On Cosmic Tides

The first day of the new Eternal Archive began like most mornings in northern Merista, mist-covered and gray. Laurel and Adam were at the empty lot where construction would soon begin, while Annette was confirming and bringing along the construction foreman and crew. Laurel found a spot without any rocks and sat in a meditation pose. There was very little in the area, which she was thankful for as her senses expanded.

She could feel Adam beside her. He registered as a usual mortal, with a low amount of mana, moving sluggishly in no discernable pattern. But it was enough that the potential for cultivation was there. A fear she had never even considered before had occurred to her after their last meeting with the royal council. That her friends would be mana sinks, unable to cultivate and connect their mana to the world. Stuck as mortals, willing but unable to grow. Some awkward explanations had been enough for them to allow a brief examination the night before, and she had been able to sleep without worry.

Her senses went further and she could feel the scraggly grass and insects beneath her. One more deep breath and she plunged her consciousness into the rivers of mana that flowed through and around Verilia.

She was lost, drifting amongst the currents. This was one of the largest cities in the world, and the mana flows were less astream and more a deluge. Her spirit was battered by torrents that had been untamed for centuries; her consciousness flung back and forth. She was a ship out at sea amid a hurricane. A thin thread of mana and willpower kept her spirit attached to her body, giving her a lifeline from the storm. All sect elders and grandmasters had been expected to take their turn at cultivating the City Core. She had always known she would eventually do her duty for the sect. But there, at the Citadel, the flows had been lovingly cultivated for centuries, their power tamed and controlled, flowing in well-worn channels. Nothing prepared her for the pandemonium of a wild Core. And not from some tiny village, slowly growing in size and population, but a fully established city of millions. She drifted for some indeterminable amount of time before finally making progress.

First, just the small area around her physical body calmed down. Within the tiny safe zone she could exert her will and impose order. The mana needed direction. Once the flows were put in place, like veins carrying blood throughout a body, the mana would naturally continue to follow them. In an already existing city there was an obvious choice.

Meter by meter her spirit was able to wrestle control of the local mana and send it flowing along the nearby streets. Flexing her will, she imbued the idea of repairing and strengthening, bringing order into the savage energy. As the chaos calmed, Laurel felt a pulse from something even deeper in the flows. The City Core itself. Her consciousness moved towards it.

The Core appeared to her mind’s eye as a faceted crystal, pulsing with light. Size had little meaning in metaphysical constructs, and it seemed both small enough that she could tuck it in her pocket for safekeeping, and large enough to warp the fabric of local reality. It emitted a light that was colorless and contained every color. When Laurel reached out her spirit to make contact, she was once more overwhelmed.

City Cores contained information from the cosmic mana flows that fed into them, as well as the history and knowledge from other Cores around the world, past and present. Laurel saw that she had access to blueprints in plans for buildings. There was more but it was behind a fog. Whole infrastructure systems, the potential to draw mana from the citizens, set up binding trade agreements, and slightly alter the local climate. Only hints and not yet available to her, remnants of Empires across the cosmos as they rose and fell. The mana around the city was strong, but the Core itself was still weak, liable to shatter if pushed too hard.

When she reached the limits of her endurance and her spirit felt flayed, she returned to her body. The order wouldn’t last. Within hours the city would be just as wild as it had been before. But after months of daily effort, the patterns she imposed would start to stick. A moment of panic seized Laurel’s heart. She would be tied to this place for months, years, maybe centuries until someone else was strong enough to take the burden. Her whole body shuddered and for the briefest of moments she considered running. Get strong enough in isolation, flee the entire planet, never look back. She took the impulse and crushed it. Hard work hadn’t scared her when she started her journey and it wouldn’t scare her away now.

*******

Adam and Annette watched Laurel’s unmoving body. She had been in the same position for hours. The only indication they had that she was even still breathing was when Adam had put his face directly in front of her mouth and felt the faint breeze her breath caused.

“I’ll get a stick.” He said.

“What do we need a stick for?”

“If we need her to wake up, I’m not doing it from within arm’s reach..”

******

Laurel opened her eyes and thought for a moment she had injured her sight. A heartbeat later she realized it was nighttime. An exhausted Annette and Adam were sleeping nearby in the open field, on blankets one of them must have fetched. Too tired to do anything else at that point, Laurel crawled over to join them.

The following day saw all three of them waking up at the crack of dawn, covered in dew and decidedly worse for wear.

“I’m damp. And I can taste dirt. We are never doing that again.” Annette gagged and did her best to set her dress back into order.

Adam just groaned as he rolled to his feet and tried to limber up stiff limbs after a night spent outdoors. Laurel just produced a heat crystal and a tripod for camp cooking and began brewing their first pot of tea for the day.

When everyone was more awake, Laurel looked back and forth at both of her new companions. Last night had proved they were far more than business partners or associates of circumstance. “Thank you both for staying”.

They rolled their eyes almost in unison. “As if we were just going to leave you sitting in a field,” Adam replied.

“Still, thank you.” Seeing they were both uncomfortable with that level of sincerity so early in the morning, Laurel continued on. “It worked, I was able to establish a connection with the city core and partially tame the local mana flows. There’s still more work to be done. Truly an unbelievable amount of work. But that should be a few hours each day, rather than endless meditation.”

“Good.” Adam said around the mouthful of cheese and bread they had toasted up for breakfast. “Because the construction crew will be here in a couple of hours. Had to send them home yesterday.”

At this reminder, Laurel got up and walked a small distance away. With a gesture from her right hand, a large slab of granite dropped onto the ground in front of her. She walked a few feet to the left and repeated the process with a chunk of gray marble. This was repeated three more times until they had a line-up of nondescript stones.

“Er, those are some very nice rocks, Laurel” Annette said as she joined her.

Laurel laughed, though she could hear the strain. “When I first woke up, I didn’t realize how long I had been in the prison, or how the world had changed. I made my way to where I expected my sect to be, only to find it a forgotten ruin. I was entirely lost.” She paused but the pain wasn’t as intense this time. It would always be there, but she was beginning to see the outline of a life where it was no longer overwhelming. She gave herself a shake and kept going.

“Eventually, I realized I had to rebuild, but that the old location wouldn’t be an option. It was weeks away from even the tiniest village. So I took everything I could think of that might be useful in re-establishing the sect into my spatial tattoo. Including building materials. I didn’t have the patience to scavenge the entire city, but I have enough for a few buildings. And the stone has been reinforced with mana over centuries, it would have been a waste to leave it all. I also might have been feeling a bit vindictive, and didn’t want to leave anything for someone else to find.

“I figure the construction crew can determine what materials would be best.” Laurel’s explanation made enough sense and Annette shrugged and they both returned back to their little camp.

“How much room do you have in that tattoo anyway?”

“I’m not sure. I haven’t run into the limit yet. It scales with the strength of the cultivator’s spirit. And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m actually rather good at this.”