"Never thought I would dislike a rock in quite such a complex way," I mused to myself. Gec's crystal strobed, as if responding to my words. Nothing else happened; the Entity was indeed diminished.

As the revelation of the area of Influence percolated through my mind, I did another once over of the north section of the bridge. There wasn't much I could contribute that the Stone Shapers hadn't already added, what with the defensible ditch and the river facing turret walls. However, Gec needed to be raised.

For the sake of science, I pressed myself against the crystal and wrapped my arms as far around it as I could manage. With a strangled cry, I lifted. It was a somewhat pitiful showing, but I did manage to shift the person-sized crystal. Says something for having twice the average Strength of a human. Not letting that bother me, I focused on the shield clinging to my back. The contact with it wasn't direct and I didn't have Fievil to help me instinctually feed it magic, but I managed to get the Item to trigger. After the wasteful activation of formed the spell chain on my back, the mana started getting siphoned into the tower shield instead of triggering the passive magic of earth mana.

With an additional 0.4 to my Strength, lifting Gec became magnitudes easier but no less inconvenient. Even with the Crystal raised three inches off the ground by my deadlift, manipulating the magical rock was unfeasible. At least I know I won't get stuck under a half ton of crystal if Gec tips over. How am I supposed to get you up there, you iridescent pain in my rear?

"Uh... Mr. Ronan?" A voice said behind me. So deep was I in my thoughts that I hadn't even been paying attention to vibro warning me of the woman's approach.

Blinking owlishly and with a bit of embarrassment at my random actions of lifting Gec, I turned to face the voice. It took all I had not to jump in surprise as the merwoman trainee who I'd helped with her Affliction stood looking up at me. I hadn't seen her or most of the Afflicted other than Billy for some time. Her name is Florence, the memory came loose as the list of the Afflicted practically scrolled through my mind. "Oh, uh, hello Florence. Sorry, you caught me a bit off guard."

The merwoman blushed furiously. The turquoise crystal that replaced most of the left side of her upper body flared with an inner light to match the purple blush on her mildly scaled skin. "I did not think you would remember me."

Don't remind her of the trauma, you big idiot. Think of something else, quick! "It's no big deal. I try to keep an ear out for those I've helped and those helping others." Definitely didn't nail it...

"O-Of course!" The woman said, suddenly scrambling for her words. "I formally joined the Guard so that I could protect others just like you, sir."

"That's very kind of you Florence, but there are plenty of people out there that do more than me. Look to those in need and you'll see there is someone likely trying to lend a hand."

"Actually, sir." The merwoman looked away, but still faced me. "I was going to ask if you needed help."

"Oh! Right," I said, awkwardly scratching the back of my head. And here I was getting on a soap box for no reason. Why is that even an expression anyway? Focus Ron! "Sure. I was just trying to figure out how I am going to get Gec here up to the top of the Observation Tower. They told me it would expand the range of their influence and protect us better once they stop luring every hungry critter in the vicinity."

"Are your spikes not able to hoist it up?" Florence asked. "I could try to use my snow to lift it up, but I don't think my Q4 Gifts are up to the task alone."

"Hmmm, actually, I think that could work. Not just the spikes, though..." I drifted off, eyeing the observation tower. "Tell you what, can you get everyone out of the tower while I walk this salt rock over there?"

"Salt-- Nevermind. Of course, sir. I almost didn't think you would need my help. It took a few people to lift Gec up like you did," Florence said, bowing her head and hustling towards the doorway not far.

"I need to spend more time with people," I mumbled. "I don't see the Aberrants going away any time soon if their reach extends beyond Florida. This is going to be a marathon, not a sprint."

That line of thinking went double for the effort of gaining Ocala as an ally. It didn't change my plans to find out what was going on with the Entity or the Tendrils intermingling with the populace, but they'd been functioning for years that way without anything overt happening. It meant things were going on beneath the surface, just like with Kirby, and acting the bull in the china shop would only get me so far.

"All clear, sir," Florence said, standing at attention as she trailed a young elf girl and a demon that clambered down the vine ladder. The two gawked at me for a few seconds before the elf shoved the demon along, both busying themselves where the fish were being processed.

"Awesome. Thank you, Florence. I think I can manage from here, but if you are still free to help..."

"Of course, sir!"

"Great! The two people that came with me are actually from Ocala. Sarah is giving them the tour and probably a bit of a spiel if I had to guess, but I was hoping you could try to tag along and find out anything you can about them. April, the demoness, is a bit wary around me and I don't know how much socializing she's liable to get up to."

"You can count on me!" The merwoman said, pressing her fist against the turquoise crystal of her body with a sound like cracking ice even if the surface didn't appear affected in the least. "I'm the best at making friends!"

The woman did an about face. When her eyes locked on her target, she made a purposeful beeline to where Sarah was talking to the Ocalans. It's a bit mean to offload the creepy woman onto her, but she was willing to help... Plus, she was bold enough to approach me, so maybe April will be less effective against the forthright kind of people?

Shaking my head and putting the demoness out of mind, I focused back on Gec's crystal. Nothing to it.

--+--

Several minutes later, and a bout of healing courtesy of Samuel-Vine-A-Sprain for my lower back, I had Gec centered in the tower. The structure was nothing astounding, standing three stories high but only having the pair of rooms at the base and the vine ladder leading to the top of it. Considering the recent jump in population at the River base, north and south banks, the tower would need some renovations. I wasn't concerned about showing off my magic since Ponzio had both seen me engage in fisticuffs with his sister and stabilize a falling building with my Skills. If anything, a reminder of the peaceful applications of my abilities might serve me well in the future.

So, after spending a few minutes clearing out the bits of furniture in the rooms I repeated the move I'd used in Ocala with a slight twist. Four sprouted from the ground at the base of the tower. As they made contact with Gec, I used to soften the tips even as the spikes continued to grow. The move was utterly garbage in the efficiency front and I found myself leaning heavily against one of those same spikes. They'd all been half powered and had been barely a tenth of its normal power, but the Freeform casting was still something my body wasn't used to. After taking several deep breaths to center myself, I checked over the connections the crystal had to the spikes. They were just shy of welding the two materials, the spikes themselves almost melting into each other were it not for the perimeter of the crystal itself.

"Not sure if you are paying attention, Gec, but I would shift some crystal to hold on to these when you've got the energy," I said, cracking my knuckles and glancing at my mana. 80% will have to do, it will regenerate fast enough if I can time this right.

I visualized what I wanted and I could already feel a headache forming as vibrosense overlaid with my eyesight. Stone became nothing more than a gradient of ripples as the magic within responded to my Trait. Florence had been on the right path about building up in order to raise the Entity. However, doing that would have required tearing down the building. I didn't ascribe to the easy way.

Since the next move wouldn't require me to physically do anything, I took a seat on the ground next to Fievil. The mole manifested in my mind when I placed a palm on the haft and he was thoroughly aggravated that I hadn't included him, nevermind that fastening the weapon to my back would have meant I was carrying more weight when moving Gec. As a smidge of consolation, I fed the Shard weapon mana to trigger Arcane Sink.

I hadn't been able to practice much with the Shard Trait, but there was no time like the present; it had augmented other Earth magic so it was entirely reasonable to hope for that while I worked. Wisps of earthen mana swirled around me as the bubble of Arcane Sink expanded in turn with the downward tick of my mana. Without casting anything else in conjunction, the draw was almost negligible to my larger and denser mana pool.

"Nothing to it," I said, my voice strangely flat within the Sink. Pushing that oddity out of mind, I reached out to my Antler Helm with my mana. was entwined with another chain as it was Amplified into . The knot of magic hovered there for a moment before a twitch of my will quadrupled the Skill. Each of the four spell chains hovered inches off the ground and I directed them to the foot of each Stone Spike. With another grunt of effort, the spell chain for hovered around me, itching to trigger, but I held it back. Instead of trying to quadruple the obscenely expensive Skill, I set it to encompass a thin horizontal section of the tower.

"Next part will be all about the timing," I mumbled to myself as the strain of holding a quartet of Amplified Skills and a modified threatened to pull me unconscious. It wasn't dissimilar to passing out when trying to lift a weight when maxing out, except my magic was more or less holding up the building. As if sensing my struggle, Fievil got off his high horse and joined me. The strain wasn't any weaker, but the trickle of mana I was losing to the materialized spell chains vanished as the Shard seemed to apply its own will to keep them from 'leaking'.

Grinding my teeth, I shoved up with my hands. The motion was entirely unnecessary, but it helped center my mind on the mental gymnastics I was doing at the mental control panel I used to visualize my Skill triggers. Instead of assigning fractions of my mana pool to the process, I let the Skills take whatever mana they needed to fulfill my will. Just one inch for now. Slow and steady!

The flare of umber light was blinding as the walls of the tower lit up with and four individual points blazed from . Arcane Sink stabilized the mana, gulping a whole percent for the brief moment my Skills triggered. As the careful balance I'd crafted crumpled with the draw on my mana, the side effects pulled all of my muscles tight like strings on a guitar. I was fairly sure if I'd been aiming for more, the discordant twang of my muscles snapping would have followed.

Stealing breaths between spasms, I failed to notice the insistent snapping of fingers in my face. When the discomfort finally faded, I realized I was slumped against the wall and Jolene was staring down at me. Her voice trickled through my ears, making more sense with each beat of my slurry filled heart.

"--idiot when no one is around. Considering how often this happens I shouldn't even be worrying about you. Daniela's more right than I gave her credit for; rock brain indeed."

"No pain, no gain," I rumbled. I had to fight my jaw to hinge properly.

"You'd make the bodybuilders of the old world proud, Ronan," Jolene sighed. The merwoman stood, walking to the exit out of the tower and waving someone away. "He's fine, he's just being ridiculous. I'll keep an eye on him, as you were."

I risked flicking the ground to send out a pulse for vibrosense. A half dozen people had been lingering just outside of the building, all of which were now slowly moving away as evidenced by their diminishing ripple signatures. Beyond that, the lack of response at the center of the building brought a crooked smile to my face.

"What are you smiling about now?" Jolene asked.

"It worked," I said, waving broadly towards where Gec was supposed to be.

As if finally realizing that I hadn't just twisted myself into a pretzel for funsies, Jolene's confusion was clear from her posture. Her auburn hair hung to the side, catching the light, as she tilted her head to stare at the Entity that was hovering a foot over the ground not an inch. That explains the feedback.

"You... lifted Gec?" she asked, still unclear.

"That's right," I said, finally drawing a proper breath and adjusting my position against the wall. There was a band running the four walls of the tower where the stone was a slightly darker shade of beige that coincided perfectly with where had triggered. "I was hoping to imitate the Crystal Wards in Ocala. Multiple reasons why, but that's the gist of what I was doing."

"So you... did some sort of elaborate Freeform thing to move the spikes and crystal up the wall all at the same time?"

"Essentially."

"Why didn't you just create a plinth in the middle?" Jolene gestured at the open space above Gec. "I know you can make a column and I would be surprised if your columns couldn't hold the Entity."

"Thats..." Damn it. "Not as cool?"

Jolene threw her hands up and walked out of the tower. She paused just out of sight, but vibro sensed her clear as day. Her voice carried back over her shoulder. "I'll be just outside. Do whatever nonsense you want, but I am not going to be in there when you topple the building for some elaborate nonsense."

"Yeah I deserved that one," I said, shaking my head slowly.

With Fievil's support, I rose to my feet to inspect my elaborate nonsense. While I'd been thinking much too complex for something that might have been resolved with a single Skill, it was true that I needed to train my Freeforming. At the rate things were moving with Ocala, I could hardly imagine having the time to train if I had to be the political front of the Allied Towns. My hopes of returning to the Bunker for some rest and relaxation after establishing the bridge had been dashed when Devon and Dai were taken, and subsequently pummeled into the earth when Ocala was discovered. So, it stood to reason that I would need to make time to train, even if it got me odd looks.

Justified! I gave a mental fist pump, hoping to avoid sullying my reputation with yet more oddities. Putting those concerns aside, I focused on how effective my harebrained plan had been. While it was ludicrously expensive in the mana front-- was Amplified, which cost 40% at a regular cast, and cost 50% just baseline. Throwing in the upkeep of Arcane Sink, even with Fievil helping to reduce the runoff loss of mana from the spell chains, moving the crystal any decent height would take my entire mana pool. Nevertheless, the progressive expense frame of mind I'd wrapped around the Freeform use of my Skills had worked splendidly. It was only in the regulation that I slipped.

Since curling up against the wall, my mana had regenerated to 60% from the low forties. Taking that into account meant that raising Gec one foot in the air took roughly twenty percent of my significant Q6 mana pool. Granted, I didn't know all the environmental factors that came into play with Arcane Sink, spell chain inefficiencies and distance overall. I could feel a headache not at all related to magic brewing and Teach's many lessons on practical mathematics niggled for dominance in my thoughts. I could practically hear the man's smug laugh.

"An estimate is good enough," I said, waving my hands to clear away my thoughts. "Plus, it should get easier the more I do it and maybe I can fine tune the efficiency. Danny and Sam did say that Freeforming can get expensive..."

The side effects of my mana were old hat, even if I hadn't been hitting the point of crippling myself for quite some time. I didn't expect fights in the future to get any easier, especially with all the unknown factors that operating in Ocala brought with it. It was time for some good old limits testing. Cracking my knuckles, I decided there was not much point to hesitating. Instead of trying to dump all that I'd regenerated, I focused on controlling the output down to the inch I'd originally wanted. If I could manage that, I could up my expenditure in steps while giving my body a chance to adapt to the mana surging through me.

I widened my stance, leaning heavily on Fievil while keeping the weight in the weapon with Ballast like an anchor point. Arcane Sink flared out around me as I let my mana flow. The Shard muffled my voice, but didn’t do anything for the grin on my face. "Let's do some magic."