Vignette - Anonymous Wand Wizard

Why cant you shape your Laser Wand like a damn rifle, I feel like a fucking moron wielding this fucking spatula. Laser fucking spatulas to kill raptors that jump and pigs that fly! Fuck this world! And fuck you, you nerdy piece of shit!

Chapter 13

“I was up all night cause all these ideas were coming to me…” He muttered through a wry grin.

First cloth. Everybody needs it and for lots of different things. He ignored it before because weaving with runes sounded like it would be far too complicated. Old Earth think.

Why did it need to be woven? Weaving is just a way that you “join” lots of small threads together. “Ding!”

Exactly Wilson!

Join, he already could do that. All he needed was some kind of fiber that was all from the same source. Leaves from the same tree, grass from the same field maybe? He wasn’t sure what the limits would be yet.

It would take lots of testing. But testing he did not have to do...probably.

“Akil, if my mother starts going Joiner happy on every material she finds, would you allow her to write what works and what doesn't?”

“Yes, but only her opinion and observations about the resulting materials.” He paused before cheerfully adding “Congratulations for learning the obscure magics of delegation. Be warned this is a dangerous branch of magic, easily abused. It can lead one to laziness and angry subordinates.”

“...Thanks.” Sarcasm from a golem. What was the little world coming to?

Next is “protection”, sure they forgot to use it-

“Ahem, who forgot to tell them?” Akil inquired.

Spoilsport

Any way, even if they had used it the buzzards would have ruined it. You can’t keep a rune activated if you're a gibbering wreck on the floor after all. He needed something to persist for a short time after it was used. Not too long or activating it would cost enough to kill the user. But a minute would probably work for the buzzards.

He needed to make a rune for “persist”. It would not be a difficult rune, he had begun to understand (or maybe he was creating it? it was hard to tell.) some of the internal logic at this point. His predictions on how difficult a concept would be were becoming fairly reliable.

Then he would have to test combinations of size and elapsed time to find an affordable yet usable middle ground.

Onwards from that point he also had to go back to his old question on multiple protection runes on the same wall. Maybe in strips, like each person holding a single shield….. A shield wall… He would have to think about some wooden shields for later.

That could be a problem though. The current rune worked on a material, reinforcing it with the concept of “Protection” to reduce impacts and prevent damage. It didn't exist as some science fiction force field…. Although… “absorb-store” already worked. When he charged his essence light supply cards it made that area dark. If instead he absorbed motion in an area would nothing be able to move?

Too much science rots the magic mind. He had been stuck on force fields for a while and they were not working. He had to stop thinking about how to recreate someone else's solution. Instead just try to fix the problem. A motions absorbing field might do that. The critters just move too fast, and from too many available directions. Just shooting them before they got to you was a dicey proposition.

They would need some kind of defensive ability to survive the first rush of an ambush. That or detect the monster before it starts moving...No reason not to try both.

Along the same veins he had to take a step back and reconsider a very fundamental issue. His magic worked best when he could predict the kind of threats that were coming. But it’s nearly impossible to always predict problems.

Stop, that is Old Earth Think. Phrase the problem: He needed to know the kind of threats that were coming in order to prepare for them.

Then suggest solutions to the problem. Forget what was impossible or improbable in a dead world. What was possible in this living, breathing, magic world. He didn’t have a solution to hand out just yet, but this line of thought seemed much more likely to lead to success. It gave him some hope. What runes would allow one to predict what might be? He would have to think on it later. He had no idea where to start and too many other problems to pursue.

He would take it one step at a time, focusing on the immediately solvable problems. He could pursue the wild ass ideas when he had some breathing room! The achievable goals were runes for “Motion”,“Persistence” and some first round attempts at “grow.” These three were obvious, they just needed time and effort for conception to take form. The new magic tools with existing runes were even easier. They would take work, but not deep thought.

With a smile he began to pick out a shape that resonated with the runes in his thoughts.

A cough interrupted him before he could get really into it. “Candidate, ...haaaa... for delegation to work you have to actually tell the delegatee.”

Ah, right! I knew that!

The results from the joiner cloth testing were in!

Grass clippings do join together into cloth… but it's rough and breaks apart when given a stern look.

Leaves likewise work but they have little to no flexibility. They just tear instead.

Bark, the inner bark from some trees, like maple, worked pretty damn well. It wasn’t exactly toilet paper ready, unless you're John Wayne, but it works great for clean up bags.

Even the way to form it is pretty neat. Take a chunk of stone and carve the top end roundish, pile bark on top of it then Join, with a ‘Specific’ rune for the bark. Keep the joiner field on it as you pile more on top as needed, it will eventually drip down the sides of the ball. Easy bag with no fuss…. Clothes might work with a similar idea… have to try pouring joined gunk onto a mannequin.

Hide worked great as well, and with lots of little pieces splattered everywhere from the laser wands, that was a good thing. They just have to clean the flesh off it and prevent it from rotting. Cleaning flesh they could do, but he had no idea on how to ‘tan’ a hide. Something about brains...unless that was a zombie flick. It would have to be somebody else's problem. He had a working cloth method already and no for luxuries. At least not yet.

Wood cloth… nope, just nope. The way he made things the original properties of the material were kept when Joining. Paper makers had to have some sneaky tricks going on for wood to become pliable. He would have to mess with it some other time. Thin sheets of wood to write on were easy. Just use “Remove-Material” to make sawdust, pack the sawdust between heavy stones and Join.

There were many more useful things they had found to use the joiner on, those were just some of the first lines on the list.

“Thank you Mama!” He said, giving her a brief hug. “You saved me a lot of time. For now it's enough for me to know it works. If you or one of the others wants to take over this… cloth making scheme? Industry? I don’t know what to call it… Doesn’t matter, call it whatever you like. Do you want it?” She patted his hand with a smile and walked away with the report.

“...I am going to take that as a yes.” He nodded to himself and got back to his new rune.

Motion was an easy concept, but it also had some funny aspects. Normal plants move water through their stems, blood flows through the veins, thoughts might move in your head. What should his rune stop? He needed it to focus on macro-motion. Obvious moving things like charging pigs, not the weather or the flow of a river.

No, let the wind and the rain come and go as they please, he decided. Solid motion only. How about grass and branches softly waving in the wind? Absorbing all of that would put extra strain on the spell for no gain. So fast solid motion. The threshold of what ‘fast’ means was a bit tricky, but it was doable. He decided not to make it variable for now. He would have to make more runes for different kinds of motions in the future if it was needed.

All things in nature are tied together, or so they say. It feels like it sometimes. Figuring out what motion is also gave him insight into warning runes. In this case an “alarm” + “Fast-solid-motion” + “Direction”. In the given field area the alarm will trigger on any fast movement of a solid being.

It wasn’t perfect, if somebody stepped on a sleeping ja-raptor it wouldn't save them, but it was better than what he had before. Which was nothing! Later he would find a way to detect life, maybe filter out humans. Then again humans might be more dangerous than beasts…

Magic and a working intellect was truly a scary combination. Add in the usual propensity for some humans to be douchebags and it was a recipe for disaster. That would have to be a future concern, first they had to survive the beasts. Then they could worry about dick heads.

He shook his head and stood up from the kitchen table. Time for a quick walk before heading to the garden. He peaked out the door cautiously. With Akil muting the sounds for him it was all to possible to wander out in the middle of a battle. Thankfully the coast was clear.

He had a small set up of common food plants, courtesy of Akil, that he was trying not to kill. He was failing badly at it too.

Tell a plant to grow, with an emphasis on faster, and it kills itself. Not enough light, water, fertilizer or some combination of all three to support that growth. His current experiment was an attempt to force extra of those inputs into a plant to fix the issue. Light essence supplied instead of light, compost essence, fed through a “material-removal” to make it crumbly, and water essence. Without the grow rune activated any of these essences would probably kill the plant.

Burning light, super dense water and strong fertilizer… he didn't really understand why the compost essence killed plants. He wasn't even really sure how to make compost, just rotting plants, rotting meat and dirt, left to decompose till it became slightly richer dirt. Thankfully Akil took pity on him.

Mama Patty was a mean gardener. The family home had an acre of gardens behind it. Weeding was the punishment of choice for miscreant behavior. Teaching him how to garden was not practical, but providing fertilizer more suited to the plants was allowed...as long as she made it for him. That fertilizer concentrated to essence mixed into the essence water was his new hope.

As he approached the experimental garden he realized It wasn’t just Ma Patty, no less than seven of his guests were working on or in the garden. They looked like they knew what they were doing too… it was good that someone did.

He was not a farmer and he really hoped he would not have to become one. Having people to do that for him would be a godsend.

“Any luck?” he asked, examining all eight pots. Each seemed to include lush and vibrantly green plants. Some were larger and others smaller but even the smaller ones looked much better than his first experiments. Not being crinkled and brown...

“Akil is allowing just one of us at a time to speak for this, Let me introduce Margrett. ” She gestured to a grey haired woman whose face was more wrinkled and cratered than the sunbaked earth around them and it was clear that she had wrinkled with a smile on her face. Laugh lines they called them, she must have laughed like a maniac for years at a time. It made him want to try her cookies. Little old ladies like her should be masters of that important discipline.

“She is the wife of Ronald from your father's crew.” She gestured to one of two men in the group “And a dyed in the wool farm girl, born raised and living the dream. We had to ask Akil to send for her, she doesn't care much for fighting.” Smiling she stepped back, yielding the stage.

“Hello dear, and no, I am too old to live through another war, but I got some wisdom to pass on before I do the same.” She chuckled.

Chuckled! She did! Chuckled at the thought of her own demise. The mind boggled.

“My old knowledge of how wheat or corn grows is outdated, magic plants grow like nothing on Earth… at least not the old one. “ Another chuckle, those lines were definitely acquired naturally. “You asked Akil for carrots, potatoes, celery and broccoli apparently.” Her smile became regretful and stern for a moment. “You could have made better decisions sonny. Those don’t grow up there any more” A gesture to earth hanging above removed any doubts as to her intent.

“When asked Akil gave us this selection.” She pointed to each pot in turn. “For simplicity we just call them near what they look like. Neartatoes, Nearcarrots, Nearbroccoli, Nearmatoes. Once people forget what the old veggies taste like they will probably drop the near.” Another chuckle.

“This row has your magiced fertilizer and what not.” She pointed to four of the eight pots, the ones that were much larger. “These four are the same plants without magic.”

“Seems the Proctor wants us to survive down there. These plants take real work to kill. Even without magic help you could feed yourself on a quarter, maybe less, of the space it would require on earth. A quarter the space and a lot less work.” She nodded with satisfaction.

“With your magic you can quarter that again.”

A massive rock removed itself from his chest. He had worried that they would survive the beasts just to die from starvation. The relief was such that he had to sit down for a minute. The wrinkles on his forehead that had been deepening into canyons over past days of failure started to smooth themselves out. He breathed in the relief, and out the worry for several blessedly quiet seconds. “Thank you! Thank you so much! I have been worried for years about starvation. You took a load off my mind.”

She just smiled, patting him on the shoulder. Akil had apparently removed her speaking privileges. He thanked them all profusely for the help as he walked back towards his cottage. One last major item off the checklist.

Only stopping wounds was left. His self-rune meant he didn't need it. An activation of the rune would drag him back to healthy. But there were now 34 people in his care, maybe more if his brother and sister had people with them as well.

They would get hurt.

Unfortunately he had no idea where to start. He could join skin with a very fine joiner. But would that just trap the bleeding inside? If the Joining went too deep into the body it also sounded like a really bad idea. Turning people to liquid bad.

He had no clue on how to deal with that. He certainly didn’t want to start experimenting on people… He thought back on the plants and his brown thumb. Yes, it was time to do that delegating thing again.

“Akil please ask everyone who is not busy to meet next to my cottage.” This was going to take some explaining.

Ten minutes later…

Ten minutes of trying to decide how to say it. Trying and failing. He had no better way to say it. Blunt would have to do, “Thank you all for coming, I have a problem, we have a problem. “ He took a deep breath. “I don’t know enough about medical matters to safely create healing magic. Just trying to grow plants with magic I ended up killing a massive number. Then some of you fixed it for me. I am hoping to do the same with healing. This is a Joiner with a very small field.“ He held up a stick with the appropriate runes. Sized to be incredibly narrow and almost zero depth it also had the specialty rune slots added to it. Just in case skin flakes or some such worked. “I hope some of you can recognize the specialty rune by now, you might be able to join just skin with this, or just flesh, or just a bone… but you could also turn their insides to liquid that will solidify in the wrong location.” He paused to meet their eyes.

“I am hoping some of you know something about first aid or medicine, if not I have a very dirty nasty job for a volunteer. Akil, please put a live pig tied up right in back of me.” He looked around, a slightly sick expression on his face, “Please apply wounds, bites and other such things to the pig at the request of whoever is willing to do this.”

“I will have to leave it to one of you. We need this, or something like it. I have a lot to do, no sorry, that is an excuse. In all honesty I don’t want to do this job. I really, really don’t.”