Adamant Blood

It was 48 hours to the offensive against the goblin city to the north, and the numbers of goblins kept going up by the hour. 50,000, then 75,000. Quentin and other analysts in the command center were estimating 220,000 to 250,000 goblins by the time the settlement was ready to settle up with them.

There hadn't been many survivors of the 4-village purge, but those goblins that had survived had all gone that way, if they could. That meant the rubber goblin, the glorious goblin, and at least the speedster/techie goblin. Other goblins might have never shown in any of the battles and quietly gotten out, and the main city surely had some big hitters, but those three goblins were the ones to watch out for, for now.

There had already been exploratory bombardments to check the city's defenses.

Eliot and several others had tried shooting missiles at that place, 35 kilometers north of the settlement, and Mark got to see what Eliot had seen back at the command center, when he had shot at the Beta village the other day. That speedster/tech goblin fucked up the entire bombardment.

That goblin wore a snazzy brown leather jacket with 4 computer screens hovering around him, with each screen looking more like a portal into a world of static and noise, and not like a screen at all. Whatever his Power was, exactly (and it had to be a dual Power), the analysts were on it. But all they could really see was that the goblin zipped through the air, landing on every one of those missiles long before it reached the goblin city, and then it did something to the missiles' internals. The missiles crashed to the ground, or turned around. Eliot and the city defenses shot down the returned missiles long before they reached the wall.

Four of those missiles had been specific traps for the speed-tech goblin, and it evaded all of them; the explosive one, the corrosive one, the ensnaring one, and even the shavallian-mist one.

Mark kinda wanted to try out a shavallian-type Union with some strong enemies to shut down the astral bodies of the goblins… but that might be a bad idea. Letting the world know that he could shut down other people by injecting Entropy into 'that little switch at the bottom of a Tutorial-granted Power' would probably go poorly, in a long-term sort of way. He was filmed all the time and his entire kit was already extrapolated mostly-correctly online, and Freyala herself had been very clear on 'don't let people know you can do this'.

And so, Mark needed to experiment with other things.

Today was a day to do just that.

Isoko was trying to get Wind Shaper into her Binding, over in the basement of the Valen compound. Elaria Valen was with her, as her 'master', helping her if she needed help. Mark and Elaria expected Isoko to succeed today, but no one was counting those chickens before they could hatch. Not yet, anyway.

Eliot and Sally were out at Cybersong Industries to the northwest of Mage Society, with Eliot working on some new missile designs and Sally working on some stuff of her own. Might even be that size-changing magic, but Mark didn't know. The Executioners were very, very secretive about their everything, and Sally was exactly that way, too.

Mark was in Mage Society, at his 'Understanding Party' compound located to the east side of the arcanaeum. Mark had spent hours talking with Lola about various possible Unions after his trouble at taking down that one goblin village. Anarchy/Civilization had done a lot, and was great for an experiment that Mark expected to get nowhere, but it hadn't done much more than Vein Decay/Integrity.

Mark had a list of Unions to try.

Stability/Instability, to cause possibly-catastrophic biological/emotional/physical instability in his targets. It was a variation of Durability/Weakness, and geared mostly toward raising/lowering Power Levels and also setting off chain reactions toward deadly results.

Fear/Glory, to drive his enemies to making fear-based decisions, and to capitalize on those decisions. It was a bit of a weird one. It only really worked on large groups of sapients, but goblins counted.

Mercurial/Predictable. Lola expected Mark to have issues with that one, since he was adamant blooded, and being mercurial might be difficult. A better experiment might be Flow/Stop, putting Mark right into the needs of battle and pinning his enemies into place. Actual death would need to come at the edge of an adamantine blade, though.

That was for later, though.

For now, Mark was going back to an old desire that he might actually get to figure out, now that he knew some Sigaldry.

Quark was gonna help him cast some magic.

Because that's what familiars were supposed to be able to do, right?

… Right?

"I am not sure where to start, sir," Quark said, echoing Mark's own fears. "I do not have control of your mana, your Binding, or anything else about you, nor do I have any real physicality at all."

" 'He said, moving his tendrils and cameras around my body'," Mark replied.

Quark huffed and appeared in Mark's vision in his silver butler form, 'standing' in front of Mark but really just existing as an impression in Mark's sight, saying, "I am sure that if it were possible for me to cast spells then it would have happened while I was assisting you with Sigaldry."

"Here's my theory," Mark began, "When you go elsewhere, to research and act outside of my sphere of influence, you draw on my astral body in a slight way. You are expending some sort of strength when you do that, and if you do it enough, if I wasn't able to recover that free mana as fast as you spend it, then you could really tire me out—"

"I would never! That would be a gross violation." Quark paused, then added, "And I don't think I actually could. Back when you were in the decouple ritual I couldn't use up your power at all?"

Mark grinned. "I know. But also we didn't really try back then. I didn't think to try, either, but now we're gonna try. I want to find out exactly how you're using up my power when you use it, and then, perhaps we can figure out how to help you shape that use into Sigaldry, and, with your advanced processing power, you should be able to make a bunch of symbols really fast. You might even be able to cast minor spells."

Quark paused. "… I am not sure why I didn't think of that, sir, or that it even works that way at all."

"Probably because you have some artificial limits on you, and I didn't think of it until recently, so it's not your fault." Mark shrugged. "And it won't be anything impressive, anyway, but maybe you can enact a temporary Protect spell to make me immune to things like that staff goblin's sky-laser attack… Though that was more of a physical effect, I think… What was the final decision about that attack? Was it physical, or a spell? It had to be a physical effect, yeah?"

Someone at the command center would know.

Quark beep-booped, then said, "According to central command it was listed as a physical effect; not a Power. But the pink-marking magic was a Power."

Mark nodded. "Then a Protect would have protected me from that, for sure. So, yeah, I want to know if you can run that spell. Maybe you could do some directed shields, if not the full Protect spell itself. Also, we could figure out how to get you to do some Unions, as well, though I have no idea how that would work at all." Mark finished with, "Let's figure out how you 'use up' my astral strength, first. Try to 'use up' some of my astral strength."

"I need a task, sir."

Mark pointed at a planter full of tubular cleaner plants, sitting in the corner and softly glowing. It looked like someone had freshly hedged the tubes back into a proper cube-shape. "Analyze those cleaner plants."

Quark was on Mark's collar right now, like a silver ribbon on top of the adamantium he kept there to pull up around his head at a moment's notice. A few small silver tendrils laid against his neck, winding into his hair and around and into his ears, and to his temples, where they vanished into his skin, into his body. It was not wires and processors. Quark wasn't really made of that stuff anymore, but all that stuff was distributed through his silver body which was itself composed of solid astral body, as far as Mark understood it all.

If Quark was killed, then he would come back through a bit of self-control from Mark, though the process of 'how is this working' wasn't something Mark had studied… at all. When Mark was subjected to shavallian and Kardi's Wand of Destruction, Quark was still active in the background some of those times, but it wasn't until Mark was actually astrally healthy that Quark reappeared to Mark's senses. Pushing Quark's old silver body against his astral body made Quark come back faster, so there was something about that silver stuff that was Quark's body, but whatever it was was mostly decorative… or no. Not 'decorative'. Mark thought. 'Superfluous?' Maybe his silver body was superfluous? That was closer.

Mark wasn't sure.

Mark didn't make Quark at all, after all. Orange City had given him to Mark. All Mark had to do was connect, and there Quark was.

There was a lot of stuff about Quark that Mark simply did not know.

And so, Mark stood there, sensing out Quark as Quark manifested some small cameras from his silver body. It was impossible to tell where his cameras were during a battle, because Mark was never focused on that. But now, Mark focused on that, and he felt Quark manifest some cameras, like a little twitch of Mark's astral body, turned in on itself and then… pulled out? 'Unfolded', maybe.

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Quark unfolded a little on Mark's forehead, and he unfolded on the right side of Mark's collar and in a few other places. Every place he unfolded a camera Mark felt a twitch of his astral body, like someone controlling it for him.

That was the first step. Mark got that part easily enough, since he was focused on the feeling.

And then Quark kinda went… elsewhere.

He pulled.

Pushed?

Twisted elsewhere. Whatever it was, his vector went inward and elsewhere. Into his cameras? Or into his databases?

Mark said, "Focus on viewing the plants as much as you can."

Quark adjusted himself, and Mark felt a few more cameras open across his skin. It was less 'inward' this time. More… twisty?

Mark said, "Focus on analyzing what you saw. Don't collect new data."

Just like Mark expected, Quark's vector went inward, just like when someone was in deep thought. Ah! Yes. Exactly as expected. Good.

"I'm going to solidify my control over my astral body, and I want you to do 3 things. Wiggle some silver metal, view the cleaner plants, and analyze them. Here we go."

Mark took complete control over his astral body, locking himself down tight.

Quark's image in his eyes went static, disrupted. His silver body didn't wiggle anywhere. His cameras and databases seemed to still. Something poked and twisted in Mark's astral body, but, like he had wrapped hands around a small animal, the animal couldn't move.

And then Mark relaxed—

Quark reappeared in Mark's sight, looking disturbed and worried. He glanced around. "What was that?"

"That was me locking down my astral body. I take it you went… quiet?"

"It was strange, sir. It was almost like what I imagine a normal computer feels, when the power is cut off. I faded to a low level."

"Hmm… Can you fight back against it? Let's try again—"

"Please no, sir."

"… Okay sure. Moving on." Mark held up his hands and said, "I want you to look at this, Quark, and see if you can tell what I'm doing at all."

Quark said, "Yes sir. I am watching."

Actually using Sigils to cast magic was not the largest part of the Understanding Sigaldry Parties Mark had run last week. That week was for learning the language and barely got into figuring out how to use one's free mana to make cantrips. That's what manual magic did, outside of the Binding; only cantrips.

Mark made some manual magic now.

He signed, 'From-the-mind, collect the heat of the room and condense to a point a pace in front of me and prepare to launch in a straight line when I point my finger toward the target, or link to the previous action in this sequence and do not let the spot of warmth fade.'

What happened, after a good 25 seconds of making signs, was a little flicker of warmth invaded the air in front of Mark.

And then Mark went through the symbols again.

The second run of sigils made the warmth stronger, joining the new creation to the previous cantrip, enlarging the warmth from fingernail-sized to 2-fingernail-sized. It was not a great enlargement at all.

A good 5 minutes later, after a full 12 runs through the same sigils, the point of heat was like a small flame in the air. The room felt more or less the same temperature, since the windows were open and air circulated just fine.

And then Mark went through the action once more and pointed at the stone floor up ahead.

The little flame floated through the air, contained and condensed, to tap the floor. The ball of heat suddenly fwoomphed, releasing all of its heat at once in a tiny fireball about hand-span across. It was like igniting a balloon full of hydrogen, like they had done in science class in high school. A bit of noise. A bit of a spark. Gone.

Not even a dent in Mark's overall astral body strength, too.

A cheap, long-winded cantrip. It was rather indicative of cantrip magic as a whole.

Mark said, "Help me remember to ask this of someone, Quark: Bindings are cantrips in the soul, written down ten times over, or in whatever configuration they need to be in to make them work. The cantrip I just did was done ten times over, too. So why is Binding magic so much stronger than cantrip magic?"

"Noted." Quark added, "I must say that Sigaldry is on top of Bindings, though, only using free mana, so maybe that has something to do with it."

Mark hummed. "Moving on: Did you sense any of that creation?"

Quark was quiet for a moment, his internal processes running deep. And then he came back, like a rubber band snapping to a relaxed position, and said, "I felt something in the beginning of every stage of that action, in particular the 'from-the-mind' part. The rest of it trailed off, and I could not feel it at all."

Mark nodded. "Expected. Let's try this."

Mark hadn't done many experiments with adamantium and Sigaldry yet, because adamantium was pure mana and Mark didn't want to accidentally use up several kilos of the stuff.

But now he was going to use adamantium to make some cantrips.

Mark grabbed a literal handful of adamantium and held it above his hand, and then he flashed it into a hand, complete with wrinkles and veins. It was not easy to do that. Adamantium had a natural shape and that shape was either amorphous, or scales, and it was only scales because Mark, for whatever reason, easily made scales out of the metal. But Mark was pretty good with Adamantiumkinesis these days, and he made adamantium into a hand well enough.

And then Mark tried to make it move like a hand, to make the basic 'Protect' palm-out shape.

The fingers bent over, twisting unnaturally, and the palm bent weirdly.

He instantly identified the problem. The hand was basically a blob, and it was hard to make it move like a hand should move, because he was moving a gelatin-like thing instead of a thing full of bones, with rigidity.

Mark abandoned the hand-shaped-blob and began constructing a hand out of bones. He needed Quark's help to get the bones right, to project the structure of a hand into the air and to then shape adamantium into that space, but soon Mark had a hand with some solid bones and some blobby-adamantium-joints.

With practiced control wrought from practically a year of doing this…

Mark paused.

It had been almost a year, huh?

… With practiced control wrought from a year of doing this, and like he had done with every weapon he made, Mark held the adamantium firmly, but not enough to deform it, and began to maneuver the solid adamantium bones of the hand. The blobby adamantium joints helped to keep it all together.

Mark signed with the black metal hand, 'From-the-mind, collect the heat of the room…'

In a way that was both surprising and not, the cantrip took place in the air exactly how it had when he had used his actual hands. And so, Mark went through the whole thing again, several times. Eventually he pointed with the adamantium hand and the gathered orb of fire floated forward, to pop on the ground with a little fwoomph and a flash of fire.

The adamantium hand remained completely intact.

Mark had not used up any of his adamantium mana to do that, at all.

Mark said, "I expected it to do a lot more than that! Maybe use up the adamantium hand? Cause a big, big effect? Who knows! Got any ideas about any of this, Quark?"

"I am not sure, sir."

Mark hummed— An idea. "Mithrilkinetics. Mithril Blooded. They probably run into this exact same problem, and they probably have an answer. Now I should go talk to Rekaro…. Or even Elaria? Is Isoko done with her Alteration, yet?"

"Miss Kanno still has Do Not Disturb on her Accord profile."

"Still at it, then. Let's go find Rekaro."