Ar'Kendrithyst

After a thorough explanation of Vanya’s ideas for a Grand Dungeon of Storm’s Edge, Soltic was impressed. Lord Jarod and Lady Glariol had been more than that. They had begun to speak of plans, and hidden resources, and what would need to happen, going forward, for Vanya’s plan to actually happen. Primarily, they needed to link with others in the city, to get the Church and the Regency and the Dungeon Guild ready to accept an adjustment of at least one of the seven dungeons. If the adjustments went well, and if others approved, then they could go forward with all the rest of the Grand Dungeon creation.

“The first major issue to solve is getting Vanya approved by the lords. We’ll set that up, but you have to follow through.” Lord Jarod finished with, “So hide. Delve for a while. Find out everything you can. We’ll contact you in four days with more information. Be prepared to defend your ideas, and your self.”

Soon enough, Soltic and Vanya were back at their rooms in the Dungeon Guild.

It was time for Erick to learn a special technique.

They were under an Obfuscation and Privacy spell, because Erick, as Erick, stood on one side of the room and Quilatalap, as Quilatalap, stood on the other. A simple grand rad hovered in the air between them. It was not special in any specific way, having been one of any number of suitable grand rads taken out of Quilatalap’s storage rooms for this task, but it was necessary to learn this specific trick; smaller rads didn’t pull in mana like a grand rad did. Even now, the grand rad was subtly shaping the manasphere around it, drawing in mana like a siphon, like a weaker version of a dungeon’s entrance, and core.

Erick shook out his hands to loosen up, then he reached his aura out to cover the rad, manually shaping a spell, humming as he did so, locking his resonance to the crystalline growth’s own resonance. Quilatalap looked on, not saying anything; just watching. Rapidly, Erick felt a connection to the rad take hold. The malformed sphere of crystal began to resonate with the very air, pulling in even more atmospheric mana; pulling in Erick’s mana—

The grand rad shimmered and cracked, filling the air with a spark of blue fire—

“Dammit,” Erick said, knowing what was coming already.

The grand rad suddenly flashed over, igniting like black powder, sending plumes of blue fire into the air. That fire washed over the room, alighting the space with tiny blue flames that began to turn orange as the bedding, the drapes, and the floor caught flame.

Grand rads were not normally so volatile, but this particular one was, for whatever reason. Quilatalap thought that the problem was on Erick’s end, and so, like he had said a few times already—

“You’re gonna want to [Return],” Quilatalap said, nonjudgmental.

Erick sighed. And then he [Return]ed to 10 seconds in the past, sending his cognizance into his perspective of before he had fucked up the experiment. The grand rad hovered before him, and Erick did not continue as he was supposed to. Instead, he looked to Quilatalap and said, “I have never needed to use [Return] so many times in a single day. Explain it to me again, in a different way than you did before.”

Quilatalap looked at him. “… How many failures has that been?”

“Three [Return]s. Catastrophic failure each time.”

“Maybe you’re trying too hard… Or have I suggested that already?”

Erick explained his process succinctly, “Elemental Book in my aura. Surround the rad. Resonate with the rad. Feel the words spill out of it. Don’t push too hard. It’s not [Editing Aura]; it’s simply checking on the makeup of the grand rad, of the organized structure of the mana therein.”

“Let’s try it from the second part of the process; might have more luck there.” Quilatalap moved on, explaining once again, “This experiment here is simply a test run, to get you familiar with the process of interfacing with a rad, but you won’t be able to interface with the dungeon core, and the developed version of this magic isn’t meant to allow you to interface directly with a dungeon core, anyway. This magic is to allow you to look as though from a grand distance; anywhere inside a dungeon core space. Close, far, doesn’t matter.

“So, this time, I want you to hold your mana open and let Elemental Book flow through the air to the grand rad. Don’t envelop the rad entirely. Check on it from afar.

“When your mana touches the rad, I want you to take that ephemeral connection and see what the Book tells you. You might make a spell out of it here on Veird, but the only way it’s going to work inside a dungeon is if you know how to work it correctly, without Script assistance.” Quilatalap added, “And you’re not trying to [Identify] the grand rad, though this spell is loosely based on [Identify]. You’re trying to mana sense the parameters of the dominant mana controller in the area. Different applications of this magic can let you identify Domain work without [Identify]ing anything at all.”

“[Identify] without [Identify],” Erick said, “Sure. I’ll try it again that way.”

Quilatalap nodded.

Erick stood a bit straighter. And then he held out his aura, flowed some Elemental Book through all of himself and also the air, and felt the subtle pull of the grand rad’s flow, tugging his Book into the malformed crystal. He watched the world with his mana sense...

And it was working this time. Erick did not get a blue box, but he did get to read the mana in the air. It was sort of like reading, anyway. It was also sort of like listening, and feeling, and knowing—

He got a blue box.