Vignette - Fear Eater

“What path have you imagined, Candidate?”

“Mankind is weak, fear ate at them in the old world, after the fall that fear will explode to new heights. They will not be able to live beneath it. So I will take their fear, store it and use it as I will. The fear of the masses will be my weapon against the beasts of the field and the voices of the dissent. Let those that submit live free of fear, let those who resist die of it.”

Chapter 6

After breakfast, a short jog and some self mandated soul searching at the Mirror, it was finally time to get back to magic. Life was weird. The world ended and it’s killer became his new obsession. Even the pain of losing what was, could not stop him from loving what is.

Magic!

Both tool and muse. Frustration and Elation.

Ironic does not seem to cover it.

If he wanted to pursue this new obsession he would have to survive. An obvious limitation but an important one. His first stronghold was a complete failure. The walls worked, until they ran out of charge. But there are jumping and flying monsters. He needs overhead cover or a way to stop the jumping. Spikes could work. A forest of stone spikes making jumping in suicidal and flying in equally problematic. It would be a bit odd living in a hedgehog though.

So a way to make spikes, easy. Join stone rubble in a dirt trench. Instant stone spike. Use a Joiner tool on a much smaller scale and turn the base of the spike into glue. Stick it to whatever stone surface he wants. Or remove a plug of stone and stick it in the removed spot.

Next he needs a way to tamp down the dirt. Compact it enough to prevent dust and provide stable footing. That will have to be a new rune. maybe a circle with multiple arrows pointing to the center. The length of the arrows indicates how much it will be compressed.

It doesn’t have to be a circle. A square works as well. It's easier to fit bricks together than spheres. It didn't sound like a terribly hard rune. Just a matter of time. Might have to add it to the shovel.

Or make the shovel a two part tool. The shovel dumps earth into a bin, the bin then compacts the earth into a brick. Use the Joiner tool to unite the earth bricks into a solid hill. That would work. Would also make for a decent stronghold if stone is hard to find.

Also passive defenses will lose out in the end. He needed weapons to fight back with. That would take some thought. Absorbing light comes to mind. Then releasing it all in a blast like a laser. Maybe the shovel could be used as a weapon. “Remove-material” doesn’t care what it removes.

He had noticed that the bigger the dimensions the more of the charge the tool used up. Four casts of a smaller tool took less charge then one cast of a four times as large tool. The same was true for the distance away from the tool the magic had to act at. Light would not have that issue. It would be given a direction and let loose. Not projected a set distance.

Still, variety is the spice of life. Make them all and if one doesn't work, try, try again.

He had a lot of work ahead of him. But it was good work. Clean and clear of the silly mental issues of his all too human brain.

So work he did. Two stacks began to take shape on his kitchen table. The wonders of creation on a simple wooden table in a one room cottage. The first stack had one rune per card. The original runes stood out alone. Useless by themselves they were nevertheless his most prized possessions. Each one was a repository of weeks or months of work.

Beautiful, even if his carvings were not yet elegant. It was the will and encompassed intent lying inside each rough carved symbol. His master deck of magic. The guiding light to his efforts.

The first fruits of his sacrifices.

Besides them was the more utilitarian deck. Multiple two rune-chains. Blended ideals and vibrant will. Slowly eddying the surrounding magic fields as they absorbed the underpinnings of the world and changed it to meet his well.

Both were equally important. With more cards in his master deck he would have more variations of spells available. With more cards in the Utility deck he would be able to DO more.

And he really wanted to be able to do something useful.

Two and a half weeks passed and the “pen-is-mightier” slowly moved through the motions, small piles of stone dust accumulating behind it. Slowly carefully carving his new rune, “Concentrate”.

Two simple boxes and four arrows. Yet such a useful thing. Placed with a matching direction rune on a simple wooden crate and you have a brick factory. Simple dirt didn’t make the best bricks, you need a bit of clay and maybe straw for that. Still, dirt is a building material that is always there. No need to search or worry. So he had spent considerably more effort on the rune then he had first planned.

The dirt was almost like stone once concentrated. Almost, was the problem. Transmutation was the province of magic in old legends and stories afterall. Why should he have to search for rocks if he can just make them instead? And if he found rock why not make it a better rock? Concentrate not compact. Take the essence of something and make it more so. Rocks, essential symbols of construction and durability might become as strong as metal. Dirt the base of all things could be concentrated into a pseudo rock. He wasn’t sure how strong either would be, but he was hopeful.

A bit more work and he now had a card with both action and direction ready for trial. He walked out to the track, free of grass or roots it was a good place to start. He stopped, with a wild thought. Straw was not much different from dried grass after all. Why did he need to avoid grass and roots?

A few more steps took him past the beaten track and into the field. Yes, here would do. But not yet, the runes would need to charge. The shovels were one day of charging for 20 minutes of use. So a bit more than an hour for 1 minute of use. Or perhaps a couple minutes for a single use. Having not used the concentrate he could only guess based on past shoveling experience.

Five minutes was not a long time to wait, to practice patience and take a moment to enjoy the day. Breath in and smell the breeze. Raise your head and stare at Earte, and remember family. Dwell on the happy memories for a few moments, remember running through similar fields with his brother, water balloons in hand. As the shadows lengthened to hear Ma’s voice calling them in for supper.

Focus on the happy when you can, work hard when you need to and trust that by working hard those happy moments can come again. He will meet them up above.

Just not yet.

The rune had charged enough. With a wry smile he looked down to the dirt, not Earth, beneath his feet.

His will flexed and the dirt collapsed in an orderly fashion, less than a second and there it was, a smooth sided regularly sized brick. He stepped down into the hole to pick it up. Attempting to heft it, he almost threw out his back. Maybe 60 pounds!

“Akil I need a sledge hammer. Make it from granite so I can compare it’s hardness.”

A large ghostly two handed stone hammer appeared in his outstretched hand. Fading into existence with the usual inhalation of mist and magic.

He smiles an evil little smile, time to play, ‘Will it Break’. Give it time. It will break. Heh, oh yes it will!

“..gasp...gasp”

It broke! It did not defeat him, he was still better than a compacted pile of dirt!

The wreckage of two stone sledge hammers littered the bottom of the hole. Sweat ran down his back and his arms ached with vibrational feedback. But at the bottom of the hole was a compacted dirt block now broken into three jagged pieces.

Turns out when you reduce the volume of already packed earth by ¾ you get something stronger than solid stone. No transmutation required.

So if dirt gets stronger than stone, what does stone do? That might fix two problems with one condensed rock.

He still could not think of a symbol that worked for durability and his wall wards required someone to activate them. A surprise attack could hit the walls before anyone activated the enchantments. Increasing the density of the stone was not an active enchantment, so it will hopefully let the walls survive until someone can activate the “Protection” runes.

Time for a quick test… or he could stop and make use of his available tools.

“Akil, what will happen if I compact a stone like I just did for earth? It won’t explode due to over compression will it?”

“Before I answer your question, how would you test this if you did not have my protection?”

He thought for a moment, it was not a difficult scenario. “Heavy stone bunker with activated “Protection” on the thick wall. A small stone hole for me to reach a branch through with the enchantment on the branch.”

“That will do. Your “concentrate” rune concentrates the essence of a material. Not just its physical form. If you tried to compress the dirt's physical form it would not have compressed as far nor been as strong. A similar effect will occur with stone. It will not explode, but more compression will take exponentially more magic and beyond a certain point you will need a fundamental transformation of the material to occur. That will not occur with your current rune.”

So, more easter eggs will become available if he looks deeply into this effect, but for now it will make a great passive durability enchantment.

He needed to let the card charge. There would be plenty of use for it later. For now it was time to move on. He felt a need, a need for lasers!

Concentrate is a lot more useful than he had previously thought. Since it concentrates essence, what will concentrated light essence be like? A giant magnifying glass perhaps taken to magic extremes? Sounds like a good way to fry myself.

He needed a way to store the concentrated light before he could use it as a weapon. Store it up then direct it in a specific direction. That would take a three rune enchantment. “Concentrate store-release direction”. No that won’t work. It doesn't know what it's concentrating. The dirt was all that was there. Dirt and some roots. But light exists with air and other things. I could store concentrated air…. But that's something for a different time.

For now I want lasers. So split the enchantment up into multiple pieces. “Concentrate direction” in a wide area to a very small area. Have prepared enchantments surrounding it with “Absorb-store Light-essence” on them. Without direction to specify how to absorb the light essence it might get messy, but absorb should at least work on the outside of the physical object.. He hoped. When he worked up to three rune enchantments he would have to add a direction rune to the storage. But for now needs must.

He might need a different material for the card though. Light stored in stone didn't make a lot of sense to him. But light stored in glass or gems did, trapped bouncing around inside the facets. Gems might be difficult. But glass should be possible. A thick slab of glass would be decently strong as well. Melted sand from the bed of a river would work. He couldn't remember how hot it needed to be, but essence light concentrated directly on top of the sand would be easy enough to try.

Follow it up with a wooden enchantment with a slot for the light storage card. Something like “connect-release direction-1,-circle .1”. Light traveled on, it should just need a start point.

That would do the trick, he would need three new runes. essence-of-Light, Absorb-store, and connect-release. He could do this.

Why could he remember lasers though? Wasn’t it science? What did he remember of lasers? A star destroyer in space coasting after princess Lea’s corellian corvette, firing coherent red beams of light with a pew pew sound. Not science. Science fiction. To paraphrase Clark, “Sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic.” he could remember starships and flux capacitors but not what fueled a waffle iron… The world could be a ridiculous place.

And now I really want a waffle….