Magical Engineering

“Considering it’s the middle of the night, I think you can sleep for a few more hours before you start,” John said.

“Yeah, Rabyn and Connie are gonna be out fer a bit still anyway,” Mel added.

“Wait, what happened to them?” I asked. It seemed unlikely they would have been hurt handling the orcs. They were two of our powerhouses.

“As I said, I ran my mana reservoirs nearly dry. Before utilizing those, I siphoned what I could from those two as they were the only other ones with cores powerful enough to tap,” Elody explained.

“They’re going to be fine, though, right?” I asked. Had my own problems hurt someone else again?

“Yes, they’re just in need of a few days of recovery to be at full strength again. Honestly I’m a little surprised we were able to hold the creatures off at all. None of us are well versed in soul magic,” Elody answered—the breath I had been holding released, along with some of the tension.

“How did you manage it then?” I asked.

“The link between you and Corey. I was able to connect through that and slowly build a shield around your soul,” she answered.

“Oh! That’s probably why I became aware at all. I bet that was enough to let my soul make contact with the other presence again,” I said, suddenly understanding how so much time could have passed. For most of it, I had likely been totally unaware.

“Yes, that would make sense,” Elody replied with a gentle smile, her eyes seeming to scan the room for something. “My apologies, but I no longer think he can sleep for the rest of the night. Now that I know what to look for, I am somewhat able to see the creatures. There are two of them, and they are returning for their prey.”

“Damn!” Mel cursed loudly, his voice calming slightly before resuming. “Okay, what can we do?”

“Go fetch Timon and Chip, I’ll need them both. Dave, I need you to start working on whatever you just did, but try to build it even bigger,” Elody ordered, her upper eyes still frantically moving about the room even as the lower two settled firmly on me.

“Uh, we might want to go outside for this. It was a bit explosive last time,” I suggested, not really sure what would happen if my soul energy flared out of me inside.

“No, I’ve already set up as many seals in this room as I could. I don’t have the time or energy to replicate that outside. We’ll have to make do and hope we don’t damage the house too much more,” Elody answered firmly. I looked up at the ceiling. Just how strong was my roof anyway?

“Alright, I’ll do what I can then,” I said before pulling up a chat window.