Magic is Hard, pt 2

Berk was alone at the polar axis.

Dannis’ port had completed and was no longer stuck there with him. 

Berk got down and huddled against the carrier’s carcas. It provided cover from the relentless, fervent winds.

Now what?

As much as he desperately wanted to abandon the thought, he couldn’t escape the knowledge that he needed to be the one to invoke the spell of inversion. It had to be cast in order to keep this colony from needing to be abandoned. Their brain trust had agonized and decided this was the only choice. It was the only way they could repair their failing ecosystem. 

Out came his pocket data display, PDD. It had the spell right there. All the words and stanzas he would need. How to pronounce them, where the emphasis went. He just didn’t know if he could do it. 

It wasn’t that Berk didn’t think he could invoke a spell. You couldn’t live and not ever. The spells everyone did were easy. All of us tended to get wished well on trips, and that sort of thing. It wasn’t really hard invoking those. But, the spell of inversion was not going to be simple. 

He wanted to save the colony.

“Oh shit!” he screamed.

A strong, thundering rumble echoed.  Again, Berk started to run up the embankment. 

Another fissure anomaly had started.

Only seconds after he began to run, everything fell again. He couldn’t tell if it all fell more this time, he was just glad the rumbling stopped after a minute. He rolled over and got up. He needed to gather his tool, the topographic isometrics exaction—TIE—unit out of what was left of the carrier and hike his way over to the magical substrate they needed.

This time, he couldn’t see the carrier. He pulled his light beam to see what he could.

Nothing. 

The carrier was gone. Where it had been was now a chasm. He was still hoping to be able to see the carrier. To have it be somewhere he could climb down to get his TIE. 

Anaphora needed him to extract the numaxiom.

Berk worked his way over to that chasm. Treading carefully was a must since he didn’t want to fall in. After reaching a part from which he was able to look down deep, he saw there was no bottom. As far as the beamer could cast light, it didn’t show him the carrier. Just the hole. The carrier was gone.

Fucking wonderful.

That tool was gone. He fell onto his back and looked up at the heavens, wondering what he’d do now. 

This colony was doomed.

He could teleport back and just get off Anaphora. He didn’t want to. He liked it here. He had just met Juleness. She was cute. He thought there might be something there. Now it was all going to be gone. He’d have to go somewhere else a Tellurian might find employment.

For tools, he had only what was on his suit. The entire carrier and everything in it was gone. He only had his PDD, and the sensing hand unit, SHU. That PDD he’s had since he was a kid, literally. It was what he used as an undergrad. It had all his textbooks, all his notes. 

His SHU was the one he’d had since he became a Tellurian. It was conditioned to sense magical substrate within 25 meters. He had even done other terrific and useful things with it. He engineered a nimble synth process. But none of that mattered. None of it would keep Anaphora from needing to be abandoned.

Only if this magical element of Anaphora's core could be gathered on the surface. He could then invoke the spell of inversion. If only he could obtain the numaxiom. For some reason, that phrase kept running through his mind—if only he could obtain the numaxiom.

I know!

Berk sat up. He could, maybe, get it to will itself from one substrate to another. He had to dig through his notes to see if he recalled things right. He remembered this from a supplication lecture his fourth year when he was an undergrad. 

You never delete anything! Where is it!

Berk was able to dig it out from his notes. He found it—The spell of amalgamation. That spell had never been done, not like this. But it was their only chance at saving this colony. He had to try.

He took to his feet and started looking towards where they had been. He wanted that first sensor he placed. He had an idea of the area they’d been in and started heading over. If he couldn’t find it, it wouldn’t stop him from his attempt. But it would help considerably. 

He induced his frigid carcass to start hiking back to where that first one got placed. As he tramped his way, he was laughing about the crazy name they gave that tool. It was called a Particle Isometric Kaganumy Echo. Everyone just called it a PIKE.

It wasn’t any easier for him to get clearance over anything, but he was much more driven. He was quicker too. He didn’t know determination could do that for you. 

His beamer had a light that illuminated his tools and objects. It was a handy feature that made the PIKE glow in this low light environment. He saw it and started treading over. 

The PIKE could identify the magical substrate. They needed to be within 100 meters. They were best used in a triangulation method, but he could still use it by itself to help him find what he needed. What Anaphora needed. 

The spell of amalgamation has to work.

He picked up the PIKE. It still looked like it would still work. He then started making his way towards the center of this clearing. He and Dannis had first seen the presence of light there. They thought the source was there. The full breadth of the clearing was now lit even brighter. He could sense the incandescence in his soul. He could feel it. Dannis was right about that. 

As Berk scaled down and continued his trek, he found it funny that he and Dannis were who they needed for this whole thing. They were the best suited to rescue this colony from its failing ecosystem. And they were right here on it.

Who would have thought?

Berk knew why a Tellurian was needed to extract magical substrate. It wasn't easy, but that was what he did, everyday. Hundreds of times. Extract magical soil from here then put it there. He had spent his career digging up rocks and dirt that was looked at and examined. Every day. 

There was just a lot more at stake now. This process took on a whole new meaning. He was still pulling soil from here and putting it there, but this time, he needed to do it to keep this colony from having to be abandoned.

His project, Evergreen, was trying to improve the crop output on Anaphora. The colony was doing good on food growth, but there were other systems in this sector that didn’t yet have their production ramped up yet. When this colony could help with food, it was more likely the others would then thrive on their own.

And that was why they pulled Dannis into Evergreen too. Certain spells were known to augment growth. Dannis was here to invoke this spell or that to see how it affected what. Berk thought his day typically went like that. Provide soil for Dannis to invoke a spell, then return that soil, then watch to see what happened. 

Which was why a supplicator was brought on.

Magic is hard. 

And Dannis let Berk know the supplicate caste wasn’t easy either. Once they got done with school, they needed to get accepted by an order. Then work even harder. There was a lot about that caste that made Berk know it wasn’t for him. He was the data type of scientist.

Those of the supplicate caste tended to focus on feelings. They would sense if the spell was being accepted, then guide the cast with their intonations. He had heard Dannis go on about this more than once, and often at length—the timbre, the cadence, the brogue. 

Supplicators were always teaching.

Now I need to invoke a spell on soil.

He set up his one PIKE. It took him a minute to pick up the unit’s signals on his PDD. Once he did, he could see that he was getting closer. He kept moving on.

He had modified his SHU for work. He often needed to get soil from some other place. He developed the process of synthesizing matter. He could project into an area, and without actually touching that area, he was able to synth matter from there. 

By channeling through conduits implanted in the soil, he could get local matter to reconstitute, at a subatomic level, into what he sensed from a distance. He had conducted tests and could see that down to the DNA, what he sensed, he was then able to synth. Sadly, this synth process only worked on platitudinous material, magical substrates could not be synthesized. 

Berk reasoned on why the spell of amalgamation hadn’t been tried like this. To him it seemed simple. It was no longer needed. After his TIE units had been developed, the need for this went away. 

This was the only chance this colony had. He’d synth out the soil the numaxiom was in. He would then invoke the spell of amalgamation and try to influence it to travel, on its own, to the soil he had synthed. 

Berk stopped to check the PIKE again. He saw that he was getting closer. He should have been closer than it seemed. He looked back at the previous locations he measured readings at then did some mental triangulation. 

Left. Straight ahead, but a little left.

What daylight had been present at the polar axis was fading. He knew the days were longer here because of Anaphora’s rotation, but he also knew they would still end. He was relying on his beamer more and more.

The readings on the PIKE kept getting stronger. He was much closer. His beamer shone light on what seemed like a wall of ice. He kept stopping to take readings and kept walking closer to that wall. If he started to see if the left side was stronger, he saw that it wasn’t. The same went for the right. He needed to keep walking at that wall.

The readings were the strongest there. Without more PIKEs to triangulate the precise location, his approximation would be more like a guess. Berk shrugged his shoulders.

I guess I'm 10 meters away from the numaxiom.

The spell of amalgamation. He knew little about it, other than his notes. Berk would be synthing out the soil and would then need to invoke it. The time to read up on it more had arrived. He called up the words of the spell. 

He needed confidence. 

After studying the spell, he stood and started the process to synth out the substrate. He first implanted the conduit into the ice at his feet. He used the controls on his SHU to pick out what area he wanted to synth. He approximated the location and then started the process. After a few minutes, a frozen, a solid rectangle fell to the ground. The process was complete. 

It was now time for Berk to invoke the spell of amalgamation.

Berk would have loved to have talked about this spell with Dannis, but he didn’t. If this hadn’t happened today, him needing to move numaxiom without his TIE unit, he would have never bothered to look this up. 

Today wasn’t a normal day.

He started the cast. He was reciting the stanzas. He was trying to achieve the right pitch, the right tone. He wanted to feel what he needed to feel. He wanted to beseech this magical substrate to journey on its own, to its home, now 10 meters away. 

All he could feel was his desire for this substance—they needed—to make the move on its own. He wanted to save the colony. That was what he felt.

He didn’t know how long he had been invoking that spell. All he knew was that he desperately wanted it to have moved. 

Magic is hard. 

He got out his SHU to read the thaumaturgics on the synth matter. Well, lo and behold, it read the numaxiom. He had been able to invoke the spell of amalgamation with enough confidence to do what had been thought to be impossible.

That was all that was needed. 

He felt ready to invoke the spell of inversion and started the cast.