Novek wouldn't have placed Lyn in the same category of crazy that people like him and Ceress occupied, until he returned to camp after seeing Ceress off, and walked in on a scene that would have fit right in with any half-cracked weapons designer he'd ever worked with.

  Lyn was cackling with outright glee, or maybe maniacal enthusiasm, as they directed Nat to perform a series of Talent-assisted electrical experiments. He'd sat down to watch, unexpectedly enthralled by their ability to direct electrical arcs to relatively distant, specific locations — seemingly just by pointing. Apparently the special sauce was Nat and one of his cast iron rods.

  They were in the middle of a sequence of rapid fire pointing gestures, alternating hands — each time they pointed, Nat would vanish and then re-appear next to the target location in statue form, then vanish a moment later to step a meter away, for safety. It was less than half a second from the time Lyn pointed to when a loud zap would sound as an arc flashed between their hand and the target.

  Huffing with exertion, Lyn finally called a halt to the activity and hobbled over to pick up another bridge bug leg. Nat looked a little winded and warm himself, and he sat down heavily with a cool drink.

  Novek gave a quiet clap. “Impressive. How much power can you push through that?”

  “As much as I can handle — so, enough to knock one of Ellie's horses down or out.”

  Novek raised an eyebrow, “Does that mean shock, or force?”

  “Depends on the mix — I can adjust for either, and I'll likely experiment with some plasma later. That's riskier though — the odds of friendly fire on that are dramatically higher.”

  Nat commented from where he was sitting, “Yeah, pass on that for now. I'm burned enough already. Question though — why don't you just throw a rod, or maybe a metal ball or something yourself?”

  Lyn was gesturing emphatically the whole time they answered, “Simple — for that, I have to be fast and accurate. Targets can move, or I can miss. With this, you're setting up a perfect shot, every time, and I can use less energy doing it because I'm not trying to hold an arc while something flies through the air. This is far more efficient — that flight time would use more energy than the strike.”

  Novek had never seen them quite this animated before. Lyn was a therapist? Or doctor? They'd fit right in at any mercenary company. He filed that away for later. “I can think of a few tactical applications for that.”

  “Of course I could do this with wire or something as well, but the point is that this requires no setup time, and effectively no materials. Even the rod is technically optional, and could be much smaller. Novek, could I get you to cut me something maybe twice the width of Nat's hand for him to keep hold of, in case we need to use this particular trick?”

  “Yeah, sure. These are just for convenience, anyway. I have some ideas on some enhancements I can make to Ellie's coach for her — they would have come in handy dealing with the bandits, earlier.” Novek put his paw out for the rod from Nat, and pulled out a small wire saw from his tool belt.

  Lyn held their cane out to him, “Oh, one other thing. Do you think you could maybe put an iron core down my cane, as well? Smooth the top so I can discretely keep contact with my palm, and a small metal tip for ground contact.”

  He took hold of the cane and gave it a once over. “Yeah, I don't see a problem with that. Might take me a couple of hours — do you need it back right now?”

  “No, I'm okay for short walks without it now.”

  Novek put the cane aside for now and started cutting a rod down for Nat's use as a target. “Ceress made a good point earlier — we should probably move. We've been here long enough — and made enough light shows — that anyone nearby knows we're here, recessed riverbed or not. Now that Nat and Soot aren't stuck in place, we've got options. I'd also like to swing by a Human city — maybe back to Labbat — when Ellie gets back, if she's amenable to it; maybe do some shopping.”

  Lyn turned to look at him. “Sure, that's fine by me. I think the pulses are making the wilds more dangerous than I'd like. I still think I'd like to avoid inhabited areas. So, straight north, towards the packlands then?”

  “I think that's best, yeah. Do you have anywhere in mind?”

  “Once we head north, I think we swing a little west, towards the wilds. That would put us near the Wehven creche — they do secondary Ber education in mixed Brin/Ber classes, if you wanted to have them evaluate Siya.”

  Novek considered the option while looking over to where the small kit was still sleeping. Ceress had assured him that this was perfectly normal at this stage of development; up to 20 hours of sleep a day was perfectly normal, especially if the kit was recently Awakened.

  “It's a bit early to be considering education, I think.”

  “Well, I also meant a medical check-up, as well as a basic intelligence evaluation. Vodat are notoriously difficult to communicate with, but if anyone nearby would be familiar, it would be them.”

  “Yeah, that sounds reasonable. We'll talk to Ellie — I'd expect she'll be back either tonight or tomorrow. We can always get dropped off and take another coach, since a hike is out of the question. How much longer on your leg, do you think?”

  Lyn looked down and considered their half-foot. “I'd say I'm still three or four days till it's fully formed, and then it will be another two days or so until it's comfortable to walk on.”

  From where he was sitting, Nat suddenly snapped his fingers and ignited Moira's flame. “Ah! I keep forgetting to summon Moira's pattern.”

  Novek still found that somewhat bizarre, but had only a moment to reflect on it before Moira's voice came out of the air above Nat's hand.

  I have an idea to solve that later, but if you don't mind, I have something I'd like to try out, first.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Nat felt terrible for forgetting about Moira again. He'd gotten caught up in the target practice and had just let it lapse and forgotten to bring the pattern flame back. He wondered how she kept track of the fragments of conversation that kept going on around her.

  Now that he thought about it, he felt he could relate, actually. He'd make a point to apologize tonight — she might not mind, but Nat knew he appreciated when someone took the time to consider his point of view, even if the thing they were worried about didn't bother him.

  He'd paused long enough to potentially make it awkward, “Sorry, I was distracted a moment. What did you have in mind?”

  Well, I've been thinking. I can create durable patterns out of aether that last between invocations. The problem has been that I can't target them. What I'd like to do, is have your permission to use you as a target.

  “I can't see why not. It's just like the pattern we're using for voice, right?”

  It will be similar for now, yes.

  “Then sure.”

  Okay, this is going to probably feel a little weird. I'm going to narrate what I'm doing as I do it. First, I am going to try to duplicate some of Lyn's eddy current experiments. Nat, it's easier for me to affect things closer to you, so if you wouldn't mind acting as my assistant, please?

  “Oh, sure, can do. What do you want me to do?”

  Find a small stick or a rock — something completely non-metallic, and then just throw it up and down in your hands a few times. This may take me some work to get right.

  Nat looked around and picked up a small dry piece of wood, not quite a meter long.

  “Okay, I've got something — just a stick, really.”

  First, I need to create a detection grid.

  Suddenly, the air above Nat's hands lit up with a thin filament of light that waved perpendicular to the plane of his hands — extending roughly a meter both above and beneath them.

  Nat was suitably impressed, “Oh, that's pretty.”

  Lyn's eyes had snapped to the waveform instantly. So did Siya's, who was either woken up by the ability, or had not actually been asleep.

  That's a raw aetheric waveform. I'm stepping it forwards slightly a few thousand times a second, so it's visibly animated to you. Which allows for good coverage with only a single wave.

  “Got it. What now?”

  Now, just toss the stick up and down, keeping it horizontal for now, if you could.

  Nat began to bounce the stick up and down a half meter, keeping it horizontal in both of his hands; it passed through the voice flame as he did so.

  Suddenly the stick slowed somewhat as it fell, not a tremendous amount, but the break in the rhythm of it dropping into his hands threw off his next throw.

  Lyn was watching intently. “Aethonic mass manipulation to alter localized density?”

  Only of the air, to slow the descent. I could do it with the stick, as well, but the more mass, the harder it is to maintain. I'm burning ambient theronic energy, so there are limits to what I can do.

  Lyn thought, then added, “Interesting. And that's with unrefined gas, you could do more if you can select aethonically dense isotopes — get heavier, or lighter.”

  Right, and the heavier the gas I use, the stronger the effect. With a little time to prepare, I could cause carbon dioxide to waterfall down above his hands, dramatically increasing the density shift available.

  From where he was sitting, still working on cutting and filing his metal pieces, Novek commented, “I'm going to pretend I understood any of that. What's the utility?”

  Like Lyn's eddy currents, I can soften a blow — or also exert some downwards force. Though in my case, only for things with larger surface area with this particular technique.

  Nat kept throwing the stick, and this time, it went upwards far more easily, and came down much more slowly. “What was that one? It felt lighter, and came down more slowly than before.”

  Reduction in mass of the stick — it burns more theronic energy, but as you could see it also is easier to affect things which weigh less. Also, suddenly shifting the mass of someone you're touching could completely throw off their reactions. They could miss a swing, break a hand, or, in your case you could swing and not break your hand. We'd have to practice that though.

  Nat continued to throw the stick up and down as Moira adjusted her technique slightly each time, finding optimal timing, perhaps. “Yeah, I think I'll pass on learning to punch things harder. But to avoid taking damage, higher density skin would be interesting. What's next?”

  Okay, we're done with the stick for now. This next one is purely for show at the moment, but it turns out I can create complex images using some simple waveform encoding. I'm essentially creating a connected string of waves.

  Suddenly, the target waveform was replaced by a ghostly image of a hand, three times as large as Nat's, that appeared as if he was wearing a glove made of light. It was hazy and indistinct around the edges, and seemed to lag slightly behind his movements, like it was trailing behind him. Siya leapt out from his spot and immediately started leaping in what was obviously a play-fight with the hand.

  The entire party laughed or chuckled at antics of the kit, except Nat, who cut his off suddenly when he realized that even the play attacks came with sharp claws. He put his finger in his mouth to suck on the cut, which made the aetheric hand stick through his face and out his head, causing a second round of laughter from Lyn and Novek.

  Nat was confused for the moment, with his finger in his mouth, and just said, “What's so funny? I'm bleeding. Also, that feels weird.”

  Okay, well, I'm going to call that a success for the moment and work on some other possible patterns. We need to give the ambient aether some time to recharge — those weren't very efficiently done, since I'm just prototyping at the moment.

  Lyn was staring off into the middle distance, “How complex, and how far out can you make those illusions?”

  Oh, I'd say a few meters easily, it's really just a question of how much aether can be pumped into them. It's inverse square, or cube power law — the further from the point of origin — that's Nat, the more it costs to maintain.

  Nat had stopped sucking on his finger, and Siya had sulked back to his bedding, playtime unexpectedly cut short. “Do they have to be only the one color? The blueish white?”

  For now, yes. I can technically color each waveform, but it'd increase complexity dramatically since the invocation method varies per color.

  He thought about some potential uses, based on the work with Lyn earlier, “Oh, here's a question — if you use a simpler pattern, maybe just a dot, can you go further distances?”

  Yes, absolutely — the less complex the pattern, the longer I can go. From least costly to most, are points, lines, planes, simple geometric shapes, and then rounded shapes.

  “And you are tracking this based on my hands, yes?”

  Yes, I'm using the slight aetheric distortion you create — I can basically see a shadow of you.

  “So, if I pointed like Lyn was doing earlier, can you create a line, or perhaps shine at where I point?”

  Oh. Oh! I get you now. Why yes, yes I could. Here's a pointing dot.

  Nat started pointing at things close by and in the distance, seeing how far the light source would reach. It could easily go farther than he could see, at least in the daylight.

  “I think we could use this to indicate targets, highlight people, places, make them easy to see.”

  Novek looked up with renewed interested, “Oh, now that has some potential utility. Moira, how accurate can you be with distances on this?”

  It would be more difficult for me to be inaccurate.

  “Oh ho. Okay, well then. I have some ranging tests I'd like to borrow you both for when you're done playing around.”

  Fine by me. Nat?

  “Oh, sure. Just give me a few more minutes.” He swung it in front of Siya, who immediately began chasing the dot, trying to catch it as Nat moved it around erratically.

  Novek spent a minute watching the cheap entertainment before opining, “Congratulations, Moira — you have created the world's most interesting cat toy.”