– Era of the Wastes, Cycle 214, Season of the Setting Moon, Day 73 –

Siling and Terry were whispering to each other.

“About finished with your scheming?” asked Tiana.

“Sure,” replied Terry and grinned.

Today, Terry came prepared with a plan and with his newly purchased mana-crafted item: a fingerless corset glove. It took way longer to get the glove than Terry had anticipated. Apparently, the spell imprint that he had his eye on was a favorite among pickpockets, of all people. Terry first had to have a chat with some very distrustful members of the city guard before he was allowed to place his order.

Terry was wearing his Blinding Flash glove on his right and the new corset glove on his left. The long laced part of the new glove was hidden from sight by his cloud badger bracer. Terry was excited to see if his plan worked out. After all, he had already invested one of his tertium slabs for the purpose.

“Ready!” shouted Siling.

The three took their standard positions for their spars – Siling and Terry on one side, Tiana on the other.

After both sides had prepared themselves, Tiana charged at the other two.

Siling dashed to the left and started casting.

Unexpectedly, Terry ran to the right. This raised Tiana’s suspicions. Normally, Terry would either face her directly or stick close to Siling. However, Tiana could not come up with any explanation that would warrant a deviation from her initial intentions. Therefore, Tiana followed Siling to the left.

Good. Attention drawn away – first objective, check.

Terry was happy, but he also knew that he needed to hurry. It would not take long for Tiana to catch up with Siling if left unimpeded. He used a full burst to jump as high as he could. When Terry reached the peak of his jump, he activated the Immovable Object imprint in a mana-crafted rod. He used the transfixed rod as a jumping point to propel himself higher up as well as into the direction of Siling.

Tiana blocked an ice spike with her shield and dodged the roots trying to entangle her feet. She had no idea what the two had planned, but whatever it was, it would not matter if the healer was down. Tiana used a short burst to quickly cover the last stretch towards Siling. She readied her sword arm.

“What the—?!”

Tiana was lifted into the air.

Siling had a smirk on her face and even started to wave her hand. “Bye bye.”

Tiana was not amused. She exchanged her leaf-shaped gladius with a javelin and hurled it at Siling.

“Wahh,” exclaimed Siling and she quickly hid behind her barrier shield.

After wiping the smirk from Siling’s face, Tiana looked around to figure out what exactly was going on. She saw one of Terry’s tertium slabs in the air. It was transfixed right in the direction that Tiana was pulled in. The slab had some holes in it and she could see Terry’s arms poking out. Whatever Terry was doing, it caused Tiana to flail about in the air. This made her feel like a fish out water.

Neutralize her physical abilities – second objective, check.

Siling’s comments about force magic had given Terry a few ideas and he had searched for suitable spell imprints. Unfortunately, force magic imprints were in high demand and relatively expensive. Eventually, Terry stumbled upon a spell from an outer system with similar effects – Gravitational Attraction.

The spell was a favorite among pickpockets because it could be targeted. You could use it to pull a specific purse as opposed to pulling everything in range. Naturally, the range of the targeting depended not only on the quality of the spell imprint and carved mana lines, but also on the user’s mana sense as well as the reach in mana control. While this was a dealbreaker for many, it was a perfect fit for Terry.

Despite its popularity among the less upright citizenry, Gravitational Attraction was a lot less popular among mana cultivators when compared to Kinetic Pull. The primary reason was that the former’s attraction was bidirectional and the latter’s pull was unidirectional. While the bidirectional attraction represented a smaller subversion of the physical laws, the saved mana was not worth the inconvenience in combat for most cultivators.

The convenience of the kinetic force spells was that they left the caster unaffected. The caster could create a pulling vortex or a pushing wave and would not feel anything beyond the changing wind. Gravitational Attraction, on the other hand, applied an equal force to both the target and the caster. While this did not represent a problem for pickpockets going for small items, it was considered impractical in battle. Fortunately, Terry’s own Immovable Object spell offered a workable combination to offset the drawback. The spell made his own mass irrelevant and the only limiting factors were his mana, his arm muscles, and the laces on the corset glove.

Like all mana-crafted items, the glove came with usage limitations. You could only use it a certain number of times within a specific time frame without providing additional mana and risking the structural integrity of the spell imprint. Even with Terry’s proficiency in mana control, he prefered not to risk it in a spar. The glove had eaten up most of Terry’s savings, but as far as he was concerned, it was worth it.

Tiana summoned another javelin and threw it at Terry. It was the only way for her to do a ranged attack. Unfortunately for her, it was not easy to aim – even more so when floating in the air. Tiana knew that hitting the tertium slab would be completely useless. She had to hit the arms. That would represent a challenge even if she was standing on solid ground.

Terry had lied down flat on his tertium slab and put his gloved arm through a prepared hole so that he would not have to resist the attraction force with his own strength. To him, it felt like he was being pulled into the ground by his arm. Nevertheless, his arm still had to carry Tiana’s whole weight. If Terry were to accidentally target something that was way too heavy, then he might dislocate his own shoulder with the spell combination. That was also the combination’s weakness. Fortunately, Tiana was not aware of this weakness yet.

Terry repeatedly deactivated and activated the glove’s spell imprint. He might not be able to rely on the glove as freely during their next spars today, but this whole plan was more of a single-time thing anyway. Terry felt guilty when he considered how Tiana’s stomach must feel. However, he had no choice if the plan was supposed to work. Initially, Terry had to attract Tiana from an angle. For the next steps, he needed her to be directly below him and with some distance to spare at that.

Tiana could not remember the last time she felt this nauseous. She had long stopped trying to take aim at Terry. It was difficult enough to begin with, but the whole up and down and up again also made her head spin dizzily. Tiana could only bide her time until she saw an opportunity. Until then, all that was left for her was to try her best not to vomit all over the training grounds.

Terry injected more mana into the Immovable Object spell on the tertium slab. His distanced mana control was not precise enough to enable the shaping of spell structures away from his casting hands yet, but it was sufficient to resupply mana to an active spell.

Tiana tried her best to reorient herself in the air so that she could always have an eye on Terry and she positioned her shield arm to block potential ice spikes thrown by Siling. Eventually, she could see Terry’s eyes peeking through a hole from directly above her. Tiana summoned another javelin, but made no attempt to throw it. Her past experiences taught her that any exaggerated movement would cause her to spin uncontrollably in the air. Tiana could not afford that unless it was worth it.

Terry had to prevent himself from clenching his right fist in anticipation. Such movement might tip Tiana off and he went a long way to avoid that. Terry even placed his right arm through its prepared hole from the very beginning even though that would provide more surface area for a ranged attack.

As soon as Terry judged that Tiana was close enough and was sure that she had her eyes open and focused on him, Terry activated the spell imprint in his right glove. The Blinding Flash achieved the desired result. In fact, the result went beyond expectation – not only did it land, Tiana’s reflexive head jerk and arm movement even caused her to spin again.

Tiana cursed herself for falling for that item. Redirecting mana sped up her recovery, but her vision would still be impaired for a moment. She knew that Terry had a Blinding Flash glove and they still managed to use it effectively on her. Tiana made a mental note that she needed to improve her situational awareness even further. Fortunately, Tiana still had her mana sense to rely on.

“Hmph.”

Tiana saw several mana clusters move towards her and recognized the pattern of Siling’s Ice Spike spell. Her mana sense did not have a long range, but it was sufficient time to allow her to block. Again, the movement caused Tiana to further spin around. Tiana exchanged her javelin with a second shield in order to better block the incoming projectiles.

Disorient and distract – third objective, check. Final step.

Terry summoned a heavy weighted net and let it fall straight down. Afterwards, he repeated that process two more times.

Tiana was still relying exclusively on her mana sense and was completely taken off guard when the first net entangled her. The weights on the net pulled down while she was still attracted upwards. Consequently, the net started to squeeze her body together.

After the second and third nets had found their mark, Terry deactivated the Gravitational Attraction imprint. He started to pack up and get down.

Tiana impacted on the ground. Before she had any chance to get up, she could already feel the result of Siling’s empowered Entangling Roots spell. Her mana sense told her that Terry was already closing in as well.

“Alright, my loss,” said Tiana. “Good spar. Now please get me out of this.”

“Just a second,” said Terry and moved to help Tiana.

“WOOHOO!” Siling approached and recalled her entangling roots. “The demon has finally been vanquished!”

Terry snorted in laughter. Tiana, on the other hand, shot Siling an unamused look from beneath the nets.

“Demon, huh?”

“A lovely demoness, but a demon nonetheless.” Siling wrinkled her brow when a question entered her head. “Do demons even have sexes?”

“Not sure,” said Terry. “Elementals don’t, but the possessed bodies usually do.”

“What about battle demons taking human form?”

“Uhh, what?” Terry looked perplexedly at Siling.

“Terry, you do realize that I’m just kidding and talking nonsense, right?” Siling tilted her head. “Sometimes, I can’t tell.”

Now, it was Tiana’s turn to laugh. “Your demonic companion would appreciate it if you could free her from her shackles.”

“Gotcha. We wouldn’t want to arouse the ire of our battle demon,” said Siling. “Not more than necessary, I mean.” She knelt down and contributed her efforts to disentangle Tiana from the nets.

Eventually, they managed to get Tiana out of her predicament. Siling and Terry both held out their hands and helped Tiana stand up.

“So fellow vanquisher Terry, what is the score?” inquired Siling with an intentionally deadpan expression.

Terry raised an eyebrow and then acted as if he had to think. “Hmm, let us see. By my count and including all matches up to now… The score should be thirty-five wins for the lovely battle demoness and for the mighty demon vanquishers… exactly one win total.”

“Uh-huh.” Siling nodded. “I think we should quit while we’re ahead.”

“I believe we would first need to get ahead for that.”

“Yes, otherwise you will have to drop your titles as demon vanquishers,” interjected Tiana.

“Meh. That’s a price I am willing to pay,” retorted Siling. “If it appeases the demon and spares me from suffering its vengeance during follow-up matches.”

“Nope,” said the battle demon with an imposing smile. “It won’t.”

Siling gave an exaggerated sigh. “Okay, but just remember that…” She pointed her finger at Terry and raised her voice. “This whole plan was Terry’s idea and that he is entitled to the brunt of the vendetta.”

“Hey!” exclaimed Terry.

Siling pointedly looked away from him and in another direction.

“Anyway,” started Tiana, “How did you levitate me into the air? Was that the Kinetic Pull spell you told me about before?”

“No, with Kinetic Pull your javelin would also have been pulled towards my hand,” replied Terry. He displayed the glove on his left hand.

“Gravitational Attraction imprint. In contrast to force magic, it distributes the force equally. We are both being pulled to each other. If you can add a counter-force or increase your mass enough, I would be pulled further than you. Using it from an immovable object helps me to defend against those scenarios, but it also carries a risk.”

Tiana pondered the implications. “So to defend myself I would have to hook myself to something heavy enough? Or summon heavy items?”

“Shh! Terry, what are you doing?” exclaimed Siling. “No slipping intel to the enemy, remember? At least not while they’re ahead.”

Tiana rolled her eyes.

“Tiana isn’t the enemy though. She is our companion. If she improves, then so does our group.”

“Yes, but the score, Terry. What is more important – keeping your life during missions or getting ahead with imaginary points? Huh? Huh? Huh?”

Terry narrowed his eyes. “You’re kidding again, aren’t you?”

“Good,” praised Siling with a self-satisfied smile. “You’re getting better at this. I was beginning to worry.”

***

“Greetings,” said Brynn. “I’m glad to see both of my disciples here again. I hope you have already familiarized yourself a bit with the carving tools?”

Lori and Terry nodded.

“Very well, then allow me to give a short demonstration. I have prepared one of Arcana City’s popular tourist souvenirs for the purpose.”

Brynn summoned a dull crystal ball from her dimensional storage bag.

“This is a cheap trinket whose main purpose is to look pretty. The main difference to some random balls of glass are that the crystal material is tougher and that it comes with a spell imprint. It has been imprinted with the Polish Stone spell.

“Here comes the applicability to our lesson – activating the imprint will target the object itself.”

Brynn sent her mana into the item and the crystal ball was quickly polished to perfection and turned sparkly.

“That starting point is precisely one of the motivations for mana carving.”

Brynn picked up one of the crafter’s tools.

“The first step in addressing the limitation is to carve directional lines. This tool contains an adjustable mana lens. By channeling your mana through it, you can create a focus point in front of the tip. Furthermore, you can control the distance from the tip as well as the intensity of the focused mana. Similar to imprinting you can use this focus point to leave durable mana traces in an object.”

Brynn quickly carved her desired mana lines into the trinket and allowed her disciples to examine the result with their mana sense.

“The lines alone don’t do anything as long as the imprint remains stationary. We still need a pulse generator. You can think of it as something like an additional partial imprint. The imprint does not do anything on its own, but if it gets connected to a proper imprint, then it will affect the mana flow. Basically, the pulse generator gets charged and when it is filled up, it will emit a mana pulse. That pulse temporarily destabilizes the spell imprint.

“Imagine a water fountain and you flick your finger at the running water. The main difference to water is that a primed spell imprint is structurally stable. It requires more energy to break up the structure than you would put into a pulse generator. Instead of collapsing, the structure shifts and then splits. You get two primed imprints as a result. What you want to achieve is that the shifted structure connects to the directional mana lines. That is how the spell structure gets propelled outwards.”

Brynn used a different tool to carve a pulse generator. Then, she took out a plain rock and pointed the crystal ball at it. When she activated the spell imprint, it was this rock that got polished.

“The mana ratio depends on the mana you put into the pulse. Too little and the directed spell will become too weak. Too much and you risk the stability of the main imprint. The stronger the original spell imprint, the better your mana control, the higher your familiarity with the imprinted spell – the more you can get out of an imprint without risking a collapse.

“That also gives us a segue to mana shielding. A pulse generator is not the only thing that can destabilize a spell imprint. Here, I have one souvenir for each of you. Activate the imprint and try to keep it activated.”

Lori and Terry received the crystal balls and did as instructed. Afterwards, Brynn gave a small wave with her hand and the spell imprints deactivated.

“That is a very undesirable vulnerability for many mana-crafted items. If left unmitigated, that would be a deal breaker. In order to mitigate that, we have to block incoming mana. Hand them back to me, if you don’t mind.”

Brynn received the crystal balls.

“Shielding has a very simple theory behind it. Cover the area with mana tilings in order to prevent mana from going where it is not supposed to while still allowing it to enter and flow where it should. Just like you would tile a floor, you tile the item. The robustness depends on the tiles.

“If you leave gaps, then the result is fragile and weak. Therefore, most crafters resort to working with periodic tilings using the same tile everywhere. As it turns out the number of possible tiles for this purpose is very limited. In fact, ignoring size – there are only five different possible patterns. That goes both for tiling floors as well as for tiling mana shields.

Brynn took another tool from the box in front of her.

“This is what I called a stamp before. It has a fancy technical name, but an adjustable stamp explains it best. You configure it to get the tile you want and then you stamp it.”

Brynn started working on the crystal balls while she continued her explanation.

“That is the gist of it. However, I have left out a few relevant parts. First, it is absolutely possible to cover an area using other patterns. However, if you want to avoid gaps and get a stable shield, then you will need a combination of multiple basic shapes. Such a pattern is called quasiperiodic.

“Their advantage is that they are less predictable. While the surrounding area of two tiles may look similar, it is never identical. That property makes them less easy to penetrate.”

Brynn exchanged the crystal ball for the second one.

“Their disadvantage is the flipside of their advantage. They are less predictable.” Brynn shrugged. “Therefore, they are a pain to get right. Many a crafter has been driven to madness from trying to identify a proper quasiperiodic pattern for the area in an item.

“The second part I left out is that we are not necessarily talking about two-dimensional tiles. The same theory applies to three-dimensional crystals. The best shielding usually relies on three-dimensional stamps. If you ever want to order a custom quasicrystal shielding, I suggest you prepare a lot of coins – and perhaps some cookies and nerve medicine for the poor crafter fulfilling your order.

“Here, let us try again.” Brynn handed over the crystal balls and they repeated the experiment.

Even though Terry could see a similar mana flow from Brynn’s wave of hands, the spell imprint remained active this time around.

“You can keep them. They’re eccentric enough to act as collector’s items. They are probably the only items in existence that have a shielded Polish Stone imprint. I don’t think anyone has ever seen a need to shield that one before.” Brynn had to chuckle.

“““Thanks Auntie!”””

“Now, generally it is advisable to pair a mana shielding with two more techniques: mana cloaking and the creation of a personal mana lock. Basically, hiding the mana in an item – including your imprint and shield structure – and creating a full shield without gaps that can only be penetrated by your personal mana signature. However, those are topics for the future.”

***