*****

The next morning -

Yggdrasil’s main root on this planet was for all intents and purposes of the layman beholding it, a tree trunk, a gigantic fucking tree trunk. The fact that a multi-dimensional tree holding the universe together isn’t pure crap still boggles my mind but here it stands, gently pulsating powerful green ripples of pure life and mana as steady as the ocean’s waves. Raw power saturing the very dirt and air of this area makes it nearly impossible for most things to even survive here, with me being the freaky exception. As my combination of sorceries allows for me to survive in this zone of extremely dense mana-pressure, it’s probably going to feel odd to be somewhere else for a while. Staring at the exalted woody prison for my woman, I ran through my mental checklist over and over, procrastinating on leaving as I was still afraid of leaving this area unprotected by me personally even though I knew that this was probably the safest place in the world at any given time.

[For a badass sorcerer, you’re such a fucking chicken. Nut up and jump, pansy.] Again, the stupid spirit was right but all I wanted to do in that moment was double-check my preparations again and again. Peering into the storage space inside of Gungnir, I checked on the most precious cargo, the six Yggdrasil seeds I’d crafted. This time, I engineered a new design, something meant to be a bit more adaptable than normal as I’d be traveling to incredibly different environments and didn’t want to screw it up.

“Easy day, easy day,” I whispered to myself. “Little road trip with my dog, that’s all it is.” Taking a deep breath, I reached over and scratched Spot’s head. Standing at a normal height for a dog right now, he wagged his tail and bumped me, vibrating with excitement. My other hand rose to touch the rough bark of Yggdrasil, brushing past the sheathed knife form of Gungnir at my belt. Its presence filled me with confidence, the simple fact that it was there put my mind at ease. It’s the motion of a hunter cleaning a favorite gun, a lumberjack sharpening his axe or the relationship between tool and craftsman. I’ve read in books where people joked, ‘what’s a wizard without his staff’, but seriously, I get where they’re coming from. What’s a freaking gun without bullets or a tattoo artist without ink?

[The mental act of contemplation isn’t the physical act of jumping! Scoot!]

I scooted. Just a hint of irritation pushed my will forward and into the World Tree, the blindingly powerful magic of the primal scaffold of the universe sucked me and everything near me into it and spit me out in the general direction I wanted as I barely managed to wrap me and Spot up in a cocoon of power. It happened so fast but for one sheer split second I was able to use my consciousness sorcery to guide me where I wanted to go as the place I actually wanted to go wasn’t actually available. Using a mental map that Kraken had put together from my memory of the United States, I knew where the Colorado River was in Arizona, but Yggdrasil wouldn’t send me anywhere that didn’t have enough plant life. It was shunting me towards places I had already been but it didn’t even accept the desert as a viable location. So, the closest place that qualified with dense enough plant life was in California, the land where the redwoods were still king.

The journey lasted ten seconds after the one second of split decision making I managed to grab hold of. The redwood that was my magical layover spit me out like a toddler discovering lima beans.

[INCOMING!] Even as I landed on my face in a disoriented haze, I had enough presence of mind to engage Svalinn’s defensive features that projected a shield of pure mana while covering that with alternating layers of conjured stone and iron ore. High pitched whistles heralded the many impacts that I couldn’t see as my stomach tried to violently revolt. Regaining control over the internal revolution of my guts with my flesh sorcery, I threw out my senses to gather information from within my bunker.

[Aelves! Fucking Aelves! Run dipstick! Run!] Going from chest down on the floor to a tight crouch, I maintained my shields as I gathered power, readying for an explosive exit before I noticed that Spot wasn’t exactly next to me like I thought he was. The ejection from Yggdrasil spat him several yards away from me . A pained howl rearranged my priorities as I brought the non-magical shields down, pulling Gungnir from my belt as it extended into a wizard’s staff. Standing straight up, my weapon pulsated with silver light as the butt of it sank into the ground, siphoning mana from the earth hungrily as I looked around and saw Spot chasing thin humanoids through the forest. Long, thin arrows stuck out from his skin and scales at various places, Spot’s own flames slowly burning them off as gouts of fire exploded from his maw. At this point, I was still willing to leave, my mouth opening to yell for Spot to stand down so I could talk us out of this when one arrow took him in the eye in a glancing blow.

It was crazy that with the forest of flying arrows that Spot had been shot so few times, but the heat field he was giving off was burning most of them before they actually reached him. There were places on the ground still burning from where his superheated paws hand landed, patches of burning brush and trees clearly marking the erratic path of his chase. In mid-leap, Spot bit three arrows out of the air on his left side when an arrow that would have missed from above glanced downward across his and down his jaw. The light skinned, slant eyed shooter of that arrow exploded into chunks of flesh as five crystal rounds from Gungnir took him in the face and chest.

Two heartbeats of silence followed the sudden gory shower as everyones’ eyes tracked their newest target once they realized that something far deadlier than a dragon dog was in their midst. “That’s a warning fuckfaces,” I snarled to the unnaturally still attackers, not caring if they actually understood me as Gungnir pulsed softer, a menacing hum beginning to vibrate from its crystal core. “You attacked my dog and half-blinded him! Another arrow and you all die.”

A flurry of words passed between the Aelves, many of them staying in the shadows hidden from my eyes but not from my senses. Spot, at my mental command, calmed the blazing flames covering his body a bit and slowly walked backwards towards me, growling menacingly with each soft step. A soft call sounded, like a horn mixed with a lonely wind racing through the tree. At that, all of the Aelves sharply looked in that direction and ran off, each one faster than most humans could track with the naked eye.

Extending my senses out even further, I made sure that they were gone from the immediate vicinity as I conjured water and dirt to put out the flames. Turning to Spot, I slowly scratched one ear as I numbed his body with flesh sorcery and slowly began pulling out the few arrows still stuck in him. Most had already been ejected out by his own magic, his dense musculature helping with the pushing. Pouring healing magic into him to bolster his own flesh magic, I paid special attention to his eye, taking a solid ten minutes to regrow the damaged tissue. Once my pet was back to fighting shape, I summoned my hoverboard and headed south east towards my destination, my head on a swivel.

The next two hours of traveling were nerve racking. My paranoia not letting me let Spot out of sight as we didn’t know squat about the surrounding area. All of my gear was powered to the max and Kraken was on full alert, ready to fire crystal rounds at any threat but nothing seemed foolish enough to take us on after our initial display of power. Spot’s giant form ate up the mileage at a decent pace so we were able to go around forty miles an hour even though my plan had initially been to fly to Arizona and let Spot just catch up to me. Using Kraken as my own somewhat accurate GPS, we knew from my memories that my uncle who lived in Arizona near the Colorado River, even though he was probably gone, that that area would be perfect for my base of operations. Now, it wasn’t the hottest or sunniest place on Earth as the Sahara Desert and Death Valley fight for that honor, but where I was heading was still a freaking desert, but a desert with a respectable amount of water there making it an ideal place for a sorcerer of my abilities to set up shop.

Reaching the edge of the redwood forest, I let myself relax just a bit. No attacks stopped us from ‘retreating in a dignified manner’ and thanks to my personal matter to mana generator, I was more than full on energy even as everything was dialed to the max.

[We’re safe now, we can fly the rest of the way there,] Kraken said, his mental voice soft even as he also scanned the surrounding area. [Besides, your dog is part freaking dragon, let him run loose a bit. I’m pretty sure no sentient creature calls the desert home.]

I shrugged but sent a mental picture of a giant sandworm as a reply. [Shai-hulud isn’t real!] Kraken replied, exasperation tingeing his voice. [Besides, the mana levels of this planet aren’t really there yet for some of the bigger monsters, yet. And while some desert planets have worms that big, this isn’t the Sahara which would be the right climate. This desert is mainly dirt and rock, not endless wastes of sand. The most you’ll have to worry about are the animals mutated by magic.]

“Fine,” I grunted, turning to Spot after I scanned the area again with my magic. “All right boy, just meet us there. You can follow our bond, and besides, I have a treat for you when you get there.” Grinning with a barely evil yet humorous smile, I pulled a stone square cube out of Gungnir and popped it open, waving it under Spot’s nose. The sloshing of the diluted Nephilim solution drew his eyes as he tried to snatch it out of my hand. Sealing it shut and storing it away, I laughed as I hopped back onto my hoverboard and zoomed off. “Don’t take too long!”

Getting up to a good speed took me about fifteen seconds with two pulses of power allowing me to take off as soon as my wings extended, Kraken storing my hoverboard as we took to the sky. The energy gathering runes instantly began drinking in the heat and relentless sunlight as the near-desert climate of this part of California powered the solar panel and heat-to-mana conversion runes. I was particularly proud of those last runes as they allowed me to stay somewhat cool even in this oppressive heat. My destination was roughly six hundred miles away as the crow flies which gave me and Kraken some time to commune as that would take us a little over five hours of continuous flight. The climate here was so full of energy thanks to the heat and sunlight that stopping to recharge wouldn’t even be an issue.

[You’re lucky you escaped with your life! Shit, Spot’s lucky that his own goddamn freaky magic managed to burn most of those freaking bolts away. Anything a bit less durable than he would have been skewered! You don’t mess with Aelves in the forest!] Kraken’s admonishment did not go unheeded but he continued with his rant anyway. [You may have nature sorcery but so do most of them and they’re way better at it than you!]

The craggy emptiness of America’s desert lay before me, windswept wastes of dirt mixed with random eroded rock formations. Hardy plant life clung to what bits of shade they could find, their flickering life force calling to my nature sorcery, calling for rain, anything in this harsh climate. I flew in wide circles every once in a while as I scanned the area looking for signs of life or anything usual. Turning my attention back to my familiar, I kept our conversation going mentally so I didn’t have to shout over the wind. [I thought all sorcerers were gone?]

[The human ones are. They pretty much killed each other and the dragons finished off the rest but the different magical races definitely have their own. Aelves like wind and nature, some water ones are mixed in there. But you know that’s not common right, sorcery? Magic, yes, wizardry and shamanism, oh yeah, but sorcery? No. It’s too hard for humans to get as y’all like to live bundled up in cities or ghettos. You need chaos itself to get sorcery and you don’t find that where everything is ordered.]

My barebones education continued as our destination approached. The shimmering desert air did not fool my magical senses even as the heat waves distorted the view, mirages tricking the human eye even as the river spoke to my water sorcery, calling me. Around here, the Colorado River was nowhere as big as the other rivers that crisscross the North American continent but it was definitely large enough for my purposes. Landing in a good clear spot about five hundred yards away from the river, I pulled out four solar panels and set them up in the cardinal directions, each at least a hundred yards away from its polar opposite. Then, I walked to the very center of it all and stabbed Gungnir’s speartip deep into the earth.

“Workin on a buildin’,” I sang with an exaggerated southern accent, mentally telling Kraken to get started with our predetermined plan. Pulses of mana poured from me down Gungnir to the buried crystal blade as I channeled my sorcery, allowing Kraken to wield my power in a bigger way than he normally could. Waves of power rolled through the earth, rippling out and transmuting the dirt twenty yards out into a crystal circle with connecting crystal lines that extended out to the solar panels. The channeled power unfurled the newer designs of the solar panels as they opened up like flowers and turned towards the sun, reminiscent of sunflowers. The edges of the ‘leaves’ had surface extending runes acting as an attractor for heat and sunlight. Within five minutes, the temperature was almost unbearable as the wash of power blasted back to Gungnir where Kraken caught the wave and turned it towards our project.

“Workin on buildin! A Holy Ghost buildin! For my Lawd! For my Lawd!” The hick churchy song of West Virginia left my mouth even as I heard Kraken gear up to tell me ‘not quit my day job’. Pushing another bit of power down Gungnir, we controlled the energy into transmuting an inner circle of dirt around us into a perfect formation of solid diamond with thinner lines of copper connecting to the outer crystal circle. The inner circle circle we were standing inside of was a new kind of battery, one that I planned on being able to help solidify the foundation required for a root of Yggdrasil. As Kraken guided the energy into the model that we wanted, I reviewed again how it would look. With the solar panels at the cardinal directions combined with the surface enhancing runes and sun-tracking abilities along with heat-to-mana conversion as well, the amount of power that this area could generate would be simply awesome.

The large outer circle would be the secondary intake of power that could extend out to an even larger circle if I ever decided that more power was needed. The expanding design would allow for more and more surface area to be covered if I ever felt that we didn’t pull in enough power on a day-to-day basis. Now, the dirt circle I was kneeling in was actually meant for one of my Yggdrasil seeds, but it would actually be the last part of the entire operation. Pulling out four more solar panels, I placed them at the cardinal directions near me and then rotated them all clockwise forty-five degrees to hit the halfway points between North, South, East, and West. Another pulse of power guided by Kraken moved the solar panels away from the center of the circle till they were about forty yards away. The setup for the inner solar panel ring at a distance of forty yards away gave me a total inner diameter of eighty yards, a bit smaller than the outer ring which had a diameter of one hundred yards, or a radius of fifty yards away from the center.

I avoided the general pentagram formation as most nerds assumed that was related towards a summoning function, and I personally believe only fools truck with demons. I went with the four point diamond formation denoted by the solar panels sealed within a circle of crystal as that shape for a ritual would make it impervious to any kind of invasion. The inner circle was the same design but rotated forty-five degrees. Kraken was still in the process of using my earth sorcery to flesh out the design but that design was to be the framework for the fort which was going to be built on top of it. But right before the outer walls of the fort were to go up, the plan was to have a massive crystal battery conjured underneath the base.

My plan for the siege battery was birthed way back when I still had a house underneath the roots of Yggdrasil and it helped preserve some of my belongings from when it was attacked by a goddess. This one, this one was designed with a bit more than that in mind. The very nature of the desert area surrounding the fort combined with the efficiency and extended area of the solar panels allows for an incredible amount of power intake, and to allow for maximum power storage, a humongous crystal battery seemed to be the correct answer. The last battery was a solid block of crystal that was roughly the size of an old basement boiler, a little shorter than an average man.

This battery that I had planned was more along a combination of modern tech and magic runwork. Overall, the battery design was going to be set up with crystal ‘cells’ covered in thin platinum except the input and output parts would be a thick gold cable connecting to another battery of the same design. Each of these batteries were going to be supersized, roughly the size of a fridge, and placed end to end with another layer of linked batteries stacked on top of each other. The initial plan was to have a top layer of batteries buried twenty feet deep and the layer of batteries themselves were to be four batteries long and six wide, resulting in each layer having twenty-four batteries. And if God forbid, I could add layer after layer of buried batteries thanks to the cheat that was my earth and mana sorcery. The power to do all of this would not come from me directly, but from the overabundant light and heat provided from the desert environment.

[It’s a great plan for you because you don’t have to do shit,] Kraken complained from inside the partially buried spear. [Oh yeah, give the poor stuck spirit the blueprints while the oh-so-powerful sorcerer gets to play and explore the area, woohoo.]

[Shut up!] I snapped back, trying my best to hide my hint of sadistic joy. There really wasn’t any guilt in having my spirit familiar fill the role of a 3-D printer. Our power channeling ritual really wasn’t that complex but it was time consuming, and since Kraken was more than capable of overseeing the management of everything, this gave me the freedom to scout the area and maybe work on any kinds of experimentation inspiration that may strike. Due to the scale of the project, our estimate to have everything up and running was about a week, maybe two. I couldn’t go far though as unforeseen issues may pop up.

[Chill for a bit man,] I sent to Kraken. [You don’t need to worry, you’ll be safe in Gungnir and I’ll be safe with this baby!] Pulling out my personally altered magitech rifle, I hefted it and rotated the barrel. [Between my batteries, the hoverboard and wings along with this gorgeous gun, I’m good to go!]

And off I went, cruising away in my hoverboard straight towards the disparate coolness of the Colorado river. I couldn’t really help myself as I headed there way too freaking fast, pulling up and shooting in the sky at an angle as unfurled the metal wings on my back to get a bit more air. Turning around in midair, I executed two flips and halfway belly flopped down into the river. I took the rest of the day to relax and hoverboard around, returning to the river each time to cool off from the oppressive heat. Kraken’s work was slowly, but steadily growing as he didn’t need sleep at all but I slept like a baby on top of the river, nestled out in the middle of it supported by my water sorcery.

The morning greeted me with all the glaring shine of the American Midwest, mainly West more than Mid at this point, but it was grand nonetheless. Conferring with Kraken to make sure everything was on schedule, I skated across the river’s surface and up on to the bank. While my familiar was working on a building that had an emphasis on fortification, I figured that I would build a house based on comfort close to the river. I looked over and saw that the barest bit of sunstone peaking out just above the surface of the earth near Gungnir, the particular nature of that magical rock would also allow for an incredible intake of power as a parallel to the solar panels at the edges of the crystal circles. My home though, the home away from home, now that was going to be marble.

The first thing I did was set up two more solar panels, the first on a rock sticking out of the river, which I shaped the rock to hold the panel a bit better, and the other was just off to the side near me. After activating both of them, I forged a loose channel with each of them so that they would just constantly pour the mana straight into my own reserves of power. “Desert home, home in the desert,” I muttered, looking over the sad stretch of land that was to be transformed into a little paradise. With the river close by, nothing was out of reach comfort-wise.

First, I began banishing the dirt with my earth sorcery, forming a big pit. When I was little, my parents took me to the Luray Caverns in Virginia and I couldn’t help but wonder with my small child brain why in the world it was so cool down there when it was almost a hundred degrees at the mouth of the cave. My father told me that the earth is the best insulator, especially when you give it some distance to work. So I formed my own pit, the basis for a Hobbit home. The next hour or two rounded out the general design, basically a buried yurt made out of stone with layers and layers of dirt covering the top of it for insulation. The next two hours were spent carefully designing an underground channel so that the river would flow into my home, form a fresh pool of constantly circulating water, and then flow out. This would give me a place to sleep, the ultimate water bed with my water sorcery, but a quick way to escape if I ever needed it. Few things could match me in the water.

Runes of water and cooling decorated the inside of my home along with a kinetic current converter rune placed at the bottom of the carved river channel. That was linked to a couple sunstones for light which were placed around. A flex of will would brighten up the room or darken it whenever I wanted. Ten minutes of conjuring and shaping stone gave me a nice set of stairs runed to always be cool even with the desert heat, the stairs leading to the thick stone doorway. [Or you could be making weapons, or golem bodies, or something useful instead of having me do all of this shit!]

[What would you rather be doing?] I sent back, a bit of sarcasm letting Kraken know how I felt about his objections. We had agreed on this particular plan as he, a spirit, would not mess up any of the delicate measurements that might compromise the conjured structure that he was building. [I need a place where the heat won’t eventually kill me. And that fort won’t have the cooling rune work in it until the very end, right now, it’s a straight up heat trap.]

[I know what I said, what I’m saying now is that it’s BORING!]

[Look, I’ll help you out when Spot gets here, and at the pace that dog can run, it should be in about three days at the most unless he gets distracted.] A grunt of begrudging affirmation was all I got, which I took to mean that maybe I could get some work done in peace. Downing a meal cube and a bit of conjured water, I threw myself into my work. The sun had set for at least an hour before I had my bachelor pad ready. The magical water bed, a bunch of mini fruit and veggie plants tastefully hanging on the walls with runes that routinely conjured the right amount of water above them. Up on the wall off to the right, I had drawn out a couple possible plans that I could easily accomplish here in the desert, which I thought about long into the night.