Brockton Bays Marvelous Mage

I spent about an hour growing my new living space, starting from a single ritualized acorn and ending up with a massive towering oak with a thick, overgrown base. I considered trying to camouflage the base a bit better, but it was a lost cause. Between the ritual platform, which was only a dozen or so feet away, and the plans to grow more buildings later, there was really no disguising the compound from the ground. I would just have to rely on my redirecting magic for people coming from the ground and the dense canopy to hide us from the sky.

The final result of my efforts was a pleasant, if a bit small, living space, complete with a wooden bedframe, furniture, some shelves, and other storage. It felt a bit basement-like, with no windows and only one short stairway leading up and out, but I was fine with that. The room was really only to sleep in, as the general design of the compound was outdoor-focused, and only when I wasn't sleeping in the community. I realized, rather embarrassingly, that I had no reason to pick a location and declare it my only sleeping spot. I could choose to sleep wherever was more convenient, bouncing between here and the Docks as necessary.

Along the outside of the living space, I grew what would eventually become a private outdoor shower. I was pretty sure I could ritualize a wooden vessel to pull in moisture from the air to fill it up, as well as keep the water clean and warm. Unfortunately, while I wanted to do that now, I didn't have the time. Time was running out to take advantage of the new moon, and I wasn't about to let an opportunity like that pass by.

In rituals, material sacrifices ranged from everyday objects to rare, priceless ingredients. Basically, rituals create an effect, either connected to a location, person, or item, and a material sacrifice stabilizes it, making it permanent or sometimes strengthening the effect. You could also tie a location or events going on around it to a ritual as another stabilizer. Material stabilizers came in all sorts of shapes and sizes, and sometimes, you wanted a stabilizer that couldn't normally be gathered or contained by mundane means.

I knew this for a fact because my knowledge of druidcraft, which contained a dozen or so rituals to enhance plants and harvests, had a ritual that required "the first sunlight of spring," as a sacrifice material. As far as an abstract, unobtainable concept, sunlight that shone on a specific day was pretty high up there. Contemplating the material showed me that the ritual could be done on the first day of spring, just as the sun was rising, or I could use a small glass vessel that contained a slight glow inside, with a single drop of dew hanging from the stopper.

So I knew gathering stuff like that was possible. On top of that, because of a connection through that knowledge to the ritual design and crafting subject, I could even sense quite a bit of information about how a material stored like that could be useful.

The problem was that as useful as such a storage method could be, I had no idea how to make them. The vial, which my knowledge insisted was responsible for the state of the esoteric ingredient, was a complete mystery to me.

The fact that it wasn't etched with symbols meant it was unlikely to be enchanted, and while its ability to trap otherwise ethereal ingredients could be due to what it was made of, I had to hope and pray it came down to a ritual. The fact that such a crucial material-gathering item wasn't covered by the "crafting " portion of my ritual knowledge meant that it could just be more advanced than I had easy access to.

I grabbed one of the vials from storage and sat down by the ritual platform, flipping through my notebook before eventually starting the design process. I had a feeling that the process would end up being a complicated ritual, since holding onto something that was inherently ethereal or conceptual couldn't be a simple task.

I spent an hour and some change working on the design, brainstorming ideas and potential solutions, before taking a short break to eat some lunch and drink some coffee. Before I started the design process again, I spent some time building a boardwalk-like platform around the living space tree, eventually connecting it to the ritual platform. When I was done with that, I worked on a golem core, dumping a significant portion of my supplies into it before I got back to work, finally finishing the ritual two hours later.

The process of making the containment vials was as complicated as I had feared, but with my knowledge of ritual design, I managed to predict what kind of material sacrifices would work with them, meaning I already had everything I needed to make them. It wasn't perfect, not by a long shot, but it would certainly do for now. Even better, I could perform the ritual in bulk, so I would only need to do the ritual once to get everything I needed.

I carefully traced out the ritual, which took up a significant portion of the platform. It took twelve material sacrifices, half of which were a bit of a stretch, each of them fitting in a small circle around the large ritual. When I was finally done, I carefully placed a hundred and fifty glass vials in the center circle, before feeding the ritual my magic.

Once it was complete, I tested one of the vials by quickly leaving the forest and holding it up to the sky, the sun shining down on me. Following my mental influence, the bottle gathered the essence of sunshine. When I felt that the bottle was full, I corked it, the small containment vial holding what looked like a tiny ray of sunlight inside, shifting and changing as I turned it in my hands. I could, just by holding it, see and feel that the vial contained sunlight with no extra concepts or additives.

I rushed back to the compound and threw together a simple ritual to test the containment vial's effectiveness as a ritual component. I quickly drew the ritual out before placing the vial in the center circle, with a singular candle as a material sacrifice. The result was a sealed glass vessel, similar to the original containment vail, with a flame inside. It put out a good amount of light but was only slightly warm to the touch.

"Well, looks like it works," I said with a smile, tossing the glowing light to Alya, who was just corporeal enough to catch it. "And I solved our lighting problem. With enough of those, I won't have to use the generator to charge a battery bank to plug in the string lights."

"Well done, William," She commented with a smile, turning the sealed vial over in her hands. "The original vial was stable?"

"As stable as I could get. They might break down after a few years, but I'm pretty sure I'll be able to transfer them over if I manage to grab anything interesting," I assured her. "They work with a lot of intent, so I'm pretty sure just holding them against each other, their mouths pressed together, would be enough to transfer them. If not, I'll think of something else."

She nodded and, after a moment, floated over to one of the storage cabinets, returning with a length of twine. She floated upwards, tying the bottle to one of the branches and letting it hang down by the string. It wasn't much light, but a dozen of them would keep the ritual platform lit pretty well all night.

"Good call," I said with a smile. "Once I'm done with today and tonight, I will make a few dozen of those and hang them around the compound."

After a short break to let my brain recover, I knuckled down and started designing the process for making Olivia's gift. I already had the designs for the final rituals for securing the compound, including the massive one, so they were all set for later. The gift, however, was turning out to be a rather large and complicated creation. I had several materials I wanted to work into the creation process, and that alone was going to make for a complicated ritual. For each extra material sacrifice, I needed to enhance and concentrate on the aspects I wanted while pushing back and filtering out everything I didn't.

By the time I finished the design process, I had been forced to turn on the generator so I could see what I was doing. The sun was setting, and the forest was quickly getting darker and darker. Still, it wasn't quite time to start yet, so I drew out the first ritual before stopping to eat a quick dinner. When I was done, I could feel that it was finally time. The sun had set completely, and the forest around me was completely dark. I flicked off the generator, looking up to the sky to see it filled with stars and nothing else, the moon dark.

My first task was to finish the basic rituals for hiding and protecting the compound, emphasizing and doubling down on the avoidance, discomfort, and forgetfulness aspects of it. In total, I did four more rituals, the magic seeping into the land around me, filling the clearing with a low glow before fading away. For each ritual, I could feel the new moon feeding into it, tying the effects to the concept of darkness and the unknown. Finally, when the last protective ritual was complete, it was time to tie it all together.

"Are you sure about this?" Alya asked. "I know I don't have to tell you that this is a big deal, but are you sure you want to go through it? We could find other options."

"I know, but none as good as this. I'm serious about making this place a safe place. Not to mention all of the other benefits," I pointed out as I continued to draw out the ritual lines. "Right now, it's just a simple living space and this platform, but eventually, I want to make this place a fortress. I plan on having allies like Olivia, a team, and I might even bring people here to protect them… Hell, I might even make this into a whole village for the Dock community. I want this place to be safe and well taken care of. The perfect place to practice and study magic. And in order to do that, someone needs to be in charge."

She let out a sigh and nodded. I could feel that she agreed with my decision but still wanted to make sure I understood the risk of what I was doing.

Once the lines and arcane symbols were finished, I laid out the sacrificial materials. Carefully, I placed down a wolf skull and a small ivory broach carved with a mother's name. A hand-made replica of the mother idol figure made from terracotta clay. A completed golem core, as powerful and complex as I could make it. A pile of dirt from the center of the clearing, a singular enhanced acorn, and finally, an ancient arrowhead knapped from volcanic stone.

When all of the materials were laid out, I did one final check of the ritual. I only had one shot at this, and while I was certain the ritual would function, it needed to be perfect. I checked every little detail, making sure that all of the arcane symbols were pulling from the right aspects of the items and suppressing everything else.

The last thing I checked before continuing to the next stage was that the ritual was pulling the concepts of new beginnings, new cycles, and fresh starts from the new moon. When I was certain the ritual was as perfect as I could make it, I made my way to the center, where a crude stone bowl, carved by my own hands, was waiting. I squatted down, careful not to disturb the ritual lines, before using the blood-letting spell.

For nearly two minutes I held the spell, filling the bowl completely, a carefully measured three hundred milliliters, around five percent of my blood, or just enough to fill a good-sized ceramic coffee mug. It wasn't enough to hurt me. In fact, it wasn't enough for me to even feel, but it was still a lot.

Especially when you considered that I would never be getting this blood back.

Using blood in rituals was a rather common thing. Blood was powerful, especially the blood of a mage, and functioned well in several roles. However, this was different. Here, I was not using it as a reagent or a magical conductor. I was sacrificing my blood, five percent of it, to this ritual. I would always have five percent less of my blood from now until the day that I died. It wouldn't affect me physically, a man of my size could lose that much blood with no noticeable effects. However, it did put me in danger of bleeding out faster since any wound would have a three-hundred-milliliter head start.

It was a sacrifice, but one that I needed to make. This was a significant step, something that would start to build now and would only become more and more powerful over time.

When I was done bleeding into the stone bowl, I wrapped my finger in a bandage. I couldn't risk any healing magic getting through and trying to restore my lost blood. Later, no amount of healing magic would bring the blood back, but for now, restoring my lost blood would remove my connection to what I had just given up.

I carefully exited the ritual circle before kneeling down beside it. After a long moment of staring, I took a long, deep breath. After slowly letting it out, I began to feed the ritual my magic.

Immediately, I could feel the arcane symbols and lines greedily drinking my mana. This was a deep, powerful ritual, so getting it started would take a lot more mana than I could give at once. So rather than try to blast through it after the initial contact, I slowed down, slowly feeding my magic into it. It took nearly an hour for the ritual to fill, the night getting darker and deeper until, finally, the lines and arcane symbols pulsed with my magic. The sacrificial materials began to dissolve, feeding themselves to my blood and the stone vessel, which itself began to glow a dark purple-blue.

Finally, when all the materials were gone, the blood-filled vessel seemed to collapse into itself, folding and cracking as if being sucked into a black hole. My blood was consumed by the magic, and suddenly, with a final snap, the vessel disappeared, a wave of magical energy rushing outwards, passing through me, flowing through the rest of the compound.

For a moment, everything was quiet. Then, suddenly, a massive wave of pressure rolled over both Alya and myself. I collapsed to my hands and knees, my fingers smudging the burned-out and completed ritual, even as Alya was forced to disperse, retreating inside my soul as she was banished in a split second. For a long moment, I struggled not to collapse further, as I felt something study me, taking a measure of who I was and what I wanted. Finally, after what felt like hours, the pressure passed, and I could feel a gentle hand caress my cheek, tilting my head upwards and helping me back to my knees.

For just a second, standing in the center of the now inert ritual, was the barest hints of a person. A humanoid form, female, almost entirely transparent, but still colored like a black and purple sky. She reached out, waving her hands, grabbing onto something, and pulling it into herself. As she did, I could feel all of the protective rituals I had performed pull tight, merge, and strengthen.

Then it was gone, the figure vanishing. For a moment, something touched my back, rubbing it soothingly before retreating completely. A comforting feeling spread through the compound, sinking into every stone, tree, and blade of grass.

And just like that, a Genius Loci was born.