The Abjurer: Chapter 38-39

I spent a while between classes and spending time with Osheen trying to track down my target for my next enchanting project.

From the very beginning of the year, I had been wanting to create some sort of enchanted item that would let Oracle and Bridgette’s vessels spend more time out and about.

It had repeatedly fallen further and further down my metaphorical list of enchantments I needed to make for the simple reason that preparing to save my life had been of far more import than having Oracle out more. His presence was always there, nestled in the back of my head anyways, after all, and he wasn’t a combat familiar.

Mostly.

His hidden ritual on Medb’s gymnasium roof had slightly disproven that notion, but he was certainly less obvious of a combat familiar than, say, a grimalkin.

But now I was mostly just waiting for my components to be delivered, so I finally had the time to work on it.

On top of that, if my suspicions were correct, the sort of ritual I’d be throwing together for this would be useful for the third function of Osheen’s defenses, the one that would let him use his own aura to restore the item’s power reserves. Maybe not exactly the same, but close enough.

All of that meant that, as far as I was concerned, I needed to track down the best – or at least best and friendly enough to not need a bargain to help me – druid I knew.

Though it took two days, I was eventually able to catch Seth as he headed into his office. He smiled broadly when he saw me, and pulled me into a bear-like hug.

“Evan! Good to see you’re alive!”

He squinted at me.

“You aren’t a fae, right?”

I let out an “eep”, and he released me.

“Not a fae,” I said, dusting off my jacket. “Not now. Not ever, if I can at all help it.”

“Good, good,” Seth said, relaxing. “I was worried for a moment you’d come for revenge. But what can I help you with?”

“I want to make an enchantment that allows my familiar and my boyfriend’s familiar to both stay out longer. Or indefinitely, if that can be managed.”

“Ah, you haven’t stumbled across that little bit of magic yet?” Seth asked. “They’re one of the more common items that druids buy, but the demand is always lower than the supply.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Well, from what I understand, they’re a rather difficult enchantment to manage. They require no less than three parts, and I know some of them require a license to get – it’s some sort of two way power drain with a gate built into it to allow it to drain either you for power to refill it when you want, or drain the storage crystal into the familiar. The other allows you to transform the power into the same type as the familiar, which means you can't just use a standard single aura crystal for power… Then there’s a sort of switching function so you can allow it to take in both your power and that of ambient aura.”

I considered that. All of those functions were essentially just minor variants standard spells in the stained glass spellset. I hadn’t known there was a way to incorporate a gate into them, or to make it a two-way street, but since I’d already done something similar with Jerimiah for my warding function, it shouldn’t be too hard to add in.

All in all, it was actually much less complicated than I’d feared it would be. I already had most of the prerequisite knowledge – most people just wouldn’t have been able to, since it required a licensed spell set.

There were probably components that could be used to increase the efficiency and ensure that I was able to get the most out of it that I was able to, but the basic runework was already there. And come to think of it, given the long list of components I’d given to the spring king, I’d likely be able to use those.

Before I put the function to the test with the familiars, or used it for Osheen – though I’d only need to incorporate the reverse drain, since the power would all be built on my recharge, and his tattoos would do the heavy lifting for conversion – I’d need to test it on something.

Preferably something non-living, just in case I really screwed it up.

“Evan?” Seth asked, and jolted me back into the present. I glanced at him and coughed.

“Sorry. I don’t know if you remember, but I actually used my gift from winning last year’s tournament to get a bunch of licenses. I think I know how to build a spell like this, and I just got caught up in figuring out details. Don’t suppose you have a copy I could look at to save time? Even if it’s just an item of your own you bought…”

“No, sorry. My first arch-star does the same thing, but better, since it also ensures the power absorbed from ambient aura is layered onto the beast core to make them more powerful. I developed it in my second year as a druid, and never saw the need to investigate past the basics, to let others know about it as an option.”

That was a bit disappointing, but the small amount of information that he’d given me had already been very useful.

“Alright,” I said, tapping my chin. Was there anything else I needed to ask?

I didn’t think so, so I thanked Seth. Before I left, he held his hand.

“Wait, how did you keep your humanity?” Seth asked.

“Oh, the Winter Queen froze the progress,” I said. “It’s not fixed, so much as locked away, but that’s good enough for me.”

That was technically truthful, and I didn’t want to tell him about the whole plan to murder an archmage to get my power back to normal. I didn’t think he liked the nobility, but I wasn’t sure that he’d let that slide.

“Just be careful,” Seth said. “Keep the prison it’s locked in safe.”

I nodded my agreement, though I didn’t actually know where that prison was – if Medb had it, then I’d be about as safe as possible, but I thought it was probably just a part of my aura.

I joined Osheen in the crafting room, and glanced at him.

“Hey, mind helping me out?”

“Not at all,” he said, glancing over. “What did you want help with?”

“Burning a design into leather,” I said. “I’ve got an idea for how to make the things for Bridgette and Oracle, but I want to try it on someone that’s not alive first, just in case I’m off base.”

“Probably smart,” he agreed. “What are you doing?”

“I’m gonna have to get Sarai’s uncle to modify the spell on my knives,” I said. “But two things. One, I’m gonna be using some of the metal magic I was using to add a metal recall function, that should pull it back to the belt, so I’ll be putting the recall onto the knifes, and the anchor onto the belt. The other… I’m gonna have him layer in the drain spell, and basically turn the belt into a power bank that will allow my knives to recharge.”

Osheen’s eyebrows shot up, and I smirked at him.

“And that’s not all. You know how I need to redo some basic wands? Why put them on a wand, when I can put them on a knife. Fire off a force spear, throw the knife, and have it snap back to the belt and start recharging. Since I’m working in a set of three, I think I’ll insert some metal enhancement, so that someone can’t just melt them or crush them. It’s not like a true defense spell, but it should help.”

“That would be great, if it works,” Osheen said.

“If it works is the bane of all enchanting,” I said, sighing. “But I think it should.”

Over the next several days, things happened very rapidly again, and I felt bad that I was putting Osheen slightly to the side.

First, I had Sarai’s uncle modify the knives to ensure that they were each capable of holding the spells I wanted. That didn’t take horribly long – he was a skilled metal shaper, despite the fact he was a dropout.

Afterwards, I bought several gallons of ink, tons of paper, and cheap aura storage crystals, which utterly destroyed my bank account – especially the ink. It was the cheapest ink I could get, but it still cost nearly two hundred silver crowns a gallon.

On exactly one of the pages, I wrote out as many capacitors and inductors as I could manage. A spell laid out on the floor came next, where I put the blank paper and the ink before I cast a spell I’d learned from Tara in my first year. It was used to copy the contents of a letter onto another sheet of paper without opening the letter or alerting anyone, but it also saw some use in state newspaper printers, and I found it useful for reproducing the drudgework, especially since I was now able to use the method for power storage that I’d stolen from the Hawthorne books, who’d in turn stolen it from Tracktath.

I used some of those copied sheets to set up the spells for the belt, which Osheen burned into the leather. I was very glad that I hadn’t jumped right to putting it onto him, Oracle, or Bridgette. My first design exploded, my second just fizzled, and my third didn’t do anything, since I’d made the gate function too strong. On the fourth attempt, however, I got it functional.

It wasn’t going to absolutely revolutionize my combat style, but letting me get a few more uses out of each knife was definitely useful.

On exactly the seventh day, the components arrived in the circle where I’d summoned the spring king. Given how annoying the spring king was, I’d honestly expected them to just arrive in a giant pile, but I was pleasantly surprised there.

He’d left a set of three chests, and not cheap ones either. They were made of wood from a tree that I didn’t recognize, but that had a slightly greenish-pink tint to it, and were inlaid with a filigree of bronze depictions of scenes from mythology and faerie tales.

“Nice,” Osheen said as he examined the box.

“Very,” I said. I opened my third eye and looked over the first box, though I wasn’t able to see anything that set me off. I cast a divination spell – just a basic one to look for runes, on the off case they were layered inside the grain of the wood or something like that.

When nothing turned up, I opened the lid. Inside, the chest held racks upon racks of a soft, velvety material that I couldn’t place either. The racks had small divots, and within each divot sat one of the components that I’d listed out.

I cast another spell, this one a bit more comprehensive, looking for anything that could be amiss, but there didn’t seem to be any traps in it. I let out a slight sigh of relief.

Of course, that didn’t mean I was actually safe. After all, this was only the first favor – if he wanted to screw me over, then the last favor would be the one to do it on. But it hopefully meant all the components were safe enough.

Still, I recast the divination spells on the other two boxes. There was accepting they were probably safe, then there was sticking your head into a demon’s mouth for no reason.

Osheen helped me lug the chests back to the room, cheating and carrying two of them by empowering his tattoo to enhance his strength. I was left dragging the third chest across the floor alone. Oracle manifested briefly to try to help, but his tiny bird body didn’t make a dent. Still, I appreciated the attempt at help.

With the components in hand, I was tempted to start on my seven sets of seven cloak, osheen’s three set of three, or my elemental knives, but I held off – just barely. I was going to get the designs ready for Oracle and Bridgette first.

~~~

As it turned out, one of the hardest things I had to do for setting up the spells for Oracle and Brigette was the physical part of the enchantment. Neither Osheen nor myself were good enough leathercrafters to make clothes for a bird, and ordinary cloth was far too prone to ripping.

In the end, we settled on getting a leather strip and wrapping it around their ankles – talons? legs? Bird feet were confusing, and I didn’t know enough about anatomy to know if birds even had ankles – like a very unfashionable bracelet. Maybe bracer would be a better descriptor than bracelet, though, since it was pretty large on their small feet.

Osheen burnt the arrays into the spell, and while I was able to offload most of the power requirements onto an anchor connecting to some of my stacks of paper, there was still a lot that I had to fit into a very small space. It stretched my rune compression arch-star to its very limits, but I managed to squeeze all three of the functions onto the one sheet.

The respect I had for Rowan managed to raise another notch at that. It had already been high, but it went even higher. After all, she’d gotten the runes on her luck amulet so tightly compressed that you needed a magnifying glass to read them. I was using twice that size, and I was having trouble. She must have pushed her skills with the compression absurdly hard.

With the item halves done, I laid out the circle on the floor, and started brewing one of the potions that Wisteria had shown me when I’d talked about this project in class. It was a weak empowerment potion, designed to help them take in a bit of ambient aura and increase their vessel.

It didn’t actually empower the familiar, just their vessel, but that was close enough to what I was trying to do with this enchantment that it should help act as a small boost.

Then I laid out a few components.

None of them were too crazy, and most of them weren’t directly magical, but they’d help guide the magic: Sage was laid out for Oracle’s section, followed by salt, a silver crown, a chicken egg, a bit of rope tied into a knot, and a little bit of silver glowlichen. Rosemary and sunflowers were in Bridgette’s section, alongside a box of matches, a little bit of phosphorus, another chicken egg, and some flamemoss.

Oracle sent me an annoyed thought when I put down the chicken egg, and I got one of the most coherent thoughts I’d ever gotten from him. Rather than just a feeling, it was an image of a chicken and an actual word – ‘Not!’

That actually shocked me some. I knew that as Oracle grew in power, he’d slowly get more sapient, but I hadn’t expected him to start using words anytime soon.

As I tried to explain that the egg was there working as a symbol of change, not as a symbol of him being a bird, Osheen looked up.

“Brigette doesn’t like the chicken egg.”

“It’s a symbol of change and rebirth!” I said, then let out a sigh and slumped. I took the eggs out – I thought that they’d be a good component, but I wasn’t going to annoy both of the people who I was making the rituals for.

After putting the eggs in my bag to bring back to our rooms, I laid out the most important component.

As part of the list I’d given the spring king, I’d requested multiple samples of power from the other realms, and he’d delivered. Since I was only using them as a sample and an activator, I’d made sure to keep them small, and would let the ley lines we were on and the realm-reaching arch-star do the rest.

A tiny red pearl of magic from the elemental fields was placed in Bridgette’s ritual, followed by a similarly miniature green marble of power from the fae sovereignties for Oracle’s ritual.

“Which one first?” Osheen asked as he finished laying out the circle as I’d instructed him.

Oracle sent me a mental picture of Brigette.

“Oracle doesn’t want to go first,” I said.

“Did you manage to summon a bird with anxiety?” Osheen teased. “But fine. Bridgette’s excited, so let’s try this.”

I let the long chant roll off my tongue smoothly as I wove my aura through her ritual, slipping the power of my first arch-star in as well. After the party, my old bradlewyr was so smooth that it was almost as good as my own native tongue, which definitely had been a minor boon.

The ambient aura sucking into the bracer was definitely noticeable, but it was nowhere near the level that it had been when I’d been making my staff or my cloak, which… made sense.

It wasn’t that this ritual or enchantment was bad, exactly, but it was more comparable to my tuned up paralysis knives than to either of those heavy hitters.

I didn’t mind, though. As long as it worked, I didn’t care how much power was crammed into it. Effect trumped power to me, no matter what Travis thought.

Once the chant was finished, I glanced at Osheen. He looked back.

“What now?” he asked.

“We just wait for it to finish,” I said with a shrug. “Nothing else to do. Want to get some dinner? I’m craving peas.”

“Peas?” Osheen asked. “That’s an oddly specific craving. I’m not sure they’ll have peas.”

“Can’t hurt to ask,” I said. “And hey, I crave what I crave.”

Osheen laughed and we went to get dinner.

The following morning, the enchantment was ready, so Osheen summoned Bridgette and strapped the small leather bracer around her ankle. She flowed a bit of her power through it, and the enchantment activated. There was a small tug on the ambient aura to refuel the bracer’s reserves, and Bridgette took off, bright fire streaming from her wings. She let out a sharp, noble cawing sound that reminded me of a falcon, then landed on the desk and strutted around.

Oracle sent me an immediate burst of desire, and I sent back some warmth as I glanced at Osheen.

“Is she reporting any problems?” I asked.

“None,” he said with a grin. “I gotta say, Evan, while this may not be the strongest or most impressive thing you’ve enchanted, it might just be my favorite, even more so than the bracer.”

I leaned forward and kissed him quickly.

“I’m glad you like it,” I said. Then, I turned to the other ritual setup and started chanting, while Osheen and Bridgette played around, trying to figure out just how long she was able to say out.

Unlike Oracle, Bridgette was absolutely a direct combat familiar, and was able to burst into very bright flames to strike people, as well as repair her form from minor injuries. To maintain those, she had to either rapidly drain the bracer, or Osheen had to provide her the power for it.

That wasn’t any different than before, since he’d already had to provide the power, but now at least Bridgette had a small extra reserve.

When not using the bracer, Bridgette was able to subsist off of only a small amount of power from the bracelet.

It was hard to tell, since she’d drained about half the power of the bracer from attacks, but it seemed likely that without draining its reserves for combat, she’d be able to stay out of Osheen’s aura for roughly eight hours a day, which was… pretty good, all things considered.

Once Oracle’s completed the following day, he and I went through a similar phase, with him hooting in delight.

Oracle didn’t have much direct spellcasting or power, only really being able to use his third eye, which didn’t drain aura from the bracer any more than usual, and being able to scratch runes into things with his talons.

He was able to stay out with the bracer for about fourteen hours, which he gloated about mentally, until I pointed out that the reason that Bridgette was able to stay out for a shorter amount of time was because she was more powerful. That made him rather indignant, and he refused to mentally speak to me for some time.

Using the base of how much time each one was able to spend out with the current setup, I used some abjuration to pry apart the spells and then ritually chanted to add more power into the section that held the power, until each of them were able to stay out for the full day – as long as they weren’t actively using their magic, at least.

From that point on, Osheen and I almost always had Oracle and Bridgette out, though they weren’t always with us. They two of them actually took to hunting for mice through the halls of Yesgol, and that caught a bit more attention than I was entirely happy with. A few druids approached us to see about buying bracers like that for their own familiars, and I turned most of them away, since they were mostly just a bunch of rich people.

For those who weren’t, like Liam and Kelsie, I was more willing to work with them. They needed advantages, just like me, but the unfortunate thing was that if I wanted to get my knives, Osheen’s defenses, and my defenses all before the end of the year tournament while also spending time with Osheen, I couldn’t really take on multiple extra projects.

Still, I promised Kelsie and Liam that I’d make them artifacts for their fae and demons when I had the time, as long as they could provide samples of the magic to help with.

“What do you want for it?” Kelsie asked.

“Nothing other than the provided magic,” I said. “Just keep an open mind as things happen, and hold onto your instincts to protect the innocent..”

Kelsie gave me an odd look, but agreed.

Liam, however…

“How can I pay for this?” he asked.

“You said one of your parents works as a clockwork engineer, right?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said, nodding and adjusting his shirt slightly.

“Hmm, well,” I said. “See if they can get me some general schematics for the mass produced clockwork. I’m working on a project that will use it.”

“Like a watch?” he asked. “They’re not a jeweler.”

“No, like the towers that are on every 5th block in the capital, or the one in town. I’m looking at doing some spellcraft in them.”

I felt bad for taking advantage of that connection, but it was information that I needed. I’d asked the Ligature too, so I had some, but the more information, the better. And besides, even if Liam was only able to produce a single sheet of paper, I’d give him the enchantment.

“They’re all a bit different, but I’ll see what I can do,” Liam said.

“That’s all I can ask,” I said. “Thank you.”

Osheen and I then spent a while working on the attack knives that I needed. Osheen’s newer work into combining heat and cold made him incredibly useful for some of them, and his general knowledge as a sorcerer let him show me some pretty useful modifications for basic attack spells.

As we worked on that in the background, though, the main thing I worked on was Osheen’s three sets of three. I only needed a few more days, and a bit more time studying Osheen’s tattoos, to set this up…

~~~

Three sets of three.

The first three contained the spells that interacted with his tattoo – water armor, life enforcement, and a charging array. Inlaid within that would be as many extra capacitors and inductors that I was able to cram into it.

The second three were there to help him against elemental attacks – Mellt’s cage, a vision protecting spell that Sarai had provided, and the weather bubble. It was inlaid with a shaping spell that kept them all in a bubble around Osheen.

And the last three were there to cover his weaknesses – mind bubble, ghost armor, and a future sight spell, its inlay unifying them with a sympathetic link.

Finally, the growth spell nestled within the three sets of three. I didn’t know how much of a benefit it would be able to provide, since this wasn’t as clear as the memory bank storage that I used in my abjuration spells, but it was in Roark’s defenses for a reason.

Putting this up against Roark’s own three set defense… I wasn’t sure which would win. I thought mine was better, personally, but that might just be my crafter’s bias. His had the definite advantage of being fueled by aura sparks, giving it constant power, rather than having to rely on what it could draw and store, too, which made me even less sure.

But there was no time to contemplate that, as Osheen finished moving the last table out of the way in my deep root lab.

“I admit, while I don’t know if this will beat the ability to have Bridgette out all the time, it is pretty exciting,” Osheen said. “I’m not a defensive mage, but I’ve seen how hard of a hit you can take, and with my tattoos and this, I’m going to be able to do a better job of taking hits. I’ll be less of a glass canon, and more of a… Bronze canon. Not as hard as your iron canon, but still harder.”

I resisted the urge to tease him for his phrasing as I handed him his first potion, a simple body enhancement potion.

“Paint this out in a circle, exactly three feet across,” I said, pointing over to where I’d put some markings on the floor. “Also, you’re able to take a hit better than I think you give yourself credit for. Your force armor is efficient, and with how much power you’re able to pack into it, you can take a hell of a blow.”

“Maybe,” he said.

First I put a thick armband made of strips of cloth that I’d stitched runes onto then braided together into a tight rope down into the center of the circle.

I took out some rope that had been soaking in the water I got from Medb’s party and started laying it out in a three foot circle for the water armor spell, then dipped a paintbrush in some thickened water that had been dyed blue to start painting in runes.

Oracle flew down from the table where he was standing and dipped his talon into another prepared potion, this one a force booster potion. I hadn’t even known booster potions existed until Wisteria had suggested it, but we both figured it would work well for this portion of the ritual.

Once Oracle’s talon was coated, he dragged it across the ground to paint out a circle. He moved a lot slower than Osheen or I was able to, especially since he wasn’t supposed to scratch it into the floor, which his talons were better at, but he was still able to help.

Osheen used his own potion to start painting in runes, following the guide that I’d written out for him. Once I finished my section, I checked over his work and gave him the approval, then started painting the runes into Oracle’s section of the array.

Once we were all finished, I checked over the runework and started laying out the components that I’d picked out for this.

Medb’s water was the obvious choice for the water armor, and I put a bit of it into bowls that I set into the array, but a scale from a sea serpent, a stone that dripped water, mangrove leaves, a tiny pewter figure of a knight in armor, an image of a whirlpool and a marble with a layer of blue paint over it all went in as well.

For the life enhancement, I put leaves from a faerie tree that was eternally vibrant, a flower that was shaped like a heart and beat strangely on its own, a faerie stone covered in a magical moss, an anatomical drawing of the human body, spinach, a dried sample of bright blue algae, and a slab of steak.

For the section that would allow him to refuel the armor, I put a stone that was heavier than it should be, a blank aura crystal that would serve as component rather than power, a leaf that shed small blue sparks, a thick carpet and rod, a small golden earring, a purple handkerchief, and a white feather.

I glanced around, double checking all of the runework one last time before I filled in the internals, and then we moved onto the next set of three.

I gave Osheen the same conduction potion I’d used in my staff’s construction for him to put down for the next part of Mellt’s cage, and then gave Oracle some photoluminescent paint for the eye protection, while I took another rope soaked in the water from Medb’s party for weather protection.

This section went faster, since most of the runework in Mellt’s cage was just transferring the enchantment on the bracelet she’d traded onto this enchantment, no components needed.

The eye protection I actually had some insight in as well, given how much time I’d spent working with light magic during my first year, but it did need components, so I put in a sphere made of shadows, a moss that glowed brightly, a stone that changed color when exposed to light, a pair of glasses, a small pewter shield, a veil, and a a cheap spyglass.

That left the weather shield, which had the sphere of Weather Power from Awell, more water from Medb’s party, and a jar that held a leaf that fluttered endlessly on an invisible breeze, alongside a strip of witchhazel, anemone flowers, dandelion fluff, and ground cinnamon.

“That was quick,” Osheen commented, “I think I’m getting better at this, as is Oracle.”

Oracle sent me a sense of pride.

“He thanks you for the compliment,” I told Osheen. “And you are. You absolutely could have been a witch if it had been interesting to you.”

We moved onto the third and final section after a quick break for some sandwiches and tea.

I painted out the ghost plate symbols with some of Tara’s luck potion, Osheen painted out the circle with the mind bubble with a mental enhancement potion – it had too severe side effects to actually drink, but as component, it worked well – and Oracle painted the future sight spell with a vision enhancement potion. That one was probably the most tenuous connection – physical sight and seeing the future weren’t super linked in my mind, but Tara had said it should work, and I trusted her.

Then came the last round of components.

The ghost plate had a strange, oddly fleshy tentacle, a tentacle from a consumer, and a stone that seemed to only be there when you looked really hard, alongside mugwort, hawthorne, rosemary, and yarrow.

The mental bubble used landglass carved into the shape of a mind, an orb of slippery metal, and a bubble that never popped, as well as skullcap, aspen, evening primroses, and honeysuckle flowers.

Lastly, the future sight had faerie-grown sage, a bit more of Medb’s water, a crystal that showed shifting images, dried bay leaves, blue lotus, chestnuts, and eyebright.

I dusted my hands off as we finished, and Oracle insisted that I use a damp cloth to wipe his talons clean. Osheen washed his own hands, and I followed shortly after. Then, hands on my hips, I surveyed it one final time to see if I could spot any flaw whatsoever.

When I was finally convinced everything was perfect, I started the chant, and Osheen left, just to be safe. After all, he didn’t have any ghost plate or similar defenses – yet.

The chant was long, with portions of it in both the ancient language of Paerús and old Bradlewyr, and even with my skills, it took me nearly four hours to finish it. When I did, and sunk my first archstar into the spell array, my ghostplate activated instantly to defend me from the explosive surge of aura that the spell was drinking in.

While I waited for that project to finish, I spent time with Osheen. We went on a date in Hallowbrooke, visiting a new teahouse that had just opened. He ran me through more aura density exercises, which to my annoyance and pleasure, did work, though they were incredibly difficult. We worked on a fire spell he was developing that could better incorporate his aura…

We also spent some time on my knives. As a part of the list of components from the spring king, I’d listed out some small samples of constellations magic, and I needed to put those on my four blank knives – that would give me eight throwing knives total.

I’d considered going for seven, instead of eight, but I didn’t think that seven would increase the power much, and it was better to fit the the full amount of possible knives onto my belt – four  paralysis on the right, and four elemental on the left – than be one short for a little more power.

Besides, I’d come across one or two texts that claimed that aura was the eighth color, the color of magic. They were mostly thrown out as frauds, but… It was a small solace.

I needed the constellations because I was planning to invoke them in the spell, much like the one Oracle had cast that had won me my fight with the spring queen.

There was no sense in fixing something that wasn’t broken, so one of the four was a force spear, enforced by the constellation of the hunter. With the extra components and more time to refine the spell, it was nicer than the one Oracle and I had fired at the spring queen, but also lower on power, since it wasn’t tapping Medb’s castle to instantly fill dozens of capacitance runes.

I also made an ice bludgeon spell that invoked the constellation of the bears to enhance that, a water bullet that called on the power of the fish, and an earth bludgeon spell that called upon the ram.

None of them were absurdly powerful, but they could all hit reasonably hard, and were much better than the elemental wands I’d traded to Mellt.

By some happy coincidence, both the knives and Osheen’s bracer finished at the same time, and we got the opportunity to test them out – against each other, of course. Osheen might not like fighting for real, but there was absolutely a part of him that loved sparing, and I was happy to indulge.

We set up a small ring in my deep root lab, called each of our familiars to our shoulder, and squared off, grinning all the while.