Vignette - Brotherhood

“What path have you imagined, Candidate?”

“Together we stand, divided we fall. In perilous times all men and women need to pull together and in their unity they will find true strength.”

“The loyalty and belief of my brothers and sisters will support and strengthen my magics. In turn my magics will go to the loyal who call out for aid. A grain of strength from each norm, a pile from each guard. The Brotherhood will take care of its own and its own will be all who will embrace loyalty to the Brotherhood.”

Chapter 4

It took weeks. Distilling all that should be included in even a simple concept like “Protection” was harder than he expected. It wasn’t enough just to sketch out all the things that should be included. It was more than that. He had to force himself to see the rune of “Protection” as one cohesive whole with a specific clear meaning. It was like learning a new language then forcing yourself to see that language as a native. “♪there’s klingons on the starboard bow…♪”

After completing “Protection” he received another kick to the junk.

It was not usable on its own!

Placed on a brick it would create a surface shield…. In a random shape and direction!

He flung the useless rock at the ground… and hit his foot.

“Fuck you, you stupid piece of shit!” Hopping on one leg and holding his aching appendage he at last started to realize how ridiculous he was being.

“...arggg. Fuck you for doing exactly what I told you to….” He muttered instead.

A wall needed to protect mostly from one side, so that concept had bled into his rune. It was not a bad thing really. You protected AGAINST something after all. His rune was not wrong. He was just frustrated.

Magic required you to be specific. Which sometimes felt like his least favorite college professor. Semantics and a nitpicky demeanor meant no argument went anywhere fast….

Magic, he decided, was like an early C++ program. It would do exactly what it was told… but when portions of the request were left unspecified the results were beyond prediction. Even when it was freaking obvious. It was frustrating in the extreme… but only one person was to blame. If you didn’t close a loop your computer would crash.

A computer.. His mind moved on.

Whiners would blame the program for not having safety features.

Winners would learn not to do it again. It was a sad day for the industry when they pussiefied the program.

He chuckled, “ Total Pebkac.”

Time to make a symbol for direction.

A direction rune of one arrow was easy… but not terribly useful. Try giving direction using only “that way”. He thought with a snort.

Any useful set of directions need to include how far, and in what shape and where to start.

Start ten feet ahead then act in a cube two foot on a size. This works. Walk ten steps forward implies you are starting wherever you are standing and will take up a person shaped space at the end. But “Head that way two blocks then take a right” would not work very well if he started inside a house.

Common sense would say to walk out the front door first.

Magic doesn’t have common sense. Frequently, He thought morosely, neither did its wielders...

He had to make it a variable rune. Three different variables in the same rune. He had not done any variables so far. Adding three was a real eye opener. The more complex the request, the longer it takes right? Not this time. Magic didn't care if it was move x steps that way (where x is between one and five) or move five steps. Magic was not computer logic. It had its own internal language, he refused to call it rules, and it was just a matter of figuring out how to speak it.

The new rune specified direction as an arrow. Left, right, up, down, in and out with a number to indicate how far in feet, his feet since a tape measure was not available.

Fortunately, he found, unlike English words, Arabic numbers were specific.

The size was also easy to describe. Size was the shape around the arrow. Any shape or size again using numbers to indicate the magnification of that shape.

How to indicate where to start took a bit of thought. But at last he settled on a simple cheat. A number indicates how far the spell should go, simply make it two numbers. The first was starting distance in the given direction. The second was finishing distance. 5,5 would be an infinitely thin object five feet away. It also probably wouldn't work. -5,5 would make a decent grenade. God bless whoever invented the minus sign he thought with fervor two arrows would have been a pain in the dick. Every line had to be laboriously carved into stone.

Making a variable rune was an important milestone. It taught him two very important lessons.

The first lesson was about how much work his new vocation would be. Six weeks of work. It took six full weeks of a few trials and lots of errors to make something useful.

To make it worse it was six full weeks in this ‘tutorial’. Thoughts were clearer here, magically clearer. Distractions minimized. Akil refused to quantify how much of an improvement but if he took the description of a few months compared to a year or two for awakening he could make a reasonable guess and he would be a fool not to take advantage of it.

The second lesson was even less pleasant. Each additional rune in a chain would dramatically increase the stress on his mind….

He swam out of the void and gingerly breached the plane of consciousness. Waking at last to a full brass band celebrating a righteous hangover in his head. The light like a scalpel dug into his squinting eyes.

Groaning he fought gravity to stand up, the bed a welcome weapon if this arduous fight. At last he won the battle. He stood on his pallet and looked over at the basin and the cold cup of water beside it. The battle was over, now time to see who would win the war. He took a stumbling step forward...

“Good Morning Candidate!” Did he think it was a brass band before? This was far worse! His balance, tenuous at best already, collapsed, and him along with it.

“Not so loud..” he whimpered. Curling up and trying to keep his skull from exploding.

“Congratulations on your first near-death experience! Had you tried this on Earth it would not have been merely near-death.” Every word was a cannon shot, siege weapons destroying the walls of his mind.

“...Please not now.” Tears began to pour from his slitted eyes.

“Lessons are learned best immediately Timothy and pain is the best teacher of them all. You will not die, no matter how it feels. “

“I will not let you.”

“You will need to find your limits. Recognize the signs your mind gives, and stop. Because once you leave here you will not have me to save you.”

“Don’t worry, you will remember this when you wake again….”

Darkness poured in from the edges of his vision, drowning his sight and his thoughts till only the void remained.

A few trumpet players serenaded his return to reality. It’s funny how pain is a comparison game. After the cannons and full brass band a few trumpets felt almost pleasant… or so he tried to tell himself.

The morning dawned and it was time. He had to get back on the horse. If he let the pain scare him, flinched away from it, then his path would be permanently stunted. He had to immediately prove he could still write a rune. Prove it to himself. Forgoing his run or his morning clean up he bumbled over to sit at the little kitchen table. Although when its only one room is it a kitchen table, dining table or maybe a bedroom table? He grimaced and ignored that pointless chain of thoughts.

Trusty chisel in hand he carved “Protection” into one of the many thin stone cards Akil prepared for him. The cards were playing card sized, maybe a bit bigger but a half inch thick.

He would need a way to create them for himself before he moved back to Earth. They were fast becoming his favorite base for enchantment. Even if he felt like a child flipping them out. “Protection, I choose you!” He snickered nervously.

Even though he needed to smack it on multiple sides before a frail, uncharged shield appeared , and promptly broke, it proved he still had it. The strain was both recognizable and bearable.

“..haaa” he let his breath out in relief. Only to freeze as a new thought came to him.

“Akil, if chaining two runes together nearly killed me, how am I going to do anything useful?” Grousing through his much lengthened facial hair he scratched his chin. He might need to find a way to cut his hair and shave soon. It was becoming maddeningly itchy.

“Your people have a saying about learning to walk before you try to run. It’s merely a case of building up the necessary mental fortitude. Your will is not yet strong enough. Fix that by practicing.” Akil’s voice merely added a drummer to the band, he could handle it easily.

“...so push till I pass out, making sure to find out what signals my mind sends before that occurs, trusting that you will keep me from dying each time I do it?”

“... you could do that.” The cheerful voice sounded somewhat taken aback. It had apparently thought of some other solution but Timothy knew from experience it would not tell him so he did not bother to ask. He skipped to the next question.

“Then how will we teach any children on earth? Years of time to awaken, more years to fully internalize and create a rune, and then a good chance of death every time you write more than the simplest rune-chain?” Exasperated he yelled the last few words.

“Timothy, you picked your path. It is not an easy or a quick path. To make magic that lasts is a much more difficult proposition then what some of your contemporaries are probably attempting. Your way will require a will of massive power. Then again you seemed to instinctually know that. You included a way to reach that degree of willpower.

As for those who follow after you. They will need safeguards, methods to protect them from killing themselves. The flexibility you are so fond of was chosen for situations like this was it not? Quit complaining, you have the tools. Describe the problem and create a solution.

After a slight pause “But not yet, you do not have any students after all.”

It took work, he broke the tips on multiple chisels doing practice runes for another month before he managed to create a two word chain. A chain that made him oh so very happy. “Remove-material direction-forward 0,.002-circle .002”. If his math was correct this should be about the same size as his old world mechanical pencils.

He did it! He made a pen that worked on stone! No more scratching and gouging away at a stone block. No more breaking chisel tips or carving slightly too far and ruining an hour of work.

He quickly held the card upright between his index finger and thumb. Another card was quickly placed in front of him.

“A smiley face..” He was grinning madly as he activated the card…. And nothing happened. No smile was etched into the card before him.

“What went wrong...” He muttered to himself, setting the “remove-material” card down he glanced at it and froze.

A very small divot was cut into the card, starting directly after the circle of the direction rune….

“Start at 0…. Not zero from the tip of the object” he yelled in frustration, “from the damn rune!”

A moment later an ice cold sweat broke out on his back, “I could have taken a chunk out of my finger…”

Learn from it, and let it go. He took several deep breaths to shake off the incipient anxiety attack.

Finally calm he had to continue “Akil, I need a pen shaped piece of stone, a hexagon pencil like shape, an inch from flat side to flat side. Nine inches long. The tip should not be sharpened yet.”

The requested instrument took ghostly form on the table, inhaling mist it became solid.

A piece of chalk quickly sketched out the forms of the two runes. Months of dedicated practice showing its benefits as being more than just willpower.

He replaced the chalk with a new sharp chisel and a small hammer. He grimaced as he picked them up, I thought I was done with these POS.

Still, needs must.

With a much greater degree of caution he positioned the chisel and tap by tap began to carve his runes. The tip of the chisel was only twice the size of the pencil lead he had hoped to make. To make sure the stone would not chip off in ugly sections he would tap a groove on both sides of a chalk line, then remove the material between.

It was slow.

It was tedious.

It was monotonous.

It was supposed to be done by a card by now!

Deep breaths, anger ruins runes. Do you really want to start this over? Focus your will into it or you will just get pretty pictures!

Two chisels later, at last he finished, writing the distance as .1,.102.

A quick activation placed a notch short of the end of the pen, he had left himself room on purpose.

In the future he would make a stick with notches, a direction rune to measure where the notches go. For now he had Akil. “Please carve off the front of this ‘pen’ right behind this notch” a bit more work created a pen with an off centered ‘sharpened’ pencil look.

At last, Mr. Smiley happily made his entrance to the world! The frustration melted away in elation.

He did a victory lap around the buildings, staying off the damn track, Pen held aloft as a conquering hero should. He even had Akil supply appropriate music of the Hyrulian variety.

He would have to make multiple such pens, each with a different sized cutting tip. But that was for later. For now a success, no matter how small, MUST be celebrated. And this was not a small success. It was the first truly useful thing he had been able to make. In a euphoric mood he drew “Pen-is-Mightier” on to it with chalk.

“What matters is does it work?” He said aloud in a faux Shawn Connrey accent. His chuckle died stillborn, his shoulders drooped, So many things lost.

His shoulders unbent with a well practiced shake. But I can’t change it, so shake it off and keep moving.

With the first two rune-chain mastered and a cleaner, easier way to carve them in hand, he was ready to really kick this magic thing into gear.

He already had “Protect Direction” but as Akil had said, he needed to be able to build a wall without cement or mortar. So “Join-as-one Direction” came into existence.

Join-as-one had the image of three stacked bricks with the lines between the bricks clear on the outside but fading out to no separation on the inside. It encompassed the ideal of materials of the same type becoming one once more.

This followed a logic he had begun to understand. Symbols were not just created by him. Some things were already there in nature or perhaps in the heads of mankind? He wasn’t sure exactly what they were resonating with. But if he took advantage of it, the magic flowed so much easier. In this case it was something like ‘We come from the earth, and to the earth it will return.’

He now had some of the runes needed to build tools to build a base. He needs to do some modifications though. The current pen sometimes flings the removed stone into his face, sometimes dumps it on the card, sometimes turns it into dust that leaves him sneezing. He needs a rune to tell it what to do with the material it removes. Or perhaps modify the removal rune to indicate the excess material piling up.

It was never a done deal after all. Each success revealed more errors that needed fixing. Still, that was the joy of discovery!

Several days of work later he discovered he could indeed modify existing runes. He had a feeling there were extreme limits though. A small shift in something that was already happening was one thing. He could only shift his intentions so far before they broke.

Still the modified rune worked. Now his “Pen-is-Mightier” left its droppings in a neat pile directly on top of the rune. It gave him an idea though. Place the remove-material rune at the back of a long pole with the direction rune having a longer start distance and he would have an automatic shovel.

“I shall be envied by manual laborers the world over!” he pronounced, one hand on his heart, the other lifted in triumph, he lifted one leg to step on the chair and held the position for a moment. Unable to keep a straight face he collapsed back into his chair with a guffaw.

Enough, time to make his magic shovel. His use of magic was pedestrian now, but he promised himself there would be explosions and bright shining lights in his future.

Oh yes, big ones!

Requisitioning a 4ft branch he quickly began to sketch his planned runes in chalk. Since precision was not required of a shovel he just guessed how far the tip was from the direction rune. If it was too far, no problem, if it was too short, the shovel would get shortened…

...He had better be damn careful he didn't get shortened as well. “Going to have to come up with some safety gear eventually…” He mumbled half heartedly, quickly forgetting the heretical thought in favor of the task at hand.

Carving runes neatly into a rounded surface would add needless complexity, so he free handed the outline of a flat section with his “Pen-is-Mightier” leaving a polished surface at last.

He rifled through his master deck of cards, one for each completed rune, and propped the two required cards up for reference. A bit of chalk to sketch the shapes, then the pen. Forcefully burying Intent into the carved channels as they formed. This is what lots of practice was starting to teach him. It was the intent he buried in the stone that mattered as much or more than the rune itself.

Slow and steady wins the race. One rune is easy at this point, and finished without stress. Now it gets harder. He begins carving the second rune while maintaining the first in his mind. The two runes are not separate. They are two parts of a whole. With care for the growing strain on his thoughts he closes the square and etches the numbers, 3.5,5.5 as well as 2x2. With a last push he enfuses the two linked concepts with the material they are attached too. The moment of truth.

Slowly, the surrounding magic field begins to eddy and flex, flowing slowly into the wood and charging the runes.

“It works!” he screams, jumping with his hands raised in triumph. Now…. he has to wait for it to charge. A bit of a let down but necessary for his core ideal. The pen uses so little magic that it is useful immediately, a shovel that moves… his eyes crossed as he attempted to do the math. “A cylinder .002*Pi*(.002/2)^2 is about…. 10^-9 vs a cube 2*2*2=8cubic ft” he mumbled working through the numbers, finally stopping as he reached a verdict “A freaking billion times as large!” He snorted in disbelief. He had no idea what kind of charging speed, or for how long it would work on that charge. Testing, he decided, lots and lots of testing.

For now he has a shovel, and soon after a ditch and a mound. No not a mound, a motte! If one shovel runs out too quickly he will just have to make more!

He was grinning like a fool, but no one was around to see it… That thought brought his mood back down in a hurry.

Shake it off.

He will also have to enchant his “Join-as-one” concept.

After he makes a small motte he will top it with a stone keep, “protection” carved into the stone walls and he will be impregnable! Just a bit more work and his defenses will stand to the test.

He carefully sat his new shovel on the kitchen table, stood up carefully, stretching muscles that were tight with inactivity. He reaches for the ceiling then transitions to almost touching his toes. A few light waist twists in either direction.

Tomorrow is soon enough to start on all that. He still needs to celebrate. Ducking out the door he ambles over to the Mirror, enjoying the view without allowing his reflection to rise above the bank. He can’t help but be optimistic about the coming days.

“♪.. and there is no use crying over every mistake, you just keep on trying till you run out of cake ♪“