Shard

  Ohey were alone again, Dawn spoke with Morris regarding what they o do for the rest of the day. Eventually they decided to return to the spire first, as she o learhe food was delivered, and how buying things worked there. Furthermore, Niphru o get registered like she had yesterday, since Morris determined he was able to manipute mana again, even if he couldn’t manage any visible effects.

  With that decided, they headed back out of the temple, finding the main room empty along the way. The return to the spire was simirly uful, at least until they were almost there. Around half a block arojectiles started raining down from balies along one side of the tower, startling Dawn. Morris, however, did not seem to think it unusual, as he didn’t even break his stride until he noticed her rea.

  Having spotted her hesitation, Morris expined, “Right, fot about that too… The spires act as guards of sorts. Any rge group of humans ends up with rats and bugs of various sorts, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. Instead of having people run around trying to find all of them all the time, we modified the sewers. Small paths into them let the vermier and leave while small, but trap rger mutated forms inside. They eventually wao one of the exits at a spire, et forced out by a ing squad.”

  He then rubbed his for a moment as he thought before tinuing, “In fact, it is likely you will be asked to take part in such things, as fire mages are ideal for the task.”

  Finally entering the encirg wall, Dawn was able to see that there was another wall ihat had not been there when they left, and after a moment of thought, she realized it was right where there had been seams in the grass.

  Seeing her focus on the wall, Morris ged his expnation, “As you see, onething emerges, the walls get lifted up, then the mages who happen to be w outside se the area, then the apprenti charge of that exit lowers the walls again.”

  As he finished describing the process, the attacks had stopped, and the wall began l again, revealing a young man standing atop it behind a stone barrier.

  Morris then tinued from earlier, “Lets see… ing squads, right. You will likely be asked to join one, as I mentioned, fire magic is the best, followed by lightning. Basically, you just go around the city and toss spells into the sewers from above. The fire ighe gasses inside, either roasting or driving away the vermin. By moving towards the spire, this effectively forces them into the killing field, letting us effitly remove them with minimal effort. Lightning works too, but requires more effort to get an ignition going, as well as requiring being able to see the inside of the sewers, which makes it slightly risky. Far easier and safer to just fore fire down one of the vermin-gates a nature take its course.”

  Seeing that it made sense, Dawn nodded before asking, “Are there any bes to helping out with the ing process?”

  “Ah, right, of course. Well, at least for some people. You folks who are still learni paid for your assistance, but us more powerful mages just have a duty to respond when we see it happen. It is fair enough, you expend more time and effort, we just drop some explosives from above and go back to work. The earth mages watg the sewers get the best pensation, as they are the ones in the riskiest positions, though luckily we only rarely get any injuries now,” Morris replied while opening the door to the spire.

  As they ehe initial chamber, Morris stopped for a moment before turning to speak to Dawn, “I believe it may actually be best for you to try to get the door. One of the things you o prove is your ability to manipute at a distance, and the door ot be opeherwise. How about giving it a try? Or would you prefer to wait until ter?”

  Nodding, Dawn walked towards where she remembered the door opening, then sat down to the side. Following this, she put Niphru in her p and started petting him as she closed her eyes and focused. She could manipute her own mana in a small distance, so it ought to be possible to i with other mana as well.

  To begin with, she focused on how it felt when drawing mana out of the mana stones like she had during the Bck Tide. As she suspected, she soon mao draw in the ambient mana in a trolled fashion by building on that experienbsp; Once she could reliably pick a small area to pull from, she ged to attempting, not on abs the mana, but instead simply drawing it towards herself.

  This teique proved much more difficult, at least until she decided to try something based on what she felt from Niphru. Instead to pull and release, she tried to push some of her own mana outward while maintaining trol over it and not letting it disperse. After several failed attempts, and stopping to siphon ambient mana to recover, she mao form a sort of tether of mana leading towards a cluster that she could trol.

  Following this development, she tried using the new creation to i with the ambient mana. This, she found, was far easier, as she was able to simply swing the external mana around to i with outside mana. Learning this, she was filled with ideas ohings to try, and began experimenting with trying to hold different shapes and move them about.

  About an hour ter, she realized she had gotten distracted, and she was quite sore from sitting oone for so long. Surprised, her eyes snapped open, and she looked around, finding that Morris had disappeared at some point. Beside her, she saw a h a -shaped rock sitting on it. Upon reading it, she realized Morris had seen her experimenting and did not want to interrupt her, but still had other things to do, so he had left the stone, with a trag spell attached, in order to let him find her once she finished.

  Nodding to herself, she put Niphru bato her hood and stood up, stretg as she did so. Fog on the wall, she tried pushing a trolled tether of mana through it, finding it did sink through, though with some resistanbsp; While she couldn’t see what she was doing, her experimenting proved quite useful in that she could simply mold her mana around what it touched. Quickly, she realized there was a sort of tunnel about a foot ihe wall leading off to the side. Following it, she felt a different substa the end, and tried pushing mana through her tether into it, which succeeded on the first try.

  Eyes closed again in tration, she mao map out the structure, finding several dead ends before log what robably a crystal. As she poured mana into it, she found no other linkages, and opened her eyes in time to see the door retrag before her. Excited at having figured it out so easily after her experimenting, she quickly went to pick up the tracker and note Morris had left behind, then proceeded up the stairs, of course, after closing the door behind her. She didn’t want to be rude and leave the door open, after all!