[System]
You are a skilled LitRPG progression fantasy author. Write chapters based on the story bible and instructions provided.

## Premise
Just Add Mana — a LitRPG progression fantasy. Cale Cadwell Cobbs did not, as a general rule, enjoy being tied up. "Not that you guys are ugly or anything." He added the words like it was an afterthought. "But I'd kind of prefer it if you let me go. You can tie me up later. Y'know, with consent?"

Neither of his captors seemed particularly amused.

## Main Character
Name: Cale | Gender: male (he/him)
Key supporting characters: Akkau, Damien, Leo

## World & Power System
level-based progression; skills (e.g. Starlight Font, Level 1, Incinerate, 1.0e25 Mana, First Tier, Active, Spell Intuitionist, Level MAX, Minor Wind, 100 Mana, Lesser Reflection)
System notification style: "System to exploit, past gaming years as a min/maxing fanatic, and a"

## Writing Style
third-person limited narration, past tense. Dialogue-heavy (40% dialogue). Fast-paced, short punchy sentences.

[User]
Write Chapter 43 — Fire Resonance, Pt 5
Target length: ~5300 words

[Assistant]
Observer #27 was pretty sure that he hadn't heard that Brightscale professor correctly. It sounded like he'd said his student could destroy the Firestorm Scale, and that was patently ridiculous.

Of course, the idea that he'd misheard something was equally absurd. His scrying spells had a dozen redundancies to avoid interference and magical tampering, and his memory had been reinforced with spellwork designed to prevent exactly this sort of error. He couldn't mishear his targets even if he wanted to.

On the other hand, the idea that anyone might be able to destroy the Firestorm Scale was more ludicrous by far. The Scale was a divine artifact. It couldn't just be destroyed. It had layers upon layers of protections cast upon them by the gods themselves.

Even disregarding that, that professor had heavily implied Cale would be able to break it just by offering it his mana! The Scale was built to handle up to a quintillion points of fire mana, which was more than any one mage on Utelia even had. Not only that, but its creator had been so paranoid about this exact problem that it could even handle mana in excess of that amount.

It would strain the artifact, sure, but it wouldn't destroy it. At most, it would leech a few centuries off the Scale's effective lifespan.

Maybe there was something he was missing? Perhaps this Cale had a mana type that could overwhelm the divine protections on the Scale and destroy it. He'd never heard of such an aspect, but then he'd learned over the past eight years that there were many things about magic he didn't understand. Some unheard of mana aspect wasn't completely out of the realm of possibility.

Alternatively, the Brightscale professor was simply lying. Observer #27 had no idea what would motivate him to do so. If the professors knew what was happening with the Scale—and they very clearly did—then their best course of action was to evacuate all the students as quickly as they could. Even if they couldn't teleport everyone away, they could hide in the tunnels, away from the disaster that was about to take place.

Not that it was any of his business what they did or didn't do. They were doing nothing, and it was foolish.

But then again, so was he.

Five years ago, he would have cared. Eight years ago, he would have been horrified by the atrocity that was about to take place and done everything in his power to prevent it.

Now all he had left was a vague sense of unease. Everything else had been carved out of him long ago by an insistent, relentless buzzing that drowned out any voice that wasn't that of the Broodmother, including his own. He knew his duty: he was to watch and document everything that happened, and to interfere if necessary.

All he needed to do here was determine if interfering was, in fact, necessary.

He had an array of spellslates in front of him. They were expensive things, trigger mechanisms for a variety of pre-cast ritual spells designed to give him all the versatility and flexibility he needed to ensure the plans of the Red Hunters came to fruition. Among them included an evacuation slate, intended just in case any of his Hunters happened to be caught in the field. The Commander wouldn't want to lose any of his valuable agents to a rampaging elemental god, after all.

In theory, Observer #27 could activate that to save the students. It wouldn't interfere with their plans, really. The point was to corrupt the elemental god of flame. The deaths of the students and their professors was simply a bonus, something that would cause the news to spread faster and spark more outrage. It wasn't necessary.

And even three short years ago, that might have been enough. Three years ago, a small part of him still cried out against the Broodmother's voice, and he might have acted, even if he didn't understand why. Three years ago, he still remembered his name.

But that was long gone now. All he knew was that he'd had a name, once, and even that would soon be gone. Then there would be nothing left but Observer #27.

Such was the cost of using one of the Red Relics.

They were corrupt, arcane things, the Red Relics. Observer #27 didn't really understand what they were or how they had come about. They seemed different from every other artifact he had observed. All artifacts potentially had drawbacks, of course, but the Red Relics—they took something essential out of their users, like they were stealing pieces of a mage's soul.

For eight years, Observer #27 had been bound to the Red Relic known as the Watchful Hive. It was far from the most powerful relic the Red Hunters used, but it was the most essential to their operations. What it lacked in raw power it made up for in sheer influence and range. Without it, the Red Hunters would not have been nearly as successful enacting their schemes. They would lose their ability to nudge events in the right direction, to hold a mage in place for just a moment too long.

The Watchful Hive was crucial.

And so, by extension, was Observer #27.

The thought made the buzzing in his head throb. A sick sort of pride lurched in his gut. Observer #27 doubled over, hands gripping on to the edges of the scrying pedestal, his breathing growing ragged as the Watchful Hive attempted to reward him for the thought. He fought it, but by now it was more instinct than deliberate—he no longer remembered why, and soon he slackened, letting the bliss wash over him.

It was always like this. Stronger each time, punishment and reward. The buzzing told him what he was allowed to think, when he was allowed to think it. It led the way when he helped set all this up to begin with. The Grand Mage had been the one to invert Kessi Lyrwin's mana core, but it was his efforts and those of the Hunters stationed at Haelforge Academy that put her in this position.

All because that damn Firestorm Scale was near impossible to corrupt through conventional means. It had taken them work, and he was proud of that work.

The shrine was warded against anyone that wasn't affiliated with one of Utelia's academies. It had taken them months to come up with a plan that would work, and longer still to implement it. They needed to place just the right person in place at just the right time. He had personally needed to infiltrate their dreams, to whisper into just the right ears to convince those Haelforge professors that Kessi could be trusted near the Scale.

Apparently, they'd somehow still had it easier than the Brightscale team. Observer #27 snorted. He remembered his Hunters laughing at the naïve idealism of the Haelforge professors—they didn't realize how much he'd been doing behind the scenes, making them confident and foolhardy.

They weren't technically wrong, he supposed. That was the primary difference between the Haelforge and Brightscale academies, outside of Haelforge's focus on battle magic: the Haelforge professors desperately wanted their Astral Wing students to succeed. Many of them had graduated from that wing themselves, long before the Red Hunters had risen to power.

The Brightscale Academy, on the other hand, had taken years to corrupt. They couldn't get at any of the professors directly, and half of them were paranoid and antisocial, with all sorts of countermeasures built into or around their person. It had taken the Brightscale team decades to sow division amongst generation after generation of mages, to figure out how to pressure the professors into not interfering.

They'd succeeded, in the end. They managed to make things look like a natural development, a cultural shift. But even then, things hadn't been easy.

The Brightscale Astral Wing's wards had gotten an upgrade a few months back that were so sensitive that the Grand Mage had to rework their obfuscation spells just to avoid setting off a dozen alarms, and even then it was risky for their Hunters to get anywhere near the demon that anchored them. And just a few days ago, Observer #16 was complaining about some golem that apparently made it impossible to scry anywhere in its vicinity.

Worse, the Commander had a special interest in Headmaster Akkau, for some reason. Observer #27 shuddered at the thought.

Interest from the Commander was never a good thing.

In that vein, at least, Observer #27's job had been far easier. The Haelforge Academy was overconfident and willing to use its reputation as its primary form of defense. Their wards hadn't been updated in years and were comparatively simple to bypass. None of their professors even specialized in warding magic. His Hunters told him they hadn't even run into any trouble slipping the shimmerdust into their food.

Which meant he'd done well, hadn't he?

Observer #27 noticed, perhaps a little distantly, that the buzzing in his skull hadn't grown again. It hadn't reacted to his thoughts. It would have by now, but instead, it almost seemed a little quieter.

He forced his attention back to the scrying spell. Neither school had evacuated yet. All the students had woken from their resonance trances by this point, staring at the corrupted Firestorm Scale in a mixture of horror and alarm, which was the appropriate reaction to a corrupted divine artifact. The human, meanwhile, was just eyeing it critically, like he was judging it. Or evaluating it.

What was he doing? Why weren't they evacuating? The professors had been smart enough to notice the problem and to cage the errant corrupt mana. They'd delayed the Scale's corruption and almost forced him to step in. Now all they needed to do was evacuate, and they were just standing there, watching the human.

And so were all the students. They were giving the Scale a wide berth, but it wasn't like that would save them from a rampaging elemental god.

Observer #27 reminded himself that this was a good thing, that it would advance their plans all the more.

For once, however, the buzzing in his skull didn't respond.

And Observer #27 finally noticed the absence of his ichorworm bond. The small, larval creature that occasionally took the form of a golden fly and represented his connection with the Watchful Hive—it was gone.

And his heart was suddenly hammering.

The death of his ichorworm didn't mean he was no longer connected to the Watchful Hive. It was nothing more than a representation. The bugs that acted as their eyes and conduits did occasionally expire in the field, and normally, all that happened was that the Observer it had been bonded to would have to report to the Broodmother. They would be fed a new spoonful of the Watchful Hive's ichor-honey, and nine hours later, a new one would be birthed from their optic nerves.

But there was a gap, of sorts, created by the death of their bound ichorworm. Those things amplified the Broodmother's passive voice.

Without it, he could hear his own voice again. Not loudly. It was more of a faint echo of his voice, still drowned out by the Broodmother's passive droning, but there was just enough that he knew he didn't want this.

The emergency spellslate. He could activate the teleportation effect. He needed to be careful not to think about helping anyone, lest he draw the Broodmother's attention.

His finger twitched. He inched his hand toward the spellslate. Observer #27 was doing nothing. He was activating a failsafe. He was making sure there would be no unnecessary casualties—

—the Broodmother's presence in his mind surged. Observer #27 fell forward, his mouth opening in a silent scream as the buzzing in his mind multiplied, and multiplied, and multiplied.

The Hive detected intent, and with every stray thought, it carved a new piece out of him.

Observer #27 was lesser now than he had ever been.

He was his duty. Bound to observe and report. To interfere when necessary. Even without his ichorworm, there were ways he could step in to prevent the destruction of the Scale until its corruption was complete.

He turned to look at a different spellslate.

That one would summon one of their Templars to the site if he deemed it necessary. A Templar would be clad in a dozen lesser Red Relics. It would open with a spell salvo designed to kill any mage that could interfere, activate any bloodrot links that might be tied to any of the mages present, and ensure their plans cover up the evidence.

If there was any chance this human could stop the Scale, he needed to activate it.

Observer #27 stared at the Templar spellslate.

(A Templar was a one-time summon. Using it would drain several of their relics dry. It would take months to recreate them, and more to train a new Templar. The odds that the human would destroy the Scale were too low to waste this on.)

But this particular scheme was important. The Red Hunters had plenty of other measures in place, other plans they could launch, but corrupting the Firestorm Scale was one of the highest priority. It was one of the few things that could truly sway the beastfolk tribes of the Illwyld.

(A small part of him ached in remembrance at the thought.)

It did seem unlikely that a human would be able to destroy the Scale. Observer #27 considered this for a moment. Destroying it through mana quantity alone was not worth consideration, no matter what the professor said; it would be a waste to call a Templar to stop something that was impossible.

A destructive spell, perhaps. Something only the human knew.

(But he was a student. A student wouldn't have a destructive spell that powerful. Wasting a Templar on that would anger Broodmother.)

Then perhaps—Observer #27 knew that the Brightscale Academy was home to a particular mage known as the Devil Artificer. She was a nightmare of a mousefolk mage, apparently capable of constructing and rebuilding even divine artifacts like they were toys. The Red Hunters had judged that a majority of the rumors about her were nothing more than rumors, but nevertheless, she was marked as one of the more dangerous mages they knew of.

She could have provided this Cale with an artifact capable of destroying the Scale. It would have been within her capabilities.

(It would be foolish to give such an artifact to a human and not to the professor, however. Far more likely that the Brightscale professor had misunderstood the nature of the Firestorm Scale. Was this not the disgraced Mage Killer of the Brightgrove Elves?)

Observer #27's sense of duty was satisfied. He drew his hand back. Calling a Templar would not be necessary.

Instead, he would watch, as was his duty.

He breathed new life into his scrying spells, feeling them resonate with his mind, recording everything just as the Watchful Hive dictated. The Firestorm Scale would be completely corrupted soon, and Observer #27 knew that the Commander would want to pry these memories out of him later, so he could watch his victory.

In his vision, the human stepped up to the Scale and waved a hand—

* * *

Observer #27 blinked.

No. Not... not Observer #27. His name was—it was Serof Ontiladus. He was a light mage from the Lightladen Fields in the northwest corner of the Illwyld, and it had been eight years since he had seen any light other than that mimicked by his own scrying spells.

His mind scrambled to try to piece together what just happened. He could... think for himself? Why could he think for himself? He hadn't been able to think for himself for five of those last eight years. It had been getting harder year over year, the buzzing in his head louder and louder.

He remembered... his ichorworm getting destroyed. That had cleared his head a little. But then the Watchful Hive had reacted, and the Broodmother had reached into his head.

Serof winced at the memory. Just the memory of the buzzing made him nauseous.

What else had happened? He'd been... he'd been watching that human with the Firestorm Scale. He wanted to save them, but that was what had caused the Broodmother to react. There was so little of him left after that all he remembered was determining there was no risk, no need to call a Templar to take action. Then he refreshed his scrying spells, and the human stepped up to the Scale, and then—

The memory flashed back into his skull. Serof fell back against the wall, wings curling protectively around himself, gasping and trembling as just the memory of it burned through him a second time, brighter and louder than any of the Broodmother's buzzing thoughts.

A bright orb of prismatic light manifesting over one end of the Scale, almost twice the size of the entire tempest of fire mana that weighed down the other. Serof caught a glimpse of it only because he was a light mage scrying the scene. No one else would have had the time, because the instant that happened, the Scale rang out with a keening, desperate gong as it swung all the way to the other end—

—a massive cloud of dust and soil and broken earth kicked into the sky from the force of the Scale striking the pedestal that held it like an enormous, impossible hammer—

—the sheer weight of Cale's mana tearing the divinely-reinforced lever from the golden base, warping the metal enough to cause it to crack; the entire Scale bouncing from the rebound force, flung into the air before being caught by a ridiculous barrier, and a glimpse of that human's eyes—

Backlash.

Serof trembled in realization. He'd just experienced scryer's backlash. That—that should have been a myth! The idea that a scrying spell could see something it wasn't supposed to and hurt the caster through the spell was absurd; scrying spells were designed not to hurt their casters.

And yet... he remembered it all now. He'd been watching too closely, horrified by what he was seeing, and he hadn't paid attention to where he was looking. He caught a glimpse of Cale's eyes in the exact moment the human channeled the force of his mana, and his scrying magic—designed to pick apart, designed to understand, designed to measure—had been torn open.

Whatever he'd witnessed wasn't supposed to be measured. Couldn't be measured. And he'd witnessed it and tried, and the magic had burrowed straight back into him through his spell and into his mind, where it was linked.

And then, where it should have blasted apart his mind, it had instead blasted apart the Broodmother's voice.

That damnable buzzing was gone.

Serof's breathing steadied, his wings slowly uncurling as he forced himself to his feet and stumbled back to his scrying pedestal.

The artifact was out of his head. He was free! The Watchful Hive and its Broodmother were no longer connected to him, not even through the ichor they had forced him to swallow and the worm that had crawled out of his eye.

The only thing Serof didn't understand was how this had happened from just attempting to scry one mage. What was he? There was no way he was just a student.

But he couldn't afford to think about that. Not now, when he was still very much in range of the Broodmother's wrath. Serof stared at his scrying chamber, taking it in. It was more of a glorified cage, really, though he hadn't been able to notice while he was Observer #27.

There were no windows. The door had been locked in his earliest days here, though after he had been sufficiently indoctrinated they hadn't bothered to keep it that way. He could open it, and he knew what he would find outside: dozens of identical cells, each one holding another Observer.

All kept in the depths of the Watchful Hive, underneath the slumbering Broodmother.

"I need to find a way out," Serof whispered.

His gaze sharpened slightly. Years of captivity had taken away some of his edge, but it was there, lurking beneath the conditioning. Escape wasn't impossible. The Hunters wouldn't be expecting him to just walk out. The problem was that the catacombs of the Watchful Hive were a bit of a maze. He'd have to scry his way through first, memorize the route...

And then he needed to find that mage. That human that had somehow broken his cage just by looking.

If he wanted any of his friends to be free, if he wanted any of his years of captured servitude to mean anything more than the destruction he had inadvertently helped bring about, he had to find one Cale Cadwell Cobbs.

* * *

Cale stared at the smoking remains of the Firestorm Scale and scratched the back of his head awkwardly. "Did I overdo it?" he asked.

It was mostly a rhetorical question. He was grinning. Graystalk gave him a flat look, probably because the professor knew full well he was just playing off what he'd done. Professor Delia was too busy staring with her jaw wide open to pay him much attention.

Or so he thought. Her gaze suddenly snapped to him. "What in the eight infernal realms—"

"Seven," Cale cut in politely. Delia fell silent.

"Oh," she said, her voice suddenly hollow and maybe a little bit frightened. "You weren't... you weren't kidding."

"About blowing up an infernal realm?" Cale asked. "Of course not. Why would I joke about something like that?"

Behind Delia, Graystalk coughed politely, and Cale sighed. "Okay, I would joke about accidentally blowing up a realm," he amended. "But not about the eighth infernal realm! That would just be in poor taste. Why does no one know about this? Has no one checked on the infernal realms?"

"The last mage that attempted to scry the eighth infernal realm had his own entrails fed to him for the trouble," Professor Graystalk said dryly. "And he was a particularly powerful mage, so most people have been... reluctant."

Cale stared. "Well, now I'm glad I blew it up," he said. And then, after a moment, he added: "Accidentally."

"Indeed," Professor Graystalk said, his tone somehow even more flat than before.

Cale responded by beaming at him. "I'm glad you understand! Can't have people coming to me to commission realm destructions, you know?"

"A common, everyday problem, I am sure. It must be quite troublesome for you."

"The troublesome part is mostly the cleanup."

Graystalk raised an eyebrow. "Of the realm?"

"Of the mage that asked." Cale shot his professor a look of feigned offense. "I don't just go around destroying realms for every slight, you know."

"Of course. I should have known." Graystalk hid his smirk, instead climbing to his feet and dusting off his robes. "Well, I would say that our class has been rather thoroughly disrupted. We will need to report the destruction of the Firestorm Scale. I don't suppose you have a means of restoring it? It would save us a lot of trouble."

Cale double-checked the Gift. "Not for another sixty hours!" he announced cheerfully.

Graystalk paused. "...Am I to understand," he said slowly, "that you do, in fact, have a means of restoring the Scale?"

"I dunno, probably?" Cale shrugged. "I'm assuming [Awaken Artifact] can do that. It's a twelfth tier spell."

"[Awaken Artifact]?!" Delia repeated with a yelp, sounding faint. Both Cale and Graystalk turned a surprised look toward her, like they'd forgotten she was there.

In Cale's case, because he had. Whoops.

"Can you pretend you didn't hear that?" he asked politely. "I feel like if too many people know about that before Imrys she might actually try to kill me."

Delia nodded, probably a few too many times. "I won't tell anyone," she said rapidly. "You have my word."

Graystalk glanced at his colleague, amused. "He doesn't bite, you know."

"It's true!" Cale agreed, then paused. "Unless you want me to. I bet I could bite through stone with the right spell. I did just get [Basic Physical Enhancement]—"

"Cale," Graystalk said, exasperated, and Cale shot him an unrepentant grin.

"Well, I don't need a spell to bite you, do I?"

Graystalk narrowed his eyes, although his ears, once again, flushed pink. "Do not make me challenge you to a duel," he muttered. "Enough. We still have some time in the Elemental Shrine. We should make the most of it. We will not have another opportunity to attune for a fire resonance rank for at least another three days, it seems. Perhaps sooner, if Professor Imrys could be convinced to help us, but—"

Professor Delia winced. Cale blinked. "She can do that?" he asked. "Does she have some kind of reputation?"

"Does the Devil Artificer herself have a reputation, he asks," Professor Delia muttered exasperatedly.

Graystalk ignored them both. "Fortunately for us, it seems your little stunt has done this place much good," he said, gesturing out grandly toward the rest of the shrine. "The shrine should survive a mere three days, considering all the fire mana you just added to it."

Cale turned to look at what Graystalk was pointing at, and then finally actually noticed what he'd done.

The entire storm of fire mana that had been sitting on the Scale was gone, for one thing. But everything the Scale had been able to process beforehand had been donated to the Elemental Shrine of Fire, raising its ambient mana level to the point that—

—well, to the point that firesprites had begun to form.

That was a something that could happen when ambient mana was raised to a high enough level, Cale knew, although it was rare. The mana would gather into semi-sentient sprites, fluttering and dancing through the air. There were only ever a few of them at a time, except now?

The sky was full of them. They were twirling around the students, which was probably the main reason Cale hadn't been accosted by more of them for what he'd done. The few that just sat back down to try to meditate for their resonance rank had even more sprites flying around them, while a small cloud of them were beginning to gather around Graystalk and Delia each, giggling happily.

"Whoa," one of the students said. "I just—I just got my first rank! Isn't this supposed to take weeks?"

"I got two," Caea said, opening her eyes and studying Cale intently.

"Orguk also get two!" the orc bragged, making the serpentine lady glance at him briefly. Orguk took the opportunity to wave at her.

Cale just blinked. "Huh," he said. "Is that supposed to happen?"

"Absolutely not," Graystalk said, but he was already sitting in a meditative position. "But far be it from me to take advantage of your generosity. You should, too—the shrine's blessing will only last for a short time, and it is needed to acquire the first rank of fire resonance."

"Wha—hey, don't you get ahead of me!" Delia glared at him. She did not, however, immediately sit down to compete, as much as she seemed tempted to. Instead, she sighed and slowly gathered her barely-conscious student into her arms. "I'm going to take her somewhere safe and make sure she recovers," she said quietly. "Meet me there when you're done, Graystalk."

Graystalk inclined his head slightly as Delia left. Cale blinked. Were neither of them going to explain anything to their students? Come to think of it, after Caea and Orguk's declarations pretty much all the students had gone straight to meditating.

Almost as if he could sense his thoughts, Graystalk cracked an eye open and spoke, surprisingly gentle. "What you have triggered is colloquially known as a resonant blessing," he said, indicating the firesprites flitting through the air. "It is a rare event. One that does not happen more than once a decade. A mage present during it masters an element exponentially faster than their peers, and the window of time we have to take advantage of it is... limited.

"Delia will ensure Kessi's safety, and I intend to move as quickly as I can so she can attempt to benefit herself. Rest assured, we will be discussing what happened here afterward. You should attempt to gain your rank while you can, as well." He hesitated. "I assume you were able to find what was affecting Ms. Lyrwin?"

"I did," Cale said, his expression flickering slightly before he nodded. "Yeah, that makes sense. We'll talk about this after."

He was still excited about fire resonance, after all, and Kessi was woozy but fine. Cale let out a breath, sat on the ground, and closed his eyes. He could hear a faint sound of crackling as firesprites began to converge on him, one after another. At the veil of fire mana around him made it just a little easier to peer into the elemental plane of fire.

And that was what resonance ranks were about, weren't they? Connecting to the essence of an aspect.

Cale allowed his mind to settle. First on the warmth of a fireplace in the middle of winter, on the comforting heat that fire could provide. Then on the raging, all-consuming flames he'd seen once tearing through entire armies. Finally he thought of how fire was the cornerstone of civilization, how its discovery helped the development of all kinds of food.

Like the steady, dry heat of an oven allowing bread to rise.

He reached out to the concept of fire itself, holding that in his mind, and something within his core resonated. When he opened his eyes again, he found himself in the landscape of his mind, fire burning all around him like he'd linked his sight directly to the elemental plane of fire.

That fire soon responded to his call, resolving into an image of an elemental god that embodied the purity of flame. His presence felt like a manifestation of the plane itself, towering over all else, and he tilted his head down toward Cale in a slow, almost imperious movement.

Then the fire flickered, like he was blinking.

"...Really? You were thinking about bread?" the elemental god asked, scratching the back of his head. "I'm supposed to grant you a vision, but uh... I'm not sure what to do with that, to be honest."

In which Cale continues to be incorrigible.

Anyway! Unrelated to the chapter, but I am now playing Silksong. Great game! I feel like we're meant to think of the fall of Hallownest as a kind of tragedy; for all its faults, it is ultimately a place you look at and wonder what it was like at its prime.

The experience of Pharloom, on the other hand, is kind of along the lines of "You're telling me they did what?"

Magical Fun Fact: Incredible, massive-scale artifacts do exist, although they're vanishingly rare. They often become cornerstones of that realm's culture and beliefs. Some scholars think they were left behind by giants, but in Cale's many lives, the only time he has borne witness to such a thing being created was when a god and an archmage both got incredibly drunk. Neither remembered how to do it again afterward.

Cale therefore generally refuses to comment on how these artifacts are created. Besides, what he witnessed could still be an exception!

[User]
Write Chapter 44 — Fire Resonance, Pt 6
Target length: ~3200 words
Key events: level-up occurs, combat-heavy

[Assistant]
Cale learned mostly a single thing over the next few minutes, which was that the elemental god of fire was named Vesuvius.

The name felt vaguely familiar to Cale. Not enough for him to figure out what was familiar about it, but enough for him to realize he'd probably seen it before. He considered trying to figure that out for a moment before eventually deciding it didn't really matter; a name was just a name, and he was far more interested in this vision thing.

Mostly because Vesuvius made it sound like he could give Cale a baking vision, and Cale had decided that was what he wanted most out of all this. He'd been in Utelia for more than a day and he hadn't even had the chance to bake yet! Granted, he didn't really get the chance to bake in most of his lives, but it was sort of insulting to finally have magic at his fingertips and still not be able to cast a simple [Baker's Domain]. That was half the reason he was even studying at this school.

Though he was making good progress, at least. He didn't really blame anyone for the sheer density of events around him. It was just kind of a thing.

"Do you think I'll be able to make some kind of oven spell with fire resonance, by the way?" Cale asked absently. "I'm hoping to be able to make a really big oven. You know, instead of a fireball. Maybe I'll be able to break records for the realm's biggest loaf of bread or something."

Vesuvius stared at him, apparently at a loss for words. The poor elemental god seemed like he didn't quite know what to do with him, which was actually a surprisingly common reaction as far as Cale meeting with gods went. If anything, Vesuvius was reacting rather well.

He still wanted a response, though.

Thankfully, Vesuvius did gather himself enough to reply, even if he still sounded confused. "You want me to give you a spell that conjures... an oven?" he asked. "Not [Grand Fireball]? Or even [Tower of Fire]?"

"You can give me spells?" Cale brightened immediately. "Then yes, I absolutely want an oven spell. Do people actually ask for that stuff? Why would anyone want to live in a tower made out of fire?"

"You would be surprised," Vesuvius responded, more automatically than anything else. "It's a rather common request among young fire elementals."

"Really?" Cale frowned, making a face. "That sounds uncomfortable. Even if you're a fire elemental. Actually, especially if you're a fire elemental. That would be like if I wanted to make a tower out of human flesh."

Vesuvius fell silent as he processed this, then slowly glanced around at the realm of pure fire he was bound to.

"Well," he said eventually. "That's a rather disturbing thought."

[Blabbermouth] has reached level 12!

Cale blinked at the sudden message from the Gift. Was he supposed to be able to level spells while having a vision? That seemed like an oversight... although he supposed [Blabbermouth] was more of a passive. Come to think of it, it had been a while since he'd gained a level in that spell.

Maybe the Gift just wanted to be especially sure he got the message that time, given he was talking to a god and all. Giving a god an existential crisis would be awkward.

It also wouldn't even be the first time.

"I feel like I might need to reconsider offering that spell quite so freely," Vesuvius muttered, half to himself.

"Oh, don't feel like you have to change how you do things on my account!" Cale said hastily, trying to wave it off. That was definitely the sort of thing that would get complaints. And also possibly make Akkau mad at him. "I'd have to explain it to Akkau and it would be a whole thing. Besides, it's different for elementals! Their relationship with their element isn't the same as the relationship organic species have with their flesh..."

Cale trailed off, narrowing his eyes at Vesuvius suspiciously. The elemental god towered over him, even with only half a body present—he was representing himself as just the upper half of a humanoid body rising out of a floor of flames. His head was pure, glowing fire, with what was admittedly a pretty nice jawline.

More importantly, he didn't even have a face, and Cale still felt like he was smirking.

"You're teasing me," he accused.

Vesuvius laughed. The sound boomed through the flames around him, causing them to dance and crackle with merry amusement. Really, the whole realm seemed to respond to that laughter; the fire around them blazed bright, and even through the vision, Cale felt a trickle of heat.

"My apologies," Vesuvius said, his smirk turning into something of a more faintly amused smile. "I suppose it's a little immature to tease the man I should be calling my savior, but I'm a little off my game, as you may have noticed. Normally I'm unquestionably superior to the mages attempting to resonate with my element. I give them a vision that grants them a bit more insight on the true nature of fire, and then I wait a few decades until they're back."

The flames around Vesuvius seemed to glow brighter, and the fire god drifted toward Cale, the entire plane morphing around him as he did. "And then there's you," he said. "I'm not sure what to do with you. You already understand the nature of the flame remarkably well. If you had been born on Utelia, you would likely be a master fire mage, almost fully resonant with the element."

"I assume there's some reason you can't just give me those ten ranks?" Cale asked, sighing. Vesuvius chuckled.

"Very astute," he said. "Yes. There are bottlenecks—built-in limiters, if you will, to prevent a mage acquiring too much power before they're ready."

"Too many village fires?" Cale asked dryly. Vesuvius shot him a look, then reluctantly nodded.

"The best I could do is get you to the fifth rank," he said. "Which I'm more than happy to do, to be clear. It comes with a gift of a single fire spell and the vision I mentioned before, but in your case..."

Vesuvius shrugged helplessly. "I don't know what kind of vision to give you," he said. "Or spell, for that matter."

"I want a baking spell," Cale said immediately. "Also a baking vision."

Vesuvius paused. "You weren't just joking about the baking thing?"

"I would never joke about the baking thing!" Cale huffed, almost offended at the thought. "I take baking very seriously."

The fire god seemed amused, now. "Very well. Before we begin, though, we should discuss the events at my shrine. The presence of the Red Hunters and their attempt to corrupt me is concerning... and I am grateful for your intervention, I should add." He hesitated. "I've never had to thank a mortal before. Nor deal with a mage that has quite as much mana as you appear to have."

"Not really a mortal," Cale said absently. "Or, well, I guess technically I am? It depends on how you look at it. Also, can we do all that after the baking vision? And the baking spell."

Vesuvius tilted his head, but something about the flames seemed to relax slightly, like he'd been wary about Cale's reserves of mana and what he might do. Actually, that would explain a lot of the fire god's hesitation, now that Cale thought about it.

"You're very single-minded about baking," Vesuvius said, chuckling lightly. "You know less than a hundred mages have asked for a fire spell that does not focus on the element's offensive capabilities?"

"And that," Cale said, "is why magical progress gets held back in so many realms! Too many mages give up creativity for more firepower. Just fire alone could be so much more interesting, but all anyone wants to cast is [Fireball]. Or [Greater Fireball]. Or [Grand Fireball]. Or [Fireball Fireball]."

"...What was that last one?" Vesuvius seemed curious, but Cale just waved a hand irritably and sighed.

"It's a spell some mage invented a few centuries back in a different realm," he said. "Guy fancied himself the second coming of fire, but he was terrible at coming up with spell names and also everything he made was some kind of fireball variant. That one wasn't even that interesting! It was a fireball made up of smaller fireballs, which is basically just the same thing as a regular fireball to anything you're trying to set on fire."

Cale scowled. "You could get so much more creative with fire," he grumbled. "Honestly. Even with offensive spells. Why is everyone making their fire ball-shaped? Where are the geometrically incoherent fire triangles?"

"And what... purpose... would that spell serve? It wouldn't be very efficient, you know," Vesuvius said, but despite his words he was leaning forward slightly, looking for all the world like he was deeply invested in what Cale was saying. Probably in spite of himself.

Definitely in spite of himself. Cale had no idea how he could tell, but Vesuvius's blank expression seemed like the definition of "reluctantly interested," emphasis on reluctant.

"Discombobulation," Cale answered promptly, as if that answered the question. "You have to discombobulate your enemies." Then, before the fire god could ask anything else: "Also, more spells should be inefficient. That way, I can cast them."

That remark made Vesuvius snort in a way that was probably a bit undignified for an elemental god. "I suppose that would explain your predisposition toward such spells... Ah! In any case. Before I forget—and you are a remarkably distracting mortal, by the way—"

"Not a mortal!" Cale interrupted cheerfully. "And thank you. I'm very good at distracting people. Including myself."

Vesuvius gave him a look. "Yes, well, I'm afraid I'm not very well-versed in the art of baking," he said, trying to hold back another laugh. "If you want a baking spell, we may have to use your baking vision to teach me how, exactly, this 'baking' is supposed to work. I will use that information to grant you that spell."

"You don't have it already?" Now that he thought about it, Cale didn't quite know what the relationship between the elemental gods and the spells granted by the Gift were. Something to look into. "Well, I'd be happy to. Honestly, I was kind of hoping you'd say that. We'll need somewhere more comfortable than just endless fire, though. Do you happen to know how to make a kitchen?"

He paused. "Also, fair warning, I haven't baked a good loaf of bread in centuries. So we're probably going to be figuring this out together."

Vesuvius seemed to smile. "I look forward to it, then," he said.

* * *

Cale ended that resonance vision more satisfied than he had been in decades. Possibly a century or two. For one thing, he'd just spent a few hours teaching an elemental god how to bake, which was one of the more delightful tasks he'd taken on in recent memory. Even if Vesuvius had kept burning things.

By the end of it, though, Cale was pretty sure Vesuvius was disappointed to see him go. They had a quick discussion during which the god thanked him for interfering with the Red Hunters, but unfortunately, Vesuvius had little in the way of information about why he was a target. The only thing they were able to determine was that it was unlikely he was the only one: if they wanted to corrupt him, then it was likely they were targeting at least a few of the other elemental gods, as well.

Something to keep a lookout for.

That vision ended with one new spell, five acquired ranks of fire resonance, and a fire god insisting Cale get to the next milestone "as soon as possible" so they could try baking "croissants". Cale hadn't had the heart to tell the fire god that a lot of that prepwork could not, in fact, be done in a kitchen made of fire. Probably. He was glad Vesuvius was interested, though! It meant he'd convinced yet another mage about the importance of baking magic.

Or god. Whatever. Same difference.

He was mildly disappointed when Graystalk told him that five ranks of fire resonance translated only to being able to acquire third-tier fire spells. What was the point of numbering the ranks if they didn't match? He couldn't complain too much, though; the whole point of that was so he could get a baking spell, and that didn't matter, because he finally had a baking spell.

Vesuvius had come through for him and then some. It was a third tier spell and would undoubtedly evolve once he tried to cast it, but with five ranks in fire resonance, he was basically almost assured a more evolved version of the baking spell instead of some other random fire-based effect.

He'd been waiting centuries to be able to do this kind of thing. Cale reached out to the Gift and read the new spell description, beaming.

[Baker's Oven, Level 1] [Third Tier, Active] [120,000 Mana]

Create a small space that automatically bakes any dough or batter at the perfect temperature until done. Includes decorative fire sigils to mark the affected space.

Just looking at the Gift's description made his heart sing. Plus, Vesuvius had been kind enough to construct a slightly more inefficient variation of the spell, specifically so Cale might have a chance of casting the base version of it within his lifetime. That also meant that although the spell would evolve when he tried to cast it, it wouldn't evolve that much.

Probably, anyway. What would an evolved version of [Baker's Oven] even look like?

Cale itched to test it out as soon as possible, but there was the rather pressing issue of talking to the professors about everything that just happened here. Also figuring out what to do with the Firestorm Scale, probably, considering its remains were still lying in a warped, smoking crater along with the remnants of its pedestal.

...Also getting Damien up to date on things. He would've been speaking to his apprentice already if not for the fact that Vesuvius had informed him the dreadshade was "in the middle of something unprecedented." Cale wasn't exactly sure what to make of that, and would have insisted on details if Vesuvius hadn't been so certain that Damien would want to tell him himself.

To be fair, it did look like the type of thing Damien might want to tell him about. There was a tiny storm of tightly-controlled decay mana swirling around the firesprites converging on Damien. Thankfully, with those firesprites all over the field, the errant mana wasn't terribly noticeable; more importantly, none of it was leaking.

Interesting. Cale was starting to get some idea of what this might be.

When the storm finally looked like it had begun to abate and Damien stirred from within, Cale walked straight through it to grab hold of a startled dreadshade, then started dragging him along, ignoring the firesprites trying to condense into a tiny cloak on his back. "Come on," he said cheerfully. "We gotta find Graystalk and talk about all this. Where did he go, anyway?"

Cale scanned the shrine briefly, but the professors were nowhere to be seen. He frowned, then tapped into his mana sense to look more carefully—

—Ah. There they were. Sitting behind some isolation wards at the entrance to one of the tunnels that led beneath the shrine, apparently. That made sense; the professors had probably decided they needed to get Kessi away from the rest of the students once she'd woken up. Cale wondered if she'd gained her own rank in fire resonance or if the whole incident had made her miss out.

Hopefully not.

"This way," he said, pulling a still-confused Damien along with him. "We need to tell the professors what's going on."

The wards the professors had set up were pretty impressive, now that Cale took a closer look at them. Or... were they just Graystalk's wards? They were all anchored into place with the same talismans he'd used to construct the trap earlier. The design was immaculate, considering his limitations—an obfuscation ward layered with wards against scrying, mana manipulation, even something that looked design to divert the attention of divinities...

No wonder Graystalk was called Mage Killer. This was impressive to the point of almost being overkill, though Cale supposed one couldn't be too careful. He wrapped Damien in a barrier bubble and strode straight through, causing Kessi to yelp out a little scream and very nearly fling a spell at him before Graystalk casually reached over to disrupt it.

The elven professor sighed. "I suppose it was too much to expect that you would knock," he said.

"You added a knocking function to the wards?" Cale blinked, then looked them over again. There appeared to be a ward specifically tuned for him to knock on. "Whoops. I missed it, sorry."

"I will be sure to leave a note in the future," Graystalk said dryly. "Now. What exactly did you discover?"

Delia sat up at this question, her expression intent. It was clear to see she felt she'd failed her student—there was guilt in her eyes, and she clutched Kessi protectively, though the younger mage protested and pushed at her professor.

"I'm fine," Kessi said. She hesitated. "But... I want to know too. What did you discover?"

Cale sighed. "Nothing you didn't already know," he said, nodding at Graystalk. "I'm pretty sure the Red Hunters are behind this. Our academy probably isn't the only academy they're targeting."

He held out a hand, revealing the golden bead, then quickly explained everything he understood about what had happened—the likelihood of shimmerdust poisoning, the way the Red Hunters had needed to set this up, and the golden fly positioned to interfere at exactly the wrong moment.

As he did, Delia's jaw tightened, her hands slowly clenching into fists. And judging by the bloodlust coming from her...

Well, Cale did not envy the Red Hunters that were installed at Haelforge. They were going to be in for a rough time.

He finally got a baking spell!

Magical Fun Fact: "Always include a way to keep track of the world around you" is one of the first lessons taught in most academies when it comes to ward construction. One of the most common mistakes made by novices is that, in focusing all their attempts on keeping things out, they accidentally lock themselves in. Alternatively, without a means of keeping track of the world around them, they fail to notice when their fellows come under attack.

The latter is surprisingly common and happens about 12% of the time. It's known as the Warder's Curse, though some people think that their masters made it up to make sure they follow the rules...

[User]
Write Chapter 45 — Escape
Target length: ~3500 words

[Assistant]
Serof Ontiladus was running out of time, and he knew it.

The Watchful Hive ran on a strict schedule, in large part because of its position off the eastern coast of Aersheld. Inconvenient as it was, the waters of the Endless Deep did a remarkable job shielding the enormous, tower-sized relic from would-be spies and scryers. The ocean around them created a strong magical interference field that was all but impossible for most spells to penetrate.

Unfortunately, the same thing applied to travel. It was virtually impossible to reach or leave the Watchful Hive unless the tides were low, which—thanks to both the natural movement of the oceans and some very powerful spells cast by the Grand Mage—happened only about once every two months. For about six hours, the otherwise impenetrable magics of Utelia's oceans would be diminished just enough to sail across, albeit not without a great deal of protective magic.

That meant Serof's escape plan hinged entirely on being able to navigate the Watchful Hive without being spotted, steal a boat, power its enchantments, and sail across a stretch of the Endless Deep within a six-hour window.

Oh, and he had to do that while avoiding the Red Hunters that would also be making their way to the Watchful Hive.

If nothing else, the tight schedule made things more predictable. There were no Red Hunters here to catch him unawares, for example, and there would be none until the waters had lowered enough for them to sail across.

That was... pretty much where the good news ended.

The interference around the Watchful Hive made it just as difficult for spells to reach out as it was for spells to reach in. The only reason Serof and the other Observers had been able to scry into Utelia was because of their ichorworm connections. The larvae acted as a sort of spell anchor on the opposite side of the field, allowing simple scrying spells to make their way across.

With his own ichorworm dead, however, Serof was rapidly losing his ability to see outside the Hive.

And that was a problem.

The Watchful Hive didn't have much in the way of timekeeping devices—none of the Observers needed it, in large part because they were constantly monitoring what was happening to their targets anyway. And while it was just a suspicion on Serof's part, he believed part of it was also to make sure the Observers were as detached from their own reality as possible.

With no real sense of how much time was passing, it was far easier to default to the Broodmother's constant buzzing, and far easier to fall into the task of scrying constantly. They stopped only for breaks. For food and water, essentially, as well as for any other physical needs that might need tending to, though calling the slop they were given "food" was... well, it was generous.

Serof grimaced a bit as a few more of his memories came flooding back. Cale's mana might have broken the Broodmother's control over him, but there were still cobwebs over most of his mind. Every so often, a memory would strike him, making him relive one of the many indignities he'd endured over the last eight years.

The food felt like it was one of the worst, but not because he hadn't seen and endured worse over the years. It was just that cooking had been one of his joys, prior to all this. Serof had loved it. He'd loved learning about different cultures and styles of food, exploring new ways to combine flavors and coming up with new dishes.

More than that, he'd loved seeing the way people lit up in response to his food. Unlike most other mages, he didn't delve dungeons to see what artifacts they held or what secrets they contained. He just wanted to see what sort of food was being made in other realms. He wanted to study their recipes, see if there was a way to incorporate what they did into his own work.

Not only had he not cooked a single meal for eight years, he hadn't even eaten real food for eight years. Serof remembered day after day of mechanically shoveling goop into his mouth while the buzzing told him it was the best thing he'd ever had.

It was decidedly not. Especially not now that he had the clarity of mind to think back on it.

The Red Hunters valued efficiency, after all. They would have used teleportation to get into and out of the Watchful Hive if it were possible, and there were some spells that could reach across when properly anchored. The spellslates, for example, worked because they were linked to a similar network of spellslates buried all across Utelia.

But even with the help of the spellslate network, teleporting in and out of the Hive was impossible. Anything they tried to teleport, spell anchors or not, was mangled beyond recognition. That was the reason spellslates needed to be manually transported via boat, though Serof suspected they wouldn't have wasted the precious things on just getting in and out even if it had been possible.

Regardless, there was one thing they could teleport that reduced the necessity of making large supply runs: food and water. It didn't matter if the food got mangled as long as all its nutritional content was still there, and so Observers were kept fed with what their Hunter teams fondly nicknamed "teleportation sludge."

Now that Serof thought about it, that name had definitely been mocking. He scowled at the thought, then scowled again at the fact that he'd been eating nothing but teleportation sludge for years. As if that weren't bad enough, he was pretty sure that sludge was "supplemented" with the lesser honey that the Broodmother regurgitated after each feeding.

No doubt because it helped keep them all pliant. Serof was struck by a sudden thought—food production was a process that was mostly automated, with most of the incoming food teleported into a tank that preserved the resulting sludge. If he could sabotage the process to somehow make sure the lesser honey was wasted rather than mixed in...

Serof winced. It all came back down to the fact that he didn't know if he had time. If teleportation wasn't so much of a problem, he might have been able to teleport himself to Aersheld and get in contact with the kingdom of Thyrahl. They might have tolerated the Red Hunters, but if they caught wind of what was happening in the Watchful Hive, that tolerance would almost certainly end.

Serof wouldn't have been surprised if they declared outright war, in fact.

Though now that he thought about it... would they even believe him? That buzzing had carved out so many of his memories. So much of his life before the Hive was a blur, and even his time as an Observer was rapidly starting to feel like there were cobwebs plastered over his memories. He knew he'd enabled atrocities, but now he was barely remembering which ones.

The most important things remained, at least. He was still himself. He knew what he'd loved doing, once, and he hoped he'd be able to get to that again one day.

Though that day, he knew, was unlikely to come anytime soon.

Serof sighed. He'd been carefully scrying the catacombs of the Watchful Hive for the past hour or three; he was pretty sure he now knew the route out, and even if he got lost, his scrying wasn't disabled within the Hive. It would probably take him about the same amount of time to identify where the boats were kept and where the food production facilities were, if he decided he wanted to mess with those.

The trouble was that he was pretty sure low tide would be arriving soon. Before his ability to scry outside had begun to fail, he'd managed to locate both the boathouse on the Aersheld coast and a glimpse of the schedule; it looked like they were preparing for a shipment. Whatever else happened, he needed to be on a boat and on the way back before low tide was over.

Serof sat back against the wall, sighed, and began to scry. This time, he searched for the boats that would allow him to sail back to Aersheld.

As well as the food supply tanks. Just in case he had time.

At the same time, he went over his plan once more. He needed to leave the Hive without being spotted by any of the other Observers. It wouldn't be the end of the world if he was spotted, at least. Serof was now well aware of and familiar with the downsides of indoctrination, which was that none of them were very good at thinking for themselves. If he was spotted and just gave an excuse, he was pretty sure it would be accepted without question.

He just didn't really want to deal with it. Knowing that his friends and family were under the control of the Broodmother was one thing, but actually meeting them? Serof didn't trust himself not to try to shake them out of it, and that he knew wouldn't go down well.

He'd prioritize making his way to the boats for two reasons. One, the boats were at the entrance to the Hive, and from there, he'd be able to see what time of the day it was. Serof may have been unsure about exactly when low tide would happen, but he did know it always happened at night; if the sun began to set, then he'd know to watch the water level.

Second, he needed to get help first and foremost. Sabotaging the sludge might reduce the Broodmother's influence, but it wouldn't do much with their ichorworms still in place. If food production happened to be somewhat near the boats and there was time, then he could spare a moment to mess with it. Otherwise...

Well, he would be back with help. Serof told himself that a few times, trying to ignore the shaking in his limbs.

After he found the boats, he'd need to spend some time familiarizing himself with the enchantments on them, too. He'd never sailed before, and while he knew it was typically done by supplying mana to a set of enchantments on the boats, he had no idea how to manage them. If he wanted to have any hope of avoiding the Red Hunter patrol that would be coming in the opposite direction, he needed to know how to sail intimately.

Or at all. He would also settle for "at all." Escaping the Watchful Hive was ambitious enough, and the truth of it was that he had no real idea if he could pull any of this off.

But he had to try. All his friends and family were here. Practically his entire clan, each one specializing in light and scrying. Even now, Serof could barely remember how or why they'd all ended up here, but he knew he needed to get them all out.

He was the only chance they had left now. Just this morning, they didn't even have a chance left. If he could find Cale, if he could get him to help... it would all be alright.

It had to be.

* * *

Serof managed step one with relatively little fanfare.

The biggest problem he'd run into was that the boats were warded, but those wards had been surprisingly easy to break through. They were minimal things, more to prevent them from being whipped out to sea by an errant wind-current from one of the Endless Deep's constant magical storms than secure them against a potential thief. Clearly, the idea that one of their Observers might break free from an eight-year-long control spell had been outside the Red Hunters' considerations.

That relieved some of his concerns, but not all of them. The sailing enchantments may as well have been a complex arcane lock, for all Serof understood them. He was beginning to realize he would need to practice within the rather limited confines of the port, which was probably more accurately described as a cavern with some water in it.

On the other hand, there were two boats moored here, so he could afford to mess up with one of them. As far as he was concerned, it was probably better if he did; the more he did to ruin things for the Red Hunters, the better. The whole reason they needed backups like these was because sailing across the Endless Deep was so dangerous. If he destroyed one and stole the other, and the Hunters wrecked their ship getting across, they'd be trapped here.

The thought of that gave Serof a grim sort of satisfaction.

Possibly too much satisfaction. He accidentally crashed the first boat within minutes, feeding just a little too much mana into the wind enchantment and causing it to slam straight into the wall of the cave.

On the other hand, that was enough for him to figure out how the enchantments worked. They looked complicated, but were surprisingly simple: the largest rune created winds that blew the ship forward, and the two slightly smaller ones on each side steered it. Serof spent a few more minutes experimenting with the smaller runes beneath, noting that each of them were associated with a series of defensive spells, most likely to help the boat withstand the storms of the Endless Deep.

Good enough. Serof considered sailing the boat he'd wrecked into the Hive's walls a few more times, but decided it was better to steer it back into place and leave it as it was, with only a minor patch to prevent water from leaking in.

The sun was still high enough that he had time to go sabotage the food tanks, too.

Even better.

—

Scrying hadn't prepared Serof for how bad everything would smell.

The teleportation sludge itself was effectively sterile, partly due to the teleportation spell that had created it in the first place and partly due to the preservation wards etched into the food tanks. It wasn't the source of the smell.

No, the source of the smell was the pipes. The Broodmother's regurgitated lesser honey was piped through the walls and down into the food tanks, and it smelled nothing like how he remembered. Serof shuddered. In his memories, his food had both smelled and tasted pleasant... which meant that almost everything about it was probably artificially induced by the buzzing.

Any hunger he'd been feeling evaporated at the smell, at least, so there was that.

Thankfully, the production line wasn't too hard to sabotage. The pipes were relatively fragile things, made out of a thin metal that had clearly been hastily shaped for this purpose. He climbed to the top of the tanks, shoved as hard as he could, and they broke loose and dribbled their honey all over the tank lid.

And also his hands and knees. Serof winced with disgust. He'd need to wash himself thoroughly before eating anything after this. Thankfully, that was all he really needed to do—pushing the pipe into place behind the tank made the so-called honey drip into the drainage system behind, and with how dim the whole place was, his sabotage was barely even noticeable.

Phew. That had been remarkably easy, actually. Serof glanced around, half-expecting one of the other Observers to suddenly appear in the dark; when no one did, he made his way back to the "port" to wait for low tide. While he was there, he gingerly dipped his limbs into the water to scrub off as much of the honey as he could.

It was when he was done that he realized that something was wrong.

Or not... wrong, perhaps. Strange. The sun was still high, which meant that it wasn't even noon yet; his estimation of time had been way off. It looked like not even half the day had passed.

And yet the water level was going down.

Low tide wasn't supposed to happen until night. This was one of the few things Serof remembered very clearly, mostly because the Hunters that came to resupply their spellslates never stopped complaining about it. Something about the waters of the Endless Deep being much more intimidating beneath the light of the Dread Moon.

Except right now it was clearly still the middle of the day. It shouldn't have been time for low tide yet. The tides happened like clockwork, and as far as Serof knew, it had never been off for the last eight years.

Every two months, the Red Hunters arrived in the middle of the night, complaining about having to do so. This was a fact ingrained into him so deeply at this point that it felt wrong to consider that anything else might be true.

So what did it mean that it was off now?

Serof stared at the boats. He had no idea what to think of this. Did that mean he needed to leave now? Was there a reason the Red Hunters waited until night? Low tide was supposed to last six hours, but his sense of time was so off by this point that he barely knew what that meant.

He was pretty sure six hours wasn't enough time for it to be the middle of the night. This just seemed like the tide was a few hours off.

But why would the tide be a few hours off?

There had been no communication from the Red Hunters about this, so it was unlikely they were anticipating it. When Serof was scrying earlier, he hadn't noticed the usual team anywhere close by, and if they had been preparing to sail off they would at least have been in the vicinity. That would almost certainly screw with their plans—the tides being low now meant it would be rising again by the time the Red Hunters were in position.

It also meant he wouldn't need to worry about running into them while sailing back across, if he was quick about it. He might be able to escape into the mountains of Aersheld and find a way to a teleporter that could get him to the Brightscale Academy.

Whichever god did this... thank you, Serof said, bowing his head in a small prayer, feathery antennae dipping with him. Because who else could have done this? The tides shifting to help him couldn't be anything less than an omen from the gods. A sign of their favor.

After all, the only other thing that might shift the tides themselves was if someone had moved one of the moons, and the idea of that was ridiculous.

* * *

Sternkessel cocked his head. If he had eyes to narrow, he would have narrowed them; as it stood, he simply paused mid-sentence to stare into space, the rings of his head spinning silently for a moment.

"Sterny?" Cale poked him in the shoulder. "You were about to tell us about something you noticed."

"Sterny?" Sternkessel repeated, turning to stare at the human.

"I'm trying out nicknames! Not sure I like that one, though. Might have to try something else."

"I see," Sternkessel replied evenly, careful to avoid changing his expression. Mostly because keeping Cale guessing was developing into a remarkably interesting past-time. "Yes, well. What I was about to say was that I was aware of a third party presence disrupting my domain, but could not trace it. That, it appears, has changed."

Cale squinted at him. "Are you about to teleport away with no further explanation?"

Sternkessel chuckled. "I will be back in an hour or two," he said.

Then he reached up to spin one of the rings on his head and vanished.

Cale stared at the spot where he'd left.

"Well," he said eventually, shrugging. "I've got about an hour before the next class, so this is a perfect chance to test my new baking spell."

He beamed, then paused.

"Technically, I have to see what it evolves into first," he amended. "It might not be a baking spell. But it probably will be. Anyone coming? We should go fast, because Imrys is headed this way and I'm pretty sure she's looking for me."

I mean, the moon thing was definitely going to come back into play at some point.

Cale Fact: Cale has been to a couple of realms that are mostly covered in water! While sailing magic is typically very sophisticated in those realms, he mostly refers to get around by floating inside a barrier and propelling himself at ludicrous speeds. Once, after an arrogant captain stole the only piece of bread on board the ship from him, he proclaimed he could "swim faster than your funny boat anyway." He then extracted a rather humiliating promise from the captain should he prove he could, then proceeded to rocket off twice as fast as the ship's fastest speeds in a way only Cale would (which is to say, lying face down and ramrod straight in the water like a plank.)

[User]
Write Chapter 46 — Yeast
Target length: ~3400 words
Key events: level-up occurs, combat-heavy

[Assistant]
"Yeast," Cale said, very patiently.

Damien stared at him. The poor dreadshade looked like he was getting increasingly confused rather than enlightened, which, frankly, was a little insulting. This explanation had worked perfectly well with Vesuvius!

Although Cale supposed that Vesuvius hadn't actually had to worry about how yeast worked. It wasn't really necessary for the vision, and it was technically a vision. It operated on how they both understood the world. All Cale had needed to do was procure the ingredients, mix them in front of an increasingly fascinated elemental god, and then stick them in an oven.

Vesuvius had been both surprised and fascinated the fifth time he went through the process, when the dough rose and baked into a reasonably bread-looking loaf. He was familiar with his element burning things, charring things, and even with the general idea of cooking. What he apparently hadn't encountered yet—or hadn't paid much attention to—was baking, where the application of heat transformed raw dough into a different product entirely.

That was when he'd really gotten invested. Cale sighed wistfully; that had been a good few hours of baking. He'd have to find a way to repair the artifact quickly and get another one of those visions... although that meant he'd have to confront Imrys, and he did technically run away from her earlier.

Damien, who had no real way of realizing that Cale was in the middle of a nostalgic reverie, cut through his thoughts. "Yeast?" he asked helplessly.

"What? Oh. Yes. Yeast." Cale nodded distractedly.

"I don't... um... I don't know what you want me to do with that," Damien said.

There was a small jar sitting on the table between them. As far as Cale was concerned, the jar was just the starting point. It had been a long time since he'd had a good loaf of sourdough bread, and while he could technically get Alina to bake one for him the normal way, it just wasn't the same for him if it wasn't made from start to end with magic.

And now he had that magic. Sort of. He still needed to actually evolve the spell, but first he needed to get all the ingredients together, and he had to make his own starter. Cale had ended up running all over the academy grounds just to collect everything he needed.

Which was the following: a jar from Syphus (who had a jar collection, for some reason); several types of flour from Alina (who was very interested, but unfortunately busy trying to tame her mandrake root); water from Flia (who chased him back out of her room immediately after, muttering something about almost having it); and space from Imrys (which he had only acquired after promising to cast the next [Awaken Artifact] with her present.)

Now all he needed to do was to get Damien to accelerate the process of making the starter. Decay mana was closely related to fungal mana! All Damien needed to do was use his magic to accelerate the growth of the yeast in the air while he fed it various types of flour...

...Hm. Now that he thought about it, Damien would probably be a lot less confused if he'd said all of this out loud. He sort of assumed he had, but thinking back, he was pretty sure he'd actually just stared intently at his apprentice and then said the word "yeast."

"Damien," Cale said. "Did I ask you to make some yeast, or did I just stare at you and then say the word yeast?"

"The, um... definitely the second one," Damien said awkwardly. "You wanted me to make yeast? How do I even... shouldn't we talk about, you know, everything that just happened?"

"What?" Cale asked blankly. "Oh, you mean with our fire resonance class? I mean, we can't just run off to Haelforge to solve their problems. Professor Delia seems like she has it handled, and they have an alchemist that knows how to alleviate the symptoms of shimmerdust poisoning. Imrys already said she'd help fix the Firestorm Scale. I feel like everything resolved pretty neatly."

Damien stared at him. "First of all, they didn't," he said. "We have those... those fly things all over the academy! We have to do something about them!"

"If we did, they'd know we're on to them," Cale said reasonably. "What we should do is find out where they're coming from and destroy the source artifact before they can hide it. Which Sternkessel is doing, so I think we get to focus on baking."

Damien sighed. "And second, I was talking about our History of the Great Realms class," he said. "You know, the class we just had, where you took over the professor and started lecturing the class instead? Three students fainted, one of them somehow discovered a new spell, and I'm pretty sure you gave the professor nosebleeds for several different reasons."

Cale paused, frowning. That had been... a pretty normal class, it felt like. Certainly less eventful than most of his other classes had been. "What's there to talk about?"

"Everything!" Damien gestured wildly, then groaned at Cale's blank expression. "You can't just completely overturn centuries of..."

The dreadshade trailed off and sighed. "Nevermind. You're going to do it no matter what I say, aren't you?"

Cale shot Damien an offended look. "The textbook was wrong. And rude! I wasn't just going to let my friends be slandered. K'xoarcl might have a mouth in its exposed brains, but it also has feelings."

He paused. "Twice as much feeling per feeling, actually," he added. "We checked. Mathematically sound. It really messed up the utilitarians in that realm for a bit."

"I think if I question that I'm going to end up the same way our professor did," Damien muttered to himself. "Okay, um... just nevermind all that, then. I do have something I need to talk to you about, but that can wait until Syphus gets here again. I don't think I should let people overhear me. Especially if those fly things are around."

Cale shot him a curious look at that, but shrugged, choosing not to question it. "So, you'll help me?" he asked brightly.

Damien hesitated. "What did you want me to do? You wanted me to make yeast?"

"Fungal magic is closely related to decay magic," Cale explained. "All you need to do is figure out some sort of decay spell that accelerates the growth of yeast in this jar while I feed it."

Damien stared doubtfully at the various packs of flour Cale had brought with him. "Are you sure that's how you're supposed to make... whatever this is?" he asked. "Decay isn't usually something I would want to mix with food..."

Cale shrugged. "Mostly!" he said, beaming. "Technically you're just supposed to feed the starter with one type of flour, but I figure we can mix it up. Give the yeast a nice, varied diet. Enrichment, you know?"

"I don't think that's how that works," Damien said hesitantly.

"It'll be fine." Cale waved off his concerns. "Just hit the jar with a [Decay Bolt] or something. It should kickstart the whole process."

"We're not starting with [Decay Bolt]," Damien protested immediately. "That's just a full decay effect! It would make it rot!"

Cale paused. "Good point. What about [Yeast Bolt]?"

"I would have suggested that already if I had it," Damien mumbled. "I don't know how to make one."

"Would be a great time to try!" Cale gave him a friendly grin. "You never know what you're capable of. Besides, think about it—you'd be proving that you can use decay mana for much more than just death and rot. You'd be able to use it for baking. Which is kind of like healing, if you think about it."

"You lost me at that last part," Damien said, though he couldn't help but smile slightly. "But yeah, I guess... I guess that would be nice."

* * *

Damien stared at the jar and hesitated, feeling slightly ridiculous. There was no reason to feel nervous about his ability to follow through on Cale's absurd plan—especially since he was pretty sure Cale wouldn't blame him if he failed—but the guy was so sincerely excited about it that Damien just didn't want to disappoint him.

That and he was liable to come up with something even more worrying if this whole thing with decay mana didn't work out. Damien wasn't sure which one was worse. After everything Cale had helped him with, though, this seemed like a minor favor to return in comparison.

He just had to figure out how exactly he was supposed to do this. Safely. As powerful as Cale was, he wasn't invulnerable, and one of the few secrets he had been concerningly open about was the fact that he was still vulnerable to most non-magical kinds of poison.

Damien really didn't want his only effective mentor-slash-friend to die of food poisoning before they got to understanding his new mana aspect. Or after, for that matter.

Or ever, preferably, but from what Cale had said...

Damien studiously avoided thinking about that by engaging the one defense mechanism he'd practiced thoroughly with: changing the subject he was dwelling on. He still hadn't gotten the chance to talk to Cale about his new [Legacy of the Verdant Flame]; Syphus had been in a bit of a rush when they were meeting with it earlier, but had promised to meet them "soon." Damien was only willing to talk about this with Syphus in the room, especially now that he knew that the Red Hunters were apparently constantly watching them.

He could still think about it, though. He might even be able to cast Verdant Flame spells—if the Red Hunters hadn't already detected its emergence when he placed his mana on the Firestorm Scale, then they weren't likely to be watching closely enough to notice when he cast a second time. The only question was whether the Verdant Flame would help him with this whole yeast thing.

Cale wasn't wrong. Decay magic was closely tied to fungal magic. The few times his decay mana had grown out of control, he'd seen all sorts of strange types of fungi growing on everything it touched.

Mostly mushrooms. Really, really weird mushrooms.

Now that he thought about it, Damien realized he'd developed a bit of a fear of mushrooms. No wonder he felt so uncomfortable in the cafeteria... not to mention that one enormous myconid he shared Magical History lessons with.

"And here I thought it was because of the whole psychic link thing," Damien mumbled to himself.

Cale gave him a strange look. "What?"

Damien jumped. "Oh! N-nothing. Um, I was just realizing I kind of have a fear of mushrooms?"

"You do?" Cale blinked, and then a look of understanding dawned in his eyes. "Oh. Yeah, no, that makes sense, actually. Are you sure you want to do this?"

"Yes," Damien said quickly, because the only thing worse than the idea of failing to do this was the idea of not even trying. "Just give me a minute, I need to decide if... um, I need to decide on something."

He needed to decide if the Verdant Flame would help him with this.

As far as he understood—and he didn't understand much—the Verdant Flame embodied the relationship between fire and decay. More specifically, however, Damien was pretty sure embodied the cycle of decay. In the same way that decay was an abstract representation of entropy and death, the Verdant Flame was an abstract representation of the movement of life. Of one living thing making way for another.

Yeast was kind of like that, wasn't it? Damien wasn't all that familiar with what it did, but the basic idea of it had been covered in Magical Plagues: yeast was present basically everywhere, and the vast majority of subspecies weren't magical in the slightest. The few that were rarely affected any living species. Instead, they evolved to feed on specific magical plants when they died, eating away at the defensive mana to allow the natural process of decomposition to take place.

Damien was pretty sure he could work with that.

He drew on his mana, hesitated for a moment, then began trying to attune it to the aspect of the Verdant Flame. His eyes widened—the process felt almost easy. Most of the time, trying to attune his mana made him feel like he was pushing up against a massive wall of stone; even when Cale had helped him make the process easier, it felt like... trying to roll Syphus up a hill or something.

But attuning to the Verdant Flame was different. There was still resistance, far less, like he was opening a door rather than trying to force something impossible. His Manamorphic Cloak fluttered beneath his shoulders as he focused, attempting to draw on his mana, but he quieted it with a small effort of will. He didn't need it to separate his mana for now.

Strangely enough, Damien thought he felt a hint of... reluctance? Annoyance? He wasn't sure, but it felt like the cloak had responded with something. Still, it obeyed, releasing its grasp on the mana he was trying to attune.

And soon after that, Damien finally had a fistful of Verdant Flame mana in his core.

Attuning to the Verdant Flame was costly, he noted distantly. It was easier for him to attune by far, but it took a lot of decay mana to produce even a single unit of Verdant Flame mana. Why that was he couldn't be sure, but Damien suspected it had something to do with it being a Legacy.

It didn't matter for now. Once he had the Verdant Flame mana, he could...

Damien paused. He didn't actually know how to make a spell.

"Um," he said. "How do mages normally... make spells?"

Cale raised an eyebrow. "If you want to know how spell constructs are made we're going to be here a while," he said. "And frankly I don't know all the details myself. Construct creation is quite literally an art that takes centuries to master."

"Oh," Damien said.

"But!" Cale continued cheerfully. "Spell constructs are technically just a way to make sure a spell effect is repeatable. Normally a mage manages a spell effect and then spends years studying it to break it down into a construct; the Gift is a shortcut for that part of the process. So all you really need to do is figure out a way to make the mana do what you want."

"But... how do I do that?" Damien asked helplessly. Cale grinned at him.

"You just gotta try," he said, and then when Damien gave him a despairing look, he laughed. "It's a lot easier than it sounds, I promise," he said. "Magic wants to be cast. Do you know what the earliest forms of magic were? They weren't spells cast through wands—that's a recent development, for a relative value of 'recent.' It happened because mages needed ways to cast spells immediately.

"In a lot of ways, that modern version of magic is better, but if it solved everything then rituals and all that would be obsolete. And I'm sure you've noticed this already, but it very much isn't." Cale smiled, extending a thin barrier from his hand as though it were a wand. "Rituals are needed for some of the strongest magics out there. You've seen what domains can do. Now, what's one form of magic we haven't dealt with yet?"

Damien hesitated. "Incantations?" he guessed.

"Exactly!" Cale beamed proudly at him, clapping a hand on his shoulder, and Damien did his best to suppress the glow of pride from within. Mostly because he wasn't really sure what to do with anyone being proud of him. Or him being proud of himself, for that matter. "Magic wants to be cast. Incantations are one of the best ways to persuade it to do that. Just like praying to the Gift, for example."

"So... I should try an incantation," Damien said slowly, and Cale nodded at him.

"Try to shape your mana in a way that feels right for what you want it to do," he said encouragingly. He took Damien's wrist and guided it to the edge of the jar, just over the water-flour mixture inside. "Then whisper your incantation. It might take a few tries, but don't worry if it fails."

"A-alright," Damien said. He felt a little foolish, but he did it anyway, extending his new Verdant Flame mana into a thin little rod that extended into the mixture.

Cale's eyes widened slightly at the pale, flickering green flame that extended from Damien's fingers, but he said nothing. Instead, his gaze somehow became intent. Damien looked up for just a moment, caught the conflict in his eyes, a flicker of something old and heavy he couldn't understand.

And along with that, something seemed to change. The rest of the room faded away, leaving only Damien, the jar, and Cale Cadwell Cobbs. He could feel the mana in the room gathering around them, almost like it was holding its breath and waiting for him. Waiting for...

Waiting for the creation of a spell.

Damien thought it would be difficult to find the words, but instead, the words came to him naturally and seemed almost to reverberate into the mana itself:

O driver of cycles within the air: you who seeds civilizations, the ever-present, the spore-eternal

Feast now upon your gods-given fare: an offering given for a harvest yet to be, now-ethereal

Something seemed to flood through Damien, a pattern that was familiar and then suddenly different. The Gift curled around him in reaction—no, in anticipation. Excitement? His cloak fluttered behind him, seeming to sense the change in energy.

[Decay Bolt] has evolved into [Yeast Bolt]!

Damien stared. He'd almost forgotten that all of this was about encouraging yeast to grow in the jar.

[Yeast Bolt, Level 1] [Second Tier (Unique), Active] [500 Mana]

An application of the Verdant Flame, this spell encourages the growth of yeast and other microorganisms that contribute to the taste profile of sourdough bread. This spell will forever be known as the first of the Legacy of the Verdant Flame.

"Um," Damien said. "I think the Gift might be making fun of me."

"We definitely need to talk about that," Cale said, sounding distracted. Damien glanced over to find his mentor busy dumping pinches of flour into a now-frothing mixture of flour and water. "And about how you know about incantation rules. After we deal with this, though! We need to make sure we don't ruin the starter. Quick, help me dump more flour into this—"

Syphus's dry voice echoed into the room, making them both jump. "I would ask if I arrived at a bad time, but I'm not sure any timing would explain this," the golem said. "Lucky for you both, I don't care as long as Cale turns my arm into a cannon later. What was it you wanted to tell us, Damien?"

"Um," Damien said. "It's about... I think it's about a new mana aspect? Kind of? The Gift said it was something called a Legacy—"

"Oh?" Syphus seemed suddenly very interested. It rolled all the way up to him and peered at him closely. "You've discovered a new mana aspect, have you? How interesting."

"Sisyphus, stop taking over Syphus without asking," Cale said without looking up. "Also, come help me dump flour into this jar! The yeast is hungry!"

Syphus—or Sisyphus? Damien was deeply confused about this—sighed and straightened. "You know, I did think you would be as difficult to locate as the legends say... but I did not think you would be difficult to predict as well."

"Less talking, more flour-bending, or I'm going to make sure the next time Syphus conjures sand it's going to show up on top of you."

"...The fact that I believe you troubles me greatly." Syphus's golem body shuddered before moving to help.

Damien just stared at them both.

Then he mechanically grabbed some flour and started helping with the flour thing. It seemed easier than questioning whatever this was.

No, I regret nothing about the chapter title and how this chapter starts, why do you ask?

Magical Fun Fact: Normally making up incantations like that with no supervision is a terrible idea! But Damien had supervision. Technically. Cale counts as supervision. He even did a babysitting gig once! No, he was not asked to return.

[User]
Write Chapter 47 — Baking Bread, Pt 1
Target length: ~4200 words

[Assistant]
Cale, Damien, and the golem that was definitely still Sisyphus inhabiting Syphus's body all stared at what was now seven jars of sourdough starter sitting in front of them.

"Um... do we really need this much of it?" Damien asked awkwardly. "Also, I feel like you shouldn't put this into food? Not to downplay our efforts down or anything. I just also don't want you to die."

Cale scoffed. "I'm not going to die."

Then he paused, staring critically at the jars sitting in front of him. "...but just in case, what did the Gift say again?" he asked. "It specified that the spell encourages the growth of sourdough-specific microorganisms, right? Nothing about, I don't know, magic yeast?"

"Definitely nothing about magic yeast," Damien said, sounding slightly worried. "...Is magic yeast something I need to start worrying about?"

"Probably not!" Cale said cheerfully. "What about the rest?"

"It does technically specify sourdough," Damien agreed, although he seemed reluctant to do so. Honestly, it was like he was expecting him to use that agreement as an excuse to dismiss his concerns about the starter. Cale would have been offended if he hadn't been planning on doing exactly that.

"Then we'll be fine!" he said cheerfully. "Worst case, we get Nala to taste it. I'm sure she still wants whatever it is she wanted you guys for yesterday. We can just trade that for some help with the taste testing. And since the end result will be great, it's really just a win for her."

"I feel like there are a lot of assumptions in what you just said, and also—" Damien waved a hand helplessly toward the jars. "I'm pretty sure the fact that the starter is glowing and trying to talk is a bad sign!"

"It's not trying to talk," Cale said, wrinkling his nose and giving the jars another once-over. The liquid in one of them responded with an encouraging burble, making him blink. "Er, probably. They're probably not trying to talk. I'm assuming the burbling is just a side effect of all the magic flour I dumped in there."

"Magic—" Damien cut himself off with a groan. "Why did you feel it magic flour? Where did you even get magic flour? No, don't answer that, I know where you got it. Better question: Why did Auntie Alina give you magic flour?"

"Because she wanted to know what would happen!" Cale said with a grin. "I promised to tell her. She would've joined us but she was busy with the mandrake stuff. You were there, remember?"

"I sort of tuned it out after you started talking about how she gets her ingredients," Damien mumbled, his face turning a little red. He rubbed at his temples, staring at the jars again with concern. "Shouldn't our first attempt at this be to make... I don't know, normal bread?"

"What would be the point in that?" Cale gave Damien a blank, puzzled stare. "I've had normal bread. Don't get me wrong, the point of this is the baking magic and not the bread, but I mean, so much of baking magic is an unexplored frontier. Magic bread could be a whole new class of magic, you know."

He paused thoughtfully. "Even if all it does is glow," he added. "I'd call glowing bread a success, really. We could use it as a nightlamp."

"Please do not use a loaf of bread as a nightlamp." Damien muttered something to himself about throwing it out before Cale noticed, to which Cale put on an expression of mock offense. "I'm just saying, doing so many things different for our first loaf seems risky. We don't even know what's going to happen with your spell."

"You have a point there," Cale admitted. "Don't worry, the glowing is secondary. I mostly just want to see what happens first. If there's going to be a bad reaction, I'd rather it happen to an experimental loaf than a real one, you know?"

"That... makes a weird amount of sense." Damien didn't quite seem to know what to do with that fact. He sighed. "Alright. Um, what's next?"

"Well, it's time to get the dough ready, of course." Cale grinned. "Syphus, did you get the stuff?"

"It did indeed," Sisyphus answered dryly for his golem. He reached into Syphus's storage space to withdraw some oil, salt, a bag of flour, and a jar of water, ready to be mixed into dough. Then he glanced at Cale curiously. "I confess I have encountered few mages with such a proclivity for magical baking, of all things. What exactly are you expecting this magic to do?"

"You've never met a bread mage?" Cale asked, raising an eyebrow. "I find it hard to believe that one of the Named hasn't met a bread mage... although come to think of it, I guess you wouldn't have had much of a chance."

Sisyphus shot Cale a withering look. "Enlighten me," he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

Cale eyed him for a moment. "Wow that expression looks out of place on Syphus," he muttered. "Bread mages specialize in baking magic. They technically do all baked goods, not just bread, but apparently 'bread mage' sounded better than most of their other options."

"And you admire them because..." Sisyphus trailed off, somehow managing to give Cale an impression of a raised eyebrow.

"Because baking is the pinnacle of magic, obviously," Cale said. He glanced up to find both Sisyphus and Damien staring at him, one skeptical and the other mostly confused, and sighed. "You don't believe me, do you?"

"It's, um..." Damien hesitated. "It's a bit hard to believe?"

Cale clicked his tongue. "Mages these days," he muttered, shaking his head. Then he eyed the two of them again, wondering if he should take the time to explain. In his experience, explaining rarely helped, but then he was intending to spend the foreseeable future around them.

He dumped the ingredients together in a bowl and began to mix it all together, feeling the dough take shape beneath his fingers. He'd missed this. There was something relaxing about the process of baking, even without magic behind it. It was the magic he found special, but it was hard to love the magic without developing some fondness for the act itself.

"Alright," he said. Hopefully he wasn't going to regret this—explaining involved some memories he really would have preferred not to touch. "Like I said, baking is the pinnacle of magic, and I'm not just saying that. Mana aspects embody different concepts, right? And through those aspects, all things are possible. Magic is like a map to reality, and mana aspects are the roads.

"Now think of baking magic like a blindspot," he said. "A hole in the map. You know where the hole is, and if you're very clever, you can figure out the shape of the hole... but you can't get around the fact that the hole is there. That's kind of what baking magic is. Spells that poke at the shape of that hole, trying to identify its borders."

Cale made a face. "Though it's a lot more complicated than that, obviously," he said. "For one thing, it's not a two-dimensional hole, it's a gap in magic encompassing the platonic ideal of bread. The closer you get to bread, the more complex magic gets. Fun fact, actually: did you know there's no [Conjure Bread] spell? They're supposed to be impossible.

"Related fun fact: it's way harder to conjure, say, an illusion of bread than it is literally anything else. It's a great way to figure out if you're trapped in an illusion." Cale grinned. "You have no idea how many illusion spells my love for baking magic has gotten me out of. Or how angry dark lords get when they find out you broke out of their trap because their illusion specialist couldn't conjure bread."

Damien stared at him. "That's... really weird?"

"It's really cool, is what it is!" Cale grinned at the dreadshade, entirely unrepentant. "Believe it or not, that same property is what makes baking magic exceptionally dangerous. If you aren't careful, it can and will override a lot of standard magical defenses. The only reason more people don't use it is because it sounds ridiculous at first glance, and also because it's very hard to learn compared to most magics. Most realms don't ever get to realizing it can be used offensively."

Over to the side, Sisyphus made a noise of understanding. "Hence your interest," he said. "You wish for the power that this baking magic could grant you."

Cale blinked. "Uh, no," he said. "It's just cool. It's the frontier of magic! No matter what realm you go to, no matter how advanced they are, baking magic is always the one thing they haven't completely figured out. There's always new spells, and they're always increasingly complex." He sniffed. "It's beautiful."

Sisyphus stared at him like he was at a loss for words. Damien, on the other hand, looked contemplative.

"So there are holes in what magic can do?" he asked timidly. "Like, um, aspects that stopped existing or something?"

"I mean, that's not exactly what baking magic is," Cale said. "As far as I know, a bread aspect has never existed. I think. But yes, technically magic can have holes in it. Why?"

"It's related to the thing I got," Damien mumbled. Cale's brows furrowed slightly at how reticent the dreadshade was suddenly being—was the poor guy nervous about Sisyphus's presence or something? "Is it... good? If your magic is like that?"

"It can be," Cale said. He eyed Damien for a long moment. Was Damien's new aspect something like that? That would be worrying for a number of different reasons. Come to think of it, he'd called it a Legacy, and Cale hadn't heard that term in connection with an aspect before.

He considered things for a moment, then sighed. He really hadn't wanted to go into this, but if Damien was having doubts...

"There is a special property of magic like this," Cale said after a moment. "How much do you know about how directly opposing magical effects behave? We've seen a bit of this already, if you remember—like when an artifact capable of attuning all mana aspects encounters an aspect that can't be attuned."

Damien looked briefly confused, but answered anyway. "The mana doesn't get attuned," he said. "Some effects are stronger?"

"Some effects override others," Cale corrected. "Technically it's a pretty complex interaction—it depends on the type of magic being used, the mana aspects involved, the strength of the spells, all sorts of things. But there is one deciding factor that matters more than the rest. Some realms call it the Tyranny of Divinity."

"It has to do with the gods?" Damien asked, the poor dreadshade looking more confused than ever.

At the side, leaning against a wall, Sisyphus shook his head. "No," he said, looking at Cale with interest. "The Tyranny of Divinity refers to the fact that at certain stages of core development, your spells become more real than everyone else's. A minor or major divinity can cast a [Fireball] that burns even a [Shield of Water], for example."

"Exactly," Cale said. "And at the pinnacle of that hierarchy stands the Monoliths... although I guess you don't really know what those are yet." Cale frowned for a moment, then shrugged. "Eh, you'll be an archmage soon enough."

Damien made a strangled noise. Cale ignored it.

"Monoliths are each an embodiment of a crucial function of the Great Realms and of magic itself," Cale said. "No magic, mortal or divine, surpasses them. In some realms, they're known as Pillars or Laws; if you find any old texts regarding those, they're talking about the Monoliths. If a Monolith casts a [Fireball] at you, it doesn't matter how good your [Perfect Reflection] is or if you're a fire elemental with perfect immunity to fire. You will be incinerated. Their spell effect is so 'real,' so to speak, that it overrides anything else. With me so far?"

"I wish I wasn't," Damien said, his eyes wide. "T-that sounds terrifying. How are we supposed to fight something like that?"

"You don't," Cale said dryly. "Never fight a Monolith. If you somehow piss one of them off, I recommend you run away as fast as possible. Preferably in my general direction. But I doubt you'll anger them; they are, by nature, pretty fixated on whatever Law they embody."

He smiled at Damien. "You know one of them, even," he added helpfully. "I mean, sort of. The Leviathan is a Monolith, and she's never hurt any of you, even though you've been near Flia's puddles constantly."

If anything, that just made Damien turn even more pale. The dreadshade made a distressed sort of noise, swallowed, and tried his best to look like he wasn't in the middle of a panic attack. "Okay," he said. "Um, what does this have to do with... the holes in magic?"

"It's context," Cale said, drumming his fingers on the table. The dough he was mixing was mostly done and just needed to rest now; he'd forgotten how much waiting was involved in the whole baking process. "You need to understand: the Tyranny is supposed to be absolute. But nothing is ever perfectly absolute, and where there are holes in magic, the rules can bend."

He glanced at Damien, something in his expression dimming slightly. "Once," he said. "there was a brave little mage that wanted to save her realm in the middle of a war. A Monolith sought to destroy her and her realm, you see, but she couldn't bear to see a single other soul die. The only problem? She didn't know any defensive magic. Or offensive magic. She was a simple bread mage, and her followers came to her for food, not shelter.

"Yet when the gaze of the Monolith fell on her realm, she did her best to defend it." Cale sighed, looking off into the distance. "The Tyranny was in full effect: a Monolith's spell tore at her realm, and though she was strong, she wasn't strong enough. She was a major divinity, nowhere close to a Monolith. It shouldn't have worked."

Damien stared at him. "But—but it did?" he asked quietly, his voice soft and hopeful.

"But it did," Cale said. He gave his apprentice a small, tired smile. "She took out a fresh tray, cast [Enlarge Bread], [Fortify Bread], [Refreshing Loaf], [Baker's Heart]... You should have seen the look on that Monolith's face. A stubborn little bread god standing up against a pillar of the Realms, and she stopped him, just for a second, with a giant brioche bun."

Cale snickered a bit, though even now it felt a touch forced. He sighed. "That woman and her spell is the only reason her realm still stands," he said. "She slowed him down by stopping his first spell. It should have been impossible, but she did it. And that kept him there just long enough for me to catch up."

Damien stared at him. "You were there," he said. "You say that like—you say that like you fought—"

Cale winced. "I don't suppose you can pretend you never heard that bit?" he asked hopefully, and when Damien just kept staring, he let out a long breath. "Yeah, I figured as much."

A moment of hesitation.

"Yes," he answered. "There was... a war. A long time ago. A war that most of the Great Realms no longer remember. I prefer not to think about it or talk about it, but it's hard to talk about this without getting into it at least a little." Cale let out a rueful chuckle. "Long story short, everyone took sides. The Monoliths, the Named—everyone. It was the single greatest war that ever struck the Great Realms, and far too many people died for its cause."

"And you were there," Damien said softly. His eyes widened as realization struck him. "You... you said you're just reborn in a different realm every time you die. Were you... were you trapped?"

"I would really rather not talk about it," Cale said, glancing away. "I'll tell you this much. The Monolith's name was Kismet. He was the Second Monolith, the Law of What Must Be, and it was his duty to bring all worlds together when the time came. Something went wrong. We still don't know what, but for the first time, ever, one of his prophecies failed, and the Realms began to end.

"Until that day, we didn't know what would happen if a Monolith broke their own Law. We didn't even know it was possible. Turns out it is, and when it happens, the Monolith goes berserk and does everything they can to enforce their Law. In Kismet's case, he had to bring the realms together, no matter what it took or who he sacrificed.

"We couldn't keep up with him." Cale clenched his fists. "He was the Monolith of Fate. He knew where we would be and everything we were going to try to do, so we were always one step behind. Until the realm of Telvass, where a brave little god did something that should never have worked, and lost her life in the process."

Cale fell silent, and for a moment, no one spoke.

"What was her name?" Damien asked quietly.

"Pumpernickel." Cale gave his apprentice a slight smile. "Not many remember her, but I do. It's a good name for a god of baking."

"It is," Damien agreed soflty. "I'll, um. I'll try to remember her too."

"You don't have to do that," Cale said, this time with a smile that was a little more real. He dragged Damien closer so he could ruffle his not-quite-hair, ignoring the yelp of protest and the way the cloak he wore fluttered dramatically. "But I appreciate it. I'm sure she would have, too.

"Anyway!" Cale straightened. "Does that answer your question?"

"I think it does," Damien said. "Thank you. Um... I guess I should tell you why I was asking."

He took a deep breath. "When I put my mana on that scale, the Gift gave me a new spell. [Legacy of the Verdant Flame]."

Cale's breath caught.

"It said it was a reforged aspect, so I thought maybe..." Damien trailed off as he noticed the way Cale was gripping the table. "U-um, did I do something wrong? Do you know something about this?"

"No, you didn't, and yes, I do." Cale took a deep breath, forcing himself to unclench his fingers and doing his best to give Damien an encouraging smile. "Keep going. I'll explain what I can once you're done."

* * *

Serof made it across the Endless Deep and to the shores of the Aersheld continent without incident, which was starting to worry him. One thing going his way was... well, it was one thing. But multiple things in a row, repeatedly, without any complications?

That felt like either the hand of fate or a trap.

Possibly both.

Everything around him was remarkably silent, which only served to make him more nervous. He'd been living with a buzzing in his skull for the past eight years. That the shores here didn't have the sounds of even the bugs or animals around was bizarre.

Serof frowned.

Too bizarre. He should at least have been able to hear the sound of the waves crashing against the shore, but even the sound of that had faded away. That shouldn't have been possible. He turned to glance at the waves—

—or, well, he tried. Serof found himself frozen in place, and realized almost immediately what had happened.

One of the other Observers had spotted him.

He cursed. Of course there would be an Observer surveying the site before the Red Hunter team was meant to make their way across the shore—just because the Hunters themselves weren't there yet didn't mean their Observer wasn't keeping an eye on things, and if they were keeping an eye on things, then their ichorworm could freeze him in place until the Hunters came to investigate. Whichever Observer it was had no doubt already alerted their team, which meant—

—it meant he'd failed. He'd been caught. Serof's heart hammered in his chest, and he stared at the open skies with a sort of desperate longing. How long had it been since he'd seen the sky through anything except a vision? To be caught right on the verge of freedom felt like a mockery of his efforts.

But he couldn't just do nothing. The Observer would be able to see and hear him. Maybe he could try to convince them he belonged?

"I'm supposed to be here," Serof lied. "I'm Observer #27, remember? I was given leave to investigate a disturbance with my ichorworm."

He winced almost as soon as he said it, though the spell that bound him kept the wince from being noticeable. No Observer would ever be given leave to investigate things themselves—that was the whole point of the Hunter teams they were assigned.

"Let me go," he said, feigning impatience. "There's only a six hour window until I can return. If you waste my time, I'll be stuck outside the Hive."

Serof had no way of knowing what the Observer watching him thought of all this, obviously, but he thought he could feel hesitation. That, or he was imagining things.

He was probably imagining things. He didn't have any magic that could reach through to people that were scrying on him.

Still... no, it did feel like his feet were a little looser. He wasn't being held so firmly in the ichorworm's grip. Serof pushed against it, trying to free himself, and saw himself slowly inching one step forward—

—only to suddenly freeze in place again. Serof grimaced. The Observer had changed their minds, then. Or they'd managed to contact someone that had commanded he be kept in place. Serof's mind raced, trying to think of any way out of this, but there was nothing he could do. He specialized in scrying magic, for crying out loud! It was the least defensive magic there was.

"Ah, there it is," a smooth voice spoke from behind him, and Serof suddenly found himself stumbling forward, free from the ichorworm's grasp. He turned around, his eyes widening, and then tried to process what he was looking at.

An... immaculately dressed gentleman with rings for a head? And a very pretty light glowing within those rings.

Serof immediately smacked down his moth instincts. Bad. That's not a lamp.

"Thank you," he said cautiously. He kept himself tense and ready to run, just in case this man was with the Red Hunters, though he couldn't imagine one of the Hunters would destroy an ichorworm. "Um—Who are you?"

"Ah, I am Professor Sternkessel of the Kazix Brightscale Academy of the Attuned Arts." The strange man dipped his sort-of-head toward him in a bow. Serof got the strange, impossible sense that he was being smiled at. "I was investigating the mage that was scrying on the Elemental Shrine of Fire. You wouldn't happen to know who that is, would you?"

"That—it was me," Serof blurted. "But I wasn't doing it by choice! You have to believe me. Please, we need to get out of here before—"

Sternkessel sighed. "Unfortunately, it does appear that more of these things are converging on this location," he said, flicking the dead ichorworm to Serof, who caught it with a yelp. "And it appears a secondary spatial spell has activated. How... inconvenient. You wouldn't happen to know a way out of this, would you?"

Serof stared at him, his heart hammering again, but did his best not to panic. The Brightscale professors were all monsters, weren't they? He had help now. He wasn't alone. He wracked his head, trying to figure out what that "secondary spatial spell" might be.

"One of the spellslates activates a spatial cube trap," Serof said suddenly, and now he was terrified all over again. Their surroundings were beginning to fade, replaced by what appeared to be a labyrinth made out of dark, glimmering crystal. "That might be it. But there isn't—there isn't a way out of those."

"Fascinating," Professor Sternkessel said, and now he sounded amused, for some reason. "Perhaps I can convince Cale to allow me to perform a study on that Thread of Fate of his. I would call it a convenient tool, but from what he has said... well, it appears to have a history of causing innumerable tragedy, as well."

"That's ominous," Serof said. "Is that ominous? You said that like it was supposed to be reassuring, but it was definitely ominous."

Sternkessel chuckled. "We simply have to ensure this is not one of the occasions that lead to tragedy," he said simply. He whipped out a hand, and a long cane extended out of it, tapping against the ground. "Shall we? We only have so much time before your Red Hunters arrive, and I would hate to disappoint Cale by necessitating a rescue."

And we finally get to the baking magic!

Cale Fact: Cale has, in fact, absolutely died from eating bread that was not for human consumption at least once. He did technically survive the first round, but stole a second loaf. To this day he maintains that it was worth it.