Mage Among Superheroes

Between Midnight and I we could Teleport safely seven times. One less counting Gate to get to the right plane. After that I would still have usable mana, but I wasn't really up for long range Teleports if I wasn't going to be completely certain things were stable. Much of the planning we had for our travel involved looking at mountain ranges on maps. The problem was…

"I don't actually know how accurate this is," Spellshot admitted. "You know how maps are."

Not really. "I didn't travel much before," I said. "And all of the maps here are great." Not that I needed them much. I mostly used them for keeping on a patrol route. Otherwise, I either knew the way locally or I got a driver. At some point, I could probably Teleport places but that was probably too flashy and a bit wasteful for within a city. "I know a scout, if that helps."

"That shouldn't be necessary," he said. "Though having help navigating the peaks would be useful."

"Aren't we teleporting?" I asked.

"That doesn't mean we won't have to traverse anything. Unless you hit the perfect peak every time, and we can always see it from whatever angle we're at."

"What else might we need?"

Spellshot pondered. "Do you know the spell Altitude Adaptation?"

"Nope. Do you?"

"Very funny."

His choice of spells was restricted by his class somehow- I didn't know precisely how. He would also need the points for other things, and he might not have figured out training yet.

"Is that spell related to Water Breathing?" I pondered aloud.

"I don't see why it would matter."

He was right, of course. It might help me get a mastery, but without one it required learning it first which wouldn't save me any time or effort or anything. At the moment, I happened to have almost no spare points- Meteor Swarm was expensive. Not that Summon Moderate Elemental had been cheap either.

Eventually we decided that in addition to us it would be appropriate to bring along a scout, healer, and someone with athletic prowess. If the scout could be both that would be good, but while I imagined Izzy could scale a cliff and drop a rope for us she couldn't hold up a rope very easily. Even if she was strong for her size, it would be better to have someone that didn't begin at a disadvantage.

-----

Unfortunately, Izzy was busy. It was like it wasn't even her job to help out with random things for the Power Brigade. We could have waited a week or so, but Extra really wanted to get things moving. However, our options were limited.

It seemed we could slip pretty much anyone through Rocky's natural portal, but that had a whole host of other issues like not knowing what country it was in. Thus, we decided to stick to people with mana that could go through a normal Gate.

We ended up with Punk Monk fulfilling the role of athletic individual. With class abilities she was certainly ahead of us orcs, which wasn't anything to be ashamed of admitting. We were just a bit taller and more naturally muscular. Spellshot didn't seem to work out all that much so there was a significant difference. If he were attached to any super work long term someone would doubtless make sure he had balanced overall fitness, but shooting a magic gun didn't require that much muscle mass.

Bandage was our healer. There wasn't even a doubt in our minds about her dealing with high altitudes or snow. Then again, she would be taking care of the cold part. Energy Ward was too useful for a supporting class like cleric to not learn, and anything that could protect against being instantly frozen also worked on long term thermal damage.

Midnight and I were obviously part of the whole thing. We would be doing the Gate and Teleport stuff. Midnight was going to stay away from any ledges as much as possible, no doubt. Just because he could cast Fly didn't mean he wanted to.

The last member wasn't qualified in the normal way of things. She had absolutely no idea about how the world we were going to work or even experience in the matter. Nor did she have any relevant class abilities- or class abilities at all. In the wrong circumstances, she might bite people. But she did have wings.

No, it wasn't Miss Flutter. It would be a stain upon her good reputation to say she would bite people in the wrong circumstances. She always did it entirely appropriately. Anyway, we weren't taking Zeb and like fifty squirrels up onto mountaintops.

Instead, we were taking an angel.

Not Malaliel. I was pretty sure she didn't bite- that was what she had that sword for.

Inasyah. The werewolf one. She wasn't supposed to bite people, but she was still new. It couldn't have been more than a few full moons, so even if she had properly trained with Great Girl she would still be new. Then again, maybe angels had powerful wills or something.

Inasyah met us at Extra- which meant she didn't really have to go anywhere at all. She looked around. "So we are sending evildoers to face judgment? I do not see any here." She grinned slightly at Spellshot. "Except perhaps this fellow."

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Spellshot rolled his eyes. "Not at all. Barely more than a bit of interplanar… interdimensional trespass. I'm sure that's not a problem."

Inasyah held her head up high. "Extra has decided that intrusion on its own is not a crime." Of course, she was probably guilty of other things like assault with a deadly weapon and things like that. But if they hadn't ironed all that out she wouldn't be here. Or alive, based on Malaliel's attitude about bad angels.

Then we all walked into the portal room and transcended space itself.

Bandage prepared us all with Energy Ward- she hadn't quite mastered Multicasting, and it would have required at least one of those and a single cast without significant advances. Midnight and I could share just fine as normal. Either way, it used up about half her mana.

Then Midnight was the first to cast Teleport, starting from the 'closest' point I knew how to Gate to. It was simply the most economical. Either we split Gate and Teleport or cast them individually, either way we would both be down some mana. In this case, Gate had 1 more upgrade than Assistive Familiar Casting to get the maximum benefit it worked out this way. It was about half a point of mana difference.

On that topic, "The mana here is nice," I commented. "Much better than down below." Was it because it was further from people, or were mountains special? I might have thought I had a good grasp on that before, but New Bay was now higher density than cities I was familiar with that had 'normal' mana regeneration. Oh, but high was good.

Inasyah flew off, occasionally being blocked by puffs of snow, trees, or the like. We weren't quite at the peak of this particular mountain, and we had to find our way forward. The general direction was still obvious, but our flying friend should come back with the best route.

Spellshot huffed along at the rear of the pack. "How are… you all… fine like this?"

"Cardio," I said. I was pretty sure Midnight's suit helped him too. Speaking of which, it was performing some calculations to make sure we didn't run into too much danger. We weren't planning to stay on this peak for too long, and it wasn't that impressively high. We were just trying to get into a good spot to see our next target. A half mile up let us see something like seventy miles into the distance. If our target was also tall, we could more than double that distance.

Ultimately, someone had to be the slowest. That might have been Midnight if he had to push through snow, but he got to ride on my shoulder for free.

It didn't take long to get to a place where we could see our next target. It was approximate, but in the worst case scenario we could teleport along the ridgeline to hit our targets better. It was a shame that Spellshot didn't have a better way to get directly back to Ethus. Or maybe it was just one he couldn't share with us. He had to at least have a way to report back, right? He didn't seem like the type to wander through a portal with no plan.

I really wanted to Teleport us right on top of the next peak- it was still within the same range- but we ended up quite a bit below it, looking into it. It seemed this was the only space we could fit that the spell judged was 'safe'. We had to at least have solid footing and a space big enough for all of us.

Inasyah took off, and then returned to lead us around the peak. That hike took a good half hour, but it was way better than trying to climb some icy slopes. Besides, we were high enough.

I was starting to breathe a bit harder. No signs of altitude sickness just yet. Obviously most of the studies hadn't involved teleportation, but there was a time component involved. Obviously it would be faster much higher, but we were still fine.

We hit the third peak, covering most of the length of the mountain range, and then ran into a problem. There wasn't another mountain range within sight. There was one option to try to eke out more Teleport distance which was to Fly as high as we could and Teleport from there. However, there was a problem with that.

Aside from Inasyah we couldn't fly naturally, so if the spell wore off we'd be in a bit of a pinch. It was also more expensive than Teleport to use on our whole group. Ultimately, we could probably only use about half of the spell's duration because we couldn't be certain that Teleport would put us on the ground. Maybe we should have tested that before.

Instead, we picked the furthest city we could spot and went just outside. Midnight didn't have much spare mana at the end of that anyway, about fifteen each, so it was time for a break. We could have gotten more mana high up, but it was better to minimize health risks.

"Whoa," Punk Monk shook her head. "I suddenly feel… better? I didn't realize how hard it was to breathe." She looked over at Midnight, "Your suit is monitoring things, right? Does it freak out when we Teleport?"

"... Why would it?" Midnight asked.

"Uh… sudden changes in temperature, pressure, and stuff?"

"The only complaint it has is that there are no local satellites. Otherwise, it is quite prepared to be suddenly teleported."

"Oh yeah. Your people just do that."

"From proper stations, yes," he nodded.

Spellshot looked quite interested. "You have teleportation circles?"

"Something like it, at least," Midnight said. I had explained the concept to him. It was a pretty expensive construction so normal people didn't get to use them here- and even if I was wealthy on Earth I was a broke apprentice mage here. Spellshot might not be much better off in that regard.

He did have enough money for us to stay in town if we had the opportunity. Or to buy better maps, if this city had it. We got a lot of strange looks. It was hard to say if it was because of the cat, the orcs, the angel, or the mohawk. Bandage was certainly the most normal of us.

We didn't have any luck finding better maps- at least not in the ways we cared about- but we did confirm our location and get directions to the next city along that might have better maps. It would be a bit pathetic to travel for just an hour or so during a day and then give up. Our mana would regenerate on the move, and unless we were going to do the Flying teleport thing I hadn't even mentioned to people we needed to get close enough to spot the nearest mountains. It seemed we were only slightly less than halfway between relevant ranges, so it shouldn't be far. Though that would depend on the relative height of the two ranges, and our information was less than specific.

What I wouldn't give for some local internet so we could just look these things up. Seriously, someone should make a spell that did that.

No, it wasn't going to be me. Assuming spells could be invented, I didn't live here.