Mage Among Superheroes

The respective nerves of Midnight and myself echoed back and forth between each other as we prepared for our excursion to one of the various heavens. “Elysium, I believe.” I began to explain what I knew as a way to not actually think about things. “It’s peaceful, for the most part. Not attuned to any extremes of order or chaos. Should there be difficulties returning immediately, it should have bountiful surroundings to forage.”

“Sounds about right,” Sir Kalman commented. “We’ll be ready in but a moment.”

Great. That was great. We’d be going soon. And then there wouldn’t be any reason to be nervous, because either everything would be safe or we’d be in actual danger thus able to respond to that, instead of just thinking about an unknown level of danger.

It seemed to take forever, but the time finally came with around twenty of us lined up in an arbitrary courtyard. Well, arbitrary from my perspective. I was certain the Order of the Lion had some reason to choose this one in particular. Perhaps it was a bit more isolated than others.

“Even split,” I said to Midnight. Despite theoretically being able to do it alone, sharing the mana costs was still more efficient in some aspects, given our separate regeneration. The only issue was that Assistive Familiar Casting was a point short of the total upgrades of Gate, but I figured the loss there was just as much as I would have pushing to the limits of mana fatigue. And less risky.

The portal opened up easily, a circle opening up into perfect midday light reflecting off of a tranquil lake, rolling hills and trees surrounding it. The thing that most told me I was successful was the flood of mana through the portal.

“It’s stable,” I declared, walking through with Midnight. We couldn’t guarantee to get back to this specific point with Gate, not necessarily being familiar with it. Thus, we needed to be present just in case.

Sir Kalman followed directly after, and his fellow began marching three across through the gate. It took only twenty seconds at their heightened pace. We weren’t planning to push the limits of what could be accomplished at this point.

“That’s everyone through,” Sir Kalman declared.

“I’m closing the Gate,” I nodded, making sure I could see through just in case. The courtyard of the Order of the Lion faded away as the portal spiraled closed.

That was… not exactly easy. But routine. A difficult task, but one I’d performed many times before. Multicasting was often more intensive in terms of mana, and many of those couldn’t be accomplished alone.

“Well,” I looked around. “Here we are.” Fields full of flowers, bright but not overly harsh sunlight, green trees and soft grass. “What… what do we do here?”

“I don’t know about you,” Sir Kalman said. “But we’re going to do a small patrol of the area. And then some drills.” He breathed in deeply. “This place is full of mana.”

I nodded. It was nearly as much as the old plane, several times what I considered ‘normal’ mana regeneration. Or rather, what I had learned was normal. Maybe it was low. Earth had had that much mana, and it didn’t have anyone who used it for the most part.

I joined the paladins for a patrol around the area, but there wasn’t really much to see. There were a few animals in the distance, and also some glowing figures… but we stayed away from them, and they didn’t bother us.

After that, Sir Kalman set about drilling the paladins in basic abilities, hoping that they would be able to reveal upgrades from training at the earliest possible point. The first was easy enough to get, so whether it was just a couple hours that ultimately counted or the full time we planned to be around, they should probably have some success.

On that note, I was still on my quest to determine the relative difficulty of training spells. For that, I ultimately made the choice to purchase two new spells. Combat spells, for maximum similarity. One was Water Blast- a low level spell like Firebolt that targeted a single individual, though obviously without so much fire being involved. It could also push people. A decent spell for keeping enemies away from myself or a civilian, and a reasonable less-violent option if I needed one besides clubbing people with my staff.

The other was Blizzard, for a more widespread but still not immediately fatal option. It only superficially froze people, after all. As long as they received help quickly enough. It was still a mid level spell, so it certainly could kill people. Especially non-supers. But its main purpose here was for me to practice with. I couldn’t afford a max level spell to test, nor were there many places I could train with those, but I could add more data to what I already had about skill growth with just two new spells.

I realized I was spending points to potentially save points in the future, but it wouldn’t be a waste to have more variety in my combat options anyway. Actually, it would be best if I had some secrets to pull out, just in case someone researched my abilities. It sure would have been nice to have some water or ice when we were dealing with those flaming guys a while back. And then the dragons.

Most of my time was spent casting Water Blast above the nearby lake. I wanted to use Blizzard to take advantage of faster mana regeneration, but there were fish in the lake and everywhere else was covered in lively plants. It seemed like a bad idea to kill a small part of heaven. And I had grown out of the age where I would have been fine killing random foliage to begin with.

Even with the improved mana regeneration from the plane, any spell could easily outpace that. It took at most a second or two to gather mana and carefully aim a level 2 spell, and it would take more than two minutes to recover a single point of mana. So it was about ninety-nine percent downtime. Thus, I would cast a handful of spells and then meditate or train with my staff. There was only so much I could do without sparring, and Sir Kalman was occupied, but it was still worthwhile.

Eventually, however, I ran out of things to do. It was kind of annoying, so I sought out Midnight who seemed quite content. And there I found him, laying in the grass. I plopped down next to him.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he said. “Just relaxing.”

“... Oh,” I said. I lay back in the grass as well. I’d forgotten people could do that. Sure, I took days off… but various craziness lately had disrupted that former schedule.

I just lay there, the heat of the sun somehow being the perfect amount of warmth. I didn’t even have to take off my jacket, and Midnight’s black fur didn’t make him too hot. And yet I had the feeling that if I stripped off my shirt, it would also be just the right temperature while the paladins sweated in their armor- but didn’t seem to be overheating.

This place was… nice. I dozed off, only to wake up to the smell of something cooking. I stretched, and I was almost happy to find that the ground wasn’t perfect. I was still a bit uncomfortable from just laying on the grass for a while. Though that feeling faded away as I looked around the sunset sky, beautiful colors reflecting off of the clouds and the lake nearby. There wasn’t a sun, strictly, but there did appear to be a source of night and cycles of night and day.

We ate with the paladins, cooking sausages over a carefully dug fire pit field with fallen branches. Even the smoke was sweet and did make me choke. I almost wondered if we’d accidentally stumbled upon some fey realm and were about to run into some sort of dark side of magic. But it was difficult to believe that anything terrible could happen here. This place felt good… and because of that, like we didn’t belong.

It was odd. I was so comfortable here and yet that simultaneously made me uncomfortable. I was more at home on the old plane where I might be attacked at any moment. And whether that was because I was an orc, because of Aspect of the Barbarian, or just because I was me… I supposed it didn’t really matter.

There was still some time before bed, so Midnight and I continued to train Water Blast… and I was beginning to get a good sense for how quickly it improved. I still needed to confirm, but it seemed to me that while lower level spells indeed got natural improvements faster, it wasn’t so much faster that it was more effective than the point costs. In short, higher level spells seemed to grow more efficiently with training rather than points, and vice versa. That was a hypothesis I’d had, and it was closer to being proven. But perhaps a mid level spell like Blizzard would make me change my mind.

Together Midnight and I use Multicasting to make several copies of Shelter. They could each fit around eight people, comfortably, so there were a few spots left. It crossed my mind that I hadn’t experimented with that spell much. It wasn’t really necessary to do so, because it was functional when I needed it, but I still liked pushing the limits of magic. Not everything was as straightforward as it seemed.

I probably didn’t need the blankets pulled around me, nor did we strictly need the door sealed to keep out the cold. But it was still comforting to sleep in familiar surroundings, constructed from familiar and slightly uncomfortable materials.

-----

Morning came soon enough, which meant we would be returning to the material plane soon enough. After breakfast, perhaps, since there were still no signs of danger.

The first point of training was fairly quick, and a few of Sir Kalman’s men were able to confirm they’d gotten an improvement. Was that an indicator of personal differences, or some working harder and others slacking off? I was inclined to think it was both- though none of the paladins were true slackers. They were hand picked, after all. But small differences could be exaggerated among a group of top performers.

And here was more confirmation that this worked. And that this ability could potentially be shared with everyone. At twenty people per day, it would only take a single mage who could cast Gate to acclimatize an entire large city within a year. The biggest metropolises would need more, and of course it couldn’t be assumed that such mages would have free time year round… but it wouldn’t have to be done all at once. Over the course of a lifetime, it would only take one mage for hundreds of people. And there could easily be enough of us, or others who could also cast Gate.

On the return trip, Midnight and I were the last ones through the Gate- for the same reasons we came through first to this side. We could get out on our own, but the others had no such ability within their skillset.

I glanced over my shoulder as I was stepping through the Gate, and noticed a glowing figure watching from the top of a nearby hill. This one was closer than most had been so far, though I still couldn’t make out its proper form. I was pretty sure it was one that wasn’t just a glowing light, though. Those existed too.

After Midnight and I were through, we confirmed everyone’s presence and let the Gate close. I felt a momentary suffusion of mana in the Order’s grounds, but it wasn’t anything like the constant buildup in and around New Bay. Through some combinations of permanent portals or many more widespread ones, the levels were increasing. Yet here, there was quite a large area of the ‘normal’ mana threshold for the mana to mix with in the surrounding area.

“We appreciate your assistance,” Sir Kalman said. “Remember that you can call upon me any time, as you have need. I will gladly fight by your side again.”

I nodded. “We won’t forget. And of course, we’ll be glad to help in the future, as you increase the size of your operations.”

“I think we’ll be conservative for the moment,” Sir Kalman said. “We’re still keeping this as secret as possible. Until we are positioned to spread the word without too much fear of retaliation. That means strength… but also political standing.”

I nodded. I understood that, basically. Though thankfully, most of the stuff involving public relations wasn’t my job, except keeping up a positive appearance. Which didn’t always mean friendly, since we were mercenary supers after all.