Kaede seems to be rather late.

At least this is interesting reading.

Okay, this is extremely late. She stops reading and composes a spell - she learned how to convert lifeforce to mana. Is Kaede anywhere in town? She was certain that they were meant to meet at the library, but maybe she forgot.

No Kaede in town, so either they're not there or they're blocking her magic.

Which raises the question: why? Why would Kaede not be in town? Why would Kaede block her magic?

Well, she doesn't think there is a way to answer the second question with the information she's got. She could speculate that Kaede is watching her as a test of character or something... but that sounds far-fetched. And if this is some sort of manipulation it's one meant for her to believe that Kaede is not in town.

And to the first question. Well, the most likely thing was that something came up. Something that prevented Kaede from sending back a message even thought that sounded fairly trivial with that absurd well of power.

And with that much power at her disposal, Temperance can't conceive of anything that could keep her occupied for too long. She could just ask to use the restroom, send another message and have enough time to spare to actually use the restroom. In theory it isn't inconceivable that Kaede is busy in a fight or preventing a disaster that they can't solve with enormous amounts of magic, but... Kaede is hours late, in that time it would be easy to improvise something and the idea isn't likely in the first place.

This leaves a handful of grim possibilites. The most likely involve Kaede being outed as a metamancer. One in a thousand looks small, but less so if you have enough people, even less so when you remember that it isn't just a matter of pure chance. Temperance met Kaede because she was in a place that attracts mages and the High Consulate would have mages, lots of them.

The library is closing. Temperance says goodbye to the librarians and leaves. She doesn't go back to her hotel; instead she takes flight.

Maybe it's nothing. But if it isn't then there is a lot of power at risk here.

Temperance carefully composes the best defensive magic she can think of along the way.

The High Consulate of Bezanab isn't in the capital, but it's in a close enough city called Mapont. She can see the walls surrounding it and the palace from a distance. It is very pretty, and very imposing.

She can also see the invisible magic field surrounding it. That's unusual.

That is concerning.

Well, can she discern anything through it? Does it block scrying? Temperance checks if Kaede is inside the field (she is very careful to not set off any alarms) and is ready to teleport away if necessary.

It does in fact block any direct forms of scrying, so she cannot detect whether Kaede is inside the field. She does see a bit of magic trying to travel from the metaphorical spot where she tried to scry to somewhere—probably an alarm—but she manages to catch it and prevent it from going anywhere.

Temperance debates the pros and cons of figuring out if there is useful word on the street, but she isn't entirely sure how to go about doing that.

She is going to study the shield for a long, long while. Triple checks on everything.

...this is one complex magic field. It doesn't keep anyone out, it's not that kind of field, but it effectively blocks all incoming magic while permitting outgoing magic just fine. Furthermore, it has several layers of alarms built into it, and keeps track of everyone within it. Temperance will take several hours to start getting the full gist of it and then a few more hours to be certain there's nothing there that will surprise her.

She should perhaps not be staring at empty air in public in the meantime.

Staring at empty air? Who? Her? No, no. She is sketching. Or maybe composing poetry. It's a beautiful night and she got out to think about a bad relationship.

Temperance has practice at this and she knows how to pick an unobtrusive spot and not call too much attention.

It's midmorning by the time she's reasonably sure this field isn't hiding anything more from her.

And if she adds another hour to be beyond reasonably sure?

She is beyond reasonably sure. Nothing new emerges.

Okay, she has been thinking what to do in the back of her head. She picks the weakest point in the shield and tugs it just enough to get a scry in. Carefully and mindful of all the alarms - she is ready to bolt at first sign of trouble.

Any signs of Kaede or other metamancers or anything unusual?

Well she can't really identify metamancers now any more than she could before. But yep, there's Kaede, snuggling someone who's presumably her boyfriend, while they write a book.

Can she take a look at what they are writing?

Something about vaccines!

Temperance thinks. Well, she already has a way out prepared.

She sends Kaede a paper airplane message. Free?

Kaede briefly looks at it, then continues to act as if it weren't there.

...

Paper airplane can crumple itself and go in the trashcan.

...

Temperance decides not to do any mind tampering. Gods know if it wouldn't trip an alarm. And reverting the effect definitely would trip the alarm.

She retreats. This is too close to danger and she needs to come up with a plan to solve the situation.

The scry immediately stops working once the field settles down.

That was expected. She probably lost some measure of surprise here, but maybe not all of it.

Okay, she is going to calm down first and maybe eat something because she actually forgot about breakfast and it's nearing noon.

Well, if she goes in the city to eat whoever set this field up will know she did, if not necessarily that she's a metamancer depending on how she handles her stupidly huge amount of mana and lifeforce.

Of course she is going to give a wide berth to whoever might find her. She is going to another village, grab the first thing that looks edible and then sit somewhere quiet to plan.

Here's a small village and a bakery.

Okay, she scarfs down something filling while thinking.

Kaede was definitely acting of her own free will last time they met. Whoever did this subdued her after their last meeting, probably caught her boyfriend sometime after she left to meet Temperance.

Whoever did this was likely not working under crown orders. Or at least there are better ways to subjugate a pair of people than leaving them inside a fairly luxurious room writing things. ...And who did it likely has some good control of the palace's internal affairs.

So, someone in the court, high-positioned and with the resources to subjugate Kaede and her boyfriend even thought they both have that absurd amount of power at their fingertips. There is probably a way for regular mages to do that, but Temperance is actually putting her guess on there being a third metamancer. That would explain a lot, a metamancer would have the ability to notice Kaede's own power and have the means to take it, and reasons to keep up the appearance of the two lovers writing their book. She was already considering the possibility on a subconscious level, that is why she was being careful with the consulate's field.

Metamancers are feared for a reason. That goes both ways in this situation. And both sides would have access to sorcery...

...But whoever did this is likely in a high position in the consulate. That sort of person wouldn't have the free time and dedication that Temperance did to absorb everything about sorcery. They likely don't know about Temperance either, plenty of opportunity to get her and no reason to let that loose end remain loose. They might be aware that someone interfered with the consulate's protections. Would they assume that Kaede had an ally on the outside? ...Maybe. Might protect themselves against it anyway.

Temperance's advantage here is sorcery and her ton of lifeforce with her.

She devises a plan. She gathers the necessary ingredients and uses sorcery.

When night comes she goes back to the High Consulate.

The field is still there, ominously. The impression that it's crackling is probably only her imagination.

Yeah, she is probably nervous because holy shit she is going to invade a High Consulate castle.

It's nearing dinnertime, so she has just enough time to start implementing her plan if she's careful and quick.

When she was planning this she was faced with the problem that she couldn't do a truly undetectable sorcery effect. She could do a ward that prevented scrying and similar effects even against metamancy, but not cast one that did being invisible, inaudible, etc. She did know how to make an excellent arcanist spell that would hold against anything except metamancy. Of course, the solution was to combine both magic effects, the sorcery covering and protecting the arcanism, the two complimenting each other.

(She loves magic.)

Okay, she goes into the city proper near the consulate. Does the effect appear to hold up?

It does! She can watch the wards block the field's effect, creating not even a ripple when she steps through.

Cool.

(She is trying to hold her excitement until the three of them are somewhere safe.)

She goes to the palace proper and if everything is alright she will search for the kitchens.

No one notices her, of course. She reaches the kitchens unimpeded.

She takes notes of her surroundings. She surreptitiously takes a couple of plates of food and hides them.

Then does the good old trick of ambush a servant alone, knock them out and take their identity. Classic but efficient. The servant is going to wake up with a headache in the morning. Sorry, random girl servant. Hope that you enjoy sleeping invisibly on the ceiling of that empty deposit room (the magic is going to float her down before dawn).

Temperance changes shape and puts on the servant's uniform. Then she navigates towards Kaede's room.

She runs into a man dressed in lavish white robes whose face is covered in tattoos. "Oh, hello. Are you going somewhere? I don't think I've seen you here before, don't you work at the kitchens...?"

"I usually do, Sir," she says respectfully, "but I was told to bring this over at once."

"Really? Where?"

"It was..." she describes a direction, which is more or less where she was going toward but not actually Kaede's room. "I think someone is sick?"

"Who? I'd think I'd be informed of these things."

"I only caught half of the conversation. Maybe it was another servant? It would explain why I was sent over."

"Wouldn't explain why I wasn't informed. I like to know about everything that goes on here."

"I am sorry, Sir. Should I take these back?"

"No, no, please lead me to them, I'd like to know who it is."

Temperance leads... for a short distance. Then she casts something to make Jintes forget their interaction, trying to catch any stray magic that might sound an alarm.

Won't she be surprised when he catches her spell and smiles. "That is rather interesting. Now excuse me while I—" And he frowns in confusion as his spell to knock her out (which draws mana from something in his pocket instead of himself) fails. "What the—"

Heavy-duty mental ward. It's likely extremely inefficient in expenditure but very strong in terms of resistance. She was going to face someone that used mind magic before.

Temperance starts composing a spell as a reflex midway through drawing her fist backwards in a punch. The end result an improvised spell-punch that she is going to remember very fondly in the future.

And he is out like a light.

Good, can she retrieve the thing in his pocket?

Yep. It is a small stone ring, very similar to the one Kaede gave her.

Good. Temperance is going to hide him again (similar method to what she used with the servant), plus some extra restraints. And move as quickly as she can without drawing attention to herself to Kaede's bedroom.

And here's Kaede. She looks up at Temperance, smiles agreeably, and gets back to the book.

"I brought dinner," Temperance announces (it somehow didn't spill all over the floor during the action).

She puts the dinner on the table and uses metamancy to dislodge the effect from Kaede.

She blinks, looks around, tries to knock Temperance out with a spell, notices she has no mana, and instead lunges for her.

"Ah, it's me, Temperance! I am here to help!" She says trying to hold Kaede still with a spell.

She is held. Then she is not held. She doesn't lunge again, though. "I have no idea what you're talking about." She looks at Felix, and now the effect is gone from him, too.

Temperance reverts back to her true shape. "Another metamancer got you and was holding you hostage. But I managed to get in."

Felix blinks in confusion and then accelerates.

"Kaedearewecapableofjustleaving?"

She accelerates too. "I don't know, I don't know who she is or what's going on—he stole our lifeforce, too, we can't accelerate forever—I have no mana—and neither does she that's weird how did she cast a spell without mana—"

They are going fast enough that she is unable to accelerate herself (through magery, not sorcery) before they have stopped talking, but she gets some of it. "We've met before. I think he made you forget me. We were supposed to meet and you never showed up."

She squints. "Why would he make us forget you? Who are you, why can't I see your mana?"

"Maybe by accident? I don't think he knew I existed. Uh, I am Temperance, we met when you left the sorcery book in Laokab."

"What sorcery book?"

"You left one because you wanted to spread the word around. I was already curious about what the new magic effect on the entire world was and I was trying to figure it out, so I noticed that you had an absurd amount of lifeforce and was curious. ...Speaking of which. I hope you understand this as a gesture of good faith and that I am not your enemy."

She hands her Jinte's battery ring.

"That does make a lot more​ sense than having just the one book." She decelerates, taking the ring. "—I don't remember any sorcery. I don't remember any sorcery—how are we going to build the portal back—"

Felix hugs her. "We will find a way. Someone did the first time around and we can too. We have all the time in the world for that."

"Uh, not to be insensitive, but we should consider the threat of the evil metamancer that brainwashed you?"

"The High Consul. Fuck, he knows who I am. I wasn't careful enough—tell me everything, from the moment we first met until now."

"If you think it's safe? He is knocked out in the ceiling of a room," she starts telling everything. She describes the moment when Kaede asked to "spread the word" around on sorcery as "realizing Kaede was possibly the best person of all time."

That brings a small smile to her face, but she's serious again by the time Temperance gets to the present.

"Okay, that was definitely phe Bez—I wonder if he has an actual motive of just bought into the whole Vinkar thing—anyway, he has places to be, he can't be gone for this long without his absence being noted—we need a showdown. A very public one, to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt to the public that he's a metamancer."

"Prove how?"

"He's not publicly a mage of any kind, so if he uses any magic in public that will already be a red flag. Plus the fact that we disappeared into our room a few days into our stay here, mysteriously, and then this girl that knows sorcery came to our rescue—we need to convince the other diplomats."

"I could try playing the role of the second sorcery book author, but I don't actually have the power you described. Does he know sorcery? I didn't sense any from him."

"Only stuff he learnt from the book, we... forgot..." Pause. "I think I was the one who erased our memories." She shakes her head. "Anyway. You don't, but you're a metamancer, so it comes down to the same, doesn't it? You can fake it."

"Sure, I mean, it could be an excuse for how we met?"

"Is she likely to find another metamancer that might contest this information?"

"We can't naively recognise other metamancers, they just look like mages to us unless they have multiple kinds of mana at the same time, and if she keeps her mana hidden in a battery artefact no one will notice."

"You can use sorcery to protect against that too."

"Oh. So that's how—okay. So I think first of everything you should tell other diplomats about this—ensorcel phe Bez, make him forget, and then us again, so he won't suspect anything—"

"Which diplomats? Are you sure you don't want to keep the memories and attack him now?"

"I'll give you a list, and yes I am very vehemently sure of that, that will go wrong on an incredible number of levels."

"Is there any contingency in case we are captured again...? It might be worth it to make me forget nuclear weapons."

"I don't think you know enough to reconstruct the tech in less than, like, two hundred years, at minimum. Besides, anything having to do with brains is extremely expensive, that spell I used to make us forget was ridiculous and we can't just spend that sort of mana all willy nilly even with what Sadde gave us. I have three goals here, roughly in decreasing order of importance: to make sorcery a force for good in the world instead of a tool of oppression, to ensure phe Bez won't do whatever it is he's planning to do which required him to ensorcel us, and to prevent the political disaster that would be caused if anything happened to him that couldn't be properly explained and might be connected to us." Pause. "Time. Temperance, can you go to him, give him back his ring, get him to forget the interaction with you and act as if everything's alright, but be compelled to come here by the time he'd retire for the night? We're gambling about how long he can be missed for and I don't like our odds."

"Yes, I can. That would buy us a few hours, at least."

"Okay, so please do that."

"Alright, I am going to turn undetectable now and then do it."

"I love you, Kaede."

"I love you, too," she sighs.

Temperance leaves and goes back to where she left phe Bez.

Still knocked out and stuck to the ceiling.

Good, she lowers him down and casts the memory spell. He should wake up in a moment or two. She leaves before that.

And he goes on to do whatever it is he was going to do, only slightly confused.

Temperance returns to the other two.

They're snuggling and discussing strategies.

"...so any show of magic is enough, see, and they know I am a mage so it won't be too weird if we broadcast stuff and they get to see with their own eyes while phe Bez is unaware."

"As long that keeps the collateral damage down."

And here is Temperance. "I did it."

"Thank you," she sighs. "His public face is important to him; if it weren't, he wouldn't be holding this position. But if we do destroy his public face he won't have any reasons to hide anymore and, thanks to us, he has a ridiculous amount of mana. So we need to separate him from his mana storage—that ring—after he's used it to be revealed. And I don't know enough sorcery. Can this be done? Or can the ring be rendered temporarily inert, or something like that?"

"There is a spell ritual for that, but that sorcery isn't really portable."

"Both Kaede and I have sorcery-based super-speed."

"That is so unfair. Yes, then we can do it."

"Okay, so, if we implement the plan as described, what goes wrong?"

A few hours later, there is a knock on the door.

"Come in."

He does, looking dazed.

Everything looks fine and completely normal. His captives are just like he left them.

He blinks and smiles. "So how's the book going?"

Felix mechanically reports the progress on the various technology with military purposes.

"Oh, excellent, excellent. You will tell me when you're done, won't you?" he asks rhetorically.

"Yes."

"Perfect. And how's our little girlfriend doing?"

"Swell."

"Not getting up to any trouble, are you?" he asks, sounding as if he were privy to some secret joke.

"Nope."

Felix starts writing again.

Nothing in the room looks disturbed or out of place.

Sounds good. He asks a few routine questions and then out he goes.

"Oh, she was right about you! No wonder they wanted to keep me in reserve in case this happened."

"—I beg your pardon?"

"Don't play dumb! I saw you talking to them and they have been stupided or something. Kaede knew something was off and told me to check on her. And I am going tell everybody about it."

Jintes will observe the intruder cast a spell with the hand behind her back.

What's the spell gonna do—

It's a shield. It covers her and her posture relaxes a little once it's up. "You are going to pay," she says very confidently.

"Young lady I'm afraid I haven't the faintest clue what you're on about. What exactly are you going to tell everybody and what am I going to pay for?"

"Uh," Temperance says like Jintes went off-script and should've been evilly monologuing or something, "you are keeping the two of them in the room and they are not, like, responding normally? You noticed it!" she says like she can't think of a better way to put her words together.

"Did I, now. And why would I do that?"

"To steal the power from them! And-and why didn't you even notice something was weird when you talked to them?"

"I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about, they're perfectly normal and focused on their work."

"Don't think I am stupid! I saw them they didn't react to me."

"Who are you?"

"Temperance. I found Kaede and she explained that I got a sorcery-gift from picking up an old artifact that tortured me - instead of being a metamancer like I was fearing I'd become - and she asked me to sort of help her in case something happened to her."

"You feared you were a metamancer? Even though you're clearly already an arcanist?"

"Well, yes," she says defensively, "I thought it was something... weird going on because of the artifact, or something."

"Uh huh."

"I don't have to justify myself to you! You-you capture people!"

She casts a spell on him, something with multiple threads of energy that move to envelop him.

—yeah no she doesn't. He cuts it off. "Wordless spell? Costly, that."

"Wait, what? That wasn't supposed to-"

She casts again.

Stop again. "Extremely costly. What are you even doing?"

Temperance cringes and then -

- there is a sudden hurricane in the room, too fast to be reacted to.

Felix sets up and then completes a ritual at super-accelerated speed, which once finished (it takes a fraction of a second) blocks Jintes from using any of his batteries.

- then she grins and says. "I'm stalling you. See we could easily convince your diplomat friends to use a sorcery ritual to free your captives. Did you know that you can cast through floors? The tricky part was showing them that you are a metamancer, which you helped doing by cutting off a spell that you thought was mine but was cast by one of them."

"—what—"

There's a ring in his pocket. There's an earring. There are some of his tattoos. A toering. He can't—access any of them—he looks for the magic there, surely he can see it if he looks—

—he blocks a bolt aimed for his head—

—but it's followed by a punch and another knockout bolt.

"Wow you were right this feels amazing."

A door opens and a familiar woman wearing long, dark robes decorated in glowing patterns walks out. "...this is such a mess."

"Could've gone a lot worse."

Is anyone going to mind if Felix takes away the removable batteries? Because he does that, they can deal with the tattoos later.

Yeah no objections. phe Bez—Baleo, the diplomat who met them in the north, not the High Consul—is appalled by all of this and can't think of a way to separate him from his tattoos and that would be blasphemous anyway except is it not blasphemous to perform metamancy on them in the first place? And if the High Consul wakes up he will surely drain the mana from the tattoos which they cannot allow, he will surely undo the sorcery ritual eventually and have access to magic again...

Felix might be able to drain lifeforce from the tattoos, if they count as lifeforce batteries instead of being part of his own lifeforce. He can't do anything about stored mana. He doesn't know how stronger wards interact with metamancy. He is no longer the resident sorcery expert.

Yes he should try that. They're in a bit of a pickle, here, they don't have procedure for this situation.

How long can they keep him asleep? There is really no procedure in case someone high level is compromised?

Felix tries poking at the tattoos to get their lifeforce back.

Indefinitely, and there is no procedure for handling metamancers that are not obvious, usually they'll do something public and they can justify a swift execution but here​ it's just their word.

The tattoo: contains lifeforce.

Felix absorbs the lifeforce. Well, who would judge the trial? What exactly would happen if Jintes claimed he was innocent? And what are the legal consequences of him getting away with it?

There isn't usually a trial for this, that's the point! Also if he wakes he'll just use the mana in his tattoos to escape and that would be horrible.

Maybe some magical way of tricking him to confess the truth? Maybe they could try a sorcery ward anyway...

Unlike him, they don't have infinite mana with which to cast mental spells, so no simple way of doing it. But if they let him prove it then that means they'll be giving him a chance to escape.

...they should probably just execute him.

Well... Felix doesn't have much to add to that. The man is dangerous.

Yes, and now he's their problem. They cannot begin to apologise for this, it is a great shame and they will be conducting a very thorough investigation to ensure he has not corrupted others.

They should check for other potential victims! And Naoh, the boy that was with him, is he alright?

They go check up on him and yep, he's mostly fine, why, what's up?

Well, besides the part where he was essentially under the care of Jintes the kidnapping metamancer, there is the fact that Naoh wasn't adapting that well from being transplanted away from his family even if the court is lovely. At minimum the only people he knew here didn't talk to him for a couple of days without a reason.

Oh right.

Well. There's no good reason for him to stay around, is there? Especially with that second sorcery book.

No, no there really isn't.

...is there a very good reason for Felix and Kaede to stay around, either? Since their portal closed and they're not really diplomats anyway.

Felix was actually thinking of a polite way to ask to leave. No offense, but this sort of experience does not make him inclined to trust their ability to keep him safe and he would rather go around the world and help people with magic.

Yeah, sure. They'll... deal with Jintes. Somehow.

Felix asks Kaede if they can trust them to do that now.

At this point, yes they can.

Well, Felix doesn't think they need to stay a moment longer than necessary to explain things to Naoh and see if he is alright with going back.

Is anyone going to mind if Temperance goes with them?

Naoh is extremely alright with going back!!!!! And no of course not Temperance has all the goodwill they can grant her, she helped find a cursed metamancer in their midst.

Well, thanks. It was a unique experience, at least.

And once every loose end is tied up, they depart.

"Thank the gods this is over," she says while they're flying over a particularly pretty patch of woods. "Bezana bless and protect me what a mess."

Felix gives her a tired laugh and hugs her midair.

"You guys are cute," Temperance says, "aaaand I don't want to spoil the moment, but what are your plans for what to do next?"

"—found a country, probably."

"Well, you two don't lead boring lives don't you?"

"Not really. More realistically, we're planning on figuring out what's in the North. Oh and I took the mana Jintes was keeping in his tattoos, too."

"I figured you would, but there wouldn't be a way to make the others sure of that. And even if we had..."

"Yeah. This was a crappy mess all around."

Felix sighs. "Yeah, but at least no one else needs to get hurt from now on."

"Well," Temperance says changing the subject, "do you mind if I tag along on your trip? Because visiting the magic storm was totally in my bucket list and I never expected to do it with company."

"I don't mind at all."

"The more the merrier I say!"

"Do you have any—loose ends you want to tie, Temperance?"

"Hm, I wouldn't put it like that? I travel a lot and the introduction of sorcery kept me distracted for long enough that I don't have any sort of commitment. I would like to swing by my father's and my mother's houses and tell them as much I can about what is going on. At least leave a note and copies of your books. But it isn't really urgent if you want to go to the storm right away."

"Nah, we're cool. What we should do while we wait for you is try to reconstruct the portal ritual." Sigh.

More flying hugs.

"I certainly won't mind helping you figure that out."

They change course a bit more to the west to where Temperance's dad lives with his second wife.

Flying feels so good. Not being mindcontrolled feels so good.

Not being mindcontrolled feels so good. Not having control over one's actions really puts things in perspective.

They eventually reach the place where Temperance's dad lives. She goes by herself because it's always a bit awkward to be around that branch of the family and much more so when she has to impose on them.

She's back hours later looking a bit uneasy. "I think my dad knows that I am a metamancer."

"—so do we fly for the mountains now?"

"The... well, not worst part, but still worrying part is that we don't actually have to worry about him. What happened is that I told them the story we are telling people and then he pulled me aside to talk privately and told me in a certain way that he would help me with anything I needed help with. It was rather unnerving."

"Oh."

"Technically not a problem. I don't think any of my siblings is inclined to have bodies to hide, but it is not particularly nice to know my father would help digging."

"Should we worry about leaving a book with him or is he just an enabler?"

"Enabler, I don't think there's any harm in leaving him a copy and his wife was totally thrilled by the concept of printing presses so it is likely to get distributed."

"We might want to drop more copies of them with the other two kingdoms, just to make sure, and maybe in the West."

"Sure! Felix can do some tourism along the way and reverse-engineering portals can be done wherever."

"Sounds good."

"Sounds great! Lead the way."

Galatea: is a continent. Slightly bigger than Africa. They do have stupidly huge amounts of mana but burning it all off in ridiculously fast trips is—

—well, not gonna happen, really, flying is actually pretty cheap, relatively speaking. They can fly stupidly fast.

And they go slow for sight-seeing! Skip the boring and enjoy the good parts.

Well is there anything in particular he wants to see?

He only knows of a couple of places from books. They can lead the way.

Oh, Temperance totally knows some interesting touristic options.

Pffft touristic options. They could go exploring ancient undiscovered ruins!

...that might take a while, though, so, er, maybe later.

Hey, don't dismiss touristic options. They can be fun.

She does like ancient ruins as well, maybe the two should exchange notes.

They have a lot of time for that.

They do! And they can do other things like stare at sorcery and deliver books around.

Galatea is extremely expansive. They cannot visit all the interesting things. They cannot visit most interesting things. They cannot visit half of the interesting things. They cannot visit one tenth of the interesting things.

They can visit some interesting things.

They visit other castles and palaces in Bezanab, and pass by lush vegetation and gorgeous rivers and waterfalls and beautiful sunsets through the woods and very big farms, some magically maintained. They see museums in Laokab, and workshops, and statues, and old ruins, and giant glowing spheres that never stop rolling back-and-forth along a predefined path, and beautiful beaches with crystalline water and tides that change several metres due to the moons. They stay in little poor marsh communities that farm crabs in Teinnab, standing below the huge floating cities visible as little blots in the sky, and they go leave their books in universities' huge libraries. They go West and leave books with the few little villages there, and pepper the islands with knowledge. They leave some books with the Guilds of Artificers, Natural Philosophers, Historians, Arcanists, Shoemakers, Magical Engineers, Explorers, Medics, amongst many many others.

And they go North, to the last leg of their journey through the mountains.

It's an interesting while. Not being able to do mangic in public is annoying, spreading magic and knowledge around is very great. Felix designs a typewriter in his spare time, purely for fun.

(He misses his brothers, Katur and Sadde, but he loves Kaede and that is a lot.)

Temperance is very enthusiastic about all of this! She studies sorcery both the metamancer and the regular way. Progress is slow but she is having fun all around.

Through the mountains they go! Eeeeee!

There are mountain villages and ski stations and then just mountains mountains mountains snow snow snow cold cold cold—

Felix buys large fluffy coats and wards them at the first opportunity.

Oooh, warm and soft.

Onwards!

After the mountains: the desert. Expanding as far as the eye can see into the north.

The fluffy coats are still useful at night. Temperance spends more time staring at sorcery now that there are fewer sights to see.

They eventually find the ocean, right?

...it is a very large desert. It is extremely hot in the day, and very cold in the night. That over there looks a lot like a sandstorm.

Could they go around it? Over it? ...Under it?

...probably not. It is rather large.

They should probably take shelter.

Is there any shelter in sight?

Otherwise, they could just make one.

There isn—is! There's an outcropping of rock over there leading to a small underground cave.

Good enough. Great given the circumstances. How deep is the cave?

Not very!

Well, presumably they could erect a force field or something around the opening?

Yup!

Good. Temperance wants to relax from researching portal-sorcery. So she is going to research weather-protection sorcery. She writes her notes on the cavern's wall. Maybe someone someday might find them useful.

It's been an hour. The storm is still going strong.

A weather-ward isn't that complicated - at least not one that only needs to protect against wind and sand - and is done within an hour.

"How long should we wait until we try to brute-force our way out?"

"Like half a day?"

"Fair enough. Any ideas of what to do in the meantime?"

He glances at Temperance and shrugs. "Reverse-engineer sorcery."

"Somehow, I think I can live through that terrible ordeal."

"Gosh, can you? You have a surprising inner strength Temperance."

He giggles. And starts poking at sorcery.

Sorcery: is poked.

The storm lasts eight hours, and it's almost morning when it's done.

Time to sleep. Felix snuggles Kaede.

"I probably should get my other sorcery-gifts. I am not sure if it's worth the time investment for you two though."

"'Get' them?"

"Train them, I mean."

"You can just do that?"

"Oh, right, most of your knowledge is from the second sorcery book. There are lifeforce exercises that allow you to grow sorcery-gifts. I don't remember directly how I got mine, but the books explain and I can infer the rest from context clues from what I remember."

"Oooh, that sounds neat," Temperance says with the curious tone of voice that the two might recognize.

"I don't know if it's the best way to spend your time."

"Ah, but it could be done during my free time from portal-sorcery!"

"I suppose it could," he sighs. It's not like he's going to get breaks from that.

Well, it is not a break, but it is time to go to sleep so they go back traveling at night.

Yes, sleeping is a good idea. He snuggles up to Felix and looks at magic until he falls asleep.

Zzzzzzzz.

There is a loud rumbling noise in the middle of the day.

Felix wakes them up. What sort of noises is this?

It's the sort of noise made by a heavy stone object being dragged on a stone floor.

"What—?"

Indeed. Temperance looks around while casting protections on them.

The sound stops. Kaede walks over to the wall where it seemed it was coming from and presses his ear against it.

What happens if she casts something that lets her sense what is on the other side? Lets try seeing through things first.

Rock and dirt.

Unusually shaped and mobile dirt? What does her magic detection reveal?

Regular dirt, no magic at all.

Uh, Temperance goes out to investigate. "I will be right back."

"Okay, I am not going to let that movie cliche happen." Felix follows her.

As does Kaede.

The sweltering heat hits them like the Fist of Laoku. They can see clearly for several miles, but just over there is a huge stone monolith standing still at the end of tracks in the sand that seem to imply it's somehow been dragged there.

What the fuck.

"Uh, ancient artifact or something?"

"I... think so? Never heard of this one, though."

"Well, any reason why we should be worried?"

"I wouldn't think so, most of them are fairly harmless and extremely puzzling. I'm—curious, but not enough to want to investigate right now."

"Fair enough. ...Any problem if we do something like we mark this one with something so we can identify it later?"

"I... don't think so."

"Alright." From a distance, Felix marks it with a "Cool S" symbol, because he is feeling like making obscure references. Does the thing explode?

No explosions whatsoever!

Now they can go back to sleep, yes?

Oh, yes.

Good.

They get back up a couple of hours before sunset.

Good. Nothing disturbed?

Nope. Huge monolith still there.

What a weird way to use magic. Anyway, back to their journey?

After sunset, sure!

And then they fly and fly and fly and wow that is very strong wind and those sure are some clouds in the distance over the ocean.

Well, they are getting closer. Temperance is watching out for the moment when the storm's magic becomes detectable.

It is. Rather far away still. It's just extremely huge and dominates the horizon. They fly on.

"I can't believe I'm finally gonna see it with my own eyes."

"I know right?!"

"You two are adorable. I vaguely wonder if this has touristic potential."

"Most people do not have layers upon layers of magic protecting them on a trek North and even approaching the storm is dangerous. Might change with sorcery, though."

"Yeah, I was somehow picturing more interdimensional tourists actually. Once we have portals up."

"Working on it."

"I'm not sure we actually want to keep the storm, though? I'm thinking it's not going to really be... passable... unless we disrupt it somehow."

"It might be... necessary for the balance of local life, despite being inconvenient? Is it really that impassible? We could try going around it, maybe?"

"It circles the planet and erm." He looks around at the several kilometres of desert around them. "Local life?"

"I was thinking aquatic life. But even deserts have life of its own, yeah."

"I know they do but, like, this is a magic storm that encircles the globe, someone put it there and it did not cause the large-scale catastrophes one would expect from this, it's probably not actually affecting anything. Other than scrying and passage."

"Fair enough. Are you even able to clear the entire thing?"

"I have no idea because its magical source or whatever is deep enough no one's really been able to get there! One assumes, anyway."

"And it is really impossible to go over it? Or underwater?"

"Water's just as stormy, and it goes up to where there's no more air."

"I was thinking on trying to go above the atmosphere and search for the center of the storm there. At least as a form of reconnaissance. What do you think we should do?"

"I'm not sure that'll work, either, the centre of the storm is likely a ring and closer to the surface than to the edge of the atmosphere, it's not too likely it'll be visible from there. I think going through it might be a better bet."

Nod. "Do you have any idea what sort of things were tried before?"

"Not really, since any metamancers who tried very much did not advertise this fact."

"No attempts by non-metamancers?"

"What would they try? It's not like you can stop magic by any other means."

"Fair enough."

"Does sorcery have a better answer? Perhaps an extra quintuple-duty super powerful weather protection ward?"

"Yeah. I am getting the sense that our wards are just better. And that is without cheating quantities of lifeforce. I believe we can devise something that lets us fly through that thing."

"I think I did half of the work while you two were distracted talking."

He looks at Temperance. Then he looks at Felix. Then he purses his lips, trying not to smile, and says, "Okay, then, walk us through it?"

She is glad to do so. Here are the bits she composed and how they interact with each other and what each provides in term of weather-protection. Here are the flaws and energy inefficiencies that they need to work out.

Gosh, Temperance is adorable.

Yes. Yes, she is.

She finishes her explanation, albeit halfway through it she makes some amendments after being hit with sudden inspiration.

He has suggestions! And he had a couple ideas about the inefficiencies, although they're mostly based on his magic and what he's managed to pick back up of sorcery this past while.

Felix offers a few things too. But he is seriously outclassed by the metamancers.

They manage to have heavy-duty super-duper weather-protection ward that is fuel efficient soon enough. A metal ring is used as the focus for the ward. ...And it's up.

Okay so now do they just... fly into the storm?

Yup. That is the purpose of the ward. Supposedly one of them (Temperance) could test the thing out, first?

Sure!

Okay, Temperance flies into the storm and weathers the storm (pun unintended).

As she approaches it, the wind becomes much, much stronger, much more quickly than it looked like it could, or realistically ought to.

Does it prevent her flight?

Not magically but this is no normal storm. Or ten times one.

That is within the wards parameters. She might get worried if the wind speeds turn literally impossible.

Well, if the wind gets faster then it won't be literally impossible, but definitely beyond what they predicted.

No, it doesn't get faster, or at least not yet. But visibility starts getting lower and lower... except she can see the lightning travelling from cloud to cloud and hitting the ocean, like once every two seconds.

She is well protected against lightning and it is unlikely to hit her midair. She advances just a tad more to be sure it doesn't get worse than that...

Oh boy does it ever.

The lightning becomes even more frequent, and starts hitting itself sometimes, or other lightning bolts, in completely impossible ways. She can see what might be a tornado or two highlighted by thunder in the distance.

She would find this beautiful if it wasn't so intense.

She goes back to report those findings.

The storm does not do anything it hasn't done yet to stop her.

Good. Temperance reports. "I think we should reinforce the bits that protect against electricity and think of something to navigate the place. Maybe try to make the alterations... modular enough that we can just add to them."

"I don't think returning every time we hit a snag is a scalable strategy, the storm is large enough to take several days to cross at normal flying speeds."

"Well, we don't need to return all the way, but we could return to safer areas and shore up our defenses there. Maybe we should invest in something to perceive the environmental conditions better?"

"Our magic is useless for that, the storm blocks all scrying, but maybe sorcery will do better at it."

"We could try anti-anti-scrying magic too?"

"We could research both options and see which looks more promising. We might need them both, actually, if it turns out that anti-anti-scrying plus sorcery scrying works."

"But suppose we manage that, what then? Do we go into the storm once more and try to look farther afield to see what awaits us?"

"Yes? Do you have a better idea?"

"Yeah: build a better ward now that will deal with literally anything that storm can throw at us so we're not only reactive."

"I do want an even better ward. I just don't want to pretend that the storm couldn't surprise us while we are in the middle of it."

"Yeah, fair enough."

And they proceed to work on that. They make a super-ultra-duper ward against nearly anything that can be conceivably called "weather" and work on their improvised anti-anti-scrying ward and scrying.

This will presumably take a few days, yes?

Well, yes. For the sake of both safety and efficiency, but they already took a while coming here.

Temperance tests sorcery scrying against the storm's anti-scrying. It won't get her all the way as it is, but it hopefully will let her see farther afield than her normal senses.

She can definitely use magic to improve her senses and detect things in a purely mechanistic way! But no remote scrying seems to work there.

That is strictly an improvement to being blind-sided by lightning.

Okay, time to test the anti-anti-scrying, a lesser proof of concept version.

Nope.

Well, drat. He guesses they are going to fly blindly, if well-armored.

...maybe they could spend another couple of days working on it just to be sure.

And if they do that...

They think of a few more things to add, and shore up a couple of defences, and then Kaede thinks they're pretty much ready to face the music.

Alright, Felix wishes themselves luck.

Into the storm.

The storm is extremely stormy! There is the wind, and the thunder, and the thunder that hits other thunder, and over there in the distance they can see the tornadoes...

They reinforced the ward so much that the tornadoes don't look that scary at all. The thunder gets annoyingly frequent.

And Kaede puts up a sound barrier so the thunder will be less annoying.

The tornadoes start becoming more frequent, too. They can see (Kaede counts) thirty-seven.

"Man, this thing is such a waste of good magic."

Fifty-four! "This is excessive. Why did anyone think this was a good idea?"

"I almost hope there is some really dark terrible secret behind thing hidden by this storm. Or at least something worth all this... this."

Onwards!

...that tornado is rather large. It is a giant tornado. It is really very extremely excessively large. They should probably dodge it because wow it is incredibly big.

(And the flashes coming from it suggest it is filled with lightning and thunder.)

Yeah, that thing is too fucking huge. If they got in, Felix wouldn't be surprised to find himself in Oz or something.

Around around around!

...it is stupidly huge. Why is it so big.

...why is there another one just as big over there. Are they going to go between them. Is that what they're going to have to do. Why this.

Yeah, that is their life now. Going between Dorothy-grade tornadoes.

Temperance knows this is terribly dangerous, but it's kind of exciting too.

Between them they go—

—and a bolt of lightning goes straight at them from nowhere.

The ward holds, but the world turns very bright for a moment.

Beyond that is a mess of lightning and hurricanes they have no possible hope of completely evading. Every now and then a lightning bolt is aimed directly at them again.

"Okay, I was sort of... assuming it was just a coincidence, but the thing is totally aiming at us. Urgh, who even built this thing."

As an afterthought she gives them all magical sunglasses.

They help some.

But not a lot.

The winds keep pushing and pulling them, the torrential rain slams against their wards, the lightning still tries to fry them—

—and there's a fleck of magic over there—

Which Temperance loudly announces. She tries moving closer to that direction.

Yep that sure is a wisp of magic! Or a tendril, to be more specific.

Temperance is mentally rubbing her hands and mentally laughing.

"Let's follow the magic tendril and if we find more we see what happens when we drain one? Or maybe just the tip of one?"

"Yeah! If it's connected to something—I'm now betting it's an artefact, this isn't diffuse enough to be a spell."

"Any chance of a backslash if it doesn't like being poked?"

"Not really, that's not how magic here works, it can't really—notice it's being poked."

"Ah, true. Well, onward my fair ladies."