FMH: Everything ~ Fifteen

- Taylor -

The instant she finished reading through the packet of information, Taylor burned the entire thing to cinders. Then she made sure to stomp on the ashes, scattering them before dumping an entire bucket of water on top in order to ensure that there was no way to reconstitute the pages. If she allowed that information to get out to the general public, it was highly probable that the Mage would be charged with some sort of malfeasance. This wasn't information that had any other usage beyond war and sabotage.

Luckily for them, that was exactly what they were heading into. War, sabotage, assassinations, intrigue, and what amounted to counter-kidnapping. There was a bold smile blazing across her face as she looked into the distance, where she knew the Dynasty of Dogs lay. Finally, she was about to be back in her element. Andre was the most useful in the wilds, Zed the most useful among the common people, and Luke… well, Luke had his own special place in the world.

But Taylor had been raised to thrive on political machinations and intrigue. She was ready for this, and the documents had given her the first step back into that world. Before anything else, The Four needed to leave the walls of the capital city. Except for highly guarded waypoints, the surrounding terrain was heavily enchanted to disallow Ascenders from opening portals into the area. As they made their way into the countryside, Taylor and Zed started to deflate, even while Andre took a deep breath as he reconnected with the flora of the kingdom. “Who would have thought that trail of flowers would be so useful in keeping me connected to the Nature Preserve?”

“Ah… you?” Zed laughed lightly as he looked back at the city longingly.

Taylor watched Andre seemingly rejuvenate out of nowhere, a tiny bit envious over the fact that he received a constant stream of healing, mana, and Potentia… even if the daily percentage of that last benefit was so minimal that it was almost not worth mentioning. She made a small sound, gathering the attention of her three male companions immediately. “I am going to open a portal that will allow us to reach the edge of the kingdom within only a couple days of walking, instead of taking more than a week. Unless, Andre, you know a better position that we could move to through your world?”

“Sorry to say, I have not been able to explore my world all that much.” He shrugged noncommittally, and no one pressed farther. They had all heard his stories of being hunted by the other Druids from this world, and no one was willing to ask him to risk himself or his achievements solely to save a few days of travel.

Without another word, Taylor stretched her left hand out, palm leading, right palm braced on her hip as she spread her fingers. Infusing her Grimoire—settled in the crook of her arm and braced on her right hip—with mana, she hissed out the necessary incantation, and a portal began to form almost instantly. This close to the city, with all of its passive enchantments sucking up all of the ambient mana, not to mention standing so close to Zed, who was absorbing anything that remained as his Mastery worked to Tier up, she had to push and push until the portal stabilized. The second it *snapped* into place, she dropped her hands to her knees, leaning over and panting slightly.

There was no need to rush, since a stable portal didn't close on its own. If it did, their world wouldn't be plagued by so many monster incursions and other interdimensional troubles. Still, it was a better idea to recover on the other side, where they would be able to travel at four times the speed of this world's timestream. As soon as they were safely in her world, Taylor was able to close the portal behind them with a lazy gesture, the increased potency of the mana allowing her to access her capabilities almost effortlessly in comparison.

She tilted her head curiously as she sensed a faint increase in the amount of energy that was converging on Zed. “Do you notice any difference in the speed that your Mastery is Tiering up?”

“Surprisingly, yes. I hadn't realized it would be impacted so much!” Zed cheerfully acknowledged. “Have there been studies done on this? Does anyone know the actual speed?”

“As far as I know, it's different for every type of power.” Andre had even more knowledge on the overall system of Potentia than Taylor did, having spent nearly a decade solely doing research as part of his training. “I know that having more free mana, or access to mana, will increase the speed at which it is able to evolve. If you have too little, it will slow to nearly a crawl while being locked the entire time. Too much, conversely, the sheer drain on your surroundings can cause the energy to collapse inward with immense collapsing waves, potentially even shattering your skull as mana tries to squeeze its way into your Sigil and be purified.”

“Is that why I keep getting beaten up by mana?” Luke muttered so softly that Taylor, even with her enhanced senses, could barely hear it. His complaint didn't surprise her; she knew that he had upgraded many of his Skills over the years, but she had never actually met anyone who had taken damage from the convergence of mana. She was familiar with the study Andre was quoting, and severe pain during Tiering up was more of a hypothesis or wistful hope than anything else.

Taking charge of the situation, as became necessary far more often than the current version of her was comfortable with, Taylor started walking eastward, hoping that her companions would follow without requiring any cajoling. To her great relief, they fell in line easily, and they comfortably kept pace with her brisk stride. Opening her Grimoire and bracing the spine on the front of her hip, angled just to the side so she could maintain a safe walking pace, she scanned the map she had created within its pages. “If we're able to continue on this route, we will reach the border by… tomorrow night? Subjective time, obviously.”

“Is it just me, or are there more Grimoires in the area than usual?” Zed's voice wasn't exactly worried, but it was striking to Taylor how he could point out details that she, with her massively enhanced senses, didn't even consider. Turning her eyes skyward, she noticed that there were, in fact, increased flocks of books zooming into the area, settling in clusters on book racks and other terrain features. The farther they traveled, especially over the next few hours, the more books alighted nearby.

“How did I not notice that?” Doubting herself for a moment, Taylor decided to open up her Characteristic sheet and take a look at her status, primarily to ensure that she hadn't been cursed or had a Spell cast on her that was actively dulling her Characteristics.

Cal Scan

Level: 14

Current Etheric Xenograft Potentia: 2,183 / 98,700 to level 15!

Body: 12.4

Fitness: 13.5

Resistance: 11.3

Mind: 22.65

Talent: 19

Capacity: 26.3

Presence: 12.75

Willpower: 10.3

Charisma: 15.2

Senses: 44.3

Physical reaction: 45.3

Mental energy: 43.3

Maximum health: 163

Maximum mana: 486

mana regen: 6.3 per second.

Ability: Tier: Level

Fingers of Flame: 4: 5

Frozen Trident: 4: 7

Cleanse: 1: 1

Purify: 1: 1

Nullify: 4: 9

Fissure: 5: 8

Thunder Beast’s Eye: 7: 9

As far as Taylor could tell, everything looked correct. Her time in the wilderness had increased her resistance quite a bit naturally, although the sheer enhancement of her Mana Channels had given her the largest natural boost to her Capacity she had ever seen. Beyond that, in the last five years, she had been able to increase by four entire levels, granting her twenty free points to place in her Characteristics, at a minimum of five points per selection. She had evenly split the windfall between her Mental Energy and Physical Reactions. There should never again be any obstacle capable of preventing her from learning the name of a Spell that she wanted to tame.

There was also no reason why she shouldn't be able to notice things before the Bard had. No debuffs were evident, no enchantments working against her. She hadn't eaten any rye bread and gone insane, as far as she could tell. Yet, she hadn't been the one to detect the incumbent threat. She frowned up at the perched books once more, trying to find the underlying reason they were following her party.

None of the books were directly flying at them, either to bump into them or harass them. Instead, as the restless tomes filed themselves neatly along the shelves, their pages were rustling ominously—as if they were gearing themselves up to attack but didn't want to be the first to make a move. She hadn't experienced problems with a Grimoire in quite a long time, and she strained to recall what had provoked a degree of agitation as serious as what she was seeing right now.

“They usually are quite pleasant. They act like birds, hunting for food and…” Taylor's eyes went wide for a moment as she slowly turned, only to wince in stunned comprehension at Zed. “Their food source is mana. Specifically, free mana that is leaving or converging onto a person. I think they're confused because you're ranking up a Bardic Spell, and they're trying to decide if they like the flavor or not.”

“Mastery,” Zed muttered, imitating his conversation with Andre only a few days prior. “You're saying that I smell like an exotic restaurant to them, and they're trying to decide if they want a taste?”

“Pretty much. You're not releasing or drawing pure mana, so to them, you might smell… spicy,” she admitted with a small shrug. “So long as the fight doesn't draw the attention of any overly powerful Spells, I don't think we will have any serious issues. It's just going to be a matter of a constant flock of books swooping at you. Overall, it should be more annoying than anything else.”

“Ugh. Books again.” Luke was walking with his eyes closed so that he didn't need to see all of the implements of knowledge fluttering around them at high altitude. As an oversized Grimoire on black magic came too close, his fist lashed out even without Luke needing to see. A spiked gauntlet materialized around his knuckles and detonated the book on impact. It exploded into a book binding, a cloud of falling papers, a splash of ink, and a small stream of mana swirling into the air. Several of the pages were stuck to his spiky armor, and he shook his hand wildly. “Get it off, get it off!”

“Now you did it,” Andre stated evenly as thousands of books left their perches and flew into the sky, circling around the group with the harsh sound of flapping paper drowning out any farther conversation. “Here they come. Anyone want a few vines on their shoulders to slap them away?”

“I'll take five.” Zed stepped closer to the Druid immediately, who set a small sachet full of dirt and seeds on the Bard’s shoulder. The placement allowed him to grow his plants faster, and without risk of them burrowing into someone's body in search of nutrients.

Luke stopped flailing and breathed out his relief, holding up a hand that finally had nothing on it. “Don't worry about me. I figured it out.”

Taylor pointedly ignored him and turned her face up at the sky, trying to determine the best course of action. If she started throwing around her most powerful Spells, she could probably drive off the books quickly, though it would highlight their exact location to anyone who cared to find them. As a library’s worth of tomes suddenly dove at them, the choice was taken out of her hands.

The Murderhobo leapt up, meeting the front of the swarm with a massive coiled rope that had appeared out of nowhere. The end flicked out and impacted the lead book with a *whipcrack*, generating a shockwave so close to them that it would have made a regular human's ears bleed. As the Mage hunkered down behind a toppled shelf, she realized that the shockwave hadn’t only come from the sound. He had activated a different one of his Skills, which had spread the damage dealt to the leading target among the other volumes hovering behind it.

Hundreds of books detonated into clouds of paper that ever so slowly drifted down toward them. Luke landed, looked up, pointed at the descending sheaves of paper, and let out a small, wordless scream of alarm.

Taylor could only shake her head, at what she knew wasn't antics, but his genuine reaction to the sight of paper falling down on him. “I swear, sometimes the people on this team…!”

“What’s the matter, Tay?” Zed prodded as he walked past, four tentacle-like vines on his shoulders, and one on top of his head, reaching up into the sky and slapping away any fluttering books brave enough to come close. “Do you see something strange out there?”

“Just everything.” Taylor closed her eyes and shook her head. “Everything in my life, Zed.”