rough wood, making it easier to grip than the rest of the staff.
Even with the inorganic elements that showed through the ritualized wood, it still registered as a fully alive plant, responding to my magic as I curled it up and straightened it back out. I tested this a dozen times before I was satisfied that the ritual hadn't screwed anything up. Once I had confirmed that, it was time to check if the ritual had actually worked. I held up the staff, aiming it across the room.
"Fulgur parvum fragmentum," I said, casting one of my most basic lightning spells, focusing it through my staff.
Rather than a disk of energy forming around my fingers as I jabbed out with it, it instead formed around the tip of the staff. Three arcane symbols spun around it, before a single blast of electricity slapped out against the far wall. It slammed into a metal panel, noticeably denting it and leaving a fist-sized spot of glowing red, near molten metal.
"Holy fuck…" I said, my eyes wide.
Right off the bat, I could feel that it hadn't been a gigantic power boost. But, then again, I hadn't expected it to be. It was, however, much more of a boost than I had anticipated. The verbalized version of that spell was potent before, enough to knock off Heap's trash limbs when I was fighting him, but it was still around the edge of nonlethal. Unless, of course, I fired it directly into someone's heart. With my staff, though? That had absolutely just been lethal.
I fired off the spell a few more times, this time not doing the chant or even summoning the sigils, wordlessly casting the basic spell. Usually, this was enough to blast the paint off of a surface or incapacitate for a few seconds, depending on where I hit them. With the staff, it was leaving little cherry red spots in the metal plating every time I cast it.
"Well… There's my boost in combat magic," I said, lowering the staff, the butt hitting the concrete floor. "Damn, that was more than I was expecting… Maybe the Yew really was magically charged…"
"Your target is still smoking," Alya warned.
I looked up at the target, and sure enough, smoke was beginning to pour from behind it. I quickly ran over, snagging my water container as I did. Luckily, it was still only smoldering, meaning once I pulled the panel away and splashed some water on it, the smoke died down.
"Yeah… note to self, no more lightning inside…" I said, a hot, humid breeze rolling over my shoulders as Alya made her displeasure known. "Alright, alright, sorry. I'll be more careful."
"Good," She said, the warm breeze dying out. "Now, are you prepared to finish your creation?"
After giving one last check to make sure we weren't about to burn the shop down, I started copying down the next ritual. This one was slightly more complicated than the last, primarily because of how many more sacrificial circles I had included, though there were more arcane symbols and lines in it as well.
In the end, the quartz crystal sat in the focusing circle, while an empty hand-crafted wooden box, a dried, empty gourd, an empty leather-bound book, several small uncracked geodes and a large bowl carved from a burl were oriented around it in their sacrificial circles. It had been a pain in the ass to get all of these things back to the shop, but with Alya's help I had just barely managed.
When the ritual was finally set up, drawn out, and filled with the appropriate materials, I knelt back down beside it. This ritual did not have the same need to go slow as the staff ritual did, but I still couldn't go full blast without risking the materials. That mean that it was done in just under a fourth of the time, saving my knees some suffering as I poured my magic into the appropriate spots.
Around fifteen minutes later, the ritual was complete. All of the sacrificial materials cracked and turned to dust, which faded away into nothingness as the ritual infused the crystal with what I wanted. When the dust settled and the glowing stopped, I stepped into the faded and used-up ritual circle, picking up what had once been a hunk of rose quartz. The chunk of crystal had lost its pinkness, replaced by a blue core with light blue crystals. The actual shape was the same.
As I was studying the crystal chunk, Alya picked up my staff and carried it to me, passing the ritualized branch of Yew. Carefully, I slid the blue quartz into the staff bulb before using druidcraft to seal the crystal inside. I played around with it for a few minutes, trying to get it to both look good and be stable enough to fight with. Eventually, I settled on a grasping vine look that gripped around the base tightly, stopping about halfway up the crystal and leaving the rest of it fully exposed.
Once it was set and secure, I quickly tested the crystal out, infusing a healing spell into it. It was an interesting sensation, to feel a spell click as it completed, only for it to immediately vanish, but I couldn't argue with the results. With a quick jab of the staff and a shout of "Cast!" the healing spell inside the crystal would fly back out. I tried it with a few more spells, including another lighting spell, and found that the spell release happened with pretty consistent accuracy. Of course, this was useless for any spell that had to be cast at a touch, unless I was going to start poking people to heal them.
But it was perfect for a high-end, powerful lighting spell, one typically too long to cast in combat. Even better, I could cast it through the staff and then into the crystal, meaning not only was it powerful on demand, but it was supercharged.
I offered it to Alya with a proud smile.
"Well? What do you think?" I asked. "My first real ritual creation, and not too shabby either!"
"It is well done, William. Congratulations," She said, taking the staff from me in her corporeal form so she could inspect it. "What are you going to do now?"
"Now, I'm going to do a bit more shopping," I confessed, getting a raised eyebrow from my elemental partner. "I know, but this won't be more than twenty or thirty bucks. Then we will go visit some of our less fortunate friends. I want to try out more druidcraft."
Chapter Twenty Three
Having spent the morning and early afternoon running around working on rituals, I was looking forward to doing something different. Don't get me wrong, I was incredibly eager to get started on several projects, not the least of which was my new home. However, I needed to make sure I didn't forget what was important: helping the people of Brockton Bay and my own mental health. Staying sequestered away in the safety of my temporary home would only turn me into a wizard recluse.
Besides, I was quickly approaching brokenness and needed to spend some time not spending large amounts of money on ritual materials. With any luck, my healing would pay enough to keep me afloat. I just needed to wait out the PRT's test.
I left my temporary home, dressed as a civilian, just around four PM. Alya quickly helped me find a place to change and stash my clothes before I headed out into the city. My staff clunked on the concrete sidewalk as I walked, and while I was doing pretty well ignoring the attention, it was hard not to feel the new stares attracted by the new implement.
I was halfway to my destination when I passed by a small corner hardware store. An idea flashed through my mind, and I smiled. I whispered for Alya to keep her eyes open before I went inside, waving casually to the cashier as I entered. After perusing the aisles for a few minutes, I finally found what I was looking for, a leather tool belt loop. It was a simple leather strap with a snap button on one side, made for latching miscellaneous tools to your belt. I handed some cash over to a stunned clerk, informing her to keep the change when she didn't respond, before working the belt attachment into my costume. I then used the plant spell to coil my staff up tight, hooking it onto the tool strap securely.
It was a bit bulky, but the majority of my staff was now hidden by my overcoat, restoring my casual, Constantine-inspired look. I would probably end up changing my costume once I had more time to dedicate to improving my equipment, but for now, I was happy.
With my staff secured to my hip, I cast the marathon spell and ran to my destination, a corner store that I knew had a decent produce selection. Once again, I stepped inside with a casual wave to the clerk before I grabbed a bag and filled it with a few oranges, apples, avocados, peaches, and pears. I paid for them in cash, and this time, the clerk was able to recover enough to ring me up and hand me my change. I tossed the coins into a donation box of some kind before heading back into the street.
After a quick check with Alya, I headed back off, making my way to the first homeless camp I was introduced to. I slid in behind the old abandoned car dealership undetected, Alya guiding me in without drawing attention to it. Once I was close, it wasn't difficult to get someone to direct me to John, the unofficial leader of the group.
"Arcanum, good to see you," He said, shaking my hand as I got close. "How are you feeling?"
"I feel fine?" I asked, tilting my head in confusion.
"After Shadow Stalker attacked you, we were worried the PRT might do something stupid," He said, shaking his head and looking frustrated. "News traveled pretty fast about it. She's not popular around here, likes to assume all homeless are Merchants or criminals."
"Yeah… That doesn't surprise me, though I don't think you'll have to worry about that for long," I admitted, shaking my head. "Still, she was a kid. I hope they can help her with whatever turned her into… that."
"Better man than me," John said with a snort. "So, what are you doing here? Happy for a visit, but there's not many who need healing, and nobody who needs it urgent…"
"I'm not here for healing, though I will help anyone who needs it," I assured him. "I'm here for something else."
I reached into my bag and grabbed an apple, tossing it to the older man. Ha caught it easily and looked at it before looking back up at me.
"A bag of fruit?" He asked, sounding confused. "Not to be ungrateful, 'cause it's a nice thought, but I don't know if one bag is gonna be enough."
"Oh, I know. These ones aren't for eating anyway," I explained with a cheeky grin below my mask. "How about I patch up anyone who needs it, then I can show you what I mean?"
The grizzled old man didn't seem too happy about being kept waiting, but he couldn't deny "His" people healing, so he nodded and led me further into the camp. There wasn't anything too major, a couple of deep cuts and a pretty bad pulled mulled muscle, but I was happy to help either way. When I was done, I had him lead me to the edge of the community. There, along the outskirts, was a large patch of decent-quality dirt. I handed him the bag of fruit and knelt down on the ground, quickly digging a hole with my hands.
"Toss me an apple," I said, the man passing me one silently.
I quickly buried the apple under about two inches of solid, placing my hands on either side of the now-filled hole.
"Hanc plantam fortiter crescunt, radices deponunt," I intoned, pressing my hand firmly against the dirt.
My magic pushed into my hands, a green circle appearing around each of them. A single line extended from each circle, forming another circle around the hole I had just refilled, six arcane symbols spinning around it. For a moment, my energy sank into the ground before I could finally feel a slight rumble as the seed began to germinate at an extremely accelerated rate. A small sprout appears from the ground, growing and aging fast. After nearly thirty seconds, it was a small sapling, just under a foot tall, with leaf-covered branches.
I knew from my downloaded knowledge that it would have a considerable root system as well.
Over the next twenty minutes, I cast nearly a dozen different spells, some repeatedly, lacing my magic not only through the ground and the soil but the plant and sapling as well. Luckily, this process was almost standard, according to my knowledge, so I was confident in the results. Soon, the tree towered over us, a full-grown apple tree with green leaves hanging from the branches.
I smirked as I stood, turning back to look at John, only to find a good chunk of the community had come by to watch. I couldn't help but rub my neck and gesture back to the tree, turning away from the crowd as John stepped closer.
"So, this guy is gonna grow a lot of fruit pretty quickly. Probably ten or fifteen apples a day once it gets going," I explained. "You don't have to worry about much, I'll have to come visit once every three or four days to tend to it, but between it and the rest of the trees I'm about to grow, you should have a pretty serious supply of fruit."
John seemed to struggle to speak for a long moment, almost thirty seconds. He alternated between looking at me and looking at the slowly growing apple buds along the branches.
"...Arcanum… that was… what the hell was that?" He finally asked, giving me a strange look.
"My power is… weird," I answered with a shrug. "I have a source of energy inside me, and I can use it to do a lot."
"Right… well, thank you," he said. "...How many of these can you grow?"
"Let's find out, shall we?"
We spent the next two hours planting, nurturing, and growing massive fruit trees, all along the side of the community, enough to significantly help keep everyone fed. The magic itself was multi-layered, specifically designed to help the trees grow large amounts of fruit. It was horrifically detrimental to the lifespan of the tree, reducing their life span from about a hundred years to maybe five or six. On top of that, if I didn't stop by to regularly support them by refreshing and recasting the spells, the trees would wither and die in only a few days.
There were rituals to fix that, just at the higher levels of my knowledge, but I wasn't about to introduce my rituals to the public, especially with how they reacted to me making the trees in the first place. No, the spells would do for now until I could unlock more levels of druidcraft or come up with some way to introduce my rituals without people clutching their pearls and whispering about Satanism.
Unfortunately, by the time I was done setting up the plants at John's community, it was getting pretty late. The sun had set, and the streets were getting dark, so I decided to go home and get some rest. That meant going back to find my stashed civilian clothes, changing, and then heading back to my temporary home.
The next morning, I woke up early, and I headed out to the second community, the one run by Charles. He greeted me just as friendly as John did, though his smile told me he knew something was going on.
"I admit, news might have reached our ears," He explained after I called him out. "I had to calm down a few people who thought you were skipping us over since you didn't show up yesterday."
"It was getting late, and I didn't know what kind of lighting you guys would have," I explained with a shrug.
"And that's what I told them," He responded, patting my shoulder.
I spent a few minutes healing anyone who needed it before repeating what I had done for the other community, this time on a slightly grander scale. The Docks community was more extensive than John's, so I made them more trees to better keep up with the demand.
When I was finally done, I dusted off my pants and hands, stretching my back and making my way to Charles. Like before, I had garnered a sizable audience during my work. I waved to some people before pulling Charles aside.
"These will produce a good amount of food," I explained. "It's for everyone to enjoy. I plan on stopping by tomorrow to check on them, but in all likelihood, you'll get some fruit before I stop by."
"And is this all safe?" He asked, looking up at the orange tree I planted. "I mean… Arcanum, you realized you just grew a bunch of trees from basically nothing, right?"
"I mean, I grew them from seeds," I pointed out. "Perfectly normal seeds I bought from a store yesterday."
"Honestly, I would be more worried if I hadn't seen you grow them…But I still gotta ask," He pointed out. "Are they all safe?"
"Yes, all of the fruit grown this way is safe," I assured him. "If you would like, I can go through and taste test them all before you start eating them?"
"I mean… It might make everyone feel better about it," he admitted. "Personally, I think I can trust you though."
"Alright, save some for me, and I'll eat them when I come by to check on everything," I said with a shrug. "If it makes people feel better, that's fine."
"You got a lot of trust from coming by to heal us and not making a scene," Charles admitted. "Most aren't gonna wait, but a few are slower to trust than others."
"I understand. Can't exactly blame them either, not with all the crazies out there," I responded, shaking my head. "Well… I'm gonna move on. Gonna go see if I can go find some trouble on patrol."
"Alright, Arcanum. Thank you for all your help."
I shook Charles' hand before leaving the community behind, heading out on the same path I had taken the last time I had visited. I was walking for about five minutes before Alya whispered into my ear.
"Someone is heading your way," She said. "Don't worry, it's not the Undersiders. It's Mary, the woman from John's community."
It took me a second to remember the scarred and bandaged woman, recalling how distrustful she had been. I assumed there was some sort of trauma involved, considering her injuries, so I didn't exactly blame her.
"Is she sneaking around or looking to catch up?"
"Seems like she is trying to catch up," Alya responded. "Not being very quiet. She is trying to intercept you from the side, cutting a few corners."
I nodded and purposely slowed down, letting her easily intercept me as I walked along an empty, mostly abandoned street.
"Healer, zapper, and now a farmer, huh?" She asked as I passed by an alley, the bandaged woman leaning against the wall, waiting for me. "Interesting combination."
"What can I say? I'm multi-talented," I responded. "What can I do for you, Mary?"
"No, no, Mary was last week," She explained, shaking her head. "I'm Sarah now."
"Right. Well, what can I do for you, Sarah?"
She stepped out of the alleyway, approaching me silently before walking around me as she got closer. She was definitely looking me up and down, as if trying to puzzle out just who I was.
"Why would you make the food for everyone?" She asked, stopping once she had walked all the way around me. "You know the PRT are going to be looking at you now?"
I gave her a strange look, confused at her question. Not because of what she was saying, as I was fully aware that this would definitely get the PRT's attention. Rather, it was how she asked. Out of everything she could have asked, that was not the angle I had predicted her going to. It seemed... well informed.
"They are already focusing on me," I explained. "As for why I did it, I wanted to help. Free food to supplement what they can already gather will help make things easier for them."
"Assuming it's not gonna poison them or something," She added. "Or worse."
"It's a hundred percent safe," I explained, resisting the urge to make a joke. "I'm coming by tomorrow to do a check-up, and I'll be eating some of the fruits. You're welcome to come by and watch."
I started to walk again, passing the bandaged young woman. I didn't have a problem chatting with her, but I also wasn't gonna stand around doing nothing while she mistrusted me for a while.
"Sounds like fun," She said sarcastically, her footsteps following after me. "Sooo… what else can you do?"
"What do you mean?" I asked, following a breeze from Alya towards the center of the city.
"Well, you can heal, throw around lightning, and make yourself faster with that running thing you do. You're tougher, and now you can do that plant voodoo," She responded. "Soooo, what else can you do?"
"I make a mean Chicken Parm," I said, shaking my head. "The key is to season the chicken, the dredge, and the breadcrumbs for maximum flavor."
"Of course, the world's first Super Chef," She said. "Think that would qualify you as a Tinker?"
"Probably not," I said, unable to stop a smile from ticking up the corners of my mouth.
She chuckled, and for a moment, I thought she was going to ask another question, but Alya whispered into my ear.
"She turned down an alleyway," She responded. "Pretty quietly, too, like she wanted to keep you thinking she was following you more."
"She… She tried to Batman me?" I asked incredulously, turning around to see that she was, in fact, long gone. "Dammit... Should have spun around quicker... Maybe I should run and catch up..."
After a few seconds spent contemplating my options, I shook my head and turned back around, letting Alya guide me away from the community and back to the more populated parts of the city.
Besides, I was quickly approaching brokenness and needed to spend some time not spending large amounts of money on ritual materials. With any luck, my healing would pay enough to keep me afloat. I just needed to wait out the PRT's test.
I left my temporary home, dressed as a civilian, just around four PM. Alya quickly helped me find a place to change and stash my clothes before I headed out into the city. My staff clunked on the concrete sidewalk as I walked, and while I was doing pretty well ignoring the attention, it was hard not to feel the new stares attracted by the new implement.
I was halfway to my destination when I passed by a small corner hardware store. An idea flashed through my mind, and I smiled. I whispered for Alya to keep her eyes open before I went inside, waving casually to the cashier as I entered. After perusing the aisles for a few minutes, I finally found what I was looking for, a leather tool belt loop. It was a simple leather strap with a snap button on one side, made for latching miscellaneous tools to your belt. I handed some cash over to a stunned clerk, informing her to keep the change when she didn't respond, before working the belt attachment into my costume. I then used the plant spell to coil my staff up tight, hooking it onto the tool strap securely.
It was a bit bulky, but the majority of my staff was now hidden by my overcoat, restoring my casual, Constantine-inspired look. I would probably end up changing my costume once I had more time to dedicate to improving my equipment, but for now, I was happy.
With my staff secured to my hip, I cast the marathon spell and ran to my destination, a corner store that I knew had a decent produce selection. Once again, I stepped inside with a casual wave to the clerk before I grabbed a bag and filled it with a few oranges, apples, avocados, peaches, and pears. I paid for them in cash, and this time, the clerk was able to recover enough to ring me up and hand me my change. I tossed the coins into a donation box of some kind before heading back into the street.
After a quick check with Alya, I headed back off, making my way to the first homeless camp I was introduced to. I slid in behind the old abandoned car dealership undetected, Alya guiding me in without drawing attention to it. Once I was close, it wasn't difficult to get someone to direct me to John, the unofficial leader of the group.
"Arcanum, good to see you," He said, shaking my hand as I got close. "How are you feeling?"
"I feel fine?" I asked, tilting my head in confusion.
"After Shadow Stalker attacked you, we were worried the PRT might do something stupid," He said, shaking his head and looking frustrated. "News traveled pretty fast about it. She's not popular around here, likes to assume all homeless are Merchants or criminals."
"Yeah… That doesn't surprise me, though I don't think you'll have to worry about that for long," I admitted, shaking my head. "Still, she was a kid. I hope they can help her with whatever turned her into… that."
"Better man than me," John said with a snort. "So, what are you doing here? Happy for a visit, but there's not many who need healing, and nobody who needs it urgent…"
"I'm not here for healing, though I will help anyone who needs it," I assured him. "I'm here for something else."
I reached into my bag and grabbed an apple, tossing it to the older man. Ha caught it easily and looked at it before looking back up at me.
"A bag of fruit?" He asked, sounding confused. "Not to be ungrateful, 'cause it's a nice thought, but I don't know if one bag is gonna be enough."
"Oh, I know. These ones aren't for eating anyway," I explained with a cheeky grin below my mask. "How about I patch up anyone who needs it, then I can show you what I mean?"
The grizzled old man didn't seem too happy about being kept waiting, but he couldn't deny "His" people healing, so he nodded and led me further into the camp. There wasn't anything too major, a couple of deep cuts and a pretty bad pulled mulled muscle, but I was happy to help either way. When I was done, I had him lead me to the edge of the community. There, along the outskirts, was a large patch of decent-quality dirt. I handed him the bag of fruit and knelt down on the ground, quickly digging a hole with my hands.
"Toss me an apple," I said, the man passing me one silently.
I quickly buried the apple under about two inches of solid, placing my hands on either side of the now-filled hole.
"Hanc plantam fortiter crescunt, radices deponunt," I intoned, pressing my hand firmly against the dirt.
My magic pushed into my hands, a green circle appearing around each of them. A single line extended from each circle, forming another circle around the hole I had just refilled, six arcane symbols spinning around it. For a moment, my energy sank into the ground before I could finally feel a slight rumble as the seed began to germinate at an extremely accelerated rate. A small sprout appears from the ground, growing and aging fast. After nearly thirty seconds, it was a small sapling, just under a foot tall, with leaf-covered branches.
I knew from my downloaded knowledge that it would have a considerable root system as well.
Over the next twenty minutes, I cast nearly a dozen different spells, some repeatedly, lacing my magic not only through the ground and the soil but the plant and sapling as well. Luckily, this process was almost standard, according to my knowledge, so I was confident in the results. Soon, the tree towered over us, a full-grown apple tree with green leaves hanging from the branches.
I smirked as I stood, turning back to look at John, only to find a good chunk of the community had come by to watch. I couldn't help but rub my neck and gesture back to the tree, turning away from the crowd as John stepped closer.
"So, this guy is gonna grow a lot of fruit pretty quickly. Probably ten or fifteen apples a day once it gets going," I explained. "You don't have to worry about much, I'll have to come visit once every three or four days to tend to it, but between it and the rest of the trees I'm about to grow, you should have a pretty serious supply of fruit."
John seemed to struggle to speak for a long moment, almost thirty seconds. He alternated between looking at me and looking at the slowly growing apple buds along the branches.
"...Arcanum… that was… what the hell was that?" He finally asked, giving me a strange look.
"My power is… weird," I answered with a shrug. "I have a source of energy inside me, and I can use it to do a lot."
"Right… well, thank you," he said. "...How many of these can you grow?"
"Let's find out, shall we?"
We spent the next two hours planting, nurturing, and growing massive fruit trees, all along the side of the community, enough to significantly help keep everyone fed. The magic itself was multi-layered, specifically designed to help the trees grow large amounts of fruit. It was horrifically detrimental to the lifespan of the tree, reducing their life span from about a hundred years to maybe five or six. On top of that, if I didn't stop by to regularly support them by refreshing and recasting the spells, the trees would wither and die in only a few days.
There were rituals to fix that, just at the higher levels of my knowledge, but I wasn't about to introduce my rituals to the public, especially with how they reacted to me making the trees in the first place. No, the spells would do for now until I could unlock more levels of druidcraft or come up with some way to introduce my rituals without people clutching their pearls and whispering about Satanism.
Unfortunately, by the time I was done setting up the plants at John's community, it was getting pretty late. The sun had set, and the streets were getting dark, so I decided to go home and get some rest. That meant going back to find my stashed civilian clothes, changing, and then heading back to my temporary home.
The next morning, I woke up early, and I headed out to the second community, the one run by Charles. He greeted me just as friendly as John did, though his smile told me he knew something was going on.
"I admit, news might have reached our ears," He explained after I called him out. "I had to calm down a few people who thought you were skipping us over since you didn't show up yesterday."
"It was getting late, and I didn't know what kind of lighting you guys would have," I explained with a shrug.
"And that's what I told them," He responded, patting my shoulder.
I spent a few minutes healing anyone who needed it before repeating what I had done for the other community, this time on a slightly grander scale. The Docks community was more extensive than John's, so I made them more trees to better keep up with the demand.
When I was finally done, I dusted off my pants and hands, stretching my back and making my way to Charles. Like before, I had garnered a sizable audience during my work. I waved to some people before pulling Charles aside.
"These will produce a good amount of food," I explained. "It's for everyone to enjoy. I plan on stopping by tomorrow to check on them, but in all likelihood, you'll get some fruit before I stop by."
"And is this all safe?" He asked, looking up at the orange tree I planted. "I mean… Arcanum, you realized you just grew a bunch of trees from basically nothing, right?"
"I mean, I grew them from seeds," I pointed out. "Perfectly normal seeds I bought from a store yesterday."
"Honestly, I would be more worried if I hadn't seen you grow them…But I still gotta ask," He pointed out. "Are they all safe?"
"Yes, all of the fruit grown this way is safe," I assured him. "If you would like, I can go through and taste test them all before you start eating them?"
"I mean… It might make everyone feel better about it," he admitted. "Personally, I think I can trust you though."
"Alright, save some for me, and I'll eat them when I come by to check on everything," I said with a shrug. "If it makes people feel better, that's fine."
"You got a lot of trust from coming by to heal us and not making a scene," Charles admitted. "Most aren't gonna wait, but a few are slower to trust than others."
"I understand. Can't exactly blame them either, not with all the crazies out there," I responded, shaking my head. "Well… I'm gonna move on. Gonna go see if I can go find some trouble on patrol."
"Alright, Arcanum. Thank you for all your help."
I shook Charles' hand before leaving the community behind, heading out on the same path I had taken the last time I had visited. I was walking for about five minutes before Alya whispered into my ear.
"Someone is heading your way," She said. "Don't worry, it's not the Undersiders. It's Mary, the woman from John's community."
It took me a second to remember the scarred and bandaged woman, recalling how distrustful she had been. I assumed there was some sort of trauma involved, considering her injuries, so I didn't exactly blame her.
"Is she sneaking around or looking to catch up?"
"Seems like she is trying to catch up," Alya responded. "Not being very quiet. She is trying to intercept you from the side, cutting a few corners."
I nodded and purposely slowed down, letting her easily intercept me as I walked along an empty, mostly abandoned street.
"Healer, zapper, and now a farmer, huh?" She asked as I passed by an alley, the bandaged woman leaning against the wall, waiting for me. "Interesting combination."
"What can I say? I'm multi-talented," I responded. "What can I do for you, Mary?"
"No, no, Mary was last week," She explained, shaking her head. "I'm Sarah now."
"Right. Well, what can I do for you, Sarah?"
She stepped out of the alleyway, approaching me silently before walking around me as she got closer. She was definitely looking me up and down, as if trying to puzzle out just who I was.
"Why would you make the food for everyone?" She asked, stopping once she had walked all the way around me. "You know the PRT are going to be looking at you now?"
I gave her a strange look, confused at her question. Not because of what she was saying, as I was fully aware that this would definitely get the PRT's attention. Rather, it was how she asked. Out of everything she could have asked, that was not the angle I had predicted her going to. It seemed... well informed.
"They are already focusing on me," I explained. "As for why I did it, I wanted to help. Free food to supplement what they can already gather will help make things easier for them."
"Assuming it's not gonna poison them or something," She added. "Or worse."
"It's a hundred percent safe," I explained, resisting the urge to make a joke. "I'm coming by tomorrow to do a check-up, and I'll be eating some of the fruits. You're welcome to come by and watch."
I started to walk again, passing the bandaged young woman. I didn't have a problem chatting with her, but I also wasn't gonna stand around doing nothing while she mistrusted me for a while.
"Sounds like fun," She said sarcastically, her footsteps following after me. "Sooo… what else can you do?"
"What do you mean?" I asked, following a breeze from Alya towards the center of the city.
"Well, you can heal, throw around lightning, and make yourself faster with that running thing you do. You're tougher, and now you can do that plant voodoo," She responded. "Soooo, what else can you do?"
"I make a mean Chicken Parm," I said, shaking my head. "The key is to season the chicken, the dredge, and the breadcrumbs for maximum flavor."
"Of course, the world's first Super Chef," She said. "Think that would qualify you as a Tinker?"
"Probably not," I said, unable to stop a smile from ticking up the corners of my mouth.
She chuckled, and for a moment, I thought she was going to ask another question, but Alya whispered into my ear.
"She turned down an alleyway," She responded. "Pretty quietly, too, like she wanted to keep you thinking she was following you more."
"She… She tried to Batman me?" I asked incredulously, turning around to see that she was, in fact, long gone. "Dammit... Should have spun around quicker... Maybe I should run and catch up..."
After a few seconds spent contemplating my options, I shook my head and turned back around, letting Alya guide me away from the community and back to the more populated parts of the city.
- Location
- England
You have been approaching brokenness* for a long time, but I think you mean brokeness**.
* In game balance parlance.
** In the financial sense.
For the proper Constantine look, you have to throw in cigarette stains and one or both of drunkenness and hangover. Also a pinch or two of suppressed guilt.
Last edited:
Shadow Archon
Protoss Preserver
- Location
- Louisiana
I'm a bit concerned he'll show up to one of the camps one day and see that the PRT is there currently cutting the trees down. That or the City's Public Works department depending upon how hostile the City Government is towards the homeless.
The Stormbringer
Worm Fanfic & Crack Connoisseur
- Location
- Spaaaaace~!
I'm starting to think Sarah formerly Mary might be a cape herself.
What kinda civvie tries to pull a Batman on someone? I agree with this, she's GOTTA be either a Cape's former worker or a Cape herself
- Location
- Wales
Already got that.
- Location
- Iowa, United States
- Pronouns
- Him, His, He
I could see either scenario happening. In some places it is illegal to feed or help the homeless.
I'm sure the PRT will at least want to test the trees and fruit and would be right to do so. Sure we know they are harmless and good to eat but they don't.
I was thinking more along the lines of former PRT myself.
I know I've seen signs telling people not to give beggers money installed by the city. Sure is a shame how once you start needing help you become less of a person.
- Location
- USA
The problem is, it's a lemon market, like used cars, job applicants, or guys hitting on a pretty girl. It doesn't matter that there are real bargains/great applicants/soulmates to be had, the mere presence of a prize means everyone is incentivized to present their lemon (car, resume, self) as great, and soon the buyer/recruiter/hit-on-person are forced to just start ignoring anything they hear from anyone because the base rate of lemons is so darn high.
In the story context, the addition of a valuable/attractive resource to these existing camps is that even if everyone who's already in them is a totally righteous dude, the mere presence of the resources will also attract bad apples (no pun intended).
- Location
- Auckland, NZ
I'm hoping that he didn't plant them on private land cause if he did its likely that the owners will show up to claim them and push off the homeless.
thanks for the chapter
Chapter Twenty Four
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I was about five minutes away from the general transition from the Docks to Downtown when my cape phone rang. Alya whispered that she would keep an eye out and muffle my words while I pulled out the cheap, prepaid flip phone.
"Hello, this is Arcanum," I stated once the call was connected. "Who is this?"
"Arcanum, this is Assault," The familiar voice said through the phone. "How's it going?"
"Just about as well as I could hope," I responded honestly. "I'm surprised to hear from you, didn't think they would let you off the hook that quickly."
"I was let off for good behavior," He responded, his smile audible through the phone. "They also tasked me with being your main point of contact. Thought my act of honesty would help you trust me."
I paused for a moment to consider his words. I did trust him marginally more than the rest of the PRT and Protectorate, but only by a slight degree. They had seriously fucked up my first encounter with them, and just because Assualt grew half a brain and a conscience didn't mean it was all sunshine and rainbows between us. Especially after the Shadow Stalker incident.
"Anyway, what are you up to?" The older hero asked.
"I just finished visiting one of the homeless communities around the city," I responded politely. "There something you need?"
"Well, as of ten minutes ago, your healing ability was officially sanctioned by the PRT as safe," He explained. "It will take a bit to get out to everyone, including the hospital, but in the meantime, would you mind coming in? We have two agents with concussions, one of them pretty serious."
"Yes, absolutely. Could you send a pickup to save time?"
"That was my next question," he admitted.
I gave him my location, which was actually where I was going to be once I crossed into Downtown. We hung up, and I quickly jogged into position, an unmarked PRT van pulling up alongside me after a few minutes. We exchanged confirmation codes before I climbed into the empty back seat. About five minutes later, we pulled into the familiar space of the underground PRT motor pool. Assault was waiting for me as I climbed out, while his partner in crime Battery was nowhere to be found.
"We appreciate you coming in," he said, extending his hand to shake, which I took. "I can't imagine this is your favorite place right now."
"I can handle it," I assured him. "I might not trust you guys, but I don't think you're stupid enough to do anything else."
"Yeah, that's fair," Assault agreed with a wince, nodding in understanding. After a moment of silence, walking through the building. He continued.
"Listen, there isn't a lot I can say without getting into serious trouble, but I think you should know that… a lot of questions are being asked about what happened with the whole power testing thing," he explained, chewing his cheek as he tugged at one of the red plates of armor on his chest. "Director Piggot was asking the questions, and I was cleared of wrongdoing."
I frowned at his words, trying to connect the dots at what he was alluding to. If Piggot didn't know what was going on and Assault was just following orders, someone below Piggot must have given those orders. And if they were asking questions, then that calls into focus if they should have given the orders. I could feel Alya's confusion as well, and after a moment, I shook my head. It sounded like something was going on behind the scenes, and they weren't sure what it was. The implication, however, was that the orders weren't legal or official. It raised a lot of questions and was a lot less reassuring than I think Assualt intended it to be. And that was assuming, of course, that Assault was telling the truth at all.
We were quiet until we reached the PRT in-house hospital, where one of the nurses guided me to my patients. The first was conscious, though clearly not having fun. Apparently, he was hit in the head a bit harder than necessary during a training exercise, and I had him cleared up in just a few minutes. The second man was a bit worse off, having been clocked in the head with a bat. His helmet had almost certainly saved his life, but the trauma was still major.
In the end, after scanning him to make sure there wasn't anything else going on, I ended up having to use my most powerful brain-healing spell, the same one I used to heal that poor child at the hospital. When I was done, I stepped back and let the Doctor begin his own examination, carting the now-sleeping man away.
"Nicely done, thanks for your help," Assault said with a smile. "Battery is on her way with your payment."
It only took a few seconds for the female hero to arrive, who handed me a rather over-filled money envelope. I accepted it and took a peek inside.
"Ten thousand dollars in mixed bills," Battery said, answering my question before I asked. "Unmarked and clean for you to spend in costume or in your civilian ID."
"Thank you very much," I said, managing to drag my eyes away from the cash and look back at the two heroes. "This will help immensely."
After that, there wasn't much small talk to make. I did ask Assault if the PRT van could drop me off at Brockton Bay Hospital, as I was sure they would like to know I was finally verified as safe. He called in the request, and fifteen minutes later, I was stepping out of the unmarked van in front of the hospital. Luckily, I had remembered to call ahead, so my visit didn't catch anyone off guard. In fact, the same medical director I had talked to before was waiting for me at the main entrance, standing by the medical secretary's desk.
"Director Clarus, good to see you," I said, shaking his hand. "Did you get an opportunity to call the PRT?"
"I did, and everything seems to be in order," He confirmed with a smile, reaching up to adjust his glasses. "I will be escorting you around today, until we can designate someone to be your handler of sorts."
"Makes sense. Any idea how many people I'll be looking at?"
"Twenty-three," He explained, catching me by surprise. "I may or may not have been notified in advance by the PRT in-house doctor, which meant I could call in a few people who you might be able to help. There are also four long-term patients for whom we are hoping you can help."
"So this is a lot?" I asked, looking around as the man led me to a nearby elevator.
"For head injuries, yes," He confirmed. "We don't keep nonconcerning minor concussions on site, though we can offer them your help if you're so inclined."
"Sure, sounds like a plan," I agreed, continuing to follow the older man as he stepped out of the elevator and into a much busier ward.
For the next five hours, I was guided from room to room, healing as many of the patients as I could. Unfortunately, two of the long-term stay patients were beyond help, as the damage to their brains was way too advanced and old for me to do much about it. There was only so much brain damage I could fix before it started to not work. I could probably restore the brain matter itself, but my know-how was telling me that that was more or less pointless.
The remaining twenty-two people were fully healed, many of them shaking my hand or even giving me a tearful hug once I was finished. One man, in particular, was ecstatic to finally be free of the Damocles sword of a brain aneurysm. He had been living in fear for quite a few years that it would eventually rupture and kill him. Now, he could finally be free from that fear.
When I was done, the director happily handed me a large envelope containing the information and details for the special account the hospital had set up for me. It even included a debit card for me to use, already activated and ready for me to use.
"I appreciate going the extra mile, Sir," I said as the old director led me out of the building, this time out the back, through the same smoking exit I had left through before.
"Nonsense, you're more than welcome. The fact that you refuse payment for children, emergencies, and people without coverage more than makes up for any inconvenience," He said, patting my back. "Any ideas when you will be back?"
"I think that's more up to you," I explained. "I'll come in for emergencies, but grouping people together would be appreciated."
"Reasonable, and appreciated," Director Clarus responded, nodding in understanding. "We will do our best to organize what we can. Do I have permission to pass your number to your handler?"
"Yes, but please try and vet them first," I added, holding up my hands when he gave me a look. "I'm sure all your employees are trustworthy, but handing out that number is a big deal."
"...Fair enough. I will ensure that they take the responsibility seriously," He confirmed.
Once more, we shook hands before I left through the back entrance, heading away from the hospital. My first goal was to find an ATM and use it to check the balance of my new hospital-funded account. In total, I had treated eleven people who met my requirements for needing to pay, and their insurance was doling out my paycheck. Now, according to what Director Clarus had said, the account contained a flat five grand as a sign of good faith, but that number would go up once I treated patients to that value. He also warned me that it would likely take a day or two for that money to make its way to the account. Considering I was getting paid for eleven people, I was expecting that number to jump prodigiously.
With my numbers checked, my business was finished for the day, which meant it was time to return to the shop. I had six or seven hours before I needed to go to bed, and I wanted to spend that time working on my next project. I had proven that my ritual design and crafting subject was sufficient to do all sorts of fun stuff, but now it was time to tackle the whole reason I selected that subject in the first place.
The sooner I had a safe, stable home, the sooner I could start making some bigger moves.
Admittedly, what exactly counted as "bigger moves" eluded me, but I could tackle that issue once I had a real bed to sleep in.
For the remainder of the night and the first few hours of the next morning, I did nothing but plan, design rituals, and discuss my options with Alya. I was really flexing all three levels in ritual design, pushing what I could do to the limits, both in potency and breadth. This was the foundation of my home base, after all. I needed it to be as good as I could manage. Not only that, but it would function as the foundation for any further upgrades and additions, prompting me to really think outside the box.
At around noon on the third day of the latest charge cycle, I left the shop and visited both of the homeless communities. I didn't stay long, as I was just checking up on the trees and sampling the fruit of each. All of them were good enough, perfectly edible and enjoyable, just nothing to write home about. That was another symptom of the forced growth and accelerated production. I made sure to make a spectacle of eating the fruit, making sure that everyone knew that they were safe to eat.
When I was done putting on a show to reassure any hesitant people, I did snag something from the woods around the dealership community. The building blocks that would eventually make up my new home, a handful of perfectly normal acorns, located through one of my druidcraft spells.
After saying goodbye, I made my way back to the shop, stopping to grab a chunk of granite from an abandoned building on the way. The granite, plus a few pounds of steel from a construction site and a brick from a random building, all sat perfectly in the sacrificial circles of a new ritual, feeding into the pile of acorns in the focusing circle. The ritual was finished in a few minutes, producing acorns with metal, granite, and brick veins running through them. I tried to stomp on one to break it and only succeeded in firing the acorn across the room as it popped out from under my heel.
The goal was to significantly enhance the strength of the trees grown from those acorns. Technically, these new oaks could reproduce, but one of the more basic spells in druidcraft was a plant sterilization spell, which would remove a plant's ability to produce viable seeds, pollen, or anything else capable of spreading its offspring. I knew what I was doing would not make the PRT happy, but as long as nothing I made could reproduce, I wasn't breaking any laws.
I made sure that every tree I had grown for the homeless communities had that spell cast on them multiple times. I could argue that it was less bio-tinkering and instead a simple striker ability, but I wasn't sure they would see it that way.
With my new building materials complete, I gathered up my stuff and headed out of the city. The most obvious place to build my home was in the forest, where any trees I grew would be camouflaged from above.
Once I had found a nice spot, a small clearing I could fill in with a bunch of massive trees, I quickly planted one acorn.
Druidcraft, at the high end of what I had available, was frequently used to build things like bridges, dams, fences, and other stuff. It was also used to build homes and even fortresses.
However, I wasn't ready to start building my home just yet. Before I could do that, I needed to perform several obfuscation-focused rituals to discourage and redirect people away from my home. Not only would getting them up now make hiding the construction much easier, but it would give me time to find more resources for some of the more potent rituals I wanted to perform later.
I muttered my spells and sank my magic into the ground, manipulating the modified acorn into growing and putting down roots. The strengthened seed drank in my magic greedily before following my direction and growing upwards. It was an unnatural shape, but the tree was completely under my command. It grew and grew, creating a flat wooden surface under my feet, extending three or four meters in all directions. The wood was smooth and cool to the touch, with a surface like stone but with the rigidity of steel.
When it was done, I pulled away from the spell, standing up to admire my work. It was plenty large enough for what I needed and almost perfectly flat, making it the perfect place to perform rituals.
"Well... That's step one," I commented. "Only several dozen left to go.
If you are interested in those benefits or just want to support my attempt to become a full-time writer, stop by and show your support. Every dollar helps!
I was about five minutes away from the general transition from the Docks to Downtown when my cape phone rang. Alya whispered that she would keep an eye out and muffle my words while I pulled out the cheap, prepaid flip phone.
"Hello, this is Arcanum," I stated once the call was connected. "Who is this?"
"Arcanum, this is Assault," The familiar voice said through the phone. "How's it going?"
"Just about as well as I could hope," I responded honestly. "I'm surprised to hear from you, didn't think they would let you off the hook that quickly."
"I was let off for good behavior," He responded, his smile audible through the phone. "They also tasked me with being your main point of contact. Thought my act of honesty would help you trust me."
I paused for a moment to consider his words. I did trust him marginally more than the rest of the PRT and Protectorate, but only by a slight degree. They had seriously fucked up my first encounter with them, and just because Assualt grew half a brain and a conscience didn't mean it was all sunshine and rainbows between us. Especially after the Shadow Stalker incident.
"Anyway, what are you up to?" The older hero asked.
"I just finished visiting one of the homeless communities around the city," I responded politely. "There something you need?"
"Well, as of ten minutes ago, your healing ability was officially sanctioned by the PRT as safe," He explained. "It will take a bit to get out to everyone, including the hospital, but in the meantime, would you mind coming in? We have two agents with concussions, one of them pretty serious."
"Yes, absolutely. Could you send a pickup to save time?"
"That was my next question," he admitted.
I gave him my location, which was actually where I was going to be once I crossed into Downtown. We hung up, and I quickly jogged into position, an unmarked PRT van pulling up alongside me after a few minutes. We exchanged confirmation codes before I climbed into the empty back seat. About five minutes later, we pulled into the familiar space of the underground PRT motor pool. Assault was waiting for me as I climbed out, while his partner in crime Battery was nowhere to be found.
"We appreciate you coming in," he said, extending his hand to shake, which I took. "I can't imagine this is your favorite place right now."
"I can handle it," I assured him. "I might not trust you guys, but I don't think you're stupid enough to do anything else."
"Yeah, that's fair," Assault agreed with a wince, nodding in understanding. After a moment of silence, walking through the building. He continued.
"Listen, there isn't a lot I can say without getting into serious trouble, but I think you should know that… a lot of questions are being asked about what happened with the whole power testing thing," he explained, chewing his cheek as he tugged at one of the red plates of armor on his chest. "Director Piggot was asking the questions, and I was cleared of wrongdoing."
I frowned at his words, trying to connect the dots at what he was alluding to. If Piggot didn't know what was going on and Assault was just following orders, someone below Piggot must have given those orders. And if they were asking questions, then that calls into focus if they should have given the orders. I could feel Alya's confusion as well, and after a moment, I shook my head. It sounded like something was going on behind the scenes, and they weren't sure what it was. The implication, however, was that the orders weren't legal or official. It raised a lot of questions and was a lot less reassuring than I think Assualt intended it to be. And that was assuming, of course, that Assault was telling the truth at all.
We were quiet until we reached the PRT in-house hospital, where one of the nurses guided me to my patients. The first was conscious, though clearly not having fun. Apparently, he was hit in the head a bit harder than necessary during a training exercise, and I had him cleared up in just a few minutes. The second man was a bit worse off, having been clocked in the head with a bat. His helmet had almost certainly saved his life, but the trauma was still major.
In the end, after scanning him to make sure there wasn't anything else going on, I ended up having to use my most powerful brain-healing spell, the same one I used to heal that poor child at the hospital. When I was done, I stepped back and let the Doctor begin his own examination, carting the now-sleeping man away.
"Nicely done, thanks for your help," Assault said with a smile. "Battery is on her way with your payment."
It only took a few seconds for the female hero to arrive, who handed me a rather over-filled money envelope. I accepted it and took a peek inside.
"Ten thousand dollars in mixed bills," Battery said, answering my question before I asked. "Unmarked and clean for you to spend in costume or in your civilian ID."
"Thank you very much," I said, managing to drag my eyes away from the cash and look back at the two heroes. "This will help immensely."
After that, there wasn't much small talk to make. I did ask Assault if the PRT van could drop me off at Brockton Bay Hospital, as I was sure they would like to know I was finally verified as safe. He called in the request, and fifteen minutes later, I was stepping out of the unmarked van in front of the hospital. Luckily, I had remembered to call ahead, so my visit didn't catch anyone off guard. In fact, the same medical director I had talked to before was waiting for me at the main entrance, standing by the medical secretary's desk.
"Director Clarus, good to see you," I said, shaking his hand. "Did you get an opportunity to call the PRT?"
"I did, and everything seems to be in order," He confirmed with a smile, reaching up to adjust his glasses. "I will be escorting you around today, until we can designate someone to be your handler of sorts."
"Makes sense. Any idea how many people I'll be looking at?"
"Twenty-three," He explained, catching me by surprise. "I may or may not have been notified in advance by the PRT in-house doctor, which meant I could call in a few people who you might be able to help. There are also four long-term patients for whom we are hoping you can help."
"So this is a lot?" I asked, looking around as the man led me to a nearby elevator.
"For head injuries, yes," He confirmed. "We don't keep nonconcerning minor concussions on site, though we can offer them your help if you're so inclined."
"Sure, sounds like a plan," I agreed, continuing to follow the older man as he stepped out of the elevator and into a much busier ward.
For the next five hours, I was guided from room to room, healing as many of the patients as I could. Unfortunately, two of the long-term stay patients were beyond help, as the damage to their brains was way too advanced and old for me to do much about it. There was only so much brain damage I could fix before it started to not work. I could probably restore the brain matter itself, but my know-how was telling me that that was more or less pointless.
The remaining twenty-two people were fully healed, many of them shaking my hand or even giving me a tearful hug once I was finished. One man, in particular, was ecstatic to finally be free of the Damocles sword of a brain aneurysm. He had been living in fear for quite a few years that it would eventually rupture and kill him. Now, he could finally be free from that fear.
When I was done, the director happily handed me a large envelope containing the information and details for the special account the hospital had set up for me. It even included a debit card for me to use, already activated and ready for me to use.
"I appreciate going the extra mile, Sir," I said as the old director led me out of the building, this time out the back, through the same smoking exit I had left through before.
"Nonsense, you're more than welcome. The fact that you refuse payment for children, emergencies, and people without coverage more than makes up for any inconvenience," He said, patting my back. "Any ideas when you will be back?"
"I think that's more up to you," I explained. "I'll come in for emergencies, but grouping people together would be appreciated."
"Reasonable, and appreciated," Director Clarus responded, nodding in understanding. "We will do our best to organize what we can. Do I have permission to pass your number to your handler?"
"Yes, but please try and vet them first," I added, holding up my hands when he gave me a look. "I'm sure all your employees are trustworthy, but handing out that number is a big deal."
"...Fair enough. I will ensure that they take the responsibility seriously," He confirmed.
Once more, we shook hands before I left through the back entrance, heading away from the hospital. My first goal was to find an ATM and use it to check the balance of my new hospital-funded account. In total, I had treated eleven people who met my requirements for needing to pay, and their insurance was doling out my paycheck. Now, according to what Director Clarus had said, the account contained a flat five grand as a sign of good faith, but that number would go up once I treated patients to that value. He also warned me that it would likely take a day or two for that money to make its way to the account. Considering I was getting paid for eleven people, I was expecting that number to jump prodigiously.
With my numbers checked, my business was finished for the day, which meant it was time to return to the shop. I had six or seven hours before I needed to go to bed, and I wanted to spend that time working on my next project. I had proven that my ritual design and crafting subject was sufficient to do all sorts of fun stuff, but now it was time to tackle the whole reason I selected that subject in the first place.
The sooner I had a safe, stable home, the sooner I could start making some bigger moves.
Admittedly, what exactly counted as "bigger moves" eluded me, but I could tackle that issue once I had a real bed to sleep in.
For the remainder of the night and the first few hours of the next morning, I did nothing but plan, design rituals, and discuss my options with Alya. I was really flexing all three levels in ritual design, pushing what I could do to the limits, both in potency and breadth. This was the foundation of my home base, after all. I needed it to be as good as I could manage. Not only that, but it would function as the foundation for any further upgrades and additions, prompting me to really think outside the box.
At around noon on the third day of the latest charge cycle, I left the shop and visited both of the homeless communities. I didn't stay long, as I was just checking up on the trees and sampling the fruit of each. All of them were good enough, perfectly edible and enjoyable, just nothing to write home about. That was another symptom of the forced growth and accelerated production. I made sure to make a spectacle of eating the fruit, making sure that everyone knew that they were safe to eat.
When I was done putting on a show to reassure any hesitant people, I did snag something from the woods around the dealership community. The building blocks that would eventually make up my new home, a handful of perfectly normal acorns, located through one of my druidcraft spells.
After saying goodbye, I made my way back to the shop, stopping to grab a chunk of granite from an abandoned building on the way. The granite, plus a few pounds of steel from a construction site and a brick from a random building, all sat perfectly in the sacrificial circles of a new ritual, feeding into the pile of acorns in the focusing circle. The ritual was finished in a few minutes, producing acorns with metal, granite, and brick veins running through them. I tried to stomp on one to break it and only succeeded in firing the acorn across the room as it popped out from under my heel.
The goal was to significantly enhance the strength of the trees grown from those acorns. Technically, these new oaks could reproduce, but one of the more basic spells in druidcraft was a plant sterilization spell, which would remove a plant's ability to produce viable seeds, pollen, or anything else capable of spreading its offspring. I knew what I was doing would not make the PRT happy, but as long as nothing I made could reproduce, I wasn't breaking any laws.
I made sure that every tree I had grown for the homeless communities had that spell cast on them multiple times. I could argue that it was less bio-tinkering and instead a simple striker ability, but I wasn't sure they would see it that way.
With my new building materials complete, I gathered up my stuff and headed out of the city. The most obvious place to build my home was in the forest, where any trees I grew would be camouflaged from above.
Once I had found a nice spot, a small clearing I could fill in with a bunch of massive trees, I quickly planted one acorn.
Druidcraft, at the high end of what I had available, was frequently used to build things like bridges, dams, fences, and other stuff. It was also used to build homes and even fortresses.
However, I wasn't ready to start building my home just yet. Before I could do that, I needed to perform several obfuscation-focused rituals to discourage and redirect people away from my home. Not only would getting them up now make hiding the construction much easier, but it would give me time to find more resources for some of the more potent rituals I wanted to perform later.
I muttered my spells and sank my magic into the ground, manipulating the modified acorn into growing and putting down roots. The strengthened seed drank in my magic greedily before following my direction and growing upwards. It was an unnatural shape, but the tree was completely under my command. It grew and grew, creating a flat wooden surface under my feet, extending three or four meters in all directions. The wood was smooth and cool to the touch, with a surface like stone but with the rigidity of steel.
When it was done, I pulled away from the spell, standing up to admire my work. It was plenty large enough for what I needed and almost perfectly flat, making it the perfect place to perform rituals.
"Well... That's step one," I commented. "Only several dozen left to go.
Shadow Archon
Protoss Preserver
- Location
- Louisiana
That means all the fruit they produce are seedless and have no cores. That's very cool!
Honestly, if the homeless ever get a surplus of the fruit, I wouldn't be surprised if they start selling some of it, especially because it's seedless. As long as the fruit themselves don't decay supernaturally fast, they can get a good bit of income from that. I don't know if the Bay has a dedicated Farmer's Market, but they can definitely head over to the Lord Street Market and sell some fruit. As long as they can get a stall without being harassed.
Last edited:
- Location
- England
Should be "Assault". (You made that typo twice)