“Someone told me it was a machine, not a ritual,” Hugo said. That’s what Alexandru said was in the hollow core of shimmer mountain, and every time he traveled back in time, he caught a glimpse of it. It looked like a machine to him.

“It’s both. It was created by the early nox centuries ago. This was before the purple plague. They did things differently back then. Everyone had the system in those early days, and they worked together to create grand works like shimmer mountain. It’s one of the eight pillars of worship. Or at least I think so. Some history books disagree, they say the eighth is still lost. I just think that’s because of the nox’s campaign against the Acomarians,” the ritualist Farhad said.

Hugo’s head was spinning. His ritualist teacher seemed to know a lot more than anyone he had talked to before, but he almost sounded like a crazy person. “What do you mean, campaign against the Acomarians? The nox love the system and all the magic domains it grants.”

“Sure, sure. They just don’t want anyone worshiping the Acomarians. They think that a nox ritualist pacted with the Acomarians is what created the purple plague. I think they are dead wrong, I am pretty sure it was an Ares worshiper, but either way, nox ritualists never pact with the Acomarians anymore. It’s very taboo for other races to even talk about worshiping the Acomarians. In some cities it’s even illegal to have rituals dedicated to them.

The eight pillars of worship are grand works dedicated to them, so there have been several efforts to hide or obscure their place in history. The only reason I even know about them is because I spent a few years as a docent in the Great Library of Ithala.”

Hugo ran his hand through his hair. It sounded like there was so much about the wider world that he had never learned, his education and thoughts have always been focused on the wheel, but it was just an insignificant part of the wider world around him. Then he asked the most important question, “If it’s a ritual, what does it do?”

“Good question. We don’t really know. Even in ancient times, it was a secret. Whatever its purpose, it will have a large impact once it completes its start up phase. That’s what the heartbeat is, the ritual’s start up phase gathering power. I bet it will be something wonderful. I hope to still be alive when it activates. For the last ten years, the radius of the mana draining has shrunk slightly year. I believe that means it is about to activate. Sometime in the next hundred years anyway,” Farhad said.

The ritualist shook his head and said, “But enough of that, we don’t need to get distracted by esoteric relics of history. We need to focus on your rituals. The sacrifice required in all Acomarian rituals is expensive, so you always want to plan out your rituals for maximum effect ...”

Hugo was only listening with half an ear at that point. He thought of something Marshal Botha had said last time. He mentioned that Hugo didn’t know the bigger picture and more people’s lives were on the line than just the ones on the wheel. At the time he had assumed it was related to the wars the big three always had going on. But maybe the Black Marshal was sent here for more than a disruption to the food production. Maybe someone out there knew what the ritual in shimmer mountain was going to do, and sent Botha here to stop it. It could be anything, but the fact that it was created shortly before the purple plague made Hugo wonder.

He had a new goal now. He needed to talk to Marshal Botha, figure out what he knew about the ritual inside shimmer mountain. If he was just here to disrupt the food supply for the war effort, Hugo would feel fine killing the man. If he was here because of the ritual, that would change things. He needed more information.

The next morning, Hugo was gearing himself up for another boring day. Farhad wouldn’t be back until the following day, and hadn’t given Hugo anything to practice. He planned on staring at the ceiling for a while before switching to the floor. Maybe a bit of rune work afterwards.

As Crone Fern walked in that morning, Hugo walked out to grab his meals. Instead of the regular pair of guards standing in the hallway, Hugo saw someone he recognized.

“Yasmin!” Hugo said and ran over to her and gave her a hug. The door closed behind him, but he didn’t mind. Crone Fern would be back out shortly and he could walk back in. He pulled back and said, “What are you doing here?”

“I’m a royal guard! I passed training a week ago. I tried to find you and tell you all about it, but you were ‘out training’. When I saw Huntmaster Ramin and complained about not seeing you in forever, he pulled some strings and got me assigned here. I wasn’t sure until just now that you were actually in there,” Yasmin said with a smile.

Hugo finally let go of Yasmin and stepped back. He realized he was being a bit clingy. “It’s been forever. You totally need to stay with me today,” Hugo said and grabbed the basket full of his food for the day.

Yasmin seemed excited to see him, but turned to the guard at her side for permission.

“I am sorry, Lady Lina, she really must stay at her post,” the other guard standing in the hallway said.

Hugo shook his head. He wasn’t going to let his best friend spend the day right outside his door, “She won’t leave her post, she will still be protecting the orrery. Just from inside instead of outside.”

When the guard seemed to be waffling Hugo added, “Please? Would it help if I made it an order?” Hugo was fairly sure that he didn’t have the authority to order the guards around, but maybe the guard could use her request as an excuse if anyone asked why Yasmin spent the day in the orrery.

The senior guard looked back to Yasmin and shrugged.

“Yay!” Yasmin said and hugged Hugo again.

When Crone Fern came out, the two of them went into the orrery. Hugo was so excited to have a friend visit for the day. He would gladly eat small portions of the meals so his friend could be with him.

“So, you are a blessed noble guard now? Congratulations, I am so happy for you,” Hugo said.

“Thanks. I am just so thankful for the thrip hunt you took me on, without it I probably never would have gotten blessed. Now I am a royal guard and my dad is so proud of me. I owe it all to you,” Yasmin said.

“Nonsense, I just wanted company on my hunt. You did everything. The Mother blessed you because she saw something special in you. You deserve all the accolades,” Hugo said.

“Thanks anyway. You are a great friend,” Yasmin said, “Do, do you want to see what I can do now? I can’t do much because it creates bad air, but I can show you something.”

When Hugo nodded, she took out a dagger and held it on her palm. She concentrated, and a gust of wind appeared and made the dagger float in the air for a moment. Then it fell to her hands and she looked up to Hugo and smiled.

“That’s great! It must take so much control to do something like that,” Hugo said.

“It totally does. I could do big gusts from day one, but the small stuff is so hard,” Yasmin said and plopped down on the bed.

The rest of the day was spent relaxing and chatting. They caught up and let each other know how their lives were going. Hugo told her about his ritual domain, trusting that she could keep a secret. Eventually the sun set. Hugo bid her farewell because he knew the crone would be there soon for the moonlight bath of the burl.

Yasmin said, “Oh and one more thing, Nazanin has been asking about you. Do you want me to tell her you are here? She is your friend too, I guess.”

It took Hugo a moment to remember who Nazanin was, “Oh, her. No, don’t tell her I am here. I am pretty sure she is working for her mother. They are allied with the Junipers. She wants to pretend to be my friend and betray me to them.”

Yasmin took a step back, “Really? But you have been friends forever. Do you think she would really do that?”

“Yeah, pretty sure. I think we have been using each other for political maneuvering for years. It only looks like a friendship from the outside. You are my only true friend,” Hugo said honestly. She was a true friend, an honestly good person.

Yasmin didn’t say anything, she just stepped forward and gave Hugo a fierce hug. Crone Fern came then and scoffed. “It’s not the end of the world, girls. You will see each other again in a few weeks.”

Hugo frowned at her and hugged his friend for a bit longer before she went back to guard duty. He even stuck out his tongue at the old woman as she left for the day. That got the first laugh he had ever heard from the crone.

The next morning was back to ritual work with Farhad. He started by reviewing what type of circuit symbols were effective in different situations and how to link them together. He also mentioned that this ritual would need resistors and capacitors. The concepts didn’t make much sense to Hugo, but he would use them as instructed. Then the ritualist moved on to runes.

“I brought a few reference runes today. As you already know, rituals dedicated to the Acomarians need to include runes to direct the effect. The center square instructions are not enough. What I have here is the rune for strength, and the rune for agility. Not many people know this, but runes are three dimensional. Lucky for you, you don’t need to carve the whole thing correctly for it to work right. You just need to carve the top layer. It’s one of the many reasons it’s better to be a ritualist than a runist,” Farhad said and held out the ancient book with the runes displayed.

Hugo stared at the old book, impressed with the resourcefulness of the ritualist his parents had hired. He quickly copied out the whole rune, not just the top layer. He didn’t know the runic lingua used in these runes yet, but he had a slot open so he could try it out later. This was great, every new rune he learned from here on out would open up an option for a ritual and a runic creation.

Pulling out one of the wooden ritual rectangles he had prepped before, Hugo got straight to work. Farhad couldn’t help because it would drastically reduce the effectiveness of the ritual. The more Hugo did himself, the better the resulting ritual would be. He was fairly sure that fabricating his wooden ritual base would also increase the effectiveness of this ritual. When he was done a few hours later, he wrote out the request on the central square to increase his strength and agility.

Once he was ready, he cut himself on the forearm and let the blood carefully drip into the channels. He set a mana stone on the ritual for the sacrifice and pushed mana into his oblate skill. The whispers of the divine were louder this time. This ritual was more difficult than the last, and threatened his sanity even more.

The strength and agility runes set around the edges of the ritual lit up first. Then his blood started glowing gold and the center square turned red. A few moments later the entire thing stopped glowing. Hugo waited a few more seconds, but nothing else happened.

“That’s it? I thought it was working, but then,” Hugo said. He tried to take a step forward, but instead leapt across the room. He tried to catch himself, but instead tumbled into the wall, leaving a dent. He fell to the floor, groaning in pain. He tried to slowly sit up, but moved his arm too fast and spun himself in a circle.

“Ok, then, that seems like a failure,” Farhad said, “Looks like the ritual gave you a lot of new strength but not enough additional agility.”

Hugo stayed on the ground, afraid to move. His everything hurt. “Yeah, this was a failure. Can you fix me?”

“No, but you can cancel the ritual. Just feel for your connection to the ritual with oblate and think of pulling the mana away instead of pushing it towards the ritual,” Farhad said.

Easier said than done. Hugo was in pain from hitting the wall and overexerting his muscles. It made it hard to concentrate. Eventually, he felt the connection to the ritual and severed it. Tentatively, he put his arm up in the air and lowered it. Nothing happened. The ritual was over.

“Do you have a health potion?” Hugo asked. He was in so much pain from torn ligaments.

“No, sorry. I had no idea your ritual would be this effective, so I didn’t bring any along. You will just have to wait, sorry,” Farhad said.

Hugo groaned. He didn’t even want to get up because his legs hurt so much. His health points would probably have him fully healed in a few hours, but right now he was in agony.

Eventually Hugo asked, “What happened? What went wrong with my ritual?”

“What should have happened is your strength and agility should have doubled. I think your agility boost didn’t activate. I am guessing that your strength quadrupled instead. Looking at your ritual, I can see why. The circuits connecting the agility runes to the central square didn’t have enough blood in them. There was a tiny bit of wood shaving in the way and it blocked the flow,” Farhad said, “It’s why many ritualists work with metal instead of wood. I know it takes longer and The Mother doesn’t like it, but it really is effective. You will always have to use blood since you pacted with the Acomarians, but pouring into metal will reduce the chance of problems.

Farhad carried Hugo over to his bed so he was more comfortable. He tried to continue his ritual lessons, but Hugo was in too much pain to make that effective.

A little before dinner time, they tried again. This time, Hugo carved a simpler ritual, one that wouldn’t grant quite as much strength and agility. Farhad double checked everything on his ritual before Hugo placed a mana stone on the center and used oblate. It was easier to ignore the whispers this time.

After the ritual stopped glowing, Hugo carefully moved his arm. It didn’t hurt. A careful step forward wasn’t disastrous either. He slowly ramped up his movements. The strength and agility were both increased. A quick check of his Acomarian system showed the same numbers, but he felt like he had about thirty-five points in both attributes. Soon enough, he was bouncing off the walls, literally. The effect made him faster, stronger, and better able to fight and move. A half hour later, the effect wore off. That was fine though. It was exactly what he needed.

Farhad headed out the next day, promising to return next firstday with new ritual options. He was going to have to travel a bit farther to get more examples of Acomarian rituals. In the meantime, Hugo took the ritualist’s advice.

He experimented with making the entire ritual out of metal. He fabricated a smaller ritual rectangle, this time with the circuit grooves already in there. Calculating the formula needed to create something that complex gave him headaches for days. It was necessary though, nothing he had in this room was strong enough to carve titanium. It turned out great, but he decided against trying it out just yet. He only had one mana stone left, he would have to ask for more before he experimented.

Farhad didn’t return when he promised. That afternoon Hugo got a different visitor instead.

Huntmaster Ramin burst into the room. He looked around frantically before seeing Hugo sitting on his bed. He relaxed and said, “Oh thank The Mother. They didn’t get to you. When your guards were dead, I feared the worst.”