emergencycomplaints

Book 2, Chapter 1

There were fourteen stone pillars growing out of the ground, all arranged in a circle and each inscribed with thousands of interconnected runes. Each one was five feet tall and six inches thick. It had taken me the better part of three days to set them up in the mountain cave I’d claimed as my temporary home. I’d spent another day after that carving grooves into the ground between the ...

Chapter 75

Chapter 75

I’d been digging through Noctra’s books for about three hours before Karad finally caught up with me. He barged into the room, a deep scowl on his face and anger in every jerky movement he made. “By the spirits, what do you think you’re doing?” he snarled at me as he came to a stop opposite the desk I was sitting at.

“Looking through these books for information,” I said. “I’d planned on doing it earlier, but there was always something in the way. By th...

Chapter 74

I sat in my home-turned-prison and watched another ‘secret’ meeting between the four adults who ran the town in my scrying mirror. Shel made no effort to hide why she was leaving the arbor any time they had one, and after my argument with Karad earlier, I’d expected an emergency session to be called.

“He was torturing them?” Melmir asked, his face trying to convey far more disgust than he actually felt. If there was anything I’d learned about the head of the Collectors over ...

Chapter 73

There were four people guarding the cell, but Karad was not among them. That was understandable, in light of everything that had happened yesterday. Other than the one scorched field, the village had escaped the conflict undamaged. As far as people went, the Garrison would be shorthanded and the Barrier Wardens would likely be divvying up a few extra shifts over the next few weeks.

Karad himself had taken on a bunch of extra responsibilities in his bid to take Noctra’s position. Even ...

Chapter 72

Other than examining the prisoners to confirm that their mana cores were dormant and empty, I spent the night recovering and going over the various pieces of enchanted or inscribed gear the party had been carrying. The axes and bows the hunters had were nothing special. Karad would be happy to add them to the village’s armory, but I had no interest in them.

Ebalnat’s outfit took me longer to go through. Only one of the rings was magic—the mana drain spell he’d tried to hit me wi...

Chapter 71

I was not an expert swordsman, nor was my body conditioned for combat. I was wielding a rock I’d shaped into the shape of a sharp stick. It was an awkward, unbalanced weapon that I was only able to swing around because of the mana coursing through my muscles. Against anybody with some martial training, it would have been an attack doomed to fail.

I stabbed Ebalnat in the leg while he gawked at my approach. He cried out in surprise and tried to club me with his staff, but he didn’t h...

Chapter 70

There was no way I was going to stop that thread of divination-driven mana from touching me. If I’d had more time and set up some wards around the area, I could have deflected it without the mage becoming aware of that, but that was a tricky proposition. It wasn’t something I was going to accomplish in the half a second I had before the divination swept over me.

What I could do was give it misleading information. The spell was a basic divination that functioned to detect mana in the...

Chapter 69

I’d picked this particular hill for two reasons. First, I was making an educated guess about what path the hunting party would take on its arrival, assuming they moved in a relatively straight line. Second, it was the only possible defensive point anywhere near the projected route our enemies would take.

As we moved, I explained my plan to Karad. “Essentially, I’m going to hollow out the crown of the hill. Your men will be able to kneel down in there and have total cover. The idea...

Chapter 68

Karad and Shel were both waiting for me, the former looking upset and the latter looking ill. “What was that?” Karad demanded as soon as I walked through the door, one of his fingers jabbed in the general direction of the scrying mirror. “I thought you said you weren’t going to kill him.”

“I wasn’t planning on it. I didn’t expect him to have a shield ward and I didn’t have a lot of time to come up with an alternate solution before he started throwing spells back at me....

Chapter 67

I knew the force bolt was a mistake the instant I let it fly. It wasn’t that the enemy mage had spotted me or that his reflexes were so great that he was going to twist out of the way. No, it was the light welling up from under his shirt. The shield ward snapped into existence and shattered my force bolt an instant before it would have taken the mage in the back of the head.

Without getting a look at the inscriptions, I couldn’t know for sure what the shield ward was designed to def...

Chapter 66

“I think we can safely presume hostile intent at this point,” Karad said. “Just look at all those weapons.”

“They would need them just to cross the wastelands. They could be for monsters, not to use on us,” Shel argued.

“They’re manhunters,” I said. “My guess is Noctra’s cabal thinks he’s fled, and this hunting party was sent to run him down and remind him of his obligations. But then they got here and found out he’s actually just dead.”

They cert...

Chapter 65

Shel and Karad sat on either side of me and watched my new scrying mirror as it followed after the black-barred hawk. For the last hour, it had flown in a rough circle around the arbor, stopping frequently to rest and scan the ground for prey.

“Are you really sure this is the best use of your time?” the Garrison commander asked. “This bird is… This is nothing.”

“This is the only lead I’ve got,” I said. “It’s this or just randomly look around the wastelands and ...

Chapter 64

After I got back, I had tonight’s door guard help me test my new shield ward by throwing things at me. Maintaining something like a mana shield at all times was far too expensive, but wards had the advantage of being extremely cheap to power. At least, they did if they weren’t designed to create a miles-wide barrier. For a single person, a personal defense ward was far more manageable.

The key to a good ward was that it relied heavily on divinations to detect the conditions under wh...

Chapter 63

Enchantment and inscription were two disciplines that accomplished similar purposes through radically different methods. Enchantment was great in that it was much easier to practice since it didn’t require any raw materials, and that enchanted objects could be used by non-mages. The drawback was that eventually, the mana would run out unless consideration was given to recharge it with ambient mana. In that case, the enchantment needed to remain in an area of high saturation, lest it risk ru...

Chapter 62

Author's Note: Keiran is currently number 1 on Rising Stars! I don't know how long I'll hold it, but we're celebrating while we can. Bonus chapter!

* * *

When I was a young man, full of a burning hatred for the rich and powerful, I killed some nobleman’s son. I remembered it, not because of how important the man was, but because it was the first time I’d ever seen a pocket watch. I never did quite man...

Chapter 61

I sat in a chair I’d made using stone shape on a big rock I’d relocated to my new home and watched my four apprentices play a game of catch. Instead of a ball, they were using an unrefined sphere of mana that held its shape only by the will of whoever was holding onto it. Every time one of them slipped, the sphere shrank a bit as streamers of mana escaped from it. It had only been ten minutes, and already the sphere was less than half the size it had been when they started.

The game...

Chapter 60

Council meetings were, unsurprisingly, boring. Karad had reports from the field overseers—food was still growing at the same rate it always did—and Solidaire had reports on movement sights out in the wastes—none—while Shel had reports on the arbor, which at least had something of substance thanks to all the work I’d been doing.

Melmir did decide to attend personally, much to my disappointment. It turned out the reason he’d done so was that he knew I was going to be there—p...

Chapter 59

Learning how to modify a mana core was a key part of being a mage. The ignition itself was only the first step, and that didn’t really do anything but wake up the core so that the entire thing started producing mana instead of just the terminus point. Depending on how well it was handled, the average mage could expect to see their mana generation increase ten-fold. My technique was a bit more thorough, and I’d managed to double that number.

With Father, he’d been my only student a...

Chapter 58

“We’re going to end today’s lesson a bit early,” I said as I noticed Karad approaching us through the trees. “Vhan, keep practicing gauging individual mana levels. Tomorrow I’m going to have you cold-reading other people’s mana and helping Talik do the same.”

The other three wandered off as soon as I dismissed them, but Shel stuck around. “Today is the day?” she asked, having noticed Karad.

“It is. It’s going to take about an hour and it’ll probably be ve...

Chapter 57

Walking with Karad to do the nightly charging for the ward stone was annoying mostly because my legs were much, much shorter than his. I had to practically jog to keep up with him, which looked entirely ridiculous. From a practical standpoint, it also wasted mana, which was what ultimately made me put my foot down about the issue after a few days. Karad had just grunted and slowed down a bit every time I fell behind.

At least he hadn’t offered to carry me. More than a few people had t...

Chapter 56

Over the next week, I settled into a routine. I’d start the morning with Nermet, and periodically throughout the day, I’d come back to check on his recovery before I moved onto the next step. Then my new students would show up, with somebody bringing breakfast. I never quite deciphered how they decided whose turn it was, but it never ended up being mine, so I didn’t complain.

Then it was lessons and instruction until lunch, with each of my students slowly growing more competent. S...

Chapter 55

I was up before dawn and working on Nermet’s condition. I wanted to get that fixed as soon as possible to relieve the burden on Father’s mana core, and because I thought it would go a long way towards improving my relationship with Karad. Unless I missed my guess, Shel was already on my side since my knowledge was so useful to her job, Solidaire would come around now that the barrier was properly functioning, and Melmir just hated me for reasons unknown. I was unlikely to sway him since I...

Chapter 54

It turned out the Arborists didn’t live much better than the rest of us. Their homes were made from the same mud-and-clay bricks, had the same thatch roofs, and were about the same size. Their houses were arranged in a circle with a dozen buildings in the middle of the Arbor, which took a bit of looking around to understand the logic of.

It was a giant circle with the Arborists in the center. There were six sections, all accessible from the center. One part contained fruit trees. Anot...

Chapter 53

Fixing the ward stone was just about as easy as I’d expected it to be. Someone got me a bucket of dirt to use as raw materials, which I quickly poured into the cracks and transmuted into new stone to fill the holes. That took a bit more mana than I wanted, but it only took a few minutes before I had a smooth, unblemished surface.

Removing all the problems Noctra had caused with his own attempts to modify the rune structure so it would work again took a lot longer. I ended up filling i...

Chapter 52

I’d half expected someone to be waiting to jump on me as I walked through the door, but they must have thought better of it. They were sitting in the same formation they’d been when I’d made my first appearance, and Solidaire took his seat wordlessly after letting me in.

“What would you like to know?” I asked as I looked around.

“How sure are you that you can fix the barrier?” Karad asked.

“Completely. I’ve already looked over the ward stone prior to any of...

Chapter 51

Solidaire advanced forward to grab me, but stopped at Karad’s outraised hand.

“Sellis’s boy?” Karad asked. “How’d you get in here?”

“Magic,” I said dryly.

“Don’t get smart with me,” Karad said harshly.

“Or what? You’ll throw me in a cell with my parents?” I asked.

“That’s exactly where you’re going,” Karad told me.

“No it’s not. You want to know why?” I asked. Without waiting for an answer, I said, “It’s becau...

Chapter 50

My sole concession while I regenerated mana was a single telepathic message to my parents that said nothing more than, I’m working on a way to get you out of there. One way or another, you’ll be free tonight. Just hold on.

I did not try to have a conversation, since even that simple message cost me over an hour’s worth of mana production. Really, it was sentimental and foolish of me to do even that much. That was one spell I could have cast to save myself in the event tha...

Chapter 49

Cherok peered at the storage crystals intently. “Yes, I recognize these,” he said. “These are crystallized mana, which means…”

Karad snorted impatiently. “I’m not one of your students. Don’t try to tease the answer out of me.”

“Which means these are the final form of a draw stone after it’s been completely filled with mana,” Cherok finished, shooting Karad a waspish glare.

I pinched the bridge of my nose and resisted the urge to groan. This plan had b...

Chapter 48

One thing I’d learned over the years was that the more moving parts a plan had, the more attention I had to give it to make sure that those parts were going in the direction I wanted, at the time I wanted them to move. Simple plans were better, but not always practical. My plan here had a few holes in it. For example, I didn’t know if Cherok would actually know enough about magic to identify anything in Noctra’s manor. For another, there was no guarantee he could read whatever language ...

Chapter 47

The good news was that nobody was hurt. The bad news was that I recognized two of the people standing outside the cell as Collectors. It wasn’t much of a stretch to connect the night we all disappeared with the theft of all the mana from their storage room. Even if they didn’t think we were involved in it, they’d likely want to know as much as they could about what went on that night.

But in all likelihood, they did suspect us. I’d put those Garrison villagers to sleep as well w...