Call of the Abyss [Book 2 Complete]

Julia raised her hand and held it at the door of the dwelling, hesitating at the last moment to knock. It had been a couple of weeks since she'd seen the Thornalûn last. Now, despite having gone through life-or-death situations together, she was suddenly nervous to meet them again.

A week had passed since she returned with Ithshar's squad, during which she had accomplished much.

Seyatha had explained that it would take time for Ithshar's squad to be sent out again. She had sent out several squads of Zal'Nadir at the beginning of the week to check on the various other settlements and border towns around the marsh. It would take time to receive word back, and only after that word was received and processed would it be decided whether Ithshar would be called upon again.

Julia had been adamant (that's how Julia herself described it, though others might call it obstinate) about going with Ithshar when she was sent out next.

In the meantime, Julia had taken the opportunity to maintain her weapon and armor as well as consolidate her gains from the last conflict.

Her two new Subclass Skills had her pretty excited. The first, Rune Shaping, allowed her to change the structure of Mana Runes that she'd already placed in the world, so she'd no longer be required to dismantle a rune and remake it completely to change its function.

It wasn't explicitly part of the knowledge the System imparted when she acquired the Skill, but she'd also inferred that since she could channel mana to her runes remotely, she could now also alter existing runes remotely. Braden had always said that the Skills the System gives are just the first step, and true power comes from making them your own and iterating on them.

She was beginning to see the truth in those words. This one skill was enormously useful. If she got good enough with her runes—which had, admittedly, always been low on her magical priority list—she could essentially cast spells completely remotely, without being anywhere even close to the casting location, by changing existing runes.

Her second Subclass Skill, Persistent Runes, showed her how to configure her runes to run on mana absorbed passively from the environment. This was…a mixed bag. On the one hand, it did give her a way to make semi-permanent runes (assuming they weren't tampered with). On the other, it limited the effects her runes could have.

The mana that was environmentally present varied dramatically from location to location, and the specific type of mana varied even more widely. Julia suspected—though she hadn't yet tested—that the type of mana both in the environment and the runes themselves would affect their efficiency.

For example, a script with a fire or warming effect would likely be much more effective in…a volcano or something. Julia wasn't actually sure where a large quantity of fire mana would be present, now that she thought of it.

Regardless, without an absolute saturation of mana typed appropriately to the effect the runic script was creating, only relatively simple effects could be maintained perpetually by environmental mana.

She would need to fund larger runic effects with her own mana. Still, this meant that scripts like her improvised communication script could exist passively and perpetually.

Her runic arsenal had grown quite a bit over the past few weeks, and she was already planning various scripts in her mind to counter the Nashiin invasion, when it eventually happened.

Her Spiritual Sight—that was a different story, altogether. It felt less like an earned, incremental upgrade and more like a fundamental change in who she was.

She had surmised that the added depth she perceived stemmed from additional spatial dimensions, though there was no way she was actually seeing in those extra dimensions—her mind wouldn't be able to comprehend it. She was just seeing the subtle effects that their existence imposed on the dimensions she primarily operated in.

Braden had once tried to explain the basics of other spatial dimensions to her after she (accidentally) unlocked Space Magic using—as always—an apple.

"This is a pretty famous thought experiment where I come from. Imagine that you are this person here," he said, pointing to a stick figure he'd drawn on a piece of paper.

"You exist here, on this paper. Everything you ever have been, are, and will be is contained by the two dimensions of this paper. You can only see left and right, and up and down. Or, if you want to be mathematical, you exist on this vertical axis, and this other horizontal axis.

This apple, being a three-dimensional object, can interact with your paper world—but you'd be unequipped to truly perceive it. If I were to drop this apple right in front of you, what would you see?" he asked, setting the apple down on the paper right in front of the stick figure.

Julia stared at it, trying to think about what a two-dimensional being would see, but it was such a foreign frame of reference that she couldn't even really conceptualize it.

"Don't worry. This is incredibly difficult to wrap your mind around because your mind literally isn't designed to understand it. It's not a 'you' thing. It's a 'human' thing.

"Now, the stick figure would only see the part of the apple that exists in her operating dimensions. With it sitting here on the paper like this, she likely just sees the exact bottom of the apple that is resting on the paper, and she only sees it from one side.

"If I could pass the apple through the paper somehow, what she would see is a functionally infinite number of layers of the apple as it moves through the paper. Or, maybe you could think of it as her seeing 'slices' of the apple as it passes through the paper. She can only ever see the apple within her own dimensional constraints, despite it being a higher-order object.

"In this way, fourth or fifth or whatever dimensional objects will appear within our three-dimensional space in a way that we can perceive, but we will only perceive a small portion of them—or, perhaps, their effects on our space," he concluded.

"...okay, but why do I need to know this? If it's something I'm literally incapable of understanding intuitively, why do I need to worry about it?" she asked, a little miffed about trying so hard to understand something that has no bearing on her whatsoever.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Well, you've unlocked Space Magic and Gravity Magic, Jules. You're already brushing up against these topics whether you realize it or not," he chuckled.

"What would happen if someone from a three dimensional space like ours somehow traversed the higher dimensions?" she asked curiously, after mulling the idea over for a second.

"A great question. Go back to imagining yourself as the stick figure here. Watch what happens," he said as he picked the apple up and set it down a distance away from where it was originally.

"Did you see what happened?" he asked excitedly.

"...you moved the apple," Julia said flatly, though she had a suspicion that wasn't the point.

"Well, yeah, but what did you see as the stick figure? What did she see?" he asked encouragingly.

"Uh…she—I saw the apple disappear and reappear somewhere else?" she asked, unsure if that was the answer he was looking for.

"Exactly! Isn't that amazing?! From the perspective of a two dimensional being, the object moving through the third dimension appeared to teleport to a new location without even moving! Isn't that incredible?!" he exclaimed.

"Are you saying that moving through a higher dimension would be faster than moving the equivalent distance through a lower dimension?" Julia questioned, beginning to latch onto what he was getting at.

"It certainly can be. It's not guaranteed, but just think about how much easier it would be to get where you're going if you could fly. If you walk, you have to deal with changes in land elevation, obstacles like trees or mud, or even ground predators and threats. If you're in the sky, none of those obstacles or constraints apply.

"That said, there are other threats in the sky. There are natural threats, like wind resistance and drag as well as thinning air the higher you go, as well as organic threats like birds of prey.

"I don't see dimensional travel in your near future, but I'll tell you this just in case, Jules: when traveling through a higher dimension, be sure to keep your feet. You are not alone in there, and the threats are many," he said with seriousness that had been absent in the conversation up to this point.

"As counterintuitive as it sounds—the higher you fly, the more you need to keep your feet on the ground. Fly too high, and you'll suffocate from the lack of breathable air. Fly too fast, and the air will shred you to pieces. Fly too brashly, and you'll unwittingly enter a predator's territory."

She'd been a little dismissive when he first gave that lecture—but now, seeing the effects of extra-dimensional space all around her, the memory carried a weight it hadn't before.

There was a small bonus that this new Skill provided that she hadn't expected, however. While she was resting in her little stilt-house, she had been experimenting with her Mana Runes, testing her two new Subclass Skills, as well as new scripts she'd come up with.

What she discovered was that when she altered a rune remotely, a tiny, almost invisible spatial distortion appeared near her body. Her mana slipped into the distortion to reappear at the rune's location and make the desired alterations to it. That was it! That was how she'd been sending mana almost instantly across distances—it was passing through a higher dimension!

Julia discovered this initially because, unlike her Truesight, her Spiritual Sight was active all the time. It required no mana. Rather, it was simply a part of her. It was part of who she is—or what she is…which remained a source of disharmony for her.

But! The implications of mana traversing higher dimensions was monumental, for what was her entire body but mana? Couldn't she traverse those higher dimensions herself? She was hesitant due to Braden's warning, but there was no doubt in her mind that she would be attempting it. It was just a matter of sufficient caution and prep—

Her thoughts were interrupted by the door in front of her swinging open—had she even knocked? No, she hadn't. Her hand was still suspended in the air in preparation—how long had she been spacing out?!

Before her stood a woman not much taller than she, with curly brown hair and glistening brown eyes. She was about as wide as the doorframe, with broad shoulders and thick arms and legs. Her face was chiseled and hard but somehow contained a warmth that was kind and inviting.

"Julia! Come in, come in!" the woman bellowed as she pulled (yanked, in Julia's opinion) her into a crushing hug. Julia, unsure what to do in these kinds of situations, hugged back tentatively.

"It's so good to meet our little savior! Come, let me show you in!" she said as she wrapped an arm around Julia and guided her through the door. They walked to the center of the entryway, where the woman pulled a lever on the wall. The floor began rising, much to Julia's surprise. She hadn't realized she'd stepped into a lift.

"Forgive me for foregoing politeness in my excitement. I am Sahmira of the Thornalûn-Veshari. Thank you very much for saving my dear tahlûn—my dear children," she said while bowing slightly as the floor rose.

"Ah, um—no problem. Julia Nȳralin. They saved me as well," Julia said, matching the slight bow.

She was resisting the urge to look around, though it was almost overpowering. She could hear the stretch of ropes and grind of machinery, and there were slits along the wall of the wooden structure that showed some of the internal mechanisms.

"Ha! I've heard of your curiosity. Rest assured, there are no secrets here. Feel free to inspect all the pulleys and weights," Sahmira said, motioning all around her. Julia was a little embarrassed that despite her attempt to repress the urge to look around, she must have been wearing it on her face.

"There are a couple weights that hang from above. When we throw a lever, one weight descends at a controlled rate, while the counterweight ascends. The order reverses when the lever, either down at the bottom or up top, is thrown again.

"What is the weight right now becomes the counterweight and ascends rather than descends," she explained, motioning to the wall where (presumably) the weights she spoke of were moving.

"This is impressive. It must be quite a chore to maintain all the machinery, though," Julia mused. She wasn't well-versed in machinery, but from what little she'd read of such things, she knew that moving parts—especially ones under load—would deteriorate over time.

"Aye, though we get quite a bit of life out of them thanks to the Weavers. When they sing their enchantment into the materials, their durability is greatly augmented. The vines that attach to the pulleys, for example, last much longer than any rope you'd find in human lands," Sahmira said, pointing to vines that were just visible through the slits in the wall.

"Sorry, they 'sing' enchantments into materials?" Julia questioned, always intrigued by new forms of magic.

"Indeed, the Weavers are under the purview of the Weavers Guild. They might be roughly equivalent to human enchanters, though the comparison isn't perfect. They work materials to prepare them for use, and they sing their enchantments all the while. This infuses the material with their magic and will—no runes, no carving," she said.

Julia was blown away. She had so much of her current identity as an enchanter wrapped up in runes (and Mana Runes) that the idea of enchanting without them was a paradigm shift in her mind. She glanced over at the sound of Sahmira chuckling.

"It's a bit beyond me, but Selûneth is a Weaver themself, if you want to ply them with questions. We're all excited to meet the Dahm'Zahra herself," she finished with a wry smile.

Great—Talnîr had clearly been hard at work getting his family on board with teasing. Still, a new form of magic? She was becoming more excited with every stretch the lift rose.