Vignette - Giant Feral Hog

The giant feral hog, wild boars, giant pigs. It has many names but they all refer to the same species. Clydesdale sized pigs that have a magical talent for absorbing and releasing impacts. They are the base creature in the food chain for many different circles of predation. They accomplish this through three simple traits. They are a massive amount of meat on the hoof, that meat is relatively poorly defended and they reproduce faster than old world rabbits.

Their massive bulks are supported by an ability to eat nearly everything. From simple vegetation, to scavenged meat (occasionally pork), to the very magic field itself. Each sow will average ten piglets per birth once every two months and a half months. The piglets will be fully grown in another four months.

Perhaps the most important characteristic of this meat and prey animal is the beast wave. Because they reproduce and grow so quickly they will quickly overwhelm the available food supply. To prevent this, lemming like, most of the unneeded males and older females will go berserk and charge the largest concentration of mana in the vicinity.

-From the species tablets at Runehold

Chapter 22

Shit hit the Fan.

A great and common descriptive phrase, but not one people really think about. Fecal matter hit a rotating blade and was shot forward in a wide pattern of dispersal.

In the vernacular,a disgusting malodorous material was sprayed over everyone involved.

Timothy really wanted a shower at this point.

It started quietly enough. Just what Timothy had jokingly started calling the command staff. Pa, Ma, Regi, Jenney, Gareth, Arthur and himself. He arranged the meeting before dinner in his scrying room. It was always a good idea to set meetings up against something else. It mostly kept them from going overly long. If the schedule didn’t work he figured hunger would also keep the meeting shorter.

“Alright Timothy, you asked us all to meet here. What new craziness will you show off?” Jenney teased.

Timothy ignored the teasing but answered her question promptly, “I finally got a sensor working. Right now it just detects people, but soon it will warn us of the sneakier beasts. Might even be able to use it to find a nearmato. “ He smiled sardonically past the chuckles at his idea of priorities before continuing, “I was testing it by trying to find the hunting party and I found considerably more than I intended.” He activated the pool, already preset to the new village's location. The ink drop image swirled into view, where a horde of workers crawled about the gardens, constructed huts and generally did the day to things that made up life in the new world. Small fire pits were smoking as food was prepared for the evening. There was a pastoral peace to the scene that drew the eye. “This is about 10 miles west from here.”

A swirl of consternation and people attempting to talk over the top of one another. Juxtaposed with the peaceful images before them it was somewhat nauseating, even if he did it deliberately.

“You aren't faking this are you?” Papa Joe looked conflicted. Hope warring with caution.

Timothy smiled, “Thank you for the compliment, but I am not so talented as to be able to fake something like this.” He paused in thought and muttered very quietly, “yet.” That could be a fun trick, creating a large-scale illusion of the fortress, Runehold, he reminded himself, to bait attackers away.

As something caught his eyes Timothy frowned and quickly moved the viewpoint closer to the smoking flames. Meat and vegetables were being grilled on bars of distinctive shiny material.

“That’s Metal!” Arthur’s voice, significantly less calm than his want, rose in volume as he spoke.

Regi longingly voiced out “Think what we could do with access to metal!”

“What?” Timothy raised an eyebrow in surprise “Sure it's useful material, but it’s hardly critical. Essence wood holds an edge just fine and essence stone and dirt make better building materials. Forget the metal, look what they are rubbing on the food!”

A woman's hand was sprinkling distinctive small white crystals onto the meat.

“Salt! Seriously,” Timothy was disappointed and his voice showed it “we are not in the old world anymore Regi, there are lots of ways to get things done without metal. But we could all get sick without salt in our diet.”

Regi glanced at Arthur for support only to get a quick negative shake of the head. “Haaa, metal made civilization in the old world Timothy, I think you undervalue it. But fine, salt first.”

Jenney had wandered to the inner wall and Timothy jerked around as the magic field pulsed in her location.

That was the Big Screen!

“Dammit Jenney! This is a council not a Monarchy. You need to talk to us before you unilaterally release information!” Arthur was angry. Timothy did not think he had ever seen it before. The blood vessels on his neck and forehead stood out and as the muscles around them tensed. Still it was controlled anger, the muscles flexed as he clenched his jaw and bit down on any other angry words before they could escape him.

Jenney was surprised “But it's living people! We are not alone. This is great news and it will help our people so much.”

Mama Patty broke in “What you just did Jenney, is to take it on yourself to decide for the rest of us. It was rude and it was a flagrant abuse of your authority. “ Jenney’s chin began to rise up obstinately but Ma wasn’t having any of it, “Do you want to be involved in these meetings in the future? Because right now that's looking doubtful! Respect Jenney. You have to respect everyone sitting here enough to talk to us!” Jenney’s head dropped at that. Panic visible in her eyes, she looked around for some support. She didn’t find it.

Timothy spoke into the awkward, angry silence “I found this earlier today, Jenney. I didn’t publically release it for a reason. It wasn’t just my decision, and we don’t know anything about these people. Yes they are alive and we are not alone. But that might not be a good thing. Not all people are good people. What if they try to rob us? No one who survives in this world is harmless.”

“You just gave our settlement some hope that we are not alone. That friends and acquaintances that are not here might still be alive out there.” Da took a turn “That's a good thing… But what happens if that settlement gets eaten by the dragon tomorrow, or we go to war with it? All that hope will turn to ashes. You need to think, Jenney. To be in charge is to be responsible for your people. Your actions, even if you turn out to be right, were thoughtless.”

Jenney, now with tears in her eyes, was looking at the table in front of her. No longer attempting to protect herself. Whether the lesson had stuck was not something Timothy was willing to bet on. He had hope though.

This hope won't turn to ashes…Hopefully...

Arthur took a deep breath, the anger draining away. “The genie is out of the bottle, and we do need salt. Let’s discuss how we can safely make contact.”

Dinner was ordered for delivery, much to Timothy’s distress, and the council session continued late into the night.

Arthur, Regi,Timothy and ten members of the guard sat around the scrying room as the subdued chirping of birds heralding the rising sun. Their attention was firmly fixed on the images contained in the pool.

That image moved quickly, skimming along beneath the river's surface, occasionally breaking through to look for landmarks and to show the banks.

“Hold that please!” A young man, Kenney Thompson, though the last names seemed to be falling out of style, was carving away at the top of the table where two minature miles of currently mapped river sprawled out to the west of a small but detailed depiction of Runehold. Several different ‘pens’ were situated on the table beside him, and he switched between them to carve out a very reasonable approximation of the actual riverbed and banks.

Timothy smiled down at his wooden plaque of notes. Descriptions of predators and any underwater snags or submerged tree trunks were paired with a number. On the map there were numbered small wooden mile markers set every tenth of a mile. It was time consuming work, trying to accurately carve the riverbed rather than just outline it in two dimensions.

The topographical map had severe benefits that made it worth the extra work. It wasn’t an original idea, Timothy thought to himself, but stealing is the sincerest form of flattery and all that. The ‘map’ would act like a voodoo doll eventually. Tied to the area’s and locations around Runehold, he could carve runes into a location on the map, and as to the map, so to the real.

He hadn’t finished the linking runes yet, but he would. The idea was solid, it just needed a bit more polish. In the meantime they were all learning the route considerably faster, and with more detail, than they would have while sailing. A few shallow rocks or a sand bar could completely sink their boat after all. They didn’t have enough people to take foolish chances.

“Ok, got it, go ahead back into the water.”

A practiced miniscule movement of the inner gyroscope ring and the point of view slipped back underwater, it was a quick movement but lacked the nausea inducing jerkiness of his first attempts. Practice did indeed make perfect… eventually.

A similar small, smooth rotation of the distance dial sent the view darting down stream at a remarkably steady ~five miles an hour.

“At this rate how long before the entire route is mapped Timothy?” Regi asked.

“I could only make a guess. The river route is roughly 3 times the length of the direct distance. Figure almost ten miles on direct distance so thirty on riverways. If we kept it to the usual five miles per hour figure 6 hours. Hats without any…. “ Timothy smiled as he drew out the last word for a few seconds.

“Hold up again please!” Kenney requested as Timothy gave Regi a satisfied smile.

“With stops we can probably double that time. Might be more than that if we run into anything really interesting.” That reckless flag had half the room giving Timothy the stink eye.

“It will be several days realistically. We only have so much charge in the pool and the farther out we go the more it costs.”

A dark haired young man with a muscular build suddenly asked “Timothy, sir, I have heard you talk repeatedly about the cost in magic. It is somewhat confusing to me. Magic is what we cast. It’s also the fuel and the medium and the effect. Could you break those terms apart? Call a unit of magic mana, like in many old video games? Magic is the overarching field, units of it are mana, methods to control it are spells or runic enchants?”

Timothy stopped, a bit agog. He is not wrong… it is kinda confusing how I interpose one word for all of those… I would say it doesn’t matter, but magic requires one to be specific… Shit, I have been pretty lazy.

“Ok that's good please continue.” Kenney called out again.

Absentmindedly Timothy complied.

What would a unit of mana be? I have been just using time measurements so far. How much use a device could get on a ‘days’ charge. He was beginning to feel quite embarrassed.

“Ahumm, it’s a good idea…”

Regi saved him from more awkwardness with a quiet “Markus”

“Markus. It's a very good idea. Thank you very much for volunteering to define what one unit of mana is!” No good deed should go unpunished after all.

Regi wasn’t alone in the slightly malicious chuckle that circled the room. Markus took it like a champ.

“Seriously, it's something I have been meaning to get to and just haven't. I need to know how fast things charge from the magic field. Do all runes charge at the same rate? Does the material they are carved into matter? Is the maximum a piece of material can hold based on size or material? I have guesses but I won’t tell you. Better you go into this completely unbiased by my assumptions.”

Timothy was excited, he did have guesses, but actual measured results… it was just too low on his priorities list. “If you need anything specific made for testing let me know. I won’t promise it will be at the top of my list, but this is important. I won’t let it linger for too long.”

Markus was looking a bit pale at this point. Oh well, he will figure it out. Or he won’t and I am no worse off. Have to remember to reward him for it if he does a good job though… In fact.

Another call from Kenney brought the view out of the water and a hundred or so feet up.

“I will make sure the reward is commiserate to the results you provide. Do a good enough job and you can request some comfort runic enchants for your home.”

Several of the others in the room sat up sharply as schadenfreude turned to envy.

Another, blonde, green eyed and distractingly curvy spoke up, “Is that sort of reward something the rest of us can get? I for one could really use a hot bath.”

Another call from Kenney sent the view skipping back underwater and downstream.

“I don’t mind doing that sort of thing, it's just a matter of priorities.” he gestured at the map table “I am currently working on turning that into a tool for casting magic over long distances. If you get in a fight on the river, or out in the jungle again, that might save your life. Compared to that a bath house takes second… but it's a close second. At least the weather is warm enough that I won't have to worry too much about heating, the river water is pretty nice already.”

That got some doubtful looks all the way around. Even a low voiced mutter that Timothy could not source, “Sure, if you ignore the piranhas..”

“Good idea Tina. Seriously, we could all use a bath, what can we do to push that up the list.” Arthur spoke. Considering the avalanche of nods, he spoke for everyone.

“Hmm, alright, somebody design it, and make it large enough for a good sized group to use it at once. I don’t have time to make individual baths for now.” He shuddered at the memory of going house to house for the sinks. “One giant bathing pool, I can clean it with a specific material removal tool keyed to ignore water so we shouldn’t have to refill it… Sounds kinda nice actually. Not sure where you are going to put it… ah nevermind, it's your problem. Figure it out, run it by the council for approval, then build it. Ask for any special tools you need and I'll put the runes in when you're done.”

A happy mood settled on the room. Companionable small conversations broke out amidst the calls for halts or excited observations of new creatures.

One such observation came with a startled oath about an hour later.

“What the actual fuck is that?” A leviathan of a fish swam lazilly through the plane of view. Long and relatively skinny (for its 40 feet length) it had long ropey whiskers that floated through the water. Each whisker was at least 8 feet long, a fact made obvious by the piranha being dragged into the fish's mouth.

Tentacles not whiskers… school girls are to stay strictly away.

“It looks…” Another guardian, Timothy recognized him as one of the squad leaders...Sven, he was pretty sure. He looked carefully, nodded and continued speaking, “It looks like someone pimped out a sturgeon.”

Kenney muttered in the background, “Hell of a pimping out, I want to use that garage!” Sven let the chuckle linger for a bit before shaking his head.

“Not as much as you might think. The record sturgeon was 24ft long and around three and a half thousand pounds in the old world. Always been an odd fish. More prehistoric, frankly, than fishy. Hell of a lot of fun for anglers.”

“I hope you don’t intend to whip out your fishing pole on this one Sven.” Regi’s disbelief was palatable.

Sven looked a bit embarrassed as he quickly gave a negative. “I wish I could. That is one hell of a gorgeous fish. I could spend many an hour angling for that kind of record… ah well. It’s not to be.”

It was creepy as hell! Only way Timothy was going to fish for that would be with dynamite! Timothy shook his head, to each their own.

The pool's charge gave out after nearly another hour without anything majorly new showing up. They separated for the rest of the day to let the charge recover. Regi off to do a quick resource run, Arthur to continue training while several of the others appeared to be sketching out a bathing pool. Timothy shooed them all out of his tower before pulling out his notes on effigies and the linking of them.

It was an ambitious rune. It included several layers of improvements. He posited that a simple depiction, if very close to the original, would work, but would not be very efficient. Each additional extra constraint that he met would improve the final product.

Extras like material samples from the various locations or a rune carved into the actual land that matched the linking rune on the table.

It was a shift in thought process for Timothy. His first sets or runes were the equivalent of a cave man’s shouting. Meat good! Want More! Now he was adding some articles and pronouns. Each effigy rune was not part of the overall rune word. It was just a pin. A pin that stabbed through the map and into the actual land. The final rune words would have to connect to all those pins and enforce the link between the map and the world at large. That was a long ways off, but he could see it!

Damn you Napoleon, I AM asking for time!

The next day was much like the last. Slow steady progress up the river while the charge lasted. Then separating for their private projects. That evening the council met once again… in Timothy's scrying room. They really needed some government offices so he could conveniently forget to show up.

“Alright, sit down everyone.” Papa Joe was in rare form, a small smile graced his craggy face instead of being strictly relegated to his eyes.

It should be illegal to be so happy about this tedious bullshit….

“Patty and I have been discussing this with many of the people down below and I think we finally have enough of a governing structure lined out for us to discuss it.” His smile faded to sardonic humor “apparently someone described our informal group as “THE Council” in public earlier. It’s best to get a handle on this now before people have a chance to get bent out of shape.”

Timothy winced, as Joe continued “Don’t worry about it. It has been a council for some time, even if we hadn’t made it official. Water under the bridge.”

“The general strokes are that any trailblazers get an automatic seat on the council. That includes both present members and anyone who awakens their own magic in the future. That said any new additions will need to spend 5 years as a council understudy. They can listen, and are encouraged to participate, but cannot vote. Considering they are likely to be under fifteen when they awaken it seemed a reasonable thing to include a delay.”

We need to do this both to encourage pathfinding and to keep our pathfinders around. Anyone who develops their own magic system will, in time, be able to go start a new settlement. We can’t afford to treat them poorly.

“Following along in that vein, we need to appropriately represent guardians. They also are less bound to the hold and need to be kept involved in its governance. A group of guardians will be able to elect one member to the council. It may take some adjustment but we will start with one per fifty.”

“Finally we have the norms. Considering they all have the opportunity to become guardians we are not going to put much effort into their participation. If you want a say you have to be trustworthy and willing to contribute.“

“Moving on, your brother, James, was very useful on this next part and will need a reward. I asked him to write himself out of a job, and he did.“

“The general laws are very brief and mostly come down to not being a nuisance. No lawyers or judges. Nobody has time for that. Disagreements between people of the same group will be dealt with by the head of that group. They can appeal to the full council, and any issues between groups comes here as well. Any frivolous appeals get double the punishment.”

“On punishments. We have three levels. A warning, A public flogging and being kicked off the island.”

“You got widespread acceptance of this? I would have thought more people would have insisted on democracy.” Jenney asked skeptically. “Banishment sounds like a death sentence.”

“It’s politics. Most people aren't happy about it. They do feel they can live with it. The ability of normals to become guardians was a real breakthrough. That and the blanket offering of a council spot to any pathfinder. It gives people hope that even if they don’t have much in the way of status, their kids could one day rule.”

“That brings us to a few of the requirements that might annoy you children. All pathfinders are required to contribute to awakening children. Regi you are already doing that for the adults and children who pass fifteen years of age. Jenney, Timothy and Gareth will all have to run some classes for the rest on how to self awaken.”

He let that sink in for a bit.

Hmm.. annoying but necessary. Timothy mused, each new pathfinder would be hugely important to a settlement. They would broaden the base of available skill in case something comes along that just happens to counter a particular magic style.

“I can live with that Da,” Timothy at last said, “I have even been thinking about it for sometime now. You recall my comments about not forcibly awakening anyone before the age of fifteen? Did you include that, or some variant of it in the laws?”

“It’s one of two fundamental laws. The age will be adjusted based on experience, but the concept is enshrined. The other primary law is that a true wizard owns his magic. He or she can lend it to the council, or rent it. But magic is owned by its creator.”

He smiled at Timothy and Jenney “Between the two of you, you own Runehold. The homes belong to their inhabitants, but they aren't livable without runes or magic plants to clean the air. A similar case exists for the gardens. Of course you would have very unhappy tenants without Gareth's efforts, not to mention without Regi’s resources neither of you would have been able to make what you have.”

Jenney frowned “Why da? Why rub people's faces in the fact that they are living on sufferance?”

“It’s necessary, Jenney,” Patty answered for her husband, “humans have a regrettable habit of forgetting to whom they owe debts over time. This world is not survivable without pathfinders. They need to WANT to improve things and create new things. They also must not be offended by a populace that takes them for granted. We need you four more than you need us. We can’t afford to ignore that.”

She smiled at her daughter sadly, “You dear could probably live safely in the jungle, hiding yourself from any beast and living off what you grow. Your brothers could walk away and make a new home elsewhere or conquer the town if they didn’t want to leave. Hell, Gareth could probably turn a settlement into mind controlled servants if he really wanted too.” that got a protest out of Gareth “We MUST keep all of you, and your successors, happy with your positions.”

Joe looked down “I had to make that point, that you four could leave and still survive, to the settlement at large. It scared them to a dangerous degree, but it had to be said. Every month a small rental fee will have to be paid for the use of the runes. It's a very small amount. It’s not about the money, it's a reminder.”

“Here is the full written account of the proposed laws and structure.” Joe pointed to a stack of wooden plaques stacked beside him. “Look them over and we can discuss any proposed changes tomorrow.”

The next day dawned and Timothy was grateful for the demands the river exploration put on his time. The damn government documents had been stuck in his head all night. With something more relevant and immediate he could push it to a back shelf for a while.

“Holy Shit...that’s a whole lot of NOPE!” The pool held an image of a vast swamp. The river course held true to its snaking nature, but all the ground around and between the coils had collapsed into an enormous wetland filled with variant black mangrove trees and a dense growth of reeds.

It was also littered with a nastier breed of wildlife. Specifically, a familiar giant boar was rolling in the mud attempting to defend itself from a dense cloud of mosquitoes… Mosquitoes that had been enlarged to around 6 inches long from front to back and a couple inches of a proboscis.

It was nightmare inducing. The thick layer of mud was providing partial protection for the pitiable pig, but it didn’t protect its eyes. Several hundred mosquitoes blinded then drove the pig into a quagmire. As it slowly sunk they feasted on every available body part. Until at last abandoning their meal for other pastures.

The nightmare continued as other scavengers came out to feast. Hummingbird vultures picked at the carcass as leeches the size of old world salamanders began to liquify the corpse. Secreting a substance that sizzled and smoked on the exposed flesh before swimming in the resultant sludge. The hummingbird vultures would direct gusts of wind to blow the leeches away, but never dared to touch the slurry of liquified flesh and acid.

“Mostly I think nature is a beautiful awe inspiring thing… then you see this. It’s the prison rape scene of AHX. It’s a great movie and sure you know it could happen… but it doesn't mean you want to see it...” Timothy was rather green and spoke with the care of someone attempting to hold onto his breakfast.

He panned the view away from …THAT, and continued into the swamp. It got better, but not by much.

“Is that a hovercroc in the reeds over there?” A small adjustment and indeed it was.

Hello old friend!

When a hovercroc pretends to be a log… it's believable. All 32 feet of it.

Then suddenly it wasn’t. The reeds were empty and the waters merely rippling.

“...the fuck?” Timothy quickly adjusted the inner gyro ring slightly to bring the viewpoint higher. It wasn’t hard to find the croc. It had snapped forward to a boar passel wading through the waters to drink at the edge of the river course proper. They were immune to sudden impacts but that didn't stop the croc. It had snapped its large jaws onto the snout of a pig, a small reverse curve to the teeth allowed them great gripping power, a backwards pull and a spin drug the boar into the river, beyond the reach of its fellows. Without firm footing it widely stirred up the waters, but despite its struggles it was all over. Fat lady pigs were singing out and starting the retreat.

“...I need an adult!” Timothy muttered, still somewhat in shock. The unnaturally fast movements of the croc combined with the slow drowning death would no doubt fuel his oncoming nightmares to prodigious levels. “I really don’t want to sleep tonight..”

“Huh, so that did just happen…” Arthur said, “How do we make sure we aren't the pig in the picture?”

“That croc shot from partially submerged to a couple feet above the water, then grabbed a pig and back into the water in what, less than a second?” Regi had sweat on his upper lip and looked a bit pale.

“Best block, no be there.” Timothy attempted to channel Mr. Miagi before continuing in a normal voice “Put a deckhouse, or cabin or whatever you nautical folks call it, on the Nellie. Seal it tight and cover the boat in protection runes and motion wards. Then run, like a little bitch. Should keep out those giant mosquitoes as well.” he shuddered at the thought of the not so little blood suckers.”

“Not a bad start to a plan. But swamps are not generally safe to race through. Too many downed and rotting logs, or downed and waiting crocs for that matter.” Regi did not look happy at that thought.

Arthur spoke up “Put a shovel aimed directly in front of the boat and stick to the main river course. Check for sunken trunks from here, then pile on the speed. That place is too nasty to linger in.” General nods greeted this pronouncement.

A whole lot of nope!

“Let's continue then and see how far this nasty bit lingers.” Timothy moved his scrying view point back into the riverbed and began the same old song and dance.

It took another two hours to map out the swamp. On the river it was maybe eight or nine miles in the swamp. That did not even come close to describing the total available wetlands. They even found two other tributaries that fed into their river. Later they would have to trace back up them and see how far the swamp really went. For now they just didn’t have time.

“You could get the Nellie up to 15 miles an hour pretty safely.” Arthur suggested, “Take forty minutes to get through it.”

“You two go on and discuss it, the mana is about gone here.” Timothy released the pool back into quiescence. “If you do want me to rune up the Nellie, let me know. “ Done with the conversation he headed towards the ladder.

Fuck that swamp. Nightmares for weeks!

Timothy managed several straight hours of study before Papa Joe stuck his head through the trap door.

“Call to council Timothy, set it down and let's head up to the scrying room.”

“...Why are you always interrupting me? I am making good progress right now!” Frustration tinged Timothy’s voice.

“If we didn’t interrupt you we would never get a chance to talk, son of mine. It’s not like you take regular breaks that I can take advantage of.” Joe kept climbing through the workshop while he was talking. Below him the rest of the council was strung out on the ladder like beads on a necklace.

“Come on brother, if I can take time away from my projects, so can you.” Jenney did not sound happy to be here either.

A few more perfunctory grumbles left his lips before he found a slot and started the climb.

“Ok, what couldn’t wait for dinner?”

“The bath house actually. Some of your requirements for it have your mother a bit upset.” Papa Joe had a twinkle in his eye as he poked the bear.

“I don’t have a couch Joe, but I might buy one just for you. Timothy, did you specify the bathing pool had to be one big pool, ONLY one pool?”

A bit owlishly he replied “Yeessss?”

“Could you explain that request for me please?”

How does she make ‘please’ sound so much like an order?

“Ok, installing all the sewage and water runes for one hundred homes took far too much time. If I had to make individual baths it would take days, maybe a week. I don’t have time or patience for that, so one big bath.”

“Did you perhaps consider the issue of men and women bathing together?”

“Huh...ok, starting to make more sense now. No, I did not consider it. Now that I have though, it's a great idea!” The bear got another poke. “Just need to make sure different age groups take advantage of it at different times!”

“Timothy John Mason, do not test me right now. Would it really be that much more work to make two pools?”

“Haaaa… mama, part of leaving the old world behind is leaving outdated social mores behind as well. A shock to the system might help them remember that they are not in Kansas anymore.”

“Does that make you the man behind the curtain? You just want to oogle the pretty girls, admit it!”

“I certainly won’t turn it down. It’s important to enjoy the little things in life.” The rest of the room was having a rather suspicious coughing fit.

“Ma, let's cut this short please, I have a lot of work to do! Anyone else have an opinion or can we call a quick vote and move on?”

“No thanks Brother, I can recognize a bear trap before I step on it.” Regi said in a somewhat breathless voice.

Arthur and Jenney just shook their heads.

“Patty, probably best to get this over with.”

She looked mulish but did not openly disagree.

Still, parental guilt jujitsu was a powerful and scary thing. It was best to take precautions.

“Tell you what mama, as a compromise I will make it 3 pools. One big communal pool for soaking and socializing, people can wear swim suits if they feel like it. Two gender specific side pools for scrubbing down before the soaking pool. It’s not just me being contrary. We don’t really have that many open communal areas. There is very little space. So a communal bathing pool with a stage for music, politics or whatever else. Ask Sally to take a break from furniture and try making a couple instruments for Gareth. I can even set up a relay for a big screen behind the stage. ”

That got a grudging nod from Patty and a very enthusiastic one from Gareth.

Papa Joe jumped on the opportunity “All in favor”

“Aye” “aye” “aye” the votes came in sharp and quick.

“Ok, the ayes have it. Now on to the second issue. You have all had time to look over the government proposal. We need to decide on it before the trip downriver. Whoever goes needs to be somewhat official.”

“Whoever dad?” Regi was confused, “My hunting crew is the obvious choice.”

“No Regi, whoever gets picked to go, it will not include you. You have responsibilities. Risking your life on this endangers the entire Brotherhood without adding any benefits. You can bring the full support of your spells to the expedition from a sitting room here in the base.”

“The Brotherhood is based on loyalty Da, you don’t feel loyalty to a REMF.”

“Regi,” Arthur broke in quietly, “risking your life on the hunting and gathering trips at the beginning was absolutely necessary. A trip to a possibly hostile settlement is very different. You are a point source for critical failure. If someone takes you out, then the entire Brotherhood falls apart. On the other hand, from here, every member of the expedition is a potential spell casting platform. If we are playing chess, then you are the King. You don’t march the king forward to deal with pawns.“

Timothy snickered “Na, I think he is the queen. He does have our greatest mobility and punch after all, he just needs to work on his falsetto.”

Papa Joe bopped him on the head “You are not helping. We have time to discuss this in more detail as we get closer to launch. You need to start treasuring your own life more Regi. We all need you.”

He stood up and headed for the trapdoor exit. “I will show the new bath requirements to our builders. I imagine it won’t take more than a day or two to finish the construction. I will have so many volunteers we don’t know what to do with them all.”

They all filed out leaving Timothy to consider a new issue. Point source failures. Pathfinders were the lifeblood of a town in this harsh new world. They were also the best targets for someone else to attack. How do you find out who or what those nice easy targets are?

You scry them. Then cast spells at them from a distance.

But his defenses were almost entirely aimed at physical threats. How to stop motion, how to spread impacts out. Sure a powerful offense could be a good defense, but a good defense was definitely a good defense, no ‘could be’ involved.

So how do I defend vs spells and scrying? If someone turned a shovel on him right now he would die. No protections, do not pass go, do not collect 200$. How could he prevent spells from acting on himself?

He broke it apart piece by piece. What was a spell? It was intent applied to magic with the purpose of making some kind of change to reality. Was that change detectable? Yes, When he activated a spell, the magic field would pulse in distinctive patterns. Could he set up a spell to react to these pulses, placing a barrier in front of him?

Shock hit him, a genuine eureka stopped him cold.

He used spells to effect changes to the physical world. Every spell he had made was a one way trip from the magic field to the physical. Why? Why not skip the physical and affect the magic field directly?

Blinders, it was all about blinders leftover from the old world. If you want to fight then make a gun. Shoot something physical at an opponent. In creating his spells he just followed that thought process. No matter how much he tried to avoid it. His weapons were laser blasters and shovel lightsabers.

He needed to study the activation phenomena in more depth. Understanding how an evoked spell worked would give him the keys to stop it from working. Some way of stabilizing the magic field around himself to prevent changes that he did not initiate. He glanced to the side at the scrying pool.

Starting with scrying. If he could spy on other encampments from his own locations, someone else could return the favor. Know your enemy, but also make sure he doesn’t know you.

Another critical task to add to his already extensive list.