Chapter 211: Chapter 202 – Tracking a Thief
Serenity turned back to the spell he wanted to update. Was there any way to improve it?
No, any spell he built based around this structure would have many of the same downsides. He could limit them by optimizing the spell differently, but he couldn’t eliminate them. What if he didn’t do the active detection/movement portion, though, and just did an aura-sensor? That would nearly eliminate the risk of damaging the trace and ought to also reduce the issue with the speed, as long as he could get the sensor fast enough, but he’d lose some of the fidelity and the mana cost would-
“Serenity?” Russ’s voice penetrated Serenity’s thoughts and he turned to look at the man. “You’ve been silent for quite a while, are we still on track?”
Serenity was fairly confident there hadn’t been an alert, but he poked the spell status to be certain. “Yeah, it’s still forward. I was thinking about what you asked. I’m pretty sure I can make the spell work faster without destroying the residue we’re trying to trace, but there are some downsides. It won’t be able to save its spot, and I’m not sure I can get it to jump to the newer trail if it crosses itself - say the item was taken into a building, then left a few hours later. We’d have to retrace its path instead of being able to just follow the newest part of the trail. It would also lose some precision and use a lot more mana. It’d be a complete spell rebuild, but it’s possible.”
Rissa brought the car to a stop. “Can you make it so you can swap between the two?”
Serenity compared the two spell formulations and groaned internally. There was quite a bit of overlap, but if he wanted to take advantage of it, he’d have to use an overlay pattern. He wasn’t fond of those; they made debugging harder if he made any mistakes. Unfortunately, laying it out unfolded would greatly increase the spell fragility, and it wouldn’t be able to handle even remotely fast swaps. No, it’d have to be an overlay. “Yes, but I’m going to need more residue and some time to rework the spell. Probably a couple of hours?”
The second time they left the house following the trail of the stolen artifact, they were able to drive at the speed limit and still follow the trace. Unfortunately, the mana cost was just as high as Serenity had feared; he’d have less than an hour before he ran out of mana. If he’d been able to start from full instead of the roughly half that Earth’s environment allowed him, it would have helped.
The trail led across town. Serenity tried to stay aware of his surroundings, but before long they blurred into a haze while Serenity “watched” the trail with his aura and felt his mana tick down. He occasionally called out turns, but each time they had to circle around and find the trail again, because there was no way Rissa could turn that quickly in the now-heavy lunchtime traffic.
At the same time as the traffic kept them from following all of the turns immediately, it also kept their speed down. Serenity was grateful for that much; following a faint trace was bad enough at the speeds they were going. He didn’t want to think about what it would be like if they were actually able to get up to highway speeds.
Not that he was sure these roads ever got that empty; they were into busier parts of the city now. There was a reason the city was known as the city that never sleeps.
Serenity was starting to feel a little lightheaded when Russ’s voice came from the back seat. “Serenity, save our spot. Rissa, turn left at the next light…”
Russ guided them to a parking lot in a ley line, where they parked and Serenity tried to recover his mana.
“You’re barely glowing at all.” Rissa sounded worried. When had she started gauging his health by how much he glowed in a ley line?
“It’s not much of a ley line.” Serenity was sure that was true; it felt much less powerful than even the one they’d visited that morning. It still felt and tasted good, even if it also felt somehow incomplete. He got out of the car and sat directly on the ground; that helped, but it still wasn’t quite right.
“That’s true,” Russ agreed, “But that’s not all there is to it. I called a halt because you were about to pass out.”
Serenity shook his head. “People don’t pass out from running out of mana. It’s not comfortable, but it’s not harmful.”
“Most people don’t.” Russ sounded like he was agreeing, but Serenity had the sinking feeling that he wasn’t. “I’m less sure about you. The way you move magic around - yes, a lot of that’s skill. I think there’s more to it, though.”
He shrugged, then walked over and sat next to Serenity. In a quiet voice he said, “You glow silver when you aren’t in a ley line. I took us back to the last ley line I saw when I noticed you were barely glowing at all.”
Serenity nodded, distracted. The longer he sat there, the more something felt wrong to Serenity. After a few minutes, he decided it wasn’t his imagination, got up, and walked outside the ley line.
The ley line moved with him.
Serenity knew that was wrong. Ley lines didn’t just move. Not that easily. They certainly didn’t follow people.
[Anchor Point Conversion rejected]
[Rhea’s Promise “Home” activated]
Home
“Earth will always be a home to you.”
For a moment, Serenity could feel the entire ley line network of the planet, both on the surface and throughout the interior. He could tell where they were healthy and where there were issues. He was standing at a weak point, where there had once been damage and the ley line had shattered into a spray of weakened fragments.
He knew that over the next few decades, all of the weak ley lines would shift and try to regather if they hadn’t been anchored somehow. He could also feel that some were developing anchors where they crossed larger lines, but most were not.
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A moment later, he felt the ripple as the ley line released him and he fell to his knees. He felt like he’d eaten something that disagreed with him violently, but he couldn’t actually throw up. It was the first time he’d felt that since the Tutorial started, and it was worse than he remembered.
“What was that?” Rissa put her hand on Serenity’s shoulder and he started to feel better. He wasn’t sure if it was time or her presence, but the intense nausea subsided.
“There’s something wrong with that ley line. It was … shattered?” Serenity couldn’t sense the ley line at all, now. It was outside his aura. He could see that Russ was standing where it had been and Phoebe was still in the car on the other side of the ley line.
Serenity braced himself and headed towards Russ. He was going to have to go through the ley line; hopefully it wouldn’t try to grab him this time.
Serenity could feel the ley line once he was in range, but he walked through it quickly, trying to interact as little as possible. It almost felt like it reached out to him, but he ignored it as best he could.
“I think we need to avoid the small ley lines in the future.” Russ followed Serenity out of the ley line. “That looked very strange, but I don’t know ley lines well enough to know what it was. It was like … you were pulling everything it had towards you, instead of most of it going past you the way it was at the ley line this morning. Then it didn’t want to let you go?”
Serenity nodded at Russ. “Yeah, that sounds about right. I hadn’t realized I was … blocking the ley line.” Serenity wasn’t an expert on planets, but he knew enough to know that ley line disruptions could have massive effects; he’d heard stories about civilizations that powered themselves using their ley lines. Legends said that it always led to worldwide catastrophes.
Serenity was sure that it would be tried again, eventually. Probably on Earth.
He clearly hadn’t done anything that severe, but it was probably why the ley line had felt wrong. He suspected that the “anchor point conversion”, whatever that was, was the ley line’s reaction - and that Rhea’s promise had somehow intervened. He wasn’t sure if it was what had stopped the anchor point thing or if it’d happened afterwards, but he was fairly confident it had prevented something he wouldn’t have liked.
He was also confident that he never wanted anything like that to happen again. He didn’t mind seeing the ley line network, but it wasn’t even close to worth it.
At a guess, Serenity thought he could go through ley lines without any problems, and large ones didn’t seem to have issues either. He simply couldn’t stop to eat in a small one. “Blocking a ley line sounds pretty bad. It was unpleasant. The good news is that I did mostly recharge my mana before that happened. As much as I can, outside a ley line, at least. So we can continue where we left off.”
Serenity looked inside the car before he got in. In the seat behind him, Phoebe slept, snoring lightly.
“It’s something to look for information on, I think.” Rissa started the car. “Shattered doesn’t sound good, but I don’t know of anything here that would have caused it.”
Serenity just nodded; there really wasn’t anything to say.
The trail led to a warehouse, but Serenity could feel the trace suddenly jump forward by at least half a day as they went by one of the loading docks. Russ dropped a pin before they moved on; it was likely that some of the other stolen goods were in the warehouse.
Several hours (and one fast food stop) after the ley line incident, the artifact led them to a gated neighborhood in New Jersey. The entrance was blocked by a huge gate, with a shelter just outside the gate. Serenity could barely see the shelter out the open window; he couldn’t tell if there was actually a guard in it or not.
As they approached, Phoebe started swearing.
“What’s wrong, dear?”
“Don’t go through this entrance. We need to use the one to the east.” Phoebe didn’t say why, and no one asked. Serenity was already starting to get used to Phoebe’s sudden pronouncements, and assumed there was a reason - but that it was entirely possible she didn’t know what it was. Living with an Oracle like her must be annoying.
Serenity felt fortunate that Rissa didn’t do that to him, even if it was useful.
Serenity's current Status - it's been a while, and I figured it was time.
It couldn't possibly be because there are some changes coming in the next few chapters. No, not at all. ;-)
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