I sat rolling a Skint mage soul marble on the desk, contemplating if I really wanted to take this next step. I had a total of six mage marbles, the one I was rolling had been processed to a crystalline, gold flecked, clarity.  

- This shouldn't have any grey dust memories left, so it should be safe to eat. It's the ones after it I worried about. 

The others were in different states. 

Dull grey: au natural 

Silver frosted: A black pool zapped de-rezz, Unprocessed 

2 X Silver frosted: A fully zapped de-rezz, Unprocessed 

Silver frosted shot through with Crystal veins: A fully zapped de-rezz, electricity passed through 

- There are a few more combinations, like a twist engraved clear, or blueing a processed marble with electricity after. But I'd need a bunch more Skint mages to show up and volunteer their marbles. 

I popped the marble in my mouth and waited. 

- Other than a faint honey taste, no memories. I wonder if I got the wolf’s lightening twist from his memories, or something else about the marbles? Should have thought of this earlier. 

I rubbed my nose for a bit, then waved my hand like I was pushing a curtain aside. 

- I'll have to think more about that later, especially if this doesn't work. So, should we try processing one imperfectly or just eat the crystal veined electrically processed version? 

I picked up the crystalline veined one.  

“At worst I'll just live again”- Me 

I placed it in my mouth. 

….. 

I came to my senses laying on the floor, marbles scattered around me, and the chair was on its back. 

I had a massive headache. I held my head for a bit, waiting for the pain to subside a bit. When the lightning flashes stopped going off behind my eyes I crawled up, and into the bed. 

- That was utterly @#$%ing horrible. 

I had gotten way too many of the Skint’s memories. From the sheer terror of trying to break out of a shell when born, to the feeling of being fried by lightening at the end. 

 Skint’s competed for everything, there was only personal power first, and the tribe second. Everything else was just food. They lived their very short lives always in Fight or Flight mode ether getting ahead of their peers or when they banded together against something outside their tribe. 

Mating, Social constructs thought processes were all almost completely incomprehensible to the point of being alien. I tried to only focus on how this mage had cast magic. 

Skints were born able to cause things to heat up, the one with the strongest talent in a clutch was taught by the elder Skints. Which meant that the student was shown what to do, then beaten till it could repeat the demonstration, or died. I learned a bit on the effects of extreme heat in a very limited space. 

But the Skint knew absolutely nothing about how magic worked, or even how it produced the heat that it learned to manipulate in crude fashion. 

- A complete waste of time. 

I rubbed my temples, massaged over my eyebrows, and rubbed the bridge of my nose. Nothing seemed to help with the headache. 

- Well, we now know that electrically processed marbles don't blunt much of the memories that remain. I think it might have made them even stronger. 

I spent some time looking at my crystalline core system.  

- No changes here. No menacing black miasma creeping in from the edges. 

Slowly the headache faded to the point that I didn't want to open the top of my skull to release the pressure.  

I picked up my chair and the scattered marbles, then sat down at the desk. I grabbed the charred marble that I used in the fight with the giant monster and started polishing it on my coat as I waited for the rest of the Skint hangover to fade. 

-Whatever is burnt on to this is not coming off easily. Could I have inadvertently invented the magical equivalent of electro plating? Now that I think about it that might be less of a joke than I intended. 

I scratched at the surface marking on the marble to no avail.  

- I need a notebook of chalk board to keep track of the things I need to look into. This whole mage without a suitably impressive magical tome is going to ruin my image. 

I returned to my polishing. 

... 

I lay down on the bed and held the imperfectly processed soul marble from the monkey. 

- I'm hoping that the monkey life might have less of an impact, or at least be somewhat more relatable. 

 "It's time to meet my uncle."-Me 

 I dropped the marble into my mouth. 

Just like the wolf I started to recall faded memories. Racing through the branches with ease. Picking bits from my mate's fur. Eating over ripe fruit and falling out of a tree drunk. Running from predators and sending balls of compressed air to explode and stun enemies. 

I tried to ignore everything else and focus on how the compressed air bomb was formed, how the magic was moved from his core to between his hands and all the tricks he had learned on making the effect more damaging. 

I continued to focus on the magic till the memories faded, trying to engrave the entire process into my own. 

Opening my eyes I stared at the ceiling for a bit, rubbing between my eyes at the slight headache.  

- That wasn’t so bad. Huh? Didn't the roof beams go left to right? 

I looked around and realized that I was now laying sideways on the bed. 

- I must have been flopping around a lot. I wonder if I tried this with a live body would the seizures have killed me? 

I sat up and looked blearily around the room. Everything was normal except that there was a layer of grey dust over everything, except for a clear trail leading from the window casement and around the floor. 

- A slime, or ooze? 

There was a clear spot across the headboard. I shuddered hope that it was a slime. 

- Not that the thought of a slime crawling over me while I'm out is any better. 

“Snot balls! The desk!” - Me 

I lurched out of the bed and hurried over to the desk. 

“Damn it!” - Me 

A small clear jelly like ball was shivering at one end of the desk. All the Skint mage marbles were gone, so was the electrical shot smaller marbles I had been using, and the orange raccoon’s. The Slime was currently shivering in reaction to swallowing the black and silver snake's soul marble. I grabbed the remaining giant monster, and the charred rat marbles.  I was going to grab the remaining ones that I used for experimentation and stopped. 

- There must be a reason that the slimes can eat marbles without exploding or de-rezzing. 

I looked at the layer of dust that was everywhere but where this thief had passed. 

- They are not affected by the grey memory dust either. 

I sat down on the chair and watched the slime shivering in response to the unprocessed snake marble. I realized awhile later that I was unconsciously picking grey dust from my hair like a monkey searching for nits. 

“Now I really am a monkey's uncle.”- Me 

I snorted and poked the now mobile slime. 

“You are sentenced for your crimes, ...  to cleaning up my Room! Also, incidentally where I can observe you when I feed you experimental marbles.”- Me 

I spread some of my experimental marbles around the room, hoping that the slime will clean those parts as it searched for new treats.  As I left, I made sure to close the window and the door behind me.  

-Not that a slime must be Houdini to squeeze under the door.  

I walked out into the square, took off my jacket and shook the dust out of it, ran my fingers through my long dark red hair till I stopped producing a cloud, then patted down my pants. 

I walked over to the gate and climbed up into one of the guard towers. I was surprised to find several slings and a woven basket full of round stones.  

- Cupe has been busy. 

I stood looking out over the river for a moment, then closed my eyes and concentrated on what I learned from the monkey's soul marble. 

In comparison to the wolf’s magical knowledge, the monkey was an amateur. Not only had the Wolf been able to create electrical bolts on his claws, but he had developed his ability to affect his speed and muscle control, as well as the much finer control to affect his brain without pithing himself. The Monkey had just thrown compressed air bombs to stun his opponents. 

All the lead up to casting; flow, rate, power level, and all the other concentration straining subtle details, was based on what I had learned from the Wolf. The Monkey’s lead up technique was, in most parts, crude in comparison. It took a while to adapt the Wolf’s superior, if slightly more flamboyant, style to fit the Air magic.  Next was the twist at the end. They were different, a very complicated different. If not for a generally spherical, complicated 3D twisty string ball look they both shared, I would have assumed they weren’t related at all. Kind of like comparing glass to acrylic, both materials look the same, but have very different structure. 

Most of my lightening casting, at least up till I had inadvertently engraved the twist into a marble, had been almost entirely instinctive. Now with a new twist, things had become different. I was now thinking about both twists, how they differed, and how they were similar. It also meant that I lost some of that instinctive, no thought required, speed and ease of casting. Something I didn’t even know I had till it was gone. 

I controlled the magicicle flow, and twisted, over and over again. Trying to replicate the mind freezing, ridiculously complex 3-D twist. 

I switched back and forth between the lightening, and the air twist. There were parts that were similar, but there were others that were complexly different, and not knowing why, or how, any of it worked, I could only blindly copy what I had learned from the soul marble’s memories. 

I repeated, failed, corrected, then repeated the twist again. I ignored everything else and just kept trying. Eventually I got a pop. 

I had managed to pressurize air in a very small space for a second before it depressurized explosively. I whooped and tried again. This time the pop was significantly louder. I jumped and danced in place. 

“Yes,yes,yes! Stupid Monkey, take that!”- Me 

I was still dancing when I noticed Cupe and Sooty standing in the square looking up at me. 

“See, I told you, just as odd as the rest of those mage types.”- Sooty 

Cupe elbowed him in the side. 

I sighed, and climbed down the ladder, dusted myself off again, then walked over to the two. I drew myself up and put on my most nonchalant aristocratic air. 

“So, how have you two been?”- Me 

Cupe giggled. 

… 

We returned to our routine, or more accurately to say, I rejoined the daily routine. 

Patrols through the village now included Cupe using her sling to devastating advantage. 

I continued to build my Grain Mill pre collapse core. With some of the new twists that I had gleaned from the fulgurites, I ended up rebuilding large parts over again. 

My time in the threshing yard now included practicing with air magic as well as working on new and refined ground leads into the rapidly refilling reservoir bellow. I was getting better at controlling how the embedded chained crystalline magicicles formed inside of newly created fulgurites. Although the crystalline tube had the greatest effect, the time it required to build it bordered on a Sisyphean level. Sooty continued to practise his swordsmanship, with or without a volunteer from the field, while a post had been set up that Cupe would use for target practise. Rarely she helped with the larger volunteers.  

Evenings we spent either in the inn, working, or in my sitting room, talking. In the Inn I would process the volunteers from the day. Usually there was about a dozen small marbles, and three or four medium ones.  Sooty would work on his oversized whacking stick, another name he didn't appreciate, or work on his new hobby, carving. He had a lot of room to improve. Cupe continued to craft tools or create things to help her in her quest for cloth. I personally think that she was just tired of wearing the same thing. Her motivations aside, her skills continued to improve. In my sitting room our topics were far ranging, from Sooty’s stories from his time in the Auxilium, Cupe's ideas for her next project, or me talking about my theories about magicicles. I was amazed at how much they both contributed to my own ideas. And when there wasn't anything anyone wanted to say, I plagiarised stories from my first two lives.  

At night I played with soul marbles in my now much cleaner room or played with Link. The cat burglar slime, that had broken into my house and eaten my Skint marbles was doing a pretty good job with his sentence to hard labour. He seemed perfectly happy to clean around the house and find the marbles I left lying around. Of course, it was all in the name of learning about Link's abilities, not because I seemed soft on cute creatures. 

Two more residents also came and went. 

First was a woman. She had listened to us for only a short bit, then asked to be left alone. She took a house near the river, avoiding any contact with anyone else. A week later she disappeared.  

Second was a man who came running in from the fields, chased by a humanoid wolf. Both had been surprised to find us when they broke out of the field and into the threshing yard. The man had merely babbled in comprehensibly, whereas the wolfman hadn't even hesitated and attacked. Sooty paired the wolfman's first charging attack, that impact of the claws on Sooty’s wooden sword made an odd ‘Thonk’ sound. While the wolfman swung his claws again, my air bomb went off beside his head, causing him to cringe, a fatal mistake that Sooty exploited bringing his sword crashing down on to the wolfman's shoulder. The blow was a short strike, but it had enough power to cause the wolfman to stumble backward. Cupe's sling stone arrived just before my violet-coloured electrical bolt. Sooty's following swing crushed to smoldering figure to the ground, and into de-rezz. The man swore a lot, demanding that we return his house, and refused to listen to more than four words from any of us before he would start swearing and demanding again. I finally had enough, set of an air bomb overhead and a bright arc of lightning into the ground. He paled yelling that we must be monsters and ran back into the field.  

Weeks later I finally got to the point where I could now cast an air bomb nearly instantly and had started to play with the possibilities of my new magic. But before I really got lost into experimenting, another project was close to fruition. My Grain Mill was ready.