[Warning: You are running low on mana.]

A small tremor ran across my wrist. My body remembered what was coming. The final shower of dirt shot out onto the floor. There was no hesitation in my actions.

This time I was prepared.

[You are out of mana.]

The pain started at my feet. A thousand tiny cuts underneath my skin, unscratchable and unreachable. They travelled up to my knees and I curled up. It wasn't normal pain. My entire body shivered and it felt like I hadn’t eaten in days. My knees felt like jelly, and the pain dug deeper than that.

I felt it in my soul.

[Mark of the Crijik has activated.]

Waves of golden light shimmered into existence above my head, and I raised my hands to absorb them. I felt a rush of relief as the pain disappeared. It wasn’t an addictive feeling. It was just that everything had gone back to normal.

[Mana Pool’s Maximum Mana Count has increased.]

It was ten minutes before I was able to move again. I would have to find a way to deal with the emotional and mental pain if I was going to do this constantly. Or find a way around it.

Earth Creation: Level 1. Experience 5.6%

Mark of the Crijik: Level 1: Experience 2.1%

Not bad for a single night’s work. Meditation could be grinded on my off time. I didn’t know how to level fear tolerance yet, but I could take a guess. It probably involved being afraid.

I opened up my status window and smiled.

[Mana: 50/250]

It had worked almost exactly as planned. I’d thought my mana was going to recharge to the brim when the Mark activated, but apparently not. It had increased by the same amount as the maximum pool.

Would it be too dangerous to try it again?

My legs shivered at the thought, and I shook my head. One step at a time. I didn’t want to risk mental damage because I’d hurt myself beyond repair.

I was also sleepy. Constant use of magic, meditation, and draining my mana had taken a toll on me. My eyes drooped and I found myself drifting to sleep despite wanting to stay awake.

I blame the single stamina stat…

… I woke up to the feeling of my mother’s auburn hair against my cheeks.

We were in the main room of the house, and she was humming happily to herself as she did chores while carrying me in her free arm.

I looked around to find my dad putting on a jacket and his boots. I reached out towards him. I wanted to get out of this house and explore. There was nothing for me to do while my mana recharged.

“I’m afraid your father has a little errand to run.” She had a smile on her face. “That means I’ve got you all to myself today.”

I sighed. That probably meant no travelling for me today. That was okay. I’d gotten a decent amount of training in today, and I wanted to know how quickly my mana would take to fill to the brim. Watching my mum do a few chores wouldn’t hurt me.

My father came over to us and kissed my mother on the cheek. Then he turned towards me.

“See you champ.” He ruffled my hair.

There was something different about him today. He was carrying something. I dipped my head lower and frowned. It was a metal object that was slightly bigger than me. Then I realised where I’d seen it before.

It was my father's cube.

Normally it was glowing with different symbols. Now it laid lifeless and inert. I grabbed at it with my hands to investigate, but my mother pulled me back.

This was the one magic item we had in our house. I didn’t know what it did, or how, but it was a priority to find out.

“Sorry champ. This thing is all busted up.” My dad banged the side of the cube. “I’ve got to get it repaired.”

Repaired? I stared at the cube. That's why it wasn’t glowing like usual.

My dad saw me reaching out towards him and laughed.

“Do you want to come with me? It’s going to be boring.” He warned. “I’m going to visit the city engineer.”

A person that fixed magic items?

I wanted to see them. Magic items were one of the most important things on my research checklist. I clapped my hands together to show my father my willingness. He smiled and lifted me up.

“Then off we go.”

My mother gritted her teeth as she said bye to me and my father. We lived on the outskirts of our city, a fact I had realised yesterday, but my father walked too quickly for me to get a good look at the buildings. We ended up in front of a tiny shack that looked like it was going to fall down. Peeling paint and rusty nails littered the ground, and I heard glass break under my father’s boots.

I looked up at my father. Surely this wasn’t the place?

My dad knocked on the door.

“We’re closed today.” A gruff voice shouted at us from behind the door.

My dad knocked again. “Even for an old friend, Hendral?

“Teral? Is that you?”

Something crashed behind the door, and I heard footsteps. The door opened and I was surprised to see it was empty inside. No. A tuft of wispy grey hair bobbed up and down behind the sole desk in the room. Then a head popped up from behind the counter. An elderly man with a nearly bald scalp. He fiddled with a pair of glasses and stared at my father as he walked up to the counter. My father put the cube down in front of him.

“Yer inscriber’s broken?” Hendral took it in his hands. “Looks like a basic burnout. That’s rare for you. What happened?”

“I left it running at night. It was a busy day. I figure I’ll give it the full works. Redo all the symbols from the beginning so that they’re fresh.” He tapped his foot on the ground. “I’ve still got paternity leave so if you need to wait a month or two that's fine with me.”

“Are you kidding?” Hendral shooed away my father’s hand. “If I can’t get this thing up and running then I’ll be screwed as well. You’re the best in Zodiac and if you’re not doing it then I won’t trust my machines to some two-bit scripter with a pen and paper.”

I stared up at my dad curiously. He didn’t look surprised at the man’s words.

Was my father important?

Hendral disappeared behind the counter and reappeared in front of my dad. It wasn’t magic. He was just short. I sized him up, the man was barely four feet tall. He gestured at us and then walked towards the wall behind him. Hidden at the bottom was a tiny door, at most three feet high.

There was no way we were going to fit. My father walked towards the tiny opening with me in his arms and I wriggled in his grasp as we came closer towards the wall. We were going to hit it. Then something strange happened. The closer we got towards the door, the more it grew in size. My neck craned to see the top of it as it grew to the size of a giant. My dad strolled through without hesitation, and I looked back to see the door was small again.

How did this entire building work?

The sound of metal grating against metal filled my ears. Towering above me were giant glowing arms that moved without an operator. I stared in amazement as they grabbed and sawed through various machines. Sparks showered in every direction, and I drew my hand back for safety as we walked closer to the machines.

My dad patted one of the arms affectionately. “I see you’re still using the onze I made for you. I've been fiddling with a few things since then, I think you’ll like them more once I’m done updating them.”

Onze? I stared at the machines.

“Give them to me before Hennison and I’ll throw in ten extra bronze and a free beer.” Hendral’s body disappeared behind some of the machinery. “Hey, give me a hand over here, will ya?”

My dad walked past the arms and we came face to face with Hendral and another cube. This one was smaller than my father's and had less symbols on it. It was glowing like father’s cube usually did.

“The usual scripts.” Hendral motioned at the cube. “I’ll supply the mana.”

My dad turned to face me. “Do you want to see how the inscriber works?” I clapped my hands together in agreement. “Alright then. Watch me closely.”

“Are you going to let the little guy down?” Hendral asked.

“In the middle of this death trap? Don’t be silly. I can do this one handed.” My dad cracked his knuckles together, moving me to the side and freeing up one of his arms.

He was in his element.

He placed his hand on the cube and the symbols fired up, their glow almost blinding me, and then the entire formation shifted. The colours were the first things to change, from orange to green, and then to yellow. I watched in fascination as father moved the cube next to his own. With a pop his cube disappeared. I blinked, not quite believing what I’d just seen.

The inscriber had swallowed my father’s cube. The cube that was bigger than the inscriber. My father’s cube reappeared in the middle of the inscriber, drastically smaller and floating gently.

“Ready.” My father called out.

Hendral placed his hands on the inscriber and grunted. The lights shimmered, turning rainbow in colour, before settling on bright yellow. The cube’s surface rippled, and then the symbols etched into it were covered by metal. It was just an ordinary cube now. I waited patiently, seeing my dad unworried.

Then the lasers appeared. Striking the cube at precise angles they shaved through the metal easily, carving out symbols before my eyes.

It reminded me of the machines back on earth. Seamless and precision cuts had been made in the metal, and I could see everything tied together with nuts and bolts. There was only one obvious difference. The inscriber had bright glowing symbols that were etched into the skin of the metal. Each one was different, but they all worked in unison.

I’d seen a couple of these symbols before, indented into the bronze and silver masks of the Zodiac members.

The inscriber lit up bright yellow and my dad stepped away from it. Hendral moved in and with a gesture he dragged my father’s cube out of it. The cube had returned to its normal size.

“Ya really are a monster ain’t ya.” Hendral wiped a brow as the inscriber powered down. “You sure you did it right? That’s a lot of symbols to be remembering off the top of your head.”

“I couldn’t forget them if I tried.” My dad took his cube back, tucking under his arm. My leg squished against it.

How did my dad do it? I grabbed at the still-glowing inscriber.

I tapped the glowing symbols, and then tapped the ordinary symbols on my dad’s cube. Why did one light up and the other didn’t?

Why did he need Hendral to power the machine?

“I don’t have any magic.” My father understood my gestures. “I can draw the symbols, but I can’t power them.”

“Good thing too.” Hendral knocked the side of the cube with his tool. He scribbled down a note and then flipped the cube. “All those other scribers have to attune their mana signatures into the symbols. Do you know how annoying it is to try and power equipment that’s tuned towards another mana signature? It’s like trying to open a door with the wrong key. That’s why I need your stuff. Once I had a taste I was never going back.”

I stared at the symbols. Each one was different in miniscule and major ways. Some had several layers to them. Others were barely visible until they glowed.

“You might have a future scriber in your hands.” Hendral chuckled at my antics. “Keep it in the family.”

I stared at the symbols my dad created. This was amazing. He was an enchanter. There was so much he could teach me. He even owned an enchanter box.

This raised new possibilities.

My father waved goodbye to Hendral and I said goodbye as well. The old man had helped me a lot. I peeked at the machines working as we left the store, and then something else caught my attention. It was dark around us. I stared up at the sky and the moon greeted me with its bright white appearance.

We’d arrived early in the morning and only ten minutes had passed.

Why was it night-time?