Mana Mirror: Chapter Nineteen (Patreon)

The next several days flew by, with me working at the butcher’s shop, practicing sketching the Analyze Life spell whenever I could, converting all my death mana into life. When Temsday finally rolled around, it was time for me to pick up my new broom. I met the broom mechanic at her store, and she smiled broadly at me.

“Malachi, right?”

“Yep,” I said, smiling back at her. She waved her hand, and with a surge of mana, the broom I’d selected flew off the wall and over to her, and she extended it to me.

“There you go!” she said. “Paperwork went through last night. Ever flown before?”

“No,” I admitted. She nodded seriously and thought for a moment before she responded.

“Visit a park first and start by flying low to the ground. Trust me, you’re going to appreciate the softer landings – I speak from experience when I say that last thing you want to do is slam into a building at thirty miles an hour.”

I nodded and thanked her for the advice, then headed out to the park. The nearest one wasn’t too far away, but it had too many trees, so I actually wound up heading to one closer to my home.

When I finally arrived in the park and opened the brown paper packaging around the broom, I was surprised to feel it resonating with my ungated mana. I’d known that it had been attuned to the sample of my mana that I’d turned over, but I’d never owned a magic item of my own before – my suits didn’t count. Those didn’t have any connection to my mana, and I hadn’t bought them myself anyways.

I ran my ungated mana into the broom and could instantly feel the two modes that I’d been told about. It was currently on the charging mode, with the spell array that had been built into it draining power from the energy in the air. But it seemed like it was almost entirely charged, so I used a spark of mana to change it to flight mode.

Instantly, third gate mana began to hum through the broom, tingling at my fingers. I’d never been connected to third gate mana before, since I’d only started using first gate a few weeks ago. It was harder than I’d expected. If my first gate mana was like moving my hand through water, this was like trying to run my hand through syrup – something I’d done in the bakery when I was a kid by accident, and which I don’t recommend.

But I didn’t need to shape the mana, and I wouldn’t have been able to even if I’d wanted to. I just needed to direct the output of the spell.

The mana began to stream into the flight spell built into the broom, and the tingling of the energy at my fingertips stopped. The broom shuddered once and then stopped.

I frowned at it, willing it to move forwards.

The broom shot forwards out of my grip, where it abruptly came to a halt and fell to the ground.

I waved my hand, trying to imitate the gesture that the broom mechanic had used, but nothing happened. She’d probably been using an active bit of tempest spellcraft, then.

I walked over and picked up the broom, and this time I straddled it. I felt it reconnect to my mana, shudder, and then go still. This time, I willed myself to rise off the ground just a few inches, hovering.

I shot several feet up in the air and my arms and legs shot out, trying to find balance on a wind stream that had no footing. I fell of the broom and smacked into the ground.

I let out a long groan of pain, then drew the spell Meadow had taught me. Once I was feeling better, I sat on the broom again.

I was dealing with third gate mana, the highest level that most professionals in their field ever reached, I had to remember that. I used the tiniest bit of effort to guide the spell.

This time I rose a few inches off the ground. I used a similar amount of effort to nudge myself forwards, and inched forwards slowly.

Progress!

I spent the rest of the morning, and well into the afternoon practicing with the broom, only taking breaks to sketch out spells with my mana.

By the time the broom ran out of charge, I wasn’t confident enough to use it at full speed yet, but I was able to hover above the rooftops, and to fly around faster than I could run when I was close to the ground.

A part of me was a bit disgruntled that I wasn’t making any progress on a Wyldwatch or Spiritwatch mission, but I reassured myself that I’d be able to make up for that lost time in the long run.

There was still a bit of time left in the day, so I figured I may as well look at the Wyldwatch and Spiritwatch missions. I set the broom to charging mode, laid it over my shoulders, and started the walk.

As I walked, I popped open a can of Mana Shock and drank it, sketching the Analyze Life spell. When I was almost to the building, something changed.

I’d mastered ungated spells before. There was an odd sort of snaping sensation in the spirit when it happened, and then the spells just… worked.

This felt similar, but many times more intense. It wasn’t painful, not exactly, but it was strange. It was almost like the feeling of digging out a scab – annoying, yet somehow satisfying, and then a freshness to it. Inside my Mana Garden, I could feel the sapling of the tree had grown into a young tree, even if I couldn’t see it without the spells. I took in a slow breath, then channeled my power into that part of my spirit.

Without even needing to shape the spell, the world around me changed, the light of life energy welling up in the grass, the biological structure interwoven with it, the skeletons and muscles and blood and life of everyone passing by.

I stopped funneling mana into the spell and my vision returned to normal. I felt a grin spread across my face and I thrust my fist into the air.

“Yes!”

I’d gotten the Analyze Life spell down faster than Orykson’s deadline. I still had eleven days until the month of Suns-Birth. I wasn’t entirely sure I’d be able to master my Analyze Death spell before then, but I was hopeful that I’d be able to and claim whatever reward Orykson had in store for me.

I walked into the offices with a spring in my step and made my way to the bounty board. There were a few missions that I could do in the city that seemed somewhat interesting me, but nothing really seemed to stand out. Eventually, I shifted to the next board board and looked over them. I was mainly looking for missions that offered a reward that would either increase my death mana or grow my Analyze Death spell.

One of the missions offered me a two thousand silver reward, and I stared at it in shock.

All it wanted me to do was capture a handful of loose Death Crows trapped in a manor. I frowned and shook my head, looking for a catch.

I found it. The manor in question was in the backend of nowhere, easily an entire day’s flight, and away from any sort of town that would let me stay there. The manor might let me stay there, but I wasn’t sure.

I passed over it for now. I wanted to do a short mission first, and eventually I found something. I had skipped over it initially, but went back to it when I noticed the seal of the librarians on it. Alvaro had mentioned potentially becoming a friend of the library, so I figured that doing a mission for them couldn’t hurt. The posting was nonspecific, though, simply asking for help with live capture of Paperbeetles, and asking to visit the library for more specifics.

I pulled the paper off the wall and headed over to the desk to have it marked. I headed home to leave my broom in the backyard to charge, then walked to the library. When I finally arrived, the huge doors were thrown open to let the spring light stream through, and the solar light spells were diminished. I wandered over to the help desk, where a middled aged woman with a bald head and glasses almost the size of her entire face peered down at me.

“Oh, hello young lady…”

“Man,” I supplied, grimacing. It stung – I’d gotten better at passing, or at least so I thought, but it seemed like every time I got closer, some people would move the goalposts. Short hair wasn’t enough. A binder wasn’t enough. A packer wasn’t enough.

Ugh.

“Yes… What are you here for?”

I held up the slip of paper with the mission, and she took it from me and examined it for a moment, then I felt a flicker of mana. I wasn’t able to estimate its gate, and that caught me by surprise. Even when Orykson had released his staggering seventh gate mana, I’d been able to feel the power and quality.

It wasn’t that this power exceeded his. If anything, it most reminded me of ungated mana, but… off. It was like a spell was using ungated mana as a mask to hide itself.

She must have noticed me staring, because she gave me a frown.

“It’s an obfuscation spell. If you had Abnegation, Lunar, or Knowledge mana, you could cast it. Wait, someone will be here soon.”

I took a seat in a chair for a while, until I saw Alvaro approaching. He smiled brightly when he saw me.

“Malachi!”

“Hey,” I said as I nodded back at him. “I’m here to help with the Paperbeetles?”

“Oh, great, come on up then,” he said, unlocking the stairs and waving me up. I stepped into the stairwell and froze. There was a… Creature… on the stairs.

I wasn’t sure what to call it. It looked like a frog, but its limbs were longer, and structured more like a cats than a frogs, complete with a tail. There was no fur, only slimy, froglike skin. It looked up at me as I stepped into the stairwell.

“Why do you call it a sandwich, when it contains no sand?” the creature asked in a shockingly deep voice.

I stared at it even harder. Alvaro paused, halfway up the stairs and turned around.

“What is that?” I asked.

“What is anything?” the frog-cat asked. “Are we all everything?”

“A frinx,” Alvaro said. “They show up in libraries sometimes. They’re generally harmless, though a few have grown powerful enough to completely brainkill people. Those are thankfully rare, though. This one’s harmless.”

“What is the worst part of the color orange?” the frinx asked.

I ignored the creature and moved up the stairs after Alvaro, ready to start my mission...