Master Mage: Ordained Magic: Book Three, page 9
The third intention was rage and or vengeance, which would not only stop an invading army, but it would also permanently solve the cartel and a mage going on a rampage issues.
The fourth intention was someone being used against their will, via mind control or even merely coercion, like their leader had their nonmagical family or something under threat of death.
All of these would be spelled out in the glyph language, and not be an intent set by the caster of the spell. That got around the issue of someone else changing the nature of who it targeted, say to aid them in conquering a city, which would be possible otherwise. The actions would be the same, the one enchanting the spell would have it pretty easy that way, merely enchanting the glyphs with magic without intent for most of them. It’d make the spell longer, but it’d be impossible to change even in subtle shades, for anyone not trained by the gods themselves anyway.
The spell response would have to be powerful enough, with around five hundred iterations of the triggered spell or spells in it that took care of things. If there were more than that many attackers, someone would have to recast the master spell when it died. Hmm, I could do better than that, I could set up a trigger ward at the end of the spell to activate a second one that had already been cast, then while that spell was running down, I could cast another second inactive spell to wait to be triggered by the last one. So unless it exhausted itself instantly it would be easy to keep up with, since a spell would always be on-deck and waiting to replace the active one.
To be clear, that would be part of the spell itself. It would check for a live iteration of itself, and if it found one it would go inactive and wait for activation. If it didn’t detect one, it would go active immediately.
After that, the mage, an elemental summoned by the mage, if any, and the spell they’d cast needed to be dealt with before they took effect. That’s what I needed to figure out, a nondeadly yet decisive response to short circuit their efforts. But as I already said, I had more than enough to build an outline and fill in the first parts.
I was already leaning towards a master spell within a master spell, which would make it far more efficient. It would use enough magic to get the job done, per individual, instead of just hitting everyone at twenty times my base power, all using the same main power source to power the spells. If I guesstimate right, the power would run out right around the time the five hundred response spells were exhausted, if there was power left, or spell iterations left after the power was gone, the spell would cancel and launch the next one.
I figured three times my base would be enough for most targets, but there were powerful mages out there who may have creative and potent shields, like my old ones. Those would take up to ten times my base power at a guess, but most likely somewhere in between. Five hundred spells, with a core two thousand more times powerful than my base, should be enough. That would allow for up to fifty spells cast at ten time my base, the rest at three times my base power. Or all of them cast at four times my base power.
I was pretty happy with all that, I just needed to figure out the actual spell response the Peace spell on overwatch would release at the targets.
I got to work.
Not all that much happened over the next week. I worked on the new master spell, spent time with the family, finished my daughter’s nursery, and also finished decorating the vacation house on Cassiopeia four.
There was no news on the counterfeiters, and the cartels were still fighting over who would take over the one we’d defanged by taking down all their mages. Perhaps they were also planning, as they no doubt realized my reputation was not overinflated in the press and I was someone to be wary of.
The only other thing to mention is everyone in the mage society had been to Cassiopeia Four to create their own homes in the same area, and we also built a larger structure a little farther inland, within walking distance of our houses, if we ever decided to have a meeting there, not to mention when we were about to have a great number of guests we’d need room to feed them.
At the moment, it was the Saturday of the mage visit to Cassiopeia four and the recruitment drive for taking in apprentices. We were all meeting at the Mage Society building, and it looked like about a quarter of the mages in San Antonio were showing up. Three hundred or so, give or take a handful, at a quick scan and guess.
That was about what I expected, or hoped for, for a turnout. I knew there’d be no way they’d all show up. It was also a manageable number, as long as everyone in the mage society casually talked to three or four at a time, no one would be left twiddling their thumbs and waiting.
There was no way we’d have enough time to get to know all of them, but that was fine because we’d be apprenticing our own sex, so that would cut down on the number of people we had to meet, at least that day. It wasn’t just learning magic, being an apprentice was also a mentoring program, and a passing on of principles. It was… better done that way, not only to make it easier to relate, but also to prevent the obvious problems when mixing the sexes when they’d see each other for hours almost every day.
One of the lesser reasons that I’d made it that Saturday was the daytimes were pretty much synchronized that Saturday. It was just after dawn there, when we opened the portal and moved through to the planet.
It took a little time to get organized, as our guests were rightfully curious and amazed by the flora and fauna around us. Everyone here was protected, so spotting one of the world’s predators was more than possible. I’d modified my ward, and now it would only turn away animals that messed with our stuff. As long as they didn’t approach our gardens to scavenge and eat, or vandalize our homes, they were free to roam.
As far as I could tell that hadn’t happened, the smell of our vegetables must’ve been too unfamiliar, and the herbivores didn’t trust it and stuck to their own foraging in the forest natural to their world. The predators didn’t fear us, but for similar reasons perhaps, they hadn’t identified us as a food source, and if they did, they’d learn to avoid us anyway soon enough.
Not that we’d hurt them, a little Pavlovian training. They’d figure out quickly every time they approached us to attack that they found themselves wandering somewhere else and confused as to why.
Anyway, Jessica started us out once everyone stopped gawking around like a farmer’s first time to the big city and appeared to be open to receiving direction.
Jessica said, “Welcome, everyone. We’re here for two reasons, and those are mutually exclusive, no one is required to stake out a piece of land here, if you’ve come merely to look around and to become one of our apprentices and a master of magic. The reverse as well, is true.”
She grinned, “Of course, if you claim land and don’t master magic, you’ll need to depend on someone else to bring you here, and you’ll never be able to magically build a house either.”
There were a few laughs.
Jessica continued, “Anyway, I think the first step is to split you into three groups, so that the first question you hear from us all day isn’t why are you here and what do you expect. We’ll know. So, for those that want both, form two lines in front of me, boys and girls. On my right, that would be your left, form another two lines for those of you just here to claim land. We can build you a house if you want one, but we will charge you. On my left, form a line for people that just came to gawk at a new world and are really only here in the hopes of finding a master mage to teach you to master magic.”
About a third of us were women, both in visitor and society members. Sixty some odd visitors and high twenties on the society side, so most of us would be talking to two at a time, some few of us three.
The next minute or so was pure chaos as they did that. Most of them, to my relief, formed up directly in front of Jessica, they were here for both. There were close to fifty on the left, who wanted to be trained in magic but didn’t care about staking land. There were only six, and all of them men, that wanted to claim land here but weren’t interested in training.
Of course, if they’d mastered the spell book on their own, they could still build a house. Just not all at once with a master spell.
The society had met and talked about this, so we all split up rather quickly to cover things evenly, and then approached the line one at a time to grab people. I was one of the ones that spent a lot of time here and was highly interested in taking apprentices, so I was one of the ones leading a small group away from the center line, that wanted both.
“Your names?” I asked, when we were a little bit away from the crowd.
“Virginia Carson, Master Maya?”
Virginia was maybe fifteen, a lithe redhead with brown eyes, cute around the face and about five foot six.
I giggled, “Only my apprentice will need to call me that, and I’m not even sure about that, Maya works.”
The other one had dark brown hair and eyes, and was quite a bit older, college age. Early twenties, but then I looked like I was in my early twenties, so it was anyone’s guess.
She said, “Marie Vargas.” Her short answer wasn’t closed off, she was just nervous as near as I could tell.
I smiled, “Well, I’m Maya Castro.”
They both laughed, “We know,” said Virginia.
I said, “We’ll have a little longer together today, since we’ll be picking your land plots?”
I cast an illusion spell of the island, which showed all the land already claimed by the society, as well as the terrain in as much detail as possible.
Virginia said, “I wasn’t sure I’d get one, since I’m fifteen.”
I shrugged, “You’re a mage, and there’s no law here saying you have to be eighteen.”
She giggled, then looked at the illusion which Marie was already studying.
“Do you two know each other?”
Marie smirked, “We’re sisters, can’t you tell?”
Just to be clear, Marie was Mexican like me, and Virginia was clearly a European white girl, had the look of Irish to her.
I chuckled, “I see.”
Virginia said, “My parents freaked when they found out I was a mage. So I moved out at fourteen. Marie found me, and she’s been my big sister ever since.”
“I guess I got lucky, my mom is a mage too, and my little sister.”
Marie nodded, “My deal was similar, but I was a junior at the college at the time, and already an adult. It was easy enough for me to support myself when my parents bailed on supporting me anymore, you know?”
They both looked back toward the illusion, and almost in stereo said, “Can we see that mountain lake in person?”
That would’ve been my second choice, if I didn’t like the ocean and beach so much. The mountain lake was about five miles away.
“Let’s fly there, do you know the glyph, and the glyph for poison detection as well.”
They both nodded, and Marie answered, “We know all the glyph spells in the book you made. It’s casting two spells at once that we find truly difficult, and spell combinations. We’re hoping to find a master to help us overcome that.”
I nodded, “Mental discipline takes effort, but without knowing how to train your mind to focus on several things at once it’s much harder if not impossible to get there. That’s one of the major things your master would have you focus your time on. Until that’s mastered, there’s no point in teaching you double casting combinations for compound and enhanced spell casting, never mind the last step of complex spell forms using control wards.”
After casting both spell glyphs, we took off into the air and headed that way. I figured a bird’s eye view would help them decide on a place around the lake, which was why I didn’t just create a portal. Plus, they couldn’t portal themselves, and it was a possibility at some point they’d need to fly from their land here to their master’s house, wherever that wound up being.
Marie pointed, “That’s something we hadn’t considered. We were just imagining a quiet and placid lake in the mountains.”
I chuckled as I spotted what she was pointing at. There was a large herd of herbivores similar in size to ponies by the lake side, the largest ones facing away from the herd protecting it, while the rest of them drank from the lake.
“You can keep them away from your parcel of land with a ward. It’s a big lake, even if probably all of the predators and prey animals in this area use it to drink.”
Virginia pointed, “What about on that bluff. We could still see the lake from our backyard, and then walk or fly down there when we want to swim. I wonder if the fish are safe to eat.”
Maria looked over at me as we landed on that bluff.
“Can we get two adjacent plots here?”
I nodded, pulled out my phone, and started to update the database Bobby had built, to keep track of things.
“I put it in the database, so it’s official. You might want to mark it claimed in some way, just to avoid anyone else from trying to claim it and being disappointed.”
Marie chuckled, “Testing us?”
I affected a mock innocent look, which made them both laugh. The three of us seemed to get along easily, but I was well aware they were both presenting their best manners and putting their best foot forward right now.
They also knew no one would accept apprentices until the end of the day, they might do better with someone else, while I might as well. But, a part of me already wanted to claim them. I knew I’d scored points with Marie as well, at how I was treating the young lady she’d taken under her wing.
The lake was only maybe a hundred feet away, a third of a football field, but the bluff was at least twenty-five feet higher in elevation than the lake, so the view was still fantastic. It was also about a half mile in diameter, but of course irregularly shaped so that wasn’t exact.
Marie summoned an earth elemental, and Virginia summoned a fire elemental to enhance it. I wasn’t sure why, until Marie put the earth elemental to work. An earth elemental enhanced by fire could mold stone a lot faster than one without. I’d had no idea, and I did my best not to look like they’d just taught me something, but I was impressed.
Marie mentally directed the elemental to fence in their eight acres, four acres each in a rectangle, two acres wide and four long. It wasn’t a privacy fence, just three foot high which would prevent most of the larger herbivores and the large predators from getting in. It was also beautiful, a stone lattice with carved designs. I also noted that it went deep underground, about ten feet or so to get to the bedrock. It wasn’t going anywhere.
After that was done, she started on a two-bedroom home made of stone, and it looked like it was done by a master mason, lots of carved relief and designs.
All while that was going on Virginia was creating stuff to fill their home. Using the materials in her clothes to make more to create all the linens, the wood in the nearby trees to make wooden furniture and beds. She even used the stainless-steel clasp on her purse to make more into silverware, pots and pans, and a kitchen sink. The plates she made from a piece of ceramic inside of her purse. She also used a miniature heart pillow to make pillows and mattresses.
The house finished, and Marie ordered the elemental to move all the stuff inside the house, while she started to help finish up the furniture. They even created art, both for the walls and miniature statues and scenes to be put on the furniture as knickknacks.
The house had no electricity or water in a standard way, but like I’d done they used a fire spell with a ward to control the oven heat, and to make the air inside comfortable. A water spell could be used at the sink or for cooking water right on the spot, and they used a ward and cleansing spell to keep things clean and dust free.
Not as good as the master spell, but they’d managed to add luxury merely using glyph spells, which was very impressive. Clearly, they’d tried hard and done everything they could to advance, they just lacked knowledge on practical mental discipline techniques.
“I’m truly impressed.”
Clearly, all they needed to be taught was mental disciplines, followed by multiple spell casting, and when that was mastered, they’d learn to use enchantment to create simple and complex spell forms that would be maintained indefinitely. I mean, they already could enchant, but they were very basic enchantments, like the first ones I’d made. A single spell glyph.
Then they’d be masters, in no more than a year I thought, ready to take on students and delve into true spellcasting and learn all the master spells.
Marie must’ve given a mental order because the elemental disappeared.
“Where’d it go?”
Marie said, “Earth, I hope. I mean, they travel instantly back home without us to carry. Magic isn’t limited by light speed.”
I tilted my head, “You want to keep up your enchantments here while unable to freely travel back and forth?”
Marie smiled, “Got it in one, so it’s a test. It also worked, my elemental just reported it’s charging my enchantments back on Earth, at home.”
I nodded, “You’ll have to take the rest of the society members you meet for a tour of this place. You two have clearly advanced as far as possible, using one spell glyph at a time.”
Marie took the compliment as her due, but my admiration made Virginia blush self-consciously. I got the idea there was a little hero worship there, but that would fade quickly I thought, when she got to know the real me and not all the hype.
“Can I ask what you two do?”
Marie said, “She’s in high school, but she does earn money selling perfectly ripe vegetables to restaurants on a daily basis. She maintains our garden.”
Virginia nodded, “It’s not hard, and it’s all organic, no need for pesticides with magic.”
Marie added, “I went to an art college for clothing design, but the only clothes I design are ours,” she grinned, “It’s hard to break into it, and the hours are crazy anyway. I use magic to make money instead of my degree.”
