FMH: Everything ~ Sixteen

- Luke -

At first, the Murderhobo was quite concerned that everything he killed would explode into more things that needed to be killed. Punch a book? Get a shower of paper. Punch a paper? Create smaller papers, only for the fragments to stick to his armor indefinitely unless he dismissed it for a bare instant. But slowly, somewhere around the two-hundredth piece of paper that exploded into confetti, he started to enjoy himself.

“Ha, ha! You were all right! Books are fun!”

It seemed he never would run out of things that were throwing themselves against his body. He wasn't gaining anything from it, either; no Potentia, no strength enhancements… they weren’t even good practice, as they were such easy targets. “When was the last time I kicked back, relaxed, and killed something just for the fun of it?”

With these deep thoughts simmering at the forefront of his mind, Luke settled in and tried to enjoy himself, to really take in the moment, as his friends had been trying to get him to do over the course of the last five years. To be fair, for him, it was closer to only two and a half years, thanks to his ability to safely burn time in the Descender portal between delves into his own world.

Still, he knew how important it was to get out and experience new things. After all, with his newly integrated armor, he should be able to stand on the fringes of Zone twenty and utterly ignore all of the incoming needles while he worked to clear a path for himself.

Luke was looking forward to that.

Still, even though the books fluttering around them were an annoyance at worst, they also drastically reduced the group’s visibility. Luke could tell that Taylor was about to lose her mind and start blasting, and he appreciated the fact that she liked to maintain situational awareness at all times.

As night came along, everyone agreed that there was no point in stopping for a rest. They had been able to sleep the night before, even if Luke hadn't, but he was used to going up to several weeks at a time without sleeping. No matter what anyone else said, it didn't really affect him. Worst-case scenario, he was very well-practiced at ignoring the hallucinations.

The other reason they didn't stop was that, any time they tried, the books swooping around were able to settle on Zed. If the other three hadn't helped him out the first two times that they had taken a break, he would have been crushed under the sheer weight of the tomes *thudding* against him.

Luke blinked in surprise and shook his head as a new sound reached his ears for the first time in the last few hours. Andre was explaining something that sounded like it could be important, and as he turned his head to pay better attention to the man, an oversized book slammed into his head, shredding itself on the spiky armor that appeared upon impact. For a moment, his vision was filled with a detonation of papers, but he took a deep breath and allowed the impairment to pass without punching out. Truly, his self-control had reached incredible heights.

“I've been thinking,” Andre was informing Taylor, and Luke shook his head at that sad fact. His Druid friend had always been a man of strategizing, and was very rarely a man of action. So many times, he would start a project, only to leapfrog past it and do something else entirely. “I don't think I’ve taken any time to grow any plants here before, and I don't know why. Sure, arrows, those vines for Zed and such, but this dirt should still work like dirt, even if it's made out of words, right?”

Luke shifted his attention to the Mage, who appeared to be deciding between several different responses. Finally, she slowly nodded and begrudgingly answered the question. “Yes, that is true. Otherwise, I would have starved to death a long time ago. After all, I had to eat the words ‘fruit’ and ‘vegetable’ for a couple of years while I was first learning how to get control of my powers. Everything should work the same, although I am not certain what the side effects of using the word ‘dirt’ to grow things will have on plants from another world.”

“Hopefully, it will be something fun!” Andre rubbed his hands together in anticipation as he prepared himself. Luke frowned in bewilderment, then relaxed as he looked closer and nodded in appreciation at the Druid's subterfuge. What appeared to be an ‘excited hand rub’ was actually camouflaging dirt and spores sprinkling out of the powerful Ascender’s hands and settling onto the ground as they walked. With an almost casual flick of his hand, Andre opened up a superficial cut and created a single magic circle around them. It expanded rapidly, glowed with mana, and dropped to the ground.

Several things happened in quick succession after that.

First, the expected result. Plant life started forming, even if it had a strange look to it. The flowers looked like flowers, the trees and grass looked almost exactly as they were supposed to. The only strangeness the world inflicted on them was a strange network of inky veins running through them, which Luke recognized as typical routes for sap and nutrient production. It was easier than usual to understand the plant life here, because a thorough examination revealed that those exact words were filtering through the various parts of the plants. ‘Nutrients’ flowed in a continuous stream from the ground and up into the plants as the magic accelerated their growth.

The entire process elated the Druid to no end, and he dropped to his hands and knees to get a better look at everything. “Look at these things! They’re a perfect hybrid between what I can cultivate and what this world can offer! If I could transplant this, we could directly use these as training tools for new Druids, allowing them to have a deeper understanding of exactly what happens within each plant!”

Unfortunately, that was when the first unexpected result occurred. The Grimoires that had been harassing Zed went absolutely bonkers. Luke watched intently as the plant life released a light mist of mana, something most people would never be able to see due to its nearly transparent fingerprint on the world around it. For someone as sensitive to mana as he was, it was a curiosity. For the books inhabiting this world, which could only navigate and exist due to the presence of mana, it was a cross between a direct taunt and the clang of a dinner bell the size of a building.

The books attacked the plants with a ferocity that Luke hadn't seen before, going so far as to obliterate other books in their path that were too slow to evade the furious onslaught. Andre tried to swat the diving volumes aside, but they weren't playing nice. “Luke! Can you get over here and act as a scarecrow for me while I set up some defenses?”

Shrugging, the Murderhobo stepped closer and sheltered the Druid as he began growing his standard vine-tentacle defensive emplacements. As Luke spun in place, arms outstretched, each movement shredded up to half a dozen books at a time. That wasn’t fast enough, so he switched to using his Chain-Link Scourge, twirling it in the air like a lasso and creating an impressive vortex of books, ink, and paper. Long before he was done having fun, Andre asked him to step away and allowed his vines to take over.

“This is so interesting to watch! Also, thank you for figuring out a way to get the books to ignore me! Who knew they would love flowers so much?” Zed was always quick to find the silver lining in any situation. “Let's get out of here before they realize I’m still exactly as delicious as I was only a few moments ago.”

“No, wait.” Now it was Taylor's turn to take interest in the process that was unfolding. “Look at this here. As far as I can tell, this mana is being converted from the standard ‘World of Names’ ambient mana into… something else. I'm not sure why, or what is happening, but look at how the density is different? It's not mixing properly with the rest of the mana around it, like oil being poured into water.”

“It's also spreading,” Andre muttered with no small amount of concern. “Is this something we should stop?”

“What kind of story would we get out of stopping this?” Zed grabbed the Druid and tried to bodily haul him backward. Of course, at his level and Fitness, Andre wasn't going anywhere he didn't want to go. “Let's wait and see what happens!”

Even though they were under a slowly ramping sense of urgency due to their Quest and the desire to save Cindy, they waited for nearly an hour before something changed. The cloud of altered mana that had been spreading out abruptly began collapsing back inward, and strange shapes began forming in the air above the plants. Taylor let out a gasp so sharp that Luke immediately hunted around for the threat, more than ready to jump into a fight to escape the boring situation he had found himself in.

Standing and staring at the movement of mana for an hour? Please.

“It's… I've seen this before! Never like this, of course, but…!” Taylor seemed to be completely lost for words, something that happened only during the greatest of calamities, in Luke's memories. Otherwise, she always had a word of caution, a biting retort, or a useful factoid to contribute. “If I’m right, a new Spell is coming into being. This is turning into a Spell spawn point!”

“That is… good?” Andre offered hesitantly.

Taylor nodded with great enthusiasm. “A new spawn point means new Spells. Since we're the only people here, let alone the first ones on the scene, I can claim the first new Spell, if it turns out to be worth Naming.”

It took quite a long time—nearly five more hours—before the words above the plant life coalesced into a proper Spell. As soon as it snapped together, a creature composed entirely of scribbles that were smoothing out into beautiful calligraphy dropped to the ground. As far as Luke could distinguish, the characters held no meaning, but Taylor apparently disagreed.

She tracked the Spell with blatant longing, whispering under her breath, “Nature… plant… growth and control?”

Taylor nearly swooned when she worked out the final combination that gave her the True Name of the Spell that had just been created. As she spoke it aloud, her Grimoire lifted up off of her hip, cover flying open of its own accord, and sucked in the newborn Spell. “It’s a miracle.”

“The Spell is ‘Miracle’?” Zed tapped his fingers together, trying to figure out how that would have been created based on various plants. “That seems to not fit the theme of-”

“No, Zed.” Taylor cut him off almost ruthlessly. “This Spell is a miracle. It's something I have never seen or heard of before. The Spell itself is only a Tier two creation, but it carries incredible potential. It’s an arcane version of a Druid's Abilities; specifically, this Spell is ‘Grow Plant’. The mana cost is absurd, but it allows me to cast the Spell and leave, and it will independently grow a plant to maturity. Obviously, depending on how large the plant is going to be, or how long it takes to reach full growth, the Spell’s effect might not bring it all the way there, but it’s still the most… I know you don't understand how miraculous this actually is.”

“So tell us,” Luke ordered sternly, annoyed by her circumlocution.

She didn't seem to notice that he was getting grumpy, instead launching into a detailed explanation. “There are Spells that mimic things Druids can do, like my Tier five ‘Fissure’. But Andre could create a fissure in the land far more easily, with a fraction of the mana investment, and have complete control over how it opened. My Spell is a fire-and-forget version, meaning it will have a standard length and width, and I have only minimal control. There are other Spells that can affect the weather, but they're Tier nine at the lowest.”

“Something that I can also do, if I ever manage to get a Fifth Circle Spell awarded to me by the world,” Andre chimed in to offer a counterpoint.

“Exactly! You’ll be able to do it, maybe not easily, but in a controlled way that you know won't impact the world negatively. Spells don’t work like that.” Taylor shook her head, hard, side to side. “I just Named a variable mana cost, Tier two Druidic Spell. It gives me the same control over growth, variation, and final product that I believe Andre has. It will take me time to learn how to best use that, but…I have a Druidic Spell, not an Ability like he has.”

“That is neat, but I don't really understand why you're making such a big deal of it.” Zed shrugged and opened his mouth to say more, only to find that she had clapped a hand over it.

“It’s amazing because it’s not something that is supposed to be possible,” Taylor insisted, her eyes burning with excitement. “If Andre has found a way to transfer what he can do over to me, does that mean that the rest of us can trade some of our best Spells, Masteries, Abilities, and Skills with each other?”

When her hand was removed from Zed’s mouth, his jaw had fallen open. “Welp, I have a new goal in life. I'm going to be the first Bard to ever cast Fireball.”