Uranium Phoenix's Projects

Chapter 41 - Seeker

Mirian jerked up from her bed with a very short scream, then quietly muttered curses to herself while holding her head in her hands. Seeing that she’d woken Lily, she said, “Sorry, nightmare. Also, just remembered I have to do something, be right back.” As if to punctuate her sentence, a drop of water plopped on her forehead.

She had tried not to shout, it was just that getting shot was painful. Even though the wound was gone by the time she woke, the primitive part of her brain d...

Chapter 40 - Death

The last cycle, Mirian had missed several days of classes because of her early departure. This time, Professor Marva had given her some valuable tips on the mental component of an illusion spell. It wasn’t just the spell itself you could practice, you could also practice rehearsing the image or sound you wanted to produce. Some people with poor visualization capabilities found it easier to have a small painting to sketch to look at. On one hand, it could be a problem if you used the same di...

Chapter 39 - Investigations

Fifthday, Mirian decided to finally figure out what happened to Platus. She woke up early enough to annoy Lily, but just mentioned she needed to do some ‘extra studying.’ It was a good excuse, and Lily just went back to sleep. Then she headed for the Alchemistry building.

It was unlocked, though it shouldn’t have been. Mirian had finally completed her newest version of the spellrod the day before, so she drew it from her belt and prepared the force shield setting. She still wonder...

Chapter 38 - Theories

The next morning, Mirian went down to the Courier’s office to look for Song Jei’s address. “I’m writing her a thank you card for teaching,” she explained to the attendant. Most addresses in Torrviol were a matter of public record, so this wasn’t an unusual request. The government needed to know it for tax collection purposes, while merchants, bankers, and traders often needed to know an address to follow up on a contract (or, in some cases, hire debt collectors or inform the magis...

Chapter 37 - Mapping A Course

The first cartography device she made failed spectacularly. Creations like the spellrod just needed open mana channels linked to glyphs, and casting a spell was as simple as pushing mana through that channel and each glyph in the sequence. However, the mana flow through the cartography device needed to be strictly regulated, or, as she discovered when she tried testing the first prototype, there’d be too much force applied to the pen and it would go flying off, tearing a hole in the paper. ...

Chapter 36 - New Goals

Mirian awoke in her dorm, and was silent. She was silent as she gathered her things and went upstairs to turn off the water heater, silent as she came back down and dressed, and silent as she packed her satchel full of the things she’d need for the day. She moved automatically, not really processing what she was doing. All her thoughts were on what had just happened. The sheer scale of it was overwhelming.

She was out the door before Lily was awake. She couldn’t think of anything to...

Chapter 35 - Apocalypse

They both slept uneasily, waking up whenever they heard loud scraping nearby, or the teeth of some predator sinking loudly into dead flesh. Twice, Mirian woke to hear Nicolus sobbing softly to himself. When dawn finally broke, Mirian was relieved. The myrvites would still be scavenging for corpses, but at least they’d be able to see them and steer clear. Likely, they could avoid being attacked. Most animals preferred easy food, and there was plenty of that around now.

Mirian handed Ni...

Chapter 34 - Escalation

Worried conversation filled the train after the eruption.

“Did you see that—?”

“—looked like a magical explosion of some sort—”

“—too big to be a spell. Could a monster do that?”

“—Labyrinth under there? Maybe some old artifact—”

It was clear no one had any clue what was going on, and everyone was scared. Over the next few hours, they saw four more geysers erupt across the countryside, though none so closer or so large. Then, for a tim...

Chapter 33 - Omen

Mirian took a step back and raised her hands in the air.

“Who are you really?” Sire Nurea said, voice low and dangerous.

“Still just Mirian. I’m not going to stop you, I’m just taking the train too.” She kept her hands up and voice steady, despite the gun still pointed at her.

The guard had tensed up too. His hand had gone to one of the wands at his belt. It was still sheathed, but he was looking right at Nurea. “Ma’am,” he started, then seeing the ornate g...

Price update

Hello members! I'm lowering the minimum price for early chapters to $6.25. I'm also working having the Patreon 15 total chapters ahead instead of ten, so expect some bonus chapters to go up in the next few days. Patreon doesn't let me lower the price tier, but feel free to switch, and thanks again for the support!

Chapter 32 - Departure

The next time they met, the conversation went about the same as the first. Mirian tried asking about new innovations in airships, and both Xipuatl and Nicolus scoffed at the idea of really big ones. “The bigger it is, the more fossilized myrvite you need, and that stuff burns really inefficiently, so you need a lot. But the more you add, the heavier it gets, so the more you need.”

Mirian was embarrassed not to have thought of that. It was pretty a simple mathematical concept, and th...

Chapter 31 - Conversation

“I know how you can enjoy the snow, without earning demerits for dress-code violations,” Mirian told Lily the next morning. “Spell of traction. It puts force-spikes on the bottoms of your boots. Then you don’t have to worry about ice.”

Lily rolled her eyes. “Right, totally drain my mana on my way to class. Great idea. I’d rather it just didn’t snow.”

“Well, come to Arriroba. Does not snow there at all. Barely even rains.”

Lily laughed. “I’d...

Chapter 30 - Secret Passage

The day before the winter quarter started, Mirian finished hastily assembling her first delving device. It took her almost the entirety of Seventhday to do, and she was exhausted by the time it was finished. It was not her best artifice, but the item would function well enough. The device used a spell called cave detection, which sent out sonic and x-ray shifted light pulses. If cast from a spellbook, the caster would get a vague mental sense of if there was a hollow space behind a s...

Chapter 29 - Disappeared

To Mirian’s surprise, it was Professor Torres who sought her out, that Thirdday evening. Or rather, Torres sent an Academy messenger. Most towns did something like it; spry youngsters looking for a little money let it be known they could be hired for short messages to people. Running about town didn’t need one of the official Couriers. The boy knocked on her door just before dinner, surprising both her and Lily.

“Message from Professor Torres,” he recited. “Please meet me at t...

Chapter 28 - More Changes

It was, Mirian decided, a good thing it was the weekend. She awoke to an empty room, the hour well past breakfast. If Lily had set the alarm candle, she certainly hadn’t heard it. For once, she took her time waking up, then resumed her studies.

Mirian ravenously consumed the books on combat magic, divination, and illusions that she’d picked up, and when she wasn’t doing that, she alternated between visiting the metal shop and the spellforge. She also signed up to get combat certif...

Chapter 27 - Regression and Lessons

Lily glared at Mirian as she entered the room.

“Sorry,” Mirian said.

“I haven’t even told you why I’m mad yet,” Lily said.

“Yeah, but sorry anyways. Hug?”

Lily sighed. “Yeah, that would be nice.” After they embraced, Lily said, “You’re four for six, by the way. Emanuel only interrupted the professor four times, and you said it’d be five, and I didn’t meet Selesia. But the other stuff was uncanny. Nicola really did knock over an entire stack ...

Chapter 26 - Progression

She dreamed again. She might have expected the nightmares to come from the massacre of the south hills, or be of looming airships following her, but instead it was the dreams she couldn’t fathom the meaning of. She dreamed she was in the Labyrinth, halls twisting and turning. As she moved, passages closed up and left behind dirt, while new ones of metalloids and stone knit themselves together. There was a beating pulse beneath her, a warm thing that slithered about, and she knew she must fo...

Chapter 25 - Calisto

Arcane Mathematics was one of the few courses Mirian was perfectly happy to listen and take notes in. The third time through was just as valuable as the second, maybe more so. Even now she still had to ask questions—they were just different questions this time. Another application of the math Professor Jei was teaching might result in more accurate mana flow equations, which in turn could lead to much higher efficiency gains in even devices as simple as wands. Then she wondered: If arcane e...

Chapter 24 - Lunch and a Story

Mirian presented her clay cube to the class for the third time. By now, she’d condensed her speech considerably, and had a good answer to all of Professor Torres’s questions. She also wasn’t particularly worried about what her peers would think of her because they’d all be dead within the month. It was a morbid thought, but also, she still wasn’t sure what she could do to change that.

After the bored silence of the class and the “Good, you pass,” from Torres, Mirian moved ...

Chapter 23 - Trap

The easy part of the plan was to skip class. The hard part was figuring out what to do with the short amount of time she had to prepare. Her spellbook was full of minor spells, basic spells, simple spells, and nearly useless spells. It was all novice stuff because, well, that was what she was, a novice. Until she graduated, there were certain spells she wasn’t even allowed to scribe.

She considered a few options. She wanted people to know about the spies, right? But going to the guard...