Vignette - The Magic Field

Magic, it’s all around us, from the deepest places of the earth to the highest skies. Even space, when viewed through various scrying tools, has omnipresent mana.

Some have asked where magic comes from.

I will tell you. I don’t know.

I can tell you a few of its apparent traits. Through observation we have found that while it’s omnipresent, it's not infinite. It is possible to pull so much mana from one location that the local field will have a drop in strength. It is not an obvious nor permanent phenomena as the surrounding field will flow into these depressed locations. Still should the consistent magic draw outweigh the influx you can have area’s of consistently low field strength --

-Fragment of a lecture from the Runefather, unauthenticated

Chapter 30

“So how does this thing work, and why bother?” Arthur was staring at a large, detailed topographical map. The two previous map tables detailing the path along the river to paradise were merged together and with a third section, only partially filled in, added to the east.

“It’s a giant voodoo doll. Not really, but that's kinda close. And it should provide a number of benefits although the main use is to decrease the mana over a distance cost.”

“So you can put a pin in the map and skewer a pig?” Arthur sounded both doubtful and hopeful.”

“Not quite, what I can do is link a spell through the table to a location. For the purpose of cost, that new location is the origin of the spell. So if we consider scrying alone. You get to pay for looking in our backyard while actually looking at paradise.”

“And that's it? You just make the map and suddenly long distance magic is mostly free?” Regi sounded doubtful as well.

“Of course not! Good magic is all about making things look exceedingly easy because no one looks behind the curtains. This is not just a map. It’s a massive amount of work and exploration with very high requirements. First requirement is the accuracy of the map. You recall how much time we spent trying to get the river exactly right? It was obnoxiously slow and more than a bit tedious. But it was also necessary. The first bit of magic going into the table will fix the map to make it as close as possible to the actual land it's linked to. The more work it has to fix the more likely my mind gets fried like bacon. You agree that's a bad thing, yes?”

Regi sighed at his grandstanding, gesturing for him to get on with it.

“Second is what I call seeding. I have been collecting, yes and Regi too, portions of material from all over the explored territories. Those samples are embedded in the map. A piece of natural granite from the bluffs under Paradise, swamp muck, dirt from the hills, drops of water from each section of each river. There is something linking each half mile square of the real world to the map.”

“Finally I need to mark this-” Timothy flipped through his box of card originals before pulling out the symbol for ‘linking’. Two nested isometric cubes, one much larger than the other. “On both the map, extremely small, and on random rocks in nature, fairly large. If you look closely at the top of my tower-” he pointed to the location in question. “-you can see the first one already carved. Glance in the scrying pool from above you’ll see the same rune.”

“Looks impressively detailed, but can you do that from here? Or will we need to drop off rocks along the river?”

“Yes.” Timothy grinned at their annoyed looks.

“The runes I am carving are quite large and will be a significant distance away. One enchantment won’t do the trick at this point on a full charge, I had to create nested enchantments to fully carve it. The full setup takes about two days to recharge. That takes too long for anything but the most hard-to-reach areas. Right now I am thinking area’s deep in the jungle.” he paused with an eyebrow raised, “Unless you want to volunteer to hike a giant rock in there?”

A smattering of “Hell No’s” and a few “Fuck you’s” was the response he expected, and received.

“But since you’ll be sailing the Nellie around anyway I want you to place a bunch of these wardstones on the side of the river. Each can have a mile marker number on it to disguise its use as well as to help with navigation. That way we don’t have to keep guessing about where she is. I put a completed wardstone on the north side of the garden to use as an example. Or this if you don’t mind the size.” He handed over a miniature of the same runestone.

“Hold off on the mile marker for now Timothy, we need to consider the issues. Giving too much information away to potential enemies is not wise. Knowing how many miles down river their home is would be pretty useful data.” Arthur requested.

Timothy made a note of that on a handy wooden plaque “Whatever works. If a code of some kind will make you happier I can’t argue with that, just decide soon please. The rest is ready for the next step. I would like you to take at least one, and preferably several on each trip for the foreseeable future.”

“How big is fairly large?” Regi wasn’t sold yet apparently.

“The map scale is a foot per Roman mile, or 5000 to 1 scale. So if I carve a rune .001 ft, and that's .012 inches or around four human hairs, then the corresponding rune needs to be 5ft tall. If you make it stand up and a foot thick we are talking around 3,500 lbs.”

“Holy shit Timothy, you don’t want much do you? The two obvious questions are: Can you carve that small and how are we going to lift that?” Regi asked with severe doubt in his voice.

“If I don’t carve that small then you would need to make an even heavier block. So to answer both questions in order. First, I plan on using the same trick as the coin molds. You know where I carve it realy big then use a stamp to reduce the size? Second, you lift pigs that are around that weight already. Still, I do have a solution for moving them if you don’t feel like using manual labor.”

“Wait, you have a solution for moving heavy objects? Then why are we still picking up rocks by hand?” Arthur complained.

“Because the norms need to feel useful of course. The same motion control that works for moving the Nellie can work to move rocks.” Timothy waved them to wait a moment while he descended to his workshop. He had to search for a moment, but only a moment to find a tiny essence wood eagle from a shelf of past projects. The control rod was charged and a filled motion card was an easy acquisition. He carefully flew it up through the hatch and around the map room above. The oohs and ahhs were very gratifying. He did not tell them that it was made to impress children. That might be going a step too far.

After playing examining his demo for a few minutes Regi brought them back on topic. “I am not sure we want to implement this Arthur. People who volunteer have been consistently joining the Brotherhood ranks.”

Arthur paused, gathering his thoughts while he stared at the small bald eagle with more reverence then a toy should have. “I saw a movie on the royal british navy once, lot’s of sailors missing fingers and toes from moving heavy objects by hand. A pig is relatively soft and flexible and we still get injuries. A rock would be much worse. Awakening or no, I don’t think we can afford to have a large number of maimed workers.”

Regi scratched his chin, but nodded in agreement. “I can’t argue with that. The gravel production will have to be enough on the manual labor side.”

“You should probably spend some time practicing with the movement wand on land. It’s a bit awkward to use.” Timothy cautioned.

“No shit sherlock, did you think I would move nearly two tons of rock around on a wooden object without practice?” Regi glared at him.

Arthur picked it up “I assure you, we test everything you give us thoroughly on land before we stick it on the boat or in the bunkers. You have a pronounced problem with leaving out details in your explanations, Timothy. We’ve learned to adapt.”

“Why are you angry that I didn’t miss it this time? I would think you would be happy that I am getting better.”

“Giving important details about how an enchantment works is useful, telling us the sky is blue is insulting, Timothy.”

Timothy waved it away as a lost cause. “Anyway, I do have an alternate option as well. If you find a nice large rock, or make one with a joiner, far enough off the beaten path to make dropping one off impractical, you can contact me to remotely activate this,” Timothy scrambled for a minute, digging through a box of enchanted objects before coming up with a foot long smoothed section of dark wood, “Is a material removal enchantment preloaded with the rune. You activate that to carve in the shape of the rune, and I will reach over the link on the back of that rod to embed intent in it. Be alot easier if I was there myself, but as long as you are not too far from another wardstone I can pull it off.”

“...Did you make that to try and avoid a trip to Paradise?” Regi responded, voice thick with contained humor.

“....Maybe…” Timothy’s voice dropped a register or two to, sounding over the top sly. He quickly became more serious, “Not really for Paradise, but for any other towns you decide to help out. Despite that it probably won’t work. I can manage one rune remotely. Making two nested three rune chains is not really in the cards. ”

“You lazy little shit, it's not like there are that many towns that we know of. It will be good for you to get out and experience them.”

Dropping the silliness Timothy's voice became stern and a bit chill, “It’s not all a joke brother mine. Here in my tower I have considerable power. Built up defenses in depth along with the ability to see an assault coming and lay down a massive ass kicking in response. When I leave its walls I leave most of that behind. It’s a gaping chink in our defenses that applies to you as well. If I get a knife in the back most of what I have built will be gone in a year. A little more, a little less but it will be gone.”

Timothy looked his brother in the eye, daring him to disagree.

“Runehold can not afford for either of us to die. So risking our lives without a massive corresponding gain is the height of irresponsibility. If I travel to each new city in your budding empire, eventually I will be targeted during those travels. It’s early, and no noticeable human threats yet, so I did it for Paradise. I even enjoyed the trip. But is it safe to keep doing it?”

Arthur walked up behind Regi and placed a hand on his shoulder, “Cost versus benefit. If we gain much from the trip and we act to mitigate the risks then we can keep doing it. I am deeply glad that you are worrying about it Timothy. It makes it much easier to keep you safe if you are actively helping your guards. It gives me hope that your brother here can learn when to put down the rifle. If you will excuse us for a minute, this old noncom needs to give a private sort of speech.”

Timothy politely walked over to the map table to give them some privacy. It was just as well that he had some time to himself. It was a good time to get started. The first linking rune carved on the roof of his model tower was ready to go. A corresponding attuned linking rune was directly beneath it on the bottom of the table, connecting the linking rune to the main runic attachment carved on a thin sheet of beaten copper.

He had planned portions of this since the tutorial, prepping some of the runes far ahead of time, but had not had time or capability to finish it. The enchantment in his head required four runes in a chain. He had not had the mental capacity to do that. Until now.

The first was a straw doll, a tasteless reference to voodoo. The concept was an expansion on the ‘all as one’ joining rune. Focusing on making connections between similar things, rather than blending similar things into one piece. As to the little, so too the large, As to the large, so too the little. These symbols would work on their own, but would be prohibitively costly. By spending the time and effort on all the prep work he massively reduced the cost and improved the finished product. A product that would transform the table before him into the spitting image of the land at large.

Or rather at small, as each section was limited to the quartermile grid around each individual wardstone. If he didn’t fix that idea in place then his mind would fry as the table attempted to map the entire world.

The second rune was ‘persistence’. In order for the map to work it needed to stay connected to the outside. Each activation cost considerable quantities of will and magic to make the delicate connections, but maintaining those connections was dirt cheap. It was Timothy’s longest lasting enchantment to date. A full day plus an hour. Because of the nature of the cheap subsistence cost this didn’t drastically increase the cost of the total enchantment. Slowly the hourglass formed beneath his trusty ‘pen-is-mightier’ until the mental ratchet clicked tighter by a few turns.

The third rune was ‘mana’. The straw figure was the physical, but every scarecrow needs a brain. The rune was ridiculous looking, a wand with a star on the end. A silly memory of children waving magic wands. But then, what other symbol was there for magic? Even some tarot cards used a man with a wand to indicate the magician. Ridiculous or no, the rune was necessary to bridge the gap between magic fields. The runestones lying about would be made here and couldn’t charge from the local field. When he made contact with those fields, this rune would let him adjust to each individual resonance.

That was necessary both to charge the runes and to charge Runehold itself. The significant number of enchants had started to have minor, but noticeable effects on the magic field around Runehold. It was lower than it should be, and that might be attracting more in the way of beast wave participants. This should let him draw mana from farther away, hiding the heavy use in Runehold propper.

The fourth and final rune was simply ‘connection’. The lines for the rune, a two pronged fork on one side with a single prong plugging into it on the other, drawn in a circle around the other rune symbols with rays passing out radially to each linking rune, and from those runes to the currently undrawn linking runes on the map itself. The nature of ‘connect’ included the ability to activate connected enchantments. So each additional linkage rune would be activated and allowed to stay activated, all at the same time. The strain was becoming noticeable as he held the enchantment stable while finishing the many fine attachment lines. He was fast approaching the yellow zone, still shy of red and the true danger of burnout, but moving quickly in that direction. With a sigh of relief and elation he allowed the rune to complete.

Timothy slumped backwards onto the floor, spread eagled in exhaustion. His head ached, but it could not put a damper on his excitement. This was a major milestone. Other enchantments were effective and useful but this, this was delicate, complex and plain brilliant! If he did say so… and he did!

He chuckled tiredly, eyes closed.

“Ahem, your brother asked me to deliver this near-ginger tea.” An unfamiliar voice spoke from Timothy’s right. He tried for a moment to place it but came up blank.

I really need to get better with names…

“Thank you, would you mind terribly placing it in my hand, if I open my eyes right now my brains might leak right out.” A bit giddy from magical overuse he was annoyed at how inane that request sounded. Still it worked, his reaching hand was grasped, then a ribbed wooden cup was carefully placed in his grasp.

Now the important question! Was the pain killing tea worth sitting up for?

Headache somewhat mitigated, Timothy headed down to the baths in his swim trunks. A small bag of coins tied about his wrist. The map construct would require time to charge up, time Timothy could use to relax and recover a bit. He would need to start mass producing ward stones, but not with his head in the state it was. Without all the extra linking lines and curlicues a four rune enchantment should take around forty five minutes to carve and at least an hour to recover. He would have to keep that in mind.

But later, a quick stop at a stall in the residential area, and his coin pouch a bit lighter, arranged for food and drink to be delivered to the baths. A simple lunch of seared vegetables, smoked pork and a very small round of flat bread. Meat was plentiful, and so were vegetables, but carb’s were still limited. The few wild grains they had found took entirely too much space to grow inside the settlement. The farms on the south bank did provide some, there for the palm sized piece of flatbread for an indecently large amount. He was jonesing for a sandwich, but it wasn't going to happen any time soon… dammit.

Timothy continued down the ramps and through the security checkpoints, taking a few moments along the way to enjoy the ever expanding wall art. Everything from geometric shapes and fractals to a sixty frames long pictorial retelling of the Lord of the Rings. Ya, he had to stop a bit longer to really take that one in. He even tossed a coin in the donations box beneath the final frame. Whoever it was they had his vote. The michelangelo of his fellow nerds. Carry on good sir!

Opening the final sealed doors his ears were pleasantly surprised by the presence of music. He walked over to the scrub pool trying to get a decent angle around the many pillars. At last he managed a clear view. It was not Garrett or anyone else he recognized, and judging by the lack of interaction with the magic field it was a norm. A talented normal playing a very melodic instrumental piece on one of Sally’s guitar look-alikes.

The pointless mental question of whether it was a guitar or a lute or something else entirely, carried him through a brisk scrub down. He came to no conclusion on the subject and he had a sudden gut wrenching sense of loss. He could no longer ask the almighty google! How could he scratch the itch to know useless trivia without him?

Instead, scrubbed clean, he mosied over to the large, steaming pool, careful to find a seat with an excellent view. His luck was good, the scenery was spectacular in many locations leaving it to him merely to choose based on comfort. An underwater seat on the outer wall was the winner. Providing an excellent vantage while being reachable for the delivery of his meal. Ubber eats spartan style...

He shook that thought away as well, life was good! He had to let go of what used to be. He relaxed, letting the steam and heat carry him away in a fugue.

“And behold, from the depths of a musty tower comes the mythical Timothy. Observe the albino skin, sallow cheeks and squinted eyes.”

“Fuck you too Jenney.” Timothy bobbed slightly in the waves given off by his larger sister’s entrance into the water. At a couple inches over six feet tall and a solid, blocky, muscular physique no one would call Jenney delicate. The wave she engendered was not delicate either.

“Harsh when I come bearing gifts. Your lunch to be exact.” Her voice grew sour, “and double that amount for mine.” She reached over and moved the wooden float tray into the water in front of them. A large array of vegetables, fresh and cooked accompanied by a small pile of shredded smoked pork and two pieces of flatbread.

“Want to trade? It’s annoying to always be looking up to you, Regi and Da.”

She snorted, “To be small and petite? I would have given anything for that back in highschool. Thankfully I grew up.”

“Up and out! But petite is going a bit far, Jenney, at least let me be wiry.”

“Sure, whatever you have to tell yourself at night brat.” The levity dropped from her voice “I was serious about your cheeks and eyes brother, you are pushing yourself pretty hard.”

“You sound like mother. I have told her multiple times what I’ll tell you, I know precisely how far I can push it. This was a difficult one, but I still kept a reasonable margin of safety.”

“I’ve heard you say that before. I didn’t buy it then and I don’t now. How can you possibly know ‘exactly how far’ you can push it? I know the signs of mental strain, and I stop as soon as I feel them. You go considerably past that.”

Timothy considered his answer carefully, he did not want to be responsible for his sister's mental burnout, “I’m assuming the warning signs are different for different people. For me, I have learned to detect gradations of mental strain and split them into what I call green, yellow and red regions. Green means no headache. Yellow means a headache, starting mild on one end to head splitting on the other. Red means a chance of going beyond a headache into actual damage.”

“How? How did you figure out these gradations?” Jenney’s eyes were starting to scrunch up with suspicion.

“It’s not a way you can copy here, sister. Akil was rather central to my figuring it out.”

“Akil? Your golem… You pushed until it saved you!” She stared at him, mouth open in incredulous shock.

“Pretty much, do it enough times and you figure out what the limits are.”

“But each fake death…” She shook her head in horror. “That’s insane! That goes beyond mere masochism Timothy! Do you have any common sense?”

“That’s a bit harsh. What does common sense have to do with it?”

“Nothing apparently! You deliberately experienced mental burnout, over and over again, just so that you would know what its approach feels like? Would you like me to poll the people in our surroundings? I am willing to wager they would vote you into a straight jacket!”

“That just shows them, and you, to be short sighted. It was safe there, if incredibly painful. Here it would be a death sentence. It was a logical step to take advantage of the available resources.”

Jenney just shook her head, baffled, but unable to do anything about it so long after the fact. She threw up her hands, “Fine! I’ll let it go. Do you need some ginger tea?”

“Appreciate the offer, but I already downed a cup, it’s working, just slowly.” He reached out and grabbed a slice of some kind of grilled squash.

Jenney looked at him closely, then stood to lean over the edge of the pool and rummage about in a vine cloth messenger bag. A dozen seconds later she came out with a small sack and brought it back into the pool.

Timothy raised his eyebrows as Jenney poured a small measure of crumbled, chunky, dried plant matter into the steaming water. Immediately a wave of fragrance billowed out, slightly biting the scent reminded him of cleaning products mixed with flower puporii. Just the first breath already pushed back the ache in his head. He examined his bodily state and realized it wasn’t just his head. The water’s color changed to light tinted green in a slowly spreading circle. As the circle engulfed Timothy his skin started tingling and his muscles loosened up, tension bleeding away in the green tide.

“Ahhhh, wow Jenney, Can I nominate you for sainthood? Massage in a sack, you are going to be very popular.”

The excited buzz of conversations around them attested to that. Several mixed groups moved closer, resplendent in flower dyed rough bikinis or nothing at all. The incongruity of old world tattoos and body art juxtaposed with rough and ready jungle cloths was dizzying. They clustered forward excitedly asking questions in bursts of chatter.

Timothy let it pass him by, luxuriating in the moment. Muscles crying out in joy in time with his eyes.

Life really was good!

The dawn light coming through the windows woke Timothy. In the old world he had never been a morning person, and his preferences had not changed in the new. Discipline on the other hand, had changed him. He stood up and stretched, asserting his will over his predilections. He would be cheerful and eager for the day ahead.

It was easier to do this morning than many others. Jenney was indeed a wizard! His muscles were loose and comfortable. Stress, long held in his shoulders and facial muscles, was no more than an unpleasant memory.

It was going to be a great day. He would make sure of it.

A quick flex of his will activated his water summoning runes. Filling a basin with crisp, clean water, slightly cool from the long night. He briskly washed up. Another minute spent grabbing a set of clothing. He hung it on a rope made of the same fibers as the clothes then ran a specific material removal wand over it keyed to remove everything but the colored fibers, leaving the clothes odorless and clean.

Dressed and ready he unlocked and opened the new door that separated the ladder from the rest of the room. Climbing up into the map room he greeted the pair of night watchmen.

“Good morning Simon, Erik, all quiet during the night I trust?”

Simon, a young adult of 18 to 20 years, dark brown hair and the muscular physique and height of a basketball player had pulled a short stick to get assigned the night shift. Erik on the other hand, equally young but without the height or defined musculature of his companion, was being punished for having sex in the public fountain… Timothy had to sit through the council meeting where his case was heard, he had spent the time trying to decide between high fiving the man and slapping him. Sure the water was filtered before use, but still.

A snippet of an old skit popped into his head. Yes they called me the chosen one, king of everything. SNL had some good ones. Pity...

The two of them had the pleasure of activating the scrying pool for a quick sweep of Runehold’s immediate surroundings every half hour. Time kept with a simple, and not terribly accurate hourglass, or rather half hour glass.

Simon answered for them both “No incidents, just slow and boring. We are looking forward to hitting the sack soon.”

“Fair enough, soon is now. I relieve you.” Timothy pulled his ‘pen-is-mightier’ from his pocket, disdaining the similar device attached to the log with a sturdy cord, and marked the wooden plaque. It was not too onerous as far as paperwork went. Just his name and that he had relieved Simon and Erik shortly after sunrise. It still annoyed him that they had to pollute the new world with that primal evil. Stepping back he gestured for them to sign out as well. Arthur could be pretty insistent about proper protocol for watches.

“Thank you!” Erik gleefully signed the log and left the room in a hurry, Simon not far behind.

It was almost time, Timothy hung a ‘do not disturb, wizardry in progress’ sign below the trap door and latched it shut. The sign was a tongue in cheek apology gift from Arthur. His interruption during the previous beast wave had been necessary, but it had still hurt like hell.

Alone and ready at last he approached the map construct with all the solemness the occasion demanded. It had charged through the previous day and night and was ready for its first test drive. He untied a cord from a bracket on the wall and lowered down a wooden frame strung with very fine cords in a half inch grid. The frame sat on brackets to either side of the table, locating the grid properly.

Then, the moment of truth, a large surge of will activated the table, enough that no guardian would be able to manage it alone. Alone was the keyword, as through Regi they could do it as a group.

Timothy watched, his breath held, as the beautifully carved model of Runehold visibly changed from an excellent carving to a top down miniature view of reality. Small partially transparent plants populated the garden and a ring of barely visible meadow grass expanded out from the hold. Finally the ring stopped, revealing a circle with a half mile diameter centered on the linking rune on top of Timothy’s tower. The northern edge had a few ghostly jungle trees and in the other directions the river flowed with nearly transparent water. It was spectacular!

The plants showed up because they were rooted in the earth, a part of it, even if a somewhat transient part. For the same reason no people or animals were visible, but he had plans for that. Timothy grabbed an essence wood box filled with very small miniatures. Each miniature had a species and linking rune engraved on it. Activating a human shaped miniature Timothy tied a thread around the figurine's belly and slowly moved it across the map. Starting away from Runehold and moving slowly towards it. Nothing happened until he was nearly at the river, then the figurine arced towards the bunkers clearly attracted against the force of gravity.

“Yes!” He jumped in the air, raising his fist to the sky in the universal stance of triumph.

It is alive! Quick Egor, get the celebratory schnapps! Then again schnapps were German, wasn’t Frankenstein transylvania? Ah well, moving on.

He had several miniatures of each species and once his linking rune network expanded he would use them to keep track of the various large groupings of beasts.

He had said it before, and would say it again.

It’s good to be the wizard!

He wished he could get a persistence rune into the miniatures, but there just had not been enough space. As it was he had ruined multiple human figurines getting the two runes on them. A pig at least had more space to write on. Maybe he could put them in glass globes, still recognizably the critter in question, but now with more room to carve on. Something to consider.

Task successful, Timothy carefully put away the human miniature and walked over to open the hatch. He was pleasantly surprised to see Arthur waiting in the bunker at the bottom of the ladder.

“Good morning Arthur!” He removed the do not disturb sign and hung it on a peg while waiting for Arthur to finish the two story climb. And waited, and waited.

Finally he climbed through the hatch, “Good morning Timothy, I thought I would see Simon and Erik?”

“I relieved them, logged it and everything” Timothy gestured to the plaque, “I needed some privacy to mess with the map. Come take a look at it.” Timothy walked back to the map, ready to show it off. A few steps later he did not hear another set of steps. Arthur was still reading the log, a minute later he nodded and walked over to the map as well.

“Well damn, this is something…” Arthur stared, entranced by the ghostly trees, water and greenery. Entrancement that was quickly turned to appreciation when Timothy demonstrated dowsing with miniatures.

“So if we get some more of your ward stones placed we can have markers that follow the local passels?”

“Sort of, the miniatures are too small right now for me to get three runes on them, I barely managed two. So someone would have to activate each one and keep it activated. I have been thinking of several options to fix that, one is to cover the miniature in a ball of glass and let it roll around. I might have enough room on a ball to add the persistence rune.”

Timothy paused, “Or maybe a thin sheet of glass on top of my grid lines.” He gestured to the string stretched frame. “Some flat disks on top of it that would slide around with the passel.” he thought about that for a minute then shook his head. “There are several options, we just have to try them out and see what works the best. For now, you can have someone track them with the pendulum trick. As soon as we push out the wardstones at least.”

“It’s impressive, a lot more so than when you described it yesterday...” Arthur’s tone along with a raised eyebrow made that an accusation.

Timothy could only shrug “I don’t like to promise something before I am certain it will work. I told you the portions of it I was sure of. Hopefully now you will be more, hmmm, motivated to get as many wardstones out as you can!”

“No need to keep pushing, Timothy, I am already buying. We will make it a priority. An interactive map for command and control? You're damn right we can move some big rocks for that!”

A good day indeed.