Afternoon sunlight reflected on Viv’s shield and its latest addition, a letter from an unknown alphabet hammered on by a Hallurian smith.

What had started as a light shield was now considerably heavier, its surface lined with symbols, a veritable roadmap of Viv’s progress and the friends she had made along the way. The Yries-made enchantments were still intact and fully functional under added plates grafted on like barnacles on a warship’s hull. The tree of Kazar, the shield of Neriad, the veterans’ mark, the sigil of the mountain folks, even the layers of fur left at the back by the Merls. She had made an impact over the last year and a half. A good one, for some.

The rest could go fuck themselves.

Even the description of the shield had changed. Viv wondered if it was due to her familiarity with the item.

[Yries enchanted shield: made with care for a friend, this shield has since collected marks of respect and gratitude from very diverse people. The innate protections remain intact under an increasingly heavy layer of armor. Has stopped several blows despite the current wielder’s lack of expertise. Extremely resilient.]

Hey, at least I hold it in a way that the edge doesn't smash me in the nose anymore, Viv told herself with some annoyance. This had not led to any skill for her. It took more than a few hours of effort for the magic of the world to decide to help.

It was true, the shield had blocked several blows. An arrow in the cannibal compound and a downward dagger stab when she had gone after a captured Arthur. It was indeed solid. The description had it right, though, the main aspect was emotional. A reminder of what she had achieved in protective form.

“Admiring your own reflection, dear?” Sidjin asked in a teasing voice.

Viv frowned at her fallen prince boytoy.

“It’s not even flat. On a related ‘not flat’ note, why are you naked?”

“Why are you not naked?” the prince replied, extending his arms to the secluded clearing they were on and the tent they had set up.

Viv considered his words and admitted that they made a lot of sense.

The pair spent an hour relaxing comfortably, then the time came to work. They dressed and meditated for five minutes, centering themselves for the task to come. Viv checked the circle one last time out of habit, then centered on the teleportation gate destination array.

The last hurdle towards making a stable teleportation for Viv was not seeing space as a fabric, which seemed to be hard to grasp for the local humans, but the calculations associated with origin and destination. Sidjin was a mage who used rigid, codified coordinates for distance and direction to link one portal with another. Viv realized her magic didn’t work that way. Mana buckled at those strict guidelines, not least because Viv realized they were, in fact, incorrect. Too approximate to link two points hundreds of miles away from each other. It should not work, but because mages made magic work through a more rational approach, it did for them. It was good enough to function, really. That would not fly with her instinctive method, so rather than using coordinates, she used a code. A portal had a set of glyphs that marked it and its surroundings. For example Helock would be ‘city, magic, flying, stone’ and a few others while the wilderness they were in for testing had ‘clearing, peace,’ and ‘naked’ in it. So long as it made sense to Viv, that was fine.

One of the issues was that a witch portal would be too peculiar to be activated by someone else. On the plus side, it appeared to be more stable than a mage portal, requiring less material and less mana to activate. That was what the preliminary tests had shown. Now the time had come for the real deal.

“Whenever you’re ready darling.”

“Thanks Sidjin. What if we break the fabric of space and time itself?”

“Then we can travel back and do it again! We will not, however. We are merely connecting to points in a temporary fashion. Legerit of Baran proved that Nyil would smother harmful effects to itself, if not the creatures that inhabit it as the Harrakan disaster shows, by conducting an experiment in two-sixty eight on the premise that —”

“Yes, yes, thank you dear. The joke would have sufficed.”

“You know better than to get me started on colorless mana studies. In any case, enough delay! Proceed! I believe in you and your weird witchy ways.”

“Hmph.”

Viv walked to the circle and took a step in, careful not to damage the lines. They had not used metal but traced divots into a flat stone disk Sidjin had casually raised from the ground. As soon as she did, a strange current raised the small hair from her arms. The spell was not even fully charged yet.

She poured power from her core into it, feeling mana swell to answer her will. All of it made sense to her. Space was a fabric, only flat to her limited human senses. Gravity made it malleable. Nyil, the world, would let her touch it for a little bit, pinch it, as it were. There would be no breaking, no, merely small ripples. A small aperture so tiny only humans would use it. It would go from this isolated clearing, a peaceful place still bearing the memory of a couple making love, back to the city of sorcery, its place of learning, the enchanted walls, flying rocks hanging above like divine jokes or swords of Damocles. A passage would open. Two would become one, then two again, allowing passage for a fragment of an instant in the grand scheme of things. So easy. No need to force, not like those mages do. Just… go with the flow to create something unique and daring but ultimately harmless. Space could not be broken by the likes of her anyway. This was merely brushing a carpet with some strands standing at different angles.

Massive power, stored over an hour by a powerful caster, swirled in front of Viv. The powerful energies could level the forest if she lost control, but she would not. Colorless magic had no real will of its own, only the caster did. It would not rebel. Not against her, at least. Slowly, carefully, she coaxed the ball to go deeper towards the inside in a direction humans may not tread. there was upward, forward, and to the side, but there was inward as well. It was so logical, so obvious. When the sun hit the place right, it created a shadow in three dimensions. Viv could just feel it work.

“Gate,” she whispered.

Simple and clear, no need for frills, for theatrics. Two places would be one, then two again, because she wanted it.

The circle dove inward until it was so thin a quark could not have crossed it, but that was fine. It connected and now she could enlarge it a bit, just enough to let a mounted rider through. Practically nothing. There it was. The same sun but at a slightly different angle through the windows of Sidjin’s new lab, the one Sterek had to abandon.

Sidjin floated the tent through, then led their horses as well. The beast snorted a bit in panic but did not resist any more than that. Viv had a last look around to check if they had not forgotten anything, then she was through.

The spell faded behind her, its purpose fulfilled.

Viv blinked.

“Wow.”

Mana mastery: Intermediate 2