On Cosmic Tides

Two weeks passed in a blink. Even the unflappable John was surprised at the amount of work that could be side-stepped using some thoughtful mana manipulation and abusing a method of spatial storage. Laurel was astounded at her own eagerness to work on the building. She had been meditating for months on the extreme changes the world had gone through, between bouts of stewing in her survivor’s guilt. Laurel’s upbringing taught her to be practical about these things. Their path was a dangerous one, and the destruction of a sect, while tragic, was not unheard of. She had thought she was dealing with her change of circumstances admirably. The way she threw herself into working at the construction site put proof to the lie, as had her admission to Adam and Annette. Laurel poured her heart and every ounce of intent into building the new foundation, and felt this working to heal her psyche more than any amount of quiet contemplation.

She felt lighter, laughed easier, and felt more hopeful for the future than any time since she’d been freed. Her exuberance leaked into the rest of the crew. With an assist from mana reinforcement and one master cultivator, the building had a foundation in place months ahead of John’s most aggressive estimate.

********

The evening before they would finish framing out the basement levels, an army messenger arrived at the dig site. Her horse’s sides heaved like bellows, flanks dripping in sweat. The woman leapt off and ran directly at Laurel. She skidded to a halt and gave a smart salute.

“Ma’am, General Skycrest has asked you to come to the fort immediately. I was told to tell you it's an emergency, life or death.”

Laurel took a moment to be surprised the general had reached out, his wife being the local expert. But only a moment. She nodded at the messenger without bothering to voice those thoughts. “Very well, I’ll head over at once.” She waved to John, trusting him to his work, and then set off at a run. The lack of other cultivators, and the practical aspects of her current labors meant that Laurel had not run all out since she arrived at the city. She did so now. Anyone that noticed her passing would see mostly a formless blur as she drew on her mana to push herself to speeds beyond anything a mortal could reach. The 4 and a half miles to the fort passed by in a matter of minutes, entirely filled with Laurel cursing the fact there still wasn’t enough mana to fly faster than a casual jogging pace. The guards at the gate dropped their hastily-grabbed weapons as she appeared in front of them.

Another soldier jumped up from where he’d been leaning. “You’re faster than we anticipated ma’am, come with me please.”

Her guide brought her to a new set of rooms and left her with a stiff salute. With no idea of what this was about, Laurel entered without bothering to knock.

Barging in, she immediately pulled up short. Madam Skycrest was laying on a bed, her body thrashing around, eyes closed, breath labored. Her husband was standing next to the bed with an agonized expression, pulling at his hair. The king and the rest of the council were standing around the room, grim-faced, and all looked at her when she walked in. Their expressions ranged from hope on General Skycrest to anger and distrust on General Mansfeln.

“Madam Stormblade” the king began, “we are in need of your assistance”. Laurel was thrown by the use of the honor title but ignored it.

“What is going on?” she asked. Madam Skycrest was experiencing extreme spiritual strain but there was no obvious reason for it.

General Skycrest was in no state to respond, so the king answered her. “With your dire warnings, and the beginning of your new sect” he stumbled over the ancient phrasing, “we determined it was imperative to get our own people a way of defending the country. Madam Skycrest is one of our most powerful sorceresses, and volunteered to attempt to view the City Core. Her attempt began several hours ago. At first nothing happened, but when the behavior you see began we sent someone to fetch you.”

Laurel took a moment before responding. “I’m glad you sent for me. I should have made the danger more clear in our discussions. Madam Skycrest’s current cultivation is not sufficient enough to ride the mana flows around Verilia in their current state, not without practicing with assistance first. When the Core is fully anchored it will be safer. Or if she had started in a less populous city she would have been fine. As things stand right now, she is experiencing the spiritual equivalent of being tossed in the ocean during a storm.”

What color remained in General Skycrest's face drained away while he listened to this explanation. “Can you help her?” he choked out.

“I will try.”

She approached and knelt on the bed next to Madam Skycrest’s body. “I’ll need you to try and keep her relatively still, General,” she instructed. One hand placed on the unconscious woman’s forehead, and another over her navel. “This will be easier if I can maintain contact.” The general leaned over and gently secured his wife to the bed.

Laurel entered a meditative state and tamped down on her own fears. If she couldn’t find the sorceress’s consciousness intact, there was no guarantee of Theresa ever returning to her body. In the first few moments it looked like there was no trace of the other woman and Laurel edged closer to panic. Selfishly, for the future of her own sect if she failed. But more so for the woman she had come to respect. Persevering, she happened upon the faintest flickering thread leading off into the wild mana of the city. She followed the thread, leaving her own, much more robust line back to her body. If Theresa had tried this a few weeks earlier, saving her would have been impossible. Luckily for everyone, Laurel had not been idle in between working on her sect house, and the mana currents had been tamed enough for her to hunt down Theresa’s spirit, where it was being flung around and around in a spiritual whirlpool. The water metaphors broke down when one looked deeply, but at a surface level they got the right message across.

Finding Theresa was only the beginning. Now she began the arduous process of pulling her back towards her own body, without doing more damage in the process. Laurel used her own anchor to guide the lost spirit home. A few close calls at the point when Theresa’s anchor thread seemed so thin it would snap with the strain left Laurel sweating. But eventually, she succeeded.

Laurel surfaced from the meditation to find Theresa’s breathing evened out, and her body lying still. She smiled at General Skycrest, and the tension in the room broke. Ridge sagged onto the bed, having been held up by willpower and wild hope, and now able to rest.

“It was a close call, Ridge, but I believe she’ll be okay when she wakes up. It will probably be a few weeks before she can do any sort of real mana manipulation, but if you crush some of these into water and have her drink it every morning for the next few days, she should avoid the worst of it.” Laurel produced a bundle of dried spiritual mint. The sprigs were a literal balm to the soul, and most cultivators Laurel knew would carry some for recovery after overtaxing their spirit.

“When everyone is recovered, we need to have a conversation. More cultivators need to be trained to start working on developing the mana infrastructure of your other population centers, and I’m willing to help with that. Doing so without preparation is extremely dangerous, as you’ve seen.”

The king agreed while everyone else simply slumped, exhausted. “Thank you, we’ll be in touch soon.” Laurel left after that very clear dismissal, and decided to detour to the shop instead of back to the construction site. The process of pulling someone through wild mana currents had taxed her as well, and she could use some rest in a bed instead of meditating out in the open.

*******

She arrived at the build site the next morning, ready to help any way she could. John had told her where it would be most helpful to have the stones placed, and she jumped into the pit and began distributing small piles in a grid pattern. The mortals arrived and began working. An hour in and one of the mortals gave a shout.

“It merged!”

Laurel walked over and sure enough there was clearly one extra large stone in the place where the man had placed several.

“That's a good sign. Eventually the whole building will appear to be one piece, as the mana strengthens and bonds all the stones together. In a few years it will look like a giant carved the whole building out of a single stone.” The men went back to work, arguing good naturedly when some of the stones merged that it must be a sign of who was the most skillful builder. They kept at it and continued to follow the steps indicated by the blueprint.

The next few days continued without incident, except for one invitation to dine with the Skycrests on the following rest day. Laurel dropped by the Rada’s earlier than usual to continue Mr. Rada’s healing regimen, and was glad to see the night and day difference in the man. He had come from death’s door to joking around about joining in on the construction crew in repayment.

Laurel was in an excellent mood when she made it to the Skycrest manor in the upper tier of the city. This was only bolstered when she was greeted by Theresa, looking recovered from her ordeal.

“I can't begin to thank you for what you did.” she confided. “I thought I would be able to handle the ‘wild mana’ as you called it, but clearly that was my ego talking.”

Laurel waved her thanks away. “No cultivators advance without making mistakes along the way. I had elders there to help me clean up my own mistakes, as I am happy to help with yours.”

“I can’t imagine how you handle it.” Theresa said.

“It is not without significant effort. I, however, had almost a century of cultivation practice under my belt before I tried. Not to mention that I was being trained to hold such a role eventually. Everyone above a certain level of mastery in my sect was expected to spend time managing the city core. Rotating the masters kept anyone from getting too complacent, while making sure no one was held back from focusing on their own advancement.”

“But now there isn’t anyone else who can help you. What are other cities going to do?”

“Verilia is in a unique position in that it is far larger than most cities or towns. I suspect if you had started in a town or village out in the country, you would have been fine, or at least able to bring yourself back. As for other areas, it depends. There might be other master cultivators capable of riding those currents. It would have been difficult and quite unpleasant to reach that level with the previous mana density, but not impossible. They might relocate some of their population, or trust in their military to handle the threats. We won’t know until we get more regular manifestations.”

At this point Ridge had joined the ladies and chimed in. “Laskar will never give any magician that level of power over their cities. Naxos doesn’t like putting their cards on the table, so it's hard to say for sure. Somorin will probably find someone local or hire out, they don’t have the military to handle anything else. Eddie will be all over it for some sort of political maneuvering.”

He abruptly changed the subject. “Do you know when you’ll be able to start teaching? We’d like to avoid anyone else jumping in blind and being overwhelmed.” He reached his hand out and gently traced his wife’s cheek.

“Our sect house will be finished sometime this winter, I think. At least the bare bones of it. The issue will be in finding students. I’m willing to teach basic cultivation classes right now to almost anyone you can vouch for. That has always been common knowledge. The sect elders used to offer open lectures on the techniques every season.The more specialized information, I’m oathbound not to share without certain conditions being met.”

Ridge nodded, lost in thought. It was Theresa who responded. “We’ve reached out to some of the other magic users we are aware of. As you might guess, there is some reluctance to come forward.”

“In my time, sects attracted applicants by offering cultivation resources and instruction. The government could try something similar. Offering resources to those willing to grow a City Core in the various towns and villages. Place people you trust the most in the largest cities.”

“We’ll probably do something like you’re suggesting,” Ridge rejoined the conversation. “As it so happens, there are a few members of the military with some amount of talent, and a few more that seem interested, so we’ll probably send them over to you soon. One bright young pilot in my command seems to have some ideas about applying magic to engineering. At least he’s brilliant with the planes.”

Laurel brightened at the news. “That’s good to hear. Tidal cultivators specializing in crafting are always in demand, and are usually better at high level City Core cultivation than vortex cultivators.”

“Tidal?” Theresa asked, confused by the terminology.

“It's a designation we used in my original time, or at least the closest translation I can find. Vortex cultivators move their mana through their internal channels at high speeds. This allows them to pull in more mana more quickly, and control larger amounts outside themselves. The end result is explosive power. Most martial cultivators end up following this path. Tidal cultivators move their mana more slowly, but in a more complex series of pathways. They tend more towards enchanting, other crafts, and healing, and are usually better at fine control.

“The distinction is arbitrary. Any grandmaster can pull from the best of either school. But common wisdom used to hold that initiates started as one or the other.”

“Fascinating” Theresa exclaimed. “This is why you called me an adept vortex cultivator at our first meeting. I’ll admit now, I had no idea what you were referring to at the time.”

“Yes. The adept part is just how my sect used to measure power amongst members.”

The conversation meandered away from serious matters at that point. Laurel spent a very enjoyable evening with the Skycrests, including their 4 young children. She spent the walk back to the shop being grateful that she had found somewhere to restart that appeared to be run by reasonable people. Every day Laurel felt the weight of everyone who’d come before, and the pressure to bring them back from the brink. Evenings like this eased that burden and made her think it might actually be possible.