Magic is Programming

Carlos straightened in shock. [Purple? How?… Oh! I guess my bond with you counts as my magic in some way? …Anyway, I'm in big trouble here and need to get back to working my way out of it. Can't talk much.]

After a few seconds reassurance and helpfulness came from Purple. [I know. Just hold on a little longer. They'll all be there soon.]

Carlos paused and closed his mouth, aborting the next spell he'd been about to start casting. [Wait, who is "they"?]

Purple took a few more seconds to respond again. [Haftel, Esmorana, Noralt, Sconter, Lorvan, and Ordens.] Carlos felt Purple's attention shift for a moment, before he forced it back. [I made a bond with Esmorana, and I've been guiding them toward you all afternoon.]

Amber cocked her head while looking at Carlos. "Why did you stop?"

"Hmm?" Carlos looked at her. "Oh, sorry. Turns out that first spell let Purple talk with me again, and the rescue party is almost here."

"Oh…" Amber's eyes rolled up, and she fell over unconscious.

Carlos blinked, then shook his head. She'd be fine, their captors had generously cushioned them against impacts, among other things, to prevent escape by suicide respawning. [In that case, please ask Esmorana if she, or any of them, know of any spell a level 15 mage can cast to escape a warded metal box that is heavily reinforced by higher-level enchantments and surrounded by higher-level enemies. Preferably also bringing another person with them, but I can probably make do without that. I just need a description of what it does, and anything they might know about how. The spell's name might help, or might not. Oh, and ideally the spell's incantation should be short and simple.]

Purple didn't respond for a few seconds, and Carlos belatedly cast the spell for perceiving things via his mana. At first Carlos just got a confusing impression of brightness and a quiet static buzz, but gradually the brightness split into fuzzy blobs of different colors and the static started smoothing out. His head throbbed painfully, and he instinctively closed his eyes.

[Uh.] Purple finally acknowledged Carlos's request. Carlos got an impression of Purple doing something, and then his attention focused on Carlos much more clearly. [Can you repeat that?]

[Is something distracting you?]

[Yes, but I dealt with it. What did you ask, again?]

Carlos wondered what the distraction was, but it probably wasn't relevant, so he repeated his request for a description of a spell. Purple listened attentively, holding back any questions about the reasons. [Ok, one moment… I passed it on, and she wants to talk.]

Esmorana's feminine voice seemed to echo in Carlos's head for a moment as she started thinking at him. [Carlos? … You want a spell's name and description? Are you seriously implying you can learn a spell just from that?!]

Carlos chuckled and grinned. [Possibly. If its incantation is simple enough. Now is not the time to explain. Do any of you have that kind of information?] He realized that the fuzzy blobs of color in his mana vision were resolving into shapes with increasingly clear outlines, and he could see more detail with every passing second from the vantage point he'd chosen fifty feet above his position. [Oh, and I can see out from the box if that matters.]

He studied his gradually clearing view of the outside while he waited for her response. He was looking down on a blocky metal box that was being carried by four people, one at each corner. They were surrounded by a couple dozen other people, all of them armed and armored and walking tirelessly. As the pace of movement grew clearer, he realized they were actually jogging, and each pace covered so much ground that they were at least close to the speed of a professional athlete running at full sprint on Earth. He could only conclude that they must all have magic boosting their speed. There was another metal box several yards to the side, but that one was open, and he could see that about a fifth of the group were lying asleep on it. Presumably they had a sleep rotation to maintain their traveling pace without pause.

Carlos briefly considered trying to attack. He had only one spell that might actually work against these enemies, but that spell seemed to have no upper limit. He was fairly sure that the extra power it drew from the system exploit wouldn't be restricted by the spatial mana bridge he was using to bypass the box, too. The problem was the number of targets. He would have to actively maintain attention on each individual copy of the spell, one per person, to keep it pressing down on them instead of reverting to its default of neutralizing gravity. He couldn't split his focus among more than a quarter of them at most, and probably fewer than that, so even if he taught Amber the spell for bypassing the box's wards, both of them together wouldn't be enough to hit the entire group.

Esmorana's voice returned, filled with amusement. [Lorvan says there's a spell called Sight Gate that opens a short range portal for a very short duration from the caster's location to somewhere nearby that they can see, and he's not so sure about simple, but its incantation is among the shortest he's heard. It can be cast at level 15, but will take most of your mana pool. Move quickly; with your level the portal will close in less than two seconds, maybe even less than one second. You just don't have enough power to keep it open longer than that. … He's undecided about whether he thinks you can somehow do it, or if he thinks it's impossible for you to pull it off.]

[A portal with limited capability? Thanks.] Carlos started searching for portal effects.

[My bet in the pool is that you'll do it, by the way. Don't let me down!]

Carlos laughed while he searched. Of course adventurers would make bets like that. They probably made small bets on details of their adventures whenever the opportunity arose just to liven things up. Portals was a substantial category, with a fairly lengthy list, most of them clearly far beyond his power right now. He had to use the "help" spell again every time he wanted to narrow the list or check details of a specific effect, but his comprehension aid's translations let him quickly dismiss a lot of obvious non-matches. He was still looking when he got startled out of it by a voice from beside him.

"Uh, Carlos? What are you doing?" Amber had woken up from her faint.

"Looking for an effect Lorvan told Esmorana could get us out of here."

Amber lapsed into silence, waiting patiently for Carlos to finish. Finally, he found it. It was a single word that didn't translate to English cleanly, meaning something like "connect space by sight," or maybe "bridge the gap between one who sees and what they see." Its available parameters were straightforward, with it relying heavily on selection of the target destination via the caster's sight and will. As he finished getting the concept just right, he frowned. He could hear through his viewpoint fifty feet up, and the air around them had become unnaturally still.

As though that realization had prompted her, Esmorana spoke in his mind again. [We're almost there. Are you ready?]

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Carlos shoved the new effect into a standard one-shot-effect package with his linker and started muttering it to prepare it. [Almost. I think a minute or so should be enough. How far back do we need to go?]

[A hundred feet would be good. Get behind a tree and we'll protect you.]

[Got it.] Carlos looked around through his remote viewpoint and confirmed he could see that far. Then he tried to put that viewpoint out of his mind for the moment as he opened his eyes to look around and considered where to put his end of the portal. They'd need to move fast, which was difficult in such cramped space that they'd have to crawl. The portal might not even have room to open to its full height. He looked over at Amber and reflexively glanced away from her near-nudity to the floor between them, then laughed. The portal didn't actually need to have height at all. He could make it horizontal, opening underneath them, and gravity would take care of moving through it for them. The box's wards against their mana were recessed a little into the floor, probably so the wards wouldn't end up pushing their mana out of parts of their bodies, and that left just enough room to spread the portal under their feet.

Carlos carefully remained crouching while he tucked his feet under him and shuffled over towards the center of the box. He held out his right hand. "Amber, get close and hold on. I'm about to open a portal under us, on Esmorana's signal."

Amber nodded and followed suit. She moved to Carlos's side, wrapped her left arm around his shoulders, and pulled him tight into a one-armed sideways hug. "I'm ready. Let's end this nightmare."

Carlos took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and focused his mind back on his overhead viewpoint and Esmorana. [Give me a countdown?]

Seconds later Esmorana's voice rang in his mind again. [You're ready? Perfect. We're starting in five. Four. Three. Two. One.] A sudden breeze blew across the entire area, stirring, and several people sniffed at something.

Carlos echoed the first two numbers aloud for Amber's benefit, then opened his eyes and experienced double vision briefly as he activated the spell. A hole in space opened under his feet, and he and Amber fell through it, landing on soft dirt and leaves. The portal vanished barely a moment after they passed through it. Leaves crackled and several sticks snapped, but before anyone could react to the noise the breeze turned violent. The sharp keening wail of incredibly forceful winds filled the air.

Carlos cautiously peeked out from behind the tree he'd chosen. For about fifty feet in front of him, everything was normal. Beyond that point, all he could see was the edge of a tornado. The early afternoon sun was shining brightly, but beyond that wall of wind everything was dark. Several thick tree trunks broke with loud snaps, and a few trees were even uprooted as he watched. To his sight, the entire company of their captors had suddenly vanished under a curtain of blown dust, dirt, leaves, sticks, and other airborne detritus.

His mana sense was not so blinded, though. Esmorana's mana filled the stationary storm and whipped around every bit as violently as the winds she commanded, but he could sense bright spots of different mana inside the storm. Most of them were the souls of their enemies, but there was also the enchanted box that had held him and Amber for most of the last two days. Fully two thirds of the enemy force had been swept off their feet and thrown into the sky by the tornado, and several of those winked out almost as soon as he took note of them, killed by something. The box and the four people holding it held steady on the ground, however, along with several others, though none of them were moving.

A gauntleted hand touched Carlos's back, and a familiar bubble of force appeared. He glanced to the side, though he didn't really need his eyes to confirm the second force bubble he'd already sensed appearing around Amber, nor the presence of the two guards who'd placed them. "Good to see you, Lorvan. Are we just leaving everything to Esmorana?"

"If she is capable of it, yes. These people, or someone involved with them, sabotaged our equipment very subtly, and we do not yet know how far that sabotage went." Lorvan sighed and shook his head. "I will enter battle with equipment I'm not sure I can trust only if I must."

Carlos frowned and faced forward again to focus on the fight. "Fair enough. I assume these force bubbles block incoming magic. Can we cast spells out from them?"

"Yes, but I don't know of any spells to tell you about that would let you meaningfully affect a fight like this one." Lorvan paused. "You realize, of course, that learning a spell from nothing more than a general description of its effect will draw a great deal of interest from anyone who hears of it."

Carlos nodded absently. "Will the Crown demand to know that secret? The royals are not mages themselves, as I understand it."

Lorvan shook his head. "Demand, probably not. But you may want to consider what price you would ask in exchange."

"Hmm." Carlos narrowed his eyes. He couldn't really see anything useful right now, but relating the mana he sensed to what he saw helped him sort out the details of what he was sensing. One more person had been swept into the air, losing their grip on the ground, but the rest of those who resisted the initial onslaught were still hanging on. None of them were moving, but eight people were stubbornly resisting the tornado. The twenty or so who had been picked up like ragdolls were down to three, and two of those remaining were hurt and panicking.

One soul, flying high up in the tornado, felt calm, however. And it wasn't Esmorana. Whoever that was, Carlos got the distinct impression that they were allowing Esmorana to blow them around while they did… something. Mana was streaming out of them into the air, beginning to permeate the entire area even beyond the tornado's bounds, doing something specific but subtle to the environment. It wasn't dungeon magic like Carlos and Amber had learned; it was far more special purpose than that. It wasn't a structured spell using the incantation system, either. The hairs on the back of Carlos's neck started standing up, and on his arms too. He still wasn't sure exactly what that mana was doing, but he had a bad feeling about it. It felt dangerous.

Carlos shifted in place without thinking, and froze with sudden realization when he heard and felt a slight crackle between him and a drifting leaf. That little tingle, and the crackling sound that accompanied it, was a discharge of static electricity. That calm person was ionizing the air! Just as Carlos realized that, he sensed more mana coming out with a more narrowly focused purpose. This new batch of mana branched and leaped through the upper reaches of the tornado as though seeking something, and covered dozens of feet in the blink of an eye. He sensed a branch of that questing forked tree of mana fasten onto something, and as the other branches faded he knew what was coming next.

He reached out mentally to Esmorana with frantic haste. [Look out! Dodge!]

Carlos felt an impression of confusion from his link to Esmorana, but to his relief the confusion was swiftly pushed aside in favor of action. He sensed Esmorana's soul, high above and hundreds of feet back, suddenly move sideways with speed that rivaled even Lorvan's fastest, and in the same moment a great bolt of lightning split the sky. Blinding light erupted from above, and thunder crashed deafeningly all around them. The tornado began to slow, but Carlos could sense that Esmorana still stood strong. She was just changing her focus.

[Thanks. That was uncomfortably close.] Esmorana suddenly dropped down several feet, then forward, then diagonally up and to the left. She was constantly moving, constantly changing direction, flying so erratically no one would ever be able to predict her movements to hit her with a ranged attack.

Her opponent kept trying, of course. The flashes of lightning came so frequently Carlos had to close his eyes to stop just the light by itself from being painful, and rolling thunder roared continuously, each new thunderclap sounding out before the echoes of the last had faded. Esmorana withdrew her tornado, perhaps hoping to drop the lightning wielder into a bone-breaking fall from more than a hundred feet up, only for Carlos to realize that the man had indeed been allowing her winds to blow him around. His initial impression of the man flying high in the tornado had been accurate, and rather than falling, the man simply flew under his own power.

Numerous armored corpses fell to the ground, and shattered trees pelted everything with broken pieces of wood mixed with torn leaves. A great hole yawned a hundred feet wide in the forest's canopy, and a man in gleaming armor hovered above it, surrounded by a crackling web of electricity. He ignored the devastation below him, glaring levelly at his distant opponent in the sky.

This unknown master of lightning cracked his knuckles, did a few stretches as though standing on solid ground and warming up for exercise, then stood on the air with his right foot forward. He raised his right arm in front of him, towards Esmorana, and held his right hand open, palm upwards. He turned all four fingers upwards in a straight vertical sheet, and he twitched those fingers towards himself twice in an unmistakable challenge and invitation to duel.

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