Mage Among Superheroes

“... We need to learn to teleport,” I said to Midnight.

“Okay,” he said. “Sounds good to me.”

Right. Teleportation was a pretty normal, everyday thing for him. I thought about that and my aching lower body as I rode my horse. “Which one should it be?”

“There are options?” he asked.

“Obviously. There’s short range stuff like Dimension Door. Then long range stuff like the Teleport spell, and also Teleportation Circle. Obviously I mean a longer range one so we don’t have to do this,” I gestured at the horse and the group around us.

Midnight thought for a few moments. “What’s the difference between the latter two?”

“The second one makes an area that can move a lot of people over a period of time, but it takes material components. Teleport brings a small group all at once, for just mana.”

“That sounds good,” Midnight said. “Though it wouldn’t help us here.”

Sir Kalman commented on that, as he was riding nearby. “I don’t think Linduin would much appreciate you teleporting into their borders. The other option might be nice, though. For a group like this, we could have made quick time.”

“It’s still expensive,” I said. “And would have required the material ahead of time, proper knowledge of the destination, that destination not being warded…” I began to list things off.

Sir Kalman nodded. “I think the Order could have covered the costs. Or perhaps Linduel, indirectly. But I imagine we’d need to send a message ahead.”

“Which I could do if I knew the right person. And all of that other stuff,” I concluded.

“Sounds pretty simple then,” Midnight answered. “The one that works for us and a group of… how many?”

“Like six or eight or something,” I shrugged. It wasn’t like the spell had a description, unfortunately. “It might care about potency somehow…?”

“And I suppose I should ask,” Midnight said. “How far can it go?”

“At full cost, anywhere on a planet. Theoretically,” I said. “It scales up to the same price as Gate for that, so you wouldn’t be able to do it alone just yet. And the precision might leave something to be desired below that.”

“What do you mean?” Midnight asked.

“If you don’t know where you want to go well or don’t have the mana, you can arrive off target. Somewhere safe, though.”

“Define ‘safe’.”

“Uh, it would usually have footing. Though I think you can end up at the surface of an ocean or lake- but not underwater unless you were trying to?” I shrugged. “I was so far from being able to teleport that I don’t remember all the details. My basic book doesn’t cover it and neither does Portal Theory. That does cover Teleportation Circle though.”

“What’s the cost for that, anyway?” Midnight asked.

“Amber dust?” I tilted my head. “Like, a lot of it. I feel like it would be more expensive than industrial diamond powder but I could be wrong. Way more quantity, at least.”

“It does sound like a useful option still,” Midnight said.

“Well, here it would be. In New Bay, we’d probably be better off driving so that we don’t have to recover the mana. Though we might be able to infiltrate some buildings with it,” I shrugged.

“Our points have to go to something, I suppose,” he said. “And that’s a good candidate.”

I nodded. “I think so too. I think I’ll spend it.”

Since the journey was still ongoing, it was a good time to review my full ability list.

Turlough (No surname)

Level: 39

Experience: 3933/4100

Storage +9 (6|3)

Firebolt +7 (5|2)

Shocking Grasp +7 (4|3)

Grease +4 (2|2)

Force Armor +10 (7|3)

Mage's Reach +6 (3|3)

Translation +5 (1|4)

Alter Time Flow +10 (6|4)

Disguise +1 (0|1)

Familiar Bond +10 (5|5)

Size Shift +5 (2|3)

Energy Ward +9 (5|4)

Sonic Lance +5 (3|2)

Advanced Divination Magic +7 (3|4)

Shield +3 (1|2)

Stoneskin +7 (4|3)

Mana Crystal Deposition +7 (2|5)

Water Breathing

Variable Freedom +4 (2|2)

Basic Light Magic +3 (1|2)

Alter Portal +3 (0|3)

Gate +5 (2|3)

Sending +2 (0|2)

Chain Lightning +5 (3|2)

Clean +1 (0|1)

Shelter +1 (0|1)

Assistive Familiar Casting +4 (0|4)

Multicasting +4 (0|4)

Enhance +1

Nondetection +3 (0|3)

Water Blast +1 (5|1)

Blizzard +1 (0|1)

Mana Starvation +3 (0|3)

Fly +1 (0|1)

Dimensional Anchor

Knock

Teleport

Remaining Points: 34

I had spent more points on Firebolt and Force Armor since they could be used consistently. Firebolt wasn’t one of my main spells, but I figured it should have the same treatment as Water Blast at least.

Points sort of naturally made their way into Alter Time Flow, because it was very useful and making it more powerful or cheaper were both appealing options. This time, it wasn’t Shockwave who had influenced me. Though they would be quite thrilled by how things were.

Familiar Bond was increased to 10 so that Midnight could cast anything with full upgrades. It improved naturally fast enough to keep up for the most part, but not when I simply bought upgrades for other things.

Having discovered more versatility for Energy Ward, I had been inclined to improve it- and it had naturally grown as well.

I was tempted to improve Mana Crystal Deposition to try to boost my maximum mana stores, but it would only be a relatively small amount based on my calculations. Less than one mana per upgrade.

Water Breathing was still neglected but also perfectly functional whenever I needed it next. I’d been practicing my light magic since seeing Rob’s technique, and had made minor gains there.

Alter Portal had improved from some of the messing around that had happened, unsurprisingly.

Assistive Familiar Casting was improving regularly, allowing Midnight and I to improve our efficiency when trying to split costs. We were still limited in the ranks we could apply that way, which meant power and costs. Thus, it was better to individually perform most spells, as long as we both ended up with some mana spent so we were both regenerating.

Multicasting was also on the rise, and I had the feeling that something would be special about the fifth upgrade. Unfortunately, just like Assistive Familiar Casting I couldn’t upgrade it with points- despite what it looked like. That was just my mental way of keeping track, I think.

Since someone had been Scrying me, I had been reminded to keep Nondetection active even at night. It naturally improved some like that.

Sadly I hadn’t used Dimensional Anchor at my first opportunity on Flasher, but trying to properly defeat him had felt like the correct use at the time. I hadn’t thought he’d flee so swiftly within his own base, but that was a miscalculation.

And then of course there was Teleport which I just bought and Knock which had been used exactly once. I’d had a lot of spare points floating around before spending 29 on Teleport.

“So how much can I actually do?” Midnight asked.

“Probably only like a thousand miles if you want to stay on target,” I said. “Though you could just take two hops, with a short correction one at the end. You still need to know where you’re going though.”

“Does a map help?” Midnight said.

“I…” I frowned. “It might? Probably pictures too. The books I was reading didn’t really assume access to that sort of familiarity. We’ll have to test it. Unless the elves are willing to give us some books?”

Sir Kalman shrugged. “They’d be in elvish.”

“I could read that. Or learn to,” I said. “Magic and all that.”

“Well, if you’re going to negotiate for that as payment it’s none of my business,” Sir Kalman said. “I don’t know if they would be traditionally inclined towards that end, though.”

I thought about his words. “Because I’m an orc?”

“Ethus isn’t that far away,” Sir Kalman confirmed my thoughts. “You’ll be afforded proper respect due to your association with the Order of the Lion, but I wouldn’t bet on anything extending beyond that.”

I understood that. Even I hadn’t had a very charitable view of the orcs. I looked at the road ahead of us. “Are we going uphill?”

“We’ll be going through a mountain pass,” Sir Kalman explained. “That will bring us into Linduel proper.”

“That would explain the mountains I’m picking out.” The only reason I didn’t see them before was the trees and other terrain. “Are they not in a forest?” I asked. “I don’t see a lot of trees there.”

Sir Kalman chuckled. “We’ll see some. But they’re not wood elves.”

I frowned. “My single prior experience with elven cities probably isn’t useful, then.” Not that I’d really been allowed into the city on the ancient plane. Instead, Ailen had pretty much been there to keep us out. And that was with two groups that hadn’t fought in… forever. Hopefully I didn’t look so much like an orc at first glance that the elves would overreact.

Well, I was among the Order so they should know better. And Francois wouldn’t fail to make my jacket puncture resistant.

-----

I didn’t spot any of the elves waiting for us, but I sure did feel the border. “Take a good look ahead,” I commented to Bolster in particular, and the rest of the squad in general. They weren’t as practiced at sensing mana yet. “I’m sure everyone can feel that, yeah?”

“... Sort of,” Honey Badger commented. As a Barbarian, he would probably be naturally the least sensitive to mana. Or at least, I thought so. Actually, I wasn’t sure if there was a correlation with class.

Zeb sniffed, and because she did so did Fluffy. “Fluffy doesn’t smell it. But I can!” Zeb said proudly.

“You smell it?” I asked.

“Yeah, it’s like a warp engine!”

Was it weirder to smell it, or to just feel it like I did? I couldn’t actually see anything, since the barrier wasn’t intended to be visible. I wasn’t sure about that. And soon I was occupied by other thoughts.

“Halt!” came a voice from somewhere in the rocky slopes on either side of us. “Declare yourselves!”

Sir Kalman was prepared for that. “The Order of the Lion,” he said. “Come to the aid of Linduel, at their request. We also bring with us other allies who may possess special insights into the particular issues at hand.”

“That would be these strangely dressed individuals? Or… the angel?”

“Both,” Sir Kalman said. “They come together.”

Technically, Malaliel should have fit in that ‘strangely dressed’ category. But her clothing wasn’t so different as the members of the Mod Squad, even with the change in weaponry for some. And my suit was certainly something that would stand out to the locals.

“Head directly along the road to Entheas,” the voice said, reminding me that they were speaking common when Translation tried to figure out what the city name meant. “The duke will receive you there.” The word duke was translated for me. Though I would have gotten the impression from how it was used regardless. “The spires of Entheas should be visible in but a short march.”

“We will head there directly,” Sir Kalman confirmed.

I still couldn’t spot any of the elves. And they hadn’t revealed their location by shooting at us or anything convenient like that.

“Goodbye, miss elf!” Zeb said, facing off to one side. I heard a clattering of rock in the direction she was looking as a pebble bounced down the slope. Zeb didn’t get a response, and looked slightly disappointed.

When we were some distance away, rounding a bend, Iron Hawk commented, “I spotted a couple of them. But just barely.”

I frowned. “Are you an actual hawk?”

She rolled her eyes. “I just know what to look for. They had to be peeking out to spot us. It was just rocks they were behind instead of dumpsters.”

“Well, it’s fine either way as long as they didn’t want to attack us,” I said.

Soon enough, we could see what was presumably the city of Entheas. It had a lot of tall buildings. Skyscrapers, almost, but with smaller footprints. There were a lot of bridges between adjacent buildings, and nothing looked to be less than a few stories tall. “Kind of looks like Celmoth,” I remarked.

Midnight tilted his head. “Vaguely, I guess. I bet they don’t have any gravity nets, though.”

“Hmm. I’d hope they would. Can’t tell if the city is magicked up from here, though,” I commented.

When we got closer, I felt something, but mostly the walls and individual buildings seemed magical. It was still more magical than the largest cities I’d been to, or at least to my memory. Maybe I hadn’t been as magically tuned, though I also hadn’t been to that many big cities in this world.

Unlike at the border, someone actually showed up in front of us at the city gates. “The duke is waiting,” the elf bowed, still speaking common. “I shall take you to him directly”

The city didn’t have a main road that went to wherever the duke was directly, which I thought was odd. I thought that was a common feature, but maybe it was a human thing. It did seem like a security flaw, however, so maybe I’d just thought it would look nice.

The buildings of the city were quite beautiful, made of polished stones of many colors. Few buildings had but a single color all throughout, usually decorated in pleasant patterns by the placement of different colored stones. That must have been a lot of work, unless they could make the stones with magic. Which perhaps they could.

The citizens of the city watched us curiously, some pointing and commenting- mostly on Malaliel or Fluffy, I thought. Perhaps myself as well, but I couldn’t quite be certain. Their words didn’t reach my ears.

The ‘direct’ route actually took us through quite a lot of the city, but we were on wide roads the whole time- good enough for all of us to move through without issue even with wagons.

We didn’t actually end up in a central building, but one that was somewhat offset. It wasn’t even the tallest one around. That was quite interesting, as I had expected it to be the biggest. Unless the duke wasn’t the ruler of the city, but in that case Translation was being weird.

We entered a wide courtyard, where we left all our wagons and the like. We then continued into a wide open courtyard, where there was standing… the duke, probably. Or at least a fancy elf.

Sir Kalman seemed to know more than I did. “Turlough, Malaliel, come with me,” he said. “The rest of you stay at the edge here.”

“What about me?” Midnight asked.

“As a familiar…” Kalman frowned. “It would be better to stay back here, I think.”

Midnight nodded.

I didn’t quite realize that meant I was going forward without him even after he hopped down from my shoulder. Sure, I wasn’t alone but… it was something I would have been hesitant about.

“Greetings, son of the mountain!” the Duke brought a fist to his chest. “I am Duke Ruvyn Eilgwyn, and I am pleased to accept your company into my city.” He turned next to Malaliel. He waved his hands in a fashion I assumed meant something, but it kind of looked like he was flailing. “To a servant of the heavens, we gladly accept you within our walls.”

Then he looked to me. His expression wasn’t hostile, but I couldn’t quite read it. Though to be fair, excluding the worst possibility was already progress. His arm came forward and his fist gently pressed into my chest.

He looked at me expectantly. After a few moments, he looked slightly confused or embarrassed.

Was I supposed to do something in return? This is why I wasn’t supposed to be in charge for social situations. Was it a problem to ask?