Sebastian dozed through most of the meeting, well and truly exhausted from his eventful morning. He caught bits and pieces, they intended to announce the evacuation tomorrow along with instructions on what to pack immediately. Since they were unsure of the time they had, absolute necessities for survival were to go first, and from there they would transport out as much as they could of the rest. They turned to the subject fighting back and that interested Sebastian for a bit, until he realized that they legitimately had no idea what to plan for. Turns out that it is exceptionally difficult to plan for something when you don’t know what it is.

He jolted awake for the fourth or fifth time to find everyone staring at him. It took him a few seconds to realize someone had asked him a question. “Uh, sorry, could you repeat that?” he asked sheepishly.

Owdel shook his head, while the captain asked, “What can you do to help us fight them? Owdel already said that he denied you permission to enchant our gear,” he shot a scowl at Owdel before continuing, “So we need to know what you can do to help, or if we need to have you evacuate with the rest of the townsfolk.”

Sebastian frowned, “I honestly have no idea right now. I imagine I can create traps at the least, and scatter them around the fields, maybe give some to the hunters to put in the forest.” He looked at Owdel and added, “Traps that would self-destruct that is. I’m not sure I agree with Owdel’s decision to not enchant your gear, but his point is a valid one, the fewer enchanted items in play, the less risk they pose to us should they fall into the enemy’s hands. My guess is that we are either seriously overreacting, and we will have at most an attack we can easily fend off with a handful of guards, or we will be crushed by an endless tide of the vermin.

“I imagine Owdel would be willing to revisit the whole enchanting thing once we find out what we are actually facing, but I’ll admit to not particularly wanting to get shot or stabbed by something I made because someone lost it on a scouting mission.” He looked at Owdel to confirm his theory that he was willing to change his mind depending on their situation, and was relieved when the mage nodded affirmatively. He figured that Owdel was probably agreeing with him primarily to get the captain to leave him alone about it. In truth Sebastian didn’t care one way or the other just then, he mostly wanted to go to sleep and deal with all this later.

He stifled a yawn, then continued, “My problem is the same as everyone else’s, until I know what I need to try and stop, there isn’t a whole lot I can do to figure out how to stop it. For now, well, once I get some sleep and can think clearer, I can try to work up some things that are meant to stop armies, while you guys dig trenches and build stake walls and palisades and whatever else you were planning on doing that I missed.” He frowned, “I think I might have repeated myself a couple times. Can I go home now? I legitimately can’t think straight right now, this morning was… rather exhausting.”

Owdel just chuckled, “Fine, go ahead boy. We are just about done here anyways.”

Sebastian couldn’t get out of there fast enough. By the time he made it to his room in the tower he was dead on his feet, and he collapsed onto the bed with a sigh of relief. A few hours later he woke up suddenly, practically exploding out of bed and frantically looking around the room. He felt like he was going to burst, and rippling patterns of light washed back and forth across his skin. He staggered when the light washed across his eyes, sending a chaotic spray of blinding colors across his vision.

As the mana pulsed and rippled through him faster and faster, he was starting to panic when he felt something thump at the back of his mind. He fell deeper into panic, thinking it was a result of whatever was happening to him, but then he felt it again, only this time it was in his mind and across the room at the same time and he realized it was the orb he had been steadfastly ignoring since it had been made. He stretched his arm out towards it, unable to see anything, and certain that the spinning, roiling, chaotic flow of lights dancing through his vision was going to drive him mad. He was startled when he felt something round thump into his palm gently, and let out a long, ragged sigh of relief as the chaotic flood of mana eased off and his vision started to clear.

The first thing he saw was the iron sphere nestled into his palm, he hadn’t seen it since he first woke up after making it, having preferred to leave the thing covered and well out of his mind. It had gone from a dull iron ball, to a matte black, and it was covered, not in elegant flowing lines like everything else he had seen, but in jagged, rough, lines that more resembled cracks than anything else. As though it had been shattered and pieced back together a few times. The lines glowed in a deep reddish orange as it appeared to siphon off the excess mana that had been running rampant through Sebastian’s personal enchantment.

And what the hell was that anyways? It felt like I was going to die, or go mad and then die. Too much mana in my system? But how would that be possible? Any extra mana should have just… A sudden realization hit him. He enchanted himself, one of the things he had learned about enchanting early on was that the best anyone had managed to find out, the runic patterns generally only appeared on things that were enchanted to gather and contain ambient mana. He eyed the patterns on his arm warily, nobody had managed to figure out if mages produced mana internally, or if they absorbed and stored ambient mana. Sebastian was pretty sure he had just found the answer. He had a very strong suspicion that he was doing both. An enchanted item would slowly absorb ambient mana until it reached its capacity, and since he was effectively an enchanted item now, it should have filled him to capacity and then stopped.

But if he was producing his own mana, and the lines had very clearly shown that they wouldn’t let him release any mana that wasn’t meant to enchant or charge an item, then what had just happened was he continued to naturally generate mana after he had reached capacity, and since it couldn’t escape, it flooded into the pattern until he found a way to release it. That is a major problem. I can’t wake up to that every day for the rest of my life, and I can’t consciously release the mana while I’m asleep. I wonder if I can adjust the patterns on me like I did with the bow?

The idea was completely and utterly insane, and he knew it. He had barely survived the process the first time, fiddling around with it seemed like an exceptional way to commit suicide. At the same time though, I doubt it would take me long to go completely insane if I have to go through that every morning. He took a deep breath and hesitantly trickled a small amount of mana into his eyes, hoping that it would let him see into the patterns like it had with his bow, and not blind him like it had a minute ago.

He was relieved to find that it worked, more or less. He could see into his pattern, but he couldn’t make any sense of it. The moment he thought he had figured a part out, it seemed to change. Is it still not done? Am I still changing? He watched as the swirl in the center of his chest shifted slightly, and as he looked at it closer, he realized that it seemed to have changed to allow trace amounts of mana through. Nowhere near enough at a time to cast a spell of any kind, but it might be enough to prevent a repeat of that overflow, which was a welcome relief if true.

He forced his mind off of it, letting go of the mana. There wasn’t anything he could do about it if he couldn’t understand how to change it without killing himself. All he could do was hope the problem had fixed itself and do his best to focus on what he could actually do something about. He frowned at the orb in his hand, it didn’t make sense how much mana it seemed able to contain. The jagged lines of reddish orange had dimmed and eventually faded to match the matte black of the rest of the orb, making it appear as just a solid ball of black iron.

He shook his head, then sat the orb back on the table it had been on. The damned thing was a mystery he didn’t want to deal with just now. He was hungry, and rather tired of dealing with mysterious magic for now. He only stopped on his way to the kitchen to look in the mirror, he had been far too exhausted to think of looking earlier, and he wanted to know what it was that was drawing stares from everyone that saw him.

He stared at his reflection for a bit, rather dumbfounded. No wonder people were staring at me. This is going to take more than a little getting used to. His mom hadn’t lied to him, the lines seemed to have left his face mostly clear, although a brief touch of mana to his eyes showed him that the enchantment extended over the whole of him. He got a little dizzy when he met his own gaze and released the mana again. The mana had made his pupils seem like whirling vortexes of silver and black, and the colors had danced and shifted. He had found the effect both beautiful and disturbing at the same time. He turned his head side to side, inspecting the delicate filigree of lines that flowed from his temples across to the corner of his eyes, and the similar pattern that covered his throat, and flowed up his chin to stop just under his lip.

What really drew the gazes of people that got close enough to him though was definitely the eyes. People with tattoos weren’t common, and seeing someone that looked to be covered in incredibly intricate ones of an unusual color would certainly attract attention, but someone with too white eyes? Whose formerly hazel irises were now a mesmerizing swirl of colors? And whose pupils were no longer the normal black, but instead a shimmery silver? Let alone the way they looked while mana was flowing through them. It took him a moment to realize what was wrong with the whites of his eyes, distracted by the more vivid aspects of his new appearance. It looked like the delicate filigree of lines had woven so close together on his eyes that they covered everything, hiding the little veins and imperfections you would normally see in someone’s eyes.

He sighed, at least his hair hadn’t gone crazy colored too. It was still the same dark brown mess he was used to. After another incredulous glance at the mirror, he turned and headed for the kitchen. He was surprised to see Sarah there cooking, his day had been so crazy with the change and the meeting, then the sleep and that rather awful wakeup, that he had utterly lost track of time. Sarah heard him come in, but she didn’t turn to face him yet, focused on whatever she was cooking.

“I decided to grill some steak, to celebrate you surviving your own stupidity.” She said cheerfully, “It should be done soon, I’m actually surprised you are up already, I figured I would have to go wake you.” She finally glanced in his direction and froze, “You made the colors permanent? How? Why?”

He frowned, “What do you mean? They were just like this when I saw them, what did they look like before?”

She was staring at him again, “Just a sort of silvery brown swirl, but that, that is, I’m actually not sure what word I should use for that, beautiful? Mesmerizing? Creepy?” She turned back to the food she was cooking.

Sebastian grinned at that last one, he certainly found them a bit unsettling, and they were his eyes. He started throwing more descriptions out, “Distracting, irritating, insane.” She laughed, and he started laughing with her. He suddenly felt a bit better about the unsettling changes, knowing that Sarah, at least, seemed to be treating him the same as always. She served him a plate of grilled potatoes, and a steak, all of it surprisingly good. He wasn’t sure if that was because he was thinking about it or if it was because he just wasn’t in a hurry right now. He wanted to relax, and sitting here savoring the juicy, well-seasoned steak, and perfectly grilled potatoes, while they carefully talked about things that had nothing to do with his ordeal was precisely what he needed after all the recent chaos.