This is war! I will rain fire down upon the corporations! My breathing had strained as I tried to regain control and think logically. My thoughts jumbled together; I wasn’t sure what spell to use.

Okay, okay, calm down. I need to find my friends. Just get them safe, and then I can deal with the others. I tried locating the amulets, but I couldn’t locate them. They must’ve blocked it somehow. No, no, NO! That shouldn’t have been possible, and the only other location spell I knew offhand was the one I used to create the amulets. I should have used a higher-quality spell. People I cared for were in danger because of me, and I was careless in handling this.

It was unsafe to do a teleportation spell before having been to the area. Enough time was required to use your magic to scope it out, so I needed to get into the air. A ball of pure black appeared above my hand and grew upward, tearing through the roof like it hadn’t ever existed. The roof was non-magical material, so I only had to use a mere ‘Lesser Void’ spell to achieve my goal. Wind rushed beneath me as I flew into the sky. Manipulating basic elements didn’t require a spell for any advanced mage.

Once I could see a safe zone within the corporation’s dome, I quickly cast ‘Lesser Teleportation,’ which put me inside their territory. There were many buildings with different heights but all the same rectangular shapes. Loads of people were looking at me from all around. When I took a deep breath, I coughed a little. The air here was gaseous and smelled like smoke mixed with other chemical substances.

Now, where could they be? My head darted around, looking for where the Valwrecks could be. This method was highly fruitless due to all the architecture looking so similar. There were no identifying features inside the attackers’ memories. I realized I should’ve stayed in his head longer. It was too late, so I had to devise a unique plan. Right now, I had to buy time so Donna in the corporations could do nothing to those I cared for. Using a grand time spell was extremely dangerous and far too slow to cast. I mentally flipped through my active spell book, going from chaos magic to firestorms to polar ice snaps. All of those would have bystanders getting harmed, and possibly the Valwrecks would also be harmed.

‘Mass Frighten’ came up, and I stopped on that page. It was easy enough to cast, and since I doubted anyone here had been affected by too many mental attacks, they shouldn’t have too many resistances to it. The spell was from my “Necro Goddess” days. I was sure that cult would love to see it, but thankfully, they weren’t around. The spell may cause certain PR ramifications, but I had no time for those considerations. I hoped Kobric could handle it.

As I cast the spell and channeled my mana through, I gave it extra pressure so that people would freeze in place as long as I could keep providing the mana required. That was no issue since I had uncorked the library’s mysterious mana that felt so right. Once finished, I looked around and everyone was standing still, frozen in place. Some were crunched, others had their arms stuck to their side, and some had their hands in the air. One thing they had in common was the look in their eyes. It was as if they saw a deep-seated terror, tears streaming down their faces. I would need to find out what they saw later, but luckily, this spell could not affect the Valwrecks as long as they had amulets on.

Then it hit me. Why had I assumed that they had their amulets on? My stomach twisted up as I realized I may have terrified the children. I was definitely going to snub out some memories. I tried to locate the spell again, but this time I had targeted the Valwrecks directly. They instantly lit up. I cast ‘Greater Teleportation,’ giving it the time required to make the travel safe. A couple of minutes later, I was in a large room filled with defenseless humans. Their bodies were contorted into unique positions as they tried to process the horror going through their mind. When I looked around, I found Valwrecks, who were also in a frightened state. I immediately took them out of the target range, and they fell to the ground bawling their eyes out. Oh, no, what have I done?

I knew it was wrong to manipulate memory without consent, but I couldn’t stand seeing them like that. The state the fright spell left them in made it unlikely that they could give me any answer for a few hours, and the children would be left traumatized. I quickly dove into their minds and snipped out everything they had seen. It was odd because they all had the same vision of a colossal female aberrant horror with dark purple scales and tentacle-like wings protruding from her back. I knew I would need to research this horror later, but for now, I had to check how the Valwrecks were doing.

While they came to, I checked their vitals and saw that they needed no healing. No one had laid a hand on them, which was a very wise decision. I realized then that this was an attack on me and they may also attack my people. “Fiennas book was just destroyed. While they were attacking me, please tell her I’m so so so sorry. They also tried to kidnap the Valwrecks, but I have already saved them. Please take precautions to keep everyone safe while I sort this out. Activate the emergency signal if anything at all happens.” I said to Firth with a lurch in my heart at the lost book.

It took a few minutes, but they slowly got up and stretched. When they looked around the room, they tilted their heads. “Why are they all like this? Weren’t we just—”

“They tried to kidnap you, and at the moment, they are frozen in terror. The same happened to you because you weren’t wearing your amulets. are you okay?” I asked Highthorn. It was always a weird thing to mess with the mind. If you go too deep, there are unintended consequences. There was that time I made some monsters in the dungeon think they were there to protect humans from monsters. Then when I came back, only one remained. When checking its mind, it figured that since monsters attacked humans, then removing all monsters was the best way to protect humans.

“I believe we are fine. They threatened our neighbors with weapons if we didn’t come with them and take off our amulets. We agreed you would save us and didn’t want to risk our friends. They then put them into special boxes inscribed with all manner of runes on them and took us here.” he said, looking at his family for confirmation.

“I knew big sis would magic them!” Tara exclaimed, pointing at the people in the room.

It was heartwarming that they knew I would come, but it was way to risky. The children shouldn’t look at this room for too long, and I wanted them all out of here while I took care of business. “I need to clean things up here. Could you please let Firth know what’s going on? I really need them to come up with a plan on how to respond to this. It is essentially an act of war.”

“It is an attack, and we shall come up with possible responses. I was wondering though, is this spell just in this room building or the entire kingdom?” Liz said, looking concerned.

“Just the Corporation dome since they’re the only ones in on it,” I said, feeling like I was about to be in trouble.

“Well, once you locate those who ordered the attack, you should let everyone else go, since they had no choice in the matter.”

Oh oops. I should have done that sooner. That was the next thing to do as soon as I got the Valwrecks out of here. I opened a doorway to the library for them to go through. Liz and the kids went in right away. Highthorn looked at me with his eyebrows furrowed and his lips tucked sideways.

“Do you need me?”

“No, please go take care of your family.”

When he turned around and went in, I saw the kids chasing after one of the bearbrarians. It brought a much-needed smile to my face. I shut the doorway and looked around the room before sighing. The tension released from the back of my neck which made me roll my head.

I used a locate spell on Donna, and those I saw in the attacker’s memories. They faintly glowed in my vision, which meant they were only about one room over. When I entered the room, they were all dressed well, sitting at a table with all sorts of food. It looked like they were having a party, but their faces didn’t match.

I barricaded the door with a stone wall before I released everyone outside of this room from the frighten spell. Hopefully, the bystanders would recover quickly. It would take some time if they were anything like the Valwrecks were like when they were released.

I considered corking the library’s mana backup. Still, I felt I had better control, and the mana felt comforting and right, like it was mine. It was like the loving grasp of others was flowing through me. It was a strange new feeling and way of thinking about the energy coming to me. There was hopefully something I could use in the library to identify what it was. That was the first thing to do after I dealt with this attack.

When I undid Donna’s hallucination, she curled up into a ball, screaming and crying. She looked up at me and attempted to mumble something, but could not speak. Her head went right back into her knees, which were tucked into her chest.

Seeing her like this was satisfying, but I wanted answers, and it would take far too long for her to recover naturally. I dove into my memobrary, searching through the healer’s hall and then the mental afflictions subsection. The book I landed on was “Mending Mind Mayhem By: Shiru Dejens”; I found an easy spell for temporary mental clarity. I won’t be doing a cure until they pay war reparations for destroying my book and attacking my friends.

When I cast the clarity spell, Donna uncurled herself slowly. She peered around the room, seeing the still-afflicted corporation members. Her eyes then fell on me. Her usual icy demeanor had been replaced with terror. “I didn’t do anything, I swear, I — I had nothing to do with it. They forced me and I,” she whimpered frantically with pleading eyes.

Even in fear, she is still a manipulator... or maybe she’s just too scared that I will retaliate again. The latter seemed likely. I realized I was just too tired for this. My ability to be social right now had withered away. I needed to recharge soon. “If you’re going to lie to me, then I will remove the temporary clarity spell I have on you now. Returning to the state you were befo—”

“PLEASE NO! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE —”

There was pressure building up in my head. It felt wrong to torture her, but I couldn’t put up with this. I quickly cast a sleep spell. Causing her head to fall and hit the table with a loud THUD! That’s going to leave a deserved bruise. The matter of where the amulets were still needed to be solved before I could move forward.

To my right was an older woman dressed in fine silk material. She Hopefully knew where the amulets were. I used the clarity spell, and she took several deep breaths, holding onto the desk for dear life.

“I am far too tired for this. Tell me where the amulets you stole are, or I will show you something even more terrifying.” I said in a deep tone, staring into her eyes.

Her eyes widened and shook. She pointed her finger to a side of the room where there was a box with inscriptions. I guess I should’ve just looked. At this point in time, I was just worn out. So much going on had dragged me down. I cast a sleep spell on everyone inside the room before I stopped channeling the frighten spell. It gave me time to think about what to do next.

I decided to take everyone in this room as prisoners of war. It was only fair that they had tried to kidnap people I cared about. They even destroyed a book!

“Send a letter to the king that I have his daughter and some corporation executives. Let him know that a quote ‘deeper alliance’ is off and that a high price needs to be paid. Changes must be made. They have one week to figure out what to give me and how to show good faith. I also want the Valwrecks and their neighbors compensated. If the so much as set a foot in our direction, I will lob a grand magic level fireball in their direction.” I sent the mental message to Firth.

The villains lay before asleep, unaware of what was going on. I used a ‘Lesser Levitation’ spell on them, making them rise up out of their chairs. A doorway to the library popped open, and they trailed behind me as I went in. I placed them in chains in the medical room so that the preserve life spell would keep them alive while their fates were decided.

It was time for me to read more modern books, so I locked myself in Astraville in my to read the king’s former collection.