The Restored: Chapter Twenty-Four

Hadiya Abbas was, without a doubt, one of the best ritual mages she knew. 

That wasn’t arrogance, it was cold hard facts.

She wasn’t going to say that she was the single best witch she knew, because that would be arrogance and nothing more. 

Jessica was her superior at nesting wards that were more than the sum of their parts. Ivar’s grip on layering enchantments together without causing interference was without peer. Bloody Eyes’ understanding of blood magic surpassed anyone she knew of, except perhaps the Arenamaster herself. Even Elderglass’ Head of Magical Development, Archmage Davalier. She might be a sorcerer, but she could beat Hadiya when it came to the construction of long-distance wind scrying rituals. 

But while each of them might beat her in some accounts, she could also beat them in her own areas of speciality – interplanar magic, specifically the use of interplanar friction for the use of aura generation. 

Rhys wasn’t half as good as she was, splitting his attention between a minor career in politics, a major career in archeology, and learning witchcraft, but he was certainly more competent than some of the people she had worked with before.  

So when she’d been presented with the challenge of cutting off the Arenamaster’s access to the Fallen Void, she’d been understandably confident. What she hadn’t expected was for there to be active resistance. 

She drew out another rune in chalk, imbued it with a touch of aura, and began to chant. Before she could even finish the first three words, the rune lit with a swirling red color, and the magic popped like an overstuffed sausage casing. There was a flare of light as the spell collapsed, and Hadiya let out a curse. 

“What?” Rhys asked, looking up in concern from the pad of papers he’d been referencing. 

“I don’t know how they’re doing it,” Hadiya seethed. “They’ve burst my spell twice now, before I could even get it off the ground.” 

“What, exactly, are they doing? Abjuration magic?” 

“No!” Hadiya said, her voice sounding even more irritated. “That would be reasonable. They’re somehow filling the runes I draw with demonic aura and soul stuff faster than I can fill it with human aura. It’s not skilled, it’s just… Cramming the wrong type of fuel into the reaction and overflowing it.”

“Okay,” Rhys said, his voice measured and calm. That was something Hadiya appreciated about him as a casting assistant. She knew she could be a touch hotheaded. “How are they doing that? There isn’t a demon standing here to funnel power in, so there has to be some sort of divination spell looking for magic.” 

“You’re right,” Hadiya said after a moment. 

“Divination spells are useful, but they’re limited,” Rhys continued. “One of the biggest problems I have in any dig is that I need a reference shape in order to search for it, which makes finding new language samples difficult. Change languages, and see if that works. If not, I know almost a dozen dead languages used in the south that know she doesn’t know – in part, because I’m using one right now, and my runes aren’t having that issue.” 

“You’re right,” Hadiya conceded, swapping to the language of Old Paerús. Their ancient empire had venerated elementals, and had endless words to describe different elemental effects, all building off base elemental runic structures, but its knowledge of and weight to more esoteric forces was virtually nonexistent. 

That made it a terrible choice for the kind of ward she was constructing, since she’d need twice the runework to get half the effect, and blow way more power than she would have if she’d used a language that didn’t need to start at thirty-eight then do calculus just to get to four and a half.

Which was why it was a great choice. Because Rhys was right – these sorts of spells were limited by the user’s ability to input reference magic into a sort of… internal library. There were a few spells that could be used to gradually expand the library, but all of them came with limits of one sort or another, often requiring multiple different magical disciplines woven together in order to manage it, completely unique spell components, or banking on the caster’s archmage’s sight to help imprint visible magic.

To check that she was on the right course, she chalked out a simple flame orb spell on the ground, filled it with magic, chanted out the words of the spell, then let it fill with aura. A minute later, the flame orb bloomed in the air, and she let out a sigh of relief. She had just gotten back to work when one of the constables she’d had Nexus commandeer for her usage approached. 

“Miss Abbas,” he said, fist over his heart. “How much longer did you need this street blocked? We’re diverting traffic, but there are some reports of some disturbances a few blocks north.”  

This time it was Rhys who let out a curse, and Hadiya agreed. They’d already laid out the triangle of containment, but they needed to create nodes of spellcraft on the three different points in order to 

“Bring the generator and the cart,” she said. “We’ll see if we can’t get this cleared up as soon as possible. Rhys, can you manage this?” 

As she asked, she ripped a sheet of paper from her pad, and he looked it over, then handed his portion of the spell to her. He’d written it in some language she couldn’t identify, but included a phonetic transcription. He nodded, and Hadiya looked up at the constable. 

“Bring the other generator and cart to seventy-fifth and thirty-second, with Rhys.” 

“Yes ma’am,” he said, saluting again, before gesturing for Rhys to follow. Hadiya looked down at the mess of chalk and runework on the street, then began chanting, figuring that she could direct the officers to place components down as she used them. 

Technically, there was no reason that someone had to start with the components in the right spots. It was considered best practice, but some spells actually used their introduction earlier or later in the spell, as a symbolic representation. Hadiya didn’t design her spells with those principles, though. She just needed them there to be consumed by the spell. 

One of the officers arrived and began placing jars of diseases captured from the Fallen Void, knapped obsidian taken from one of the Void’s torture pits that could cut into the spirit, granite woven from faerie magic carrying the concept of protection and prevention, silver that had once been a part of the body of a silver elemental, strings taken from an angel of vengeance, and several others.

Any one of the components was worth at least two thousand thin panes, enough to cover a monthly mortgage payment on a nice apartment in the street city. Not the most expensive components Hadiya could access, but with thirteen components per node, and three nodes scattered across the chunk of the city, the cost rose rapidly. She was probably sinking eighty-five thousand thin-panes into this operation, enough money to serve as a down payment for purchasing a three or four bedroom apartment, all on the dime of the newly promoted CEO. 

He’d been reluctant at first, but when she’d explained that it was to stop the Arenamaster from scaling up her city-wide array, he’d accepted it with seemingly no problems at all. A bit suspicious, but she wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. 

The real jewel was the aura-generators, though. These were from her latest generation of models, and would be a stress-test for their capacity. After the disaster that was the first miracle drop test, she’d scaled back, focusing more on the need to create them without the droplet. 

While she hadn’t made any progress at all on the ambient aura generator, some of the proprietary technology that harvested power from interplanar friction had been running on severely outdated legacy spellwork from the first generation.

On top of that, she had updated the old model they’d tested out using Ulacto’s grand spell and Paerús’ grand array, the one that took a permanent bite out of a compatible person’s aura in order to get to start. 

While she hadn’t been able to fix the issue of it taking a permanent bite out of someone’s aura in order to kickstart the process, she’d at least been able to create a universal activation process via the use of phoenix ashes or cores. 

She’d also been able to at least stop the explosion problem by keeping Ulacto’s strange growth spell linked to the growth of the crystal, then shattering it and replacing it with Paerús’ growth spell that would gradually refine the extant spells in the cogs and crystal. Both were limited in their ability to actually improve the generators, since Ulacto’s had to be stopped, and Paerús’ could only bring things to their maximum design efficiency and not beyond it. 

Even so, between those three things, and her updates to the crystalline structure that she’d already made, Hadiya had theoretically created the most size-to-aura efficient aura generators ever. She couldn’t help but admire her own handiwork as one was placed down to help her activate the spell array she was working on. 

It was ultimately a patchwork solution, since they really needed an aura generator that could truly grow endlessly, increasing the amount of aura generated without increasing the physical space. 

But it was still a marvel of engineering. 

The moment it was settled into place, she could feel the power humming along the lines of her spellwork, filling the runes and rushing to the next one, and hastened her chanting to help speed things along. She flicked her hands to the constables, indicating where they should each put their components. 

Even as she worked, though, she began to wonder if her limit-shattering generators, expensive components, and high skill level would be enough. The constables near-speakers were already buzzing, the linking spell embedded into them going off to indicate that there was something that needed their attention, and she could bet she knew what – or rather, who – it was.

The moment she finished, she turned and barked at two constables to guard the generator, then started sprinting to the next site. Rhys was already there, chanting his portions of the spell, components laid out, but his aura was visibly thin and drained – he had doubtless shoved everything into the last ritual to speed it along just that little bit faster.

Hadiya skidded to a stop and began flickering her aura through the runes and chanting her own portions of the spell, the words in the ancient language of Paerús flowing from her lips. 

Then she saw it. 

She had seen reports of certain great spells in the past creating vast pillars of light that stretched into the sky, and she had thought that, perhaps, this would be something similar. 

It wasn’t. 

No light rose into the sky. Instead, the lights and enchantments of the city around her began to go wild as a force began to draw on them, messing with their magic. Street lights flickered and went out, while others in clear lines began to glow brighter and brighter

She sped up her chant and slapped the aura generator, begging it for more power. Not a very scientific outlook, but all she could hope for. 

She didn’t know how the Arenamaster had managed to tap into the city’s power grid. It was secure beyond any reasonable belief, and Nexus had sent people down to check it just in case. 

But the how didn’t matter. 

The lights along the lines that made up her city-wide ritual circle glowed blindingly bright, then shattered as the spells that produced the light couldn’t handle the throughout. But that wasn’t enough to stop the crackling aura, which began to jump from lamp post, to building, to automobile, to lamp post. 

And then the multicolored light began to shift in color, turning vibrant scarlet.