tobiasbegley

The Third Gate: Chapter Forty-Four

So, while I am taking a break this week, I did get the Mana Mirror chapters done. As such, you can expect them, but probably no Effaced chapters

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As I ran, I reached for Dusk’s realm and drew power from it. I didn’t have any plants that produced Hudau mana, and conversion to third gate was a horribly inefficient process, but I still had enough to restore myself to full power in my other gates, and to convert up a bit of power for the beastgat...

The Effaced: Chapter Forty-Two

There was a muffled puff of air as a privacy enchantment enveloped the man, Rhys, Hadiya, and me. The man shook his head sadly.

“I am disappointed in you. You failed to uphold the spirit of our bargain, Rhys. As such, I have allowed Abraham to continue rigging this trial.”

“What do you want?” I asked. It wasn’t polite or nice, but at this point, I struggled to care.

“Ah, ah, ah,” he said, as if chiding a very young child. “That is not how one speaks to me.”...

The Effaced: Chapter Forty-One

After that, the landlord was very compliant, and also kept addressing me as Archmage. I wasn’t an archmage, even if I was only one star away from being one, but I wasn’t about to break the illusion I’d put on of being strong enough to casually rip a building out of the earth and throw it at people. I think he was under the impression I was a new enforcer for the Concrete Crown, something I was happy to let him think. 

Kelly seemed almost as stunned as the landlord, which didn...

The Effaced: Chapter Forty

Happy Halloween and Diwali! Just as a reminder, next week I will not be posting much / if at all, as I'm with family.

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It became annoyingly apparent when Kelly and I left to try and go to Rhys’ apartment for some sleep that, despite all our planning, we hadn’t accounted for Noor, the floor guard. 

“Sorry, Mr. Doggan, but I can’t let you and your son through,” she said, shaking her head. “Mister Ermonte put you down as a gu...

The Third Gate: Chapter Forty-Three

The following morning, I burnt through almost all of my mana to build and fuse as many teleportation platforms in as I could, then stepped into my cauldron and flew out to meet Kene. 

That was the reason behind me draining almost all of the mana. I needed some of it to cast my Analyze Space and Sense Directionality, so I could set up some Spatial Anchors on the way. Full, international platforms might require me to run it through the Ghost Market, and even normal teleportation plat...

The Third Gate: Chapter Forty-Two

Meadow and I spent several hours working on potions together, working on a few more flight potions, some body enhancement potions, a couple of emergency healing potions, a potion to align me with space better, a philter of healing mist, and a philter of strengthening mist. When we finished, I looked up at Meadow. 

“Mushrooms,” I said. “Well. Fungus.” 

“Hm?” she asked. 

“I’ve decided,” I said. “I’ve already got the ninelight morels, Fungal...

The Third Gate: Chapter Forty-One

I didn’t decide right away. 

Well, that wasn't entirely true. 

I decided against blood magic right away. While learning vampiric spells did have a certain appeal to the same part of me that wanted to summon a thousand ravens and disappear into a swirl of darkness, it just wasn’t ultimately practical for me. Maybe if Orykson had managed to get me more on board with killing, I might have jumped at the chance, but as things were? It didn’t suit me.

But between d...

The Effaced: Chapter Thirty-Nine

Once Aiden left, I glanced up at Hadiya and Kelly. 

“Did you hear anything about the attack on Anterior Gardens?” I asked. 

“There wasn’t one,” Hadiya said. “At least, nothing that made the papers and rippled across the city quickly. Which means either Firefright lied, or the constables actually managed to catch him.” 

Everyone glanced at Rhys, who shook his head. 

“I might be able to convince them to listen to a tip, but that’s fa...

The Effaced: Chapter Thirty-Eight

I managed to ferry out three more groups before a full force of constables arrived to start searching the scene. Their response time was much faster for a part of the city so high in the sky, with so many wealthy people, and they seemed to be doing a far more thorough cordon and search than they had been when the White Rooms had been attacked. There were even temporary wards being erected over parts of the city, which made it especially hard to escape. 

I slipped through the sewers...

The Effaced: Chapter Thirty-Seven

I shot her in the leg. I wasn’t trying to kill her. 

Even still, with increasing the mass of the bullet, and thus, the weight of the bullet until it was effectively as heavy as a blow from a sledgehammer, moving with more speed than any non-magical bullet could hope to match, wrapped in anti-tampering spells, and infused with the aura-hiding arch-star, it was too much for her to stop.

Maybe if I hadn’t had any one of those, she could have stopped me, or kept fighting. If ...

The Third Gate: Chapter Forty

Ikki exploded across the distance and his sword – when had he gotten that out? – was coming at my neck. I dropped and barely dodged the swing, then punched out at him, but I didn’t expect it to hit, so I didn’t throw as much power into the blow as I could have. 

But it connected, and Ikki’s sword was at my throat. 

“If you’d realized how much speed you had, you could have known it would hit,” he said calmly as we reset and launched into a fight together a...

The First Death Vote

Like I implied in the story, there will be two death votes. The first one will be this, and the second one will be for what sort of undead he's going to work with.

The Third Gate: Chapter Thirty-Nine

As tempted as I was to fly off the next morning in order to go visit Kene, collect some fox spells, and explore the forest, I thought better of it. I still wanted to get Ikki’s opinion on the Improved Sleep and Quality Lifespan spells. Since they were also life spells, I flew out to Meadow’s hut on the outskirts of the city first, and we headed into Dusk’s realm before we summoned Ikki. 

He appeared, and his eyes flicked over Meadow, the spells I was holding, and then Dusk an...

The Third Gate: Chapter Thirty-Eight

I studied the spell for a long moment, then spun out a spatial anchor over the table, since I was fairly certain that would be required for the spell, then began sketching it out with one hand. Before I could move, Orykson waved a hand. 

“Make the Spatial Anchor permanent, then tie it to the one in your body at an equal distance.” 

I nodded and funneled power into the two functions, first creating the stable core of spatial power, then changing it so the reference po...

The Effaced: Chapter Thirty-Six

At the head of the conference table, on the far end of the room, was an older man. Tall, dark skinned, with a bald head polished to outshine the wooden floors, he wore a suit that was tailored perfectly, and very little jewelry, apart from a set of defensive artifacts on a necklace.

“Ah, mister Ermonte, mister Font, come in,” the man said. His voice was crisp, clean, and smooth, incredibly precise. “Please, take a seat.” 

He gestured at the seats on either side of the...

The Effaced: Chapter Thirty-Five

Rhys’ apartment was in an actual apartment building, not a room inside an airship. That surprised me a little bit – coming from a politician’s family, he had the money and connections to live in an airship, so he must have chosen to not flaunt the wealth. 

Oh, sure, he was still high up, given that he’d punched the button for the thirty-first floor, but even that showed some restraint, considering his building had eighty-four stories. 

As the pneumatic lift puffe...

The Effaced: Chapter Thirty-Four

I was awoken by the smell of fried chicken cutlets, toasted chickpeas with spices, eggs cooked with tomato, onion, and spices, and some thick sausages, and blinked the sleep out of my eyes to look up and see Rhys holding several different paper bags from street or skylane vendors and putting them out on the table.

Hadiya’s head shot up and she muttered something that sounded like a curse – not in the swearing sense, but like she was chanting out a curse spell in her sleep. Kelly fla...

The Third Gate: Chapter Thirty-Seven

I fell to my hands and knees, then just flopped against the ground, sweating and gasping. My spirit strained and bucked as my spirit rebelled against my control, spurred on by the casting of Seven League Step. My tail lashed wildly through the air, burning with a bright blue light of spatial energy.

It wasn't pain. I knew spiritual pain. I understood it and was familiar with it. This was something new as if a portion of my very being was fighting against me, against myself. 

...

The Third Gate: Chapter Thirty-Six

The following morning, I was prepared for when Orykson appeared at eight, right on time, as he usually did. He clicked his pocketwatch, tucked it away, then glanced around at the backyard, his eyes landing on where I’d begun setting up a basic teleportation platform the day before.

“We’ll have to get that registered before Dusk claims that as a part of her dominion,” he said mildly. “The construction of standard teleportation platforms on personal property is legal, but when y...

The Third Gate: Chapter Thirty-Five

I hesitated for a moment. While hudau mana was so rare that I wasn’t even sure that Meadow, Orykson, or Ikki would know, I did think that it was possible Edgar might. Not that he knew more than the three of them – he simply was uniquely suited to have information on these specific spells. Heck, if he didn’t, he might be willing to try them.

I wasn’t saying no to the spell entirely, but I’d hold off for now. What were the odds I’d need this, specifically, before I got a chanc...

The Effaced: Chapter Thirty-Three

This chapter is a little bit on the short side, so apologies about that, but extending it more felt forced.

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With Firefright out of the picture, it didn’t take long for us to find Zone – no, to find Jessica’s – hiding spot. It helped that I knew where it was, so we really only had to navigate the shoddy un-cordoned area until we found it, and then I knocked on the door. 

It didn’t look like a door. It looked like a chunk of ...

Quick Update

With the holidays coming up, there are going to be several weeks where I am not sure if I'll be able to post chapters. Here are some of the dates that I'll not be posting chapters, so that you all know.

• Monday, November 4th to Sunday, November 9th

• Thursday, November 28th to Saturday, November 30th

• Monday, December 16th to Saturday, December 28th

After that, things should be pretty much back to normal. You can expect a...

The Effaced: Chapter Thirty-Two

The second and third combat teams were relatively easy to dispatch, since they overly relied on force magic and anti-tampering spells.

Both of those were fine defenses, but even if I hadn’t possessed Odril’s infusion abilities or my experimental rune bond, it wouldn’t have been enough to stop me. Though detaching the output of the spells frequently was hard, and I wasn’t as good as Aniseed had been, I still had more than enough skill to mess with the buttons in their clothes, th...

The Effaced: Chapter Thirty-One

Rhys sighed as he leaned back in the chair. Hadiya was slumped over the table, exhausted from running around constantly. The fact that Kelly was running around was understandable – Rhys had pulled more than his fair share of all nighters as a teen – but the fact that Axel was apparently well enough to keep going, and to risk getting into combat, despite the fact it was almost midnight, and they’d all spent the entire day running from one emergency to the next?

Well, if nothing els...

The Third Gate: Chapter Thirty-Four

I found Alvaro sitting in a chair by the fire, flipping through a book, when I arrived. He’d neatly stacked the copies I’d requested onto the table alongside three slender spell guides, the smallest of which was just a scroll. I put down the pair of spells I was carrying on the other side, so I would remember to make copies. Hopefully. 

“Here you go,” Alvaro said, gesturing to the pile. “Mana Meditation, Seven League Step, and, well, I know that you said a list of every h...

Vote Time of the Votification for Voting

Because I have an idea someone's going to ask, remember that while he can remove spells, with Beast Mage's Soul turning them into arrays within his body, it's much harder to undo than for a normal mage.

For reference: The spell is 3rd gate

The Third Gate: Chapter Thirty-Three

My family spent the night together, playing a card game, talking about old stories, and Kene helped me cook a lentil, carrot, turmeric, and ginger stew, but as the night drew to a close, Ed and Liz said their goodbyes and flew off towards their new apartment, Liz with a pair of winged sandals, and Ed with his gravity magic. My dad turned in, since he had to work tomorrow, and Kene and I headed to my old bedroom. 

Sleeping in my old bed was… weird… I’d gotten so used to the ch...

The Third Gate: Chapter Thirty-Two

After the dramatic tension of having to worry about technically-not-lying to the security tests in Delitone and Dragontooth without giving away the eggs while also having to worry about having my spirit battered while it was already injured, taking the ship ride home was remarkably calm and simple. 

Dusk and Kene were both working on burning away the mists in the second part of their third gate, now that they’d built their steps out, and Kene even pulled Dusk aside to test out hi...

The Effaced: Chapter Thirty

“We’re going to find my sister,” I said. “I know Zone, and she’s not going to return to her husband for a while. She’s set off an emergency banner, and he’s going to have fled to one of her safe houses. She is too.” 

Hadiya frowned. 

“I understand why you want to keep her safe, but what does she actually add to this situation? In particular, attempting to clear your name?” 

“Other than what Rhys has said, she doesn’t add much to that, b...

The Effaced: Chapter Twenty-Nine

“Zone isn’t dead!” Rhys said quickly. “Her body wasn’t found, and from what little we were able to find, there are reports she brought down about four heavily armored paramilitary types before fleeing the fire.” 

“What fire!” I half-shouted, before taking a slow, deliberate breath. “What fire are you talking about?” 

“Zone’s grocery store was set on fire by someone,” Rhys said. “They’re not sure who, though.” 

“Firefright,” ...