Mana Mirror: Chapter Seventeen (Patreon)

The next morning, everything ached when I woke up. For a moment, I wondered if I’d been early, but when I realized it was a spiritual ache, not a physical one, it clicked.

The enhancer that I’d bought from Kene. I’d gotten used to the strange ache that the Lithetic Tea left in my Mana Garden. But if that ache was a middle of the road pasta place that you wouldn’t take a date, but you would take your family, then this new ache was a ham sandwich that you hurriedly slapped together late at night, far after you should have already eaten.

Which is to say it was worse, but there were still plenty of ways that it could have backslid further.

I cycled my mana into the air, then back into my Mana Garden for several minutes until I felt a bit better, then got up. I put on my binder, since I wasn’t going to be doing a lot of exercise today, and threw on some much more normal clothes, since I wasn’t on the job today.

I was thankful that the cleaning and self-repair functions in the suits let me use an ungated spell and a bit of water to clean them, otherwise I’d have to spend a fortune on dry cleaning.

With that all settled, I ate a quick breakfast and headed to look at brooms. I could have stopped at the station where I’d left the Acidbubble-Toad, but I knew that five hundred silver wasn’t going to get me a broom – and if it did, it would be a broom I wouldn’t trust.

I had no idea what a good broom shop would even be. I knew that even if I was able to pull in fifty thousand silver a year I still wouldn’t be able to afford a new, top of the line broom. I wished I could just look up what I needed, but with that not an option, I checked the city maps a few times and wandered from store to store.

The first one that I found was near me, but just from skulking around, I could tell that the salespeople were really pushy.

The second one I found had less pushy associates, but it was the size of a warehouse, and I didn’t trust something so big and corporatized.

It went on like that, until finally I stumbled on one that I thought I might be able to deal with. It was smaller, and specialized in used brooms. It wasn’t far from where I’d taken my first Spiritwatch mission, in fact, and the woman who was there seemed fairly straightlaced.

Unfortunately, the smaller size meant that once she was done helping the man she’d been with, she turned to me.

She was a middle-aged woman, tall and with the kind of athletic build I was definitely a bit envious of, and she had her hair tied in a sensible bun, and she’d cluttered the wall behind her with pictures of her and her wife.

“Hey, how can I help you?” she asked.

“I’m… I want a broom, but I know nothing about them. We’ve never been able to afford one, so…”

“Oh, alright,” she said, putting one hand on the counter and using it as a brace to casually hop over it. “I’m Vanessa, by the way. Let’s see if we can’t get you sorted.”

“Malachi,” I said, “thank you.”

“Sure. So, what kind of stuff do you need it for?”

“I work with the Spiritwatch and the Wyldwatch, and I’ve started leaving the city for more complicated missions.”

“Alright,” she said, scratching at her chin. “Well, how fast do you need it to be able to go?”

“At least as fast as a carriage,” I said.

“Oh, that’s not a problem,” she said, waving her hand. “Those move at somewhere between fifteen to twenty miles per hour. Almost all of my brooms can do that. Now, what sort of power source do you want, and does it need a storage reservoir?”

“Power source?” I asked. “I don’t know, what are the options?”

“Well, there are plenty of different types of broom, but the way that they’re powered makes a huge difference in price. If you want a broom that has a massive reserve of magic, can recharge itself by draining tempest mana from the air as it flies, and can hit a hundred miles an hour, it’ll cost you a lot. But there are other options. Do you have tempest mana?”

“No,” I said. I still wasn’t sure what I was going to do with my last mana gate yet.

“Then ones that you power directly to fly won’t be any good, so any model will need mana storage. The broom can do a lot of the heavy lifting for you, but converting something else to tempest is… Well, unless you’re a spellbinder willing to only fly for short periods, it’s no good.”

“I’ve only got first gate mana,” I said dejectedly. “Does that mean this won’t work?”

“Not at all,” she said with a grin. “You could do a you-charging model, a passive-charging model, or a crystal model. The crystal one absorbs power from mana crystals infused with tempest mana. A third gate crystal will usually get you about eight to ten hours of flight time.”

“How much is a third gate crystal?” I asked.

“Usually runs for about eighty silver,” she said.

I winced. With a payment on a the broom, and the crystals needed to charge it, I wasn’t going to be making a return on my investment for a long, long time.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” she said with a nod. “So, I’d recommend either a you-charging one, or a passive-charging one. A you-powered one is going to be a lot cheaper. You essentially pour mana in, it converts it into tempest, and stores it in a reservoir to be used later. The cost varies depending on the size of the reservoir, of course, and they’re pretty mana inefficient, but they’re easily the cheapest option. The passive-charging one has an inbuilt function to absorb tempest mana from the air. If budget’s a concern, I’d recommend the sort with a dedicated charging mode and flight mode, rather than one that charges itself constantly – those are much expensive, even if they can, in theory, perpetually power themselves.”

I frowned. The cheapest option was always appealing, of course, but I already used up my mana, and I was pushing at the limits of what I could handle with mana restoration. That wouldn’t be a problem forever, but it wasn’t going to help me in the present either.

“How much would it be for one that could switch on a charging mode, has a big enough reserve to fly for… six hours, and can meet a horse’s speed?”

She hummed for a moment, then walked around the store, looking at the brooms.

“I’ve got a few that match your criteria, but I’d guess somewhere between eight to ten thousand silver?”

I boggled at the price. I knew, on some level, that Orykson had spent a lot more than that on the suit that I was wearing right now, but… I hadn’t been the one to actually pay for that. Once I got my payment from Orykson tomorrow, and I got my pay from the toad mission, I’d be able to afford maybe eight hundred silver while still keeping enough for groceries.

“It doesn’t need to be all at once,” she said gently. “What could you do for a down payment?”

“About… Eight hundred silver?” I said, and she gave me a comforting smile.

“See, that’s not so bad!” she said encouragingly. “Most people pay about ten percent up front, then do a loan for the rest. Here, let me run some numbers…”

She sat down and did just that, and after a few moments, she looked up.

“Alright, So, with taxes factored in, and our interest rate, over a sixty month loan… You’d be paying about a hundred and forty silver a month.”

That… actually wasn’t too bad. Sure, it would wipe out my bank account now, but after that, I’d be able to afford it. It would cost me, but not so much I couldn’t do it – especially if I kept up with doing weekly missions for one of the Watches.

“What the hell,” I said. “Let’s look at the options.”

“Excellent,” she said. She waved her hand and four brooms leapt off their racks and floated over to us on currents of wind.

The first one looked like the most average broom I’d ever seen, with a mid-brown color, not a lot of distinct markings, and a bundle of sticks at the bottom, firmly attached with an iron band.

“This one doesn’t look like much, but it’s a solid broom. Thirty miles an hour, six hours of flight time, and a twelve-hour charge time if you park it on a roof with decent wind. It’s a bit messy though – it is gonna have a hard time steering, and wont be good at making sudden stops.”

The second broom was a darker, richer color, made from Hawthorne with a bit of chatoyancy, and a few nobs in the wood. Its tail was made from sorghum fibers, waxed to a point that made it subpar to use for sweeping.

“This one can only reach twenty-five, but it can run for eight hours. Sixteen-hour charge time, and much better control.”

The third one looked almost ratty, with holes poking through it like it had been made from driftwood, and a twig tail.

“This one reaches thirty too, with a sixteen hour charge time, and has some stopping and turning issues, but it offers a windshield, which is nice. Not durable enough to stop or even blunt an attack, but enough to keep the rain off or stop the wind from getting into your hair.”

The final broom was also a bit bland, though it did have a bit of purple running through it in veins, with a corn whisk tail cut into a diamond shape.

“This one can only reach twenty miles an hour, runs for six hours, and has a fourteen-hour charge time, but it has good control, and offers a windshield too.”

After a moment of hesitation, I tapped the second one.

“This one.”

I had no experience with a broom, so I wanted to be able to stop and turn, which had eliminated the first and third right away. But the second could fly for much longer, which was kind of the point of a broom. Flying in the rain would be inconvenient, but I wasn’t going to melt, and if it was a storm that was really bad, I probably shouldn’t be flying in it anyways.

“Excellent choice.”

The next several hours was full of the litany of tasks that came with buying a broom – registering the broom under my name, registering it to respond to my mana signature for control, and getting the title for it.

When I finally left, it was almost two in the afternoon.

“Thank you for all of your help,” I said.

“Of course! You should be good to pick your broom up in three or four days, once all the paperwork processes!”

I shook her hand and thanked her one more time, then left to visit the Watch station I’d left the toad at.

Getting the payment for the toad was simple – they gave it in the actual coins, but handed over five platinum, rather than five hundred silver. I tucked them in my pocket and tried to not think about how easy it would be to lose a coin or have it be pickpocketed.

I had to sit a while after that, but before long, one of the desk workers came over and lead me to the greenhouse where the Wyldwatch kept samples for rewards.

It was huge – easily twice the size of a normal warehouse, with thick, balmy air – and if I hadn’t been given a bit of advice, then I’d never have been able to sort through the mass of plants to find one that suited my needs.

As was, though, I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted.