With the date to set out drawing closer and closer, you return to the drawing board - metaphorically speaking, since you're neither a barbarian nor an artist, you use a proper drafting machine - and begin to work longer into the nights to refine the delivery mechanism for Fog Path.
Oh so THATS what those devices are called. Must be pretty handy for drawing without computer assistance.
What you've created so far is certainly functional, but it's also exhausting and would be highly reliant on spikes of ambient Ulgu at dawn and dusk to function for extended periods.
Gotta admit, my mind leap to literal spikes of Ulgu before remembering that surges are also spikes.
The problem is simple: you're being too literal. You're allowing the spell to billow out from you and then dissipate, which is certainly thematic but hugely wasteful.
It is pretty dramatic though.
The problem is simple: you're being too literal. You're allowing the spell to billow out from you and then dissipate, which is certainly thematic but hugely wasteful. Even in the roughest terrain, there'll be individual instances of Skywalk that are unnecessary, and allowing them to disappear and take the energy with them is pure folly. You need a way to draw back and reuse them.
Hmm, I thought the previous research step already had the binding mechanism key off gaps in the ground, but I suppose a naive implementation would use larger, simple 'planks' of Skywalk anchored on those support points rather than individually detecting and spawning a subSkywalk at each spot that needed filling.
Very good optimization work there, its basically filling in potholes vs paving the whole damned road. I could think of a further optimization point, where the spell detects and casts a Skywalk
only where feet, hooves or wheels are about to touch a hole, further cutting the expenses, but you'd need a targeting mechanism to identify those, unless you want to cast a 'marker' spell on every horseshoe, boot, and wheel.
And rather than reinventing the wheel, you'll draw from nature. Specifically, the motion of waves on a beach.
Granted, you've never actually been to a beach - the closest you've been to the ocean is Barak Varr, which is all forbidding cliffs - but a close search of your library uncovers a number of Dwarf-written books that describe the formation and motion of waves, albeit in the way that one describes the habits of a dangerous and implacable foe, as you suppose saltwater in eternal motion must represent to a number of Dwarven endeavours. You consider and discard the ubiquitous undertow, as it would create too much turbulence at ground level where the individual spells are supposed to be activating. What you need is a rip current: a central column of returning energy that can then be sent out again, over and over until each part of it reaches a place where it is needed. This means that the only constant draw on the caster will be to provide enough motion to keep the spell going.
Bold move to use a metaphor she hadn't actually seen.
Surprisingly fitting though, waves are a very efficient means of grinding the coast flat.
And the undertow probably could find a use in another spell later, where turbulence is desired.
"Go!"
Under the staring eyes of a still-growing crowd of Halflings, Johann begins to push the wheelbarrow with its cargo of Grey Wizard, his golden muscles allowing him to quickly accelerate through the billowing fog. The field in question is the most broken terrain anywhere in the Eastern Valley, having been harvested, ploughed in, left fallow, frozen, snowed on, thawed, and had the snowmelt carve furrows across it. Panoramia told you it's about to be ploughed once more so even if the spell fails you'll not be doing any lasting damage, but your confidence is rewarded as the wheel of the barrow glides over pits, rifts, and furrows. As your chanting continues - a simple mnemonic for the components of the modified Skywalk, but it sounds nice and mystical - Johann reaches a speed comparable to a galloping horse over terrain that it would be difficult to walk through. That's as good a confirmation as you're going to get, and you bang the side of the wheelbarrow to signal Johann to slow.
Your audience doesn't know what to make of what they just saw, but they do know they were entertained by it, and to their polite applause you dismount your wheelbarrow and turn to look over the field.
In a nice touch, where basically everywhere else you hear the local wizard is testing out a new spell you run for the hills, we had a bit of a festival where everyone watched
If there was no trace of your path that would be a sign that you were wasting power, but on the few flat stretches you can see the wheel marks and footprints you left in your wake, showing that the spell only activated when needed. And you could feel the spell thinning out as the amount of Skywalk instances circulating lessened, serving as a suitable indicator of when more needed to be added.
Hmm, sounds like we got enough feedback.
If we wanted to make an enchanted item of it we'd need to revisit the resupply issue, but I suppose for an enchanted item it'd just run out of battery anyway.
This version of the spell is still too energy-intensive to be anything but Battle Magic, but the sustained energy requirements are reduced based on the terrain it encounters. If you're trying to drive over quicksand or something equally ill-advised you'd still be limited to a few hours at dawn and dusk, but for any more sensible terrain you should be able to manage it through the daylight hours and still be fresh enough that a good night's sleep will have you ready to begin again the next day.
Say
@BoneyM would a Powerstone cover for driving over a bog as a substitute for dawn/dusk? Its mostly a power supply problem after all, if an expensive one, 5 CF is probably well worth it to leave your enemies staring hatefully at your rear.
"I'm telling you that I think someone's playing games. I think if the culprits get tracked down, they'll claim to have been put up to it by either Jan Jansen who wore silks and smelled of fish, or Max Mustermann who was munching on a sausage and had three feathers in his hat."
Belegar frowns, stepping closer to run his fingers along the map of the Empire. "This all makes someone suspect either Marienburg or the Empire," he says slowly. "But if it was Marienburg, they wouldn't have sourced the materials like that - even if the wanted to frame the Empire, they'd find it much easier to get Empire-made materials from somewhere on a coast or a major river, not that far up obscure tributaries. And if it was the Empire, they would have used Marienburg shot and barrels."
Nice to see that. And Belegar's been brushing up on his intrigue huh?
"So it was either an incompetent plotter - and while nobody is short of incompetent plotters, they wouldn't be used for something so important, so if it was it must have been an independent actor who thinks they're smarter than they are - or it's someone that wants the Karaz Ankor to be weakened by war." He sighs. "Sometimes I miss the days when the enemies were right on the other side of a barricade. Thank you for taking the time to look into this."
This does kind of simplify the narrowing down of motives-competency combinations:
-Independent actor who took their Intrigue 101 classes from spy novels and decided on the target and the misdirection on their own. Look at that convoluted setup and tell me Journeyman Mathilde Weber wouldn't have tried that.
-Professional operator who's driven by the priority of first, hurting the Karaz Ankor, second, committing the Karaz Ankor to a destructive course of action, and third, aiming it at a force of Order in the process of the second. In which case the mixed messages from the frameup is because they simply didn't make it a high priority to finger someone else - dwarves would normally take the most direct culprit anyway, its not important enough to sink another 2 AP in to make sure it frames someone specific after you already put 4 AP into getting it set up at the right place, at the right time with the right equipment and a distraction to spare.
Yep, just as unpleasant to eat as you remembered. You grimace your way through chewing on it and wait for the odd sensation of magic being 'digested' - technically the mushroom being digested and the magic flowing into you as it becomes no longer able to cling to the substance of the mushroom. You run through a few spells and notice that you do have slightly less need to draw on ambient magical energy than normal, but it's far from a surge of power, and a surge of power is the sort of thing that the Goblins who originally grew these mushrooms would have been looking for.
Hmm, interesting. It IS providing a surge of power but not relevant to one who's this high up.
Useful as a backup in environments where the ambient energy can't be trusted, but not enough power for Mathilde to actually function at those levels.
Panoramia tries reducing the mushroom to a powder to be mixed with water and drunk, but the drying of an Ulgu-rich mushroom causes the Ulgu to escape. The same proves true for the Aqshy and Ghyran mushrooms, but the Azyr ones retain their energy. You consider turning testing over to Hubert, but even if he hadn't already left with the Winter Wolves it probably wouldn't be a great idea.
The curious part here is why is Azyr the exception to mushroom tea?
You'd think Aqshy wouldn't mind drying out mushrooms, especially if done thermally.
We're going to need the other four Winds to figure out the pattern.
It's common knowledge that cooked mushrooms sit easier in the stomach than raw ones, so your hope is that the magic inside would be more easily unleashed as well. So you and Panoramia take advantage of an often underappreciated resource: the cooking skills of the Halflings, who turn out to know of more ways to prepare and preserve mushrooms than you could have begun to guess. Hluodwica appears to take the mushrooms as a personal challenge, and when unleashed upon the control group manage to find ways to perform the impossible: making the mushrooms not only palatable, but actually tasty.
Its a literally religious duty to her!
You turn the techniques that Hluodwica has created onto the Wind-rich mushrooms and are able to find ones that work for each of them: smoking for Aqshy, pickling for Ghyran, and for Ulgu, mincing, spicing, lightly cooking in butter, and being reduced to a paste that is placed inside a bite-sized pie. Careful study confirms that it still contains the magical energies, and further study confirms that it is delicious. The magic inside flows into you much faster, and while it's not really enough to tip the scales for someone at your level of spellcasting ability, it could make a significant difference to those not yet able to easily draw on large amounts of ambient Winds - which could be a very useful resource for Journeymen. You prepare a significant amount of the Azyr specimens for Hubert to use on the Expedition.
Wondered briefly why cooking makes the magic release faster, then realized that since releasing the magic is a matter of digestion, cooked foods take less time to digest!
-Smoked - Aqshy - Use of a fire's emissions, without actually exposing it to fire and combusting. Roasting might work too? Or too harsh? Either way, smoked mushrooms keep better.
-Pickled - Ghyran - Brine or vinegar I wonder? If my read of Ghyran is correct, vinegar should work better than still salt water, as a plant product.
-Pie'd - Ulgu - At first I thought its the inbetweenness of mushroom paste, or the paste being wedged within the twin boundaries of the pie crust and base , but then I just realized. Bite sized pie is also carnival food!
-Tea - Azyr - Can't figure out why Azyr is fine with mushroom powder tea/instant mushroom soup. Oh well, their loss. It doesn't sound tasty.
-??? - Ghur - Sausages maybe. Mixed with meat and fat.
-??? - Shyish - My first thought was some kind of funerary food, but most of those tend to be deliberately plain flour stuff...fermentation should be okay with Shyish though. Fermented mushrooms sounds tricky, not enough sugar. Maybe soaked in wine?
-??? - Hysh - Not a clue
-??? - Chamon - Neither
Also that sounds like something that might be worth a bit to Journeymen and lower end Magisters in need of a quick boost.
