Chapter 11 – New Magic

  “I say we start passing out iron and silver bullets and take care of the problem today.” – Protester after the repeal of several anti-paranormal ws.

  Whack!. Clunk, clunk. The pieces of wood practically flew to the piles of split firewood on either side of Kurt’s chopping block. Val stacked another half log on the block and he split that one too, his axe and strength making short work of the seasoned wood.

  They had both slept in a little that morning, bumping into each other in the bathroom which ended up with Kurt standing in the hall to finish brushing his teeth. After a lot of coffee and a hearty breakfast, Kurt decred that it would be a chores day. Val groaned until she had seen him get a chainsaw and axe out of the garage.

  When he had the property cleared, there had been dozens of trees that had been piled off to the side of the yard. He had the foresight to block them up off the ground so they wouldn’t rot and had been deying turning them into firewood for a while. After signing on with the order, it turned out that the time had come.

  “Let’s stack some and get these piles under control.” Kurt said. He went and started tossing the split wood into the trailer so they could haul it back to the garage easier. Val seemed to take that as a bit of a challenge because she started lobbing pieces over his head to nd heavily on the trailer bed.

  She had woken up feeling much better if a little tired. This was evidenced by her curiosity and pyfulness coming back in full swing. “So how much of this do we have to cut?” she asked, hiking a thumb at the piles of trees.

  “I would like to get through a couple logs today and have that pile done by the end of the month.” Part of his pn was to heat the house with the wood stoves, only turning on the circuting fans to move the warm air around. It would be easiest with the stove in the basement since heat naturally rose.

  “Are we really going to burn that much wood?” Val was halfway done with her pile.

  Kurt thought for a moment. “Well, if we burn a half cord a day, we will need probably a hundred cords.” That sounded about right to him as he did some mental math. “So, I would like to have these 2 piles split and stacked. It won’t hurt to have some extra.”

  Val finished her pile and came to help with his. “You know I always thought I would like a pce of my own, but I didn’t realize how much more there is to a house than just cook, dishes and undry.” She waved to the house and barn. “Like, you built this pce, and at least know how to fix things. I would be lost if something went wrong.”

  “You get used to it.” Kurt said as he walked around to the truck after they finished filling the trailer. “And you eventually learn. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing when I started and just kinda figured it out by watching videos and reading.”

  They drove the trailer up to the garage and began unloading the wood. They stacked it on some scrap wood to keep it off the ground and began building a little wall between two of the stalls. Kurt figured they would end up building 2 walls and lining 3 more on the back and side of the garage.

  They ended up making 3 more trips with the trailer and completed one of the stacks on the back wall and one stack near where Kurt kept his tools. They broke for lunch with Kurt just making sandwiches and they split a bag of chips.

  “So, what now?” Val asked.

  Kurt rinsed off the ptes and put everything away. “Now I am going to do a little casting. Penny said the nanobots will memorize a spell and let me instantly cast after they see it once.”

  She perked up a little. “Oh, yeah, they do. That’s how I did those illusions so fast.” She then waved her hand and a very realistic looking yellow Labrador appeared on the gravel driveway a few feet from them. “It also uses less energy since you don’t need to use raw mana to form the spell then activate it.”

  Watching the dog walk up and down the driveway, Kurt noticed a few things. First was that the illusion could make noise, as evidenced by its panting and a couple barks. Second was that it didn’t actually interact with its environment based on how its steps didn’t make any sound. The third was that it had some texture to it.

  Kurt reached out and pet the dog, running his hand over its head. There wasn’t any warmth like a real animal but there was a resistance. It wasn’t like the resistance of fur but almost like touching high pressure air or wind resistance. Naturally when he pushed his hand all the way in, it dissipated into small motes of light that quickly faded away.

  “Impressive.” He said as he watched the illusion dissipate. “So, I just cast like normal, and the bots handle everything else?”

  Val nodded. “Yup, though you might feel a little tingle when you do. It’s the colony rearranging themselves into a new shape.” She shivered slightly. “It’s not painful but it feels super weird.”

  Shrugging his shoulders, Kurt decided to start with a simple spell. He focused his internal mana into his fingertips and willed them to leave a trail as he wrote in the air with his pointer and middle fingers.

  He spread his fingers and created 2 points before rotating his wrist around to draw a small circle. He then expanded it and drew a rune in the center that looks like the pi symbol turned upside down with an extra leg coming off the side. After making the symbol, he drew arrows coming off the circle and pointing inward to the inverted pi. He then clenched his hand and the circle colpsed into a single point that he could grab and move.

  When Kurt pushed mana into the shrunken rune construct, it started a trickle of water that he could increase or decrease at will. His control of the construct also allowed him to position it in ways to spray the water or change how it was sprayed. He could vary it from a fine mist to a firehose like torrent but preferred a smooth minar flow for most applications.

  Val walked up and ran her hand through the water. “Is it pure water?” She asked, then she licked her hand before he answered. “Tastes like it!”

  Kurt dismissed the spell and felt a crawling sensation up his spine. It was simir to the reaction he got when his teeth scraped against something unexpectedly. “Uha, that was weird.” He gave a little shudder. “Yeah, it’s pure, that’s also part of the problem. If you wanted to drink it, you should add a little salt or something otherwise it’s like drinking distilled water.”

  He cast the spell a second time or started to. As soon as he thought about the spell and intended to cast it, considering the shape and nature of it, it manifested before him. A small point of light identical to his original was created and started producing water just as his first one. He pyed with it and found he could still manipute it just like the original.

  “So that was the rune?” she asked pointing to the air that was generally in front of Kurt. “I know it was ‘create water’ but it looked a little more complex.”

  Motioning for them to go inside, Kurt started expining. “So, I can cast spells several ways. I can use my own energy or ambient energy. Energy being a catch all for a bunch of things like mana, heat, light, nature and so on.” He found a piece of paper and pencil in a drawer.

  “This is the basic rune.” Drawing the inverted pi, he continued with his expnation. “This part is to direct it, otherwise it just forms a ball of water in the air that grows till it you let the spell go.” He then drew the little leg sticking out of the rune.”

  Val nodded along. “Right, I have seen that part before.”

  Drawing the circle, Kurt continued. “This represents the boundary for the spell. If I make it too big it will effect a rge area, to small and it doesn’t have enough energy to ‘pull’ from” He drew the arrows again as he said. “Instead of just creating water out of nothing, which is super mana intensive, I repurposed existing water.”

  Spping her hand on the counter Val smiled. “You pulled moisture from the air!”

  Kurt ughed. “Haha, yup. I could do the same from a body of water and end up with a simir result. But now I want to try something.” He took the paper and balled it up before throwing it in the wood stove. One match ter and it was nothing but ash.

  They went down to the basement to the arms room and workshop. He opened another locker, this one being next in line from the one that held his grimoire. Then he pulled out a tall box that had what looked like 2 lids that opened in the center. After he put it on the table and opened it with a prick of his finger, he pulled the tops open to reveal what looked like an old tackle box.

  Inside was a series of shelves that had been divided into multiple trays that were a few inches wide and several long. Each tray held slips of what looked like paper, but it was slightly more yellow than printer paper. Val leaned over and read the little bels on the lip of each tray. They were some sort of spell judging by the names like ‘area light’, ‘coagute’ and ‘purify’.

  “Are these talismans?” Val asked while Kurt pulled one out that read ‘repair’ and set it on a metal sheet that he pced on the workbench. She saw that there was runic script written on the surface of the paper in a heavy ink that had little bits of reddish-orange and glinted slightly.

  “Yup, single use spells that anyone can activate. Problem with them is they almost take longer to enchant than they do to make.” Kurt began weaving another mana construct. It was a simir process to the create water one he used but this time he drew 2 circles, one within the other.

  Within the space between both, he started writing out a runic spell. He had to pause and rotate the construct several times as he worked his way around. Finally, after a few minutes, he rotated the construct to be ft and lowered it onto the metal pte and pced the paper slip atop it.

  While Val thought that was all, she was surprised to see him making another construct while keeping the first active. He formed the second set of rings in a simir way to the first set but then added 2 crossing lines in the middle that he centered over the talisman. With a grunt, Kurt pushed mana into the 2 now connected constructs.

  The glowing rings fred with light then slowly faded away as the ink on the talisman began to glow. After another moment, the illuminated ink faded and revealed that it had changed to a silver color against the yellow paper.

  Kurt felt the same tingle as the st time, but it seemed to come in 2 separate bursts of sensation. He immediately knew that the first was the enchanting ptform while the second was the talisman imbuement spell. He pulled out another repair talisman tempte and recast the first spell.

  The first spell instantly appeared, and he moved it to the metal pte, pcing his new talisman on top. Then he cast the second spell and sandwiched it all together. Once more the light fred and faded followed by the ink doing the same.

  “Did it work?” Val asked. She thought they both looked the same but couldn’t be sure since she was no expert on them.

  “Let’s find out.” Kurt said. He took a chisel out of his workbench drawer along with a small hammer. Val thought he was going to carve something using the 2 tools but was surprised when he used the chisel to gouge a chunk of the handle off of the hammer.

  Kurt then took the talisman he had made with the nanobot assistance and pced it over the hammer handle. He pushed a little mana into the slip of paper, causing the script to glow again. A couple seconds ter, the writing faded away into nothing and the paper turned to a fine powder.

  “And the verdict?” Kurt said as he brushed off the powder. “Looks like it worked just fine.” He smiled and held up the small hammer showing Val that the missing chunk of wood had been completely restored.

  “Wow!” Val shouted. “That is so cool, and it took you like what, 10 seconds? That’s a huge improvement over the nearly 12 minutes it took the first time.”

  Chuckling a little, Kurt had to agree. “Yeah, Jay is still an ass for not warning me about the injection, but this is pretty cool.” He put the rest of the talismans away, relocking the box and cabinet. “Well, let’s go cast some spells I guess.”

  Halfway up the stairs, Val got a text message and checked her phone. “Oh, it’s from Penny. She says she has something and to meet her in the hub?” She sounded confused. They hustled out to the office and arrived just as the door to the order was opening.

  Penny stepped out, going from grey to color as she did. The transition made Kurt’s head hurt just a little as he watched it happen. She was carrying a box with her that had the word ‘Receiver’ written on the side that he could see.

  “What’s in the box?” Kurt asked. He stepped forward to take it out of Penny’s hands and let her close the door. Once he did, he got a good look at the words ‘Satellite Internet’ that preceded the first word he saw. “Oh, right.”

  “As you can see, it is a receiver for satellite internet.” Penny began to expin as they walked back into the yard. “We have a deal with a provider, and you will essentially have the fastest internet you can imagine.” She seemed genuinely pleased. “Normally the order would just rework the node near your home to provide it but since you live…ah.”

  “In the middle of nowhere?” Kurt offered.

  “Sure… lets go with that.”

  Kurt set the box down on the porch and opened it. Inside was a rge piece of Styrofoam with a slip of paper on it. The paper looked to be added recently and read ‘Set up for Kurt Rosk’ on a sticky note. He set that aside and pulled out the molded foam insert.

  Under the foam was a ft receiver, some cabling, what looked like a weatherproof box and some hardware. He returned to the instruction note and read through it. All in all, it looked to be pretty simple, and he thought he could finish it up in less than an hour.

  “Alright, I’ll get this hooked up today. I can do it right now actually.” He said after reading the sheet of paper a second time.

  “I will leave you to it then.” Penny said and she walked back to the hub with Val, chatting as they went.

  Going inside, Kurt grabbed his tools and brought them up. He thankfully wouldn’t need a dder and could mount it to the side of the house. It was also convenient since he could mount it right where his electric came in from the garage and wouldn’t need to make any additional holes to fill.

  After about 30 minutes and teaching Val a few new curse words after slicing his thumb on a piece of aluminum fshing, Kurt had it wrapped up. The little waterproof box was actually the router and power supply but he pced it inside so it would be easy to access.

  “And there we go. All set up with…” Kurt trailed off as the speed test finished running. “Wow, she wasn’t kidding. We could have like 30 devices all streaming or downloading at once and never see a slowdown.”

  Val shrugged. “The order does as the order does.” It sounded like a maxim that she had said many times before. While Kurt was dealing with the internet, she had unpacked her stuff that Penny had brought over. Other than a rge pstic box, she had finished just as Kurt did.

  Closing his ptop, Kurt stood and stretched a little. “Ah, I think we should get back to some magic.” He said and started for the stairs again.

  Before they even left the house, both of their phones went off. They checked the screens at the same time and saw it was Penny calling. Val answered and put it on speaker.

  “What’s up Penny?”

  Their handler sounded a little frantic as she answered. “Problem. There is a rift forming and you guys are the closest anchor. Sorry to cut your time short but we can’t push it to another team right now.”

  “What happens now?” Kurt asked. Val had handed him the phone while she started dragging her trunk down the stairs.

  “Now you need to get geared up and ready. I will be over in a couple minutes to brief you. The rift will be attached to your anchor point in…” She paused and they heard typing and clicking. “Another hour and a half.”

  Kurt had decided to help Val with the box, and they pulled it into his workshop. Once it was back on the ground, she popped it open and revealed a well-stocked equipment box. “Just come in and down to the basement when you get here.” He said and hung up the phone. “What do we need, Val?”

  As he turned around, Kurt got an eye full of her panty cd butt while she pulled on a set of green uniform pants. He was entranced as he watched her shimmy the waistband up over her hips, making sure her tail ended up in the right spot. He looked back up to see her looking back over her shoulder at him, clearly grinning as she winked.

  She then pulled off her shirt, leaving her in just t-shirt as she pulled on a combat shirt. “Well, armor and guns would be a good pce to start.” She then pulled a thin set of torso armor and slid it on. It was already stuffed with magazines and a first aid kit, so he barely noticed it wasn’t the typical body armor.

  He decided to get with the program and moved to one of the wall lockers and pulled out a uniform in multi-cam pattern. He stripped down to just his under shirt and boxers before putting it on. After boots, he moved to one of the other lockers and pulled out a load bearing vest that was mostly empty. He carried the vest over to the weapon lockers and opened one of them.

  From the locker he started pulling out loaded magazines. A lot of magazines. Where Val had 6 on her armor, Kurt managed to stuff 16 of them into his vest. After that he put on a belt with a holster, dump pouch, medical pouch and some more magazine pouches. All of which got filled from the same locker. He made a quick stop to his locker with the hazard stickers and grabbed a small metal container that went in another pouch.

  He then grabbed the one ‘go to’ rifle he had. It was still a 5.56mm but had a short suppressor like device on its 14-inch barrel. Topped with a 1-6 power optic, light and ser, it would cover almost every scenario. Then he moved to the shelves and grabbed radios, headsets and batteries, handing one set to Val. He eyed her rifle for a moment but decided to just leave it for now, he could address it ter.

  Val looked him up and down. “No armor?”

  “Werewolf.” He replied with a smirk and getting a knowing nod from Val. He grabbed a small backpack on his way out the door. It was a design that id mostly ft, and he could attach to the back of his vest. It was about to get topped off with food along with its other contents. They began walking up the stairs they hear the door open.

  Penny met them in the living room, likely because she didn’t know where the stairs were. “Ok, good. Wow, um Kurt. Got enough ammo?” she said after looking him up and down. She went back to the kitchen counter and opened her ptop, moving aside to show them their first rift. “Anyway, let me show you what we have.”