[Gathering, Information]
“Before I do this Rose, I want to hear that promise again, you know that I mean business, I won’t be using the feather on you Rose, it’ll be the crop and don’t think you can stop me just because you are the authoress. I know magic you’ve never even heard of before.”
“Nyx, you can trust me. First I hate the series, where the couple falls in love in the first book only to have them break up or cheat on each other in the second book. As far as I’m concerned it’s Frejac for life. That said, I also would never force them to do what they don’t want to do. They have to have agency, even in their relationship. If you can’t accept that then thanks for coming but don’t create the magical field.”
“Of course I accept that, demons are all about agency. How can we be the arbiters of karma, if the being doesn’t have agency. I just didn’t want you to use a lazy plot device to amp up romantic tension in the sequel.”
“Jaq and Frida are going to be the ‘happy couple’ the romantic tension will have to come from the other characters. I'd love to find someone worthy of Groucho. Maybe a reformed Lola, I don’t know. The bottom line is I’ve been really busy and haven’t really thought about the sequel. Maybe we can all get together and brainstorm when Jaq hosts that first writer retreat.”
“Alright then, so you want the magic field over there on the left, how many plots deep does it go?”
“It’s going to go ten plots deep, but we only cleared the first two rows.”
“It doesn’t matter, the magical field can go over the forest, then when it’s cleared, the field will still be around farmland. Plus you’ll have a supply of magical wood.”
With that she snapped her fingers and eighty farms or sixteen farms and sixty four forest plots were covered by a magical field. I couldn’t believe it, it was an immense display of magical power. Suddenly I could understand why some fictional characters were afraid of bibliomancers, but Nyx had that much magical reserves.
“Nyx you must have immense magical reserves, did you build it up through practice?”
“What, no I have less actual magic then you, demons are just smarter about how we use it. You probably create a ball and fill it right, until you are either exhausted or it’s full. You should be using the magic that is already present.”
“But how?”
“You must think about it, imagine it, and it is done. The higher the magical density around you the easier it is to do.”
“Could you teach me Nyx, please? It’d be much easier to protect the ones I love if I had access to more magic.”
“You already know how to do it, you stupid authoress. How do you create reality in your worlds, just do the same thing here but do it with magic.”
“Maybe when I come to the writers retreat you could give me lessons?”
“It’s very hard to do on Earth where they’ve withered the wonder of magic with formal religion. There is hardly anywhere on Earth where magic still exists. But not to worry, we demons have been extracting karmic justice on those zealots ever since the idiots invented religion. It’s quite fun, these zealots arrive in literal hell expecting to be rewarded, instead they receive what they deserve for being narrow minded imbeciles.”
“Maybe just a ten minute lesson here then. Please Nyx?”
“Fine ten minutes, then you take me straight back to the library in Tregaron, I want to be Nyxi again while the little bit of sun we get daily lasts. Close your eyes, now look around with your imagination, see the magic in the air, start nudging it together. Come on, you're supposed to be a writer, you do have an imagination don’t you, what did you plagiarize all your stories? Your mind Rose, think, imagine the magic, nudge it, use imaginary hands if you have to. That’s it now form it into a ball, good, now throw those imaginary arms wide and gather more of the imagined magic, good keep going. It’s slow at first because you don’t really believe it but the more you do it the more you realize that it’s working. Open your eyes.”
I’d created a magical field that was twice the size of a portal, and I felt no fatigue at all, I couldn’t wait to tell Draco and Opal.
“Nyx thank you very much, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.”
“Don’t tell me, show me, I want to curl up in a fur ball in the sun, take me back to Tregaron.”
I jumped Nyx back to the mansion, and Nyx opened the door and headed for the library.
“Thanks again Nyx.”
She never even looked back, just waved her right hand, I heard a pop and Nyxi trotted tail held high into the library She had just fundamentally changed the way I saw magic, but the only thing she was focused on was a tiny patch of sunlight. I wondered how the demons had punished the liars that made them out to be the bad guys? I probably did not want to know.
I jumped back to the bookstore, Lu sat on Sparky’s stool reading a book, I felt a pang of love for Lu and felt the absence of Sparky. I'd love to be able to explain to him what I just learned.
“Lu thank you so much for watching the store, could you please give me another ten minutes, I need to talk to Draco really fast. Oh and Arjun should be here soon, would you let him know that I’ll be right back.”
“Sure Rose, was Nyx any help?”
“She sure was, Lu, she was in more ways than one. Be back soon, love you.”
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
I portaled to the tower, ran to Draco’s lair, knocked, I could barely keep myself from just going in. I really, really need to work on my patience. When, half a second later Draco said.
“Come in Rose, what’s going on.”
“Lu had a great idea. I got Nyx. The fields are all covered by magical fields. We’ve been doing magic all wrong.”
“Slow down Rose, Nyx created a magical field big enough to cover all of the farms?”
“Everything Draco, she covered all eighty plots, it might have taken one second. I watched it form. Then she told me we’ve been doing magic all wrong, she claims she has less magical capacity then I do.”
“If she has less magic than you, how is it possible that she had enough to cover the farms?”
“She doesn't, that is the genius of it, she didn’t use any of her magic she used the magic in the air and she taught me. I’ll show you but first I have to meet Arjun for a magical field practice.”
“Not a word of this new method to anyone until Sparky gets back, do you understand, this is the Earth equivalent of the atom bomb. Someone could wreck whole nations with that kind of power. This is worse than the knowledge you can author magicians to become more powerful, because this just the knowledge makes any magician infinitely stronger. You could set yourself up as the Queen of Emain Ablach overthrow Titania herself. Not that you would.”
“Alright I promise not to overthrow anyone but I have to go. I’ll be back in an hour and show you how to do it.”
“Don’t forget, not a word to anyone else until you explain the whole thing to Sparky.”
I portaled back to the store, Arjun and Lu were chatting.
“Hi, I’m sorry I kept you both waiting, Arjun we don’t need to add our magic to the fields, they are actually already done. We can practice here in the lane if you like.”
“I don’t understand Rose, how could they be done? You said that only two and a half out of eighty were done a couple of hours ago. Did you get a god to create magic fields? I know you have an eclectic group of friends but I didn’t know that included gods.”
“No, not a god, a literal demon.”
“Rose, a demon, what did you have to promise it, your soul, your first born?”
“Actually I promised her I wouldn’t break up her favorite couple in the sequel to a story I wrote, I’m writing it in a couple of months. She really is quite nice.”
“Rose you can’t trust a demon, they torture people for a living, that is their entire purpose.”
“Yes they do, they call it karmic justice. In her world karma and reincarnation are real. Instead of getting reborn and paying your karmic debt with a tragic life, you can purge bad karma in Literal Hell. Once your debt is paid you’re freed from Literal Hell and are reborn.”
“What about all the bad press they've gotten over the years.”
“Yes, the same people who want their followers to kill witches, and force gay teens into conversion therapy. Don’t get me going on religious zealots, just look at Earth history, one religion murdering another religion's followers over and over and over. Even if they believe in the same god and the same book, take a look at the thirty years war. The ‘great’ inquisition wasn’t really too great for the victims.”
“Yeah, let’s go practice, I still need to hand out soup for a while afterward.”
“Then let’s go to the site, I really want to see a magical field that big, I think that’s as big as the magical field that covers the Royal Palace and grounds.”
Lu, Arjun and I portaled to the colony and walked over to the farms. The magical field still hung in the air. I'll have to start putting in portals starting tomorrow, but then it occurred to me that I wouldn’t need to create magical fields, as the entire area was already covered by one. Mossbeard would need to draw the portal drawings and Opal could activate them. But that could happen once the houses were completed.
Juliet had a tent and a long line of men and women waiting. These must be the farm applicants. Lu went back to the soup kitchen and relieved Arthur who had taken his turn handing out bowls of soup to the hungry gnome builders. Councilman Underhill came over to talk to me.
“Rose I heard from Elder Glimmerdus that you were enclosing the gnome farms in magical fields, is that true?”
“Yes, Orin, it's already finished thanks to some friends of mine. Excuse me, Councilman Underhill, this is my friend Arjun Votrie. Arjun is volunteering at the clinic; he's a magical healer.”
“Arjun, I think I saw you in the capital, years ago at a ball I think, isn’t your mother Titania.”
“She adopted me, yes.”
“Well it’s nice to see you again, I have to get back to the worksite.”
With that Orin walked off.
“Arjun, why didn’t you ever say that you were Titania’s son.”
“Because people treat me differently, please don’t you start too. I’m not a prince. I have nothing to do with the court or politics, it’s the main reason I became a healer so as to escape the Royal Palace. I would have done anything to get away.”
“I’m sorry Arjun, that must have been hard, so you don’t see much of the Queen?”
“No, I see far too much of the queen for my liking, she can be a bit much, if I’m to be honest. What do you say that we practice?”
“Sounds good to me.”
So we practiced creating and reabsorbing fields for about an hour, then I went to the soup tent and took a turn handing out soup to the tired looking gnomes. Juliet had closed the application tent for the day and was headed my way as was Mossbeard who looked to be coming from what I assumed was the lumber mill.
