TravelingDreamer
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B5—Chapter 64: A Busy Winter
🕑 Added 2025-03-06 14:41:14 +0000 UTCWhen I arrived at the clinic in the morning, a burly man stood near the entrance, his arms crossed over his broad chest. Rima sat at one table, fidgeting and keeping a wary eye on him.
Remembering that Mahya had given her a Telepathy scroll, I reached out mentally. “Why do you look worried? Did he do something?”
She looked at him with narrow eyes. “No. But he looks healthy—what’s he doing here?”
“He’s here for me.”
She exhaled, her posture easing as she nodded.
The man’s gaze flicked between us before settling on me. “John?”
I stepped forward, offering my hand. “That’s me. And you are?”
“Mosen, the blacksmith.” His grip was solid, calloused palm rough against mine.
A quick Identify confirmed it—Blacksmith by class. Good.
“Did Roda tell you what for?”
He gave a nod. “Yes. Making special items to clean water.”
“Great. Do you know how to channel mana?”
His brow furrowed, eyes narrowing as if I’d started speaking in riddles.
I was about to lead him to one of the treatment rooms, but got a better idea. The best way to learn was by teaching, and Rima would need to train new healers in the future.
I pushed open the door to the spare treatment room and jerked my chin toward it. “Rima, use what Mahya taught you and show him how to channel mana. I’ll run the clinic while you’re busy.”
Her eyebrows shot up to her hairline. “Me?” she blurted, her mouth hanging open as she pointed at herself, then glanced at Mosen, as if expecting him to say it was a joke.
“Yeah.” I gave a quick nod toward the room. “You need to learn how to teach it, and he’s your first student.”
She hesitated at the threshold, then slowly stepped inside, as if the floor might give out beneath her. Every few paces, she tossed a look over her shoulder—half panic, half protest—but never said a word.
Good apprentice.
It took Rima two days to teach him, while I attended to the patients. It was a pleasant change of pace. I’d missed healing—the rhythm of it, the easy interactions. There was nothing urgent or life-threatening, which made it even better. Just people in need of care, and me, back in my element.
On my second day as the healer on-call, another balloon—New Sanctuary’s third—lifted off toward the old settlement to bring more people over. Mahya practically vibrated with pride, bouncing on her feet for most of the day, her grin refusing to leave. Al played it cool, more reserved as usual, but every so often, I caught him smiling into the distance, as if he were seeing the future unfold.
Over 2,000 people had already relocated, and the number continued to climb. Construction had kicked into high gear with the new spells I’d brought. It was incredible to watch. Teams of three—one with spells and two helpers—could throw up a house in a day. Not huge houses, sure, but still impressive.
With the stone I’d hauled back from Almadris, they’d finally finished the half-built section of the wall and even added another layer. Now, the wooden walkways were tucked safely behind stone, and the platforms had waist-high stone barriers, solid and secure.
By late morning on the third day, Rima pushed open the treatment room door and stepped out, Mosen following close behind. She clapped him on the shoulder and announced, “He’s ready.”
“Great job,” I said, giving her a nod before turning to Mosen. “Did Lady Almatai give you two scrolls?”
He reached into his bag, pulling them out with careful hands. “Yes. Here.”
I took a quick glance at them and nodded. “Good. You needed to learn to channel mana before you could use them. Now, channel your mana into the scroll to learn the spell.”
Mosen furrowed his brows, his fingers twitching as a faint glow of energy flickered between them. “Like this?” His voice carried a slight strain.
“Yeah, just keep the flow steady,” I said, watching as the mana shimmered in his hands. “Now push it into the scroll.”
When his fingertips touched the parchment, the runes flared, their glow pulsing before fading into the page. A heartbeat later, the scroll disintegrated into ash, crumbling between his fingers.
He exhaled sharply, blinking as if shaking off a daze. “It worked?”
“You tell me.”
His gaze unfocused for a moment, lips parting slightly. Then, with a hesitant nod, he muttered, “I—I think I just learned the spell.”
“Good.” I gestured toward the second scroll. “Now, learn the next one, and let’s put that to use.”
Mosen led me to his smithy. The forge sat dark, its embers cooled. Tools lined the walls, their handles darkened with years of soot and sweat.
Rolling up his sleeves, Mosen strode to the forge and grabbed a handful of kindling. “Give me a few moments,” he said, striking a flint against steel. Sparks caught, flickering into life before swelling into a fire. I helped him secretly and asked the fire to spread.
As the fire roared to life, he reached for the metal ingots stacked neatly on a workbench. Hefting one, he dropped it into a crucible and set it in the heart of the forge. The flames licked at the metal, heat shimmering in the air as it slowly softened.
I leaned against the wall, arms crossed. “This is going to take a while.”
Mosen smirked, wiping the back of his hand across his brow. “Patience, healer. You can’t rush good steel.”
It took a while, but finally, the molten metal was ready.
“All right, we’re making purification balls—squares, actually,” I corrected, noticing the molds. “Pour the metal in and keep casting Clean and Purify until it cools down.”
Mosen’s brow furrowed. “Won’t that be a waste? What if I mess it up?”
I shrugged. “Then we melt it down and try again. It’s part of the process.”
He huffed but didn’t argue. Instead, he tilted the ladle, filling the square molds with a steady hand. The liquid metal settled, radiating heat in shimmering waves.
“Now,” I said, nodding for him to continue.
Mosen took a deep breath and lifted his hands over the mold. The surrounding air shifted as he willed his mana into the metal. The spell took hold, faint traces of light swirling across the surface before sinking into the alloy.
His shoulders slumped. "By the shattered gate, that took more out of me than I expected."
“Hmm. It means your mana’s not high,” I said. “You can probably cast each spell two or three more times before you feel like your brain’s getting squeezed.”
He groaned. “That’s not great.”
“We’ll work with it.” I gestured to the molds. “Means you can only make one cube at a time before you need a break. The others will have to be remelted.”
Mosen wiped his face, a grin creeping onto his lips. “Still, this is great.”
“Wait till you see it in action.”
When the first cube cooled completely, I picked it up and tossed it into a basin of murky water. The effect was fast. The impurities vanished, and in less than a minute, the filth faded, leaving behind crystal-clear water.
Now, with my mana sight, I saw for the first time what happened to the dirt. It broke into mana! Swirling eddies of gray, brown, green, and yellow rose from the basin, shifting and twisting until the water was clean. I followed them as they drifted upward, merging with the ambient mana in the air until they lost their individuality.
Mosen gaped. “I don’t believe it.”
I dipped a hand into the now-clean water and let it drip through my fingers. “Believe it.”
His eyes gleamed, excitement overriding his exhaustion. “All right,” he said, shaking out his hands, fingers flexing as if ready to dive back in. “Let’s do another.”
“Wait.” I held up a hand. “You need to regenerate your mana. Go back to Rima; she’ll teach you how.”
He frowned, his shoulders sagging slightly. “She already did.”
“Great! Then regenerate first, then make the next one.”
His jaw tightened, but he gave a reluctant nod after a brief hesitation. Clearly, he wasn’t happy about the delay, but he didn’t argue.
I left him to it. Now that he knew the process, he didn’t need me hovering over him.
Back at the clinic, I found Mahya waiting for me, shifting on the balls of her feet, her barely contained excitement radiating off her in waves.
“Why are you vibrating?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
She grinned. “Roda found me an engineer! Or, well… almost an engineer. He was studying engineering before the integration—didn’t finish, but he had less than a year left. So he knows a lot.” She waved a hand, then huffed. “Problem is, he was studying machine engineering, not vehicles, so he has no clue how the magnetic fliers work. Still, I’m going to work with him, and I need your help.”
I blinked. “My help? Why?”
“We need to translate the rune books.” She caught my look and quickly raised both hands as if to ward off an argument. “Not all of them! Just the engineering runes. So, I’ll handle three books, but I still need help with two.”
I exhaled through my nose, rubbing the bridge of my brow. “Okay.”
I spent my days in the clinic, translating rune books and occasionally answering Rima’s questions—though, finally, she had fewer of them. I also helped out here and there with patients when she encountered something beyond her knowledge or when we suddenly had more than one at a time.
Winter in this part of the country was nicer. The weather was still psychotic—snow for a few days, then a humid heat wave that melted everything into sucking mud—but at least there was no extra-large hail.
A month into winter, a new apprentice joined the healing ranks—seventeen, lanky, with elbows and knees that seemed to be everywhere, and brimming with enthusiasm. His name was Evar.
At first, I had planned to train him myself, but after the success with Mosen, I followed the same approach and handed him over to Rima. She needed to learn how to train others without relying on me. She took the task seriously, working diligently with him. Between their lessons, I taught her all the healing spells I knew—or, more precisely, almost all of them.
No matter what we tried, I couldn’t teach her Anesthesia. I had suspected this might happen since I’d bought the spell directly from the system back in Shimoor, but that didn’t make it any less disappointing. Emotional Healing was another dead end. No matter how many times we went over it, the spell remained out of her reach. Unlike Anesthesia, my inability to teach it didn’t come with a simple explanation.
Then, when Rima tried to teach Evar spells, we hit another roadblock—she couldn’t take control of his mana the way I could. It wasn’t a matter of him resisting; the issue came from her inability to do it on a fundamental level.
For two weeks, we tested every workaround we could think of. She cast the spell with her hands over his, guiding him through the motions, and he felt it—recognized the shift in energy—but the connection never clicked. His mana remained locked away, untapped and stubborn.
Frustration built on both sides. Evar pushed himself to the point of exhaustion, convinced he was the problem. Rima grew tense, second-guessing her abilities. They both insisted I step in and teach him directly, but I refused. What would happen when I left if we didn’t figure out a method that worked without me?
After considerable thought—and some brainstorming with Mahya and Al—we found a solution.
Evar focused on two things: learning to sense mana in people’s bodies and continuing his studies in general medicine. Meanwhile, Rima continued to guide him, casting spells with her hands on his so that he could recognize their signature in the mana flow.
It was slow—maddeningly slow. But little by little, he stopped chasing the spells themselves and started chasing their feelings. His sensitivity grew with every session. Days stretched into weeks, and then, one morning, something clicked.
He placed his hands on a patient’s injury, closed his eyes, and instead of fumbling in the dark, he found the path. Magic flared to life at his fingertips. The wound beneath his palms knit together.
For a long second, no one said a word. Then Evar released a shaky breath, staring down at his hands as if they weren’t his own.
“I… I did it.”
From there, it was a short road. Two hours later, he earned his class.
Al also had new apprentices now. Five, to be exact. His little flock of ducklings trailed after him everywhere, keeping him busier than ever. In addition to training the apprentices—two of whom were more advanced and needed separate classes—he was also translating low- to medium-level alchemy books and spending every night with a new guy he’d met.
With all those projects stacked on top of each other, he got frazzled. Al. Frazzled!
It was a novel experience for all of us. He was always so reserved and composed that watching him run around like a headless chicken—occasionally snapping at people—was almost surreal. Still, it was kind of nice. It made him seem human, like the rest of us.
He disagreed.
One afternoon, Mahya leaned against the workshop door, arms crossed, watching as Al flipped through his notes with sharp, jerky movements. His usually pristine desk was a disaster—open books, scattered parchment, half-empty vials, and at least three cups of untouched coffee.
“You need to go to Rotem early today,” she said, her tone almost too casual.
Al didn’t look up. “Why?”
Mahya smirked. “Because you’re all over the place.”
Al’s head snapped up so fast it was a wonder he didn’t strain something. His eyes narrowed, his lips parting as if he were about to unleash something sharp and devastating—then he paused. A long breath in. He slowly, deliberate exhaled through his nose.
“I am not—” He cut himself off, glancing at his cluttered desk, then back at Mahya.
She arched a brow.
His jaw clenched. Then, without another word, he slammed a book shut, grabbed his coat, and stalked out.
Mahya grinned, looking entirely too pleased with herself. “See? Even he knows I’m right.”
I shook my head and returned to my translation. Since I finished the engineering runes, I switched to translating the two books on everyday-use runes.
Mahya continued working with her group of woodworkers, all of whom had received the class by now, along with the new engineer. They were still deep in the blueprint stage, refining their designs before even touching the cores. Progress was steady but slow.
Still, she remained optimistic—especially when she learned that New Sanctuary had over twenty cores. For a brief moment, greed flashed across her face, but she caught herself almost instantly, pressing it down with a quick, apologetic glance in my direction.
After consulting with Roda, Mahya ordered two Harvest Mana Crystal spell marbles from me. They needed a reliable source of these crystals, and right now, this was the only method we knew. She and Al remained convinced that with a mana level of 38, this world should naturally produce mana crystal formations. But the theory didn’t help us find one, and without a clear location, we had to make do with what we had.
Another thing Mahya roped me into was translating a book on defensive formations she’d found in Lis’s library. At first, I resisted. I had enough on my plate, and formations weren’t exactly my area of expertise. But the more I read, the more it pulled me in. The subject was fascinating—complicated, but deeply logical.
The book focused on formations flags powered by the mana of their creators, or, in extreme cases, by mana crystals. But Mahya and I weren’t interested in small-scale defenses. We wanted something big.
The problem was that the book didn’t contain formations suitable for large-scale applications, and there was no other book on the subject in the library. Since formations were highly specific, that was easy to verify—even without knowing the language.
Every formation described was designed to be activated and sustained by a single caster or a limited power source. Upscaling it wasn’t as simple as making the runes bigger or linking more together—magic didn’t work that way. Energy flow, stability, and power distribution all had to be accounted for, or the entire system would collapse under its inefficiency or oversaturation.
But that was where Mahya and I had an edge.
She approached it from a Magitech perspective, treating the formation like an engineered system that could be optimized for efficiency and automation. I handled the magical side, utilizing my knowledge of runes and my ability to perceive mana flows and eddies to map out how power would move through the system. The designers created the original formations for a single, focused output. We needed something that could disperse power across kilometers of stone.
One night, hunched over a worktable littered with sketches and half-scribbled calculations, Mahya tapped a finger against a page, frowning. “The problem is bottlenecking,” she said. “Even if we could connect this to a core, the mana will overload the first few runes before it even reaches the others. All the mana dumps into one point, and it can’t handle the load. That’s why the transfer fails.”
I frowned, channeling a bit of mana into the parchment to visualize the flow of energy. A thin line of energy followed the formation, surging straight into the first rune before dispersing unevenly and leaving a small scorch mark. “Yeah, it’s behaving like a single circuit with only one pathway. Everything gets overloaded right at the start.”
“Exactly.” She sighed, rubbing her temples. “We need to distribute the mana evenly across the entire system—without losing too much energy in the transfer.”
I flipped back through our older sketches, scanning for inspiration. “What about a relay system?”
Mahya grunted, folding her arms. “No, that still funnels everything through a central point. We don’t need a relay—we need a disperser. An intersection. Something that forces the energy to break into multiple channels, which still work together as one system, before it reaches critical mass."
I blinked at her. “So... like a capacitor array?”
She shook her head. “No, not just one capacitor. Think of it more like—” She grabbed a sheet of paper and quickly sketched a river branching into smaller streams. “Right now, all the mana is acting like this—a single waterfall crashing down in one spot.” She jabbed her finger at the sketch of the cascade. “We need it to flow more like this.” Her finger traced the branching streams. “Spread out and broken into manageable currents before it hits that critical point.”
I studied the sketch, then glanced back at our formation layout. “So... controlled mana eddies?”
“Yes!” She snatched a parchment and started scribbling runes. “We carve transfer nodes into the structure—small secondary formations between the main ones. Instead of dumping raw mana into one rune, the energy will flow through these nodes first, like stepping stones, dissipating pressure as it moves.”
I frowned. “Wouldn’t that still cause fluctuation issues?”
"Not if you use magic script to attune the runes for phased input instead of a single energy dump."
I thought about it briefly, then finally saw what she meant. My eyes widened. “Oh. Then we could scale this.”
That was the breakthrough. From that point on, everything fell into place.
We spent weeks refining the design, adjusting calculations, and testing smaller-scale models to make sure the mana distribution held up. It wasn’t just about carving the right runes anymore—it was about layering power in a way that could handle the immense scale of what we were building.
By the time Owen—the engineer—joined us on the project, we had established the foundation of a working design: a repeating chain of forty-five runes, broken into staggered segments with magic script relay stabilizers to distribute power evenly. It was ambitious, time-consuming, and unlike anything this world had ever seen.
And it was finally possible.
Even though we’d checked and rechecked our work dozens of times before beginning, all three of us hesitated when it was finally time to carve the first rune into the stone. The sheer scale of the project was daunting.
It took us two months. Two grueling months.
Carving into solid stone wasn’t quick work, and the sheer repetition was mind-numbing. Fourteen kilometers of wall required carving the same runes, over and over, in precise sequence, all while ensuring they maintained their integrity across the entire structure. As the weeks stretched, Mahya and I started sacrificing precious hours of sleep, working through the nights by the glow of our light balls.
When we finally, finally completed the last segment, none of us could quite believe it was done. Standing at the base of the wall, running our hands over the finished runes, we just stared. Two months of exhaustion, calculation, and meticulous craftsmanship culminated in this moment.
The wall was ready.
With the groundwork finished, we created the magic circle to connect it to the core, preparing for the last step. We conducted the ritual with Roda, who, by the end of it, became the dungeon master of the wall.
As the dungeon master, she could control its defenses directly through the core, manipulating the formation in ways that made the wall far more than just a static barrier. With a single thought, she could enhance its natural resistance, making the stone harder than steel. She could redistribute mana throughout the structure, reinforcing weak points or bolstering sections under threat.
That was just the foundation.
I combined two cores with my mana and added them to the wall core. The core grew from 7 centimeters to 11 centimeters.
Now, at her command, the runes could generate defensive wards, shielding the top of the wall against aerial attacks or creating a temporary energy barrier strong enough to withstand siege weapons. She could activate localized repulsion fields along the base, making it nearly impossible for anything—or anyone—to climb. If needed, she could even trigger a shockwave effect, sending out bursts of concussive force to knock back attackers.
The most impressive feature, though, was the adaptability of the formation. Unlike standard magic defenses, which were fixed and predictable, this one allowed her to alter the wall’s protections in response to threats. She could shift energy from one section to another, concentrating defenses where they were needed most. In theory, with enough practice, she could even set automated responses—letting the wall react to attacks instead of waiting for direct input.
It was an amazing defense system, and as Roda tested her new control, a slow grin spread across her face.
"This," she murmured, wrapping her arms around me and Mahya in an unexpected hug, "is going to be a lot of fun."
Mahya let out a startled laugh, patting Roda’s back. “I think you mean ‘effective’ or ‘useful.’”
Roda pulled back just enough to grin at us. "No. Fun."
It was amazing to see the huge smile on her face—a first for all of us.
Roda had always been composed, serious, always carrying the weight of responsibility on her shoulders. But now? Pure joy lit up her expression, unguarded and infectious. Mahya blinked in surprise before grinning back, and even I couldn’t help but laugh.
For the first time, she wasn’t just leading or protecting. She was excited. And that was something worth remembering.
Rue, on the other hand, had a very lazy winter. When it snowed, he would lounge at home or make the rounds, visiting his new friends—some guards, a few scavengers, and whoever had the best snacks that day. When the weather turned warm, he graciously allowed himself to be useful, tagging along with the scavengers as extra protection while they worked the surrounding farms.
There were still flying snakes around, though not as many as in the forest. He had a vendetta against the things. He couldn't forgive them for being inedible and too low-level to give him any experience. Every time he came back from a scavenging mission, he made sure we knew exactly how many “stupid snakes” he’d eliminated, reporting the numbers with his nose held high, radiating smugness like heat off Mosen’s forge.
Despite all of this, he still insisted he was working the hardest out of the four of us. And honestly? The sheer effort he put into not working was almost convincing.
It was our first winter spent working almost nonstop—no vacation mode, no taking it easy with hockey or chasing warmer weather—just full-on, day-in, day-out effort.
Technically, we’d spent one winter in the ruined city, and Mahya insisted they had worked hard that season. I wasn’t buying it. Al and Rue had been more focused on grinding levels than anything else, and Mahya had been chasing cores like a dragon hoarding treasure. So yeah, that winter had also been a vacation, just of a different kind—no lake involved.
Still, despite being busier than ever—probably the busiest we’d been since we started traveling together—this was, without a doubt, our best winter so far.
Comments
Angela Roberts
Al frazzled. Al. Hilarious and a little bit good. Heh. A productive winter spent helping good people grow and expand. Nice.
brennon Petersen
Tftc!
