//------------------------------// // Ch 44: Recovery and Crafting // Story: Level Up! // by RisuUmbra //------------------------------// Chapter 44: Recovery and Crafting The Spirit (who shall now be referred to as Sparkle) and I had come to an understanding, one that the both of us were honestly happy with. I think they were relieved when I understood their reasoning for not telling me some details, future knowledge being annoying. We spent another hour or so on that balcony talking about our next moves. I brought up Falling Star and was advised to simply keep watch over him and maybe get some Satiety tinctures into him. Next was Aaron, I would need to make a few different items with my witch crafting skill before I could use a ritual. Said ritual is called a Ritual of Open Soul, the name sounds much more intimidating than its actual effect. It’s supposed to make the target much more open to magical effects and observation.  Sparkle could speak long after telling me about the ritual so they quickly advised me to continue to listen to my instincts and to not let my fear overcome me. The way they phrased that sound odd to me, especially now that I know that Sparkle knows the future. That left me standing on the balcony with Calcifer feeling slightly lighter than before if only because I knew what to do next now. The four of us would be stuck here until the rest of the player groups showed up over a few days so I would have plenty of time to treat Falling Sta- “Markus!” My thought was cut short by Morgana’s alarmed yell, before I even realized it I had blinked back into the living room and frantically searched the room for a threat. Burning mana leaked from my horn as my eyes fell on David who was standing outside of Falling’s bedroom. He saw me and quickly stepped aside and almost pushed me inside just as fast as I ran in, Morgana was hovering over a convulsing Falling. I was quickly beside her holding him still and making sure he didn't bite his tongue off. My look at Morgana asked all I needed to say. “I don’t know what happened! He looked like he was in pain so I went to heal him then he s-started to… “ She held up her still glowing hooves and held them out like she wanted to help but was stopping herself. My mind spun, I felt Falling convulse again but this time much more violently then before and had a flash of my 6th sense. I looked around and saw an empty trash can that I quickly levitated over, I turned Falling over and let him throw up into the bin. Stomach acid and brown liquid sprayed into the dusty bin, thankfully the convulsions had stopped at this point. I let my magic flow over Falling and felt his magic flickering and attacking the small remnants of Morgana’s healing magic. His body is treating any foreign magic as hostile, almost like an immune system being hypersensitive. The healing potions are made using natural magic from ingredients and not my personal magic. I cleaned Falling’s mouth with a rag and turned and asked David to go and grab my bag. I should have a few more doses of the tinctures of healing and satiety.  A quiet whimper came from Falling Star, I held him close while I waited for David to get back. Morgana sat on the other side of Falling and tried to comfort him as much as she could without magic. David quickly returned with two bowls of red and brown liquid, I quickly grabbed them with my hydro kinesis and slowly fed Falling the dose of healing tincture first to both heal his throat and settle his stomach. Falling’s whimper slowly went away as the pain subsided, once his discomfort completely disappeared then I fed him the last dose of satiety tincture.  “He’s okay now, let him get some rest” I tucked him back into bed before lifting the soiled bin and turning to leave the room with everyone. Once back in the living room Morgana and David turned to look at me for explanation, I let myself relax slightly and reminded myself that I would need to make more tincture later for Falling. I sat the bin by the bathroom and joined my friends over by the couch. Morgana's eyes showed just how worried and guilty she felt, she must feel like that was her fault. David's face had gone stony, as if he was waiting for bad news and was bracing for impact.  “First of all, you two need to know that he’s going to be okay. He’s going to be weak for a while but he should make a full recovery as far as I can tell, that wasn’t your fault Morgana. His body isn’t ready for foreign magic right now, it thinks everything is a threat right now” Morgana visibly relaxed at my words and David took a deep breath and let a relieved smile grow on his face. I gave the two a quick rundown on what the spirit or ‘Sparkle’ as she will now be referred to said. Morgana looked sympathetic to the thought of being alone for all that time while David looked… confused.  “So… are we dealing with a dragon ball scenario then? We need to travel around and gather all of the shards?” Hearing David summarize our next move so succinctly was not what I was expecting. Odd comparison but accurate, I nodded to his comparison then had an idea. Could I make a radar? If I can get my hooves on a shard then use the right ritual then… maybe? I went to talk the idea through with David who was happy to help as he had much more mechanical knowledge then me with his profession Aspiro Arificer. Morgana trotted over to the kitchenette and retrieved a few bowls of salad, we were running low on perishable food. Morgana said that she would go foraging tomorrow with David. The salad was good and surprisingly filling, Calcifer apparently liked tomatoes but disliked mushrooms. David and Calcifer have started to bond over the frustration that is preening. I laughed at them for all of ten seconds before Calcifer got revenge by merging with me and making me preen with them. I had hairs stuck in my mouth for hours after, Morgana actually went down to the first floor to practice one of her few passive skills: Channeling. She needed to be in contact with more earth to do so, apparently she takes on aspects of whatever element of nature she touches. That could be extremely powerful at later levels and she realized that.  The rest of the day was spent with everyone planning how to further their skills, I asked David if I could borrow his sword. When he asked why I told him that I wanted to see if I could enchant it to give it more durability or at least be able to survive his lightning skills. David was interested but still pretty skeptical after seeing everything I imbue explode, which was a valid reason. I wanted to elevate my skills like with Hydro kinesis, being able to completely manipulate an element in all phases of matter would be extraordinary… though it’s not like I can’t already do that with fire. That actually made me pause for a bit, what are the other types of fire that I could use? Superheated fire is just plasma and I already have lightning manipulation, maybe it’s just locked behind the level? I’ll just put fire on the proverbial backburner for now and focus on the other elements I have been neglecting, like the aforementioned Lightning Manipulation. I also still needed to figure out air and earth magic, i’m not gonna waste a skill point on learning those. It shouldn’t be too hard to figure out on my own. My thoughts about lightning magic made something ping in the back of my mind… where's my thunder lion? I cut off my conversation with David and got up from the couch, I went to check my familiar lantern and sure enough it was empty. I didn’t even feel the mana drain from it being out, Calcifer doesn’t rely on me for mana anymore. I felt the hair thin connection between me and the lion and tracked him… in the other room? David followed along confused as I crept back into Falling’s room, and there it was. The lion had curled up on the bed around Falling and was purring softly, it was… dangerously cute. David peeked through the doorway and looked to have been physically hit by the cuteness, we slowly closed the door behind us… then sprinted downstairs to tell Morgana. That day ended on a happy note. Day 1: Falling woke up for the first time that morning, albeit not for long. His body is so overly taxed that he could barely lift his head to be fed some broth before falling back asleep. He was still slightly delirious, he called me momma while I fed him. As much as my heart broke from being mistaken for his mother it did help me realize something. My mane is getting way too long, it’s rivaling Morgana’s hair in length now. I think merging with Calcifer is making my hair grow faster due to his regenerative abilities. I was tempted to just cut a huge swath of it off but when I suggested it Morgana did everything in her power shy of just straight up tying me up to stop me. Apparently she liked my mane long, said it matched my aesthetic? I honestly don’t understand what she meant but I agreed to keep it long so she wouldn’t strangle me again, she put my hair in a braid in the meantime… she wanted to match. Today was going to mostly be a set up day for me, I need to gather and make everything I would need to deal with Aaron. The first step would require Morgana’s help, the two of us went out to the more destroyed area of Canterlot and picked out an especially large boulder of rubble. With Morgana’s help it was almost trivial to carry it back to the house that we were staying in. The main part of the citadel was pretty active with other players out and about, I was expecting to have to answer questions but no one spoke to us. We got a few odd looks that I couldn’t place other than that nothing. We said good morning to Spike as we entered the large atrium that he was reading in, the large open space where I operated on Falling Star was still open so it was a great place to work. We sat the boulder down and I got set up, my cauldron, book of rituals, the remains of David’s last sword, and a blanket (I didn’t want to stand the whole time and the tiled floors were cold).  The first step is the part that's gonna suck the most and I am not looking forward to it. I gestured for Morgana to come near and to catch me if I fell then I opened my menu. I quickly flipped over to a familiar page, space magic. Just like last time there weren't any spells listed, only a single square that said ‘Space Magic’ and nothing else. I’m knowledgeable enough about magic now to know why, but it still intimidates me. I know I'm strong enough now to use the smallest levels of Space magic. Hesitation isn’t going to make this easier so… I bought the skill, immediately I was sent to my knees from the amount of information being shoved into my head.  Adept Spatial Magic: Your magic has reached levels that many only dream of achieving, able to affect the very fabric of reality. Impose your will on the world itself and prove that you are no simple mage.  Skill Level 5: 0.00% Cost: 2 Sp Morgana pulled me up off the floor and was trying to get me to drink some water, I heaved for breath and shakily grabbed the waterskin before taking tentative sips. That was way worse due to my True Mage title forcing it all the way up to level five. Spike hovered above us concerned and interested, his book long forgotten. I shook off the fatigue and pushed on, I thanked Morgana for her help then asked her to split the boulder in half. She was still concerned but did what I asked. I went to prepare my cauldron while I explained what I needed her to do. In an effort to speed this whole thing along I asked Morgana to take one half and reduce it to sand. I laid down the blanket and sat down then put the cauldron in front of me, the sound of stone cracking and crumbling sounded behind me as I focused. Above the cauldron a dense sphere of silver fire magic appeared around the size of a softball. I kept feeding mana into the sphere but made sure it stayed the same size, I wanted heat not size.  Morgana softly tapped my shoulder when she was finished, I glanced over and sure enough there was half a boulder and a large pile of finely ground sand. I smiled and thanked her before continuing on to the next step, I levitated up a thin continuous stream of sand and fed it into the fireball. It took a solid minute of feeding sand into the fire before enough molten glass had formed to begin trailing down to the cauldron. I stopped melting the sand when I got through about half of the pile and the cauldron was about full, I moved the fire from above to below the cauldron and began to stir the molten glass with my magic. This next part is important, I started imbuing the molten glass with neutral magic. The viscous substance started to slowly break up, stirring smoother and smoother until a silver liquid was spinning slowly. Next I started stirring faster and faster, a miniature whirlpool opened up in the mixture and started to reduce. The mixture went from silver to almost see through as it slowly decreased in volume, when it had reduced to about half way then I upped the heat and started funneling in more and more sand. I needed to make sure the glass didn’t dissolve completely while mixing with the mana. Sweat was running down my head in rivers as I focused, my horn began to smoke slightly from the mass amount of mana funneling through it. Soon enough I had used up the rest of the sand and could move on to the last step, the mixture had darkened to a black as night sludge with a few bright sparkles of crystallized mana. I turned to Morgana and told her that she might want to turn away for this part. She had backed away once I kicked up the heat but was watching with an amazed look in her eyes. I rolled my eyes in amusement, she gets like this when anyone does magic around her. I stepped away from the swirling cauldron and reached over to the destroyed remains of David’s last sword that I had ignored this whole time, I split some fire away from the cauldron and started melting the metal mess. Soon enough I took the bright red blob and started to bend and shape it into a thick ring around the size of a face mirror. I set it aside to cool off a bit and returned to the cauldron, I took a deep breath then levitated up a glob of the stygian mixture. I began to shape it like putty, rounding it out and bringing the top to a point giving it a teardrop shape. Then I severed the very end of the teardrop and started to hollow out the interior. I widened the neck slightly before turning the opening towards me, I let the fire die in an effort to conserve mana for what I'm about to do next. I called upon my Space magic, I felt my mana start to plummet. My control wavered and I had to cut off everything else so I could focus, the iron band cooled instantly, the cauldron stopped stirring, and my grip on my intent slipped. I had to remember to breathe manually as I put my everything into putting the marble sized bubble of expanding space into the still molten bottle. My sight warped and pulled itself towards the marble like a blackhole and I had to fight to not look directly at it. The moment the bubble of expanding space entered the bottle the change was instant, the pitch black bottle immediately changed to a cloudy clear. The few remaining streaks of glowing silver mana switched to black and seemed to slowly creep down the glass but never seem to reach the bottom.  Crafting Complete! Annealed Flask:  A specially crafted flask that contains the esoteric force of space within its very essence. This flask has the ability to hold almost infinite amounts of whatever substance that can fit inside it and due to the creation process it is nigh unbreakable to outside forces. Sadly due to the lack of quality ingredients it’s effectiveness has been reduced immensely Rarity: 8/10 stars (+2 for creation ability, - 1 for inferior ingredients ) Profession Level Up! Witch Lv. 2 Reward: Blank Poppet Recipe, Poppet of Protection Recipe I let a relieved smile grow on my face before grimacing slightly… I need to do that one more time. I decided to give myself a slight break by moving on to the iron ring, a larger blob of unrefined Annealed glass rose out of the cauldron and followed me over. The ring had cooled and was ready, this didn’t need space magic to work but a small ritual and enchanting. I turned to Morgana and Spike and told them that they could look now, the two had been hiding behind Spike’s large tail and at my words peeked from under it. Morgana quickly sprang to her hooves and joined me, I wanted her to carve out four squares from the remaining boulder around the size of the tiles we were standing on. The tiles were around ten by ten inch squares and would be plenty of space to work with, I let the blob fit into the ring and let it solidify into a black starry mirror. I put a simple enchantment onto the iron ring, it wasn’t anything special it was just a neutral magic enchantment. It just makes it more receptive to magical effects, if I could help it I wouldn’t even enchant it but it was required for the ritual half.  The black mirror was big enough for me to see my whole head and thankfully wasn’t too heavy, my reflection was a bit distorted by the mana crystals acting as stars. Morgana brought over the roughly carved stone slabs, this was an idea I had last night. My idea was that I could get something like cardstock and write all of my sigils on them so I could set up rituals on the fly… the only issue is that the material needs to be strong enough. Anything paperlike would burn up after one use. I sat the black mirror down in the center of the clearing then put the four stone slabs and equal distance away in a diamond formation, I opened my book and flipped to the correct ritual ‘The Ritual of Scrying’. This was something ‘Sparkle’ told me about in our talk on the balcony. Things like mirrors and books can hold certain rituals, black mirrors especially are known to be able to not only hold rituals but enhance them. Using a ritual of scrying on a black mirror would change the mirror into a very needed tool. The scrying ritual are one of the first few rituals a novice should be able to cast, which means the requirements are very cheap. The mirror, four sigils at cardinal points and a ‘clear mind’ which mean that I have to do this of my own volition. I have to want to make it and can’t be forced to scry by someone else. I etched the sigils on the four slabs and watched the sigils burn themselves into the stone. I watched one of the slabs crack slightly and sighed, stone isn’t strong enough to reuse sigil apparently.  I shrugged and moved on to complete the ritual, I lit my sore horn and trotted one full circle around the ritual while muttering the correct words. It’s just three words that I could barely pronounce over and over until the Ritual activated. I know it worked because the stars in the black mirror went out one by one until only darkness remained and the stone slabs turned to dust and blew away on the nonexistent wind. I tried not to dwell on where the dust went too much before trotting forward and checking the mirror. My reflection did not greet me when I looked into the mirror. Crafting Complete! Witching Eye: The go-to tool for any up and coming witch, this stygian glass can reveal the true meaning of objects and peel away the façade on those trying to hide away from your prying eye The abilities of this Witching Eye are elevated to a new level due to the use of a black mirror in its creation Rarity 9/10 (+1 Unknown Recipe) I smiled into the dark Witching Eye and turned to point it at Morgana and just like I expected there she was. In the Witching eye she was standing in a black void smiling at me, the Eye wouldn’t have any effect on her due to her natural magical protection… a protection that Aaron won’t have soon. The preparations were almost complete, I went to use the rest of the Annealed Glass to make the last Flask before we went home. We thanked Spike for letting us use his space for the craft and he invited us back anytime. He was really enjoying having people around again and was willing to help with anything that could help get his friends back faster, I was exhausted after all that magic use but also satisfied.  I went to check on Falling and was glad to see him still comfortably asleep curled around my lion… I should think of a name for them soon, this was around the time Calcifer started to get sentient. It shouldn’t be long until they start to develop a personality of their own. I went to put my things away and walked into the living room to see David messing with a cloud on the couch. We stared at each other for a moment before I pointed out the window “Out… “ “But-” “No making explosives in the living room! Out !”