[Guide, Safety]

  “How many times do I have to tell you Rose, I’m a world class magician, unquestionably I know a silence spell.”

  “If you cast it in a space enclosed by a magical field would it have a permanent effect?”

  “Yes it would, why do you ask?”

  “Maz’s lumber mill at the farm site is so loud, it’d be nice to silence it. I don’t know how the trees, gnomes and farmers can stand it. Hey Maz, would it be safe to cast a spell of silence on your lumbermill.”

  “Could you just cast it on the saw blade? That way the gnomes could communicate and they could still hear the machinery. If someone thought the machine was off because it was silent and touched the blade they’d easily lose a limb and probably their life.”

  “Then that’s the first thing we need to do, Mossbeard or I will hang a portal to clinic painting, that way if there is an accident, just pick up the injured party and touch the painting and you’ll be at the clinic.”

  “Draco, would you mind casting a silence spell or teaching me or Opal?”

  “Sure, Rose, I’ll bring Opal and teach her, I think the only general magic spell she knows is locate. I’m going to do a little scouting, I might just fly very low over some grape vines.”

  We continued walking to the new property, I’d purchased a controlling interest in, the Evans estate. I've been so busy with this war with the cartel that I haven’t taken a walk in a long time. This is actually perfect walking weather, slightly cool but sunny with a slight breeze. But too soon we arrived and started up the long driveway past metal gates. Two gnomes took up guard positions at the gate. We halted at a beautiful house. The gnome engineer and a couple of gnome guards went to look over the house.

  The engineer was to inspect the house and decide on the viability of converting the house to becoming a gnome colony.

  My first task was to create a magical field. I wanted to use the Nyx method, it didn’t matter that I was being observed. Only Draco and Elma could see magical fields and physically the two methods look identical. So I stood in front of the house and closed my eyes. I imagined giant magical arms, spread wide only to sweep in towards my body. The arms gathering the ambient magic into a ball, I continued, this method used little to none of my own magical power. After a while I opened my eyes to see my progress. The magical field was at least five times larger than the house.

  So I walked to the center of the property and began again. It took a long time and I stopped a few times to check on my progress, but after an hour or so I had enclosed the entire property in a magical field. Before Nyx had taught me her efficient and smart method, doing an area one twentieth this size would have exhausted me.

  I walked back to the house and Mossbeard already had the portal drawing done.

  “Mossbeard why don’t you portal back to the tower and ask Opal to activate that for you. Then you can portal back.”

  “Sure Rose see you in a little bit.”

  I found Maz inside discussing the house and plans for converting it for gnome sized inhabitants, with the chief gnome engineer.

  “Maz, would you have time to jump to Earth with me, I want to get those sound systems and lumber mill, and where do we get the sounds?”

  “I can mix the sounds myself, on the computer in my lab. But before I do that I’ll show you the best woodmill to get along with a few portable sound systems.”

  I jumped us to Maz’s lab in the barn at Tregaron. He turned on his computer and a few minutes later he showed me his favorite portable woodmill. I authored one and jumped it back to the estate. Then returned to the lab, Maz had a picture of a Partyboox 5000. The most powerful sound system available on earth, battery powered. A battery that would never run out thanks to the magical field. I authored five of them. And jumped them back to the estate, before returning for Maz.

  Maz held up a little postage stamp sized piece of plastic.

  “This is the noise you wanted Rose, just make four copies of this one and we’ll get back and start annoying the hell out of the neighbors.”

  So that’s what I did, I made four copies of what Maz called the SD card and we jumped back to the estate Maz carefully arranged Partyboox 5000’s. He said you want the speakers pointed in the direction you want the sound to go. I waved at Draco to come down.

  He glided to stop then landed right before me.

  “What’s wrong Rose?”

  “Nothing but we don’t know exactly where the house is and Maz says it works best if the speakers are aimed precisely at the target. The target is the house. Would you mind hovering over the house for a couple of minutes? Then we’ll turn the sound systems all on and you can tell us if it reaches their house.”

  “Sure just give me a second to get in position, then switch them all on.”

  Once Draco was hovering, we did final adjustments on the aim and turned the machines on then stepped far back, the cacophony was horrible. Draco flew straight up into the air and then turned and flew back, presumably well above the noise. He landed and I walked over to him.

  “Rose, it's deafening and also deeply unsettling and guaranteed to get a response from your new neighbors.”

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  “Perfect, that is just the effect I was hoping for. It almost makes the sawmill sound pleasant doesn’t it?”

  “I’m going back up. It doesn't sound so loud above a thousand feet.”

  I went inside the house and found the engineer and Maz. The gnome engineer was already drawing blueprints and it looked like he’d split the house in half.

  “Will you start soon?” I asked.

  “Oh yes, as soon as the portal is complete we’ll start. We are splitting this house in half, half for human guests, half for the gnome colony then as the colony grows we’ll add on to the original structure. The gnome guards will remain here if it is all right with you. They will protect the house, the noise machines and the sawmill.”

  “Yes they all have portal wallets to retreat if necessary.”

  “Don’t worry Rose, big folk are no match for gnomes. If we capture any, we’ll keep them here for you to decide what to do with.”

  “I just want to make sure that no one is hurt, especially on our side but I really don’t want to see this turn into physical confrontations.”

  “And it won’t Rose, as long as they stay off of our land. We are a peaceful people and will do everything in our power to avoid permanent harm.”

  “You just gave me an idea.”

  I jumped to Juliet’s World and authored forty stun wands, then jumped back.

  “These should keep everyone safe, without killing anyone.”

  I handed a stun wand to the engineer and one to Maz, I slipped one into my pocket and was about to hand them out to the guards. When Mossbeard portaled in and gave me the new portal drawing. I sent him back to make a portal painting of the new estate portal and to ask Opal to activate it. I jumped to Juliet’s World and made forty copies of the portal drawings. I put one in my portal wallet. Then I distributed portal drawings and stun wands to the gnome and human guards, who could now portal back and forth between the two colonies, along with all of the public portal sites.

  I had done everything I could think of to keep people safe and annoy the Harris’s. I said goodbye to Maz and the engineer and before I portaled back to the store, I looked for Elma and Ryder. One of the gnome guards told me that Ryder was assessing the perimeter. But I found Elma speaking with Ashley. Ashley’s hollow and whispery voice still unsettled me but twice she’d been in conflicts on my behalf, and last night had saved me from waking into a death trap.

  “Ashley, I looked for you this morning. I wanted to thank you again for saving our lives last night. If I can ever do anything for you please let me know.”

  “Your welcome, Rose, ma’am. Thank you for the book machine, Woody is holding onto it for me. I’ll stay here and defend the gnomes. If we capture any trespassers I’ll let Elma and Elmer know so they can inform you.”

  “Just be careful, I don’t want you to get hurt. There is nothing here that we can’t rebuild so please just stay safe.”

  “We will, Elma, go with Rose so we can stay in touch.”

  I left word with the guards that Elma, Sophia and I were portaling back to the bookstore, please let Ryder know. When we arrived Mossbeard had just finished the portal painting, he went to the tower and had Opal activate it then returned to the store. I jumped to Juliet’s World and made ten copies. I gave two to Mossbeard along with a copy of the original gnome colony portal painting. He’d go to both colonies giving them portal paintings so the gnomes had their own direct portal network.

  Then I portaled to the warehouse to see if we had any wine left. The wine was all gone, so Ruby had managed to have wine merchants send five hundred cases back to the Harris’s today. I jumped to Juliet’s World and authored another five hundred cases and jumped them to our warehouse. That was it, I was tired, I’d been going non stop for days and I wanted to talk to Ruby to see who she’d traded the last hundred cases to. So I portaled home to the tower and walked down to Draco’s lair and knocked.

  “Come in, Rose.”

  “Hi, thanks for coming today.”

  “It was fun watching you be petty.”

  “I wasn’t being petty, I’m trying to get them to move away, in a non physical way. If they won’t move, at least negotiate. I’ll turn the noise off when I’m sure hostilities have ceased.”

  “You know with people like these you’ll have to always be on your guard, unless you somehow completely ruin them financially and even then the entitled Harris’s may try to come after you physically themselves.”

  “Well Sophie and I are suing them, so if we win that’s a little less money they’ll have.”

  “Good, just keep chipping away at them.”

  “I actually came to tell you about the crops at the farms.”

  “Are they ready to be harvested already?”

  “No, just the opposite, the growth rate is back to normal. The trees heard me discussing the problem with the mayor and Orin. Then Woody fessed up to having cast a growth spell on the crops. He knew that I really wanted the farms to be a success and he thought that super fast growth would make them successful.”

  “That’s one powerful spell, he must be much more powerful than I originally thought.”

  “Yeah I thought so too, I also told him to never let anyone besides his fellow trees know that he can do that. Can you imagine what the cartel would do for power like that?”

  “That was good thinking Rose. Even just a regular farmer would want fields like that, they’d be able to make a fortune in just a normal growing season, if they had a harvest each and every week.”

  “I’m just glad it’s back to normal, one less worry. Goodnight Draco, I’m tired.”