The next night, after they secured a hotel room near the train station, they discussed the possibility of their impending transfer and death in The Seven Decks.

While looking out the window, Jen said, “Sam, the good thing is, neither of us is really leaving anything behind.” Jen paused in thought a moment before continuing, “I’m not sure if that is actually good or pathetic, but I’m going to pretend it’s good.”

Just then, Sam called Jen over to him. “Look at this coded message I just received from our contacts.”

Jen looked at the message. “What of it? It’s useless; you said they changed the decryption codes after everyone was compromised.”

Sam looked a little unsure, and this actually scared Jen. “Is it your gut; do we need to leave?” asked Jen in a rush.

“No, it’s not that,” Sam replied immediately. “If I concentrate on my mana stat and focus on trying to use the mana to decrypt the message at the same time, I can feel and sense power being pushed into the words, and the meaning becomes clear!”

“That’s freaking awesome, but it looks more like you’re trying to take a dump than pushing mana, are you sure your just not constipated?” Jen said as she laughed at him.

Sam looked at her, as if her crude humor was beneath him.

“Well, what does it say?” asked Jen.

“It’s a simple message, it just says ‘Stay put for now.’” No sooner had the words left his mouth, when the

paper he was holding turned to dust. “Get back!” he warned, as he jumped away from the table where the message was previously sitting. “Why the hell are you still standing there” Sam started to reach out for Jen, when she finally moved back on her own.

“Do you know what just happened?” Jen said excitedly.

Sam took a moment to make sure Jen was O.K., and that nothing else was turning to dust, before replying, “Well, I think when I used mana to decrypt that code, it somehow caused the paper to disintegrate, but I don’t know why it didn’t happen the first time I decrypted it.”

Jen was giddy with excitement. She was talking so fast that Sam could hardly follow what she was trying to say. “I think you cast a spell on me. I had to stay put – after you looked at me and told me the message says, ‘Stay put for now,’ I couldn’t move for about 2 seconds!”

Sam blinked, and said, “Wait! I just got a message across my vision. Listen to this…”

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You have learned the skill: Words of Understanding

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Level: 7 (Novice)

Finding the meaning of words is familiar to you. You have far to go before gaining the title of a Master, but with practice, you will get there.

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You have learned the spell: Words of Power

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Level: 7 (Novice)

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Finding the power in words is familiar to you. You have far to go before gaining the title of a Master, but with practice, you will get there.

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Over the next couple of hours, Sam and Jen re-created the spell multiple times. Jen discovered she could also create the spell, and she received the same system messages as Sam. However, it took her a lot longer to infuse the words with power, and it drained her mana faster. However, she didn’t get the notice involving “words of Understanding,” but she didn’t want to spend much time working on that right now, since she discovered it wasn’t necessary for casting the “stay put” in the spell.

Jen read Sam the message she received in her vision.

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You have learned the spell: Words of Power

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Level: 1 (Novice)

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You have worked hard to find the power in words. With great effort, you might someday obtain greater competency at this spell.

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“Maybe it’s your affinity with language, words, and codes that makes it so much easier for you.” Jen said, as she was really getting into the gaming geek mode.

Sam replied by shrugging in agreement.

After several hours of experimentation, Jen reluctantly said, “We need to stop and get some rest, to be prepared for tomorrow.” She knew that both she and Sam would work on a project non-stop for days, with little or no sleep, or even without food if given free reign, but they needed to prioritize getting back to the States.

During her night watch, Jen read over their notes on the experiments they were able to run.

Thickness of paper allowed greater mana imbuement, maybe?

More words and larger paper seemed like it would allow for more mana charge, but nominal.

The greater the effect of the spell, the more power necessary.

Words from different languages linked together would work.

They did not need to activate the spell by speaking it out loud, but could just think the command.

“Dammit, if we just had more time to learn more powers, getting back home would be guaranteed!” Jen thought to herself.

Jen started comparing her findings with everything posted on the internet in the six months since the lottery first appeared. One blog described a man lifting a refrigerator over his head and easily throwing it at a police car. Another described someone in the ocean shouting a command and causing a water funnel to shoot up out of the waves.

Jen looked over the list of spells that one person had compiled. “Ice ray and heat ray, that makes sense,” Jen muttered to herself. “Talk to animals?! Get the fuck out. I want that. How do I get that?”

Jen reviewed the different spells and some of the theories people came up with explaining why the spells did or didn’t work. As she had already discovered, it seemed like the actual words weren’t important, but rather the word association with the person’s intent.

Surprisingly, a disabled man was somehow able to select his service dog as a companion, and the Seven Decks system teleported both him and his dog when his time came.

One video showed a man implode a four-story office building on himself and about 30 swat team members who were trying to capture him. “Damn, he chose death over being turned into a lab rat. I guess he figured the government was just going to kill him in a few days anyways,” Jen thought. The blog also showed a short clip of the Rainbow teleporting the man’s body out of the morgue a few days later, even though he was already dead.

After reviewing all the notes, Jen theorized that anyone could do any type of spell, but it was much easier and cost less mana if the spell was tied into their own knowledge, skills, and abilities.

Jen evaluated her own skills

“Let’s see…I’m good at intercepting wireless signals, computer code, hacking, languages, and what else…what magic powers would work well with my existing skills? Ugh, my skills are useless for magic!”

Her thoughts were interrupted when she noticed Sam was having a bad dream in his bed against the far wall. Jen knew that Sam had PTSD from his days as a green beret, and later as a CIA direct-action termination agent. She wished she could help soothe his conscience, but he never talked about his past. She only knew about his pre-Kelly history because she had hacked into his file when she first started working for the agency back in college. She would never hack his private information now, she trusted Sam with her life. “Maybe I was paranoid before meeting Sam… nahhh” she thought.

Jen sat up straight. “Hacking, intercepting, memories, thoughts… No way! Dammit, why is Sam the only one in the room right now! I’m going to have to wait until tomorrow…and we only have so many of those left.”

After switching night watch with Jen, Sam spent his time studying different languages on the internet. “This is amazing: if I focus a little mana at the same time as I piece together and decrypt just a few of the words of a language, I can quickly get a basic understanding of and speak any foreign language.” Just then, Sam slapped the table, “What’s it called? Leveling? I think I just did that again.” As he read the message that appeared in his vision.

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Words of Understanding

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Level: 8 (Novice)

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