Mage Among Superheroes

It took a number of attempts as we tried to use Scrying to track people from the Mod Squad, but after looking at various corners we were finally looking at a different corner.

"Hmm, yes," I nodded my head seriously. "Look at that concrete. It's so very… concrete-y. And look, a wall made out of concrete. A floor made out of concrete. And a wall made out of concrete. Together, they all connect in a peculiar pattern nobody has ever seen before."

Midnight was nodding along with me. Since most of the mana was already expended for a Scrying spell when it was used, regardless of whether it was sustained for the whole duration, we had to find some way to amuse ourselves. "Indeed. Though, how do you know that's a floor?"

"Because it's down," I said.

"It looks down," Midnight said. "They might be in Australia, in which case it's a ceiling."

I frowned for a moment. "No, that doesn't make any sense. It's far too dangerous there for any supervillains to set up a lair. Also Scrying should account for that."

"Are you sure?" Midnight asked.

"It's never been upside down, has it?"

"What if you Scry Miss Flutter? What if someone is upside down on the ceiling? What if someone is upside down near a Scrying anchor? Does it take into account gravity? What about places without gravity? Are you picking up on external factors we can't see?"

"That's… a lot of good questions," I said. "We can try to answer some of those, but I don't know anyone in space."

"I do," Midnight said. "It doesn't have to be close, right?"

"I found you on Bunvorix," I reminded him. "I assume that's not… terribly different from whoever you'll be Scrying. As for the other factors… we'll probably need Khithae and probably some sort of Scrying anchor."

"Why Khithae? Miss Flutter also hangs out upside down."

"Because we'd know," I said. "Khithae can… maybe… stand on the ceiling somewhere? I'm not sure if the ability scales to that extent."

I could text her and find out though. The answer was pretty straightforward. It would depend on the material of the ceiling, because even if she could stick, the material might not hold together.

The Brigade wasn't willing to pull her away from her job right away, not like we could get a Scrying anchor on short notice, so we started with the other options and would attempt that later. While it seemed like a distraction, understanding how magic worked was important for getting around things like the Scrying anchors that kept dumping us in corners.

So we started with a dire bat and a feline in space.

"I can't tell if this is how it would normally work or if we were primed to see this," I said. By default, the image appeared with the figure seeming to be right-side-up. That was consistent for Miss Flutter who was certainly upside down and the Celmothian that was probably one of Midnight's relatives who could have been at any angle inside some space station.

After the Scrying began, we could reorient however we wanted. So the next step was testing if we could orient as we pleased beforehand. However, it seemed difficult to do anything regarding an absolute reference frame. It was harder to turn a Scrying over to match with gravity than it was to flip it independently, but I was pretty sure the former still worked. Then again, I already knew the answer which was the problem.

We had one more thing to try, so I called up Jerome. "Hey. We need you to Scry on Miss Flutter and take a picture of it."

"Uh… okay," he said.

Technically, Bolster could do the same thing. She had met Miss Flutter, after all. However, if she used the same room we did it was impossible to guarantee any similar results were not related to the Scrying 'orb'. The massive cube of diamond was fairly special, after all. It might have its own predilections for orientation.

Besides, I needed to pay my apprentice occasionally. It wasn't a long job, but it was still worth something. Then again, I was pretty sure he was making more money in other ways, like translation and mending and stuff. It didn't pay as well as combat, but it was plenty for a teenager and he wasn't interested in fighting. Once he was good enough at utility stuff he could do all of that for the Power Brigade so I wouldn't have to. Mostly, he just needed more levels for a bigger mana pool.

Miss Flutter ended up head 'up' in the picture, which had just finished forming based on the swirling mists still lingering at the edge. That was about as good as we were going to get.

-----

The next day Khithae was somewhere in a nondescript room. Midnight and I were spending a lot of time trying to determine if she was on the floor or the ceiling. It helped that she didn't have any hair. No doubt we could have tried to figure things out from the sag in her clothes- but that wasn't the point. Instead, we were trying to swap towards where gravity fit.

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We didn't actually get any answers about whether we were right. However, Midnight and I tended to agree. Instead of using the Scrying Orb, we just used some small mirrors. We didn't need details or screen recordings, we just needed Khithae to keep track of which way she had been at what times.

Between rounds, we sent her a message to tell her to move or… to not move. Once she confirmed she was done, we tried again.

After about an hour, we got our results. It turned out we were pretty good at determining which way 'down' was. It shouldn't have been surprising, since we were using divination magic. It was specifically for figuring things out. Down wasn't nearly so hard as 'all the sights and sounds around a particular person'.

Where things got interesting were when the Scrying Anchor came into play. What we had to do was the same, but without a visual reference aside from a small device that didn't have any distinguishing features. It was pretty easy, but we learned something either completely irrelevant or very important. We could still figure out which way was down- but the starting view had nothing to do with the actual position of our target.

Khithae stood right-side up, upside down, and for a segment lay on the ground sticking out from a wall. The latter we already encountered earlier. She didn't have the core strength to actually stand that way, but visually it was no different from having her back against the wall. Gravity was something we figured out, though. The same with when we were just looking at the anchor.

Unfortunately, it seemed our starting orientation didn't have anything to do with how Khithae was. Just the object we ultimately ended up drawn to. It seemed there was some internal 'top' it possessed. Even if we couldn't see it, it was very consistent as she rotated the device when we weren't looking.

Ultimately, we learned very little of note. Starting orientation seemed to be based on what was 'right', and we could orient towards gravity. We weren't a hundred percent certain about that in regards to our feline friend in space, where the gravity was far weaker, but it wouldn't matter too much either way.

-----

We went back to trying to find Iron Shell. We hoped she was easy to find. Instead, we found a corner. We just so happened to have improved our natural upgrades for Advanced Divination magic, and this time we spotted something.

"Is that… caution tape?" I asked.

"I do believe so," Midnight said. "Presumably, that's supposed to be outside the area we can detect."

I nodded slowly. "It's about double, maybe?"

The base radius of the area we could view was ten feet from the target. In this case, a Scrying anchor. Presuming Spot had told them about upgrades- or they had found out somehow- it was reasonable to have an area designated further than that. It was quite blurry, really pushing the edge of the spell, but with the enhancement from a good Scrying orb and a bunch of upgrades it made sense. Something like twenty feet.

We still couldn't see or hear anything important. What we learned wasn't anything that could find them. Probably. Unless they used a specific brand of caution tape? Actually, Calculator might be able to get something from that. More likely, though, he could take a look at some of the cracks. If we could find some water infiltration or something, it might be useful.

Scrying wasn't limited by physical barriers in a traditional sense, but didn't really work inside things. We did actually learn something from that. Since the anchor was shoved in a corner and we didn't spot any hallways or open space on the other side of the walls, we had to presume they were buried underground. That wasn't new, but it was a useful data point. We might learn something from the theoretical density of tunnels or the lack of it.

Maybe we could wind up on other Scrying anchors and learn something. We made a note in the logs to indicate that there was something to see, even if it wasn't amazing yet. Eventually we would try overpowering the anchors, but it was better to not have to rely on such things.

-----

Extra had a task for me that was both personally relevant and important for New Bay in general. Ever since Doctor Doomsday had been importing orcs- and others- from my old world, they had been getting picked up on the streets. New Bay had plenty of ways to deal with intruders. Sometimes they were imprisoned. Sometimes Extra sent them back to their own worlds, if they could. Sometimes they died- though that wasn't usually the plan.

Ultimately, people had decided that killing people in their captivity wasn't something they wanted to do. None of that was my job, so my opinion was mostly neutral. Sir Kalman didn't want a hundred random orcs sent to the Order of the Lion. No archmage had made a request to have people connected to the guy throwing portals everywhere. So there wasn't really a good outlet.

Until we found Spellshot. He had been in contact with Extra- slightly unwillingly- after his reveal. Apparently, Ethus wanted them back. At least, that was what the guy in the trenchcoat told me.

"Why?" I asked Spellshot. "They're just a bunch of jerks.

"Because they're problems and we can interrogate them to find out what groups they belong to," he said simply.

"He has already verified that Ethus will do their best to keep them from returning to cause more trouble," Malaliel assured me. It was her job to be involved in this because it was extradimensional and all that.

"So my job is… to send people back to Ethus?" I confirmed.

"That's right," Spellshot said.

"I've never been there. And I've only seen it once or twice. I can't just throw up a Gate."

Spellshot nodded. "Understandable. Are you able to cast Teleport?"

I felt like he knew too much about my abilities. Well, I think he was just guessing at the possibility- and Extra told him about Gate. It was probably fine as long as we were going to be friends, but I'd only ever gotten along with one group of orcs. Traditional ones, actually.

Spellshot wasn't really the type. In part because he used a gun, but that wasn't all. Then again, our first 'introduction' did involve a fight so it wasn't too far off.

"I would still need to know where I'm Teleporting," I pointed out.

"We can go from mountain to mountain," he said. "That will cut weeks off the journey from Granbold. Then, you just have to familiarize yourself with a single location."

"Too bad they don't have a fancy magic thing that says 'Drop criminals here," I commented. "It would make this plan far easier."