Book 2, Chapter 37

I didn’t sleep well that night, partially because my mind was consumed with thoughts of my return to Derro, something that I was both eager for and dreaded. I wanted that business closed as soon as possible and I hoped to find some clues about what exactly had happened to the world and the missing moon in the night sky. My spells should have ensured I’d been reincarnated almost immediately, but it was obvious something had gone wrong there.

How much time exactly I’d lost was difficult to figure out. And therein lay the problem. More and more, the evidence pointed to some kind of world-spanning cataclysmic event, perhaps even an assault on the world core itself. It would certainly explain the lack of ambient mana, but if that were the case, it would mean the entire world was mana-starved, not just the little corner I’d been reborn in.

Something like that couldn’t have happened overnight. How many years, or even decades, had my reincarnation been delayed? And how had it happened? No matter how often I went over the soul invocation spells I’d used, I couldn’t find a flaw in them. That left the idea that something had intervened, but that seemed equally impossible. I remembered the last seconds of my life, and the spells had gone off without a hitch.

In order for someone to interfere, they would have had to fish my soul out of the reincarnation cycle during the brief window I hadn’t had a body. No one I knew of had that kind of magic. I didn’t have that kind of magic, and to the best of my knowledge, I’d been blazing new trails in the field of soul magic.

It was an impossible conundrum, one I’d lost far too much sleep puzzling over. Last night had been no different. I was hoping to find some history books in the libraries of the mages of Derro that might help me shed a little light on how long I’d been gone, if not why it had taken so long to be reincarnated.

The other reason my sleep was riddled with interruptions was much simpler. It took a little over two hours to fill my mana core from empty to full, so I’d woken up several times to drain that mana into my crystal in an effort to recover some of the resources I’d expended lately. It was a process I’d be doing regularly over the next few days.

Once everyone was awake and ready to start the day, we gathered for a meal in the common room. Talik cooked for us; surprisingly, he was one of the best cooks in the village and regularly prepared all the Arborists’ meals.

“Shel was not too happy about my decision to go,” he said with a laugh, “but when Ayaka told me what was going on, I figured this was my best chance to keep progressing my magical studies.”

“It worked out well for us,” Mother said. “It’s nice to get a day off. Sellis is such a horrible cook that I haven’t let him touch the food in years.”

“Hey now!” Father said. He paused, then shook his head and sighed. “Well, it’s not like it’s not true.”

“Your talents lie in other areas,” Ayaka told him. “One day, I’m sure you’ll discover what those areas are.”

“I don’t mean to interrupt your fun,” I said, “but once breakfast is over, I’d like to start working on your ignition rituals. I’m not sure how much Shel has told you about what needs to be done, but I expect it to take a few hours to practice before we do it for real.”

“Right, that.” Ayaka exchanged glances with Talik. “I think I’m ready. We’ve been talking about doing the ignitions without you for weeks now, but Shel made it clear how much you helped with hers that I didn’t want to risk trying to do it unsupervised.”

That was a smart move on her part. It would be less of a hassle for me personally if she did it herself, but my inner perfectionist would settle for her achieving a flawless stage one core with my help. Ideally, she’d manage the ignition on their own, but that wasn’t a reasonable goal.

I ran the her and Mother through a set of exercises while everyone else watched. Mother was going to be going through this next, Senica was beyond fascinated by the whole thing, and when Father tried to excuse himself, I said, “I’m working on an elixir that will make the edge of your core malleable so you can try to fix up the rough spots. You’ll be doing an even harder version of this soon.”

“I… didn’t know you could do that,” he said hesitantly.

“It’s not easy or cheap, but yes, it’s possible. I don’t think it’ll ever be a perfect core, but it’ll get a lot closer than it currently is,” I said.

“That’s all well and good, but is it truly necessary?”

“Think of how much mana you made in a month before your ignition. That’s how much extra you could be making over what you already make now every single day if your core was perfect.”

“That much?” Father’s eyebrows shot up. “I thought you said we did a good job the first time.”

“Adequate job,” I corrected him. “It was sufficient for keeping Nermet alive. If you hadn’t decided to do that, I would have insisted on more training prior to your ignition.”

After demonstrating her mastery over their own mana, I left Ayaka to go prepare herself for the ignition ritual. While she was getting ready, Senica walked over and sat down next to me. “Gravvy, when do I get to be a mage? It’s not fair. I’m older than you are.”

“Sorry,” I said. “You’re doing very well though. If Mother and Father agree, I’ll help you once I come back from my trip. I think you’d be a powerful mage once your core is ignited.”

“Can’t you do it before you go? It’s going to be really boring out here with no one to play with. Magic would make it a lot more fun.”

“I’m sure it would,” I said.

“No,” Mother said. “Remember what happened a few weeks ago?”

“That was an accident!”

Mother just gave Senica a flat stare.

“It was,” Senica muttered.

“What happened a few weeks ago?” I asked, trying somewhat unsuccessfully to hide my amusement. “Wait, is this related to the scorch marks?”

“It was an accident!” Senica yelled again.

“She went out into one of the fields to practice without anyone finding out and started a small fire,” Mother explained.

“I put it out right away!” Senica said, scowling up at Mother. She huffed and stomped off.

“These kinds of mistakes happen all the time in training,” I told Mother. “She won’t be the last one to accidentally start a fire in this group. It’s not that big of a deal.”

“The village felt differently,” Mother said dryly.

Our conversation was interrupted by Ayaka’s approach. “Ready to get started?” I asked.

* * *

Ayaka’s ignition went about as well as could be expected. She managed nineteen times a dormant core’s generation rate, and I assured her that we could smooth over the imperfections in her core with the appropriate alchemical concoctions and some effort.

I spent the next hour or so walking all of them through more training exercises and teaching everyone a few novice tier spells to practice on, just some weak conjurations and invocations like elemental manipulation, light, sharpened senses, and weight reduction. That was more than enough to last them a few months.

The last thing I did was drain enough mana from the battery to fill half my mana crystal. It wasn’t meant to be used that way and it fought me the whole while, but I knew what I was doing and I skimmed enough mana to let me teleport back to Derro and still defend myself immediately if it was necessary.

Then I bid my family farewell, filled my phantom space with a few pieces of food to last me for a day or two, and began the teleportation spell that would return me to the city. As soon as I got to the point where I’d normally visualize my destination, I realized there was a problem. I could feel the teleportation beacon on the scrying mirror in the house, the one in Alkerist, the one hidden with my crucible, and one more far to the west in the city. There should have been two in the city.

“Damn,” I muttered. “One of my beacons got discovered.”

“Maybe you should stay here,” Mother said immediately.

I shook my head. “The other one is still up. They were spaced far enough apart that I suspect the one I left near the lair of the mage I killed was discovered when they were searching for clues about what happened. If they were smart, they’d have left it there and trapped it. Still, I need to make sure they didn’t discover the second beacon and do exactly that.”

I retreated into the house to use the scrying mirror and gave silent thanks that Father had taken my warnings about keeping it charged to heart. It had more than enough mana to do the job. Unfortunately, I still hadn’t upgraded it to see mana, so I was limited to a visual inspection of the ruined house I’d claimed as my home base.

There was nothing there to indicate anything had been disturbed. Even the pile of leech stones I’d left in the corner was undisturbed. After expanding my radius and sweeping the other nearby buildings, I found no sign that anyone was waiting for the beacon to activate. Unless they’d managed to break the wards I’d left up, no one was going to be able to sense me using it anyway.

There was some risk that the enemy mages had managed that, but if that were the case, I’d have enough mana to kill anyone who wasn’t as strong as Freak had been inside his own lair. Certainly I could destroy a dozen enforcers without issue. If there was someone stronger, they’d need some time to close in on me after I arrived, long enough for me to assess the status of my wards. I’d have enough time and mana to escape and hide if it came down to it.

“I think I’m fine,” I said to my parents, who were anxiously hovering over my shoulders watching me manipulate the scrying mirror to show the streets and buildings of Derro. “The second beacon was placed in a conspicuous location near where a large-scale battle took place. I looted that mage’s lair as thoroughly as possible, so it makes sense that they’d find the nearby beacon. This one in the mirror here is on the other side of the city, not as conveniently placed, but with nothing to point toward it.”

My scrying session had cost me practically no mana, though it had drained the mirror a noticeable amount. I reminded Father again that the beacons on it were my life-line if I needed to flee the city quickly, not that I thought he needed it, then went back outside to resume my teleportation spell. It wasn’t that I needed the space or anything. I just liked the view. It was the closest I’d come to finding another Night Vale in my new life, even if it wasn’t even a fraction of a pale imitation of the real thing.

A few minutes later, the spell took hold and whisked me hundreds of miles to the west to land inside the shell of a home in a ruined desert city.