“Oh, not too long.” Madeline grinned at him manically, no longer trying to hide her mirth. “With your bonus experience from the modifier and your class it shouldn’t take too long. No more than about.... a hundred and twenty thousand mana or so.”

Magnus brain stuttered to a stop for a long moment in time. “Wha… wha… WHAT!?!”

Prelude 7: Dust and Nowhere

Magnus started shouting this time, “What do you mean a hundred and twenty thousand mana is not very long!” He began to froth at the mouth and would have continued, but ‘The Look’ that Madeline gave him froze the frantic rabbit. So he continued in a calmer manner, “I only have 100 mana and it takes ten seconds to recover a single point of mana with Mana Recovery. Just sitting and resting for ten minutes would be faster. So just recovering 120,000 mana would take a minimum of…” Magnus paused as he tried to do a quick and dirty calculation in his head.

But Madeline cut him short, “Two hundred hours, yes, I know. But it’s still much faster than without your class increase. Instead of one experience for every hundred mana or so, it will only take seventy mana per experience. Much better than the 180,000 mana it would take someone without your advantages. No more complaints,” she said, a stern look on her face.

Magnus slowly nodded his head as he mulled over what Madeline had said. Sure, 120k mana was a lot but it was only two thirds of what it could have been. The only major set back was how little mana he had in comparison. “Is there a way to increase how much mana I have in my pool?” He started when he looked up, finding that Madeline had picked up the table and the stones, walked to the door and put them away. All without him noticing.

Madeline did something to the back door and a thump could be heard from inside. Turning to Magnus, she answered his question as though talking to a little child. “Yes. Just more of what you’re doing in the library will increase your mana pool. You can also level up and enjoy a small increase. Or you can continuously use mana skills and eventually achieve a few extra Intellect points that will increase your pool. There are a few items you could buy that would increase it temporarily, but none that you could afford right now.”

Shuffling across the ground, she kept talking as she approached the side door. “It’s a bit late to get a room at the inn so you can stay here tonight. Although as freeman you might not even need to sleep. I suggest you keep practicing your magic at every chance you get. For your book problem… try looking in the magic section first. If you come by around noon tomorrow I might have some lunch to share.” With one hand holding the door open, she turned her head toward Magnus. “Night,” she said gently, and left.

Confused by her sudden exit, Magnus checked his status screen and saw just how late it had grown. His research had prepared him for what he needed to do next, he just wasn’t as prepared as he thought.

“Fade to the World,” Magnus called out. A few seconds later, Magnus fell to his knees and planted face first into the ground.

Or rather, his avatar did. There were two ways to logout of Grand Planes. The first was the mandatory emergency log out that could be activated by moving the eyes focus to the bottom left corner of the eye for a few seconds. This had the penalty of not removing the body from play. The second is the skill he had just used that would cause the body to disappear over an hour long period. If damaged, this time it would restart. Magnus clearly hadn’t understood what would happen if he didn’t brace his body first.

-|- -|- -|-

Mattimeo stepped out a door in his homespace. And quickly felt his newest problem. Racing to the front of his virtual home, he crashed through the outer door and into darkness. The lid of his capsule popped open, but he he couldn’t free himself yet. As the microdust dripped away, he had to wait until it cleared most of his body or the capsule wouldn’t work correctly upon his return. Taking no more than ten seconds to pull away, an eternity passed for Mattimeo.

At last released, he sprinted out of his room as his belly jiggling and gooseflesh covered exposed skin. Slamming the bathroom door shut, he found relief. Mattimeo had just discovered what everyone found on their first log out. While in game, the capsule disconnects you from feeling the normal condition of your body. But that doesn’t mean the body's normal processes stop. And the first feeling that everyone gets on their first return is… dramatic.

Relaxed now, Mattimeo returned to his room for clothes before going in search of food. Although just short of two days had passed in game, little more than five hours had passed in reality and supper time had arrived.

As he walked into the kitchen, he saw his father relaxing in his chair with a book. “Up kind of late aren’t you dad?” Mattimeo asks this before the old old clock began to chime the six o’clock hour. He put some soup onto the burner and pulled out the peanut butter and a slice of bread.

Matthias, after pushing up his glasses, waved the blank sheet of paper at his son. “Yeah, I just got immersed in your game manual. I never actually looked into the game in depth before.” A self deprecating grin plastered itself on his face. He did work for the company that made the game. Stretching as he stood, Matthias let out a large yawn. “But you’re right, it’s time I got to bed. Have fun with your game.” Leaving his stuff lay, he walked to his room.

Waiting on his food, Mattimeo grabbed his dad’s glasses and the book he had been reading. With the glasses down over his eyes, he could see the book printed on the smart paper. He flipped to the front and found the title, ‘Grand Planes Instruction Manual.’ Huh, I never really looked into this since they never tell you anything anyway. As he flipped through the pages, he felt vindicated. The first hundred pages alone dealt with diagnosing problems with your capsule. And almost all of them said, call Horizon and a crew will come out to take care of it.

He had given up on this book when he saw how little information it held compared to the far vaster content of the wiki. But with nothing else to do while eating his supper, he flipped farther through the manual than ever before.

Most, he had found through the wiki. The basic knowledge the book contained hadn’t been in as concise a package, but he had found most of it. Unfortunately, he skipped past the short section on accessing the tutorial this time as well. He did find a general map of the human lands that Horizon had made for the beginning players. The map hadn’t been updated since the start so all the new places weren’t shown and it held no interactivity for Mattimeo.

I must be far to the west.

Finding one section he could use immediately, he shoveled down the last of his supper in his mouth and dropped his dished in the sink. As he returned to his room, he covered an escaping yawn. His body was not tired, but Mattimeo had accumulated a full days mental fatigue and he felt it.

He quickly checked the filter on his capsule, not really expecting much to be in it but trying to get into the habit. Stripping once more, he got back into the capsule’s chair and suffered through the slow creep of the microdust.

Again within his homespace, he walked to the end of the hallway to the Grand Planes door. Instead of going through he tapped his index finger against the etched title of the door. A window popped up before him and he gladly changed a few settings. Now, when he logged out of Grand Planes he wouldn’t stop in his homespace and would directly exit the capsule. The bonus being that the micro dust would begin slithering away more quickly.

Once more unto the brink, thought Mattimeo in good cheer as he stepped through the door.

-|- -|- -|-

Once more surround in an starry night sky, this time without a green castle or pretty girl nearby, a window appear without fanfare for Magnus.

Materialize at your last position ( 0 )

Materialize at the nearest respawn point ( 0 )

Still wanting to experiment a bit, and not having anywhere else to go, Magnus clicked for his last position. Ugg, thought Magnus as he rubbed his face, not understanding why it hurt so much. He had materialized upright and had no idea of the hour his face spent pressed down into the ground. Deliberately ignoring it, he tried to guess the time based on how long he had been in the real world. Not quite half of an hour translated to almost four hours in game. Madeline’s light had dispersed but the moonlight fell bright enough to see the approximate location of stuff on the training ground. By rough guestimation Magnus figured it to be better than halfway through the night.

He did plan on sleeping in game but diverted himself into practicing at least a little bit of his new magic. Running over what he had learned in his mind he picked out Warmth to be his first target. With the night air beginning to get colder, it would both help with advancing his skills and warding off chill.

Wanting to know how the system assist worked, he began experimenting with it. “Warmth,” Magnus called out fully expecting nothing to happen. And he was right. Just what I thought, there is no way this could be easy.

Taking his next step, he drew a sliver of mana out into the palm of his hand. “Warmth,” he called again. And again, nothing happened. More and more he kept pulling mana out, “Warmth. Warmth. Warmth.” At last, he found the lower limit of the system assist and the mana began vibrating itself before activating.

The amount of mana was not the normal 10 points of mana he could control, but not a lot less. Call it eight mana. But the effect fell much much smaller. Still pouring his mana into continuing the effect, Magnus could tell that while the warmth covered his palm it didn’t even reach the base of his fingers.

Just enough mana to get the skill to activate and there is less than a quarter the effect. Magnus had stumbled onto a significant part of the world, variability of strength. Just as tossing a stone and pitching a stone will send the stone different distances, so too will changing the amount of a resource you put into a skill.

Starting to feel light headed, he stopped the flow of his mana and sat on the bench. Placing his fists together with tiredness in his voice he started anew, “Mana Recovery.” He regretted it right away as without anything to concentrate on he felt the weight of his day fall fully upon him. Che, I’ll just do one more test and try to fall asleep.

Sitting on the bench, Magnus found himself staring into the night sky once more. Watching and waiting as starlight drifted down from above and the small moon chased the larger.

Ping.

At last. Magnus cracked his fingers in preparation. First, he pooled as much mana into his palm as he could easily contain. Then, feeling himself at his limit, he pushed more mana out. Now he could feel a portion of the mana dissolving into the night but he made sure he reached at least fifteen points of mana. “Warmth,” he called out. The skill activated, transforming the mana.

Still maintaining mana flow, Magnus considered the effects carefully. The boosted mana had increased the heat output around his hand a little bit. It covered the same amount of area, all of his hand, that it had with a standard amount of mana but was just enough warmer that he could feel the difference. Hum, I wonder if the extra mana actually made it warmer or if there is just a bit thicker air pocket being warmed over my hand.

Feeling his mana nearing bottom, he left go of his experiment to seek sleep. He now had more questions and few answers but put them all out of his mind as he sought dreamland. Even the hard bench he chose to lay down on couldn’t keep him awake.

-|- -|- -|-

A corpse laid in the coffin in front of him. The book in his hands would ward it off and so he read to the corpse. Faster and more desperately he read. But each time he looked up, the body had decayed a little more. He had to finish. Just a little farther and maybe this time…

Thump!

Magnus woke abruptly from his dream when he fell off the bench face first into the ground. While unpleasant, it certainly woke him up. Rolling the rest of his body onto the now cold ground he stared at the sky as the sun began chasing the stars away. He knew the taste of his recurring dream, all its ups and all its downs. But he pushed it from his mind.

Getting up, he could feel the hardtack digging into his back from where they rested in his satchel. Checking the contents to make sure nothing had broken in his fall, he left. Stretching as he walked, bones popping from his awkward sleeping position, he made his way out into the streets.

Magnus torn into a piece of hardtack as he walked around the different musicians that had begun setting up. A bit easier to chew—sleeping on it had softened it enough—and finishing a piece lowered his hunger by the time he reached the library doors.

As the sun crept over the horizon, the library doors unlocked, and the square began filling with sound. Call it a warm up, or scales, it fell a bit higher on the musical scale than white noise but far from anything professional. Or even amateur level. The first beginnings of elementary recorder practice. And all who could bolted through their doors before the noisemakers started in earnest.

The last of the half dozen escapees through, the doors closed behind Magnus and rendered blessed silence into the room. He wanted to start immediately in order to finish his task quickly, but shadow still reigned within the main hall and he needed to wait. Instead, he entered the food nook and used his filched cup to lower his thirst. He watched through the window for a moment as the light kissed the aspiring bards of the square.

After washing his hands, Magnus once more walked toward the stacks. Not taking the cart with him this time, he sought only the book he needed for his task. Although a bit dim, the slanted crystal of the ceiling cast enough light downward that he could see the books. I should really learn Madeline’s light spell, that would be really helpful. Magnus placed another task on his to do list for just as soon as he got rid of his modifier.

“Observe,” he spoke softly after moving a small amount of mana to his eyes. Glancing toward the nearest shelf, no longer did the books show nothing. Now the problem fell into the too much information category. Window on top of window appeared, drowning each other out and blanketing Magnus’ view. Disoriented, he took a step back--his butt hitting the closest table--and the information windows vanished.

Glancing down the row, he approached the magic section that Madeline had mentioned. With no better leads, it wouldn’t be any worse than flipping a coin elsewhere. Windows flashing into existence and dissipating just as quickly he found the right area. By pressing his back against the opposite bookshelf he could manage the number of windows that appeared. Just in time for them to all fade away. “Observe,” he muttered. Then moved mana to his eyes and muttered it once more, now with a note of irritation in his voice.

Testing his resolve, he held rigidly still as the mass of windows popped up again. Magnus found that as long as he held still they wouldn’t shift around. Oh so slowly, he turned his head left. Equally slowly, the windows the the left of the top one began came to the front of the stack. He couldn’t see it under all the windows, but as the center of his view fell on the book that one would come to the front of the cascade.

By inching his eyes and trying to read the words on the window without moving his eyes, he could ever so slowly read the titles of the books. Taking his time, Magnus could barely read the title of each book. A few books in, and the task began to feel neverending when his skill faded once again. “Observe,” he called out in frustration. And then put mana into his eyes and tried again.

This process repeated itself until he had read part way through the first row of titles only a single shelf. At that point he began to feel lightheaded--a sign of his depleting mana. Ignoring it, he clenched his jaw and spat out, “Observe.” Woozy now, he pushed through trying to finish this one row as the windows began to sway in his view.

Reading far slower now, he found himself only two books short when the skill ran out... again. Grinding his teeth he pushed to complete this row, “Observe.” Nearly blind by the resulting headache, he view his last two titles through squinted eyes. Seeing that the blurs were not the words he sought, Magnus collapsed directly onto the ground. Brow furrowed and eyes closed, he clasped his hands together, “Mana Recovery.”

The pain went away after a minute or two and Magnus opened his eyes. A sound echoed from the back of his head and a new window popped up.

Ding!

A new Primary Stat has been generated!

Concentration

Relentlessly pushing through mana induced pain, you seek.

Magic Defense increased.

Effects of low mana decreased.

Well, that should help with one problem anyway. Magnus had thought himself a good, even incredible, reader. But with the method forced onto him by circumstance, he had barely finished a single row of books in ten minutes. At this rate, the five rows on this shelf would take him an hour to just read the titles. And this excluded the amount of time it would take him to recover his mana. Glancing down the now towering row of bookcases, he despaired of ever even finding the right book.

Ping.

No choice, I’m just going to have to hurry as much as I can. Luckily or not, Magnus’ stubbornness had kicked like mule. Rather than giving up and looking for a better method, he decided to ram his head into the wall until it shattered. His head or the wall, either would work.

“Observe,” he obstinately muttered as he stood up. Being too far forward, a massive wall of windows covered his view until he backed up. Less carefully he went for speed in his reading. Rather than fully comprehending each title, he looked for keywords. Specifically, he looked for Dwarf but still picked up the gist of the title.

Magnus found that by squinting his eyes he could block out most of the distracting windows and increase the number of titles he could read each skill use. When mana depletion forced him to the ground once more, he had looked over another two rows. He felt his dismay anew at how badly misshelved the books had become. If anything they were worse than he had initially thought.

He cleared his mind of these thoughts during his recovery time to focus on how far he had gotten in his primary task. After using the observe skill thirteen times he had been forced to stop. He knew that observe cost ten mana and he only had a hundred. I must be naturally regenerating mana, just not very fast. The reason for his confusion fell to the ambiguity of his status screen. Because the mana regen stat wasn’t listed yet, Magnus thought that he wouldn’t regenerate any mana until he managed to get the stat. Luckily, he proved himself wrong.

Ping.

On and on he continued. Magnus thought it might be easier to pull a book off the shelf and look at it, but he wasted a full cycle when he couldn’t see where to put the book down. If he had continued with that method he would have gone even slower. Instead, his single-minded pursuit managed to finish the full bookcase in an hour. By immediately activating Mana Recovery after the thirteenth observe went into effect, Magnus optimized his time: 13 minutes of observe and 8 minutes of Mana Recovery.

He made a single attempt at using observe and while maintaining recovery, but juggling the mana for the two skills was beyond him. And the system assist canceled mana recovery when he tried to use it for observe. Showing a bit of forethought, he attempted this only after he nearly filled his mana pool. Otherwise the ten minute cooldown on mana recovery would have pained him immensely.

Six hours passed this way and Magnus still hadn’t found the book he wanted. He did pull two books to read later as their content interested him, but no book about short dwarves. It neared noon, and Magnus sat on the ground recovering. At this hour, the dappled light from the ceiling fell into distinct patterns on the ground around him. Even as he watched, the spots became more and more defined.

Standing up, Magnus looked up and down the row. Everywhere the light had changed from mismatched irritation to slowly spinning circles. Big circles surrounded little circles connected to adjacent circles. Outward it spread. Just from where he stood, Magnus could see the light casting hundreds of circles onto the ground. And then they began to dissolve and blur into obscurity. Solar noon had come and gone.

The rumbling of his stomach prioritized Magnus’ attention. Remembering Madeline’s offer, he left the library after dropping off the two books onto his desk. Putting in his earplugs as he left, he called out a distraction from the remaining noise as he left, “Status.”

StatusSkillsCirclesInventory

NAMEMagnusSoulMortalRaceHumanAlignment0ClassMageTitleNone

Basic StatsLevel0Experience0%Health100/100Mana100/110Stamina10/11Hunger28/100Thirst35/100Physical Offense10Physical Defense1Magical Offense10Magical Defense4

Primary StatsStrength10Vitality10Agility10Luck10Intellect11Willpower11Concentration4Courage1Provender10Quenching10Energy11

AffinitiesNone

ResistancesNone

TraitsHuman

BuffsNone

Huh, I never even noticed all the increases. Trying to remember when he earned the additional stats distracted him from the noise raining down on him until he reached the mage guild. Stepping into the blessed silence, he found himself unsurprised at the lack of customers. There hadn’t been a single person in the streets outside of those ‘playing’ instruments.

Having heard the door close, Madeline shuffled out from the back room. “Oh good, I wasn’t sure if you would remember to come for lunch.”

A beat later, Magnus responded with a grin, “Lunch always gets my attention. Especially when my only other option is hardtack.”

Eyes twinkling in humor Madeline retorted, “Ooooh, looks like someone found his cheek.” More calmly she continued, “It’s good that you’re more than a shrinking flower. They always end up irritating me more than jackarses. And they make such a racket when you start really training them.”

A cold drop of sweat ran down Magnus’ back as he considered her words. The implications for his future if Madeline truly got interested in training him left him speechless.

A snort from Madeline broke Magnus’ befuddlement. “Sit down in Gerald’s normal spot, he won’t be in for a few days while he’s hiding. I’ll bring the food out.” She returned to the kitchenette from which the scent of food drifted. Magnus hesitated before sitting down. He had a desire to go help Madeline carry the food, but a greater desire to not see what she would do if he didn’t follow direction.

Shortly after he sat, Madeline shuffled back out, dishes floating along beside her like well trained puppies. Leaning back in the chair, he tried to give the impression that he had not been on the verge of disobedience. He was unsure of his success when he heard the low chuckle coming closer. Trying for distraction, he asked, “How are you floating them?”

As the plates came to a rest in front of them, Madeline began explaining. “It’s a Novice skill that I developed a long time ago. It’s not very powerful compared but it is useful and low on mana usage. By combining an inverse earth gravity spell and a wind movement spell, I don’t have to worry about being able to carry things. Although fine control is beyond it.”

Before Magnus could contemplate the implications of this, Madeline’s next action befuddled him. After covering the air in two spots above the table with her hands, stone grew down from her fingers. A few seconds only and two brand new glasses had been formed. Just to be sure, Magnus pulled out the cup from yesterday and put it next to the new one. They were in fact identical.

A short burst of laughter from Madeline startled him, “You kept that thing. Hahaha… such a silly child.”

Pulling his ragged dignity around him, Magnus asked pompously, “And just why am I silly, madam?” This only made her laugh harder, but at least now he had created it purposely. Seeing that she wouldn’t be answering soon he began eating the bean… something. He could tell the food had beans in it but other than that, nada.

Her laughter calming, she finally gave Magnus an answer. “It’s silly because it’s worthless to carry around. The skill I made it with isn’t permanent, that would take far too much mana. I doubt that one will last more than another few hours before dissolving. If you had any liquid in it when it went.. hehehe.” Rather than continue, she just shook her head and ate her lunch.

It didn’t take long for either to finish the food. And after pouring some tea from a pot into both their cups, he waited a short while in contemplation. He didn’t want to just ask for more help finding the right book, it might trigger Madeline’s interest.

Just as the quiet began to grow uncomfortable for Magnus, Madeline broke the silence. “Go grab the book on the counter, you’ll find it interesting.” With no reason to complain, and a stomach full of gratitude, he jumped from his seat and brought it back.

Sitting the brown book down on the table in front of him, he considered it carefully. It fell onto the thinner side compared to all the books he had seen in the library. The edges of the cover had been wore glossy from frequent handling. Flipping it open, he was unsurprised to see no title but was surprised as he tried to read farther in. Nothing more than squiggles appeared, it was as legible as Japanese cursive to his English skills. He lifted an eyebrow in at Madeline, but she just ignored it.

Knowing full well what to do, he had just been avoiding it, he stated, “Observe.” Nothing appeared with the book open so he closed it. And up popped a window.

Beginner Earth Mana

A continuation of Basic Earth Mana: Why dwarfs are short.

“At least I know what to look for now. I take it this book requires a higher level of reading to understand.” At Madeline’s nod, he asked the question that had been bugging him. “Why is it that some writing requires a higher level reading skill. It doesn’t make any sense. If you can read one thing in a language you should be able to read something else. Well, maybe not always, but you should at least be able to read the letters.”

No longer in a mood to talk, Madeline’s explanation fell short on details. “It’s the difference between reading and Reading, just as there is a difference between writing and Writing. It’s the use of stamina that changes how the words are perceived. And there are other effects at levels higher than basic. You can find the specifics later if you’re really interested. Now shoo, you have a task to complete if you want to sleep on something better than the ground tonight. Come see me at lunch again tomorrow.”

Alarmed, Magnus looked at the sky. Seeing that the sun had only moved a little farther, he thought he had plenty of time. Confusion plastered itself on his face, but Madeline just waved him at the door as she floated the meal away.

Magnus called out before he exited, “See you tomorrow?” his continued bewilderment over his dismissal clear. Putting his ear plugs back in, he ran for the library to minimize his exposure. Through the plugs, he thought it might have been a little better than yesterday.

Among books once more, he checked the catalogue first to be sure. Listed between Basic Air Mana and Basic Fire Mana, Basic Earth Mana sat unassuming. Clearly not mocking him, no not at all. But Magnus had already passed both the B’s and the E’s in the stacks. Crossing his fingers he walked far down the row until he reached the M’s near at the back. Sniffling in the dust he kicked up, he found the M section. “Observe,” and thumped his head against the bookcase.

Dusty Book

“This place must hate me,” Magnus could see no other explanation to the massive appearance of all the unhelpful windows.

Magnus began wiping the dust encrusted book covers with his hands, and the windows began to change slowly away from Dusty Book to actual titles. Wait. Didn’t I just learn a skill that’s perfect for this. Muhahahaha. Moving mana to his palm, he called out his skill with joy, “Gust.” Whush. It didn’t travel far but cleared enough of the book of dust to see the title of the book.

Although much faster and cleaner than swiping with his hands, a lot of dust began floating in the air causing him to sneeze again and again. Losing mana quickly, he still managed to clear the whole case with one use of the skill. Unfortunately, he never noticed a mass of dust bouncing around behind all the windows obscuring his view. A single step fell in the wrong place, and the dust burst in all directions unheeded. Some of this dust clung to Magnus’ pants.

With the case clear, Magnus stop his mana flow and backed up two bookcases to get out of the settling dust. Nearly depleted, and suffering from the newest imposed headache, he sat down and started mana recovery. Calm, he watched the falling dust. Until a small window appeared.

+0 experience

Huh, how did I… Magnus never got to finish his thought before the sound of an eruption burst out in front of him and dirt crashed over him.

Coughing as he stood up, he watched bewilderedly as the mass of dirt in front of him shifted and spread. A shadow blocked out the light, causing Magnus to turn. The mountain of muscle loomed over him with a hand reaching out before grasping his head. Too surprised to run, the librarian lifted him one handed until he met her eyes. “Don’t. Kill. Dust. Bunnies.” she growled out before tossing him into the dust.

Struggling up and out took Magnus time. Enough time that Victoria had returned to thrust a broom metal dustpan into his hands. “Clean up or don’t come back.” She stomped away revealing a wooden barrel to toss the dust into. Victoria must have been feeling kind that day, she didn’t immediately throw him out. That or she didn’t want to clean the dirt up herself.

Not wanting to get banned from the library, or beaten by Victoria, he started immediately. Push the pan into the knee high pile of dirt and lift. Watch as half the dust floated up up and away. Pour a little dirt into the barrel. Repeat. An hour later, so much dirt had been dropped into the barrel that it had grown heavy enough that Magnus could no longer shift it. A barrel that had almost completely filled until Victoria came and replaced it with a new one. Lifting the old one to her shoulder, she just gave him an evil eye that sent shivers up his back.

His problem now was all the dust wouldn’t cooperate and go into the barrel. For every panfull he lifted, half of it ended up in the air and not the barrel. A flash of inspiration, that he quickly dampened after remembering his last idea. Moving cautiously this time, he placed mana into his hand before transferring a bit toward the pan grasped in his hand. “Static,” he hoped this worked as he continued to feed his skill magic.

Shoveling slowly into the now ankle high dust, he pulled up steadily… and the dust drifted slightly before sticking to the pan. Relieved, he tapped the pan on the barrel dropping all the dust in. Worried it would just pop back out, Magnus looked in. Pleasantly surprised, the dust had stuck to bottom and collapsed together into a much smaller pile than had first been there. He hadn’t even thought about it in his haste before, but there had been much more dirt tossed into the first barrel than should have fit. I’ll just blame magic and not worry about it for now.

Working steadily for an hour, then two, he managed to get most of the dust off the ground and into the barrel. He could only use static for under two minutes before exhausting his pool. Although the effect would last for a bit longer before losing charge. A ten minute cooldown on Mana Recovery, and unaware of his natural mana regen, meant he had a lot of magic down time that he spent sweeping the dust into a smaller pile. While it didn’t go as fast as if he could static the pan, he still made progress.

When Victoria came back, his mana had fallen again so he was sweeping. Looking around, no display of surprise was seen even though he finished in half the time she thought it would take him. Only saying “Good enough,” she took everything back with her, leaving Magnus to his own devices.

Looking up, Magnus could see the sky begin to cloud over. A mere two hours remained before sunset and the sky looked like rain would end his light sooner. Hurrying, Magnus grabbed Basic Earth Mana. He had found it while cleaning by accident, the title easily seen on the spine without dust concealing it. A small bit of luck had gone his way, four of the basic mana books were filed under the mana section.

As he walked to his table, he tried to remember his exact task with this book but mental fatigue from the day had caught up with him. Unable to see his task here, he winged it in his hurry. Reasoning that a supposedly easy task needing only one sheet of paper, the information he looked for must be related to the title given. He had been asked for info about ‘why dwarfs are short’ not about earth mana. So that’s what he looked for.

Not a large book, he flipped through the majority of it and found himself unimpressed. Most of it was about either what earth mana is and how to form it in different ways, or about how different sized grains of dirt work. Switching between how earth smells, tastes, feels, looks, sounds, reacts… the book went on and on without tell about how to use it. Almost at the very end, in a small blurb Magnus found the section on dwarfs. Trying to hurry as clouds began to block his little remaining light, he summarized.

[indent]After accumulating of high amounts of earth affinity using earth mana lowers a person’s height. Dwarves have a natural alignment with earth mana, this is why they end up shorter than humans but have the same weight.[/indent]

Magnus had finished. He didn’t know if it would be good enough, but after putting away his stuff he ran for the front door. It should be a good hour before the sunset began but the oncoming storm already blocked the light enough to make it difficult to read. Nearly leaving, he paused to put his earplugs in when he saw that the swarm of bards played on. He almost could have gone without as the gusting wind blew most of the sound away. Almost.

Running to the Scribe shop, when Magnus opened the door, the wind yanked it into the wall. Pulling the door closed again took all his strength, and cut off all sound. Having been closing up in preparation for the storm, Van lazily confronted Magnus. “No, you can’t get out of your task even if you can’t find the right books.”

“I actually want to complete my task,” said Magnus tiredly. At this point, nothing could faze his exhaustion as he pulled out his work.

Raising an eyebrow, Van took the two sheets of paper from Magnus’ grasp. “Huh, it’s sloppier than I normally accept. I should make you redo it…” Van’s statement turned Magnus pale with despair. There was no way he could pay for the materials again. “But I’ll let it slide this time.”

Magnus drooped with relief and collected his money, a large 25 coin, three 5s and two ones. Bringing him up to a to total wealth of 45 copper coins. The joy of being rich filled his heart.

“Now get out, I’m closing up before the storm gets here.” Van manhandled Magnus to the door before pushing him out. The door slammed shut as Magnus picked himself up, the thud of the bar audible. Which caused Magnus to look around, there were still people out making noise when he went in not ten minutes ago and light still shown. But now, all the bards ran for the main music hall. Stepping out into the middle of the street as the wind died down, he looked to the sky.

Turned crimson in the sunset, large boiling thunder clouds descended from the north. The wind returned with a vengeance, whipping dust and dirt into Magnus’ eyes as he placed an arm over his eyes to block it. With the first splatters of rain falling around him, he raced for the inn resting just a few doors down. In the moment it took to get there, the rain had gone from sprinkles to a pounding downpour.

With a slam, the door blocked out the fury of the storm. Taking the three steps down, Magnus entered the main hall of the inn. Lit by a hearth at both end and a few candles bracketed along the walls, the room held deep shadowy alcoves and poorly lit tables. As he stepped into the darkened room, the clerk at the entrance evaluated him. A woman in her late twenties with dark hair past her shoulder blades, she kept a professional smile on her face but didn’t think highly of Magnus. Dripping onto the dirt floor, he ask the clerk as politely as he could in his weariness, “Hello, how much for a room?”

The clerk sniffed at him, clearly looking down on his unkempt appearance and dust ridden, worn, dirty cloths. “A room cost a 50 copper a night. If you just want a spot in the common room, it’s 15 coppers.”

Taking no offence at her tone, Magnus pulled out his 25 copper coin and left a finger on it. “How much to get a bit of food.” His own voice flat, no longer trying to be nice but the smells coming from the kitchen behind her enticing his stomach.

“A bowl of gruel is 5 coppers and if you don’t return the bowl it’s a 15 copper charge.” Clear in her implication that she thought he would steal the bowl if he could.

“I’ll take one then,” he said as he let go of the coin. With another sniff, she took his money and pressed a small button causing a bell to ring behind her. When an sweaty old bald man in an apron stepped out from the kitchen, “Gruel,” is all she said. Grunting, the man left for a moment before returning to plop it down onto the counter. Sliding a 5 copper next to it, she told him, “Just take an alcove that’s unoccupied.”

His eyes adjusted to the dark, he looked around the room. There were six alcoves, four next to the stairs leading upstairs on the south and two on the north side. Between to the northern alcove and the exit was a small unoccupied stage. Two long wooden tables sat in the middle at which a pair of men played cards near the middle. The alcoves were three foot deep and six feet wide and had cloth hooked to the side that if released would separate a person from the rest of the room. The one closest to the upper level stairs had a person sitting in it and he concentrated on mending a worn travel cloak.

Moving to the alcove in the south-west corner, Magnus dropped into a padded bench and found a fold out table to pull from the wall. The gruel sloshing around in his bowl, he realized he didn’t have any utensils to eat it with. Pulling a piece of hardtack from his satchel, he used it to scoop the steaming mush. This had the added benefit of softening the hardtack into a more palpable biscuit. Finished, he needed something to do. He had at least a few hours to kill before he should try to sleep.

Faced with downtime, Magnus could have joined the two playing cards but chose to grind his skills. The gruel had not lowered his thirst, so he started with Drip. By placing his mana over the bowl, the liquid he formed fell directly into the bowl. When he depleted his mana, he began mana recovery. Minutes later and his mana pool refilled, Magnus used Cool on the little bit of water in the bowl. When finished, he drank it before waiting for his mana to recover naturally and he could start over. He found that by resting, his natural mana recovery almost matched that of his skill, making him wonder why he used the skill at all.

A few iterations of his cycle and no longer thirsty, he played with the bowl and water. Switching between Cool, Warmth, Static, Heft, and Pointer he started to get a better handle on manipulating his mana. Though he hadn’t done anything dramatic, he still improved his control remarkably.

While he had been playing, two more guests had entered the inn, both men leather faced from working long hours outside. They were treated to the same professional courtesy from the clerk as they took the alcoves against the north wall and dropped the drapes immediately. But when it began to get late, the crashing of metal against the door could be heard even where Magnus sat practicing. Looking up, he saw three people enter the inn. Rain dripping from heavy brown cloaks, they held the fabric away from their bodies, and flickering firelight revealed the people beneath.

The first, a handsome man the same age as Magnus came in wearing a metal chest plate. The water dripped from a sword buckled to his waist onto the metal of his boots plinking in a steady rhythm. He prowled directly to the counter, armor clanking, before crashing to a stop. His back ramrod straight, he would not bow to exhaustion until he was finished and not a moment sooner. He immediately confronted the clerk about a room.

The second, a rugged man in dark leather and a quiver strapped to his back, was a younger than the first and bore a familial resemblance. Only a step behind, he stood directly behind the first, guarding his back, and scanning the room for threats in a brief glance as he fiddled with the pommel of a knife. When his gaze met Magnus, he promptly dismissed him as undangerous. Satisfied that there would be no problem, he relaxed while waiting for the first to conclude his negotiations.

The woman followed behind them and didn’t flip up her hood but locks of light brown hair fell out. Just a glimpse showed her enchanting figure draped in a green gown. Waiting as the first man talked softly to the clerk, she drooped with exhaustion and leaned forward against a thick wooden staff. Magnus didn’t know it, but these three would be very important to him later, much later.

The clerk clearly treated this party much better than any other guest even as muted as they were where Magnus sat. After an armored gauntlet tossed a coin onto the counter, the three walked up the creaking stairs. The clerk gestured over the cook who had been playing cards and spoke quickly to him. A short time later, they both took trays of food up to the new guests, ceramic bowls glinting mockingly. Hah, to have money is always better than to not. Not wanting to see more, Magnus dropped the curtain and put up the table. After curling up on the skinny bench, he found a thin sheet and pillow to lay his head on. “It can’t get worse, tomorrow will be better,” muttered Magnus in naive hope. Resolving to put forth more effort the next day, he fell asleep.

-|- -|- -|-

On the outskirts of Nowhere, a town created to exploit the long depleted salt mine centuries before, a rash of buildings had been erected. Fence surrounding the whole area at a mile out from the center and the occasional heavily armed patrol could be seen driving past. The massive building displayed only three stories on the secluded premise. Unassuming, only the guards indicated the buildings importance. It’s only identification a laser engraved logo on the front door. Horizon Remote.

The three above ground floors held common offices, tinted sapphire alumna windows allowing vision of the area around. The offices and desks, while filled with only a low murmur, held focused people. They were responsible for monitoring the progress of the players and events in Grand Planes. There was little they could do to effect the game but were able to view any changes imposed by the AIs. And they took their responsibilities seriously.

On the first subfloor, things changed drastically. No longer a cubicle farm, this floor was stark and sterile, holding only a single small desk manned by imposing bulky guards at both ends. Blunt harsh lighting illuminated the concrete corridor between the two. If someone accidentally came down the wrong stairs to reach this place, they would be quickly directed out. Branching off from the hallway were rooms holding hard men willing to do great harm to any who trespassed on their territory. At the far end, an elevator waited.

Taking the elevator down past two hundred feet of reinforced concrete, you would reach the only floor that elevator went to. Another corridor appears, this one enforcing a clean zone. Destroying any electronics you might have on you, drawing away dust, body scanned, fingerprinted, and brainscaned. By the time you reached the farthest point the scans would be able to tell what you had for breakfast three weeks ago and what adult beverage you last had to drink. Taking the final elevator down in a clean suit, you would pass another two hundred feet of reinforced concrete specially designed to shrug off anything short the direct strike of a hundred kiloton bomb. While your stop is here, the foundations of the building continue down and down, until at last landing on bedrock. This building would go nowhere under any circumstances.

This final floor held the most important resource of Horizon, the AIs and all the processing power needed from Grand Planes. A vast room filled with molycirc, the miracle material making AIs possible. A combination of processor and solid-state hard drive, a single square foot plate of poor quality molycirc could replace the computing power need to process a Exabyte of information a second.

Molycirc held an interesting, and frustrating, property. A single production mistake anywhere in the whole plate would cause it to fail. Each layer, the thickness of a single molecule, had to be made separate from every other layer. Melded together with microbots, the molycirc was connected one layer at a time. The better fit each layer, the better the quality. A standard quarter inch thick square foot plate took a month to complete if it was rushed and an excessive number of microbots were used. And if a single mistake occurred during connection it would go unnoticed until the first activation. At activation, a charge is sent through the plate, a final melding of all the individually layers, drawing them together. A slightly misaligned layer, a single microbot stuck and left behind, and power would build in that spot. And the fragile molycirc would burst into flames and melt into a scrap.

Luckily, much of the process was automated. You simply supply the pre-programmed microdust with the needed layers and waited. Still expensive, you had to make these larger plates in a clean room or a single fleck of dust would cause problems, a single square foot plate could cost as much as a hundred thousand dollars. And in this room, a single six foot tall rack held ten molycirc plates. A single rack stood six feet tall, two feet wide, and a foot and a half deep. And it abbuted the rack next to it. And it to the next. On and on in a row, broken only by support beams until it neared the end of the room 1800 feet away. Not a single row, but 450 rows. Almost four million of these plates resided on these shelves, and they represented well over 400 billion dollars worth of investment. And these plates were just the test plates used to maintain the world of Grand Planes. They were not close to being enough for the brains of the AIs. Instead, these were held at the far end.

There stood a massive black cube of seamless molycirc eight foot in each direction. It glittered in the light with a smoothness created by the perfectly formed edge, not a single molecule extended out past the edge. The corners were so sharp that if it wasn’t encased in a vacuum sealed container accidentally brushing an edge would slice through bone as easily as a hot knife through butter. Encased in transparent sapphire, the block stood visible testament to the ability of Horizon. Never before had this large of a single piece of molycirc been successfully made. Easily worth a hundred billion alone, a similar case sat to either side.

But this one had a small etching on the corner, Fortuna, for this was the brain of one of the three main AIs of Grand Planes. A small insignificant section of this mass of processing power held the essence of her being and projected her personality.

Fortuna, a primal god of creation and destruction, sat within her jade palace on the highest plane of existence in Grand Planes. Able to see anything, able to hear everything. And in vast part ignored. But occasionally, ever so occasionally for the size of what she watched, a small action, an indiscreet word, would hold her attention long enough to distract her from her normal work maintaining the balance between fate and chance. This brief temptation of interest, this moment of distraction would alter the order of everything. From highest deity to lowest bug, a shift would occur focused down upon her interest. Of particular interest were the doings of the unpredictable freemen.

The briefest of whispered sound drift within the marble halls of Fortuna’s Palace demanding attention. “At least it’s dry.” “It can’t get worse.” “Nothing exciting ever happens.” “What could go wrong.” Only a little of the processing diverted for a fraction of a moment. And oceans shifted, massive floods of mana poured out creating a new volcano, a star in a nearly uninhabited system went nova. A book fell unnoticed from a shelf, a wheel axle bent, a scale fell into the dirt, a coin fell heads instead of tails. But her focus would quickly be diverted by a new morsel. While the ripples of her power never grew much beyond the one who tempted her, the wheels of Fate began to roll. Sooner or later, events would bear down on them and a person could only hope to not be crushed.

Back to Main Page

Magnus’ journal: The world part 2

Spoiler :

Aedrath, although larger than Earth, has a much smaller axial tilt. This leaves a much smaller difference in seasonal temperatures and weather. Average highs will only differ by about 20 degrees centigrade from summer to winter. Daylight will have a similarly smaller variance between seasons. Until environmental mana comes into play. Environmental mana is normally primary elemental mana that is formed by the alteration of ambient mana into a specific element due to the natural formation of a terrain feature. ie: a volcano can create fire mana, forests nature, oceans water...

Areas that have high concentrations of an elemental form of mana will have compounding effects on the environment. ie: the high amounts of fire mana created in a volcano will in turn raise the temperature higher than would be associated with on earth. Then there are the exceptions, or areas in which formed mana has been trapped by the pressure of the overall environmental mana and creates a small zone in which the alternative environment holds sway. Case in point, a small area near the north pole has a high concentration of fire mana that made an oasis in the frozen waste. This also pushes the nearby mana denser than elsewhere expanding the overall effect in the pressure zone.

This zoning effect created by a major terrain features determines the differences between areas. Creatures and monsters that are raised in an environment with a majority of a single type of mana will evolve it a path that is dependent on that type of mana. The normal process of this mana is to build up until a point of it can overcome the walls pure ambient mana. When it finds this outlet, the now higher pressure of ambient mana will begin to squeeze this elemental mana into a stream that flows out until it encounters an object that can store it. This stream is the beginning of a leyline, and the storing point is a ley-node.

While most of the time terrain features that can form environmental mana are widely dispersed, rarely two will be near each other. If the two features are compatible and the pressure of ambient mana pushes their buildup toward each other before creating a leyline, a new new environmental mana will be formed. ie: two fire feature can create environmental light, a fire and earth can create environmental metal.

If the two are opposing manas, there will be a point at which the two environmental mana’s first connect. This point will form lots of locked mana that slowly falls. Since more locked mana will be produced, new ambient mana will be formed in this area. When this happens there will be higher pressures of pure mana, until the two zones of mana can breakout in a different spot. This will tend to be cyclic after the locked mana reduces, the ambient mana pressure will lower in this area once more allowing the two to collide.

If the two areas of mana are neither compatible nor opposing, the the area will best be described as chaotic. Since the mana is neither changing nor being consumed the mana will fight each other for dominance. As objects in the area absorb a little of one type or the other there will be sweeping changes that disrupt all kinds of skills and formations in the area. Because of this, if an area is found that has three or more terrain features, the best advice is to leave. And quickly.