Most people had to plan their trips ahead of time to some extent, whether they were going on a roadtrip or to a foreign country. Midnight and I could go to different dimensions or planets rather easily. Different parts of Earth were actually a bit harder, given the inaccuracy of Teleport over long distances. We might not even end up in the right city after a single jump.
The Power Brigade was used to people taking time off for personal business, and having just finished Christmas there wasn’t anything holding us back from taking care of necessary errands caused by that very same night. Midnight had a glitch with his Celmothian suit, so performing super merc work seemed like it would be silly anyway. I had a lump of coal to investigate.
The only thing I could say about the lump of coal was that it was not magical or powered in any way, which did hint strongly that it was a useless lump of coal. I considered giving it to some poor Australian family that needed to heat up their grill for the summer, but first I sent it to the Power Brigade tech department for analysis. Maybe it was some sort of special coal that could give me a hint to something important. Or maybe it was boring and Santa was just being mean for no reason.
As for Midnight’s suit, there was really only one place it could be looked at. The Celmothians hadn’t exactly set up proper labs on Earth. It took longer to build proper infrastructure that could travel between distant planets instead of just using magic. Though magic infrastructure also existed, which helped allow cheaper forms of accurate teleportation- just not in this universe.
We could theoretically just go to Celmoth, but spending a bit of time to use Sending to warn people ahead of time seemed polite.
When we stepped out of Extra and onto the surface of Celmoth, Jet was waiting. Midnight greeted his mother with a touch of their faces.
“You didn’t have to come see us right away,” Midnight said. “I told you we’d probably stay around for a couple days.”
“True,” Jet said. “But this is a teleportation hub. I was actually already passing through. You mentioned a glitch in your suit?”
“That’s right,” Midnight said. “It stopped firing even though it wasn’t out of power. I was wondering if the lack of maintenance was a problem.”
“Most issues should be self-resolving,” Jet commented. “What did the readout say?”
“Nothing useful. I’m not sure if it was an operation failure on my part, but I figured I should get things checked out.”
“Good. I hope you can stay for a few days, at least?”
Midnight nodded. “We’re taking a bit of time off after a big event.”
-----
If I wasn’t doing much else with my magic, I could keep Size Shift active for a very long time on Earth. On Celmoth where they had closer to one mana per ten minutes it was about half offset. Adding on Translation, and I had about six hours of active time. I didn’t always need Size Shift to be active, but it was much more convenient. Some of the medium-tall rooms were too short for me, so I only really did well in the truly tall areas. It could have been worse, since if the Celmothians had been comfortable with minimally sized areas I would never fit. While they did occasionally like to squeeze themselves into smaller areas, they didn’t do so for transportation and general living spaces.
Since people didn’t tend to make labs outdoors, Midnight and I didn’t spend long outside. He was also more willing to pass through various teleporters, so we only had to go a few blocks from the teleportation center to the military lab.
I had to wonder if we actually had the security clearance to enter the building, but that resolved in a straightforward manner. We did need temporary security passes to even get to the room where someone came to meet us.
Midnight’s pass was some sort of thing that covered his forehead. I got a piece of paper with a dangly loop on top. Presumably good for Celmothians to pick up. I had hands and fingers, so I could hold anything even if it was kind of weird.
“Why am I not getting a forehead thing?” I asked Midnight.
“We don’t know how it would interact with your skin,” Midnight shrugged. “So you get the alternative. With a little picture.”
“Oh, look at that,” I said, flipping it around. My face was sort of offset from the center of the frame. It might be a good angle to take a picture of the head and body of a Celmothian, but it was weird for a humanoid.
I was pretty sure that Celmothians didn’t naturally come in blue. That was the main thing I noticed as someone entered the room. He also wore some version of the nanotech suit that I associated with the military.
“Welcome,” he said. “My name is-” Some sort of fish, maybe? Translation didn’t have a precise word, even though it was magic and Midnight understood English. And some Common. I just went with Marlin. That sounded like a name. “The report mentioned a glitch in your suit?”
“That’s right,” Midnight said. “It was a bit over a day ago, during a battle.”
“If you would deposit it here,” Marlin pressed his paw on what seemed like a random part of the wall, popping out a cylinder.
Midnight walked up, and his suit sort of rolled off of him, starting from his hindquarters. When it peeled off his head and neck it finally dropped into the cylinder, rippling kind of like liquid, though it certainly still retained some amount of solidity. Neat.
“How long will it take to process?” Midnight asked.
“Could be a while,” Marlin said. “A standard checkup scan already takes a few hours, and if there was a glitch I’ll have to be thorough with the logs.”
“Alright,” Midnight said. “Thank you.”
“Don’t forget to pick up your temporary utility equipment,” Marlin commented. “Since you don’t seem to be carrying other tech around.”
“... Right,” Midnight said. “Of course.”
Marlin didn’t seem to have more to say, so we made our way through boring hallways- apparently military installations were exempt from the Celmothian’s desire for fantastic views- until we came to another room.
In the middle was another cylinder- this time horizontal to the floor, with a flat bottom that probably made it technically not a cylinder. Midnight scanned the temporary badge stamped on his forehead and an aperture unfurled. He stepped inside, placing his paws on a designated slope in front of him. A bunch of little grabby arms reached out, holding a sort of vest that wrapped around his neck and upper torso. Midnight stepped back out of the outfitting tube.
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“How did you guys even invent technology without hands?” I asked.
“Slowly and with great difficulty,” Midnight commented. “Reading human histories really showed how fast some of the parts were leading up to industrialization. I assume it was similar for your old world?”
“No idea,” I said. “We haven’t really industrialized. And we don’t have all that much magic infrastructure.” Not anywhere I’d been or seen.
-----
When we stepped outside, Angelica was waiting for us. It was weird to see a human on Celmoth.
“Hello,” I said. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”
“I heard of your arrival and thought I would stop by to greet you,” the older woman said.
That was fine, but didn’t she have important things to be doing?
“Interested in news from Earth?” I asked.
“That is not necessary,” she shook her head. “I stay current. I did wish to consult you on a matter in which you have expertise.”
I shook my head. “I’m not allowed to bring people to get portal powers, and I’m pretty sure you couldn’t get one anyway. Aren’t you using a power?”
She raised her eyebrows. “You can sense that? Usually people can’t.”
“Turlough is particularly good at it,” Midnight commented.
“I see. Can I treat you to lunch?” Angelica asked. “The matter I have might take some time to go over. I know a few places that provide food more suited for humanoid palates.”
Celmothian food was fairly compatible nutritionally, and they had broader tastes than just tuna, but I usually found myself underwhelmed with the options. “Sure, I’d be glad to. Though I can’t guarantee I can help with whatever your issue is.”
The restaurant Angelica brought us to had large outdoor seating- which was more modest sized for humans, but made me comfortable enough to let Reduce wear off. Food was carried out by the service staff with more primitive vests than the military version, but they still had grasping appendages to help them carry. A bowl was still the vessel of choice, with different dishes separated into individual containers.
“If you don’t wish to scoop with your hands, you can pick up the bowls,” Angelica said. “Not that people have much expectations for how we eat.”
“I brought a spoon,” I said, pulling out the mentioned utensil. “I have a full set if you want a fork.”
“Unless you will be offended if I eat with my hands, I’ll just do that.”
I shrugged. It took Angelica a while to get to the topic at hand. Was this a politeness thing, or an old person thing?
Eventually, she got to it. “The matter I wished to speak with you about concerns Ceira.”
“Is she in danger?” I asked. “Because we’ll totally beat up anyone causing her trouble.”
Angelica shook her head. “Not at all. If I believed her to be in danger, I would recommend she expand her current guards. Not that I think you would be inadequate, but friends aren’t meant to be twenty-four hour security. No, she had expressed concerns about her magic.”
“She could just talk to me,” I pointed out. “She has my phone number.”
“Perhaps she didn’t want to bother you with her concerns,” Angelica shrugged. “Since she seems to believe no answer exists.”
“Well then,” Midnight said. “She should have definitely come directly to us. We spend about half our time solving magical matters that seemed to have no proper solution.”
Angelica nodded. “I am aware she has spoken to you about her concerns regarding healing priority. She has generally come to terms with her ability to maximize good in the world by charging based on wealth and using that wealth to provide less sophisticated healing for others. She still offers some amount of her services to those who can afford nothing.”
I waited, as there wasn’t anything I could really respond to yet.
“Her main worry seems to be finding herself in an emergency, having used up her mana. She has mentioned she had a significant number of… points… and that she could spend them on Regenerate to improve it. But that might make training it more difficult.”
“That all sounds correct,” I said. “I’m pretty sure I mentioned mana crystals, but I don’t know if she can make them. There are certain issues with them anyway. Small ones are slow to absorb, large ones are inefficient. You’re limited in quantity you can absorb without risk. What do you think the actual issue is?”
“If someone was injured in front of her and she had no ability to heal them, I am worried Ceira might break,” Angelica said. “She has a good heart, but her swift rise to power hasn’t taught her that she can’t do everything.”
“So you’re just worried about people dying in front of her?” I asked to clarify.
“Leaving them behind or seeing them get taken away would be equally difficult for her, I think,” Angelica said.
“Hmm. I don’t really see the issue,” I shrugged.
“Turlough…” Midnight began.
“What? I don’t like seeing random people get hurt either.” I probably didn’t hate it as much, but I didn’t like it. “And she can do something about it.”
“But the worry is that she won’t be able to,” Midnight reminded me.
“Do you know how many points she has?” I asked Angelica.
“She did not say in particular, though I gathered she was looking at high level spells to try to find some sort of miracle solution.”
“Oh,” I nodded. “She’s looking at the wrong end. She should get Stabilize and put a ton of upgrades in it.”
“Stabilize…” Angelica said, nodding. “How many is… a ton?”
“If she’s looking at buying a new high level spell, she should at least be able to put ten or fifteen upgrades in. If she has more points than that, though… tell her to put a hundred and fifty points worth of upgrades.”
“Turlough! We shouldn’t use our friend to do experiments.”
“Fine. Then tell her to do the other thing… unless she wants to talk to me about doing an experiment,” I shrugged. “I’m just saying, if she doesn’t want anyone to die, that spell will do it. They won’t be healed, but they’ll stop getting worse. And Regenerate should just work later.”
“Thank you. I’ll find an opportunity to talk with her about it.”
“How?” I asked. “Can you even call her from here? I could talk to her in person. It’s not even weird for me to bring up magic.”
“Hmm,” Angelica said. “She never told you? I mentioned it was fine.”
“Told me what?”
“That I’m Madame Multitude.”
“Oh.” That sounded like a superhero? The name took a moment to remember. “Ceira mentioned she healed you, or someone she thought was you.” She hadn’t appeared on any sort of threat list, so I didn’t remember what she could do. I looked at Midnight.
He rolled his eyes. “I think I know exactly what you’re thinking. And you’re right, I guess. She’s a splitter.”
“Oh!” I nodded. “That makes sense with the name.”
“I can make a significant number of copies,” Angelica explained. “But I am not, nor have I ever been, physically imposing. Or open to violence. I was helping as many people as I could. I pushed too hard and got my real body tangled up in an unfortunate incident. Now I can’t even get a cat out of a tree, but I’m doing far more good than I ever was before.” She paused. “Ceira will likely determine that any magical advice came from you. But she will likely be more annoyed at me for prying.”
“You can just tell her to talk to me,” I shrugged. “But I’d probably stick with my recommendation. If people can’t die and she can recover pretty much any injuries later, then it’s a great option.” I should probably recommend Stabilize to Bandage as well. In combat healing sounded cool, but it was often impractical.
Not that I could judge it by more than the mana costs and what I’d seen from the healers. Magical recovery was often tiring, and returning people to nearly fighting fit might be worse than them dropping out of battle to begin with.
